Lore:Fable of the Netch (Annotated)

Book Information
Seen In:	Elder Scrolls Online (Gold Road)

Fable of the Netch

Priest Lucilan searches for the mysterious source of blessings

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There were stories of unusual fortune and luck. Riches found by the poor. Love found by the lonely. Vvardenfell was abuzz with these tales. The so-called miracles were not replicable by the Tribunal and caught the attention of the clergy. Priest Lucilan intended to find the source of these mysterious blessings.

Lucilan first visited a farming village in the grazelands. There, a child had run away from home to an island southeast of town. It was a dangerous place, full of monsters. But when the search party found the boy, he was sitting among a flock of pecking hens. The child said a Netch had rained on each monster that approached and turned them into chickens. The village held a feast and dined on the birds, which were filling but tasted of sulfur. For a generation after this, the island remained empty of monsters.

This must be near the northeasterly town of Vos. There's a Daedric ruin on an island nearby devoted to Molag Bal, just southeast of the town. I'll start there first.

From there, Lucilan went northwest around Red Mountain, then south to a stonewood riparian settlement. He met a caravanner who had no coin to spare just a fortnight ago, as she was deep in debt. Now, she was offering rides to passengers for free.

Riparian settlement? A city on the banks of a river, southwest of Red Mountain. Has to be Balmora

Lucilan asked her to explain this reversal of her fortune. She said that while waiting for a passenger on the riverbank, a Netch floated up from the water, spooking her silt strider into the deepest part of the river. The creature panicked and quickly went under. When the caravanner dove in after it, she found a passenger ship that had gone missing years ago. She saved her silt strider and recovered a shipment of treasured jewels, more than enough to cover her debt.

Lucilan pleaded for the caravanner to tell him more about the strange Netch, but she said nothing.

After this, Lucilan spent many lonely months on the road when he realized he had wandered in a circle. He ventured next to the Zainab in the grazelands, where locals pointed him to a ruin in the foothills of Red Mountain.

Going in a circle means we're back in the northeast. It's a Dwemer ruin, something that sounds like a sneeze. Nchuleft.

Inside the ruins he found an elder Ashlander talking to the air as if he spoke to a grandchild.

"Who are you talking to?" Lucilan asked. The elder explained that when he was an explorer in these ruins, he fell from one of the bridges. It would surely be the end of him, but before he landed in the lava below, a set of pale tendrils caught him. They set him safely back on the ground. Since that day, he had returned to the ruins whenever he wanted to feel that familiar presence. In fact, his Netch friend was floating near Lucilan now. He was surprised Lucilan didn't feel the tendril on his shoulder or the feeling of weightless joy brought on by the Netch.

Lucilan left with haste. But when he returned to his order, his findings were deemed insufficient. Despite this, Priest Lucilan would not let go of the idea of the Netch and was ridiculed for this belief.

At last, wandering among the islands on Azura's Coast, he saw the ghostly pale Netch, neither animal nor spirit. The miserable Lucilan could finally see the Netch, too. And he felt buoyant.

I'd bet anything Lucilan found the door to the Netch's realm near the old wizard towers on the coast, Sadrith Mora. I'll have to look into it.