{ === + === }

[3rd Person Camera]

Byrnjolf grimaces as he faces down the mage. Well, this is a pickle. He steals a sideways glance at the dagger lying a good two feet away from his hand…he could reach it if he made a large move, but…

Ash shoots the dagger with lightning and it slides underneath a door.

Well, that's useful. Byrnjolf gulps.

If there's one thing that the thieve's guild should be known for, it is their ability to deceive and manipulate, so that the victim doesn't even realize that they were stolen from until much, much later in their week. As the vice-guildmaster, Byrnjolf was quite versed in the arts taught and practiced by the guild.

One such art involves lying vicariously without a shred of shame. "I-I-I'm sorry! I didn't know!" He says, perfectly mimicking the voice of a young man who's done something stupid and is now way over his head. It helped that he shaved this morning.

Ash scowls. "Who are you?"

"I'm a, I'm uh, I'm new, and I'm sorry, and I won't do it again." Byrnjolf sputters, perfectly panicked.

"Fun. Not what I asked you." Ash's hand crackles again.

Inwardly, Byrnjolf smiles. Quite easy to read. "Right right, uh, I, um, my name's Fan." Byrnjolf says, complete with an extremely obvious 'I'm lying' body language.

Ash sighs. "Right. Well then, 'Fan', why are you in my house?"

Oh, he let that one slide? Interesting. "My boss said that your thing. House. Your house was super super rich." Byrnjolf looks around. "So…I figured."

"You…" Ash frowns. "…aren't that bright, are you."

Well, we're still on track. Byrnjolf could have shrugged. "I'm just new to this." He says with a sulk. "Nothing wrong with that." One of the major tenets of speechcraft was to make sure that the other side feels like they're in control of the conversation, and he seems to be succeeding on that end.

Ash rolls his eyes. "Riiight. Well, more to the point, where did you get that bottle?"

Byrnjolf gives Ash the 'deer in the headlights' look. "What bottle?" The bottle in question was rolling next to his feet.

"That one." Ash says, indicating the bottle. "Where did you get it?"

Byrnjolf makes a decision. Probably not good to be too stupid about this. "My, er, boss, gave it to me." He says. "Something about it being good for me."

"Huh." Ash scowls some more. "Who's your boss?"

Why the sudden interest? Byrnjolf wonders. "Some bloke named Byrnjolf. Why?" He says.

Ash cocks his head. "And he didn't say anything else about this."

"Well, he said it was a potion bottle and I believed him." Byrnjolf shrugs. "Said it was valuable too."

…

[1st Person Camera]

…

Alright, so…now what? Apparently I've nearly shocked a rat to death. He has ties to Byrnjolf and thus the Thief's Guild, but he did try to rob my house and tried to shank my girls…Plus, this is Riften, which means the local guards are likely in somebody's pocket…

…I mean, he's an asshole, but I'm not exactly in the mood to just kill some random chump. Decisions, decisions…

…ok, I got it. "Alright, here's what we'll do." NOPE I changed my mind. I cast Calm on the guy.

Byrnjolf blinks in surprise and then instinctively shakes it off.

…

…Huh?

Wait, wait, he shook it off?

I'm not gonna toot my own horn here but I'm fucking amazing when it comes to putting raw power into my spells, and you're telling me that this…whoever he is, just resisted it? Like, given how I thought he was a random schmuck, I hit him with a Calm powerful enough to sedate him (ish). You don't just 'shrug it off'.

"Was that magic?" Fan asks. "What did you just try to do to me?" He starts to panickly scramble back and we can't have that now can we

We throw some bolts around him and he immediately stops scurrying.

"I didn't say you can leave." Let's not tell him that my spell didn't work on him now shall we… "For now, I'd rather that you stay put so we can figure out what to do with you." Let's see here…

Well, we have a lot of rooms and quite a few of them are empty still. I really, really don't trust him to just get up and bolt, so let's use this one.

We open the door closest to us. We're about two doors down from him.

"Come towards me and into here." I say. "Stay on your hands and knees."

'Fan' complies slowly and crawls towards me. I back up and maintain shooting distance until he gets into the room, and then close the door and Transmute the latch into basically a slab of steel.

…anyways, who the hell is he? The bottle given to Aria is made to fit onto her belt and not affect her combat speed and has the Warwolf insignia on it. Apart from that it isn't super duper valuable or whatever, so…why did she get rid of it? Was she hurt bad enough to need to use it and toss it like that?

