CHAPTER 4: INTO THE RATWAY

It was quite easily to find the entrance to the Ratway as, just like Mercer had said, it was behind a gate. It wasn't locked either. If it was, Nhedrys would have gone back and punched him for taking her only lockpick back.

Her spider skittered next to her as she closed the gate and walked over to the door. This one was unlocked too, and they entered the undercity.

Immediately she knew this part of the city was definitely not regularly used by most of the people above, as it was filthy and covered in what looked like faeces. Smelled like it, too. She shivered in disgust as she descended the small amount of steps and made her way through the tunnel, pulling her bow off her back in anticipation.

She was glad she did, because she was attacked by a large rat as soon as she turned the first corner. She nocked an arrow, its bronze tip shimmering in the light of a nearby torch, and fired it into its mangy head. Its soul tendrils reached out towards her and entered one of her soul gems, and she wondered just how many she had left before they started using the gems that held larger souls. She'd have to check when she got to the Ragged Flagon.

She continued down the tunnel that twisted and turned throughout the city, with a bunch of ladders leading up to trapdoors out into the city, probably at the ends of dank alleyways to make it easier to get to it.

A couple more turns and she got to her first fork in the road.

To the left was a staircase leading up, and to the right the passage continued forward while gradually sloping down.

She pulled out one of the coins she had found and rested it on her thumb, deciding to let the coin choose. If it landed on the head she'd go left. If it landed on the dragon she'd go right. She flicked it, caught it, and slapped it onto the back of her left hand, taking away her right.

Dragon.

Right it is.

She put the coin back in its pouch and trudged down the right path, bow grasped tightly in hand. She was tempted to take out the dagger she had hidden in her boot so long ago to defend herself too, but she didn't know how to use it. She only knew how to use a bow because whenever she got into trouble, and that was a lot, her father would put her on either soul gathering or hunting duty, and it was best to do those with a bow.

She made her way into a small chamber with another large rat in it. She quickly killed it, stealing its soul, and opened the next door.

Her spider jumped up onto her chest and pushed her backwards, sending itself into the room with the force of the push, as three large metal spikes shot out of the wall, stayed there for a couple seconds, and retreated back into the wall.

Her blood pounded in her ears as she stood there, but not for long as shouting came from inside the room. She rushed in, arrow already nocked, and pointed it at a vagrant that had been calling this room his home. He was kicking her spider, and she could tell it was charging its electricity.

She lowered her bow, loosening the tension on the bowstring, as she wondered if it still worked after four thousand years.

A pulse of lightning filled the room, concentrated on the vagrant, and he fell to the floor, twitching. She kicked him in the side, but besides the spasms of his muscles contracting and retracting, he didn't move.

Still worked.

She left the arrow sitting on the bowstring as she continued forward, ignoring the alchemy table tucked into the corner. A couple of twists and turns later she found herself in a room underneath a well of some kind, as light was pouring down into the room from above, onto a patch of grass and ferns, butterflies flying around.

But what was disturbing was the greataxe that was stuck into a log, blood on its blade.

She quickly passed through the room.

She got to a set of stairs that went up and she ascended them, finding herself in a room with a table in the centre, another set of stairs leading up to it opposite her, and a door on the other side of the room at the bottom of two stairs, a sign on the door, though it was too far away to read. Not that she'd be able to read it, as she could only speak Tamrielic, not read it. She'd have to ask Gallus to teach her how to read.

She made her way over to the door and pushed it open. Inside was a cistern-type room, with a well of water taking up most of the centre of the room with a stone walkway surrounding it. Covering half of the water, held up by stilts, was a wooden platform piled with tables and people, all of them drinking merrily.

She figured this was the Ragged Flagon.

She made her way around the water and passed a buff Nord that grunted at her as she passed, and she gave him a look before scanning the tavern for Mercer.

He was laughing, sitting at a bar, a tankard with some alcoholic beverage in it in his hand. He was laughing with a young Breton man and an Imperial woman that couldn't be older than twenty. She briefly wondered how old Mercer was when he saw her out of the corner of his eyes and grinned at her.

"Hey!" he shouted, raising an arm. He left his drink on the counter and stood up, moving towards her. He was tipsy from the alcohol, which apparently made him all smiles and a lot more open than he was sober, because he placed a hand on her shoulder. "Hey there! You made it! Welcome to the Ragged Flagon. Let me just get Gallus, he'll be glad to see you."

He patted her shoulder twice and walked to the tunnel not far from them.

"So, you're the new recruit," the Imperial said from where she was sitting. "Mercer told us all about you."

"He did?" she asked, surprised. He didn't seem the sharing type.

She stood up, nodding. "Yup. You broke into Maven's place and stole her letter from her lover. The real father of her daughter."

"Really? Who?"

She shrugged. "He wouldn't tell me. But the father apparently paid her a lot of hush money to tell people she had a different father. None of us have been able to get in there without her noticing us. How'd you do it?"

Nhedrys opened her mouth to tell her, but someone else spoke.

"Now, now, Vex, don't chase away new Guild members."

