I set off along the base of cliffs, looking for a cleft in the rock, maybe a set of steps, that would lead me to the pass. I didn't find one as soon as I'd expected, based on them telling me it was "close". Instead I came acroos a Mages Guild scholar standing outside the entrance to something surrounded by hedges. She introduced herself as Andewen, and told me that the mercenary she'd hired to protect her had just quit at the first sight of daedra. Now she had nobody to assist. "You're armed, and I presume also armoured, can you help?"
Before I agreed to anything, I asked about the King's Haven pass.
"You didn't see the door?, It's just outside the Academy."
Of course, I'd seen it, but assumed it led back into another part of the Academy, and kept going. It had a door, so it could be locked if needed, she informed me.
Since I'd come this far, I might as well assist her before turning back. I noted a staff on her back, and inquired why she couldn't handle the daedra herself.
"Because I'll be busy collecting notes, and won't want to be interrupted. I can't write and fight at the same time."
That seemed reasonable. We went in together.
The interior resembled a hedge-maze that had been abandoned long ago, and become overgrown. Paths no longer lead where they probably were intended to go, and it likely didn't have daedra wandering around before. She told me we were looking for a temple or similar building that was at the centre of the maze. That was her objective, to study whatever secrets it held. She had an account from a much earlier expedition, that had found the temple, but not explored that fully. There were ancient inscriptions that presumably explained how to get entry to the inner parts, but nobody on the earlier team was able to translate them. "I've studied Ayleid languages, so I believe I can succeed where they failed.
"That's assuming we can find our way to the building, of course. Adventurers are always getting lost in here. Most just find themselves coming back out the way the entered, without finding anything. Others never come out, possibly because the daedra got the, or maybe they never found the exit again. Apparently the path ... shifts, as you go. At least that's how the ones who came out described it."
I began to understand what they meant when we found that the only ways out of the first part were the entrance or a portal that we couldn't see through. We stepped through, and found ourselves in another section of the maze. That was promising, as it wasn't a desert, or a cave, so we hadn't gone far. But I had a suspicion, and told Andewen I'd like to check it. So we stepped back through the portal, and were \i not \i0 back where we just came from.
"I imagine these portals will all take us somewhere different each time we use them," I suggested. "So if we don't find the temple, we can just keep stepping through the nearest portal until we're back in the firat section."
"Could we do that to find the temple?" she asked.
"Perhaps, but only if it's visible from the nearest portal. To be certain of finding it, we'll have to search each new area we come to ... and fight the daedra," I added as some came up the path towards us.
It wasn't just daedra. We encountered welwa and other wild beasts, and because their bodies remain after they're killed, they proved useful in knowing where we'd been. If we saw a dead welwa when we stepped out of a portal, we'd just go back through to another part of the maze.
"Over there. There's an inscription on that rock!" she exclaimed.
Of course, as soon as she stooped to read it, more daedra spawned nearby.
"Hold them off while I take a rubbing, then I can translate it even if we have to get away from the daedra," she requested. She finished doing so in time to help me with the Ogrim that spawed at the end of the fight, and I was grateful for that.
The inscription apparently just told her to look for a second one, and implied that the temple was to the east. That latter part was of no real help,with the portals taking us every direction at random.
The daedra that spawned when we found the next inscription were different. No Ogrim this time, but several Mazken, including one 'Nikalia the Beguiling'. To me, at least, that suggested Sheogorath had something to do with this confounding maze. Andewen agreed. The Mages Guild and the Daedric Prince seemed to be having an ongoing battle and if she was paranoid, she'd think ...
But the second inscription had helped, and she knew the temple was nearby. We shouldn't need to go through any more portals. Just around the next bend, we could see it.
Andewen ran ahead. When I entered the Ebon Sanctum, I couldn't see her, but found a note she'd written, telling me to use the stone next to it to open the door.
I heard Andewen shriek from the top of the stairs "More daedra!" as she ran to hide. I was surprised to find the only daedra present was one of Nocturnal's shrikes, who just shrugged and disappeared when she saw me. I went up the stairs to find Andewen.
"Is it gone?" she asked, but ran back down the stairs before I could answer. I followed, and found her tending to a wounded man I hadn't noticed before, who had presumably fallen to the shrike.
