A Stranger in Skyrim 14

Chapter Fourteen: Cobwebs

In which she discovers loot.

She threw her headphones off, yanked the earbuds out.

The scent of burning flesh permeated her senses, and she tasted metal in her mouth.

She barely made it to the bathroom in time. Her breakfast – and all subsequent meals – came up at the same time. When she was finally done, she fell back against the bathroom wall, staring up at the ceiling. Oh gods.

Oh gods, oh gods.

She'd killed people, yes, and that was also not as new as it should have been. All she could see in her mind was the sight of the woman's face melting under her hand, the scent/taste of charred meat.

She'd had to do it, of course.

What, was she supposed to let them kill her first?

Oh gods, she'd fallen asleep. She had to have fallen asleep, or she wouldn't be in her house.

What was going to happen to her over there? She tried pinching her arm to see if that would wake her up. All it did was raise a red spot on her arm and hurt a little. She tried willing herself back, tried everything she could think of to just wake up.

None of it worked.

Oh gods.

Eventually, she heard the loud brrrriiiiing of the tea timer she set to remind her to head to work.

How the hell was she supposed to make it through the day?

She had a long, tense drive to work. Any second, she expected to wake up over there.

She wasn't able to focus on her job; several times she found herself asking the customers to repeat themselves because her mind had been on the other world.

She could barely eat anything all day, and the scent of meat just reminded her of what she'd done.

It was a relief when she finally blinked awake, curled up by a fire that had burned down to nothing. Sitting up, she groaned. She felt stiff and sore. Buh. She pictured the soothing, green light, and the aches and pains subsided. That was a useful trick. Very useful. She wondered if it would work in the real world, as she let her eyes adjust to the utter absence of light.

Sleepily, she raised her hand, calling harmless flames to her palm. It shone like a torch, flickering light bathing the area.

The woman's corpse lay across a chest, a crossbow bolt piercing her skull through one eye. Her blood had oozed out of the wound, causing her face to kind of stick to the chest.

Mariah shuddered slightly. No different from mousetraps. She could handle dead mice with their skulls caved in and their blood everywhere; she could handle a formaldehyde-smelling cadaver in the lab that one time, she could handle the horrific mix of the two concepts: a dead woman with part of her skull caved in and her blood going everywhere.

Easy.

She shoved the woman's corpse off of the box, reminding herself that she desperately needed to eat and someplace safe to stay at night; whatever was in the box would undoubtedly be valuable.

And then the box was locked. She scowled at it, producing the set of thin, metal picks that Hadvar had given her, and set to work.

She had to steady herself before she began. Couldn't be shaking if she wanted to do this. The fire in her hand died, leaving her blind, but then, this was more about how it felt, and how it sounded, than how it looked, wasn't it? She began with the picks, listening carefully to the lock. It was slow, careful going, and she didn't really expect to succeed. When she heard something click inside the lock, she used the thin knife that had come with the set of picks, using it to gently turn the lock.

To her great surprise, she succeeded.

Hooray.

Opening the chest with one hand, she lit flame in the other to inspect her bounty.

A double-handful of gold coins, and a green-colored potion greeted her, the rewards for her triumph.

She'd certainly take that!

The entryway to the Barrow was eerie and quiet, save for the soft 'whoosh' of air that blew over the holes in the ceiling. Looking around, her right hand held high, she spotted a staircase leading down. As there was only really the one option if she wanted to claim her reward, she headed down the staircase, deeper into the Barrow.

Cobwebs were strung throughout; she burned them, and they melted away. Odd how they weren't really flammable, but then, she'd read something about that once.

She had to use the flames to light her way; there had been no one here before her, as near as she could tell. Certainly, no one had bothered to light the coals in the brazier she passed until she did it. The flickering light revealed a series of gold-ish urns. She left these undisturbed, continuing past. She nearly tripped on the ground ahead. Feeling the stone with her feet, she ran into the roots of some kind of plant. She had to carefully pick her way across the root system, or risk falling flat on her face.

Fortunately, it only lasted for a little way, before the roots apparently gave up on finding sustenance in the Barrow. She found another brazier, lighting this, too, with her conjured flames.

