Chapter Three

Sirrus's lips were sealed shut as she stood in the arbor of the bandit's camp, fixed on the horror laid out before her.

The once white snow had turned completely scarlet and fresh, red liquid dripped into the cracks of stone. Nothing was intact, not even the many corpses of the once outlaws. Limbs were spread around the camp's edges and chests and rib cages were ripped open and barren without hearts…and some bodies were even missing their kidneys.

Her stomach clinched, ready to vomit at any moment as she watched Sythis fix the bandit leader's head on a pole and merrily juggle the squishy hearts.

"Did…did you find it?" she trembled.

"Yes!" Sythis said excitedly. Sirrus's face lit up until a rock with the name 'Jimmy' craved into it was placed in her hands.

"No the claw!" she shouted, dropping the rock which Sythis had already forgotten about.

"Oh yeah," Sythis's thumb darts back to the head on the pole "that bloke managed to tell me he had recently gave it to a Dark Elf who went into the ruins, 'Bleak Falls Burrow." She nods her head at the entrance of the ruins that the bandits had camped in front of. "Time to go tomb raiding!"

"Oh joy, I was scared we wouldn't be able to be complete monsters today." Sirrus grumbled after her as she ran inside.

"Hold that torch closer! I can't see a thing!" Sythis commanded.

"I can't get any closer to you with you whacking around that weapon of yours! Plus the splatters of blood in the air…" she trails off with an uncomfortable shiver. "And if I'm carrying this, that means I can't shoot my bow."

"Oh, you shoot it now?" Sythis jeers.

"Ha. Ha." Sirrus mocked.

"What was that?!" a man's startled voice echoed from around a large pillar.

"Show yourself!" a woman demanded. Sythis unsheathed her swords as Sirrus drew her bow. Sythis took out the large blonde man that came charging at them with a warhammer before he could even utter a threat. Sirrus aimed at the woman, who sent a steel arrow her way. It grazed Sirrus' arm, and Sirrus reacted by letting go of her knocked arrow. The arrow sailed straight into the woman's heart, slicing through the air with a sharp hiss.

"Sythis!" Sirrus gasped. "Did you see that?!"

"Yeah, I did." Sythis said, feigning a yawn. "But try to take less time aiming. You'll be less likely to get hit that way. You know, strike first, and all."

Sirrus scowled at her.

"C'mon." Sythis pushed. "We've got a treasure to find!"

"…And give back to its rightful owner." Sirrus added.

"Uh…sure."

The two descended deeper into the crypt in silence. Sythis stopped occasionally to raid an urn or two (much to the disapproval of Sirrus). As they went deeper into the barrow, Sirrus couldn't help but notice that the fine hairs on the back of her neck were starting to stand on end. As they passed a shelf stocked with the mead with the juniper berries, the air was getting colder, the stench of rotting corpses was getting stronger, and the tunnels were getting narrower and narrower. A trio of rabid, shrieking skeevers emerged as if from nowhere, and darted in their direction. Sirrus screamed and pulled her hands up to her face as Sythis merely kicked in their skulls. Sirrus laughed nervously as Sythis shot her another blazing glare.

"Seriously, you have to grow a pair of-"

"What was that?!" Sirrus shrieked again.

"What was what?" Sythis asked as a low gurgle reached their ears.

"That." Sirrus said, suddenly turning pale. The gurgle came again.

"Could it be?" Sythis gasped as a half-rotted warrior stumbled up a flight of stairs and into their view. It was clutching a rusty blade in its hand, dragging it on the ground until its thin arm was able to raise it above its head.

"It is!" Sythis exclaimed, overjoyed. "A Draugr!" Sirrus shrieked again.

"GET ME OUT OF HERE!" she screamed. Sythis rolled her eyes. She strode up to the putrid Nord and kicked in his brittle chest, sending him on his back. A well-placed strike from her sword into his temples sent the blue glow out of his eyes as his body relaxed.

"Seriously. It's just a cursed Nord. Probably one of your ancestors…I don't know. You Nords are weird like that. Besides, for reasons unexplained, they often carry a good amount of coin on them." Sythis said, as she ripped a bulging coin purse from his rotted armor. Sirrus wanted to puke again.

