Edit (11/24): Due to a suggestion brought up in the reviews, I've decided to remove all the notes, lore, and previous explanations that were here previously as it was a bit much (3K+ of nonsense, whoops). I am going to go through them and decide which explanations/notes to keep, and I will edit them into the chapter at a later date. Please note that this does not effect the content of the chapter itself. Any edits aside from grammar/spelling will strictly be author notes and explanations only.
I apologize in advance if you didn't read the extra bits before I edited them out. However, I may have been a bit overenthusiastic and wrote a bit too much on things that did not contribute to the story itself. If you are curious as to what was written previously, I can give you a short run-down, however, you didn't miss much. If there is anything specific you want explained, I will be more than happy to do so.
Edit (11/27): I've decided to place explanations on my OC, including actions, speech, and other traits in the next chapter. I know some people are confused as to why he does or says some things, and it will be easier for me to include it in the chapter itself rather than a brief description as a note.
Disclaimer: I do NOT own the Elder Scrolls series, the items, the characters, or the lore involved with it, nor do I own any mods that are mentioned within the story, both intentionally and not. This story is to not earn profit, but for the mere amusement of the writer and the readers who stumble upon it.
Warnings: Possibly some language, and a lot more text.
Notice: I've combined the first three chapters into one. It is quite obvious where the first chapter should've ended and the next begun. However, if you like this kind of condensed format instead of spread out over several chapters I think I can accommodate for that. Also apologies for any grammar/spelling errors. I wrote this in bits and pieces over several days so some things will have slipped through the cracks of my proof-reading.
The Bargain of a Lifetime
"I want to buy the abandoned house, the one next to the Trader."
There were very simple rules in Markarth. The law of the Empire was to abide by, the Jarl's laws were to be followed, the guards were to be listened to and respected, don't piss off the Silver-Blood family, do not mention the Forsworn presence within the city- or the Forsworn in general for that matter, and last, but the most important, was to never talk about the abandoned house just inside the gates. The last was not a written law, nor did it seem of any significance in the eyes of those who came unaware into the city. However the mere mention of the place sent shivers down the spines of the citizens of the above ground Dwemer city and any interest of the place by outsiders was quickly squashed by either convenient lack of any knowledge of the place or widely twisted tales of blood-curdling screams and vicious ghosts of the previous trespassers of the place who failed to escape the building once passing through the doorway and never to be seen again.
It was hard to determine exactly when this avoidance of the place began, or the true reason how it became so. Many rumors- albeit whispered in secret in hushed tones- pointed to a dark and twisted tale of Old Gods and a curse placed upon the structure. These all sprung from the Reachmen, whom many still followed the Old Ways rather than converting to the better divinity of the Nords or the Empire. Non-Reachmen suspected necromancy or Daedra, although even they tended to favor the word of the Reachmen, as the case of the abandoned place drew its sources from beyond even the Great War and the Reachmen knew more about the lands they lived on than any other. From even the oldest of minds within the city- or at least out of those who survived the Markarth Incident, have only known the abandoned house as empty and avoided, and fools who poked their nose into the place ended up going missing and after a few months their deaths were written off without any search of the place. No matter whose hands Markarth was in, no guard was dumb enough to search the place, and no ruler was cruel enough to make them. And so the house-shaped Void in the city was tread around lightly- something everyone agreed on, from Reachman to Orc to Nord.
Yet on this fateful day in Midyear of 4E 195, standing before the Jarl Igmund, three years into his position, his Steward and uncle Raerek, and the guards who typically patrolled the area or guarded the Jarl, was a someone not quite yet a man, yet too old to be a child, who broke the most important and oldest unwritten, unspoken law of Markarth with such blase that it stunned the occupants into uneasy silence.
