The Rediscovery of Aldmeris

Transcripts taken from a number of purported “discoverers” of the lost continent Aldmeris, conducted by Allunarimil Jill-Eyed and Field Researcher Ho-Hum.

Ri’Renrij, alias Baan Dar the Snaggletooth, alias “Wretched Wadarkhu,” alias St. Claudandus, alias Praefect Gaius Tullentius of the Fifth Legion, alias Wahrf’Raht, alias Nhad-Hatta, alias Blackpaw, Captain of the Broken Moonstring and former Captain of the Skainsmate

“Sure, the sugar lead us a ways past the coast, or perhaps the Legion chasing our tails did, or perhaps a bad feeling in Ri’Renrij’s gut. Ri’Renrij does not remember so well on an empty stomach, yes? But Ri’Renrij is kind, and wise, and he sees that you, too, are kind and wise, so he will tell you of Aldmeris, which Ri’Renrij has seen, he admits. In some fever dream, in his own eyes… Does it matter? It is all the same to Ri’Renrij.

“We were wet cats, lost at sea. We saw many things; islands on the shells of crabs, islands made of storms, islands that were there and then not… But none like Aldmeris. It rose from way down under the water like Ri’Renrij will not say around prudish humans, and bobbed madly in the wind, like some silly kitty that cannot swim. It was made from sugar, every spire and window, Ri’Renrij tells you, which had chipped away bit by bit every year since the Mer had left, so the water around it was white with sugar, sugar, sugar, glinting every color that Ri’Renrij could know in the sun. And the wind carried it to us, more sugar than in all of Torval and Tenmar and the Mane’s fat belly, and we took it home to Elsweyr and gave it to the people, the sweetest sugar Ri’Renrij had ever tasted, and now Ri’Renrij is called a hero of his people, and the Savior of Senchal, and also is wanted in four provinces for smuggling of illegal narcotics.

“How does Ri’Renrij know this paradise he once found (and has never seen again, for good things never come twice, and “anyone who says different is selling something,” as the Clan Mothers say) was Aldmeris, you ask? Why, Ri’Renrij will answer that with a question of his own: Why else would the spindly elves think the things they think, if not too much sugar and too little fur?”

Tantus “Mothtosser” Aquilarios, Retired Blades Agent and Noted Pauper in the Greater Nibennium Waterfront

“Of course Aldmeris is real, you Colovi inbred. Now quiet down. The Thalmor watch this whole district. Most of the insects are working with them; same with the birds, and the old Dibellan down the street. The moths and river drakes are still on our side, though. For now.

“The Thalmor caught me in Rihad, just before the treaty. Tortured me for days while we sailed south--I assumed Summerset, before the ship spread its wings and began to lift. In minutes, we broke through the void, past the moons, deep into the Waters. I sang prayers to Mor-Breath-Of-Kyne and Starry-Eyed Al-Esh and old Tiber himself all the way up, and they barely noticed. Aldmeris itself was a sight I never thought I’d see; a Sunbird taller than White-Gold, with wings so bright they blocked out the stars. All over the length of its body, they’d built a crystal labyrinth, an endless metropolis lit by a million nameless hues. Surrounding it was a graveyard of mothships, decaying in the void around it, their crews nothing more than dust and bones. The hull was covered in ancient scars and dents; perhaps from Reman, or Hestra, or some war older than Cyrod’s memory stretches. Everything after that was a blur of nausea and light, and a voice repeating the same words over and over: “To kill man is to reach heaven, from whence we came…”

“In the old stories, that they’d tell us as kids, they’d say there “was no life there, save for the Aldmer themselves.” It seems it’s that way again. I don’t why they let me go, brought me back here. I could say they want me to pass on the message, tell you there’s nothing left to stop them. But playing their hand like that isn’t like them; it’s all a part of a bigger game, just like it always is. Throw the card game to win at chess. Maybe this is part of the plan, me telling you so you can tell your friends who’ll tell just the right person who needs to know. Pull one string so you can pull another which makes them think you’re pulling a different string when really you’re cutting this one which opens up this one so…”

Niy’Imtityiya, Memorykeeper-of-Leki and Last Daughter of Samara

“I remember Aldmeris well. I sailed there forty nights after leaving Old Yoku. I was blinded (as is the way of things) but I listened close to blustery Tava. Though, now that I think of it, perhaps not close enough, as my dhow cracked as it hit the shore. I was maybe almost dead for a few minutes, that I do not remember so well.

“When I woke, I followed the sound of the wind, crawling until I could stumble, stumbling until I could walk. The ground was cool and smooth, all sharp curves and strange angles. The ground I was used to was many things, infinitesimal sands, parting as you walked. But the surface there was all one thing, as vast as the sea in my eyes (which were, admittedly, blind). The thought maddened me, and I pushed it from my mind.

“Pretty soon, another sound joined Tava’s winds and the tap-tap of my footsteps. It was a song, like the kind Merrish sailors used to sing; all one long note, kept steady throughout. The wind lead me to it, further inland (I assume), over taller and taller smoothnesses. The longer I walked, the more my throat grew dry, and my ears grew tired, and my steps grew long. It seems at times that the wasteland of oneness would never end, though the Merrish song grew louder with each step I took.

“Not very soon at all, Tava’s winds stopped, and I knew I had reached the source of the song. I felt for some time, and realized I had come to a great crystal tower (in the shape of something like a sword, which perhaps I should not speak of around prudish nudrimen). From the top of the tower came the song. I thought for a second that Tava wished for me to climb the tower, when I realized, with a start, how fragile the smoothness must be. It was glass or crystal, not hard at all, and not so different from sand.

“So, with a quick prayer of thanks to Tava for her winds, I raised my hands and set to work. The tower broke first, falling all around me, shattering into a million fragments of humming crystal sand (each playing a note of its own, none in concert). I swam home to Samara days or weeks later, leaving a desert of glass and song behind me. The elders, seeing me rise from the ocean, naked, covered in cuts, knew what had transpired, and told me what I had done was maybe wrong, so I must be exiled, but also maybe funny, so it was a good exile.”

Uupse Fyr, Morphologist of House Telvanni

“I have no doubts that Aldmeris is nothing more than a distant dream-image of the Dawn, conjured up by the foolish Altmer as a symbol of their everlasting nostalgia. Funny, that; it doesn’t exist, but we discovered it anyway.

“Aldmeris is small isle in the southern edge of the Llothic Ocean, currently undergoing severe mythopoeic decay. Before the Red Year, my family picnicked there once every year, taking time to explore the ruins and test for mythic interference in the vicinity. No myth does the isle justice; each is a patchwork memory, a faulty reimagining of our lost home. The Mer of then are not the Mer of now, though who exactly they were I cannot say.

“My strongest memory of the isle is of the heat. Burning the ground at our feet, boiling the sea around us (a sight I would see again, years later, at Vivec). The strange, crude statues of the Aldmer (which look as if they were not meant to keep one shape) reach up to the sun and stars, frozen in longing.

“I have not returned in many, many years. Perhaps the Aldmer have returned to their isle, or perhaps the isle has long since vanished into the sea. Perhaps my Aldmeris is merely one of many. Perhaps it is the only one. Perhaps it is a falsehood, yet the true Aldmeris still lies undiscovered, across the seas or across the stars. I do not know.”