Chapter 3: Fort Chalman

"Gods damn it! Don't leave me behind!" Valbanill yelled. Clare could hear Valbanill's voice close behind her. It was good the necromancer hadn't fallen too far behind, or it would be the end of him. She wouldn't be able to turn around and bail him out if he got caught now.

Clare Sadlygrove's eight legs skittered over the grassy plains as fast as they could and for a very good reason. The Scorpion Daedra and her necromancer companion were on the run from herd of Minotaurs.

"Why don't you summon up some skeletons to distract them?" Clare countered.

"I already did! You're supposed to be an unstoppable scorpion woman. Why don't you quit running like a stunted scamp and fight?"

"I can't fight twenty Minotaurs at once!" Clare snapped.

"This wouldn't have happened if you hadn't stopped to pick the flowers!" Valbanill complained.

"Hey, I was gonna eat those flowers!"

Up ahead was an old Fort. Decay had set in from what looked to be generations of disuse. Clare had no idea as to its name but it certainly wasn't relevant at the moment. As far as she cared it looked as good as home at the moment. The grassy hills leading up to the Fort slowed both the pursued and the pursuers, and they passing by more flowers Clare would have liked to eat. Her scorpion legs clacked on the old stairs leading to the Fort. Stairs that had been slowly being eaten away by nature and the passage of time.

Clare spared a quick glance back, seeing White-Gold Tower getting smaller and smaller in the distance. They were going the wrong way; that much she was aware. Though the quest to deliver the Amulet of Kings was about to come to an abrupt end if they couldn't do something about the herd of Minotaurs that followed close behind.

Clare got through archway leading into the Fort, Valbanill so close behind he could have grabbed onto her tail. There were four massive pillars propping up several upper levels of the Fort and Clare noticed two stairways on opposite sides. For a split-second she considered dashing for the stairs and making for the high ground. But her six eyes quickly focused with deadly precision on the old wooden doors directly ahead of her.

The Scorpion Daedra kept up her high speed and bolted through the old wooden doors to interior of the Fort. Once inside, she finally ground to a halt, and just in time—she had nearly fallen down a flight of stairs. She turned around just in time for her Breton companion to smash right into her. Valbanill got past her outstretched claws and smashed right up against her stomach. She pushed him back first with her human arms, and then pushed him further back with her claws.

"Why are we stopping?" he demanded.

Clare looked back out towards the entrance to the Fort. "To fight them in a narrow space, so they all can't attack us at once. If we were going to fight."

"If? Are you mad? We're fucked! We're fucked! How can this be the end of our story already? We just got started! No grand finale, no love story, no dramatic death saving Mundus from Oblivion in some final battle, just dying at the meaty hands of some smelly bull-men. It's bullshit!" Valbanill took noticed of a small smile that formed on Clare's face. The necromancer turned around and followed her gaze. And then he had noticed what the Scorpion Daedra saw.

The Minotaurs had stopped at the entrance to the Fort. They would not put one hoof inside. They grunted and snorted but did not make a move to advance any further.

"They're not f-following," Valbanill drunkenly stated the obvious.

"They won't enter this place."

"What do w-we do now?" Valbanill looked back towards the Scorpion Daedra but then quickly turned back to keep his eyes on the Minotaurs in case they started advancing again.

"I guess we're stuck, for the moment. They'll either gather up their courage and follow us in, or we'll have to wait until they leave."

"Well, that's just great…" Valbanill started to slur for a second, his mind taking a momentary break, but then he seemed to put himself back together. "I might try shooting some ranged spells at them."

"That might entice them to follow us in here," Clare stated.

Valbanill groaned. "Might work. I thought we were just going to keep running. There may be something in this old Fort that is strong enough to kill the likes of them."

"Something is in here," Clare said with confidence. "Something that spooks them. Or they would have kept charging."

"What a comforting thought," Valbanill said. "We've traded one challenge for another. Oh joy." He burped.

An adventurous idea jolted Clare's thoughts. She looked over at the necromancer. "Wanna go explore the Fort?"

"Are you mad, woman? You wanna go find what creeps out the herd of Minotaurs? D-d-do you have a death wish?"

Clare shrugged her shoulders. "What else are we going to do? Have a staring context with them until the sun goes down?" She motioned back over towards the Minotaurs glaring at them from the entrance. "And if we go inside, they might decide to leave after a while."

Valbanill simply grumbled and mumbled to himself. Clare couldn't quite make it out.

"There might be some booze stored away in some chests lying around the Fort," Clare suggested.

"B-booze! Alright, you won me over, Sadlygrove."

Clare chuckled. "Apparently, that's not hard to do." Clare guessed all she had to do was mention liquid intoxicants and she could get the necromancer to do nearly anything. Such a companion could prove useful and entertaining.

