The Thirty-Six Lessons of Vivec

by Vivec
Words of wisdom relating to Vivec

Notes: Reading the first letter of each paragraph of the Sermon

Thirty-Six forms a hidden message: 'Foul Murder'. Additionally, if you
take Sermon Twenty-Nine, associate each of the thirty-five listed
numbers with a word in its respective sermon, another hidden
message is revealed: He was not born a god. His destiny did not
lead him to this crime. He chose this path of his own free will. He
stole the godhood and murdered the Hortator. Vivec wrote this.
This is the longest series of books where every one is a skill book.
The Elder Scrolls Online: Morrowind adds Sermon Thirty-Seven to
the tally.

Sermon One
He was born in the ash among the Velothi, anon Chimer, before the war
with the northern men. Ayem came first to the village of the netchimen,
and her shadow was that of Boethiah, who was the Prince of Plots, and
things unknown and known would fold themselves around her until they
were like stars or the messages of stars. Ayem took a netchiman's wife
and said:
'I am the Face-Snaked Queen of the Three in One. In you is an image and
a seven-syllable spell, AYEM AE SEHTI AE VEHK, which you will
repeat to it until mystery comes.'
Then Ayem threw the netchiman's wife into the ocean water where
dreughs took her into castles of glass and coral. They gifted the
netchiman's wife with gills and milk fingers, changing her sex so that she
might give birth to the image as an egg. There she stayed for seven or
eight months.
Then Seht came to the netchiman's wife and said:
'I am the Clockwork King of the Three in One. In you is an egg of my
brother-sister, who possesses invisible knowledge of words and swords,
which you shall nurture until the Hortator comes.'
And Seht then extended his hands and multitudes of homunculi came
forth, each like a glimmering rope through the water, and they raised the
netchiman's wife back to the surface world and set her down on the
shoals of Azura's coast. There she lay for seven or eight more months,
caring for the egg-knowledge by whispering to it the Codes of Mephala
and the prophecies of Veloth and even the forbidden teachings of
Trinimac.
Seven Daedra came to her one night and each one gave to the egg new
motions that could be achieved by certain movements of the bones.
These are called the Barons of Move Like This. Then an eighth Daedroth
came, and he was a Demiprince, called Fa-Nuit-Hen, or the Multiplier of
Motions Known. And Fa-Nuit-Hen said:
'Whom do you wait for?'
To which the netchiman's wife said the Hortator.
'Go to the land of the Indoril in three months' time, for that is when war
comes. I return now to haunt the warriors who fell and still wonder why.
But first I show you this.'
Then the Barons and the Demiprince joined together into a pillar of
fighting styles terrible to behold and they danced before the egg and its
learning image.
'Look, little Vehk, and find the face behind the splendor of my bladed
carriage, for in it is delivered the unmixed conflict path, perfect in every
way. What is its number?'
It is said the number is the number of birds that can nest in an ancient
tibrol tree, less three grams of honest work, but Vivec in his later years
found a better one and so gave this secret to his people.
'For I have crushed a world with my left hand,' he will say, 'but in my
right hand is how it could have won against me. Love is under my will
only.'
The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.

