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Hey, it's Fenrir. We decided I'm writing this down after I managed to beat both my mom and Damien in a game of rock-paper-scissors for who is the focus today. Last time I came back from Elsweyr with Inigo and Sofia, but that's not relevant right now. We decided when we reported in to Windhelm that we'd split up, but our plans were immediately interrupted by a letter appearing in mine and my mom's pockets. I read mine, "Hey, isn't this a great spell I learned in Daggerfall? Anyway, come to Winterhold. Bring everybody. I found something about a huge wizard's tower and I think I need help figuring out where it is." I looked up, "I wonder if he means the college or the town?" Mom shrugged, "Either way, just grab on to me. I'll ferry." "Wait!" Ulfric said. "What?" Mom asked. "I want to come. Also, you should probably tell your airship where you're going," Ulfric said. "Yeah," I smiled, "Brill.... would you mind?" "No problem," Brill said. When we got there, Damien and Brisennia were waiting for us, her carrying the baby in a sling. Mom held up her letter, "What do you mean the houses we looked at are trash? What about Suncrest?" "It's alright," Damien replied. "Vortai?" "It's cool but not really suited for my purposes. More of a warrior place." "Evil Mansion?" "With a baby? No thanks. Too haunted." "Laboratorium??" "You remember that was my choice... until I found this," Damien showed her an artists' rendering of the tower, "Caranthir Tower." "Oh. Yeah. That looks very good," she replied, "If it's real." "Tolfdir confirmed that he's seen it. But it's invisible unless the owner wills it to be seen," Damien replied. "Alright," I said, "Where is this fancy tower?" "Well, when I started investigating, a ghost appeared and handed me this," Damien said. Brisennia rolled her eyes, "Gods, you are a little boy on a treasure hunt." "Nice to meet you, by the way," I shook her hand. Damien skimmed the note, reading the important parts, "Ghost's name was Andion. Part of a secret order that guards artifacts. One was stolen. Two, including it, were intended to be mine. Head to the mountains of Winterhold and retrieve what is yours." "So that's it. Who wants to help me and my poor estranged lady and baby?" Damien smiled. "Well, of course I'll help," Mom said, "Sounds like a neat little adventure to figure out where it is." From the attached notes, we started out at Alftand (getting rid of some bandits who'd taken residence outside the old ruin) and traveled southwest into the mountains. We didn't meet any resistance, but did find a submerged shrine with a giant dragon statue atop it. As we passed, mom said, "Well, that's coming to life later. Comb the area. Looks like we need to figure out how to get in." We all walked around for a bit, walking the cliffs and the paths nearby and I found a dead body under a tree that was near the statue. "Looks like our thief," I said. I looked at the sword in the ground next to him. "He's bloody, but can't figure out how he died," Sofia was looking at the body as I was rifling through his pack. "Better leave that sword be. Whoever did this didn't rob him," I said, pulling out a gem, spell tomes, and a journal. I handed it to Damien as he neared, "Get in the game." He opened it and read, "I have the sword of Lucan Caranthir, named Vozahlaas Tuz. Says he infiltrated the ghost order... oh wow, it can change from greatsword to a one handed sword. Neat. Bet Jura would appreciate that. From the books he read, the tower is hidden, but the tomes have many missing pages." He looked around, "Should be a receptacle for the sword to go into." Damien picked up the sword, then I noticed, "Huh. The pommel looks like it should have something in it." I pulled the gem I'd found out of my pack and it slid in perfectly, locking into place. "Noice," Mom said. "Uhh.. this looks like a slot, my friends!" Inigo called from the cliff just above us. And indeed, there was a pedestal with a sword slot up there. As we walked up to the pedestal, Damien kept reading. I grabbed the sword. "Hmm... the entries stop with, 'I'm going to try and put it in the slot," Damien said as I was locking it into place. And a huge cloud of dust puffed at the bottom of the ridge. "Knew it!" Mom said, and they were already pulling out their bows. I pulled out the autocrossbow