I read a different theory on fertility of elves: that it depends on the population size. When the population is large, elven women stop conceiving, but when the population shrinks for whatever reason, the chances of pregnancy also increase. But then again several books state that intimacy with humans makes elven women fertile "out of turn", so to speak... Hmm...

The thing with Aldmeri is of course that they wouldn't be intimate with humans, no, sera! At least not to anyone's knowledge.

This episode is a start of an old story shedding light on what exactly was binding the Animal and the Speaker. There will be even screenshots as soon as I get this starting mod done! This will be played.

23 Evening Star, 4E172 - A voyage ahead

Legate Oryn was feeling apprehensive. Fort Sutch was well fortified, with soldiers posted both on its outer and inner perimeter, such as it was, seeing that not much of the structure above ground remained intact. Fort Sutch was chosen exactly because it looked like yet another ancient fort ruin on the outside, even one without an obvious entrance. But the visitors that Legate was expecting, would not only have no issues finding the hidden entrance, but would also not hesitate to take out any foolish soldiers who dared to stand in their way.

"Guard the place against bandits and vagabonds, do NOT engage Imperial operatives or... err... other professionals," the Legate had told them. "Even if they look like bandits or vagabonds!"

It was the best he could do. He could not say any more, and was hoping that not too many of his troops would die by mistake.

...

A distant noise coming from the entrance alerted the Legate, he heard footsteps approaching fast - someone was running, and they were frightened. A young soldier appeared on the lower level, saluted as he ran, but didn't shout out his message. The Legate smiled and nodded to himself - the training was paying off. Finally the soldier stood before him.

"Ghosts, Sir," his message was abrupt, as he was trying to catch his breath. "One brushed right past me," his eyes were round with surprise. "Could be anywhere."

"Did it feel cold?" The Legate fixed the soldier with his gaze.

"Err... No, Sir," the soldier blushed, realising that he forgot some points about the undead. But then again, he'd never faced one before.

"Good, go back to your post, it was probably just the wind," the Legate reassured him. "Or rats. Nothing to worry about. Imperial Battlemages had swept this fort for undead before we took residence here."

The soldier left, somewhat embarrassed, wondering why the Legate didn't tell him off for a false alarm. In fact, he had the impression that the Legate was pleased with his report... How strange.

"Ghosts, indeed," the Legate smirked to himself, facing the door. His visitor would enter any moment now.

"You trained your soldiers well," a voice behind him made him spin around with a jerk. A man in black robes was removing his hood. "Legate Oryn, I presume?"

"Speaker," the Legate quickly composed himself, nodding to his visitor. "You are here."

"Evidently," the man in black robes smiled.

"Your contract?" The Legate sounded tense.

"Has been agreed," the Speaker nodded, unsheathing his sword. The Legate froze involuntarily. "I am not a Legion officer," the Speaker smiled again, watching the darkened steel reflect the light along the razor sharp edge of the short sword.

"Indeed," the Legate made an effort to calm his nerves. "Then all is clear, I trust. The chamber to the left has everything you need in the meantime."

"Then I shall wait," the Speaker sheathed his sword, disappearing behind the door that the Legate had indicated. The Legate sighed a sigh of relief.

...

"First ghosts, now marauders?" The soldier posted near the entrance heard clunking of heavy armour - not Legion issue. He faced the noise, his sword drawn.

"Stand down, Trooper," a disciplined, yet unofficial voice came from the direction of the noise. "Stand down before you get hurt." A man in steel armour appeared from around the corner, his posture straight, his step almost a march, his face set as that of a Legate... Was that the Legion operative that the Legate had mentioned?

"Divines guide and protect us," the soldier said, but didn't sheath his sword.

"By the Nine!" The man in steel armour stopped, but didn't draw his weapon. "At ease."

The soldier didn't know the operative's rank, so he simply saluted, sheathed his sword and returned to his post. The Nine, not the Eight - this wasn't an Aldmeri agent. Or at least that's what he hoped.

...

"Legate," the man in steel armour stood to attention and saluted the Legate. "Reporting to the rendez-vous."

"Agent," the Legate approved of formal greetings - they gave clarity, especially since Imperial operatives from the Special Division did not wear Legion uniforms. "At ease," he nodded. "Have you been briefed?"

"My orders are clear, Legate, Sir," the Agent confirmed, relaxing his stance but not his tone. "When are we to depart?"

"At dawn tomorrow," the Legate shot him a glance, shuffling some scrolls on his desk. "Your companion has already arrived," he jerked his head towards the door to the left. "You might want to get acquainted while you're still within an Imperial fort."

