Power Corrupts: Dungeon Diving (ch.34) (Patreon)

"Gods be good," Aela muttered to herself, forced to find a new target as Jericho closed what should be an impossible distance in the blink of an eye to kill a bandit that she was aiming at. She watched as his blade flashed forward, cutting through a bandit's leather armor so quickly that blood erupted from both halves as the bandit’s heart continued to pump. 

Before either half had hit the ground, Jericho had already moved on. He deftly deflected an arrow with his sword before he crossed the distance to kill his attacker. Aela managed to fire off an arrow that hit a bandit that stood at the top of a watchtower. One of the few remaining. Yet, as she readied another arrow, a large rock slammed into the one she didn't kill hard enough that gore erupted where the rock slammed into his unprotected chest. 

And, just like that, the battle for Fort Graymore was over. Thirty dead, their lifeblood soaking into the stone and dirt. The fort doors were left open from where those within had rushed out to their deaths. There could be some still inside, but Aela had her doubts. If they hadn’t come out by now, then they had likely fled through some secret passageway. 

"He's direct," Farkas remarked. There was blood on his axe, so he had scored a kill. Assuming he matched her, then out of the thirty corpses, twenty-six had fallen to Jericho's hands. Watching the massive man fight… honestly, Aela wasn't sure why she had bothered to draw her bow. 

"He can afford to be," Aela agreed. As part of his trial, Jericho had been ordered to take a quest under their watchful gaze to determine his worthiness. Only he had insisted on taking a half dozen of the most dangerous bounties and requests in the hold. His reasoning? He wanted to knock them out all at once while he was in the area to avoid backtracking. 

This fort was directly on the highway, filled with bandits of renown. There was a good reason why neither Jarl Balguuf nor the Imperials had cleared them out. As tensions continued to worsen between the Loyalists and the Stormcloaks, no one could spare the men to clear them out. 

Aela expected Jericho to at least scope out the place before walking up to the front gates, but as soon as they arrived, he had walked right up to the fort gates and asked if they were bandits. When he was answered with a demand for his armor under the threat of several archers, he simply began killing them all. 

"He's trying to impress us," Aela commented, earning a huff of laughter from her friend. 

"Of course he is. And he has," Farkas remarked. It was natural that Jericho was trying so hard. He wanted into the Companions, an ancient order of warriors. Every true-blooded Nord dreamed of joining their number as children, and anytime someone had a chance to join they pushed themselves to display their greatest feats. Aela had been no different. 

The only issue was that Jericho's feats were starting to become… excessive. 

Because how does one top clearing out a fort manned by bandits practically single-handedly? Aela was starting to suspect that he would find a way to do just that. Which was a rather frightening thought. 

"Could we win?" Aela asked Farkas, despite knowing the answer. Aela had seen twenty-five years, and ten of them were spent with the Companions. Joining the Companions was her destiny, just as it had been her mother's and her mother before her going all the way back for countless generations. Her father had trained her well on the prey she could hunt and what was beyond her, and her time with the Companions had only hammered that lesson home. 

Jericho was beyond her in a fight. The only chance she had was to down a Draught of the Bowman, ambush him, and put as many arrows in his eyes as she could manage. But, her honor demanded that Jericho earned a better death than that should they ever come to blows. 

“The two of us as Nords? Not a chance. As werewolves? Then I like our chances. We’d still probably die though,” Farkas commented, taking out a rag and cleaning off his blade as Jericho gave the all-clear. He didn’t sound that bothered at the prospect of death. And he wouldn’t. Farkas was a warrior through and through, so he knew better than anyone that a Companion lived with one foot in the grave. 

Their conversation came to an end as Jericho approached. He was apparently used to fighting like this because only a few spots of his armor had a significant amount of gore on it, with droplets sprinkled about. However, more noticeably, he walked with a massive chest carried on one shoulder. "All the bandits are dead. Found the loot room, and this was in there," he informed, dropping the chest before lifting the lid. 

Inside was a small fortune. Fine jewelry, rolls of velvet, gemstones, and gold. The bandits hadn't been here long, but they had gotten rather rich in the time they were. Rich enough that they should have moved on, but it seemed that their greed had killed them in the end. 

"There's a lot of food down there too. Looks like they were planning on staying here during the winter." Jericho guessed and Aela could only shake her head at the foolishness of greed. "What should we do with it?" 

Before she could answer, Farkas spoke. "Don't even try to split the loot with me. I don't accept pay that I didn't do anything to earn. It's yours. If you find the right merchant back in Whiterun, you could probably pay off your debt already." 

