“Are you sure this is the right place?” Ilara whispers. “It seems like an awfully… modest house, for someone who had the funds to tell a mercenary company to wipe out a major Baandari trading post.”


    “Maybe her vendetta against the Baandari led her to losing money,” I murmur. “Or this is just a house in the town and she’s got a manor someplace else. Doesn’t matter. That Imperial woman in the outlaws refuge was happy to find her address for some gambling money.”


    There’s a massive window in the back that would be entirely too obvious of an entry point, and won’t budge regardless. One of the side windows, however, is open. Ilara climbs through first, and I follow a little less sleekly. I haven’t had nearly as much practice lately with climbing through windows and I’m still a little sluggish from my shitty potions. I am so not giving myself a permit to distribute these.


    We come out onto a shelf above some empty bunk beds. This room looks more like a barracks than someone’s house, but the only occupant at the moment is an Imperial woman in a pink dress. (At least, I assume she’s Imperial. I still can’t tell the difference between Imperials and Bretons, but I’m sure it would be as obvious as the difference between Altmer and Chimer if I knew what to look for.)


    “What are you doing in here!?” demands the woman.


    “Are you Faltonia Lerus?” I ask.


    “Who’s asking? Why should I answer the questions of someone who just broke in through the window?”


    I shrug. “The window was open. You should really close those if you don’t want unexpected visits.”


    While the human is focused on me, Ilara has already slipped behind her and put a knife to her back. “You should really answer our questions.”


    “This one is Vara-do, of the Baandari Pedlars,” I say. “And his sister here is Kisha. Now, you wouldn’t happen to know why the Baandari might be annoyed at you, would you?”


    The woman stiffens at my words. “Is this why the Malabal Tor branch of the Gold Coast Mercenaries keep declining every job offer, claiming to have ‘prior commitments’?”


    “Vara-do does not appreciate people sending orders to ‘wipe out the cats’,” I say. “Now, why don’t you just tell us everything we want to know, or things might get ugly, yes?”


    “Are you seriously going to let me go if I tell you what you want?” probably-Faltonia asks.


    “We just might,” I say. “And if we don’t, you get to live for a few more minutes, yes?”


    I’m not really here for information, but I will absolutely take whatever we can get through this semi-polite conversation. Torture is pointless and unnecessary, not to mention distasteful. I take over the interrogation and leave Ilara to watch the building and warn me when it looks like anyone’s about to come in.


    I question Faltonia about assets, contacts, and resources. For the sake of buying herself a few more minutes of breath, I wind up with quite a bit more than I’d come in for. It’s too much for me to handle, to be sure, especially when I’m already busy with other things, but that’s why I have people I can delegate things to.


    Ilara pops back in through the window. “People coming.”


    “Would you like to do the honors, dear sister?” I ask.


    “What, you’re going to kill me after all?” Faltonia says. “Fine. Get it over with, then. I suppose I can be glad you at least didn’t torture me.”


    Ilara grins, slips behind the woman, and cuts her throat. Leaving her there, we make a swift escape through the window before company can arrive. A quick cleaning spell ensures that we don’t have any lingering blood stuck to us.


    Not far from Faltonia’s house (or barracks, whatever) is a group of performers who call themselves the Naughty Nereids. A Dunmer juggling flaming torches, a purple-clad dancing woman, and an announcer who is trying to play up their talents. I toss them a generous tip and whisper, “We were here the whole time,” and slip into the small audience.


    It doesn’t take long for Faltonia’s body to be discovered, and we spend a while applauding and cheering on the performers while people are searching for the culprit.


    The sensible thing to do would be to skip town before anyone can wonder about the pair of Khajiit that just showed up right before a murder, but we’re hardly the only ones to arrive in town recently. Still, I decide to make for the north gate rather than return to the docks. Further away from the murder scene, and we’ll likely locate another wayshrine out in the countryside. (Hiding somewhere and teleporting directly to a wayshrine is an option, but it seems like a waste.)


