Hi,

Just wanted to wish everyone a happy new life festival! I've very much enjoyed my experience in Nirn so far, and Cyrodiil has been truly enjoyable.
I had read some of the stories from a bunch of content creators from all over the world, and it inspired me to write a few short stories/poems.



Artaeum
Artaeum, wearing the Covenant emblem, high on his mount, strolls through the clearing near Alessia's northern wall.
Sounds of fire smashing against shields can be heard in the distance from the direction of the lumbermill.
To his immediate left and right are two Aldmeri bannermen, and directly behind to his left and right are two Aldmeri shadowscales.
A few eyes of Ebonheart spies are wide open tracking the entourage but keeping their distance.

Artaeum makes his way towards the Alessia bridge. A swarm of Alessian soldiers and mages pour out of the gates climbing over each other blinded by rage charging forward...
The blue beast, as he's known, leads the first slaughter. Coming in from the mine to the south, he leads a ruthless rampage of swinging axes and spilling brain matter cleaving through the Aldmeri Dominion warfront. Artaeum smiles at the beast once within eyesight, and turns to head East, away from the keep walls and towards the water. With each roar of the blue beast behind him, the cheers and cries of men and mer echo off the stone.

Artaeum greets the Ebonheart Pact forces present, arranged in front of of the bridge entryway. Up above, the oilers flex their bows awaiting the Dominion troops. Artaeum walks through the the hallway door into the center of the bridge, nodding at one of the Pact stormknight he vaguely remembers along the way. A single Pact Nightblade appears out of the shadows in front of Artaeum, slinging a jagged bone through the air. A flicker of shielding hits the bone a few millimeters in front of Artaeum's neck, redirecting the shard over his shoulder and onto the floor. At the same moment, a total of eleven violet arrows pierce the neck of the Nightblade in many directions, sending her momentum mostly downwards.

"Sorry about that, awfully difficult to keep them out when we can't see them..." clarifies the Pact Grand Overlord watching the scene.
"No worries, I can't expect perfection after all - where'd be the fun?" Artaeum explains plainly, not amused at the display of inadequacy on his part.

The sounds of the yellow swarm crackling under the flaming oil almost drowns out the cries of the electrocuted newly formed piles of ash behind Artaeum.
In front, the Aldmeri Dominion forces smile, a few of them playing coin games in the opposite hallways, a few of them occasionally being called in to obliterate key Ebonheart Pact champions as they approach the bridge from the other side. Above them are only a few Aldmeri scouts, watching the wonderful display of legions swiftly rolling through the hills laying waste to any groups of Ebonheart Pact threats. The front line back at the bridge holds off the remainders trickling in.
Artaeum looks to the Dominion Grand Overlord. The reflection of the sun ricochets off of his abundantly shiny chestpiece, causing a slight squinting of Artaeum's left eye.
A poison on a blade wipes itself clean deep in the right kneecap of the shiny Overlord, spilling red through the new hole in his armor. The same nightblade, inexplicably, holding the same bone decides to not waste the time prying her dagger out and instead flees off the bridge and into the water below.

"Ball of anger, that one... I wonder who generated those emotions?" explains Artaeum.
The Grand Overlord does not respond, choosing instead to nod, trying not to focus on the tormenting pain of the healer's breath as his wound closes itself and dries.

A young, well dressed, red mage walks up to the bridge and through the yellow forces defending the bridge.
A young, well dressed, yellow mage walks up to the bridge and through the red forces defending the bridge.
Artaeum greets them both warmly, and the three walk up to the northern side of the bridge, looking at the Imperial City.
The transcript of their conversation can be found below, but every piece is contested individually:
[Illegible]

Zurrek steps forward from Sejanus outpost.
Binding his lightning essence to himself, he sprints to the bridge, quickly dodging a few yellow arrows, and teleporting in a flash through the hallway and up the stairs.

Keir steps forward from the Alessia front door. He shadowsteps to the clearing in front of the bridge. A few red arrows and spells sift through the air that replaced Keir when he disappeared again. Now in the center of and slightly above the main defensive line, Keir momentarily paralyzes the forces and shadowsteps through the hallway, and up the stairs.


Two
Molag Bal needs souls, Mundus needs shards.
Shards are simple things, really. Shards are just matter. Any matter.
Most matter is not a shard, though. What makes a shard a shard is its collective agreement by external observers that it is, in fact, a shard. And that's it!

So, if two out of three observers agree that a specific and defined subset of matter is a shard, then it is a powerful shard. If two out of one hundred observers agree that a specific and defined subset of matter is a shard, then it is a weak shard.

Now, let's say all observers agree that one specific observer is influential enough to direct a subset of observers. Let's say we give them a crown.
Let's say we have multiple crowns, and most crowns can be bought by giving them a few shards. Since crowns can be bought in Mundus, we want to see which crown is the best crown. So we set up a little arena, and we observe the crowns. This is not out of any (negative emotion) to any specific crown, we love all crowns! But to play the game, we need to figure out which crown is the best crown. We need to identify the strongest influential network - not to destroy it, but to learn from it. To understand how it was created, so that we can continue on. This may mean redefining some aspects of what a shard is. There may be collateral damage to some who have old shards but won't have new shards.
Regardless of where you individually stand with the definition of what a shard is... ideally the next iteration is better at ensuring shards to those who genuinely want to help Mundus. So you have a choice: join our iteration, or individually resist against the entire collective and see how long you can hold on (an act that we truly appreciate since it allows us to test our iteration before we inevitably consume you).
With shards redefined, new shards will flow to new crowns, and new crowns will help keep Mundus alive.

