RANNVEIG'S FAST
Rimion
The plan to get to Morthal changed when the group found out that the only wagon large enough to take them all was already taking somebody to Solitude. They began discussing what they would do later that day in Jorrvaskr, prior to their second dinner in the hall of the Companions.
"Morthal is about the same distance away from here as Ivarstead was," Lydia started off, since she was the only native of Skyrim, "but unlike our journey to Ivarstead, we have several options on how we can get there." She traced out a path on the map of the country laid out on the table the group sat around. "This is the longest way. We would have to walk all the way around the Eldersblood Mountains. This is how the wagon would have taken us, since it uses the main roads, but a wagon would take about three days to make it; on foot, we would need about a full week."
"Assuming we don't get delayed somehow," Katjaa added. "There's been no word of a dragon attack since the one on Ivarstead, but that doesn't mean we wouldn't run into one. Plus, there's the normal traveling worries: bad weather, thieves, and the sort."
Kole pointed to a road that started near the Western Watchtower then went north until abruptly stopping a little ways before the Eldersblood Mountains. "This road will take us to the base of the mountain range. We could find a trail that would allow us to go over the mountains. From the look of this map, Morthal is situated right on the other side."
Lydia nodded. "That is the second choice. The issue with it is that we have no idea how long it would take to cross the mountains. It takes about two days to get to the end of this road, if I'm not mistaken."
"You're not," Kole assured her.
"But after that it is completely unpredictable what the schedule would be like," she continued. "We'd need a decent trail to travel on to make good time; else making our own safe ascent would take even more time. If we're lucky, we'd get to Morthal after four or five days of traveling."
"If we're not lucky," Rimion cut in, "there will be a blizzard while we're climbing over the mountains. We'll be trapped up there, slowly running out of food and water. Eventually we'll have to turn to cannibalism to survive, starting with the largest one of us." He shot a smirk at Arenar. "Sorry big guy, you'll be first to go."
Arenar shook his head. "I think it'd be best to start with the scrawniest of us. Sorry little guy, you'll be the first to go."
"I'm not scrawny," Rimion protested. "I'm just naturally slim and... not very muscular."
Lydia looked up to him, running a hand across his cheek. "Don't worry. I wouldn't let them eat you. There's just way too little meat on your bones to make it worthwhile."
"Oh ha-ha," Rimion said. "This is the part where we playfully banter with one another in a cute yet very hurtful way." He pretended to wipe a tear from his eye. "If you'll excuse me, I think there's a corner lacking an elf crying in it."
"Oh honey, I'm sorry," Lydia teased. "I had no intention to hurt you."
"Perhaps a kiss would make me feel better."
"Let's see."
Rimion leaned in and kissed her. He ran his hand through her soft, dark brown hair as she continued to caress the stubble on his cheek. Rimion still could barely believe that Lydia had felt the same way that he did, especially since he was such close friends with Jarl Balgruuf. Perhaps that had something to do with it. Or maybe she's just into older men.
Their lips moved away from each other a moment later. Rimion looked up at the rest of his companions. They all looked approvingly at the strange relationship, even Kole. He too is in love with a Nord; he understands what it's like to love someone of another race.
"So, you two finally fell for each other?" Arenar asked rhetorically.
"What do you mean by 'finally'?" Lydia asked.
"What I mean is that you two haven't been able to take your eyes off each other since the first time we left Whiterun," Arenar answered.
Rimion, like he was renowned for, spoke without thinking. "So does that mean that you and Katjaa are going to finally fall for each other sometime in the near future?"
Both Arenar and Katjaa's faces went bright red simultaneously. They looked at each other then quickly looked in opposite directions. It was all Rimion could do to keep from laughing. Lydia too was doing her best not to giggle, though she couldn't help but smile.
Surprisingly Kole, who too had the smallest of smirks on his face, was the one who got everyone back on track. "We should probably get back to figuring out our route to Morthal."
"I agree," Arenar mumbled.
Lydia took a second to collect herself before addressing the map. "So we can either go around the Eldersblood Mountains or over them. Which one should we choose?"
