Entry 12: What in oblivion is that nasty looking thing…?

I decided to write this, after we fought what I can only explain as the conjunction of a really nasty bug and a daedra.
Who was the damned Aedra or Daedra that decided to create such a horrible and dangerous being…?

This thing looks like an armored beetle, but it has some razor sharp mandibles, that by the way, are ugly looking and very dangerous.
It also appears that this thing is be able to spit a ball of poisonous goo, and of course, apart from the falmer, is one of the main reasons why this place smells like it does; the droppings and egg sacks of this creatures just add to the terrible smell down here, plus the fact that there is not a lot of venting air.

We were just walking slowly through a slightly bigger chamber of this cave, when we saw a lot of what seemed to be cobweb; I was on point and predicting spiders, I decided to let Laniüs go first and lead the way, I think it was the best thing to do, because when we stepped into that chamber, two of these things crawled out of their holes, and charged at us without second thoughts; my Thane got startled, and shouted "FUS", the cave trembled and the echoes still hurt my ears. But at least, the shout also dumbfounded the bugs allowing us to strike at them with almost no resistance; almost.

So if I had been up front, I would have been yelled up close and probably would not be able to hear a damn thing, which in this stupid, smelly, dark, big cave would not be a good thing, since we can barely see in this darkness; yeah we ran out of torches if you are wondering…

So after that we just slashed and stabbed the big insects and eventually killed them. Not before we learned that they could spit venom, that thank the divines, I stopped with my shield.

No one was poisoned, and luckily there were only two of these things; however there were a lot of eggs.
The eggs smelled bad, and tasted bad, according to my thane, that could not resist the temptation of sampling another possible alchemical ingredient…
As if I could even, possibly eat such a disgusting thing; not even a teeny tiny bite, no, no and a thousand times NO!

So after that, we continued descending deeper into the cave system; with each step forward, the desire to get out of the cave grew stronger.
Eventually we emerged from the large cave to a beautiful, gray day with a very light snowstorm.
It was such a perfect and beautiful thing, to be able to feel again the cold wind across the face and to also be able to see past six feet; but above all, leaving that terrible smell behind; although, I am pretty sure that both of us smell like that still "Sighs." Oh well, you win some, you lose some.

Oh and we also got out of the cave with a lot of loot; mostly gold, potions and poisons, alchemical ingredients, and some weapons, that the falmer most likely, stole from poor souls, that wandered into the cave or they captured in raids.
Oh and by the way, you might not believe this but we actually came out of the cave from the same place e entered; funny and strange how we just kind of looped around.

So overall, it was not such a terrible experience; we came out alive, got some decent loot, and I think I'm getting better at this stuff of being sneaky… oh who am I kidding, I still suck, at it; the only two times we had to fight up close was because I made too much noise.
Well, at least my Thane didn't seem to mind, or was very polite and didn't make me feel bad about myself.

But still it was a new fighting experience; I never thought I would be fighting the descendants of the snow elves.
Yet, this new experience might change how I look at caves in the future. Instead of saying something like; "oh look a cave, wonder what's inside?" I might just remain quiet, and hope that my Thane does not see the entrance to it…

And another thing; we checked the map again to try and spot a landmark to help us see where we were right now, and noticed that during the storm, we lost our pretended way and actually ended up heading towards Morthal while we believed we were going towards Markarth… then we were attacked by that one frost dragon and ended up crossing the river again; although we did so swimming this time around; the water was so damn cold…
So now we made sure to walk towards Markarth; we also learned that the cave we were at is called Dusk Glow Crevice.

But now, we are finally on the right path and if we continue southwest, we should arrive to Karthwasten; hopefully in only two days.
It is difficult to know what time it is when the sky is completely gray and there is a light snowstorm falling… so we don't really know how much daylight we'll have until nightfall; therefore we are going to walk until we reach a river that is not too far away from the town; once there, it should be a short hike to the town.

We are planning on taking a bath, and then making camp there, this time we are not letting, some forsworn bastards, creep on us, I swear.
We are tired and could use some rest, hopefully the water there won't be as cold as the water of the river we jumped into; it shouldn't be that cold, considering we will be in a more plain like area than up in the mountains; but if it is just as cold I'll take it anyways; I rather get a cold, than smell like this all the way until we reach Karthwasten.

Also there is no dragon around; I hope our luck holds this way, we were unable to harm that lizard. I guess we need better bows or better arrows; either or… I'll make sure to buy some steel tipped arrows when we get to the town.

Love Lydia.