An expression passed over Jericho's features. The exact opposite of the one that had passed over his face back when he accepted the debt. Aela didn't even think he was aware of it. Back before the Jarl, when he accepted the debt… if she had to put a word to it, then his expression was utter contempt. And now that he could pay off the debt, his eyes were filled with a quiet, but pure joy. There was a story there. 

"We could head back to Whiterun if you wish," she offered, wondering what he would do. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he shook his head. 

"I found a wagon that I could use to transport it all. If it's all the same to you, I'd rather knock out the jobs as fast as I can." He stated, gesturing to a wagon. However, that did raise a problem. 

"We lack a horse," Aela pointed out and earned a careless shrug. 

"I'll just push it," he dismissed the issue with ease. 

"Do you have a woman waiting for you back in Helgen?" Farkas hazarded a guess, catching Jericho flat-footed if his embarrassed expression was anything to go by. It was surprisingly cute, Aela noted as a bashful smile tugged at his lips, realizing his true motives had been discovered. "Your wife?" 

"That's...complicated?" Jericho trailed off, looking as if he was considering it for the first time. Aela rolled her eyes, and in doing so, she saw Farkas give a sage nod. 

"Women always are," he commented, giving her a pointed look. Which she returned with a thoroughly unimpressed one. 

"Go load up the wagon before this complicated woman blackens your eyes," she warned. Farkas and Jericho looked too amused for their own good but they obeyed all the same. "I'll burn the dead in the meantime. The last thing we need is an opportunistic necromancer making a problem using one we just fixed." 

With that, they went to work. Aela burned the bodies, and some of them were so thoroughly destroyed that she probably didn't need to bother. The fire wouldn't completely burn them to ash, but the remains that were left would be useless if raised. All the while, Jericho and Farkas loaded a sturdy wagon that was likely all that remained of a merchant. 

Once they were done and the wagon was filled to bursting, Aela watched with interest as Jericho slid a bar through a gap where horses were meant to be and pushed. And against all odds, the wagon moved. 

"It's like he has a giant's strength in a smaller body," Farkas remarked. Aela silently agreed as the wagon moved forward.

Now it was a question of how long he could maintain the pace. 

…

The answer was well into the night. The one break that he had was when he was forced to fix a wheel after going over a hole in the ground. Even still, Jericho didn't so much as look winded. She and Farkas were more tired than he was. 

His armor wasn't enchanted, Aela was forced to remind herself. And unless he was sneaking them, he didn't have a single stamina potion to keep him going. In a way, that was more daunting than watching him fight. The sheer endurance he had was almost too much to believe and the fact he didn't have a Fortify Endurance enchantment was a hard pill to swallow. 

"We should set up camp for the night," Farkas voiced her thoughts. Jericho had the audacity to look surprised at the idea. 

"How far away are we from Silent Moon camp?" He questioned, sounding like he was perfectly content to travel through the night. Like he hadn't spent the past six hours pushing a cart filled with treasure and enough food to feed a village through the winter. 

Aela looked up to the stars above, her werewolf nature allowing her to see in the dark. A skill that only those that had truly embraced their true nature held. Among the Circle, only one other could see in the dark. Finding Azure's Star, comparing its location to the throat of the world and the mountains in the distance… 

"About half a day's travel," Aela deduced. Then she eyed the wagon that Jericho was pushing. "The wagon will slow us down a great deal when we have to travel off-road, so it could take longer." Predictably, Jericho didn't seem to care for that idea much. Aela wondered who was the woman that could handle such a man, and, better yet, what about her made Jericho so eager to return to her. 

"What about if we stash the cart?" He asked, making Aela pause. No one liked the idea of leaving hard-earned loot behind. "There's an occupied tomb nearby, right? We could stay the night there, stash the cart, and when we're done we can follow the road back to Whiterun. I'll cash in the quests I've done, you can give me the verdict on if I'm a Companion or not, then I'll finish up the quests that I have before returning home for a bit." He planned, sounding as if there wasn't a doubt in his mind that he wouldn't be accepted as a Companion. 

And there shouldn't. His character still needed to be tested, but his skills alone made him worthy of membership. And in time, Aela had little doubt he would climb high in their ranks if he proved he could be trusted. 

"We're still some time away. We'd have to travel through the night to reach it," Aela said, eyeing the old tomb in the distance. It was at the end of the road, a tomb for a great ancient warrior whose legends had been forgotten. And there was no greater tragedy in this world than that. 

"I can push through the night if you two want to hop on," Jericho offered. Aela and Farkas shared a look before they nodded. 

