Oblivion Day 11 - Time in Chorrol

7 Heartfire, 3E433

Wilderness

~~~

I woke early just to make sure I gained an audience at the Arcane University and was disappointed to be told that only members of the Mages Guild were allowed access. The stones I have taken from the Oblivion gates are obviously enchanted and I had hoped to see someone at the University about them, but they now have to wait until I am a fully accepted member of the Mages Guild, which may be some time.

While I was futilely attempting entry into the University a Bosmer introducing herself as Bothiel handed me a pamphlet calling on all adventurers to undertake the adventure of repairing something called the Orrery, which she explained is a device for predicting where the planets will be at a particular time. It requires Dwemer parts to repair and the shipment from Morrowind has been waylaid by bandits, the location of which she hopefully provided, though I cannot see why the mages are not journeying to the bandit camp themselves. Perhaps I will undertake this charitable task once I am able to enter the actual University and see this broken Orrery for myself.

Joining the Mages Guild was my next step, but one cannot join from the University. No, an applicant has to present themselves at one of the guilds in the surrounding towns. Chorrol is closest to the main gate leaving the Imperial City, so it was back to the town I went. My horse made the trip far less arduous than my walk there with Martin and I reached the town well before the afternoon.

The Argonian shopkeeper, Seed-Neeus, asked me if she could bother me about a problem she was having. When she told me what it was, I wondered how anyone could calmly ask to bother someone with such a problem. Her daughter, a friendly Argonian named Dar-Ma, had gone to the isolated village of Hackdirt to make a delivery, but has been away overlong and Seed-Neeus was worried something may have happened to her. I agreed to the task of course, for I am not yet a completely heartless individual.

Two clues were available to me. One, the person in Hackdirt expecting the delivery was one Etira Moslin and two, Dar-Ma always rode her horse, Blossom, where ever she went. That was all I had to go on, but I knew of Hackdirt before today, having spent some unpleasant time there years ago while defending it from goblins. The people there are just as isolated as the village and I suspect they have something to do with Dar-Ma's tardiness. I hope for their sake that they did not do anything stupid.

The Chorrol Mages Guild accepted me as a trial member, but I did not realize that I would need a recommendation from ALL the Mages Guilds in Cyrodill before I would be allowed within the Arcane University. This is troublesome and I do not think I have the time for that, but I will see what I can do.

The head of the local Mages Guild is an Argonian, Teekeeus, has been embroiled in an argument with an ex-member of the Guild, Earana, an Altmer who (not suprisingly) feels she would be a better leader of the guild than he. She had been loitering near the Guild as of late and making Teekeeus nervous. My task was to speak to Earana, who courtesy of not knowing I was a member, would speak to me.

And she did. The task was not to set fire to Teekeeus's home, but to fetch a book titled 'Fingers of the Mountain' from a shrine atop the mountains north of the city. When I reported back to Teekeeus he was surprised at her request, but also had heard of the book and instructed me to return it to him instead of Earana, not a difficult decision to make.

The trip up the mountains was uneventful and I found the book on a small pedestal next to which the charred body of someone lay. I was warned not to attempt to read the book and can assume a similar warning did not reach the unfortunate soul. Safely storing the book in my pack, I turned around to find yet another Oblivion gate steaming in the heavy rain.

Evidently I was not the first warrior to step through this gate, three unidentifiable bodies lay close to the inside of the gate, their armor and weapons fused to the bodies via a great heat.

I can only wonder at the combat prowess of the deceased, for I found nothing dangerous, just small Scamps and weak balls of fire. This pocket of Oblivion was new to me, but it was very small and had only a single structure within it, the tower containing the Stone. 

Dremora patrolled the inside of the tower, but they were poorly equipped for their kind and save for a pair that accidentally attacked me at the same time, I dealt with no strategic intelligence among any of them.

The moon was high when I had feet on Cyrodill soil once again, so I am camping out tonight and will return to Chorrol in the morning, return the book, and then see what I can do about the situation in Hackdirt.