"Right. Hey! Screw you, ya fuckin' smelly heifers!" Valbanill yelled at the Minotaurs and then the Breton grabbed the loop-style door pulls and closed the wooden doors shut.

A near total gloom enveloped them as soon as the doors closed as if day were suddenly purged and night was summoned by a magical spell. It took Clare's six eyes a few seconds to adjust to the darkness.

Clare took the lead down flight of stairs. She reached the landing that was covered in cracked and destroyed tiles. Two fire bowls embedded in the wall fixtures were home to some sizzling blue flames, giving a lazy blue/green mist that provided the only light in which they could see. It hung in the air like the shadow of a poisonous mist, almost looking like a warning to any who dared enter that the Fort was home to redolent ghosts and horrific memories of the past that were better left undisturbed. It was magical fire, designed to provide lighting for a very long time, which was certainly the case since the silent flames were still burning.

Clare couldn't help but notice the Fort wasn't even in any better condition than Vilverin had been, though the latter was considerably older.

"Minotaurs suck," Clare said. She was a tad embarrassed. She could have easily taken on a Minotaur, even two or three. But fighting a whole herd at once was beyond stupid. Still, she didn't like having to run from a fight. It was not something she was used to doing. She was used to having her enemies run from her, not the other way around.

"At least it wasn't a clutch of angry chickens."

"You've been chased by chickens?"

"Who hasn't? Such hateful birds."

"Well fuck all else." Clare couldn't help but let out a small laugh. The thought of Jakrelkill Valbanill being chased around by a swarm of irate chickens made her heart feel all warm and fuzzy.

Clare wondered how Valbanill could have even gotten in such a situation as she descended another flight of stairs. She could hear the necromancer's irregular footsteps behind her. She remembered that he was not exactly an avatar of stealth, and him being tipsy wasn't going to help things. But Clare remembered that he always seemed to be a little tipsy. They were not going to be sneaking up on whatever inhabited this Fort. But after taking a right down the hall, Clare considered that maybe they didn't need to be stealthy.

She was faced with a rat. The vile rodent instantly took notice of her and mindlessly attacked, as if some unseen force were compelling the creature to throw its life away. Clare killed it with a single swipe of her claws. Valbanill was barely even able to register that a rat was there in the time it took Clare to dispatch it.

"Ah, this is what must have scarred the Minotaurs away," Clare suggested in a snarky tone.

"I'm sure it was. You just defeated the Lord of the Fort. King Rattata, of the Rat People, bane of the Minotaurs. Now we can go on and safely loot his kingdom, by which I mean get the booze lying around," Valbanill said with false hope. Both Valbanill and Clare knew the truth; it was not going to be this easy. Something else was in here. The Minotaurs were not scared for nothing.

Large spider webs hung around the stone walls. There were more burning blue flames nestled in fire bowls to provide them with more weak illumination as they continued further in. They took a flight of stairs down, and were led down a hallway.

The hallway led them to a short bridge.

"See anything?" Valbanill quietly asked as they crossed.

"You're asking me?"

"Who else is here, Sadlygrove? I swear, sometimes I worry about you."

"I meant why don't you cast your sight spell like you did before, sometimes I worry about you, Valbanill."

"Okay, you got me, I'm being a lazy ass."

"Either that or you're so drunk you can't recall what spells you know."

"That too."

Clare wondered if Valbanill was being serious or not. If he really couldn't remember all the spells at his command, it certainly wouldn't be a surprise to her. After reaching the end of the bridge, Clare found a narrow stairway on her the left. The stairs were simply too narrow to allow her proper access, though she would have no problem simply scaling down the wall with her scorpion legs. But Clare paused before she began her ascent. She caught sight of a threat down on the lower level below.

"A skeleton," Clare said softly to Valbanill.

The Scorpion Daedra had not spoken softly enough, apparently. The skeleton archer turned around and notched an arrow.

"It sees us!" Clare warned as she crawled down the side of the wall at speed, barely avoiding the arrow that was sent flying her way.

The skeleton archer was quick to send another arrow flying, this time towards the necromancer.

"Why don't you go over and make friends?" Clare asked.

"What happened to our plan of murder and violence? We were gonna massacre whatever was in here!" Valbanill protested.

"Not if we don't have to!"

"You're just afraid of getting another arrow in the throat." A third arrow nearly connected with Valbanill's right arm.

Clare charged the skeleton, seized it in her large black scorpion claws, and smashed the undead archer until the broke against the ground.

"Am not," Clare looked over at her companion in the dark. "I've got my special little healer right here. Not too worried about the arrows."

She looked around for any more opponents and found none. So far so good. Clare skittered forward to an archway that led to the right, up a set of stairs to a dead end that terminated with a stone coffin. There was an old wooden chest off to the side of the coffin.

