"You should be able to say where you want to go and if the notes of House Redoran are to be trusted... which they usually aren't, then the door should react to your voice and you can go through the door."

"Thanks Neloth."

"Remember what I said! Don't. Die."

As I slipped on my head gear and soaking potion belt Serana set an affectionate arm on my shoulder.

"We'll get them out of there, don't you worry."

Don't worry? Impossible, I thought.

I stood inches from the door, uncanny hisses were heard until I murmured:

"Apocrypha."

The colors of the door shifted with a shudder and a hiss before calming into a bile green. I took a deep breath, a final breath somewhat, of Tamrielian air and stepped through the door. The smell of soggy parchment then filled my nostrils and Serana coughed behind me as soon as she came through.

Pages.

Pages, books, and scrolls everywhere.

I vaguely remembered when I first came into Apocrypha. I had just gotten the Bloodskal Blade and was utterly speechless as the book swallowed me. Luckily good steel was just as effective in this world as it is in Tamriel.

Otherwise I'd have died. Later I found out that mortals cannot die when connected to Apocrypha via the Black Books due to some sort of tether to Nirn. Neloth blabbered about it in-comprehensively for thirty minutes.

From this paper island I stood on I could see that the areas I've explored were nothing compared to the magnitude of Apocrypha. I don't know why I didn't see the large mass floating in the distance in the clouds of this hell. To the left, in the skyline, the place where Miraak's body rots away was dwarfed by the floating fortress behind it.

Is that new? Or was I under some spell the last time I was here?

"Soooooo..." Serana thought aloud, "how do we get up there?"

"I have no idea." I stated.

"Perhaps," Neloth chimed, "you could ask one of the locals?"

Serana rolled her eyes. "And how are we-"

"That's actually not a crazy idea."

Serana blinked, confused.

"What?"

"I got an idea but first," I pointed out a flower on an adjacent island, "that should act as a lever and bring up a bridge."

"How are you going to get over there?"

I smirked, "Swim," and then shouted, parts of my being becoming suspended in Oblivion with my words, "Feim-Zii-Gron!"

Once ethereal I psyched myself up and jumped into the green slush under us and began swimming towards the adjacent isle. The swim was uneventful and I weightlessly climbed up the side of the island and then my ability cut out just as I was pulling myself up. My weight hit me suddenly and I almost fell back into the cursed soup of death under me. I glanced back at Serana who watched me with concern and I smirked under my mask.

"Oh, Divines!" I yelped over-dramatically and pretended to slip.

"Talion!" Serana cried and I laughed.

"I'm messing with you!" I yelled out over the divide between us.

"Just- Just get the bridge you milk drinker!"

Milk-drinker? Ugh whatever.

I pulled myself up and tapped the flower which let up a bridge from the green depths below. Serana shook her head as she approached and put her hood up. "Well," she commented, "you still got your sense of humor."

"Somewhat."

"Reminded me of when you were young and not soo," she jabbed drily, "thirty-eight."

"Blah-blah-blah, is all I hear, woman."

She chuckled as we continued closer to my old stomping grounds in Apocrypha. I crouched down to sneak around and was covered in shadow as I peered around a corner. Nothing was in the hall but I was halfway into hall when a green and black figure in green and black daedric armor began coming down the hall.

"Neloth?" I whispered.

"Your guess is as good as mine but I think it's a Dremora corrupted by Hermaeus Mora."

"Oh, I thought it was another Dimitri."

"That is a Dremora Lord you idiot."

I rolled my eyes and waited for it to get closer. It came around the corner and pulled its foot as if my armor burned his foot. Before complete realization struck I pushed him down but held his other foot on the ground. His knee bent violently with the weight of his armor and broke his leg. Screaming in pain I stood and shouted for him to obey me:

"Gol-Hah-Dov!"

My Voice washed over him and it laid back, relaxed, and showing no hostility at all. Not moving, it's voice hissed,

"Yess, Masster."

"Okay," Serana commented behind me, "that is creepier than when I raise the dead."

I kinda agreed with her. Miraak had used these powers to enslave people to rebuild his temple. The fact that the Dremora no longer protested of it's very broken leg made me shiver. I pulled a rope from my bag and tied it's hands over it's head before asking,

"Where are my wife and child? Do you know?"

"Your wife was deemed too weak for Herma-Mora's purposes and is being consumed in a plant near the chapter five exit."

Umm, do what? He continued like the puppet he was, "Your son is at the top of the floating fortress. At the throne room."

I glanced around and asked, "How do I defeat Herma-Mora?"

"The Lord of Dark Secrets? This I know not, but from observation I see Herma-Mora has his power due to knowledge. Therefore knowledge is his weakness."

"Too cryptic Dremora."

"One does not hoard materials because he has plenty but because he doesn't have enough. The joy he finds in hoarding knowledge is from a part of his psych wherewith he compensates, or covers up his dark secret, a secret none know. Nay, not a mortal soul. The Black Scroll is what you seek, I guarded it once."

"The Black Scroll?"

"Yea, a corrupted Elder Scroll."

"Wife?"

He pointed, "That way."

"Thanks."

I tied him up and took off running while Serana followed. Divines not my wife, I plead, not my wife. Halls and books shifted as I ran full tilt through the familiar book formations and stopped at yet another drawbridge.

There, there in the center of some plant was Elisif. I lowered the bridge, panting as I walked towards her, Serana was at my flank. I got closer to her and saw the networks of vines under her skin, draining her of her precious life. She raised her head once she sensed my presence, it was as if she aged ten years and her skin and eyes were discolored like jaundice but in shade of a green.

"T-" she croaked weakly, "Talion."

I was silent in shock, but do you know what the scary thing was? I felt nothing. Empty, helpless as this image was branded into my mind. Knowing all to well that this was all because of me.

I was analytical in my thinking after impulsively charging into traps, fights, and pain head on in the beginning of my adventures. My mind steadily became one of numbers, plans, laws of war, causes and effects, actions and consequences but now?

Helpless emptiness. Confused and confounded but yet it was right in front of me. It was so blunt it was like something cracked my head open and I was thinking with the brains that landed in the dirt. The reason why Hermeaus Mora left her undefended was because he knows what haunts me.

I balled my fist, he wanted me to come here. The plant was giving her just enough life so it can drink the marrow of her bones, and every bit of material of her body. If I cut her out, she'd die. If I left her, she'd die.

My wife-
Was
Going
To die...