-Chapter One: The Boatswain-

The halls of Ashalmawia were black. If you listened with any real earnestness at all you could hear a faint dripping of water presumably from
somewhere elevated. The entire area smelled of very intense incense and a dull haze of smoke, could you have seen it, wafted through the hollows.
Ra’Shisa could see everything here, his catlike eyes saw as if in light and he had quickly traversed from one side of the temple area to the other without waking a soul. He counted fourteen fanatics, sleeping, in horrible positions; a testament to their drunken cacophonies from the night now past. He knew very well that he had maybe an hour to find what he was looking for and get away quietly before the first rays of the sun peered through one of the many openings to the outside world within the vaults of darkened Ashalmawia. A dark elf lay clutching a goblet near the altar Ra’Shisa was moving towards and as he approached realized that the darkened elf was a wood elf with ashes applied over her face and arms for some unnamed, blasphemous ritual performed for whatever reason the heathen and sacrilegious elves had seen need to observe.

The young elf was dead Ra’Shisa noted, as he swiped the silver candlestick atop the altar, his grand mission all along, and stuffed it into his leather backpack. At that very moment, something fell and crashed in the distance, towards the eastern end of the blackened structure and Ra’Shira drew his bow and settled in an arrow without hesitation and waited. No one awoke. This was proving to be a little easier than he had initially thought. He quickly renavigated the piles of sleeping priests and cultists and climbed to the vault with which his escape rope had been previously tied and slipped out onto the roof with ease through the tiny opening. It was raining and the sun was not going to be a problem now even if he was slow getting out of the area. He was relieved to the point of smiling.

Before sunrise Ra’Shisa had reached the old dunmer outpost of Ald Velothi, and payed four hundred gold pieces to the captain of the Fair Heles, a dunmer woman named Galyn Arvel for the requested passage to Winterhold. The two arranged for the extra sum of 300 more gold upon reaching their destination and Ra’Shisa felt that that was fair. She smiled at him as he settled in and it was then that he realized that the captain and her boatswain were abolitionists, which in hindsight made sense to Ra’Shisa, for he would never have been able to leave dunmer lands without first showing his papers of freedom.

The inside of the Fair Heles left much to be desired in the way of comfort for it was a damp and ferociously smelling affair which could not have been easily stomached by the mere random traveler. Barrels of rotting meat and cheeses were neatly tucked away all over the hold and flies were as clouds. He surveyed the wooden hull for the least grotesque spot for resting, and quickly discovered that it was a fools task. Rats had made a home near the back of a door-less room in the bowels of the ship.

This was a hell reserved for only those toughened to this sort of thing and Ra’Shisa knew he had no choice in the matter for he was due in Winterhold within two more days, a commitment he now saw as almost impossible. About an hour into the voyage a bell rang and Galyn Arvel came into the hold and announced she would be heading into Fort Frostmoth, on the island of Solstheim for a quick resupply of various foods and trade items she informed would make the trip more worthwhile for her group. The warrior stretched out on the floor on a sleeping bag he had carried with him since he first started travelling, and fell asleep.

Two hours now past and no one had said a word and it was growing cold. Ra'Shisa awoke just in time to see the boatswain, a colossal redguard man, running at him with a steel dagger. The cat, held his hand up as if to blow a kiss, and blew out a giant breath sending diamond dust glittering forward in the dimly lit hold of the the Fair Helas blinding the man without impunity. The heavy redguard man received three arrows at once, fixing him to a post holding the floor above up, killing him instantly. Ra'Shira ran up the stairs to the deck and was hit in the face with a very cold blast of air and waterspray, realizing in horror he was now on the sea alone with almost no sea experience.

Ra’Shisa knew at that moment he was going to be very late for his appointment in Winterhold.