    Anvil is a city ripe for the taking and I’m not content to stop with simply one murder. Molag Bal possibly had a point about my deep-seated desire to conquer and dominate. However, considering the state of his blue ruins, I feel that Nirn would be better off under my rule than his. And at some point, I may eventually stumble upon some way of dealing with the Three Betrayers.


    We reach the far end of Anvil, and no one stops us from strolling right out through the gates.


    Out by the stable stands a pair of Dark Elves who I recognize. Kireth and Raynor Vanos. They were by my side when I stormed the Endless Stair and put a stop to the Planemeld. And they won’t recognize me in this disguise, and must not know that Neri the Orc King is in Anvil.


    The Vanos siblings have been stranded here because they accidentally boarded a ship to Anvil instead of Hammerfell, and they don’t have the money to book another ship. And won’t accept “charity”. Right, normal people have to deal with money problems. And the Orc King might have been able to plausibly give them jobs, but Vara-do has no such fallback. They’re comrades-in-arms, though, and I still want to help them in some way even if I can’t let them know who I am. Still, they’re desperate enough to ask a pair of random Khajiit they just met for help.


    This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.


    “Anvil and Sentinel sound the same?” I say. “Totally unlike Nchardumz and Nchuleftingth?”


    “Oh, are you a scholar of the Dwemer yourself, perhaps?” Raynor asks, although Kireth is cracking up.


    I shrug. “Just well-traveled. Vara-do would be delighted to go dungeon-delving with you sometime. He can handle the inevitable ‘everything is trying to kill us’ bit that always seems to happen. He thinks most of the ruins around here are probably Ayleid and not Dwemer, though. Vara-do likes Ayleid ruins. The shiny blue crystals are very pretty. Dwemer ruins are so… pokey. And constructs don’t bleed, and bleeding is half the fun of fighting things.”


    Kireth aspires to sing at the local tavern. I didn’t realize she had bardic aspirations but I’ll admit that most of our conversation thus far has involved “look out! Daedra!” and “are these mages really this stupid?” Raynor, meanwhile, can’t seem to decide what he wants to do aside from being more suited for intellectual work than physical labor. Fine, I can work with this.


    My first stop is the local Mages Guild, and I’m immediately struck by the fact that there are more books stacked up on tables and the floor than there are on the actual bookshelves. I don’t even bother to ask anyone if they need help with that.


    The Imperial man in the inn informs me that Kireth has a voice like a dying guar.


    “She’s an experienced adventurer,” I say. “The art of the bard is not merely in song, but in storytelling as well.” I lower my voice conspiratorily. “This one hears she fought in the Coldharbour campaign at the side of King Neri himself. That would make for quite the story, yes?”


    “Oh, now that’s a much better idea,” the human says. “That’s a rousing tale people will pay good money to hear. Just don’t let her sing!”


    On the way back to the stables to let the Dunmer siblings know I’ve found them jobs, a courier intercepts us informing us that he has a letter for the female Khajiit with the black hat. He also adds that the sender asked her to go to the lighthouse. Her specifically. Not me. I frown behind my cat-mask. That’s odd.


    We put that aside for the moment and return to the stables and let the Dunmer siblings know I’ve found them things to do. “And if Vara-do finds any dungeons worthy of your delving talents, he will let you know, yes?”


    I accompany them to the Mages Guild just to see Raynor’s astonishment at the state of the place. He quickly sees what I meant, and I manage to snag him a temporary job as a library assistant even though they weren’t hiring and didn’t think it was a problem. I’m sure they know where everything is.


    We bid him farewell, leave the guildhall, and move out of sight before opening the note Ilara was given. There is nothing on the piece of paper but a rough black handprint. Deliberately rough. Probably human–mer tend to have longer fingers.


    “What’s this?” Ilara wonders.


    “Somebody feeling dramatic,” I say. “A symbol, I’d assume, but there’s a lot of things that use a hand as a symbol.”


    I don’t trust the situation, but it’s too intriguing to just ignore. So I creep around the back of the lighthouse while Ilara waits out front for me to investigate. I emerge onto a floor with a railing overlooking a room with a warm, crackling fireplace. One chair is occupied by a woman with a knife in her chest. The other by a robed man entirely more casual than most people would be next to a woman with a knife in her chest.


