Much to Hector's satisfaction, everyone seemed to be pulling their weight in the fight. Behind him, he could hear the roaring Nord pirate lay waste to a draugr foe, and on all sides of him the party members were scoring kills of their own. Even Balen, who Hector had been worried about -- and the one who triggered the trap in the first place -- killed a draugr and incapacitated another. The Dunmer's movements were almost amusing. Clearly he knew how to fight, but Hector wondered how often the scholar had actually done so.

The Bosmer was just a whirlwind of motion and sharp edges. Hector had expected no less from the woodsman archer, but the conjured spectral wolf was a nice surprise. Fire lit up the chamber twice, first when Merci summoned an atronach and soon after when Elayne cast a raging firestorm that consumed several draugr. Hector made a mental note to stick with the two Breton sorcerers. They knew what they were doing.

Hector prepared to defend himself against a charging draugr, but suddenly found himself staring at the back of Baladas Venym. The Telvanni destroyed the draugr's sword and, with the aid of Ungimros's spectral wolf, put the ancient Nord down. Hector shot a grateful nod in his direction and looked around.

There were still plenty of draugr left, but Hector felt optimistic about their chances. Really optimistic. Hell, these draugr weren't even a challenge, were they? Feeling like his limbs were pulsing with power, Hector bellowed an incoherent battlecry and charged into the draugr. With great strength, the Imperial rammed his shield into one of the draugr, impaling it on the shield's spike, and struck down another draugr with a scything cut. Most of the Fire poison had been spent in Hector's initial thrust, but residual poison ate away at the edges of the draugr's gaping wound, sizzling and smoking. Shaking his left arm, the draugr impaled on his shield slithered, lifeless, to the ground, its spine shattered.

That was when something highly unusual happened.

"Daal wah thuri, zeymah. Wunduniikke kos zol mul. Dii suleyk fen viik wunduniikke," spoke an unearthly voice. It seemed to be coming from all around them, deep and ancient and terrifying. The strength that Hector had felt suffusing him ebbed away instantly, and he backpedaled to the group quickly, closing ranks with the rest of the party. The draugr that surrounded them stood motionless, their eyes fixed on the party, before they silently disappeared into the gloom.

Hector was breathing hard, his eyes wide open, staring into the darkness. He opened his mouth to say something, paused, and closed it again. The draugr had left their dead behind, and the only movement in the room was the mindless twitching of one of the corpses. Hector had no idea where the draugr went; the stone door behind them was still closed, and the walls of the chamber were outside the reach of the glow cast by Merci's atronach.

"What was that?" Hector asked, breaking the silence. "Did anyone understand what that voice said?"

Thankfully for Balen, the fight became much easier when the mages started rolling in their arts. As lightning, fire, and beings from spectral planes filled the chamber, the fight turned more and more in the group’s favor. ‘’If only this Telvanni stopped talking,’’ Balen thought to himself as he fought the magical urge to charge into a group of Draugr that were slowly shambling towards the group. As he had reminded himself earlier, losing the melody in rapture of one triumphant note would probably cause him to get one of his limbs chopped off, and he much preferred his body intact. ‘’Better to watch the magick rip the walking dead apart,’’ Balen argued in his head.

As Sibassius cut through two more Draugr, and the creatures kept their slow, costly but nonetheless sure-footed advance, a sudden, booming sound started speaking in Draconic, vibrating the very ground underneath them – as if the Earth Bones had seen enough of the battle, and had decided to speak. ‘’Daal wah turi, zeymah. Wunduniikke kos zol mul. Dii suleyk fen viik wunduniikke.’’ As Sibassius retreated back into the ranks of the group, Balen eyed the rest of the Draugr. They halted, perhaps in respect to the source of the voice, and retreated back into the darkness of the chamber, leaving behind their weapons and their dead.

After moments of silence, Sibassius decided to quench his curiosity and spoke. ‘’Did anyone understand what that voice said?’’ Following the question, Balen sheathed his blade and started to think. His Draconic was rusty, but he had prepared before the expedition – although, now that he thought of it, he shouldn’t have studied while piping skooma. It was all blurry. Then again, he certainly could use a pipe right now – his sugar tooth was aching again.

