The Price of Vengeance- A Skyrim Fanfiction

Three: Farengar Secret-Fire and the Dragonstone

Five hours later, I was still trying to make my way up the mountain where the ruin was supposed to be. I had almost run smack into two giants, and thanking fate for them not noticing me, I sneaked around their camp and tried to find an actual path. To make things worse, a blizzard started blowing around me and I shivered, promising myself that the next time I was in town, I'd buy myself a thick hooded cloak. My old one had been lost at Helgen. Bloody Imperials.

I almost tripped over a pile of stones that on closer analysis, turned out to be a cairn. Cairns meant paths, and paths mean destinations. I trudged up the barely visible route and after a quarter of an hour, finally came across the damn place. Intimidating stone arches reached towards the sky and I noticed a fire burning. There were bandits on guard. Sneaking up towards them, feeling grateful for the blizzard now, I pulled out the bow Ralof had given me. I carefully took aim and fired one, then another arrow into their throats. Archery wasn't really my forte, but I had had enough training to kill at close range. After searching their bodies and taking their fur armor and weapons, I entered the barrow. There were two more bandits inside, immersed in an argument about someone called Arvel going down into the ruin alone with a claw. My ears perked at the mention of the claw, even as I remembered that Lucan had asked me to retrieve a Golden Claw from this very place. Two errands down with one trip. Brilliant.

There were only two of them so I pulled out my swords and charged them with a yell. The first didn't have time to even pull out her hammer and died from my sword in her stomach. Unfortunately, she twisted as she fell, pulling my sword from my grasp even as the other one grabbed a pair of wicked looking war axes. Two axes against a sword does not a victory make, I grimly thought as I summoned a ball of fire in my left hand. Sending it flying in the bandit's direction, I dove to the right as he hacked at me. The flame almost completely missed him but did one important thing- in the dark cavern, the sudden light blinded my opponent, and while his vision was adjusting to the blackness, I neatly slashed him from sternum to hip, then finished him off with a stab through the throat. After more looting of the bodies and lockpicking a chest open, I had some more health potions and good sales-worthy merchandise. I retrieved my blade from the woman's body and after wiping it clean, sheathed it. I'd need the fire spell to see anything in the ruins below and I could manage a fight with a single blade.

I quietly moved into the ruin's depths, stopping when I overheard a voice cursing, then screaming in pain. I rounded the corner to see darts shooting into another bandit after he pulled a lever. Poor man. Ascertaining that he was a good as dead, I slit his throat with an iron dagger I had found and examined the room. There were rotatable stones with animals carved on them. It was obviously a puzzle of some sort. I glanced around, looking for clues, when I noticed a carving on the wall. After twisting the stones so that the animals on them matched the ones on the wall carving, I gingerly pulled the lever. The door opened without darts flying at me and I sighed in relief and continued exploring. There was another chest which I got open and a rather interesting book 'Thief'. After collecting everything I might use, I started descending the spiral staircase that was there past the chest.

The base of the staircase was covered in cobwebs. I heard a voice moaning, and that combined with the presence of cobwebs meant there was no pleasant thing up ahead. By the Nine, I hope that doesn't mean what I think it means. It did though. In the next room, a giant frostbite spider stood clicking its pincers threateningly. It was twice the size I was, and I gulped. This could end very badly indeed. I let loose my flames with everything I had, setting the creature ablaze. I tried to dodge those damn pincers but failed. My vision was overtaken by pulsating lights and I was barely able to remain upright as the venom flowed through me. With a stupendous effort of will, I drove my sword into the creature's soft underbelly and collapsed beside it. The poison was hitting the nerves- paralysis was next. Unless I healed myself. Draining all my remaining magicka, I managed to dispel the poison. But I was still tired. Pulling out the remains of the loaf I had bought, I finished it and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. After a potion of restore magicka, I was ready to get moving again. There was a tunnel in a westward direction, and on my way through it, I encountered a man trapped in spider webs. It was obvious the spider had stored him as a snack for later.