"The Speaker and I have met before," the Agent smiled and nodded, turning towards the door indicated, then changed his mind. Best keep up the formalities. "Any other orders, Sir?" He straightened up again.

"Dismissed," the Legate looked up from the papers, and when the Agent disappeared behind the door, he sighed the second sigh of relief. "Ah, here it is," he muttered, unrolling a scroll. "Information provided by the Animal led to the apprehension of the newly appointed Commander of the Third Aldmeri Division," he read. "Question is, how could his prisoner have given him this information since the new Commander had only been appointed after the prisoner's capture?" The Legate rubbed his chin and shook his head. "Unless..." He stared at the door to the left and smirked. "I never..."

...

An Imperial galleon was waiting at sea not far from the coast. Two figures left Fort Sutch just before dawn, making for the coast. They took a row boat that was soon swallowed by the morning mist.

...

"All aboard," a sailor reported to the captain of the galleon.

"Set sail," the captain nodded. "Before the mist clears."

The galleon departed towards the West.

I am up to the part when she's with the Arch Mage. "We have really began to rely on you" he tells her.

Now she's at the Fighters Guild. Looks like she's about to do the quest with Viranus Donton. I barely remember this quest, but it's funny how we're supposed to 'babysit' the guy. That's exactly what it's like sometimes with vanilla NPC followers, we have to babysit them.

Oh nice, she just found the Crown. It says "Lena could just buy another horse, but didn't want to." How much money (about) would she have by this point?

The side plot with Rayenna is interesting. The gal seems to be plotting something to do with Lena.






8/157

Not much, considering the expenses. She's got to eat, she shares the loot money with her companions and there's Battlehorn Castle to maintain - that's some 13,000 septims a month right there! At that point we still had the castle because Hauk liked it. But then things got busy, and in the end neither Lena nor Hauk could be bothered with it, so she sold it to the Captain of the Guard there for a symbolic 1 septim. He got his guardsmen organised to do stuff... or not, I have no clue! But it's up to them now to come up with 13,000 septims every month for food and drink!

25 Evening Star, 4E172 - The beginning of a friendship

"That is quite an elaborate tattoo for someone as young as you," an assassin stood over a sleeping Imperial Agent.

"Whaa---?" The agent turned over, slowly waking up. "Tattoo? Oh... yeah..." He muttered something incomprehensible, his tongue still thick with yesterday's mead.

"You can sleep longer if you like, we're not going anywhere," the assassin smiled. "It's a week's journey and we've only just set off." The ship was rocking slightly. "But the weather is good and I thought you could use some fresh air."

"Eh... good thinking," the agent smiled back, sitting up on his cot, now reasonably awake. "D'you think we finished that barrel of mead last night? If so, the captain won't let me into the hold for the rest of the trip."

...

"It'll soon be just the two of us, relying on each other," the assassin looked serious when they were standing on deck enjoying fresh breeze and mild sunshine. They were at sea headed to the Summerset Isles. "No one can know who we are of course, but I daresay it's pretty obvious. That we are no locals, I mean." He ran his hand over the length of his sword instinctively. "The Summerset Isles do not get a lot of tourists these days."

"Yeah, the war has changed it all," the agent nodded, turning his chest to the sun and closing his eyes. "Not that the Altmer have ever been very welcoming. But no one from the Empire will go there now."

"Quite." The assassin paused, watching him. "We need to get to know each other."

"Well, what do you want to know?" The agent opened one eye. "Or rather: what is there that you don't know about me already, Speaker?" He smirked.

"Nothing that's on the record," the assassin grinned. "But records don't reveal what a person is really like. I've seen some of it back at the fort in Skyrim. But now - tell me about your tattoo. You have too many lines on it for a 20-year old."

"Twenty one, I'm twenty one already!" The agent retorted irritably, then sighed. "Sorry. Of course you knew that. I get a lot of this in the Legion. Not many get to Agent before thirty... But the War provided opportunities."

"And your brother..?" The assassin prompted.

"Iver has the same rank as me, he has to," the agent nodded. "That's the whole point. Us being twins, having the same last name naturally, and all that. Only Iver is a regular battlemage and fights on the front line, but we must have all the same ranks and titles, otherwise he cannot be me... and visa versa."

"Does Iver has the same tattoo as well?" The assassin raised an eyebrow.

"Not the tattoo, we're supposed to keep our clothes on," the agent grinned. "By the time the armour or the robe comes off, everyone will have had enough mead not to worry about small things like tattoos..."

