64: "Any More Questions?"
“I’m glad you asked.” The Dark One’s voice rang through my head with full clarity, and it was almost comforting to have him back. “Suffice it to say, I lost control for a moment there. Things are much better now, thank you.” His voice was now irritatingly calm, and it took all the willpower I had to not explode with fury.
“Ok,” I said, grinding my teeth. I calmed down and just thought instead of speaking. “Ok. You’re going to explain now. Explain everything. Start at the beginning and go from there. I have time.” I pushed Artan’s shivering body off of me and walked into a room full of beds. I undid my satchel and dug around for a clean robe and some soap. A basin full of water would have to suffice for cleaning me off. “You may begin at anytime,” I said. “I’m waiting.”
The Dark One’s mind let out a sigh. “Very well,” he thought. “Perhaps I should begin with my birth.”
“I was born much earlier than you might have guessed. The first era of Tamriel, year 12. Oh yes, I am that old. My mother was Chimer, as was my father, though I never saw much of him. They were hard times. He was often out hunting Nix hounds or wild guar. We lived on the eastern coast of the main continent of Morrowind, near where Salen Vulgate is today. My parents were gifted sorcerers, especially for the time, and they taught me well. By the time I was 10 I had surpassed my mother and was nearly equal to my father in the mystic arts. He took me hunting often, and we ate quite well. Still, it just wasn’t enough for me. My skills reached a plateau as soon as my parents had taught me everything they knew, but I sought more. I left them when I was 15, with their blessing, and made my way to Vvardenfell. I spent a great deal of time there on my own, learning and increasing my skills. I lived in a cave most of the time, but I was able to get what I needed for my experiments from the surrounding countryside. I was more than a match for anything out there, and by the time I was 150 I had attracted a great deal of attention from mages across Morrowind. I took on several students as assistants, and I made great advances in magic. Mysticism is almost entirely my creation, and those magnificent towers the Telvanni live in are fruits of my labor. I grew my own tower, you see, and brought in many more students and retainers. Soon my first students were teaching a whole new generation of students, and my tower had grown hundreds of feet in the air. I took on many servants and housed them in my tower, but eventually I had to train the tower to grow out and create houses for students who wanted more privacy. The Dwemer weren’t too happy about my presence there, however, and I’m sorry to say that I may have had something to do with their breaking from the pact with Lord Nerevar. You see, Nerevar had come to me many times for advice as he struggled to unify the Chimer and the Dwemer, and I helped him as much as I could. He was a good kid, and I knew he would do great things. That bastard Kagrenac had to go and ruin everything.
“You see, I was not picky about who I taught. Chimer and Dwemer lived and studied together peacefully in my tower. In fact, it was there that Nerevar got the idea that unification could work. Anyway, Kagrenac was one of my students. He was good at what he did, though his specialty was in engineering, as all Dwemer. I took little interest in those studying in my tower by the time he came through, I was too busy in my own experiments and I let the other teachers take care of the students. But when I heard about Kagrenac’s tools, many years later, I was shocked. It was profane what he had created, and I advised Nerevar to demand they be destroyed. Of course, this helped widen the break between Lord Nerevar and the Dwemer King Dumac. The war was long and bloody, and I contributed my powers to Nerevar. I was there on Red Mountain when the whole thing went to hell. Kagrenac used the tools. How, I cannot say, but the Dwemer just started disappearing. Not all at once, but it didn’t take long. Most of them disappeared with little more than a flash, but some exploded quite violently. In any case, the battle was over, and we weren’t sure whether we had won or lost.
“Nerevar found the tools and brought them before his four greatest advisors. His wife, Almalexia, and the others. Vivec, Sotha Sil, and Dagoth Ur. They wanted to use the tools, but Nerevar wouldn’t hear of it. He was going to bring them to me to be destroyed. They betrayed him. The fetchers killed him in cold blood and took the tools for themselves. Naturally I tried to stop them, but by the time I had heard of it, they were already declaring themselves living gods. I fought them, but how could I fight gods, even as powerful as I was? It is their fault we Dunmer are as dark as we are. Azura’s curse destroyed the Chimer, and the Dunmer were born. The Tribunal was further betrayed by Dagoth Ur, but I was gone by then. I had given up on Vvardenfell and Morrowind. I abandoned my tower to my students and escaped before the Tribunal could hunt me down. My students were faithful though, and they carried on my teachings for millennia to come. They even named themselves after me. Indel Telvana is my name, and I am the father of House Telvanni. Of course it wasn’t easy to leave them behind, but I had to, for my own safety. The Tribunal never found me, but then they didn’t need to. They cursed me from afar, making my skin even blacker than before while reversing Azura’s curse on themselves. Since then I have wandered Nirn, looking for ways to increase my power even as it is sapped by old age. I found ways to restore myself, of course, and I’m happy to say I defeated death, though not without cost. My existence on this plane is very fragile, even moreso since my encounter with you.
