Chapter 68: Off to Pale Pass
[20th – 21st of Sun's Dusk 4E 202]
The girls were still asleep when we had to get up, but we wanted to make sure we got to the pass on the same day, expecting some interruptions on the way there, as usual. Thus, we got ready with a quick breakfast long before the sun was up, and once we had taken our leave and hugged those who stayed behind, we met Bjorlam and mounted his carriage. As he had been told in advance about us and our party, he had taken his larger carriage today, and it was pulled by two sturdy horses rather than just one. After all, there were six of us – besides my wife and myself, we had the two girls, Lucia and Yumi, and our housecarls Iona and Valdimar. Thanks to our magically enchanted backpacks, luggage was at least limited.
After traveling in the dark for some time, we passed Riverwood when the first traces of dawn showed on the eastern sky, behind the mountains, and we met Faendal, the Bosmer, who was out for a morning hunt. I greeted him when we stopped for a moment and said:
"Good morning Faendal, good to see you. When you get back from hunting, can you please let everyone in town know that we will be gone for some time. We are traveling to Cyrodiil to visit my parents, and I do not know when we were going to be back; we are probably going to be off for a few months."
"Sure, I will do that. So, is the border open again?" he asked.
"Well, not in general and for everybody, no, but we were told that we would be allowed to pass" I replied. "We've got a special permit signed by Jarl Balgruuf, and this should be good enough, or so we hope at least."
"Have a good trip!" he said; I replied with a 'Good hunting!", and we moved on.
The sun was up when we passed through Helgen. The carriage was too big to go around, and although there were a few bandits in and between the ruins, they did not dare to attack us, seeing four warriors ready to fight; our two housecarls, my wife and I all wore our armor and weapons and probably looked somewhat intimidating, which was of course fully intentional. From Helgen, we took the southeastern road, which would lead us past Fort Neugrad, but before we got higher up, we stopped for a second breakfast, and we shared our food with Bjorlam, who also made sure to feed his horses. Lucia helped with that task; she loved horses.
After our break the road took a few turns, and eventually we passed the Thalmor prison we had raided some time ago. Just as we drove by, a small group of Thalmor came out, and as my wife and I wore our Dragonscale Armor, we got their attention and they recognized us. Before they had a chance to do more about it than calling out '"The Dragonborn! Arrest her!", though, T'mara shouted her 'YOL TOOR SHUL' at them, and Valdimar, Pammy and I picked up the pieces, so to speak.
Yumi and Lucia were kind of shocked, and we explained that Skyrim was still a dangerous place and that we'd likely encounter enemies here and there. There were four of us to protect them, though, so that our two girls should be safe.
The road climbed up to the pass, and eventually, in mid afternoon and still nice weather, we reached the border gate. Bjorlam told us:
"That's it; we are here. My apologies again for not taking you further, but the border is still not open for normal traffic, and I might not be able to get back if I took you across. But you know, from here to Bruma it's all downhill, so that you should manage, even with the children."
Thanks to the magical enchantments our luggage was limited to our backpacks, which was a huge benefit. We all shook Bjorlam՚s hand and saw him drive his carriage down towards Helgen again, and then we turned around and looked at the border fortifications. There was the gate itself, fortified with stone structures and a walkway above it, and close to the gate there was a watchtower and a low single level stone building which probably served as guard barracks.
An officer from the Imperial Legion was in charge of the border detail, and once we had told the guards that we wanted to pass, we were handed over to him. He told us sternly:
"The border is still closed for everything except official legion business. You will need official papers or some other valid justification if you want to get to Cyrodiil."
