"We have another day of travel, then. Oh." Ariel rubbed her forehead with the fingers of one hand. She was evidently nearing the point of accepting that nothing would be normal for a while. "A city is one thing, travelling such a distance is another. Just how large is this cavern, exactly?"

Fendros answered. "There are some parts still inhabited by Falmer that cut off various parts. Though, there are many Dwemer ruins on the surface connected by this place. The last count we had when we left was here -- being the westernmost point, to somewhere in Hjallmarch."

"Hjallmarch, that's..." Ariel's memory of maps of Skyrim returned and her eyes bulged. "That's the hold with Morthal, isn't it? That's half the length of Skyrim!"

"That it is." Fendros nodded.

Ariel cast her eyes across the cavern again. "And this place was uninhabited? Nothing but Falmer and Dwemer automatons?"

Janius pitched in. "We found a few old bones of people long dead. It was otherwise empty when we found it. Apart from the Falmer and automatons, of course."

"There was also a dragon skeleton." Sabine added casually.

"Oh, is that all?" Ariel laughed sarcastically. "Tell me, please, if you were to name every wondrous, larger than life...insane discovery in this place, would we be finished before arriving at your new home? I don't know how much more I can believe without convincing myself that I'm hallucinating."

Sabine grinned at her sister's overwhelmed words. "I am not lying."

[hr]
Gallus swallowed down what was a flash of anger over his averted face. "He kept saying things about rebirth, rejoining the Hist, ending the pain...he had accepted death. The Hist, whatever those voices sound like, might have been the only thing he had as his body had wasted away and his parents left."

While Gallus breathed in again, he had to pause to keep his anger back again. "I can see why he would want death after all that he had been through, but he was just a boy. He had a whole life ahead of him, free from that pain, right in front of him. That tripe about the Hist sounded like something that some selfish priest had convinced him of and might have manipulated his judgement. It was the easy way out." Gallus clenched his fists around the cloth. "It was a waste. A pointless waste. I don't care if he would have been reborn, the boy abandoned his mother and his life just to take the easy way out. It makes me too angry to give the Hist any excuses."