User:Moses/The Story of Sesom/Chapter 1

Chapter 1: The Beginning

I am Sesom. For years, I lived a life that I thought was unimportant, insignificant. It was only years down the road that I realized my significance to Tamriel, and maybe even to all of Nirn. However, my story begins long before that, in Morrowind, on the island of Vvardenfell, in the city of Balmora.

I lived a dangerous, but lucrative life as a freelance thief in a city where both the Commona Tong and the Thieves Guild had operations set up. I'd saved up just enough to buy a house there. The place had gone up on auction since some skooma head khajiit had died of her bad habit, and I got it cheap, only a few thousand coins. The place was small, but I didn't plan on having any guests.

Things don't always work out like you expect though, and it wasn't even three days before I got my first housewarming gift, presented by a man in dark colored armor. To this day I don't know how he got into the house, and it was only by chance that I found him before he found me. I stepped into the house after a long day's work, and quickly took off my shoes, throwing them under the bed across the room. Instead of the thud of the shoes hitting the floor, I heard a yelp from under the bed. From the sound of it, it was a dark elf, and he was fairly large to be hiding out under a bed.

"Trying to steal from a thief, is he?" I muttered under my breath to myself as I turned towards the drawer where I kept an ebony dagger I'd stolen from some Fighters Guild lackey. From the table, however, a scroll caught my eye, and something in me knew it hadn't been there when I left the house. I picked it up and opened it, only to find that it was a writ for my own execution at the hands of the Morag Tong. Surely you can imagine the fear I felt as I turned back around to find that the assassin had came out from beneath my bed, and was now brandishing a dagger and stepping towards me. Panicking, I turned and grabbed my ebony dagger before leaping out the nearest window, fleeing for my life. I lost the assassin and doubled back for the silt strider, giving the ferryman my dagger as payment and taking the strider to Seyda Neen, where I stole enough to buy passage out of Morrowind altogether.

Within a month I found myself in the Imperial Province, in the city of Kvatch. Here, the Commona Tong was unheard of and most believed the Thieves Guild to be a myth. Surprisingly, this made thievery even harder for a newcomer like me, as I was the primary suspect from the very beginning. I was in and out of jail for about a year. That bastard count Goldwine frequently tried to increase my sentence or transfer me to the imperial prison in the capital, but there was just never enough evidence. I often wonder how my story would have went if the count had gotten his way, and I'd ended up in the imperial prison sooner rather than later. Finally, one day as I was released from prison, I made an oath to myself that I would never spend another day in the Kvatch prison. It wasn't for years that I'd know just how true that oath would turn out to be.

The night of my release, I headed toward the church, where I had hidden my bedroll in a hollowed out stump before my last arrest. As I approached, I saw a figure in the shadows. A guard ready to intercept me, I assumed. I turned, ready to flee, but stopped when I heard the voice call out to me. "No, no, Sesom. Don't run. It took me a long time to find you, all the way here in Kvatch." I immediately recognized the assassin who had come to my house in Balmora. I turned to face him. "Yes, face your end. I've worked hard enough for this, let this last part come so easily," he said. "Gathering specific information was... no small task." He gestured toward the stump by the church, where I could see the broken and bloodied body of the local beggar. I made my best effort not to look scared. "Your writ is not a legal document in this province, fool. Leave me in peace... or I'll call the guards!"

The assassin simply laughed. "Do you think I came here with a writ? The Morag Tong lost interest in you long ago. Your... escape was barely worth mentioning. After all, the Morag Tong is one of the oldest guilds in Tamriel. This little failure was far from its first." He paused, and anger flashed across his face. "But it was MY first, and I sought to fix it. I had duties to the guild that came first, and so I acquired my information slowly. First I killed the ferryman that took you out of Balmora, but only after he told me where he brought you. Next came the merchant in Seyda Neen, Arille was his name I believe. There was where my biggest obstacle lied. You had left Morrowind! Surely I could not travel all the way to Cyrodil and still keep up with my duties. I waited, though. I waited patiently as my contacts followed you all the way to Kvatch."

"How though, would I come here to kill you myself? Sure, I knew where you were, but I still had no means of getting there myself. However, in a stroke of luck, two assignments came, both to Sundercliff Watch in the northeast. I of course made sure I got one, and I set out with a fellow assassin for Sundercliff Watch. We split up near Cheydinhall and I headed towards Kvatch, promising to meet him in a week. Your beggar friend was kind enough to point me to the church before I ended his pitiful life."

I looked again at the poor fellow's lifeless corpse. "Surely some guard will pass here on his rounds any second now. You're the one that dies here tonight," I said with false confidence. In truth, a guard should have passed at least thrice as the assassin told his long tale, yet not one had.

He laughed again. "Arrogant Breton! The entire watch has been poisoned. They won't die, but they certainly won't be awake for another six hours or so. It's a shame, really, that I'll only get to torture you for six hours, but an entire city watch murdered wouldn't go unnoticed, so I had to make due." With a grin on his face, he ran at me.

The battle was surprisingly short. I couldn't tell you what happened, only that it was all over in about a minute, with my iron blade somehow in his belly. Horrified, he fled towards the gate, bleeding freely all over the ground. It seemed that despite being a thief who worked mostly in shadow, I had some fighting instinct in me. Knowing that I'd be blamed if found near the beggar's body, I prepared to leave the city for good.

I stopped, hearing a noise, and dipped into the shadow behind the church. I listened closely to hear someone clapping. "Well done, friend, and come out of there, please. I'd rather not have to shout at you." The voice was unfamiliar, but I assumed it was a guardsman, and he'd be armed with a bow. I couldn't run, unless I wanted to end up with an arrow sticking out of me somewhere. I emerged to see the shape of a man, black cloak covering every bit of him. He was no guardsman, that was for sure.