I handed over the statement from Jarl Balgruuf, and T'mara pointed out that she was Dragonborn. At first the officer doubted her words, but then he also noticed our special Dragonscale armor, and together with the paper from the Jarl, that was obviously good enough for him. He also gave us some advice:
"The road down to Bruma is not fully safe, and I advise against traveling by night, specifically as some snow seems to be coming soon. You can ask the commander of Fort Pale Pass, Legate Precilius Varro, to assign guest quarters to you or you can travel down just a bit further, where you will find an inn. By the way, you are lucky to find the pass open at this time of the year. Last year, we had to close it in early winter already due to lots of avalanches in the mountains. Welcome to Cyrodiil!"
We thanked the good officer, who now ordered the gate to be opened for us, and we passed into Cyrodiil.
Cyrodiil! I had not been here for years. Since my uncle had asked me to come to Skyrim when I had been barely eighteen years old and had left me Riverside Lodge when he died just months after my arrival, I had only visited my parents twice, and Skyrim had been my home ever since. As my family descended directly from the Hero of Kvatch and later Champion of Cyrodiil, who had saved Tamriel from Mehrunes Dagon together with Martin Septim about two hundred years ago, entering Cyrodiil once more triggered thoughts about what had happened at that time, based on family chronicles, journals, and other sources. When the time was right, I'd have to tell my daughters about my ancestry and the events during the Oblivion crisis, too.
Right after the gate the road indeed went downhill again, and we could see the big fortifications of Fort Pale Pass not far from us. At least out of courtesy I decided that we should at least meet the commander of the fort, and thus we turned right into the entrance. Legate Precilius Varro, easily recognizable in his full Imperial officer armor and dark red cloak, was in the large courtyard talking to some of his soldiers, and when he had done that, he turned towards us and listened to our introductions.
"You know," he said, once the greeting were exchanged, "I am quite glad that we are at peace with the Stormcloaks now. Not so long ago we had a lot of trouble with them. They were using a smugglers path through 'Serpent's Trail', and they used that underground connection between Cyrodiil and Skyrim to stage ambush attacks and such. Now we are working together with them, and we have started to take care of their wounded, too."
We talked about the political and military situation a bit more, and suddenly the legate changed the topic and asked:
"Say, do you have experience in fighting spiders?"
"Spiders?" I replied with some surprise showing about that unexpected question. "Sure, we have fought quite a few of them."
"You may not know about that," the legate continued, "but the fort was built on top of an old Akaviri structure. While digging in the basement, we broke into some of those old rooms some time ago, and we were attacked by ugly and dangerous spiders. My soldiers are quite brave fighting against human enemies, but spiders give most of them the creeps. We have barricaded the access passage, but I wonder if you could do us a favor and do something about them?"
I looked at my wife and I could see that we had the same thoughts – why us again? But nevertheless, why not? I suggested:
"Legate, you see that we have our two girls with us. If you'd be so kind to provide quarters and nourishment for them and our housecarls, my wife and I will see what we can do."
That was something the legate was quite willing to do, and we had a deal. We'd eat and sleep first, and on the next day we'd look into the spider infestation. Valdimar volunteered to join us as well, and Iona was going to take care of Lucia and Yumi.
The next day saw T'mara, Valdimar and me descending into the depth of the fort. A soldier guided us into the basement and towards the barricade which had been erected. Together with the two guards he opened a passage for us, and when we moved on, one of the guards gave us a last word of warning:
"One of the last guards coming out claimed that she had seen a giant spider, assumedly a broodmother, in a back room; if she was correct, they may have multiplied in there, and the broodmother may be specifically dangerous. Rumors say that the beast may even be able to cast some spells."
Well, we would see. For now, we moved through a dark passage, and as we did not want to draw attention to ourselves, my wife lead the way in the almost complete darkness, only sparingly illuminated by occasional glowing mushrooms and some isolated small holes in the ceiling. Valdimar and I sneaked behind her, and Valdimar՚s sneaking skills had improved somewhat since we had first met him, partially due to some enchantments in his armor.
