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Lost Arnesia, pearl of the Jungle

by Ancuel Woodford

Among the Empire's infamous "lost cities", Arnesia is the most ill-gotten and memorable one.

The region of Black Marsh it resided in has been renamed the Arnesian Jungle in its honor and been rightfully feared ever since. Even Imperial cartographers rarely bother to depict the region. Perhaps they are trying to honor the absence of a city by the absence of a region, painting it as one, continuous landmass from the Deshaan down to Murkwood.

Nothing could be further from the truth!
The nameless rivers of the Arnesian Jungle run east from the Thornmarsh coast, north from the Mudflat coast, and west from the last outliers of the near endless Velothi Mountains. Some of them originate near the Murkwood even, Black Marsh's most isolated (and, ironically, most well-known) part.

What in most other jungles would be solid land here takes the form of thousand little isles, rising above the murky, shallow, rivers like pustules in a wastrel's face. Massive rootwork makes it hard to see where proper land ends and river begins.

Massive boreworms hide under the roots in the riverbeds, waiting to ambush any unprepared visitor. If they are lucky enough to have stepped true, or are traveling the rivers along an Imperial water patrol, travelers are at least safe from the worms. The poisonous sap of the northern palm trees (which evaporates and turns into nauseating fog on properly hot summer days), grasping parasitic twines, tree-dwelling lizards who love to ambush unaware prey from above, and insane Naga cultists are sure to sap willpower and life from even the best-prepared. It is advised to stay with the local (penal) legionnaries, who at their worst are weighted down by armor and armarment and can't run away as fast.

Only the foolish and the Dres live here, locals say. Rumors of lost Cantemiric Velothi towns abound, but nearly every search expedition that went out to search for remnants of the Dunmer's splinter group never returns. Those that do often tell of a dangerous but uneventful journey, and yet they all vow to never set foot in Black Marsh again.

And yet, despite all that, the Empire built Arnesia here, back in the Common Era, when it was still considered part of the Thornmarsh.

Halfway between ancient, feeble Stormhold and the young and strong Thorn, Arnesia was one of Tiber Septim's exemplary cities (and a convient gateway into Morrowind proper, he might have thought, to supplement the painfully obvious land and water attack vectors). Its situation in the middle of a riverbed was ideal for the Empire, so close in nature and location to river-travelled Nibenay. Perhaps, looking at the later fate of Mir Corrup, this too should have been a warning sign.

For a while, all went well. Stone buildings were erected, Nibennese banners proudly proclaimed the Empire's new conquest (and the origin of its settlers) and the existance of the first Inner Colonies, the Emperor's tool of conquering Black Marsh in reality as before he had on paper.

But then, suddenly, contact ceased. An expeditionary force was sent there, and found the town deserted as if it had been left abandoned for centuries. No survivors were found and the few written accounts that survived told of common foods suddenly becoming poisnous, common animals turning vicious as if rabid, and formerly solid wood and stone becoming brittle.

What Tiber Septim lost in the Jungle he gained at the diplomatic table, but still he and his successors tried to grasp for success where the greatest Emperor of man had failed, and the cities lost in the Arnesian Jungle grew in number.
The most well-remembered among them, New Corimont and Emerald Creek, only survive in the names of the cities their unfortunate settler originated from.

The jungle is hungry here, locals say, and it eats and sleeps in turn. And: better to die in Helstrom than thrive in Arnesia.

The last time the spectre of Lost Arnesia rose was during the Imperial Simulacrum, the horrible times.
War broke out over a river caravan robbery gone wrong, and blood was shed by the gallons. In the end, the local Dunmer won the war after sacrificing their northern brethren. The Jungle was satisfied by the slaughter and withdrew back into complacency.

The Dres, then, never annexed more than a border strip, nothing more than a few of the numberless islands, fearful of what might end up in their care if they grasp too far.

For now, the Arnesian Jungle is at rest again, but best not to draw its ire. Remember Lost Arnesia and stay away.