Last installment, the Vvardenfell Mages' Guild had a night out. At the end, a mysterious figure left the gathering in disguise... and a mysterious Imperial met up with Gelduin in the tavern. They've now found themselves some privacy...



Gelduin turned to her companion.

"I hope you're not expecting me to sleep with you while you're looking like that," she informed the Imperial tartly. Ano Andaram, if he'd been there, would have been surprised at the fluent, Vos-accented Dunmeris she spoke now – barely a trace of foreign accent, a far cry from the broken nigh-incomprehensible thanks she'd strung together earlier that day.

In the meantime, her partner had made a beeline to the pack beside her bed and was fumbling with a flask.

"Or," Gelduin continued, "that you're going to guzzle all my magicka-restoring potions. Some of us can't just go to sleep and wake up with a full magicka pool, thank you very much."

"Sorry," the Imperial said in equally fluent Dunmeris, putting the empty bottle to the side. "I don't think I can risk letting the illusion lapse – I'm not sure I'll be able to recreate it perfectly after, and I'd rather not draw attention by looking different when I leave. Too many people stayed in Vivec, anyway. I'd rather not raise any questions by being spotted somewhere I shouldn't be."

Gelduin shrugged. "Sounds paranoid to me, but you have to know what's best. I'm not cut out for all this spy stuff, you know. Code phrases and disguises and illusion spells – it's like a bad Blades novel. I had trouble keeping my face straight in there."

"Well, I'm afraid you have to get used to it," her companion said apologetically. "I can't risk being seen with you, not after-"

"-after Iniel, Namira curse her nosy ways, spotted me wandering into the Council Hall and decided to inform the whole guild," Gelduin finished. "Like I said, I'm not cut out for this spy stuff. But I am sorry about that. I miss being able to drop in on you without this... rigmarole."

"Well, it can't be helped now. And, getting to business... anything newsworthy happen on your trip?"

Gelduin let herself sink down on the narrow bed. "The main thing? We ran into three Blighted creatures, one of them near Caldera – miles away from the Ghostfence, well inside the West Gash. It worried Shazgob. It worries me, for that matter, but I don't have the direct ear of the second-in-command of the Imperial Legion for the entirety of Vvardenfell. Speaking of which, Shazgob let something interesting slip."

"Oh?"

Gelduin explained.

Sitting down beside Gelduin and frowning in thought, her companion traced winding circles on the sheet - an oddly delicate gesture that seemed misplaced on the man's bulky frame. "Something drastic... a good time to leave Vvardenfell... I wish he'd been more specific. That could be anything from invading Red Mountain to withdrawing from Vvardenfell completely. Well. The last is no doubt too much to hope for." A sigh. "I suppose other... friends of ours... will just have to keep an eye on Albuttian."

Gelduin, who neither knew nor particularly cared whether they had other agents in Ebonheart, nodded.

"So, anything happen on your end which you'd like me to tell the boss?" she asked.

"It's funny you should say that. Tell me, did you happen to meet an Adryn while with the caravan?"

"Adryn?" Gelduin blinked in surprise. "Clanless girl, late teens or so, from Skyrim? Yes, she travelled with us for a day or so earlier this week. Helped me out with the scouting – seemed like a good kid, even if she and her friend were clearly hiding something. Had a detection spell I'd really have liked to learn," she added with a touch of envy. "Although I guess you'd know her better than me – I remember she mentioned she was a guild member. Apparently nobody'd clued her in on my status as an agent of the enemy."

"You wanted to learn her detection spell?"

"She had this trick of using a Detect Life spell to tell whether an animal was Blighted. You know how much easier being able to do that would make my life? And I'm pretty sure Yakin Bael would give his right arm for it!" Gelduin frowned. "What's this about?"

"It turns out that that is only the tail of the snake when it comes to her skills. Apparently she can manage a teleport to a variable destination."

Gelduin's eyes widened. "You're serious? The things you could do with that-"

"Congratulations. By seeing the potential here, you have just proven yourself wiser than, at last count, the entirety of the Vvardenfell Mages' Guild." The Imperial began to pace angrily.

"This sounds like a story." Gelduin stretched, then let herself settle back on the bed with a groan. In her professional opinion as a scout, a good mattress needed to be properly indulged in when it crossed one's path.

"Sheep. Mindless sheep," her friend spat. "Teleportation is one of the big research areas of the guild. We've- they've been trying to increase the range and flexibility of the spells for centuries, to no avail. The guild guide network is the biggest advance made during that entire time, and that requires a dedicated mage at every single end point. Along comes a girl whose spell-casting doesn't obey any of the restrictions we assumed must hold, who could open a thousand new avenues of investigation, and what do they do? The instant the words 'learning disability' fall they declare her hopeless, write off all that potential as misfires!"

"You feel very strongly about this," Gelduin said from where she was watching the rant.

"It's just such a waste! Now they're going to convince the girl she should stay away from the entire school, fill her head with exaggerated tales of danger, all because she doesn't learn or cast the spells the way they think they should, because she can't cast a Soultrap spell. Who even cares about Soultrap? It's not as if we have a shortage of fools who can cast it. She, on the other hand, managed a teleport to a place completely devoid of any Mystic beacon. Any proper organisation supportive of mages would immediately recognise the worth of such a unique talent. Great-"

At that, Gelduin's companion broke off and shot a glance into the corner. After a moment, the light of Illusion magic bloomed once more.

"Great House Telvanni," the Imperial continued, voice softer despite the renewed green gleam in the corners, "would leap on the opportunity to nurture it."

"Is leaping, I think you mean," Gelduin said, spreading her hands to indicate their current situation. "Unless this is all some bizarre prelude to telling me you've rethought your allegiances, are going over to the Mages' Guild for real and want me to join you. If so, I have to inform that your rhetorical skills need some work."

Her companion snorted. "Hardly. But..."

The anger fled from the large body like water seeping from a pierced skin. The weary sigh, loud in the small room, did not belong to the young face that made it.

"Like it or not, she's still a member of the Mages' Guild. One who is making waves despite how recently she joined. And I can't risk falling under suspicion... I'll have to tread very, very carefully."

"I have full confidence that you'll come up with something," Gelduin said firmly. "Or the boss will. Seeing as I take it you'd like me to make a full report on the matter."

"I was rather hoping you would, yes. I know that..." her companion glanced up at the corners of the room as if considering something, then shrugged and continued, "the boss is going to be very interested in this. It ties into some long-standing research interests, you see." The last words were spoken with all the authority of a close confidant.

So her nickname for their patron was a code name now? Her life had become a bad Blades novel indeed, Gelduin thought, hard-pressed to keep from rolling her eyes.

For the hundredth time, she wondered whether she shouldn't give up this spy business, go back to the boss and say she'd rather just be a perfectly ordinary scout with none of the cloak-and-dagger nonsense. Akatosh knew there was enough business in the Grazelands to keep her happily occupied.

Her friend was looking far more cheerful, Gelduin noted, the look on that false face saying that the other was already thinking up plans for gaining control over this Adryn's unique abilities. She felt a brief spark of pity for the girl, who'd struck Gelduin as rather naive – or, in other words, as woefully unequipped to be at the centre of this sort of conspiracy – but forced it down. House Telvanni had been good to Gelduin herself, after all, and it certainly sounded like the girl wasn't being properly appreciated for her abilities where she was.

More to the point, although Gelduin did not consider her companion's current appearance in any way attractive, the gleam in those eyes made her remember what lay beneath it. And exactly how she'd been... seduced... into House Telvanni in the first place.

"Are you really certain you can't stay for a while, without the illusion?" she asked. "Your guildmates are hardly going to come in bursting here, and I doubt anyone will notice if you look a little different if you leave. I've been on the road for such a long time, you know." Gelduin let her voice drop to the purr that had brought Madam Meretria to her doorstep with an offer the day she turned sixteen. "No privacy at all. I was really looking forward to catching up with you... properly."

Her companion's eyes darkened, but that was the only reaction.

Gelduin considered, and decided she could up her gambit a little. "Otherwise, well, I've got a long journey ahead of me tomorrow, and it sounds like we're about caught up on news. Unless you give me a good reason to stay awake, I'll be going to bed now."

She stood, turning her back to her partner. Her pulse hammered in her ears, drowning out all other sound, as she began to unbutton her dress. Goosebumps grew on her skin as the bare skin of her shoulder met cool air, her back-

Fingers wrapped around hers, far longer and thinner than the Imperial's.

"You make a convincing argument," a very familiar voice murmured in her ear.

A quarter hour later, the muffling spell on the room wore off. Neither of the two occupants noticed. That was perfectly all right, though, as none of the sounds that escaped could be considered incriminating.



Notes: For what it's worth, Gelduin is the main character I was thinking of when I said earlier that there are often little Easter eggs if you look up the NPCs I hijack. She's a member of House Telvanni in-game! Alas for Adryn, faction allegiance isn't always easy to determine in her world.

You're implying that Mark/Recall doesn't exist (yet?), or am I reading it wrong? Her half-failed Intervention casts are something else, it's true, but not quite as unique as this conversation seems to imply.

I like the detail of "I daren't drop this magical disguise, or I won't get a proper match when I re-cast". It's nice not to have magic work like magic!

Notes: Huge apologies for the delay to this section. I was about to post it then realised I had to rewrite something, and at that point life got in the way. In my defense, life included my cousin's wedding, an interview, a job offer, resigning my job, and planning my move to another country which will take place in less than two weeks... in completely unrelated news, next chapter may also be rather delayed...

@ghastley - Mark/Recall do exist, but they use mystical waypoints in form of the one set by Recall. The unique thing that Adryn did was teleport somewhere with no beacon, no Recall point, nothing at all. That said, the fact that said place was somewhat inimical to anyone not in possession of wings probably put something of a damper on most people's enthusiasm. Possibly not a surprise the Telvanni see it differently, as they tend to have a more reckless approach to personal safety.

Overall, I'd say we've seen two extremes as far as point of views on Adryn's abilities go - the Mages' Guild only sees the downsides, while our mysterious Telvanni spy is only seeing the advantages. As usual, the truth most likely lies somewhere in the middle.

Last installment, two spies conferred and plots were hatched. These plots are most likely ones Adryn would really, really like to know about, seeing as they concern her very directly, but sadly she's unlikely to be informed anytime soon. Now, are we done with people Adryn has no idea about discussing her?

Spoilers: No, we are not.



Something that regularly came as a surprise to newcomers to Vivec – outlander tourists, visitors, new residents and pilgrims alike – was the Palace.

Rising towards the sky at the southernmost point of the city, an earthly thing of stone and iron topped by a golden dome, at first glance a not particularly religious newcomer might think it was much like the homes of the rich and powerful the world over. Such blasphemy was quickly proven mistaken on any sort of closer inspection, however. Only the topmost floor of the palace was occupied by the god himself, a windowless space no larger than the tiny stilted shacks that rose from the water between the cantons. The rest of the palace was given over to the Puzzle Canals, the mysterious, some claimed ever-changing maze of corridors and flowing water that was a favoured destination of pilgrims from across Morrowind. Of all the things that could be said of the Puzzle Canals, them being a suitable dwelling place was not one.

Vivec's palace was the home of a god, not a man.

As Archcanon of the Vvardenfell Temple beneath Vivec, Tholer Saryoni had access to the private writings of many of his predecessors. Some had kept more detailed journals than others – Noveni Omayn in particular had left behind a considerable collection of volumes, one thankfully accompanied by a quick and biting sense for irony and witty turn of phrase – but keeping such records was one of the unspoken duties of the job and one would be hard-pressed to find an Archcanon who had left behind nothing at all. Poring over their writings late into the night, commonalities became apparent.

My lord has changed His chamber again, wrote Tandris Nelenim. Entered this morning and found myself in an actual jungle. Narrowly escaped being attacked by a beast I did not recognise... very afraid He has gone on a jaunt to Akavir (or possibly Hircine's Hunting Grounds?) and, shall we say, left the door open behind Him...

And, of course, Noveni. His Worship is showing dangerous signs of getting bored again. After a very relaxing few months where his chamber obeyed the laws of Mundus it has been getting steadily larger by the day, and I have a terrible suspicion the carpet is currently carnivorous. I have made clear in the strongest possible terms that I would be most displeased if I entered one day and found myself on the ceiling, in an Outer Realm, or eaten by the floor, but fear I failed to make much, if any, impression. For the sake of everyone's safety and keeping the dragon of time in one piece, I do believe I may need to arrange for a distraction...

Reading it, Tholer – who, if pressed, would admit to a love for adventure better suited to a far younger man – had felt rather wistful. Such variety, he thought, sounded rather exciting. Sadly for him, in his tenure as Archcanon, Vivec's chamber had remained constant. As he entered now, it was clear today would bring no change.

Inside as outside, the room at the top of the Palace of Vivec was small and perfectly round. Elaborate murals ran along the walls, some depicting scenes Tholer recognised from history or legend, some ones entirely unfamiliar – different ones each time he entered, the only remnant of the distortions of physical reality described by so many of his predecessors. The floor was a stark contrast to such decoration, bare white stone save for a large triangle worked into it in gold, a plain dais at its centre.

Over it floated a god.

Vivec's back was to the door, and he had given no sign of welcome or even acknowledgement. Instead, his gaze was fixed on the only other item in the chamber.

An image of Vvardenfell floated before Vivec, green islands and gray ash-wastes alike rising from a sea of white fog, all leading upwards to the great sweep of Red Mountain – its peak obscured even here. Looking at it too long gave one the disturbing feeling that it was slowly growing larger, or perhaps one was growing smaller, slowly being drawn in.

(When Tholer was younger and less wise, he had asked whether it was a model or real. Instead of punishing him for a fool's desire for certainty, Vivec had told him every model is real and reality is but a model. Tholer had bowed his gratitude for the gift of the paradox and, ever since, had taken care not to come too near to it.)

Every detail was perfect, from the pebble that was Baar Dau floating in the south to the tiny spires of Dwemer ruins rising from Dagon Fel in the north, the thin wisps of cloud hanging above that island contrast to the thick grey mass that blotted out most of Azura's Coast (and hadn't Brother Eris, travelling back from Sadrith Mora by guild guide just today, returned with sodden robes?)...

And, of course, above all else, the Ghostfence.

Ringing Red Mountain, glowing with a fierce white light, it was absolutely unmistakeable. If Tholer listened closely, he could hear the whispered voices of all the thousands and thousands of ancestors who had given themselves over to it. It was awe-inspiring, a work of staggering scope, testament to the strength of the Dunmer people in both life and death... testament to the power of their gods.

It was – so someone who had come to this chamber over decades, someone such as the Archcanon of the Vvardenfell Temple, might notice – very, very slowly growing weaker.

"Enter."

Vivec spoke without turning around. His voice passed straight through Tholer to wrap around something behind him.

Tholer looked over his shoulder. Sister Dileno had stopped in the entranceway, eyes wide. Now, she took a trembling step forward, as if worried she would be struck down for daring to cross the threshold.

Had she ever met Vivec face-to-face like this before – not watching in a crowd as he greeted his people, not at a ceremony with all the upper ranks attending, but in a small group with no script or ritual to follow? Taking in her stunned expression, thinking back, Tholer decided she had not. Vivec left this chamber so rarely these days, anyhow.

I have spent the last several days attempting to explain to his Worship the nature of becoming predictable. To choose an example at random – should one be a god with a taste for wandering their flock in disguise, it is perhaps wise to only engage in such activities on a rare basis, or to choose a variety of guises, or in some way to prevent the situation where the clergy generally assume that at least one member of the new intake of novices will be no novice. Should one be such a god, one may want to keep in mind that the more senior members of one's followers may also wish to speak to one on occasion, and that the current situation, where the upper echelons of the Temple are in fact far less likely to see their god than the novices, can only be called 'absurd'...

Tholer pushed Noveni's words back in his mind.

"Enter, Dileno, daughter of Mundrila, of clan Lloran," Vivec repeated. His voice vibrated through Tholer's bones like the ringing of bell, pure and emotionless. "And tell me why you have come."

Out of the corner of his eye, Tholer saw Dileno throw him a desperate look as she edged into the chamber. He kept his gaze straight ahead and focused on Vivec. Knowing that in a few more decades he would need to seriously look into training a successor, Tholer kept an eye on the more promising of the mid-ranks, and the Disciple had struck him as having real potential. Time to see if that held up.

And should she prove weak, should she fall apart before their god... well.

One way or the other, she would never rise higher than her current rank.

After a moment, Dileno rallied. "My lord, this- this concerns news I received from one of your Buoyant Armigers, one Ervesa Romandas."

"Ervesa. Yes." Vivec's head dipped, as though he were deep in thought. Still he had not turned around; as was becoming more and more common, almost all his attention was fixed on the Ghostfence. "I am aware of her discovery of the Sharmat's plot in Ald'ruhn."

Should that be why you disturb me. He did not say it, but Tholer could hear the words ring in the silence.

Dileno licked her lips. "My lord, it- it is true this was the most urgent news she brought. However, there was... something else. She did not see its importance. In truth-" Dileno paused for a moment, then plunged in. "In truth, I do not either."

Good. Very good. Admit your ignorance, for to Almsivi we are all ignorant. Pride has no place before the gods.

Vivec did not visibly react.

"But- my Lord, I had been given to understand that you wished to be informed immediately and in person should any of your servants meet or hear of anyone suffering from the affliction known as 'Ledd's Syndrome', or showing any of its signs."

Dileno pronounced the alien term carefully, unable to keep a faint trace of bewilderment from her voice. Tholer knew she must think such a minor oddity a very strange thing indeed for Lord Vivec to concern himself with. He remembered puzzling over it himself when he had learned of the directive, an unexplained mystery....

Unexplained, until he became Patriarch and was made privy to the last, most terrible secrets of the Tribunal.

Vivec's motion upon the dais stopped.

For a terrifying moment, the Ghostfence dimmed to near-darkness. Then it snapped back to full strength. Tholer, who felt as though his heart had skipped a beat with it, had to suppress a sigh of relief. Dileno was discreet enough – no one prone to gossip would make it to her current position – but some things shouldn't be risked all the same.

Better for all if no doubt was cast on the idea that Almsivi were all-powerful and the Ghostfence impenetrable.

"You are certain?" Something new had entered Vivec's voice. Dileno would almost certainly not recognise it, but after working with his god closely for decades Tholer could name it urgency.

"I- yes, my lord. I, I spoke to the girl affected myself, to confirm the report. A clanless outlander, newly arrived in Vvardenfell. By the name of Adryn."

Vivec turned to face them, power blazing from his eyes. His gaze passed over Tholer to rest on Dileno, frozen in what looked to be mingled terror and ecstasy by their god's full attention.

(Perhaps not suitable after all.)

"Tell me everything."



Not far from the palace of Vivec, in a cell attached to the Hall of Justice in the High Fane, a Dunmer girl slept. Her cot was not much softer than the stone of the floor, but that had not kept her awake. Perhaps Adryn was not so long out of prison to have forgotten how to catch a nap at any available opportunity, perhaps exhaustion had overwhelmed all discomfort, or indeed perhaps some strange power was at play... in any case, she lay curled up on the cot, straw poking out from the thin pillow to tangle in her red hair, eyes closed, mouthing words in her dreams.

If her guard had listened closely, he might have found something to puzzle over. The words she whispered were not Tamrielic, but how was it that an outlander girl newly come to Vvardenfell should speak Chimeris, the ancient forebear of Dunmeris long consigned to dusty tomes? How was it that her mouth should form the words Dumac and Alandro Sul and Almalexia, form so many names from worship and history and legend, with such familiarity?

But the guard was leaning against the wall in the opposite end of the corridor, having glanced into the girl's cell only briefly earlier in the night. He'd been friends with Selman, close friends, and was afraid of what he might do if forced to stay near his rumoured killer. For the sake of duty and honour over vengeance, he had to keep his distance.

And so he did not listen, did not see, and the mystery remained for another day.



Notes: This probably wins #1 in the "which section is Kaz most likely to go back and quietly edit" competition (excluding some considerations about relocating Adryn's home in Skyrim to Windhelm after actually playing the game.) Writing Vivec is super difficult - here's hoping I had some level of success with it!

Is the middle of Brexit the right time for that? I did it a few times in the 1970's when it was easier, and it wasn't easy! (Even including the cousin's wedding part)

I've been meaning to ask since the name arose: is "Ledd's Syndrome" named after Hort Ledd - failed Nerevarine candidate?

Brexit is actually the reason I'm moving. Not to get political, but I'm German and I've felt really uncomfortable in the UK during the last year - never to mention more homesick than I was in the ten previous years combined. I will definitely agree with you that international moves are NOT easy, though, even if they are to one's home country! /o\

And yes, Ledd's Syndrome is named after Hort Ledd. It was a little Easter egg + clue on my part - nice catch!

Had you written "return to my native land" instead of "move to another country" it would have got a different reaction. The "another", especially, implied "one I haven't lived in before".

When I moved from the UK to the Netherlands for a couple of years, I had a job that took me to as many as five different countries in a week (and they didn't all use the Euro back then). Then I moved back. Then I had a multi-month assignment in Germany (company rented my accommodations, so not a full move). Then I moved back. Then I moved to the USA, and I've been here 30 years. Retirement might mean a move back - I haven't decided. But I've travelled back to Europe several times, business and otherwise, and I'm finding just travelling, let alone a home move, getting beyond tolerable.

The Brexit vote annoyed me, as it excluded the two classes of people most likely to vote against: residents of UK who were not UK citizens (you), and UK citizens resident abroad (me). I don't like biased polls, for any reason.

Oh how fun, a Maxical appearance! I love how you explained magical learning disabilities. That’s a subject that hits close to home for me. (Er, not the magical part.)

I think your Vivec portrayal was wildly successful. Tholer’s reflections on the previous Archcanons’ private writings set the scene nicely.

Aaand I'm back in time for Christmas with more Adryn! Actually managing to write regularly for once, cross your fingers for me that it keeps working. I also have a significant buffer that I really should post, even though I'm having serious trouble pulling together the part after it and found myself having to scrap half a chapter because it wasn't working... anyway.

@Grits - Glad you liked it! Learning disabilities are also a subject that hit close to home for me. I have a lot of plans for Adryn's, but I definitely always hope to do the experience justice.

Last chapter, Adryn was terrified out of her wits by a statue, discovered she had a magical learning disability affecting the Mysticism school, discovered aforementioned statue had left a nasty spiritual residue that could leave her possessed if she wasn't cleansed ASAP, and finally got arrested for murder. It wasn't one of her better days.

Now, we find Adryn in the same position as she started the story...



One week.

Sitting on my cot in my new cell, I couldn't help imagining Elone's face at this turn of events. The scout I'd met that first day in Seyda Neen, who'd kindly refrained from turning me in to the guards when she'd seen me stealing, had seemed rather doubtful of my ability to stay out of trouble very long. I couldn't quite decide if she'd be smug or disappointed now... or which of the two would be worse.

One single week of freedom, and I was back in prison again.

And any pathetic defense I could muster (among others that it had not been a week, it had been eight days, thank you very much) crumpled before the force of precisely what accusation had brought me back here.

You are under arrest for the murder of Ordinator Selman Relas...

Although the event had come as something of a surprise, a few days to cool my heels and inspect my new home (much the same as the old home, and still no potted plant to boot) had made it clear to me what had happened...

...and I could truly have kicked myself for my stupidity.

Let us imagine for a moment that we are Jobasha. This is of course a difficult task, as Jobasha would no doubt make it clear that he is ever so much more intelligent, crafty, and – of course! - handsome than we are. Nevertheless, we shall give it our best effort.

So. On Loredas, Jobasha meets a friend of his Ajira's, a Dunmer girl with red hair... a fugitive from the Skyrim Thieves' Guild, Jobasha happens to know, as she is accused of terrible things by the Thief-King. But it does not quite add up, to Jobasha, the skittish, frightened, harmless girl in front of him and the gruesome tales he has heard, and he is not at all fond of the Thief-King. So instead of turning her in, he puts the fear of Vaermina in her, gives her a task to do and watches her flee his presence, prepared to sit back, watch and judge.

Half an hour later, the guard knocks on his door. There has been a murder, right outside his door. An Ordinator has been most cruelly slain. Does Jobasha know anything? Did he hear anything? Did he, perhaps, see a suspicious person pass by?

Well, Jobasha did have a customer, half an hour ago, one who has tales of bloody murder following her already. And although he thought them lies, although he looked the girl in the eye and decided she did not have a killer in her... how sure is he of his judgement, really?

Not sure enough to lie to the Ordinators, certainly.

Now, we turn to Jobasha's neighbour, one Andilu Drothan who keeps an alchemy store. Ordinarily, Adryn would never have let such a thing pass her by, but at that time she was very focused on getting back to Balmora as soon as possible and so missed the sign. A shocking thing indeed, and no doubt her day was much poorer for that fact, but as this means she did not enter his shop and never came to meet him one might think him irrelevant in this matter...

Except that, on the afternoon of that fateful Loredas, Andilu found himself feeling the need for a breath of fresh air. He had had no customers for a while now, the shop was stuffy and dark, and he felt the urge to get out for a little. His finances, he decided, were in good enough a state that he could afford to close early, today. And so he opened the door to his shop, thinking of taking a stroll along the northern shore, perhaps-

-and saw an Ordinator lying on the floor in a pool of blood, and a woman holding a bloodied dagger. Perhaps she was staring at a corner intently, angrily, as though something there had just escaped from her; perhaps there was even the spark of free magicka in the air from a just-cast spell. If so, such subtleties escaped Andilu, who found himself far more focused on screaming. At which point the woman ran away, the guards arrived, and the corpse remained where it was.

When questioned, Andilu did remember that the woman was a Dunmer with red hair.

