Aside from taking it over, I’ve acquired two very important things during my time on the Gold Coast. The Blade of Woe and Louna the Fate-Bearer. I don’t like thinking of people as resources, but seeing as I would have killed her otherwise, so be it. She’s cooperating so we’re treating her well enough. If she can’t use her power responsibly, she can live in a fucking gilded cage.


    Don’t get me wrong here. I hate prophecy. And the fact that she has quite a bit of trouble seeing me and the results of my actions limits her utility here. It’s not just because of my ring and she’s not the first prophet who has had trouble with my existence. Varen called me a “wound in time” or something like that. That spinner somewhere in Valenwood thought it would be Theryn Teldras showing up to save her and not me. However, what she can really see here is what would have happened without my interference. Seeing as I’m constantly making waves, that might change minute to minute.


    One of the Bosmer in my support team suggests turning her into a tree and making her put down roots so she can’t run away. Bosmer are weird. In some hypothetical future beyond my immediate caring, people might even traverse a difficult journey to ask her their fortunes. I am not having my pocket prophet turned into a tree.


    And as for the Heartland… It has been a long and harrowing campaign, by which I mean we pretty much swept across the place like a storm. It was almost disappointing. No Nord Tongues took to the field. No great wizards showed up to alter the landscape and defend the Covenant and Pact fortresses. It seems like anyone powerful enough to make a difference had better things to do than play at war over a stretch of land they didn’t actually care about.


    And here I am, taking over Tamriel piece by piece just to make it look like I’m trying to take over Tamriel. And all the while, what I’m really doing is trying to find a way to destroy the Three Betrayers. This, of course, entails poking my nose into every hole in the ground on the face of Nirn. It doesn’t matter if this takes years, decades, centuries, entire freaking eras.


    Now that no one is trying to re-steal them again, I bring back the Elder Scrolls to the Temple of the Ancestor Moth near Bruma where they belong. (Well, I’m not sure that they technically belong here, but it’s certainly a better place for them than constantly changing hands because someone thought they make cute symbols.)


    “You’ve brought back the Scrolls?” says a priest. (I think these people are priests.) “You didn’t keep them for your alliance?”


    “I have no great need for pieces of paper that will make me blind if I look at them,” I say. “And I have no idea why anyone else did.”


    I carefully lay them down on a desk, although it’s probably not necessary since I’m pretty sure these things are indestructible. (Not that I intended to try to make armor out of them.) The Moth Priest introduces himself as Crassius Viria in between expressing profuse thanks at me.


    “Crassius Viria?” I say. “Any relation to a Lyra Viria?”


    “I have a niece named Lyra,” Crassius says. “She disappeared years ago, though. Do you have news of her?”


    “I’m sorry to have to be the bearer of bad news, then, assuming that this is the same Lyra,” I say. “She joined the Dark Brotherhood. She eventually tried to repent in grief and guilt, and they wound up killing her for it.”


    “I see,” Crassius says with a sigh. “It is not good news, but it is better than wondering. Her father would have been devastated, Divines rest his soul.”


    He doesn’t need to know all the sordid details or what my involvement was. He didn’t even really need to know that much, but I feel that he does deserve to know that his kin is dead and why. I might not have even killed her if she hadn’t threatened my family. At least I doubt a Moth Priest is going to try to hunt down the Dark Brotherhood or anything.


    “Hopefully you won’t have any trouble with anyone trying to steal the Scrolls again, at least,” I say. “The Dominion has pushed the Covenant and Pact out of the Heartland and started to rebuild.”


    Crassius sighs and nods. “I will ensure that these are returned safely to our vaults. Some peace will be welcome, if it can last.”


    While I’m there, I take a look around the temple for interesting books, and run across one titled Where Were You When the Dragon Broke? I skim it, thinking I will very probably need to be quite a bit higher to make sense of this, but then run across a mention of “Mannimarco, God of Worms”. Well shit. I suppose in some possible future or alternate timeline, he might actually succeed at attaining apotheosis. That’s a cheery thought.


    There’s still a lot of work to be done, but I have faith in the Dominion to see it through. I’ve noticed a lot of broken wayshrines while traveling around the countryside and I need to get them repaired and… do they need to be re-consecrated? I’m not quite sure how that works. I’ll kick it over to the building crews and have them get a priest on hand just to be sure.


    And that’s when I find out somebody wants to make me Emperor. Several somebodies. Quite a lot of somebodies. Enough somebodies that I’m a bit confused as I hadn’t believed Emperor was a democratically elected position rather than something you inherit or declare yourself as. Abnur Tharn, one of the few people who knows who I actually am, comes to speak with me about it himself.


    “I was trying to claim the Ruby Throne for Queen Ayrenn, not myself,” I say.


    Stolen novel; please report.


    “That’s commendable, but Queen Ayrenn isn’t here,” says Abnur. “The Elder Council, what’s left of it at least, has made its decision. And the Empire wants to follow you, not her.”


    “But I’m working for Queen Ayrenn,” I say.


    “And what has she done lately?” Abnur says. “Made a few pretty speeches and held some parties?”


    “What she did was leave the war to me,” I say.


    “No she didn’t. You pushed yourself into this position. She merely did not refuse you because there was no way she could have at the time.”


    I sigh. “Regardless, I’m not going to call myself Emperor. Not unless I had the entirety of Tamriel under my rule.”


    “You may still be Emperor of just Cyrodiil,” Abnur says. “And I am quite certain you are not going to stop here. The Dominion was doing quite poorly before you took charge of the war effort. For a while there, it was looking like this would be Pact territory soon and there was little we could do about it.”


    “And what about Queen Ayrenn?” I say. “Just what am I supposed to tell her? ‘Sorry, I accidentally became an Emperor.’?”


