User:Damon/Cassie

Cassie by Marcurio A look into the mysterious masked woman of Riften

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Snowmane's Note: It's not often that I will write a story directly relating to a game, but this is a fun little one that I wrote out of boredom as I was expanding on Cassie's story. This story, as you will gather from the details, is told from the perspective of an in-game character, so it's not a detailed full life story. Simply a detailed account of a few hours of gameplay, which I then took creative freedom on and made into a story. If you want a more general story of Cassie, click the aforementioned link.

I do have a few ideas for original stories that I am working on, and eventually those will start rolling out eventually. Hopefully, this impromptu story about a roleplay I am doing in Skyrim will prove interesting. Like I just said though, it's impromptu, and I wrote it in an hour and a half out of boredom, so it may be interesting, it may not me. I don't know.

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Forward

Though this story is years old and there have been no known positive identifications of the Wood Elf known as Cassandra White-Foot, that doesn't mean she's stopped committing crime or is dead. The information within this book isn't to be taken lightly, as given the details of her being quite young at the time of this story, it's possible that she is still active, but her identity has changed or her facial features have changed.

Report any suspicious individuals to your local guard captain.

Rolf Stone-Shield, Imperial Legate. 4E 234.

Introduction

I have the story of Cassandra White-Foot, who I know to be the murderer of man, mer, and beast all across Skyrim. This is the story, as told from my experiences with her. Given the nature of who she is, there is no way I can ever hope to know everything about her and give a detailed account of her life. She'd probably kill me as it stands for writing this journal about her, but given the catastrophe brought about by her, it stands to reason that the public deserves to know about this woman.

The precise date slips my mind, but it was in the middle of the month of Hearthfire in the year 4E 201 when she went into The Bee and Barb in Riften. She was wearing a rather beautiful outfit, like she'd normally wear, and she came to me asking if I was for hire and would follow her out into the wilderness. Needing the money, I sold my sword to her and was ordered to wait in the inn for a few hours for her. When she came back, she was wearing the blackest of armors and carrying a beautiful blue blade on her waist. She didn't say a word to me, but the way the masked woman looked at me and nodded put into my mind right away that it was her, so I followed her out of town.

Largashbur

When we were out of earshot of the guards, she finally spoke. It was definitely her now. The mission, she said, was to travel to a Dwemer ruin west of Riften to return a mysterious box she showed me called a "lexicon". She didn't give me any time to ask questions, she simply took off at a fast pace to the west. I was barely able to keep up with her. I'm a wizard, not a warrior or, in her case, more of a rogue, so running at the pace she did was extremely exhausting.

We made it to an Orc stronghold near the ruin with little distraction along the way. There were a few bears, but she was quick to dispatch them, and I was left staring in awe at her skill with a blade and bow.

The Orc stronghold wasn't part of her "mission", but she saw it in the distance and sneaked up the side of the mountain for a high vantage point. Something caught her eye down there, and she drew her bow and began to systematically snipe Orcs from the mountain. What they did to her, I do not know, but she was merciless. I couldn't see her face under the cowl and mask she wore, but I suspect she didn't bat an eye as she shot and killed all the Orcs in the yard.

Once she was certain the yard was cleared, she sat up on the mountain for another hour or so, and then she dropped off the side of the mountain and slid down to the fence, which she then hopped over, using the cliff face as a platform to clear it. I was in no way physically capable of doing that, and I wasn't feeling confident enough to try, so I circled around the mountain and waited outside the main gate for her, which she then unlocked for me.

I can't get it out of my memory what I saw. Bodies littered the ground, and she had a pile started of various weapons, armors, ingots, and food. After a few minutes of staring in shock and disbelief at what had conspired moments ago, I found the courage to ask her why, and she replied so coldly to me that I wondered if she saw people or animals.

"They have supplies and if you're going into that ruin with me, you'll need the supplies."

She then proceeded to dump onto me almost one hundred and fifty pounds of Orcish armor, weapons, and food, which I grudgingly put on. It was the armor of an innocent victim of murder, and it felt wrong of me to wear it. Cassandra, or "Cassie" as she preferred to be known by, had just proven to me that she was not as soft and sweet as she portrayed herself to be in town when she was in a dress and jewels. I do not doubt that actions like this are how she acquired her wealth.

