The Eldest Councilor, A knight in service of a councilor... Options

[Kiln]

Author's note: Keep in mind that none of the characters in this story are based off of any in oblivion, as I do not have the game and cannot add references to it so just assume that it takes place years after the OB storyline.
Also, this is my first real try at a story from the first person perspective so it may not be so good but hey, I hope you find the time to at least read a little and decide if you like it.
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Prologue

I shall tell you a story that is rarely told, there are few left in this world to recite it. It is a tale of a knight who would stop at nothing to protect his master and friend, throughout time he grew more and more powerful. I will admit that his power was not used only for helping people, they were used for what his master desired and needed. I shall read this story from the journal of Deagan, for he is long gone now and his tale has nearly been forgotten.

Chapter One: In the Beginning...

My name is Deagan, I am but a prisoner now but I was not always locked up like this, believe it or not I once served one of the oldest and most respected councilors in the country...once I was a respected knight serving under what I felt was right...though now I sit here in the darkness, secluded from the other inmates, I can't help but think back to when I first arrived and why I was brought here.

When I first entered the prison, I was on the same floor as the other prisoners but after I escaped my cell and nearly made it out of the complex, the warden added several more guards around me but I was still on the same floor at that time.

The extra guards that were added to the area were always drunk and abusive, they enjoyed hitting me for long periods of time, generally only a few would participate and the beatings would last only a few short minutes but there were always the occasions when they would all enter my cell and hit me at once.

I could have killed them at any time with the amount of experience and training I'd been through but I took the punishment so I could avoid getting into more trouble. Though every man has his limits and eventually I snapped.

One day when the guards entered my cell to begin the usual beating I took the iron mug from the wet stone floor of my room and swung it with my full strength at the nearest guard, causing him to fall to the ground.

As the other guards stood in amazement, I drew the sword from the belt of their downed comrade and jabbed it through the stomach of one of the others. The last guard that hadn't already run unsheathed his sword and I fought him for a few minutes before finally getting through and slicing his neck.

I know it was probably wrong but I felt great, I'd once again gotten the feel of a blade in my hand and felt the blood of the guards who had beaten me regularly for almost four years.

I went for the stairway and fought several more guards in the room with the exit.

Before I left I took a knee near the bodies and searched them quickly for anything that might be of use to me once I had left the prison but there was nothing but a bit of gold and a key.

I went down to the cell room and released the other inmates, no matter what they had done, nobody deserved to be locked up here. The bruised inhabitants of the prison stayed downstairs for now, until I'd checked things outside the prison.

At that point I was starting to feel pretty good, the doorway was right in front of me and I now had a weapon and a bit of gold, I was set to start my new life.

I opened the double doors in front of me and stared blankly into the huge blue sky above me, smelling the fresh air, tasting the winds, absorbing every moment of my newly acquired freedom...but it was a short lived moment of ecstasy.

In all the time I'd been fighting my way out of the prison, one of the guards had already made his way into town and brought back several others. I looked out across the courtyard at the many armored guards in formation in front of me and did a rough estimation of how many were there.

I counted about twenty and readied myself to fight them when I heard the loud thumping noise, as I slowly looked down I noticed the arrow in my chest and quickly broke it off, leaving the tip still inside of my flesh and starting to move closer to the group of men down the stairway.

Another arrow struck my shoulder but I did not let my pain show, instead I continued to make my way closer and closer to the soldiers, knowing that this battle would be my death...unfortunately it wasn't.

A man in a robe emerged and put his hand out as if he wished were motioning for me to stop, from it emerged the spell that ended my escape, it hit me and all my strength faded, I felt as if I hadn't slept in months and I fell to the ground on my knees, barely able to stay awake...which reminds me of why I hate mages since we're on the subject.

The guards surrounded me and forced my head down, the guard drew back his blade and readied to strike me, finishing this once and for all.

Before he could a voice rang out,

"No! Do not kill him, he shall be forced to suffer for what he has done, for the rest of his days he will remember the brave guards he killed today and their deaths will weigh hard on his mind."

