Forgotten Heros: Ancient Tunnels

  •       Having managed to avoid losing their heads to the chopping block Valierus and Elwyn are now forced to find a way to escape Helgen, with their new ally. Unfortuantely, their choice in company has alienated their other allies leaving them surrounded by enemies on all sides.

     

     

     

          "Glad you decided to join me. I could use the help." I glance over at Hadvar from across the room as I go through the chests, searching for anything I can use and piling it next to me. He seems to genuinely mean it and has been helping me look for equipment in the north wing of the keep. He tried to get me to wear a set of Imperial armour, but I declined, feeling more comfortable in the Leather Armour I made a few weeks back before crossing the border. "If you've got everything you need then we should get moving. Its only a matter of time before the Dragon starts trying to bring down the keep."

          "Yeah, I guess you're right." I sigh, and lean back from the chest resting on my heels. I quickly sort through the items sorting them into my pack. I've got an Iron Sword a couple spare daggers, some potions of Minor Healing, and a dozen pieces of gold, or Septims as their called. Its not much but it ought to get me started out in Skyrim. "Let's go find Elwyn." I say slinging on my pack, before starting out of the room.

          We head into the corridor and are about to take the first turn when Elwyn comes around the corner. "There you two are! I've been looking for you for ages." She looks us over, noting the simple sword strapped to my side. "I see you found a weapon, good thing too. It looks like some of the Stormcloaks made it in as well."

          Its only then I notice that some of her arrows are missing from her quiver. "Did you see Ralof?" I ask curiously.

          She shakes her after only a moments hesitation. "We should get moving, follow me." She turns and sets of down the hall, setting a brisk pace without looking to see if we're following. "Thats quite the woman you got there." Hadvar states, surprising me.

          "Don't i know it." We follow Elwyn through the halls. She leads us to an arch with a lever on the wall next to it. The arch opens into a large circular room that I suspect is at the bottom of one of the Keep's towers. Two Stormcloaks lie dead on seperate sides of the room, one with an arrow through his chest, and the other has a hatchet buried in his head. I spot a door to the right, leading outside and I realize where we are. "This is where Ralof entered the keep."

          "Possibly." Elwyn bites her lip, deep in thought. She points down a hallway to the left of where we entered, "There are blood covered footprints heading that way, so we should probably take that hall." She turns and points to the archway directly across from where we entered. She sets off through the arch, and I follow shaking my head wondering if she actually knows where shes going.

          "Did you not see the bodies?" Hadvar asks me concerned.

          "I did." I reply careully.

          "It doesn't concern you to travel with a woman who can do that and not bat an eye?" He asks incredously. "They might have listened to reason!"

          "First off Hadvar, we have no proof that she didn't try to talk to them. Secondly, if made to choose between Elwyn's life or someone elses, I will always choose Elwyn, so actually I'm glad she put them down because it means that shes still alive." I look back at Hadvar and note the look of surprise on his face. "As I recall, the captian who ordered me and Elwyn killed was a woman, or did you forget that fact?"

          "No its just, somehow this feels different." Hmmm, interesting.

          "Well, when you figure out why be sure to tell me." I say to him.

          We pass into a corridor and just down the corridor we can see Stormclaok soldiers, they jump in surprise but before anyone can do anything a roar cuts through the air and the ceiling above them collapses in on itself crushing them. "That dragon doesn't give up easy." Hadvar remarks dryily.

          We enter a door on the left side of the hall and near the center of the room we enter two imperials are arguing, over some potions tah are apparently in the room. As we enter they both draw their great swords and charge toward us angrily. Before they make it five steps they both keel over with arrows in their throats. Elwyn walks around us and steps daintly over the bodies. She pops open the barrel they were standing in front of and sure enough she finds more potions of Minor Healing. She tosses them to me and we leave through the door on the far side of the room.

