I wake. Calmer, but there’s still more to be done. I look down toward the beach from my longhouse, toward the dolmen where Dark Anchors have been falling over and over for months? Years? But the skies are blue today and the seas are calm. My Orcs are still keeping an eye on it, but the Anchors have slowed, like they’re just chucking the leftovers at Nirn for whatever they can fish up.


    They probably ought to have thrown them at places less well-defended than just outside the Wood Orc capital, but reports indicate more of them were thrown at Dra’bul even when they trickled to a halt in other places. That is, during the week or so I spend unconscious. I don’t know why someone didn’t just kill me to get the potion overdose out of my system. Apparently someone thought I really needed to sleep that badly.


    The Planemeld has been stopped in its tracks, for now. I won’t put it past Molag Bal to set things up again and try again, but it would take a concerted effort. Enough that we have a tiny bit of breathing room. I hope. In any case, I have done what I can on that account, even if I was high on strength and speed-boosting potions that were technically-not-skooma and had no idea what I was doing.


    There’s just one more thing. One more tiny, small, insignificant thing.


    I’ve been informed that there’s a Dark Anchor trying to suck the Imperial City into Coldharbour. They didn’t have many leftovers so they apparently decided to try for the big prize. This is annoying and now I’m going to have to stick my dick in Cyrodiil. The Planemeld isn’t over until those things are gone for good. I really didn’t want to have to do this, but as the Khajiit say, var var var. (At least, I think that’s what that phrase means.)


    The situation in the Imperial City is positively infuriating. There’s a massive Dark Anchor crackling in the skies above White-Gold Tower, trying to pull the whole city in from the middle, and most of the people from the three alliances in the city are just too busy sabotaging one another’s efforts to stop the fucking Daedra. Is this nothing more than a game to them!?


    I head in alone to check it out, not wanting to drag my friends into this. The alliances have set up bases in the sewers. (Because the Ayleid ruins the city was built on were not originally sewers, but everyone that builds on Ayleid ruins uses them as sewers, basements, or outlaw refuges anyway.) One of the Imperial legions betrayed the empire (or what’s left of it) and Daedra are flooding the city. I meet up with some of them who are trying to hold a building, and attempt to help them hold off the hordes.


    As I’m doing that, I think things are going well, but then a dozen or so members of the Ebonheart Pact (I think) swoop in, completely ignore the Daedra, and kill me. I am… quite glad that I didn’t bring my friends here. Even with their help, I would not have been able to stand against being overwhelmed by both Daedra and insane soldiers and they would have all been killed.


    I’m pretty sure at least some of them are undead (or “differently alive” as a Vestige might be). Given the proclivity of Molag Bal’s followers for necromancy, it would not surprise me if they’d quietly reanimated a number of soldiers from each side just to keep them from joining forces against them.


    To test my theory, I start trying to speak with members of the Aldmeri Dominion on-site here and see which ones respond coherently. Some of them seem normal. Some of them either ignore me or just laugh madly when I try to talk to them. Those ones resist any attempt at giving them orders or taking them somewhere else.


    I call in Merry for assistance, and we get one of them back to Vastarie’s Tower to get her to take a look. A male Khajiit, temporarily turned into a statue for transport. Merry restores him to flesh once we have him restrained.


    “Terribly sorry for the rude wakeup,” I say. “You were acting strangely and we needed to keep you from hurting anyone. Are you feeling alright?”


    The Khajiit stares off blankly and doesn’t respond. I know that look. That dead look Soul-Shriven get when they’ve suffered too much for their minds and souls to bear.


    “Your hypothesis was close,” Vastarie says. “He’s not undead, exactly. He’s a Vestige.”


    “Molag Bal is hurling mind-controlled Soul-Shriven into the Imperial City as a distraction?” I ask incredulously.


    “They might not even be mind-controlled,” Vastarie says. “It would be simpler to trick them and amplify certain emotions than to directly control that many alliance soldiers.”


    “In either case, this is… a problem,” I say. “They still have whatever skills they had in life, and they’re extremely dangerous, perhaps even more so than the Daedra infesting the Imperial City. It wasn’t like fighting common soldiers at all. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to get close enough to break the Dark Anchor over the White-Gold Tower without finding a way to deal with them first to get them out of the way.”


