บท 675: Return to form
While Michael and the others were off on their abrupt vacation, things in Skyrim were progressing towards a disastrous destination...
Rikimaru and the other members of the Dark Brotherhood had finally made their way into the Imperial City, making their temporary home in a secret passageway some Skooma dealers had dug within the sewers. The dealers were 'forcefully evicted', and since it was a Guild of Assassins doing it, the unfortunate men and women were only found days later face down in a sewer gutter covered in Skooma.
It didn't take long from there for the Brotherhood to go about planning their mission. The Imperial Palace was heavily guarded, imparticular, the Penitus Oculatus were on constant high alert due to their 'killing' of Ulfric Stormcloak.
Riki was pretty sure he could just go in there and kill the Emperor himself without much difficulty, though it would probably require a shitload of planning. This thought was rejected before he could even voice it however since, apparently, Dark Brotherhood contracts could only be taken by a member of the guild. To have someone else do it instead was a slight as the 'glory of Sithis' was their's to claim.
Regardless, Riki wasn't about to pledge himself to a nutty religious organisation just to ease the process of this assassination. Besides, he didn't really care how it went either way, only that these pathetic assassins grew up and learned something.
He had each member of the guild skilled in public subterfuge and inconspicuous action go around and note every guard position and viable entrance point into Imperial Palace. From there it was like building a bridge... An annoying bridge made of bells built under the nose of particularly aware bloodhounds, all while the workers he delegated tasks to smelled of rotting meat and screamed when they breathed.
It was actually astonishing how incompetent most of the Guild members were, aside from Eleril who'd recently become his Apprentice. He'd had to go through and teach the very basics of information gathering and silent assassins to them, and only then did they actually start making progress towards their goal.
While mapping out the outside entrances into the palace should have been the easy part, the Penitus Oculatus made sure to close, block, and begin patrols around unattended entrances at random, making using the same one multiple times risky at best, and suicidal at worst.
This made cataloguing the internals of the palace incredibly difficult, especially since the diagrams of the palace they had were all from when the Oblivion crises had occurred, meaning the place was likely a lot different than before.
Regardless, after much work and many close calls, the Brotherhood finally had a plan of action. One that'd give them the best chance to succeed, all without alerting the entire city while they were at it.
"What are the chances of this working?" Astrid questions as the guild crowds around a table filled to the brim with notes.
"Better than your plan of bum-rushing the place at the very least. I'd say, given Eleril's progress in her training, you have a sixty percent chance of success, assuming nothing drastic changes." Riki as he leans his chair backwards with his feet on the table, his tail swinging idly below him.
"I have to ask, what were our chances with our previous plan?" Babette inquires, curious.
Riki chuckles at that, "Let me put it this way," he says before flipping a coin onto the table, it lands on heads and Babette sends a speculative eye at him.
"A coin flip?"
He nods, "Yes. Try land that on its side, tell me how many attempts it takes you then get back to me."
Babette sniffs at him, "You could have just said 'impossible'."
"Yeah well, most of you seem to be visual learners, given we're sitting in the sewers, it explains why you're all so shit."
"Rikimaru. The plans." Astrid growls, drawing everyone back to the matter at hand.
"Everyone should know what they're doing by now," he stabs a randomly appearing dagger onto the map where the town square should be, "A wealthy jeweller is holding his weekly auction here, kill him and leave just enough evidence for the Penitus Oculatus to find. While they're sniffing around our decoy houses, Eleril, the vampire child, and I enter the Palace through the chimney of the kitchen." he says, pointing at said location.
"From there it's a matter of luck. The Emperor's room should be in the top east room here, we sneak or fight our way there if the plan falls through and end him... If all goes well, we will shine a mirror towards the group waiting here at this location," he taps the map once more, "Set fire to the blacksmith's building, we will use that opportunity to flee... Any questions?"
"Yeah... What do the rest of us do when everything falls apart?" Arnbjorn grouses, seeming very doubtful of the plan.
"You continue with the backup plans. If all of those fail, flee and live another day since we'd all be dead anyway."
...
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Elsewhere :
Tiffania was sitting outside a newly built restaurant in Winterholt on a blanket covering the bright green grass. The freezing cold temperatures had been altered via Eredar gems, allowing them to emulate a Cyrodilic summer for this area only.
In front of her were some of her new friends Shizune Kato and Dan Kato attempting to teach Nawaki Senju some basic jutsu'. Next to her on the blanket was Tsunade Senju, yet another busty blonde woman who could act as her auntie or cousin without issues.
Michael had just turned up one day and dumped the quartet in front of the tower before leaving again, forcing her to bring them up to date about the ongoing of the world... She was pretty sure he was finding these women just to prank her, but after listening to Tsunade's story, it was hard to be mad with him.
Unlike his usual behaviour, he'd ended up saving three innocent lives and granting them sanctuary away from those who would want to hurt them... Sure, they had also been 'enslaved' but she'd take whatever she could get when Michael's empathy is concerned.
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Niggross
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