My name is Rastus, a Dunmer or Dark Elf from Morrowind, and I guess I was now what they called a refugee in this land of the Nords, known as Skyrim.
After the Red Mount has erupted back home, it had been chaos. I had joined with everyone else fleeing the land, my skin caked with dust, with nothing but the ragged clothes on my back and a few coins to buy passage. Despite all that, I had felt...free in a way. My old life was being left behind. Most of the people I had worked for, or who I had wronged, were dead or had bigger things on their minds. No one would know me in the new world - I could start anew.
Well, after a week in the backwaters of frozen Windhelm, one of the largest and coldest Nordic cities in Skyrim, I had been disabused me of that notion. Starving, with barely a flea-ridden blanket to call my own in the back of a run down inn, and treated like scum by the racists that ran the city along with the rest of my kind stuffed into 'Grey Town' - a cheap play on the colour of our skin - I think I might have rather died with my old buddies back in Morrowind.
For a few days I had been plying an old trade: pickpocketing and general petty theft. The few coins I managed to nick each day paid for my cot and a crust or two of moldy bread. Maybe some meat - likely skeever rat - if I was lucky. I needed to change my situation, but Windhelm was not an easy place to be as a Dunmer, especially one with no coin or connections.
There was a rumour about town however, of an old mansion that belonged to the 'Aventinus' family. Of how people could hear chanting coming from inside behind its locked doors, and of the young boy and sole survivor of the family who was attempting to summon dark forces. Everyone stayed away from the place. Well, I had found myself a lock pick or two during my forays, and I figured I could get through the front door of the place with just a little bit of effort. If everyone was staying away that probably also meant the local thieves had spared it - could be a lot of rich pickings in the place, I figured. And if there were dark forces at work? Well, I knew a bit of magic, as did most of my race. Probably not enough to ward off some sort of spirit, but hey, I was desperate.
I waited until night, then broke in. To my dismay, the place was bare. A few clothes, some rich enough to earn a bit of coin, but hardly the riches I was expecting. The boy was there too - I heard him chanting as I crept from room to room. When I found him though, my initial plan of avoiding the child entirely didn't work out. I was so shocked by what I saw that I got caught.
The kid was in a circle of candles, with a skeleton in the middle and a few chunks of what looked suspiciously like a heart and other miscellaneous organs. The boy was stabbing said skeleton with a knife, while chanting out to 'Sithis'. In my hesitation, he looked up, and the look of joy on the kids face was...not what I expected.
"You have come, finally!" He said, and had gestured me closer.
In the following conversation, and through examining the book next to the skeleton, I managed to figure things out. Apparently young Aventinus thought I was a representative of some organisation called 'The Dark Brotherhood': A more sordid version of the Morag Tong from Morrowind, it seemed, killers for hire coloured with the trappings of spiritualism (the aforementioned Sithis was some sort of death god). I had occasionally associated with the assassins back home, but the rules and formalism of it hadn't really been for me.
In the kids enthusiasm, he told me of some terrible woman who ran an orphanage in a city to the south, amusingly named Grelod the Kind. The boy, recently ex- of said orphanage, wanted her dead. And he was willing to give me a 'priceless heirloom' of the Aventinus family if I did so. Well, I like money. And it wouldn't be the first time I've shed blood in the name of it. In all solemnity I took the contract 'In the name of Sithis'.
By midnight I was out of the city, with almost all my remaining coin handed over for safe passage on a cart. South to Riften. Hopefully it would be warmer there. I was not sad to see Windhelm dwindle behind me.
It was indeed warmer in Riften. Almost lush, though still a lot chillier than my homeland. The people looked shifty, with my cart driver telling me to watch my pockets as if I had anything to steal. Upon approaching the gates, the guard attempted to solicit a bribe from me as a 'visitor's tax'. Immediately upon passing the gates, a tall dark clad thug threatened to kill me if I crossed him. A canal ran through the city, crossed by bridges, and everything smelled of fish and rot.
