The Rune Assassin

[AelfricRaven]

The Rune Assassin / Written by AelfricRaven

 

 

Hunting Assassins, by Shianni Papadopoulos

 

 

“There have been some rumours that, somewhere in Vvardenfell, a new group of elite assassins is being trained to take low and high profile assassinations on very powerful key targets. Now, the most common citizen would probably ignore that piece of information, as it has no use to him, me, however, being a scholar, I want to know the truth, no matter how ugly. With that in mind, I decided to travel from my home in Cyrodiil to Vivec City, where, according to the rumours I heard, is where those assassins currently reside. It took several days of questioning the villagers around the outskirts of the city, as well and the residents of Vivec City, but it was apparent that luck wasn’t on my side. Until one evening.

I was leaving one of the inns and before heading to my temporary home, I decided to take a short walk towards the Palace Canton and then return to get a good night’s rest, when I heard a loud scream, followed by a gargling noise, as if someone was being choked by it’s own blood. Sure enough, after quickly running towards the noise, in the expectation of being someone being attacked by some creature, I saw one of the elusive Rune Assassins, as a sight of those is indeed unique, and apparently I managed to catch him right at the end of the act, as he was leaving. I didn’t take a good look at him, since it was night - it’s at these days I had the ability to see in the dark like my father did – but he was dressed by what it seemed with some exotic garment, and as quickly I saw him, I swiftly lost track of my target. It seemed that I had the one opportunity to know about these people, and I lost it. In retrospect, I probably did the best thing, not to interfere, because the next day I saw the corpse being carried away, and it wasn’t in a good shape; it had a few deep wounds, apparently enough to kill him by blood loss. The interesting thing about this, was when I saw him do the killing, he wasn’t doing anything, as if he was enjoying watching the poor man suffer. What happened later, though, was probably the scariest thing to happen in my entire life.

Arriving at my friend’s house, I was packing my belongings so I could return to Cyrodiil, as I thought I had lost my opportunity, and by what I saw, I quickly lost interest in the subject. My friend had to go buy some supplies, and so I was alone in this medium-sized house, sitting at a desk writing some notes and compiling them to the rest, when I felt a presence behind me. At first I shrugged it, as I thought it was because of the events that happened earlier. However, I quickly realized that there was indeed someone behind me:

 

- “What did you see?” said the stranger behind me, with a calm, yet ruthless voice.

- “W-What do you-“

- “Yesterday at 11 pm. What did you see?”

 

I quickly realized that, inside my own friend’s house, right behind me, was the killer from yesterday, and none other than the Rune Assassin from yesterday:

 

- “P-Please, spare me! I did nothing wrong! I swear I won’t-“

- “Shh. The next time you talk louder than me, you’re a dead woman. Understood?”

 

At this point I was trying to control myself from crying out loud and doing as much noise as possible, as well as my shakes:

 

- “Alright. I’ll t-try.”

- “Don’t try, do it. I’ll ask again; what did you see?”

 

I took a deep breath before answering:

 

- “All I saw was a strange figure – I assume it was you – standing near a man that was bleeding to death.”

- “Did you see me do anything?”

- “N-No.”

- “Good.”

 

As I felt the strange figure walking away, I hastily asked him a question, and after it I remember I was praying so hard because I didn’t have the slightest clue if he was going to kill me after I spoke:

 

- “Are you really a Rune Assassin?”

- “Why do you ask?”

- “I travelled from Cyrodiil to know about the rumour that a new type of assassins were being trained here – which I guess isn’t a rumour now.”

- “Hm, you seem to be a smart and honest man, so I’ll tell you this much: we exist. Do whatever you want with that info, however, do yourself a favour and don’t search too hard, you might die.”

 

And with that, the Rune Assassin simply left, from where I do not know, but silence quickly installed in the house again. After composing myself and washing my face with some ice cold water, I had this deja-vu feeling, and I found out why: the clothing the assassin wore, it was no common garment, as it was exotic, to the point where it seemed to be made out of leather, metal and some type of fabric, probably silk. I can’t remember the details, but the subject was definitely female, as no man would even be caught dead with that, and was carrying what seemed to be a claymore and a bow, along with a dagger strapped to one of her boots. I wonder why she was carrying a claymore of all things, as those weapons aren’t really subtle in any way, and plus, I don’t think she could actually carry that properly, let alone swing and kill someone with that, but looks can be deceiving.

After I finally arrived back to Cyrodiil and to my house, I finished my compilation of information regarding the Rune Assassins, and I’m going to prove to these people that they actually exist, and apparently only in Vvardenfell, or at least let’s hope so.”

 

- Wizard Shianni Papadopoulos, scholar and chaser of rumours.

 

 

This is the short story written by Shianni Papadopoulos, a well known Wizard and self-designated “chaser of rumours” from Cyrodiil, and was published and distributed two weeks after her arrival from Vvardenfell. However, she died mysteriously, apparently she died of bleeding, much like the corpse she described in her story when residing in Vivec City.

 

Here's a short story I wrote a while back, which was based on an idea I had for a character for Oblivion. There probably are some errors here and there, but then again, no one's perfect, even though I tried to correct all I could find :P

Hope you enjoy. :)

 

P.S. I *really* hope I got a good consistency when it comes to locations and the like.