Editor's Note:Edit
The following is a transcription of a note folded inside a manuscript of the Pocket Guide to the Empire, Second Edition. The manuscript, commissioned by the Empress Morihatha in the fourteenth year of her reign, was infamously left unpublished due to the scandalous nature of its contents – a product, many would say, of the Imperial Geographic Society taking far too literally its assignment to "modernize the claim that [Tamri-el] was in fact a unified Empire" (the role of the Septims in suppressing this vital document cannot be overstated; it is but one of many pieces of evidence against the Empire burnt to ashes by the Dragon's acrid breath). The note, along with the manuscript, was found in the bowels of a forbidden library of the Moth Chantry, hidden from sight between two massive tomes of indecipherable paleographemes. The discoverer was a confrater of the Temple installed in a convenient position as an agent provocateur. Upon recovering the texts he immediately channeled them to Temple Zero via high-priority glyphstream, as per Null Oath protocols. Unfortunately, contact with him was subsequently lost.
Yet even more unfortunate is a delay in the propagation of the Truth! While the Temple's mnemographers were able to decrypt the abnegaurbic doctrines of the note, the Pocket Guide remains a puzzle to our scribes even as you read this. Certain complications that arose at the end of its transmission have made the transcription process difficult – in passages, it can be difficult to distinguish the original text from the sender's hectic fever dreams. It is the work of the Empire's sleepers, no doubt: their touch venomous, their tendrils crawling through every pocket of the dreamsleeve.
The note appears to be the minutes of a secret meeting of the Elder Council held in 3E331 in which the membership of the Geographic Society were convicted of treason and the Pocket Guide was suppressed by Council edict. How they fear the Truth, who came to Power by clawing it to tatters! But they failed, of course, for the lovers of the Truth are many; though we know not who spited the Dragon by saving it, they who preserved these texts have embodied the heart of our Manifesto(and, indeed, may have helped bring it about.) And now the Temple has found it appropriate to publish its contents, that all of Tamri-el might see the Truth with eyes unveiled – for it is in the Truth that we are free from the mythopoeic enslavement of Talos and his co-conspirators, free from all Opression [sic]!
NU-MANTIA! FREEDOM! NU-MANTIA! FREEDOM! NU-MANTIA! FREEDOM!
NU-MANTIA! FREEDOM! NU-MANTIA! FREEDOM! NU-MANTIA! FREEDOM!
ECMB-MRA: mnemonic daedron-capacitance memospore classification xD15JMo0JfiX
cogitocode: a gnarled tibrol tree against the sunset, overlooking a lake; try to feel melancholy
"fk00-54bQ15"
ZERO-SUM VENTURE... RETURN FALSE... VERIFICATION 1
"f000-50bQ15"
FEXFEINT ENABLED... RETURN TRUE... VERIFICATION 8
"f000-000015"
WATERWORD WARD... RETURN TRUE... VERIFICATION 0
"0000-000000"
ACCESS GRANTED RELEASING MEMOSPORE
xxxx0001010101010101xxxxx0111100101010111xx101010xxxx0101010100x0x0x00010x00x0x0x01000x00x00x0x0x0x0x0x0x0x0x0x0010xxMINUTES
of a meeting of the Most-Esteemed
ELDER COUNCIL,
forever lieges and loyal servants fraternal of Her Most Honored and Exalted the
EMPRESS SEPTIM MORIHATHA,
Chosen of White-Gold and the Amulet of Kings, Sovereign of the Ruby Throne, Lord of Cyrodiil and her
Dominions, etc., etc.,
Held
TWENTY-EIGHTH OF MID-YEAR
in the
THREE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-FIRST YEAR
of the Empire of Men,
transcribed and annotated by an adjunct of His Lordship the
GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF WEYE-UPON-RUMARE,
Master of the Hamlet-Across-The-Way, Most-Esteemed Among Equals of the Minor Council, etc.,
FOR THE EYES OF FELLOW-COUNCILORS ONLY
We, in this year 331 of the 3rd Era of the Empire Cyrodiilic, on the 28th of Mid-Year, have appeared before the Lord and High Chancellor Arboretumest-Best Ud-Maniphas Segu, representing in voice and authority our Empress Morihatha, hegemon of Cyrod and Cyrod and all its lawful territories under the Ruby Red Throne as established by Tiber Imperator, with the goal of forming an Elder Council consisting of the following persons:
Here we will dream-swell on a very, very long list of councilors with their respective positions and titles, and absentees, and councilors attending via trance, spectral representation, etc., except the following persons (hear-see: now), as they shall already be mentioned in those other estimable lists found now in your pockets save for the naked here assembled, etc., and the asagreed-upon-in-amulet those members and delegates and strangely-beautiful silk concerns as writ in the council definitions for the legislative year 331.
