#jhasis journal scribbles

[vvardenfellcat]

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3E 427, Morrowind, Vvardenfell District

Found a journal in a cave today, and Jiub always said that writing down your thoughts can help, so I guess I can start with this.

Imperials suck.

Dunmer suck. Most Dunmer suck.

Guards suck.

And I’m going to run away as soon as I get rid of this stupid package. The end.

[vvardenfellcat]

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4E 170, Abecean Sea

I’m surprised that climbing into a crate actually worked. I got loaded aboard a ship heading for Summerset and I haven’t been found out yet. It’s too hot to stay in the crate for too long, though, and if I’m caught in it... It wouldn’t end well. I’ve found a spot in one of the darker corners I can sit unseen, with a path right to my crate for emergencies.

It almost seems to be going too smoothly though, and that worries me a little, but if it comes to it... Well, I’ll find out how good I can swim out here.

My only concern is someone finding Jeer’s spear before I can get back. I hope they forgive me, but I can’t hide it under my clothes like I can with my sword, and I need that. I went with rags this time. Outsiders aren’t allowed in the Isles and I have yet to see an Altmer running around with a tail. Sorry, Jeer. I’ll have it with me again soon, I promise. I just hope it’s cooler in the Isles than in the lower decks of the ship, I can barely breathe down here.

[vvardenfellcat]

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4E 10, Black Marsh

Shadows is dead. He ambushed us, and tried to kill Jeer. I never thought he’d try to

He tried to kill me. He tried to stab me in the heart, and it only just barely missed. I got so scared, for myself, for Jeer-rah… I panicked, and… The wolf took over. I came to with blood all over me, my mouth full of… Hist forgive me. Jeer said that I was defending myself, that it was fine, but I ate him. I ate his heart, and Hist knows what else. I feel sick. I threw up until there was nothing left to come up when it fully sunk in what I’d done. I don’t understand why Jeer hasn’t left me yet.

They haven’t left me be much since it happened. They helped me get cleaned up, and they took care of burying his body under the roots of a tree after their injury was tended to. Jeer says that Shadows isn’t destined for the Hist, that an outsider like him abandoned the Hist long ago. He’ll go to the Void instead, like all Shadowscales. I don’t know what to feel other than horror that

He tried to kill me. After how long we traveled together, after he said we were brothers. I don’t know what to do, or how to feel. Jeer told me to try and get some sleep, but every time I close my eyes, I can still see his face when he saw me start to shift. I can remember flashes of what happened while I lost control. I’m scared that

[The rest of the entry is scribbled out.]

[vvardenfellcat]

4E 5, Morrowind, Vvardenfell District

Balmora's gone.

The day had started out like any other. I had checked in with Nine-Toes, Rithleen, and Tyermaillin and found that nothing much was amiss, at least not much more than usual considering the aftermath of the Crisis.

It was when I was heading to the South Wall that I felt extremely anxious all of a sudden. My body prickled all over, like the lingering static from a shock blast, and my wolf instincts were screaming for me to run. It was just so quiet all of a sudden and something just felt so incredibly wrong.

I found out not long after what it was.

There was this slight tremble to the ground, then a loud cracking, crunching sound, an explosion heard from far off... I had looked towards the direction it came from, seeing this massive wall of fire rushing down from the slopes of Red Mountain. There was this brief moment of stillness, like everything was holding its breath before it hit.

Earthquakes split the ground, walls were shaken down in seconds, massive chunks of flaming rock crashing into buildings and toppling them like they were made of twigs. It was like looking into the maw of an Oblivion Gate all over again, just fire and fear and screams painted over a background of cracking earth and this horrible roar, like Red Mountain itself was a beast bellowing out in rage.

I remember dodging the falling rubble, remember running and snatching up a young Dunmer before a massive chunk of one of the outer walls could crush them as they came crashing down. I knew that we had to get to an open area, away from the walls that were tumbling down, had to get away from the stone raining down on us as the air itself seemed to be on fire. I remember the ground breaking under my feet, bucking underneath me in a sharp jolt, and we both fell into the river Odai.

The water felt ice cold compared to the heat of the air above. I remember surfacing, only to have something strike my back and force me under again. It may have been one of the pieces of the outer wall; my memory's still a little hazy on the details. It was too heavy for me to move out from under it, I remember that much. I don't know how long I was under, long enough to pass out perhaps, since it seemed someone fished me out of the river like a drowned rat.

What little I saw left of the city after that still haunts me.

There was nothing but fire, rubble, bodies, the cries and screams of the wounded and the mourning, the rumblings of the aftershocks filling in the background... So many had died... I remember looking up and seeing a massive cloud pluming over the peak of Red Mountain, reaching up with ashen talons to claw at the sky, fireballs still arching from its maw, leaving trails of smoke behind them. Glowing rivers of lava had started leaking down the slopes, illuminating the ashen haze that hung in the air around them.

It had been Baar Dau striking Vivec City that had triggered the eruption, at least from what reports we received. Something about the Ingenium that was used to keep it aloft? Even now, it's still a little hard for me to think. Tyermaillin did say I hit my head rather hard.

