AN: Hey! Sorry it's been a while, I was just trying to figure out the best way to insert my favorite non-main missions from Dragonborn into the story, then I had Thanksgiving, then Finals. I'm not sure if the next chapter will be out very fast, but it will probably be out faster than this one.
Merry Christmas! And, Happy Hanukkah day 1 as well.
Anyways, response:
To TrentBttl: Thanks! Sorry it took so long. I'm glad that my Serana-Lucius relationship is good enough that you anticipate whenever they're together. Sadly, Serana isn't going to be by his side all the time in this section of the story, since she has a son to worry about too. Despite that, she isn't going to pass up on this opportunity. When Luc needs her, she'll show up to drag his stupid ass out of the flames.
Please, if you ever have any questions, drop them in as a review. I'll gladly answer them in the next update.
Fahiil
Thera
"Oh, joy, you're back," the Telvanni wizard mumbled as I flew up the magical elevator to the top of his mushroom home. He rolled his red eyes and crossed his arms. "I thought our deal had been fulfilled on my end, Empress." Neloth looked over at his apprentice and motioned angrily. The highly trained apprentice growled angrily but still moved, picking up a tray and pouring tea for his master and myself. This young man really hated Neloth, it appeared. To be fair, the man had the charisma of a half dead horker, but damn it if he wasn't smart and useful. I took the tea from the apprentice and filed his resentment away in case it ever became useful.
I took a slow sip of the tea and fought off the urge to cough it out. It tasted like ash, because of course it did. "It has been, Neloth," I replied with just as much of an annoyed tone to my words as his. "And I know better than to renegotiate a deal with a Telvanni Wizard after an agreement has been reached. Strong as I am, I am sure you would have some sort of trap to leave me injured."
"Oh!" Neloth said, his mood immediately brightening. He tore the tea from my hand and handed it back to his apprentice, picking up a different pair of cups and handing one to me. I raised one intrigued eyebrow and took a sip of this new drink.
That damn Dark Elf had purposely given me shit!
"Well, then I suppose you must have some other reason for being here? Another deal to strike?" Neloth asked. He shooed his apprentice away with a sneer and motioned for me to sit with him at a desk. He sat down across from me and leaned forward on his elbows. "Now, what is it we're looking for?"
"What would the cost be of a Farspeak-Scrying spell?" I inquired after taking another sip of the tea.
"Depends on how far and for how long you want to speak," Neloth explained simply. He leaned back in his chair and shrugged. "Though, I'm assuming that the where is easily guessed, yes?"
"My capital on Alinor."
"That alone would require one favor. Hm... Fine then. Two. There are two tasks that should be able to pay for your desired communication, regardless of its duration," Neloth said after some consideration. He nodded. "Yes, two favors only one of great strength could accomplish. Certainly nothing my idiot apprentice -" another glare "- could hope to succeed in." Neloth considered things for a few moments before nodding at the other Dunmer. "Besides, he needs to remain here to help me with my research." The apprentice palled and hurriedly disappeared, moving much to my amusement like a rat running from a cat.
I turned my attention back to the wizard. "I require the spell now."
"And you expect me to believe you will hold up your end of the bargain if I allow you the spell now?" Neloth inquired mockingly. He shook his head and smirked. "Please, explain how that is the case when your every movement through Nirn has been of betrayal? It is how you crafted your Empire, after all."
Betrayal had indeed been the cornerstone of my rise to power. But a Telvanni wizard understood such things quite well; the political climate in Morrowind over the past two hundred years had been a sea of shifting alliances even I would have trouble navigating. A Telvanni wizard did not gain as much power as this Mer obviously had without betraying many friends to the blade of a one time enemy. "The request is time sensitive. I am unsure that what I need will arrive in time even if I do it now," I explained to the wizard.
"Still, what assurances have I that you will not betray me?"
"Besides the same that I have that you will not betray me?"
The wizard snorted at that. "That does little to explain why you deserve my trust," he pointed out, still laughing as if I had told him a joke.
"Fine then," I snarled. "How about this... I gave you what you desired first in our last agreement. I entered the book without any knowledge of what would occur, and promises of future favor were gifted to you. Now it is your turn to act first, Neloth."
