There is evil as it lives and breathes in our kin and our peers around us. Then there is evil that festers from beyond our world, that claws and infects the minds and souls of the still-living. I should not have gone there but it was there and I was, if anything, curious. West of Falkreath and not on my maps I found what I assumed as a tomb. I was correct to an extent in that it was, indeed, a tomb; however it was on the number of occupants, intended or otherwise, on which I was mistaken.
The walls and floors of the place were ripe with mushrooms of all forms and upon entering the first main chamber of it, I was met with an unearthly light rising from a cairn. Upon this cairn were bodies both fresh and skeletal and scattered around it were bedrolls and the makings of a makeshift camp. Then there was the journal.
Something was here and it called for their blood. A rational person might take that as a sign to leave. There were no whispers in my mind nor yearnings not my own - yet. These men had almost nothing of value aside from a few sharp blades and a handful of coins. I could have easily left it at that.
I didn’t, of course. I think this lifestyle is getting the better of me: recklessness and diving nose-first into matters that don’t concern me in the least. Perhaps I might justify myself now in saying that I wanted to prevent these unseen tragedies from happening again, that by finding and quenching the source of this evil I would be doing a service to the world.
In all honesty, I think I was just… curious. Or greedy. Nothing more, nothing less. It is difficult to comprehend. My own head makes no sense to me.
Beyond a heavy stone door was the mouth of the actual tomb. There were spirits there stirred up by my encroaching steps, all of them violent. It came as a great surprise to me that my arrows were able to destroy them. Further in were the draugr. Further still, in the final chamber, was the entity which I imagine ruled the catacomb. He was more tricky than his fellow spirits, attempting to distract my shots by somehow splitting his form into two. In the end I was all that was left and the light that urged those others to die faded away.
Of course I helped myself to the chest near the throne. A few things would turn an easy profit: some potions, a pair of finely crafted staves, a handful of soul gems, and a drum. Lastly was the gemstone: enormous, white, faceted with dozens of faces. Most curious of all was the voice that spoke from it, demanding its return to its shrine. Immediately I felt a compulsion to travel north, a feeling most unwelcome considering the corpses at the entrance of the tomb. Still, I kept the orb. It mentioned briefly a desire to cleanse undeath from its home so perhaps it is not something to dismiss so easily.
Furthermore as I was traveling back to Falkreath I came upon a pair of women who called themselves the Vigilants of Stendarr. They explained to me that they were charged with rooting out and destroying evils such as daedra, vampires and the undead. I do not put much stock in the will of the gods but in reflection I must wonder if I should take these things as signs.
— Tirdas, 9th of Hearthfire.
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