If I had any sense at all, I would have terminated our business agreement right then and gone home, but I was afraid she'd pull the blue sword on me next. I am a deadly mage, but as close as she was, that blade would have impaled me before I had hurt her enough magically to kill her or escape. I simply walked out the gate behind her and followed her down the path to the entrance of the ruin.

Avanchnzel

It was a straight forward push through the ruin. There were no people that I could see inside, though Cassie would occasionally stop to mumble to herself about voices she'd apparently hear as she moved further into the ruin.

There were tons of Dwemer machines waiting in the ruin for us, and I was able to prove to her my worth as her companion when I quickly dispatched them with my lightening spells.

I'd say she was largely pleased with my efforts, though there was one time where my bulky Orcish armor banged up against the railing to the stairwell we were in, and a half dozen Dwemer spiders where on top of us. It was so chaotic a fight that I can't remember well what happened, but I know that I was on the ground bleeding when she destroyed the last machine.

She bent down to heal me with some mysterious potions she was carrying, while simultaneously cursing my clumsiness. That was the thing with her. She expected absolute perfection in everything I did, and she expected no complaints. I think it was only the possibility of another room of spiders and that I was now carrying more weight that she pushed onto me before hand that kept me alive. Otherwise, I do not think she would have lost any sleep had I perished that day.

We pushed on further, encountering many more spiders and even a large Dwemer machine guarding the lexicon's pedestal. It was a tough machine, and even Cassie herself was frequently stepping back and jumping to higher ground to get away from it and catch a breath.

With the machine dead and the lexicon back in place, she combed the rooms nearby for loot, which she took back into Riften to sell.

I don't know where she sold the stuff at, given that I was ordered to wait in the Temple of Mara for her, but she came back quite a bit richer and told me in a slightly warmer voice than I was used to that it was time to travel again.

She didn't give me any more instructions than that, she just said it was time to go, so I followed. I suppose I could have found a way to stay in town, given that there were plenty of witnesses to protect me, if I decided to terminate our "business arrangement" as she referred to it as. It was always business with her. Every single thing she did, she did for profit.

I decided to follow her anyway, because I was still scared of her in her armor, which she was still wearing when we were in town.

The Next Jobs

We moved at an even faster pace this time than we did going to Avanchnzel. She is a fast runner, and she has a lot of stamina. We ran all night. Just before nine, we were in Ivarstead, and she entered a house without me, and came back mere minutes later carrying a satchel.

She didn't hang around, and I didn't think to ask questions, so I took off after her again. Our next stop was in Windhelm, and we were there by midnight. I was thoroughly out of breath. I still was wearing that Orc's armor, and she would only stop for a few minutes at a time every hour or so to take a drink from a wine bottle and catch her breath. Then, we were off again. In Windhelm, we went into an alchemist's shop, and I then learned what our objective was. She was retrieving things for the court wizard of Riften.

The aging alchemist also requested that she go to a cave to the west to find a phial that he's sought after all his life, but was too old to get himself. Since wealth is seemingly all that matters to Cassie, she accepted and immediately went there to retrieve the phial before traveling to Winterhold.

Again, Cassie showed me her cold nature, when she saw two Redguard warriors interrogating a Redguard woman on the road. She was quick to eliminate both of them, and then the woman when she screamed and started fleeing and calling for help. She stripped the warriors of their Scimitars and the money each of the three carried, and gave me one of the swords as an "upgrade" to the one I was holding. Then, she began carrying the second sword in her off-hand.

Further down the road, she executed another Orc. This one a skooma dealer, which she stripped of everything but his clothes. She's got a skooma addiction, it seems. Not so bad as other people I've met, but she's an addict, and she'd "acquire" it whenever she could and then indulge. It's amazing the skooma hasn't yet affected the job, since she enlightened me by saying she "needed" it. After a brief break while she had her narcotics and a bite to eat, we finally made it to the cave.

The cave itself was straightforward. We dispatched some draugr and took the phial. There was only one noteworthy thing that happened.

Like I said, Cassie demanded only perfection, and while we were moving through the barrow in the cave, I sprinted around a corner to try and keep up with her, not noticing she had jumped over a pressure plate before stooping down to pull gold and jewelry from a chest. I stepped on that plate, and she took a poisoned arrow to the chest.

