"Looks like I won't be coming along on this part of the expedition," Vari said, eyeing the doorway that led into the fortress. "I'll stay here and keep you company, Paarthurnax, if that's all right. I'd love to hear some more of your stories about the ancient times." The old dragon felt a deep joy well up within him. This young dragon was precisely the sort of pupil he had longed for.
The dragons of the ancient world were old and set in their ways, and though some had come to him at first they had not stayed, had not been interested in learning all he had to teach. Maybe, just maybe, he hoped, when this crisis had passed young Dovarmun might stay longer – might even encourage some of his siblings to come as well. As the children of a dragon who had been born human, they would have a fresh perspective on the world.
"Aah," he said with a deep sigh. "I suppose I might be induced to pass the time with you." To Andi and Dovi he added, "Beware the draugr guardians inside. They lack the ability to make decisions, for the most part, only acting as the priests programmed them to do with the rituals performed at their interment. You may have to kill some of them, I'm afraid."
"Thank you, Paarthurnax," Andi replied politely. Then he and Dovi walked across the broad courtyard and opened the broad wooden gates at the main entrance. Soon, the two young warriors found themselves moving through a series of broad chambers interspersed with corridors far too small to pass a dragon the size of Vari, let alone Yuvonkiir.
At first the rooms seemed to be for the purposes of the living, with kitchen facilities, barracks or dormitories, storerooms, and areas that in the past had served for alchemy, enchanting, or smithing. All were deserted. A few eroded rags remained of clothing and bedding, and there were some weapons scattered around; but no living men had been here in millennia. It reminded Andi somewhat of that ancient Nord barrow where he'd gone to obtain the Shout to transform Mom back into human form, though that one had been neither as dry nor as cold.
Though their quest was for knowledge and the need was urgent, the two couldn't resist doing a little exploring for treasure. Andi had never forgotten the excitement of that quest with his two papas when he was five, the jewels and exotic weapons they'd found and passed over as they searched for the Word Wall that would bring Katja back to them. And Dovi, despite his superb armament and years of weapons training, even having an older sister who was an adventurer, had never been inside an ancient Nord ruin before in his life.
So, they lingered for some time exploring each room for anything useful or valuable. Dovi pocketed some gold coins of an antique design, along with a few loose gems and a silver and sapphire necklace he intended to give to Mina. Was it really true that she loved him, that she might be his girl now? He felt little more settled about that notion than he had about the idea that his love was hopeless.
Andi, for his part (coming from a wealthy family and never having wanted for anything, within reason, that money can buy) was more interested in different sorts of loot. He took a fine Elven dagger that had some kind of enchantment on it. Enchanting wasn't his forte, but he'd be willing to bet that Mom or even perhaps Mina could identify it. It felt warm in his hand, a surprise since the air in these upper rooms of the fortress was near freezing.
He also took a book he didn't recognize from a shelf in one of the craft rooms, a present for Papa Anders, and a couple of tightly-sealed potion bottles. He recognized one as a Potion of Ultimate Healing – which could fully restore your health, repairing any damage, in an instant. Such things were useful to have even for a mage with good Restoration skills, as a serious injury might leave you too weak to perform magic.
The other potion he was not certain of. The bottle looked, and no doubt was, ancient. Perhaps Lucia down at Arcadia's in Whiterun could identify it. He tucked it into his pack, in any case. The further in they went, the less dust there was on everything. Probably when they'd opened the front doors just now, that had been the first breath of fresh air inside this place since before Andi's remotest ancestors had been born.
They passed through a large dining hall, lined with simple wooden tables on which stood plates, cups, platters, and other dinnerware. It looked as if the people who once ate here had set the tables for supper and then wandered off, never to be seen again. At least there was no food lying around – though Andi supposed that if there had been, it would have dissolved into dust long ages since.
The room had a small wooden door at the back of it, which led to a corridor descending a series of staircases to the level below. And there, the two young adventurers saw their first draugr. She had not been lying in her crypt, ready to rise up and defend the tomb, but rather on duty: patrolling the corridors in a slow, stately pace with ancient Nord bow to hand.
