Percy waited several moments to ensure that no reinforcements were coming. When it was evident that none were, he moved on.

The path led to a large oak door. He tested the handle and was pleased to find that it was unlocked. He opened the door slowly, not wanting to alert anyone on the other side. The smell of roasted meats and vegetables filled his nostrils. He could hear voices, and the clinking of silverware. The dull light of several lamps illuminated the room, and Percy cursed as the light cast his shadow along the stone floor.

He crept forward quickly, desperate to his exposure to a minimum. There was a large cupboard nearby, and he snuck up, placing his back against the wood. He listened to the conversation, and tried to discern the number of combatants. Only one voice was speaking. Decidedly male and almost…animalistic.

"Told Roras, I told 'im that it were a bad idea, but did 'e listen to me? No, 'course not."

He heard a couple of grumbled replies, and Percy thought he heard someone reply, but couldn't make it out over the noise of the torches and cutlery. He laid his head against the wooden frame, he desperately wished for a mirror. Anything that would help him get a look at what the room looked like, and the number of combatants.

He flinched as a droplet of water fell from the roof of the cavern and onto his face. He glanced up at the wet ceiling, and an idea struck him. They were deep enough underground, that there should have been a fair bit of moisture in the air. He closed his eyes and reached out, drawing to feel the moisture in the air. It filled his hand like a ball of putty. Ready and eager to be molded as he saw fit. Pushing a little of his divine energy into the air, he condensed the moisture into a small puddle on the ground near him.

He glanced at it, pleased to see that he could indeed see a reflection of the room beyond. It was a simple, makeshift dining room. A single wooden table sat in the middle of the room, and Percy could see three figures. It appeared as though they were the only others in the room and Percy could see a door just beyond the table. He bit back a sigh. How fucking big was this place? He sighed. So much for the silent approach. He reached down and grabbed a piece of loose stone on the ground.

Popping up from behind his cover, he took aim and launched the rock as hard as he could. The man at the end of table looked up, his eyes widening as he saw Percy. But he didn't even get the chance to scream before the rock impacted him. The projectile impacted him with the force of a truck. His head snapped back, the right side of his face crumpling under the force of the attack.

No sooner had Percy thrown the rock, then he was vaulting over the cupboard and was bearing down on the men on the table. The man Percy was closest to was a large being with deep green skin. White hair, shaved along the edges and pulled into a ponytail. Long pointed tusks jutted out from his upper lip.

The orc tried to free himself from the table, but he struggled to pull his legs free from the bench. It proved to be fatal, as Percy raced past him. Percy's arm shot out, gripped the man's ponytail and yanked his head back. Percy dragged the edge of his blade along the orc's throat. Percy released his grip on the orc, and he collapsed forward, his hands grasping pitifully at his throat in a desperate attempt to stop the flow of blood. The third man at the table snarled in fury, and managed to free himself from the bench. He pulled a large war-hammer free from under the table and took a defensive stance.

Percy stalked around the table, and the bandit matched his movement. His eyes darting back and forth, sweat dripping down from his temples. Percy shot forwards, feinting with his blade. The bandit raised the haft of his hammer to try and block the blow. Percy withdrew his blade and his leg snaked out, wrapping his foot around the bandit's ankle and tripped them man. He tumbled to the ground, his hammer clattering out of his grasp. The bandit's head smacked into the stone, and his eyes became unfocused. Percy lowered his weapon, and stomped down. His boot clamped down onto the bandit's throat, shattering his windpipe. The bandit choked, wheezing and gasping for air uselessly.

Turning his back on the dying man, Percy walked back over to the man he'd thrown the rock at and kicked him in the ribs. He didn't move and Percy nodded in satisfaction.

Walking through the door at the end of the dining room, Percy found himself in yet another large cavern. He shook his head in disbelief. Just what the hell had he stumbled into? He'd thought that this was just supposed to be a small pact of bandits, but this…this was turning into something far more. This was…this was a complicated and intricate operation. There were simply too many people to be anything else.

Part of him considered turning back and leaving then and there. How many people had he killed already? How deep into this massive hideout had he traversed? Was this really his problem? He had his own issues to deal with. His own mission, and he was distracting himself with this ever-growing mess.

But he knew that was going to be a non-starter. He was committed to this course of action. Committed to ending these people. It wasn't even out of a sense of justice for the innocent man they'd killed. Sure, Percy felt these people deserved to die for killing a man for no reason, but this was bigger than that. An operation of this size, scale and complexity…it was a threat to humanity. These people weren't going to change their ways. Were going to continue hunting and killing innocent people.

