Chapter 4: Bleak Falls Barrow

Vincent awoke in a bed in a room unfamiliar to him. His blinked and rubbed his eyes, trying to get rid of the blurry vision. Looking around, he noticed it was a simple room with few decoration, a little table and chair and a pleasant smell permeated the air; the smell of a warm vegetable stew. Then it hit him. He was in the Bannered Mare.

'Right, I came here after speaking to the Jarl and his wizard and-'. He groaned. "Why did I agree to this darned quest?" he muttered under his breath. Walking into the main hall, Vince came across a lit hearth with some of the tavern quests already wandering around and eating. He himself dragged his feet to the counter and sat down and opening his pouch to count his money realized 'oh, right. That's why I agreed...'

His purse was almost empty. After glancing at the golden content of the purse he guessed his fortune amounted to about 16 gold Septims. This would be enough for breakfast and the food for the journey. But what about other resources needed? Vince grimaced, 'I'll have to do physical work to earn a living. At least for now'. Upon noticing his face, the bartender asked what's wrong. After hearing his complaint she informed him that breakfast was included with the fee he paid yesterday. That made his day.

Once he left the inn, he had time to for the first time take in the marketplace of Whiterun. At least a dozen and a half of stalls littered the central plaza, most of them selling food, one hunter selling his game and even one vendor trying to convince people to buy his hand-made jewelry. Turning his head, Vince saw two permanent stores. One had a sign Belethor's General Goods and the other was an Apothecary. Vince's eyes lingered on that one before he hastily opened his satchel. Yes! Of course he picked those stupid flowers and mushrooms whilst on his way to Riverwood! He could trade those and then have enough money to buy substantial traveling gear from Belethor. Whilst he wasn't an alchemist, he recognized some of those ingredients as those containing regenerative properties. Whoever ran the apothecary will not swindle him out of the money he needed.

Several Hours Later

Vincent dropped a whole stack of sticks on the floor in front of him. He was currently on the top level of a watchtower overlooking the vale that Riverwood resided in. He propped his cheap tent under the stairs and was preparing to light a fire to keep himself warm as the blizzard raged and howled around him. What was he doing in an unmanned watchtower? 'Blasted bandits. What were those vagabonds doing here?'. Well, it wasn't unmanned. Long story short:

As Vince was leaving Whiterun, all prepped to go to this Bleak Falls Barrow that was located among the little mountain range that divided Whiterun and Riverwood, at that precise time, Irileth was seeing off a pair of guards that the Jarl decided to dispatch to Riverwood as an answer to Gerdur's plea. At first Vince was going to laugh at the preposterity of the idea of these two fending off the demon that leveled Helgen to the ground, but it turns out that their primary job was to evacuate citizens, not kill a dragon. Latching on to the opportunity, Vince decided to walk with the two Nords and have a chat with them. It let him learn more about Skyrim and he was able to ask for more precise directions to this Bleak Falls Barrow. Farengar's were vague at best and amounted to nothing more that "its there atop the mountains".

Soon he had to split away from his two traveling companions and start his trek uphill which was becoming more tiresome by the minute, made worse by the worsening weather; the wind was blowing in his face and snow started to fall. 'Splendid, a blizzard. Can this get any worse?' he remembers thinking.

Apparently it could. The wind blew at the right moment and an arrow barely skimmed his left arm. Looking up ahead, he could distinguish a lean figure aiming an arrow at him. This figure was standing next to a watchtower. Figuring that the guards must have mistaken him for a foe, he held his hands up. But just in case, Vince used Detect Life and found that two other being were racing down the tower. Vincent saw another arrow being fired at him and dodged it. He saw the two second two figures emerging from the tower and eventually, they were close enough to distinguish as anything but guards. Vincent's hand went to Elegance's hilt and the other hand crackled with lightning.

And so he now found himself bunking in the watchtower's highest floor, waiting out the snowstorm outside. This went on into the night.

Next Day

"Shouldn't have come here!"

"You're as good as dead!"

"Now you're mine!"

