Chapter 54
A few days later, Mull finds himself standing before the throne of Idgrod Ravencrone for the second time. The atmosphere inside the jarl's longhouse is slightly more enthusiastic than before, with a few of the attending functionaries even deigning to smile. Rather than crowding around the Mighty Mudcrabs like watchful shadows, the local warriors and housecarls are now maintaining a polite distance.
"Movarth Piquine is still lurking within the borders of my Hold, but the vampire threat has been lessened through the efforts of the Vigil and our own brave warriors. You've also done well, Thane of Whiterun. I'm impressed by the reports of your prowess in battle," the Jarl chuckles.
By the reports of my Voice, you mean.
She gives Mull an appraising up-and-down look. "You should know that there's room in my court for a new thane. It's mainly an honorary title, but there are a few perks somebody like yourself might find useful. What say you?"
Mull irritably works his jaw, tries to think of a polite response, fails, and keeps his mouth shut.
Idgrod nods with self-satisfaction. "It's decided then. By my right as Jarl, I hereby name you a Thane of the Hjaalmarch with all the associated rights and obligations. Congratulations, Ruair Gudarsson. You're moving up in the world."
He discreetly grimaces. He didn't accomplish much during the raid against Movarth Piquine's stronghold and the whole thing was a bust anyways, so his best guess it that Idgrod was planning this farce from the very beginning. She seems like the type of cunning old hag to do something like that.
A storm of whispering erupts throughout the longhouse, with people asking each other why the Jarl would make this random outsider a thane seemingly on a whim. Some of them shoot Ravencrone dirty or exasperated glares, as if they're thinking 'not this again.' Mull gets the feeling it isn't unusual for her to make these sorts of important announcements out of the blue.
"My most esteemed Jarl," begins one especially weaselly-looking townsman. "Are you quite certain this is proper? It's been many years since an outsider was last elevated to the position of thane in the Hjaalmarch. The people will be… puzzled by your decision."
He can't blame them for their concern. Their newest thane is a scruffy man with flinty eyes and a burnt beard. He probably doesn't look much like the usual candidates. Lydia insisted that he should clean himself up before answering the Jarl's summons, but there was only so much he could do on short notice.
Jarl Idgrod stares at the self-appointed spokesperson long enough to make things uncomfortable before offering her reply. "This man is our ally, and although he hasn't yet proven himself in the eyes of the people, I have no doubt that he will sooner rather than later. Ruair Gudarsson is worthy of the right to stand proudly in my hall with the sigil of the Hjaalmarch upon his breast and I won't tolerate any gainsayers. This matter is settled." Her piercing deep green gaze swivels back to Mull. "The authority of a thane is now duly vested in you. Know that you will always be welcome in Morthal and elsewhere in my Hold. I honor you with this title just as you have honored us with your presence."
Ah, so this is an investment. She wants to be on the Dragonborn's good side without making it too obvious. Cute. He resists the urge to spit on the floor. At least Balgruuf had the decency to be up-front about it. And stop using my name, you crazy old bat!
Idgrod's elderly steward steps forward and explains in a dispassionate monotone that as part of this arrangement, Mull will have the opportunity to select a weapon from the Jarl's armory as his official badge of office. He also mentions that each Thane of the Hjaalmarch is immune from criminal prosecution within the Hold's borders unless they do something utterly absurd or unambiguously evil.
Torgen starts grinning like a madman as soon as he hears that. Mull resists the urge to facepalm. He'll need to beat it into his pet idiot's thick skull that these rules apply to himself, the thane, and not his lackeys.
Once the proceedings are over, a group of Hjaalmarch warriors respectfully escort Mull and his followers out of the great hall. Mull feels the weight of the Jarl's evaluating gaze boring into the back of his head until the instant the doors swing shut behind him. He unconsciously quickens his pace, happy to be out of her sight as the guardsmen lead them to the armory in an adjacent building.
After sifting through racks of old swords and axes for about ten minutes, Mull spies a gleaming silver dagger hidden beneath a rusty iron shield and smiles. It isn't even a question. After tangling with the vampires in the flooded cave, he doesn't intend to face Skyrim's most dangerous species of undead a second time without himself and his people being properly equipped for it. Besides, most of the other stuff here is borderline junk of historical value and little else.
The knife itself is plain and utilitarian, with a straight double-sided blade tapering into a sharp point and strips of black leather wrapped around its hilt. The only embellishments are matching Hjaalmarch triskelions engraved on either side of the stubby crossguard. There don't appear to be any nicks or blemishes, so he takes the dagger and informs his escorts that he's found what he came for.
He gives the dagger to Lydia, who tries to argue against it but eventually relents when he claims she'll only be holding onto his badge of office temporarily. The girl carefully pockets the weapon like a treasured heirloom. In reality, he wants the girl to have a reliable way to defend herself against vampires. He doesn't think Torgen could resist the temptation of selling the valuable silver blade for quick cash and Jenassa can always defend herself with flame spells and ancestor runes in a pinch, so Lydia is the logical choice. As for him, he can use his own flame spell or Unrelenting Force. And as soon as I can master Yol, the undead won't be able to touch me. Fire is a necromancer's nightmare.
They're in the process of exiting the longhouse grounds when they're unexpectedly intercepted by an old man, who stops them on the edge of Morthal's main road. He waves away the squad of escorts. "The Jarl's asked me to handle things from here. You boys go find something else to do."
The green-clad warriors each give him a languid salute before heading back towards Highmoon Hall. Mull watches them go before turning and raising an eyebrow at the authoritative newcomer.
He bangs his fist against his armored chest with a dull thud. "Idgrod Ravencrone has decided to honor her recent pledge to you, Thane. She's appointed me to be your guide while you travel through the marshlands in search of your goal. I'm one of her housecarls, Valdimar – a veteran warrior as well as a sorcerer of some small renown. At your service."
He reaches into his pocket and withdraws a faded square of parchment, which he carefully unfolds before handing over. Mull passes it along to Lydia for verification without looking at it, instead using the opportunity to inspect this Valdimar in greater detail.
The Hjaalmarch housecarl's tanned face is striking, with heavy features and a patchwork of deep wrinkles. His physique is muscular, his scalp is covered in shaved grey fuzz, and his upper lip is home to an impressive handlebar mustache that might've once been blonde but is now mostly grey. He's currently wearing a leather scale cuirass, a pair of steel and leather pauldrons, a heavy fur skirt, and a studded girdle, while his wrists and legs are protected by steel bracers and greaves with intricate knotwork.
"…Call me Mull," he says at length. "I'm sure you heard your Jarl using a different name, but I'd prefer if you could forget it. I take it we'll be working together for a little while?"
