LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 2: In Which I Meet a Cat Man
I land in surprisingly warm water with an impressive splash that, unfortunately, knocks my axe loose.
“Noooo! Pickles!” I yell as the Daedric battle axe sinks into the depths. Then a moment later, I realize I should pay more attention to myself so that I don’t also sink into the depths. It has been a very, very long time since I have swum in actual water, however, and I flail about splashing madly trying to figure out how to get to shore from here.
Despite my efforts, I slip beneath the waves and darkness takes me. Well, it has been a lovely, if brief, trip back to Nirn and a tropical ocean, but I guess it’s back to Coldharbour for me. I laugh softly, bubbles bubbling up from my mouth, but then realize I distantly feel hands lifting me out of the sea, and I cough up water.
Weak and weary, I drift off into sleep and hear the Prophet’s voice in my dreams. I don’t think he’s actually with me, though. He’s telling me that he wound up somewhere else, and also rambles on a bit about fighting evil, tides of darkness, something like that. Fighting evil sounds absolutely magnificent at the moment. For that matter, so does fighting good, because at least that’s doing something, but at the moment I think I’d rather fight evil. It would be my pleasure to kick in the teeth of the Daedra and those who serve them, wherever they might be. Because fuck them all, seriously, just fuck them all.
I rouse slowly to consciousness and find myself in a warm room with stone walls. No, wait, more like half a room, with a rough bed pallet laying underneath the half of the roof that’s still intact, hopefully with a great deal of confidence that the rest of it will not spontaneously collapse while someone is sleeping under it. The cloudy blue sky overhead is a thing of beauty even if it’s something that one would normally find worrying to be seeing from inside of a building.
A loaf of bread sits near the pallet, and I pick it up assuming that it was left for me. Food, real food, such a strange concept after so long, even stranger yet is seeing the lovely golden-brown color that makes up the crust. Everything in Coldharbour was shades of icy blue, even the faces of people after they’ve been there for long enough. I tear off a little bit of bread and take a nibble, and it’s the most delicious thing I’ve ever tasted. Slowly, savoring every morsel, I eat down the entire loaf, offering up silent thanks to whatever kind soul pulled me out of the water and left me something to eat.
Among the items I find laying around in the ruined building that may or may not have been left for me, I find a small knife, like one might use for shaving. I regard the razor-sharp blade wistfully. It’s a surprisingly difficult decision, shearing my hair off. I always kept only the sides of my head shaved and my glorious crimson hair styled up into a ridge, but my time in Coldharbour has left my hair matted and tangled into hopelessness. Best to start over. Who knows what fashion trends are like in whatever year this is, anyway? Bald never goes out of style.
With that taken care of, I head for the door and step out into the balmy sea breezes. It’s beautiful out here, with green trees, golden sands, and warm sunlight. After Coldharbour, I thought I would never feel warm again. I’d almost forgotten what heat felt like.
More half-ruined buildings dot the shore. A figure stands against a crumbling wall in front of me, and is that a tail? That’s definitely a long, furry tail attached to a furry body with a furry face, and two pointed ears framing a ginger hair ridge that almost makes me jealous of the remnants of mine that I just shaved off. A well-dressed cat person, so this must be an intelligent being of some sort and not a creature lying in wait to devour me.
“Ah, my friend from the beach!” the cat man says. At least, I think it’s a man. His chest is flat and his voice is deep, at least. Do cat women have six breasts, I wonder? “It’s good to see you awake,” he continues, oblivious to my distracted internal musing.
“It’s good to be awake,” I say. “Who might you be? I’m afraid if I encountered you before, I was too busy being unconscious after almost drowning to remember you.”
“This one is Razum-dar, a simple Khajiit.” Okay, so these weird cat people must be called Khajiit. Good to know. “And Raz has seen many things in his time, but people appearing out of thin air to drop into the ocean is a new one on him. Raz is wondering, where did you come from? And… keep your voice down.”
“My name is Nerevar,” I tell him quietly. “And I just escaped from Coldharbour.”
