What has one without a soul left to fear?

The further north through Coldharbour I travelled the more I became aware of the shadow cast by the twin towers upon the brooding horizon. I find that I am both drawn and repelled, there is a fine line I think between stirring fear and paralysing dread. I arrive at the macabre doorway but do not linger long upon its doorstep, for surely what awaits inside cannot be as frightful as those ghastly gates.

Poor logic is born of fear, for the first thing I find upon entering is a long corridor built with a thousand skulls crammed into its columns. But it is the crimson eyes shining at the corridors end that fixate me, and I am pulled towards them, only to discover what looks like heavy chests.

Is this really all this place is, nowt but a dremoran treasure vault, a repository, an armoury perhaps? I am compelled to discover what these large chests hold, yet as I get close the ground beneath me gives way and I drop into darkness.

Thankfully the fall is not far enough to break anything, but still it is too deep to climb back out of. It appears my only possible course is to follow the corridor downwards further into the dark. Soon however I arrive at a familiar looking iron gate; the last time I saw a gate like this… Of course I should have known, this indeed is what every building in this accursed realm is, and the one thing that one without a soul has left to fear… a prison.

S.K

The Manor of Revelry, yet another forgery of Tamriel in Coldharbour. This counterfeit of Hammerfell is certainly a powerful illusion, and one wonders if seen through would we stand but in the same crumbling ruins as we saw beyond the high walls in the Risen Court.

Another deceit I discover in this accursed illusion is that acted out by that duplicitous wretch Stibbons. The hapless manservant of the noble Lady Clarisse Laurent has time and again played pitiful victim to both mistreatment and circumstance. Only it is here in Coldharbour that we discover the naked truth behind his mendacity. Without his meritorious mistress here to lay blame upon, the reckless fool has managed put himself in the most ridiculous situations. First almost consummated to a daedra at the Spurned Peak, and now almost consumed at the Manor of Revelry. It is clear to me now that it has been Stibbons own fault all along.

I do not know as yet whether his shameful put-on was born from simple dimwitted horkerery, or some insidious motive to undermine the most illustrious Lady’s repute. What I do know is that we need to escape this illusion before dinnertime.

One wonders at the elaboration of such a scheme as this, why did the three sisters not just lock their intended victims in a cage and have done with it?  My only guess is that like the farmer who first fattens and then lets their pigs romp freely in the mud; it is the happy sow that tastes the sweetest.

S.K

To the north-west of the Orchard cemetery I discover crumbling ruins reminiscent of the architecture I found all across the arid wastes of the Alik’r. They stand in startling contrast to the tall manor walls to the west which appear untouched by time or clime. This otherwise barren region is know as the Risen Court.

Perhaps it gained its name because it is where the infamous Dramoran necromancer Brolsgerbwd, practises her art. One wonders how much more practice an immortal actually needs to perfect any study. In truth there is a limit to what any creature can remember, and all schools of magic are thought too broad for even an immortal being to truly master.

I have also heard it claimed however that the daedra’s lack of creativity may affect their ability to learn what is after all considered an art. The theory being that a daedra’s knowledge of art comes and goes like a mortals dream. Upon awake it feels as fresh as any memory we have, by breakfast we can recall but its final moments, and by lunch we have forgotten we had a dream at all.

Nowt but theory and speculation of course, but if such condescending propaganda serves to abrade the daedra, then I shall gladly propagate it all the more.

S.K

Hidden in a hillock on the outskirts of The Orchard cemetery I discover the entrance to a large Dunmer tomb within which an entire mausoleum of the dead has been arisen. As I fight my way through the skeletons and wraiths in the dark, dank chambers and charnels, I discover a book telling the story of just how this tomb of the mage Mal Sorra came to be in Coldharbour.

It is a tale of a Dunmer so afflicted by the curse of unbridled arrogance that she lost respect for the lives of all others. Arrogance in a young magic wielder, who must walk the constant tightrope between blind faith and curiosity, experience and epiphany, ambition and creativity, is most often caused by the gain of knowledge without wisdom. And then of course there is that natural insufferable arrogance of all Mer who think themselves born of the Gods, and that Nirn was made solely for their benefit, that the sun was set afire merely to ripen their fruit.

So now here lies the arrogance of Mal Sorra, condemned to this prison tomb for eternity by the curse of Coldharbour. For no mater how many times we ‘mere’ mortals slay her, she is forever doomed to rise again.

S.K

We achieve the daedric forces across the Chasm only to arrive at a massive cemetery infested by a coven of thirsting vampires, bound in eternal servitude to Molag Bal by an artefact known as the Harvest Heart. A cemetery in Coldharbour, how the Lord of Brutality doth mock our mortality.

Vanus Galerion would have us destroy the heart by ritual, condemning the vampires to become but mindless beasts, and thus allowing our forces to pass uninhibited through the cemetery grounds. But the matriarch of the coven appears from the shadows to offer a bargain. Instead of battling through her horde, she proposes we assist her with her own ritual that will cut her covens ties to Molag Bal, for which she promises to let us pass through her home unmolested.

Before I joined the Imperial legions I believed that war was best waged with honour, and that battle could be won only by following the precepts of Stendarr. But I soon learnt that warfare was moreover won by deception, by doing what your enemy expects the least. The Lord of Brutality expects us to fight the moral fight against his immoral children, but by doing so we would risk losing all momentum and many lives.

I do not trust this ancient vampire, she is not in the least like honourable Ravenwatch. Given free chance her coven would make banquet of us all, but she fears an eternity of slavery; even monsters will make sacrifice for their own freedom. This may mean but a temporary truce, but is not the subduing of an enemy without fight the very kernel of Stendarr’s teachings. Besides, if we truly believe in the freedom we fight for, then surely we fight for the freedom of all, and by this precept shall we stand or fall.

S.K