Chapter 2: Inside the keep
They just escaped a Dragon. That was a thought, and experience, both of the Twins knew they would never forget. Now the trio was inside the keep. Some beds, drawers, chests and a desk stood in the room. Hadvar drew a dagger and looked towards the twins.
"Wait, are you gonna kill us now?" Mabel asked with fear in her voice.
"What? No. Im going to take off these ropes." He stepped towards them and cut through the ropes around their wrists.
Dipper rubbed his wrists, which were a bit sore. "So, why did you help us?"
"It's obvious that you two aren't Daedra. You are just kids who woke up in a forest. Besides, Daedra can't even get here since the Oblivion Crisis."
"Thanks. Someone who trusts us." Dipper replied. There was this word, Daedra, again. Whhere this Daedra some kind of improtant figures?
"But please tell me. How did you get there? What is the last thing you rememember from before you woke up?"
"Well. We where running away from a monster, when lighting struck us and we fell unconscious. Then, we woke up in the Forest."
"I see. Could have been a teleportation spell." Hadvar said and rubbed his chin. A roar came from inside the keep and turned everone's attention to the doorway leading deeper inside. "Look through these chests and see if you can find anything useful."
Following his orders, they searched through every chest in the room, and put the loot down on the desk. They had a wooden bow, some arrows and two weird books, one with a flaming hand and one with some kind of bird on it. Dipper was a bit excited about the hand one, for obvious reasons. They also had one set of leather armor, and one apple. "So, what are we gonna do now?" Dipper asked Hadvar, who was guarding the door.
"Pick one. Those two books are spell books. Simply look into them and you'll learn the spell inside."
Both looked over the stuff. "So, who is taking what?"Mabel asked.
"Seems like one of us is going to use magic, while the other one will have to use a bow."
Mabel put her hands together and looked at Dipper with the most adorable face she could do. "Please, please, please. Can I use the magic? You had the Journal the whole summer." Though Dipper wanted to use it himself, he had to admit that she was right. He had used multiple spells in the summer, while the only thing that Mabel used was this love-potion during the Woodstick Festival. And that wasn't even a real spell.
He looked back at Mabel, who looked like her eyes would pop out if they got bigger. He sighed and smiled. "Okay. You can use them. I'll take the bow. Looks like im going to be an Archer."
Mabel cheered, hugged her brother, and took the books. She first read the one with the hand. It only had on site. She looked at the words and the book began to glow, before it dissolved. Shocked, she took the other one and opened it too. The same thing happened. "These books must have been really old." She sighed.
Hadvar saw this and came closer. "Whats wrong?"
"My books destroyed themselves." Mabel said in a sad tone.
Hadvar chuckled. "They didn't. A spell tome simply disappear once you used it."
"And how am I gonna use them then?"
"Just think about them or something. I'm not a mage."
Mabel decided to follow his suggestion. A "menu" popped up in her mind. She saw two words, Flames and Healing. She chose Flames and looked at her hand. Nothing. She concentrated on the spell and put her hands forward. A barrage of fire came out of them and set one of the beds on fire.
"Whoa!" Dipper shouted and jumped back.
Mabel stopped and looked at her hands. "I am a God of Destruction!" she shouted maniacally.
"Don't yell that out loud or they will arrest you again." Hadvar noted.
Now they only had to decide who gets the armor. Mabel of course wanted to keep her sweater, which had the face of a little puppy on it. But some better boots wouldn't be too bad. So they decided to split the Armor. Mabel got the Boots and the hat, while Dipper got the bodyarmor. They forgot think about the size though, which meant it was comically oversized. Hadvar tried to hold a laughter in. In the end, both took off the armor and threw it back on the desk. Hadvar proposed that his Uncle, who's a blacksmith at Riverwood, could make some fitting armor for them. They accepted the offer and began to move.
After passing a corridor they found themselves in a room with several dead stormcloaks."Hey! They are resting? Seriously? Now?" Mabel said.
Hadvar facepalmed and kneeled down on one of the soldiers. "Doesn't seem like much of a fight. He killed himself..." He walked to another one, who had some clean cutting marks. "Whatever caused this could still be down here. Keep an eye out. And look if one of them has a satchel or something similiar with him." Mabel and Dipper looked through the corpses, and indeed found a small bag. It felt weird to take something from a dead body, but they figured that the stormcloak wouldn't need it anymore anyways.
The three moved on, and came across a mess hall, or kitchen. It was hard to pin down, since it was in utter chaos. The dead Stormcloaks here had the same marks as the last ones. "An old storage room. See if you can find some potions. Might come in handy."
They looked in the barrels and found some green, red and blue bottles. Hadvar looked at them. "The red ones heal you, blue ones regenerate your magicka and green ones your stamina." He explained. They nodded and put them in their little bag. "Done then? Let's move on."
The triowalked down some stairs and found themselves in a torture room. "A torture room. Gods, i wish we didn't need theseā¦" Here were dead Stormcloaks too, but also an dead imperial, who looked like the torturer. In the cages layed, or sat, the skeletons of multiple people. Needless to say, the twins felt sick in here. Blood and bones were everywhere.
