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You try Vivec first, given that he has asked you to come to him and so is the easiest to talk with. He is not what you expected from the temple murals and statues, no grand figure haloed in flames, but a rather small one floating in a dim and lonely room.
After making an oath, the two of you converse and converse. The room has no real windows, so you have no sense of how much time passes. When you begin to tire, he suggests you take a break so that you may look at the documents he left out for you and wet your parched mortal throat. After reading the notes, you press your fingers to your eyes, momentarily overwhelmed by your thoughts, and then turn back to him to converse even more.
He tells you much of Dagoth Ur and the Sixth House, of what it is like to be a living god, even, with surprising scorn, of Sotha Sil and Almalexia. You ask your questions about Red Mountain and the strange forces that come from it, ever conscious of the corprus lying quiescent beneath your skin, and your questions about Vivec himself, and those are well enough satisfied.
And then you ask, leaning forward over your crossed legs, if he will tell you of Nerevar. Placid, he looks at you and says that you have read his accounts, and others besides.
Yes, you have, twice over. You have pored over every single document that you possess that mentions his name, trying to understand. While you doubt the story of your supposed reincarnation, to step into the traces of another's life is a heavy responsibility, you think, and so you have tried and tried to understand him. You have even kept the letter from Dagoth Ur, unfolded and refolded along its crease-lines so many times that the paper threatens to tear.
But the thing is: the stories tell you of Nerevar's abilities and the barest details of his relationships, and they tell you (in contradiction) of his death, and the ones from the Temple even tell you of the symbolism of his image. And none of these are a personhood. You can see a hint of it in the stories of his hesitation to immediately turn on Dumac, and you can read a sharp, strong ambition into his deeds, and you can wonder at the bitterness of Dagoth Ur's words and the particular promises he makes, mad as they are; and yet.
Who was he, Nerevar?
"I have read them," you say, gazing at Vivec's odd eyes. "That isn't what I'm asking. What was Nerevar like? Who was he to you?"
Vivec tilts his head. You sense that this is not a line of questioning he quite expected, but he answers you smoothly. "He was many things to all of us," he says. "I deeply respected him."
You repress a frustrated noise. "That isn't what I asked." You are unsure of how else to phrase yourself, wondering if Vivec knows what you meant and is avoiding a better answer. He has been forthright enough with you so far, hasn't he? Admitted his failures of wisdom outright, extended you a branch of peace – so why does the way he looks at you seem no different than before, and yet you are set on edge by it?
"It is a difficult query," he says, a hint of chiding in his tone. "He lived a long and storied life, and he died a stalwart man. You understand this already. What else do you seek to know?"
"Did you like him?" you ask, growing impatient. It has not escaped you that even in his own writing, Vivec describes Dagoth Ur as a friend to Nerevar, and of course Dumac, but demurs from using that and similar words in relation to himself. Surely it is because that fact is too obvious to state, but when you've gone cross-eyed trying to read his fables of teaching Nerevar a half-dozen holy lessons through strange adventures, it stands out to you. "If you so respected him, why did you betray his dying wish? Did he do something to turn you from him? What manner of man was he that the three of you needed to murder him?"
The room subtly cools, or maybe your awareness of the still air suddenly sharpens (what hour is it by now?) as he gazes at you.
"We did not murder Nerevar," he says.
Your last thread of patience breaks. You have no memories of Nerevar's, no sense of his actual personality, and no idea which stories of the circumstances of his death can be best believed, if any. But you know this for a sidestepping of the truth in some manner. It could be a bald lie, or perhaps Vivec means they only sat there and watched Nerevar die of his wounds, and any way he means it, your question still goes unanswered.
"I don't believe you," you say.
A moment later, your amulet of recall has taken you far away.
Your mark spell is in a small rented room in Caldera, with spare pieces of armor piled up in one corner and the table covered with all the books and notes you've been accumulating. The windows show a cloudy, dark night.
You pace and pace, anger on behalf of a man you have never known swelling up inside, frustration taking the same lines of thought it's taken night after night. In your pocket is the tool that will help finish your quest, and in your bag is the plan that tells you precisely how to achieve your destiny, and right now you can think of neither.
Moon-and-Star is warm under your thumb when you twist your hands together. Is it even Nerevar's ring? Is it a copy that looks like the one he once wore? Has Azura simply made up a new ring to suit you and herself? This small detail alone tears at you.
