A/N: Youtube, lookup "polyphonic overtone singing - anna-maria hefele"

Italicized text = Dumac, ** stars ** = Slitter

Disclaimer: What's Bethesda's is theirs, likewise for mod creators.

Chapter 29: Partial Recall, pt.2
We, we will resist and bite! Fight hard, 'cause we are all in sight! — Sabaton

**Those fetchers were catching on that the chase was going nowhere. They were slowing down, forcing him to slow down, risk coming back to them to engage their interest. Forcing him to give up his lead and put himself back in danger. Damn. Where was that signal to disengage? How long did that s'wit need to find those lost records? He was tired, every muscle hurt, and each deep, gasping breath told him how near he was to collapse. Not that he'd give up. No.**

X—X—X—X—X—X—X

"Let's try this question again, Slitter. You say this tool is a 'sonic screwdriver.' One feeds it energy to cause the micro gems to vibrate, and these vibrations do what again?"

"The gems don't vibrate. They create tones that cause vibration on the molecular level," Slitter managed to say. It was a wonder he could talk. Ancarion had tired of shocking limb muscles and today had started in on the central body. The few seconds of convulsions of his stomach and diaphragm muscles had been the equivalent of several solid blows to his midsection. A real, physical beating in that manner would have caused severe organ damage and internal bleeding. But at this pain level, Slitter really didn't fucking care about the distinction.

"I suppose I could try to give you a year's worth of lectures on introductory quantum physics before your next tea break, shall I?" Slitter sneered. "Stupid fetcher. It's a fancy wrench to tighten or loosen things like bolts or latches, lug nuts, spot friction welding. Don't know what I'm talking about? Not surprised. Manual labor's so beneath someone like you; you might actually get your hands dirty. You aren't really be interested in lectures on Dwemer construction and fabrication methods, two different fields that each take a good decade just to learn general basic concepts. Tell me you've mastered Ayleid Optics, airhead scum, and maybe you'll have a chance of comprehending Dwemer Harmonics.

"Aaa-aaghk!"

Again, Curtis was astonished at how much techno-speak and buzzwords Slitter had managed to assimilate from his position in the back of Curtis's mind.

Hell, to be truthful, Curtis didn't exactly know what was back there or how much more there was to come where the long-dead Dwemer King Dumac's memories compiled.

Or what Slitter was assimilating. It was a weird feeling. If Curtis wasn't actively thinking, he would lapse into odd daydreams where he "lectured" an unseen audience, like, on remembering the first time he held a power drill or randomly contemplating safety lectures or early projects that had no relation to whatever he'd been doing then. That wasn't normal for him. He suspected it was Slitter accessing his memories like one would look up things on … on the internet or on Youtube.. Like finding a free educational channel. It was sometimes annoying, but Curtis really couldn't resent it. Slitter was putting to good use whatever data he could grab.

Like he should be doing with Dumac's life. But this was like trying to find into on the "dark web." Curtis only knew about the dark web as a rumor and as much as any non-techie ever heard. You had to have the right software, the right configuration, the right keys to get access. He had those, the equipment and configuration, but he just didn't know where the damn key was. The damn OWL god didn't tell him. It was in the dreams somewhere. He had to find it.

His former life. Curtis hadn't liked being told he was the reincarnation of Dumac, but he was no longer in a position to deny it. He needed those memories to find a way out of this mess. Like the Dragonborn had to step back in time to find a word of power, he had to relive parts of Dumac's life. He now had some of Dumac's power. A whole mountain of power. But he lacked the Dwemer's fine-tuned mastery of magic necessary to tap that magma pool. He didn't think bashing his head against the floor until he was unconscious would resurrect Dumac's aspect a second time. And this was no place to drum up chaos.

At least he'd broken the power of the magic-inhibiting shackles. He thought the magic of the shackles seemed to function like a Klein bottle, trapping one's power into a self-generating containment field. Only one way he could think to stop it. Well, two really, but power source termination was not the desired solution. The one he wanted was to crack the bottle.

Now, Nyassa's daughter, Ulmora, also wore a set of shackles, so she really couldn't use her magic. However, Curtis had the idea of using a third independent power source, a soulgem, to create instabilities in their fields. Pressing their bracelets together with the gem between them, then both concentrating on their magic, causing their containment fields to fluctuate and overlap even as it absorbed and wrapped power in upon itself. Then the soulgem was introduced, a natural element capable of trapping soul energy, but also release it in the right conditions. Their energy fields intersected into this trap space. However, it already held a charge and repelled the powers flooding it, introducing an unstable element in the two containment fields.

