Entry Three

We found the temple today.

A few of the clergymen were carrying logs to a small house when we came wandering over the hillside. The three of them dropped their loads and receded, but we soon assured them of our hospitality. There was brother Hridi, brother Hjar and brother Holger. The entire guard must have looked like an army to them, which it was, but we were approached peacefully in the end. One stepped forth and introduced himself.

"I am brother Hridi," he said. "And before we move on to any sort of serious discussion, I must ask who in the name of the Moth you are and what you want with us."

"I am Keiroth Morrovir," I said. I realized I ust have looked a bit like some kind of swashbuckler, what with my worn longcoat and my palm resting on a mighty blade sheathed on my belt. I continued, "This is my comrade, Dehkan. Behind me is the entire Cheydinhal Guard. I received a letter requesting my presence here which I had turned down since I was young, but I was free at last, after two decades, and decided to journey to your aid. My friend Dehkan agreed to travel with me, for protection, to the Jerall mountains, where he would take his leave with the Guard - who he has convinced to help him - and defeat the legendary invisible troll of Dive Rock."

The sacred man was somewhat speechless, but I could tell he was searching for words. At last he said, "Very well. But where will all these men stay?" 

"They will set up camp here," I replied.

His face dropped into a surprised sort of disappointment and he said, "Oh. Well, I shouldn't like them to stay for very long."

"They will stay here during my term here," I said. "Dehkan must use your library to translate text which explains how to kill the invisible beast. It will take a few months, he assumes."

"Well I don't mean to spoil your plans," said Hridi, "but I did not agree to allowing this man and his entire army to stay at my monastery!"

"And what will you do about it?" asked Dehkan. "Call for a guard? The only guards around here are with me. You can deal with a few drunkards with swords for a few months, can't you?"

"Ugh!" exclaimed the old man in white robes. "Fine! Fine, they may stay."

A man in the crowd behind us heard our conversation and yelled, "You've a problem with us, old man? We'll slice you up and it won't mean a thing to us!"

"And I'll throw you all off the mountain!" I yelled back at them. The few laughing soldiers silenced.

"I don't really know what to say to all of this," Hridi said.

"Just allow them to set up camp," I insisted, "and I will discuss whatever business you have with me in a more private place."

I met with the few brothers in their private quarters while the rest of the crowd and Dehkan set up camp around the premises. I was led into the small stone house where the three of them sat with me around a fire with food and wine at our disposal. 

"Mr. Morrovir," said Brother Holger. "We requested your audience many years ago for a simple reason: because we would have liked you, specifically, to help us with a minor problem we had. But when you declined, we were a bit morose, because we only knew the problem would grow. You see, our problem is that...well..." He looked around at his brothers worriedly and then back at me. "The Temple has been periodically haunted by semi-specters."

I was a bit surprised. "Semi-specters?" I asked. "What do you mean?"

"Every few nights," spoke brother Hjar, "a strange noise creeps up from the bottom of the mountain. It is almost indescribable, this sound. It's a sounding of two horn-like sounds which is in such strange beat and sequence that it seems to be out of this realm of being. It creeps up from the bottom of the mountain and stops above the Temple. Then, there are ghosts. They roam around the premises and disappear occasionally but come back regardless and do nothing but take our things and disappear.

They have been taking such strange things. Chairs, bricks, roof tiles, and even one of our beds. We had to build a new one. No food or drink has been stolen, thankfully. But the figures that appear are like no creature in this realm of being. They are snake-like. They have the figures of people but are almost...elongated. They're like people only stretched into snakes. They are extremely swift and horrifying. They appear and disappear, and it is impossible to know whether they will come back or not. I assume they will again sometime soon, but I can't be sure of it."

"My word," I said. "This is not a joke, is it?" I asked.

"I would never lie to you," said Hjar. "Your understanding of Mysticism, Illusion and Conjuration, we thought, would be enoug to handle this problem. But since you have declined our request, the figures have become only more numerous and coming more frequently. There's nothing we can do about them!"

I was speechless. "I... I don't know anything about this. I should research it, but...by Azura, that is so unexplainable that I dread trying to explain it!"

By that time, it was night. And so it is now. I really must sleep now. 

Entry Two

We must have traveled miles by now. We met with Azura's shrine, meaning we are very near both The Temple and the place known as Dive Rock. It is night again, and so a messenger will be sent to a high spire tomorrow in order to look out for the two destinations.

Ascending the mountainside, we found a pile of dead deer. After investigating around, we came across a bandit camp. Having dispatched of them, we took the venison from the pile and moved on.

It was also not long until we crossed paths with an oger. The battle was long and furious, though, due to how insanely strong this oger was. Arrows simply bounced off him! One arrow lodged into him, but it was most likely due to a crevice in his rocklike flesh. Unfortunately, we lost one guard in the process. The horrible beast picked him up by the skull and thrashed him against the cliffside until his body flew from the troll's grip and all that was left in his hand was the guard's head, which he threw to the ground with a bloody explosion. 

After plenty of fleeing, I mustered up all the will I could and paralyzed the monster. The guards stuck a dagger through his eye and into his brain, killing the beast. Not a single man here sleeps soundly after such an awful encounter.

