The person is an elderly gentleman. He flashes his teeth with a manic grin. Going by the long, gray hair and pointed beard, I’d say he’s pretty old. The old guy is wearing a purple suit. Gilded swirls dance and flow across the fabric. Guy has a sense of elegance. His eyes are like a cat’s, golden with thin pupils. He’s sitting on the arm of a stone throne twice his size with one foot propped up on the seat. He’s also holding a cane in between his legs. From the looks of it, the old guy’s been waiting for me.

In front of the old person is a large table. Foods of all kinds adorn the table, some I recognize, many I don’t. It all looks fit for a king, except for one thing. There’s another person on the end of the table. His face is submerged in a bowl of red liquid. He isn’t moving.

When I step out of the door, the person whips the cane in the air, knocking over a bunch of food and cups off the table. “Welcome to Sadrith Mora, the mushroom forest of Morrowind! I hope your journey was a pleasant one.”

I look at the rest of my surroundings. Sure enough, we’re in a mushroom forest. All the mushrooms here are large and thick, about as big as houses. In fact, they are houses. Most of the mushrooms have doors I could walk into. Heck, the door I just walked through is attached to a giant mushroom house. Kind of brings up the question of what I came out of if a giant mushroom just ate me.

I’d admire the place, but there’s something off. There’s screaming. There are persons running around, screaming cries of terror. There are many of them running around. They got different shades of gray skin and pointy ears. I also catch glints of red in their eyes. What are they running around for?

The elegant person puts his cane back down and relaxes. “Don’t mind the locals. The Dunmer are the grumpy sort, but that’s only because they have a bad history with outsiders. That, and I’m currently terrorizing them!”

As the guy says that, a massive blur swoops down and knocks off a ton of food with its draft. Yikes, I nearly jump out of my skin! I get a good look at the blur as it climbs the sky. It’s long, blue, and looks a bit like a brick. Wait, no, not a brick. More like a train engine. It banks through the air, and I blink. It’s not like a train engine. It is a train engine.

The flying blue train engine swoops down by a house. I catch another detail as it does so. The engine has a face. It’s freaking smiling! The train flies over a mushroom house, and a plume of flame shoots out of its mouth and ignites the giant mushroom. More gray persons run away from the inferno. I can’t help but stare and watch.

What kind of Tartarus did I just walk into?

“I’ll admit, this isn’t helping their perception of foreigners,” the person says. “Though that ship sailed when I summoned the fifty bears earlier.”

The train flies back up to the sky again, and it joins a flock of other trains I didn’t notice before. The trains look exactly alike. Long, blue, all with faces. Occasionally one will swoop down and spew fire at some of the natives. It’s a train apocalypse!

“What the heck is going on?!” I say.

The person waves it off. “Isn’t it obvious? The flying trains are meant to exterminate the bears. But now that they did the job, they’re exterminating the villagers! They deserve some fun as a reward for a job well done.”

“That’s insane!”

The old guy looks at me as if I said the stupidest thing in the world. “Of course it is. It’s my thing. A party guest of mine spurred this episode. Not you, the one before you. Prissy little pageant girl found a way to press my buttons. Bravo on her part, now she regrets it! But enough of that. You are my present guest of honor! Come, sit down. Enjoy yourself. Find something that looks tasty. I promise at least half of this stuff won’t kill you.”

This guy is… off. A voice in my head tells me to do what this guy says, or else. I let a burning villager run past me, then I walk up to the seat across from the guy. Before I sit down, I give him a quizzical look. “Are you the guy I heard on that spaceship? I think I recognize your voice.”

The person nods. “Guilty as charged. It was an unorthodox way to talk to you, but you use what you got. You should be awed that someone such as myself put in the extra mile to reach you like that.”

I shrug. “Why should I be awed?”

The person slaps his forehead. “Oh, silly me. I just assumed you knew my name. Most mortals I murder do.” He holds out his arms and bows. “I am Sheogorath, Prince of Madness.”

The name alone is sending up red flags in the back of my head. He hasn’t tried to kill me, yet, but this Sheogorath guy seems like the type to do it just for laughs. I don’t think I have a choice other than to play along. “Nice to meet you. I’m Gilda.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Gilda, with a D?”