The wizard hissed. "Indeed," he muttered, both angered by my argument and surrendering to its truth. "Fine... I shall prepare it for you. Come." He stood up, smoothing out his robes as he did, then strode away through his laboratory. I watched him move for a moment before I too stood slowly up and followed.
The Dunmer led me through his home, eventually stopping to open the back room where he kept his Staff-Enchanter and had once kept his Black Book hidden. Now, instead of that artifact of Hermaeus Mora, there sat a bowl of water. There was a series of runes placed in the sides of the bowl, and another larger one beneath it that glowed a dull green. Neloth stopped in front of it and pulled alchemical ingredients from nearby. "I'm going to need you to focus on the individual that you are attempting to contact. Their reflection will become your image, in their mind's eye at least. Therefore, I would suggest one who is either incredibly vain or is observant enough to notice." He lifted a bottle of liquefied Wisp Wrappings and poured it into the bowl, quickly followed by some sort of brown, porous material. A simple lightning spell later, and the liquid within the bowl had turned an electric blue. The wizard lifted the bowl and handed it to me.
"You want me to..."
"You asked for a communication spell, you get one. You just have to drink it to establish the connection," he explained as I took the bowl. "Unless you desire to back out of our deal..? I would not recommend such things, of course. Nasty business, betraying a Telvanni."
I narrowed my eyes. Even in doing me a favor, I felt as if the wizard was getting more out of the deal than I. More and more, using his apprentice to kill him sounded like a good idea. I raised the bowl to my lips, eyes never leaving the smirking red orbs of the wizard, and lifted the bowl to drain its contents. I ignored the terrible flavor and slammed the bowl down on the table and watched as Neloth filled it up once again with water. It wasn't long before the chittering began.
Babette and her spiders. Gods, I would never understand her obsession with the creatures. I found them disgusting, but for some reason she enjoyed the company of the creatures. I peered into the water and rolled my eyes. Indeed, it was spiders. Babette was sitting above her underground lake, milking them for venom. "Babette," I hissed, my subconscious urging me to keep my voice low at first. The Vampire girl stopped and turned her head slowly to the right.
When her gaze finally locked on me, the ancient Vampire trapped forever in the body of a child nearly jumped from her skin. The spiders around her chittered even more loudly and scattered from around her. "Dammit, Thera!" Babette shouted when she regained control of herself. She slapped the water and her image in the bowl rippled; from then on, she took it quite well, however. "What in Oblivion could you want that you'd contact me like this?"
"He's here."
Babette's eyes widened slightly. "Well, I shouldn't be surprised, should I?" she muttered her glowing yellow eyes glancing down before returning to me. "Is it a problem?"
Had anyone else asked that, I probably would have planned their death. Her, however, I allowed to speak her mind. I had brought her in as my adviser for the expressed reason of asking such questions. It kept me honest, a necessity for any powerful leader. I was prideful, and rightly so, but it would not do to be blindly arrogant. "It was, though we have struck yet another bargain." At that, the other Vampire laughed at me, much to my ire chagrin.
"I take it you've got a plan, then?" she asked when her laughter finally died down.
My eyes shot for a moment towards Neloth. "Send the Hunter," I said after a few moments.
Babette fell quiet for a while. "Are you... sure?" she asked worriedly. "Even now he can be quite erratic."
"Perhaps a level of unpredictability would be good," I countered. I bit my lip for a second then nodded. "Yes, do it. I am confident that he will do as requested. And, if not, I defeated Isran before. I can do it again."
Jul
Lucius
I walked into Raven Rock alone, having dismounted and said my good byes to my skeletal horse a short distance from the town; it wouldn't do to terrify the locals, after all. The Bow of Auri-El jangled slightly as it moved with my shoulders, and I wondered for not the first time why not only I, but the gods themselves believed that bringing it to this island, far from any kind of defense or security, was a good idea. Unlike in my dealings with the Eye of Magnus, no such Aedric presence made itself known to cryptically refuse me any answers. However, I found for once that I could accept that. Perhaps this was when the silver lining to those years of hardship and defeat finally appeared.
I was cut off as I walked through the gate by a woman dressed in a simple dress, a Dunmer who did not look out of place at all. She walked with the same cadence as everyone else around the town and her clothes looked almost indistinguishable. I frowned, however, when I noticed that there were a few almost unnoticeable things off about the woman.
For instance, she was the only person walking towards the First Councilor's building.
