Redemption., Cause being evil sucks. Options

[jack cloudy]

Ok, another start. I was going to hold off on this one for a few months but the point is, if I don't switch my focus around regularly, I'll go nuts. And letting it rot on my harddisk feels like a waste. I'm also a bit worried for spoilers regarding my other stories but hey, this might actually serve to keep my interest in other stories fresh. A spoiler here leads me to ask myself 'then how did it exactly happen?'.

So umm, yeah. Let's get going.

part 2

Redemption

Chapter 1: End of the wait.

Drip….drip…..drip. Cold water dripped down between the bars and along the rough stone. The crackle of thunder roared through the chamber, the flash of lightning erased the darkness for a brief moment.
,,Bloody bad weather today.” The Dunmer who inhabited the cell mumbled. He glanced at the cell opposite his and sneered. He then walked up to the bars and gripped them with his hands.
,,I said, bad weather today.” He repeated. For a few seconds, he waited. Then he scoffed and walked to the dirty rag that was his bed.
,,Not very talkative today, are we? Well, I envy you. All that water coming in through that peekhole. Fresh water! I haven’t had fresh water in months!” He spun around and faced the bars again.
,,In months, you hear me?! Then why don’t you take advantage of the circumstances and enjoy this luxury your cell provides but mine doesn’t?!”

The man in the other cell lay on his back in a corner of the cell, hands folded under his head, legs slightly spread, feet almost lying in the pool that spread on the floor. The window of his cell lay at the bottom of a slope, which allowed a steady stream of muddy water to enter. To any casual observer, it would seem that he was asleep, comfortable despite the Spartan conditions of his surroundings.
,,Don’t get over-excited. Water isn’t the most important thing in the world.” He replied softly without opening his eyes. The Dunmer grit his teeth.
,,You and your self-righteous proclaimants. Then what is the most important thing in the world, wiseguy? Well, out with it. Show us the great wisdom of the Altmer.” He spat.
,,That is a different thing for each individual. What is the most important thing for you?” The Altmer answered calmly.

The Dunmer kicked one of the walls in his cell.
,,Answering a question with a question of your own? Well then, listen carefully. I don’t know why but I’m just going to tell you! The most important thing for me is a woman! I haven’t had my fun with a woman in five years, I’m telling you. Five years! That’s horrible!” He said.
,,But at least I’ll be out of here soon. And when I do, I’m going to enjoy it all the way. I’ve always been popular with the ladies, unlike you. A different girl each night, and then some. Makes you jealous, doesn’t it?” He gloated. The Altmer shrugged, the only motion he’d made in the last two days.
,,I don’t see any need to be jealous.” He said.

The Dunmer cocked an eyebrow and stalked back to the bars.
,,No need? The Altmer says there is no need to be jealous! Oh, but now I remember. You don’t feel the need to be jealous because your blood is so pure and there is a lass waiting back home who was born just to suit you. Born just to suit you, all thanks to the breeding program you High Elves have. All thanks to your quest for purity.” He snickered and watched his fellow prisoner intently. If he’d been expecting a sign of anger or any other emotion, he would be disappointed.
,,Believe what you will.” Was all the Altmer said.

Thunder roared again. Then, silence, safe for the soft clatter of the rain. The Dunmer had returned to his bed and watched the dark sky outside his window.
,,Believe what you will. He’s got issues. I bet his mother always beat him whenever he had impure thoughts.” He muttered to himself hatefully. He then rose.
,,Believe what you will?” He repeated, louder this time.
,,Well, I know what I believe. I believe I’ll use the cache of money I’ve stored under the loose rock in the wall. I was going to save it for later, but this place and you have gotten on my nerves, so there. I’m going to have some fun in this place, even if it kills me!” He decided and pried loose the brick he’d mentioned.
,,Be carefull what you wish for.” The Altmer warned. The pool had now crept up to his bare toes, but he did not move them. Even though the water was near freezing, he did not seem to be bothered at all by it. Meanwhile, the Dunmer scooped up the coins he’d hidden and counted them. He chose to ignore the other.
,,Fifty-four Septims. That’s enough for the guards to buy themselves a couple of bottles.” He spoke, got up and raked one of the coins across the bars.

