author's notes: Hi folks! In this chapter, I will describe Agrippina's arrival in Sadrith Kegran and the hell of a culture shock she's in for. Being a slave is hard but a slave for a weird, ruthless, uncaring Telvanni wizard… It bears no description. So I have a trigger warning – albeit a late one. Sensitive topics (such as slavery and torture) abound! Don't like it? Don't read it.

Disclaimer: I don't own Project AHO, Dimonoider does. I only own my OC Agrippina Valeria Tullius. Such a sweet girl in such a cruel world… But on with the story.

Welcome to Sadrith Kegran!

I regained my senses for the second time in the last few days. Aaah blessed relief! I was mistress of my own body again. I wriggled my limbs. Everything was in perfect working order. But the outer circumstances were a far shot from perfect. I was lying on a heap of hay in a criffing cage! Molag Bal damn it! That's what I'd been dreading all these last days of my…our forced journey. I sat up and had a look around. The other occupant of the cage was an Argonian woman, plain head, no spikes or feathers nor crest. There were four other cages besides our shelter, all of them filled with bedraggled Khajits, Argonians and the odd human. Only Rasputin had a cage all to himself. The Argonian tapped me on the shoulder shyly. "My name is Wades-in-Leaves. Last thing I can remember is harvesting gourd in the Autumn Forest. Then this dratted orc talked to me. I'm pretty sure you know what happened afterwards." I was far from an expert in judging beastfolk but Wades-in-leaves seemed to be past her prime.

"Yeah, similar story with me." I replied. "I'm Agrippina Valeria Tullius but we can settle on Agrippina. I was on my way to Dragonbridge to… Ackh, I suppose it doesn't matter any longer." I was watching my whereabouts a bit more closely. We were indoors which was kind of nice. But this building had the weirdest walls I'd ever seen. They looked strangely organic, flowing and glossy, enforced with wafer structures. Near the entrance to an even larger room stood a shelf full of skulls: orc skulls, Argonian skulls, human skulls and what I thought were Khajit skulls. Divines save me! What a peachy prospect…

And then Shaglak gro-Yarog entered in all his swaggering, loud-mouthed glory. "Get up scum! Today's the grand yearly Sadrith Kegran slave auction. Now be on your best behaviour. For do you know what happens to n'wah who aren't sold today?" Then he made the infamous cutthroat gesture and laughed as if it was his funniest joke ever. I turned to Wades-in-Leaves in alarm. "He's not serious. Please tell me…" But the Argonian evaded my eyes and shuffled her scaly feet. Oh holy shit! I was going to be murdered if I wasn't sold today. Our cage was opened and we were all ushered to a wooden platform by four Morag Tong. There we stood in a neat row. I was looking around intrigued despite my fears. The platform was in a large hall. In the middle of said hall was a - stem of sorts. Black twisted…was that wood? The stuff had yellow glowing blisters in it. I could see several niches, too. In one niche stood two thrones, in the other a chess board and an ample supply of alchemic ingredients. The whole place was decorated with vessels which held bright green agavas, of the flashiest green I'd ever seen. By and by, a decent crowd of Dunmer entered from a narrow rising corridor.

Now Shaglak started to play the host: "Ladies and gentlemer, welcome to the yearly Sadrith Kegran slave auction! Ah mother, serjo Milo what a pleasure." Mother? What the heck?! How could a Dunmer spawn an orc? Oh wait a second: adoption. That must be it. I had blended Shaglak's ramblings out for a moment. I only caught him finishing: "…may come forward and inspect the wares now."

Uh-oh! The first Dunmer who came to me was a finely dressed man. He wore a lavender coloured coat, step-sewed and stuffed with wool. "Hi! I'm Dalos Verendas, the local landlord. But you would address me as 'master Verendas' and nothing else. Now open your mouth. I said: OPEN YOUR MOUTH! There, that's a good girl. Ah, still a full set of teeth. Healthy… Now undress."