Somehow you exhaust yourself enough to throw your body into bed before dawn comes. You dream of people with blurry faces calling you Nerevar and rooms you've never been in with walls that shimmer like hot oil, and you wake up wondering if you will ever know more of the man whose name you now involuntarily wear.
But Vivec is not the only person who knew him. Dagoth Ur is obviously insane, and Divayth Fyr – you did ask – knew him only by reputation, and Azura, you are sure, is hardly going to sit down for a storytime with you. That leaves two people, and you don't know where to start looking for one of them.
There has to be some way off Vvardenfell, right?
~!~
After two weeks of effort – of running back and forth from one Imperial fort to the next asking someone who sends you to someone else, and then to Ebonheart (how you loathe trying to traverse Ebonheart and all its jarring stone buildings), and watching restoration magic pour over your body that is already immune to all disease – you make it to Mournhold.
If you wanted, you could take off. Ride a strider, a boat, a carriage all the way to Cyrodiil. Even Azura herself wouldn't be able to drag you back to fulfill the destiny written into your stars.
But there's nothing left in Cyrodiil for you but mistakes best forgotten, now that you have been given a new life elsewhere. And so you instead turn thoughtfully towards the grand temple. It is fit indeed for a god, with beautiful spiraling spires and a roof that curves like a wave against the sunny skies above.
Unsurprisingly, they don't want to let you into it.
You try to be patient with their poor stupid ignorant outlander attitude, but it begins to wear when the guard who stopped you laughs in your face when you say you are the Nerevarine. "Where did you even learn of that old story?" she asks. You are thankful she is wearing normal armor with no carved face.
With a sigh, you take off the gloves you wear everywhere now. "They put a notice up in every city in Vvardenfell," you say, thrusting your ring in her face. "Then I had a little talk with the Archcanon and Vivec himself. Now they've put up new notices in every city telling everyone I am to be left in peace, and that I'm working with the Tribunal to rid Vvardenfell of the Sharmat. I must imagine they would have written a letter to inform the rest of the Temple." Nice of them to do that. You're glad Vivec apparently didn't take your fit of pique too seriously. The Archcanon wrote to you as well, promising that the Buoyant Armigers will offer accompaniment when you decide it is time to venture within the Ghostfence.
She laughs again, and then, despite her helmet, you can tell the exact moment she realizes that the ring has something to it after all, because her body freezes. You wait, hand raised, until she bids you come inside with an uneasy voice.
The guard takes you to a priest, who scoffs at first, then makes troubled expressions when you show Moon-and-Star again; you are shown to an office and questioned further by a higher-ranked priest. After you explain everything once more and say you wish for Almalexia's wisdom and aid in conquering Dagoth Ur, you are told to wait there. They leave an Ordinator hovering in the corner while they figure out what to do with you.
You stare at the wall. Stare at the tapestry of a holy triangle. Give in and stare back at your new guard.
Once, you sheltered from an ash storm with a priest leading a few pilgrims. With nothing else to do, you talked. The priest seemed surprised at some of your questions but answered them with grace all the same. You recall his explanation that Saint Nerevar was depicted as a bonewalker not as a literal explanation of what happened to his body, but to symbolically cast him as a protector of the Dunmer and their ways, just as the powerful spirits of bonewalkers protect a family's tomb.
Did Nerevar's remains ever make it out from under Red Mountain? Or do the depictions have an echo of a long-forgotten truth? Are they merely folk symbolism? You wonder. Nobody bothered to write that part of the story.
In any case, you have no reference for what Nerevar looked like other than the masks the Ordinators wear. A bit creepy, to slay one's friend and then mold his face into metal for holy guards. Theirs is an inhuman face, with a frozen, haughty expression, and it gives you no hint of what Nerevar looked like when he smiled.
You suppose he must have smiled in his life. Perhaps rarely, perhaps often; perhaps he laughed inwardly, or in loud guffaws.
Eventually, you are taken from the room and introduced to the patriarch of the Temple, a man who looks like he has never once expressed joy. He admits that a letter has come from Vvardenfell describing you very well and explaining that Vivec has named you Nerevarine. "That does not mean that our Lady will agree," he says, appearing unimpressed with either you or your ring. "Under ordinary circumstances, she would be far too busy to deal with some claimant on such short notice. However, given the strain the situation in Vvardenfell has placed upon her people, and because the Archcanon speaks for you, she has graciously decided to grant your a few minutes of her attention."
He sniffs. You say, solemnly, that you are very grateful to her and all the priests who have helped intercede on your behalf. His expression doesn't change.