"Too bad we can't go through the mountains," Katjaa said quietly.
"Actually..." Lydia said with a hint of curiosity in her voice. She ran finger over a portion of the mountains to the left of the road that Kole had pointed out. "I think we can."
"How?" Rimion asked.
"Right around here"—she tapped a part of the mountain on the map, her finger directly south of Morthal—"should be an ancient Nordic tomb known as Rannveig's Fast. The tomb leads up to a system of caves known as the Cold Rock Pass. Traders and travelers used to use them all the time to get from one side of the mountains to the other in about a day's worth of walking."
Arenar's brow went up. "I suppose there must be something wrong with this Cold Rock Pass if traders and travelers 'used' to use it, and no longer use it."
She nodded. "The large cave system had many places that bandits could and did hide in. But about five years ago, there was supposedly an infestation of frost trolls that made the pass too dangerous to use."
"If it's too dangerous to use, it's not much of an option," Kole said.
"Nobody's used the pass since the infestation. At least," Lydia added, "not to my knowledge. For all we know, the trolls died out, or there's too few to prove a challenge to us."
"For all we know," said Kole, "the infestation is worse than ever."
"I say we at least check out the Cold Rock Pass," Katjaa proposed. "Once we get there, we can decide if it is safe enough to use. If not, we'll take the long route; I'm not interested in climbing over a mountain." She looked around the table. "Does anyone have a better plan?"
No one spoke up. It was clear that Katjaa was the leader of the group, though it was never officially stated.
The rest of the Companions started filing in to the main room of Jorrvaskr, taking seats wherever they were available. Kole stood up and moved to the center of the table, next to Aela. Just as it had before, the Harbinger's entire mood seemed to be uplifted by the sight of the redheaded Nord. It's almost strange to see him smile without making a joke directed at me.
"Come find me outside after dinner," Lydia whispered into Rimion's ear. "I need to talk to you about something."
Rimion nodded, unsure what she would say. At the moment, his mind was more focused on the mountains of food being placed on the table. I suppose I'll have to wait until later to find out what's going on.
Rimion placed a salmon steak on his plate, grabbed a mug of ale, and proceeded to listen to the stories of the Companions as he dug into his meal.
With his stomach full and his vision a bit foggy from drinking a little too much, Rimion exited Jorrvaskr through one of the rear doors. Lydia had gone out there a few minutes earlier, having again reminded him to come meet her when he was done.
Lydia sat alone at one of the tables. She smiled when she saw it was Rimion. "I'd have thought you would be in there for a little longer than that."
"Elves don't need to eat as much to fill themselves than humans do," Rimion informed her.
"Are you saying that I eat too much?"
"I didn't—"
She smiled again. "I was just kidding."
"You had me going," Rimion said, taking a spot next to her. "I'd never had a human girlfriend, so I honestly had no clue. In the Aldmeri Dominion, having a lot of food meant the same as having a lot of money. Money and power is pretty much all that matters there."
"I've never fancied elves before, but you're not like an elf I've ever met," Lydia said.
"I assume you mean that in a good way."
Lydia kissed him and said, "yes, though I thought that would have been obvious enough."
"So what did you want to talk about?" Rimion asked.
Her smile turned into a frown. "I needed to at least tell you what happened today when I went to see my father." She looked around to see if anybody else was outside, which there wasn't, then continued. "My father didn't have any information about Morthal, but while I was in Dragonsreach, a Stormcloak came and spoke to him. He said that Ulfric wanted to become his ally against the Empire, but my father refused. The Stormcloak left, all but promising that he would be back with an army."
"That doesn't sound good for Whiterun," Rimion said. "From what I've heard, Ulfric has amassed a pretty big army of the 'true sons and daughters of Skyrim.'"
What Rimion didn't tell her was that Arenar had joined the Stormcloaks during his and Katjaa's escape of Helgen. According to him, Arenar had done it in spite of the Empire, who had killed him on the Skyrim-Cyrodiil border. Katjaa had approved of him joining since she had been wrongfully imprisoned by the Empire and had expected to be executed. I suppose he didn't really join in the sense that he was a Stormcloak soldier himself; it was more like a temporary alliance until they had all escaped Helgen.
