Jul

Lucius

I sighed as I exited Alvor's home, and rubbed the back of my head. When he had invited Hadvar and me into his home, Alvor had been excited – jubilant even – to see his nephew safe. Once the soldier had explained why we had come to Riverwood, however, Alvor had quickly grown worried. At first, he had laughed nervously, disbelieving even. "A dragon? That's..." Fear crossed the Blacksmith's face, but he continued, "That's ridiculous. You aren't drunk, are you boy?"

Alvor's wife, a blonde Nord woman by the name of Sigrid, piped up then, "Husband. Let him tell his story."

Hadvar had quickly replied, "Not much more to tell. This dragon flew over and just wrecked the whole place. Mass confusion. I don't know if anyone else got out alive. I doubt I'd have made it out myself if not for my friend here. I need to get back to Solitude and let them know what's happened. I thought you could help us out. Food, supplies, a place to stay."

"Of course!" Alvor exclaimed, fear running behind his eyes. "Any friend of Hadvar's is a friend of mine. I'm glad to help however I can." The blacksmith quickly gave me a small pack of food, drink, and some gold to help me. He smiled, then pulled me aside.

"What is it?" I asked. The blacksmith made a hand motion, and I began to whisper. "Is there something you need?"

Alvor's mouth became a grim line behind his beard. Finally, he said, "The Jarl needs to know if there's a dragon on the loose. Riverwood is defenseless... We need to get word to Jarl Balgruuf in Whiterun to send whatever soldiers he can. If you'll do that for me, I'll be in your debt."

I took a short breath as I prepared to say no – I was going to go to Solitude to help the Legion, after all. My eye caught the image of Alvor's young daughter, frightened by the story, hugging Sigrid tightly. The words that came out of my mouth were far from the decline I had anticipated. "Of course. I'd be happy to help."

Alvor's face had lit up. "Gods be with you," he had said. "Come by the forge any time you need new armor – I should have some soon. For now, you should get your armor replaced at the store across the road. A funny Imperial by the name of Lucan Valerius runs it. He was just robbed, and he might give you a discount if you agree to help him out."

I walked across the dirt road and entered the general store. "Well one of us has to do something!" a woman shouted. I looked through the doorway at a young woman with deep brown hair shouting at a man that could only be her brother.

"We are done talking about this!" the man shouted back.

"Well what are you going to do about then, huh!? Let's hear it!" the young woman shouted again. She crossed her arms and waited with sarcastic expectation.

"I said no! No adventures, no theatrics, no thief-chasing!" the man screamed back. The woman flinched, and walked away from her brother. The man – likely the Lucan Valerius that Alvor had mentioned – noticed me in the doorway and growled to himself.

In an amicable voice, he said to me, "Oh, a customer. Sorry you had to hear that."

In the background, the man's sister shot something at him sarcastically under her breath. He shot her a look, then returned his attention to me. "Alvor said that I could get some new weapons and armor here," I explained. I clapped my hands together and rubbed my palms against one another. "You know – I could help with whatever that was all about."

Lucan raised an eyebrow and considered me, unsure of whether I could be trusted. "Well..."

"Look, I can buy the armor and weapons off of you. I told Alvor I would make it to Whiterun and... get the Jarl's help with something," I said, careful to avoid talk of dragons. I didn't need Lucan thinking me crazy, or worse, thinking the dragon was chasing me.

"Look, there was a break in," Lucan said, apparently deciding he could trust me. "The thieves only took this one thing – a Golden claw. They took it off to Bleak-Falls Barrow. You bring me the claw, I'll give you the armor for free."

"I can get it," I explained. "Just tell me where to go."

"I think your new helper here needs a guide!" the young woman said, finally piping up.

Lucan's eyes flew to his sister angrily. "WH – Camilla – NO!" Lucan shouted. He stared at his sister for a moment, then sighed and let his head drop. "Oh, by the Eight, fine. But only to the edge of town."

Camilla smiled and dragged me out of the store, saying "Now, if you're going to get those thieves, you should head to Bleak Falls Barrow, northeast of town." She led me down the road and through the town until we arrived at a stone bridge over the river adjacent to the town. "This is the bridge out of town. The path up the mountain to the northwest leads to Bleak-Falls Barrow."