Valdimar grimly nods. "By my Jarl's command, yes. She's still my rightful liege-lord, but I'll follow your orders as if they were her own until the day she instructs me to do otherwise."
"In that case, happy to have you aboard. Welcome to the Mighty Mudcrabs, the most famous band of mercenaries on the far side of the Skyborn Mountains. We'll show you a good time."
The older housecarl's mustache twitches.
"My Thane, this is a map to the site of Ustengrav just as Jarl Idgrod promised us. It appears to be located deep in the marshlands to the north," announces Lydia.
"Wonderful. Just what I was hoping to see. I'd like to leave for Ustengrav as soon as possible, so do you think you can be ready to go early tomorrow morning?" he asks Valdimar.
Idgrod's housecarl frowns beneath his bushy mustache. "It'll be a bit of a rush on such short notice, but aye. I can do it." If he's annoyed by the request, he does a good job of hiding it.
"Good man. Where should we meet?"
"On the central wharf near the thaumaturgist's hut. It'll be easy to find, just follow the smell of alchemical brews and you'll soon be there. I'll procure transportation for us along with provisions and other basic necessities. We'll set out from the canal instead of the riverbank. It'll be easier that way."
"See you then." Mull nods, catches the eye of his followers, and starts walking back to the Moorside Inn to start preparing for their upcoming trip.
-x-
They depart from the town docks in a dugout canoe the next morning with a respectably large group of well-wishers seeing them off. Among them are some Hjaalmarch warriors, two of Torgen's newest lady friends who're bawling their eyes out, Jarl Idgrod's daughter – apparently also named Idgrod, weirdly enough – and three familiar members of the Vigilants of Stendarr. Mull recognizes them as Isran, Celann, and the nutcase monk Florentius.
As their watercraft drifts away from the docks, Isran calls out something or other about how they should go hunting for vampires together again soon, phrasing it in a way that makes it clear he sees the prospect as something to look forward to. Mull just smiles and waves – metaphorically, of course – but internally he's thinking "there's no way in Oblivion." He won't miss any sleep if he never sees Isran again.
Soon the well-wishers are left behind as the canoe drifts with the Myr River's swift currents. The passengers duck beneath Morthal's arched stone bridge where a handful of townsfolk are peering curiously over the edge at them. Torgen and Lydia wave and a few people wave back.
Their wooden dugout canoe is simple and functional, with the only adornment being two wrought-iron lanterns suspended from poles at the bow and the stern. It's long enough for all four of the passengers to sit comfortably in a single row while Valdimar stands at the stern and steers the canoe using a long pole. It isn't the most visually impressive boat in the world, but it's well-made and remains perfectly balanced as it slices across the surface of the river.
After a couple hours of watching pine trees and rocky hills crawl by on each bank, they reach a point where the Myr River converges with a larger river as it spills into the northern marshlands through a swift-flowing channel.
"This is the Hjaal River, of which the Myr is a tributary. The old fortifications of Snowhawk are a ways upstream, but that isn't our destination today." Valdimar points north to a narrow channel of rushing water with swampy banks. "This waterway flows straight into the boggy lowlands of Drajkmyr Marsh, the route we'll follow to Ustengrav."
Mull, Torgen, Lydia, and Jenassa are each instructed to take a stubby oar, much shorter than Valdimar's ten foot long navigational pole, and row as best they can. It's a struggle due to the Myr River losing most of its momentum as it melds with the Hjaal, but they manage to paddle their way into the main channel and settle into another swifter current that carries them rapidly northwards.
Once they've fully entered the Hjaal River, Valdimar instructs them to stow the oars and begins piloting the canoe solo. "We aren't likely to need them again from here on out unless we get stuck."
The land on either side of the waterway is sunken and riddled with inlets of uncertain depth. Countless trees are blocking out the sky and forming verdant walls in every direction with their mossy branches and dense foliage, making it impossible to see much farther than the foggy shoreline. The orange glow of the boat's two lanterns are the only sources of light in the deepening gloom, with even the noonday sun being thwarted by the thickening mist.
A large indistinct shape suddenly looms ahead of them in the middle of the river. Lydia cries out a soft warning but Valdimar raises an unconcerned hand to stop her. As they pierce further through the fogbanks, the unknown obstacle is revealed to be a partially submerged mound of muddy soil and stone masonry, stained green and yellow by splotches of algae and the passage of time. Valdimar carefully steers them around the sunken structure. "Welcome to Drajkmyr Marsh," he announces.
At the same time, the river opens up into a larger body of brackish water that stretches away into the darkness ahead of them and on both sides, broken up into narrow channels and pools by islands of swaying reeds. These are treacherous waters, but Valdimar deftly navigates through the natural obstacles with a level of casual skill that could only be gained from a lifetime of experience. This clearly isn't his first time venturing into this part of the marsh, which Mull is glad for. He quickly loses his sense of direction and gets completely disoriented by the seemingly random twists and turns.
They're forced to portage on two occasions. They disembark under Valdimar's watchful eye and heft the canoe atop their shoulders to it carry through stretches of water too stony or shallow for floating. Tramping through the knee-high mire is extremely unenjoyable, and it's a good thing Lydia had the foresight to bring extra socks for everyone.
Valdimar speaks up again during one of their overland hikes. "Watch the trees carefully. If you peer closely enough, you might catch a glimpse of wisplights dancing in the mist. Only a fool would dare approach them, but they're pretty enough to look at from a distance."
His heavily-accented Nordic is difficult to parse through at times, though it isn't really an issue since he tends to keep to himself. The only thing Mull's learned about the man over the last twenty-four hours is that he has a wife, several children, and a gaggle of grandchildren waiting for him back in Morthal.
But now it seems Valdimar is in a more talkative mood as he levels his stoic gaze at them. "Have you ever heard the tale of the Pale Lady?"
Lydia goes rigid in her seat in front of Mull.
"You scared of ghost stories?" he whispers.
"O-Of course not!"
"Hmph. Me neither."
That's halfway a lie. He's never been the kind of person to get riled up by myths and tall tales, but Isran's talk of golden-eyed vampires from a few days ago is still lingering in his mind. If he dwells on it for too long, he swears he can see glowing yellow dots glinting in his peripheral vision like watchful eyes.
"Legends tell of a mysterious entity dwelling within the depths of Drajkmyr Marsh," continues Valdimar. "My people speak of explorers and adventurers delving into the darkest hollows and never coming back out, or having hallucinations and visions caused by the mist's magical properties. The marsh is dotted with old ruins, one of which is supposedly the dwelling-place of the Pale Lady – a wispmother of incredible power. For generations my people have whispered of her, a ghostly woman wandering through the mists as she eternally seeks her lost daughter. Some say she steals children who wander astray, others that her sobbing and shrieking will strike dead all who hear it."
