I don't own Skyrim, please don't sue me.

I staggered into the tower, barely avoiding the blast of fire the dragon sent my way as I kicked the door shut. Luckily, it held, but the fact that it had fused to the rock meant that I wasn't leaving that way anytime soon. I turned around, to where Hadvar was standing with a look that combined shock, confusion, and sheer terror into one. When he spoke, he sounded just like he looked.

"Looks like…like we're the only ones who made it. Was that really a dragon? The bringers of the End-Times?"

"No." I replied sarcastically "That was just a giant fire-breathing rabbit which just so happens to look exactly like a dragon." It was then that the meaning of the last thing he had said hit me. The Bringers of WHAT? Hadvar seemed to have somewhat recovered from his shock at this point, as he began to sound more like a soldier than a terrified clerk

"We should keep moving. Come here, let's see if we can get those bindings off." He pulled out a knife to cut them with. While I was not fond of the idea of someone whose organization had been attempting to kill me ten minutes ago holding a knife anywhere near me, I had little choice if I wanted to ever have free use of my hands again. I walked up to him, and he cut through the hand bindings, surprising me mildly, as I had somewhat expected a stab through the heart. I resisted the urge to dance with joy from being both free and not dead, and instead headed into the various corners of the room to see if there was anything worth taking with me when I left, a plan reinforced by Hadvar's next suggestion.

"Take a look around, there should be plenty of gear to choose from." Which was all the excuse I needed to grab a knapsack off the floor and began sweeping anything that seemed even slightly valuable into it. Well, I was broke. I also looted a treasure chest in the far corner of the room, taking a sword in case my magic failed. There was also a Legion uniform, which I put on for lack of any better gear. I turned around, to see Hadvar pull a chain, opening the door to a hallway to another part of the keep, and, hopefully, a way out without any more chances for me to be killed. Unfortunately, as I've come to learn, life isn't that nice to me generally, and my escape was nowhere near that simple, as evidenced by a couple of voices emerging from the room at the end of the hallway, which we had now come to.

"We need to get moving! That dragon is tearing up the whole keep!"

"Just give me a minute…I need to catch my breath." Hadvar peeked inside.

"Stormcloaks. Maybe we can reason with them." Yes, Hadvar, maybe we can. And maybe that dragon outside will stop rampaging, and instead settle down in the middle of the ruins for a nice cup of tea.

"We're both dressed as legionnaires. I doubt that'll work." I replied. I hate being right.

The moment we walked in, both Stormcloaks immediately grabbed their weapons. Hadvar tried to prevent combat.

"Hold on, we only want to-"but was soon cut off by the much louder (in fact, it hurt my ears a little bit.) shout of one of the Nords.

"You won't take us alive!" Accompanied by his partner's

"Freedom , or Sovngarde!" as I barely dodged my face being reduced to red paste by her warhammer. Hadvar began dueling the other one, but that still left me to deal with the other Stormcloak, who was making yet another attempt to kill me. I didn't really want to kill her, since we had both been in the situation of being about to be executed no less than an hour ago (and were only fighting each other because of how a tower had almost fallen on my head and I had needed a suit of armor) but I had little choice, and turned my flames spell on her. Her hair and cloth armor ignited, and she soon fell. I turned around to see Hadvar finish off his own opponent, stabbing him through the chest. Hadvar shook his head as he fell.

"What a waste." He commented to himself sadly, cleaning off and sheathing his sword. One of them had dropped a small pouch of gold, which I pocketed as Hadvar took out a key and unlocked a door on the other side of the room. As I walked through it, I idly wondered where Ralof had gone, since he had been neither of the Stormcloaks we had killed. I descended the stairs on the other side, down to a lower level of the tower.

Unfortunately, there were more Stormcloaks down there, and they charged us on sight. Less unfortunate, however, was the giant rockfall that happened, crushing them before they could reach us. Hadvar stared at the rubble for a minute, before shaking his head and turning to the door next to the rubble.

