That’s what I learned from Brinjolf, Mother - things in Windhelm are getting harder every day for our people. With the wall barracks crowded with rebel troops and the increasing food shortages, threat of starvation next winter is becoming a more pressing concern. And who is to blame for this dire situation? The trade embargo decreed by the Imperial military commander? The foolishness of their leader, who has decided to concentrate troops in a major city already troubled with supply difficulties? Of course not - blame the scheming, godless-daedra-worshippers, black-magic-users, good-for-nothing dunmer - I swear mother, they hate dunmer even more than they hate Empire. Spankings are getting more and more frequent and families hide cowardly inside their own locked houses, knowing that another pogrom is just a matter of time. Some people are just leaving their houses inside the walls and taking refuge in farms or in the slums outside city walls, as if they were lizards or cat-people.
The already deep anti-dunmer feelings are even worsened by a wave of mysterious murders that has recently afflicted the city. Young women are being killed and mutilated, apparently in some kind of horrible ritual, and those superstitious nords are blaming everything on dunmers’ necromancers. It’s useless to say dunmer laws, religion and traditions expressly forbid the practice of necromancy – all dunmers are seen now as potential murderers, body-robbers, tomb-looters, corpse-resuscitators and, possibly, cannibals. Even those renegade who have adopted the nords’ way of life are now completely estranged from their nord friends and patrons, and the access to the Grey Quarters has been heavily watched day and night in an effort to caught the alleged dunmer killer. There’s even some talk about closing dunmer shops and expropriating properties. Compromise, integration and peaceful coexistence are concepts very far from the mind of the most accommodating nord, and even the most foolish of the renegades knows there are no such options on the table anymore, so they have no way except sticking with their own kind.
But there are other murders, of a more straightforward nature, that have raised my alarm. Someone is killing important Ulfric’s officials and supporters, and I mean, someone who is not me! Now you’d think I should be just grateful, because someone is doing my job for me, but what I’m really feeling is a little disturbed, because whoever it is, I don’t know anything about their purposes and their alliances and I really don’t like the idea of a third part messing with my business. I’ve been told the murders are being carried in a strictly professional fashion, which brings to my mind the prime suspects are imperial spies, which I think unlikely since the safety precautions I’d met in my previous visit to Windhelm should be enough to detect any imperial infiltrators, or the Dark Brotherhood, of which I’m a proud member. Now I’m not under the illusion that I’m being informed about every contract or every decision made by the Brotherhood’s leadership. Sure we are all family and everyone is equal and stuff... but - let’s put it in this way - some people are more equal than others, and Astrid is the most equal person in the whole lot. So I went straight to her, seeking for some clarification on the matter.
And she did have some light to cast on my darkness, Mother, - or is it the other way around? - and you’ll be as surprised as I was, because I’ve found out the dead are coming back to life! I don’t know if it’s a good or a bad thing, but the Morag Tong, or at least a bunch of remnants from the former organization, is alive and active in the Gray Quarters. Being them Dark Brotherhood’s most ancient and bitter enemies, the Family is always alert for every signal of Tong activity, and besides, their style is unmistakable – ruthless and bureaucratic, in opposition to the more elegant and personal approach expected from Brotherhood’s members. Bureaucratic they may be, but they’re far from being ineffective. Their resurgence somewhere in a near future was something already anticipated, but the timing and the place couldn’t have been worst for the Brotherhood’s, engaged in a struggle to regain prestige and influence, as well as to legitimate the new leadership. A confrontation with the also weakened Tong could be the end of both organizations and that’s a thing we are not ready to face just now. So I volunteered myself to investigate the extent and the imminence of the danger.
Comments