"And… are we at risk of having an unforeseen encounter with this Pale Lady?" Jenassa demands.
"Not likely," he grunts while steering around a sunken log. A family of turtles slide off their mossy beds atop the log and escape from the encroaching canoe by vanishing beneath the murky waters. "They're just old wives tales, lass. I've spent many a moon trawling these wetlands and never once have I heard the cries of the Pale Lady. There might be a kernel of truth to these stories – I've read ancient records in Highmoon Hall that speak of 'Aumriel,' a mysterious figure Ysgramor's heirs battled for decades before finally sealing her away – but to this day I've never found anything concrete." He cranes his head and scans their surroundings. "The ghostlights are real enough though, along with plenty of other things."
Mull catches a flicker of movement in the corner of his eye and refocuses on a green fern with swaying fronds. He stares for several seconds but doesn't see anything else suspicious. Just more stunted trees and algae-infested ponds. "Did you see that?"
"See what?" murmurs Jenassa.
Lydia shifts in front of him and he risks a glance down at her. His housecarl is staring in the same direction, but she notices his gaze and gently shakes her head.
"What, was there something out there?" asks Torgen.
"Yeah. I thought so, at least. Could be wrong."
The marsh is completely still and quiet except for the chirping of insects from all directions. Whatever it was, it's cautious enough not to move again while under scrutiny – if it was even there in the first place.
Valdimar eventually breaks the lengthening silence. "I wouldn't worry yourselves over it too much. Drajkmyr Marsh is a strange place. If you let it get to your head…"
Torgen mutters his acknowledgement. "My clan used to live around these parts, years ago. We never went into the marsh, but we skirted the eastern and northern boundaries often enough. After seeing ghostlights bobbing through the trees every night, we eventually got used to 'em. They're part of the natural, uh… ambiance?" He turns to Lydia. "Is that a word?"
"Yes," she curtly replies. "And you even managed to use it correctly. Wonders abound."
He proudly grins. "I'm getting smarter by the day, aren't I?"
The sounds of faint snickering comes from Jenassa's direction.
Valdimar takes the opportunity to segway into a lecture about some of the more common dangers in Drajkmyr Marsh, among which are frostbite spiders, swamp trolls, and insectoid creatures called chaurus. Mull hasn't heard of a chaurus before, so the old housecarl explains that they're vicious monsters the size of a pony or small horse with too many skittering legs and chomping mandibles. They emerge from their burrows during the night and hunt down prey using their cerulean-blue venom, which is extremely deadly to most species of mortals and animals.
Besides the indigenous predators, these fens and tidal pools are also teeming with more peaceful clades of wildlife including mudcrabs and other crustaceans. Mammals such as reindeer, muskoxen, and foxes inhabit the drier areas in abundance.
They drift through the fetid waters until sundown without seeing many changes in the landscape. Drajkmyr Marsh is utterly vast. Based on the map provided by Jarl Idgrod, the boundaries of the swamp extend as far west as the mouths of the Karth River and as far north as the Sea of Ghosts. Ustengrav is fortunately less than three day's travel away by boat, but the route is circuitous since they're detouring westwards to avoid running into any surviving vampires. Movarth Piquine is still out there somewhere according to the Vigil of Stendarr.
The alternative would've been to journey east to a settlement called Stonehills and then north along the Imperial road into the Pale, halfway to Dawnstar, before looping back west and approaching Ustengrav from the opposite direction. That would take ten to fifteen days of walking, easily. The Pale is known for its rugged terrain.
Trying to go straight through the marsh on foot would be no option at all, as most of this area is uncharted and therefore a veritable deathtrap for the unprepared. To say nothing of the vampires.
When they strike camp for the night, Valdimar sets aside a few hours to coach Mull on Destruction magic. The old housecarl is a wealth of practical wisdom and demonstrates his skill with ice-element spells for Mull's benefit. He walks him through a specific technique called ice spike, which he claims is fundamentally similar to firebolt – the next step up from Mull's generic flame spell.
Mull doesn't make any incredible breakthroughs that evening, but he slowly begins comprehending the best methods for gathering fire-element magicka in his palm and preparing to unleash it in a single concentrated burst.
"But don't get too eager now," the old housecarl cautions him. "If you aren't careful, you could blow your own hand off before you get a proper feel for it. The hardest part is learning the precise right moment to let go of the magicka. You'll get it down eventually."
When the sun goes down, Mull and Lydia sit together against a fallen log to keep watch while the others go to sleep. It's also their responsibility to make sure the campfire stays lit, which Valdimar says will be invaluable for warding away unwanted visitors.
Mull focuses on watching the shadows and listening to the sounds of the marsh at night, so a long time passes before he realizes Lydia is stealing glances at him every minute or two. She wants to ask him something.
He softly preempts her with a teasing voice. "You used to be so good at speaking your mind without holding back when your uncle first assigned you to me. What happened to the fiery housecarl I once knew?"
Lydia shuffles uncomfortably against the log. "N-Nothing happened to her. There's simply something I'd like to ask, my Thane, but I'm not sure if it's… well…" She trails off.
"Just ask. The worst I can do is send you back to Whiterun."
"You will not." She gives him a scathing glare before regathering herself. "Jarl Idgrod has addressed you as Ruair on more than one occasion. Would you… like us to do the same?"
His good humor vanishes and he scowls in the firelight. "No, I don't. It's been a long time since I went by that name. I think it would be too strange."
In recent years, only Morven ever called him by the name he was assigned at birth. Even his old pals Joren and Lotosk never had the privilege of knowing it. Call him paranoid, but he often worried that one of them could be captured, interrogated, and coerced into revealing that Mull the bandit and Ruair Gudarsson are the very same man, wanted throughout Hammerfell and Cyrodiil for a colorful variety of misdeeds. He's made more than a few enemies over the years. On the flip side, he wholeheartedly trusted Morven to take his identity to her grave just as she trusted him with so many things in life.
"…Is there a story behind it?" tentatively asks Lydia.
"Not really. I had a criminal record in Hammerfell and the Empire, so I needed to make a fresh start. That's all there is to it. I've used a few different names over the years, actually."
"Such as Mull?"
"Aye, that one's no different from the rest."
That seems to irritate the girl for some reason. "As your sworn housecarl, do you really expect me to call you anything other than your true name? To do so knowingly would be a blemish upon my honor as well as your own. We noble Nords ought to hold our heads high with pride, else our ancestors won't welcome us into Sovngarde with praises upon their lips."