"Damn, that dragon doesn't give up easy." He commented, as he walked inside the room behind the door. No, really? I thought, as I followed him in.

In yet another addition to my recent run of bad luck, there were a couple more Stormcloaks behind the door, and I yet again barely avoided having my face splattered all over the walls. Once again, I was able to burn the one attacking me to death as Hadvar slew the other. After verifying that neither of the defeated Stormcloaks had been carrying any money, I decided to loot the room, and see what I could find. Once again, to my surprise, Hadvar supported this.

"An old storeroom. See if you can find some potions, they might come in handy." After grabbing a small piece of bread from a nearby table (which I then ate. Seriously, the Legion needs to feed their prisoners better.) I proceeded to ransack more or less every barrel, cabinet, or other storage object I could find, but didn't manage to find anything worthwhile other that a little gold, and a few health potions I split between me and Hadvar, and a Magicka potion which I kept for myself. After stashing these somewhere I could grab them in a hurry if I need them, and setting up a small enchantment I could use to destroy the stopper for fast use, we walked through the exit of the room.

The passage out of the room was one of the less pleasant places I'd seen in this castle, and that's a very bad thing considering that the whole keep was moldy, dark and smelly. All of this still applied here, but there was something else. It smelled like blood, and you could hear screams from below. I had a bad feeling about this. Once again, I hate being right. Hadvar shook his head.

"The torture room. Gods, I wish we didn't need these." Oh, great, torture chambers. I was really hoping I'd never end up in one of these again. On the plus side, at least I was armed this time. I brightened up slightly at the thought that there might be some Thalmor there for me to kill, which would be great in two ways:

1. The Thalmor have very nice, very valuable gear, which I could sell

2. I get to kill Thalmor, which is, in every way, a public service. (Except that it probably counts as littering.)

We stepped into the room, which was currently filled with the chaos of battle. (Again. I was really starting to hate this place.), complete with a mage throwing lightning bolts at the attacking Stormcloaks. Considering his job, and the fact that he had likely been torturing their friends for a while now, I found it very difficult to feel any pity for him, so I more or less hung back out of the fight, only intervening briefly to light his shoes on fire at precisely the right time to move his head directly into the path of a swinging warhammer.. Whatever. I hate torturers. The last of the Stormcloaks soon fell, and Hadvar (and, for that matter, another Imperial who I could only assume had been the ex-torturer's assistant) showed an interesting lack of caring about the torturer's death, and fortunately, didn't seem to notice that I had caused his death. Hadvar turned to the assistant (which is what I will call him until I learn his name)

"We need to get moving. The entire keep's being destroyed." The assistant nodded.

"I'll come with you." Great, we get to cart the war criminal around while we escape a small army of escaping rebels and a giant, fire-breathing lizard I thought. I then noticed something glorious-a spell tome inside one of the cells in a corner, next to an unpleasant-looking corpse. I tried to rip the cage open, but to my great disappointment, it was locked. Fortunately, I noticed a few small objects, which could be used as lockpicks on a table, next to a book about something called a "dragonborn" and a knapsack. After grabbing the few coins in the bag and placing them in mine (along with the book, which looked valuable) I picked up the lockpick, and turned to the cage, and began to wrestle with the lock. Hadvar shook his head and looked on in amusement, although I noticed he had found a bow and quiver somewhere in here. After a few minutes, during which I had, miraculously, managed not to break any of the picks, I was beginning to remember why I had hated lockpicking. Soon after, however, I heard that oh-so-glorious click sound, and the lock opened. I walked into the cell, and picked up the book. I didn't recognize the spell described, and made a mental note to look over it when I had time. The robes on the corpse in the cage also looked magical, but I had no intention of taking the clothes off a partially decomposed corpse, let alone wearing them again. The gloves on the dead torturer, however, were much fresher, and I also didn't have much money to be choosy about this, so I slipped them off as well, and placed them in my pack. Hadvar and the assistant turned and walked down a hall on the other side of the room, with me following close behind.

