Greetings Master Claws,

I’m not entirely certain how to explain my latest adventure to you properly. The details are still a bit confusing to me. I will however do my best to make sense of my trials through the cursed woods.

I made my way to Ebon Stadmont as I mentioned I would in my last correspondence. Upon arrival I used the stone as Leythen directed and he appeared before me. He was unable to guide me, but did mention that he felt Nocturnal’s presence.

While trying to locate an entrance I ran across Andewen. She is an assistant to Telenger the Artificer. She was doing some research into Ebon Stadmont and required an escort. Since my path led me into the woods anyways I decided to accept.

We took a portal into the forest, and if you’ve ever had the feeling of having your boots pulled through your face, you’d know how that felt. I wouldn’t recommend it. Due to some quirk in the magic for the portal, we managed to become separated before we even began.

I set out to look for Andewen, but I managed to stumble upon the ancient inscription that we were looking for instead. As soon as I activated Leythen’s rune again he showed up, but his projection was interrupted by the Earl of Nocturnal.

It would seem that the Court of Bedlam isn’t quite as united as they might seem at first. The Earl of Nocturnal didn’t trust Leythen to read the words of power on the inscription lest he pass along that information to Mephala, and thus cause an imbalance amongst the three Daedric Princes.

She told me that the words were actually a spell to retrieve the Heart of Transparent law. All the Ritemaster needs to do is repeat the spell when ‘the time is right’. Whenever that is. She also mentioned that since the Ritemaster was the one to hide the Heart, he is the one who must retrieve it.

I will return to Arteum to inform the Ritemaster about this information I’ve learned. However first I needed to locate the Elf I was there to escort. I was able to track her down into some sort of temple. It was in ruins, moss growing all over. In the center of the room there was large pillar with some sort of glowing stone in it. Beside that, a pile of bones, and a note.

Now it’s at this point in my adventure that things start to feel a bit fuzzy. I’ll do my best to explain it from my perspective, and I leave it to you to see if you can piece what happened, if anything even happened at all.

The note said that Andewen had just finished translating the inscription from the stone inside the temple when a door appeared. Rather than wait for me, she stepped through the door. I also read the inscription on the stone, and heard a faint voice in my head say ‘Parah Voleisto .. the past revealed’, and then I was transported to a room that looked almost identical. However it was no longer in ruins. All of the moss was gone, and the decay had not yet settled in. Many of the torches were lit when moments before they had all been out.

Where the bones were, now a person sat. He was wounded, but being tended to by Andewen. He said he didn’t recollect how he got there, but that he was with a travelling troupe let by Maestro Forte.

We travelled further into the temple and found the troupe leader. Andewen recognized him and called him ‘Grand Maestro Forte’, but he said that he Was just Maestro Forte. That was my first real warning that something odd was going on here.

He asked me to investigate a strange glowing stone similar to the one that was in the temple we had just come from. Which we did. Upon arriving at this stone I heard the same voice from earlier say ‘Lainkah faloweh … futures door’. And Andewen heard it too.

She explained that we were in the past. Which given what I saw and heard explained a great deal. She had concerns about us being there. The ramifications of making changes there are too many to count. The sooner gone, the better.

So I activated the future stone, and kept the future in my mind as I did so. And I arrived in a much gloomier version of the spot I was in a moment before. But to my surprise, rather than have Andewen meet me shortly after, she was already there, and much, much older.

It seems she wasn’t permitted to leave like I was. She told me that the key to ‘fixing things’ was the southern stone, and that she needed to stop herself from having ever going back in time in the first place.

As I was about to ask more, she was killed by an arrow from Fletch. In her dying breath she told me the words ‘ Baneaweh’. The key to fixing everything. I picked up the journal she had on her and I made my way to the southern stone as asked, and was confronted by Fletch. He attacked me as well, and I was forced to kill him in order to defend myself.

Quickly I went to the stone, said the phrase and was transported into the future. And this is the confusing bit. Fletch was there. When I exclaimed that I had just killed him, he implied that he had been healed by Andewen. Which, I suppose she did, just after we arrived in the past.. somehow?

This is where my mind gets a bit foggy in the explanation department. He said that Andewen should be outside, and that she was no longer needed. The Spirit of the Sanctuary had all the information she needed from her now.

And sure enough she was outside, young again, and unharmed. I told her it was a trap, and provided her journal as proof. And with that, I left the Cursed Woods. I hope never to return. There’s entirely too much going on there for my brain to process properly.

I shall return to Arteum to give my report on the stone I found. I will likely leave all of the time travel out of things, because by my account, it never actually happened in the first place.

Perhaps I’ll have a bit of a lie down too. Just until this headache goes away.

I shall endeavour to keep you updated once I have returned to Arteum.

Respectfully,
Tiberious Maximillion III