"Half-Nord if you recall, and from Craglorn to boot, so I'm not sure that applies to me." He gives her a side eye. "And of all the things you could be mad about, why on Nirn would it be that? I don't see how it's relevant. If it were me, I think being dragged into a dangerous swamp without any say in the matter would be much more aggravating."
"The very fact that you don't see why is precisely the reason I'm upset by this."
"Ah. The classic womanly 'I'm angry at you but don't want to explain why.' Never gets old."
She crosses her arms and turns away with a huff. "You're insufferable."
His lips twitch. "But not as much as Torgen, right?"
The Nord bandit snores loudly from his bedroll. He could rival a horker in volume.
"…Of course not," Lydia imperiously states. "I've never met another man with such unapologetic impertinence and I'll be perfectly happy if I never do."
Mull chuckles under his breath as he continues to scan the dark landscape. He leans over, picks up a chunk of fallen hardwood, and starts smoothing it out with a whittling knife to pass the time. "Never change, Lydia."
Her only response is an odd look, like she's wondering where in the world that came from. They don't talk much for the rest of their shift.
-x-
They stumble across a place called Folgunthur on the afternoon of the second day. Valdimar identifies the name of the halfmoon-shaped ruin as it emerges from a fog bank to their left, truncating Mull's hope that they've arrived at Ustengrav early. The semicircular structure is built directly into the side of a natural spur of stone that rises high above the surrounding marshland.
The landscape is foggy around Folgunthur just like everywhere else in these fens. Valdimar informs them that the famous Cliffs of Solitude might've been visible across the Karth River Delta to the west if the weather were clearer today.
Lydia recognizes the name of Folgunthur due to a book she once read in her uncle's library, called 'Lost Legends', which coincidentally also discussed the myth of the Pale Lady as well as some obscure Reachman folklore. However, the majority of its text was dedicated to the forbidden legend of Archmage Gauldur.
"King Harald was the first true High King to rule over Skyrim in the early First Era. He was mighty and just, but perhaps even mightier than he was the renowned Archmage Gauldur, a wizard of great wisdom and power whose counsel was sought by men and mer alike across the land. However, his life was ended abruptly when he was murdered by unknown assailants, cutting short his growing legend. Some say it was one of his sons that killed him while others claim King Harald grew jealous of his influence and ordered his death. Whatever the case, Gauldur's three sons fled into the countryside with the High King's warriors and his personal battlemage Lord Geirmund in pursuit."
Lydia pauses for a drink from her waterskin and Valdimar continues in her stead. "The brothers were chased across all corners of the province, from the wilds of the Reach to the frozen shores of the northern Holds, where they met their ends one by one. The first is said to have perished here, at Folgunthur near the foot of Solitude, while the others were run to ground soon after. King Harald ordered all records of their deaths to be destroyed and their tale thus passed into legend. But we men of the Hjaalmarch have not forgotten it."
"…Interesting," Mull lies. It's a memorable story, that much he'll concede, but there's something else starting to draw his attention away from the two history-loving housecarls.
Much more importantly than these tales of betrayal and dead mages are the ghostly whispers emanating from the ruin. Familiar whispers. Voices that fill him with warmth and caress his skin as they entice him with promises of power.
Folgunthur must be another burial site of the ancient Nords. If he isn't mistaken, a Word of Power is hidden away somewhere inside there. He's sure of it.
Mirmulnir adds his own opinion. 'You must delve into this place and seize its knowledge for yourself, Qahnaarin. Although I lack the spiritual energy to teach you a new Thu'um, there will come a day where you slay another of our kindred and claim their soul. You would be wise to seek out additional rotmulaag for your knowledge-horde until that time arrives.'
For once, Mull finds himself agreeing with the dead dragon. He saw firsthand just how outmatched he was during the battle against Iizyoldrog, if it could be called that. Learning a new Word of Power by exploring this barrow could better prepare him for taking on that winged menace in the future.
"I want to stop here for a while," he suddenly announces. "Valdimar, steer us over to the shore. I'll be taking a look around."
"…As you command," replies the housecarl. He yanks hard on his steering pole, banking the canoe sharply to the left, and they make landfall on a gravel beach. The passengers leap over the gunwales and pull the canoe beyond the high tide line. Once the boat is secure, Mull advances inland with the others following cautiously behind.
After climbing up a steel shale slope, the travelers discover an uninhabited campsite with four tents and the remnants of a fire about fifty paces away from the barrow entrance. It looks like the site's been abandoned for some time, with miscellaneous objects scattered across the area by bad weather or scavengers. There's a lot of junk lying around but no sign of the owners, so Mull assumes these people must've left with the intention of returning to their campsite within a day or two at most. But clearly that didn't happen.
They start poking around the tents, where Mull uncovers a journal that was tucked into a moth-eaten bedroll. The text is written in illegible Dark Elvish, so he passes it off to Lydia for examination – she's claimed to be fluent in the past. Jenassa is busy with something else in one of the other tents.
The housecarl scans through the journal's entries with an ever-deepening frown. She sighs after a few minutes of absorbed reading and tosses the book inside her knapsack. "This appears to be the personal journal of one Daynas Valen, a Dunmer mage who traveled here from Cyrodiil to investigate the Gauldur legend. He apparently gained possession of something he named 'the Ivory Claw' in the city of Bravil, which inspired him to sail to Skyrim and recruit a band of adventurers to aid in his endeavors. It sounds like they entered Folgunthur in search of an amulet of some kind. He claims to have burned all of his books and scrolls, but this notebook evidently survived."
"Daynas Valen…" Valdimar thoughtfully scratches his chin. "The name is familiar. Unless I'm mistaken, I believe this elf's expedition set out from Morthal about a month and a half ago, close to the beginning of spring. They must be dead by now, judging by the look of this place. More unprepared adventurers claimed by the perils of the marsh."
Mull bobs his head. "Aye, that sounds likely."
They comb the rest of the camp for valuables but don't find much, so they doublecheck that the canoe is still well above the high tide line before assembling in front of the entrance to Folgunthur. The barrow's exterior isn't much to look at in comparison to Bleak Falls Barrow or Skybound Watch, but at least it's more impressive than Dustman's Cairn. It's a thirty-foot-tall archway of cyclopean stone blocks with a massive pillar in the middle to hold it up in place of a proper keystone. Beneath the arch and behind the central support pillar is a rectangular door carved out of the living rock. It's pitch-black inside.
"Light up some torches and get a few others ready for backup. Keep them handy," directs Mull. "We're going in."
"My Thane, is this because of your Drag-?"