He was a Reachman, that was a fact straight from his accent. His skin was sun-kissed from the hours under the open sky of the Reach, and he was too short and not burly around the shoulders enough to be a Nord. His hair drifted down and around his head in auburn waves, crashing at the nape of his neck in small curls, the color too bright to be a Redguard. There were no warpaint or tribal tattoos present on his face like many of the Reachmen both inside and outside of Markarth, making it hard to determine which side of the Reach he came from. At first it was obvious that he was no elf, but at the continued staring as the young man's statement hung in the deadly silent air, features of his face began to pull out the more elven look of his heritage blending in behind the appearance of Man. His nose was smaller and smooth, ending in a more elegant rounded point rather than his nostrils flaring out or looking like his nose had been broken two or three times. The shape of his eyes were more elven in their slightly almond shape, the lids pulling into a slight narrowing rather than a Man's wider, rounder gaze. Even the tips of his ears, although mostly hidden under the hair, had a slight point to them in tribute to the elves' pointy and angular appearances. However, his jaw was more rounded and his chin short rather than jutting and long, his cheekbones weren't high enough to possibly to consider him Mer than Man, and his head was too round and not large enough to be bloated by a Mer's ego. His eyes, however, was what threw the Jarl off for a second. The left orb was a shade of green reminding him of the junipers growing all around the Reach while the right was the color of the amber sap that bled from the pines. Unusual to have two different colored eyes, and it was slightly unnerving to gaze into a color that was a bit too close to a certain group of Mer's than he wished, but the young man's lopsided grin and carefree posture was what proved that this boy wasn't a Mer, or even half of one, but instead simply inherited more the Mer side of the Breton people than most of his kind aside magical prowess.
His wear was what definitely tied him as a Breton rather than a half elf. He wore simple clothing, the green vest pulled over a white wool shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His trousers were brown, the fabric indeterminable, and his boots were pulled to his knees of a lighter brown cow leather. A large knapsack was drawn across his shoulders with an unstrung longbow- the craftsmanship hard to see from the angle the Jarl was seated- tied to the sack. The overall condition of his clothing was well used but taken care of, judging from the patches of slightly different colored fabric on the knees of his trousers and the slightly fraying straps of his knapsack. No Mer would be caught dead in such shabby attire, especially the damn elves who were slowly digging their claws into Skyrim, and the Dark Elves tended to remain on the other side of High Hrothgar, so there wasn't much to compare to.
All in all, he was a young Reachman who yet somehow out of all of the Reach was the sole person who lived there who either didn't know the truth of the matter behind the abandoned house or simply was too stupid to realize the potential danger of it. This was the fact that had everyone silently questioning and then examining the young man before them to see if it was through ignorance or arrogance that he decided it was a good idea to broach the topic to them.
The Steward was the first to recover, the older man's eyes narrowing at the young man before them. "Do not joke about, boy. Do you know who you're speaking to?"
The young man's smile did not fade in the slightest as the dual-hued eyes turned towards the elder. "I am speaking to Steward Raerek and Jarl Igmund of Markarth. Mostly to you, Steward, because I want to buy a house and you handle that sort of arrangement from what I've been told. How's six thousand?"
"What-?! No, no boy like yourself could possibly have-"
But the young man had ignored the Steward's spluttering as he dropped to one knee, removing the knapsack and setting it on the cold Underkeep floor in one smooth motion. He moved the longbow aside- an ashwood make now that it was completely visible, slightly worn but well taken care for- setting it onto the floor beside him as the young man began rifling through the bag. The guards shifted closer, not in impending threat but in almost horrified curiosity that someone so young would march up and ask to buy the unspoken abandoned house and try to pull it off without it being a complete hoax.
The Breton made a small "ah ha!" noise as he found what he was looking for, pulling out an impressive drawstring bag from within the confines of the knapsack. The bag was almost bursting as to how stuffed it was, and the grating of metal on metal as he repositioned it in his hands proved that there was coin inside and not anything else. "Six thousand," the boy stated again, holding the bag out before him with both hands. "Or, I think there is. If it isn't enough I got some silver jewelry I can pawn off- don't worry, I didn't steal them; I made them. I can prove that too if you want, but I really would like that house."
"Do you even know what that house is? Why it is what it is?" The Jarl couldn't remain quiet any longer, and no one else was speaking up, not with the Steward still spluttering (now over the fact that the boy was in fact, quite serious, and had the coin to prove it).
