Armor clacked against itself steadily as Oren strode down the empty hallways undeterred, large sword dragging just the tip against the ground with the sound of metal against stone. His long dark strands of hair had become unruly during the fall, falling from the tie it was held in and laying across his face. Dark amber eyes scanned each crack and crevice that he passed, the blue white light of the orb making the shadows sway as he walked. Silence was only broken by his movements, and the distant sound of dripping somewhere within the tomb.
If he could locate where the sound was coming from he might be able to find a way out from here. It was not a sure answer, but it was a better chance than waiting to see if an exit turned up. His path lead him into a room lined with books, or what was left of the books. His grip lessened on the hilt of the sword, eyes scanning the shelves warily.
Books sat neatly on the shelves as if they hadn't been moved in a long time, tough their neat manner was disturbed only by the thick black covering that sat on them. They all had the same dark coloration, which from afar looked as if they were simply black books lined on shelves. Oren approached a shelf and reached out to one, his fingers barely brushing it before it crumpled into ash where it had been. The books nearby, having been disrupted, crumbled as well leaving the shelf a now ash filled pile. He withdrew his hand and looked at the black stain from the book that now covered the tips of his fingers. He lowered his hand back to the hilt and looked around the room again, the shelves around him all seemed to offer the same promise of crumbling to ash if he touched them, though untouched everything felt perfect in this room. It was eerie and yet offered a sense of hollow peace, an empty room filled with silence and fragile surroundings.
A soft click broke the spell of the room, the sound of chains followed as the chandelier that hung over the room came crashing down against the floor. Within the moment that the light fixture made contact with the floor, Oren's blade was up and alert. The orb's light illuminated the dust that rose from the floor where the chandelier, the small flecks floating through the air for their brief time before they spiraled back down to return to their rest.
"Can't scare me away with falling apart" He grumbled out loud to the tomb itself, his eyes turning to the piece on the floor in front of him now. Approaching it he gave it a slight kick with the front of his boot, the fixture was made of heavy steel, no doubt he would have been dead if he had been caught under it.
He had run into some close encounters with crumbling ruins in the past, the idea of them collapsing while he was inside used to frighten him. To be trapped below the surface with no hope of rescue, it sounded like the worst way to go. If he was to be trapped underground, then he would do it fighting the creatures below or to be some sort of heroic figure in saving people. The light bobbed around the taller as he reached up to brush a few strands of the loose hair out of his face.
"No signal yet from her yet.." He grunted slightly and looked at the light as it floated downwards a little ways, the light illuminating feet a little ways from Oren. His hands readjusted onto his two handed blade, the silent movement of the creature was strange. The feet had looked like the same situation as the previously seen bodies, the winkled skin and protruding bones, draugr no doubt yet its movement should have been clumsy and accented by the raspy lungless breaths.
He didn't have to stall on his thoughts about the draugr as the enemy moved forward, blade coming down from above and just barely missing the nord. His own steel blade swung with a heavy movement for the creature's legs. In his experience draugr were frail and didn't take to much of a hit before crumpling down, there were stronger forms that he had seen, though this one's appearance from what he could make out was basic and barely armored. Blue eyes of the undead flickered as its weak bones snapped at the contact from the blade, its body crashing to the floor. Its hands dragged it forwards, grasping at the man's boots as its mouth creaked about uselessly, breaths coming out angered. Oren moved his foot and brought it down onto the undead's back, the simple weight of his boot was enough to hold it there without effort. Grasping still it's movements became twitchy as the weight began to increase, its spine slowly being crushed by the boot. Whether or not they still felt pain was unclear, its movements didn't seemed pained, rather just annoyed and angry, all its movement ceased though once the hollow sounding crack came from its back. The iron boot was removed from it as Oren shifted his position.
"At least undead don't stain your armor with blood" He said looking down at his boot and grinding the heel against the stone floor. His movements stilled though at the sound of steady clanks from somewhere up ahead. "Seems like I know where you came from now though"
The light floated ahead as the man passed the bookshelves, many of the books having disintegrated from the chandelier hitting the ground and creating a breeze. There was no more sense of peacefulness as the other moved towards the sound, eager to fight the waiting dead that sounded to be just up ahead.
Ylva could only do as the voice said, as if moving was an option how anyways, she was frozen where she sat. Her hands ached from how tightly she had been clenching them into fists, if not for the gloves her nails would have been digging in hard enough to draw blood. The cold grasp on her face was gone, though the feeling still lingered. It felt as if her face was tingling from the touch, the air felt heavy with energy. It was strange this far down, when a storm would come it was possible to feel the electricity crackle through the air with the lighting strikes, but obviously one should not be able to feel something like that this far down in the ground.
