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Diary of a Dragonborn Chapter 34: The Seventh Sign and the Implied Tentacle Rape


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CHAPTER 34: THE SEVENTH SIGN AND THE IMPLIED TENTACLE RAPE
In which our hero gets uncomfortably close to Hermaeus Mora, the Daedric Prince of Greenish Ooze.
Previous: Chapter 33, Lost and Found

 


So I've noticed that I often begin these journal entries with the word "so," and I've decided not to do that this time. Wait... crap.

 

Anyway (another favorite paragraph starter), after my recent sojourn in the Soul Cairn, I feel that I may actually be skilled enough at killing undead to join the Ash'abah someday. I've got to say, the clatter-and-tinkle of a skeleton falling to bits is actually kind of fun. Too bad we don't have any of that for a while. Right now I've got to go find the next Elder Scroll, to complete a set so I can send it in for a prize. Or something like that. As is my custom here in Skyrim, I'm just kind of running on autopilot right now, waiting for the next NPC to give me instructions, which will invariably include killing monsters and delving dungeons, with the occasional fetch quest thrown in for variety's sake. My life is pretty damn bleak, yeah.

 

Serana mentions that maybe the people at the College of Winterhold might know where to find an Elder Scroll. I'm not sanguine about that - as Archmage, I am well placed to have certain inside information about the IQ of the average college wizard, and there's nothing that leads me to believe they'll be of any use. I mean, hell, when I was looking for a magical monk it was a bartender who led me in the right direction. Sadly, the local barkeeps have no info for me, so I am forced to return to the magic castle with the implausible bridge.

 

As it turns out, the curmudgeonly Orc who runs the library actually does have some decent information. After deliberately misleading me into thinking that the only person who knows about these scrolls is dead, he finally breaks down and admits that he's holed up in a... well, holed up in a hole, actually, a bit north of here. Serana and I trudge up there, if you take a fairly liberal meaning of the word "trudge" that includes "hopping like a madman across ice patches" and "occasionally falling into frigid water." At last we arrive at the outpost of Septimus Signus.

 

He's an odd bird, this guy. He's locked himself into an ice cave with a dwemer box, and he's determined to bust his way in. He tells me that the best way to do it is to go to a different dwemer ruin, conveniently located in Skyrim, and hands me a metal ball and a metal cube. Says they'll help me get the information he needs. Yep, that's right, a ball and a cube. I did say he's a kooky one.

 

Ding ding ding! "Congratulations!" says a disembodied voice, "You've reached Level 7 of a Nested Problem!" To kill Harkon to stop endless night we've had to hunt down three elder scrolls without our local monk scroll 'expert' having any useful information, and find Serana's mommy and get her scroll, which required us to travel to an extremely boring and drab afterlife, and subsequently find a different expert, and which meant tracking down Septimus at the ass-end of nowhere via the College of Winterhold, and now we must take a metal ball and a metal cube to a different dwemer ruin to uncover the secret of how to open the big box in the hopes that Septimus will then tell us how to find the third scroll so we can read it and learn how to stop Harkon from enacting his evil plan... ugh. Hang on.

 

Sorry, but I'm a tad confused... can't we just go stab Harkon in the face? Why all the running about? I'm the Dragonborn, a man out of legend, the Archmage of the College of Winterhold, and my powers of vampire-killing just aren't enough yet? Why the hell not? I'm backed up by his daughter, who is no slouch in the murder-department either, and I'm part of a group of people who are well motivated, and well equipped with vampire-slaying weapons, who would gladly JUMP at the chance to slaughter a bunch of vampires. Why can't we just go do that, I whine at Serana, but she just tosses a blank look my way and starts talking about the weather again. Why can't I just go kill Harkon myself? I'm tough enough! What, in short, is wrong with me?

 

Breathe deeply, Mace. You made a pact with yourself to take whatever job comes along, and this is, in fact, a job that has come along. So what if it's a completely snarled ball of yarn? So what if the story doesn't make any goddamn sense? It's still a job!

 

Okay... fine. Once at Alftand, we wind our way through the ruin, killing a poor, drugged-up Khajiit on the way, not to mention about ten thousand Falmer and dwemer constructs. The previous expedition to come through here met with an unfortunate fate, and that happened to be at the end of my hammer, because the last two surviving members proceeded to attack me for getting involved in their little internal dispute. Hey, guys, I just wanted to use this metal ball on that metal... revolving... thing over there. You shouldn't have attacked me. Nice shield, though... I could mount it on my wall if I ever want a bunch of spikes sticking out of my wall. I can use it as a coat hook!

 

So I use the metal ball on the metal revolving thing, and it turns into a staircase. Pretty cool, one nifty thing in this whole place, I'm sure the rest of this quest is going to be bland again. Down the stairs we go, and through a door into...

 

Holy cow.

 

Okay, this Blackreach place is pretty damn cool. It's full of falmer and dwemer and chaurus, but there's also a giant walking along, and some trolls, lots of waterfalls, an old laboratory with a dead elf inside who was studying a new type of plant, a big ball of light that erupts in dragons when shouted at, and there's a lot of nifty places and cool architecture. The whole spot is lit by an otherworldly light, there are pretty, giant mushrooms scattered about, and all in all I'm really glad I came down here. A whole new world exists under Skyrim. This just about made my day.

