Oct | 2022 | The Tamriel Drifter

605 (a). What lies beneath 605 (b). What lies beneath

Lying North-east of the Bangkorai gate can be found the ruins of an old Yokudan settlement. From a distance it is looks little more then plain rock and rubble, but from up close some of what still stands is in fact finely carved stonework and evidence of a cultured society. In times afore this settlement would have been a home, a fortress, and a crown upon this barren landscape. The people who lived here were a community, surviving the harsh Craglorn wastes only because of one another. From millers to masons, fletchers to guards, butchers to smiths, apothecaries to rat-catchers, together they were the heartbeats of these chiselled stones.

Yet sadly, and inevitably, the people would eventually be driven out from their crown and their buildings began to fall. Now these ruins are home only to a barbarous tribe of Dusteater goblins and their rabid durzogs who for some reason have chosen to make their beds here rather than their traditional home in the Dragontail Mountains.

Many communities in Tamriel have been built upon the remains of ancient settlements, whether they be Ayleid, Nedic, or even Dwemer, but what lies beneath these ruins is astonishing even for Tamriel. A small crevice in the northern section of the ruins accessed only by ladder, or risking a leap into the stagnant waters below, leads down to an ancient Nedic city that has remarkably withstood the pillages of time.

605 (h). What lies beneath

S.K

Sometimes one must trust instinct over reason, for whilst at times lucidity will betray you, your heart will not. When Hara, the leader of the Star-Gazers is abducted before our eyes, it leads to revelations of secrets that were foolishly kept, for rational reasons.

It was the warrior not of this time, Titus Valerius, who remembered that there was a secret Nedic temple buried deep beneath Belkarth itself; its entrance sealed by the self-proclaimed Emperor Tarish-Zi back in his own time. At the lake to the south of town the Breton conjurer Kelmen Locke once again proves his worth; his arcane intuition helping to unlock the puzzle to reveal another entrance to the sunken ruins.

We three soon find ourselves battling our way through members of the Scaled Court who had somehow infiltrated the corridors of Reinhold’s Retreat. Eventually we come upon a large chamber and found yet another Apex Stone. This one however had a giant ethereal snake coiled about it, and bound in magical chains before it was Hara.

During our violent encounter with the aspect of the Serpent, Hara revealed herself to be none-other then the Celestial Thief. Perhaps it is true what the philosophers tell us, that all the secrets of Nirn worth knowing are indeed hidden in plain sight.

It may have been Celestial hubris that prevented Hara from putting her faith in her only allies, but hiding her Apex Stone beneath the town, and her true identity from us, could have cost us Belkarth, and eventually Craglorn itself.