"Maybe you're right...or maybe I was, but it doesn't matter now. What's done is done." Ahnasha answered. "I'm safe; we both are. You know about all this now, so we just have to hope no one else ends up finding out. Like you said, we'll always be together. Let's just hope we get to keep the lives we [i]already[/i] have. You have to admit, for all their faults, the lives we have [i]are[/i] pretty good ones, all things considered." 

Ahnasha was distracted enough that she almost did not notice Hal-Neesa step up alongside them. She avoided appearing too startled, though Neesa showed no qualms about interrupting anything they might have been talking about. "Your craftsmanship has some flaws, but I'll judge it acceptable to fulfill our deal, once you're done with that one inside. Your training will continue tomorrow. Now, I have other things to do, so I expect you can find your own way back." 

While Ahnasha could certainly head back to the city with Sabine, Neesa clearly did not [i]actually[/i] care about the response, as she immediately cast her spell to teleport away. It was as if her body disintegrated away in seconds, leaving no opportunity for anyone to hold her up.

"Well...at least that part of the deal went as well as it could have." Ahnasha shrugged. 

[hr]

A string of graverobbings was not exactly an easy matter to sweep under the rug, especially for the affected parties, but there was simply no way to disprove the story Fendros told. In calmer times, the clan might have paid closer attention to it, but with the invasion preparations rapidly nearing completion, there was always something else for them to worry about. Aside from a long, private conversation with Meesei that left Ahnasha surprisingly shaken, she did seem to get away with her crime. 

The better part of two months had passed, but as much as the clan may have been dreading it, there was no denying how close at hand the invasion really was. The cavern had never been as crowded as it was now, with all of the invasions assets from each faction finally in place and ready. Once their portals were ready, there would be nothing stopping them from launching the attack, and today was the day that their first portal would be assembled and ready. 

The portal was being built in sight of the Silent City, albeit still far away. It was located in as open of an area as they could find, close enough to one of the Dwemer roads to make it easier to transport supplies to it. Originally, they had designed the portal to emulate an Oblivion gate, but the issues they ran into when trying to craft the enchantments for the portal did force some design alterations. Their portal was not constructed from one or two large, enchanted stones like the Daedra’s gates. Their portal, or at least the one that would be connecting them to the Hunting Grounds, was about the same size as an Oblivion gate, but was made from multiple, man-sized stone blocks that would levitate into the shape of an archway, bound together by their enchantments. Their second portal, which would breach into Vile’s realm, was [i]much[/i] larger, though all of its pieces were already complete and would not take but a few days to assemble within Hircine’s realm. The difficult part about creating the portals had been the research, along with the trial and error in refining the enchantments. The actual assembly was trivial by comparison. 

At the moment, the pieces of the first portal were being moved into position for the activation of their binding enchantments. Doing so would not activate the portal right away, but would allow the portal’s stones to levitate in place on their own. Currently, all of the stones, apart from one, were being held in their positions by the scaffolding they had built up around it. The final stone was the one that would connect in the middle of the two sides of the archway, and was laying on the ground underneath it, ready to be lifted up into position. 

There were a dozen mages and scholars from the clan currently at the portal site, though many more than that had been working on the project at various points for the last few months. Currently, Meesei had placed Sabine in charge of the team, or at least all of those from the clan. The Empire and Dominion did, of course, have their own mages on-site, which did little for their productivity. Before activating the binding, the Imperial mage had insisted on double-checking [i]all[/i] of the enchantments in the stones already in place, which meant that the Dominion mage had to check the [i]Imperial’s[/i] checks. It was a process that repeated itself for half an hour, during which time neither of them discovered anything wrong. 

Ahnasha only barely managed to avoid pulling her own fur out listening to the Imperial and Thalmor argue about which of their identical results were more correct, but they were finally ready to complete the construction. Ahnasha was at the top of the scaffolding, and would be the one to activate the binding enchantments. The enchantments themselves were complete and could be activated by any mage of moderate ability, but the liminal connections between the separate stones needed to be perfectly aligned to allow the flow of energy in the right patterns for the portal to be stable, which was a task perfectly suited for a conjurer. 

Ahnasha looked down over the edge of the scaffolding, down at Sabine. “Okay, I’m ready, and if there are no arguments…” Ahnasha began, giving a quick, irritated glance over at the Imperial and Thalmor mages. “…you can levitate the stone into position now.” 

The stones were heavy, but Sabine’s magic would be powerful enough to lift them with little risk. Meesei, who had also been working closely on the project, originally was going to be present for the activation of the bindings, but had changed her plans just a day before. Currently, Meesei was away from the clan entirely, though she had not been entirely clear when she told Sabine what she would be doing. All she had said was that she had something of great importance to her that she needed to do before the start of the invasion.

[hr]

Meesei breathed in deeply, opening her eyes slowly to give them time to adjust to the almost overwhelmingly bright sun directly above her. It was a near perfectly clear day, with hardly a hint of a cloud in the sky, allowing the sun to bathe everything beneath it in its heat. It was hot enough to make even an Argonian uncomfortable…when actively moving around and working. Meesei, however, was laying back naked on a nice, smooth rock in clear view of the sky like a basking lizard. Indeed, that was precisely what she was doing. It could be difficult in Black Marsh to find a suitable stone not covered by the swamp’s canopy, but to lay back on a well-heated rock felt simply divine to most Argonians. 

Of course, Meesei was not in Skyrim, or anywhere remotely close to it. She was on a fairly tiny tropical island far off of the southern coast of Elsweyr. It was a place from Lunise’s memory: a minor smuggler’s outpost she had been to during her time serving the Thalmor in Elsweyr, and one that had, by this point, been abandoned for many decades. It was one of many such forgettable islands south of Tamriel, and to Meesei, the perfect place for a nice, private retreat for just the two of them. 

Meesei listened to the sea birds and the waves gently caressing the beach for a few minutes, then finally stretched out her arms above her head and turned onto her side to look at Lunise, simply smiling.