 |
| Imperial Legion Headquarters, Castle Dour, Solitude |
23rd of Frostfall, 4th Era 201
Only I could have joined the Dark Brotherhood and the Imperial Legion in the same month. But I am getting ahead of myself. Before I did either of those things, I went Thalmor-hunting.
Now, hunting even the despicable Thalmor is a serious crime, that crime is called murder. Evil kidnapping monsters scheming world domination they may be, but under the laws of Whiterun Hold they have the full protection of the law and cannot be murdered in cold blood as they surely ought to be.
I caught up with some a few miles southwest of Fort Greymoor, which is west of the Western Watchtower. There were two soldiers and a mage escorting a Talos-worshipping Nord prisoner to his rendezvous with the Thalmor torture dungeons. At first I was committed to a strategy of stealth, and shot an arrow into one of them from a great distance away. Unfortunately the damn Thalmor conjured a Flame Atronach and scoured the area searching for me, and soon found me. I switched to swords and soon dispatched the two armored Thalmor soldiers, but their battlemage in Thalmor robes was trying to turn me into a cinder with his fireballs. I ducked into a crevice and drank a couple quick potions, and then closed on him and skewered him with both my sword and my dagger, up under the ribcage and into the diaphragm and lungs.
I couldn't pause to loot the bodies though, I had to find that prisoner. I am a rather... distinctive... looking personage in the Hold, and I knew they would recapture him and torture him until he told them what happened here, and then a warrant would be issued for my arrest. I tracked him down, his hands still bound, running desperately towards Whiterun, but there were innocent witnesses nearby. I hid carefully and shot an arrow at the fleeing captive, and the bystanders were none the wiser. He died straight away of course, unarmored as he was, like a surprised deer. I am sorry I had to do it, but I did have to do it, and it was a cleaner fate than what the Thalmor had in store for him. I went back and looted the Thalmor bodies, and I had my armor. I cut off their heads to add to my collection of trophies. Barbaric according to the traditions of the Nords, perhaps, but nothing communicates a message quite as effectively as a stack of skulls outside your front door. Back home in the bleak wetlands of Hjaalmarch I put the heads in an iron mesh box and drop the container out in the marsh. Soon the little fishes have picked them clean. They even eat the brains from their stupid elf heads, so they can adorn my front steps without their decayed brains leaking out all over the place. Which would be unsightly, as well as unsanitary.
I then went to Solitude, cleared up some... past issues with the Legion, and they sent me to clean some bandits out of Fort Hraggstad. It is somewhat disturbing that they didn't control a fort this close to their headquarters in Solitude, and perhaps even more disturbing that they sent me on what would have been, for the average Legion soldier, a suicide mission. One person alone against a fort full of bandits. I suppose they didn't expect me to survive, and if I did survive, they could certainly forgive a matter of a little... death sentence on my head from that whole mess in Helgen. If I could take out Fort Hraggstad alone, I would be a person they definitely would want fighting for them, and if I didn't, well, sentence served.
Of course they had no way of knowing what I was capable of. Most of them, I never had to soil my scimitar on them. I either took them out from afar with arrows from my fire-enchanted bow, or cut their throats with my dagger as they lounged around the fort in a mead-induced stupor. One young lady, if I may call her that, was facing right in the direction I had to enter the room. I shot an arrow into a corner of the room to attract her attention, and came up behind her and slit her throat as she was investigating. Her boss at the far end of the room never even looked up, his turn was next.
Before returning to Solitude to report my success (I figured I would make them sweat a little), I went down to Falkreath to talk to the Dark Brotherhood. I met the family - a rather nice Argonian shadowscale named Veezara, a humorous child-vampire named Babette, and the lovely dunmer assassin Gabriella, and of course the den mother of this strange tribe, Astrid herself. Less cordial were the mage Festus, the werewolf Arnbjorn, and the redguard Nazir, though I imagine I will warm up to Nazir in time. For the time being, he made his feelings clear: as far as he knows, I could screw up a job and be dead tomorrow, so no point in getting better acquainted now. He gave me my first contracts and told me to do them whenever I wanted, which worked out well for me since I have the Legion to report to. I told Astrid I needed to complete my work with them before I could do any contracts.
The contracts were for two guys severely down on their luck, and one was for an angry ex-wife and business competitor of her husband who was likely the person who put out the contract. Nazir wasn't offering to tell me who the clients were. The first two guys are just bums, crazy vagrants. I don't understand why anyone would go to all the trouble of actually getting a Dark Brotherhood contract for a couple of unfortunates. Seems like kicking them when they are already down, but whatever. A contract is a contract.
I also met what must be the world's only tame frostbite spider, Lis. When I first saw it in the room with the alchemy table, I started to reach for my bow but Babette warned me sternly that Lis was a pet and not to be harmed. I went down into the pit to see it and it was indeed tame.
I sold off some stuff in Whiterun and went back to Solitude to report my success to General Tullius. My career with the Legion has begun. Tullius is a serious man, to the point, and does not suffer fools gladly, but I like him. I like Legate Rikke as well, and Tullius seems to rely on her to interpret the world of Nords to him. He doesn't understand Nords and doesn't seem all that eager to start understanding them, but Rikke is a Nord and has insight into the actions of the Stormcloaks. It is also encouraging to see a woman in such a responsible position in the Legion.
Can one be a dedicated member of the Dark Brotherhood and a dedicated soldier of the Legion too? It remains to be seen. Off to battle I go.
No comments:
Post a Comment