These two accounts together, one has to admit, form something of a damning picture. Especially so because our friend Andilu, as we have seen, does not exactly have the best eye for detail. Imagine, for instance, if he had had the state of mind to note that the murderer's hair was in fact a bloody crimson – quite a different shade from Adryn's coppery orange, even if both may be labelled 'red'! Or that the murderer was well into adulthood, perhaps the equivalent of thirty-five years of age in a Nord or Imperial, whereas Adryn is not quite out of her teens. Alas, he did not, and so his description and Jobasha's agreed.

All of which might still have ended without a prison stay if I had just stopped and thought for a moment.

After all, in Morrowind I was a perfectly innocent ordinary citizen, no bounty on my head, no reason not to go to the guards if I should, for instance, be witness to one Master Grumpy's murder and narrowly escape the culprit's rage myself. I could have reported the incident to the guards in Ald'ruhn, in Balmora, provided those vitally important pieces missing from the narrative Jobasha and Andilu had created between them, without which the entire picture was terribly distorted...

But no. I'd become entirely focused on the various other problems facing me. These, to be fair, were not inconsiderable, ranging from naked Nords over angry Redoran noblemen and mind-controlling statues to Varvur, who formed a category all by himself... but nevertheless, I could have given the actual murder I'd witnessed a little more attention. Instead, I'd done my best to forget it had ever happened.

A course of action that, so I had been reliably informed, was profoundly suspicious.

A loud creaking noise came from the direction of the cell door. Torn out of my self-pity, I jerked my head upright just in time to see the Ordinator I'd dubbed Trebonius II for his intelligence, acumen and wit nudge it open.

"Follow me, prisoner. And no funny business."

I refrained from asking exactly what he thought I could get up to with my hands bound and a magicka-draining bracer on my wrist. Sometimes, even I realise I'm in deep enough that it's time to stop digging.

Besides, he'd been less than amused when I'd asked him yesterday.

I followed the guard down the hallway that had grown increasingly familiar since my arrest. It looked much like the ones I'd trekked along on the way to the cleansing chamber, and I suspected we were still in the High Fane.

Which was, I hoped, a good sign.

It was pretty clear that the Fane was set up as organisational headquarters and spiritual hub for the Temple, not a prison – especially since there was only one other cell near mine and it was empty. No, the area I was in must be a processing area for new arrests... which, combined with the lengthy questioning Trebonius II had repeatedly subjected me to, meant I was still under investigation rather than convicted. (I'd also like to assume this was the case since I couldn't remember any sort of trial, but I admit to some amount of cynicism as far as judicial systems are concerned.) In short, I still had a chance of talking myself out of this.

If only my story weren't so cursed flimsy.

We reached our destination, the small room off the main hallway that was serving as the interrogation chamber. As always, I breathed a quiet sigh of relief to discover none of the implements one might associate with such a thing were present.

"Sit."

I took a seat on the indicated stool, fighting the urge to squirm. I hated having a door to my back in an unfamiliar environment. No doubt it was the reason for the setup.

"Now." Trebonius II looked me head to toe, disgusted scowl making clear he considered me on about the same level as vermin. Dead, rotting vermin. It was an expression I'd grown rather familiar with over the past days. "Why did you kill Selman?"

Despite the situation, I couldn't help rolling my eyes. Seriously, did the mer really think I'd just blurt out a confession if caught off-guard? After it hadn't worked the previous twelve times? If he continued along those lines, I might have to downgrade him from Trebonius to... cliff racers were too clever... some form of algae, maybe. If he didn't watch himself at that point, Varvur might find himself getting competition.

"I didn't kill the man." I couldn't keep the asperity from creeping into my tone. "As I've already told you, I saw the whole thing and the murderer is a Dunmer woman. Crimson hair, taller and older than me, had some sort of enchanted dagger. I only just managed to get away from her myself by teleporting out."

"A likely story," the possible Algae-brain bit out. His hand clenched on the hilt of his mace as he stepped forward until I had to crane my head back awkwardly to keep him in view.

A classic guard strategy, this. Act like you're on the verge of losing your temper, get close enough to seated prisoner to make the height difference really apparent... intimidate them through the combination of looming and the threat of violence. No, it wasn't the first time I'd been on the receiving end of 'put the fear of the appropriate god into suspect, mark I'.

Sadly, that didn't mean it didn't still work.

"So this mysterious woman simply came from nowhere and stabbed a respected Ordinator while he was talking to you," Algae-brain growled. (The tone was a nice addition to the classic intimidation pose, I had to admit.) "A woman whom we have no other reports of, who even by your account had no apparent motive. You, on the other hand – you, the outlander who was already involved in an argument with Selman that day, who even admits to getting into another with him directly before the murder – are entirely innocent. You were in fact almost a victim, but only escaped through a teleportation accident... an accident, the likes of which I've never heard of before and which my Mysticism instructor stated to be flat-out impossible." A deep breath. "Girl, do you think I'm stupid?"

Well, that question put me in a difficult position.

On the one hand, although I am generally in favour of lying to law enforcement, I did have to admit that doing it in my current situation would be idiotic – quite possibly terminally so. On the other, giving my honest assessment of Trebonius II – no, he was definitely Algae-brain by now – at any rate, giving my honest assessment of his intelligence was unlikely to improve matters for me.

I'd just opened my mouth to attempt an answer when I heard the door open behind me.

Well, it seems Algae Brain ain't no Pilus Julian, Sixth Legion!

Seriously, I can't wait to see what Adryn has to say, or what's coming in that door. Something tells me it will only be more trouble . . .

WOO HOO! You are back !!!! I plan to sit down and read (hear) this over my XMas holiday!

@haute - I feel pretty certain in saying that Julius wouldn't be impressed, yes
@mALX - I am back!! And really happy to see you're around as well! I hope you enjoy Adryn's newest adventures when you get around to hearing them.

Last installment, Adryn was in the middle of being questioned as a murder suspect. Let's see how that continues.



"Elam! I said I wasn't to be interrupted-"

Situated with my back to the door as I was, I couldn't see who'd just entered, although the sound of the footsteps suggested at least three people. I could however see Algae-brain throw a death glare at whoever had dared interrupt, face twisting in fury...

...then going very pale as he opened and closed his mouth wordlessly.

Surely he wouldn't kill me for a quick peek?

The people (all Dunmer, and one day that would stop being surprising) now filing into the chamber didn't look familiar. Two of them were also wearing Ordinator armour, although like Algae-brain they'd doffed the helmets. One was a thin-faced man who carried himself with a distinct air of authority, one a girl I judged around my age with tattoos on her face who walked with an odd dragging step.

They were followed by a man with cropped dark hair in very expensive-looking robes, a mace made out of some dark metal – wait, was that ebony? - hanging rather incongruously at his side. Where the two Ordinators had ignored me entirely, he glanced at me and winked.

Hope began to bloom in my chest. I tried to squash it. The man might be on my side – or at least ready to act as if he was – but I had no idea who he was or whether he'd just make the situation even worse.

...to be fair, at this point managing to make it worse would be something of an accomplishment.

"Brother Elam. Sister Nedeni." Algae-brain said stiffly. After a pause, he sank into a bow. "...Councilor Sarethi."

Sarethi? I twisted around to look behind me again.

Yes, on a closer look I could see a resemblance there. And hadn't Varvur said his father was on some sort of council?

Considering what I'd done for his son, it wasn't even particularly surprising if he'd decided he owed me one. I knew I'd gladly forgo a reward in favour of him getting me out of here, one way or another.

Well, then. It was time to hope Varvur had gotten his brains from his mother.

But it was the male Ordinator who spoke first.

"Brother Suryn. How... good to see you." I definitely hadn't imagined that pause. "I'll have to mention your initiative to Brother Berel. It's not any mer who'd not just arrest a suspect but also interrogate them without any orders to that regard."

The tone was light, friendly, collegial. All the same, I could read the message here.

So, it seemed, could Algae-brain. This close, I could hear him grind his teeth. "The report came in on Middas. You were away – performing a 'forensic-magical investigation of the crime scene', Sister Felmena said-" those skeptical quotes were audible, "and the information needed to be acted on urgently." A grudging pause. "My message must have gone astray."

Oh, I'd bet it had.

Also, veiled meanings or no, should these two really be doing this in front of me? The suspect? Kyne knew Charon, Ingerte and I had kept closed ranks in front of outsiders, and there are more similarities between running a successful enterprise of guardsmen and one of criminals than one might think. I opened my mouth-

No, a little voice said in my head. (I suspected it was the little-heard voice of my self-preservation.) Interrupting in order to tell my current jailors how they were doing law enforcement wrong was unlikely to end well for me.

"-make sure to mention that to Brother Berel. For now, I'd like to question the girl myself," the newer idiot was saying.

I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and leave him as 'Andas' for now. After all, it might just be forced conversation with Algae-brain causing the current spate of stupidity.

Said mer went purple, but couldn't seem to find a reason to protest. He gave a jerky nod, then stepped back and folded his arms.

"Right. Adryn, wasn't it?"

That was definitely directed at me. With a quick glance at Algae-brain to make sure he wouldn't take violent exception, I shuffled around on the stool until I was facing the newcomers. "Ah, yes. That's me."

"I'm Elam Andas, in charge of the investigation into the Vivec murders. This is my assistant, Nedeni Tenim." He nodded at the girl who'd entered with him. "Can you please recount for me the events of this past Loredas as you saw them, starting from the point where you left the shop belonging to the Khajiit Jobasha?"

Andas proved a far more congenial listener than Algae-brain, or at least willing to consider a sequence of events that did not include me killing the unfortunate Master Grumpy. Where Algae-brain had scoffed at or entirely ignored my explanations, he probed for more details.

Exactly how had Master Grumpy reacted after being injured by the dagger? Had I been able to make out the predominant school of the enchantment? (I remembered the malevolent red glitter of the blade, visible even through the blood, as if it were before me. Destruction magic – it had to be.)

How long had it taken me to get off the teleportation spell? Where had I ended up?

"Come now," Algae-brain interrupted at this point. He'd wandered to stand beside the others, and although part of me was glad not to have him at my back another part wished he'd stayed back. His facial expressions made it very hard to concentrate on my account. Now was a perfect example. "You can't possible believe her story!"

Andas gave the man a long, slow look. I wondered if he shared my assessment of Algae-brain's intelligence.

But it was the girl who spoke next. "Actually, it corroborates what we've found – there are definite traces of Mystic magic throughout the scene, leading to a knot of energy in a corner." Much like her walk, there was a slur to her speech, making her sound almost as if she were drunk. Palsy, I suspected. "I'd have called it a successful Recall spell, except that the connection to the endpoint was all twisted up and the shape of the residue was wrong. I'd never seen anything like it before..." Her voice trailed off as she seemed to notice everyone was looking at her. "Um. Begging your pardon, Brother Elam, Councilor Sarethi."

Algae-brain sneered. "You expect me to take that as supporting evidence?"

"As it happens," Varvur's father spoke for the first time, "my son can confirm her difficulties with teleportation, being present for a second... incident along those lines." His voice was mild, but Algae-brain shut his mouth with a snap.

Just how important was Varvur's family, anyway?

So it went on. Andas listened to my description of the way the murderer had acted, her slow gait, her words (Dagoth Ur does not want you here, outlander-), with a pensive frown. On my own part, I found myself drawing certain rather horrifying connections between her behaviour (strange, off, as if she were sleepwalking, as if she were being Controlled) and the statues – ash statues, that priestess had called them – where one had made Varvur kill his best friend. What if...

...well, there was nothing I could do about it in any case, and I didn't think anyone here wanted to hear my speculation. All I could do was stress that she hadn't seemed entirely in control of her actions. And although Andas' face gave nothing away, a glance at Varvur's father made it clear he'd spotted the potential connection here.

We moved to my alibi for the other murders, which Andas also took a lot more seriously than Algae-brain – especially once Sarethi senior mentioned that he'd spoken with Socucius Ergalla and I was indeed on record as having been released from prison in Imperial City into Morrowind on the nineteenth of Hearthfire. As the prison stay in question had begun in Evening Star of the year before, I could not possibly have killed someone in Vivec earlier this year, much less on five separate occasions.

"Well- well- maybe it's a gang, and she joined late!"

Andas raised an eyebrow. "Why, does that mean you do believe her story about the other woman involved after all?"

"No- I mean- I..."

There was a long pause, in which Algae-brain seemed to deflate. Eventually, he said, "All right. Suppose you're right, and she didn't do it. Who is this mysterious other suspect, where did she even come from, and what's her motive for killing Selman supposed to be?"

The fury was gone from his voice, and in its absence I could hear a thread of something else underlying it. Not expecting it, it took me a moment to identify it as grief.

Why would he be-

Oh.

He and Master Grumpy had been friends.

The events of the last few days suddenly fell into a whole new pattern. No wonder he'd been so eager to interrogate me, no wonder he'd resisted the idea that I was in fact innocent. He'd wanted to believe he'd found his friend's killer, that she was safely behind bars.

I felt a twinge of sympathy and immediately attempted to suffocate it. Really, empathy for law enforcement, how low was I planning to sink?

Andas heaved a sigh. "Exactly what I'm attempting to work out. Although as far as her motive goes, her reported words really speak for themselves, wouldn't you say?"

"Dagoth Ur doesn't want you here..." the girl repeated in a whisper.

Found you!

The memory of my nightmare suddenly came back to me, and despite myself, I couldn't help a sudden, hard flinch.

Andas gave me a long glance, then turned back to Algae-brain. "As for where to find her now... I have a suspicion. We've had some other reports of a woman behaving strangely in Vivec Canton that may be connected, and the location of the murder is... possibly telling. However, I don't believe the presence of muthsera Adryn is required for this discussion."

My ears perked at that, and I felt a sudden surge of hope. If this Andas believed me, maybe they'd let me go?

That hope was cruelly deflated when Algae-brain said, "I'll return her to her cell, then."

Andas nodded, not even looking up. "For the best, I believe. She is still a suspect, if an unlikely one, and in any case protective custody may be wise-"

"-actually, if you don't mind, I'll take charge of her."

What?

Sarethi, who'd inserted himself into the conversation as deftly as any master con-man, continued before anyone could get a word in edgewise. "I have some things to discuss with her." He gave me a searching look – I glared back, more out of reflex than anything else – and nodded to himself. "Over lunch, I should think."

"Now wait a minute-"

"Unless you have any particular objections to my ability to guard her?" Sarethi's eyes were very sharp as they rested on Algae-brain. "Or, perhaps, you do not trust my word?"

His voice was light, careless even, but all the same that question had 'trap' written all over it in letters so big even the rapidly paling Algae-brain could read them.

"None of us would dare doubt your honour, Councilor Sarethi," Andas intervened. "And as she is no longer a likely suspect, I am happy to release her into your custody."

"Very well," Sarethi said. "We'll be at the Flowers of Gold, should you have need of us."

Didn't I get a say in any of this?

I didn't bother asking, the answer was that obvious.



Notes: Watch me flail about trying to write cops... let me know if it's too desperately unrealistic, especially the unprofessional sniping in front of the suspect. (It's actually been toned down; version 1 had a full-blown argument along with Adryn despairing for the future of her race, but I decided the Ordinators were a bit more competent than that.)

I also don't know if Nedeni will make much more of an appearance, but I admit she's quite conquered my heart as a member of CSI: Vivec, using groundbreaking new techniques in magical analysis to check over crime scenes against the skepticism of her more traditional colleagues. The tension between Algae-brai- *cough* Suryn and the others is a manifestation of that. Who knows, maybe one day she'll get a short-story spin-off.

And of course she re-appears just when I'm travelling back to the UK for a visit, and have no internet.

So I just read the last two - which is good, as it's really one long scene - and I agree with the CSI:Vivec characterisation. "Can you just zoom in in that Mystic residue and enhance?"

---

So where are you now? "Back in Germany" is a bit vague, and I'm wondering if it's anywhere I've visited.

@ghastley - I'm sure Nedeni is working on a spell to do just that!

Re: Germany - I'm currently in Potsdam, which is the capital of Brandenburg and just outside Berlin. In fact, you could say I'm basically as close to living in Berlin as you can be without actually living in Berlin... It's a really interesting place, with lots of lakes and also cool history - it was the seat of the Prussian kings/emperors and therefore has more castles and palaces than any city could possibly need, and played an important role during the Cold War since it borders former *west* Berlin. The Glienicke bridge aka bridge of spies is in Potsdam.

I'm also spending a lot of time in Göttingen, since my parents still live there and I'm really enjoying being able to visit them a lot more easily than before. Göttingen is where I'd say I'm from, although that's complicated by the fact that my parents moved around a lot when I was a kid.

Curious as to whether you've been to either of the two! They're not places you'd commonly visit, I think, and it sounds like you lived in Germany before the Wall fell so Potsdam would have been difficult.

Anyway. BACK TO ADRYN. Bit of a longer installment this time, and still an awkward end - the next scene is super long and doesn't split well.

Last installment, Adryn got semi-rescued by Athyn Sarethi. Team CSI: Vivec has now listened to her story and is searching out the actual murderer, while Athyn dragged her to lunch. Let's see how this is going.



I stared at my bowl.

It had become quickly apparent that I and House-Father Athyn Sarethi, highly honoured member of the High Council of House Redoran, had very different ideas of what constituted an acceptable lunch. I'd been prepared to get something to go off a street vendor, the same as I'd done last time I was in Vivec. I'd even been ready to upgrade to a tavern or one of the cheaper eateries if necessary. Sarethi senior, on the other hand, made a beeline straight for what my trained eyes made out to be the most expensive restaurant in the Foreign Canton, all protests, swearing, and expressed worry that I might be struck by lightning on setting foot over the doorstep on my part in vain.

I nudged the bowl. Its contents rippled innocently. To my eyes, said contents looked like soup (done up fancy with toasted bread cubes and sage, true, but still soup), and the side that had come with it like sliced bread. It was in fact, or so the disgruntled server had informed me, a velouté of bolete and caramelised échalottes, accompanied by genuine Iliac ficelle. The information had left me feeling very uncertain of what, exactly, I was about to eat, but relatively confident I'd just tripled my Bretic vocabulary in one go.

"It's not going to bite."

Startled, I glanced up. On the other side of the table, Athyn Sarethi was watching me with every evidence of amusement.

"In fact," he continued, "I believe the idea is that it's the other way around."

"Very funny," I grumbled and took a spoonful of the too-fancy-to-be-soup.

It tasted...

One of the professional traits of the alchemist is a very finely-honed sense of taste. Some days, that proved an active disadvantage. (Every day I'd ever spent in prison, among others.) Today was not one of them.

The earthy taste of what I judged to be some sort of unfamiliar mushroom was perfectly accentuated by a hint of sweetness. The soup was incredibly smooth and creamy, with not a lump to be found. I'd spent hours with my mortar and pestle without getting nearly as fine a texture – I was tempted to rush into the kitchen and beg the chef for his secrets. After swallowing, the taste faded to be replaced by...

Just as a finely-honed sense of taste is a necessary skill for an alchemist, one specifically for alcohol can be a useful one for a thief, even a thief who'd rather down an experimental brew than a glass of wine. After all, it can be very handy to know if a dusty bottle rescued from a cellar can be sold on to a collector or is only suitable for scouring a pot, or – failing that – Saturnalia. Apparently, the cook and I had rather different opinions on the matter of Cyrodiilic brandy. I, personally, would have sought out a suitable trader with the warm fuzzy feeling of knowing I could expect at least a septim for my prize. Judging by the aftertaste now lingering on my tongue, they however thought it belonged in soup.

Said soup was probably the most delicious thing I'd ever eaten, but that amounted to not quite delicious enough to get rid of the nagging feeling that I was currently consuming something that cost more money than we'd used to spend on food for the entire week. Then again, I didn't think anything could have been.

Sarethi ate a spoonful of his own soup with every evidence of enjoyment. "Fedura has outdone herself this time. I will have to make certain to send my compliments to the kitchen."

"...right." I stopped myself from elaborating by crunching down on a crisped sage leaf. It tasted divine, and whatever thoughts might currently be going through my head about the sort of people who not only went to the fanciest restaurant in town but knew the chef by name were better kept to myself.

Sarethi pinned me with a long, searching look. I had the horrible feeling that said thoughts were not nearly as secret as I'd hoped to keep them. I was almost ready to preemptively apologise when he shook his head. I glanced down, happy to break eye contact. I'd never realised how disconcerting it was to be stared at by a pair of red eyes – I suddenly found myself with a smidgen more sympathy for the people back in Skyrim who'd had a hard time meeting my own.

My gaze fell on the heavy metal bracer clamped around my wrist, making me uncomfortably aware of the drain at my empty magicka pool. Although the Ordinators had done me the favour of unbinding my hands, they hadn't been kind enough to unlock the bracer, or for that matter offer an alternative to my rough prison clothes – I honestly had to marvel at the fact that the bouncer had even let me in. That thought led my mind to a matter that was admittedly far more urgent than Sarethi's patronage of a place where I had neither enough money nor lineage to get in as a dishwasher.

"Um. Could you be honest with me about something?"

Sarethi put his spoon down. "I wouldn't dream of being anything else."

He was really pushing this true and honourable image for all it was worth. Well, I supposed Varvur had to get it from somewhere.

"What do you think my chance is of walking away from this mess?" I gestured at my clothing to indicate my current status. It was a very careful motion; I was relatively sure that spilling even a drop of the soup must qualify as a capital crime, and I was in more than enough trouble in that regard already.

"Ah, you're still worried. Not particularly surprising, I suppose." Sarethi's voice dropped, becoming quiet and intense. "It's really not necessary. I know Elam Andas fairly well, and he's a true bloodhound when it comes to criminals. He'd never brook an innocent being imprisoned. And he's well on the scent right now. With the information you gave them, I wouldn't be surprised if they have the culprit under lock and key before we finish lunch."

He smiled at me reassuringly. My smile back was significantly more wobbly. Needless to say, this was not how my past experiences with law enforcement had gone. Not even when I was in fact innocent. No, in my experience guards tend to be satisfied as long as they have someone to arrest for a crime. Questions like "are they actually guilty?" are viewed as unimportant hairsplitting – and, in Skyrim, certainly a concern secondary to being able to pin the crime on a suspicious foreigner like a Dark Elf instead of one of their own countrymen.

What if-

"In any case, there's nothing more you can do about it now," Sarethi interrupted my fretting. "Now that we've cleared that up, why don't you eat your soup? It would be a real shame to let it go cold."

Truer words were never spoken.

We ate in silence that may have been comfortable on Sarethi senior's part, but certainly wasn't on mine. Although I had to admit that the food helped.

I'd hardly finished with the soup when the waiter brought the next course – Hammerfell-influenced, this time, so easier to recognise thanks to Charon's culinary experiments... although Charon would probably have sold his soul to the Daedra to be able to cook this well. Or with some of these ingredients. (Seriously, saffron?) At that point, I'd decided that the likely price of the food simply made it all the more important that it not go to waste and turned to the tagine with its side of harcha with gusto.

Eventually, the plates were cleared away and replaced by small cups of steaming dark liquid. Anywhere else, I'd have assumed tea or coffee, but I suspected that would be far too ordinary for this place. Sarethi senior took a sip, then put the cup down with a clink. "So."

"So?" I asked warily.

"So, Varvur told me what you did for him." A pause, then, "Words cannot express how truly grateful I am."

Embarrassed by the intensity in his voice, I stared down at my own drink. "It was..."

Nothing, I almost said, except that given the amount of trouble helping Varvur had got me into that would be such a colossal lie I didn't think I'd be able to say it with a straight face.

Instead, I changed the subject. "Well, I also have to thank you for helping me today." After a moment, I added, "...sir."

This addition was of course a matter of pure calculation, as I was certainly not intimidated in any way at all.

"Oh, call me Athyn," the most noble and honourable Councilor of House Redoran replied. And yes, that wasn't going to be happening. "And it was nothing." His dismissive wave indicated that he, at least, was being honest. "You were innocent, it was my duty. And Elam Andas would always have gotten involved eventually, and he'd have brought out the truth of things. I just... hastened matters a little."

Spoken like someone who'd never truly been on the wrong end of law enforcement, I thought, hiding the grimace on my face behind by taking a sip from my drink.

As expected, it wasn't coffee. Instead, it was a rich, sweet, decadently creamy liquid with a spicy aftertaste that left tingles on my tongue. At a guess, I would say that I was drinking xocolatl – and it had to be a guess because the price of the Black Marsh delicacy meant trying it had always been well outside my means.

"...without your help," Sarethi was saying, "I honestly don't know what would have happened to Varvur. And from what he's said, you went to some trouble to clear his name."

"It's been cleared, then?" I asked. "I mean, I'd hoped the evidence we put together would be enough, but I haven't exactly been able to keep abreast of the news in the last few days."

"It has," Sarethi confirmed. "Disciple Dileno Lloran gave an affidavit that in her expert experience, he wasn't in control of his actions at the time due to malevolent influence exerted by a malignant item. A squad from the Temple retrieved it from my home – we're still shut out of the living quarters. I'd be annoyed at the inconvenience, but one has to think on the alternatives... at any rate, at that point even the Archmaster couldn't argue against Varvur. He was declared innocent of all wrong-doing in the death of Bralen Carvaren two days ago."

"Good," I said, meaning it. Much as I disliked Varvur, no one deserved what had happened to him. At least he'd be able to go back to his life now.

Even if, as I knew all too bitterly, he'd probably be willing to give it all up in a heartbeat if it would return his friend to him.

"And I doubt it would have happened without you." Sarethi paused for a moment, then said, "Clan Sarethi owes you a debt, Adryn of no clan."

There was an odd weight to the words, and as he spoke he raised his hands so his index fingers framed his eyes. The gesture combined with the words seemed... formal, ritualistic almost. I'd hoped to be repaid for my actions in good, solid coin and then left to go my own way, but in that moment I began to suspect Sarethi was not going to let this whole thing go so easily.

