Stolen Destiny: The Story of Stitch Options

[Khajiit_Thief01]

Hello everyone!

This is a story that I began years ago, and was originally published in part on the official Elderscrolls Forums. I figured it would find a better home here, and I would greatly appreciate your insights, comments, and advice.

Special thanks to Treydog, who has been my editor for this tale during it's sporadic (and still ongoing) updates!

So, without further ado.....

Stolen Destiny:
The Story of Stitch

FOREWORD

Heroes can't be Thieves.

This is a universally accepted truth among most law-abiding folks. In order to become a good, upstanding person in society, one must obey the rules and follow the laws. Children are to mind their manners, stay in school, and share their toys. Nothing is taken; everything is payed for. Good morals will be followed, bad morals will be disregarded.

For this reason, the Heroes portrayed in history are those who are generally noble and virtuous: Knights, Crusaders, Legionnaires, and so on. A Thief embodies those values which are seen as morally wrong: selfishness, greed, and a disregard for civil law. Thieves are not heroes, but enemies, and should be regarded by history as such.

I have told these things to myself many times over the years. These ideas, these rules, are what kept me from telling the story I am about to tell. It was a decision I made on my own, influenced by nobody else. Just as a Thief is supposed to do, I selfishly stole and then guarded what I viewed to be my possession.

But as the years go by and I start to reach the age where life takes away from me more than it gives, I realize that the possession was never mine to keep. It's a strange thing for a Thief to say, but some things must be shared with others. The thing I am referring to in this case, is history. Not the history that is read in the schools and libraries of today; the history I speak of is the True History, the history I stole from the people to protect myself and my way of life.

In the year 3E 427, history records the start of the journey taken by Balen Andrano, a Dunmer faithful of the Tribunal Temple who would eventually be acknowledged as the Nerevarine and change the world forever. That history is the wrong history, and with the next few strokes of my quill I will give back the Truth I stole in that same year:

Balen Andrano is not the Nerevarine. I am.

CHAPTER 1

The year 3E 403, outside of Balmora, Vvardenfell....

The rain was steady this night; not too hard, not too soft. Except for the quiet sound of the raindrops on the window and roof, it was completely still in the tiny home situated a few miles north of Balmora. The two Khajiits who occupied the home slept peacefully, the husband's arms around his wife's waist.

A loud, almost deafening knock woke them both up instantly. Fighting off the haze of sleep, the husband got out of bed, his wife attempting to follow.

"No," he said to her in Ta'Agra, their native language. "Go back to bed. I will see who it is." With a dreamy nod, the wife rested her head back on the pillow and fell fast asleep once more.

The male Khajiit walked to the door slowly, still shaking off his fatigue. Three more loud knocks impatiently prodded him forward.

"Patience! Dro'zhar is coming!" the Khajiit yelled, this time in the Imperial tongue. By the time he reached the door, the knocking had subsided. When he opened it, there was not a soul in sight. Dro'zhar eyed the entryway confusingly.

"Hello! Is anybody here?" the Khajiit yelled out in an annoyed tone. When a few moments passed with no answer, he stepped out onto the doorstep to better view the surrounding countryside. When he did so, his furry foot hit a round object, and suddenly the silence was broken by a baby's cry.

The Khajiit's ears extended upward in surprise. "What is this?" he muttered to himself, looking down at the source of the noise. The source turned out to be a straw basket, with a Breton baby inside who was now crying, his sleep undoubtedly disturbed by the Khajiit's foot.

"What is the problem? Why is my husband not back in bed?" the Khajiit's wife said a moment later, having snuck up on him from behind. Dro'zhar looked at his wife, annoyance in his voice now replaced by shock and confusion.

"It's a child. A Breton child. Look's like a boy," he answered, both of them now kneeling next to the basket for a closer look.

"Yes, it is," Dro'zhar's wife said a moment later. "Where is the mother?"

"Nobody was here, Kizza," Dro'zhar said to his wife. "The mother must have abandoned the child on our doorstep and left."

"Is there a note in the basket?" Kizza asked rhetorically. She searched the contents of the basket, careful not to poke the crying baby boy. After a quick inspection revealed nothing, she sighed. "No. Nothing but the boy."

"What should we do with it?" Dro'zhar inquired.

After a moment of reflection, Kizza answered, "What else is there to do? We must keep it and raise it as our own." Dro'zhar frowned.