Now, that by itself would not be all that odd. Perhaps she had a meeting with him. Or perhaps I was misreading her path. Stranger things had happened than me making a mistake. But, combined with the fact that her otherwise normal clothes, the clothes of a poverty stricken citizen of Raven Rock, were glowing with incredibly powerful enchantments... well, with that the woman suddenly became much more interesting. I narrowed my eyes as she brazenly approached the building and reached to her belt, carefully repositioning the simple elven dagger that hung from her hip. No, I had dealt enough with assassins in the past five years – both courtesy of Thera and earlier from the generals who had refused to follow me – that I could recognize one when they appeared. "Morag Tong," I growled.
I had heard that the ancestral group to the Dark Brotherhood still operated in Morrowind and its colonies, but the official word from the Grand Council was that the group was now illegal – a law that had been pushed by... Hm, by none other than Raven Rock's First Councilor during his time on Morrowind's Grand Council following a coup attempt by members of Hlaalu.
I kept from drawing my blade and followed the woman towards the building, moving loud enough that she would consider me just a member of the crowd. But, despite the fact my skills in remaining silent had grown in the past half decade, they had not grown that much. The woman turned on her heel, and I felt the Magicka gather in her hand before she threw it at me. I jumped to the side, avoiding the needle thin ice spike that had launched towards my head. The attack shattered against the inside of Raven Rock's walls, and I rolled to my feet with Dragonbane drawn and at the ready.
The assassin, to her credit, did not do what so many of the Dark Brotherhood did in this situation. She did not monologue, or ask who I was, or try to stall me. I had killed a great many of their number when they had begun speaking about the great powers of Sithis and how the void would devour my being. The Morag Tong were made of slightly less insane stuff, it appeared, and she ran towards me at full speed.
I was slightly surprised by how quickly she moved, her proximity to me quickly making the longer reach of my sword completely useless. Her dagger was held backhand, rushing up towards my neck. I jerked my head to the side, dodging the blade. She continued to slash the tiny blade at me, always taking care to stay close enough that my sword's blade remained simply an accessory. I continued to dodge, leaving us in a temporary stalemate. We both knew that could not last forever, though. Eventually the few remaining guards would be alerted to the disturbance and would attack the woman from behind, negating whatever advantage she had over me at the moment.
She was the first to come up with a way to get out of that trouble, however. It was annoying, but I had to admit that the assassin was incredibly good fighting against more powerful enemies. I slid past another blow from her knife, still sure that the guards would get there soon to help. I could see them approaching just over the assassin's shoulder, blades drawn as they sprinted towards her ready to...
And then her leg crashed into the side of my knee and I flipped in place. I instinctively raised a shield of Magicka around my skin to keep her dagger from piercing my exposed flesh, but the woman seemed to have expected that. Her foot collided with my midsection, which would not have hurt all that much had both my feet been planted on the ground. However, as I was a few feet above the ground I instead found my self launched a few feet back. I hit the ground and my eyes shut on instinct, blacking out the world for a few moments as I tumbled through the dirt.
I used the momentum to continue up to my feet, opening my eyes and angling my blade at the assassin. Unfortunately she had already disappeared, leaving behind only a pair of dead or – hopefully – unconscious guards. I stayed in my battle stance for a short while, eyes glancing left and right, before finally giving up and standing tall. I sheathed my blade in a fluid movement and set my jaw. Morvayn came rushing out of his home a few moments later, despite his guard captain's many protests. "What in the name of Azura is going on here?!" he snapped, expecting an answer from the guards that were now arriving. They stammered for a moment, as unsure as the Councilor, and he cut them off. "'Legate.' What happened?"
I frowned at how he said Legate, but let it slide. As Hadvar had said so long ago, it was as if people could just feel in their bones that I was the Dragonborn. I almost felt like there was no reason to hide at all. Still, if he was willing to protect my pride, so I could at least accept the gift. "An assassin was approaching your door until I noticed what was happening. She saw me tailing her and attacked before disappearing."
The First Councilor glanced at the ground then back up at me. "Come with me," he demanded, then turned around and walked purposefully towards the door of his home. I stood still for a moment with my arms crossed before shrugging and following him and Guard Captain Veleth through the door. Veleth slammed it shut as soon as I walked through, and the room – in which only the three of us stood – became instantly silent. Morvayn was sitting in his Chair of Judgement, face hidden by a hand that supported his head.
