[center][code]Seven of One Thousand Steps: Losing Track[/code]
[sub]by [@Dervish] and [@Spoopy Scary][/sub][hr][b]26th of Sun's Height, Late Afternoon - Dawnstar
 Wylendriel and Khazki[/b][/center][hr]
“Good afternoon! I hear you’re working for… who?”  a petite, feminine voice called out. Khazki turned to look, not immediately seeing the speaker until her feline eyes angled slightly down to behold a mousy-looking, freckle-faced Bosmer who had an air of earnest, if entirely misplaced, determination about her. Absolutely nothing about her looked dangerous, and from her evident emergence from the Argonian camp Khazki had been watching after Sagax, Bucket, and herself had made the breakthrough at the mine, she was mostly here as a habit to clear her thoughts and ease her consciousness that she left nothing to assumption. Maybe there was something that was missed at the camp, although she sure as hell wasn't going to actually go in the Argonian camp; that's how one risked catching some tropical disease in the permafrost plane of Oblivion known as Skyrim.

"Who's asking? I'm not for sale, unless you have a better ship." The Khajiit replied dryly, staring back with arms crossed. Both women were completely away from where they should be, namely somewhere where the temperatures stayed above freezing year around, but these were interesting times.

"[i]I'm[/i] asking." Wylendriel answered, noting the subtleties of the khajiit's accent. It was like a thin blanket of Nibenese was layered atop of Elsweyrian. Frankly, neither one belonged in Dawnstar. It supported the assumption that this one worked for Ashav like she had, which might've been enough to convince her in other circumstances, but... this was Tzinasha's body and his people she is protecting. It was too personal. She pressed the issue, trying to subvert the sense of an interrogation by masking it as a conversation as she did so many times before with nords that were too ashamed to confess. She said, "I hear the Kyne's Tear was quite reliable."

"No idea. I'm new in town." The Khajiit replied, eyes darting around, looking for something to use as an excuse to get away from whoever decided to be friendly. "Who'd you hear I was working for, one wonders? Enough to wander up here and speaking coyly rather than spit it out.  I'm not one for word games, I'm sure your Argonian buddies just love 'em."

She was starting to get on the priestess' nerves, judging by the irksome expression on the bosmer's face. Wylendriel was silently talking herself down from a ledge, and that was apparent in how she briefly pursed her lips, eyes closed, and took a sharp sigh as she reconducted herself. She continued, now tired of politely playing this little game.

"As a priestess, part of my responsibility is to protect the remains of the deceased, especially if their family is still mourning. These people are vulnerable. They've been hurt enough, so I cannot allow you go any further. If you're here to investigate the pakseech's death, then I can't tell you anything unless I know I can trust you. I need to know if we're working for the same cause. So who?""

"By the Divines, you are dramatic--"

"In case you've forgotten, there are good people being murdered." Wy snapped.

"I don't give a skeever shit about the shit lot the Argonians have, but if you must know, I'm looking for anything that will cut the ties between them and the string of murders that's gotten two of the company's guys tossed in a cell because they happen to be Argonians when the culprit is most likely a Dunmer." Khazki allowed, tapping her foot inpatiently. "Look, Priestess, your god isn't going to stop me from doing what I need to do, and neither are you. If you know something, now's the time to share, if not, you're wasting my time."

Wy's fingers twitched as she let the khajiit spreal her piece. [i]'I could kill her,'[/i] a voice in her said, [i]'I could kill her right now while she's yammering away and not expecting a thing. Border clashes along Valenwood and Elsweyr - it would be totally justified.'[/i]

The priestess' eyes were shut tight as she tried to ward these thoughts away, taking a ragged breath inward and holding it for a moment - slow exhale. She was better than her impulses. She had to be. She wasn't going to concern herself with the cat's judgement - [i]'she'll think I'm weak'[/i] - her judgement didn't matter. Tzinasha. He matters. He's what matters now. As for the cat...

It was after an awkward moment of pause before the bosmer finally replied. "...In interest of putting the investigation first, I'll ignore your... contumely. The company's [i]saxhleel[/i] are in Ashav's service. That means we are in this [i]together."[/i]

[i]'Unfortunately.'[/i]

"You cannot imagine my joy." Khazki murmered under her breath, her ears pulling back and eyes narrowing into slits. Her expression might as well have well been a stone mask. [I]Just when this one thinks her day cannot get any more tedious.[/I]

"So," Wy continued irritably, "I've already followed the lead and we've determined that the evidence does not follow the regular M.O. of the other murders, hinting at the possibility of another killer, or a dunmer agent trying to create confusion."

