Dagnell walked around the marketplace for a bit, speaking briefly to the shopkeepers and getting the lay of the land. Madesi the Argonian jeweler made his wares himself in the traditional Argonian, or “Saxhleel,” style. They were really nice pieces, too; delicate, with an artisan’s expert choice of gems set into them, and probably worth a lot of coin. Grelka, the armor merchant, was sharp-tongued and bristly, and she had no patience. “If you’re not going to buy something, move along. Come back when you’ve got more gold. Gods know I could use it.” She had some decent goods, though; Dag decided to check back with her later if she managed to come by that coin. Brand-Shei, the Dunmer with an Argonian name who Red had named the lucky recipient of the stolen ring, was pleasant enough but had nothing very appealing in his shop. She wondered how he’d become someone’s target.
Outside the central market area, closer to the water, was Honorhall Orphanage, a dreary-looking building that didn’t seem at all welcoming. She couldn’t imagine being a child stuck in a place like that; her childhood hadn’t exactly been the stuff of dreams but she’d at least been free to roam after her parents died. Across the canal from it, and down an alley from Balimund’s smithy, were a general goods store and a building bearing a sign that caught her attention: Black-Briar Meadery. So this was Roggi’s dream vacation. The mead definitely smelled good from outside, and there was in fact a distinct hint of honey in the air. Curiosity led her inside to speak to the young Bosmer man behind the counter.
“Allow me to recommend the Black-Briar mead, the purest brew in all of Skyrim!” the wood elf offered. He raved about the mead for several minutes, then sighed. “Sorry,” he said quietly. “I’m not very good at this.”
She thought for a moment. “Sure you are,” she told him. “And yes, actually, I’d like one,” she said, pushing a coin across the counter. Taking her drink, she stepped outside and walked toward a door leading down to the lakefront. The mead was good. Delicious, actually, possibly the best mead she’d ever had. She could see why Roggi had raved about it. It was smooth, warming but not overpowering. She probably shouldn’t have spent the money on it, she thought, but it was well worth the coin, and she’d be sure to tell Roggi about it when she saw him again. She grinned. Yes, she fully intended to make sure she saw him again. He was too interesting to pass up.
Riften sat on – and partially over – the banks of a huge lake. It wasn’t all that wide, this lake, but she couldn’t see the far end of it. Down the steps at water level was the fishery, its scents putting her right back on the docks of home. No, it wasn’t salt water; but there was nothing quite like the smell of fresh fish.
Dag wandered around the end of the dock, sipping at her mead. Movement on the next dock over caught her attention; Maul was standing, arms crossed, near the door to a large windowless building. He was definitely watching her. She didn’t relish another chat with him. Instead, she turned to head down a long pier extending farther out over the pretty lake.
An Argonian woman stood unsteadily at the end of the pier, trying to sweep the area but leaning heavily on her broom. Something about her set Dag’s internal alarms to ringing, and she approached. “Are you alright?” The woman blinked at her, then fought to focus on Dag’s eyes.
“I’m Wujeeta. You gotta help me,” she pleaded. “I’m going to lose my job at the Riften Fishery!” She sighed. “Bolli, the owner, is a good man. He pays us well and watches out for us. But he said that if I show up for work in this condition one more time, then I’m out.”
Dag thought she knew. She was pretty sure that she recognized the symptoms, even though she’d never known an Argonian well enough, and her stomach churned. She wasn’t much given to pitying others, but this was different.
“What… what condition are you in, exactly?”
Wujeeta looked down at her feet. “I don’t mean to do this to myself, but I can’t help it. I tried some skooma a year ago, and ever since then, I can’t stop.”
Thought so, Dag fumed silently. Skooma was a highly refined, highly addictive and highly illegal form of moon sugar. Some people could use it without problems. Some. Moon sugar was one thing; it was safe to use occasionally as a pick-me-up as long as one used just a little of it. The Khajiit used it all the time. Dag was all for people doing what they liked. But skooma?
Dagnell saw Coyle then, in her mind’s eye. Coyle, with his long brown hair, twinkling brown eyes and ready smile, his boisterous teasing and beautiful body, hauling nets of fish up from the ships and setting to on them, singing bawdy songs in his bright tenor. He and Daron and Dag had been inseparable from the time they were children on, even after she and Coyle grew into young adults and chose each other to spend the nights with, playing at love on the beaches. Daron had always rolled his eyes at them and walked away, laughing as he went, yelling “Is it safe yet?” when he returned in the morning.