“You were quite a specimen, you know that? In all my years of studying I have never met another like you. That is why I trapped you in that pocket dimension, though you made short work of escaping from that. You see, I have kept myself on this world by taking others off of it. Not by killing them, of course, but by sapping them of their energies. I learned quickly that if I did this on the mortal plane they would die very quickly, but if I removed them from Nirn entirely and took their energies, they could live quite a long time themselves. I collected many interesting and unique specimens over the millennia, and they were all quite safe before you came along. Now they are undoubtedly very scared, trapped in a dark void beyond my reach. I don’t plan on leaving them there, you know. I will get them back. In any case, you ruined everything. Now I cling to Nirn by the thinnest of threads, and the slightest bump from the Aetherius plane can quite make a mess out of things. Which brings me to what happened today.
“That little outburst you had out there was quite fortuitous, really. Saved your life and all that. But it really messed me up, as I’m sure you noticed. The force of the magic from that explosion blew me out of your body entirely. Out of the Staff even. I was knocked around like a butterfly in a hurricane, bouncing from body to body (most of which were dead Dremora, I’d just like to mention), until I found myself in the only living thing nearby. Initially I thought it was you, but to be honest there was too much space in that man’s head. He hasn’t seen a quarter of what you’ve seen in your life, and he was missing the distinguishing characteristic that made you so interesting to me in the first place. Still, I was stuck there, and I knew it wouldn’t hold me for long. It was roomier than your head, but not really built for two. So I spent a great deal of time trying to figure out how to get back to your head. In the meantime, you were out wrestling with my staff, which was desperately trying to find me. You see, all the time I’ve spent in this piece of metal has left sort of an imprint on it. It’s not sentient or even particularly intelligent, but it does have a mind of sorts. My mind. So when I suddenly disappeared it got rather upset and started looking for me. Like a stressed dog, it started shedding, but instead of shedding fur it was expelling particles of magic-hungry metal. That’s why it was so keen on the Nerevarine. He’s practically made of magic, and so it affected him rather strongly. You escaped from the worst of it because the staff was used to you. At least, that’s the best description I can come up with. I’m not quite sure what went on when you grabbed the staff, but it could have been trying to bring your mind into itself as a replacement for me. You seem to have reprimanded it well enough for it to stop shedding and pull itself together, quite literally. I was still stuck in Artan until I could propel myself onto you, and then I was quite surprised to find you weren’t carrying the staff. As I have said, your mind isn’t roomy enough for the both of us, and the staff carries most of my mentality. I’m glad you got your hands on it in time or you might have permanently damaged your brain. And now here we are.”
He seemed to breathe in for the first time during the story. Obviously he didn’t need to breathe, but it was a pause that had an air of relief. “Any more questions?”
“Ok,” I said, grinding my teeth. I calmed down and just thought instead of speaking. “Ok. You’re going to explain now. Explain everything. Start at the beginning and go from there. I have time.” I pushed Artan’s shivering body off of me and walked into a room full of beds. I undid my satchel and dug around for a clean robe and some soap. A basin full of water would have to suffice for cleaning me off. “You may begin at anytime,” I said. “I’m waiting.”
The Dark One’s mind let out a sigh. “Very well,” he thought. “Perhaps I should begin with my birth.”
“I was born much earlier than you might have guessed. The first era of Tamriel, year 12. Oh yes, I am that old. My mother was Chimer, as was my father, though I never saw much of him. They were hard times. He was often out hunting Nix hounds or wild guar. We lived on the eastern coast of the main continent of Morrowind, near where Salen Vulgate is today. My parents were gifted sorcerers, especially for the time, and they taught me well. By the time I was 10 I had surpassed my mother and was nearly equal to my father in the mystic arts. He took me hunting often, and we ate quite well. Still, it just wasn’t enough for me. My skills reached a plateau as soon as my parents had taught me everything they knew, but I sought more. I left them when I was 15, with their blessing, and made my way to Vvardenfell. I spent a great deal of time there on my own, learning and increasing my skills. I lived in a cave most of the time, but I was able to get what I needed for my experiments from the surrounding countryside. I was more than a match for anything out there, and by the time I was 150 I had attracted a great deal of attention from mages across Morrowind. I took on several students as assistants, and I made great advances in magic. Mysticism is almost entirely my creation, and those magnificent towers the Telvanni live in are fruits of my labor. I grew my own tower, you see, and brought in many more students and retainers. Soon my first students were teaching a whole new generation of students, and my tower had grown hundreds of feet in the air. I took on many servants and housed them in my tower, but eventually I had to train the tower to grow out and create houses for students who wanted more privacy. The Dwemer weren’t too happy about my presence there, however, and I’m sorry to say that I may have had something to do with their breaking from the pact with Lord Nerevar. You see, Nerevar had come to me many times for advice as he struggled to unify the Chimer and the Dwemer, and I helped him as much as I could. He was a good kid, and I knew he would do great things. That bastard Kagrenac had to go and ruin everything.
