It was a cold, murky night when Lucien Lachance spied relief in the form of a small village. He had been hoping for Chorrol but suspected the city was too far for his companion to make it. It was such good fortune finding her that the assassin was mildly suspicious that it was not fortune at all but the divine interference of someone or something. He moved slower than he would have liked through the mud, delayed by the young, lithe form of the woman he supported by the waist with her limp arm across her shoulders. He knew something had to be terribly wrong for her not to have fought back his help and to allow him to guide her here.
The village didn't look like much, there were a lot of ruined homes and only eight or so buildings of stone and wood, there was a stone well in the centre of the square the buildings formed and the most prominent building was a stone chapel at the back with ivy and moss on it though to which Divine Lucien could not tell. He moved towards a rundown building almost devoured by ivy with a scratched wooden sign flapping in the wind, the sign depicted a crescent moon and a star in faded, chipped paint giving the assassin hope that it was an inn. He hurried to it, pausing for a second of relief when they were under the shelter of the wooden porch, and kicked his feet against the stone wall to loosen some of the muck off them as there was no mat. He fumbled with the woman and the damp handle of the rotting, wooden door before he finally opened it.
'Well I've seen worse,' the Imperial thought grimly as they entered a bare looking room lit by a few thin candles halfway melted and burning in pools of their remnants. There were a few dusty tables and chairs and an equally filthy looking bar behind which a balding Imperial stood scowling at them.
"Skulls," Lucien's companion murmured feverishly, "red skulls."
"Save the crazy for just a moment," he murmured to her quietly before placing her down on one of the dirty chairs by the door. He stepped up to the bar and looked across to the publican politely. "Good evening, can you tell me what this fine village is called?"
"Hackdirt," came the blunt reply, "it's a private place," he added threateningly, "we don't like outsiders."
"Who does?" Lucien retorted sardonically. "Well it is our misfortune that it was the closest sanctuary we could reach. Do you have rooms?"
"I guess we've got a room available. 30 gold per night. Take it or leave it," came the gruff reply.
Lucien resisted the urge to sigh. 'Such a friendly innkeeper,' he thought sarcastically. "If I were to leave it I would never have asked," he retorted calmly. "One room will suffice."
The balding Imperial glanced over Lucien's shoulder suspiciously to the soaked blonde who was slumped in her chair and murmuring something under her breath. "She had better not be carrying something contagious," he said sternly.
"Misery is a curse not a disease," Lucien retorted brightly. "Now, the room key if you please." He produced a small, black pouch of gold, opened it and counted out thirty pieces.
"Fine. Take the stairs up to the right, the room on the left. No visitors allowed. And no pets," the innkeeper snapped before taking the coin and producing an iron key from under the bar, which he handed to Lucien.
Lucien gave a thin smile of thanks before turning back to the blonde who was simultaneously sweating and shivering now. "Come sweet child," he murmured to her softly as he lifted her to her feet, "the dark comfort of the night is at hand." He guided her to the wooden staircase, which was in need of a good sweep, and escorted her upstairs. They walked over several creaking floorboards before entering a room littered with a healthy amount of cobwebs and mouse droppings. The single bed was lacking with only one blanket and pillow but there was a small fireplace in the room, giving Lucien a sliver of hope for the woman.
The assassin abandoned the blonde to the bed before busying himself with attempting to light the fire; there was a small amount of kindling within to which he added some cobwebs and the remains of a few tattered books on a lone bookshelf. He used two stones sitting nearby to create a spark and once the fire started he began hunting for more kindling. He opened a drawer and grinned at seeing a plain, black book within, it would make decent kindling. He opened it curiously, his grin widening as he realised it was a diary, presumably of a teenager judging from the black scrawl that said, 'KEEP OUT OR MAY A GOBLIN BITE OFF YOUR NOSE!'
"Now what's this doing here?" Lucien pondered aloud as he flicked through it; he gathered that it belonged to an Argonian called Dar-Ma from Chorrol, one who delivered things from her mother's shop. He got to the last page and took more time to take it in, frowning just a little at its last words- 'Well, the candle is almost burned down (they don't even provide a lantern in this horrible old inn!), so I guess I'd better try to get some sleep. If I CAN even sleep with all the creaking in this old place! I keep thinking I hear footsteps outside the door; I'm so on edge - GROW UP, Dar! I'm sure in the morning it will all seem quaint and charming. Good night, Diary!'
The Imperial closed the book and chose to pocket it rather than burn it. 'Something's definitely off about this Hackdirt,' he thought suspiciously as he finally turned his attention back to the blonde, something was most definitely off about her too. He picked her up and placed her down before the fire, next he wrapped the blanket about her and finally he plucked off his dark robes and wrapped them about her too. He sat behind her cross-legged, pulling her up into a sitting position.
