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- The Thieves Guild |&| Babylonia
A soft click-drop of a lock snapping open sounded in the night.
Most normal people would be terrified in this situation, unable to still their rapidly beating hearts enough to fully concentrate on the task at hand. No one in their right minds would seek to wake a literal werewolf from his slumber in his own home, but Ra’tima-dro was no ordinary person.
While a part of her would effortlessly admit that she enjoyed perhaps a small bit of the thrill, she was equally if not exceedingly invested in figuring out all the strange, dangerous men that sought to insert themselves into Masahir’s life and body. This bumbling, unfortunate wolf had a lot to prove to the fearsome feline mother. A mother who would not hesitate to cut any man down to size should they threaten her family.
She pushed the heavy wooden door of the apartment closed behind her in absolute silence and scanned the interior of the room. Directly in front of her was the slotted wooden door of a closet. She turned to her right and crept further into the apartment’s common area, passing the dark kitchen by with only a short glance to ensure she wasn’t going to wake that little wolf pup up or come across any unsuspected roommates-
Though with how barren this place looked on the inside, she really doubted he had much financial help, let alone a whole other person living here with him unless it was a pretty dire situation. Then again, she really wasn’t sure what to expect out of this man. He really didn’t even own enough of anything for her to lift from this place anyway.
What a bum. She thought as she slid through the crack in the bedroom door.
She sat there, crouched for a few moments while she got her bearings. He was snoring, a thin linen bedsheet pulled haphazardly across his sprawled body and that pup sleeping belly up beside him. He looked like an ordinary man, just tall and very well built- but she knew better than to just trust her eyes. He was a monster, a werewolf. Intelligent, powerful, terrifying. She’d seen werewolves tear soldiers and civilians apart, seen them turn little children into ribbons.
A sharp chill ran down her spine, her tail bristled and her ears went flat against her head. Her hand rested against a black leather sheath on her right side. She’d spent most of the day tracking down that enchanted silver dagger just for him, and she’d make sure to drive it straight into his beastial heart if anything ever went wrong between them.
She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t tempted to slit his throat right here and right now. He was another dangerous monster playing around with Masahir. It was only a matter of time, only a matter of when he’d turn against her sweet Tal, when he’d turn her into gore-confetti too.
Gods above protect her, why must Masahir play with fire in such ways? First that furless bastard Ji’aaj, now this actual furless bastard Lucien Lockwood. That girl never listened to her mother, headstrong and willful enough to only step back when something or someone snapped and she learned the hard way. The fuzzy feline shook her head softly. She wasn’t willing to let history repeat itself, but she knew how much it’d break Masa’s heart if she turned him into a newspaper headliner. She could already hear those heartbreaking sobs, and her stoney heart relented.
Instead she found herself doing something very fucking stupid.
She strode to his single nightstand and scooped up a glass of water he’d left sitting on it, and dumped it on his face. Lucien sputtered, bolting awake as she ordered him in a deathly hiss, “wake up, werewolf.”
From under his pillow he swung a long knife that the feline stepped back to avoid effortlessly. She was perfectly awake, and he was groggy and surprised. She had the element of ambush on her side as his yellow eyes adjusted to the dark, dim waking world.
“What do you want from me, why are you here?!” He demanded. It was clear he had yet to recognize the small dark figure against his wall.
“Isn’t it obvious, wolf? You are going to listen to this one.” His eyes lost focus on her for only a brief moment and she was gone again. The very next second her rasping voice sounded behind him, causing him to swing again in the dark, though he struck nothing.
“You have everything in the world to prove to this one, Lycan. Do you not recognize this one’s voice, or have you already forgotten about the beautiful woman you wanted to bed the other night?”
“Masahir?” Lucien’s tone and body language shifted, clearly confused as he tried to pinpoint his attacker. “What does she have to do with this, Assassin?”
“Ha! ‘Assassin,’ he says! Slow-claws, this one thinks! No, if Ra’tima-dro wanted this one dead, he would not have woken up, she promises.”