"Find anything?" Valbanill asked.

"A chest." Clare tried to open it, but found it to be locked. "It's locked though. You're good with this sort of thing, right?"

"And you can't just b-break the thing open?"

"And risk shattered the bottles of booze inside? Okay… if that's the risk you want to take…"

"H-hey, wait up now. I'll handle it."

Clare smirked as she moved over a bit to give the necromancer room to get past her. It was easy to get him to do what she wanted. She had brought up a completely valid point though. Her usual method of opening locked chests did often result in broken contents. And Clare was being careful, she did not want to lose any potential boon she might gain. They still didn't know if they would have to end up fighting the Minotaurs waiting outside or not.

The Scorpion Daedra was expecting the Breton to work his lockpick magic, but instead, he used his magicka. He hit the chest with a spell and it was enveloped in a white glow for a short moment. He opened up the chest and reached in.

"Just some gold," Valbanill sounded disappointed.

"I was hoping for something we might use against the Minotaurs."

"Maybe it'll help. Maybe we can bribe them to leave us alone," Valbanill offered jokingly.

"I think we'd need more gold than that to bribe Minotaurs."

"Nah, there's dumb. They'd take this and be happy with it just because it's nice and shiny." Valbanill pocketed the gold.

With nowhere else to go, they turned back around to the narrow staircase, where they noticed another doorway on the opposite end of the room. They went through, wary of the possibility of more skeletons. Where there was one, there was always more, though not in the particularly short hallway they traversed. At end of the short hall, they came across two stone coffins and another chest. Clare tried it and found that unlike the previous one, this chest was unlocked. But like the previous one, this chest also held nothing more than a few bits of gold. Clare idly scratched at her short hair for a second while Valbanill collected the few meager coins. This was not the treasure hunt either of them was hoping for.

"I was hoping we might find a few weapons," Clare admitted.

"Bah," Valbanill snorted. "You're all the weapon we need."

"Wow, Valbanill. You sure know how to sweet-talk a girl."

"N-now, what we really need is t-to find some b-b-booze."

Clare shook her head in mock contempt. "Such a way with words. Stumbling over them with such drunken elegance."

From the two stone coffins, they took a right through a short hall leading to a bridge. Valbanill had taken the lead, Clare wasn't sure why he decided to bolt ahead of her, or rather she did know. He was getting anxious to actually find some alcohol lying around. Clare had tried to stay out in front in case they were confronted with a serious fight, but she was sure Valbanill could take care of himself.

She was instantly proven wrong. One moment Valbanill was walking over the bridge and a split second later a swinging mace on a chain knocked him right off to the lower level. She noticed that the necromancer had stepped on a pressure plate on the bridge.

Clare looked down. "Valbanill. You alright?"

"What do you think?" He griped.

"I'm gonna say no." Trying to peer down at him in the near-darkness, she quickly noticed that he was not alone. The shadows she thought were playing tricks with her eyes had come alive with movement. There were several skeletons down on the level where Valbanill had fallen!

"Valbanill! Get up! Skeletons!" Clare quickly skittered down the side of the wall to help him.

Clare didn't even think; she didn't have time to. Her razor claws did what came natural. The Scorpion Daedra started tearing into the skeletons. The large room echoed with the creaking and shrieking of the undead warriors. Clare couldn't tell how many there were, the first three were easy prey, but then a pair of skeleton guardians protecting themselves with steel shields slowed her combat spree.

There was a large central pillar in the room, no doubt hiding more skeletons on the other side. And there were more, though the one that rounded the side of the pillar from the left was much more powerful than what Clare was currently dealing with.

"Watch out!" Valbanill warned, the necromancer had gotten back up and was finally helping Clare fight.

"What do you think I'm doing?"

"That skeleton coming in, it's a berserker!"

Still trying to finish off a skeleton guardian, Clare spared a glance at the approaching opponent. It was a large Orc skeleton. "How can you tell it's a berserker?"

"T-that it's dual-wielding a warhammer and a battle-axe kinda gives it away."

And then the berserker was upon her. It smashed at one of her claws with a rusted iron warhammer. The blow hurt, a lot. Clare could feel the strength of the skeleton berserker from that blow, and it was much stronger than it had any right to be. Clare hit back with even great force, stagger the Orc skeleton back a step. She tried to strike again and found herself hit from the side by another skeleton.

"O-h shit… Sadlygrove, we've got a p-problem."

"As if I didn't already know." Clare heard several lightning spells go off. Valbanill must have finally decided to get serious.

"On your right!" Valbanill yelled. "Move!"

Clare did what Valbanill said without thinking, and a second later a large skeleton whizzed by her. It smashed into the stone wall, cracking it. Turning around, Clare saw that it was a Minotaur skeleton.