She pointed at the bushes behind the camp. "Jazechniim heard rustling from over here. I was just on my way to check for prints in the mud. If there are any, maybe they could lead us to where the killer is hiding."

"Uh-huh." Khazki said, half-listening as she set off towards the indicated brush. As she briefly glanced to the side, she saw the priestess keeping pace with her. At least they were going somewhere instead of verbally dancing around the point like some bad spy theater play. The Khajiit felt like the Bosmer was getting in way over her head; what was she planning on doing if she stumbled across the killers, pray them to death? Khazki buried those thoughts and focused on the task at hand; she knew all too well the costs of underestimating the wrong person. Life didn't suffer fools free reign for long. If this Bosmer was working for Ashav, she had to have offered something worth his while. It was an avenue worth looking into another time.

"Several murders taking place in a tight time frame, being unrelated? I find that unlikely." Khazki said after mulling it over for a spell. "Unless there were copy-cat killers, excuse the unintentional pun, but if that were the case, someone would have slipped up badly by now. You don't take advantage of simmering chaos and alerted guard presence to settle scores without it being incredibly impulsive."

 "Impulsive..." Wy mused. "Remember where you're at. If one of these nords wanted to act on their hatred without repercussion, they have a conveniently placed killer to blame it on. Even if it wasn't one of them... I think it would serve [i]the likes of us[/i] well to tread gently." The bosmer shot Khazki a sideways glance at the mention of the likes of them. It seemed that even after their bitter disagreement, she was still trying to find common ground between themselves. She must have figured that one place as good as any would be how the nords here probably hated the both of them.

"Like I said, impulsive. Nords generally aren't the stab you in the dark kind of people. They tend to make their displeasure become very, very public." Khazki noted, gesturing at the camp of Argonians to the side. 

"Generally."

 "So who's 'we'? The Argonians?"

"Yes," Wy answered as she crouched down and began tracing her fingers along the dried, caked dirt, "some of them were once the dunmer's slaves. They provided some useful insight."

Careful inspection of the mud didn't immediately reveal any footprints - it looked like a smeared mess with a dip in a ground, as if a child was previously playing in thick, sloppy mud. There was a deep groove nearby with a similar sort of swiping marks, nothing that looked natural. She has seen this before back when the parents were teaching the next generation how to survive, herself included. The reason bosmers made such excellent scouts was because they learned how to hide and track and survive in the thick wilds of Valenwood at a young age. These marks on the ground were weak attempts at covering your tracks.

[i]'How would[/i] I [i]get away with murder?'[/i] Their boots were sinking into the ground. Before they made their move, they filled those deep prints with mud and smoothed it out... just not well. [i]'I wouldn't have made these mistakes.'[/i] Wy briefly squeezed her eyes and refocused. They weren't used to this sort of landscape. They'd have to make a quick escape. Perhaps they planned an escape route to avoid the mud on their way out. She looked around, looking for patches of grass or rocks. Wy turned around, staring at the ground and lost in thought as she hopped from one light foot to the other, deliberately avoiding the dried mud - she stopped at one stone protruding from the ground where there was an outline of dirt and dried mud roughly in the shape of a boot. No treading on it. It must have come from a flat bottom that was meant to leave fewer and lighter tracks.

"I think I found something." Wy alerted Khazki.

The Khajiit headed over to where Wy was crouched and joined her, folding her tail over her lap as to put it out of the way and not disturb the ground. She studied the impression on the ground, noticing its typical shape. "Looks like whoever it is decided to ditch the stupid and morbid Argonian get up. No claw-like indentations. I also found this when investigating the mine earlier." Khazki said, pulling free the chunk of hard ash to show the Bosmer. "This is an ash shell, something the Ashlander tribes pioneered. Given that I doubt any of the miners know that spell and Morrowind's in bed with the Kamal, I'm pretty sure that's what we're looking for." 