Moving to a lower level had triggered extra caution in them, and Andi was walking very quietly a couple of paces ahead of Dovi, bow out and an arrow nocked. The draugr sentry made slight rustling noises as she walked along, her foot-coverings reduced to rags by the centuries. Andi drew and shot before she spotted him, and her chest erupted in flames for a moment before she fell to the floor, her bow clattering across the stones. Both boys froze, alert for the signs of anything aroused by the noise. But she had been alone, it seemed.
"Wow, so that's a draugr," Dovi murmured as Andi bent over the twice-dead corpse, retrieving his arrow. She had a quiver of arrows and the bow, of course, but nothing that was worth the trouble of taking with them. "How do they move around, anyhow?" Dovi asked quietly as they proceeded on their way. "It's all magic," Andi tried to explain, though he was far from expert on the subject. "Sometimes a killing blow will disrupt the magic enough to break its connection with the corpse, and then they'll stay dead forever or until a Necromancer revives them. But it's not like with a living person or animal, where you could shoot them with an arrow and then they'd bleed out and die. Your attack either kills the undead right away or not at all."
"Hmm," Dovi said, nodding sagely. In his slow but thorough way, he was thinking about the undead – and what he and Andi needed to do about them. More corridors, more steps, and they found themselves passing through a pair of ornately-figured iron doors into an area that was clearly a catacomb. "Here's where it gets tricky," Andi told his friend quietly from the lofty eminence of his one prior quest in such a place. The corridors split in two directions, and Andi motioned Dovi to take the left side as he tried the right.
Moving silently, Andi recalled what Mom and Wyll had told him about draugr. The ones who were primed to arise and attack intruders were usually a little livelier-looking than the corpses who were just corpses. Not every Nord servant of the Dragon Cult had been interred with the ceremony necessary to bind them to service after death.
The light down here was dim, but enough to see by. By some magic (perhaps of a similar nature to that which animated the draugr), ever-burning candles and torches lit the way throughout the complex. Andi spotted a corpse lying on its back within a wall recess and thought it had a suspicious surplus of mummified flesh on its bones. His current bow was a Daedric one Mom had made for him, enchanted by her with Fire Damage and enhancement of his marksmanship. When his arrow struck home, there was a brief burst of flames and the corpse twitched before subsiding once more – never having left its crypt.
Phew, Andi thought. Standing here in a room full of corpses, any of which might decide to wake up and attack him, was even scarier without Dovi at his back. As he stood there peering at the bodies on either side for any signs of incipient life, he heard a shout from ahead of him. Dovi!
His trepidation forgotten, Andi raced forward. The left and right passageways must connect ahead, and his friend was in trouble! As he raced along the passageway, two of the occupants of the niches on either side rose from their slumber, eyes glowing blue, and put their near-skeletal feet on the floor. He was already long past them and out of sight around the bend.
Andi found Dovi standing in a corridor that continued on, free of crypts, after the two passages had joined again. His longsword flashing, he held off two draugr as a third, one of a higher type, approached from several yards down the corridor he had just left. Just as Andi arrived one of them fell, cloven from neck to breastbone by a powerful blow. Dovi pulled hard to retrieve his blade from the corpse, as Andi put a flaming arrow into the back of the second draugr's skull.
Dovi looked up, relief showing on his face as he realized reinforcements had arrived. "Divines, I didn't think there would be so many of them!" he gasped. Andi took two strides down the passageway his friend stood in then turned, side by side with him as they faced the foes that were coming their way. Two on the left looked like more of the basic draugr soldier, while the one on the right was taller, and wore a high-horned helm. Andi recognized the uniform, from a childhood experience that would always be graven in his memory.
"A Deathlord!" he gasped. If not the highest level of the Dragon priesthood, these guys were at least commanding officers of the draugr troops, and most of them had the power of the Voice. This one stalked toward them in its insectile gait, wielding an enormous ebony longsword. As it stood side-by-side with the lesser draugr before them Andi Shouted, "ZUN-HAAL-VIIK!"
