CHAPTER 3: THE CITY OF THIEVES

Nhedrys was frozen in place as she stared at the Imperial, and the words he had just said to her. Dread set inside her as her spider whirred quizzically at her feet, lookin up at its master.

"What?" she asked, hardly a whisper. "No, that's not possible."

But she thought back to Fal'Zhardum Din, and Raldbthar, and Mzark. They were abandoned, broken, covered in layers of dust and cobwebs. The twisted, vile Falmer taking over everything, and the dragon and the giant somehow finding their ways into the cavern.

Had it really been four thousand years?

Tears started welling up in her eyes, but she wiped them away before they could fall.

"I'm sorry," the Imperial said.

She sniffed, and took a deep, shaky breath to control herself. "I'm fine. I'm fine. Look, I just—I want to get to a city, learn Cyrodiilic. Can you help with that?"

He nodded. "Okay. Yeah, I can help. Windhelm's a couple hour trek east. I can help you on the way there, if you want. I've read you guys were incredibly smart, and from what I've seen, that's true. I'm Gallus, by the way. Gallus Desidenius. These are Mercer Frey and Karliah."

"Nhedrys Dzrevnorz. And, uh, what is she?" Nhedrys asked, and pointed at the elf, Karliah.

"What? She's a Dunmer. A dark elf."

"Never heard of it. Lead on."

He gave her a confused look before he turned to his companions and told them the situation. Mercer looked like he wanted to argue, but it was evident Gallus was the leader of the group. Karliah smiled at Nhedrys as he told them her name, and slowly, slowly, she started understanding what they were saying.

The walk to Windhelm was long, but Nhedrys didn't mind. On the walk Gallus and Karliah helped her with learning the language, the former doing most of the work while the latter pitched in ideas for words she needed to learn to survive in modern day Skyrim. Mercer just kept to himself.

Nhedrys glanced at him several times during the walk. He was cute, if humans could be cute. He had blonde hair cut off at the jaw and green eyes the colour of the trees in spring. He was also short, a full head shorter than she was.

Gallus, on the other hand, was only an inch shorter than Karliah, who was a couple inches shorter than Nhedrys. He had brown hair tied back in a bun and deep brown eyes that when they caught the sun turned amber. They were beautiful, in a way she'd never seen beauty before. Beautiful for her and her people were intricate carvings in the bronze of their home, and the glow of the soul gems that were filled will a soul. Beauty was the way a child built their first animunculi, the way someone made a big discovery in their research. It was the way the stone was carved out and the ore dug out of the earth melted down to make their metal.

But she was ready to see a different kind of beauty. To survive in this new world, she'd have to.

With the city of Windhelm in the distance, and certain she had a lot of the words down, she looked a Mercer with a smile on her face. "Nice sword."

"What?" he asked, looking over at her. Then he grabbed the hilt of his sword, made out of Dwemer metal, and said, "Oh, right. Thanks."

"Where'd you get it?"

"I found it."

There was silence for a moment. "You're not very talkative, are you?"

"You're a stranger," he said, letting his hand fall away from his sword. "I'm not going to share my life story to someone I don't know."

"I didn't ask for your life story," Nhedrys said. "I just said I liked your sword."

"Why?"

"It's a…" She turned to Gallus, and spoke to him in Falmeri. "What's the word for 'conversation'?"

He told her.

She turned back to Mercer. "It's a conversation starter. Surely your people have them."

He didn't say anything.

"So how come you're here if the Dwemer disappeared four thousand years ago?" Karliah asked.

The air turned sour and Gallus gave her a disappointing look.

"Sorry."

"It's fine," Nhedrys said. "For me, four thousand years ago wasn't that long ago. I lived in a city called Fal'Zhardum Din, a massive underground city that connected to other cities. There's one tower, an oculory, that let us see the stars. I'd loved playing in it as a child. But then my father and the councillors found something, an artefact, and used the oculory to house it. I wasn't allowed in there anymore, but I always was a troublemaker. I snuck in at night and I found the artefact. Turned out to be an Elder Scrolls." She shrugged. "I read it, and I was was pulled into it with my spider here, and I was falling for a really long time. And then I fell out of it, in the same place. Everything was the same, but different. It was all neglected, like no one had lived there for centuries." She sighed. "And now we're here."

They walked in silence for the remainder of the walk, which Nhedrys was happy to oblige. She was glad to talk to someone about what happened to her, but she was tired—she hadn't slept in over four thousand years—and there were a lot of questions she had for them about the disappearance of her kind, and why they called it 'disappearance' instead of them going extinct.

They stopped at the long bridge into the city, and Gallus turned to Nhedrys. "Well, this is Windhelm. It's cold, it's damp, and it's racist. I suggest taking a carriage to Whiterun, it's a better place. Or, you could come with us to Riften. If you really are a troublemaker, we could use you."

"Use me for what?"

"I'm not going to hide what we are. We're thieves. I'm the Guildmaster of the Riften Thieves Guild, and we operate throughout all of Skyrim. That's why we were at that dwarven elevator. To steal shit. If you're a good thief, you can join us."

