Our motley coalition of man, mer and beast are ready to push on towards our final purpose, but standing obstinately in our path are the ominous walls of the Reaver Citadel, the dread keep of the Deathbringer Clan.

A frontal assault upon the Citadel is too far beyond us, we would be crushed like the Gray Host upon the great gates of Bangkorai. The renowned Ayleid strategist King Laloriaran Dynar however has devised a plan, but to achieve it somehow I will have to infiltrate the fort and reach the Fighters Guild building within. Once again it seems I shall need to put my trust in the enigmatic Dremora Lyranth, but this time I am not just trusting my fate to her, but perhaps the fate of all of Tamriel.

For some veiled reason Lyranth seems to need me to infiltrate this citadel just as much as I do. Galerion would not be happy to know that I am putting such faith in this monster, but I’ve found that there is rarely a difference in motive between a martyr and a terrorist. The affairs of this realm are no more or less deceitful then those of Tamriel. It is the fool who toils in deference to others rather for their own desires or needs, and I am putting my faith in a monster, not a fool.

Besides, the only true way to discover if you can trust someone, is to trust them. Tamriel is a land built upon Alliances, Pacts, and Covenants, its people have learnt the only way to survive is to put trust and faith in those you at one time or another called ‘my enemy’.

S.K

To the north-east of the stranded Lost Fleet can be found the Wailing Maw, subterranean caverns where the Dremora work tirelessly researching new ways to make abased use of the one resource Coldharbour seems to have in abundance, soul gems.

It is not surprising though that it was mortals who first discovered the questionable practice of bounding the souls of creatures into gems in order to enchant their weapons and armour. The daedra of course are believed incapable of inventing or creating anything, their architecture for instance is either corrupt imitation, or simply stolen.

So it makes me wonder if not the daedra themselves, then who designed the great machinery that drives Molag Bal’s insidious Planemeld? I have heard some in this realm attribute their design to that Lich genius, The Mad Architect. Perhaps it is so. But then I have also heard others speculate that such mechanic ingenuity of this magnitude has only previously been found within the cities of the long lost Dwemer.

Of course I am not postulating that Molag Bal could possibly have had anything to do with that civilizations sudden and still unexplained disappearance so long ago. Its just that the last King of the Ayleids walks this very realm today, and indeed that eccentric knight Cadwell, just how long has he been wandering this accursed land that he has become so attuned to it that he can now seemingly port himself from one end to the other. Is it then such a preposterous notion that though some insidious pact the Prince of Bargains might have a Dwemer or two bound to him in eternal servitude?

Nowt but whimsical speculation and conjecture of course. All I do know for certain is that the more I can disrupt the Dremoran’s wicked research here in the Wailing Maw, the better for us should our true purpose fail.

S.K

It was one of Tamriel’s most infamous of maritime mysteries. What became of the lost ships of the All Flags Navy? If they had simply sunk to the bottom of the Sea of Pearls surely there would have been flotsam and debris?

Late in the 1st era a united armada of men and mer set sail upon Thrais to wreck Tamriel’s vengeance upon the Sload in retaliation for the Thrassian Plague which decimated the population of the continent. For over two days the fleet battled through fierce storms and dense fog before finally reaching the Isles. Upon launching their invasion however the island itself, like great lost Yokuda before it, began to fracture and sink creating a colossal whirlpool which devoured almost half the fleet.

Now here in this most dread azure realm of Oblivion do we finally discover their fate. The broken fleet lies stranded upon this barren waste, their crew like their vessels now but skeletons. The insidious Father of Coldharbour, ever seeking to influence mortals be them live or dead, forged a deal with an ambitious captain to turn the crew into an undead army.

Now that captain is now an admiral with a crown of bones. As more ships fell, the Lost Fleet and his army grew. The ever more ambitious Admiral is forcing the skeletons to build a coral tower to reach the whirlpool in the sky from which the ships fell. It is a most improbable ambition, but then this is a most improbable realm, where I have seen the most improbable of things. This Admiral cannot be allowed to return with his undead army to Tamriel.

The only question is do we destroy the crown and release the skeletons from their bondage, or do we simply swap one king for another and use this army against the God of Schemes. Either way all souls in Coldharbour belong to the brutal Prince, their fate I fear is anchored.

S.K

I arrive at The Chasm, another seemingly bottomless cavern in this Vault of Madness filled with hundreds of inexplicably floating platforms. But unlike the earlier chamber where I was able to leap the platforms to cross the void, here it is impossible if one has no wings. So the only way forward is down, and not for the first time in this accursed realm I need to make a literal leap of faith.

I am relieved to land in a deep pool of thick azure plasm, and from here ascend to the capricious chancel of this macabre cathedral, where I finally come face to face with the Lich known as the Mad Architect.

In life he was a brilliant architect, but jealous rivals ruined him and in his death he made bitter pacts with agents of these twilight realms, his genius in return for vengeance. I have no personnel score to settle with this undead necromancer, if anything the lament of one of the three spirits still weighs heavily upon me, ‘Haven’t we done enough to him?’ Yet he is now the only bar to my escape, and necessity outweighs empathy.

Never have I met with this type of magic, whether of not he was a genius in life, in undeath his necromantic flair is unparalleled. Capable of summoning scores of undead minions to his aid, whilst at the same time blasting at me with bolts of magical energy shaped like smirking skulls. The Lich summoned spirits from the ground around him in a spectacular yet pernicious flourish that one could do little but seek shelter from. Constant magical explosions rocked the chancel, one particularly forceful blast obliterated the windows into a thousand shards that would have cut to ribbons any caught in the barbed storm. It proved to be my most arduous battle.

However the Lich is overcome and I am finally able to make my escape from these Vaults of Madness, but not the three spirits. Despite the Lich’s destruction they remain trapped in the Architect’s prison, and whilst they begin to reason that they could perhaps master these vaults as the Mad Architect once did, they seem not to realize that in this accursed realm vengeance is immortal and he will inevitably rise again.

S.K

Rather fittingly for the realm of Coldharbour where everything seems either counterfeit or stolen, the Mad Architects proudest creation appears to be but a corrupted imitation. Charmond claims that it is a twisted reproduction of ‘the Great Cathedral in Tamriel’. Every Cyrodillic will tell you that the Grand Cathedral of Akatosh in Kvatch is the most august cathedral in all Tamriel. Whether or not this was Charmond’s reference I did not ask, for I feel it was meant only as another bitter barb from the spirit to his jailer.

As I climb the stairs I am challenged by many servants of the Architect, from dremora to xivkyn, from shadowy spirits to feral soul-shriven, and even a huge daedric Watcher known as The Ancient One, of whom it is said that the gaze of it’s eyes has created more skulls to fill the columns of the Vaults of Madness then any other.

Yet they are all but fodder for my blade compared to what awaits me at the top of the stairs, Iskra the Omen, a daedric titan. These giant winged creatures are believed to be Molag Bal’s boorish imitations of dragons. Some have even suggested that he actually improved upon the dragon, given that his titans have four limbs in addition to their wings. However, as I have never seen a dragon, and hopefully never shall for they are thought long ago extinct upon Tamriel, I cannot critique his creation.

Certainly this Titan matches the bards songs of the dragons malice. It’s scales are as hard as any shield, it’s teeth are like swords, it’s claws like daggers, it’s tail like a barbed whip, and when it beats it’s wings it is like a hurricane blows. Oh, and did I not mention that the monster also breaths scorching azure flames.

S.K