"I heard," the young Breton replied with a casual shrug. "Daedra, ghosts, cultists, and Old Gods' curses don't scare me much, and I don't see how this can be any loss to you. I got the coin, paying upfront and probably more than the place's actually worth, 'specially with it being empty for so long. The building is occupied for as long a I live and I get to pay the taxes every year like a good citizen. If I somehow tragically die you still got the coin."
The boy was determined, the Jarl had to give him that. Determined and gutsy. No one in all his years, nor from what he remembered of his father's years, ever thought about buying the house, and this was quite possibly the first time any ruler of this city had the opportunity to sell it. And this boy was willing to pay what was most likely double, if not triple the place's worth. Even Vlindrel Hall, when it was sold the last time, was worth only eight thousand, and that was when it was freshly empty. It was anyone's guess at the condition of the abandoned house in question. He couldn't even offer the boy a different place, as there had been an influx of residents in the last few months and there were simply no other houses or homes for sale, not even outside the city.
The Jarl gazed towards his Steward, and the man stared back with a "You possibly cannot be considering this" look, which the Jarl ignored in favor of turning eyes back towards the Breton before him.
"Tell you what, boy- you keep your gold. If you are able to refurbish and live in the house for a week, you can keep the place." The "if you survive" that was omitted was clear as day, but it didn't seem to faze the boy none.
The Breton's face almost broke at how wide his smile got, his dual-hued eyes glinting with delight. "Thank you, Jarl sir!" he exclaimed, dropping the money back into his knapsack and pulled both the knapsack and his bow up with him as he shot to his feet. "Even if I do get killed I'll make sure to leave the six thousand for you in consideration of your kindness!" And before anyone else could react the young Breton had bounded away from the throne room in glee, down the stone steps and out the doors into the sunlight.
"You'd better go after him, tell the other guards of the situation, Argis," the Jarl stated, leaning back in his throne to look over at one of his guards, who bowed his head before heading after the young Breton. After all, the boy did leave without even getting a key (although he highly doubted there even was one left), and he didn't want to see the boy be dragged back up to the throne room for trying to pick the lock on the door to get inside.
It wasn't until the large doors to the Understone Keep closed behind Argis when both the Jarl and the Steward realized that through the shock and rolling ride that happened to be a house sale, they forgot to ask who the young man was in case they had to bury the poor boy.
Argis found the boy at the doorstep of the abandoned house, his knapsack and bow on the ground as he knelt before the large metal door, peering intently at the lock. The whole situation threw the Nord in a loop, not knowing whether to be amazed at the young man's determination or worried for his sanity. He may be a Nord, but he was just as much as a Reachman as any Breton in the city, so he knew the danger of the abandoned home. By Oblivion, he had been one of the unfortunate eye witnesses (or rather, ear witnesses) to the last poor sod who managed to get his way into the building. The man had been drunk and it was raining pretty heavily, and the man forgot which house was his and somehow managed to pick the lock when his key didn't work. Argis and two other guards had been heading to the Silver-Blood Inn after their shift when they saw the man enter the house, the door shutting and locking behind him before they could reach him. They had heard the awful, muffled screaming and the eerie silence that hung afterwards, and the man never came back out of the door. The other two guards had gotten reassigned shortly afterwards- one to Solitude, the other to Rorikstead, and Argis, who couldn't bear to leave his home, had nightmares of the place for a month after the incident.
He kept a respectable distance back from the Breton, watching as the auburn haired man began rummaging through his knapsack. The noise of the nearby market had died when the citizens began to become aware of someone was mucking around with the forbidden house, either staring in silence or quietly slipping away to gossip to the others of the city who had yet to see the situation.
"Did he really buy that place?" one guard whispered to Argis, one of the few who had gotten the guts to get closer as everyone else remained several feet back from Argis, and he was standing a good distance away like the place was going to explode at any second.
"He did," Argis grunted, folding his arms over his chest as he turned his gaze to the Breton boy, who was now fishing a pick through the lock. In truth the boy was given the house rather than buying it, but the rumor mills would pick that up in the near future and so Argis saw no need to correct it. After all, the rumors had spread this far, and it had only been a mere fifteen minutes since the boy bounded out of the Understone Keep.
