The mysterious Groundskeeper of the Hollow City inferred that the tower resembling the White-Gold Tower to the west is where Molag Bal has been holding the Ayleid king prisoner. As much of assholes as the Ayleids frequently were, I can’t help but feel empathy toward the former king of a dead race being imprisoned in Coldharbour, regardless of how much I think the Ayleids probably had it coming.

  Along the way, we come upon an abandoned campsite with a few red-striped tents. There’s a journal penned by one of the Fighters Guild captains laying (or is it lying?) by a still-smoldering campfire. It notes that they’d gone off to do something and left a trail to follow. Sees-All-Colors is with them, and she insisted that they needed to get into that tower.

  “This does not seem like the most wise of decisions, but I suppose I cannot talk,” Merry says. “I was, after all, unable to convince Telenger that exploring a mysterious Ayleid ruin in Coldharbour without you was not a good idea. Perhaps next time he will be more willing to listen.”

  “I’m touched at your confidence.”

  “If we had found something worth fighting, you would have been disappointed to have missed it,” Merry adds.

  “Ah, that’s okay,” I say. “There will always be more Daedra. Often the same Daedra, for that matter.”

  “The water here looks so weird,” Eran says, looking at a shimmering ice-blue pool.

  “That’s not water,” I say. “It’s azure plasm.”

  Eran frowns. “It certainly seems to be everywhere. What is it?”

  “It’s what Daedra respawn from after they die,” I say. “And Vestiges. Soul-Shriven. I can’t begin to remember how many times I crawled naked out of these pools.”

  Eran edges away from the pool warily. “You mean there could be Daedra reforming down there right now?”

  I shrug. “Maybe. Doesn’t matter much.”

  We head through the forest of scraggly ash-blue trees and glowing round fungi. It all feels achingly familiar in a way I don’t want it to feel familiar. I watch Eran’s and Merry’s expressions. Their wariness, wonderment, and steely determination. The faces of people who haven’t yet seen so much of Oblivion that it becomes familiar. What will that be by the time we’re done here? It’s not so much different from their reactions to Valenwood and everything there trying to kill us. By the time we finished with Reaper’s March, we’d gotten a groove going.

  At the next marker the fighters left, we stumble upon a Bosmer woman in dark leather who is also following their trail. She introduces herself as Faraniel and informs us that her tribe, the Shadow Walkers, have declared us all trespassers and will probably try to kill us.

  “Wait, your tribe?” Eran says. “Trespassers? But you’re Bosmer. You live here in Coldharbour?”

  “I can give you a history lesson later,” Farry says. “First we have to find your friends before they get killed.”

  “Agreed,” I say. “I don’t think they’d expect to be attacked by Bosmer.”

  Farry goes off in a different direction (possibly using actual magic to hide in the shadows) and we continue on. At the next Fighters Guild marker, we’re attacked by a pair of overconfident Bosmer dressed in similar shadowy leather, who think they’re going to inflict some penalty on us for entering the Moonless Walk (which is what I suppose this place is called).

  “Merry, if you would?” I ask.

  “Of course,” Merry says, and turns the two hapless Bosmer to stone. “Hopefully you will not forget where we left them. Or are we taking them with us?”

  “How many statues can you fit in your pack?” I ask.

  Merry sighs and pulls out his bag. “Possibly the entire tribe, if necessary.”

  “They’d be very confused if we took them back to Valenwood and unstoned them,” Eran says as we collect the two statues.

  “This might count as kidnapping, but considering they’re Daedra worshippers who attacked us…” Merry says.

  When we meet up with Farry again next to a dead human, she gives us a summary of why her people are here. They’d made an unwise deal wtih Molag Bal long ago to guard this forest in exchange for power and immortality. They had no idea that he had no intention of ever following through and releasing them once they’d served long enough. I feel like I ought to write a book on which Daedric Princes are likely to fuck you over in which ways. It can go along with the ones on appropriate safeguards for cursed items and the truth about vampirism.

  “Why does Molag Bal need this forest guarded by Bosmer?” Eran wonders. “Aren’t there enough Daedra around here?”

  “I don’t know,” Farry says. “Something about that tower over there. But I’m tired of being trapped here. I want to see Valenwood again.”

  “At least you’re not in chains,” I say. “I understand. I can help. I can take you back there right now if you want, in fact.”

  “My tribe may not be so eager to go along with that,” Farry says. “But they need to know that the option exists. And I don’t want anyone else to get hurt. We need to convince them to go along with it, break the agreement, reject Molag Bal’s false promises, and get out of here.”

  After tracking through the forest, we locate the surviving fighters (Sees-All-Colors and a Khajiit named Kamu), who are being protected from the over-aggressive Bosmer by some snake-like Lamia. Lamias? I’m not sure whether it’s supposed to have an S. Whatever, the people here mostly seem to be using the S.