And then she saw the two of them huddled in the corner of the filthy skooma den, coughing as though their lungs would come up, mouths agape, drooling, eyes dull and muscles shrunken. The two of them had tried it on a lark. They had insisted that they were fine, even as time went by and they eventually spent every septim they earned and then sold their things, to raise money. They had ended up stooping so low as to sell themselves to older men, just to get more, and that was the least of it. They hadn’t accepted help; in fact they’d driven her off when she’d offered, and pleaded, and cried. Yes, she had even cried, and she was not the kind of person who cried often; she had to be tough to survive. Dag ground her teeth to keep the memory of those tears from coming to her eyes for the thousandth time. There sure hadn’t been many good reasons to keep her at home after that, after she’d lost her best friends; so she had left Stros M’Kai, taking passage on the first ship out to Daggerfall in the province of High Rock simply because that’s where it was going, and had spent a long while wandering while she waited to feel human again.
She never wanted to witness that again, even though she knew she probably would. Those who sold skooma and then fed off people’s misery were scum. The only good skooma dealer was a dead one, and all that.
“If you could give me a healing potion I could cleanse this poison from my body and get back to my life,” Wujeeta said, blinking and swaying a bit on her feet. Yes. A healing potion. It was just that easy, but once skooma got hold of people they didn’t often have enough to their names to buy such a potion, or the desire to take one if they did.
Dag sighed. If only she could have convinced the boys to just down one potion, one little flask of liquid. She swallowed hard, but turned her attention to the problem at hand. She only had a couple of potions to her name, but Wujeeta was in a bad way. She dug around in her pockets for one of the flasks and handed it over. A few moments after she had downed the potion, Wujeeta began to look better; she stood solid and strong and the tension melted away from her. “Thank you,” she said, with the odd expression that passed for a smile on an Argonian face. “Your kindness will never be forgotten.”
“Hey, I used to work at a fishery once. It’s good work. I’d hate to see you lose it. By the way, who’s been selling you this horker dung?”
“Look, I don’t think I should say. They could kill me.”
Not if I kill them first, Dag thought. She would relish the opportunity.
“Come on, Wujeeta. I think you owe me.”
Wujeeta hesitated, then sighed. “You’re right. I get my skooma from Sarthis Idren. He has some sort of a setup at the Riften Warehouse. You can’t get inside, though; they’ve had that place locked up tight since the war began. When I meet Sarthis there, he’s usually outside with his bodyguard. I overheard Bolli say that only the Jarl carries the key to the warehouse.”
“Thanks, Wujeeta,” Dag said, and walked back down the dock toward town. It didn’t add up. First, someone besides the Jarl had a key to the warehouse, or else there would be no skooma dealings inside it. She wondered who might have had access to that key long enough to make a copy of it. Then she shook her head. That was intriguing, but it was secondary. What was more important was that the operation was in there at all. The absolute last thing Dagnell wanted to do with her life was to get involved in the affairs of this city, but this was different. There was stealing, and then there was stealing lives. She would tell the Jarl what she knew.
It wasn’t hard to figure out which building was Mistveil Keep, residence of Jarl Laila Law-Giver. It was the only stone building in the city, situated atop the highest point in Riften, and an impressive place indeed with its stone fences and guards. Inside it was equally grand, with a beautiful green rug beneath an enormous table that held silver place settings, candlesticks, and ewers.
The Jarl of the Rift was seated on the throne at the far end of the room, deep in conversation with a Bosmer woman. Dagnell approached, only to be stopped when a large, scowling, red-haired Nord, heavily armed and war-painted, stepped out in front of her.
“As Jarl Laila’s housecarl, I would ask you to keep a respectable distance from her at all times.”
Certainly, Dag thought, checking over his impressive array of arms, physical and metal alike. I am many things, but generally speaking a fool is not one of those things. “Of course.”
It suddenly occurred to Dag that this man probably knew more about the entirety of Riften than most people. “I have a question. What can you tell me about the Thieves Guild? I’m new here, and have heard the name a number of times already. I’m really curious.”
He snorted. “Liars and bastards, every one of them. I’d have their heads on pikes if not for the war effort. All I would need are a dozen men and we could march into the Ratway and burn them out like rodents.”
“What’s the Ratway?”
He sneered in obvious disdain. “Everyone knows the Thieves Guild uses the old sewer system beneath Riften as their hideout. I’d go down there myself but that would leave Jarl Laila unprotected.”
Of course rats would live in the sewers. “Thank you,” she told him, then turned toward the Jarl.
Jarl Laila Law-Giver was a small, middle-aged Nord woman with dark blonde hair, dressed in a rich bronze and green gown and wearing a jeweled circlet. For all that she was tiny, though, she had a real aura of authority and dignity about her.
“Welcome to Riften, traveler,” she said. “I hope the road fared well for you.”
“Thank you.” The road fared very badly for me, Dag thought, but I think I’ll skip that tale. “I’ve discovered that there is a skooma dealer in Riften and thought you should know about it.”
