They stopped for lunch at Nightgate Inn and finally reached the broken-down fort by late afternoon. They encountered an unpleasant surprise when they were greeted by two elven mages dressed in black robes. "Who are you?" one of them asked in a very unfriendly manner.
"We're from the College," Danielle replied warily.
"That's what I thought," the mage said sarcastically and added, "How are old Mirabelle and Arch-Mage Aren doing? Still condemning necromancy over there?"
"Hey, we don't want any trouble," Onmund volunteered. "We're just looking for Orthorn."
"Orthorn?" the mage asked and looked at the other mage. They both smiled smugly. "You mean our little pet? Oh, you'll meet him soon enough. Let's get them!"
Onmund's eyes widened as the mages started charging up Frost and Flames spells in their hands. He and Danielle had their ward up by the time the fire and frost hit them, leaving them unharmed.
The Fire Mage looked at her partner and remarked sardonically, "Apprentices. So predictable."
The older mages then unleashed their more powerful attacks on them, disabling their wards. Onmund doubled back as his ward shattered from the blow of an Ice Spike. Things began happening so quickly when he was then hit by a bitter cold wind as the mage hit him with another frost spell. He saw Danielle run up to the mage and blast her with Flames and Onmund took this opportunity to strike the Fire Mage with blasts of lightning, catching them off guard.
The two black mages doubled back and cried out, "I yield! I yield!"
"We don't want to hurt you!" Danielle yelled. "Just tell us where we can find the mage called Orthorn!"
"He's inside the keep!" the Frost mage answered, falling to her knees. "But to go in there will surely guarantee your death."
"We'll see about that," Onmund quipped and he and Danielle left them to enter the fort. Once they were inside, he said, "I wonder if those were some of the renegade students from the College."
"I don't know," Danielle replied. "But there are probably more of them hiding out in here so we'd better be ready if they're just as hostile. We don't want to hurt Orthorn when we find him. We just need to get the books back from him."
They did encounter more mages inside the fort, and they were indeed hostile. They also encountered Frostbite Spiders and even, in one room, vampires. But fortunately, the vampires were locked inside of individual cages. As Danielle and Onmund walked cautiously by, the captives within stared at them hungrily and eagerly, licking their teeth. They readied their attack spells should the vampires somehow break out of their prisons, but fortunately, the cages were locked tight. Onmund was glad to get out of that room quickly.
The next chamber's walls were also lined with prison cells, and as they walked in, some of the cell doors opened and a couple of wolves came bounding out of them. "Look out!" Danielle yelled and they fought off the wolves. A storm mage also came and attacked them. Danielle immediately cast her Flames upon them and Onmund backed up out of her way to cast his longer-range Lightning Bolts on them. They made quick work of the wolves but the storm mage was still attacking them. Danielle kept stepping backwards away from the mage in front of her and finally burned him to death. As she moved straight towards Onmund, he took a step back to move out of her way but his back immediately touched the wall right behind him. She bumped right into him, stepping on his foot. It didn't hurt at all, but in his surprise, he reached up with his right hand and grabbed her by the waist, causing her to jump and turn around. "Oh! I'm so sorry!" she uttered.
He immediately let go of her and blushed furiously. "You a-alright?" he quickly spoke.
"Yes, thank you," she said.
"Hey! Heeyy!" a voice suddenly cried out.
Onmund raised his head up at the sound of the voice, because it was right in the same room. He readied his Lightning Bolt when Danielle shouted, "Look!" He followed her to one of the prison cells, where a mage dressed in Novice Robes like they were was standing just behind the bars.
"Don't leave me here!" the mage shouted.
Onmund and Danielle approached the bars. "Who are you?" Danielle asked.
"My name is Orthorn!" he declared. "I'm from the College!"
"You're Orthorn!" Onmund exclaimed.
"Yes, yes! Did Arch-Mage Aren send you? He sent you to rescue me, didn't he?"
"We're just here for the books you took from the College," Danielle replied firmly.
"What? The bo…Oh. Oh dear," Orthorn replied sadly. "I shouldn't have taken them, I know! It was stupid. It won't happen again. Help me get out of here, and I'll help you find them. Please!"
"How do we know you're to be trusted?" Onmund asked.
"Please…" he looked at them with pleading eyes. "I do not wish to harm you. The mages that you ran into coming through here…they threw me in here until they were ready to use me in one of their experiments. That wasn't supposed to happen. I thought they wanted my help, not to use me as a test subject!
Onmund and Danielle exchanged apprehensive glances. Danielle said softly to him, "I think he's telling the truth."
Onmund nodded. "Okay. Is there a key for this cage?"
"No, it's the levers in the center there. Just make sure you don't pull the wrong one. Please, hurry. I don't like being in here!"
