According to the map Einar had shown Caprifexia, while gripped by some strange delusion that she actually cared, the 'Hall of the Vigilants' sat alone at the base of one of the regions innumerable peaks, dozens and dozens of miles from the nearest settlement.

  Again, labouring under another false impression that she was interested in mortal architecture of all things, he had also informed her that it was a long wooden affair, with a sharply sloped roof to keep snow clear in the long autumn, winter and spring months where snows were a regular, almost daily occurrence at the mountainous edge of the Pale – the large plain over which they had been trudging for the better part of a week.

  To Caprifexia it seemed that building with wood was a recipe for disaster. Not only would a wooden construction struggle to last beyond a century or two without either magic or a lot of maintenance, but what if you happened to sneeze? Ridiculous.

  Reality, as usual, agreed with her, and as the pink and gold light of a new day unfurled behind them a great plume of smoke became visible on the horizon. As they grew closer the charred and collapsed ruins of the headquarters itself came into view – evidence, most likely, of either careless mortal fools, or a dragon with some kind of allergy.

  "Typical shoddy mortal construction," she sniffed, before turning her attention back to her book. "It's a wonder you lot haven't all been crushed under the weight of your own incompetence."

  "You know, you could at least pretend that you care what happens to 'us lot,'" muttered Einar as he drew his horse to a stop. "And I doubt this was an accident. Damn. There must have been another group of Vampires."

  "J'zargo does not think so," said the cat, peering at the figures moving in the sparkling morning light. "Black cloaks…"

  The cat growled; or maybe purred, she wasn't sure.

  "Thalmor," he said. "An entire squadron."

  "What? Why would they attack the Vigilants?" said Einar. "They worship Stendarr, not Talos."

  Caprifexia had no idea what a Talos was, but she knew she didn't like the Thalmor – not after Arakno the nasty elf had mildly inconvenienced her with a bolt of lightning to the chest, and nearly killed the terrible wizard J'zargo.

  "We should kill them," said Caprifexia, closing her book and flapping into the air, sparks swirling around her claws.

  "Capri, no," said Einar, grabbing her tail and very nearly getting himself incinerated as she yelped in outrage at his sheer audacity. "We're not here to start a fight with the Thalmor."

  "But they're villains," she said, yanking her tail free and hissing sparks at him. "Heroes, like me, kill villains. Do I really have to keep repeating such basic facts? I know you're just a mortal, but are you entirely incapable of learning?"

  "Yes, they are villains," said Einar in a pained voice, as if she was the one being unreasonable. "But just because someone is villainous doesn't always mean the best course of action is to just summarily execute them."

  Caprifexia scrunched up her eyes, trying to figure out how that could be reconciled with what she knew about heroism.

  "That doesn't make any sense," Caprifexia declared after a few moments. "Heroes kill villains; the Thaltor-"

  "-Thalmor-"

  "-are villains; I am a hero; therefore I should kill them."

  "Capri, the Thalmor are a very large, very powerful organisation. All their troops have magical training. We are three people, and despite that vampire's fancy sword you gave me, I don't think I can take on even a single one of their soldiers reliably. We cannot attack a whole squadron."

  "I am not some limited mortal like you two – I am a dragon," she sniffed. "I could slay them all."

  "Capri, no," said Einar firmly.

  Caprifexia considered overruling him, but the snooty elves probably weren't worth her time anyway. After all, she had more important heroing things to do. Like reading.

  "They've seen us," said J'zargo, gesturing to the black clad figures who were moving towards them.

  "Capri, change. Quickly," said Einar.

  "Why?" said Caprifexia grumpily. She'd been enjoying being in her true form for the past week and a half, she didn't really want to take on her silly elfine form.

  "Because these people are frothing at the mouth racists, and your elven form looks altmer," said Einar.

  "It's itchy," she countered reasonably. "I don't want to."

  "Capri," whinged Einar.

  Caprifexia grumbled, but eventually transformed, shifting her brilliant ebony scales into her long coat, dusky skin, midnight black hair, and long pointed horns. Her eyes, however, still stayed the same luminous orange, which irked her. What she wouldn't have given to get her hands on a proper draconic book of magic to find out what – very minor – error she was making.

  "Alright," said Einar. "Capri listen, you have to pretend like you're in charge. Like we're your inferiors."

  "'Pretend?'"

  "Definitely don't say anything about the Elder Scroll," continued Einar. "Don't mention the vampires either – we're just passing through, OK?"