The backlash knocked Ulmora out, but Curtis just got another headache. Dumac's inbuilt safety system kicked in and kept him conscious. He shook the poor girl awake and she dazedly crawled to her mother's cage. The guard bringing in supper only saw the Dunmer woman pressed against her cage and holding her sleeping kin.

They were now just dead metal ornaments on his wrist with a deceptive overlay of an illusion of power, an illusion maintained by the tiny soulgem Curtis secreted between a cuff and a wrist. A necessary illusion in case Ancarion might notice the cuffs had no power to them. And now that she'd learned the trick of using the soulgem to interrupt the power flow of the magic inhibiting field, Nyassa's daughter, Ulmora, also de-spelled her mother's shackles, knocking them both out. Nyassa wouldn't need to maintain any illusion since she'd stated no one had ever checked her shackles in all the time she'd been there.

Nyassa's next visitor was to smuggle in the lightwand. Curtis had an idea of modifying the light generation spell to create an old-school, bird-of-prey cloaking field.

X—X—X—X—X—X—X

"So let me summarize. Your tribal witches have these visions that even more armies of Man will come after they have finished slaying their dragon gods because they are searching for something they believe Vvardenfell holds, and they will destroy us if we cannot come together.

"What weed smoke have your witches been breathing to envision these delusions, Nerevar?"

The Chimer visibly reigned in his temper. Impressive. Worshiping the Daedra of battle, murder, and vanity, who enjoyed pitting their worshipers against each other, was what had finally brought down the proud Velothi society. Their preoccupation with warfare had made it easy for the Dwemer to expand beyond their core home within the eastern mountains to dig under Velothi lands and then into Vvardenfell. By the time the Chimer finally noticed they were no longer alone, the Dwemer were established below ground. The Chimer made themselves nuisances, but they still couldn't stop fighting each other and that had made it easy for the growing, hungry hordes of Man to invade and take the above ground territories.

But this savage was different. He'd boasted he'd made himself a warlord who had gained the cooperation of several tribes, and that he realized they needed more resources. He admitted the metal of the Dwemer were needed to counter the abundance of iron and steel that the invaders had.

Nerevar argued that the Dwemer could not afford to ignore the danger. While it was currently true that these invaders had not yet found their way into the major Dwemer settlements, it was only a matter of time. The Dwemer still depended on travel above ground to trade minerals and good between their towns, they still depended on food to be gathered and hunted above ground, They still had people that needed to travel above ground between towns. Were not all these being affected by invader attacks? And had not smaller settlements already been taken and gutted of their resources? The short-lived ones were hungry and needing ever more resources to consume for their fast-growing numbers and their own wars in their distant lands.

The invaders, these Atmorans, they had wars on too many fronts. They battled the Falmer, the Nedes, the Ayleid, and their own Dragon overlords. They battled within themselves for dominance. If there was ever a time to drive the invaders out of Resdayn, it was now. Surely the two mer nations could see the reason of putting aside their differences and unite against this common foe?

He pondered the earnestness of this Chimer. He made good arguments.

"And what do you expect me to do? You sound quite sensible, but how am I to test the strength of your words or assess the value of alliance? You may be willing, but will the ashkhans who follow you feel the same? You say you are the warlord of more than one tribe. So far, I see only eight followers with you."

"I am Indoril Nerevar Mora. If you talk with other Chimer, ask them about me."

"Hm. And, again, what do you expect me to do? Do you know who I am?"

The Chimer slumped a little. "You've given me the name 'Dumac' but not much else. Your armor is not a common one. It's different, but I do not know if it is for rank or for whatever special job you do among your people. What little I overheard your people say marks you as one with greater rank and responsibility than just a patrol commander. And if you walked into that mist of poison, you have considerable power.

"And I have to start somewhere. You're the first to actually hear me out or ask questions."

"Hm. Dwarf-Orc."

"What?"

"A variant of my line name. One of my ancestors was of the Orsimer, a worshiper of Trinimac. This was before Trinimac's defeat by Boethiah's treachery and the mutation of the Orsimer. I have another name fitted by my position, but you will learn that later when I am convinced of your sincerity."

"How shall I convince you then?"

