They have taken you from the Imperial City's prison,
First by carriage and now by boat.
To the East. To Morrowind.
Fear not, for I am watchful.
You have been…
You have…
You…
It was a strange dream. Mostly strange because I've lived in Morrowind for two years, I came of my own accord, and I've never been to prison.
Well, except that one time involving the count's daughter and a bottle of skooma. But that was only a day. Hardly counts.
I awoke, a cramp in my neck from sleeping against the old, splintered door of a dunmer tomb. Rain flecked my face. The rain in Vvardenfell never felt right, never tasted right. It tasted like soot and sadness, like the land itself. I stood and stretched, relieving myself of the makeshift shelter under which I'd taken refuge to catch a rest before the day's business. I snatched my chitin spear, a flexible but pitiful thing, and adjusted my ancient chain hauberk one would be hard pressed to call "armor."
Time to get a'plundering.
Dunmer tombs are the very soul of dunmer hypocrisy (hah, get it, soul?). Oh no, necromancy is bad. What do you mean we summon ghosts? They're our ancestors, you foreign s'wit. It's totally different. But slavery – that's our gods-given right. Now get out of my face, I don't have a lot of patience for questions, outlander.
Well, I'm Mehmed gro-Yaraz, and your ancestors are about to get a facefull of orcish muscle. But not before I take all that bonemeal. 'S good for concoctions.
It wasn't a large tomb, so the family who owned it must not have been wealthy. Regardless, I had always thought it strange the dunmer didn't try to protect them better. Skeletons and ghosts aren't nearly enough to stop a careful and witty graverobber. Especially the handsome ones like myself. One skeleton provided the only real resistance, since my spear just poked through its fleshless ribcage, so I simply lifted it from the ground on the spear and sent it toppling into a swiftly shattered urn. Among the broken bones of the tomb guardian I found a crumbling leathery quiver and a handful of arrows, which I snatched. My true reward, however, awaited on the pedestal: a glittering green gem. Perfect. Lightweight and valuable, exactly what every plunderer wants. Probably an emerald, though in the dim light of the tomb it was hard to tell. It'd keep me eating for a few days, anyway.
As I backtracked through the main foyer, only the light of faint candles to guide me, I heard the whispers of something not quite dead through an anterior door. Ghosts don't scare me. But they stubbornly refuse to yield to anything less than a silver blade, and my spear wasn't going to do much to an angry, incorporeal dunmer. Silver, given its nature, is not cheap. And I don't have the coin to invest in valuable metal only to chip and shatter it through a brigand's head. I'm a pretty bare-bones kind of orc, not a lot of money to throw around. I do what I do to get me through the next meal. There isn't a lot of opportunity on Vvardenfell, and ghosts aren't worth the danger.
So I left well enough alone. I suppose that means it turned out ghosts were an effective defense against grave robbers. But something caught my eye just as I was about to ascend the atrium stairs. A pair of boots poked from shadows in the corner.
Well, ghosts are one thing, but very-dead adventurers are another.
The corpse hadn't taken to rot, and as I rifled through its pockets it almost felt warm. Newly fallen, then. That gave me pause. I glanced around the foyer, the hairs on my neck raising. Nothing. Then I checked for a pulse. Found none. But I did find ninety septims, enough to sate an appetite and wash it down with matze. Say one thing for the dunmer, they make fine spirits. Hey-oh!
As I checked the pockets of the deceased one last time, my elbow nudged something in the dark. I froze. Yet again, only the silence of the tomb answered. I carefully felt along ground, but instead of finding the fuzzy remains of a cave rat, I found a small… box? Package? It felt like it was wrapped in twine. I tucked it under an arm as I pushed myself to my feet with my spear and made for the atrium stairs.
It was still raining, and the sun nearly set. I hadn't brought a cloak – that was stupid. But then I remembered I didn't own a cloak. Also stupid. But town wasn't far, and I hoofed it back, boots squelching in the mud along the bank of the Odai, the package raised to my face to protect my eyes, butt end of my spear giving me something like traction in the soft ground.
Balmora's a decent town. Since I came to Vvardenfell two years ago, I've lived in two places: Caldera and Balmora. The former is where I settled first, after I came from Cyrodiil fleeing – I mean, relieving myself of – some creditors. It's an imperial town, and there's a cadre of orcs who've set themselves up in a manor there, and a creepy little scamp that I swear stole my socks on three separate occasions. Probably the highest density of orcs on the whole island. But Caldera's too familiar. It's like a fake Cyrodiil, crammed into a tiny pocket of a dunmer-dimension. And it smells like industry, probably from the ebony mines.
Balmora's better. Much bigger, but not too big. Everyone knows everyone else. A lot of people know me, too, since orsimer are a rare sight, and orcs with big smiles and hearty laughs are rarer still. I'm the only one many of the dunmer can stomach, apparently. They seem to shun most of my kin.
That's okay. I'm not one of those orcs who'll stab you in the eye for saying the wrong thing within two words of "orc." I mean, as long as you aren't a racist shit. Sometimes that's hard for the dunmer, though.