"Another assassin," I said flatly, with a sigh. "Just tell me this: Who contracted your guild to kill me anyway?" I reached for my blade, adrenaline pumping as I readied my nerves for another fight. "I'll fight every last one of you Morag Tong if I have to." I panicked, as I realized my only weapon had left me, still inside of my previous opponent.

The man just chuckled. "Calm down. I'm an assassin, sure, but I'm certainly not Morag Tong. Come on, we've got to get you out of here, before the guards come for you." He put a hand on my shoulder and began to guide me towards the city gate.

"Who are you? Why are you helping me?" I asked him, resisting slightly.

"You can call me Rowley. As for why I'm helping you, well, let's just say I don't like the Morag Tong, and I can help you get revenge on your friend. Unless of course, you'd like him to come visit you again." He pressed a book into my hand and gave me a shove. "Go! I'll take care of the beggar." With little other option, I did as I was told, pausing to look at the book in my hand. "A Kiss, Sweet Mother," I read aloud.

I was curious enough, and so I read the book as I made my way to the Imperial City. I won't go into detail about the horrible things contained within, but I knew somehow exactly what Rowley had wanted me to see. It was called the black sacrament, a ritual used to summon the Dark Brotherhood to do one's bidding. I could be rid of this assassin forever. No, I WOULD be.

In about a week, I'd collected the appropriate materials and gathered them in a spot in the woods outside Chorrol. I'd complete the ritual here, then continue to the Imperial City and put this all behind me. Checking that I was alone, I began. "Sweet mother, sweet mother, send your --" A sharp pain in my right arm, and the dagger flew out of my hands and into the brush. I looked down to see an arrow through my arm, and screamed in fear and pain.

"Commander Phillida will be rather pleased with me. There's enough evidence here to convict you of attempted contact with the Dark Brotherhood. You'll be spending the rest of your days in the Imperial Prison!" I followed the voice with my eyes, and saw a Legion forester, dressed to blend in with his surroundings, another arrow nocked and pointed at me. "Come with me or I'll just kill you. We'll walk to the next patrolman and he'll take you to the Prison." He collected my materials, and led me to the path. I briefly considered fleeing while he scooped up the bones I had tried to use for the sacrament, but I was in too much pain to do much but comply.

A few days later, I was indeed sentenced to life in the imperial prison. I was thrown into an empty cell, and heard a guard mention that "Phillida thinks he's a danger to the other prisoners. Keep him by himself." I briefly thought about scaring the other prisoners with this information, but I decided against it. My primary concern became escape, and I kept to myself as I plotted.

Time passed slowly, and eventually I lost track of how much of it went by. I focused instead on memorizing the schedules and mannerisms of the various guards that came in, trying to pick out which one I could overpower most easily. Days went by, or were they years? It mattered not. Eventually I grew confidant that I would someday escape. Still, I said nothing to the guards or the other prisoners. Some of them were convinced I was mute. Some didn't even know my cell was occupied.

Little of note happened for a time, as I prepared myself for my escape, eliminating my doubts one by one. If I was going to do this I'd need to be confident. Hesitation would get me recaptured, or worse, killed. It was Morndas. The two would bring food into the cell. They were the only guards that came in in a pair. They seemed to be close friends, the Nord and the Redguard. I heard the outer door open. The Nord came in alone, but turned back towards the door. "Which one of them are we moving?" he called out.

Another voice replied. I recognized his Redguard friend. "The Breton, the taller one. This Arcadia guy tried to call the brotherhood too, and Phillida says that keeping the two of them together could be dangerous." They were talking about me. I quickly rose and moved to the front of my cell to see whether I had an opportunity to make my escape a few days early. I saw what quickly put an end to all thoughts of escape. Four armed guards escorting a balding imperial blocked the only way out. I heard the clank of someone walking quickly in heavy armor, and all the guards took a second to salute a newcomer, dressed in commander's armor. Could this be Phillida, the one with the vendetta against the Dark Brotherhood?

The commander whispered a few things to the Nord, who opened my cell and roughly forced me out. "Where should I put this one, commander Phillida?" he asked, lifting my arm for emphasis.

"Take him to the old cells across the prison. They haven't been used in ages, so there's plenty of room for this scum to rot alone," Phillida replied, sneering in my direction.

The Nord nodded, and put a dagger to my back. "It's just you and me, Breton. Don't try anything stupid, because there won't be any witnesses," he whispered, so quiet I could barely hear it. We walked to another section of the prison, recognizably older, and empty. He opened a cell and said, "Get in."

My new location was very detrimental to both my escape plans and my health. Food came only about once a week, when a guard would finally bring me a small portion of food, sarcastically saying something like "Aw, poor Sesom, we just keep forgetting about you, all by yourself here." I grew depressed. Planning an escape had given me something to do, a purpose. Now, I was starved, and too weak to overpower, or even outrun a single guard. I retreated into my dreams, sometimes sleeping for days at a time just to get away from the maddening reality of my hopeless situation.

By the time they brought the other prisoner in, I had taken to huddling in the back of my cell, crouched in the corner where no one could see me. This one was loud, and possibly drunk, yelling at the guard who brought him in. "Do you know why they want me away from the other prisoners? It's because I'm famous back in Morrowind! I'm Valen Dreth! Even in prison I get special treatment!"

I laughed to myself, the first time I'd laughed since I myself lived in Morrowind. I'd certainly never heard of this Dreth character. The guard laughed too. "No, it's because Captain Lex has filled the jail with people he thinks are in the Thieves Guild. Now shut up and get in your cage!" Without another word from either of them, the guard left.

Prev: Foreword

Up: The Story of Sesom

Next: Chapter 2: Petty Thief