They might have been caught sooner or later. Might even kill themselves or break up, but how many people would die before then? How many lives would be ruined in the interim? And to Percy, if even a single person's live was irrevocably altered because of these bandits and he could have done something and didn't, then he was every bit as guilty.

He'd been complicit already, and he wouldn't allow himself to fall into that false sense of complacency again.

So Percy would see this through to the end.

A niggle of concern wrinkled at the back of his mind. If and when he finally found the leader of this troupe, they would likely be a handful. One didn't control this many hard-minded individuals unless they were either heavily respected or feared. Given that they were all bandits, Percy had a hard time believing they respected this Rigel Strong-Arm.

Which meant she would be powerful. Percy sighed. This was going to be a headache. Doubly so considering his nagging injuries were beginning to throb even more painfully. The pain in his back had turned from a dull nuisance into throbbing misery. Each step sent a tremor of pain down his spine.

But he ignored the pain, he was no stranger to discomfort.

He walked for some time, blessedly not running into any more bandits. As Percy traversed deeper into the cave system, the walls began to shrink, forming into a cramped tunnel. The tunnel continued for some minutes before opening up into a room. For a moment, Percy didn't realize what he was looking at. The room was small, the ceiling low enough that he could reach up and press the flat of his palm against it. The room was rectangular, extending out for several yards before ending in an intersection.

There were large indentations in the walls. Enormous holes that housed large black boxes, if Percy didn't know better, he would say that he was in a crypt. As he approached one of the boxes, he realized that he was right. These weren't just little black chests. They were caskets. Crypts such as this one were spread out all over Skyrim. He'd heard stories from other Legionnaires about these places. Supposedly the burial grounds for the ones that came before. They housed all manner of nasty bastards, tho most commonly they were protected by drugar.

A shiver ran down his spine, accompanied by another wave of pain.

He hated drugar. What was dead ought to stay dead, after all. But maybe he'd just watched too many zombie movies as a kid.

He shook his head, and examine the room again. It appeared as though the bandits had already cleared the room of drugar. Well that was good. It saved him the trouble.

The intersection at the end of the hall splintered off into what had once been alternate paths. However the path to the right had since caved in over time, forcing Percy down the left. The corridor led him down a veritable maze of meandering tunnels, that led into even more crypts. It would have been all too easy to become trapped down there. Wandering through passage after passage, growing ever more lost and confused. Blessedly, however, the bandits had been intelligent enough to light the sconces on the walls which acted as a path.

Following the light of the sconces, Percy emerged into yet another large room. This one considerably different to the others he'd just come through. It became evident almost immediately that this must have been the heart of the stronghold. Two rows of beds lined each wall of the room, which was divided in half by a row of shelves. Around the corner of one of the shelves, Percy could make out what appeared to be a bar.

Heavy snores rebounded off the walls of the cavern. It was an impressive din, and Percy was surprised that anyone would be able to sleep through the noise. There were roughly six bodies in the beds. Doing a quick count of the remaining beds, Percy was pleased to see that the men and women he'd thus far killed numbered exactly the remaining number of beds. Good. This meant that he was nearing the end of this hell hole.

He drew his dagger and began setting himself to work. He worked swiftly. Moving from bed to bed, covering the mouth of the unsuspecting bandits before plunging his dagger deeply into their temples. In less than a minute, he'd ended the remainder of the bandits in the encampment.

Which left only their leader. His thoughts went back to the letter he'd found at the entrance. If Strong-Arm was the leader he believed them to be, they would likely be in that treasure room. Which meant going through whatever traps had been set into place. He sighed and pushed on, walking from the bathroom and into the bar room. At one end of the room was yet another tunnel, but Percy was preoccupied by the other end of the room. There was a set of blinders, blocking off the back of the room. He frowned, and crept forward. Peeking his head around the corner of the curtains, he could see a large bed. It was unoccupied. On one side of the bed was a nightstand. A single candle cast a dull orange glow over the cover of the book on the stand.

The space on the other side of the bed was occupied by a large chest. Percy assumed that this must have been where Strong-Arm had been resting. At least until recently. Likely, if someone had tried to break into the treasure room, then Strong-Arm had given up sleeping in comfort to sleeping with their hoard.

Percy approached the chest, and thrust it open. Unsurprisingly, it was empty. He'd expected as much. Well, that left only one place left to go. Grim determination washing over him, Percy began his advance. The tunnel branched off, leading to another oaken door. He tried the handle, and sighed when it refused to budge. Kneeling down, Percy once again began trying to pick the lock of the door. But after nearly ten minutes of fruitlessly trying to pick the lock, he grew frustrated. He was exhausted, sore, and more than ready for this entire mess to be over with.

