Oh deceitful Mannimarco, how long have I sought thee. From the moment you ripped my soul from my body with your ritual bodkin, to my grim prison cell in Coldharbour. Across all the lands High Rock and Hammerfell have I chased your worms and now finally we meet again, perhaps fittingly in the Vault of Kings deep beneath the Jerall Mountains.

Oh sly Mannimarco, vengeance has been my engine. Bitterness rooted deep inside me where my soul should rest, grates, abrades, and grinds; oh how it has hardened my heart. Vengeance, that great motivator of men has for so long been my only muse, and now finally I get to shed her injurious shadow and sow my vengeful wrath and fury upon thee.

Nothing, nothing, nothing… No joy, no triumph, no relief.

Oh thief Mannimarco, even in defeat you swindle me. Cold vengeance warms not the spirit. It has done nothing to salve my pain, nothing to heal my scars, nothing to fill my desolate, hollow emptiness. Is it only within my soul that I can find peace?

We have the amulet, but the planemeld rages still and with everyday that passes the chains of Coldharbour tighten. It is time we take the fight to those demons in the outer dark. But we five alone cannot hope to invade a realm of Oblivion. We are going to need an army.

S.K

I recall a quietly spoken saying back in the Imperial City, ‘fire and lightning are slow tools of destruction compared to the forked tongue of a Tharn’. To trust is hard, knowing who to trust is harder still.

Trust, it is the very glue of life that holds together every partnership and fellowship. It is the moving sea between the shores of every relationship, yet so far I have found little reason to put my trust in any of my companions. The old man has hid truths from me from the beginning, and Titanborne was complicit in his deceit. The Redguard is honest to a fault, but he has not yet fully recovered from his torture in Coldharbour, and suffers still Mannimarco’s influence. And then there is Tharn.

Yet I must learn to trust my companions, and they me, for together we are the best hope that Tamriel has.

What better way to discover if you can trust someone in battle then to lead them into the fabled Crypt of Heroes whilst a necromancer is raising an entire city of dead against us. Because in the end the only way to discover if you can truly trust somebody… is to trust them.

S.K