[center][h3]A Dance of Deception[/h3][/center]
[i]Evening, 2nd of Midyear, 4E208
The Three Crowns Hotel, Gilane, Hammerfell

Featuring the magnificent [@Mortarion][/i]

Swilling the contents of his glass slowly, Gregor stared out over the sprawling city below. He lay reclined on one of the comfortable sofas that stood outside on the balcony of the room he shared with Jaraleet, Calen and Alim and had just finished dinner. The scene was reminiscent of his confrontation with Alim a few days before; even the food was the same. Local seafood, freshly caught in the sea. Gregor was acquiring a real taste for it. He knew he was a wanted man now and had kept his head down so far, but he was itching to do something. The successful murder of Nblec and subsequent sacrifice of his soul to the Ideal Master that acted as his patron deity made Gregor feel empowered and excited. He was much closer to his goal now, with still more than a decade ahead of him to finish his task. His father, Hector, had succumbed to the family curse when he was fifty-six. Gregor was thirty-eight. The quest that had seemed impossible when he embarked on it ten years ago had actually become feasible now.

Of course, that had come at a cost. Gregor’s personal success came at the expense of the resistance, and him and his allies in particular. Gregor had thrown Jaraleet under the wagon and blamed the Argonian’s torture methods for Nblec’s death (he had claimed to anyone that asked that his best guess had been stress-induced heart failure) and not spoken to him since. It was a cold, cruel thing to do, but necessary. Gregor thought back to the penultimate moments inside the safe house, before Nblec’s death. Jaraleet had been cold and cruel too. Perhaps the Argonian was pragmatic and calculating enough to understand why Gregor did what he did, if he ever learned the truth. 

[i]Yeah, right,[/i] Gregor thought to himself and took another sip. 

As if summoned by Gregor’s very thoughts, it was at that moment that Jaraleet had decided to return to the room that they shared with the Argonian quickly spotting the Imperial man. “Ah, Gregor, just the man that I wanted to see!” The Haj-Eix exclaimed out loud as he began making his way towards the balcony where the man sat. “I hope that you don’t mind if I join you? It has been too long since we last chatted, hasn’t it?” He said once he finally reached where Gregor was, regarding the Imperial with a friendly smile that, he hoped, would put him at ease.

There were many things that Jaraleet wished to discuss with Gregor, and it would do him no good to get the Imperial man nervous or hostile towards him. Especially when he had directly blamed him for Nblec’s death. 

Gregor watched Jaraleet’s movements and facial expression intently, but quickly realized he had no idea how to read an Argonian’s body language. “It has,” he said affably and motioned for Jaraleet to sit with him. “I’m sorry we haven’t spoken sooner. It’s been quite an… enervating time, however. You understand.” He paused for a second and inhaled sharply before continuing. “Listen. I know what you want to talk about. Let me start by saying that I only blamed Nblec’s death on your interrogation because I can’t think of any other reason for him to have suddenly died like he did. I told Latro the same thing yesterday; it’s like his heart just betrayed him. Stress can do that to a man, and presumably to an elf as well.” Gregor felt a pang of shame for a moment at his bald-faced lies. Just a moment, though. 

“Yes, yes, it has been quite an enervating time like you said.” Jaraleet replied as he took a seat in front of Gregor. He listened in silence as Gregor talked about the reason why he had blamed him for Nblec’s death and the shame that the man felt was palpable. “It happened, there’s no use in dwelling on that fact.” He replied, shaking his head slightly. He knew too well his craft to have done such an amateurish mistake as putting enough stress on Nblec’s body so as to cause him a heart attack, but Gregor didn’t knew that. “Maybe if you feel too bad you wouldn’t mind sharing that bottle of wine you have there my friend?” The Argonian joked, chuckling softly. 

Gregor felt relief at Jaraleet’s apparent willingness to let bygones be bygones, and flashed the Argonian a sincere smile. “Not at all,” he said and handed him the bottle. “Help yourself. Gods know you’ve earned a drink. So,” he continued and cleared his throat. “How… did the others react? Have you talked to anyone?” 

