Shadows Preserve Us

Chapter 10: Blindsighted

Well, the entrance to this ruin is crawling with bandits. Luckily, I'm not going through the front entrance. Instead, I'm now slowly climbing down the mountain directly above the door into the ruin. I never do just go through the front, do I? Finally, I've dropped onto the roof of the ruin and somehow none of the bandits have noticed me. I drop down from the roof onto the ledge nearest the door and head inside. The first thing that hits me is the horrific smell. Then I see the mutilated bodies in the middle of the room.  I bet I know who did this. I quickly leave the room plowing through all of the dwarven automatons that attack me. I finally find the lever that will take me down to where I'm meeting Karliah and Bryn. As soon as I arrive in the small room, I see Karliah and Bryn. Karliah walks right up to me and says, "Mercer's been here. I hope we aren't too late." " The bandits in the first room? I assume it was Mercer?" " Yeah, we found them like that. We have to catch up with him before it is too late. We should tread carefully. I wouldn't be surprised if he left a few nasty surprises for us." I go to walk to the door and Bryn catches my arm. Even with the mask, I can tell he has his signature smirk on, "Lass maybe you should stay close, considering your tendency to get hurt all the time." I turn with, I assume, a matching smirk on my face and say "Now, you are forgetting that I have gotten through some jobs with no injuries. Now let's get moving, we don't have a lot of time." With that we start to delve into the ruin.

(Time Skip)

So far, so good. I haven't gotten injured so that is pretty impressive. We have seen Mercer a few times but still haven't caught up with him. This ruin is confusing and it doesn't help that Mercer is now just knocking down towers to block the intended path. We have just come out into a large cavern. I can already see several falmer, a dwemer centurion, and a few chaurus. Fantastic. I can just tell I'm about to get hurt somehow. As we try to sneak by, somehow the dwemer centurion is set off. Great. Of course the centurion coming to life alerts all of the falmer and chaurus in the area that we are here. Now all hell has broken loose. We launch into a massive fight that is like three falmer to each of us. After a while we finally have defeated all of the enemies, and predictably I'm all cut up. Bryn walks up to me and says, "What happened to 'you won't get hurt' lass?" I smirk at him, "Not like you look much better, those falmer did a number on you." Then I look over at Karliah and she is somehow completely unharmed. I summon my magic and heal him first. "Lass, you really should have healed yourself first. You won't have enough magic to heal yourself." "Bryn, did you really think I didn't listen to you." I pull a magicka potion from my pack. "I've been carrying these since the incident outside Riften." Bryn looks at me for a second and then just bursts out laughing. "I'm just glad you finally started listening to me lass." I take the bitter potion and then heal myself. We continue through a few more chambers and we begin to hear water rushing through the walls. We open the door and see a massive statue of a snow elf. And on the head, Mercer is busy prying huge gemstone eyes from the statue's face. Karliah immediately notices all this and says, "He hasn't noticed us yet, Brynjolf guard the door." "Aye lass, nothing is getting by me." Then she turns to me and says, "see if you can climb down the ledge and-" Mercer whips and around arrogantly says, "Karliah when will you learn you can't get the drop on me." Suddenly the ground shakes the part of the ledge I was standing on breaks off. I slammed into the ground so hard the air is knocked out of me for a second. I faintly hear from above, "Lass! Lass, are you ok?!" I slowly get up and call out, "yeah Bryn, I'm fine. And I've still got my potions!" Despite the situation, I laugh at the little personal joke and I even hear Bryn chuckle a bit. I turn to face Mercer who has now climbed down to the lap of the statue. "When Brynjolf brought you before me, I knew I felt a shift in the wind. And in that moment, I knew this would end with one of us on the end of a blade." "Well, you already tried that Mercer and you failed pretty spectacularly." Again, I hear from above a chuckle come from Brynjolf. Nice to know even in a dangerous situation, I can still make Bryn laugh. "Give me the key Mercer!" "What has Karliah been filling your head with? Tales of thieves with honors? That Nocturnal actually cares what we do?" "I do not believe you, Nocturnal guides me." "It's clear you will never see the skeleton key as I do, an instrument of limitless wealth. Instead you have chosen to fall over your own foolish code." "If anyone falls, it will be you Mercer!" "Then the die is cast and my blade will once again taste Nightingale blood." Then I hear from above, "Hold on lass, I'll come help." Mercer looks up and gathers a red light in his hand and says, "Well, we can't have that." he then launches the spell at Brynjolf. I whip around and look up at Bryn and yell "BRYN!" The spell hits him and he starts attacking Karliah. "I can't stop myself Karliah." Karliah is now dodging Bryn's slashes and just trying to not get hurt while Bryn tries to fight the spell's effect. In my moment of distraction, Mercer had come up behind me and stabbed me through the stomach again. I groan in pain and hold my stomach as he pulls away. I try and heal it with magic, but like last time, it is not really healing well. Terrific. I whipped around to face Mercer and tried and run up the statue. I need to get some distance so I can use my bow. I manage to get a little distance between us and pull my bow from my back, while my stomach screams in protest as I stretch to reach the bow. I pull my arrow back and fire several arrows in rapid succession. I keep losing blood, but I just keep shooting at Mercer hoping to defeat him before he closes the distance. But, Mercer closes the distance before I can beat him. He slashes my arm, leaving a deep cut and my strength starts to drain. So not only is the blade poisoned, but it's probably enchanted with drain health or drain stamina. I fall to the ground as Mercer stands over me. I don't really know what he is saying. All I know is he is probably gloating. I can distantly hear Bryn yelling my name from the ledge where he is stuck fighting Karliah. I realize then that my dagger is within reach, so while Mercer leans over me to gloat, thinking I'm dying, I grab hold of my dagger's hilt. When Mercer leans over to finish me off, I shove my dagger through his heart. Mercer drops dead quickly after that and my arm falls to my side. Next thing I know Bryn is next to me trying to pull me to a standing position. "Come on Lass, we have to get out of here. Just heal yourself a bit, we have to go Lass." I try to heal myself a bit, but it mostly doesn't work. At least I'm able to stand up a bit under my own power. The ceiling starts to collapse on top of us and water starts to flood the room. I snap to attention and try to ignore the pain. "Ok, Brynjolf go get that door open so we can get out, I'll be over in a minute." Bryn heads over the ledge and tries to get the door open. While he does that I grab the eyes, and skeleton key from Mercer's body. I also grab that damned sword that has caused me so much trouble. "It's no good lass, the door is blocked." I start to look around for an exit and notice that there are some rocks coming loose from the ceiling. "Guys look, that area of the ceiling is going to open. When the water fills the chamber we can just swim out." Karliah and Bryn jump into the water and start to tread the water waiting for the hole to open. Finally, the hole in the ceiling opens and Karliah and Bryn swim through. I start to follow but my energy begins to fail me. My vision is starting to fade, I'm not going to get out. Sorry Bryn. I got injured again, and this time it was too much. With that thought, I pass out and start to sink.