‘’I think he told them to retreat. ‘The wanderers are strong’ or something like that. Told them to return to their overlord. And that he can match us… Defeat us.’’

Balen paused. It was easy to piece together – something bad is coming.

‘’I assume the source of the sound is either a Dragon Priest itself, or just a high-ranking Draugr. Either way, it’s foreboding. I’d say that we should look for a way out, but…’’ Balen looked back at the rocks that covered the exit. ‘’I’m sorry about that. Should’ve been more careful. If we make it, I’ll share one fifths of my profit with you folks.’’

‘’I’m sorry about that. Should’ve been more careful. If we make it, I’ll share one fifths of my profit with you folks.’’

"Eh, what's the point of life without a little danger?!" replied Baladas, shrugging as he took a swig from a dented flask. The wizard snapped his fingers and Merci's magelight, guttering weakly over the heads of the party throughout the fight as her attention had switched to more immediate concerns, burst into renewed radiance, bathing the tomb around them in white light. "Besides, some half-wit dragon priest is no match for a Telvanni and his faithful band of companionable usefuls! I mean useful companions!"

Venym turned to face the direction to which most of the draugr had retreated. "Drem Yol Lok, Bahlaan Hokoroni!" he shouted into the darkness, laughing.

The chamber around the Blackbird exploded into daedra and magefire, but he scarcely noticed. Hraf was far more concerned with the draugr gnawing on his shield. For all of their fancy wizardry, it was Hraf (and the Imperial) keeping the bastards at bay. They could cry for space all they wanted, but unless one of them picked up a shield, they were going to make do with what space he was providing for them. Grunting, Hraf shoved the Nordic mummy off of his shield, and slashed it nearly in half with his sword. He wasn't sure why, but his earlier trepidation from venturing into the forsaken tomb had disappeared. The feeling like someone had shoved an icicle up his ass was practically gone, and all that was left was the red-eyed haze of battle.

Another draugr approached, and with this foe the Blackbird felt like taking a more proactive approach. As the draugr closed into striking distanced and heaved at Hraf with its unwieldy sword, he ducked under the blow and closed further in. Once within arm's reach of the dusty creature, he delivered a strong, metal-plated boot to its desiccated leg, striking it directly in the knee. It leg cracked loudly and bent backwards, sending the draugr quite quickly to the floor. Losing no time, Hraf bashed it across the face with his shield as soon as the two were level, thus forcing its neck at an odd angle. The blow which would have killed a mortal man apparently did not stop the draugr, which attempted to again rise up on its shattered leg, broken neck or no. Rather than let it stand, Hraf hacked at its exposed neck furiously, grunting loudly with each strike. Before long, the head of the monster was sent clattering across the floor, utterly dead.

An otherworldly voice sounded throughout the chamber, calling out in strange tongues unknown to Hraf. He hardly even noticed it above the ringing in his ears, but noticed well enough as the draugr retreated into the depths of the tomb. What in the hell? Hraf was confused, but he didn't have a clear enough mind to ponder that mystery. He panted with exertion, his earlier gust of energy now leaving him. The others debated the meaning of the message, and the Dark Elf apologized for springing the trap. Hraf, having mostly caught his breath by this point, sheathed his sword and walked over to clap the man on the back.

"Ah, don't think on it too hard. If we all had to divvy up the bounty according to whatever traps we did or didn't spring, by the end of this we'd have no idea who was getting what." Hraf took another deep breath to keep himself steady, and wiped the sweat from his brow. "Either way, we gave them a right bloody nose. If no one is injured, let's press on."

The low, booming voice that all at once filled the crypt would have caught Elayne's ear even if it hadn't caused the draugr to abandon their fight and flee back into the darkness. Elayne knew just enough of the language to identify it—as Dovah-Zul, the language of the dragons—but could not understand it with nearly the fluency that Balen seemed to. The words, apparently, had been an order to the draugr to retreat, and to allow their master to face the intruders. Elayne felt a lump form in her throat at the thought of a Dragon Priest laying in wait further inside this dark, foreboding tomb. She was unsure that she could pose adequate challenge to such a being, even with her allies, powerful mages among them, at her side.