It dawned on his half-awake, panicked brain at that moment just who he was talking to. “You’re that cat-lady from the shop! I didn’t do anything wrong to your daughter, okay? You have my word.” His stomach turned, yet again he was facing up to a nightmare of a woman who’d plucked his secret from the air and could very well send him packing from Uruk should she decide to tell.
Ra’s coarse laugh made him fidget with the handle of his knife as he wiped the sleep from his face. “As if this one would take a man at his word! Ha! Maybe the lycan is good for one thing, jokes.”
“If you’re not here to kill me, then what do you want from me? I doubt you broke into my house in the middle of the night to ridicule me.” He felt a weight settle on the bed next to him, but when his eyes snapped to check she was nowhere to be found once more.
“This one thinks the dog is up for a challenge, if he wishes to keep seeing Ra’tima-dro’s sweet, precious Tal and not be forced to sleep rough outside of Uruk, no?”
He sighed and nodded.
“Good. This one has a mission to do, but Ra’tima-dro thinks she would appreciate the assistance and skills of a trained soldier. You will accompany her to the city of Karim, a few days from here, and you will prove yourself to her or you will be no more.”
It didn’t take long for him to meet her in the shadows of the western gatehouse, dressed in his armor and wrapped in a cloak. The khajiiti woman was pleased to see that this time he wasn’t carrying that little puppy on his chest, because the last thing she wanted to deal with was babysitting some twerp of a mutt the entire time she was exploring.
They’d been making their way along the road for a few moments, the imposing walls of the city quickly receding on the horizon. The silence had been eating away at the soldier, the uncertainty the woman presented made him near unbearably antsy. He’d stare at her for moments at a time, trying his best to work the idea of her out in his head. Eventually his frustration and confusion came to a head and he sighed in annoyance.
“What?” Shot Ra from further up the road.
“Can you just tell me what we’re going to be doing? I don’t care for this cloak and dagger stuff.”
She chuckled, the sound whipped by the stiff breeze blowing along the sand flats. “Lucien is impatient, Ra’tima-dro sees. Tell her, what does Lucien think Ra does for a living?”
“You run that shop in town, and obviously something else more nefarious. I still think you’re an assassin.”
She hummed, pleased by his guesses. “Ra’tima-dro is a merchant lord.”
He studied her for a long time. What was she doing, trying to mess with him? He stopped, “is this some sort of a game to you?”
For the first time since they’d started their trek she paused to turn and look at him. Her eyes were wild, sharp like glittering splinters of winter ice. A smirk stretched across her black lips, “yes, it is, and this one will play along with her game if he is actually smarter than a dumb runt.”
He rolled his golden eyes as she turned around and kept walking, shrugging his broad shoulders. He didn’t know what to make of the cat-lady who was just as shifty as the sands around them. “It’s obvious you’re trying to manipulate me into helping you. You could have just asked, you know.”
“And this one thinks that Ra’tima-dro is stupid enough to just take a werewolf at his word alone? He has a lot to learn then.”
“I know you have me clocked. I’ve already told you I’m not a threat.”
“Ra’tima-dro will believe it once she sees it.” She dismissed his words and they walked on in silence. Ra was more than content enough to keep the conversation to a minimum for as long as possible.
Moments crept into hours as the sun rose in the sky. The scenery had transitioned from sandy prairies, to shrubland and even into wide open savannahs.
“Has this one ever visited the city of Karim?” The diminutive khajiiti woman was the first to break the silence in what felt like ages.
“No, I have not.”
She hm’d quickly in acknowledgement, studying the rugged cliffs far out ahead of them. “They say that it is at the center of this cloudless world.” She pointed at the crags, “out there. All water flows from under Karim. We will find a river and follow it back to its source, through the canyons, until we arrive.”
