A Morrowind Murder Mystery

Prologue

A storm was coming. The sky above Balmora was a pale grey, the color of a fish’s belly. Fish. Sweet-Water shook his frills at the thought. How long had it been since he had fish? About a month, he decided and the decision was made. Fish. He would have fish tonight.

The sky above Balmora was growing dim with light, clouds beginning to darken as night fell. Sweet-Water stepped through the town gates, briefly looking up at the towering Stilt-Strider that stood beside it. Its owner, the Stilt-Rider, patted its carapace with a thick cloth; he rubbed it down removing the ash dust and grime that coated its shell.

Ash dust.

Sweet-Water blinked twice as the grit flew in his eyes. Red Mountain was active today. He could see it on the horizon to the northeast, spewing its noxious fumes into the sky, a fiery eye against the growing backdrop of the night. The air was thick with resinous smoke.

Of course, every day in Vvardenfell was dust and ash filled; it was so thick and prevalent that breathing through your mouth would burn your tongue and gum it up with a muddy combination of saliva and dirt. That was one thing he hadn’t expected. The dust. He wouldn’t miss the feeling of that grating powder in his under britches once he got back to Black Marsh.

Moonmoth Fort was nearly complete. He and the others like him, workers contracted from all of Tamriel, had worked at a feverish pace for months to complete the Empire’s latest foothold in the province of Morrowind. Vvardenfell had been their target for the past half-century, the last backwards island that had so far gone beneath the Empire’s notice.

It had felt good to work for a change. Black Marsh was unforgiving and work there was getting scarce. Masonry tended to be an untenable job in the swamps of his homeland, whose sticky quagmires could threaten to sink the foundations of any building as heavy as stone. But alas, his father had been a stonemason, and his father, and so on. So as his father was, so was Sweet-Water.

His thoughts turned back to Sheeva and the hatchlings. They had made a good brood, seven in all, she had written. He had left just when the eggs were lain beneath the roots of the Home Hist, and he had hoped they’d have finished with the fort by the day of hatching.

It seemed fate had decided against this homecoming and she had said they had hatched fine and healthy. He looked forward to meeting them, and showing them the ways of the marsh. Fishing, hunting,frog spearing, and game trapping.And masonry, Hist willing.

He shook his head to remove the thoughts. Now he only thought of fish. His purse was heavy with coin, Imperial Septims, commonly accepted at most Balmora establishments. He knew just the vendor; she had a little shack sat at the far end of town, just by the river. The lady there, a Dunmer lady of good standing, would often sell him fish at a reduced price. She was sympathetic to the Argonian slave crisis in Morrowind and she’d make it well known that she would help any Argonian who asked for it.

The sky was quickly turning a dark violet, almost black. The first stars peeked through the breaks in the clouds. Sweet-Water smiled when he saw the upper edge of the Thief. He made the sign that all those born under the Thief knew and thanked the Hist for his good fortune. A good job with money in his pockets and more on the way home to Black Marsh. Another month or so and the fort would be complete and he could go back to his sweet Sheeva and his children.

He stepped onto the main thoroughfare of Balmora, aside the great river Odai. In the distance he heard a Nordic bard singing a bawdy tune of a man and his lust for a young river maiden. Dunmer children scampered home up stairways as their parents called out to them in raspy voices.

The nightlife was in full swing on the streets of Balmora. Even at this hour, the sweet smell of freshly caught fish, ripe fruits and vegetables, and even the slight stink of waste filled his nostrils. The din of the street traffic grew thick as the sky thundered above with a distant rumbling as the storm drew closer.

The night drew itself like a dark shroud and similar to a swarm of torch bugs, lanterns and torches lifted themselves above the heads of those that walked the streets.

Sweet-Water himself took a small portable lamp out of his pack and lit the wick of the candle inside with his last match. He shook the match out and threw the stub into the river. He lifted the lamp overhead to cast his light and breathed deep of the rich air that was Balmora’s own.

Fish. He was looking forward to the fish.

He smiled as he caught a glimpse of the fish monger, Ranis, who hocked her wares with the best of them. She called out in a loud bellowing voice that welled from her diaphragm. Tight muscular arms, sinewy with the corded muscle of a lifelong fisherman, waved a group of scaled and gutted fish tied together with cord. She smiled when she saw him and waved him over.

Sweet-Water smiled, or as best he could as an Argonian, and forced his way through the thick crowd. Bodies pressed closed together pulsating heat and stink, the smell of hundreds of seldom washed bodies filled his nostrils. He basked in the flow of the city, swept up by the current of life that swelled through the city like blood through veins.

Perhaps it was this thought that grabbed his attention; He passed a nearby alley and through the stink of the Dunmer folk he smelled something that he had not smelled in a while. Through the smell of sweat, dust, ash, and fish came a coppery smell that brought him back to his days in Black Marsh; a smell that filled his mouth with the familiar taste of iron and salt.

That’s when a scream pierced the roar of the crowd and Sweet-Water’s head swiveled to his left, towards the darkened alley where the dying light of day did not touch. The entire street fell silent and all eyes fell on the darkened alleyway.

Sweet-Water could feel those same eyes bore into his back and he felt his muscles tighten with fear and apprehension. Out of the hundreds of people on that street, he was by far the closest. He was reluctant to go forward, to even see what he already knew was there.

With one last longing look to Ranis and to the fish he had meant to buy, he turned again to that black alley and tentatively put one foot before the other.

Light filled the small alleyway and Sweet-Water blinked as his eyes rested on the grisly scene. It was horrifying. In all his life he had never taken a person’s life, Argonian or otherwise. For a person who hunted he had thought himself well acquainted with blood and death. What he saw before him was unlike anything he had seen.

Arterial blood sprayed the near wall in a horrible mockery of graffiti, droplets spread out to form a disturbing image of a fountain from hell itself. A body twitched slightly in the glow of his lantern as he lifted it high to illuminate the alleyway.

The alleyway was a one way only, the far end of it, opposite of him, terminated into the side of a nearby building. Besides himself and the crowd that pressed just outside the orange glow of his lantern, no one but he and the dying man remained.

He felt himself grow sick as he watched the dying spasms of a man, now known to be either Cyrodillic or Breton. Perhaps Nord, but he could never tell.

The man’s eyes rolled in his head and his mouth made useless gasping motions; he noiselessly gasped for air with lungs that refused to breathe. With a shuddering jerk the man arched on his back and with a gurgling moan he exhausted the end of his life.

Sweet-Water felt the blood drain from his face and he was overcome with crippling, paralyzing fear. The only thought in his mind was to get out of there and fast.His legs ached and trembled and with a surge of will he stumbled out into the crowd, screaming bloodily at everyone and no one.

“Murder! Murder!”

The sky was black with clouds rumbling in the sky; teeming rain. A storm was coming.