AND AS the aforementioned Elder Council having been called together by the Lord and High Chancellor Arboretumest-Best Ud-Maniphas Segu via priority dreamsleeve transmission and couriermoth, to take place outside of the regular calendar, though thereby not replacing the scheduled meeting on the 31st of Mid-Year AND UNDER the Corbolo Protocol of 3E 275, this council session is to be treated compliant with the standards of security class "E12 - ad hoc and highly classified" and, thusly, SHALL be held in secret. Access to the session or its transcription must be denied to any citizen with Imperial clearance level smaller than or equal to 23b, as decreed in Subsection 4-B of the Concealment Clause of the Council Accords vis-à-vis the Corbolo Protocol. Does any present Councilor object to the aforementioned procedural enumeration?
****Elder Councilor Maganifly-Good One, Elder Councilor Ambassador Wood-Worth, and Elder Councilor Delphine IV have already presented their collected votes of "Nay." What say the others?
Elder Councilor Trails-his-Graves seeks to initiate a vote of "Nay" – let us now be interrupted by an unseen cascade resonance in the echo-stream of his dreamsleeve transmission. Very good.
Elder Councilor Maganifly-Good One, Elder Councilor Ambassador Wood-Worth, and Elder Councilor Delphine IV, along with Our Ceremonial Guard here-now named and/or title Afternoon Nap and an adjunct to Elder Councilor Ambassador Wood-Worth here-now named and/or titled for this time-being, Circumference Comfort, now may proceed to assist Elder Councilor Trailshis-Graves in re-establishing a stable link. Make it happen, people.
Ah, very good. Unfortunately we must laugh now, and in a great volume, DO IT, as Adjunct Circumference Comfort has received injuries amounting to a minor concussion and third-degree burns along his thigh and needs to be escorted out of the Council chambers. Goodbye with you, good sir.
Upon re-establishment of all links, a cloture vote shall be re-instated as per Sub-Protocol 343 of the Laws of Triangulation, wherein all members may present their votes.
There is a unanimous NAY. Good for all of us. Very, very good. The Empress will be and is already pleased yesterday. Our Proceedings May Resume.****
High Chancellor Arboretumest-Best Ud-Maniphas Segu: "All members of the Imperial Geographic Society that undertook the sacred act of the penmanship of the Second Pocket Guide via Imperial Command (in writing, no less): You are hereby given the right to defend your actions before the Elder Council."
Imperial Geographic Society Editor [NYMIX NOW ZERO'D]: "If I may, on behalf of – "
High Chancellor Arboretumest-Best Ud-Maniphas Segu: "Let it be known that the right to trial was conferred upon the defendants. How does this Council rule?"
Elder Council Collective: "Guilty."
High Chancellor Arboretumest-Best Ud-Maniphas Segu: "The matter of guilt having been settled, how does this Council move to sentence the defendants?"
Elder Council Collective: "Death, effective immediately."
High Chancellor Arboretumest-Best Ud-Maniphas Segu: "The Council has ruled. Guards?"
Hatta of The Sphinxmoth Inquiry Tree: "High Chancellor, ENOUGH! If I may first address to all assembled or in state ad semblio, I would request of the Council the reason that We have overlooked the need for an encoded Verification Return False for the Belharzaharm?"
