» Fri Feb 18, 2011 10:53 pm ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have ruled these streets of Balmora for years. People whisper my name with fear and if they have offended a powerful neighbor they hardly ever go about on their own because of me. I am the one assassin free from the control of the Morag Tong and The Dark Brotherhood. I am the one who has brought the most powerful men in this pathetic city to their knees. I am the Dunmer Sedryn Teral.
I am THE SHADOW and this is my journal.
14 Morning Star
I had that dream again. It is that dream which has prompted me to write this journal. I consider myself to be a hard man, perhaps the hardest in Morrowind. This, however, has deeply shaken me.
It is always the same. It starts in a small village. I am a child and I am asleep when suddenly a loud explosion wakes me. I crawl off my bed and look out the window. The tavern across the street is burning. There are people surrounding it. They appear to be Imperial Guards. I can hear screams coming from the tavern. At that moment a Dunmer that is older than me rushes through my door. As far as I can tell he is a father figure, but outside of the dream I have no memory of him. He tells me to come with him and run. He says that the plans have been discovered and we must flee. We run out of the house and away from the burning tavern by dodging between houses so we are not seen. I can still hear screaming coming from it. I can’t imagine why the guards do not help the people in there. All they do is sit there and laugh. The father figure leads me down an alley we have gone into and pulls a ladder down from the wall. We climb it up to the roof and I can see the village gate. We are almost to it. We set off running across the roof I feel safe knowing that no one would think to look up here. The father figure still seems worried, though. As we make it to the end of the roof I learn why. A shadow moves and suddenly a Bosmer stands between us and freedom. The father figure seems shocked and freezes. That is all the time the Bosmer needs to pull a dagger from its sheath and run the father figure through. The Bosmer then kicks his body off the roof for good measure and turns his attention to me. He smiles malevolently and sheathes his dagger and then as quickly and silently as he appeared he is gone. After that, I wake up.
I don’t know if this is a memory resurfacing after I have subdued it subconsciously or if it is just a figment of my imagination. It could be either since I have no memory of my childhood. The one thing I do know is that the Bosmer has a name. That name is Fargoth.
15 Morning Star
I have had to put off the mystery of my dream as I have received an anonymous contract. I do not usually take anonymous contracts, but I was contacted through the correct ways and offered a very large sum of gold. Tonight someone shall not wake up from their sleep. I know not what their name is. I just know where to find them and as always, I will fulfill the contract.
16 Morning Star
Betrayal! This is not the first time something like this has happened, but this is the worst. I am currently writing this from a safe house outside of town.
Last night I entered the target’s house without problems. I proceeded to the target’s room and found him asleep. I prepared to end his life when the blasted guards burst from a hidden room behind a bookshelf. I would have surely been overpowered had I attempted to fight so I dived out the window and as I dropped managed to land in a haystack. The archers opened fire from the window so I barely had time to react. An arrow buried into my shoulder and I am still working on digging the head of it out. I took off and ran harder than I can ever remember. Fortunately the guards, being in their heavy armor, could not keep up with me and I escaped to this safe house.
I will find out whom this anonymous contract was sent by and when I do I will kill him. For now I must wait for the guard presence to die down. I will remain here in the safe hou… Damn! They come! How could they have found me? No one, but me knows of this place! I will attempt to hide this on my person and make my esca… Confiscated by the ranking officer of the guard in Balmora to be used as evidence against the criminal known on the street as The Shadow.
20 Morning Star
They’re everywhere! I can hear them, the voices. I can’t see them, but they are there none the less! Perhaps I am going mad. I pray to Azura that I am not. Ha, look at me praying to the Daedra. I have not done that in many years. Regardless, these last five days have revealed to me something I had long thought buried, fear. For the first time in many years I feel afraid. I feel afraid that more will happen to destroy my conscience. Perhaps writing about what has occurred will help. I must do it sooner or later and sooner is probably just as good since it will take a long time to write what has occurred over these past four days.
I was finishing my last entry and was about to sprint out the back door of the safe house when the wall to my left burst in to flames. The guards had brought a mage. There was nothing for me to do except to draw my weapon and fight. It appears they wanted me alive though, because at that moment an archer shot me with a poisoned arrow. I felt myself being lifted up by strong hands as the world went black.
