Dereno sat, legs folded in, his hands between his legs, forming a triangle with his calloused, wizened fingers. He eyes were closed, and his breathing so slight as to be almost unnoticeable. It was an unnervingly corpse-like position, the wizened dunmer looking like the mummified corpses of his homeland’s burial mounds, but in truth he was meditating, his mind far off inside itself.

It was a favorite focus of his; alone was he, with a great chunk of vantablack ebony. Rasp in hand, he would file on the material, whatever shape it took, grinding away the unneeded excess. Dust covered the floor of this solemn workshop, in the interior of his mind, black, glossy, and irritating to the skin. 

The goal was to shape the lump of material into a blade, but it was also to force the mind to carry out every laborious step, every process, to feel every ache in the hand and hear every scrape of the rasp’s steel. You also had to remember the shape the lump of ebony was in after you were finished, and start from that shape the next session. Over a lifetime of sessions, the mental exercise was said to be honed to perfection when a polished, sharp blade had been ground from the ebony.

The mind, see, did not operate the way the physical, the Mundis space did - it could skip ahead, visualize ideals, gloss over certain things and hyperfixate on others. Forcing it to aadhere to the laborious physical was the ultimate test of willpower. Dereno was proud that he could, after 250 years of practice, keep the exercise up long enough to have ground the lump of ebony into a shape resembling a blade - vaguely. If you squinted. It was not honed, nor carved, nor adorned, but you could pick it up in two hands, even swing it. He traced a few clumsy cuts into the air, the filed bar of ebony whooshing instead of swishing like a sword truly would, but pride in his progress surged through him. He would yet make a killing edge - he was sure of it. 

Keys jingled somewhere far in the distance. Dereno, in his mindscape, placed the ebony bar onto his work table, and opened the door -

- snapping awake to the Mundis. 

He was in a holding cell in the Anvil guard barracks. He stood up from his full lotus pose, stretching his arms over his head. A chorus of satisfying pops accompanied this action. A guard, wearing the Anvil red brigandine, fumbled with a keyring at the cell door, the act that had awoken him from his meditation.

“Apologies sir, for the incarceration.” The guard said, his voice resonant and deep, “There’s been an investigation to your case, and it appears everything was as you said.”

Dereno shrugged. “I had no reason to lie, but I understand. My compliance was, I hope you understand, purely voluntary.”

The guardsman looked at the Dunmer, preparing to give an admonishing speech about the importance of rule of law, but he’d seen the state Mastdar Dereno had left his attempted muggers in. The old mer had been set upon by three thugs, out of an independent trader called the Tiber, two armed with daggers, one with a short stabbing sword. With only a staff, Dereno had clobbered the three of them, two cracked skulls, a broken hand, and a crushed windpipe. All three had been dumped in the barrack’s apothecarium, where they were now groaning in pain and awaiting sentencing. 

There was no bravado in the ancient dunmer, no desire to inflate his ego. On sober reflection, the guard did believe that Dereno would have no trouble walking out of the Anvil guard barracks on his own terms, and decided to be candid with the old mer.

“It’s just… six killings sir. With blunt force to the head. Y’didn’t kill ‘em, y’muggers I mean, but you came damned close, and…” The guardsman opened the cell door, and stood aside. “In any case, the blows your staff laid on ‘em didn’t match the wounds on the victims we’ve been havin’, so that’s what sprung you.

Dereno nodded. Had he been an ordinator in the guardsman’s position, he’d do the exact same, inconvenient as it was. 

“I’m free to go, then?” Dereno asked.

The guardsman shook his head. “No, no, y’ve t’sign for yer possessions, sir, unless you want to put ‘em up for auction.”

Dereno shook his head. “No no, I’m quite fond of my staff. Lead the way.”

A brief stop at the office, and Dereno was a free mer, standing on the cobblestones of an Anvil gearing up for the night. Tradesmen and shopkeepers were locking doors and sailors were filing into the taverns. Dereno tapped his staff, a stout piece of hardwood, around four feet in length and capped with steel, against the street and looked up at the stars, his face screwed up in thought. Where was the nearest tavern? Someplace not too rowdy, but not too classy either - the dunmer wished to listen to lively conversation. 

The Dancing Donkey was fairly close, he remembered. A nice place. Cheap ale, and nobody minded if you smoked a little Heckle-Lo leaf in a corner. He nodded, stepping towards an alleyway and stopped. His wizened face broke into a sardonic grin. No, no, alleyways wouldn’t do, unless another trio of thugs were to grace the guardsman’s sick bay. He would take the main streets for his time’s sake, and for the wellbeing of Anvil’s criminal element. 

He walked, leaning on his staff, his free arm folded inside his mud-brown robes. He nodded at the blacksmith as he passed, a dour Nord he couldn’t quite remember the name of, and soon reached the tavern. He pushed the doors open and sat down at the closest table he could find, the inviting warmth of the Dancing Donkey washing over him. The doors swung shut behind, swinging ever so slightly behind him as the killing moon began to rise over the seaside town.