  "I am a black dragon," scoffed Caprifexia. "My people invented deception."

  "Please, please don't screw this up," muttered Einar as the haughty looking elves closed in on them, hands on the hilts of their pointy metal sticks.

  Most of the nasty elves were wearing golden plate armour and silly looking helms, over which were pulled black cloaks. Leading them was a woman in hooded robes similar to the ones that the nasty elf Arakno had been wearing, and in her hand was a metal staff capped with an azure-gemstone that shone with obvious enchantment.

  "Greetings sister," said the elven woman, naturally addressing Caprifexia and pursing her lips ever so slightly at Einar and J'zargo. "What brings you to this frozen wasteland?"

  Caprifexia considered for a moment, before opening her mouth to spin an expert lie. "I am an insur-"

  "Wizards from Winterhold College," said J'zargo urgently, butting in where he wasn't wanted and completely ruining her convincing backstory of being an insurance sales-dragon. "We are passing through."

  The elvish wizard gave her a funny look. "I see…"

  "They're my minions," explained Caprifexia, quickly improvising a more believable cover from the cat's shambolic attempt to lie. "They carry my bags, make my clothes soup – you know, the usual."

  The nasty elven woman raised an eyebrow, before shrugging and turning back to the smouldering wreckage. "Do you know anything about the destruction of the ape's hall?"

  "You didn't do it?" asked Einar.

  The wizard wrinkled her nose at him before looking back at Caprifexia. "No," she said. "It was like this when we arrived earlier this morning – we had been hoping for at least a night beneath a roof, but instead we found ruins overrun with reanimated corpses. Strange, to be sure."

  "Vampires?" said Caprifexia.

  Einar nudged her irritatingly with his boot, but she ignored him.

  The elven wizard cocked her head to one side. "No. Not vampires," she said. "Unless they were already entirely sated before the attack – which, given how far we are from any settlements, seems unlikely. More likely a necromancer – the Vigilants were rather opposed to the study, after all. Fools."

  "A necromancer?" said Caprifexia, somewhat surprised that there had been another apart from the nice Lich in the vicinity. They were in the middle of nowhere, and not that many mortals knew magic. Then again, she knew coincidences happened all the time; she wasn't some ridiculous mortal who saw causation in every correlation.

  "It appears so. If they weren't just apes I might investigate, but I have more pressing tasks. Have a good day sister," said the Thalmor elf, turning and sauntering off without so much as a backward glance.

  "What are the Thalmor doing here?" said Einar as soon as they were out of elven earshot. "Do they really expect us to believe they just happened to show up as the Vigilants had their hall burnt down?"

  "Perhaps they too are after the Elder Scroll," said J'zargo.

  "But how would they possibly know it was here?" said Einar. "What – you think that the Thalmor are working with the vampires? They may be bastards, but I don't think even they'd stoop that low."

  "They attempted to kill J'zargo," said J'zargo. "Jz'argo would put nothing past them."

  For once, Caprifexia was inclined to agree with the heroically-deficient cat.

  "We should kill them," she reiterate, reasonably.

  "Capri, no," said Einar, unreasonably.

  "We should see what they do," said J'zargo, opting for a typically less decisive option. "If they begin looking for the tomb in the foothills then we will know for sure what they are after."

  "We should check out the Vigilant Hall in the meantime," said Einar.

  "You're right, maybe they had some interesting books," said Caprifexia.

  "Or there might be, you know, survivors," said Einar.

  "Ah yes – that," said Caprifexia, nodding quickly and heroically. "Survivors. Obviously that's what I meant we should look for first."

  She cleared her throat.

  "But keep an eye out for books anyway."

  As the nasty elves, who it apparently wasn't heroic to kill, had said, the smouldering ruins were indeed lousy with wandering undead.

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  Unlike the ones in the tomb, these undead had most of their flesh and clothing remaining – although they shared the same metal trinkets slung around their necks. Also, curiously, their eyes glowed red instead of either blue, or the purple that her own dominated creature's had had.

  As they approached the ruins creature's eyes snapped toward them in unison, and J'zargo and Einar froze as the creatures began to shamble toward them.

  "Shit," breathed Einar, fumbling for his new enchanted sword that Caprifexia had given him in the hope he wouldn't be quite so useless going forward. "Whoever did this is still controlling-"

  "Caprifexia!" said the thralls in a chorus of groans and broken windpipes. "How are you! I wasn't expecting to see you again so soon."

  "Capri, what the fuck?" whispered Einar.

