Chapter 25: Blackwood

The journey to Leyawiin wasn't very long despite all the mud and swampland the group had to trudge through for hours. They had come at the peak of the rainy season, so all the roads were buried and pretty much lost. Every ten minutes another mudcrab was either stepped on or slashed to pieces.

Leyawiin itself wasn't as bad as Bravil. The houses were better kept up and the streets weren't as muddy and waterlogged. However, none of them noticed; they were all wondering where the Oblivion gate was.

"Hey," Baurus flagged down a patrolling guard, "where's Oblivion?"

"Taken care of," he grinned. "You all must be the heroes of Kvatch."

"By who?"

"The Fighter's Guild. First good job they've had in a while."

"Thanks." He turned back to the others with a frown printed on his face. "This has Black Night written all over it."

Ice pointed behind him. "Speak of the devil."

Black Night walked towards them, still adorned by her ebony armor, mace, and scowl. "You're too late."

"Thank goodness," Martin looked relieved. "No more worrying about you guys dying."

"We did the Oblivion gate in Cheydinhal, too."

"Who's paying you?" Baurus folded his arms."

"No one. It's good practice for my members, although the Counts pay us for our generosity to our fellow men."

"How?"

"The Mage's Guild developed some gloves for us to use from Morrowind. But I'm not in Leyawiin for the Oblivion gates."

"Then what?"

"The Blackwood Company."

Ice raised an eyebrow. "Who?"

"The Blackwood Company. They're a group of mercenaries that have been taking our jobs for way less than we charge."

"So you think something's wrong just because they have lower prices for their services," the Redguard shook his head. "Typical Fighter's Guild."

She grimaced again. "I know there's something wrong. An old member of the Fighter's Guild betrayed us and told them all he knew. He was one of the dead in a completely slaughtered village a mile out of Leyawiin. There's definitely something going on here."

"How do you know an angry member of your Fighter's Guild didn't kill him?" Nightshade regretted this as Black Night grabbed the collar of her armor and pulled her towards her face. "You calling my men murderers?"

She quickly shook her head as Baurus and Crow got her to let go. Black Night returned to her solemn posture. "We may have scoundrels and warriors in the Fighter's Guild but never would they murder someone that didn't pose a threat. There's definitely something going on here," her scowl turned back into a grin, "which is why I'm glad you all showed up."

Elyon folded her arms in disapproval. Ice began to fidget his feet. "What do you mean?"

"I need somebody to infiltrate the Blackwood Company and find out what's going on without getting killed. They know all the Fighter's Guild members, but two young, ambitious teenagers in need of money is very unsuspicious."

"Wait," Crow looked at Elyon, "why can't we go?"

"You're too experienced, too suspicious. We need fresh faces. The Hero of Kvatch and her little sidekick want to be a part of the fastest-growing mercenary group in ages. What's so suspicious of that?"

"I'm not little," Ice muttered, but Nightshade nudged him. "Well, I'm up for it. Beats Oblivion gates any day."

"Fine," he sulked a little.

"Perfect. Get a good look around the place, and be careful. Try not to ingest anything or wear any of their armor, and do this as quickly as possible. I don't want them getting smart to our little meeting. I'll be in the Guild hall right across the street from it. Good luck."

The Blackwood Company hall was a large, two-storied building adorned with suits of armor, trophies, and a grand dining room with a table to fit at least thirty people. There weren't too many people around, but Nightshade and Ice were directed only to an Argonian upstairs. When they reached him, however, he was talking to a familiar Khajiit. The reptilian beast made a toothy grin as they entered. "Well, more recruitsss, eh?"

"Yeah, we're looking for good-paying work," Ice approached him.

"Really?" he looked at them, examining them. "Wait, aren't you the Hero of Kvatch?"

"Heroes," he muttered. Nightshade ignored him. "Yes."

He grinned again, his mouth forming wrinkles on his scales, his voice wrapping around each syllable of his words as though he had learned the language from a dictionary. "Wonderful. All you have to do isss complete our initiation training."

"Training?" Ice raised an eyebrow. "Dude, we've been in the deepest depths of Oblivion and you think we need training?"

"Oh, our training is unlike any you've probably ever experiencssed." There was something wrong with the way he grinned that made the young girl shudder.

"Alright."

She hesitated. "O-okay."

"Excssellent," he hissed, "J'skitta, take the initiatesss to the basssement. We'll sssee just how well you have trained in Oblivion."