Her feet accidentally kicked something small and furry – looking down, she saw it was some kind of massive rat. It looked as though it had been killed by someone with a sword; several slashes had taken bloody chunks out of its fur. She grimaced, then continued onward.

She came across another patch of roots, picking her way carefully across them. She almost missed it, when several bursts of air were followed by the ping of metal on stone.

She did not, however, miss the sight of the man lying face-down on the ground, his form contorted around some kind of lever he'd fallen on. A torch lay nearby, lighting some of the surroundings with its flames. Well. This would be the first trap, then, and someone had already fallen victim to it. She walked up to the man, kicking him off of the lever. Obviously, the lever was what triggered the darts, but there had to be some kind of logical way to pass this. She saw a stone tablet that looked cracked and worn. Picking up the torch, she inspected it. It bore a carving of a snake.

Hm.

She looked up and around, to see if any more such carvings existed. Those would be the clues, she was sure. A staircase led up, so she went up. The torch lit a carving of a fish, a place where a carving had once hung, and another carving of a snake. From left to right, it read: “Snake, Snake, Fish.

Something in the room had to correspond to those carvings; that was the only thing that made sense.

She walked back down the stairs, and across the way she had her answer. Three stone pillars stood on circular stone slabs. The pillars read “Bird, Fish, Bird.” She suspected that was why the man got killed; he hadn't bothered to try figuring out the riddle. Walking up to one of the pillars, she shoved at it, experimentally. It seemed mobile, so she set the torch down, shifting it with both hands until it read “Snake.” She smiled to herself, then proceeded to line the rest of the stones up. Snake, Snake, Fish.

Easy.

That done, she crept towards the lever, careful not to step on any of the darts. She pulled it, then ran toward the gate. Nothing happened at first, and she felt silly. Then, there came the sound of metal scraping on stone, and the gate lifted up behind her.

She collected the torch and continued on.

Straight ahead, she saw a pair of stone tables. On one, she saw a book. She picked the book up, stuffed it inside her backpack. She wanted to know as much as she could about the world, and the only way to learn would be to read about it. She'd read the book some other time, however; right now she had a job to do.

She spotted a couple more golden urns, a small soul gem, and a chest.

The chest had another double-handful of gold, as well as another greenish potion. This, as well as the soul gem, she stored in her backpack. To the left, she spotted a wooden staircase that she wasn't quite sure she was prepared to trust her life to. But, if she wanted to progress, she had to try it, at least. She kept close to the wall, putting her weight on the sides of the boards where there was more support.

The staircase, miraculously, held.

When she managed to make it to the bottom of the staircase, she found herself face-to-face with more giant rats. She waved the torch at them, and they backed off, running scared. Like most animals, they were afraid of fire. Smart little bastards; she didn't want to have to cook them alive.

She came to a room that was completely covered in cobwebs. At the center of the room, she spied a table, and several things adorned it. There was a rolled-up piece of parchment, as well as a vial of some unnamed black liquid and two unlit candles.

She collected the rolled up parchment, holding one corner awkwardly with her left hand, unrolling the scroll with her right. She could read the words on the paper, surprisingly enough,

She rolled it back up, holding it in her left hand, along with the torch. It looked useful. If she was reading it right, it would allow her to cast a fiery explosion. It didn't have all the details of the spell, but she could probably get some use out of it.

She came to a doorway that had been completely covered in cobwebs. In fact, although she'd been refusing to think about it, the whole area had been covered in cobwebs. She'd just been burning the ones that got in her way, as she did the thick webbing on the entryway.

It melted into so much blackened, charred goop.

She entered the room, shuddering slightly. It, too, was completely covered in webbing. Massive eggsacs clung to the walls. This part of the ruin clearly belonged to spiders. She began burning the eggsacs; she did not want hungry spiderlings coming after her later on. The idea was horrifying.

Something chittered overhead. She slowly, cautiously looked up.

A massive – truly, massive – spider hung clung to the ceiling. It put the ones she'd faced in Helgen to shame. Venom dripped from its mandibles, and the ground sizzled where it landed.

She froze, eyes wide, as it crawled down the wall towards her.