[i]Hm, fair enough. If she has been so isolated from Imperial culture then it would make it difficult to compare. Perhaps there aren't so many differences anyway.[/i] Janius thought, before lowering himself into the water.

Kaleeth was a very swift swimmer, like all Argonians. Janius opened his mouth to answer her question and instead had it filled with water as his head was shoved under the surface rather suddenly. Kaleeth was stronger than Janius had originally thought. When he resurfaced, he coughed out the drops of water that he had breathed in and wiped his eyes. Kaleeth was initially nowhere to be seen anymore. Then there was a splashing sound from over Janius' shoulder and he turned to see her grinning and laughing.

Even though it had felt like a bit of an ambush, Janius returned the grin and chuckled. She got him good. "I may not have a tail for swimming like you do, but let's see if I can't get you back for that!" Janius shouted across the water. He dove forward and tried to swim and catch Kaleeth-Rei. He knew about Argonian gills, so he figured if he could snatch her by the ankles and pull her a short distance backwards through the water, it might make for a similarly uncomfortable experience to having her head dunked under without such gills. However, if she decided to swim to avoid Janius further, there was little chance that he would catch her. Nevertheless, he enjoyed the challenge.

---

Over in Thorantilth's hut, Sabine reluctantly stepped up to the puzzle that had been laid out. She reached and took one book with its parchment companion, looking it over. The small book was written completely in Jel, gibberish to Sabine, but the parchment was something she could understand. It was probably a translation. Before reading the books, she looked over the other items. They were seemingly unrelated; three labelled chests, an axe, a stone, and a potion. It didn't seem to make immediate sense, but Sabine tried to calm down and focus. She put the book and parchment back and inspected the other items more closely, one by one.

The potion was a viscous deep orange. Sabine thought it was some kind of sap or insect ichor. Or perhaps it was a glue. A salve? She curiously took the bottle and opened it to smell its contents. It was definitely Hist sap. Fresher and sweeter than any she had smelled, but it was unmistakable.

The stone was less obvious. It was smooth and otherwise unremarkable. Sabine thought it was a river pebble, but it was lighter than she thought, and river pebbles were often much more flat. She replaced it on the pedestal not knowing much more about it.

The axe was even more of a mystery. She wasn't knowledgeable about weapon crafting, but it was not like any she had seen before. It was made with materials from black marsh by the looks, but it was different to the weapons that she saw the villagers carrying, and it was old. Very old.

The chests themselves were each labelled with a parchment that had Cyrodilic letters written on them, but not any words that Sabine reckognised. It looked like the books held the final hope of any of this making sense.

Sabine collected the book she had first picked up and read the parchment carefully, following the lines with an index finger and mouthing out the words. [i]The Fruit and the Stone[/i] was a very short story, almost an anecdote. It felt like an excerpt from a longer story. There were a couple of things that Sabine quickly realised, however: the focal character of the story, Betzi, had her name labelled on one of the chests. Most of the excerpt also spoke of a 'Zaht Stone', as resembling a Hist fruit? And that it would provide protection to someone or something named Hissmir. It was a connection that made some kind of sense. Sabine noted it in her mind.

Moving onto the next book; [i]The Lost Communion[/i], Sabine read it through and found a similar connection between the character of the book, Jaraleet, the object in it, the hist sap, and the label on another chest. This story concerned one Jaraleet discovering and using Hist sap as a medium for communicating with the Hist.

The final book was simply titled [i]The True Balance.[/i] Just like the other two, it connected an object to a name. The axe to Awas. The book read a profound line: "To truly understand a foe, fight them with their own weapons." Sabine got the feeling that there was a significance in each of the books beyond the simple connections between the objects and the named chests, but for now she saw the simple logical connections clearly. Thorantilth was correct, this didn't appear difficult at all.

Wordlessly, she arranged the items according to their connection to one another. [i]The Fruit and the Stone[/i] and the strange plump pebble were placed in the chest labelled [i]Betzi[/i]. [i]The Lost Communion[/i] and the Hist sap were placed in the chest labelled [i]Jaraleet[/i]. Finally, [i]The True Balance[/i] and the axe were placed in the chest labelled [i]Awas[/i]. Sabine's mind whirred, trying to work out what it all meant. She looked over to Meesei and Thorantilth to see if she had succeeded in the trial, or needed to discover more.