Serana woke me when the sun set, and we set off for Darkfall Cave. It was dark, annoyingly so, but we could both see well enough to move forward. There was a single, smaller Frostbite spider that I hit with my bow. Its carapace cracked, and it squelched almost sickeningly. There was a bridge in front of us, but it led to a cave-in.

"I think I see a way through," I told her, and we started across the bridge.

Started being the key word. The damn wood gave out halfway through, and we crashed into an underground river. The water ran very swiftly, more so than I was capable of swimming, and I spent the entire time trying to keep air in my lungs. It threw both of us out into a chamber with three Frostbite spiders in it. Wonderful.

I staggered to my feet, nocked, and loosed an arrow at the closest one. My quiver was lighter than it had been before we fell into the river, but I still had enough to deal with the creatures. I shook my head like a dog, shaking the water away. "I found the way through," I said, earning me an annoyed look from a water-logged vampire.

We came across an encampment, long abandoned- or so we thought. There were two bodies torn viciously by a very large creature. It almost looked like something I could do, but even messier.

"This is awful," Serana said, horrified. "Why would anyone set up camp here? What happened to them?"

A journal, soggy with blood and other fluids, lay forgotten on the rock. I snagged it with two fingers and flipped through it gingerly. "Trolls," I spat. "They thought they could live in harmony with them. Idiots."

The bellow of the beast that had slain these humans alerted both of us to its location. Our eyes met, and I saw the need for vengeance in her's. I nodded in acceptance, and we crept forward to kill the creature.

If I was brutally honest, I'd say I didn't care about the deaths. They went into the wild places, they tried to control what couldn't- shouldn't- be controlled, and they paid for it. My only reason for killing the trolls was a desire to pass through the cavern unscathed. It was somewhat amusing to me that Serana seemed to care more than that. She hated the loss of life, the senseless violence. What a strange way to be for a vampire.

The troll had a friend, sibling or mate I wasn't sure. We killed that too. Eventually we ended up at the other half of the cave. The rich scent of woodsmoke nearly made me sneeze, and I nudged her. She glanced at me, and I put my finger to my lips in a "shh" gesture, then pointed toward where the smell came from.

"Campfire," she told me, assuring me of what I had already guessed with her superior eyesight.

We moved closer, careful to make no noise. I peered over a rock and saw an elf standing beside a white stone structure.

"What's that?" Serana whispered. "I can feel some kind of power from it."

The elf spoke. "Come forward," he called, not looking toward us. "You have nothing to fear here."

We glanced at each other, and lowered our weapons as we approached. "Who are you?" I called. "Why are you here?"

"I am Knight-Paladin Gelebor," he stated, in an accent that I had not heard before. His hands were clasped together in front of him. "Welcome to the Great Chantry of Auri-El."

I glanced around. "This cave is a temple to Auriel?"

"Auriel, Auri-El, Alkosh, Akatosh," he mused. "So many names for the sovereign of the Snow Elves."

My jaw nearly hit the stone floor below. "Snow Elves? You're a Falmer?"

The elf winced. "I prefer Snow Elf. The name "Falmer" holds no good meaning to most travelers. Those twisted creatures you call Falmer, I call the Betrayed."

I knew a few scholars that would have paid fortunes to meet this elf, but now was not the time. "I imagine you know why we're here, then."

He bowed his head in a nod. "Of course. You're here for Auriel's Bow. Why else would you be here?"

"Sight-seeing?" I asked, before I could stop myself. Serana elbowed me for it.

The somber elf smiled a little at that. "Wit. I so do miss speaking with others. I can help you find the bow, but first, I need your help."

"What do you need?" Serana asked.

"I need you to kill Arch-Curate Vyrthur," he said, growing more somber than before. "My brother."

"Kill your brother?" I demanded. "Why?"

"The kinship between us is gone," he said sadly. "I don't understand what he's become, but he's no longer the brother I once knew. It was the Betrayed, I think. They did something to him. I just don't know why Auri-El would allow this to happen."

That's what I liked about the Daedric Princes, Lord Hircine in particular. Their reasoning was usually pretty clear, and it was best to be in another city when they decided to do something.

"What exactly did the Betrayed do?" Serana questioned, as curious as I wasn't.

The Knight-Paladin's leather gloves creaked as his hands tightened into fists. "They swept into the Chantry without warning some time ago, and began killing everyone without pause."

"And you didn't fight back?" I asked, incredulous.