Well, I guess, more accurately, 1) why did she get rid of it and 2) what did the Thief's Guild see in it that made it worth taking? I'm not dumb enough to take everything that 'Fan' said at face value, regardless of how true it sounded, but there just isn't enough information.

Anyways, let's see to our girls.

Just some minor bruising.

She walks it off like a champ, of course.

…

[3rd Person Camera]

…

Byrnjolf found himself both locked up and slightly impressed by the mage who did it. He's robbed plenty of magic practitioners throughout his life as a thief, and thus has seen a wide spectrum of personalities as a result. His personal favorites were the ones far too prideful of the fact that they mastered a spell besides Flames and Healing, and his least favorites were the ones that tended to shoot first and never ask questions.

…Well, that wasn't entirely true: the shoot first ones were fun in their own way.

But this one…is special. Not because of the precision Shock magic, but because of the fact that the lock to the door seemed to have been sealed with a sheet of metal.

Either his sense of security is too warped, or he placed this here afterwards. Byrnjolf muses, surveying the small room with even smaller standing space. A house built for those who work, eh?

The door was obviously unpickable, and the window…well, sneaking out of the window is in the cards, but considering the circumstances it might be better to wait around and see what this group is like. Best case scenario, this wizard, who is very likely the same one that put all those fake coins in circulation, would be very open to be recruited as an associate to the Thief's Guild.

As an added bonus, the bed's quite nice.

…

[1st Person Camera]

…

Jake and company returned about an hour before things got dark. I briefed them and then we all had dinner. Afterwards, we (me and Jake) have some time to compare notes on figuring out how to deal with 'Fan'.

"Obviously, no named characters in the storyline with that name." Jake says. "Unless you count the annoying fan but, y'know. I'd say he's Byrnjolf by virtue of him being a Nord and matching the description, but then we would've seen like, 40 of him on our way home." He scratches his head. "You think the number two of the thieves' guild would actually stay back and let someone else take the risks."

Yeah, this is why though I don't know who 'Fan' is I don't think he's Byrnjolf. "He resisted my magic, so I think he's at least a ranking member in the guild."

Jake nods. "Maybe I'll intimidate him."

So we're going to scare some dude into telling us where a cute girl is. Cool.

So we do.

I unblock the door and open it up to reveal the man sleeping peacefully on the bed. At least strip before you do that, dammit, now I have to wash the bed.

Jake loudly clears his throat, and the man stirs.

"Am I free to leave?" 'Fan' asks groggily. "This is the best prison I've ever been to, I have to say…" He finally(?) sees Jake standing at the door. "You're, uh, not him."

I'm hiding out of sight.

"You're 'Fan', yeah?" Jake asks gruffly. "You got balls trying to sneak into our house."

"In my defense your house is rather large." Fan says while steadily backing away towards the window. "I'm kind of new at this."

"Yeah, I bet." Jake turns on his intimidating aura. "Why do you have something of ours?"

"I…didn't know it was yours." Fan says slowly, not seemingly affected at all. In other words, he's confident enough in his own abilities that Jake doesn't scare him at all.

…Either he's incredibly, incredibly stupid or else he's on Aria's level.

Jake feels it too, and moves to draw his dagger.

"Whoa." Fan raises his hands. "I really don't want to fight here."

"Neither do we, but you're obviously lying about who you are." Jake says. "Way I see it? You're a bigshot in the Thieves' Guild. I'm pretty ok with offing you right here to save ourselves the trouble later, especially if you're actually an enemy of ours."

Fan blinks. "Alright, alright, I'll talk." He leans against the cabinet. "Not entirely sure where you get off resorting to murder as your first action."

"It's less 'murder' and more 'a room in our house catches on fire'." I say, still out of sight. "We really need to clean our chimneys."

Fan laughs, completely unfazed. "Not the most straightforward plan, but I do appreciate the ingenuity. Let's talk, shall we? Trust is a two-way street, right?"

Ha. "A little hard to trust a guy that climbed my roof."

Fan laughs a little more. "You do have a very climbable roof. Can't fault a seasoned thief like me for going after an easy mark in Riften of all places."

…y'know what, fair. Fine, let's play this with a bit of honor, if only because otherwise shivving him is the only other option and I…don't really like my chances in the worst-case scenario.

The three of us go to the kitchen area and take seats.

Apart from us, Mell is also present. The two of them lock eyes but nothing is said. Hmm.

"Well, first of all, thank you for choosing to avoid a fight." Fan says, grinning. "It'd put a damper on my spirits to kill a wizard who can convincingly fake a coin."

