Disclaimer: I don't own Oblivion. My sister does, but she lets me play at her computer. Oh, wait, you mean copyright? That's Bethesda.

Author's Note: Yes! It's been two years in the making, but the final chapter is here! Who'd have thought? Me not, that's for sure. Notice that since it has been so long, there may be some consistency issues. I hope you can forgive me.

The first thing that hit me inside was something I did not see. I had run head-on in a fully transparent door. Slightly cursing Mr Nicolen, I looked for the hinges and found a way to open the door. The idea must have been to alert the ones inside to any intruder, who would, just like me, run into the door and make a lot of noise. Luckily, the door was not very noisy and there seemed to be other problems on the inside, so nobody bothered to check for me.

Ironically, the problem that had everybody concerned was me. Lying in the shadows I could hear people shouting.

"So apparently he is nowhere to be found in Skingrad, right? And sweet little Ylotril here was too stupid to shoot him when she had the chance. Of course, nobody bothered to check whether he is somewhere in Kvatch, right?" I heard a loud, male voice shout.

"Hey, I would have loved to see you trying. You couldn't tell an arrow from a bow if your life depended on it" the girl countered.

"Unlike you, I don't walk around claiming that I can shoot a dove on the Imperial City Tower while standing in Leiiawin" the man replied. If this was a bad play, I would have expected the two of them to kiss now, but of course this was reality. Their contempt seemed genuine and mutual.

"Silence, both of you." a female voice with a breton accent commanded. Immediately, the two stopped talking. This must have been Mme Dupont. I crawled a little further and could catch a glimpse of her. She did not look very special, just a normal, old Breton. However, she had the appearance of being powerful and confident. Even though she stood there in rather plain robes, she had a much more aristocratic look than any countess on her. She was nobody you could mess with easily, and at the moment, she looked annoyed.

"We are ready to ship our first delivery to Morrowind. This has to be done in complete secrecy, so that nobody will raise any doubt when we ship them back here and claim they come from Morrowind. That means the investigator has to be eliminated," she continued.

"I still don't see why we have to go through all the trouble with delivering from Morrowind" Ylotril whined.

"Are you thick or what? If we ship from here, the Mages Guild will sue our asses off. That means goodbye to your payment" the man said again.

"Well, why do you think they won't do that when we ship from Morrowind? We might just as well save us all that hassle and get sued either way."

"Do you doubt my plans?" Dupont asked. She said it calmly, but there was a threatening quality about her voice. "Morrowind is unique because it has the Telvanni house, which can do just as well in research as the mages guild. We can just claim that they invented the glass independently."

"Wait a second, can't the mages guild not just check that? They have a chapter in Morrowind as well," the man, now apparently having changed the sides, asked.

"You followed any rumors? Morrowind's houses are currently at each other's throats. Few ships come and leave headed to Morrowind, and the Mages Guild has closed most of it's guild halls there. Nobody in his right mind would go check there," my girl replied. Mme Dupont did not bother to comment, which was apparently considered as consent.

At that moment, someone who was clad in mage's robes entered the room that I was observing. He was visibly annoyed by all the trouble that was surrounding his work environment, and had a couple of scrolls under his arm.

"Well, we are ready down there for the first shipment. Now, if those dorks in security would get their act together, everything would be ready to go", he said, fully aware that the 'dorks in security' were standing right next to him. This earned him some very mean glances, which he ignored.

"We are running out of time. If we wait any longer, the ship will have to leave Anvil, and we'll have to wait another month before we can attempt again. The mission will continue as planned. Ylotril, Manius, you two will go and check the outside. Skuddiren, you go and tell the transporters that we are ready. The rest of the team stays here and helps preparing the glass." This was Dupont again. Her word was apparently law around here. This left me with a little problem: Two people were coming directly in my direction.

--

Suddenly, the man stopped.

"Hey, babe, wait for me, I need to pee." he shouted.

"You plan to release poison in here? I'd better run", was her reply.

"I'm taking off my trousers. Do you want to watch?" he asked, trying to be a macho.

"Oh, you know I'd love to, but I have to get out. Someone disgusting is lurking here." she said, sarcastically. This was apparently not the first time they had a conversation like that, and neither seemed really surprised with the results. Probably this was the reason why the two did not get along. She hurried out of the corrider, without even noticing me. I watched the man doing his business (and I did not enjoy the view).