Despite all this, I liked it a lot more than Windhelm. It felt like my kind of place, and true to form, I had someone asking me to commit a crime in exchange for pay around five minutes after stepping foot on Riften's streets.
The man was named Brynjolf, and he approached me as I stepped into the market. The first thing he said was basically, "You look poor, my friend." Accurate, and I was so bemused that I smiled and said so. Well, Brynjolf had continued, if I did him a favour he would get me some gold in short order. I liked the sound of that.
The job was simple, and quick. Brynjolf would create a diversion, and while the rest of the market was distracted with the speech he was giving, I was to break into one stall and steel a vendor's prized ring. I was then to plant said ring on another vendor. A little slight of hand, apparently to eliminate a competitor.
Well, my old hands were stiff and rough, but I would wager they were still quick enough to perform such a feat, and so I agreed. Brynjolf seemed amicable enough, and what did I have to lose?
Everything went as planned. While the man leapt into a overwrought sales speech that both annoyed and distracted the entire market, I picked two locks, palmed a ring, and slipped it into the pocket of a distracted man angrily telling Brynjolf to shut up. Five minutes later, the victim was being led away by the guards, protesting that he had no idea how the ring got in his pocket. And Brynjolf handed me a hundred gold pieces, more wealth I had seen in all my time in Skyrim.
He said I did well - which I knew - and that there was more work if I wanted it. More gold. I did want it, and I told him so. Brynjolf smiled, and told me the second 'test' was to reach their hidden tavern under the city, through some sewers charmingly called 'The Ratway'.
'Their' tavern. So, this was the local thieves guild, it seemed. Well, I had run with the same back home, and being on the right side of the guild was always good business. Plus, Brynjolf kept saying the magic word: gold. I promised I would meet him there.
As Brynjolf walked away whistling, leaving me smiling and planning my next steps, I spied a building in the distance. The Riften Orphanage. My smile faded - I had almost forgotten the business that had taken me to the city in the first place. Well, it was as good a time as any to get it over with.
Death is a silly business. Its has no honour to it, despite what all those Nords back in Windhelm loudly proclaimed while comparing dick sizes. If you do it for pay, you do your best to ensure that the outcome is not in doubt. Accordingly, whenever I have killed for coin, I almost never feel fear. I never really feel anything, apart from a slight hollowness. It just feels so pointless.
Grelod The Kind was everything the boy Aventinus had said. As I entered she was telling her wards they were scum, that they would work until they bled, and when they came of age she would toss them out. Seeing me she had loudly proclaimed none of the 'little brats' were up for adoption. The kids looked miserable, the woman's assistant clearly lived in fear.
In short, as a would be assassin, this contract was practically tailor-made to ease me back into it: a guiltless crime. Effort which was wasted, as this wasn't my first kill and nor was I under any illusion as to what this was. Grelod the Kind could have lived up to her name, been all sunshine and roses, but the boy had set me on this path just like a cog in a machine: when my meaningless lifeline intercepted this Grelod's pointless existence, it was her which would come to an end. Just the blind, idiot ticking along of a mindless universe, tick tick tick.
I waited until Grelod was alone in her room and the kids were in bed, then crept in and closed the door behind me. While she worked at a desk with a sour expression on her face, I snuck up behind her and put my dagger through the back of her neck, snaking an arm around and over her gasping mouth to muffle any final screams. It was over in a few final, fluttering heartbeats. All I felt was tired.
I was a touch careless pulling my knife free, and the crone's corpse hit the ground with a louder thud than expected. Leaving the room I found the kids had woken, and they streamed past me to crowd around the body of their tormentor. I left the orphanage hearing their whispered cheers, and the crying of the terrified assistant. Tick tick tick.
Two hours later, it was almost my turn.
After getting some distance between me and the orphanage, I went exploring. It took me most of the remaining day light to find the entrance to 'the ratway' Brynjolf had mentioned: a molding door behind a rusted, unlocked gate on the lower level of the city, just above the canal. With nothing better to do, and wanting a bit of a cleanse from my recent deeds - probably was a good idea to get out of public sight, too - I slipped inside thinking I would quickly track down the thieves guild.