Honourable types can be very difficult like that – all 'money cannot possibly be repayment enough', when anyone who has ever been poor will tell you that a large enough amount of money can be suitable repayment for any number of things, when it's really flagrantly obvious that you're at such different places in life that any closer involvement between you is likely to end very badly. But no. Instead of a sack of drakes (or a sack of xocolatl, which I might from now on be willing to accept as alternative payment), they offer something entirely unsuitable, like...

"As such," Sarethi said, "I'd like you to know that it would be my honour to sponsor you as a new member of House Redoran."

...like that.

"I don't think I understand." More accurately, I was really, really hoping I hadn't understood.

"For us natives, we are born into our House. However, it is also possible for outlanders to be adopted into one, if they are considered worthy. There are five Great Houses in total, three of them present on Vvardenfell. There is Hlaalu – merchants and traders, who have power around the Ascadian Isles, the Bitter Coast and southern West Gash. Balmora is a Hlaalu town. Then Telvanni, in the eastern part of the island, the Grazelands and Azura's Coast. They value magical ability and power. Finally, my own Redoran, present in the northern West Gash and the Ashlands. We're..."

"...warriors," I broke in, remembering Varvur's words with growing incredulity. "Concerned with honour and justice and fair fights and- you want me to join? You have got to be joking!" I noticed a woman at a neighbouring table turn her head our way and remembered to keep my voice down. "Varvur must have told you that I'm a-" I mentally rifled through the many, many things Varvur had called me for something suitably off-putting, "a dishonourable coward-"

"Varvur did have some complaints along those lines, yes," Sarethi said, not visibly ruffled despite my rather hostile reaction. "However, I prefer to make up my own mind."

"Well, I'm confirming his stories now. I'm selfish, I'm an unrepentant criminal, and I think the whole obsession with honour you lot seem to have going is an illness of the mind. Sheogorath probably has something to do with it," I snapped.

"Really." Still appearing entirely calm, despite the fact that this complaint had managed to get Varvur so fired up he'd lost the ability to speak and had resorted to indistinct angry noises. What did it take to rile the man? "Well then. If you're such a hardened, cynical sort, you're right – you wouldn't fit in well with House Redoran at all. However, in that case I'm sure you'll be able to explain some things to me."

"Go ahead." I leaned back and crossed my arms, feeling rather nettled. The sooner I managed to talk the man out of this absolutely terrible idea, the better.

A slight smile appeared on Sarethi's face. I had the sudden, horrible feeling I'd wandered into a trap.



Notes: Writing about food is hard. Eesh.

The High Rock dish was made a little more foreign by gratuitous French - bolete = porcini mushrooms, échalotte = shallot. Ficelle is sort of like a thinner baguette, at least according to the internet. Adryn did grow up in High Rock, but with her orphanage past I highly, highly doubt she got to experience its haute cuisine, hence not recognising any of this. I've used Moroccan cuisine for Hammerfell food before and am doing so here. Finally, xocolatl is - obviously - chocolate, apparently a lot harder to come by in Tamriel than here.

Next time I'm stealing dishes from ESO...

Last installment, Adryn had lunch with Athyn Sarethi. Athyn offered to sponsor Adryn as a new member of House Redoran. Adryn claimed she was in no way, shape or form suitable Redoran material, is wholly cold and selfish and spits on the notions of honour and altruism. Athyn... would like to ask her some questions about that.





"Something Varvur was rather unclear on, I have to admit, was why you chose to help him in the first place. You could have left him in the cell in Venim's manor, or failing that entered Ald'ruhn with your other companions. But you chose to get involved on his behalf, putting yourself at no little risk to do so. Varvur said you denied doing it for the prospect of a reward, but claimed yourself moved by his plight. Now, I make no great claim to wisdom and insight, but to me that sounds almost... honourable. Perhaps you can shed some light?"

Blood on my hands-

"Momentary insanity," I said stiffly, pushing the memories away.

"Mmm. Of course." Why was the man still smiling? "There's also the matter of this." His hand slipped into his robe and came out holding a very familiar-looking glass dagger. "My nephew's most treasured possession – losing it has driven him almost to distraction. You have no idea how relieved he'll be when I give it back to him. You returned it to our family unprompted, without even asking a finder's fee. Why?"

Really, why hadn't I asked a finder's fee? Too rattled by the nightmarish scene in Hanarai's house, not thinking straight. As for why I'd returned it...

"Varvur mentioned where it was from, and hanging on to a stolen gift from a god seemed like an all-around bad idea. At that point I figured I might as well give it back." A perfectly rational course of action, as far as I was concerned. Altruism certainly had nothing to do with it.

"Interesting. I would've imagined a hardened criminal like yourself might instead have sold it on and left the buyer to deal with any retribution. Clearly I don't properly understand the mindset."

I ground my teeth. So I'd overlooked a course of action. It happened!

Also... that was sarcasm, if I was any judge. How was this fair? How could the universe permit it that a man who'd spawned Varvur, of all people, was using sarcasm against me?

Sarethi sipped his drink, closing his eyes in clear appreciation. Any hope that he'd been effectively distracted from the current topic was thoroughly destroyed when he put the cup down and went on. "Now, as it so happens I also had a nice long talk with young Armiger Romandas. A real credit to her clan, that one. And I must say, she had some quite interesting things to say about how you met." A pause. "Did you really attempt to rescue a traveller from a kagouti?"

Silently, I cursed Ervesa, who clearly had never before heard of the word discretion.

"Rescue isn't the word I'd have used," I defended myself, "especially since no one had told me kagouti were going to be involved. Believe me, if I'd known, I'd have happily left the man to his fate. All his friend asked me to do was look for him – hardly a great task." I remembered the amulet. "Besides, there was a reward!"

"Which, according to Armiger Romandas, you didn't know about until she gave it to you. She said it sounded like you volunteered to help out of... what was it... 'the goodness of your heart.'" Sarethi stared at me, eyebrows raised.

"It wasn't like that at all! He just..."

I cast my mind back to the Bosmer who'd asked me to look for his friend. As I remembered, there'd been actual tears involved.

"He... just... looked so pathetic that I offered to help out of sheer embarrassment for him."

Very convincing, Adryn.

"Really." Sarethi's eyebrows hadn't lowered at all, and the corner of his mouth was twitching. I suspected he was fighting laughter, which frankly was at least as unfair as his being capable of sarcasm. "I suppose the same was true for the pilgrim you guided to Lake Amaya, then?"

"I was going that way anyway! And she-"

I cut myself off, all too aware I was just digging myself in deeper. Took a deep breath.

"Look," I said when I felt reasonably calm again. "I see how you might have... misunderstood. But these are exceptional situations! I assure you that on a day-to-day basis, I'm entirely selfish and cold-hearted. I don't go around helping people or anything-"

"Ah! There is the smooth-skin, where has it been? Miun-Gei has been looking for it!"

Both of us looked up at the interruption. While we'd been engaged in conversation, an Argonian had approached our table... a familiar Argonian.

"Er-"

"Miun-Gei owes you thanks, so many thanks!"

Yes, Miun-Gei had been the name, the enchanter to whom I'd tried to sell my amulet (and thank Stendarr I hadn't in the end!), the one who'd been suffering from an outbreak of loiterers with bardic pretensions. He certainly seemed a great deal happier than the last time I'd seen him.

"Not long after it visited, men came to speak to the buffoon," Miun-Gei was saying now. "Said she had been recommended for participation in Crassius Curio's acting troupe, that a passing Dunmer had given them his name. The buffoon left and has not been back, Miun-Gei's shop is quiet again, Miun-Gei can do business again!"

"Wha-"

Before I could get the word out, Miun-Gei had distracted me by grabbing my hand and shaking it firmly. "You have no idea how grateful he is, what sort of drastic measures it was contemplating before you came to assist. The smooth-skin must come to its shop soon, soon! Miun-Gei has a gift for her, and from now on he will only be given the very best prices."

And then the Argonian was gone.

I buried my face in my hands. Sadly, that didn't in any way help drown out the sound of the honoured Councilor of Great House Redoran collapsing into laughter across from me.

"It's not funny," I hissed, but that only made him laugh harder.

It took Sarethi what was in my opinion a truly unnecessarily long time to get his laughter under control, but eventually he managed. "So. You were telling me about how you don't go around helping people?"

"That- I don't..."

I trailed off, unable to find a way to finish the sentence.

I was really out of excuses, wasn't I.

I swallowed, facing my utter defeat. "I... may be suffering from an unfortunate case of altruism." The words came with a great deal of reluctance. "I've tried to keep it in check, I really have, but I'm still prone to outbreaks if I don't pay attention. It's really rather shameful. I don't like to talk about it."

And that right there was a great deal more honest than I'd have liked to be with a near-stranger, damn Sarethi for driving me to this point.

"I think that has to be the most interesting way I've ever heard a strong sense of empathy described." Sarethi had finally managed to collect himself, but there was still amusement in his voice. It vanished as he continued. "I'd be quite grateful if, one day, you told me who exactly taught you that kindness is a weakness. I think we would have... a great many things to discuss."

The smile that graced Sarethi's lips now had no trace of mirth in it. I let my gaze fall to the table, feeling raw and exposed.

"Another day, perhaps," Sarethi said after a few moments of silence. "For now... I believe you were telling me about how your selfish, dishonourable nature made you unsuitable for House Redoran?"

Mockery, now. I was almost starting to think this was some form of twisted revenge of his on Varvur's part.

"So I may have exaggerated a little. But..."

I gathered myself. Even with my unfortunate affliction taken into account, Sarethi's proposal was still a terrible idea. I could at least argue that, couldn't I?

"Are you seriously telling me that I'd be respected, in House Redoran? I've heard Varvur talk about the place, you can't tell me that the ideal isn't the, you know," I waved a hand in the air vaguely, "serious honest warrior type. You may think I have honour," an idea that still made me cringe, "but do you really think they would?"

"Perhaps they wouldn't. But they should. Honour comes in more forms than the obvious, after all, and it's a true failure of the House that so few of its members recognise that." Sarethi's voice was passionate, earnest... this was a subject very dear to his heart, it seemed.

Something clicked. In my head, everything the man had said in the course of this conversation, everything he'd implied, slid into a whole new arrangement.

"Oh." My voice was flat. I didn't like the picture before me. "You're planning to use me to further your agenda. Sponsor the outlander alchemist who couldn't defeat a blind elderly mudcrab in fair combat into the house, declare you think she's just as worthy as the warriors... nice idea. I have to say, though, that being the outlander in question doesn't sound like much of a reward."

Sarethi's eyebrows drew together, and he sat back abruptly. "That's not-"

He stopped, a scowl still on his face.

...yes, it looked like I'd managed to offend the other very important Redoran noble I'd met as well. Great going, Adryn. Calling him out had not been the smartest thing I'd ever done, even if I could point to truly extreme provocation in my defense.

"That is not why I am offering, and I have no intention of throwing you to the nix-hounds." Sarethi's expression had cleared, but I could tell he was still not happy. "Yes, I believe House Redoran would benefit from your presence... but I believe you'd benefit from House Redoran even more, and I would not make this offer if I didn't believe that."

I suspected my skepticism could be felt by people on the mainland.

Sarethi sighed. "Look- Adryn. I don't want to force you into this. Take all the time you need to think about it, to research House Redoran and what joining us would mean. The offer will remain open. And." He took a deep breath. "If you ever, ever find yourself needing help... please come to Sarethi manor under Skar."

His eyes were intense, and I found myself avoiding his gaze.

There was still a little xocolatl left in my cup. It would be a true shame to leave so much as a drop.

"Serjo?" An infinitesimal pause. "Muthsera?"

Both of us blinked up at the waiter, who'd appeared next to our table without sound. I'd have told him that there was a fantastic career in the Thieves Guild waiting for him, but I suspected he'd take it the wrong way.

Besides, I found myself not quite in the mood to give career advice due to being a little annoyed at the interruption. By which I meant, at the fact that the interruption hadn't come five minutes earlier.

"There is an Ordinator asking for you." The man's voice conveyed the fact that he was certain that such a call could not possibly be in connection with anything we had done wrong, as we were far too well-bred for such. Well, Sarethi was – the waiter was significantly less certain about myself, but was of course far too polite to imply such.

It was a pretty masterful use of intonation, I had to admit. Perhaps he would be best suited for the stage, instead.

"Shall I ask her to wait?"

"No," Sarethi said. "We've finished here – we'll go out to meet her."

On our way out, I couldn't help but notice that the waiter made no mention of payment. Another sign of the different worlds we came from – I couldn't even imagine dining a place where it was simply trusted I'd pay the bill eventually.

And this man wanted to sponsor me into Redoran? He had no idea what he was dealing with. It'd serve him right if I took up his invitation and robbed the place blind-

My internal grumbling was interrupted by the sight of the Ordinator girl with palsy from earlier waiting for us outside. Nedeni, she'd been called.

"House-Father Sarethi." She bowed to the man – an affair that looked rather dangerous and prone to toppling – then turned to me. "Muthsera Adryn. The Temple deeply apologises for the inconvenience. If there is anything we can do about any damage caused by our false assumptions-"

There was more she said, but I couldn't hear it over the roaring in my ears.

It had worked.

I was free.



Notes: My own alternate mental title for this scene is "In which Athyn Sarethi calls Adryn on her BS", and I have been looking forward to posting it for AGES.

Also, wish me luck in keeping a regular posting schedule for a while! I actually have a pretty big backlog built up, am finally managing to write regularly, *and* think I've finally worked out a way around a serious problem I was facing in the coming plot that was a major blocker, even though it sadly requires me to give up a plot-line I'd been planning on since I started writing this. (And means I'm now on my third attempt at an upcoming chapter. :/)

Oh Kaz! This was simply brilliant. Athyn has always been one of my favorite characters in the game, and you bring such life and depth to him. And watching Adryn try to spar with him over her... involuntary tendency toward empathy... pure gold.

I really liked this "I only help people by accident" theme. Or is it really "I only do anything by accident"?

It's all a lot more credible than the game's "only you can do this for me" attitude, which pervades all the series. Skyrim took the cake. You're not only Dragonborn (which is rather special) but the Last Dragonborn, (even specialer). ESO was a refreshing change, except for the "soulless is a temporary benefit in some situations" thing.

Of course, Adryn is different, with the potential for special, but that's different. Or something.

@treydog - I'm really glad you approve of what I did with Athyn! He's also one of my favourite characters, and I've loved your version of him.

@ghastley - I'm very glad that's coming across! There's a few reasons why I started writing SitC but one of them was that I wanted to blur the boundaries between PC and NPC (especially giving the NPCs much more agency) because the whole "you are the only person who can do anything" thing bugged me. One of the fun things about Adryn is that because she's not an adventurer type at all, I really have to think about what quests it makes sense for her to take on (both in terms of "why would someone even offer this quest to her?" and "why would she accept?") and they often end up with heavy NPC involvement. I really want to have Adryn give the impression that she is a person who's living in a world filled with other people, all of whom have their own plans, goals, and interests, instead of Adryn being the lone protagonist in a world full of NPCs.

ANYWAY. I will refrain from going on even more of a rant about my novelisation writing philosophy, and instead continue with...

Last installment, Adryn had lunch with Athyn Sarethi. This involved a nice demolition of all Adryn's justifications, lies and mental defenses to expose her squishy altruistic core. Athyn was deeply amused. Adryn was... not. At the end of it (perhaps the universe trying to make up for putting her through that, Adryn thinks) Adryn learned that she'd been cleared of suspicion regarding the murder of an Ordinator. Let's see what she does now that she's free again.



Back in Balmora, I dodged Teleportation Girl's questions and fled to the washing alcove. Some time later, I emerged looking, if I did say so myself, significantly less bedraggled.

I'd honestly wanted to march straight to the Mages' Guild the instant the prison bracer had come off my arm, but the Ordinator girl and Varvur's father had insisted I wait for her to get my belongings from the Hall of Justice. I wasn't surprised to find the clothes I'd been wearing that fateful Middas were a loss. I was surprised to find that someone had clearly felt guilty about this, because they'd been replaced by a pair of firm-soled ankle boots, a matched shirt and leggings of some soft brown hide along with a blue wool robe with bronze stitching on the border. I suspected Ervesa's influence. Wearing the new clothes, with the grime of prison scrubbed thoroughly from my skin, I felt like a whole new person.

More importantly, although my clothes hadn't survived, a certain piece of jewellery had. The Slowfall amulet hung heavy from my neck, and it was truly amazing how much better I felt with it on me. Some people might call it an irrational attachment, I called it never quite knowing when you and gravity are going to find yourselves distinctly at odds.

Thus armoured, I left the building. After days in that cell, I couldn't imagine voluntarily staying underground right now.

At first, I wandered aimlessly, simply revelling in the sun on my face and the sight of open skies. Eventually, though, my feet stopped itching and started hurting. The boots were a little narrow for me – I'd have to see if they could be altered or traded.

I looked around.

I was on the west side of the river, opposite from the guild and the Eight Plates, the same side as the South Wall Cornerclub – although I'd made sure to stay far away from the place. I was really full up on trouble, there was no point in inviting more.

No, this was the southern part of Balmora, near where Cosades lived. Cosades, and...

In fact, wasn't that Ajira's house right there?

My feet took me up to the roof without bothering to consult my brain. I'd missed friendly faces, over the last few days. Missed people who didn't look at me as if I were scum or an interesting puzzle, missed those who took me as I was instead of trying to slot me into the role of murderer, general criminal, incompetent eyewitness, or (even more bizarre than the previous) aspiring member of House Redoran.

I'd missed my friend.

The door creaked open after my third knock.

"Ajira! It's good to see you, I wanted to let you know that I'm back-" I suddenly remembered that Ajira had Ma'Zajirr on weekends. "-um, if this is a bad time, just let me know-"

I was interrupted by virtue of Ajira yanking me inside.

A few moments later, I was seated in a chair in the tiny dining area. Ma'Zajirr was nowhere to be seen, although the mess spreading across one corner of the room spoke to his presence. Out with friends again?

Ajira confirmed this, then started on me.

"Ajira is so glad friend Adryn is all right! She was so worried – Armiger Romandas said that her friend was in Vivec as she had been arrested for- for murder. Of all the things!" The look my friend shot me made it clear she'd found this extremely unlikely and had been rather dubious of Ervesa's story.

I winced. "That... did in fact happen, yes. But!" I said hastily, seeing Ajira's horrified expression, "it was all a terrible misunderstanding. Mistaken identity, you understand. They apologised to me after we managed to clear it up and uncover the real culprit." My cheer fell slightly at that thought.

Apparently, so Nedeni had told Sarethi and me, the intrepid Ordinator detectives had managed to track the murderer to the sewers of Vivec canton – an act I had to admit I was very grateful not to have been involved in for more reasons than one. There, the knowledge that she had a Destruction-enchanted weapon allowed them to use focused Detection spells to home in on her. Nedeni had fairly glowed with enthusiasm when relating this part – rightly so, since it sounded like a revolutionary use of the spell family. I'd almost probed for details until I remembered with some level of bitterness that my newly discovered learning disability almost certainly left me unable to even comprehend, much less use, the magic involved.

They'd found the woman in a location Nedeni had been not nearly so enthusiastic about describing... no wonder, as the few details she let slip reminded me horribly of Hanarai's cellar. The instant she'd seen the Ordinators, she'd attacked. All attempts at talking her down had been useless, Nedeni had said in a sombre tone, and when she managed to knock out Andas with the dagger it became clear it was too dangerous to continue trying. The woman had been killed in the resulting fight.

Nedeni had seemed satisfied with that conclusion, and no doubt Algae-Brain would be ecstatic at having gotten justice for his friend. The whole thing left me feeling rather disturbed, however. From the details Nedeni let slip, it certainly sounded like the woman might have been under the influence of one of those statues. Not responsible for her actions, but killed for them all the same.

It could have been Varvur, in her place. It could have been me.

I wondered who the woman had been, before she ran afoul of the ash statue. What had she been doing? What had she dreamed of, before her mind was stripped from her? Did she have any family or friends... any who might be looking for her even now? Nedeni had seemed doubtful they'd be able to identify her. Those people would never know what had happened.

What had been her name?

A strong sense of empathy, as Sarethi called it, was a terrible affliction indeed.

Ajira, of course, had no idea of the dark details hidden behind my story. "-very good the evil-doer was caught, friend Adryn," she was saying. "Ajira shudders to think what might have happened!" She shook her head. "It is hard to believe that they truly believed you did it. Of all the people..."

"I know, I didn't think I made a particularly convincing murder suspect either!" Now that everything had been resolved and I was starting to gain a little more distance from the situation, I could see the absurdity in it. "It was a matter of unfortunate timing more than anything else, really."

Ajira flicked her claws, as to dismiss the whole thing. "Well, it is thankfully over now. And..." She shot me a glance. "When Armiger Romandas informed her of what had happened, Ajira did not believe it, yes? But she also thought that, regardless of whether it was true, friend Adryn would not like such a thing spread around the guild. So..." she shrugged. "Ajira made it known that friend Adryn had been called away by sudden business, urgent business. She did not go into detail. Was... was that all right?"

For some reason, Ajira was looking uncertain. On my part, I was fighting down the strong urge to hug her.

"Thank you so much, Ajira, you're a star," I said instead, and the sincerity was so evident in my voice it was almost embarrassing. "Really, I don't know how I can repay you."

I couldn't deny I'd had some qualms about returning to the guild with everyone knowing I'd been in prison on charges of murder only that morning. The fact that Ajira had apparently made certain that news travelled no farther than herself was a massive relief.

"Oh, it was nothing," Ajira said, her ears twitching back and forth as she avoided my eyes. If she'd been human or a mer, she'd probably be blushing right about now. "In fact, Ajira is not certain she did her friend a favour – the guildmistress was most put out about her absence."

Of course. Ranis Athrys certainly wouldn't be particularly happy with me if she'd thought I'd just run off straight after my promotion. Still, I'd much rather deal with an angry guildmistress than the whole guild knowing about my recent flirtation with the chopping block.

I told Ajira so, and reiterated my thanks. It only seemed to make her more embarrassed.

"Did Councillor Sarethi speak with friend Adryn, Ajira wonders? He told her he was planning on it."

I allowed my friend the change of subject, particularly since I was interested in this myself.

"He did. He offered to sponsor me in House Redoran..." I raised an eyebrow as Ajira nodded to herself, as though I'd confirmed a suspicion of hers. "You, too?"

"Indeed. He said he felt Ajira had conducted herself with great honour throughout, especially as she had Ma'Zajirr to look after. What does friend Adryn think of the offer?"

I mentally translated: Was I planning on accepting?

"I think it's a terrible idea," I said frankly. "Me, in an organisation full of Varvurs? Someone would be bleeding by the end of the day, and I'd wager septims against drakes that it'd be me." I paused. "What about you?"

"Ajira is still considering. She... shares many of her friend's reservations. House Redoran is not known to be friendly to mages, and membership would not help her in the guild. And yet, it is an opportunity that may never come again. Especially," Ajira sighed, her ears drooping, "for Ma'Zajirr."

"Oh?"

"He dreams of becoming a warrior one day, or a battle-mage, or maybe even a Buoyant Armiger. Even moreso since meeting Varvur, Councillor Sarethi and Armiger Romandas. As things are, it is... unlikely. Ajira has no way of getting him training, equipment, supplies. All she can offer is an education as a pure mage. Perhaps one day, if she saves enough... but she is told that in warrior training, it is important to start early.

"In House Redoran, now... there is potential there. And Ma'Zajirr is not doing well, at the Cult school in Fort Moonmoth. Perhaps it would be better, in Redoran. But then again, they are not friendly to Khajiit, any of the Great Houses. What if it is even worse? A choice like this, it cannot be taken back."

Ajira looked wretched, and my heart went out to her.

"Sarethi said I should think it over, and that there wasn't a time limit on the offer," I told her. "I'm sure the same goes for you. And maybe you can investigate – figure out what it would be like, what sort of opportunities the both of you would have, without committing."

Ajira nodded. No doubt she'd been planning much the same herself.

"Well, these things may wait. For now..." she grinned, the worry vanishing. "It so happens that Ajira's suppliers procured a small amount of shalk resin for her. Would friend Adryn like to hear of her experiments?"

"You have to ask?" I pulled my chair closer, happily diverted. Who cared about murders, arrests, offers of adoption... there was alchemy to be discussed!

"Well, Ajira started by mixing the resin with water, then heating it to just below boiling..."

*****

It wasn't long after that that Ma'Zajirr returned. He made it clear that in terms of interest, I ranked far below Buoyant Armigers, Redoran nobles and similarly exciting people who had entered his life in the last week. Indeed, the only status I could lay claim to was "boring mage friend of Ajira", which apparently put me on roughly the same level as furniture.

Ajira was horrified, but the alchemy discussion had put me in a good mood and I found myself more amused than anything else. I left the two behind, opting to return to the guild and perhaps curl up in the living area with a cup of tea and a good book. In all honesty, at that point I rather felt I'd earned it.

Teleportation Girl greeted me with raised eyebrows and a sharp look. "Are you going to run off again, or are you planning to let me finish a sentence this time?"

I remembered the way I'd brushed her off on arrival, feeling slightly guilty. It had been rude.

"Sorry, I was in a bit of a hurry."

"Well, all right," Teleportation Girl grumbled. "I only wanted to let you know that a letter came in for you just now."

I took the sealed envelope she gave me with a raised eyebrow. Noting Teleportation Girl's curious look, I decided to remove myself to the kitchen area before opening it.

One thing I had to admit: the missive was truly excellent at its job. Some letters go on for paragraphs, even pages, in order to induce a proper sense of impending doom in their recipients. Some don't never manage it at all, using all their best verbiage and ominous handwriting but still only managing to instill a vague sense of puzzlement in the reader.

This letter, now – this letter scoffed at such amateurs and incompetents. This letter was a true expert, one who had achieved the pinnacle of its art. Younger messages must cluster around to learn from it. I could almost hear them oohing and aahing as the letter managed to reduce me to a puddle of dread with only the following:

Muthsera Adryn,

I'd like to discuss a matter related to the research materials you delivered to me last week. I await you at your earliest convenience.

