Fire On The Mountain (A Skyrim Quest)

Illusions and Realities

Do'azda knows that she is being shown a vision of reality, a version that makes the Thieves Guild look powerful and strong. She doesn't get to meet very many thieves that she talks much about, but she does note them down, women and men alike, and she similarly notes down the name of the leader of the guild: Mercer Frey. He's not there, though, and just like the secret exit it remains a matter of more discussion. Apparently one is only allowed to use this secret exit in the worst situations, because for the most part there is another entrance and exit that is used more.

Bathes-In-Steel and Ingne are left behind, so the trek towards the other entrance is a lonely one, for all that Brynjolf fills it with chatter.

"This is a very important illusion," Brynjolf declares, boldly. "It is actually part of what drove this location to be chosen, the favorable locale and the fact that a master illusionist was available to build this. Because everyone was afraid about being trapped down here, even with the plans for the emergency escape. So then this was created… and it cannot be easily found, and hasn't been in all of our history."

He leads her through the back cistern of the guild, and through a vaulted archway and through a wrought iron gate, into a dusty tunnel lined with carvings and burial urns.

"Under the Temple of Mara," Brynjolf says cheerfully, "Out of the sewers, just crypts."

There's a shaped iron door tucked between two statues of long dead Thanes of Riften, smattered with a patina of rust, which Brynjolf only spares a half glance.

"Priests don't come this deep in the crypts; they don't even realise they don't have the keys to that door any more." He says with a laugh, "Mercer had Delvin solder it shut when I was no more than a dipper for the kidsman, but the priests hadn't tried to use the door for more'n a century, so everyone said."

Instead he leads her to an aged oak door marked up like a gate to a mausoleum, which swings open silently, on surprisingly well-greased hinges, and behind it, smooth stone steps climb sharply up and out.

Above her, the steps abruptly terminate in a flat polished stone, and she presses her fingers against it instinctively, feels the cool stone under her fingers. Out of the corner of her eye, Brynjolf pulls a chain on the wall.

The tomb opens up, pulling back all at once, and she is in a crypt in a graveyard, built against the wall of the Temple, the metal gate barred but still open to the elements, as Brynjolf hurries behind her. It is impressive, how smoothly it moves, whining and grinding away, but she is sure at first that it cannot truly be safe, because such a thing has to be obvious. She can even for a moment see where a button might be to unlock it from within.

"The sound doesn't travel as far as you'd think," he says, and she hopes it doesn't because that is incredibly loud. It is the sound of stone grinding against stone, after all!

She takes a moment to dust herself off, almost sneezing from the grave-dust, and then she turns to look around as soon as it has closed.
The tomb opened, she knows because she has just come from there, but when she turns to look she cannot quite see anything. It is more than that, it is as if her brain refuses to believe that it is there.

"Try to find it, and then I'll tell you how, because I don't really understand it? It's… reactive? A reactive illusion that's keyed to… something?"

A reactive illusion? Keyed has to be that there are certain actions, or even… thoughts, it could be thoughts, Do'azda realizes with shock. It could be thoughts because of course any illusion that goes so far as to actually make her mind try to tell her nothing is there somehow hooks up into all of it in some impossible way!

This is the sort of stuff that it would take the greatest Shamans weeks of rituals and effort to manage.

If that is true… she has to confirm it, she cannot believe it until she is sure, because it would be just like a magic-user to trick a bunch of stupid thieves with something impossible that is 'merely' a little impressive.

She wraps her hand around what should be the button and feels smooth stone. She pulls out this hand and wiggles it in front of her, sniffing, and is left unsure. Then she wipes her hand, carefully, and even pulls out some water to run over it, and then reaches the hand down and presses the button, only to pull away and feel and smell as if she's been rubbing her hand against stone, and getting bits of dust and dirt with it. She is sure that at least some of this is dirty-handed people, but her mind is not fully convinced, or rather is too fully convinced, for it to be entirely real.