"Yes." He casts a meaningful glance at Valdimar and his young housecarl falls silent. He doesn't want her to give away more information than necessary to one of Idgrod Ravencrone's underlings. He still doesn't have a good read on that woman. "I have a feeling we'll find some good stuff inside. You said the author of that journal wrote about a so-called ivory claw, which is ringing a few bells for me. What about you, Torgen?"
"Now that you mention it… aye, it does. It sounds a lot like what we saw in Bleak Falls Barrow, which means if this Daynas character took the claw inside with him… and if he's now a rotting corpse somewhere down there…"
"Then we can find him, find the claw, and use it to unlock whatever he was trying to get his hands on for ourselves," finishes Mull.
"Stealing treasure out from under the nose of a dead wizard. Can't say I've ever done that before." Torgen laughs. "I like it, boss. You can't teach new tricks to an old dog like me, but it is nice to spice things up every once and a while."
"Oh, I see where this is going. More draugr. I'm willing to bet my pretty little ears on it," sighs Jenassa. She promptly starts digging through her belongings, produces a small ceramic jar filled with white paint, and removes the cork stopper with a loud pop. She turns around and pulls her tunic over her head, mussing her sable hair and exposing her bare ashen-grey back to the world.
Lydia stares daggers at the three males until they avert their eyes from the unabashed Dunmer, who begins painting white anti-necromancy runes all across her body.
"As if we haven't run into enough of them already on this sordid journey," she grouses.
-x-
The four Mighty Mudcabs enter a shadowy passageway that sharply drops into a downward staircase. They number four instead of five due to Valdimar's hesitancy to enter a Nordic burial ground, as he doesn't want to disturb the spirits of his ancestors. He stays outside with the boat instead.
They reach the staircase's first landing after about thirty steps, where they find a dead Nord man lying among three deader draugr. The Nord is badly decomposed and the entire hallway smells horrendous.
"He's been dead for a while," Torgen notes.
Lydia grimaces and covers her face with a scarf.
"We don't need your running commentary, n'wah. We're capable of basic observation. We have eyes, thank you very much."
"And noses, unfortunately," gripes Mull.
They continue down the stairs, circumvent a few spike traps, and enter a low-ceilinged chamber at the bottom of the staircase with another hallway on the far side. They find another group of deader draugr, two more decaying adventurers – a Redguard and a Cyrod – and four tetrahedral waist-high pillars that are each inscribed with images of the same three animals. A snake, a hawk, and… a dolphin? Or maybe a whale.
Either way, the most noteworthy feature is a pedestal positioned in the middle of the chamber with a triangular pattern of three holes on the very top. The outline of a reptilian claw is engraved into it, with the tips of its three digits ending at each of the holes.
"Recognize that?" Mull rhetorically asks.
Torgen nods. "Sure do. That's a claw keyhole, just like the one in Bleak Falls. Our friend Daynas must've gone through here." He points at a recessed portcullis over the far doorway. "The way forward was blocked off until he solved the puzzle with these animal totems and used the claw as the key. What a nice fellow. He did the hard work for us."
Another hallway later, the Mighty Mudcrabs carefully tiptoe into a much larger two-story chamber that their torches aren't bright enough to fully illuminate. The walls are lined with vertical black sarcophagi and a large number of deader draugr are sprawled across the floor. There must be two dozen of the restless mummies, most of which have been burnt to a crisp.
Torgen grunts approvingly "Daynas did some good work down here."
"We would be in a more difficult position if we were the first to venture into this crypt," Lydia comments. "Most of the draugr have been destroyed already, but we should still remain vigilant."
"Agreed." Mull raises his torch and walks to a staircase at the far end of the chamber. It appears to provide access to a balcony overhead. "Now come on, let's go. The claw won't wait for us forever." The voices of the barrow are continuously urging him onwards, making him impatient to reach the end.
They ascend the staircase, fish Torgen out of a pool of dirty water after he falls through a trapdoor, and cross a rickety timber bridge to the stone balcony they saw from below. There they find another claw pedestal with a decomposed corpse leaning against it. Somewhat ominously, the pedestal is covered in dried blood.
The body is barely recognizable much like the other dead adventurers, but it's still identifiable as a Dunmer. The tattered black robes are another clue to its identity, as there aren't many people who go around wearing that sort of thing. Those who do are usually mages.
"Hello there Daynas." Mull squats in front of the dead elven mage and pries a white object coated in blackened blood from his stiff fingers, which practically disintegrate on contact. He turns the object back and forth in his grasp. "This is the claw. Thanks for holding onto this for us, buddy."
Lydia wrinkles her nose.
"I would thank you for not blatantly disrespecting the remains of one of my countrymen," Jenassa dryly says. She leans over to pick up something from nearby – a yellow sheet of parchment. "This is written in Dark Elvish. They must be more of his notes." She squints and brings her torch closer as she pores over the text.
Torgen leers over her shoulder to catch a glimpse of the parchment. "What does it say?"
She swats him away with a muted noise of disgust. "Do you have any comprehension of personal space, you snow ape? Back off." She tugs one of her boiled leather pauldrons back into place and clears her throat. "Daynas Valen seemed to be under the impression that the Archmage Gauldur was murdered by his three sons, who divided a powerful amulet equally between themselves and proceeded to lay waste to the towns and villages of Skyrim using its immense power. They were eventually defeated and the first of them, named Mikrul, was slain here at Folgunthur. The second son, Jyrik, fled to a place called Saarthal and was sealed away despite being a powerful mage."
"Saarthal was the ancient capital of Skyrim when our Atmoran ancestors first came to this land," Lydia supplies. "Its location is now lost."
"The last of the bunch, Sigdis, fled to the southeast and battled against Lord Geirmund. They slew each other on the battlefield near Ivarstead and were both interred in a tomb on an island that was named after Geirmund, where they both remain to this very day. The end. By the Reclamations, what a boring story. No tension or proper conflict at all, just Nords killing each other one after the next."
"Wait, did you say Ivarstead? And an island?"
Mull, Lydia, and Torgen collectively share a loaded look.
"…There was an island in the middle of Lake Geir," says Torgen.
"Lake Geir. Geirmund. The lake still bears his name." Lydia idly taps the pommel of her sword, deep in thought.
"Sounds like we'll need to pay the island a visit next time we go down that way. We've been to Ivarstead before, Jenassa," he adds for the benefit of their newest member. "Hmm. But that'll have to wait. We aren't done here yet." He reaches out with the claw, inserts it into the pedestal that Daynas Valen died upon, and presses down. Something shifts against one of the chamber's shadowy walls and a drawbridge descends to connect their balcony with a new hallway.
