The ( Improved ) Emperor ' s Guide to Tamriel : Dreams of Cyrodiil The ( Improved ) Emperor ' s Guide to Tamriel is a book written by Flaccus Terentius to explain his adventures throughout Tamriel during the Second Era . It was written as an additional Guide book to . Content . Nightmares of Coldharbour Hallucinations plague me . I see flashes at intervals while I am awake . I crave rest but cannot sleep , for sleep kidnaps me ; I am banished to a terrible place where confusion , terror , and loneliness eat into my mind as the worms writhe in my chest . Sharp , floating rocks . Blasted promontories . Impossible islands shrouded in crackling storms . I believe now that I am ruined . Asleep now ? These objects are dream - memories . I must have thought them important enough to sketch , but what are they ? Infernal devices ? I ' ve drawn the blind man in the cloud of moths . I keep seeing him out of the corner of my eye , but he isn ' t there when I turn to look for him . Can he help me from this damned predicament ? Or does he only exist on these pages and in my head ? This nightmare realm extends its slowly strangling tendrils deeper into my waking moments and has taken over my dreams completely . I seem to be here , even when awake . Is this Tamriel , under a foul and powerful spell ? I spent my time moping and traipsing about this terrible land of death and the dying . Even the ground and the ragged rocks that thrust up from it seem to have felt the mark of torture . My boots , covered in oozing blue - black sludge . The wind howls and stabs about my cloak , more piercing and icy than a Nord blizzard . My eyes are read and bleary from soot and dust , but there is nothing of pleasure to see . Wind - wrenched skeletal trees , long - destroyed ruins , everything blackened and slowly crumbling . Inhospitable wasteland . Faint cries from the charnel houses and slave pits . Loud metallic knocks and ripping sounds . I look down at the acrid water : Soft - skinned critters scamper in the reeds or slither in the filth . I gaze across at the blackened island I have reached but have no memory of arriving . The remains of an old inn I visited in Stormhaven . Charred skeletons , sitting up to clatter their teeth at me . I sniff the air . The faint waft of lavender . Then the foul stench of rancid meat . I look up and the sky is cold with fire . Last night a Dark Elven wizard appeared to me within this dream . He seemed just as surprised to see me as I was to encounter him . He mentioned his name - - Malkur Valos - - and told me we were in a place called Coldharbour , the Oblivion plane of Molag Bal . " And it ' s no place for the likes of you . However you came here , I advise you to leave , and do not return . " I pleaded for him to help . But he was gone . Over the wind , I heard distant , cackling echoes of mocking laughter . My Coldharbour nightmare is never ending . The fetid wind chills and weakens my bones . The nacreous fluid meanders and masquerades as a river , but with a repellent bluish glow and dark , indistinct snaking shapes flowing in its depths . The gray ashen soil reminds me of the dead gray eyes staring from the corpse of a raven I discovered in the manor ' s undercroft when I was four years old . The dead bird haunted me for years afterward . I wander alone and afraid , and seemingly ignored . I paint the menacing walls and gates of my confinement . Yes , that is it ! My terrible revelation : The whole world or plane or land of Coldharbour is an immense prison - - even for its master ! But why ? What is the point of small cells ( high - bricked and barren ) or sealed chambers with unbreakable locks ? Why are there prisons within prisons ? Jails within jails ? I think I remember my prison guide : an inmate trapped within these walls of waking sleep . His name … . what did he call himself ? Soul - shriven ? My mind is provoking trickery , though , so these words could be the ravings of a simpleton . I remember the prisoner ' s voice now but not his appearance . My memories are becoming murky , slowly covered in creeping darkness . Did I even see my guide ? I did . I did ! My guides showed themselves to me ! The soul - shriven are many . Empty bodies , dried husks , driven only by false purpose instilled by the masters . They speak slowly and with timid whispers ; their tongues are partially cut . Skeevers scurry and nip at their feet . Helpless forms . Moving statuary . But with the flicker of a living soul . Pitiful shells . Sad , afraid , lost . The gaunt faces of the guides peel away from