The sun peaked over the central well and Hasir slowly opened his eyes yawned and stretched. He got up quickly; sensing someone
was watching him. A few feet away, near the alchemist's building, a black robed and hooded man got up from his hiding spot and
strode over to the Argonian who quickly cast around for the source of the disturbance.
The man smiled darkly,
"You sleep rather soundly for a murderer." Hasir eyed the stranger, raising an eyebrow. How did he know he'd killed someone? Hasir
stayed silent despite his reeling brain urging him to say something.
The hooded man smiled widely at the Argonian,
"Your silence is alot better than most recruits who ask me question after question." Said the man
Hasir nodded in acknowledgement but stayed silent. The man smiled,
"Good, now listen carefully as I will not repeat these instructions again, there is an inn near the Bravil stables named The Inn Of Ill
Omen."
He cleared his throat before continuing,
"In the basement, there is a man named Rufio, kill him and the way will be made clear."
Hasir cocked his head to one side, realizing the man did not divulge who he was,
"Erm... mind if I ask your name?"
The man llooked shocked and thought he did say his name; Hasir's look said otherwise,
"My name is Lucien Lachance. I am the speaker for a rather... unique organization " The man said, smilimg morbidly. Hasir smiled
uneasily, tail flopping from side to side and unconsciously reached out a hand.
The man slapped his hand away with a snarl,
"I only ask you for your obedience, not your name. Now go to the inn and do your task." Hasir reluctantly nodded, got onto his horse
and headed for the city of Bravil. About halfway around the red ring road, he veered northwest toward the city of Chorrol.
At about midday, Hasir saw the city walls of Chorrol, dismounted his horse, opened the doors and proceeded inside. Hasir walked
down the main street of the city when a man, not looking where he was going, bumped into Hasir. The Argonian fell to the stone
road almost impaled on the man's sword as it came dangerously close to his scaly throat. Hasir pushed the man off of him, got to his
feet and then helped the man to his feet. The man smiled and nodded his head in thanks.
The man extended his hand and Hasir took it,
"My name is Jauffre, I, er, am a priest in the local chapel not to far from here. I'll await you there should you wish to pursue a
meaningful quest, not that your own personal quest is not important mind you." He addded seeing Hasir's crestfallen expression.
With that said, he bade goodbye to the Argonian and walked back the way he had come, arms full of scrolls he'd dropped earlier.
Hasir gave a slight chuckle as he went down a side street. Several feet on, he saw a sign bearing the same ever-watchful eye that he
had seen back in Skingrad. He exhaled sharply and went inside. Hasir gaped in amazement as he beheld a similar layout to
that of the Skingrad mages guild. A male Argonian looked up from his studies and exited the room off to the right of the main door
and greeted Hasir. The Argonian looked at the scaly hand, unsure if he wanted to take this, to trust the Argonian.
In the end though, he took it and smiled,
"Nice to see a fellow Blackmarsh resident here." the Argonian said, "There are way too many gaspers around here." he laughed as
he read the other Argonian's confused look, "Apologizes, my name is Teekeus, leasure to meet you. I bet you are here for the
reccomendation."
Hasir returned the greeting and asked the Argonian how he knew all this. Teekeus chuckled,
"The ever-watchful eye on the mage's guild's sign does not lie, very little is hidden from the mage's guild." Hasir nodded in
acknowledgement.
Teekeus lowered his voice and told the Argonian that the murder of Erthor was well known to every mage's guild as well. Hasir pulled
his lips back, snarling at the other male Argonian,
"What? You want our symbol to be that of a closed eye?" He chuckled, "I hardly think that'll be useful. But as a reminder, any more
show of extreme emotion and I will have no choice but to expel you from the guild, understand?"
Hasir nodded, looking at the floor as his tail was tucked tightly between his legs. Teekeus grinned,
"Good, now to recieve the recommendation from this guild, you'll go up to a mountain called cloudtop, cast a shock spell on the
column at the top and the rest should be self explanatory." he said grinning at him, "oh, you'll want to search for a path well hidden
by a sparse glade of trees that leads all the way up the mountain."
Hasir was about to leave, stopped and turned around; confused by something,
"Teekeus, do you know where I can find this Cloudtop?"
Teekeus walked over to a table in one of the side rooms, set his bag on the table and pulled a well worn map of Cyrodiil. Hasir
walked over and sat down on the empty chair a few inches from where he sat, tail draping over the seat's end like a limp snake.
Teekeus asked the Argonian, who looked as if he was unsure how he had gotten here, if he saw a map of Cyrodiil before. He nodded
and held up his bag; saying that he has one of the maps as well.
He smiled across the table at him,
"Cloudtop is located to the northwest of here, about two miles from the Jerall mountains." Hasir smiled and thanked the Argonian
Hasir exited the building, walked toward the Skingrad east gate and mounted his horse. Hasir positioned his steed in the
direction of Cloudtop and sped off. After about a few feet in his affirmed direction, Hasir glanced up at the sky, judging from the
sun's position in the sky he guessed it was around early afternoon. He then dropped his gaze so they were level with the
surroundings to look for the path Teekeus spoke of.
After several minutes, he found the path-a dirt road set into the mountainside covered with trees, though sparser than the other
more thickly canopied sections of the wooded area. The horse galloped up the zigzagging path toward the top of the mountain. Hasir
dismounted when he reached the mountain's peak. The horse snorted loudly as the Argonian hopped of his horse in excitement and
his eyes were drawn to two books.
