XIII: Spiders and Skeletons

We found a small boat tied up at the edge of the river between us and Ustengrav. Since we were in no real hurry, we used the boat to cross. I was too hungry and cold without my armor to relish a swim in the icy river just then.

A short walk ahead, Ustengrav's door was set inside a circular depression in the ground ringed by pillars, similar to Dustman's Cairn. We crept up to the edge slowly and peered down into the pit.

Amidst numerous wooden crates and a treasure chest, a Nord lay sprawled on the ground in a pool of blood.

I hurried down first and knelt beside the Nord to check on him, but he was clearly dead. He had died fairly recently, though. "Either he made one of his companions mad, or someone decided to explore Ustengrav and clear out its current inhabitants," I observed as I rolled him over and discovered two broken arrows lodged in his chest.

Fultheim walked over to the treasure chest and tried to open it. "It's locked. If someone came here looking for treasure, why didn't they open it?"

"Maybe they didn't have any lockpicks?" I offered. I noticed a knapsack on the ground near the dead body and rifled through it, finding a few lockpicks, a handful of gold coins and a goat cheese wheel.

"Or maybe a draugr did it?" Alea suggested.

Fultheim knelt beside the body and worked one of the arrow out. "No, this is a steel arrow," he said. "Draugr usually use a different type."

I took one of the lockpicks and quickly had the chest open. Inside I found several mage robes and an iron sword, as well as a few more gold coins. "I was hoping there'd be some armor in here," I grumbled.

"You could always take his armor," Fultheim suggested, nudging the dead Nord with his foot.

I wrinkled my nose at the blood-drenched leather armor. "No, thanks. I actually won a fight against six Thalmor while wearing no armor. I'll take my chances."

They looked at me warily. "What did the Thalmor have against you?" Alea asked.

"They didn't approve of the Talos amulet I wear in memory of my dead mother," I sighed. "I tried to talk them down, but they wouldn't listen." I bundled the mage robes into the knapsack and held it out to Fultheim. "You want to carry this, since you're the strongest?"

He took the knapsack and emptied all the crates into it, then armed himself with the iron sword from the treasure chest, and we crept through the door into Ustengrav.

I led the way, since I saw best in the dark. I scanned the large, long cavern we found ourselves in slowly. I saw no movement and heard nothing but distant water dripping, though I noticed several more bodies lying on the floor at the far end of the cavern.

I rose from my crouch and walked cautiously over to the bodies. Several more Nords and a pair of draugr were scattered around the floor, all with the same steel arrows lodged in their bodies.

"Looks like someone decided to clear out the bandits," Fultheim said. He started removing a set of chain mail from one of the corpses. "I wonder why they didn't pick over the bodies?"

"There's something odd about it," I agreed. Had someone else decided to take the horn? What would I do if they had?

I took the chainmail Fultheim offered, since it was less messy than the leather armor on the body outside. Fultheim found a steel battleaxe and a bow and arrows. Alea also took a bow and arrows, but she had no interest in the armor or weapons. We also found two more knapsacks. We took a moment to split the loot evenly, then resumed our journey.

I led the way very slowly and cautiously. I kept remembering that last room in Dustman's Cairn, the swarm of draugr that almost killed us. I kept expecting to be ambushed again. But we only found two live draugr on the first floor of Ustengrav. Every other draugr had been killed already.

We went through another door to the lower level, where the tunnel led to a huge cavern with a waterfall and a stream running through it, and a hole in the roof high above that allowed enough light for a tree to grow in the middle of the room. We were on a higher level, overlooking the room through a hole in the wall. The winding tunnel ahead sloped down, meandering down to an opening on the ground level below. I listened carefully, but I didn't hear anything alive in the tunnels, so I led the way more confidently.

I suddenly heard a strange creaking noise coming from the tunnel ahead. I had never heard it before, but it almost sounded like creaking wood, so I kept going and rounded the corner.

A human skeleton wielding a longsword was standing in the tunnel in front of me. I made an involuntary choking sound as all of my muscles seemed to lock up. Every thought escaped my mind and I couldn't remember what I was supposed to be doing as I watched the skeleton raise its sword with a hiss.

Something struck me in the back and I toppled forward. As I hit the ground, I heard the impact of a weapon against bone, then the sound of the top half of the skeleton smashing against the tunnel roof. The loose bones rained down in front of me and clattered on down the tunnel.

Alea knelt beside me. "Are you okay?" she asked, sounding both concerned and annoyed.

"Yeah," I said shakily as I pushed myself into a sitting position. "I don't know what happened…"

Fultheim looked at me and asked, "Is it possible you're afraid of skeletons?"

