Teleporting back to the lair of Decius Mus, I reported my success with the water of the Pool of Forgetfullness. He was happy to hear that the only ones killed on this mission were members of a Sixth House base.

"Evil ones, they are." he spat, "Which reminds me, I want you to find me a Dagoth Dagger."

"What is that?" I asked.

"Well, some Sleepers have recently been encountered wielding powerful weapons called 'Dagoth Daggers'. The Order wishes to determine if the weapons are simply enchanted, or if they have some sort of connection, a link of sorts, to Dagoth Ur. Bring me one to examine. There are several known to exist, but the only one I can direct you to for certain is located in the Telvani Monster Works (I love that name!), which is located in the Telvani Canton canalworks in Vivic."  

Since I didn't have anything to teleport me directly to Vivic, I headed out to the stiltstrider base, paid the fee, and headed off slowly towards my destination.

Once I arrived at Vivic, I headed over to the Telvani canton, and made my way to the underworks. After a minute or two, I found the Monster Lab entrance. Using the Amulet of Shadows, I went 80% invisible and headed inside.

I found a number of rats running around the place, killing them off before they even knew what hit them.    

In one section, I found a number of very small clanfear along with several Dwemer centurion spiders. I thought the small clanfears were cute. I was right; they were cute - right up to the time the spell from my Amulet of Shadows wore off. Upon seeing me, they jumped to the attack, slashing at my ankles. The centurion spiders attacked as well. It took several shots of God's Fire to put them all down, but I managed to survive the attack.

Later on, down another corridor, I could hear an attack in progress. I summoned several creatures to my aid. Since they appear a few feet in front of me, they actually appeared on the other side of the door. Whatever was causing the attack in the other room quickly started attacking my creatures. I summoned several more, and listened while the battle raged on.

When things got quiet, I opened the door, finding that two or three of my creatures had survived the attack. I was very surprised at WHAT they had been fighting with, however.  

The battle had been caused by a Telvani wizard and an experiment gone very wrong. There were tiny clanfear scattered all over the floor with blood on their claws. I also saw several tiny humanoid creatures, each with a miniature drawn sword, also bloodied. Apparently, for some reason, these creatures had turned on their creator. Some things, I guess, shouldn't be experiemented with.

I checked out the room, but didn't find anything unusual to bring home as a trophy, but I did find the Dagoth Dagger lying on the floor next to a small altar.    

A touch of the Blood Servent amulet brought me back to the home of Decius Mus.

"Ah, you've returned." he said. "I do hope you have good news about the dagger for me."

I handed the dagger over to him. For a vampire, he had the look on his face of a child receiving a treasured gift.

"Excellent." he said, turning it over, examining the detail of the handle and blade. "I'll examine it shortly. If it does possess some sort of link to the power of Dagoth Ur, perhaps that can be exploited."

He put the dagger on his desk, went to his rack of bottles of stored blood, drank one dry, then turned to me and continued, "You've done well, old bean. So well, in fact, that I'm sending you on up the chain to Romana Corvus. You'll be taking assignments from her from now on."

"What is she like?" I asked.

"Oh, a bit of a generalist, she is, although she's taken a real interest in Dagoth Ur lately. You'll find her in Barataria. Now, that's located underwater in a grotto between the docks of Sadrith Mora and the Telvani Council building. I hope you can breath underwater - it's a long journey through those caverns, and no chance to catch your breath."

I had a belt that had been enchanted with constant water breathing, so that wouldn't be a problem for me.

"Here." he said, handing me a long metal object, "You'll need this rod to operate the airlock to Barataria itself. Don't lose it - there are only just so many of them around."    

I bid the vampire good day (or night), and using the Balmora teleport ring, arrived just outside my home.

I was surprised that there were no new scratch marks on the lock, then remembered I had taken care of that problem just recently.

"Sadrith Mora?" Laurenna asked. "What exactly is over there?

"Well, for one thing, there are other stores over there that you haven't been in yet, and I may have some business to attend to with the Council there."

"I see." she said, sounding not quite convinced. "Would we be bouncing back and forth here all the time?"

"No, I thought about that." I replied. "We may be able to stop at the bank, and purchase a home in Sadrith Mora. Also, when some of this business is finished, I think we should go visit your home in Lokken, just to make sure things are ok there."

That put a smile on her face. I just had to make sure I had my Belt of Fishgills with me before we left.