The dark red thick stone door painted with a huge skull and black handprints slowly slid aside. The "Imperial Soldier" in front of the door did not glance at it and stepped into the deep passage behind the stone door, which was large enough for five or six people to walk parallel.
Not far after entering the black door, there is a "changing room" on the side with many wardrobes, armor racks, hat hooks and other furniture. The furniture is placed or hung with unique clothing from all over Skyrim and even some neighboring provinces.
"Bang-dang--" The Imperial Army's light helmet was taken off and thrown into a corner of the dressing room, and the blond hair that had been restraining the "soldier" immediately fell down.
Next came the light armor, gloves and boots often worn by imperial scouts. When all these disguises were removed, what appeared there was a man wearing a tight black and red leather jacket, with extremely aggressive beauty and blond hair.
A tall woman with brown eyes.
"What's the problem?" Astrid muttered to himself as he put on black leather gloves and boots, and walked straight out of the locker room. As for the discarded disguise, someone will deal with it later.
It was just a simple mission to assassinate prisoners, but it failed. It was a disgrace to the reputation of the Skyrim branch of the Dark Brotherhood.
The commission itself is very simple. In Falkreath, a wild werewolf killed the employer's little daughter after losing control. The Imperial Corps stationed there did not dare to execute him for some unknown reason. The employer could not bear this.
The murderer was still alive, and he used all his savings to perform a dark ritual and asked the Dark Brotherhood to kill him. By the way, since the employer was a woman, Astrid decided to personally contact and carry out the commission.
Disguising as Imperial soldiers is not difficult in itself. Many of those guys were frightened by "Helgen's Dragon" and always wanted to evacuate, which caused their standard armor to be undefended at all times.
The problem was that the werewolf named Xin Ding was not like what they said during the chat. He had confessed his crime and only wanted to die. When he sneaked into the water prison and prepared to assassinate him, he transformed directly and broke through the roof of the water prison to escape.
Astrid is not proficient in tracking or fighting the enemy head-on, especially if the opponent is a werewolf - no, in fact, she can sometimes fight a werewolf head-on.
"What's wrong? My dear? The mission didn't go well?" When walking into the public hall of the brotherhood, Astrid ran directly into someone's arms. The other person hugged her very naturally and touched her by the way.
brain.
"Let me go, you stupid dog." Astrid whispered, "This is a public place."
It is impossible for any Brotherhood Assassin to make such a ridiculous low-level mistake as "bumping into someone in the corner", which would lead to such a result, just because she had confirmed the identity of the other party before contacting him.
Ironbjorn, blond, tall and burly, a typical Nord who doesn't like to use weapons, is a rare fan of "frontal assassination" in the Brotherhood, and is also a werewolf who can control himself, as well as Astrid's
husband.
"Don't worry, they have long been used to it," Ironboyn rubbed his wife's blond hair again and let go before she got angry: "Whether it's our public show of affection or the unexpected failure of the mission."
"No comfort at all." Astrid glared at him, then turned his gaze to the hall.
This is a naturally formed two-story cave. On the bottom floor, there is an underground river that emerges from the mountain wall and flows through an extremely narrow gap. It is the main water source for the Brotherhood. The other parts are equipped with a training ground, a blacksmith shop, and dinner parties.
The long table and the circular second floor connected by natural stone steps are the residences of the brotherhood members, as well as a conference room for issuing tasks and a treasure house for storing property.
Since the sanctuary itself is located within the mountain wall, any modifications may cause landslides, so this setting has not changed much in the past hundred years.
Generally speaking, since there are endless people who want to hire the Dark Brotherhood to kill others, and they are distributed throughout the Skyrim Province, the Brotherhood members are basically on the road, and it is difficult to have the opportunity to get together. There can only be three or four people in the hall.
The people are pretty good - they basically come back to report on their work and report on the success or failure of the mission.
"It's a pity~ I didn't fail~" A young female voice sounded, and a little girl on the long dinner table waved to Astrid: "If Astrid, you also failed, you will 100% complete the task.
But I’m the only one left~”
Babette, who looks about eight years old and has a very cute appearance and voice, always claims that she is an innocent girl captured by the Dark Brotherhood, but in fact she is a 495-year-old vampire, as she said
, the assassination target has never failed in the past five hundred years, but few people can refute this.
"I must declare that I did not make a mistake, but that there was something wrong with the client and the contract was terminated." A half-bald old man in a robe stood beside the underground river and responded without looking back: "They are a group of vampires."
Festus Crax, a destruction mage, is more focused on developing various methods that can effectively kill humans than those mages who explore the mysteries of magic, try to understand the changes in the world, and even summon demons from annihilation or heal the wounded.