I just looked at him with my mouth open for a moment, looked down at the loose bones strewn down the tunnel ahead, then back at him. "I don't know. I've never fought one before…" My whole body started shaking, and I hunched over and hugged myself. "By the Nine, I've killed too many dragons to be afraid of a skeleton!"

As I sat there shivering, I realized Fultheim and Alea had never seen me fight before. I must look like such a coward right now. I took a deep breath and forced myself to my feet. "I swear I've never had a reaction like that before," I said quickly. "I don't normally freeze up in battle."

Fultheim gave me another long look, then shrugged and turned away. "Everyone's afraid of something silly, I suppose. I'll lead the way. There might be more of them."

I kicked one of the loose bones at my feet. "Was I hearing things, or did the skeleton hiss at me? How is that even possible?"

"Eh, don't over-think it," Fultheim said dismissively.

Another creaking-wood sound came from up ahead, I shuddered and hung back as Fultheim trotted forward to deal with it.

My feelings of self-loathing faded as we entered the huge cavern and I realized I could hear the familiar chanting over the rushing of the water. I scanned the area and saw a Word Wall in the middle of the room through the mist rising from the stream.

"Look, there's a treasure chest up there," Alea observed, pointing. "How is anyone supposed to reach that?"

There were several thick stone pillars reaching from floor to ceiling. Most of them had stone walkways built between then, with pathways encircling the pillars. They led to a platform carved out of the wall with a treasure chest resting on it. The path to the first pillar had collapsed, but part of it remained, pointing up at the path like a ramp.

"I have an idea," I said thoughtfully. I sprinted up the ramp. As my foot pushed off the edge of the ramp, I shouted, "Wuld!" As I had hoped, I went flying through the air and landed on the edge of the inaccessible stone path. "Yes, it worked!" I shouted triumphantly, looking down at Fultheim and Alea.

They were both looking up at me with their mouths open.

"Er, yeah, I learned that from the Greybeards," I called down. "Sit tight, I think I can reach that chest." I crossed the stone path, using Whirlwind Sprint when I came to a broken path, and reached the chest. I found a fireball staff and a couple hundred gold coins, added them to my knapsack, and Sprinted my way back across the pillars and hopped to the ground.

Fultheim and Alea looked to be at a loss for words. Finally Fultheim said faintly, "So… When you said you were the Dragonborn…"

"Yeah, I can see how you thought I was just being snide," I said with a nod. I turned to face the Word Wall. "If you're still not sure, this should convince you."

I took off for the Word Wall at a run, my spirits lightening as I finally felt like I was back in my element. I absorbed the knowledge from the wall, and the word feim popped into my head.

"That's odd," I said mostly to myself. "I had a sense what the others were for, but this one…" The thought that popped into my head was too nebulous to focus on. I shrugged and called up my last dragon soul to use on my new shout.

"Feim!" I shouted, and everything around me seemed to waver. My body became ethereal, and suddenly I couldn't quite feel the faint wind blowing through the cavern, or even the chill in the air. I turned to face my companions. "Look at me! Isn't this neat?!"

They looked at each other warily. Alea approached me slowly and swung her hand at my stomach. It passed through and I barely felt anything. "That won't do you much good if you need to kill something," she grumbled. She seemed to like being negative.

"It'll be great if I have to flee, though," I said brightly. "Or avoid traps."

I took off my knapsack and set it on the floor, then tried to pick it back up, but my hands went right through it. "Looks like I can only interact with objects if I was in contact with them before I used the Shout," I muttered to myself. Before I could do any further experimenting, I felt my body wavering, and a few seconds later, the Shout's effects wore off and I had a physical form again.

Feeling more optimistic than I had been since before meeting Aventus Aretino, I handed Alea the fireball staff, gave them each a third of the coins and resumed leading the way as we crossed the cavern and entered another tunnel.

A short way into the tunnel, it widened slightly. Most of the floor had been covered with pressure plates. I cautiously leaned forward and depressed one with my sword, and jets of fire shot up from the floor around the edges of the plate.

"There's usually a switch somewhere to disarm these kind of traps," Fultheim said, feeling the wall futilely.

"It's probably in the next room," I said. The tunnel curved up ahead so we couldn't see where it led. "Time to see how my new Shout does against fire."

"Look at how the walls slope on the sides," Fultheim said. "If we were really careful, we could probably cross by walking on that, if you can't find the switch. Or you could take refuge there if your power wears off too soon."

"Thanks," I said. I used my new Shout and sprinted across the pressure plates. I could almost feel the flame jets, but there was no pain or sense of heat.

