That's the trouble with breaking out of jail. It's so bloody hard. Prison cells were made so that people specifically can't get out. Trying to go against this design is like, well, like trying to chip away at a solid stone wall, with bars on the door a foot wide each, with a thin piece of metal you found on the floor. People who go to that much trouble to keep you beneath the ground of a castle really don't want you to escape. Not that I had too much choice, anyway. Sheogorath and Haskill were making sure of that.
I could feel the strange, well-dressed man standing behind me, in the same way that you can feel when anyone is looking very intently at you to make sure you were doing your job. His name was Haskill, he had said when he froze time, official representative of the Madgod Sheogorath Himself. Frankly, I could see why he got the job. You'd have to be mad to employ him.
Then there was Sheogorath himself, or Himself, as He preferred to be known as. Every couple of seconds He would whisper some piece of unhelpful advice in my ear. Right now He was discussing chamberpots.
"Quick, Conrad, when the guard walks past you need to hit him a good one over the ear with your chamberpot!"
"I don't have a chamberpot! Just a smelly hole in the floor!"
"What? That's hardly fair! How can you be expected to break out of jail without a chamberpot?"
Haskill, who apparently had been listening in to the entire conversation, piped in, "I believe the purpose of this cell was to keep people in, Your Madnessness, not simply to see whether they could get out again as Yours do."
"That's ridiculous! How could anyone expect you to learn if you just sit around in a cell for a few days! Sounds like the only thing that'll do is give you some nifty contacts in the criminal world."
"Oh, it does," I agreed. "It sure does…"
Sharon and Jack Munro had both been strict, straight laced parents, dutiful chapelgoers, and general good productive members of society. Jack wore a tie to work, and smoked a pipe, Sharon wore plain clothes so not to inflame the passions of men, and both were well respected members of society. They had decided to follow a good and honest profession as commanded by their gods, and, lacking the education to become Priests or Knights, decided to settle on being proud members of the Thieves Guild, which at the very least moderated crime and helped beggars off the street in an orderly fashion. Sharon was a Shadowfoot, and Jack held the less high-ranking but still respectable rank of Cat-Burglar, although word on the street was that he was to be tipped for promotion. The church had taken a good look at this decision, and agreed with it fully.
One night, when I was fourteen years old, they had come in for the embarrassing "adult talk" which came in midway in every teenage boy's life.
"You see, my son," Jack had said, almost kindly. "The life of a thief is hard, but rewarding. You are a young man, now, and the time has come for you to make up your mind as to what career you plan to follow as a productive member of society."
"Well… I've always thought it would be neat to be a mage…"
Sharon Munro (always Sharon, or ma'am, never "mum", or even "mother") put her hands over her ears. "Darn you, young boy! Do you know nothing! Have we not bought you up to be a fine, strapping young boy? A mage? One who tinkers with things that should not be tinkered with, one who plays with fire and tries to become a God with his foolishness?" She was almost in tears. "Beat him, Jack!"
The following beating had been just one of a million, another mark on the toilet – paper page of my childhood. Afterward, I apologised to Jack profusely, and then went to my room.
"Wow, great flashback there, Munro, but now I'd quite like you to get out of this cell, if you don't mind," said Sheogorath rudely. "Remember, we're on quite a heavy schedule. Finding out about Hircine and all that."
"Yeah, I'm trying, but all that you've given me is this stupid piece of metal to chisel my way out, which could take all night, so if you want anything done in a hurry you'd better give me a hand."
As if in answer, the door up the stairs to the castle creaked open quietly, and a large man walked in, dressed in the traditional armour of an Imperial Soldier. I groaned, and stuffed the makeshift chisel into my shirt, but too late.
"Hello, there! What are you doing, my fine young rapscallion?"
"Oh Gods… listen, copper, I can explain…"
"Conrad? Conrad Munro, is that you?"
The man moved the torch closer to his face. Recognition burst inside me.
"Larry! Filthy Larry! How're you doing?" I said, with sort of a despairing jollity. "Filthy" Larry had worked with me on a few occasions, back when the Kvatch detective agency had still been in business. Although this assumption was later proven incorrect, at the time I was under the impression that he was the only other surviving detective; he was a burly Nord capable of holding his own against several Daedra, and this ability had shown itself at the time of the attack.
"That's 'Private Larson' now, thanks very much, Conrad. And I think I'm doing a lot better than you at the moment. What'd you do?"
"I tried to recover the stolen Elder Scroll. It's harder than it looks."
"You bloody rebel you."
"Shut up. I've spent this entire evening chiseling my way out of solid stone with nothing but a tiny strip of metal, the Prince of Madness and His personal assistant for company. I am not feeling happy."
"Um… Prince of Madness?"
"Yeah, you can't see him, but there's Haskill right there." Haskill gave a little wave from the back of the cell. The confused expression did not leave Larry's face.
"Uh… huh. How long have you been in here, Conrad?"
"About three or four hours, why?"
"Wow, didn't take you long to lose it, did it?"
"What? Haskill is right there!"
"Well, if you think so, you might be right. I'm not really talking about that, I'm more referring to the fact that that piece of metal you're chiseling with is the key to the cell."
"What? Shine the light on it for a sec," I asked. The torchlight spread over the rather dented piece of metal, and, yes, it did have a certain key-like property to it. Silently, I put it into the lock. The door sprang open with barely a squeak.
Haskill smiled slightly and spoke in a voice only I could hear; "I hate to say it, Mr. Munro, but I think you just got 'Sheogorath'd'."
"HAH!" said the voice in my head triumphantly. "Freakin' classic! Old 'key in the cell'! Gets 'em every time!"