"Thanks," I said. I gripped the handle of the sword at my hip, wondering how I could always succeed in getting roped in to such things without any effort.

"No problem," Camilla said with a smile. She sighed and turned around towards the town. Over her shoulder, she said, "I guess I should get back to my brother. He'll throw a fit if I take too long. Such a child..."

I laughed half-heartedly and looked up the mountain. "Every time I try to do something, I end up doing a thousand things," I groaned. I heaved a sigh and took the first of many steps up the mountain. "Better get going before so I can make it up before nightfall..."

The trek up the mountain was dangerous, and fraught with both bandits and creatures that would kill me as soon as look at me. Every aggressive being, be their souls black or white, fell to my blade and fire. After one such encounter, I extricated my blade from the neck of a Khajit woman who had attempted to tear my throat out with her claws. "Nen aak hi..." I whispered to her, and the mountain itself trembled beneath my feet. I stood up quickly and looked around. "What did I say?"

I waited for a few more moments, awaiting the dragon that must have made the mountain move, yet there was no such return. As the quiet began to stretch on, I sheathed my blade and continued my walk up the mountain to Bleak-Falls barrow. The ancient tomb was not far off from the tower where I had been forced to kill the Khajit, and it took me only a few minutes to make it to the Barrow.

Outside the entrance to the barrow, there were huge carved stones decorated with archaic yet beautiful art of dragons and the men that had long ago worshiped them. Fires from their maws danced across the stone and scorched the earth. "Well, what do we have here?" I heard. I dove to my left and an arrow buried itself in the stone pillar I had been admiring just moments earlier. I pushed myself to my feet and drew my sword. I stared down my would-be murderer and unleashed a volley of firebolts. I rushed forward in the wake of the fire and my blade sliced through the neck of the Orc bandit. His green skin became slick and red with blood as my sword cut through his chest and erupted from his back in a fountain of blood and flesh. I pulled the sword from his chest when I heard a scream of rage, and turned my attention to the two bandits rushing towards me – the Orc hadn't been alone.

I deftly deflected the first incoming blow launched against me by a Nord woman with a mohawk, then delivered a single firebolt to her chest. The woman screamed in pain and struggled to put the flames on her body out while I dealt with her partner. The other bandit, an Argonian man, swung a huge, Dwarven-make ax at me. I sidestepped the incoming blow and jabbed my sword forward and through the reptile's throat. I pulled the sword out and continued with the motion until my blade fluidly arced through the neck of the Nord woman. The two bodies hit the ground almost simultaneously, and I returned my sword to its sheathe. I tore the bow and arrows from the grip of the first bandit then walked away from the triangle of dead bodies and into the barrow.

The tomb was a dank, disgusting place. As I walked slowly through the entrance room, I saw a skeever the size of my torso dead on the floor next to the bloody corpse of a bandit. "Ugh," I grunted to myself. I walked past the corpses for a moment until I heard two voices. Bandits. I pulled my new bow from my back and nocked the first arrow.

"... Arvel runs off with that golden claw?" one of the bandits asked.

"The dark elf wants to go on ahead, let him," the other bandit replied. "Better than us risking our necks."

"What if Arvel doesn't come back?" the first bandit asked, eliciting a harsh laugh from his partner.

I growled under my breath and ignored the rest of the conversation. Lucan and Camilla had been correct – the bandits had indeed come to Bleak-Falls. I lined the arrow up with the head of the closer bandit, then moved the top of the arrow so it was aimed slightly above his head. I took a single deep breath and, as the last of the air left my lungs, let the arrow go. The metal and wood flew through the air with a barely audible whistle and the string on the bow twanged musically. After an infinitesimally small span of time, the arrow collided with the bandit's head. He shrieked in pain for but a moment as the metal tip of the weapon burrowed through his temple and into his brain.

