---

---

A title, one that seemed long forgotten now, even after so short a span as it had been. It rang in Kiffar's ears, and brought ice blue eyes quickly to Captain Renault's face. It was such a simple request, and he couldn't decide if she meant to flatter him into compliance, or insult him into it. For a long moment, he simply stared, ears perked high and tail lashing, whiplike, behind him. For all his air headed behavior, those eyes were sharp as augers, uncomfortable for any unfortunate soul without a stalwart disposition and a spine like daedric steel. But then, surely, the Captain of the Blades had both.

Slowly, he decided she could not have meant insult by her words. Her duty was akin to his own, true, but he could not expect her to understand the depth of his shame, the shame of all the Manesguard, in the failure of their duties. Still, it would not do to let her carry on under the pretense that such claims were acceptable. He stooped low, bringing himself almost nose to nose with the Captain, voice low and words measured, a care given to sound... Proper, in this foreign tongue.

"Kiffar.... Is Manesguard no longer. This one remembers Captain Renault. She is proud, and capable, and Kiffar's Once-Kin, his... Fellows, spoke highly of her company in the negotiations. But she will not call this one Manesguard again. Kiffar is Unbound, forever, and always, and he deserves no better. But he will do this thing for you, for the fair hand her Mane-of-Men, her Emperor, dealt Kiffar's kind, however loaded the dice."

With a heavy sniff, he straightened, seeming content to have set the matter straight. Still, there was a set to his shoulders, now, something more ready than before, a more watchful feel to his wandering gaze. He awaited the others to come to readiness- And of course, when their things caught up, he was among the first to rummage through the chests of gear to fetch what had been taken. Heavy blades were returned to their places at his belt, weights and plates returned to wrists and legs. He seemed vaguely disappointed to find one item missing, rifling through the chests a little longer in search of it, though its apparent loss earned only an irate snort in the end.

"Silly man-things, taking Kiffar's sugars. No fun at all."

---

The first thing that struck Antonius when he woke up was the smell, a kind of staleness in the air mixing with sweat and a hint of blood. He picked himself up off the ground slowly, a string of saliva dangling from his mouth only to be wiped away by his sleeve a moment later. Sitting up now and leaning against the wall, he took in his surroundings and the people in the cell with him. A mountain of a Khajiit, two Argonians, a Bosmer, a Dunmer, a few Nords and Bretons and Orcs - quite a lot of people crammed into one tiny cell. He tried his best to get his bearings again, reaching up to rub the welt on his forehead only to wince and hiss in pain at the touch.

Antonius was only awake for a minute or two when an entourage arrived at the cell, a group of Blades escorting... Oh Talos, that's the Emperor. He had to be dreaming. But the headache reminded him that no, this was not a dream, and he began to feel like he was in way over his head. One of the Blades told them that they were pardoned for their crimes, Antonius wondering for a moment just exactly what crime he had committed considering he got knocked out as soon as the fight began, and that they were free to head up the stairs or follow them through the tunnel that had been opened within their cell. Either way, they'd be facing opposition.

Quickly, people began to pile through the tunnel, the Blades leading the Emperor up front and followed close behind by the rest of this ragtag group of lowlifes. The group traveled through the tunnel which gave way to a cistern with different tunnels stretching below the Imperial City. The Captain of the Blades went to speak to the giant Khajiit and Antonius couldn't quite pick up the details of their conversation. What he did pick up as the rest followed in behind them was that their belongings had arrived, and he quickly made his way over to secure his sword and bow. He fastened the quiver to his hip and stored the bow and sword on his back, giving a sigh of relief that his gear was unharmed.

Antonius looked around for a moment before speaking to himself out loud for anyone nearby to hear: "Not exactly how I pictured my day going..."

The stone beneath Yarmira’s feet was dead. No breath of the Green in these walls, no root nor creeping vine, only the cold weight of rock pressing down from above, lifeless and still. There were caves in her homeland, but no Bosmer delved their depths. Her elders spoke of such places in hushed voices, crevices forsaken by The Great Spinner, places where malevolent spirits prowled. Languishing in the absence of the Green, waiting in the dark and still air for their next victims. To steal the breath from their lungs, the flesh from their bones, and walk again in the daylight as shambling mockeries of life, like crude puppets.