"Could this get any worse?" Clare mumbled. She was beginning to understand why the Minotaurs had refused to enter the Fort. The place was a deathtrap.

The Minotaur skeleton charged again, this time crashing straight into Clare. The force of the blow nearly sent her tumbling on her back, but she managed the grab onto the skeleton's mangled horns with her claws and she jerked the undead Minotaur to the side. The bony adversary tried to free itself, but Clare's scorpion claws maintained a death grip. The both shook and rattled each other; Clare tried to rip off the skeleton's head and the Minotaur trying to free itself.

There was a sudden flash of violent, freezing mist. Clare saw that Valbanill had cast a frost spell on the Minotaur skeleton. Its movements had slowed and its strength had weakened. Clare gave one more powerful jerk and was able to snap the frosted skeleton's head off in one ragged break.

The skeleton berserker attacked again. Occupied with the berserker, Clare still managed to see something out of her periphery vision. A large shadow had fallen and she heard Valbanill yelp. Something had fallen on him; that was for sure.

The berserker struck with its ebony battle-axe, the blade broke through Clare's armored shell and became deeply embedded in her claw. Clare howled in pain as the skeleton tried to remove its weapon for another strike, instead the axe broke at the handle, leaving the blade stuck in the Scorpion Daedra's claw. The skeleton struck instead with its iron warhammer, hitting Clare's other claw so hard that the head of the hammer broke off and went flying.

Fueled by pain and rage Clare was able to catch the skeleton berserker in one of her claws and she dragged it down to the floor. She tried to remove its head but the skeleton moved and instead she struck it in the shoulder. Another thrust of her claw and she caught the berserker square in the skull and with her immense strength she cut the skull in half. The rest of the bony body hung limp, completely dead without the head intact.

Running on nothing left but pure pain and adrenalin, Clare saw that there were still a few skeletons left. Though the sounds of Valbanill struggling caused Clare to notice just what had fallen from the ceiling—and it was one of the last things she expected to see: the skeleton of a Scorpion Daedra.

Clare swore under her breath. Reanimated skeletal remains of Daedra were dangerous, and Scorpion Daedra skeletons were particular powerful. And this one had Valbanill struggling in its claws. The spindly little necromancer could be cut in half any moment. Clare hissed and charged with all the strength she had left.

Valbanill and the skeleton Scorpion Daedra lit up in a flash rainbow of colors so bright it nearly blinded Clare. The skeleton dropped the necromancer and Clare was able to make sense of what had happened. She wasn't sure how, but the Breton had been able to cast a litany of spells in quick succession. Clare had no idea how he had been able to do it so fast. He clearly cast several on himself and unleashed multiple touch-based attacks on the skeleton while it had him in its claws. The Scorpion Daedra skeleton was howling in rage and frustration. Clare tackled it head-on.

The two scorpions locked claws, skittering around the central pillar in the room in a deadly dance. There was an unbearable amount of pain in her claw that still had part of the ebony axe stuck in it. Clare couldn't concentrate; all she could do was hold the lock with the skeleton's claws and struggle back and forth. The strength behind her opponent was ridiculous. With the pain shooting through her claw and exhaustion setting in, Clare knew she wasn't going to last much longer. Nor was she sure she could beat the skeleton in a contest of strength. They were too evenly matched.

A massive jolt of lightning struck the scorpion skeleton, Clare could feel the power of the attack as part of it transferred to her through their locked claws. She swore to herself Valbanill was going to pay for that later. More skeletons came shrieking, but instead of attacking Clare, they went after the skeletal Scorpion Daedra. Clare's opponent broke the lock to deal with its new adversaries.

Clare skittered back, struggling to catch her breath. She noticed Valbanill summoning his own skeleton minions all over the place, but the enemy skeletons were able to dispatch them as quickly as he summoned them.

The skeleton Daedra wasn't stupid; it clearly recognized Valbanill as the source of the hostile undead. Hissing, it clattered through the thralls of the skeletons and swiped at the Breton. It missed once and tried again. The second time proved to be a solid it, nearly knocking the slender man halfway across the room.

Valbanill landed near Clare, and the Scorpion Daedra came skittering over to him, picking him up with no regard for whether any part of him had been broken or not.

"Need some healing spells here, buddy!"

"Working on it." Valbanill grimaced and moved to put his hands on Clare in order to start up a spell.

She grabbed him and jerked him back out of the way just as scorpion skeleton grabbed for him. She backed up, keeping her companion away from the snapping bone claws.

Clare unknowingly and luckily ended up backing right through a doorway. Valbanill crawled around Clare until he was riding on her backside, away from the claws of the skeleton. Under normal circumstances Clare would have protested Valbanill being so familiar with her, but now was not the time. She was just thankful that he did have the good sense to get out of the way. Clare kept backing up through winding hallway, fighting off the skeleton Daedra the whole way. Valbanill kept casting healing spells on her, keeping Clare fighting, keeping her alive.

