Agent, Ebonheart's finest Options

[jack cloudy]

Yesterday was my birthday so here's my belated gift to all of you. The start of a new fanfic! (Wings of Light will be continued as well.) You may notice a shift of focus compared to my earlier fanfics.




Agent.
Chapter 1: In training.

My knees were shivering. For a good reason, I might say as the Duke towering over me looked very intimidating in his heavy suit of Ebony armour. Just to compare the two of us, the helmet would have been enough to crush me. Also, being dressed in cheap rags has never been a good source of courage. As it was, I had more than enough reasons to be afraid of him.

Who am I? I no longer use the name I was born with. I changed it upon my arrival here on Vvardenfell. Now I finally I have a name I can spell. Anyway, my name is Ro-El Frost. Sounds Khajiit? Maybe, but I am really closer related to the Nords, though without the muscles, the alcohol tolerance, the noise and without the size. Go figure.

The Duke turned to a man wearing some sort of golden armour. Probably the boss of the guard who was blocking the only way out of the room.
,,Is this the kid you were talking about?” The Duke asked with a stern voice. This did not sound well.
,,Yes, that’s the one.” Was the equally stern reply. This was one of those moments that your life would start to fly past your eyes.

How did I get here? Well, I don’t really know to be honest. People claim I must have been on the Skooma to have forgotten how I ever found myself in that mine. I didn’t like it there. The slavers forced me to do hard labour every day. I could feel my life slowly seep away with every single egg I harvested. I had to get out.

My plan took time but it worked in the end, except for one small detail. I harvested some poison one of the Kwama warriors had been spitting at the wall and mixed it with my food for the day. The day after that, I dumped it into the lake that was somehow inside the mine. The food had been swallowed by the Slaughterfish before I’d stepped away. The next part of my plan was the hardest. I’d been warned that the smell of their queen’s blood puts the Kwama into a killing frenzie. This information was meant so that the slaves were careful not to kill themselves, but it could also be used to my advantage.

So as you might guess, tapping blood from the queen is a potentially lethal act. Fortunately, I knew that by tapping just a little through a tiny wound made with my fingernail, the Kwama would not even notice. I carefully kept the blood sealed away inside a bottle till after four days, I’d finally collected enough. That night came the last part of my masterplan.

I managed to convince the slaves to go swimming in the lake, after showing them that the Slaughterfish had died through my act of poisoning. Next, I sprinkled the collected blood on the clothes of the slavers. I managed to get out to the lake before the killing started. I’d never been so glad that Kwama can’t swim. Those things were completely out of control. Which leads me to where I am now.

,,You have caused the death of three Dunmer and would have escaped if my Legionaires weren’t performing a raid at the same time.” The Duke spoke directly to me. Remember the little detail that went wrong? Well two dozen heavily armed soldiers who found a whole angry bunch of Kwama in their face, that’s what went wrong.
,,I thought they would run when the Kwama went mad. I didn’t expect them to die.” Was the weak defense I managed to whisper.

My arm was brusquely grabbed by the guard. The slave bracers I’d been forced to wear clattered on the floor.
,,Ro-El Frost, you have closed down an illegal egg mine and punished those who were responsible. You have further freed their prisoners who are being returned to their families as we speak. All that without harming the Kwama themselves, my men are responsible for that. As such, it is my pleasure as a servant of the great Emperor, Uriel Septim, to grant you your freedom and to take you into my service as an agent in the order of Ebonheart. Serius will escort you to your room.” The Duke now said with a smile and pointed at the guard who had released me from the symbol of slavery.

In a flash of inspiration, I snatched the bracers from the floor before I was dragged out of the room by Serius. We ascended many stairs before he finally threw open a wooden door and pushed me inside. ,,Consider everything in this room to be yours. You’ll be summoned tomorrow at 6 am. Wait inside your room till we come for you.” Serius ordered me before slamming the door shut. Not the nicest guy in the world.

I sat down on the bed and looked around, still unable to believe what had just happened. Instead of being branded as the bad guy and possibly executed, I had been turned into some sort of hero. Not exactly something that happened to me every day.

After I finally admitted to myself that things had turned out alright, I took a look around the room they’d given me. Apart from the bed, there was a closet, a mirror, a desk with several books on it and a sturdy wooden chest. It wasn’t big, but not small either. I opened the closet with the intention of swapping my dirty old rags with something more comfortable. It was cold this time of the year. The closet did not disappoint me. It was filled with all kinds of clothes ranging from simple but sturdy to downright extravagant and fit for a noble. There were shirts, pants, robes, shoes and even a few skirts, though I did not know what I was supposed to do with those. Men don’t wear skirts where I come from. Finally there were a few gloves on a separate rack.

I choose for a simple blue shirt with matching pants and a pair of shoes fit for indoor use. As the last action of the day, I picked up the book lying on top of the pile. ‘History of the Empire, part 1’ it said on the cover. If my idea of an agent was somewhat correct, these books had been placed here for a reason. I had some reading to do.

[jack cloudy]

Did anyone ask for an update? As for this one, I needed to add something silly. This just came up when I overheard a conversation between the guys sitting behind me in class.





Two men stood on a balcony at the very top of the tall tower, looking down on the land below. The sun shone brightly in the clear sky.
,,I haven’t seen you since the formation of the council. I won’t say that I disapprove of you coming here yet I still need to ask. Why did you come?” The shortest of the two spoke. His pale skin and pitch-black beard provided a sharp contrast with the golden hue of his friend. The golden-skinned man gave a simple smile.
,,The weather is nice today. You should get outside more often, my friend.” He said, evading the question.”

