Author's Note: I am so excited to get to the College guys. That will be where I really get to expand the scope of Harry's travel and knowledge of Tamriel. But I have to give the important bits their due so Bleak Falls has this chapter and likely another chapter completely dedicated to wrapping it up as well.
I am also stretching this out a bit for y'all because there were a few days I wrote multiple chapters a day so as of this posting AO3 has an extra chapter posted over what I have up here. That said it's muuucchh easier to change a posted chapter over there so it's actually allowed people to point out things I need to flesh out or fix and has led to me having y'all get fixed chapters. But I got impatient for what y'all think about this chapter so here's two in one day! Also I would love to hear some opinions on Harry and Farengar's custom spells I've been having them develop.
Chapter 15: The Dragonstone of Bleak Falls Barrow
Harry was so far rather disappointed in the test from his father. The bandits had been to put things nicely dull-witted. The most challenge he had had as he made his way deeper into the tomb was a spinning pillar puzzle that had killed a bandit right in front of his eyes and then ended up having the solution being built right into the wall above.
A series of continued disappointments later Harry was diving out of the way of a giant Frostbite Spider leaping down upon him from the ceiling of where he had heard another bandit struggling.
"This brings back memories," Harry quipped to nobody, thinking back to his and Ron's foray into the Forbidden Forest in their second year.
He readied his fireball staff in his right hand and summoned his Protego Perma upon his left.
The magical shield proved invaluable as the spider seemed to be capable of hurtling highly acidic venom from its front end and globs of webbing from its rear.
The young battlemage was forced to roll back through the entranceway to the room, throwing up a fireball to cover his retreat.
Hastily a fire atronach was conjured to charge back into the room and distract the temporarily blinded spider. All eight of its eyes had received the light of the fiery explosion even though the beast itself had managed to leap aside from the flames.
As the beast and the construct did battle Harry took a moment to heal up a few scratches he had received on his lower arms and cast Ironflesh upon himself. Deciding that the room was too small for his fireball staff he stowed it away and summoned a longer blade than he typically favored. While it had the purple glow and ethereal nature of normal this one was a more wicked looking blade of Orcish design he had seen in one of Farengar's tomes. It was made primarily for cleaving but tapered off into a point that could stab if needed.
Testing its weight, heft, and balance quickly with a few spins Harry nodded and darted back into the room, resummoning his Protego Perma as well.
As the spider reared back in pain from a burst of fire from the atronach Harry dismissed the construct and used the mix of ash, smoke, and Daedric energies as a screen to block his approach from the spider.
Bursting through the remnants of his summoning Harry brought the vicious blade down upon two of the spider's leg, cleaving them off of its body.
As it flailed around in maddened and pained rage the scaled mystic shield came up to block the fangs, and similar to a maneuver Harry had used in the Hagraven nest all those months ago, he brought his sword up to impale the creature through its bulbous head, ending its life.
"Oh Azura's blessing, you killed it! Thank you! Let me down, please!" A voice pleaded from across the room in a half cocooned segment of webbing.
Harry headed over and raised an eyebrow at who he found, "Arvel? Seriously? You jumped ship and convinced some bandits to loot the Barrow?"
The Dunmer blinked in surprise, "Harald! How wonderful to see you! Quick let me down! I promise I was planning to sell the stone to your father! Really he's the only one that would have paid for it anyways! I just thought it would be easier to break in with some muscle! Honest! On my mother's life!"
His eyebrow arched higher and dropped his shield as Harry chose morals over suspicion and began cutting the man down.
"Just give me the claw so I can finish the job up and you can loot anything outside of the final chamber, this place is as you can tell quite dangerous. There are likely dozens of draugr deeper inside, having seen what the bandits dealt with earlier," Harry was getting sick and tired of dealing with these underhanded seedy types so he summoned the distinctive green of Alteration-style magic to his left hand.
"If you try to run I'll freeze you, value your life and just follow behind me at a distance taking whatever you want, I promise to only take things from the final chamber," the declaration was met with a skeptic look from the Dark Elf but when he was cut down he did not flee and instead handed over the Golden Claw.
"Do you know how to use this Harald?"
