Kanah Belflower

This is a lorebook within the Elder Scrolls universe that I wrote for a lorebook contest back in 2022. I hope you like it :) --- My mother and father fought often - one worked a mill, the other a kitchen. They never lied nor put their knuckles to use, but brutal honesty lays the truth harder than a fist ever could. Our trips west were marred by icy demeanors and frigid replies, colder than the Alik'r heat had any right to allow. Yet they never parted ways. Not when I was a seed, not when I was a sapling, not even after my trunk stopped growing and my limbs stopped reaching. I admired that. The dedication, the desire to see things through despite their misgivings. I didn't always understand it, but as the years wind down and my light dims further, I think I finally see it for what it was. Love, real love, isn't dictated by constant adoration and pandering, but by cooperation and understanding. Passion is spicy and short - home simmers long and sweet, rooting beneath the surf...

This is a fan-made lorebook written within the Elder Scrolls universe that I entered into a lorebook writing contest last summer. I hope you like it :) --- It was a ball without equal. Coated in gold and moonstone, diamonds encrusting the edges of every glass and every platter. Lords and ladies gathered there in secret, hidden by the shroud of costumed extravagance, brought together under a singular goal to learn as much about the other guests as possible. A deal of lies and buried truths, trading blows beneath upturned lips and flowery words. Such an event was made possible only by the whims of the Masque. The Masque of Sparrow Valley proved an enigma; some spoke of a battered, war-weary soldier in blue; others met a snide, posturing butler in red. Different people, different places, but the same mask. Molded from metal of an unknown source and carved with the face of a proper gentleman, completed by a swirled mustache, down-turned nose, and heavy-set eyes. Yet the most striking featu...

I like being the hero. All the parades, medals and fun events that happen in my honor, they're all great. This part wasn't so great, though. "Just stand still and let me hit you!" A new speedster had come into the powered scene lately, destined for villainy. I hate having to handle issues like this, but the situation warranted it. "I don't have time for this, fastball!" He was a kid, barely out of his teens - not very inclined to getting punched, either, as indicated by the dodging. But I was on a tight schedule, and playing tag wasn't on it. --- "Is it good?" The steak was good. Nice restaurant, laid back, smooth atmosphere. Sue noticed the red speckle on my neck but didn't say anything, which meant I just needed to get better at cleaning up afterwards. Nobody else saw though, and the news wouldn't update for another few hours at least. We could eat well for the night. "Mhm," I replied, "very chewy though. I could...

The world was broken, the seas were a mess, The sky had fallen to land on their heads. A man rose up from the ashes above, Ensnared by the flames like a phoenix of love. His people saw hope, his foes knew fear, But all he had left was the pain he held dear. This is the song of a voiceless hand, Who took what he had and brought fire to the land. "That's all well and good, but where are the naked women? You promised us a good time, old man!" The crowd laughed merrily at the comment, with others making similar lewd remarks in search of a reaction. But the aged storyteller just smiled. "Yes, yes I did. And a good time you will have. But for now, listen to this short tale. Not all of it - just the part that counts." --- The coppery taste on his lips wasn't his own, but that of the headless corpse laid atop him. For just a moment, while a massacre continued beyond, this timid man stared into the fleshy core of another person's neck. Or at least, where a neck w...

DR. SHURE:      This is UBSI autopsy number A1-03, April 5th, 2104. This recording and transcript are to be placed under Level Two lockdown upon completion of the procedure, and the specimen is to be disposed of in an undisclosed location following the event previously stated. Any violation of the Level Two lockdown shall be met with severe and immediate punishment. DR. LANE:      By listening to this recording and/or reading this documented transcript, you state that you are a Level 2 asset of the UBSI; if this statement is false, you are to turn off this recording and/or return this document immediately. Failing to do so will result in a criminal charge of high treason within your country of residency - you have been warned. E.O. (DR. SHURE) Initial reports on the external state of the subject are as follows: Virtually identical to homo sapiens in body shape and size, with specific differences setting it apart from an average human. Pale skin, clearly lac...

