Chapter 83: The big heist
[25th – 26th of Evening Star 4E 202]
On the day of the planned heist T'mara and I got up very early, only a couple of hours past midnight. We left the house without waking up anybody, and we got out of the city through the gate from the Arboretum. Rather than using the main gate west of the city, we took the short cut, climbed over the edge right after the wall, and found our way down to the lower regions of the city island in the late night chill. It was a very dark night, and my wife took me by the hand, as her superior Khajiit eye sight worked much better at night than mine did; despite none of the moons being up, the starlight sufficed to make her see enough to find her way without stumbling or so.
With plenty of time to share we met the advance team of battlemages and soldiers at the shore southeast of the city, at a cave leading to the city sewers. According to what we knew the bandits did not plan to use this entrance, but no risk was taken, and a small group of guards dressed as craftsmen was stationed outside, pretending to prepare some maintenance work outside around the cave door. If somebody actually came to check, it would seem odd to start working before dawn, but it might be still good enough and not too suspicious. In earlier times this cave entrance had been occupied by goblins, but not any longer.
Once we had stepped inside, we walked briskly towards the sewer area. There were no goblins in this area of the sewers, and our progress was only slightly slowed down by encountering the occasional mudcrab and sewer rat. After about half an hour navigating narrow passages, stairs, iron gates, and walkways over partially flooded areas, we reached a trapdoor which was quite obviously equipped with a magical shield, and five of the battlemages worked together for several minutes to neutralize it. After opening the door and getting up, two university mages actually were close and getting alarmed by the ward getting disabled, but the senior battlemage՚s presence calmed them down.
It happened that the senior of the two mages who were guarding the area was a good friend of our battlemage team, so that there was no reason to sound an alarm. We wanted to avoid having all of the mages informed about our plans, as there was a distinct possibility for some of them being moles for the Thalmor. Rather, we had decided earlier to inform only a few selected mages and enlist their help, deliberately excluding the Arch-Mage and his closest advisors. The decision makers considered it better if he was not informed for the time being.
There was a larger store room close by, and we had most of our group of mages and soldiers assemble there. Once our whole team had passed the trapdoor, the magical seal was carefully enabled again. Next order of business was to inspect the other access doors. We found all of the seals still intact, and an observation team of three mages and soldiers each was placed close to each of them, but in a room which could not be directly accessed from there. In both cases, the observation room was kept dark, so that the intruders might not even notice that they were observed. The team had the task to reseal the passages once all of the bandits were in and to fight back against those who might want to retreat later on. We did hope to catch a few Thalmor in addition to the bandits, and we, or rather Captain Hadvar and the Legate in charge, already had a plan how to 'sell' this, both to the Thalmor themselves and to the public. When being forced to work and live with the Thalmor, public opinion and, in particular, avoiding situations which might make them 'lose face', was very important; after all, we had no intention to antagonize them. All what we wanted to achieve was for them to stop meddling in our internal affairs, and we knew quite well that we'd not fully achieve that no matter what.
For the moment, we had to wait. According to Captain Hadvar, who directed the activities inside the university, all units were in place and hidden, and he and I had found a good hiding spot in the Imperial Watchtower. From outside, nobody could see how many people were inside, and we could look out through some narrow windows. About a dozen soldiers and a few battlemages waited with us, while T'mara had chosen to stay behind with the troops and mages guarding the sewer exits below, from carefully selected hiding places.
About a couple of hours before sunrise some noise was heard. From our viewpoint we could see one of the sewer grates being moved very slowly, and a few people climbed out from below. The sewer exit in the university garden was one of the spots where the infiltration had been expected, and Hadvar just nodded when he saw that. Happy with the events so far he told me:
"There has been a small change of plan. This sewer exit will remain unprotected by us and will not be resealed. We hope that many bandits will use it to flee, and I arranged for an ambush to be prepared in the sewers. Having people disappear down there will be much easier to explain than dead Thalmor up here."
