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]

Ok, I guess that works. That leaves only a few other problems, such as where the heck do they hide the toilets? *Thinks of Uriel Septim running out of the Imperial city whenever he needs to take a leak.*
Oh well, an update. I've worked with this new character before in the rp-thread but I kind of lost him due to circumstances. Now, I plan on reviving him to his full glory.





Chapter 2: Path of the dream.

Vodunius was flailing with his arms, trying to keep from drowning with his heavy robe. I unceremoniously grabbed him and dragged him out. In doing so, I caught the glimpse of a torch at the end of an underwater tunnel. This cave seemed to have everything.
,,Fargoth? I’m going to investigate the other end of the tunnel. Could you perhaps interrogate mister tax collector here?”

While I was fooling myself with mere curiosity, the truth was that I needed some time alone. Time to think about what I’d done. Time which I didn’t spent thinking because, as I already said, I was fooling myself into believing I merely dove into the water out of curiosity.

It was only when I’d swam about halfway that I realized a tiny detail I’d forgotten. What if there were slaughterfish in the water? Sure, my skills with my fists were good on land but the water slowed me down tremendously, making any punch a futile effort. Fortunately for me, the waters were completely slaughterfish free, though I did come across a skeleton. A rusty saber was stabbed into the ground near it so I pulled it out before continuing. Just in case I met a fish on the other side.

The tunnel opened up into a round chamber of sorts. There wasn’t much to see from underneath the water, except a platform with a robed figure on it.
,,Great, more smuggling mages.” I thought to myself as lack of breath forced me up to the surface. Nearly instantly, a fistsized rock splashed into the water nearby. From this close, it took really bad aim to miss. I dropped my sword and withdrew my hands into my sleeve where I retrieved a pair of stars.
,,Stop that right now or I’ll poke both of your eyes with some thrown steel!” I warned the man.

,,I’ve totally had it with you. You will let me and my companion leave in peace or else you shall face my wrath! My command over the forces of Magicka is something you should not trifle with!” The old man shouted proudly in return. At least he didn’t throw any rocks which allowed me to take a better look at him.

He was dressed in a darkblue robe with a bluish hat on top. A long grey beard hid part of his golden Altmeri skin. An Altmer with a beard, that was unusual. A hue I knew all too well came from the inside of his sleeves.
,,Sir, you are wearing slave bracers. So currently, your command over the forces of Magicka can be trifled with easily.” I pointed out politely.
,,Bah, I can’t possibly be bothered with the details!”
I had to stifle a laugh. This guy was hilarious. Saying that he couldn’t be bothered with the details when said detail controlled whether or not he could blast everything to pieces.

,,Ro-El Frost, a….mercenary. My friend and I have been hired to clear this cave of smugglers. It is safe now. So, please follow me back to the entrance.” I offered, only to receive another hilarious comment.
,,What, do you honestly expect me to swim? I’ve never gotten around to learning how. There were greater priorities, such as growing a beard.”
I rolled my eyes and surpressed a sigh.
,,Hold on, bring me my staff and I shall separate these waters with a great display of my might.” The Altmer added quickly before I could vanish underwater. Whoever he was, he sure had a large expectation of his power. If anything, he was more arrogant than any other Altmer which sounded quite hard to believe. Yet here I was, with an Altmer who had refused to learn how to swim because he had to grow a beard. Just how did he ever manage to grow one in the first place?
,,Right, I’ll be right back.” I mumbled before taking a deep breath and diving. In reality, I had no idea where his staff might be. What if the smugglers had already sold it?

When I came back, Fargoth was still interrogating our prisoner. Several arrows poked out of various painful areas of the tax collector’s body.
,,What were you smuggling beyond Dwemer artefacts?” The Bosmer demanded to know. He was rather small, yet that didn’t diminish his intimidating appearance in the slightest.
,,Ow! No, not an arrow! I’ll tell! We were transporting ash statues, ash statues and small pouches filled with ash from Red Mountain. We had to deliver them all across the Bitter Coast and West Gash.” Vodunius cried.

Now things were getting clear. Vodunius was involved with the Sixth House, whatever that was. The ash statue sounded just like the thing Hanarai was dealing in. And pouches filled with Red Mountain’s ash? That might explain the presence of soulsickness in Balmora, even though there never was an ash storm near there. If the ash caused the soulsickness, I still had my doubts about that. I left the two alone and instead grabbed the Glass staff conveniently located atop a crate.

The staff sang with the promise of pure power. Power I could not accept. Despite my trick with the fireball, I was still a total loser when it came down to Magicka. Relying on other people to fire their lethal spells into me before I could use them myself didn’t sound right. Whatever was the case, I delivered the staff to the Altmer and also relieved him of his bracers.

The bearded fellow gripped his staff and waited for a moment as his Magicka reserves were restored by the staff’s power.
,,Now, step aside. I, Zarador, shall cause a miracle like you have never seen before!” He spoke with a perfect sense of drama. I’d expected something, anything but not this anti-climax. The only thing he did was cast a simple waterbreathing spell!
,,What happened to the separating of water?” I asked with a smug grin.
,,Bah, treating a peasant like you to a fancy trick is not worthy of my vast knowledge and skill.”
I rolled my eyes once more.
,,Right.”

Vodunius was silent upon our return. His body was devoid of arrows yet a red pool of liquid around him told me everything I needed to know. He was death.
,,So, you found the hostage this traitor spoke about. Perhaps he knows more about why they took him?” Fargoth asked with a raised eyebrow, his hand subtly hovering near his bow. The Altmer stepped forward and leaned on his staff as he looked into the eyes of the much shorter Bosmer.
,,Since you saved me the trouble of claiming revenge, I will answer. Centurion, come!”

A loud thumping of metal feet echoed through the cave. Before our surprised eyes, what looked like a walking suit of richly decorated Dwemer armour broke through a rusty fence. The thing stopped before the Altmer.
,,This here is Centurion. Those uncivilized criminals were looking for what they called the ‘heart of the knight’. They believed that Centurion holds the answer.” The Altmer claimed with a proud spark in his eyes.
,,I built it myself. Unfortunately, Centurion is not the heart of the knight, whatever this knight might be.”

I didn’t answer. My thoughts returned to my dreams, my visions. I had seen a knight there. Looking closer at Centurion I realized that it resembled a miniature version of Pelinal. Was Pelinal this knight? If my dreams were real, if they revealed the past to me, then what happened to Pelinal? For once, I longed to sleep, hoping that the answer would be revealed to me. The Sixth House was looking for the knight, I would try to find it first.

,,Ro-El? Are you awake? Listen, kid. There is no time to waste. We must go after Vodunius’ contact. We must destroy a Sixth House base he revealed to be near Balmora. Vvardenfell depends on it! The Duke depends on it!” Fargoth shook me back to reality. He was right. If we wanted our information to be useful, we had to act now.
,,I, Zarador of the Steel Tower shall accompany you. They have disgraced and humiliated me. Now they shall face my wrath. They shall cower before me as I strike them down with my powers.” The Altmer spoke up. Fargoth and I exchanged a grin. The Altmer might be overestimating himself. Not that it mattered, we could use any help we could get.
,,Welcome aboard, Zarador of the Steel Tower.” I replied, bowing slightly.