“You see, I was not picky about who I taught. Chimer and Dwemer lived and studied together peacefully in my tower. In fact, it was there that Nerevar got the idea that unification could work. Anyway, Kagrenac was one of my students. He was good at what he did, though his specialty was in engineering, as all Dwemer. I took little interest in those studying in my tower by the time he came through, I was too busy in my own experiments and I let the other teachers take care of the students. But when I heard about Kagrenac’s tools, many years later, I was shocked. It was profane what he had created, and I advised Nerevar to demand they be destroyed. Of course, this helped widen the break between Lord Nerevar and the Dwemer King Dumac. The war was long and bloody, and I contributed my powers to Nerevar. I was there on Red Mountain when the whole thing went to hell. Kagrenac used the tools. How, I cannot say, but the Dwemer just started disappearing. Not all at once, but it didn’t take long. Most of them disappeared with little more than a flash, but some exploded quite violently. In any case, the battle was over, and we weren’t sure whether we had won or lost.
“Nerevar found the tools and brought them before his four greatest advisors. His wife, Almalexia, and the others. Vivec, Sotha Sil, and Dagoth Ur. They wanted to use the tools, but Nerevar wouldn’t hear of it. He was going to bring them to me to be destroyed. They betrayed him. The fetchers killed him in cold blood and took the tools for themselves. Naturally I tried to stop them, but by the time I had heard of it, they were already declaring themselves living gods. I fought them, but how could I fight gods, even as powerful as I was? It is their fault we Dunmer are as dark as we are. Azura’s curse destroyed the Chimer, and the Dunmer were born. The Tribunal was further betrayed by Dagoth Ur, but I was gone by then. I had given up on Vvardenfell and Morrowind. I abandoned my tower to my students and escaped before the Tribunal could hunt me down. My students were faithful though, and they carried on my teachings for millennia to come. They even named themselves after me. Indel Telvana is my name, and I am the father of House Telvanni. Of course it wasn’t easy to leave them behind, but I had to, for my own safety. The Tribunal never found me, but then they didn’t need to. They cursed me from afar, making my skin even blacker than before while reversing Azura’s curse on themselves. Since then I have wandered Nirn, looking for ways to increase my power even as it is sapped by old age. I found ways to restore myself, of course, and I’m happy to say I defeated death, though not without cost. My existence on this plane is very fragile, even moreso since my encounter with you.
“You were quite a specimen, you know that? In all my years of studying I have never met another like you. That is why I trapped you in that pocket dimension, though you made short work of escaping from that. You see, I have kept myself on this world by taking others off of it. Not by killing them, of course, but by sapping them of their energies. I learned quickly that if I did this on the mortal plane they would die very quickly, but if I removed them from Nirn entirely and took their energies, they could live quite a long time themselves. I collected many interesting and unique specimens over the millennia, and they were all quite safe before you came along. Now they are undoubtedly very scared, trapped in a dark void beyond my reach. I don’t plan on leaving them there, you know. I will get them back. In any case, you ruined everything. Now I cling to Nirn by the thinnest of threads, and the slightest bump from the Aetherius plane can quite make a mess out of things. Which brings me to what happened today.
“That little outburst you had out there was quite fortuitous, really. Saved your life and all that. But it really messed me up, as I’m sure you noticed. The force of the magic from that explosion blew me out of your body entirely. Out of the Staff even. I was knocked around like a butterfly in a hurricane, bouncing from body to body (most of which were dead Dremora, I’d just like to mention), until I found myself in the only living thing nearby. Initially I thought it was you, but to be honest there was too much space in that man’s head. He hasn’t seen a quarter of what you’ve seen in your life, and he was missing the distinguishing characteristic that made you so interesting to me in the first place. Still, I was stuck there, and I knew it wouldn’t hold me for long. It was roomier than your head, but not really built for two. So I spent a great deal of time trying to figure out how to get back to your head. In the meantime, you were out wrestling with my staff, which was desperately trying to find me. You see, all the time I’ve spent in this piece of metal has left sort of an imprint on it. It’s not sentient or even particularly intelligent, but it does have a mind of sorts. My mind. So when I suddenly disappeared it got rather upset and started looking for me. Like a stressed dog, it started shedding, but instead of shedding fur it was expelling particles of magic-hungry metal. That’s why it was so keen on the Nerevarine. He’s practically made of magic, and so it affected him rather strongly. You escaped from the worst of it because the staff was used to you. At least, that’s the best description I can come up with. I’m not quite sure what went on when you grabbed the staff, but it could have been trying to bring your mind into itself as a replacement for me. You seem to have reprimanded it well enough for it to stop shedding and pull itself together, quite literally. I was still stuck in Artan until I could propel myself onto you, and then I was quite surprised to find you weren’t carrying the staff. As I have said, your mind isn’t roomy enough for the both of us, and the staff carries most of my mentality. I’m glad you got your hands on it in time or you might have permanently damaged your brain. And now here we are.”
He seemed to breathe in for the first time during the story. Obviously he didn’t need to breathe, but it was a pause that had an air of relief. “Any more questions?”
posted by Mindstroller at 12:11 PM
3 Comments:
A nice long chapter for everyone. Hopefully this clears up the mysteries surrounding Muthsera Telvana. I'm hoping to get another chapter up tonight, so keep your fingers crossed
Delightful!
Your blog keeps getting better and better! Your older articles are not as good as newer ones you have a lot more creativity and originality now keep it up!
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