Chapter 64: Exploring Labyrinthian

[15th – 17th of Frostfall 4E 202]

Finally we could follow the side road and enter the extensive outer Labyrinthian area. T'mara and I had been here before, together with Valdimar, on our way to 'Skyborn Altar', just passing through. This time, we planned to stay and investigate in more detail, but first I warned the others about the trolls known to patrol the area, and I also reminded them of the trolls' astounding self healing capability.

Same as before, we encountered a few of the beasts soon after we had climbed the first set of stairs, but we were able to dispose of them quickly. We looked around, at first not quite sure where to go. A light mist made orientation difficult, and there were so many sets of stairs, walls, and other structures that we did not have a clue what to look for.

Glacier, though, had received some guidance from the Arch-Mage and led us directly towards an entrance she called the 'Ceremonial Door'. When we got closer, we suddenly saw six ghostly shapes materialize next to the door, and they had a brief conversation we were able to listen to:

"Come on, we are finally here! Let's not waste any more time!" That came from the ghost who looked like a younger version of Savos Aren.

A female Argonian voice objected: "Are we truly sure that this is such a good idea?"

A female Redguard confirmed: "Come on, we will be back at the College before anyone even knows that we were gone."

A male Bosmer voice snorted: "You would care about that, since you're the Arch-Mage's favorite!"

The younger Arch-Mage again: "Don't forget, this whole idea was Atmah's to begin with."

A male Nord's voice was getting impatient: "Let's just get inside, see what's in there."

The ghosts were gone again, and we looked at each other, not quite sure what we had just seen and heard.

Glacier informed us: "When the Arch-Mage told me about this place, he admitted that he had been here before a long time ago, when he had been a young mage. He was with five other mages, and something went horribly wrong. He also gave me a special key he called the 'Torc of Labyrinthian', which we shall need to open the door."

She got the torc out from her pack, used it on the door, and the door swung open. Our party of six – the four students Glacier, Brelyna, J'zargo and Onmund plus my wife and myself, coincidentally the same number of people as the earlier party – stepped indoors, and our husky Bran followed quickly. We found ourselves in a larger area with lots of skeletons on the ground and a big table in the center. When we approached the table, the six ghosts appeared again, and we could understand again what they were talking about:

"I can't believe we are doing this." This was Elvali, a female Dunmer sorcerer, who had not talked before.

Savor Aren smirked: "Yes, but can you imagine the looks on their faces when we come back?"

Hafnar, the male Nord, doubted that: "You keep talking like you are sure we will find something useful in here."

Girduin, the male Bosmer, whispered: "Given the history of this place, it's more than likely there's still some amount of power here."

Savos nodded: "Enchanted weapons, tomes of ancient knowledge, Shalidor's secrets themselves – who knows what we could find!"

Takes-In-Light, the Argonian, was not quite so sure: "And what if... What if there are things guarding this place?"

Atmah, the bossy Redguard sorceress, dismissed that thought: "Against six College-trained mages? I think we'll be fine."

The six ghosts were gone again, and I asked around:

"Are we going to have those six ghosts around all of the time in here?"

Glacier shook her head:

"I do not know. I believe even the Arch-Mage did not know that this was going to happen. He told me names and races of this original party, but omitted the part about how they separated and who might still be alive. He also did not elaborate on the dangers we might encounter, although I have some vague inklings."

"Does seeing the Arch-Mage's ghost here imply that he is no longer alive now?" T'mara now asked, looking concerned.

"Not sure about that" I replied. "He and Mirabelle had planned to make another attempt to take Ancano's barrier down with force on the day we left; maybe something went wrong."

Before we proceeded, some of us mentioned that they were getting tired after the long walk, the dragon fight, and all, and we decided that this place was as good as any to get rest and sleep. Fortunately, with Bran and Pammy being with us, we could all sleep and nobody needed to stand guard. T'mara was, after getting another dragon soul during the day, not quite ready for sleep yet, and we barely managed to keep reasonably quiet during our cuddling. Some of the others probably noticed what we were doing, but we were married and very much in love, so what. Nevertheless I made a mental note to find out if an advanced muffle spell also helped to dampen noises created by making love. The standard apprentice spell with that name was not strong enough and lasted only about three minutes, which was by far not enough for my wife and me. Maybe, if I found such a spell, I could enchant our bedroll with it?

