The Gemino Glitch

Chapter 14: A Khajit, Altmer, Imperial & Reachman walk into a bar...

The next morning Rebecca awoke to find the Nord lady poking her awake, begrudgingly presenting her a bowl of porridge as she sat up in bed. Grumpily, her host informed her that the others were awake and waiting upstairs, so without hesitation, Rebecca threw off her bedding and plodded up the staircase, bleary-eyed and slurping on her breakfast.

The men received her with a cheer, happy to find her walking again and without any hint of injury. Feraldur was also there, sitting at the table with a tankard in hand. He gave her a smile as she pulled up a chair, picking bits of straw out of her messy hair.

"How is your wound?" he asked.

Rebecca waved him away. "All gone. I can hardly feel a thing."

"That is good to hear." T'ariq purred from across the table. "Especially because we will need to be on the road again soon."

"Maybe we can even get to Ivarstead before sundown." she agreed. But to her surprise, the others swapped glances of discomfort and didn't answer. Rebecca put down her bowl of porridge and wiped her mouth.

"Right, what is it?" she groaned.

Angmar flashed her a guilty look. "We had to make a deal, last night, with Annekke here," he jerked his head in the direction of the abrasive Nord woman, now pottering by the fireplace. "To get you the bed." the Reachman added. Rebecca waited for him to continue, raising her eyebrows expectantly. But the company avoided her gaze, each opening and then closing their mouths, scratching their heads stupidly.

Rebecca gave an exasperated sigh and leaned over toward their gracious host.

"Annekke?"

The woman banged her wooden ladle against the pot she had been stirring and walked across the room to slice some bread. "Sondas has a letter," she answered, without so much as glancing at Rebecca. Alarm bells went off in the younger girl's mind. Sondas, she thought. Why is that name familiar? "We need it delivered to Windhelm as soon as possible, and the last courier we sent just took our money and ran."

Rebecca rolled her eyes, the memory returning suddenly. This was the miner's cough quest, that would lead them to the White Phial in Windhelm for a cure. There was very little in that moment that she that she wanted to do less than trawl through Eastmarch to deliver a letter for some backwoods settlement in the middle of nowhere. What's more, they didn't have the time. The phrase, 'Quest? But I'm already on a quest!' had never felt more apt.

"And I assume you lot have already agreed to this?" she asked, rubbing her eyes. They didn't answer, which she took to be a 'yes'.

"I am also travelling in that direction, so I could keep an eye on your wound if you do decide to go." Feraldur suggested diplomatically.

Rebecca threw her hands up in the air in defeat. "Then it's settled."

They popped into Goldenrock Mine to pick up the letter, which was addressed to Quintus Navale of the White Phial, as expected. Rebecca's irritable mood eased a little when the dark elf, Sondas, promised them a good handful of gold at the other end of its delivery. She cheered up even more when they were back on the road, ignoring signs for the Rift, and heading instead up north to Windhelm. It felt good to be moving again, unhindered by an injury and not causing such friction for the rest of the group. Despite her increased mobility, however, the boys insisted that she sit up on the horse after the slightest suggestion from Feraldur that all the walking may affect her wound.

It wasn't long before the boys were asking countless piercing questions to the elf, some a little more sensitive and some...not so much. T'ariq politely asked where he was headed. The high elf admitted he was under strict directions not to reveal. Angmar inquired after how long he had been in Skyrim. But this, regretfully, he was also unable to answer. Felix even dared to ask if he was a Thalmor spy, at which point the Altmer laughed and revealed an amulet of Talos hanging around his golden neck, shocking them all into a stunned silence for a few minutes.