"Sounds good to me," Farkas decided, slowing down their pace so he could jump into the wagon and Aela joined him a moment later. Farkas wasted no time making himself comfortable at the back of the wagon before he shut his eyes with his great axe in hand. Aela took up a position at the front, settled between the chest and a pile of cheese wheels. 

Yet, she didn't close her eyes.As the moons began to take their path through the night sky as hours passed, Aela did not sleep. Not even when Farkas' breathing evened out after a few hours of pretending to sleep turned into genuine slumber. Aela waited. 

A test of character.

Aela knew she was a beautiful woman, she didn't see the point of pretending otherwise. She didn't particularly care if she was beautiful or ugly. Now that they were alone in the middle of nowhere, she wanted to see what Jericho would do with a beautiful woman when she was defenseless. The only obstacle would be Farkas, but a sleeping man wouldn't be much of an obstacle for a man like Jericho.

If the wagon stopped at any point during the night, Aela decided she would kill him. Companions needed to be able to trust each other with their lives. If Jericho couldn't be trusted to keep his dick to himself like some kind of dog in heat, then he had no place in the Companions. 

But, as the sun began to rise and the hours went by in tense silence, the attempt of rape never came. Jericho just continued to push the wagon at a steady pace, the bumpy road the only source of noise, and nothing happened. Aela was glad for it. The people that the Companions attracted, the lifestyle that they lived… well, there were more than a few that had failed that test. People changed when they thought they were in a position of power.

They said that power corrupted, but Aela thought it simply revealed character. 

And since she wouldn’t be killing him this night, it was worth trying to learn a bit more about what would soon be her newest shield-brother. 

“What is your story, Jericho?” Aela asked directly, knowing that she wouldn’t get an answer otherwise. He thought nothing of what he was doing. From butchering a fort of bandits, to pushing a full wagon through the night. He wasn’t even trying to hide his blatant abnormalities. 

“Hm? My story?” Jericho asked, caught off guard by the sudden question after hours of silence. “Don’t really have one.”

At that, Aela scoffed. It was more annoying than charming when men tried to be mysterious. “You carved through those bandits like they weren’t there. You have experience with combat at least. I don’t suppose you feel like sharing the secret to your strength.”

Jericho chuckled, apparently finding her words funny. “Then it wouldn’t be a secret,” he pointed out. Like she said, more annoying than charming

“You said you were new to Skyrim? Where do you hail from? What brought you here in the first place?” She pressed, searching for a trail. Nirn was a place of oddities, but Jericho was unusual enough that she could likely find out his tale by chasing down sightings of him. Then she considered the question of why a warrior like Jericho would wish to come to Skyrim now of all times. “Do you wish to join the Stormcloaks?”

Jericho failed to smother a noise of disgust at the idea, telling her that she missed the mark, but that was an interesting reaction. “A fan of the Empire, I take it?”

“No, not that. The Empire is on its last legs and the Thalmor have all the time in the world to kick them out for the final time,” Jericho said, sounding certain of it. Aela leaned back, considering that. The Empire was a part of life. What would Nirn look like without it? Honestly, Aela couldn’t picture it. Either because nothing would change or everything would. “But I wouldn’t join the Stormcloaks even if they gave me Skyrim along with everything in it.”

“Oh?” A rather strong opinion. “When tales spread of your deeds, they’ll be begging you to join them when the time comes. We’ve already had a few leave our ranks to join either the Empire or the Stormcloaks.” Aela knew she would be tempted to do the same if only to earn glory during the civil war that seemed increasingly inevitable. Whose side she would fight for, not even Aela knew. But that would never come to pass because her place was with the Companions. 

“Well, pardon my language, but they can get fucked,” Jericho stated, earning an amused huff from her. “I understand that people are pissed, but what good is a civil war going to do? The only ones that are going to win in that fight are the Thalmor.” At that, Aela’s eyes narrowed. 

“And what do you mean by that?” She questioned -- as any true Nord, Aela hated the Thalmor. High elves, despite their complicated history, were fine in her book so long as they proved themselves worthy. The Thalmor was a different beast altogether. 

“The civil war happens and dead Nords pile up on both sides. The Stormcloaks win? The Empire is even further weakened. Skyrim is isolated and weakened from the war. As soon as the war ends and Skyrim is licking its wounds, if I were the Thalmor, that’s when I would attack. Skyrim would fall to them.” That...made an alarming amount of sense, Aela thought, disquieted. 

“And if the Empire wins? They’re still weakened, so is Skyrim, and worse, there’s going to be bad blood and grudges. Skyrim joined Talos willingly when he proved himself to be Dragonborn. If Skyrim loses then it remains a part of the Empire, but only this time through force. And no one likes being forced to do anything,” Jericho explained, his words settling heavily on her. 

