Mortred became amuse and interested. How could they have known as it wasn’t long yet when he revealed his plans to Esbern? He wanted to confirm her sources.

“Why do I even need an Akaviri? What for? Although as a scholar I do have in interest in meeting one in person.” Mortred shrugged.

“For the Akaviri expedition.” Arlene replied.

Maven turned to look at Mortred after hearing that. It was her first time to know such a thing and she immediately thought that it was the real purpose of Mortred’s visit.

“Interesting… no one in this room have yet to know but still...” Mortred raised his brow in a frown and let out silent spell to detect any traces of magic from Arlene and found something familiar. It was a very rare and exhausting magic.

“Power of Scrying…” Mortred smiled. It was a spell that grants vision of a target for the user. A spell used to spy on others without them knowing and even bypassing the magic barriers without detection. But it uses a lot of magicka to the point of being deadly to mages. Five seconds of vision would require enough magicka to put a ward covering the entirety of Skyrim that could last for several years. It was a very inefficient and still undeveloped part of arcane knowledge. Mages would later prefer to use familiars to spy such as skeevers, rodents, ants or flies without much effort.

There was a daedric artifact and dwemer instrument that have the same ability. The latter was used during the Great War and the Oblivion Crisis. And he only knew two mortals that were able to cast one of this spell. One of them was already dead, and the other was locked in the Imperial dungeons after Mortred caught her spying on the Emperor’s daughter. But he didn’t expect to see a third one.

“This is even more interesting… and what’s this?” he sensed another spell that was hidden behind the traces of Scrying. It was like the person in front of him was waving the waters of space around her.

“You’re… you’re an augur.” Mortred said the word. Although he was not even sure that it was the correct word to describe her as he admitted that he could not confirm her spell except for the similarity of the ability from augurs that he knew.

“I’m flattered to be called as such.” Arlene smiled. “But I am not. I only see visions. Visions that I couldn’t control or even want to see.”

“But still, they are from the future. Am I wrong?” Mortred sensed traced of the bending of time in her eyes. It’s as if, her eyes were looking through underwater to see through the depths of the future, causing waves of disturbance that only he could feel.

“That I can’t deny.”

“Then speak.” Maven demanded. As a host, she felt justified to hear.

“But master-” Carmilla was about to refute as there are unrelated people in the room that may hear something they shouldn’t. But Arlene stopped her.

“Shall not worry dear sister. None in this room will leak it.” Arlene nodded at maven and turned back to Mortred. “And none of them can even change it.”

“Milord, I know an Akaviri whom you badly needed for your endeavor.” Arlene said.

“True, but even if you brought him to me, it feels like you wanted something in exchange.” Mortred amusedly waited for her answer.

“I would bring this person to you even if I don’t gain anything… I want your blessing to join the Dark Brotherhood.” She replied. Maven’s face twitched at the mention of the name but gave no verbal response. It was a band of assassins that worshipped Sithis instead of the Three Daedric princes of Morrowind, and this group would later fall to Mortred’s hands during the civil war in Skyrim. And as part of their deal, this group of elite agents was turned over to Maven and the Blackbriar Clan. But Mortred still retained the right to filter any applicants and contracts.

“I would have considered your words to be drunken blabs. Especially when I could still remember your older sister to be the only drunken vampire I knew. Carmilla would always target drunks due to her strange taste in blood. Even the Dawnguards had trouble, because they were conflicted in arresting such vampire who helped control violent drunks and caused a reduction of violence in the affected city. And the commander later captured her by using herself as bait by drinking a lot of mead and snorting as much Skooma that Tamriel shook in her eyes as she walked. The greatest part is when our resident vampire enjoyed the bait that both of them were found naked together in the street after spending some fun time with each othe-”

“M-M-Milord!! Please don’t tell my sister!!!” with red faced and flapping hands to wave out her embarrassment, she begged Mortred, much to the latter’s amusement.

“Didn’t she also challenged you in a fight during one of her drunken state in one of your Coven meetings?” Maven added. She was still pissed.

