A notorious Khajiiti gang of bandits known as the Duneraiders have discovered a long lost city hidden within the golden sands of Tigonus, the eastern region of the Alik’r Desert.

To aide them in their ransacking of the ancient Yokudan city they kidnapped a Redguard scholar from the streets of Sentinel, and are forcing him to decipher runes on the relics that they loot.  Yet the scholar believes he has discovered something far more valuable than treasure and jewels may be hidden deep within this ancient city, and he has pleaded for my help in retrieving it.

First however, I’ll need free him from the clutches of bandit gang which wont be easy, for a cat never willingly gives up its mouse without scratch and bite.

S.K

Whilst occasionally Giants have been seen as far south as Bangkorai and Cyrodiil, it is rare to find them traveling beyond the natural borders of Wrothgar or Skyrim.  Thus when I rode towards a bonfire in the hills as the last rays of sun trickled beneath the far horizon, I was surprised to discover a lone Giant tending camp this far deep into the Hollow Wastes of the Alik’r.

Standing beyond twice my height the brute was initially as startled as I, but he already had his bone-headed club at hand and took but two of a giant’s strides to close upon me; I had little option but to draw my sword and shield to defend myself.

It was only later that I learnt from locals that the Giant they called ‘Lonely Papa’ had made his home in the hills many years ago.  Initial attempts to drive it away had ended gravely, but as time passed the locals realised the giant wanted as little to do with them, as they with him, and so they settled into an unspoken concord of avoidance.

The giant rarely strayed from its camp during daylight, only venturing into the sands at night to trap scorpion, skeever, or desert jackal.  Whilst he was often spotted collecting water in two hefty mammoth water-skins as far south as the Goat’s Head Oasis, he would stay well clear of the roads and always managed pass by the settlements at Bergama and Leki’s Blade unseen.

Alas then for the foolish wayfarers haphazardly traversing the sands at night who stumble upon his camp and disturb his solitude… and alas for Lonely Papa that tonight that fool was I.

S.K

At the temple school of Leki’s Blade, I read an old story about a notorious local vampire by the name of Feremuzh. Fettered as they were by their own traditions, the people of the desert could not slay the monster, so instead buried it in a ‘tomb of earth for time eternal’.

If my journey through the Alik’r has taught me anything, it’s that nothing stays buried for long under these shifting sands, especially the dead.

In the depths of Coldrock Diggings, I discover an ancient vampire feeding upon the fresh corpses of Withered Hand emissaries. At my sudden appearance, one of her lackeys nearby calls to her… ‘Feremuzh’. Could this be that same dread vampire of Redguard lore, unwittingly unearthed by the excavations of miners, and now regaining her strength, in both vitality and followers?

Whilst the vampire in the tale was male, the author was likely chronicling a campfire tale and the monsters gender was but a presumption. Of course the name could be but a coincidence, or perhaps this vampire knew her lore, and took the name in homage?

Only one thing I know for certain, that this is a vampire with ambition, and such a creature is far too dangerous to ever be allowed to see the light of the two moons.

S.K

A scourge of vampires has overrun the mine at Coldrock Diggings to the southeast of Tava’s Blessing. One would think that such tragic news could not remain buried for long, even in a desert, what with the miners failing to return home to their families, and the sudden end to production of the mine itself. However many of the miners families would have already been lost to the Withered Hand incursion at Tava’s Blessing, and it was the town’s shipyards who were the main client for the grit-rock that the mine produced.

Another reason the news of the vampire presence has not spread to the outside world is that the vampires themselves have so far not needed to leave the cover of the mine to hunt for food. For it appears the Withered Hand cultists have made numerous attempts to entreat this vampire coven for aid, only for the vampires to reject their pleas in the most unequivocal way imaginable, by feeding upon the cultist envoys and throwing their carcasses to their bloodfiend thralls.

It appears that vampire’s disgust for necromancy goes far beyond that felt by even the peoples of the desert. For vampires do not see death as a loss of their life, but a transcendence into something far more glorious, and that the living should not fight against them, but grovel and beg to join them. They believe the living raising the undead as minions to be abhorrent, and as outlandish as a Guar harnessing a farmer, or a skeever hunting a senche-tiger.  

Yet despite the most unambiguous of rejections, the Withered Hand continues to send more emissaries. This news fills me with fresh hope for the fate of the Alik’r, for as the Lizard folk of the Black Marsh used to say, ‘even a Mer will stretch out his hand to the Saxhleel when he is drowning in the swamps’.

S.K

Atop the Tava’s Blessing lighthouse, Alasan, one of the sibling leaders of the Withered Hand Cult, is close to accomplishing a ritual to turn himself into a powerful, and unstoppable Lich.  I have little choice but to kill him as I did his brother, but in doing so I shatter the sacred Ansei Ward to which he had become so intricately bound during his rite.

Even death is not enough to stop Alasan however, as he rises again as an insidious spirit, and the Ra-netu rise from the desert sands with him.

There is little I can now do to save Tava’s Blessing, we have lost the town to the dead. Perhaps the Ash’abah may one day be able to muster a force large enough to reclaim the town, but for that to happen the people of the desert will need to learn to accept and honour the Ash’abah, and that day seems a very, very long way away.

As for Alasan, the spirit of the Ansei Ward will attempt to bind and imprison him into the reforged blade for all eternity, or until we next forget the lessons of the past; and one thing that our history has taught us is that we seem predestined to forget our history.

S.K