"There's a valley the Atmorans have control of. A major underground river surfaces there and forms a lake. In the lake is an island that conceals an underground station where a group of Dwemer are hiding, trapped in the center of this horde.

"The Atmorans can have the valley for now, but we need to get my people out of there before they are discovered."

"More of your researchers?" asked Nerevar.

"Yes and no. Yes, they are studying fluid dynamics; no, they technically are not researchers. They are children, and this was supposed to be a fun, educational expedition. Their parents and kin are gathering to attack if I cannot safely extract their children. Interested?"

"Certainly! What's your plan?"

"Well, I may as well make use of your sneak skills, Chimer. Have you ever walked underwater?"

"No. I'm rather fond of breathing."

He smiled internally, foreseeing some amusement in the future.

X—X—X—X—X—X—X

Bit of a sadist there, Dumac, making a non-swimming desert-dwellers walk underwater to get to hidden station in the middle of a lake. Well, the free-form waterbreathing spell hadn't changed that much between then and now, except that it's duration was shorter and took more energy to cast. The more-or-less permanent version was to combine the spell with the enchantment method to engrave the energy pattern into an inanimate object using the life energy of a living creature. Fortunately, the small souls of animals were sufficient.

The distance listening and talking skills were also interesting. Too bad there weren't other Dwemer around for Curtis to practice with. It felt a little lonely. Hearing voices in one's mind was usually a bad symptom for other races. Not for the Dwemer. The Falmer and Dwemer had a form of synesthesia, a psychological disorder in Curtis's past world. Screwed up sensory input that activated the wrong neural paths — hearing colors, smelling sound, tasting noise — Falmer had visual illusions; Dwemer, auditory.

When he was a kid, Curtis always heard odd voices from common sounds. He used to hear conversations in the white noise of a fan or a radio, in the thumping of pistons, even in the rain hitting his bedroom window. He learned to ignore the disembodied voices; didn't want to be thought the crazy, druggy one in the family. And he didn't do drugs. He was scared adults wouldn't believe him. It was a white dominant neighborhood; nobody believed the black kids.

The voices of people he knew talking about him; nice things, bad things. "Eavesdroppers never hear good about themselves," right? Yet, they never talked at him. Not like the stories he'd read up on, not like the scary stuff in the psychology books he'd checked out from the libraries when he was a kid trying to understand without letting the grownups know. The voices never told him to hurt himself, never told him to kill others or himself.

He eventually learned to ignore the voices. Too bad. Maybe if he had listened, he would've believed the paranoid episodes where he thought he'd heard his ex-partner discussing with someone how he was gonna be taking a long vacation in Tahiti after he'd finished closing accounts. It had to be delusions, right? You didn't just hear those things when you're out driving to a client site, sitting in traffic, munching on a sandwich, and your cellphone in a slot on the mini work desk belted on the passenger seat. Or hear that kind of conversation when you're taking a crap in a port-a-potty at another job site.

But now he was going for the voices. He settled on breathing exercises for the noise medium, for the disembodied voices to piggyback on as a carrier wave. Ghost boxes like those ghost hunter TV shows. "Say my name," he whispered to the silence and imagined magic parabolic dish larger than the island.

Ancarion cursing and discussing the interrogation notes his scribe had taken. Ulmora, back at the ship, reporting everything to Elden and to Nidren. Colette discussing her worries with Tolfdir.

Was he really hearing all that or was he deluding himself? Hard to tell. The lingering pain of interrogation, the drugs, the god-awful resource splitting between him and Slitter. Duel processors, each running hot under intense loads, and only a single board and RAM bank between them.

Some payoff, though. Better self-healing now that the damn cuffs were neutralized. Before the dream-time, he didn't know any Restoration magic. Ain't the case now. Now he could soothe away the older aches. He could fortify his body's tolerance to electrical shocks. That should do, as long as Slitter doesn't under-react to pain, thus raising Ancarion's suspicions.

**I'm not an idiot! I know how to act the wounded prey. Ain't I proven that by now? You just get that you-ie, that user interface, set up for me to access the painkiller spell when I need it.

**And take it from me, you s'wit, your long ears aren't hearing ghosts. It ain't your imagination either, 'cuz I'm hearing them and I ain't that smart to pull that shit from air. Though, if you think you can talk to ghosts, especially Ancestor ghosts, direct 'em to Revyn Sadri. That one does talk to his Ancestors. They might pass the word along to him, you being Dumac, the friend of the Nerevarine. Gods know Ancestors don't pay attention to insignificant, disgraceful ones like me.