How does he know about that? "That's nice, I guess." I shrug. "I don't think I'd be here if I can do that, but hey, you do you."

His grin doesn't really leave his face. "Certainly." He takes out Aria's bottle. "We received this bottle from a fetching lass by the name of Aria." He says. "She gave it to the Thieves' Guild as compensation for information about a certain man. I am, sadly, not aware of much more than this."

And if you did you wouldn't tell us. "And therefore you haven't seen her at all for…however long she was here?"

Maybe?Byrnjolf shrugs. "My informants have confirmed that she is still in the Ratway, if that's what you're asking."

Jake's eyebrows go up. "You didn't give them directions?"

"The cost of that was a touch higher than she was willing to pay." Byrnjolf(?) says. "Besides, I got the impression that she knew more than she let on, especially after pawning this."

…so, her Dragonborn Compass kicked in? But then, why is she still down there? I mean, regardless of how much verticality the Ratway has, Riften as a city isn't…y'know, huge. It takes a few hours tops to walk the walls, and the twisty turny-ness of the Ratway is…then again, searching for people is hard, and searching for poor people in a place of dubious repute is harder, so…

Jake frowns. "Is there something in the Ratway that would make her fuck up a search, though? I mean, you know what she's like." He says with a glance to me.

"Ah, yes." 'Byrnjolf' nods at me. "You are a wizard, which means that the lowest levels of the Ratway might prove to be especially hard for you."

Oh? "Why's that?"

'Byrnjolf' grins. "Blackreach."

…? What about it? "What's that?"

Jake has an expression of 'oooh I see'.

I mean, I know Blackreach is this hugeass area underneath Skyrim but I don't think I've ever touched it when I played.

"Blackreach is the pride and bane of Riften." 'Byrnjolf' says. "The lower parts of the Ratway are under the influence of Blackreach's magic, and as a result those of a more…learned, nature, tend to be disoriented a bit more down there."

…First I've ever heard of this, but ok. Assuming if this is true, then a part of the reason why Aria's having trouble is likely because she's Special, which is nice, but Delphine is with her and she strikes me as being more of a power type, so…

We question 'Byrnjolf' further on other subjects as they come up.

Mostly duds. He knew that we (I) circulated fake coins because some of it was messed up and those appeared in the Thief's Guild. I assume those are the coins I made earlier on the trip. I don't know how he knows, though.

He also knows that we are the Warwolf Company, though that's…not exactly a secret? Even if you forget about Jake and me it's pretty well known that Warwolf has four smokin' hot stacked pink catgirl lieutenants. We are (to him) a Mercenary Troop of some strength and he's "sure that we will gain plenty of business soon". Don't know how to feel about that.

Lastly, our current location, by virtue of being previously abandoned and now suddenly new, has no ties with the Thief's Guild. The way he said it makes it sound like I should, uh, Upgrade Our Defenses at some point.

Ultimately, by virtue of us believing that he is in fact Byrnjolf and not some other douchenozzle, we decide to let him go with a polite warning. The Thief's Guild questline is basically about Byrnjolf and his current leader and what amounts to an internal dispute, and while I believe that shivving Byrnjolf will result in the guild collapsing under its own mismanagement, Jake's more along the lines of letting Byrnjolf take over (or at least let them continue to screw each other over) since it reduces the risk of a power vacuum that someone else (i.e. Black-Briars) could possibly fill. Or else nobody fills it and bloodbath ensues.

I honestly can't care enough either way, and let's be honest shivving a dude would raise some pretty immediate questions regardless of if fire is involved…ergo, mercy's good.

…

Given that we're gonna get robbed at some point though, we…need to get our mitts on an enchanting table, so that's what we'll be doing alongside our current efforts to make friends with our neighbors, because Neighborhood watches are good.

And Aria?

…Let's be honest, she's not gonna die from anything, so let's just not worry about her for now. If we get our name out there then she's going to know that we're in town and thus show up whenever she shows up, if only because we're a free bed and a hot meal.

…

[About Two Days Later]

…

T'yanna…seduced(?) a tutor-mage from the nobility district, I think, and he gave her information pertaining to an abandoned cottage some distance south of Riften. This cottage is home to a Renegade Alchemist/Mage/Some Kinda Shady Person, which means that we're here to investigate and to loot it until it burns to the ground if need be.

Finding the place turned out to take longer than expected owing to the woods and general terrain shenanigans, but we're here now.

We as in: Me, Jake, and T'yanna.