Surely I had misheard. "Undress? In front of all these people? I sure as Oblivion won't; unless you take me to a washroom."

Serjo Verendas went almost black in the face: "Why, you little…" But he was cut short because he was roughly shoved aside by another Dunmer. "Whoopsie! Oh Dalos, what a joy." Somehow this didn't sound very sincere. This new Dunmer was obviously a blacksmith. He was built like a wardrobe and wore a leather apron. A black hand was tattooed into his forehead. Still turned to the Dalos Verendas guy, he said: "Dalos you ol' kagouti bull! What do you need a third tavern slut for? There's only room for so much dancing on top of your tables."

Then the blacksmith turned to me and groped my upper arms. Obviously displeased, he muttered: "Hmm scrawny…"

"You know I would describe myself as 'wiry'." I said in my haughtiest tones.

"And that filthy tongue has to go." the blacksmith continued as if he hadn't heard me. "I'm master Rendo. I need an n'wah to help me at the forge. Can you swing a hammer? Can you work the bellows?" I must have looked less than thrilled. Because master Rendo kept saying: "I could buy venison from Bralys twice a week. Would do you good… Normally, Merano should help me. But my boy has grown into a street urchin. Comes only home to eat and sleep. Just let his old man toil! The boy wants to be a scholar. A scholar for crying out loud! I'm buried in work. My wife works herself bent-legged at the farmstead. But does he care? Heck no! That needed to be said."

After his rant, serjo Rendo gave room for yet another possible buyer. Wow, that guy was truly impressive in his own way! While not as dandy as Dalos, or as brawny as the blacksmith he held an air of authority. He had a tall, lanky figure dressed in a green robe embroidered with swirls and flame patterns. His face was weathered. He was wearing a crew cut but still had a full ginger beard. But his most striking feature was an artificial left eye. The contraption glowed with an eerie blue-white light. He walked around me with measured, purposeful steps and I was under heavy scrutiny.

But I was fed up with all this crap. So I asked moodily: "Well, do you also want me to undress in public or mutilate me?"

The Dunmer gave me a razor-thin smile. "No need my dear! I've already seen all there is to see." He tapped his artificial eye. I think I went ten shades of scarlet on the spot. Just to embarrass me further, he whistled and waved his left hand as if burnt. "If I were 200 years younger… But enough of that! I'm master Selthrie, retired expedition leader. As for your tongue: you may keep it. I kind of like spirited girls." Then he abruptly turned to the other slaves. His eyes came to rest on Rasputin. "Oh Sotha Sil what a fantastic test subject! I need to have him, I must have him." He clapped his hands and almost bounced on his feet.

Rasputin, ever the grumpy one, showed his impressive fangs and hissed: "Get lost old man!"

"Well, I certainly won't suffer your foul mouth." master Selthrie said with an airy voice.

And Shaglak made himself known once again. He boomed: "Has everyone made his or her choice? Good then. Let's start with the bidding. And let's keep civil. This isn't Malacath's birthday feast. Why don't we talk about this lovely, shy Argonian first? Her name is Wades-in-Leaves. I plucked her from the Autumn Forest of the Rift. Do I hear any offers?" None of the Dunmer seemed too enthusiastic. They looked downright bored and muttered all sorts of offense under their breaths such as "wilted cliff-racer" and meaner stuff.

"What, not a single offer?" Shaglak asked. Then he twisted his tusks in a very fake smile. "Oh what a pity! Nysath would you do me the honours?" The Morag Tong named Nysath stepped forward and rudely grabbed Wades-in-Leaves by the head. She yelped and started to chant: "Dear Hist…" But she didn't get any further because her throat was cut very professionally. Blood spewed all over the platform and her scaly body collapsed in an ugly heap. Wades-in-Leaves drew her last gurgling breaths. I frantically swallowed the bile that rose up my throat. No Agrippina, you will NOT puke in front of this mob! Don't give them that satisfaction. I told myself very sternly. And would you believe it? The very same blasé Dunmer of moments before started to cheer and applaud all of a sudden. Nysath bent down and grabbed the sad husk of Wades-in-Leaves by the tail to drag her outdoors. She left a long crimson trail on the floor. I swallowed again. The black dots vanished from my vision. So far, so good.