    Abnur approaches. “Our plan may be able to free their souls as well as your own.”


    “The amulet of doom,” I say with sinking dread. “I was hoping you’d have come up with a better idea by now.”


    “I’m afraid not. It is a plan fraught with uncertainty, but it is the only plan we have been able to come up with that has the slimmest chance of success. And believe me, some wild plans have been proposed. Anything regarding Sheogorath has been summarily rejected.”


    “I’m sure he can’t be okay with Molag Bal making the world more boring,” I say. “In fact, why haven’t any of the other gods intervened? The only one who seemed to be doing anything about it was Meridia.”


    “How do you know they haven’t?” Abnur says. “In any case, we will effectively be supplicating for the intervention of Akatosh.”


    “That makes me feel a little better about your insane plan,” I say. “But not much.”


    “You will become a vessel for Akatosh’s power,” Abnur says. “With even a drop of divine energy, you may be able to match a Daedric Prince.”


    (I can’t help but think of Sotha Sil stealing divine energy from the Doom Drum and doing whatever it was he did to make them agree to the worthless Coldharbour Compact. What value was it if he didn’t intervene? I need to have words with that mer, if I ever get the chance to do so safely.)


    You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.


    “Have I mentioned yet that I don’t like this?” I ask.


    “Yes,” Abnur says flatly. “At least a few dozen times.”


    I sigh. “Let me brew some more potions first.”


    “I don’t imagine that your strength and speed boosting potions will be quite so useful,” Merry says. “Or were you planning on getting high and fighting a god?”


    “I’m going to brew some potions to help me focus and not freak out about the stupid thing I’m about to do,” I say. “You can probably consider that ‘getting high’ by some definition.”


    …


    I don’t bother procrastinating further. I’m not ready and I don’t want to do this, but the passage of time will not improve things and if this is to be done, now is the time to strike. I am incredibly dubious about the stupid plan involving the amulet of doom. Even Abnur admits there are too many unknowns.


    But, this isn’t just for me. This is for everyone whose souls are trapped in Coldharbour undeserved. Most gods have to be happy with the souls of those who worshipped them before they died. Although my memories of Coldharbour are vague now, I once knew many of these people. I made friends and watched them go mad over untold ages of torture, becoming mindless Soul-Shriven that could do nothing but stand with their heads down, unmoving.


    And I can’t be Malacath’s champion if I don’t seek revenge against one who wronged me and so many others.


    I’m not ready. But I’m determined. And so I meet up with the Five Minus One Companions, and return to Coldharbour with them. There’s no point in my friends coming along, but they refuse to stay behind.


    Varen’s portal can’t get us too close, so we wind up having to make our way through some very cheerful rooms. By which I mean only Cadwell would actually find them cheerful.


    I remember this hall. I’ve been here before. I know I have. A sudden flash of memory staggers me, for just a moment, but it slips away again.


    This is the hall where people who receive Molag Bal’s special treatment are held and tortured. The ones who served him faithfully and failed him. It disgusts me. I recognize several of the faces here, of people I’d killed. They deserve to be in Coldharbour, to be sure, and their souls rightly belong to Molag Bal, but no reasonable god would put his faithful followers in this sort of position just because a Hero showed up to hit them in the face.


    Except Mannimarco. Not only was he a dick, but he intended to betray his own god, in which case his god torturing him for eternity is reasonable.


    Aelif and Javad Tharn are here, among others. They’re all begging me to set them free.


    “It’s a little late to rethink your choice in religion,” I say. “Nor your choice in attempting to kill me, which tends to go poorly for most people who try it.”


    We finally emerge from the building and Abnur decides this is the place to do the ritual. Where he says I need to make a decision. But it’s no real decision. If I wanted to spare all of them, I’d have refused to do this (I still don’t want to do this) or brought in someone I dislike to sacrifice. Sai and Lyris are innocents. Idiots, but innocent. And I might have done that, if we were sacrificing someone to a Daedric Prince. But this is for Akatosh, and the only answer to that is the offering of the one who offended Akatosh.


