The thick vines blocking most of the barrow’s openings spoke of its great age. Dale passed several antique embalming tables – so old that the remnants of their linen coverings were practically adhered to their surfaces – and pushed open the iron doors to a wooden circular staircase. More roots and vines covered the walls, but the stairs themselves were in good condition. He descended at least a full storey before pausing to listen carefully.
A person can never be too careful in a place like this, since the dead sometimes take it upon themselves to rise from their rest. I doubt that is what I’m going to find here, but I’d just as soon not be surprised.
The stairwell emptied unceremoniously into a burial space, its ridged stonework partially collapsed, filled with rubble as well as bodies. Dale wondered whether perhaps the ground here, surrounded by two branches of a river, wasn’t as suitable for a barrow as its builders had hoped. Or perhaps the volcanic tundra below Ivarstead had shaken the place once too often.
He stopped short as a heartbeat reached his ears. As quietly as he could, he pulled his bow around in front of him and readied an arrow. He also grinned.
I know you’re there, Sir Ghost, and I know you’re very much alive. Draugr and specters don’t have nice, juicy-sounding heartbeats but you do, as well as the warm scent of a living human. Let’s see who you might be, shall we?
The chamber just before him was heavily damaged, but a merrily-crackling brazier on either side of the draugr in a wall niche gave off plenty of light as well as heat. Only a living person would need that sort of heat in a burial crypt. He eased around the corner of the doorway, facing the source of the heartbeat off to his right.
A metal gate barred the archway through to the next chamber, and behind it stood – a specter. It certainly looked enough like a specter to have frightened the locals, at any rate, although he thought the lower legs looked suspiciously solid. And then it spoke.
“Leave this place!” It was a rich, mellow tone, full and reverberating through the rocky chambers, one that only a living human could make. He remembered the subjugated ghosts at Rannveig’s Fast calling out – they’d had a disconnected, oddly hollow sound with no tone of warm, moist human throats behind them.
He aimed between the bars of the gate and loosed the arrow at the ghost. He heard it connect.
“Leave this place!” the ghost called once more.
Dale shot him again. This time, the figure made an audible groan and doubled over, clutching at its abdomen where the arrow had struck. Still, he made one last attempt to frighten Dale off.
“Leave! Leave!”
Dale shot once more. The ghost groaned loudly, and an explosion of magical energies swirled around him for a moment before dissipating. Dale stood and walked over to stare through the bars at the very human form bleeding into the ground just beyond them.
“So you were the one haunting the barrow, eh? Nice, warm place to stay and plenty of supplies to be had if you came out at night, I’ll bet, free for the taking. Well, let me see if I can get to you. The least I can do would be to prepare you for burial. There seem to be a number of empty niches in here and I know just how to drain a body of blood.”
He turned back the way he’d come and carefully examined all of the surfaces between him and the small room just opposite the closed gate. Just inside the room’s doorway, beyond a second, raised metal gate, were four wall-mounted levers. He tried various positions for them, closing himself in at one point and then laughing at his own clumsiness. It only took a few minutes, though, before the gate rose and he was able to investigate the “ghost’s” body.
He knelt and refreshed himself from the corpse, taking care to drain it completely. Someone would likely come into the barrow to dispose of it properly but in the meantime, at least, the scent of blood wouldn’t draw beasts – or other vampires.
Unless they live down here. I wonder…
There was a small set of iron doors just past the body and to its right. They were locked, but the mechanism wasn’t especially difficult to dismantle. As he worked on it, Dale ran several scenarios through his mind.
Could it be that a locked door in a cavern deep beneath the surface might lead to a well-hidden and long-forgotten vampire city? Wouldn’t it be perfect if I’m going to open these doors and…
The doors opened onto a space that amounted to nothing more than a closet, with a chest at its far end. He spied the trap locking mechanism attached to the chest’s lid. What he didn’t spy in time was the pressure plate beneath his feet. He was just barely able to stop himself short of a pair of deadly spiked rods that slammed out of the wall and across the space he would otherwise have been.
On the other side of the “ghost’s” body was another set of metal gates, these with an obvious chain mechanism just beside the first of them. Dale peered between the slats of the gate before pulling the chain. This time he saw the openings along the right side of the stonework. When he pulled the chain he held back, rather than darting down the short flight of stairs; and a good thing it was, too. Both gates rose, but six spiked rods would have skewered him if he’d not been paying attention.
