"Silence dies when night rises"
Orion turned to his left to see in the forest a shadowed figure standing and leaning by a tree. He smirked and started to speak to the familiar individual.
"Brynjolf I never thought I would see your ugly mug ever again"
"Ay lad, that's where you are wrong, been tracking you myself ever since you were released" Brynjolf said slyly.
He turned to face the unfamiliar beautiful women in front of him and slyly smirked, " Orion, who's this young lass with ya. Is it your wife?"
Karliana's cheeks turned pale red with blush as she stared at him.
"Nah, You remember Kar, right?" Orion said.
Brynjolf gasped with realization once he spoke the woman's name and responded with, " Wait, there's no way that's her? My, I remember where when she was a skeever slaying nordish child. Haven't seen you ever since ya became old enough to travel."
He walked up closer to the two and evaluated the new Karliana.
"I see you have been out for quite awhile now," he said as he looked at dawnbreaker.
"Yea, I have helped people and traveled places as of recent times now." Karliana said with a slight boastful tone.
"Some of them being Daedric Princes too" he relied back instantly.
"Anyways, Brynjolf, why are you here in the forest?" Orion questioned.
"Ay, I was looking to slay a mighty half-dragon ya know?" He joked about, "Nah, I was just your friendly neighborhood stalker and was seeing where you two were going and noticed you were heading to the Sepulcher. Ya must of gotten the message I presume?"
"Wait! That Scholar was from YOU!" Orion rose his voice in shock.
"Yes lad, it was me. We have been having problems with this group as of recent times. They usually just only stole our jobs and our more influential contacts shipments." Brynjolf spoke.
"Why contact me then?" Orion questioned.
"They did something unspeakable as of recent. You remember Tonilia still correct?"
"Yea, did something happen?" he spoke
"Couple years ago, some mysterious contact had contacted Tonilia for a merchandise deal that would make the guild a fortune. Though this is before we knew or even had trouble with this group. Delvin had a bad feeling about the deal but T didn't want to hear any of it from him. The deal was only supposed to take a couple hours and she insisted that no one follow her because it was the terms of the condition that she come alone. 1 hour passed, then 2, then 4, then an entire day. When Etiennes was going to go out on a job and wanted the use the sewers, he opened to find Tonilia's head on a pike with a letter forced in her mouth. Her face looked like it had been bruised before they killed her."
Orion sighed sadly, he knew Tonilia. I mean yea she had a bad temper but it was just because she was always busy. But she didn't deserve to die.
"What did the letter say?" asked Orion.
"I was getting to there," taking a deep breath and drink from his waterskin, he spoke, "The letter read: Some people should just stay quiet and listen. We have been sabotaging your petty group as warning messages but you didn't listen. Just to let you know, we had our way with her and let me say on behalf of my men, she was quite a fiesty one but that just made it more fun. Stop and dismantle your group before we take on more 'enjoying' acts of kindness.
-Sincerely,
Your worst nightmare"
"What in gods name… that's horrible" Karliana mumbled.
Orion rubbed her shoulder to comfort her and she gave him a look of gratitude to him.
"That's is why I contacted you Orion because you're the only person I know who could solve this. We need to locate their sanctuary and kill every last one of them." Brynjolf spoke coldly with little emotions.
Orion pondered for awhile as he took all this information in. Did a lot happen while he was gone, just how much of what he knew changed?
"I guess I have no other choice than to help my friends, this sounds like it could get very serious, very quick. We'll show them that they messed with the wrong guild."
Brynjolf chuckled sadistically and said, "Well I guess we should be returning back to the good ol' halls. We have planning to do Orion, Karliana."
He started to walk but stopped himself for a second to say, "and Kar, I am sorry about your parents."
After some time, they drew near the gates of Riften. Everything looked to be in order besides the new repairs to the stone walls that protected it. Orion sighed with relief thinking that Riften hadn't changed.