"Raise the child? That is no small task," he reflected. "But my wife is right. There is nothing else we can do." With both Khajiits in agreement, they picked up the basket and brought it inside the house, away from the rain.


The year 3E 408, in the backyard of the Khajiits' home....


"But Mama, it's too high!" the 5-year old Breton yelled from the top of the tree, fear evident in his voice.

Kizza responded with the authority of a teacher to her student. "You will jump down from that tree or you will sleep there tonight. It is your choice, Tobias."

"But Mama! I'll hurt myself again!" the child protested, tears beginning to form in his eyes. The distance from the top of the tree to the field below him seemed a thousand miles away.

"You can not let your fear control you," she said, more soothingly this time. "You are not a Khajiit, but with much practice and training you will move as silently and gracefully as one. But you must be willing to try."

The child choked back the tears and nodded his head. "Ok, Mama. I'll try." The boy counted to three, and then jumped down from the top of the tree.

On the way down, a branch made a deep cut in the boy's leg, forcing him to wince in pain and break the concentration of his decent. He landed on his stomach and the world bounced for what seemed like eternity. When it settled back to its normal position, the young Breton boy sat up and cradled his knee, crying in pain. Kizza ran over to her adopted son, hugging him with one hand and holding his knee with the other as she inspected the wound.

"This cut is deep," she said, a mother's concern in her voice. She looked in her son's eyes and calmed him down. After the sobs subsided, Kizza smiled as a thought came to her mind. Confusion took the place of the child's pain, curiosity getting the better of his tears.

"Mama? Why are you smiling?" the child questioned. Kizza laughed to herself, still looking into her son's eyes.

"If you keep getting wounds like this, your mother will have to call you "Stitch." She laughed to herself again, and the child smiled.

"I like that nickname," the boy sniffed.

"Oh, do you? Then we must make it stick," she resolved, standing up. "Climb back up the tree, my little Stitch. We have more training to do."

The year 3E 415, inside the Khajiit's home....

"No! Still too fast!" Dro'zhar said. "Stitch must learn to slow down his movements. His steps must be softer than a feather, yet quick as the sands of Elsweyr! Noise is the enemy; silence, the friend," the Khajiit instructed. "Do it again."

"Father, I can't! I don't have feet like yours!" the 12-year old Breton complained. They had been practicing the proper technique of sneaking for several hours now, and the boy was tired.

The father just smiled. "Ah, but my Stitch can! Remember when he said he couldn't jump from the backyard tree?"

"But it took forever to do!" the child shot back.

Dro'zhar continued to smile. "But now he lands with the grace of a Khajiiti acrobat! It takes time, son. More time than a Khajiit child, true. But when the technique is mastered, it is never forgotten!" After a brief pause, Stitch's father continued. "It is this one's job to teach; it is your job to master. So, we will continue now."

Stitch nodded to his father, inspired by the Khajiit's words and determined to finish the task. "Yes, Father. Let's continue."


The year 3E 420, on the road north of Balmora....


Smoke in the distance. It looks like it’s coming from...no, it couldn't be. It must be somewhere else. Has to be somewhere else.

Running, sprinting, gasping for breath. Just a little bit closer now. Have to keep moving.

Almost there. Can't stop running. Must make sure.....oh no.

No. No, it..."MOM! DAD!"

The flames engulfed everything he knew...the house, the yard, the tree he used to jump from...all of it in flames.

"MOM! DAD!" Still no answer. He heard nothing from inside. They must have gotten out. Had to have gotten out. He had to go and check....

"MOM! DAD!" he sprinted towards the burning building. Still no answer. He had to save them. They couldn't be...

"Hey! What the hell are you doing? Don't go there, kid!" An Imperial guard was running after him. "Stop! Don't go in there!"

The guard caught up to him and tackled him to the ground. "Kid, are you crazy? You'll die if you go in there!"

Stitch tried to fight the guard off. "Get off me! I need to see if they're in there! I have to..."

"You have to calm down, kid! You'll get yourself killed if you run into that fire!" the guard interjected. He held the 17-year old Breton down with ease.

"Get off me! Get off me!" Stitch yelled, still trying to squirm free.

"Wake up! Wake up!" the guard told him. "STITCH, WAKE UP!"


The year 3E 427, at a house in Balmora....


