I wake up somewhere else. Next to a beach, in an old Aldmeri ruin. My head is still a little woozy, but I am thankful that this time they just drugged me instead of hitting me on the head. I am quite glad I actually put on a fake beard for this. The way they must have manhandled me to get me out here, they’d have to have noticed.

My contact/abductor is leaning casually against a pillar when I wake. Keeping an eye on me. “About time you woke up. I was afraid I’d given you too high of a dose.”

“I’m a bit of a lightweight,” I mumble, rubbing my head. “But was it really necessary to kidnap me? I’d have come… and looked a lot less suspicious than dragging my unconscious body out of the inn.”

He chuckles. “Don’t worry about that. Our people are everywhere. Welcome to the Veiled Isle. You’ve been invited to become an officer of the Veiled Heritance. A high privilege, but you are clearly a cut above.”

“Thanks,” I say. “I’m afraid I didn’t catch your name, though… nor gave mine.”

“A time for proper introductions, then. I am Palomir. And you are?”

“Raveren,” I tell him. (Don’t give me that look. It was the best I could come up with on short notice. At least I won’t forget this one.)

“Excellent. Now, you’ll be free to come and go as you please, of course, but first you have to take the oath.” He gestures to a black soul gem sitting on a crate beside him. “Be certain you are serious about this. You commit your life and soul to our cause.”

Even if my soul were still in my body, I’m pretty sure just breaking these things will release the souls in them. Has every racist bandit pledged their soul on a black soul gem like this? If that’s true, no wonder they’re all so loopy and committed even to the point of stupidity. Can they even soul trap someone just like that, or is this just for intimidation? Will they notice there’s no soul involved anywhere nearby here?

Well, I’m not about to back out now. I haven’t gotten this close to cutting out the heart of the racist bandits before and I’m not about to pass up the chance. And no sense in letting Palomir watch me hesitate here, either. I take the oath… under the name Raveren.

He then starts going on about how officers must pass three trials, and sends me to someone whose name starts with O. Ugh. And here I can’t ask people to spell names and write them down without anyone noticing that there’s probably nobody else but me in Auridon who does that.

It’s eerie having this island full of racist bandits who aren’t currently trying to kill me. Also imps who are, but they’re avoidable. Next to O-name, I find a copy of a book titled Illusion of Death.

“Could I borrow this?” I ask. “It looks interesting but I don’t have time for reading right now.”

“Of course,” O-name says. “Have you come to test your mind?”

I agree, and it turns out that this vaunted ‘test of the mind’ is a simple riddle contest. The first one is extremely easy (a book), and the second is trickier but considering I only have to choose from a bunch of items laid out on a table, it’s not like it’s going to be something incredibly abstract like ‘love’ or ‘the urge to pee’. Through process of elimination, I pick the skull, which turns out to be correct. I don’t know what the consequences for failure would have been, but it would probably just have resulted in someone or something trying to kill me.

O-name sends me off to speak to someone with a long name starting with V in order to test my heart or something. This turns out to be a race around the island. You know, the island full of aggressive imps that shoot lightning at anyone that annoys them, and get annoyed by anyone coming within ten paces of them? This whole thing sees me rushing around getting lightning shot at me, stumbling around crates and ramps to try to get at glowing blue markers, and I’m kind of glad no one can see my real face because this is almost embarrassing. V-name tells me that my time was impressive, but I just know she was watching me try to jump up on a crate repeatedly before realizing I could just go around.

Next, I’m sent to someone with a long name starting with A, for a test of strength. After the last two, I really hope this doesn’t involve seeing how many bricks I can lift. I have no idea what a footrace has to do with being an officer. Are they just trying to weed out soft Altmer who have never had to do anything more vigorous than peel grapes? … Probably.

The test of strength does not involve weightlifting. It’s a test of combat. Every officer candidate has to kill the others, because “the Veiled Queen deserves only the best.”

So, every one of their officers has had to kill to get their position? And not even killing someone who could conceivably be thought of as an enemy, but simply a rival who is in the way, because their superiors told them to? No wonder this whole organization is so fucked up. This isn’t the sort of setup you’d use to build a stable government, even if their leader does call herself a queen. This is the sort of setup you’d use to keep bandits in line. What, exactly, is their long-term plan should they actually succeed in assassinating Queen Ayrenn and taking over the government? This Veiled Queen would be nothing more than a warlord (warlady?) keeping hold with violence.

Under ordinary circumstances, I’d be ranting about how stupid this is, refusing to participate on principle, and probably winding up taking over the organization because whoever runs it is a fucking idiot, but you know what? I’m *not *helping these racist bandits run their organization more efficiently. I’m just going to take the opportunity to cull a few of them with impunity. (There are so many more of them on this island I wish I could just deal with right now, though.)

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The other officer candidates, though? They’re so terrible that I feel like I’m doing the Veiled Queen a favor in getting rid of them anyway. How can you possibly aspire to be a bandit officer and be this bad at fighting? This was probably supposed to be a battle royale free-for-all, but once they realize how outclassed they are, they gang up on me and still fail to hurt me.

A-name congratulates me on my victory. It doesn’t feel like one. It feels like I just killed a bunch of bullies with sticks just to stop them from beating the other children to death. Something that needed to be done, but not exactly a worthy test of my skill or strength. Fortunately, neither I nor they really give a shit if that was a worthy test or not.