The stories crept into her mind like shadows, dark and unsettling. The weight of them pressed on her chest, urging her to move faster, to dash through the cold corridors before the spirits of the cave caught up.

Her feet itched to run, but Yarmira stayed in step. She found her confidence in the familiar bone grip of the daggers in either hand, the familiar weight of the bow slung across her chest. Surrounded on either side by similarly armed men and women, most who towered above her, the young Bosmer silently dared the twisted cave spirits or crimson demons to test their mettle. She prowled low and quiet through the tight caverns, one ear listening intently for the anguished howls of lost spirits and the other caching snippets of her companion's conversations. The Bosmer dropped back in the pack, a desperate attempt to avoid the veritable duststorm stirred up by Kiffar-Nirthal.

A voice cut through the dim. "Not exactly how I pictured my day going..."

Her head swiveled like an owl's and she fixed her gaze on the speaker, a cellmate who had gone unnoticed until now. Tall, bronzed skin, and with those same alien, rounded ears that seemed common in these parts. He carried what looked to her like a giant, two-handed dagger, with a strange bow slung across his back. Unfamiliar attire, but the bow marked him as a fellow hunter. She fell in step with him, staring up at the Imperial inquisitively before speaking.

"It would be a dull life if you knew the shape of your story before it was sung," she said, voice high and piping, black eyes bright with a kind of incipient good will. "Y’ffre delights in twists and turns. A tale without surprise is like a hunt where the prey falls willingly into your jaws."

Her gaze kept returning to his bow. It was familiar in shape, yet foreign in spirit. She knew bows of sinew and bone, carved from the gifts of the hunt. Shaped by careful hands and honored in use. But this was something else entirely. She couldn’t help but feel a twist of discomfort in her throat as she studied it. Yarmira tried to move past the feeling.

"I've found many such creatures in this strange country, who might give up their life without a chase," Yarmira continued her previous thought. "Great, lowing beasts, some with horns atop their huge heads this long," she spread her arms wide. "They they live in herds, but will walk right up to a hunter, no fear in their eyes. As if they've forgotten they are prey."

Yarmira addressed the companions nearest to her, hoping to gain some insight into the things that pursued them. "Tell me friends, have any of you encountered these red demons before? Are they Mer or beast? A hunter must know their quarry."

---

As Antonius readjusted his gear he heard the Bosmer speak to him. A little chuckle escaped his lips as she mentioned how Y'ffre enjoyed the unexpected detours that life loved to throw at people. "I suppose one must also learn to love it, but I'm not quite sure I can enjoy this turn." He looked at the Emperor for a moment, a feeling of unease gripping him. Something bad was happening right now, that was for certain. He only hoped that the Blades and even this group of misfits could protect the Emperor from whoever was after him.

The wood elf continued to speak, describing... Some kind of beast. Minotaurs, maybe? He hadn't had the displeasure of running into one in his travels. But no, minotaurs are territorial and dangerous beasts, nothing like what she's describing. He kept racking his mind trying to figure out what creatures she had seen when it hit him: cows. She was talking about cows. "... Those are farm animals."

---

---

Allowing himself a snort as the Khajiit made his opinions on the state of the tunnels known, Caddach nonetheless kept his mouth shut as he walked, giving the Emperor and his Blades a respectably wide berth, opting instead to watch the flanks. Knowing full well that Kiffar still stood far, far above his station in their ramshackle band of misfits, even 'Unbound' as he was... and also that Elara Renault of the Blades didn't appreciate his presence at the best of times, so now was hardly the time to rock the boat by cracking a joke. What with the Emperor present, assassins on their asses and the Imperial Prison behind them under active attack by lunatics in funny robes and spooky armour, and all that.

...Well, maybe the lad could allow himself just a bit of humor, as long as it was helpful.