“Mistress Maven! I truly apologize for the intrusion! I beg you to stop!” she was already in the verge of tears from embarrassment.

“Fine.” Mortred smiled. “So? What’s the future that I should know?”

Arlene took out three paintings that appeared to be intrinsic in design that it’s almost real.

“The visions that I saw were limited but I saw you unlocking the secrets of the Great Pillar with the help of this person. Then in another vision, I saw you defending a white haired girl from a spectral band of riders amidst the great blizzard. And in the last vision, I saw you walking towards a boy monk with a girl marked with a phoenix crest.” Arlene said as she showed each art one by one to Mortred then added. “By the way, I don’t know their correct sequence. So it may be jumbled.”

“Then it’s not even a confirmed future.” Maven scoffed.

“Oh, but I can guarantee that they will happen, Mistress Maven.” Arlene cleared with a smile.

Maven asked for another pour as she rolled her eyes in disappointment.

“Even if I give you my blessing, this could still be solved with just a raven. Why come personally?” Mortred asked.

The magic that was formerly frowned by most people in the Empire had become a part of their life, slowly entering their daily work after the end of the Civil War where Winterhold’s mages was able to imprison several dragons. The sight of capturing the being of reverence and fear of the nords and other non-magic people of the empire, changed their outlook. Every village, town and cities in the empire started asking for mage tutors which was answered by the Winterhold and the Imperial College of Mages. Creating a petty rivalry between their travelling tutors and mages.

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Since then, magic and spells had taken some load off the shoulders of these people, such as communication where heads of every village can now send mental telepathy to neighboring village for quick dialogue. This also helped reduced the time and energy to send fast riders for each message. Although an experience mage could also put a surveillance ward to intercept any mental messages that crosses, they mostly cannot stop or interrupt the message. This also made an easy job for the empire to consistently check the messages that were being sent from every villages to avoid any surprise attack from the dominion or any rebellious intent. Well, mostly.

And previously, vampires had a hard time in sending mental messages due to the possibility of being tracked and hunted if the message was intercepted by vampire hunters and the authority. But after the evolution on Dawnguard’s role, they finally had the freedom and peace of mind. Some still prefer to use familiars such as ravens to avoid interception.

“Because of what I offered earlier. You’re not the only one who’s trying to search for this person.” Arlene revealed. “As of now, this person was in danger of being hunted by the Dominion assassins and Imperial black ops agents. Although his life was now secured by some three trusted people, I couldn’t guarantee more than that. As such, I wanted also to avoid my message to be intercepted by any hostile agents that would result in harming the Akaviri.”

“Huh? Why?” Mortred asked, wondering their motive. Then as if remembering something important, Maven interjected.

“Now that I think about it, the recent documents that I received from one of the attendants this evening was very strange and troublesome. Because I first didn’t know the objective. But now, the link is now complete.” She look at one of her servants and softly muttered some words then sent her out.

The servant later returned with a butler behind her, carrying a small chest in hand.

“Mistress. These were the documents.” The butler handed it to Maven but she pointed at Mortred which the butler slowly walked towards Mortred, opened the chest and gave the papers and some that were tied in a broken tie.

As he read through the scrolls and papers, he was silent. Now that’s even more strange news.

“What in the world does the Dominion and even the Imperial Court wanted an Akaviri?” Maven asked as Mortred returned back the papers to her servant.

“I was not given a vision to know why. Only to what happened in the future.” Arlene answered. “Though you may use your spies to find out.”

Maven nodded at her butler who then slowly walked out the room.

“And I will.” Maven said then asked. “Surely there’s no… confliction that may occur?”

“None.”

Maven satisfied, asked for another paper from her servant and wrote several things.

“May I ask the reason on you joining the Dark Brotherhood?” Mortred asked.

“I cannot.” Arlene shook her head.

Mortred immediately understood her answer, knowing that he must avoid a Dragonbreak. So he mused for a while until his thoughts was interrupted by Maven who just finished writing and gave it to her servant again whom walked out of the room.

“What is this crew about and the expedition?”

“I was planning to have another expedition. Though this time, it may be even longer than any I had before.” Mortred answered.

