Lights, Camera, ACTION! Prepare yourself for the longest chapter so far! Yay!

Also, I'd like to point out that my description of the Aelid ruin Fanascal is not the same as the in-game one. The in-game one doesn't have very many traps, no twists and turns, or doors with glowy-trees on them. Call it artistic license. I get to make up the story here!

And I'm sorry for the delay in this, I'm in school right now, so I haven't had time to write with the going to school-shopping and stuffs.

Amius and Thoran walked silently down the spiraling stairs. "It's unnerving," Amius thought sullenly, "that there's no one else around." He was about to signal to Thoran when he heard a noise in the room ahead.

"I don't know why Brugo wants the elf-girl so bad. It 'ent like she's all that perty, and she's def'nitly not experienced."

"Yeh, but ye know he's al'ays look'n fer new recruits. And it 'ent like the girl's ugly. I wouldn't mind spending a few hours with 'er alone."

Mild laughter and general agreeance followed, much to the disgust of Amius. "How dare they," he hissed internally. "How dare they speak of her that way?" He guessed he must have growled aloud, because Thoran shot him a warning glance a second later.

"Keep cool," Thoran whispered quietly. "Tell me how you expect to take down two Nords and a Dunmer."

"Silently," Amius whispered back. A nod passed between them, and they snuck quietly into the chamber, keeping to the shadows. Thoran was creeping behind the Dunmer man, while Amius positioned himself behind the larger of the two Nords.

"Eh, kinda makes me want my girl," the larger Nord was saying. "We 'ent been to Cheydinhal in a month, and I miss her somethin' terrible."

"What you miss," the Dunmer was saying, "is the sex." The other Nord laughed, and it was in that moment that bigger Nord and the Dunmer fell silent. It only took a moment for the last Nord to figure out what happened, and he stood up in a hurry. With a cat-like elegance and speed, Amius had slit his throat. He turned to Thoran, who was looking as if he'd be sick again.

"Well, they were easy enough," Amius was saying, with a nasty grim smile on his face. Thoran just shrugged and grimaced.

"What now?" He asked. Amius raised an eyebrow at his new partner-in-crime, and began looting pockets. Thoran made a face and reached into the Dunmers' pockets. He withdrew a small brass key, and a handful of gold.

"Hey, can I keep this?" He asked loudly. Amius just motioned to him to be quieter, and nodded.

"Keep whatever you want, but I doubt that these are the only things we're going to come up against in this place. I've got two keys and a scroll, you?"

"A key and some gold. These guys aren't exactly rich," Thoran muttered. "I thought there'd at least be a payoff for rescuing your girlfriend."

"She is not my girlfriend," Amius retorted, scowling, "she's a friend that I'm supposed to be taking care of."

"Well if she isn't your girlfriend," Thoran was grinning now as the two of them checked the barrels and chests in the room. "I might just try to get close to her." The look on Amius' face told him all he needed to know, and he grinned even wider.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Amius growled.

"Mmm, a little testy for someone who doesn't have a girlfriend," Thoran teased. Amius swung at him angrily, hitting him in the jaw.

"Shut up, will you? It's not any of your business." He held up a rotten head of lettuce and tossed it aside. "Come on, Menellis is in trouble."

"Yeah, your-" he stopped, and just smiled. The two of them went into the left side-passage, and Thoran gasped loudly as giant blood-stained blades swung from the wall. Ten or twelve of them were swinging in a pattern, one to the left, and the next to the right, then they switched directions as if they were on pendelums. "We are so screwed," Thoran murmured, as Amius shrugged, and watched them intently.

"Wait for my signal, after I go," Amius hissed. "When I call for you, run as fast as you can. But WAIT until I call for you, unless you want to be chopped into a blood pulp. Understand?"

"Understood," Thoran replied. He was internally wondering why on earth Bandits would hide in such a dangerous cave, and he watched Amius run through the chopping blades. But soon Amius was out of his line of sight, and Thoran could only hope that the groan he heard hadn't been Amius' last words.

"Three," Amius began counting, "two," Thoran was holding his breath, "one," the Wood Elf braced to begin his sprint, "Go!" Without another thought Thoran dashed through the blades, narrowly dodging each of them. When he reached the end he saw Amius had an arrow sticking out of his forearm and a dead bowman at his feet.

"'Ja do that," Thoran croaked, staring at the arrow protuding from his companion.