Regards,

Caius Cosades

The true meaning was even shorter!

Worthless recruit,

I want to see you yesterday.

There went my relaxing afternoon spent enjoying my freedom.

I also curled up with a cup of tea and had a wonderful read. Sadly for my "accidental empathy," my reaction to the letter was quite different than Adryn's. I feel a sense of positive anticipation.

The time spent with Ajira was a beautiful interlude for us as well as for our poor, put-upon mage in training (and possible Redoran?- I know her feelings, but Athyn can be awfully persuasive).

Wonderful as always.

@treydog - thank you! I suspect your sense of "accidental empathy" is functioning much as mine, then (it's probably no surprise to anyone I find it hilarious to dump Adryn in these situations.) As for Redoran... you'll have to wait and see! I will agree Athyn can be very persuasive, and he certainly has no intention of giving up...

Last installment, Adryn returned triumphant from her trials in Vivec (involving mistaken identities and serial killers), and immediately went to tell Ajira all about them. She returned to the Mages' Guild to find a letter waiting for her: Caius Cosades, the person who recruited her into the Blades, wants to see her right now.

Let's see what his reaction is to Adryn's exploits.



"You know," Cosades said, pacing, "there's something I usually tell new recruits."

I watched in silence from where I huddled near the door. He hadn't offered me a chair, and I hadn't asked.

"Namely this. For the love of Talos, be inconspicuous. Don't do flashy things, don't make yourself known, don't draw attention. After all, how are you supposed to gather information for the Empire if all eyes are on you?"

If I tried hard enough, could I actually become one with this wall?

"Now, as it so happens," Cosades continued. "I didn't give you that advice. Figured you didn't need it. Figured you weren't the glory-hound type. Figured that, skittish as you were, you'd just try to disappear."

The man stopped pacing, looking directly at me for the first time since I'd come in. I flinched from his burning gaze. Alas, despite my heartfelt wishes the wall and I remained separate beings.

"Well, it seems I miscalculated just a smidgen on that front. Isn't that right?" A moment's pause. "I said, isn't that right, Novice Adryn?" he barked.

I flinched. "...um. Yes, sir." My voice was tiny.

Cosades rolled his eyes. "'Yes, sir', she mumbles, quiet as a mouse. I could almost think I misunderstood! Maybe this," he reached for a roll of parchment on the table, "is only my imagination. Ah... yes... let's see here...

"The recruit," he read out, "appears to have made a significant impression on Buoyant Armiger Romandas. After the events near Lake Amaya and in Suran, Romandas appears to be making an effort to stay in contact. Of note is the delivery of flowers and an enchanted amulet-"

Cosades broke off, glaring at me.

"The Buoyant Armigers are a very dangerous group. They're given a great deal of independence, they have a direct channel of communication to the very top of the Temple hierarchy, and unlike the Ordinators their leader likes to encourage a certain brand of... curiosity." Cosades made a face. Apparently in his eyes, curiosity was a mortal sin. "I advise all my junior agents to avoid them on principle. But here comes Novice Adryn! Three days on the island, and you have one of them sending you flowers."

Cosades' ceiling was really very interesting. If you squinted a little, those cracks almost formed a map of Skyrim.

"But, of course, that was only the warm-up." I heard parchment rustle as I stared up at Morthal in stain form. "Let's see here... recruit was travelling through the West Gash accompanied by Varvur Sarethi, son of Redoran Councillor Athyn Sarethi, after rescuing him from imprisonment by Redoran Archmaster Bolvyn Venim. I must admit, you're ambitious with your friends, but it pales next to your enemies. One week, and you've made a mortal enemy of the Archmaster of House Redoran! If you'd asked me, I wouldn't have said that was even possible."

"It was an accident!"

I clamped my mouth shut, but too late.

"Is that so, Novice Adryn?" Cosades' tone was glacial. "In that case, I never want to see what happens if you set out to offend someone on purpose."

A thump. Despite myself, my eyes left ceiling-Skyrim to return to Cosades, who'd hit the table with his first.

"My understanding is that since we last met you have managed to befriend a Buoyant Armiger, make Bolvyn Venim far angrier than is healthy, put Athyn Sarethi into your debt, uncover a dangerous conspiracy in Ald'ruhn, gain an open invitation to join House Redoran, and – oh yes – be arrested for the murder of an Ordinator and cleared of all charges. Apparently Elam Andas was very impressed with your helpfulness in the investigation, and believes you deserve a large part of the credit for them tracking down a serial killer."

Cosades' eyebrows would probably achieve flight if they went up any higher. I found myself deeply angry at the unfairness of the world. If there was any justice at all, the ground would have swallowed me up by now.

"Well? Does that about cover it? Have I missed anything? Did the leader of the Imperial Cult declare a blood feud? Did Archmagister Gothren offer to adopt you?"

...there had been that encounter with Crassius Curio, who I gathered was a noble of some rank in House Hlaalu. But Cosades didn't need to know about that, especially as I was mysteriously vague on the details.

"Well, then," Cosades said when I remained silent. "What's done is done, and it might still all work out to our benefit. For now, I have a task for you."

That was not what I'd been hoping to hear.

"It's a simple thing. Even you should be able to manage it without trouble." The dubious look Cosades gave me smarted. "I'd like you to go to Hasphat Antabolis – he's a member of the Fighter's Guild here in Balmora. Ask him what he knows about the Nerevarine Cult."

Nerevarine...

The word seemed to echo oddly, as though we were in a cavern instead of a tiny room. I frowned. Something was elusively familiar about that, something just out of reach...

"Are you listening to me, Novice Adryn?"

I jerked upright, losing track of my line of thought. "Yes, sir! Sorry, sir!"

"Right. As I was saying," Cosades growled at me, "ask Antabolis for notes, if you can. I'd rather not rely on your no doubt pitiful memory for information. Bring them straight back to me. Understood?"

"Got it. ...sir."

In all honesty, I'd much rather tell him where he could put his orders, but it was clear that no was not an option here. At least this sounded pretty straightforward. Ask this Hasphat Antabolis for notes about this cult, bring them back to Cosades. Surely not much could go wrong here?

"Hmm. All right. Oh, and Novice Adryn?"

Cosades sounded almost friendly. That had 'trap' written all over it. I gulped.

"I would be very, very grateful if you managed to do this without running afoul of any... oh... Hlaalu Councilors, high-ranking members of the Imperial Legion, or organised crime syndicates. I mean, considering how minor the task in question is, I wouldn't normally even contemplate those possibilities. But given your track record, I figured it's best to be explicit about these things."

While I was trying to come up with a retort to that, Cosades snapped, "Dismissed."

I, not to put too fine a word on it, fled.

*****

Teleportation Girl blinked at me as I stomped into the Mages' Guild common area.

"Well. You're certainly in a mood."

"Tell me," I asked her. "Do I look like an adventurer? A mercenary? A," I shuddered at the word, "hero?"

"...no. No, I can't say you do. What-"

"Do I look," I barrelled over her, "like someone who'd be interested in, or in fact remotely capable of, fetching something from a dangerous Dwemer ruin?"

Teleportation Girl's eyebrows drew together. "Definitely, absolutely not."

Nine be praised, there was sanity left in the world.

"Don't tell me. Someone asked you to do that?"

I'd opened my mouth and was ready to vent to a sympathetic ear when I remembered that Cosades was, in fact, secretly a member of a famous spy network (why) and my task for him was tied in with that same spy network (why) and he would no doubt be distinctly unhappy if I recounted the events of that afternoon to a random Mages' Guild member. It didn't take a genius to draw the connection between unhappiness on Cosades' part and significant pain on mine.

"Well..." I'd been too obvious to deny everything now. Time to come up with a better story.

"Yes. I was freelancing, you see," I said, remembering the excuse Cosades had given me when we first met. "Thought I'd run some errands for coin. But it was supposed to be a matter of just getting notes from the man! Nobody said anything about dangerous Dwemer ruins."

The last part, of course, being the full and complete truth. I still felt rather affronted at the way events had gone.

Cosades hadn't bothered mentioning that Antabolis would require a favour before he'd hand over his notes, and Antabolis certainly hadn't let sanity, sense and the evidence of his own damn eyes prevail when deciding on something suitable. Even my very loud and demonstrative dismay at the suggestion hadn't given him pause. No, Hasphat Antabolis would only hand over his notes in exchange for a genuine Dwemer puzzle box from the Dwemer ruin of Arkngthand. No substitutes accepted.

"I'd advise cutting down on the freelancing," Teleportation Girl said with a glance around. "No one minds it in Associates, but Apprentices are expected to be dedicated to the guild. Outside commitments tend to be frowned on."

Wonderful. As if my life hadn't been difficult enough already. "Well," I shrugged, "I wanted to make some money, and I don't seem to have any guild duties right now-"

"-because Ranis Athrys couldn't find you after the whole... thing..." Teleportation Girl decided to clarify that statement via vague gesturing, "on Middas. Galbedir's refusing to work with you again, you know? But I'm sure Ranis Athrys has something else in mind. She wasn't happy when you weren't around." Teleportation Girl's voice dropped. "Did that whole cleansing thing really take that long?"

Oh, right. She'd been around when Ervesa had dragged me off to Vivec, even if Ajira (Stendarr bless her) had kept subsequent events to herself.

"Not... exactly. I ended up tangled up in other things in Vivec. Assisting law enforcement, that sort of thing... anyway!" A subject change was definitely in order. "I'll think of something to say to our guildmistress. Although I'm not sure I want to know what she's thought of this time." I grimaced.

"It won't be alchemy, I guarantee you." Teleportation Girl sounded rather resigned. "But it's not likely to be trawling through a Dwemer ruin for some item! Edwinna Elbert's the one who'll send you off for that."

...Edwinna Elbert, who I'd planned to try to catch in a weak moment to see if she had room for another apprentice. After all, I'd thought, Dwemer research seemed interesting enough and perhaps another guildmistress's claim would save me from whatever Ranis Athrys had planned. From the sound of this, I'd be better off with the Balmoran guildmistress.

"Hey, Adryn?"

I blinked at Teleportation Girl, torn out of my thoughts. She looked almost... nervous?

"I wanted to ask you something. You see -"

She jerked, eyes sliding out of focus. "Ah, Ashpit take it- I've got passengers coming in from Vivec, a whole bunch. Another time?"

"Tomorrow morning, after breakfast?" I suggested, and was met with a nod from Teleportation Girl before she turned to head back to the teleportation dais.

I had to admit to some curiosity as to what she wanted to know, but this clearly wasn't the best time to discuss it. After all, Teleportation Girl had her duties to attend to. And me?

As I heard the familiar rush of a teleportation spell, I rescued Ruins of Kemel-Ze from the little cubbyhole where I was keeping my belongings and flipped to the place where Nordssen began to describe the animated guardians he'd encountered. It seemed I'd be getting my afternoon spent with some books after all, although it was sadly going to be much less relaxing than planned.

After all, in the all-too-near future I was going to have to retrieve a 'puzzle cube' from a dangerous Dwemer ruin, preferably without getting myself killed in the process. I figured some research was in order.

That sums up most of TES (and ESO). When you get a friendly request to do something simple, run the other way as fast as you can! Especially if it's a job, for which only you are suited.

@ghastley - I think you've found the most accurate summary of Adryn's life on Vvardenfell to date...!

Last chapter, Adryn got cleared of suspicion regarding the murder of Ordinator Suryn Athones with the help of Athyn Sarethi, who immediately capitalised on his actions via both inviting her to join House Redoran and then forcing her to admit to a less selfish nature than Adryn is really comfortable with. She fled to Balmora, where she promptly got dragged into a new task: Caius Cosades would like some notes, and for some reason this now involves getting a Dwemer artifact from a ruin. Adryn is not happy.

Also, for some reason the subject of said notes - the so-called "Nerevarine" - seemed oddly familiar to Adryn when she heard it. Surely only a coincidence...



-draw the lines like this, make sure to balance out the nzamchend, then feed the power into the bthuri-

Two claps from outside interrupted my concentration. In my hands magicka sparked, then faded to nothing as my focus broke.

I frowned. For a moment there, I'd swear it had been working-

Well, no matter now. I had a guest to take care of.

"Come in!" I called, dropping the crystal I'd been probing as I looked up. I blinked in surprise when I noticed the light streaming in the open air-flaps had the distinctive reddish tinge of evening. How long had I been sitting here?

Voryn ducked into the entrance of the yurt. My eyebrows rose further at this most unexpected guest – I'd thought Voryn in Dagoth lands in the north of the island, days away.

"My apologies for dropping by unannounced, Nerevar," Voryn said. "We were in the area and thought we'd visit."

My friend was still stooped half-crouched in the open entrance. He looked distinctly ridiculous. I waved at the seat-cushion opposite me impatiently, then remembered that Voryn could be something of a stickler for propriety.

"Clan Indoril welcomes you, Voryn of Clan Dagoth, you may eat freely from our herds and drink freely from our winter stores in honour of our friendship- sit down, will you? You're too tall as it is, you're going to give me a crick in my neck if I have to keep staring up at you."

Voryn's lips quirked in a smile as he settled himself on the cushion I'd indicated. "I honour the welcome you give me, Nerevar of Clan Indoril. May there be friendship between our people forever more."

There. The formalities had been observed. Although-

Old lessons our Wise Woman had tried to thump into my head when I was young reared their head.

"May I offer you anything to eat or drink?" I offered, then looked between us. The low table in the center of the yurt was covered in parchment, one of the precious books Dumac had given me when we last met lying open on one side, the crystal I'd been experimenting with on the other. "Er- let me just tidy that up-"

"It's quite all right, Nerevar," Voryn said as he took in the mess. "I'm not hungry. I take it you're studying Kagrenac's work?"

"Mzahnch's, actually," I corrected. "Kagrenac has been developing some mad theories about the nature of Aedric- well, let's just say our interests are diverging. Mzahnch, on the other hand, has been looking into how to use-"

I broke off with a sigh. Voryn was no scholar, after all. No doubt his eyes were glazing over in disinterest right now... especially as, with the Chimer's general lack of participation in this sort of scholarship, any further detail would require a switch to Dwemeris.

In truth, that bothered me. My long friendship with the Dwemer meant I could speak their language well enough by now, but they remained secretive about their tongue all the same and so it formed a real barrier to any other aspiring Chimer researcher. Even aside from that, I had my pride in our people. It smarted to think our language had no way of even expressing some of these theories. If I were able to find other Chimer interested, we might be able to come up with something... perhaps some of the Telvanni...

A thought for a later day, given that I had a guest.

"My apologies, Voryn. I don't mean to either bore you or ignore you."

"I missed you, you know." Voryn's voice was fond, but there was a vast ocean of sadness beneath the words.

I found myself seized by the sudden, odd feeling that our conversation had been following an invisible script and Voryn had just departed from it.

"What do you mean?" I asked warily.

Hadn't it been evening just a second ago? It was fully dark outside now, a dim candle our only source of illumination.

"What I said," Voryn answered. He leaned closer, knees bumping the table. "It's been a long time, old friend, and the traitors have tried to keep us separate."

...Voryn had always been tall, but had he truly been this tall? And surely it was an illusion cast by the flickering candlelight that turned his face into an eerie golden mask?

"Voryn, wha..."

My voice trailed off as I found myself unable to form words, my thoughts slowing down like a river freezing into ice.

"And succeeded, too. I almost had you, dear friend, until Vivec's blind slaves intervened." Voryn snarled, a rumbling, inhuman sound. On his forehead a third eye opened, blood-red and piercing. "No matter. Soon, they will learn. Everyone will learn. The traitors will receive their due, Resdayn will live again... and we will be truly reunited."

I couldn't think. I couldn't think. I couldn't-

"She's not letting you remember, is she?" Voryn sounded almost pitying. He reached out to stroke my cheek with long, curved claws. "A cruel thing indeed, keeping you ignorant by force. And such monsters claim to be the true gods of our people. Rest assured, dear friend, no Daedra will be able to touch you when all is done."

"I-"

My voice was a choking rasp, dying before it could form, and I couldn't think.

"Alas, the traitors' interference means I cannot speak to you... properly. Soon the last threads of our connection will be gone, and then even this superficial conversation will need to end. But I can be patient. And Nerevar, I promise you this, promise it on the Heart: I will find you again."

Voryn sat back, and-

I shook my head. Pain stabbed my skull, and I- I couldn't think-

Summer evening sunlight streamed through the open flaps of the yurt, illuminating the papers I'd been working on earlier. Voryn was seated across from me and looking rather concerned.

"Is something wrong?" he asked.

I frowned.

What had happened? Voryn and I had been talking, I'd been telling him about my research, and then-

A white-hot knife lanced through my head. I winced and raised my hands to rub my temples, thoroughly distracted.

Well, no matter what had happened, right now I was most shamefully neglecting hospitality.

"My apologies, Voryn, my thoughts must have drifted for a moment. What were you saying?"

"Oh, nothing important," Voryn said, waving a hand dismissively. "Don't worry yourself. Are you well?"

I really wished that whatever had decided stabbing needles into my forehead was an appropriate activity would go and find another victim. "Headache. Not sure where it's come from. Maybe I've spent too long studying, today."

"Maybe." Voryn frowned, a dark, angry expression I wasn't used to seeing on his face. "Perhaps some distraction will help. What do you say to a wander around the camp as we talk?"

The idea of getting out of my stuffy yurt had some appeal. "That sounds like an excellent idea, my friend- ah!"

My legs cramped as I stood, and Voryn reached over to steady me before I fell. His hand felt burning hot, his fingernails oddly sharp.

"Yes," he said. Despite the fact that I'd regained my balance, he didn't let go of my arm. "I look forward to catching up with you, Nerevar."

:huh?:

Flash waaaaaaay back, I think.

Or it's a completely different story, just getting started. Calling it Chapter 13.1 suggests the former.

So much Adryn goodness and then the unexpected bonus of seeing one of the moments where the events that shaped Vvardenfell began...

/Standing ovation/

Most excellent, Kaz!

@haute ecole rider - Here's hoping those are good emoticons!

@ghastley - well, sort of a flashback... until Voryn ventured off-script.

@treydog - thanks! I'm glad the Nerevar interludes are going over well - I really enjoy writing them (and want to regularly underscore exactly what is happening in Adryn's head at night right now...) but don't want to overdo it since they're relatively disconnected from the rest of the story. Well, this one maybe not as much...

Last installment, Nerevar had a very, very odd encounter with Voryn Dagoth. One that may not have gone exactly that way originally, and left Nerevar both unable to remember the details of what occurred and with a splitting headache. Let's see what the effects of that are...

(apologies in advance for an awkward split; this scene doesn't divide well.)



I watched the breakfast crowd from where I nursed a cup in the corner. I'd woken this morning with a nasty headache that seemed inclined to hang around as the day wore on. Needless to say, I wasn't feeling in the mood for company, and if it hadn't been for my agreement with Teleportation Girl I'd probably have skipped the communal breakfast today - especially because the headache had apparently talked my appetite into desertion. At least that was my theory for why the spiced rolls that had been so delicious when I'd last had them looked about as appealing as prison crusts today. Worse, I'd barely made headway on my first cup of Dulnea's tea... a fact that must surely qualify as some sort of blasphemy.

Thankfully, none of the other guild members seemed to mind my sour mood and silence. Ajira would most likely have tried to draw me out if she'd been there, but she was absent and the others were deeply involved in their discussion. Listening more closely made it clear they were talking about some sort of event that was apparently happening today.

...on the one hand, part of me still wanted to crawl back into bed, pull the covers over my head and hope to wake up no longer feeling like a draugr. That part was definitely not in the mood for conversation.

On the other, I was curious.

"Hey, Marayn? What's this 'seminar' you're talking about?"

Marayn blinked at me. "Oh, right, you've been away a lot so you wouldn't know. The guild has regular events where someone gives a talk about their current area of research. Usually it's someone from one of the guilds here on Vvardenfell, sometimes we can get an independent local researcher in, and occasionally it's someone from a non-local guild who's in Vvardenfell for some reason. For instance, two weeks ago we had Edras Oril from Almalexia talking about kagouti mating habits. It was very- are you all right, Adryn?"

"F-fine," I managed once I'd finished coughing. Really, I was ashamed of myself - appetite or no appetite, Dulnea's tea was far too fine a liquid to waste on choking. "So it's about listening to people talk about what they're researching right now?"

That sounded... as if it could be fascinating or dreadfully boring, depending on who the people in question were. I hadn't forgotten Cassia in Vivec and her pots and pans.

"It's also about having tea, coffee and cakes with everyone beforehand," Teleportation Girl corrected me. "Edwinna brings these sweetrolls from a bakery in Ald'ruhn... they're delicious!"

"And don't forget the times we go out for drinks and dinner afterwards," Uleni chimed in. "Last week we were booked in at the Flowers of Gold in Vivec, the guild paying-"

"For shame, both of you!" Marayn was obviously trying to be stern, but his sparkling eyes and the smile quirking the corner of his mouth made it hard to believe in. "Scholarship is more important than food and gossip!"

The expression on Teleportation Girl's face made it clear she found this statement rather dubious.

"So who's speaking today, then? And what's the topic?" I asked, curious despite myself.

"It's Analinwe, from Vulkhel Guard in Alinor," Marayn answered. "She's on holiday in Vivec and said she'd give a talk on... what was it again... oh yes! The Miracle of Peace and what its implications may be for the connection between Akatosh and the Septim line."

The clink as I dropped my spoon was deafening. Strangely, nobody else seemed to notice.

"Well, that should be interesting. I mean, it's not every day you get a purported Dragon Break to examine."

"Not every day, but the one we have was over ten years ago, on the other side of the world, and has spurred more puerile 'scholarship' or rather excuses to hop onto the Dragon Break caravan than any other-"

There is fire everywhere.

"But don't you see, the fact that a Dragon Break resolved so favourably to the Empire..." Marayn was talking, hands darting around like cliff racers as I'd noticed they did when he was deep into explaining something, but his words were drowned out by a roaring in my ears.

"Excuse me," I said. My voice seemed very far away. "I think I need to get some air."

Outside, I looked at the growing crowds, turned and took the stairs upwards. My headache was finally ebbing, but I felt shaky, ill, and not at all up to battling my way back to the Mages' Guild. Sitting on the edge of the walkway that connected the roof of the Eight Plates with the neighbouring building and letting my legs dangle did do some good, though. The air was fresher up here, and I'd always liked heights.

The sun was out today, and I let my eyes drift closed as I indulged in the feeling of sunlight on my face. There was a slight chill in the air, but not yet enough to drive me to the clothier for a cloak. New to Morrowind as I was, I found it unseasonably warm for the beginning of Frostfall. In Windhelm, we'd be seeing regular snowfall by now. Even in Daggerfall...

"Are you all right?"

I blinked up at Teleportation Girl, torn out of my thoughts. I hadn't expected anyone to follow me; they'd seemed deeply involved in their debate when I left.

But of course she'd wanted to talk to me about something, I remembered. It had been the entire reason I'd been at breakfast. Well, maybe if I ignored her she'd get the message: meeting rescheduled, please come back another day.

No such luck. Instead, Teleportation Girl seemed to take my lack of response as an invitation and let herself drop down beside me.

For a minute or so, we simply sat together in silence. Then, quietly, she began to talk.

"My family is from Wayrest, you know. My parents moved to Vvardenfell before I was born, but we went back to visit my grandparents twice and they travelled to Morrowind once. I was very young, but I remember my grandfather."

I didn't say anything, letting the words wash over me.

"I loved him, you know?" Her voice grew wistful. "He'd let me sit on his shoulders and he'd call me his little mageling, and when he found me crying because some boys had called me an outlander he taught me a spell to make them think I was a ten-foot-tall monster... he laughed so hard when I told him how they'd run away screaming. And then... then the warp happened. He was a battlemage in the army, he was on patrol..." She took a deep breath. "They never found him. And believe me, my grandmother looked."

The grief in her voice was palpable. I bowed my head.

"I still hate it when people call it that stupid name. The 'Miracle of Peace'. As if my grandfather dying was a miracle." She spat the word.

The silence grew. I shifted, uncomfortable. A story like that demanded reciprocation. I'd usually reject such an idea with great prejudice, but now I could feel words welling within me.

Perhaps it was that she understood. I hadn't expected anyone who'd understand.

"I grew up in Daggerfall." The words slipped out in a quiet, even murmur. "An village in the province, then the capital itself. I was in the orphanage attached to the Temple of Kynareth at first, there, but later I lived with-"

Fjaldir. Azha. Do'kharza, Eix-Lin-

Giants in my memory, ones where the thought of them still filled me with awe and gratitude, with hero-worship in the truest sense of the word...

...who I still viewed through the eyes of a child, because I'd never known them when grown.

Could it really be called living with when they'd been there maybe three days in a month?

"-well, it doesn't matter," I moved on. "They were all out when it happened. There was a, a neighbour who looked in on me, but she- died. I think. It became very hard to be certain of anything, at that point."

I'd have liked to leave it there, but now that I'd started I found the words kept coming, like poison seeping from a lanced wound.

"There's no way to describe what a Dragon Break is like, you know? We're children of Akatosh, we need time to make sense of the world. When it shatters, when everything starts happening out of order and location doesn't make sense anymore and effect comes before cause- when the entire concept of before stops working- and as if that weren't enough there was the fire and the fighting, armies and monsters and people dying-" I swallowed hard. "Well, usually I just try not to think about any of it."

It worked pretty well as a strategy. Barring nights.

"But the worst part, the absolute worst, that came afterwards. I- time didn't make sense, I said that, but you ask questions like how long did it last and the like anyway, that's just how we're made. I thought - two weeks? Maybe a month? Imagine my surprise when they told us it had only been a day. Especially because... when it was over, we were in the Eastern Reach, near Markarth in Skyrim - no idea how we got there - and..."

