262 No Mercer

Mercer turns to Brynjolf, "Maven thinks that you may have set her men up! I've seen the cell, and I'll tell you, no sane, stable person would do something like that... And now you're talking chummy about the guy who did it? Do you want to get us all killed!?"

Brynjolf shakes his head, "You know I had nothing to do with whatever happen, I did the job and left, the usual procedure."

"Considering the guy's who know that are dead, you'd be hard-pressed to explain that to Maven! Brynjolf, this is not looking good for you." Mercer states, though, inwardly he was laughing. He'd been looking for a way to get rid of Brynjolf since the man had joined. He was too effective at what he did, too loyal to the Guild... And too perceptive for his liking.

The other guild members gather around the three as he listens in on the commotion, Brynjolf sends a harsh look at Mercer, "What're you saying, Mercer? Because it sounds to me like you want me gone? All on the word of some bitch who has you sitting in her pocket." he remarks while taking a quick glance at the other gathered members, and mentally nodding at their positive reaction to his words.

Delvin nods, "Yeah, she might be the only thing keeping us afloat right now, but I reckon it's doing more harm than good... Thing's aren't what they used to be, and they only seem to be gettin' worse. Soon enough most of the people here won't have any jobs to take!" he says, his words heavier than most simply due to the fact that he was the one who gave out most jobs. With Maven's control over them, most jobs had to be run by her first in order to not harm her interest.

Mercer glowers at the duo, realising that the other members were agreeing with their sentiment, he's about to retort when something floats down in front of him... A parchment? He looks at it and his eyes widen in shock and fear. He hears the fluttering of yet more parchment and sucks in a cold breath of air at the sight of it.

A hundred or so of similar parchments were raining down into the cistern from the boarded-up well directly above them. Each member of the guild was collecting at least one of them before they fell into the water, and each member steadily turned their gaze to Mercer, who continued to stand there dumbfounded.

Brynjolf's mouth gapes as he looks down at the parchment, his eyes double, triple, and quadruple checking the number purported to have been taken from the Guild's vault by Mercer. "You..."

Mercer holds his hands up while slowly backing away, "I can explain! Someone's clearly trying to frame me! I mean, just look at the timing! I get into an argument with Bryjolf and Delvin, and suddenly these incriminating documents rain from the sky!? What a complete farce!"

Sapphire marches up to him and forces a piece of parchment into his chest with a furious expression on her face. "A farce!? Is that why there's information on my father!? My REAL father!? First, you want to cut Brynjolf out after all he's done for us!? And now we find that you've collected shit to blackmail us!?" she exclaims.

"You're wrong! I was simply searching for him as a reward to you-"

"And this daughter I have but don't know about!? That a soon-to-be reward as well, Mercer!?" Vipir asks, ready to cut the man's throat at a moment's notice.

Mercer frowns and stays silent as many more accusations are sent his way, the fact that most of them were actually true only dug his hole deeper. He slowly backs away further, his hand snaking towards a pouch on his hip.

"Mercer. Tell me this is all lies! We've known each other for so long, tell me none of this is true!" Brynjolf exclaims, causing the others to go silent as they await Mercer's response.

...

"It's all lies, Brynjolf." he says simply, afterwards quickly pulling a strange-looking key from his pouch and stabbing it into the air in front of him. The other members of the Thieves Guild attempt to stop him, but it's already too late, as his form dissipates into shadowy particles.

"W-what in the fuck was that!?" Devlin shouts and is parroted by the other confused members.

"I don't know, but we have to make that bastard pay!" Sapphire grouses.

Brynjolf gives a solemn nod, "Go, search the city for him, I couldn't have gotten far!" he says, observing all the members scatter. He then turns his eyes to the roof, specifically the entrance where all the incriminating evidence had come from. "Hmm, you keep getting more interesting, don't you lad?"

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Michael watches this all unfold from the boarded-up well, he'd turned back invisible once he'd dropped all of the evidence, but he was surprised when Mercer had just disappeared by using the Skeleton Key. He wasn't aware that the Daedric Artifact could be used like that, though, he supposed you could argue that Mercer was just 'unlocking space' to go somewhere else.

Unfortunately for Mercer, his luck seems to have failed him... He reappears not far from where Michael is and drops to a knee, cursing as he tries to suck in air. "Damn it... Everything is fucked!" he mumbles, his ears twitching as he suddenly throws himself to the side, barely avoiding a dagger to the back of his head.

"Yeah, fucked is definitely what I'd called your situation." Michael states as he readies himself for another attack.

"W-who the fuck are you!?" Mercer shouts, pulling out his own knife while holding the Skeleton Key in his off-hand, as if he were using a parrying dagger, or a defender from Runescape.

Michael shrugs, "No one you need to concern yourself about." he says before using Blink Strike to appear behind Mercer for an attack.