,,What are you making all that racket for, prisoner?!” A guard inquired in a gruff tone. He’d come to investigate the cause of the noise. The Dunmer looked the man up from head to toe.
,,Tell me, friend? Have you been doing well at your card-games?” He then chuckled. The Imperial’s brow furrowed.
,,None of your bussines, Dark Elf scum! Now keep it quiet down here!” He spat. He waved his arm across, pointing at the Altmer in the other cell.
,,Take an example from him. He’s been here since before I was born, and not even once did he cause trouble.” He added. The Dunmer smiled, revealing two incomplete rows of yellow-brownish teeth. Perhaps he’d once been popular with the ladies but in his current state, popularity would need some help.
,,Just as I thought. You’ve been losing badly, haven’t you? Well, I just happen to have the solution to that particular little problem of yours.” He whispered and flashed a coin. Instantly, the guard became twice as attentive.

,,How much do you have?” He asked in a coarse whisper of his own.
,,Twenty-seven in total.” The Dunmer lied. He then leaned in as close as he could without hitting the bars with his forehead. Thunder echoed through the prison complex.
,,Twenty-seven perfectly legitimate Septims. Twenty-seven shiny bits of gold and copper. They could be yours, so very easily….for a small favour, of course.” He offered. The guard licked his lips and let his eyes slip to the coins the Dunmer now held up in his hand, yet still out of his reach. He thought of going back to the barracks and taking the keys to the Dunmer’s cell, so he could take the money by force. But if he did that, his commander would have him fired and thrown into a cell instantly on the charge of accepting bribes. He would be better off listening to what the man had to offer.
,,I’m listening.”

The Dunmer leaned in even closer, resting his forehead against the bars.
,,Good, good. You see, I’m feeling rather…lonely. While he doesn’t cause any trouble, our friend over there is a poor conversationalist. A man of few words. So I was thinking, if you could help me out, perhaps provide me with….suitable company? I would be more than willing to help out a friend who is in need of a financial boost. Rub my back, rub yours?” He whispered. The guard looked into the crimson eyes of the prisoner, glanced at the Altmer, the coins and weighed the risk. If the Altmer talked, he would still be in trouble. But the gold-skinned fellow appeared to be sound asleep, impossible as it might sound with the thunder and lightning playing outside. The Imperial grinned, a greedy grin.
,,For a friend, why certainly. It would be a pleasure, no, an honour to help. In fact, I just seem to remember that prisonblock C is undergoing renovations. We need to relocate the current occupants. I was just wondering where to move some of them anyway. I’ll see if I can send over a…better conversationalist.” He said and held out his hand. The Dunmer grinned and handed over some of the coins.
,,Half now, half upon delivery.”

This post has been edited by jack cloudy: Mar 6 2012, 08:29 PM

[jack cloudy]

I think the best answer to that is to consider twins unusual. If Dunmer only had one child total, then indeed extinction would be the only way. (Unless the Tribunal employed secret cloning facilities. Who knows with them.)

And while I would love to do some more Altmer...err...Bob! The schedule says we go with more Latta.
(The schedule also says I should pay more attention to my other stories, but I'll do that when I get in the mood.)


Chapter 4.2


Cyrodiil, shack

I tried to breathe through my mouth instead of my nose. This place reeked, and not in a good way. I could smell sweat, rust, rotten food, alcohol, stale water and some fragrances I couldn’t place. It made me dizzy. It was also so dark I couldn’t see a thing. Since there was nothing to see, I closed my eyes and tried to relax. I could hear Delmar talking to someone in an other room of the building. The walls muffled their voices though, so I couldn’t exactly hear what they were saying. Not that I needed, it was probably about the deal he was going to seal anyway.

I shivered. A deal. That word just felt bad. It was too cold, too heartless. A deal.
“I don’t care how safe it is, it’s still wrong. They’re crooks, one shouldn’t have to interact with them.” I thought.
“What is wrong?” My eyes snapped open and spun across the room to the only lightsource. My thoughts had become a panicked whirlwind.
“Did I say that out loud?! Oops, that’s bad. Insulting people is bad, but insulting people who stand outside the law already is just asking for trouble! Did he know what I said? He asked me to repeat myself, but that could just be common courtesy. Common courtesy? He’s a criminal, he doesn’t have common courtesy. So he did hear. Agh, this is bad!”

The lightsource was a small candle, little more than a stump, held by….furry paws.
“Err…nothing…I was just complaining about the Slaughterfish. Dumbest beasts I’ve ever seen.” I stammered. Meanwhile, I noticed the paws had claws that dug into the wax. Claws…stuck in wax. This was so not helping me calm down. All I wanted was to disappear and my skin darkened in response to that urge. The…person dashed forward, revealing two large luminescent eyes to me.
“Hey, where did you go? Bosmer, this one hasn’t given you his services yet. This one still has to remove the iron inconveniences!” He purred. Or at least, I thought he was a he. Frankly, he could be a she or even genderless. I had never seen anything like him before so I couldn’t judge. His words were what made me realize I’d tried to vanish. I recoloured back to my normal tan after which I made sure I’d stay that way.

