At the southern edge of the Pelin Graveyard in Bangkorai where the dead have risen to walk again, I find a large unmarked crypt. Unremarkable on the face of it as many of the crypts and mausoleums around here are left unmarked; only the gravedigger Lort could tell you exactly who was buried where. But as I enter the dank tunnels to investigate I find one big difference from the rest of this cemetery, rising from this crypt are not Breton dead, but Redguard.

I find a letter in the chambers next to the body of a dead Breton knight that calls this place the Crypt of the Exiles. The knight it seems was on a mission to retrieve a priceless artefact for the Redguard royal house that had been stolen by a warrior named Ulbazar. I find the bodies of many such knights littered throughout the crypt, their search it appears proved unsuccessful.

As I explore deeper It is interesting to see that many of the corpses rising have been mummified. Wrapped in fetid bandages, they appear far better preserved then the undead of the Breton’s wandering the graveyard outside.

The preservation of the dead is not a practice seen so much outside Hammerfell. It is speculated that in ancient Yokuda mummies were created naturally due to the hot, dry sands of the desert dehydrating their corpses. This led to the desert tribes routinely trying to preserve the bodies of those considered noble or heroic. Now it seems it is common practise.

Strange for a people who treat their dead with such reverence, that they would not be more attentive to the very real dangers of necromancy. There are no Ansei Wards to protect the remains of those passing to the Far Shores this far from the sands of the Alik’r.

S.K

I had not expected to encounter a wispmother in the hills above Pelin graveyard, the last one I saw was up at the Silaseli ruins on the Halcyon Lake. Had I known that she was here I would probably have tried to avoid her, not because I am afraid mind you, but because I am still unsure as to their true nature. And by nature, I do not mean disposition, because I already know this creature would rip me to shreds if I give it half a chance. No, I mean its origins.

As a child I read as many books as I could find on all the creatures of Tamriel; bestiaries and compendiums, hunting diaries and travellers tales. I’d listen keenly when the visiting bards sung of outlandish beasts in faraway lands, and daydreamed long after they’d left about seeing them all for myself one day.

I guess that was a real reason why I joined the Legions, ‘see Tamriel and beyond’ the recruiter had said, ‘broaden your horizons!’ She knew her audience. Because for us rural boys, signing up to the Legions had little to do with sentiments of duty and allegiance, that was for the city born and officer cadets. No, for us it was about escaping the agrarian shackles of provincial ambition.

As it happens I ended up never even serving beyond the boundaries of Cyrodiil. Most of my  service was spent supporting the province guards in trying to maintain civil order after the Emperor disappeared. And then later we spent more time within the Imperial City itself when the Empress Regent all but legitimised the Mad Elf’s debauched cult by banishing the Mages Guild.

Soon after the Banners invaded and we were pushed back into the City for good. Then… then came that longest night when that Dark Anchor fell upon the city. All lightness fled, and only chaos and pandemonium was left to fill its void.

So I never did get to ‘see Tamriel and beyond’, in fact the first time I ever left Cyrodiil was when I awoke in a prison cell in Oblivion, and by then I guess I was, for all intent and purpose, dead; so I’m not sure that even counts.

As for the natures of these forlorn wispmothers, although I suspect they are but elemental manifestations of some kind, I always rather liked the more romantic theories I’d read, that they were the ghosts of some lost race of Snow Elves, eternally searching for something that is forever beyond their reach. I think the rural boy in me could empathise with that.

S.K

No mater how many dark anchors we repel, or how many daedra we send back to Oblivion with our blades and spells, we can never lower our shields and wards, because the guileful agents of Molag Bal are here amongst us, patiently watching and waiting for opportunities to undermine us. For the longer the Three Banners war rages on, the more vulnerable our homelands become.

Inside the church of Arkay at Pelin Cemetary, the deception and corruptions of one such agent are uncovered. But for a vigilant few, Preinrha the harvester, a daedric servant of the God of Schemes, would have had an undead army led by a noble son of Bangkorai with which to wreck havoc.

With Arkay’s blessing it is time to lay the prince to rest once again.

S.K

At the Pelin Graveyard where the dead are rising from their plots, I find a solitary priest of Arkay praying most intently. I wonder, is he praying for an end to this misery, or for the strength to endure it? Either which, whilst I am pretty sure it is serendipity that has led me here and not some Divine shepherding, it would be a blister upon my conscience if I did not offer the priest what aid I can.

It does make one think however, all those years ago when the Grey Host were about to break the gates of the Bangkorai Garrison and Saint Pelin, then but a lowly church beadle, leapt from the battlements of the garrison into the slaughterous horde of bat-men below. His sacrifice gave the garrison’s soldiers time to reinforce their positions, and eventually lead to the defeat of the insidious host of Verkarth.

Could it have been only serendipity that lead this pious man to the battlements and inspired his act of martyrdom, wherefore even the most devout would have been justified in taking flight at the darkness engulfing the light.

I do not believe in Divine Intervention, rather I believe in people intervening divinely. The priest may argue that is all but semantics, but to a man searching for his soul, it may prove a distinction of cardinal merit.

S.K

At the Pelin Graveyard, one of the largest cemeteries in all of High Rock, the dead are rising from their graves. One would have thought Bretons would have learnt to burn their dead by now, or at least stopped burying them with their weapons. But then something is very different about this necromantic attack from the ones I’ve witnessed before.

For a start, where are the necromancers? The Reachmen, for the most part, have been driven back into their mountains to the North, and by all reports the Seventh Legion are still consolidating their newly won position at the Bangkorai Garrison. And besides, to raise so many, so quickly, in such a vast cemetery as Perlin’s would require an army of necromancers; yet I have seen none.

And then there is Prince Adrien. The son of King Eamond who fell beside his father fighting the Reachmen at Northglen. He has not just risen, he has been resurrected, fully sentient and hearty, almost as if he had never been dead.

A mysterious voice in the royal crypts makes claim that Arkay himself is responsible, blessing the Prince to rise again to lead an army of the Undead to avenge his bloodline. Remembering what I was taught of the Divines as a child, and my experiences with the Arkay priest’s Marnest Barclay and Alvaren Garoutte in Rivenspire, it is utterly inconceivable that the mortals God, who champions the natural journey from birth to death would countenance such an act. And yet, and yet both Prince Adrien and his guardian Dame Valyrie Spenard are swift to accept it as true.

I’m beginning to learn that people are willing to believe in the most outlandish notions, despite them often flying in the face of all rationale like an agitated Cliff Strider, because they are desperate to believe in something, anything. The biggest fear we have is just not knowing. It is how so many cults flourish across Tamriel, because they offer people an explanation for their miseries that neither the priests of the Divines, nor society cannot. When you are an ugly man you do not worship the Divines for their beauty, you blame them.

S.K