I swung the bow's drawstring around my shoulders and drew the sword at my hip. The surviving bandit turned towards me with a battle cry as his friend fell, dead, to the ground. The man and I rushed at each other, each prepared to deal a death blow to the other. The bandit swung first. I deflected the iron blade in the bandit's hand and kicked my leg out. My heel collided with the man's kneecap, and he screamed in pain as his leg bent in the wrong direction. I raised my sword and plunged it into the flesh between the man's clavicle and neck. He died almost instantly.

I resheathed my sword with a heavy sigh. "Gods, why did you curse me this way?" I asked. I stared up at the ceiling for a moment, waiting for an answer. "Must death and mayhem follow me like this?"

The wind rushed through holes in the walls, and a chill ran through my bones. If that was the answer of the Nine, it was not the one I had been hoping for. "Aye," I grumbled. I stepped over the bandits' bodies and continued through the silent tomb, accompanied only by the firelight that glowed warmly in my left hand and the snow that flew before me, dragged by the wind entering the tomb.

Eventually, I was walking down a flight of stairs and came upon a room with a bandit in it. I drew my blade and walked towards him as slowly as I could, hoping to keep the element of surprise. The bandit approached a lever on the ground in the center of the room. "Hm... what's this?" he asked absently as he pulled the lever. The man gasped in pain as darts flew at him from across the room and punctured his flesh. He fell to the ground, his body thrashing wildly against the stone. I watched in horror as the bandit's movements slowly stopped and a froth flowed slowly out of his mouth. I knew he must have been poisoned by the darts.

I put my sword back at my hip and walked into the room. The lever was set a few feet before a large, iron gate that barred advancement through the tomb. The snow carried by the wind drifted between the bars of the gate and continued through the tomb. I knew, in my heart, that I needed to follow it. I looked above the door, and saw two stones shaped like ancient faces. Carved into the open jaws – or beards, Nords are weird – were a snake and a whale. Between the two stone faces was rubble, as if another face had fallen. I glanced around the room for a moment and quickly saw the final face, another snake, lying on the ground beside me. "Snake, snake, whale," I muttered to myself. "But why?"

I looked around the room once again and caught sight of a trio of triangular, obsidian standing stones, each decorated with a different animal on the face pointing outward. Each stone sat atop a circle with a triangle indent pointing towards the outer face. I walked, instinctively, towards the three stones and frowned. "Eagle, whale, snake?" I asked myself, reading the stones right to left. I walked over to the eagle stone and looked around it – the other faces of the stone were decorated with a snake or a whale. I took the stone in my hands and grunted while I twisted the snake-adorned face into position before the triangle – an arrow! – and went on to do the same with the second stone. As I twisted the third stone into position, whale-face outward, I felt a sense of... everything being correct. I walked over to the lever and pulled it. I waited with bated breath for darts to fly into my body and kill me, but no such death came for me. The metal gate groaned as it was pulled from the floor and the doorway was open to me.

"So are you looking out for me, or just laughing?" I asked the Nine, combining sarcasm with actual thanks. The wind carrying the snow twirled jovially before rushing down the tomb. I sighed and followed what I increasingly believed to be the Divines' will.

The next few rooms were mostly empty and devoid of any life, save a few skeevers the size of small dogs. The rats were quick to fall to my blade and magick. "Help! Help!" My eyes widened at the noise and I sprinted ahead, barely noticing the spiderwebs that crisscrossed the stone beneath my feet. "Help, oh Divines help!"

I ran through a stone doorway and into a room where the walls were blanketed with feet of silky spiderweb. "Oh, thank the gods!" a dark elf shouted at me. He was stuck within the spiderweb, the silky substance crossing all around his body so he was suspended above the ground. "Kill it!"

I almost asked what it was – almost. Instead, there was a huge thud as a frostbite spider – larger even than the one Hadvar and I had dealt with at Helgen – descended from the ceiling on a spindle of webbing. I drew my sword fearfully. The beast was huge. I back-stepped a few feet as the monstrous creature landed on its hooked feet, each hitting the sound with chitinous clacks. I took a deep breath, and steeled myself for battle. I rushed towards the spider, who spat venomous projectiles towards me. I dodged each gooey splatter by the skin of my teeth. I unleashed a gout of orange flames at the spider, and the feet clacked backwards. The spider backed into the wall, every move accentuated by the fiery pain rushing through its body. I snarled as I continued rushing at the beast, and fell to my side. I slid beneath the arachnid and buried my blade in its underbelly; green goop gushed from the wound and onto my body as I continued sliding beneath the spider. I pulled the saber from the arachnid and stood up as quickly as possible as the spider crashed to the ground. I rubbed the spider-guts off of my face and spat some out, as well.

