Cearbhail:

A new chapter. It's been a while, but that's because I was busy getting used to being in class again. Last semester. Can't wait. Oh, and I will be pretty busy with Chronicles of Ruby for a while. And closing out the Rogue Shadowscale. Can't wait for that. Hopefully I will be able to focus on the other stories, but those two might become my priority for a while. If you have any suggestions, just ask. Oh, and one more thing. Ruby will be making an appearance soon in this arc. Not for long, and it will be before she gets her curse, but she will be making an appearance. Just check the journal entry to figure out why. And Veselle will be making an appearance in the Chronicles of Ruby shortly. You'll see why.

Oh...and enjoy. ^^


Dear diary of shadows,

Today is the 10th of Sun's Dusk, 4e 207. Things have started becoming… scary is the best word I can use to describe my situation right now. The entire town of Raven Rock has seemingly turned against my family, locking up my mother and father for crimes that they kind of committed but not really. I was told by the Second Councilor that I have 24 hours to find some potential murderer or my family dies. 12 hours have already ticked by thanks to some violent tentacle monster lord and my once-loyal spirit Anari. My friends even turned against me for a short while when some evil person took over their minds. They were forced to make some sort of ebony structure surrounding a giant rock. It's weird, but the rock seems to vibrate something. I wish we had someone here that knows something about rocks and vibrations. I'd have them look at the rock and tell me what the heck is going on with it.

So, the only person I can trust right now is my spirit Kyuu, and my Ash Guardian Volana. With how quickly my friends seem to lose their minds to whatever is going on around here, I can't fully trust them. Well, that and it appears that my friends might be related to the potential murderer running around this town. Oh yeah, I totally forgot to mention that. My little visit with the tentacle monster was actually some sort of Daedra Lord of knowledge and stuff. I got him to tell me how to find out who the criminal was and how to prove it. It's the Ulen family, and I'll find the criminal at the Ulen Tomb. In exchange for this information, I just have to tell Master Neloth that he needs to speak to the shaman up in some village to the north. Not so hard I think. It was worth the information. When I mentioned it to Zera and Seth, they reacted by telling me that they know where the tomb is. They are actually related to this person. And that might be a problem. If they are related to the murderer, will they still help me or side with their relatives? I hope they will side with me. After all, one of them is my boyfriend; he better side with me. At any rate, I need to get moving. The sooner I find this murderer, the sooner I get back home.

Veselle Tenvanni.

The Ulen Tomb was a scary place. To be honest, I didn't get to see a lot of stuff pertaining to my culture. Things like making our buildings round to disrupt ash storms passed over my head. I had no idea why they were like that when I first moved here. And to find out that we eat some of the most disgusting foods ever known because we can't seem to figure out how to use magicka to grow anything other than giant-ass mushrooms. And then there was the whole thing about using Ash, an element only used by the Dunmer. So much stuff about ash that I'm so sick of it. And to find out that… we bury our dead in ash… makes me just so sick. And disgusted. Mostly sick. But here's the sickening part.

"Wait, wait… wait." I held my hands up to Zera and Seth. The room was filled with several giant piles of ash filled with bones and skulls. "Are you telling me that… this giant pile of ash I just fell face-forward into… are the ashes of hundreds of dead Ulens?"

Seth nodded. "Yeah… we cremate our dead and add them to the family ash."

Oh gods… and I had my mouth open when I tripped on my staff. I felt vomit coming up and I looked around for the nearest urn for me to vomit into. Reaching for one such urn, I opened it up and hurled inside of it.

"Vess…" Seth reached out for me but stopped as I hurled into the urn. "That was my great-grandmother." He said with a heavy sigh.

I looked down into the urn. It was a brown slushy mess now. It didn't even look like ashes. I shrugged and put the lid back onto the urn. I gently put the urn on the ground and looked up at Seth. "Sorry about that."

He only sighed and shrugged. "It's ok, I guess. It's not like she's still wearing those ashes, or looking down at us right now cursing us out because we puked on her."

"Like Oblivion I'm not!" I heard a scream above me. It was enough to make the three of us jump as we all looked up. There, floating in mid-air was an elderly spectral woman with long white hair and flowing robes. She stood there with arms wide out. I could see a giant chunky mess covering her and it dripped down into invisible ectoplasm. She ran her hand over her face, wiping off any and all ectoplasm vomit. "That was very rude." She stated to me as she turned to face me.

I bowed to her. "I'm so very sorry, miss. I thought the urn was empty."

"You know I have to stay like this the rest of my afterlife, right?" She said as she gestured to her appearance. "You try explaining this to your future husband one day!" She shook her head as she looked up at the sky. "I will get you back for this… but it's time for bingo. Everyone ready?"

Just like that several hundred specters all rose from the giant piles of ash. "Bingo?" One of the older ghosts stated as he pushed himself out of the giant pile of ash. "I love that dog!"