Still, that didn’t answer her question. “Knowing all of this, what made you decide Skyrim was the place to call home?”

Jericho didn’t answer for a long moment. Long enough that she thought that he wouldn’t. Her attention was drawn to the half-collapsed ruin that marked the ancient tomb to a warrior forgotten by time. A perfect place to stash a wagon full of loot. 

“Because I figure I can do something about it.” He spoke at last, coming to a stop. 

Aela eyed his back, the incredibly broad shoulders clad in thick heavy armor. She thought of how he fought back at the fort. Despite herself, Aela began to wonder if he could do something about it. 

…

It was a bitch and a half to bring the wagon into the hole in the ground, and it was going to be absolutely awful to get it back out. Honestly, I’m hoping that Aela and Farkas go off to do something so I can just inventory all of it. I should have done it originally, but that would have raised questions of ‘where did the loot go?’ I didn’t want to risk them thinking that I had stolen it. 

But, all in all, so far this was proving to be a pretty profitable trip. I had my prospector map mode pulled up and I found a spot that had a decent iron deposit, roughly the same as Embershard Mine. So, I had another place to set up shop. And, given that I was already making a nice profit so far, I might be able to avoid taking in another debt to the jarl without having to use my savings. 

That was for later. For now, I had more immediate problems. 

“Someone’s been here recently,” I pointed out, gesturing to the disturbed dust on the door. It looked weathered and ancient, the black iron door still standing after being exposed to the elements for thousands of years. I could only assume magic was involved. Farkas and Aela looked over at the evidence, the former frowning. “Should we check it out? I’ve heard that there have been draugr roaming around.”

“It’s probably a treasure hunter or something. Your call if you want to check it,” Farkas said. I know they were testing me to see how I would fit it. The question was did entering a random tomb count as brave or reckless to them? Eh, it probably wouldn’t matter at all. They would be too happy with what they get what was at the bottom of this dungeon. 

The last piece of Wuuthrad was down here. The legendary axe wielded by Ysgramor, the first human ruler of Skyrim and leader of the Companions.

Which is why I wanted to come here in the first place. Why wait to get the quest when I could do it now? 

“Might as well,” I said with a shrug of my shoulders as I readied my sword. Aela did the same with her bow and Farkas readied his axe. Pulling open the ancient doors that screeched in protest, I stepped inside and found the first issue with my plan. There was an open room, some ceremonial table in the center of it while on the other side there was a tunnel that led deeper into the tomb. 

At least there was supposed to be. The entire way was blocked off because of a collapsed tunnel. 

“Shit,” I cursed, unhappy as I scanned the room for any threats. There were none, but there were three corpses laying on the ground. Draugr. I looked them over -- their skin was dried out, preserved, and gaunt. Their hair was wispy and thin. They looked like a well preserved ancient corpse. Except for where Their heads were bashed in so they fell where they had stood. 

“Someone was definitely here,” Farkas commented, picking up a book that rested on the table in the middle of the room. That brought my attention to the pickaxes laying on it and against the blocked off the tunnel. “But it looks like this was as far as they could go.” 

This was annoying as all hell. Why were there a bunch of rocks in the way? I walked over to inspect the collapsed tunnel, eyeing the pieces of rock. 

"Whoever was trying to get in did the bulk of the work for us," I pointed out as I inspected the rocks. There were plenty of small ones covering the ground where bigger ones were broken up. But I also noticed something else. "The rocks were put here," I realized, clearing one away to find an intact ceiling. Not only that, if there was a collapse, then we would have seen it on top. 

Aela walked over to find the same thing. "He's right," she confirmed to Farkas. 

"Draugr are dumb. The puzzles in these tombs are more than enough to keep them stuck down here. So, there's either something down there someone didn't want anyone to get to or there's something they didn't want to get out." Farkas said, looking at the closed-off tunnel. He glanced at me, "and even if it's the latter, usually there's a prize to be won. I say we check it out." 

I nodded, wanting the same. We turned to Aela, who eyed the tunnel filled with rock for a long second before she nodded as well. "We'll find out soon enough if it's worth the risk," she commented, clearing the way to let me grab hold of the stones blocking the way. 

Now that I didn't have to worry about collapsing a tunnel or anything, I used my strength to tear the stone out of place. Some had to be broken up, but I made quick work of the obstacle. Even still, it became increasingly obvious that someone went through a lot of trouble to block this place off because rocks filled the entire tunnel. And once I pushed one large one out of the way, the rest crumbled to the ground and I was hit with the stench of stale air. 