"Look around if you can find anything useful. And open the cages if needed." Mabel followed suit and stepped to one of the cages. She took a hairclip from her head and lockpicked the door. Inside the cage were some golden coins.
Meanwhile, her brother looked around the desk, where he found someone. "Guys! Someone's still alive!" Both came to him rather quick and starred at the guy. He was laying on the ground, shaking. "Hmm. This looks familiar." Dipper and Mabel looked at each other.
"You don't think..."
"That's exactly what those two tourists looked like, back when you were the boss at the shack!" Dipper explained.
"Excuse me? What do you mean?" Hadvar asked.
"See, back at home we spent the summer at our Great Uncle's shack in the woods. He had an tourist attraction and fooled people with cheap, fake attractions. One day he made a bet with Mabel that he could make more money on vacation than she would as the boss of the Shack."
"One change I wanted to make was showing real monsters, so Dipper captured something called Gremloblin. The problem with this monster however, is that, when you look into its eyes, you see your worst nightmares and probably get scarred for life. This looks exactly like back then."
"I see. This would explain the suicide of some soldiers. If they saw their worst nightmare, I would expect that some people could not handle it. I never heard of a Gremloblin though."
"Well, it's very rare. But it's weird that one is here."
"So, what are we going to do with him?" Mabel asked and pointed at the man on the ground.
They heard another roar from the corridor that led out of the room, followed by cries and the sound of swords. "We've got to leave him here. Once we're in a town, I can sent him help. And how can we defeat it?" Hadvar asked. It felt weird for him, a soldier, to ask two children for battle advice.
"Let it look into a reflection. It will see its own worst nightmare." They looked around for something reflecting, but there was nothing, not even a glassshard.
"I've got it!" Mabel yelled and took the bottle out of her bag.
"That should work." Dipper nodded.
They ran down the Hallway and saw the monster leaving the corpse filled room.
"Hey Jerk!" Mabel shouted and casted fire into the direction of the monster. Unintentionally she lit up oil on the ground, transforming parts of the room into an inferno. "Holy Crap." She exclaimed, only to be hit by the Gremloblin, who jumped to their position. She was thrown into a corner and chose the healing spell. Her hand began to glow bright and the pain faded away slowly. Hadvar and Dipper continued to engage it. Dipper shot an Arrow into its chest. Hadvar used the arrow as a stepstone and slashed at the creature with his sword. The weapon was not sharp enough though, and he was shaken off. Dipper used the distraction and charged at the Monster, only to put the bottle in front of his eyes. The Gremloblin cried out and ran away upstairs, where the hallway behind them collapsed.
As dust filled the room, Hadvar helped Mabel up. "You know, for two kids, that wasn't half bad. You've got potential."
"Thanks. I guess." Dipper replied and rubbed the back of his head.
The three of them followed the path and found a little river, and a skeleton with some gold on it. After some minutes, they found themselves in a cave full of giant cobwebs. "That doesn't look good." Mabel muttered.
Five giant Spiders jumped down from the ceiling and attacked the group. Hadvar stabbed one of the frostbites in the head with his sword, while Mabel set a smaller one on fire. It ran in a circle, obviously panicking, until it stopped and fell down. Mabel felt bad for killing an animal, but it was either it or her. And she wasn't a big fan of spiders anyways. Another arachnoid died with an arrow in its head. The last two spiders attempted to flee and ran out of a hole in the ceiling.
"What next? Giant snakes?" Hadvar joked.
"Please don't jinx it." Dipper said, fearing that things like that could actually exist in this world.
Moving deeper into the cave, they found a broken luggage on a little hill. The Pines wanted to investigate, but were stopped by the imperial.
"Hold up. There's a bear up ahead. See her?" The Twins narrowed their eyes and looked at the black-brown mountains of fur laying in the cave. Of course, Mabel wanted to pet it, but knew that this would be a bad idea. "I'd rather not tangle with her right now. We might be able to sneak by. Just take it nice and slow, and watch where you step." Following him, the twins snuck by the mammal. It moved however, sniffed the air, and slept again.
When they were out of danger, an opening was before them. A cold wind blew through it.
"This looks like the way out! I was staring to wonder if we'd ever make it." The group got out of the cave and found themselves in a snowy forest, on the side of a mountain. The sight down into the land was phenomenal. Giant mountains, green plaines and forests. Mabel and Dipper wanted to go forward, but heard a roar behind them. They looked up and saw the Dragon fly over them, only to disappear behind a giant mountain to their right.
"Looks like he's gone for good this time. But I don't think we should stick around to see if he comes back. Closest town from here is Riverwood. My offer still stands. My Uncle Alvor would be more than happy to make you some armor. Also, thanks. I wouldn't have made it without your help today. To get to Riverwood, just follow the road."
They looked at the road. It was made of cobblestone, and lead down the hill. In the distance they could hear the sound of a River.
"I can accompany you if you want. In case you get attacked." Hadvar offered. Mabel and Dipper looked at each other and nodded. "Then let's get going."
And here goes Chapter 2.
Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda; Gravity Falls belongs to Disney
