Chapter 52: Angarvunde - entering

[11th of Sun's Height 4E 202]

From the area around Arcwind Point and Autumnwatch Tower, we had proceeded towards Angarvunde, and we had found a deserted camp outside of the ruin. A Dunmer had come out, introducing herself as 'Medresi Dran', and she appeared to have some knowledge on treasure to be found inside. Apparently, her previous helpers had fled after a draugr attack inside, and we agreed to explore the location together tomorrow, although we were not really sure if we could trust her.

On the next day, while breakfast was prepared, Lydia reported that a couple of shady looking people had approached from the main road during her watch, but they had quickly disappeared once Nymeria had shown herself. That did not surprise me; the direwolf was not yet fully grown, as I assumed, but already larger than a normal wolf, a normal wolf in Skyrim, that is, and looking terrifying; if I did not know her, I might be terrified myself; wolves and I did not like each other in general. Would Nymeria grow to the size of an adult saber cat or so? I had no way of knowing, both because I did not recall those details from the book series 'A Song of Fire and Ice' (or was it the other way round?) which I had read a few years ago, and also as a Skyrim direwolf might differ from the ones in the northern part of Westeros. Oh well; time would tell.

After breakfast, Medresi led the way into the ruin; Fiona and her housecarls followed her right way, while Jordis and I tidied up the campsite and lingered outside for a few moments. My housecarl used the opportunity to ask:

"My Thane, do you trust this Medresi Dran?"

"Jordis, I haven't known her for long enough to know. She seems to know something about the treasure, at least."

"Yes, but won't she try to just use us and, I don't know, lure us into a trap or so?"

"Hard to tell, but I agree that we need to pay attention. Hey, there are five of us plus our animals – we should be able to make sure that we're safe, right?"

"Yes, of course, but I have a bad feeling about her. And remember what happened in that tower close to Arcwind Point, where a single person almost managed to make us all drop into a trap!"

"Indeed, absolutely right, and thank you for speaking your mind. Now, as we're done out here, let's also get in, okay?"

We followed the others into the ruin, and immediately the temperature dropped. From the entrance area, there was only one way forward, and we followed the narrow passage until it opened up into a medium sized hall. That room had a number of structures, including some wooden scaffolding with ramps leading down to what looked like the beginning of a wider passage; maybe her previous helpers had built that. Medresi went up to the top level of the construct and said:

"First, I need you to clear the main chamber of those monstrosities. I'll stay here until you're finished, planning our next move."

I was thinking about the conversation I'd just had with Jordis, and I was not sure if we could really trust the Dunmer. She might be a good person, and maybe she could have fought the draugr without us, but maybe there were just too many of them, and those fights were anyway done much safer in a group instead of done alone. Maybe her melee combat skills weren't that great and she was more of an organizer, but I could not really blame her for seeking help. She might be able to help us getting down quicker, but we'd need to watch her carefully; her eagerness to find treasure was somewhat suspicious, but I guessed that some people behaved like that if they thought that there was a chance to become rich. A quick look at our housecarls confirmed that they had come to a similar conclusion, and for now we cautiously headed in the direction the Dunmer indicated. The corridor from the bottom of the scaffold led into a room with three draugr, and our combined effort had them down quickly. They had not been very dangerous ones, but too much for a single person and workers without dedicated combat training. When we shouted back that the area was cleared, Medresi Dran approached, looked around and pointed towards a locked gate at the other side of the room:

"Fortunately, the earlier work got me a few keys, and I should be able to open that gate quickly."

She fumbled around for some time, and eventually the metal grate opened up with a screeching noise. The Dunmer called to us:

"Come on! We've no time to lose; follow me!"