She stumbled back in pain, and ducked down beside the chest to pull out the arrow and then treat her wound. This was the very first time she displayed any kind of anger towards me. She pulled back her cowl and screamed at me for being a "useless, careless oaf" who needed his eyesight checked or to fall over dead somewhere, and that it wouldn't be a loss to her if her clumsy companion did so.

I could almost see the fire in her eyes and the desire to run me through with the blade. I don't know why she didn't kill me right then, for it was the second time in less than a day that I had done something carelessly and almost killed us.

The rest of the trip was in silence, except for when she ordered me to carry the spoils of her journey. If I had any sense, that would have been the opportunity to try and terminate my service to her, but I am Imperial born, and not familiar with Skyrim or where we were, so I would have ended up hopelessly lost.

Returning to Windhelm

We arrived in Winterhold at sunrise. I'm still amazed that she was able to keep the pace to cover so much of the province in one night. When she retrieved the last of the items for the court wizard, she took a full day of rest in Winterhold, and I was able to shed the armor and visit the College for the first time. It was a marvelous sight, though that's not the purpose of this tome.

It was in Winterhold that I found a new fear for her. Just outside the city, we had been attacked by an assassin bearing a note of execution for Cassandra. It had thoroughly scared me that I was hired to protect a woman wanted by the Dark Brotherhood, though it didn't surprise me that people wanted the thief and murderer dead. I was just concerned that I would be killed as well for being an accessory to her crimes and for witnessing her assassination.

There were a few of her books on the chest beside the bed as she slept, and I decided to thumb through them. In one of them, which I take is a journal of hers, there was a page folded over that caught my eye, so I read it. It was detailing another job she did with a Nord she had following her. He was a fierce warrior, but dumb as a sack of rocks. They were in the middle of nowhere, and he made a colossal screwup, and she killed him on the spot for being dead weight to her.

As much as I would have loved to read more of her journal, the opportunity didn't present itself. She was starting to stir in her sleep, so I replaced the book and picked up her copy of "Immortal Blood", and I began to read that, in case she woke up. When she eventually did wake, we were off for Windhelm again.

This journey was uneventful, though it felt strained. The air around her felt wrong.We arrived in Windhelm without any incident beyond a fort with some necromancers and conjurers that attacked us. They were not an issue for us, and we were quickly on our way.

When we arrived in Windhelm, she took the items from me that she had "acquired" and sold them off to the smith before giving me an additional 250 septims and dismissing me.

I don't know how she knew, given that she had her back to me the whole time, but she told me she knew about the journal and that I was lucky she hadn't killed me in the wilderness for being so clumsy and nosy. That money was to secure transport back to Riften, and she pulled the mask back over her face and departed after assuring me that there'd be consequences if I tried anything.

Epilogue

Marcurio was indeed murdered shortly after he sent a draft of this story to the jarl of Riften and a book publisher, to get the word out for Cassandra White-Foot's arrest. His body was discovered outside of Riften being picked at by wolves, and there was a lone Orcish arrow through the base of his neck.

The two copies of the story sent to the Jarl and the book publisher, who will remain anonymous for his safety, were quickly stolen, no doubt from the same woman. That said, there was one additional copy that had already been bound as a book, and was missed in her sweep of the publisher's establishment. That copy made it to resale, and had been distributed to raise awareness about the mysterious murderer, though through whatever influences she has over the guard, she walked away free.

She was so thorough and careful with her crimes, and she moved so fast and so frequently that there are no crimes or actions after the publication of the first edition of this book that can be attached to her, though we can all speculate.

Her whereabouts are unknown when she is not in Riften, and when she's in Riften, she's practically untouchable because she has the protection of the guards and probably even the Thieves Guild, given her incredible stealth skills.

in early 4E 205, Cassie moved out of Riften, and her whereabouts are currently unknown. Given the violent and merciless nature of this woman, we urge everyone to be weary of any mysterious blonde haired Bosmer women who are acting suspiciously or anybody in dark black clothing and a full faced mask sneaking around in Skyrim.

Anyone with information that will lead to the arrest of this elusive Bosmer should immediately report to the local guards with what they know.

Julius Maro, Rifen Guard. 4E 205