#I was specifically told to crisp astrid for this one | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

the-hoarse-bard · 4 years

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Maro wasn’t lying. The sanctuary was crawling with Penitus Oculatus agents when I got back. Barrels full of oil were scattered about the entryway, probably hoping to smoke out any lingering members. I dropped from my perch and took them on. The Empire’s numbers may far outstrip any, but their steel is weak, especially for the more stealth-focused parts like these bunch. They didn’t put up too much fight.

I was about to head inside when I noticed him. Poor Festus. It seems he was ambushed by the Oculatus agents when exiting the sanctuary. I also noticed the black door hanging open. Of course, how else would they have gotten inside?

After dispatching the two agents by the entrance and heading down the stairs, I came upon quite the sight. Arnbjorn tearing through at least five agents by himself. I jumped in to help, and we vanquished them, but an arrow by a straggler pierced his heart and he fell dead. For the first time I summoned the ghost of Lucien Lachance to aid me, and we fought through several more.

Gabriella and her pet spider laid dead in the next room. They seem to have gone down fighting. I wish them an undisturbed rest.

Soon after, I came upon Nazir fighting off what seemed to be the last of the agents in the sanctuary. I was able to sneak up and run the assailant through. Nazir was thankful, and the two of us rushed into the Night Mother’s room, desperate to find an escape before the whole catacomb collapsed on our heads.

As we lamented the only apparent exit having collapsed, I heard a voice in my head. It said “embrace me, listener”. In my desperation, I dove toward the coffin, and my heart nearly stopped as it closed behind me, and I felt it topple through the window behind it. In the darkness, I heard one word “sleep”, and I drifted into a dreamless rest.

I was awoken by the muffled sound of two voices. It sounded like Nazir and Babette. I breathed a sigh of relief, glad they were safe, and I felt the coffin shift. Nazir was pulling the coffin from the pool it had fallen into behind the ornate window in the Night Mother’s room. Before the doors opened, I heard the Night Mother one last time. She told me to speak to Astrid. And that Astrid was still here in the sanctuary.

Nazir helped me out of the coffin, and the three of us shared a bittersweet greeting before I told them what I had heard as they pulled me from the pool.

We searched what remained of the sanctuary, and before long we saw it. The burned corpse of Astrid, laid out in a ring of candles.

Except... Astrid was still just barely alive. She told me that she had been the one who tipped Maro off. She was the traitor. She had dragged herself here burnt to a crisp to use her own body as the Black Sacrament, and to complete the ritual, I had to kill her. She pressed a dagger into my hand, and bade me to finish her. The target she wished death was Maro himself, in vengeance for his treachery. Before I did the deed, she apologized to me for the betrayal, and admitted she had been wrong to resist the Brotherhood going back to the old ways of following the Night Mother.

I plunged the dagger into her throat, and before she went still, I swore Maro would pay. He would suffer for his traitorous ways worse than she had for hers. After the ritual was over, the Night Mother spoke to me again. She said Maro was preparing to leave from the Solitude docks, and that the contract for the death of the Emperor was still on, and sent me to find Amaund Motierre in Whiterun for his location.

Nazir, Babette, and I said some short goodbyes for the moment, and they told me to meet them at the Dawnstar Sanctuary when the contract was complete. They will have moved the Night Mother there. I embraced the both of them, and wished them safe travels. I then set off astride Shadowmere for Whiterun.

I found Motierre sitting in the back room of the Bannered Mare. He was surprised to learn that his contract would still be honored after he had heard the sanctuary had been destroyed. I pressed him for the information, and he told me that the Emperor, the real one, was aboard a ship called the Katariah, currently docked in the waters where Solitude’s bay meets the Sea of Ghosts. I thanked him hastily, and set off immediately.

I rode through the night, more determined than ever. Shadowmere was as swift as if the very hounds of Hircine were baying behind us. I stopped for nothing, no rest, no warmth. Only vengeance.