<"Places like this— beneath the Imperial City and it's surrounding islands— have been built up and over, layer by layer since the days of the Ayleids and the Alessian Empire, friend."> Caddach explained in Ta'agra so that maybe Renault wouldn't give him the business about it, his accent and dialect more akin to what you'd find among Khajiit growing up in the Imperial City markets than anything out of Elsweyr. <"And if these tunnels connect to what's beneath the main island itself? You could get lost down here for months and never see the light of day even once... if something very old and very angry doesn't get ya first. You'd need a small army of us 'clean-makers' to scrub it properly, and a whole lotta soldiers to watch our backs.">

Turning his head to face the Cathay-Raht, he then adds with a little shrug;

<"...And having that many eyes down here kinda defeats the point of having a secret tunnel, dunnit?">

Carrying on ahead before Renault could scold him for talking too much, Caddach allowed his hand to rest on the hilt of the sword Glenroy had managed to get for him— standard legion issue, good steel but nothing extravagant— feeling the familiar weight of a weapon on his belt with just a tiny hint of resigned incredulity. Growing up as he did, in a Breton family of such strong Knightly tradition, he was no stranger to weapons, despite his best efforts. It was... almost hilarious at this point how, try as he might to do literally anything else in life— joining the Arcane University, becoming a groundskeeper at the palace— the lad always somehow wound up with a fucking sword in his hand. Even before today, when the Palace Guards and the occasional Noble would hear his surname and ask to spar when he was off-duty. So Caddach was... confident he could defend himself at least if those robed bastards caught up with them and was more than willing to throw down if it kept the Emperor safe, but, well... there was just a bit of trepidation there in the back of his mind; As comfortable as he was holding a blade, Caddach had never actually killed another person before. And with the way his day was going, that was likely going to be something he'd have to deal with in the very uncomfortably immediate future.

Frowning a little and shaking his head a bit to clear that unpleasant dread from his mind, our lad Caddach instead allowed himself to be distracted by the exchange between the Imperial and the wild Bosmer, pulling his lips up into a little smirk as the smaller figure expressed her confusion about what sounded an awful lot like cows. Before turning his head slightly towards the Imperial and calmly interjecting;

"I... don't think they have farms where she's from, mate." He said with a slight shake of his head, before facing the Bosmer and adding. "The creatures you speak of are not... 'prey' as you'd know them; We raise them ourselves for their meat, hides and milk. But we take care of them, so they tend not to fear us, more often than not."

Cocking his head to the side slightly and taking a step closer, he fixed the Bosmer with a curious gaze before continuing;

"And I mean no offense by it, but I'm curious... how did someone who follows the Green Pact so strictly wind up here, anyway?" He asks, his brow raising slightly. "Those like yourself usually don't bother coming to Cyrodiil, Never mind the Imperial City."

Kharne followed Kiffar, the Blades, and the Emperor but he kept a modest distance. Honestly he kept away from most everyone subconsciously, despite being currently unarmed he was used to having to measure his distance with people. Thankfully his distance got him to stay out of the cannon that was Kiffar's faces range when he sneezed. Granted soon enough their gear was finally brought and he locked onto his stuff immediately. His weapons were unique, aside from the dagger, and despite the amount of stuff he carried his pack was small. He made sure all of his things were present, namely his money. He had heard guards would help themselves if there was a significant amount after all. Or maybe that was just dark elf guards in Morrowind? Didn't matter he had all of his stuff and money.

He shifted and stretched, making sure his gear settled properly, before drawing the heavy cleaver-like weapon. "So, any idea how many people might know about this place...? Or blueprints for it?" He questioned, looking at the guards and the Emperor. It seemed he only had vague notions of the Emperor, and the man didn't seem to stand too much on ceremony. He leaned a little, looking to the Redguard-Altmer halfbreed, Khaliya, and the other Argonian, Veeza. "Think we'll actually get any fighting outside of vermin?" He questioned, his voice low. He wasn't always in the mood for a fight but he was feeling kind of antsy today. Probably because of all the secrecy and mystery.

He vaguely listened to another cluster of the group, the Bosmer questioning about livestock. Specifically a cow and how docile it was. He kind of wondered himself about how that came to be, same with how gaurs and silt striders became beasts of burden as well. What primitive person thought of stuff like this? Food for thought later.

Calal moved through the tunnel carefully, each step deliberate and quiet. The damp stone underfoot was slick with the remnants of water dripping from the jagged ceiling above. His eyes flicked back and forth, adjusting to the dim light.

"Just like any other hunt," he muttered quietly to himself, his lips barely moving. His voice was steady, but there was a tightness in it, a thin veil over the nerves crawling up his spine. This was familiar. It was what he knew best, even if it wasn’t what he wanted.

