Skyrim Adventures : Part 3 The Ratways

This is part 3 of Skyrim Adventures featuring my Khajiit thief, Kally. To find out more click the ‘Skyrim Adventures‘ link in the header bar.

Part 2 Back to Square One

Part 3 The Ratways

Kally stepped off the cart and looked at the tall, stone walls of Riften. According to the cart driver, Riften was not the most reputable place in Skyrim, in fact there were rumours of a guild of thieves hiding underneath the streets.

Riften is a port town, with dirty cobbled streets and rotten boardwalks spidered across the town and a stench of old water and rotten fish that wafted through the air.

Dishonesty had permeated every corner of Riften. Even the guards on the gate tried to extort money from Kally, until he objected just a little too loudly for their liking. His first steps in the city, and he was threatened by a rather gruff looking man who warned him not to cause trouble for someone called Maven Black-brier. Kally made a mental note of the name, it’s always important to know where the power lies in the city, and in Riften’s case it certainly didn’t seem to lie with the Jarl.

‘Pockets a little light?’ asked a burly looking man approaching him.

Kally looked up at him, not sure how to respond.

‘I can always tell. Just as I can always tell who is in the business.’

‘Business?’ Kally replied giving nothing away.

‘The burly man smiled ‘Exactly. I’m Brynjolf.’

Kally was a little surprised at how openly he had been approached by the Thieves guild. Does he look so obvious a thief or are they so brazen they can just announce themselves to anyone without fear. Either way they looked to be his way to riches; at least they would know of a fence to who he could sell his ill-gotten gains.

There was a to be a test of his skill before he was accepted into the guild. Brynjolf asked him to steal a ring from one of the local traders and plant it on someone else to frame them. There was a small pang of guilt when he skilfully dropped the ring into the unsuspecting person’s pocket, but the thought of wealth soon pushed it out of his mind.

It turns out that was only step one of the test. The second part was to get to the Thieves Guild itself that lay at the end of a series of tunnels called The Ratways. He was a little doubtful, but again the thought of gold and jewels pushed him on. In fact by the time he had reached the tunnel entrance he actually felt a little chipper, generously tossing a gold piece to the beggar waiting by the door.

The Ratways are another name for the sewer tunnels that run underneath Riften. The thick stench you would expect from a sewer filled the air. Kally closed the door behind him, and listened intently in to the silence of the tunnels. Aside from the gentle dripping and Skeever squeaks there were two male voices at the end of the corridor. Brynjolf had warned him that the people in the Ratways would not let him pass, and they certainly didn’t sound friendly.

Kally lined up the shot with his long bow and let the arrow fly towards the closer of the two men. The arrow all but glanced off the man’s shoulder, which turned to face Kally and growled, unleashing an arrow of his own that lodged in Kally’s shoulder. Now he was scared. His own arrows had done very little; he had been shot in the shoulder, and the second man was charging towards him with a very sharp axe. Kally fled out of the tunnels, blood dripping down his shoulder and leg.

Luckily he knew some very basic healing magic, which now came in very handy. The golden glow, healed his wounds and brought him back from the brink of death. Kally would have to come back later, the gear he was wearing was pitiful. He needed to be better armed if he was going to live through this. At that point he remembered.  In his haste to get out of Solitude, he hadn’t gone through all the gear he had stolen from the Fletcher. Mentally slapping himself, he armed himself with a new Imperial bow and a sharpened Iron axe. These would do very nicely.

The people in the tunnel hadn’t followed him, thankfully but he knew they would be waiting for him. Things would get dicey, so he would have to keep his escape options open.

Kally burst through the door to the tunnels, charging and slashing with his own weapon until both of his attackers lay very much dead. Kally healed himself, but this time with a smile on his feline lips. He stripped the dead bodies of everything they had including some nice hide armour, some replacement lockpicks, and more bottles of mead that was good for them.

The rest of the way through The Ratways was calmer. He ran into a skeever or two, and a couple of lowlifes living in the tunnels who objected to him being there, but he was getting better with his bow so they didn’t stand a chance.

Kally walked through a door marked Ragged Flagon and looked around. The Ragged Flagon had been built around a giant storm drain, with a large pool of water in the middle. Brynjolf walked over to meet him.

‘How did he get here so fast?’ he thought. ‘Member’s only’.

Brynjolf seemed surprised to see him, making Kally wonder how many other people this man had sent to his death all in the name of wealth. No matter, he had made it through and now he was well on his way to being rich.

Well, there was one more thing to do before they let him into the guild but that just that involved roughing up a few people in Riften for some money they had been loaned, but they were nothing compared to the men who guarded the Ratway.

A quick jaunt back to the Ragged Flaggon and Kally was made a full-fledged member of the Thieves Guild complete with a new set of guild armour and more importantly a fence for his goods. Tonilia took more than her fair share of the cut, but Kally was still better off than he was before. After counting all the gold pieces, he found he had over 700 now, 650 gold profit in one day, and it only nearly cost him his life.

Kally frowned a little at the thought before staring at the gold and grinning. ‘Today was a good day’.

Skyrim Adventures: Part 4 This Job’s a Steal