Redemption, part 2 Options

[jack cloudy]

Click here for Redemption Part 1


Alright, part 2. Still not much redeeming going on but whatever. Now instead of continuing the story, I figured I'd use this post for all the miscellaneous stuff. Things like a character list and the recap for part 1. So be warned that this post CONTAINS SPOILERS. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!


RECAP FOR PART 1 Again SPOILERS!

One night, the palace is breached by unknown assailants. Following standard protocol for such events, the Emperor is secretly transported to the prison by his Blades. The Imperial Battlemage, Ocato, declines to join him, claiming that the situation is under control and that his services aren't needed.

Despite having reached the prison safely, the Emperor soon finds that he is still in danger. It is then that Uriel receives help from an unexpected ally. Angoril Bobardi reveals that the very cell he has inhabited for decades, contains a secret escape route that was built during the simulacrum at the order of Jagar Tharn. With this passage and the considerable magical prowess of Angoril, the Emperor manages to flee the deadly trap.

Also freed from the prison by Angoril is Maorlatta Orgnum, a young (by elf-standards) and somewhat naive girl who was arrested for the crime of sleeping in the park. Once free, she quickly makes herself scarce and eventually finds herself in the shack of an old fisherman who lives on an island in Lake Rumare. The fisherman seeks the help of the thieves guild to rid her of the manacles and prison outfit that would have every Legionnaire arrest her on sight. Unfortunately, the one assigned to pick the locks on the manacles informs Vicente Valtieri instead, who takes a personal interest in the girl’s talent for camouflage. Maorlatta is saved by the Redguard Sorian, a young and rather strange lad who keeps going on and on about something he calls an Ansei. The two team up to go treasure hunting in a nearby Ayleid ruin.

Meanwhile, Angoril returns to the prison. Pretending to be from the palace, he gets a vital clue from the Argonian private investigator Grey-Tongue. The Argonian sends him to Chorrol to find the source of the assassins distinctive red robes. To get to Chorrol, he summons a shiftgate, circumventing days travelling. From Chorrol the trail leads to Kvatch, a city whose precise location he does not know. Unable to summon another shiftgate with reasonable accuracy, Angoril seeks more mundane passage to Kvatch.

While Angoril is travelling, Maorlatta and Sorian hit the Ayleid ruin. After some trouble with a zombie, they strike gold and find an abandoned office with some intact artefacts. They attempt to sell the artefacts in the Imperial city, where they are intercepted by Grey-Tongue and then Vicente Valtieri. Sorian again makes the vampire flee. The next morning Maorlatta wakes up in the Imperial palace with no recollection on how she got there or what happened during her stay at Grey-Tongue’s house. Jauffre interrogates her in the garden at the top of the tower.







Redemption's persons of questionable importance

Main characters:
Angoril Bobardi: An Altmeri sorcerer who inhabited a cell in the Imperial prison, fully aware of the secret escape route. After leaving the prison, he makes it his task to track down the leaders behind the red-robed assassins.

Maorlatta Orgnum: A Maormer from Pyandonea, sent to Tamriel at the command of king Orgnum. Circumstances land her in the same prison as the Altmer. After escaping, she returns to the pursuit of her own goals, one of which is to become filthy rich.

Side characters:
Grey-Tongue: An Argonian private investigator. He is a friend of Hieronymous Lex and has been hired by the guard-captain in the past. Grey-Tongue is hired now as well by the city-guard to investigate the events at the prison and find Uriel’s corpse.
Guard-Captain Hieronymous Lex: Hieronymous Lex is the man put in charge of investigating the massacre at the Imperial Prison. Upon finding that Uriel Septim was seen entering the prison that night, he hires Grey-Tongue to help him uncover the truth.
Sorian: A Redguard who saves Maorlatta from Vicente Valtieri. A simple wandering swordsman with a slight Ansei-obsession.
Rajn Geydar: A Wood Elf who lives in Kvatch. At one point possessed a piece of the Balac-Thurm.

Others:
Guard-Captain Argelius: A colleague of Hieronymous Lex who describes him as the man to call when you need subtlety.
Bannon: A merchant who travelled with Angoril from Chorrol to Kvatch
Baleni: Daughter of Rajn Geydar
Doruk: The Bouncer who worked at Rajn Geydar's restaurant. Deceased.
Penald Baurus: Blade and bodyguard of Uriel Septim.
Berius: Lord Protector and Head of the palaceguard in the Imperial City.
Valen Dreth: A Dunmeri prisoner. Not the most pleasant sort.
Jennifer Renault: Blade, recently promoted to captain.
Glenroy: Blade and bodyguard of Uriel Septim.

