The hall of the dead was a rather humdrum venue, but she had to admit it possessed a certain degree of eerie charm for their meeting. Perhaps it was actually a bit too much, too ominous for a simple meeting between potential associates, but the perfect site for something just slightly more nefarious. Maybe, if she was lucky, they would turn out to be an assassin of some sort.
Narcisse was not a woman to be late by matter of accident, nor did she allow herself to be lured into secret meetings with naught but an uncertain offering from an uncertain identity. Fortunately, she had her means of researching this mystery contact. Nothing was ever truly a secret, after all, not when there were eyes and ears everywhere. One only needed to know who and what to ask.
They had promised information on Guild activity, a tantalizing offer if it was one made in earnest. Skyrim’s foremost crime syndicate had more fingers in it than it had fruit to be plucked, but insight into their operations was doubly valuable if one learned to read into their motivations and the demands of their backers. She did not doubt she could put this informant to good use, even if their business proposition was dubious at best.
As much as one could, she tried to keep her hands clean of the drug business on principle. The skooma trade was beneath her reputation, and ordinarily any pleas to her to aid in moving such cargo would have gone ignored, but this little affair, she had to admit, had caught her interest. A little guild-mouse trying to make something extra by inserting themselves in the jungle of drug trafficking? She had to admire their enterprising nature, if not their smarts.
Speaking of which. Her presumed contact came into view as she wound about the corner, though she kept herself carefully cloaked in invisibility. Sight, sound, and even the scent of perfume were obscured as she approached, drawing her weapon and loading a bolt in total silence.
“Now you’re dead,” the woman assessed in a lighthearted, sing-song tone. Her spell fading, she appeared before the elf with a gray cowl pulled over her visage, her weapon trained on his chest. After a moment, however, the crossbow was lowered. “And I’m woefully unimpressed. Not the most glowing of first-impressions, dear, but I’m sure you’ll sway me with this wonderful proposal of yours. At least, I do hope so, for both our sakes.”
“What the-” he started, taking a step back and backing up into the wall. Had he gotten this all wrong? Maedis hadn’t expected a crossbow in his face from this meeting. For a fleeting moment, he began to think the Guild was a step ahead of him, and his stomach dropped- but then the woman lowered the crossbow.
So, she had just been messing with him. But Maedis couldn’t help the twinge of irritation at her jab.
“So, a glowing first impression is t’ wave around my fucking bow like I’m in the Brotherhood?” He snarled, a slight Nordic accent apparent in his voice. He normally tried to suppress it, but he couldn’t help it when he was angry. Maedis lifted up the hand that held the papers full of the information he promised. “I thought we had a deal that didn’t involve someone getting killed,” he said sharply.
“I had to risk my ass to get this information. The Guild isn’t the nicest to traitors, and I want to keep this quiet. So if you can give me some contacts, you get these papers.” He unrolled one to show her that there was, in fact, writing on them, and that they weren’t bullshit. Some of the papers were barely even worth a glance, but there was for sure some valuable pieces of information in there. All he had to do was to pass them all off as worth her time.
Frankly, a lot of the shit written on there he didn’t even understand. But that had to be good. “These were locked away tight.” It had certainly been a pain in the ass to unlock the strongbox that held the papers. “There’s even some unopened letters here. Sealed with family crests. Probably intercepted. I even stole a few of these myself,” he remarked, noticing this for the first time. He certainly did recognize one or two letters that he’d been tasked with taking from a courier.
“But I need to get rid of them fast. As soon as they notice they’re gone, and I’m gone, I’m sure they’ll put two and two together.” He rolled the paper back up, and put all of them behind his back, lifting his chin up to meet her eyes. There had been a prickling of nervousness in his stomach, and now it was starting to grow. He was usually the ‘muscle’ of the jobs, infiltrating and extracting. He just did what he was told, and didn’t ask questions. Making deals wasn’t what Maedis normally did. Even more than being cheated, Maedis was scared he was making a fool of himself.