"It really is just a small shack." Jake remarks as we stare down said shack. "Aight, we doing this?"

"It's not a crime if there's no survivors." T'yanna says cheerily, and we approach.

Scoping out the windows, we see nobody inside. Jake then violently smashes open a window and climbs in. T'yanna sulks as she doesn't get to demonstrate her lockpicking skills.

Our haul is…daily necessities, alchemical materials, alchemical gear (mortar, pestle, so on), an enchanting table (just the tablet actually) of rather…pristine…nature, a selection of nonmagical books, and a stack of currently unidentified scrolls.

"Huh." T'yanna remarks as we catalog our haul. "Surprisingly wealthy for a man in the middle of nowhere."

Which I take as "we're gonna pay for this sometime in the future". To cover our tracks (and apparently because we have no shame) we stick around until dusk to see if the owner of the house shows up. Not T'yanna, mind: we send her off with the cart and our haul ahead of time so as to give her plausible deniability.

Either way, the owner of the house shows up about an hour after dark, along with an entourage of three guards and what seems to be a dead Spriggan strung up like a hunting kill. Hmm.

"Better an accident with no witnesses." Jake mutters. Kinda weird to be worried about covering our attempt to cover our tracks, but I do agree.

Jake, with his overwhelming bullshit strength, rushes and cuts down the…targets? I don't wanna call them enemies…the targets. He cuts down the targets so hard it looks like they were pasted by something powerful and fast.

And then I finish the piece off by incinerating the bodies, the places they were hit, and the house itself with a burst of Flames taking all my mana and then some. My status goes red after I do so and I become unable to cast again, but I figure it's worth it.

As we're no longer wandering, the trip back only takes us the better part of the night, so our party of three returns on a cart loaded down by wood before noon. It's not unusual for us to do this, so nobody cares.

Nobody made a move on the house during that time either, which is nice.

Anyhoo.

It's not like Mell needed a second set, but having backups so she can clean her primary set is always nice.

My new table, though…according to T'nerem, this is one of the better tables in existence, accessible to only high paying customers. Worrisome in more ways than one, but we've torched all evidence and my enchanting room is built into the basement with literal steel in its walls, so whatever.

That room would take us around ten days to actually build, which means that the tablet would be sitting unused in the storage until then.

…

[Next Day]

…

Order of the day is: let's make a name for ourselves so Aria will notice! Jake (and T'Ma) found/was introduced to an underground fighting pit…of a sort. Rumors travel fast, so we're going there to make some noise!

…and we're going too. As Jake puts it: "I'm pretty common, but we wouldn't be."

The way it works is this: Jake is awesome at bashing heads, but not everyone good at bashing heads is Jake. If there's also a strong-ass mage nearby (read: me) then the rumors would go further.

…I'm trying to compare our situation to Whiterun, but I had a patron in the form of the Battleborns, didn't I? So looking back I suppose the legwork had been done for me. Hm.

Well, in any event, this makes for good exercise.

…

The fighting pit is…a wrecked boat. Supposedly, it was a medium sized transport vessel that was driven by a drunk little fuck who rammed it into a warehouse. It was too expensive to tear it down, so the owners sold it for a penny and some entrepreneurial squatters turned it into a fighting arena. There's a large half-soaked sand pit sitting in the middle of the warehouse section of the building, and stands built into the boat half of the building.

It's crowded, with seating for…about thirty people? Though the amount of people here is obviously more than that. The building itself has a massive cloth over the top but no roof, so other folk can watch from more precarious positions.

Surprisingly, there's a bunch of mages here, too. Or not that surprising, since Jake brought me here.

The mages are basically a mix of two polar opposites: tutor mages of upper-crusty families that are here for 'insert reason here' (but mostly just to let off steam) and young trainee mages trying to up their ego size.

Murder is obviously a no-no, but there are healers on hand, and different parties tend to have their own healers, so it's more just about incredible pain for the sake of local fame and ego and why am I here again?

"Aiight, you know how it goes, first to say 'uncle' loses, so no silencing." The arena master (Argonian) says to the two contestants in the ring. "That rope in the middle? No passing that line. Also, no fire, and any missed shots will cost you Septims."

Make sense, really. Surprisingly well organized. He(?) explains it to every mage that gets in the ring, and they wear a copper ring around their wrist to signify their agreement.

Kinda neat, not gonna lie.

Ahem.

IN THE LEFT CORNER WITH THE BLUE SASH, THE BRETON MAGE TUTOR OF SOME RICH FAMILY!