“Is it an underground ruin again?” she sighed. “Wait… Akavir?”

“Yep.”

“I thought that the ship route to that continent was lost after the last expedition by the former Emperor of the past?” Maven asked.

“Yep. It did. In the past, Winterhold actually sent several hundreds of familiars into the sea where the former continent was believed to be located. But none of them found anything. ” Mortred answered. “But, thanks to my underground expedition, we have found that the last traces of Akaviri all led to a single ruin. And that is the Skyhaven Temple.”

“And?”

“I found a portal which the last of the Akaviri used to get back to their homeland.”

“So all this time… the door to Akavir was under your nose the entire time. Now what is the reason for your visit? I’m sure it’s not for a haircut.”

Then the servants behind him started massaging his back muscles.

“That’s one of the reasons.” He shrugged. Then suddenly Zet started combing his hair several times and massaged his head for a few seconds then bowed on his side.

“Master Mortred, it is finished.” Zet said.

He looked at the mirror and was satisfied with his new appearance.

“You’ve exceeded my expectations again. Thanks. It’s good.”

“It’s a pleasure.” Zet gratefully bowed.

Maven was thinking for several minutes before she asked Mortred.

“So what do you want? Investment? Crew? Mages? Ships?” then she added. “If so, I can probably prepare them within four days.”

“Nah… don’t worry. I already had everything covered. Well, except one.” Mortred said then leaned closer to Maven. “Because you’re the only person in Tamriel who knew the locations of the House of Thirteen.”

Now that’s another name she didn’t expect to hear today. They were far more troublesome than any daedric cult, Morag Tong and the Dark Brotherhood combined. She asked again.

“The entire Thirteen?”

Mortred smiled with his reply.

“All of them.”

Maven sighed then thought again for several seconds before answering with another question.

“Are you trying to conquer another Daedric realm or what?” Maven asked sarcastically but he didn’t even deny her question.

“I just need them immediately as soon as possible, especially after hearing what Arlene mentioned.” Mortred explained.

“Fine.” Maven immediately said. Then she turned to her servants. “Johanna, get another quill and a paper, jot down what I will mention.”

A servant immediately stopped her massage and took out a charcoal pen and a paper from her robe. Then she proceeds to write down everything Maven was talking about meticulously then hands the note to Mortred.

“Was that all?” Maven asked.

“Yep. Thanks Maven.”

“Next time, send a raven. I cannot cater all that you wanted without preparation.” Maven sighed.

Mortred nodded and burned the paper he received with an ember spell.

“And I want information about the pillar that your team discovered.” Maven demanded. “And by the way, one of them have a large amount of debt on me. I haven’t decided to send trackers to collect her payment yet as she is very hard to find if they fail to capture her. The interest rate made it impossible for me to collect it in one payment, knowing her lifestyle.”

“Who?”

“The impatient.”

“As always.” Mortred sighed. “Nevermind, I shall meet her anyways.”

Then she immediately stood. Then her servants quickly put a robe on their mistress and escorted her as she made her way out. Zet was the only one who was happy for her mistress. Then she remembered something important and asked.

“Mistress, you didn’t tell Master Mortred about the Cult of Eternal Shame.”

Maven then remembered the new rising religion in Cyrodiil, she actually forgot to mention this. But still it for her it will not change anything, or rather she preferred to have him on the blind even temporarily.

“And I don’t plant to. Afterall, the emergence of this cult also brought advantage to me and the stability of the continent. You didn’t notice anything difference after it appeared?”

“The strengthening of Talos worshippers?”

“No, the daedric cults started disappearing. One… by… one…”

“Ah!” Zet quickly realized.

“Beside it’s better to have the people worshipping a single entity rather than those troublesome princess.” Maven said. “Although he still act and claims otherwise, he was already a demigod walking among us anyway.”

“I’m happy that you’re satisfied.” Zet bowed.

Maven didn’t reply and just continued walking.

She had served under Maven the longest so she was the only one who saw underneath of Maven’s stoic face, the happy face of her mistress.