Chapter XI: Bleak Falls (Part 2)

"Ugh" I grunt as I push the headless body off myself.

Durrak finally reaches me "What the hell happened here?"

"I fucked around and found out apparently" I shrug and furrow my brows "I really should tone it down with the arrogance."

Davos also approaches "You doing alright boss?" He asks looking over the greatsword still sticking out of my shoulder.

I wordlessly pull it out while suppressing a hiss of pain and chug down a potion of regeneration from the white phial, immediately feeling my wound closing up.

I take a deep breath and explain just what happened.

Durrak blinks "So, you are telling me that somehow, some random ass bandit had a powerful piece of armor that made him go completely berserk with magical power."

I nod.

"Un-fucking-believable" he throws his hands up.

I take a moment to look the armor over.

It seemed to be a full Nordic steel plate with chainmail and padding under it, well the padding was burned and chainmail warped by my fire spell but the enchantment surprisingly held it all together. Speaking of the enchantment:

[Savior's last stand: Given to a brigand by a powerful mage he saved, this armor grants the wearer a massive increase in physical power for a minute after which the user is drained of all but the barest energy to remain alive.]

I pretend to take my time checking out the runes and then explain the effects to them.

Davos shrugs "Eh it might be strong but if it leaves you half-dead it's showpiece at best."

Durrak on the other hand disagrees "It might come with a big downside but it can save your life, honestly I kind of want it for myself."

"You can take it" I shrug.

Both of them look at me surprised but I shake my head "Oh don't think it is free, if you want this all the soul gems and magical items inside are mine."

Durrak nods without even thinking "Sure."

We spend some time gathering anything of value within the bandit camp. We find a lot of jewelry and presumably enchanted heirlooms, none of it is really powerful but bringing it to Balgruuf will certainly get us a lot of good will.

Finally, I approach the gate of the barrow. As I am looking it over Durrak asks me "You think there might be more of them inside."

I shake my head without looking back "Unlikely, they seemed somewhat well organized and everyone with even a tiny bit of sense knows not to disturb Nordic burial grounds without the power to back it up. Besides, they were already carrying a lot of loot so raiding the tomb as well would have been idiotic."

"They could always have buried the loot from the tomb nearby?" He thinks out loud.

"And what if half of them died inside, who would carry the things they already had?"

"That's fair."

Davos joins us after once again scouting the surrounding area just in case.

I turn back to them and ask with an innocent smile "You two ready to get possibly eaten by dead Nords?"

Davos shivers, probably remembering his experience when we were getting the phial.

Durrak on the other hand merely grins.

Seeing as no one wants to procrastinate I push the massive doors inwards...

*Sigh* they don't even budge.

I get some very incredulous looks with Durrak asking, only with slight mockery "Need any help with that Reyvin?"

I grunt in annoyance "Of course they are bloody stuck, why wouldn't they be." and point the two of them toward the side "Move away I am going to kick this door in the proper way."

Once again I receive some stares but they obey my request.

I stand opposite the massive doors and activate my five rings of Magicka, immediately feeling an enormous surge of power entering my being.

I take a deep breath and start concentrating, meticulously adding more and more runes to strengthen my spell. A purple circle of Magicka starts forming in front of my hand and as I mentally command them runes start filling it.

Finally, and just for good measure, I add a dovahzul fus rune in the center of it all and with a snarl push my hand forward, releasing an absolutely gigantic telekinetic push.

My spell hits the gate and with the sound akin to a gong being struck they are blown open, surprisingly not breaking on impact but instead both stopping with perfect symmetry.

"Knock, knock" I say as I let out an exhausted breath, quickly pulling out a Magicka potion and downing it just in case.

I am soon rejoined by my companions, with Davos shaking his head and muttering something about insane seventeen year olds.

My orc friend on the other hand gives me a weird look "If you could do something that insane already why didn't you hit the raiders with it?"

"It took me an entire minute to cast and literally all of my Magicka" I deadpan at him.