"I hadn't expected this to happen so soon," Morvayn said, finally breaking the tense silence that had taken over the room. He didn't move besides what was required to utter those words. He didn't even make a noise besides that for some time. Still, I knew it would happen eventually, so I simply waited with one eyebrow raised. For as important as my mission regarding Miraak was, perhaps just as pressing was an attempt on the First Councilor's life. Miraak would fall, I felt that much in my bones. The Gods despised the end of the world. The war between the Empire and Dominion required more direct control, however.
Eventually, Morvayn did begin to elaborate. His hand moved from his face and he looked up at me with hollowly disappointed eyes. "I assume that whoever you fought was a member of the Morag Tong."
"She made no such move to confirm, however..." I shrugged. "The Dark Brotherhood has been afraid of acting within Morrowind's Borders since some time before the end of the third era, and not even their alliance with the Dominion has given them enough bravery to break that streak. Besides, almost every assassination of a Dunmer political figure in the past thousand years has been the work of the Morag Tong. Together, there wasn't much else it could be."
The Mer nodded. "Indeed," the man said. He looked over at Veleth. "We should wait a moment." Veleth nodded and left the room, coming back a few minutes later with another Dunmer at his arm. The Second Councilor for the settlement.
"This is my Second Councilor, Adril Arano. He came to me with warnings I ignored... to my shame," the First Councilor said. I turned my attention to Arano and studied him. He was nowhere near as accomplished as Morvayn, but he had a few accomplishments to his name. And, despite his lower station, he had the same sparkle of intelligence in his eyes that Morvayn did. Less shiny perhaps, but it was still there. Less arrogant as well, which is why he probably noticed the events leading up to the assassination attempt.
"Greetings, Sera," Arano said with a small bow. I bowed back and crossed my arms expectantly. Arano did not disappoint. "Councilor Morvayn made many enemies during his time as a Councilor of Morrowind, and many of them would do anything to kill him. Especially members of House Hlaalu."
"They were disgraced during his term, weren't they?" I inquired. I turned to Morvayn. "You executed a powerful member of the House for attempting a coup, I believe."
"Indeed. A member of Clan Ulen," Arano continued when Morvayn did not respond. "I believe they are behind this attack."
I turned towards the Second Councilor. "Why?"
"Their family arrived on this island, in this very settlement, and built up quite the reputation in our settlement as loyal and gracious," the Second Councilor said. "But no Dunmer would ever allow themselves to forget what they believe is such an insult to their honor."
I nodded. "Is there anyone else you suspect?" Arano shook his head.
Sadly, it seemed this was the best option I had. Dunmer were an interesting and incredibly foreign people if they raised in Morrowind, so much so that few could understand their culture unless they had been immersed in it for decades. I certainly could not, even if I did better than most. If Arano said this was his only suspect, it seemed likely he was correct. "I will investigate that for you," I stated simply. "You cannot very well arrest one of your own on such flimsy evidence. However, I can investigate for you, perhaps even defeat the assassins sent here for your head."
Morvayn nodded, then frowned. "You seem brighter than before... Where is your ally?"
I smiled softly. "Dorthe is protecting m– something. Something very dear to the Emperor that we found on this island."
"Hm..." Morvayn grunted before going silent and staring at the ground for a few moments, mulling something over. Finally, he nodded again. "Thank you, then." He stood up and walked towards me, placing a hand on my shoulder. He smiled somberly. "Now, I hate to ask you for two favors in the same day, but once this is over... I cannot spare men on a skeever hunt, but should you discover anything... The mines. Their owner claims to have found another vein. If it is true, we will trade only with your Empire."
My heart skipped a beat. An entire Ebony Mine available for exclusive trade? "It would be no trouble," I finally managed. "Though, I do have one thing I need to attend to while I am here; I did not merely come here to become embroiled in poorly conceived assassinations, after all."
Morvayn snorted derisively, shaking his head. "Well... thank you, Sera. Clan Ulen has taken up residence in the home closest to the Standing Stone outside of our settlement."
I nodded. "Good. That's exactly where I was headed before this mess." Then I turned around and clenched my fists tightly. By the Nine, being dragged into everyone's problems made me feel like I was in Skyrim again.
I knew there was a reason I loved this place.
