“Well, Kisha,” I say as we’re leaving Anvil again. “Shall we go pay a visit to our new Brothers and Sisters?”


    “It would be rude not to go introduce ourselves, dear brother,” Ilara says. “Kisha is looking forward to meeting some like-minded ne’er-do-wells.”


    Along the road northeast of Anvil, there’s a wayshrine (which I light, of course) with a merchant cart and a couple of tents set up next to it. Two signs proclaim it to be Wayshriner’s Wares. A shop in the middle of nowhere run by a pair of Orcs named Grazda and Obrash. They seem to get a lot of business from shady characters passing by.


    I don’t ask them, “Hey, is there a Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary somewhere around here? The directions Speaker Terenus gave us weren’t that great.” But I get my answer anyway.


    Tucked away in a gorge north of the wayshrine stands a creepy black door set into the stone around it. If someone wanted to force their way inside, it would probably be easier just to use earth-moving spells, but it’s unlikely that anyone capable of doing that knows where this is or cares. There will always be people willing to murder for pay.


    “What is the flavor of fear?” whispers the creepy door in a creepy voice.


    “Sublime, my brother,” I reply, wondering absently if there’s someone behind that door.


    “Welcome home,” says the door, swinging open for us and revealing that no, no actual person is watching the entrance, just a talking door.


    “Thanks,” I say, stepping inside. “Do you ever get bored? Do you ever ask people coming weird questions just to see what they say?”


    The creepy door does not reply.


    The Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary might be a cave, but it’s a very fancy cave. Many candles burn to light the way, probably ones enchanted to never burn out because this would be quite a lot of candles to have to replace regularly. An archway stands off to the left leading into a small library with huge red banners depicting that hand symbol. One wall is plastered with bounty posters, probably as trophies of honor or something, although I’m not sure why they’d honor getting caught. I suppose making the kill is more important than doing it quietly.


    “You must be the new initiates,” the Dunmer says. “Elam Drals is the name. The Speaker told me to expect you. Still, you must not be too good. Your names haven’t appeared on one of my contracts.”


    I chuckle. “Vara-do would be surprised if it had, since Vara-do is not his name.”


    Between the natural stalactites and mushrooms and the carven pillars and paved floors, a very fancy stained glass window depicting a knife in a heart sits set into a wall that is highly unlikely there’s actual sunlight behind. Maybe there’s a hole in the ceiling behind it somewhere, I don’t know. It would be funny if someone were strolling around the hills of the Gold Coast, slipped and fell straight through the Dark Brotherhood’s fancy window.


    Further on, there’s a large room with lots of fancy pillars, making me wonder if some really bored assassin spent a lot of time carving this or was a mage who knew stone manipulation spells. The Matron of this Sanctuary is an Imperial woman by the name of Astara with a lengthy last name starting with C that I don’t bother to make note of. We make a pleasant greeting, to which she demands to be obeyed without question.


    “Without question?” I repeat. “This one does not think he can do that. He always asks questions. Usually for directions and information.”


    Astara gives a sigh and does not call me a smartass, instead saying, “I don’t mean that sort of question.” She offers us two sets of leather armor. “This is for you. Shrouded armor. The uniform of the Dark Brotherhood.”


    I blink as I look down at the armor in my arms. “Vara-do has another question… why does a group of secretive assassins have a uniform? Would that not make it obvious who we are?”


    “It’s enchanted, obviously,” Astara says with a sour look on her face like she thinks we’re going to be a handful. (Or me. That I’m going to be a handful, really. Though if I didn’t say it, Ilara would have. She’s got a snarky streak to her too.)


    Astara bids us to explore the Sanctuary and meet the other assassins who are in at the moment. I don’t trust my clothes-changing spell enough to not show anything I don’t want, so I make sure I’m out of sight of anyone before casting it. It doesn’t cover the face quite as much as I’d prefer, so I stick my cat-mask on over top instead of the hood it came with. It doesn’t need to be quite so obvious that there isn’t a Khajiit under these clothes.


    I run across some books describing how to perform the Black Sacrament and what the Five Tenets of the Dark Brotherhood are. Don’t dishonor the Night Mother, betray the Dark Brotherhood, disobey orders, or steal from or kill a fellow member. Simple enough. And if we break them, we invoke the Wrath of Sithis. (I’m probably going to need to disobey orders at some point, but so be it.)


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    There’s a fully stocked alchemy lab, which is nice. It might even be better than my own setup. More notably, there’s a familiar scaly face tucked away in one corner.


    “Slim-Jah!” I exclaim on impulse of seeing her, before remembering that I’m pretending to be a Khajiit and not an Altmer. Dammit, breaking my cover at the first familiar face I run across? I’m usually better about this. Ilara-daro is better than this.


    “Do I know you?” Slim-Jah says.


    “It’s Vara-do!” I say. “Remember the last time we met? This one got drunk, drank poison, then walked around the Argonian village naked?”


    “Yes, that was pretty unforgettable… Vara-do.”


    I glance about to make sure no one is in earshot. The Sanctuary is not very echoy, thankfully. I suspect those banners everywhere have muffle enchantments on them or something. Ilara’s light giggles go nowhere. Still, I don’t trust (most of) these assassins enough yet to loudly proclaim my identity.


    “It’s good to see you again,” I say. “This one wondered where you went after we last spoke.”


