[h3]The Master's Tower[/h3]
[i]Evening of 14th Sun's Height, 2E600, south of Sadrith Mora...[/i]

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Tel Telvayn as it turned out was a monolithic fungal tower situated on a small island covered in dense foliage and volcanic rock. Around the perimeter was a neatly tended to stone walkway flanked by bioluminescent flowers and mushrooms, attracting brightly winged butterflies and dovahflies alike to their bright pedals, and from their flight glowing nectar was spread, shimmering through the air like a cloud of torch bugs that shimmered in the dark corners of the island. To the East there was a simple dock where a small fishing boat was anchored, and looping around the tower itself was a wall, several meters high that gave the impression that the occupants were not interested in visitors, benign or otherwise. 

Gathered inside were the liberated captives who were presented with simple bed rolls and seating by well-dressed servants, mostly Argonians and Khajiit and a few elves, who did not wear slave bands and appeared to be well-fed and cared for. There was no particular set of standards to their garb, only that they appeared to be fine clothing. There was gossip among the servants about the newcomers, who were appropriately fed and their belongings offered to be tended to.
 
The guests were instructed that they could go anywhere outside of the tower, provided they stay out of sight if a boat or ship were spotted, and any chamber outside of the large circular foyer they currently occupied, the adjacent bathing chamber to the East, and the kitchen to the West were off-limits. Expressly forbidden were the magical lift in the center of the foyer, where only mages knowing the magical atonement and ability to levitate were able to access anyways, the workshop and study to the North unless otherwise invited, the basement level which was not elaborated upon, or the upper levels where the servants came and went on a whim.

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The group was seated around a large circular table, seemingly shaped from a singular piece of gnarled wood that was carved and polished into a flat surface with tea cups and biscuits brought out. Standing at the end of the table, no longer garbed in the ferofungus armour and instead in Telvanni-patterned robes, a red and black knee-length coat over dark trousers and fasted about the waist with a belt. Silver embroidery added a stark contrast to the ensemble.

“It is nice to see none of you managed to lose yourself in my home and proved to be adequate at following basic instructions. Well done.” Turon said, hand behind his back and the other on his staff as he looked upon those around the table with dark eyes. “Other than the boundaries I have established for where you may wander during your stay, I will ask you do not pester my assistants. Before any of your imaginations can wander about the Telvanni slavery caste and the unpleasantries outsiders seem to maintain over the practice, allow me to assuage your fears; while each of my assistants have been purchased from the slave markets, they are treated as my employees. They are free to leave when they so wish and I maintain wages for each of them that they may spend as they see fit under the pretense they are purchasing supplies for myself, and when they wish to part ways, they will be provided transportation to a more hospitable part of Tamriel. In exchange, they help maintain my premises and take care of more domestic matters so I can attend to my studies in peace, and some of the more magically capable assist in my experiments and research. 

“While I disagree with the principle of slavery as a practice, unlike most of my House and House Dres, I will bend the system to something that suits my needs. While I do not feel the need to defend myself and my integrity to the likes of you, the last thing I want to deal with is a bleeding heart trying in vain to free my assistants from my cruel and vile clutches like I am abusing house pets only to watch the poor rabbit get snatched by a cliff racer the second it leaves the property.” He rolled his eyes and exhaled annoyed through his nostrils. “If you must talk to them, take them at their word and let them go about their business. They’re only slaves according to the purchase receipts that I keep tucked away next to their writs of release that I draft up the day they enter my service. Now that bit of preamble is dispensed with, we can focus on the actual important business at hand; stopping the auroras and freeing people from the Witch-Emperor.” Turon said, placing a large map scroll on the table and unrolling it with a flick of the wrist. Clearly marked were several locations, including Balmora in fresh ink, and a series of neatly marked circles of different colours, red closer to the Imperial City, and grading lighter for each ring further out it went. 

“Forgive the lack of accuracy and broad generalization of this map, but my cartographer and I only have limited information to work off of. The rings you see around Imperial City is the approximate range of the intensity of the auroras, the further out you go, the more subdued they are in general… save for ritual sites like the one you were delivered from.  From my understanding, sites such as that are how the spell is maintained, or at least accentuated in more remote locations, with the Imperial City being the  focal point where the spell appears to be maintained indefinitely. 

