Memoires of Rales Sarethi, A Morrowind fanfic Options

[Remko]

Dear readers, I posted this in the unnamed forum but since you were so kind to invite me here, I thought I'd "grace" you with my drivel. Without further adue, I present you the adventures of Rales Sarethi.

Part I Homecoming

Chapter 1: Seyda Neen.

Day 1

Over thirty-five years ago, I think I was about nineteen, maybe twenty, I got pulled from my bunk in the cell in Imperial City and was told I was to be deported to Vvardenfell immediately. First by carriage and then by boat.
Gods, even up to this day I resent carriage rides, they’re bumpy, dusty and tiresome, I prefer a horseback ride anyday.

The seajourney is pretty much a blur in my recollection, the gentle relaxing motion of the boat made me drift into a careless and refreshing slumber.
I briefly opened my eyes at times the sea was exceptionally rough and I remember a gentle yet compelling voice speaking to me. Can’t remember the words though, just the sound of the voice that stuck with me.

I woke up when a fellow Dunmer, one donning a huge scar across his face, told me we had arrived and that I needed to get off the boat. He called himself Jiub and asked what my name was. I politely answered my name was Rales. I didn’t bother telling him my last name, after all, he hadn’t told his either.
I never saw the guy again after I disembarked. A shame really, he was kind of like-able.

A grumpy Redguard legionnaire ordered me to report in at the Census and Excise office outside. Like I had a choice. On the boardwalk towards the offices, an Imperial officer asked me several random questions, like my race. Like he couldn’t see for himself. Sjeezzz…. I had to refrain myself from rolling my eyes and possibly insulting or upsetting the guy. Instead, I acted like the good Dunmer they wanted me to be, I played along and answered his questions.

After I had satisfied his curiosity he ordered me to report in at the office for my release form. ‘Release form? I was going to be released?’
I could hardly believe my pointy ears at that time. Let me tell you; looking back on what they had me go through, sometimes I wished they had left me to rot in prison. With a straight face I walked towards the rickety wooden structure that was the consensus and excise office. I couldn’t be showing surprise about my release, what if they had made a mistake and changed their mind?

Quickly I proceeded into the building. An elderly Imperial was sitting behind a desk, going through piles and piles of documents. Pre-occupied as he seemed to be, he hadn’t noticed me yet or maybe he was just ignoring me. Perhaps it had been my body-odour? Figuring that was hardly my fault, they were the ones that had plucked me from my cell, dropped me on a boat and had me report into an office without the chance to clean myself up. I shrugged and softly cleared my throat to get his attention, I didn’t want to startle the old man lest he would die from a heart-attack. Knowing my luck, they’d probably blame me and I’d be back where I started, in jail.

The following conversation with the old git almost felt like a job-interview. Socusius Ergalla, the census and excise officer, asked me all sorts of questions; like my starsign, my skills and whatnot. I didn’t have a clue what they wanted with the info but since it was hardly a secret, I just answered them while the Imperial wrote it all down on some sort of form. After the interview, Socusius told me to take my release form (that’s what the form turned out to be) to Selles Gravius where I’d receive orders. I was almost speechless - almost. ‘Orders? Whatfor?’ I remember exclaiming. He just shrugged. Apparantly he hadn’t a clue either. Well, that made two of us so I went to Gravius, hoping he would tell me more.

Halfway to Selles Gravius I got distracted by a hallway behind a sturdy looking wooden door that led to some sort of a basement where I found a variety of items. Some silverware, some bottles containing local booze, an iron dagger and a bag to put in the items I had “found”.
Ofcourse, only then I realised I still had to see that Gravius guy. He would notice me carrying a bag, suspiciously tingling with all sorts of gear a newly released prisoner shouldn’t have yet. I put the bag next to the table where I had found the dagger, checked my release form was still in my pocket and went to see Selles Gravius.

Gravius wasn’t much of a talker and looked like a formidable warrior. In fact; it made me wonder what in Sheogorath’s name he was doing here in this lousy office. When I asked him while handing him the form he almost bit off my head saying it was none of my busines and unpatiently snatched the release form from my hands. He glimpsed me over for a while with one eyebrow raised and ordered me to wait for a moment while he looked up some documents I was going to need. A few moments later he handed me a letter, some gold I quickly pocketed and a mysterious package for a certain Caius Cosades in Balmora, who-ever that may be. I figured I’d find out soon enough and didn’t ask any more questions.

