Shadows Preserve Us

Chapter 2: Taking Care of Business

Almeta POV
Why did I do that? The whole point of me coming to Riften was to start over, and live under the radar. Now here I am walking to the entrance of the Ratway to join a criminal organization. I have to be the worst person when it comes to lying low.  I keep grumbling to myself as I arrive at the gate to the Ratway. Well, let's get this over with. I enter the sewer and begin my trek. I soon discover however, that I am not going to be able to just take a walk. Two thugs block the way further into the tunnels. Before I can even think of how to sneak by them, they spot me and go on the attack. I quickly take out my bow and shot both of them in quick succession. Once I get past them, I discover the next obstacle, the bridge was pulled up. Probably Brynjolf's doing. I jump down and notice a iron door to my left and another tunnel on my right. I look at the gate to my left and notice it is locked with an expert level lock. I decide, what the hell,  and begin to try picking the lock. I am really good at lockpicking and have had a lot of practice, but this is still very difficult. I go through about five lockpicks, and am about to give up on the whole thing, when the gate finally clicks open. I step through and close the gate behind me so nothing can sneak up on me. I slowly creep up the stairs, aware now of the apparent occupancy of the sewer, and discover another lunatic standing by a table. This time when I take out my bow, I take my time and kill them before they even notice I am there. I walk fully into the room and notice a door to my left.  Looks promising. I open the door and discover I had arrived at the Ragged Flagon. I walk further in and hear people talking. I hear a male voice say, " Give it up Brynjolf, those days are over." while chuckling to himself. I then hear Brynjolf say, " I'm telling you, this one is different." Then I hear a third voice, another guy, say, " We've all heard that before Bryn, quit kidding yourself." The first voice speaks up again and says, " Dirge is right Brynjolf. You , Vex, Mercer, your all part of a dying breed. Things are changing." At this point, I chose to reveal myself to the people talking. Brynjolf turns to me with that apparently ever present smirk on his face and says, "dying breed eh? What do you call that then?" Everyone turns to look at you. Some look shocked, others look impressed, and some look like they couldn't care less. The two men talking with Brynjolf are still standing next to him. The one behind the bar is a nord with shoulder length brown hair and wearing common bar keepers clothes. The other is an imperial with shoulder length blonde hair, and is wearing leather armor with a steel war axe on his hip. There is also a red guard women, an imperial women, and a breton man all wearing the same armor with some slight variations. Brynjolf walks up to me and says, " Color me impressed lass, I wasn't sure I'd ever see you again!" I respond, " Getting here was easy!" If he switches from smirking to grinning, " reliable and headstrong, you are turning out to be quite the prize. Now that I have whet your appetite with our little scheme in the market, how about handling a few deadbeats for me?" "Deadbeats? What did they do?" Brynjolf suddenly becomes very serious and he says, "They owe our organization some serious coin and have decided not to pay. I want you to convince them of the error of their ways." Before I can stop myself, I agree and ask for who the deadbeats are. Brynjolf gives me the names of the three marks, Keerava, Bersi, and Haelga. "So how do you want this handled?" Brynjolf tells me that the debt is really secondary, that I need to show them the organization is not to be messed with. He gives me some advice and then I leave to take care of business. Once I hit topside, I decide to start at Bersi's shop, wanting to put of talking to Keerava since I am staying at her inn for the time being. She had been the first person to be kind to me when I arrived in town. When I enter the shop, I immediately walk over to the dwarven urn. I hit it with my daggers a few times and it breaks quickly. I turn back around to the man at the counter who is glaring at me. After some very tense words, including some that implied that the thieves guild was not able to even protect themselves, Bersi ended up coughing up the money he owed. I then went to Haelga, and snuck into her bunk house without being seen. I turn around the corner to my right and grab the statue of Dibella. I feel weird using the statue of a divine to blackmail someone, but push the feeling aside and walk up to Haelga. After threatening her precious statue, she quickly handed me the coin purse with her debt, wishing that I would choke on it. After leaving the bunkhouse, I turn to face the inn and sigh. Time to face Keerava.  I walk into the inn and as soon as Keerava sees me she fumbles around behind the counter. By the time I get to the counter, she all but throws the coin purse at me and frantically explains that everything she owed was in the purse. I felt a little bad for scaring her so bad, I had a job to do. After gathering all the money, I immediately went back to the Ratway. While it was stupid of me to be joining a wanted criminal organization, it was the last place they would think to look for me. Also, them being underground would help me lay low and stay out of sight, literally. I continue back to the Ragged Flagon with a renewed confidence in my decision to join this guild. I enter the underground tavern and, once Brynjolf and I make eye contact, I toss the coin purse at him. He catches it with ease and looks inside, as if to confirm I didn't skim off the top. When he was satisfied with the gold count, he faced me, " Good job lass. You did the job, and best of all you did it clean. It costs a lot to get rid of bodies and bribe the guards. Keep up the good work, and you will make a lot of money around here." He stands up to leave but I stop him by saying "speaking of making money..." He smirks at me over his shoulder and tosses a few potions at me saying he thinks I will find these useful. I can't pay for food and drink with potions!  Slightly annoyed I stare after him. He turns around and says, " Come on lass, time to show you the rest of our little operation." I get up and follow him, as he walks towards a cabinet. Just as I was about to ask if he was joking with me, he opens a false back panel in the cabinet and another hallway is revealed. I take note of that and continue to follow him. That could come in handy if they find me again. We come to another door which opens to a large circular room with a really high ceiling that leads to what looks like the well in the center of the market. There is water flowing all through it and ends at the center of the room where four bridges lead to a center platform directly under what I suspect is the well. On that platform is a breton man who does not look happy. He has dark blonde to light brown hair that looks pretty oily, as though he hasn't washed it in a long time. He stands there with arms crossed over his chest, watching as Brynjolf and I approach. When we come to stand next to him, Brynjolf says, " Mercer, this is the one I was telling you about. Our new recruit." Mercer scowls and almost growls, "This better not be another waste of the guilds resources Brynjolf" He turns his scowl on to me and continues, "Before we begin, let me make one thing perfectly clear. You play by the rules, you walk away rich. You break the rules, you lose your share. No debates, no discussions. Do I make myself clear?" I decide it is probably not a good idea to get on this guy's bad side so I respond with, "I understand." This seems to placate him somewhat and he says, "Good, then I think it is about time we put your expertise to the test." Brynjolf gets a shocked look on his face, asking, "Wait, your not talking about Goldenglow are you? Even our little Vex couldn't get in!" Mercer's face twists into a scowl at the unexpected protest. "You claim this recruit has an aptitude for our line of work. So let her prove it! Goldenglow estate is critically important to one of our biggest clients. However, recently the owner has decided to take things into his own hands and shut us out. He needs to be taught a lesson. Brynjolf will provide you with the details." He turns to leave, clearly dismissing me. "Mercer, aren't you forgetting something?" Mercer turns to face Brynjolf again, "What? Oh yes... Since Brynjolf assures me you will be a benefit to us, then your in. Welcome to the thieves guild."