The ebony longsword flew from the Deathlord's hand to clatter on the floor behind him, as did the ancient Nord short sword and war axe wielded by his cohorts. But a moment later the undead commander gave the same Shout Dovi had just delivered, sending Andi's bow and Dovi's own longsword flying. The two lesser draugr halted, unsure what to do next. Whatever limited thought processes they had, their volition did not extend to improvising when Plan A went awry.
The Deathlord, however… a purple glow arose on the palms of his withered hands, and he moved his arms as if he were about to cast a spell. "Andi! Use that Silence spell on him, quick!" Dovi yelled. Snapped from his momentary paralysis as he tried to figure out what to do next, Andi hurled the spell. But he gave it a broad focus, encompassing all three of the draugr that opposed them even though only one of them seemed about to use magic. And all three of them collapsed to the floor as if they were puppets whose strings had been cut.
"Whoa!" Andi said, astonished at the result. He and Andi hastily retrieved their weapons, and the Deathlord's valuable longsword as well, then examined the three draugr where they lay motionless on the stones. Dovi stood upright, working through something in his mind. "You said that they move by magic," he said. "So the Silence spell severs you from magic for a while. But what if magic is all that makes you alive?"
"By the Nine, I think you're right!" Andi exclaimed. He was the one with all the magical education and ability, but his un-magical friend had hit the nail on the head. Why hadn't they realized that before? "But will it reconnect when the spell has run its course?" he wondered out loud. "Here," Dovi said, handing him the handsome ebony longsword. "You take the Deathlord, I'll take these two and we'll wait. Three minutes, did you say?"
Dovi hadn't wanted to carry off the ancient Nord weapons, which were neither particularly good nor of any monetary value; but as they stood over their foes, waiting to see what would happen, he picked them up and hurled them off down the corridor. No point in taking chances! Watchful and tense, the two young men stood silent for nearly a full minute. Then, all at the same time, the draugr at their feet began stirring once again.
"Drat!" Andi exclaimed as he swung the ebony longsword and took off the Deathlord's head before it could get upright. "I was really hoping that would be a permanent thing. Think how useful that would be against undead dragons!" Meanwhile Dovi was busy dispatching the two lesser draugr with his own longsword. Finished with that task he turned and grinned at his friend. "It'll still be useful against undead dragons," he said. "Depending on what the range is, the fall alone might kill them. And three minutes ought to be enough to hack them up to the point where they can't fly again, at least – assuming you've got plenty of helpers with swords."
The two did a high-five, then strode on down the corridor with a new sense of confidence. With Andi's ability to adjust the scope of any spell up to an angle of nearly 180 degrees in front of him, they were (at least temporarily) safe from any undead for a span of three minutes. Plenty of time either to permanently sever their connection to their animating magic – or simply slip away leaving them to wonder what had happened, assuming they had that much awareness.
They soon came to a new section of catacombs, but this time the two stayed together and followed the labyrinthine pathways as a team. Splitting up could only lead to grief, and if they came to a dead end and had to go back together and try another path, it was no big deal. Andi continued taking the lead and hitting any suspicious corpses with flaming arrows as they went along, saving them the trouble of dealing with draugr after they had come alive. He was able to retrieve most of his arrows, so the technique cost him little.
Even within this city of the dead they found a few rooms that had clearly been intended for the living. In the days when the surviving members of the Dragon Cult were interring their fallen priests, providing them with defenders and helpers, there would have been need for those yet alive to eat, and sleep. And young men who had been on the go for something like the past 24 hours with only one meal and no rest had the same needs.
Andi and Dovi ate from their packed provisions, washing them down with water, in a small chamber with an enchanting station and a dining table in it. A magical fire burned in the room's fireplace, providing a welcome warmth – though the ambient temperature had risen as they'd descended below ground level and they weren't uncomfortably cold.
Barring the room's door against any draugr sentries who might come wandering, they took off their armor and curled up in their bedrolls for a much-needed rest. There was no way of telling how many hours had passed when they awoke at last, relieving themselves in a convenient urn and breakfasting on trail bread and water before donning their armor and continuing on their way.