When I awoke I realized that I was lying down on a table. Seconds later I realized that my hands and feet were bound by ropes to a machine. I was on a rack. It seems the guards were going to torture me, before they killed me. I surveyed my surroundings looking for a possible way to escape. I was in a damp and dark dungeon. There was a single torch as far away from me as it could be. It seemed the guards were taking no chances with me. One of the guards walked in. He smiled devilishly at me and without saying a word walked over to a crank on the left wall. He began to turn it and I felt a pain like I had never felt before. It seemed as if every fiber in my body was being pulled to its tearing point. Then as suddenly as it had started, it stopped. The guard walked over to me and I finally got a good look at his face. I recognized him immediately. Several years ago I was given a contract to kill a commoner. I don’t know what she did, but as always, I did the contract. When the deed was done and I was making an exit I heard a soft noise coming from a closet. I opened it and there sat this boy. He was around fourteen at the time and since I was not being paid to kill him I let the lad live. It seems that when he was old enough to join the guards he did and now I was in his hands. The look in his eye told me that he had not forgotten what had happened to his mother.
He told me that he would like to kill me here and now, but that he had orders to make me talk and then I was going to be executed publicly. He leaned closer to me and I could smell his breath. It had the stench of alcohol on it and I knew I would be very lucky if the man followed his orders to keep me alive. Then he asked what I knew about the plot. I said that I did not know what he was talking about so he went to the wall and began turning the crank again. Then he came back and asked the same question. I had no idea what he was talking about and after several tries to get me to talk about something I had no clue about he pulled out a knife and began making small cuts up and down my body. The pain was even worse than what I had experienced on the rack. He smiled demonically as I screamed in pain. Then he said something that shocked me almost as much as the torture.
He said, “Dammit! Tell me now what you know of the rebels you scum! Tell me now Sedryn Teral!”
I don’t know what was more of a shock, hearing my true name or hearing of rebels. Only two people knew my true name as far I knew, the only person I had ever counted as a friend and me. I immediately dismissed the idea of her telling a guard my name, because she most likely was in a prison with no one connecting her to me and even if they did she would never tell them anything. The shock must have been obvious on my face, because realization dawned on his as he realized that I truly knew nothing about the rebels. I managed to stammer out questions of, how he knew my name and what rebels, but he just ignored me. He then asked what I knew about my father and I said I knew nothing. He laughed again and after going to the crank and turning it again he told me that now I would die without ever finding out what was going on. He said that he judged me to be the kind of person this would affect more than any more torture would and then he walked out. He was right. Another guard came in and released me from the rack. He then walked me down a hall lined with armed guards on both sides. They were still not taking any chances of me escaping obviously. We made it to our destination and he thrust me into a dark, damp, and cold cell with only a small bucket and a burlap sack in it. Even though it was very uncomfortable I fell asleep immediately.
I was woken in the morning by a guard who had brought my breakfast. He said nothing. He just handed me the piece of bread and a clay cup of water and left. Then the guard who had tortured me approached my cell gloatingly. He told me that tomorrow I was to meet the hangman’s noose and my miserable life was to be ended. I looked into his eyes without a saying a word and vowed silently and in vain to myself that tomorrow I would not swing from the tree and that if anyone were to die tomorrow it would be this pathetic N’wah. I managed a smile and he backed away seeming a little disturbed by the fact that I was smiling into the face of death and then he took off down the hall. I lay back on the burlap sack and tried to plan how I would escape. I could think of nothing even for all my attitude towards my tormenter. However, even as I attempted to make a plan to beat the unbeatable odds, in the back of my mind I kept trying to puzzle out what was going on even though I knew I would get no answers here.
The morning of my execution I woke to the laughter of the guards as a guard I had not seen before came and unlocked my cell. He carried a sack which would be put over my head when I swung from the noose. He told me to stand up and that it was time for my death. In the night I had come up with no plan to escape and so I had resigned myself to my fate. Once again guards lined the hall; they were not going to risk my escaping since my hanging was most likely highly publicized. Very likely entire families would be there, children in tow, to watch the infamous Shadow die. I was led down the hall and up some stairs.
