As the dragons rose to power, so too did the Dragonlords - enforcers of their masters' whim, eager for a place of power in the new world. Distinguished before the Dragonborn's eyes, he chose them as mortal servants to act in his name. Many infamous deeds they performed to earn their lord's esteem during the purge.

The combined fury from heavens and earth ripped apart any threat in the form of army, guild, or warrior band. Many orders old and young withdrew from the unmatched wrath.

But all was not lost, for out of sight, some survive still.

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-Viper-

Riften, her town had been called one hundred years ago—until the dragons came and burned it to the ground.

They'd done that to the old cities of Skyrim in the turning age; razed the old down, had the terrified locals rebuild anew, and blessed them in names in the conquerors' tongue. The city in the golden meadows, the trading heart of Skyrim, had been rebuilt, five times bigger than it had been before, to house the countless dragonmen and Dragonlords that favoured the wide, sweeping landscape for its bountiful offerings for their dragon minions. The commonfolk, meanwhile, were crammed in the lowest level in crowded hovels, next to the beasts that came out at night to hunt.

The one to the farthest north, atop its stone arch, had been destroyed, rebuilt and renamed. Solitude, the commonfolk said it was named before, where Wolf Queens lived and died. The dragons, mockingly, had renamed the city Aardiiah—"Servitude", a crude impersonation of what had been.

They had tried the one in the stonehold, but everything had been made of stone, and nothing would burn. The citizens there continued calling it Markarth, their biggest achievement against their dragon overlords. Disdainfully the dragons speak of it as Frilingul, which was said to mean 'cave of cravens'.

The city in the easthold Jergevild had been made of stone as well, yet the dragons smashed it down to rubble and made the survivors start over. The mountains surrounding the remade city had been hollowed out to make lairs for the frost dragons that presided there and to the northhold. A statue of the heathen god Talos once had stood overlooking the old city, and the dragons had smashed it to rubble too. Nidrinnilz, they arrogantly blessed the new city. The folk there said its name meant 'heathen-purged'.

The city in the autumnwood, the bearwood, the redwood—the commons had many names for the territory—had only been made of wood. It had burned a great bonfire a hundred years ago, turning the canal black with ash and charred things. The trees all about it had been burned away. Dragonfire was a clumsy thing. A hundred years on and still the dragons permitted not a sapling to grow near, aware it was too easy for their slaves and prey to sneak over the trapping walls at night and lose themselves in the woods. Each night they called curfew, and any out would be slain on sight. It was a wicked place, this rebuilt city of sin, a bowl of meal for immortal overlords.

Thus its name, Aarhorvutah, or 'Slavetrap', was deeply fitting.

But not all of Riften had entirely died a hundred years past. The Cistern had survived. Underground, it had escaped the dragonfire above. The old Ratways were gone but the Cistern had survived—and because the Cistern had survived, the Thieves Guild had survived.

And from the Thieves Guild, Viper survived.

She had not grown, mercifully, in Slavetrap. She had lived in the wilderness, an orphan since the foundations of her memory permitted her. Or, she had to keep returning to the wilderness, as she had to keep moving, city to city, town to town. She had to steal to live. She had been shunned, kicked, chased out of the city gates, or caught and made to swear never to return on her life. But Viper, who had grown beneath her own willful independence, was not so easily frightened out of easy pickings. Desperate times had made her quick and lean, but her fingers were even quicker and leaner, swift to filch into an unattended pocket and sneak a few septims away, just enough for a mouthful to eat, not enough for the figure to miss.

When she had to run, those were the times she had been caught pickpocketing her life.

And through her eventful childhood, Viper had come to Slavetrap, the New Riften. Her attire had changed from threadbare rags to skillful stitched leather, her occupation from begging girl to acclaimed, infamous thief. Her home had become the Cistern.

The Guild wasn't thriving, she'd freely admit, but it lived, and that was what was most important in these dangerous times.

Aarhorvutah was full of dragonmen, day and night; soldiers who served Alduin willingly, for lust of power, for need of purpose, or for the sake of ensuring they would not perish as prey. Slavetrap was also full of frightened villagers desperately trying to scrape a living and keep the dragons and dragonmen marginally satisfied. New Riften was full of thieves. The trick was learning to tell them apart.