I rounded the corner and let out a squeak of horror. The pressure plates ended up ahead, but the cave floor that represented safety was covered in a thick layer of spider web, as were the walls and ceiling. The biggest frostbite spider I had ever seen was descending from the ceiling.

"Ra'wati!" Fultheim and Alea called, sounding concerned.

"I'm fine, it's just a really, really big spider," I called back, my voice quavering slightly. "I can handle it."

I drew my sword and hopped onto the web-covered floor just as I felt my form wavering again. I tried swinging at the spider while I was still ethereal, but as I suspected, it passed through the spider harmlessly.

Once it wore off again, I went for the spider's head. Its body was surprisingly hard, and my sword did little damage. The spider spewed venom on me and the world seemed to haze over. I stumbled and swung at the spider again, but my aim was too far off.

The spider lunged forward and clamped its mandibles around my waist. I put the tip of my sword against its head and leaned fully against the sword, finally managing to break through its exoskeleton. The spider released me and stumbled back a few steps before collapsing. It seemed to twitch for a moment, but my vision had gotten fuzzy enough that I wasn't sure.

"Ra'wati?" I heard Fultheim call again. It was hard to focus, but he sounded concerned.

"I won," I called weakly. "I killed it."

I lurched over to the dead spider and rolled it onto the pressure plates, just to be sure. I fell to my knees, too dizzy to remain standing. I turned away from the burning spider and crawled on my hands and knees through the spider web, involuntarily hissing in displeasure the whole time. When I reached the far wall, I feebly patted the walls around the door until I found a ring on a chain set into the wall. I pulled it and heard the jets under the spider go silent. "Come on, it should be safe now," I called as I slumped with my back against the wall.

I dimly heard them come running up to me, and some sort of commotion as they both searched through their packs. Then Alea was bracing my head and holding a potion bottle to my lips. "Drink this," she ordered sternly.

I obeyed, and a few seconds later, my vision began to clear. "Thanks," I said weakly. "I didn't expect it to hit me that hard…"

"You must be weak against poison," Fultheim suggested. "Sounded like you might be afraid of spiders, too…?"

"Yeah, that I'll admit to," I grumbled.

"If you're naturally weak against poison, you should start carrying Posion Resistance potions for when you might encounter spiders," Alea grumbled, handing me one such potion to add to my pack. "Do you know how to make them?"

"Er, no, my parents wouldn't let me near their alchemy equipment." I rubbed self-consciously at my dead eye. "They seemed to think having one useless eye would make me blow the camp up."

"Maybe I can show you how to make a few potions before we part ways," Alea said grudgingly.

They gave me a little longer to recover, then I got to my feet and led the way down the final tunnel to our destination. One final room stretched before us, with a central pathway flanked by a pool of water on either side. Three large pillar-like statues lined either side of the path. They rose out of the water as I approached. We stopped and formed a ring, scanning the room for any enemies, but nothing else moved once the pillars finished rising. I had no idea why they did that, but I continued cautiously forward.

The path led to an ornate coffin resting on a waist-high platform. Amidst the other decorations on the top of the coffin, a carved stone hand seemed to reach out of the top, palm up. This was clearly where the horn was supposed to rest.

Instead, the hand was now holding a sheet of paper.

With an overwhelming sense of frustration and a little despair, I picked the paper up and read what was written on it.

Dragonborn -

I need to speak to you. Urgently.

Rent the attic room at the Sleeping Giant inn in Riverwood, and I'll meet you.

- A friend

I stared at the note so long that Alea and Fultheim came up on either side to read it over my shoulders.

I finally lowered the note, sighed heavily, and said through clenched teeth, "You two want to come to Riverwood to help me kill someone?"

SOUNDTRACK: "Scared" by Three Days Grace, "In the End" by Linkin Park

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sorry this took so long to post. I wrote this chapter once, forgetting how little actually happens in Ustengrav, and it just came out so boring. I tried writing a different chapter where they went to Whiterun and just recapped what happened in Ustengrav to Lydia, but I was really unhappy with that too. I spent a week debating what to do, finally decided to post the second version of the chapter and move on, went to turn on the computer, and discovered the motherboard had failed. Woo-hoo, just what I needed. All told, 9,000 words wasted. Moving to my other computer was more stressful than I expected, and I don't write well when I'm frustrated.

I still don't like the chapter, but whatever. I've beaten my head against this particular wall long enough.

Also, I really do seem to have a skeleton-phobia when I play video games. It's weird and illogical and immersion only seems to make me shaky and paranoid and jumpy. And I'm sufficiently arachnophobic that I had to make the spider fight really short because trying to visualize and choreograph it in my head was giving me the pre-panic-attack shakes.