.
Chapter 3 - Bleak Falls Barrow
When they started out the next morning, Yssha was wearing the leather cuirass the Jarl had given her. It was good quality, and she'd determined the enchantment was one that improved her health, which was sure to be useful. She also had a new steel mace, and Marcurio was in steel armor with a battleaxe strapped to his back.
She inhaled deeply as they left the city. It was cool, not really cold yet, and a beautiful sunny day - a good omen for the real start of her adventuring year. The air smelled fresh and clean, pleasant after the scents of the city, and she purred in satisfaction.
"Happy?" Marcurio asked, sounding amused.
"Yes, I am. I am alive, which I am still surprised about. And I owe my life to a dragon, of all things. If it hadn't attacked Helgen, I would be a head shorter right now."
"Which would be a definite loss," he said.
"It certainly would, for me in particular." Yssha gave her version of a chuckle, then cast Pathfinder, and they began their trek to the barrow.
They spent the trip getting better acquainted, learning each other's combat strengths and weaknesses, discussing tactics against the draugr and how to avoid getting in each other's way. By the time they arrived, a couple of hours later, Yssha was confident that they would work well together, with him doing most of the magery and her most of the melee work. He had objected to that at first, but finally agreed that her training, conditioning, and Khajiit strength made it the sensible way to work.
They got a chance to test that even before getting into the barrow, which they found out when an arrow whished by. "Bandits," Marcurio snapped, preparing to spellcast. Yssha left him to it, as agreed, and ran up the steps, preparing her mace and a flame spell for action - why she preferred one-handed weapons.
The two melee fighters came at her, both wielding swords. The flame spell torched their fur armor, which gave her a chance to move in close enough to use her mace while they were screaming and trying to put the fire out with snow. By the time Marcurio got to her, the archer taken care of, she was busily checking the bodies for gold and things she could sell.
"Just take gold, gems, and other small stuff," Marcurio advised her. "The porters will take the big and heavy things later, and deliver them wherever you want." He paused, chuckling as she stood, and handed her a small coin purse. "The archer had this."
Yssha rose, reminding herself that he was right; she didn't have to burden herself, at least on this expedition. "You found that; you ought to keep it."
He shook his head. "Nope, that's part of the service. My fee is fairly high, because as far as I know I'm the only combat-mage mercenary; your pay is only the loot we find. Even with your stipend, you can't be rich, since that's only about double the cost of a modest house, from what I heard."
"You heard correctly," Yssha said, accepting the purse. She hadn't thought a mercenary, rather than a family member, would share the loot, much less give it all to her. He was right, though. Until she was established and making a reasonable amount of income, she couldn't afford not to take it. "Thank you. Do you need healing?"
He shook his head. "He only fired two more arrows, and missed both times. By then he had other things to worry about, like dying. And I'm almost as good at Restoration as I am at Destruction."
Yssha purred, amused at herself for momentarily forgetting that. "I assume it will be more difficult once we get inside. I was strongly advised not to go in this place alone."
Marcurio laughed. "Draugr are slow and clumsy. Hardly a challenge for a man like me ... or, I daresay, a woman like you. Whoever said that must not have seen you fight."
"He had, actually; it was Hadvar. I told you about him on the way out."
"Then he must not have fought draugr himself. Or only fought the more powerful ones, but what we're likely to find aren't much. I've faced them a number of times, and only run into a couple of their Overlords. I wouldn't worry about it."
That sounded overly optimistic to her, but he was the expert on Skyrim dangers; she'd only read about them. "All right. Shall we go in, then?"
"After you," he said with a grin.
Yssha returned it with her own version before finishing the stair climb and opening the door. Inside, she heard a murmur of voices and immediately went into stealth mode, approaching the voices carefully as she avoided the corpses of several large-rat-like creatures. Skeevers, from the pictures she'd seen, but larger than she had expected.
The voices came from two more bandits, who were discussing a third who'd run ahead with a golden claw, undoubtedly the one Lucan had sent her after. She'd learned early in her training that leaving live enemies behind was a very bad idea, so she gestured to Marcurio, and seconds later the bandits were dead. Scouting around, she found a chest with some gold, a gem, a shield, and a couple of daggers. The shield and daggers weren't enchanted, so she left them for the porters. When she rejoined Marcurio, he handed her two more small coin purses, and they went deeper into the barrow.
