Beyond the Pale

For Your Hands Only

Castorius burped. The sour aftertaste of last night came up with it, and threatened to bring along a mouthful of the ale and mead he'd been all but forced to ingest. Had he had some of their wine too? The little throbbing in the back of his head seemed to testify to this.

All in all, the whole evening had been a low he'd not hit in a good, long while. Perhaps ever.

Sighing, trying in vain to breathe out all of the foul fumes mulling his insides, he eyed the Solitude docks. He was leaning on the railing at the top part of the dock complex where you could get a good view of the scene.

Around him people whipped past right and left, busy as beavers. It was probably just minutes before ten A.M., and the place was bustling with action, with the last of the cargo being loaded onto the waiting ships. By noon, new shipments would be coming in, so it was about time to start getting the old ones going. People scurried back and forth, yelling, and carrying, and pushing, and hauling, and Castorius—not the world's hardest working man by his own admission—was getting out of breath just by looking at it. And probably most of these people had had more to drink last night than he had!

Solitude was about as peculiarly planned of a city as they came. Built largely on top of a massive arc of stone stretching over the channel where the Karth River flowed into the Sea of Ghosts, it was definitely not something you could have built in an area prone to earthquakes. It did make an undeniably imposing sight when first sailing underneath it, arriving at the harbor.

The day was overcast. A mild but chill wind flapped lazily at the flags and pennons on the ship's masts and the loose ends of their hoisted sails. There was a continuous snapping sound from the ropes beating against the masts, accompanied by the clinking of ship bells.

The wind might have felt refreshing blowing in his face, ruffling his overgrown whiskers, if it hadn't been for the strong odor of ocean it carried. It was a bit like spoiled fish, Castorius thought, and not something his unsteady stomach was greeting happily. The modest bobbing of the ships sitting at the peer wasn't really much doing it for him, either. He hadn't had anything to eat, and, despite his growing hunger, wasn't quite feeling like it yet.

He'd had an unpleasant awakening that morning. To say the least. It had taken him several disoriented minutes to figure out where he even was. Then he'd remembered—still at the Inn, alone in the room he'd rented for the night. He'd had way more to drink than he'd intended to, and way more than he'd ever wanted to. Despite hardly being falling-down drunk the way most of the other customers had been, he'd still needed to get to bed as soon as possible.

Luckily, he'd finally been able to convince his companion of this, and to let him go. The companion in question had been in that exact falling-down condition, probably worse than anyone else there, yet, like by some supernatural power, managed to stay on his feet. In fact, Sam—

Sam? No, not Sam. Sanguine. A real, living and breathing Daedric Prince.

Castorius had to shake his head just remembering it now. Had it really happened? All he had to do was to put his hand in his satchel, to feel the immense jewel therein, to convince himself that it had all been real. He'd personally talked with—drunk with—an entity he a mere twenty-four hours before might have written off as nothing more than superstitious mumbo-jumbo for the gullible.

And he was going to do the creature a favor?

"Good morning, friend. Enjoying the view?"

Castorius started. The speaker was Radd the Adventurer, who had suddenly appeared beside him. He rested his hands on the railing, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath with an enchanted expression on his face.