They cross the drawbridge and enter a network of catacombs, where draugr come out of the woodwork like rats to attack them. Luckily these catacombs are modest compared to the vast underground mazes within Dustman's Cairn and Bleak Falls Barrow, so things quiet down after they fend off the first wave. Mull uses Unrelenting Force twice to break up groups of draugr, making them easy pickings.
From that point on, the tunnels slope steeply downwards and there are several more descending staircases. Twice more they're ambushed by draugr, including undead spellswords that wield frost magic – the same kind Aela called 'scourges' in Dustman's Cairn – but it's nothing they can't handle with Mull and Jenassa countering them using flame spells.
They delve into a partially flooded portion of the barrow, slice through three or four half-grown frostbite spiders, and emerge into a long passage with a vaulted ceiling that Mull and Torgen recognize as a Hall of Stories. It's nearly identical to the one in Bleak Falls Barrow, with intricate carvings and engravings along both walls that depict animals, people, and gods in various scenes and poses.
Lydia reverently approaches an exquisitely detailed image of a feather-cowled woman that can only be Kyne and lightly brushes the tips of her fingers across the cool subterranean stone. When the torches shine on it just right, Mull could almost swear the carving looks real.
"Incredible," the girl breathes.
Torgen shrugs, mutters something about "seen it once, seen it a million times," and starts heading towards the far end of the hall. Unseen to any of them, he takes one step too many and the atmosphere shifts ominously.
Without any preamble whatsoever, a frigid wind rushes through the chamber and their torches wink out one by one. Utter darkness falls upon them.
Four hidden sarcophagi suddenly break open in recesses along the walls. Their inhabitants emerge with the clanking of blacksteel armor and the raspy scraping of desiccated flesh across stone. "Aav dilon," one of them snarls.
Lydia makes a noise like a dying rabbit From somewhere to Mull's right. He can quite literally hear the poor girl shaking in her chainmail hauberk. "Oh gods," she squeaks.
"This is a new one," comments Torgen. "Good thing I'm not scared of the dark."
Jenassa grumbles. "Speak for yourself."
"Focus!" Mull snaps. "Get yourselves some light to work with and be sure to watch each other's backs!" It's so dark that he can't see his own hand in front of his face.
Two of the draugr are coming from behind while the other two are towards the far end of the hall, closer to Torgen and Jenassa. On cue, a flickering ball of flame appears in the darkness and illuminates Jenassa's dusky form. She raises her hand and the flame expands, becoming brighter and brighter.
The sounds of shuffling grow louder behind Mull. He spins around, draws on his magic, and summons a flame of his own while placing himself in front of Lydia. Two pairs of eerie blue eyes are coming at him with frightening speed… but they aren't faster than magic.
His spell-flames wash over them, igniting their mummified skin and bones with disgusting ease. Their blacksteel armor does nothing to save them as they collapse into smoldering husks. A glance over his shoulder confirms Jenassa has disposed of the other two in a similar manner.
They light the torches, regroup, and head over to a floor-to-ceiling circular door on the far side of the Hall of Stories. Lydia's eyes are still as wide as dinnerplates and her skin is paler than usual, but she's holding herself together admirably. Mull acknowledges with annoyance that the draugr ambush was planned well. The shock-and-awe factor of the sudden darkness was nothing to scoff at.
He produces the ivory dragon claw and examines it. There are three emblems on the underside arranged in a column – an eagle, another eagle, and a dragon from top to bottom.
He looks up. Just like in Bleak Falls Barrow, the door is comprised of concentric stone rings with an emblem adorning each one. Eagles, dragons, and howling wolves. He works with Torgen and Jenassa to turn the heavy rings into position to match the order of the emblems on the claw.
Once they're finished, he presses the claw's three fingers into another keyhole in the center of the door, depresses it, and steps back. The concentric rings slowly grind together of their own volition and lock into place as the door begins sinking down into the floor. Dust trickles from the ceiling as the heavy object shifts to open the way forward.
Lydia watches the entire process with even wider eyes, but this time due to awe instead of fear. "To think our ancestors were capable of crafting an enormous mechanism like this one…"
Jenassa snorts before stepping through the doorway. "If you think this is impressive, you should visit Morrowind sometime. We have forgotten ruins that could put the entire Cloud District to shame."
-x-
The Mighty Mudcrabs stroll through a series of hallways with more pictographs and hieroglyphics covering the walls. They find countless ceramic urns and jars clustered in the corners, mostly empty or covered in cobwebs but a few of which are hiding valuable items. They recover more ancient coinage, jewelry, and hacksilver than Mull has ever seen in a single place before. This is practically a treasury.
Torgen and Jenassa are positively giddy as they jump from urn to urn while stuffing their pockets, and he struggles not to laugh at the sight of the normally reserved Dark Elf matching Torgen's energy for once. Lydia lacks his inner strength and presses her palm against her mouth as her shoulders shake with silent laughter.
Then the lighthearted moment ends as they take one final left turn and a huge chamber opens up before them. Enormous stone-brick pillars march away into the gloom along both sides of the room. Wax candles, iron braziers, and altars piled high with votive offerings are scattered all over the place. There are no draugr in sight for now, but the voices that only Mull can hear are getting louder and louder with each step.
They tentatively advance into the chamber and pass between successive pairs of broad pillars. The blackness of the room envelops them in a bubble of shifting shadow, like a physical thing seeking to cut them off from the world beyond the range of their torches. Their footfalls echo loudly in all directions, making Mull wince. Stealth is impossible in a place like this.
The darkness ahead of them abruptly resolves into a raised circular dais with a black sarcophagus resting in the center. It's surrounded by black candelabras and presided over by a quartet of huge statues that are glaring down at it, one from each corner. They're somewhat abstract, but they might be birds… or dragons.
A freezing wind descends upon them for a second time, pulling at their clothes and biting their skin. Their torches flicker dangerously, but this time Mull and Jenassa are prepared for the ruse and their flame spells keep the torches lit until the surge of cold air dies away.
In the same moment, the sarcophagus cracks open and a black-clad figure shoves free of its tomb. The undead is armored in blacksteel plate from head to toe and its helm is decorated with straight horns that jut upwards, adding nearly an entire foot to its height. A longsword with a blade as black as midnight is clutched in one hand while the other begins glowing frost-blue as a spell comes to life in its palm.
The draugr-lord's helmeted head turns slowly and its ghostly gaze lands on them, but it doesn't speak or move closer after clambering out of its elaborate coffin. It gnashes its teeth and swings its sword impatiently as if hesitating to charge them head-on. Or maybe it can't.
Mull glances at the towering statues on all four sides of the draugr, facing inwards at the sarcophagus like guardian beasts. When Jenassa was reading Daynas Valen's notes, didn't she say one of the brothers was sealed away but not explicitly killed? Could that have meant…?