We had used the time to check the few broken urns and other stuff around, but had not found anything of value; we were ready to proceed now and did so. Through the gate we had to follow another passage, and after a few turns we got to another large room. We were attacked by more draugr right away, but we had expected that and it did not bother us too much; Fiona did a great job using her bow from a distance; while this was not a good option in smaller rooms, it worked well when she stayed back a little bit in larger ones. As soon as there were no more enemies alive, we looked around and found a couple of broken sarcophagi and a significant number of broken urns around us. However, there was an open door in a corner, and from there we suddenly heard more enemies approaching. This time, there were a couple of tougher draugr together with some low level ones, and we had to focus for a minute or two before they were all down. As I was not keen to get into close combat with draugr, I used 'Flames' a lot, and a fire attack usually distracted a draugr long enough for one of our housecarls to attack from the side; weaker draugr found themselves to be attacked by Hanni, Nanni, or Nymeria, while I sometimes conjured Spirit to attack stronger variants. Fortunately, my magicka pool was large enough by now for me to cast 'Flames' for longer than just a few seconds; this was not really an aimed fireball, as I had trouble with proper aiming, but a short distance continuous casting, and I was getting quite proficient with that.

When we had defeated our opponents and entered the room the draugr had come from, we found ourselves on the ground floor of a medium sized hall, and two sides had raised platforms with wooden stairs leading to the upper floor. The raised platforms showed a blocked door each, and potential ways forward were visible with a double door at one wall and a single iron door on one of the sides of the upper floor. The Dunmer hesitated for a few moments, and then she decided to unlock and open the right one of the double doors on the bottom floor, using one of the keys she had with her, gained 'from an earlier work', as she had mentioned before. It appeared that the Dunmer had some kind of plan, at least in her mind. Right behind the door a set of stairs led down, and slowly we followed the passage. I had a feeling that we might need to explore all sections of the ruin anyway, and the order did not really matter to me.

As usual, Fiona seemed to like dark and scary places like this one, and she looked almost happy. That attitude reflected on her direwolf Nymeria, and the two of them went ahead for now, followed closely by the housecarls Iona and Lydia. The passage we got into had a few turns, and almost as usual, the occasional torches on the walls and braziers provided some illumination. A few stone pillars replaced the walls on one side for some time, but eventually the passage ended in a dead end, at a cave-in. We looked at each other, not quite knowing what to do about it, but Hanni and Nanni suddenly turned to the section of pillars and were suddenly gone. I looked closer and found that one of the gaps between the pillars actually allowed access to another passage; the distance between the pillars was not a lot, and I barely managed to squeeze through. The others followed, with less effort, and this very narrow passage ended as well, but on a ledge above a medium sized room; the distance to the ground was about three meters, but there weren't any stairs, just a vertical wall.

"If we jump down there", Fiona mused, "we won't be able to go back this way again."

"I believe that I can jump that high easily, if needed, and use the rope in my backpack to pull you up" I smirked.

"I am sure that there is another way out anyway" Medresi Dran suggested, "but it is always a good idea to have a backup plan."

Thus, we all jumped down, and when we examined the room in more detail, we found a few dead draugr along the walls, but not much else. We used the only door to enter another room, with a wooden staircase to a lower level. Faint noises hinted at the presence of active draugr, and one of them had apparently seen us and started to send arrows our way. The first arrow nicked Medresi's skin, and she rushed ahead to attack the draugr. However, it had two friends, and within seconds we were all involved in fighting. Fortunately, we were experienced warriors, and the draugr were defeated within a couple of minutes. While we rested for a few moments, I noticed a large chest on the ground, approached it and reached out to open it. While my hand was already pushing the lid up, I heard somebody call out a warning; all of a sudden there was some suspicious clicking noise, and I felt a group of darts hitting me. Almost all of them got caught by my armor and only a single one penetrated my skin, but when I bent over the chest to look inside, I felt a little bit dizzy and decided to sit down for a moment. Jordis drew the right conclusion quickly and handed me a potion from my own backpack, which I gulped down; my housecarl told me in a stern voice:

"If you weren't my Thane, I'd have a few very harsh words for you, you know."

