On Boethiah's Summoning Day 3
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To my friend Tal Marog Ker, Tis' been near fifty years since last we had chance enough to speak, when I lent the battlemage Dagon's protonymic and my isle was for a short time freed from its prison. Liberation lasted long enough for me to gaze once more upon Direnni, and see the fall of Tharn, the same span it took for Dagon to reappropriate. I would have warned you earlier had I not been snatched away. I would have relaid it immediately but my mind comes and goes. Have you seen my son? Perhaps I was better off in the void. The void. It wasn't void while I was there... Your notes on the journal I gave you last we met are terribly poor. Perhaps the journal was poor. I may be able to make clarifications next we meet. I write to you at the outset of crisis. Old habits die hard [even for a Leaper Demon] but Caecilly is no longer safe from the tempest of Alduin; we were before, hidden away in the skyvaults of the deadlands in the back of the Dagon's mind - a pocket of stasis in a void of chaos, a new Aldmeris waiting to bloom. Numidius would have had his own, Camoran did but did it wrong. You realize by my writing that Dagon's banishment by the Akatosh-Incaro set Caecilly free once more, though for how long I cannot say - if the Thalmor who came to study its chapel are correct perhaps forever. But now we're here and the world-eater will find us, soon even, for we're in the north. I've felt since birth that should I ever meet a dragon it would be my solemn duty to slay it. Yours, 16 Sun's Dawn, 4E 14 Why do you persist in this futility Old Man? You have been discredited across Tamriel by the very ones you sought to warn; within Gwylim, even within the Lyceum amongst those who were once your students. You are a charlatan, a trickster and conspirator, a myth-teller no longer worthy of a second glance should you scream from the rooftops with a spear in your back. Who would dare to believe a rebellious old man's ramblings when the coming Emperor speaks against him? No, your time has passed Direnni – yours and your sons' – all that remains is us, and neither Trinimac nor Talos may stop us. Sealed, 232 Stendarr's Star These things I may be, fiend. The stars speak for their own truth. I am an old man. I don't think I'll ever be anything but an old man. My time has indeed passed, but not that of our progeny, and should neither Trinimac nor Talos deter you they might still. The tides of fate move against me; you would have the truths of this world become cast off with those of the last, I fight that I may disprove its standing as fate. Those of my clan who set foot on Caecilly gave me no word of you, who moves to author our doom. Yet I have seen more than my mind can hold, visions without end as Dagon railed: Talos standing on the mythic scale where Alduin can be fathomed, stripping off temporal standards to hold back the divines of the next world. That this is so means that my words are not in vain. You too have seen this, and yet you doubt? Chimere Graegyn 5 First Seed, 4E 14 What have we seen Old Man? We have seen the fall of Crystal-Like-Law, indeed, I was there when it fell. Do you truly believe those so base as the daedra hordes with their siege crawlers and land-ships could have toppled that bond – the pinnacle of Aldmer craft – were we not in authority over its core? We have broken bones even the Dwemer would not touch; they, with their Numidium and the Heart of a traitorous spirit, who's legacy still runs hot as the blood of their mountain through the soul of Tamriel. We have seen the coming war, and you have helped us. What matter are the truths of stars to those who pass through them? I would have the carcass of this world become cast off with that of the last, your corruption must run deep that you would not desire the same Direnni. Your clan knows their place, and their part, and those that do not will be made to, yourself amongst them. You hold the keys to the prison Direnni, your blood demands that you relinquish them. Sealed, 250 Stendarr's Star You and your kin have grown young in mind Idhdean, younger, I think, even than man. By my folly or my curse I too am young, but mine is that of the oldest age. My curse... can you hear the voices too, from your place on my island? Their island. I wonder, do the voices of Crystal-Like-Law haunt you as those of Caecilly do me? You have cast down the pillar of our ancestors - broken the Edict through the usurpation of authority - but in your naive vigor you did not ponder why it had been erected; this is the worst type of destruction, most like Dagon, and now you look to Balfiera that you might do likewise. Until you know its meaning I will not aid your cause, and when you do you will not want me to. Whether by the shock of this new world or the frightful idea of living, for once, with the endless causal chain brought on by their actions, our first ancestors railed against that which they had spawned. Of those who could neither flee nor ascend, the astute amongst them discerned ways of molding their creation to their design. Thus, Crystal-Like-Law was born, a paradoxical name given to that which would work to amend the vows taken atop Adamantine (in your youth you no doubt thought your actions would break them). These later spires were all as such, save