and loaded a magazine, "Make a lot of sense that a dragon statue wouldn't want to rob the guy, just prevent him from entering." "JOOR!" Mom shouted, but it didn't seem to even care, "Well, I don't think it's any kind of real dragon." It started blasting fire, but with no words. Damien raised a Greater Ward to protect Brisienna and Sinidar. With the swarm of magic, arrows and bolts from our group, it went down. When it did, the shrine rose out of the ground, the barrier around the sword vanished, and a ghost appeared. He pointed to the sword. I grabbed it, and he vanished. Then the mountain started to rumble, nearly knocking me over. When I turned my head, Caranthir's Tower was looming behind us. "Well, that did it," Damien smiled. Inside the shrine was a teleport pad, but it looked dead. A glowing crystal was hanging on the wall. Damien grabbed it and used it to power up the telepad, "Easy!" We hopped on, activated it, and appeared in a dark room. The ghost appeared again, and silently used a Flames spell to light one of the large braziers hanging from the ceiling. Mom and Damien proceeded to light the other three and the ghost vanished. I looked around at the pile of junk in the corner, the lack of amenities, etc, "Looks like kind of a fixer-upper." "Well, it's been abandoned for years," Damien responded, eyes full of promise, "It has a lot of potential!" We all walked around again, trying to find something useful. Eventually, I found a long shaft leading up with some form of magic barrier preventing me from falling down. "What does this say? Lift?" I said to myself, touching the barrier. Another list of words appeared. Alchemy Station, Forge, Vault. My eyes stopped at Forge and I hit it. "WHOA!" I shouted as I was lifted into the air and moved upward through two other barriers and set down in another room, also dark. When I exhaled, I heard Damien shouting in the distance, "Fenrir? Are you ok?" "Yeah! That thing sent me to the forge," I shouted back. Seconds later, he emerged from the barrier. The mom, then Bris, etc. The first thing Brisienna said was, "What do you think would happen when Sini can crawl and touches one of those things? Babies get into everything." "Baby proofing a wizards' tower," Damien stroked his chin, "It can be done. But first we need to get the lights on." He went around lighting the braziers, and I found a handwheel, that I opened. There was another valve without the fitting, but I couldn't get the handwheel off the other one. There didn't seem to be anything we could do with this room. So we moved on to the Alchemy Station. Once again I was the one to test the waters, finding a magicka station of some sort. "Seems like this thing needs to be powered up," I said, "I don't have the magicka pool for it, probably." Damien charged it up, "Don't sweat it, bro. Looks like it includes an escape portal item. And - more Ayelid Crystals." He powered up the teleporter in the room and said, "What next?" "Vault," I replied. "Guess we need to use the lift to get there. The teleporter is not on in the Vault," Damien replied. We moved back and went to the vault. I put the sword in the slot and the door opened up. The room was filled with clutter, with two locked vault doors, and a teleporter in the middle. We searched around the debris. Mom found a red handwheel. "This probably goes to the forge," I said. We tried the vault door buttons, but they didn't seem to work. Ulfric said, "This is getting tedious. Do you guys do this a lot?" Mom chuckled, "Not into brain teasers, old man? Anybody who wants to take a break can head back to the lobby. We have been at this for a couple hours. About lunch time." They entered the lift and only Damien, Mom and I remained. "Well, guess we should light the brazier," Damien said. Something clicked into place when he did, and the platform in the middle started to go downward. We all took out our weapons, thinking the same thing. And we were right! A huge obsidian golem with a black sword emerged as the platform raised again. Mom and I engaged while Damien stood back, blasting with Fireballs. "We're not doing any damage to this thing!" I shouted. Mom dodged and weaved, "Try something else!" I looked over to the sword in the slot, "Worth a shot," and grabbed it, re-shutting the door. I rushed up to the thing and struck it, causing it to writhe in