"Not the dog, you old coot!" A six year-old with a missing arm said as he floated up beside him. "The game bingo."

The old man pinched his cheeks. "Ah, you're still so cute…"

The boy knocked the pinch away with his free hand. "Don't forget, I'm 1,000 years older than you!"

"Please tell me this is not my fate someday." I said as I looked over at Seth.

Seth shrugged. "Well… it's not like they just sit in these ashes all afterlife long. They do go and do stuff. Kinda like right now."

"I don't get to move onto some afterlife like Aetherius or something?" I looked around at the ghosts as they started setting up tables around the giant room. They were setting up tables for card games like poker, while more tables were being set up for bingo. "What if I make a friend that isn't a Dunmer and I want to hang out one day. Am I able to do that?"

He nodded. "Oh, of course." He said, clasping a hand on my shoulder. "Don't worry. They're just visiting from Aetherius. Yeah, we have our own little after life."

"If you say it involves ash… I will slap you." I warned him.

The old man with the long beard looked over at me. "How'd you know?" He said with a whimsical smile. "We spend our afterlife forever swimming the Ocean of Ash. If you let up for even a second, you will drown in ash forever." He said with a growl.

Well… that was disappointing. I threw my arms up, screaming. "Why couldn't have I been born as an Altmer?!"

"Because we're awesome!" All the ghosts screamed at me.

The small armless boy rolled his eyes at me. "Don't listen to the old man. We don't spend our afterlife swimming in ash. Sure, we have a field of ash, but that's only one half of our afterlife. We have a nice field of grass that we also live in. Not to mention the portals that lead to the other afterlives, like the Grasslands of the Pride."

"The what?" I looked at the boy.

He shrugged. "It's where the Khajiits go when they die. Argonians go to the Swamplands. Altmer go to…well… it has a lot of names; we just call it the Tea Party. They just sit there and drink their tea all day long."

"Sounds boring." I replied. All the Dunmer ghosts nodded.

"Like we said, we're awesome." The boy responded and went back to his card games. He snapped his head up at the sound of the tomb's door opening. "Descendant approaching." He said with a whisper and just like that, all the ghosts were gone.

I was quick as I grabbed Zera and Seth. "We need a place to hide." I said as I looked around.

Seth looked at me and then looked at the giant pile of ash in the corner of the room. He looked from the ash, back to me… back to the ash… and then back to me again. I looked at the pile of ash and started shaking my head. "No…" I started to say before Seth pulled out a giant scarf and started wrapping it around my nose and mouth. He was quick to pull me and Zera into the pile of ash and I felt it crash down all around me as it did so.

Seth actually held my head down into the ash while fighting with Zera as well. I managed to squirm my head out of the ash enough that I could see a woman walking into the central chamber. When I got a better look at her, I could see that it was Tilisu Severin. She was a kind old woman that gave me a bed frame a year ago. She also always gave me ice cream cones whenever I visited her place. I never would have expected her to be some sort of criminal. That couldn't be true. I had to talk to her.

I struggled to pull myself out of the ash, and it drew a look from Tilisu as I did so. "Veselle?" She asked as she rushed over at me. She looked lightly amused as she walked over to me, shaking her head in amusement as she looked down at me. "Veselle, that's not a pile of ash that you should be playing in. Those are the remains of hundreds of dead Ulens."

I nodded as I struggled to pull myself out. Zera and Seth followed after me. "Yeah, I found that out like six minutes ago." I said to her as I started brushing the ash off my training uniform.

Her gaze hardened. "Well, if you know that, then why are you playing in the piles of dead?"

I pulled the scarf down and pointed at Seth. "You remember my boyfriend, right?"

She nodded. "I do indeed."

"He tried to take my body without my permission. And when I refused, he pushed me in the ash to take me in front of his ancestors."

That drew a gasp from both Zera and Tilisu. "You did WHAT?" They both screamed in unison.

Zera started pounding on her brother's chest. "Why would you do that?" She screamed at him as she punched him.

Tilisu was running with the pinching cheeks thing as she scolded him. "How dare you mistreat this lovely lady!"

Seth just looked at me with wide horrified eyes. I made a visual of checking my nails and hummed to myself as he stood there and got beaten up. That's what he gets for pushing me in the ashes of the dead. I just stood there and watched the two girls beat him up for a few seconds before I decided to interrupt. "Excuse me, Mrs. Severin." She let go of Seth's cheeks and looked over at me. "What are you doing in here anyway?"

She looked around. "What do you mean?"

"Isn't this tomb of some disgraced family that tried to kill the Redorans or something like that?"

She shrugged. "I think that description is a little… biased, but that's the rumor, yes." She said as she crossed her arms. "Why are you in this tomb if you think it's so unimportant?"

