Chapter 91: Stony Creek Cave
[20th – 21st of Morning Star 4E 202]
After our time in Windhelm, my housecarls and I had traveled towards 'Stony Creek Cave' to see if we could find some stolen items there, specifically a lute taken from the Bard's College. After a quick initial venture into the cave, my housecarl Antonius had managed to lure Imperials from a nearby legion camp down to the lake, at a time when bandits were coming out to investigate loud noise we had created, and they had mostly eliminated each other. The three of us went into the cave again for a closer look, and when sneaking towards to the back part of the cave, I had triggered a trap and had been too slow to avoid a large log hitting me in the chest; being knocked over on the hard ground, I had passed out.
Hammers seemed to be busy in the back of my head, and something appeared to compressing my chest and made breathing hard and painful when I slowly was able to think again. I groaned, and I heard a voice telling me to take it easy. Somebody lifted my back and head up a little, and the top of a small vial was pushed into my mouth. Some kind of liquid with a strange tasted filled my mouth, and I was tempted to spit it out, but a gentle and compelling male voice admonished me and told me I had to swallow.
A few minutes later, after I had dozed off again briefly, I started to feel better, and I realized that somebody – likely one of my housecarls – had fed me a healing potion. I groaned; while the hammers pounding in my head were now going with half strength only, it still hurt, and my chest felt like I had broken a few ribs. I now noticed Antonius sitting next to me, and he got another vial ready. This time I was eager to swallow it, and once that one had started to do its magic, both my housecarl and I directed healing spells against my chest, which hopefully helped to reconnect my ribs. Fortunately, mostly thanks to proper training by Danica and a few other expert healers, my own restoration spells were capable of finding the proper areas to heal mostly by themselves, and this included re-arranging broken bones.
"This was a hairy one, my Thane" Antonius commented. "A normal human person might have been killed by the trap."
"Yes, but I am neither normal nor human!"
"Indeed, you are not" my housecarl confirmed and chuckled.
"Also, another person might have seen the trap in time."
"True, but I have to admit that I also did not expect a trap here. After all, that's where the bandits came from, and having a trap right here should be too dangerous for themselves."
"Sure, but maybe one of them rigged the trap after the others had left" Jordis suggested.
"Quite so, indeed. That makes sense, as it wasn't active when we were here before. While most of the bandits seem to have more muscles than brain, maybe occasionally there is a smart one, too."
I probably had had a very bad concussion, but thanks to the two healing potions the set of hammers in my head was gone now, and I was back to having just some headaches. Those healing potions were really great; while my own skills were by far not good enough to create decent ones, I had access to very powerful potions mixed by master alchemists, and Mia in Whiterun was always willing to refill my supplies. She did not charge me for those, but I also did something for her by frequently sharing some of the ingredients I found.
Antonius made me rest for some time, and I learned that Jordis and my two cubs had carefully scouted ahead. Two bandits had been left behind in the large cavern, but one of them had been asleep, and the other one did not have a chance fighting against my tough Nord housecarl. The sleeping bandit had been bound and was available for interrogation as soon as I was ready. We could consider ourselves fortunate that the majority of the bandits had been eliminated by the soldiers earlier and we only had to deal with those few who had been staying behind; otherwise the noise from the trap might have got us into big trouble.
While I was still a little bit dizzy, I managed to stand up, and once the world stopped spinning, I slowly walked into the large room. There was a small waterfall, maybe four meters high, at the back end, a pool of water on one side and a large open and dry area on the other side. A campfire was burning, and a large pot with some soup or broth or stew was, judged by the smell, being prepared above it. This reminded me that I had not eaten much on this day yet, and my stomach growled a little bit. As the stew brewing in the pot seemed to be about ready, we decided to eat first before continuing our search, and this we did. Even Hanni and Nanni, who usually preferred raw food, got some of the stew filled into a bowl and enjoyed, and as the bandits had prepared the food for more than a dozen people, there was still plenty left when we were full.
In this cavern, as we concluded after the meal, there were some shelves and racks with armor and weapons and also food, but nothing which looked like valuable loot or stolen items. It was possible that there was an exit to another room from here, although we couldn't see one, but the likely option appeared to be the other area where Jordis and I had been earlier, where bandits had been on watch. Just before we left, Jordis had been looking at the waterfall, and she called out:
"My Thane, it may be possible to climb up here! Shouldn't we see if there is a way forward from here?"
Antonius and I joined her, and I agreed that the rock left of the waterfall should be climbable. I went first, and due to my size I managed to get up after a few attempts. The wider area around the waterfall got more narrow further one, but there was a small passage leading forward. Hanni and Nanni managed to get up as well, and I called down:
"Jordis, Antonius, I will investigate this together with my saber cats. Please stay back and wait for me!"