"Yeah, he was waiting for us, sentry I think. It doesn't really matter, he's dead and there wasn't anyone else around him." Amius was grinning like a mad man, scaring the hell out of Thoran.

"You've got an arrow," Thoran mentioned, pointing. Amius just shrugged and broke off the larger portion of the wood, which confused the elf. "What-"

"Look, the arrows are double-bladed. If you pull it out it does just as much damage as it did when it went in. So I'll get it removed professionally later," he smiled, and motioned for Thoran to go ahead of him. The wood elf didn't seem very enthusiastic as they walked down a curving staircase into a large and empty white room.

"This looks suspicious," Amius muttered, throwing an arm in front of Thoran's chest. The wood elf had been walking forward obviously oblivious to the dangers the room had in store. Amius racked his brain, trying to think what he had been taught about Aelid ruins from his guard training. And the only thing he could come up with was to stay away from them.

Glancing around, Amius couldn't come up with any reason they should proceed with caution, but his insticts told him to proceed with caution. Everything in the room looked like it belonged there, nothing looked particuarily dangerous. The floor seemed free of traps, except...except for a raised piece of flooring in front of them. It was a few inches higher than the rest of the ground, and Amius had a bad feeling about it.

"Dont," he hissed to his companion, "touch that. I'll be right back." Amius headed back up the stairs, and a bewildered Thoran waited for him to return. A few seconds later Amius came back down and motioned for Thoran to join him on the stairs. The Bosmer stood behind Amius as he drew his newly-acquired bow and held an arrow ready. Aiming carefully he shot the arrow into the center of the raised tile and waited.

His assumption had been correct, and he smiled as walls enclosed the square. He got the nasty feeling that he didn't want to know what would happen if you happened to be stuck inside the box. Walking down the stairs carefully he skirted the tile and Thoran followed. He was frowning as three bandits approached apparently drawn by the sound of the trap going off. Amius stood on one side of the doorway, crouching, and Thoran stood on the other, waiting for them to get closer.

"Mebbe it was jest a few rats," one was saying. "I mean, the place jest keeps spawnin' 'em."

"Nah, I thinks some'un is after that elf girlie. Brugo was jest talkin' to 'er, and I over'eard 'er say that 'er boyfriend'd be after 'er."

"Yeah,the girl said 'e's a nasty big thing, Nord was it?"

Thoran raised an eyebrow at Amius, to which Amius shrugged. The first stepped into the room, and Amius thrust his sword into his side as quickly as he could. Thoran gaped as the bandit fell over, and the other two charged into the room.

"OI! INTRUDERS!" One shouted, and Amius rolled his eyes and sighed, blocking the bandits' mace swing. He glanced at Thoran, who seemed to be having a hard time taking care of the larger Orc which seemed to be at least twice the Bosmer's size. With a sideswipe he chopped a hole in the bandit's leather armor and sent him back, staggering. With a glance to Thoran they exchanged opponents, and found they were evenly matched.

Adrenaline began to course through Amius' veins as he slashed out at the Orc and was jarred backwards as his opponent blocked with his shield. Left, right, block, step backwards-- Amius suddenly had an idea, and apparently Thoran had already thought of the idea. The two of them were both taking backwards steps towards the center of the room where the raised tile stood. A nod passed between them, and Thoran dashed to one wall while Amius stepped onto the tile. His stomach lurched when he realised what happened if you happened to be the one inside the box.

An acid-green smoke began to come up from pipes on the ground that hadn't been there before. Amius coughed once, and held his breath, counting to try and stay concious. "How long had it taken for the walls to go down?" He wondered. He saw the Orc slip to the floor, the one Thoran had been dealing with had already gone down.

"One..."

"Two..."

"Five..."

"...Eight..."

"...Six...teen..."

Finally the walls went down, and Amius slumped to the floor, in a coughing fit. He didn't have long to recover, however, as two more bandits stepped into the room, growling menacingly. Amius saw Thoran snatch the bow off of the bottom step and notch an arrow, which whizzed past his ear and struck the one on the left. Amius meanwhile had staggered to his feet, and stood unsteadily chugging a Strong Potion of Healing. He felt a little better when he finished it off, and he grinned at his Bosmer friend who was keeping the bandits at bay with a heavy rain of arrows.