Unfortunately for me, the horror show was not quite over yet, as I found to my disgust when I entered yet another nauseating room, this one full of corpses in cages, in various states of decay, from freshly dead to mere skeletons. At that point, I resolved to kill the assistant if I could. Something at the other end of the room made me even more nervous, a giant hole in the wall, bashed out what looked like some time ago. Which begged the question: who did that, and more importantly, were they going to try to kill me? The assistant seemed to know why it was there, since he just strolled through the hole like it was a doorway. (Either that, or he was just a bloody moron.) Either way, Hadvar followed close behind.

Fortunately for him, he wasn't first through, since the torturer's assistant, whose name I do not know to this day, took an arrow through his throat as soon as he reached the end of the hallway. While this was good for me, since, you know, he was evil; this was also a terrible thing, since it meant people trying to kill me.

Hadvar pulled out his bow and strung an arrow, and crept slowly around the corner. He peeked around, turned back to me, and held up five fingers. Great, there were five of them, and now just two of us. He fired into the room, but evidently missed, judging by his reaction. He had obviously caught the attention of the Stormcloaks, though, as he was soon fighting for his life against two of them, with two more charging. An archer sat in the back, evidently too worried about hitting her own to fire. Let's hope this works I thought to myself, as I formed a sphere of red energy in my hands, and hurled it at one of the Stormcloaks. He froze in shock for a moment, his eyes glowing red, before the frenzy spell took effect, and he struck at the nearest thing to him, in this case his teammate. The archer's eyes widened in surprise a moment, before she recovered, and fired an arrow directly at my face, which I narrowly managed to dodge by diving to the lower floor of the cavern this battle was taking place in. I poked one of the gloves I had found up a small amount, and an arrow slammed into it, slashing my hand as it did. Swearing, I leapt to my feet, firing a jet of fire at her with my good hand, and igniting the pitch she had been foolish enough to stand in. She screamed and burned. I barely managed the weakest of healing spells (Restoration being an area where I am thoroughly incompetent) and the wound mostly closed, at least enough for me to stop bleeding all over the floor. I turned around, to see another legionnaire, who had come through a secret passage in the wall next to Hadvar, drop the last of the remaining Stormcloaks. She turned around, and I stared in shock. It was my arch-nemesis! The Imperial Captain from an hour ago! Her eyes widened in shock for a moment, then she spun around to face Hadvar.

"Traitor!" She struck at him, and he barely managed to block it.

"How dare you aid this, this SCUM!" She shouted, gesturing at me. Her and Hadvar dueled briefly, with me shooting rather weak and ineffectual (metal suits don't burn very easily) jets of flame at her. It soon became clear that, as useless as I was right now, Hadvar had no chance of survival. In desperation, I rifled through my pack, hoping to find something, anything, I could use to defeat her. As I tore through the assortment of random crap I had collected in the dungeon, I found the destruction spellbook from earlier. Quickly I flipped it open, hoping desperately it was something I could comprehend easily. It seemed to be a minor spell for producing lightning, not much different from the fire one I was now using. I picked up the knife I had found in the torturer's pack before, and hurled it at her.

"Hey, you!" She turned around, snarling, and the knife bounced handle first off of her helmet. Undeterred, I spat at her again, and it again flew right through the visor in her helmet. Now furious beyond all rational thought or sanity, she charged, sword raised in preparation to take my head off.

It probably would have killed me if I hadn't stepped to the side and electrocuted her. She stumbled and fell, twitching as the spell did its work.