I was feeling reasonably fit again; I summoned Spirit and had her go first, and we followed the opening ahead of us. I did not really think that this was leading to a storage room with much loot, as it would have been challenging to get chests through the narrow passage, but it was probably good to know what was here. In a niche to my left I found something which looked like a storage container, like a chest, but it was made from a material I did not know. The small chest like item was empty, and I proceeded. In the next room I had to climb a small wall again, once more next to a waterfall, and I found an item I recognized as a Dynamo Core. Wait, wasn't such an item only found in Dwemer ruins? If so, was this a sign that I had found an entrance into such a ruin, like Mzulft, which was not so far from the cave? From here on I was very cautious, as I did not have a desire to investigate a Dwemer ruin all on my own. There was a longer tunnel leading onward, and when it opened up into a larger cave, I looked around and saw a bridge crossing an abyss ahead of me. Before I had made more than a dozen steps, an arrow whizzed by very close to me, and once I had ducked, I saw some movement from the direction of the bridge. Hanni, Nanni and Spirit raced ahead, and when I slowly joined them, I noticed that they had killed a lone person, and that person was obviously a Falmer, judged by body, clothes and armor.
A Falmer! I realized that there were very likely more Falmer not far, probably many more, and delving into a Dwemer ruin with Falmer was definitely not on my list of things to do for today. So I hastily turned around, called my saber cats, and left this area, planning to get back to my companions quickly. However, maybe about halfway back, I noticed a side passage I had missed before, and curiosity drove me to investigate. A narrow tunnel had a few bends, and eventually I heard a faint noise, like a high frequency buzzing. Unsure what that was about I proceeded cautiously, and after the next and final bend the passage opened up into a small room with no other visible exit. There were a couple of shelves and a table, and the source of the buzzing was in a corner – a blue glowing crystal like object, maybe about half a meter high, looking like a – actually, a skyshard! Yes, the buzzing, form and color did remind me clearly of a skyshard, but that had been part of a mod and not the vanilla game! But all right, Vilja was also from a mod, and besides, although I was not sure if I remembered this correctly, skyshards had some lore background in ESO. Now, was this crystal actually going to do something with me? There was nothing I could feel, yet, and I dared to touch it. I felt some tiny vibration in the crystal, but contrary to the game, it did not stop glowing, just the buzzing was getting a little but more subdued. I looked around to see if there were any other items, but only noticed some very minor things around. For a minute or two I pondered what to do with the crystal, but eventually decided to leave it here and not even try to move it.
Deep in thoughts I retraced my way through the narrow passage, turned towards where I had come from, and ten minutes later I was back where my two housecarls waited and told them what I had found, excluding the skyshard for some reason. To be sure we waited for about half an hour, but it appeared that nobody had followed me back to this area.
Slowly we followed the small creek downstream and turned left again when we got to the wooden ramp. The ramp itself showed some indications that heavy items had been pushed up on it, and I was almost sure that there had to be a hidden door or something like that. Jordis told me that they had tried to get some information out from the bandit we had captured, but he had either not known or had been unwilling to talk. We split up and searched the small area for any hints, like levers, switches, or other movable objects. I tried the few torchholders and checked if they could be moved or turned and looked into corners for potential switches, without success. A few minutes later Antonius found a smaller lever in a shelf, carefully hidden behind a few books. When he pushed it, a rumbling sound was heard, and a stone door slowly opened up for us.
This time we had hit the jackpot. Of course we were cautious at first, as we could not know if there were any people in this area, but likely anybody who had been here had joined the earlier fight. A short passage wide enough for chests to be carried through opened up into a medium sized room, and various shelves and chests along one of the walls indicated lot of items. There were a couple of beds and a table with two chairs plus a wardrobe, and there was a journal on the table. I looked into the booklet first, and there were some entries on the various raids the bandits had done. It would be good to inform the authorities about that, and maybe we could pass on the information on our way home later.
We now opened all of the unlocked storage containers, and for the locked ones, we could find the keys in a desk drawer. After careful investigation we found a special looking lute, which fit the description Illdi had given me, plus many more items of value. Naturally, several large coin purses were also there, probably payment from fencing earlier loot. There was no way that we'd be able to transport everything off, so that were going to take the lute and the coins and not much more, but leave everything else for the guards to clean and potentially find the rightful owners. I was not really familiar with that process and could only hope that this was the right thing to do, as we had done with the huge amount of loot we had found at Swindler's Den, displayed close to the Whiterun city gate for owners to reclaim. In the game, one would have taken advantage of a high carry capacity, unless one used one of those survival modes limiting it, and taken most of the valuable stuff. Here, in real Skyrim, we had to pay attention not not overburden ourselves, and in addition, I was thinking about the poor people who had been the rightful owners of the wares in here. The coins were, in my opinion, fair game though. Antonius and Jordis both assured me that this was the right way to proceed, so that we eventually went back to the main cavern with the beds and the campfire. We were going to eat dinner and stay here for the night, and on the next day we'd head home, with next stop Darkwater Crossing. We'd take the captured bandit with us and hand him over to the guards as well.
Hanni and Nanni guarded our sleep, and in the morning we warmed up the remainder of the stew in the large pot over the fire. The bandit also got his part, and then we picked up the few items we had claimed, most importantly the lute which had been stolen from the Bard's college, and found our way to the outer world again.