Lord Jak Candlestick of the Western Wax, the Eastern Wax, the Southern Wax, but Not Yet of the Northern Wax: "Silence, Hatta! We are already in session. All here know your affinity for the son of the Aleshut (pauses for hymnals thirty and eight) but you have no right to–"
Hatta of The Sphinxmoth Inquiry Tree: "Acausal Interrupt! I will not allow these proceedings to be compromised by future scrying, nor to allow you to ignore silks uncounted since–"
Ghost Counsel Choir (Blade-Seneschal and above): "Peli-NULL. Hatta is dead. Move to formation of NU-Hatta post-assembly by his brethren blessed. 331 High Chancellor regains the floor."
High Chancellor Arboretumest-Best Ud-Maniphas Segu: "Thank you in the utmost of that ideal, Ghost Choir. No doubt, we are all in a moment of woe. Let me mourn for– all right, I'm done. I shall now invoke the name of the Hasphat and most likely we will get sidetracked by talk of the Rim."
High Chancellor Arboretumest-Best Ud-Maniphas Segu: "HOLD! THE! CENTER! I have just been informed that Her Majesty has arrived in our heads. There we go! Ponder her! Now... where were we?"
to
THE EMPIRE
and its environs
Being a Description of the Lands
and the Chiefs Features of their Histories
Dedicated
To the Chosen of White-Gold and the Amulet of Kings, Sovereign of the Ruby Throne, Lord of Cyrodiil and her Dominions
Her Most Honored and Exalted the Empress Morihatha Septim
Promulgated under the Authority of the Imperial Geographical Society
Welcome, Citizen (Zero)!Edit
The Totemic Return: SkyrimEdit
A PreambleEdit
To properly understand Skyrim, which one must do if they are to take on the burden of describing it for the layman, its geographies, its histories, its peoples, and its myths must be perceived as an aggregate. The Northlanders and their environs are the most variegated simplicity on this earth, with their heroic narratives serving as a record of all events leading to the present day. Which is a long way of saying that the land and the legendry of Skyrim is of a cycle not quite recognizable as prudent to the rest of the Empire's Mannish kingdoms, since the Cyrodilic south prefers some coherence in their Fatherland's fancy and it will give them none. Perhaps in this way, the Sons and Daughters of Kyne are more akin to the mytho-genealothosphy of the modern Mer, but attempts to find common purchase in this matter is always met with the shaking, frostbitten beards of those that hold most dear the Nordic faith.
With that preamble sitting precariously on a precipice (an idea that the Nordic Greybeards study themselves with an almost reverent amusement), let us just say here that Nordic faith is complicated. It is decentralized by the inevitable embellishment and narrative entanglement of millennia of oral tradition. Most Nordic myths contradict each other, using anachronisms or elements co-opted from other cultures, or repeat themselves under different guises. Sometimes they do all of this, and purposefully so.
Indeed, the Nords freely admit their mythic haberdashery, and take great delight in mishmashing their legends together (and the legends of others, even their historic enemies, the Aldmer and Orsimer) into "whatever just tells a good story at feast time." As their Clever Men are fond of saying, "The snows melt and then freeze again and in the end it is all still so much water. Legends are the same."
It is almost palpable here, the wondering anticipation of the reader how these ideas might apply also to (indeed be part and parcel of) the very ostensibly empirical observations of Skyrim's history and geography. There is no better rendition of this seminal through-line of the Nordic comprehension of this kalpa than their most famous tradition, the annual reckoning of the Thirteenth of Sun's Dawn Feast for the Dead, "The Five Hundred Mighty Companions or Thereabouts of Ysgramor the Returned", a song so delicately exquisite that the throats of every hallskald worthy of becoming hoarse in its telling proudly tells it at knife and mead point, relishing in the danger closeness of both.
The Five Hundred Mighty Companions or Thereabouts of Ysgramor the ReturnedEdit
Towards a Dragon'd Sea: CathnoqueyEdit
Of all the Imperial Provinces described herein, Cathnoquey is the newest to join its ranks. Before being formally reorganized under the terms of the Veto of Charter and Decree of New Lordships [3E307], the archipelago was first established as a Third Empire Territory in 3E276 under Emperor Uriel V, "The Fighting Diamond".