Wy looked at the ash shell, not dismissing the evidence the khajiit provided. Wuska had figured it out, but Wy didn't know what it looked like before now. Now she knows what to look for.

Khazki's eyes followed up ahead, looking for an obvious trail. It was pretty clear that before long, it would disappear when they got to rock, of which the Pale had plenty of. "My guess is whoever it is probably isn't staying in town and only comes in and goes out under the cover of darkness, regardless of when the killings occur. That means they probably have some means to hide in town... perhaps an accomplice among the townsfolk?" 

"--an accomplice--" Wy said at the same time as Khazki, then held her tongue to let her finish. She snorted slightly in amusement, despite the very troubling possibility that there was someone betraying the town. For some reason the thought didn't bother her as much as she thought it should. Wy scratched her chin with her long, pointed nails thoughtfully as she imagined the path the assassin would take. If there was an accomplice, they could have ran into town under the cover of night without going too far in the open, but wouldn't be able to stay for too long. She, and Khazki too apparently, were both new in town and had no way of knowing who in town would be a Kamal apologist. The idea that there was an accomplice at all was still only conjecture.

"They'd need somewhere to go outside of town." Wy muttered, then looking to Khazki. "There's much I still don't know about Skyrim. If someone wanted to lie low outside Dawnstar, where would they hide?"

Khazki snorted, looking up at the horizon. The answer for the Bosmer's question was pretty much 'anywhere and everywhere'. Between caves, barrows, old ruins, and everything in between, anyone halfway crafty and willing to put up with mild discomfort could make camp wherever they wished. Most of Skyrim was empty and untouched wilderness. "Long answer short, anywhere's a hiding spot if you aren't looking for luxury. There can be any number of caves, maybe an old ruin or fort. Hell, set up a tent and cover it with snow or branches against a cliff face and you'll never see it. If someone wanted to, they could be so well hidden that you could walk right by them and not know they were there. 

"Given that they managed to slaughter the entire workforce down in the mine and got out without anyone having a clue until someone decided to take a peak tells me that these aren't careless chumps. Only reason I found the shell was because I think one of them got hurt and sealed a wound. Of course, there was so much blood in there, the entire mine smelt of copper." Khazki lamented, a bit of a solemn tone to her voice. "What I wanted to know from the Argonians is if they noticed someone who looked off, or none of them recognized. I know these bastards were using a disguise because when I took this assignment, I got to look at the taxidermied tail."

"I'm sorry I-- I'm sorry, what?" Wy stammered, confused. She was just about to apologize for getting in the way of her own investigation, but then... well, Khazki said something rather left-field. "A taxidermied tail?"

Khazki nodded, evidently undisturbed by the finding. "Mmhmm. Ashav provided the evidence after one of the guards make pursuit of one of the Argonians, tried to tackle him, and a tail came off. It's legitimate leather, or at least the most convincing approximation I've ever seen. I'll just go ahead and say it; somebody killed an Argonian and taxidermied the body into a disguise. Coming from someone who's been threatened to be converted into a rug or coat liner on several occasions, I can't say it's all that shocking. People can be rather monstrous when the mood strikes and they don't think the law and civilization apply."

Her last point struck a small chord in Wy and she went silent for a moment. She then said, "Yeah, I know."

"Dunmer. I don't think I've met very many of them - met Niernen though, she was sweet." She thought aloud as she looked back at the tracks, shaking her head. Though that was a lesson that Wy kept on learning, wasn't it? It didn't matter who they were or what they looked like, there was a capacity for wickedness in everyone - the faces of the mercenaries came to mind, and so did the presence of that cold pit that sat in her stomach along with Torvald's lifeless face. She suddenly felt overcome with melancholy. She looked back at Khazki somberly. "Evil comes in many shapes. You may be right in not trusting anyone."

"It's part of my charm; I assume everyone's awful until proven otherwise. You can't be disappointed when they turn on you if you don't give them the benefit of the doubt." Khazki said, rolling her neck in a series of quiet cracks. "Well, I'm not going to go stomping around the wilderness aimlessly, and it sounds like if the Argonians knew something, you would have heard it, so that just leaves keeping an eye on the town where there's something to eat and drink. After the day I had, I need one."