IN THE RIGHT CORNER WITH THE RED SASH, JOE!

'Joe' is a young imperial dude.

The ring's maybe forty paces long, twenty wide, so not much room to maneuver. While aoe spells aren't forbidden, it gets you jeered, so apparently nobody does them.

Either way, both sides start basically the same way: Wards and Shock. Wards and Shock. Like every match is Wards and Shock. Eventually the weaker one loses. In this case, Joe gets his ward blown out and then gets treated like a Sith victim, so he taps out.

I should note that the actual win rate between the two sides is actually pretty even. Wards are expensive to maintain and a good Shock will punch through it, so it's a bit like rocket tag given that, well, most people who are here are scoping themselves out in a way.

…Incidentally, I should also note that it's very, very likely that recruiters from many different factions are here, too, considering how often I keep seeing Promising Joes get pulled aside for a chat and a pocket of coins after matches.

In other words…eh, fuck it, go all out. We're going to attract eyes anyway, might as well learn to deal with it now rather than later.

Some rounds later, we're in the ring.

Hoo, slight case of the butterflies. Nobody is actually announced, mind you: we just get tossed in the ring, get shit explained to us, take positions, and go at it. Regulars obviously get recognized, but we're not that, so meh.

Now, my initial plan was to just coat myself in wards and then punch the dude on the other side, but I guess the rules prevent that, so boo hoo.

Ding!

Wards wards wards

Five layers of wards immediately spring up between ourselves and the opponent. The big difference between us and our opponent is that we don't *need* our hands to project a ward.

Note to self, control output.

Target, under the assumption that we are not Warding, readies two bolts of shock, loosening his own ward. The audience collectively groans.

Chance!

He gets shocked.

Takes a good five seconds, but he quits soon enough. Easy.

I get five gold as bet winnings. Pools are kinda small here.

Some more rounds pass.

There are physical rounds here, too, mind. Most are of a fisticuffs nature. Jake gets in a few rounds. He holds back, largely to help himself practice and not rely on Perk powers so much. I patch him up when he gets a few solid ones to the face. Easy.

T'ma also gets in a few rounds. Her winnings are substantially larger and she brings over the people she fights to me so I can patch up their claw wounds as extra service. While I've never seen her fight barehanded I don't think the extra…Fighting-Game-Bounce is a part of how she usually handles things. Still, she has no problems.

My next round is…against an actual mage, I guess?

"Nice to meet ya." The Breton Mage (different from earlier) says warmly as greetings as we step into the ring. "I teach for the Orlia family."

I nod. "Pleased. I'm…a support staff for the Warwolf Mercenary company, I guess?" Come to think of it, I have so many roles that it's really hard to pin down what my title should be.

Vice-guild leader?

That'll hurt my ego if I lose, so no.

"A mercenary mage, eh?" The Orlia mage grins. "Nice. I saw your healing earlier, good to have a practitioner with a nice head on his shoulders."

We take our positions.

Ding!

Ward ward ward OH MY Jeez

Almost as quickly as our five-layer wards finished, our Target hits us with a bolt of ice. It cleanly penetrates the first two layers before being partially stopped by the third one.

…Christ are you serious ward ward ward

The Target, for his part, blinks in surprise at the fact that his shot didn't cause a full ward break, and lines up another shot.

Oh no you don't pew pew pew pew

We shoot Shocks at the Target. His wards absorb some of it, but most of it scatters off into the sand.

…really? He curved it?

I mean, I can do it too, but it's been six seconds, and he also has to channel a high powered attack oh lordy

Another ice lance flies our way. We don't dodge. The ice lance pierces all five wards and taps us on our forehead.

Ok, wow, I can feel that humility coming along. Let's do this seriously, then.

We finally use our hands to create wards.

The wards I make as a reaction are just lumps of mana. I have a lot of it, so it's not like efficiency matters, but having them punched through like that hurts. Hm.

…Actually, y'know what? It's not very often I get to actually go toe to toe with another mage. T'nerem is the best (not me) combat mage in our group, but she's also self-trained, so…this is actually a really good opportunity for me! Aria doesn't count 'cuz she's in the 'ward up and punch' camp.

First off, a curved ward. Let's focus on speed and strength.

Our ward gets made. Because of our speed, the outline of the ward is extremely visible.

"Not bad." Our Target grins. "Not bad at all! Here I come!" He very obviously creates an ice lance, smaller than before, and telegraphs his throw…fuck.