“Ah, the realm of the Lord of Domination? A dire tale, if true, and you do not sound mad to Raz.”
“Oh, I’m definitely mad,” I say. “I’m told I was trapped there for thousands of years.”
“A strange thing indeed,” Razum-dar says. “But you must not seem strange. You must blend in, and not draw attention to yourself. Just another typical high elf.”
“But I’m not a high elf,” I say. “I’m a Chimer. I’m told the Chimer are all gone now, though, so if I am to blend in, then an Aldmer I must pretend to be, I suppose.”
“Altmer,” Raz corrects me. “They do not call themselves Aldmer these days. Aside from the Aldmeri Dominion, and Raz does not know why that name was chosen.”
“Let me ask you one quick question first,” I say. “Does the name Almalexia mean anything to you?”
“Ah, yes. Raz believes she is one of the Living Gods of Morrowind, along with Vivec and Sotha Sil. Did you know her, as a Chimer?”
I scowl. “Morrowind.” Resdayn has a new name, I assume. And new gods? Those three are playing at being gods now? Ugh. “Yes. And since I would prefer to, as you say, blend in and avoid drawing too much attention to myself, it would perhaps be best for me not to use my true name. What would be a typical name for a high elf around here?”
“Hmm,” Raz muses, rubbing his fuzzy chin with a paw. “They tend to have at least three or four syllables. The male ones often end in ‘o’ or ‘il’ or ‘on’.”
I think for a few minutes. “How about… Neralion? Does that sound like a perfectly ordinary Altmer name to you?”
“Yes, Raz thinks that would do nicely. Just a perfectly ordinary Altmer soldier from a ship that was lost in a hurricane, washed ashore here.”
“Where is ‘here’ exactly, anyway?” I ask. “Am I in the Summerset Isles?”
Raz shakes his head. “No. This is Khenarthi’s Roost.”
“Is it a very long way from Res—Morrowind?”
“The other side of Tamriel, yes,” Raz says, not commenting on my slip of the tongue. “Khenarthi’s Roost is located off of the southern coast of Elsweyr.” At my continued blank look, he adds, “That’s on the south side of Tamriel. Would you like a map? Raz is certain there must be one around here somewhere.”
I chuckle. “Yes. A map would be very helpful.”
“Perhaps there is something you might be able to help Raz with, as well,” the Khajiit goes on. “He is here on a mission of some delicacy, and you are an outsider. Not one of the Aldmeri Dominion’s soldiers, but you can look like one. What do you say?”
“I literally have nothing better to be doing right at this moment,” I chuckle. “And as you say, blending in and acquiring a cover story would be… prudent.”
“Excellent!” Raz says. “Come, then. Let us go blend in, shall we?”
He turns tail and heads off into the… well, town is a pretty generous word for it. More like a camp set up amid the ruins. Some tents dot the area, presumably having better roofs than many of the buildings. The people around appear to be a mix of high elves and cat folk. I have no idea what’s going on or why these people are camping out in ruins like this, but I’m sure going to do my damnedest to pretend to.
Razum-dar leads me to an Altmer woman in sufficiently fancy armor to mark her as a captain or commander or whatever ranks they use around here. She’s introduced as Commander Karinith. I’m probably going to forget that name immediately.
“Ah, good to see you up and about, recruit,” Commander Karinith says. “We lost many good soldiers in that storm. What was your name again?”
“Nerelion,” I say, then clear my throat. “Excuse me. Neralion,” having to think for a moment and dammit I can at least not forget my own fake name. I clear my throat. “My name is Neralion, sir. Ma’am. Commander.” A thousand years in hell and I’ve already forgotten military protocol, too.
“Still a bit dazed from the wreck, I see,” Karinith says. “You seem less injured than most. If you’ve got your land legs about you, I’m in need of a scout.”
She talks about reports of activity from Maormer, or sea elves, which I don’t admit to her that I’ve never heard of before. I suppose it would stand to reason, though, as this was not the part of the world I ever operated in during my… past? Previous? Old life? I don’t know what to call it. Doesn’t matter, I suppose. Best get used to being Neralion, a perfectly ordinary Altmer soldier, for the time being at least.