“As stands, the city is unassailable, and I cannot determine if our inoculation to the effects is because of our remote proximity to the spell or if we have a general immunity to its effects. It is not an experiment I wish to pursue because I quite like my mind intact and not prostrating myself at the Shrine of Raxus. From all reports from my own observations and those I have enlisted to gather information from across Tamriel, those who are enthralled seem quite keen about this new Witch-Emperor and the war appears to be winding down… the factions simply have lost the enthusiasm for spelling each other’s blood for a throne that won’t be able to project authority any time in the foreseeable future.  Even members of my own House aren’t immune to this pesticide-like charm; Councellors and masters who opposed joining the Ebonheart Pact on the grounds of we do not care about the affairs of others outside of our territory seem rather fond of this Raxus fellow and are only being kept in check by those in my House who seem to think they’ve lost their damned minds.” Turon’s face scrunched up. 

“And so, I fear that our time is limited, because there’s two potential outcomes to the lot of us dawdling and waiting out this storm. The first is we use our immunity and become gibbering baffoons like the rest of Tamriel and we all lose our self-determination because we were lazy, or Raxus grows tired of playing the long game and elects to crush the rest of us by force when those under his clutches grow to be fanatically loyal. Considering I’ve already seen a pair of brothers stab each other over this, I think you can imagine how eager my fellow Telvanni will be to raze my tower and harvest my blood and study for centuries of accumulated knowledge if their new master deems me to be a threat to his interests. I quite like my home, as well as my blood, as I imagine the lot of you do about your own respective cherished keepsakes.” 

The Telvanni gestured, and a servant came over with a plate covered in the black crystal shards, which he placed on the table. “Although I would love to be dramatic and say every shard represents a life taken to fuel the Witch-Emperor’s crusade against our freedom and very souls, the reality isn’t too far from the truth. Someone was sacrificed, a black soul gem embedded in their chests before a burst of energy shattered the crystal and their essence and maybe soul was given to the auroras. With the shards, you can see auras that make those of us immune to their effects when you have it on your person. It’s how you will know who you can trust, to a point. People are terrified and will do stupid things if they think it means they’ll be granted some degree of safety. I have an assistant fashioning some pendants and rings out of shards I collect for ease of convenience that I will have you lot pick out so you can have arguably the most effective tool to avoid being detected and finding answers to a problem that feels rather daunting in scale. 

"The trouble is Raxus’ headhunters, the Praetorians, are all equipped with such enchanted macabre jewelry. It’s how they found you, and you have met them before, the charming fellows in Akaviri and Dragon armour that prowl around like the Ordinators in Mournhold. Unless you are confident you can take them, avoid them at all costs; they have an army of citizens and soldiers at their disposal and their mages know a suite of spells to take you alive.” Turon glanced at his fingers, studying his nails. “The lesson here is to assume most everyone can humiliate you without much fuss and the next time you wake up you’ll be having a black soul gem shoved into your chest cavity. Pick your moves carefully and focus on the priority targets.” 
 
Turon picked up a teacup and studied it for a moment before setting it down, his hand engulfed in a frost spell that he swirled around the teacup for a few moments before picking it up again and sipping from it. “I have identified three priority individuals who will need to be dealt with to cripple Raxus’ operations and open him up to a coup de grace. I know their names from reports and interrogations, and their general influence and method of operations, but not much else, I’m afraid.

“The first is a lovely member of House Dres called Sybil Dres, a formerly prominent member of the House who from all accounts had either run awful of the Tribunal’s politics or grew disillusioned. She’s been rallying against the “false gods” and taking up faith with the Good Daedra again to the point that she’s managed to assemble a coalition of similarly disenfranchised members of Dunmeri society, and she has promised the Ashlanders much in the way of autonomy and boons for supporting her cause. For one reason or another, she fell in line with Raxus when he was a warlord and they’ve been bonded allies since the beginning. She’s the commander of the Praetorian guard and her experience as a slave master has made her uniquely qualified as a tracker and manhunter for those who wish to evade Raxus’ forces and she’s passed on these skills to her followers, and they really are an elite branch of Raxus’ armies. Finding her and eliminating her will, to my understanding, disrupt the ritual sites and put the Praetorians into disarray to the point they cannot effectively carry out their duties. It’ll keep people safe and weaken the influence of the auroras with her gone. 