Yet, Elayne's curiosity did not disperse altogether even in the face of such an incredible danger. If this ruin held a Dragon Priest, an ancient, long-dead servant of the Dovah that ruled these lands long past, it would without a doubt hold artefacts of immense historical value. The young merchant's daughter from Camlorn now had a chance to shine light upon one of Skyrim's greatest historical enigmas: the nature of the relationship between the Dovah, the children of Akatosh, and those most fervent and powerful of their Merethic Era worshippers. The origin of the Dragon Priests' power was a secret that the Dovahkin had been all too happy to ignore in the events preceding Alduin's defeat, and to be the one to both defeat one of the priests and have the knowledge and curiosity to discover all that could be discovered about the fallen dragon-worshipper would be a point of immense pride to Elayne. It could perhaps even win the young mage a name for herself in Tamriel's magical and scholarly circles, something which would be sure to come in handy in Elayne's future adventures.

Of course, there was also the possibility that the master these draugr obeyed in their hasty retreat was not one of the Dragon Priests, but merely another draugr of higher rank. That would be considerably less frightening, but also considerably less interesting. A careful balance always needed to be struck between the desire to discover and the desire to live, and for Elayne, that balance may very well have required she not run into any dragon-worshipping Arch Mages from the Merethic Era. With all of these thoughts running anxiously through her head, and ambient magical energy slowly flowing back into her now somewhat spent body, Elayne spoke a simple, tired word of agreement to the grubby pirate that offered that the group keep moving. "Let's."

When Baladas called the then skull-crushed daedra a 'good boy', Ungimros considered pointing out that the creature was not actually a wolf, but decided this was a philosophical argument. Also, walking corpses were trying to murder them. Ungimros' next slaying was a draugr with sword and shield. The creature was sure to block any arrows he sent at the usual places, but the Bosmer knew a few others that mercenaries and wildlife were familiar with. An arrow went through the draugr's knees, and suddenly Ungimros was a lot less concerned about all the angry corpses. He knew he could deal with his share, and he even had enough time to make a profit. Holding out a hand to the now-slowed draugr, he reached into that space between planes, and looked for the thing's soul. It was able to take two shambling steps before Ungimros made a connection, and another two while he tied an aetherial tether to his satchel's contents. The creature was almost upon him when he'd finally drawn his bow, and when it raised its sword and forgot about shielding, Ungimros put an arrow into its mouth. He thought he heard the steel head hit a tomb wall behind, but other noise was drowned out by the draugr's soul ripping from it as it fell limp beside Ungimros.

By the time the soul finished transferring to his satchel, Ungimros heard a grave voice calling the rest of the corpses away in a language the hunter didn't know, let alone understand. The arrogance and assurance were obvious though. It reminded Ungimros of all the chieftans, nobles, royals, or family heads he'd met or heard of, as well as many Altmer. This seemed somehow more valid though, as all the confidence he'd built in the heat of combat melted off him. Still, he appreciated one of the Dunmer talking back to it.

"Are you antagonizing the undead mage voice?" Ungimros asked Venym, smirking a bit. Generally he would've taken that role upon himself - had he spoken the language. He appreciated the gesture, and decided he liked this Dunmer best.

Post-battle, Ungimros' broken arrowhead was moved to his right satchel, set beside the gem he'd trapped a draugr in. That alone would fetch him something, but he suspected at this point that the spooky voice implied greater treasures than previously anticipated. In any event, it would prove interesting, which was really all there was.

Hector furrowed his brow as Balen did his best to translate the Draconic words -- the Dunmer's explanation wasn't exactly reassuring. Hector doubted a millenia-old undead draugr overlord, Dragon Priest or not, would be susceptible to hubris, so the claim of being equal or superior to them worried the ex-Legionnaire.

