11th of Mid Year, 4E 416
Six years later...
Minette grimaces as she swipes at the thick cobwebs leading deeper into the cavern. Shaking her armored hand and kicking the ball of webs away with the toe of her boot.
"You know Sister, I love ruins, caves, pretty much anything dark and dank with the potential for treasure or beating something over the head but-" The deep voice grumbles from behind her as she raises her lantern and peers into the dark and mist.
"Shut up Farkas, you'll wake something we'll have to kill." She mutters, pushing deeper into the darkness.
"Least it'd relieve the boredom." He retorts as Minette's boot crunches something in the dirt, stooping she knocks the dirt off the page and holds it up to the lantern and then to her eyes.
"What's that?" Farkas peers over her shoulder.
"It's a letter, to someone named Raybeam- someplace called Highcross."
"Dumb name." She smirks at him then makes an odd face.
"-and may Sheogorath guard you."
"Weird." Farkas says, peering at the faded parchment.
"Yeah, weird." She folds it then tucks it into the satchel draped at her side, they continue deeper into the cavern.
"So how much further do you have, Sister?" He asks, looking around at the walls and ceiling of the cavern.
"It's about three days from this cave to Solitude. So another couple of months maybe and I will run out of places to search for her."
"I never saw myself taking my oath to my Shield Sister quite so seriously." Farkas says, taking the lantern and moving in front of her.
"She's worth it." Minette mutters, falling into step behind him.
The cave was barren as far as caves in this province went, some animal bones here and there but no predators, no Men and no Mer. It was cold and damp, it was quiet.
They take a side passage and the cave opens up into a cavern, little sunlight drifted in and in the beam of the sunlight, the trees had grown into a little grotto. The air was fresher and the flowers were blooming.
"Pretty." She says to herself as they hop over a small running stream and past the trees, Minette stops.
"What in-" Farkas begins but trails off.
The table was positioned in the sunlight. At the foot, almost as if it was an altar, were flowers and scrapped pages from journals, and in front of those was a skeleton.
Positioned on top of the table underneath a shimmering but clear case was Kyra.
Minette drops the lantern and hurries over pushing past the skeleton and banging on the case. Farkas looks around the grotto then picks up one of the pages.
"Kyra! Kyra, can you hear me?" Minette yells at the case, pounding her fist against it. Kyra was naked, her face contorted in horror, her eyes were glowing a white so bright that she didn't appear to have irises.
"Day fourteen. Another day, another failure, the mage we kidnapped has no idea how to release the woman from the enchantment-" Farkas reads from the page as Minette turns to him.
"Kidnapped?" She asks him, walking back down the three steps scooping another balled up piece of parchment and unraveling it.
"Day nineteen. The group decided to move on, we killed the mage and dragged his body into another section of the cave, where all the weird potion bottles are. We may be leaving but I am unsure if the beautiful woman in the glass case will ever leave my dreams." Minette reads aloud when she finishes, she looks from the note to Farkas, then back at the altar and the flowers.
"People have found her before." She muses thoughtfully to Farkas.
"Some leave flowers like—like a tribute." Farkas adds to her train of thought and Minette nods.
"Some left flowers and others tried to free her." She kneels examining the skeleton as the foot of the altar looking around it, tracing a gloved finger into the mountain of dust that surrounds it.
"But no one's ever disturbed this skeleton." She adds, looking up at Farkas who simply shrugs. She looks around, brow furrowed in thought.
"What is it, Sister?"
"Where's his clothes?" Farkas looks quizzical then raises his eyebrows.
"Because if no one's ever disturbed him..." He says, nodding in comprehension.
"He should still be wearing the clothes he died in." She finishes for him.
"So he stripped naked then just sat down to die? This cave is weird." He mutters under his breath.
"Spread out." Minette says, rising to her feet and walking around the altar staring at the ground, Farkas does the same in the opposite direction. They search through the underbrush, around the altar and moving out towards the way they came.
The base of one of the trees was covered in moss and mushrooms, Farkas kicks his boot through it and the strap of a moldy knapsack hooks onto his toe. Reaching down he gives it a yank shaking the dirt off it.
"Minette!" He calls out holding it up for her to see. Minette turns and hurries over, taking the pack from him.
Flipping the top open she turns it over and shakes out its content. Moldy clothes and potion bottles spill onto the ground, then a faded journal. Minette snatches the journal and flips the cover, hurrying to the last pages.
"My name is Earil. I am Tamriel's most powerful Chronomancer, and even I can't fight the ravages of time forever." She reads aloud, looking up at Farkas.
"Chronomancy...we need a mage." Farkas muses thoughtfully.
"A real mage." Minette adds, walking back over to Kyra's altar.
"Preferably one we didn't kidnap."
Minette stares down at Kyra and the looks of absolute terror, and something deeper something...darker.
"I'll make camp here, go to Winterhold. We need Mirabelle." Farkas nods, and takes off jogging out of the cave.
Minette rests her hand on the case.
"Don't worry Kyra, we found you."