She grinned slyly. "I wasn't trying to chase her away, Gallus. I only wanted to know how she got into Maven's house without being seen."

"That's need-to-know," he said, and turned to Nhedrys, a smile on his face. "It's good to see you again, Nhedrys. Glad you passed the test."

"Mercer made me wander through the Ratway for an hour."

"Did he?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at the drunk Breton.

He just shrugged.

"Follow me and I'll give you the ten septim tour. Then I'll get Dro'heh to get you some guild leathers, and you'll officially be part of the Thieves Guild."

"What's a septim?"

A couple of eavesdroppers, including Vex, looked at her strangely, but she ignored them.

"Oh, uh, it's the currency. They're little gold coins. Sometimes called gold or coin or gold coin—doesn't matter, I'll get you acquainted with this place after the tour. Come on, follow me."

He led her down the tunnel Mercer had disappeared down to find him, and said drunk Breton went back to drinking with Vex and the Breton man.

"So that was the Ragged Flagon, where everyone in the Guild drinks. You don't have to be a Guild member to drink there, but it helps if you are."

He stopped in front of a wooden wardrobe and opened it. It was empty, save a couple pairs of shoes at the bottom, and he opened the back of it to reveal a secret passage. He ushered her forward, closing the wardrobe behind him, and continued on the tour.

"You have to be a Guild member to be in this part of the Ratway. We call it the Cistern, as it's, well, a Cistern. This is my room," he said, pointing at a door. "If you have any questions you can knock on the door. But never go in there. There's a lot of sensitive materials inside."

She nodded.

He opened the door at the end of the tunnel, revealing a large, well, cistern. She could see the night sky through a hole in the roof, which she guessed was the well she had seen in the middle of the market district, with a bucket on the end of a rope hanging in the middle of the Cistern and everything. There were beds and chests pushed against the walls, as well as a desk on one part of the Cistern. Stone bridges were crossing over so you could walk over the sewer water and to the other side without either wading in the water or going around the edges. At each point here the bridge crossed there was a tunnel that led further into the Ratway/Cistern. People of various age, gender, and race were milling around, laughing and joking around, some reading, while others were sleeping on the various beds.

"This is the main area. That desk over there is mine. These beds here are for anyone to use, but there are some more private beds down that tunnel," he said, pointing at the tunnel across from them. "The vault can only be accessed by me and my Guild Seconds, Mercer and Karliah, as well as my Thirds, who you'll meet shortly. You are not allowed near it, or even try to open it. It's impossible to pick."

He showed her the rest of the beds, as well as the training room, which was full of straw dummies and whacking boards, and also some chests that were built to lock after an hour after being picked, to help thieves with their lockpicking. He explained that there were certain people that would help train you, but you had to be willing to pay. He then showed her the bathing rooms, and also the tunnel that leads to the secret exit, which is in the graveyard behind the Temple of Mara.

"So that's the Guild," he said, standing in the middle of the Cistern. "For jobs, speak to Mercer or Karliah, they'll send you to the Guild Thirds, who handle the distribution of the jobs. Once you get a high enough reputation in the Guild, I might give you some more special jobs. Welcome to the Thieves Guild."

He then led her back out to the Flagon, and pointed her to a Khajiit sitting on the wooden platform, talking to a Redguard woman. She approached him, and he bared his teeth at her in a smile.

"Greetings," he said. "How may this one help you?"

"I was told to come to you for my Guild armour."

"Ah, yes," he said. "What is your name? This one is Dro'heh, and the beautiful woman sitting here is Salana."

Salana blushed.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Nhedrys."

"Interesting name. Dro'heh doesn't think he's heard one like it before. Ah, but that's not why you're here. Come, follow Dro'heh."

He stood up, and led the way to the Cistern, down one of the tunnels Gallus didn't take her down, and into a sort of storage room. He opened one of the crates and pulled out a set of brown armour and handed it to her, the boots resting on top.

"Uh, will they fit?" she asked.

"Trust Dro'heh, he's been doing this for years. These will fit."

She took them, glancing down at her spider.

"This one suggests you go to the bathing rooms to change, they have private rooms. Then you'll be able to claim your bed."

She thanked him, and left the room.

It was a struggle to put the armour on. She kept on her thin undershirt and her undergarments but stripped everything else off. The buckles of the thick tunic were a lot different than she was used to handling, and it took her a bit to figure out how they worked—she'd seen them on armour before, but she had never been strong enough to wear the armour the smiths made. The pants stuck to her legs as much as they could, but she managed to pull them up all the way and lace them tightly. She then pulled on her boots, which consisted of both laces and buckles, and she had trouble squatting down so she could tie them because of how stiff the leather was. How could anyone sneak in them? The bracers were easiest to put on, it was just two buckles securing them in place, but it was still a bit difficult to do up the buckles with her left hand.

Finally, making sure she had all her armour on, she picked up her discarded clothes and headed towards the beds.

She found the bed Gallus had given her and opened the chest that sat at its foot, placing the clothing inside. She also put in the gold she had found in Maven Black-Briar's house inside, underneath the pile of clothes to hide it. She then threw in the bag of soul gems, not bothering to hide them, and closed the chest, pulling the key out of the lock and sticking it in the pocket above her breast.