Having been through that, - what I still consider a bureaucratical ordeal - as I went to retrieve my bag, I suddenly remembered there was a rainbarrel outside I hadn’t looked into. I had little gold and a dagger but no water, no food, no nothing so anything I could find would be useful and most of all; for free.
Turned out it only contained a ring with some engraving. Unfortunately I couldn’t make out what it was saying so I put it in my pocket, again wandered through the offices with an air like nothing was out of the ordinary, fetched the bag and made my way into Seyda Neen.
I was my own man again. I was free to go where I wanted.

***

My first steps outside were, well, quite frankly, disappointing. You’d expect a town with the main docks into Vvardenfell would be a big, prospering town. Suffice to say it wasn’t.
As a matter of fact, it was just the opposite. Most of the houses were run-down, shabby shacks, trading was limited to one tradinghouse and a swamp surrounded it so flies swarmed the town.
I won’t even mention the smell.

Still, I was in Morrowind, I could finally look up relatives I knew to still live here. My mother had told me plenty of stories of her and her cousin Athyn playing together. I couldn’t remember which town though, but from what I’ve been taught, the Sarethi family is well-known and shouldn’t be too hard to track down.

My sense of pride prevented me running off to find them right away, I could hardly arrive wearing nothing but the raggedy clothes, looking like a bum. I wanted to make a name for myself first. I wanted them to be proud to hail back a long-lost relative
For now, my pride would have to wait, I had more pressing matters, like finding somewhere to stay the night.

While looking around and - metaphorically speaking - sniffing up the atmosphere a Woodelf came upto me grinning child-like. The chap introduced himself as Fargoth and extended his hand which I grabbed. From moment one I knew I was going to like this friendly little fellow. Turned out he had been bullied and his family heirloom, a ring, had been taken from him. He told me it was magical and allowed the wearer to heal himself.

‘Would it have engraving, like this?’ I remember asking him while pulling the ring I had found in the barrel outside the office from my pocket and held it in front of his nose. Fargoth frantically shook his head and told me that was the one.
I was happy to give it back to him. Trinkets are easier to find than good friends and the gods know I could use some friends being a stranger in a strange land.
Singing happily he wandered off but not before he told me he was going to tell his friend Arrille a kind Darkelf had returned his ring to him and how happy he was to have it back.
I simply smiled.

My rumbling stomach made me aware that I needed to find something to eat as well. After some asking around I soon found out Arrille’s establishment was the only tradehouse around. If I wanted to survive any trip outside of town, I needed some sort of protection, I needed armour and a weapon and some supplies so I headed off to Arrille’s.

Politely the High Elf, Arille, greeted me and was quick to realize I must have been the stranger that had given Fargoth his ring back. He confirmed what I suspected, Fargoth was slightly retarded, he had the mind of a child and was almost chronically happy.

I removed the items from the bag I wanted to sell and displayed them on the counter in front of Arrille. We came to an agreement, he would gladly take all the items from my hands and I would buy the chitin cuirass, pauldrons and gauntlets, some food, a couple of useful spells and some scrolls. Even with those purchases I had more gold in my pocket than when I had entered the tradehouse. I had kept the dagger.
Then it hit me, I still didn’t have a real weapon, the iron dagger I had kept was hardly any more use than as a butterknife.
In the excitement I had forgotten to buy a real weapon. I double backed into Arrille’s and bought a chitin bow and some arrows.
Now I was set to face whatever was coming to me in the wild, or at least, that’s what I thought at that time.

I nibbled on a Kwama egg on a loaf of bread and adressed some inhabitants. Some locals mentioned Ergalla Socucius was looking for a missing tax collector, Processus Vitellius.
I wasn’t really feeling like heading back into the Census and Excise office, I had just left the damn thing, I decided to do some looking around myself. How hard would it be to find an Imperial tax collector?