He wiped the sweat from his brow and licked his dry lips. “We should set up camp soon, at least until the sun goes down some.” He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t already starting to feel a bit sunburnt from the already blistering rays. He’d just gotten back from being lost in this unbearable wilderness, and here he was wandering around in it again, with an assassin who had every reason to want to stick him no less.
The wind whipped her robes back in gentle snaps. “Is the big bad wolf already tired of the desert heat? This one thought lycans had supernatural endurance. Certainly he can keep up with an old woman like Ra’tima-dro.”
“Of course I can. The military prepared me for days like today.” He said with a smile. This woman was acting like one of his old drill instructors at this point.
“Good.” She’d never broken her very brisk, near-jogging walk. Part of him wondered just exactly what this woman was. Were all Khajiit catfolk like this? Blunt and witty with an endurance to match his own?
The only sound passing between them for long periods was the thuds of Lucien’s heavy footsteps. And the wind. He’d noticed how eerily quiet she was at all times, like all her noises of movement had been hit by a mute switch.
“So you seem like someone who can handle themselves. Do you have any formal military training?” He probed the figurative waters.
“Interesting question; no Ra’tima-dro was not in any military service.”
He pursed his lips. “But you had formal training.”
“Ra’tima-dro has made no such claim. She is self-taught and sleek with her own natural born talents.”
“You must be one hell of a teacher, then.”
“Of course. Ra’tima-dro taught her sweet Tal everything she knows. Ra’tima-dro has trained many apprentices in the past.”
“Ah, so you were an instructor.”
“Hm. Again, not quite.” She smirked.
“Let me guess, ‘Merchant Lord’.”
She snorted, she could practically hear the air quotes he was putting on behind her. “Is this one the very first Khajiit the dog has met?”
“I’m not exactly a local.”
Her ears perked at that bit of information. So he was another one, pulled here from another world. How interesting. “Neither is this one. She wasn’t sure whether she should expect to find others like her in all these strange plains of oblivion, but the gods have an odd way of smiling upon us. No, not all Khajiit are invested in being merchants like this one, but we do enjoy how easy shiny things like gold and silver are on our eyes.”
Before he could respond, she decided to ask him a question. “What about Lucien, where is he from?”
“Argos, I hail from a Hyborian kingdom known as Argos. It was an unrivaled naval force with a strong merchant fleet.”
“What was Argos’ chief export?”
“Primarily ivory, copper, pearls, and slaves.” His voice turned down at the end, a clear tone of discomfort in his voice.
“And this one was in the navy?”
“Nay, I was in the army for my service.”
She gave a hum of acknowledgement and nodded her head. “This one hails from an ancient land called Elsweyr. It is a place of dusty badlands and humid looming jungles, and is blessed by the Topal Sea with sweet Ja’m’ath.”
“Ja-math?” He attempted, but the foreign word failed on his tongue, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of it.”
“You would call it, ‘Moonsugar’. It is a cultural delicacy and very potently sweet. It looks like cyrodillic- common- sugar, but instead of the yellow-white of cane sugar, it refines naturally as pure white grains.”
He nodded, though he doubted she’d notice without looking back. “So, Khajiits like this moonsugar stuff a lot?”
“Yes, Slow-claws, we have quite a big sweet tooth. We put it in nearly everything, it is our spice of life. Ja’m’ath was created from the light of our lunar gods Jone and Jode after all. It is crystalized moonlight.”
He raised an eyebrow. Crystalized moonlight? He’d heard about the cabal of the Black Hand sorcerers and stygian priests of Set doing complicated rituals and long strings of blood magic, but he’d not seen any plant that produced a material like that. “Does it grow here?”
“Ah, finally, a quick thought from the wolf. That is one of the things Ra’tima-dro is interested in figuring out in Karim.”
Most normal people would be terrified in this situation, unable to still their rapidly beating hearts enough to fully concentrate on the task at hand. No one in their right minds would seek to wake a literal werewolf from his slumber in his own home, but Ra’tima-dro was no ordinary person.