  "Friendly Lich?" said Caprifexia. "What are you doing here?"

  "Why, exacting vengeance of course," laughed the Lich's thralls. "Although I'm not here anymore. I'm headed down to one of my old haunts in Cyrodiil. Just keeping a hold on this puppets in case anymore of those fools were out. Getting to near the edge of my range though, so I won't be able to chat long. Had a chance to read any of the books yet?"

  "You killed these people?" said Caprifexia, a strange tightness beginning to grow in her chest as she took in the bloodless faces and blank expressions of the recently deceased, and now dominated Vigilants of Standing, or whatever they were called.

  "Yes my dear, do keep up," laughed the Lich's puppets.

  "But- but that's evil," yelled Caprifexia.

  "Really," scoffed the Lich's minions. "I thought you were wiser than that young one. 'Evil' does not exist, you yourself pointed out how mortals have the ridiculous tendency to ascribe their shallow 'morality' to the amoral mechanics of the universe."

  The world seemed to spin around Caprifexia as the reality that the Lich, against all appearances, had not actually been friendly hit her. And more than that, these people were dead, and, at least partially, because she had somehow, against all conceivable odds, been tricked into releasing an actually-not-very-friendly-at-all-Lich.

  "You're not a friendly Lich at all, you're a villain!" growled Caprifexia, her eyes flashing purple as she summoned up her will and wove it into a spell. "Dominatus!"

  The corpses froze as her domination spell rammed into the 'minds' of Lich's thralls. She felt the Lich's linked consciousness, which stretched off to the south, recoil in surprise, and their control slipped.

  The corpse's eyes flashed purple for an instant, before the Lich rallied their focus and the eyes turned crimson once again as they began to rush forward.

  Fire burst from beside her as J'zargo attacked, and Caprifexia grit her teeth as the Necromancer resetablished their control totally, their greater experience – if not magnificence – proving too much for even Caprifexia's prodigal-but-admittedly-somewhat-inexperienced ability with the discipline to overcome.

  Beside her Einar drew his shiny new enchanted blade, which they had taken from the lizard-vampire's corpse back near Windhelm and stepped in front of her, as if somehow she was the one who needed protecting.

  Caprifexia was just about to abandon her necromantic spell and switch to more directly destructive methods when the Lich changed tactics, releasing their hold on the thralls and seizing the psychic connection that Caprifexia had made in her attack.

  Caprifexia had never actually had a full psychic duel with anyone before – the magic being used to initiate them from a distance being, for the moment, quite far beyond her abilities.

  Such duels tended to be zero-sum games in that you either you won, or you had your mind shredded, that both parties became immobilised and therefore vulnerable, and, generally, they gave the advantage to the defender because of the sheer energy and focus needed to simultaneously maintain the connection and overcome the opponent.

  In retrospect she realised it had possibly not been the best of ideas to make herself so vulnerable to such magic by opening her mind and attempting to dominate another necromancer's thralls.

  While Caprifexia might not have ever actually been attacked in such a manner, she did, however, know the theory for how to fight it.

  Step one: seek to establish defences around your mind. Step two: attempt to trap your attacker. Step three: turn the attack around and attempt to dominate, or rip whatever secrets you could from their mind before destroying it.

  Easy, she hoped.

  Caprifexia focused on visualising a barrier around her mind, but had barely raised even a feeble defence when the Lich's attack rammed through and into her consciousness. Caprifexia's anger turned to fear as she fell back deeper into her mind, and out in the real world she felt her body seize up.

  A pity, came the voice of the not-so-friendly Lich, projected into her voice as Caprifexia began to struggle desperately against the overpowering tide of her enemy's consciousness. I really thought you could be… well now, what is this?

  To her horror she felt the Lich beginning to rifle through her memories, and hurled herself against the Lich's presence. She failed to make any headway, and gasped, falling to her knees as she was driven deeper into her own mind.

  "Capri?" Einar shouted, his voice seeming dull as he grabbed her shoulders and shook her in one of his typically useless attempts to help. "Capri?"

  'What's this? Fascinating. You really are a dragon, aren't you?' thought the Lich, turning over a few of Caprifexia's more recent memories – of the trip across the Pale. 'But not a Nirnian dragon, you're… "Azerothian."'

  The undead followed the strands of memories, and Caprifexia suddenly found herself as a tiny hatchling, knocking her way out of her egg back in Blackrock spire.

