Chapter 69: Dimhollow Crypt

[26th of Sun's Height 4E 202]

Finally, my companions and I had arrived at the entrance of Dimhollow Crypt. Almost like in the game, Tolan, a Vigilant of Stendarr, had tried to persuade Isran, the Dawnguard leader, to send a search party there, but Isran had claimed that he could not afford to send an entire team. Being eager to hopefully encounter a beautiful vampiress, I had volunteered myself together with Inigo, Jordis, Hanni and Nanni, and Isran had at least sent Agmaer with us. The young Nord had arrived at Fort Dawnguard several months earlier and had had some training; he was not a farm boy any longer. In Shor's Stone we had joined Ahkari's caravan, and later on, in Heljarchen, we had separated from them again, after we had managed to defeat the Seducer bandits together.

On the day before we had arrived from Fort Dunstad and the Hall of the Vigilants. Even after the hall had been destroyed by vampires and many Vigilants had been killed, some had survived and also arrived from other locations, and maybe they were considering to rebuild or even fortify the place. They had elected a new Keeper, at least temporarily, and while they were sad about the loss of so many comrades, they had obviously not given up and felt a need to prepare for whatever evil and abomination was going to show up next.

Tolan, Agmaer, Inigo, Jordis, my sabercats and I were now at the entrance of Dimhollow Crypt. About Tolan, I had almost expected that he might have used the opportunity to enter the cave on his own during the night, following his in-game counterpart, but he had not and was still with us in the morning when the sun slowly started to illuminate the sky; I was glad for that. For now, I was eager to get in and find out if Serana was actually waiting for us; specifically, I was very curious to see if she was as gorgeous as in the (modded) game.

We had breakfast outside, Hanni and Nanni had also found some prey and had eaten, and then we stepped into the cave, to find ourselves in a narrow passage, leading us forward and slightly down. The air in here smelled somewhat humid and damp, not really pleasant; maybe that was an indication of something evil to be found further ahead, or was it just just lack of fresh air? Anyway, if the setup was like in the game, the first group of enemies might not be very far, and thus I warned my companions to keep quiet, although I could not be sure if this was good enough, as vampires were supposed to have superior senses. I had Hanni and Nanni scouting ahead; the two saber cats knew quite well how to do this, and they were aware of my intention to keep quiet for now. With their paws, they could actually sneak better than most of us; Jordis, Agmaer and Tolan did their best, but moving in boots could never be totally quiet. I was doing better than my human companions, also walking on paws, but my considerable weight was on two paws only, rather than the four ones my saber cats had.

After a few turns the daylight behind us was entirely gone, but there was still some dim light around; maybe the ice on the walls and ceiling transmitted light from sources further away. Above and beyond that, we also encountered a few lit braziers; who had lit them and why? If vampires were ahead, they wouldn't need the light, right? On the other hand, I did not know if vampires could see in total darkness or just in very dim light, like Khajiit.

For now, I had to shove those thoughts aside as the passage started to open up into a larger cavern, and right like in the game there was a small creek running through it; the sound of the running water from that creek and, in addition to that, from a flow of water feeding the creek from somewhere above, likely covered any noise we might have caused. Many sections of the walls were ice covered, and there was a lot of snow and ice on the ground as well; we'd better make sure not to slip when engaging in combat. Visibility was decent, as there were some openings in the ceiling allowing daylight in; apparently that was enough light for a few snowberry bushes and other meager shrub to grow in here, and there was even a lone butterfly on one of those bushes; I had no idea how butterflies coped with temperatures around or below freezing in this world, but sure nature had somehow adapted? Vaguely I recalled a science fiction book about a world where insects were fur covered to stand the low temperatures paired with high humidity. I had not quite seen something like that on butterflies here, but I had not really looked that close so far; maybe I should.

Soon I could hear somebody talking, and this got my mind back from musing to the current situation and location; due to my improved Khajiit hearing sense I could understand almost all of the words:

"I wonder how long it takes until another one of those stupid Vigilant shows up here for us to feed on; they never know when to give up."

"Should not ... long. Lokil mentioned that he allowed the name and the location of this place to get out so that … those fools coming in for us."

"Are there any of them left at all after we raided their place?"

"Oh, I am sure that not all of them were home at that time, and ... other bases as well; it's only a matter of time, and time is not an issue for us, right, brother?"

"Right, and after all, a few days ago a lone 'visitor' even stopped by."

"He wasn't a Vigilant, I believe, but just an adventurer; anyway, blood is blood."

"You know, ... me thirsty. I wish Lokil would hurry it up. I have half a mind to return to the castle and tell Harkon what a fool he's entrusted this mission to."

"And I have half a mind to tell Lokil of your disloyalty."

