MWM Chapter 543

After navigating through various passages, the two of them finally reached the end of the tunnel, arriving at a mysterious room, revealed after Leo shattered a cleverly concealed mechanism.

The room stood out for its unusual atmosphere; in the center was a circular formation that seemed designed for performing a particular kind of ritual.

“This appears to be a necromancy ritual circle, though I don’t know its exact purpose,” Serana observed, looking at the formation in the center of the room.

“My mother wasn’t just an alchemy master; she was also highly skilled in necromancy. She taught me all I know about necromancy, but I’ve never seen this ritual before.”

“There’s a bookshelf over there. Maybe we can find some clues,” Leo suggested, gesturing towards a corner of the room where several bookshelves stood.

Apart from the ritual circle, the room contained numerous tables and bookshelves, the tables cluttered with alchemical ingredients while the shelves were filled with books on necromancy.

“I found my mother’s journal!” Serana exclaimed excitedly after searching the shelves, holding up a weathered, specially bound journal.

They opened the journal together and began reading through its pages.

“So that’s where it is—inside the Soul Cairn. No wonder it couldn’t be located with the detection spell,” Leo realized after finishing the journal.

It turned out that a thousand years ago, when Serana’s mother, Valerica, realized she couldn’t convince Harkon to abandon his plans, she sealed Serana and an Elder Scroll within a cavern in Whiterun Hold. Then she took the second Elder Scroll and, using a necromancy spell she had devised, opened a portal to the Soul Cairn to escape Harkon’s pursuit.

Harkon would never be able to fulfill his mad scheme as long as he couldn’t find both his daughter and Valerica.

But what exactly is the Soul Cairn?

Leo recalled what he had read about the Soul Cairn when studying various tomes on the divine and the Daedric Princes. The Soul Cairn is an independent plane, though much smaller than the domains of the more powerful Daedric Princes. It belongs to a being known as the Ideal Master.

Legends say that the Ideal Master is not truly a Daedric Prince, but a collective of early necromancers who invented the Soul Trap spell—the spell that captures the souls of slain beings into soul gems. In their quest for immortality, they abandoned their mortal bodies, merged their souls, and entered Oblivion, using a portion of chaotic creatia to create their own pocket dimension.

The Ideal Master’s greatest desire is to capture powerful souls and bring them into its realm, using them to increase its own strength. It often makes contracts with necromancers, allowing them to summon some of its undead minions in exchange for reaping their souls upon death.

Because the Ideal Master invented the Soul Trap spell, whenever someone uses it in the mortal realm, it gains a portion of the souls trapped within black soul gems—those created from human souls.

However, it’s said that the power of the Ideal Master cannot compare to that of the Daedric Princes who existed before the world was formed.

Historical records mention that, because the Soul Cairn is the closest dimension to Nirn, it was the easiest place to establish a portal. So when the Daedric Prince Mehrunes Dagon invaded Nirn, he used the Soul Cairn as a gateway.

This, of course, greatly angered the Ideal Master, but it didn’t dare retaliate. During the invasion, Dagon’s Daedric forces slaughtered many of the Ideal Master’s undead minions, devouring their souls and leaving the Ideal Master severely weakened.

After Dagon’s defeat, the Ideal Master couldn’t communicate with the necromancers of Nirn for a long time, leading to the loss of much necromantic knowledge.

Today, most necromancers in the mortal realm focus on resurrection spells, raising skeletons and corpses to serve as minions in battle. The ancient spells that once summoned minions from the Soul Cairn have been all but forgotten.

“If it’s that particular entity, this might be worth a shot,” Leo thought, recalling everything he knew about the Soul Cairn and the Ideal Master.

If Valerica had hidden in the realm of any of the sixteen Daedric Princes, Leo would never consider venturing in recklessly. But the Soul Cairn was different.

To be honest, Leo believed his strength to be at least on par with the Ideal Master, if not superior.

The Ideal Master is a being formed by the merging of necromancer souls, creating its own dimension, but it had never fully recovered from the damage caused by Dagon’s invasion. Its realm is mostly filled with souls and undead minions, lacking the power of other Oblivion realms.

Leo himself had created the Moon-Reading Dimension, which not only absorbed the energy of the Blood Spring but also gained enhancements from the Sacred Tree’s fruit. It was far more complete and powerful than the Soul Cairn.

While the Ideal Master exists as a conglomerate of souls, Leo possessed a strong physical form, much like Dagon, as well as knowledge from multiple worlds.

Thus, if he could find a way into the Soul Cairn, he intended not only to retrieve the final Elder Scroll from Valerica but also to test whether he could defeat the Ideal Master and absorb the Soul Cairn itself.

Even if he couldn’t overcome the Ideal Master, he was confident that he could escape using the power of the Moon-Reading Dimension.

Absorbing the Soul Cairn and merging it with his own dimension would significantly boost his strength, allowing him to establish a place within the Moon-Reading Dimension where souls could be reborn, akin to an underworld.

“I learned necromancy from my mother. There should be materials here that she used to open the portal, but she left an extra security measure. We don’t have her blood,” Serana said with a frown.

Valerica, fearing that Harkon would eventually break through the garden’s defenses and track her down, had added an extra lock to the portal spell—one that required her blood to activate.

“Don’t worry about that. As her daughter, you share her genetic makeup. Your blood should work just as well,” Leo reassured her, then began searching the room for the three key ingredients to activate the portal: ground bone meal, purified void salts, and shards of a special soul gem.

Even if Serana’s blood didn’t work, Leo’s knowledge of Valerica’s journal and the necromantic texts on the bookshelves meant he could devise a new method for opening a portal to the Soul Cairn, though it would take some time.

(End of chapter)

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