Agent

I took the way-shrine to Balmora and went looking for Naryu. I was discreetly directed to a cellar door in a back alley, and found Naryu and Veya down there waiting for me. I'd arrived too late, and Veya had already played her hand.

Naryu still had need of my assistance. She'd not managed to stop Veya from killing her father, but she had made it look like Veya had been killed, too, so at least the Morag Tong and House Redoran would not be hunting for her. But now there was the problem with what to do with her. She couldn't say on Vvardenfell, or someone was bound to spot her.

"She'll have to be exiled, and as far away as possible," Naryu declared. "I have contacts on the Summerset Isle who could take her in and give her work. With her skills, she'd make a good bodyguard.

"I just don't understand what got into her, going it alone like she did. She probably could have taken her case to the Morag Tong leadership, and got a judgement to do it legally, but she just fired up, and went on her killing spree.

"It's just not like the Veya I thought I knew."

"Maybe it wasn't all her idea," I suggested. "There's always a possibility of Daedric possession when someone behaves out of character." I looked over at Veya, and continued "Do her pupils looks a bit contracted to you?"

"Now you come to mention it, perhaps they are," Naryu replied. "I'd put that down to shock, as she'd just come round from my knocking her out, but she should have recovered by now."

I was hoping that Nocturnal was listening in to my thoughts, as it had just occurred to me that Veya might be just what she was looking for. And if she was, I could use a little assistance.

"Is Daedric possession common?" Naryu was asking me, and I'm not sure that Nocturnal wasn't prompting her.

"Not very common, and it does require some willingness on the part of the possessed. For example, Seryn wasn't averse to letting Azura use her to speak to people several times, and even cast a spell for her once. It was clear that Azura's intentions didn't conflict with her own, and she was happy to lend a hand, ... or all of her, actually."

"Well, this wasn't Azura. Any ideas which Prince might have been involved in this case?" Naryu asked.

"Did Veya run rampage, and destroy everything in her path?"

"No, she did cut a swathe through the guard, but she's quite capable of that without help"

"Then it probably wouldn't be Mehrunes Dagon. He likes as much collateral damage as possible. Property as well as people, and as much chaos caused as can be managed."

"Who else?" Naryu prompted. "Clavicus Vile doesn't seem likely. He wants the bad outcomes to be all someone else's fault, so he won't take control like that."

I offered the opinion that it could be Boethiah. "It's all about provoking combat with that one. And Veya acted fairly rationally, so I think Sheogorath is ruled out, too."

"Hmm, are there any other symptom we could look for?" Naryu asked.

I was getting prompts from Nocturnal now, and I wondered if Naryu was, too.

"Well, we don't know if the supposed Daedric Prince was trying to arrange her father's death, and just using her as an implement of opportunity, or if it's an attempt to sway Veya herself. If it's the latter, she'd be losing interest in Mundus, and other people."

"Like a lowered libido? That would be the first thing to affect a young Dunmer woman. She'd have shriveled nipples, and be drying up."

Naryu was probably projecting her own ideas here, but I let her run with it.

"Veya, take off your shirt," she commanded. "we need to see ... What do you think, Clark?"

"I don't have a before image to compare against," I pointed out.

Veya took everything else off. She was determined to prove that if she had been possessed, she wasn't now. She grabbed my hand and showed me.

"So there's a good chance the possession wasn't complete," I announced. "And that means we can do something about it. There's a ritual of re-possession that will reclaim her for Mundus, and since you and I, Naryu, represent man and mer, male and female, we have enough to perform it."

Prompted by Nocturnal, I rummaged in my pack and found a couple of hooded masks that I know weren't in there before. "You and I need to wear these, and nothing else. We have to be anonymous, as we're representing everyone."

"But I already know who you are," Veya interjected. "So how are you anonymous?"

"It would be too creepy if you didn't know who it was, wouldn't it?" I replied. "It's symbolic, which is why we don't need all races; just a Dunmer and an Imperial can stand in for Altmer, Bosmer, Breton, Redguard, Nord, and Orc. Khajiit and Argonian may be a stretch, but the principle is valid."

That seemed to satisfy her. If I'd had to take it further, I could have pointed out how Veya was clearly part Altmer, as she was tall and slender for a Dunmer, and Naryu was as top-heavy as a Nord.

"Her libido seemed to be normal," I remarked to Naryu afterward, while Veya slept. "So if we are sending her off to Summerset, she won't have too much problem making new friends."

"Except that you just gave her a reason to want to come back here," she replied. "I hope you're planning to disappear before she starts to think about that."

"I have to go back to the Clockwork City, wherever that really is," I told her. "And all I have to look forward to there is crows."