**And hurry it up! I can't hold the line forever. Maybe I'm good as a 'meat-shield,' but this shit's getting real old! I'd like to give feedback on that stupid high elf. We can do Ancestors Wrath now. I'd enjoy frying his nodes, y'know?**

"I hear ya, but we'll just have to settle for sneaking out and sending him a nasty note when we're safe. That's a burn that hurts a lot longer."

**No, that's leaving embers that'll burn down your home when you're not looking. You stomp 'em out and leave 'em cold.**

"Again, I hear ya. Settle for the long-distance burn."

**Rrrr.**

X—X—X—X—X—X—X

The raid on the Atmoran camp went smoothly as planned. He met and organized the parents who had traveled to the area to combine them with a team that had answered from the nearest settlement to create a fake trade caravan. That lured a sizable number of the Atmorans out of the valley, and up to half came out when the fighting started. The rest of the Atmorans concentrated on guarding the entrances of the valley.

Nerevar and his group did their sneaking down a steep grade, got through the lake to the base hidden in the central islet, and delivered the lifelines — ropes double enchanted with spells for waterbreathing and stamina restoration — to the instructors and children. They also delivered a heavy chest to the instructors who quickly set up the machine according to the instructions Dumac had placed inside. Nerevar's group of fast and silent blades left a large extraction wound in the backs of the Atmorans as they protected the Dwemer children's run on one of the main roads out of the valley.

Once they were out, Dumac's special automaton destroyed the underwater base and the dams that controlled the river flow. The lake rapidly overflowed its banks and would stabilize at triple its size by the next morning.

X—X—X—X—X—X—X

Man, what he wouldn't give for Dumac's little destructo-bot. Nope. All he had at hand was the little light wand Nyassa's latest child had delivered. It was the latest generation crystal-and-steel hybrid piece using the current methods and patterns of this age. This version had multiple enchantments that allowed controllable light levels and forms, from projecting a beam, to light globes, to an area floodlight, even different colors of light globes for signaling.

Manipulating the spells and five energy gems without an enchantment table or spare gems would difficult, if not impossible, if Curtis hadn't learned more from Dumac's memories of tonal magic.

Nyassa and Vragi held loud conversations to cover for Curtis's humming and other more-or-less musical noises. One of the weird vocal skills Dumac had that Curtis was struggling to do was polyphonic overtone singing, or vocalizing two notes at the same time. Most of the time he ended sounding like Mongolian throat singing. Crap, he sounded like a Dunmer from the Morrowind game. Smokers' voices. Dunmer vocals roughened by decades of breathing corrosive volcanic ash. Not quite though, not quite. He'd heard some Mongolian stuff, but what he was shooting for was a bit more complex. Like a hurdy-gurdy with one vocal chord maintaining a base drone tone and the second chord flexing to other notes.

This wasn't an easy skill. Curtis was again grateful that Slitter had latent musical talents and dexterity which had made it easy for him to retrain his ear and throat for singing. A touch of healing skills to soothe away the pain of his vocal chords from a day of screaming and support them again as he strained to master the tonal singing. So, his voice guiding his magic, the base first tone had to be attuned to the frequency of the current magic field, and the second tone had to manipulate.

So, the tonal power of existence was found in 16 tones. If that were a piano, then he was stuck being a two-finger pianist. Yeah, yeah, jokes aside about two fingers being more than enough, he was new at this kind of magic and getting it to sing a new tune in a totally new way was damn difficult.

Crystal singing. Wasn't there a sci-fi book he vaguely remembered from his past life that had something to do with that? Whatever. Souls powered the gems. These tiny crystals were field mice, and while it was more difficult to get animals to predictably respond to music, he was getting response. Tune into the soulgems, retune the power field. Alter the frequency of the light generating field. And …

He had a cloaking device. Dark elf, one; high elf, zero.

X—X—X—X—X—X—X

Night. Things settling down. Ancarion didn't approve of all-night parties inside the keep so the corridors and stairwells were pretty much cleared out except for bored guards. The Dunmer woman's latest visiting brat was noisy tonight as he climbed the stairs. Guess the overseers made those ash-sucking degenerates do a decent day's work for him to be so tired and clumsy. They cursed him when he stumbled against their table, scattering their coins and cards. Laugh and mocked as he staggered back in proper fear and tripped over a bucket, sending it clattering down the stairs.