And the one thing Viper knew better than this city's history was her profession.

She stood, this senior operative, atop one of the buildings overlooking the market square. The locals say their forefathers had tried to rebuild New Riften to look as similar as Old Riften had, yet with just enough appropriate changes for the dragons to be satisfied, and not burn their efforts down again out of malignant spite. The moat still ran through the town, but it had grown around it, thrice as big as before to make room for the dragonmen's lodgings. There were five varying blacksmiths scattered throughout town, to appease the demand for armour and weapons—theirs was perhaps the only profession really making a boon in these times—and Viper watched the smoke rising from their forges, up and up to be torn apart in the bleak silver sky. She saw the people bustling below, trying desperately to look unafraid. Once Viper caught a glimpse of the warden of Gravuungevild, the slimy Argonian Lanzeel 'Fire-Friend', moving about the market with his reptilian nose high in the air, haughtily examining the goods the commons had to scrape from thin air. Viper would have very much liked to relieve Lanzeel's purse, if it weren't for his scaled hound Geentara dogging his every footstep, hand closed tight around the hilt of the steel sword that was his greatest achievement. Maybe one day he would learn how to swing it.

Oh, Lanzeel was a dragonman if there ever was one, and their biggest bootlicker in all Skyrim.

She saw the unaffiliated children running in the streets, playing games, filching goods out of pockets, fruitlessly begging stories out of dragonmen. She saw a Guildsister unobtrusively duck down behind an abandoned stall. She saw a pair of Bosmer townsfolk haggling over the price of an apple. She even saw a dragon, and not just one; a whole patrol of them swept overhead, growling and snarling to one another. At their shadows absolute terrified silence befell the streets as the citizens of Slavetrap stared up at their overlords in terror. When the dragons moved on without sign of stopping, normal life hesitantly resumed.

Viper looked cautiously after the dragons. She would not dare to boast she was not afraid of them, but certainly she was not terrified. Why, the serpent is but a cousin of a dragon, and a serpent is certainly how the world has seen me. Viper was the name that had come to her in her years of growing infamy; her kiss was poison to men, her mark the coiling snake. All knew it, particularly in New Riften. It was a rural legend, the snake in their grass.

"Vi."

Viper turned, and raised the corner of her eyebrow. "Whatcha got for me?"

"Uh…" Ah, junior operatives. So shy. This one was no different. After a bit of foot-shuffling she said, "It's…the…the Guildmaster that's wanting you."

"Ah," said Viper, and strutted past the junior thief, at ease on the slanted rooftop. The junior wasn't quite as comfortable yet, though no doubt she'd grow into it. They always did. She shimmied down the gutter and landed catlike on the soft grass below. More clumsily, the junior followed. Unnoticed, they stalked the back alley streets of New Riften to their hidden door.

Guild legend claimed their former secret entrance had been in a mausoleum, decorated in the profound Thieves Guild sigil—a circle within a diamond. The rebuild had encouraged them to just be a little more secretive about it, and the entrance was a cellar-like door low set beneath a building friends with the Guild. There was only one Guild shadowmark, in the bottom left-hand corner. Viper pressed it, the lock undid at her touch, and then she and her young Guildsister were in the small barren cellar, standing over the circular wooden trapdoor that had managed to survive Old Riften's razing a hundred years back. Viper went in first, scurrying down the old iron rungs. They, too, had survived the raze, as had everything in the Cistern.

Only one thing had changed, and that was the Guild itself. Time had passed, old had left and new had come to take their places. Viper was merely one of them; with so many seeking a hiding place and an income all at once, the Guild was near overflowing with new members. The forty-odd in the Cistern were just some of the ones who'd done so much as pass the thief tests. It was almost fortunate that about five or six died each year.