And now, here we are. Back at the beginning, from whence this adventure came. "Archers along the ridge! Shield wall!" The shields went up. Some men prayed, and some men cried. For those who believed in neither, they silently lamented whatever losses may be ahead. Little could be seen beyond the wall of interlocked wood; more fear came from anticipating the piercing rain, rather than watching the clouds gather. Each second lasted an eternity. Five seconds. Ten seconds. Fifteen. Were they even there? Had they fl- Thump. A shield, somewhere down the row. The first arrow had landed. Then all at once, the deluge released. Within moments, that same thump found itself echoed from every surface currently holding our line intact. Varied screams shot out, reaffirming that many wouldn't come back from here. As openings appeared in the wall, other soldiers were forced to step overtop those corpses and close the gaps. And almost as quickly as it began, the hail ended. Though, we found...

Sixteen pairs of armored boots marched through the gate, passing the two guards stationed along either side as their force pressed forward into the mountains. At the head of this escort walked a leading line, formed from those present in the hall during the strategic meeting. And in the center of this gleaming front line stood the captain, flanked on one side by Livand and on the other side by one of the men who spoke out at the war table. I walked near the back of the main cluster, mentally preparing myself to fight at a moment's notice. The sword I'd found amongst the dead earlier had been replaced by a different, but equally battle-hardened weapon of unknown design.  Shorter than those long blades formerly wielded by the Bovican military, but with greater reach than a Tritonian shortsword. And getting the damn thing proved a battle of its own; the blacksmith would hardly look at me, much less give me access to the armory. It took Livand wandering in by chance and explaining ...

Captain Jon Vaeris Rells stood in the great hall of a fortification that he had been tasked with presiding over. It was his job to ensure the survival of the soldiers and civilians under his command, those souls who fought so hard to keep the dream of a peaceful land intact. Yet, when the pivotal moment in defending that peace arrived at his doorstep, the key to winning lay in the hands of someone whom his own men believed to be the enemy. What would he choose? What would save his people and stop the threat posed by the mountain raiders? What was right? The captain sighed. He'd always thought that power would bring him greater freedom: the freedom to make decisions that no one else could, the freedom to help those who needed it when they needed it . His thinking had been wrong. So terribly wrong. For the decisions he made would always fall back on him, leaving scars on his reputation no matter the outcome. Every victory brought loss, each choice set in stone left behind a trail of ...

Heavy rain poured over the southern reaches of the king's land. Poor weather was nothing new for mountain dwellers, but the chilled air normally marked a drier season amongst the Kradellan peaks. Little could be heard over the roar of the wind, and seeing through the deluge was near impossible. Tree branches whipped back and forth, tossing leaves and stray branches aside at startling speeds. To find yourself out in such a dangerous storm would be akin to suicide. "Adrian! Felix! Are you out there?!" A small boy shouted into the pounding rain, desperately hoping for a reaction. A response, a signal, a change in the wind, anything to let him know that he wasn't alone. But the howling wind drowned him out, rendering his pleas pointless. After a minute of desperately scanning the treeline for signs of help, he sloshed through the growing pools of water in a direction that he hoped would lead back home. His mother had warned him about straying too far from the village, yet...

"He wants me to do what ?" The captain's shouting had drawn the attention of the few soldiers not already staring at our scene. I stood before their war table, held at the end of a spear, while a Tritonian military commander half-growled into his palm to prevent the volcanic rage within him from erupting. The strategic minds nearby looked ready to remove my head for use as a mantle ornament, and, ironically, the only person who seemed even remotely calm was the guard to my left; the one whose incredible memory had put me in this situation to begin with. He busied himself with picking his teeth the entire time, so maybe that could be better attributed to a lucky guess. "Commander, these Confederates can't be trusted!" One of the strategists seemed a bit overeager. I suppose I couldn't blame him, considering the circumstances: for decades, Tritonians and Bovicans were taught early on (and often not so subtly) to despise one another. Each saw the opposing s...