  Sees-All-Colors is badly injured and I start healing before she even says anything. “Comrades. Glad to see familiar faces in this dark place. You are the sun on my scales.”

  “Literally,” Eran says brightly.

  “I’m out of magicka now, but that should at least get you on your feet again and keep anything from getting worse,” I say. “What’s the situation?”

  “Hostile Bosmer ambushed us from the shadows,” Sees-All-Colors says. “We lost a couple of good fighters before we realized the danger. Kamu and I made it this far, but the way into the tower is sealed. The Lamias tell me that they know a way in.”

  “You don’t need to side with those monsters!” Farry says. “I can help you get inside, too, if you can help convince my tribe to reject Molag Bal and get out of here.”

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  I sigh. “There’s no need to be racist. They’re no more monsters than this Argonian here.”

  Farry scowls at that. “We’ve been at war with one another for as long as I can remember. My people will never listen to you if you side with them.”

  “There’s only two sides here,” I say. “Molag Bal, and everyone else. It’s very likely he manipulated the both of you into this conflict for his own entertainment and to keep you from uniting against him.” I shake my head. “I don’t think I have much hope of convincing your elders of that if I can’t even convince you of it, though, and I don’t currently have time to unravel ages of hatred.”

  The Lamias and Bosmer hate one another. Convincing them to work together would be a task worthy of me, I think, but may not be feasible to accomplish in the necessary time frame. Maybe I can get the Bosmer out of here first and then come back to deal with the Lamia once their enemies are out of their hair. Scales. Whatever. I just need to make sure not to completely alienate them.

  Farry tells me that we will need to perform an honor deed to get her tribe to even listen to us instead of shooting us on sight. And she thinks this will require hurting the Lamias. She even suggests destroying their eggs. That sort of thing would likely prevent me from making any sort of deal with them in the future.

  “Do your people have any desires beyond ‘Molag Bal is awesome’ and ‘Lamias suck’?” I say. “Aren’t there any Daedra they want to see dead?”

  “I suppose we haven’t really given much thought to other things,” Farry says. “The Daedra don’t tend to bother us too much.”

  I sigh. “What would your people do if they simply suddenly found themselves back in Valenwood?”

  “I’m… not sure,” Farry says. “They probably would be less happy about it than if they’d willingly broken Molag Bal’s bargain. They might think he had returned them to Valenwood himself.”

  “Does your tribe seriously believe that he would let you go?” I ask. “If he actually did, it would only be after he’d thoroughly wrecked Valenwood. He has been making a concerted attempt at fucking up Nirn lately, which is why we’re even here.”

  “I know,” Farry says with a sigh. “I heard about the Planemeld. But we have to convince them of that, and they won’t even let you get close unless you perform an honor deed and impress them.”

  I rub my forehead. “I could readily just go up to them and non-lethally disable anyone that tries to stop me from doing so. And we can take them back to Nirn to show them a fucking Dark Anchor in person if that’s what it would take to convince them.”

  “I’m… not sure how well that would go over,” Farry says dubiously. “How would you disable them?”

  Merry opens his pack and levitates a statue out of it. “Like so. He’s perfectly fine and I can cancel the spell at any time.”

  “The alternative was having to kill him because he was stupid enough to attack us,” I add.

  “Sometimes I feel that I have incinerated fewer people than I have turned to stone to keep them from getting hurt.” He returns the statue to his bag.

  “What are you going to do with him?” Farry asks.

  “Restore him once we’re sure your people aren’t going to hurl themselves at us anymore,” I say.

  “I… suppose that’s fair,” Farry says. “If he attacked you, then I’ve got to thank you for not hurting him. But the council still isn’t going to trust you if you don’t show you support them in some way.”

  “I’m going to outright refuse to murder children just because they belong to a race you think are ‘monsters’,” I say. “And if you guys have been killing children, it’s no wonder the Lamias hate you.”

  Farry grouses a bit. “I… suppose, if you look at it that way…”

  “I’m going to go talk to the Lamias for a moment,” I say. “Don’t take this as a sign that I’m going to ‘side with’ them. I just need more information.”

  Farry scowls unhappily at that but doesn’t protest further.

  According to the Lamia whose name I have no hope of spelling, the Wood Elves had kidnapped their eggs and are holding them hostage, and they want me to help rescue them. I wish I had Ilara-daro along. While I’m perfectly capable of sneaking when necessary, getting through that without turning most of the Bosmer to stone would be difficult. Mostly because I’m annoyed enough to want to hurt them now.

  “Farry,” I say, returning to her. “Look. While I sympathize with your people for being gullible… a bit… I can’t condone kidnapping children.”