The place fell quiet again aside from the rushing water from the waterfalls and the streams that ran throughout the city as the citizens of Markarth watched the boy tinker with the lock. A growing crowd just outside of the Inn mulled about, many silently placing bets on how long the Breton would last once he got into the building. Argis grew uneasy, shifting uncomfortably before finding purchase against a short stone wall that he leaned against, his brown eyes joining the multitude in watching the young Breton apprehensively. The boy must be a bit touched in the head, but the Nord couldn't help but feel nervous for the boy, as he certainly didn't look it, humming as he fiddled with the lock. Only the very brave or the very stupid would tamper with the abandoned house, and only a man with nothing to lose would tamper with it in broad daylight.
There was a faint sound of snapping metal and a quiet curse, the boy pulling the broken lockpick out of the still locked door. Argis watched, with slight amusement, as the boy crossed his arms over his chest, glaring at the lock as if it had offended him for daring to break his lockpick and was now mocking him by remaining locked. It didn't last long though as the boy pressed his face close to the lock, almost as if he was trying to peer through it. Argis could almost see the cogs in his head churn as the boy thought of his next course of action.
Suddenly the boy hopped to his feet, startling the crowd across the stream as he turned and walked right up to Argis. It struck the Nord how small the boy really was; the Breton barely reached his chest, yet his face and his eyes put him somewhere a bit older than a mere boy, but younger than the Nord. His dual-hued eyes seemed to stare right through the taller man, holding a secretive, mischievous glint about them as if the Breton knew all of Argis' secrets without him uttering a word. Yet his lips quirked into a smile, his posture relaxed and nonthreatening, nor did he seem intimidated by the Nord's superior height and bulk or the weapons he carried in plain view.
"Hello," the Breton spoke, a Reach accent lacing his words. "I'm in need of a hammer and a wedge. Do you know where I could get one?"
"You...wish to break the door down?" Argis asked slowly, quirking an eyebrow at the strange question. He didn't think the boy could even lift a warhammer that high let alone swing it with enough strength to batter a Dwemer door down. He doubted even a giant could pull off such a feat.
The Breton grinned, shaking his head and causing his auburn locks to rustle about. "Oh no. Not that kind of hammer! I need a smithy's hammer. I have to pop the lock off. The hinges are on the inside so I can't possibly remove the entire door, and there's no possible way to break these doors down by banging on it, and even if there was it'd be a pain to replace. Besides, the locks are meant to come out and be replaced."
It made sense, Argis reasoned, his eyes going from the boy to the door behind him. Dwemer doors were both simple and complex; large metal sheets with a box for a lock and handle, although that depended on door to door. Some doors simply swung one way or another with a crossbar used to keep the door from opening and closing, but those were rarely seen in exterior doors. It would be easier to make a door even more impossible to break into by simply changing the lock rather than the entire door, but he didn't quite understand how it would be possible to change the lock. He had never seen or heard anyone of changing the locks, but he had seen doors being removed and replaced because keys have gone missing. There was probably a huge stock of Dwemer doors just sitting in some unused part of the Undertone Keep, and they would be a pain in the ass to carry up and down all those flights of stairs just to replace one door that refused to open. So Argis found himself nodding in agreement to at least humoring the boy of his 'lock popping' idea and stepped over a small footbridge to the Silver-Blood Inn to tell one of the guards to get the requested tools from Ghorza gra-Bagol. The guard and those who heard seemed perplexed by the request but the man jogged off nevertheless and Argis returned to the Breton.
"Be here in a bit," Argis grumbled, watching the Breton hum and bobbed his head in thanks, although his attention was back to the door, only partially listening. "What's your name anyway, boy?"
"Hm?" the Breton's attention was snapped from the door, the dual-hued orbs turning to gaze up at the Nord. "Oh, did I forget to introduce myself? The name's Silas, and I'm nineteen, not quite a boy anymore." He didn't seem to perturbed at being called a boy though, his voice holding an almost tired, amused tone, as if he had heard it so many times he simply gave up correcting people. He was certainly tiny enough to be thought of a boy still, relatively short even for a Breton his age, and nineteen was still quite young, so it was easy to see where the confusion was coming from. Argis himself was only twenty-three, but his bulky height, braided blond hair and growing beard made him more of a Nord man than a boy (although that didn't stop some of his comrades amongst the guards or those who knew him since he was a child from continuing to refer to him as a such).
