บท 558: Global Crisis
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While it is not known what exactly was happening in Riften, Jon diverted his attention to Whiterun leaving Jullanar to deal with the mess that is the Thieves Guild.
Things have changed in Riften for the Thieves Guild and if not for the existence of both Jon Dare and Maven Black-Briar, the guild would have gone bankrupt a long time ago. Those two esteemed clients of the guild were indeed at war and the guild couldn't interfere but still could profit from managing the deep currents.
While Maven was favored by Mercer Frey and his goons, Delvin Mallory and the other veterans like Brynjolf and Vex saw Winterhold as the new land of possibilities and wanted to expand there. In their ranks, Jullanar was registered as "Sparrow", a new talent that Brynjolf discovered after a little recruiting attempt in the market. She proved to be the Guild's new lucky charm after the suffocating amount of bad luck they all experienced made them lose pretty much most of their power in Riften.
Here's how the guild operates. In every Hold, there are a number of businesses that are worth many thousands of Septims, these businesses need more than just insightful management to operate. In order for the rich to go richer, they have to play by the rules of the underworld. Bribes, smuggling, dirty competition, etc. This was all services provided by the Guild in exchange for a percentage of the profits.
With clients like Maven who powers her Black-Briar Meadery through the Goldenglow Estate, this Estate going out of business is extremely bad news for her so in order to protect it from someone like Jon Dare whose wealth is almost limitless, her deal with the Thieves Guild was to keep her main business uninvolved with Jon Dare. The Guild also keeps an eye on every unlawful business inside Riften even though they were losing control lately. Skooma dealing, Prostitution, Blackmailing, Arms dealing, Client Protection, Workers Extortion, Contraband, Gambling, Black Market and Forgery. In other words, they are the main pillar of the crime community.
Jullanar had a clear mission regarding the Thieves Guild. Only a few knew that Sparrow is Jullanar and in the meantime, she operated as a Thief and secured many vital information for Jon mostly about Maven and his other competitors. She also started the Questline of the guild by putting a merchant in the market out of business, shaking down the non-paying clients and starting fire in the Goldenglow Estate to send a message to all those who disobey the Guild.
For now, the situation came to a halt with Maven (who is a vital part of the Questline) being busy with Jon and a lot of job opportunities springing up after the late improvement Jullanar made. Also, the Chaotic situation in Riften was very important for the guild to clean.
On the other hand, Alina was busy with the College and the Temple of Kyne now that she is back in prime condition. The Temple had an insane number of Visitors and the College had a chaotic air to it with the existence of the [Eye of Magnus] hanging in the middle of the Hall of the Elements.
Alina had her hands busy with researching the Eye and looking through every record in the Arcanaeum. Sadly, a large number of books got stolen every year despite the tight security in the College and to make it all worse, the last patch of students were especially annoying trying to put their hands on everything. Alina and the Librarian Urag gro-Shub realized that the books about the Eye of Magnus were all stolen and they had to figure out which student stole it in order to track it down.
Riften and Winterhold aside, Whiterun was the home of the Companions and where both Wulfur and Aela operate. Being an essential figure of the Companions, Aela had a busier schedule so Jon had to use Wulfur in order to accomplish the Companions' Questline.
Wulfur was a regular in Jorrvaskr and had a good relationship with the Grey-Mane clan that runs Skyforge. In fact, he was one of the select few who managed to harness Skyforge aside from Eorlund Grey-Mane and with this legendary forge, Wulfur crafted Jon's newest weapon, the sinister Halberd known as [Cliffhanger].
Aside from all that, Wulfur applied for the Companions who accepted him without a text. Unlike the game, Wulfur is famous unlike the player character who is very likely to join the Companions in the early levels leaving him in a place of doubt. While it may look like a good thing, this deviation threw a rock in Jon's plans and it became unclear how to proceed in the Questline smoothly if not for the assistance of Aela. Jon had to give her a role to play which made the Companions give Wulfur the easy jobs in order to start the Questline one way or another.
