FINAL TRIAL

[strangerpeople]

FINAL TRIAL

[The doors at the other end of the city do not open for the Titled. However, whatever is going on in there still brings forth bright lights from within, and ultimately, it is to the steps of the entrance that everyone is drawn to. It's not the most formal setting for figuring out the truth of the matter before them.

Eric's brought the snacks, at least.

The Dragonborn sits at the top of the stairs, looking down as everyone congregates.]

...Having this key...I am certain I can open the door with little difficulty. But before I do we must make certain we know and understand exactly what we will be facing. What we are facing. These people...they are doing something and we must ensure we can somehow stop it.


[The end is near. The objectives of this quest are simple:

Who is the Mastermind? What is going on in this world? And...of course...why did the Mastermind want to kill 15 strangers?

Good luck, Titled.]

Comments

[carries_war]

Cursed, huh? Any idea what the curse does?

[strangerpeople]

...

[She looks a bit uncomfortable.]

Auriel's Bow was said to be crafted by one of the Divines from the very magic which flows from the sun. The arrows its meant to use, the Sunhallowed Elven Arrows, can also harness the power of the sun. Shooting an Sunhallowed arrow at the sun can create enough power to kill every undead in an entire hold.

But...Bloodcursed Elven Arrows do the opposite. When one of those is shot at the sun, they...block the sun and its magic entirely.

[Just. Mmmmgh.]

A boon for vampires...and those type of arrows only exist because of...something stupid.

[carries_war]

And there's not many of them left here...how long do they last?

[strangerpeople]

Normally a day or so, but...only having a few left right now doesn't mean anything. All you need is someone who knows how to make Sunhallowed Elven Arrows, and the blood of a Daughter of Coldharbour.

Obviously, the latter was pretty easy to find in comparison to the former.

[Oh no she's not bitter or anything...]

[carries_war]

Bastards...

[The more he hears, the more he wants to take blood for blood. The Red Dragon would love their souls...]

Are there any specific criteria for being able to make Sunhallowed Elven Arrows?

[strangerpeople]

Well, to do that, you have to know the ancient arts of the Falmer, the Snow Elves before they were corrupted by the Dwemer, eras ago. When we were first fighting the prophecy, Snu--

[...Sheepish chuckle.]

...sorry, Alexis and I met the last remaining Snow Elf in the world, and he knew how to craft them. It took time, but...after everything in Skyrim settled and Alexis was anointed, they did learn from him how to make Sunhallowed arrows. They rarely asked for my blood to make Bloodcursed arrows - the Sunhallowed arrows were only to be used in emergencies, like for staving off unnatural eclipses. Fighting Vampire Lords trying to infiltrate the guilds, things like that.

[carries_war]

And I'm guessing there's not much good that comes from the Bloodcursed arrows, right?

[strangerpeople]

Unless you find blocking the sun to be good, no.

[carries_war]

Well, considering they've obviously been using them, someone sure seems to think so.

But what was that you mentioned about a prophecy?

[strangerpeople]

The Tyranny of the Sun. A prophecy created to taint Auriel's Bow and plunge the world into darkness. My father tried to fulfill it, but failed.

[carries_war]

Plunge the world...

[He thinks back to that diary and his blood boils all over again, but he forces himself to calm down.]

Did it also involve Towers falling?

[strangerpeople]

...No. No Towers falling. Just plunging the world into eternal darkness.

[carries_war]

Well, that was part of the assholes' plan. Some revenge scheme by someone Alexis kicked out of a place called High Hrothgar, it looks like they planned on making them suffer for ruining their plans, even if they pulled the entire world down around them to do it.

[strangerpeople]

High--

[Serana looks absolutely flabbergasted, while Alexis looks confused. They don't remember, whoops.]

Seriously? The Peace Council? That...could only be one person who got kicked out.

All of this over that?

[carries_war]

They seemed to take it pretty personally. Read for yourself.

[And he picks up the diary and hands it over, knuckles white from how hard he's gripping it.]

[strangerpeople]

...Oh my god...this..this was years ago...and she...

[Good lord she looks ready to kill now.]

Doing this just to spite Alexis...! None of this even needed to happen if they just wanted to do something to the Towers!

[carries_war]

It seems like she took whatever happened pretty damn personally.

[Finally. Looking through the rest of these papers. They don't make him as angry.]

The person you're thinking of, her name's Elenwen, right?

[strangerpeople]

Yeah. Elenwen. Never met her personally, but...Alexis told me about her. Back when she was the Thalmor's ambassador to Skyrim. She...was in charge of carrying out Thalmor interests within the Empire.

[carries_war]

Well, looks like she's in charge around here. She's probably the invisible bitch that killed McBurn...

I've still got no clue what why they want us dead, but I'm guessing it has something to do with this experiment about Mantling people. They thought we were Dwemer, not Daedra, but maybe they got curious about the ancient lost race.

[intercessing]

Mantling? Daedra?

[carries_war]

This mentions them.

[He holds out one of the papers Eric brought.]

[zephyranthe]

Oh. Guess that explains why it was so dark outside.

[Welp! That's one mystery solved.]

[strangerpeople]

...yes. That would do it.

[g r e a t]

[poorlovefool]

Well... is that such a bad thing? Babette ended up being pretty nice... Do we have some kind of vampire army to worry about?

[strangerpeople]

Not every vampire's nice - and Babette wasn't quite the innocent kid. Besides, there's that whole...growing crops and food thing non-vampires like doing...not to mention food for animals...