If you go to Windhelm and talk to NPC's, many of them will mention a very troubled boy named Aventus Aretino whose mother died recently. At some point, you have the opportunity to talk to a mother near his house who tells you that Aventus has been trying to contact the Dark Brotherhood.
Once you have found out where he lives and that he is trying to contact the Dark Brotherhood, then you should break into his house. This is quite easy to do since there is normally nobody outside and it is a novice lock level.
Go upstairs and talk to Aventus. He will tell you that his mother died and he was sent to an orphanage called the Honorhall Orphanage in Riften. He will tell you about how he escaped and then performed the ritual to call an assassin from the Dark Brotherhood. He will tell you about Grelod the Kind who runs the orphanage and is terrible to all the kids there. He believes that you are a Dark Brotherhood assassin who has come to answer his call, so he asks you to kill Grelod the Kind for him.
At this point, your quest log gets a quest called Innocence Lost added to it and updated with the objective to kill Grelod the Kind.
Travel to Riften and find the orphanage. Once you get there, you will witness a scene of Grelod threatening the kids. If you talk to any of the kids or the other woman at the orphanage, they all say that Grelod is aweful and that the "kind" title is a sarcastic slight against her. You can talk to Grelod, but it is quite a short conversation which ends with her simply ignoring you. You can then kill her which updates your quest log with the objective to go back and talk to Aventus.
When you talk to Aventus, he is incredibly pleased and rewards you with a family heirloom. This successfully concludes this quest.At some time later, a stranger will approach you with a letter that has a hand print and a line saying "We know." He does not know where it came from or anything else about it. Once you receive this letter, the next time you sleep, you will wake up in an unfamiliar location and will be greeted by a masked woman from the Dark Brotherhood.
I decided against joining the Brotherhood after giving Grelod what she deserved. That was one heck of a fight for my L.16 (then 17 and 18) Khajiit. Used up all of my poisons. Ate almost all of my cooked food. And finally put her down with my Lunar Steel Mace! Now I'm off to report to Captain whatsisface in Dragon Bridge and collect my cash. :D
ReplyDeleteEXCEPT! I have to go kill all the rest of the Brothers (and Sisters) at the Sanctuary! Will do. Wish they'd expanded this to include finding ALL the members of the Brotherhood in Skyrim! Oh, well!
ReplyDeleteWell, if you do the quests, you find out that this is ALL the members in Skyrim...that's all there is left of the Dark Brotherhood
ReplyDeleteIn effort to learn more about the dark brotherhood, who for some reason has got a contract out on me, I tracked down the boy, little freak, checked out orphanage, saw the old hag, but also saw a good caretaker there too, and can't really justify killing hag, against my creed. Sad no other options are available. My character is left with knowledge of no justice for situation, which is interesting to live with, I guess. My beef is from the above, it sounds like the trail of the dark brotherhood will go cold for my character. That is, without killing hag, there's no way to get on the destroy brotherhood quest? If so, that's dumb.
ReplyDelete@Peter: I'd thought there were a few other members of the Brotherhood scattered around Skyrim (Nazeem/Cicero)?
ReplyDelete@Thomas: I can understand that. Just had to take action - that old lady wasn't just bad, she was destroying those kids' spirits. Hopefully now the "MaryAnn" can give them the love and support they truly need - and keep them from trying to join or create a new Dark Brotherhood! ;)
Ok, you are correct about Cicero. He is a dark brotherhood member who is not yet in the sanctuary (and technically the Night Mother is as well). And realistically, Cicero and the Night Mother are probably the biggest dangers to the Dark Brotherhood returning after being wiped out by you - maybe this is just a fail-safe so that they can still exist in the next game.
ReplyDeleteFair 'nuff! :)
ReplyDeleteIt's kinda funny that I helped Cicero (unknowing of whom he was at the time) get his wagon fixed and then wipe out the Brotherhood in my personal game.
Have you done the Rise in the East quest? My wife's been trying to map out all the locations and we couldn't find Japhet's Folly, so I did a little digging and found it's connected to that quest, but I cannot see who to speak with to initiate the quest.
Well, as it so happens, I just completed that quest. You have to talk to Orthus Endario to initiate it. He is in the East India Empire Company offices just outside Windhelm.
ReplyDelete:) Great timing! Thank you ever so much!
ReplyDelete