During some downtime between the party’s adventures, they decided to take their time and stroll through the city of Whiterun and take it all in. While doing so, they heard town criers announcing the news, as well as some fresh rumors; one of which caught their attention. Members of the Couriers Guild were seen entering the premises of the Mages Guild, and staying there for hours on end. This struck people as odd, seeing as the couriers usually on spend a few minutes delivering a letter to a recipient. This interested the group more, seeing as they had not been receiving any letters and packages lately.
And so, Z decided to lay in wait, watching the Mages Guild until the couriers left the building, and clocking the weakest looking individual in the group, she went invisible and flew overhead to see where he lives. In the dead of the night, the group broke into his home, and interrogated him, while he and his partner for the night lay naked in his bed. It turned out that the couriers could not deliver some letters recently, as when they cast the Scrying spell to find the recipient, there were a few who they could not find. Because of this problem, the couriers had been consulting the mages to aid them in solving the issue. Realizing that they were the culprit of this issue, or rather their amulets that protect them from divination magic, the HAS decided to leave no loose ends. They killed the two witnesses, looted the place of anything of interest, and torched the house, leaving in time before any law enforcement made it nearby.
Knowing what the problem is, the group went to the Couriers Guild in person to pick up any letters that were addressed to them. Then, in order to lay low for a while, they traveled back to Bthardamz, where they decided to try and find an entrance into Blackreach, as they intend to find a way into Markarth from underground. Using the Staff of Recollection, the group found out of an ancient elevator that was caved in a long time ago, within Bthardamz itself. To solve the cave in issue, Nerk decided to try and develop some explosives, a successful endeavor which, through careful planning, blew apart a bunch of rocks, providing a way to the elevator. The group then used the elevator to go deeper underground, into an immense area of pitch black darkness. Landing within an old dwelling which was mostly ransacked, the group had made it into the fabled underground of the Skyrim province, Blackreach. Leaving the empty dwelling, the group saw a large castle looming atop a hill across from a lake, the architecture of which Morag recognised to be of Breton make.
