The days draw to the end of Sun's Height and the midday sun beats down across the breadth of the Alik'r. Travellers shelter where able and in the cities across Hammerfell, work draws to a halt as the workers rush indoors to escape the summer heat. Even the great city of Sentinel, cooled by the winds of the Iliac Bay, seemingly sits idle beneath the searing rays.

Yet one business thrives across the city: tea and coffee-houses both, drinks unique to this desert, do their greatest business in this break. Here, over drinks as hot as the sands outside, deals are struck and jobs arranged as readily as in Skyrim's drinking halls or the corner clubs of Morrowind. In this season, both are plentiful with preparations for the harvest in the fields between city and bay continue, protection for caravans and ships to the Empire, and arrangements for the Koomu Alezer'i festival. 

Even the city's shadowy underbelly pauses to rest, the illicit trade in Moon Sugar and skooma halting; the vast diaspora of Khajiit to be found here know as well as the native Redguards not to strain oneself under the desert sun. Yet the whispers here take on a more concerned tone--the guards are stepping up efforts to quash the illegal trade, the Dominion makes exports from Elsweyr increasingly difficult from an embargo on the Imperials, and the beggars are the first to fear rumours of an undead menace stirring in the mausoleums in the desert.

As the break comes to an end, the same tensions become more evident across the city. Longshoremen and merchants alike worry about the tariffs and embargoes a resurgent Empire once again begins to enforce. The Fighters Guild looks in eagerness and anxiety alike as the cracks papered over in the past decade, holes still not filled after so many went south to drive back the elves, begin to show with a rise in banditry and beasts. The limited presence of the Mages Guild worries that the tensions will spill into a persecution of the arcane, in a country even more virulently opposed to magic than Skyrim.

Yet for the Empire and wandering adventurers, this is all a glorious opportunity. A stable country would offer no chances--and no jobs. For those with the desire to find them, all sorts of work is there for the taking...