Standing back up, he reared back and placed a heavy kick on the door. The arch of his boot colliding next to the lock. He used the full force of his strength and the door shattered. The Wood and iron clattered to the ground noisily. Well, Strong-Arm probably knew he was coming now. The path turned a corner, leading a door that appeared very out of place. It was made out of hardened steel. Bronzing with the rust of time. Luckily, this door was not locked, and Percy pushed it over.

There had once been a thin catwalk over the floor below leading to yet another door, but it had since collapsed. Someone had managed to rig up a pair of distressingly gaunt logs as a pseudo bridge between the two gaps. Grumbling to himself, Percy took a hesitant step forward, and promptly nearly fell. The logs were coated in something, likely an oil of some sort, and were exceptionally slippery.

He rolled his eyes in exasperation, and simply leapt the distance. He landed on the other side gracefully, and opened the door carefully, if he was in the booby-trapped part of the building, he didn't want to take any chances. The door opened to another hallway. Percy made to take a step forward, and then hesitated. It was difficult to make out in the thin light of the singular sconce at the end of the hall, but Percy could just make out thin slits in the walls. His eyes narrowed and he glanced down at the floor. If he hadn't been looking for it, he might have missed it.

On the stone floor, right where his foot had been about to step, was piece of cobble that was only just slightly more raised than the rest. He pressed his foot down on the stone, and it depressed under his foot. He waited a moment, and then something clicked. Three, enormous blades swung from hidden mounts in the slits in the wall. They swung like pendulums, back and forth across the hall. It was a morbidly clever little trap.

After about a minute, the blades ceased their swinging, and Percy felt the stone release under his foot begin to rise. Lifting his foot free, Percy continued on his way. At the end of the corridor was one final door. He tested the handle, and found that it was unlocked. He braced himself, while none of the other doors had been rigged, that didn't mean this one wouldn't be. He opened the door. The door had been open for only the briefest of moments, before Percy's vision was filled with a spiked metal ball flying directly at his chest. He only just managed to step out of the way in time for the spiked trap to clatter dangerously past him. The chains holding the ball rattling loudly in the otherwise quiet of the room.

He caught a glimpse of a large chamber. A chandelier dangled from the ceiling near the center of the room, holding a number of lit sconces in its holsters. It cast light down upon another black casket, similar to the ones in the crypt. Standing over the casket, was figure. They had long auburn hair, tied up in an ornate braid that hung down to the middle of their back. They were dressed in impressive-looking plate armor that covered their torso and legs. Though judging by the way it hung loosely on their frame, it hadn't been made for them. An ornate war-axe was tucked into a holster at their hip.

As the chain of the ball jingled, the figure whipped around, and Percy was faced with the face of a hard-looking woman. She had cruel, blue eyes, and the hard features of one who'd known a life of hardships. Her thin lips contorted into a snarl.

"Who the hell are you? How did you get past the traps!"

Percy didn't answer, choosing instead to raise his weapon and advance.

"Do you have any damned idea who you're fucking with?" She roared, charging forward.

She raised the war-axe high over her head and swung. Unlike the others that Percy had faced, Rigel Strong-Arm was trained. Her movements were precise, and in spite of the clunky, ill-fitting armor, she moved easily. But it was no matter. It didn't matter how fine the armor, or how well-trained the warrior. There was only so much skill could when faced with an opponent with divine ability.

Percy ducked out of the way of the attack, bringing his blade along her torso. He tried to put as much force behind the blow as he could, but it wasn't enough to force the blade through the armor. The metal of his blade clanked uselessly away from her torso, but the force of the blow staggered the woman, and she stumbled.

She recovered quickly, switching positions and lashing out with the axe. He just managed to keep the weapon from dragging across his face. He reached up, trapping her axe arm in the his hand and he twisted sharply. Metal groaned, the elbow joint of armor snapped as Percy forcefully shattered the woman's joint. Her axe fell limply from her grasp, clattering to the ground.

His leg arc out, his boot smashing into the knee joint of her armor. The metal concaved as Strong-Arm's knee shattered. She nearly toppled, but Percy kept her upright, still holding onto her ruined arm.

"How many men are under your command?" He demanded calmly. She didn't respond, choosing instead to try and spit on him. Percy released a burst of divine aura and saliva disappeared in mid-air. The woman stilled at the display. Her visage changing from defiance, to horror. Magic was far from uncommon. As far as Percy's understanding went, the entirety of the world exuded magic. But even still, Percy's casual display illustrated a powerful control of magic. And if Percy could do that, then Strong-Arm could likely only imagine the things Percy could do.

