When we got done with our negotiations with the Proxy Queen in Alinor, Azura was waiting for me outside. She opened a portal to somewhere, and told me to close my eyes and step through.
"You can open them now," said Seryn.
I found myself inside the gate of a large, almost palatial, dwelling of Redguard style. The air was warm enough to match, but a hint of salt in the air told me we were on the coast, or on an island. It certainly wasn't anywhere I'd been before.
"This is our new home," Seryn announced. "A bit more space than that little room in Vivec City, right?"
I had to pick my jaw off the ground before I could say anything. And then it was a fairly incoherent, "How?"
"I've kept her busy while you were away helping Nocturnal," Azura informed me. "And it's been profitable enough to buy and furnish this place. I need to go confer with my sister, so why don't you let Seryn show you around?"
Seryn led me up the steps into the courtyard. There were tables and chairs, crafting workbenches, and ...
"You have staff?" I exclaimed.
"Not exactly," she replied. "They're more concessionaires. The Banker, Merchant, Scrap dealer, ..."
"Deconstruction Assistant, if you don't mind," a voice interrupted from the side.
I looked over and was astonished to find it came from a Mazken. Aderene came from Fargrave, and did a good trade exchanging 'mortal trinkets' for basic materials, she informed me. "And don't flirt with with me," she concluded.
Seryn continued. "We also have a caterer, Keldora, who'll provide food and drinks here in the courtyard. So this is like our own little private marketplace."
Instead of going into the house, we went back the way we came in, down the steps, and headed around the side of the house.
"I'll show you the outside first, because I know we won't get past the bedroom, if we go inside."
She stopped at the corner, and pointed back to the big main gate and the wall at the front of the house.
"Through that gate, there's a bridge off the island into Stros M'kai. The wall connects the rocks on each side of our island to completely surround the place, except for the docks and beach at the back. We'll go there next."
Across from one corner of the rear of the main building was a stable, with just our guars in residence. There was room for a couple more mounts, in comfort. At the opposite corner of the rear courtyard was a tall tower. "Private guest quarters," Seryn informed me.
Stone steps near the base of the tower lead down to the beach and docks.
"Why is there a nude woman on the beach?" I asked.
"Oh right, you haven't mert Isobel yet, have you? If you knew her, you'd expect her to be nude if she's on a beach."
"She's not staff, either, I assume."
"No, she's my combat companion. So I can go adventuring when you're not around."
"What's she doing?" I asked. She appeared to be pounding on an Ogrim with a pair of maces, but it wasn't doing anything in return, and it made no sense at all to me why she'd be doing that naked.
"You'd better ask her to explain," Seryn told me, and made the necessary introductions.
"My problem is that I'm too fond of sweetrolls," Isobel began. "Since I have no intention of cutting back on those, I need to burn them off with exercise. My friend Bud told me his trick for doing that. He does the same thing himself to maintain his muscles, as you don't get much exercise from waving a stick around - he's a mage.
"The idea is that you use the heaviest weapons that you have for a skill you haven't progreesed. He uses a big warhammer, but I do two-handed, so I'm using a pair of heavy maces instead. You use a practice dummy, like this Ogrim, so your skill doesn't go up, and make it easier. It's always maximum effort, for the best results."
"And you're doing it all totally nude, because...?"
"The whole point of it is working up a sweat, and I don't want to do the extra laundry. And when I'm done, I'm going for a dip in the sea anyway."
Indeed, the sea was only a few yards away. I went down the beach and checked the water. It was nicely warm.
"You can safely swim here," Isobel told me, "but don't go out past those pilings. There are slaughterfish in the deep waters beyond them."
The dock was large enough for small coastal vessels, but larger ships would have to anchor off shore, and send in a longboat. They'd want to avoid the rocks anyway. I could see what looked like a port in one direction, presumably Port Hunding, if my geography was reliable. The other direction was just open ocean.
I left Isobel with her Ogrim partner, and went back up the steps to rejoin Seryn.
"This little Tower is Isobel's 'apartment' here," she informed me. "We furnished it in Breton blue, in contrast to the reds of the main house, which we'll get to later. There's a good view from the top, even when Isobel's not on the beach."
From up there, I could see that the roof of the house was mainly flat, with three large domes on it. Someone had told me that the domes let the hot air out of Redguard buildings, so the inside stayed comfortable. Orcs and Nords might miss their chill weather, but most other races would be completely at home here.
There were stairs leading up to the roof from one of the side balconies, so the roof was part of the available living space, not that we'd need the extra.
"Unless we throw big parties," Seryn added, and I started to recall something Nocturnal had said.
My suspicions were confirmed the following morning. Seryn and I came down to breakfast in the front courtyard, and found Azura and Nocturnal waiting for us. Seryn hadn't met Nocturnal before, but this wasn't quite the same as meeting Azura, that first time. I tried to remember when I first met Nocturnal, but I couldn't.
And so Seryn took it all quite calmly when they suggested that the guest list for our house-warming party would include Meridia, and the Tribunal. "Do you really expect them to come to a mortal orgy?" she asked.
"Orgy?" I queried.
"I'm a Dunmer, it's the only kind of party I know," she responded.
"We don't know who'll actually come," Azura pointed out. "Nocturnal and I have our reasons for wanting Meridia to show, but the Tribunal are a different matter. Since you're Vivec's champion, Clark, you need to invite him as a formality, and to notify him where you are. Sotha Sil gets an invitation for his assistance on Artaeum, and you have to invite Almalexia with the other two."
We spent the next hour or two discussing who else to invite.
In the end, none of the Tribunal were coming. Vivec didn't want to attend anything where he wasn't the guest of honour, and Almalexia was still annoyed at me. Sotha Sil was busy with a project, but he'd send one of the Apostles in his place.
Seryn had invited Gabrielle, and Azura and Nocturnal were hoping Meridia would bring Darien with her. That was one of their objectives in this whole party plan.
Isobel would have some of her friends from the Undaunted, and maybe Marso and Aurelia would drop by, too. Seryn had warned them what kind of an affair it was going to be, and she wasn't sure if they were ready for that.
Tythis, Nuzimeh, Keldora and Aderene would either continue business as usual during the party, or join in. Or both, although there was a bit of discussion about mixing business and pleasure not being a good idea.
We'd also have a number of outside caterers assisting. They would have the same considerations, but being hired, they'd give priority to the job, and only join in once that was done.
The next issue was making sure all the guests knew where to find us. The Undaunted knew just about all the wayshrines, so Isobel's friends could guide the others, as long as they knew the way through Port Hunding. Seryn assured me that Bud, at least, had already visited, during the furnishing work.
I'd need to go to Clockwork City, to fetch the apostle that was attending in Seht's stead. They didn't know any wayshrines on the outside, and nobody but myself had visited there. I hoped it was someone I knew.
