EliteCommander

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Ahnasha gave a light shrug. "I have a feeling the General and his team would follow us, even if they knew, but a dragon could work against us just as easily as it could work for us. Dragons are smart, and we don't really have a way of making it focus on them. It might end up accidentally helping us, but that would really just be a gamble."

Kaleeth tapped a claw against a wooden railing as she thought. "Are you sure? There might be something we can do if we think hard enough. Maybe...lure the General to the dragon and then make ourselves invisible with potions?"

Though she considered the suggestion for a moment, Meesei shook her head. "No, Ahnasha is right; dragons are intelligent. They, in fact, have access to ancient and powerful magic in the form of their shouts. I have only...academic knowledge of that form of magic, but I do not doubt that it would be able to reveal us."

"Yeah, I'll fight a dragon, and I'll fight Do'rhajul, but even I'm not stupid enough to try to fight both at once." Lorag commented before standing up to his feet. "Look, we can debate this all day, but if we really want to try to find that moron Cyrus and talk him out of gettin' himself killed, then lets just go to the docks and take the first ship to Daggerfall. Just get out of here before the General has time to figure out what we're doing."

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

"I do wish to avoid any potential confrontation with Do'rhajul, which teleporting would limit...but I certainly want to avoid the possibility of having to fight a dragon. I will not lie, that would be the ultimate test of a hunter, but now is not the time for such things. It would be far easier to obtain the axe before Cyrus sets sail for the dragon's island." Meesei reasoned. They seemed to be in a fairly private spot at the moment in the stables, though that privacy also came with some worry for Meesei. It was not inconceivable that Do'rhajul or his followers could carry out some form of sneak attack where they were.

"Taking a ship to Daggerfall would improve our chances of finding Cyrus alive. If he and the other bounty hunters actually begin their hunt of the dragon, we will have to approach the situation assuming that we will have to kill the dragon ourselves. From the Orc's description, I doubt we would be able to sneak onto the island and steal from it unnoticed, and it is attacking everyone it sees."

Kaleeth looked worriedly towards the entrance of the stables. "If only it would attack the General."

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

The Orc gave a light shrug. "I suppose I can tell you what I know." She answered.

Daraza did not have too much more information to give, so they did not speak for too much longer. She told them that the closest settlement to the island which was still inhabited was Daggerfall itself, which was where Cyrus and the other bounty hunters had gone to plan their hunt. From what Daraza knew, they were at least intending to scout out their target and learn more about the dragon before sailing for the island. She seemed to think that, if they were quick, they could reach Cyrus and speak to him before he committed to the hunt. Otherwise, the island on which the dragon was residing was not settled, so the Orc did not have its name.

Daraza did not stay around long after sharing her information, insisting that she needed to rest. But, the pack had what they needed, so they now only had to decide how to act upon it. "So, I guess we're going to Daggerfall." Ahnasha commented. "Are you going to teleport us there, Meesei?"

Meesei hummed in thought for a moment. "Honestly, it may be faster simply to sail there from here. I do not have a safe place to teleport to in the city, and the nearest clan would still be something of a walk."

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

It appeared much different from what I expected. I can easily understand why ancient people thought the world was ending. It is rather sudden, and without those glasses, you wouldn't be able to tell the moon is close to the sun. It gradually darkens for a while as the sun gets more obscured. Animals start getting confused, crickets chirping and the like. The day becomes darker, like dusk, but the colors are all wrong. It's almost like looking at a video of daytime through an underexposed camera. It was quite hot beforehand, but as the partial eclipse continued, it became comfortably cool. Then, it gets very quickly dark enough for stars to be visible. The street lights automatically came on as soon as totality started. The eclipse itself looked quite unlike anything I have ever seen in person. The corona was much larger and fuller than I was expecting, and it was not uniform. The moon is dark enough to look like a black hole, with a halo of light around it that looks like something out of a sci-fi movie. It is hard to get a sense of what it is really like from a video.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Saw the eclipse, currently making my way home.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Daraza let out a long breath, uncertainty growing in her expression. "I...I don't want to just send a group of strangers after my friend. I mean, it's not like we're the closest of friends or anything, but I still don't want him to get hurt. But, I know he's probably not going to come back if he goes after that Dragon. It's been messing with the East Empire Company's trade, sinking ships, burning travelers along the coast. The Legion itself hasn't been able to deal with it, and they put a ten thousand gold bounty on its head for someone else to put it down. Cyrus isn't ready for that; I know he isn't. He was at least not stupid enough to try to kill it alone, but that team he joined still isn't equipped to deal with something like that. And even if they could, who knows what kind of people they are? I half expect one of them to put a knife in his back so they don't have to split the reward. I spent half the trip trying to talk him out of it."

There was a pause as Daraza thought, but with some reluctance, she finally continued. "If there's a chance you can get him to stop...I know where he went. The Dragon lives on an island off the coast of High Rock, near Daggerfall. He got on a ship and set sail not long after I left him in that village. It's not far at all to sail there from Sentinel, so you could be there in a day or two. I don't know exactly where he's staying, but it won't be hard to find where he's going. All the locals know which island to stay away from."

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Daraza gave a long sigh before mumbling to herself. "Knew all this would come back to bite him..." Running her hand down her worried face, she eventually focused back on the pack. "Alright, who'd he end up crossing? One of the bandit gangs? Red Masks? Desert Marauders? Or did he actually end up attacking the Thalmor like he was saying? Not that...most of you look much like Thalmor."

Meesei shook her head. "Cyrus has not upset anyone. At least, no one we know. We represent the Synod, and our interest lies in the weapon he has come to wield. We believe that he may not be aware of the fact that it is a cursed relic, and one that could be quite dangerous to him. We seek to find him so that we can purchase it from him, and bring the relic into safe-keeping."