My mouth tasted like ashes.

"It was two years later," I finished in a whisper.

I am catching up! I am so glad you are back to updating again! Adryn is one of my favorite characters!!!

Adryn survived the Dragon Break? Of course she would, makes sense with the timeline in the Lore.

This just suddenly went from amusing and enjoyable and interesting to a very compelling read . . .

More, please.

@mALX - I'm glad! And thank you so much for your kind words about Adryn, especially coming from the creator of Maxical!

@haute ecole rider - I did wonder if anyone would catch the implications of Adryn having grown up in Daggerfall! The timeline actually works out so beautifully I had to get her involved - and for all that I initially thought I was reaching by having it be a horrifying traumatic experience for her, the witness descriptions in The Warp in the West include lots of death along with details like someone's eyes being burned out of their sockets so it's actually supported in lore. The geographic and temporal displacement is my own invention, but there's reasons why Adryn was closer to the "epicenter" of the Warp than most people and could have been affected more badly.



I jumped at the feeling of a hand on my shoulder. I'd almost forgotten about the Breton who was now looking at me sympathetically and offering what I supposed was meant to be reassuring physical contact. "I'm sorry," she said now. "That must have been hard."

"Mmm. Well. Anyway!" I groped for a subject change and found one. "What did you want to talk to me about yesterday?"

Message sent: communal trauma-sharing time is over. Normal service may resume at any time. Also - I shifted away from her - communal trauma-sharing time does not constitute an exception to Adryn's personal space bubble.

The other girl blinked at me, but withdrew her hand. "Well. Um. I have a suggestion... I guess you could see it as doing me a favour?"

I raised an eyebrow at her. I wasn't used to soul-baring being a prelude to asking for favours, but maybe that was just because I was unfamiliar with the whole thing. For all I knew, this was Caius' modus operandi. Maybe he met with people like Hasphat, they all sat down and shared sob stories from their childhood - Caius talking about how his mother wouldn't let him have sweets, maybe, and Hasphat about a traumatic experience in a Dwemer ruin that left him deciding to send poor innocent bystanders for his toys instead of picking them up themselves - and afterwards Caius would put another person on his list of people who owed him favours...

What? It's not as if I have any idea how this spy thing is meant to work!

"I'm trying to make Journeyman, you see," she continued, apparently not having noticed my current battle against an overactive imagination. "I've been an Apprentice for almost a year now, I've done my time – and I really hate being a guild guide." She scowled. "The hours are absolutely terrible, no free time at all, and being the only person in Balmora who has to take the land route everywhere gets really old, let me tell you. My parents moved six months ago and I haven't been able to visit their new home even once."

My somewhat haphazard entry into the guild meant I was missing some of the basics. I suspected I'd just stumbled across another one. "Making Journeyman would mean you no longer had to be a guild guide?"

"Exactly. It's a job for Apprentices – all the nasty ones are. You don't see Marayn or Estirdalin or, Julianos forbid, Ranis stuck behind an alchemy desk or teleporting people."

Well, that certainly shed new light on Ajira's and Galbedir's rivalry... and raised worrying prospects regarding what Ranis might have planned for me, now that enchanting was out.

"Okay. I'm with you so far," I said. "What I fail to see is how I come into this. Aren't you specialising in Mysticism? If so, I really have no idea how I could help. Given the obvious," I added with some level of (justified, in my opinion) bitterness.

"Actually, that's exactly it. I'd never heard of that syndrome you have, apparently it's really rare. I don't think anyone's ever properly studied what causes it and what its exact effects are. I asked Estirdalin and she said she thought it might make for a good Journeyman thesis."

I wasn't sure what my expression was, but judging by the way my guild-mate's steadily drooped it wasn't very positive. Estirdalin's quiz had been more than humiliating enough; I couldn't imagine voluntarily spending even more time trying and failing to cast spells only to be told how easy they were supposed to be.

I said so.

"Oh, that's not how it's going to be at all! I was actually thinking about focusing more on the spells where you get unusual effects – Detection and Telekinesis. I mean, Estirdalin did suggest investigating the inabilities, but honestly I don't think there's much more you can write for 'can't cast Soultrap'."

Hmm. That did sound better. Maybe this was worth considering after all? If-

"Well, I did think it might be interesting to see what happens to you with the guild guide spells-"

All right, that suggestion certainly brought me violently back to Nirn.

"Are you out of your mind?" I demanded once I was capable of noises other than spluttering. "Asking me to cast a teleportation spell? On other people? On customers?"

"No! No!" If she waved her hands a little more wildly she'd probably take flight. "We practice on rocks, or boxes, or sometimes summoned Daedra. I wouldn't have you try on actual people." My sigh of relief was interrupted as she continued, "Although who knows? The foundation of guild guide spells is actually completely different from the Intervention school. You might find they work out for you."

Azha, I remembered, had had the world's most cutting skeptical expression. The Mother-Superior of the orphanage had had nothing on her. She'd been able to reduce Do'kharza - inveterate rogue who'd steal the whiskers off Rajhin that he proclaimed himself – to a whimpering bundle of fur with just a long stare and furrowed eyebrows. A seven-year-old girl had been no challenge at all, and after my first and last attempt at sneaking something past The Look had featured heavily in my nightmares.

My own was only a pale imitation, I knew. Judging by the way the blood was draining from my guild-mate's cheeks, I'd managed to capture something of the essence all the same.

"I feel as if you're not really taking this seriously enough," I said after a moment of silence to let the gravity of the situation sink in. "From what Estirdalin said, me messing around with Mysticism spells could be seriously dangerous, and I'm not sure restricting ourselves to rocks will be enough to be safe. What if I actually do blow something up, or mistarget the spell and accidentally send you off into the stratosphere, or-"

I'd always had a fantastic imagination. Right now, it was throwing all the things that could possibly go wrong here at me in full, lurid detail.

"It'd be safer not to even try," I said, and the words tasted like acid.

The Breton's shoulders sagged. Had I convinced her?

I tried to squash down the sting of regret at the thought. So it hurt to have to treat the Mysticism school like a hidden fire-trap rune. So I really wanted to be able to dive into new spells, the same as anyone else would be able to. Well, I hadn't been a child in a long time now and I was used to not getting what I wanted-

An indrawn breath brought my attention back to the conversation.

"Look, Adryn – Estirdalin is a fantastic and experienced mage and all that, but in this case I think she's wrong. Just because you cast spells a little differently from most people and can have problems they don't doesn't mean you should have to give up on the whole school of Mysticism."

There was real force behind the words – this was obviously something she felt strongly about.

"So it might be a little more difficult to teach you," she continued. "So maybe we'll have to be very careful about it. So what? If that was a reason not to bother trying, there wouldn't be any mages at all. The guild should be there to help anyone who's interested in magic, not just those who do it exactly by the textbook! It should be about scholarship, about learning, not just making as much money off customers as possible and ignoring anyone who doesn't fit!"

The rant struck me as genuine, and despite myself I began to soften.

"So... you want me to try the guild guide teleportation spells to see if I can get them to work?" I'd meant it to sound scoffing, but instead it only came out as mildly skeptical.

"Exactly. I think there's a decent chance you could learn them. And if not, there's still a lot of potential for research in your Detection spells. Who knows, maybe you can teach them to me-"

"In case you didn't catch it last week, I tried that before. It didn't work."

"To some scout you met, you said. I remember. Well, I'm an Apprentice of the Mages' Guild with a specialty in Mysticism – I'd like to think I have a much better chance. How much magical education can a scout have, anyway? For all you know she'd never even heard of Lor's Principles!" She waved my objection away.

I hadn't heard of Lor's Principles. The urge to come to Gelduin's defense was strong, but my guild-mate hadn't finished.

"And even if I can't learn the spell, if I figure out enough of the way you shape it I might have enough material for a proper research article, one that one of the bigger journals would accept. At that point Ranis Athrys would have to promote me to Journeyman."

I wasn't nearly as optimistic. But...

But until this conversation I hadn't realised how much I'd needed someone proclaiming confidence in me, someone who viewed my Mystic disability as a minor obstacle and an opportunity for research instead of proof I shouldn't bother trying. It was so perfectly tailored to what I wanted to hear, such a balm to places in my soul that sorely needed it, that I almost suspected the Breton of manipulating me.

"So? Will you help?"

...well. If she was, it was working.

"Sure. Why not, You only live once, and I'm an alchemist, I should be used to explosions by now. And..."

I took a deep breath.

"Thanks... Masalinie."

Well, I don't see how a Detection spell can go wrong in a dangerous way, but I'm now expecting to find out.

@ghastley - now you're giving me ideas!

Last installment, Ajira and Masalinie talked, and Masalinie somehow got Adryn to not only agree to help her with research in Mysticism but also use her name. Now that's charisma for you.



Afternoon found me hiking past Fort Moonmoth in the sturdy guarhide boots I'd gotten in trade for those from the Temple, plain but comfortable shirt and breeches, and carrying a pack that a bystander might notice I treated very, very carefully.

Although I'd have liked to put it off for longer – preferably eternally – I suspected Caius wouldn't be all too happy if I didn't get moving on his 'simple task'. With that in mind, I'd decided it was time to have a look at this Arkngthand. Not look for the cube, I told myself, just get the lay of the land. A scouting mission before the actual heist, like so many I'd gone on before.

Well, not entirely like. I certainly couldn't remember any manor I'd scoped out in Skyrim being populated by murderous Dwemer automatons. However, one has to adapt to changing circumstances.

I'd prepared for this particular scouting mission in the only way I knew. This meant that I was unarmed, Elone's old short-sword having migrated to under my bed, but my pack was filled almost to bursting with potions for every eventuality. The process of preparing them had depleted Ajira's stores quite a bit, and the end I'd guiltily left two ten-drake coins on the desk in the alchemy lab to cover materials.

I rounded a corner in the path and then stopped to take in the sight. It looked like I'd almost arrived.

Ahead, the path crossed the deep gorge that was labelled Foyada Mamaea on my map via a bridge. The opposite side was grey and ashy, an abrupt shift from the scrubby green growth that I'd been travelling past since Balmora. It was broken by coppery-gold metal sprouting from the ground to the right of the path. The style of architecture was unmistakeable to anyone who'd ever seen a Dwemer ruin... let alone lived in one, those two years in Markarth after the Warp.

Steam burst from one of the pipes rising from the hillside with a hiss and a clanking noise. Yes, definitely Dwemer. I still had decidedly unfond memories of the way the rusted cog at the far end of the Warrens would randomly decide to start trying and failing to turn or the grate next to it would start spitting steam – always at an hour of the morning only Sanguine would recognise, of course. I knew I should really have been impressed that Dwemer machines still worked four millennia after their owners' disappearance, but in my defense it's quite hard to muster any emotion other than irritation when you've been woken up from a sound sleep by ear-splitting screeches and whistles and have to be ready to work at dawn. Nine knew Charon had cursed a blue streak...

My lips pressed together.

I'd really had far more than my allotted dose of nostalgia recently. For all that so many people loved to wallow in their memories – see Masalinie and her insistence on 'talking about it' – I'd always considered myself smarter than that.

After all, the past is over. Gone. Dead. For all the present is concerned, it may as well never have happened – indeed there are philosophical schools that state it didn't! – so bothering about it is really just an unnecessary indulgence in masochism.

"Halt!"

And my pointless, unwanted trip down memory lane was certainly to blame for the fact that I'd entirely missed the man standing in the middle of the bridge, just ahead of me.

He was an older Colovian with receding grey hair who was watching me with narrowed eyes, one hand on the hilt of a sword. The armour he wore was worn and oft-mended, dark brown leather with no identifying marks... no, looking closer I could make out some sigil picked out in dark red against his upper arm.

I could recognise a gang sign when I saw one.

Definitely a bandit. He couldn't be any more of a bandit if he had the word "Bandit" floating over him. In fact, the only reason he didn't was probably because the world had decided this would be unforgivably redundant.

I let my own hand drop to one particular vial I'd tucked into my belt. If I'd brewed it correctly, it should create a thick cloud of smoke when poured out or shattered...

...of course, given that it had been my first time attempting this potion with Morrowind ingredients, that if was not to be underestimated.

"What's your business here?" demanded the bandit.

I blinked, having expected something more along the lines of your money or your life.

"Ah... I was heading to the ruins of Arkngthand?"

I clamped my mouth shut, but too late. Mentally, I gave myself a good kick; any good criminal will tell you that being taken by surprise is no excuse for being honest, of all things. Especially since in this situation I didn't think telling the truth was going to be to my benefit.

And indeed, the bandit's eyes were narrowing as his hand clenched on the hilt of his sword.

"I hope you're aware that all Dwemer artifacts belong to the Emperor by law, and taking them is viewed as a serious crime."

As a matter of fact, Hasphat Antabolis had refrained from mentioning that tidbit. An omission I'd have to thank him for when I got back. Although I certainly didn't know why a bandit was lecturing me about-

"I happen to be a member in good standing of the Imperial Archaeological Society, you know," the bandit continued. "We're conducting a dig in Arkngthand right now, and I'm afraid we have to take exception to any attempts at... looting."

If he was an archaeologist, I was a kagouti-

-and I should probably wait to inspect myself for an outbreak of tusks until after I'd gotten out of this situation in one piece.

"Oh! The Imperial Archaeological Society, you say." The fact that I managed to keep my face straight when saying that proved, I think, that a career in the theatre was definitely an option for me. "That's-"

An idea bloomed in my mind, fully formed and – if I may say so myself – brilliant.

"That's fantastic!" I gushed. The bandit-archaeologist looked rather taken aback. "I'm a member of the Mages' Guild, you see, and I've been assigned to study the Dwemer." So far, I was even being entirely truthful. "Of course I'd never dream of disturbing the historical record by removing artifacts from the ruins! I simply wanted to investigate their layout. You see..."

I took a deep breath, mind racing. Time to hope the research I'd done into the Dwemer so far had given me enough to come up with something plausible.

"...Arkngthand, like many of the Dwemer citadels closer to Red Mountain, was almost abandoned some time before the disappearance of the Dwemer due to increased amounts of ash-fall. It not only left the environment inhospitable, but also caused worry that an eruption might be imminent, so many Dwemer moved to citadels further away from Red Mountain, such as Mzuleft and Bethamez."

I was genuinely surprised at how easily the words flowed. Either I was a far better liar under pressure than previous incidents would indicate, or more of Chronicles of Nchuleft, Ruins of Kemel-Ze and Antecedents of Dwemer Law had stuck than I'd thought.

"I want to investigate the architectural set-up of Arkngthand and contrast them with citadels that were built after the exodus. Perhaps the differences might reflect changes in the Dwemer mind-set in the intervening time, which could in turn shed new light on the disappearance of the Dwemer!" A breath. "I hadn't realised there was an archaeological team already here. I'd of course be delighted to collaborate!"

The bandit was goggling at me, obviously struck speechless. I waited for him to collect himself, keeping up the bright smile even though the mask of sheer enthusiasm was starting to make my head hurt.

The beauty of it all was that thanks to Trebonius (and there were three words that one didn't expect in sequence...) the whole story was built on a foundation of truth. And certainly I made a far more plausible Dwemer scholar than artifact hunter or smuggler, unarmed and dressed in robes as I was.

The bandit – no, looter, he must be – certainly seemed taken in. His grip on his sword loosened, and although he looked rather frustrated, he didn't look suspicious.

"Ah... I'm afraid that's not going to be possible. You see..."

Now it was his turn to invent wildly, and I suspected he wouldn't quite reach the standard I'd set.

"The ruins are still... dangerous! Yes, dangerous. There's still working automata and centurions and all sorts of deadly creatures. We need to finish clearing them out before we could possibly allow others access."

No, not convincing at all, I thought critically. Where I'd pulled off a performance worthy of a lead actor, the only role this man could win in the theatre would be cleaning up after the shows. Who knew, maybe a thwarted dream of stardom was the reason he'd turned to crime in the first place? Well, at least he'd given me a good excuse to turn around and leave...

...except that the keen if rather oblivious scholar I was pretending to be wouldn't give up nearly so easily, and I had to make sure the bandit didn't grow suspicious.

"Oh." I let myself pout. "Are you sure? I've told the guildmistress I'd finish this paper, you see. I need it to make Journeyman," I added, remembering Adryn and Galbedir's rivalry, not to mention my discussion with Masalinie on comparative duties by rank. "Could I talk to your leader about an exception, maybe? I promise I can take care of myself..."

"I'll talk to Boss Crito," the bandit said, managing to sound sincerely regretful (I mentally upgraded his career in drama to understudy), "but I don't think it's likely, sorry."

"Oh well." I let myself sigh gustily. "I'll have to look into Bthanchend, or maybe..."

I turned around and let myself trudge back on the path to Fort Moonmoth. Leaving the looter at my back was not to my liking at all, and I found myself glad he couldn't hear my heart race as I walked away. Finally, I judged I was out of sight and earshot.

I set down my pack beside a rock that looked like a reasonably comfortable seat, a theory I immediately tested and proved acceptable.

"Scamp drek," I hissed. The curse did nothing to improve my situation, did however make me feel a little better.

I'd expected Dwemer automata, had a whole sheaf of notes I'd made on the various types that had occurred in Ruins of Kemel-Ze with me. I hadn't, however, expected looters... much less what was clearly an organised gang. This was going to complicate things tremendously.

To begin with, how was I to even get to Arkngthand? I was excellent at sneaking and moving unseen, and that was no empty pride speaking... but across a bridge? With no cover, a guard watching, and no one else in sight? The Grey Fox couldn't have done it.

If you can't go through, go around...

I dug in my pack and pulled out the map I'd acquired on my ill-fated trip to Lake Amaya. After having done without it on my first expedition to Vivec (followed, as it had been, by my first expedition to Ald'ruhn and then my first expedition to the West Gash) I wasn't planning to let it leave my person anytime soon.

I must currently be here, on the path about halfway between Fort Moonmoth and Arkngthand. With a moment's exercise of will, the magic on the map flared to life to confirm that fact.

...why were the looters being so open about their presence so close to an Imperial Fort, anyway? They must be either very stupid or very clever, and with the way my luck had been going lately it probably wasn't going to be the former. Why no worries about being discovered by the Legion? Did they expect their story about being archaeologists to stand up to scrutiny?

Well, no matter for now. Here was the bridge, here the ruin of Arkngthand, denoted by a small gear symbol on the map. The path I'd been following left the bridge and the ruins to snake its way through the hills. Some distance away (a distance significantly less measured as the cliff-racer flew than as the Adryn walked, I noted gloomily) it met a second path. That one...

Hope blossomed as I traced the second path on its way southwest. It passed directly behind Arkngthand on its way, then reached a region I knew quite well.

I let my finger rest on the words Lake Amaya.

Come to think of it, now that I thought about it I vaguely remembered a path that had branched off the route to the shrine at Kummu in order to vanish into the hills. I'd looked at it for a moment, contemplating escape, before the minion of Molag Bal disguised as a pilgrim had caught up to me and ordered me on.

It looked like it might just be possible to access the ruin from Lake Amaya, which wasn't at all far from here. Better yet, there was the possibility the looters only had guards posted at the approach to the main entrance. Even if my luck didn't reach that far, I had a lot more confidence in my ability to sneak past guards once one took bridges out of the picture.

I forced myself up and off the rock with a groan. There wasn't that much daylight left – I wanted to make the best use of it that I could.

Sorry for the delay! I got a little sidetracked and forgot to post last weekend. Not helping that I was hoping to build up a decent buffer, but chapter 15 is seriously kicking my ass; I think I've had to throw out around 75% of what I've written for it so far because the plot keeps changing under me. :/

Last installment, Adryn tried to investigate the Dwemer ruin of Arkngthand as (indirectly) ordered by Caius Cosades. Her first attempt was foiled by a guard barring the approach to the ruin. She's now trying for a flank attack.



A few hours later, I let myself collapse against one of the metal towers. All my limbs were throbbing with pain, but that didn't remove the triumphant smile from my face.

I felt I deserved to have it, considering how bleak things had looked not long ago.

As it turned out, the path passed within spitting distance of the ruin, yes... if one allowed the direction in question to be vertical. I'd forgotten how deceptive height could be on maps, meaning that the sheer cliff that separated me and Arkngthand had come as something of a surprise.

I was a good climber, but the distance to the top was far enough and looked unsafe enough that I hadn't wanted to attempt it with no supplies. I'd been weighing the difficulty of trying the long way around, growing steadily gloomy at the thought of things like the length of the journey, the likelihood of encountering hostile wildlife, the fact that the sun was already brushing the hilltops to the west...

Then I remembered the amulet.

It turns out that a Slowfall spell is quite a multifunctional thing. As well as saving anyone unfortunate enough to find themselves in mid-air from an ignominous death involving sounds like splat, it is also a climber's best friend. Being near-immune to gravity makes ropes and harnesses unnecessary, heights irrelevant and impossible reaches a cinch. The only issue is that you do have to be quick, as the enchantment running out would qualify as a Very Bad Thing indeed.

In short, I made my way up that cliff like a veritable spider, and my amulet still had a charge left when I reached the top. Honestly, I should've learned this spell years ago. It would have saved me any number of bruises.

Well, enough patting myself on the back. Time to investigate the ruins.

Arkngthand's towers sprouted from a hill bordering the foyada. I'd come out on the slope to the southeast of the summit, out of view of the bridge – and its guard. A quick look around proved that that I was alone. Fortunately for me, the looters had apparently decided the cliff didn't need to be watched.

Dwemer citadels of this size, I remembered, were generally built with a single well-marked main entrance and either no secondary entrance at all or an emergency exit designed in such a way to make sure it could not be used by attackers. In Arkngthand's case, the main entrance was likely near the bridge... and therefore within the guard's line of sight.

Thankfully for me, dusk had fallen by now. The western horizon was still bright, but above it was dark enough to make out the Lady looking down on us mortals from the sky. In this lighting, a greyish figure against ash would hardly be noticed at all...

...especially since I was a little more greyish than usual, I thought ruefully as I brushed at the ash on the front of my shirt. My climb had left me thoroughly covered in the stuff.

As I crested the hill, I spied a circle of light just ahead and ducked behind a boulder. An armoured figure was standing where the bridge I'd failed to cross that morning met land again, a lantern held high in his gauntleted grip.

Idiot.

It wasn't full dark yet, and with the clear night this was shaping up to be, Masser and Secunda would give plenty of light. He'd have to squint a little without the lantern, true, and the low light might make it harder to spot someone beginning to cross the bridge. However, in the process of making the idea of sneaking past him on the bridge completely impossible instead of just almost certainly impossible, he'd destroyed his night vision. And I was well outside the lantern's light.

At the bottom of the hill, I was close enough to make out more details, but still far enough away the guard could have looked right at me without seeing me. It was the same guard as the one I'd met earlier, and he was standing in front of a pile of crates that definitely hadn't been there then. They must've received supplies.

...in broad daylight, less than an hour from an Imperial fort? What was going on here, anyway?

I reminded myself firmly of a certain saying involving cats and curiosity (one which, for the record, it's unwise to repeat near Khajiit). However this particular criminal band had managed things so they didn't need to worry about Imperial repercussions, it was none of my business. What was my business was that the guard seemed completely focused on the bridge – and so, thanks to my adventures in climbing, away from both me and the ruin.

The entrance to the ruin was easy to spot. Dozens of footprints had worn a path off the road to a tower that was larger and wider than the others. They stopped at a round bulge of stone at its base. As I crept closer, a shadow resolved itself into a split straight down the middle.

A protective measure, I knew, shielding the door proper. From the inside, there'd be some button or lever that would crack it open. From the outside, a handle located some distance away from the door, which could be deactivated from the inside to repel invaders. Bubbles like that had been popular during the war to free Resdayn, being excellent protection against siege from the Nords, but fallen out of favour later due to how awkward they made daily coming and going-

I frowned. Something was niggling at me.

None of the books I'd read about the Dwemer had discussed the war. Besides, I hadn't read that much, and there had been enough highly distracting things happening at the same time it was a wonder I remembered anything. Where was this flood of knowledge coming from?

I lost my thoughts to a dull throb of pain building at my temples. I gritted my teeth as it slowly died down. My morning headache had been gone by the time I got back to the guild after my chat with Masalinie. If I'd had any suspicion it might make a resurgence, I'd have left this trip until tomorrow-

A rumbling sound interrupted my thoughts. The crack in the stone shuddered.

Quick as a flash, I crouched behind a nearby rock.

The bubble split open with a tortured screech, the mechanism which had lain unused for millennia clearly protesting this forceful end to their retirement. A Nord emerged, ducking his head to manage the doorway.

"Bato, there you are." The Imperial guard approached, holding his torch high. I squinted. "About time, too! Sunset's just about over. Did you lot finish yet for today?"

The Nord shook his head, sending blond braids flying. "The boss wants the one room cleared out, and it's taken longer than he thought. You should hear him yelling about 'the schedule'." He spat, then turned to look at the crates. "Are those..."

"Arrived just now. A keg of mazte, two cases of shein, one of Black-Briar's mead-"

"Black-Briar's?" The tone, I thought, would have been significantly more suited to the words a casket full of treasure, or possibly an unknown ingredient. Behind the rock, I rolled my eyes. If I live to be a thousand, I will never understand Nords and their mead.

Judging by the Imperial's sigh, he felt similarly. "-and one of Weynon beer, which I'll thank you to leave to people who'll appreciate it."

"You can keep that swill. Man, Black-Briar's, I haven't had that since I left Skyrim. You guys had better hurry up in there so we can crack the kegs."

The Imperial stretched, his back making alarming popping sounds I could hear even from my distance. "Once I let them know what's waiting out here for them I think they'll find reasons to speed up the work. As for me, it's been frightfully boring today – I look forward to actually doing something other than standing around." He paused. "Although you should know that if Boss Crito should suspect you've started drinking while on watch... while the rest of us are still working... I don't think it'll go well for you."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm not stupid, Granius. Give me the lantern, will you?"