The creatures around her, draugr from what she could tell with their stumbling steps and occasional words in another language, were collapsing around her. The sounds of their bodies crashing to the ground and their weapons clattering across the floor with a skittering sound. Oren had found her was what she could figure, there could be no way that these draugr were simply dropping around her like flies. But how would he be able to fight in the condition, in a darkness that allowed for no sight, a tingle ran down her spine as she finally attempted to move despite being told not to. A sudden shock wracked her body, causing her to hunch back over, spikes felt as if they were stabbing at her insides. A rune most likely from what she could figure, she was not an experienced mage and so casting such a spell was beyond her. But she had heard what sort of damage they could do, the description she had read didn't even begin to compare to what it actually felt like.
Her magika spiked slightly from the sudden shock to her body, her fingers twitched urging her to do anything to get out of this experience. Magelight flickered somewhere in the tomb, her casting movement was sporadic and so her spell would cast haphazardly rather than smoothly. A weapon hit the ground and slid towards her, the final sound in the room before the silence slowly drifted back in.
Silence. How many had there been though, how could they exist and then simply drop around her. Her mind felt fried, her body more unwilling than ever to try and move from her place. The runes. Right, this room must have been littered with runes, the draugr could have activated them as they paced around her. It made more sense than anything else, something had killed them and it was the most logical answer.
Footsteps, heavy steps, the faintest bobbing of light showing up in a far corner of the room. Her eyes strained to make out the light across the room, the dark figure stepping in front of it. She couldn't have been in the dark for that long, but relief flooded her at the light of her orb and the sight of her hire. His shape moved down from where he was and across the floor. As he brought the light along the room became more clear, draugr scattered across the floor, tombs lined the walls and broken lids sat nearby. The floor was covered in various carvings and designs, some cracked and other stained with ancient blood. Oren's boot almost collided with Ylva's pack which had made it a reasonable distance from her, he reached to pick it up and continued his path till be found his way over to his hireling. The pack dropped in front of the hunched figure who carefully looked up at him.
"What in shor's name happened here" He asked folding his arms across his chest, he wasn't angry though his stern tone would have made anyone else think he was mad at the bard for whatever had happened. She reached out to grab her pack, hand still shaking like a leaf snagged in the wind, her blue and red potions being yanked out and drunk without another word. Her body slowly began to reclaim its clam, the tingles disappearing as she found her words. It felt like she was a child for her time in the darkness, as if she had lost all her ability to speak and was just now learning how to communicate.
"Dark..voices..draugr.." She raised a hand to her head and took in a small breath, gathering the scattered thoughts and trying again. "The draugr..were all around..then they..just weren't" Ylva said looking up at Oren who was nudging a draugr corpse nearby, he let out a simply grunt. The light had begun to fade a little bit, meaning Ylva needed to recast here soon as she raised her hand.
"That sounds unlikely" Oren responded as the light disappeared, only to be replaced a few moments later by another white orb over his shoulder. "Cast a few of the stationary lights around the room" He instructed as he began walking towards the other side of the room. The bard looked down at her pack and lifted it up, holding it over her shoulder while fishing another blue potion from its depths. It was like Oren forgot that she didn't have an unlimited supply of magicka at all times. She grasped the bottle in one hand and began to cast a few stationary orbs around the dark room, thankful that these ones didn't take a whole lot of magic to conjure up.
"The rooms shadows began to dissipate as it was filled with the small floating lights, some of the walls seemed to disappear higher up than her light would show. Oren looked up towards where one of the lights had placed itself, a platform a little higher up, the stairs that lead up to it seemed to be on either side. Ylva went after him, not planning on standing in the center of this room any longer. The stairs were smooth, though it looked as if they had been worn down this way rather than intentionally built as such. At the top of the platform sat an open coffin, larger than the tombs that the draugr had come from below. Offerings of gold and jars sat around the black carved stone tomb. The walls behind the resting place were covered with intricate carvings, usually the story of the person who was laid to rest in the tomb. It was done for those in a position of power and signified what they had done in order to deserve such a tribute to them. Ylva made her way over to the carvings behind the coffin and tilted her head slightly, black strands of hair fell to the side as she did so. Portions of the carving had been hacked away, with a weapon from the looks of it. Oren approached the coffin and leaned over to look inside, the empty stone interior begged the question of where a dead body had wandered off to.
"Welcome to my tomb dragonborn."