Funny enough, I wasn’t so scared anymore, just annoyed.
“Gah, changed on a whim. I should be better than that! I’m not a baby anymore! This is so emberassing!” I scolded myself.
“Sorry…umm…We haven’t been introduced yet. My name is Maor….umf!” My words were cut off by one of his paws covering my mouth.
“No no, Bosmer shouldn’t tell its name. That would be bad, cause Khajiit can’t tell his name and if he can’t tell his name but Bosmer can tell its, this one would feel bad.” He said. So he was a he. I must have guessed right then. Though, he was kinda getting on my nerves.
“Why is he talking in the third person all the time? And I’m a she, dammit! Who does he think he is, addressing me as if I’m some kind of animal?” It was common courtesy, and my best interests, that kept me from voicing my thoughts.

Delmar was still talking on the other side of the wall. So who was the trader we were supposed to meet? The person Delmar was talking to, or this…Khajiit? I shook my head.
“No, neither is. System of corresponding rank and risk. Tasks handed down from the uppermost rank to the lower ones, with the lowest rank actually doing the job and taking all the risk. Anonymous contacts, semi-random meeting points, it all makes sense.” The Khajiit blinked.
“What is this one blabbering about?” He asked.
“Did I say that out loud as well? Dangit, I should either stop thinking or cut off my tongue before I blab myself into trouble!”

The stump was placed down on a stool after which the Khajiit grabbed one of my hands and pulled it close to the fire. I suppressed a yelp and the urge to pull my arm back.
“How rude! He could have asked first!”
He then held a loupe over the lock. I could hear him growl.
“Ah, this one hasn’t seen this type of lock in months. It will be fun to work with.” He whispered.
“AE-35914…An AE-series manacle. Nice…very nice.” He let go of my arm and stood up.
“This one has just the tools it needs, in a box upstairs. Please wait.”

And so I was left alone again. Not for long though. The Khajiit returned after a few minutes, a few rather long minutes in my opinion. So he had his tools upstairs in a box and said tools turned out to be a few strips of metal and a pincer. If that was all he had to get, then why took it over ten minutes?
“He’s probably just trying to agitate me. Stupid thug.” I decided not to say anything whatsoever. I also hoped I hadn’t said that out loud but he didn’t bring it up, so I probably hadn’t.

Surprisingly, the Khajiit was quiet as well and the only sounds were the clicking of those little scraps of metal in the lock of my manacles. Delmar was quiet. Did he leave? At first I was worried but as it turned out, dealing with those manacles took the better part of the whole day. Delmar had probably gone to process the fish we caught in the morning. Though taking the whole day just to open two locks? Those manacles had to be quite something then.
“Though I can’t complain. Breaking the lock with a hammer and a hot pick wouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes, but it would break my arms in the process, after searing off the flesh. I guess it’s better to take the slow option then.” The soft clicking was oddly relaxing after a while and I drifted off into a light slumber.

When I woke up, the stump had been replaced by a much longer candle. Both manacles were still around my arms and the Khajiit was still fiddling with them. I frowned, suddenly agitated for some reason. The urge to vanish came back. How long had I been asleep? And better yet, why was he still busy with the first one? This slow…it…my mind ground to a halt, before branching off onto a new path. The urge grew.
“Hypothesis. He is part of an organized crime organization, and an expert at cracking locks. In his line of work, he probably opens locks all the time. But the locks in these manacles are too small to be really complicated, they can’t be the most complicated locks he’s ever worked with. And if he took this long on the streets, guards would interrupt him.” I grit my teeth.
“This guy isn’t cracking the locks. He’s just pretending to! It’s a set-up. But for what?”

While longer, the new candle gave off just as much light as the stump. Which basically meant, not much at all. I still couldn’t see anything beyond the stool the candle was placed on. But I could hear, and I could smell. There was a new flavour in the mix of scents here…and a third pair of breathing lungs. The urge to vanish was almost uncontrollable now. Still, I remained where I was and tried to keep thinking rationally.
“That smell, it’s hard to recognize in the chaos but…I have smelled it before…No, I haven’t but it is awfully similar. It reminds me of…family?”

This post has been edited by jack cloudy: Dec 30 2012, 10:41 PM