It still doesn't belong to me sniffles
Chapter Two…or not.
Odd really that I never kept up with the niceties of society. My whole aim was to reconstruct it but I couldn't even venture into it. It made me wonder sometimes, wasn't it a paradox that someone who thrived in secrecy, a myth that no-one saw more than once, that didn't even have a name, was so bent on revolutionising where others failed to.
The Dumner well they were, shall we say, all talk and no action. The Guilds all talk and no action, or all action no brain. And the Houses, well they were more concerned in squabbling between themselves. In a world where each pulled apart from the other, straining and bucking against the mould, should I be proud that I was making the world a better place. Was I crazy? Would anyone thank me, would anyone notice? If it wasn't an army threatening the people, or the blight, or rabid animals driven insane by the diseases of greed, lust and power, then it was the Daedra fiddling with the fabrics of sanity and peace. Did I even want sanity and peace, but still, what would make me any different, last any longer than Dagoth and his motley crew, or the Tribunal and their godliness.
There was once a rumour that once you died, you were reborn at a moment in time, a moment that never altered, that you replayed the same life each time making changes but always ending up with the same result. Death, for what else was there in life but death? But then you must laugh at this because if that were so, why would there by so many spirits in the world, shades of former ancestors? Why would there be the spirits who haunt the tombs, the monuments, the finery, the shrines to past heros. Unless it is all one big illusion. The mage's big conspiracy to keep us all docile while they delight in the knowledge of immortality. Or the Emperor's fiendish way to stop fighting breaking out on a wider scale. If you knew that you could enver die forever, why wouldn't you strive to get that which you most desire, the power and the glory? Or perhaps I dwell on this too long. Thoughts plague me like rats in a sewer, gnawing at my control, my drive. This was the moments when you have the epiphany and the clarity but in the next second you lose it to the fog of reason. I sound mad perhaps, driven so by Sheogorath. Vaernima who destroys the healing powers of sleep, blighting them with the dreams of dark, feverish nightmares, and Mehrunes Dagon…Perhaps the worse of all, my drive.
I'll let you into a secret…whatever you do in this life, no matter what you can always bribe your way back into favour. You can always get what you want, and you don't have to rely on the vain hope that if you are killed you come back and start again. No, gold gets you what you want and secrecy, that's what keeps you alive. In my moments of clarity, that is one thing I hold on to. If I had joined the Thieves guild, I could have made it to top nix hound. But for how long? I could have slain my way to the head of the Morag Tong, but forever would I be watching my back, waiting for a new usurper, a younger more agile, deadlier version of me to take what I have achieved. If you act alone, you don't have any false pretences that your brethren are your friends. With the gold, well guards are eager for gold, why else would they offer to forget your crimes for a few coins? Even murder can be wiped clean with a few gold pieces… I ramble too long. You want to hear more of my tales of bloodshed and woe huh. Why else would you humor me. Do you wonder why you listen? Mayhaps you want to hear how fanciful it gets, or like watching the deadly blow in an arena fight you need the blood to make your life better? Or maybe you want guidance in how to achieve obscurity in half lies and veiled facts. Or is it just a story to you?
It didn't happen as easily as I explained it last time, it couldn't do. I mean how impossible would it be to track down the Blades in one night? And how do I know I have really, they were secretive, they didn't have lists of their membership like the mages, or the fighters. The blades were by nature as invisible as me. But unlike me, not born into the ability and as such they make mistakes. No doubt why even now, seven or eight moons on from the first slaughter I'm still tracking the slippery slaughterfish down. Once the first was slain it was like all sank to ground. It reminded me of the betty netch, maybe it was just me being paranoid, but still I always kept an eye out for that stranger who would slit my throat in the heat of battle. Catching me unawares.
For a seven nights maybe I fought, tortured and strangled innocent folk desperate for knowledge of the Blades, of one they called Elone in Seyda, in the vain hope that perhaps even if the commoners knew not of her whereabouts, the good and kind Blades would appear to sease the senseless murder. Alas they did not, and Seyda became nothing but the ruins of a once prosperous village. Stripped of every living thing. I fancied that maybe the Daedra were aiding the wretches avoid capture, but even I couldn't accuse the Lords and Ladies of the spirits without just cause without expecting some retribution.
When I slept my dreams were full of shining lights, of blacked clothed murderers, of assassins in the trees, of the netch floating above me their poisonous spikes slithering up and down my body, of cliffracers pecking at my eyes, and of the rats and crabs gnawing at my body. They got their retribution fine; my heightened sense of paranoia drove me to an ebony mine where I stayed for near on two months, fighting shadows on the wall, destroying my weapons and armor, starving myself until the demons let me rest easy. It was time I couldn't afford to lose. You must realize friends that every moment I was holed away, the worse the situation got, my prize leaving me further and further behind. When I reappeared it was like no one existed. Nothing humanoid moved in the cities and villages. Not even the camps held stragglers. The young, the old, the sick the dead, nothing remained. I scoured caves and valleys, I ventured deep into the Ashlands, even visiting the place where the mighty Dagoth grew, and yet nothing.
I never gave up hope though, not once. Perhaps I went crazy for I talked all the time but never to anyone, who was there to talk to, but I chattered like excited Khajitt on moonsugar. There were several places I hadn't searched by the time the snows started, Mournhold, and the new land, to the north where it was so cold that the snows never stopped, not even in the height of the blazing light above. So where would be most probable? Mournhold was the most likely but I still made my way to Khul where the boat which I was assured would be there moons before wasn't. It didn't necessarily mean that it was out at the ice land, but still…
Anyway. Times up yet again. Only so many hours in a day alas. Any more and you'd never sleep with the ash ghouls that haunt you, or wake to the web givers slowly weaving across your mouth. Til next time.