Do'azda has never seen fear in a handful of dust before, but this is terror indeed: it is like meeting some kind of angler's lure, and even though she knows that the secret it hides is mundane, she cannot help but fight the primal terror that is telling her body that if there's something hidden she doesn't know that's fooling her senses, it's because it wants to kill her. Comparing any of her illusions to this is like comparing a drunken fabulist to a God. Even the most drunk God is telling more truth than a fantasist ever could.

This is the most horrifyingly effective illusion she's ever borne witness to. She has to take a moment to remember how to speak Tamerelic, because her brain is babbling in a far more familiar and comfortable language right now, one where she knows all of the technical terms perfectly. "Reactive, you said? Do'azda wishes to know more."

"You have to raise your hand like so, while thinking of a color, and the color changes once a month. This time it's a deep blue color, like if you've seen juniper berries--"

Do'azda flashes back to words she's heard before, and she asks a few more details and he describes the color.

"So you move your hand up, and then down and then across while thinking the color, and then white, and then gold. Somehow it notices the colors you're thinking. If you do the gestures right but not the colors, it doesn't open and there's an alert."

Do'azda moves her hand and pictures it. Juniper berries, clouds, and coins alike, all of these things flash through her head one by one by one and then… she can feel the button. She can touch the button. If she has to do this in a hurry, with an enemy chasing her, she's not going to manage it, but the point is probably that if an enemy is that close, that an extra second will mean her death, then they're too close for it to be safe to use the tomb entrance.

"Pretty impressive, isn't it?"

"It's magnificent. Do'azda would like to stay for a few minutes to examine it."

"I suppose so…" he says, frowning, but playing along anyways.

She kneels down, taking it in. She runs her fingers along the stonework. It certainly feels real, and even knowing the impossibility - there's no mechanism, nothing but the tomb itself, and no recess behind it for it to vanish into - she would swear it is a real tomb. She picks up a piece of gravel, throws it at the tomb, watches it bounce off the stonework and land back amongst the rest of the gravel. She blinks, and suddenly she can't spot the piece she had thrown.

An ignorant observer would believe that is because she only lost track, but she knows better; the illusion is sophisticated enough to simulate in her mind a sort of physical reaction, as she expects, but it cannot manage persistence.

"The sound doesn't travel as far as you'd think," Do'azda echoes, "The sound doesn't travel at all. There isn't any sound. It is a trick that worms its way into your head. The sound is there because you expect it will be. Others do not expect it, so they do not hear it."

Brynjolf furrows his brow. "Don't know anything about that, lassie. I just know no one comes lookin, no matter what time of night anyone uses it."

She hums, silently dismisses him - a gifted thief he might be, but he is clearly no illusionist.

[Quests locked (at least for now): How Vexing, Freying Ties, ??? (too big of a spoiler to even name), Outfoxed!]

[Quest Gained: The Grand Illusion]

Illusion +3

---

Still reeling from what she's seen of magic's reach, she finds herself in a daze going through all the other lines of business the Thieves Guild is involved in.

It certainly seems as if it is a broad enough set of operations. She knows and cares little enough about horses, but even the most incidental contact with someone who has contacted them is enough to get her smelling horseflesh and sweat for hours afterwards. Her fur can sometimes capture more than she'd like, and Do'azda does not linger all that long, and the protection racket has her questioning what it is they do. But of course, she thinks she knows. There are always those above, who take a cut for doing nothing. It is just that when they do so from castles and fortresses, with grand lineages going back a thousand years, they are lords: when they do so without approval, they are criminals. This she understands, for all that she knows that at times one needs to work with both lords and criminals. But horses are dull, she knows enough to know that the Blackbriars are definitely making a killing, perhaps even literal, in horseflesh.

Ingne fidgets the whole time they're at the gambling den, but Do'azda enjoys the moment inside, the sights and smells of the den no different than any bar, really. She can just barely sniff what she suspects is Skooma, but she does not have the money to want to gamble it all away. She thinks that gambling sounds like a good way to end your whole world… or rather, she realizes, she's gambling with her life all the time and so she doesn't need to gamble with her coin.

