Bravado
Outside, the snow was still coming down pretty hard. I was damn glad for woolly underthings. Heading out, we took the trail leading around the peak, collecting those of my badly-aimed arrows we could find, as well as any left unfired on the bandits, along the way. I wanted to tell him everything; about how much I actually knew, but I figured the 'out of this world' story was enough of a shocker without adding 'your entire world is a game to me' to the mix. Because it wasn't. Not anymore.
Right about when we got within sight of the arches in front of the barrow, we were spotted. Dark brown leather stands out like a sore thumb against snow, even in a blizzard, apparently. Mauronk took the first arrow in the thigh, and staggered back under cover. Now I felt even worse than worthless, because I didn't have any magic to speak of. Even if I could somehow channel magicka around here, I had no idea how to do it, and wouldn't have known how to use it if I did. Luckily, he had enough wherewithal to heal himself and bounce back on his feet. Good thing, too, because the first bandit came roaring around the rocks at us as soon as he did.
I was beginning to feel like a sack of potatoes again as he shoved me out of the way and blocked the guy's downward swing. I looked around for the shooter; he'd told me that morning that I had to keep my attention on casters and archers. He'd take care of lumbering hulks like this one.
For some reason, it was easier this time. I kept on the move, halting only a couple seconds to aim and shoot before moving again, and that pretty much kept the archer's arrows from doing more than grazing me. Even though I shook a little, and stumbled once because I was looking at him not where I was going, I did okay. I took him out. But by the time I had that one down, Mauronk had two on him.
He was being pressed into the rocks, and couldn't retreat any further. Standing still, I fired at will at the bandits' flanks. They were wearing hide armor with plenty of open, unprotected areas. The way Mauronk taught me to pull back with all I had, my arrows were piercing them like they were naked.
As you can imagine, nothing gets your attention quite like an arrow through the ribs. One of the men peeled off and charged at me. Maybe it was because he wasn't an Orc, or because I'd been here before, facing this sort of thing, but I kept my cool, steadied my hand, and put an arrow into his neck.
Well, that wasn't pleasant. He scrabbled at his throat with clawed fingers, gagging and choking, and fell to his knees. Then he pitched over backwards. Shaking myself, I turned my attention away from his writhing, agonizing form, and took aim for the remaining bandit.
My heart skipped a beat. Mauronk suddenly fell to one knee. Even from where I was standing, I could see him holding up a hand, maybe asking for mercy. He was done.
"Fuck that shit!" I roared fiercely. "You did not just drop my man!"
Pulling an arrow, I took aim and fired, stepped forward, pulled, fired... Yeah, he was now turning toward me, but I didn't let up. Where ever it was hiding before, it came out in that moment. I turned that bastard into Boromir, and stuck him so full of arrows, the Uruk-hai would have had me on their shoulders cheering my name in admiration.
"You're my bitch now!" I yelled.
When the adrenalin rush died, and my enemies were sprawled on the cold ground bleeding out into the snow, I puked like I'd never puked before. It's a miracle my stomach didn't turn inside out and make a run for it out my mouth. Mauronk could have been expiring on the ground, and I was no help to him while incapacitated like that.
His groan shook me out of my puke attack, and I lurched to my feet. Staggering up to him, I dropped to my knees and looked him over. He was still lying on his side, beginning to shake.
"No," I whimpered. I grabbed his hand and slapped his face. "Heal yourself, Mauronk," I pleaded. "I can't. Please. You have to."
He feebly gestured toward his pack, discarded when the fight started. I scrambled over to it and tore through the contents, flinging them all over. The familiar red healing potion flask slipped into my hands as if it knew I needed it, and I hurried it to him. Lifting his head and rolling him toward me, I put the unstoppered flask to his mouth and trickled a bit past his lips.
"Don't you dare die on me," I whispered, my eyes blurring. I blinked, and tears fell on his face. I had no idea I was crying.
Little by little, his ragged breathing evened out, his olive color darkened to normal. Sighing with relief, I wiped my face roughly, hoping he wouldn't see how sopping wet I got worrying over him.
"Thank you, little one," he murmured, smiling a little. His eyes were still closed, and he seemed to be letting the potion do its work, but he was lying flat out in the snow, his backside likely getting soaked. I had to pry myself away from him to repack his things. He'd be pissed if I lost anything of his in my panic.
By the time I had everything jammed back into his pack in nothing like the neat order it was originally, he was sitting up with his head bowed and shoulders drooping. I knelt beside him again.
"Are you going to be okay?" I asked nervously.
He nodded. "Warhammers are... difficult to dodge."
The front of his chest piece had a huge dent in it, right over his left lung, and several minor dents across the rest. No matter what the game's attitude toward equipment repair was, this reality damn well better have some. "Can you make it, or should we go back to Riverwood?" I asked.
"I will be fine," he assured me, then rose to his feet. Though he leaned against the rocks for a moment to steady himself, he didn't look too bad. Not on the outside, anyway.
"Does that... potion really work?" I asked.
"As well as it can," he replied, shrugging. "Time will always be the best healer, but when you do not have it, and you cannot use other means, it must do."