          We reach the end of the hall and not having anyother choice we head down a flight of stairs. "I konw these," Hadvar grumbles. "They lead to the toture chamber. Gods, I wish we didn't need it." As we descend the steps the sound of metal clashing against metal reaches us. "Hold on, that sounds like fighting."

          Hadvar rushs down the steps, drawng his sword as he goes, Elwyn  and I exchange a look before folowing him readying ourselves for combat. When we reach the bottom a rather conflicting scene comes into view. The Torturer and his assistant are trying to fight off a couple of Stormcloaks. Hadvar has already rushed to the torturers aid and it seems like they might win out, or at the very least, survive long enough for me to help the assisstant. On, the other hand the assistant has been backed into a corner by the battle axe wielding Storcloak. Its clear that he won't survive for much longer, in fact as I watch hes forced to his knees blocking a massive overhanded cut. I explode into motion crossing the chamber in a matter of seconds. As I move Elwyn fires an arrow and it buries itself in the shoulder of the Stormcloak. He cries out in surprise, and barely has time to turn before I'm upon him.

          My sword slices through the air towards him in a blur of motion that seems to take him by surprise. My sword buries itself in the shaft of the axe, which he uses to block my attack. While he mmight have stopped the attack from hitting him the powerful attack knocks him off balance, allowing me to quickly follow up with a thrust. He tries to dodge the attack but his massive weapon slows his movement, the sword cuts into his side leaving a shallow wound in its wake. He steps back and swings mightly at my left side. Instead of making a futil attempt to block the attack I step into the attack grabbing the axe and jerking it out of his hands. Instead, of making the smart move and letting go the nord, for it is a nord, holds on to it forcing him to overextend trying to hold onto the axe. I thrust the sword forward, and it makes a satisfying *schick* as it slides into his chest cutting through his heart, killing him instantly.

         I pull the blade free, letting the corpse drop to the ground. I pause only to check on the assisstant, who apparently knows something about healing magic, and is using that knowledge to heal his wounds. He looks up at me and ass the surprise registers on his face he yells, "Look out!" I don't stop to think, I just duck and I'm rewarded with the sound of a warhammer crashing into the wall. It seems that he's managed to get away from the others and tried to take my head off. I whirl to fight back, but he shudders and coughs up blood. I realize that the pounding in my ears is the sound of Elwyn putting a dozen arrows into his back. I straighten up and catch the man as he falls towards me. "Damn.... Imperials." He coughs as the light fades from his eyes. "Have fun in Sovengarde." I reply. Elwyn walks towards me as I lay the body on its front.

         "What happened?" I ask as she crouches to retrieve her arrows.

         She looks into my eyes from across the body and replies, "He managed to knock Hadvar off his feet and tossed the torturer into his own cage." She giggles, her amusement evident in her eyes. "Guess that great Legion training isn't all its cracked up to be."

          I chuckle and straighten up as Hadvar approaches having managed to free the man. "I see you saved the assistant. You should grab what you can so we can get going." His words betray his anger at something.

          "What about the torturer?" I ask.

          "He refuses to leave, and by Akatosh I refuse to try to convince him." He hands me a small leather wrapped bundle. Lockpicks. "Use these to get into the cages. That mage ought to have something worthwhile on him."

           I move toards the cage he indicated, and idely wonder why he still has his robes on. After a few minutes tempting the lock I manage to unlock the door to the cage. By this time Elwyn has wandered over. He picks up a spell tome with some sorta rune on its cover. "Destruction magic. Wonder why he still had this." She slips into he satchel and looks up at me. "I'm really starting to wonder if these people know how to do their jobs. Strip him of his robes and lets go." Naturally, this is a very gruesome task so I won't go into much detail about how its done, but before long I've folded up his robes and taken the few potions he had in them and sorted them into my bags.

           "You two ready?" Hadvar asks glancing once more around the room. When receives nods in return he turns and heads down into the corridor behind him. Along both sides of the hall are cells most of them containing little more than a few rats. We pass into a brazier lit room with cages hanging from the ceiling. The bodies in the cages are little more than skletons at this point the roughspun cothes the had once worn now rags dangling merrily from their bones. At the far back of the room where a wall used to be, is a tunnel leading into an old cave system.