I wrapped my arms around Zera and Seth. "My new family is related to the Ulens. I wanted to pay my respects to my future husband's ancestors."

"You puked in my great-grandmother's urn." Seth reminded me.

"And she totally forgave me." I reminded him.

Tilisu nodded. "Well, I guess that's a good reason to be here." She cleared her throat. "Well, try not to play in the ashes of the dead anymore. If you ingest too much ash… you'll start hallucinating their memories, and no one but junkies will enjoy that."

I had a sinking feeling that Tilisu was the clue that I was here to find. I just had to have a solid lead. "So, why are you here?" I asked after her as she hurried to leave.

She stopped and looked back at me. "I thought the Ulens were all dead. I believe all families should be visited and cared for… regardless of their crimes." She hurried through the doorway. "Have a pleasant day, children."

As soon as she left, Seth turned to look at me. "Why did you do that to me?"

I shrugged. "Zera, hum time." She rolled her eyes and started covered her ears. She started humming out loud as she walked away from us. As soon as she was far enough away, I leaned in and said, "Because you won't do it to me." And then I shrugged. "And it's the first thing that came to mind."

He shook his head. "Is having sex all you care about?"

I shrugged. It's not all I cared about, but it was about time we tried it out. I was curious why Talvas and Gwen enjoyed doing it so much. I had to hear it every single morning when I walked out of my room and heard them doing it against the wall. And I had to hear Gwen cry out happily as I walked by. I still think she does it on purpose to bother me. I'm not sure when she'll stop hating me, but I doubt it will be anytime soon.

I shrugged at him. "No, it's not. But still, I think it's about time we upped our relationship."

He crossed his arms. "What's this really about?"

Really about? Didn't I just say it? "What do you mean?"

He nodded at me, suddenly figuring something out. "It's about the Compatibility spell." He nodded to me as if he suddenly knew what was going on. "You've been like this ever since we learned about Compatibility. You think…" He paused and then he nodded with conviction. "You think that having sex with me will make us more compatible or something like that."

I couldn't believe he just said that, but then I started actually thinking about what he said. And then I started thinking about how I've been feeling lately. And… he was right. Ever since we learned about the Compatibility spell, I've been worried that the two of us wouldn't be able to work the spell right. What if when we attempted the spell, we found out we weren't compatible? I guess moving our relationship up and actually get to the next stage would kind of be like a compatibility test of its own kind. Was that why I was suddenly pushing this so much? I shook my head at the thought. Maybe. I don't know. I sighed as I looked down at Seth. "You might be right."

He smiled ridiculously and rubbed the back of his head. "I think I might get used to hearing that." He tapped me on the forehead, laughing. "I know you so well now that I can figure out your motives and stuff."

I knocked his hand away and stepped closer to him. "What am I thinking now?" Pizza and grape juice, pizza and grape juice, pizza and grape juice!

He stroked his chin before saying, "You want to eat pizza and drink grape juice." Holy crap, he was right!

I rushed in and kissed him on the lips. As soon as I did, I paused. I forgot both of us were still covered in ash of all colors and flavors. It tasted nasty. And as I looked at Seth's face, I think I saw that he was thinking the same thing I was thinking. I could see the disgust in his eyes at the taste of the ash. We broke our kiss apart with gags. Heck, I almost vomited again. Seth looked like he was going to vomit too. "Never… do that… again." He said as he bent down to pick up his great-grandmother's urn. I looked away as he opened it up and vomited into it.

"OH COME ON!" I heard the great-grandmother scream from her table, which was invisible to us now.

Zera walked back over to us, still covering her ears and humming out loud. I reached out and grabbed her hand. I pulled it away, saying, "It's ok now."

She sighed a relief as she looked around. "Can we go now?"

I nodded. I had whatever stuff I needed, I guess. I just hope Captain Veleth was more than willing to accept whatever I said as proof. "I hope so." I nodded to Seth. "Let's go."

The three of us were quick to leave the tomb. We didn't want to have the great-grandmother to come and give us another lecture about puking in her urn. The town looked more lively than it did yesterday. And by that, I mean that when I came into town, no one was outside. And everyone that even looked at me looked like they wanted to kill me. Not so much today. I got the usual smiles and whatnot. It was like yesterday didn't even happen. Knowing what I knew from yesterday, the feeling that someone was watching us all, controlling everyone around me… I think that person in the giant rock was behind it. And if that Daedra Lord knew what was going on, I bet he was in on it too. And Anari tried to stop me because whatever I would do would interfere with her master's plans. That made me shake my head. Daedra Lords messing with our lives… when will it end?

I spotted one of the Cute Girl Squad members. I could tell because he had a red armband on his right arm. "Hey there!" I screamed to him and waved.

The guard noticed me and waved back. He waited as I ran up to him. "May I help you with something?"