In reality I felt no remorse for killing the guards, not even the slightest bit of guilt, my years of killing had taken away the feeling of grief and the feeling of wrongdoing that I had when I first started.

The man leaned down close to me and whispered into my ear softly,

"You will suffer for the crimes you have committed fool, you cannot stop us, we will kill the councilor."

I forced my head to look into his eyes then quickly looked to his feet and spat onto them, showing my hatred for him. If I could have lifted my arms I would have hit him right in the jaw and strangled him but alas, I was powerless.

I stayed awake a bit longer to see one of the guards draw back a wooden club and that was it, I awoke some time later in the darkness, completely alone. I learned later from the warden that they had moved me into the cells in the basement, away from the well behaving prisoners and into the part of the prison with those who would never see day again.

The guards were careful here, never leaving anything in which we could use to escape and never entering our cells under any circumstances. I was in the high-risk section of the prison and nobody wanted to disturb me.

It was a step up from the prison upstairs in some ways, no listening to other inmates complaints and no abusive guards.

Though life in the lower sector got old quickly I'm still here, as I've been unable to escape, its been years since my only escape attempt and I wonder if I would even be in this situation if I had not been in the service of councilor Quin, who would probably be killed by the black diamond assassins, if he had not been already.
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Hope this at least slightly interests some of you.

This post has been edited by Kiln: May 9 2006, 08:14 PM

[Kiln]

Thanks for your support guys.
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To allow you to understand why I was placed in this prison first you would have to understand why I committed the crime...which you will discover later.

It was many years ago when I met the councilor, right after I left my home to begin exploring the world and making my own way, a young imperial boy of eighteen whos father was a wealthy smith and whos mother was a fine clothier.

Some would think that a man who ended up in the imperial prison for the rest of his life had come from a poor family or a broken home but that is not the case, I wanted a life that was simple and easy to acquire, not having to work for what I had in a hot forge day in and day out like my father had done.

It was good money working in the forge, to be sure, but the work was not for me. I had my own ideas about how to make gold in this world and it involved adventure, theft, or any means necessary, even if I had to take it by force.

So I began to rob people along the road to the imperial city and started hiding out and living in a small shack just off the back road. I'd made several hundred septims in the past few weeks and as word spread the caravans got harder and harder to rob, it seemed that after a while every passing carriage had an escort.

I had to become more professional then, finding other mischievous men to help me out, distracting the people while I grabbed things from the carriages and ambushing them for their purses.

We were in the big time now, or at least I felt like it. To some we were nothing but petty thieves but to us, we were true bandits, living off the land and the people on it.

It was somehow satisfying to know that the money that others had worked so hard to earn had come to me with such little effort, I was really starting to get good at my profession.

Things were going well for us, we were dragging in a steady amount of gold every now and again but just like every other time when things were going my way, things were about to change.

My team heard about a caravan of nobles, councilors and traders to be exact, that would be passing by into the imperial city within the next few days and we began planning. Foolish nobles always carried more in their pockets than they needed, they were a prime target.

We planned constantly and argued for hours, this one was important and one mistake could ruin it all. Nobody wanted to be the one that distracted the guards, so I came up with the idea to draw straws, the shortest straw would be the one that distracted the caravan while the others helped themselves to the loot.

I pulled my straw from the hand of one of my companions and then waited on everyone else. I just happened to get the shortest one in the bunch. I cautiously accepted, knowing it was the only right thing to do...there is honor among thieves.

So for the next day and a half we waited and continued planning carefully adjusting our plan into perfection, the four of us each had our own part to play, mine being the most dangerous.

The night the caravan passed by was very cold, I could see my own breath as I waited just off the edge of the road in the darkness, my companions waited in their positions as well. I could hear the light trotting of horses down the stone road and I could see the gentle flicker of torchlight, now was my time.

I took the red berries from my pockets and smeared them on my shirt and hands, giving the illusion that I was bleeding, patted dirt on my clothes to make it look like I'd been in a struggle and propped my back against a boulder before throwing some random items on the ground around me to look as if I'd been attacked and robbed.

