CHAPTER FIVE
JOURNAL ENTRY II
By the eight, if that battle was tough, the recovery was tougher. I might have won, but I got battered half to death by that Daedra. And Molag Bal now threatens me with more.
At least he deigned to leave me that sword. I can see it now, propped against the wall, the only thing I own apart from the clothes on my back. It's nearly as long as my back, but I'm a Breton; we're relatively short, at least compared to Nords. It's red, silver and black, with a wicked sharp single edge and a circular crossguard. It looks and feels like a mad, bad god took a lump of ebony, twisted it into the most sinister design imaginable, and then cut himself on it.
I'm in bed in the inn, feeling my calf twitch and ache as it heals. The innkeeper put me up for free after I brought the guardian's head back into town. I guess for all of five seconds, they thought I was a hero, before I passed out from exhaustion (again) and they thought I was just a puny milk-drinker, as they're quite fond of saying.
I keep thinking about the threats that Bal made after I killed that guardian, how he offered me unlimited power if I'd just agree to serve him. Now what'll happen? I've heard stories about different varieties of Daedra – Daedroth, Dremora, Atronachs, Spider Daedra – and I'm wondering just when my grace period will end, and I'll be set upon by all the monstrosities that Oblivion has to offer.
Oh, and someone managed to find me a book about Molag, and I've learned about all the horrors he patronises – domination, slavery, rape… and vampirism. Let's not forget that vampirism came from Molag Bal raping, killing and reanimating a virgin. Only a man with nothing – not even his own mind – left to lose dares defy the Lord of Domination.
Molag Bal offered me everything, and I spat in his face. Sheogorath has truly possessed me.