After what felt like an eternity, the hall finally emptied out. Clare nearly fell over as she started backed down a set of stairs.

"A little warning would be nice," Clare hissed back at Valbanill.

"Watch that first step."

"You're riding me, you watch. I have six eyes, but none of them are in the back of my head!"

The stairs led them down to a large hall, what felt to be the heart of the Fort. If anything else it seemed to be the heart of the undeads' lair, as there was a lich milling about that was now attentive to the appearance of the intruders.

The lich raised its gnarled wood staff and fired, hitting both Clare and Valbanill with a powerful lightning strike. The Breton fell off the Scorpion Daedra with a thud.

Valbanill rolled up to see that the living and the undead Scorpion Daedras were still fighting with one another. And the lich and several skeletons were shambling his way.

"The fight of the Era! Scorpion versus scorpion. Necromancer versus necromancer." Valbanill took notice of the uneven odds, and summoned a few skeletons of his own. "And skeletons versus skeletons!"

The two opposing forces clashed in a maelstrom of weapons and bones. Clare and the skeleton Scorpion Daedra were evenly matched for the moment. But Valbanill found himself at a disadvantage in terms of the spellcasting fight. The lich's magical staff was proving to be a formidable weapon.

"This would be so much easier if I had a weapon!" Valbanill complained. He had lost his iron war-axe much earlier in the confusion of the fight.

"Switch!" Clare yelled as she bolted from her opponent.

"What, are you insane, woman?" Valbanill protested. Fighting a lich unarmed was one thing; Clare just gave him a death sentence for them to swap opponents. The Breton tried anyway. He launched an ice spike right at the skeleton Scorpion Daedra's skull and hit his mark. The icicle spear stuck right through the skeleton's mouth.

"Yeah, suck on that!"

The skeleton snapped its jaw shut and broke the ice spike.

"Oooo! Don't bite it off, you witch! Bad form. Bad form."

Clare opted for pure brute strength. She tackled the lich and pinned it down to the floor. The lich used its staff to block, but Clare simple grabbed it in her claws and snapped it in half. In response the lich's hand began to glow red, flames starting to lap from its bony fingers. Clare knew it was a touch-based flame attack.

"What is it with necromancers trying to put their hands all over me? I seem to be attracting a certain kind of man." Her claws pushed the burning hands away and went straight for the neck. A sharp pain jolted through her claws with the axe still in it as Clare decapitated the lich.

The Scorpion Daedra skeleton had been coated in a fine layer of frost from Valbanill's latest magical attack. It was moving much slower now.

"H-hey, Clare!" Valbanill hiccupped. "E-easy target! Come do what you do best!"

Clare charged at the scorpion skeleton with the last bit of remaining energy she had left. The skeleton broke apart as she tackled it. The charge ended with Clare slumping to the ground.

She lay there, listening to the sounds of battle as the Fort's remaining normal skeletons fought with Valbanill's summoned thralls. It didn't take long before the clanging of axes fell silent.

Valbanill walked over to the form of the exhausted Scorpion Daedra. "N-n-never-ever, errr…" he trialed off, unable to form the sentence he had started. He opted to abandon it and start a whole new one. "You break stuff really good."

"Words every girl dreams of hearing. Mind hitting me with a few more healing spells?"

Valbanill went about playfully tussling her short hair. She could feel the healing spell emanating from his hands.

"Wow, you sure get hurt a lot. Either that, or you're making up excuses for me to touch you." Valbanill went around to Clare's claw that still had part of the ebony battle-axe still embedded in it.

"That's why I keep you around."

"The healing or the touching?"

"Take a wild guess, Valbanill."

"Right, well, you're not gonna like it when I touch you this t-time."

"Implying I liked it before?"

"Compared to this, y-yeah. That axe has to come out. This is gonna—"

"Hurt, yes, I know. Stop talking and just get it over with."

"I'll hit you with a healing spell as soon as it's out." Valbanill got a grip and started to pull, but the axe refused to budge.

"Fuck," Clare grunted through clenched teeth.

Valbanill kept pulling. "Damn, scorpion girl, you can take a hit."

"As long as it's not an arrow in the throat." Clare winced as Valbanill pulled again.

"Stop! Stop, stop, stop," Clare groaned. "It hurts, okay?" She huffed several times and pulled her claw away from the Breton. "Gods damn it, you're weak."

"Well, I'm not the one with an axe stuck in me."

"Keep being a pain in my claw and you'll have one stuck in you in a moment."

"Blah, blah, blah."

The axe hurt so much Clare struggled to fight back tears.

"Alright, let's not be dumb about this." Valbanill summoned several skeletons. "I'll stick to m-my strengths."

