Lore:Chronicles of the Five Companions 1

My name is   of  , called Titanborn by some. I'm committing these words to paper on behalf of my friend and ally, a man history will remember only as " ." It was through his profound insight, and his study of the  , that we came to understand the dire nature of the threat that now endangers all of  .

Let it be known by those who read these words that the  —the event that took place in the five-hundred-and-seventy-ninth year of the Second Era—was due to the treachery of a single  : the  i    , the King of Worms and the servant of the most vile of all the  , the God of Schemes and Lord of Brutality,  .

In years past, Mannimarco served as chief advisor to the court of Emperor  . Originally a Duke of  , Varen became Emperor of Tamriel by right of conquest. With Mannimarco's counsel, Varen led a revolt against the previous dynasty, the savage regime of   known as the  . Yet, despite his conquest and victory, Varen was not to be a true emperor. Like the former Emperor  , the   didn't flow through Varen's veins. He was unable to light the   in the  , as a true Emperor must, by tradition. 

The Dragonfires have remained unlit for generations. This is because the  —a relic of the   gifted unto Saint   by  —was lost in the centuries following the fall of the  . Only this relic, traditionally worn by Imperial Emperors of the  , would allow a true-blooded ruler to spark the Dragonfires anew. 

At Mannimarco's urging, Varen formed a group of companions to join him on an epic quest to locate this relic. These companions included myself, the   swordmaster  , Grand Chancellor  , and Mannimarco himself. For years we scoured the face of Tamriel, following countless leads, until we finally managed to locate it.

When we returned to the  , Mannimarco played upon Varen's insecurities and convinced him that the coronation ritual, properly modified, could not only light the Dragonfires, but persuade Akatosh to invest him with Divine agency and gift him with the blood of the Dragon. It was only after the coronation ritual was attempted that we learned the extent of Mannimarco's deception. 

The King of Worms used his magic to corrupt the power of the Amulet, causing the calamity which came to be known as the Soulburst. I remember very little of the actual event, only that the chaos that followed was immediate and devastating.

Varen was consumed by the fiery wrath of the Soulburst. Sai Sahan and I were unjustly implicated in his death, made all the more suspicious because Sai fled as soon as he recovered, taking the Amulet of Kings with him. Grand Chancellor Tharn was an opportunist, and immediately cast his lot with Mannimarco.

The Prophet's story is one of mystery—he appeared one day on the steps of an abbey of the   in  . They took him in and fed him, thinking he was nothing more than a vagabond. They were shocked when they found him in the libraries that night, poring over the eldritch etchings of an Elder Scroll. Only the Moth Priests themselves had the ability to read the scrolls, and they saw his arrival as a prophetic sign from the Divines.

As they do all who read them, the Elder Scrolls eventually took the Prophet's eyesight, leaving him permanently blinded. And yet he continued to study them in his mind's eye, and eventually foresaw the great and terrible threat that we are now faced with.  

Word of his prophecies spread far and wide, eventually reaching the Imperial City and the ears of Mannimarco. The King of Worms immediately arrested the Prophet for rumor-mongering and treason, and had the abbey, and all of its contents, burned to the ground. 

The catastrophe that the Prophet predicted began to take shape almost immediately. Vast swaths of the Empire were consumed by Daedric fire, and the first   fell upon the land. 

Molag Bal's invasion of our world had begun, made possible by Mannimarco's betrayal.