Chapter 629 - What Happened In Solitude?
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Jon ran through the streets and pulverized all the a.s.sa.s.sins he ran into as they were all non-essential mob characters that didn"t matter the slightest. None of them were game characters so little did he care.
The Dark Brotherhood was not only composed of the handful of members that the players know, but they rather made some branches and foot soldiers that were originally just some bandits and other outlaws.
It seemed that Astrid realized that with the existence of all these powerhouses in one place, she needs a lot of distractions in order to let her people in and out safely. It was a good plan altogether.
But this plan would allow hundreds of variables to take place. For example, slipping some thugs within the thugs hired by the a.s.sa.s.sins in order to cause a scene elsewhere.
As an adaptation to that, Jon managed to gather some guards of Solitude and personally led them to subjugate most of the thugs before rescuing the key figures of Solitude, namely Falk Firebeard and Thane Bryling then heading to where Jarl Elisif should be.
But the scene of the demise of Jarl Elisif was nothing to be expected except for those who plotted it.
"NO! My Jarl!"
"Milady!"
Both Bryling and Falk rushed towards where they saw Elisif"s corpse and tried to lift her up but she was cold and unmoving.
Jarl Elisif of Solitude is dead with a blade through her back and a dozen guards lying dead in shreds around her.
Jon sighed heavily and covered his face. On this day, he had to kill his friend"s widow in order to save Skyrim from an ill fate.
***
The situation in Solitude sent ripples all across Skyrim and from it to the Empire. In the span of 3 days, the entire world knew what happened in Solitude.
The Elder Council of the Empire was held and the Emperor issued a warrant to the Imperial Authority in Skyrim that they must eradicate all the a.s.sa.s.sins as soon as possible before the arrival of Emperor t.i.tus II to Skyrim as he insisted on attending the funeral of his cousin Vittoria and his loyal vessel Jarl Elisif.
But that wasn"t what plagued the minds of those who were present in the Court of Solitude.
All the Thanes were mourning Jarl Elisif for the third day. The Embalmers have done their jobs and preserved the body of Jarl Elisif in the snow before the day of the funeral which was yesterday.
On the first day, Vittoria Vici and her would-have-been husband were moved to the hall of the dead on their wedding night to be cremated as per Vittoria"s will, and the day after was the young and innocent Jarl Elisif.
The scale of the crisis was simply too ma.s.sive and destructive.
Some thought it was the end of times even, that was the case for Falk Firebeard who sat in the court alone with his fingers tearing through his beard and hair.
In this very hall, he parted with two lords that he faithfully served and both were littered in their blood. High King Torygg by the shout of Ulfric that shattered his body and Jarl Elisif by an a.s.sa.s.sin"s blade.
What would history write of this moment?
Two Jarls killed almost a year apart!
The failure of Solitude"s court to protect the city"s most important people!
The epic failure that will bring downfall to the Western Holds!
That was totally the end of the world to Falk Firebeard, the Steward of the Blue Palace of the magnificent city of Solitude, the Advisor of High King Torygg, and the most loyal Nord in Skyrim.
"You"re going to remain like this?" Across the throne room, a woman concealed in heavy robes asked.
Falk moved his reddened eyes towards the woman to see Sybille Stentor, Court Wizard of the Palace. Usually, people would avoid being alone with that woman who has a terrible feeling of hunger in her eyes but Falk found it ironic how he wouldn"t mind getting his neck torn by that Vampire at all.
He would just give it all up at the moment and go see Torygg so he can apologize to him.
"Yesterday, we laid her body in this hall for the last farewell… the same as we did last year… with the High King." Falk said as he dangled his head down.
"Yes… that"s… tragic." Sybille said as she tried to show sincerity but her cold tone didn"t help.
"What I keep asking myself is… where were you, Lady Sybille?" Falk stood off his seat and pointed fingers towards Sybille.
"I was here, Falk." She replied, taking a defensive tone.
"Doing what?" He asked but then answered, "Your job? Your job to keep Solitude and its Jarl safe?"
"Falk, I hope you"re not letting your grief take the best of you." Sybille spoke reservedly.
"TO OBLIVION WITH MY GRIEF!" Falk shouted as he faced Sybille with his anger, "Your magic was supposed to warn us of an enemy attack."
Sybille seemed offended by Falk"s att.i.tude and replied with the same tone he used.