The pale man howled with laughter.
,,That won’t happen soon, I’m afraid. Never forget that we are in the end, opposites. The sun and the grasslands belong to you, yet the shadows cast by the fire of the forge belong to me. No, I don’t think this will change too soon. Now, why did you come?” He repeated.
,,Not now. After the sun has fallen into the sea, my friend. Then, I shall tell you why I’ve come.”

I munched on my bread without a care in the world. The bed had done its work as usual and I felt like I could run from one end of the island to the other. I also had a nice dream. So all in all, nothing was wrong. Sure, things might go bad at any moment but it’s not healthy to worry about it al the time. Since it was my day off, I decided to make the most of it. I went fishing.

I knew a really nice fishing spot, just behind the castle. There were always fish around, though none of the large and hungry Slaughterfish which was good. Fish that saw you as food weren’t very appetizing. As I approached my spot, I heard voices. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who knew about this place.

,,I really don’t see your point in this. It will be fine, I tell you.” I recognized the voice as belonging to Leroth. Was he explaining the art of fishing?
,,Fine? You always say it will be fine. Just look at you, you nearly lost your life to some amateur, sent the kid up against the Sixth House and yet still you insist on things being fine?!” Only one man had that gruff tone. Serius.
,,But he succeeded, didn’t he? I’m telling you, the kid is ready. Dren won’t even notice till it’s too late. When he notices, we’ll be ready to tie him up and deal with his friends.” I swallowed back a curse.

Was Leroth planning on betraying the Duke? It sounded like that. Now that was something I did not need to hear. After all, I knew that there were no real rules in our shadowy trade. Yet, I had always held the principle of loyalty as the only thing separating us from the backstabbing murders, bandits and thieves we fought against. Now, it seemed as if Leroth had abandoned his loyalty. What was I supposed to do now? Did I have to remain loyal to Leroth who was my master, or the Duke, the man I worked for?

,,Ready? Where do you think you get the right to tell if the kid is ready?” Serius argued.
,,As Ebonheart’s spymaster, I know when someone is ready or not. Trust me, the kid is ready. I’m sure there will be no problems.” Leroth persisted.
,,You said that Ephraim was ready!” Silence. Then, there was the sound of armoured boots stomping the wet mud. There was no chance for me to hide when Serius moved towards me. We spotted each other at the same time. I shivered. That conversation was something I wasn’t supposed to overhear. I would surely be punished.
,,Know your limits, kid. Just know your limits.” The Imperial grunted and passed me without another word.

Leroth followed soon. There was an awkward silence between us. We both knew what had happened, what I’d heard.
,,Ah, Ro-El. I was just going to see you. Since today was supposed to be our day off, I had a very pleasant trip planned.” He said with his usual cheery tone. Except that the cheerfulness was faked. My mind had kicked into high gear. I no longer knew if I could trust the Bosmer. If he planned to kill me or something, I had no chance against him. In the end, I was still the apprentice.
,,Sure, where to?” I answered with the same faked cheerfulness.
,,Balmora.”

Leroth didn’t plan on killing me, at least not at this time. The trip he’d planned took us to the Vivec mage guild where he bought a single teleportation to the Balmora mage guild. We vanished in a twirling cloud of Magicka and reappeared a moment later. I quickly took in my new surroundings, fighting off the disorientation that followed this kind of transportation. We were in a small office of sorts occupied by a Breton and a Khajiit who was working on a few potions behind her desk.
,,Ok, there is something I don’t understand, master Leroth.” I began.

The Bosmer watched me intently.
,,If as you claim we came here to test my talent for Magicka, then why did we pass through the Vivec hall? Being positioned in the capital, isn’t that the most likely place to do such a thing? Besides, didn’t we had this test before?” I continued. Leroth forced a smile.
,,This is where the experts are.” He claimed.
,,And since when do you care about who the expert is?”

The smile vanished.
,,Oh, alright. I give up. We are not here to conduct this test. You see, I was in the arena last night, watching the Redoran Archmaster and the Mage guild Archmage getting killed. It was there that I saw this totally hot Bosmer chick!” He sputtered. I frowned.
,,Bosmer chick?” I wasn’t so sure if I could just believe this. We’d come here for Leroth’s lovelife? I never knew he was the shy type who needed assistance at getting close to a woman. If so, he’d made a wrong choice. As he’d noted upon our first meeting, my conversation skills weren’t all that good. All I knew were some pick-up lines I learned from a drunk Nord. I wasn’t exactly the most effective matchmaker. More like matchbreaker, really.
,,Yes, she works in Balmora. She’s enchanted my heart.” I could hear the Khajiit snicker behind our backs. Leroth looked disappointed.
,,I know, Ro-El. I’m just acting stupid. Let’s just hit a teleport back to Vivec.”

I turned around.
,,What are you waiting for? We don’t have all day. I’m a busy man, you know.” I told him and grinned as I headed up the slope to the upper floor. Leroth threw his hat into the air.
,,Whoopie! That’s my boy! Know what? I’ll organize the Magicka test as a bonus.” I simply shook my head when he said that. Yes, Leroth might have become a traitor or maybe not. Whatever was the case, he was still my friend and I would treat him as such for as long as possible.