As the caravan approached I counted six guards, I'd been lucky enough to learn to count in school, my parents' money had been useful after all. When the guards saw the scene I had set up for them three of them ran up to me and started to look around, the other three carefully walked around the wagon which had a head peeking through the window, though he did not look afraid, he actually looked calm and friendly...strange considering the situation, most nobles would be trembling with fear.

One of the guards bent down near me and placed his hand on my shoulder.

"What happened kid?"

"Bandits ambushed me...they took everything I had." I said acting wounded and depressed about the loss of my items

"Which direction did they go?" The guard asked

"South I think...past the tree line." I said just as I had rehearsed

The guard half dragged me beside the carriage as the other two guards headed south.

"Stay with these guards, they will keep you safe." He said heading in the direction of the other guards

There were three guards left and one large chest on the back of the carriage being closely watched by one of them. I could see my team near the edge of a small hill looking toward me, expecting me to draw the guard further from the back of the carriage.

After a moment of quick thinking I stood and looked into the darkness opposite of of my accomplices pretending to see something, the guard near the rear of the wagon approached me as I hoped he would.

"You see something?" He asked somewhat skittishly

"I think I see another bandit...waiting in the darkness." I said, still holding the false wound in my stomach

The guard moved in front of me and all three around the cart stood in attention, waiting for something to jump from the shadows. I turned and saw my companions going to work on getting the heavy chain out from around the chest on the back of the carriage. It was taking a long time and I could hear the other guards coming back from the woods I'd sent them into.

It looked as if we were in the clear when the guards close to me walked to the others and began talking some twenty feet away from the carriage, paying little attention to the carriage itself. Luckily, the torches in front of it made a perfect shadow for my boys to hide in. After few moments had passed, they had gotten the chain from around the chest, and had begun to pull it off its resting place.

Something happened then that I had not expected, a door opened and then slammed shut as a guard emerged from inside the carriage and stood beside me.
He was a huge nordic man with a rough face and a broad body, he was very intimidating to me and as I started to get more and more nervous I started thinking about my getaway.

As my friends were dragging the huge gold filled chest off the wagon, one of the handles broke off and the chest and the heavy box hit the ground with a loud thud followed by metallic clinking of gold pieces scattering and bouncing across eachother. I quickly looked to see my companions fleeing the scene and I turned to make a run for it as well. My plans were halted as a metal gauntlet grasped my shoulder tightly.

"Where you think you're goin?" The brute of a guard asked

I was terrified as he drug me by the back of the neck to the back of the carriage and motioned for the other guards, who came quickly and surrounded the wagon once again.

"So you were in on this?" The guard asked as he wiped some of the berries off my shirt and tasted them with two leather covered fingers

I opened my mouth but none of the words I stuttered were actual words or even close to anything understandable. The guard tied my hands and left me with the others as he spoke with his master for a short while before returning.

"I figured we should just turn you in to the local watch but councilor Quin says he sees something in you...not sure what it is but he wants you to come with us. You will serve him and in return you will recieve food, shelter, and will be given any luxury or punishment my master sees fit...oh yes and my name is Oryn." He said with a quick half smile

At this point I was disoriented and confused, the pit of my stomach felt as if someone had buried a dagger in it, and my throat felt like I'd tried to swallow an entire watermelon whole.

The guards picked up the gold and moved the chest inside of the carriage. I remained tied for many hours past that time and from the conversations of the guards I picked up that the councilor was on his way to some important meeting, after which we would return to his manor and he would decide what to do with me.

I rather disliked being thought of as property but what could I do? Slavery was illegal but if the guards are the ones doing it then how can it be stopped? Ah well I figured I'd just go along for the ride until I reached the manor, after I escaped from there I'd figure out what to do next.
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Here's a bit more, hope you enjoy it.
Edited some of the wording and added a bit more description to some parts.

This post has been edited by Kiln: Apr 14 2006, 08:49 PM