Chapter 5: Errand For Balgruuf

"Here" proclaimed Vince as he slammed the Dragonstone on Farengar's desk. "One Dragonstone fresh from a Barrow"

Farengar looked at the stone surprised, "Well, you certainly are a cut above the average brute the Jarl sends my way". Man, was this guy getting on Vincent's nerves. 'A brute? Do I look like an uncivilized brute to him?' He decided not to interject to correct the mage before him, this one was the Jarl's personal court mage. It wouldn't earn him any favors with the Jarl. "So what now, if I may ask?"

Farengar did not look at him, rather he studied the Dragonstone and its markings, "This is where your job ends and mine begins. The work of the mind, sadly undervalued in Skyrim." Again, Vincent's pride was hurt but he did not have the opportunity to say anything as Farengar turned to his collegue. "It appears your information was right afterall, and we have our friend to thank for retrieving it for us."

Ah, yes, there was this woman, with a hood obscuring her face, who seemed just as interested in Farengar's work as the Jarl, if not more. What Vince could see was that she carried an Elven dagger and wore a simple leather outfit. She couldn't have been too old, somewhere among her 30's if her voice was anything to go by. She looked directly at Vince, revealing a bit of her pale face and some strands of blond hair. "You went to Bleak Falls Barrow and got that? Nice work." At least someone appreciated the fact that he risked his life.

"If you want your reward, talk to the Jarl or his steward. They'll sort it out for you. And if that would be all, we have a stone to analy-"

"Actually, I have one more question," Vince said, "would either of you know what this is?" He unravelled the piece of paper with scribbles resembling the scripts he found on the wall in the Barrow. "There was an entire stone wall with those written all over it's face, though as you can imagine, I couldn't bring the entire thing so I copied the, well... what I consider to be, the text."

Both looked at the transcript before them quizzically. Neither had seen any marking like these before. Heck, it didn't even look like any conventional language. Daedric symbols at least looked like letters whereas this resembled claw marks. "No," began Farengar's accomplice,"I have never seen such language before." Farengar on the other hand walked up to one of his bookshelves and pulled out a book and started skimming through the pages. After repeating it with two more books he seemed to have found what he was looking for. He walked back to them and laid the book on the desk for all to see. "Here." he pointed to a short message written in the same mysterious text, under which there appeared to be a translation, though an irrelevant one. "The book refers to this as the dragon tongue."

Vincent's head shot up with his eye brows furrowed. "And how, pray tell, would dragons write? I don't think they had hands and thumbs to so..."

Farengar stayed quiet and kept reading the book, but that revealed no other information. "Sorry, but I wouldn't know. All I know is what the ancient Nords had written down, and they didn't have the tendency to do that a lot."

Vincent sighed and put the paper back in his pocket. He would have to do more research. Though not all by himself. "If you find anything new, could you tell me?"

Farengar thought about it for a minute. It wouldn't waste his time, he was researching dragons at the Jarl's behest so this was bound to come up anyway. "Sure, if I come across anything, I'll let you know."

The woman was not so happy about this request however. "You also interested in dragon research?"

Vincent caught on to what she really meant: "And why would you need that information? What use do you have for it?", and wasn't going to give her what she wanted. "I almost died next to that wall, and now it turns out that it holds a secret that even a dragon fanatic does not know the answer to. I would be happy to take away something more than just gold away from that debacle."

They glared at each other, both knowing that they figured each other out and gave up trying. They knew that everything they would say would be half-truths and riddles at this point. Which is good, it should teach her not to get into Vince's affairs. He didn't stick his nose into her business.

"In that case," he said, "I'll just go then. I hope this stone proves useful." And walked off.

"You did me a great favor, friend!" Balgruuf beamed. "Avenicci, I put away some gold for Vincent should he have completed the task for Farengar. It appears that he has." The Jarl's steward went to gather Vincent's reward and in the meantime the Jarl asked him to join him by the table. The Jarl sat at the end of one of the two great dining tables and Vincent sat on the side, not too far away from him. They both reached out for the food which was still warm, freshly prepared by the cooks; the Jarl for some steak and Vincents for steamed salmon and mashed potatoes. Vincent stayed quiet, knowing that the Jarl wanted something and decided to wait and let the man speak first. "My supply of fish is running out, the salmon you're eating now is one of the last we have." he began, "I haven't yet renewed the deal with the Jarl of Riften. I would cover the costs of travel for you and reward you for it again: would you go to Riften's Mistveil Keep and deliver this note to the Jarl herself?". Balgruuf slid a small note with the seal of Whiterun on it to Vince.

Without a need for much contemplation, he agreed. It was easy money and a great opportunity to get away from this dragon infested area.

Once Avenicci came back with a hefty sum of 150 septims. Together with his findings in Bleak Falls Barrow and the 200 septims from Lucan after he delivered the stolen claw, and man was Lucan joyous like a child, Vincent's wealth amounted to about 450 septims. Not bad for 24 hours, not bad at all. Though the weight was starting to get irritating... He would have to find a bank of some sort. "Sir?"

Balgruuf looked up from his food, "Yes?"

Vincent asked, "Is there a bank in this city?"

Balgruuf face said it all however. "No, I'm pretty sure there would be one in Solitude, the capital city, but not in Whiterun. Why?"