As was common for the friends of Cyrus that they had spoken to, the Orc seemed to be suspicious, but unlike the others, she did not look to be surprised. She also did not look like she was going to demand for them to leave at any moment. “Not going to lie, that’s not easy to believe. The Synod, if you are Synod, has always just wanted power. The curse thing just sounds like an excuse, but…we can still talk. And only because, the way I see it, Cyrus is going to be dead no matter what, especially since he accepted that bounty to kill that dragon.”

Ahnasha raised her brow at Daraza. “Wait, so Cyrus actually accepted a bounty to go try and kill an actual living, breathing dragon?” She said both with near disbelief and dread. Collectively, Ahnasha, Meesei, and Lorag gave a mix of sighs and groans. It seemed that this Cyrus had started to buy into his own legend.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

"At the very least, you should probably only try that in places where ravens actually live." Ahnasha pointed out to Sabine. "Honestly, that Nord was right to be angry at her; it was stupid to think that we wouldn't catch on. She might underestimate us, or just be that overconfident."

"Possibly." Meesei commented, though there was little else for her to say on the matter. At this point, they had mostly just speculation about their foe, and would not likely be able to figure out much else from their inn room. It was probably best for them to just resume their search as soon as they were ready. "I believe we should go to the stables and see if the Orc has returned. Though first, I will return to the clan and ask the scholars to search for those notes. It should not take me too long to do so, and I would like to have them get to work sooner rather than later. Pack up our belongings in the meantime. We shall not be staying in this inn again."

---

It took only about half an hour for the pack to depart their inn. They were traveling fairly light, so they did not have too much to pack, and Meesei needed only to instruct the scholars in Blackreach to find the original notes, so she created a portal back to her room in the inn as soon as she could. Out of caution, she did take a magicka potion from Sabine to quickly restore her reserves, since at this point, they did not truly know when they could be attacked.

As at least one stroke of luck for the day, the estimate they had for when the Orc would return seemed to be accurate. Asking around the stables as they had been for the last week, someone finally mentioned that an Orc carriage driver had stabled her horses. Although, it was somewhat harder to actually find the Orc herself. There were several who worked in the stables that knew her, and confirmed that the Orc was, in fact, Daraza, but it took about half an hour and a bribe of ten gold coins to get someone willing to go to Daraza's home in the city and bring her out to them.

The pack was waiting out in the stables, taking the chance to visit Leaps while they could. Most stable hands were wary around the giant reptile, so they did need to come out occasionally to interact with him. It took roughly another fifteen minutes of waiting before an Orc woman came walking into the stable. She did not seem like she was dressed as a traveler, as she was not wearing the usual desert robes and instead wore a simple pair of light brown breeches and a matching cloth shirt. However, it was possible that she did not intend to leave the city so soon after returning. "So, I hear you've been askin' around for me. That true?" She asked.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Lorag was skulking in the corner, arms crossed in silence. He had a blank, emotionless stare, but it did not take much to guess what he was thinking. "Not the man I knew. He was a committed soldier; a true legionnaire if I ever saw one. Protectin' the innocent, serving the people, he lived all of that. 'Course, this might not be the man I knew. If he is the same, the he don't know; if he does know, then I don't know him anymore. Either way, we can always just kill 'em all."

"That is an option, and not one we should discount." Meesei remarked. "We should not stake too much on the idea of changing their minds. I am not opposed to trying, but we should not take too much of a risk in doing so. I can get those notes, the originals. They have been filed away, though I imagine it might take some time for the scholars to dig them out of storage. We made copies to send to our own scholars, so the originals have little actual use to us anymore. If we are lucky, he might recognize the handwriting, or even just the cover. But, that would require some luck that we should not rely upon."

"We will need to find out where they are in the city." Kaleeth pointed out. "And...well, we still need to go check to see if that Orc has come back, don't we? It's getting very close to time for her to return. I wouldn't be surprised if she's already back right now."

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Meesei nodded in agreement. "Indeed, it may be easier to discredit Vile's intentions than to prove ours. But, it still shall not be easy. The possibilities which I see are that either Do'rhajul knows of Vile's plans and is simply intending to keep his men loyal through his lies, or Do'rhajul himself has been tricked. It is impossible to say which is true at this point, though for Do'rhajul to be unaware would require that Vile's scholars in his Elsweyr fortress were hiding the fact that they were spreading lycanthropy, in addition to researching their poison. It would be difficult, but not impossible."

"If he is being tricked, then how could we prove that if he doesn't believe anything we say?" Kaleeth commented. "We learned all of this through our own experience and our spies, and I guess some help from that Thalmor. But, we can't just show them those documents he stole, even if we did still have them, and they'd have no way of knowing they were real anyway."

Meesei hummed a moment, leaning back in her chair. "That is true. I am not sure how we could prove that Vile's zealots have been hunting Talos worshipers. We have seen it firsthand, but it is not as if we can convince Do'rhajul to go searching for them to prove it to himself. If we knew enough about his experiences to point out some kind of inconsistency between what he has witnessed, and what he has been told, then we might possibly be able to convince him with words alone. But, we do not have that much detail about his life. We will need actual, physical evidence. We first learned of the gas by experiencing it firsthand, and while any who are magically inclined in Do'rhajul's could observe the gas taking a soul, that would require demonstrating it on a live lycan. We learned of their plan to spread lycanthropy through our attack on their fortress, and the notes we stole from their scholars' laboratory. If Do'rhajul is truly unaware, then that laboratory was likely being operated by one of Vile's loyal zealots."