Curtis tightened his grip on Nyassa's hand to keep her from rushing to her child's defense. She hissed softly and continued steadily upward, looking forward and guiding them around objects and moving bodies that might disrupt the illusion field the modified light spell was radiating. The noise the child was making was necessary because he and Vragi weren't capable of moving silently. The Nord hadn't any sneak skill, plus Vragi was practically carrying and dragging him because he was physically and mentally exhausted from the latest round of torture, drugs, and questions and dizzy from all the spellcasting.

The three of them had to stay close together and maintain contact. The illusion field was a restrictive bubble around them. Unlike a true invisibility spell, they could see each other. And from their perspective, they were surrounded by a faint golden shell with swirling rainbow colors. A soap bubble, Nyassa called it, and she heeded his warning that nothing living could breach the bubble. It wouldn't cause the bubble to collapse, but it would no longer stop the encroaching guard from truly seeing them.

The corridor to the ice cave was empty. The Altmer used that area as storage and considered barring the door at the far end sufficient security, so no guards were posted or patrolled the corridor.

"Nidren! Fendas!" Nyassa rushed to embrace the two mer waiting there. Curtis smiled, happy for her.

He spotted a welcome familiar face peaking out behind a large barrel. "Yo! Elden!" The boy rushed to him, embracing him.

"I've got him!" Elden told Vragi, who smiled tightly and shrugged Curtis's arm off his shoulder and let him go. Elden grunted at the sudden weight and eased Curtis to the ground.

"How in hell did you manage this, kid?" Curtis demanded.

"I got caught in the riptides. I couldn't get back to shore so I swam sideways to the ship we'd spotted. I didn't know it was Altmer until I got close enough to see the crew. I heard … I heard ..." He drew a deep, shaky breath. "I had my my diving gear. I hooked the ship, got around to the rudder, tied my line to it. I was dragged for three days behind like fishbait."

Curtis hugged the young man close. If Elden hadn't been a dive captain and privileged to own his own dive gear instead of turning it into the project quartermaster like everyone else had to at the end of their shift, he wouldn't have been able to what he'd done. Elden had planned to do some exploration around Windhelm and had brought his gear. Curtis had also, dive-buddy rules, but not that day. Elden had geared up out of habit. Lucky for him.

"My da, he died on the beach then? They didn't take and kill him later?"

"I'm sorry. Yeah. The beach." They held each other tightly, Curtis finally letting tears fall.

Elden had eaten his emergency food bars during the trip to the island. When he found the cave, he used another emergency survival item of an enchanted cup to heat water and to make soup from the frozen food scraps left from when pirates had set up here. As for sleep, he did that submerged in the icy pooling water in this cave because the cold-resist enchantment on his necklace and socks were at maximum, allowing him to deep dive and work for hours in the subzero waters around Winterhold. It also assured he slept better because even if some elf did come down here, none of them would have any reason to be poking into a pool of icy salt water.

Nyassa's ship, the Netch Life, was what one would expect of a small fishing vessel. A 10 to 12 crew. She actually had 14 because there were six children just learning the life, and they had originally been heading to Blacklight to spend the winter there, where her sister-in-law and mother of two of the youngsters had already rented a place and was waiting. But the Dominion had boarded and murdered her brother, the first mate, whom they had assumed to be the captain.

Nyassa's crew had the ship ready to leave. There were only a few hours until dawn when the guards would be bringing breakfast and would discover the prisoners gone.

"Do you think we can use your invisibility device to hide our ship?" asked Nyassa.

"Too big. The gems aren't powerful enough, and they're nearly dead anyway. The ship can wait. They won't destroy it, but they will kill your family. Get them all in here, and bring a long length of rope. We'll be hiding out underwater until we get a chance to do some damage.

"Elden, you and your gear are going to anchor the lifeline. I'm too tired to do the spell right and we got no enchanting table here, so I'm imping the line into your gear. That means you can't let go of the rope for a moment or the line fails. Fair warning, kid, I'm also gonna have to tie your gear into your life force for extra power because the enchantments were only meant to provide for one.

"In fact, Nyassa, I'm gonna have to use Ulmora and one more in the same way to distribute the power load. Elden, gimme your ring, necklace, and socks, and you start explaining to them what to expect underwater while I work my mojo."

They weren't happy about it, but understood that while their ship could probably outrace the warships in a dash, the long-range firepower of the Dominion battlemages would more than make up for it. Curtis was confident they wouldn't be expecting aquatic Dunmer.