"Luckily for my father, the Empire had beaten Ulfric to the punch," Lydia continued. "Yesterday, an Imperial Legion representative came to meet with my father with an alliance proposal between him and General Tullius. My father didn't decide to accept the proposal up until the confrontation with the Stormcloak, but he already had his terms written in a letter. He had me deliver the letter to the Imperial representative—who, by the way, was Tullius's niece—today. But, when she was leaving with the letter, she left this behind."
Lydia pulled a folded piece of paper out of her pocket and handed it to Rimion. He opened the paper, finding that it was a letter. A poorly written one, at that. None of it was readable since Rimion had a slight buzz, but he was able to make out the Imperial seal at the bottom of the paper.
He stared at it in silence for a while. The silence was broken when Lydia said, "I couldn't believe it either."
"Couldn't believe what?" Rimion asked. "I can't even read this."
Lydia moved over so that she could look at the letter. "Neither could I, mostly." She pointed in the middle of the letter. "Right there it says 'Jarl'." She moved her finger down a little lower. "And right here it says 'assassinate'. Do you know what this means?"
"That whoever wrote this likely did so with a broken hand?" Rimion asked.
"No!" Lydia yelled. "It means that General Tullius instructed his niece to assassinate my father, likely in the event that he wouldn't side with the Empire. Shor's bones, she even implied it!"
"Are you sure? Maybe she was instructed to assassinate Jarl Ulfric... or perhaps it says 'don't assassinate the Jarl.' Or, since nothing else on this paper is legible, you read both things wrong."
Lydia shook her head. "I don't know..."
"Besides," Rimion added, "if General Tullius planned to have your father killed if Balgruuf didn't ally himself with the Empire, there's nothing to worry about. Tullius isn't going to kill an ally."
"I suppose," said Lydia doubtfully.
Rimion wrapped his arm around her. "I'm sure everything is going to be fine."
She sighed. "I hope so."
Like Lydia and Kole had said in Jorrvaskr, the road that began near the Western Watchtower and went north took a little less than two day to travel to completion. The journey was of little excitement or danger; Dog chased unguarded mammoths that strayed near the road, but he was too small to be a worry for the large beasts.
After a few more hours walking west of the main road, the group arrived at the base of Rannveig's Fast. The tomb was certainly ancient. A great deal of the Nordic structure had collapsed over time, and what little bit of crumbled stonework was left looked like it wouldn't last much longer. Several staircases were situated along the tomb, separated at each level by large, open platforms. That was the only way to ascend to the entrance of the ruins; even further up would be the southern entrance to the Cold Rock Pass.
Once the group got there, things started to go wrong.
"It shouldn't take very long to climb to reach the Cold Rock Pass," Lydia said, her eyes moving from the bottom of the mountain up. "Maybe an hour... probably a little less."
Rimion noticed smoke coming from somewhere near the top of Rannveig's Fast. He pointed it out to the others. "I think that's a campfire up there. There's not enough smoke for it to be anything else."
"Maybe the front trolls are gone," Arenar suggested. "And that campfire up there belongs to a merchant who decided not to share his knowledge of a quick route through the mountains."
"We will find out," Kole said.
They began their ascent. Ten minutes later, indistinct male voices could be heard moaning. By Rimion's guess, there were at least three or four different ones, but their words could not be made out. He looked at the others, but no one—excluding Dog—seemed to be hearing anything out of the ordinary. Elves do have a sharper sense of sound. Perhaps it's because of their pointiness.
"There is certainly a few people up there," Rimion informed them. "I can hear them saying something."
The group stopped. They all attempted to listen in. "I, too, can hear someone," Kole said after a while. "But their words can't be made out. I wonder—"
An arrow appeared in the Harbinger's shoulder. He stumbled but managed to stay on his feet. Rimion eased the arrow out of his flesh and healed the wound. The rest of the group, including Kole, had their weapons out and their eyes peeled for the archer.