Those bandits were getting annoying. After waking up and continuing his journey up and down the mountain pass, Vincent was greeted with the sight of an imposing fortress. Some in Skyrim call this Nordic Ruins, but the stone arches were not falling apart and the walls looked as strong as they were when they were built. Those were not ruins, merely, an abandoned holdout. Although, 'abandoned' was not the right term. This time, with favourable weather, Vince could spot four individuals milling around, patrolling.

Without a second though he unsheathed his sword and cast Oakflesh. No bother trying to hide, the path to the Barrow was in plain sight, out in the open. And of course, the bandits have noticed him.

Preparing Telekinesis, Vince waited for the arrow that was bound to- here! He caught it with his magic, mere 7 feet away from him. What's more, he spotted the perp who tried to kill him and launched the arrow back at them. The silhouette of the archer collapsed to it's knees, though weather they died would have be checked later. Right now, two thugs were running right at him, with a third one staying further back, having seen Vincent's display of magic. The first opponent, a massive Orcish brute, swung his warhammer at Vince's head. Needles to say, he managed to dodge that by ducking and quickly slicing the vagabond's stomach open. This left him with a Nord in banded iron armor wielding an iron mace and a hide shield and a Redguard woman with a simple iron sword. At first he though that the Nord man was going to be a bigger threat but it soon turned out to be the Redguard. She was deceptively fast. The Nord ad to go so he could focus on her.

Being surrounded by them on both sides was not going to help so Vince decided to do what he does best and danced circles around them until the Redguard found herself behind the Nord. The man raised his shield, which Vince took as a good chance to dual cast an ice spike that pierced right through the hide shield and into his face, killing him instantly. Now he was stuck with just the Redguard. She narrowed here eyes at him, he was no pushover. Their blades met momentarily until they both tried to strike and defend against each other. Vincent was clearly the better swordsman, that became quickly apparent after noticing how effortlessly he parried he strikes but she in turn started getting on his nerves because she kept jumping back when he tried to push an offensive. They disconnected and to Vincent's surprise the woman drew a short knife from behind her back and threw it right into his shin. It hurt like hell despite being a relatively tiny knife. Unbeknown to him, this is what prisoners called a shiv. This hindered his movement by a lot. But that would not bring her victory; if he couldn't move as fast, he would make sure she couldn't fight. Gripping his sword hilt with his second hand, right over the metal pommel, he pushed lighting into the metal which traveled under he hilt, to the blade itself, without being visible. The moment the Redguard charged at him and their blades met, she cried out in pain and her arm spasmed, dropping her sword. The electrical charge seemed to have done it's job and travelled through her sword to her arm, which she now clutched. Without wasting a second, Vincent drove Elegance through her chest. Once she dropped dead, so did Vince fall to the ground, clutching his poor bleeding leg. He pulled the shiv out and placed his hand to the wound and watched as ribbons of golden light danced around his limb and made the wound be no more.

After checking that the archer was indeed dead, and feeling proud of himself for such an accurate, albeit lucky hit, he went on inside.

It was no better. More bandits to deal with.

One bandit died after pulling a lever. It turns out you needed to solve a puzzle to open the gate to continue. Though Vince would hardly call that a puzzle, rather more like a joke. 'Besides, what was the practical application of this back when people lived here? What moron came up with that idea?' he wondered.

After a few minutes of wandering deeper into the ruins, he heard cries for help and was forced to slay a terrifying spider of monstrous proportions. The only good thing from that was that he managed to collect some Frostbite Venom. He was forced to free a dark elf called Arvel who promptly tried to escape only to find himself killed by an abomination that Vincent had never come across and only ever heard of in stories; a draugr. He of course was able to dispose of those undead being pretty quickly, they were not as fast and strong as the living, probably due to their rotten flesh, but also because one of the components of his sword was silver. He had smiths add this metal to his weapon to make it look nicer, mostly, but then found out that this precious metal was particularly deadly against a plethora of fiends, chief amongst them undead.

Arvel, as he found, was carrying a huge claw made of gold of all things and a journal. After skim reading the journal, Vincent was glad to discover that some sort of power was contained within the Barrow Sanctuary and that the claw belonged to Lucan, the trader from Riverwood who would most likely pay a handsome amount to get his property back.

After dealing with more of the nuisance draugr, Vincent had to open a door which required some sort of key. Once he recognized some of the sigils on the door's rings, it dawned on him that the claw also has such sigils on them and that it fits into the keyhole (though he didn't initially recognize it as a keyhole).

