Tharlennis knocked on Caius's door to announce herself, then let herself in. "Do I look less a fright?" she asked him as he looked up from his skooma pipe.

Caius blinked. "Wha? Oh, of course," he said. "Right. You're my new subordinate. Ah, go ask Hasphat about secret cults for me, all right?"

Tharlennis sighed – she had to walk in while Caius wasn't sober. "Gladly. Hasphat who, and which cults? And where is he?"

"You don't know Hasphat? Hasphat Antabolis the drillmaster? He's been in Balmora for years!" said Caius, forgetting in his intoxicated state that Tharlennis had been in Morrowind less than a week. "I wrote it down. It's on the table. Right. Ask for him at the Fighters' Guild." He took a long draught from his skooma pipe.

"Ah, right, I'll leave you to… that," said Tharlennis. "I'll… see you later… sir." Caius didn't answer as she picked up the scrawled note, left his house, and, once in the open air again, took several deep breaths to rid her lungs of the smell of the narcotic. She had no idea where Julan was, but if he wasn't still in the commercial district he'd probably headed to a tavern. Not knowing any others offhand, she went to look for him at the South Wall – if he wasn't there, she'd cross the river and head up the hill to advise him in his purchases.

The smell of skooma still lingered in her nose even as she entered the cornerclub, but if anyone else detected it on her, they didn't seem to mind. When asked about Julan, Sottilde directed Tharlennis down the stairs to the common area. Turning a corner, Tharlennis saw him sitting at the bar at the same time he saw her. He grinned and waved. "Did you have a nice talk with your addict man? 'Cause that's what they say he is here, an' you smell like skooma," he called to her in a voice that indicated he'd drunk entirely too much. He gave a high laugh. "Oh waitwaitwait, I forgot… I'm mad at you, aren't I, because… because…" He knit his brow, trying to remember. "I knew back before that fifth matze. Right! Because you made me go away, like you was, or he were hiding something from me! I got my eye on him, you know… or I will do, soon as everything stops moving in circles…" He raised his tankard to drink from it again, but Tharlennis stopped his hand.

"That's quite enough," she said. "Come on, we're not staying here. At least you managed to find some decent clothes before you wasted our money on drink." He had found a tough coat made of black leather. Its hem was worn, but the leather was thick and the stitching strong, and it didn't smell like anything. She helped him out of his chair and supported him on one shoulder. "Let's go. You're going to sleep this off, and for free now that we can spend the night in the Mages' guildhall." Supporting Julan on one shoulder, she left the South Wall and made for the other side of town.

"Yer no fun! C'mon, less go swimming in the river!" Julan attempted to shuck off his coat and failed miserably, and Tharlennis had to physically restrain him from throwing himself into the Odai as they crossed one of the bridges spanning it. Stronger than her, Julan slipped her grasp and was soon up to his neck in the cold water. "Gemme out! 'S cold!" he shrieked to her, reaching for her grasping hand. She tried to pull him back up over the sandstone wall that lined the river in the town, but his wet fingers slid from her grasp and he fell back to the water with a splash.

Tharlennis looked over her shoulder for help. "Hey! Can I get a guard or someone over here?" she called, and a Dunmer woman in the Bonemold armor of House Hlaalu turned. "My friend went and fell in the river, and he's too damn drunk to get himself out," Tharlennis explained as the guardswoman came over. "I can't lift him myself. A little help, officer?"

The guardswoman shook her head. "And they always say that law enforcement is glamorous," she sighed. "Come on, you. Back up onto dry land." She reached down and grabbed Julan by the wrist, and with Tharlennis's help, hauled him back up to the street. She looked to Tharlennis. "Where are you two staying? We can't have him out here causing a stir all night."

"Mages' Guild," Tharlennis said gratefully, and with the sodden and shivering Julan between them, she and the guard made their way up the hill to the lower commercial district, where the guildhall was. With some difficulty, Tharlennis managed to get Julan down to the guildhall's sleeping quarters and laid him on his side on a lower bunk, apologizing to the other mages in the process. An Altmer she didn't know helped her get rid of Julan's coat and cast a small charm on his hair and other clothing to help it dry faster. Before long, Julan was snoring loudly, and the Altmer woman cast a quick silencing spell on him "so when the rest of us go to bed, we can actually sleep."