 

I could actually go on about Blackreach for pages, but no words of mine can do the place justice. If ever, gentle reader, you get the chance to visit (preferably well armed, armored, and backed up by a squadron of soldiers), you should definitely do so. I've spent days exploring the spot, and I'm not totally certain I've seen it all. I gotta say, I don't really miss the sun at all, so if Harkon wants to bring endless night down on the surface world, he can go right ahead, and more power to him. I'm staying right here.

 

But no, it is not to be, because of that damnable journal full of quests. Such as the one I am, ostensibly, on. So Serana and I make our way to the Tower of Mzark, which is an old Oculory, which has something to do with randomly pressing buttons until random beams of light randomly converge in a random fashion on the center crystal, which opens up, and... hey, there's an Elder Scroll. It wasn't in the dwemer box after all! Don't I feel a silly goose! Yoink!

 

I sort of feel bad for Septimus, though. He's going to all that trouble to open the big box to find a scroll, and it's not in there. Normally I'd just say "screw him" and wander off to do the next thing on my list, but I feel I need to go tell him he's barking up the wrong tree, or rather prodding at the wrong metal box. So I take the his newly transformed cube and toddle my way back out of there.

 

Back at the outpost, Septimus is still trying to figure out how to get into the box. I show him the lexicon and he gets all excited, saying something about how the dwemer box will only open for a dwemer. At this point, I would recommend hiring a couple of peons and grabbing a largish drill and just boring my way in, but he's decided to trick the box into thinking he's a dwemer, instead, because of course the dwemer, a race who barely managed to invent steam-powered machinery before disappearing, were also capable of advanced biometric scanners that read a person's DNA. I've got to get a sample of elf blood from all the elven races present in the world today, and somehow mixing them all up and injecting them into his own bloodstream will somehow fool the box into thinking he's a dwemer. I turn to my wicker basket and start enumerating the sheer number of problems with this whole damnable scenario, but it interrupts me and mentions the "archmage" thing and says that if you can make a magic-powered staff of wood that can steal a person's soul, reading genetic markers accurately enough to determine a person's ancestry but still being fooled by mixing blood should be easy-peasy. Didn't I say I was running on autopilot, just doing what people tell me to? Yes, yes I did. So off we go.

 

Or, at least, we try... the way is blocked by a giant cloud of mucous. With writhing tentacles. That speaks to me. You know, I'm getting pretty blasé about the whole weird-things-talking-to-me bit... stone walls, magical rocks, and now what appears to be a festering compost heap. Sure, why not. The heap tells me that he is Hermaeus Mora, the Daedric Prince of Interrupting Quest Progress, and he wants me to kill Septimus as soon as I've gotten the required blood. Normally I'd say no, but it looks like the bugger won't get out of the way until I agree, so... sure, you old pile of green goop! I'd just like to say that on behalf of all sane people everywhere, I'm only too happy to do the bidding of random tentacled sludge monsters!

 

Onward. We find and kill a bunch of elves, which would make the Stormcloaks proud of me, which only serves to depress me further. Some of the elves were easy enough to track down and slaughter, others less so. An Altmer patrol, a Falmer ruin, an Old Orc wandering the roads and killing sabrecats, looking for a good end... it all added up, eventually. Finally we finish slaughtering elves, and we make it back to Septimus. He takes the blood and injects himself with it I PROMISED MYSELF I WOULDN'T NITPICK DAMMIT and the box opens into a nifty-looking tunnel. Once inside, Septimus gets all weepy, and I have to put him down... partly out of pity, but mostly because the Daedric Prince of Tentacle Rape told me to. The ball of oozing glop appears again and thanks me, and now I've got a strange book bound in human skin cluttering up my inventory.

 

Okay, moving on. Now we've got all three scrolls... and it's time to get back to Dexion and have him read them.

 

NEXT: Chapter 35, Some Old Parchment
Start at Chapter 1

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Blackreach is one of my favorite places in the game. The colors, the ambiance, the environmental storytelling, the architecture, the mechanics, the overall design... it all adds up into a slap-bang spot. Congratulations, Bethesda, you've managed to sucker me in again!

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I just had a thought as I was reading this, 2 weeks late....

 

Just how did that giant get down there?

No idea, but he just keeps walking along the road, like he's lost his pet cow or something.

For that matter, how did a dragon get down there?

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I just had a thought as I was reading this, 2 weeks late....

 

Just how did that giant get down there?

No idea, but he just keeps walking along the road, like he's lost his pet cow or something.

For that matter, how did a dragon get down there?

 

 

The dragons I always assumed got summoned or magically teleported somehow.  No idea how much bone dust and such was needed to get Ugly Dead Face into the Soul Cairn though.

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I HAVE NEVER SHOUTED AT THE ORB!

 

WHY WOULD YOU SHOUT AT THE ORB?

 

You continue to amuse, particularly like "Daedric Prince...told me to".

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I HAVE NEVER SHOUTED AT THE ORB!

 

WHY WOULD YOU SHOUT AT THE ORB?

 

You continue to amuse, particularly like "Daedric Prince...told me to".

 

Accidentally, the first time. IIRC I was trying to shout a Falmer off a ledge, and hit the orb. Then a dragon popped out.

Just makes me wonder how much other interesting stuff I'm missing...

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