"My Magic is only about scrying Stormcloak armies. The city"s security is the City Watch business…" Sybille lashed back at him but seemed rather dispirited and her rage died down.
Falk as well looked away before turning back and apologizing in a single word.
For those two, it is just frustrating how everything kept going wrong ever since Torygg"s death. They lorded over Solitude for a long time but now they lost everything in a single second.
They should have prepared themselves for everything. Since the death of Torygg, all the opposition parties that dwelled in Solitude were chased out and the city was purged from any danger that may threaten the Jarl and thus her court.
They were extremely certain that even with the arrival of so many guests, they were all peaceful and willing to make peace.
That only leaves one option.
"We have a traitor in our midst." Falk said.
"I can"t shake that idea off my head, Falk." Sybille replied with a distant feeling, "Who can it be?"
"I am not sure." Falk said, "But whoever benefits from this is the one who did it."
"Bryling?" Sybille asked.
"Impossible!" Falk would have shouted if this conversation was just a regular meeting but his face showed how much he rejected the mere notion of Bryling"s betrayal.
First, Thane Bryling is his lover. Second, she is the most lawful and loyal Nord in all Skyrim.
"Then where is she now?" Sybille asked calmly.
"Doing what she does best." Falk replied, "Taking action."
Sybille nodded.
"You are right…" She said, "I am sorry."
"It"s fine. In times like these when a brother slays his brother, it is natural to suspect anyone… Sigh… by Ysmir…"
The two remained silent for a while but Falk looked around and tried to act in an organized manner.
"We should attend to our business. King Torygg had no heir save for Lady Elisif. Lady Elisif belonged to the Clan of Jarl Torygg but with their death, there is no Clan for us to serve."
"What about Elisif"s mother clan? Clan Fair-Hair." Sybille asked.
"An Outer Clan, a hidden one. They worship the Old G.o.ds and reject the Imperial Cult, they don"t partake in ruling and they have no claim over Solitude… neither do they have the interest." Falk replied.
"They are excellent Shield-Thanes and some of them are even Knighted in High Rock and Cyrodiil. Such a shame!" Sybille shook her head.
Right now, they need a new employer. Someone to lead Solitude and manage things before somebody else takes over.
"I can"t think of anyone." Falk said, "If Thane Erikur was alive, he would have raced for the Throne of Solitude."
"Then n.o.body wants to be Jarl?" Sybille asked in an estranged tone, "n.o.body wants the power or the authority?"
"As I said, the only one I could think of taking such an initiative would have been Erikur. But we all saw what Alina Dare made him into." Falk shrugged his shoulders.
"Erikur would have sold us all to his Thalmor masters." Sybille said, "I know that n.o.body wants to be a puppet for the Empire on Solitude"s Throne but… f.u.c.k it!"
"Exactly." Falk nodded, "f.u.c.k it!"
The situation was bleak as it seemed.
"We"re already out of allies, aren"t we?" Sybille asked.
"There"s Jon Dare." Falk replied.
"He wouldn"t be Jarl, would he?" Sybille asked.
"You want him to?" Falk frowned.
"Thousand Curses! No! I"d lose my job." Sybille replied, "But… we need his opinion… and his authority now more than ever."
"Why?" Falk laughed sarcastically, "So we can fall into more depts for him?"
"You see another option?" She asked.
"Sigh! Where is he?" Falk asked back.
"The Pelagius Wing. He spent the last few days there. To meditate." Sybille said.
"I heard you unsealed the place. Isn"t it too strange that such misfortune strikes when a cursed place is unsealed?" Falk asked suspiciously.
"What are you? An old woman?" Sybille asked in an annoyed manner, "Last I checked, curses don"t send out a.s.sa.s.sins."
"Fine, fine, take us to him." Falk said and made way for Sybille to walk ahead of him.
It was vexing how they had to turn to Jon Dare in the end, the thing they were trying to avoid for three days straight.
Jon Dare is an absolute powerhouse in Skyrim and his authority goes as high as Ulfric Stormcloak and the Empire. Even the Jarls listen to him.
The problem is that the court of Solitude is in huge debt to Jon Dare both literally and figuratively. They take a lot of loans from the Dare Bank of Investment in exchange for trade convenience contracts, tax exemption, and exclusive resources contracts. That aside, Jon was a big player in many political situations that occurred in Solitude for the past few years and while they caused him trouble, he would always show up for help.