"Thanks, er…"

"Estirdalin. If you need help researching any spells, that is the service I am here to provide."

"Thank you. I'll remember that." With a nod to Estirdalin, Tharlennis sat on the bed next to Julan's and read Caius's note.

Ask Hasphat Antabolis the drillmaster what he knows about the Nerevarine Cult and the Sixth House. Do whatever favor he asks of you, and bear in mind it may be an ugly favor. Bring whatever information he gives you back to me.

She folded the note and pocketed it. It was too late in the evening to be going about doing ugly favors for people, so she read a while from a borrowed book and then went to sleep.

-----------------------------

Tharlennis woke before Julan the next morning, and proded him until he stirred. He rolled over and gritted his teeth. "Ow… my head! Sheogorath! Why did you let me drink so much?" he asked.

"I didn't 'let' you do anything," said Tharlennis. "I wasn't with you, remember? Oh, you probably don't. Drink some water. You'll be fine in a few hours."

"Can't you do something about it? You're a healer, at least a bit anyway…" he moaned, rubbing his temples.

"Not much of one." Tharlennis turned around and loudly called "Does anyone know a spell for poison resistance?" heedless of Julan's hangover. She was met with silence.

"You'll have to tough it out," she told Julan. "Come on - you need food and something to drink other than matze, and we've got an errand to run. Go grab some bread or something from one of the supply crates. You can eat while you walk." She helped him to his feet and handed him his coat, and he went with her, bread in hand, next door to the Fighters' Guildhall. A solidly-built Breton woman directed her down the stairs to the training room.

Two women sparred, sword versus spear, as an older man watched and called instructions to them. Tharlennis sat down next to him. "Are you Hasphat Antabolis? Caius Cosades sent me to ask you a few things."

"I am." Hasphat kept watching his trainees. "So Caius wants information? Well, that's fine, if you do me a favor first. This-for-that, and all. Keep it quiet, too – it's not strictly legal."

"'Legal' isn't a problem," Tharlennis assured him, as Julan raised an eyebrow. "What kind of favor?"

Hasphat dropped his voice. "The Dwemer ruin of Arkngthand lies nearby, just over the bridge past Fort Buckmoth. I need you to run over there for me and find a little cube with a circular design and some symbols on one side. Dwemer puzzle box. I'm sure there's one in that ruin somewhere. Bring it to me, and I'll tell you what you want to know."

"So the only law I'd be breaking is the one against trading Dwemer artifacts? That's pie. I'll do it." She glanced to Julan, who was giving a wry half-smile. "Fort Buckmoth is the big stone one I passed on my way here from Pelagiad, right?"

At Hasphat's confirmation and further instructions on how to get inside Arkngthand, she and Julan set off eastward, Julan muttering for several hundred feet about how hypocritical Imperials were, making all those laws about how anything valuable anyone happens to find lying around belonged to their precious Uriel Septim, and how most of the time they turned right back around and kept what they'd found anyway. "That's not to say I have anything against taking these things that nobody actually owns," he added. "I'm not going to abide by laws set up around a foundation of lies. What did Cosades want you to ask this Antabolis, anyway?"

"Something about secret cults," Tharlennis replied. "The Sixth House and something else that started with an N."

Julan started. "What in Oblivion does he want to know about that for?"

"I don't know. He's keeping me in the dark about it too, or more likely he was too blinded by that cloud of skooma fumes to care when I asked him. It's rather maddening. I wish more people would tell me what's going on when I get involved in things."

Julan nodded, his eyes away from Tharlennis's face. "If you were referring to me with that, I'm not really ready to tell you the rest of what's going on for me," he said. "There – that looks like it must be the bridge we're supposed to cross."

A male figure stood at the end of the bridge, leaning on a spear. Seeing two people approach, he gripped it before him and brandished it menacingly, but Tharlennis and Julan didn't halt. Letting go of the spear with one hand, he raised the other above his head and dropped it rapidly, trailing a stream of orange sparks which burst when they hit the ground. A number of scattered bones around him skittered across the metal floor of the bridge and assembled themselves into a skeleton, which picked up a round shield and a saber and ran forward.