Bathes-In-Steel asks questions here and there, but Do'azda doesn't think she's learning all that much, since her questions are more along the lines of…

"What is your favorite weapon?"

And…

"Did you know the number of steps to High Hrothgar?"

In a different mood, Do'azda would have joined in on this crusade to bring light, reason, and wisdom to the world, even if it is facetiously. But instead, she smiles faintly and exchanges glances with Ingne, who is increasingly wary as she learns of more and more crimes. It is to the extent that when Brynjolf leads them into a bakery off the main walkway, she flinches, sure that it'll be something like protection money.

Instead, Brynjolf steps in and makes his way right towards the counter. Do'azda crowds in behind him, the smell of bread strong even though it is long past baking time. It is a small shop, and the man on the other end sees them immediately, a tall blond Nord of the robust kind, with a short beard and a double-chin, and laughs. "Ah, there you are Brynjolf. To save time, all of us put together your basket, right?"

"Right. And I'll be checking in with them," Brynjolf says. "These are just some friends, here to do a good deed."

"Right," the man said. "A good deed indeed." He took out a basket and set it on the counter, leaning in. Inside it were a half-dozen loaves of bread, what looked like several small cheeses, two different bottles of wine, a horn of ale, and a bag that Brynjolf opened to check, which revealed a double-handful of sausages. Brynjolf added to all of this a very small pouch that he pulled out of his bag, settling it there.

"Hup," he grunted, and lifted it up. "Now, let's go."

She follows close behind, curious, as he moves first towards an Argonian at the end of one of the piers, dressed in rags and a heavy fisherman's jacket, looking around shiftily.

"Oh, hey," the woman said, her voice a rasp as she stepped up. "Brynjolf. Got any sausage?"

"Of course I do, Fathoms, what do you take me for? Any luck with diving?"

"Who are they… friends?"

"Yes, friends."

He tears off a chunk of one of the loaves of bread and takes a sausage and hands both of them over to her.

"Yeah, plenty of luck. Found a lost ring, an' a dead body," she says, and the food disappears into her jacket - a big, leather thing that swallows her almost entirely. "Turned the ring in, gonna get a night at the inn fer it, but wanted t'save it for the end of the week. Hopin' to get a bit more, so a meal can come with it."

"A dead body? Jumper?" He asks.

"Nope," she says, popping the last letter. "Someone's dumping." She starts gnawing on the bread, and while it seems like it's day old, Do'azda has eaten far worse. "Figure it ain't a killer, gotta be some personal dispute. But someone's running around with a secret. Thought maybe you'd figger out who it is and either turn 'em in, or blackmail 'em for their secrets. If'n you do, can I have a swig of that mead?"

"You can have it now if you want," he says.

"Nah, it's fine. Know I don't always have something for you."

"Fathoms, it's fine. As long as you keep your eye peeled, I'll keep mine too." He waves her off, and turns, and then says, "Listen, you have to be sweet on the beggars even when they don't have something. It's kinda, but also… if you only give 'em something when they give you something, then they'll just lie. I'd do it if I could get away with it," he said, "We're not here to do a honest days' work."

Do'azda laughs and says, "No, we aren't," laughing most of all about the wide-eyed look Ingne is giving him.

It continues like this, as he continues to distribute food and the occasional coin, one or two, to a variety of figures. The majority of them are Nords, but only just barely, and there's even a Khajiit who clearly has been hiding from the authorities that he approaches in a derelict building. Bathes-In-Steel begins helping out when one of them gets a bit angry at him for something one of his 'friends' did, and her glare is enough to settle him down.

There's even a few children, though Brynjolf says, "Fewer than you'd think. Fewer than last month, I'd reckon."

"Why?" Ingne asks, and Do'azda is curious.