Relying on him made it feel like they can"t function without him which in their current situation was absolutely true. They were just reluctant to admit it.
But now they stood in front of the room where Jon stayed in the Pelagius Wing of the Blue Palace. They knocked on it thrice and waited.
Jon didn"t reply but the door was slowly opened. Still, rather than seeing the towering figure of Jon Dare blocking the door, the one who opened was barely taller than the doork.n.o.b. Her head was hairless and her skin and face were covered in feral Nedic tattoos.
She was a little girl that looked a bit old for her short height yet she gave Falk a creepy feeling as he hid behind Sybille. Sybille herself was questioning who that girl was.
"Yes?" The girl asked.
"We came to see Lord Jon." Sybille spoke.
The girl didn"t reply but rather opened the door to reveal the room inside.
The room was on a corner of the building thus two of its walls were windowed. Those two windows were open and gusts of cold wind were storming through the empty room.
The only piece of furniture was a simple wooden chair where the towering figure of Jon Dare sat as he closed his eyes and kept muttering fast unrecognizable words.
Seeing his face, Jon seemed to have grown a beard in mere three days which felt ridiculous how a body of such a man worked. A beard of this length would take three months to grow, not three days.
"Is he doing Magic?" Falk asked.
"Not sure." Sybille replied.
"Sort of." The girl with tattoos replied over and continued, "He"s on his way back."
Both Falk and Sybille reacted with the same look of ignorance as they turned to the girl but in the next second, a beam of golden light and dragon roars flowed through the window and settled in Jon"s body making an aura of shimmering light which faded slowly.
Jon opened his eyes which were all golden as they faded back into their normal frost blue and he looked at the three individuals in his room.
"Boethiah." He spoke.
The name was not just ominous but terrifying to both Sybille and Falk. The name of a dreadful Daedric Lord that feeds on struggle and discord.
"Yes." The little girl ran towards him as if she was the one who was called.
"This is Mister Falk Firebeard, the Steward of this Palace. And that is Magus Sybille Stentor, the Court Wizard. Show respect when you face them, girl." Jon said, educating the girl.
"Greetings." The girl said and like magic, the tattoos on her face and head faded away.
"That…" Falk was on the verge of hiding behind Sybille again.
"Mystic Tattoos. Such a rare talent!" Sybille exclaimed.
"She"s Boethiah, my disciple." Jon said.
"Greetings, child." Falk replied, "But that"s quite the name!"
"People call me Beth. Only Master calls me by my birth name." Beth said.
"Boethiah as a birth name?" Sybille asked.
"She was born with a rare mystic talent which led her parents to offer her to the Cult of Boethiah and gaining such a precious child, she was named Boethiah as the Daedric Prince used her to commune with her mortal servants. I ran into her in Hammerfell and decided to claim her from the hands of the Daedric Prince as my disciple. However, it is unfair to prosecute someone by their birth name so I don"t mind calling her that." Jon said as he patted Beth"s back just like a parent.
Rather than feeling worried, Falk felt touched by the story.
"Such a heroic act is one of the many things the bards will never know to write songs about." Falk said.
"Thank you." Jon smiled.
"That just now…" Sybille mentioned the meditation Jon was doing, "Was it Astral Projection?"
"It was." Jon nodded, "The out-of-body experience helps very greatly during the process of meditation. The world becomes your playground, the universe becomes your backyard, and you can be one with the cosmic powers that shape this prison-like reality."
Falk didn"t understand a word and Sybille made a dejected face. Since she is a vampire, she can never attain the degree of mastery Jon has acquired in this part of the Arcane Arts. He can breathe at the same pace as the universe and break the boundaries between the Arcane and the Mundane.
"Do you meditate for good health or peace of mind?" Falk asked but Beth and Sybille looked at him critically since his question was simply way out of point.
Jon, however, smiled.
"I was praying." Jon replied.
"To… the G.o.ds?" Falk asked again.
"To the Souls of Torygg and Elisif." Jon answered the heaviest answer this room could hear.
"I see."
"I just wanted to… apologize… to King Torygg. I prayed that he would forgive me." Jon said and his face turned dark.
"Oh!" Both Sybille and Falk didn"t expect that answer at all since Jon"s voice carried genuine sadness to it.
"I am sure the late High King would forgive us all. He was a gentle soul." Sybille said.
Jon smiled faintly with a heavy feeling looming around him before nodding.