Though he seemed a bit confused, as the group ahead talked about cows and cattle. As if they had been in such a situation before... or maybe it was him who was far too nervous... calm? What was it he felt right now? Calal realized there was a slight bit of nerves. But he did just get freed from a prison. "We really have dug ourselves a hole haven't we?" Calal would joke out loud trying to ease his own tension.

While he was joking he was trying to focus as well. He wanted to treat this like a hunt, that's how he could get out of this. That's how he could get home to see his wife and kids. With each passing moment—he could feel the slight brush of the cold air against his skin, hear every small scrape of stone, each shift that wasn’t quite natural. He knew that if something was coming, it would give itself away somehow. He just had to be ready. For whatever, or whoever, was ahead of them—or behind.

Isai Sutor-Armaseptus

_{@Sir Lurksalot@Quest Abandoner@Simple Unicycle}

---

At last, the horses were off to the races, as it were. A journal and feather quill in hand, compatriots in tow, and the Emperor and his trusted blades chomping at the bit and leading the charge, they descended beneath the belly of the Empire. With the ruinous bones that the heart of Tamriel was built upon, it was no surprise that there would be underground passages, either built or found or repurposed, though it may have been a surprise that one of its entrances was in a prison cell… though he must credit the thinking, for he doubted anybody would have suspected that one such passage would be found in a prison. Surely the Emperor had escaped his assailants and will live many more years.

Isai found himself near the front after some polite pushing past some bodies, allowing some more of the combatively inclined to take point, but still close enough in earshot of Captain Renault, Blades Baurus and Glenroy, and the Emperor to record any word they might have said. There seemed to be little that they shared with one another, as if psychically linked in their understanding of their duties and trust in each other’s competence, so more often than not, he was recording dialogue shared between them and the prisoners.

Hm.

Though the Blades were diligent in their duties to the Empire, the magnitudinous weight of the prisoner’s lives and presence forced their attention away to address them – always from one, while the other two remained alert – but I feared that even a moment of distraction may spell disaster should they come upon their enemy.

As he wordlessly scribed, he found words from other conversations floated into his ears, prompting him to accidentally write an unintentional word or two that he’d be forced to cross out. Former inmates getting to know one another or their homelands, as if this evacuation was a meet-cute. He raised the end of his quill to his mouth in thought when he heard mention of Y’ffre or the Green Pact, perking his ear up a bit. He first heard of such things from his mother, so he may have had a bias for such things, even if in the grand scheme of Tamriel’s cosmology, he found it less likely than other explanations. Still, there were records of the bosmer’s strange abilities in certain times of distress, and the names and explanations for common belief may differ from more conventional academia, but the common belief persists nonetheless. Faith in the Earth Bones spread across opposite ends of Tamriel.

Oh, but the prisoners were talking about one another, of course.

“With the world so big, what brings anyone anywhere…” Isai mused, nibbling on the end of the quill, reshaping its writing edge with his teeth before testing it on the margins of his parchment. “Perhaps she’s just curious. They're curious people. My mother was, at least. Having borne witness to the Green in prior ethnographical expeditions, I might add, the hoarvers and giant wasps by their lonesome are sufficient to prompt leave.”

Isai held up his quill, “Stingers as long as yay. Leaving eggs in your body whilst paralyzed, so you can only pray that a dog-sized tick finds you and drains your blood in seconds before the eggs hatch.”

Isai gagged and shivered, as if reliving the memory of seeing those creatures in person, before continuing to write in his journal.

Accompanied by fellow academic. Be sure to record EVERYTHING & publish book before they do. Maybe make him write foreword.

"...Somehow, it's still better than Vvardenfell."

---

Verinric walks over to collect his silver dagger, attatching the sheath back onto his belt, hopefully things will not get so desperate he has to try and use it in combat.
As the others discuss their current location, he thinks of the various historic texts on the matter and speaks up "We shall almost certainly see worse than vermin, even discounting whatever conspiracy has the Emperor's Blades worried these tunnels are ancient and dangerous. There's at least one sizeable Ayleid ruin down here, last mentioned in the Simulacrum, despite their reverance for Meridia such locations inevitably overflow with the undead, furthermore, large sewers often attract goblins and this route clearly hasn't been cleared out recently."
He turns to the Breton, Isai, who is apparently more travelled that he expected, "Plenty can be said about what moves people, there's simple socioeconomics of course, for example I live in the City because that's where the Arcane University is, but from what his Imperial Magesty has said, there is at least one among our number whose path is guided by Prophecy, fitting for a band of Prisoners one supposes."