The man, Fletch, was a member of the House of Revelries. His troupe were here with Maestro Forte, their leader, whose hobby was Ayleid studies. He needed to warm him about the presence of daedra. "They should be through there," he told us, struggling to his feet and leading us to a door to the Ebon Sanctum Garden.
"Fletch! what happened? The whole troupe has been looking for you." the tall mer exclaimed.
"Grand Maestro Forte? Why I had no idea you were in Ebon Stadmont," Andewen interjected.
"I'm simply Maestro Forte. Hardly worthy of Grand as yet."
I talked to the Maestro, and passed on Fletch's warning about daedra. I didn't understand why they hadn't encountered any on there way in, but perhaps they were luckier than we were with the portals, and bypassed the spawns Andewen and I encountered. That seemed likely as he hadn't needed to translate any inscriptions, either. Fortunate, as translation was beyond his knowledge. "Do you suppose Andewen could translate the Northern Stone?" he asked."It's at the end of that path, you can't miss it."
Well, he and his troupe might have avoided the daedra, but they showed up for us. As if they were attracted to us, in particular. Banekin, winged twilights and ogrim, but they didn't stop us reaching the stone.
"Future's door," Andewen read, translating the inscription on the stone. "It's starting to make some sense now. There were a few things that disturbed me back there that are falling into place.
"The room where we found Fletch was identical to the one where we came into the Ebon Sanctum, but without the cobwebs and broken pews. As if the door in between wasn't into a different room, but a different time. And with Grand Maestro Forte insisting he wasn't Grand yet, I'm thinking that's exactly what happened. We're in the past. The research I read to find this place was probably written by the Maestro, after they left."
"So the inscription is telling us that this door here will take us back to the future, our present?" I asked.
"Yes, and we'd better do so as quickly as possible, before we do anything more that could affect past events. I'm worried already that I might have so by healing Fletch. There was a skeleton the first room right where I found Fletch wounded in the second one. Perhaps he was supposed to die, and I've broken time!"
I opened the door and stepped through, expecting her to follow, but instead I heard her voice ahead of me in another room.
The Andewen I found looked very old, and Altmer live a very long time. More time had elapsed for her than just a return to her present. My head was spinning trying to work out what that meant for me, as I was more than an elf's lifetime into my own past.
"Finally you've arrived! The door wouldn't work for me. I tried to follow, but it wouldn't open. So I had to wait. I tried to find a way out through the portals, but they just lead me back here.
"For decades, I've been studying the language of the inscriptions, trying to find a way out, and I've finally managed it. I must stop myself from ever going back in time, and that means warning myself not to even enter the Ebon Sanctum. I can't do that, as I'm already there, but you can. Give me this diary, and make sure I read it.
"Go to the southern stone, and use the words "baneaweh tendell" to activate it. That should get you back to the right time and place."
The door by the southern stone took me into the room where we'd first entered the building, as I could tell by the cobwebs. Except that Fletch was there, and his skeleton wasn't. He told me to go out and talk to Andewen, who was waiting for me to catch up.
She seemed surprised that I wasn't behind her, but did as I asked, and read the diary. And then we went back through the maze, too.
"I suppose I did succeed here, after all," she said. "I have these notes, written in my own hand, that I can take back to the Mages Guild, and let them figure it all out."
"And it will tel them that this place is a trap. Baited for mages, and probably devised by Sheogorath, and most of the daedra seemed to be his," I replied.
With one exception, I thought to myself. After I watched Andewen walk away, and I was sure she wasn't about to change her mind and go in anyway, I asked Nocturnal.
"The shrike? Just backup in case you two didn't sort it out. Andewen could have gone in without you, after all."
"And how did I manage not to overlap with myself in all that?" I added. "After all, I did go in, so it all happened to me."
"You went back in time to a point before you'd arrived in Vvardenfell, so there would be no issue there anyway, even if it wasn't all happening in Sheo's realm, where he controls the time. And the same for the future part. You won't be in your past long enough for that.
"Besides, you're only here in your past to fix anomalies like this. Vile and Mephala's interventions could have much worse consequences than Andewen's mistakes."
"I'd better get back on track for the King's Haven pass, then," I responded.
}