    “Vara-do,” Slim-Jah says, as if rolling the name around in her mouth to taste it. “You certainly have a lot of false identities. One might wonder who the real you is under all that, and whether you really wanted to be him at all.”


    I shrug. “This one does not mind being him, but being him is a dangerous thing to be.”


    “I don’t know whether to be surprised or not that you joined the Brotherhood after all,” Slim-Jah says.


    “It was something of an accident,” I say. “Someone needed to be murdered, and I guess the Night Mother noticed. We were happy to take the opportunity, though.”


    After bidding farewell for now to Slim-Jah, we continue to explore. We meet a Redguard assassin named Tanek, who doesn’t think much of us and believes we won’t live long. I don’t tell him that I’ve probably killed more people than the entire Dark Brotherhood combined even when I’m not going out of my way to actually kill people.


    In one room, I spot a book simply titled Sithis laying on the table and flip it open to read. It is a very, very strange book, and I’ve definitely read some strange ones. It starts off as a normal creation myth, albeit one from a very different point of view than usual. It talks about Lorkhan, and I try very hard to keep my music from bringing out the Doom Drum again.


    And then at the end it takes a complete left turn. “Go unto the Sharmat Dagoth Ur as a friend. AE HERMA MORA ALTADOON PADHOME LKHAN AE AI.”


    “What the shit?” I mutter.


    I don’t need to steal this book. I’ve seen it before and probably already have a copy somewhere. But as I recall, I was interrupted and never actually finished reading it, and it was before I got the Library of the Mind blessing. I suppose I didn’t think about it again. I definitely would have remembered had I read that bit before.


    “What does it mean?” Ilara asks, looking over my shoulder. “And why is it in capital letters?”


    “It’s Ehlnofex,” I say softly. “The language of the Ehlnofey. Ehlnofex is always written in all caps, for some reason. And it’s a very… slippery language.” I put the book down. “I’ll explain later. Let’s go meet the others.”


    There’s a Nord man named Kor and a werewolf in a cage, whose name is apparently Hildegard. She’s skittish about a new scent, and I stiffen at the sight of a werewolf but force myself to relax. I don’t trust her not to lose control, especially given that I’m first seeing her in werewolf form, but since she’s a Dark Sister, it’s not like I’m going to be doing anything about it right now. According to Kor, Hildegard is a sweet woman who was forced to drink werewolf blood by her family.


    The next member we meet are Bretons (I think) named Cimbar and Mirabelle, the latter of which immediately flirts gratuitously with both of us. I’m not sure whether it’s an act or she just isn’t terribly concerned about the race or gender of people she flirts with, or whether it’s in front of Cimbar or not, who I think she’s involved with.


    Finally, there’s another Argonian, who introduces himself as Green-Venom-Tongue. He’s been making notes about us, and has found few details.


    “You will not find much,” I say. “This one does not exist.”


    “Is that so,” Green-Venom-Tongue says. “And yet you stand before me. Even if it is a false identity, you still must be someone who came from somewhere.”


    I shrug. “Good luck. This one does not suggest wasting your time, however, when you could simply ask.”


    “Would you tell me what I wish to know?” Green-Venom-Tongue asks.


    “Maybe,” I say with a cheeky grin.


    “I look forward to interviewing you at length later, then.”


    Lastly, we return to Elam Drals at the front of the Sanctuary. He has a contract for us (actually Ilara) (actually Kisha, technically) to travel to Kvatch and kill someone there. Having not been to Kvatch yet, we’ll need to make our first trip there by road. Wayshrines make me lazy. Wayshrines also make it easy to be in two places at once. Fortunately, so long as I put in some public appearances and make a few speeches, people are still going to believe I’m in Cyrodiil.


    Cyrodiil. It’s a clusterfuck of capturing strategic points and so forth. The Bretons and Dunmer are supposed to be good with magic, but apparently neither of them thought to ward any of the points they capture against hostile teleportation magic, nor do they anticipate having a small army suddenly appear at any location that gets threatened. They do try a few magical tricks, but it’s… inefficient. Cyrodiil is large, and a lot of space to capture, but the Aldmeri Dominion is steadily gaining ground. I really hope I force them to step up their game. This is going to be a boring war otherwise.


    We’re back at Crimson Cove before Ilara presses me on the book we ran across again. “What do the Ehlnofex words mean?”


    “You don’t normally pry into weird mythology, Ilara-daro,” I say.


    “This is different,” Ilara says.


    I shrug. “Okay. So, Herma-Mora is obvious, that’s Hermaeus Mora. It might mean him literally, but it also might refer to knowledge in general. The names of gods and their domains are sometimes considered synonymous.”


    “What does Hermaeus Mora have to do with Sithis?” Ilara wonders.


    “I’ll defer speculation for the moment,” I say. “ALTADOON means ‘weapon’. Could also be a metaphorical sort of weapon. PADHOME is Padomay, of course, and could also refer to Chaos or the Void. The next word LKHAN probably refers to Lorkhan. The other words are particles that I’m not sure on the specific meaning of, mostly because they don’t mean specifically anything. Probably something like ‘I’ or ‘is’ or ‘I am’ or whatever.”


    “I am knowledge weapon Void Lorkhan is?” Ilara says. “Hm. This one thinks you could put any handful of random words together and sound profound so long as you say it in Ehlnofex.”


    “Pretty much, yeah.”