"A drink, huh..." Wy muttered thoughtfully. She doubted that Dawnstar supplied any rotmeth or jagga. The other races usually dare not even try it. Though the more she thought, the more she realized that going to the tavern might actually be their best lead at this point. "Loose lips sink ships. I wonder if we might find or hear of someone who doesn't seem bothered by the murders."

It was happening again; her abrasiveness was becoming something of a trial that ended up with people growing a comfortable familiarity with Khazki, and she really wasn't sure what to make of it. It wasn't entirely unwelcome, although she still didn't really know or trust any of them, be it Solveig, Sevine, or even the damnable Do'Karth, but here was a tightass priestess who wore her bleeding heart on her sleeve trying to help a refugee camp of Argonians and hunt down murderers latching onto arguably the least approachable person in town. [I]This one is losing her edge. Next someone is going to try scratching behind this one's ears.[/I]

"I doubt it, but it's better than standing around at here wondering." The Khajiit said, switching her sword between hands and working out the stiff muscles in the now free arm. The guards had seen her enough that they probably didn't care to confront her again. "So, what brings you to this polar piss pot?" Khazki asked. "I assume it's not the climate. Refugee?"

"I was - [i]am[/i] - on pilgrimage. I ended up working for Ashav because it turns out that pilgrimages were more expensive than I thought." Wy answered half-truthfully as she walked. How she ended up in Skyrim was far too long a story to tell, and she doubted that she wanted to hear even half of it. She looked up at the much taller khajiit and said, "My name is Wylendriel. I serve Kynareth as well as Y'ffre."

"Pilgrim, huh? If you ask me, you took a wrong turn somewhere." Khazki replied, glancing over. "You kind of bumbled into a war; you don't exactly strike me as the mercenary type. I assume you're some kind of mage, given the lack of stabbing options visible on your person. I'm Khazki. Nothing to know about me other than I want off this rock before the Kamal catch up."

"Khazki." Wy repeated. "Maybe, but this whole time I thought all I had to do was pray to each of the divines at their shrines. The shrine of Dibella south of Dawnstar was the reason I'm here, but now I'm wondering Talos led me here for a different reason. I don't know if helping the people here is what it takes to earn Talos' blessing, or if the Divines don't really care if I visit their shrines at all. Perhaps my place is with helping others."

The priestess sighed. "I apologize, this must be of little interest to you."

[i]Well, you're not wrong...[/i] Khazki thought, holding her tongue as to not inflame the already terse working relationship they established. Normally she'd be quite content to be blunt since she'd never have to deal with a person again, but if she was going to work for Ashav for the forseeable future, she couldn't jeopordize her spot on the ship. Even the Khajiit understood the use of  compromise when it called for it.

They crossed into the town past the gates after a few moments of silence before Khazki spoke up. "So you say you servce Kynareth and Y'ffre, but Talos is the one that guided you here? Don't you elves hate Talos on principle for being a heretic false divine that was forced upon you by the Septim Empire after Tiber Septim slaughtered a bunch of the elves and conquered your lands?" 

Wy made an amused huff. She gave Khazki a sly look and said, "If I judged sons and daughters for their father's sins, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Besides... the [i]Thalmor[/i] already made it even, didn't they?"

The way the priestess disdainfully spat out the word 'Thalmor' didn't indicate any particular love for the group, instead inciting some of her ire. After a moment of stewing, she continued, "When on pilgrimage up north, you visit the shrines of each of the Divines. I live in Skyrim now, yes? I thought that maybe I owed it to the nords [i]as[/i] an elf to at least get to know Talos. It'd bring us one step closer to mending the wounds inflicted by the civil war."

That was half of the truth. She was on a time limit, so it wasn't like she could afford to let elven pride get in the way of saving her own damned soul.

"Either way, I prayed to Talos at one of his shrines and he led me here. It'd be ungrateful of me now to deny his divinity."

"Well, if that's what it takes. I've never really trusted the whims of gods and Daedra, how can people matter when we're there and gone in the blink of an eye?" Khazki asked rhetorically, shrugging. "It won't be divine intervention that will find these killers, it'll be a lifetime of hard-earned skills and steel, and that's gotten me this far. Come on; let's see if the inn's been drained of anything that doesn't taste like fermented piss."

[i]'Ironically enough, fermented piss might be the only thing there I'd be mandated to drink.'[/i] Wy thought.