Just to the Southwest of the town of Cropsford lies the Ayleid ruins of Culotte. An ancient Ayleid Well can be also be found at the site around which the townsfolk had once reported seeing cultists, but now all they see are ghouls, wraiths and zombies. Cropsford’s leaders, fearing that the undead will one day come shambling into town, occasionally pay mercenaries like myself to the go to the ruins and cull their numbers.

The townsfolk blame the cultists for stirring up the undead and perhaps they are right. But the cultists are long gone now and the undead continue to rise. Perhaps it is the enduring power of these Ayleid Wells that fuels their necromantic spells long after the cultists are gone. I recall seeing one such Well on the Isle of Betnikh at the ruins of Moriseli, where the Orc spirits of the Seamount Clan were summoned by the Reachman cultist Drusilla Nerva. Long after I had cut her down and set the restless spirit of Warcaller Targoth to rest, the Orc spirits continue to rise and roam. And again in Glenumbra, an Ayleid Well lies at the heart of the ruin’s of Enduum, where no matter how many skeletons are smashed by spell and blade, more soon rise to replace them.

The wells themselves are said to replenish their magicka at midnight, thus such necromantic spells may in effect, be eternal. To my mind such fountains of power should not be left unattended, I might even go so far as to suggest that they all be destroyed. It is all well and good for the scholars and mages to claim that one day they may learn to harness the magicka for the good of Tamriel. Yet it has been almost 3000 years since the Empire of the Ayleids fell and we know as little about them now as we did then.

S.K