They continued deeper into the dank ruin that was the barrow. They made it to a room where corpses were laid out in stone shelves, mummified and buried with weapons. Yew noticed that Greta seemed nervous and he really couldn't blame her. This whole place was eerie and he did have a strange feeling about all this. Almost as if the corpses would start moving at any second.
And of course, they did. The mummified bodies moved off their shelves grabbing their weapons and moved in for the kill. Yew got out his bow and took aim at one of them. He loosed an arrow into it and hit it right in the torso. The dragur did not react. Yew loosed again and hit it in the head. Again no reaction that could tell him if it was even close to killing it.
Once more Yew loosed an arrow and it hit the dragur in the leg, causing it to fall, but it just kept crawling. Yew cast spark and finally that caused the thing to burst into flames for a short time. When the flames extinguished, the creature was back to it's lifeless state.
Greta meanwhile had been having a dance with one of the other dragur. Ducking and dodging blows while raining down thrusts of her mace, but picking up a couple of cuts of her own. Once she destroyed it's head, it fell lifeless to the ground. A third Dragur began shambling closer to her, and she remembered her training in the restoration school. Summoning up her magicka and concentrating it into a spell she whispered, "Smite your enemy Kyreneth, the undead abomination that lies before me."
Then she sent a ball of light shooting from her left hand into the dragur, causing the creature to explode into a rain of limbs.
Greta was exhausted by this. She was breathing heavy and she dropped her mace to the floor. Greta was inexperienced in casting that spell and put a little too much magicka in it. Combine that with the energy she expended fighting the other dragur and she felt both physically and mentally exhausted. She wasn't used to doing so much fighting in a single day.
"Greta, you all right?" Yew asked his companion. She nodded.
"J-Just a little low on Magicka." She said.
"Here. Drink this." Yew said handing her a magicka potion. She drank it down quickly and felt her internal fortitude growing again.
"Feel better?" Yew asked.
"Yeah." Greta said.
"Up to keep going?" Yew said. He knew it would only get more difficult from here. Still, the thought of getting his hands on treasure was very tempting. After all the only way to gurrante his and Greta's safety was to pursue power. Minding one's own business wasn't enough in this world, the danger would come to them. And it was also the only way they could change things for the better. Power for it's own sake...that wasn't entirely a non-factor either. Yew wanted to relearn the spells he knew he had to have forgotten. He wanted to become a powerful druid, a hero.
And he wanted to have lots of sex. Power was an aphrodisiac after all, he's pretty sure Machiavelli said that, especially if he didn't become an asshole along the way.
"Yeah. I'm fine." Greta said.
"Ok." Yew said.
So they continued on. Before they got much further a Restless Draugr crawled out of it's shelf and proceeded to attack with a large axe.
"Let me deal with it." Greta said confidently and fiercely as she drew her mace and swung it at the Draugr. It blocked quite easily with it's great ax and countered with a sweep of it's axe. Greta managed to dodge, throwing herself against the wall to the side of her to avoid the blow.
"Smite!" Greta said, launching a small ball of light at the undead. It recoiled in pain as it found itself on fire. However, it kept approaching Greta. Greta lifted her mace and swung it at the draugr's skull as hard as she could, cracking it. Then she hit it again and it broke. Finally, the draugr fell tot he ground, extinguished.
She withdrew her mace and brushed herself off.
"See, even a lowly wandering cleric like me can do some good against undead." Greta said.
"Amazing Greta. You are quite extraordinary." Yew said.
"I just had to adjust the spell a little bit. I think I can be a lot more useful now." Greta said.
"Does that spell only work on undead?" I asked.
"Yes. I don't have any offensive spells that target the living." Greta said.
"I see. That's good to know." I said.
They continued through the barrow. Yew used an acid spray to take down a few dragur that popped up as they made their progress, and Greta continued to make effective use of her mace and smite spell. This was the point that they managed to find more than just a couple of coins here and there and actually found some real treasure. They found a decent pile of coins in a treasure chest, true, but they also managed to dig up a scroll of fireball and a scroll of Lesser ward. Which Greta graciously let Yew have.
Finally Yew and Greta arrive at the door. Yew enters in the combination on the door's lock and inserts the Golden Claw, unlocking the door. Inside was a long hall, at the end of which was a coffin in a place of honor, a treasure chest and a wall with a strange set of glowing runes on it. They made their way to the end of the room. Inside the chest, Yew found a staff of sparks, a spell tome, a couple of magical scrolls and a spare Iron dagger. He grabbed them all and stashed them away, the iron dagger could be sold and the rest could prove useful. On a small altar, Yew found a couple of potions and some soul gems, which they also snagged up.
Both Yew and Greta carefully looked at the wall. Yew was fairly confident, memory issues and all, that if this runic language was something his character would know, he would be able to read it. He wasn't sure where this idea came from, but it was a pretty strong feeling he had.
"Do you know what that says?" Yew asked.
"No, I really don't." Greta said. The two then heard something and turned around. Behind them, a powerful looking dragur with a huge ax was behind them, glaring with it's strange glowing eyes. Greta drew her mace and the undead turned it's attention to her.
"Fus." It said in a strange creaking voice, and Greta went flying into the wall. The dragur then began shuffling towards Yew.
"Sparks." Yew said and sent electricity coursing into the dragurs body. The dragur was able to shrug it off and gave Yew a slash with his axe.
Yew now had a large but fortunately fairly shallow seeming cut across his abdomen. Yew backed off a bit, and used the gesture for piercing thorn, casting it and sending a thorn through the creatures rib cage, it did manage to at least crack a rib before falling to the ground. Yew kept backing up until his back was against the wall, He had to dodge a couple of sweeps from the dragurs ax but he knew he was running out of time, he had to finish this thing off.
So he found his moment and ran past the dragur overlord, making his way to the coffin he had risen from. He hit the being with another round of sparks, then another but though it slowed the dragur down, it seemed to do very little against him. He had to make a decisive death blow, but how? He couldn't just rely on Greta to save him.
"Fus." It intoned again and He went flying off the raised platform and hitting the ground hard, knocking the wind out of me. He gasped as he laid there for several moments stunned. Yew heard a great clatter as it seemed Greta and the Dragur were locked in a fierce battle which all ended with another mighty "fus".
He needed to get up and stop this. He couldn't let this thing kill Greta. He got up and limped his way back up the platform, seeing the dragur with its ax lifted above Greta's body.
"Piercing Thorn!" Yew said and unleashed a large thorn that crashed into the dragurs cracked skull and broke it, it fell limp to the ground. Yew felt, again, a sudden surge of power.
"You alright Greta?" Yew asked.
"Y-yeah, I'm fine. Thanks very much. I owe you my life." Greta said.
"It's fine. We owe each other our lives." Yew said. He was confident that he wouldn't have been able to survive without her. Once again, Greta healed their wounds.
Further examination of the Dragur's sarcophagus revealed a large stone tablet with some sort of inscription on it. They decided on taking it with them and continued their investigation. They found a door to a secret passage leading out of the barrow. On the way, they picked up a treasure chest that had more gold, a couple rings, and a few more potions. They headed out of the barrow and were relieved to once again be outdoors.
It was time to make their way back into town.