"Answer my question," Percy demanded again, his voice still portraying nothing more than utter calm. "How many are under your command?"

"F-fifteen!" she spluttered out, "Please, please don't kill me. I'll leave her, the treasure is yours. I swear. We just took it off some Khajiits, just let me go, please!"

Rage swelled up in his chest, and he sheathed his sword before reaching out, grabbing a fistful of her hair and yanking it back, exposing her neck. "Like you did to the poor man who was living upstairs? Like I'm guessing you did to the people you took this from?"

Percy released his grip on her ruined arm and she jerked forward. Percy jerked back on her braid again, and with his free hand, he unsheathed the dagger from its holster.

"If I let you go, all you'll do is continue hurting people. Continue to ruin lives."

"No!" She pleaded, "I swear, I'll never harm another soul so long as I live! I swear on the Divines!"

Percy didn't care. People like her were all the same. Percy had known them all his life. Confident up until the moment they were no longer in control, and then their true nature escaped them.

Without another word, Percy jammed the blade into her neck. He twisted, and pulled the dagger free, pulling chunks of the woman's neck free with it. Blood spilled from her like a river, and Percy let her drop to the floor. Twitching and gasping. She lay there for only a few moments, before her body finally went still. Percy looked at her body for a while. It hadn't needed to come to this. Hadn't needed all this bloodshed. Had it not been for all the selfishness. All the cruelty. At least that was one thing that was consistent among worlds. People could be cruel, callous creatures. Driven to unspeakable evils out of desperation.

He sighed, running a hand through his hair and turning to the large casket in the middle of the room. It was covered all manner of treasure. Sacks of gold coin were scattered over the casket, its contents having spilled free and laying about on the black surface. He spotted a couple of garnet stones, a large ruby and a pair of glimmering sapphires, and even a diamond. Then there were the potions. Percy wasn't that well-acquainted with the types of potions and poisons of the world, but he recognized the red vials of health potions easily enough. It must have been a small fortune, easily worth more than the sum total of what he'd made in the last five years while working for the Legion.

But this opened up an entirely new set of questions. Was it right to take this? To steal what had already been stolen? The owners of the treasure were almost certainly dead. There was no getting this back to them. But it still felt…wrong. Wrong for him to take this coin. It felt too much like blood money. But he also needed to be realistic. He had some coin, but not much. He knew what kind of nightmares existed in these lands, and he needed something a little sturdier than the thin leathers the Legion provided. He would also need a blade. Something far more reliable than the thin sheet of rusting metal he was currently using. But all of that would require coin. Coin that was currently sitting in abundance on the table before him.

He sighed. It felt wrong, but he was a desperate man. So, with some reluctance, he gathered the treasure. He did feel less guilty about snagging the health potions, if for no other reason than his back was killing him and his skin felt like it was on fire. He pulled the cork out of the nearest bottle, and drained the foul-tasting liquid in a single gulp. It was like trying to wash down sludge, but the effect was almost instantaneous. The aching in his back disappeared entirely, and the burning along his skin dissipated, as a small glow of light erupted up and down his arms.

Healing potions were interesting. They worked with the inherent magic that seemed to exist in the bodies of all the beings in Skyrim, using that magic to heal the body. Given that Percy's own magic was divine in nature, it acted to all but supercharge the effects of the potion.

With his haul loaded onto his person, the bags of coin and the gems tucked safely away in the confines of his cloak, he looked around the room for a moment, before noticing a door off to the side. Opening, the door led into a small passageway with a set of stairs that led up to yet another door. This one barred with a piece of heavy wood on a latch, locking it securely in place. Removing the wood and opening the door, Percy found himself back in the first room he'd found himself in. In no time, he managed to find his way back to the house. He was half tempted to climb the stairs and bury the poor man who had been butchered, but he was exhausted. It had been…a long day. His bones, though healed, were weary, and he was desperate for sleep.

He would bury the man in the morning. So, Percy stripped his leathers off and piled them on the floor in front of the still roaring fire. He then waved his hand, washing away the blood of the man Percy had killed an hour so previously, and laid down on the ground, using his leathers as a makeshift pillow. Pulling his cloak over top of him, he curled up in front of the heat of the hearth, and closed his eyes.

He was asleep in seconds.

AN: Thanks again to my boy IDK for being a walking goddamn encyclopedia of knowledge and helping me with his brilliant idea. He's the man and you should check out his stuff 'cause they're all bangers. As always, thanks to my boy Double for being the best Beta of all time. Hit up the link in my bio to join the Emerald Library where I hang out with some of the best authors out there. Thanks again for all the love and support, and I'll see you next week.

Love,

LilDB