The Khajiit scowled, motioned for them to follow, and led them out of the room. As they left, Nightshade turned and out of the corner of her eye, she could see the Argonian's eyes sparkle and his lips still curled to a smirk, as if he knew something they didn't.

Down the stairs they followed S'rasha, him silent. Nightshade figured he was the only source of information they would get. "What are you doing here?"

"What do you think I'm doing here?" he growled. "Why do you keep following me around?"

"We're following because the Argonian said so—" Ice started. S'rasha turned violently. "Not that, you idiot! This is the third time I've run into you two."

Nightshade intervened. "Don't call him an idiot!"

"Why not? It's true. I've been watching you two long enough. Why don't you just get married already?"

The two dunmer blushed vividly as they reached the bottom of the steps. "And he's not just an Argonian. His name is Jeetum-Ze."

"Is he the leader?"

"No. We don't have a set leader, unlike the Fighter's Guild." He opened the basement door, his keys jingling, his dark, fiery orange fur showing a little through his armor. With a swoop of his arm he pushed them inside. "Get in."

The basement was a training room, one half below the other led by stairs, and a door below leading to somewhere they presumed was more training. They went down through a gate, where two other members with the Blackwood armor were waiting. The larger one, an angry-looking Khajiit, approached them, while the other, a shrimpy young High Elf, seemed to shrink a little at their presence.

"What took you so long?" the beast snarled.

"Jeetum-Ze had some new recruits," he muttered, his violent and irate manner back to his introverted style from before. He seemed almost embarrassed.

He snorted and examined them. "You're the Hero of Kvatch. What are you doing here? Don't you get enough fame?"

"I'm not in it for the fame," Nightshade stared right into the Khajiit's eyes, returning the challenge in them, as Ice hissed again, "Heroes." "I want some money."

For a few seconds they held the stare, Nightshade unsure of why she was doing it. Then, he grunted. "Fine. But I doubt you'll last very long." He snapped his claws and the altmer scuttled to a shelf. "Get on some armor. I'm your captain, Ja'Fazir, and your new boss. Don't cross me."

They shed their own armor, revealing their shabby clothes, and put the dark steel armor with the large tree on. They wore the smallest size, but Ice still looked like a round shining ball. He was laughed at by his companion and frowned with shame.

"Right, you'll need to drink this," the Khajiit took several bottles down from the shelf. "It'll give both speed and strength for our assignment."

"Umm, what is our assignment?" Nightshade asked as everyone uncorked their bottles. Their captain scowled with annoyance. "We're going to Forsaken Mine to the south. There have been reports of trolls attacking the miners." As he turned around to get his bottle and the others chugged theirs, Ice nudged her, shook his head, and pointed to the bottle. Black Night's words came back to her about being careful. He nodded, put up the colored bottle bottom up, and pretended to drink. Nightshade followed suit, and saw Ice quickly hide the bottle in his armor.

"Right, let's get this over with," he drank the bottle in one go. "Follow us and don't fall behind; we're not here to babysit."

Invigorated by their drink the group ran with their heavy armor all the way to the mine outside of Leyawiin. The two dunmer were huffing and puffing, their bodies hurting like knives were stabbing them, but the others didn't notice. In fact, they seemed rather indifferent to everything. As they entered the cave they hardly noticed the dark; they simply ran in silence while the two stumbled around, tripping on rocks. "Come on," S'rasha hissed before Ja'Fazir slowed to a stop.

Nightshade and Ice saw with their blood-red eyes a Breton miner with dirt-stained clothes picking away at a vein of ore in the wall. Confused, he put his pick down and asked, "What are you doing here?"

Ja'Fazir acted too fast for the Breton to comprehend. He took his claymore and planted it straight down his head.

The dunmer stared, dumbfounded at this act of sudden brutality, while the Khajiit simply said, "Stupid trolls."

"This is madness," Ice whispered in horror as the others ran deeper and hacked anyone they saw and were too preoccupied to notice the two novices not joining in. Nightshade nodded in agreement. "We need to stop them."

"Don't be stupid," he growled lowly. "They're too strong; we would die and then what would Black Night do? Let's just ditch the armor and get back to Leyawiin. We have enough for Black Night to act on, plus evidence." He took off the armor, revealing his tattered brown tunic, black pants, and the bottle. Nightshade followed suit and the two slipped away into the darkness without the insane warriors noticing.

The sun was beginning to lower in the sky when Ice and Nightshade ran into Leyawiin, sweating profusely from the afternoon heat and humidity. They were terrified that maybe they had been followed by one of the mercenaries, so they went straight to the inn where Baurus, Martin, Crow, Elyon, and Richu were relaxing in.