After breakfast on the next day, we found that there was only one way forward, through a long winding passage, which eventually opened up into a huge subterranean hall through a portcullis. I conjured Pammy again and had her proceed first, as this smelled like a trap. Nothing happened, so that my wife and I both stepped through as well. Before the others had a chance to follow, though, the gate crashed down and we were separated. A number of skeletons rose from the ground around us, and in the center a dragon rose, but made of bones only. Pammy got busy with the skeletons, and my wife and I attacked the dragon right away. This one was not as dangerous as some of his real cousins had been, and soon we had the room cleared. We found a lever to open the gate, and when we were all together again and had moved on, the ghosts appeared again, but only five of them:

Elvali trembled and spoke: "We... we have to go back. We can't leave Girduin..."

Hafnar objected: "We barely made it out alive, and you want to go back in?"

Atmah shook his head: "It's too late. There isn't enough of him left to go back in after."

Takes-In-Light was concerned: "Gods, what have we done?"

Savos said: "We can't go back. Might as well go forward. We can still do this."

Atmah confirmed: "Savos is right. We can make it if we just stay alert."

When the images were gone again, Brelyna asked:

"Does this imply that they lost one of their group to the Skeletal Dragon?"

"It sure looks like it" I nodded. "Girduin, the male Bosmer, is no longer with them."

"How can me make sure that we will not encounter the same fate?" Onmund asked.

"This is a very good question, Onmund" I told him. "Listen everybody, if the scene is any indication, the place is not going to be a walk in the park. Let's all try to stay together and work as a team, and let us have Pammy scout ahead in dangerous areas, and we might all survive."

All of the students nodded, and we moved on. When we took stairs down to get to the next room, a disembodied voice suddenly boomed:

"Wo meyz wah dii vul junaar? – Who comes to my dark kingdom?"

I felt something very strange, and my magicka reservoir was suddenly drained almost completely. Looking at the others, I could see that this affected everybody, and we knew that we had to be very careful.

A few draugr and magical doors later the same happened again, with the voice saying this time:

"Nivahriin muz fen siiv nid aaz het – Cowardly men will find no mercy here."

Once more our magicka pool got drained.

A few rooms further down the same happened once more, with the voice now complaining:

"You do not answer... must I use this guttural language of yours?"

More draugr later and once we had even encountered some spectral enemies, I saw the need to address the students:

"As you may have noticed, some of the draugr managed to get quite close, and some of them even approached from behind. You see, if you are a mage relying on your magic only, you may still succumb to an enemy stealthily grabbing you from behind and killing you before you have a chance to use your magic."

"But how can you react to something you do not hear?" Onmund asked.

"There are several options. Over time, your awareness of critical situation may improve, so that your sixth sense may warn you. Before you even feel a touch or a weapon from an enemy, you might be able to have your own weapon ready. As a more practical option, if you always walk in pairs and look out for each other, you are less likely to encounter a nasty surprise."

From now on Pammy was leading our party, and we always kept two of us guarding our back together.

Glacier suggested that, whenever the odd voice would boom again and get our magicka drained, we should better stop for a few minutes to get some of it restored at least. It would not do to encounter a dangerous enemy with no magicka at all. We all agreed, and I noticed, not for the first time today, that the young Redguard was showing leadership qualities. Although she was younger and had joined the student group last, J'zargo, Brelyna and Onmund all seemed to be willing to listen to her. She did not talk a lot, but when she said something, it was usually worth paying attention to.

The path lead us down to a small creek, and following it seemed to be the best option. Just before we passed a door to what looked like the next section, the disembodied voice spoke again:

"Have you returned, Aren? My old friend."

Were we mistaken for the Arch-Mage? By now we were used to getting our magicka drained, and as Glacier had suggested earlier, we paused for a few minutes to allow some of it to regenerate at least. Once we continued, we passed and killed some draugr and skeletons, the small stream ended in a pool of water, and the voice spoke again:

"Do you seek to finish that which you could not?"

We stopped again, and Onmund said: "So the Arch-Mage tried to do something here, but did not get to finish it?"

I shrugged my shoulders, and Brelyna replied:

"I guess that we are going to find out."