"'Silas' is not a Reach name," Argis pointed out after a moment of silence, once he realized that he had never heard of such a name from a Reachman, let alone a Breton. It sounded more of an Imperial name than any. Yet Silas didn't seem offended by that either, shrugging almost helplessly as his smile became sheepish.
"Ma wanted something unusual," he replied, rubbing the back of his neck. "Could be worse, I reckon. Could have an impossible to pronounce Sootie or Pussyfoot name."
Argis didn't know what a 'Sootie' or a 'Pussyfoot' was, but at this point he didn't want to ask. Instead he merely nodded in silent agreement before introducing himself almost as an afterthought, to which he got a cheerful "Hello Argis!" in response from the young Breton.
It was a shame, Argis mused, after the hammer and wedge were brought from the forge and Silas returned to the door, that the Breton would probably not survive the trial week for his home. He seemed friendly; quirky, but friendly nevertheless. He didn't seem to mind how Argis didn't speak much, nor did he seemed annoyed with the attention he got from the crowd beside the Inn. In fact, he acted as if there wasn't a crowd at all, humming under his breath as he positioned the wedge.
It only took three strikes of loud ear-grating metal-on-metal before the box-like lock fell off the door and onto the ground with a dull thud, a similar one sounding from the inside. The sound startled the crowd by the Inn and Argis felt a flutter of awe for a second. It seemed so easy it was almost laughable. Was that all it took just to make one of the Dwemer doors to open? Did the ancient Dwemer made it so simple to unlock doors just for people to over-complicate it later, so they would get so frustrated that they would just leave the locked door alone when it only took a few swings of a tiny hammer and a wedge to unlock it? It was...completely genius. And mildly frustrating. Really, someone by now should've figured it out. In any case, there was now a nice square-shaped hole in the door, devoid of lock and free to open. Silas whooped loudly. The others drew back as if the sudden yell was going to summon a fire-breathing, colossal Daedra that was going to come bursting forth from unconventionally unlocked door.
"You want to come in, Argis?" the Breton asked, leaving his knapsack, hammer, and wedge behind and already pushing the door open with a metallic groan coming from the hinges. Argis knew better than to tempt fate and shook his head, to which he got another shrug and a "Suit yourself. Be back in a sec," before the Breton pushed the door entirely open and walked into the darkened building, leaving Argis with the crowd of tense, silent citizens awaiting the fate of the one who entered the House of Horrors.
There were many things Silas was afraid of: drowning, Hagravens, early winters, bees... the list went on. Possibly haunted and cursed buildings? Nope, that wasn't on the list. He had very practical and reasonable fears which left no room for anything outrageous. Like murderous houses, for example.
Oh, Silas had heard all about the 'House of Horrors', or as the placed was referred to. He may be from the farthest, backwater-ish Forsworn camp, but with the Forsworn having eyes and ears everywhere around the Reach, it wasn't too hard to pick up the rumors of the place. Apparently some strange things had gone on within the house before the Reachmen had taken over the place during the Great War, but nothing as serious as frantic screaming and no bodies coming back. The Hagravens had been asked about the place, and the general consensus was to leave the place alone until the Forsworn got Markarth back and they'd take care of it then. Nothing else was said about the place, and, well, what the Hags says, stays, and so the little trickle of the Forsworn rumor mill had successfully warned everyone of the place. It must've been pretty bad that even the non-native Nord populace steered clear, but even then Silas was not worried all that much. If it was something like a ghost he could simply backtrack outside where the daylight would weaken the spirit. A curse would have some sort of rune sequence or the like someplace, and that would only involve finding it and convincing a mage to come and fix it since he had no experience with that sort of thing. If it had something to do with Old Gods or Daedra, well, he had no idea what he was going to be looking for, but he was sure that if he came off with a positive, non-offending attitude that he may be overlooked.
Living by the skin of his teeth- that was Silas's life. And he couldn't want anything more.
