Night Of The Hunter

Welcome to the Family

I finally came to a rather small looking village. According to the map this should be Falkreath? I looked around, there is only around 7 buildings or so? I guess Astrid would want me to meet her here to make sure no one was around. But I have no idea where to find her?

I kept riding around the town, hoping I would find her somewhere. "Hey you! I've been looking all over Falkreath for you! I have a letter for you" I stopped the horse and received the letter from the courier. He simply ran off afterwards.
I looked at the letter in my hand. I wonder if it's from Astrid? I opened up the letter "Right outside of Falkreath you will find a small lake". Nothing more? Well I guess I'm hunting lakes now. I rode out of Falkreath and searched the nearest area for a small lake. 

Finally I found the small lake, even though it was more like a big puddle of dark water. It was just down a tiny hill. I tied the horse to the nearest tree by the puddle-lake. I looked closer at the black puddle, I had no idea what was in it. But it didn't look good.
I then heard some noises from behind me and I turned around to see Astrid. Considering she is the leader of the Dark Brotherhood, she really isn't that stealthy? I'm glad I didn't say that out loud.
"Oh great. I was wondering if I would ever see you again." Astrid said plainly "and I take it you killed the blacksmith" I nodded. I don't know what I was feeling, I had somehow thought I would have been excited to finally join the Dark Brotherhood. But something felt odd. I simply couldn't explain what it was so I tried to push the thought away.
"Good. Now that you have repaid your debt, I would like to invite you to join or family, become our sister. We can always use more initiates. So what do you say?" I had been waiting my whole life for this moment and I wasn't just about to let some weird feeling tell me otherwise, maybe it was the beff stew. Yeah it had to be that! 
"I would be honored to join your family." I said bowing my head.
"Wonderful. Then follow me." Astrid turned around and walked towards the small hill. What I hadn't seen was that there was a small passageway that led to a door. 
Wait, that door! It's the door from my dreams the other night? The handprint, that was also on the first letter I got from the Dark Brotherhood.
"What is the music of life?" A dark low whisper came from the door. 
"Silence my brother" Astrid answered it and the door opened "welcome home".

I followed close behind Astrid as we entrede through the door. I almost tripped as we came to some stairs. It was dark and it only became darker when the door closed right behind me. Astrid continued down the stairs with me right behind her. We entered a room, with a big table in the middle, there was a big map on top of it.
Astrid turned around towards me "welcome to our sanctuary, this is where we stay and live when we don't have contracts. This is also the safest place in all of Skyrim, I would even say all of Tamriel. Now, before you go off to meet the rest of the family, there are some rules, not many, but I demand that you follow them." I was already prepared for this, the Old One had thought me everything about the five tenets, I could even recite them in my sleep. 
"I am the leader, you do as I say, nothing more, nothing less. Is that understood?" Astrid looked intensely at me.
"Yes of course and the five tenets?" Astrid looked rather shocked when I brought that up. "How do you know about that?!" She asked. I don't know what it was, but my guts told me not to tell her the truth. "I once read about it in a book." Astrid simply looked at me, maybe she didn't buy it? Maybe she knew I was lying? 
"Well it is true that the Dark Brotherhood once worked like that. But we don't, it's an outdated way of doing things. See where it brought all the other sanctuarys. We are the last one standing and that is only because I chose not to follow those old rules. Those are the ones that killed all the others."

Astrid turned away from me and walked over to a doorway that led further into the sanctuary. All the others are dead? So they are the last ones? But how can she think that she can just forget about the tenets, those are the words of Sithis himself. 
"But no more of that, I think the rest of the family would want to meet you." Astrid said waiting for me to follow her.