At the foot of the stairs and to the right was another set of iron doors, with a trap lock rigged up to them. He picked the trap free and pushed through those doors and the wooden set just beyond a short, partially-flooded hallway. He gasped in surprise, and then grinned in delight.
It was a long, wide chamber, divided into multiple segments by thick stone arches overhead. The walls were decorated with carved inset panels much like the ones he’d encountered in Solitude but, happily, not depicting Potema. At the far end was an ornately-carved door – at least he assumed it was a door as he felt around its edges and thought he detected a tiny current of air around the gaps. Three concentric rings held carved plates with several different animals, and below them was a circular disc with three holes spaced in a way that resembled a dragon’s claw.
I’ve heard of these. And unless I miss my guess this is a keyhole, with a very specific key. Who knows where that key is? I’m certain I don’t.
But it makes sense. Even more sense than my last guess. How better to disguise a place from unwanted entry than to put it behind a door that only one key can open? And I see no way to pick a lock like this.
He stood staring at it for a moment, rubbing his chin, trying to figure out whether there was anything he could do to break in but failing. There was another door to investigate, though, so he returned to the body and the final doorway he hadn’t yet opened.
Down a short hallway was a space that made Dale laugh. A merry fire crackled away in a fireplace, a cooking pot standing just before it. There were shelves, a comfortable-looking bedroll, one of the old stone tables repurposed for dining and writing, and even an alchemy station. It was just as he’d expected – a nice, cozy spot to camp out free of charge.
On the table was a journal that had – along with the fresh corpse – belonged to one Wyndelius Gatharian, who’d come seeking a specific burial chamber and the claw key to open its door. He’d been searching since, spending part of that time creating a potion to appear as a specter so as to scare off nosy locals like the innkeeper Wilhelm.
Dale frowned as he read the last few entries. The man had been looking for years. A great many years. He not only hadn’t found the claw, but had come to believe that he truly was a part of the barrow, meant to guard it from intruders.
Dale ran a hand down his face and blew out a breath. “Lost his mind, poor sod. Well this doesn’t help me. I still can’t get past that door.” He looked around the room, but it made no sense to check further. Surely Wyndelius had looked in every nook, cranny and alcove of this place trying to find the claw.
If there’s a vampire city down here I can’t get to it.
I guess I can at least take this journal to Wilhelm. It’ll make him feel better to know that the “ghost” is gone. Maybe he’ll be a bit more forthcoming with information.
It was still light outside; the sun, waning though it was, seemed especially bright and sharp after being underground. And that, he thought as he strode through the center of Ivarstead toward the inn, is exactly why my adoptive forebears lived underground. Somewhere. I just need to find the place.
But why me, I wonder? Surely Agryn and Tyna have been looking much longer and have a much wider system of contacts? Maybe I’m being tested.
Wilhelm nodded to him as he approached, and gave him another sly smile. “We don’t get many visitors through here. Unless they’re headed up to High Hrothgar, of course.”
Dale put on his best smile. “In that case you should take it as a compliment to your fine establishment, that this is my second visit.” And where else would I stay if I needed a room here between the actual cities in this province?
“Speaking of your inn,” he said, placing the journal on the counter, “you may be interested, or relived, or both, to read this. I went into the barrow to see what the fuss was all about.”
Wilhelm’s eyes got huge. “Let me see that!” He snatched the journal and started skimming it, looking both angrier and more embarrassed as moments went by. “I can’t believe this!” he said finally. “It was all just a fabrication of this Wyndelius character? I can’t believe we were so stupid!”
“We, Wilhelm?” the redhead asked sarcastically.
“Yes, Bassianus, we. I haven’t seen you rushing down to investigate the barrow all these years.” Wilhelm sneered at the redhead before returning his gaze to Dale. “Well. The least I can do is give you something for taking care of him. If you won’t accept it as a payment, consider it a gift.”
He reached deep into the dark recesses beneath his bar and pulled out a large and heavy object, handing it to Dale. Then he tsk’d at the journal and tossed it into those same recesses, shaking his head and muttering about being an idiot.
