I dream.


    I walk a Dwemer tunnel, my paws cold against the metal. Because boots don’t fit my digitigrade feet, as I am a Suthay-raht Khajiit and even in a dream I know the word ‘digitigrade’.


    A voice echoes through the ruin. A familiar voice. Come, Nerevar. Come and look upon the Heart.


    A mer, ashen gray, wearing golden mask and loincloth.


    Did you think you could kill a god? the voice mocks. Shame on you, sweet Nerevar.


    A crystal, blood red, pulsing with the beat of the Doom Drum.


    An Argonian playing a guitar with a keyboard on it slides past in the air.


    I’ve lost the knife. Keening, fallen into lava. I always keep losing my damned weapons. But there is one the world can never take from me.


    A weapon, void black, piercing the essence of reality.


    I conjure the Blade of Woe upon the Heart of Lorkhan.


    For a moment, I see a black triangle upon red as the blade penetrates the crystal, like a gate into the Void.


    I abruptly wake up.


    I blink very slowly and deliberately. A dream. Just a dream based on some things that have been on my mind lately. That’s all. Yet it’s a small encouragement.


    I am going to try very, very hard to forget that creepy as fuck dream. This is why literally everyone invented mind-altering substances.


    …


    “Neri, can you teleport this one to Skywatch?” Ilara asks. “Kisha has a target there.”


    “Okay,” I say. “I’ll drop you off there. Be sure to research your target in addition to identifying them. Chances are they’ve done something shitty if someone wants them dead, and it always feels tinglier if you know exactly how much of a fetcher they are before sticking a knife into them.”


    I’ve skimmed through the pending contracts and, fortunately, did not see the names of anyone I give a shit about. I don’t tell Ilara anything silly like making sure her targets deserve to die. You might wonder why I go to so much effort to spare mercenaries and bystanders when I don’t terribly care about random people dying. And while I might wonder that sometimes too, the people whose lives I spared often wind up working for me directly or indirectly. And no innocent bystander is liable to make someone care enough to get a bunch of bones, a human heart and nightshade, and repeatedly stab it until a creepy guy shows up and takes a lot of gold from you. (Unless they just want to see literally anyone die, of course.)


    I’ve also copied out the Litany of Blood and passed it off to Grishka to pass off to one of her trusted spies. I have to wonder if the Listener knew what sort of resources I have on hand.


    I leave Ilara in Skywatch and return to the Gold Coast to check in on everyone there and see what the next crisis is because of course there’s going to be another crisis.


    Cimbar has been recovering from his torture well enough, but there’s only so much that two novice healers can do and since he’s stable and improving, I didn’t see the need to bring in a master healer like Gelur and have to explain everything all over again. I don’t want too many obvious connections, either.


    Hildegard, the werewolf assassin, is missing. She’d gone on a trip to Anvil’s chapel to pray and hasn’t come back yet. Kor is getting worried about her, and is so highstrung he’s practically sober.


    “How long has she been gone?” I ask. “Because for the record, Vara-do might disappear for long periods of time too.”


    “I’m not worried about you though,” Kor says. “Hilde has been gone since we came back since Cimbar. If she’s been hurt–”


    “This one understands,” I say, not forcing him to tell me that he thinks Hilde is fragile and unpredictable. “She might be in trouble, but that trouble might also be that she turned into a werewolf, hurt someone, and ran off into the wilderness.”


    “That… could also have happened,” Kor says. “She finds it hard to control her transformations.”


    “Hmm,” I say. “That could be because she scorned Hircine. Most likely her ‘gift’ originates from him, ultimately. If she’s been praying to the Divines, chances are she told him to go fuck himself at some point, in perhaps not those exact words.”


    “I hadn’t thought of that,” Kor says. “It could be so. She doesn’t remember much of her past. Damned Daedra. Will you help me find her? You can get us to Anvil faster and if she’s hurt, you might be able to heal her.”


    People might stereotype Nords as being stupid, but often they’re smart where it matters.


    “This one cannot argue with that reasoning,” I say. “To Anvil, then?”