We quickly lay out our five fast wards. The ice lance pierces through all of them and digs into the wood under our armpit.

"hoo, shit!" a Nord says and claps. "Piers is going all out!" He's obviously excited and HOW ABOUT A LITTLE CONCERN ABOUT ME HUH

That said, he just punched clean through that ward, huh? Probably not something that can happen in the confusion of a real fight, but still not something to be careless about.

Hmm.

Let's try again.

We close our eyes, concentrate, and create another ward.

'Piers' smiles, creates an ice lance, and then Oh you've got to be kidding me

The ice lance hits off center and punches through the wards, then shatters.

On one hand, progress. On the other, "I give."

I lost ten gold on that one. Deservedly so, but hell. Piers also lost ten for damages to the arena, so ha.

After the 'fight', Piers accompanies me to Jake's sitting area.

There are many, MANY sets of eyes on the two of us.

It makes me jumpy.

"Not bad, not bad." Piers says after we take our seats. "Your wards are something, but they lack finesse." He says. "For a twenty Septim bribe, I'll happily tell you why."

…Fucker. "Here you go." I give him the coins.

"Alright." Piers creates a disk of raw magic in his hands, and it begins to spin. "Alright, see this? Pretty simple, yeah?"

Basic training, yeah.

He shoots another ball of magic that makes contact with the disk, it spins like the disk, and then slips through.

….oh. Well. Huh.

"Power is still power, be it magicka or might." Piers says. "Understanding and being able to read the flow is important."

…I got so caught up I forgot about that. Fuck™.

Yeah, following a flow lets you get around wards n'shit. That's…if not necessarily common knowledge as 'taught', it's common knowledge that you learn without being explicitly taught, like swimming faster by going with the current, or where to interject 'fuck' into the middle of English words.

…That said, being able to read it from a distance is pretty hard. Granted, we were basically working in test conditions where it's easier to concentrate, but still.

Hm.

We create a five-layer curved ward over our hand. The magic within the wards circle around the core slowly. We then create a small ice shard with a similar spin and push it through the center. There's a bit of resistance, but it goes through with disturbing ease.

…That's…problematic. Really problematic. The reason why I make redundant wards is because I knew about the flow…ish. It was never a focus of mine (too many other things) but to have its…weakness? Exposed like this is worrying. That said, better now than later, eh?

…I used a shitton of wards to stop dragonfire before, right? How did that work? Hm.

We sit and practice with our wards some more.

If we imagine magic as waves, then theoretically we should be able to cancel out incoming spells by doing 'counter' waves. I imagine that's how things like anti-fire wards work…hm. So, in that case, layered wards with sensible patterns working against each other would be stronger…

…In other words, I need to practice with making five wards of differing patterns to the point where it becomes second nature, huh? If I'm throwing up wards in a fight then there's no way I have the time to think about how it's structured, so patterns it is, I guess.

Practice. Pierce watches the wards on our hands with a strange gleam in his eyes.

…Well, five minutes isn't much. The biggest issue is still the fact that there's always going to be a 'core' that everything spins around. Not spinning obviously creates no core, but a ward without a 'spin' can be pierced by a mage of enough opposing skill, even if the magic power difference isn't high, as Piers has shown. The times where this will matter will be in battles between me and a high-caliber mage, so I can't skimp on this.

…Eh, I'll worry about it later. I'll have to worry about it later.

Piers whistles. "I take it you didn't learn it just now, eh?" He claps me on the shoulder. "This is a good place to get some combat experience, so you don't freeze up out there. Next time, try attacking."

…

The 'next' time is about twenty rounds later. Again, no big flashy magic.

Piers makes a curved ward.

…I can't tell how it spins from here. His magic sense is very refined.

Welp. Hammer!

We create a large bolt of shock and very blatantly concentrate it down to the size of a needle. Piers sees this and also very obviously moves his ward arm away from him, as if to say 'shoot here'.

'k.

The bolt of shock hits the ward and pierces it clean through, scattering on the wood behind it. The ward, however, holds.

…Huh. This would be fatal if it hits, yeah?

"Disqualified!"

Yeah. Fuck.

…Hey wait a minute he tried to kill me the last time and you guys didn't DQ him! What gives!?

Nepotism is everywhere.

Pah.

…

In the end, I lost more than I gained, but I managed to learn quite a bit about how to control my magic and refine it for combat purposes. That said, I'm not sure how useful it is.