Dale glanced at the object in his hand and had some difficulty keeping his expression composed. Wilhelm had given him a “dragon claw,” its three sharp digits tipped in sapphire. It was a beautiful thing, and he had no doubt that this was the key that would fit in the door he’d found.
I can’t believe this. Did Wilhelm not actually just read the journal? Why would he give me…? It doesn’t matter. As soon as I’m finished here I’ll go right back and open that door. But first…
“Wilhelm, my friend, I have a question for you.”
“Go ahead.”
“I’ve heard rumors of vampire activity around here. What can you tell me?”
Wilhelm scoffed, undoubtedly not wanting to be seen as superstitious yet again. “We’ve had some attacks on patrols outside the town, and a few drained bodies have been found in the river. It’s not safe outside at night anymore.”
Oho, Dale thought. I need to be especially careful now. “Drained bodies?”
“Yes, drained. All of their blood gone. What you’d expect from vampires. Not that I’ve ever seen one,” Wilhelm added, still trying to save face.
“Hmm. Are you sure that wasn’t just a troll killing people? I helped the guards kill one earlier. Gwilin was nearby, he’ll tell you.”
“Yes, I’m sure. Trolls tear their kills apart and gnaw on the bones. These were all in one piece with just a couple of small holes on the neck. According to reports, that is,” Wilhelm added. “But now that you mention it, there’s been a stranger lurking around town…”
Dale laughed. He wasn’t feeling nearly as congenial as he made himself sound, but it felt as though he was nearing some kind of valuable information. “You’re not referring to me, I hope. I’d hate to be taken for a vampire.”
Wilhelm shook his head. “No. This fellow only shows up at night, on the weekends. And some drunk said he found an ‘evil shrine’ south of here in the hills. Can you imagine?”
Dale’s budding excitement wilted in a heartbeat. “Evil shrine” had exactly the same air of superstition as “haunted barrow” had. He couldn’t help it; he sighed. Well, at least he could go investigate what was behind the door in that barrow.
“Sadly, I can imagine. One’s mind can dream up all sorts of things if nervous enough. Well, thank you for this ornament. I appreciate it.”
Wilhelm nodded. “If you are passing through again, stop by for a drink.”
Dale gave him what he hoped was not a horribly wan smile, and made his way back out of the inn, across the road, and down into the barrow. Once there he stopped before the heavy door to consider his next move. It looked as though the rings were movable parts. If he inserted the claw into the central plate it would fit like a glove. But it was too easy. If just inserting the claw’s tips was the key someone could have opened the door long ago.
He looked down at the key and, feeling irregularities underneath it, turned it over. There were three tiny inset circles, engraved with the same animal symbols on the door’s rings. Dale grinned, and began moving the top and bottom rings until they matched the sequence on the claw’s underside: moth on top, wolf at the bottom, and the owl already showing in the center. When he pushed the claw against the large plate he was able to depress and turn it. The heavy stone door heaved an ancient groan and began lowering itself into the floor.
As soon as he stepped over the thick stone, his sense of excitement vanished. The musty smell and dead air that greeted him in the ruined corridors beyond said that nobody had been past the dragon door for a very long time.
Not even vampires.
Well, it’s not a city down here – unless the place is farther in and there’s an entrance I don’t know about. But I wonder what is here. Since I’m here already, I may as well look.
The first chamber he entered had a metal gate in each doorway, both open. A third, lowered gate closed off a small antechamber, in which he could see a floor-mounted lever. As he’d expected there were a number of sealed sarcophagi, some upright and some horizontal.
I don’t trust this. Gargoyle, get ready.
As he neared the far end of the room, the metal gates clanged shut and the sarcophagi burst open, their occupants rising with weapons in hand. Dale summoned his gargoyle and turned to the nearest draugr, a remarkably intact dead Nord wielding a double-headed war axe. Ancient or not, that weapon would do serious damage. As the gargoyle attacked, Dale cast vampiric drain on the draugr – now was not the time to worry about looking like the undead creature he was.
He and the gargoyle had matters well in hand until the last of the draugr rose from its rest. This one glowed red, and when it raised its arm to cast magic at the gargoyle it was obvious why. It had flame magic.
No time to be squeamish about archery from stealth. I need to take this one out before it finds me.