The opening looked like it was half complete, but I saw the designated way we were supposed to go. Thankfully, whoever built this place was trying to show off how great the dude who died here was, it had tall ceilings and wide tunnels, so I could swing my sword easily enough. 

Rolling my shoulders, I strode forward cautiously, wary of any traps that weren’t there in the game. Turning the corner, we found ourselves in the catacombs. The walls were smoothed with pockets for draugr to sleep in. A center pillar stood, containing one draugr warrior for each side of it. They wore dark iron armor, a shield clasped before them, and a sword in hand. 

I was surprised when I heard an arrow whistle by my ear to slam into the eyesocket of the draugr standing guard. Glancing back at Aela, I saw her notch another arrow in her bow. There wasn’t time to ask what she was thinking because, almost as one, the draugr groaned as they awoke from their slumber. 

“I’ll take the left, you get right,” Farkas told me as he strode forward. I nodded, accepting his lead as I parked myself on the right side of where the room opened up. Like everything, it was proving to be larger than it was in the game. Just by looking at it, I saw over a dozen crawling their way out of their holes. Aela took up a position behind both me and Farkas, firing off arrows as the undead horde stumbled towards us. 

Once they neared, I swung once and my blade crashed right through them. It was shockingly easy. Pieces of them flew up, practically falling apart. There was no blood, only dust as the skeletal undead pushed forward, reaching out with their bare hands because they had no weapons. With the backswing, I took out another group of five, the fact that they wore no armor made things a thousand times easier. 

I know draugr were meant to be easy enemies to beat, but this was a cakewalk. Almost to the point that it was kinda worrying. I was planning to spend the bulk of the six months establishing myself and learning magic, but I didn’t like the idea of my physical progress completely stalling out because I was so over-leveled for threats like these. There was a real possibility that I would have to hunt down threats that could prove a challenge. 

Still, I’d rather be too strong over being too weak. 

With a handful of swings, they rejoined the dead for good this time. And that’s all there was too it. Rather lackluster, all things considered. 

“Hm,” I grunted, stepping over the pile of corpses, taking in the rest of the catacomb now that it was currently cleared of the undead. My gaze found a torch, which was why I was able to see. I figured lit torches in ancient catacombs were a game mechanic, but…

“The draugr make them,” Aela explained as we moved on from the initial room through a wooden door that was mostly rotted through. “They have tasks, like cleaning, and they can even strip fallen adventurers of their equipment for materials.” I didn’t like the sound of that, but that did explain how there were torches lighting the way. I grabbed one and continued deeper into the tomb. 

After crossing through a disturbingly thick wall of cobwebs, we stood above a large room. There was a raised platform with two seats on it with a wide area filled with nothing. An arena? Either way, I recognized this place. This was where Farkas was meant to reveal that he was a werewolf. I guess that wouldn’t be happening. 

In the wide-open room, the few torches that were lit made the shadows seem that much darker as the pitiful amount of light they offered made them dance. I was the first down, the stone steps holding strong as I walked down into the center of the room. There were two divots in the wall -- one that went nowhere and another that would take us down further. 

“Don’t touch the lever,” I felt compelled to say, eyeing it as I entered the room in search of loot. I had thought that either Farkas or Aela would have an issue with looting an ancient tomb, if only because it disrespected the dead. 

And, as if to prove the opposite, Farkas kicked over an urn to check its contents while Aela broke open a pot for valuables. And found some, apparently. 

“Doesn’t look like a trap. It’s probably for keeping unworthy draugr from continuing forward,” Aela remarked, holding up her own torch as she carried a slender sword in her other hand. 

“Unworthy?” 

“This is the outer sanctum where the servants would be buried to serve their unlife. Once we reach the inner sanctum, we’ll start to fight warriors who fought with whoever is buried here,” she explained. And that would explain why everyone was so weak. 

Still, not wanting to get caught in the trap, I grabbed the bottom of the gate and lifted. It had some weight to it, but nothing that I couldn’t handle. Pushing up, Aela and Farkas slipped underneath and I let go of the gate. The mechanism was so ancient that the gate got stuck where I left it, but I was hardly going to complain about that. 

And with that, we pushed deeper into the tomb. Just like Aela hinted, beyond that room the draugr started to wear armor and carried weapons. Yet, even still, it was simple to kill them. They were slow and their armor couldn’t withstand any heavy blow, much less a light one from me. There were several rooms and I tried to picture what this place would look like thousands of years ago. 