'That was a better puzzle' he thought, 'though still impractical for day to day life'.

He stepped into a huge chamber carved into a massive natural cave and saw a massive wall with scripts on it, a coffin like the one that draugr resided in and a chest. Deciding to climb up the platform to explore the monument in detail, he felt a strong pull to the wall and chants started ringing in his voice, at first subtle, then growing in power as he came closer to the wall. One... word?... sprang to life and glowed and called to him. The scratched scribbled became clear, at least in his mind, like as if he knew the script. Fus.

"Force..." he whispered. How did he kno-

Crash! He whipped around and to his horror another draugr, this one clad in warlord armor and a fierce ancient horned helmet, climbed out of his tomb. It had something on its back.

"Fus Ro Dah!" it shouted and flung Vincent right into the wall behind him. Vincent recognized this: it was the same energy that the dragon used to push him away. 'What sorcery is this!?' Vince panicked.

Shaking his head, he saw the draugr right above him and just barely managed to dodge out of the way of it's axe. He felt a cold whipping past him and saw the frosty veins on the weapon. Enchanted. Great.

He got up on his feet and put as much distance between himself and the undead as possible by standing on the other side of the plateau and drew Elegance and cast Oakflesh. He was not taking chances. He prepared flames in his left hand and threw a spout of fire at the draugr. The zombie's armor absorbed most of this however as flames were not great against heavy armor unless one was to heat it up over periods of time. Vincent did not have the time to do that.

He stood opposite the abomination for some time, thinking. 'Right, it has an axe. What it will do is try to swing at me from an overhead strik-'

"Fus Ro Dah!"

Vincent saw the blue energy again blast him off the cliff and down to the floor below, knocking the breath out of him. Once he got up painfully, he saw the draugr stammering down the stairs. Vincent readied his sword and charged; if he is to beat this thing he will have to do it in close combat, he cannot give it the opportunity to... shout... do that thing it did... again. Thankfully as predicted, the draugr raised its war axe above its head. This allowed Vincent to take a quick swipe at its exposed arm with full force and cut it arm cleanly off just below the elbow. The draugr was not impressed however, and punched him with its still intact hand. Vincent's Oakflesh took the brunt of the impact and he could take a jab at the draugr's knee. As he had hoped, it left it crippled and prevented it from moving.

However, to his horror, the draugr took a deep breath. Remembering what happened before, Vincent instantly thrust his sword through the dead Nord's throat and silenced it before it could Fus Ro Dah him again.

Vincent was now breathing heavily. He had never faced such a deadly opponent. What ever it was, this Fus Ro Dah ability could be wielded as a powerfull weapon.

Vince's breath hitched. 'Fus? Like the word from that wall?' he thought, stupefied. 'Could that be...'

"Fus!" he shouted. Unfortunately, without effect. No great force appeared.

'Perhaps I need all the other words'

"Fus Ro Dah!". And nothing.

He glanced around the cavern, glad that no one was there to see him make an absolute fool out of himself. Turning back to the draugr, he saw that it carried a stone tablet on its back, with visible dragon images outlining its edges. This must be the Dragonstone Farengar wanted! So he picked it up, albeit with struggle, and went back up to the plateau. The word wall did not reveal any other words to him, so he decided to quickly scribble the symbols upon it in his journal. Well, Arvel's journal but he ripped out that loser's words and kept it for himself. Then he turned to the chest and his eyes glinted with hope. Hope that was not crushed: the treasures within consisted of over a hundred septims, old scrolls and a sapphire. His favourite gemstone of all.

Looking around for the final time, he collected that he could and trudged off up the stairs that would lead him out to the open world.

So I have to publish this early as I will be unavailable on Wednesday :P

I hope you enjoy this chapter, I tried to put enough action into it and to structure it differently from the first two by experimenting with time skips and skim writing certain parts of the story. Please tell me how you like that. Should I have described the interaction with the spider and Arvel or are you glad I skipped the part everyone knows off by heart?

Also, I found an online spell checker so no more massively misspelt chapters for you guys to deal with!

Again, feel free (as in, please DO IT) to follow and review!