He starts walking towards the draugr-lord with his sword held protectively in one hand and his torch in the other.
"My Thane!"
"Boss, are you sure that's a good idea?"
He doesn't pay attention to the peanut gallery as he steps up to the very edge of the raised dais, never daring to take his eyes off the draugr. He gets ready to use his Voice at a moment's notice as the draugr-lord twirls its sword and matches his movements, marching forward until it's standing right in front of him. It leans forward and sneers with rotten teeth, but the border of the dais separates them like an intangible wall.
Mull shuffles a few paces backwards and briefly glances down at his feet. He notices lines of runes inscribed along the border of the platform, but they aren't modern Tamrielic nor dragon runes. He can't make heads or tales of them.
"Lydia, Jenassa. Come over here for a minute."
"…If you insist, sera. But I want hazard pay for this."
The two women hesitantly edge closer until they're standing just behind him. Lydia keeps her shield raised just in case the draugr-lord suddenly attacks.
"Can either of you read these runes on the floor?" He points them out.
Lydia takes one look at the rows of letters and morosely shakes her head, but Jenassa scans them intently for several long seconds.
"…These are Daedric runes. The style and dialect is extremely obscure, but it's similar enough to historical samples I've seen before. I believe this is a sigil – a type of complex magical array. The text says something like… 'Be bound here, Mikrul, murderer, betrayer. Condemned by your crimes against realm and lord. May your name and your deeds be forgotten forever, and the charm which you bear be sealed by our ward.'"
"Aye, I was guessing it might be something along those lines," Mull says to himself. "So this is Mikrul Gauldurson. It doesn't look like he can escape from his prison."
The draugr snarls.
"So what do we do? Should we leave him, take our loot, and go?" Torgen joins them in front of the entrapped son of Archmage Gauldur.
"No. We aren't finished yet." He can still hear the whispers calling to him, but unfortunately they're telling him to go somewhere on the other side of Mikrul's invisible jail cell. He doesn't see a way around, which means he can only go through.
"Everyone, get ready to attack on my signal. You'll go first Torgen. I want you to chop off that ugly bastard's head."
The big man hefts his axe. "Ask and you shall receive."
"And what will this signal be?" asks Jenassa.
"WULD!"
Mull darts past Mikrul with the speed of Kyne's wind and skids to a halt in the center of the platform, next to the open sarcophagus. He drops his torch to give himself another hand to work with.
Mikrul turns to face him, inadvertently giving Torgen an opening to leap inside the boundaries of the prison. The Nord bandit delivers an overhead swing with his axe aimed squarely at the undead warrior's steel-plated skull.
Mull is confident their little trick would've worked on any other foe, but Mikrul moves with unnatural swiftness as he blocks the axe with his black-bladed sword and locks weapons with Torgen. He struggles to break contact while the draugr tightly clutches the haft of his axe, preventing his escape.
Mull charges the draugr and unleashes a gout of magical flame at the center of his chest, scorching his black armor and making him growl angrily. Torgen uses the distraction to disengage and backpedal.
The undead retaliates with a powerful frost spell that envelopes the space around him in a whirling cloak of ice and snow, forcing both men to retreat further. Mull fires off another gout of fire that does absolutely nothing. He's been outmatched as a mage – which shouldn't be surprising since he isn't one.
Conversely, he doesn't have to play by the same rules. "FUS RO!"
His Shout crashes into Mikrul Gauldurson and flings him to the edge of his prison, where he slams into an invisible barrier and crumbles to the ground in a heap of leathery flesh and steel. His spell dissipates as he lies stunned.
"Now!"
Torgen charges and swings his axe again, and again his blow is deflected by Mikrul's sword. At the same time, Jenassa and Lydia also go on the offensive and encircle the draugr while slicing at the chinks in his armor. Mikrul blocks some of their attacks but suffers noticeable damage from others. Jenassa adds insult to injury by dousing him in more magical flames that eat away at his dead flesh.
Their smoldering opponent ducks beneath a swing of Lydia's sword, coils his legs, and crouches low against the ground before spinning and lashing out with his weapon. His maneuver produces a perfect circle of whooshing steel, forcing all three assailants to retreat. The tip of the black blade nicks Jenassa's thigh and she immediately stumbles. Motes of red light drift away from her body and vanish into Mikrul Gauldurson.
"Urk! That blade is enchanted with an absorption effect!" She backs against a column and hastily gulps down a red healing potion to counteract the vitality-draining hex.
Mull curses. "Keep your distance if you can! Jenassa, get out your bow!" These types of enchantments can make trivial wounds potentially life threatening.
The draugr is rejuvenated by his black sword's parasitic enchantment and stomps aggressively towards Lydia. He sprays her with a stream of frost magic that turns the outer surface of her shield into a solid mass of ice. The girl grimaces and backtracks, but she bumps into one of the four statue-pillars surrounding the prison and Mikrul corners her there.
"WULD!" Mull appears next to the draugr and tries to stab him through the neck, but his attack is parried harmlessly to the side by Mikrul's black sword. Still, it's enough for his resourceful housecarl.
Lydia aims a sweeping uppercut at Mikrul's face that he also manages to deflect, but not nearly as gracefully. She severs the undead warrior's right hand at the wrist, forcing him to switch the black sword to his left hand and give up on using spells in conjunction with melee. She tries to stun the entombed lord with a follow-up shield bash, but the lingering ice from his frost spell is weighing her down and he dodges the attempt.
But in return, he fails to avoid Mull's riposte that glances off the side of his blacksteel helmet and bites deeply into his collarbone. A heartbeat later, Jenassa's arrow takes him in the back of his right knee and staggers him, preventing a counterattack.
Bringing up the rear, Torgen slams his axe into Mikrul's waist and shears him cleanly in half, sending his torso flailing to the floor while his legs go tumbling in the opposite direction.
Lydia hefts her weapon, screams out a battle-cry, and stabs the draugr in the face between the noseguard and cheekguard of his horned helm. Mikrul Gauldurson's eyes flicker and go dark.
When she's certain the draugr is dead, she wrenches her blade free with a dry crunch and slumps her shoulders. "That was much worse than Dustman's Cairn," she huffs and puffs. She drops her frozen shield to the floor and tiredly sits next to it.
"Agreed." Jenassa kneels down next to the girl, pulls a clean rag out of a pouch on her belt, and begins deftly binding the laceration on her leg. Once she's caught her breath, Lydia helps the Dunmer tie down the bandage and slathers a bit of healing ointment around the site of the injury for good measure.
"At least he wasn't a Tongue." Torgen scowls as he recalls the draugr-lord who slew his fellow clansmen in Bleak Falls Barrow.