Of course, spiders could also feel vibrations, so sneaking alone would not allow us to stay undetected for long, I guessed. And indeed, when we saw remnants of what used to be an underground tower before us, the first group had found us and started to attack. Stealth was now no longer an issue, so that I cast a series of magelights around us, which illuminated the ugly beasts in all glory. The local spiders here were different from the standard Skyrim frostbite spiders, but no less dangerous. They showed to have a weakness for fire, though, like their cousins, and we used that to our advantage – soon the burning spiders made further magelights completely useless. We had easily been able to keep the first group at bay just with fire balls, and we intended to keep it that way.
While we had left Bran with the kids, I now summoned Pammy and sent her ahead to scout for more spiders. About ten minutes later we heard some noise and Pammy՚s growling from a few levels further down; obviously she had found the next group. Just a few steps ahead there was some kind of balcony which offered a view down, and about twenty meters below I saw Pammy attacking a larger group of the hairy monsters, once I had sent of couple of magelights down. Keeping the lights going, I now used my crossbow to assist my familiar; T'mara sent fire balls down, and Valdimar stood guard to watch for potential attacks in our back. Eventually, the fighting noises subsided and Pammy yowled, indicating that she was done for now. Slowly and carefully we made our way down and looked around; indeed, at least on that level all spiders were dead now. Pammy had a few wounds from their fangs and looked poisoned, but that did not matter – I could re-summon her at any time.
From the level we were on a number of passages could be seen, and we were not sure which one to follow. It turned out, though, that the solution presented itself; more spiders must have noticed the commotion from the earlier fight, and they started to drop out from one of those openings. By now we had lit some of the braziers around us, and that provided enough light to see them properly. Fortunately, the hairy monsters came through a quite narrow opening and thus one by one rather than in a large group at once, and this enabled us to kill them off right when they emerged, mostly by casting fire balls. Valdimar had posted himself close, and he finished off those which were just wounded rather than dead right away.
When no more spiders came, we decided to follow that passage, hoping that it might lead us to the broodmother the guards had mentioned. T'mara lead the way together with Pammy, and we moved on. I was last this time, and we had walked for several minutes, when I suddenly felt a sting and something sticky around my legs. I had just time for a yelp before I fell down, and when I looked around, I saw a lone spider which had apparently got me from behind, maybe coming out from a side passage or from the ceiling where it could have been hidden. The spider started to wrap my legs first, but I could still work my arms and blasted a fire ball against it. However, a second spider appeared and started to work on my arms, too. I was in big trouble, but fortunately T'mara had heard my yelp with her sensitive ears and had turned around to check what that was, and before the second spider had managed to completely immobilize me, my wife was there and blasted both spiders to Oblivion. While Pammy and Valdimar stood guard, she cut the binding threads off my body and fed my a potion to counter the spider poison I had in my body from the sting.
"Thank you, my dear" I told her when I had rested a little. "I really had not noticed spiders behind me."
"Yes, maybe those spiders here are smarter than the run of the mill frostbite spiders we have encountered in Skyrim" she responded.
For the rest of the narrow passage we kept Pammy in the back, and a few minutes later the passage opened into a quite large hall, but most of it was fully dark. I threw a few magelights forward, and two of them managed to illuminate a giant black spider in the center, attended by dozens of smaller spiders. This was likely to be the broodmother, and it was even larger than the large spider we had encountered in Bleak Falls Barrow. Well, at least we could always retreat into that small passage, as it would never be able to fit in here.
