We’re heading west out of Longhaven in the general direction of Woodhearth, although we don’t stick to the road for long. Beside the water lies a copy of The Firmament at a small camp overrun by hoarvor, which I claim as its previous owner is now a corpse, probably related to the fact that the camp was overrun by hoarvor. (I have to double-check with Gelur on how to spell ‘hoarvor’.)
While there’s a marker in my map denoting some sort of problem in a grove to the north, there’s no way to get there short of jumping down a cliff and my friends point out that we might as well visit Woodhearth first and then when we’re done with whatever we need to do there, we can circle around to find a better way down that doesn’t involve us breaking our legs and having to use up all Gelur’s magicka to heal us. This is why I have more sensible people than me with me.
On the way to town, we run across an Altmer failing to light a campfire with magic and his Orc girlfriend poking at how bad he is at magic. Fortunately, I’m an expert in mediocre fire spells and set the kindling on fire, and give him some pointers which Merry shortly butts in with telling me how bad I am at magic and showing us both some better pointers.
Unlike Marbruk, the town of Woodhearth is of mixed construction, with Altmer and Bosmer buildings side by side, a few Khajiit ones, and a few ruined Imperial towers for good measure. We’re greeted on the way in by an Altmer in armor (I assume an Altmer. Can’t see anything under the armor, but he’s too tall to be a Bosmer and he lacks a tail. He might just be a Nord with a Summerset accent, though, for all I know.)
This s’wit also bet against me and my party returning from the Wilderking’s forest while Razum-dar put money on us arriving in Woodhearth soon. At this point, one might probably be able to guess how many problems I might run into between one point and another and how long it might take me to solve them. At any rate, Vicereeve Pelidil has been seen come through here and Raz wants to talk to me of course. And there’s more disturbing news, too.
“We’ve had some disturbing news out from Skywatch,” the armored Altmer says. “It would appear that Estre’s body has gone missing from the preparation chambers. It takes a long time to prepare a Kinlady for burial, even a treasonous one.”
“What.”
“Yes,” the Altmer agrees with my assessment. “There are several potential implications of this, and none of them are good. Needless to say, we’re keeping this a bit under wraps at the moment.”
I put my face in my palm. “I really hope that this just means Vicereeve Pelidil is into necrophilia and not that I’m going to need to repeatedly hit Estre again.”
I split with my friends and we go off to explore town, with Ilara taking the job of minding me and making sure I don’t jump off too many cliffs again. (They’ve been drawing straws again. I wonder if Ilara cheats in order to get the short straw each time.) I run across a Skyshard behind a bit of broken Imperial masonry.
“Five Claws Inn?” Ilara says, examining a sign outside a Khajiit-style building. “This one wonders if they have moon sugar.”
We stop in for a meal of curry fish and rice, a recipe from Senchal I’m told, while totally not buying any illicit substances. Once we’ve eaten, I head out to the balcony to jump off and almost trip over a Khajiit flipping a coin, who flips his coin all the way into the bushes at the collision.
“Sorry!” I say, jumping off the balcony.
Ilara gives a sympathetic look to the Khajiit and hops over the railing after me. The Khajiit mutters some profanity in Ta’agra that I’m sure to make note of while jumping off to find his coin.
“Causing trouble in the tavern if you need to leave so quickly?” the Khajiit says.
“No, it’s just quicker and I’m too lazy to use the stairs when there’s a perfectly good balcony right there,” I say.
“Maybe you could help this one recover some more money, then,” the Khajiit says, and starts to describe a debt that he’s owed.
“And you think two random people who just jumped off a balcony are the best ones to collect debts for you?” I wonder.
“No, but it is so difficult to find good help these days, yes?” the Khajiit says. “Or even adequate help, for that matter.”
“Well, I think we can manage adequate,” I say. “Give us the details.”
He gives us directions to one of the Bosmer tree pods, and a name (Manthir), and sends us off. I’m halfway to the tree in question before I remember that I forgot to ask in whose name this debt was. Oh well, I suppose the Bosmer probably remembers who he owes money to. And that both of them will have great faith in us actually delivering the money rather than simply pocketing it.
Stolen novel; please report.
“Are you Ma—what name did that Khajiit give us again?” I ask, turning to Ilara mid-sentence.
“Manthir,” Ilara says helpfully, whiskers twitching in amusement.
“Right, that,” I say.
Manthir groans. “Are you debt collectors? Look, tell those cats that I’ll have their coin as soon as I can. And if you want it any sooner than that, you’ll need to take it up with Farwen, who stole my money right from under my nose.”
He starts to explain some bits about Bosmer culture, the Right of Theft, and all that, and I politely listen even though I’ve heard plenty about that already. Steal something and make a demand to get it back rather than get arrested. I kind of wish it were so easy sometimes but there’s apparently rules involved that I don’t quite understand yet even with all the dumb stories I’ve exchanged with Bosmer.