    “You might as well come down,” says a smooth male voice. “I heard you come in. You are not as stealthy as you think you are.”


    I chuckle. “That is good, for this one does not think he is stealthy.”


    “Let me look into your eyes. Hmm. Yes. No fear. You are sizing up how you might need to kill me if you have to. How many lives have those eyes seen end?”


    I shrug. “Dunno. Were you the one who sent a note to this one’s sister? With a mysterious black hand on it?”


    “Indeed,” the man says. “Ah, there she is now.”


    Ilara has opened the door and come inside, and we exchange a look.


    “Who is this human?” Ilara wonders.


    “He hasn’t deigned to introduce himself yet, dear sister,” I say. “So Khajiit will extend the courtesy first. This one is Vara-do, and his sister is Kisha.”


    “I am Terenus,” the human says. “I am a Speaker for the Dark Brotherhood. I speak with the voice of the Night Mother.”


    “Ooooh,” Ilara and I say in unison.


    Admittedly, most of what I know of the Dark Brotherhood has been from books, but I have read a lot of books. They either didn’t exist yet in my past life, or the Morag Tong made sure they stayed out of Resdayn.


    “Now it makes sense,” I say. “You’re an assassin! That is why Kisha got a note? Because she was the one who made the kill and your Night Mother noticed?”


    “Precisely,” Terenus says. “The Dark Brotherhood wishes to extend an invitation to her. However, that is open to you as well if you prefer to work as a team.”


    “Kisha is interested,” Ilara says.


    I give a nod of agreement. While I did come out here to commit murder and probably a bit of mayhem, I hadn’t intended on officially becoming an assassin. But it seems like a thing for Vara-do to do, yes? And it’s a perfect opportunity to find out more about them. Having an in on a secretive organization of deadly assassins can only be a benefit.


    (Of course, if the wrong ears hear about it and actually believe it, as unlikely as that is, that’ll be considerably worse for me than if anyone finds out I had an enemy murdered. I will, of course, be letting the right ears know that I’m infiltrating criminal organizations. I don’t keep secrets from my wives.)


    Speaker Terenus teaches us a rather odd sort of conjuration spell. It’s extremely quick and easy to cast, and all it does is summon a dagger for one second, like a training spell taught to children in their thirties or forties. Is this just a Bound Dagger spell, or something more? Well, even if it is, it’s still very convenient to silently call up a weapon that exists just long enough to stab someone with it. I’m not experienced enough with the nuances of magic to be able to tell if there’s more to it, so I’m going to get Merry to analyze this spell later.


    Terenus gives us a mission to kill a noble named Quintus Jarol.


    “What did he do?” I wonder.


    “That is not a question we ask,” Terenus says.


    I snort softly. “Of course he’s going to die regardless. But any information is useful in locating him, doing the deed, and getting out. Vara-do could have just asked ‘who is this shave-skin and what sorts of activities does he get into that might make someone want him dead?’ So if you would prefer, let us pretend that he said that. Oh, and where he lives, what his favorite pub is, that sort of thing is useful too. We can find out ourselves, but it would be silly not to ask you first.”


    I’m probably going to put in as much effort to research him as I do with every other time some random person needs my help to kill something. It always tastes better when they really deserve it and you know it. Fools are huge fans of leaving incriminating correspondence laying around everywhere, and I have a gift that makes it very easy to collect that information without leaving evidence that their shit’s been messed with.


    Terenus obligingly tells us where the noble lives and what inn he’s probably been abusing that has a smuggling tunnel.


    Before we run off to do that, we head home for a rest and make some preparations. By which I mean I’m going to need so many poisons. A battle axe is considerably more purely lethal than a dagger, but it’s easier to use a dagger to put someone to sleep or stop them from doing magic than it is to try to poison someone with a battle axe.


    “You didn’t need to join too,” Ilara says.


    “Ilara-daro, your brother would murder me if I let you join the Dark Brotherhood alone,” I point out.