TESO:Meet the character/Torvesard
Publication date : 20/06/2024
 From the Journal of Cipher Sahbadia …. I first met Torvesard when I was a young and naïve cipher, just plucked from Hammerfell and deposited among the stacks of Apocrypha. He came to me, this intense but unthreatening Dremora, and requested my aid in a line of research he was conducting. We ciphers are taught to never turn anyone away who genuinely seeks knowledge, except for those who wish to delve into the forbidden volumes of Hermaeus Mora. When Torvesard first sought my help, he seemed to have only the best of intentions. Now, as an old and wizened scholar with decades behind me since that initial meeting, I fear that I was gravely mistaken. Torvesard’s first inquiries concerned the nature of dreams. He wanted me to point him to any and all tomes and scrolls pertaining to dreams, their meanings, and how to interpret them. He ravenously devoured each and every volume, constantly sending me back into the stacks in search of more and more esoteric references. When I finally brought him the various writings regarding dreams as the domain of the Daedric Prince Vaermina, he grew especially excited. As with every volume placed before him prior to this, he studied the texts, flipped the pages, and made copious notes. When the last of the materials I had gathered were exhausted, he took his leave without a word. Though unusual, I thought nothing of Torvesard’s requests and essentially forgot all about him as my own studies and duties took precedence. So, when he appeared before me just over a decade later, it took me a moment to remember him. But only a moment, and then the entire incident about dream research came rushing back to me. Now I was older, more educated, and more comfortable with the ways of Daedra and Oblivion. Even as Torvesard began to tell me what he wished to research this time, I was studying him. The strange markings that covered his body. The fact that he never referred to a Prince or master. Then I focused on his request. It was unusual, to say the least. He wanted to delve into whatever knowledge existed concerning lost or stolen memories. Intrigued, I asked him to explain further. He hesitated, then said simply, “I believe something was taken from the world a long time ago. Something important. I want to see it restored.” Torvesard would say no more on the subject, so I began to search the stacks for texts related to the topics in question. Oddly, there were not many. It was as though the very piles of books themselves were shifting and sliding to hamper my efforts to locate any pertinent volumes. After much searching and a lot of checking and checking the same locations multiple times, I finally located a single tome that seemed to deal with the topic of lost knowledge. It was titled simply “Memories Lost,” a journal from a cipher who lived in the Merethic Era and wrote about the strange feeling of waking up one day and feeling as though something important was missing. But even as I handed the ancient volume to Torvesard, it suddenly was consumed in a magical flame. Perhaps this was a subject considered anathema by the Great Eye? The Dremora joined me in my search of the library then, but after days of scouring piles and shelves, nothing on the topic could be found. Torvesard requested that I continue to look for books on memory, dreams, and related subjects. He promised he would return. And so I did as he asked, compiling a collection of scrolls and tomes for his review when next he visited. At the same time, I began to research the Dremora himself. Suddenly I was curious as to who this being actually was. It took some digging and some questioning of information brokers in Fargrave and other such places, but I learned that Torvesard was a clanless Dremora. He served no Prince or master. He was definitely obsessed with the notion that he had lost something important, and he was traveling across Oblivion and the Mundus to research the topic. Those I spoke to confirmed that his motivations were complex and difficult to discern, but he rarely resorted to violence as a means to an end. And he made good on his promise, returning to me every few years to review what I had gathered and to do additional research on ancient places, ancient people, lost realms, relics and artifacts, and other such areas of knowledge. He was a Dremora possessed, burning with a fever that only seemed to grow more intense as the years wore on. In the end, while I never truly understood what he was looking for, I came to realize that it all started with a dream. And I always thought that Dremora didn’t share such mortal tendencies. Now I fear the threat to reality that the Great Eye has warned us about is upon us, and Torvesard is the instigator of this great disaster. I hope I have not somehow contributed to his actions, but I fear that I have. May the Great Eye forgive me! |
