Chapter 29: Raldbthar - searching

[14th of Second Seed 4E 202]

A group of people from Whiterun, including Fiona, Ferwen and myself with housecarls and pets plus three Stormcloaks had started off towards Raldbthar to find a thief called Alain Dufont, who was suspected to be hiding there with his cronies. Outside of the ruin, bandits had pretended to be hold guards and told us that the place was off limits, but Iona and Lydia had seen through the act, and in the night we had overwhelmed the guards outside and found our way to the interior. Inside, we had encountered Alain and his fellows as expected; he had managed to escape us once, but we got him back. Some of our group had gone to explore the area Alain had tried to flee to, while I had started to get busy in the kitchen. Eventually the others came back, and they had some more people around, which they had freed from captivity.

As soon as we had eaten, we started to transfer the captured bandits into the large prison area Fiona had found; unless we had missed something, we should be able to keep them there safely and with minimal supervision and guarding while we continued to explore the location; after all, based on what we had learned, the prison section was built for just such a purpose. We started with Alain and his four cronies right here and had them line up; their hands were bound, of course. Right when we were about to drive them through the first door, the four bandits initiated some shouting and tried to walk in different directions, so that we had to pay attention and herd them back together at sword point. This almost made us miss the fact that Alain Dufont started to run into the small passage towards the prison area; this was the direction he was supposed to go anyway, but not alone. None of us paid much attention to him right now, but suddenly I noticed some movement in an unexpected area, and I heard a sound not unlike a motor spinning up. Movement and sound came from the gallery, the one I had been on before, and it had three big hard mounted Dwemer crossbows, or was it ballistas? They had been inactive before, and I had not seen any buttons or so to trigger them. Now, all three started to swivel and tilt, and I suddenly realized that we might be in danger. I shouted out "Run!" and started to move, but not towards the passage or the other hall, but right in the direction of the Dwemer mechanisms. The gallery was on a higher level than the ground, maybe four or five meters, and seeing that I would not be able to jump that high, I ran up the wooden stairs at full speed. I heard a bang like noise and more felt than saw a huge bolt hitting the wall right behind me, but moments later I was on the gallery and safe from the three builtin crossbows, as they were likely unable to aim behind. The same did not apply to the others down there. I saw one of the bandits dead, with his chest more or less in pieces, and Ferwen had a bad leg wound, but managed to drag herself to safety with Jordis' help. So, apparently all three of the crossbows had fired once, and they now moved to a different position, more upright, probably to reload. And indeed, when looking at one of them in more detail, I saw mounting for three long bolts, each of them almost one meter long, with one of them being gone, and the next bolt was moving now. I could not see anything to control them, but there was a lot of scrap metal on the ground on the gallery. Quickly I picked up some pieces and pushed it into the gears for tilting, for all three devices, and indeed, when the reloading was complete, there was a different noise; the three crossbows tried to tilt down, but could not; thus, the lower area should be safe for now.

Meanwhile, everybody had left, my companions and the freed prisoners towards the outer hall, and all of the bandits, minus the dead one of course, into the passage. It was about time to follow them, and I called out for assistance. Jordis and the three Stormcloaks came in right away, and cautiously we entered the passage. There was no need for stealth this time; Fjagus went first and held a torch. When we had almost reached the other end, there was some movement on the ground ahead of us, and a spider like construct approached – a Dwarven spider! Where did it come from, and why had it not been triggered before? Anyway, the spider shot something like a shock blast into the leading person, Fjagus, so that he went down to the ground and dropped the torch. Daeril, the Dunmer, was next, and he blasted fire against the spider right away. The spider was not alone, though, and in the semi darkness I saw a taller construct behind it – a Dwemer sphere! Now, this was getting dangerous in the narrow passage, and I called for a tactical retreat. We ran back to the main hall, with me dragging Fjagus along who could not yet walk again, and we positioned ourselves along the walls. I got my crossbow ready, and as soon as the spider and the sphere emerged, they were hit from multiple angles. We managed to defeat the two automatons without major injuries, but we also heard fighting noise from the other hall, including a 'YOL' shout from the Dragonborn. Should we go for the bandits again or help the others?

The bandits could wait, and hopefully there was no way to escape for them. We placed Fjagus on one of the beds, and Hiretta stayed with him, while Jordis, Daeril and I ran out to the others. It turned that they were also engaged in fights with spiders and spheres, and we quickly assisted. My own crossbow bolts damaged several spiders with each hit, and they got slowed down enough so that Jordis or somebody else could kill them with a sword or axe. The spheres were tougher, and some of our group got injured. My saber cats helped, though, and specifically Ferwen՚s elytra nymph fought ferociously; she seemed to be immune against shock attacks and somehow managed to damage automatons when she touched them with her mandibles.