"You wouldn't dare!"

"Let's see about that. Now, Jeron, Bresoth, ... quiet again and be on our guard; I'm sure that it won't be long before another one of those stupid Vigilant will wander in."

"Sure."

Knowing that several vampires were ahead of us, I didn't feel quite as good and brave any longer. After all, a vampire was supposed to have inhuman strength, and I had already seen that in Solitude, during our fight against Potema. Unless we managed to coordinate our attacks properly and avoid fighting against too many of them at the same time, we could be in serious danger. Besides, the atmosphere in here was a little bit on the creepy side, or at least that's how I felt about it. Nevertheless, I breathed slowly and deeply and attempted to keep calm, and while I carefully prepared my crossbow, I tried to do some mental calculations. In the game, one encountered two vampires in this area, and there were two or three vampire corpses, presumably those who had been defeated by Tolan just before. Now, as Tolan was with us, did that imply that we had four or five vampires in here? I did not get a chance to warn my companions, as Tolan was apparently getting angry and suddenly stormed ahead, shouting:

"I will show you how one of those 'stupid Vigilants' can fight!"

I almost cursed, and then I summoned Spirit, who took off right away with my two other saber cats; Jordis and Agmaer advanced more slowly and cautiously, while I aimed my crossbow at the nearest vampire and shot a bolt. It was a hit, but the creature was only injured, not dead; Tolan was next to the undead, though, and cut off its head. I managed to do the same with the other one of the two who had been talking, but then I noticed three more vampires coming out from a small tower in a corner of the cave. Tolan saw them as well, but rather than waiting for Jordis and Agmaer to be at his side, he stormed off and charged. My three saber cats could not follow quickly enough as they had found adversaries of their own – three Death Hounds; they had rested in a corner, and I had not seen them before. Inigo and I managed to injure one of the three remaining vampires, but the other two attacked Tolan simultaneously, and before one of us could do something about it, the Vigilant tried to evade the attack, slipped on the icy ground, and was killed by one of the swiftly moving vampires before any of us could do something about it. Only now the three saber cats had killed the Death Hounds, and together with Jordis and Agmaer they attacked the remaining vampires. Agmaer was more cautious than the Vigilant, and the two vampires did not get a chance to go in for a quick kill, specifically as Jordis was at his side. I scored another hit with my crossbow, which enabled Jordis to decapitate that particular undead. The last remaining vampire cast a spell on Agmaer, maybe draining his health, but neglected his own defense for a moment, so that Spirit could jump at his throat. The familiar did not manage a kill, but distracted the vampire long enough for Agmaer to also get in a kill of his own with his axe, right after an ebony arrow from my fellow Khajiit had hit its target as well. Once we had made sure that we had not missed an enemy and each vampire was really dead – we cut off all of their heads to be on the safe side – we rested and talked; Agmaer started:

"I can't believe that he just ran off to attack like this."

"I guess that the talking we heard aggravated him; he must have heard Vigilants being called 'stupid'."

"But shouldn't the Vigilants have some experience in fighting vampires?"

"They have, indeed. Look, he managed to kill the first two, and even considering that they had been injured by my bolts before, that is something."

"What do we do now?"

"Well, what are we supposed to do here, Agmaer?"

"We are supposed to find out if what Brother Adalvald reported about a vampire artifact is true. If it is, it may be important enough to get it for ourselves rather than having the vampires claim it. Besides, there is a chance that we may even find Adalvald alive, although I doubt that."

"So, let's continue our mission. Agmaer, Jordis, Inigo, we have just seen what happens when one of us acts on their own without waiting for support. If we act as a team and protect each other, we should be fine, right? Also, we can always have the saber cats scout ahead."

I was not worried at all about Jordis and myself working in a team, and so far Inigo seemed to integrate himself nicely, too. Agmaer was the latest member to the group, and what he had shown in the fight against the troll on the road a few days ago and the skirmish just now was encouraging, I thought; he was about to find his proper place with us, but maybe he would not stay for long; we had not yet talked about plans after the crypt excursion, as that would likely depend on what we were going to find. With Tolan gone, Jordis being my housecarl, Inigo being set to protect me and fight for me, and finally Agmaer clearly being a very junior Dawnguard member, I was apparently seen as the team leader now, at least the unofficial one. I was not sure if I was ready for that position, but I'd do my best. Besides, I had at least some knowledge about what to expect in here, unless the situation was significantly different from the game.

