Through night and day it shines benevolently, bestowing its light upon all, without discrimination, favour, or prejudice. No matter how ferocious the storm, dense the fog, or dark the night, whenever it is needed most, the lighthouse, that sentinel of the sea, casts light into darkness to help guide us safely home.
S.K
Whilst mining for ore near any crag, cliff or rocky outcrop, one needs to be ever watchful for the dangerous Assassination Beetle. These giant insects seem able to subsist in almost any climate and the threat of their formidable biting, pincer like mouths potentially makes them a most deadly adversary.
The first I knew that my digging had disturbed the creature hidden near-by, was when I heard a soft clicking, followed by scruff and scuttle upon the rocks behind me. I turned to face the agitated quarrel of a beetle’s stridulation and its blood stained mandibles opening wide, preparing to lacerate my lower legs.
I rolled instinctively away, drawing my sword and shield in one motion, and set myself ready to parry and counter. My first strike crashed against its rock hard carapace, almost jarring my sword from my hand. My second swing was more circumspect, directed at its limb joints. My aim was sure and true and yet my blade cut into nothing but a cloud of silt and soil as the beetle disappeared from my sight.
I held my breath and tried to settle myself as alert, yet as loose as possible. Within moments I felt the earth tremor behind and in one swift motion, I turned and blindly thrust my blade into where I judged its head should be. Its mandibles snapped against my plate greaves, as my blade cracked into the husk just above its array of red eyes, sinking deeply into the soft tissue underneath.
Its legs crimped into its body and it curled into a withered ball, yet it posed one last unexpected peril in its death coil. As I yanked my blade loose from its carcass, acidic blood spurted from the breach and bit holes into my shield and plate.
I strongly suspect that whoever eventually achieves the ruby throne, whether it be man, mer, beast, or daedra, it will be the insects that will outlive us all to conquer Nirn.
S.K
The story of how the Khajiit slave Ma’jhad Kha rose to become the king of the slavers was amongst the favourites of the bards of Cyrodiil. They sung most vociferously of how he started a revolt to overthrow the slave masters, only to then take their place. Of how he ruthlessly eliminated his rivals and how cunningly he coerced the most feared slavers of the Azurian sea to unite under the banner of the Ember-eye.
Bards sung almost reverently of his mane platted with strands of pure gold, and how his teeth are so strong and sharp his smile could shame a Durzog. Of how he keeps his claws as long and keen as a Redguard’s bodkin, and how he can wield his long tail as viciously as a Dremora wields a lava-whip. How his arms are as thick as the Skald-King’s belly, and how he stands 8, 9,10 ft tall from paw to brow.
So it was with mild chagrin I was to discover this mangy, tangled fur-ball, dressed in mouldy old leather, wielding a pair of sea rusted daggers.
They say you should never meet a bard’s muse. The truth is want to slip and slide around a bards sonnet unencumbered by fact or veracity. History is recorded to prevent legend, but legend oft supplants history because it is what pays a bards bar tab.
When the time comes to recount my tale I will be sure to set the bards straight… he was 12 ft at the very least!
S.K
The last of the Ember-eye slavers have overrun the small harbour of Steelheart Moorings, holding captive the locals and what remains of Captain Marck’s crew. I am hopelessly outnumbered, and not for the first time I wonder whether I should take such risks to help strangers who won’t stand to help themselves.
My father used to say that people will look to everyone and everything but themselves to save them from their sorrows and pains; at least that was how he answered when I asked him why people pray.
Mayhap before Coldharbour I would have been the same, but when I see the gallows being built before the cave I realize that ‘everyone and everything’ has to be me, because at this moment the scales are tipping between rescue and revenge, and through luck or providence, I am here. Maybe… just maybe, I am the answer to their prayers.
S.K
As I venture deeper into the dark arteries of the mine I espy the unmistakable ethereal glow of a skyshard illuminating in the thick dust-filled air. It is not uncommon to find skyshards hidden deep beneath the ground; one can only speculate as to why.
Perhaps it is as the scholars suggest that the Ayleids had found a way to manipulate the mystical properties of the shards for their own purposes. Or maybe it is as the priests would have us believe, that the shards are being actively sought and hidden away by cultists in a plot by certain Daedric princes to keep mortals from discovering something of the mysteries of creation. Or perchance it is as the philosophers would have it, that it is simply in a mortals nature that when a star falls from the sky, we feel the overwhelming desire to shield its beauty from the world about, less others might despoil it somehow.
One wonders if the people who hid this one away even knew what they had found, or any idea of what to do with it. Certainly the bandits in this mine seem far more intent on mining for crystals then appreciating the infinitely more valuable shard that sits gently vibrating so close behind them.
Back in the prison on Coldharbour, the old man told me that skyshards carried within them the very essence of Nirn. All I can say for certain is that when I connect with one, I am filled with such a surge, that my very blood tingles in my veins, and briefly… just briefly, that fathomless emptiness deep inside where my soul should nest, overflows with warmth and vitality.
S.K
The Tamriel Drifter 