He wasn't even doing this for the attention or for the thrill; he just wanted a house and this was it. He had grown tired of living in a Forsworn camp where it was cold and drafty and he had to sleep in piles of hay for his entire life and that he simply was not cut out to be a strong warrior raider or an aspiring Forsworn advocate trying to take back the Reach to the rightful owners and that his skill in jewelry crafting was all but wasted on his tribal people and he was really bad at following orders and kept wandering off to Gods knows where. There were other factors, but it would take too long to think of them all.
In any case, he had grown tired of the tribal Forsworn life and decided that he could afford to expand his horizons or however that saying went. Over the last couple of years he had simply honed his skill in jewelry crafting, traded with the Pussyfoot caravans that came by every once in awhile, and scrapped up enough money to buy a small house based on the cheapest ratings he had gathered on homes in the Reach. Oh, and normal clothes. They didn't fit him too well, and he certainly hated the boots, but at least he didn't get shot down by the guards at the front gate for mistaking him for a stray Forsworn so he couldn't complain much. So with money in hand, clothes on his back, and what little possessions he had, Silas had left his camp in the middle of the night just so he could get to Markarth that morning without being picked up by patrolling Reachmen. It had been heart-wrenching disappointing when he slowly realized that there was quite a few more people than he had realized that lived in Markarth, and that there was simply no place left besides the Silver-Blood Inn to live in and the Warrens was out of the question. That is, until he walked passed the abandoned house five or six times before remembering of its existence and after looking at the door for a good five minutes decided that through Oblivion or high water, he was going to sleep with an actual legit roof over his head tonight for the first time in his life and nothing was going to stop him.
Silas made sure he kept his argument short and to the point, leaving no room for any counter arguments. The plan worked quite nicely for the Jarl and his Steward, leaving the latter spluttering to his amusement, but Silas wasn't counting on the Jarl actually giving him the place for free. Without a single coin transferred, Silas had become a home owner. It didn't matter that it was a very dangerous and secretive building anymore; he was too thrilled by the idea that he could actually sleep without getting wet from rainwater to care about the trivial stuff. Not even the sullen, watchful crowds could bring his cheer down as he tampered with the lock, finding himself with no key to actually get into his new home. Home... he had a home now, a home that wasn't a tent or a pile of rocks and dirt!
And then...the lockpick broke. His only lockpick. He could've gone and asked for another, but with his luck he'd probably accidentally jam the thing with broken tips of metal and then it'd be impossible to save the lock that way. However he wasn't put out about it, as there was certainly another way to get the door open without picking the lock. He found this trick of popping the small box that contained the lock off of Dwemer doors when he accidentally got locked inside of a storage building during one of his wanderings and over time found when it was appropriate to do so. Any door that was in need of security had this small box for the lock which was screwed or bolted into place. By this time, the exposure to weather and age would've weakened the holdings of the lock and was merely staying in place by sheer willpower. Unless of course the Dwemer didn't want anyone to get into the building and welded the lock to the door, in which case would involve heating the entire lock up and in turn weakening the entire structure of the door. This particular door appeared to have been screwed in and not welded, and therefore removing the entire lock would be a bit easier than trying to pick the lock open.
Finding and talking to Argis had been a surprising bonus. Silas had expected no one to be that close to his proximity while he tinkered with the door, but the Nord proved him wrong. He recognized the man as one of the guards from the Understone Keep that had been mulling around the Jarl, so it was most likely that the Nord was there to make sure no one tried to physically persuade him not to mess around with the no longer abandoned house. But still, he had been far closer to him and any of the others residents of Markarth, who were quite content in taking shelter beside the Inn. The much taller man was definitely from the Reach, which was a pleasant surprise, and Silas found it easy to like the quieter man. He had even went over and gotten the requested tools for him! He didn't expect Argis to follow him into the house once he'd managed to pop the lock off, and so with a promise of seeing him a bit, the Breton stepped into the dark building.
Silas made a mental note to try and befriend the Nord once he had settled in.
The house was... empty. In truth Silas should've expected as much. There was a thick layer of dust and grime over the stone floors, swirling and dancing in the light that peeked through the open doorway while his feet disturbed its rest. There was no furniture or decorations aside from the metal structures of Dwemer construction. He approached one in the far corner, knowing what it was, and soon with a gentle fiddling, a wiggle, and a loud crackling snap, flipped all the strange, metallic lamps on. Ah, the joys of Dwemer technology, still functional after years of disuse. No candles or magelight needed.