Hasir went over to the books, tail swaying behind him and picked one after the other reading them carefully,
"Fingers of the Mountain is a dangerous spell, I warn you: do not get overconfident in your abilities, heed the warning
more if you have any doubts about your magical ability!" Hasir glanced up and swallowed hard, "by the hist, I better not
screw up then," He said, chuckling to himself.
He cast his eyes back to the open book and resumed reading,
My friend Zanir came to this mountain to attempt the very same quest that I assume you are going to do. He, however, made the
mistake of overestimating the force of the shock spell as it rebounded off of the pillar surrounded by the ruins of what looked like it
used to be a stone canopy for the pillar. I hardly believed my eyes when the fingers of lightning burnt Zanir to a crisp."
Hasir squinted his eyes to see if he could find any meaning out of the rest of the book, but the ink ran like a stream muddled with
latern oil. Hasir looked for the answer why the ink ran; he didn't have to read further when he saw the culprit: time-worn tears
which the writers had obviously cried during his retellling of his tale. The Argonian closed the book, placed the book as well as the
other one on the broken pillar to the east of the strange pillar and walked up to the pillar; his head hung low as he did not know such
a spell.
His eyes roamed to a pillar to the right of the one that he had set the book upon. He walked over as his eyes were fixed upon the
symbol on the cover: a stylized flame in the midst of being released by an equally stylized hand. Hasir grinned broadly and opened
the book. Strange, yet somehow familar, symbols seemed to leap off the pages and surrounded Hasir; once surrounded by the
mystic symbols, Hasir heard a faint crackling of lightning.
Hasir closed the book, making the symbol fade and walked back over to the strange pillar. Along the way, he saw the burnt corpse
the book spoke of, covered his nose from the putrid stench, walked to the column and said some magic words, making the shock
spell build in his fingers only to fire at the column. He stood there; waiting for the rebound the book had talked about; Hasir's eyes
went wide as he rolled to the side as the shock spell shot back at him ten-fold. Hasir furrowed his brow as similar mystic symbols
surrounded him and then faded, disapppearing as fast as they had come.
The Argonian tried the new spell out on the book situated not too far from him.
"Damn, that's one powerful spell!" Hasir exclaimed as the book flew through the air only to land ten feet from its starting place.
Smirking to himself, the Argonian mounted up on his horse and sped toward Chorrol; when he reached the city gates, he dismounted
his horse and walked all the way to the mage's guild.
Teekeus smiled widely as Hasir told him of the ordeal he went through at Cloudtop. He also told him of the charred corpse he had
seen not too far from the strange pillar. Hasir opened his mouth once more but shut it as Teekeus held out a hand to silence him,
"So, Zanir is dead, this is unfornate, he was one of my favorite students and a really gifted mage. I was sure he would've suceeded
as you have done. I guess I am the one to blame for painting too bright a picture of him." Teekeus' face fell, but brighted when Hasir
told him about the spell.
He told Hasir to cast it on him to show the full effects of the spell. The Argonian's brow furrowed as his tail took refuge between his
legs; he was not sure if this was a good idea as one more death could expel him from the mage's guild. He aimed the spell at
Teekeus' chest, closed his eyes and fired. Hasir did not open his eyes but heard a scream and the sound of the Argonian mage hitting
the opposite wall. Hasir opened his eyes and ran over to the fallen Argonian to feel for a pulse; to his immense relief, he felt one,
although it was really faint.
Hasir had to do something else the Argonian would surely die from whatever injuries he had sustained, if any. Hasir went to the
nearest chapel, which was the chapel of Stendarr situated near the town square, to seek help. As he entered the chapel, he saw the
chapel's priest, Otis Luran next to a circular altar with a red piece of fabric draped over it so only the sides and the circular center
could be seen. Hasir, upon circumnavigation of the altar saw a small divot in the center. Probably for offerings to the gods he thought
to himself as he leant closer to examine the small hole in the altar's center.
The Imperial unclasped his hands, looked up and greeted the Argonian with a wide smile. Hasir returned the kind gesture,
"Hello, Argonian I am Otis Luran, are you sick or are you just looking around?" He asked
Hasir strode to a row of benches and sat down in one of them, tail coiled behind him. He explained why he was there and asked the
Imperial if he could help,
"I can't help, sorry, I just run things and direct people wherever they may wish." He said, his face grave, Hasir looked downward in
disappointment, "But, I do have two healers under my employ that might be able to help you." He walked over to where Hasir sat
and sat next to him on the bench, "their names are Orag Gra-Bargol, an orc healer and Gureryne Selvil, a dunmer healer."
As he said this, two people came out of the back room standing on either side of the cloth covered circular altar; one a dunmer and
the other an orc. Otis gestured to each of them,
"Hasir may I introduce... Orag Gra-Bargol." The orc healer gave Hasir a curt nod. Otis gestured to his right, "and... Gureryne Selvil.
Make your choice Argoinan, but be wary, you may only choose one."
Hasir nodded to the left of the Imperial,
"I choose the orc." He paused and then added, "Dunmer and Saxhleel do not neccesarily mix well, we've had bad blood since they
enslaved my kind all those years ago."
The Imperial frowned and left the Orc to walk toward the smiling Argonian. The orc shook his head solenmly,
"I heard you attacked a mage guild leader," The orc said, mostly to the floor than to Hasir
Hasir looked at him, a bit shocked; his tail immediately slipped between his legs,
"Y-you did? " He asked bewildered, "I didn't attack him, I was just practicing my new spell."
Hasir told the orc about the spell training 'accident' and, in return the orc took the Argonian down to the undercroft to teach him a
healing spell that would hopefully save Teekeus.
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