They made their way out of the cave, and the scene that was laid out in front of them was beautiful.
Pure, white snow lay on the ground and the sun reflected off of it, causing a blinding light. Odd and exotic looking plants lined the barely visible stone path.
"Wow...This place is amazing..." Serana said, walking into the sunlight, Alrek nodded and walked ahead of her.
They encountered several frostbite spiders, eventually they came across their first shrine. A ghost appeared and rose the shrine, Alrek drew water from it then they carried on their way.
"What are those things?" Serana asked after awhile of walking, Alrek looked up to see odd looking huts made out of chitin. Alrek groaned.
"Falmer...I hate them..." Alrek said.
"Falmer? You mean snow elves?" She asked, Alrek nodded "Apparently they used to be snow elves, a race that retreated underground until they turned into...Well...Falmer..." He said.
Serana nodded, she almost felt bad for them, an entire race turned into monsters, no glory of their former selves remained.
Alrek pointed ahead. "Looks like we'll have to go through this glacier." He said, pointing at an opening. Serana nodded and they walked ahead.
The glacier was no trouble save for a couple of Falmer shooting arrows at them and magic.
They emerged out the other side where they found another shrine, Alrek drew water from that and they carried on their way.
The came upon a frozen lake the stretched for miles, a shiver ran down Alrek spine, he heard something. It was like chanting...
"Alrek? You okay?" Serana asked. He nodded "Yeah...Hang on..." Alrek went off the path and followed the chanting. He came upon what he expected to find, a word wall filled with dragon language.
"What...Is this thing?" Serana asked, Alrek approached it and place his hand on the glowing word, he felt the knowledge swarm into his mind, shortly after that the ice behind them exploded into a million shards as two dragons flew into the air.
"Great..." Alrek drew Dragonsbane off his back and charged after them, Serana followed him but Alrek stopped her. "I got this..." He said, Serana frowned. "Remember what I told you? I'll be fine..." She gave him a reassuring smile, Alrek nodded and sighed. He let go of her and together they charged the dragons.
One swooped down for a fly by, breathing an icy breath on Alrek, it barely affected him but he knocked him down, the other dragon came into the finish the job with its talons. But an icy spike in the neck caught it off guard and it turned its attention to its attacker, giving Alrek enough time to get up and grab a hold of its tail, he climbed up it and ran up its back. However, the other dragon came back and swooped him off of the second one.
It had him in it's claws and Alrek struggled to get free, he took Dragonsbane and shoved it into its leg, it let go of him but he was hanging on with the sword, he unsheated Dawnbreaker from his hip and used the two swords to climb up the dragon's leg and onto its back. There, he sheathed Dawnbreaker and used Dragonsbane to impale its head, the dragon came barreling back down towards the lake, he hopped off just in time and landed on the other dragons back, stabbing it its head, it fell to the ground roughly, cracking the ice a bit. The dragons began to burn up and Alrek absorbed their souls.
Serana approached him after.
"Well...Aren't you something..." She said, Alrek shrugged. "Just doing what I do best...Dragon slaying..." He said, breathing heavily and sheathing Dragonsbane back on his back.
They continued onward.
They had finally filled the basin all the way, and were now standing in front of the doors. Alrek dumped out the water into a bowl, where it drained and ran along grooves in the ground the door slowly opened and they made their way inside.
The inside of the Chantry was...eerie...Frozen Falmer and bugs all seemed to be in weird positions, as if they were in the middle of fighting but were frozen instantly. A flash freeze.
Serana approached one of them and stared at it.
"Be careful..." Alrek said, Serana chuckled,
"Their most likely dead, being frozen here for years..." She said with confidence, that confidence quickly faded, however, when the Falmer busted out of its icy prison and leapt at her, she screamed and shot an ice spike into its head, it fell to the ground dead.
"Okay...Maybe not all of them..." She said, Alrek chuckled and they continued onward.
They entered a throne room with several frozen Falmer all seemingly fleeing from the throne, and on top of the throne was a snow elf, bearing the same armor Gelebor wore icy spikes prevented any access to the Throne.
"Ah!...More pathetic travelers wandering aimlessly where they don't belong...I suppose my brother sent you here." The man who seemed to be Vyuthr turned his gaze towards Serana and smiled.
"Ah, and the daughter of the vampire lord, so happy to see you, how is daddy doing?" He said, this took Serana by surprise. "How could you possibly know about..." She was interrupted by Vyuthr.
"But enough chit chat. You're here for the bow aren't you? Well I'm not going to give it up so easily." As he said that, several frozen Falmer exploded out of their icy prison and charged them, Alrek and Serana made quick work of them.
"Ah! Persistent are we? Well have some more!" More Falmer charged them, they were of course no match for the two. Vythur grew more angry.
"How useless can these Falmer be! Attack!" Falmer burst from the door they came through and more came out of their icy stasis in the same throne room, they were quickly defeated.
Vyrthur grew more angry and the entire room rumbled, dust and tiny bits of rubble came from the ceiling. More Falmer attacked and with each wave they defeated the rumbling grew worse the more angry Vythur got.
