From what I've read, you guys are liking what I'm writing. This is another chapter that I think SirAC in particular will like - Tenebraeus in his training days.
Also a couple of ideas I want your feedback on - would you guys be interested in reading beyond the Thieves Guild Questline, and into a much bigger story? One told on a bigger scale, a couple of years after this story? I'm just thinking so I can think about where this story is going...
Reviews...
SirAC - I aim to please... bullseye. And I thought a faithful steed would need an appropriate name. Well, thank you! And I'm afraid I'm only getting worse, so I'm gonna have more time to write this week
Guest - Thank you! Here's another little chapter.
The staff came swinging around into my stomach, causing me to groan in pain as he shoved me further back. I keeled over and recieved another blow to the face from the staff, sending me stumbling backwards. As the staff came flying towards me again, I grabbed it, using all my weight to pull it from his hands. He loosened his grip on the staff, sending the end into my diaphragm, and then proceeded to swing it around into the side of my knee.
"Stop!" I shouted, groaning.
"I'll decide when to stop." Karliah growled, using the staff to throw me across the chamber. I slammed into the training dummy and began to gradually muster my strength. I received another blow, straight into my shoulder blade. I yowled out in pain. "Come on, you can stop me if you really want to - what are you waiting for?" I turned around, dodging underneath a vicious jab for my head and threw a fist into Karliah's kneecap. She caught my fist just before it struck and twisted it around, causing me to grab my wrist in pain. She then proceeded to sweep the staff around behind my ankles, causing me to trip backwards onto the ground, slamming into the stone floor with the boiled leather doing very little to soften the fall.
"I'm trying to!" I managed to shout as I got back up, crouching. My head narrowly dodged a blow from the staff, but as I stood up, the staff glanced off past my chest. I raised my arm into an arc and began to throw the sweltering inferno that was cage in my hand, only this action was blocked as the staff's hard metal head stabbed low in my torso, centimetres above my belt.
I began to cough, and keeled over onto all fours in pain, unable to breathe. Finally, I managed to wheeze, almost drowning out Karliah's words.
"Maybe when you've finally burnt through all that leather, we'll put what little remains of you in that coffin above the passage - that can be your epitaph: Here lies Tenebraeus Magnus, The Man Who Tried!" She went to stab the staff high into my chest, but I had grabbed the end in time, and as I went to wrench it from her grip, she simply swept it upwards, knocking into my chin. I scrambled to stand up, trying to predict her next movement. "Come on - do that wall of fire I've heard so much about! Freeze the staff! Turn it into a pretty flower!" She taunted me. "Just do something!" She brought the staff down, sure to crack my head open. I threw a hand up to catch the end, when a brilliantly blue arc of lightning crackled from my hand and scratched into the metal head, frying the wooden body of the staff until Karliah dropped it, now a slowly burning pile of ash with two metal heads.
Karliah laughed as she approached me, happy with the results.
"Not bad boy." She grinned. "I haven't heard of you doing that one before! When did you learn to pull out lightning?" I thought, panting.
"I didn't." A memory occurred to me - standing above Riften on the walls, with a spark of lightning snapping past my face. "Wait... six years years ago - on the walls! A spark flew past my face."
"Six years ago, and you're managing to pull that out in the here and now?" She chuckled. "Maybe you'll even manage to choose when to turn it on."
"Magnus!" I looked around to see the hard-headed figure of Delvin standing at the doorway. "Brynjolf wants to see you." He stated gruffly, leaving. I stood up quickly and walked out of the grimy chamber into... well, an equally grimy cistern. I didn't take Delvin's abruptness personally - since Mercer's betrayal, everyone in the Guild had been different - Delvin more than others. I'd heard that he'd been one of the original thieves to give the Guild its notorious infamy, along with Mercer and Brynjolf.
As I walked up to the desk however, I began to feel more cautious about Brynjolf, and how he had changed since Mercer's actions. His hair was now more greasy, no longer knotted back, but hanging low into his eyes, his skin was paler than ever before; since Mercer, he'd barely ever left the Cistern. All of his time and energy was spent on tracking Mercer down. So much that it fell upon Delvin and Vex to run the Guild - it was unheard of even to the both of them.
"Brynjolf?" I asked, standing at the aged wooden desk and dropping my sword down onto it, which was now fitted with ash and wax stains from burning documents. He looked up from the tabletop with a look I hadn't seen in an age - he was grinning.
"Alright there lad?" He grinned. I nodded.
"You wanted to see me?" His grin widened.
"We've got him."
My eyes shot open in shock.
"No." I said quietly. "Mercer?" He nodded. I picked up my sheathed sword from the table. "Let's go and get him then." I turned around to leave, but Brynjolf's hand shot out across the table, grabbing my wrist. I turned back to him, questioning him.
"Look, before I have you help down track Mercer down, I need to know what you learned from Karliah. I mean everything."
"Why's she not telling you this?"
"She doesn't talk to anyone in the Guild." He said. "No one has talked about what happened since Gallus died, and you know how some of the other lads are - we're not a trusting bunch." I sighed, trying to think of the fastest way to sum up all that I had learnt so I could chase after Mercer.
"Mercer killed Gallus, not Karliah." I said finally - unsure of what else to say.
"Aye, I'd feared that was the case. From that last entry in Gallus' diary, it looks like he was getting close to exposing Mercer to the Guild." He rubbed the stubble on his chin. "Anything else?" I rooted back to what I had discovered in my investigations.
"Karliah was behind Goldenglow." I informed him. "And Honningbrew." He let out a chuckle, glancing over at her across the cistern.
"Trying to make Mercer look bad in front of Maven eh?" He let out another small chuckle. "Clever lass..." He muttered in thought. "Was there anything else she told you?" After composing myself, and remembering the patience Brynjolf had instilled in me months ago, I remembered the important details Karliah had told me.
"They were Nightingales. Gallus, Karliah and Mercer." I explained.
"What?" Brynjolf's brow furrowed. "Nightingales?" I nodded. "But, I always assumed they were just a tale..." he muttered to himself. "A way to keep the young footpads in line." He exhaled deeply, ruffling his knotted hair. "And that's all? Nothing else?" I shook my head.
"No...no that's it." I shook my head.
"In that case I need you to do an important task for me." He said darkly, his tone foreboding what task I would need to perform now. "I need you to break into Mercer's home and search for anything that could tell us where he's gone."
"He has a house in Riften?" I asked, surprised. Brynjolf's face dropped.
"I don't think so." He said quietly. "That seems to close to home - Mercer's too clever for that."
"Unless that's a double bluff." I pointed out.
"Either way, we have no way of figuring out where he is." He explained.
"Okay, so what do we do?" He grabbed the back of his head awkwardly.
"Maven Black-Briar knows everything that goes in this town - especially if we don't. If Mercer Frey is out of Riften, she'll know where." I nodded.
"Okay, so let's go ask Maven." Brynjolf scratched his head again - awkwardly. "What is it?" I asked, unsure of what was making him act like this.
"Maven Black-Briar isn't notorious for her honour." He said quietly. "If she knows where Mercer's gone, she's most likely to keep quiet about it." I nodded, understanding the dilemma.
"So, what are we going to do?" I asked. Brynjolf rubbed his stubble once more before finally clapping his hands together.
"We're going to break into Maven's safe lad."
Dramatic! Which one of you guys were expecting that to happen huh? Well, I hope you guys enjoy this chapter and please leave a review - I like hearing what you guys think - good or bad... but mainly good - but I'm biased and vulnerable to flattery.