Fenasim: A member of the emperor's Palace guard.
Mankar Camoran: The father of both Raven and Ruma. He is the leader of the Mythic Dawn and its prophet.
Raven Camoran: The ‘Hand’ of the Mythic Dawn, an organization with an unknown purpose. What is certain however, is that the Dawn wants Uriel Septim dead.
Ruma Camoran: The sister of Raven, she serves the Mythic Dawn as Priestess. In the same night that the attempt on the emperor’s life is made, she infiltrates the vaults beneath the Imperial palace to steal two artefacts.
Harrow: A member of the Dawn, Harrow used to be an Armiger stationed in Vvardenfell.

Ludius Bester: Member of Bester and Bester, the Kvatch Hall of Mercantile Interests. He runs the office in lower Kvatch.
Aelwin Merowald: An old fisherman who lost most of his leg to Slaughterfish. Friend of Delmar Tunius.
Rajn Geydar: Owner of the Eight Provinces, a restaurant in Kvatch.
Ra’Jezhr: A Khajiiti lockpicker in the employ of the Thieves Guild, Ra’Jezhr is also coerced into serving the Dark Brotherhood’s interests.
Simanuel Rosendorf IV: The owner of a silk-plantation near Chorrol

Umbacano: An Altmer who lives in the capital city. A well-known collector of Ayleid artefacts.
Uriel Septim VII: The Emperor of Tamriel.
Brother Tanner: A priest who serves in the Kvatch-temple. Looks like a Septim.
Delmar Tunius: An old fisherman who lives on a small island in lake Nibenay.
Vicente Valtieri: A member of the Dark Brotherhood, he takes interest in Maorlatta’s talents at stealth, and desires to make her an assassin, with or without her cooperation.

Latta’s evergrowing list of people only she knows:
Levvelyn of Glashorn: The hero of a popular series who spends most of his books saving the world, slaying vicious monsters, duelling devious Altmeri warlords and chasing the girl.
Irrillys: A fictional princess of Pyandonea, she is Levvelyn’s love interest. Posesses an unfortunate talent for being kidnapped by devious Altmeri warlords.
Mettildi: The Maormer that taught Maorlatta how to fight, though his methods traumatized her to the point where she is mentally incapable of defending herself.
Master Zelthir: Another Maormer put in charge of educating Maorlatta. Master Zelthir is a well-known and highly respected healer.

This post has been edited by jack cloudy: Sep 22 2013, 07:36 PM

[jack cloudy]

Nah, I'm just slower than the drat gletsjer that swallowed Cloud Ruler Temple. (Is that even possible? Meh, I guess the Akaviri built things tough.)


Chapter 9.2


Mythic Dawn Temple

After the fiasco at the Imperial City, Raven Camoran and two others had travelled as fast as they could to the Dawn’s hideout. Carved out of stone and dirt by scamps, it was a temple to the glory of Mehrunes Dagon, Daedric Prince of Destruction, and his foremost servants, the Camorans. What Raven didn’t like about the place was how far removed from civilization it was. He hated how it sat in a northeastern corner of the province like the hiding hole of a common bandit. He hated how the nearest city was Cheydinhall, infested with too many Dunmer. He hated how the secrecy of the place had made it impossible to bring decent furniture. All they had was roughly hewn from local wood and a few small luxuries they’d sneaked in over the years.

He had made his own room, actually a large alcove walled off with timbers and a spell of silence to ensure some measure of privacy, in the deepest part of the tunnel-complex. There he simmered and stewed all day, angry at just about anything. At having to sacrifice his comfort here, at his worthless underlings, at his own failure and that stranger who had so easily thwarted his plans. He hoped that Ruma had done better, yet he feared having to explain to his father why he had failed what was supposed to be the easier task.
“This almost makes me believe in the existence of Talos. Who else but an apeothisized Septim could have so skillfully outmanipulated me?”