They continued trekking through the various caves and halls, slaying every rotted warrior who dared rise from their resting places. Sirrus began to less and less afraid of them…and more so annoyed with them as her arrows planted into their frail bodies. But every time they thought they might reach the end, there was yet another cave or hall. Until, they heard the voice of a man call for help from behind a passage barricaded in solid web.

Sythis slashed through it and they both quickly ran in the room, looking up and down until finding a Dark Elf wrapped in the same kind of web. He tried to call them for help until his horrified gaze shot up the ceiling where an eight-legged shadow fell from. Sirrus covered her mouth with two hands as the giant, frostbite spider landed before them.

This time, Sirrus reacted before Sythis could lunge at the beast. While screaming, she repeatedly pulled arrows back and sent them slugging into the massive insect's flesh…or whatever spiders have.

While indifferently watching these arrows fly past her head with cries of fear following, Sythis folds her arms and leans up against the wall, waiting. And with tears streaming down her cheeks, Sirrus finally stops and stands shaking and breathing in huffs, looking at the warrior lifting her brows at her. "Ya done?"

A little embarrassed, Sirrus nods and stands behind her as she approaches the struggling Dark Elf. "You gotta help me!"

"Claw." Sythis states.

"What? You gotta cut me down from here!" he begs.

"Claw." Sythis growls lowly.

"Yes! Yes! I have it!" he exclaims.

"Good." She says, appeased, cutting him down. She waits as he starts to get up, but then immediately glares when seeing his mouth lift in a trickster smile.

He turns his back to her and starts toward a passage that was behind the web holding him. "Like I would give you the-" there was immediately both a sword and an arrow rammed into the back of his head.

Sythis, pulls out the sword from his skull and withdraws a golden claw with three circles on the palm, each with different markings of animals on each one. But of course, the rest of his gold was did not go unnoticed as she pocketed the coins and moved onward, handing the claw to Sirrus to carry.

Sirrus stays put when running her studying gaze all around the claw, and hears Sythis scoff and backtrack when noticing she's not following her. "Do I need to remind you of the 'those who stay behind are left behind' policy?"

"These markings, what do you think they mean?"

"…Who cares?" Sythis tugs her arm firmly, getting her to follow again.

After more trekking, they finally reach a dead end; a massive, locked door that, despite all of Sythis's ramming and cursing, would not even budge. "Well, we're boned." She throws her hand in the air in defeat and begins to walk away until Sirrus calls her back.

"The markings! They're on the door as well!" she points out happily. Sythis stands back as she watches her examine the claw mark even more and slide the markings around until she was sure they were correct. Then, connecting the three nails of the golden claw to the three holed, stone circle in the door's center, the door slid down and allowed them to pass through to the very last room.

After ducking under a wave of bats, they saw that the room was massive, with a shallow stream running through the middle. When crossing the water, they stop and look at each other in confusion as they heard…music?

"You hear this too?" Sythis asked her "Oh good, it isn't the voices in my head!"

"It sounds like…a chorus of voices…are they chanting?" Sirrus tries to guess as they now cautiously approach a small set of stairs. And, held in the pale light that rains from the gap in the crypt ceiling, is a stone wall where the chanting became louder. There appeared to be markings in some sort of runic language chiseled in the ancient stone. But there is one line of symbols that seemed to illuminate to them.

They approached the wall cautiously, staring wide-eyed and open-mouthed. For some unexplainable reason, the runes whispered to them: fus. All went black, and when their senses returned to them, they looked around, bewildered. That very word seemed to resonate in their spirits.

"By the Eight…" Sirrus moaned. Suddenly, they heard a great explosion behind them. They whirled around as one last Draugr pulled itself from its granite bed. Sythis grinned at Sirrus, who shot back her own crooked smile. Sirrus jerked an arrow out of her quiver, as Sythis withdrew the swords from the scabbards at her waist. Sirrus nocked an arrow, aimed, and shot the Draugr in the chest. It flinched and glanced at the arrow protruding from its putrid flesh. Enraged, the Draugr stepped back, flexed his shoulders and cried: FUS RO DAH! Sirrus flew out of the way of the blast that resulted from the Draugr's cry, leaving a clear path for it to hit Sythis. Sythis couldn't react in time, and the blast sent her flying into a stone cauldron.