"Anyway, I think I stayed in Solitude long enough. Unless you need anything from me, I"ll finish my business and leave by tomorrow morning." Jon stood off the chair and offered a handshake to Falk who stuttered right away.
"Lord Jon, please. There… We can"t… We are in dire need of your help." Falk said.
"My help?" Jon frowned, "Alright. Anything you ask, I"ll try to be in service for Solitude to the best of my ability."
The faces of the steward and the court wizard brightened as they heard him and immediately told him what they discussed and shared their thoughts and fears with him. In a way, they seemed to be asking to sail in his boat until the storm pa.s.ses.
"I understand." Jon nodded, "The Court of Solitude is bound to lose most of its Authority if not all of it to the Imperial Authority of General Tullius if things were left unattended."
"General Tullius will indeed close this place down and run the city like a military encampment." Falk said, "We"ve barely kept his hands from taking funds from the city"s treasury but right now it is only a matter of time before he gets his hands on the keys to everything."
"We need to regain the people"s trust in the Court of Solitude as soon as possible." Sybille added.
The two of them looked at Jon waiting for a suggestion.
"What you said about those who benefited first from the death of Jarl Elisif is indeed right. The one who will attempt to make most of the looting will be the real killer so we have to be careful on our next steps." Jon agreed with them.
"Which are?" Falk asked.
"What you need to garner the trust of the people is a Face. That can either be a Figurehead or a true Charismatic Leader. After that, you need a series of achievements and heroics stuck to that leader, not just their good name. If we don"t do that, the party responsible for the death of Jarl Elisif will start pushing their candidate onto Solitude." Jon put a plan.
"And who will be our candidate?" Sybille asked.
"One of two." Jon said, raising two fingers then he turned to Falk Firebeard, "The first is you, Falk."
Falk"s eyes widened.
"I"ll be respectfully denying you and I don"t even know why you would consider me." Falk backed away as if heard some sort of taboo.
"You"re a good man which is a rare quality." Jon said.
"That won"t be enough, Sir. I am not the man for the job." Falk completely backed away.
"Then we have only one candidate. They are a true patriot with a real Nord"s heart, someone all the people of Solitude look up to and wholeheartedly respect…" Jon said.
"No!" Falk refused even before Jon said the name.
"She is the only suitable person we will ever find." Jon said.
"That"s going to be hard. She will refuse for sure." Sybille said.
"It has to be her." Jon said.
"No way!" Falk refused even more than when he refused the position himself, "I won"t put her in this situation! Ever!"
"I am sorry, Falk. But if it is not Thane Bryling, I am afraid there"s no option but to submit to whoever comes next."
The Candidate that fits the vacant Jarl position is only one woman in the entirety of Solitude. Thane Bryling, the most honest and brave individual in this city.
Also the most stubborn and traditional one.
After a long argument that lasted till sunset, Falk Firebeard and Sybille Stentor walked out of Jon"s room with their heads filled with Jon"s words and plans. It was safe to say that he accounted for everything and everyone from planning to positions to accomplishments.
All they needed was Bryling"s consent and everything will just go as it should be. Falk with a heavy heart couldn"t shake off the fact that his lover is going to be placed on the most dangerous seat in Skyrim and becomes the henge that balances the scale which carries the Empire and Skyrim.
It is a terrifying position and since Torygg"s death, there was just a stale peace between the Blue Palace and the Imperial Authority so it was time to sail into those shallow waters seriously this time.
Jon watched the two leave and sat back on his chair watching the sunset over the mountains to the west.
"Tomorrow will be one h.e.l.l of a day." He sighed.
"Master, how was it?" Beth asked as she stood beside him.
"While Meredia is agitated that I left her temple in ruins for all this time, Boethiah is pleased with what happened. The shift of the power scale shall make the Prince of Political Intrigue cry from joy." Jon said.
"I would love to see Boethiah crying from joy indeed." Beth nodded.
"Keep an ear on what is happening in Castle Dour. While they sent me an incredible gift not long ago, I feel bad for them this time… truly."
Jon smiled but he still couldn"t shake off the heavy feeling he had in his heart.
Elisif"s death was necessary for Skyrim. While she was Jarl, she never wanted peace and always encouraged the fight against Ulfric to avenge Torygg.
But that"s only half of the plan, the other half is the most critical part of this plan to retake and remake Skyrim through Solitude.
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