Chillrend

Michael invisibly tracks the girls as they head to the gates and leave the city, the guards from earlier leaving them unmolested as they still think they're affiliated with Maven Black-Briar. Medresi comes along with them too for obvious reasons. She'd been seen with him, so once people started looking for him they'd head to her first.

Once he was happy that they were safe, he immediately set to work. The first thing he does is begin to scout the city, it was larger than shown in the game, so he'd need to do a bit of exploring before he could find recognisable points of interest... Specifically, he was looking for three places.

The first was the Ratway, which he found rather quickly just by looking around the central part of the city which was only accessible via bridges.

The second was in the graveyard, a tome which hid a button that would open a way directly into the Thieves Guild. It wasn't hard to find this one, the graves and uncharacteristic traffic in the area was a dead giveaway.

The third was the most important(in his opinion), Riftweald Manor, Mercer Frey's Manor which you break into in the game. He remember this part distinctly, as he'd been stuck trying to shoot those fucking switches to gain access to the place... Fortunately, his strife had burned knowledge of the Manor into his brain, allowing him to never forget, and never forgive... Never forgive the Bethesda team for creating such an annoying place.

He heads to Riftweald Manor and scouts it out for a couple minutes, eventually determining that Mercer Frey wasn't home. He enters it via those annoying switches and gets to work finding incriminating evidence. The dragons hadn't returned yet, so things would be different compared to the game, but the guy still probably had a lot of bad shit hidden.

Still, that didn't mean he himself wouldn't ignore free meals set at his feet. Mercer's Manor was chock-full of gold, gems, and other valuables. Paintings, sculptures, decorative ornaments. Michael even stole the Bust of the Gray Fox, a rare statuette dedicated to some ancient thief. The history of it went over his head, but it was sure to be valuable.

With most of Mercer's shit stolen, Michael makes his way down to the basement, easily finding the hidden entrance that led to heavily trapped tunnels. He easily floats over the trap floors with Convection however, allowing him to reach Mercer's office with ease.

Inside, he finds a desk covered in parchments, detailing plans, deals, information on members of the guild that even contained notes on things to use as leverage and blackmail against them. Funnily enough, there were parchments that contained calculations on how much gold was left in the Thieves Guild treasury, along with some notes about how long it'd take to siphon it all without seeming suspicious.

Michael stifles a grin and pockets it all before then looting the rest of the office. There must have been tens of thousands of gold here, all stored in large nondescript bags. Seems like Mercer hadn't gotten to chance to spend most of his stolen gold yet. "Don't mind if I do." he chuckles, chucking it all into his inventory.

He also steals two other notable things from the office, a book detailing advanced sneaking techniques that he tosses to Riki via the book, and a glass sword hidden in a glass case. This was Chillrend, one of the most OP swords in the game with a stupidly powerful enchantment.

If Derflinger weren't able to absorb magic and eventually cast it, he'd have swapped weapons instantly. Unfortunately, Derflinger shouldn't be able to swap sword bodies until he's destroyed... Something Michael wasn't all that eager to do without a good amount of preparation. That didn't mean he didn't have ideas about it however... He'd put Derflinger's spirit into a heavily enchanted ebony sword when he got the chance... Maybe he'd actually give Derflinger a face as well.

He shakes his head, depositing Chillrend into his inventory and doing one last check of the place before leaving. He was done with this phase of his plan, now onto the next.

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Elsewhere.

Within a large underground cistern populated by many people in brown leather armour, a small commotion occurs.

Brynjolf chuckles as he listens to Devlin speak of the recent jobs he'd had completed. The funniest of which was him sending a new guild member into Solitude's sewers in an attempt to find lost jewellery. It'd worked, but the new blood refused to take any more jobs until he stopped stinking of shit... Which wasn't going to happen anytime soon.

"So, how're things lookin' on your end? Anything strike your fancy?" he asks.

Brynjolf nods, "Aye, I ran into a funny lad earlier, seemed like a sure fit for the guild... If I hadn't been paid to have him pulled. A shame... I hope they don't split his skull in two."

"Depends what he did to them... If you paid a pretty penny, then he's probably already dead." Delvin shrugs, "Maybe he managed to talk his way outta' it though, who knows."

The duo continues their conversation but are interrupted by Mercer Frey, the stern-faced leader of the Thieves Guild wearing his usual black leather armour. He walks over to Brynjolf with a scowl, "You... What did you do!?"

...

"I haven't a clue what you're talking about." Brynjolf retorts, unsure what to make of Mercer's sudden hostility.

Mercer growls under his breath, "I want to know why Maven Black-Briar is on my ass because three of her men were butchered in a jail cell!"

...

Delvin can't help but start chuckling, quickly piecing two and two together with the boy Brynjolf had just spoken about. "Hahaha! Looks like that boy had some hair on his chest!"

Mercer scowls at him, "Be quiet, this isn't a joking matter!"