“The second is a Khajiit scoundrel named Renziir, a big shot in that nationalist crime syndicate, the Renrijra’krin. Unlike a lot of his peers, he’s truly believed in breaking the feudal system in Elsweyr and ensuring its independence from not only the Aldmeri Dominion but the kingdoms themselves. Sixteen tribes used to be independent, but living in unity he reckons, and they can be so again. He has his fingers in quite a few pies across Tamriel, including the slave trade and skooma trafficking, and he has amassed quite the illicit fortune built on destabilizing existing power and exploiting people’s vices. He’s the primary financier of Raxus’ forces, and while I am uncertain the hows or whys of why he has fallen in with Raxus, I imagine either he was promised something irresistible in exchange for his help, or Raxus found an ideological angle to pry into.  Removing him will cripple the Witch-Emperor’s army’s supply lines and limit their effectiveness, as well as deprive a lot of the funding to maintain his empire’s many ambitious projects.

“And finally, we have a Reach Witch named Chief Tabitha that belonged to the Dreadhorn tribe, most famously known in recent history for sacking Falkreath and being a tribe of both Reachmen and Minotaurs. She was the advisor and personal mage to their fallen chieftain, the Minotaur Domihaus. With the power vacuum and infighting that followed, she emerged as the chieftain of the Dreadhorn tribe and turned to ancient rituals and their Old Spirits, what we know as the Daedric Princes, for power that would crush their enemies and deliver the Reach to the same prosperity and influence as the years of the Longhouse Emperors.  Word is, Raxus came from the Reach and had been friends and allies with Tabitha from before his ambitions led him to our current predicament. It is unknown where he learned to do such an incredible spell of such unimaginable magnitude, but the Reach clans that have joined with Tabitha are the ones with the expertise in maintaining it and channeling it. I estimate that without Tabitha, the spell enthralling Tamriel will start to break since she seems to be the architect of at least the application of it.” Turon concluded, taking another long sip from his tea before frowning, flames forming around the teacup for a few moments before he returned to his drink.


“And there you have it, the culmination of the information I have gathered distilled down to its most basic components for you so you may make an informed decision. Make no mistake, Sybil, Renziir, and Tabitha are all the pillars in which Raxus’ festering dream rests upon, and should you deem it within your ability to remove them from the picture, the entire structure of his power crumbles irreparably, at least long enough for you to go after the Emperor himself.” Turon frowned, setting down the teacup. “I can see in your faces fear, uncertainty, doubt. All things that will only serve to cripple you from doing the right thing. Pacifism here is a coward patting themselves on the back, and this duty that falls upon you is the most important thing any of you will do in your lives. Take four lives to save millions, and I assume most of you are capable of understanding basic arithmetic to see how easy of a choice that is. For a Telvanni, certainty is power, and believe you me, there is a foundation of dead and crushed enemies beneath my feet that have granted me the ability to stand here today, before you, to herald in this coalition. I admire Raxus for his ambition and power, but culling rivals to advance my own is such a fundament of my house this merely feels like an exceptionally busy month in my life rather than a fundamental shift in the world.” Turon shrugged, stepping away from the table. 

“Perhaps it is regrettable such a duty falls upon you, but so far, you’re the only ones left who are qualified to take up this mantle on account of you being alive. Perhaps in some other corner of Tamriel, others are forming similar plans and perhaps our preparations are redundant because they will succeed. But ask yourself this; what if they do not, and the only thing between the enslavement of every single person you have ever known and loved is you?” he let the question linger before walking away to his workshop.

“If any of you have need of me, I will be in my workshop, working on more solutions to these vexing problem we’ve been presented with. Take the night to compose yourself and rest, for tomorrow I will be sending you off after one of your targets. Farewell and enjoy your stay.” He paused for a moment, turning his head over his shoulder. “And please, at the bare minimum, don’t kill each other. We’re all adults here, not savages.”