"Let's sell the next n'wah." Shaglak said. "Here's an imperial girl, sweet sixteen and healthy as an ox. Her name is Agrippina and she has an eye for danger and a mouth to run you over with. Any offers?" Holy crap, that's me! I thought.

Dalos Verendas lifted his right hand and shouted: "200 septims."

"Aaall right!" Shaglak boomed. "200 going once, 200 going twice…"

Then the blacksmith lifted his right hand and called: "500 septims."

"500 going once, 500 going twice…" Shaglak droned on.

But then, this Selthrie guy lifted his right hand. "1 000 septims!" he called oh-so-pompously. All around him the Dunmer started to whisper in awe.

"Wow, that's generous!" Shaglak commented. "1 000 going once, 1 000 going twice, 1 000 going thrice aaaand sold! Congratulations master Selthrie." What the fuck?! Looks like I'm property now. On the outside, I grunted and rolled my eyes. This Dunmer is in for a rude wake-up-call. Speaking of rude… This Rendo man was not a happy Dunmer. He turned on master Selthrie, shook his fists and yelled: "Curse you to the four corners and back again Shannath! That was MY n'wah! I need her more than you do."

"Tut, tut, tut… Such a poor loser Varen!" master Selthrie mocked. "And your son…"

Here, Shaglak gro-Yarog interrupted a scene that was bound to turn nasty really quick. "What did I say about keeping things civil? I think you both know the does and don'ts of a slave auction just fine. So stop squabbling like brats!"

Master Selthrie opened and closed his mouth several times and made a hilarious slapped-with-a-dead-fish face. Varen Rendo turned on his heels, huffing and stomping away, brushing quite a few shoulders on purpose. "Aaww injured pride." Shaglak muttered. "Well let's proceed." he called more loudly.

To make a long story short, I witnessed Rasputin also being bought by master Selthrie. There were not many customers interested in, or bold enough to buy a vampire. Just a particularly fierce Dunmer gave a half-hearted try. This guy had "trouble" written all over him. He wore a Morag Tong armour bar the helmet. His short black hair was combed upwards and he wore a neatly trimmed beard. His crimson eyes… I never would have thought that red eyes could look so cold, but somewhat puffy too. But Mr. X took the hints and gave up in all decency.

Then, the auction was over. All the remaining slaves had been sold. A mighty heap of bulging purses was stacked on Shaglak's counter. Here was a happy Orsimer! The crowd began to disperse. The slaves followed their respective owners. Master Selthrie walked over to me and Rasputin. He spread his arms in a grandiose manner. "Welcome to Sadrith Kegran, your new home. You'll probably spend the rest of your lives here."

"Sadrith what?" I sputtered. My Dunmeris was still rudimentary at best.

"Sadrith Kegran you blockhead!" master Selthrie shouted in a sudden fit of rage.

"Hey!" I squawked indignantly. "Do you even know who you're dealing with?! I'm Agrippina Va…"

"Oh stuff it, I don't care. You will not utter a word of your past. Not now, not ever. You are henceforth a blank slate. And Sadrith Kegran means…" master Selthrie had to catch his breath for a moment. "…the mushrooms of Eastmarch. It's a secret settlement of Great House Telvanni in Skyrim, built on the ruins of a Dwemer city." I just blinked dazedly and scratched my head. Rasputin muttered something like "show-off".

Master Selthrie pinched the bridge of his nose and moaned: "Almalexia give me patience! I've got some marvellous things called "books" at my house. Some reading would do you good. Now stand still for a moment." The old Telvanni wizard weaved a hauntingly familiar spell.

I crossed my arms in front of my chest, narrowed my eyes and cried: "Oh no you won't! I've already been paralyzed twice. Tell you what? I'm sick of being carried around like a sack of potatoes. I can walk on my own two feet, thank you very much."