With those three questlines up and running, Jon was happy to say that he can have three of the four game factions in his pocket. What was left was the Dark Brotherhood and he needed to put a special plan for this one since the Brotherhood is an actual murder cult. Any wrong move and the story may go completely haywire.
But today was not that day to worry about this and that, today was the day of having fun and by fun, it means going out with the boys and celebrating. Jon dragged both Wulfur and Mirren alongside Ongeim and Jon Battle-Born and his cousins Hafthor and Vladimir. The seven intended to drink until they got wasted but they needed someone to watch over them while they rave, for such a delicate job, Jon dragged Lydia in the portal.
***
"Just what did you expect?" (Wulfur)
"Just don't bring it up." (Jon)
"Please. I have had enough!" (Mirren)
They indeed went out to drink and cause some trouble but that was two days ago. It was imaginable that the situation may go out of hand but even imagination had its limits… this however… it was all the wrong scenarios happening together at the same time.
"Can we just find my clothes, please?" Jon complained.
"You only lost your clothes?" Mirren asked.
"What did you lose?" Jon asked.
Mirren chose to stay silent for some reason while the rest were burning through him with their gazes.
"Jon, just wear anything from your Cube. You still have it, right?" Wulfur stopped the situation before it side-tracks once again.
"I do. Don't worry." Jon made a thumbs up.
"Now. Is anyone here still missing something?" Wulfur asked the people that are still around.
Mirren and Jon kept silent, Jon Battle-Born shrugged his shoulders. Vladimir smacked Hafthor on the head before he snorts another bottle of moon sugar, Ongeim just sat there staring at nothing… Xikil was still trying to recover, Lydia was helping him fix his broken wing, Nefertiti was lazing in the shade of the fort's tower after snorting a legendary amount of catnip and Barbas was trying to break his way out of the cage Jon put him in with the captured bandits.
As mentioned before, a lot has happened.
"Shouldn't we be worrying about what the Stormcloaks and the Imperial would do now?" Mirren asked.
"I thought we managed to frame the bandits and the giants for last night's situation." Jon said.
"Do you think any sane person would believe that some bandits and some Giants were playing… Throwing Boulders together?" Mirren asked.
"I do… and at least nobody died, right?" Jon asked.
"Two armies…" Mirren spoke, running out of patience.
"What?" "I… I don't know what you're talking about."
Seeing Jon and Wulfur looking away, Mirren stomped the ground from frustration.
"Don't act like you don't remember! You two almost annihilated two armies last night. The Stormcloaks and the Imperial will surely know that two drunk lunatics were behind the failure of their assault on this fort." Mirren shouted.
"Oh! That was us…" Wulfur nodded.
The team of hangovers is now in Fort Greymoor not too far from Whiterun city. To summarize how they are now occupying this Fort; it all started last night when they were all dead drunk in the Giants' Camp between Whiterun and Greymoor (How they arrived at the Giants' Camp is a different story). No one realized that the Stormcloak Army and the Imperial Legion had started an operation to take over Fort Greymoor that night in order to secure Whiterun City. If the Fort falls to the Stormcloaks, it means that they will be able to isolate Whiterun from the west and take it. If the Fort falls the Legion, it means that Whiterun's standing will remain the same.
Originally, Fort Greymoor was occupied by Whiterun Troopers and Guards but a month ago, the skirmish between the Stormcloaks and the Legion exhausted the resources of the fort and it soon fell to bandits after some of the guards defected from service. Some Bandit Chef took it over and started extorting the travelers but both the Stormcloaks and the Legion had plans to take him down. Last night, these plans overlapped together and it happened that the nearby peaceful Giants were dragged in the mess when a mammoth was killed. Jon and the others were crashing at the Giants' place for some reason while being completely drunk and so they got to participate in the mess as well.
With the Stormcloaks on one side, the Legion on another, the Bandits in the middle and the Giants waving their clubs in anger. The seven drunk boys couldn't miss the chance seeing that the two armies have even brought siege equipment like Catapults and Mangonels. Jon and Wulfur were so excited and drunk that they decided to enter a competition with the… you guessed it… the Catapults.