She looked at the small, amber flames with blurred emerald eyes and let out a small moan. "The dead won't stay dead," she groaned.
"Rarely is that the case," Lucien acknowledged, "which is good given our business, people might think they had been cheated if our victims didn't stay beneath the ground."
"Red skulls," she murmured, "and blue eyes, they glowed."
"I hope this wasn't in Kvatch," Lucien retorted calmly, "by all reports the end of the world has started there. First our emperor is murdered, and then Kvatch goes down in flames and a wave of Daedra."
She shook her head weakly. "A big, black beast, horrible...he took something...it hurts..."
"Hmm, I didn't expect to find you so soon sweet child, you left Kvatch but who could say to where? Then I find you to the north lying in the muck ranting nonsense, it's very strange. When you come to your senses, and you will, you will have a lot to explain."
Lucien, upon receiving word from Mathieu, had hastened to the Imperial City and headed from there to Kvatch hoping to find the blonde en route, certain that she would rush back to her beloved thieves. He had veered north to avoid Skingrad and was surprised to eventually find her in the woods close to the main path, pale, shaking and utterly delirious, collapsed in a puddle of mud, with no clue as to how long she had been there.
He raised a hand to her brow, it was ice cold, and pushed her closer to the fire, it was small but better than nothing. 'I can't lose the silly girl now,' he thought angrily, 'imagine her dying of fever or cold, pathetic and inconvenient. Where is that Fox of ours? He's meant to be a crafty fellow; surely tracking her shouldn't be hard for him.'
They remained by the fire for an hour before Sera finally passed out, Lucien left her there curled up beneath the blanket and his sable robes, with the lone pillow beneath her head. He then moved the only chair to the left of the door and sat there, clasping his palms together and resting his chin on them with a thoughtful look. It was going to be a long night and he was determined not to suffer a long day here too, no matter the blonde's state tomorrow he would urge her on to Chorrol where she could recover in better conditions. 'This is ridiculous,' he thought moodily, 'to be babysitter but what choice do I have? If I lose her I lose all leverage and all chances of making the impossible possible.'
He tensed just a little upon hearing footsteps on the stairs, quiet but not quiet enough. The knife was out and at the intruder's throat before the door was barely opened. Startled by the strange state of the intruder Lucien faltered to make the kill blow. It was a man, half-naked and wild looking with unnaturally bulbous eyes that made his face alien and alarming in appearance.
"Intruder, kill!" the man snapped as he tried to lift his crude, spiked, wooden club.
"I'm afraid not," Lucien said smoothly as he recovered from his surprise and slit the man's throat in one clean, fluid motion. He gave a sigh of irritation as his grey shirt was splattered with droplets of crimson and frowned as the weird man made a show of twitching as he fell to the floor and bled out.
"What in Oblivion is going on?" Sera groaned wearily from behind him. The noises had disturbed her back to consciousness and to Lucien's relief she looked more lucid than before although her eyes were bloodshot and sunken, and exhaustion clung to her like an old friend.
"I think that is quite an open question," Lucien mused. "At this moment a bug eyed intruder has just been thwarted by me, but why he came here and what's wrong with him, I don't know. The best option is to leave."
"Leave where?" Sera demanded. She tried to shrug off the robes weighing her down and only then noticed that they were robes, his robes, black and secretive like the ones he had gifted her with, a colour to swallow all sins. She shuddered with loathing and thrust them and the blanket from her shoulders. 'How did we get here? When did we become we?' she wondered nervously.
"Hackdirt," he retorted calmly. "Now, where there is one madman there are usually more, get up quickly Sera and let's go."
She stood but it took effort, her knees knocked together and her body quivered as fresh sweat laced down it. She touched her brow as a pang of pain ran through it and a dizzy spell disabled her briefly. She let out a moan as a vision of red skulls and walking corpses filled her and shook her head rapidly to dismiss it.
"We can play catch up later," Lucien said, still calm, "let's just depart."
The assassin led the way out and the blonde followed closely, frowning when she realised she had no weapons. 'He wouldn't take them,' she thought curiously, 'he encourages the use of them so then who and when?' There was another image, this time of robed figures and a huge, pulsing thing. She swallowed down a mouthful of bile and chose not to pursue the images.
Lucien was unsurprised to find the innkeeper gone and was equally unsurprised to find the night still damp and cold and now full of large eyed men, six to be precise, all wielding clubs and looked to him and Sera with hate.
"INTRUDERS, KILL!" they screamed before charging.