"You did it! You killed it! Now cut me down before anything else shows up!" the Elf said.

"Arvel?" I asked. The elf raised his eyebrow and nodded. I furrowed my brow. "Give me the claw first."

The elf flew into a rage, pulling at the webs. "Does it look like I can move!?" he screamed. His limbs pulled uselessly against the webbing. "You have to cut me down first!"

I narrowed my eyes. "But you will hand over the claw?" I asked. The elf nodded in response. I stared at him for a few more moments, unblinking. Finally: "Fine." I stalked over to the elf and began to saw through the webbing around him with my sword and with fire. Eventually, the bonds holding Arvel broke, and he fell to the ground. As I reached out to help him up, the elf shoved me and took off running.

"I knew I couldn't trust him!" I growled to myself. I shook my head and took off after the elf. "Damn – he's swift!"

I chased Arvel the Swift through the tomb, always staying a few steps behind. "Arvel, stop! There are traps!" I shouted. The elf laughed at that and ran through the next doorway and into the actual "tomb" part of the barrow. The air lit up with magicka. "No... Arvel, stop!"

"N – What in Oblivion!?" the elf screamed. There was a hissing, dry groan and the sound of steel burying itself in flesh. Arvel's voice breathed a death cry that mixed with the new dry voices and signaled the end of his life.

"Kren Sos Aal!" the dry voices hissed.

"Kren hin fent!" I shouted at the voices. I froze as the alien language escaped my lips. The creatures, however, did not freeze. The creatures, dead with hollow blue eyes and dry, gaunt skin, rushed towards me screaming their foreign, twisted words. I backpedaled in fear and fired bolts of magickal fire at the dead. The name Draugr came to mind staring at the monsters that approached. The first few died – again – from the fires after just a few moments. Eventually, there was only one more Draugr left walking. I bared my teeth and rushed forward, driving my blade through the chest of the creature. It gasped as the remains of its life – one that should long have fled to Aetherius – flew from its body.

"Ha... that wasn't too bad," I grumbled to no one in particular. I stalked over to Arvel's body and claimed the golden claw from his bag. I stared sadly down at the lifeless body. "Rest in peace."

I continued onward, stepping around the obvious trap in the floor. I knew that I could turn around, leave the barrow. But something called me onward – the snowy wind blew ahead of me still. The air seemed to hum with the quiet yet powerful words "Zahnir Bormah mok."

I shook off the feeling that I was hearing gibberish from the tomb around me, and continued through the rooms of weak and nearly dead Draugr. A few were a bit stronger than the first group I had encountered, but they were alone, luckily. Akatosh was looking out for me, I guess. Eventually, I came upon a large hall that ended in a door of which I had never seen an equal. I traced my hands in awe across the bear, owl, and butterfly carvings on the door in three concentric curves around a claw-shaped indent at the center of the door. I laughed lightly and excitedly as I pulled the golden claw from my pack and stuffed it into the door. I twisted the shimmering claw, trying to unlock the door, but the stone stood firm.

I growled in annoyance and took the claw from the door. I kicked the center and began to grumble to myself. I leaned against the door, placing my hand on one of the slabs above the keyhole. I jolted upright, full of surprise, as the slab I was leaning on... turned. I stared at the slab, which had changed from butterfly to bear. I widened my eyes and toyed with the three slabs until I was sure it was another animal puzzle. I looked around the room, running up and down the hall looking for a clue. "By the Nine!" I cursed to myself. I took the golden claw from my pack and began to toy with the combinations on the door. Twenty-seven attempts later, I was done. "Finally!" I grumbled as the door before me slid into the floor. I turned the claw in my hands around to shout at it. "You stupid – The answer was on the palm of the claw the entire time. Great." I growled at my stupidity and slid the claw back into my pack.