I always enjoyed history. There was just something fun about learning about why the world is what it is. Especially when so much of it came down to one idiot being in the wrong place at the right time. 

This tomb was like an undead metropolis. There were areas for the undead to fight, eat, sleep, and have fun. I don’t think that they did any of those things, but there were places for it. Not only that, but it was shockingly huge. My map said we were way below the surface and each room kept taking us down. Whats more, between each room were draugr and, more importantly, loot. 

I stumbled across a collapsed room with a very precarious heavy chest laying on top of the rubble. I looked at it for a long moment, blinking, then wondered how that was remotely possible. “That’s a trap,” I deduced easily enough before I looked behind the door to pick up a coin purse that was rather heavy. 

But, as time went by and as we went deeper and deeper, we eventually found ourselves at the bottom of the tomb, standing before a wooden door that looked religiously well maintained. Without further ado, I pushed it open, revealing a massive room. 

It comprised of three platforms, each with about ten stairs. The ceiling stretched upward for about four stories, making even me feel a bit small as I stepped into the tomb. On the highest platform was a sarcophagus, likely the guy that was buried here. And, more noticeably, I saw a familiar wall behind the sarcophagus-- a wall of power. At that moment, I almost kinda regretted not choosing to be the Dragonborn. 

My sense of awe and excitement was quickly cut off when I noticed that the walls were covered with sarcophaguses. Perfectly spaced apart, they lined the walls, the simple black iron seal waiting to be broken by the ancient warriors within. That part wasn’t surprising, but how many there were was alarming. There were four levels that could be reached by a staircase, and each was covered by fifty sarcophaguses each. 

“Whoever this warrior was… he must have been incredible to deserve a burial like this,” Farkas spoke with admiration. “These are his personal honor guard. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one so large.” He said as we cautiously walked up the steps. I eyed the sarcophaguses warily -- draugr were weak, but two hundred of them could be a problem. 

Still, I wasn’t worried. I was a level 28, and Farkas and Aela were werewolves. We would be fine. But, better safe than sorry. 

Once we reached the final platform, my eyes landed on the prize of this trip. Jutting out of the top of the sarcophagus of who this tomb was built for was a few chunks of metal. Pieces. Parts of a shaft, a piece of the blade. It was as if it was proclaiming that these pieces of metal were the greatest treasure in this place and, to some, I guess that would be the case. 

Aela sucked in a sharp breath when her eyes landed on it. “Wuuthrad,” she uttered almost reverently. “The final pieces… and so close to Whiterun,” she remarked, shaking her head in disbelief. 

“Of all the places to find the last piece. Huh. That’s going to make the Old Man’s day when we bring that back,” Farkas observed, eyeing the pieces of metal. They didn’t bother to explain what they were, assuming that I would already know. Luckily enough, I did. These were pieces of Ysgramor’s weapon. It was never explained how they were broken, or why, but given that it happened thousands of years ago, the most likely answer was elves. 

And since it was destroyed, the Companions have been searching for the pieces. 

Farkas thumped me in the shoulder, “if we bring this back, Kodlak will be begging to have you join. Talk about luck.” Or spotty meta-knowledge. 

“If we can bring it back,” Aela corrected, eyeing the sarcophaguses with grim determination. She sheathed her sword and took out her bow. “I’m guessing that the inhabitants won’t be happy once we take the shards,” she pointed out. 

“Hm. Jericho?” Farkas started, glancing over at me. 

“Yeah?” I asked, looking down at him. 

“Aela and me are werewolves,” he informed so casually that I blinked in surprise despite already knowing that. Aela let out a sigh of exhaustion mixed with frustration. “So you don’t have to worry about us. If things start to look bad, we’ll just transform and we’ll be fine. Just do your thing and we’ll do ours.”

“Kodlak is going to be furious,” Aela told Farkas, looking at me to judge my reaction. My helmet made it impossible to see my expression, so I gave a careless shrug to show that I didn’t care. 

“Yeah… we should tell him that we got the last pieces of Wuuthrad before we tell him that. Try to put the Old Wolf in a good mood,” Farkas agreed with easy acceptance. He readied his weapon and Aela readied her bow. I mulled over the byplay for a moment, feeling relieved. I knew that they could handle themselves, but… I wasn’t used to fighting with people. The fact that I had their permission to throw myself into the fight was a weight off my shoulders. 

“Should we prep the battlefield first?” I asked, though I knew the answer as I walked down to the second platform and stopped at the top of the first set. Down below was the staircase that led all the way up. Only now did I realize that it was designed like this. One direction they could come at us. A challenge to see if we were worthy to take the prize. 