Lucien let out a sigh of annoyance, all too aware that Sera had currently only a pitchfork seized from the inn's wall to protect herself with. He moved smoothly, too quick and skilled for the crass attackers, his dagger lashing out with precision and ease, every cut fatal as he opened up veins on throats and wrists.
Sera beat two off with her pitchfork, waving it at them threateningly and gritting her teeth when a club struck it and the force vibrated through it. She cursed when the same club smacked off her right leg painfully and retaliated with a rage fuelled thrust of the pitchfork. Lucien took the briefest of moments to glance over and appreciate the kill, artistic, bold and just a little too dramatic but impressive nonetheless. The pitchfork impaled one of the men through his bare chest, sending him stumbling back awkwardly as blood spewed from his lips.
With three still standing, swinging their clubs and shouting, Lucien thought the fight might just be a little more challenging than anticipated but then another joined the fray. He was a poor looking Imperial, thankfully fully clothed and without the big eyes, he swung a mace with a cry into one of the attacker's skulls. Lucien resumed battling off his current opponent leaving the new arrival to finish the second as mace met club before the mace smashed a couple of ribs and finally caved in another skull. Lucien ended their final opponent with more grace, slashing his face open from ear to ear.
Lucien turned to the new arrival who was now doubled over and panting. "Who are you?" the assassin demanded coldly as he flicked his blade outwards, causing the blood to splash off it.
"Jiv Hiriel," the man panted out as he dropped his mace and stood to look at the assassin's frosty, golden-brown stare.
"A villager," Lucien guessed, "well thank you for your help but this place doesn't seem to like newcomers so we will be on our way."
"Wait!" Jiv protested. "There's a girl!" he blurted out. "I didn't know it would be like this! You have to believe me; I didn't know what they were planning. They want to bring back the Deep Ones. I thought I did, too, but ... she's so innocent. They've got her down in the caverns. They're going to sacrifice her, you understand?"
Sera's eyes widened in horror as she wondered if she was still dreaming and caught in a bizarre nightmare. 'Who's going to sacrifice who?' she wondered in confusion.
"She's an Argonian girl, just a delivery girl, she doesn't deserve this!" Jiv explained.
"Dar-Ma," Lucien guessed.
Jiv nodded anxiously. "You know her then!"
"Oh quite personally," Lucien retorted with a small, mocking smile.
"You've got to save her! Here, take this key." The Imperial fumbled with his pockets before producing an ornate, brass and ivory key and pushing it into Lucien's free hand. "It'll open any of the trapdoors down to the caves. Every house in town has one. The one in Moslin's Inn is your best bet. Nearest where she's being held. You will save her won't you?"
"No," Lucien answered flatly.
"What?" Jiv looked at him in disbelief and then pleadingly. "Please," he begged, "this isn't right, she's innocent and there's no one else and they will do it tonight! I'm begging you, for her sake!"
"I'll go," Sera offered coldly as she took a step towards them, "but only if you explain more about what's going on. Who's going to sacrifice her and why? What do you mean by Deep Ones?"
Lucien turned on the blonde with such a fierce glower she filled with terror and flinched but she did not retract her offer. "You are in no state to be playing hero," the assassin scolded her.
"Look," Jiv explained, "I was only a boy when the soldiers came, they didn't like us worshipping the Deep Ones. We hid, vowed revenge. But the Deep Ones never came back. Etira, she's the one that found them old books. Learned the runes, how to speak to them again. But they want blood, she says, or they'll not help us."
"Deep Ones?" Sera echoed.
"I don't know much. Never seen them myself. Our grandfathers first found them, I think, digging in the mines. They helped us. Made us rich. But there was a terrible price. Blood - and worse. Caves run all beneath the town. Some natural, some dug over the years since we found the Deep Ones. Every house has an entrance now."
"Oh good, a creepy cult who are into sacrifice," Lucien purred sardonically, "that's highly original."
"And what about these...men?" Sera queried as she gestured at the half-naked dead men.
"Those of us who've changed the most, we call The Brethren," Jiv retorted. "Live down in the caves, to be nearer the Deep Ones. They don't like the sunlight much; it's why their eyes have gone that way, lack of light."
"Time to go Sera," Lucien ordered sternly, "I have neither the time nor the patience for this nonsense."
"I won't let an innocent die!" Sera snapped fiercely as she clenched her fists and glowered at the dark haired male.
"You're not a good liar," Lucien answered her coolly as he turned a glare back on her.
"Please, she can't have much time left," Jiv said. "I have to go now before I'm missed, they will be starting The Gathering soon but do as I have asked, go the caves and save her!" He bolted off into the drizzly night before Lucien or Sera could ask anymore.
"The answer is no," Lucien said firmly.
