The infinite archives of Hermaeus Mora are the ultimate treasure. Its innumerable shelves and countless books carry the weight of all knowledge. Therein, the diligent reader can find all that was, all that is, and all that will be.
Followers of the Divines, content in their dark cloisters of ignorance, preach hatred of the Golden Eye. Daedra, they call him: unclean, monstrous, wicked.
We have seen the truth. Knowledge is only as wicked as the one who wields it. Forsaking learning in fear of its misuse is the ultimate sin. It is an unforgivable folly. As a result, mortals have suffered countless centuries of loss.
In Apocrypha, the Golden Eye weeps cold tears at this plague of ignorance. Those who walk his halls are truly blessed. Even as their flesh falls away, they are permitted to browse the infinite tomes and scrolls, privy to all mysteries that have ever and will ever exist. It is the most blessed of fates.
We give you praise, Hermaeus Mora. We seek enlightenment, illumination, and a place at your side.
Grulmar opened his eyes to an alien world. As far as he could see, there were shelves full of books, massive pillars of shelves looking like towers. All around that was an ocean, an ocean of green slime with tentacles breaking the surface of it, waving like wheat in the wind.
“Where in Oblivion am I?” he wondered, looking at his hands instinctually. No, they were not the small hands of his youth and he also noticed he was wearing his bleached College robes as well. This wasn’t a twisted memory or someone’s else dream.
“Yes, Oblivion. That is accurate,” Oghma answered from behind him and he bared his tusks when he turned around. “Apocrypha, if you want to be precise. You are now in my realm.”
The Orc looked at the sickly green sky he already knew from his dreams, at the tentacles of smoke hanging from the clouds of acid, but in this place, there were eyes like stars in that sky. Golden stars, watching without blinking. “I don’t understand,” he murmured. “The Stones. They were cleansed. The dreams should be gone.”
“Should they?” Oghma asked curiously, motioning him forward. “Come.” She lead him in between the infinite stacks and he followed, because what other option did he have? Blindly wander about in eternity? The dream had its purpose, and it was better for someone to show him the way. “Not all the Stones have been cleansed, so Miraak’s perfect world has not yet ended. But there is a power behind your own dreams, a driving force pushing you towards understanding, whether you agree with it or not.”
“To witness,” Grulmar mumbled, sighing. “But these are my dreams, are they not? Mine. I should be able to control them.”
Oghma shook her head, the eye on her chest amused. “You keep resisting. Which is what brings these dreams to haunt you.”
“Explain.”
“Your mind is different, as I have said before. There are more versions of you, but I will mention only two. There is you that is awake and there is you that is asleep. The you that has his eyes wide open in awareness keeps resisting the events that are supposed to guide you, which means that the you that is deep in slumber has no other choice but dream to show you what you do not want to see.”
“Guide me?” Grulmar growled, stopping in his tracks. “I’m no tuskin’ pawn, damn it!”
“Everyone has a purpose,” Oghma shrugged. “Fate, if you will. But nothing is set in stone, is it not? Maybe you are meant to witness the rise of the rebel as he overthrows the king. Maybe you are meant to become the rebel opposing the king, changing the other into witness. Or maybe you are meant to rise as the new king, maiming the others in process.”
“Tusk fate and piss in its eye,” the Orc spat on the ground, getting quite annoyed with everyone telling him what he was he supposed to do, what he should see, and yet explaining nothing.
Was it really a surprise he resisted? Maybe if someone came and told him what exactly they wanted from him, he would be more inclined to listen. But this? Riddles and mysticism, pushing and pulling as if he was a puppet controlled by strings everyone wanted to wrap their fingers around, making him dance the way they wanted.
“Free will,” Oghma smiled, once again walking in between the stacks, Grulmar right behind her. “What does it mean exactly?”
Grulmar narrowed his eyes on Oghma’s back, scowl twisting his face. “Somethin’ ya will hardly understand. It means ya can choose yer own fate. With no one pushin’ ya in a direction ya don’t want to go.”
Oghma snorted at that. “Your notion of free will is a utopia, little Orc. If we follow your logic, does that mean that a farmer is free to choose his own fate by ignoring his ruler’s laws? Free will, as you portray it, would mean a world where everyone’s decisions are only their own and their consequences affect only them.”
“Y’are sayin’ that the only world where free will can exist is a world with only one individual inhabittin’ it. That’s what y’are tryin’ to say?”
“Do you think I am wrong? Ponder this then. If a farmer’s family is slaughtered by bandits, in their act of free will to do whatever they want, do they not take away the farmer’s free will by taking away from him the option of continuing to live in peace with his family?”
“Ya imply that free will is hypocrisy,” Grulmar muttered in shock. “That by exertin’ yer free will ya take the option from the others. What is it then? Free will. Is it power?”
Oghma shrugged at that. “I cannot help myself but agree with you. Is not a ruler more inclined to exert his will - which he considers to be free - on his subjects? Is not his will less burdened by the consequences of his actions?”
“And yet even a ruler answers to someone else. Gods? Maybe even a Daedric Prince or two,” Grulmar smirked. “Which is where it gets interestin’, right? What’s stoppin’ ya? Who do ya asnwer to? As far as I can see, it is only ya and the gods who are the only ones with free will, free will to do whatever ya want.”
Oghma was silent for a moment, pondering Grulmar’s argument and then she sighed. “If we go back to the ruler, is he truly unopposed? There is always another ruler who might not agree with his or hers methods of enforcing their free will.”
“And so y’are opposed by the gods. No, wait. Y’are opposed even by yer own kind, by other Princes. When one of ya push the other has to pull in another direction.”
“It is more like a stone rolling down from a hill. Once someone puts it in motion, it cannot be really stopped. Only redirected.”