So. Things hadn't exactly gone according to plan. A speartip pressed into the small of my back as I was "escorted" to the captain of the soldiers protecting this side of the border. It'd been pure luck that the guards decided not to kill me on the spot - for them to also lead me directly towards their commanding officer, my message's intended recipient, proved nothing short of a miracle. The spear dug deeper, urging me out of my thoughts and quicker in the direction of their encampment. As I neared the exit out of the pass, this "encampment" seemed just a bit more fortified than that. High stone walls, a portcullis gate, and archers lined along the battlements made their outpost feel more like a fortress. At seeing the two guards guiding me at spearpoint towards the portcullis, I heard an archer atop the battlements yell something down to an unseen gatekeeper within the fort. The gate slowly began to raise up, grinding painfully the entire time.  Rust fl...

His face...I had seen it somewhere. Somewhere recently. It couldn't have been Garved; rebels made up the attacking force at Garved, with a few Bovican deserters here or there. Triton wouldn't be stupid enough to send their men toward the front lines of a foreign land, much less a land built on mutual hatred of Tritonian "virtue". If I hadn't seen him at Garved, it could only have been at Fort Meddon. The battle of Fort Meddon, the Frozen Keep, marked the first stage of the rebellion's plan to undermine Bovica.  And it absolutely worked. Six years before finding myself as a Confederate's errand boy, Triton forcefully commandeered a border town on their side of the mountains. Little hamlet which once thrived on travel through the peaks. Their leaders turned it into a military installation, keeping vigil over the various mountain passes that connected the Kyrlund and the lands of Triton Five years later, Triton funneled over two thousand troops through that f...

Traveling alone had always been a double-edged sword. The feeling of isolation, of lonely freedom in your own thoughts could be pleasant at times; and at other times, when wolf howls became louder and snarling emerged from the nearby bushes, pleasant couldn't be further from the truth. But as I trudged through stiff-limbed corpses, moving aside any dead men attempting to block my path, the atmosphere was neither peaceful nor terrifying. It was eerie. Seeing their faces, the hollow eyes and sunken cheeks of souls taken too early, sent a chill passing through me; and not from the freezing mountain weather, either.  The pass grew much calmer following the battle, resulting in an overall uneventful journey to the end of the pass. Upon sighting a wooden gate guarded on both sides by pairs of Protaxian soldiers, I believed the hard part to be over. I was wrong. Strolling up to the gate guards, I stopped a few feet out of range of their barbed spearheads. The one on the left asked, "...

"You! Stop right there!" My attempt at making a stealthy escape had failed, and miserably so. Turning around slowly, the remaining Confederates stared at me from their loose formation. A soldier near the front stepped forward, brandishing a mace coated in so much blood that I couldn't even tell the color of the metal beneath. "Who the fuck are you? You aren't one of mine, and I'm pretty sure that those religious assholes at the other end never take a step without fumbling around in full steel plate. Start talking, or I let some of these savages rip you apart." As he said that last part, a few of the weary soldiers behind him began readying themselves for another fight. Laying his hand on the shoulder of a man near the front, he said, "The battle rush still hasn't faded from Tom here; I'd wager you've never seen someone take a man's arm off and beat him with it." Tom grunted blandly, giving me the impression that the concept wasn...

I needed to make a choice. Either I could intervene in this massacre, or I could turn around and return to a land that may not want me around much longer. Reaching down to pick up a somewhat unused sword from a body, I noticed an insignia emblazoned along the front of the corpse's leather chestplate. It resembled a sword pointed down, with a half-sun shining above it. A memory rushed to the forefront of my mind: a page in some book in the Academy's library, showing that exact insignia as the mark of Triton. Of course there would be Tritonian soldiers in the pass; if was a major border trail between their land and that of the Kyrlund.  Yet, the Freehold Confederacy had worked with Triton to trick Bovica during the final stages of the rebellion. Bovica's rival nation obviously desired the Kyrlund for themselves, but an outright conflict between a group who allied with them only a short time prior would be seen by many as dishonorable. And if there was one thing the leaders of...