As Brynjolf opened the doors, he followed up with the following statement: "Orion, Welcome back to Riften."
Riften was completely and utterly unrecognizable to him now, this was not the same Riften he knew of.
Instead of the mossy cobblestone pathways that encircled around the complex, the pathways were clean and new, neat and aligned symmetrically. Some newly prominent trees were rooted in the ground that had leaves with the shades of autumn greens, yellows, reds, and oranges. The buildings around seemed to have a wood change that gave off a new look to them and it was enticing.
The group followed up to the marketcircle of Riften and it blew his mind.
The circle had a stone pillared with wooden planks as the roof for a canopy and shops appeared newly furnished with planks and display cases. There was also a couple new vendors down there and different faces.
This revelation blew Orion's mind and spoke without realizing, " By the gods, it's gorgeous…"
"What happens when the Thieves guild has complete control over Riften and the other provinces, this is all thanks to you Orion, before you were oh so wrongfully accused, you managed to restore the guild and I guess we took it from there and now look around us. Absolute Beauty." Brynjolf explained.
Everything was newly furnished and it was like Riften had a complete makeover, no, Riften DID have a complete makeover and it was stunning for someone like Orion. He never had time to register the changes when he was first released because of his weakened state of physique at the time but he took in each sight in full detail.
By the time they were done, they had reach the cemetery where the guild's secretive entrance to the cistern was.
He pushed the entrance button and stood there was Karliah and Delvin.
"Well, well, well. The corpse does walk but does it still know have to communicate?" Delvin slyly said.
Orion followed it up with a punch in the shoulder and walked past him remarking, "This corpse also can still pack a heavy punch too."
Delvin bursted into a fit of laughter as he replied with, " It's great to have you back Orion," and noticed Karliana was following behind him to and jumped in surprise shock saying, "and Dibella herself now too?… I thought we were suppose to get just one surprise."
"And I thought you wouldn't be a pervert still after some years, but I guess some things never change, huh Delvin?" Karliana retorted.
Delvin laughed and the 5 proceeded to walk down towards the door that led into the main hall of guild. Everything was just as Orion remembered it and this brought a smile to his face.
When they got into the main hall of the Thieves Guild, he noticed two unfamiliar women standing by the Vekel's bar conversing with the Bartender. One of the women was a smallish orc with small protruding fangs and black hair tied into a ponytail. She adorned a tavern attire and Orion would be lying to himself if he didn't think that she was quite buxom and curvy.
The other woman was something he had never seen in his life. She had pale yellow goldish skin with crystal blue eyes that really complimented her unusual hairstyle. Her hairstyle was one of many dreads that hung past her shoulders, down into the nook of her neck. She was rather taller than the other woman but seemed to have a slimmer figure than the orc. She was wearing some type of ceremonial looking dress that he had never seen: the dress adorned clothes of red, white, greens and were fitted to dwarven style clothing.
The two women eyed him with devilish smirks across their faces before Vekel spoke up to him.
"Ah Orion, you came back from the dead. How have you been these past…"
"20 years? And I have been great. Thanks for asking Vekel" Orion answered for him.
He explained his life story to Vekel, retelling everything except the parts about his secret half dragon powers that were on display in Solitude and in the fight against the Blacken Snake.
While retelling, he kept eyeing the unknown dwarvish style women and Vekel immediately took notice of this.
"Never seen a Dwemer in ye life have you?" Vekel answered his curious glances at her.
"A dwemer!" Orion yelled in surprise.
"Yea apparently the some that were in The Planes of Oblivion at the time they disappeared and weren't affected." A familiar female voice said from behind him. When he turned around, he saw a familiar white hair nord in thieves attire: Vex.
Please my Serjos! Have mercy on me for these rather long awaited updates! I have been extremely busy and honestly was meaning to get back into writing for this. I hope these 2 back to back chapters sates your hunger for this week.
~ Skully