Magic, so he is wanted by all mage organizations. However, this paranoid approach has made him a human supremacist, hating all creatures that cannot be perfectly affected by his spells... Werewolves and vampires are naturally included.
.
"Do you have any objections to vampires~" Babette waved her fist at him from a distance, "Be careful of your neck when you sleep at night~"
"Your compatriots have been wiped out after the 'Battle of the Hall of the Vigilant'. Anyone who dares to stir up trouble now is trouble, and I hate trouble the most!" Festus responded.
"Strictly speaking, I was also successful," Iron Boyn shrugged: "Although the Khajiit monk was quite powerful, he was still captured alive by me, but the employer who finally accepted him was killed by adventurers in advance.
, this is an uncontrollable factor.”
"Einbjorn's employer died and the mission was cancelled. Festus took the initiative to interrupt the mission and refunded half of the reward. Babette did a good job. Keep it up. My target transformed and escaped, and I have to trouble you to hunt him down.
Astrid said quickly.
However, if there is no mission for the time being, just think of a way to recruit "Jeanne Darc" who sent the black-hand letter before to join the team.
Originally, all "dark rituals" held would be sensed by the [Night Mother] and communicated to the "listener" in the sanctuary closest to the client to issue a task based on its distance. However, since the war broke out between the Empire and Thalmor,
No "listeners" appeared in the Dark Brotherhood in Skyrim Province. Astrid immediately changed his approach and bribed "rats" who did dirty work in various places to collect information about "someone performing dark rituals", and then sent people to contact him.
, although the efficiency has been reduced a lot, it has also lost its mystery, and it is more likely to fail halfway due to various reasons, but it has finally continued the organization.
Not long ago, Astrid established a connection with Windhelm City's largest civil society organization "Blondes" through his appearance, and learned from them that a child who was persecuted by his family was performing dark rituals.
There might be some decent reward. She was going to let Babette, who liked to pretend to be young, to come into contact with the kid named Aventus Aretino later. Unexpectedly, in the blink of an eye, the target of his ritual was the "kindness" of Rift Valley City.
Guillot" was killed. According to the description of the bribed guard, the perpetrator seemed to be Jeanne Darc, one of the founders of "Shape Blonde".
The girl's identity recorded in the shawl blonde was that of a "Sino scholar" who excavated ancient ruins, but after not seeing her for nearly half a year, she turned into a heavily armored warrior. Those archaeologists were indeed monsters.
For this kind of unprecedented incident, the way to deal with it depends entirely on Astrid's decision. Whether he turns a blind eye, assassinates her to save the face of the Brotherhood, or recruits her in, no one will have any objections.
For the Dark Brotherhood, being able to launch an assassination in the tightly guarded Rift Valley City and escape unscathed can be said to be a member of excellent quality, but being able to carry out such an action out of a "sense of justice" means that
She is likely to object to some of the Brotherhood's missions with questionable motives, but this also means that she will not be bound by the so-called law and common sense, which is in line with the Brotherhood's ancient creed: "All actions are impermanent, all laws are impermanent."
Without me】.
"So, what's the conclusion?" Ironboyn, who knew exactly what his wife was thinking, touched her head again.
"The conclusion is...Nazir! Where is Jeanne Darc now?" Astrid called to the second floor of the cave.
"She is heading towards Windhelm City." A Redguard wearing a turban and carrying a scimitar appeared from the conference room on the second floor: "She seems to be preparing to return to Aventus. At this time, she should be in 'Nai'."
Ji Shulin' rested, judging from her speed, she didn't seem to care at all about the black-handed letter we sent."
Nazir, a brave Red Guard warrior, is extremely skilled with two swords, but his hobby is sorting out mission intelligence and sorting it into categories. He almost never goes out in the field. He can be said to be the butler of the Dark Brotherhood. If you have any questions, just ask him.
You can basically get the answer.
"I will go and bring her back myself. Compared to other members, I feel that I still have enough affinity." Astrid patted Ironboyn's chest.
"Okay, then I will help you chase that wolf cub that luckily escaped." The werewolf, who was scolded by his wife without leaving a trace, helplessly spread his hands.
"[What is the most beautiful sound of life——]" The black door at the entrance of the sanctuary made a low roar.
Another brother is back? Everyone present looked towards the entrance.
"It's the flute~(club) lute~(diamond) or the drum~(spade)"
A strange man's voice, which made people feel as if various patterns were popping up in front of their eyes, shouted exaggeratedly outside the door. The black door was silent, and the fraternity members looked at each other.
"Oh - it's silence~ Thank you mother~ (Heart) No, Cicero will never change his words~Mother~ (Heart) Mother~ (Heart)"
The voice became more and more exaggerated.
"【Welcome home--】"
At this moment, the thoughts of everyone present have never been so unified.