"Archers along the ridge! Shield wall!" Each shield went up in quick succession, with the soldiers caught near the center of the grouping raising their wooden bucklers overhead to fill in the wall's gaps. Heavy breathing and quiet prayers swept through the line, heightening the anxiety that had taken hold of these fighters.  There I stood, holding a weathered shield and surrounded by a mix of desperate soldiers and terrified farmers, readying myself for the next few moments of adrenaline-fuelled scrapping. It took less than a month after leaving one army for me to get drawn into the machinations of another; but I suppose it may be necessary to explain how I ended up in this situation, first. After finally leaving Tresin behind, for good, my next move came easy as the Kyrlund proved too volatile to remain in. The rebellion played their cards right: temporarily allying with Triton helped to trick Bovica into drawing their main force to the northern border, allowing the rebe...

I didn't stay for the execution. Not that the townsfolk would have let me, of course; the people of Tresin saw us as part of the problem. Despite the fact that I had been back in the village barely a day, I already found myself staring out over the ancient oaks at the bright glow of the pyre. Her screams rang out in the night before quickly fading away; but in my mind, the sound of my mother burning at the stake never left. I still hear her sometimes. Silent evenings like this tend to draw those painful howls out, forcing them from their hiding places amongst all the other blood-soaked memories. The next morning, I walked back slower than I intended. Not many find pleasure in gazing upon the charred corpse of one who raised them; not many whom I had the misfortune of meeting, at least. Upon arriving in Tresin, my mother's body had mysteriously vanished. I suffered through enough unpleasant conversations to discover that following their joyful immolation of another human being, ...

The noise in the hall was loud enough to send my ears into a feverish ringing, one which I'm not entirely sure I ever fully recovered from. Voices vied for dominance, each in a rush to have their own experiences added to the list of grievances my mother would need to atone for. One woman screamed about her son's conscription into the Bovican army, only for a two-sentence letter to be sent back a week later informing her of his death. One man explained, rather calmly given the circumstances, the life of his late wife under military rule; she was passed around and used like an object, forced to serve the soldiers sexually while her husband was worked nearly to death in the unyielding fields. She committed suicide after two months of being an abused sex slave. More stories like this compounded upon each other, each stemming from my mother's decision to hide from the scouts when they came asking for the daughter of Reevan. In their eyes, her surrender would have spared the peop...

It wasn't difficult to connect the disappearance of Madi with that of essentially all of Fort Sinder. In the days when Tresin remained a minor farming village, the best place to search for answers would have been the main hall; where the village leader lived, and where all major decisions were made. As if much governance was really necessary in such a small, impoverished backwater. Our walk back to the central courtyard proved much calmer than the previous one, meaning James finally had the opportunity to talk rather than simply wheeze and pant like a sickly mutt. He took that chance rather quickly. "Empty fortress, Madi disappearing...what if those two are connected?" He walked with a slight limp; apparently the catching up process had included a hard landing for his ankle. Despite that, our pace remained steady. Caution seemed a better path than reckless abandon at the moment, as it happened to support the main goal of keeping our heads in their proper places. We carefu...

The sound of dried leaves crunching beneath me went unnoticed, as my mind focused heavily on the questions I had. Why would Bovica still search for a man who was presumed dead? They wouldn’t, which means he must be alive. The reasons a nation would have for hunting down a dead man are so few, I could likely count them on one hand. And still leave two fingers unoccupied. Buried in my thoughts, I failed to notice James finally closing the distance between us. I had left him sitting there beneath that oak, no doubt confused and a bit overwhelmed by my sudden shift from passive listening to active running. His labored breathing was loud enough to pull me out of my own head - not to mention nearly driving me mad in the process - but I couldn’t stop now. Answers would not be handed to me easily, and time grew short. “Hey! What are - why are you running so damn fast?” asked the exhausted and athletically-handicapped James, as he desperately used whatever strength that remained to prevent hims...