Fear and Loathing in Vvardenfell

(TES Morrowind SI)

Chapter One: May Fall, None Remain

The shard of consciousness that had once been a man drifted listlessly through an endless abyss. Nought given un-form nipped at its heart, nibbled at its mind, gnawed at its spirit. For a thousand aeons spun into a single breath did the fraying essence unravel and then respool, torturously slow and yet impossibly fast.

Thrice the soul had been pierced/was being pierced/would be pierced. The wounds three could not truly end it, but neither could the threefold transgressions be forgotten. The soul would remember, even should the one born of it forget in its limited existence. A wound for and from Love, a wound for and from Logic, and a wound for and from the Duality between them.

For each wound, the soul did shed its skin, and thrice were the tattered husks swallowed up in the soul's stead. Each cycle formed a new iteration of an old truth. Each fractal sliver was unique and unlike that which had preceded it, and yet unmistakably the same as it ever was, falling unbidden into a shape that it must become.

Through the shadow-wounds left behind/being made/sent forward by the betrayal that was/is/would be, a venom older than time and blacker than night poured in. As the shard of consciousness began to crack and crumble, it fell through its own maw, swallowing its own tail to save its head.

Out of the infinite nothing it fell, an un-star completing an unknowing pilgrimage in the shadow of the path a thrumming heart took at the beginning and the end. Few witnessed the streak of un-light, and only three knew what it was.

Through the holes in the sky did it plummet, and at that entrance it was embraced, but not impeded. The grace and designs of the Mother of Twilight held the dying spark of guttering life together, even as the cloying venom of the Great Darkness made its nest in its core. Azurah and Namiira alike tightened their hold around the un-star, a web of golden dusk melting into the un-star's shell of empty nothingness even as a dark heart of mucilaginous Void began to beat deep in its nucleus. It plummeted down, down, down, lodging itself in the breast of a body that should not be, and yet had to be.

In the bowels of a prison boat docking at the coast of Vvardenfell, blue eyes flew open, wild and unseeing. Miles away, in the shadow of a moon cast by malevolence and suspended by hubris, golden eyes opened, tranquil and thoughtful.

-ALM-SI-VI-

Shaking and quivering, Johan Lewis gasped for air as he pushed up off of the wooden surface beneath him. His body felt unpleasantly hot and wrong, like his skin was half a size too small and rubbed raw by sandpaper. He swallowed thickly as he registered a scratchy male voice calling out in clear concern.

"Why are you shaking? Are you okay? Take hold of yourself!"

Even as he processed the words, a darkly colored hand appeared in his periphery, wrapping around his forearm and hauling him to his feet, the hand's owner murmuring, "Stand up...there you go. You must've had a terrible nightmare."

His feet finally below him and the heat permeating his body receding bit by bit, Johan managed to cast about himself, absently noting the way the floor gently swayed beneath him. He was hardly a sailor, but he'd been on a boat a time or two and recognized the sensation.

The room he was in...frankly, to even call it a room would be generous. It more closely resembled a storage closet, and the numerous crates filling about half of the room did little to discourage the notion. He was probably in the cargo hold of a ship, then. He gazed out of the sole door in the room, outside of which extended a long hallway that ended at a wooden staircase upwards.

Finally, Johan shakily turned to face the man who'd helped him up. Upon laying eyes on him, his heart leapt into his throat and it took everything he had not to flinch back and fall over again.

His flesh was an intimidating ashen gray, like no other skin tone Johan had ever seen in reality, and his eyes were equally striking. His left was a crimson not unlike magma, while his right was dulled by a brutal scar stretching from his shaven crown through his eye and down to his chin. His ears, too, were something out of a fantasy tale: lengthy, pointed, and unmistakably elven.

Despite the stranger's alien appearance, the look of concern on his face was plainly genuine. Taking deep, even breaths, Johan finally managed to croak out, "W-where am I? W-who are you?"

The elf's brows furrowed, crossing his arms over his bare chest. "Name's Jiub. We've just reached Morrowind; I heard the guards talking about it earlier. Are you quite sure you're alright, F'lah?"