"And your clients will never live to tell the tale either, Animal," the assassin smirked.

"Well... Mostly not." The skin on his chest started going hot pink - Nords were not made for sunbathing. He turned around and let the sun warm his back instead. "But Iver doesn't like to get his clothes off, so no one knows he's all naked under there," he smirked.

"So, your tattoo?" The assassin insisted.

"A Nord traditional design, the outline is given to you, and you fill it in with lines as you earn them," the agent explained somewhat impatiently. "Why do you ask, Speaker? Surely you know this."

"This I indeed know," the assassin nodded. "But you have a lot of lines already - and yes, I know which ones they are. Tell me about that."

"Oh... well, some are clients, some are enemies, some are friends..." The agent sighed. "They are for memory, see. I didn't kill my friends, they fell in battle. I'd do a line in memory. But mostly it's clients or enemies that proved particularly bothersome. The lines usually cover the scars."

"Scars can be magically removed these days," the assassin rolled up his sleeve, showing clean skin without any blemishes. "See, no scars."

"Well, may be it's not that important for you Imperials..." The agent squinted at the assassin. "But they say that when we Nords finally go to Sovngarde, we keep the appearance of our mortal bodies, with scars, tattoos, whatever. I've had plenty of scars removed, too, but some had to be kept for memory."

The sun stood quite high on the horizon at that point, and the agent's back turned the same hot pink colour as his chest.

"We should go inside, you'll burn up worse than a vampire," the assassin joked. The sun fell onto his face, revealing some wrinkles on his lightly tanned skin.

"Yeah, let's go, Speaker," the agent nodded.

Once inside their cabin, the assassin extended his hand.

"We should drop the titles," he said. "Call me Lucien."

"Call me Hauk."

They shook on it.

Nice, I like this. Bothered me a bit that after a while our guys & gals are making all this money with nowhere to put it. My Renee Gade III character makes a lot of money for instance, but since she's the one keeping her gear (and all the weapons & armors of her followers) intact, she tends to break even with the money. I also have it set up so one of her homes has a rent payment. She can choose to buy it, but that'd be a lot of gold.

Some gamers play these games to escape reality, in the sense that there's no rent, no taxes, and I get it. But for me, the idea that money is cyclical, that it's going back into "the system", lends a bit of reality which I dig.

That's great she sold Battlehorn to her guard captain, too.

11 First Seed, 4E203 - The Telvanni run-around

Hauk was remembering the days during the Great War when he just met Lucien. Their first meeting was in an old fort in Skyrim - Lucien had been sent to assassinate the Aldmeri agent that Hauk was interrogating. It had become standard practice for the Aldmeri to engage Morag Tong or the Dark Brotherhood to end the lives of those of their agents that were unfortunate enough to get captured by an agent of the Imperial Special Division - not only there was no hope for the Aldmeri agent to survive, but the sooner he was killed, the less information he could divulge to the Legion.

Lucien wasn't the first assassin to be sent after one of Hauk's "clients". But Hauk did not appreciate interruptions, and most assassins fell to his sword. He would always warn them first - he had no quarrel with them, but as the assassins insisted on going after their targets, Hauk had no choice but to stop them. So he was quite surprised to see Lucien in his fort, and to realise that Lucien came to negotiate. That job required a Speaker, indeed.

That was some thirty years ago.

Returning to the year 203 of the Fourth Era, Hauk finally reached Sadrith Mora in the beginning of the month of First Seed. There he intended to join House Telvanni and make a name for himself - that was necessary before he could ask for assistance locating Rayenna. Sadrith Mora was not that large of a town but it had everything close together: an Imperial fort that also housed the Mages Guild and the Fighters Guild, a Thieves Guild safe house (at which Hauk grimaced for how obvious it was), a Morag Tong Guild Hall and of course the Telvanni Council House. There were even no visible hostilities between the mages of the Mages Guild and the surrounding Telvanni... How strange. Or perhaps: how sensible?

At first traders didn't want to speak to him because he had no hospitality papers.

"And how can you tell that I'm not carrying those papers?" Hauk glared at a Bosmer smith in the square.

"Because I've never seen you before and you're not waving those papers in my face!" The Bosmer retorted. "You aren't even allowed to walk the ground here! Shoo!"

"Well, it's true about the papers," the neighbouring trader informed Hauk. "Officially you aren't even allowed to walk the streets of Sadrith Mora without the papers. But since no one except him there is ever going to ask you to show those papers... Err... Was there anything you wanted?"