"You take the skeleton," Tharlennis told Julan. "Practice the fire some more. I'll hold off the mage so he doesn't bother you." She dashed toward the mage as she summoned her own fire, her skirts trailing behind her. The mage, a balding Imperial, threw every curse he knew at her, and while Tharlennis did manage to hit him with a couple handfuls of flame, she soon grew weary under the crushing weight of his spells. She still managed to dodge even with her head in a fog, and she brought out her dagger to hopefully succeed where her magic could not.

Julan made short work of the skeleton thanks to Tharlennis's tutelage, though the skeleton had managed to land several slashes. The bones soon fell away from each other, the magic holding them together weakened by the interference of another's spells and knocked apart by Julan's short sword. He sheathed his sword and drew back his bow, waiting for a shot as Tharlennis and the other mage circled each other, the mage keeping her at a distance with his spear while Tharlennis tried to dance close enough to slash the unprotected flesh of his shoulders and neck. An arrow zipped past her and glanced off the mage's cuirass, and as he turned his head to Julan, Tharlennis managed to get close enough to grab him from behind and hold her blade to his throat.

However, the enemy mage was the stronger combatant, and he was able to force her arm away before she could administer a lethal cut – but with his summoned skeleton gone and the rest of his well of power spent, there was little he could do against two foes at once, and Julan's next arrow struck true. He fell transfixed with the sharp point buried deep in his neck. Julan helped Tharlennis to her feet. "Everything all right?" he asked.

Tharlennis rubbed her head as her mental fog cleared. "I'm fine," she said. "I wonder who he was? What's in these crates?"

Julan pried the lid from one and looked inside. "Gems, and a rock that looks like ebony," he said. "I bet they're from the ruins. There could be a smuggling operation going on."

"Hopefully that won't be much of a problem," said Tharlennis as she took any gems of good enough quality for alchemical use. "That looks like it could be an entrance. Look for a crank like Hasphat said there would be."

The crank was soon found, and with a hiss of steam and a grinding of stone on stone, the doors parted. Tharlennis slipped through the heavy stone doors with Julan behind her into a large, cavernous room, lit by small fires set in the open ends of pipes. She and Julan each took a torch from a nearby crate and lit them from one of these fires, and carefully sidled down a rock ledge toward the cavern floor. One wall was built up with Dwemer architecture, lit by mysterious tubes that gave off a golden light, and some fallen rocks formed a ramp leading to a balcony of sorts. Tharlennis saw a flicker of movement, but couldn't tell what it was. "Watch my back," she told Julan, and with her dagger drawn, she stalked toward the lighted area. Three things happened at once.

A man in black spotted her and ran up the makeshift stone ramp, calling an alarm. Startled, Julan let fly an arrow at him and missed, while a strong arm grabbed Tharlennis from behind. She twisted away from the point of a knife, trying to bring her own weapon to bear, while the man who called the alarm turned and closed on Julan. Another of Julan's arrows grazed his knife arm. The smuggler grabbed Julan's arm with his uninjured hand to keep him from firing any arrows at Tharlennis's assailant, and stood close to prevent Julan from drawing his sword. Julan gritted his teeth as he summoned the concentration to cast a spell, but his grappling opponent was too much of a distraction.

Tharlennis was unable to turn enough to see her opponent, but as a more practiced mage than Julan she was able to summon enough willpower for a small handful of fire. She flailed behind herself until she felt her hand connect with her attacker's face, and he let go of her and drew back with a scream. As soon as she was free she whirled around and grabbed his face and arm more firmly. He jerked as she sent a powerful shock through his body, then he fell and lay still.

"A little help?" Julan called to her, still trying to wrest himself from the other smuggler's grasp. Tharlennis threw a jet of fire at the smuggler's back, careful not to hit Julan as well, and with that moment of distraction Julan was able to wrest control from him. He hooked his leg around the smuggler's and shoved him to the ground, and as the smuggler tried to rise, Tharlennis buried her knife in his unarmored chest.

She made a face. "I hate that part," she remarked, making a face at the large bloodstain on her dress. She ran her hand through the air above the stain, not quite touching it, and the blood lifted itself out of her dress to splatter on a nearby rock instead.

"Are you normally that frivolous with magic?" Julan asked.

"Why shouldn't I be?" Tharlennis replied. "It's good practice. Taking out stains needs a lot of fine control. It's slow, but I'm getting better at pulling things from further away. Besides, does it really matter? We should be looking for that box. Anyway, no more going around with weapons sheathed from now on, after that."