Brynjolf POV
Karliah and I haul ourselves out of the chamber soaking wet. "Well that was a wild ride, huh Karliah? That was an impressive battle display though Lass." When I don't hear any response from the Lass, I turn to look for her, but all I see is the water Karliah and I just crawled out of. No. "LASS!" I dive back into the water and look for Almeta. Quickly after diving, I spot Almeta surrounded by red colored water. My heart drops to my stomach seeing that much blood in the water. I dart to my lass and grab her and pull her to the surface. We break through the water and I take a gasping breath when we reach the surface. Karliah takes Almeta from my arms and shoves a few potions down her throat. I can't do anything, I'm just frozen holding the lass' hand and praying to all the divines that she will be ok. Karliah turns to me and says "She's alright for now Bryn. She's still breathing at least. But we need to get her to a town so we can get more potions. Closest town is Windhelm" That catches my attention. "No, we can't go to Windhelm." "Bryn, it is the closest town to this cave and she doesn't have enough time for us to get anywhere else." This is a really bad situation. But I'll be right there, so I can protect her. And it has been a few years since she left, so I doubt anyone would recognize her. "We'll be quick. Once she can travel to Riften, we leave. And she can never be left alone." Karliah gives me a confused look, like she is trying to figure out what the big deal is about Windhelm. She nods and then turns to leave. I pick up my lass and start walking out of the cave. Hold on lass, just hold on. Don't leave me yet.