His eyes narrowed. "The Chantry was a place of peaceful worship. I lead a small group of Paladins, but we were no match for the sheer strength of the Betrayed. They slaughtered everyone, before storming the Inner Sanctum. I believe that is where they corrupted Vyrthur."

"Then how do you know he's alive?" I kept my tone somewhat more respectful this time.

"He's alive. I've seen him." He seemed at a loss for words. "But something is wrong. He never looks pained, or as though he's under duress. He just stands there, and watches. Waiting."

I grunted. "Then I suppose you haven't tried to get into the Inner Sanctum."

He shook his head. "Leaving the Wayshrine unguarded would be violating my sacred duty as a Knight-Paladin of Auri-El. And an assault on the Betrayed within the Inner Sanctum would only end in my death."

What? "A Wayshrine?"

"Yes, let me show you." He moved away from his post before the stone structure, and faced it. His hand glowed with a pale, golden light, that seemed to leap to the spire at the top of the structure. It too glowed, as a grinding sound filled the cave. The structure rose, revealing it to be held up by five walls of a similar stone. One wall was missing to serve as an entryway, showing a stone basin set on a pillar in the center of the Wayshrine.

Serana whistled lowly. "So this is Snow Elf magick. Incredible."

"This structure is known as a Wayshrine." Wow, something I didn't know. "They were used for meditation, and for transport when the Chantry was a place of enlightenment. Prelates of those shrines were charged with teaching the mantras of Auri-El to our Initiates."

"And the basin in the center?" I asked, pointing.

A silver, ornate jug materialized in his hands. "Once the Initiate completed his mantras, he would dip a ceremonial ewer in the basin of the Wayshrine's center, and proceed to the next."

"So these Initiates had to lug around a pitcher of water?" Serana asked sardonically. I elbowed her for it. "Marvelous. How long would they have to do that?"

The elf looked disapprovingly at us. "Well, once the Initiate's enlightenment was complete, he'd bring the ewer to the Chantry's Inner Sanctum. Pouring the contents of the ewer into the sacred basin of the Sanctum would grant him access for an audience with the Arch-Curate himself."

"All that water just to dump it out?" I raised an eyebrow.

"Makes no sense to me," Serana chimed in.

"It's symbolic," the Snow Elf said frostily. "I wouldn't expect you to understand."

"So, let's get this straight." She crossed her arms. "We need to do all this just to get into the temple, so we can kill your brother and claim Auriel's Bow?"

"If there was another way, I would have done it long ago," he replied stiffly. "The only way to get to my brother is following the Initiates' footsteps and travelling from Wayshrine to Wayshrine, just as they did. They first lay at the end of Darkfall Passage, a cavern that represents the absence of enlightenment." The look he gave us suggested that he felt we belonged there.

"How many more Wayshrines are there?" I asked, smilingly pleasantly.

"Five, in total, spread far across the Chantry." He swept his gloved hand in a circle, palm down.

That was a lot. "These caves must be massive."

"Caves?" He smirked. "Oh no. The Chantry encompasses far more than a few caves, as you will soon discover." He handed me the jug.

I hefted it slightly. It appeared to weigh very little, just enough to prove it was there. "So I need to fill this at each Wayshrine?"

Gelebor nodded. "Once you've located a wayshrine, there will be a spectral Prelate tending to it. They will allow you to draw the waters from the shrines basin as if you've been enlightened. If you have any more questions, ask them now. We may be unable to converse again until you have completed your task."

I shook my head. "I'll ask them if there's time."

"Then good luck," he told me. He waved his hand, now glowing again, and a portal opened on the far side. He then settled back into that statue-stillness he had been in before we arrived.

Serana was the first to step up to the portal. I, however, was more than a little reticent considering the last time I involved myself with portals. She noticed.

"This won't be like last time," she assured me. "The magick of the Ideal Masters is built on slavery and cruelty. Auriel isn't the same."

"If you say so." I stepped through, cringing the entire time.

"That wasn't as unpleasant as the portal to the Soul Cairn," she said suddenly, alerting me to the fact that we had gone through. "Kind of soothing, actually. I feel a little warmer now."

At least she hadn't said "I told you so". "C'mon."

We came across Falmer nearly immediately, as well as Chaurus, and a new, flying creature that burst from a Chaurus carcass we thought was dead. Past experience had told me that the Falmer were easily confused by loud noises, especially ones that echoed. I roared a battle cry that gave us the advantage in killing them.

"Looks like these Falmer are here to stay," Serana said, wiping her dagger on a scrap of cloth a Falmer had attached to it's armor. "They must be who that Paladin was calling 'The Betrayed'."