When you step into the chapel, your first impression is much like that you had on meeting Vivec. Almalexia floats above a stage, the star of the show, and yet she is scarcely taller than Vivec and surprises you with her relatively small size. But at least her chamber comes with plants, and guards, and patterns in the tile, so she doesn't seem like she must be so lonely.
And she greets you with a smile. Her appearance is so serene that a wave of calm washes over you when you approach.
She breezily dismisses the idea of discussing your identity until after you have achieved your goal at Red Mountain, and she gives you a blessing that heats you down to your very toes and makes your body feel lighter, stronger. "I have few trusted people I can spare from Mournhold at the moment," she sighs, "but I shall instruct my priests to aid you as they can in your preparations. This is a grave threat you challenge, and all my children will be grateful to know a new peace should you succeed."
You sense that precious little time lies left to you before you will be escorted out, and you hasten to make use of it. After conveying your thanks, you say, "I can hardly make a claim to his identity, but with all this talk of prophecies and whatnot, I would beg of you – could you not tell me something of Lord Nerevar?"
She laughs, lightly, a sound that you instantly crave like honey. You think it wasn't only Nerevar that held charisma in their marriage. "That, too, can surely wait for clearer skies," she says.
To you, it cannot. Not with the dreams that haunt you, both those that are and are not your own. Not with the books that have started to take over not only your table but your nightstand. Not with how the questions and thoughts and theories haunt your every hour.
"Please," you beg quietly.
Her lip curls. It's not quite a smile. "His most beloved weapon was a blade," she says. "A twin to mine, a wedding present. Perhaps, if you prove yourself to be his return, it could be found again."
You don't want a fancy sword. You want an answer.
"Did you love him?"
It's not a good question. But you have had two weeks to think over every single sentence Vivec said to you. Nerevar was older than we, he said, and you can read very little into the scarce words he spared for their marriage in his writings. And it does not escape you that a man who has won a war to free his country might see its young queen as a due prize. He is written of as a saint, but he was not one when he lived, and to what extent that was the case, you have no idea.
Almalexia blinks.
"Of course I did," she says, sounding strangely human for a moment. "He was my husband."
That... isn't quite the answer you hoped for, either. But the tone of her voice, its defensive cast at the beginning, the way her last word is infused with a splash of warmth, is something you turn over and over and over in your head through the rest of your stay in Mournhold.
~!~
Protected by the Tribunal's blessings, the enchantments of Ashland tribes and Great Houses, and the potions and scrolls of Mournhold's priests, you finally step inside the Ghostfence.
The Buoyant Armigers are polite, though they do not pretend to like you; it is religious duty that drives them to your side, and nothing more. You've experienced much worse since your arrival in Morrowind and do not mind their honesty. They give you advice based on what they have seen in their years of patrols; they give you a bed to spend one final night in before your raid begins. You lie in it and don't sleep.
On your way out, you put your fingers to the fence itself. It tingles on your skin, and it whispers with the remnants of untold thousands of souls, their bones given to protect Vvardenfell. Soon, you hope, the sacrifice will no longer be necessary. Perhaps the bones can be returned, or at least be made accessible to the families who might come to worship. Is there a plan for that? You didn't think to ask. Perhaps nobody ever truly thought such a day would come. Not when even their living gods failed.
That day has not come yet. You turn into the fierce wind, stronger than that of every ash storm you've been caught in, and begin to lead your silent company to the mountain.
On and on and on you go, battling cliff racers and giant rats made fiercer and even more aggressive by their blight, fighting ash creatures that have no issue with the dust, struggling against the wind and trying to breathe through all the layers of fine silk wrapped around your face. It is a relief to drop into the first fortress. You hear, for a moment, only the faint rumbling of distant machinery, and you face enemies who will pause to talk with you and then laugh quietly at what they perceive as folly.
By the time you possess both Sunder and Keening – you find yourself absolutely loathe to touch them, even with Wraithguard to protect you, for no rational reason – the Armigers are beginning to exhaust. You don't fancy yourself a stronger warrior than those who have been at their post for decades, and yet you still have the energy to press on. After some negotiation and protest, you send them back. This is a fight you must face alone, you tell them, although you suspect it might just be that your dormant corprus shields your bones.