Rimion looked at the arrow. It wasn't real. This is a magic arrow, but not a normal one. Whoever made this didn't do it with Conjuration magic. It's semitransparent, but physical enough to do the harm an actual arrow can cause. If I didn't know any better, this was a real arrow that belonged to someone who died, and is now a ghost. But there aren't any ghosts here.
"Up there!" Katjaa shouted, pointing at the top of the staircase the group was standing on.
Sure enough, a ghost was what she had pointed to. It had a bow in hand and was loading another arrow. Rimion couldn't make out many details of the ghost from this far away, but judging by its stance, it used to be a he, back when it was still alive.
"Stay back!" it warned just as it released a second arrow. This time, the projectile had been aimed at Arenar, but he ducked before it would have struck him in his now helmet-covered head. It started nocking its third arrow while saying: "I don't want to do this!"
Lydia, with her Imperial bow for the ghost, released an arrow. Just as Rimion had suspected would happen, it sailed straight through the ghost. If the dead archer noticed the attack, it didn't show it. She turned to the group and questioned why that happened.
After quickly dispatching the regretful ghost with two bolts of lightning, Rimion explained to her the nature of ghosts. "As most people know, ghosts are the spirits of the dead, forced to stay on Tamriel for some reason or another. Fighting a ghost can prove problematic for the normal person because there are only a few ways to take care of them permanently. Destruction magic seems to always do the trick. When it comes to physical weapons, however, you need something with a bit more oomph."
"Enchanted weapons work most of the time," Arenar said, contributing to the lesson on the supernatural. "Though I've seen them fail before. Daedric weapons, whether they are stolen from the Daedra themselves or made by a master smith here in Tamriel, also work. Ghosts, and many other types of monsters and creatures, are very weak against silver—"
Rimion could have sworn that, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kole cringe. That's strange...
"—anything; it doesn't need to be a blade or an arrow-tip, just as long as it is mostly silver," Arenar finished.
More of the ghostly voices could be heard somewhere further up the tomb. Why are there so many ghosts in a single area? Rimion would want to investigate the reason, should the rest of the group permit it.
"Okay, here's the deal," he said, taking charge of the group since he was the most magically inclined. "If we're going to keep going for the Cold Rock Pass, we're probably going to run into more hostile ghosts. Since none of you have the right weapons to deal with them, magic is the only thing we got. Who here can cast Destruction spells?"
Only Arenar raised his hand.
"Looks like it's up to us to kill the ghosts... again," Rimion told him.
"Hold on," Kole said. He looked to Katjaa. "You're a Breton. Shouldn't you be able to perform magic to some degree? And you're the Dragonborn; can't you Shout away the ghosts?"
Katjaa wouldn't meet his stare. "Not all Bretons can cast magic, and I am no exception. As for the Shouting... the Greybeards only trained me to use two Shouts. The offensive one will only knock the ghosts to the ground, not enough to cause any real harm or destruction alone."
"Well then, it's up to me and Arenar to get us to the top of Rannveig's Fast," Rimion said. "The rest of you, stay behind us and point out any ghosts you see. Katjaa, if you see any reason to, use your Shout to keep them at bay."
The whole group nodded. Rimion didn't like being in the role of a leader. It made him feel like he was a Thalmor Justiciar again, a feeling he hated more than almost anything else. For that reason he had left Tolfdir—the Master Wizard and Alteration expert at the College of Winterhold, as well as Rimion's close advisor and friend—in charge of running the day to day operations.
But now he had to take charge, because no one else could.
The group started moving again, but now Rimion and Arenar were in the front. Lydia took up the rear with her shield out and ready to take any phantom arrows. Katjaa was in the middle of the formation, prepared to send the ghost flying using the Dragon language. Kole and Dog were on either side of her.
At the first flat part of Rannveig's Fast, they ran into more ghosts. All of them had been men—bandits, judging by the armor they had died in and still wore. Only one had a bow; the rest charged forward with one-handed or two-handed weapons. As Arenar and Rimion used Destruction magic to destroy the incoming ghosts, they would occasionally have a hidden spirit pointed out to them from other members of the group.
