The ten Dunmer agents moved quickly and precisely. They didn't speak, communicating only with hand signals. They were dressed in jet-black from head to toe, masks wrapped around the lower halves of their faces and hoods pulled across their heads. They all carried identical armaments, ebony shortswords and glinting Dwarven crossbows – weapons ideally suited for fighting in close quarters. Several of the agents carried other items; items that would help them overcome Capstone Cave's traps.
They navigated the pathway in no time, dodging the traps until they reached the submerged section, by now half-flooded with lava and still filling. But then two of the agents heaved into place a plank-like bridge made from adamantium, the lightweight and incredibly tough metal mined only in parts of their native Morrowind. At the far end of this bridge, another was slid into place to allow safe passage across the lava flooding the forecourt. Finally, a collapsible adamantium awning was assembled and placed underneath the waterfall of lava – the molten rock cascaded off the sides of the saddle-shaped awning, allowing safe passage beneath it.
No more than thirty second after the agents had entered the lava chamber, they had defeated its traps and were entering Melethar's Refuge.
"Stay close" Camri whispered loudly. "Whatever knowledge we find in here might be the only thing that keeps us alive"
The three raced down the tunnel and it wasn't long before they arrived in the inside of the Refuge. It was a three-tiered structure, made from concentric cylinder-shaped chambers that led into each other, with walkways running around the edges of the smaller upper two levels and stairwells allowing access to the upper levels. Scattered around the edges of the room were ancient stone slabs with crumbling skeletons resting on them, ceremonial burial gifts still draped across their body bodies. And there, in the centre of the Refuge, was a stone plinth with a tattered leather-bound book lying on it.
As they stepped in, Camri pointed out another wide but thin trigger stone, almost completely invisible, which ran in a semicircle around the entrance to the Refuge.
Ariel wasted no time in running over to the book, but Camri glanced at one of the ancient skeletons. He spotted the glow of an enchantment radiating on the stone slab it lay on, and reached underneath the ceremonial silver cuirass it had been buried in.
"Nice," he said, drawing out a Daedric dagger which shone with a pale blue light. The frost enchantment was so strong that the dagger even felt slightly cold to the touch.
Ariel picked up the old book and began to leaf through it, her mind taking in everything that she saw at an incredible rate…
"Drop it!" a gruff voice shouted. Ariel snapped the book shut and dropped it, more in surprise than as a response to the order.
Before they knew it, the three were surrounded by ten Dunmer men, clad in black, all pointing crossbows at their heads. Then, a pale green bolt of magic burst out from the left hand of one of the Dunmer, engulfing Ariel before she could react and silencing her. Their only possible form of defence, Ariel's incredible telekinetic skill, was gone.
The Dunmer who had ordered Ariel to drop the book strode over to her and picked it up. Through his mask, Ariel could see that he was older than the others, with narrow eyes, creased in a way that could only have come from a lifetime of frowning at people.
"Commander Aryon" the Dunmer said formally to one of the other soldiers. With his crossbow still levelled at Hermione's head, the Dunmer called Aryon strode over to take the book and began to leaf through it. He paused briefly on one page near the back, and then nodded.
The senior Dunmer turned to face Ariel, Camri and Hermione. "Well, it looks like we are now one step ahead of you in this race. Rest assured that the nation of Morrowind will find the Capstone before anyone else"
Then, a lick of flame spat out of the man's hands, igniting the book. He dropped it and watched as, in a few seconds, it burned to nothing but a pile of cinders and charred leather.
"If you try to follow us we will kill you," the Dunmer said. With that, his men began to file backwards out of the room, their weapons still trained on the three. The older man left last of all, stamping on the trigger stone inside the doorway as he did so, then quickly ran to keep up with his men, never once lowering his crossbow.
As soon as the Elf had stepped on the trigger stone, four circular portals in the wall of the refuge opened and a putrid-smelling amber-coloured liquid began to flow from them.
"Acid" Hermione said flatly. "We're fucked"
"No we're not!" Camri said determinedly, bolting for one of the stairwells that led to the higher levels of the Refuge. The other two followed him, Ariel quickly making it to the other stairwell and Hermione close behind her, reaching the stairwell just before a wave of acid washed across the floor. Turning round, Hermione saw the remains of the book being consumed by the acid – they dissolved into nothing in seconds.
The three soon congregated on the second level of the Refuge.
"You think we can get out?" Hermione asked.
"I'm hoping for one of two things," Camri said. "One is a route up to those guard towers we saw on the outside wall of the Refuge. The other is a reset for the traps"
"A what?" Ariel asked.
Hermione nodded. "A common feature in a lot of sacred chambers. Melethar wouldn't have been able to get in here to leave that book without setting the traps off. He must have reset them somehow. But what's the use? The best that can happen is we catch up with those Dunmer agents, and we can't beat them in a fight…"
"We can once that spell wears off, and if we can catch them by surprise" Camri said.
"Or we could lie low," Ariel said. "I know where they're going next – if we can get there before them…"
"What?" Camri and Hermione both exclaimed at once, turning to face Ariel.
"I didn't see much of that text, but one word stood out – Fanacas. From its name it sounds Ayleid…"
"Yes, it's a ruin in the mountains north of Cheydinhal" Camri said. "Right, come on, we're back in the game!"
Camri raced up another stairwell, this time leading into the wall of the Refuge, and suddenly emerged on the top of its outer wall. He crouch-ran over to the battlements, hoping to see the Dunmer agents making their escape, but his vision was cut off by a thick plume of smoky gas. As soon as he breathed, his lungs and throat began to burn. He coughed violently and reached for his water bottle.
