The next room they happen upon is a torture room.
It's disgusting, frankly. There's blood splattered over every conceivable surface, dead people locked in iron cells, and an honest to god cage full of skulls suspended from the ceiling. If he wasn't so numbed to gore and the like he might have just hurled all over the floor. So hey, being dead inside did come with some perks. Who knew.
This is the first room they've come upon where a fight's already in progress. Two of Ralof's people(at least he figures they're together, they're wearing what seems to be the same uniform) are battling two more soldier-types, and an old man in robes and a cowl shooting purple lightning out of his hands. Desmond hangs back from the fight for a second and squints especially hard at the old man. He thought he saw- there.
A red bar appears in his top middle field of vision, and underneath is the word "Torturer" in little white letters. He sees the man get grazed by an arrow, and the red bar drops down a little. Dear god, it's a health bar. It's a goddamned health bar, and he can see it.
He's in a fucking video game whatthefuck-
The revelation is forestalled a bit when the old man, the torturer, sets his sights and his magical purple lightning on Desmond. He does his best to dodge, but he's still just barely out of the entryway and he takes the brunt of the spell. Suddenly he has a health bar, at the bottom of his vision, between a blue bar and a green one. Stamina and Magicka? They did match the respective potion colors.
He doesn't have long to ponder, as he takes another blast of lightning and sees his health bar drop dangerously low. He lurches forward, and in two short moves of his sword, flicks his blade across the man's throat. The Torturer collapses like a rag doll.
An accidental flick of his wrist has the world stopping. In the center of his vision is a four pointed compass type thing. The top point says skills, the left says magic, the right says items, and the bottom reads map. On a whim, he flicks his wrist to the right, towards items, which opens another menu. There's a drop down list of different categories. He flicks to potions and selects his last health potion.
It disappears from his inventory and he feels a tingly rush of sensation all over his body. It leaves a disgusting taste in his mouth, but his health bar jumps up significantly, so he'll grin and bear it. Two more flicks of his wrist closes the menu, and the world restarts again. Can he do that in the middle of a battle? That would be damned useful.
In the aftermath of the fight, Desmond gets introduced to Ralof's companions, a woman named Mika and a man named Hanjrr. He has no idea how they're in the keep,because the door was locked before them, but, as he eyes Mika's giant war axe, he's a little afraid to ask.
Ralof suddenly walks up and smacks some lockpicks into his hands. He points to one of the cages, which looks to hold a dead man wearing robes. "See if you can pick the lock, eh? There's gold in there we might need later." He gets the feeling Ralof isn't really asking, so he shrugs and drops to his knees in front of the lock. He gets it open a tad slow, about twelve seconds, and goes about collecting the gold and looting the cage. He misses the others speculative looks.
"Is that why you're here, then?" Hanjrr asks as Desmond stands, having collected about fifteen gold coins and a book with strange markings on the front. Hey, it said it was worth a good amount of gold. He'll take whatever he can get.
"Hmm?" he replies. His mind is only half on the conversation, too busy looting the Torturer. He startles minisculely as a menu pops up, but quickly gets the hang of the controls and goes about searching the , a steel dagger. Nice. He could use a set of knives, maybe he should see about getting some. More gold, too. He quits the menu and stands. He'll probably have a panic attack later when he's out of danger and has time to process what's going on, but for now he takes some slight comfort in his surroundings. This whole video game type setup is rather like the Animus.
Not especially comforting thought.
"You know," Hanjrr gestures to the cage, "why you're here. Was it thievery?" It takes Desmond a second to realize the huge man is asking why he got, for lack of a better term, arrested. When he does, he shakes his head.
"Ah, no. That- that's a really long story. One we don't have time for right now." He rifles through a knapsack on a table and comes away with a few more gold, an iron dagger, and a book about something called the "Dragonborn", whatever the fuck that was. The two dead soldiers bring about more gold and a dagger each. One of them has a bow and some arrows, and when he grabs them, one of the parts of him that isn't really him- Connor, probably- purrs with delight. Oh, these felt right. He closes the menu and stops short at the intense gazes the three are giving him.
"What did you do before, then?" Mika asks, squinting suspiciously at him. He side eyes her as he pushes past into the hallway.
"I killed people."
He proves it, too, in the next room. The four soldiers stationed around the bridges and platforms barely have time to cry out as he hurls his four daggers in a move that is purely Ezio. All but one of them finds their marks, and for him Desmond pulls out his newly acquired bow and launches an arrow straight into his face. They're dead in less than thirty seconds, health bars disappearing one by one.
He's not going to lie, the slack looks of disbelief on his companions faces makes him feel like a total badass.
He casually strolls through the room, looting gold and arrows and retrieving his daggers. He even takes and equips a set of light armor from one of the soldiers, although he doesn't take helmet because they look stupid. He can only put on one bracer as well, because his left arm holds his hidden blade.
He glances over his shoulder. Ralof has followed him, but Mika and Hanjrr have stayed by the door. "You guys coming?"