“And so ya just toss it in between yerselves like a hot potato,” Grulmar snorted. “Lovely. I suppose ya don’t even stop to think about the stone’s free will, or lack of it, hm? Why should ya? It’s just a stone after all, right?”
Oghma silently laughed at that and Grulmar recognized that this argument has just ended, the Orc answering his own questions. It didn’t mean he liked the answers though, because if he really had to believe that free will was essentially a lie, what was the point of living? And yet, everyone did cope somehow, but how so? Because they were all living in a lie, but in their own lie. Free will was an illusion they desperately clung to, because otherwise it meant inviting desperation into their lives.
Maybe Grulmar should despair too, the illusion of his free will just being shattered. But was it really? Did he really believe in it in the first place? What he desired most was freedom and free will, because he had been always pushed around by someone or something else.
And that was the root of the problem. His goal wasn’t entirely impossible, because if a farmer wanted to be free of his ruler, he coul remove the ruler - or run away into deep woods to live a life in solitude. But Grulmar’s freedom wasn’t limited by a ruler was it? With enough power, he could depose the ruler, but a god?
With enough power...maybe I could run, he thought. Run and hide, 'cause what other choice is there? His eyes darted towards the stacks of the books, thinking about all the knowledge and secrets lying among those pages. Inviting him to search for his answers. To search for power.
“Every possible piece of knowledge can be found among these stacks. Ask any questions and you will find the answers to them in here,” Oghma said, as if she was reading his mind. “Maybe you would like to stop and see for yourself? Do not be afraid, pick up a book and you will find knowledge.”
Grulmar looked at a book lying on the ground right in front of him, calling to him to pick it up, to lose himself in its pages, enlightening him with secrets and knowledge. He suddenly grunted, shaking his head. “Knowledge without wisdom is like water in sand,” he said and then continued among the shelves, Oghma following him for a change.
“And you consider yourself wise?” she asked.
“Most of the time? I consider myself stupid,” Grulmar snorted. “Idiotic even. In view of the fact that my previous choices certainly didn’t come from a place of wisdom. Yet even idiots can have a common sense,” he shook his head and motioned to the stacks. “What would happen if I picked up the book? I would find a small piece of knowledge I was lookin’ for, no doubt. But only a little piece, not the whole answer, right? So I would have to open another book. And then another and another. So I would spend an eternity lookin’ for an asnwer, every second closer to it, but never actually findin’ it.” Grulmar then scoffed, waving his hand dismissively. “Yeah, maybe I am stupid, but not that stupid. I don’t make deals with Daedra.”
“Then maybe you are wise after all, for is it not possible to find wisdom in stupidity?”
“Or stupidity in wisdom,” the Orc snorted.
“Over here,” Oghma stopped him and he turned around, noticing her pointing towards the corridor he just passed and he narrowed his eyes.
“Either everythiing in this place looks the same or we have passed the same corridor several times now,” he murmured and Oghma just shrugged, motioning him forward. With a sigh, he entered the corridor, yet another hallway leading in between shelves and stacks of books.
Everything seemed the same to Grulmar in this strange world, every hallway, every corridor. It was a maze, an infinite maze of infinite knowledge. It was Apocrypha.
Though what was odd was that he had yet to encounter a single inhabitant of this realm. All other Daedric realms were inhabited by some forms of Daedra, but why wasn’t this one? Maybe it had something to do with the fact that Grulmar wasn’t really there, that it was just a dream.
Is it still a dream when y’are fully aware though?
They took another turn and ahead of them was a figure that made Grulmar narrow his eyes, glancing over at Oghma and then back at the figure.
“It has to be here somewhere. I’m so close, so close. But not close enough,” the figure mumbled and it was when Grulmar got close enough that he recognized it was Talvas. His robes were in tatters, he was undernourished, his hair unkept and face covered with stubble.
“Talvas?” Grulmar whispered, but the Dunmer didn’t react. “Talvas!” he said more loudly and the Dunmer looked up, but it seemed as if he was seeing right through the Orc.
“Maybe if I look over there,” Talvas kept mumbling, running to the other wall. “These look promising.” He took one of the books from the shelves and began quickly skimmed through it. “Impossible!” he suddenly gasped and laughed out loud. “Fools! If they only knew how mistaken they are!”
“This is what I am supposed to witness?” Grulmar growled, turning to Mora. “My friend twisted by yer false promises?”
“None of my promises are false,” Oghma replied. “He is looking for answers and he decided he wanted to look for them here. He is a seeker of knowledge and I have only granted him his wish.”
Grulmar bared his teeth at her and then walked towards Talvas, reaching for him and to his own surprise his hand rested on the Dunmer’s shoulder. “Talvas!” he said softly, turning the Dunmer towards him.
Talvas looked up and recognition seemed to flicker in his eyes which went wide in surprise. “Grulmar?” he asked carefully, as if not sure. “Grulmar!”
“Yes, it’s me,” the Orc said painfully. It was really breaking his heart to see Talvas like that. “I’m here.”
“Good, good,” Talvas mumbled absently, skimming through the book again. He then growled and threw the book against the wall. “I can’t take this anymore!” he shouted in anger, his eyes finding Grulmar again. “Grulmar! You must help me! I can’t take this anymore. It’s too much. Help me, please!” he pleaded, squeezing Grulmar’s hand. “I am hidden in the twilight, lost. Find me, Grulmar. Help me!”
The Orc reached for him, but the world seemed to suddenly spin.
“Wait! Where are you going?! You must help me!” Talvas shouted at him, but Grulmar was inevitably drawn back to reality.
“I will,” was all he could whisper before he was forced to wake up from his dream.
Comments
his tentacles to pop up. And Grulmar made a smart move not opening those
books... though I'm not sure how different the lure will be inside his
own dream.