He had a point, and I just nodded. About half of the bandits who had emerged proceeded towards the lobby, presumably to get to the Arch-Mage's quarters, although they should not be able to actually get there, while the others split between the Mystic Archives and the Chironasium. Another group of enemies waited inside the lobby, as we could briefly see, and finally we saw a detachment of Thalmor also coming out from the sewers. There were more than a dozen of them, about half of them wizards and the other half warriors, lead by two Justiciars in ornate robes.
As soon as the Thalmor had stepped inside buildings, Hadvar opened the window briefly and attached a large green sheet outside, closing the window again. When I looked at him, he grinned and explained:
"This is a sign for the others that most enemies seem to be here, and they can show themselves now."
Soon there was a commotion heard from within the lobby, and a group of injured bandits came out, howling. A Thalmor voice was heard:
"Come back here! We will disable the runes and then we can proceed!"
Another voice was heard, somewhat distorted:
"The Arch-Mage's quarters can only be entered with permissions. Show the permit or leave!"
"What kind of wizardry is this?"
"Let it be known that the Arcane University protects itself. Leave now or face the consequences!"
I had not known that such a protection spell existed, and Hadvar just smiled. A couple of minutes later loud noises were heard, and quite a few people shouted. Some Thalmor cam running our of the lobby, and their robes looked singed.
"Some battlemages spent hours setting very powerful runes, and they were just set off. With the background voice, we cheated; one of the battlemages has a particularly scary voice, and he speaks through some metal tube to further distort it" Hadvar explained. Followed by a group of battlemages and soldiers, the remaining bandits and Thalmor came running out of the lobby, and right as this time they were expelled from the Chironasium and the Mystic Archives as well.
"Back to the sewers!" the surviving Justiciar shouted and went down first. One by one the others followed, and the last few stragglers were captured by our troops. Hadvar waited about five minutes and then ordered half of this troops down the sewers as well. Before he was gone, he asked me:
"Timotheus, can you please stay up here and guard against potential surprises."
I nodded, and he was gone. The group which was supposed to serve as distraction and climb the walls, I learned, had already been caught outside by the city guard, and similar happened to those who had planned to start a fight just outside of the lobby. For now, everything seemed to be under control, and I joined some battlemages moving around and checking for something we might have missed. By coincidence I looked up, and I just saw a barely discernible shade reaching a window outside of the Arch-Mage's quarters and getting in. I alerted the next battlemage to what I had just seen, and he barely believed me. I insisted, though, and he reluctantly decided to disturb the Arch-Mage and just make sure everything was all right up there. We, that is a group of five battlemages and I, entered the lobby and got ourselves transported to the first floor, and here we could see that was indeed something wrong. There were a couple of dead mages and clear signs of tinkering with the transport platforms. The senior battlemage got concerned, called out of the window for reinforcements, and asked:
"How good are you in close combat fighting?"
"Pretty good, and I can summon a very strong familiar, too."
"That might do; come with me."
He grabbed me and two of his subordinates, stepped onto the platform tuned to the Arch-Mage's quarters and activated the transport mechanism. Right when me materialized we could see that there was a problem. The Arch-Mage was bound and gagged and on his bed, and four Thalmor were searching the room. I summoned Pammy, and when the first Thalmor reacted to our appearance, Pammy jumped and had him down on the floor within less than two seconds. The other three Thalmor turned around now, and the senior battlemage challenged them:
"What is your business here in the Arch-Mage's private quarters, and why is the Arch-Mage bound and gagged?"
One of the Thalmor, a Justiciar, opened his mouth, but then seemed to decide quickly that explanations were useless at this point, and he raised his hands to prepare a spell, while he commanded:
"Kill them!"