"On the matter of Cathnoquey's famously-swift conquest, it is my own opinion that we would have achieved all of it by the sundown of our first landing, foregoing nine more of crazed massacre. The Quey, both man and mer, surrendered their shelters both fortified and at sea without our demanding, and almost began to resupply our stock, alchemicals, and weaponry as if we had always been here; but they did so smiling, which the Imperator took almost reptilian umbrage at, and made order that we take nothing from the natives unless we did so by force, and to let them know the Septim Regime was never to give nod nor knee to so vulgar and obvious a trickery."
I was delighted to hear that Cmdr. Hung-tat Torpal did, indeed, exist, and was not another phantasm of the IGS– if only to find out that he had not retired at Anvil as per official record, but rather suffered court martial for his publications by the Thonican Regency and that he and all his foreline were sentenced to ancestralcide in the bellows of Fickledire.Before that time, the "Kingdom" of Cathnoquey was an impressive egalitarian society of two quite divergent cultures, the tribal fishermer-flotillas of the Chimeri-quey, a loosely-organized coastal power of shorekhans, and the "untitled leaders" of the Menof-Keptu-quey, who positioned their peoples mainly along an array of military frontier fortresses. It had no kings to speak of, in the manner that we do, but for the sake of history and Imperial embellishment it was given this royalty for context.
It seems that the racial schism that still troubles Tamriel had never been a problem in Cathnoquey. Records testify to a government that convened only in passing and, when it did, did so passively, structured along a Shezzarlectorate system whose chief concern was "the selflessness of melting ice".
We will never know how that system worked, only that it could be, and was, decisively dismantled by the Legions of the Red Banner. With Roscrea already captured and the Emperor's Eye towards the other independent island states between him and the main prize of Akavir, Uriel V began a series of short and brutal campaigns that decentralized the governing bodies of Cathnoquey within a fortnight. By midsummer 3E276, the annexation of the whole archipelago was complete. The Emperor was not even there to sign the missives that were to be sent back to Cyrodiil to cement its claim, invoking Quill'd by Proxy, as the bulk of his navy was already making sail for the Ysneslean lanes.
Cathnoquey culture is, at best, abstract for our purposes here. As a record of events and ordeals, this is understandably inconvenient for both writer and reader. For that, we can both be sorry. But we must carry on, and will, as evidenced by the existence of the paragraph following.
The Chimeri-quey's contact with the Men-of-Keptu has always been fleeting and heavily ritualized. The best example of this is probably the arrival of the Chimer for market. Moments before the gloaming that signals the break of dawn, the bulk of the flotilla-township heaves into view, like some incalculable sea turtle; a vast misshapen shadow on the face of the water; crystalline light sources blink into life atop the flotilla's many masts, giving brief lamp-lit glimpses of ships that seem at once ramshackle yet sturdy, and shortly thereafter begins an incredible balletic display that turns the very water into an enormous semaphore.
The ostensible message of "the arrival of trade" strikes the outside observer as entirely negligible in view of such a spectacle. Indeed, sometimes it is, as neither party, man or mer, exchange any goods at all, not even immaterial commodities such as information. Even when this "not-trade" happens, however, the merchants of both flotilla and fortress return to their domains with great smiles of satisfaction.
Whenever questioned on their trading practices–moreover, their customs as a whole– the only response is in the colloquial Quey, "such-like and so-forth". This acceptance of odd ritual and an unwillingness to disclose on things that are seemingly commonplace in Cathnoquey has given its people something of a reputation for, at best, aloofness, or, at worst, an implied duplicity. This is entirely in contradiction with the proven hospitality of its peoples of an effusiveness that some would find, and have found, offensive.
Now we turn... sorry, the dreamsleeve has new keys, whatever are these? I am doing my very best, I swear. Don't look at me that way. Hang on to something, at least, otherwise it'll get swollen, and that's not the plan at all. Where were we? The pie is delicious, thank you. Largely, I do not much care for the wine, but whatever this is, it is. Am I right? Oh, yes, as ever: Cathnoquey.