After finding our way forward and defeating a troll which was guarding the passage, the voice spoke again:

"You will only face failure once more."

J'zargo was getting annoyed and shouted:

"This one is not stopped by a voice. Show yourself!"

Once we had some of our magicka back, we followed the path into a larger room, and in there a number of draugr, skeletons and trolls attacked us almost at once. I was keeping back a little to see the students fight, and I was happy to observed that they actually nicely worked as a team. J'zargo had quickly noticed the pool of oil on the ground and had managed to incinerate it with a fire ball exactly at the right time, so that almost all of the skeletons combusted and most draugr got hurt at least. Not for the first time I wondered how fire could affect and 'kill' a skeleton.

The couple of trolls were tougher, due to their healing capability. However, the students managed to coordinate their attacks, and minutes later the room was clear.

When we proceeded to the back end of the room to check for loot, the voice was heard again:

"You are not Aren, are you? Has he sent you in his place?"

Glacier looked up and said:

"Quite an astute observation. Took you that long to realize that, really?"

Some of us laughed, but she was right, of course.

A few rooms and passages later we found ourselves in a larger room again, with some wisp like creatures floating around at the other end. The wisps did not attack us, though, and we proceeded carefully. However, once we got to a small platform with some coffins on it, the wispmother showed up, and we had to kill it.

An opening in a corner lead us to a door with seemed to be on fire. When we got close, the voice was heard again:

"Did he warn you that your own power would be your undoing? That it would only serve to strengthen me?"

Again we rested for a few minutes, and then we opened the door with a quick frost blast. Glacier had just mentioned that we had not seen the mage ghosts for quite some time, when they appeared again right in front of us.

Savos said: "Come on, we can't stop now. We have to keep moving!"

Atmah asked: "Where's Elvali? She was right behind me."

Hafnar remarked: "Dead. Something grabbed her from behind. Gone before I could do anything."

Takes-In-Light complained: "This is insanity. We never should have come here."

Atmah nodded: "You are right. This is all my fault. Should we turn around, head back?"

Hafnar shook his head: "I don't think going back is a good idea."

Savos agreed: "Going back would be the end of all of us. We keep pushing forward, and we'll make it. We will!"

Onmund looked around:

"What do you think happened to Elvali?"

"We do not know for sure," T'mara responded, "but maybe she did not pay attention and was grabbed from behind by a draugr."

A few minutes later the odd voice spoke again:

"Come, face your end."

Glacier commented on that while we waited:

"Maybe that's an indication that we are getting close to the final confrontation now."

A couple of passages later we slowly followed stairs down, and when the first of us, Brelyna this time, entered the next room, she got a full fire blast right on her. Fortunately, with her being a Dunmer, she was partially resistant to fire, and when she had quickly stepped back again, only a little bit of healing was required. She had not seen who or what had attacked her, though, and next T'mara was very carefully looking around the next corner. A fireball blasted close to her, but she had retreated on time, and she reported:

"There are a few soul gem traps further ahead, and they all seem to be placed in a way to face the entrance from this side."

We had seen some of those before, but the one in here seemed to be quite strong ones, and not all of them might be fire traps. We discussed how to proceed best, and my wife knew what to do:

"I have clearly seen that they all face this direction. I will go, use my Whirlwind shout to get to the other side, and disable them from the back."

Before I got a chance to object, she got in position, just out of sight from the traps, and shouted 'WULD'. I heard at least two traps going off, hopefully behind her, and there was silence for a couple of minutes, before she called out:

"All clear – you can come now!"

Well, she had managed to do what she had planned, and there was not a single singed hair on her body as far as I could tell. I could not resists the temptation to tell her, though:

"That was a little forward to do, wasn't it? I think that tonight, when we are in our bedroll again, I will need to carefully check your body to make sure that you did not get hurt."

She got the direction I was thinking and replied with a smirk:

"Including the parts of my body covered by armor?"

"Oh yes, including those, specifically those covered by your underwear. You never know, maybe one of those traps used a spell to damage your goods..."