Though Thoran was going a fine job of keeping them on the other side of the room, he wasn't doing much damage to them, Amius noticed. He gave a grim smile as he drew a scroll out from his sleeve, and steadied himself. They were coming at him, he had only a moment to react-

"Magicka norith avant lo, loria neleth!" With a flash of blinding light the scroll activated, singing and killing the two bandits in front of him. The magic contained within had been a powerful flame scroll with an area of 4 feet, and that was how close to him they had been. He dropped the ashes of the scroll onto the floor, and motioned to Thoran that it was okay. No other bandits would be coming, he thought, because most Aelid ruins happened to be more than one level deep.

"You're bleeding," Thoran commented, but Amius just shrugged. The Bosmer went about collecting his arrows again, and Amius looted pockets, coming up with a handful of gold and a petty soul gem.

"The real treasure must be wherever their leader is," he decided, and Thoran grimaced. The two of them moved the bodies into a dark corner, careful not to step onto the wall-raising tile. With his newly acquired arrows in a quiver on his back, Thoran accepted the gold Amius handed him.

"Don't you want half," Thoran asked blankly. "I mean, we should split it, don't you think?"

"I don't need it," Amius declared, putting on one of the dead bandits' fur helmets and admiring it. "I think we're going to have to blend in, though, if we want to go any further."

"I don't really want to go further," Thoran commented, picking up a sharp piece of the broken mace "but I'm not backing out now. How many levels do you think are in this place?" He dropped the mace-piece and kicked it aside, grimacing at Amius' answer.

"One, maybe two more. Possibly three, depending upon how old this place is and if it's caved in at all. More traps too," he added bitterly, noting that the arrow protuing from his arm was now gone, and the gash was bleeding freely. He ripped a piece off of the one of the bandit's shirts and tied it up, then sighed, pulling off his own clothing and exchanging it for the bandit's fur armour. It stank, Amius noticed, but he knew it was the only way he and Thoran were going to get to Menellis alive.

As Thoran donned a suit of armour like his, they headed up the stairs the bandits had come from, and dodged another set of swinging-blade traps. They paused briefly at a door with a tree shining upon it, and Amius bid Thoran to enter first. The wood elf did, and Amius followed him down a long series of stairs and they stopped on the landing, recovering their breath. Amius studied their surroundings while doing so, intensely suspicious of the room.

When he could find nothing wrong with it, and they had both regained use of their limbs, they explored the room. It was uninhibited, and things were strewn all over the floor. Junk mostly, including clothing, a broken sword and some rotten food. Sitting upon a table against a wall were a bunch of alcholic drinks. Amius had the feeling that this room wasn't being used at the moment, but it was being used. He swiped a bottle of mead and cracked it against the wall for good measure, then swiped the Weylkid stone off of the table.

"What the hell is this," he asked Thoran, tossing the jewel-like stone to him. Thoran examined it with a look of confusion and curiosity, but shrugged.

"Some kind of Aelid treasure, I suppose. Think it's worth anything?" He pocketed it, then ambled over to a sack on the floor next to a bed roll. He looted it, and turned to Amius, who was reading something with a strange look on his face. "What've you got there?"

"A note," Amius grumbled, thrusting it into his pocket. "It seems somebody wants a ransom for our pretty little elven maiden." He was obviously in a bad mood, and that didn't improve when two kahjiit stepped into the room. The two cats didn't seem to notice their presence until Amius lunged at them. The kahjiits didn't seem to think they were going to need help, as neither one of them called for help as Amius finished them off looking very, very angry.

"It seems somebody is upset about somebody wanting a ransom for our pretty little elven maiden," Thoran observed politely. Amius narrowed his eyes as he stalked forward into another room without another word. Thoran followed reluctantly, not wanting to be on Amius'bad side, but when he stepped into the room behind him he saw that he shouldn't have followed at all. Amius was throwing a tantrum, it seemed to Thoran, and taking his anger out on a skeleton and two maurarders. He wasn't having any difficulty winning either, Thoran noted. Amius was fully capable of taking on three enemies at once.

With a twinge of guilt at his own cowardace he notched an arrow and let it loose, and it sunk deep into the glass greaves of one of the maraurders. It grunted and swung heftily at Amius, which he dodges as he delivered the killing blow to him. The second maruader, Thoran observed, seemed to be giving his Nord friend a hard time, dodging attacks and countering, but Amius swung at her with more force than necessary and knocked her back against the wall, dead. The skeleton, meanwhile, had dissapeared.

"Doesn't seem like you need my help," Thoran noted, watching Amius loot the bodies and sit down on the ground between them. "How did you make the skeleton disappear?"