With the lights successfully turned on, Silas could take in a better view of the room he was standing in. There was an empty fireplace just to the left of the door, a few built-in stone shelves along one of the walls, and another door leading elsewhere, but otherwise nothing out of the ordinary. It would be a good dining room/kitchen area, and Silas began his mental checklist of things to do by adding a "clean the fireplace" and a "better buy a broom" to the list.
The next room was also empty aside from the accumulating dust and another door. He supposed he could make this into a bedroom or a storage room, but he was overall surprised by how big the house actually was. It seemed tiny from the outside, but he already had two decent-sized room and he hadn't even opened up the next door- which he found out lead to a staircase that went to yet another room and that had two doors. Already he had more rooms than he knew what to do with and was busy adding bits of furniture and possible arrangements to his mental checklist.
The first door in this surprising third room found Silas with a even bigger surprise. Not only was the room not empty, but it was full of pipes and large metallic clawed basins. His face nearly cracked at how wide his grin had grown, and he would've shouted in victory if he didn't recall that he left the front door open and his shouting would've sent the people outside in a frenzy. But really, he could barely help it- he had a bathroom! And by twisting a few of the knobs and listening to the pipes groan and whine before water came out of the disused tap, Silas was nearly bursting with happiness. He didn't have to bathe in the cold river anymore!
He would've kissed all of the Dwemer if they were still around for being such technical geniuses.
Silas decided to let the water run for a bit to gets all the kinks out of its system while he went to explore the next door. This lead to another set of stone stairs, which in turn lead to- guess what?- another room. This room, aided by two flickering Dwemer lamps, seemed more like the storage area than any other part of the house. It was significantly cooler, and the walls were covered in large metallic shelves that stretched from floor to ceiling. There was a trail of dirt and rubble that trailed from his feet and to one of the walls, where the shelf had been ripped off and was sitting in a twisted pile on the floor. Someone, or something, had dug a decent sized hole in the wall of which a tunnel lead to who knows where.
Naturally Silas stuck his head into the entrance, peering into the darkness. There was a cool breeze coming from the hole, rustling his auburn hair with a slightly damp touch. It either went outside to one of the waterfalls or to an underground pool of some sort, he mused.
"Nothing like the present," Silas said to himself as he pressed a hand to the dirt wall and stepped into the darkness. Logically he should've gone back upstairs to his knapsack, pulled out some flint and lit a candle or a torch or something, but he was already here and he wanted to finish his checklist of things to do before going topside to order everything from the merchants. The worst that could happen was that he'd find a nice pit to fall to his death in or perhaps find himself face to face with some Dwemer construct, but the tunnel was a bit too narrow for anything huge and seemed too new to be done by any Dwemer. He went slow and steady, putting one foot in front of the other, feeling his way through the darkness. The tunnel dipped and turned, and so he followed, keeping one hand on the wall at all times.
There was a faint sliver of light, coming from the end of what seemed to be another bend. It wasn't very bright, but it was better than the total darkness before so Silas picked up his pace. Around the bend he found the source of light- there was a small hole high above him where he could hear the sounds of rushing water- but that wasn't what caught Silas' attention.
No, it was the obvious altar-looking thing that was at the very end of the tunnel, just inside the light coming from the hole in the roof that Silas noticed first. Most likely conclusion? Daedra or Old Gods. He wasn't sure, as he never did pay much attention to the whole religion/cult thing, but as he cautiously moved closer to the alter noticed a few things about it. The entire thing was metallic, covered in spikes and pointy bits. A weird, horned creature head with an intimidating basin/bowl thing was stuck on top of a spiny pillar. There was what could have been a mace or club-like weapon sticking out from the altar, but it was so ridiculously prickly that Silas had no idea how someone could physically wield it without accidentally stabbing the palms of their hands on it so he wasn't sure if it really was a weapon or part of the decoration. Before the whole altar on the floor was a suspiciously circular slab which did not fit the rest of the floor. Silas avoided stepping on it by walking around it, making sure he feet didn't make contact with the round slab as he moved to get a closer look at the altar.