Since it is always a good idea getting at least an idea where someone missing could hang out, I asked around for him. Ofcourse, blabbermouth Fargoth had heard rumours the Dunmer in the watchtower, Thavere Vedrano, was the only being able to stomach him. Apparantly, the guy was somewhat obnoxious. It was a start so I headed off to the lighthouse when in the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of something shiny – a weapon perhaps? – in a hollow stump. It cost me a pair of wet feet and trousers getting the item from the stump but it was well worth it. The enchanted axe would get me quite some gold, I never cared for axes, they are too heavy and too encumbring, so I intended on selling it but it would have to wait until I solved this mystery.

[Remko]

A/N: This is one of my favourite chapters. Hope you enjoy reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing this.

Chapter 7: Caius explains

Day 64

‘I assume you are here to discuss orders?’ Caius asked. He didn’t ask what had taken me so long.
I nodded in agreement.
‘You better sit down, this might take some time.’
Obeying, I sat myself down on a grubby seat and awaited what the Spymaster had to say.

The next hour he briefed me on what was expected from me. He explained the Emperor had taken an interest in the rumours that kept getting stronger about what he called The Sixth House. The Emperor wanted to know if there was any truth to the rumours of it returning and wanted me to investigate. I had the sneaky suspicion he knew more than he was telling but figured he must have had his reasons not to tell me.

When I asked him why he needed me and why Caius couldn’t take care of it himself, he simply said he was too old and too high-profile. Everyone knew who he was. I was a stranger so I could get into places he was denied access to.

Recognising the simple truth in that I asked what the first thing was that he wanted me to do. Caius ordered me to look up an informant, Hasphat Antabolis, more clued up on Sixth House cultists and the legend of the Nerevarine (again that name).
Since Caius asked me to investigate upon Nerevarine I didn’t bother asking him about it. It was highly likely Caius was as clueless about that as I was.
Locating Hasphat was easy, I could find him in the local Guild of Fighters hall, just across the river Odai that divided Balmora.

Hasphat wanted a favour in return for the information. To be more specific; he wanted me to retrieve a puzzlebox from a Dwemer ruin, called Arkngthand, southeast from Balmora. According to Hasphat the ruin was easy to find - the entrance would be concealed but all I had to do is pull a crank nearby to reveal it - which turned out to be more than true. Especially when you have found out a combination of some rather common ingredients - including the flying rats’ tailfeathers - make a very convenient flying potion.

I flew across the Balmora city walls and the surrounding mountains, straight to the Dwemer ruin.
Some people in Balmora were pointing upwards when they saw me passing by.
Except for being able to go straight to my goal, another advantage was that I was moving too fast for the Cliffracers - or flying rats as I call them - to be able to get to me. My flight was uneventful, I arrived at the ruin effortlessly about an hour later. If I had been on foot it would’ve taken me three to four hours easily because of the mountains I would’ve had to circumvent.

The flying potion wore off a bit too soon for my liking; I landed a small distance from the ruin on a huge steel bridge leading to the ruin.
As soon as I set foot towards the ruin, a spell hit me full on and a skeleton attacked me. A set of carriages with crates on it on the far end of the bridge had distracted me so I overlooked a bandit, probably smuggling contraband from the ruin.
The conjured skeleton disappeared with one hit from the ebony blade.

Shouting to him I didn’t mean him harm - as far as I was converned; his business was his business - proved useless. He snarled something undistinctive and threw another spell at me which I dodged easily.
This really wouldn’t do; I gave him a fair chance to surrender. But no…. he had to do it the hard way. I guess his associates were going to have a bigger cut with him out of the way.

As Antabolis had mentioned, an unpenetrable stone cover concealed the entrance. The crank was nearby, as soon as I moved it, the stone cover moved out of the way with a mighty rumble, revealing a heavy steel door, which opened without trouble. Those Dwemer – whatever they had been - sure knew how to make hinges.
I entered into a hall where more, probably smugglers as well, bandits took offence in my presence. Let’s just say my arguments for being there were stronger than theirs.