The last two spheres who survived vanished into the main hall, and while some of us followed quickly, we were just in time to see them focus on Hiretta and Fjagus. The latter was still unable to fight, and while the female Stormcloak tried her best and actually managed to defeat one of the spheres, the other one killed her right after and also killed the helpless male on the bed, before our efforts destroyed the sphere; we had been too slow to prevent that.

Once we had made sure that none of the automatons had survived here, we went back to the other hall, and the injured people had been placed on beds here. Ferwen had her bad leg wound, Lydia had her sword arm hanging down, and Fiona has suffered from a shock blast; otherwise there were just some scratches and bruises, and our superior numbers had made the difference. Above and beyond that, Fiona's shout had, as Iona told me, damaged several automatons at once, and Daeril՚s flame blasts had also been very effective. For now, I decided to help caring for the wounded, and a party was going to catch the bandits again – Daeril, Iona and Jordis were going to do that, very cautiously.

Now I got time to look at the wounded people in our group. Fiona was all right and just needed some time, as she told me, and Lydia had already managed to swallow a healing potion, and she now tended Ferwen. The Bosmer՚s left leg looked bad, and as I had exhausted almost all of my magicka in the fight before, I first drank a magicka potion and then started to work on the leg. Thanks to some training from Danica, my healing glow moved to the damaged area mostly on its own, and I could see the worst sections repairing themselves; I had to swallow a second potion to continue before I was confident that this was good enough, and the final casting elicited a moaning from Ferwen again, although I was not even close to her chest. She was conscious again now, and I had her drink a strong healing potion, too; fortunately we had brought a sufficient supply with us.

For now there was not much else to do but wait; when my magicka was mostly back, I applied some more restoration to Lydia's arm, and it looked like both the housecarl's arm and Ferwen՚s leg were healing nicely. I had not even realized that I had a minor injury, too, until Fiona pointed to my lower left arm; apparently, an attack by maybe a sphere had only almost missed me there, and I had a long but not very deep cut there; I used the rest of my magicka to close it.

Some time later our vanguard team came back, and they looked a little bit disappointed; Jordis reported:

"Alain escaped again; it appears that he's got a lot of backup options here. When we reached the prison area, his friends had managed to free him from his binds, and he was about to get them free as well when we showed up. There was some cursing from him, and he vanished though a door we had not seen there before, alone. We apprehended the two bandits he had to leave behind and put them in one of the larger cells, but we decided not to follow Alain Dufont for now."

"This guy is very resourceful, isn't he? But, he still has his arm wound and he does not have any weapons, right?"

"Sure, but maybe he's go a stash with weapons and potions somewhere; that would fit, and he's been here a while. He probably has some contingency plans."

"Yes, and he probably knows the place quite well."

Our wounded needed some more rest, and so Iona, Jordis and I got busy and moved the other captured bandits, the ones in here and the ones from outside, also to the prison cells, making very sure that the cells we placed them in were properly and securely bolted and locked. When we were done and now had a total of eleven captured bandits in two large cells, secure enough as we thought, we discussed options to proceed. Obviously, we could explore the path starting from the main hall behind the long counter, or we could try to reopen the door the bandit boss had used.

For now, all of the fighting had made us hungry again, and so Jordis and I started to prepare food in the kitchen section, using some of the plentiful supplies there. We had a large pot on the fire with stew and another port with broth, and we while we both took care of that, I asked my housecarl:

"Jordis, when we were at Valtheim, you mentioned your injured brother. Do you know if he survived and if he's doing better now?"

She nodded and replied:

"Yes, he's still alive, but needs more time to recover. We can't directly communicate, as I am seen as an enemy now in Solitude, and I'm afraid that they may also make him suffer for what I am doing. Fortunately I have a few good friends there sending me occasional updates."

"That's good to hear, Jordis."

"Thank you for caring, my Thane. Not every Thane cares about their housecarls' well-being and worries."

"I tend to my housecarls more as companions and even friends than servants, Jordis."

"Yes, I have seen how you deal with Antonius, and he's even allowed to use your name when talking to you."

"And so are you, Jordis, whenever you're ready for that."

She nodded, but I understood that she'd need more time for that.

Now, with the meal being ready to be served, we decided that this was a good time to eat together, and afterwards maybe talk some, also to learn about the people we had freed from captivity. The big table in one of the halls was barely large enough to fit all of us together, but we managed. Our own party was now down to seven people, with the two Stormcloak Nords being dead, but now we also had the 13 people with us we had freed from captivity. Fortunately, the bandits had stashed plenty of food down here, easily enough for more than a week for all of us, so that we did not have to do any food rationing.

After we had eaten, we gave the people who had been in the prison cells a chance to talk and tell about themselves, and most of them were travelers and traders and such, who had either lost their way or had foolishly tried to find a shortcut between places, like between Windhelm and Whiterun. A few other people had been already killed, as they reported, and there had been some rumors that the bandits wanted to keep some strong people to help them exploring the place and going first, kind of serving as cannon fodder, so that they rather than Alain՚s team were going to trigger traps and getting attacked by automatons.

