Down at the docks, the first thing I did was find Deepest-Fathoms. She wasn't linked to any of the other things I had to do in Riften. With her quest being so separate, I needed to see if I could grab it. It would give me information on whether or not the Thief Player is solely focusing the thieves guild or Riften as a whole. He hadn't done any of the dungeons in the area so I needed more information.
Between the players I had met or know about. I didn't actually know much. Starting with the first player I killed. I believe he was planning on collecting the daedric artifacts like me. However I ended him early. The strange thing was the timing of it all. He had seemingly started in Bruma, so our meeting seemed incredibly... lucky.
The second player I met was set up by a daedric prince. Mostly his own fault, what he was doing though. I think he planned on taking over Raven Rock and starting a cult by influencing people's dreams like Miraak. However that was just my guess, since he grabbed the Skull of Corruption.
Stephan the third, he hardly knew anything about the quests. His existence replaced Lokir, and I had to wonder how that worked. He gave me the most information on my current line of thoughts. Which brought me to the Thief Player. I was, no I knew I was becoming a part of the world. With Stephan's background, I had a feeling I could get an answer on the truth if I could just figure out what was on the tip of my tongue.
I found the scaled scaredy-cat, she was rocking back and forth on the docks. She held a small cube in her hand while staring into the water. Her position and the lexicon answered my question. The Thief player hadn't taken the quest. With this came three new theories. Number one was simple, the thief player was a fool and would be little help.
Second theory was based on the idea of being integrated into Nirn. If we are being integrated did it mean we would slowly lose the information from the original games. Elder scrolls 5 was rather old already. If we leave skyrim, the likelihood of our information becoming more skewed may become more possible. I feared this meant Elderscrolls 6 maybe completely useless to me. While Elderscrolls 7 which may be useful, though much less long lasting.
I breathed a sigh that theory was rather dangerous. The third theory was similar to the first, Elderscolls 5 is old. Perhaps the thief player hadn't played it as much as the other more recent games? When Elderscrolls 5 came out I was 11 or something. It had taken me years until I actually played Elderscrolls 4, let alone Elderscrolls 3. My memory of those wasn't as great as my knowledge of skyrim.
I had a reason to think about all this and it directly related to Deepest-Fathoms. If I take the lexicon and never return it. What would change? I hardly needed to bring the lexicon back to the dungeon. Lexicon's were like books, or maybe closer to USBs. The return of the lexicon opens it and give the player knowledge it held. Thanks to septimus signus though, I knew I could just open it with other means. Hell I likely could head to Markarth and slip Calcemo some dwemer trash and get him to pop the lexicon open or give me the supplies to open it.
I put a hand gently on Deepest-Fathoms shoulder. I gave her a sincere smile, "Are you okay?"
Her head snapped to me, "Wh-Who are you?"
I pointed at the lexicon, "I'd recognize a dwemer lexicon at a glance. I'm guessing, you didn't find the riches within the ruins."
She shivered, "The voices it whispers! I can't listen to it, but I need to return it. It is only right..."
I felt bad for Deepest-Fathoms, truly. You would never normally see someone with PTSD in a medieval setting. It's manifestation is so rare since those the develop it wouldn't think anything of it and those with normal lives. They would never develop PTSD in the first place.
Deepest-Fathoms shivered, I didn't know much about this kind of thing. I couldn't even truly diagnose her. I held out my hand, "I'll return it, trust me. I'll return it to Avanchzel, and all you have to do is relax."
Her eyes went wide and nodded rapidly, "I can't stand the memories, you must return it. It remembers, It must go back!"
I took it from her hands as she basically shoved it into my hands. Once she did she stumbled toward the fishery. "I'll go now, I need to sleep. I couldn't sleep before because of the whispers. Oh, the memories..."
I held up the lexicon, it was an odd design. Most lexicons were blue as they had very small amounts of aetherium within them. This one however was black and held specks of red. I would study the lexicon in time. With it in hand, I could see how the device worked. It was hardly complex compared to more advance machinery. In fact it was almost like a floppy disk that you could open up and read.
Advance in function, but compared to Earth. Hardly advance in design, the most interesting thing was the mana it seemed to release. In time I think I could open it without a dwemer mechanism. I pocketed the lexicon and drifted toward a warehouse on the docks.
Several small warehouses and private boat houses existed on the dock. Making it harder to tell which was the one that held the Skooma. However using the cheaper detect life I found a warehouse with a group of people inside. I watched the blobs of magic and it wasn't long until I knew it was the right place.
Times like this Viree would be useful. Just have her kick the door down and yell at them. I cracked my neck and smile. I kicked down the door, "Surrender or Die!"
I threw out a magelight and all 5 thugs tilted their heads at the harmless ball of light. I closed my eyes and with my next move I casted splinter on the magic light. The Bulb exploded and even with my eyes closed I could see the flash. Opening my eyes to attack, I had spots in my eyes. The skooma dealers however groaned as two fell to the floor.
Only one tried to pull out a weapon, he was well armored too. I pulled out Sable Wave and sliced through him. As for the others, I picked out one in particular and killed the other 3. One of the men who fell to the ground was sparred. I grabbed him by his throat and pinned him to the ground.
I tied him up with ropes and began searching the warehouse. Sure enough I found the Skooma crates. I shifted more crates around and eventually I found what I was looking for. Moon Sugar, they had crates, upon crates of moon sugar. I frowned, if I take it all I will fill my inventory. I frowned and tapped my finger on one of the crates.
I sealed the crates closed and began stacking them away from the skooma. However I still collected a box or two the the narcotic. This has made me realize I may need a stash to put certain supplies in. I could likely use Proudspire and tunnel a secret passage out the mountain side. I would solve that problem later.
For now I moved toward the skooma dealer I had sparred. He had tears in his eyes, I suppose that worked for me though. I only sparred him so I could use him as evidence. I grabbed him and tied him to a support beam and blindfolded him.
Now I just needed to get the moon sugar out of the warehouse. In a separate room, a small boat used for the shipments was held. In side the boat was a satchel with a booklet, it was a ledger. So I pocketed the ledger for later and searched the boat. A false bottom to the boat revealed several crates of skooma. I started unloading the skooma and began moving the Moon Sugar crates onto the boat. I filled the boat's false bottom with Moon sugar instead.
With the boat filled I began testing how much I could fill my inventory with. In the end I would have to leave behind 7 crates of Moon sugar. However I think I was happy being able to take 9 of them and two crates of skooma. Besides taking all the moon sugar might look suspicious.
I opened the warehouse boathouse door and pushed the boat into the water. With a kick I sent the boat into the water drifting out. I would reacquire it later, the current should take the boat toward the lower side of the lake. Just to make sure I could find it later I summoned a familiar to protect the boat. The mana would slowly drain, but the mana consumption of Familiar was so small it would take a long time before it faded.
With the warehouse looted, my quest log updated. It held the last part of the quest, bring the ledger to Anuriel. This would just leave the deals I had to make with the Black-Briar family. After that I would take Viree out of the city for more dungeons. I smiled as I took out the lexicon and began studying it more as I walked.