Mika shakes her head, a little frantically. "We will stay here and wait for Jarl Ulfric."
Desmond shrugs. "Mmkay then. Have fun!" He waves over his shoulder and strolls off into the tunnel. Ralof grins at them before he, too, disappears down the rocky corridor.
Mika shakes her head in fondness and dismay. Ralof always did seem to end up with the most dangerous sort. And that Desmond character…well. She looks around the room, at the fallen Imperials, and remembers their sudden and casually violent deaths. To be able to kill so quickly and effortlessly… The man had said he was a killer. She just wonders to what extent.
Desmond would be having the time of his life if he wasn't fighting giant spiders.
Seriously! They're straight out of his nightmares as a kid, nearly as large as he is, with mandibles as large as his forearm and beady black eyes.
He lets Ralof run ahead and take them head on. He stays back by the entrance and pumps them full of arrows. He takes out at least one by himself, which he's proud of.
"I hate these damned things," Ralof mutters, and Desmond agrees. Wholeheartedly.
He glances mournfully back through the tunnel, at the remains of the collapsed bridge. The dragon had just roared and it had shaken to pieces. He wasn't sure that was how the laws of physics were supposed to work, but meh. Video game logic.
He yanks a couple arrows back out of the spiders, kicks one for good measure, and follows after his blond companion. The passage collapses behind them as they move forward, and he has to yank Ralof out of the way so he doesn't get crushed. They stumble forward, coughing on dust.
"Thank, friend," Ralof hacks into his fist. "Without you, I would be dead a few times over!"
Desmond rolls his eyes and slaps him on the back until he can breathe again. "Don't mention it. And I do have a name, Ralof. It's Desmond. Use it, yeah?" Ralof grumbles good naturedly, but nods.
Desmond drops to the ground the second they enter the next cave, and he pulls Ralof down with him. He slaps a hand over the other man's mouth to cover a shriek of protest, and keeps it there until he's sure Ralof won't talk. He puts his finger to his lips in the universal symbol for quiet, and points to the rather large sleeping bear on the other side of the cave. Ralof's eyes light up with understanding.
"Follow me," he mouths silently, and Ralof nods.
He picks up another health potion from the old rotting cart as they slink by. Ralof's footsteps aren't nearly as silent as his, but the bear doesn't seem to notice anyhow. They make it to the other side of the cave without incident, and they both breathe wordless sighs of relief. That could have ended up terribly.
The little white text appears again as he slinks silently towards the literal light at the end of the tunnel.
* To Skyrim
He hides his grin from Ralof as they step out into the near blinding sunlight.
He has never been so glad to see the sky.
#
Ulfric enters the keep only ten minutes later, but he does not see Desmond again. He sees the man's discarded chains, so he knows he made it in alive, and the captain is missing her sword. He does not manage to catch up to them in the keep.
What he does see is the carnage he has left behind. The Imperial captain, the soldiers, the torturer. There is blood fairly splattered across the walls in his wake. Not all of it could have been Desmond, of course, but it is an inordinate amount of violence for Ralof alone.
He is glad that Mika and Hanjrr both made it to safety. They are good soldiers and better people, and it would have been a shame had they not survived.
"My Jarl!" Mika salutes.
"Mika, Hanjrr," he nods to them. "Where are Ralof and Desmond? I did not see their bodies on the way in." He toes at one of the bodied, questioningly. They do not appear to have a single mark on them except for a deep gash in the throat, too wide to be an arrow wound.
"They went on ahead," Hanjrr says. He gestures to the bodies of the fallen soldiers, answering Ulfric's unspoken question. "Desmond… took care of them."
He quirks an eyebrow. "Really? By himself?"
Mika nods fervently. "Yes, Jarl. I have never seen anything like it! He grabbed four daggers from the fallen bodies in the other room. And when he came in here-"
"He hurled them! Right into their throats!" Ulfric's eyes widened. Throwing daggers? He had never heard of such a thing. Hanjrr continued, waving his arms. "He missed but one, and before we could react he took out a bow and shot the man right between the eyes, without hardly even looking!" He shook his head. "Even I can hardly believe it, and I saw it!"
Mika piped in, hesitantly, as they began to walk through the room and down the tunnel. "He did say he had killed people. But this… this was more than killing. It was graceful, and smooth, like a dance. Some of the more violence inclined might call it an art." They jumped across the gap where the bridge used to be, and skirted around the dead spiders. "He is much more than a murderous bandit or a violent sellsword, I am sure of it." She swore when they came upon the collapsed hallway. "How are we going to get through? We can't go back."
Ulfric gestured for them to move back. "Leave this to me."
He squared up to the wall and closed his eyes, reaching deep within himself. Power welled through his body, bubbling up to his throat. His eyes snapped open and he snarled.
"Fus Ro Dah!"
The rocks shot backwards, as if blasted by a great explosion instead of a few words. He rubbed the pain away from his throat and nodded in satisfaction. Such was the power of the Thu'um.
They were not expecting the bear.