Board Thread:Roleplaying/@comment-3293219-20141207202844/@comment-3293219-20150129124519

(Bugger it, I have two hours to kill.)

Cyrus' brow furrowed as he heard the news, there was no way that his sabotage could have done that. In fact, it didn't seem at all possible to him for the engine to start at all and nothing that he did would have caused an explosion.

Well, not a big one...

Something was wrong, incredibly wrong, the Redguard knocked his drink back and got up, hoping to see the extent of the damage with his own eyes.

-

Naeva had been wandering around the castle in Windhelm all morning, no one seemed to notice her as she was a poorly dressed Khajiit girl, most likely a servant to the castle or kitchen staff or something. She began to imagine how easy it would be to be a spy, to simply walk in in rags and wander around the building.

In truth, this was one of the perks of serving Ignatius, seeing the world and ending up in all sorts of situations. She had seen a lot in her time, from the freezing tundra of Skyrim to the desert sands of Hammerfell. She had even been to the Khajiit homeland, Elsweyr. It was almost worth it, being a slave, Ignatius could be cruel sometimes, needlessly so but he had also given her so much.

She had been within his surface for so long that she couldn't remember what came before him. She remembered a cellar, of sorts, a wooden chair and a table and a Dunmer in armour, with a hood, who she remembers nothing of. He was simply a voice in the dark, though she couldn't remember for the life of her what he said...

She couldn't remember any of it...

She once asked Ignatius about it, wondering if it was something that she dreamt and he seemed quite surprised by the fact that she was able to remember it. She tried to probe him for more information but that only angered him and forced her to drop it before she was punished.

The Khajiit put her hands behind her back and hummed to herself as she observed the artwork on the hallway, a painting of a chapel, most likely painted in Cyrodiil. She remembered seeing a chapel like it once, the spire overfaced her and she couldn't even see the tip of it, due to the intensity of the sun that hovered immediately above it. The painter of this portrait had obviously been far away from the spire and could therefore fit it all in.

She then noticed the detail of the chapel's doors, obviously a lot of effort was put into the brush strokes to create a realistic wood texture. Naeva leaned in closer as she examined the 'swirly' pattern of the flakes on the canvas, like the chapel was slowly coming out of the painting. She then noticed that the painter had added the outline of a man, presumably a man, who was stood in front of the chapel, obscured by the spire's shadow. It was at this point that the Khajiit wondered if the man had to stand there for hours as the artist painted him, like Ignatius did for his portraits, that were always wrong, because he always has more hair in them and they end up missing most of his wrinkles somehow...

"Excuse me?"

Naeva turned around, somewhat startled that someone had noticed her. She turned to see a guard behind her, glaring at her intently as he tried to figure out what she was up to.

"May I ask what you are doing here, at this hour?"

"Erm... I was... Exploring..." The Khajiit bumbled, was that not allowed? Probably not, since this is a military base.

"This is a military fort, not a museum, for your own safety. You should be in the servants quarters, with the rest of your people."

"My... People?"

"The servants..." The Soldier clarified, rather shortly as he realised how that may have sounded.

"Oh... I'm not a servant, I'm Master Ignatius'... Assistant."

"Ignatius? You mean the Wizard?"

"Erm... Yeah, that's right. He's currently asleep, so I wanted to look around... Needed to know where everything was, y'know?"

"Being that as it may, I can't allow unauthorised personnel to be wandering the castle freely. It jeopardises the security of the Winter Palace and the people within."

"Oh... Well, I wasn't going to... Jep... Jeportise anyone. I was just trying to see where things were, so that I could be more... erm... Good at my job."

The guard raised an eyebrow and sighed, it was near the end of his shift and confrontation was the last thing that he needed.

"Right, well... I can organise a tour for you and your... Employer, if you wish, so that you can become more familiar with the essentials here."

"N-No!" Naeva cried, hastily, startling the guard and confusing him even further.

"N-No... I don't want a fuss, Ignatius doesn't like fuss... Just... I'll go back to my room, just don't tell Ignatius about my jeportising, please!"

The Guard fell silent, they both did as even Naeva could see how bad it all looked. The Guard's eyes fell to the floor and Imperial eventually sighed before looking back up to the Khajiit 'Assistant' with a sigh.

"Alright, go straight back to your room and I'll pretend I didn't see you."

Naeva nodded, not needing to be told twice, she slunk off, quickly pushing past the guard and running back up to Ignatius' chambers, leaving the guard alone as he looked back at the painting of the chapel. His eyes narrowed as he drew his attention to the door and frowned, moving his face closer to it.

That man didn't used to be there...