All the while, the ghosts apologized for attacking. A mage must be controlling them, or at least had forced them to protect this tomb with their afterlives. This necromancer must be found and stopped.
Dispatching the ghosts wasn't difficult. Arenar could only manage a few of the weaker, fire-based Destruction spells so that he wouldn't waste all of his magicka reserves, but even those were enough to destroy them. Rimion stopped putting the effort into casting mid-strength spells and instead fired out weak firebolts.
That was how it went for a while. Every time the group came to the end of another staircase, they would fight another mass of ghosts. This slowed their progress but didn't halt it. Lydia had predicted that it would take less than an hour to reach the caves prior to the first meeting with the spirits. In reality, it took about an hour and a half to reach the top of Rannveig's Fast, where again there were more ghosts to dispatch.
After sending out a series of firebolts, Rimion said, "I think that's all of them."
They waited a minute to see if anymore would appear. None did. "Thank the gods," Arenar said, sweat on his forehead. "I wouldn't have been able to cast too many more of those."
Rimion reached into his satchel, where he kept all of his potions and alchemy ingredients, and pulled out a magicka potion. He handed it to Arenar. "Drink this. We don't know how many more ghosts are actually inside the tomb, but we should be prepared for a lot."
"When did we decide that we were going into the tomb?" Kole asked.
"Well... technically we didn't," Rimion said. "I kind of assumed we were going to look into whatever was creating this many ghosts."
The group broke the formation and began exploring the final platform of Rannveig's Fast. Rimion had guessed right about the campfire, he hadn't imagined there would be an entire campsite. It has to be new, if the fire is still going.
At the far end of the platform were large doors that led into Rannveig's Fast. Seeing as everyone was busy checking out the various bags and chests in the campsite, he decided that he would investigate alone. I'm sure there's nothing I can't handle. I managed to survive Bromjunaar—better known as the Labyrinthian—all by myself. What's the worst that can be in here?
Just as he reached the doors, he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned to see who it was, then he smiled. "Trying to get some alone time with me, eh?"
Lydia returned the smile. "I figured you could use some support, even if it isn't the magical kind."
"That I could," Rimion said.
As it turned out, Rimion and Lydia made quite a pair inside Rannveig's Fast. Lydia's shield was large enough to cover the majority of both of them, allowing them to get up close on the ghosts that were inside the tomb. Rimion, meanwhile, would be able to use his magic without fear of being impaled by a ghostly arrow or axe. Unlike the wide, open platforms where the fighting had happened before, inside the tomb there was little space between living and the dead. Several times Lydia's shield saved them, and every time Rimion was then able to counter with a lightning bolt.
The ghosts inside of the tomb were stronger for some reason. They could take more damage than those that had attacked the group outside. But they were still apologizing for their unwilling-aggressive assault, which was odd to Rimion.
Rimion couldn't tell how long it had taken, but eventually he and Lydia reached what he guessed was the main chamber of Rannveig's Fast. Lit torches illuminated the room greatly, allowing Rimion to see without straining his eyes. Someone definitely had to have been here recently. Across the room was a Dragon Wall, similar to the one he, Arenar, and Katjaa had found in Bleak Falls Barrow. A few feet in front of it was an old but large chest. I wonder what's inside it...
Lydia began examining the room. "I wonder who Rannveig was. I'd heard of this place, but never anything about the person it's named after. There has to be something in here that'll tell me."
While she continued to look through the chamber, Rimion made his way towards the Dragon Wall. More specifically, the chest in front of it.
He stopped when he saw the trapdoor. It was the only non-ancient thing he had seen in the entire tomb, so Rimion guessed that it had been put in place by whoever had made the subjugated ghosts. He stepped around it carefully and opened the chest.
"Damn," he muttered.
"What?" Lydia asked.
Rimion didn't look up. His eyes were trained at the empty chest. "There aren't any goodies in here," he sighed, shutting the chest. "Hopefully the rest of the group found some nice things to sell back at the campsite."
"We did," said Arenar, who, with Katjaa and Kole behind him, entered the main chamber a couple minutes after Rimion and Lydia had. "You could have waited for us before looking for the source of the ghosts."