I made a harsh noise in the back of my throat. "Something like this happened to the werewolves of Solstheim, a long time ago. They told stories about it around the bonfire in my old pack."

"What happened to them?" She sounded both curious and concerned. Probably about offending me, but the noise I had made hadn't been anger.

I snorted. "Those werewolves could only change at night, and they became ravening beasts. They suffered bloodlust so profound that to not eat would cripple them at dawn's first light. The story said that they had begged a hag to give them Hircine's gift, but unlike my pack's ancestors, the hag they found hadn't been the least bit benevolent. The warriors of the village had killed her son in a drunken brawl, in one of the mead halls around the island."

I glanced at her, grinning. "I might be a bit feral when I change, and I definitely am when I don't, but those wolves were stupid. They called themselves the Forsaken and tried to rebel against Hircine for what they called a 'curse'. He crushed that, fairly quickly, and those that remained were wiser."

She looked impressed. I wondered if it was because those were quite a few words for me to string together when I wasn't threatening someone. "What happened to them?"

The noise I made was meant to be "I don't know" but it just kind of came out "ayuhnu". "The packs don't really communicate, let alone across that much water. I've always wanted to travel to Solstheim and find out."

We started moving down the tunnel again. "That would be fun," she said casually. "To travel and see a place outside Skyrim's caves."

I laughed. "We do see a lot of those. I think you'd enjoy it. They say that even after the explosion of Red Mountain, it's still fairly beautiful."

Abruptly, Serana stopped walking, and for the first time, I saw her speechless. Finally, she got the words through her mouth. "Red Mountain exploded?"

I blinked at her. Repeatedly. "Uh, yes. It did. That was one of those things you missed. That, and Mehrunes Dagon trying to take over Tamriel from Cyrodiil."

She scowled. "Wonderful. I'm locked up for Oblivion knows how long and things go insane."

"Tell you what," I said, readying an arrow at the sound of approaching Falmer. "If we survive this, I'll tell you all about it on a boat ride to Solstheim."

We passed through the cave system more slowly than I would have liked. The Falmer continued to attack as they saw us approaching, and the flying things that burst out of the dead Chaurus made things more difficult. It wasn't pleasant to turn your back on something you thought was dead only to hear wet squishing and cracking and suddenly acid was eating at your skin. A stone door sealed our path, a long-dead sentinel staring sightless from in front of two pull-ropes.

After all the traps we had gone through just getting here, significantly more than the Falmer usually implemented, I was more than a little nervous about pulling either rope. Obviously one would open the door, but what about the other?

Serana was of the same opinion. "Pull chains and traps," she noted. "Be careful. Whatever is on the other side of that, the Falmer wanted to keep it there."

I pulled both ropes in quick succession and jumped back. The door slid open and a Falmer spike drove into a creature with purple-brown mottled fur and white spots. That glowed. Okay. It roared its displeasure as the spikes drove into its front, but died quickly. The glowing dissipated too.

"That is a saber cat," I said, openly gawking. "That was a glowing saber cat. Did Sheogorath hit me with something when I wasn't looking?"

She rolled her eyes. "I've read about creatures like this. They live their lives in darkness, so they produce their own light. Didn't you notice the flowers back there?"

I had indeed noticed the glowing flowers that disappeared when I got closed. I had been trying not to let it bother me. "Glowing animals and flowers. I think I'm a little out of my depth."

"Think of it like Chaurus eggs and glowing mushrooms," she said, almost assuringly. "They glow because it's dark. These creatures do it too."

While it was still exceedingly weird to me, I preferred my dignity as intact as possible, so I nodded and continued on. A stone path led down, past a waterfall, and to a white-stone structure near the wall like the one Gelebor had been guarding. As we got closer, an apparition of an old Snow Elf flickered into view.

"Welcome, Initiate," the old one said kindly. "This is the Wayshrine of Illumination. Are you prepared to honor the mantras of Auri-El and fill your vessel with His enlightenment?"

There were many things I wanted to say that might have given us away as something other than Initiates, so I said, "Yes," and left it at that.

"Then behold Auri-El's gift, my child." His hand glowed with the same spell Gelebor had used. "May it light your path as you seek tranquility within the Inner Sanctum. May Auri-El's brilliance illuminate your path."

The Wayshrine rose up as the one before had, complete with the basin of water. I filled the ewer only partially with water, but nothing happened, no portal appeared. I dipped it back in to fill it the rest of the way and the portal shimmered to life. The ewer seemed no heavier, either.

"Magick," I spat, more as a curse than anything else, and we passed through the portal.