"Bah! Enough of this! I'll bring this roof down on top of you if I have too!" Vythur yelled, and he did just that, a portion of the roof began to crumble, big pieces of rubble began to rain down on Serana, Alrek pushed her out of the way.
Alrek was instantly covered in rubble Serana ran to his aid.
"I'm fine! Go after him!" Alrek said, Serana was skeptical at first, but could tell he was serious. She ran after Vythur, who escaped through a newly formed hole in the back wall. She chased him out onto a balcony.
"Ah, well done Serana you caught me. Now how long until daddy catches you and uses you for that pathetic prophecy?" He said, Serana thought for a bit and put the pieces together, she grabbed him by his neck and raised him up.
"YOU! You created that prophecy! You ruined my entire family!" She said, but as she stared at him, she noticed his eyes were glowing.
"Wait...Your..."
Vythur chuckled. "Indeed I am! Such irony is it not?" He pushed her away with a shockwave, she grabbed her dagger and charged him, he knocked her aside with a slap, she rolled backwards and fired an ice spear at him, he threw up a ward and blocked it, he charged her with a elven dagger of his own. She dodged a slash and another stab. She side stepped to the side of him and jumped at him with her knife, he knocked her down again, this time with enough force to knock the wind out of her, she tried to recover but he picked her up by her hair and punched her, he grabbed her throat.
"So pathetic...The daughter of the Coldharbour can't defeat me...All I need now is your blood..." He took out a single Elven arrow and cut her wrist with it, tainting it with her blood.
"Now...The sun will be blotted out...And I will finally have my reve-" He was interuppted as a golden sword was shoved through his chest. He let go of Serana who fell to the ground coughing and gasping for air, Alrek pulled the sword out of him, Vyrthur fell to his knees, Alrek grabbed his head and bashed it several times on the stone railing, leaving a bloodied and broken nose. Alrek lifted him up and threw him off the balcony, where he screamed all the way down.
He turned to Serana.
"Are you okay?" He kneel'd down next to her and put his hand on her back. She nodded and turned to him and smiled.
"Yeah...Thanks..." She said, Alrek nodded and smiled back.
The shrine in the middle of the balcony rose up and Gelebor emerged from it. Alrek and Serana approached him.
"It appears you have killed my brother...I wish the Falmer did not do this to him...Maybe he would still be alive..." He said.
"Actually Vyrthur was a vampire...The Falmer had nothing to do with him." Serana said, Gelebor looked at her with a hint of hope in his eyes.
"Then...There may still be hope for The Falmer..." He said, he shook his head and smiled at them.
"As upon our agreement, I will give you the bow along with sunhallowed arrows...Use them wisely..."
A bow appear in the shrine he emerged from, along with several glowing arrows. Alrek grabbed the bow and the arrows and put them on his back.
"The portal there will take you back to Darkfall cave, Thank you once again..." Gelebor said. They bid their farewells and walked through the portal.
They emerged from Darkfall cave to be met by moonlight, Serana gave a sigh of relief as she pulled down her hood.
"Ah finally...No more sunlight..." She said as she began to walk forward, Alrek stopped her. She looked at him, curious.
"Show yourself" Alrek said aloud to no in particular, at least thats what she thought. Several men emerged from behind rocks and bushes. All armed to the teeth.
"Well, we expected nothing less from a wild dog such as yourself" One of them said, supposedly the leader, as he stepped forward.
"But I bet you didn't see this coming" As if on queue, arrows struck both her and Alrek, their joints locked and the fell forward, several more bandits they didn't see came up behind them and lifted them up onto their knees.
"Paralysis arrows, nasty stuff. Hard to make too." The man approached Serana and licked his lips then turned towards Alrek
"Do you know who we are?" He asked him. Alrek nodded.
"Your a bunch of cowards" Alrek said, The man laughed.
"Cowards? We're not the ones who slaughtered their own wife!" The man said, Alrek wanted to lurch forward, she could see it on his face.
"What do you want..." He said. The man stopped laughing and looked at him.
"You took one our best Skooma dealers in Skyrim, not to mention one amazing whore in bed, bet she never told you that did she? That she was a whore for us?" The man laughed again.
"And we need a replacement, you take something of ours, we take something of yours. Not to mention you killed a lot of my people in the last five years...That is unforgivable" The man shook his head as if disappointed.
"So we'll take this lovely lady of yours right here, and you'll be good to go! After all you do like traveling alone don't you?" The man said before laughing again. He gestured for bandits holding her to move out.
"Wait!"
The man turned towards Alrek.
"Take me...You think taking her away from me will stop me from hunting you down? Why not just avenge your people then..." He said. Serana shook her head. "Alrek don't"
Alrek turned towards her.
"Go save Skyrim by yourself"
The man looked between the two.
"I'm not sure what this whole talk about saving Skyrim is, but I like that idea, leave the girl, bring him." The men nodded and let go of her, she collapsed to the ground, she couldn't move and she hated it. Visions of the kidnapping before flashed through her mind and that burning sensation came back. She could only watch as Alrek was dragged away.
She began to cry...
I know, I completely destroyed the conversation with Vyrthur, once again I forgot how that shit went...But I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter