As I prepare to ride back north to give Harkon the cup, the weather takes a turn for the worse.
And improves not markedly when I make the last leg of the journey to Volkihar on foot.
Upon entering the castle, I'm reminded immediately of everything that both impresses and repulses about these vampires. Stately, wealthy, dignified. Also, misshapen gluttonous cannibals. I still haven't reached a conclusion on my feelings toward them.
The lovely Serana pulls me one way, toward a view of vampires as ordinary people, just more powerful than most and therefore prone to extremism in their best and worst traits. But it seems everyone else is pulling the other way.
And Harkon straddles the middle of it. Like his daughter, he brims with poise and decor, but I can't keep out of my mind that this is the same man who sacrificed thousands to Molag Bal to create the vampire race in the beginning.
If you're going to kill thousands for some gain in power, those thousands ought to have been deserving it in the first place. Even marginally. And I'm entertaining no pretentious notions that my hands are clean, but Harkon seems, not even proud of his act, but indifferent to it.
But for now, I'll remain in his employ. I'm intrigued by his telling of an ancient prophecy about vampires--it sounds like something that could work to my favor. Maybe even against Harkon, should he prove too unruly a master.
So we're off looking for someone called a Moth Priest, to read the Elder Scroll Serana had with her in her prison. I consider that we could just save the time searching and use the Dwemer machine I found in Blackreach, but I remember how long it took me to work the machine and figure the vampires have the right of it.
To my delight, Serana tells me she's to join me, and we head off for Winterhold to see if they've caught wind of any bearded and be-robed men arriving in Skyrim. "How will they be able to tell?" I wonder aloud, but Serana ignores me.
But what's turning out to be another pleasant journey with Serana--a more affable companion I've never had--is not to last. I've been treasuring the moments of idyllic calm I can salvage from my falling in with the vampires of Volkihar, and forgot about the people who sent me here in the first place.
And the Dawnguard aren't too happy with my change of colors.
I make a move to stay my weapon, but they catch sight of Serana, and the lot of them are on each other in seconds, and it's not really up to me to pick a side. Once again, it seems, I'm astride the narrow boundary between the power-mad ancients and their over-zealous human enemies.
Not wishing to trouble Serana, I keep my brooding to myself as we walk to Solitude. Fortunately, an awkward carriage ride of silence is saved us when the driver tells that he's heard the Moth Priest is actually in nearby Dragonbridge.
The Priest is already gone by the time we arrive at the town, but a guard points us down the south road, where we find evidence of a scuffle, and a trail leading into a cavern.
I try to tell myself that killing the Dawnguard isn't all that bad. They could be like the Stormcloaks, after all--ostensibly driven by purpose but driven instead by blunt-minded racism.
They also train trolls, so there's that.
But even after clearing out the Priest's Dawnguard captors, there's the tricky issue of breaching the magical shield protecting him. But Serana seems to understand how it works, and wastes no time tearing down the shield and subduing the old man.
She has me enthrall the Moth Priest, which I suppose is the only option, even though it seems worse than killing him. Stripped of his free will, he becomes my willing slave, happy to follow every order, even when I tell him to accompany me on a dead sprint back to the castle.
In another life, he might've been a housecarl.
Fortunately, the dulling of his spirit has not dulled his mental faculties, and he's able to read the Elder Scroll with no difficulty. Serana wisely looks away while the reading is underway, but I can't resist. I have to see. Forbidden fruit is the sweetest, after all.
It doesn't go any better than last time.
By the time my vision recovers, Serana's finished muddling over the cryptic prophecy and says we'll need the other Scroll related to Harkon's prophecy. She also expresses some of her misgivings over her father's obsession with the prophecy. For my part, I haven't noticed any obsession, just a sort of rugged determination, but I also understand that she's his daughter. Presumably, she's better at reading non-verbal cues. Being the same species probably helps, too.
Anyways, she suspects the Scroll is with her mother, who may have gone into hiding somewhere in the castle. I don't see how this all works--come on, how would Harkon have not noticed?--but hey, it's an excuse to spend more time with Serana.
While we're heading down to the beach to access the castle's basement, I espy a Dawnguard scout, but I let him go. My relationship with them can only get worse if I start initiating all the fights. Besides, if he does bring back an army and they get into a fight with the vampires, then that'll just be fewer enemies on both sides. Harkon's court hasn't exactly been friendly to me so far.
Even the castle itself seems to have some sort of quarrel with me. Everywhere I go, monsters of all manner converge on me, seeking my ruin. It's like Skyrim never lived before I came along, and everyone's just dying for a crack at me.
We head deeper and deeper into Volkihar, and I'm thinking that any minute now, I'm going to push open a door or lift a gate and we're going to be back in Blackreach.
So I'm relieved when one door deposits us in an outdoor courtyard. We're saved!
Still, the moondial (how does that even work?) is actually a contraption of such complexity and thinly veiled cheekiness (it's a hidden staircase) that it's still akin to any Dwemer contraption.
Fortunately, it's not Blackreach we find, but instead, a dinner party that obviously went on a bit long.
There's also another statue of the goddess Mara, which I find frankly fascinating.
I know this is the old part of the castle, but Harkon's old enough that it's hard to imagine this was ever owned by anyone but vampires. And the thought of vampires giving any nod to Mara, much less worship her, is hard to countenance.
Now, the room after, a cavernous alchemy lab putting to shame that dinky shop in Whiterun, seems much more in keeping with the nature of these vampires. Serana seems particularly excited, saying this was definitely her mother's study, and it seems reasonably well-kept.
Well, no sense in leaving it that way.
We finally find Serana's mother's journal, which is mostly unintelligible to me, but Serana's sharp mind misses nothing. There's a portal, she says, that goes to some place called the Soul Cairn. We get the ingredients together and open it up.
Well, Serana may know how to open portals to the afterlife, but I have ample experience using them. So excuse me if I go first.
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