"Stitch! WAKE! UP!" I heard the voice of a Khajiit yelling into my ear.

"Argh...Ra'veer? What are you doing here?" I asked him, still half-asleep.

"The same thing I do every damn morning. Waking you up!" he responded.

I sat up straight in my bed and proceeded to rub my eyes. "Hmm...I thought for sure that new lock I put on the front door would keep you out of here."

"What, are you serious? I could have picked that thing with a scrib's leg." Ra'veer was always one for jokes. "Now get out of bed and get dressed. There's business to be done and drinks to be drunk. Not necessarily in that order."

I pulled the covers off myself and sat on the edge of the bed. "Did I mutter anything in my sleep this time?"

"No, but you were squirming worse than a constipated guar. Another bad dream?"

"It didn't start out that way. But it ended that way, yeah."

"Well, it's nothing a nice bottle of Flin can't fix. Hurry up before I lock you in your own room," the Khajiit challenged.

"Lock the Master Thief in his own room? How do you figure you'd do that?" I asked.

"By tying you to the bed and locking the door. A bit brutal, perhaps, but it will get the job done." We both shared a good laugh.

"Alright, give me a few minutes and I'll be ready," I told him.

As I stood up and walked over to my dresser, I couldn't shake the dream from my head. Most people saw their lives flash before them right before they died; I had been seeing mine flash before me in my dreams. It seems that even after all these years, I still wasn't completely over what had happened. My parents had burned to death in that fire. A fire that was no accident...

I shook the thought from my head and pulled out a brown, hooded robe. I put it on and then sank my feet into some leather boots. After that was finished, I walked over to my closet and opened a chest that contained my Daedric shortsword, which I strapped to my side. I had stolen the sword from a Redoran nobleman three years earlier, and though I rarely ever needed to use it I never left home without it. You never knew when the Camonna Tong would try something nasty, after all.

After I had finished getting ready, Ra'veer and I walked out of my home and towards the South Wall bar across the Odai River. It was early in the morning and the sun was just beginning to rise. It was a bit chilly outside, but the Hlaalu guards were still sweating in their heavy Bonemold armor. They grunted as we walked past, but didn't say a word. It was just as well; thieves and guards don't mix, and it wasn't hard to point out who was who.

I looked at Ra'veer and thought of the past, of the good past. We had practically grown up together; our parents were great friends and Ra'veer was always over at our house when we were younger. When my parents sent me to the Imperial school in Caldera, Ra'veer had insisted to his parents that he go, as well--and after many days of constant arguing, they relented. The Imperial tutoring we had both received explained why Ra'veer, unlike most Khajiits, could speak in the first-person; our parents, however, were all natives of Elsweyr and so only talked in the third-person, as was common among Khajiits. It was unusual to the innocent bystander to hear a Khajiit using the word "I," but to us it was just another sign of our strong bond of friendship.

We arrived at the South Wall in a few short minutes and immediately went downstairs to the bar. We were greeted on the way down by Solitude and Sugar-Lips Habasi, Guild members and friends to us. Sitting ourselves down at the bar, we were each served a drink---Flin for me, Cyrodillic Brandy for Ra'veer---and we began to laugh and joke around as we always did every morning. It looked to be another normal day, business as usual.

It stopped looking that way halfway through our first drinks. We heard Solitude's voice from upstairs; she was clearly yelling so that we would hear her. Fearing the worst, both of us dropped our drinks and ran upstairs, hands on our weapons, ready to draw them if need be.

When we got up the steps, we saw Solitude arguing with two Imperial Guards, likely from Fort Moonmoth. They were speaking softly to her while she was protesting loudly. As soon as they saw Ra'veer and me, however, they stopped their conversation and looked at us. Solitude gave me a look of fear, and I knew the subject of the conversation.

"Tobias "Stitch" Do'bara," one of the Imperials began, "You are to come with us to Fort Moonmoth immediately. If you do not come peacefully, we will resort to using force."

This post has been edited by Khajiit_Thief01: May 29 2011, 05:00 AM

[Khajiit_Thief01]

I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!

What's it been, two years? Just over, if the timestamps are to be believed. I could go into a long explanation about how real-life caught up with me for a time and writing had to take a back seat, but I'll spare you all the boring details. What matters is that I am back now, and back to finishing this story I started so long ago!