He had unloaded half a dozen arrows into the creature when his gargoyle finally succumbed to the flames. The draugr headed straight for Dale. He turned tail and ran around one of the room’s central pillars, summoning a gargoyle once again, but not in time to avoid being singed by the draugr’s flames. It hurt. And he was angry. He leapt out of harm’s way just in time, thankful once again for his vampiric speed, and then turned to growl at the draugr.
Let’s just fight fire with fire, shall we?
He readied the spell that produced cold, blue, long-lasting flames and approached the draugr from the platform above, bathing it in magic. It took only two short blasts to defeat the flamethrower, whose remaining soul exploded from its body and rushed into one of Dale’s empty soul gems. It was an entirely satisfying revenge for having been burned.
After raising the gates, Dale proceeded. Another circular stair led up to a short dogleg peppered with floor traps that he easily jumped over. The lone skeleton patrolling the hall was more a nuisance than anything else; he dismantled it and opened the door beyond.
This one opened into a very tall and deep chamber, with him on a ledge above. He crept forward to peer out through a wooden barricade and saw at least five skeletons, mostly archers, clustered atop an oil soaked stone circle. He couldn’t dodge arrows from five archers at once. Then he noticed that at least one of the light pots hanging from the ceiling was directly over the stone circle.
Let’s drop a flaming oil lamp onto a pool of oil and see what happens, eh?
He backed away from the barricade far enough to take good aim at the rope holding one of the lamps. Even his worst arrows would be enough. The arrow flew, severing the aged rope; a heartbeat later Dale heard pottery shattering, followed by the satisfying whoosh of oil exploding into flames. He swapped his bow for his blades and headed down into the chamber.
Across the expanse of dismantled bones was a wooden stair back up to the ledge on the other side. Two sarcophagi on the ledge above burst open as he neared them. Without time to plan or prepare an attack he simply used his blades. A few moments later, both of the draugr lay quiet once again.
Huh. I’m a bit surprised at how easy that was. Am I getting stronger?
An iron door past the second draugr dropped him into another twisting corridor-turned-barrow, this one in very poor repair but well-populated. He extended his senses and could tell – whether by warmth or the very vague sound of breathing or blood circulating, he didn’t know – which of them had the spark of life yet and which didn’t. He spent several minutes avoiding the many traps in the area and making certain the draugr were thoroughly dead, including the one that held a key. Unsurprisingly, the door just beyond was locked, but the draugr’s key opened it.
The next chamber held a canal. Water flooded in from above at its far end and disappeared through a gate near Dale’s position. A stone bridge arched over the water just in front of him, but a full storey up was another bridge, this one wooden and raised to its vertical position. He took the stairs up to that level and, looking around, nodded to himself. It was another revolving-pillar puzzle and he had no doubt that solving it and standing on the pressure plate directly before him would unlock the bridge’s mechanism.
So. The puzzle’s hints are going to be behind this door. Let’s see who’s at home, eh?
He opened the door quietly enough that the glowing red draugr inside didn’t hear him. Dale crept forward in agonizing slowness until finally, one massive blow took the ancient man down. Then he stood atop the pressure plate in the center of the room.
As he’d expected, stone covers began rotating noisily, much like the ones in Potema’s catacombs had done. Rather than raising gates, though, these revolving covers set into stylized mouths revealed puzzle pieces. Dale memorized their pattern, returned to the pillars, set each to match that pattern, and stood on the pressure plate between them. The bridge dropped, a gate beyond its hinges rose, and it was a simple matter to slay the lone draugr in the passage beyond.
It was disappointingly clear to Dale, as soon as he opened the next door that he had arrived at his destination. There was an oversized, gated doorway just ahead of him, the spikes atop it saying that there was a metal gate recessed above. Beyond that was a huge, moist chamber, a great deal of water falling from carefully-designed openings well above him. Coffins rested along either side of a wide stone path through the center, with a raised platform topped by another coffin. To either side was a free-standing pillar, circular ramps leading up to coffins atop them.
It’s not a city. It’s simply a barrow. But after coming all this way I need to find out what’s in here.
He stepped forward into the great chamber and sighed as the metal gate clanged shut behind him. He had expected nothing else. What he hadn’t expected, though, was that multiple sarcophagi would release their contents at the same time. Skeletons arose from at least three coffins near him and one on the pillar to his left.