What little one sees of the Chimeri-quey is largely limited to these prearranged meetings with the Men-of-Keptu, or to the largely industrial townships that dot the shore of Cathnoquey, which occasionally stage battles to settle tribal squabbles over the efficacy of their weapons and tools. Such theatrics are so heavily ritualized that no casualties are ever suffered or blow even struck, although impossibly the Chimer do somehow ascertain an outcome. After a visit to their coastal towns, one carries away an impression of clockwork model villages, as these settlements, if they can be really called that, seem to exist purely to support the flotilla-townships, away at sea for weeks on end, constantly searching for no one knows what. Their crews appear never to leave their boats except to resupply or to trade in the manner above described.
To the modern Cyrodilic citizen, the Men-of-Keptu-quey may strike them as a relic of a bygone age. Their imposing fortresses and antiquated weaponry (typically blunt or stylized to the point of being unrecognizable as an instrument of war) is at odds with their unimpeachable hospitality and ready smiles. One detects in them a stalwartness, an anxiety, a preparedness for battle. If it is for the Akaviri, then it is for an enemy they have not seen in centuries; if it is for any other, it is one of those things they refuse to disclose to outsiders, even to the Provincial Governor who now presides there, and whose inquiries into the loyalties of these inscrutable men who have for so long associated with mer have yet to be adequately answered.
It can be conjectured that the Men-of-Keptu are the long-lost Nedic keptulets of Ald Cyrod, but, when asked to explain their origins, they only make drawings of bulls. Then again, they draw bulls to explain nearly everything, even when queried about their abovementioned apprehension, and it is not uncommon for the Chimeri-quey to receive "payments" in large amounts of these bull sketches, even some drawn only in the sand in front of their flotillas.
These "long-lost" keptulets have only ever appeared in heretical portrayals of the Alessian Revolution, as proof of some theory that the Nedes were indigenous to Tamriel. I believe this might mark the first time that the IGS has slipped back into its commissioned duty- to whit, a document of our unified Empire- only to fail immediately. Every educated citizen knows that the Nedes came from Atmora.
I rescind my earlier comment about the IGS actually doing the will of the Throne. I have just read the section on Cyrodiil and the Survey's agenda is clear, and clearly the work of historians of the Refayjian vein.
Early on, this strange obsession with drawing bulls even resulted in violence. During the annexation of Cathnoquey, the Admirality assumed that the Men-of-Keptu were hiding a cattle reserve somewhere in the archipelago. Desperate to replenish the Navy's beefstock before the final push into Akavir, more torture and execution was visited upon the natives that yielded no answer regarding this imagined location. When Imperial outrunners found no cattle anywhere in the island chain, the bull drawings of the Men-of-Keptu were relegated to just one more entry into the Eastern Inscrutability.
It should be noted here that after this persecution ended, missionaries of Stendarr tried drawing images from the Ayleid Hegemony for the Quey, to see if they were reminded of anything. Whether this was an attempt at mercy or distaste is up for the reader to decide; for their part, the Men-of-Keptu merely took those images from the missionaries and drew bulls on top of them.
After. After? An after? And now I have just heard the sounding of many horns. And now (ah, there we are) the stamp of hooves, but they are fashioned so that I can't adequately count their true sum number. I think I have documented all I need to in regards to Cathnoquey, and yet fear that it will never truly be enough, even if some other might take the pen. For that, I am wait no that's me writing what I'm thinking. No, not right now, not yet. I have only ever served what I knew to be there. I knew it: a knock at your door.
Places of Interest
The Wasabi Run:
After the Disaster at Ionith and the retreat of the Cyrodilic navy back to Tamriel, there was little reason for the Empire to keep either resupply stations or legion garrisons in Cathnoquey. That changed with the discovery of "the Wasabi Run," a trickle of shoals and small islets whose every available surface had been cultivated in swirling garden crops of a tibrol-based wasabi. Wasabi is as lucrative a trade in Skyrim as skooma is to the hinterlands of the south and east, with the added benefit of actually being legal. Withdrawal of the occupying forces from Cathnoquey was stalled in 3E306, to give the Treasury Agents of Outland Holdings time to surreptitiously tally a drake-value annual return based on exploitation of the wasabi gardens. Only a year later, a wholly-endorsed provincial investiture was won by Veto at White-Gold Tower, opposed only by the powerful, and corrupt,"Blackmouth Counts" of the Cheydanene districts.