"Hey."

She let out a scream and jumped. She held a hand to her pounding heart as Mercer laughed next to her, laughing so hard in his drunken state that he was doubled over. Her spider whirred in annoyance.

"Sorry," he said, still laughing. "I couldn't help myself."

She swatted his arm. "You're very different when you're drunk, Mercer Frey."

"Yes, it's the alcohol."

She let out a chuckle. "What're you doing here?"

"I live here. Specifically, that bed," he said, pointing to the bed next to hers.

She blinked in surprise. "Oh, I thought you'd get your own room because you're a Guild Second."

"Nah, only the Guildmaster gets his own room. Or her own room." He shrugged. "The Guildmaster gets any pronoun room." He paused for a second. "I'm very drunk."

"What were you drinking? I was only in the Ratway for like an hour."

"I'll have you know, an hour is plenty of time to get drunk, Rys. And I was drinking Colovian Brandy. Very strong stuff, that is, especially straight and not watered down. I'll have to remember to get you to try some tomorrow night," he added as an afterthought.

"Tomorrow night?"

"Yeah. All of us drink every night and let the alcohol pull us into a dreamless sleep."

"Why?"

"Because a lot of us have bad pasts."

"Do you have a bad past?"

He was silent, which sort of answered the question. He collapsed onto his bed, still in his armour, though the front of his tunic was unbuckled to reveal a white undershirt. "So what was the First Era like?"

"Are we not still in the First Era?"

"Rys, it's the Fourth Era. The First Era ended like two thousand years ago."

"What year is it, then?"

"Fourth Era, one-hundred-and-eighty-one. The Great War was ten years ago, and I have a bet going that this Era's going to end in the next fifty years because of it. But back to my question: what's the First Era like?"

She sat down on her own bed, thinking back to her childhood. "For me, it was good. But it was plagued with a lot of war. That Nedic woman freed men from being slaves about fifty years ago, and we had successfully turned the Falmer into our slaves because the Nords were slaughtering them all."

"You know slavery's bad, right?"

She didn't say anything, and a tense silence fell between them.

After a couple minutes, Mercer said, "What's your favourite weapon?"

"What?"

"What's your favourite weapon?"

"Why?"

"It's a conversation starter. Surely your people have them."

Nhedrys laughed, shattering the tension between them. "Using my own words against me. Well done, sir."

"So?"

"I'll make you a deal. You ask a question, and then I ask a question, and you have to answer it."

Mercer thought for a second, resting his hands underneath his head. "Deal. So, what's your favourite weapon?"

"The bow. It's the only weapon I know how to use."

He sat up, surprised. "What? But, aren't the Dwemer great warriors?"

"That's another question. It's my turn."

He grumbled, but motioned for her to ask.

"Do you have any siblings?"

"I have a sister. She's in High Rock though, with the Mages Guild. If you only know how to use a bow, why do you have a knife in your boot?"

She looked down at her boot, and saw that the pommel of her dagger was sticking out of her boot. She shrugged. "Extra protection, I guess? I've never used it before, but it's a comfort. My question: where did you get your sword and dagger?"

His hands fell to his weapons, one on each of his hips, and pulled them off his belt. He held up his dagger. "I was given this by a friend in the Dark Brotherhood."

"What's the Dark Brotherhood?"

He ignored her question and picked up his sword. "This I really did find. That place just happened to be in Zthenganaz, a Dwemer ruin in High Rock."

"Oh, you completely butchered that word."

"No I didn't."

"As an actual Dwemer who was born and grew up in not one but five Dwemer cities, surrounded by Dwemer people, I am telling you that you did."

"You can't prove it."

She laughed, throwing her head back, and he was grinning at her. "Okay, how about a proposition? I'll give you lessons on Dwemeris, and you have to teach me how to use those weapons, okay? And you have to teach me how to read."

"I can do the first thing, but not the second. But I know a great person that can teach you to read, though he only really works with the children at Honorhall Orphanage."

"So, deal?" she asked, holding a hand out for him.

He grasped it and shook. "Deal. Now get some sleep, you haven't slept in four thousand years. We'll start training in the morning, and then I can introduce you to Syner and Steals-Many-Sweetrolls afterwards to get your first job. Then, if we have time, I can give you a tour of the city."

"Do you do that for all the new recruits or just the pretty ones?"

"Just the ones who have travelled four thousand years into the future."

He laid back down, placing his weapons underneath his bed, and Nhedrys placed her own bow, quiver, and dagger underneath her bed. She then stripped off her tunic, leaving her undershirt, and undid her boots and bracers, placing all three on top of her chest.

As she turned to say goodnight to Mercer, she could hear his snores, muffled by the pillow he was sleeping face-first on. He was already asleep.

She pulled her furs over over body and fluffed her pillow, sinking into the straw mattress which, while most people would think it the least bit comfy, she was used to sleeping on stone, was the softest thing outside of grass she'd slept on.

And she slipped off to sleep.

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