"Can you... teach me that healing spell of yours?" I asked. "We don't have any magic where I come from, so it's... well, I have no idea how to even start."
He turned toward me, still leaning against the rocks. "I am a poor teacher of such things. We should go to Winterhold. I have heard there is a school for mages there."
"That... that would be a really good idea," I said, nodding. "I just hope they know how to teach a total idiot from the ground up. I assume you came out of childhood knowing how to cast spells. I haven't got the first clue."
"You have learned the bow well enough in a short time," he shrugged. "You have a talent for it. Perhaps magic will come as naturally."
"Um, yeah, I suppose," I acknowledged. "But I think my suddenly flawless aim had more to do with proximity than amazing skill."
"Being closer does make the target larger," he said with a grin, "and harder to miss."
Rolling my eyes, I lightly punched him on the shoulder. "All right, you've slacked enough. Ready to take on this bad boy?"
"It shall beg for mercy," he growled with amusement as he shouldered his pack.
I stood behind him nervously as he slowly inched one of the huge double doors open enough to peek inside the tomb. Arrow nocked and ready, I tried to see past his shoulder. In the game, the only two living bandits in the front part were way the hell on the far side of a fifty-foot-wide room. I hoped they'd be similarly situated here.
No dice. The real Skyrim gave you a room half the size. We practically walked into the middle of their luncheon.
All hell broke loose once more, with me trading arrows with the archer backpedaling toward the back exit and Mauronk pummeling the fighter to a pulp. This guy had a warhammer, too; my Orc buddy wasn't inclined to take another hit so soon after the first.
Distance apparently was my downfall. The archer had no trouble dodging my badly-aimed arrows, and managed to sink one in my shoulder. I squealed like a pig, I swear. Not very impressive, but that hurt! No matter how hard I tried, though, I couldn't make contact, and wasted a ton of arrows, thunking them into walls and skittering them across the flagstones. Mauronk apparently grew impatient with this futile exchange and charged into the archer while she was busy mocking me. That shut her ass up.
Sighing, he turned toward me with exasperation, and I hung my head in shame. God dammit, I sucked. Without looking at him, I shuffled around the room, retrieving arrows. The one in my shoulder was easily removed, though it hurt like hell doing it.
"Be still," he commanded, and set about healing me. Once again, that sensuous feeling of warmth and lust rippled through me. It was delicious, and I nearly slid to the floor on suddenly wobbly knees.
"Are you all right?" he asked with concern.
"Yeah, I'm fine," I replied. He didn't seem to realize what that healing spell was doing to me. Maybe everyone around here was so used to it, they didn't even register or care about it anymore.
"I think... perhaps you should try to get closer," he suggested carefully. "At least until your aim improves."
"Probably a good idea," I agreed.
About the only things that were consistent with the game version so far were the number and type of bandits, and the locked chest. I hunkered down by the chest while Mauronk rifled the corpses for valuables, and started fiddling.
The lock wasn't too hard to navigate. It seemed that the tumblers were few, and easily managed. After only breaking two picks, I got it open. And now the real difference between the game and reality hit me full in the face.
This chest was packed. Whoever the hell these bandits were robbing, they were rich. Fully a third of the depth was taken up in septims. There were several pieces of silver, of the dinnerware variety, but undoubtedly fine and expensive. Necklaces, rings, gemstones, a couple of obviously enchanted armor pieces... No scrolls or books, but who cares about that crap? I just stared dumbly for a long time, not even acknowledging the Orc when he joined me.
"We cannot carry all of it," he said. "Leave it here, and if we have room, we'll take what we can on the way out."
"You're the boss," I breathed, still stunned. Closing the lid, I followed him as he began the descent down the rear tunnel.
Some things were consistent with my experience. Namely, the huge number of vines and roots. It was like the floor had varicose veins or something. Quite unlike the game, however, we didn't glide unhindered over the top. Nope, we stumbled, slipped, tripped, barged into each other, hit the walls, fell on our asses... If we hadn't been in a life or death situation, we would have let loose with some major laughter. As it was, we were in tears from trying to stay quiet as he clattered like a junkyard and I face-planted with a squeak every few feet.
Eventually, the floor cleared somewhat and the funhouse atmosphere sobered a bit. Thankfully, our passage, though loud to us, seemed to be harder to hear the farther away you got. The air was rather thick with dust, in spite of the torches that indicated the bandits had explored at least this far. My allergies were flaring up big time, and I sneezed uncontrollably for several minutes, halting our progress. Not a god damned tissue in the place, either. I had to dig out the skirt of my slut dress and blow my nose in it.
"Not a word," I warned when Mauronk's brow raised at my choice of handkerchief.
We finally came around a bend and saw the heavily pierced corpse of a bandit next to a lever. On the back wall above a barred door, a landing ran with great pillars at either end and a space for a third between. Rolling my eyes, I said, "I've got this," and trotted into the torchlit room. Noting the totem animal emblems on the three large pillars' face carvings, one of which had been toppled onto the floor below, I went to the puzzle pillars in niches against another wall and turned them to the appropriate emblems. Then I gestured to the Orc. "Pull it."