“If I’m to go out scouting in potentially hostile territory, I’m going to need some new equipment,” I say. “I’m afraid I lost my axe in the drink.”
“Of course, recruit,” Karinith says. “We are short on supplies, after our ships went down, but you may be able to acquire new gear from one of the local merchants. Surely not as fine a quality as what you might find in Summerset, but it will suffice. Here is a small dispensary to cover your expenses. Make it worth it.”
Karinith points out where some of the merchants in question are, and I politely thank her. She also mentions a mage by the name of Ealcil or something like that who found something weird in a nearby temple, because of course mages are going poking around old temples. Since she seems to want me to talk to this fellow before going out scouting, Raz helpfully shows me where he is.
There is a rock hovering in the air above a well, shooting jets of water out in random directions. I groan internally. This must be the weird thing these mages found in the temple, that of course they pulled out without knowing anything about it. Ealcil extols its marvels to me as I approach, clearly looking for any excuse to extol at anyone within earshot that’s willing to listen for two minutes.
“We’ll need to construct a special room for it when we bring it back to the Mages Guild,” he says.
“What, so you don’t flood the Mages Guild?” I reply with a smirk.
“Yes, there’s that,” Ealcil says. “The Mourning Stone appears to have an endless supply of water.”
“Which means it would definitely flood something if you’re not careful,” I say. “Why is it called the Mourning Stone? Because it’s crying or something?”
“We found it in an old Khajiit temple called the Temple of the Mourning Springs,” Ealcil says.
“Did you run into any trouble there?” I ask.
“Ugh, after we brought out the Mourning Stone, our camp was overrun by undead,” Ealcil complains. “I don’t know why. It was probably just some ancient curse. There’s usually ancient curses involved in these sorts of things.”
I give him a look and bite my tongue to avoid going off on a rant on how careless and foolish they were to be going around blithely triggering ancient curses like it’s no big deal. They couldn’t have cautiously studied this stone where it was before determining if it was safe to move it or not first? It’s so very good to know that people delving into things they don’t understand and poking things they shouldn’t is still a constant in the universe. Hopefully this stone is less likely to come back to bite them in the ass than the Heart of Lorkhan.
Raz wants to speak with me in private at the edge of camp. Apparently the camp is named Eagle’s Strand, which is an awfully grandiose name for some tents and ruined buildings. I politely excuse myself from talking to the mage, before I say anything that will keep me from blending in, and go off after Raz.
“There now, your face is becoming familiar to people,” Raz says. “They will be used to you and not question seeing you around.”
“It was very, very difficult not to smack that mage back there,” I grumble.
“Ah, yes, they do have a tendency to do some risky things in the name of research. Raz admires your restraint. Best to be able to walk away than to wind up in the stocks for assault, yes? There are much better opportunities for people with mysterious origins.”
“A historian would probably be very, very interested in what I know, but I’m not telling them a damned thing,” I say. “I don’t need that sort of attention, and in any case, thousands of years in Coldharbour has left my memory a bit fuzzy. Best to focus on the here and now.”
“Indeed,” Raz agrees. “These undead Ealcil and his researchers unwittingly unleashed are a threat to the whole island. And those Maormer pirates, the Sea Vipers they call themselves, have been poking their noses around very suspiciously. If you were to help out in one way or another, people would surely be grateful and less likely to question where precisely it was that you came from, yes? And the locals would surely be more likely to believe that the Aldmeri Dominion means well for them, and not that we are here to conquer them and take what we want.”
“Right,” I say dubiously. “Well, I don’t know about the Aldmeri Dominion, but I definitely know about hitting things. Though before I do anything else, I’m going to find someone who will sell me a new axe.”
“Once you are done with whatever you wind up doing, meet Raz at the town to the north called Mistral. He has work to be done there that requires less hitting things, though it may wind up leading into other opportunities to hit things depending on how matters go.”