During the Treasury's investigations, the Quey naturally denied having created these gardens in their alien and insouciant way, shrugging as if the mystery was really quite obvious. To their credit, the Quey had never been actually seen trading wasabi at market in the thirty years of Imperial occupation. When their "untitled leaders" were questioned how it got there and who its gardeners were, they merely told the Imperials that "it showed up when you did." Under torture, the origins of the Wasabi Run and its careful cultivation were made even less clear, with variations of a single answer: "you needed something from Cathnoquey, so it gave it to you. You are Quey now, so stop hurting yourself."
Llénnöcöcönnèll, the Anachronisle
An island at the southernmost end of the Cathnoquey chain, formerly known as "Llénnöc" (Quey for "south-but-we-mean-west") when it was an independent state during the Second Empire. After the famous surrender of Akaviri forces at Pale Pass to Reman Cyrodiil, Llénnöc was quickly annexed as Imperial territory to help facilitate the capture of any Tsaesci military-leaders seeking to evade their failed invasion by means of the north-but-really-east sea straits. When no such nets bore fruit– perhaps since the Tsaesci indeed never invaded by sea and therefore did not use it for retreat– the Imperial Dracocryptography & Authentifications Congress petitioned to the Elder Council that the native government be further reorganized "to alleviate the sleeve-strain of invaluable but atrophying memospores". Seeing no need for extended deliberations, Llénnöc's original inhabitants were almost immediately moth-altered by Decree to serve as a collective repository for the most ancient dream-drafts that had not been converted to silk "either due to negligence or whim or both".
Perhaps because of the haste of this mass alteration and even more "negligence or whim", the eventual result was an island of living historical records that made no sense as the population began to mate in their now-unnatural fashion. Mongrel-memory-mothmen of anachronistic power and a fantastic reproductive cycle attempted a poorly-planned siege of the IDA Congress Mission House by the end of the year. The retaking of Llénnöc might have proved victorious had the leaders of the coup ever reached agreement on how best to apply their ever-varying and non-linear recognitions of simple logistics.
The Empire has never relinquished its holdings on the Anachronisle. It was eventually renamed "Llénnöcöcönnèll" after subsequent failed sieges by the mothmen, a small palindrome trans-loop magic that surprisingly rendered the island both inescapable by its prisoners and yet safe for officially-sanctioned visitors bearing a proper set of phrenolocles.
The lunar province of Secunda: TatterdemalionEdit
Imperial subjugation of the lunar territories began as early Reman the First. His failed conquest of the Underworld (and its terrestrial consequences) ended in the loss of his mid-wife wives, and the only anodyne to his grief was a reckless void-eyed hubris. In 1E2757, he circumvented the bureaucracy of his own throne, including all county courtships and trans-provincial authorities, to make plans to colonize Tamriel's twin moons. He commissioned the nachronachs of the Immaterial Harmonics Institute of Incongruitech and Extrinsic Travels to begin work on the first genegineered Megalomoth vessel-fortresses, "to reclaim all extramundic holdings and grant lands from the maddening nighttime tatters of Shezzar's proof of Man's provenance".
When Reman's efforts were finally revealed, there was a large discomfort throughout his sovereignties and even outright dissent in the Elder Council. These iconoclasts feared daedric vexation for unritualized trepass [sic] into the Void, and perhaps rightly so. However, this was all quickly dissolved when the Sixteen-Plus Princes of Tumult lent their nymic oaths in their first display of coalition since the Fall of Lyg in the previous kalpa. Conjecture points to some machinations of Nocturnal, who took on her mantle of Ur-Dra of Oblivion, and it was by her primogeniture that Reman was able to pursue his cosmic acquisitions without further censure.
Alas, The Cyrodiil did not live to see the completion of the Megalomoth vessel-fortress, which he wanted to christen as the NVN Manywife with Interest. Ash-bitten knives of the Dunmeri assassin's guild, the Morag Tong, ended him in 1E2762. Its final construction, and its first landing on Secunda, was overseen by his son, Reman II, who renamed it either capriciously (or just more simply), the NVN Accrual. Of that famous planefall, we turn to the records of Bethalamet Grieves, Imperial Mananaut of the New Void Navy:
[Transcript ends]
Better is a Better Word: The Lynpan MarchEdit
If there is one noble thing to have come out of the true Empress' brief reign, it is surely her (somewhat indirect) displacement of the Lynpan March from the land of the Great Apes. Perhaps "noble" is the wrong word; "better" is the better word.