the second, which was the sealing in blood, the giving of the whole heart to the endeavor which they had sworn themselves. Dagon is young in mind, as you are, but wiser still. Tamriel is plagued by him above all his kin because he most eagerly seeks to fathom that which Princes cannot, stealing bits of it in his frustration. Each time he is cast into the void he returns with an inkling of maturation (the price of isolation or the effect of Tamriel's age I know not). It will no doubt be he who realizes first again what the first ehlnofey did; and when he does, if your kin have their way, there will be no power in the Aurbis can stop him. The Velothi spoke too soon in calling the Daedra our ancestors, but they were not without warrant. Those whom commoners revere as demons were once as we are, indeed, the Chimer were better students of the Old Ways than many in the Isles. Were you still my student I might explain how this truth relates to uncovering the neonymic, or rather, how it is formed – alas, I wish I had known this secret when the battlemage sought my aid, it might have saved him much toil... perhaps I did know it then, but was too far down the golden road to realize. Chimere Graegyn 21 First Seed, 4E 14 You are no Psijic, Old Man. Indeed, your clan was amongst the first to abandon the Old Ways and depart from the Isles for the lands of men, where so many chose to defile themselves with the beasts they met; but I know there is a scarlet thread which has kept its purity through the centuries, your own line amongst it. This is how I know that you too can feel the draw that binds us. Do not think that we have uprooted the traditions of our ancestors, we have merely taken the measures necessary to reform our kind from the decay of mind brought on by the tyranny of Talos (and the corruption of Trinimac). To think how many within the Isles gave themselves into subjection under man, as if they were our superiors! They who claimed that throne - of our design - not even by the ingenuity of their own blasphemy, but by that of the wayward Dwemer. Their entire history is one of theft from their rightful masters; rightful, for all of Dawn's Beauty had swore service to Auri-El, with us as his stewards and heirs. You speak of our oaths, what of theirs! Indeed, no force of man could have cast down the Dominion had they not first stolen magicks not their own. I am no stranger to the Old Ways, I know the origins of Aedra and Daedra; but more, I know what it is to bind them under our Will. It is Talos who summoned us from our slumber, Talos who through stolen magicks forced mankind into the places where only we were meant to tread, polluted the divine with mortality. Is it any wonder that this world is revolting against its very being - indeed, to the point of calling forth the Devourer - when such blasphemy has occurred, any wonder that in this shock we too were called forth to carry the fate of this world to its final end? To purify it. To bring Aldmeris once again. In kind: As balanou, Ehlnada racuvar! Nou racuvar naga! We can begin by removing the pollution of man within our blood, undoing the sundering which sent us wandering throughout the realms. I mark the return of Ayleidoon; bring glory to yourself, and mark the return of Direnni. Your kin once gave shelter to mine when we were driven by the Alessians, let me return that favor. Signed, 240 Stendarr's Star Were the Direnni the first to leave? I daresay I think we are the only ones who never left. But no, not even your magicks can remove what is within my blood. The Direnni have long known the Old Ways, and the New. What do you know them? Of the origins of the spirits, or their ends? Have you seen the Acharyai from the lens of eternity? I have seen them standing upon Adamantine during the First Morning, in wonder of what they had wrought, when for one shining moment the entire Aurbis stood as mortals. I have seen them die and take their places on the celestial thrones of Nirn and The Principalities according to their alignment – is it any wonder that 'the Daedra were created at this time also'. From there they will learn anew, until the heavens have filled with their surplus. As mortals, they became the parents of man and mer and beast; in death they became as gods, the parents of entire worlds, and thus the cycle continues. Those who know the Old Ways know our part in this. It is this that you have abandoned. The Psijic know the value of seliffrnsae over action, as do the wise amongst the Direnni; so too, do the Aedra (we learned it from them). If you knew this you would know the true path to placing the spirits of Oblivion under your will, but you would rather take the impetuous path of Mannimarco, direct control. It is an intoxicating road, enough even to corrupt Galerion and spawn the Mages Guild, founded on empowerment over counsel. No, it is not the Old Ways that you follow, and so you believe that casting down a tower will give you strength, even strength to bend me to your will. But what am I, an old man driven mad by the voices of those who felt the sting of my own corruption. My son is somewhere. But I too am like you, in love with immortality. Yet while you would become thus yourself, I would have this world claim its own. Which is the grander call? Chimere Graegyn
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