Board Thread:Roleplaying/@comment-3293219-20140205203111/@comment-3293219-20140206181221

Kaizen returned to the great hall, Bologra was sleeping in his assigned office and Cicero was snoozing in the murderer's chambers, mumbling something about garrotting. Both, the Black Argonian and Larius, had a great deal of tolerance for his madness... both of them were used to it. Surprisingly, Bologra didn't seem to mind him either and to the argonian's relief and surprise there had been no conflict.

Yet...

Kaizen approached Larius as he was writing something into the books, he appeared to be recording names and balancing them up against targets. Kaizen had asked him to do this earlier as some of the contracts that were left in waiting by the abhorrent assasins, were twenty years old. An entire generation had come and gone and those people were still walking the streets or worse, died of old age. The Black Argonian considered writing those ones off and blaming the failure on his predecessors but he found that he could always have the option of fixing the mistakes of the past open, to anyone who was willing to take them up.

"So far, five of the thirty targets have already died... I'm only at fifteen." Larius muttered, turning the page in an imperial record book that he had procured, earlier that day.

"Loathsome, currish filth..." Kaizen mumbled under his breath, looking away at the dried bloodstains on the floor from where he began his 'pest extermination.' The argonian looked up at Larius, who was still checking, he decided that it would be a good time to ask.

"So... you were a..." He was hoping that Larius would finish for him.

"A Thalmor Justiciar." Larius replied, without looking up. "I worked in the Skyrim embassy and eventually the embassy in the Imperial City."

"Let's... assume that I've been living under a rock for the last two hundred years. What ar- were the Thalmor?"

Larius looked up. The brute, truly, didn't know. He rested his quill on the table and looked up, placing one hand over the other.

"The thalmor were an order, established by the altmeri dominion at the start of the fourth era that held up the laws of the altmeri dominion." Larius explained. "We routed out and destroyed things that were anti-altmeri, like Talos worship for instance."

"Talos worship was anti-altmeri?" Kaizen asked in confusion, he loved hearing this, thinking about how his dear brother would be spinning in his grave.

"Yes, it was outlawed for a number of years, when the empire saw sense enough to call a truce. There was even a civil war about it, in Skyrim..."

Kaizen nodded, realising why there was nord/elf tensions in Windhelm, though that didn't explain the hatred towards argonians.

"So... you were like an upholder of law?" Kaizen questioned, hoping to understand what a Justiciar was.

"Altmeri laws, yes. I wasn't a common guard, if that's what you're thinking. We were agents, specialists, well trained and well routed."

Kaizen glanced down to his bandaged hand, before looking up, Larius' tone hinted quite a lot of nostalgia, suggesting that this must have been some time ago.

"So, how'd you end up in the asylum?" He finally probed, hoping that the altmer wouldn't lash out at him.

"I..." Larius glanced down at the table, the memories haunted him... the screams of the mad echoed throughout his consciousness. "I was called to do a job, escorting some people across the Imperial City. A colleague of mine let the enemy take me, he went native with the degenerates and began to work with them, getting my men killed and me taken prisoner. The mad bastard khajit, who took me, held me in a cell. I believe that it was somewhere west of the Imperial City. He held me there for several weeks... months, I don't even know.

All I know is that he died, not long after I was taken and his men tried to uphold his 'movement' for some time. Squabbling and in fighting ensued and I used that to escape..."

Larius looked more and more hateful as he spoke but it wasn't clear who he hated more, the khajit, the brutish thugs under his command or the other Thalmor who betrayed him. He just glared at the paper and shook his head, Kaizen waited for him to finish.

"The asylum is... taxing, to say the least. It's not so bad, when you're crazy, you don’t see what’s wrong with it but after you recover? It's like hell..." He tried to pick up his quill but he wanted to talk more about it, "I tried to escape, four or five times but... I always got caught. I played the 'deaf and dumb, loony' trick a few times but there's only so many times that dropping your pants and yelling 'pudding!' can save you from a beating. I gave up eventually..."

"And now you're back, into a position of respect with a purpose." Kaizen finished for him, hoping to improve his morale.

"I... I suppose I am. For the first time, in a long time..." He replied with a slight smile, looking up at his new employer. "Thank you... Listener."

"Anytime, my brother."