"Old bat in charge of the orphanage is dead, so they're prob'ly gettin' themselves cleaned up to go back and see if they can get something better now. They'll be back in a couple weeks if it's no good, or they won't, if the Michel girl turns out as good as she seems t' be."

Oh.

Of course.

It is better to half-starve on the street picking pockets--and indeed one of the ones left eyes Do'azda as if assessing how easily she can be rolled--than it is to be beaten and forced to work with lye that burns the skin and eyes. Well-meaning adults have sent children from across Skyrim to Riften to the orphanage, and they've ended up on the streets. Or they went to the streets rather than go into the orphanage.

Do'azda would have to shake hands with the killer's corpse once Bathes-In-Steel is done with them and the whole Dark Brotherhood, if they truly are behind it.

Finally, the last moment that reveals something of Brynjolf comes with an exhausted looking Nord man who doesn't have much to say, grizzled and heavily bearded, greying and clearly past his best days. He asks for and receives half of a bottle of wine, and she watches him down half of it and burp, and then tell a few little nothings, explaining that he saw a few of the dealers acting nervous as if they have something to hide, and that he'd seen a grown woman sneaking out to her house, no doubt under her husband's nose.

These few tidbits are more than enough to earn the alcohol, and Ingne waits until they are far enough away before saying, "Is that wise?" She asks it in that tone of voice that means she wants someone to work it out for themselves. It is a tone of voice that tells all who hears it how obvious the answer should be. Do'azda is used to that sort of voice. It is what a shaman deploys when they act as a teacher and guide.

"What? Talking to him?" Brynjolf says. "He's a decent enough sort, all things considered."

"No, giving him alcohol. I grew up around a tavern, I cannot imagine that it helps him any," Ingne says, in a hushed voice. She is frowning, face scrunching up just slightly as she considers the matter. "A swallow is fine, but you gave him the better part of a bottle. You can smell the alcohol in his skin. He's dying of it."

"Do you see me taking him in and providing him a house and home? Perhaps if I did so, I would have the right to claim what goes in and out of his body, as some tax for the right not to be on the street," he says, and his words are sharp. "But it is his own life. He wants alcohol as a reward, and who am I to deny it to him if I will also not do more than that?" He shrugs and says, "And I could spend my way into a pauper's grave and not be able to house all the homeless of this city. So I give them what they ask for, let them live their life, and respect it… and in exchange they provide us good information that helps us navigate the world."

"I still don't think it's enough, and if I could I would," Ingne says, gesturing to all of it. "An' I'm not the one with ins to the Blackbriars and those sorts of people."

Brynjolf shakes his head, and Do'azda realizes the thing he cannot say: the Blackbriars are the ones who have the power, the Thieves Guild cannot act outside their power, so attempting to use this influence for charitable means would be less than useless.

All the same, Do'azda learns quite a lot before the day starts waxing towards the later afternoon about just what the business of befriending the homeless is… and also what it isn't.

It has been quite some time since Do'azda actually slept, and so she can sleep or she can push on? What to do?

[] [Next] It is time to turn in early, even if it means waking up in the middle of the night and staying up. Between the late night last night and everything else, there is at least some cause to sleep early.
[] [Next] No, it is not time to sleep, instead Do'azda wishes to discuss with Bathes-In-Steel regarding the lead they have on the Dark Brotherhood.
[] [Next] No, it is not time to sleep, instead Do'azda wishes to discern what the Guild will expect her to do in "the big leagues"
[] [Next] No, it is not time to sleep, instead Do'azda wishes to investigate the sort of shops that exist on the lower levels; near, but not in, the Ratway - she saw an alchemist!
[] [Next] No, it is not time to sleep, instead Do'azda wishes to go out and blow off some steam - talk to some people, see the town. Pick up some other sorts of thing she can help with whilst she's here.

VM AN: The Thieves Guild is doing great! Their relationship with Maven Black-Briar is really good for them, and not a source of resentment.

TL AN: Welcome to the grand illusion! And welcome to the Thieves Guild, for real this time!