Chapter 2: The Keep
Once in the keep, I rummaged through the wardrobes for something more suitable than the prison rags I was wearing. I didn't dare pause to collect my thoughts; there was not nearly enough time to have such a theoretical debate with myself as to how i could have possibly ended up in a video game. After securing the straps of some leather boots I found beneath one of the soldiers beds, I fastened the sheath of a steel dagger around my belt. I didn't bother with the trunks of armor. I didn't want to be recognized as Imperial or Stormcloak, knowing that I would have to face both on my escape from the keep.
Hadvar would be entering the keep at any minute meaning i'd have to move fast. I pulled on the chain triggering the gate to open and, once again, ran toward the exit. Two Stormcloak soldiers stood in the next chamber holding each other tightly.
"This changes everything, Ulrar, don't you understand. They have returned to Skyrim! First the Empire and now Dragons!" The woman buried her face into the man's neck, allowing a few blubbery gasps to escape.
"Ulfric will know what this means. He will know what to do." The man reassured her while running his bloodied fingers through her ash covered hair.
I pressed myself against the shadows along the wall. Both gates to the circular chamber were closed. I scrunched my face and pressed my hands over my mouth, suppressing the urge to scream. I was still very much a child in her teenage years. There was no way in oblivion that I could dream of taking on two fully armed soldiers. My pulse was racing and I had to move quickly. I didn't want to be caught in between Hadvar and two Stormcloaks.
"I…I'm a friend of Ralof!" I threw my hands up and entered through the metal gate in front of me. Either the reason was legitimate enough or I must have looked as completely harmless and vulnerable as I felt because the two simply nodded and threw the iron key towards me.
I continued through the keep, being cautious to dodge the falling rubble. Thankfully, I encountered only Stormcloak soldiers on my journey and announcing myself as Ralof's acquaintance seemed to keep them from killing me. That or they could clearly see by my puny size and prison rags that I meant no harm and wanted no fight. The sound of battle from the upcoming execution room was unmistakable. The smell of burning electrical circuits and blood filled the air. I had to move fast if I wanted to keep my life in that room. The torturer and his assistant were heavily distracted by the Stormcloaks swinging their axes and hammers back and forth. Merely scraping by steel and bolts of lightning cast by the imperial soldier, I managed to grab the knapsack on the table as well as a small handful of gold coin. I shuffled through the crowd of Stormcloaks in the cavernous depths of the keep. In all honesty, I truly hoped that Hadvar would make it through, but if not, I knew that the soldiers would clear out the frostbite spiders that wait ahead.
I decided to sit near the flowing river of the cavern, rinsing my face and washing my hands in the crisp water. Slumping against the cold rocks, I allowed myself a brief rest from the straining realizations of my surrounding.
Somehow, someway, I am in Skyrim. Yes the video game... but perhaps if I just close my eyes, I'll wake up back home...
"Good, you've awakened." I groggily tossed my head side to side, inadvertently testing my new aches and pains. To my misfortune, they were still there and hurt even worse than I before. To my misfortune, I was not in my bedroom back home, and my awakener was not my grandma.
"Now is not quite the time for beauty sleep." I opened my eyes to Hadvar's outstretched hand. I was still in the cavern. Great.
"Did the Stormcloaks..." Hadvar turned to face the path from which he came. The entrance had caved in. "Did they…do this to you?"
I responded with a gasp, pulling myself back in slight shock at the question. Choosing not to answer, I simply straightened what was left of my tattered clothing. "I-I'm fine. You-you did that?" I peered around him.
"Not alone, no" Hadvar turned me by my shoulders towards the tunnel continuing deeper into the keep. His hands stuck to my skin as the blood began to dry. I followed the trail up his to fresh slices in his arm.
"You're bleeding badly," I gasped.
"It'd be best if we keep moving. The sooner we get out the better for the both of us."
The tunnel walls glistened with trickling water. The torches were barren, lifeless, and I continued to shiver as violently as I did outside.
"I think you could make use of this." Hadvar held up a bundle of blue fabric. Unfolding my arms, I picked up the weathered bundle and let the fabric fall loose. I recognized the pattern of the novice robes and smiled at the burly Nord.