"Getting your skeletons to do it for you?" Clare managed to chide the necromancer.

"Exactly."

Clare was a little surprised when most of the skeletons grabbed on to her, keeping her bolted in place. Three of the others put their bony hands on the axe, ready to pull it out of her claw.

"Okay, boys," Valbanill said. "Ready, Clare?"

"No."

"I'll take that as a 'yes.' 'Cause you'll never be ready for something like this. On three. One, two… uh, what comes after two?"

"Three," Clare said and suddenly she let out a sharp yelp as the skeletons pulled the axe-blade came out.

"See? That wasn't so bad. Now let Dr. Valbanill fix you up." The Breton went over and laid his hands on her injured claw. Clare felt a massive wave of healing power consumer her appendage. It was much stronger than the healing spells she had felt before. It almost hurt, as if Clare needed to be in any more pain. The sharp, nearly painful tingling sensation started to subside and Clare almost wished it hadn't, for now she was struck by the feeling of her claw mending and closing up. It was such an odd experience, and Clare didn't like it at all.

Finally, Valbanill stopped the healing spell. "See, good as new."

Clare tested her claw out, opening and closing it several times. It was sore beyond belief, but it was healed. She moved it closer and felt along it with her hand. There wasn't a crack or scar to be found. Valbanill had completely restored it.

"I knew there was a reason I kept you around," Clare managed to grin.

"I'm g-good for more than just healing spells, you know."

Clare tried to deliver a snarky response, only to find her muscles failing her. She started to lazily lean forward.

"Hey, whoa there." Valbanill awkwardly tried to catch her, not out of chivalry but simply because he was right there in her way.

The Scorpion Daedra weighed too much and she collapsed right on top of the necromancer.

"Uh… hey, Clare? You mind, I dunno, getting off me?"

The Breton only got the light sound of snoring as a reply.


Clare shifted, her body and mind finally beginning to wake. Clare felt like she had been coasting along as if she had been in a dream all her life. And the trials of the past few days had suddenly brought her to life.

Clare's eyes opened to the sight of Valbanill's.

"Morning, sleepy six-eyes. You mind not crushing me anymore?"

"Sorry." Clare got up off of him. "I was a bit tired."

"No shit. I cast several fatigue restoring spells on you and they did nothing."

"Sometimes a girl just needs her beauty sleep." Clare craned her neck from side to side, hearing a satisfying snap. "Looks like there's another reason to keep you around. You make a good pillow. Funny you went with restoration spells. I've of thought you would just summon some skeletons to pull me off you."

"Guess I didn't think of that."

"I don't believe that for a second. Skeletons are your answer for everything." Clare checked to make sure that she still had the Amulet of Kings with her. "Don't tell me you have some weird fetish where you like getting crushed by a pretty girl."

"I had no complaints about having your breasts pressing against me the whole time."

Clare couldn't help but let out a giggle. "These little things? Are you sure you that wasn't the Amulet of Kings you felt?"

"No, it was definitely your breasts. It was very noticeable."

Try as she might, Clare just couldn't suppress a smile. "You're easy to please."

"I am not. I have very high standards, I'll have you know."

"Oh, I'm sure all a woman would need to do is hold a bottle of booze and you'd roll over like a dog."

"Ouch, Clare."

"Hey, the truth hurts. And so do ebony battle-axes."

"Yeah, speaking about that…" Valbanill went over and picked up what remained of the ebony weapon and tossed it back to the ground. And then went over and examined what was left of the lich's broken staff. "If you could stop breaking every descent weapon we come across, I might just find something worth using in a fight."

"So sorry, I was too busy saving our skins to worry about our enemies weapons."

"You worry about them alright, worry if there's enough time to break them before I can claim them." Valbanill started searching around the large hall.

"Either way, it shouldn't matter. I don't expect to be fighting grandiose battles every step of the way to Chorrol."

"That wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. We'd be able to loot any corpses we make along the way. We are low on supplies."

Clare noticed that Valbanill didn't have that slur in his speech that he usually had. Was he, sober? She wondered how long she was passed out on top of him.

"Speaking of supplies…" Valbanill found a locked chest and cast one of his Alteration spells on it. He opened it up and peered inside. "Awww, no booze."

As Valbanill sauntered off, Clare moved towards the chest. "What is in there?"

"Not booze," the alcoholic necromancer said.

"Are you actually sober right now?"

"Dangerously close, I think. You wouldn't like me when I'm sober."

"Implying I like you at all?" Clare jabbed.

"You do keep me around, and let me touch you. Must be something there."

Clare looked inside the chest and pulled its contents out.

"Yeah, a map. And a compass."

Valbanill's searching revealed three unlocked chests scattered about the hall. The first two contained tiny bits of gold, but the third elicited a cheer from the necromancer.

