Aphren’s Tomb is the final resting place of a merchant King whom, after setting out to conquer his neighbours, returned home triumphant only to find his fortress destroyed and his family slain in his absence.

The Mages Guild believes that Aphren’s Sword was endowed with magical properties and covets its retrieval so that they might ‘study’ it as a relic.

I take the broken pieces I have recovered from the forts ruins down into the Kings tomb to be reforged, only to discover that my greatest challenge in this endeavour comes not from the skeleton undead guarding the catacombs, nor the King’s own indignant spirit, but from Aphren’s eternal remorse, and how my conscience is to weigh the incorporeal penitence of a long dead spirit, ‘gainst the earthly weight of a full purse of gold coin promised me upon the swords retrieval.

S.K

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They are the shadows that whisper dread, existing between light and dark, life and death.  They shimmer brightly by both night and day, yet darkness drips from their luminous silhouettes, and the air is weighed heavy with anguish and misery by their very ubiety.

The ghosts of Aphren’s Hold have been aroused by the Supernal Dreamers scavenging their bones for relics, but now the cultists all lay dead about and the spectres continue to wander the ruined fort in search of any being of warm breath against whom they might levy their requital unjust.

But what have I to fear from these spirits of unrest?  After all, what am I without a soul but a silhouette, existing between light and dark, life and death.

S.K

The owners of the ill-fated Dro-Dara plantation are a band of fortune hunters who tired of life on the road and attempted to settle down.  Providence has not looked kindly upon their venture however and they have decided to return to the transient life, all except an aged Argonian Shaman named Murk-Watcher. The companions still hope she will join them again but I was warned that old-age had stiffened her spine to the point of cantankerousness, and clouded her senses so that often she seemed confused about whom or where she was.

When I finally caught up with the Argonian however, I found not stubbornness, but rather determination, and far from confusion, she spoke in melodious poesy of the path she must follow.  She talked of nature’s cycles, of her inner truth, of her true form, and returning to the river.  She said that one song must end for another to begin, and with the heart of the aged crocodile Ripplestrike, she can sing her song and finally claim the form she was always meant to be.

It all sounds far too outlandish, perhaps the senile words of a time-weathered mind, but really what is strange to me now?  Since escaping from that grim Coldharbor cell, I’ve seen the dead rise, chains fall from the sky, fought in a battle from ages past, and statues and ghost talk to me everywhere I go.  Only normality seems strange to me now.  Besides, I know only too well the feeling of not belonging in my own body; it has been long since I recognized myself in my own reflection.

Perhaps she sold me when she said that before instinct overtook reason she wanted to take a bite out of the bandit leader.  But it is her will, and even if I don’t wholly believe in her plan, I will stand by her and carry her back to her friends if her dreams prove false.  Sometimes you have to support a strangers dream even if it makes no sense to do so, just because it feels right.  And besides, if I don’t believe in her now… who will believe in me when it is my time to sing my song and fight to regain my soul.

S.K

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The Ironhand ogres have long been considered a dangerous threat in Stormhaven but usually only to those travellers foolish enough to trek too close to the Wrothgar mountains.  Recently however, encouraged perhaps by the uprising of the Supernal Dreamers, and a spate of successful raids enjoyed by their goblin cousins, the tribe has grown far bolder, even venturing an attack upon Wayrest itself.

Such was the perceived threat of the ogre attack, and so stretched were the Breton forces that King Emeric had to call in a favour from on old ally in Wrothgar.  It was the Orc General Godrun and his Murtag Clan who came to Wayrest’s rescue, driving back the Ironhand to Shinji’s Scarp.

In their wake however, the ogres left a trail of devastation through the farmlands of Gavaudon.  One such farm, the Dro-Dara Plantation suffered heavily, the ogre horde ate almost their entire livestock, and destroyed their crops.  But worse was soon to follow for the plantation when the scavengers moved in.

An opportunistic bandit gang plundered and pillaged what little the ogres had left whilst taking the owners hostage and killing the remaining workers. Crocodiles have swam through the broken levees and now occupy the flooded fields, whilst giant spiders and hungry bears encroach ever closer from the hills, drawn by the smell of fresh blood and carcass.

I can attempt to free the hostages but there is little more that can be done for these unfortunate farmsteads until the Lion Guard arrives.

S.K

To the East of Wayrest a desolate farm moulders, a remnant perhaps of Ranser’s wrath some 16 years earlier.  Long thought deserted, yet I encounter a lone Supernal Summoner attempting to establish a portal to Oblivion.  Such a gateway would enable the Daedric horde to sow havoc and devastation upon the farmlands on central Stormhaven.

I am not the only adventurer to happen upon the farm that late afternoon, and as I charge to prevent the miscreant from finishing his ritual, I am joined by a young sorceress, and a Temple Knight.  The cultist is swiftly cut down, but we are too late to prevent a giant Daedroth from breaking through, accompanied by a pack of flame chucking scamps.

Working together however, my sharp sword and the Knight’s Aedric Spear keep the monsters engaged whilst the Sorceress lights them up from behind with a spectacular bombardment of Crystal shard and lightning bolt. With concerted effort we manage to slay the Daedric insurgents, but I wonder, had fate, luck, or providence not brought us together at that very moment, would any of us have been able to fight back the Daedric incursion on our own.

Unity, that is where mortal’s great strength lies, and nothing, not love, solidarity, regard, or respect can unite man or mer as fixedly as defiance against a common enemy.  Ultimately it may not be a Breton King, an Elven Queen, or a drunken barbarian who will unite Tamriel under a single banner, but it may just be our common hatred for the tyrant of Oblivion.

This one small skirmish, unseen and unnoticed, a battle that may have saved a hundred lives, a year’s harvest, and by extension, an entire war, will never be recounted by tavern bard, or chronicled in the annals of High Rock, because except for myself, the Sorceress Zérnichter and the Templar Knight Skyrén, there was nobody there to witness it.

S.K