  So young, mused the Lich as Caprifexia looked up at the memory of her mother, the giant Sinestra smiling down lovingly at her. Curious, perhaps you're not a total write off-

  Then Caprifexia in her memory swivelled her neck, peering out over the hatchery to where several Faceless were tending to the hatching eggs of her brothers and sisters.

  The Lich's mind recoiled from the Voidborn monsters, a deep, primal terror leaking through their mental link as Caprifexia felt the undead's grip on her loosen.

  Of course, Caprifexia thought, she might have been protected from the power of the Void by her general amazingness, and possibly her Spark, but the nasty Lich had no such defences. Any memory of the Void acted like a portal for the corrosive energy, and through her the Lich had just stared directly at a Faceless. That alone they would likely recover from eventually, but Caprifexia had far darker things in her memories than just the visage of a Faceless…

  With a mental snarl Caprifexia smacked the panicking Lich away, wrenching back control of her mind and summoning up another memory. The memory of when she had first realised that her Planeswalker power was taking her through the Void, when she had come face to face with an Old God, and forced it on the Lich.

  The Lich mentally screamed in existential horror, and tried to withdraw from Caprifexia's mind. But the small dragon didn't let it go and grabbed the link, holding it firm as she went on the offensive, ramming her will through the link and into the petrified and spasming mind of the Lich – some dozen miles to the south.

  So entirely was the undead focused on the unspeakable horror of the raw visage of the Old God that the villainous undead didn't even seem to notice her presence as Caprifexia began to rip and tear into the creature's consciousness.

  Fragments of depravity flitted through Caprifexia's mind as she wrenched the villain's mind apart: experiments on living mortals; an all consuming lust for power; rituals that would have made even her father blanch, Caprifexia destroyed them all. Once she would have savoured the besting of her foe, carefully extracted each and every piece of useful information from the creature's mind and revelled in her own objective superiority, but as the images flashed through her mind and she methodically destroyed the monster's mind the only thing Caprifexia felt was sick.

  When she finally released the last dregs of the Lich's consciousness and centred on her own body once-more Einar was still shaking her, and J'zargo had also crouched beside her, a look of concern on his feline face. Beyond them the bodies of the Vigilants were inert and still, only a few of them charred from J'zargo's magefire.

  "Capri?" said Einar.

  "I'm OK," she said weakly. "It's dead – or as good as."

  "Thank the Divines," said Einar. "J'zargo said you were under mental attack."

  "Why did the small dragon know it was a Lich?" asked the Cat.

  The tightness in Caprifexia's chest grew, and she felt her eyes begin to itch as the images of cruelty flashed through her mind and she looked out over the now still bodies of the Vigilants.

  "I thought they were a friendly Lich," said Caprifexia hoarsely, putting a hand to her suddenly aching chest.

  "'Friendly Lich?'" said Einar in disbelief.

  "I met them last night – they were the spirit I set free," she said in a small voice. "The one who was imprisoned-"

  "You didn't say anything about a fucking Lich!?" yelled Einar.

  "You weren't interested, you were playing your silly card-game! Probably cheating at it like you normally do," she sniffed, her eyes beginning to prickle unpleasantly as the memories of what the creature she had freed had done played over and over in her mind.

  "Capri, these people are dead because of you," said Einar, becoming even more hysterical. "Doesn't that bother you even a little?"

  "How was I supposed to know that the Lich was evil!?" yelled Caprifexia back angrily, tears spilling from her glowing orange eyes. "How could I have possibly predicted they would do something like this!?"

  "Because all Liches are evil!" yelled J'zargo.

  "That's Lichist," said Caprifexia. "Just what I'd expect from a hairy-"

  "Listen to J'zargo, you small, angry, irresponsible, and deranged dragon," said J'zargo. "The rituals involved in transforming oneself into a Lich are disgusting and vile, the sacrifice of sentient beings, the mutilation of one's soul-"

  "How was I supposed to know that!?" said Caprifexia.

  "Because the small dragon claims to be a wizard," said J'zargo. "Wizards should at least knowwhat Liches are!"

  "I do know what Liches are!" protested Caprifexia. "And I'm a better Wizard than you, you absurd looking cat!"

  "J'zargo is not a cat-"

  "Capri, if you knew what Liches were, why by Akatosh did you release one!?" said Einar, interrupting J'zargo before he could pointlessly start an argument about his feline nature yet again.

  "I thought it was the heroic thing to do; they were trapped, heroes free trapped people," said Caprifexia, feeling very small. "I… I didn't know."