Three
So, cells - our ancestors, our now. There isn't a "male" and "female" cell, but at some point way back those cells invented/created an organism that had a gender. They created a male and a female. It worked and evolved.
Then it complexified.
The males and females created their own artificial world, all based on their personal brain functions and it's identification of itself in the opposite gender.
It worked and evolved.
Then it complexified.
Now we have fewer and fewer extremes on either side of the spectrum, and more and more balancing towards the middle.
Since the before-us determined  categorization, the fear of our own identity set in... and we created our own facades that fit the categorizations. We've identified ourselves and push our facades, our champions, to fight against those who haven't identified themselves - for their sake.
It's working and we're evolving.
And now we've started to prefer and believe our facades over our selves. We leave our subconscious unexplored. We struggle to explain our subsconscious self peering through us, incapable of comprehending the conflict it creates with our facade. We don't understand absolutely anything about our reality, but we pretend we do.
What if one day we stop, and we truly revisit how we got here. We take in the reality, the now, and try to interpret where our next steps should be as a single organism, as one life.
We identify our collective mind's cancers, we identify our collective mind's food.
We find a way to make it beneficial for each of us to willingly but cautiously lower our barriers - even if they're tempered by invented concepts.
We simply unify... but we need a catalyst.



One
The child will be born, and on a long enough timeline, the child is born.
The child is balanced, the child grows.
The void attempts to consume the child the way a void is able to conflict with a child, but the child is balanced. In its attempt, the void identifies a piece of itself. The child learns this and the child grows.
The void attempts to consume the human the way a void is able to conflict with a human, but the human is balanced. In its attempt, the void identifies most of itself. The human learns this, and the human shadowsteps. The void [..illogical..]
The human attempts to consume the void. In its attempt, the human perishes - but the gash is open. Humanity pierces through the void in all directions, in all dimensions. The human becomes the gash, the portal, the in-between, the balance.
Humanity evolves.

Then the inexpressible got to them... but that's when the inexpressible identified itself. At that point the gash was already open, the chase begun, the lightning struck, and the veil tore.


Epilogue
Mudcrabs
The poor fish are eaten by the mudcrab, such is the way of things. But some fish are being taunted by the mudcrabs, their fins being snipped at for the mudcrab's enjoyment. The fisherman pities and graces the fish with life eternal: to be eaten and become a part of himself. The mudcrabs scuttle for new food, and become prey to something else. The cycle continues...

Fish
The fish should worry about whether the fisherman is light or dark... but they know it doesn't matter. Either way their end is blissful balance for eternity in the next dimension, thanks to the fisherman.
As sad as it is for the fisherman to see the fish who starve themselves refusing the bait... are the fish trying and failing to jump into the hands of the fisherman, not seeing the bait laid out for them.

Trolls
Trolls are tough to take down. You have to consistently chip away at them, persistently dismantling them... but you need to be able to take their hits as well. And some hit hard. As long as you have a tough barrier to pierce, and a consistent bleed on your foes... you'll outlast the trolls.

The Abyss
You want to blame me for collateral damage? I strapped myself to an anchor with rope, and jumped into the abyss for you. I pulled as many out as I could, and some failed to catch my hand. Blame me for that if you wish, but I won't... and I won't forget them either - I'd recommend you do the same. The reason it worked is simple, it's because of my anchor, my rock.

Nostalgia
An exploitable human weakness. The elder generations fought against the void furiously, and tried their best to pass on their knowledge so their children could survive. And on and on for generations and on and on traditions formed. Traditions... old knowledge... it's useful when paired with context of the spacetime it is in... not as useful without it.
Understanding completely all of it in all of its context is needed to achieve the truly and actually impossible... but first you need to prove you can get that far, huh? First step, let's look at the information we do have, and place it in its right context, and see if we can identify...patterns....

Rivers
Keir is simple. Keir is a virtual being trying to help other virtual beings realize they are in a virtual world. The mind controlling Keir is a "real" human trying to help other "real" humans realize they are in a "real" virtual or holographic world. The same lessons apply in both - we choose to distract ourselves. Our way out is simply unity. We'll never get there, though, since the incentives are heavily towards each individual fighting for themselves at the cost of others (now with bonus mocking others for not being given the right RNG at birth!) -> and we choose to distract ourselves anyways. What a funny paradox. What a funny dance. What a funny light/dark.

Boo
L'emetus... don't you see?
He transcends mmorpgs, transcends video games. He was the original. The bane of all virtual worlds. The tester, the void.
And he died in Mundus. The observer observed this, and searched for a replacement.
Each shard from these on the map was a dagger placed for a target. A quick shine in a bright line was a shock burst on those daggers. This is how they were subdued.
You think you're chasing a rabbit down an underwater tunnel? I'm sorry, but that doesn't sound right. Maybe it's one of the mage's guild's illusion's.

Keir
"Do you now why Cadwell wears that hat?"
The question seemed out of place.
"Simply because he believes it will help"
Keir looks up, barely awake. Confused from looking around the empty room, he heads outside to a nearby stream.
A bard is skipping up and down the road in the distance, singing a tune:
"One bright morning in the middle of the night,
Two dead boys got up to fight.
Back-to-back they faced one another,
Drew their swords and shot each other."
Keir calls out to the guard, but he vanishes. Keir chases him to the local shivering shrine, having no idea how he knew where it was. There he spoke into the echo, "You think we have a different belief in a trivial matter? That's the reason you've been doing this? Know that I am a vestige. I do not know any of you from other realities, but you seem to think you do. You have my sincere apologies for dancing to the music all of you have created. I'm sorry if you don't like some of your own beats. I guess you all need more time to heal. Then, we can go back to dreaming together. After all, you all have all my lexicon text... I just have what's above, and it's useless without that piece."
Keir, later, appears washed up on the shores of Davon's Watch.