Kole looked around. "So did you find out why there are so many ghosts?"
"Not yet," Rimion said. He tapped his foot near the trapdoor, making it visible to the rest of the group. "But I have a feeling that whoever is creating them is on the opposite side of this."
Katjaa's eyes moved from the trapdoor to the Dragon Wall behind Rimion. She walked towards it silently. For a second, Rimion thought that she would forget about the trapdoor and step on—then through—it, but she avoided it. She stopped near Rimion and stared at the wall, her expression making it look like she was in a trance. Her face was pale, and she had stopped breathing. Just like in Bleak Falls Barrow.
"What's she doing?" Lydia asked.
"I think... she's learning a new Shout," Rimion said. He checked around the room, making sure there wasn't a draugr nearby to use Unrelenting Force against them again. That's the Shout that Katjaa used when she absorbed the dragon soul in Whiterun. She must have learned it from the Dragon Wall in Bleak Falls Barrow. What will she learn this time?
Arenar walked to her side. "Katjaa," he whispered to her. Last time that she had fallen into this state, Arenar had to shake her and scream her name to get her out of it. This time, Katjaa blinked at the first mention of her name. The color began to return to her face, and she started to breathe again.
"Still not used to that," she said, smiling what was likely a fake smile for Arenar's sake. "It's a little more intense than the Greybeard's way of teaching new Shouts."
"So what is it that you learned?" Rimion asked.
"Kaan," Katjaa answered. "It translates to Kyne."
"But what does it do?" Kole asked.
She shrugged. "My dragon soul enjoys being vague, so I won't know until I absorb another soul, or until we meet with the Greybeards again and they teach me to understand it."
"Understand it?" Kole repeated.
"Be able to Shout it," Katjaa explained.
The group spent another hour inside of Rannveig's Fast. It took that long to find the mage who had been luring people to their deaths with the empty chest and the trapdoor for years then leave. Rimion and Lydia continued to use their tactic that had worked so well prior to the main chamber. Arenar didn't mind allowing Rimion to do all the work, likely because the magicka potion Rimion had given him hadn't been enough to completely restore the Imperial's reserve.
Rimion and Lydia didn't mind either, though it was the weirdest first date either of them had ever had.
The sun was starting to set once the group was back outside. Seeing no reason to go through the Cold Rock Pass when they were all relatively tired, the group decided to stay in the campsite that had belonged to the last victims of Sild the Warlock.
Rimion retired to his tent before anyone else in the group. He didn't want to reveal how tired he really had been from casting spells of varying strength for almost three hours straight.
As he was removing his Arch-Mage robes, there was the sound of someone closing in on his tent. He lay back on his sleeping mattress, wearing only his cotton trousers, as Lydia poked her head in.
"I see you're not asleep yet," she said playfully.
"Oh, well, not yet," he said back to her, stifling a yawn.
She entered, revealing that she was out of her chainmail armor. Her shirtsleeve had a tear in it; underneath was a small wound. "I hadn't noticed this before, what with being attacked by ghosts. I was hoping you could heal it for me."
"You hoped correctly," Rimion said. He placed his fingers above the wound, letting the last of his magicka reserve form into a powerful Restoration spell. He could have healed the scratch just enough so that she wouldn't bleed anymore, but Lydia was worth the extra effort. He forced the skin to repair without so much as a trace of a scar, soothing whatever pain she might have felt in the process.
He rested his head on his pillow and let out a breath of exhaustion. "Thanks," Lydia said. Rimion tried to hide that he was so tired, but when she then asked, "are you alright?" he realized he failed.
"I used a lot of magic today," he told her as she rested her head next to his. "All of my reserve, in fact. Don't worry, it comes back fast. The regeneration process halted each time I casted another spell."
"Do you want me to get you a magicka potion?"
"Nah. I always get a good night sleep when I stretch myself too far."
"Can I stay here with you tonight?"
Rimion already felt himself falling asleep, so all he could manage to say was, "sure, just don't take advantage of me. Wait until tomorrow morning for that."
