บท 5: The Dungeon (Part 2)
At the bottom of the stairwell was a long hallway filled with nearly half a dozen more Stormcloaks running our way.
I nearly feinted when I saw some many of them rushing towards us, even Hadvar and Luna looked a bit scared
"Intruders" one of them shouted!
But, before they even had a chance to draw their weapons a horrifying shout came from above causing everything to shake.
"No" the Stormcloaks screamed as a massive section of the hallway collapsed on top of them crushing them alive.
"That was convenient" I gulped looking at the ceiling above us hoping it would hold.
"Not as safe down here as you though is it was, huh Imperial" Luna growled.
"Regardless of if it's safe or not it's too late to go back, we can only continue forward" Hadvar shook his head. "Those Stormcloaks from earlier weren't prisoners I would have recognized them which means they came from outside the keep. You were right Breton there is probably an exit somewhere deeper inside."
"Well then what are we waiting for" Luna moved towards the plain wooden door to our side which was the only path left forward after the hall collapsed?
"Be careful" Hadvar warned "I'd wager there are more Stormcloaks in there."
Luna nodded and silently pushed open the door with the two of us following after.
Inside was a well stocked kitchen that still had warm bowls of soup and cold beverages scattered around ready to be eaten, it seemed like the soldiers were having lunch before the dragon attacked.
"Get them!"
"Avenge our brothers!"
Two Stormcloaks shouted and charged at us wielding two large Iron Greatswords.
Hadvar and Luna went forward to meet them making sure to be careful of their swords greater reach and power.
Luna managed to use her speed and agility to dodge an overhead slash by sidestepping and deflecting it with a strike from one of her swords, making it miss her by a hairsbreadth. She then brought her other sword up and stabbed it down above his collar bone and into his ribcage piercing his heart and killing him instantly.
Hadvar on the other hand was keeping his distance from his foe making sure to stay just out of range as the Stormcloak rushed at him flailing his sword. The man's frenzied attacks forced Hadvar up against a wall trapping him where he unleashed a powerful horizontal slash intending to cut Hadvar in two.
But, Hadvar thought quick and dropped to the ground rolling under the blade and jumping back up right in front of the man and bashing him in the face with his shield.
The Stormcloak had put all his power into the swing so when it missed its momentum kept him from instantly defending against Hadvar's counter attack. The man stumbled backwards his nose smashed and bloodied while trying to get a defense up, but Hadvar didn't give him the chance and decapitated him with one blow.
While all of this was happening I just stood there staring at the two of them while trying to find somewhere I could help, but just ended up awkwardly scratching my head when I realized I was kind of a third wheel here.
Once again I saw just how big the gap was between me and the other people in this world was.
"Awoo" my familiar whined next to me and rubbed his head on my leg as if to comfort me.
I looked down at the ghostly dog and scratched his head making it wag its tail in excitement. And I couldn't help but, wonder if he was actually a real dog or not.
"That wasn't too bad" Luna cracked her neck.
Hadvar nodded "These Stormcloaks must have been new recruits they barely even knew how to wield their weapons properly." He then walked over to some nearby shelfs and started looking around "We normally keep some spare potions lying around in here in case one of the prisoners injures someone, see if you can find any they might come in handy."
As Hadvar and Luna started grabbing the potions on the shelf my eyes were drawn to the quest marker floating above a seemingly normal barrel.
Walking over I placed my hand on its lid and its inventory flashed in front of me 3 Minor Healing Potions, 1 Stamina Potion, and one Magica Potion.
I wondered if they were actually in the barrel, but decided against opening it since I had no idea how to actually open a barrel and didn't want to make myself look like more of an idiot than I already had. So I just transferred all of the potions into my inventory.
"Did you find anything" Hadvar asked?
"I found two Potions of Minor Healing" Luna raised her bottles.
"Excellent" Hadvar smiled "I only found one Magica potion. What about you" he looked towards me?
I pretended to reach into a nearby shelf and summoned two potions into my hand.
"I got One Potion of Minor Healing and one of Stamina" I raised the potions up.
"Good" he smiled "That makes 3 Healing, Two Stamina, and One Magika Potions. Me and the Khajiit will split the Healing and Stamina potions while you get the Magika one.
I nodded seeing as the was a pretty reasonable distribution, plus I still had 2 Healing and 1 Magika potions in my inventory.
"We're done here" Hadvar spoke up after we distributed the potions "Lets keep moving we're almost to the dungeons."
Luckily for us there was another door on the far side of the kitchen that led out just passed where the hallway collapsed.
"Imperial dog" a shout echoed in the distance followed by what sounded like lightning.
"Someone's in trouble" Hadvar raced off ahead leaving Luna and me trailing behind him.
Down the hallway and passed another set of stairs we came upon the dungeons where four Stormcloaks were battling against the Head Torturer and his Assistant.
The Assistant was using a large shield and mace to protect himself while the Torturer was sending out blasts of lightning to keep the Stormcloaks at bay, but he was panting and covered in sweat. It was obvious he was running out of Magika and wouldn't be able to last much longer.
"Rahh" Hadvar rushed in swiping at a Stomcloak from behind while Luna sprinted up and doing the same.
Not wanting to be dead weight this time I ordered my familiar to distract the third Stormcloak while I took on the fourth.
