Don't Dream It, Be It

Before leaving Bravil, Kud-Ei of the Mages Guild asked another favour of me. A fellow mage, Henantier, had gone missing. These favours I do for Argonian women keep getting stranger and stranger, but this one went beyond my wildest dreams.


I have written about the peculiar attraction that Argonian women seem to have towards me before, so I did not think anything special about it when Kud-Ei asked me to help her find Henantier. However, once I agreed, she led me to his house. To the bedroom. Here, I admit, I started panicking for a second.

Thankfully, it turned out she just wanted to show me Henantier. The missing one. Who, to me, seemed to be sleeping soundly in his bed. Kud-Ei knew better, though. He had been experimenting with dangerous magics in order to control his own dreams and use them as training grounds for his skills.

If you ask me, it sounds like a pretty useful idea. If he had been able to fully control his dreams. He was not able to do so, and now he was trapped in the dreamworld he created, probably full of dangers and traps.


Kud-Ei handed me an amulet that would take me directly to Henentiers dreams. All I had to do was fall asleep. Help a fellow mage and get some more sleep in the much-too-early morning? I liked that plan.


And indeed, as soon as I fell asleep, a strangely tinted world formed around me. Henantier stood in front of me, surprised and confused. However, all of my equipment was missing and I found myself unable to utter a single sound. Henantier himself seemed to have forgotten where he was, or what he was supposed to do. All he could tell me was that he lost something and that he needed it back so we would be able to leave.



After looking around in the dream - or rather nightmare - version of his home, I found several doors. One of them seemed to lead outside. Not having any clues where to start, I decided to open it.


Behind the door, I found myself in a large cavern, water filling most of it. In a small container made of stone, I found a potion that would allow me to breathe under water. Seeing this as a clue, I explored the cavern in more detail. In the far corner, a deep shaft went down, further than I could see. Quaffing the potion, I dove in. I am a good swimmer, especially since I was not encumbered by any weapons or armour, but the well did not end anytime soon, and by the time I finally reached the grate at its end, my lungs seemed to be close to exploding.

Behind the grate, however, I entered a small ruin, where a glowing orb was floating over a pedestal. After taking it, I suddenly found myself back in Henantiers room.

My course of action was clear. Solve the tests the mage had invented for himself and gather the fragmented parts of his sanity.



The second door I opened led to an area that reminded me of some of the dungeons I had explored in Cyrodiil. Huge pillars with deceptively small hole in them. Traps. Most likely with pressure plates to set them off. I looked around for a clue to help me through this part alive, and found one in form of a map. After studying it, it was clear to me that only one rune in the grid was such that it followed a path from the bottom to the top. And since the grid of runes was the same size as the one with the plates in front of me, I decided to try my faith. And I was right. The path marked by the runes did not trigger any traps. The next grids were larger and it was harder to find the correct rune, but it was still possible and I managed to cross them without being harmed.


The first impression I got from the third door was darkness. Only a few spots of light from floating crystals illuminated the area. Luckily I found a torch nearby. The light from the torch helped me to navigate the countless traps on the walkways, while my agility and speed allowed me to escape the falling and spinning blades.


It was when I had entered the fourth and final door that I started to doubt my success. The room before me resembled the gladiators entrance to the arena in Imperial City. In a chest I found some armour and a sword. In the pit of the arena two huge minotaurs were waiting and immediately rushed me as I walked through the gates.

The fight was hard and fast. But in the end, I was able to take the last crystal and thus restore Henantiers sanity. And he, in turn, restored ourselves to the world as it should be.

He promised not to try such magics again, but I have the feeling that this might not have been the last time I helped him or another mage from being trapped by his own experiments.

More on the latest in Imperial bedtime fashion, ten ways to identify the fake amulet around your neck and Mehrunes Dagons dream diary coming soon.