As I passed Balmora's moaning silt strider, I squeezed my spear in the crook of my arm and put my hand in my pocket, just to make sure the emerald was still there. I turned the gem over in my fingers, traced my thumb along its smooth edges, trying to decide if I should sell it now or grab some food. I ended up choosing the latter, since I'd found that gold on the dead adventurer in the tomb.
Didn't even see who he (or she) was. Elf? Man? Cat or frog? I guess it doesn't matter. Whoever it was, they're dead. I'm not a callous bastard, I think, but I didn't weep for them. I didn't know who they were.
I briefly considered heading to the Fighter's Guild, since I wouldn't have to pay for a bed. I'm technically an Associate, which is imperial for "bitch." But I've been thin on the ground there ever since I completed a contract clearing out moon sugar addicts in the river's cistern dump, and Eydis would probably demand to know where I've been and why I haven't taken another job. So I headed to the Eight Plates instead.
A few patrons looked at me funny, having stepped into the place sopping wet, with a rain-soaked package in one hand and my armor dripping across the not-so-fine carpets. But I grabbed a rag meant for just that purpose, wiped myself down and wrung out my ponytail before I headed to the bar.
Dulnea Ralaal, the dunmer bartender, was taking stock behind the counter among chatting drinkers. She threw a nod at me. "Another contract, Mehmed?"
"Yea," I lied. It was best to keep on the down-low about one's tomb-plundering activities, unless they really were contracts. I shook the soaked package. "Sent to get this."
Still counting bottles, Dulnea threw me another glance. "What is it?"
"No idea. 'Long as it becomes gold for me."
"And 'long as that gold pays for whatever you're about to order."
I set fourteen septims on the counter and called for a matze and cooked rat meat. Cheap stuff, rat meat, but it's got the protein you need. I leaned my spear against the bar and took a stool, setting the package on the countertop. I debated opening it right there and then, but thankfully my wits won and I nudged it aside. No telling what it contained, and I wasn't willing to announce to half of the town that I'd just come into possession of a catty of malachite. Hoped that was what it was.
An emerald, a few old arrows, and ninety septims – no make that seventy-six now. A decent haul. The arrows I'd keep. I had a bow stashed away in the fighter's guild, but free arrows were hard enough to come by, and like the arrows, my skill with the bow was getting rusty. So really, I only had the emerald to transform into profit. I pressed an elbow against my pocket, just to be sure the rock was still there.
The matze came first when Dulnea finished with another patron, but I sipped it until the rat meat order was up. I consumed the meal quickly, famished, and only then downed a few healthy gulps of drink. I took the rest of the bottle with me when I bought a room. Sixty-six septims, now. It always disappears so fast.
The rooms at the Eight Plates are alright, like Balmora, like everything about Vvardenfell. Dry enough, with clean blankets and a clean pillow. Small, but I didn't have much to carry, and everything else I own is at the Guild. I set my spear in the corner, pulled my chain shirt over my head, stripped from my leathers and sat on the bed, the packet in my lap. I undid the twine.
Inside was a bundle of papers wrapped in oilskin. Good-quality oilskin, too. I would have to think over whether to sell it or keep it. The papers…
UDQMDWLGF UALYK ECKAGIK
…what in Malacath's name…?
MBAGKXWTFSNW SX VVW IPTWTWSL RVVGF GF EPSFSK
Imperial. Had to be. Only the imperials did crazy stuff like codes. Codes and messages and secret agents ran the whole damn empire. That's what your average commoner's impression was, at least. And while I'm not your average commoner, that's what I figured, too. The papers were useless.
No. Worse than useless. Dangerous. Imperial codes in a backwater like Morrowind? That's some shady sujamma.
I flipped through the rest of the papers. X's and Z's and Q's laughed back at me. Until the end, the last paper, which was thankfully written in sane script.
Deliver to Caius Cosades, Balmora.
Even dangerous-er. An imperial code meant for an imperial in Balmora.
The smart me should've done one of two things: burn the letters, or flee Balmora. Maybe both. But I was not smart at that moment. I reached into my pocket and withdrew the emerald. It flashed in the flickering light of a candle as I turned it over in my hand. Pretty. Valuable. But it wasn't much bigger than my fingernail and the money from selling it wouldn't last long. Balmora's not an expensive town, but it ain't cheap either, with Hlaalu fingers in every pot. Maybe, just maybe, I could turn the papers into money somehow.
At least I'd had the wherewithal to not pilfer anything else from the corpse in the tomb. Probably an imperial agent who found himself on the wrong end of a skeleton's sword. I had no intention of being implicated in his (or her!) death.
I realized I was tired, very tired. Hoped I hadn't come down with sickness from running in the rain. I wrapped the papers in the oilskin again and hid them under my pillow before I laid down. It wasn't much past sunset, but right then I just wanted some time to myself.
Funny thing, the last thing I thought of before I drifted off to sleep was that dream I had sleeping in the alcove of the dunmer tomb. But when I fell into oblivion, I actually dreamt of Cyrodiil.