Danielle and Onmund walked over to the center of the room where there were four large levers. They just stood there uncertainly. "Which one is it?" Danielle yelled.
"I don't know! Just…just try one!" Orthorn yelled back.
Danielle nervously pulled the lever in the center, and the door to Orthorn's cell opened. He ran out. "Thank you, thank you! I'll promise I'll help. And then I'll go back to the College and I'll beg them to let me back in."
"Now where are the books?" Onmund asked firmly.
"Yes, of course," Orthorn replied. "I said I'd tell you, didn't I? The Caller will have them. She was most interested in one of the volumes. Although not interested enough to keep me from being locked up."
"Take us to her," Danielle demanded.
"Okay, then follow me," Orthorn instructed, and the two mages followed him down one of the corridors deeper into the fort.
They encountered many more hostile mages, who didn't seem to care that their fellow mage, Orthorn, was now out of his prison cell. Or they did and they just wanted him dead. Either way, Orthorn helped Onmund and Danielle fight their way through the keep until they reached a chamber deep inside of the fort that was the largest room they had been in so far. There was a pedestal in the middle of the room and a black mage was standing in front of it. When the three apprentice mages entered, she looked up at them in surprise.
"There she is!" Orthorn whispered. "That's the Caller!"
Before Onmund and Danielle could speak, the Caller cried out in surprise, "Orthorn!" She then looked at the other two young mages and said coldly, "So, you're the ones who barged into my home and laid waste to my projects. How nice to meet you."
"They're…they're here for the books from the College," Orthorn declared frightfully.
"So they're just a couple of Aren's lackeys?" the Caller asked. "That's disappointing. They show real promise."
What does she mean by that?! Onmund wondered.
The Caller glared at him and Danielle and continued, "You come here, kill my assistants, disrupt my work…You've annoyed me, so I don't think I'll be giving you anything."
"Guys, forget about the books," Orthorn urged in a whisper. "Just get out of here. You have no idea what you're dealing with."
Danielle held up a dismissive hand and proclaimed in a loud, bold voice, "We're not going anywhere without those books."
What fearlessness! Onmund thought with admiration. I sure hope we know what we're doing. He mustered up as much bravery as he could show on his face.
"Are you attempting to threaten me?" the Caller demanded. "After I've been so hospitable? Well, then you won't be leaving here at all."
Orthorn, Danielle, and Onmund watched in fear as she disappeared in a purplish mist. Then to their horror, she reappeared clear on the other side of the chamber, along with two Flame Atronachs, and they hurled their fireballs at the three apprentices.
"Aghhh!" Onmund cried as the fire consumed him and he fell to the ground.
"I'm getting out of here!" Orthorn cried and through the red and yellow flames burning before his eyes, Onmund saw him run back the other way.
Onmund immediately got up and beat the fire out of his robes. He saw Danielle chasing after the Caller with her Flames. She can't kill those Flame Atronachs with her spells. I've gotta help! He then engaged the two atronachs in battle away from Danielle, and hurled his Chain Lightning at them. The lightning bolts jumped from one atronach to the other, which caused even more damage. He nimbly jumped out of the way as they hurled fireballs at him and they missed. Finally, he killed both of the atronachs and ran to Danielle. She stood crouched over the Caller's dead body, panting hard. "Danielle! Are you all right?" he asked her.
She stood up. There were cuts and patches of soot on her face but she looked at him and smiled. "We did it!" she declared breathlessly. "Let's get those books! I think I saw them earlier."
Onmund laughed triumphantly and helped Danielle collect the books they came for. "Are those the three?" he asked her after they collected them up.
"These appear to be it," she replied, holding the stack in her hand. "Night of Tears, The Last King of the Ayleids, and Fragment: On Artaeum."
"Here, let me help you with those," he offered and took two of them from her.
"Thanks," she replied. "Now where did Orthorn go?"
"Orthorn? He scrammed as soon as things got heated…literally," Onmund answered.
Danielle sighed and shook her head. "I suppose it's for the best. Hopefully he makes it back to the College safely."
"I'm not concerned about him anymore," he quipped. "We'd better get back. We'll have to stay at Nightgate Inn for the night. It's too dark now to venture all the way back to the College."
With books in hand, the two apprentices made their way out of the gloomy fort and north through the dark tundra to Nightgate Inn where they had lunch earlier. They spent the night there, and in the morning, headed back to Winterhold.
When they went through the double doors into the Hall of Elements, Onmund nearly had a heart attack when he saw the sight before him. There, floating in the middle of the training hall was the giant orb! "By the Nine!" he exclaimed.
"They've managed to bring it back here," Danielle breathed. She had a look of great uncertainty on her face, and Onmund had to admit, he didn't know what to think either.