"Those are farm animals."

"Ah, yes, farm animals." Yarmira paused, chewing the man's answer over in her mind. "What is 'farm animals'?"

The response came from another voice in the dark. She listened eagerly to this newcomer, with the brightness of a child hearing of some marvel. Head tilted, black eyes wide. It seemed to her these strangers had learned the Old Ways, to summon beasts and make them their allies. She waited for the logical conclusion, for the answer to turn toward sense. Instead, her face, already pale as fresh-cut bone, took on the hue of cold ash in the dark, red tattoos the only color left to her, like streaks of gore smeared upon canvas.

What profane bargain have these monsters struck?

To call upon a creatures with the Voice of the Green only to cut it down for its flesh—this was sin enough, a crime that would see a Mer hunted through the jungles of her home. But to breed their young for the slaughter, to strip them of all purpose but the knife—her spine convulsed in a long, cold shunting of vertebrae. She curled her fingers slowly, felt the press of her nails against her palm, her breath quicken.

A perversion of the natural order. Heresy of the highest degree. What the man described so casually, so easily, was an affront to everything she knew. Her way of life, her god, the Pact, everything.

Yarmira suspected it before, but knew then that she had arrived in a backwards land. A land of Apostates, where the Green Pact held no sway over these savage Mer. Surrounded on all sides by enemies. By the Pact's decree, she should have killed them all, burned their bodies in animal fat so that not even their bones could return to the earth, so grievous were their transgressions. But she did not favor her odds in these cramped quarters, even with Kiffar-Nirthal's aid. And what then? Carve a bloody swath through the whole village? She had seen little of the Imperial City, but it was enormous, and would be a hopeless crusade. Besides, she'd already sworn an oath to protect the Emperor-Chieftain against his enemies, and her word was not lightly given.

No.

Y’ffre had brought her here for a reason. His voice had called her from the deep places of sleep, led her through shadows and strange lands. The end of her tale would not be in some tomb beneath the earth, surrounded by the corpses of Pact-Breakers.

She exhaled slowly, as if pushing poison from her lungs, and fought the urge to wretch. Yarmira realized she had not responded to the man's easy explanation of their blasphemy, unless the abject horror and disguised plain on her face counted as a reply.

"Aah, truly?" she managed to eek out, fighting the urge to run and keep running and not stop running until she was far from these alien reaches, until she fell under the familiar and green embrace of the Graht-oak's second sky.

"And I mean no offense by it, but I'm curious... how did someone who follows the Green Pact so strictly wind up here, anyway? Those like yourself usually don't bother coming to Cyrodiil, Never mind the Imperial City."

She pondered this question, perhaps longer than she intended to now that she was on a more comfortable train of thought. Yarmira hadn't been able to tell her tribe why she so longed to leave, and so she vanished like a thief in the night. And yet the answer came easily to this stranger, this Apostate.

"It is no mistake I came to this land. I am here because I was called," she said simply, and judged from the man's expression that this response was not enough. "Y'ffre does not speak plainly; he speaks to us in birdsong, through dry reeds hissing in the wind. He does not send us simple answers. He does not give us clear signs. We must listen with more than our ears."

As Yarmira spoke of the Green, the harshness of her breath softened, clenched fists slowly uncurled. Her high voice took on an almost meditative quality, with the cadence of some ancient litany or prayer.

"But Y'ffre has shown me this place in my dreams, as if seen through waking eyes. The Spinner beckoned me here, showed me the way through birds on the wing and winding rivers. It is not his way to come to us in visions, save when the need is great. Now, I await the next part of his Story. I trust in Y'ffre’s guidance," she concluded. "And in time, his voice will become clearer still, and my feet will walk where he guides."

Yarmira thought she could continue in silence, but it was not her way. Questions welled up in her mind like a river bursting its banks, each one pressing against her chest, demanding release. "Does Y'ffre not speak to your people too?" she asked in a near-whisper, as if to even suggest that the Spinner might not reach out to all Mer was absurd. Perhaps they heard his voice, but interpreted it differently, she told herself.