Upon feeling his feet touch the all too familiar ground filled with purple miasma as Vaermina looked on wondrously.
"This is my realm... Quamire."
Inigo nodded knowingly.
"I know already. I was here before, remember?"
Vaermina eyed him suspiciously as she made her way through the miasma with Inigo following her.
"I remember full well, mortal. You forget, we daedra have memories of a wooly mammoth. I will be so bold as to say our memory far outstretches your puny minds by a landslide."
Inigo waved a hand in the air, dismissing the bothersome thought.
"Yeah, whatever. Can we just find the ingredients, either here or in the hunting grounds and return to enter my friend's dream and cure him? I am worried sick..." He looked about nervously. "I do hope he is okay wherever he is. I hope the were-pires haven't served him with a side of raw steak yet. I hope he hasn't turned into one of them else I, er, we will have to use a slab of meat to end his wretched existence."
Vaermina stopped walking, eyed him and rolled her eyes in annoyance.
"Why must you mortals constantly worry? I am sure your friend is fine. Focus on the positives, will you? Stop letting the cloud blot out the sun and let the flower bloom unblemished by shadow."
Inigo started to get a little hot under the collar but quickly quelled the volcano within.
"You're right. There is no use in crying over spilled milk. I should focus on the positives, finding those ingredients. Erm, forgive me for being a niave kitten but what are we after again?"
Vaermina sighed, thrustting the list into Inigo hand as thought it would be better for him to figure it out. The blue khajiit quickly scanned the list before pocketing it again.
"So we, er, I, need daedra blood, Afiq fur, silver dust, bone meal, an undead werewolf fang and wolfsbane. Ok, let's starting looking, no use standing around waiting for hairballs to come vomiting out of our mouths."
Inigo walked on; noting how different the realm was with how he remembered it when it was full of nightmares. This time, however, the realm almost had an otherworldly air about it, almost as if Vaermina had hired Sheogorath as her decorator. He walked up some giant grey stone steps to a similar grey stone building beset with green tinted windows and a sign that hung by the entrance reading the garden of alchemical delights. Inigo pushed the door open.
What met his eyes was certainly not was Inigo was expecting. He saw rows upon row of dark wooden bookshelves, each housing at least six ingredients per shelf. A long grass-like rug ran down each ailse. On closer inspection, Inigo saw that the tan tiled floor that the bookshelves stood on had cracks that allowed nature to rise up like tiny green spnidles on a cut spider web. What amazed him about all of this was that the ingredints seemed to be in neat orldery rows, each shelf with the ingredint emblazed on a round golden plaque emblazened on the shelf.
Inigo walked done each aisle, eyeing each gloden plaque and removing some ingredients from their glass jars. He found everything, including, and he was quite surprised by this, two fangs adjacent to an ancient tree that grew where multiple roots sprouted out of the tan floor. Behind the tree was a rather unique circular bit of wall with multiple round gem-like windows set into it. Inigo saw tthe colored windows encircled the entire bit of wall.. He made a mental note to ask Vaermina about this, if she even knew what the library was or how it even came to be here.
He set down the ingredients on a bench that stood before the tree and inspected the wall himself, running his hand over the rough wooden surface of the wall, feeling the glass surfaces of the windows that split that sunlight emanamting through them into a variety of spectra. He used his other hand to try and push the ttree so he could get a better look. To his surprise, the tree slid aside easily.
With the obstruction clear, He could now see a crude drawing equidistant from each of the shining windows. Inigo drawing the line from each colored window and saw they ended with a shadowy moon-like window in the center. He threw his weight against the wall, noothing happened.
"OK." He said. "I wonder if this is akin to the claw doors on Skyrim. I've never seen them, but how hard could it be? If my deductions are correct, this is just one giant puzzle, I'll just have to align the moons with the drawing on this wall." He said, gesturing to an adjacent wall which had a crude drawing of the same gem colored windows and a message in the middle reading, 'aligning the moon light with the sun can reveal some illuminating isight.'
He spent what seemed like hours rearranging the moons according to the riddle and the drawing. He went well into night trying to figure this out.
"Okay, okay. What if the riddle was actually a reverse riddle and intead of the sun showing me the way, moonlight might instead?"
Just then, like a becon, the moonlight shon through the multicolored windows and Inigo set to work rearranging the 'wall.' After minutes of arranging and rearranging the wall, a message appeared. He will return to create chaos as it is his domain. A shadow of the thing you greatly fear will shroud all in its death grip.
Inigo picked up the ingredients, ran out of the library and saw the daedric prince sitting at a table. Upon his arrival, she looked up.
"Well? Did you find what it is you saught? Well, spit it out mortal, I have got much time.
The khajiit looked like he'd just been doused with water.
"I did. I have the ingredients. I also found something else."
Out of nowhere, a man with a bi-colored suit stood beside Vaermina.
"What would this something be, little mortal?" He said, smiling toothily. "Would it perhaps be... a riddle?" Inigo eyed him curiously and nodded. The silver bearded man beat the air with his fist. "I knew it. I do so love riddles... and messing with mortals. We'll focus on the first one. Very well. Lead on, little mortal."
Inigo led Sheogorath up the library stairs, through the library and to the back wall. Upon approaching it, Sheogorath scrutinized the message.
"Well, it's not a riddle per se. " He said, "It seems like a warning or omen, but, to what or whom, I cannot say." He snapped his fingers and a bookshelf popped into existence. He ran his finger along it and exxtracted the book he wanted. With the book, in his possession, the bookshelf vanisshed.
He flipped through the book until he came to a page with the same exact message on it next to a tall shadowy figure with red eyes.
"Hmmm... This message is identical to the one on that wall over there."
Inigo looked at him, them to the wall and facepalmed.
"Yeah, no shit. That figure, though, I do remember seeing him multiple time, inhabting my body without my permission. I've never seem him that size before. Do you think that the Doomsttrider is Molag Bal's shadow or something more terrible than Molag Bal? The message made it seem that something was coming. Something that brings death wherever it goes. Something bigger than the daedric princes combined." Sheogorath looked aghast. "Yes, even you, Sheogorath. I wonder if the Doomstrider is part of the Triad of Fate?"
Sheogorath looked confusedly at Inigo.
"I have no idea. I've never heard of the Triad of Fate before. Is it a type of cheese?"
Inigo sighed heavily due to the deadric prince's apparent stupidity.
"No, you idiot. The triad of Fate is not a chees. Let's get back to Vaermina so we can end whatever it is that is keeping my friend in his nightmare."
Inigo took the book from Sheogorath, put it into his bag and he and Sheogorath left the library to impart the information to Vaermina. Upon entering Quagmire proper, they spoted the daedric prince and told her about the riddle on the wall and how it was identical to the book that Sheogorath found.
"This is very troubling news." She said, "You must get back to Skyrim and stop whatever is causing your friend's near comatose condition and, stop the Doomstrider. As if what you sayy is true, he is a forcce beeyond all of the daedra put together."
With that, Inigo thanked her and Sheogorath and stepped through the newly opened portal that Vaermina conjured.
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