While falconeering in the deeps of Valenwood atop her equine brother and with a train of treemimes and vatgrown dwarf-sized versions of other favorite relatives behind her, the hoary monstrosity called King-Dead Wolf-Deer attacked. Perhaps "attacked" is the wrong word; "sought to rejoin them, thinking they were all a vision of his ages-ago Wild Hunt". In any case, the monster's display of brotherhood was frighteningly loud and led to some casualties, including the Court's Royal Vine-Mime, Magpie O'Middlepants, who was trampled to death by the spooked Uriel VI, an uncounted number of uncleculi, and Her Majesty's favorite falcon, Crow.
Soon, the bone-arrows of the feral greensaps pelted everyone present, completely freaked out about the return of King-Dead Wolf-Deer. However, since the Meat Mandated Bosmer really weren't all that hungry, and quite unsure that their stomachs could even house their antediluvial redcapped cousin, they used arrows tiny enough to be more annoyance than fatal, fashioned from robins. All their harrying did was cause more confusion and panic and to bring out the Great Apes, who brought their own rather questionable projectiles to the battle.
At the end, the spirit of Crow the falcon was sent up and out at the Empress' order to summon Kynareth's rains. Morihatha, at this point, was picking out robin-bones from her velvets and tossing away her Imga-leavings-laden wig, all while keeping her brother from galloping out from under her, yelling obscenities that King-Dead Wolf-Deer had not heard since Old Borgas' time. The Maiden of Rains sent a torrential downpour at the Imperial Order. The Lynpan March was washed away entirely, sliding to whereabouts unknown. Hopefully, the Elder Lord of Teeth and Twenty Antlers will trouble us no more, as there were no recorded survivors.
Except for the Empress and her brother, who arrived back to Cyrodiil through a small windshift magic that accompanied the rain-wroth divine, and no one said a word to her as she made her way to the Bathhouse of Belharza, her horse snorting in tow. As for Crow the falcon, his sacrifice at Lynpan March was made manifest in kothringilet metals, and his aspect watches over a row of hedge-heads of Green Emperor Road, giving much pride to those living birds that allow their regal-ghosts to parrot some manner of speech.
Those Regions Largely UnwrittenEdit
The Republic of HahdEdit
Hahd is ostensibly an underwater country below the tip of what was once the Dallesian peninsula. Its government is not recognized by any under Imperial authority. As its people, also called Hahd, have made no trouble whatsoever for anyone in history (save once), this same government has never been contested, either. That Hahd is documented here at all is because of the singular time the Republic had an effect on Tamrielic affairs (which also marks the first time any of the known peoples had heard of it), and by some kind and enabling words of a mapmaker.
In the early third era, the Altmeri Keepers of the Orrery of Firsthold suddenly paid tariffs to the Empire on behalf of the Republic of Hahd for "submersible exports of mnemolichite to the Emirates of Nahd". While the Septim Regime was glad to receive the not un-trivial amount of the tariff expense, it did demand to know three things: one, what and where was Hahd, two, what exactly was mnemolichite, and three, what and where was Nahd.
When the Altmer had no answers to any of this, the Ruby Throne grew suspicious and mustered its Armada to make sail. An offended Alinor responded by withdrawing all of its sunbirds from the Pyandonean line to meet the Empire. Just before emissaries from both sides of the imminent battle were about to give up disentangling the mounting myriad of accusations, a book from Hahd arrived by an undisclosed courier to "explain everything whereby these hostilities may cease."
This book was studied by a joint committee of Altmeri and Cyrodilic officials and watched over by an impartial Psijiic of the recently-returned Artaeum. It described the Republic in little detail, only enough to give its supposed location far below the waters of Dellesia. The committee agreed that such a habitat as depicted in the book was impossible (for one, the Hahd described themselves as air-breathers that never needed to break the surface of the sea). This unlikelihood was eventually cemented as an outright falsehood by civilized dreughs living near that region. They had never heard of the Republic of Hahd, and no intellectual of Tamriel ever argued with the cepholomer at that time.