At the top, a door was opened and I saw my first, and likely my last, glimpse of sunlight in two days. I stepped outside with my head held high and realized that I must have been lead through a secret passage from the cells since I was on the roof of the governor’s mansion. A gallows had been hastily erected on the roof so that everyone could see me. It seemed that everyone in the town was there. Elderly people, middle aged people, and even a large group of children who had clustered together to one side. As I was pushed toward the gallows the charges against me were being read by the captain of the guard. I kept my head held high as I walked towards the gallows. I had no remorse. What I did was a job, just like any other and most of my targets deserved what they got. A cliffracer called in the distance and I was surprised as it is very rare that a cliffracer came near Balmora. I remembered how my friend and I had used that call to communicate before she was captured. However, she was captured and was most likely in the prison of Ebonheart itself, though I did not know for sure where she was. That I could not help her was one of the few things I did regret about my life. I reached the gallows and the noose was put around my neck. The cliffracer called again, this time closer than it had sounded earlier. I looked around for the beast, but saw nothing. Then my tormenter came forward and I realized that he was to now be my executioner. He smiled again at me and pulled the burlap sack over my head. I could not see, but I could still hear. A drum roll began and I closed my eyes. Then the loudest and most distinct call of the cliffracer yet penetrated my ears and I knew immediately that it was no bird. That was our attack call, Elava Bara’s and mine. The one we had used when we worked together, before she was captured. I
knew that somehow she was here and that a rescue was now being attempted.
I heard the thud of something hitting wood, the surprised exclamation of the guard captain, and I felt the tension around my neck decrease. In one fluid motion I ripped the sack and noose from my head, tore the arrow from the wood of the gallows, stabbed my tormenter in the arm, and jumped off the roof into the crowd of people. I shoved people out of my way that would not move and ran through the crowd. I did not look back as I knew that the guards were likely chasing me. I saw my escape. Right behind the crowd I saw her. Elava was preparing some strange looking boat in the river. It appeared to be Dwemer made and I could only hope that it could move fast. I pretended to go out of the crowd so as to trick the archers that were undoubtedly preparing to fire at me. Then I turned back and I shoved my way into the crowd right as I heard my tormenter yell at the archers to fire arrows at me. I dived forward and out of the crowd of people. I heard the thud of the arrows hitting the ground. Yet again I had barely escaped death! I was elated, until I heard the wails of those whose loved ones had fallen and the cries of pain from those who had been hit and were still alive. I turned around and saw that the guards had stopped chasing me and just stood there in shock. My tormenter just stood there staring at me. I realized he did not care that the people were dead. He was mad that I wasn’t. There was so much blood… I looked and saw the accusing looks coming from the survivors. I knew it was my fault and at that moment I thought that I should just kill myself then and there. I was used to death, but never something like this, the coldblooded killing of so many people just to get at me. The guilt washed over me and I was just going to stand there and let the guards give to me what I deserved. Then something was dragging me. I looked and saw Elava pulling me to the boat. I told her to let me go; that I deserved to die. She promptly knocked me out and carried me to the boat so I would not struggle any more. I woke up in this cave where I am currently writing this.
When she realized I was awake, Elava came over and talked to me. Elava told me that after she had been caught she had spent several years in jail. She had been released however, because she was only a thief and they needed her cell for a murderer. She set out in search of me and heard rumors of someone called the Shadow in Balmora. She set out for Balmora and arrived yesterday. She learned I had been captured so she planned a rescue and stole my sword, dagger, and this journal back from the guards. Then she spent the night at the Council Club and came to my execution the next morning.
I said I was glad to see her, but I needed to be alone with my thoughts. She left me and I have been writing this ever since. I am not truly alone, though. I can still here them, the voices of the ones who died. I fear I will have to live with them all my life. Ah, Elava returns. She is now sitting next to me and trying to tell me it wasn’t my fault that so many people died for the only reason being to try to kill me. I can’t bring myself to agree with her on that, but I do agree with her on one thing. I am not the only one to blame for this. My tormenter must die. I will make sure he does and if I find this Fargoth person along the way then he shall die too. Then, after at least my tormenter is dead, I must die as well.