“Ah, thank you my friend.” The Argonian replied, taking the bottle and taking a swig from its contents. “Hmmmm, well, Sora wasn’t too happy….said something about me being a malignant tumor or something along those lines.” He replied, pausing for a slight second. “Meg was….confused, and hurt. But I don’t think she holds any ill-will towards me.” He replied, his stomach briefly knotting with guilt as he remembered the conversation that he had had with the Nord woman earlier on the day. “Aside from that, I haven’t talked with anyone else. But it wouldn’t surprise me if they hold a similar mindset to Sora, well except for Raelynn and Latro since they were there.” He said, taking another swig from the bottle before offering it to Gregor. 

Gracefully refusing the bottle and raising his glass to show that he was still well-equipped to keep drinking, Gregor sighed as Jaraleet recounted Daro’Vasora’s words. “Do you remember how Daro’Vasora fell out against Rhea when we first arrived in Anvil? I think she often speaks in anger and says things that she does not mean. She’s upset, she’s stressed… I would be too, in her shoes. To assume leadership over this group of people is an enormous responsibility. I’m sure it was unpleasant, to say the least, to hear her call you a ‘malignant tumor’, but try not to let it get to you too much,” he said and took a sip of wine, his dark eyes observing Jaraleet over the edge of his glass. 

“You were more than just a soldier, weren’t you?” Gregor asked suddenly, tilting his head slightly. 

“I do not mind, and I do not let it get to me. What I did was a necessary evil, and someone has to stain their hands with blood.” He replied when Gregor told him to try to not get Daro’Vasora’s words to get to him. “But I appreciate the sentiment nonetheless, thank you my friend.” He added, smiling at the Imperial. He drummed his fingers against the table when Gregor half-stated and half-asked that he was more than a regular soldier. The silence stretched for a few more moments before Jaraleet decided to speak again. “Yes, I was more than a mere soldier. I started as one, but by the end of my….tenure amongst the armies of the An-Xileel I was more than that.” He lied easily, taking another swig from the bottle of wine. “I could say the same to you my friend. Not many people, including professional soldiers, can stand to see an interrogation in progress without flinching.” 

That made Gregor laugh. “No, you’re right. My younger self would have been dismayed at my composure today. I used to be a soft-hearted romantic, but… life has jaded me, much like your wars have done to you. I spent a long time in Skyrim with a group of Vigilants of Stendarr. We dismantled several covens of witches, put necromancers to the sword and eradicated vampire nests. I’ve seen things during that time… well,” he said and rubbed his eyes, “I still think war is probably the worst thing in the world, and I don’t mean to imply that the things I’ve done are comparable to what I imagine you have had to do, but there are plenty of horrors in the dark corners of the world that are a worse sight than an interrogation. Let me put it like that.” 

It was easy to lie like this -- everything Gregor had said was true, and it was simply a matter of omitting the parts he did not want Jaraleet to know. “I tried to save Nblec, you know,” Gregor added, looking sidelong at his friend. “But I don’t have Raelynn’s skills. And we both know what she had her hands full with.”

“Ah, yes, poor Calen. It is a shame that he was wounded like he was, and for nothing as he turned out with Nblec’s death. Still, I thank you for trying to save Nblec’s life.” The Argonian replied, smiling at Gregor before he took yet another swig for the bottle. It was an odd comment to drop all of a sudden, and it raised Jaraleet’s suspicions. “Still, I can’t help but feel a bit frustrated. I was so sure that I had been careful enough to ensure that Nblec would survive…” The Argonian said, rapping his knuckles against the wood of the table. “But I guess that’s what happens when you deal with a race that hasn’t been on Nirn for the last hundred centuries. The unexpected happens, doesn’t it?” 

