A DRAGON'S BEGINNING
THE MANY ADVENTURES OF ELSEBET KIND-HEART BOOK 1

CHAPTER 5
THAT'S ONE GIANT ASS SPIDER

Elsebet waited for the pain of poison coursing through her veins, but it never came. Instead, she heard iron on stone as the iron gate in front of her slid into the ground. She let out a chocked laugh, and felt the arms of Risorallen wrap around her as she started to fall to the ground. He stopped her halfway, as she let out a few giggles.

"I'm not dead."

"Told you."

She stood up and pushed him away from her slightly, a grin on her face showing she didn't mean it. She motioned to the open antechamber. "Shall we?"

He let out a couple chuckles as the two of them went through the now-open gate. Elsebet pulled her bow off her shoulder in case of an ambush of bandits, but she doubted it since that bandit in the chamber behind them couldn't open the door. She pulled a few coins and gems from the burial urns on a table and pocketed a book called Thief as Risorallen pulled a chain to close the iron gate.

Elsebet's head flew up when she heard the familiar squeaks of several skeevers. Risorallen took out a dagger from his boot as she knocked an arrow. She pulled the string as she turned around, facing a wooden spiral staircase sunk into the ground and led further into the ruin. The first skeever appeared from the hole and she let the arrow fly, hitting the body with a sickening thud. The next one came out and launched itself at Risorallen, who brandished his dagger as the third came out. It jumped at Elsebet, and she swung her bow at it before it landed on her. It flew into the wall as Risorallen kicked his off of him and sunk his dagger into its hide. She pulled an arrow out of her quiver to knock it but it charged at her again, and she thrust the arrow at it. It pierced it's spinal cord, and fell limp on the end of the arrow.

She grimaced as she put her boot on the body of the dead animal to pull the arrow out, and she almost threw up as the stench of matted fur hit her nose. She covered her nose as she wiped the blood off on a piece of linen resting on the table, throwing one at Risorallen when he asked for one so he could wipe his dagger off.

She placed the blood-stained—but clean—arrow back in the quiver as Risorallen put his dagger in his boot. He stood up straight and the two descended the spiral staircase.

It didn't lead down far; just far enough that they were a floor underneath the antechamber, with a wide tunnel leading forward, back under where they came from. Elsebet picked up the scroll and poison resting on a table before venturing down the sloping tunnel, relishing in the silence between them.

They turned at the end of the tunnel once Elsebet picked up a small coinpurse next to a skeleton and found themselves faced with spiderwebs. Elsebet shivered slightly as Risorallen reached into his boot to take out his dagger and cut the spiderwebs down so they could actually pass through, since it was thick enough for it to be solid.

After replacing his dagger, Risorallen lead the way into the chamber, which was as tall as the first chamber but not nearly as wide. There were spiderwebs lining the walls, with bodies of people and skeevers having been sucked dry of all their fluids ages ago. On the other side of the room, there was a Dark Elf trapped in spiderwebs, struggling to get out.

"Oh no, here it comes again!"

She heard Risorallen swear and looked up as a giant—although, judging by the cuts and scrapes on its massive body, wounded—spider descended from the ceiling on a piece of web, and she almost fainted at the sight of it.

She didn't though.

She reached over her shoulder and pulled an arrow out of her quiver as the spider touched the ground and spat poison at Risorallen, who quickly rolled out of the way and took his battleaxe off his back. She knocked her arrow and aimed as he slashed at the spider, cutting off one of the legs. It squealed horrifyingly in pain as green blood spurted out of the severed leg, and Elsebet used that distraction to fire her arrow, which landed between its head and abdomen. It let out another steal of pain and Risorallen buried his axe into its head.

He grimaced down at his axe as the Dark Elf sighed in relief.

"You did it. You killed it." He flashed them a thankful grin. "Now cut me down before anything else shows up."

"Do you have the Claw?" Elsebet asked, pulling an arrow out of her quiver and twiddling with it between her fingers.

His eyes widened in fear slightly. "Y-yes, the golden claw. I have it. I know how to open the Hall of Stories, as well."

"Hall of Stories?" Risorallen asked, replacing his battleaxe on his back. "What's that?"

"I-it's a Nordic thing, they put their history on the walls just before the main chamber, with the claw as a key to opening it." He looked at Elsebet. "You know what I'm talking about, right?"

She nodded. "Okay. I'll cut you down."

He sighed in relief and started thanking her profusely as she took Risorallen's dagger from his boot and cut down the spiderweb. After several painfully slow minutes of repeatedly hacking at the web, cleaning the steel dagger, and telling the Dark Elf—who told them his name was Arvel the Swift—to stay still, he was finally free, and Elsebet handed the dagger back to Risorallen.

That's when Arvel ran into the tunnel he had been trapped in front of, yelling that the secrets of Bleak Falls Barrow were his and he wasn't sharing.

"The git," Elsebet muttered. "Come on!"

The two ran after him, but as his name suggested, Arvel was swift. He ran ahead of them, gaining ground as Elsebet was not a runner and Risorallen was weighed down in his steel armour.

She stopped dead, her hands flung out to catch Risorallen's arm as he barrelled forward. He looked back as he almost fell backwards from the loss of momentum.

He looked back at her, a bewildered look on his face. "By Arkay, you're strong."

He looked back at the chamber the two were about to enter when he finally heard the groans, and Elsebet saw her first draugr. In the dim torchlight, she could see it's decaying sin as it clung to its bones, and though there was no muscle mass on the body, she could tell it was strong. It's eyes were sunken into its skin, and they glowed a bright unearthly blue. In its hand it held an ancient-looking axe, and it was raised over its head as it went to split Arvel's head open, but he stabbed it in the eye and it fell to the floor, the eyes no longer glowing.

He grinned in triumph and turned and ran down another corridor, but he was sent back as he stepped on a pressure plate, and a swinging spike trap hit him full-force and flung him into the opposite wall. He slid to the floor, dead.

Elsebet doubled over and threw up.

Risorallen scrunched his nose in disgust. "I'm guessing that was your first draugr."

She nodded, covering her mouth to stop herself from throwing up again, though if her body really wanted to, all her hand was going to do was get messy.

She stood up straight after a minute. "I think I'm good."

"You sure."

She nodded again.

"Alright." He entered the small chamber, the walls lined with alcoves, some of them empty, most of them filled with both decayed and decaying bodies much like the three draugr on the floor. He turned around when he realised she wasn't following, and saw her eyes darting from alcove to alcove, and he smiled slightly. He extended a hand to her, and she gingerly walked over and took it in her own. "Those won't be the last draugr in here, so we can either continue forward or backtrack out of the ruin. It's your choice."

She swallowed and glanced at the body of Arvel the Swift and shook her head. "We'll continue," she said. "Besides, I'm curious as to what's in the main chamber." She let out a small laugh, but he could tell it was forced. She pointed at Arvel. "Can you get the Claw?"

He nodded and let go of her hand, heading to the body. He checked through all of the pockets, pocketing the few coins he had on himself, and pulled out the golden claw with a thin leather-bound book, most likely a journal. He stood up and showed the claw to Elsebet, who was gaining her usual colour.

"It's a lot smaller than I imagined."

She let out a chuckle, this one real, making a smile appear on his face. He threw the claw to her, and she put it in her pack, on top of all the books she still had from Helgen and the few she picked up in the ruin.

She looked at the swinging trap and pulled her bow off her back. "Let's do this."