The Veiled Queen will be making a speech soon, speaking through a magical projection from a safe location. (Isn’t this a pretty safe location? No, it’s more likely that she’s somewhere else and doesn’t want to break her cover by coming here in person.) A-name directs me into the keep where the others are gathering to wait for the speech. Great, this will be my best opportunity to find out who this Veiled Queen is actually is, even if I’m not going to get the chance to stab her in the face yet.

Once inside, I feel a tingle and my hands shimmer, revealing the slightly darker Chimer skin underneath the illusion. Damn, some sort of anti-magic or just anti-illusion effect on the door? Now everyone is going to see what a piss-poor job I did on my fake beard.

A female voice echoes through the halls, announcing that one of Ayrenn’s agents has infiltrated the compound and to kill them. And people proceed to attack me. How did they know? That door trap that disabled the illusion must have detected it and alerted her. Maybe it would have been better just to use a non-magical disguise in the first place.

I can’t complain too much, though. Now I can just kill everyone and don’t have to stew in the fact that I’m walking through hallways full of racist bandits and be unable to raise an axe against them for fear of blowing my cover. I hope I’ll still be able to find out who she is, though. Did that voice sound familiar? I can’t tell.

Fortunately, the Veiled Queen isn’t about to pass up the chance to give a speech just for me. A projection of an Altmer woman in a dress starts ranting about how awful Ayrenn is for not being racist. And, as the snowberry on top, the Veiled Queen is also a worshipper Mehrunes Dagon. Seriously? Like being racist bandits wasn’t bad enough in and of itself, they have to be hypocritical Daedra-worshipping racist bandits on top of that? I can just imagine the Prince of Destruction has to be getting off on the amount of chaos they’re causing.

“I am the Veiled Queen!” the projection proclaims, and I could swear I’ve seen this mer before somewhere.

“Congratulations,” I say dryly. “Now who the fuck are you?”

She’s already vanished by that point, and does not answer.

Wait… long dress, short hair… wishes she were Queen… Didn’t I see her standing next to Ayrenn’s brother back in Vulkhel Guard? His wife? Who would have been Queen had Ayrenn not returned from adventuring? This whole thing was plainly obvious from the start and I’m kicking myself for not realizing it sooner. I take a moment to pull out my journal and look up her name: High Kinlady Estre.

Who is currently in Skywatch with Ayrenn. Dammit!

I’m sure Ayrenn will be happy to compensate me for the teleport scroll used to keep her from being backstabbed by her scheming sister-in-law. Not wanting to waste anymore time here, even if it means wiping out a bunch of racist bandits, I pull out a scroll from my pack and read it, reappearing among the market tents in Skywatch.

I find Raz outside of the manse. “Raz,” I say quietly when I come up to him. “Where’s High Kinlady Estre?”

“She’s safe inside with Queen Ayrenn,” Raz says. “No need to worry.”

I shake my head vigorously. “No, no. You know how she really wanted to be Queen? Well, she really wanted to be Queen. She’s the one behind all this. She’s the Veiled Queen. Also a worshipper of Mehrunes Dagon, as if that wasn’t bad enough. And yes, I’m sure, she thoroughly gloated at me about it before ordering her goons to kill me. Obviously they failed.”

“This is truly serious, then,” Raz says, scowling. “Come, then. We must speak with the Queen immediately.”

We hurry inside, to where Ayrenn and Estre are speaking with one another in front of the manse’s two thrones. It would have been so easy for Estre to have killed her at any time, but instead she keeps sending ineffectual minions after her. What has stayed her hand so far? I don’t imagine any worshipper of Mehrunes Dagon would be afraid of getting their own hands bloody, but who the fuck knows with these high elves.

“Who let that cat in here?” Estre sneers disdainfully as she sees Razum-dar approach.

“You might want to dial back the racism, Estre,” I say. “Someone might think you’re a racist bandit. Excuse me, ‘Veiled Heritance’.”

“That’s out of line,” Ayrenn says.

Estre’s eyes widen in alarm when she sees me, but Ayrenn is looking at me, not her.

“Sorry about the shitty fake beard,” I say, and fix my eyes upon Estre. “I infiltrated the Veiled Heritance and their dear Veiled Queen spoke to them through a magical projection. Take a guess who it was? The one who made absolutely no secret to anyone within earshot how she’d really wanted to be Queen?”

“But Estre doesn’t even know magic—” Ayrenn says, turning around just as Estre opens a magical portal and vanishes before anyone can grab her.

“Apparently she learned some since you last saw her,” I say with a sigh. “Damn. She’s out-nixed us. Well, at least she’s not going to murder you today. Unless she teleports into your bedroom or something. Fucking mages.”

Ayrenn makes a sour face. “I’ll make sure to have wards puts up on my chambers. I can’t believe it… Estre? I knew she was unhappy and was planning on honoring her here today, and now this?”

“A spit in the face,” Raz agrees quietly. “Raz is finding far too many people lately he did not know as well as he thought he did.” He shakes his head.

“You need to find her and stop her,” Ayrenn says. “My Eyes tell me that the canonreeve of the town of Dawnbreak is sympathetic to the Veiled Heritance. She may seek to take refuge there to make her next move.”

I sigh. “I don’t envy whoever has to tell her husband this, either. You should be aware that there’s a lot more racists in the city, too. Enough that it seems nobody batted an eye at me being drugged and dragged through the docks to a boat. And a bunch on that island they took me to that I didn’t kill as I was in a hurry to get back here and warn you.”

Ayrenn sighs. “It’s worse than I feared, then. We must stop Estre before she tears this entire land apart.”

“First, I’m going to need to get this beard off…” I tug at it. “I may need to see an alchemist and/or a healer for this.”

“Raz told you not to use that glue.”