There it was. Jaraleet didn’t buy Gregor’s story after all. He wasn’t surprised -- if anyone would know that he was lying, it would be the expert interrogator himself. Gregor smiled and looked away, thinking of what to say next. It unsettled him that he had no idea what Jaraleet was thinking by simply looking at him. As far as he could tell, his reptilian ally experienced a permanent sense of indifference. “Maybe that’s why the Dwemer made those automatons of theirs,” he offered, smiling sheepishly -- he knew that what he was saying was nonsense, but he thought it was best to play dumb now. “Their bodies aren’t made to endure the stress of combat or confrontation like that. Who knows?” 

“Perhaps, mer bodies are very sensitive. Did you know that?” The Argonian replied without missing a beat, still smiling at Gregor but the suspicions in his mind were mounting up. “Much like Argonian bodies in fact. But I’ve seen mer survive techniques that can only be applied in Argonia, and ones that are much more violent than merely pulling out nails. So I doubt that a Dwemer would die to something so simple.” He continued on, taking another swig from his bottle as he waited for what Gregor would say next. 

Gregor opened his mouth to say something but closed it again. He did not want to think of the type of torture methods that Black Marsh produced. Based on what he knew of the place, it was something absolutely abhorrent. “Well, I didn’t kill him,” Gregor said at length. “What else can it have been?” He took another sip of a wine, a bigger one this time, and hoped that Jaraleet would drop the subject. 

The last time Gregor had tried a stunt like this, he had killed all of the witnesses. [i]I really have to be more careful,[/i] he thought to himself. 

“I never said you did my friend, I was merely airing out my frustrations.” The Argonian replied with a mirthless smile, something that Gregor probably wouldn’t be able to tell. “As for what it could have been, I can think of a number of reasons. Some unknown Dwemer technology or magic, there’s so much we don’t know about them after all, or it could have very well been an act of internal sabotage. But I prefer not to consider the latter option.” He said, taking another swig from the bottle of wine, his suspicions about Gregor all but confirmed now. 

“Me neither,” Gregor was quick to add. “But… if you [i]were[/i] to consider the possibility,” he continued, looking down into his glass, “who would you suspect?”

“Hmmm, in such a theoretical scenario I’d naturally consider the culprit to be the last person who was with the person being interrogated. But that couldn’t have been you, right my friend?” The Argonian said, taking a long swig from the bottle to hide the smirk on his face as he waited for Gregor’s reaction. 

Oh, to hell with this. 

“A necessary evil,” Gregor said, repeating Jaraleet. His voice had changed; it was deeper, more deliberate, and there was a touch of iron to the eyes that bore into Jaraleet’s from above the rim of his glass. “You used those words earlier. Perhaps what happened to Nblec was just that. A necessary evil.”

“Is that so?” The Argonian asked, his amber eyes staring back at Gregor’s without a hint of fear in them. “I find it curious that you'd say something like that...do you know something that the rest of us don't Gregor? It's hard to describe something like a heart attack as a ‘necessary evil’, that is unless one of your Divines decided to strike Nblec down right then and there. But, if that's the case, well, one would hardly could justify describing that as an evil, no?” 

Jaraleet’s unblinking gaze -- [i]that[/i] Gregor could read. “You know what happened,” he said softly and set the glass of wine aside. “I can see it in your eyes. And it doesn’t scare you. You're fearless," Gregor continued as he leaned forwards. "Cold, calculating, ruthless. That's your strength. But you don't know fear.” He paused and his dark eyes were like a black pool, its depth immeasurable. “I'm very, very afraid. That makes me more dangerous than you could ever be. I have my reasons, Jaraleet. Nblec’s death [i]was[/i] a necessary evil. For your sake… don't get in my way.”

