The Green Lady storms in past me and kneels next to him, howling in fury. She demands answers of me, but I have none, and at least she believes me when I tell her he was already dead when I came inside.

“I liked the Silvenar,” I growl. “How dare they!? Someone’s going to die for this.”

“Someone’s going to die at my hand,” the Green Lady adds. “Find out who did this!”

“Absolutely,” I agree, absolutely not arguing that sentiment.

I go back outside and stride back toward the center of town. At this point, the treaty and its details no longer seem remotely important. I take a deep breath to try to center myself. It would not do to let my rage get the better of me, like I told that Khajiit boy whose name I’ve forgotten already. Death may not mean the same thing to me as someone whose soul has not left Tamriel, but still, the Silvenar—Edhelorn—has gone somewhere I cannot follow and I will likely never see him again. Not that I would wish an afterlife in Coldharbour on anyone.

I manage to make it to the big building without killing anything along the way, although my barely contained fury is intent upon lashing out at any handy target. Harrani is there, and she opens her mouth as if to give me the runaround again, but reconsiders upon taking one look at my face.

“Is something wrong, Neralion?” Harrani asks.

“The Silvenar is dead,” I growl. “Murdered.”

“Murdered!?” Harrani repeats, jaw dropping in shock. “Who would do such a thing? He was such a peaceful mer!”

“I don’t know, but your surprise at least rules you out as a possible suspect,” I say. “You may not have liked the situation here but I don’t think you’re the sort who would have killed someone in order to resolve it.”

“I would never do such a thing,” Harrani retorts. “I will close the port and will not rest until his killer is brought to justice.”

Vicereeve Pelidil and Ambassador Ulondil have overhead me speaking not particularly quietly with Harrani, and proceed to break into a not particularly quiet argument in which everyone blames everyone else for everything. I watch them silently, observing their body language and tone of voice, but it’s difficult to tell anything conclusive seeing as they’re both angry. Pelidil seems outraged, but did Ulondil sound surprised at all? He’s only been varying shades of pissy since I first encountered him.

“Neralion, would you be willing to help with the investigation?” Harrani asks once those two are gone.

“I’ve already told the Green Lady I would find out who killed her husband,” I say. “So I will be investigating regardless.”

“You are not directly affiliated with the Dominion however, yes?” Harrani asks. “You are a freelancer. An adventurer. Or did Harrani get the wrong impression?”

“Adventurer, yes,” I say. “You won’t find my name on any of their payrolls if that’s what you mean.”

“I will declare you a deputy of the Mistral guard,” Harrani says. “You can read through my reports and question witnesses to see if you can find any evidence.”

“Do you not have your own guards?” I ask.

“Apparently none that were sufficiently competent to prevent the murder of an honored guest on their watch.”

I incline my head toward her. “Very well, then. I accept.”

Pelidil and Ulondil (why so many ‘dil’s?) have stalked off to different parts of the building. I go up to speak with Pelidil first, who is fuming and expressing wishes to march on the Maormer embassy with torches and pitchforks immediately.

“Vicereeve,” I say evenly. “I know it was the Maormer. You know it was the Maormer. But unfortunately, we can’t act without evidence, no matter how obvious it is to sensible mer like us.”

Flattery mollifies him sufficiently that I don’t think he’s in immediate danger of starting a war, no matter how justified it likely is. Once I’m done heading off that particular potential problem, I go take a seat at Harrani’s desk to look over her guard reports. There are mentions of a number of isolated incidents that, in a vacuum, would not be particularly noteworthy. Strange noises, suspicious behavior… I’ll be here all day chasing after suspicious behavior, so I may as well get started. While I ought to make sure Razum-dar knows what’s going on as well, it’s highly doubtful that he hasn’t already heard just by the shouting. Best that I not be seen speaking with him for the moment.

First stop: The warehouse next to the armory. As it is very close to the building in which the Silvenar was murdered, it would have been a convenient staging location. I start to take a thorough look around, although I don’t immediately find anything of note downstairs or up, but then I hear footsteps from the stairs and hide behind some crates. I’d been hoping for a chance to eavesdrop on some secret conversation, but it’s a lone sea elf who seems to be here just to leave a note in a dead drop. I leap out of my hiding spot to try to catch her, but she vanishes in a cloud of smoke.

The note is less than elucidating as well. There’s references to ‘Unwelcome Visitors’ who are obviously the Dominion, but the rest appears to be either code or really, really obvious. Something about unleashing a tempest. That could be literally another storm, or just an attack. Either way, it’s pretty good evidence that the Maormer are up to something. I shove it in my pack and casually jump off a second story balcony to save myself the trouble of walking back down the stairs.