"You don't need to put it on right now" he said breaking my stare. "Just keep yourself warm."
"Thank you, Hadvar." I replied with a small smile, wrapping the cloth around my shoulders. "I'm sorry I couldn't have been of much help."
We continued further until he stopped me at a sloping entrance of a larger cavern room lined with webs. the river contiuned to flow beside the entrance.
"We better try this way." He motioned toward the darkness.
Spider webs glistened with tiny drops of dew. Desiccated corpses of both human and small animal decorated the ground. Hadvar cocked his head toward the opposite end of the cave. I grabbed his arm and pointed upward at the dangling spiders.
"Take this," He whispered, handing me a long bow and a quiver of arrows. "I hope you can shoot straight."
I slipped the leather strap over my neck and tested the bowstring. The sinew was tough and required an effort to pull. Hadvar shot first, ripping through the exoskeleton of the hanging spider. It crashed to the floor, green blood oozing out from the wound. I aimed my bow at a spider on the ground. I tried to follow the arrow as it grazed the back of the spider but as I heard a muffled thud, I guessed it had landed into a spider sac. Having never before shot a bow, the fact the I even managed to graze it impressed me. Hadvar had missed my less than extraordinary display of marksmen skills. He was preoccupied with the remaining spiders as he hacked at their limbs with his sword. Occasionally, he would cry out in pain as the spiders picked at his open wounds. I frantically shot arrows at the spiders in the opposite, hoping that they would somehow lodge into a spiders abdomen instead of ricocheting off the wall. I shot the last of my arrows, one of which successfully pierced one of the many eyes of the nearest arachnid.
1 out of 8.I didn't sound so pathetic when I put it that way.
"Almost there."Hadvar assured me, wiping some green blood from his cheek. While he managed to remove the spider's blood from his face, his own red blood was no smeared from his cheek to nose.
Although blood dripped off his fingertips, he continued through the cave across the river. I followed swiftly and cried out as I watched him slip on a rock in the stream. The commotion awakened the slumbering bear nearby, and Hadvar scrambled to his feet once again. The brown mass didn't acknowledge my presence and rushed Hadvar who blocked the bear's first blow. With its back turned to me, I griped my bow only to reach into an empty quiver. Hadvar managed a few strikes and slashes before crying out in an awful shriek of pain. As the Nord crumpled to the floor, I dropped my bow and grasped the hilt of my dagger. I'd taken on a badger during a hunting trip before, but that was as aggressive an offender I've seen. And I had a gun with me. And a grandfather beside me to shoot it if I missed.
Hadvar had tumbled down the river bed. The bear limped towards him in a trail of blood and groans. It lurched in obvious pain, surely close to death. Taking of the advantage of it's weak state and the fact that it forgot I was present, I leaped onto the bear's coarse fur and sunk the dagger into the top of his skull. The bear threw me into the stream as it stood onto its feet with a hoarse groan. Seconds later it fell lifeless onto it's back.
I ran to the side of the still man on the river rocks and dropped next to him, holding his bleeding arm in my view. Black poison crawled up his vein, branching out like the limbs of a tree. He cringed as I pulled on the flap of loose skin.
"Ah… We've… We're very close.."
"No, shh." I knew basic first aid, but nothing about poison. "Just don't move or it will spread faster" I hushed him, pressing him back to the ground. "I think I may have something for that."
I brought my knapsack to my knees and pulled out a small red bottle that I had collected while running through the dungeon. My pack was soaked in pink fluid from another broken potion vial. I shook the bottle of small glass shards and dripped 5 droplets onto his wound before lifting his head up to drink the rest.
"You won't be of much use to anyone without an arm." He attempted a smile but it ended up appearing much more like a grimace.
I returned his head to the floor and he shut his eyes. Due to all of blood and carnage we just encountered, perhaps he wanted to rest himself before the trek to Riverwood. Or perhaps, due to all the blood and carnage, he was just out cold. I watched the rise and fall of his chest and decided that regardless, I wouldn't mind a rest either.