While the women are resting up from the harrowing fight, Mull and Torgen get on with the all-important business of looting Mikrul Gauldurson's corpse. The blacksteel armor is of exquisite quality but also very heavy, so they aren't too keen on hauling it back to the surface. However, they feel a bit differently about the dead lord's ancient Nordic ringsword. It's thicker and bulkier than Mull's sword from Whiterun but infinitely more valuable due to its enchantment. It would be an enormous waste to leave it here.
There's a single row of Daedric runes engraved along the spine of the blade. When he shows it to Jenassa, she wearily translates them as 'Gauldur Blackblade.'
"Then this is the sword of Archmage Gauldur himself," says Lydia with admiration. "What an incredible discovery! We've just uncovered an important piece of Nordic history!"
Mull, Torgen, and Jenassa share an unimpressed look and shrug. "Might as well keep it. Looks valuable, and we can get the enchantment appraised once we're back in Morthal."
They dig around Mikrul Gauldurson's remains some more while Lydia crosses her arms and fumes at their lack of interest in Skyrim's antiquities. Mull pulls something else from the corpse, a small fragment of yellowed ivory or perhaps some sort of treated wood. It's carved all over with intricate glyphs.
His entire arm tingles just from holding the fragment, like his muscles and bones are somehow stronger or more alive than they were a second ago. He's no wizard, but whatever this thing is, it must be laced with extremely powerful enchantments. "I bet this is a piece of the amulet Daynas Valen mentioned in his notes." He holds up the item for Jenassa's inspection. "More Daedric?"
She frowns. "It is not. I don't recognize those patterns at all."
"Huh. That's odd." He gingerly wraps the fragment in a square of cloth and tucks it away in his backpack. "Either way, it's a treasure we should hold onto. The enchanters in Morthal can have a look at it too."
Once they're finished, they walk through a gateway at the far end of the prison chamber and enter a smaller room with a looming black wall on one side. The ethereal voices suddenly rise to a chorus, begging for Mull to come closer. He heeds their call when he recognizes the construct as a dragon-rune wall. Heat blossoms inside him and his breathing quickens.
The ancient words inscribed upon the wall recite themselves aloud in his mind and through his tongue. "Pah WERID SONaaN LUNERIO WEN YUVON LOVaaS MeyZ FO HET KO VULON."
His followers stare gormlessly at him while he whispers in a dead language. He takes pity on them and repeats the phrase in Nordic.
"It says 'all praise Bard Lunerio whose golden music became frost here in the night.'"
Torgen scrunches his brow. "What in Oblivion does that have to do with the Gauldur legend?"
"Nothing, most likely. Archmage Gauldur's lifetime was during the early First Era. Am I right to assume these runes are far older?" says Lydia.
"Probably, yeah," Mull replies. "This place must've already been hundreds of years old when Gauldur's son was sealed away. The Greybeards said that the dragons and their servants were around during the Merethic Era, which would make this wall a few thousand years old at least." He reaches out and places his palm against the wall.
Then his attention is drawn elsewhere as a single word among the dozens of runes starts glowing brightly with every color imaginable, like a celestial rainbow has been trapped beneath the surface of the stone. The voices of his followers are completely drowned out by the hissing whispers as they swirl and sing around him like a chantry choir. He falls silent and focuses intently on the shimmering word.
Fo. 'Frost' in the tongues of men and mer.
'And so you have found another Word of Power," announces Mirmulnir. 'Well done, Qahnaarin. You are growing.'
An indiscernible amount of time passes in the blink of an eye. The next thing he knows, Lydia is gently shaking his shoulder and repeating his name. "Mull? Mull, are you awake?"
"Huh?" He groggily blinks and shakes himself like a wet dog. His head feels like it's stuffed full of tundra cotton. "Eh? How long was I out?"
"You became unresponsive a few minutes ago."
Torgen enters his field of vision and amicably claps him on the arm. "That's the third time I've seen you take a nap on your feet and it still isn't any less bizarre. I take it this is the same sorta wall we found in Bleak Falls and Dustman's Cairn?"
"…Aye, I learned a new Word of Power, although I don't think I'll be able to use it for a while. Do you have any advice to offer on this one?" he asks Mirmulnir under his breath.
'I'm afraid I do not, for much the same reason I cannot assist with your internalization of Yol. These two rotmulaag are too conceptually similar and the power of my su'um has already been spent. I will not be of much help with this.'
He tsks and scratches his head in annoyance. "Some dragon you are. Alright, let's pack up our loot and get going. I think I'm finished here."
They exit the chamber through a narrow tunnel and follow it to the catacombs near the drawbridge, not far from where they found Daynas Valen's body. They emerge through a false sarcophagus propped against a wall and return to the entrance without any trouble, where they find Valdimar waiting patiently for them.
The old man tries to maintain a professional attitude when he lays eyes on their loot, but he's enamored by the Gauldur Blackblade and practically swoons when Mull hands him the archaic weapon. Neither Mull nor Torgen have ever heard of Archmage Gauldur's legendary sword, but the two more educated Nords in their party seem to think it's a big deal.
Overall, the loot from Folgunthur is really good. The four Mighty Mudcrabs catalogue everything and agree to divide the haul of magic rings, amulets, and other miscellaneous equipment among themselves. Most of the enchanted items can't be safely identified until they return to Morthal, much like Mikrul Gauldurson's black sword and the amulet fragment, so they squirrel away their prizes for now. They fill an entire spare knapsack to the brim with hacksilver and conceal it beneath one of the rowing benches in the canoe.
They spend the rest of the evening and night resting from their delve before shoving off for Ustengrav the next morning.
-x-
AN: I've been inconsistently capitalizing terms like Thane and Frostbite spider without capitalizing others like housecarl because *for some reason* I thought that's how they do the punctuation on UESP. After looking at those articles again, I now realize that isn't the case. I have absolutely no idea how or why I got stuck on that idea in the first place. The thing is, Skyrim's in-game dialogue can be pretty inconsistent with capitalizations, so I'm not 100% sure what to do here.
My understanding is that titles shouldn't be capitalized unless they're used to address someone ('Thane Mull of Whiterun' vs 'that guy is a thane'), but by all means correct me if I'm wrong. Either way, I'll try to figure out the random capitalizations and make some edits when I have time for it.
I've also been misspelling Hjaalmarch as Hjallmarch this entire time. I went back and fixed it in previous chapters. Sorry about that D:
The view counter on my account is finally working again after six months of being borked, so now I can keep track of how many people are reading this stuff. It's hard to know what to write and how to write it without being able to gauge which chapters people seem to enjoy more.
Thanks for reading. Until next time, ladies and lorebeards.