Vivec had vanished, which apparently was the reason that the Ingenium was constructed in the first place. And with the rest of the Tribunal dead...

It's my fault. All of this is my fault. I had saved these people...only to damn them. I saved them from Dagoth Ur's influence, his corrupted madness...only to lead them into this hell.

What kind of hero am I supposed to be if I inflicted so much suffering upon those I was tasked to save? I'm helpless to do anything other than bandage wounds, clear rubble, try to find some source of food that wasn't incinerated from the blast... I can't even do much of that before I have to stop and breathe. It's just so hard to breathe.

It's hushed now, ever since the ash started to fall like snow. I can still hear people crying at night, devastated from the loss of their homes, their loved ones, everything they had ever known. Other than watching over the wounded and caring for the children left without families to tend to them, now there's little I can do.

It seems that it's good that I'm here for the little ones at least. The one I saved from falling rubble lost their parents in the eruption and frequently cries into my fur at night. The others are quiet and scared, trembling as they huddle close to me to keep warm during the nights since the heat died down some. I try to keep their minds off of what's happening with stories, and it seems to help, even just a little.

I'd give anything to take it all back, give them their families, their lives back again. I would rather face Ur for all eternity, stand against Dagon until the end of Time itself, anything, if only to give them that.

[vvardenfellcat]

17th of Last Seed, Skyrim

I had the dream again.

I was underwater, deeply so. I could see the ghostly visage of a shipwreck below me, something glittering at the base. The barest hints of sunlight reached down into the depths, lighting my path downwards. I dove deeper, curious about the glittering, able to move swiftly despite the clothes billowing around me, my tail driving me powerfully through the dim waters.

As I drew closer, the wreck looked less and less like a ship, like wood splintered upon the rocks. Rather, it gleamed dully, a golden metal, designs carved into it. It seemed familiar, but at the time I could not place it. I wanted to get to the glittering down in the sands, so I swam onward.

As I reached the bottom, I saw the source of the glittering. It was Keening, sunk deeply into Lorkhan's Heart. Once I recognized it, I realized the Heart was still beating, my apparent deafness to it's pounding vanishing. It was too loud in the water, my ears spiking in pain with each loud thump, it's rocky surface twitching and constricting in the low light.

I reached towards the blade, wanting to finish off the Heart, to destroy it, but when I saw my hand, my claws, my fur, I suddenly was aware that I wasn't breathing, but suffocating.

Drowning.

I saw Akulakhan in the murky water, his great gleaming eyes shifting to stare at me. Not gold, I realized, but bronze of Dwemer make had been what I mistook for a shipwreck. I tried to swim up and away from it, towards the surface, my lungs were burning, I was drowning once again, like all those times before, panic constricting my throat, I just had to get to the surface and breathe.

But there was something holding me down, keeping me from leaving the watery clearing. I looked down to see him, the man with the golden mask, Dagoth Ur, his mask broken and cracked, darkness seeping from within as his eyes glowed brightly from the holes.

His long clawed fingers were curled around my ankle, pulling me back down to him, a smile on what I could see of his face. He used my struggles to get away from him to pull himself out of the sand, his grave. The water then grew hot, boiling hot, light rising from below, searing molten lava rising from the sand, bubbling, surrounding us, the Brass God looming over us, the sounding of that Heart constantly beating in my head.

'You are a stubborn thing, aren't you Moon-And-Star?' I shuddered when his voice slithered into my head, words unspoken by tongue, no doubt because he wanted me to hear it, rather than have it lost to the waters. I knew I had to get away, somehow, the heat was unbearable, my lungs burning as if on fire, the grip around my ankle painfully tight.

I could see my spear in the rock above me, if I could only swim high enough to grasp it. I tried to get closer, grasping a curl of rock, my skin searing at the touch, but I had to pull up, had to if I was to get my spear, lingering just out of reach of the hot water, in the cool, blissful darkness just above us.

I felt Ur release me, my straining grip suddenly launching me up, drifting through the water to grasp the familiar haft of my spear, turning to face him. But at that point, the depth was too much, the pressure in my chest akin to sharp blades sinking into me, my mouth opening just as the darkness took me. The sight of Dagoth Ur laughing from below, the sound echoing in my head, was the last I knew before I blacked out and the water rushed in.

And then I woke, gasping for breath, alone and cold and shaking.

I don't know anything about dreams, and I wish that Nibani was alive still to tell me what it meant. Though with Ur dead, the answer may have been old memories and fears coming after me in my sleep, for what reason, I didn't know. It makes me feel like a child, too afraid to sleep for fear of the terrors lurking just under my eyelids. But again, Nibani always made me feel like a child, if not always in a bad way.

Once the sun rises, I should be able to make it to Helgen before noon. My best hope is to approach it cautiously. Imperial forts used to be safe places, but if Markus' intel is right, it has a chance of also housing Thalmor. I'd rather my first contact with others in Skyrim be uneventful and unnoticed.