Morrowind Day 87 - The Curious Village of Dagon Fel

10 Sun's Dusk
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This morning I woke to a decision that needed to be made: turn north and explore the island of Sheogorad or remain on my intended path south towards Tel Vos and Sadrith Mora. I have, of course, been to Tel Vos and Sadrith Mora, as well as the Zainab camp. I had not yet been to Sheogorad island, making the choice an easy one. After a hurried communal breakfast in pitch-blackness, I bid my hosts farewell and walked to the shore.  

The moonlight was just starting to retire for the coming day and I could barely make out the outline of the island right in front of me. The island was separated from the mainland by a small channel of water barely twenty steps wide, so the lack of visibility was not particularly troublesome. Beyond the island was another island and beyond that one lay another. There were also two islands to the left of these three. Such was my morning off of Sheogorad: walking across the water to islands that each had one or more unexplored islands behind it. The coast of Sheogorad island was always within reach, but I did not set foot upon it until late in the morning, having wasted much time in fruitlessly exploring all the small islands that lay in-between.

One of the islands offered up an ancestral tomb and I stopped to visit it, reasoning that tombs have so far been a good place to find Sixth House cultists, second only to abandoned mines. Just inside lay the skeletal remains of a would-be robber or adventurer and the complete lack of flesh suggested his or her end occurred a long time ago...but the excellent condition of the unfortunate soul's remaining equipment marked their death as very recent. The truth of this suspicion was confirmed in a bit.

Perhaps something in the nature of the vampire I fought in the next room had something to do with the corpse's apparently advanced decay. She was a tough adversary, possibly the most difficult fight I have had against a vampire in some time. It seemed that every third or fourth blow I struck her simply slid off her, no harm done. Trying to retreat from a hostile vampire is pointless exertion at best, so I could not call the Daedric enchantment on my spear, leaving me with my 'normal' steel spear. I eventually wore the accursed creature's protective enchantment down and slayed her, sustaining surprisingly little damage myself.

Her body dissolved into dust almost immediately, leaving behind an empty robe, a pair of shoes, and an enchanted ring. What it is enchanted with, I cannot tell, but it is powerfully enchanted with something. Galbedir will probably be able to tell what the ring does, but I have no idea when I will be seeing her next.  

The tomb itself held little worth taking. The largest chamber had a small raised platform upon which the typical basin of ashes, skulls on spears, and so on were placed. There was a small chest set along the ashes, but the time spent picking the simple lock would almost certainly not have been worth it.

Unique to the tombs I have so far explored, this one had a door leading to a rough cavern, perhaps a relic of now-abandoned plans to expand the tomb. The cave's campfires and bedrolls showed that there were occupants there very recently and the numerous crates and sacks of cheap armaments and alchemy ingredients bore the signs of an amateur smuggling group. But I encountered no one while in the cave, though I did find a letter pinned to a barrel.

The note was a grim one. Written by 'Rels' to 'Giden', it instructed Giden to arm the 'new man' with a sword of some sort and send him into the tomb to become the vampire's meal. Quite a gruesome arrangement the two parties managed to reach, but one I am sure the smugglers will be relieved to discover is no longer necessary.

I continued to visit each of the small islands enroute to Sheogorad and came across an egg mine and a small Telvanni stronghold on one of them, but decided to pass by both locations. Further on was a shipwreck so old the the water-saturated wood bowed under my weight and I was certainly not going to go inside the weakened vessel. 

My most curious encounter of the day was with a madman. Now, I have certainly had my share of dealings with crazy folk, but up until today not one of them had been Khajiit. He called himself M'Aiq and babbled incessantly about meaningless things. He claimed that there were dragons flying about, but that the ones that flew close to the ground were too small to see. He randomly proclaimed a distaste for vertical ropes, stating his preference for climbing horizontal ropes...which is simply impossible. No doubt the poor soul was a sugar addict, though he was very finely dressed to be so addled in the mind.

I finally set foot on the island of Sheogorad directly in front of a small tower built in the Dwemer style. The sole occupant was a Breton named Andre Maul who knew a great deal of geography, most of which was completely unhelpful to me. The small fishing village of Dagon Fel was just south of the tower and night had started to fall when I reached the place.

It did not meet my expectations. I was thinking it would be a Telvanni stronghold, like Tel Vos. Instead, I got something more like Khuul or Hla Oad, only with more Nord and less surliness.

The tavern was aptly named 'The End of The World' and I was able to get a bed for a decent price. Tomorrow I will try to gather some information about the surrounding area and hopefully find some more clues as to where the Sixth House is locating its agents...though it seems a remote chance that I shall find any around here.