"Sythis!" Sirrus yelled.

"It's a damn Overlord!" Sythis roared, pulling herself up from the damp floor. She charged at the Dragur, hacking at it with her swords. She hit it in the neck; her sword embedding deep in the tissue. She jerked it back out of the Draugr's throat, and sent the other blade through its stomach. It shrieked and crumpled to the floor, and Sythis stood back, glancing proudly at Sirrus.

"Well. That wasn't so bad." Sythis beamed.

"It's still alive!" Sirrus screamed.

"Huh?" Sythis, said as she looked back at the Draugr. It was already on top of her, pressing the frozen blade of its sword into her neck. Sirrus immediately nocked her bow and fired again, sending an arrow into the Draugr's gullet; inches from Sythis' face. It hesitated long enough for Sirrus to sprint at it. Sythis jerked around, turning the Draugr's back to face Sirrus. In one fluid movement, she also turned in the corpse's embrace, burying her swords into his stomach yet again. At the same time, Sirrus came down on top of the Draugr with an arrow clutched tightly in her grasp. She jabbed this into the center of his chest.

It collapsed immediately, falling to the floor in a heap. It convulsed on the stones for only a moment, as his final death throws overtook him. Then, he was gone.

"I really hate those bastards." Sythis rubs her sore back. "They're loud, obnoxious, and just horrible conversationalist altogether."

Sirrus, not paying any attention to her, saw a small, flat stone tucked into the folds on the Draugr's armor. She lifted it up to see that in also had mysterious markings and held it to Sythis who shrugged.

"Best to take it with us I guess…" Sirrus muttered while slipping it into her bag.

They searched the crypt a little while longer until coming across a lever that lifted a large stone to reveal a secret passage out of the cave. When stepping into the white daylight, they shielded their eyes until they adjusted and saw that this doorway led to a steep hill off the mountain side.

"Great, how will we trek down?" Sirrus ponders. But Sythis was already on it, and was ripping a shield off a nearby skeleton. "What is that for-" With a wild smile, Sythis grabbed Sirrus in her arms, jumped on top of the shield, and rode it down the mountain side as she laughed crazily over the poor Nord's screams.


A note from "The Vanguard":

Dearest Readers and Fellow Dovahkiins,

We cannot thank you enough for reading our story! We have been working on and off on it for months— with lots of distractions I assure you. This story actually started off as random comments between the two of us when Heart-of-a-Villain (The other person who shares this child account) played Skyrim for the very first time.
Funnest part about that story is the fact she had never played any of the Elder Scrolls series, and "Sythis"—her go-to name for characters— is something she had no idea would already be taken- though, with a different spelling- in the gaming universe. She had reacted like many who think that their character names, as precious as they are, are completely unheard of and just thought into existence by their brilliance...she screamed in agony and cursed me for informing her.

In her defense, she had been using it in her stories since elementary, so, she did technically think of it first. (Just let her have this one, she was VERY upset that day XD)

Anyway, I plan to surprise the Villainwith spending a whole night writing chapters and posting them on here. I hope to cheer her up after a long day at prison— I mean work...place...thingy.

One last thing- and I hate to be one of those people- but the Villain and I put so much hard work into our WordCraft (I'm making that word a thing) for the hope that one day we can provided entertainment for people like you. To help us keep working, we would really appreciate reviews. Aspiring Writers-in-Training like us can fight dragons with keyboards all we want, but to make it worth it, it is up to you beloved wielders of eyes and beholders of words. (Translation: Readers- but you may use those titles, I have crafted them for you. Yes! You! Not that guy though, he can't use it)

- The Vanguard
(Maker of the cowardly "Sirrus" and omnipotent owner of the Pen name "SeraphimVanguard")

R&R! AHHH!