From the personal research notes of Morgrimm, warlock-assassin of the Dark Brotherhood.
8:15 a.m. - Woke up at the Candlehearth Hall in Windhelm. Stayed up late experimenting with some new potions; brewed a tea with a black, bitter herb I bought off a khajiit trader to compensate.
9:30 a.m. - Dropped off the excess results from my experimenting at the White Phial. Used some coin to purchase more canis root and charus eggs, necessary for the paralysis and invisibility potions I've been making.
10:15 a.m. - Met the mercenary, Stervan, outside Candlehearth. Shared a flask of whiskey on the steps until the target, Gaius Maro, arrived in the city. According to the schedule I stole from his father's men, Maro the younger will be touring the city's defenses and guard rotations before staying in the barracks tonight. Luckily, the city is still on edge because of a series of murders by a killer being called "the Butcher", so the barracks will be nearly empty tonight while the guards do extra patrols.
11:00 a.m. - Took Stervan outside Windhelm's walls to kill time and bandits. The innkeeper told me about a bounty last night for some squatters in the ruins of a local tower. They've been harassing hunters and scouts lately, but the jarl hasn't had the manpower to deal with the them. This will also give me an opportunity to test the new frost cloak spell I picked up at the College of Winterhold; I'm hopeful it will be useful slowing down pursuers or shutting down any brutes that managed to get past Stervan long enough to eliminate them.
5 p.m. - Postitive notes first: frost cloak worked as intended. The bounty was completed and collected. Next time, however, I should remember to rely on my own intel instead of second-hand gossip passed along by an aging barwench. Turns out the "bandits" were actually a few guards hired to protect a cabal of summoners. The frost cloak worked fine against the flesh-and-blood guards, but was useless inside when the merc and I found ourselves surrounded by frost atronachs. Stervan definitely earned his pay uprooting the nest; I gave him an enchanted warhammer found in the cabal's armory as a bonus, and an apology for putting him in the blast zone of several fireballs.
7 p.m. - Finished unloading the last of the spoils from the cabal's lair. The court wizard was very accommodating, letting me use his arcane matrix to examine the echantments the summoners used on their items, and sharing a few secrets of herblore over some mead. It also gave me the opportunity to examine the barracks Maro would be in later tonight, since the wizard's chambers are adjacent to them. Entry will be easy due to the lighter guard presence, but the exit will need to be quick because the guards will all be on the walls and able to lock the city gates at the first alarm.
11 p.m. - The kill is done: Maro's soul is on his way to Sithis and the Void as I write this from outside the city walls. It was relatively clean, at least at first. Maro was up late writing notes on the day's observances, and had sent the single guard set to assist him to bed. The poison I'd concocted held firmly to the blade with no drips or odor, and worked so quickly when I plunged it into his back that he didn't even have time to scream before his muscles froze, and he died where he sat.
That turned out to be a problem. Before I could stop him the body slid out of the floor and hit the ground with a loud noise like a statue falling over. That woke the guard up, and forced me to use several invisibility potions to make it out of the keep unnoticed. I had to resort to my dragon Shouts to get me through the front gates before word reached them. Stervan was waiting at the tree line with the horses, and by the time the word "assassin" was first uttered we were already heading down the road south to Riften.
More importanly, the larger mission was also accomplished. Before fleeing I had the presence of mind to slip a forged letter in among his notes: the letter implicated the younger Maro of sympathizing with the local Nord rebels in a plot to assassinate the Emporer during his upcoming visit. Now his father, who is in charge of security for that visit, will be cast in suspicion (not to mention broken-hearted) and less effective in preventing the Dark Brotherhood's true goal.
I'm thinking of calling the poison Rigor Mortis. It's certainly a prelude to the real
11:15 p.m. - Dragon attack. Stervan's dead, at least partly due to another too-close fireball, mostly due to the dragon's teeth. It swooped down on us faster and more silently than I believed possible, charring the campsite with its breath. Stervan struck it in the wing, forcing it to the ground, but when my fireball threw him off-balance the dragon snapped its jaws around his torso and smashed him against a nearby tree. I still wince when I think of the wet snapping sound he made when he struck.
I stunned the beast with my most powerful Shout and froze its scales until they cracked, then stabbed the wound with more frozen spikes until its cries finally stopped. It was a shame, really: the dragons, in all their violence, are quite beautiful. Even when it was crushing Stervan in its massive jaws, or howling a draconic epithet that translated into literal flames and ash, I felt nearly moved to poetry.
I reanimated Stervan's corpse: he's currently harvesting the creature's bones and unfrozen scales. As soon as camp is broken and the spell wears off I'll take his share of the loot with me to Riften where a fence with the Thieves Guild will begin the series of bribes needed to make sure my name is not mentioned by any guards in Windhelm or bounties levied against me.
I must remember to hire another mercenary before undertaking the next contract. They're very useful.
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