I walked through the doorway and stopped suddenly. The air was filled with this... energy. My soul seemed to reach out of my body, mixing with and complementing the energy. Taking it in and growing from it. "What in Oblivion..?" I gasped as I found myself following the energy without any regard to what could be waiting for me. My feet stumbled across stone and up steps to a huge, semi-circular wall adorned with scratch marks. I stared at the marks, bemused by how familiar they looked. I walked into the curvature of the wall, and froze. One of the scratch marks – a word – was glowing in brilliant yellows, oranges, and reds. I stared at the energy that flew from the wall and to me – or perhaps from me and into the wall. With a curiosity that probably killed the Khajit, I walked towards the word with my hand outstretched.

"Fus..."

I clamped my eyes together and shook my head as the word rang through my head, so loud that I could not hear myself think. "Gods..." I groaned. My hands flew to my head and I hissed in... not pain, really. It was just so different, and I can't really describe the feeling.

"Dir volaan," a voice hissed behind me. I shook my head to clear my mind, and drew my sword. I turned to face the source of the voice, and my eyes met the hollow, glowing orbs of a Draugr. But this Draugr was different – the others I had fought were weak, almost laughably so. Power and intense hatred seemed to roll off the dead skin of the remnant in front of me. The undead man was so tall even I had to look up to see his face. A huge ax was clutched in his hands, glowing with a dull blue that hinted at the frost magicks laced through the metal. Armor that appeared to be the same color as the sunken flesh of the Draugr hung, rusted, from ribs that were too narrow for the metal.

I gulped down the fear in my throat and raised my blade meekly. The undead creature seemed to stare at me in disgust, for a moment, then slashed its weapon at my head. I yelped and ducked beneath the blow, rolling until I was behind my foe. I came to my feet just in time to receive a dull punch to my gut from the handle of the ax. I stumbled backwards, clutching at my midsection. I regained my focus, and launched a fire bolt at the Draugr, who shrugged the blow off as if I had hit him with a fly. He advanced towards me, slowly and cruelly. He dragged the blade of the ax on the ground behind him, causing a fountain of sparks to erupt behind him. "A bit dramatic, don't you think?" I mocked. The creature merely laughed in response, and struck at me again. I used the flat of my blade to shove his incoming ax blade away.

"FUS RO DAH!" the undead said. I immediately felt a pulse of magickal force collide with my entire body. I flew from the platform upon which I was being accosted and collided with a pillar of rock twenty feet away. I fell the remaining ten feet and grunted painfully. When I tried to stand up, I winced and fell back down – the fall had fractured some ribs, and probably some spine. I channeled magicka into my left hand and set myself to the task of healing myself before the Draugr made its way to me.

The Draugr, despite being dead, was surprisingly fast. He advanced towards me with what looked like sick satisfaction glinting in its blue eyes. As it got close enough to kill me, it raised the ax above its head. Fortunately, that was when the bones in my body reset. I screamed in rage and plunged my sword through the Draugr's exposed upper chest as quickly as I could. The undead man swayed in place, staring down at me intently with its blue, dead eyes. "Nox hi, Dovahkiin."

I panted heavily as the light in the Draugr's eyes fizzled out, and the monster's ax cluttered against the ground. His hands fell to his side, and his chin hit my blade coming out of his chest. I breathed heavily for a few more moments, then kicked the creature off of my sword. I took a few steps towards an exit I could see above the wall, then stopped. I turned around and walked towards the Draugr's dead body, which was surrounded by a cyclone of snowy winds. I collected the twice-dead monster's ax and slung it over my shoulder for future disenchantment. I looked down at the Draugr's twice-dead body and collected a small pouch of gold from its hip. As I took the pouch from its belt, my eyes fell on a heavy stone at its side. I felt something... calling me to it. I reached out slowly and grabbed the stone and... nothing happened. "Maybe it's worth something," I grumbled to myself as I placed it into my pouch.

Gods, I had no idea.