"The acid must have hit the lava," Hermione explained, wrapping a cloth around her face as Ariel pulled up the hood on her robe. "It's vapourised it"
Then, Camri pulled something out of his backpack, one of the tools of his trade – a length of lightweight but super-strong Elven rope.
"Is this plan as mad as I think it is?" Ariel asked.
"Hell yeah!" Camri replied. "Any cover you could provide would be much appreciated"
As the smoke began to dissipate, Hermione and Camri whipped up their bows and fired, striking two Dunmer agents in their backs as they ran into the tunnelled section of the path leading around the lava lake. As they both tumbled forwards, three others spun round and pulled up their crossbows, firing up at the battlements, but the three just ducked behind them as the bolts clanged harmlessly against the stone walls. As they reloaded, Camri tied one end of the rope around one of the battlements and the other around his waist then leapt off the battlements, gripping onto the rope just tightly enough to let it slip quickly through the fingers of his leather gloves. As he abseiled down the wall, a volley of crossbow bolts was fired from the Dunmer agents, but the weapons had a limited range, designed for fighting in close quarters. Two of the bolts hit him, but having flown across the room in a parabolic arc they carried little momentum and didn't penetrate his miraculously strong mithril coat. But then, two of the Dunmer agents ran back towards the sunken section of the path, now completely filled with lava, to get a clearer shot.
Thwack!
One of the agents was struck in the shoulder by an arrow from Hermione, and fell screaming into the pool of lava, being consumed in an instant. As the other drew his crossbow up to fire at Camri, now within lethal range, Camri pulled out the enchanted Daedric dagger he had found in the Refuge and threw it overarm. His aim was immaculate, and it thudded straight into the Dunmer's heart, the powerful icy enchantment killing him before he knew what had happened.
As Camri neared the base of the wall, a few feet above the adamantium awning the Dunmer had erected to get past the lava waterfall, he kicked powerfully against it, sending him swinging out over the cavern. He let go of the rope, whose slack was still tied around his waist, and landed on the pathway in front of two very surprised Dunmer agents. They quickly pulled up their crossbows and fired, but Camri dived to his feet and heard the bolts shooting over his head. Before he got up, he grabbed a discarded - but loaded – crossbow from the body of a fallen enemy and fired it at point-blank range at one of the other agents. The bolt hit the Dunmer square between the eyes and caused his head to burst like a watermelon. Camri winced then leapt to his feet, whipping up his shield just in time to block a colossal blow from the agent's ebony shortsword, and then plunged his own blade deep into his adversary's abdomen.
As Camri reached the tunnel, he suddenly realised that he couldn't pass through it for his escape plan to work, so with no other option he began free-climbing across the wall of the cavern, a mere two feet above the pool of lava. He prayed Hermione was looking out for him…
She was. A Dunmer agent raised a crossbow and fired, but Hermione had got off her shot maybe a fraction of a second earlier, her arrow striking the Dunmer in the chest just as he fired his crossbow, making the shot go wide, high up into the air, as the Dunmer tumbled backwards, clutching at his chest.
Five down… Camri thought to himself as he leapt back onto terra firma and raced towards the tunnel that led out of the Refuge.
"Alright! Go!" he called back up to the other two as he stood near the entrance of the tunnel, pulling the rope taut with one hand and brandishing his sword with the other.
High up on the battlements, Hermione slung her bow over her shoulder then took her fur jacket off, rolling it up then hooking it over the length of rope that now ran between the battlements and Camri.
"Hold on tight," she said to Ariel, who wrapped her arms tightly around her as the climbed over the battlements. Hermione kicked the pair away from the wall, and they began sliding down the quickly-fashioned flying fox at tremendous speed.
As Camri tensely watched, holding onto the rope as tightly as he could, he saw two more Dunmer agents emerging from the tunnel. One lunged at him with a sword, but Camri was quick to deflect the blow and return one of his own, cutting a deep gash in the Dunmer's left arm, but the agent simply gritted his teeth and began hacking wildly at Camri. As Camri parried the blows, he saw the other agent race past him, aim his crossbow at the flying fox and fire…
Camri couldn't watch.
But then, a second later, the agent was sent flying backwards as a star-shaped explosion of blood burst from his forehead.
The silencing spell enveloping Ariel had worn off at about the same time that the agent had fired his crossbow. As quick as a flash, Ariel halted the flight of the bolt with telekinesis. Then, she had spun it around in mid-air then propelled it faster than any crossbow could straight into the fiend who had fired it in the first place.
The other Dunmer agent, mouth agape at the amazing spectacle, had let his guard down. Camri plunged his sword straight through the Dunmer's throat, killing him, just as Hermione and Ariel's feet touched the ground.
"That was pretty bloody impressive, Camri," Hermione said. "You too, Ariel"
Camri patted Hermione on the shoulder. "Thanks for covering me. But I think we took too long"
"What do you mean?"
"We only killed seven of them," Ariel observed.
"Exactly" Camri said. "Those two that came back out of the tunnel were sent back to hold us up. I don't see the old boy in the dead bodies anywhere, or the one called Commander Aryon who read about Fanacas in the book"
"Can we catch them up?" Hermione asked.
Camri shook his head. "I doubt it. And we won't have the element of surprise this time. I suggest we just get to Fanacas before them. They're not from round here – they'll travel on the roads. Far from the most direct route. We can head cross-country from here to Cheydinhal, pick up a bit of help then head north to Fanacas"
"Help?" Ariel asked.
Camri nodded. "It just so happens that a very good friend of ours now lives in Cheydinhal"