Johan blinked at the unfamiliar form of address, then let out a choked, harsh bark of laughter, entirely humorless and teetering on the edge of panic. "No, Jiub, I don't believe I am." He scrubbed at his face with both palms and let out a stillborn scream of a wheeze.

Sky blue met blood red as he looked up at Jiub. "Tell me, Jiub. This world; what is its name?"

The elf blinked slowly, brows furrowing even more. "Nirn, as it's ever been named. F'lah, did you hit your head? Do you remember who you are?"

Johan ran a hand through his hair, leaning against the wooden wall behind him. A pressure built behind his eyes. "Oh, I remember who I am, but I daresay you wouldn't believe me if I told you."

Jiub opened his mouth to respond, but the sound of footsteps approaching caused the man to snap his mouth closed with a clack of teeth on teeth. Johan turned to look down the hallway, and saw a stern-faced man—a human, this time—striding towards the cargo hold. He was clad in what looked to be a leather tunic of some sort as well as metal shoulder pads and boots.

Much later, Johan would learn enough to identify these as a gambeson and pauldrons, but at the time all he could discern was that the man was armored – and armed, he realized, laying eyes on the sword belted to the man's hip.

The man who had by now come to a stop in front of him and cleared his throat, snapping Johan from his reverie. Not even giving him time to feel sheepish, the guard jerked his head sharply and said, "This is where you get off. Come with me." Even as the last word left his lips, the man was already walking back down the hallway.

Johan glanced at Jiub, who muttered, "You ought to do what the man says."

As the displaced man hustled to do just that, he muttered back, "My name's Johan Lewis. And...thanks. For worrying."

Jiub offered no words, just a thin, worried smile and a nod. To Johan, though, those two tiny things meant a great deal.

-x-x-x-x-x-

After waking up in the bowels of a boat that was docking at a continent he'd never heard of, located on a planet not his own, Johan hadn't known what to expect next.

That the answer had ended up being "hours of mind-numbing paperwork" was perhaps less exciting than one might expect, but the familiarity of the task was calming if nothing else. However, even the most dull bureaucracy must come to an end eventually. Stack of papers in hand, Johan was unceremoniously shooed out of an impatient Socucius Ergalla's office and into the adjacent building. He was quick to comply; every moment he was alone with his thoughts was more time for the facade to crack. More time for the chaotic jumble of emotions in his gut to break free of their chains and run rampant.

He couldn't afford to break down yet. He didn't have anywhere safe.

Pushing down his emotions with greater force, Johan entered the building. There, he came face-to-face with a rather more imposing figure than the weaselly, balding old man he'd spent the last several hours working with. Sellus Gravius, Knight Errant of the Imperial Legion, and the man who he was expected to present all of this paperwork to, was clad in gleaming Romanesque armor that looked to be practically bathed in gold leaf, or at least a good imitation of it. Whether such an extravagant expense had gone into the crafting of his armor or not, it certainly lent a degree of gravitas to the man.

Gravius cleared his throat, his hand outstretched, and Johan realized he'd been staring. Again. His pale face reddening, the dimensionally displaced brunet thrust the papers into the older man's hands.

"Thank you," the legionnaire said with a nod, skimming the papers with a practiced eye before setting them down on the table beside him. "Word of your arrival only reached me yesterday. I'm here to welcome you to Morrowind."

As he spoke, the man continued to rifle through papers on his desk before picking up a pair of thin scrolls and a pouch. "I don't know why you're here," Gravius admitted, "but the authorization for you being shipped here comes straight from the top: Emperor Uriel Septim VII himself. And that–" the legionnaire met Johan's eyes seriously, "–is all I need to know."

He gestured to the front door of the building with one of the scrolls. "When you walk out of that door, you're a free man. But before you go, I have instructions. Instructions from the Emperor's own lips to your ears, Johan." Gravius narrowed his eyes. "I suggest you pay close attention to them."

Johan swallowed thickly and managed a hoarse "Yessir."