"Yeah, my father and I figured it out a few months after your previous attempt, didn't know how to hunt down the claw until now though, keep out of my way and I'll keep out of yours," Harry summoning a goodly amount of self-righteousness and annoyance with the Mer swept past him and down into the depths of the tomb.
Surprisingly the Dunmer followed instructions and Harry was left to his own devices as he burned, blasted, and sliced his way through the draugr infesting the next areas of the tomb.
The puzzle-gate was laughably simple and Harry had the feeling that Hermione would have similar feelings to the Nords that she did towards wizards, not an ounce of critical thinking abilities between the lot of them.
Honestly putting your password on the key? You may as well only have the key.
Harry was even met with the odd circumstance of being able to burn a bunch of draugr into ashes with his fire staff and a lot of dripping ancient oil after he used Ironflesh and Protego Perma to allow him to rush through a swinging blade trap.
He had been tempted to not deactivate that trap behind him to inconvenience Arvel but he didn't want the death of the Dunmer on his conscience, as obnoxious and smarmy as the elf was.
Hours later, having needed to take a rest to recover his Magicka, Harry was at the central tomb of the barrow.
A large dragon cult story-wall loomed in the distance, showing that the Dragon Cult had coopted this barrow from its previous animist owners, or perhaps it was a tomb of some of the first dragon cultists whom had retained many of their animist beliefs and just incorporated the dragons into it initially.
He shook the academic implications out of his head, he was here for a reason.
However as Harry approached the sarcophagus a strange vibration began to buzz through his head.
A humming at first and then a few steps later a thrumming that caused him to put a hand to his head.
"What in Kyne's name…" Harry grunted out as he looked up and saw the draconic glyphs on the story-wall glowing and swirling in his vision.
A barrage of information, ideas, and concepts hit him all at once, but only one truly broke through the background noise.
Fus.
Force.
He understood something new, and yet what in Oblivion was he supposed to do with that information?
As he pondered this a loud crack was heard behind him, as he turned around he was blown back into the wall as an armor clad draugr pushed its way out of the sarcophagus and screamed at him.
One of the words was the same he had just discovered, Fus.
Pushing himself back to his feet Harry was forced to roll along the wall to dodge a strike from the draugr's icey greataxe. The blade skittered along the surface of the wall creating sparks.
"Fulmenastra!" Harry's personal Lightning Bolt incantation bit out from his lips as he dual-cast the spell sending the undead stumbling back, and stunning its shriveled nerves long enough for Harry to get his footing and move himself away from being backed against a wall.
He just had time to cast Ironflesh before another burst of, Harry supposed it must be pure force energy, slammed into him with a "Fus RO!" from the creature.
This time he at least kept his footing, but he was still pushed back and off balanced.
"Protego Draconis!" Harry incanted with both hands thrown forward and his domed version of his personal shield spell appeared around him, deflecting the blow.
Unfortunately it was concentration-based, therefore Harry had to hold it while he decided upon his next course of action. Holding it now with one hand against another force strike and another axe cleave he reached into his pack and grabbed his other staff, hoping it would work.
As the draugr pulled his blade back for another blow Harry dropped the shield and thrust the staff forth, green Alteration energy stuttered forth in a strange pattern and as it struck the undead's muscles froze.
Knowing he did not have much time Harry conjured his own greataxe, in no way his preferred weapon, and with a mighty swing he took the creature's head right off of its shriveled shoulders.
The young battlemage fell to one knee, his breath heaving in the effort of bring air into his chest after such exertion.
"That...was not fun, and what in Oblivion was that attack?"
After recovering slightly and searching the sarcophagus Harry found the Dragonstone, the item he had gone through so much trouble to obtain. It was small and rather unimportant looking, but Harry knew that when translated and compared to modern maps it should be able to provide the locations of many buried dragons of eons past.
With that in mind Harry retrieved some charcoal and parchment from his pack and took a rubbing of the story-wall. Who knew when they might be able to translate it and what all it would provide in the study of the ancient dragons?
Fifteen minutes later Harry was standing at the mouth of a back entrance of the barrow, looking down upon the mountains.
"Falkreath?" He said to himself, "I'm on the wrong side of the mountain…"