While a part of her would effortlessly admit that she enjoyed perhaps a small bit of the thrill, she was equally if not exceedingly invested in figuring out all the strange, dangerous men that sought to insert themselves into Masahir’s life and body. This bumbling, unfortunate wolf had a lot to prove to the fearsome feline mother. A mother who would not hesitate to cut any man down to size should they threaten her family.
She pushed the heavy wooden door of the apartment closed behind her in absolute silence and scanned the interior of the room. Directly in front of her was the slotted wooden door of a closet. She turned to her right and crept further into the apartment’s common area, passing the dark kitchen by with only a short glance to ensure she wasn’t going to wake that little wolf pup up or come across any unsuspected roommates-
Though with how barren this place looked on the inside, she really doubted he had much financial help, let alone a whole other person living here with him unless it was a pretty dire situation. Then again, she really wasn’t sure what to expect out of this man. He really didn’t even own enough of anything for her to lift from this place anyway.
What a bum. She thought as she slid through the crack in the bedroom door.
She sat there, crouched for a few moments while she got her bearings. He was snoring, a thin linen bedsheet pulled haphazardly across his sprawled body and that pup sleeping belly up beside him. He looked like an ordinary man, just tall and very well built- but she knew better than to just trust her eyes. He was a monster, a werewolf. Intelligent, powerful, terrifying. She’d seen werewolves tear soldiers and civilians apart, seen them turn little children into ribbons.
A sharp chill ran down her spine, her tail bristled and her ears went flat against her head. Her hand rested against a black leather sheath on her right side. She’d spent most of the day tracking down that enchanted silver dagger just for him, and she’d make sure to drive it straight into his beastial heart if anything ever went wrong between them.
She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t tempted to slit his throat right here and right now. He was another dangerous monster playing around with Masahir. It was only a matter of time, only a matter of when he’d turn against her sweet Tal, when he’d turn her into gore-confetti too.
Gods above protect her, why must Masahir play with fire in such ways? First that furless bastard Ji’aaj, now this actual furless bastard Lucien Lockwood. That girl never listened to her mother, headstrong and willful enough to only step back when something or someone snapped and she learned the hard way. The fuzzy feline shook her head softly. She wasn’t willing to let history repeat itself, but she knew how much it’d break Masa’s heart if she turned him into a newspaper headliner. She could already hear those heartbreaking sobs, and her stoney heart relented.
Instead she found herself doing something very fucking stupid.
She strode to his single nightstand and scooped up a glass of water he’d left sitting on it, and dumped it on his face. Lucien sputtered, bolting awake as she ordered him in a deathly hiss, “wake up, werewolf.”
From under his pillow he swung a long knife that the feline stepped back to avoid effortlessly. She was perfectly awake, and he was groggy and surprised. She had the element of ambush on her side as his yellow eyes adjusted to the dark, dim waking world.
“What do you want from me, why are you here?!” He demanded. It was clear he had yet to recognize the small dark figure against his wall.
“Isn’t it obvious, wolf? You are going to listen to this one.” His eyes lost focus on her for only a brief moment and she was gone again. The very next second her rasping voice sounded behind him, causing him to swing again in the dark, though he struck nothing.
“You have everything in the world to prove to this one, Lycan. Do you not recognize this one’s voice, or have you already forgotten about the beautiful woman you wanted to bed the other night?”
“Masahir?” Lucien’s tone and body language shifted, clearly confused as he tried to pinpoint his attacker. “What does she have to do with this, Assassin?”
“Ha! ‘Assassin,’ he says! Slow-claws, this one thinks! No, if Ra’tima-dro wanted this one dead, he would not have woken up, she promises.”
It dawned on his half-awake, panicked brain at that moment just who he was talking to. “You’re that cat-lady from the shop! I didn’t do anything wrong to your daughter, okay? You have my word.” His stomach turned, yet again he was facing up to a nightmare of a woman who’d plucked his secret from the air and could very well send him packing from Uruk should she decide to tell.