"I didn't. It was summoned. You kill its summoner, it dissapears." He was looking grim and worn out, and Thoran was getting a bad feeling from the whole situation.

"Is there something on your mind?" Thoran inquired, quite reluctantly. He didn't really care about the Nord's problems. Just a few hours ago he had been afraid that Amius was going to knock his door in and skin him alive, and now he was having sympathy pains for him, just because he'd lost his girfriend-- No, Thoran corrected himself, she wasn't his girlfriend.

"I hate this," Amius growled loudly. "This project, the whole situation! She's so good at getting herself in trouble, and now I'm fighting my way through a fully trapped and armed Aelid ruin. This is so stupid," he ranted, "I don't want to be slashing my way through bandits, maruaders and skeletons to get to her. I hate her stupid "Waterfront project" and I wish she didn't have stupid little ideas about "adventures.""

"Well you had them too, didn't you?" Thoran asked carefully. He noted the muscle twitch on Amius' jaw, and smiled a little. "Isn't that why you wanted to be a Guard?"

"Oh yeah, it was "fun."" Amius muttered bitterly. "I don't even know where she is, and I'm tired of the hack-and-slash, being covered in blood bit."

"So let's go get the guards, and make them go rescue your damsel-in-distress." "There," Thoran smiled to himself, "I've touched the nerve."

"We've already come this far, we can't just leave," he sighed as he stood up, and stripped free of his blood-spattered fur armour. He exhanged his fur cuirass for a glass one, along with the rest of the pieces of armour, and picked up the silver shortsword from one of the dead victims. He handed it to Thoran, who gave Amius back the sword he had loaned him. Amius tucked both of his swords into his belt, and picked up a piece of parchment the first maruarder had dropped. He passed it to Thoran, who studied the feminely scrawled note.

"We've got all of the groceries you asked for for your party. We're shipping them off on Middas of Morningstar, they should reach you in excellent condition. Expect the party supplies in the next shipment in a few weeks.

-Mum"

"Sounds like code to me," Thoran remarked, handing the note to Amius, who hadn't yet read it. Amius scanned the page, and nodded in agreement.

"Sounds like they're smuggling something out of here, though I don't know what it is that they're smuggling. Maybe we'll get the chance to uncover a smuggling operation and reap the rewards, but first we need to find Menellis." He tucked the note into the collar of his curiass and glanced around the room. With a smile they followed a staircase down, and found themselves cornering a Breton woman. She was dozing on a rock, obviously supposed to be guarding the treasure chests that sat beyond the half-open white door.

Thoran snuck up to her and snatched the key from the necklace, and the two of them smiled to themselves as they looted the gigantic room. Stuffing their pockets full of gems and magical jewlery, they grinned as they left the room and headed back up the stairs. Taking a different turn, they ended up in another large white-walled room. Now cautious of such things, they scanned the room before proceeding. Standing in the middle of the room were two large stone pillars, each with three large square buttons on them encrusted with a blue glowing gem.

"Think we ought to poke those," Thoran wondered aloud. Amius was busy looking around the room, and as he could find no other exit, he nodded.

"We'd better be careful though," he replied. They stepped into the center of the room which was eriely lit from above by a large white crystal in a cage. "Let's just do them one at a time," Amius advised. His Bosmer partner nodded as he solemnly touched the top block on the left pillar. Silence, it appeared nothing had happened.

Thoran raised an eyebrow and looked around. There was nothing. No noise, no traps, no noxious gas or closing-in-on-you walls. Amius gave Thoran a shrug, and they pressed the remaining blocks. Then, they realized what a dire mistake they had made. Stone panels slid back from the walls, one for each of the blocks they had pushed. Watching the panels slide back with interested expressions, two skeletons slowly slinked out from each of the newly exposed rooms. Thoran, taking a quick inventory, turned to Amius with a serious look.

"We are completely screwed."

BUHBUHBUHBUH! SUSPENSE:D

oOoOoOo

"Please note that the phrase "magicka norith avant lo, loria neleth" is made up. It doesn't exist, and is jibberish. In magical jibberish it would mean "activate magic scroll, wrath of the flame." I just wanted Amius to have something cool to say as he uses that scroll. As an activation phrase. I don't know how else scrolls would work, you know? You can't just pull them out and use them, nor can you just have a spell in mind and have it start firing off from your fingertips. Okay? In this story, "activation phrases" will be used for instances when magic is used. Thank you.

-Kiriu of the Board of Magical Jibberish"