After some more talking we had an agreement, and once we had rested for a few minutes, we moved on. While my companions scouted the area to find the way to open the iron gate blocking the way forward, I pondered the situation. The fight in here had been different from 'canon', because we had had Tolan with us initially. Now, chances were that the encounters might be more similar to the game again, or at least I assumed that. I had done this quest multiple times, but my memory was not good enough to recall too many details. For playing the game, that had actually been an advantage for me. I had usually reinstalled the game and used the latest and greatest mods in early fall, and I had used the setup for the winter season and into next spring. One or two years later, I had redone the same, just with later mods, like experimenting with different city overhauls and add-ons, and I had been able to redo most of the quests without getting bored too much, because I did not remember so many details. I had mused multiple times that if I ever got to be a crime witness or something like this, I'd be a terrible observer. Now, I knew of course how the riddle in the main cavern worked and that we'd encounter more vampires and another Vigilant on the steps there, but the details between here and there were very foggy in my mind. Maybe this was actually rather an advantage than a disadvantage; after all, I could never be sure which tasks and details were identical to the game and which were, at least partially, different. Thus, with a better memory for details, I might have relied too much on my memories and would have been open for nasty surprises if and when something was different. But all right, together with my three felines we should manage.

Meanwhile, Jordis had found something and shouted:

"My Thane! There is a pull chain here! Want me to see if it opens the blocked gate?"

"Sure – go ahead!"

I heard some rattling and clanking, and indeed, the iron gate opened and we could proceed. As we had agreed on, I sent my saber cats ahead first, and we four humans – or more precisely, two Nords and two Khajiit – followed with caution. We stepped into another cavern, and further ahead we could see something like a graveyard. A vampire promptly rose from the graves and rushed in our direction, flanked by several skeletons, but my crossbow slowed it down significantly, and the saber cats did the rest. Even a properly aimed crossbow bolt was not good enough to kill a vampire right away, as it appeared; however, three saber cats attacking the vampire from three different sides did the job. I was looking forward to eventually meeting the Dawnguard blacksmith who might be able to forge better crossbows and bolts. There had been quests in the game to help that person by finding some kind of schematics for those improvements; maybe that was going to come up sooner or later. For now, we had to work with what we had, and at least Inigo's ebony arrows – he seemed to have a large supply of those with him – also contributed a lot in our fights.

After we had searched this area carefully we proceeded to the next room, and to my surprise there was an enchanting table in a corner and a few soul gems placed on top of it. Were vampires working with such equipment or had it been placed here by other people? We went on and approached some stairs, but before we followed them down, we heard some fighting noises and thus stopped for a moment. Only when the noises had stopped, we advanced slowly, and we found that a couple of draugr had just barely survived a fight between themselves, a vampire, and a Death Hound. Once we had disposed of the injured draugr, Jordis smiled and said:

"It's nice and convenient to see enemies fighting between themselves; less work for us."

"Yes," I agreed, "but this also implies that some of those vampires may have only arrived recently, and they could be searching for something."

"Searching for us?"

"Not necessarily; I don't know; we just have to careful."

"If they search for us" Inigo added, "they will find out that us two Khajiit are much more than mere kitty cats; we will fight vampires ferociously."

"We will, Inigo, that's for sure. Now, where are we here?"

The large room which we had entered had four gates leading on, and each of them conveniently had a pull chain close to it. After we had carefully looked around to make sure we had not missed anything potentially dangerous, we pulled the chains one by one. The first one opened up a narrow passage which soon reached a dead end; there was a small chest with minor loot, and that was all. The second one opened up an alleyway to a medium sized room, and two draugr awoke in there; they were quickly taken care of, and that was that. The third gate allowed entry into a larger cavern, which seemed to be empty. A large chest was there, right next to a stone pillar, and it was locked. I turned around to ask if somebody might want to try to pick the lock, and suddenly Inigo raised his bow and released an arrow, which passed not very far from my face. At the same time Jordis shouted:

"Behind you, my Thane!"

I heard some growling, and when I quickly turned around I saw three trolls approaching from a corner of the room I had not noticed before. The closest one had stopped, likely due to an arrow sticking in its chest, but the other two were still an issue. Hanni and Nanni raced forward and Agmaer raised his axe, and for now we all worked together to address the menace which had suddenly popped up. Trolls were not enemies to be underestimated, mostly due to their self- healing capability. If we had noticed them earlier, I could have used my 'KAAN' shout, but I was not sure if it worked on trolls anyway. I did recall that trolls in general were best hit with fire, so that I kept my axe at my belt and used both hands to cast flames. That worked nicely, and when the monster was sinking down, Jordis cut off its head with a quick stroke of her sword. Inigo kept hurting the first one with his arrows, and Agmaer did his best to keep the final one busy. As I had expended almost all of my magicka now, I got my axe out and helped Agmaer, attacking the troll from the other side. That worked nicely, and I noticed that the troll's self-healing seemed to be slower when it was getting hit by my fire enchanted axe; this one was also down and dead soon; Jordis helped Inigo now to defeat the one which was severely wounded by many arrows, although the earlier injuries had already started to heal.