Yssha hesitated before entering the next chamber they came to, going into stealth mode. There was a bandit there, using a lever, but as soon as he moved it, he was killed by a hail of darts. She straightened, turning to Marcurio. "A trap, obviously, but not one I'm familiar with. Are you?"
He nodded, gesturing to a trio of pillars to their left. "A Nordic puzzle. They're all over the place, and for some reason no one has been able to figure out, the solution is always somewhere close by. I think it's stupid, but the ancient Nords must've had a reason. Let's look around for things that match the symbols on the pillars - they move, so this kind means you have to match them."
Yssha did so, and eventually found two symbols on the balcony above. "Are these what we're looking for?"
"Yes, but one's missing - maybe the broken one down here. Let's give it a try."
"Right." Yssha went back down, looking at the pillars. "I'm fairly strong, for a woman, but I hope those aren't as heavy as they look."
Weight for weight, Khajiit were stronger than humans, but Marcurio did outweigh her, so all he said was, "Give it a try. If you can't move them, maybe I can."
To Yssha's surprise, the pillars moved easily, and she set them into the snake-snake-whale the clues indicated. She wished she'd learned the Telekinesis spell, but others were more generally useful, so she had yet to study that one ...
She pulled the lever by hand instead, praying she wouldn't get killed by another blizzard of darts, but it went well, and the bars to their passage rose.
They continued on, fighting a few more enemies, and eventually came to a room holding an unusually large frostbite spider. It was wounded, and someone entangled in webs was yelling at her to kill it and cut him down. The first part, at least, was in her and Marcurio's interest as well, so they did so before turning their interest to the webbed-in man. She couldn't remember the man's name, but did remember he'd been called 'the swift'. He had the Claw, and he was a bandit, outside the law ...
He was still pleading to be cut down, so she obliged. But she didn't give him time to run; she cut him down both ways, then searched the body for the Golden Claw and any other loot he might have.
Marcurio caught his breath at that, and she turned to him. "Have I offended you? If so, I regret it, and will release you when we return to Whiterun."
Marcurio whooped with laughter. "Offended me? By killing a bandit? Lovely little Khajiit, I admire you. One of our objectives here is already achieved, you know."
"Then we may continue to travel together?"
"Of course." Marcurio hesitated, wondering about his feelings toward this new employer. Not his species, of course, but so beautiful - and more importantly, competent both magically and in physical combat. He was afraid he was - he suppressed that thought before it could fully form. "Let's go."
"Certainly." Yssha led the way, and they fought most of it, against draugr and restless draugr, collecting the smaller loot they found from bodies and chests until they came to what looked like a circular door with symbols on three rings, and a center that looked like it would hold the claw they'd recovered earlier. "Another puzzle?" she asked her companion.
Marcurio nodded. "The kind you need a dragon claw for. If that gold one is its key, we're - excuse the term - golden. If it's for a different door, this expedition is over."
"Well, the bandits seemed to think it was," Yssha pointed out. "How do I use it?"
"Look at its, uh, palm. Then match the symbols on the door to the ones on the claw, and stick the claw part in the middle and turn it. If it's the right one, the door will open by sliding down."
Yssha followed his instructions, holding her breath until there was a grating noise and the door began sinking. "Good!"
"Don't get cocky," Marcurio cautioned. "What's behind this kind of door is almost always important, and it's never easy to get."
"I see what you mean," Yssha said when they came to a passageway shortly thereafter, and blades began swinging across their path. "I don't suppose there's any way to stop those?"
"Not on this end," Marcurio said grimly. "One of us will have to run through and find the lever or pull-chain at the other end. Hold on, let me get that draugr first." His lightning bolts took care of the one he'd seen at the far end of the passage while Yssha studied the swinging blades and their pattern.
"I've done this before, but not with real blades," she said nervously, trying to match the blades' timing with beats of her hand.
"Want me to do it?" Marcurio asked. "I'm wearing steel, not leather."
"Speed is more important than armor with these," she replied absently, "and I'm faster than you are. I'm also smaller, so there's less of me to hit. This one is mine."
"As you say." She was right, Marcurio knew, even though he didn't like it. One misstep and she'd be badly hurt, maybe dead.
After about a minute, Yssha was confident of the blades' pattern and rhythm. As the first hit the right place in its swing, she burst into a sprint. Adrenalin gave her a boost as well, and she reached the end of the passage unharmed, skidding to a halt to look for the off switch. There was a pull chain beside the passage, so she gave it a solid tug, and the blades slowed to a stop.