"What is it? Wait, lemme guess. It's something you can drink, right?" Clare skittered over to Valbanill.

"Not just any kind of drink." Valbanill turned to the Scorpion Daedra and presented his find. "Shadowbanish Wine."

"I've heard of that. That's the wine that makes you see in the dark, right?"

"And it tastes incredible! There were barely any of these made. I can't believe we found two whole bottles! This whole miserable adventure is worth it just for this!"

"And saving all of Tamriel is just a little bonus I guess."

Valbanill suddenly took notice of the map and compass Clare was holding. She noticed that his eyes had suddenly become very focused.

"What?" Clare asked, confused. "Don't tell me you wanna trade items."

"Actually, lemme see that…" Clare thought it was the end of the world. Valbanill had just given her the two bottles of Shadowbanish Wine to hold while he took the map and compass.

After a few moments of studying the old parchment, his eyes lit up.

"What is it?" Clare asked. The curiosity was killing her. What on that map had gotten his attention that he abandoned the wine? It had looked just like a plain old map of Cyrodiil to her.

"This is more rare than the wine. This is a magical map and compass."

Clare tilted her head. "What kind of magic would a map have?" She moved in and peered at it.

Valbanill muttered a few things to himself. Then the paper lit up in a pale light for a moment. "There," Valbanill said. "I think I started it back up."

"Started what back up?" Clare asked.

"The map. The compass should work just fine."

"How can you tell?"

"Lemme test it."

"How?"

"Let's leave the Fort." He pointed to a part of the map. "See here? This is around where we should be right now, east of the Imperial City. Remember what this looks like."

"Okay…"

They left through the winding halls through which they first came, encountering no further skeletons or other hostiles.

Pushing past the large wooden doors, Clare walked out into the sunlight. She realized they must have spent the entire night in the Fort. She looked around, sniffed at the air. The Minotaurs seemed to have left, though she couldn't be for certain until they actually left the Fort entirely. She hoped they had gone. It would be annoying that after all their fighting in the Fort, that they might end up still having to fight their way through the Minotaurs.

"Look at this," Valbanill beckoned to her.

"Hmm?" Clare looked at the part of the map he was pointing at. There looked to be a tiny little icon of a Fort where before there had been nothing.

"Touch it."

"Usually you like to do the touching." She touched the little representation of the Fort anyway and a name popped up above it. Fort Chalman. She removed her finger, and the text faded away. She put her finger back and it returned.

"Amazing," Clare said with genuine wonderment. "Could this thing map out all of Cyrodiil?"

"It should be able to. Any place we travel to with this map should get marked."

"Wait, then why's it so blank? It just has Fort Chalman, where we are, and the major cities. Shouldn't it have all the places the previous owner went to?"

"Someone must have reset it with a special spell. Didn't want others knowing where they had been. Doubt it matters now though. The map's ours now and whoever used to have it is long gone. We should celebrate our good fortune with a drink." Valbanill reached for the bottles Clare was holding.

She pulled them back out of his reach. "Don't drink and work. You might spill your work. I don't want you spilling and staining our nice, new magical map."

"Me? Waste a drop of Shadowbanish Wine? I'm insulted. And that thing is not new; it's ancient. It's tougher than it looks."

"Still, I think we should save the magical wine in case we need it later."

Valbanill scoffed. "I can cast Night-Eye on myself whenever I need to."

"But I can't. Besides, it'll taste even better if we save it for a special occasion."

"Who knows when that will happen? Why do women have to try and make everything 'special?' And what's this 'we' stuff? I'm gonna drink it all. I found it, it's mine."

Clare put on the best pouty face she could. "Aw, you're not gonna share it with a pretty girl? You really are a jerk, Valbanill."

The necromancer sighed. "Fine. I'll share. How could I say no to that face? With six-eyes, and fangs. The face of a woman who could rip me in two."

"There you go. You're not as dumb as you look."

"You've got a mean streak to you, Sadlygrove."

"Just with you, Valbanill."

"I need a drink."

"Not the special stuff."

"I know, I know." Valbanill went about looking for anything of value lying around the Fort. He went up the stairs to the upper levels, and Clare followed.

"I didn't show you everything the map can do," Valbanill changed the subject as they looked around. "The compass is magical too. They work as a set."

"Show me."

"Okay, look here." Valbanill moved his finger over to Chorrol. "Our quest is to return the Amulet of Kings to Jauffre in Chorrol, right?"

"In Weynon Priory, right."

"Let me concentrate." Suddenly a slender red triangle appeared on the map, on the eastern side of Chorrol.

"What is that?"

"A waypoint," Valbanill explained. "With this map, if you focus closely enough, feel the objective you wish to complete, this map will guide you to where you need to go."

"Wow, this map… almost makes things too easy."

