Our lives are full of moments and cruxes that we attribute to luck; whether that luck is then considered good or bad is purely a matter of perspective. For every player that is dealt a good hand in a game of Tribute, there will be others that will inevitably be dealt bad. For every person in the right place at the right time, there will be somebody who ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Whenever I hear the comforting tale of someone unlikely saved, there is also a lament of one who wasn’t. Can it be just luck, or is there something more at work?

Take my experience this evening at the Breakneck Cave. I knew its doors were closed a long time before the war began because of the well publicised spider infestation, so it was a surprise as I rode past on my way to Vlastarus in the south to find bandits were guarding its entrance. Of course nothing says ‘welcome, please come in’ more to an adventurer then armed hoodlums guarding a door.

At first glance it appeared the Black Daggers were using the caves as a warehouse of sorts, yet they clearly hadn’t overcome the spider problem. However, as I delved further down beyond the crates and barrels it occurred to me that this number of guards for such small amount of provisions was somewhat overkill. And that is when I spied Hegris, the leader of the Black Dagger bandits.

Clearly Hegris is a dangerous man, you don’t get to climb the ranks to become leader of the largest bandit gang in the Heartlands without being ruthless, callous a cut-throat, and perhaps a little lucky; although I am sure this Nord will tell you his luck was simply the warriors advantage. But it wasn’t simply down to luck that I discovered Hegris in the Breakneck Caves today, it was cause and effect. I chose to ride past the abandoned cave, and made a choice to challenge the guards at the door, and Hegris himself chose to visit this very same day, which proved to be his last. Perhaps then this is all luck really is, a cause, an effect, and a matter of perspective.

S.K

For as long as men have walked these Colovian highlands, vampires have stalked their trail. From the lone fiend preying upon village or homestead, to the clandestine covens in secluded caves and remote ruins working toward nefarious purpose. Up until recently I would have remorselessly put down these undead creatures without hesitation as I would any other rabid beast. But having met the Ravenwatch clan in Rivenspire from whom I learnt that vampires weren’t just ravenous undead, but can be lucid and aware. Retaining many characteristics of their former natures in undeath, they are capable of both reason and compassion; and that makes them monsters.

Two residents of Weynon Priory have been kidnapped by vampires during the night and taken to an ancient Ayleid ruin known locally as the Lipsand Tarn. The acolytes fear that they may have already been killed and risen again as bloodfiends, mindless feral undead, little more then skeevers under the vampires thrall.

I find the ruins infested with these bloodfiends banqueting upon fresh cadavers by suckled gore, under the unhallowed gaze of their vampire overseers. The cold corpses of the villagers lie atop stone tables in bloody shrouds and with a whispered orison to Arkay, I set their bodies ablaze.

It would be foolish for me not to at least attempt to put down the leaders of this coven whilst I am here. Marbita, a Redguard woman in life, and Gaston Ashham a Breton together head this Bloodborn coven; until I find the means to behead them both.

I could discover no motive for why this coven are building such a force of bloodfiends in this secluded ruin. But I did find a note which suggested that Ashham travelled all the way to Cyrodiil from Stormhaven with a sister. Perhaps I shall find her in another delve, or perhaps she shall find me first; after-all, to thirst for revenge is only human nature.

S.K

In such turbid times when criminals are no longer punished by the hands of the law, they must be punished by the hands of other men.

The Black Dagger bandits have long been a pestilence upon the Colovian countryside, but since the onset of this Banners war, there has no longer been any authority around to bring them to justice, and so they feel free to pillage and murder with impunity. The acolytes of Weynon feel powerless against such injustices, and so after the torture and murder of their emissaries and the theft of an ancient relic from their Priory, they has resorted to requesting aid from any mercenary who happens by.

They ask first that I retrieve their relic from the bandit camp to the west, and next that I find the abandoned house where the bandits store their supplies and poison their food. That such devout men should make such a request shows how dismayed and despairing they have become. I guess it is a burden upon the conscience of men of faith to have to weigh such an iniquitous act against the lives of innocents the act might save. They are not the first, and not the last to fret if their one bad deed might wash away all the good.

S.K

The acolytes of Weynon Priory tell me that a Lich has been risen by the Shadowed Path cult in the Ayleid ruins of Lindai to the east. They fear that if this fiend isn’t destroyed, it’s corruption will quickly spread threatening the Priory, Chorrol and beyond.

Emperor Leovic’s infamous decree six years ago legalizing Daedra worship across the empire gave rise to a number of these necromantic cults. Perhaps only the Betrayer’s Black Worms who supplanted the Mages Guild in the Imperial city, now holds more power and sway in Cyrodiil then the Shadowed Path. But if left unchecked with a lich to lead them the cults influence across the province could become unstoppable.

Necromancy, whilst still considered dangerous, immoral and heretical by most Divine worshipping cultures, has become far more widespread and passively accepted in recent years. To the point where even the Mages guild have begun accepting necromancers, arguing that their discipline is but a division of the conjuration school of magic; though officially it is still a practice banned within their guild halls.

I am not a moral man, but surely damned are those who cower behind neutrality in times of great moral crisis. To what principles I hold, the assumption of necromancers that the dead are without rights and that our treatment of their mortal remains has no moral significance, is outrageous.

S.K

The devout acolytes of the Weynon Priory will tell you that the most important thing in their life is their faith. But faith nourishes only the soul, for the body the Priory relies upon sending people out to collect vital supplies from towns and forts around the province. One such courier, Lucius, has not yet returned from an expedition to Pell’s Gate, and the acolytes fear for his fate, and that of the desperately needed supplies.

Unfortunately the news I had heard back in a tavern at the High Rock Gates was that, like so many small settlements in the region since losing the protection of the Legions, Pell’s Gate had been left but a smouldering ruin by bandits. I have not the heart yet to pass on that news, not whilst the acolytes still cradle the hope that their friend yet lives. They believe he may be camped out in Coldcorn Ruins, an old fort to the east he regularly used as a camp.

I arrive at the ruined fort only to find a group of trolls has moved into the area. Trolls are usually solitary creatures, to find such a horde living together is rare. But I guess with so many armies battling across the province even these beasts feel safer in a pack. The many ruined forts scattered across the Lonely Hills make perfect refuges for them during the day, before heading out at night to scavenge the battlefields of men and mer.

Within the last standing tower of Coldcorn I find a body. Alas that Lucius had survived the bandits at Pell’s Gate and somehow miraculously returned with the much needed supplies, only to fall victim at the last furlong to an unlikely band of trolls. It seems even Akatosh holds no sway over fate.

S.K