Well, I found the Crosstree Bandits. Also I’ve stolen their laundry. My stolen Dominion uniform is a mess after all the fighting I’ve been doing, and the mage camp near the Temple of the Mourning Springs mostly has mage clothes and I don’t feel like wearing robes at the moment if I can help it. Is there a spell to clean and mend laundry? If there is, I’m betting the high elves probably know it and use it regularly.

As I’m munching on a stolen pie whilst leaning against a cart and pretending that I have every right to be there (they probably won’t check too closely unless I draw attention to myself), I spot an interesting note talking about some young Khajiit they captured. Apparently their leader is named Hazak, too. I’m betting if I want to put a stop to the smuggling of illicit substances temporarily, I ought to go hit him in the face repeatedly. That should disrupt their operations for at least a few days. I don’t really care what they’re doing with the skooma overly much myself, but it would look good to the Aldmeri Dominion and the residents of the island and I have a reputation I need to build here, and that Khajiit sounds like he needs to be rescued.

“Knowledge is power!” says a voice from ahead of me rather than from my pack. Oh, great, I found another one of these obnoxious things laying on the beach. When I grab it, this time I see a brief vision of a greedy Khajiit being killed by a Daedra. I wrap it up as well and shove it into my pack along with the other one.

The note in the bandit camp mentioned a back entrance to a smuggling cave along the beach where boats could dock, presumably to send skooma off all around Nirn to make their profits. As I’m walking along the beach looking for the place, a Khajiit woman runs up to me. She’s wearing a sleeveless outfit that shows the spotted fur on her arms and oh gods Khajiit fur is so pretty. (I’m not developing a fetish, dammit.)

I was paying so much attention to her spots that I don’t catch what she’s saying to me. “Come again?”

“Khari,” she says. “Have you seen a young Khajiit by the name of Khari? Zulana has not seen him anywhere.”

“No, but I found a note saying a young Khajiit had been captured by bandits,” I say. “Maybe that’s him.”

“Zulana is certain that must be him!” she says, frowning deeply. “Oh, my son. He swore to take the battle to those skooma smugglers after what happened with his father, but he would not listen when this one told him he didn’t have to do this himself.”

“The young and stubborn,” I say with a sigh. “Fear not, my fair lady. I shall retrieve your son from the clutches of these bandits. I do hope he’s still alright. You wouldn’t happen to have a better idea on where the entrance to their hideout is? The note I read was a bit vague so I’ve been searching the beach figuring I’d come across it eventually.”

“Keep going and you will see the docks,” she says. “Be cautious! You may be dressed like a bandit but you will not fool anyone who looks closely. You do not have the bearing of one. You walk with pride, like a bold elven warrior. You do not slink or skulk like you have something to hide.”

“Guess I need more skulking practice,” I say. “Although I suppose I should be glad you looked at me and thought I was a Dominion soldier and not a Crosstree bandit.”

I continue down the beach and spot a dock tucked away in the rocks where the water extends into a cavern mouth wide enough to sail a boat inside. And seeing as there are currently no small boats sitting around outside waiting for me to swipe them, it looks like there’s no way to get inside from this end but to swim. I don’t care to try to find another entrance, so I guess it’s time to get wet.

I’d imagined myself stealthily swimming in and locating Khari, and slipping back out again before anyone notices me. I had greatly overestimated my ability to swim. I flop through the water like an epileptic horker, doubtless alerting absolutely every bandit in the cave that someone is trying to swim in through the boat entrance like an idiot. It’s only a testament to the apparent fact that they aren’t even paying attention that I get to the closest dock ramp without being shot at.

Strangely, this is no mere cave. It looks more like a half-flooded large building, maybe another temple of some sort. There seem to be a lot of temples on this island, after all. The massive arched ceiling could have been a fucking cathedral at one point, and fortunately for these bandits, its sturdy construction has not collapsed on top of them and buried their smuggling operation in rubble even though there are tree roots breaking in through the roof from above.

I draw Rusty and attempt my best skulk, trying to use some crates and barrels near the smuggling boats as cover. Having no illusions that I’m actually going to fool anyone that I’m supposed to be here, I determine I’m just going to need to stab anyone who spots me. I proceed to be spotted plenty of times, so I fight my way through the bandits until I spot a Khajiit with spots like his mother tied up at the end of a walkway.

“Khari still refuses, bandit! He will not join Hazak no matter what you say to him!”

“You’re seriously the only one here who is convinced that I’m actually a bandit?” I say. “No, your mother sent me to look for you. Well, actually some random note I came across while stealing a pie from some bandits prompted me to look for you since you sounded like you were in trouble, but your mother also asked me. You can call me Neri.”

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“Oh, mother…” the Khajiit moans. “Khari has learned his lesson. She told this one to be more patient, to watch and wait and slip in at the right moment, but Khari was foolish and charged in. He thought he could take them all himself, but alas, he could not.”

“You’re lucky they haven’t killed you,” I say, crouching down behind him to untie him.

“Oh, no, they wouldn’t do that. Not without giving this one every opportunity to join them first. Pfah! As if Khari would!”

“Is Hazak here?” I ask.

“He’s here,” Khari confirms. “He’s inside through that door, but it’s locked. Hazak must die for his crimes!”

