Nightingales

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The Nightingales are a secret order of the Thieves Guild who worship the Daedric Deity Nocturnal. The Nightingales exist to protect the shrines of Nocturnal. Those who are loyal join her in the Evergloam to live forever in twilight and become shadows.

Most people in Tamriel believe that the Nightingales don't exist and simply think they are a fictional group created to scare young people into doing what they are told. They also don't think that thieves can be religious or have honor.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim[]

By 4E 201, the Nightingales consisted of three members: Karliah, Gallus Desidenius, and Mercer Frey. However, deciding to betray the Nightingales, the Thieves Guild, and Nocturnal, Mercer murdered Gallus, framed Karliah for it, and stole the Skeleton Key from the Twilight Sepulcher, cutting off Nocturnal's access to Nirn through it. Taking over as Guildmaster, unaware of his actions causing the Thieves Guild to be cursed with bad luck due to their connection to Nocturnal being severed, Mercer secretly was stealing from the Guild, right under their noses, and they did not know about it. However, when the Last Dragonborn joins the Guild after completing their inaugural task set out for them by Brynjolf, this begins the process of Mercer having his plans fall apart. In the meantime, to get back at Mercer, Karliah began working with rival businesses that would cause trouble for the Thieves' Guild's sole remaining benefactor, Maven Black-Briar, and her business, the Black-Briar Meadery. When Karliah later invites Mercer back to Gallus' murder site at the Snow Veil Sanctum, seeing the Dragonborn with him, she's forced to use her arrow tipped with a potent paralysis poison to incapacitate them. After confronting Mercer, then making her escape under cover of invisibility upon realizing fighting Mercer was suicide, Karliah later recovers the Dragonborn and nurses them back to health as her poison saved them from bleeding out when Mercer stabbed them to kill them and keep his lies and deceit a secret from the rest of the Thieves Guild. After decoding Gallus' journal using the Falmer text stored in Calcelmo's personal lab in Markarth, Karliah and the Dragonborn present it to the Thieves Guild, proving that Mercer had betrayed all of them. Enraged by his betrayal, Brynjolf goes with Karliah and the Dragonborn to Nightingale Hall to become Nightingales themselves to deal with Mercer. Contacting Nocturnal, she agrees to make the Dragonborn and Brynjolf Nightingales while restoring Karliah's status as well, and together, the three of them head to the Dwemer ruins of Irkngthand to stop Mercer from stealing the Eyes of the Falmer and escaping from Skyrim altogether. When they catch him finishing prying the Eyes loose from their statue, he isolates the Dragonborn from Karliah and Brynjolf, before forcing Brynjolf to attack Karliah under a Frenzy-type spell that causes him to attack her against his will, while Mercer faces the Dragonborn. Despite all his skills and training, Mercer is slain by the Dragonborn as punishment for his crimes against the Thieves Guild, the Nightingales, and Nocturnal, and the Dragonborn retrieves the Skeleton Key and Eyes of the Falmer from Mercer's corpse. The Key is later returned to the Twilight Sepulcher, restoring Nocturnal's connection to Nirn, and restoring the Thieves Guild's good luck as well. Karliah is also able to spend one last moment with Gallus before he returns to the Evergloam, and the Dragonborn, as both a member of the Thieves Guild and the Nightingales, is made the new Guildmaster of the Thieves Guild with Brynjolf, Vex, Delvin, Maven, Karliah, and everyone else's support.