USTENGRAV

It took us two days to get to Morthal. A small town in the marsh. It was made of platforms and buildings that stood off from the platforms. I was feeling drained and uncomfortable. Just the day before I had some disturbing memories come back to me while walking through the Rift. Lydia, Faendal, and I had walked by a giant's camp that stood just off the road. I recognized the camp. It was where I was arrested and where the giants had attacked Basilio and me. I remembered being chased by the giants but not why we were at the camp. Faendal suggested the giants may be the reason I have amnesia.

I fell into the bed at the inn mentally and physically exhausted. Soon I was wrapped safely in Faendal's arms. Yes, sleep is good. We need it for the ruins tomorrow, I thought. "Draugr!" I cried out shooting up from the bed.

"Draugr?!" Faendal repeated rattled.

"We're going into a tomb tomorrow! What if there are draugrs! Traps! Ghosts! Bandits! Those creepy carvings that are around the ruins!" I was babbling. "And skeevers! I don't want to see any of those things!" I shivered.

Faendal laughed and pulled me back down to him. "Don't worry. You're not doing this by yourself. You have Lydia and me with you."

"You're right. Of course." I responded sinking into him. "I still hate those things."

The next morning we headed towards the ruins from Morthal. It wasn't a long walk before the old eroded columns of Nord ruins appeared. I was happy to learn we didn't have to go through the marsh water to get to the ruins. Faendal pulled me behind one of the columns and motioned Lydia to hide behind one as well when we approached the tomb. There was a fight in front of us. A group of mages and bandits were attacking each other. Luckily they had not heard us arriving. It was a bloody mess! We watched in silence as the bandits ran at the mages attempting to avoid their spells. Some did and were able to cut down the mages but others weren't so lucky. Soon only one mage was left. She ran into the ruins unaware we were watching them.

Faendal made us wait a moment before we continued towards the ruins. I looked around in horror at the slaughter. The dead littered the ground. This is what we're walking into?! I glanced at Faendal as we slowly made our way to the entrance.. His face was full of concentration. Just like it had been at the ruins above Riverwood, I noticed. We walked down the stone slab stairs that spiralled into the entrance of the ruins. Another bandit sat dead against the wall. "What is happening here?" I thought aloud.

Faendal opened the door to the ruins slowly to keep it from creaking. My eyes took a minute to adjust to the sudden darkness of the ruins. More dead bandits laid across the halls of the ruins. We quietly followed the hall to a large room where more mages and bandits fought. We watched the battle hidden behind a fallen column. Soon these bandits fell to the mages as well. But these bandits stood up and began hacking at the collapsed hallway with pickaxes. "Necromancers." Lydia whispered.

One of the bandits fell into a pile of ashes. "Ugh! Another one! These bandits are useless!" One of the necromancers said.

"You could pick up a pickaxe, you know." The other commented.

"Ha! I'll leave the physical work to my thralls." She responded. A commotion could be heard down a hall that stood off the main room. "What is going on down there?" The two mages ran towards the commotion leaving us with the bandit working on the collapsed hall.

I stood up and walked towards the bandit. Faendal grabbed my arm. "Rhew, get down." he hissed. I pulled my arm from his grip and shook my head at him. No, it was safe. I could feel it. I walked up to the bandit chipping away at the stones. She groaned from time to time. An orc. I felt sadness and pity for the orc. I turned to see Faendal and Lydia standing near me. Lydia watched the hall the mages ran down but we could still hear the commotion. More fighting was happening further in the ruins. "Faendal, hand me your dagger." I requested.

'I don't have a dagger." He stated flatly.

"Yes you do. It's in your boot. I've seen you use it." Why would he lie about this?

He smiled and took out the dagger from his boot. "Why do you want the dagger?" He asked as he handed it to me.

"I want to end her suffering." I told him. My hand shook as I placed the dagger against her throat. She's already dead so it's not like I'm killing her, right? I tried to convince myself. I slid the dagger across her neck. A line of blood started to fall from the gash I left her.

She fell to the ground. "Thank you," she groaned as she turned to ash. I stared at the pile of ashes in dismay. Did she just thank me?