I mean, as I've said before, this training is useful for those very select moments where I fight against a skilled mage, and I'm sure that will happen at some point, but from a more day-to-day perspective, I'm a…what, a gadget mage? Rainbow mage? Support? Nuke? WHY DID I GIVE MYSELF SO MANY ROLES

But um…basically, I have a lot of firepower by myself, and otherwise I will have equipment to make up for those shortcomings. If, after all that, I get caught in a one-on-one duel with just raw magic, then by all rights I already lost.

That said, knowing that a one-on-one might end up with me on the losing end despite my magic reserves is a good lesson to learn.

Not worth the 100 gold though. Fuck Piers. He's cool, but fuck him.

…

…

[Two Days Later]

…

…

Our marvelous plan of making a loud noise and then sitting and waiting bore fruit!

"Hey." A very dirty and disheveled Aria says at the cusp of morning, on our doorstep. "Long time no see." She looks exhausted. A rather…battered…Delphine, is behind her.

We get them squared away with breakfast. Atra and Alma prepare showers for them.

They've gotten really good at that.

Anyways.

…

[Exposition]

…

In a nutshell, no leads, blind searching, much time wasted. The fact that Aria's hella pretty also made it hard going since they basically kept getting ambushed at every corner. Aria's technically a mass murderer now since after some point she stopped giving a shit about only figuratively disarming them.

Might be why she scrubbed herself extra hard in the shower.

Either way, she now has a home base and a clean set of clothes, as well as people to talk to.

That said. "I still find it hard to believe that the two of you never just came back up and stopped to regain your bearings."

Post lunch discussion around the table.

Aria fidgets. "I got lost. The lower levels were really confusing for some reason."

Delphine nods. "Yep. Clairvoyance wasn't working at all and the lights were dim."

Still, it's been…weeks, at this point.

"Well, we do come up every night to sleep and such." Aria says. "But the Ratway is winding, and thus losing your way is almost a guarantee…"

…In other words, she can't automap. Makes sense. Plus a detailed topdown map in a zone as large as a realistic ghetto would be useless anyway. "Well, for now, rest here and plan. Constant searching is obviously not doing you any favors."

Aria sighs and draws her…sword hilt. It's snapped clean. "Replacements." She puts money on the table. "I feel bad about working you without compensation." She adds.

No prob. "Sure thing. Atra, Alma, take her measurements so I can work on a new set of armor too."

Both girls nod with enthusiasm.

"What, none for me?" Delphine grins.

I blink. "You're not going back in, though." She had said as much in her debrief.

"Pah, cheapskate." She laughs. "Correct. I want to look more into the Thieves' Guild…but some new gear would be nice." Her armor is currently sitting in the corner, completely in tatters.

Hmm. "I'll see what I can do."

…

In the end, Aria and Delphine needed about three days to fully recover from their search. In the meantime, their new weapons and armor were finished!

For Aria…she's requested equipment for low-light SCQC: five short swords, a belt of throwing knives (ten in total), a large shield(?) with spikes in front, a short spear(?), a two-handed warhammer(?), and spiked brass knuckles made from steel.

Super Close Quarters Combat.

The shield and the spear are a set. The shield is large enough to cover Aria's entire body, with the sides hewn out for her spear. The spear is shortened for stabbing, and is otherwise fairly normal in make. Both are designed for holding down a hallway and then stabbing violently.

The Warhammer is for clearing obstacles, so it's extra heavy and is not weighed for combat.

The knuckles are, y'know, for CQC purposes. Technically they're not knuckles as they're built into the gauntlets, but the difference is meaningless.

Her armor…she requested for something that is 'light enough to move quickly in, but also strong enough to handle sustained action'. I…don't really know how to do that? To be honest? My first armor set was a compromise that heavily relied on spun steel to try and save on weight, but the end result ended up being too heavy for rapid movement and too weak after a strong ambush hit.

The second attempt…is more of two shirts with thatch weave steel sewn into her vital areas. They provide enough flex and bend to defend against all forms of attacks except slashing ones: her gauntlets are fluted to guard against slashes. The end result is an armor that looks rather patchwork-y but is strong enough where it matters. While the weave is easier to maintain due to its relative independence, it's also easier to dislodge due to heavier hits if things get bad.

We then spend another two days watching Aria spar with the others and then adjusting her armor depending on their experience. The weight of the armor gets shifted to the front to make charging attacks more powerful. I guess she expects the 'offense is the best defense' kind of thing.

She also ditched the shield and spear as they were not useful. She's also…uh…more taken with the Warhammer than I had expected. Speaking of which: since I can basically hack reality, I made a small hallway in our basement that's dimensionally the same as the Ratway. Gear testing in near-live conditions is good.