Jaraleet remained silent for a few seconds before he started laughing, albeit there was no mirth whatsoever to the sound. When the Argonian finally stopped, he regarded Gregor with the same cold eyes that he had regarded Nblec Mrazac with as he had interrogated the Dwemer. “Yes, a man who is afraid is very dangerous indeed.” The assassin began speaking icily, staring directly at Gregor’s eyes. “But a man who is afraid is also reckless, prone to stupid decisions.” He hissed, motioning towards the streets of Gilane with one free hand. “Look at what's happening out there, the Dwemer will hunt us in full force and your little act has turned us into a liability in the eyes of the Poncy Man.” Jaraleet said, pausing for a second before continuing. “I don't know why you murdered Nblec, but I doubt you'll be able to reap whatever rewards you might obtain from such an act if our gracious host suddenly poisons you, and the rest of us as well, because we've become too great a risk.” He finished, shaking his head slightly.

“Oh, and Gregor? Before threatening me, consider the following.” Jaraleet added, pausing for a brief second to let the Imperial process what he had said previously. “What do you think could cause a man to lose the ability to fear? I've seen and done things that would even make you aghast, and I've survived more than you might think. For your sake, hope that we don't find ourselves on opposing sides.” 

“I know all of that,” Gregor bit back, visibly aggravated. “But you have [i]no[/i] idea who I am, or what’s on my heels. I had to do it. You wouldn’t understand.” He fell silent again, staring at Jaraleet with a grim expression, wondering about how much danger he was in. “All I ask is that you don’t tell the rest of the group about this. In turn, I promise that I will be less… reckless, in the future, and I will never betray your trust again.” 

A thought came to him and he smiled. “You’re like me, though, aren’t you? This war we’re in… we both have ulterior motives. A man like you, with skills like that, never truly leaves [i]his[/i] war. Argonia versus the world. I refuse to believe that you truly care about this land or what happens to it. You’re too cold, too far gone for that. I believe you when you say that you have gone through terrible things… for your country, right? You remind me of my father, in that way. He never truly believed the Great War was over. I could see it in his eyes.” 

Gregor leaned forward and continued in a low voice. “We don’t have to be at odds, you and I. If we are both honest with each other about who we are and what we want… I think we can help one another. Don’t you think?” 

“Yes, that is a very real possibility.” The Argonian replied at Gregor’s suggestion that they might be able to help each other. “You are correct in saying that I have no idea of who you are, or in what situation you are, and in at, much like you, I have ulterior motives as well.” He said, pausing for a second to ponder what to say next. “I would have no problems helping you achieve your goals truth be told, as long as we avoid a situation like the one we are at present. Does that seems like a good compromise to you?” 

“And, yes, I am very much like you Gregor. My war, as you put it, won't be over until the day I die, and I can't, won't, leave it, for the sake of my country and my people.” Jaraleet added, taking the bottle of wine again and taking a swig of its contents as he waited for Gregor to reply. 

“I understand that,” Gregor said and nodded slowly. “I know it doesn’t make sense right now, but I did what I did for my family’s sake as much as my own. Yes, that is an acceptable compromise. Honestly, with the aid of someone like you, I won’t have to sabotage the group like that again. Believe me, I took no pleasure in creating a situation in which Calen could possibly have died for nothing. I haven’t even been able to muster the courage to visit him,” he added and sighed. He was so [i]weary.[/i] The weight of his mission and his suppressed conscience was sometimes almost too much to bear. He wished he could be like Jaraleet; calm, detached, rational. But he couldn’t. His emotions drove him forward. They were at the core of his very being. 

Convinced that the imminent danger of being outed as a murderer had passed, Gregor took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “You gave me quite a fright there, Jaraleet,” the Imperial admitted and grinned sheepishly. “If we hadn’t been able to come to an understanding just now, I don’t know what would have happened.”

“Probably something that would have put either of us in quite a complicated situation. Luckily we managed to achieve a satisfying compromise.” The Argonian replied with a chuckle, drinking from the bottle once again. A thought suddenly occurred to him and he raised the bottle in Gregor’s direction, smirking slightly. “To a successful partnership, my friend.” Jaraleet said, taking another drink from the bottle.