Too many to handle alone. Come, friend, I need your help.
His gargoyle emerged from the sphere of magic and immediately tackled one skeleton, as Dale took aim at the target atop the pillar. It wasn’t a difficult shot, or a difficult target; but one of the other skeletons jostled him from behind as he shot, and the arrow flew wide. He tsk’d, shot again to take down his original target, and then whirled to side-step the nearer skeleton. There were two of them on him, now; but the gargoyle had matters in hand as the coffin atop the second free-standing pillar burst open and a second skeleton archer emerged. It took Dale several arrows to dismantle that skeleton, and in the meantime the lids of two more coffins on the lower level clattered to the stone floor.
He was focused on shooting the glowing draugr – red, signaling flames – when his gargoyle died and the draugr that had killed it swung its huge battleaxe toward him. Startled, Dale did what he always did. He jumped, trying to get out of the way. To his complete surprise, the leap took him well out into the chamber, to land atop the nearest of the ramps up. He gasped. He’d not expected that kind of distance from the leap, to say nothing of how quickly his reflexes had gotten him out of the situation. But he had no time to glory in his success, as both draugr were converging on him. He cast his gargoyle again, and ran for the top of the platform.
The sounds below him told the story he could not see. First, the gargoyle took down the draugr that had killed its predecessor. Then it turned to the flame draugr. Dale fought to find a position with a clear line of sight to the creature but flames obscured the battle and he might easily have been shooting his own conjuration if he fired.
The draugr spoke. “Dir volaan!” it cried, backing up far enough that Dale had a clear shot. He fired the arrow, watching the hated flamethrower fall back into the pool, dead.
And still they came. He took a chance on a long shot at the draugr that appeared around the column to his left, and caught it cleanly. The gargoyle took down a second with its claws. Dale spotted yet another draugr, far in the back of the chamber to his left, and focused on dropping it, while a frost draugr emerged from the opposite side of the room to attack the gargoyle. Dale sent a single arrow into the frost draugr, catching it cleanly between the eyes. Dale breathed a sigh of relief that they were all dead now, and swapped his bow for his blades. His gargoyle returned to Oblivion.
And then the final coffin, high atop the room, burst open. Dale swore and re-summoned the gargoyle.
And the draugr Shouted.
It was a tremendously loud sound, sharp and metallic. Dale staggered backward, grateful for the gargoyle between him and the draugr. Then he realized that his primary short blade was no longer in his hand.
First he gasped. Then he had a moment of sheer terror. Finally, he was practically overwhelmed with rage that he’d been disarmed, and that it wasn’t the city he’d been looking for, and that he’d been made to feel terror. And that he’d been surprised by the Shout.
I do not like surprises.
He hissed, fumbling about for the secondary short blade that was in position for his left hand, not his right. Then he readied the flames of Coldharbour and came up behind the draugr, hissing, casting the cold flames, and swinging his blade as hard as he could, over and over until finally, with a last clawing by the gargoyle and a last burst of flame, he put the draugr down.
“There will be Oblivion to pay if I can’t find my blade!” he snarled at the empty room. Fortunately it took only a moment or two of searching. The shortsword had flown out of his hand to land directly behind where he’d been standing. He sheathed both blades, dusted himself off, and set about taking anything valuable from the remains covering every horizontal surface of the space.
In the end there was not much more to take. Behind the central dais was a small chamber with a chest containing a few baubles. One of the large curved walls was there, as well, but Dale couldn’t read the language inscribed on it. A final door to the right of the wall led through a curving tunnel back to the room where Wyndelius had set up shop. Dale left, angry and bitter that he still hadn’t found what he was looking for.
The sun was nearly down when he emerged from the barrow. He was tired, and hungry, but didn’t want to risk feeding from one of the townsfolk with so many rumors flying. He had blood potions, though; and it was Loredas, by his count. Wilhelm had told him the stranger seemed only to appear in town on the weekends.
So Dale walked to the southern edge of town and up into the watchtower next to the river. He sat down and breathed deeply, waiting until both of the patrolling guards were facing away from him before having one of his blood potions. As his hunger eased he relaxed, settling down to wait and watch for the local vampire to give himself away.