After a brief exchange, the Nord stayed nearby while the Imperial made his way into the ruin. When the bubble slammed shut behind him, it managed to avoid causing any avalanches or earthquakes, although I suspected it was a close-run thing.

I slumped behind my rock. Why couldn't things be easy, for once? Why couldn't there have been a... an entrance nicely tucked away out of sight of the bridge, with no strange exertions involving levers and bubble-shields necessary to enter, never to mention well-oiled hinges. Or a window! Or a chimney! As things stood, I couldn't think of any way to enter the ruin without alerting everyone within a mile.

"Man." The Nord's expression was about as despairing as mine. "Black-Briar's. And I'm on guard duty."

This seemed a bit extreme even for a Nord. Then again, he had said that he was in withdrawal. If this was a general issue for Nords in Morrowind, I might have to invest in a few bottles for distraction purposes. Just imagine if I'd thrown a bottle at Bolvyn Venim, back in the mansion! Allfool would have been after it like a shot, and in the confusion I'd surely have been able to escape without aerial acrobatics...

The mansion. There was something about the mansion. Varvur and Bolvyn Venim, and Allfool with his lockpicks...

...and the guards, slumped asleep next to the door to Varvur's cell when we entered. Allbraggart had bribed a maid to drug the stew, he'd said.

"...can't believe Crito's insisting we have to wait to break open the booze..."

I'd made many potions for this trip. Sleeping potions among the number.

And so I had my plan.

But slowfall is just a weaker form of levitation, which is also available in convenient bottles from your friendly alchemist. Somebody here is supposed to be an alchemist??? Ok, so that means planning ahead, forget I mentioned it.

@ghastley - Adryn is shocked and appalled at your insinuations! She'd like you to know that she is an excellent alchemist, thank you very much. You are however correct that planning ahead isn't her forte...

(Also, I as the author need to get a little clearer on what's available in Adryn's Skyrim and what isn't. There's large in-game differences between the magic systems of Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim, and I pull some of them in as regional variations. Adryn had definitely heard of Slowfall and Levitation spells before, but it's more than possible that they're far less common in Skyrim and not possible in potion form.)



Inside the bubble, I hit the lever that would keep it from closing, then the one to open the door to the ruin proper. The screech of the hinges was ear-splitting, but nothing compared to the massive clang when it shut behind me. I winced at the sound, waiting for the shouts of alarm to start. That had been loud enough to wake the dead. If even one of the looters had abstained-

Silence. I heaved a sigh of relief and silently thanked Shor, Kyne and normalised alcoholism as I crept forward.

Doctoring the alcohol had gone far more easily than expected, considering the presence of the Nord guard. But he'd mostly stayed near the bridge, his back to the crates. That and the torch he'd stupidly taken over from his predecessor made it possible to stay out of sight.

I also found I had something else to thank Masalinie for – our conversation had given me the courage to try out the telekinesis spell I'd learned from Estirdalin again. Given how much it had helped, I suspected trying to manage without it would have ended in disaster. Not only had it allowed me to float bottles, pop corks and brace kegs with not a rustle of cloth to give me away, the one time the Nord decided to wander close to stare at the trove of alcohol I'd been able to send rocks tumbling near the bridge. The noise had distracted him enough that I could hide.

Now, of course, I hadn't needed to worry. The man had put up a good fight against temptation, but succumbed in the end. When a group of the bandits came out to bring the booze inside now that the day's looting was done, several bottles of mead went mysteriously missing on the way. Now the Nord was deep in dreamland, leaving the entrance to Arkngthand free.

It had been a good thing that I hadn't tried to sneak in while the looters were awake, I discovered. The ramp that must once have led from the entrance level down to the main part of the citadel had apparently not survived the intervening millennia. In order to let people get down without breaking their necks, someone had hewn a path down out of the rock of the wall. A narrow, winding ledge with torches placed at regular intervals, anyone who took it would be completely exposed to all eyes.

At the bottom, the sight of a looter camp and sound of snoring greeted me. A quiet count made it eleven sleeping bodies, ranging from another Nord who might, physically improbable as it might seem, be even taller than the one outside to a slight Imperial woman who'd fallen asleep in mage robes. All humans, I noted, not a mer nor Khajiit nor Argonian among the lot. Odd, but I didn't know if that meant anything in the context of Morrowind. More importantly, to my admittedly inexperienced eye all of them looked like tough, hard-bitten characters who would probably be able to squash me like a fly if it came to a fight.

...it would be really good if I could get out of here before any of them woke up.

I closed my eyes and remembered the description Hasphat had given me.

A cube of bronze metal, around five or six inches in size. Each side of the cube is divided into nine squares with a symbol etched into each square. The sides can be rotated.

Target acquired.

I smiled to myself as I ghosted towards the door leading further into the ruins. It was time to show Antabolis how a professional – well, ex-professional – thief handled this.



Some time later, I was feeling far less cocky. Indeed, "desperate" would probably be a more accurate description of my mood. I'd swear that I'd been through every nook and cranny of the rooms I'd seen so far only to turn up... nothing.

Well, not nothing per se. All the rooms I'd found contained various furniture, battered and rusted by the progress of the ages but still recognisable, as well as heavy machinery, cogs, and random detritus. The one I was currently in was the first I'd seen that also contained portable items such as decorated goblets and plates, weapons hanging on the wall, and small engraved silver discs which I suspected had been Dwemer currency, once upon a time. Most likely the looters hadn't reached this far yet.

A fact one could also deduce by this room's inhabitant.

Beneath me, the spider-shaped Dwemer automaton that had been scrabbling at the legs of the table finally gave up as whatever rusted cogs served as its brain informed it that no, unless it suddenly learned how to levitate it wouldn't be able to reach me. I watched it trundle off, wanting it to be a safe distance away before I risked descending back into clawing range.

The machine's presence was a clear sign that it was time for me to turn back. True, according to what I'd read so-called 'spider centurions' were dangerous in certain situations but overall not much of a threat as their programming was quite straightforward and they weren't very mobile (facts which I'd now verified through empirical evidence). Nevertheless, getting past it would take time – time I might not have to spare. And who knew what might be crawling around deeper in the ruin? The last thing I wanted was to run into one of the giant metal men described in Ruins of Kemel-Ze.

But I still hadn't found Hasphat's thrice-cursed cube. What if it was further i-

Wait a moment.

Some part of my mind was metaphorically jumping up and down, yelling at me to stop and think things through for a moment. It sounded, I noticed, a lot like Charon when he thought that I was about to do something only Sheogorath would think advisable.

All right. I pushed down the squirming sense of urgency, let myself settle cross-legged on the table (which had held up under both my weight and the spider centurion's attempts at climbing with admirable fortitude considering its age) and focused on the part of my mind that had apparently absorbed some forethought from Charon, miracle though he might have deemed that fact.

What are you doing, Adryn?

I'm trying to steal a so-called 'puzzle cube' from a Dwemer ruin that's infested with both hostile automatons and looters. I'm doing it because Hasphat Antabolis wants the thing, and Caius Cosades wants me to help Antabolis, and all that adds up to 'I have no choice'-

There. I was missing something in that line of thought. I focused...

I was stealing the puzzle cube for Hasphat Antabolis. He was the one who'd told me it was in Arkngthand.

How did he know where it was?

It could have been recorded in a book from back when the Dwemer were around, of course... but with four thousand years in between, anything could have happened to a portable, valuable object such as the puzzle cube. If his information had been that outdated, he should have had some doubt, and he'd sounded absolutely certain of its location. No, Hasphat's source had to have been more recent. Someone like...

Like one of the looters who was currently occupying the ruins.

"I am a prize idiot." I said it in a whisper, not wanting to attract any more Dwemer attention, but all the same I felt a statement of such utter and profound truth deserved to be proclaimed to the world.

The cube was in the possession of one of the looters. It had to be in their camp. The camp where its inhabitants might be waking up very, very soon. The camp right at the entrance that I'd seen with my own two eyes, then ignored to head straight into the uncharted depths of the ruins. If only I'd stopped to think back when I'd entered, I could be halfway back to Balmora with the cube in my pocket right now.

"A prize idiot," I whispered again, and after looking around carefully to make sure the spider centurion was definitely nowhere near I slipped down off the table to retrace my steps.



Notes: I'm certain many a Morrowind player knows the pain of trying to find that blasted cube, a small object in a large ruin in a time before Bethesda believed in quest markers. I am pretty sure I spent literal hours searching for the thing. Adryn was not going to escape, although she does short-circuit matters a little by applying common sense (and yes, I can't quite believe I wrote the words "Adryn" and "common sense" in the same sentence either).

Don't worry, that's not actually "common sense", it's really a thief's street smarts. Totally different, even if the result's the same. It's much more blinkered, allowing her to be completely blind in other directions.

I think the reason they added quest markers after MW, was that the target NPC's in TES IV:Oblivion got the AI packages that let them roam all over the map. So if you needed to find Quill-Weave, you had to know her schedule for visiting Chorrol, or you would be hunting in Anvil for someone who just wasn't there. At least the puzzle cube doesn't wander off - until Adryn helps it do so.

My main reason for taking a long time on that specific quest was that there are two separate zones with the same name (upper and lower floors, I believe) but they're not connected. So if you're in the wrong half, you're never going to find it. And that's working from knowledge that is not given to you in-game! And to cap that, I'd actually found it with an earlier character who just went there to fetch a dwemer spear they wanted, and not doing the Antabolis quest at all. I just didn't remember where I'd picked it up the first time.

How have I not read this before? Well, devoured chapter 1, and absolutely loved the character of Adryn, I sense some of her observations are going to keep me amused for some time to come. Also, special mention to both how you fleshed out Jiub (and his nose, that made me laugh), Fargoth, Elone... Yep, found myself a treat to read here. Bear with me, as it's going to take me a while to get up to date with this, but starting chapter 2 later today

One marathon read later, and I'm up to date.

Honestly, didn't expect to read it that quickly, but every time I kept thinking, right time for bed, the thought "just one more chapter" sprang to mind.

Now there are no more chapters

(subtle hint, no?)

Really enjoyable, and very well done

Apologies for the delay in this update! Sometimes I leave minor gaps in my writing, figuring I'll fill them when it's time to post the section... and then I get to posting it and end up completely blocked on how to fill it. (Also, I seem to often get stuck when it comes to posting the last installment of a chapter. No idea why.)

@Burnt Sierra - I totally did the "new reader!!" happy dance when I saw your comments! Thank you so much for taking the time to read and comment, and I'm really glad you enjoyed Adryn! (And hope you didn't end up too sleep-deprived when you read the whole thing in one go, yikes!)

@ghastley - Makes perfect sense! I'll admit I kind of miss the MW style of doing things - I found it really immersive to get an NPC description like (makes something up) "follow the path to Suran until just after the signpost to Vivec, then take the track north into the hills" and try to figure out what that corresponded to in-game. Quest-markers just aren't quite the same... although I'll admit they do make things a lot easier, especially considering my absolutely terrible sense of direction in FPS games.

Anyway, now for more Adryn!

Last installment, Adryn searched for and failed to find a Dwemer puzzle cube in the ruins of Arkngthand. After some time, she applied Street Smarts (superficially similar to Common Sense, but we all know Adryn doesn't have any of that) to work out that the cube was most likely in the looter camp she drugged into unconsciousness at the entrance.



Back at the entrance some time later, I eased the metal door shut behind me. My arms burned at the weight of the thing, but I gritted my teeth and grimly hung on.

Dosing the doctored alcohol had been tricky since I hadn't known who would drink how much of what. Since I also hadn't wanted to kill anyone, I'd erred on the low side. For all I knew one of the looters was already awake, which meant that accidentally slamming the door would qualify as a Very Bad Thing.

Finally, it shut with a soft snick. I silently thanked whichever of the looters had decided to oil the hinges as I eased forward.

The camp looked exactly the same as I'd left it, and the sound of snoring was, if anything, even louder than before. I frowned.

I could leave now, decide it was too dangerous, come back and try another day...

...but could I, truly? I still had no idea how to get past the entrance without raising the alarm. It was a miracle things had panned out to get me this far this time, I couldn't count on being able to drug the entire camp again.

I let my eye rove over the sleeping camp again. All of its inhabitants looked to be firmly in dreamland.

What time was it, anyway? It had been full dark when I'd entered the ruin, and it must have been several hours since then. And although nervous energy and the desire not to die obscured it, I was definitely tired right now. Gone midnight, well into those early hours of the morning recognised primarily by criminals, nightwatchmen and vampires, as well as any intersections between those categories. Chances were that my looter camp had slipped smoothly from drugged unconsciousness into natural sleep.

All right. A quick look. And if any of the looters seemed like they were about to wake, I'd hightail it out of there.

So. Who had the cube?

The mage, I thought. They hadn't shipped it off yet, if Antabolis' intelligence was solid. Perhaps one of the looters had found it interesting and decided to keep it, and a mage seemed the most likely to be intrigued by a mysterious Dwemer artifact.

The Imperial woman in mage robes I'd noted earlier was sprawled over her bedroll, arms akimbo, mouth hanging open, a rather unsightly puddle of drool forming at the corner of her mouth. I eyed the number of empty bottles lying next to her, then her slight figure, and decided that I didn't have to worry about her waking up anytime soon. I'd almost worry about her waking up again ever, low dosages notwithstanding, except that her snores had transcended being merely loud and were making a valiant attempt at deafening. There was no way a corpse could make that much noise, and that was including necromancy. I was frankly surprised it was possible for anyone other than a very large giant trained in the thu'um. Why had I bothered being careful with the door earlier, again?

And this was really no time to go off on tangents, Adryn.

I knelt down next to Miss Probably-Has-Giant-Blood and began to rifle through her pile of belongings, a matter made more difficult by the fact that she'd apparently never so much as heard of the word organisation. Spell tomes were stacked on crumpled robes, an empty wine bottle was lying tipped sideways on top of a scroll. It would serve the mage right if the last dregs stained the runes and made it unusable. Several corked ingredient vials that made my fingers itch (those were fire salts if I'd ever brewed a potion) had been scattered across the floor, a hazard for anyone in the vicinity who wasn't watching where they were going.

I'd never complain about Ingerte's tendency to strew her belongings around the vicinity of her bed again-

No. I wouldn't, would I.

For the love of the Nine, I was currently crouched in the middle of a bandit lair whose inhabitants would be most distinctly unhappy if they woke up to find me here. This was really no place to get lost in memory. Or, worse, to start crying. I tried to avoid crying when I could, seeing as it was messy, unproductive, and humiliating... but that wasn't even scratching the surface of how extremely inappropriate it would be in the present situation. It should be obvious that tears were absolutely out of the question right now, so I didn't understand why my eyes were stinging so.

I clenched my hands into fists, letting my fingernails bite into my palms. After a long moment where I tried very hard to think of nothing but the sharp pain in my hands, I went back to work. If I was blinking a little more frequently than usual, there was no one to witness it and I'd deny everything.

The chaos meant it took far longer than I'd have liked, but in the end I found myself certain: wherever the cube was, it wasn't here.

Right. Not the mage, then. I heaved myself upright. There was a close call as I almost pitched sideways, my legs half-asleep. How long had I spent crouched down there – how long had my weakness cost me? Was it dawn yet?

My hands were shaking, I noticed dimly. I wanted to leave.

But I still hadn't found the cube.

All right. Think. Think! ...don't think of shoving the damn thing up Antabolis' nostril once I finally returned with it. Although that was indeed a valuable and viable train of thought which I'd like to consider at length later, now was really not the time.

Who had the cube?

...the leader, of course.

It was so obvious I could have kicked myself, if not for the fact that I'd have kicked Miss Giantsdottir as well and this would have resulted in what we in the trade call 'very bad things'.

But really now. A gang of looters is cleaning out a Dwemer ruin when they come across an item none of them have ever seen before. It's small, it's portable, it's mysterious, it's probably extremely valuable. Any bandit leader worth his bounty will go "no, I claim that by right of being the one who can bash all your heads together."

It was a predictable course of action, I'd seen something like it play out time and time again, and I should have thought of it immediately. Instead, my head had been full of the mages of the guild, of Trebonius' task and Edwinna and Dwemer scholarship, and my mind had leapt to the mage. Much like earlier that night when I'd headed straight past the camp into the dungeon depths, I'd gotten ahead of myself, drawn connections where none existed, and jumped to a wrong conclusion. It was a mistake I'd made all too often before... except that this time, there was no one around who could catch it.

My eyes were stinging again, I noticed dimly. Why they had to choose now to act up was beyond me. It was true that I might be due a grief-stricken breakdown, but I had no intention of indulging in one and this was definitely not the place or time.

I'd mistreated my palms enough for one night, so this time I bit my tongue to bring myself back to the present. So the leader had the cube. Who was the leader, then? Back in Skyrim, I'd have gone straight to the largest Nord in the place... but this wasn't Skyrim, and it was time to stop making assumptions.

I left the mage's side to make my way through the camp, studying each sleeper as I went. Breton, Imperial, Redguard-

A snort-

My heart almost leapt out of my throat as the huge Nord I'd just passed snorted loudly, the steady rhythm of his snoring interrupted. I froze, tensed to take flight, as his brow wrinkled in a frown. Then, after a harrowing moment, he relaxed and the snores resumed. It took a moment longer before I felt ready to move again.

I firmly squashed the urge to go for the nearest bag and hightail it out of there. I'd definitely overstayed my welcome... but that meant I couldn't afford another wrong choice.

Breton, Imperial...

I stopped.

Unlike the others, who'd spread their bedrolls over the floor, this man had apparently decided an ancient Dwemer bedstead was still up to its original job, and dragged a crate over to serve as a nightstand. A piece of parchment was lying on it. I carefully unfurled it.

Dear Crito,

...eating enough of whatever passes for vegetables in Morrowind? Are any of the other legionnaires being mean to you? You know I'm happy to come visit and beat them up for you... This paragraph was followed by a doodle of a triumphant stick figure standing on a pile of bodies.

...thought I'd try some true-and-tested Grandma-style nagging, someone should keep it going. Not sure it suits me, though. So what if you don't have enough long underwear and are freezing your bits off, there are things a sister does not want to know about the contents of her brother's trousers...

...found a new healer for Father, you know I never trusted the old one...

...won't deny the money you're sending is coming in extremely handy, but can you afford it? I know what a guard's salary is like, even with that mysterious special mission you mentioned the # sent you on...

...tell me more about that special assignment, will you? Speaking as someone older and wiser: acting all mysterious about it just makes it seem like you're still twelve...

...your loving sister (who can still beat you up),

Schlera

Well. I'd learned this particular looter had an unexpectedly touching motivation for his crimes along with a both loving and deluded family, but I didn't really see how that was any particular help in this situation...

Wait a minute.

Hadn't the looter on the bridge mentioned needing to talk to a 'Boss Crito'?

And looking more closely at his gear... that armour was definitely a cut above what the rest of the bandits had, and that sword was steel rather than iron, its edges glimmering red with destructive enchantment.

All right. I'd found the bandit leader. Now for the cube.

Unlike the Imperial mage, this Crito had kept his belongings carefully organised. A perfectly even stack of Dwemer coins here, a tidy pyramid of arrowheads there, his clothes not just folded so precisely the corners could probably draw blood but organised by colour. Either neat to the point of obsessiveness or an ex-legionnaire, and his sister's letter implied the latter. It made me even more eager to be out of here before the man woke up, and I'd already been so twitchy I'd probably end up on the ceiling if anyone coughed. However, the level of organisation at least made it easy to see that the cube was nowhere in sight.

I bit down a hiss of frustration. Where was the blasted thing? If the mage didn't have it, the boss didn't have it, then who-

As I turned away from Crito, I saw a gleam of reflected torchlight coming from under the bed... just where a small item might have fallen if it had been knocked off the nightstand.

Despite the situation, I couldn't help the broad grin that spread across my face as I put my pack down, knelt and finally, finally picked up Antabolis' cube.

At first glance, it looked much like Antabolis had described. I didn't give it a second glance. I didn't think it was likely there were two similar cubes in this dump, and careful study of my prize could wait until I was out of here. Speaking of, it was past and well past time to withdraw-

"Whazzat? Izzit dawn 'lready?"

If I hadn't been so tense, that might have been it for me. But some part of my mind had been waiting for precisely this to happen the whole time I'd been searching the camp, had been preparing to flee or hide at a moment's notice. And so my reflexes had me flat on the ground under the bed, pulling my pack in beside me, before Crito had finished rubbing his eyes.

"Ugh, m'head..." came from above me.

Go back to sleep, I willed silently. You're tired, you have a hangover, it can't be dawn yet. Just go back to sleep, you know you want to...

The bedstead above creaked alarmingly as the weight it was bearing shifted. Crito, providing unknowing proof that I did not have any sort of natural powers of telepathy, was sitting up.

"...coulda sworn I didn' drink tha' much yesserday... Dibella, I needda piss..." Two hairy feet hit the ground inches from my nose.

If he was just going to relieve himself, I might still have a chance. I'd seen the stinking corner with its chamberpot that was clearly being used for that purpose earlier, and it was some distance away. He'd be slow, bleary, unobservant. It would be tricky with the exposed route to the entrance, true, but surely I could avoid one half-asleep hungover bandit...

I watched the feet move away with bated breath. One step, two steps, three, four... then they stopped.

"Waitasec. Crist'sh, what're ya doin' asleep? Shouldn'ya be on wash?" A pause. The next sentence came out far clearer, slow, thoughtful and terribly, terribly awake. "Shouldn't someone be on watch...?"

Oh no.

"Oi! Maggots! Rise and shine!"

I should just stop hoping for things. It inevitably made the universe decide to prove me wrong.

I closed my eyes against the sense of rising despair as around me, the looter camp came awake.

Uh oh . . .

Well done, the search through the camp and the tension, the battle between Adryn's memories and her situational awareness.

Talk about a downward transition! (Sorry, obscure dressage term that fits the situation perfectly)

I made a truly amazing discovery just now.

You see, I was reading through ESO Morrowind NPCs and quests to figure out how to work them into my own backstory for SitC. This is frequently frustrating because it ends up overturning plans and backstory I've had for quite some time, leaving me scrambling. However. However.

So I know Adryn's family... and I found a relative of hers. And it turns out Adryn comes honestly both by her reluctant altruism, and by her ability to attract trouble and get into absurd shenanigans. I mean. I could seriously see in Adryn in this NPC's place as they flailed around trying to fix the mess they'd accidentally caused. This is one of the most Adryn-like NPCs ESO has to offer. And they're related.

Bethesda, I forgive you everything. (Including the fact that said relative turned up in a place they shouldn't have been doing a job they shouldn't have been according to my previous plans for that part of the family/the culture of that region as a whole - I may have to rework a lot of backstory here .)

ANYWAY.

@haute ecole rider - Very glad you liked that bit, especially the balance between flashbacks vs Adryn's present reality! I was a little worried Adryn's dips into the past would break the suspense of the situation, but she rather insisted on having flashbacks.

Next up...

Last chapter, Adryn went to Arkngthand in search of a Dwemer puzzle cube for (indirectly) Caius Cosades. The whole thing did not go quite as planned... or rather, the plan of getting into the ruins unseen by the looters inhabiting it worked brilliantly, the plan of finding the cube was successful after some snags, but getting out of the ruin appears to be causing a little more difficulty. Last we saw Adryn, she was hiding under a bed in the looters' camp inside the ruins just as they all woke up.



There had been a small library attached to the orphanage at Daggerfall. It had, I suspected, been one of the things the priestesses used to tell each other how good, how generous they were being. Imagine – not only taking in the poor deprived orphans, but teaching them to read! Giving them books! What kindness, what graciousness, the very image of Kynareth herself. This conclusion would, of course, be reached without actually inspecting the contents of said library. I myself had done so repeatedly and at length growing up, and the contents and state of the books had driven me to the inescapable conclusion that the last time it had been supplied had been in the Second Era.

The most popular books by far had been an adventure series. The language had been archaic, the depictions of anyone other than Bretons or Redguards often downright insulting, and the descriptions of the world had left me briefly under the impression the Summerset Isles were an independent state and there was currently civil war in Cyrodiil (I really wasn't kidding about the Second Era), but there's a certain style of cheesy pulp that remains gripping no matter how many centuries lie between you and its publication.

One of series' conceits had been to start every book with the words so, there I was. So, there I was, fingers just inches away from the Dread Ayleid-King's crown... So, there I was, clinging to a plank in the middle of the Abecean Sea... Hiding in the library, I'd dreamed of one day being in a situation that deserved being described in the fashion. How exciting! How romantic! What an amazing change it would be from my dreary life in the orphanage!

I'd been a real idiot when I was younger.

So, there I was, hiding under a bed at the edge of a looter camp in an active Dwemer ruin, trying not to breathe too loudly lest the bandits notice I was there. I had to say that so far I didn't feel particularly inclined to tell my hypothetical grandchildren about this one, but if I did I'd have to stress that of all the adjectives one could use to describe this situation, exciting did not make the list.

(Said grandchildren were never particularly close to reality. They were, however, even more hypothetical than usual today – such facts as 'Adryn is completely disinterested in the sort of activity that leads to children' and 'Adryn is demonstrably incapable of taking care of herself, let alone helpless offspring' are eclipsed by 'Adryn is currently uncertain she will survive the next few hours' as far as the likelihood to procreate is concerned.)

Given the current constraints of my vision, the only thing I could really see were feet. However, my hearing was unimpeded and judging by the amount of groaning, Crito's attempt to rouse the rest of the camp sounded unfortunately successful.

"Lazy rats, skiving off on watch, lying in bed when there's work to be done," I heard from up ahead. "Get up already, will you... ah, there we are."