The spiders had of course noticed us, and they started to attack in groups. This again enabled T'mara to use her 'YOL TOOR SHUL' efficiently, and Valdimar and I supported her with fire balls, while Pammy watched our back. After we had defeated three attacking groups, the remaining spiders retreated for now, and the broodmother started to glow. This was an effect I had not observed before, and I was curious what was going to happen. When the glowing peaked, the beast opened its jaw, and a ball of energy emerged, rolling on the ground straight in our direction. We did not know what that was, but decided to raise our wards just in case. When the ball collided with the joined wards, it exploded, and it released more energy than our wards were able to absorb, so that we were violently thrown backwards into the passage we had come from. I banged my head into the wall, and only the armor's helmet prevented me from being killed by that, but I probably suffered a minor concussion at least. T'mara and Valdimar were also stunned and probably injured, and only Pammy, who was at the back, had not been hit. Another group of spiders used the opportunity to attack now, and only Pammy stood between them and us. Thanks to the narrow passage the spiders could not get around my brave familiar to get to us, which gave us time to drink healing potions and recover a little. That turned out to be just in time, as the spiders suddenly retreated, and the broodmother started to glow again. I looked around and found a small side passage close to us; it was only a few meters long before it had a dead end, but we moved in there when the next ball of energy rolled towards us. Indeed, the ball rolled past the branch, but it hit the wall soon, and the rock shook. We heard rocks falling down, and when the dust had settled, we noticed that the passage we had come from was now blocked with debris; the way back was no longer open for us.
I looked at T'mara and Valdimar and suggested: "There's no way back now; I guess that we better decide on a strategy to attack."
They both nodded, and when we had discussed options for a couple of minutes, we emerged from our hiding and blasted coordinated fireballs towards the center of the hall. Some of those hit the broodmother, but it did not appear to be much affected; obviously, if suffered much less from fire than the smaller spiders. However, the fireballs manged to illuminate and highlight more details, and we saw the center part of the ceiling being supported by six huge pillars. That gave me an idea which I quickly told my companions, and we spread out, each one of us towards one of the pillars. The amount of small spiders in the hall had been greatly reduced due to the earlier fighting, and they had apparently learned that we were dangerous, so that spreading out was not too risky. The huge spider started to glow again, and when another ball of energy rolled in my direction while I stood right in front of one of the pillars, I quickly moved away, and the ball collided with the pillar. A huge explosion resulted, and the pillar partially broke down. The broodmother was not stopped that easily, though, and proceeded to send its energy balls, now against T'mara and Valdimar, and they both copied my actions. When three pillars out of six were hit and partially collapsed, the ground trembled and cracks started to appear in the ceiling; the remaining pillars were not enough any longer to support the full weight. We quickly retreated towards the outer areas of the hall, and to accelerate the process my wife shouted 'FUS RO DAH' right at one of the remaining intact pillars, which heavily damaged it as well. Before the giant spider really noticed what was happening, the center part of the ceiling came down right on it and buried it under many tons of rock. Fortunately, the beast either had not noticed our plan, or maybe it had just not been able to move quickly.
The remaining small spiders were now easily taken care of, and we looked around for a good place to rest. On the other side of the hall there was another small opening, and a winding passage took us to a staircase leading up. A few levels higher there was a very sturdy and intact locked door, and once T'mara had picked the lock, we entered what looked like ancient living quarters, or maybe part of guard barracks. We locked the door behind us and searched the place, and while there was no food, we found at least a nice table and chairs and braziers to light. We were hungry and exhausted from all of the fighting, and we decided to have lunch here, using the food we had in our own packs.
"That was the broodmother, I guess" T'mara said. "That was tough work, and I need a quick nap". With those words she climbed on my lap and closed her eyes for a few minutes. With her being on the petite side and me being very tall, I could easily have her sit on my legs with her head resting against my shoulder, and that position was very comfortable and cozy for both of us.
Once we had eaten and rested, we passed through the door again into the staircase and moved on, and we opened another door one level higher. Behind that door, we saw spider webs right away, and a passage lead towards a balcony. From there we could look down into a smaller hall, and again there was group of small spiders around a larger one. This large one, though, was not nearly as large as the broodmother had been, and T'mara whispered:
"Maybe this is an adolescent broodmother."