I swam from the Morthal side of the bay, and up onto the docks. I caught Maro’s attention with a small stone from the riverbed, and got him to follow me up aboard one of the unattended ships in the docks. He had brought another agent with him, but I was able to best both of them without the ruckus being picked up by the guard patrolling the dock. I saw the Katariah on the horizon and dipped back into the waters.

I swam up to the starboard of the ship, and climbed up her anchor chain into the lower deck. I took out the lone sailor in the room before he saw me. Soon, though, I was discovered. And the brawl began.

I was a whirlwind of sharp edges in the melee. I took many blows, but as I fought, the blood splashing from the Oculatus agents felt as if it was further fueling me, and I could not be felled. Among the pile of bodies, I discovered the ships captain, and snatched the quarters key from his neck. Before I headed in to see the Emperor, I decided to take a short trip above decks to take out any remaining threats to the mission.

There were a handful of sailors and Oculatus agents on the main deck. I slaughtered them all with ease, my wrath still not satisfied. As the last of them died, I felt a calm wash over me. The light of the moons was beautiful from the ships deck, and I took a moment to thank Jone and Jode for all of their gifts, and for protecting me along my path. I downed some of the traditional sugar, and it calmed my heart further. I was ready...

Before I headed back down, though, I noticed the light of the moons glinting off of something stuck into the bowsprit, and I walked up it to investigate, my curiosity piqued.

A sword, of all things. One of those odd curved ones those Alik’r men wielded. I pulled it from the wood of the bowsprit.

As I held it against the light of the moons, I felt Khenarthi’s breath swirl around me, and I felt... Powerful. As if the wind itself was nourishing me, and filling me with strength. I felt like I could topple a giant, even. As I stood there, enraptured by the feeling, I knew this strength was not from any mere enchantment. This was something else.... Something older... Something greater... And something that had been put here specifically for me to find. By who, I couldn’t say, but I offered another short grace to Jone and Jode, and stepped back below decks, my new blade in hand. I have a date with the Emperor.

As I stepped into the room, the man himself seated at his desk as if expecting me, he simply asked me one thing. To let him speak. My bloodlust has already been sated, and my mind was clear, so I let S’rendarr soften my heart and speak through me, and I told him to go ahead. We spoke at length about fate, rulers and other such things, before he said he had stalled his fate long enough, and requested one last thing of me. He requested I kill Amaund Motierre. After I had been paid, of course. I took a moment and told him I would consider such a thing. He was pleased to hear this, and he stood up, and walked over to the rightmost window behind him, and told me he was ready.

I couldn’t help but pity him, being such a toy of fate. Doubtless he has been led by the nose his entire rule, perhaps even his whole life. I hope he finds his peace and freedom in whatever afterlife he has earned. I took one last cursory look around his quarters, and slipped out onto the rearward balcony.

So much done before the moons had even set. My job here complete, I prepared myself for the icy waters and dived down. I swam to shore, and whistled for Shadowmere. There was yet one more thing to do. To honor an unfortunate old mans dying wish.

As I was drying myself from the plunge into the bay in Morhtal’s inn, I noticed that no one had yet to remove poor Lurbuk’s corpse. It was still exactly where I had left it. Had it really been so short a time? Did the inn keeper have it stuffed and kept it as a macabre attraction? I didn’t stay to ask, and simply rode on to Whiterun.

Motierre was still in the back room. I told him the contract had been completed, and he said my pay was in a dead drop he had set up in the very room we first met back in Volunruud. I thanked him, but I was able to slip some poison into his goblet. He was dead by the time I walked out the door.

The payment was in the promised location. Much more than I could have ever hoped. I loaded the pile of gold into Shadowmere’s saddlebags and set of toward Dawnstar.

Nazir and Babette greeted me inside the door with cries of welcome and congratulations. Nazir laid out a plan to restore the sanctuary with all the gold from the job. I wasn’t listening. I just trudged toward the nearest bed, collapsed, and fell asleep smiling. Finally, at last, the Dark Brotherhood felt like a family to me, and this new sanctuary would be a proper home.

#skyrim #khajiit #dark brotherhood #Shirazzha #dawnstar #solitude

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