           "I can feel a breeze coming from further in." Elwyn declares. We pass through the hole and follow the tunnel further inward and downward. We must be heading through a moutain, I think to myself. We finally reach the end of the tunnel. It opens up into a massive cavern and I quickly notice multiple Stormcloak scattered across it. The two closest to use notice us at about the same time and draw their weapons yelling battle cries. Hadvar engages with one charging up a small set of steps leading to the cavern floor. I inercept the other one blocking his warhammer and forcing him to fight me on a small bridge spanning a gap between two platforms. I slash at his head but he blocks the strike with the head of his warhammer. As we fight an arro slams into the bridge at my feet, badly startling me. I glance across the cavern and spot the other two rebels nocking arrows into their Longbows. Realizing my mistake I turn back to my oppenent, suddenly my head slams into the ground making me see stars. And I was laughing at Hadvar! I recall rolling to the side to avoid the rebels hammer crushing my chest. I quickly roll backwards ending in a crouch, I then launch myself forward thrusting at his chest. The rebel laughes and deflects my feeble attempt at an attack and prepares to swing at my head. I slip a dagger from its sheathe and I plunge it into the rebels leg. He crashs down onto his knees and drops the hammer. I slash at his neck quickly ending his life, and seperating his head. Moments later an arrow slams into my shoulder, fourtanetly my armour stops the arrow but its still likely to bruise.

          I duck down behind the platforms railings and I cross the cavern like that. Once I reach them however I realize it was useless. They're already lying dead on the ground, ELwyn's arrows finally finding chinks in their armours. "Done, and Done." Elwyn says sliding an arrow back into her quiver. As usual we search the bodies for anything usable but don't find much worth taking. We finally exit the cavern through the tunnel on the far side of the cavern, the only other tunnel besides the one we used. About halfway down the tunnel we run into a drawbridge. Luckily, the lever to topple it is on our side of the bridge. Hadvar pulls the lever and drops the bridge allowing us to cross. Moments after Elwyn crosses the cave roof collapses, Knocking Elwyn who was closest into me sending us both toppling over and making me hit my head for the second time today. By this time I have a splitting headache which isn't made any better by Elwyn's constant apologizing.

         "Looks like theres no turning back." Hadvar remarks. "Hope your right about the exit being down here."

         We look around the cavern the tunnel dumped us into and the first thing I notice are the egg sacs. Hadvar and I descend the stairs leading to the cave floor and Elwyn stays behind with her bow at the ready in case we need it. As expectedd spiders drop down from the ceiling, but we actually manage to put them down rather easily. The Divines it seem are done testing us for the moment. We wander for a while through the tunnels but we finally manage to make it out, after a small moment of terror sneaking past a bear.

        "Theres the exit. I was starting to fear we'd never make it. Hadvar mumb;es, as we walk out into the sunlight.

     

     

        I believe thats a good length to end this chapter at, if I am wrong dear reader feel free to say so. I do hope you've enjoyed the story so far. I hope to see you here again.

     

     

     

                       

Comments

2 Comments   |   The Long-Chapper and 1 other like this.
  • Sotek
    Sotek   ·  January 22, 2017
    Nice story so far and don't concern yourself with length. Some of us write long chapters while others keep to short ones. I vary between 600 words to around 5k per chapter depending on whats happening at the time. 


    I am curious a...  more
    • Valierus
      Valierus
      Sotek
      Sotek
      Sotek
      Nice story so far and don't concern yourself with length. Some of us write long chapters while others keep to short ones. I vary between 600 words to around 5k per chapter depending on whats happening at the time. 


      I am curious about something.......  more
        ·  January 23, 2017
      Its a bit of a mix to be honest. He appreciates having gold but he's not overly greedy. I'll explore that part of him more in later chapters.