Here's an update on where we are so that you can all get caught up:

The Khajiiti-raised Breton Master Thief and current head of the Vvardenfell Thieves Guild Tobias Do'bara--more commonly known and referred to as "Stitch" by his friends and enemies alike--has been blackmailed by the Imperial Legion to join the Emperor's spies known as the "Blades" and do their bidding until such a time as they see fit. His first assignment is to retrieve an object called a "Dwemer puzzle box" from the ancient ruins of Arkngthand and return it to a Blades contact in the town of Balmora in exchange for information concerning the Nerevarine secret cult and the Sixth House secret cult. Stitch had been searching the ruins for several hours with no luck until he finally managed to capture a young smuggler and gain some information from the man at sword-point. Stitch was forced to kill the smuggler in self-defense, but before doing so he learned the puzzle box may be in possession of a man referred to as "Boss Crito."

We now join Stitch in the immediate aftermath of that impromptu interrogation as he plans his next set of moves to bring himself closer to the elusive Dwemer puzzle box.

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The entire event had happened so fast, so sudden, that I had reacted on pure instinct. Having a dagger pulled on me was not an uncommon occurrence in my line of work, and in those cases it was normally prudent to stab first and save the negotiations for somebody more willing to participate in them. It was unfortunate that this young man was unwilling to take my offer and leave this place unharmed…but then again, would I have done so in his position? After a brief moment to consider the question, I concluded that I would not have done so. The criminal world was a nix-hound eat nix-hound one, and had the tables been turned I would have reacted in the same way.

That isn’t meant to sound cold-hearted, mind you; it is not a reflection of my own personal feelings, but merely the reality of the world in which I lived. Killing was a necessary part of my life as a Thief, but it was a part I disliked—even despised. Still, I was in a profession in which people were constantly trying to get what I had, and oftentimes the only way they felt they could get it was by taking me out of the picture. Every thief, bandit, smuggler, and outlaw wanted to be on top, and since I was currently the one occupying that top spot I possessed a constant target on my back. Add to that the fact the Legion was also vying for my execution, as well, and it made for quite a long list of enemies.

Killing wasn’t just necessary for the survival of self, however; it was also necessary for the survival of business. Smuggling routes had to be secured, stashes had to be protected, and informants had to be dealt with. I had always justified this by saying that I had never killed anybody who either didn’t deserve it, or whom I had given the option to live. Be it shady businessmen, suppliers skimming off the top or other similarly despicable characters, I always offered two choices: get out of the business, or be killed. To captured enemies, the choice was slightly different: join my cause, or join your former comrades in death.

Some—the businessmen and shady suppliers, mostly--chose the first choice, and then did not abide by it in the belief that I would not find out. I always did, of course, and they were never again offered a deal. The rest—mostly those competing smugglers and Camonna Tong members I had captured—chose to die. Either way, I almost always offered a choice. Was it my fault if their decisions led to their deaths?

Justifications for my behavior aside, I was eager to get back to business and proceeded to search every last crate in the room currently occupied by myself and the corpse of my would-be assailant. To my immense disappointment, the crates did not contain the puzzle box; on that point, the smuggler had indeed been truthful. What he had neglected to mention, however, was that in the corner behind a stack of the crates was a Dwemer chest that had been obscured from my view. As I knelt down to open the chest, I noticed that it was locked. Thankfully, this lock was much less complex than the one on the Dwemer door, and I was able to open it with minimal effort by using a lockpick.

The chest did not contain the puzzle box, but what it did contain caused me to smile widely: 50 pristine Dwemer coins, each containing the same type of marking that indicated they were minted as a set. Such an amount of coins in and of itself was a valuable find, but the fact that these particular coins were of the same set meant that their value would be even greater. A collector would pay extremely well for these.

I closed the chest and left the coins for now—I still had at least three more smugglers to deal with, and the clattering of change in my pockets would not be very conducive to a stealthy approach. They would be there when I returned after my task in Arkngthand was finished.




I exited the room and proceeded to retrace my footsteps back to the entrance of the ruins. As I did so, I noticed my distorted reflection on some of the metallic pipes that snaked along the walls; my eyes were bloodshot red from a combination of stress and exhaustion, and my skin was pale from a lack of natural light. I concluded, in that moment, that Arkngthand was draining me, and perhaps even willfully trying to kill me. I resolved to finish the task at hand as quickly as possible so that I could return to the warmth of my own bed back in Balmora.