"You couldn't do that to a bunch of bandits, but a door forced your hand huh?" He asks in a similarly deadpan tone.

I shrug and say as if it was the most obvious thing in the world "My fragile pride was wounded by the foul construction, naturally it had to be punished for its arrogance."

The looks of disappointment they give me make me break out into a fit of childish giggles.

We take a short break so I can recharge and plunge into the depths of Bleak Falls.

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(Davos' pov)

Deep breaths Davos, you are too old to be a little bitch when the kid right next to you doesn't even flinch at the sight of the undead.

The rowdy orc leads the way inside the barrow, strutting in like he owns the place. It will be very funny if he gets hit by one of those wards like I did... if it doesn't get us killed, that is.

We move slowly down the worn down passages, encountering no opposition.

My current employer seems to be in no rush, meticulously looking over every step we take with glowing eyes.

Hmmm... he did say his family can see more than others, maybe that was more than just empty bragging.

Still can't believe I am working for a Dagoth of all people... What would mother say?

Finally we enter a cave covered on all sides with massive spider webs, the passage is also blocked.

I see Reyvin flinch for a moment and hear him mutter "No I don't want to play with your little critters you damned thot."

Is he... talking to himself? What is a thot anyways?

He sees me looking at him and gives me the usual smile he makes before he says something unsettling, before he can say anything I raise my hands in surrender and give him a pleading look.

He pouts like a child, but spares my psyche from the torture.

The orc seems to have run out of patience as he walks toward the blocked passage and starts slashing at the webs, slowly opening it up.

Before he can get far we hear skittering coming from all around us.

Reyvin immediately yells "Behind me, NOW!"

Both me and the orc know not to question it and rush behind him. He raises his hand and a green glow envelops it, suddenly a harsh wind surrounds us just in time to intercept the massive horde of spiders coming from all sides.

Thousands of the little things try to approach us but are cut to pieces as soon as they get close. I see the young orc shuddering with primal fear and openly chuckle at him, he glares at me but at least he stopps shaking like a leaf.

The tiny spiders are soon joined by their larger counterparts but they are met with the same fate and those that do manage to get through are immediately speared by a panicked looking Durrak.

Finally, the pests seem to realize that there is no point in continuing their attack and withdraw.

"Wheew! I am glad that that is over!" The orc says loudly.

Reyvin facepalms hard and mutters "You just had to fucking jinx it Durrak."

Before I can ask if he is tormenting me again for not helping, a massive frostbite spider crawls down from the ceiling.

Durrak shakes with fear, but one mocking look from Reyvin is enough to get him to calm himself.

My employer quickly starts giving orders "Durrak, take its attention and go for the eyes." The orc nods with a mix of fear and determination "Davos, distract it whenever it is about to land a hit." a sensible plan, I grab my crossbow and use a scroll to disappear.

Reyvin starts launching firebolts at the thing, surprisingly not doing massive damage as you would expect but still making the monster flinch whenever he landed a hit.

The spider jerks toward him, but he moves back quickly, probably with a spell.

Before the spider can go after him again Durrak stabs it in the side, making it let out an ear-piercing screech.

Reyvin continues his bombardment slowly setting the thing on fire.

The spider seeing as it cannot pursue the mage, jerks itself toward Durrak and goes in for a bite. I shoot a bolt at its head and manage to stop the orc from getting poisoned to death, but the spider presses on and I can't reload in time.

It goes for another bite, but Reyvin appears beside it and rakes its side with a deep slash with his staff, quickly disengaging afterward.

We continue dancing with the massive spider for a time, too long apparently as Durrak got too relaxed even in battle and suddenly tripped.

The spider wasted no time and immediately lunged at him, giving us no time to protect him, and stabbing its massive mandibles into his unprotected neck.

It goes to pull back but Durrak grabs its head with a roar and Reyvin almost teleports with his shout, appearing next to it and decapitating it.