“Raven! I know you’re in here!” A familiar voice called at the same time the door was thrown open. In came the sister he’d just been thinking about, dressed up like an Imperial Forester in leathers and a chain undershirt. She held a small jewelry box made of misted glass which she slammed down on the table before him with enough force that he feared it would crack.
“When I speak to father, he,” She continued but he jumped up from his seat and cut her off.
“Father has been delayed!” He said.
The Altmeri woman blinked while she processed the new information. By the original plan, Raven and she would perform their respective tasks in the Imperial City, at the same time that other arms of the Dawn would strike at the Septims throughout the province. Their father meanwhile, would personally undertake another vital operation in the land of the Dunmer. He’d left a month or two ago but did promise to return for the fateful day. Yet he had neither visited or contacted her.
“What did he say?” She asked her brother.
“Nothing. We can only assume that something of import had him extent his stay in that land. Now that I have your attention. From the beginning please.”


“It is about Harrow. I want him out of that cell! The Dunmer you put on guard-duty actually had the guts to ignore my commands! I would have burned him to a cinder, were it not for our need to display unity.” He didn’t doubt for a moment she would. She had often demanded the right to cast capital punishment upon the unworthy. But their father had possessed the wisdom to deny her wishes in that, for their grip on their followers was tenuous as it was. If their acolytes would ever fear their masters would kill them, they might make foolish plots to escape or murder the Camorans first. So their father had decreed to his children that all the unworthy were to be cast off through accidents and ‘plots of the Septim’.

With a sigh Raven picked up the box she’d brought in. It was of a simple design, with rounded edges and light as a feather. He focused his eyes upon the patterns that were cast into its smooth shell, like milk that had been frozen in mid-stir. It was the focus he needed to keep his calm and not yell back at her.
“Speak to me not of him. I’ve had it with that sickening psychopath. Do you have any idea how many lives he spilled that night just for his amusement? Do you? I left this blasted cave with a dozen men. I returned with only two.” He spoke softly, yet unable to entirely hide the hatred he felt for the Dunmer.
“He did what he had to. Sacrifice the lesser for the Dawn. You are being a hypocrite, brother. I sacrifice, you sacrifice, father sacrifices. We all spend the lives of our followers like precious coin. What makes his so much worse?”

Raven let out a sigh again and placed the coffer upon the soft pillow he usually rested his head upon in the night. As for Ruma’s question, he knew the answer.
“The way he’s wrapped you around his finger. The way he will kill you, father, me, all of us the moment he believed he could and would gain from it.” He’d said those words or a variation upon them a hundred times, and she’d never once believed them. So he gave her another answer, just as true but not quite as important.
“We sacrifice because we must, not because we can. He claimed three for no other reason than because he thought it amusing to watch them fight a Blade. A Blade!” His self-control was slipping and he gripped the edge of the table till his knuckles turned white. But Ruma dismissed his argument with a dainty wave of her hand. There were no callouses on that hand or even the lightest speck of dust under her nails, Raven suddenly realized. It quite ruined the disguise.

The woman talked, unaware of her brother’s untimely distraction.
“And? He told me it was a mistake. He thought it was a man of the city watch. Anyone could have made that error. Also, you miscounted. One still lives though I do not know if he has returned.” She said. Raven tried to remember the Bosmer that fled. Neither his name or face came to him, though he was certain he’d written down both on some paper. He searched in his pockets, then remembered that he’d gave the scrap away.
“He hasn’t, and won’t have the chance to beg my forgiveness. The Brotherhood does not ask questions.” He finally said as he shook his head to himself. If the mer from Valenwood had rejoined that night, at the boats perhaps, he would have been in the mind to forgive him. After all, it was that mer alone who remembered his orders or had the wisdom to know when he was outmatched. But it was too late for any of that now. The Camoran’s were not generous with second chances.
“As for Harrow, my dear sister. You know this as well as I do. Better even, for no doubt he has regaled you with endless tales of his valour during the long nights. You know how he spent decades fighting the ashen hordes at Red Mountain. He knows the difference that training and proper weapons make. He knows that despite whatever faults the Septim may have, foregoing the training and arming of his men in his city is not one of them. Faith does not save the amateur from the professional. Even if it was just a man of the watch, the outcome would have been the same. Yes, Harrow probably would have slain the man in that case, but the three Bosmer would be just as dead.”


For a while they locked eyes, Raven somehow trying to will his sister to see things his ways through sheer force of will. At the end the woman threw her arms up in defeat.
“Alright, enough! I admit your point holds merit. Some. But you can’t blame him for drowning the men in the undercity. That was entirely beyond our expectations.” She said exasperated. Though savoring his small victory, Raven found himself forced to admit that her argument held some merit of its own. Harrow was not the only one at fault, much as he’d like to think that way.
“True, the blame for that is not his alone. I blame them just as much for following the orders of a man I’d deemed unfit to lead.” He admitted. One of his fingers began to idly play with the latch of the jewelrybox as he continued.
“What’s done, is done.The bigger issue with that incident is the stranger that caused the flooding in the first place. We were unaware that a sorcerer of noteworthy skill was imprisoned there, with his magicka unbound.”