I nod. “Yes…”

He coughs in his fist in a sheepish gesture. “Ah, well then. Ignore the name tag on your plate. That’s a mistake on my part.”

I look down at the plate in front of me. There’s a piece of paper with a name on it. ‘Gilpa.’ “You were actually expecting me. That’s kind of terrifying.”

Sheogorath laughs. “How could I not expect you? I heard you coming from twelve worlds away! Your voices just won’t shut up!”

“Uh, sure.” What voices is he talking about? Given that he knows I’ve been world jumping, he might just be talking about something way over my head. Or he’s just a raving lunatic. The latter seems the most likely scenario. “So why am I here?”’

“Why else? To feast, to party, to celebrate! All this,” Sheogorath gestures to the entire table, “is for you! You’re the guest of honor, and I went all out for you. I even invited Vivec,” he points to the man with his face in the bowl, “the local god emperor, king, thing. Uh… I actually don’t know what he-she really is. But I know he-she’s important, that’s for sure. Vivec stopped a meteor with his mind once. Isn’t that right, Vivec? Tell our guest about the time you stopped a meteor with your mind!”

The man at the end of the table, Vivec, doesn’t respond. For the entire time we’ve been talking, he hasn’t lifted his head from the bowl. “Is he alright?” I ask.

“Of course not. He’s dead!” Sheogorath says, more happy than needed. “The poor bastard never could hold down his-her skooma. What a party pooper.”

Yep, I’m in danger.

Sheogorath plucks something green and unrecognizable off the table and takes a bite out of it. “Hmm, salty. Go on and try something. Anything. It’s all up for grabs.”

The food on the table all blends together as a big, colorful mosaic. I have no clue what most of this stuff is. I pick up the most familiar thing I can find, which appears to be a blue apple. I guess I should eat something if I don’t want Mister Crazy to kill me. My monster powers may not save me from him. I chomp down on the apple. Apples are supposed to be a little crunchy and really juicy. Not this one. The apple breaks apart into dry chips. I crunch on a beak full of what are essentially fruity nachos.

My face twists in confusion as I try to make out what’s in my mouth. This seems to delight the mad prince. “So, tell me about yourself,” Sheogorath says. “What kind of alien creature are you?”

“Wha?” Pieces of apple nachos spit out when I try to talk. I take a moment longer to finish chewing, and then I talk. “Don’t you know that already? Aren’t you the kind of guy who knows everything about me before I get here?”

“Gilda, what a silly thought. That’s Hermaeus’ department.” Sheogorath tilts his head slightly. “I’m only a mere Daedric Prince. I’m far from omnipotent. Close, but not all the way there. I still need to get my information from my friendly neighborhood spies like everyone else. So please, enlighten me. Why is a mad bird playing in the Nexus?”

His vibes are bad, but he hasn’t done anything terrible to me yet. What does he want? “Well, I didn’t come here by choice. Some a-hole sucked me in a suitcase and kicked me into the void, and that was after he sent his goons to destroy my shop.”

His face lights up as if that answered everything. I guess it sort of does. “Ah, you’re a small business owner.”

Huh, didn’t expect to get appreciated here. I’m so conflicted right now. “I bake scones for a living. Pays the bills.” I take another bite out of the nacho apple. Too bad I can’t taste anything. I wonder what the flavor is like.

Sheogorath rubs his beard. “Hmm. Nope, I got no mad banter for scones. How embarrassing. Now cheese, I got plenty for cheese. I can banter all day with cheese. Nothing for scones though. But this a-hole, did he destroy your shop because you owe him money? Insurance scam?”

I shake my head. “No. I was labeled a threat to national security, and he’s on the side that wants me dead. He keeps ruining my life just because I got some crazy monster powers! It’s not fair.”

His eyebrow goes up. “Crazy monster powers?”

As a demonstration, I grow out the Tyranid blade. It glistens under the light of the fire-breathing trains. “I couldn’t do this before. It wasn’t until I woke up in some secret lab a year ago that I could grow blades out of my arm. Apparently that’s grounds for the entire government to hunt me down.”

“Your government’s been hunting you down for a year?”

“Yes!”

“Sounds exhausting. You should elect better representatives. They must be incompetent if they’ve let you survive for a year.” Sheogorath watches one of his train engines burn a villager to a crisp. He chuckles as the villager keels over in agony. “What were you doing before you became enemy number one?”