“No. They have waited thousands of years for a fight. We will meet them in battle with the honor they deserve,” Aela said before she stepped forward. Farkas stood to my left, ready. I didn’t see it, but I heard the exact moment that they picked up the pieces of Wuuthrad. In the massive, yet silent room, a single noise seemed to echo throughout it. 

The sound of sarcophagus covers shifting, then falling over with a loud clatter. A dozen of them, all at the same time. My eyes went up to the very top floor to see the draugr that crawled out. Just with a passing glance, it was obvious that they were different than the ones we've fought up until this point. Their armor was individualistic, and I'm guessing that a couple of thousand years ago, their armor would have been a sight to behold. Not only that, but their weapons were also better than the ancient iron-based weapons, replaced by surprisingly well-preserved steel.

As they walked down towards us, their movements far smoother compared to the others, sarcophaguses fell open as they walked by. Their numbers swelled as they walked down, the top floor now empty, which prompted the second floor to begin to do the same. Those from the first floor reached the bottom, forming up into a shield wall and waiting to be reinforced. I was tempted to run down there and smash them before they could muster up their full strength. After all, four groups of fifty were far easier to manage than one group of two hundred. 

But the fact that Aela hadn't fired off a single arrow nor did Farkas move to attack spoke volumes. So, we waited for them to form up with surprising precision as if they had waited all this time for this exact moment. My heart rate picked up in my chest, eyeing the solid wall of bodies standing between us and the exit. 

Then, as one, they took a step forward. In that same moment, an arrow appeared in one of their eyes, making the corpse slump over to be trampled by those behind it. That was the signal for the fight to begin. 

I strode forward, brandishing my weapon. They were weak, but there were a lot of them. And I was in the perfect position to turn their numbers against them. 

Crouching down, I leaped into the air and sailed overhead the first line of draugr. My heavy armor weighed me down more than I thought it would, so I didn't land in the middle of their formation as I wanted, but I still landed inside of it. An animated corpse was crushed underneath me as I landed on it -- at 7'6, I weighed something like three hundred and fifty to four hundred pounds. Wearing thick heavy armor? That was closer to five hundred rounding down. 

Gritting my teeth, I grabbed the hilt of my sword and swung with all of my strength. There wasn't a lot of room to maneuver, but I made room when the edge of my sword slammed into draugr, knocking the corpses flying if I didn't cut through them. 

Before the corpses had even hit the ground, I sent more up as I carved out some breathing room for me. "This…!" I started, feeling blows rain down on me, but my armor protected me from the damage. And for those that dared to strike me, my broadsword slammed through them, reducing the corpses of once-proud warriors to dried out husks of broken bones and armor. 

"Isn’t…!" I heard a wolf howling, telling me that either Farkas or Aela had transformed. There wasn't time to admire, but because I dwarfed the draugr around me, I could see a werewolf tearing into the corpses with the same ferocity as I did. Judging by the scrapes of steel armor, it was Farkas. His werewolf form was tall, taller than me, covered in black fur around his head and chest while his skin was a dark gray hide.

His deadly claws slashed at the undead, tearing through them and batting them aside. An axe slammed into his ribs, sending blood flying, but after Farkas repaid the draugr for the wound, he continued to throw himself into the fight. The wound was forgotten about because it was no longer there. It had healed in seconds. 

That made becoming a werewolf an interesting prospect. 

"Much…!" I continued to carve a line through the draugr. They were focusing on me. I felt Aela’s presence because draugr around me dropped with arrows sticking out of them. It made me wonder how these things died. With normal zombies, you had to destroy the brain because it was in control over the body. With these things, if you hit them enough, then they would just drop dead. Now really wasn’t the time to experiment, but I put a pin in the question to look into later. 

“Different… than…!” The draugr were rushing me, trying to bury me in numbers. I felt swords poke into the gaps in my armor, but Oakflesh and chainmail protected me from damage. Despite being completely surrounded, I felt damn near safe in my armor. I really needed to get something for Hestia to repay her for it. Something for the house, maybe? But I didn’t want her getting too attached to it since there was a real possibility of it getting burnt down. 

Maybe I should have just started in Whiterun? Eh, kinda late to do anything about it now. 

“The… Soma familia!” I declared, swinging my sword back and forth. No grace, no syle, no nothing -- just hacking and slashing at the problem until it went away. It was the same way back during the War Game when the Soma familia had tried to overwhelm me with numbers. I had just pushed myself into the thick of it, accepted the hits, and punished them with fatal blows. 

I was used to fighting like this. Completely surrounded on all sides with some support to keep me from getting overwhelmed. Only there wasn't a risk of me becoming overwhelmed with enemies like this and it showed. 