Stepping into Red Mountain is an odd experience. No memories come flooding back to you; it does not feel, at first, any different from another Dwemer ruin or House Dagoth base. You drop your scarf and goggles at the front door and venture in, your skin prickling with awareness of what happened here, what cannot be seen in the smooth metal of the corridors. This is where the Dwemer made their last stand against the Chimer and where they vanished from Nirn, and perhaps from everywhere, save the very last. This is where Voryn Dagoth listened too closely to the heart of a god and went mad from it. This is where Nerevar, you are certain, was murdered for a power he attempted to deny his closest friends.
The ash creatures in these halls look at you, whisper to you, taunt you, but while many attack, some of them let you by unharmed, welcoming you on behalf of their master. Even the last ash vampire, a bulky man with a richly decorated and thickly curled beard, watches you skirt around him with narrowed eyes.
And then there is the door, and a voice is within your ears and not without, and you open it to find Dagoth Ur.
He stands on his own two feet in a raw cave. And he is strikingly tall, radiating power, from the faint golden glow of the Dwemer-metal mask so familiar from your dreams to his oddly proportioned physique. His body is all muscle and bones with skin wrapped thinly over it, making you find him both terrifyingly strong and strangely fragile.
You step inside. He greets you politely. Asks you a few questions, which you answer with honesty. Nods when you say you have a few of your own.
He has prepared a place for you that you take advantage of, left on the steps of the shrine beside him – you think it must have been arranged by an ash slave, given that the cups are stacked in an ersatz pyramid and there are no chairs. The only offering, thankfully, is brandy; you appear to cause no offense by drinking your water instead. Dagoth Ur appears to watch you very closely when you take out your last heel of bread and smear it with Kwama cuttle. Was it a meal Nerevar favored, as you do now? He doesn't say.
"As I told you," you tell him, "I can't say for certain whether I am Nerevar reborn, or simply some random soul given this fate. But if I must take on his mantle as my own, I would know something of him. Not – not deeds or legacies."
Your tongue falters; you have already failed twice with the wording of this inquiry, or the force it apparently requires to get a proper answer. Dagoth Ur, towering above you, tilts his head.
"I did not expect this manner of question," he says, though you haven't asked one yet. "It is an interesting one, and a challenging one. But I will find a few words for you, Nerevar."
You start, look up; think it's a strange way to word it, as though he's telling Nerevar about his own self. Maybe he supposes you are close enough to count, or that Azura washed the memories out of Nerevar's head.
And he talks while you finish your bread: "You were a man driven and defined by your accomplishments, one who refused to let blood and clan bind you. This you turned into a great strength at a time when our Houses squabbled despite the foreign threat. So many faces you wore to charm them one by one, each in a manner that suited their traditions. And then you turned toward the Dwemer, despite your allegiance to your goddess, and made them your friends when all but my own House scorned their ways, for you were wise enough to see their cleverness. As time passed, you of course made enemies as well – if never so numerous as your allies – and the more aware of them you became, the more your rule strained at you, the less often you showed your true expressions outside your innermost circle. I, of course, was always given it, even at the end. Even when you turned on me, you did so with honesty."
He says that last part fondly. You don't feel any need to ask if he liked Nerevar, or if he wants you to be his old friend returned. It seems that the tattered note you left back in Caldera was not an attempt at deception.
You find it strange to hear him talk so lucidly after the disturbing dreams he sent you again and again. What a pity that you cannot pick out the remains of his old mind from what he has become. Cannot ask him to help you undo what he has wrought. Such are your sad fates.
"Can you tell me," you ask, a final question, "something everyday about him?"
Dagoth Ur laughs. It is not sweet and golden, but there is warmth in it. A real laugh. "I can see that you are certain of your choice, Nerevar, from your stillness as we speak. When you worried, you ate little and paced incessantly – you must have worn through all your rugs during our last campaign." The mask, of course, does not move, but you sense he is smiling. "The first time we met, you could have been mistaken for a statue. It's fitting for us to end this with that same conviction."
You lick the last crumbs from your fingers and like to think that Nerevar once did the same, whether with simple travel fare on the road or while savoring the luxuries he'd won for himself.
Dagoth Ur takes his position. He waits patiently while you drain a potion to restore your energy, check your armor, and kick your bag to the side so it won't get tripped over. You ready your spear and ready your spells.
As promised, the first strike is yours.
~!~
Once Azura fades before you, the chamber is death-quiet. No more divine heartbeat in your lungs, no more voice within your head, nothing but the soft sound of your own breath.
Dagoth Ur died so suddenly you still feel in shock. The Heart was gone, and he attempted to grapple you. In desperation, you managed a harsh blow to his head with the flat of your spear, and when he fell, you realized he wasn't breathing. No final words of pity or fury, of forgiveness or nostalgia.