While Hraf spoke some uplifting words to Balen, Baladas Venym strengthened Merci's magelight. The Telvanni had yelled something into the gloom, laughing, which Hector presumed to be some kind of Draconic taunt. Why do all these Dunmer speak Draconic? Hector asked himself bemusedly. Scholars... Either way, they needed to find a way out of here. Sheathing his sword (but keeping his shield on his arm, just in case), Hector approached the walls of the circular chamber they were stuck in. He investigated some of the sarcophagi littered around on the floor suspiciously, but nothing jumped out at him. Looking at a sarcophagus standing upright in one of the chamber's alcoves, however, Hector noticed something -- it was tilted to the left, leaning against the wall of the alcove. In the small slit of space visible behind the sarcophagus, Hector saw pitch black darkness.

Hector motioned for Hraf and Balen to help him. Together, the three of them pulled the sarcophagus out of its alcove, which landed on the chamber floor with a thunderous crash, breaking into dozens of pieces on impact. Hector wiped his gauntlets' palms clean and stared into the dark tunnel. "Let's check the rest," Hector said. "Ungimros and Baladas, start on the other side of the chamber. Ladies... just, uh, catch your breath, okay?" Hector didn't feel comfortable ordering the women around to do heavy physical work, though he suspected the Altmer might take offense at not being called upon.

Over the course of the next ten minutes, the party removed all the sarcophagi from the alcoves. It quickly became apparent how the draugr had left the chamber as they found another dark, hidden tunnel. "Two exits," Hector murmured to himself.

Clearing his throat, Hector spoke up. "Well, we could split up and explore both of the tunnels simultaneously. It would save time, but considering the threat just made to us, I don't think that's a good idea. We should stick together." Having said that, the Imperial looked at one tunnel, then at the other. Neither had any distinctive features to set it apart from the other. Both were rectangular, about seven feet high and five feet wide. Hector sighed, pulled out a septim and flipped the coin.

"Heads," Hector said, looking towards the tunnel exit to his left.

Cautiously, the party moved into the tunnel, weapons drawn and spells prepared. Merci's magelight followed them inside, illuminating the walls. Unlike those they had seen before, these walls were plain and undecorated, roughly hewn out of the stone earth. Hector felt trapped with the ceiling so close above him, and there was only space for the party to move in double file.

Fortunately, their trip through the small tunnel was uneventful and they reached a wide, open room after a few minutes. The ceiling was equally low here, an eternal reminder of the weight of the earth above them, but at least there was space to move freely now. This room was a mess; cabinets filled with old, illegible books and scrolls lined the walls and several tables were scattered around the place. On these tables, Hector saw the following items: a pile of amethysts, a magical scroll of some kind, several gold nuggets and a dagger that gleamed with enchantment.

There we go, Hector thought to himself, relieved. Something to make this trip worth it. Without speaking, Hector grabbed several of the amethysts and stored them in his leather satchel. The magical scroll was wasted on him and Hector disliked fighting with a dagger. The unspoken rule was to divide the spoils equally, and Hector wasn't about to be pedantic enough to remind the rest of the party of that fact. They were all adults.

[GM note: loot is marked in bold.]

The spell twisted in Merci's magical vision. She saw how Baladras altered the fabric of her spell. With an effort of will she twisted her own spellwork into the shape he had made. The light flickered for a minute and then steadied into a constant illumination. Progress. She felt absurdly pleased with something so small as a better light spell and was glad that the heat of the battle left them all flushed. She coughed, the grave dust and ozone of spells flaying her throat.

Watching the men work was not an unpleasant way to catch her breath. She watched, appreciatively, their corded muscles bulged as they heaved the lids from ancient stone sarcophagi.

“At least we know that the rumors are true and the place hasn’t already been looted,” she commented quietly, excited despite the danger by the possibility of gain. She brushed the scroll with her fingertips, hungry for anything magical but she restrained herself. Old Colb had used a scroll of invisibility once and she had seen it crumble to dust, leaving him none the wiser. Better to wait, there was certain to be magical lore to be gained, but it wasn’t here. She pocketed some of the gold, figuring that, at least, would allow her to eat.