"Chaos - get back here!" Marcurio called urgently. She obeyed, sprinting back before turning to see what had alarmed him. Half a dozen draugr were boiling toward them, but even with the blades stilled, the passage gave them an advantage; the draugr were forced to approach singly, which made them easy to kill.
Once that was done, they continued undisturbed until they came to a brightly lit cavern where birds exploded past them. She hesitated briefly before leading them cautiously across a stairway and bridge over a small creek,to a platform holding a crypt and a curved wall with what might have been either writing or random marks.
She pointed at the latter. "What's that?"
Marcurio shrugged. "A word wall. Another mystery that's all over the place. They supposedly hold draconic words of power, whatever those were."
"It's ... making a sound. Some sort of a chant. I ... I think I need to check it out."
Marcurio didn't hear anything, so he moved to stop her. Before he could, though, part of the wall glowed bright blue and ... moved into her, and she froze.
At the same time, the crypt exploded, and Marcurio had his hands full with what he instantly recognized, to his dismay, as a draugr overlord. Ah, no, not by himself! he thought.
But then Yssha was with him again, and between the two of them, the overlord was defeated, though not without injuries to its opponents. Its final blow knocked Yssha back, and she fell.
She saw Marcurio finish the thing off, so she rested, panting, for a few seconds before struggling to her knees. "Mar ... Marcurio? Are you all right?"
"Pretty much," Marcurio said, trying to sound light-hearted.
"Good. Then can you haul me to my feet?"
"Of course." He did so.
"Thank you." She glared at the wall. "What in Oblivion was THAT?"
"It's a dragon word wall, as I said. They've never been known to do anything, though. Until this one knocked you -"
"for a loop," she finished. "And I don't appreciate it one bit," That wasn't what she'd been asking about, but she didn't correct him.
"Did it hurt you when that light did ... whatever it did?"
"Hurt? No, not at all. But it ... put a word in my mind. Fus, whatever that means. Do you know?" It hadn't hurt, but it had seemed to push its way in. Not even really unpleasant, she decided, but definitely strange.
"No, I've never heard it before. But let's do some healing, then see if we can find this dragonstone of yours, all right?"
"Of course," Yssha agreed, calling on her Healing spell as Marcurio did the same. When they were done, she went over to the twice-dead corpse. "This one was as tough as Hadvar made me think they all were."
"that was one of their overlords, and it was using a thu'um - a Shout. That's how it was pushing us around." Marcurio began searching the thing, and held up a piece of carved stone about the length of his forearm. "I think this is what we came for."
"I think so, too." Yssha stowed it in her pack, then started going through a nearby chest while Marcurio checked the rest of the cavern before returning to her side.
He grinned at her. "Not a bad dungeon run. Nothing big, until we got to this room, but I think you'll get at least a couple of thousand out of it, once the porters get the big stuff hauled out and you sell anything you won't need."
"Anything we won't need," Yssha corrected him, "if you are interested in continuing to travel with me."
"The contract said until you dismiss me," Marcurio reminded her. Most of his jobs were one-shots, true, but they worked well together, and she'd given him the best armor she could afford, and a weapon. So she'd actually provided more than his fee ... and he admitted she had earned more respect and liking than his employers usually did. He'd stick with her for a while, at least until he felt he'd done as much as he could afford without a new fee. Not that that was likely any time soon; his porter business was quite profitable, and living at the Bee and Barb kept his expenses minimal.
"I had let that slip my mind," Yssha said. Not really, but she really didn't want to keep him if he chose to leave, much as she would hate to lose him. "I am glad. We work well together, and you have already taught me much about Skyrim." Besides that, she liked him.
She sighed. "I suppose we should start back. I could teleport us, but to be honest, I need to walk some adrenaline off. Combat leaves me high-strung for several hours, and I would really rather get some sleep and food as well before returning to Whiterun."
He nodded. "There's a village pretty close to the path we came up; they might have an inn. Let's go."
It puzzled her when he went off in the opposite direction to where they'd come in. "Where are you going?"
"There's usually a back door or shortcut out of these things, for some reason, and I spotted one when we were treasure-hunting. Up the stairs behind the Word Wall, there's a lever that probably leads to a tunnel."
"Ah! That is useful to know." She followed him up and out of the tunnel, then they set off for Riverwood. She would return the Golden Claw to Lucan Valerius, then get some supper and sleep at the Sleeping Giant Inn she'd passed on her way to Whiterun - was it only two days ago? It felt much longer than that.