The room was quiet enough to hear the stone settling.

Deep beneath the surface of Skyrim—past weathered ruins, twisting tunnels, and false doors meant to mislead—there lay a chamber that had no name. It wasn’t grand, not even clean. But it was safe, and more importantly, it was secret. The kind of place where blood deals were made without leaving a stain.

he sat in the same spot he always did—back against the far wall, one leg stretched, the other drawn up so his elbow could rest lazily across it. His armor was dark leather, supple and worn in all the right places. Bits of frost still clung to his boots, melting in slow rivulets on the stone floor. The scent of pine and cold steel clung to him faintly—he’d come straight from the Rift.

The table before him bore the marks of past dealings. Knife gouges. Burn rings. A single crimson smear that had never quite come out of the wood. His dagger lay there now, polished and ready, catching the low light of the wall sconce in its curve. Beside it, a battered coin spun slowly on its edge, nudged into motion by idle fingers.

The assassin waited.

Waiting was easy. Patience was a blade honed long ago—when you deal in silence and shadow, you learn to breathe slower, to make stillness your companion. Sometimes the anticipation was the only real thrill left in the job. The space between the contract and the kill.

The door groaned open.

He didn’t need to look. He knew the rhythm of those footsteps, the weight of them—measured, confident, unhurried. The contact. Not a handler, not officially. Just the one who passed the jobs along. No names. No paper trail. Just information and coin, moving from hand to hand like blood through a vein.

The man crossed the threshold and took the seat across from him without a word. The torchlight caught his cloak, still damp from the rain above. The two sat in silence for a moment, the kind of silence that had weight. Expectation.

The assassin let the moment breathe—then leaned forward just slightly, the ghost of a smirk at the edge of his voice.

“So… who is it this time?”