And speaking of aquatics, Curtis set up another trick with his new knowledge about magic enhanced sound transmissions. Nothing fancy, just bringing a big iron pot from the ship's galley underwater with them and banging on it with a hammer for hours on end. A little Dwemer acoustics spell on it boosted the sound waves, enticing a few whales from the deep to come check them out. He was hoping more friendlier water denizens would hear the three-strike signal.

It was ten days later that Scouts-the-Deep, Drains-the-Swamp, Fish Breath, and Scouts-Many-Marshes swam in, grinning.

They went back to the sea cave to talk. There were spell traps in there now, but unless they were trying to go for the door, those traps were easily avoided.

"Only you would be disturbing everyone's sleep with your drumming," said Scouts-the-Deep, clapping Curtis on the back. Curtis collapsed and Scouts hastily caught him. Days floating underwater on a tether underwater and he felt heavy and clumsy back on land. And the Argonians, living and working for weeks in the strong currents and at near-crushing subzero depths, tended to forget just how monstrously strong they had become.

"Yeah? I wasn't sure it'd work. My spell, that is. So, that got you out here?"

"That and the dying testimony of the armsmaster," said Scouts. Elden made a soft noise. Scouts looked at him, lowering his crest and dipping his head in sympathy. "I mourn the loss. Yes, he lived long enough that other beach wanderers found him and brought him to high ground before the tides washed all evidence away. The healer at Refugees Rest revived him long enough for his testimony. His wounds, however, were ultimately fatal.

"Lord Revyn was swift to send word to Winterhold to begin scrying for you. He is aware the Dominion ships are sailing the Sea of Ghosts. It is a great concern to the Stormcloak Alliance. The scrying turned up nothing; the Dominion naval mages were blocking that detection method.

"But your pot banging worked. We Argonians heard and managed to determine the direction. Lord Sadri then remembered the island his wife and the East Empire Company attacked because of the pirates there. The only vessel in port capable of speed and to carry an attack team was a Felix trade ship. It waits just outside the fog bank for our return."

"Felix?" echoed Curtis. "Damn. That's lucky. Uh, Master Horace?"

"His wife, Master Cadence. Lord Revyn put together an attack team of Nord fighters and Dunmer battlemages. He wants this place isolated. We'll get you out of here and then we'll come back and sink the Dominion ships. That should slow them down. Lord Revyn has already sent messages to Blacklight and Solstheim to alert them to the Dominion presence."

X—X—X—X—X—X—X

"Captain Nyassa has been rewarded with a new boat," said Lord Revyn. "Windhelm is rediscovering its ship-building industry and she is working with the shipbuilders to customize one of the new builds to her specifications. Her debt will only be for the customization, a reasonable debt load. The indemnity posted to ensure the shipment she carried has been refunded to her. Lord Morvayn has chosen to forgive the lost shipment."

"That's great," said Curtis. "Nyassa and her crew deserve a new boat. What about Vragi and Japhet's Folly?"

"Vragi, a Blood Horker pirate captain, hm, was given a purse for traveling expenses and an escort to the border with a reminder that returning would re-activate his criminal status and sentence of execution."

"And that island. An underwater pod station is being towed there for the crew who will continue to watch the Dominion and sabotage what they can. Our consultant will be going out there to give us a better estimate of their strength."

Curtis had an idea that their "consultant" probably would be riding a shark over to the island. The Maormer had shown up out of the deep blue almost a year ago looking for Sadri, but had overshot Windhelm and come to Winterhold. Shavee had volunteered to go with them to Windhelm and to act as their on land agent. When she'd returned to Winterhold, she apologetically informed them that Revyn Sadri had made her promise to say nothing more about the Maormer. He'd also sent a purse of 50% discount chips, good at his store or at Birna's Oddments, for everyone in the pod who'd seen the Maormer as compensation for their memory loss.

"So … Just gonna strand 'em there?" Sadri shrugged and made shoo-ing motions with his hands, dismissing the question and the matter from Curtis's concern. Curtis pursed his lips. Yeah, this was now political and had nothing more to do with him.

"Now, while I would wish you had the luxury to remain here until you are fully recovered, regrettably, I must send you immediately back to Winterhold. You are needed there."

"Why? What happened?"

"The sleepers have awakened and are asking for the Dark Master who has sung them home."

Related story: #9 Tales in the Deep

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