Next stop is the apothecary. If the Silvenar were poisoned, it’s possible that the culprit purchased some or all of the ingredients from the apothecary, if not the poison itself. By the time I get there, however, Ulondil has already gotten there ahead of me and has the apothecary on the ground with his hands tied behind his back.

“Still here, Neralion?” Ulondil says.

“For the moment,” I say, scowling and restraining myself from hitting him. “What’s going on here?”

“This apothecary must have had a hand in the Silvenar’s murder,” Ulondil says. “I will wrest the truth out of him one way or another.”

“What makes you think the Silvenar was poisoned?” I ask. “Did you examine the body at all?”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Ulondil just gives me a look. “Yes, it was very grim. Most grim indeed.”

“Ulondil, he wasn’t poisoned,” I lie. “He was stabbed seventeen times with a kitchen knife.”

“He… what!?” Ulondil sputters. Now he’s finally shocked. “No, that can’t be right. I need to talk to someone.” He runs off, leaving me alone with the apothecary.

I crouch down to untie the poor terrified Khajiit, Mizibir, who is grateful for my intervention.

“My condolences for the Silvenar’s death,” Mizibir says. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“I need to look at your ledgers,” I say.

“Did you not say he wasn’t poisoned?”

“I lied,” I say with a smirk. “And it seems awfully suspicious that Ulondil believed he was when he hadn’t actually examined the body, don’t you think?”

“Ooooh, I see,” Mizibir says. “Yes, then, let’s look through my ledgers and see if you spot anything amiss, shall we?”

I nod, and we go inside. The ledgers contain record of a number of innocuous purchases, but there are also several anonymous purchases of Daedra hearts, blood, and sulfur.

“You didn’t think someone needing this much Daedra blood was at all suspicious?” I wonder.

“People buy all sorts of things from me,” Mizibir says. “It has legitimate alchemical purposes, after all.”

“I smelled sulfur in the room and saw a strange aura clinging to him that felt Daedric,” I say quietly.

“Oh dear,” Mizibir says. “Oh dear, oh dear. I knew nothing, I swear!”

I shake my head. “Do you remember anything about who made these purchases? Gender? Race? Manner of dress?”

“They were different people each time,” Mizibir says. “I suppose it would have been too obvious had it been the same one, but I had not even noticed Daedra blood had suddenly become so popular until you pointed it out.”

“Thank you for the information,” I say, clenching a fist. “I’m going to need to take your ledger as evidence. And you may not want to be here when Ulondil figures out I lied to him.”

“Yes, of course,” Mizibir says. “I will lay low for now. I have no desire to feel ropes around my paws again anytime soon.”

I shove the ledger into my pack along with the other slightly-crumpled miscellaneous notes I’ve been collecting. I should probably have shoved those into a book or something too. Oh well. I take a deep breath and steady myself against a post. Keep it together, Nerevar.

There’s a sea elf ship docked at the docks. Or is it a pier? Or a wharf? I’m not quite clear on the difference. And I’m sure I’d get thoroughly mocked if I asked any of the Maormer that. Anyway, the ship is named the Serpent’s Kiss (what is it with sea elves and snakes, anyway?) and I board it and locate the captain, a surly sea elf woman named Irinwe.

“What do you want, ground-walker?” Irinwe demands.

“I’m looking for passage off of this island,” I say. “To… anywhere but here, really. Do you take passengers?”

Irinwe sighs. “I’m not going anywhere without new rigging, and I’m not taking any passengers regardless. I do need a new serving wench, however.”

“Well, I suppose I could put on a dress…” I say with a smirk. “How much will your rigging cost you?”

She names a price. It is, unsurprisingly, way more than I can afford. “I’m sure you’d be spilling things all over the place. Bah. Have you even sailed much before? Would you be pissing yourself at the first sight of pirates?”

“Are you kidding?” I say with a grin. “I’ve always wanted to be a pirate! That would be quite the adventure, wouldn’t it? And I’m very good at hitting things!”

Irinwe gives me a long, unamused look. “Well, you’re going to need to play out your pirate fantasy on another ship, then. I don’t need mad Altmer mercenaries on my ship.”

That didn’t particularly sound like a denial. “Oh well,” I say. “I’ll still be here stuck on this island if you change your mind. I’m sure I’d be a great addition to your crew.”

