“Stay here, I’m going to investigate a few things” – Lena told Hauk and Garrus. “No, I’ve slept enough” – she cut off Hauk’s protests. “I’ll go quietly and try not to spook the mammoths.” She turned around and was gone.

“She’s gone to see if that Oblivion gate would reopen again” – Garrus noted quite unnecessarily. “It’s like she feels personally responsible for it…”

“That’s because she does feel personally responsible for it” – Hauk looked at him sideways, refilling his mead. “She closed hundreds of gates during the Crisis. Most people would run away from them, she would run in. Now that habit got re-awakened.”

“But why would she do it? We closed that one gate, and promptly another sprung up!”

“Yes, that was odd” – Hauk nodded. “This is how it was during the Oblivion Crisis, but of course there was a reason for it then. I wonder what is going on now.”

“How do you know so much about the Oblivion Crisis and the gates?” – Garrus suddenly realised that Hauk could not have lived through it. “Weren’t you born much later?”

“Indeed, I’m only 51 – in actual years” – he smirked. “The Oblivion Crisis – I read about it, talked to people who went through it, there are actually quite a lot of them around still, but they don’t like to talk about it much, understandably so. As for the gates… they didn’t completely vanish after the Crisis was over – and you see them here again. I closed a few myself.”

“Wow!” – the innkeep overheard that last sentence and was now offloading food and drink on their table. “Wait… I’ve heard of you. The Specialist.”

“Is that what they call it?” – Hauk grinned.

“We do have Mehrunes Dagon’s gates popping up here and there, they never really stopped popping up in Skyrim, in spite of all the shielding” – the innkeep explained, turning to Garrus. “No one knows why really. It stopped for a while during the Great War, but then restarted again. The Legion has been keeping on top of it – that’s something that Stormcloaks don’t realise, that they will have to take over that duty if they win the war.”

“At least we didn’t have a dragon swoop in onto us yesterday as well” – Garrus shook his head. “So what’s with the Specialist?” – he looked at Hauk and the innkeep in turn.

“Someone who specialises in closing Oblivion gates” – the innkeep shrugged his shoulders. “And other sensitive business.” He finished taking roast off the spit and placed a well-laden plate in front of Hauk. “Your dinner, Optio” – he smiled.

“Thank you” – Hauk winked at him. “Yes, I’ve closed a few gates as and when they appeared” – he turned to Garrus who was now admiring his own well-laden plate. “But I wasn’t aware of any trouble in this area. Was that development quite recent?” – he asked the innkeep.

“Fairly” – he nodded. “But mostly these are not ordinary gates – they come and go. We couldn’t call the Legion for help because they keep shifting and moving, it’s a nightmare, really. And always at night. We barely leave our houses after nightfall.”

“But it seems to be quiet during the day” – Hauk looked up from his roast. “We rode for two days or so without running into anything more threatening than a fox.”

“That’s right, but gates bring other curses with them… werewolves, trolls, giant spiders, monsters of all kinds the likes of which we don’t normally see… Not your usual daedra either…”

“And Lena went into the night to investigate!” – Garrus exclaimed with worry. “Should we go after her?”

“No” – Hauk shook his head. “She’ll be better off on her own. She’ll cloak and sneak about and hopefully see something without getting into any fights at all.”

28 Last Seed

“Well? It took you a while!” – Hauk greeted Lena when she returned in the evening of the following day. “What did you discover?”

“I found the gate” – she told them. “It was further off the road than we thought. I went in and closed it. It was lucky this wasn’t the one we went in together – it took a long time to get to the tower – the right tower, there were two others.”

“But it’s done now” – Hauk motioned the innkeep for another tankard of mead for her.

“Yeah…” – she nodded, relaxing. “Oh, you know those giant snakes?” – they nodded. “They are not aggressive, it appears. They were just wound up by all the fighting around them.”

They chatted a bit longer, and finally Lena had to admit that she was much too tired and had to rest. Adventuring could wait until tomorrow.