After about one hour we were back on the main road and turned west. A light drizzle came down, but that was all right and did not bother us much. When we approached the next road branch, a Stormcloak patrol came down from the direction of Shor՚s Stone. We quickly informed them about recent events, and as they were heading towards Windhelm, they took over the captured bandit from us as well as the journal we had found; they were going to inform the steward, so that a proper party could be sent to retrieve whatever we had left.
Moving on, we could soon see parts of a fort to our right and further downhill, and Antonius explained that this was Fort Mistwatch. From the distance, we could observe some people patrolling the ramparts, and I did not believe that this fort was something which was supposed to be on our agenda today. I vaguely recalled that there might a quest related to the fort, but failed to remember any details. All right, no reason to worry; there was always another day.
A couple of hours later we got to a bridge crossing the Black River, ad we stopped for our lunch break not far from there. Maybe the location was not the best, though; just after we had eaten, a few people came up the small road which likely led to Fort Mistwatch, and while we greeted them in a friendly way, one of them called out:
"We only take the girl; kill the other two!"
What the …? Fortunately, my two housecarls reacted more quickly than did, and within seconds fighting was on. I barely managed to duck an arrow which was coming in my direction, and then I conjured Spirit and also cast Oakflesh on myself. While the three saber cats distracted the archers, I got my glass axe ready and helped Antonius, who had two bandits against him. The moment of surprise helped to defeat one of them, but I got in trouble when the other one also turned towards me. This one had a decent armor and was quite agile, so that I failed to score a direct hit. However, my opponent had neglected to pay attention to my Imperial housecarl for a few moments, and that cost him; Antonius cut him down with his sword. Meanwhile, the two remaining bandits next to us were about to subdue Jordis and had somehow missed to pay attention to events around them, and within a few seconds Antonius and I had them under control. I stayed with Jordis, while Antoninus rushed towards the two archers, helping the saber cats to kill one of them, while the other fled back to the fort.
Now, we had a captive again; all others had been killed or, for that one archer, fled. As the fight was over, I sat down, and my conscience made itself noticed. Yes, I had killed people again, but this was a harsh world, and after all, they had attacked us. Even my inner voice had to admit that there was no way to avoid those fights entirely, and I was grateful for having two capable housecarls with me. All on my own, I would have been killed or captured, and I very much doubted that I had a reload option. Sometimes I wished that I could see skills improving after a fight, like a plus one for two handed weapons and/or light armor, but while this was a kind of fantasy world, it was not that much unrealistic. No, all together, I was happy with what I had.
When I looked up again from my musing, I saw Antoninus watching me, and he had been around me long enough to understand some of my feelings. He placed one of his hands on my shoulder, which he could easily do as I was sitting, and told me:
"Yep, I also get down mentally on occasions after killing. I doubt that there are many people who actually enjoy doing that, but one has to get used to it. Maybe we should both make an effort to learn one of those spells you can use to pacify a group of enemies all at once. I tried my own weak spell, but it did not work. I guess one would need a more powerful spell for that."
"You have a point, Antonius. I can use my 'KAAN' shout for animals, but I don't have anything for people. Well, no, that's not true, I did learn the 'calm' spell in Windhelm, but I don't think that it works on most people. And yes, I have seen before how something like that can be useful. I am not sure that my magic is good enough for that yet, but at east I should practice with what I have."
"True, and I have heard some mentioning about the 'pacify' spell requiring expert illusion skill. I know that I am far from that; I barely managed my own ' calm' spell, which only works on a single person and only for those with a weak mind which can be easily swayed, indeed. I guess that we both need more training."
"Absolutely right, Antonius. So far, I have used mostly restoration and destruction magic, and I may have neglected the other schools. Let's make it a habit to practice together, shall we?"
While the Imperial nodded, Jordis shook her head. She was not exactly overly conservative or so, but her own education, as she had told me, had been a traditional Nord one, and magic had not been on the agenda at all.
"My family always claimed that a good warrior has no need for magic, and my combat training in Solitude also lacked anything in that direction" she said after she had listened to our conversation. "I do not even know if I have some magicka in me. On the other hand, maybe that's good; running out of magicka will never be an issue for me."
Once we had healed our injuries, nothing major fortunately, we continued our journey, and before sunset we arrived in Darkwater Crossing. I had been here before, together with Vilja, and I had met a few locals, like Anneke Crag-Jumper, Sondas Drenim, and Tormir. Some of the miners just came out of the mine at the end of their day's work when we arrived, and we did the introductions. Tormir lead me to the leader of the local hold guards, and we handed over the bound Mistwatch bandit and also told the story of Stoner Creek Cave. While the town did not have an inn, we found a place in a barn where we could sleep, and before that we were allowed to join the miners and other town people around a campfire. Here, in this location close to the hot springs, winter climate was mild and not too cold.
[Author's Notes: I was thinking about adding the quest about 'Derkeethus' in Darwater Crossing, but decided to skip it for now; let me know if Balu should do that at a later time.
About the skyshard: I am not sure yet, but maybe I will pick up the idea in book B. For those who don't know, the original Skyshard mod for Skyrim was done by Arthmoor, one of the best modders I am aware of. As a consequence of a change of usage conditions on the Nexus, he removed his mods from there, and they can be found on 'afkmods'.]