Rustling, and then light flared. Even under the bed, I squeezed my eyes shut against the glare. The chorus of complaints around the room indicated the groggy looters' reflexes hadn't been quite so quick as mine.

"Have mercy! I need those eyes!"

"The night after a celebration? Has he lost his mind?"

"If you don't let me go back to sleep this instant there'll be blood!"

As Crito bellowed at the last one, I began a slow shuffle away.

In my professional experience as a thief, under the bed is not a safe hiding place. Better than none, certainly, but it's the first place many people will look – children especially. Never to mention that once you're under there, you're pretty thoroughly stuck in place. No, I had to move. And the moment when the gang leader decided to destroy everyone's night vision seemed like a good time to me.

In the small things if not the big, Nocturnal was with me. Crito had set up his bed at the very edge of the camp, away from the bedrolls spread by the other bandits. The side of the bed I'd now reached came out on haphazardly stacked crates. Although I felt in some danger of being crushed by them toppling over, they were at least distinctly unlikely to raise an alarm.

And, more to the point, the gap between those two looked wide enough to crawl through.

It was only once I'd managed to make it behind the crates that I dared sit up. I felt raw and scratched from the grit I'd dragged myself through, I doubted my poor shirt would ever recover, and my heart had been in my throat every agonised inch – but it couldn't be helped. I hadn't dare move in a way that might make me visible from the main part of the camp. Distracted, hungover and half-blinded the bandits might be, but there is nothing that focuses an eye like movement.

Which, admittedly, made the whole question of getting back to the entrance – the sole, ludicrously exposed, difficult to reach entrance where the door could wake the dead, if not the drugged – rather... tricky.

Well, first things first.

With a moment of concentration and a twist of magicka, I sent my consciousness outwards. It took a little more focus to tune the Detection spell for what I wanted to look for, but soon I was feeling the pulse of life from the camp, eleven distinct signatures. I noted with resignation that only three were still muted with sleep – the remnants of my drug had not stood up well to Crito's determination. More to the point, none of them were making their way toward me. I was still hidden.

(Well, unless one of them cast a detection spell of their own. Rule Twelve: never forget that your targets also have access to magic. Many an aspiring thief who thought they'd found safe refuge has been most unpleasantly surprised that way. Thankfully, people don't generally start off their mornings magically scanning their surroundings for hidden enemies – especially when they're hungover.)

Keeping a mental 'eye' on the life-signatures of the looters, I turned to my pack.

Amazingly, I'd managed to keep it with me so far. Its contents had not, however, survived the night's adventures wholely unscathed: judging by the wet spot on the bottom, at least one of the vials had broken. I brushed the sticky residue, lifted it to my finger and sniffed. An energising potion. It would have come in handy now, considering that even high on nervous energy I was starting to feel my exhaustion. I supposed I should just be grateful it hadn't been a smoke-bomb – that would definitely have drawn attention I'd like to avoid.

It really was only one broken potion; I'd tried to cushion the vials using one of my robes, and that had apparently paid off. All the same, I'd been expecting more Dwemer automata and fewer bandits, and the contents of my pack reflected that. There were quite a few potions to accelerate corrosion and rust which I'd created in the hopes that they might immobilise a centurion. They might even have worked quite well for their intended purpose, but they were of sadly limited use in the present situation. At least, I didn't think being stabbed by a rusty sword was much of an improvement over being stabbed by a polished one. I did pack a few sleeping potions, but those had all gone into the alcohol. There were a few of those smoke potions, one improvised flashbang, those had potential... also the vial of off-violet liquid I'd brewed following one of Ajira's recipes which should give me the power of levitation. A possible way up to the ledge? Except that it'd be no use if I immediately had eight angry bandits on my tail...

But maybe one?

I'd been listening to the grumbling bandits with half an ear. Although by the sounds of it everyone was feeling like death right now and some were still insensible, no one seemed suspicious of the way everyone had lost consciousness yesterday. No suspicion was good. If they only posted a single person on watch tonight... I was all out of sleeping potions, but I might be able to use the smoke potions to confuse them, levitate up to the ledge and hightail it out before they could mobilise, then lose any pursuers in the dark...

It wasn't a great plan, especially since by tonight I'd have gone one and a half days without sleep and that is, to put it mildly, not a state in which it's particularly wise to rely on your razor-sharp intellect and keen reflexes. But it was the only plan I had.

I'd just have to hunker down today, hope nothing happened to put them on alert-

One of the life-signatures was approaching me.

I froze into stillness, hardly daring to breathe. Footsteps neared along with the burning sensation of life... stopped. Still some steps away, I noted with relief, if not as many as I'd like. By the bed, and wasn't I glad I'd left that hiding place.

"Hey." It was Crito, and his voice was ominously calm. "Where's the cube?"

Sometimes I wondered why I even bothered getting up in the morning.

Rummaging noises came from the other side of the crates. "The cube?" Crito raised his voice. "You know, the extremely rare item our kind benefactor is paying us large amounts of money to deliver? The entire reason we're even in these ruins in the first place? The cube I know for a fact was on my nightstand yesterday evening?"

How was it that, despite significant temptation (primarily in the form of rare ingredients), I'd stolen one single solitary item and yet it was immediately missed? Seriously, what Daedra had I insulted to explain this kind of luck?

A second life-signature joined Crito's. "Keep your voice down, will you?" The voice was female, tinged with some Cyrodiilic accent – Nibeynese, I thought – and sounded as if the owner was definitely contemplating murder. "I'm having a hard enough time keeping my skull from exploding without you yelling loud enough to bring back the Dwemer. Have you checked under the bed?"

Really glad I'd left that hiding place.

A rustle. "Nothing." Crito's voice was quieter now. He pitched it even lower as he continued. "Livia, I told the Knight-Protector we'd have it for him today. Apparently his... patron has been getting impatient. If it's gone, he'll have our heads-"

"Don't be such a coward, it's not a good look for you," apparently-Livia hissed in response. "Besides, do you think the thing grew legs and ran away? Nobody's left since yesterday, Bato is guarding the entrance-"

"And I told you I was worried about competition! Curse Bato for not being able to keep his mouth shut when he's drunk, at this point I expect even the Telvanni have heard about the cube. Damn Dwemer-obsessed mages, Granius told me there was a chit from the Mages' Guild sniffing around yesterday-"

Well. This had proven an unexpectedly informative hiding place. If I had this right, I'd learned not just how Antabolis had known about the cube but also how the looters could afford to be so open with their presence next to an Imperial fort. I'd be happy, except that in retrospect I'd really have preferred to stay ignorant of the last one. So the Knight-Protector at the local fort was corrupt and I didn't have a single shred of proof for that. I had no idea what I could even do with that knowledge, apart from get myself killed.

An ostentatious yawn. Livia. "I have to point out that you're crying about thieves and mages and Telvanni without even having searched for the thing. Chances are Bato crated it with the rest of the loot when you weren't around to stop him. Have a look around, will you?"

...why was I worrying about hypotheticals when there were so many ways to get myself killed right here?

"I'm not so confident, but I guess it can't hurt to look." Crito raised his voice again. "Cockroaches! I want to see all of you hard at work searching our outgoing shipments for the cube! Anyone who lags has to eat the leftover polenta tonight!"

So my hiding place no longer seemed nearly as safe and secure as it had a few minutes earlier. True, no one was making motions towards it right now – Crito and Livia apparently preferring to stand and supervise – but it could only be a matter of time. I'd try to relocate except that judging by the way the looters were fanning out, no hiding place in the whole ruin was safe. (That leftover polenta must be a truly dire threat.) There was no way I'd be able to keep away from them all day. Plan A was out.

...it'd help if I had a plan B.

Could I fit the new information I'd just learned into any of this? Crito thought knowledge of the cube was widespread, was – correctly – worried about someone stealing it, although his suspicion seemed to fall more on mages than on members of the Fighter's Guild with a keen historical interest. He'd mentioned the guild and the Telvanni, who Varvur had told me were magic users-

Bolvyn Venim had thought I was Telvanni, that had been the context, and Varvur hadn't thought it strange. What had he said, again? You do look rather Telvanni, come to think of it...

And with that, plan B sprung into my head. It was even riskier than plan A, but sometimes you just don't have much of a choice about these things.

Plan B? surely this IS the morning after? LOL

anyways, I am a little curious (and more than a little anxious) to see how Adryn uses the information about Telvanni and mages and whatnot to come up with Plan B (which I suppose is NOT the morning after pill . . .)

@haute ecole rider - I am very glad I wasn't drinking anything when I read your comment! Plan B indeed.

Last installment, Adryn watched a looter camp wake up and developed a plan for how to get herself out of said camp. Even she thought it was a bad plan, which is probably a worrying sign.



There was a great deal of muttering among the looters. No one was particularly happy about being dragged out of a sound sleep at the crack of dawn to search for an item their leader should (or so the whispers went) really have kept a better eye on. Especially considering there were no hangover potions to be found.

The grumbling was broken by the sound of glass breaking, followed by billows of smoke.

"What the-"

"Is that the fire?"

As the looters milled in confusion I stepped forward, letting my illusion snap into place as I did.

"Wait a moment there. Who in Oblivion are you?"

The downside of my smoke bombs was that they didn't last particularly long. Pity, really – if they had, I might have been able to make it up to the ledge unseen and avoid all this rigmarole. As it was, the smoke was dissipating only seconds after the bottles had broken, and Crito had seen me.

I squelched the urge to back away from the man. The looters were disoriented and confused by the smoke and my sudden appearance, but any sign of fear and they'd be on me like a pack of wolves. I had to keep them off-balance, not thinking of attacking.

Instead, I sneered as I fixed my mind on the sounds of Ervesa's voice. My own Skyrim accent would be rather out of place for the figure I was trying to portray. Thankfully, I'd always been good at voices.

"As if a peasant like you deserves to know the name of a member of Great House Telvanni." It came out sounding credibly Morrowindish, I thought as I waved a hand in dismissal. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught the sparkle of jewels.

My illusion spells weren't strong enough to make me look completely different, unfortunately. Being able to appear as, say, a man, would have been quite handy in terms of throwing off pursuit. Instead, I had to use my current appearance as a basis. Still, I hoped that I was still pretty much unrecognisable right now. My hair should look neater and darker, more brown than red, my face more angular and bearing the first lines of advancing age, and as for my garb-

Well, I didn't know what constituted typical dress for a Telvanni, so I'd gone for the old mage standby. I'd pulled on the robe I'd used to cushion my potions, then let the illusions spruce it up with lots and lots of shiny things.

"T-telvanni?"

Crito's advance stopped, and his hand left his sword. He looked pale, sick, afraid but trying to hide it. In short: thoroughly taken in.

(I had to admit to a moment of disbelief that this was working.)

"Of course." I scoffed. "Did you really think you could keep such a find hidden from us? As if you magicless peons deserve to lay hands on a treasure like the puzzle cube." I lifted said object in front of me, concentrating on the illusion. Light reflected off the cube as if it glowed...

...and, while all eyes were hopefully on the Dwemer artifact, I gulped down the potion I'd surreptitiously brought to my mouth. I'd never quite understood his antipathy towards magic, but I had to admit the sleight-of-hand Charon had preferred instead was coming in really handy right now.

For an awful moment, I thought it hadn't worked, then I felt my feet leave the ground and my body start to rise.

Slowly.

Seriously, when Ajira had said 'levitation' I'd expected something a little more dramatic. I felt like I was moving at the speed of a drunk bumblebee.

"Thief!" Crito yelled. Well, there was an unforeseen benefit: my rise was slow enough that Crito hadn't noticed.

Now, to keep him distracted and not attacking-

"Me, steal?" I cast around wildly for things an extremely snobbish mage might say. "How dare you accuse me of such a pedestrian crime. I am merely bringing the cube to its rightful owners, the only ones who can be trusted with it. Away from the clutches of thieving outlanders." Throwing that appellation at someone else felt perversely good. "Now, stand back or I can take no responsibility for what will happen to you."

With a moment's thought, I gauged my magicka pool. It was already rather depleted despite the replenishing potion I'd drunk before starting my plan, and what I wouldn't give to have been born under the Mage or Apprentice right now. There was still a respectable amount left, though. Definitely enough to kindle fire in my empty hand.

The Firebite spell was, of course, completely useless in this situation, but that was true for all of my spells. More to the point, it looked impressive. Indeed, one of the bandits who'd been inching closer moved back at the sight of the flames filling my palm.

Crito bared his teeth in frustration. His eyes darted to the side. "Will someone wake Lalaine already?" he hissed. "We've got an enemy mage in the camp, this is her job to deal with-"

"Sorry, boss, she's sleeping like the dead."

Thank Shor for that mage's love of alcohol, indeed. The last thing I wanted right now was someone trained in magic taking a close look at what I was doing.

"Uh, boss? I think the Telvanni's getting away."

The changing light from my special effects had managed to hide it for longer than I'd hoped. All the same, the fact that I was suddenly taller than Crito was hard to ignore, and the purple glow that limned my feet made it rather obvious what was happening.

"What?" Crito snarled, and his hand went back to his sword.

I needed to get out of hitting range right now-

My lazy movement upwards accelerated with a sudden jerk. Oh, so it was a willpower-guided spell, and Ajira's recipe preserved that connection. That would have been very handy to have known five minutes ago.

"Talos damn it." Crito stopped his advance as I ascended, apparently judging that I was too far in the air to stop. Then he smiled. I followed his gaze and just barely kept my face smooth when I saw the Nord with an arrow nocked to his bow.

Talos damn it indeed, I hadn't considered archery. I didn't particularly want to become a pincushion, but I didn't have any protection against arrows-

Which the looters didn't know. From their perspective, I was an all-powerful Telvanni wizard. And although I didn't have any spell that could protect me from arrows... I did have one that looked as though it could.

With a thought, I cast my Rainshield spell. My magicka was beginning to veer into dangerously low territory, but I didn't have much of a choice. As the glowing purple nimbus surrounded me, I forced a smile.

"Yes, by all means, shoot at me." No, really, please don't. "I enjoy seeing arrows bounce off my impenetrable guard." The 'impenetrable guard' meant to keep off rain. It would pop like a soap bubble if it got hit by a particularly large pebble – arrows would go through it like it wasn't even there. "It amuses me to watch the futile struggles of non-mages." Amused was the last thing I'd be if one of them shot me.

For a moment I wasn't sure if my bluff had worked, then the Nord lowered the bow with a scowl. "Damn cheating wizards-"

Well, he had one thing right. I was definitely not playing fair right now.

And with that thought, I found myself hovering over the ledge. An instant later, the potion wore off and I dropped lightly to the ground. I couldn't have timed it better myself.

The smile that spread over my face was, for once, entirely genuine. I'd made it. I'd made it, and the looters were still staring at me slack-jawed-

"Thank you for your hospitality," I sang. After a moment of consideration, I threw my last smoke bomb down at the sea of gaping faces, then turned and ran for it.

Outside, I was greeted by a beautifully clear autumn day, the sun warming my robes. My smile shrank.

True, the Nord guard was still slumped in sleep, which was probably more luck than I deserved considering I'd forgotten about the man completely. All the same, I could really have used an ash-storm, driving rain – clouds, at least. Judging by the muffled shouting from within, Crito had overcome his paralysis and was now exhorting some form of vermin to give chase. I had a head start, but the weather was definitely against me- it wouldn't take at all long until they reached the door-

Reached, yes. Went through?

The door was a huge slab of metal, connected to switches both outside and inside by what must be a very clever series of cogs and counterweights. Said mechanisms were generally hidden away, but just to the left of the door the passage of time had eroded away their protective covering, exposing a forest of gears to the air.

With trembling fingers, I took off my pack and dug through it. My antics inside had sorely depleted my store of potions, but I hadn't been able to think of anything to do with...

There.

I gathered the corroding potions I'd created and, one by one, poured them over the exposed mechanisms. Practiced alchemist though I was, I had to concentrate fiercely to keep my hands steady. If this didn't work, I'd have lost my head start.

Whatever skill of construction, art of metallurgy or clever enchantment it was that had let the Dwemer machinery survive the millennia, it gave way to the concentrated assault of minced Hunger skin and kresh fiber simmered in rooberry oil. Each successive potion produced an acrid cloud and a faint bubbling sound, and by the time the last vial had been emptied the intricate cogwheels had been replaced by a solid wall of rust.

As if on cue, the door shuddered. I could feel myself tremble at the sight, but it didn't open. After a moment, a muffled cry came from inside. "Boss! The door's not working!"

"What?"

Well, that should keep them occupied for a while.

I turned to leave and froze.

Asleep the Nord might have been, but unlike our friend the mage he hadn't downed enough wine to float a ship. The sun was well above the horizon now, and the noise the looters still inside Arkngthand were making could probably be heard back in Balmora. The man's eyelids were fluttering, and-

-and I'd let my illusion lapse after I left Arkngthand.

Quick as thought, I forced it back into place. Even as I did so, black spots swam across my vision. I gritted my teeth and fought against the surge of dizziness until it cleared. That spell was drawing magicka I didn't have, and if I didn't stop casting soon I might as well deliver myself back to Crito right now.

"Whas' goin on? Who in'blivion are you?"

I looked down at the groggy bandit. He was squinting at me in befuddlement, but that wouldn't last.

My ruse had carried me so far, I couldn't break character now. "House Telvanni has come to reclaim their belongings, scum." I attempted a contemptuous sneer, but my heart wasn't in it.

I had no magicka left for special effects. In fact, I was so drained I was honestly a little surprised my illusion hadn't collapsed yet.

I was, however, still holding my pack. And I had one potion left.

Even filtered through eyelids squeezed shut, the light of my flashbang was enough to make me wince. Judging by the agonised howl the looter let out, this was not even comparable to the effect if one happened to be staring straight at the vial when it broke.

The pounding on the door stopped. "Bato?" came a muffled voice. "Are you all right?" A pause. "What in the name of Talos is going on out there, anyway!"

I let the illusion drop and legged it.



Notes: Sometimes I think making Adryn a noncombatant is the best writing decision I've ever made.

OMG!! This was sheer comedy! I loved how she outwitted those louts with a few spells and a wrinkled old robe . . . LOL

And at the end, when she knew she was done with all things magical and just hotfooted it out of there. Yay!

It does seem to focus the story, by not leaving her a lot of options. Necessity is the mother of invention, and writing uses a lot of the latter.

But the extra details you weave in, that explain the why behind the what, such as the Telvanni angle here, take it a step beyond.

I think Bethesda has missed a trick here with their classes. Sure Mage and Nightblade are fun, but Magical Con Artist seems to offer more fun

I absolutely love the character of Adryn, funny, reckless, full of self-doubt and confidence in equal measure, just a real pleasure to follow her journey.

A very well deserved S.G.M.!

(Must admit I'm curious about the new reader happy dance. I have an image in my mind of Travolta in Pulp Fiction...)

@haute ecole rider - I'm glad you enjoyed it, I was cackling writing this scene. I knew early on that the way Adryn got the cube from Arkngthand would involve some sort of trickery, but the Telvanni impersonation coalesced relatively late. And yes, Adryn knows when the time to drop all tricks and run has come...

@ghastley - that's basically it. I actually started off intending Adryn-who-couldn't-defeat-a-mudcrab-in-combat to be a temporary thing (my reasoning was basically that since any Morrowind character achieves godlike combat skills in the course of the game, one might as well start them off at close to zero in order to have a a little variety and a proper progression), but her inability to fight her way out of things lent itself to such fun plots and... creative problem-solving, ahem... arising from even straightforward quests that I decided to keep it.

@Burnt Sierra - Indeed! Although I suspect that if you asked Adryn she'd have other words to use for her skills than "fun" . And I'm of course glad you like Adryn! She's the character I've invested the most time in of everything I've ever written by a wide margin, so I'm glad to hear she's coming across as both believable and interesting to read about.

(As for the new reader happy dance, I'm afraid that any recordings have been destroyed. )

Last installment, Adryn decided to get out of the Dwemer ruin via impersonating an all-powerful Telvanni mage and fleeing while the looters were too shell-shocked and wary to attack. To her very great surprise, this actually worked. Last we saw her, she'd left eleven (11) looters trapped inside Arkngthand, one (1) looter, temporarily blinded, outside Arkngthand, and was making her way back to Balmora with the puzzle cube in her pocket to hand it over to Hasphat Antabolis. Let's see how that goes...



"There. One Dwemer cube, delivered as requested." The cube made a solid clink as it hit Antabolis' desk. I couldn't help the triumphant smile that spread over my face at the sound.

I'd opted to wait a day to deliver the cube. It had taken me a significant part of yesterday to get back to Balmora, despite a handy lack of pursuit from Arkngthand. Or possibly because of that lack; terror for one's life can serve as a quite acceptable substitute for both sleep and physical conditioning in certain circumstances. Without it, my body began to lodge complaints.

These complaints were, I had to admit, both justified and significant, involving such matters as "we haven't eaten since last evening", "we haven't slept at all this night", "we've drained our magicka so badly it'll probably take two potions just to get our pool back to empty", and similar concerns. However, as I couldn't actually do anything about any of those things until I returned to Balmora, I really felt it could have held off that long. Alas, it did not, and the miles back passed in a slow, agonising haze. When I reached the town signpost, I could have hugged it.

Correction: it turns out that one's willpower suffers quite a bit when hungry and sleep-deprived, which in turn has a significant impact on one's ability to resist random impulses. I did hug the signpost. The guards almost didn't let me in.

After that, I decided I wasn't in a fit state to be seen by – well, anyone really, but definitely not the man who'd been the cause of all of this – and opted to spend the rest of the day addressing my body's complaints. Marayn did make it clear that my bed in the Mages' Guild was off-limits until the guild closed in the evening, but as this led to lunch in the form of rat-inna-bun from a street vendor followed by a several-hour soak in the hot springs to get clean again and a visit to a laundress to see to my ash-covered clothes (I was relieved when she said they should be salvageable, as I really did not have the money to keep replacing them) it wasn't all bad.

As my mind returned to the present, my smile died. Antabolis hadn't picked up the cube, and the expression on his face could not possibly be called happy. "What is it?" I asked warily. Had there been another cube after all, and I hadn't picked the right one?

"So old Hasphat has some connections in the underworld, you know. Connections that told him Crito and his men were turning over Arkngthand in search for a Dwemer artifact in the first place. A Dwemer artifact that belongs in a real scholar's hands, hands like Hasphat's, not some greedy collector's. Sadly, he may have been a little too open about that opinion, and word that he wanted the cube filtered back to Crito's ears."

I frowned. "Is there a point to this? And a reason why you're talking like a Khajiit?" Perhaps the equivalent of my own Skyrim accent, a man who'd been raised in Elsweyr? But he'd spoken like any other Imperial when I'd first met him.

As Antabolis pinched the bridge of his nose as if to ward off an impending headache, something else struck me. "Wait a moment! You knew about Crito and his men in the ruins." I'd gathered he must have, but this was confirmation from the man's own lips. "You couldn't have warned me? I ran straight into their guard!"

"My point," Antabolis said, ignoring me completely, "is that last night I went to the Southwall Corner-Club to get some drinks. And what did I find but Crito himself, deep in his cups and swearing loudly about the damn Telvanni mage who'd made a mockery of him and his gang. I have to hand it to you – I've never seen the man so murderous in my life."

Truth be told, that bit of information left me feeling more relieved than anything else. This might be considered something of a strange reaction on being told that a band of bandits has sworn revenge on you, but considering they had no way of identifying me I wasn't too worried.

More to the point, on my long walk back I'd been hit by the horrible thought that I might have jammed the door even better than I'd intended, actually trapping those inside. I'd only meant to delay the looters, not endanger their lives, and even telling myself that Nord heads would certainly be hard enough to bash down the door hadn't helped the guilt. As a result, the fact that I hadn't doomed them to a terrible lingering demise qualified as good news, death threats notwithstanding.

"Do you think this is some kind of joke, girl?" Antabolis had apparently misinterpreted my smile.

"What?" I asked, biting down my reflexive reaction at that appellation (two syllables!). "I mean – sure, I had to improvise a little. It would've helped if the Dwemer had left an emergency exit, really. But what's wrong with that? It's true that Crito might be mad, but he has no way of tracing me, or by extension you-"

Antabolis' fist hit the desk in front of him with a meaty thump. The papers shook, and a goblet nearly toppled over. I took a step back.

"No way of tracing you, sure. Up until Hard-Heart sends some minions to check on old Hasphat, since he didn't exactly make a secret of wanting the cube. Or, you know, I publish a scholarly work on the cube, which was the reason I wanted it in the first place. That would make it relatively obvious, don't you think?"

"Oh." My voice was small. For a moment, I almost felt guilty. Then it hit me. "Wait a minute. If that's the case, it would be a problem no matter how I got the cube for you. What, exactly, were you expecting me to do?"

"To do?" Antabolis' mouth opened and closed wordlessly a few times as his eyes bulged. Apparently my entirely innocent, perfectly reasonable inquiry had nearly pushed him over the edge. Finally, he choked out, "I was expecting you to kill them!"

Now it was my turn to gape. "Kill all those people? How would I do that?" A pause. "Why would I do that? They were minding their own business! They hadn't done anything to me!" The letter on Crito's nightstand swam into my memory. "Crito is sending money home to his family, you know. His father is sick and they won't be able to pay the healer without him!"

Antabolis dropped his head into his hands. "Stendarr preserve me, Caius sent a lunatic." His voice was a little muffled by his palms, but I could still make the words out.

I'd have taken offense, but before I could formulate my objection a thought occurred to me. "How exactly was me going on a murder spree supposed to help anything, anyway? Surely this Hard-Heart would still have noticed when you published your article?"

Antabolis looked up, breath hissing out between his teeth. I really didn't understand why he was getting so frustrated, because I was definitely the only one in this room who was making sense right now.