It was the first Ruma had heard of it. All she’d known up to this point was Harrow’s view of affairs, which had focused on her brother’s failure to catch and kill the Septim, as well as his irritable mood on the long journey back to their sanctuary. If he’d mentioned an encounter between Raven and some sorcerer, it had slipped her mind.
“A sorcerer that can give him pause? I can’t think of many. Archmage Traven perhaps, but he never leaves the university these days. A troublesome matter.” She thought and decided to inquire directly.
“Who was he?”



“We never met face to face. I took some time to finish off the prison-guards while my Daedroth ventured down below. I figured that a beast like that should even give the mighty Blades a worthy challenge.” Raven muttered with his eyes on the ceiling as his thoughts returned to his one-man assault on the prison. It had begun easy enough. The weather had driven the outside guards inside and the locked gate could not resist his magics. A clerk had been in the entry-hall, one whose face and throat he’d burned away with an almost dismissive gesture. Still simple.


It had been afterwards that things became mildly difficult. Uriel Septim had warned the prison guards and every single one of them had been in the following room, swords drawn and facing the door from which he entered. The first one had nearly managed to strike a blow at him before he’d managed to draw the Daedroth from its outerworldly realm. Things became easy again as the beast torn the Imperials apart in that brutal way only an animal could. Oh, they’d shown courage resisting the great beast, he admitted that. Their swords had bent on its hide and they’d never yielded, never allowed access to the cells until the last had been tossed aside like a broken doll.
He’d sent the Daedroth ahead and taken a generous amount of time to finish off the mangled survivors. There were none whose wounds weren’t fatal, but the close encounter had retaught him to be ever careful and never allow even the slightest chance for his plans to be defeated.

But when he carefully descended the steps, he didn’t find the Emperor, or his Blades. He found his Daedroth standing in the corridor, immobilized by magic he’d never seen before or heard of. Bands of coloured light that tightened around each joint like a leash. And the cell, with the secret escape route, was wide open.
“I followed immediately, of course. But the undercity was flooded even as I crawled through the narrow tunnel that led to it. I nearly drowned myself.”
He’d been forced to turn back, with his confidence shaken. Coming back, he found that the cells were not as empty as he’d first believed. There was a prisoner on the opposite side of the corridor. He’d been quiet up to this point and Raven had entirely missed him on his way in. The beast naturally tried to eat the grimy mer the moment it managed to free itself from its bonds, but Raven had called it back. He needed answers.
“He told me that the sorcerer was an Altmer like us, and had been in that cell already at the time of his imprisonment. That’s all I know, actually. They did not exchange their autobiographies. But I do believe we may find more if we look into the guild’s records. A mage of that caliber doesn’t operate alone, nor does his education come from a vacuum.”

The prisoner had told him more, but none which he felt like telling Ruma. He definitely wasn’t going to tell her how he’d brought the filthy animal with him. That mer, what was his name? Dreth, was now his very own Harrow. A man who he owned completely, who could take the blame for him if he needed. Besides, he had been somewhat impressed at the mer’s tale of how he bested a Blade and held the emperor hostage, even if just for a minute. It sounded like bragging, but the Dunmer vowed it was the truth.
“Like I’d believe a natural liar. But there is a kernel of truth to his tales. There must be.”
They changed topics to lighter subjects, mostly about what Ruma had done and idle wondering about what could have detained their father. Finally, the woman stood up and walked to the door.
“I must prepare for the service. What will be done with Harrow?” She asked with her hand on the doorbolt. Raven covered his eyes and wished she’d forgotten about that. He knew she would not accept what he really wanted to be done. And the Camorans could never appear disunited.
“You may ensure he does not suffer discomfort. But that is all. He stays there till father says otherwise.”



She left Raven alone in his room. The man looked again at the little box she’d left behind. Finally he flipped the lid to see what was inside. Coins, each a full septim minted in some far corner of the empire, were stacked densely to the point of spilling, and the weight of this fortune pressed the coffer deeply into its pillow. He took one and turned it in his hand before flicking it contemptuously back onto the pile and closing the lid.
“Why is it that the moment one of our problems is solved, two more rear their head?”

This post has been edited by jack cloudy: Feb 24 2013, 03:22 PM