Julan nodded. "Well, this room first, I suppose. I think I saw some kind of container or shelf up on that balcony." He helped Tharlennis up the pile of fallen boulders onto the balcony, and the searched for any fist-sized cubes made of copper, but found nothing of that description. Tharlennis pocketed several ancient silver coins. As she considered what to do with an intact spear, Julan called to her, "It looks like there's a small room off of here."

"I'll come back for you," Tharlennis told the spear. "It could be a storage room, she said to Julan as she examined the doors, and dropped her voice. "I think I see some light coming through the crack between the doors, too, so there might be someone in there. We won't be caught off guard this time."

Julan nodded, and helped her open one of the heavy double doors. The metal screeched, and the doors opened to reveal another Dwemer light-tube.

"I told you not to bother me, Lync!" roared a man's voice, and its owned stepped around the corner, an axe in one hand and a whetstone in the other. "You ain't Lync and Ruuz," he said with a snarl. "And you ain't leaving, either!" He tossed the whetstone aside and gripped his axe two-handed. There was little room for Julan to shoot, so he drew his sword again and flattened his back against the wall of the corridor just as the smuggler boss's axe swished past. Tharlennis ducked past the man and put her back against the wall opposite Julan, and murmured the words to the same spell she'd used to kill the smuggler who'd grabbed her on the floor below. Her hand shot toward the bald Imperial and she grabbed him by the neckpiece of his armor, but she lost her grip as he twisted away with a roar and swatted her across the face the back of one hamlike hand. Her head cracked against a pipe, and as her vision darkened briefly she saw the Imperial's axe slice across one of Julan's legs.

Julan bit back a scream and made quick slashes with his sword at the Imperial's bare arms, hoping to make him clumsy with his heavy weapon, as Tharlennis got to her feet shakily and willed her dagger to be sharp. Thinking her unconscious, the Imperial was focusing his attentions on Julan, but his iron armor was far too thick for her dagger to be of much use. The back of his neck was fairly unguarded, but he was moving around too much for Tharlennis to get a good thrust in, so she instead she struck for his underarm, hoping to find a spot that would bleed heavily. Her head ached too much for her to cast any spells quickly, but with a deep gash from Tharlennis's dagger in his arm, the smuggler couldn't wield his axe properly, and Julan managed to get in a lucky slash with his sword. As the smuggler staggered, Tharlennis finished him off just before her knees buckled.

Julan was at her side in a moment. "Are you all right?" he asked. "You must have hit your head pretty hard."

Tharlennis reached to feel the back of her head, and her fingers touched wetness. "Can you take a look? I'm bleeding. How bad is it?"

"Let me see. Damn! I can't tell with so much hair in the way. I've still got a little bit of magic left in me, though, so I might be able to heal it."

"Would you?" Tharlennis asked, trying to use the last of her own magic to stop the loud buzzing in her ears. She felt Julan's fingers touch her wound gently, then a pleasant coolness as his magic stopped the bleeding. The dark clouds cleared from her vision and her dizziness receded. Julan helped her to her feet, and they looked around. "Looks like there's probably some valuable stuff in here," Tharlennis remarked, seeing several crates among the ransacked Dwemer fixtures. "Let's see what we can find and sell." She emptied several crates, taking the things that looked the most valuable for their size, while Julan examined the shelves on the other side of the room.

"What did Antabolis say that box looked like again? About the size of a fist?"

"Yes, and made of copper. How many of these goblets do you think we'll be able to fence?"

"I don't know, but come look at this." Julan held a metal cube in his hand. Tharlennis finished stuffing another goblet into her satchel as she came to look at what Julan had found.

"It definitely looks like what Hasphat said," she said. "Look, if you twist it this way, it moves. This is probably what we were looking for."

"Let me see… huh. What a weird little thing," said Julan as he manipulated the cube. "So now what? Are we going to explore this place some more, or just go back to Balmora?"

"To be honest I don't want to have to kill anyone else today," Tharlennis said. "I'm still a bit lightheaded, and besides, my satchel's full. We won't be able to carry off any more loot even if we did keep looking around."

"Fair enough." Julan nodded his assent, and the two of them headed back to town to deliver the cube to Hasphat in exchange for information.