"All right, you naive little idiot," he growled. "Here's an explanation of how the real world works. Radd Hard-Heart, over at Fort Moonmoth, is in Velanda Omani's pocket. The Hlaalu Councilor, if I have to spell it out, the one who's entangled with Orvas Dren and therefore the Cammona godsdamn Tong. Everyone knows that except the Legion. So – Omani hears about some artifact in Arkngthand. It's unique, it's hard to get, so obviously she has to have it. It'd look ever so lovely in her trophy cabinet. Who cares what it's for."

There was real disgust in Antabolis' tone, a scholar indignant about a mere collector. I was starting to think his talk of writing a research article about the cube was in earnest. "She tells Hard-Heart," he continued, "Hard-Heart sends someone expendable. If some adventurer kills them all, loots the ruin and takes the cube, well – that's just how the game goes. Everyone knows that. Same if old Hasphat turns up with it later. Maybe the adventurer sold it to him, maybe Hasphat pulled one over on them. Omani is annoyed, Hard-Heart's even more annoyed, but there'll be other artifacts. They don't care enough to go up against old Hasphat, and Crito's no longer around to care."

The Imperial grinned. I swallowed and moved a little further back. That expression put me more in mind of a saber-cat baring its teeth than anything that could be termed 'friendly'.

"What's completely different is if someone who for some reason thought disguising herself as a Telvanni mage was on the same plane of existence as a good idea waltzes in, steals the cube, and tweaks Crito's nose on the way out. That's not just mocking Omani, that's making her into the Jester King and getting another Great House involved in her affairs, got it? Right now, she's furious, probably trying to figure out which Telvanni decided to play her for a fool. And that's Mara's own peace compared to what Crito is feeling. The instant either of them hears old Hasphat had anything to do with that- the moment someon thinks old Hasphat went to the Telvanni-" He drew a finger across his throat demonstratively.

"Um." I considered apologising, but somewhere between my mind and my mouth the word sorry turned into, "I think you're all touched by Sheogorath. In what universe is murdering almost a dozen people more acceptable than a little thievery and sleight of hand?"

"Spoken like someone who's never had anything to do with organised crime. Seriously, where did Caius even find you? A Jarl's palace?"

"A palace? For your information, I-"

Thankfully, my brain engaged before I could finish that highly indignant and extremely reckless sentence. I could indeed tell Antabolis that this was not in any way, shape or form how organised crime had worked in Skyrim even before the guild war, and tell him from what was almost certainly a place of more authority and experience than he'd ever earned. However, letting my connections to the Thieves' Guild be known still qualified as a Very Bad Idea. Jobasha had been bad enough.

"...never mind."

I'd just have to let Antabolis draw his erronous conclusions even as I made my own, far more accurate, deductions: apparently Allidiot hadn't been an aberration, because from the sounds of it the whole underworld here didn't know how to behave. Retiring had been for the best for more reasons than one, and I had to silently thank Elone for driving me to it.

"Right. Jarl's palace it is," Antabolis said when it was clear I wasn't responding. "Well, young miss Jarl-in-waiting, you can tell Caius that not only won't he get his notes, he'll have to do some grovelling to make this disaster up to me. And take that with you."

I stared down at the puzzle cube. "What am I supposed to do with that? I don't want it, you were the one who-"

"What are you- what do you expect me to do with it, now that you've made it worth my life to possess?" Antabolis cried. "Get out!"

Well, then.

Once outside, I leaned against a nearby wall and let myself think.

That could have really gone better.

Personally, I blamed Antabolis – if he'd given me a little more information when he'd sent me off, none of this would have happened. I was, however, a little doubtful that Cosades would see it the same way. Especially since all I had for him was a perfectly useless Dwemer artifact that probably now qualified as the hottest good on Vvardenfell, probably not an acceptable substitute for the notes he'd been after. And this after he'd asked me to be careful...

Wait a moment.

What had Cosades said when he'd sent me to Antabolis?

I would be very, very grateful if you managed to do this without running afoul of any Hlaalu Councilors, high-ranking members of the Imperial Legion, or organised crime syndicates.

...oops.

"He's going to kill me," I told the wall.

You left out the Telvanni (or CC did). Aren't they potentially upset by that impersonation?

Whups. Definitely not something you'd want to hear in surgery at the vet's . . .

Welp, from the frying pan into the fire.

Almost forgot to post this! I was at a conference for most of this week, returned with the spoils of bits and bobs of new technical knowledge (including a way better understanding of neural networks/deep learning, whoo), various goodies like stickers and free T-shirts, aaaand a fever - so have been mildly distracted. Here's hoping the fever is a one-day thing because this is a holiday weekend in Germany and I have better things to do with my free Monday.

@ghastley - You're absolutely correct! Personally, I think CC wasn't giving Adryn quite enough credit. It's literally going next door to talk to Hasphat, he thought. There is no possible way even she could manage to piss off the Telvanni during that, he thought. ...He knows better now.

@haute ecole rider - I suspect Adryn's "oops" is an utterance that strikes fear in the heart of many. Definitely Cosades, after this.

Last installment, Adryn tried to deliver her stolen prize. She failed, as Hasphat informed her she'd managed to anger enough very powerful people in the way she went about getting the cube that it was no longer safe for him to have. Last we saw her, she was heading off to Caius Cosades, cube in her pocket, to admit how badly the whole thing went.



Cosades did not, in fact, kill me, although he certainly gave it a good try via verbal flaying. By the time I left, I felt about as tall as a gnat. Thankfully, Cosades also didn't give me any further tasks to do. Most likely seeing what had become of the first one had cast serious doubt on my ability as any sort of spy. I certainly wasn't going to protest otherwise.

With no further instructions from Cosades and no sign of Ranis Athrys – Masalinie mentioned at breakfast one morning that she was on the mainland for some sort of conclave – I was more or less left to my own devices. I split those pretty evenly between helping Ajira in the alchemy lab and taking Masalinie up on her suggestion to work on Mysticism together.

Honestly, if it had been completely up to my preference, that ratio would have been a lot more imbalanced. However, at some point hiding behind those crates in the Dwemer ruin, I'd realised that I had to understand my abilities – and lack thereof – at Mysticism better than I did. If I'd had a better understanding of how my teleportation skills worked and what the risks were, I might have been able to teleport out after all, the cube would have mysteriously disappeared with no apparent Telvanni involvement, Antabolis would have been happy, Cosades would have been happy and I wouldn't be in more-or-less-unwilling possession of a highly sought-after Dwemer artifact right now.

Truth be told, it would probably have been safer to get rid of the thing, but after the amount of suffering I'd went through for it I simply couldn't bring myself to. It might come in handy one day, I told myself. Maybe I'd be able to sell it to a collector on the mainland, or Cyrodiil, or in the Summerset Isles – somewhere well beyond the reach of Crito, Hard-Heart and Velanda Omani, where nobody even knew what a Telvanni was. For now, however furious the three of them were, I had to doubt they'd be searching beneath my bed anytime soon.

And so a day passed, then two, then three. No doubt some people would have been bored. I, however, like to consider myself firmly attached to this thing known as sense, and so deeply appreciated the peace, quiet and lack of life-threatening situations.

Between manning the alchemy desk and restocking her shelves, Ajira and I managed to fit in a highly enjoyable bout of experimentation on various plants native to the Ashlands such as trama root, fire fern and scathecraw. Ajira even found the time to write up our findings. I still had to nudge her towards a properly dry academic style on occasion, but overall I thought it was a fine piece of work which should certainly help her towards Journeyman status.

Even more importantly, the willpower-restoring effect we'd found on scathecraw made me suspect I might have had it before in Dulnea's tea. However, when I tried boiling a piece the acridity of the resulting liquid took my breath away. In fact, I suspected I could count myself lucky it hadn't taken my tongue away. Further investigation was definitely needed.

In the meantime, working with Masalinie progressed surprisingly well. True, we soon confirmed that my struggle learning Mysticism spells was only surpassed by my complete inability to teach them, but Masalinie turned out to be surprisingly patient about it all. She even claimed that my failed explanation of how exactly I cast a detection spell had given her a potential basis for a research paper. I suspected she was lying to make both of us feel better, but I still appreciated the thought.

The guild guide spells came as the real surprise. I managed them part of the way through the second day, and immediately braced myself for disaster. Needlessly, it turned out. All my attempts at both sending and receiving my test subject (a rock I'd found outside that struck me as having an adventurous, risk-loving air) went flawlessly.

I'd have blamed it on random chance, but the truth was that the guild guide spells felt different. And if what Masalinie and I had theorised between ourselves was correct, that feeling was accurate.

The other teleportation spell involved locating and connecting yourself to a Mystic beacon, and after a long and lively discussion we'd decided that that must be where it went wrong. "For us," Masalinie had said, "we have no way of perceiving the beacons themselves, and no control over which beacon the spell latches onto. We just cast, and the closest one is chosen automatically. From your descriptions, it sounds like you do. Which is fascinating!" Apparently catching sight of my face at that statement, Masalinie hastily added, "But of course I can see how it could cause difficulties..."

If Masalinie's theory was correct, then the guild guide spells were probably the closest I came to how teleportation spells worked for everyone else. I wasn't groping around trying to latch onto the closest beacon, or even trying to work out which one I wanted in the first place. All I had to connect to was the guild guide platform, which was impossible to miss due to being right there in front of me. Then, the spells on the platform handled the rest for me. There was a bit of timing involved in linking up with the guild guide on the other end, who'd be reaching out at the same time, but if you missed that the connection just failed. No being yanked around, no ending up somewhere completely different from – or well above – where you'd wanted to go. It was something of a revelation.

On the afternoon of the third day, I was almost feeling vaguely competent. This feeling was helped along by Masalinie exclaiming about how well I was doing, never to mention Estirdalin's stopping by to watch for a bit. The clear skepticism on her face had slowly morphed into interest, and she'd given me a grudging nod before leaving. I figured this qualified as some sort of approval.

"All right, now let's try sending to Sadrith Mora. Iniel is to the far east, you need to-"

There was a faint tugging at my mind coming through the guild guide platform. Masalinie stopped, eyes unfocused. I heaved a mental sigh. This interruption was a very common one.

"Is that from..." The call was definitely from the south, but further than Vivec and without Cassia's feel to it... "the mainland? Er, Mournhold, I think you said?"

"Yes, actually. It's from Effe-Tei." Masalinie sounded vaguely surprised. "You're good at that. Do you..." Masalinie looked at my face and clearly thought better of what she'd been about to suggest. "Er, if you step back I'll just take this passenger through and you can try sending to Iniel once I'm done."

I relaxed my scowl as I cut my magical connection to the platform, leaving Masalinie to handle whoever was coming through. A few days of working together had made it clear that Masalinie shared the common research mage's weakness of an utter disregard for health and safety. I was willing to bet she'd been about to suggest I try receiving the passenger.

A burst of light, coalescing into a figure on the platform-

"Thank you, Apprentice Masalinie," Ranis Athrys said as she stepped down. "A neat bit of spellwork, as usual." Then she saw me.

"Um. Hello, guildmistress," I offered weakly as her eyes narrowed. "It's... nice to... see you?"

"Is it. An odd sentiment indeed, considering that you were certainly nowhere to be found when I was looking to assign you duties."

I gulped.

"I'm really sorry about that. I got... caught up in things. In Vivec. Couldn't be helped." I could feel myself wilt under Ranis Athrys' stare. "Um, you can assign me duties now? I've been assisting Ajira... and Masalinie..." My voice died.

"Have you now." After a painfully long moment, the guildmistress finally stopped staring me down. "Interesting. Perhaps there is something suitable. I'll have to speak to Estirdalin about the matter, of course."

Then she was sweeping out through the common room as I collapsed against a wall.

"Wow, she really has it in for you." Masalinie frowned. "She's usually reasonable about these things – she must think you were skiving. Maybe there's someone who can confirm you were really unable to make it back to the guild?"

"Oh, there is." I suspected Dileno Lloran or Athyn Sarethi's testimonies would make quite an impression, for one. "But any such person might give her a little too... much information, if you know what I mean. I think it's better she doesn't know the details of why I was in Vivec. For her own peace of mind and for the sake of guild harmony, you see."

"Of course." Masalinie's voice was very dry. "In that case... grovel, make clear you're willing to do whatever she says, and wait for it to blow over. In the meantime, why don't you try connecting to Iniel?"

I sighed. I hoped showing I was willing to help Masalinie with her research would net me some points.

"Sure. To the east, you said?"

The connection to Sadrith Mora was a lot more finicky than to any of the cities in western Vvardenfell, and it took me five tries until I managed to send my trusty rock off to Iniel. I wondered what the issue was. Distance? But Masalinie said connecting to the mainland cities wasn't nearly as difficult, and they were even further away. Some sort of magical interference?

"Something like that," Masalinie said when I asked. "The connection passes through the heart of the island – Molag Amur, the Ashlands, and Red Mountain. Loads of volcanic activity, old Dwemer fortresses, Daedric ruins, and then the Ghostfence on top of all that. Connecting to Almalexia is harmless in comparison."

"Huh."

"Really, those things alone are more than enough to explain the difficulty. There's no need to go around saying there's some strange evil creature lurking beneath Red Mountain-"

"...um."

"-no matter what Marayn says, especially considering he's not even trained in Mysticism so how would he even know-"

"...Masalinie," I cut across her rant. "Do you want to keep working on this, or would you rather argue with someone who isn't present? Because I could be helping Ajira right now, you know."

Masalinie blinked. "Right. Sorry, Adryn. I shouldn't let out my frustrations on you – especially considering you're not Temple adherent either."

I bit my tongue. For all Masalinie's assumptions and for all my skepticism of religion, that statue had left quite an impression and I was inclined to believe the Temple was battling something unpleasant. The Julianos-worshipping Masalinie had a real chip on her shoulder about the subject, and her insistence it was all pretense and I'd simply run across an ordinary cursed item (more forceful now that it wasn't around anymore, I couldn't help but note) grated. Still, it was an argument I'd rather not have, not when I could change the subject to get us back on track instead.

I wondered if this was what maturity felt like.

"Anyway, we were working on sending larger distances. Try Effe-Tei now-"

True to Masalinie's words, although the distance to Mournhold was greater than that to Sadrith Mora, making the connection was a lot easier. The only difficult bit was that you had to sort of leapfrog over Vivec on the way, but it was a far cry from the finicky, threading-a-needle-with-gloves-on feel of managing the connection across Red Mountain. Whatever the reason.

My rock had made the trip to Mournhold twice without ending up at lethal-to-squishy-people heights and was sitting patiently on the pedestal awaiting a third time when I looked up and saw Ranis Athrys standing in the doorway. My spell fizzled and died.

"...guildmistress! What can we do for you?" I stepped back from the guild guide pedestal, feeling a little off-kilter. The woman was not the sort of person who stood and waited for her underlings to notice her, making the fact that she hadn't interrupted us rather out-of-character.

"Ah, Adryn." The woman gave me a close-mouthed smile, and I really wished I could believe that it was the unfamiliarity of the expression that made it look so unpleasant. "I would like a word with you about your duties."

I gulped.

Uhhhh oHHHHHH . . .

now I'm holding my breath waiting for the other shoe to drop!

Found your incursion into the field of Mysticism quite interesting, and I am very curious to see a full explanation of why Adryn has so much trouble with standard Mysticism spells . . .

Hey, the forums are back!

@haute ecole rider - the other shoe is indeed in the process of descending to ground! As for Adryn's Mysticism issues, we're going to have to wait and see...



That evening found a hasty council-of-war taking place in the alchemy lab. The attendees were one Balmoran apprentice alchemist, one Balmoran apprentice guild-guide, and one unattached, as-yet unassigned Apprentice who was watching the truly unexpected progress of her career in the guild with some amount of horror.

"Somebody," I hissed. "Explain."

Ajira and Masalinie looked at each other.

"Because," I went on when neither spoke, "I would be so very grateful for someone to tell me why, exactly, our guildmistress seems to think assigning someone who misfires teleportation spells to be a guild guide deserves actual consideration, or in fact anything other than hysterical laughter. At the moment my only theory is that Ranis Athrys has lost her mind, and although that explanation serves as a nice catch-all for inexplicable events it... lacks a certain something. I would quite like a better one, and you two know the guild better than me. So."

I leaned back and crossed my arms, letting the silence lengthen. I wasn't usually the patient sort, but with Ranis Athrys' I believe you may be suited as a guild guide still echoing in my ears I was well prepared to outwait my guildmates.

Masalinie broke first. "I'm sorry, Adryn, I have no idea either. I swear I wasn't expecting this to happen! But... you know, the idea might not be as absurd as you think?" She ducked her head, apparently unwilling to meet my glare. "I mean... you haven't had any problems yet at all, and we did discuss this- if my theories are correct-"

Her speech was starting to come faster, a light growing in her eyes which I suspected was due to either pure academic interest or the prospect of a research finding that might be enough to make Journeyman. Ordinarily I'd indulge her, but there were more important things at stake.

"Very helpful, thank you," I cut her off. "Ajira, do you have any ideas?"

Ajira straightened from where she'd been stirring kresh fiber. "Some. Although first... done is done, the kitten has the yarn, but nevertheless Ajira feels she must inform her friends that they have been quite foolish."

"Oh?" I asked with a sinking feeling. I did not like Ajira's expression.

"Perhaps this is Ajira's fault. She has been spending much time in the lab, brewing remedies for fevers and coughs now that the weather is growing colder, stewing the last of the fresh kresh leaves and roobrush of year... much time in the lab, not much time in the guild proper, and so Ajira did not realise how much, how openly her friends had been working on the guild guide spells. Friend Adryn is new to the guild, of course, so it is quite understandable she did not realise it was a bad idea. But she is surprised Masalinie does not have a better grasp on guild politics."

"Hey," Masalinie protested.

Ajira ignored her. "The thing Ajira's friends must understand is that the guild guide system is a very, very important part of the Mages' Guild in Morrowind. More than bringing in money, it makes the guild... acceptable, in the eyes of native Dunmer. Outlanders and outlander ideas are not very welcome here, and other foreign guilds have had serious difficulties in this land. The Fighter's Guild was taken over by the Camonna Tong, the Imperial Cult is generally ignored, and the- certain other guilds have still not managed to find their footing."

My curiosity sparked at the bitten-off sentence. Which guild had Ajira been about to mention?

Before I could ask, she went on.

"But the Mages' Guild is different, yes? It is the most successful of the foreign guilds by far, and that is because of the guild guide system. Even a member of the Camonna Tong will find their feet bringing them through the doors of the guild when they weigh taking a silt strider against instantaneous transport."

Ajira paused to take a sip from a flask on her desk. Masalinie and I stayed silent, letting her continue her very informative monologue.

"So- every branch of the guild must have a guild guide in place. However, the job is much disliked and requires some degree of spellcasting ability, so it is hard to find suitable candidates. Apprentices in Mysticism, mainly, but this is a balancing act. After all, they do not want to stay apprentices, and if they are kept at that level for too long, they may do something drastic."

Masalinie nodded. "I can confirm that. Believe me, the idea gets more tempting every day."

Ajira shot her a look. "From what Ajira hears, Darveli Arano in Narsis is far closer to such behaviour. She hears Darveli has threatened to walk out of the guild entirely if she is not relieved of her duties within a month. There are no other suitable apprentices in Mysticism at this time, and there are great repercussions on the standing of the guild as a whole if a city so important as Narsis is without a guild guide for so much as a day. And..."

"...and there I was, practicing guild guide spells right in front of Ranis Athrys." I dropped my head in my hands with a groan. "Masalinie, with all due respect, I hate you a little right now."

"I'm sorry!" At least the girl looked genuinely apologetic. "I didn't realise that Darveli was that close to snapping. I mean, she's been grousing about the job forever, but we all do that. And I figured that even if you managed the spells, Estirdalin would shut down anyone who wanted to make something out of it. She's a real stickler for safety and highly respected, Ranis usually listens to her." She wilted. "I didn't realise about the... political implications."

Despite myself, I began to thaw towards Masalinie. That had the ring of truth, and certainly this turn of events had caught me by surprise.

"All right," I said. "Thanks, Ajira. I can see how this happened a lot better now, even though I still think our esteemed guild-mistress should consider that it would be a lot worse for the standing of the guild if some of its customers' journeys found a permanent end through involuntary and unsuccessful flying lessons. But since she's being short-sighted about this..."

I paused, thinking.

"I really don't want to be a guild guide. Even if you decide to leave the risk of manslaughter aside, with all due respect, it sounds like an awful job."

Apart from the issue of being unable to use the transportation system oneself that Masalinie had complained about - and I was not prepared to be effectively trapped in Narsis, wherever that was - there were the working hours. As far as I could tell, they amounted to 'always'.

"So," I decided to state the obvious conclusion. "We need to convince Ranis Athrys to let up. She sounded like she was still weighing the idea - I'd like to tilt those scales a little. Maybe..." I began fidgeting with the roll of sealing wax on Ajira's desk as I thought. "Would it help if Masalinie played up my inabilities in the report she's writing? Focuses on the hash I make of Intervention spells, neglects to mention that guild guide spells might not be affected in the same way?" I hated the idea, but I was sure I'd hate being a guild guide more. Besides, my pride was easy, low-hanging fruit as far as things to sacrifice went.

Masalinie opened her mouth, looking rather annoyed, but Ajira got there first.

"Unfortunately, Ajira believes this plan does not get at the heart of the problem."

"Oh?"

"As an Associate, friend Adryn might simply have been sent on errands such as collecting flowers or mushrooms. Apprentice duties must be different - it must be related to magic, there must be a component of training and learning, a track towards making Journeyman eventually. The guildmistress mainly deals with Associates, not Apprentices, and does not have any suitable work for that rank."

That... made sense. From what I'd experienced of Ranis Athrys' recruitment tactics, they were very unlikely to result in keen, intelligent, scholarly-minded mages like yours truly.

"For some reason that is beyond Ajira, the guildmistress does not wish her to have an assistant. Even more puzzling that she wishes for Galbedir to have one, even though Ajira has far more work, work that is far more difficult than Galbedir's... but no matter, because that did not work out either. So now it is guild guide duties. If those do not work out, then..."

"...you're saying she'll find something else completely unsuitable for me to do. Not because she doesn't realise it's not a match for my skills, but because she has to give me something to do."

Ajira dipped her head. "Precisely."

I leaned back until my head rested against the stone wall behind me. "I'd like it to be known that after her last two ideas, I am officially terrified of what Ranis Athrys might come up with." I allowed myself to indulge in self-pity for a moment - seriously, why me? - then forced myself to focus on the practical side of things. "How do I prevent it?"

"You attach yourself to a different guild hall."

I looked at Masalinie in surprise. Call me bitter, but I'd stopped thinking she was going to make any useful contribution. She flushed under my stare.

"Exactly what Ajira was going to suggest. Friend Adryn is staying at the Balmora guild-hall, is spending most of her time there, is helping Ajira and Masalinie with their work... so her duties are set by the Balmoran guild-mistress. However, it is a common thing for Apprentices to switch halls if there is no suitable work for them. Ajira herself originally joined the guild in Ald'ruhn, but went to Balmora to become an alchemist. If Adryn travels to another hall, is assigned duties from their master or mistress, Ranis Athrys will have no claim." Ajira frowned. "It is surprising that she has not suggested this herself, especially when her latest idea encroaches on another's hall."

"You know Ranis. She's always had a stick up her-"

"-maybe don't finish that sentence in this building?" I interrupted Masalinie. I had a lot of experience with downright suicidal tactlessness from the inside - I could recognise it in someone else.

"Spoilsport," Masalinie grumbled. Then she twitched.

"Passenger coming through?"

"A whole group." Masalinie's mouth twisted into a grimace as she slid off the stool where she'd perched.

At the entrance to the lab, she hesitated, then turned back to look at me. "Adryn - I am sorry. And I promise I won't mention guild guide spells in anything I write, at least for now."

Well, well. It looked like her heart was in the right place after all. A pity about her brain.

Judging by Ajira's expression, she was feeling much the same. "Foolishness." She shook her head. "Ajira will never understand how so many people are so willing to simply blunder through life, expecting things to work out, without understanding the forces at play. Almost all her fellow Apprentices, many Journeymen... it is foolishness, she thinks, especially when it results in a mess like today's."

"Thank you. I appreciate the run-down, and the advice, from someone who clearly pays attention." I paused. "I have to say, you're very well-versed in the politics."

Ajira smiled, lips pulling back from sharp, sharp teeth. I was reminded of the theory that the concept of smiling was not native to Khajiit and had instead been picked up through long exposure to men and mer. Originally, the saying went, a Khajiit baring their teeth had been an expression of threat.

"Masalinie is the daughter of two merchants from Wayrest. Ajira is the granddaughter, the sister of slaves. Masalinie feels she is safe, not knowing certain things, trusting the world will be good to her. Ajira... does not. And so she learns. Friend Adryn understands?"

"Friend Adryn understands," I echoed. "Especially as the daughter of no one at all." It wasn't the first time I'd run into Masalinie's attitude, but it still wasn't one I could comprehend. I'd never really believed the world to be a kind place - orphanhood will do that to you - but if I'd ever held any traces of such a notion, the Warp had disabused me of it most thoroughly.

To say nothing of certain events in Windhelm last year.

"So, o politically acute one, what are my options?" I asked, shaking my head to rid myself of the memories. "Staying on Vvardenfell if possible. The mainland is pretty far away."

More importantly, when we'd last spoken - if one could use such a term for an encounter that had mainly consisted of me being yelled at - Caius Cosades had told me he wanted me to stay on Vvardenfell for now. I chafed at being ordered about, but wasn't reckless enough to defy the man.

"Well..."



Notes: The forthcoming chapters are the result of some radical replanning; the original plan was to have Adryn actually become a guild guide at this point (and this particular plot point had been in the works since the very beginning), except that when I tried actually writing it the plot sort of... flopped over and refused to move. Cue authorly scrambling, here's hoping it's not too obvious.

No worries, though; even if plan A didn't work out, I still managed to make Adryn suffer. ?