"It gets easier," Valbanill said. "Look at the compass."

Clare noticed that there was now an identical red triangle on the compass. "The compass points to the corresponding location on the map. This will take us right to Jauffre. No doubt about it. Even a drunken idiot could do it."

Clare laughed. Things had gotten a whole lot easier now. And she couldn't help but wonder about the sheer power behind the map and the compass. Who had made such items, how many did they make? Such things Clare could only guess at.

"And it doesn't just work for a quest you want to complete," Valbanill continued. "You can set a separate waypoint. Say I want to go to Cheydinhal." He pointed to the city in the east. Suddenly a dark blue triangle appeared in the center of the city.

"How'd you get that one?" Clare asked.

"Just concentrate. Set your mind to it. Tell yourself and the map where you want to go. That waypoint in Cheydinhal is there because that is where I told myself where I want to go."

Clare looked over and studied the compass, the red and the blue waypoints pointing off in different directions.

"Wanna try it?" Valbanill offered.

"Okay."

"Where do you wanna go?"

"Kvatch." Clare focused and pointed at the map. The location of the blue triangle changed from Cheydinhal to Kvatch. "What an amazing set of magical items. I could get around just fine…" Clare trailed off for a moment. She realized with these items, she really didn't need Valbanill to show her the way to Chorrol anymore. But she did like having him around. And she was lonely enough as it was.

"I guess you could," the necromancer admitted.

"Don't worry, I'm not going to send you on your way. I still need someone to carry everything and cast healing spells on me. And speaking of carrying stuff…" Clare handed over the bottles of Shadowbanish Wine to Valbanill. "You can hold that stuff."

They came searching around the upper levels of Fort Chalman for a while and were rewarded with a few old bottles of Ale, which Valbanill and Clare both greedily gulped down. They also managed to find an old wooden chest filled with repair hammers.

"You look ridiculous trying to hold all those hammers," Clare observed Valbanill as he tried to take them all from the chest.

"T-these things are useful," Valbanill said. After the ales, his slight speech quirks were back.

"We don't even have any descent armor or weapons worth fixing. And I think that old ebony battle-axe is too forgone for a few repair hammers to fix it up."

"I'm not leaving them."

"This Fort has given us a lot already. And you won't leave the pile of hammers?"

"Nope."

Clare sighed in mock aggravation. "Here, let me do it." She simply picked up the entire chest and carried it in her claw. "You know, this is supposed to be your job."

Satisfied that they had gotten everything they could get out of Fort Chalman, they set off. There were no Minotaurs to be found as they left the security of the Fort and made their way back to the Red Ring Road.

Something had been gnawing at Clare. Something about Valbanill's Alteration spells. He had been opening up locked chests with ease. Something he had told her before didn't sit well with her.

"Back in the Imperial Prison, you said you used a lockpick to escape. I get the feeling you don't have the dexterity or hand-eye coordination for that. Even under pressure. And why would you even need to, what with your Alteration spells?"

"You caught me, I lied."

"You do that a lot."

"A-and apparently I'm not very good at i-it. I need to p-practice more."

"Why lie?" Clare asked. She was really curious. He didn't seem to gain anything by lying about something like that. But there was the possibility that Valbanill was simply a compulsive liar. That, or he was too drunk to know what reality was half the time.

"It's n-not wise to show your hand to strangers. They'll rig the card game against you-u."

"You could have broken out of your cell at any time. Why did you wait?"

"I couldn't fight my way through the Imperial Guard. I didn't know there was a secret passageway in the cell next to mine."

"Why did you beg me to let you out? You knew you could free yourself. You could have easily just followed me instead of pleading to me for help. You like destroying any semblance of dignity you might have?"

"Dignity is for royals and pompous asshats that never had to struggle to earn a living. I wanted to see what kind of person you were. When I freed myself I knew I would be following you through the passage. Maybe you'd be an obstacle to my freedom and maybe you wouldn't. You surprised me. I figured someone sentenced to the Imperial Prison would be scum."

"I was framed," Clare said.

"What was the charge?" Valbanill asked.

"Necrophilia… among other things…"

"Sorry I asked."

"I didn't do it."

"Okay."

"I'm serious."

"Okay." Valbanill laughed. "The necromancer and the necrophile. Want me to summon some zombies for you to make love to?"

"I'm not into that!" Clare snapped.

Valbanill continued to snigger. "Do you sleep around with the zombies a lot? Do you cheat on your undead lovers? I bet I know what they say to you when they catch you being unfaithful."

Clare growled, not really wanting to hear whatever snide joke he had concocted.

"You're dead to me!"

Clare tried to swat at the necromancer, but he danced away just in time. She had the magical map and compass, perhaps she really didn't need him or his healing spells along the way anymore. She just hoped he had no more zombie jokes.