  Farry sighs. “I know, that doesn’t look good, does it. Please try not to hurt any of my tribesfolk. I know you’re capable of it. I’ll go with you if you do. I’m sneaky and good with a bow. You could use someone like me!”

  I nod. “Alright. I’ll probably wind up just dumping them somewhere in Valenwood. Preferably within sight of a Dark Anchor.”

  “That sounds fair,” Farry says. “I’m sure they’ll realize how futile the pact is once they see for themselves what’s going on.”

  I promise the Lamia to get their eggs back, and head into the Wood Elf village. I only bother to be stealthy enough to catch a few of them at a time rather than attract the attention of the entire tribe at once. One by one, statues join the others in Merry’s pack, and then a few more into Eran’s pack once Merry’s can’t hold anymore.

  “You won’t get away with kidnapping our tribesfolk!” says one of them.

  “What, like you were kidnapping the Lamias’ eggs?” I say. “Don’t kidnap children. It’s annoying.”

  We return the Lamias’ eggs to them and collect a good portion of the tribe as statues. The remainder, after having seen how their comrades were faring, wisely decide to surrender.

  “Your tribemates are fine and will be returned to Valenwood, which is more than Molag Bal ever intended,” I say. “He didn’t even intend there to be a Valenwood to return to.”

  They’re all alarmed at the prospect of the Dark Anchors destroying Valenwood, and did hope to be able to return there once their oath was fulfilled. As it turns out, the tribal council is pretty easy to convince once we’ve violently proven that we are thoroughly capable of kicking their asses. These people submitted to Molag Bal after watching him smash shit once, so I didn’t expect them to be as stubbornly stalwart as Stendarr worshippers.

  “Stop alliterating, Neri,” Eran mumbles next to me.

  There’s another wayshrine nearby as well, which I light with some relief. It was probably brought in along with this tower, I suppose. And the broken bridge that’s mostly floating in the air in pieces. There’s quite a lot of stuff around here that was pulled in from Nirn. Molag Bal has made quite the collection and the only real difference between this and the Planemeld is the sheer scale. Even if the Planemeld is stopped, he’ll still have swiped plenty of bits and pieces before then.

  “Hmm, let’s see, a wayshrine close to a dolmen site so we don’t need to walk too far…” I muse aloud, looking through the network of lights and trying to remember what’s around what place. “Ah, this one will do.”

  We wind up having to stone the remainder of them aside from Farry before I can teleport the group to the wayshrine north of Silvenar, within spitting distance of a dolmen. There’s no Dark Anchor down at the moment, but it’s only a matter of time. In the meantime, we start pulling out statues and de-stoning them. (I kept the cooperative ones in my pack to distinguish them from the ones who might still think we’re fighting.)

  “What’s going on here?” asks one of the mercenaries that are currently holding the line here.

  I vaguely recognize that they’re with the group of mercenaries the nearby Khajiit trading post had hired for guards. And that I still need to assassinate someone who was fucking with the Baandari once I can spare the time to get to Anvil. (Hopefully they’re still in Anvil.) I explain the situation to them while the Shadow Walkers are busy being awed at their sudden and unexpected return to Valenwood.

  “Well, these idiots are gonna get a show here pretty soon,” Lariole says.

  About half of the tribe has been restored by the time cultists teleport into the dolmen. The mercenaries immediately charge over and kill them, but the Anchors trigger on any sacrifice, even that of limitless stupid cultists. (I can only assume Molag Bal keeps spitting them out once he takes their souls so they can continue stupidly sacrificing themselves. Maybe turning all the cultists to stone might stop the Planemeld, too? Or at least inconvenience Molag Bal.)

  A wail splits the sky along with the thunder of falling chains. The Shadow Walkers, already surprised at suddenly being back in Valenwood, are utterly shocked at seeing the Dark Anchor.

  Anyway, long story short, we leave the Shadow Walkers there to get re-acquainted with Valenwood. The Green Lady herself even makes an appearance because the Silvenar detected something weird going on nearby and sent her to check it out.

  “What’s this now?” the Green Lady asks, looking over the puzzled and distressed tribe that we’re still bringing out and restoring.

  “Some wayward souls who found themselves in a dark place at a dark time and were deceived,” I say. “I felt that my point would be made better by showing them for themselves what’s going on.”

  “So you brought their entire tribe here, as statues in your bags?” the Green Lady asks incredulously.

  “Yep. Oh, look, the Anchor’s dropping again.”

  Once we’ve restored all the Shadow Walkers and left them in the capable of hands of the Green Lady, I return to Coldharbour with Eran, Merry, and Farry. I just wish I had Ilara with me instead. Farry isn’t nearly as snarky.