If only I knew. “I’m not sure. The powers came with a case on amnesia. Everything a few months prior, that’s all gone.”

He shrugs. “Inconvenient. I’m sure there’s something juicy you’re forgetting.”

I play with the nacho apple in my claw. “From what I gather, a lot.”

Sheogorath holds up a figure. “Hold a moment. Bear.”

“Bear?” A large paw bashes me out of my chair. I flip on my back, and a massive brown bear jumps on top of me. Its head dives in to rip my throat off. I raise the Tyranid blade quick enough to slash the bear right down the middle. Two bear halves fall apart. Blood spurts all over my face. I get back on my chair and gawk at my host. “Bear?!”

The Mad Prince shrugs. “One of the original fifty. The trains must have missed one. Back on track. At what point in your life story do you explain the voices in your head?”

Huh? A bear just tried to maul me and this guy brings up the voices again. What the heck am I dealing with? “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What voices?”

“Oh, you know, the mob of voices yelling at you to kill yourself. Those voices.”

I pause for a moment to listen. All I hear are the villagers’ death throes. I’m pretty sure I’m not imagining those. “Nobody is yelling in my head. It’s just me.”

Old guys doesn’t look like he believes me. “Are you sure about that? Because I keep hearing voices coming from you when your beak isn’t moving. It’s so distracting. You must be a special kind of mad if you can’t hear any of it.”

“I’m pretty sure I only have one voice in my head, and that’s mine”

Sheogorath leans back on his chair and folds his arms in. “Gilda, I’m the Prince of Madness. Head voices are my specialty. When I say you have voices in your head, you have voices in your head. Denying this could mean either of two things. One, you’re so far gone that you’re in denial of your own insanity and have reached a greater level of madness, which I applaud. Or two, you’re lying to me. Pray you’re insane, because people who lie to me don’t live very long.”

I throw up my claws. “What do you want me to say? Yes, there are voices in my head. They want to come out and have a tea party with you and sing songs and dance. Is that what you want?”

He shakes his head. “Your voices do not want to dance.”

“For all I know they do! How am I supposed to know what they want? I can’t hear them. As far as I’m concerned, they don’t exist.”

“Either a lie or a delusion, I really can’t tell.” The old man chuckles. “That’s rich. The Prince of Madness can’t figure out if a mad bird is lying or not. Boethiah will never let me live this down.”

Why am I even arguing with this dude? I just met him. “Do you really think I’m lying?”

He shrugs. “I just said I can’t figure it out! Maybe you are, maybe you aren’t. If you are lying, then you’re just denying to yourself that you’re crazy, and insulting me in the process. But if you aren’t lying, and you really can’t hear those voices, then you’ll be doomed to jump in the Nexus for the rest of your miserable life.”

All I understand of that was the doomed to stay in the Nexus part. I trace back what he just said so I can try to sift out some tangible meaning. I’m not too fond of what I figure out. “I need to be crazy to get out of the Nexus?”

He looks disappointed in my conclusion. “No. Being crazy makes it harder.”

Several persons in armor run up to a hovering train. The train sees them and lays down fire upon them. They writhe on the ground as the flames consume them. Yep, that’s crazy. “If I’m seeing stuff like that, no wonder I’ve been having a hard time jumping around.”

Sheogorath waves that off. “Ignore that. That’s my crazy, not yours. You’re having a bad time for different reasons.”

I’m pretty sure that’s my crazy. Everything’s my crazy. “How does crazy factor into my Nexus jumping?”

Sheogorath leans forward. “Tell me, what do you want?”

What do I want? I think a moment. “Honestly, a hot shower.”

“And have you received your hot shower yet?”

Can’t he smell me? “Uh, no. What does this have to do with Nexus jumping?”

“What doesn’t it have to do? If you yet haven’t received your hot shower, then you’re never going to get it. Not unless you make a bargain with your voices.”

The heck? “That makes no sense.”

The Mad Prince snorts through his nose. “Wow, that bug queen was right. You are dumb! It’s a wonder how you function properly if that doesn’t make sense to you.”

I stand up, kicking my chair out from under me. “Hey, you’re the one spouting nonsense! How can I make heads or tails if it if you don’t — Wait, did you say bug queen?”