“Right, well, can you tell us where she lives, at least?” I ask. “We can at least poke her into telling you what she wants for it so we can get this over with.”
“She lives just up the tree, first door on the right,” Manthir says. “Not sure I’m looking forward to this, but what can I do?”
Once outside, I say softly to Ilara, “Can you steal it while I distract her?”
“Ilara-daro is on it,” she says with a broad grin.
We head up the tree and locate a Bosmer women, and then diligently confirm that she’s the right one before robbing her blind. While speaking with her, I learn that she had the daring plan to steal from him in order to coerce him into marrying her. I get her to go into a tangent on exactly why she wants to marry him in between telling her that he’s probably going to wind up with his kneecaps broken if he doesn’t pay the Khajiit.
“You know,” I say. “I don’t think anything good would come of a marriage where someone had to be robbed and coerced into it. I can’t speak for much of what would lead to a good marriage, seeing as mine ended disastrously, but…”
“Oh, come now,” Farwen says. “He just hasn’t realized how much he loves me yet. Now, I’d best go speak with him, since he didn’t have the guts to come and ask me what I wanted for the money back himself.” She moseys on out the door.
Manthir is waiting for us on the walkway, looking rather miserable, and even more so when Farwen tells him what she wants. Before he can open his mouth to concede, I hold up a hand and interrupt him.
“That won’t be necessary,” I say, looking aside to Ilara as she slinks up to my side.
“It is not a problem,” Ilara says. “We already have the money we needed. And…” She pulls a portrait out of her pack and waves it in view of the two Bosmer. “Right of Theft, you say? Ilara-daro requests that you stop sexually harassing people and she will return your belongings.”
“But… Khajiit? How did you get into my house?” Farwen sputters. “And you’re not even a Bosmer!”
“Ilara-daro is a member of Brackenleaf’s Briars. That makes her a Bosmer by adoption, yes? And does it matter? This one has your belongings. Do you want them back or not?”
Farwen is struggling with fury, but Manthir thinks the entire situation is hilarious, which isn’t really helping her be less furious. “Fine. Fine!” Farwen says. “You’ve ruined everything, but fine! I didn’t even see you go into my house behind my back. Damned sneaky, clever cats. Manthir, you know where to find me if you change your mind.”
“I’m not marrying you, Farwen,” Manthir says.
“No means no, Farwen,” Ilara says, tossing the picture back to her. Then pulls out a hand axe and drops it on the ground. Then a potted plant and gently sets that on the ground.
Farwen gathers them up sourly and stalks off without another word.
“Thank you, travelers,” Manthir says. “You’ve both saved me from having my legs broken and being saddled with a lifetime of suffering. I hope any extra gold you stole from her is sufficient repayment, but if you ever need a favor, just let me know. Although kindly convey to your employers that I won’t be needing their services any longer.”
“No worries,” I say. “We won’t be working for them any longer, either, once we’ve delivered this. Got too many other problems to solve. Wood Orcs, Daedra, undead, ornery walking statues, racist bandits…”
“Yes, we should probably get back to the racist bandits,” Ilara says.
We bid Manthir good day and I diligently write down his name and location in my journal as owing us a favor, just in case that’s ever necessary. I mean, it’s not like I wouldn’t have helped him anyway, given the circumstances, but in my line of work you never know when you’re going to need a favor. We return to the Five Claws Tavern.
“How much was the debt for?” Ilara asks the Khajiit who has returned to the balcony, while sifting through her pack. “This one may have stolen more than necessary.”
The Khajiit laughs, and gives an amount, which she hands over. “Well done, and do feel free to keep anything else you might have somehow acquired. Also, a bonus.” He passes some of the coins back.
We head out to explore the rest of town and run across a large building that, judging by the banners, houses both the Mages and Fighters Guilds. We head into the Mages Guild side, and I look up in my journal whether or not I need to speak with anyone in this particular building. There’s a mention of something about a journal belonging to someone named Mercano, and I ask around for him and return it to him. He’s quite unhappy about it winding up in the hands of racist bandits and immediately burns it. I guess he didn’t want it back that badly after all.
I thoroughly look around this section of the building, and swipe a book titled Sithis from the upstairs. Excellent! More confusing mythology. It being the Mages Guild and me being a ‘mage’, no one actually comments on me picking it up and reading it. It’s not like I had anything more important to do.
My reading is interrupted by Valaste, who walks up in front of me and clears her throat until I notice she’s standing there.
“Valaste!” I say. “Fancy seeing you here.”
“Yes, well, I heard you were here and decided to remind you that you still haven’t given me that book and I had the mandatory break you insisted upon and you probably just forgot about it.”
“Oh, right, yeah, I totally did,” I say, pulling it out of my pack. “Fine, here you go, just be careful, will you? Don’t forget to take breaks. And eat and sleep. And shag Shalidor.”
For some reason, Valaste doesn’t want to talk to me after that. She must be really eager to get started on the translation.