Mercer gave him a look, but Gallus ignored him. "So, what do you say?"

Nhedrys blinked at him for a moment, before grinning. "Well, I always was taking things that didn't belong to me. I'm in. And hey, maybe I can teach you guys Dwemeris in exchange for teaching me Cyrodiilic."

"It's Tamrielic now," he said. "And you did most of the work, I just told you what words are."

"Well, I'd still like to teach you three."

Gallus smiled at her, then turned around and led the way to the carriage not far away from them. He asked the driver to take them to Riften, and he told them to hop on back. Nhedrys Climbed on with the three thieves, and enjoyed the ride south to Riften. Gallus told her what the Thieves Guild was all about, and that before joining the Guild she'd have to go through a trial to make sure she was actually a thief. He asked her her strengths and her weaknesses, and how quiet she could be.

"I can be extremely quiet," she told him. "It's my spider that makes noise, but he can just ride on my back."

"How'd you even get that thing as a pet?" Mercer asked, glancing at it incredulously before looking back to watch the scenery pass.

"I built it when I was fifty. I've loved it ever since."

"Does it have a name?"

"Nope," she said. "I couldn't think of one, so I've just been calling it my spider or my pet. It'll be fifty years since building him in Sun's Dawn."

"Huh."

Nhedrys fell into a comfortable silence and looked out at the wilderness. The snow and ice clung to the flora and covered the road, making it hard for the horse to pull the carriage through it, but not impossible. The leather the three thieves were wearing must have been warm, because they weren't wearing coats or anything besides it. Of course, they were probably expecting to stay underground until the snow blowed over, so there was that, too. And Karliah did look like she was suppressing some shivers.

They got to Riften as the sun set, and Gallus helped her off. They trudged to the front gates, a guard stationed on either side, and entered the city.

Riften wasn't like anything she'd seen before. She'd heard tales of the city while it was being built not long before her trip through time, and it definitely lived up to her expectations. She'd seen a couple above-ground cities in her time, but nothing like this.

They were standing on the main road, wide enough to get carts full of produce through them, with alleys between every other house and smaller, thinner streets that led deeper into the city. All the houses were two-storeys, the windows caked in ice, and lanterns hung from every door, providing light to the streets. As they made their way through the city Nhedrys spotted a canal running through the centre of the city, the water frozen over, and there were stalls on the sides of the roads, people packing their stock up to protect them from thieves. A keep rose above its surroundings, at least three-storeys tall, at the back of the city, each window lit up bright. And it was a sight to watch the day people leave for their homes and the people of the night, the gamblers and the thieves and the drunks and the prostitutes, bump into each other like half of their shifts were ending and the other was just beginning.

They stopped in the middle of the market district, and Gallus turned to Nhedrys.

"This is where we leave you. You can't know about the location of the Guild until you're a member. Mercer is going to give you your test, which you are to complete before sunrise. Hopefully I'll see you again, and if not, good luck finding a place in this time to call your own."

After saying their goodbyes, Karliah and Gallus left towards a building that looked sort of like a temple, rounding the back of it. She watched them disappear, and then turned to Mercer.

"Okay," he said, already looking bored. "The test. Gallus has been wanting to do this contract for a while, but he hasn't been able to use a member of the Guild because the target knows them all, so this is a unique opportunity for you. You're to break into the home of Maven Black-Briar and find your way into a basement. There you will break into the safe and steal a letter. The contents of the letter don't matter, not to us anyway, and you'll be paid well for this job. Do you have any lockpicks?"

"No."

He sighed deeply and opened a small pouch on his left bracer, one she hadn't seen yet, and pulled out five lockpicks. He handed them to her and closed the pouch. "There. If you break those, you'll have to find new ones, I can't give you more."

"Okay, got it. Where's this house?"

He gave her directions, then told her he'd be waiting there for her, and if she wasn't back by the time the sun came up then don't bother showing up, he won't be there. She told him she understood, and headed towards the home of Maven Black-Briar, whoever she was. It wasn't far from the market district, and it was larger than some of the other houses she had seen. Whoever this Maven was must be important.

She followed Mercer's advice of jumping over the fence into her backyard as the muscle the woman had hired had just died of rockjoint and she hadn't yet replaced him. She made her way to the door and crouched down in front of it, took a deep breath, and inserted her first lockpick into the lock.

She was never really good with locks, as no one really locked their stuff because they always had a machine guarding over their rooms. Of course, they were only there to hurt the slaves if they tried to steal, not fellow Dwemer. They didn't think that one of their own would steal from them. But there were once or twice a particularly smart Dwemer kept their stuff behind a locked door and she'd had to pick the lock with a piece of metal wire she had found nearby.

Feeling with the lockpick, she pushed up the first tumbler and jutted the tension wrench to the side to keep it up. She then pushed up the second tumbler and did the same, but the tension was too much and the lockpick broke. She swore under her breath and pulled the broken lockpick out of the lock, then placed in the second one.