pain. "FUS - RO - DAH!" Mom shouted, causing the thing to go to one knee. It turned to her as I wailed on it. When it started to turn back to me again, she shouted, "YOL - TOR!" Bathing it in fire. I stabbed it one last time and it went down, turning to dust. We found that while the sword wasn't in the slot, there were also magic barriers over each over the vault doors. I slid it back in to the slot on this side, and Damien activated the portal. I pressed the button on one of the vault doors, and it slowly opened. Inside, we found some treasure, and various decorations for other parts of the tower. There was a handwheel on the wall that I opened, "That's two, and the one we have the handwheel for." "Do you even know what these are for?" Damien asked. "I assume the forge uses some kind of steam-heat delivery, like dwemer tech," I replied. Mom nodded as she hovered her hand over the other vault door button, "Come out, I can't open them both at the same time for some reason." We ransacked the other vault, and there was another valve, which I opened, "Back to the forge!" They followed me, a man on a mission, and I put the handwheel on the fourth valve and opened. The forge burst to life. "Or maybe it uses lava," I blinked, "Hey, you sure you want to keep this place? Seems a little family-unfriendly. Maybe I should take it off your hands." Damien chuckled and put his hand on my shoulder, "Not a chance. But you can come use the forge anytime you want. Besides, you have an airship!" I smiled back, "Oh yeah!" We found the Alchemy Station now had water flowing. And using the forge room we could restore the other rooms to basic functionality. Damien and Mom figured out how the delivery system worked - via teleportation, and I set to work at the work bench. The vault seemed to be sending me items to fix, then they were being sent to the various rooms. Damien and Mom realized they could both help with the telekinetic tools at the station. All three of us got a sort-of tunnel vision and worked until dusk. At some point the others came and found what we were doing and Dad and Shirley decided they would head home for the night. When we went to the Dormitory and then the Living Quarters on the top floor, everything was refurbished. We three went to the balcony for an amazing view of the night sky. We slept the night, and everyone met in the lobby early the next morning. "Out of curiosity, where's everybody headed?" Sofia asked. "I'm going to check out the Blades," Brisienna said, "Think you can watch Sin safely while you play with your new toys?" Damien smirked, "No problem." "I will be headed there as well," Inigo said. "Hmm, wanna go with?" Mom asked Sofia and I, "I'm curious how they're doing these days." I shrugged, "Why not." So did she. We all hugged and said our goodbyes for now. Damien gave Mom a tome to learn to teleport back to Caranthir and took a copy for himself. "And I can teleport us to a nearby Forsworn site," Mom said. We grabbed onto her and she teleported nearby to a site in the Karthspire. We walked casually through the cleared ruin and entered Sky Haven Temple. As we were walking in, Sofia said to my mom, "I hadn't really thought of this, but you beat the world eater himself. You're a legend now. People are probably talk about you for hundreds of years. If not thousands. And, I mean, my legend is going to only be almost as good." Mom laughed, "Glad to have you back to take me down a peg." We walked in. There was a long table with many plates set, but nobody was home at the moment. "Hello?" Mom asked. We approached Alduin's Wall. "Well, it is really early," I said, "Still dark out." We walked out back to find Esbern practicing his katana skills against a dummy. "Dragonborn! Inigo! How are you?" He asked, "Who are all these people? Recruits for us?" I shook my head, "No thanks." "Speaking of recruits, I heard you had a few since I visited. Where is everybody?" "We rise with the sun. The night watch is light and I usually man it. Ah! Delphine!" The grandmaster was walking down the stairs. "Dragonborn, Inigo. What brings you to us today?" She asked flatly. "Well I don't want to monopolize this trip, it wasn't my idea. But I am wondering who all the new recruits are," Mom said. "Come along. They're about to muster up and have breakfast," she said. Brisienna blocked Delphine's way. "Can I... help