Morrowind Day 9 - Kerra, Naval Inspector

24 Last Seed

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My first stop after breakfasting at the Vivec Mages Guld was to visit a much relieved Tarer Braryn, who was no longer constantly scratching. He paid me 100 Septims for acting as the go-between. He mentioned that if I was looking for more money, a gang known as the Bemis Gang has set up under the Foreign Quarter canton. This gang was probably the same victims currently rotting in the Daedric shrine off in the sewers and in death certainly help to pad my money satchel.

Casting a spell successfully is sadly still a noteworthy event and I leapt off the Temple Canton on to the water, my spell cushioning my fall and allowing me to walk (briskly!) across the bay. I turned around to admire the view and was surprised to see a giant rock hovering over the Temple Canton. I'm not sure how I missed it before, but its location seems rather precarious and I wonder how it got there. Scaffolding along the rock seems to indicate that it is in use in some form, perhaps mining. The rock is likely not a great mystery, but I'm curious as to its story.

Temple Canton from the middle of the bay

Turning my back to the physics-defying stone, I stepped across the water and into Ebonheart. The Imperial city is small by any standard, but the view of the giant cantons across the bay makes it city seem no more than a village. I didn't wander around though and walked on to the ship I assumed had the limeware, hoping that bluffing the guards would work, sneaking by them seeming too difficult with only one entrance into the cargo hold.

Getting the limeware off of the ship in Ebonheart turned out to be a lot easier, and a lot more discouraging, than I had anticipated. I was told that the ship was an Imperial trading vessel and it was, in fact, guarded by Imperial Legionaries. But the ship was obviously crooked and if the guards weren't, they had to have been well paid to not ask questions. So well paid, in fact, that when a Khajiit in Imperial armor annouced that she had been sent to inspect the caulking of the ship's cargo area in response to an increased frequency of ship's floundering off the coast, they had no objections. In this way I managed to not only acquire the limeware Alaryne requested, but also nearly forty bags of Moon Sugar which I'm looking forward to selling in Balmora.

I tried casting my water walking spell to go back to Vivec, but I couldn't have luck that good twice I guess. I took a small ferry back to the Foreign Quarter and walked to the Telvanni canton to see if I could purchase some spells from the Great House's mages. The atmosphere in the canton was very unwelcoming, the House is so insulated that even the shops are shaded from outsiders, the signs simply labeled "Telvanni Mage/Alchemist/Trader" and so on. I suppose I'd have known who the owners were if I was in the House. I approached a few of the unnamed shop owners, but they acted as though they were doing me the favor of selling me their wares. I wound up buying nothing and left the canton to deliver the limeware, my opinion of the slave-owning Telvanni lower for having dealt with them.

Alaryne was good on her word, handing over a satchel which I later counted out to fifteen hundred Septims. That plus the armor I secluded in the sewers of the Foreign Quarter means I won't be hurting for money soon, but I need to find a place to start stashing my equipment. I'm tempted to use the shrine, but my skin crawls every second I'm in there. Vivec does seem a good place to stay, so I'll continue to look through the cantons. I feel I'll have better luck searching lower in the cantons than higher.

I still have a lot to do in Vivec, but I teleported back to the Balmora Mages Guild so that I could give Ajira the mushrooms for her report and to sell the Sugar to her and Ra'Virr. The day passed a lot quicker than I thought it did, so when I arrived at the Mages Guild Ajira had already closed up her small laboratory. Her mushrooms and the Moon Sugar will have to wait until tomorrow. I anticipate getting a lot of money for the Sugar, but I do not like carrying around so much money. Tomorrow I'll find some secretive place in Vivec to start hiding my inventory away.