The ruin was enormous. It took me almost a day to go through all of the lower levels and to realise that’s not where the puzzlebox was. I did find several Dwemer artifacts, convenient ingedients, books and some rare weapons. I couldn’t carry it all out so I had to be selective with what I took with me. I left the heavier items behind.
Eventually, I got back into the entrance hall, still without the puzzlebox. Frustrated I sat myself down on a stairway, rested a while and had a quick bite while thinking what I was missing. There had to be something I had overlooked.

Carefully I looked around for a door I might have missed when my gaze caught another stairway I somehow managed to have overlooked. Feeling kind of embarrassed I followed it upwards and found a door into a chamber I hadn’t been into yet.
Two more smugglers were between me and my goal: behind them was a cupboard with a small, square item I never saw before. One smuggler went down quick, he was badly armoured; my ebony blade made short work of the Breton bandit.

The second bandit, an Imperial, was armoured far better than any bandit I had come across throughout all my travels. This must have been the boss of the smuggling operation they had going on. He was more clever than the rest as well; he kept well out of reach of my terrible sword and flung one spell after the other at me. How could I have been so stupid? I remembered a magical amulet I had found with which I could silence spellcasters, rendering them nearly harmless. It took me some time to find it; of course it was entirely on the bottom of my bag. I had to swallow some more spells which were really starting to hurt.

Together with the amulet I also dug up a healing potion from my bag. I sidestepped when another spell was hurled towards me, downed the potion and activated the amulet. The Imperial tried to cast more spells but soon realised it to be futile, drew his sword and attacked me. Needless to say; that was a bad move from his side. He payed dearly.

The item in the cupboard I had spotted behind him indeed turned out to be the puzzlebox, just as I had assumed. Finally I could leave this wretched ruin and report back with Hasphat to receive the information Caius requested. Returning the way I had arrived, I got back in Balmora in the middle of the night. Rather than disturbing Hasphat, I rented a room at The Eight Plates and went to see him the next morning.

Day 66

Hasphat Antabolis was pleased with my efforts. He told me everything he knew about Sixth House cultists and its re-ascension. Unfortunately, he knew nothing about the Nerevarine legend I didn’t already know, which was basically nothing at all.
When I asked him what he wanted with a toy he scowled and said it was a key to… well something else. It appeared he didn’t want to share his little secret.
He did give me a a set of notes he made to give to Caius.

‘How did you know I came from Caius,’ I asked him. ‘I am sure I didn’t mention him.’
He sighed in a way making me feel like it was pretty obvious. ‘He still owed me favour, now we’re even.’
So that’s how it is being a spy? Doing somebody else’s dirty work? I wasn’t amused at all.

Still angry I stamped into Caius’s house and threw the notes in front of his feet.
‘Here’s your favour,’ I snarled. ‘Anything else I can do for his royal Imperial Spymaster?’ and made a mock-bow.
The sarcasm wasn’t wasted on him. Caius excused himself for using me but also put me back in my place at the same time.

‘Look, I needed to know what you’re capable of. I know it may seem as though you were doing it for me but don’t forget; you are serving the Emperor, and do so without questioning. You owe him that much for releasing you from prison and allowing you to make a life for yourself once more.’
I realised I had been out of order and looked down on my worn-out shoes in shame.
A lesson in humility I guess. With having that ouf the way I proceeded to ask him what would be next.

‘I need you to look up another informant. I hoped Hasphat could provide all the info we need but I guess you noticed there is no information about the Nerevarine in Hasphat’s notes?’
I nodded; I had indeed noticed that.
‘There is a mage in the local Mages Guild hall-‘
‘Who you owe a favour as well?’
Caius smiled. ‘You are quick to comprehend the situation. Good. That means I won’t have to repeat myself. Anyway; I would like you to look up the Orc alchemist Sharn gra-Muzgob and ask her if she knows anything about the Nerevarine.’

A realisation to the whole situation came to me as I made towards the Guild of Mages. From what I gathered, spying was all about politics. And if you said politics in Morrowind, you also said Tribunal – the living gods of Morrowind. If I was to spy on the proceedings in Vvardenfell, I needed to come close to the Tribunal. I could see no easier way to create a viable reason to be in their presence than as a representative of the Temple of the Tribunal. But first, I needed new shoes.

This post has been edited by Remko: Mar 31 2010, 11:42 AM