The old man nods. “Self proclaimed royalty. That bug queen was my last guest here before you. She wasn’t a nice guest. Kept talking over me with long winded monologues. I didn’t like her manners, so I summoned fifty bears to maul her.”

That sounds familiar. “Is this bug queen an overgrown insect?”

“Well, we are in Morrowind. Overgrown insects are all over the place. I could hardly call her overgrown by comparison. But yes, she was an insect.”

I slam a fist on the table. “Bug Lady. Where did she go?”

“She jumped through the Nexus while the bears were tearing her apart. And she left at the worst time. I was just about to tell her the secret of how to travel the Nexus before I decided to kill her. Unfortunate, but that is life. You win some, you lose some, you get mauled by bears.”

Forget the crazy, Bug Lady is out there still. I may not want to pick a fight with her, but there’s a good chance I’ll encounter her if we’re jumping around together. If we do meet, I’m beating the crap out of her. But she doesn’t know how to jump through the Nexus. Neither do I, but I’m aiming to fix that. “How can I jump through the Nexus so I can beat up Bug Lady?”

Sheogorath eyes a plate on his side of the table. He scrapes a finger on it, then lifts it up to his eyes. There’s a stain of white powder on his finger. “Do you want to beat her up?”

“If it comes to it, yes.”

“But I thought you wanted a hot shower.”

“Well, that too. But I also want to beat the crap out of Bug Lady.”

His cat eyes follow the powder up and down his finger. He licks his lips in anticipation. “You can’t have both. You got to pick one or the other.”

“Why not? They’re not mutually exclusive.”

“Because that’s how the Nexus works. That’s why.” He puts the finger up to his nose and sniffs the stuff clean. His body shudders, and his cat eyes dilate. “Mmm, that’s good stuff. Moonsugar really opens my fifth eye. Lets me see worlds beyond Nirn whenever I take a whiff!”

I’m going to take his word on it. “So to get out of the Nexus, I need to want one thing, because that’s how the Nexus works?”

“That’s the gist.”

Odd, but this sounds like the most sane thing he’s said, so… “But I can’t want more than one thing?”

His pupils come back to normal, and he shakes his head. “The Nexus gives you what you want. You’ll confuse it if you want for more.”

“So if I want to go home?”

He scrapes more off his plate, and takes another whiff. “Then the Nexus will take you home. It’s as simple as that. I don’t see why you can’t comprehend it.”

I slam my fists on the table. The food and plates shake from the force. “But I’ve been wanting to go home since I got here. I wanted to go home since I met the Protoss, and that was I don’t know how any jumps ago! I’m still not home. Explain that!”

He leans back and enjoys the powder’s effects. His eyes are staring off into space, but somehow he can carry on the conversation. “That’s because you’re confusing the Nexus.”

Back to insanity. “How? How is wanting to go home confusing? Does it need a zip code?”

Sheogorath taps the side of his head. “Voices, voices.”

“There you go with the voices again.”

He waves his powder finger at me. “That’s what makes you so adorable. You’re so dense! You’re so dense I just want to bash your head open with my fists!”

I think he might just do that. Got to play along, Gilda. Play along till I get out of here. “Alright, the voices. I have them. But I can’t hear them.”

Sheogorath claps his hands together with the cane in the middle. “Splendid. Admitting you have a problem is the first step to solving it. Don’t you feel better now? Nah, you’re destined to be miserable. You’ll never feel better!”

Geez, thanks for the vote of confidence. “I got voices. How are the voices confusing the Nexus.”

“Do I have to explain everything to you mortals? Even the Oblivion guy didn’t ask this many questions, and I’m the Oblivion guy!” The old guy points his clasped hands to me. “Here’s how it goes. Voices count as their own entities. They may be constructs of your own insanity, but they still have thoughts, feelings, personalities, motives, wants. If they could, they can take over your body and act as a completely different person. And let me tell you, it’s hilarious to see a voice takeover and trap the body in a ladies’ changing room. The look on the host’s face when he switches back is priceless. Bonus points if he slaughtered his whole family in the process.”

I scratch my head as I think. Forget about the family slaughter part. Just focus on the voices. “So if the voices have wants, does that mean the Nexus is hearing those wants?”