At first, master Selthrie looked baffled at such blatant disrespect. Then, he wagged his creased head and something shone in his red eye. Wait, was that mirth? "Aaah fine!" the bastard said. "Have it your way. But you need some lessons in subjugation." He recharged his paralysis spell and cast it on a very surprised Rasputin who promptly fainted. "You can walk on your own two feet girl?" master Selthrie asked. All traces of amusement had left his voice. "Go ahead, carry him. He's a vampire, shouldn't be too heavy as he only lives on blood. And don't lag behind or I will use a flame spell on your ass. Lesson number 1: If you won't pay the price someone else has to step up and suffer for your insolence."

I bent down and shouldered Rasputin's prone form, grunting loudly. Aaah nothing like petty torment to brighten the day.

We went up the rising corridor, me lumbering behind with Rasputin's dead weight over my shoulder. But as I followed master Selthrie out of the door I stopped dead in my tracks. Wowie! I was in a cave, but not your usual moist, shabby bandit hole. This cavern was much bigger and there were glowing shrooms, glowing shrooms everywhere! Blue-white and bright yellow, small trumpet-shaped specimens, large parasol mushrooms with glowing appendages, little blossoms on tubes that opened and closed as if breathing, big, delicate, web-like blossoms… There just was no end to wonders! Then master Selthrie spoiled my moment. He had already grown impatient, turned back to me and yelled: "Stop gawking lazy bones! I'll give you plenty of time to explore later on, but right now home sweet mushroom pod is calling."

I set in motion again following master Selthrie over a maze of wooden walkways and paved streets. And then I spied some mudcrabs which were also "infected" with these glowing mushrooms. All my fighting senses went on alert because normally, mudcrabs were territorial, aggressive critters. Master Selthrie must have noticed my eeping and skittering because he said: "Easy there Agrippina! The mudcrabs of Sadrith Kegran are quite docile. They'll leave you alone unless you're dumb enough to step right on them. You may even feed them tid-bits and they'll give you some junk in return. These funghi seem to have made them smarter than the average riverside mudcrab."

I kept following master Selthrie. All along the streets there were wooden poles with the classical Dunmer lanterns dangling from them: roofed cases holding a warm orange glow. Then, we were standing in front of master Selthrie's door. The mushroom pod had some additions of broken Dwemer pipes which worked as chimneys obviously. The puffs of smoke were quite colourful: red, purple and green. "Harr even a s'wit like you could remember these chimneys. They're quite unique. So if you ever get lost around town…" master Selthrie grumbled and unlocked the door. I followed him inside and carefully wanted to lower Rasputin on the floor.

"No rather lay him on a table." master Selthrie said. "We'll do the little surgery as long as he's still out cold."

"Is that really necessary?" I stubbornly asked back.

"Yes it is." master Selthrie declared. "Just imagine he starts yodelling the oh-so-many cantatas of our Lord Vivec, or worse yet 'Ragnar the red'."

I shuddered and found myself quite convinced. I carefully laid Rasputin down on the kitchen table and worked the kinks out of my shoulders. Blessed relief! Then master Selthrie gave his next instructions. "Go heat that iron bar in the fireplace until it glows. In the meantime, I'll look for a silver dagger. Now where in Sheogorath's name did I stow it away?" Mumbling and grumbling, master Selthrie rummaged through the thrift store that made up his household.

Sighing I heated the iron bar. Poor, poor Rasputin! Luckily, he was still unconscious. "Aha, found it!" came the triumphant cry of master Selthrie. He came back with the silver dagger, bent down over Rasputin, forced a hand in the vampire's mouth and… Here, I squeezed my eyes firmly shut. But I could do nothing to block out Rasputin's awful gargling or master Selthrie's nagging voice. "Now be quick, cauterize that wound before he bleeds out."

