Bjorn woke up in a dark, damp cave. Various weapons and chests littered the room around him and he was chained to a rotting chair in the centre of the room, it smelt of sweat and mead – a scent Bjorn was used to after spending his entire life in Skyrim.
He then saw the Bandit chief in front of him, but he looked different to the usual bandits Bjorn had gotten used to fighting. He was dressed head to toe in some kind of green armour with a skull painted on the front - a weapon was strung behind his back, what Nigel had said was a ‘sniper’.
The bandit chief came up to him, brought out a knife, and slashed him across the face. Bjorn remained calm, steady and staring at the cold-hearted bandit in front of him, then the Bandit spoke.
“That won’t be the last wound you get unless you co-operate. I am a commander in the Gunners – fear me”
“I’m not scared of you, scum”
“You should be…” the Gunner replied as he slashed the other cheek, blood seeped down Bjorn's face, staining his cuirass.
“Now” the Gunner began. “Where the hell am I?”
It suddenly dawned on Bjorn where this man was from, it explained the strange armour, weapons and fish out of water look on his face. “You are from the Commonwealth, no?”
The man looked surprised, “How did you know that?”
“My friend is from there – and there’s no way back, not yet - you deserve it”
The gunner roared in anger and flung the knife in Bjorn’s general direction; he quickly leant his head sideways to dodge the flying knife and heard it impale the cave wall behind him.
“I would say I’m sorry, but I’m not” Bjorn replied with scorn
The gunner flew into a rage, “I am a GUNNER! I am a COMMANDER! I will go back!”
“I'm afraid you won't” Bjorn spat at the pitiful man and saw blood drip down onto the ground beneath him, his cheeks were still bleeding.
It was then that the ground tremored and chunks of rock fell from the ceiling; the Gunner looked around in confusion. “What the…?”
More and more chunks of rock fell all around him and soon the cave began to collapse, Bjorn turned around and saw the impact of the knife had caused the already weak cave to collapse. The Gunner turned and ran towards the exit; leaving Bjorn tied up and about to be crushed. A torch fell from the wall, landing on a batch of barrels and setting them on fire. Within an instant, the cave was both collapsing and on fire, thick smoke filled the room as his lungs were filled with the ash.
Bjorn knew that it was likely the others were here too, the chief might be from another world but bandits were bandits – stupid and violent. He yelled for help, praying desperately to Talos that he would survive this, “Somebody help me! Please!”.
Then he saw the figure of a man step through the smoke and dirt, pushing rocks out of the way to get to him. He couldn’t see him through the smoke but called out to him, “Who is that? Please help me!”.
“Bjorn? I thought it was you!” The unmistakable accent of his Argonian friend betrayed who he was. “It’s me, San. I’m coming, my friend!”
San-Kai cast frost spells all around, cooling the fire and reducing the smoke significantly. He could see the Argonians face more clearly now, it was covered in wounds and some of his scales had been cut off. ‘Gods, that Gunner was insane’ Bjorn thought as his friend knelt down beside him and cast a concentrated fire spell on the rope and burnt it through. As soon as he was able to Bjorn leapt up from his chair and grabbed San by the arm, pulling him from his crouched position and running at full speed out of the cave with San-Kai in tow. As the fire consumed the cave and the roof above them collapsed the two ran out of the cave, destruction following in their wake. Bjorn and San-Kai sat outside the cave breathing heavily, recovering from the events that had just occurred.
“By Julianos, that was one hell of an escape,” San-Kai said, then burst out laughing
“Sure was, friend. Remind me to buy you a drink next time we’re at a bar!”
San-Kai finished laughing, and then a dark look crossed over his face, “Gods, what about Nigel and Lucy?”
The pair looked back at the collapsed cave behind them, smoke billowing from the closed off entrance; dread filled their hearts as they raced over to what was once the entrance.
“What are we going to do?” San-Kai yelled, panic evident in his voice
“By Talos Lizard! Do you not have some kind of spell?” Bjorn yelled back
“I don’t know! I know hundreds, let me think for a moment…”
“We don’t have moments!”
Then it came to San-Kai, the only spell that could work. But first San had to pray, he knelt on the ground and looked up to the heavens.
“What the hell are you doing?!” Bjorn questioned in confusion
“In order to gain access to the correct spell, I must pray to Julianos, for I have wronged him”
’Damn Mages, always praying..’ Bjorn absently thought but then corrected himself, his friend knew what he was doing.
San-Kai spoke to the sky, “Julianos! God of Wisdom and Logic – hear my plea! I have wronged thee and I apologise, grant me forgiveness so I may save the lives of innocents!”
Instantly a great man appeared beside him, he was as tall as a high elf and some more. He was wearing grand mage robes and possessed long white hair and beard, he looked down at San-Kai who was kneeling in reverence. Bjorn saw what he’d done and followed suit, bending his knee to the mage.
The mage spoke in a deep and resounding voice, the voice of a god. “San-Kai, I will grant you my spell and nothing else. For this is not the end of your road to redemption – only the beginning. Take my blessing and save lives – I will return”
“Thank you, great Julianos” San-Kai praised as the man lay his hands upon him and a blue triangle glowed on his forehead.
Julianos disappeared as quickly as he came and San-Kai stood up, Bjorn stared at him expectantly.
“Can you do the spell, San?”
“I can - stand back”
Bjorn walked a little back and watched as San- Kai held both arms outstretched, charging a brilliant blue light in his hands. He felt the heat on his face as the blue light shot out of his hands in the shape of a triangle, burning through the rock as quickly as Brenuin drank a mug of mead.
Suddenly the blue light stopped and Bjorn ran over to San-kai, who had knelt to recover from the shock. They looked up at the now opened cave entrance and nodded to each other, they were going to go in.
*********************
The last thing Nigel remembered was a chunk of rock hitting his head, he now awoke with a splitting pain in his head. He felt the area it had struck and felt the tickle of electricity sting his hand, damn, it had pierced his metal layer. I should be easy to fix, but he doubted he’d find the components for a while. Nigel grabbed the duct tape on his belt that was there for emergencies when he needed patching up, it certainly worked for DiMA. As Nigel wound the tape around the wound he casually wondered how his friend in Far Harbour was getting on, he’d visited the island a while back and helped DiMA in setting up a few terminals in Acadia. He decided he’d go and visit again one day if he ever got out of here alive.
With a patched up head Nigel strode forwards, ducking to crawl under rocks, the cave had collapsed – he remembered that now. He saw a body up ahead, it was likely one of the bandits, but as he drew closer he noticed the bandit was wearing leather armour, flannel t-shirt and a shotgun lay to her side, it was Lucy…
“Lucy!” Nigel called out as he ran towards his lifeless body; he instantly felt for her pulse – thinking of nothing else at that moment but his desire for her to live. She looked horrible, cuts and bruises scarred her face, her clothes were ripped and her hair looked like a mole rats nest.
He found a pulse, yes! It was small, slow and weak but it was there. He grabbed a few stimpaks from his pocket and jabbed them into her chest, he hoped they still worked in the crazy world but there was no reason why they wouldn’t.
After a few minutes of agonising waiting by her side eventually Nigel saw her eyes open, she coughed violently a few times and looked up at Nigel, she tried to speak but Nigel shushed her.
“No, don’t speak, no need to” Nigel was overjoyed she was alive.“Just stay calm, I’ll find a way out of here”
His reassuring tone did not reflect his thoughts, however, as Nigel looked around at the collapsed cave he thought, ‘There is no chance we’re getting out of here, but I’ll be damned if I ain’t gonna try”
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