Sheogorath beams with pride, as if I’m a kid that just figured out how to use the potty for the first time. “Ding ding! You figured it out. You and your voices are competing for those wants. The Nexus can’t handle more than one want from the same body, so it pulls a page out of my book and goes nuts!”

Alright, I think I’m getting somewhere. “So for me to jump back home through the Nexus, my want has to be the only one.” The mad prince nods. Awesome, I think I get it now. I just have to get rid of the voices in my head he’s been talking about. “So, how do I get rid of the voices?”

Sheogorath shrugs. “No clue. I don’t cure madness. I induce it. Trust me, I’m the last person you want to dump your life problems on. I’ll find your center, chew it up, spit it out, put a little cinnamon on it, appreciate it from a distance, then forget about it on the stove while it sets the house on fire. You don’t want me to fix your problems. Not that I want to.”

The last thing I want is this guy’s help, and yet... “Then what do I do with the voices?”

He shrugs. “Talk to them. They’re in your head. Strike up a conversation and convince them to want what you want.”

“That’s the problem. I can’t hear them, much less talk to them.”

Something in Sheogorath’s face snaps. “And it bobbles my mind how you can’t hear them. Those voices of yours are louder than the screaming villagers.”

Here we go again with the voices I can’t hear but apparently exist. “How can you even hear those voices if I can’t? People talk in my head all the time and they don’t say anything about my voices, just my internal monologues. Out of all those people, how are you able to hear something I can’t?”

“Simple. I can sense insanity with my fourth eye.”

“Your fourth eye? Like one of those hippy, metaphysical things?” I never liked those hippies.

He holds two fingers in front of his forehead in a V shape. “My fourth eye. It transcends time and space to let me see all insanity I encounter. If there’s a man about to crack, or a woman who’s lost her way, I will know, and I will pull them down to my level. By my hand, they descend below society, doomed to rave as lunatics in an uncaring world.”

Yeah… that just give me more motivation to get out of here faster. “If that’s your fourth eye, then what’s your third eye?”

The old guy winks at me. “Little Jyggalag.” I shudder. I regret asking that.

Focus, Gilda. Don’t get pulled in by him. Nexus and wants, voices confusing the Nexus with wants, I can’t hear the voices. That’s where I’m at. “So if I want the Nexus to take me home, I need to convince voices I can’t hear to want me to go home. If you can hear them, why don’t you talk to them?”

Sheogorath gives me a sly look. “Do you really want me inside your head?”

Nope. “How do I do it on my own?”

The Mad Prince looks down at the table. He reaches over a platter of exotic vegetables and grabs a large bottle. The bottle is made of purple glass with a golden cork at the top. There’s a dark liquid inside it, but I can’t see it clearly. “This one makes you smaller.”

“I don’t under”- Sheogorath chucks it at me, and I catch the bottle in my claws- “Hey!”

“Descending,” he says with a low voice. “The only way back is to go forward. The only way out is to go down.”

More madness. I look closer at the bottle. The glass is flawless. Not a scratch or smudge on it. My talons don’t leave any prints when I hold it. I pop the cork off and give the liquid a whiff. It smells sour. It’s something between a sun dried lemon and spoiled milk. “This will help me get home?”

He props his legs on the table. His cat eyes thin to slits as he stares at me. “It’ll let you talk with your voices. Pray that you can persuade them.”

The bottle in my claw grows in weight. Something about it feels off. Do I trust him? I haven’t had a good track record with trusting people that feel off. “I don’t have another choice?”

He shrugs. “You can drink, or you can wonder the Nexus till the end of time. What do you prefer, a quick madness, or a slow insanity?

The sour odor strikes my nose with a hard punch. Not much of a choice. I guess what I should ask myself is if I want to take my chances in the Nexus. Would I survive on my own?

Banelings are out there. Not a chance.

I lift the bottle’s neck to my beak and drink the liquid. While it smells sour, I’m still unable to taste. I’m thankful for the small mercies. I chug the thing in half a minute, then chuck the bottle to the ground. With the back of my arm, I wipe the last of the juice that’s dripping from my beak. My eagle eyes stare right back into Sheogorath’s cat eyes. “There.”

The Mad Prince smiles. “That’s impressive.”

