Hey, it's Destana.  Last time I dove right in to Solstheim, learning a couple new shouts, fighting a couple types of things I've never seen before.

 

And now I'm with the Nerevarine and Neloth in Nchardak. 

 

 

I'm not going to bore you with the details.  It is, after all, a puzzle that involved raising a lowering water levels.  The WORST kind of puzzle imaginable.  I somehow think it could've been a lot worse though, if I didn't know how to swim, or even if I couldn't go underwater.  We collected several cubes, used them to open paths, move water, lower bridges and destroy a few Dwemer contraptions.  Reminds me of Fenrir.  Sometimes I wonder why that boy likes tech so much.  He might not have the magic knowledge of his brother but damn Fenrir is clever when it comes to machines.

 

 

Finally, finally, the book that'd been under glass the whole time but unreachable gave way and opened.  Of course, Neloth looked at me like he expected me to take the Black Book first.  I shrugged.  All the more power for me, I guess.  I need to get even stronger to fight Miraak.

 

As I grabbed it, Neloth said, "Oh good, be sure to say hello to Hermaeus Mora for me."

 

And of course, I was back in Apocrypha.  Not really wanting to experience anything related to tentacles, I immediately threw up invisibility with the Nerevarine's Bow and shot anything that moved.  You know, I bet there's a lot of secret stuff in here.  And that made me start thinking about Damien.  I may be pretty good with magic, but I just memorize the runes.  I never bothered to learn what any of them mean.  Damien, though, he learned a lot in his years in Oblivion.  He's one of the smartest spellcasters I know, routinely inventing his own spells.

 

 

It was a series of small challenges, squamous moving bridges and passages that made way when I pushed fleshy buttons.  Spluh.

 

I finally reached the end and approached the 'large print' version of the book I'd touched to get in here.  I felt my skin crawl.  Eddies of black swirled in the air, tentacles wriggling out of the cracks in space.  Staring back at me - Hermaeus Mora's alien eye.  As much as he looked like the leftovers from when Anu and Padomay created the Aedra and Daedra (and he was) his presence still gave me pause.  

 

His ponderously slow echoing drone rang out in my ears, "All seekers of knowledge come to me, sooner or later."

"Don't worry.  I was just leaving.  I'll take my forbidden knowledge and be on my way," I said.  Could I teleport here if I was in a pinch?  Probably, though my teleport had a maximum range and I was in friggin outer space.  Daedric realms are just pocket planets in the great dark, just like Nirn.

 

"No.  Not yet," he said demandingly, "I've watched your progress through my realm with... growing interest."  

Skeeved me out the way he said that.

 

"You are following in the footsteps of my servant Miraak.  Like him, you're Dragonborn, and seek the knowledge that is your birthright," Herma Said.

 

 

"I don't need help learning secrets.  I'll find them on my own," I replied snidely.

"No.  Look around you.  You've done nothing here on your own," he said, pleased with himself, "You could spend a hundred lifetimes searching my library and never find what you seek.  I know what you want:  to use your power as a Dragonborn to bend the world to your will.  Here then is the knowledge you seek, although you did not know you needed it."

 

He flexed his tentacles, and knowledge flowed into me much as it had with Paarthurnax and the Greybeards.  Nothing that I'd had any desire to take anything from this writhing mass.

 

"Use it to bend the wills of mortals to your purpose.  But it is not enough.  Miraak knows the third word.  Without that, you cannot hope to surpass him.  I can grant you the same knowledge he wields, but all knowledge comes at a price."

I folded my arms, "So what's your price?

"Knowledge for knowledge.  The Skaal have withheld their secrets from me for many years.  Send the skaal shaman to me."

Then he faded, and the book activated, granting me a little more of that forbidden knowledge and sending me through blinding lights, back to Solstheim.

 

I could feel it.  Unrelenting Force was stronger, blasting opponents with actual harm.

 

Neloth smirked at me as I emerged, "Did you learn what you needed to?"

I nodded, "Spoke to old Herma Mora."

"And you're still surprisingly sane."

"He wants the secrets of the Skaal," I explained.

"Sounds like a bargain.  HM learns some new ways to skin a horker and you get to be the second most powerful Dragonborn ever to have lived."

"I mean I'd count Tiber Septim in there, but alright," I replied, but Neloth was already headed outside to return to Tel Mithryn.

 

A dragon swooped out of the sky as the three of us walked out.

I smirked a bit.  One of Miraak's pals?  

"Hey dragon.  You don't know who you're messing with," I said.  By no means did I yell it loud enough for him to hear.

 

 

"JOOR!" I blasted him with Dragonrend.

"No dovah would stoop to such vile speech!" He yelled at me.

"Yeah, 'cause you can't use it!" I taunted.

 

He landed a stone's throw away, the Nerevarine blasting him with poison, Neloth with fire and me peppering him with arrows.  As he turned to Neloth, I drew my daggers, surged forward and slid under him, stabbing him in his lower belly.  He collapsed.  Might've been a record for me.

 

At once, Miraak's voice echoed, "This dragon's soul belongs to me."

I shouted back, "Keep it, I have plenty!"

Got like 60.  Go ahead, jackass.

 

He vanished, and the Nerevarine's ball lightning exploded on the wall where he'd been.

"Damn," he said.

"We're gonna get him.  It'll be as epic as your fight with Dagoth-Ur."

"What do you know of that fight, Dragonborn?" He asked.

"Well, mostly what I've read about.  There was a poem written about ten years ago that retells it in song," I said.

"Ugh, by Azura that sounds terrible," he grimaced.

"He's all like, 'Sweet Nerevar, come and look upon the heart... upon the heart," I said.  Half-singing and half just saying the words rhythmically.

 

"Please stop," he pleaded, "Though he did always call me Sweet Nerevar.  You know, I may be a reincarnation of him, but I don't understand why his friends called him Sweet Nerevar."

I shrugged, smiling, "Maybe in a past life you were just such a sweet guy."

I laughed, and he groaned.

 

 

Neloth went back to Tel Mithryn and we returned to Raven Rock.  I figured I should check on Kintyra.  And this, of course, made me think of Runa.  She was headstrong like Runa, though so much more of a fangirl.  Runa'd always been kinda quiet, brooding.  But blunt and strong when you can get her to talk.  The Nerevarine continued to the Inn while Captain Veleth accosted me.  

"Second Councilor Arano asked me to find you.  It's urgent.  Even more than wiping out Ash Spawn."