Elyon was the first to see them coming into the bar area. "What happened, and where's your armor?"

"Back at the hall. We need to find Black Night, and fast. They're all dying down there, in the dark…" Nightshade trailed off, bloody images coming to her mind, making her feel a little faint.

"Maybe you can identify this," Ice held up the bottle shimmering in the sunlight. "They drank it before they killed everyone."

"Killed who?" Baurus got up with concern on his face.

"The miners down in Forsaken Mine. They just… slaughtered them…" Nightshade sat down in a chair, looking distant, "for no reason at all…"

Martin sighed. "They had just reopened that mine too."

"Ah, well, I don't think it was for no reason," Ice shook a finger. "They kept calling them trolls. Maybe they really thought they were trolls."

Elyon studied the liquid and nodded. "I think you're right. I saw something like this when I was studying alchemy in Morrowind. It must be some sort of hallucinogen, a stimulant, a drug, causing them to see things differently and feel powerful at the same time."

"But why?"

"Black Night will figure that part out," Elyon readied himself. "Ice, come with me."

As they left Martin looked at Nightshade, worried. "Are you okay?"

She shook her head. Crow looked at her interestingly too. "It must be a side effect from not wearing that amulet while in battle. While you should've had the power you didn't, so your body must be out of alignment."

"Should I lay down?"

"No. You need to be strong without the power and get used to it."

She sighed and relaxed in her chair, wondering what Black Night would say when she heard the news.

"Aha!" Black Night exclaimed, her face lighting up as she snatched the bottle out of Elyon's hands. "Do you know what this is?"

"Some sort of hallucinogen, I suspect," Elyon frowned a little, but her eyes shimmered with amusement.

"Correct! This is the extract of a Hist tree," she snapped her fingers to an apprentice, who quickly nodded and left her room in the Fighter's Guild Hall. "These trees are illegal trees from the Black Marsh simply because everyone misuses it to create these poisons. We've raided smuggling parties with this stuff before. It's worse than skooma."

"How?" Ice watched her put on her ebony armor.

"You've seen what it can do. Skooma just makes you laugh a little and kills your brain while this stuff makes you see this really differently. Somehow the Blackwood Company have found a way to control what a person hallucinates specifically."

Elyon looked bewildered. "But why?"

"They must do illegal work alongside regular work, which explains how they can afford to do jobs so cheaply. In order to keep it a secret they make sure not even their own people know what's going on. Luckily for you they took you to a secret mission."

"What are we going to do?"

"We'll raid them, demand that they close down, and kill the Hist tree so no one can continue their company." She strapped on her mace and stood up to face them. "If we have to fight, we fight. Do you have any idea where the tree might be?"

Ice thought for a moment. "Well, there was that door in the basement."

"Good, we'll try that. Don't you have any armor?" she noticed Ice's clothes as he shook his head. "Well, put on the chainmail armor over there, and hurry it up."

The three of them, including five other members of the guild and the apprentice Black Night had talked to ran across the street to the Blackwood Company hall. Black Night kicked the door open, adrenaline pumping through her with excitement, and yelled, "Show us the Hist tree or you're all going to be in big trouble!"

She grunted as an Argonian woman came hurtling at her, screaming, "Fighter's Guild scum!" Several other members charged at the others. Ice tumbled out of the way, quickly unsheathing his daggers, and headed straight for the basement door, only to be blocked by S'rasha, glaring at him with his yellow, cat-like eyes. Without a word they clashed blades. Elyon was fiercely punching anyone who got in her way, and ended up facing Ja'Fazir with his sharp axe. She had to dodge him with lightning speed.

Ice, mustering up all of his strength, managed to push S'rasha into the pandemonium and quickly cast a purple spell onto the door. It's lock clicked open, and he quickly went in before S'rasha knew what was going on.

Nightshade lounged in the lobby of the inn, staring at the ceiling with boredom. Crow was reading a book Nightshade had recognized from the Imperial City that had no title on the cover. Martin was studying his notes he had brought with him. He had relayed how he had sent some Blades to a tomb called Sancre Tor, where the third and last component was, the armor of Tiber Septim himself for the blood of a Nine, but he had this bad feeling that he had missed something. Baurus was filing his nails.