Even headless the creature lets out a final unsettling sound as it dies.

Mother was right, I really should have gone to that damned school.

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(Reyvin's pov)

I push the spider off my friend and look him over, he looks like someone had an entire party below his neck, but I have enough potions to heal him up.

I pull out a couple of vials from my robe and while I do this Durrak speaks in a weak tone "Done in by a spider... greatest warrior my ass."

He looks at me sadly "It has been fun Reyvin but I can already feel the poison killing me. Take my body back to the companions."

I look at him like he is a complete idiot and cast an empowered neutralize poison spell. Keeping the dead look I spill a potion of regeneration at his wound and feed him another, after this I start casting healing.

A minute later he looks almost like he wasn't even in a fight, and I am still staring at him like he just lowered his entire race's iq by about 15 on his own.

Davos is in a corner laughing his ass off.

It takes Durrak a moment to process what just happened, but I can practically see the moment in clicks in his mind and his face goes redder than my fire spells.

My frozen expression cracks and I start rolling on the ground barely able to breathe from my own laughter.

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(Durrak's pov)

My face is still burning as we enter the actual crypt, surprisingly the draugr seem far weaker than what we faced in the Dustman's cairn.

Well either they are weaker or I am just so pissed and embarrassed that they look like nothing in comparison.

I keep moving quickly, smashing anything in my way. Hopefully if I crack enough skulls I will be able to forget what just happened before we get to a tavern.

Knew Vilkas was fucking with me when recommended those adventure books.

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(Reyvin's pov)

Davos and I are almost taking a leisurely stroll following Durrak's path of destruction.

"Did... did he just enter a berserk state from sheer embarrassment?" I ask, genuine concern in my voice.

Davos, who is still chuckling lightly, answers "I know I would if I was him."

We continue following him as he smashes even the stronger draugr to pieces. He almost gets killed by traps a couple of times but I stop him from getting mauled by jamming the traps with earth magic.

In almost record speed we enter the hall of stories and seeing as my orc friend has no more targets he finally calms down.

I choose not to mock him, for now.

I approach the claw gate, and as an experiment try and open it with telekinesis. Much to my chagrin the lock is not merely mechanical but magical as well and the doors do not even budge when I try it.

Accepting that I cannot cheese all future dungeons I simply use the golden claw and the gate opens.

We enter the main burial chamber and I am greeted with a very nostalgic sight, the first dungeon I ever played in Skyrim left quite the impression on me but the sight of the large word wall and the natural cavern filled my soul with childish happiness.

My companions seemingly didn't notice me stopping to reminisce but thankfully they didn't walk into any traps, I really need to stop going on tangents while exploring deadly ruins.

We search the chamber and find a chest filled with ancient silver coins and some gems, there is some trinkets laying here and there but I know that to get the dragonstone we need to take it from the draugr lord.

I approach the word wall in an attempt to 'trigger' him, but there is no reaction.

Old fashioned way it is.

I overcharge a telekinesis spell again, not to the same extent as before obviously, and pull the lid off the buried draugr.

The old corpse doesn't even move and I cannot detect any aura on it "Is... is it actually dead?" I mutter with some surprise.

"You sure it won't jump you boss?" Davos asks, doubt lacing his words.

"Well, I cannot be certain but I detect literally nothing from it." I shrug "Well whatever, might as well grab the stone and not overthink things."

I do grab the stone, but the moment I lift it the draugr's eyes snap open and it goes to grab me in turn.

Durrak, who was standing next to me, roars and starts punching the poor thing in the face. Repeatedly. With armored gauntlets.

Suffice to say the dead man returns to his rest quickly.

"You good there buddy?" I ask.

He nods.

"Goood" I draw the word out "You have to save your mind for when I tell of your dramatic death at Jorrvaskr."

He jerks his head toward me and gives me a despairing look "Reyvin... no."

"REYVIN YES!" I cackle and dodge a half-hearted punch going for my head.

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