24 Morning Star
It’s been four days since I last wrote and not a whole lot has happened. The biggest thing is that the voices have died down. It seems that since I have promised to avenge them they will let have some peace. I can still hear them whispering occasionally, but it is nothing compared to the roar that it started out as. I have not left this cave except for the occasional gulp of fresh air as it seems the torture afflicted my body worse than I first believed and Elava still will not tell me where we are. When I go outside there is no river and the strange boat she used is nowhere to be seen. When I ask her about the boat she just ignores me or says that a friend owed her a favor and got us here by siltstrider. She has gone out every day in search of information on this Fargoth fellow. She insists on finding Fargoth even though I want to just go ahead and give those that were killed the vengeance they deserve. I believe that she has an idea of what I must do after my tormenter is dead and she wants to prolong it happening so she can convince me to throw that thought away. Though it is nice to see her again the fact the refuses to accept that I must do what I must do is rather annoying. Heh, speak of the devil. Here she comes now and she has an excited look on her face. I must put this down for now and write what she says later.
The news is excellent! She has finally found a lead on Fargoth. It is hard to believe that he is not actually a figment of my imagination. She said that while she was inquiring about him in a bar, she still won’t say where, a Dunmer suddenly had a scared look upon his face. So, on a whim, she decided to drop my last name to the man and see his reaction. The Dunmer immediately closed his mouth and refused to say anything on the subject except to tell her to search out the village of Mar Ghuul. After that he promptly left. After she came back here and informed me, we both racked our brains and scanned our maps, yet we could not even find a hint of a village named Mar Ghuul. Elava will go to wherever she goes tomorrow and see if she can find anything about this village that apparently does not even exist.
25 Morning Star
The news is good and bad. Elava has still not found a definite location of this village. She has instead found the location of a man who may be able to help us. He is a Dunmer hermit who lives in a shack near Suran, just on the edge of Molag Amur. She won’t tell me how she garnered this information. Also, I have finally learned that we were staying in a cave slightly north of the quarry near Caldera and that Caldera is where she got her information. The bad news is that I am currently writing this while lying underneath a bush, because it appears that while she was in Caldera someone visiting from Balmora recognized Elava from my rescue and informed the guards who tracked her to very close to the cave before she realized she was being followed. She led them off on a false trail to buy us a little time, but we still did not have much time before we would be found so we left at once. I hope that we have put enough distance between the guards as I am still not in any condition to put up much of a fight.
26 Morning Star
We have survived the night and will hopefully have no more trouble with the Caldera guards. Elava has doubled back several time leaving false trails and such to hide our true path. We are on our way to Gnaar Mok, hopefully staying ahead of the news of us. There we will buy passage on a ship south to Hla Oad where we will buy passage on a second ship to Ebonheart. However, we will not show up for that one and will continue on foot and possibly siltstrider. This way anyone who is still following us will hopefully believe we are going to Ebonheart.
I must admit, I am looking forward to that ship ride. We have not travelled on the roads for fear of guards and leaves and ground does not exactly make the best of bed. I must have grown soft after living a fairly comfortable life for so long as this does not even faze Elava. She insists on talking to me about what I must do after the death of my tormenter and I hate to admit it, but her arguments do have the ring of sense to them. I must be imagining it, but it seems that the voices even get quieter as she talks. It is as if they approve of what she says, but that is surely just my imagination. They must be avenged.
27 Morning Star
We have stopped travelling for tonight and it looks as if we will reach Gnaar Mok tomorrow. We would have reached there today had I not still been injured. At least Elava tells me I am. The cuts are beginning to shrink and I no longer feel the effects of the rack. Elava says, however, that my wounds will reopen if I strain too much and forces us to travel at a slow pace. I hope it is faster than the news of our exploits. During our time traveling I have had time to think. I mainly think about why the death of those people in Balmora affected me so much. After all, I am an assassin and I kill people for a living. So why did those deaths affect me so much? The only reason that I have been able to come up with is that I feel that I owe them a debt. They died so I could live, even if it was unwillingly. It seems even a cold and heartless assassin has a conscience. Now I have decided that I should spare my own life since it seems to me that if I didn’t then all those people would have died in vain. Elava is happy over my decision and it seems that the voices are too, since they now come even less. I will hunt down the one who was truly responsible for their deaths, my tormenter, as soon as I find Fargoth because the city of Balmora is undoubtedly on its highest alert and killing him would be nearly impossible. Now I must get some sleep so I can be ready for Gnaar Mok.