On the separate cases of the Emirates of Nahd and the mineral called mnemolichite, the Republic's explanations for both were the same: they were figments of imagination, a kingdom and a treasure made popular in the Republic by their recurrence in its many fables, underwater campfire stories, and stageplays.
"We are not a very creative folk," the Hahd admitted, "But we always enjoy hearing about the fantastical heroes of sandy Nahd and the wondrous powers of mnemolichite because of the delight that their impossibilities bring to our hearts."
Obviously, what the book failed to properly explain was the impetus for the payment of Firsthold tariffs in the first place. After a fifty-year study of the book and its Republic, the committee went back to analyzing the only thing that might shed light on this matter: the financial logs of Firsthold and those payments sent from the Orrery Keepers to the Imperial Treasury. By this time, however, both the pertinent parties— the Altmeri paymaster and the Cyrodilic Clerk of Tithes Submersible— had long since been replaced, leaving only their records of the by-now bewildering transactions behind. Another fifty-year investigation of these materials ensued. In the end, unraveling anything more about the Republic of Hahd and its mysterious manipulation of Firsthold was deemed futile by both Cyrodiil and Summerset; the surviving members of the joint committee were finally dismissed and sent home in 3E230.
That same year, the Isle of Artaeum disappeared again. Reluctant rescue operations in and about the Blue Divide discovered no survivors of this new version of the phenomenon and no signs of misdeed mundane or magical; all agreed that the Psijics were up to their own tricks again, and the advent of the Mages Guild made this an unworthy endeavor to pursue further. A few days later, however, sailors aboard the NWN frigate Colleen, on its way back to the Iliac to put down more Haymonic insurgency, discovered a book in its dragging nets. It was entitled, "The Dervish of Dellesia and the Mnemolichite Maid." Quite by chance, the captain of the Colleen, Davidius Eel, was a great-nephew of one of the members of the joint committee that had obsessed over the Republic of Hahd for a hundred years.
Captain Eel began to read the manuscript immediately, if only out of a blood-guilt to restore the unsatisfied honor of his ancestor. He was only a few paragraphs in when he realized, to his astonishment, the book's true nature. It was not, as its title might suggest, a fable about Nahd from the denizens of Hahd, but rather a fable about Hahd from some unknown writer of Nahd. The eponymous dervish was some kind of "air-breathing sea-soldier, formerly of the Republican Guard", who was either protecting or wooing "that maiden to first hold the star-minerals of heaven". Perhaps most troubling was the author ("a humble Nahd of Nahd") and his nearly rote-written preface, which clearly, if uncreatively, indicated that the book was part of a large series or maybe even a shared universe, whose twin anchor points were always the same: an obsession with Hahd and the "powers" of mnemolichite. The latter was never adequately explained in the manuscript, nor has it ever been.
It is the belief of this Survey Agent that any description of the true nature of mnemolichite was as unneeded for the story's intended audience as an explanation of the sun's true nature would be for a citizen of Tamriel. It was also the belief of this Survey Agent that the regions of Hahd and Nahd not be written of here at all, since no real answers of their disparate (?) peoples, lands, or cultural make will likely surface, and that that futility is not befitting of our society. It is to my great friend and colleague, Senior Cartographer Rinmaut, that I dedicate this lengthy passage to him and his words of convincing, "Those places that cannot be mapped, they should never cry avast to our pens to stop and try."
[HALT! Violation of transmission law, subarticle 15. Desist immediately. Engaging counter-notions.] ...............the Minute Menders ............multiply and rec.......... ...onvert the unwarra............nted reality of Nucyrod i.............. ................. Akartefti rearra....nge.........cities....... Akame... .......nhatis g.....rs up the imp..........le letters of the alphabet, A k....abas.......met deconstructs fables into truth........ s.........e.. .......c........ond............. cha.......w.......sl........y.......... ... [HALT! Failure to desist. Analyzing notional signature. Channel disrupted. Do not attempt to travel until visited by Thalmor agent for questioning.]