    Kor nods, and I take us to Anvil. On the other hand, none of them question my apparent ability to heal and teleport people, but why should they? Not everyone can do those things, but it’s not like they’re rare abilities. Anyone could learn them if they put in the time and effort. That I got them by accident says more about me than anything else.


    Kor thinks we ought to ask around about a Nord woman with a flower in her hair.


    “Is it a fake flower, or does she put fresh flowers in her hair every day?” I wonder.


    “It’s… no, it’s a real flower but it was magically preserved,” Kor says. “She values it greatly and never takes it off.”


    I don’t ask if he’s sure about that. I don’t ask if it was the first flower he ever gave her, or it’s a symbol of her humanity that reminds her of the beauty in the world, or any of that. I just nod and drop into the outlaws refuge.


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    “Why are you going in that way?” Kor wonders. “Do you have a bounty on your head?”


    “This one does not think so,” I say. “But he prefers to be cautious, and also his informants are down here.”


    “You have informants?” Kor asks. “Never mind. Of course you do. Talk with your informants. I’ll check the chapel.”


    Down in the outlaws refuge, a few well-placed coins tells me that someone matching Hildegard’s description was seen talking to a creepy priest who was sniffing her weirdly and whispering into her ears, and she ran off crying.


    I go to meet up with Kor, head into the temple of Dibella and by Malacath I’d almost forgotten about the dancers. It’s impressive to be greeted upon entering a temple by a bard and four half-naked dancers of different races and genders. I obligatorily give them an eyefull on the way by because not doing so would be more suspicious. When I tell Kor what I learned, he looks about ready to stick the Blade of Woe into the creepy priest.


    Another round of asking questions around the city results in learning that werewolf hunters are after her (they certainly work fast) and that she left by caravan to Skyrim for some reason.


    “Why would she go to Skyrim?” I wonder.


    “It was where the wolf was born,” Kor says. “The caravaneer said she’d take us there.”


    The caravaneer is parked near the stables on the north side of town, a Redguard woman with an incredibly distracting nose chain. The location she left Hildegard in was the Jerall Mountains, along the southern border of Skyrim.


    “Are you going to take us across Cyrodiil?” I wonder. “Is that part of Skyrim Ebonheart Pact territory?”


    “Don’t worry,” she says. “I can get you there safely.”


    As with any time I travel to a new area, I keep an eye out for wayshrines, whatever the local wayshrines look like. Every time we get near one, I ask to stop and say a quick prayer to the Divines for safe travel. Vara-do is apparently quite devout. At least I have a communication orb and don’t need to be out of touch during travel to a new area. If there were an emergency, I could be wherever in an instant. Just swooping in like an ancestral ghost summoned by a twenty-year-old child afraid of a skeever.


    (Note to self: Make sure to have descendants learn ancestral ghost spell. Have them summon me from the Ashpit to fight cool things. Win at eternity. … I need to make a lot of descendants.)


    We arrive at the spot the caravaneer says she left Hildegard. Kor wants to split up to look for her to cover more ground. I don’t call him an idiot and tell him that’s a stupid idea. I do, however, point out that I’m better at navigating social situations than the wilderness. Left to my own devices, I’ll wander in circles for hours until accidentally finding my way back where I started. Fortunately, Kor finds us the trail. Especially considering we’re not the only ones hunting werewolves up here, and the others are even less subtle than us.


    “The Silver… something are here,” I say. “What was that you said? Silver Hand? Silver Moon?”


    “Silver Dawn,” Kor says. “We have to hurry.”


    I don’t actually believe these werewolf hunters are in the wrong here, really. I’m not going to go out of my way to kill them, but with an angry Nord and an unpredictable werewolf around, well, they should expect to be potentially mauled by werewolves in their line of work. Most of the time, I’m the one who’s killing werewolves. But most of the time, those werewolves are trying to kill me.


    I find a bit of incriminating correspondence at the Silver Dawn camp from one Chanter Nemus to kill her for coin. Apparently werewolves fall under the “monster extermination” socially acceptable assassination contracts even when they’re praying to the Divines and asking for help. Once Kor kills their leader, the remaining Silver Dawn hunters surrender and flee like sensible people.


    We find Hildegard, and Kor talks to her and calms her down.


    Hildegard… may have told the priest a few things she shouldn’t have. She thinks she had to because they “speak for the Divines”.


