Chapter 18: Friends And Enemies In Unexpected Places
I was allowed to sleep in Dragonsreach’s guest rooms and given the horse to visit Winterhold. Needless to say, the entirety of the College students and staff were shocked to see me battered and burnt, and shocked still at my tale of dragons. I rested in Winterhold for a few days, then returned to Whiterun to speak with the Court Wizard, at the Jarl’s request.
The Court Wizard was… eccentric. In fact a better word may be “obsessive”. His desk was littered with papers in languages both new and old, some unrecognizable, some simply stone slabs with a crude carving of a whale. An enchanting table was buried by enchanted daggers and rings made to test new enchantments, and a map was covered in dots of various size and color. A male Nord dressed in blue cotton robes with a gold trim walked out from a side room carrying a stack of books that reached his jutting chin. His hair was a dark black, akin to mine, and the facial hair on the sides of his cheeks was rather unseemly, untrimmed and unkept. The beginning of a wonderful friendship.
“I've told you, I don't need any more of these thrice-damned celestial signs! Take them back!”
“Er… I am not here to peddle these ‘celestial signs’ to you. Jarl Balgruuf said I might be of assistance to you.”
He put the stack of books on the table, ignoring the fact that he was folding ancient texts and that the the top two volumes slid off onto the floor.
“What? Oh, he must mean the Barrow job. C’mere.”
He pointed to a spot just north of the city that he mark with red.
“I need you to get to the heart of the tomb and bring be a stone slab, about yay big.”
He swirled his hands about to indicate the size.
“Is it dangerous?”
“Yes. Look, all I need is for you to delve into an ancient ruin filled with bandits and Tal… Arkay knows what else to find an ancient stone tablet that may or may not be there. Need anything else? See Proventus.”
As I mentioned, he was quite eccentric. He pointed in the general direction of the steward and turned away, absent-mindedly picking up the fallen books. I walked over to the balding Imperial who was immensely confused by my presence until I explained the one “Farengar Secret-Fire” sent me, which seemed to clear up all his concerns.
“So, mage. What do you need?”
“I'd feel most comfortable if my College would send our new Battlemages. Can you give them word?”
We had begun to train Nord warriors in the art of destruction magics. It helped to break the ice with locals, to have those who lived both as a traditional Nord and as a heretical mage, as many thought of us. The new College had more insults thrown at it than the Thalmor ever got during wartime.
“I shall send our fastest courier.”
And so I waited. Valund had helped out with teaching our new Battlemages the ways of using both sword and spell to the best effect, and hence would likely be leading the party.
They arrived three days later, Valund and all his best trainees. I was glad of Valund’s presence, as it had been quite a while since our last meeting. With my newfound duties and his unofficially leaving the Vigil to (also unofficially) join the new College as a teacher to willing warriors, we had not found the time to speak much. Not that he was big on talking, of course, but he was a friend.
I explained our task to them and we rode up toward Riverwood and took a dirt path further up the mountain. The outside of the ruin was guarded by some rather pathetic brigands that we quite easily dispatched, allowing our entrance. The first room was a bit of a marvelous sight with a tall ceiling and fairly beautiful pillars. Sadly, it's beauty was soon marred by the smell of two outlaws’ burnt flesh.
We descended some stairs and came upon a Nord lying dead on the floor. His body had been assaulted by dozens of poisoned darts. Using only a rudimentary knowledge of Nordic traps, we knew that the answer was somewhere in the room. One trainee noticed a pattern of carved animals correlated with rotating stone pyramids and we arranged them according to the pattern, deactivating the trap and allowing us to pass without harm.
We went down a set of rotting wooden stairs and came upon a large room covered in spider webs. Blood stained the floor and we noticed a massive severed spider leg. Cautiously scanning the room led us to the unconscious body of one of the bandits; Gods know how he got through that gate. We cut his body down from the webs he hang in and started to leave, when one of the trainees began suffering chills and convulsions, writhing in a pool of Frostbite Venom.
“Well damn.” I muttered as I looked around, expecting the spider to be above us.
“I don't see it.”
“Nor do I.”
“I sure don't.”
Ignoring the unneeded input from the others, I puzzled over the creature’s disappearance. It is not like frostbite spiders to attack then vanish. The stupid beasts normally just charged right in.
“Did anyone hear the thing spit at him?”
None of us had heard it. This was the beginning of my suspicion.
We decided to kill the unknowing outlaw and searched his belongings; one never knows what to expect from those types of people. My curiosity rewarded us with a golden claw statuette. From the looks of it, it was valuable, and the markings on the palm indicated it solved a Nordic Puzzle Door deeper in the ruin. How perfect.
We fought some more minor skirmishes against Draugr and past some very basic traps and came upon a bridge. We walked across it, and near the end I came very close to being killed by a fire pot. I looked down and saw to switch or other mechanism by which it could have been dropped. We looked behind us and saw no mechanism anywhere that had been activated or that could have deployed the fire pot.
We moved on and after a short while encountered the Nordic Puzzle Door, which opened easily with the claw. Inside we found a large cave, with a waterfall filling a river an a large stone wall on the far side, next to a coffin. There was no opposition, so we carefully approached the wall, noticing etched words on it. As we neared the rock, one word in particular began to glow a dim red at first, then proceeding to a bright orange with a blue tinge around the edges.
“By the Heavens, what is this thing, Archmagister?”
“I don't… know.”
We looked on in awe at the glowing word until I finally mustered the idea to reach out to it. I placed my hand on the inscription and felt a strong wind blowing through the cavern. Pain. Visions;
A loud sound pierced the air, and I went flying. Falling. Dead.
The same sound. Broken ribs. Bleeding out. Dead.
The same noise, coming from me this time. Fus. An enemy crumples before me.
I opened my eyes and looked around. The word had stopped glowing and the pain in my head subsided. Shrugging off the stares of amazement mixed with fear (which I was quite familiar with by this point), I began to look around for the required stone tablet, ordering the others to follow suit. As we scoured the cavern, we heard the noise we dreaded most; the sound of the coffin breaking open. I looked up, expecting to see a Draugr, probably some long-dead warlord guarding his treasure.
Instead I see the same type of hideous creature as the one deep in the Labyrinthian’s ruins. It smiled that same disgusting grin as it listened to the sound of steel being taken out of various sheaths and we prepared to fight.
Comments
Clearing a ruin with an army of battlemages? What didn't I think of that during my playthrough.