“Did you buy that house just to bribe them with it?” Eran wonders.

“No,” I say. “But it was a good deal!”

“Why did you give it to the mercenaries, then?”

“People tend to be more invested in protecting a place and its wellbeing when they have some stake in it,” I say.

Eran blinks. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“If she does a good job, I might find some bullshit title to throw at her, too,” I say. “People love bullshit titles.”

“Don’t titles usually mean something?”

“Eh, lots of titles basically just mean ‘favored suck-up’,” I say. “Thane, gulakhan, that sort of thing. Keep that in mind whenever you encounter a person who has a title that they didn’t get through heredity, election, or advancement in a guild or military. They either sucked up for it or declared it upon themselves.”

“I’ll… have to remember that, I guess.”

The Redguard swordsman, Merric, who does not have a glorious beard like Sai Sahan, has called a meeting of some important people in the Fighters Guild, and for some reason this meeting is being held in Vulkwasten of all places. Sees-All-Colors isn’t present, which is unfortunate because she’s the one I really wanted to talk to here. Eran and I come by wayshrine, leaving the others to relax and catch up with Gelur’s daughter back at Baandari Trading Post and keep an eye on the mercenaries in case they change their minds about being reasonable.

The Fighters Guildhall is full of some people I don’t recognize who are apparently the “province generals” of the Fighters Guild. And some of them look like they just, reluctantly, got dragged away from the party in Silvenar to be here and aren’t particularly happy about it. I’m sure contacting them and getting them to come here was the real reason why progress here has taken so long, because surely it couldn’t have been so complicated to tell me to investigate the old guildmaster’s death further.

Aelif tells me how Jofnir (that was his name) had quarters nearby in Vulkwasten and that I should go in and look around while she keeps watch. This sounds more like she wants to rob the place than investigate the place, but whatever. This is hardly going to be very secret with a Khajiit doing pushups right outside the door, anyway.

Dwemer bits are scattered about Jofnir’s quarters, and I grab a journal from his hammock for whatever good it will do. A quick skim through it indicates that he had been hanging around a ruin called Ragnthar, and had stopped at Baandari Trading Post. I let Aelif know what I found, and pop over to the trading post via wayshrine to talk to the Fighters there.

According to a woman in the guildhall, Ragnthar is weirder than your usual Dwemer ruin. Something about having entrances all over Tamriel but nobody knows where it actually is, and there’s time and/or space weirdness going on with it.

I’ll be honest here. I haven’t missed Dwemer weirdness. Their machines are neat, their technology is pretty amazing, even their focus on the tonal stuff wasn’t so much weirder than your normal magic. But at the far edges of their studies, at the point where whatever it was that Kagrenac did made them all disappear? Honestly, I’m quite sure that your average Dwemer would have been happy just tinkering with their metal spiders and perfecting the art of passive aggression and sarcasm, and not disillusioning the enatinomorph or whatever the fuck it was.

Aelif meets up with me and Eran outside the trading post, having clearly teleported over here and also quite clearly teleported outside the trading post for some reason. She leads us to a nearby cave full of Dwemer gears, the back of which contains a glowy purple door. By which I mean the door is covered in purple glowiness, not that it’s purple and glowing.

From what she says, Aelif dislikes the idea of opposing a Daedric prince and would rather be fighting Goblins and bandits.

“Goblins and bandits are just hiring opportunities,” I say. “But hey, if Nirn were a part of Coldharbour, they’d be the least of our concerns.”

Aelif makes a soft “mrrrh” sound that doesn’t sound like she especially agrees, and does something to make the weird purple glow go away so we can go inside.

For a place supposedly outside of time or space or whatever it is, it looks pretty much like a normal Dwemer complex at first glance. I walk slowly, staring at my surroundings. It’s easy to get accustomed to seeing Altmer and Bosmer and Orsimer architecture the likes of which I never saw in my past life, but I feel that I will never get used to seeing the homes of the Dwemer in ruins like this. Darkness, rust, crumbling masonry, and the distant clank of machines still trying to obey their last orders.

Something odd is in the middle of a large room. A light barrier protecting a corpse, requiring me to fiddle with the machinery to deactivate it. The corpse is very likely that of Jofnir Iceblade, given the guild insignia I find on it. No fair! I never got a guild insignia! Admittedly, I only claim to be with the Fighters Guild when I interact with them and otherwise ignore them. I’m already wearing enough hats. I should stop protesting, since we’re being attacked.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

After smashing the Dwemer machines that attacked us, a Daedra appears and attacks us. An Auroran, one of Meridia’s most likely. What in Oblivion would Meridia’s involvement here be? Did whatever Jofnir’s investigations were here involve the shiny thing?

With the shield down, Aelif thinks she can summon Jofnir’s spirit to question him about his murder. Eran looks distinctly uncomfortable about this all but says nothing as Aelif conjures up the ghost.

I wish I could have her (or a necromancer I like better) summon up a Dwemer to have a chat with them. You can’t summon Dwemer ghosts. (So I’ve heard, not having exactly tried it myself.) At least, aside from the ones who died before the incident that made them all disappear. Chimer and such you can summon them and talk to them if you need some information or just want to say hello to your ancestors, but raising Dwemer has no effect due to the fuckery they did to themselves.