    And so, we begin, with potions down the hatch and a couple of old men yelling at the sky very impressively and a bunch of glowy stuff. It’s that light, the power that the Skyshards have been trickling into me, amplified by several orders of magnitude. I feel full, so very full, more than any normal mortal should be able to hold. Is this a tiny bit of what the Tribunal felt when they tapped into the power of the Heart of Lorkhan?


    I set aside that line of thought. I can consider it later. The potions have given me a sense of clarity.


    I bring my axe to hand, infusing it with radiant divine power, and sweep my way through Oblivion. Daedra pop like bubbles under my light.


    Molag Bal stands on a ledge above the ruins. (All of Coldharbour is ruins. That’s how you can tell everything’s wrong.)


    I don’t even bother trying to find a way around. I burn a path straight through stone walls. Mere terrain cannot stand against Aedric power.


    A stone bridge has been shattered and floats in the air. Lack of terrain won’t stop me either. I gather the broken pieces and put them back together, and continue across.


    After sweeping away everything in my path, I stand before Molag Bal. Even with all this power within me, he still towers over me. Not that physical size has anything to do with power. (He’s just overcompensating, really.)


    He speaks. It’s bluster, and I don’t listen. I just fight. Probably something about puny mortals and crushing people like insects, whatever. Nothing important. Nothing worth pausing trying to hit him.


    A savage blow from Molag Bal severs my right hand, and along with it, my ring and my axe. I’ve ignored every other bit of damage I’ve taken, but I can’t ignore this.


    Molag Bal looks at my bared soul and says, “Nerevar.”


    I stagger. My flesh is already regenerating, but it won’t stop him from seeing what he’s already seen. The physical shock is nothing next to the mental shock.


    “So it is you. You thought you had escaped me. You thought you had evaded my sight.”


    His massive hand picks me up and lifts me up to his face. His bright-dark blue-black eyes are infinite mirrors of infinite torment.


    “You know you cannot defy me.”


    It’s been a good run, but alas, this has all been merely a dream to fuck with me and give me false hope. A dream of freedom, of having a family, of having a god who gives half a fuck about me, of having friends that would never betray me, of having a kingdom I don’t have to give up. Nothing but a dream. I never left Coldharbour.


    I blink away that train of thought and focus.


    “You torture your own followers,” I say. “They were loyal to you and only had the misfortune of crossing paths with me. If it makes no difference whether I serve you or deny you, why should I not at least try?”


    A rumbling chuckle like thunder. “Nothing you did was without my blessing. You give rise to more death and domination than anyone else on the face of Nirn. You will always be my champion.”


    I look into his eyes, my resolve shuddering under his gaze. Thoughts bubble up into my head unbidden. Images. Memories.


    There is nothing I want more than to dominate the world and destroy all those who would seek to destroy me. The Tribunal did not sacrifice me to Molag Bal. I was a worshipper of him before I died. That’s why I ended up here. And that’s why I remember that hall.


    I shake myself out of that (Dragon-Broken?) chain of thought. That’s impossible. I was a worshipper of Azura. Even she said so, and the smug bitch would not have passed up the opportunity to taunt me about it when we last spoke if I had been a worshipper of Molag Bal. Except, you can be champion of more than one god. I have at least four Daedric Princes who have declared me champion, willingly or not, five if you count Molag Bal.


    “I challenged you, tested you, and set you on the path of domination.”


    Why am I even seriously entertaining this possibility? It doesn’t fucking matter even if this weren’t just Molag Bal gaslighting me. (“Gaslight” was a Dwemer play about… you know what, that’s not important either.)


    “Submit to me, and I shall return you to Nirn. Conquer the world in my name and bring it all into Coldharbour. My other servants are a disappointment, but you have always been my greatest champion.”


    “I refuse!”


    I swing my regenerated bare hand at Molag Bal’s face. Divine power engulfs him as I strike true, leaving a dent in his face the shape of the ring that teleported itself back onto my finger. Being sucker punched by a ‘defeated’ enemy was clearly the last thing he expected. Even with the divine power, he never truly considered me a threat.


    I tumble from Molag Bal’s disintegrating hand. Yellow-red flame erupts and falls upon the blue-black landscape. Daedra swarm me from all sides, and the world blurs.