The Diary of Simra Hishkari : Sellsword, Spellblade, Ink-Slinger & Tale-Spinner: 21ST OF LAST SEED

• Posted by Ulysses April 13, 2013 - 1,036 views

  My headache still loomed this morning, and the weight of that key was still strong and strange in my pocket. I set it beside my tankard of water as I wolfed down breakfast. No gifts from Rendar today. Only a crust of the hardwearing black flatbread I bought from him to last me through these days. But still, I sleep under his roof without rent, so who am I to complain?
  
  The stranger thing was that I had a visitor. Suvaris Atheron, who only last night I decried in these pages. But, reader, I was drunk as I wrote—of that I’m now sure. All this talk of ambition, honour, must have been the Cyrodiilic temper of that wine. Something political to it, perhaps, and fiercely hopeful. The hope at least remains, for do they not say that from a drunken mouth speaks an honest heart? If they do not, they should: there is something catching to the phrase. I will make more of myself than this place will hold. I shall soon leave, and I shall see mountains up close, and live from what this land will give me, beholden to Man nor Mer.
  
  But Atheron…She took breakfast with me, drinking spiced tea whose aroma I smelled but only half recognised. Still, I cannot help but think it might have triggered some memory in me. This would not have been unusual, but the fact that she recognised this key was. She asked me to meet her in the docks when my working day ended.
  
  And so I went to Oengul once more, and tinkered away for the coin he placed in my hand at shift’s end. And sure enough, as the sun began to dim, I met Suvaris Atheron by the waterside, while the snow froze heavy and thick almost before it touched ground to settle. The key, it turned out, was to Shatter-Shield Shipping’s office on the docks, built tunnel-like into the city walls. She told me of certain information she was privy to, as their fore(wo)man. One of these things was a particular package: a silver circlet, studded with a triangle of moonstones. If it went missing, there might be a business venture in it for the both of us, she said.
  
  Reader, it went missing, but not to be missed I’m sure. I stole into the offices under cover of evening, all with the ease of turning a key in its latch. In amongst the boxes, this particular package, marked with a bear’s head, was not difficult to find.
  
  Shifting the damned thing, however, was. I should have thought Sadri, in his shop, would have been happy to accept something yet unused for once, but he was suspicious, saying he would not take stolen goods. I snapped, ‘How else in Oblivion is a Mer meant to make coin around here? You mean to say nothing here is stolen?’ I scoffed.
  
  His face blanched. As I pushed, he told me of a ring he had recently accepted from a traveller. It was golden, inlayed with etchings of stylized mountain flowers…and exactly matched the description of a ring Viole Giordano had recently lost. ‘Return this ring,’ he said, setting it on the counter, ‘And I’ll take that blasted ornament.’ Of course, he insisted on the circlet remaining there. For safe keeping, until I returned.
  
  The elf has business sense, I’ll give him that.
  
  And now to sleep.