Vincent pulled out the pouch he was using to carry all his gold. "I need someplace to store this money."

The two looked perplexed seeing as this was indeed a bit of an issue. Then Balgruuf lit up. "You know what? What do you say if you just keep it in my treasury? I'll just give you a note which will tell Avenicci how much money you have with us and then you can always come back and reclaim it!"

Vincent gave that thought a short thought and decided it wasn't half-bad. So they did just that though Vince kept 50 coins on him in case he would need anything.

Shortly after, he set off towards the stables just beyond the protection of the walls and hired a carriage to Riften for 15 gold pieces, thankfully, that's just how much the Jarl gave him.

They had to make a couple stops and one camp and the next morning they arrived to a fortified town by a lake. Its walls were thick but worn. After getting off the carriage and thanking the driver, this ride was more pleasant than his last one, he approached the gates and was stopped by a guard. 'Again? What is it with these guys? Is all of Skyrim like that?'

"Halt! Before I can let you in, you have to pay the visitor's tax" the guard proclaimed.

"What! What's the tax for!" Vincent was in disbelief.

"Why, for the priviledge of entering the city of course!" the guard replied.

'This has to be a joke, or some kind of set up!'. Then it hit him. The Thieves Guild was operating from Riften. 'What did Jose say? Its run by a guy name Mercury? No.' Darn, he couldn't remember the Guildmaster's name. 'What else was there? She said something a friend named Brynjolf. Let's hope for the best'. Vince cleared his throat.

"Right, this is obviously a shakedown! Tell Brynjolf that I won't fall for those tricks of his or I'll tell him myself" Vincent crossed his arms, putting up an act of defiance. To his relief, the guard, or rather the agent, admitted to the scam and let him in. 'Which means that if I meet a ugy named Brynjolf, I know who he really is'. The inside of the city felt quite compact. It may have been the fact that all the houses seemed to jut out forward on higher floors, overcast above the space where people walked. It wasn't too gloomy thankfully. There were both weeds and flowers growing along side the path and from what he could tell, the town centre also seemed specked with a few trees. The more time he spent in this Hold, the more he liked the Rift.

"Hey you! Come here, I wanna talk to you"

Vincent turned to see a hulking man leaning against a pillar. He wore steel armor with pauldrons and had a steel axe at his hip. To put it shortly; unimpressive. Regardless, Vince approached him.

The man started talking, with a gruff voice he said "I'm Maul," Vince rolled his eyes, "and I make sure everything runs smoothly around here for Maven. She's got the city in her pocket and the Thieves Guild to guard her back, don't do anything foolish or you'll end up talking to me again."

To which Vincent replied "Please. Stop stating the obvious and tell me something I don't know."

Maul however, simply glared so Vincent walked off towards the biggest building in the town. Unlike the Dragonsreach it wasn't so tall but it was clearly visible from the main town centre. The Mistveil Keep was a lovely building, though lacking in grandeur it made up in its more stout yet homely look, aided by the fact that it had vines creeping down its walls and plants planted in the front yard.

The meeting with the Jarl, Law-Giver she called herself, went well. He talked mostly to her steward about arranging fish deliveries to Whiterun but in the end it had to be ratified by her. When he was walking to the exit he overheard a couple of guards talking about a recent prisoner.

"Weird cat, all purple-ish in colour"

"And deranged too, pleading to be locked away though he hadn't comitted a crime"

"Can't wait until we can throw him out, though it would be nice to keep his ebony sword"

It was decided, Vincent had to see this Khajiit specimen. Purple fur? He would believe when he saw it!

So after exiting the Keep, he turned left to where he earlier saw the path that would lead downwards and presumably to the prison. He did come across a guard who wasn't so keen on letting anyone without authority through. A simple "I just talked to Law-Giver herself and am representing Jarl Balgruuf of Whiterun. Do you think I don't have the authority to be here?" solved the problem. In all honesty, he didn't have that authority, but the guard fell for it anyway. Gotta give it to him though, at least he was trying to do his job.

When he entered the prison, the first thing that one could hear was the whisper-like talk of a Khajiit who sounded like he was in a conversation with someone. A note on the table mentioned the Khajiit but told him no more than he already knew. With his hands behind his back like always, Vincent casually walked in to the prison area, step by step getting closer to the Khajiit; who turned out to not be wearing anything, not even prison rags. 'I suppose he doesn't need that with his fur but still'.

The jail gate was locked, at a pretty adept level too so Vincent's rudimentary alteration spells would not open that lock. Instead, he kept blasting it with Frostbite until it shattered. Maybe not as sophisticated as an alteration spell that opens locks but it gets the job done.

The Khajiit only now saw Vincent's arrival and looked upon his face with horror and dejection.

"Oh, it's you. You've finally came to kill me, have you?"

So yeah! Inigo will be Vincent's companion! I figured that no character in the vanilla game is as funny and interactive as Inigo so I chose him.

Also, this is a second update in one week. DON'T get used to that; I have half term week off so I had more time to write than usual. The next chapter will be out on Wednesday next week, just like I scheduled updates.

Let me repeat the mantra: please follow and review! Those really help and are massively appreciated!

Until next week!