you?" Delphine asked. Inigo elbowed Brisienna, "My friend, let us see what she has to offer." She silently went along, those three catching up with us inside the temple. "Recruits, listen up!" Delphine shouted to the group as they lined up, "The Dragonborn's here to inspect our progress." I looked over them, all looking relatively battle ready. I went down the line. "Well now I see where all my housecarls are," I smiled at Iona and Lydia. Both looked a little exasperated, and Iona said, "Inigo convinced me to come. He'd been living in Honeyside for a while." Lydia said, "Vidnar said I didn't need to worry about you coming back to Breezehome. Or even living there at all." "They were right. Mjoll, Jenassa, this is probably a better place than just being mercenaries," Mom continued down the line. She paused when she came to the next few, "Beleval, Celann, Durak. Defect from the Dawnguard?" Durak replied, "Isren is getting a little too crazy for my taste. The Vampires seem to want peace with humans, thanks to you and Lady Serana. He's started having us attack innocents who might be vampires. These two followed me when I quit. Honestly, bunch of sheep." "Never met you before," she said to a woman who was sweeping nearby, "Are you a blade?" "Are you a broom? Well if you are, you're upside down. The bristles go on the floor, sweetie," The woman cackled, and my mom laughed back, "Oh, Delphine hired me as a maid. Name's Tellevi. Don't pay me no mind." "I like her," Mom said, then she moved down the the last two, "Ria and Torvar. I see you guys are pulling double duty. You didn't defect from the Companions, did you?" "Of course not," Ria replied, "Especially since I just made Circle. We just wanted to collaborate with the Blades so I joined. This is my little project." "Oh, congratulations," Mom said. Delphine said, "Not much yet today. Let's sit down and eat with the Dragonborn before we discuss your orders." "Hold on," Brisienna said, "I just don't get it. I was trying to be polite, but maybe somebody can explain it to me. I read about it, but I still don't get it. Why are the Blades in Skyrim?" I'd had her situation explained, so I figured I'd chime in, "When the Septim line died out, the Blades became not the guardians of the Emperor anymore." "But why?" Brisienna asked, "Why not be a bodyguard of the Medes? The Blades originally worked for Reman Cyrodiil. That makes no sense." Delphine folded her arms, "Reman Cyrodiil was a Dragonborn. So was Tiber Septim. Titus Mede was not. I can't vouch for the Blades of the past, but the reason we're here now is because the White-Gold Concordat disbanded the Blades." Delphine sat down and offered Brisienna the seat across from her, "I am Grandmaster Delphine. Who are you?" "Agent Brisienna Magnessen," she replied. Delphine looked down at her archaic state of dress, then she looked back up at the woman's eyes, "Agent of what?" "The Blades." Delphine raised an eyebrow, "Before the last few months there were only two Blades. Now there are twelve. I didn't induct you." "No, in my day I was Grand Spymaster for High Rock and Hammerfell. I was inducted by Grandmaster Jauffre." Delphine looked at her for a moment, "In.. your day?" She started to stand up, but Esburn, who'd been listening, handed her a book open to a specific page. "Lady Brisienna... disappeared after the Warp in the West. And this drawing looks... exactly like you," Delphine frowned as she was looking. Delphine looked at Brisienna again, "So, say you are telling the truth. What do you want with us?" "I want to know what you've become. What is your mission?" Brisienna asked. "The original mission of the Dragonguard. We hunt dragons," Delphine replied, "And this is where all the dragons are." "Hey, um..." Mom started. "Gods, Dragonborn," Delphine sighed. "I'm gonna need you to stop killing dragons. You know, unless they attack people," Mom said, "Oh, unless they attack Skyrim's people. They actually helped defend Skyrim against the Thalmor. You remember that dragon you wanted me to kill, Paarthurnax? Well, now he's mostly in control of them. I need you to patrol and keep them in line, but not wantonly kill them." Then she shot a glance over to Durak, "Just like the Dawnguard should be doing." "Yeah! I know!" Durak said back. "Fine!" Delphine said. She turned to Brisienna again, "So what else do you