Ra’s coarse laugh made him fidget with the handle of his knife as he wiped the sleep from his face. “As if this one would take a man at his word! Ha! Maybe the lycan is good for one thing, jokes.”
“If you’re not here to kill me, then what do you want from me? I doubt you broke into my house in the middle of the night to ridicule me.” He felt a weight settle on the bed next to him, but when his eyes snapped to check she was nowhere to be found once more.
“This one thinks the dog is up for a challenge, if he wishes to keep seeing Ra’tima-dro’s sweet, precious Tal and not be forced to sleep rough outside of Uruk, no?”
He sighed and nodded.
“Good. This one has a mission to do, but Ra’tima-dro thinks she would appreciate the assistance and skills of a trained soldier. You will accompany her to the city of Karim, a few days from here, and you will prove yourself to her or you will be no more.”
~ * * * ~
It didn’t take long for him to meet her in the shadows of the western gatehouse, dressed in his armor and wrapped in a cloak. The khajiiti woman was pleased to see that this time he wasn’t carrying that little puppy on his chest, because the last thing she wanted to deal with was babysitting some twerp of a mutt the entire time she was exploring.
They’d been making their way along the road for a few moments, the imposing walls of the city quickly receding on the horizon. The silence had been eating away at the soldier, the uncertainty the woman presented made him near unbearably antsy. He’d stare at her for moments at a time, trying his best to work the idea of her out in his head. Eventually his frustration and confusion came to a head and he sighed in annoyance.
“What?” Shot Ra from further up the road.
“Can you just tell me what we’re going to be doing? I don’t care for this cloak and dagger stuff.”
She chuckled, the sound whipped by the stiff breeze blowing along the sand flats. “Lucien is impatient, Ra’tima-dro sees. Tell her, what does Lucien think Ra does for a living?”
“You run that shop in town, and obviously something else more nefarious. I still think you’re an assassin.”
She hummed, pleased by his guesses. “Ra’tima-dro is a merchant lord.”
He studied her for a long time. What was she doing, trying to mess with him? He stopped, “is this some sort of a game to you?”
For the first time since they’d started their trek she paused to turn and look at him. Her eyes were wild, sharp like glittering splinters of winter ice. A smirk stretched across her black lips, “yes, it is, and this one will play along with her game if he is actually smarter than a dumb runt.”
He rolled his golden eyes as she turned around and kept walking, shrugging his broad shoulders. He didn’t know what to make of the cat-lady who was just as shifty as the sands around them. “It’s obvious you’re trying to manipulate me into helping you. You could have just asked, you know.”
“And this one thinks that Ra’tima-dro is stupid enough to just take a werewolf at his word alone? He has a lot to learn then.”
“I know you have me clocked. I’ve already told you I’m not a threat.”
“Ra’tima-dro will believe it once she sees it.” She dismissed his words and they walked on in silence. Ra was more than content enough to keep the conversation to a minimum for as long as possible.
Moments crept into hours as the sun rose in the sky. The scenery had transitioned from sandy prairies, to shrubland and even into wide open savannahs.
“Has this one ever visited the city of Karim?” The diminutive khajiiti woman was the first to break the silence in what felt like ages.
“No, I have not.”
She hm’d quickly in acknowledgement, studying the rugged cliffs far out ahead of them. “They say that it is at the center of this cloudless world.” She pointed at the crags, “out there. All water flows from under Karim. We will find a river and follow it back to its source, through the canyons, until we arrive.”
He wiped the sweat from his brow and licked his dry lips. “We should set up camp soon, at least until the sun goes down some.” He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t already starting to feel a bit sunburnt from the already blistering rays. He’d just gotten back from being lost in this unbearable wilderness, and here he was wandering around in it again, with an assassin who had every reason to want to stick him no less.
The wind whipped her robes back in gentle snaps. “Is the big bad wolf already tired of the desert heat? This one thought lycans had supernatural endurance. Certainly he can keep up with an old woman like Ra’tima-dro.”