“You think the dead are smart enough to wait in ambush?” she whispered to Hector as she moved forward leaving the others to divide the remaining spoils. They hadn't fared to badly, and thus far she hadn't managed to embarrass herself in front of the more experienced spell casters.

Balen was used to labor – his natural constitution and strength allowed him to fare pretty well in the task, and pulling sarcophagi was no exception. Being helped by two warriors obviously had an effect. But nonetheless, he wasn’t tired by the time they finished desecrating all the graves in the chamber. ‘’Somebody’s going to be pretty pissed,’’ he thought to himself – it was like the equivalent of having some thieves come into your house and break your bed. Then again, the undead shouldn’t have been waking up, so at least it wasn’t just party who was in the wrong. Objectively speaking, both sides were faulty. But Balen was allied with one side, and he wasn’t going to start acting based on his moral judgment on grave robbing.

The group entered one of the tunnels based on a coin toss – while easy for the others to trudge through, Balen found himself deeply uncomfortable, as his tall stature made it hard for him to fit in. He had to hunch forward and lean his head to the side to walk without hitting his head on the ceiling. It was in times like these when he’d curse his height. It’s not like he was a warrior or a marksman – he didn’t have use for the extended reach or the point of view. But, he believed it was rude to complain about things that just are that way, so he decided to get this thought off his head.

Eventually the group reached what seemed to be a library – plenty of books everywhere, lots of scrolls, although the height was the same. He felt like a wandering giant having stumbled upon the secret dwellings of some underground civilization. No, not the Dwemer – they were far too sophisticated and, according to descriptions, tall for this small and cramped place to be theirs. Plus, their ‘houses’ were in good shape. Though the more important thing right now was the loot, and not Dwemer architecture.

Balen saw the ex-Legionnaire, Sibassius, pocket some jewels off one of the tables. Following him, the aspiring mage, Merci, grabbed some unrefined gold nuggets. Balen thought he could sell the dagger for a good price, but then stopped. He had no idea what the enchantment was, and he certainly wasn’t going to stab anyone or anything around to find out. Better to just go with the good stuff, he thought, and took some of the remaining amethysts. ‘’Would you people mind if I took a look at the scrolls here? There might be some information of value, or something to sell to a bookstore.’’ He did not want to trigger another trap and release walking corpses, not in this cramped space, so he waited for the approval of the others before actually touching anything.

Elayne scoffed at Hector's well intentioned off-hand sexism, but nonetheless obliged his offer to take a breather. Why do a lot of heavy lifting that someone is eager to do for you? Settling as cozily as she could into an alcove, Elayne withdrew a small book from her bag and relaxed for awhile, reading absent-mindedly, not drawing any meaning from the words but more so just glancing her eyes over them. She might have seemed quite lazy to some of the others, taking a rest while Hector and the Elves worked, but the moment of calm served a practical purpose, allowing the young mage's magicka to replenish. If there was another small army of draugr behind the debris, she'd be useless against them unless she allowed her body to replenish after the firestorm she'd conjured earlier.

Once the group set off again, Elayne relished the opportunity during the trudge through the dark tunnel to inspect her contemporary's magelight. It had improved, evidently; she must have either learned to manipulate it better all of her own accord or been given a few quick pointers by one of the other magic users. Elayne hoped it was the latter—resorting to trial and error was entirely pointless when there were plenty of potential tutors around to draw from. Besides that, manipulation of magic was always a dangerous endeavour. When a mage adjusted her handling of a spell, there was also the possibility it'd morph into something else entirely. It would be quite embarrassing for Merci, and quite painful for whoever was right in front of her at the time in the close quarters of the tunnel, if her efforts to improve her magelight's brightness turned it into a fireball.

Once the party reached a mercifully wider open area, what seemed to be an old library, Elayne's inquisitive nature in inspecting the room's many scroll-covered tables led to her forgetting entirely about the small cache of treasure that the others were already looting. Once she'd found the scrolls in too poor condition to learn anything from, Elayne got around to grabbing her share of what remained. There were a small few amethysts and a couple bits of gold left, as well as a much more interesting prize: a dagger, glimmering with some sort of enchantment. Though she was not a warrior, Elayne figured having a blade stashed somewhere easy to grab could definitely come in handy in close quarters like those of the Nordic tomb she now found herselfdeep inside. She slipped the dagger into her robes, leaving what remained of the valuable baubles to the others.