The optimism and feeling of near-omnipotence that Andi and Dovi had enjoyed since their discovery of the Silence spell's effect on the undead returned, as they passed through more catacombs and traversed staircase after staircase on their way to the tomb's central chamber. None could stand against them, and any draugr who escaped Andi's watchfulness and rose from their rest soon found themselves immobilized – before being returned to death.
And at last, they came to a pair of enormous double doors that looked very familiar to Andi from his trip through Gunderthal eleven years previously. Those Dragon Cultists had been very traditional when it came to the architecture of their tombs and fortresses, and he didn't doubt that on the other side of these doors they would find an enormous chamber with a Word Wall at the back of it, lined with sarcophagi full of draugr defenders, and with the stone coffin containing the Dragon priest Uthzoorlaas located in a central position atop a stone stage of some kind.
He expected there would even be enormous carved stone dragons flanking the entrance; but in this case Andi did not intend to climb up and hide behind one as he watched the action unfold. He did, a bit, wish that Papa Anders and Papa Wyll were here, however. Then he brushed the thought aside. He and Dovi were men now, lifelong friends and a match for whatever this tomb had to throw at them! Who knew, maybe they'd go on to marry the same woman. Well, since he sort-of intended to marry Zira someday and she didn't seem to find Dovi much to her taste, perhaps not…
They stepped through the doors, and then took in the room. By the Divines, it seemed bigger yet than the main burial chamber in Gunderthal – even in the memories Andi held from when he was much, much smaller! There were many similarities, though. Stone sarcophagi lined the walls on either side and rose in tiers toward the multi-layered stone stage, which held not one but several sarcophagi with one considerably-larger one taking the place of honor at the exact middle of the top tier.
Andi sagged. His original plan had been to suppress the presumed waves of draugr here with the Silence spell, then when Uthzoorlaas popped out of his coffin, announce "Paarthurnax sent me," and take it from there. Since the undead Dragon priest would be in possession of at least some of his mental faculties, he would be swayed from attacking them by the mention of his old dragon friend and order all the draugr (after they woke up, of course) to cease their attack.
But this cavernous room, and the sheer number of sarcophagi within it, made that plan ludicrous. Before they could activate, then subdue, all of these draugr (and here, in the central burial chamber, every one of them would be undead versus dead-dead), there would be no time to deal with the undead Dragon priest before he took action that was likely to be deleterious to their health.
After the two had stood there for a couple of minutes in the doorway, unmoving, Dovi said "Andi? What's the plan?" Andi's quick mind was still running through the imagined results of each course of action, and finding each of them wanting from a "staying alive and unhurt" perspective. "Still working on it," he said softly. "This is a bit more than I was expecting." His previous experience of exactly one ancient Nord tomb had not prepared him for this.
"When we got here," Dovi said softly, "I noticed that there were draugr on the walls but they didn't attack us. I think it's because Vari was with us. So, why don't you go dragon and fly up on top of whatsisname's coffin? Maybe he'll assume you're one of his bosses." Andi's mind immediately followed that scenario to its conclusion, and he liked it. "Don't ever let anyone tell you you're not a genius, Dovi," he said in an undertone. "Help me out of my armor."
A minute or two later, the medium-sized bronze dragon Yuvonkiir stood where Andi had been, Dovi busily stuffing Andi's clothing, armor, and weapons into his friend's pack. The enormous room was capacious enough even for a dragon of Yuvonkiir's size to take flight, though it wouldn't be more than a second or two before he would have had to circle around.
"Stay back and wait," Andi warned Dovi. "No point in anybody getting hurt." With his powerful rear limbs he launched himself into the air, wings spread, and more jumped than flew to the top tier of the stone stage on which sat the sarcophagus he assumed belonged to the Dragon priest they'd come to speak with.
He landed to one side of it, easily within trigger range from what he knew of such things. "Uthzoorlaas, come forth!" Andi commanded forcefully. "Yuvonkiir would speak with you!" The heavy stone lid burst aside with a crack, and a medium-sized draugr clad as a Dragon priest sat up within his coffin and began making his way down to the platform on which it sat. He adjusted his ruined clothing in a way that seemed fussy somehow, then said in a cracking voice "Lord, how may I serve you?"