“Yep,” I say. “If you can slip out of here and get back to your mother, I’ll go kill Hazak for you.”

“No! Khari must be the one who kills him! Khari swore vengeance upon him!”

“Oh, vengeance is it?” I say. “Okay. Keep your cool and let’s do this thing, then.”

“Khari is not ‘cool’.”

I claim an axe from the bandits and name it Headache, and pass Rusty off to Khari since he doesn’t have a weapon. We find a key amid the bandits’ belongings and head in through a very fancy door depicting an embossed Khajiit wearing an impressive hat. This definitely had to be a temple at some point. Nobody puts doors that fancy on mess halls.

A Khajiit is inside whom Khari identifies as Hazak by yelling something about vengeance and charging at him. Hazak, for his part, snarls something back that I don’t catch.

“Khari, you can do it!” I encourage, standing at his side but pointedly not just killing the skooma lord myself. I could, but what would be the point of vengeance if you don’t do it yourself?

He’s terrible at this. I’m not sure he even knows how to use a sword properly in the first place. He’s quickly disarmed and starts fighting tooth and claw, and not even managing to scratch Hazak. When Hazak looks like he’s about to land a good hit on Khari, I deflect it and knock him aside, then pick up Rusty from the ground and return it to Khari.

“You can do better than that,” I say. “I believe in you, Khari.”

“Ugh, you sound just like Mother.”

“Khari, adjust your grip,” I say. “You’re wielding a sword, not an axe. I’m wielding the axe.”

“Do you really have the will to kill me, cub?” Hazak asks, parrying a clumsy blow from Khari.

“I will end you, you monster!” Khari growls.

“Khari, you’re still trying to fight with anger, not precision,” I say. “Anger’s not a bad thing in and of itself, but you need focus.”

Khari takes a deep breath and adjusts his stance. Less furiously random. More remembering to actually dodge and block instead of relying on me to stop him from being skewered. And perhaps more realizing just how much I’m actually helping him here.

Hazak spares a moment to look at me. He doesn’t wonder what I’m doing there. He doesn’t beg for mercy. He seems resigned to his end, or maybe he even welcomes it. At least he didn’t have to be killed by his own wife. At least he may have done something to deserve it. At least he’s not being sacrificed to Molag Bal.

“Where do Khajiit go when they die?” I wonder absently.

I don’t receive an answer. Khari has put his blade through Hazak’s throat. As he slumps to the floor, lifeblood draining out of him, Khari just stands there staring at him, his own shoulders slumping as well.

“Khari does not know what Mother will say about this,” Khari says quietly.

“You’re not sure whether she will be proud of you, or disappointed in you?” I ask.

Khari shakes his head. “Thank you for your help. This one could not have done this without you. Let us be gone from here. Khari has had enough of this place.”

“Go on out, if you want,” I say. “I want to look around here a bit first. Hazak may have been a cornerstone of this operation but removing him won’t stop all the skooma peddling throughout Tamriel. He will have had contacts, and I want to know who they were.”

On a nearby desk, I find a note addressed to ‘H’, probably Hazak, about some innocuous subject that’s probably code, and signed ‘R’. I have met a number of people lately whose names start with R and it’s very likely from none of them. I doubt Rurelion is involved in skooma smuggling. I mean, really, he’s a mage. If mages wanted to smuggle things they could just open portals to do it. They wouldn’t need to have ships sail into flooded cathedrals. I shove the note into my mostly-waterproof pack next to the whining books.

Not seeing another way out of the bandit lair, or most likely failing to find a switch to open a secret passage, we wind up having to go swim out. I hadn’t expected a cat to be better at swimming than me, which is downright embarrassing to be perfectly honest. I doggy-paddle my way back to the beach after him and find Zulana there waiting for us.

“Khari!” Zulana exclaims. “You are safe! What happened in there?”

I let Khari tell the story as I’m trying to dry myself off with ill-advised fire magic, which doesn’t work nearly as well as I’d hoped for. Besides, I’ll cheerfully let him spin it in a way that makes him look less bad. Which he does, and his mother is clearly not buying it as she then comes up to me and asks what really happened.

“Well, he did need a few pointers on how to use that blade but he acquitted himself well in the end,” I say. “He had a bit of an anger management problem that I’d advise working on.”

“So it is done, then. Zulana’s husband is finally laid to rest.”

“Hazak was your husband?” I ask. “Khari’s father? He didn’t mention that. Nor did you.”

“He was lost to Zulana, when he became obsessed with skooma,” Zulana says. “But Zulana could not bring herself to harm him even as he harmed himself and everyone around him. She did not wish to look him in the eye as his life faded away.”

“I don’t blame you for that,” I say. “Wives shouldn’t kill their husbands. Or the other way around, for that matter.” I pause and look away, off at the water. “You deserved better than this.”

“Zulana is glad the matter has been finally settled, regardless. Khari! You have done your mother proud. Now we must complete your training. You have come a long way but you still have things to learn.”

“Yes, Mother,” Khari says. “I will follow your teachings and dance the two moons, and try not to let my anger get the best of me again.”

I look over to Khari. “You can keep the sword if you want.”

Khari stares at the rusty old sword and just says, “Uh… thanks. I think…”