I nodded. "Yeah, I need to talk to Captain Veleth. Where is he?"

He nodded to the bulwark. "Talking to Neloth." He was, was he? That was good. I wanted to talk to Mom and Dad anyway.

I nodded to the guard. "Thanks for the help."

He nodded back, but then stuck his hand up. "Umm.. about yesterday. I didn't feel like myself. Do not take it personally."

I shook my head. "I found out what's going on. Don't worry about it… you weren't in control." A Daedra Lord was. I thought to myself as I walked away. I waved to him as I walked away. "Talk later." If he was a member of the Cute Girl Squad, I would probably see him later.

I headed over to the bulwark with Zera and Seth. It was pretty busy since every guard was busy trying to find out who might be trying to murder the Councilor of the town. As soon as I entered the bulwark, the guards stopped what they were doing to look down at me. I waved to them and headed on back to where my parents were. A noticed a full squad of non-Cute Girl Squad members were behind me. I sure hoped they weren't going to do anything to me.

"That would make sense." I heard Father up ahead. "If that were the case, I can see how this town would be responding to our presence."

As I rounded the corner, I could see Captain Veleth sitting next in a chair next to the cell my mom and dad were locked behind. "It was like some dream… like I couldn't control myself. And the thoughts… the wanting to kill you with my sword… it was too much."

Mother nodded. "That's what it was like when I was infected with the heart stone."

I cleared my throat and it drew the attention of the captain. He spun in his chair to look over at me. "Ah, Veselle. You're back. Look… about yesterday."

I brought my hand up to cut him off. "I already know. And that's something I need to talk to Dad about."

"I can't release him; the sentence has to carry. If you don't find out who the culprit is… they might end up facing the death sentence." Captain Veleth said as he stood up from his chair. "I have no choice in the matter. I don't get to change the verdict."

"Well, it's a good thing I have a story then." I said to the captain. "Last night, I was kidnapped by a Daedric Lord. Some giant tentacle monster with a fetish for knowledge and stuff."

"Lord Hermaeus Mora." Father said, deadpanned. He obviously didn't care for my description.

"Right, that guy." I nodded to Dad. "So, anyway. He proposed a trade of information. He tells me how to find out who the assassin gunning for Councilor Morvayn, and I have to tell my dad something."

"A message for me? From the Lord of Fate?" Dad asked, his eyebrows shot up. "What is it?"

"He said something like… um… Miraak is coming. You must travel north to the Skaal village and talk to the shaman. He will know what's going on." I shrugged. "More or less, that's what I remember."

Dad nodded. "I remember that village. We will journey there once we have tied up our problems here."

I looked over at Captain Veleth. "About that. The Daedra tentacle monster told me to go to the Ulen tomb and wait. I'd get a clue to whoever was trying to kill Councilor Morvayn. And Tilisu Severin walked into the tomb. And… I think this might be a clue. You should go raid her house."

Captain Veleth was about to nod until my father stuck his hand up. "Wait a second… we should send Veselle and her friends."

What? Why?

"What? Why?" Captain Veleth seemed to mimic my thoughts as he looked over at Dad.

Dad looked from me over to Veleth. "Think about it. Veselle is a cute little girl."

I nodded. "Thanks, but where are you going with this?" Unless it ends up with Seth kissing me, I don't care. Just in case it did, I took a step closer to Seth. He looked at me with eyes that said that he knew exactly what I was thinking again. And he seemed ok with it. Yay!

Dad ignored us and looked back at Captain Veleth. "If you go stomping in with warrants, you'll only attract suspicion and the assassin will act early. But if say, Veselle goes over for a bag of fruit or a tea party with Tilisu Severin, or to get dating advice from Tilisu's daughter…that will get them at least inside the house. And then one of the three children can go about and find whatever it is that will prove the family is a secret assassin militia."

Captain Veleth stroked his peach fuzz beard for a second before nodding. "I like it." He looked at me. "But, how will they be able to conduct their search without being caught?"

Dad looked over at me. "Veselle, get me three rings." He looked over at the captain. "I will enchant their rings with Invisibility and Soul Separation. One of them will be able to sneak away at a time and search the house without being seen or sensed." He looked at us and made sure we were all paying attention. "I recommend you start with the master bedroom. I'm sure whatever you're looking for is locked behind some locked safe or something."

"And how will I get into that?"

Dad rubbed his chin for a second. "I will need a key." He looked at Captain Veleth.

Captain Veleth sighed as he reached into his pocket. "Use mine."

Dad took it from him and held it in his palm. "I will enchant this key with Unlock Master Lock. Use it wisely. It will only have five uses on it."

I looked at Seth and Zera. "Ok… so… who's up for a tea party?"

Zera jumped up and down. "I am, I am!"


Cearbhail:

yay, tea party time! Cearbhail style!