Sermon Two
The netchiman's wife who carried the egg of Vivec within her went
looking for the lands of the Indoril. Along the journey many spirits came
to see her and offer instructions to her son-daughter, the future glorious
invisible warrior-poet of Vvardenfell, Vivec.
The first spirit threw his arms about her and hugged his knowledge in
tight. The netchiman's wife became soaked in the Incalculable Effort. The
egg was delighted and did somersaults inside her, bowing to the five
corners of the world and saying:
'Thus whoever performs this holy act shall be proud and mighty among
the rest!'
The second spirit was too aloof and acted above his station so much that
he was driven off by a headache spell. The third spirit, At-Hatoor, came
down to the netchiman's wife while she relaxed for a while under an
Emperor Parasol. His garments were made from implications of
meaning, and the egg looked at them three times. The first time Vivec
said:
'Ha, it means nothing!'
After looking a second time he said:
'Hmm, there might be something there after all.'
Finally, giving At-Hatoor's garments a sidelong glance, he said:
'Amazing, the ability to infer significance in something devoid of detail!'
'There is a proverb,' At-Hatoor said, and then he left.
The fourth spirit came with the fifth, for they were cousins. They could
ghost touch and probed inside the egg to find its core. Some say Vivec at
this point was shaped like a star with its penumbra broken off; others,
that it looked like a revival of vanished forms.
'From my side of the family,' the first cousin said, 'I bring you a series of
calamities that will bring about the end of the universe.'
'And from my side,' the second cousin said, 'I bring you all the primordial
marriages that must happen within them, each one.'
At this the egg laughed. 'I am given too much to bear so young. I must
have been born before.'
And then the sixth spirit appeared, the Black Hands Mephala, who taught
the Velothi at the beginning of days all the arts of sex and murder. Its
burning heart melted the eyes of the netchiman's wife and took the egg
from her belly with six cutting strokes. The egg-image, however, could
see into what it had been before in ancient times, when the earth still
cooled, and was not blinded.
It joined with the Daedroth and took its former secrets, leaving a few
behind to keep the web of the world from disentangling. Then the Black
Hands Mephala put the egg back into the netchiman's wife and blew on
her with magic breath until the hole closed up. But the Daedroth did not
give her back her eyes, saying:
'God hath three keys; of birth, of machines, and of the words between.'
Within this Sermon the wise may find one half of these keys.
The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.

Sermon Three
Being blind the netchiman's wife wandered into a cave on her way to the
domains of House Indoril. It so happened that this cave was a Dwemeri
stronghold. The Dwemer spied the egg and captured the netchiman's
wife. They bound her head to foot and brought her deep within the earth.
She heard one say, 'Go and make a simulacrum of her and place it back
on the surface, for she has something akin to what we have and so the
Velothi will covet it and notice if she is too long away.'
In the darkness, the netchiman's wife felt great knives try to cut her open.
When the knives did not work, the Dwemer used solid sounds. When
those did not work, great heat was brought to bear. Nothing was of any
use, and the egg of Vivec remained safe within her.
A Dwemer said, 'Nothing is of any use. We must go and misinterpret
this.'
Vivec felt that his mother was afraid, and so consoled her.
'The fire is mine: let it consume thee,
And make a secret door
At the altar of Padhome,
In the House of Boet-hi-Ah
Where we become safe
And looked after.'
This old prayer made the netchiman's wife smile and begin such a deep
sleep that when Dwemeri atronachs returned with cornered spheres and
cut her apart she did not awake and died peacefully. Vivec was removed
from her womb and placed within a magical glass for further study. To
confound his captors, he channeled his essence into love, an emotion the
Dwemer knew nothing about.
The egg said: 'Love is used not only as a constituent in moods and affairs,
but also as the raw material from which relationships produce hour-later
exasperations, regrettably fashioned restrictions, riddles laced with
affections known only to the loving couple, and looks that linger too
long. Love is also an often-used ingredient in some transparent verbal
and nonverbal transactions where, eventually, it can sometimes be
converted to a variety of true devotions, some of which yield tough,
insoluble, and infusible unions. In its basic form, love supplies
approximately thirteen draughts of all energy that is derived from
relationships. Its role and value in society at large are controversial.'
The Dwemer were vexed at these words and tried to hide behind their
power symbols. They sent their atronachs to remove the egg-image from
their cave and place it within the simulacrum they had made of Vivec's
mother.
A Dwemer said, 'We Dwemer are only aspirants to this that the Velothi
have. They shall be our doom in this and the eight known worlds, NIRN,
LHKAN, RKHET, THENDR, KYNRT, AKHAT, MHARA, and
JHUNAL.'
The secret to doom is within this Sermon.
The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.