  There was something uncomfortably wrong with her chest, like it was being squeezed in a giant hand. She cleared her throat, but it only seemed to get worse. Was this the 'guilt' that Einar had talked about? When someone had done something they regretted?

  She hadn't been the one to kill these people, that had been the actually-not-entirely-friendly Lich. But she had been the one to free said Lich. At the time it had seemed the heroic thing to do, incredibly heroic even, but now she wasn't so sure…

  "Capri," said Einar in a cold voice he'd only ever used once before with her. "You fucked up."

  "How was I supposed to know the Lich was a villain?" she said again, burying her face in her squishy faux-mortal hands. "How could I have known they were going to do this?"

  "Because they were a horrible undead monster," he said in an exasperated voice.

  They were dead because of her. Because of her. Because of her.

  "I didn't know! I didn't know they were evil!" said Caprifexia with a sob, a trickle of moisture running down her cheek. "I thought I was being heroic by releasing them! I wouldn't have done it if I knew this would happen! I'm… I'm sorry."

  She looked down at the ground.

  Einar sighed, and rubbed his face.

  "The small dragon thought that releasing a Lich was heroic!?" yelled J'zargo pulling at his ridiculous fluffy ears.

  "I didn't know!" said Caprifexia, her voice cracking as she put her face in her hands and began to sob.

  "The small dragon thought that releasing a Lich was heroic!?" repeated the Cat, his voice rising another irritating octave.

  "J'zargo, enough," said Einar.

  "No, not enough," yelled the cat, standing and pointing at the ruins and the corpses. "These people are dead because of her. Because of her reckless arrogance! There is a reason that ethics are a core subject at the college, because the power that wizards' wield means they cannot afford to abuse their power, nor afford to be so… idiotically thoughtless."

  "I didn't mean for this to happen!" wailed Caprifexia, feeling her stomach roil as what she now was fairly certain was shame and guilt crashed down upon her.

  "Your feelings are irrelevant-"

  Caprifexia turned the to side and vomited, her fishy breakfast washing over the rubble.

  "J'zargo, she's a kid, and she knows she fucked up," said Einar, rubbing her back as she heaved once more. "She was raised by monsters – she's doing her best."

  "You're defending her?" said J'zargo. "After everything she has done? All the destruction and harm she's caused? She killed the saviour of Nirn!"

  "Because of a situation I put her in," said Einar angrily. "And if you'd actually accompanied her into the tomb, like you were supposed to, this wouldn't have happened!"

  "Don't blame this on J'zargo!" hissed the cat. "He didn't think that a Lich was somehow not a being of total evil!He didn't release them! He isn't a total fucking idiot!"

  The Cat turned and stormed out of the ruins, sparks cascading from his claws, as Caprifexia battled to get her pathetically emotional mortal-like outburst back under control.

  "Capri, I know you didn't mean for this to happen," said Einar. "But you made a very big mistake, and a lot of good people are dead now because of it. Not abstractly, not indirectly, but as a direct result of your actions."

  "What do I do?" asked Caprifexia, wiping her leaking eyes. "How do I make this right?"

  "You can't," said Einar. "You're going to have to live with this for the rest of your life."

  "I'm sorry," said Caprifexia, hunching her shoulders as her throat seemed to close up. "I won't let anymore Liches trick me, I'll see through villain's plots; I'll do better, I promise."

  Einar was silent for a while, before he nodded.

  "Come on," he said, standing and offering her a hand up. "You might not able to undo your actions, but you can at least help me give these poor souls a proper burial."

  Caprifexia didn't know why mortals insisted on putting their dead in holes, but didn't complain as she helped Einar drag the ex-thralls out of the ruins and begin carving out sections of the hillside with magic. It felt like a futile gesture, but if it meant something to mortals then perhaps it wasn't entirely pointless.

  They might have been fleeting, irrational, ugly, infuriating, and usually wrong, but mortal lives did have value, they did have worth. It wasn't fair that these 'Vigilants' had died before their time, and there was no point denying it, it was her fault.

  She might have been a dragon, a member of the most magnificent, intelligent, and generally amazing species in the multiverse, but it seemed even perfect beings could make mistakes – even her.

  A.N. If you like my writing, you might be interested in my fantasy adventure novel – – which is entirely pre-written and with chapters released every Friday!

  Mishka the Great and Powerful that isn't up on Royal Road yet!). However, I don't monetise or time-gate my fanfiction though (plz no sue!).