“Of course I can. The military prepared me for days like today.” He said with a smile. This woman was acting like one of his old drill instructors at this point.
“Good.” She’d never broken her very brisk, near-jogging walk. Part of him wondered just exactly what this woman was. Were all Khajiit catfolk like this? Blunt and witty with an endurance to match his own?
The only sound passing between them for long periods was the thuds of Lucien’s heavy footsteps. And the wind. He’d noticed how eerily quiet she was at all times, like all her noises of movement had been hit by a mute switch.
“So you seem like someone who can handle themselves. Do you have any formal military training?” He probed the figurative waters.
“Interesting question; no Ra’tima-dro was not in any military service.”
He pursed his lips. “But you had formal training.”
“Ra’tima-dro has made no such claim. She is self-taught and sleek with her own natural born talents.”
“You must be one hell of a teacher, then.”
“Of course. Ra’tima-dro taught her sweet Tal everything she knows. Ra’tima-dro has trained many apprentices in the past.”
“Ah, so you were an instructor.”
“Hm. Again, not quite.” She smirked.
“Let me guess, ‘Merchant Lord’.”
She snorted, she could practically hear the air quotes he was putting on behind her. “Is this one the very first Khajiit the dog has met?”
“I’m not exactly a local.”
Her ears perked at that bit of information. So he was another one, pulled here from another world. How interesting. “Neither is this one. She wasn’t sure whether she should expect to find others like her in all these strange plains of oblivion, but the gods have an odd way of smiling upon us. No, not all Khajiit are invested in being merchants like this one, but we do enjoy how easy shiny things like gold and silver are on our eyes.”
Before he could respond, she decided to ask him a question. “What about Lucien, where is he from?”
“Argos, I hail from a Hyborian kingdom known as Argos. It was an unrivaled naval force with a strong merchant fleet.”
“What was Argos’ chief export?”
“Primarily ivory, copper, pearls, and slaves.” His voice turned down at the end, a clear tone of discomfort in his voice.
“And this one was in the navy?”
“Nay, I was in the army for my service.”
She gave a hum of acknowledgement and nodded her head. “This one hails from an ancient land called Elsweyr. It is a place of dusty badlands and humid looming jungles, and is blessed by the Topal Sea with sweet Ja’m’ath.”
“Ja-math?” He attempted, but the foreign word failed on his tongue, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of it.”
“You would call it, ‘Moonsugar’. It is a cultural delicacy and very potently sweet. It looks like cyrodillic- common- sugar, but instead of the yellow-white of cane sugar, it refines naturally as pure white grains.”
He nodded, though he doubted she’d notice without looking back. “So, Khajiits like this moonsugar stuff a lot?”
“Yes, Slow-claws, we have quite a big sweet tooth. We put it in nearly everything, it is our spice of life. Ja’m’ath was created from the light of our lunar gods Jone and Jode after all. It is crystalized moonlight.”
He raised an eyebrow. Crystalized moonlight? He’d heard about the cabal of the Black Hand sorcerers and stygian priests of Set doing complicated rituals and long strings of blood magic, but he’d not seen any plant that produced a material like that. “Does it grow here?”
“Ah, finally, a quick thought from the wolf. That is one of the things Ra’tima-dro is interested in figuring out in Karim.”
Word count 2397/8000
The Golden Brick Road
Quest Giver: Babylonia/Gilgamesh
Quest Length: 8k
Quest Location: Mesa Roja
Quest Prerequisites: Be Masa
Quest Description: While Gilgamesh's glorious city benefits from the wealth of its king, they cannot yet sustain themselves. The Great King wants his people to become independent, and not need his charity. For that, a city needs to trade with its neighbors. Gilgamesh is offering a reward for any noble citizen that establishes and secures a profitable trade route with the great city of Karim.
Repeatable? N
Quest Reward: Standard. Additionally grants a level up in the faction upon other OOC actions.