This time she managed to unlock the door. She placed the lockpicks in the pocket of her coat and pushed the door open as slowly and quietly as she could, and it seemed that luck was with her, as the hinges seemed newly oiled. She crept in, her spider following her and climbing onto her back, hooking its front claws around her shoulders, and closed the door as softly as she could.

The inside of the house was warm, sconces on the wall alight with fire, and a fireplace roaring in the next room. Cautiously she stepped forward, her boot pressing softly on the wooden floor, and looked around to see if she could tell where the door to the basement was.

"Congratulations on the baby, Maven. I'm sure you and Hemming are very happy."

The voice came from the other room, with the fireplace in, and now that Nhedrys was looking, she could see the back of a black-haired woman with a bundle in her arms. She couldn't see the woman who had spoken, though. She moved to the side and through a doorway that led to a different part of the house, though she could still hear them speak through the thin wood walls.

"What did you name her?"

"Ingun, after my mother," the new mother said. "I hope she grows up to be as fierce as she was."

Nhedrys passed through another doorway into another hall, this one with a staircase leading up to the second floor. Underneath it was a door, and she could see through the holes under the stairs that there was a staircase leading down.

Jackpot.

"I'm positive she will be. She's beautiful."

"Thank you, Lillith. You're so kind."

She made her way to the door and tried the handle. Thankfully, it was unlocked, and she opened the door and entered, closing the door behind her. As she did, someone came down the stairs above her, and she used that sound to quickly descend the stairs.

The basement wasn't as damp as she thought it would be, considering the entire city was covered in an inch of snow and ice. Candelabras sat on small benches, their wicks burning, and she looked through the ones that had drawers to see if there was a key or anything in them. She didn't find a key, but she did find a total of seven round pieces of what looked like gold, like the coins she used four thousand years ago, but there was a dragon stamped on one side with the words 'PRAISE BE AKATOSH AND ALL THE DIVINES' on one side and a head and the words 'THE EMPIRE IS LAW THE LAW IS SACRED' on the other. She decided to pocket them in case they were the modern currency.

Peeking through all the rooms, one of them full of unlit candles in a circle with a book called 'A Kiss, Sweet Mother' and a dagger resting atop it lying in the corner, she found the safe in the corner at the end of the hallway. She tried the handle, but of course it was locked. She pulled out her lockpicks and rested them on top of the safe. She took one of them and the tension wrench and placed them in the lock.

Three broken lockpicks later, she only had one left. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath to calm herself and push down the rising panic, then opened her eyes and inserted the last lockpick. Carefully she pushed up all the pins, making sure to not put too much pressure on the lockpick while having enough to keep the pin up.

With the last pin up, she slowly turned the tension wrench to turn the tumbler, and it clicked open. She let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. Her spider whirred at her happily.

She pulled the lockpick and tension wrench out of the lock and placed them in her coat, then turned the handle and pulled open the safe. Inside was a folded letter, its seal broken, next to a small canvas bag. Curious, she opened the bag and saw at least three dozen coins like the ones she'd found earlier inside, and she closed it and pocketed it along with the letter. She closed the safe and pulled the handle up, then snuck back out of the house.

Mercer was in the same place as he was before, just as he said he was, except now he was counting a bag full of the same coins. He looked over as she approached, an eyebrow raised, putting the small bag into the bag at his side.

"So, you're back," he said. "Did you do it?"

She pulled the letter out of her coat pocket and handed it to him. "The seal was already broken when I got it out of the safe."

He took it, unfolded it, and read it. After about a minute he nodded, folded it back up, and put it in one of his many pockets. "Good job. How'd you get passed Maven?"

"She had just had a baby. She was talking to some woman named Lillith about her."

"Oh, she had the kid, did she? What'd she name it?"

"Ingun, after her mother."

He nodded. "Well, you passed the test. And a lot faster than I thought you would. There's still several hours until sunup."

"So am I in the Guild?"

"Not yet," he said, and chuckled at her scowl. "Patience, Rys. There's another test that Gallus neglected to mention."

Nhedrys crossed her arms. "Don't call me Rys. And what test?"

He grinned at her, his eyes sparkling with humour. "Well, Rys," his grin widened when she scowled again, "you need to make your way through the Ratway, the sewers beneath the city, and you need to find the Ragged Flagon. It's a tavern all us lowlifes frequent. After that, you're in."

"And I assume you're not going to accompany me through the Ratway."

"You assume correctly. It's something I did, and it's something you're going to do." He laughed, which was softer than she thought it would be, considering how gruff he had been with her earlier. "Of course, there's an easier way into the Guild Hall, but only us actually part of the Guild can use it."

"Will you at least tell me where an entrance into the Ratway is?"

He pointed with his thumb to the deep scar the canal made in the middle of the city. "Down in the canals. There's a gate over it. By the way, I want my lockpicks back."

She pulled the single lockpick she had left and handed it to him. He stared at it for a second before taking it. "You owe me four lockpicks."

She just walked away, and she heard him chuckling as she left.

Thanks for reading! Please consider leaving a kudos or a comment, as they really motivate me to write. I'll see you next time!