Viper blew a kiss to the statue of Nocturnal as she passed it; that, Guild legend claimed, had been erected upon the learning of the Nightingale Trinity—that like dragons, they had not been a myth. The Daedric Prince was the patron to thieves, providing luck and cover of darkness to ensure their success. It was unknown who the new Trinity was now, though there were plenty of rumours going about. Most believed the Guildmaster, a sly, cunning kinsman named Cenrin, to most certainly be a devout of Lady Luck. His Second, a wily Dunmer by the name of Janquil, was also a strong suspect, given her rather shocking talent with throwing daggers and her apparent indifference concerning death. The third remained under speculation. Some said it was Ma'rhaq, the Khajiiti infiltrator who spent his spare time honing his dual-wielding talents. Others believed Faendred, the fierce Bosmer enforcer, who so enjoyed cracking men's bones with her mace when the opportunity presented itself. A few times Viper herself had been considered for the role of Nightingale, to which she had deflected the possibility. "Snakes have no need of handheld weapons, my friends. All they need is their poison and their wit to survive."

And poison she had; in her childhood Viper had briefly been adopted by a roaming alchemist who only ever called himself Celandine, after his favourite herbal plant. From him Viper learned to make potions, but also, and better, poisons. Viper specialized in what she named her Serpent's Kiss; a painful paralyzing poison that she had perfected to do absolutely no harm to women. It was so easy to smear a little on her lips, entrance her client and administer her freezing kiss, and so entertaining to make them watch her calmly remove their valuables from their person and lodgings, if they happened to be home at the time. Of course, they'd only watch for a little bit, before the celandine flower in the poison made their eyes bleed and they'd weep red tears to remember her by.

There stood Cenrin, observing the map on his desk. He stirred as he detected Viper's quiet approach, and a small smile lit his lips. "Ah, the serpent herself has arrived."

"Apologies for the delay, Guildmaster." Viper smiled as she settled on the corner of his desk. "I grew distracted watching my cousins fly past the city."

Cenrin's countenance darkened at once. "Damned dragons," he muttered. "Perhaps there will come a day when we make our presence more…known to them." He spun a septim between his fingers as he spoke. "And when that happens, they will simply leave Riften alone."

"New Riften," Viper corrected absently.

"It shouldn't be new at all, but I don't give a Skeever's arse what the dragons think." Cenrin smiled once more. He was young, for a Breton, and he looked even younger. "And speaking of dragons, I have a new task for you."

"Oh?" Viper quirked her brow. "And it has something to do with dragons."

"Everything these days has something to do with dragons." The Guildmaster traced his finger along the eastern border of Skyrim. "But the task I have for you is perhaps just as dangerous as dealing with a dragon head-on."

"Sounds intriguing." She leaned forward. "What is it?"

His finger came to rest upon Skyrim's northernmost city. "Servitude. Solitude. Whatever you want to call it."

Viper curled her lip in distaste. "It's on the other side of the flipping province. It'd better be worth our time."

"Oh, it is." Cenrin met her gaze, a twinkle in his cool green eyes. "We've received a very good payout for this one, one that could set us up for months if you do it right. Of course, I entrust this task only to our most eloquent serpent."

"What do you need me to do?"

"I should warn you, it involves a Dragonlord."

Viper's belly twisted into apprehensive knots. She did her best to not let it show. "We've dealt with those blighters before."

"Aye, but not quite like this one." Cenrin's face was cold in sincerity. "This is Dragonlord Ollos, a Dunmer as wicked as our very own Janquil. You have heard of him, I presume."

Viper curled her lip a second time. "Hasn't anyone?" Ollos was almost as infamous as Vylornar, a close mortal hand of the World-Eater. Her skin crawled at the mere thought of the dragon overlord; she would shamelessly admit the thought of the World-Eater terrified her so much more than the thought of dragons in general. Dragons she saw near every day; their cruelty, she witnessed near every week. The World-Eater, however…he was a god descended, wicked and cruel without the faintest idea of mercy, and an absolute hate of weakness. Mortals, in his eyes, were weak; only the strongest ones, the most ambitious, angry, determined warriors were ever chosen as his mortal enforcers.

Ollos was said to be as cruel as his master. He even looked the part, with his dark skin and red eyes as befit his Dunmeri kinsfolk. The commons whispered that Ollos boiled prisoners alive if they did not tell what he wanted to know, and those who attempted escape were shown no mercy. He would flay them, they whispered, inch by inch of skin while they pleaded for death until their throats were as raw and bloody as their bodies soon became.