The ancient corpses began to pile up, but the dwindling numbers pressed onward with determination. I didn't bother keeping count of how many I had killed. There wasn't a point. It would have been simpler to count the number of swings I took, but the combat wasn't so boring that I was reduced to that. 

Instead, I simply followed the signs in the combat. Noticing where there were few, and where there were many, then attacking the many until there were none. It was impossible to tell how long the battle lasted, but it didn't feel long. My breathing was even, my heart rate was steady…  I'm not sure if I actually worked up a sweat. My perk Perfect Practice meant there was a diminished stamina cost for repeated actions, so I would need more than this to train endurance. 

"Hm," I grunted as my sword crashed through a draugr, my eyes searching for another, but there were precious few left. Most of the bodies on the ground, piled up where we stood our ground, were down for their final rest. Ignoring how one grabbed at my foot, I crushed it's head as I rested my sword on my shoulder, looking for more. 

That was… easy. Easy enough that it was disappointing. Was this really it? Two hundred draugr and they barely counted as a warm-up? No, not even a warm-up. 

My gaze landed on Farkas, who ripped the last draugr in half. His bestial face twisted in a ferocious snarl that revealed a long snout filled with jagged teeth. He sniffed deeply, looking around for more prey, but once he saw that there was none, he began to revert back to his base form. His body shrunk, his dark gray hide replaced with pale white flesh, his black mane of hair returned to its previous black mop. As he changed back, I realized that his armor was in pieces, but not destroyed. I'm guessing it was designed to break apart in a certain way during a transformation. 

"Phew. That was a fight," Farkas stated, sounding thoroughly pleased with the battle. He made little effort to cover his modesty, prompting Aela to throw something at him to cover himself with. Apparently she hadn't felt the need to transform. Looking at the platforms, I realized none had reached the third. None had come close to her. 

"You fought well," Aela praised, giving me a firm nod. "But I see what you meant about your skills." She continued, giving me a half-smile. I guess now that I was in the loop, she was opening up a bit to me. Or maybe it was regurgitating the most basic argument for picking the Empire over the Stormcloaks that did the trick. Was she a Loyalist?

"And you're a deadshot with that bow of yours," I returned the compliment, however backhanded it might have been. Aela looked pleased with it. 

"Good thing we brought the wagon. Hauling all of this loot would be a pain otherwise," Farkas said, looking kinda ridiculous with his armor hanging off of him in pieces. 

"You don't have any questions?" Aela asked, looking at me. "About what you've just learned?" 

Oh. Right. I was supposed to pretend like I hadn't known they were werewolves for the better part of a decade. To that end, I offered up a shrug as I took off my helmet. "I have a few, but nothing that can't wait until we're out of here. 

Aela searched my face for a moment, searching for a hint that I was secretly a member of the Silver Hand or something. It was only because I was looking at her that I saw what was happening behind her. Even still, I almost missed it. 

The lid on the central sarcophagus slid to the side, pushed open by the creature within. It fell to the side with a thud before the draugr rose, lifting its torso first. Its eyes glowed with an ominous pale blue light, marking it different than the others. It wore no helmet but it's armor looked brand new. The same color as copper. It took a different shape, made to resemble Nord armor, but as soon as my eyes landed on it I knew what metal that armor was. 

Dwemer metal. Metal that was time-locked to never age. 

"Deathlord!" Farkas shouted in alarm, making Aela flinch back as she pulled out her blade, the good cheer gone in the face of our newest enemy. And, the fact that he sounded alarmed was enough to make me spring into action. 

Running up the steps as fast as I could, I hoped to close the distance before the Deathlord managed to get out entirely. It managed to get out before I reached it, but it was out of position to defend itself. Its eyes flared as I neared, raising my sword to bring it down on its head before I brought it down to do just that. Only for a black blur to dart between my blade and its head. 

A greatsword. Smaller and narrower than mine, but that fact was forgotten in favor of two things. The Deathlord's arms buckled when our blades clashed, but they did not break. It could withstand my blows. Secondly, what the greatsword was made of was far more alarming. Black as night with silver trimming and wreathed in fire, just looking at it was enough to send a chill down my spine. 

Ebony. The crystalized blood of a god. 

I wanted that sword and armor. Pushing down, I proved myself to be stronger than it. It put up a struggle, but my sword inched towards its head as it fought to push my sword back up. Its glowing eyes glared up at me with what I could only describe as annoyance before its cracked and dry lips moved. 

"FUS!"

My eyes went wide as an invisible force hit me in the chest and my world became pain.