my sight . I peer into a cell with a big Nord woman , vital and different from the withered servants of the Daedra . Titanborn , the soul - shriven call her . Lyris Titanborn . She cannot see me - - my being is indistinct and malformed - - but I watch her pray to her gods . Her communion is unsuccessful : The Eight Divines cannot hear our screams from in here . The Nord was put to work . She toiled with the others who were caught , tormented , and forced into bondage . They make everybody work : Argonians and Altmer chipping away at great mountains of rock . Dunmer and Redguards stripped of their fineries and forced to carry stones to one of a thousand walls . Breton and Imperial stonesmiths , reduced to ragged and hunched wretches , carving indentations , runes … and the face that leers from every edifice . There was to be no toil for me : I was beyond and could not be commanded . Not for long , though , they assured me … not for long . Soon I would be there . Be one of them . Joining the forlorn and hopeless in the pointless labor for the whims of the depraved . In the blasted , stolen landscape . Stolen ? From Tamriel ? Yes ! The hated Dremora , accursed Daedra : Servants of the Masters . Whether in guise of a Worm Cultist or a Grand Duke commanding the weary downtrodden , they exist to mock and torment . Look at their arms and armor . Thievery ! They stole it , like they steal everything . They cannot invent , only copy . Their objects are stolen forms born from mortal mind , crudely cobbled together , copied and exaggerated . A plundering of the uplifting qualities possessed by Man and Mer . Advancements in warfare and culture . Learned ideas and pooled wisdom . Venerated customs and current evolution . Held up against a black mirror for me to peer into , I watch the perverse mimicry of the Markynaz . I note the baying groveling of the Clannfear . And the wounds of Markarth open up again , flesh flayed and bubbling . Spider Daedra . Hateful . Loathsome . But what if you ' re lost in their terrible realm ? What if you don ' t know what to do ? Then you need them . I expected to be trussed up and slowly dissolved . But a befriending ? Conversation ? Joviality ? Only if you believe these scuttling hellions can feel compassion . They spin the web for Molag Bal . Their imagined aid only serrates my sanity . I am to be coaxed off this cliff , not pushed . The Daedra . The cursed Daedra . I remain in my island hut , a house but never a home . A knock on the door at midnight . Khefletak saunters in - - another Daedra , a Xivilai : not so kind . The feral demon pried open my mouth so words spilled out , and I told him everything . Everything about Honoria . Her favorite sweet roll recipe . The soaps she uses when she bathes . The smell of her pillow and her ointments . While I wept , he laughed , said he would find her , visit her , and … . Must not think of that . Mustn ' t . Banish those thoughts from my head What am I doing ? Compiling a guide of what I ' m forced to see . Yes , yes , yes . What I see are Daedra . A field guide to Daedra ! Perhaps it will help . Who ? The Imperial scryers ? Painting staves off the darkness closing in on the corners of my mind . Writing everything down . A filled scrapbook before a scholar ' s funeral . Ogrims , they ' re Daedra . What do they look like ? I shall draw them , back and front . Spiked . Scaled . Pawlike hands . Unkempt toenails like a giant ' s . Spines and warts , chins , and squinting , glinting eyes . What do they do ? I shall write . Ogrims : they guard . Simple , but strong . Torment their underlings . Grunt , don ' t talk . Heal , don ' t bleed . Hmmm . What would they bleed if they bled ? Focus . Drawing Daedra , doing it right . Right , details , mustn ' t forget . Claws sinking into pale flesh . Ripping out the briarheart ? Soft and pliable , like roasted piglet . Alcove in the corner for the compass . Savagery . Can you hear the shallow breaths ? Faintly ? No , listen . Mustn ' t remember . No , no , no , my first love was Iris . Remember her spiked armor ? She paraded around like she owned most of Bravil ! She died in the war . I awoke again in my hut , still confined to Gil - Var - Delle . I am weak and alone . My previous notes , the scribbling of a man unhinged . Somebody stole my mind ; I have no recollection of those words . But I do remember last night ' s dream : ghastly and vivid . Molag Bal consumed the Bosmer town of Gilverdale in a single , dreadful night . The brutality displayed was incomparable . I could not resist watching the