29 Morning Star
I am currently writing this from the brig of a ship full of pirates. I do not know where Elava is. I heard the pirates talking and they said they planned to take us over seas to be sold as slaves in Blackmarsh. I am able to write this, because I claimed this journal helped me cling to my sanity and the pirates knew they would get nothing for an insane slave, so after checking it they returned it to me with my writing quill.
This all started yesterday when we made it to Gnaar Mok. It seems that we were a little too slow as news of what had happened had already reached there. Thankfully they had no descriptions of us yet. All ships leaving Gnaar Mok were being in the harbor by the guards. This made finding a ship to sail on hard, but not impossible. We went to the docks and searched for a ship that was likely a pirate ship in disguise. Elava told me that in her time in Ebonheart she had learned that some pirate ships posed as ordinary ships and docked in normal towns when they needed supplies. They would likely have paid off the guards to let them leave when they want to. As untrustworthy as pirates are if we offered them the right amount we were sure we could gain passage on their ship and they were our only option. The trick was to tell them that they would receive half up front and when we reached our destination the rest would be taken from our home and paid to them. We managed to locate a crew of them that was leaving that night by asking some of the shadier looking people in the village. We secured passage on their ship through the way I described earlier and that night we set sail. We were each given separate cabins across from each other. We each went into our cabins and I immediately fell asleep on the bed. Later that night I heard a knocking at my door. I jumped from my bed and pulled the door open only to see Elava’s door close. I walked over to it and opened it. It took me only a matter of seconds to realize I had made a mistake. It appeared that the pirates had decided they could get more money for slave than what we were paying them. Elava was unconscious and was being held by a burly pirate with a knife at her throat. Then I felt the cold steel of one at mine. I voice from behind me told me that as I could see my companion’s life was in their hands and if I moved to resist she would die and then I would. I was greatly outnumbered and not willing to risk Elava’s life so I did not resist when they led me to the brig. They locked me in and I was reminded of my cell in Balmora. Later my bread and water was brought and I heard to pirates talking of how we were going to be sold in the Blackmarsh. As of now, things look bleak and I see no way out of this. I keep telling myself that one will present itself in time. It must, for Elava’s sake as much as mine.
1 Sun’s Dawn
A new year and already, I have been in so far over my head that I doubted that I would survive. Four days ago I had been captured by pirates and was to be sold as a slave. Two days ago I learned just how dire my situation actually was.
I told the pirate who brought my food to let me speak with the captain. The pirate laughed and told me that Senwyn spoke to no one he didn’t want to. It was then when I finally heard the captain’s name that I realized I was in the clutches of the most feared Dunmer pirate in the waters. Senwyn was as much a man of mystery as I had been in Balmora. He had an enormous bounty on his head and no one knew what he looked like, because he wore a cowl whenever he raided. The only thing anyone knew for certain about him is that he was a Dunmer. Many speculated that he used to be a Telvanni lord since he seemed to have astonishing control of the elements. When his ship made it out to sea no one could catch it, because a storm would wreck the chasers or a wind would blow Senwyn’s ship to safety.
After he told me who the captain was, the pirate gloatingly told me that I was not to be sold quite as soon as was initially believed. A noble from Cyrodiil was passing through the town of Suran on the eve of the New Year and that the pirates planned to be there. As hard as it was to believe I decided that if anyone could make it that far in just three days then it would be Senwyn. In fact, I hoped that we would make it there since that was my original destination. However, I was worried as well. I knew that after Suran Elava and I would have no chance of escape. We would have to escape there or be sold. So I attempted to make a plan that could utilize the incredibly small chance that we had. It was difficult without Elava to help me, but I managed to concoct a
simple plan that had a slight chance of working.
