Part 2 - Did it hurt when you Vvardenfell from heaven?
Part 3 - Breaking chains, helping dames, and… spying games?!
And we’re back! See previous parts for intro if you need it.
Pol awakens to find that Cosades has joined him in the bed as the big spoon. Aided by the man’s drug-addled stupor, Pol extricates himself and exits to the streets of Balmora. With scant direction, Pol decides to take a walk around town. He notices that no one much seems to mind if he rifles through the boxes and baskets lining the outer walls of the city’s buildings. Between the many containers, Pol gathers up a hearty breakfast, a double handful of petty soul gems, and a fair bit of spare change.
Having found a soul trapping scroll in the smugglers’ cave, Pol pops outside town and uses it to fill one of the gems with the petty soul of a scrib. Taking the chance to speak to a few people as he resumes his walk, Pol learns that the hill on the west side of town houses the better shops in town, as well as the local temple. From what he’s heard out of Cosades and the others so far, he feels that the Fighters’ Guild may best fit his past training, but wonders if learning more of the local religion might help ingratiate him with the locals.
Taking note of the available shops and the location of the Fighter’s Guild, Pol decides to save his coin and investigates the temple. The building is impressive, with sweeping curves rather than the sharp angles of an Imperial chapel. Inside the temple, an initiate has surprisingly little to say about his temple or religion, but does pass on a rumor that the local magistrate is corrupt, and that a Larrius Varro at nearby Fort Moonmoth is working to expose him. Pol isn’t sure he wants to get any more involved in Imperial politics than he already seems to be, but notes the information just in case. Pol also notes that the initiate sells a number of blessed shield and magical scrolls.
Deeper inside the temple, Pol finds shrines to a few saints, as well as to something called the Tribunal. Poll finds that one of the priests offers to teach spells, and learns an invigorating cantrip to restore his stamina. He leafs through some of the holy books on display, finding another reference to Vivec, as well as a possible contemporary, a Sotha Sil. The religion appears to be largely based in ancestor worship, and many of the books lessons told by way of brief stories illustrating a moral. One tale, bizarre and brutal though it is, intrigues Pol for its focus on a mythical spear that this man Vivec crafts. At the end of the book, he notices again that unfamiliar word from the scrolls he’d purchased: ALMSIVI. He sees it again in another lesson of Vivec that leaves him with surprising insights on fighting unarmored.
Setting aside the books, lest he read all afternoon, Pol strikes up conversation with another priest. To his surprise, he is asked if he’d like to join the temple’s congregation. Pol had not expected that such an insular people, and one worshiping their ancestors, would accept an outsider. Though… if they will have him, this could help ease the tensions between himself and some of the less accepting Dunmer. And, in a way does he not already worship his ancestors through the Hist? And some of the man Vivec’s teachings have already started speaking to him…
He accepts. Caius had told Pol to join up with some group, why not the temple? He could always seek admission to the Fighter’s Guild later, when his muscles had better caught up to his memory. He’s told that his first duty is to make a pilgrimage to seven shrines and receive their blessings, and given a guidebook to get him on his way. He notices the first shrine is the one in the Fields of Kumma, where he’d escorted the woman on the road. A simple start then, he knew where that was. He still wasn’t sure what the Tribunal was though. Seeking a blessing at the shrine anyway, to fit the local custom, he noticed tree names inscribed on the shrine. The first was Vivec, the one he’d heard the most of. The second was that name Sotha Sil again, and the third was a new one, Almalexia. Specific heroic ancestors they all worshipped? It seemed Vivec at least was certainly a man of mythical proportion.
On his way out of town, Pol stops in at what appears to be some sort of soup shop and buys some basic cooking implements of his own. He’s not quite able to intuitively recall the subtleties of each unfamiliar ingredient yet, but he’s eager to start experimenting, and even manages to successfully make two jars of soup himself that should provide energy on the road.
Pol returns to the Fields of Kummu the way he’d come, noticing this time that some of the road signs read “Vivec”. So the man Vivec had a city as well as a place in the religion? Reaching the shrine, Pol sees that he is to leave on offering of that awful muck from the story. Remembering the nearby island, Pol retrieves some and receives his blessing. Checking the guidebook, Pol is intrigued to see that his next destination is the city of Vivec. There he’ll need to donate a levitation potion. Pol already has one, so he heads back toward the Vivec signpost he’d seen before.
Checking his map along the way however, he noticed that the walk to Vivec would take him nearly straight through Pelagiad again. He’d hate to run into Ahnassi without being able to let her know he’d solved her problem. Gnarr Mok was supposed to be quite a hike up the coast, but someone in Balmora had made mention of a nearby fishing village called Hla Oad nearby. Perhaps he could hire a boat there. If nothing else, he could get better directions and swim from there rather than hike overland. Heading back to Balmora, he followed the river southwest to the coast. Spotting a campfire just off the road, Pol meets a pir of egg miners on break. Pol decides he’s better off not asking how one mines eggs, and moves the conversation to other topics. They provide him some interesting information about the temple. It seems that every few years, one of the Ashland Dunmer is proclaimed “Nerevarine”, the reincarnation of one of their other mythic heroes, Lord Nerevar. It sounds like the Nerevarine inevitably riles up the Ashlanders doing the whole mad prophet thing, and the temple has to put them down to restore order. Pol can understand the potential issues with having a madman like that running about, but wonders if perhaps the best way to make sure there are less followers for the next “Nerevarine” might be to simply let them prove themselves as charlatans when their mythical powers fail to ever materialize.
Rounding the bend in the road at the river’s end, Pol almost thinks he’s back home for a moment. Hla Oad is nestled in quite a lovely patch of swamp, it seems. The town itself is little more than a collection of fisherman’s shacks, but Pol does find a small tradehouse among them, and buys a lantern to better light the dark roads he’s been traveling lately. He discovers that he can indeed charter a boat from here to Gnarr Mok, and to his surprise, he can ferry to Vivec as well. Perhaps he’ll head to Vivec by way of Hla Oad after his business in Gnarr Mok, and visit Ahnassi in Pelagiad afterward. He give s the boatwoman a few coins, and they head north for Gnarr Mok.
Gnarr Mok proves to be barely more of a settlement than Hla Oad, boasting only a small stonework manor in addition to its collection of shacks and hovels. Pol locates the shack where he was told Daren Adryn stays, and heads inside. By luck or aother blessing from the hist, he does not have to look hard. Adryn is the first person Pol meets walking inside. The man claims to have no knowledge of Ahnassi, a clear lie, and when pressed further he chooses violence. Pol is distressed to note that the man’s three or four criminal associates make to join the fight as well. Weaving and hopping, Pol manages to slay Adryn, and even to snatch his enchanted blade before he hits the floor. In no mood to test his mettle against a crowd, Pol ducks out of the shack and sprints back to the boat. Shoving gold into the boatwoman’s hand, he starts untieing the boat from the dock himself without even waiting for a response. Safely back in Hla Oad, he conducts a more standard negotiation for passage to Vivec, then nestles into a nap on the boat’s deck as the waves rock him to sleep.
Level 3! Still not the best multipliers, but whatever. I’m not keen on sitting there spamming anything other than jump while I’m running and feasting on alchemy ingredients. I should probably practice spells more too, but mana’s still fairly limited.
The bitter Coast had such a good atmosphere! I believe there’s an ebony short sword stuck into the rocks above Odai plateau I can never resist to take when I’m in that area.