When Balen spoke, Elayne gave a quick shake of her head. "Nothing I've seen so far is even slightly legible, unfortunately. Best leave it all alone. All risk for no reward. Even if there aren't any traps, it'd be a waste of time."

Ungimros waved his hand dismissively when he heard Balen's words, and pocketed a couple amethysts. Those alone would afford the sap elf a quiver of decent arrows, or one very fine missile. He shelved that thought before giving the room another once-over, and then returning to look out the way they came.

The passage was quite black again, the magelight having progressed into the library. Ungimros had walked through it on edge, with his weapon drawn, like everyone else. Mostly the tension had excited him; wondering whether something would swing an axe for his head. Before that had been lifting the old Nords' stone coffin doors, which had provided similar worries, albeit with daggers and fangs. Now that they were in this small room, the only fantasy Ungimros could conjure was the prospect of ambush. This would be an excellent spot for a mage or alchemist to throw some fire and roast the graverobbing party alive, or for corpses to use the tight space against them, or to simply lock them in the tomb.

These ideas were less exciting, and it didn't take too long for Ungimros to grow satisfied nothing was sneaking up on them, and thus bored of his watch. Keeping an eye on the hall, and an ear on the party, he reached out his hand, starting spell it into another plane before he reconsidered. The purple light that had briefly shone died out, and Ungimros felt the magicka he'd used to make the connection returned to him. This was perhaps not the best time to frivolously spend his energies.

He gave the hall one last scan, before returning fully to the room. "Looks clear behind us. Does this room lead anywhere?"

Balen ignored the young Mage’s suggestion about the papers not being legible (It’s not like she spoke Draconic, right?), and upon seeing the Bosmer’s gesture which, at least to Balen, implied that he didn’t care if Balen went wild, so Balen grabbed a bunch of scrolls from one of the cabinets – he had found someone to blame after all. Thankfully, this time, no ancient traps were sprung. It relaxed Balen, though he assumed that the Mage, Elayne, would be annoyed. Balen did not care if they were illegible or not – if legible, they would provide for some good scholarly pieces, and if not, he could always sell them to stupid treasure collectors as directions or magic passwords for mounds.

Balen opened one of the scrolls and spread it on one of the tables, deciding to sit down for a better reading experience and to get his head further away from the ceiling. An immature part of him wanted to send smug looks at Elayne to boast about ignoring her, but he was beyond that and simply analyzed the contents of the scroll. She was half right, Balen realized – over time, the ink and the papers had simply faded into each other. Nonetheless, there were some legible parts that Balen focused on. ‘’…Hardulf Twisted-Tongue’s husk has been placed in the Twentieth Row…’’ Similarly, other parts were also focused on who was placed where. ‘’Figures,’’ Balen thought – this place was, after all, a burial mound.

‘’Does this room lead anywhere?’’ The Bosmer asked. ‘’I don’t think so,’’ Balen said. ‘’If I’m reading right, this place is just for the records. I think we can sell them for a pretty penny, tho-‘’ A gust of wind took the scroll off the table and threw it onto the ground. ‘’An air stream,’’ Balen thought. Indeed, he could feel a faint gust flowing through his mustache and his receded hairline. ‘’There must be a connection – there’s an air stream.’’ Balen got up and started feeling the walls, and indeed, the stream felt stronger near one of the cabinets. ‘’Let’s move this out of the way, shall we?’’ He asked to Sibassius and the Nord, and together, they were able to move the ancient thing out of the way without making much noise in a satisfying amount of time.

‘’Would you look at that.’’ There was a tunnel, smaller than the one that took them here but nonetheless large enough for someone to walk through, although barely. ‘’So I suppose this place leads somewhere.’’ He turned to the others. ‘’Do we check the other tunnel, or do we go in here?’’ He knew he wasn’t going to go in first.