Of Undead Horses and Frustrated Novelists

What a place the Soul Cairn is! Once I got over the initial shock at the sheer strangeness of the place, I got to thinking it is quite fascinating in its own way. Sure, it's certainly annoying how slowly our health, stamina, and magicka are regenerating thanks to Serana soul-trapping us in part, but I've already made sure my armor bore enchantments to negate this inconvenience. As for Kousei, I've been supplementing his own stock of potions with my healing spells. It's well and good that I have honed my Restoration skills to replenish stamina as well as health. He has been quite uneasy ever since we entered the Soul Cairn, and I'm trying my best to lift his spirits. Hopefully after all this is over, our souls will become whole again.

Even you look more undead than usual, Serana.

I don't know which is bigger: Blackreach or the Soul Cairn. Well, even if the Soul Cairn doesn't surpass the great citadel of the Dwarves, it's big enough for us to have some difficulty locating Serana's mother. The Soul Cairn had a share of forlorn souls (and I mean this literally) who were doomed to a wretched existence after being tricked by the Ideal Masters, whose crystal forms we have already encountered as we combed the landscape for clues. We tried talking to the wraithlike figures hoping they knew something about Valerica's whereabouts, but what we mostly got were sad recollections of what they have lost. However, there was one man who specifically put me to task in finding a relic of his loyal companion.

I hope being "changed" doesn't mean I'll end up like you.

Kousei, while sifting through the rubble in one of the ruins, found a piece of writing about someone named "Jiub". By the looks of it, this Jiub was a Dunmer from Morrowind, and he was writing what looked like an autobiography. I asked Kousei if he knew the name, but he shook his head. Nonetheless, he kept the parchment as a curiosity. It was well and good that he did, for we came across Jiub himself later on. Time really has no meaning in the Soul Cairn, because Jiub must have already been dead for centuries and was now only preoccupied with penning down his life's achievements. Seeing that Kousei already had found one of his opus' pages, Jiub gave him the quest to find the others to complete the work.

...this Jiub person has lots of Morrowind's "burning wind" in his head.

Trying to increase its worth by having only one in print?

As luck would have it, the relic the soul tasked me to find -- Arvak's skull -- was near where Jiub had set up his camp. It was surrounded by souls that morphed into Bonemen, Mistmen, and Wrathmen when we got close. We have already gotten used to those denizens of the Soul Cairn by then, so were able to dispatch of them despite being more difficult to battle than the normal draugr. I retrieved the glowing horse skull from its pedestal, and its grateful owner reappeared nearby afterwards. To express his thanks, he taught me how to summon Arvak before finally disappearing in peace.

Serana, we really have to work on your aim.

Was he restless because his skull was kept on a pedestal?

Jiub's missing pages were more difficult to find than Arvak's skull, that much I can say. I recall that two of them were located right underneath crystalline incarnations of the Ideal Masters, and one cannot approach them without your life force being siphoned little by little. In those cases, I made Kousei stay safely at a distance away while I retrieved the page. He would chide me later on for this, but I reasoned that I always had Close Wounds at a ready on both hands. Kousei, my dear, I may have told you I loved you, but that doesn't mean I would have to constantly play the part of the damsel in distress whenever we're together. Anyhow, we brought back the pages to Jiub, who, in return gave them back to us as a compiled version. And his own personal locket, which he reasoned would no longer be of use to him since he had lost his physical body.

I'll forge a Dragonbone greatsword for you, Kousei. Just. Replace. That. Dreadful-looking. Warhammer.

I asked Jiub what he was going to do after having successfully compiled his opus, and he simply told us that he would then write the second volume. Kousei, Serana, and I glanced at each other and shook our heads in disbelief when Jiub wasn't looking. The man was aiming for a 26-volume autobiography. Good luck to him on that. But when he does not have to worry about dying, having already died, he has all the time to come up with the 25 follow-ups to the book we already have at our hands.

And Arvak? He's every bit the darling his previous master told him to be. I had to laugh at the look on Kousei's face when I first rode Arvak. We have seen glimpses of the skeletal horse running around the Soul Cairn before I returned his skull to his master, and Kousei must not have anticipated I would be riding it later on. "I prefer horses with flesh on them, thank you," he muttered when I asked if he wanted to ride with me. Nonetheless, may we find Valerica soon. The Soul Cairn is not for the living, and I am afraid we will end up becoming Bonemen ourselves if we stay here too long.

It's more comfortable than it looks, I tell you!