Laila sighed. “Yes, I’m afraid we’re all aware of Sarthis’ presence in the warehouse,” she said. “Unfortunately, we’re certain he has informants within the city guard. Every time we’ve made a move to arrest him, he’s escaped. However,” she said, pausing to look Dag over, “you’re new here. If you’d take care of this discreetly, you might be able to surprise him.”
I must look like a mercenary, Dag thought. People keep assuming. Not that there was any question about her taking the job, this time. And this was a Jarl asking her to do so. Jarls had money; just the settings on her feasting table said so.
“Yes. I’ll gladly do it.”
“Excellent. Here’s the key to the warehouse. See if you can drop in on this dealer of poison and close down his operation permanently.”
Dagnell took the key and left the keep, shaking her head. What on earth are you doing, you idiot? she asked herself. The idea was to get out of Skyrim, wasn’t it? What happened to keeping your head down? Well it wasn’t as though she had been going to back away, from the moment she met Wujeeta. She had thought all that was buried now, buried so deep that it wouldn’t ever bother her again. What a foolish thought. It hadn’t been nearly long enough. Maybe it never would be.
Dag guessed that the warehouse was the windowless building near the docks, where she’d seen Maul standing earlier, so she headed in that direction. The day was winding down, with few people about as she approached. Thankfully, nobody was nearby now to see her unlock the door. She dropped into a crouch, drew her sword and readied her flame, hoping to let herself in silently.
It didn’t work.
There was a shout, and a Dunmer swinging his war axe rushed the door. Dag barely managed to block his blow, but countered it with a blast of flame from her left hand. He howled and stumbled back, giving her just enough of an opening to run him through.
A moment later a heavy blow against her shoulder nearly sent her flying. She spun to find another Dunmer, this one with a longsword and iron armor. “You won’t get out of here alive!” he snarled, moving in to attack again. Dag’s shoulder was numb, but she shot flames at him as best she could. Slashing and blocking with her sword, over and over, she tried but failed to get under his shield. He was good; he saw when she went for his legs and dodged, used his shield to block the flames. He was strong, and angry, and had everything to lose, and he was beating her.
Desperate, tiring, and out of energy to cast flames, Dag pulled the only other weapon she had, the dagger she had lifted from Kynesgrove. She was only going to get one chance to use it. Dodging a blow, she rolled to the side just enough to pop up beside the man and drive it into his throat as hard as she could. Stunned, he dropped his weapon and clutched at the dagger, but it had done its job; he slumped to the floor, dying.
Dag stood there, panting, sweat running down her face. By the gods, that had been entirely too close, especially the desperation dagger move. She wasn’t exactly sure how she’d managed to do that. There had to be some better weapons and armor in her very near future or she would be dead before she could get to Cyrodiil.
Once her heart stopped pounding, she sheathed her sword and dagger and looked around the warehouse. It was the emptiest warehouse she’d ever seen. Not even the side room toward the back had more than a few dusty barrels in it. The two dead Dunmer had more things of value on them than were anywhere else in the room. She wasn’t going to take those things, however; just the thought of stripping the armor off a skooma dealer made her sick. She did find a key on one of them, though, the one who had gone down hard, the one who probably had been Sarthis. Good riddance.
There was a stairwell leading down in one corner of the room. If there really was some sort of “setup” here it had to be downstairs, because it sure wasn’t upstairs. Oddly, the downstairs also held only a few barrels and boxes. Just to the left of the stairs, though, was a locked door which opened with Sarthis’ key.
It was a small closet with shelves holding a good many bowls of moonsugar and bottles of skooma as well as a note reading: Sarthis, just got in a shipment of moonsugar from Morrowind. We’re refining it now, and the skooma should be ready by the time you get to Cragslane Cavern. Bring the gold or don’t show up at all. Kilnyr.
This, at least, was some useful information. The Jarl could send some of her beefy guards out to track it down and lay waste to it. Dag pondered firing the poison in front of her, but reconsidered; maybe the Jarl would need it for evidence.
Dag had expected, when she handed Jarl Laila the note, to be thanked for her efforts and likely rewarded with some amount of coin. Instead, she found herself astonished, struggling to keep her mouth closed as Laila said “The source of this poison must be destroyed once and for all; otherwise another dealer will simply take his place. Do this task for me and you will be well on your way to a title in Riften.”
A title? A title? Dag had barely survived an attack from the two Dunmer; she could not imagine taking on what she would find in Cragslane Cavern. She was good enough with her bow to drop a few people if she could sneak up on them, but any kind of close quarters battle would render her, well, dead.
Shaking her head, Dagnell walked from the keep to the Bee and Barb to rent a room.