The battlemages were prepared, though, and carefully interwoven wards protected us from the first series of shock spells cast against us. While the battlemages retaliated with spells of their own, I jumped forward. I had my big greatsword already drawn and used it to decapitate one of the Thalmor wizards before he noticed what I intended to do; he was too much focused on spell casting and too little on defense. With most of them being down or at least injured, we quickly had the situation under control, and while most of the Thalmor refused to surrender, the battlemages managed to paralyze the Justiciar. The other enemies needed to be killed, and once this was done, three of the battlemages carried the paralyzed Thalmor off to the Imperial Watchtower for questioning, while the remaining one rushed to free the Arch-Mage.
Meanwhile, a larger group of soldiers, guards and battlemages had followed the main group of bandits and Thalmor down the garden sewer access point, and when we listened, we could hear some fighting noises from deep down.
"What's going on down there?" I asked.
Hadvar had joined us again, and he smiled:
"Well, it just so happens that our troops down there find out about a large group of bandits meeting a group of Thalmor in the sewers, and for some reason unknown to us they are engaged in fighting. The larger numbers on the bandit size are compensated by the Thalmors' magic and armor, and they are about to wipe each other out. Unfortunately the guards found out about this too late, and the few survivors are going to be 'scavenged' by goblins and rats before we can intervene. We will probably never learn why so many bandits and Thalmor happened to be in the sewers at the same time."
"What?" I gasped.
"Well, this, or something in that direction, is going to be the official story we will tell everybody who asks, and the Black Horse Courier news will tell it like that. You know, by telling the story like this the Thalmor will not have any reason to blame us."
"And what do we say about the intruders in the Arch-Mage's quarters?"
"We state that a group of bandit mages somehow managed to intrude. Four Thalmor, who happened to be around, did their best to defend the Arch-Mage and actually prevented him being killed, but unfortunately the valiant Thalmor mages got killed before reinforcements showed up. We are grateful for the four Thalmor mages to give their lives for the defense our Arch-Mage."
"Brilliant!"
"Right, isn't it?"
"Are they going to buy it?"
"The Thalmor? I don't know, but our smartest minds believe that they are, yes. I mean, they will know it's not the entire truth at least, but everything else they could do would be worse. If they accused us of killing their wizards, they'd have to explain what they did down there, for instance. After all, this is the Imperial City and not the Aldmeri Dominion."
From deep down we could still hear fighting noises, and once I thought I heard a 'TIID' shout. After about ten more minutes a battlemage appeared at the lower end of the ladder and called up:
"If we have a few more healers available, we could use them plus some potions, please."
I went down now myself, followed by some restoration mages, and some soldiers directed us to a big room which had been temporarily dedicated to be a field hospital. There were quite a few injured soldiers and mages, and I was told that there had been even more bandits and Thalmor than expected. Healing potions were distributed, and the mages plus myself and T'mara, who now joined us, helped the process. We had actually managed to capture all three of the '3G' bosses, but no Thalmor had survived the fighting; except for the one Justiciar the battlemages had been able to paralyze in the Arch-Mage's quarters, no attempt had been made to get one of them alive. On the bandit side, though, quite a number of them had surrendered, and after basic healing was applied, they were prepared to be marched to the prisons.
A couple of hours later some of us convened to discuss further steps. The Arch-Mage himself lead us to his council chamber, which allowed up to twelve people to sit comfortably around a large round table. People present included the Arch-Mage himself, his most senior wizard and deputy, the senior Imperial Battlemage, Captain Hadvar, Legate Brittia, Selina, my wife and myself.
The Arch-Mage started:
"First of all, my sincere thanks to everybody for uncovering the plot and rescuing me. I was totally clueless until the Thalmor jumped me without prior warning. I knew, of course, that the Thalmor were secretly scheming against the Empire, but I had not expected such an open attack, at least not yet. What they told me just before you came in was real bad and devious."
"Well, the attack was not supposed to appear open, I think" Captain Hadvar suggested.