Faendal gently took my arm and slid the dagger from my grip. He wiped the blood off the dagger and placed it back in his boot. I was shaking. I wasn't expecting the orc to speak. It left me unnerved. "Can you feel in that state?" I asked Faendal.

"I don't know." He pulled me to him and gently kissed me. I could feel my jitters leave as we kissed.

"Guys." Lydia hissed at us. We pulled apart. The commotion down the hall had stopped. We dropped behind some fallen boulders in the main room and waited to see what would emerge from the hall. There was no movement and I was getting tired of waiting.

I conjured a frost atronach in front of the entrance of the hall. "What are you doing?" Faendal asked.

"I'm tired of waiting." I told him, "The atronach will be the bait. Get your bow ready." Faendal nodded understanding what I was doing. He took out his bow and notched an arrow. I readied myself with an ice spike. I could see Lydia was itching to stop sneaking around as well.

The two mages from earlier appeared from the hallway. "What is this!" One cried out when the frost atronach slammed its arm into the ground in front of them. Faendal fired an arrow and dropped one of the mages as they were preoccupied with the atronach. I threw an ice spike at the second mage and missed as she dodged the punches of the atronach. She started throwing fire at it. Lydia took off running at the mage. She reached the mage when the atronach fell into a pile of ice. "Where did you come from!" The mage yelled as she ran from Lydia. Another arrow flew and dropped the mage.

"Well, that was boring," Lydia said as she made her way back to us, "I was hoping to have an actual fight."

We followed the hallway stepping over the bodies of mages and draugrs. The hall of the tomb would twist and turn before opening up into another room. This room was gigantic. We were at the top of a cliff that looked down on an alter with pews and a waterfall that fell from an opening above. The sun shone down through the opening reflecting off the water. Trees grew around the pool of water below. It was beautiful. I noticed a stone wall next to the pool. "Look! It looks like the same kind of wall from the ruins at Riverwood." I pointed below at the wall.

Faendal's and Lydia's gaze followed my finger. He nodded, "It does. We should get to it." We followed a path down the side of the cliff and climbed down a broken bridge carefully. There was a path that curved around behind the waterfall just beyond the alter. I could feel the word resonate inside me the closer I stepped to the wall. It felt like a second heartbeat thumping inside my chest. I was standing in front of the wall watching the lights flicker and glow from the scratch-marked word. "Is it glowing like the other wall from before?" Faendal asked. I jumped from hearing his voice. The light glew so brightly and called for me so strongly I couldn't see anything but the word.

I nodded and stepped towards the word letting it rush into me. That feeling of adrenaline filled me. This one felt different from before. I didn't get a glimpse of my past with this word. Maybe only words I had learned in the past will bring up memories, I thought. This was a word I never learned! A new word, I thought excitedly. "Feim!" I tried out the new shout but nothing seemed to happen. I frowned. I don't get it. I looked at Faendal and Lydia who stared at me astounded. "What is it?" I asked. Faendal reached out to touch me but his hand went through my body. I was see through like a ghost! I tried to touch him as well. My hand disappeared into his shoulder. The effect only lasted a couple of minutes and I was back to normal. "This could be useful if I'm ever in a bad situation."

Faendal agreed with me but Lydia still looked astounded. "I have never seen anything like that!" She exclaimed. "I still can't get over the fact that you are the dragonborn!"

"Why is that?" I asked as we made our way back towards the alter.

"I thought only Nords could be Dragonborn."

"Yes, well I seem to be the mysterious one, don't I?" I responded agitated.

Faendal placed his arm around my shoulders. "Your mysteries are what makes you interesting." He said in an attempt to cheer me up.

I shrugged his arm off me. "Oh! So I wouldn't be interesting without these mysteries!" He was speechless. I walked ahead of them. These mysteries weren't interesting to me. They were frustrating. There was nothing more that I wanted than to have my memories returned to me. I heard Faendal cursing under his breathe behind me. I smiled knowing he thought he was in trouble.

We climbed back up the broken bridge and continued following the hall since there was nothing more to do in the large room. The hall led to a strange room with three large stones lined in the middle of the room. Three gates stood at the other end of the room. When we walked by the stones they would glow red and one gate would open for a short period of time. Faendal, being the quickest and most dexterous of us, tried sprinting through the stones and gates but became stuck between the second and third gate. Lydia and I laughed as he tried to figure out how to get out. He found a chain that raised the first and second gates.