When we had made sure that no more monsters were lurking in this read, we relaxed, checked ourselves for injuries and finally looked at the chest again. Jordis tried her best; she was not in the same league as Fiona was, but eventually, after breaking like five or six lockpicks, she managed to get the lock open. We got a few small coin purses and minor potions for our effort, but nothing really great. I realized that finding trolls here was not something I could recall from the game, and I asked:

"Does anybody know if it is common to find trolls in caves?"

Jordis took that:

"Not very common, but not rare either. It seems somewhat unclear how they manage to survive; the occasional unfortunate adventurer should not be enough to keep them fed. Maybe they thrive on a diet of spiders and such."

"Or vampires?"

"Can they defeat a vampire?"Agmaer asked.

"I don't know" Jordis replied. "Maybe if its a single one and all three attack together?"

Hanni and Nanni had run into a corner, and when I walked over to see what they had found, there was a large ash pile. Agmaer joined us and claimed:

"That must have been a vampire!"

"So, it looks like three trolls together can indeed kill a vampire."

Agmaer nodded, and I had another question:

"I am also curious if the trolls in caves are the same ones as those found outside in the wilderness."

"This I don't know" Jordis responded. "It is certain that frost trolls are different, and we encountered some of those before. Frost trolls seem to be more sturdy and have more powerful attacks, but I really don't know if cave trolls are much different from the ones living outside."

"All right, fair enough. Time to find out if the final gate gets us somewhere?"

Everybody nodded, and we stepped back into the previous room. Agmaer pulled the final chain, and indeed, the last gate showed a way forward and led us into another room, which was partially flooded. Right away a few skeletons emerged from graves which were apparently under water, but they were no threat for us. The fighting noises alerted a vampire which stood guard on the other end of the room, and it was next to us before I could even aim my crossbow. All of a sudden I found myself at the target end of a spell, and judged by how that felt, the vampire drained health from me. Hanni and Nanni did not like this at all and attacked, so that the vampire had to stop the spell and defend itself; that gave me the opportunity to direct a quick fireblast at the bloodsucker from my left hand, and Agmaer managed to cut off its head quickly.

So far, this had not been too bad or too difficult, but obviously this Agmaer on my side was better trained than the timid one I used to meet in the game, at least for the first time, when we entered Fort Dawnguard together. Apparently the Dawnguard members had not only trained him well in using a crossbow, but also how to properly handle his axe, and he probably had a talent for that, too, judged by the way he used his weapons. Also, my saber cats helped to keep enemies busy, and last but not least, Jordis was a very formidable warrior lady and Inigo provided very helpful support with his ebony bow; he almost never missed his target, as it appeared, and while ebony arrows might not normally be able to kill a vampire right away, they did some damage at least.

We fought our way through a few more of those rooms with burial urns, encountering a few more spiders and death hounds, and in another creepy looking room, which partially looked like a cave, a dangerous vampire managed to ambush Inigo. The Khajiit screamed when he was targeted by a 'Drain Health' spell, but Jordis and I attacked from the sides and were soon able to defeat the bloodsucker. Inigo coughed and said:

"Much obliged for your help. I almost thought that this might be the end of me."

"Are you afraid of death, Inigo?"

"No, but I fear reincarnation" my friend replied and quickly drank a health potion to help him recover; fortunately, we had plenty of those potions with us. "If I came back as a chicken I don't know how I would go ending my life. I could run at a saber cat I suppose."

"Indeed? So, what would you want to come back as, if you had a choice?"

"Me of course! But a different me. A me who makes better choices and always gets the ladies. What would you come back as?"

"Honestly, Inigo, I do not believe in reincarnation at all. The idea of making better choices, though, I fully support."

I deliberately did not comment the 'always gets the ladies' part, and I wasn't quite sure if 'get' was supposed to be something like 'meet and spend time with' or maybe more than that. While in general that sounded nice and welcome at first glance, I did not want to behave like Antonius did; that wasn't me, not at all. Fortunately, Inigo did not ask for further comments. Also, I had not told Inigo about my background and earlier life yet, and thus I did not elaborate on some bad choices and events in my life on Earth; neither had I mentioned my religion to him, but I would probably discuss those topics with him at some later time.

[Author's Notes: Well, it appears that Tolan just had to be as foolish as his game counterpart. If somebody cares: The SF novel with fur covered insects Balu thinks about is the book series starting with 'The Tar-Aiym Krang' by Alan Dean Foster, referring to the fauna on the planet Moth in there.]