"No, it sure was not" Legate Brittia chimed in. "According to what we know, there should have been a major bandit raid on the university, with the help of some renegade mages, and the Thalmor would have stepped in later, too late to prevent the worst, though. The Arch-Mage and most of the senior wizards would have been killed, lots of valuable books and tomes burnt or stolen, and the university's reputation severely damaged."
"The Thalmor would have claimed that the university cannot even protect itself" M'lissa added, "and they would have declared themselves as guardians for the future, with even more power to dictate what can and cannot be done here."
"So, as we have prevented this scenario successfully," the Arch-Mage asked, "do you people have plans how to announce what happened? We do have lots of dead people, after all, though mostly bandits and Thalmor. You have thought about that, right?"
The legate smiled: "Of course we have. The official story, with your agreement, is that there was a surprise attack on the university. Our wards held firm, and we noticed a huge fight going on in the sewers. We went down to investigate, once we had a proper force of battlemages and guards assembled, and we found mostly corpses. According to our investigation, a large number of bandits had met a force of Thalmor and fought against each other for a reason unknown to us, with the larger number on the bandit side compensating for the magic on the Thalmor side. We managed to get a few bandits alive for questioning, but no Thalmor; goblins from the lower sewers had already found the scene and killed off most of the wounded, and there was not much we could do at all."
"We are also subtly stating that we wish that the Thalmor had told us what their plans had been in the sewers below the university. If they had told us, we could have helped and maybe prevented the massacre. In addition," the senior Imperial Battlemage added, "there was an attack directly on the Arch-Mage's quarters. A few bandits had somehow managed to gain access to the room and threatened the Arch-Mage's life, when three Thalmor, who happened to be in the building at that time, heroically stepped in and attacked the bandits. Unfortunately all three of them were gravely wounded in the fight and died soon after our reinforcements came in, but we are very grateful for their action to defend our Arch-Mage."
"Oh, yes, giving the Thalmor some face" the Arch-Mage smiled.
"Indeed" the legate nodded. "Officially we are grateful for what they did, but we also let it be known that the university can defend itself, and we kind of blame them for running major operations so close to us without our knowledge."
T'mara and I looked at each other and smiled; we both liked the way this was going. I had one question, though:
"That sounds good. And what about the '3G'?"
"Ah yes, the '3G'" Hadvar replied. "It turned out that all three of them were involved in the attack. Two of them were in the sewers, and one was outside leading the diversion attack. We captured all three of them alive, and they have been identified without any doubt."
"They are not telling where their headquarters are, or are they?"
"We have not yet really started questioning them" Selina responded. "However, there is a good chance that somebody will talk, sooner or later. We have our ways."
I was getting a little bit concerned about that:
"Are you going to torture them?"
"Of course we are!" Legate Brittia responded. "But keep in mind that this is not necessarily torture as in hurting their bodies. We prefer to use torture of mind, like telling one of the bandits that another one has told us something specific, and thus playing them against each other. We have a few experts in playing mind games, and I am looking forward to seeing how far we get with that."
We talked about some more details, and T'mara and I got thanks for our participation and contributions. After all we were on vacation and had volunteered. Everybody confirmed that the situation was under control, and with the '3G' all under arrest, they could now proceed finding and routing the respective bandit headquarters. The specific connection between bandits and Thalmor was still to be determined, but that was a job for the Legion and their battlemages. Specifically for the one single Thalmor we had managed to get alive, they'd have to be very careful to question him without allowing him to escape or commit suicide.
Anyway, we were excused, and Hadvar told us that he'd stay in the Imperial City for a few more days, whereas Selina was going back to Kvatch with us. We spent one more full day with family here and agreed to travel back to Kvatch on the next day, so that we would all be back there for the New Life Festival, as we had hoped that we'd be able to do. It also happened to be our first wedding anniversary, and we were looking forward to spending that day with family and friends, hopefully not interrupted by more bandit chasing, even as that could imply some fun at times.
[Author's Notes: How did you like that one?]