"What about that shout the Greybeards taught you?" Lydia suggested.

"No way! It made me so dizzy!" I protested.

"It's the only way, Rhew. This is probably why they taught you that shout." Faendal added. "I'll run through the stones and you shout through the gates when they open." I reluctantly agreed and waited in front of the gates for them to open.

I heard Faendal sprint through the stones. The gates began to bang open. Third, second, first! "Wuld!" I flew through the gates. I heard them bang close behind me. I stopped in front of a flight of stairs and collapsed on the bottom stair dizzy from the sudden burst.

"Rhew! Look for a chain to open the gates!" Faendal called out to me. I slowly stood up still dizzy from the shout and searched for a chain to pull. I found it near the gate. It was difficult to pull. Must be rusted, I thought. But I managed to pull it and the gates banged open. Faendal and Lydia ran through the gates unsure if the gates would close after them.

We followed the stairway deeper into the tomb. Not far into the hall we entered another large room. Faendal pulled me back from where I was about to step. "This room is covered in pressure plates." I looked out at the room and saw what he meant. There wasn't anywhere safe to step! We gingerly made our way across the first few plates. They seemed to no longer work but we didn't want to take our chances. I conjured a frost atronach and had it run across the hall. Fire blasted from the pressure plates as it stomped around the hall. It soon melted away to nothing.

"How can we get across this!" I exclaimed.

"I can walk across those without triggering them." Faendal explained. "You should use that shout to fly across them."

Lydia cleared her throat. "And me?"

"What if I held your hand while I shout?" I suggested. "I can pull you across with me."

Faendal shook his head. "That could dislocate her shoulder." How does he know all these things? I wondered. I really wanted to know more about him before he was in Skyrim but now was not the time.

"I'll just sprint across." She said irked. I tried to protest against it but she had made up her mind. I searched for a safe place to get to and found a small area without pressure plates in a corner. That's where I need to aim.

I shouted and flew by the pressure plates. None went off as I passed them. I ran into the wall and held onto it as I recovered from the shout. I repeated this two more times collapsing on a platform in the middle of the pressure plates. My head swam from the speed. Faendal ran quickly and lightly over the pressure plates. Not one plate triggered. Could all wood elves do this? Lydia stood at the other end of the pressure plates staring at them with unease. She gulped and took off running across the plates. Fountains of fire sprouted behind her at each step. She fell to her knees when she reached the platform breathing quickly. "Let's never do that again." She said between breaths.

Once we all had regained our composure we continued forward. I could see the coffin of Jurgen WIndcaller ahead. My heart began to beat quickly. This was almost over with. Large statues of… mudcrab claws? Dragon heads? I wasn't sure what they were but they rose from the murky water of the tomb as we passed by. The horn is just in my reach. "Where is the horn?" I asked when we reached the coffin. There was a hand on top of the coffin that looked like it held something at one time. Now it stood empty. Tomb robbers!? "Where's the horn!" I demanded. All this way for nothing?!

"Rhew, look at this." Lydia said picking up a small piece of paper from the floor. I took it and read the words written on the letter.

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

"Attic room? Sleeping Giant Inn! Riverwood!?" I yelled as I read the letter. I balled it up and threw it against the wall. The paper bounced off the wall and rolled a little before Faendal picked it up to read.

"That's weird. I didn't think the Sleeping Giant has an attic room." He mentioned studying the paper. "Must be Delphine…." He muttered.

"Delphine?"

"Ah! It's nothing." He said quickly. That was weird, I thought. We have to go to Riverwood? I felt deflated. I wasn't looking forward to going there. Not just because of the distance but because of the letter I sent to Camilla only a few days ago. What if she apologizes to Faendal and he decides to take her back? I thought in horror. Maybe we can be there without her ever knowing he was there. That's a stupid thought. Riverwood is tiny! Of course she'll know. "Rhew, it's ok. We'll get that horn." Faendal said. My worries must have shown on my face again. I smiled at him. He doesn't know what I'm actually worried about.