At the end of their gear testing period, Mell gets a very interesting thought in her head.

It literally came from nowhere, too. "We're looking for this Esbern person, correct?" Mell said.

"Right." Delphine agreed.

"And he's on the run from the Thalmor?"

"Uh-uh." Aria this time.

"So…wouldn't he be avoiding all contact while the Imperial army is still stationed here?"

And then nobody said anything for the next minute, because we all felt really stupid for not realizing it sooner. While we haven't seen any Thalmor within Riften, the only way we'd be able to tell is if they wear their armor, and…covering those kinds of distinguishing features is not exactly a hard thing to do.

But, yeah, either way, Esbern's likely not going to answer to anything while Riften's under Imperial Occupation, which would make contacting him hard.

…

The day after, Delphine hatched a brilliant(ish) plan. The plan involves papering the Ratway in letters addressed to Esbern. If they're removed, then it means that either Esbern moves around (unlikely) or else the Thalmor are looking for him too (very likely). The letters, incidentally, are written like so: In plain english, "To Esbern." Then two paragraphs copied from 'Mixed Unit Tactics' double coded with Playfair. Passcodes are 'Esbrn' and 'Skyrim' respectively. Kinda boring, but eh.

Cannot use duplicate characters in a key.

One day later, the papers were gone. While we don't have total, conclusive proof that the people we wanted to take them took them, it's a fair guess to say that those who live deep in the Ratway aren't the kind to take things that might trace back to them (especially if it's obviously coded) and thus the ones that do are the ones who care.

…Either way, we're kinda stuck kicking our heels until the Imperial Army leaves, huh?

…

[Some Time Later, Riften Noble Quarters, 3rd Person Camera]

…

Like Aria (or perhaps mimicking her), the Thalmor had their own task force in Riften to seek out the whereabouts of Esbern. Like Aria, they were also looking for him in order to discover information on dragons. Unlike Aria, they had arrived nearly a year earlier, and are mostly responsible for why Esbern is so much harder to find.

…Well, that's a bit of a lie: until rather recently, the Thalmor had no idea who they were looking for in Riften, and were simply conducting counterespionage and deep cover missions. In fact, quite a few of Riften's most outspoken voices against the Empire were of their making.

Regardless, like Aria, they've had no luck finding anyone of importance, or any news worth considering. They had even less trailing after Esbern, and Aria coming onto the scene didn't help matters—more searchers would only send Esbern deeper into hiding, after all.

Until, that is, they found the notes posted by Aria, obviously in code. Not knowing what the code is made them suspect a number of possibilities, and thus the Thalmor confiscated as many pieces as they could. Initially they also bought any of the notes the other Ratway civilians took, but stopped after a quick analysis of the first thirty copies or so revealed that it was apparently the same message.

That said.

"How's it going?" A Thalmor Mage asks as he strides into their decoding room.

The decoder sighs. "I'm getting nowhere." He glances at the pages one more time, both from Riften and those given to him from Solitude, as if that would help. "I don't know what the hell this code is or how the Blades got their hands on it, but it's a nightmare."

The mage glances at the decoder's battlefield and makes a face. "Not even you, huh? Any luck from the others?" The look on the decoder's face told him everything he needed to know. "Well, keep at it. Our success or failure is riding on you, friend."

"I know, and that irritates me to no end." The decoder laughs.

The mage stares again at the decoder's battlefield arrayed before him. In the grand ballroom of this slightly dilapidated mansion, three tables were pushed together with papers and books strewn about both on and off the table. Several possible ciphers and permutations were laid out next to a partial solution for the letter, all of which invariably devolve into gibberish. The sheer amount of possible ciphers and ingenious solutions made it very clear that the decoders are trying their best…and having nothing to show for it.

Where did the Blades get this? The Mage can't help but wonder. Something this complex can't possibly have come just out of the blue. Did we make a mistake somewhere? He thinks back to the conditions surrounding the first notes on this new cipher. There was a father with two girls in Solitude that worked in tandem with Delphine Jend. Is it possible to capture him and make him talk?

He thinks over that last part. He knew from the spies in Riften that Warwolf, the mercenary group associated with Delphine Jend, were in Riften already and had established themselves rather securely and with surprising speed. Might there be a way for them to flush them out without exposing themselves…?

.

.

.

{ === + === }

Author Notes:

Raise your hand if you actually thought Byrnjolf would come clean the instant he got caught?