Jon snuck to the battlements of Fort Greymoor and secretly joined the bandits then started breaking chunks of the Fort and threw it at the catapults across the battlefield. Wulfur and the others remained with the Giants and started picking up large boulders and throwing them at Jon.
With those superhumans playing around in a drunken ecstasy, the two armies started running around for their lives after experiencing a rain of boulders and of course, getting all their Catapults broken down.
It was strange how it ended with Jon competing with his friends at a game against actual catapults but it somehow ended in his favor and the fort half gone (lying in pieces around its original location).
But none of that was the actual problem. Jon laid on the ground and gave out a long sigh after finally finding new clothes.
"Feeling decent at last." Jon said as he fixed his clothes but soon he looked at Xikil and remembered what happened.
"What should we do about Sanguine? At this rate, the whole world shall notice what happened." Wulfur said.
"I know. This is a disaster. It has been two nights already." Mirren agreed then turned to Jon, "I can't believe you have caused a Worldwide disaster just to get drunk."
Jon's face darkened as he avoided eye contact with them.
"I didn't expect Sanguine to be this prideful about getting me drunk. Also, Sanguine's quest wasn't supposed to go like this." Jon started looking for excuses.
But he was right, the Daedric Quest of Sanguine was supposed to be a bit light-hearted. The player would participate in a drinking contest with Sanguine who is disguised as a Breton calling himself Sam Guevenne. After the contest, the player would wake up in Markarth after breaking into the Temple of Dibella, figure out that he stole a goat and sold it to a giant, figure out that he got married to a Hagraven and figure out that Sam Guevenne is Sanguine and he is somewhere in Eastmarch then get a reward for entertaining the Daedric Prince.
That is what was supposed to happen.
What actually happened was Jon taking his gang into Whiterun and directly looking around for Sam Guevenne then asking him for a drink strong enough to make him drunk. After the last breakthrough, Jon acquired a high tolerance to Alcohol making it impossible to feel the slightest of dizziness. It was an absolute deal-breaker to him but he thought he would manage somehow.
Sam Guevenne used every liquor at his disposal to try to affect Jon but it almost felt hopeless. Even the Avatar of the Daedric Prince of Alcohol was feeling dejected that every known alcohol didn't work on Jon's high tolerance. What was left was to get creative and Sam Guevenne had to resort to extreme measures. He faded back to Oblivion to return to his prime as the Daedric Prince Sanguine and Jon didn't exactly know what happened but according to the talk between the Dremora, Sanguine have done something reckless in order to brew a liquor strong enough to make Jon drunk.
Jon's [Eternal Flesh] power along with his [Thunder Heart Formation stage] gives him an Enhanced Metabolism which renders most diseases and poisons useless thus a special brew was needed to outlast this metabolism. The product managed to exhaust Sanguine quite significantly as he seemed to have had to travel across Oblivion for a few times to gather its ingredients. It was a matter of Pride to the Daedric Prince in order to make this ridiculous mortal that challenged him drunk.
The result was a Golden Liquor made of the most outrageous ingredients ever. Sam Guevenne bragged that he had to travel to Akavir itself to gather some of those ingredients such as Dragonling Extract, Essence of the Flame Monarch from Inferno, Pure Amber Prism from the Shivering Isles, Honey Petals from the Planet of Dibella, and such.
Jon had to admit that this is the best liquor in the world worthy of its creator but while he was complementing it, Sam Guevenne seemed to have disappeared. Jon didn't give it much thought as he wanted to really feel tipsy again but he didn't realize what has changed in the world.
After a day, everyone other than him started to instantly become sober as if their liquors were not working anymore no matter how they drink. According to Xikil, every liquor other than Jon's has lost its intoxicating property and became just a normal liquid. The scale of this phenomenon was global.
No one knows how but Xikil said that the Dremora that serve Sanguine can't contact their Lord anymore. To sum it up, there was only one established fact here.
The Daedric Prince of Booze has gone missing.
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