"Yes Mum, I understand, look first and touch later. Are you going to whip me now?"

Jordis looked shocked for a moment, but then started to laugh, and I joined in. Fiona started to giggle as well, while Lydia and Iona at least tried to keep their poker faces on; Medresi had not really listened to our conversation. Of course, my housecarl was right. I knew quite well that some containers were booby trapped, and I should have looked carefully before touching it. Fortunately, many traps were not deadly, and Jordis had reacted quickly and correctly by feeding me a potion against poison. I mentioned that, and Iona replied:

"You know, it may be correct that many of those traps are not deadly, but maybe some are actually deadly for a normal person with a normal body weight, at least if they don't have a potion handy."

I considered this briefly, and I had to admit:

"Iona, you have a point here. My big body has at least twice the mass of a normal man or mer, and a certain amount of poison should consequently affect me only half as much. That should not make me careless, though, and I thank you for sharing those thoughts."

The Nord warrior lady nodded, and I needed to remind myself that housecarls were not the simple obedient people from the game, but intelligent and well educated warriors; I should consider myself fortunate to have them as companions, and apparently Fiona thought about the same line, as she added:

"Iona, that was really a very good and thoughtful comment, and I thank you as well. I am very glad to have you with me, and I hope that you did not come to regret the housecarl swap we did some time ago."

"You are welcome, my Thane, and I feel happy with you. Don't get me wrong; Janina is a very fascinating person, but Rayya is much better suited to be and fight at her side. I'm fine, thank you."

Once I felt fully restored, we moved on, and from here on the area looked like catacombs, with occasional coffins and occasional draugr waking up, one by one, though, and thus not a problem for us. Although Medresi tried to push ahead, we took our time to search all of the urns and other containers, and we collected a fair number of septims and the occasional gem. The Dunmer tried to make us hurry:

"Come on! Why do you bother with details when the big treasure awaits us?"

"Medresi" I cautioned her, "we always explore carefully, and I have provided the perfect example for the risk by going too quickly."

"So, just ignore all of the chests and urns on the way!"

"Are you sure that none of them have an important hint or so?"

"Well, no, but… - all right, all right; I see that I can't push too much."

There were also other items to be found, but we ignored various pieces of low level armor and weapons. After all, we did not have almost unlimited carry capacity, but we picked up the occasional gem, for instance. Dozens of containers, coffins and draugr later the long catacomb area opened up into a cavern of sorts, with a big canis root plant in each corner and a single ore vein close to one of them. There was no other exit on the ground level, but a staircase leading up, and Nymeria rushed there. The direwolf was quite fast, and half way up she triggered a trap, but the darts getting released hit the stairs behind her. That action seemed to wake up more enemies, as we could suddenly see movement from above. Fiona started to use her bow and I got my crossbow ready, when a wounded Nymeria came down the stairs again. The Dragonborn dropped her bow to heal her follower, and I noticed that three evil looking draugr approached the stairs on the upper level, apparently preparing to head down to us. I recalled that I had learned to cast a fire rune some time ago, and while I had not practiced that spell frequently, the slow draugr movement gave me previous seconds to focus. Before the draugr could see me, I hurried and dropped three fire runes on different sections of the stairs; once this was accomplished, I rushed back to the opposite corner of the lower cavern.

When the first draugr got on the stairs and started to step down, I had my crossbow ready again, and right when the undead triggered the first rune and was engulfed in flames, the first of my bolts hit, making the draugr lose its balance and drop down to the ground. While Lydia kept her position next to her Thane for protection, Iona and Jordis attacked the injured undead with their swords, and Hanni and Nanni helped. Meanwhile the second draugr started to get down, and Fiona used her bow now. When this undead triggered my second rune, the third draugr was right behind, and Fiona shouted 'YOL' at them, so that both of them were in flames. The second one did not survive the triple hit from arrow, rune and shout and was out of the fight, but the third one seemed to be quite tough and continued to descend; even a hit by two of my bolts did not do much to slow it down. Somehow the undead seemed to notice my third rune and bypassed it by jumping down; Hanni and Nanni started to distract the enemy, but had to be careful to avoid getting hit by the undead's dangerous looking axe.