In my opinion, it is a sign of bad style to ambush someone with his pants down, especially when it's literally. Besides, it is disgusting. I waited for the brief moment between him finishing his work and picking up his sword again before I attacked.

I kicked his sword away and poked him a little with mine. He tried to reach a dagger that he had hidden in his boot, but I was faster and gave him a nasty cut in the arm. He did not seem pleased with the way his little pause had been going. For a quick moment, it seemed like he wanted to scream (which could have had some impact), but then he decided that this was not manly enough and tried to engage me hand-to-hand. Apparently, he had not had much experience with hand-to-hand before, and was facing someone equipped with a sword. I think it suffices to say that he ended up lying on the ground, with some more cuts on his arms. It did not take long for me to tie him up and move him somewhere he wouldn't be seen until they decided to rebuild the city. With the girl outside and him out of the way, I was free to go inside.

Sneaking round a corner, I found the laboratory. Apparently, they had not started full-scale production yet, and there were only three people. The grand dame was nowhere to be seen, and it slowly dawned on me that I didn't have a plan. I could and should have called for mages guild backup, but they would never arrive in time (never mind the Imperial Guard, who didn't care about, well, anything right under their noses, I sometimes thought). So it was up to me alone to do the job. Luckily, I didn't have to care about evidence and a conviction this time, I just had to stop them from producing more glass.

All of the workers looked like they were not ones to pick a fight, but I still wanted to avoid any sort of battle, and people get heroic for the worst reasons. Luckily, I knew a little bit of alchemy. Not enough for spells, but enough to make a mess in a hurry. I grabbed a few vials of stuff I knew would work for my purposes and quickly mixed together a draught so evil that it isn't taught by any master of alchemy anywhere. Mainly because it has no use other than creating black smoke and smelling badly, of course, but that was just enough for me. I threw it in the laboratory, held a piece of cloth over my mouth and saw how the would-be mages ran outside, coughing loudly. The final one wasn't all stupid and he did actually pick up the formula, but I intercepted him quietly by a blow to a certain area you don't want to receive a blow to, given the choice. Going through the laboratory, I found three other copies of the formula, which must have been all that was there. I also found a little gold (hey, they were criminals, after all!) and, for reasons I really don't wish to know, a pair of Morrowind-style slave shackles. Having done my job, I went outside again.

Of course, the problem with my brilliant plan was that now the would-be priests were standing just in my exit way, but I had prepared for that and threw another of the smoke grenades outside. They were in panic, and apparently none of them could be bothered to look for their colleague which now shared a room with the group's official thug. I got out through a hole in another wall where apparently nobody of the Kvatch cleanup squad had bothered to look yet. Suddenly I heard a cracking sound, and the entire house under which the cellar was came crumbling down. Apparently my little drought had mixed with something it really shouldn't have. My prisoners were in another tunnel, so I wasn't really worried about anything, and walked back, satisfied that I had done my job well enough.

Suddenly, another arrow soared past me. Of course, I knew the marksman, and quickly found her location. She wasn't easy to miss on the stones, so I hid behind a small wall, walked past her and surprised her from behind.

"Again? Come on, this is getting boring."

"I'm not doing this for your amusement, you know."

"Then what for? The lab is destroyed. You failed." I'd have expected her to get mad at this, but she actually relaxed.

"Good, I was getting sick of this job."

"Well, I could be lying."

"I don't care. No sunlight, little pay and awful company, I'm out of here."

"My, my, who trained you? That's not the way a professional should talk."

She actually looked as if she wanted to cry, but quickly gained her composure again.

"Let's just say I picked the wrong job. Now, if you would kindly let me go, we'll never see each other again."

Normally I wouldn't have agreed, but despite all, she now seemed harmless enough, so I returned my sword to it's sheath and walked away. Finally, I heard her call.

"Hey! Thanks for not killing me!"

That girl was truly no professional. She'd never bring it far in her business, or even mine. I think I liked her better for that.

--

How much is a priceless secret worth? Not much, but I wasn't expecting much. My stories of bravery were largely ignored, and I had to argue for a good half an hour before I finally got paid for the bed I rented in Skingrad. Still, it was enough to pay off a few old debts and buy a new bottle of alcohol.

I returned to my office, and waited for a new customer.