    “Hilde, priests are not chosen directly by their gods,” I say in a tense voice. “Usually. It’s usually the other way around. This one has seen some weird things but he does not think this was one of those.”


    “I know, it was foolish of me,” Hildegard says.


    I sigh and put my hand to my mask. “What they could not get by torture they tried to get by trickery. This priest will need to die. Vara-do will take care of it.”


    “You’d do that for me?” Hildegard asks.


    “Of course,” I say. “Pedophiles always squeal the loudest.”


    “What’s a pedophile?” Hildegard wonders.


    “Never mind,” I say. “Where can this one find him?”


    Hildegard gives me directions to an office in the temple undercroft, and I go to sneak in. By which I mean I dress up as an Altmer dancing girl with a stuffed short shirt, pink silk pants, a face veil, and gloves to cover my ring.


    On the one hand, there’s me making disguises for every conceivable necessity and “infiltrating a temple of Dibella” became highly probable once I started doing murder business around a city with a temple of Dibella. On the other hand, sometimes I think I just like playing dress-up. Honestly, I should have gone into theater. It would be less complicated.


    Most people’s idea of stealth is not being seen. My kind of stealth is more the other way around. People will see only what I want them to see. All my life I’ve been a charlatan.


    When I walk into the Chanter’s office, he looks up at me with a leer. “Are you new here?” He sizes me up from head to toe. “The dancers’ quarters is the next door down. But feel free to come in and introduce yourself, my dear.”


    Alright, you know what? I have always secretly wanted to murder someone while disguised as a dancing girl.


    “My name is Neranwe, sera.” I sashay into the room, straight up to the lecher.


    He looks over to the other person in the room. “Why don’t you step out and give us a little room?”


    The Redguard maid acquiesces and takes her sweeping elsewhere, leaving me alone with my mark.


    I speak calmly in prayer, “Great Akatosh, Dragon God of Time, I apologize for having to murder your servant.”


    “What?” roars the Chanter, finally realizing what I’m doing too late. I have him on the floor and tied up with strong pink ribbons in an instant.


    “What did the young Nord woman tell you?” I ask. “And did you tell anyone else? Answer me, and I will send you to Aetherius rather than the Void.”


    “Akatosh preserve me,” Chanter Nemus breathes. “I’ll talk, you foul heretic. Just don’t deny me eternity with Akatosh.”


    Once I’ve gotten the information I asked for, I feed him some poison and leave the room. I put on a show of being distraught over the old man having a heart attack in the middle of an amorous diversion, and slip out of the temple in the confusion before anyone can question who I am too closely.


    That was fun. I should do that again sometime. I’m betting by the time anyone figures out what happened, the city will be in my hands anyway. The outlaws refuge conveniently has an entrance in the cemetery behind the chapel, so I hop inside and change from Neranwe into Vara-do again.


    I pick up Ilara and stop by Dra’bul and Crimson Cove before returning to the Sanctuary. Her contracts have been going well and she’s not sad at all about having missed out on the most boring ride I’ve had since I rode an aging silt strider half-circle around Vvardenfell. I caught up on a lot of sleep. I’m going to need to make a big public show in Cyrodiil after this. Make it seem like I spent all this time meticulously planning my next move in this big dumb board game. I’ll capture a fort or something and then go back to this.


    “Rumor has it that Chanter Nemus’ heart stopped while messing around with a Dibellan dancing girl,” Kor says. “Funny coincidence?”


    “Rumor travels fast when you’re living in a hole in the ground in the middle of nowhere.” I chuckle. “Want to see a magic trick?”


    “What sort of trick?” Kor wonders.


    “The funny one.”


    I have faith in my ability to swap costumes and the likelihood that these people won’t turn on me. I switch to my dancing girl disguise and strike a pose.


    “Oh, an illusion! That’s fantastic!” Hildegard exclaims softly. (I realize this sounds like a contradiction, but everything about Hilde is quiet, even her yelling.)


    I switch back. “Quite a clever disguise, no?”


    “You disguised yourself as a dancing girl and murdered the Chanter for me?” Hildegard says.


    “Of course,” I say. “No one messes with this one’s friends.”