feasting . Oh , the slaughter ! But these were echoes of the distant past ; it had happened in the First Era . The God of Schemes grows in power and influence ; his corruption is vast and his desires more wanton . The harvesting of souls . The tormenting of Tamriel . Mundus and his Oblivion plane grow more entwined with every soul he snatches . And now Molag Bal had some to Cyrodiil . An army of Daedra and a legion of the undead raze Bravil and destroy my homeland . I spend the day ( night ? permanent dusk ? ) painting more horrors from the dream . Cyrodiil was overrun by war , and my beloved Bravil was in flames . Straggling survivors gazed dumbfounded at the ruins of A Warlock ' s Luck in the northern square , now facades of cinders of ruin . My cousins in the Fourth Legion , they were so proud of their Imperial uniforms . I heard the news that Postumianus had made Centurion : What will become of them if this is a true vision ? I wish I were as skilled with a blade as my brother : My execution after I murdered the overly ambitious Emeric , the whinnying Jorunn , or that pompous Ayrenn would have meant a worthy afterlife at the right hand of Reman . The dream told me what I had long suspected : That no one builds like the Empire . No artisan can match Imperial artisans . So is it envy , then ? Must the Provincials destroy that which they cannot match ? To think I drank and I simpered in the company of these fiends . To Oblivion with the lot of them . No , wait … second thoughts . Although the various Alliances attack my beloved Cyrodiil , they do not bear the burden of blame . Once again , the foul Daedric Prince Molag Bal , his champion Mannimarco , and all his cavorting little puppets are the cause of this strife . The Stonefire Cult is on the rampage . All of Tamriel is in chaos . Cracks in diplomacy between the provinces become deep fissures . A brief composition before my imminent decomposition . The nightmare began with muffled trumpets . Then silence . The toll of a bell . Even the wind died down . Then it came . First the grinding , shrieking metal scraping and unraveling . Chains descended from the skies , giant claws drew Daedra to Nirn and sent more souls to Him . Molag Bal ' s Dark Anchors , forged in the Slave Pits of Coldharbour . I saw them ! I see them now ! Don ' t they know ? They must realize ! The Dark Anchors now fall on Cyrodiil . Sweet Mara , they cut and gouge through our sacred stone , our wondrous battlements , gorging on the Imperial City . The sky will open , and the Daedra will come . First those that scurry . Then those that seek to feast . But Molag Bal shall unleash the Titans . The Daedric Titans ! Vast and winged and punishing . Our Divines forsake us . Indiscriminate death . Set upon by the gnawing and the rabid . Cyrodiil ' s candle flickers and is snuffed . Servants and superiors - - no one is spared the sharp tooth , ridged blade , or diseased hook , barb , or beak . And Molag Bal will watch from his palace in Coldharbour where everything stares back at him with his own face , and he will gloat , and mock , and gorge on the souls of mortals . The Lord of Brutality has a most insatiable appetite . The more souls he consumes , the more he wants . As his grip tightens and all of Tamriel chokes , his power cannot be kept in check . Sacrificial altars will not be enough . Clandestine plots to devour the few champions of hope will not be enough . So he will summon them , them - - the Harvesters . They reap more and more and more souls . And how do they harvest ? With a kindly cavort ? A flute and a drum , with a singsong to coax your soul out ? No ! They siphon , they suck , they drain . They funnel the very magic of the void along their many fingers . They force you to face the blank nothingness . They snare you in , burrowing into your weaknesses , picking at these scabs until they bloom into terror and compliance . They hate with love and love to hate … Molag Bal reigns triumphant . Every mortal of Mundus is consumed . We crawl in his filthy effluent , slaves to his grotesque whims for ever , and ever , and ever , and ever . The invisible house has disappeared . The body on the island cliff in a cross - legged slump . Corpse eyes rolled back , tears all wept , jaw unhooked with laughter . Buboes swell and seep . Pustules and abscesses with thick , green purulence . Hands severed , dancing in spasmodic rhythm , pulled by hidden strings . The body dragged forward , lifted by unseen compliances . Then dropped in a crumpled heap , swaying at the edge of the precipice .