Yeah… I’m probably going to regret that. “So, when do I start hearing the voices?”

Sheogorath holds a hand up to his mouth to suppress a laugh. “You won’t.”

I perk up. “Excuse me?”

He points to the bottle. “I found that underneath a table in a bar in Riften. I have no clue what it was. I just wanted to see if you would drink it.”

…

WHAT?!

“And you did!” He throws his head back and lets out a powerful laugh. The fires that are burning down the village flicker from the force.

This bastard!

Sheogorath throws his cane in the air and catches it mid shaft. “But if you’re so insistent in going insane, allow me to oblige you.” With a twirl, he points the cane at my face. I feel a force ripple through my body. Feels like an impending sense of doom is seeping out of every atom of my being. “There, you should now be able to talk to your voices.”

I throw my claws up in the air. “What?!”

He bounces the cane in his hand. “Oh, I could’ve helped you the entire time. Heck, I could’ve gotten rid of the voices in your head. I just wanted to see if you were stupid enough to do whatever I said, and you were! Oh, this is priceless! Who in Oblivion is stupid enough to drink from a bottle that a Daedric prince gave them? Heck, that was just something nasty smelling. I could give you bleach and you’d still drink it!”

The tumor fists come out and I obliterate the table. Food and splinters go flying in the air. Even Vivec’s limp corpse takes a trip above our heads. “You could have gotten rid of the voices?!”

Sheogorath clasps his mouth and tries his best to contain his laughter. “You… sknrk… You’re getting mad about voices… kpphmt… That I told you about. You didn’t think you had voices five minutes ago, and now you’re furious about the fact I could get rid of those voices. Ckhckh, this is glorious!”

My eye twitches, but I hold myself together. “So after all this time, I don’t have voices in my head? I could just go home without having to deal with any voices. Freaking waste of my time.”

Sheogorath’s face is twisting. That grin of his is growing into a manic crescent moon. His cat eyes are about to pop out of his skull. At any second his skin could rip apart and collapse in a twisting knot. “Oh no, everything I said is true. Truth is the leading cause of madness, so why would I say anything but the truth? You should be having a conversation with your friends right… about… now!”

I look around. All I see and hear are burning villagers. Actually, the villagers who are left are just smoldering corpses, and those don’t make much noise. “I don’t see”—

A pink haze appears out of thin air. It’s nothing thick. I can see right through it. It’s kind of like smoke from a pipe. It hangs for a moment before rushing forth to crash into my face. A force pushes me back and passes through my body. For a weird haze, it sure packs some weight. It’s nothing I can’t handle, but it sure is surprising.

More hazes appear around me. They’re all different colors, white, brown, blue, green, red, yellow, so on and so forth. They all hang in the air. Some drift around. Others are still. Here and there, the hazes are clustered in groups. Not all of them. Some are off on their own. My ears might be playing tricks on me, but I think I hear whispers coming from the haze groups.

Oh no, I’m conjuring lipans!

The pink haze rushes me again, and it pushes me enough that I side step. “What the heck?! What’s going on?”

“Your voices manifest,” Sheogorath says with a grin. “How they manifest, I have no idea. I always enjoy watching someone’s madness unfold. It’s never the same. Usually there’s a lot of screaming. Are you a screamer?”

Now the hazes are moving. The whispering is turning into raving. I can’t understand what they say. The voices are too muffled. It sounds like they’re getting excited.

One of the hazes, a brown one, rushes for me along with the pink. Together, they push me back a step. This can’t be madness. Madness doesn’t push you around like this. Sheogorath is doing something.

“You’re doing this,” I say. Another haze, this time a yellow one, knocks me in the back of the head. “Stop it right now!”

“I’m doing nothing.” Sheogorath steps back and plops down in his stone throne. “This is out of my hands. There’s nothing I can do about the free will of mental constructs. From what I hear, your voices despise you. Did you piss on their dead mothers or something to the effect?”

The hazes ripple, and all at once, they rush me. My vision fills with multicolored smoke. My body squeezes from the force of all the haze. Mumbling is all I hear from all directions. It sounds like thousands of people are trying to talk in my ears at the same time. Most of it is garbage, but I do hear one thing.

“Rip and tear him!”

Something wraps around my neck to choke me, and it yanks be back into the cloud of haze—