If Hauk had been just passing through, he would not have bothered with the papers. He even considered to immediately go to the Council House and try to join House Telvanni, and then he would never need any such papers anyway. But then he changed his mind.

"Yes, you can purchase your hospitality papers right here!" The host told him at the Gateway Inn. "For 25 septims. And I may even have work for you!" He beamed at Hauk.

Obviously, it was a scam, which is why Hauk went with it - once he'd rise up in rank with the Telvanni, putting pressure on this host would become easier if Hauk had something to hold over him. Especially if that something came for a mere 25 septims. He bought the papers.

The "work" that the host had mentioned, turned out to be a haunting of one of their rooms. "The ghost is easy enough to defeat," he said, "but it keeps coming back! We can't rent out the room this way!"

And therein lay the real problem, of course. Someone with a grudge installed a self-conjuring ghost there, a nifty device commonly used to scare tourists away from forts and towers occupied by mages. After some asking around, Hauk located the conjurer who had set this up - a member of the Mages Guild, as it happened. She freely admitted that it was a joke, and agreed that perhaps it was time to lift it, but when Hauk returned to the host, the host would hear none of it, no, Hauk had to go and kill that ghost first.

"But what's the point if it keeps coming back?" Hauk couldn't quite believe it.

"You have to see it for yourself!" The host was adamant.

"Well, I've seen ghosts before, you know..."

But it was no use. Hauk had to go and battle the ghost, which wasn't all that easy since it turned out to be a Gloom Wraith... What was that host trying to do?! Angry and annoyed, Hauk returned to the host who was now sending him to talk to a certain Telvanni mistress who'd examined the site, even though Hauk had started by talking to that very mistress... No, the whole thing had to be done again, now that Hauk knew what sort of ghost had been haunting the room.

Finally, the same Mages Guild conjurer said the same thing about that being a joke, adding with a wink that perhaps Hauk could now appreciate her displeasure with the host when she first arrived in Sadrith Mora. Oh that host had it coming! Hauk was fuming by that point.

Back to the host, Hauk handed him the mage's annoyed and sarcastic letter, watched the host nearly explode with anger, which, quite magically, made Hauk's anger diminish to the point that he even abandoned his impulse to acquaint the host with Bianca, his blade. He also decided against turning the host into a toad, at least not just yet. Why, that weasel had just given him enough arsenal to make him do whatever he wanted when the time came...

The chores for the magisters of House Telvanni went from trivial to ruthless to crazy, with the wizards living up to their reputation. Receiving 200 drakes for five portion of muck worth hardly a tenner, was a nice turn of events, and receiving another 1000 drakes for confronting a crazy lady with her skirt was another easy win. Master Neloth wanted an enchanted robe currently worn by someone else, and Hauk had to kill that unfortunate person to get the robe - a robe worth some 20,000 drakes. Handing over the robe to Master Neloth, Hauk got just 10 drakes payment... Yes, wizards varied. And he hadn't met all of them yet, but already was told that his services were good enough to make him a Mouth, to which end he needed a patron, and all the great wizards had already been taken... Err... already had Mouths... so... umm... Wait, wasn't there a Morag Tong Guild Hall in town as well? Hauk's head was spinning.

Shaking his head and muttering to himself, he was walking along the market stalls, when someone tugged on his sleeve and whispered that Morag Tong was expecting him. Really? Was that retaliation for that assassin he killed in order to get a ring for one of the magisters? They did say that murder was fair play...

"Agent, this way please," a thrall directed Hauk upstairs in the Morag Tong Guild Hall. No, they weren't looking for a fight... but what then?

"Please, come in, I've been expecting you," Azarath Salvel opened the door to his own section of the Guild Hall. And once they were inside, he declared without further ado: "Considering your recent efforts, we have decided to lend you our assistance. We too have a vested interest in finding Rayenna and avoiding another war of assassins between Morag Tong and the Dark Brotherhood. I shall accompany you on your errands - except the boring ones, that is - and you may stay in this room since I have a spare bed. I daresay it's got fewer bugs than the one in Fara's Hole in the Wall," he winked.

"Thank you," Hauk smiled, still feeling a bit apprehensive somehow. "But this room is not a part of the common area of the Guild Hall... This is your private apartment..."

"Welcome to my home," Azarath smiled at him, and suddenly Hauk saw Lucien standing before him. A darker skin, perhaps, but otherwise... The vision faded and Hauk was looking at Azarath again. "It's the least I can do to welcome my son's friend."