"Good." The Knight Errant slipped one of the scrolls into a small shoulder bag made of leather and passed it over to Johan. "This package came with the news of your arrival."

As Johan slipped the bag over his shoulder, Gravius continued talking, crossing his arms. "You are to take it to Caius Cosades, in the town of Balmora. Go to the South Wall Cornerclub, and ask for him by name – they'll know where to find him." The man's eyes went steely again. "Serve him as you would the Emperor himself."

Johan swallowed again, and opened his mouth to stammer out...something—a question, a protest, a plea; even he didn't know what he wanted to say—but Gravius spoke before he could. "I also have a letter for you, a rudimentary local map, and a disbursal to your name." He passed Johan the second scroll as well as a pouch, which clinked with the familiar sound of metal coins jingling.

After slipping the pouch of coins into his new bag, Johan managed to get a word in edgewise. "This...Balmora place...how do I get there?"

Gravius looked Johan over and sighed. "You could walk there, but it's a two or three day's journey on foot, and you don't look like you could kill a mudcrab, much less any bandits you might run into on the way there."

"Bandits?! What—"

The legionnaire spoke over Johan's yelp. "Listen. You want my advice? Use some of that coin that the Empire gave you and hitch a ride on the local Silt Strider."

The younger man frowned. "Silt Strider?"

Gravius gave a smirk. "Just cross the bridge and head east out of town. You won't be able to miss it."

Johan frowned, but didn't protest. He couldn't manage the energy to do so. The Knight Errant seemed to notice this and clapped him on the shoulder. "Best get moving before the sun sets. You can ride no matter what time it is, but the caravaners charge more at night."

The younger man nodded slowly, and made his way out of the Census and Excise Offices and into the center of Seyda Neen proper...such that it was. Frankly, the place was barely a village, at least by the standards he was used to...back...home.

His fists tightened at his sides as he shambled listlessly past various locals and guards, eyes barely taking in the swampy wildlife and anachronistic mix of rundown wooden shacks and stone buildings that wouldn't look out-of-place in a European town. After passing over the wooden bridge at the edge of the village, he spared a dull glance towards a stone tower situated against a rocky cliff, seemingly guarded by two people clad in a strange leathery armor very different from the Imperials' own.

A strange crooning howl reverberated throughout the evening air, snapping Johan from his reverie as he turned to face the source—

A fuckhuge flea.

After he'd managed to swallow his heart back into its proper place, Johan looked the creature over. It was easily ten times his height in leg alone, the massive insect that could only be a Silt Strider shifted lazily in place, letting out another wailing cry. The bug's ululations, despite how mournful they sounded, didn't seem indicative of it being in any pain—perhaps that was just how they sounded.

Well and truly shaken from his funk by the sight of a kaiju bug, Johan made his way up the nearby hill. A woman, presumably the caravanner that Gravius had mentioned, was standing on a platform beside the Silt Strider's body. She looked to be the same kind of elf as Jiub, with ashen skin and crimson eyes.

As he approached, she spoke, her voice taking on the pitch of someone who'd spoken a line a hundred times before, and who would speak it a thousand more. "Why walk when you can ride?"

Johan let out a dry, raspy chuckle and asked, "How much for a trip to Balmora, miss...?"

Without missing a beat, the reply came. "Darvame Hleran, outlander. And fifty drakes."

After an awkward silence, during which time Johan counted out fifty gold coins individually, Darvame hopped into an artificial depression carved into the Silt Strider's back and motioned for him to follow. Johan did, albeit with far more trepidation and far less grace than she did.

As Johan settled into the strangely comfortable organic seating, the massive bug let out another crooning wail, sending vibrations up through the brunet's feet. Almost all at once, Johan felt his exhaustion hit him like a hammerblow.

And so it was that Johan Lewis slept through his first Silt Strider ride, the rhythmically swaying stride rocking him to sleep and the eerie, alien cries acting as a soothing lullaby. And if Darvame noticed the tears making their way down her passenger's face as he slept, she was polite enough to not make note of it when they reached their destination the following morning.