All of a sudden the draugr turned towards me, opened its mouth and shouted 'ZUN HAAL VIIK', which made me drop my crossbow. Apparently, this was the evil 'disarm' shout, which I had hated in the game, as it had sometimes made me lose a valuable weapon and caused trouble to locate it again on uneven ground. Fortunately, even with my crossbow on the ground, I wasn't quite helpless and quickly cast flames against the draugr. Once again, that did not seem to do much damage, but the distraction had allowed Fiona to get closer, and from a distance of only a few meters she shouted 'FUS RO DAH' directly on the undead. The draugr was thrown against a rock wall, and Iona and Jordis, who had finished off the first draugr, attacked with their swords now. To our surprise, the draugr was still alive and managed to get up again, pushing Iona to the side and somehow wounding Jordis. It opened its mouth for another shout, but an angry Nymeria was suddenly there and jumped up to the undead's neck and head, clinging to the bones and armor pieces there and forcing the draugr down to the ground once more. Lydia, who had kept close to her Thane so far, quickly jumped forward and separated the undead's head from its body with a mighty swing of her sword, and that ended the fight.

Medresi Dran had kept back during the fight, and she commented now:

"That was quite the fight; I am glad that I met the right people."

"You are not much of a fighter, or are you?"

"Well, I can fight, like against wolves or simple bandits, but a high level draugr is way beyond me. Are you all fine?"

"No, not yet; I believe my housecarl needs some healing."

Fortunately, Jordis' injuries weren't grave ones, and she was ready to go ten minutes later, after drinking a potion and have my healing spell applied to her. She had had a wound on her chest, but even when I moved one of my hands with an active restoration spell right across her upper chest, almost touching her breast, she did not start to moan and did not show any of the very special behavior Ferwen had shown in a similar situation some time ago. I did not really understand what had happened with Ferwen and why those things had only happened with Ferwen (so far?), and for now I'd have to live with not understanding it. For a few moments I thought about the young athletic Bosmer, and I thought that I should really have asked her for a date to get a chance to learn more about her. Did she special reaction she had shown imply that we were supposed to get together? On the other hand, there was also Janina, and although I did not even know if she had feelings for me, I just could not get her out of my mind. Why did feelings sometimes have to be that complicated?

I made an effort to focus on the current situation again, and there was something I was curious about, so that I asked:

"So, this last draugr was tougher than the other ones, right?"

Everybody nodded, and I continued:

"Does anybody know if stronger and tougher draugr can be distinguished from the weaker ones, I mean before you start to fight?"

Lydia took that:

"I have heard about some scholars who try to assign draugr and also other undeads, like skeletons, into groups. They mentioned names like 'Restless Draugr', 'Draugr Scorge', 'Draugr Deathlord' and so on, and I have heard suggestions about the outer appearance, like the type of helmet they wear, providing some hints."

"Yeah" Jordis chimed in, "but normally, when one gets attacked by undeads, you don't have much time to look at them and try to find out before fighting starts."

"True" Lydia admitted, "and that's why I have not bothered to learn more."

"Fair point" I conceded, "but thank you for mentioning that."

Of course, draugr looked somewhat similar to each other, and without some HUD to show details, one could not easily know. Even if there was some kind of magical assistance, I did not have the ranking scheme in my head, and I would not know, for instance, if a 'Draugr Deathlord' or a 'Draugr Overlord' was the more dangerous one, unless a level was shown, too. I was certainly not one of those self-insert characters who had almost the entire Skyrim Wiki available in memory.

[Author's Notes: My description of Angarvunde is deliberately somewhat different from the game, to bring some variation in.]