need? Do you think you have rank over me?" "No. Not at all," Brisienna replied, "In fact, I want to rejoin and help rebuild. I actually think I like this shift to an organization of warriors. Getting back to the roots of the Dragonguard, rather than a bunch of spies." "Alright, well, you've already been inducted, so, you're in," Delphine said. "How about these others?" Esbern asked, "Sofia? Destana's son?" "Fenrir," I said. "No thanks," Sofia replied, "I'm too untrustworthy. I think you guys already established that." "Right. So how about it?" Esbern asked me. "I don't think so. I have other aspirations," I replied. "C'mon!" Mom said, "You could at least come train with them." "Fine. But not now. I have things to do," I replied. Brisienna, Sofia and I grabbed onto my mom to go back to Caranthir (Bris needed to pack her things). "Back already?" Damien asked from the pedestal across the lobby. "I think I'm going to stay with the Blades a little bit. Help train them, and be trained in their new ways," Brisienna said. "You know how I said I was going to look our old friends up?" Damien asked. "Yeah, a journey isn't really good for a baby. I can take Sini at Sky Haven Temple. He needs to breastfeed anyway," Bris smiled. They hugged, said their goodbyes for now. "I don't mind bringing her back and forth," Mom said. Then she smiled at Brisienna, "You can meet my friends! Elisif and Serana have been having a lot of tea meetings lately. But they're real nobility, I'm sure you'll fit right in. Elisif just got engaged so she's all about picking out wedding decor right now." When they teleported out, Damien approached me. "You said you were going to Cyrodiil, right?" I nodded, "Yep. Going to see if Runa needs help." "Well, you've got the all-access border pass. Mind taking a detour?" Damien asked. We teleported back to Windhelm and found out from the dockmaster, "The big Khajiit said they sent to Solitude to restock. Didn't know those guys got that big." I immediately saw it hanging by some old scaffolding at the arch of Solitude when we ported, so we approached from the docks. It started pouring as we climbed the many steps. "Someone's coming!" "What are you doing?" I shouted. "Stealing back the airship!" A thalmor mage peeked his head over the scaffold and blasted me with a fireball. Damien, Sofia and the elves flung spells back and forth as I charged up the remaining stairs. I found a few soldiers blocking my path. I chopped the one near the edge a few times and he went flying into the abyss (thanks Threshhold Throw enchantment). The other two I was able to fight off without much trouble, while my caster friends picked off most the mages. As I reached the top, the last mage summoned an atronach, but at the same moment, Skullcat came running from the ship, "Ye'll not be takin' this ship! Yarrr!" When he was dead, Skullcat said, "Glad ta see ye found us. Needed to get more food and Skooma. Skyrim Skooma's more like piss though." We went below decks and found Kuzavas sitting at the table, "Kuzavas would like to wait for the storm to clear." "No problem," I said. "Might want to get away now, they Thalmor were trying to steal the ship back!" Sofia said. "Kuzavas thinks there are not many more Thalmor in Skyrim. We should be safe for now," he said. "There's not exactly a lot of space for all five of us to sleep," I said. "My friend, do you not know there's a hold?" Kuzavas asked. "Uhh...." I blinked, "How do I get to the hold?" "Use the other hatch," Kuzavas chuckled. "You're not filling me with confidence," Sofia smiled. We ate dinner and I looked around the hold. I looked at the dwemer construction, the charts and maps, and the Airship Owner's Manual. Then we slept for a while. I woke up in the middle of the night to clear skies. "Beautiful out here," Damien said as he followed me. "Yeah. I'm going to start flying toward Cyrodiil. They made a big deal about using telekinesis to fly the thing, but the fact that I can't only means I have to use the helm and the controls and can't just walk around on deck like Kuzavas does. Where to?" I asked. "Kvatch. Too bad you can't fly under your own power," Damien said. I scowled at him. "I learned a simple Levitate spell in Daggerfall. More lost knowledge. I could probably teach it to you," he said. I nodded, "I'd give it a shot." It was fairly simple, and I was