Eying the dead guy, he shrugged and pulled the lever. The barred door opened. Turning to me, he frowned. "How did you know?"
I blinked. Good luck talking your way out of this one, Danni, I thought in a panic. "Lucky guess?" I pointed out the faces, the emblems, the puzzle pillars... and shrugged lamely. He didn't look convinced, but let it go, leading the way through the door.
One spiral stair, three skeevers, and a web-laden descent further along, we found ourselves facing the last thing in the world I wanted to even remember was down here: the big-ass spider from hell. Excuse me, the Big-Ass Spider from Hell. We'll call him BASH, shall we? I could see its big hairy body nestled snugly up against the ceiling. Why bother with a concealing hole when you're as big as a god damned truck? The only bright spot in this situation was that there was only one of them. When we broke through the webbing and started into the room, I was taking up the rear. Like, about twenty feet behind him, sort of guarding our rear. He glanced over his shoulder at me curiously about the same time the BASH uncurled its legs and came down from the ceiling.
And that's pretty much all I remember.
The next thing I knew, someone was slapping my face and calling my name desperately. I was on the floor, for some reason, looking up at a worried Mauronk. A worried Mauronk with a fresh slash across his forehead and spider goo smeared all over his chestplate.
"Are you all right?" he asked when my eyes opened.
"Yeah, I think so," I mumbled. He unceremoniously dragged me to my feet.
"We must hurry," he said, pulling me into the spider room. "I have slain the spider and freed a bandit trapped in its web, but he attacked me and ran. We must follow; I believe he has what we are looking for."
I nodded as I stumbled along in his wake. It occurred to me that getting over my fear of spiders might be a good survival tactic in this world.
As we ran down the corridor past the BASH's lair, we met the bandit coming back out like the hounds of hell were on his tail. Mauronk caught him and swung him into the wall, banging his head hard.
"Why did you attack?" he snarled, pinning the hapless jerk against the wall by the throat.
"Take it, I don't care, just let me go!" He kept glancing past Mauronk. I looked, and nearly crapped.
Zombie movies back home showed us a pretty ridiculous kind of slow-shuffling, groaning, barely-held-together zombie that we could easily escape from. The Elder Scrolls games didn't think we'd be scared enough by something like that, so they gave us those headless, armless zombies that could just about outrun you. Then along comes Skyrim, and you get these dreugr who look like withered husks, but move like they've got a purpose, use magic, and some can even Shout.
But no matter what the games threw at us, it was just a game. A fun little game. No dead men walking in our neighborhoods, no risen corpses plaguing our workplaces, none of that shit. Oh, to be young and naïve again.
Two dreugr were heading our way, undoubtedly flushed out by jerk-off here when he stupidly ran into their chamber without a care in the world. About like I probably would have, come to think of it.
"Get the claw from this piece of shit," Mauronk growled, nearly throwing the guy at me, then he charged right into the dreugr with a roar. Startled, I turned to the aforementioned piece of shit, and found a knife in my face.
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me," I griped. Deciding that the best way to deal with any situation was to address it like Indiana Jones would, I hauled off and kicked the guy in the balls, dropping him to his knees. Okay, maybe Indy wouldn't have racked the guy, but he did pull a gun on a swordsman. I sort of... extrapolated from there. Anyway, while he was trembling and whimpering, I rifled his pockets and pack until I had the claw. I stuffed it into my own pack and turned to help Mauronk out.
By then, he had one down and the other looking pretty... well, dead, and missing an arm, but still up and moving around. I nocked an arrow and aimed at the dreugr's face, managing to sink the shaft into its stomach. Yeah, I pretty much sucked, but at least I hit it. My second shot went clean past its shoulder, but it was close to its head. Third time's a charm, in most cases, but not this one. By the fourth attempt, Mauronk got a good clean shot, and beheaded the thing. Sighing, I turned around to see if that bandit was still around, but he'd high-tailed it out of there as soon as he could walk again.
"Did you get it?" he asked, slightly out of breath. I nodded, and pulled it out to show him.
Now that I could get a good look at it, it was really... ugly as all hell. Whoever thought they were reproducing a dragon's claw had obviously never seen a living specimen, because this thing looked more like a chicken foot to me. Still, it had the three totem animals on the palm, so once we found the door, we'd be able to get through it.
Except Mauronk started heading back toward the entrance.
"Um... where are you going?" I asked.
"Back to Riverwood," he said, stopping and turning to look at me curiously. "This is what was stolen, is it not?"
"Well... yeah, but... there's... more to this place," I replied awkwardly. "Don't you want to... you know, explore?"
"Danni," he said with a sigh, rubbing his forehead, "what are you not telling me?"
"What makes you think...," I began innocently, and he cut me off harshly.
"You knew about the riddle," he snapped. "And now you do not want to stop while we are ahead and still alive. What else were you told about this place that you have not shared with me?"
Whether he realized it or not, he'd just given me an out by implying I had some secret mission I hadn't divulged. One look at his face, though, and I knew I couldn't lie to him. My shoulders slumped and my head bowed.
"Maybe you'd better sit down, Mauronk. This'll take awhile."