I picked up the white-hot iron bar, silently apologized to Rasputin and showed the thing inside the vampire's mouth. Oh the stench, I'll never forget it until my last breath! Nor the way Rasputin's yellow eyes almost popped out of his head, or his frantic thrashing and flailing, the way his body arched… At long last, the vampire fell unconscious again and I dropped the iron bar and threw up in the trash bin. Gods if my father knew! I thought with a sudden bout of homesickness.

I felt a bony hand rest on my shoulder: "There, there I don't think I fared any better when Yen exchanged my left eye for that implant. Had a splitting headache for a week." master Selthrie murmured. Obviously, the old stick was out of practice when it came to comforting someone! He dropped Rasputin's bloody tongue right after my puke and downed a potion of cure disease. "Just precautionary measures." he grunted.

"Who's Yen?" I asked to override a very awkward silence.

"Yen-Illu, a fellow scholar and Dwemer expert. I picked him up at the Old Hroldan Inn when we were still out and about to explore the Dwemer ruins of the Reach in the late third era. Those were the days! He's a sissy when it comes to slavery and he's banned me from the AHO but oh well…" Master Selthrie's weathered face took on a nostalgic expression. Some moments went by then he shook himself and carried Rasputin to a cage, locked the vampire up, decorated the cage with garlic braids and rammed a silver sword into the ground in front of the cage door. No way in Oblivion that Rasputin could escape…

"*Ahem* master, what about those books?" I reminded the old jerk.

"Books? I've got dozens of books so specify." came master Selthrie's cranky reply.

"The books that I should read to make myself familiar with Sadrith Kegran. I mean, where the heck am I?" I answered with the tones of frustration.

"You are on good solid ground that doesn't wobble, doesn't crumble." Obviously master Selthrie was unwilling to tell me more about the exact location of the cave. He went to a shelf, picked up two books and shoved them in my hands.

"Here you are. And if you want additional reading, I've got the first volume of 'A history of Sadrith Kegran' somewhere lying around, of and by Ever Milo, one of our prominent leaders."

I scanned the book titles. "'ABCs for barbarians'?! Are you kidding me? Well let's see: a like 'atronach', b like 'bungler's bane, c like 'cromberry'… Hey the rest of the book consists of nothing but empty pages! What about d like 'dremora', e like 'Elsweyr', f like…"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, stop it girl!" master Selthrie interrupted me. "My poor head! Before we reach oht like 'Oblivion', maybe you'll find the second book more useful." It was in any case thicker and more respectable than that ridiculous dictionary. The title said 'Great houses of Morrowind' in gilded letters.

Then master Selthrie beckoned me. "Come here girl. Let's set that necklace on a new range, shall we? Now you can explore Sadrith Kegran at will but no leaving the cave and no dungeon delving as of yet!" he admonished with a bony grey index finger. "And here's your duplicate house key. Don't lose it." I deftly caught the little key and put it in my shoddy pocket.

"What kind of dungeon are you talking about, master?" I asked.

"Here we go again…" master Selthrie sighed. "Well I was talking about the Dwemer ruins of Bkhalzarf underneath our very feet. If you're already awestruck with Sadrith Kegran, you'll probably lose your mind over the workshops, library and engines of Bkhalzarf. I surely did." he finished morosely. "Now shoo girl! Leave an old mer to his studies."

I all but ran out of the torture chamber, grabbed a honey-nut-stick and an apple from the kitchen shelf and left the house. Time to get to know the locals!

author's notes the second: "N'wah" means outlander or stranger. But it's also a popular offense in Morrowind. "S'wit" can probably be translated with dumbass or idiot. "Oht" is a letter in the Daedric alphabet used in epitaphs, on banners and scrolls. I did some research on fandom pages, yep! As for the meaning of "Sadrith Kegran": I must confess I made that up. It's more serious than Ra'zirrah's explanation in any case. Running with a keg?! Now please…

As for my blunder with the name of my main character… Thanks for telling me dear unknown reader! I didn't choose Latin in High School, rather French. Now I have to correct all these chapters. *sigh*