Thorlda gets even more embarassed and awkward when the Bosmer laughs at her gesture, and goes into paroxysms of worry, thinking that she's made some terrible mistake. She continues to help the young woman through the documentation, but shuts out everything else about her, especially her bitter conversation with the Sergeant. Murzuth, by contrast, is fascinated.
'Well. Well. I can't say you're the only one with a story like that to tell, got to say that. With the old Empire's law and order in retreat, slavery and banditry's certainly on the rise, as I hardly need to tell you. The more of those lawless cowards you kill, the better, in my opinion.
The one thing I will warn you - as one mer to another - is that you'll want to be very careful about whatever's going on with your father, and take care before jumping to any conclusions. You'll be heading somewhere in the middle of a civil war that makes the Stormcloaks' little spat look like a tavern brawl. He went in armed, willingly I think, in the company of the Thieves Guild, under a false name. An Argonian in pretty much the worst place to be a Histblood right now - Jygglalag alone knows, he must have had a very good reason to be heading over there. All I'm saying is - be careful. And talk to him, if you can find him - he's likely to have a rather interesting set of contacts who might tell you what's been going on.'
She turns, addressing the ragged band who are variously meditating, drugging themselves out of their minds, or ruthlessly fleecing each other.
'Glad to see that you've all managed to find your respective vices and meditative retreats atop a bloody desolate mountain pass, good form all. I appreciate the value of it, but suggest that you might want to be making an early start tomorrow morning, else my superiors start getting antsy about your presence here. With those documents you signed, you're officially in Morrowind now, and … well, being on this side of the border's technically illegal. Especially with that fiscal stipend that's been coughed up by Windhelm's coffers, which might not strictly be yours as long as you remain over here. I won't rat you out, but you might want to make your move soon.'
Smirking, thinking how thankless her task is, she begins making a circuit of the group, scratching out rudimentary maps for the more literate of the group. Cartography's been a little difficult in the aftermath of the Red Year and the Argonian-Dunmer war, but she knows enough of the lands directly across the Pass to sketch out the Northern Coast region and the West Gash.
'You might also want to arrange some sort of expedition leadership arrangements, work out who's going to blaze the trail, and where, or just agree where you're heading to first, what your approach is going to be. If you carry on along this road, you'll reach the city of Blacklight. It is - was, maybe, I don't know - one of Great House Redoran's main remaining population centres, and Grandmaster Arobar had garrisoned the House Knights there. They might be able to help you out - they're honorable folk, if a bit brusque. Fort Frostmoth and Solstheim is an option too - less volcanic pollution there - but you'd need to lay hands on a boat, and it's mostly inhabited by survivalist madmen last time I head - every one of them a Daedra-worshipping apocalyptician just waiting for the world to start falling apart at the seams. Anyway, I'm overdue with my report to the Palace of Kings, so I'll be off now. Thorlda will remain here, check you get off alright.
Good luck, everybody - I think you'll need it.'
With that, Sergeant Murzuth turns, and simply begins trekking back through the fog to her home city. Thorlda tries to take over, and while she's got a certain bustling practical efficiency that her superior lacks, she's less given to long speeches and raised voices, and so the group can get a good night's sleep before being woken up - after a moderate lie-in to be chivvied along and out of the camp and into the pass.
Albel:
The Stendarrite picks his way away from the group, making his little ascetic camp up on the northern edge of the pass, just where it begins to fade into Morrowind. Depending on perspective - and these things always depend on perspective, especially in the land of V'vehk the liar poet - this is either the ruthless, craven act of a man with no sense of solidarity with his team members , or a noble sacrifice, a willingness to put himself out alone before the horrors of the wild, drawing their ire like a lightning rod. Somewhat frustratingly, it seems that the latter is the case today, horrors of the wild have chosen this day to be very much fixated on Albel. As he's tucking into his jerky, he hears the cracking of a twig, and looks up to see … well, something rather disturbing. It's locust-like in shape, a muscled predator-beast that's all gamy legs and chitinous abdominal plating. Its mandible twitch and chitter at him, and two long frond-like antenna 'taste' the air around where he's sitting. One part of the creature isn't very locust-like, however, and that's its size - the thing's about the size of a large wolf, even though it's ten times as stealthy. Albel's dim recollections of Resdayni lore might suggest the name 'Nix-hound' to him - it's just another of the horrifying creatures that Morrowind has to offer. Strange to see it so high up, though, so near the border.
Stranger still is the fact that it doesn't seem eager to attack, or even threaten, Albel. It's emaciated looking, and seems, with all its piteous chittering, to be much more interested in his jerky.
~~~
It's mid-morning by the time that you've headed down through the pass, and a slight change in the slope of the ground suggests that the path is beginning to level out, and that you're in the foothills of the Velothi Mountains. The fog's lifted a little, but not enough to let you see back up to the Dunmeth Pass - the last you saw of Skyrim was Thorlda, sitting atop a boulder, waving you off. You may be cut off from the rest of the world, but you're not dead - at least you think you aren't.
It's immediately obvious that you're in a different country. For all that Skyrim is mostly desolate, sere tundra, it's fairly verdant as far as blasted and sere tundras go, with abundant evergreen forests and carpets of alpine flowers as far as the eye can see. Morrowind is different. The soil's barely soil at all - just a loose talus glued together by volcanic silt - and what vegetation there is is unnatural and hurts the eyes to look upon, twisted by exposure to thousands of years carcinogenic rain and soil tainted by the chemical runoffs of Dwemer civilisation. Every few hundred feet, you see something that is startling familiar - a stand of snowberry bushes, or some lavender - but it's like seeing a friend after a long illness, and each plant is either bloated with hereditary sickness or a pale shadow of its former self. Where Skyrim's long desert winters have brought forth life, Morrowind's lush temperate wetlands only bring forth death and hardship. Animals call out, strange birds sing unfamiliar songs, and disturbingly large-sounding bugs chirp, but you can't see much evidence of their presence.
But there's one thing you can see - tracks. The ever-shifting wetland and random scree that holds the name of 'road' hereabouts doesn't hold tracks well, but every time you come to solid ground, you spot tracks ahead of you. They don't look fresh, but they're not old either - strange patterns of unshod feet marching in regimented formation, cutting across the path every so often. There's a definite feeling of being watched - but then again, in Morrowind, every square foot has been a burial plot at some point, and the spirits are always watching.