For a while, Dehkan and I trailed behind the rest of the crowd to speak more privately. I asked him,

"How was it that you convinced the entire Cheydinhal guard to come with us, anyway?"

"It was easy," he said. "No humanoid knows much about Elsweyr at all, right? I told them there was a war in Elsweyr waged over the invisible troll. Ancient scriptures said that the troll would rampage through the land on a certain date. One large group of Khajiit citizens want to march into Cyrodiil, but the Imperial Legion in the country prohibit them. A war has ensued, and now almost everyone in Elsweyr is fighting for some reason. The only way to stop them is to kill the beast."

"This is all false, isn't it?" I asked.

"All of it," he replied. "I'm hunting the thing just because it's what I was sent here to do. I would shame myself to everyone in my life if I failed to do it. I came to Cyrodiil a warrior and discovered that heroism no longer pays. I was unable to even make it to the fighters guild; I sail straight to the Imperial City and fell to my feet. I met you on my way to Skingrad."

"So I assume the Guard is doing this just for the popularity?" I inquired.

"Of course," he replied. "Cheydinhal is already looked down upon and they'll do anything to gain any sort of positive reputation."

I recall a poem by a columnist in the Black Horse Courier:

"Blessed art the fruits of man, His crops are tall and strong. A fool he is to keep them, though; His labor's hard and long."

It spoke of how mankind busies himself with things that bring him nothing but toils and troubles. The columnist went on to say in the poem how the only truly logical way to lie is to do, for then you are truly free of all problems. He went so far as to say nothing truly matters, and that there are only the elements and the soil beneath your feet, and everything else is man's own projection of his own imagination. What a fool. We are in this life and fully aware of our emotions and feelings, therefore we ought to enjoy it in any way we can. 

As disconnected as this journal entry is, I must also give some backstory to Dehkan and I. I was kidnapped by him. He was a Khajiit bandit. He read my journal and discovered who I was, and introduced himself as Dehkan, the mighty warrior sent from Elsweyr to kill the invisible troll. We decided to band together for the sake of our own protection, being that two able fighters traveling is better than one able fighter traveling. We would escort each other to our destinations, which are in close proximity to each other. I am on my way to the Temple of the Ancestor moth on account of unexplained business and his destination is Dive rock. 

No more to be said now. I shall write again tomorrow. 

Side project

http://tchnclr.blogspot.com/

Giving you more to check up on, in case you get too bored. 

UPDATE

I have all the rest planned, I just need filler. It's hard coming up with ideas to keep you entertained while the plot unfolds. All I can say is that you will not be disappointed by this next section of Keiroth's life. Just give it time, and it will happen.

Entry One

So it was, and rightly was, that the bloody hills of Solstheim would bleed again. Nothing kills conflict like bloodshed, it seems. I recall each day of my encampment in the army like a journal, although I kept no journal, for no words could describe the winds of both subzero and fear trampling upon me unerringly until my ommittance from the war. Fools with weapons, we were. And no soul could have predicted the outcome of the war. Neither side was victorious, and it was tragedy all around. The death of a royal member would have galvanized everything, but it would be no affection to the truth: war is the colonization of the meek by the titans so the titans may bicker with each other without causing violence to each other.

I decided to write this because I am sitting somewhere high in the Jerall mountains, looking over the awful city of Cheydinhal. Camped with me is a bandit, a Nord, and all the Cheydinhal Guard. I am out to find the Priory of the Ancestor Moth, and my bandit friend is out to kill a legendary giant, invisible troll. He convinced the guard to help him, but I don't know how. I have been called to the priory for reasons unknown, but I assume it is with good reason that I am summoned, for the letter received was marked with a red wing, meaning it was to be delivered quickly and before all else. The stamp of the red wing is only allowed to select organizations and the Priory has the right to use it only in the most extreme cases.

The journey into the mountains has been long and almost endless, it seems. I remember the days when I had to help my cousin carry wood to his hut on the mountainside. We were always besieged by the small cliff racers in the area. No drop of blood was without desire to the cliff racers. I remember the morning sun peaking over the summit of the mountain like an ultimate crown. It was a dawn to our dusk. And every figure in its wake was a divination towards something so magical, so pure, that no water of any oasis could relieve us more wholesomely than the dawn breaking, exploding, and shining with unrivaled glory over the patchwork fields and villages named under Uriel Septim. 

And so these magical sights return to me. The snow glitters like the stars each morning, and I wake myself early just to see it. The mountains transcend into masses and the sky transcends into a divine ocean of white. The Waters of the Nine, I call them. They fall to the earth in these parts and blanket them in divinity. Sacred is the man who treads these lands. 

The troll's location will become clear in time. We must find a particular abandoned campground. The campground was abandoned by someone named Agnar. He was in search of the troll as well, but supposedly committed suicide off of Dive Rock, upon which his camp is located. We will see if he left a journal behind, with which we will gain knowledge of him and the troll. It is dark and I am writing by cande light, and so my adventures will be documented another day. Farewell for now, dear reader.