The eve of the New Year came rather quickly. As promised, we had reached Suran and the pirates were preparing for the raid. I was preparing as well. Every time my food had been brought I used the stone plate it was brought on to file one of the wooden legs of the cot I had been sleeping on before a pirate returned to take the plate back. I had managed to make a decent point. I felt the ship come to a stop and knew we docked. The noise of preparing pirates died down and soon the ship was quiet except for the conversation of the two pirates left on guard outside my door. I knew I had to act quickly for my plan to work so I broke the sharpened leg from the cot and dashed to the door as the earsplitting crack rang out. The door flew open and the pirates looked in to see what had made the noise. They saw me with the improvised stake and paused in shock. That pause was enough for me to knock them both to the ground. I pulled one of the pirates’ swords from his scabbard and stabbed him through his stomach. The other one jumped up and ran at me with his sword. He was obviously inexperienced with a blade and it took me only a matter of seconds to disarm him and then end his life. I brought up my hood and then did what I have been the master of doing for many years. I became one with the shadows. I hurtled down the hall, silently passing a couple of cooks along the way. I went up to the next deck and saw that this was the cabin deck where I assumed Elava was being held. I thought that I would have to look for the guards to figure out which room Elava was in so I could save her, but of course I underestimated her. As I reached the deck she was pulling a sword from the body of her guard. It seems the pirates had thought her to be a smaller threat than me since she only had one guard. We greeted each other, hugged, and started on our way to the top deck. On the way I briefly outlined the rest of the plan, which was admittedly not much. Essentially, we were going to try to sneak through the town using the roofs and alleys as going through the actual battle that was undoubtedly happening at this moment would be suicide since the guards
would probably take us for pirates and the actual pirates would try to kill us.
We made it to the top deck and leapt off the side. The din of the battle was deafening even under the water as we swam around to a dark part of the docks. We clambered onto the land and dodged through the shadows to a wall. As of yet we had not been spotted, but as luck would have it, the pirates began to retreat to the ship except a few who held their ground and were led by a masked man with a blade that had lightning running up and down it. This was Senwyn. He saw his men retreating and gestured at the dock. A lightning bolt crashed to the ground and ignited the docks stopping the pirates from retreating and in the process, illuminating everything near them, including Elava and me. With the realization that we were escaped prisoners a group of pirates made their way towards us. We drew our blades and charged to meet them. We killed them and the guards, seeing that we were fighting pirates, came and joined us. As inconspicuously as was possible Elava and I slipped farther and farther back away from the battle. If we could make it to the outskirts of town then we could flee towards Molag Amur and find the hermit’s house.
The pirates were in a state of confusion. They had not expected so many well trained guards. It seems that Senwyn decided that the situation was hopeless, but that he was not going to be taken captive because he fought his way to the center of town and had a ring of pirates form around him to protect him. Even as I kept retreating I could see the glow beginning to come from him. I realized something very bad was going to happen. I turned and told Elava that we needed to run, now. We took off and just made it to the walls of the city as two massive lightning bolts struck. One was where the main battle was and it hit Senwyn directly. The other one struck his ship. He had decided that if he could not have the treasure that was on the ship then no one could. The damage was massive and the majority of both the pirate and guard forces were wiped out. Elava and I climbed the wall and left the city. There was nothing we could do.
We headed north towards the mountains of Molag Amur. We decided we would start at the path to Bal Ur and head east along the border until we found the shack. Fortunately, it was easier than that. When we reached the beginning of the path a little to the east we saw firelight we went to it and found an elderly Dunmer sitting next to it and a shack behind him. As we neared, he looked up and said that he wanted nothing to do with us, especially if we had caused the flames in Suran that could be seen, even from here. When I told him my name, though, he no looked at me in surprise and then recognition crossed his face. He told me that I looked exactly like my father. He invited us in and said that we obviously had some questions, but that he would answer them in the morning after we had a good meal and rest. He was old, but he had an air of command around him that told me that I would get nothing from him tonight no matter what.
Now I must end this entry as I am anxious to discover what is going on and the quicker I fall asleep the sooner I shall wake and have my questions answered.
:goodjob: 