Sera folded her arms and continued to glower at him. "There was no question," she responded icily.
"I have the key," he reminded her.
"I'm a thief, locks don't bother me," she retorted boldly.
"You can barely walk and that fight took its toll," he commented, noting how she could not stand straight and how her breathing was laboured.
"So help me or let me die trying," she said bluntly before turning round and walking back into the inn. She hunted behind the bar for the trap door and found it exposed but locked. With ease she plucked out a lockpick and made short work of the lock.
"You've no weapon."
She bit back a yelp at the voice; damn the man could be quiet when he wanted to be! She tried to be calm, refusing to let him see that he had startled her but it was in vain because he knew. "I'll manage," she retorted angrily through gritted teeth. Her head was pounding and the sweat was running faster, her skin was damp from the rain and rapidly going from cold to hot as sweat replaced the rain droplets. An image of Berich Inian filled her and she swallowed hard as it flashed from his concerned face to his bloodstained corpse. Lucien was right, she was a liar, she had let an innocent die, worse she had been the one to kill him. What could the guard have ever done? Had he some dark secret like the others? It was unlikely, the Brotherhood did not discriminate and Lucien would not be kind enough to have her kill only the wicked. Still, she had to know.
"Berich," the blonde spoke up quietly as she sat back from the trapdoor, "what was his crime?"
"Crime?" Lucien echoed smoothly.
"Rufio and Dorian had crimes," Sera murmured, "they were guilty of wicked deeds, that's why someone called the Brotherhood on them but what did Berich Inian do?"
"Does it matter?" he queried as he smirked. 'Poor tortured Sera,' he thought tauntingly, 'bothered by the murder of a guard she didn't even know.'
"Yes," she retorted sternly, her irritation slipping into her voice.
"Well I don't know," the assassin retorted carelessly, "to my knowledge someone simply did not like him but none of us are innocent so I'm sure he had his sins. Now, if you are determined to continue on with this reckless mission take a weapon."
She flinched as he pressed the cool handle of a knife against her hand and turned to look at it. It was a long bladed kitchen knife, crude but effective, the tool of a chef, the weapon of a butcher. She swallowed hard as she tasted blade and saw Berich once more, his throat slashed open by her dagger. It had been so horribly easy, why had she done it? Because he was watching, because she feared for the thieves, yes that was all true but there was something else... 'No,' she thought angrily, 'there was no other reason!'
"There was child, you enjoyed it, the bloodlust is hard to satiate and once you start it it's there forever." That horrid voice again! Sera cursed mentally to herself as she shook her head before snatching the knife and opening the trapdoor.
There were old, rotting, wooden steps that led down into darkness, as Sera walked down them slowly, leaning against the wall for support, she wondered if perhaps they should have brought a torch. It was to her relief that a faint glow finally appeared guiding her to the damp smelling, murky cave. It was a small cave with a narrow opening, lit by a single torch hanging in an iron ring against the wall and littered with barrels and crates. Sera recoiled slightly as the smell of rotting fish immediately attacked her nostril and she saw that some of the barrels were open and full of the creatures, wide eyed, bloody gilled and most definitely dead and decaying.
"Delightful," Lucien purred sardonically as he gave the cave a look of displeasure. "Well the Imperial fool said the prisoner would be near here," he commented quietly.
Sera nodded and led the way up the tunnel, her knife gripped tightly and ready for any foe. They both moved carefully and quietly using their stealth skills, eager not to invite danger if they did not have to. Thankfully the tunnel was void of bulbous eyed men or other foes and it did not take them long to walk up it. They reached a much chamber lit with a few torches and sullied with broken barrels, crates and benches and a single cage built crudely against the cave wall with iron and wood. Thankfully it was occupied by a distressed looking female Argonian clad in a filthy dress. Sera glanced about the cave carefully taking note of three other entrances before she hastened to the cage.
The Argonian looked at the blonde in shock before she rushed to the front of the cage and grasped the rusting bars desperately. "Please, let me out of here!" she hissed at Sera anxiously. "You must help me escape. I think these creatures plan to do something horrible to me tonight!"
"I know," Sera muttered, "and I'll help but be quiet before you bring them upon us." She tugged out a lockpick and fit it into the rusted lock before hurrying to unlock it, unaware that Lucien had slinked back to the shadows.
"It looks like the Deep Ones shall have two sacrifices tonight."
Sera turned quickly at the voice, knife at the ready but seeing four armed villagers and six armed Brethren she knew she did not stand a chance. Her emerald eyes darted about the cave briefly for Lucien but he was nowhere to be seen. 'Either he's left me,' she thought coolly, 'or there is still a very slim chance of leaving this cave alive.'