The stories they told were absolutely horrific. It did nothing to resolve Viper.

"You want me to seduce a heartless man," she muttered. "And for what? What bloody idiot wants to upset a Dragonlord, especially the cruelest Dragonlord in all Tamriel?"

"A man by the name of Kaarn Stormbear."

Viper recognized. "The leader of the Raiders?"

"The same." Cenrin reached behind his desk and dropped a sack, rather noisily, onto the desktop's surface. A few contents spilled free, and Viper recognized them at once.

Stunned, she picked one up in her hand, turning it over. When she opened the golden lid, the stone lay within, red as blood, a perfect diamond. "Where in the name of the gods did a man like Kaarn Stormbear…?"

"Found them, he insisted, but we needn't bother ourselves with the origins." The Guildmaster smiled as he took the golden gilded case back. "All that matters is you complete this task, Viper, and the Guild will be given no less than sixteen Stones of Barenziah."

Sixteen. "There are four in here," said Cenrin, gesturing to the sack. "A down payment."

Sixteen. "How…how did he get so many?" Viper gaped at her Guildmaster, for once lost for words. "We've been searching for so much as one for decades!"

"Does it matter? If we get this job done we'll bring our stone count to nineteen. There will be only four more to find after that, and then the crown." The Breton thief smiled more broadly. "Would you imagine completing that crown—it would bring in an absolute fortune from the criminal underworld across Tamriel—the recomplete Crown of Barenziah, a relic of the past, a memory of the days before there were dragons ruling the skies and World-Eaters dominating our liberty. It would set the Guild back on its feet. I cannot express to you the wealth gained from this mission."

Viper narrowed her eyes. "Nor can I express my absolute distaste at seducing a man who flays men alive." She crossed her arms. "What if I'm caught?"

"Don't." Cenrin's voice was tart. "You'll find Ollos in Servitude. The goal is a pendant he's known to wear; a purple crystal, encircled in silver bands engraved with draconic runes. What Stormbear intends for this pendant I've no idea, but given his price it's certainly very important. No doubt it's something to do with the rebellion he leads in the easthold."

"I never said I was going to take the job," said Viper coolly.

"Were you going to say you wouldn't?" Cenrin countered.

They held steely gazes, until at last the Guildmaster broke the festering silence. "Do this for us, serpent seducer, and you'll have restored to the Guild glory and wealth like we've never known in living memory."

Viper didn't answer for a few moments. She let the silence resume, hang. Then she said, very frostily, "Am I going alone?"

Cenrin tilted his head. "You want an accomplice?"

"I want Janquil."

"Done."

The transaction was so fast Viper almost forgot herself.

"She'll do little," she warned her Guildmaster. "But I'd feel a lot more confident knowing I had a capable Guildsister watching my back, in case things get ugly. I've no intention of being boiled by that revolting elf."

Cenrin smiled. "I say what I mean, Viper. My Second will accompany you to Servitude. Hopefully you two will be able to come to the necessary arrangements."

"We'll plan on the way. Servitude is five days from now."

"Shall I expect you back in a fortnight?"

"If I'm not back, I'm dead or lost."

"So be back."

"I intend to."

Cenrin straightened. "Horses will be waiting after twilight in the stables. Sleep until then; night's the safest way to travel."

"And the most dangerous time to leave Slavetrap." Viper hissed disdainfully. "Everything I do when I leave this Cistern will be the most threatening I have ever done in my short life, are you aware of that?"

"That I am." Cenrin's gaze never drifted from hers. "I'm also aware that if we pull this heist off, you'll not only be the most renowned infamous thief in Skyrim, but our Guild's reputation will grow. More clients will approach us seeking contracts done, more gold will come rolling in, and more chances of completing our Crown of Barenziah will proffer themselves. I hope you're aware that if you refuse to take on this contract, you'll be the most shamed thief in Tamriel."

Viper glared. "I never said no."

"Excellent." The Breton thief's eyes were shrewd. "Then I'll see you and Janquil back in a fortnight."

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