I stopped when I heard voices, and good thing too: it wasn't just card carrying members of the guild down here. Apparently the ratway was a hideout for anyone or any thing that wanted to avoid public scrutiny. Given the criminal seediness of the guards outside, this was saying something. There were two criminals just inside the entrance, armed to the teeth, and when they saw me they didn't hesitate. Blades out and charging, one knocking an arrow.
Well, I can hold my own, usually. But I was still dressed in cheap clothes, and carrying nothing but a dagger still sticky with Grelod's blood - its hard to wash a bloody knife in public. The two thugs coming at me would not be deterred by my meagre armaments.
Fortunately, I have a bit of magic. I mentioned it before, how it was not enough to dispel a spirit? Well, thats true. Like most Dunmer I had an affinity for fire magic - enough so that I had once been told by a companion long forgotten that if I worked at it, I could become something of a mage. I had chosen not to take that path, back then, but I could still blast a bit of flame if I needed to.
That, plus the dagger, plus the close confines of the ratway corridor, plus a lot of luck carried me through. It was not the day I died, which was more than could be said for the two thugs. The hall stank of charred meat, I had taken a hit or two, was bleeding but not seriously, and was so out of breath I had to sit for a moment. But I was alive.
The rest of the journey through the tunnels was less dangerous but no less sordid. Two further lowlifes - kinsmen, really - attempted to take me. I was more cautious however, more murderously aggressive from the get go, and so managed them without incident. Finally I found a door that looked more used than the others, and I opened it to a cistern. Some old sewer complex beneath Riften. On the other side, I kid you not, tables and chairs had been set up and a fully-legitimate looking bartender was serving drinks.
Brynjolf waved when he spotted me.
I had passed the 'second test', but I was still not 'in'. There was a final test before I could join, before anyone in the tavern besides Brynjolf would even talk to me. Three individuals, back in the Riften streets, owed the guild money. Looking around, at the general decrepit nature of the tavern and the decided lack of piles of riches I normally associated with a well-structured thieves guild, I could see why: the Riften thieves had fallen on hard times, and were no longer respected.
Well, Brynjolf wanted to change that, and he wanted me to help. And he kept saying 'gold' in every second sentence, so he knew how to speak my language. No killing, he said, just fear and intimidation. Well, I can do that. Besides which, in the last half day, I had already killed five people. That was enough, much more than enough. It was something of a release to be told to do something as pedestrian as extortion.
The first mark, a pawn shop owner, was a right snotty git. Right up to when I smashed a fancy looking vase in a pride of place before the window. Then he paid up quick enough.
The second mark was a woman who ran the local tavern. An argonian, one of those lizard people. No judgement from me, though I was not best pleased at her tone. Fortunately, Brynjolf had told me of a paramour of the woman, a possible target for intimidation or leverage. The young argonian in question had opened up with some light prodding, revealing facts about the mark's family who, surprise surprise, apparently owned land back home in Morrowind. I mentioned them casually in a follow up chat with the innkeeper, and she opened up instantly. Two down out of three.
The third and final target was the mistriss running a bunkhouse. A tall and attractive nord woman, who was also a worshipper of Dibella, a sex goddess in the mainland pantheon. Someone who apparently took the worship of said goddess to its physical conclusion a little too often, her brow beaten but also surprisingly prudish servant claimed. In any event, Brynjolf had told me taking the mark's statue of Dibella would likely be the leverage I would need, but it turned out not to be necessary: word had spread, and the mark had known I was coming. She handed over the gold without hesitation.
My brief fear that the guards would intervene at this point - knowing that someone was going around roughing up merchants - was misplaced. I guess I still hadn't quite acclimatised to how things were done in Riften.
When I made my way back to the tavern in the ratway, I was 'in'. Got my formal thieves guild clothing and everything, with Brynjolf beaming all the way at his 'find'.