Fortunately, I’m permitted to leave the ship by the gangplank and not over the rail.

I’d best show Razum-dar what I’ve found, for whatever good this evidence might do. Once I locate him, I pass him Mizibir’s ledger with the other notes tucked behind the cover.

“Coded messages, Daedra blood…” Raz mumbles. “What is this message to ‘H’?”

“Oh,” I say. “That would be the late Hazak, of the Crosstree Bandits. It’s probably not connected to this and got mixed up in my other notes. Unless, of course, you’re ‘R’ and have been smuggling skooma here, but I think you really have better things to do.”

“Indeed,” Raz says, whiskers twitching. “The Maormer are planning something, but what? And the Daedra blood… not good, not good at all.” He passes me a vial. “Here. Take this to the Green Lady. This is a sample of the substance we found on the Silvenar’s body.”

Razum-dar explains to me that the Silvenar and the Green Lady were life bonded and she will soon die. She has nothing to lose now and no purpose but to get revenge. I definitely wouldn’t want to get in her way.

I return to the armory with the vial and show it to the Green Lady, who denies that any poison on Nirn could have harmed the Silvenar. Some sort of innate poison resistance, I guess? And Daedric poison that may have been specifically used to get around that sort of resistance. Apparently the Green Lady has some really good senses, though, because she can smell the Daedric stench from here to the other side of town. She casts some sort of spell on me that helps me perceive it, and I immediately wish she hadn’t because it’s horrible. And she’s already running off leaving me to hurry to try to catch up and god damn she’s fast.

I catch up to the Green Lady at a building on the edge of town, and she storms inside before I can even pause to case the place. I suppose I can’t blame her, but I’d best follow quickly.

A chilling red aura fills the room, and glowing Daedric runes cover the floor. Oh yeah, baaaaad sign. A sea elf woman hovers in the middle of the runic circle, waving her arms and I probably really don’t want her to finish whatever it is she’s doing and for some reason the Green Lady has stopped in the corner of the room and is panting and not getting close. Surely she didn’t get too winded just from that vigorous jog to hit someone, so there’s probably something preventing her from getting close. It’s not stopping me, however, so I break the circle and knock the Maormer to the floor.

The Maormer lays on the floor hurt and starts mumbling something about having to follow his orders and that the Silvenar was killed because he might be able to stop the tempest. As soon as she breathes the name ‘Ulondil’, the Green Lady is upon her. It would have been a nice surprise if Ulondil hadn’t been involved in this somehow, but I hadn’t seriously thought there much chance of that.

I lose sight of the Green Lady as I head back outside, but there’s no question of where she’s going. I make for the Maormer embassy. Before the bridge leading toward it, I find Ulondil, Harrani, and Pelidil standing around in a circle (triangle?) and arguing. Again. Pointlessly. I’m not sure how I got here before her.

“Razum-dar showed me the evidence you found, but unless the ambassador himself was involved, I can do nothing,” Harrani tells me quietly.

I glare at her. “What was even the point of any of this, then?”

“You again,” Ulondil says, with a glare for me of his own. “You lied to me about the state of the Silvenar’s body and then you helped the apothecary escape justice. You are obviously in collusion with these Dominion assassins.”

“We found the Maormer who used Daedric poison to kill the Silvenar,” I say loudly. “And she told us your name. I’m rapidly losing patience with this entire farce, but fortunately for you, I’m not the one you need to be afraid of.”

“What are you talking about?” Ulondil demands. “The Green Lady is dead, isn’t she?” At my continued hard look, he says, “She isn’t dead. She’s coming for me. Oh no…” He spins about and runs off toward the embassy.

The Green Lady runs past, yelling something about blood. Harrani waves her paws trying futilely to get everyone to calm down although I’m not sure why she bothers.

“Do you really want to stand between the Green Lady and her prey?” I ask, not sparing a moment to hear her answer before running after them myself.

The embassy grounds are suspiciously empty of Maormer. Perhaps they decided to do the sensible thing and jump off the cliff into the water when they saw the Green Lady coming like a force of nature. I find Ulondil upstairs, cornered.

“Leave me to this,” the Green Lady says. “This is between me and him. I’ll make sure he gets what’s coming to him.”

“I only came to make sure this skeeving fetcher didn’t get away,” I say.

“Good,” the Green Lady says. “He’s not going anywhere now. Go tell them he’s dead. He will be… eventually.”

As I leave the embassy, I can hear Ulondil’s screams echo all the way across the yard.