Chapter 33
Day 110

We had believed that Hammerfell hadn't been affected by the undead menace that threatened all of Tamriel. That only due to Morgran and his group not running into them we had hoped they weren't yet here. We where so naive, so very wrong in even thinking that. Even though the entrance had been hidden so well, the base itself had been overrun in minutes. It took all we had to fight our way through the horde that fell over one another down the steps to the waiting rebels. The last two days we had seen our numbers rise to over forty, we had been forced to double up the rooms in order to keep so many people down in the base.

"Darius! This way!" The large orc leader shouted as I lead the survivors down the hall. Zaynabi and Kharjo took up the rear in order to cover the hallway. There was an emergency escape route that took days to get out of due to it going down and through large beetle tunnels. The characteristic reminded me more of large ants and normally made me laugh but now I wondered which was going to be worse. The undead or giant beetles.

"Morgran! start leading them out. We'll hold them back as long as we can and catch up." I shouted and pushed others past me in order to make my way to the end of the narrow hallway.

"Don't die!" The orc shouted angrily before heading into the meeting room to open up the escape route. While he wanted to fight for glory he knew that we had more experience killing these things, he also had a rebellion to run.

"Kharjo! Zaynabi!" I shouted and put myself between them and a group of undead. Dawnbreaker seemed to spark to life at the prospect of killing these pale creatures. I smiled myself, feeling the blade's power coursing through me. "Die!" I shouted and swung my blade again and again. Each time a pale body was enveloped in flame that didn't spread to me as I pushed my way past the burning bodies. "I'll kill you all!" My voice sounded deeper as I shouted with glee, tearing through the hordes of creatures coming down the hallway. Even now I still don't know what had come over me. I just remember feeling the sword in my hand and the feeling of euphoria that coursed through my body when I stabbed and sliced the pale creatures.

Before I knew it I had made my way to the stairs where the creatures where being called back by their master. Only one conjurer had come to flood out the rebels but he seemed powerful enough. I questioned weather or not I should charge up and end his foul existence before being stopped by Kharjo. The khajiit had wrapped his arms around me and began to pull me back down the hallway.

"No! I have to kill them!" I shouted in disgust. These things where a menace, a blight in this realm and the people who where raising them deserved nothing more than to burn for eternity.

"That's enough my friend! We have to follow after the others!" Kharjo grunted and huffed as he struggled to keep my in his arms. It was Zaynabi that finally was able to calm me down. She had brought her book up and down on my head.

Day 111

I'm not sure when I came to but my head hurt enough for me to not think about it. I groaned loudly and turned over in the cot that I was laying on. As my vision came back to me I could make out a fire and figures sitting around it. Many others where sitting on cots of their own, their eyes wide with fear. We where in a large cavern the branched off in many different directions, inside to the beetle complex from what I assumed.

"You are awake." I heard Zaynabi's voice say softly. She was sitting next to me, reviewing a few of her spell books by the light of a small floating white orb. "I had been worried that I might have done some permanent damage." She laughed lightly but there was a tinge of something else in her eyes. Though the light was dim I could see fear reflecting in her eyes as she stared at me. I sat up and winced, my head still pounding and I now noticed that my body felt very sluggish and sore. The adrenaline had died down from when I had been fighting and I must have over done it.

"I'm alright. I'm sorry about...what happened." I looked down at my hands then at the blade that rested by my cot. It was sheathed in it's leather scabbard but the gem on the hilt shone dimly. I reached a trembling hand for the handle and the gem seemed to light up brighter. I blinked and shook my head, there was no way that it was really.

"I believe that it responds to your touch." Zaynabi voiced what I had been thinking. I realized that it seemed to have a mind of it's own but was it possible that the sword was alive? Was it affecting me? Perhaps that could be the best explanation for what happened before. That hadn't ever happened before but then again, it had been some time before we had come across any undead. Maybe it felt a hunger that needed to be sated with killing undead? These things weighed heavily on my mind as I stared at the blade. "It will be alright. We'll find those fragments and end this as soon as we can." Zaynabi placed a hand on my shoulder and offered a smile. I smiled back and just shook my head.

"I feel like this could take longer than I had originally thought. Tamriel is a big place and it seems we will constantly run into trouble the whole journey." I feared that we might not be able to complete the amulet in time. We had one piece yet the conjurers were consistently moving about and plotting their own schemes. They may very well succeed in what they were originally plotting before we could complete the amulet. I wouldn't speak these thoughts out loud though as I need to keep on a front. That this wasn't in vain and we could somehow pull this off.

"It looks as though we weren't followed." Kharjo adjusted his cloak as he walked towards us. I could make out a small cut on his leg and he limped lightly. "We had a run in with a few beetles." Kharjo smiled when he noticed my gaze.

"It would have been easier but many here are shaken." Zaynabi sighed and looked at the blank face around us. "I should see if there is anything that can be done." Zaynabi grabbed a restoration book and headed towards the fire. I could see Morgran talking and ordering the survivors. It seemed like we didn't have many supplies from what I could make out.

"Things look grim." I sighed heavily and lay back down on the cot to stare at the rocky ceiling. "How long have we been down here?" My head felt like it was about to split open from the pounding, it couldn't have been that long could it?

"We have been traveling through here for about a day." Kharjo replied and settled down beside my cot.

"A day?!" I had been out that long? But the pain in my head made it seem like it had just happened. "We need to keep moving. If we don't get out of these tunnels soon we might be too late to get to the amulet piece."

"Peace, Darius. There will be plenty of time for that. You should rest while you can."Kharjo placed a hand on my shoulder and prevented me from sitting up. "You had undergone some kind of transformation when the undead attacked. It seems to have taken it's toll on your body." While I still couldn't believe really that I had acted like that it might explain why my head and body still hurt. I sighed and stopped trying to bring myself out of the cot.

"Do we have any idea how they found us?" Now that I tried to relax the pain seemed to dull itself.

"Morgran seems to think that the necromancer might have found out we where harboring someone important. Maybe they thought to use him or kill him so there could be nothing to stop them after they topple the Aldmeri Dominion." Kharjo replied and shook his head. "I'm surprised the orc was able to think of that much. Does he know something we don't?"

"It seems that way. How else would he have come up with such a scenario. We hardly spoke at all about the undead other than when he asked a few questions about Skyrim." I mused and looked over at the large orc. Something wasn't right here, how would he believe they would topple the Aldmeri Dominion? While they did hold a lot of power over Tamriel at the moment, there didn't seem to be any kind of obvious plot for the conjurers yet. Was it really just speculation? "I think we should keep an eye on him. Something doesn't feel right." Kharjo nodded in agreement and we both stared at the man giving orders to shaken survivors.