Arriving back at the cavern that served as the entrance to Arkngthand, I immediately noticed the stone ramp the young smuggler had spoken of. I once again cursed my lack of perception upon first entering the ruins; I had been so concerned about avoiding the two smugglers below that I had neglected to take notice of several other features the vast chamber held within. I promised myself that I would not make such a mistake again.

Speaking of the smugglers, the Imperial and Redguard were both still at the bottom of the cavern talking to each other. The same issue that prevented me from dealing with the men hours earlier was still present: the cavern remained well-illuminated by various torches and the Dwemer light fixtures attached to the walls. A stealthy approach remained out of the question unless I could douse the torches’ flames. I found myself left with two options: rush the smugglers’ position and hope to catch them off guard, or find a way to darken the path.

As my brain weighed the pros and cons of each scenario, a thought suddenly popped into my head; the sujamma the Nord had been drinking in the nearby room through the cavern’s hole could be used to douse the flames! I quickly retreated to the room and liberated a flask of the liquor from a nearby shelf. The corpse of the Nord was still present and was beginning to contaminate the air with a foul odor, but thankfully I would have no need to return now.

With sujamma in hand, I devised a plan to deal with the smugglers. The torches were spread out too far apart for me to douse them all at once, but I estimated that I would able to quickly extinguish the one or two closest to my current position before the smugglers could sufficiently react. On the one hand, this would provide me with a decent amount of darkness to make the first attack; on the other, it would put the men on their guard and make them harder to defeat. Not having a better plan, though, I proceeded in the hope that I would emerge as the victor.

I crept to the first torch as quickly as I could while still maintaining my silence. The creaks and moans of Arkngthand served as my ally in this regard, as they helped conceal whatever noise I may have inadvertently made. Upon reaching the first torch, I quickly poured a healthy amount of sujamma on it; the flame died with a loud hiss and produced a small cloud of alcohol-scented smoke. The second torch did the same, but I might as well have not bothered; the smugglers were already running towards me with their weapons drawn. Even so, the darkness that came with the absence of the torches allowed me to momentarily slip out of view and reposition myself in a more advantageous manner to counter the oncoming rush. When the men arrived, I was able to side-step around them and deliver the first couple blows to their backs.

Now, most fighters and tacticians will tell you that fighting multiple enemies at once is undesirable; the more enemies there are, the more weapons aimed at your throat at once, not to mention the risk of becoming surrounded and turned into a pincushion. I only ever concerned myself with the last part—avoiding becoming surrounded. If you can manage that, then I would argue that fighting multiple enemies at once gives you several advantages, the most important of which is a greater ability to hit a target. In this type of situation, your enemies will be so concerned about unintentionally injuring their partner or partners that they will be more cautious with their attacks than normal (that is, unless they don’t give a rat’s behind about their partners…which actually is a pretty common thing in the criminal underworld now that I think about it). You, however, do not share this same caution and so are free to dictate the terms of battle as you like.

At least, that was my strategy during this match, and it thankfully worked out in my favor. I can’t speak to how close these two men were to one another, but it was clear they were trying not to stick the each other with the ends of their blades as they fought me. This allowed me to parry their blades and counter-attack with relative ease. For every one blow they landed on my flesh, I landed two or three more on theirs. By continually side-stepping and keeping the men from surrounding me, I was even able to get them to occasionally hurt one another by mistake despite their best efforts to avoid doing so. After a time, the lives of the smugglers became extinguished like those of the torch flames, while my own still burned within me albeit slightly dimmer than before.

I wished very much to rest at that point, but knew I could not. There remained one more enemy to deal with in this cursed Dwemer ruin—the so-called “Boss Crito” that ran this two-bit smuggling operation. Hopefully, this man would possess the Dwemer puzzle box I sought and I could leave this place forever. Knowing my luck up to this point, he had probably already sold it to some wizard in some random cave out east in Telvanni territory and I would be doomed to forever track down the little box until my dying day. Whatever the case, there was only one way to find out. I holstered my Daedric shortsword and climbed up the stone ramp leading to the second level of the ruins. Once on the new level, I went immediately for the door; whatever treasures the shelves and cabinets that adorned this platform could wait. For now, I had business with a Boss that concerned a small cubed metal object that had, over the course of the last several hours, become the bane of my existence.