Normally I wouldn't have even consider doing something like that, but my Magika had already completely recovered from using the Conjure Familiar spell earlier and I was confident I could handle at least one enemy if I was duel casting the Flames spell.
Hadvar and Luna made short work of their enemies while my familiar sadly got obliterated by a single strike from his Stormcloaks sword, but he served his purpose and distracted him long enough for the others to finish their fight.
I on the otherhand was having a horrible time.
Not because the Flames spell wasn't strong enough no, it was actually far stronger than I expected it to be and that was the problem! The second I launched my flames at the Stormcloak his clothes and hair caught flames and he instantly fell to the ground screaming.
I panicked, but didn't stop because if I did it would only make his agony even worse. I didn't expect this to happen I thought he would just power right through it like the enemies in the game did or just instantly die like what happed to that Imperial Guard who got caught in Alduin's flames.
The worst part though was the smell.
It wasn't horrific like I expected it to be no it smelled like cooked meat and actually kind of reminded me of how cooked pork smelled. And that thought horrified me and was the thing that finally broke me and I fell to my knees vomiting all over the floor.
"Great now I have to clean that up too" the Torturer grumbled "oh, well I guess I should still thank you, since you fellows showed up at the perfect time. Those Stormcloak weren't to happy with how I've been treating their brethren."
"Don't you know what's happening out there" Hadvar asked pulling his sword out of the Stormcloak who killed my familiar? "A dragon is attacking Helgen!"
"A dragon" he rolled his eyes "Please! Don't make up nonsense... although come to think of it I did hear some odd noises earlier and the ground has been shaking quite a bit" he rubbed his chin.
"Come with us" Hadvar ordered "We have to get out of here!"
The Torturer frowned "You have no authority over me boy."
"Didn't you hear me" Hadvar gasped "The keep is under attack by a DRAGON!"
"That sounds like a you problem" the Torturer crossed his arms "My place is here in the dungeons and nothing is going to make me leave, not even a DRAGON."
"Well can we at least use some of your supplies" Hadvar sighed "After leaving here we'll need to head to Riverwood which is quite a distance away."
"Sure why not you can just take all of my things" the Torturer replied sarcastically.
"Great" Luna grinned and went over to his weapons rack!
"No, I was being sarcastic" the Torturer turned red "Gah! Whatever just take what you need and go."
"I'm never doing that again" I finally regained enough strength to stand up.
"If you don't like the smell you should learn Ice magic it's a lot cleaner" Hadvar gave some advice while gathering supplies.
"That's actually a really good idea" I thanked him.
"No problem" he then pointed at a nearby cage "By the way there seems to be a dead mage in there maybe he has something you could use?"
"Good luck with that" the Tortured sneered "I 'lost' the key to that cage weeks ago when the poor bastard in there pissed me off, took weeks for him to eventually starve to death. Though there are some lockpicks in that pack over there if you want to try your luck."
I tried my best to ignore all the horrible things the Torturer was saying while I went and retrieved the lockpicks from the sack sneaking away his copy of "The Book Of The Dragonborn" into my inventory when he wasn't looking.
Walking up to the cage I noticed that the man inside wasn't one of the nice looking corpses like in the games, but instead was a shriveled up mummy with mold growing all over his body.
I shivered, thankful for the fact that there didn't seem to be anything left in my stomach to throw up... wait why did I even have anything in my stomach in the first place? Wasn't this a completely new body? "Bah, whatever" I shook my head questions for later right now I needed to pick a lock.
Unlike what I was expecting no lockpicking minigame showed up when I got to work.
Instead it was like a stream of knowledge flowed into my brain letting me know exactly what I needed to do to open the lock.
I had to use the pick to carefully raise the tumblers into the correct position to mimic its key while keeping a slight pressure on the lock to stop the tumblers from falling back into place before turning it open. Fortunately it was only a novice lock which seemed cheaply made and only had three tumblers in it letting me get it open on my first try though it did take a bit of fumbling around first.
"Wow, seems like you've done that before" Luna snuck up from behind and startled me.
I nervously chuckled "Would you believe me if I said that was my first time?"
"Really, that was you first time? I thought you were a bit quick" she giggled.
"You" I flushed red understanding she was making a virgin joke! "That's not I-I'm not" I stutter trying to find a comeback.
"Your not what" she let out a Cheshire grin.
I realized I wasn't going to win this fight and just turned away ignoring her.
"What, Khajiit got your tongue" she laughed again. "Oh, I know you're the type of guy that has trouble talking to pretty girls right?"
My face turned ever redder.
"You know we're in a life or death situation, right" I eventually said trying to get passed this by moving onto a more serious subject.
"That's exactly why I'm teasing you" she smirked again "To get your mind off everything. It was getting to you right?"
I turned back and blinked at her not understanding what she was getting at.
"You're more relaxed now right?"
"Crap" I facepalmed realizing that I really was a bit calmer now.
"You're welcome" she chuckled before going back to appropriating all the Tortures stuff.
"Women" I sighed and shook my head turning my attention back to the dead mage.
On the floor of his cage was another Magika potion and the Spell Tome for the Sparks spell, which was pretty much completely useless in this situation. Since electric type attacks were best against mages since they deal Magika Damage and there were no Stormcloak mages since nords were pretty much hated anything to do with magic.
So I turned my attention to the dead mages robes and noticed that they were faintly shimmering in the darkness and knew they were enchanted, but did I really want to take the clothes off a dead guy?
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