I nodded, and we started to attack with fireballs. This killed lots of smaller spiders, but did not injured the large one much. Similar to the giant broodmother, it started to glow, but not as brightly as the other one had. We dared to raise our wards again, and they just managed to fence of the ball of energy which hit them soon. T'mara now shouted 'KRII' (marked for death), and we resumed our attack with crossbow bolts from me, various spells from Valdimar, and arrows from my wife. It turned out that shock spells delivered the most damage, and once we had learned that, we coordinated our spells and hit the beast all at once, which made it shudder visibly. Pammy now jumped down and finally managed to kill the severely injured spider, not without getting poisoned, though.
None of the smaller spiders were around any longer. A few of them might have escaped, but in order to search the entire place, more people would be required. We decided that we had done our task. I left Pammy behind; she would succumb to the poison soon anyway, and thus I quickly released her by canceling the summoning spell.
Back in the staircase, we moved upwards, until the stairs ended in what at first glance looked like a dead end. However, there was a trapdoor in the ceiling, and a sturdy ladder was leaning along a wall. Once we had placed the ladder properly, I stepped up and pushed against the trapdoor. At first it did not budge, and I had to use all of my strength before it finally started to crack, so that I could slowly open it. Dust dropped down, telling us that this one had not been open for quite some time. Darkness awaited me, and before I stepped out, I cast a magelight, showing some dusty and unused storage room. I entered the room and my two companions joined me. We carefully closed the trapdoor again, to make sure no spiders could follow us, and searched the room. There was nothing valuable in here, and no visible exit. Only once we started to look at the shelves more closely, we found what looked to be faint indications of a hidden door, but no obvious means of opening. T'mara recalled a situation with a hidden activator, and indeed, one of the torch holders could be shifted and rotated, which made the hidden door open slowly.
Passing through it, we found ourselves in a room which was less dusty, and it looked to be a storage room, having armor, weapons, and other stuff clearly belonging to the imperial legion. An Imperial soldier was in there, taking stock of the stores or so, and he was totally caught off guard when we came through the hidden door he had obviously not known about; he pulled his sword and shouted:
"Where did you come from?"
Fortunately, the soldier had seen us before together with the legate and he knew that we were going to explore the old Akaviri structure, so that we had time to briefly explain where we came from:
"Stay your weapon, soldier. You have seen us with your legate, right?"
He looked at us again and recognized us, and he calmed down. Together we searched this side, and soon we found the mechanism to operate the hidden door here, again by shifting and rotating a torch holder. Together we left the storage room, and the soldier escorted us to the legate's office, where we delivered our report.
"You may want to send a larger group of soldiers through the hidden door and the trap door to find and eliminate the remaining small spiders down there." I suggested. "The three of of us could not find and search all of the passages down there, and there are probably a few nests being left intact. However, with the two giant spiders being eliminated, this should be quite easy now, provided that the groups are careful and always watch their backs."
"Also," my wife added, "the quarters where we had lunch had a side room with book shelves, and a lot of books and journals seemed to be intact. Maybe some scholars would want to browse through that; at least some of the books were written in what looked like Akaviri language to me."
The legate replied: "I can not even tell you how thankful I am for your effort. My soldiers can take it from here. If you need or want anything, just please let me know – I owe you."
"You are welcome, Legate Varro" I replied. "For now, we have all we need, and we will gladly retire to our quarters for now and travel on tomorrow. For our trip through Cyrodiil, though, if you could write some papers for us to make sure that any guards and soldiers we encounter do not stop us, that would be appreciated."
The good legate promised to have the travel note ready tomorrow morning, and a soldier escorted us back to the quarters where we rejoined Iona, Lucia, and Yumi. We told them an abbreviated version of our adventures, leaving out some of the more bloody details, and soon we found our beds.
[Author's Notes: Some places and events have been inspired by the great Skyrim mod 'Beyond Skyrim: Bruma'. My kudos to the 'Beyond Skyrim' teams, and I can't wait to see more from them.
Note to the guest review from Ted Hsu: We will meet the in-laws around chapter 75, and we will see if T'mara gets accepted or not.]