"I'd be pissy too if my altar was this bad of a shape," Silas muttered, gingerly rubbing a finger over one of the creature-head's horns and examining the rust and tarnish that came off. There were even some mushrooms and moss growing around it and threatening to grow over it. The damp from the waterfall outside certainly wasn't helping matters.
"Be back in a sec," he told the altar, patting the horned head with a hand. It didn't say anything, and Silas went to scaling the crumbling rock and dirt wall towards the natural skylight to check out the situation. From what he could see (which wasn't much since he couldn't get his shoulders through the small opening), there was a little bit of space between the hole and the waterfall so there was no threat of having water pouring in through his basement, but the dampness was going to seep through and constantly rust out the altar thing. He was going to have to widen the hole, bring some wood or stone and make a makeshift roof to cover the hole to keep the rest of his house from getting damp. Maybe he could find some old Dwemer metal scraps or a shield to both block the hole and refrain from replacing it every other month. He added the thought to his checklist before climbing back down.
"Tell you what," Silas said to the altar once he was back on the ground. "I patch that hole up, clean and polish you to brand new and you don't go killing me off, alright?" If anyone was around they would've thought him crazy talking to an altar, and although Silas held the whole God/Daedra thing with a grain of salt he wasn't going to go and insult, neglect, or ignore them, especially if his house was on the line. He didn't get a response, not that he was expecting any, but nevertheless took the silence as an agreement and beamed at the altar, already adding the necessary items needed to clean it up to his mental checklist. Oh, and a quick snoop around one of the Divine's temples, just so he could make sure the altar in his basement wasn't one of them (he was pretty sure it wasn't- he didn't recall one of the Divines having such a fetish for spikes, but hey, he learned new things everyday).
With the promise of cleaning the altar up later, Silas navigated his way back through the tunnel to the last floor of his house. He shut the door after climbing the stairs to keep the wet damp air from sneaking further into his house and turned the water off in his bathroom (he couldn't help but giggle a little bit- he had a bathroom!). He was quite giddy when he burst out into the street, startling the crowds who were still mulling about the Inn. He paid them no mind, his gaze snapping to Argis who was still standing there the closest to him.
"Argis!" With three hops the small Breton was before the much larger Nord, positively beaming up at him. "You should've seen it, Argis! The Dwemer know how to make people happy! There's lights and plumbing and like four floors I have no idea what to do with and there's absolutely nothing in furniture so I'm going to have to buy everything and there's no windows but that's fine but really, you should've gone in with me!" Silas rambled on, bouncing on the balls of his feet before the Nord, who looked like he was having a bit of trouble keeping up with his excitement.
"There, er, wasn't any bodies, were there?" Argis said slowly, giving the open doorway behind Silas an apprehensive look.
"What? Oh, no, don't be silly. There was a hole in the bottom floor leading to the outside. Probably something was living in there that kept getting all the unfortunate people who couldn't figure out Dwemer locks. I didn't see any bears or saber cats or bits of bone and corpse, so either it hasn't been there for awhile or it drags them off to Gods knows where. Patch the hole up and no more deaths!" Silas felt a little bad for lying to the man, but it would draw unwanted attention to blurt out there was an altar to a spike-fetish being in his basement. Besides, if the altar hadn't been there his lie would've been the closest reasoning as to why people who went into the place never came back out.
Argis visibly slumped, relieved that the entire abandoned house business was something reasonable and possible to handle. Even most of the crowd seemed relieved by Silas' loud words, although a few remained skeptical, but no one seemed to outwardly argue with him. Saber cats and bears living in a hole in the wall was much more acceptable and less worrying than Gods and Daedra or curses of unknown sources.
"Right then!" Silas said, clapping his hands together. "I need to see a merchant! Got to buy all sorts of things. Want to come along, Argis? You know the prices around here better than I do."
It was suffice to say that Silas' six thousand was quickly spent, three or four people won quite a bit of money on the bet when the tiny Breton lasted the slotted week without a scratch and then some, and the tale of the House of Horrors was written off as merely a tale to scare children into going to bed at night. Still, one questioned remained, and throughout the following weeks would be brought up time and time again: who is Silas exactly?