T'mara chuckled, and we moved on. In the next larger room we encountered a powerful looking draugr sitting on a throne and sleeping. The odd voice had caused us to lose our magicka again just when entering the room, and as the draugr had not yet noticed us, we waited again. This time, I used my crossbow, and I was able to hit the enemy with a few bolts before it even noticed what was happening. When it finally got close to us, the draugr deathlord was an easy kill. While we were busy to get rid of a few more minor draugr and skeletons, T'mara moved to a corner, and when came back, she told us that she had found another word wall, teaching her the second word of the 'Slow Time' shout.

In the next room, was saw the spectral mage ghosts again.

Atmah, the female Redguard, spoke first: "We shouldn't have left her there to die!"

Savos replied: "What else could we do? Stay there and die with her? She refused to go on, we didn't have a choice!"

Hafnar, the male Nord sorcerer, sighed: "This is it, you know. Through this door. Can you feel it?"

Atmah was obviously concerned: "We are not going to make it, are we?"

Hafnar was firm now: "We stay together, no matter what. Agreed?"

Atmah said: "I will be right with you."

Savos also nodded: "Agreed. We all stay together."

So there were only three of them left now. When the ghosts had disappeared again, Brelyna asked:

"What happened to Takes-In Light?"

"Well" I replied, "apparently she got injured and insisted that the other got ahead without her. Maybe the draugr deathlord got her."

"Maybe one of the skeletons we just encountered was her?" Onmund speculated.

Scary thought. We proceeded cautiously, and once we had opened a double iron door, we realized that we were indeed very close to our objective now. On a platform on the other side of the cavern a person or something was completely surrounded by some kind of energy shield, and that person held a staff. The energy shield was maintained by two ghostly mages standing on small covered platforms, and the mages looked similar to the spectral ghosts we had seen multiple times.

"I wonder" Glacier said slowly "if those two mages supporting the energy cloak are the ones who were with Savos last, Atmah and Hafnar."

"You think so?" I asked her, surprised about her suspicion.

"Yes I do" she responded. "But anyway, we probably cannot attack him without getting rid of the energy shield first."

"I am afraid that you are right" my wife nodded. "We probably need to get rid of the two mages first."

Brelyna appeared shocked:

"We have to kill them?"

"Brelyna," I told her, "they are already dead. What we see are only their spectral images! Of course, how spectral images can keep up and maintain an energy shield, I do not know at all."

The Dunmer nodded; she had understood.

"Right," I said, "we need to be careful. I assume that the shielded person, maybe the one who had spoken to us a few times, may awake and attack us as soon as the shield is gone. Any suggestion on how to handle that?"

J'zargo offered to use some ff his fire scrolls, Onmund thought that we should retreat quickly into the passage once we had disposed of the mage ghosts, but Glacier suggested this:

"Look, the bad guy is on a separate platform. If we sneak attack the two mages and quickly retreat behind cover, he may not notice us right away. We can sneak attack with bows and maybe fireballs and such, and if we change our positions carefully a few times and attack from different directions, we should be able to whittle down his defenses somewhat. Once he found us, T'mara can use one her Shouts on him and we continue sending arrows and bolts."

I looked at her and smiled:

"Glacier, this seems to be a very good approach. Let's do that, and please keep in mind that the guy may be resistant to some magic."

We positioned ourselves carefully, with everybody being behind some cover, and T'mara and I simultaneously 'killed' the two mage ghosts. The energy shield was gone, and we could see now that our enemy was a Dragon Priest, and he started moving, shouting:

"Who came to confront Morokei, the Mighty?"

When my wife and I had also retreated behind cover and saw that the Dragon Priest had not yet noticed one of us, we started to send bolts and arrows from different directions. This worked as intended, and Morokei could not decide where to go. When he finally moved in our direction and came close to T'mara, she shouted 'FUS RO DAH' right in his face, and he got blasted against a wall. While his ward was down and he tried to recover, all six of us gave him everything was had, and he was clearly injured now. However, he was not defeated yet. He managed to conjure a storm atronach, so that we had to split our forces. His pool of magicka seemed to be almost endless, as he sent strong shock attack spells our way now in quick sequence. Onmund failed to evade one of those and was out of the fight for now. However, now Pammy got involved and attacked Morokei from behind, forcing him to turn around. While he still had a ward up protecting him from magic attacks, I suspected that I might able to achieve something with a blade, and just when the Dragon Priest got rid of my familiar and had 'killed' her, I was right behind him and pushed my greatsword right through his chest. His ward dropped, and T'mara and J'zargo followed up by blasting fire and frost into him. The spells showed almost not effect; probably the guy was indeed mostly resistant to magic, but he clearly suffered from the sword in his chest. I decided not to wait, pulled the sword out again and jumped behind a pillar, right in time to avoid another shock blast from him.