    “Why not?” Abnur says. “You already accidentally became a king.”


    “Calling myself an Emperor would imply that I was putting myself above her,” I say. “While the Dominion has more than one king. Cyrodiil is under Dominion rule now and Queen Ayrenn is still the ruler of the Aldmeri Dominion.”


    “Whether you heed whatever Queen Ayrenn says or not, I would prefer that she did not administer the province directly. You should be in charge, just as you are over the Wood Orcs. You’re making sure everything is repaired and people are provided for and given work. The only way Queen Ayrenn is going to become Empress of Cyrodiil is if you marry her.”


    I choke lightly at that. “Don’t you have any one of your own people who would step forward?”


    “Most contenders have been killed. And the remainder owe you for having their towns be theirs again.”


    “What about you?” I ask.


    “I am once again High Chancellor of the Elder Council,” Abnur says. “A position I have been able to reclaim entirely due to your own actions. I have no interest in claiming the throne for myself. And in the absence of a Dragonborn heir, the Elder Council has chosen a new ruler. You.”


    I groan. “Really? Is that how this is to be?”


    “Neri, if you didn’t want to be Emperor, why did you unite the Wood Orc clans, take over the Dominion war effort, conquer Cyrodiil, win over the Gold Coast, and seize the Imperial City?”


    “… habit?”


    Abnur gives me a look. “My point exactly. And, knowing who you are, this is among many reasons why I recommended you to the Elder Council.”


    “You?” I say indignantly. “How could you do this to me?”


    “Neri, Cyrodiil needs you,” Abnur says. “Tamriel needs you.”


    I sigh. “Then you can be the one who tells Queen Ayrenn why you don’t want her in charge.”


    “Very well,” Abnur says. “Should you accept, I will meet with the other Dominion leaders myself.”


    “Should I accept? You mean I can refuse?”


    Abnur smirks. “Of course you can refuse. You think I or anyone else can force you to do anything you don’t want to do? If you decide to go live in a hole in the ground, I cannot stop you. I do not believe you will, however. As you said, habit.”


    “Do I have to do accounting and paperwork?”


    Abnur rolls his eyes. “No, you do not. The Elder Council can still handle the day-to-day minutiae. The Emperor is for making high-level decisions and being a figure to rally around. The Elder Council are absolutely useless at making high-level decisions, but they definitely have the minutiae down. You will, of course, have the ultimate veto on anything, but by and large, we will continue to keep Cyrodiil running.”


    I rub my face. “I can’t believe I keep getting talked into these things. Fine. Fine. Just talk to Ayrenn before making any announcements, please? In the meantime, I’m going to find a nice hole in the ground to hide in for a little while. Don’t worry, I’ll come back out again.”


    “Very well,” Abnur says.


    I extricate myself from the conversation and go to my favorite hole in the ground. I take off my cat-mask again once I get to the Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary’s dining area, and get something to drink.


    “You seem grim today,” Slim-Jah says. “What’s eating you?”


    “They’re making me Emperor,” I mumble. “They’re making me fucking Emperor.”


    “Normally I would congratulate you, but you don’t seem terribly happy about that,” Slim-Jah says.


    “All I did was hit a bunch of people,” I say. “Apparently I’m too good at hitting people. Kill one person and you’re an assassin. Kill a lot of people and you’re a conquerer. I’m going to need more fucking disguises.”


    Tanek chuckles. “I still can’t believe a king joined the Dark Brotherhood in disguise. And now an Emperor?”


    “I just wanted to hit things,” I whine and drink my wine.


    The worst of it is, the Three Betrayers might not have paid much attention to a mere Orc King in the ass end of Valenwood, but they will notice a new Emperor and start asking questions about me.


    I’ve had a misinformation campaign making up a backstory for Neri the Orc King, but it’s paper thin. Brackenleaf Village agreed to back me up in claiming I was born to a Bosmer member of their tribe after a tryst with an Altmer up until I signed on with the Dominion military and secretly joined the Eyes of the Queen. (You have to put “secrets” into cover stories so people think they’ve found your actual secrets. Nobody’s history is without wrinkles.)


    “Funny day when assassins become emperors,” Cimbar says.


    “Eh, you’re missing a few steps in there,” I slur. “It’s more like how a hunter becomes a mercenary becomes a soldier becomes a spy becomes a king becomes an assassin becomes an Emperor. Not that that’s actually what happened, but let’s pretend it was. It makes more sense.”


    My fake backstory is only marginally more plausible than my actual one.


    “A hunter?” Tanek says. “I can’t see you wielding a bow. You always have to be right up in the action.”


    “I generally hunted the sorts of things that you need to do glorious battle with before you can bring them to the dinner table.”


    “I can’t imagine what I’d do if someone tried to force me to inherit leadership of the Motierre family,” Mirabelle says. “Probably strangle somebody.”


    I snort in amusement. “I ran into a Lisien Motierre in Chorrol. He was sitting in the middle of a pile of rubble saying that nothing could drive the Motierres from Chorrol.”


    Mirabelle giggles. “Now if only my cousin would demonstrate that tenacity to do something more than whine.”


    I sigh and put my empty mug on the table. “I suppose I should go talk to my wives.”


    I return to Dra’bul, and realize that now I can tell people to put up road signs. Wait, how’s literacy rates? The war can’t have been good for education. I saw the states of those towns, and there were no functioning schools anywhere. Alright, I’ll just need to improve educational standards to ensure people can make maps and road signs to ensure that I never get lost.


    I think I’m getting off track again. I’m not going to worry about any of that just yet. First I need to inform my wives that some fetcher wanted me to be Emperor so badly that he convinced some other fetchers to agree with him. Fortunately, he doesn’t want me to marry one of his daughters first.