Jofnir is greatly unhappy about being yanked back to Nirn by Aelif. She prods him and questions him while he strains against his bonds until he eventually says Sees-All-Colors murdered him. Aelif makes the image vanish at that point, spitting on the thought of him wanting to go to Sovngarde. Quite rude.

“There you have it,” Aelif says. “Colors is guilty! Aelif knew it!”

“Was it really necessary to do that to poor dead Jofnir?” Eran asks.

“We needed the information, yes?” Aelif says. “It was necessary.” She waves a paw. “Go, hurry on back to Vulkwasten and let the council know. Aelif wants to look around a bit more first.”

I head for the door with Eran in tow, and wait until we’re back in Malabal Tor and not wherever the fuck that weird ruin actually is before speaking.

“I don’t trust this at all,” I say. “What do you think?”

“That cat is hiding something,” Eran says.

“There’s definitely something fishy going on here,” I mumble. “And I don’t think it was whatever Aelif had for lunch. She would have them stop trying to fight the Dark Anchors. And that would be disastrous, since the Fighters Guild is the only thing holding the line in a lot of places.”

“What if Colors did murder the former guildmaster?”

“Colors was the one who arranged the Dark Anchor contract,” I say. “If her position is called into question, they might just follow Aelif’s advice and retract their aid.”

“Which would be disastrous,” Eran says. “So what do we do?”

“We cover up a murder,” I say. “How good are you at blatant lies?”

Eran makes a face. “Is this part of speechcraft training?”

I chuckle. “You should always be certain to get a reputation of being honest and dependable, so that when you do need to blatantly lie about something, people will believe you.”

“Lying for the sake of the greater good,” Eran sighs.

“Eh, I don’t really like the phrase ‘greater good’,” I say. “I mean, it implies that there’s some objective ideal of ‘goodness’ rather than good for you and yours.”

“It implies that most people on Nirn whose opinions I might potentially care about would be better off if the God of Brutality weren’t trying to turn their homes into a hell realm.”

“True,” I say.

“In any case, I’ll follow your lead.”

I return to Vulkwasten to inform Merric and the council of a slightly edited version of what we found.

“So, guys, did you know Aelif’s a necromancer?” I ask.

“Distasteful magic,” Merric says with a grimace. “I suspected she knew some magic, but necromancy? What did she do?”

“And am I mistaken in my impression that Iceblade died peacefully in his sleep at home and his body should have been on the way to Skyrim for burial by now?” I ask. “And not that it was dragged to a weird Dwemer ruin Aelif just so happened to have a way to access?” I pull out the guild insignia I’d found and show it to them.

“I hadn’t personally seen his body, but that’s what we were told,” says one of the important people, frowning at it. “What happened?”

“Aelif tried to frame Sees-All-Colors for the last guildmaster’s murder,” I say. “She dragged forth Jofnir’s ghost and puppeted it like a puppet, forcing pained words out of him.”

“It was terrible, hearing him scream like that,” Eran says. “Begging to be released so that he may be allowed to pass on to Sovngarde. I’ve seen cultists do some awful things, but to see someone who was supposed to be a comrade? Sickening.”

“Where is Aelif now?” Merric says, his voice half a growl.

I shake my head. “She disappeared before we could confront her. I’d bet she’ll play innocent and try to point to her ‘evidence’ gained by necromantic torture.”

“How could Aelif benefit from Jofnir Iceblade’s death?” asks another of the important people.

“Well… she’s a necromancer,” I say. “And she was very vehement against us fighting Molag Bal.”

Merric frowns. “I have heard her speak such words. Full of complaints, she has been. I never imagined she might betray us, though. I had thought better of her.”

I could almost believe the lie myself. It’s too easy to frame a necromancer just by pointing out statements that happen to be true and exaggerating. I’ll apologize to her preemptively should it turn out she’s just a grouchy necromancer who is too lazy to want to fight Daedra. Colors, I hope you appreciate this.

“I’ll put out a warrant for Aelif’s arrest,” says someone presumably important enough to do that.

“We haven’t seen any sign of Colors, either,” Merric says. “She must have realized Aelif had betrayed her. Betrayed us. I had thought better of her… Could she have been behind my capture by that Dremora, Doshia? A spy, that singled me out and led them to me, and handed me right off into their arms while innocently turning her back?”

I’m impressed. One spark to start questioning it and they’re already finding more damning questions about Aelif’s involvement to the point where I have to start to wonder whether it’s true.

I bid them farewell as we head back to the wayshrine to return to Baandari Trading Post.

“Do you think Aelif did something untoward?” Eran asks. “Beyond the necromantic torture that we saw in front of us. Which, whatever else Aelif has done, probably was not entirely necessary.”

“I think there’s more going on here than we realize,” I say with a sigh. “Come on. I want to find something simple to do, like make a trip to the Shivering Isles or something. I think I spotted Valaste while we were investigating and she was trying to get my attention but I was busy.”

“Right, the Shivering Isles…” Eran says. “You’ll forgive me if I sit that one out.”

I chuckle as we part ways, with Eran heading toward the inn and me off toward the guildhall.