"Good riddance." I snarled, as I spat in her eye a final time as she died. I tossed a health potion over to Hadvar, and bent down to loot her corpse. I took her boots and gloves to sell, and her helmet as a trophy. I also took her coin purse, and sword, which was better than the useless junk I already had. (Although, really, all swords were kind of useless to me.) Hadvar looked briefly like he would object to my looting her corpse, then decided not to bother. Gratitude is nice, and far too uncommon after you save people, I've found. I picked up my knife from where it had landed, and stashed it somewhere I could reach easily, an act that has saved my life many times. That done, I followed Hadvar up the stairs on the other side of the room.

At the top of the stairs was a drawbridge, up so that it could not be crossed, as well as a lever right next to it. I drew the obvious conclusion, and pulled the lever. Despite my hopes that it would summon me somewhere where there was a massive feast, and no one there was trying to kill me, it merely opened the bridge onward so we could move on.

Soon after we crossed it, there was a loud rumbling from above, and a large amount of rubble from the tower came crashing down on what had once been a bridge.

"Damn!" Hadvar swore, staring back at what would have hit us if we'd moved a little slower."Guess we can't go back that way now." Why would we want to? I thought as I followed him into and through a cave. After a brief detour where I found a small cash purse in a side tunnel (next to another corpse, the prevalence of which in this place was beginning to unnerve me) we proceeded through the tunnel, and into a large room…full of giant webs, as well as corpses of various species.

Oh gods no, not giant spiders! Seriously?

Unfortunately, it was, reinforcing my theory that some kind of universal or cosmic force really just hates me, as giant spiders began to scuttle out of the corners and from the ceiling. Hadvar pulled out his blade and began to fight, as I began pouring fire at the creatures. Unfortunately, I ran out of Magicka before I ran out of spiders, and one that remained began to close in on me. I drew the rather useless sword I had been carrying with me as a desperate, last-ditch effort, but it was soon knocked out of my hands. It looked like my death was upon me, but Hadvar spun around, and slew the creature.

"Thanks." I said, drinking a Magicka potion.

"Giant spiders" Hadvar grumbled to himself as I picked up my sword and we walked through the tunnel at the other end of the room. "What next, giant snakes?" Hadvar! Stop tempting fate!

We soon stepped into a large cavern-path, which was creepily quiet and empty. As I grabbed a coin purse out of an abandoned cart, I soon found out why, as I saw, not very far from me at all, a horrific, dangerous monster, a giant, furry avatar of death who could kill me as soon as look at me.

There was a bear in here.

Hadvar seemed more than a little amused by my reaction, looking like he was barely holding back a laugh..

'We should probably try to sneak past it" he said, turning to me. "Or, if you're feeling lucky, you can take this bow, maybe get a lucky shot." I nodded, took the bow, notched an arrow, and fired. Unfortunately, as I had absolutely no skill at archery whatsoever, I missed entirely, and woke the bear as well. Frantically, I dropped the bow, attempting to ready, but the creature was far faster than it looked, and I was slammed off my feet, crashing into the wall. The last thing I saw before the world faded to black was the bear standing over me. For it, dinner had arrived.

…

Yeah, I definitely wasn't doing that. I took the bow and arrows, and stashed them in my pack.

"We'll just sneak by it."I said. "Less chance of dying" We crouched down, and, making as little noise as possible, crept through the cave to a tunnel on the other side. Once we entered the tunnel, Hadvar turned and whispered to me.

"So, can I have my bow back?"

"Shhh, you'll wake the bear!" I whispered back, despite there not being much chance of that. In my defense, it was a nice bow. Then, finally, after what seemed an age of moving through the tunnel (it was probably more like five minutes, but, well, close enough) we saw something we had not seen ever since we walked into this tower-escape-tunnel-thing: sunlight. We were free.

"Thanks the gods!" Hadvar announced as we rounded a corner, and came into sight of the exit. "I was beginning to think we'd never get out of here." At this point, I looked around nervously, waiting for something to notice he had said that, and respond by killing us. Fortunately, nothing did, and the dragon was flying off as we exited, and did not see us. We were free! (Or so I thought at the time, anyway, nothing's ever that simple).