Fear and Loathing in Vvardenfell

Solace on the Ship

I'm not always like this. I swear. Sometimes I get in these rare moods and I do things that I don't really want to do. My best judgement sometimes takes a backseat to my spontaneous impulses. Like trying to steal an Orc's clipboard, or lie to people at the Imperial Cult in order to get food, and especially eating moldy food out of a fucking trash can. Aren't I better than that? Is this who I really am?

Especially being a reporter; I hate people. I'm an introvert at heart -- I despise social situations -- yet I have a job that requires me to interact with strangers. I've always enjoyed writing but I think my dream is to be a novelist of some sorts. Not a goddamn reporter. You always need to find septims for food and shelter and it's why I force myself to deal with this dreaded career.

Being a reporter also involves being around those that aren't the pillars of society, so to say. Warlords. Drug dealers. Slave and sex traffickers. Corrupt politicians. Sure you get interact with the occasional saint -- someone influential at the Imperial Cult who actually tries to improve Tamriel, or artists, musicians, and the like -- but the news is inherently bad. No one in Skingrad wants to hear about how the Chapel of Julianos donated 1,000 septims to help feel the poor. No, they only care about the vampires lurking around outside the town walls just waiting to harvest the blood of some poor and innocent travelers. The news feeds off the fear of vampires (and other Scary Things) the same as the vampires themselves feed off blood, and the reporters have to find this fear and eagerly dive right in. It wears on you as a person.

And what will I find in Vvardenfell? It already seems like it'll be a dirty assignment and I'm not even there yet. Blight and Corpus disease are about as fear-inducing as anything the imagination can drum up. Everyone is inherently terrified of random and unknown diseases possibly sweeping Tamriel without the power to cure them. Making this fear worse is the fact that no one even knows how a cure disease potion or spell even works; what does it do to the body or to the disease to eliminate it? Not even the wisest, most talented restorationists have any clue what is really happening, they're just good at making it happen, whatever it is. Anyone who has studied history knows about the deadly Red Plague that struck Tamriel in 2 E. 144 which was presumed to have killed 15% of the population. What if Blight and Corpus are the same thing waiting to be unleashed on an unwitting Tamriel as a whole? What if I'm heading right into the thick of it unknowingly? And wouldn't that be an awful way to die. I've always wanted to leave this realm in some notable and dramatic way and getting sick doesn't seem to cut it. I need a hero's death damnit!

Other things are worrisome besides diseases. Vvardenfell isn't under strong imperial control so I'm almost certain to find rampant corruption on the island; those with power metaphorically (maybe literally?) cutting each others' throats in order to get a slight leg up over everyone else in the nearly lawless land. And I'll have to find this scum and report on their actions, possibly jeopardizing and dangering myself in the process. Bandits, raiders, and sadistic daedra worshippers? Same thing only worse: cover the story at all costs. Infiltrate a daedric cult and stand by while sacrifices happen. Do nothing but report the horror. How much sickness can you be around before it wears off on you? What do you do when you unwittingly become the monster you're meant to write a story about?

My anxiety of the future is put into stark relief on this ship currently headed to Ebonheart. It's quiet. It's peaceful. And it's the first time I've been able to relax since meeting the trading caravan nearly a week ago in Cheydinhal, not to mention the past few days of hedonism and violence. Sure I'm traveling just like I had been, but something about a boat is different. It's currently twilight, the reflective time of Azura, and the world is at peace. At least my world in the confines of this little rickety boat is at peace. Off to the north the cantons of Vivec stand silhouetted against the darkening sky, a curious group of trapezoidal structures in the distance. I can see Ebonheart off to the northwest; it's nowhere near as impressive as the strange Dunmer architecture of Vivec. Everyone has seen Imperialesque buildings at sunset. Just another garrison in the distance only made notable because that's our destination.

I'm told we will dock around 21:00, about three hours from now. I've been given a little cot underdeck but find it terribly claustrophobic. Why stay down in that possibly rat-infested hole when I can be out here enjoying the peace of the waning light, the moons, and the slowly appearing stars? A few of the sailors are out here doing what needs to be done: messing around with the sails, tightening and loosening the lines, checking various maps, and taking star readings. All of this is well above my knowledge and I have no idea why they're doing what they're doing. A small part of me wonders why I didn't become a sailor.

Since we arrive in Ebonheart well after everything shuts down (labor unions in the imperial garrisons, go figure), we'll spend the night on the ship while docked. I'll return to my hole and drink more sujamma to sleep. Bottle number two is currently underway. The sailors don't mind either: part of the appeal of spending the night on-ship while docked is to keep a set schedule for the traders. The boat (as I'm told) will load and unload goods as usual, and head off around midday for Rhanim, a small settlement to the west on the mainland. After that? They head back to Vvardenfell, maybe Gnaar Mok or something, in an endless back and forth of shipping goods east and west, west and east, back and forth endlessly across the Inner Sea.

I'm dreading tomorrow. I don't know what to do. My rough plan looks something like this: stop at the Imperial Shrine in Ebonheart to see if there is a cash advance for me via The Times. I hope so; moldy bread doesn't hold your stomach very long or well. Scratch together some semblance of a story from my past few days and ship it off to the Imperial City; I'll probably do that right after jotting this mess down. Maybe ask around for information about the surrounding geography? Maybe I can look into the flora and fauna of Vvardenfell, but only if there is absolutely nothing better to do on the entire island. Hell, I just don't know. My main plan (so far, until I find a better plan that is. Part of being a journalist is to be flexible.) is to find this apparently elusive Vivec, famously known as a living god and one of the three tribunes of the Tribunal Temple, and talk to the bastard one-on-one. Mano-a-mano. God against Badass Journalist Gloriously Promoted from The Cyrodillian General Times. Hard questions for him to be sure. Vivec City from a distance in Old Ebonheart also looked amazing and it being a holy city surely had hellish underground crime running rampant. Even the nicest manors, upkept neighborhoods, and polished towns have the inevitable rats scurrying just out of sight. What rats were crawling in, around, underneath, and within the City of Vivec? And what if Vivec himself was in on the corruption?