With your goal accomplished, nothing stops you from returning to him. You drink your potions and feel, strangely, both exhausted and wide awake. How long has it been since you last slept? Time means nothing here. You bring a fire spell to your fingertips and give it all you have.
The ash creatures left in the corridors are in a state of confusion. Outside, the skies are clear and blue. The Ghostfence still shines behind the hills, though you are sure it won't for much longer.
You return not to the gate where the Buoyant Armigers await you but to a secret passage you learned of long ago, and it takes you to the tombs under Kogoruhn.
Here, too, it is silent. You don't know who all the tombs are for; you don't know the meaning of the metal figures. But you do your best to find a place that looks fitting, and you lay the ashes of Dagoth Ur among the graves of his clan.
Evil god, driven to madness, symbol of destruction; he, too, was a person before all that, and you dare to think that he was even during. One who loved his friend and knew his habits, who prized his honor and excelled in magic and admired Dwemer cleverness. For his sake, you pour a libation of the brandy you didn't drink and set the bottle down on the box you filled with his remains.
The mask you threw into the lava along with the Tools, afraid any of the artifacts would only cause more harm. But there was a ring left in the chamber that you put down as well, and you also dig out one of the many Dagoth amulets you found yourself compelled to collect. Something drives you to arrange them neatly, the pendent laid just so, the brandy bottle in exactly the right place, the ring laid at the heart of things. At least, you sit back and find your version blurred with tears.
You couldn't name what drives them. But you cry, quietly at first, then harshly, alone in the tomb. Tears pour from your eyes, and you gasp for breath in the hot air.
It is a long time before the weeping ceases, and longer still before you find it in yourself to stop staring at the wall. When you rise, your legs are numb beneath you.
You know you are not yet truly freed from your destiny. After all, three cursed false gods remain in Morrowind. Is it mercy that will free them? To you it feels like resignation.
~!~
The Tribunal, having exhausted their spirits in the long war against Dagoth Ur, have taken his death as an opportunity to walk in disguise among their people to bring joy and personal blessings.
So they say. Nobody would believe you even if you had shown them the ashes you scooped carefully into urns for a proper, private funeral.
You wake on a clear day in Caldera after the last of your awful deeds are done. Though you slept poorly, it was from normal nightmares, which disconcert you little in comparison to the terror of those sent by Dagoth Ur. You don't feel blood on your hands as you wash up, or claws reaching for your neck as you dress, or the pulse of corprus meat as you break your fast.
All your books and notes have been tidied away to their own shelf. Your questions linger, but with Dagoth Ur and the Tribunal gone, they don't hold the importance they once did.
When you leave, you garner little attention. This being an Imperial town, the controversy over you claiming the title of Nerevarine was barely noticed. Some local religious dispute, quickly resolved, was it not? You are glad for it.
The path west takes you to the swamps, past a camp that once held bandits and slaves and now holds neither. You spend your day quietly, wading into pools of algae-covered water for glowing flowers and hunting for rare mushrooms. A pair of smugglers coming down the coast eye your spear and think better of attempting a robbery; a half-dozen cliff racers pay it no heed before diving toward you.
In the evening, the sun cuts through the rising mist and paints the sky in reds and golds. You watch it as you eat your dinner. Idly, the thought comes to you that Nerevar, too, must have once enjoyed a similar sight with his friends. You don't know whether he would have chosen to end things as you did, but since you do bear his name alongside your own, you hope that his spirit, wherever it has ended up and whoever it once was, is at rest. Then you think of the lands across the lapping waves and the place where you lived an old life, a worse life, before fate gave you the chance to begin again here.
You received, yesterday, another letter delivered by an Imperial courier. Something about a proposed mission to Akavir. You have thought about whether to accept it. You have thought about whether to take up the Archcanon on his request to help act as a spiritual guide in the absence of the Tribunal. You have thought about whether to adopt yet another new name and live as an obscure citizen of Morrowind while you work as its protector.
There is time yet for you to pick your next path; destiny has finally lost its grip on you, and after your stint in prison and the way you were thrown out here, you don't feel compelled to obey any mortal authority. At this point, you're not sure any immortal one will have any force upon you, either. Haven't you done enough for Azura after all that? Let your new start be your own.
When the sunset fades into a blanket of stars, you breathe in the mist, close your eyes, and cast the spell that takes you home.