Among all of the people who had been held captive by the bandits, three people were different and stuck out: a female Nord who was built like an Amazon warrior lady, a male Breton, and a male Imperial. They had been quiet at first, allowing the others to talk first, and when it was finally their turn, the Imperial started:

"Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce our small group. The pretty and strong lady next to me is Mila Reiche, the distinguished gentleman over here is Hulbert Carter, and my name is Helvius Schliemann. We are members of the Archaeology Guild in Cyrodiil, and we had heard rumors about that place here we wanted to follow up on. Nobody had told us about bandits making the place their home, and our attempts to negotiate with them utterly failed when we arrived a few days ago. Our local guide was killed, and we were already told that that the bandits were about to initiate a larger expedition into the depths of Raldbthar, where they apparently hoped to find treasure. While there are no Dwemer ruins in Cyrodiil and we thus do not really have any practical experience with them, we know about layout and traps of other ruins, such as the Ayleid ruins in Cyrodiil, and the bad people here clearly expected us to provide some general expertise. We owe you our thanks for setting us free again."

Wow! The Archaeology Guild! A few times since I had arrived in Skyrim I had already mused about something like this, and I could still fondly recall the times when I had, years ago, played the 'TES IV' game with the 'Lost Spires' mod. The mod introduced a new type of ruins, which was, in my opinion at least, highly immersive and fascinating, and on the older PC I had used at that time, a few locations added by that mod had transferred the game to a slide show. After I had upgraded my hardware, I had enjoyed many hours with this mod, and I still recalled a few details. I did not remember any names, but the names in the mod were related to people who had lived more than 200 years ago after all, so even if I had remembered them, names would not be the same one. However, I just had to ask:

"So, you mentioned the Archaeology Guild in Cyrodiil. Is this the same one with the headquarter in an old and partially sunken fort on the ring road just south of the Imperial City?"

"You know about that place? Few people do, but yes, that's where we are. We had a very active time about two centuries ago, and even the Hero of Kvatch worked with us for some time. The Great War slowed us down, but recently we decided that we want to explore other provinces, too, and Mila, who used to live in Bruma, suggested that we look into Skyrim. We had hoped that the civil war here should not be a problem, and so far it has not been, but we probably should have been more careful selecting our research targets. The bandits pretended to be hold guards, and we fell for their trick."

"So, what is you general mission?"

"We got a little bit of funding, and for now, we are supposed to have an initial look into Skyrim places and see what kind of interesting artifacts and information can be found there. We heard about the mysterious disappearing of the Dwemer a long time ago, and so those type of ruins seemed a good place to start with. We don't have much practical experience in them yet, but lots of theoretical background, mostly thanks to scholars and adventurers we have talked to."

"Traveling from mid Cyrodiil to Skyrim places is tedious, isn't it?"

"Of course, true enough, and we had not properly considered the additional challenges imposed by the Civil War here."

"How did you manage to pass the closed borders?"

"That by itself was not a problem, as we have a special permit signed by the High Chancellor. He may expect us to do a little bit of spying, too, but we have no plans to do any of that.

"Oh."

"No, we try to keep ourselves out of politics as much as I can, although we needs permits, of course. We are also expected to keep our eyes open for a place we can use as our future Skyrim branch. We are hoping to find a large indoor place somewhere central in Skyrim, if possible, and ideally we'd like to be able to set up exhibits to show and get some donations; funding is an issue for us, after all."

That would be so cool! I hoped that I would be able to work with them, but for now we had other issues to take care of and think about. Ferwen brought this topic up:

"This is interesting, but for now we have to make a decision, I believe. We have managed to capture all bandits except for one, and this one is the person who is our main target. Are we going to leave with what we have or are we going to try to find Alain Dufont again?"

"There are only seven of us now, and we also have to make sure that the good people we found here are getting out."

Mila Reiche, the tough looking Nord, replied:

"For the three of us, we would like to stay and explore some more, if possible. We have some theoretical knowledge at least on Dwemer ruins, and if you have to go deeper to find this Dufont guy, we want to be there, too."

She was not the only one saying that. Two more people opted for staying and joining, a male Nord called Fargord and a female Altmer called Ronuril. Everybody else wanted to get out of here as quickly as possible, which was understandable. However, we did not want to split and rather use all resources we had for the further exploration and bandit hunt, and as some of those we had freed were tired anyway, they agreed to wait in this area for a day or two. Most of them felt much better after getting decent food, and they assured us that they'd be fine staying here on their own, if we'd promise to get them out as soon as realistically feasible.

[Author's Notes: The three archaeologists were named after famous real people in that business, with small variations in the first names.]