Which traitor is the more accursed, the traitor to their country, the traitor to humanity, or the traitor to their own soul?

When Molag Bal’s Dark Anchors fell upon the City Isle, we may have survived their assault, we may have broken their siege upon the city gates, and our returning legions may have repelled the daedric horde back to Oblivion… but for the traitors. An army can survive cowardly comrades and foolish leadership, let us never forget that it was the Empress Regent Clivia Tharn who first expelled the Mages Guild and gave the Worms free reign, but it cannot survive treason from within.

Legion Zero is a smear, a besmirch, a desecration of the Ruby Ranks. They sold their morality, and their comrades for what turned out to be nothing more then a false promise, and now they are but Shriven slaves. The Elven Gardens, once the residential district of the city, has been turned into their garrison from where they produce the siege weapons that have pounded the other districts into submission. Such traitors are hated even by those to whom they coo, and it is clear even here that they serve under the boots of the Xivkyn.

I meet a former Legionary engineer Quintia Rullus, herself once a traitor, a deserter to the fourth legion, yet she chose to stay within the city when she could have fled and now enlists others in her efforts to halt the city’s destruction by Legion Zero’s siege weaponry. She requests my help in burning their ballistae, and damaging their Great Forge.

They say that in life we are all just waiting for moments to redeem ourselves, and whilst Quintia Rullus was a traitor to her country, it is not this that defines her, it is the way she is making her amends. The Empress Regent Clivia Tharn was a traitor to humanity, yet rumour is rife in the sewers that she who sits atop the Ruby Throne may not be whom she seems, and the true fate of the Empress Regent may never be known. The Legion Zero are traitors to their own souls, for they are Shriven and belong now and forever more to Molag Bal. For those accursed traitors, there can be no redemption.

S.K

The slogan on the flyers used to read ‘the Imperial City arena was only for the bravest of the brave’, yet as I recall nobody set foot in the arena if they had an alternative. And those that did fight, fought for one thing only, their freedom, whether that be from captivity or poverty. That was one of the reasons why legionnaires that served in the Imperial City would never go to watch the arena fights, the other was because to us it was a punishment. If a city serving legionnaire was accused of cowardice or some other dishonourable crime, then the disgraced would be sent to the arena to fight with the gladiators and the criminals. Yet these filthy daedra have managed to drag the arena to new ignominious depths. Seemingly having run out of soldiers and gladiators they have now resorted to sending in ordinary citizens to battle against their champions. These innocents are not sacrificing themselves for some honourable cause or greater good, they are being sacrificed, and there is nothing noble in that.

The condemned citizens are held prisoner in cages throughout the district, yet a legionnaire named Valga Atrius claims she can smuggle them out of the city, she just needs someone brave or foolhardy enough to free them from their daedric shackles. Of course I offer to help, and am gladdened to find many other adventurers roaming the district have also rallied to her cause; for strength is no blessing at all unless it is used to protect the innocent. But it is not enough…

Whilst the innocent are dragged timorously into the arena to face an inequitable battle to the death, I walk in brazenly with my head held high. I shall not bow to any champions of this most ignoble arena, instead I shall greet them with sword, scorn, and fury. For the savage truth is that if we are to overcome this iniquitous incursion from Oblivion then it is not enough that we be willing to die for our freedom, we also must be willing to kill for it.

S.K

From a military perspective the Improvised Garrison seems to me to be strategically worthless. Being an isle in a sea of daedra it cannot be supported, it does nothing to impede enemy actions, and offers no clear path to the White Gold Tower. It is just as Caudex himself describes it, ‘bricks, old ledgers, and broken chairs’. Some may point to the garrison as a symbol of mortal defiance, a warning to Molag Bal that not a brick of Tamriel shall we surrender without fight. But when that symbol is eventually torn-down, then how quickly it becomes forgotten; for only the heroes and martyrs of the victors of battle become lyrics for the bard. Yet this night I choose to risk my life, and to risk my duty in support of the Drake’s quest, to aid the soldiers of the garrison in defending their doors against the deadric storm.

From the first moment I walked through the old forum doors I sensed there was something more to the survival of these eight soldiers then can been seen with the mortal eye. Perhaps it is because the scroll that Caudex later passes to me for the Drake. He claims it dates back to St. Alessia herself and credits it for bringing them back from the dead when they fell in battle. He says some priest, a Father Egnatius, was obsessed with it. It’s funny how when the dead are resurrected for their cause priests proclaim it is some sort of divine intervention, yet when it is not in their favour it is decried as foul necromancy, Reach magic, and devilry.

Call it providence if you will that these eight soldiers have survived so long, but surely not solely for a scroll, for it could have been manoeuvred by a much quicker and safer route into the hands of the Drake. Perhaps then for distraction, for the distrustful eyes of Molag Bal are certainly now fixed upon the garrison, searching for reason and comprehension as to their unnatural resilience.

Even with the scroll gone I believe the story of the Immortal Eight at the Improvised Garrison is not yet done. I recall the Elf Neramo when we first met upon Stros M’Kai telling me that the Dwemer automatons were full of cogs and wheels, and that if you could stop but one of those wheels, then you stop every wheel because they are dependent upon one another. I believe these soldiers are part of something bigger, a wheel in something we cannot yet see. That is why I was guided here to stand with them tonight, and to risk everything, and as others will stand with them on other nights, because there are many things that will depend upon this one thing. You see providence is the Divines sowing the fields with their seeds, but it always requires mortal hands to till the land for those seeds to grow.

S.K