The door to the inn suddenly swung violently open, revealing both a gusty wind and what looked to be two humans. Nightshade looked up to see a girl, no older than herself, accompanied by a rather tall man. Both were Dark Elves and wore odd clothing. The girl was dressed in a billowy blouse adorned with a floral pattern and many beads and a skirt made of several layers of fabric, each longer than the other as they went closer to her feet. The man looked rather worn out and irritated. Both of them were carrying cases and bags, but clearly the man carried more.

The two of them walked up to the proprietor, who stood behind the bar, and the girl asked in a shrilly, young, a bit excited voice, "May we please have a room?"

They paid the proprietor and began to head upstairs to the room before she noticed Nightshade staring at her. For a moment their eyes locked on each other in bewilderment before the girl laughed. "Hey, you're the Hero of Kvatch!" she dropped all of her bags and walked briskly towards her in a bouncy fashion and a huge smile on her face. "It's such a pleasure to meet you!"

"Umm, same here," Nightshade had never received such an excited greeting before. "I'm Nightshade."

"Ooo, I never imagined I would meet you here, or anywhere! The things they say about you and your friends are most fascinating. Oh, I'm Takura Telvanni."

"You're accent's from Morrowind, huh?"

"Yes, is that obvious? Well, I suppose it would be. I'm more specifically from Vvardenfall."

"Oh," Nightshade was becoming a little interested, her boredom ebbing away, "what brings you here?"

"That's a long story—"

"I've got time."

Takura looked behind her to see that her escort had taken the bags up to her room. "Well, to put it simply, I'm looking for my love. He left rather unexpectedly and we were supposed to get married several months ago."

Nightshade scoffed a little. "You must love him a lot."

"Very much so. You see, our marriage will bring the alliance of the Telvanni and Hlaalu house together. I can't imagine why he would leave. It's like he didn't love his family or something like that." She looked out of a window behind Nightshade. "I should get going; I have a lot of unpacking to do. Good-bye! It was truly a pleasure to meet you."

"Good-bye," Nightshade waved once, "and good luck on your mission."

"Thank you," she beamed, "I have a feeling I'll find him here."

Ice ran for his life through the basement, down several down-hill halls, and a torture chamber. S'rasha and the rest of the party were several meters behind him, chasing each other and trying to stop each other. He finally reached a door marked with a tree and yanked it open while simultaneously casting an unlock spell.

Four purple-robed people looked in alarm at Ice as he stumbled into the room with the large Hist tree. He noticed that there were many pipes attached to the trunk and that were making deep noises. There was a confused pause before S'rasha followed by the others pushed him away. As the fight came into the tree room the robed people joined in, casting spells in multiple directions. Elyon came to Ice's rescue bearing Ja'Fazir's axe, a prize she took when he tripped and fell in one of the halls, and took over the fight with S'rasha. "Break a pipe or something!" she shouted to Ice above the clanging of swords and weapons. In a panic he began to slash random pipes quickly, and in a few seconds an angry hissing sound was emitted into the cavernous room. Everyone stopped to listen, and then a robed man yelled, "Quick, she's going to blow up!"

It was a mad, chaotic struggle towards the door as everyone scrambled to get out. The group made their way into the hall while the tree rumbled and the room began to collapse. Popping noises whizzed past them, and when it boomed into debris it pushed them all out into the training room.

"Right," Black Night was the first up and on her feet and was baring her mace menacingly. "Anyone with the Blackwood Company had better surrender now because that explosion was bound to wake the whole city."

Reluctantly and sorely some of them got up, accepting defeat, while others, including S'rasha and the altmer Ice had seen earlier, were rather perplexed. Elyon noticed this. "Didn't you know?"

"Know what?" the altmer asked.

"That stuff you were drinking was an illegal drug that made you see things differently," Ice frowned. "It's obvious the higher-ups knew."

Black Night took away the weapons held by the members. "We'll take you to the prison and can let the incredibly slow law judge you. You two," she pointed her mace to Elyon and Ice, "I'll see you tomorrow. You should get some rest."

They nodded, and left the Fighter's Guild to the job.

That night, as Ice lied there on his bed, sharing his room with Nightshade, he thought about the past day. He turned to look at the female dunmer. "Nightshade, are you awake?"

"Umm…"

"I've been thinking."

"That's nice."

"I don't think all those members deserved to get arrested. I think they sincerely didn't know what's going on. I mean, S'rasha did try to kill you, twice, but still, his confusion was genuine. And that tree, why did they have to kill it? It didn't do anything. Why couldn't it keep living—"

"Ice?"

"What?"

"Get some sleep."