His attacks were slowing down now, though, and another concentrated attack with arrows finally made him stop his attacks. Glacier was able to sneak behind him, and with a big axe she had obviously found somewhere and which looked too big and heavy for her to handle she cut Morokei's head off with a big swing, dropping the heavy axe afterwards.

I guess that my jaw was hanging down when I observed that, and once she had made sure that the Dragon Priest was really dead, Glacier told me:

"You did not think that I had that in me, right?"

"Indeed, I did not" I admitted.

"You see," she explained, "I have come to realize that I need to strengthen my fighting skills in parallel to my magical ones, and I have trained over the last few months. Fighting a Dragon Priest who is mostly resistant to all kinds of magic kind of proved the validity of that approach, didn't it?"

Well, there was nothing to add, and I just nodded. For a few times before, when I had been on field trips with the students, I had recommended training fighting in parallel with magic, and I was glad to see that Glacier had actually listened, and I was quite proud of her.

Once we had rested and healed our minor injuries – Onmund still needed some more time to recover from the strong shock blast he had received – we checked the room for loot, and of course the major item was the staff Morokei had wielded; obviously that was the 'Staff of Magnus' Glacier had been looking for.

At this time we realized that we were quite exhausted after all of the fighting, and we decided to call it a day right here. T'mara prepared supper for us, and soon we retired to our bedrolls, with a reconjured Pammy guarding us. I had placed our bedroll at some distance to the others, and I had not forgotten about my intention to check all parts of my love's body as I had promised to do, causing some giggling and later on moaning and purring when I got to the parts normally covered by underwear.

After breakfast on the next day we looked for a way out. None of us was inclined to retrace the way we had come in on the day before, but we did not have to, as we found a door leading forward, hopefully providing a quick way out as most Nordic ruins did. When we had passed the door, we saw a single spectral ghost again, Savos, and he said:

"...I am so sorry, friends. I am so sorry! I had no choice! It was the only way to make sure that monster never escaped! I promise you, I'll never let this happen again! I'll seal this whole place away..."

We all looked at each other, and Brelyna said:

"So the Arch-Mage really sacrificed his two friends to keep Morokei locked up?

I nodded:

"It looks like that, indeed. Of course, at that time he was not Arch-Mage yet."

Brelyna shuddered:

"I will not be able to look at him again without thinking of that!"

T'mara replied:

"Maybe you won't have to. If seeing his spectral ghost here is any indication, he may have perished by now, probably in an attempt to stop whatever Ancano is doing."

"We will find out when we're back in Winterhold" Glacier suggested. "Come on, let's move on!"

I suspected that she might know more than she explained, but that was all right, and I was used to that by now.

In the next room, suddenly a Thalmor mage appeared, and he addressed Glacier, who had the Staff of Magnus in her hands:

"So, you made it out of there alive. It appears that Ancano was right... you are dangerous. I'm afraid I'll have to take that Staff from you now. Ancano wants it kept safe... oh, and he wants you dead. Nothing personal."

Glacier tried to be polite at first:

"May I kindly suggest to get out of my way. I have no quarrel with you."

However, the Thalmor said:

"But I am afraid that you do."

Of course the guy was foolish to assume that he could grab the staff by force, with him being alone against six of us, and when I noticed that he was charging a powerful spell in his hands, I ran him through with my greatsword before he could react.

Passing him, we found a ladder and soon found ourselves outside of the ruin again. I told Glacier:

"Look, T'mara and I may not have enough time to return to Winterhold with you and still get to Solitude in time. Do you think that you and the three others students can make it on your own?"

While she pondered that, J'zargo stepped forward and declared:

"The young Redguard has proven herself multiple times, and this one will protect her. We will manage."

Brelyna and Onmund also nodded, and once we had reached the main road again, we separated. The four students moved east, towards Winterhold, and my wife and I took the road to the west, towards Solitude.

[Author's Notes: What will happen at the College of Winterhold now? Our two heroes may not learn about that for some time...]