able to get it. "I now know exactly three spells - Flames, Fast Healing and Levitate." He chuckled, and I started the throttle. Within a few hours we were flying over Morreath (Hammerfell), far west of the Pale Pass as not to arouse suspicion. Sofia yawned as she emerged. We flew over the colovian mountains, passing west of Chorrol and reaching Kvatch by midday. I parked and we passed through the gate without any trouble. "Yeah the New Imperial Troops are tied up in some kind of border war or something in Hammerfell. And then they just laid siege to Bruma. New Imperial troops are such assholes," the Innkeeper said, "The spotlight is on Bruma right now, but Kvatch is a free city too. I think everybody still thinks of us as a smoking crater, but Kvatch was rebuilt a hundred years ago!" Ultimately after asking around for hours we found they'd stayed there for a year or two before moving on to Bravil for safety during the Great War. It'd been forty years and the info was hard to come by. We had a meal there and headed toward Bravil, reaching it by morning. We entered without incident. "This is a nice little town. Could really settle down here," Sofia said, "Lots of small little houses, compact but pretty." We both stared at her. "What? I'm not gonna be adventuring forever!" Sofia said. We found an Inn, though it was pretty deserted. "We're looking for Medora Direnni," Damien said. "She runs the Warlock's Luck, with her husband Envarion," he said. "Oh, dang!" I said, "That's lucky. She's still here!" "She must be in the 70's by now," Damien said as we walked. After a few moments we found the quaint sign and walked in. A man said, "Hello, hello! I'm coming! Need to buy some spellbooks, alchemical ingredients?" The three of us approached the counter as he did from the other side and Damien said, "We're looking for Medora Direnni." "Why, that's my wife. What do you need her for?" Envarion asked. "Just visiting," Damien said. "Envarion, dear, I'm up here! Tell him he can come up!" A female voice said. We walked up the stairs and found her sitting in a small studying nook. She stood up and tilted her head. "Damien? Gods, could that be you?" "In the flesh!" Damien said. She hugged him, "My, you haven't aged a day!" "Yeah, I got back from the trip only a few weeks ago," Damien chuckled. "Well, it's lovely to see you. You here just for a visit, or because you're on a quest?" Damien laughed, "You only knew me while I was on a big questline. I can just be a friend too. By the way, you've aged wonderfully. Still look as beautiful as when I last saw you." "Oh stop," Medora laughed, pulling out some wine and sitting at the nook after pouring us all cups, "What do you want to talk about, old friend?" "Well, first, meet my brother, Fenrir." "Pleased to meet you," Medora shook my hand. "Sofia." They greeted each other. "So what's life been like? I want to hear all about it," Damien said. "As you can see, I remarried," Medora smiled. "Aren't you glad I convinced you not to go meet King Lysandus?" Damien asked. "Definitely. Calaxes and I had a long, happy life together. I ran the Mage Guild for a while here. But my successor ran it into the ground..." She shook her head. "What about Valiana? Did you guys have any other kids?" Damien asked. "No other kids. Calaxes was in his forties when we met, and didn't want to go through that again. Valiana became a soldier in the Imperial Army after seeing the bad things the Great War did to our people. But I think she left the service quite a few years ago," Medora said. "Think?" Sofia asked, "She's your own daughter. Doesn't she visit?" "Actually, no. I think she got into a bit of trouble and went into hiding a while back. Last I heard she was in Morreath, but there's a big Imperial presence there so she's probably moved on," Medora replied, "Say, Damien?" Damien smiled, "You want me to go check on her, don't you?" "Could you?" Medora asked. Damien looked at me, "I couldn't mind. Want to help out, Fen?" I shrugged, "You seem like a pretty awesome lady. Damien sang your praises while we were flying from Kvatch." "Thank you," Medora said. We hopped back on the airship and flew north, flying by the Imperial City (not too close, and very high up) crossing the Pale Mountains and disembarking at Folkstead on the way to Morreath. I'd never been there so I figured it was worth seeing.