“Why did you light the Great Torch for Mania?” – asked Dylan in the morning. “While you gave Cylarne to the Mazken?”

“The quarrel over Cylarne was between the Mazken and the Aureals, but the Torch is for the people of the Isles. I lit it for Dementia last time, so now it was Mania’s turn. Besides, I like the dress. Well, either dress, really. You know I can’t choose between them – I belong in both halves.”

“As a true Lord Sheogorath must do” – he smiled. “So what’s next?”

“Sheogorath wants me to become a Duchess of one one of the halves, but like I said – I can’t choose. Or rather: I don’t want to choose this time” – Lena got out of bed. “Are we out of sweetrolls?”

Greymarch could wait – breakfast was far more important at that point.

“Besides, I have other obligations” – she continued. “Sickly Bernice wants her Aquanostrum, there are Obelisks to shut down, and I still haven’t found the Fork of Horripilation for Big Head – he had lost it again. So get up – we’ve got things to do. I wonder whether they’ve got sweetrolls in Bliss?”

…

“Ebrocca” – Dylan figured out where Lena was headed when they passed Highcross without stopping. “Why are we here?”

“The skeletons have been bothering people, so we need to go and calm them down a bit” – she smiled.

“I hate fighting the undead” – Dylan cursed under his breath but followed Lena inside.

Ebrocca had buttons everywhere – buttons that either caused the floor under you to open or some spell to be fired at you, none of it beneficial to your health. Lena pressed such a button, fell through the floor, fought some skeletons in an enclosed cell. There was no way out, just another button to press. She pressed it, fell through the floor, had a great skinned hound to fight, found another button… This continued for some time, and she started wondering what was on the lowest level, and hoping it wasn’t just an enclosed cell.

Fortunately there was a way out, or at least a way deeper into the ruin, and it wasn’t another fall. She went through a door and found Dylan on the other side. He had pressed another button and had a similar journey – it seemed it made no difference which button you pressed, really.

…

“So… Clanfather Malifant, dead again” – Lena stood over the body of an elderly mage whom they have finally killed, for the third time in a row. “Let’s hope he’ll stay dead for a while now.”

“You know he’ll rise again” – said Dylan. “And someone will have to come and kill him all over again, three times in a row.”

“And I shall be back to do it again, yes” – Lena looked at Dylan with a smile. “The work is never done.”

They checked the coffins stacked around the main chamber, removing any weapons – there was no need to arm those skeletons any further.

“Ok, this will stay quiet for a time” – Lena was satisfied. “We can go.”

“Provided we find a way out!”

Eventually, they did.

28 Rain’s Hand

“While we are in the area” – Lena looked around as they woke up the next morning – they were staying at the Frenzied camp. “Cann is nearby – and we ran into some heretics around that place. They might have the Fork of Horripilation – we should go and check.”

“Go and do a lot of fighting, you mean” – Dylan sighed. “Ok, but then we need a good breakfast first. Even if there are no sweetrolls.”

They had no sweetrolls but they did have fruit and mushrooms that they had collected the day before – Mania was full of sweets. Most of it was nutritious, if also mildly hallucinogenic.

29 Rain’s Hand

“Twenty-seven hours!” – Dylan was quite indignant. “Twenty-seven hours it took us to go through those ruins, and for what? Still no Fork!”

“Well, we did stop a number of times to eat and rest” – Lena was trying to calm him down.

“Thank Sheogorath for that!” – she wasn’t being very successful. “And we’re out of everything now, so still have to go picking fruit before we can find a camp and get some rest! And will probably have to fight more heretics for some dirty bedroll!”

“Definitely more fire inside him than I ever suspected” – thought Lena. Dylan was no longer restraining himself – Lena was no longer his Lord of the Land. She was glad of it.

Cann was a very large ruin, designed for entertainment it seemed. It had a large lobby area, an amphitheater, participant rooms, and many open chambers for small performances.

It also had traps, sliding floors, spellcasting statues – the usual. And heretics, at least thirty heretics with angry hunger summons, as well as the actual hungers. It has been a tiresome business. And indeed, they did not find the Fork of Horripilation anywhere.

“I have an idea” – Lena brightened up. “Follow me.”

“What?! Dunroot Burrow?!” – Dylan couldn’t quite believe it. “Look, if you want blood, just ask!”

“No, this is not what I had in mind” – smiled Lena. “What Thadon forgot to mention, is that there is no need to go through the burrow to reach that room with food and beds where they had the chalice. And that’s where we’re going – no felldew needed.”

Dylan brightened up. They went around the big tree, then down the hill, and they stood in front of the ornate wooden door to the Sanctum of Decadence. The hall was empty.

“Finally!” – Dylan sighed a sigh of relief. “There’s still plenty of food and wine here. Let’s stay a while.”

He unclipped his collar, letting his armour drop to the floor. It was time to relax and unwind.