But as I mentioned, there was one last digression before Alanya found the tomb ^_^. That digression would be one of the bandit caves near Pelagiad, and we all know how easily Alanya can turn away from popping into a bandit cave, right? ^_~
Anyway, Alanya spotted a cave outside of Pelagiad, one just past a couple of ponds and mudcrabs, and said to herself " ... Aww why not; at most it means one more day to this trip ..." So, off she went, carefully sneaking into the cave proper and finding bandits waiting inside. Hmm, bandits ...
A brief aside if I may; this particular cave - Mannammu, for those in the know - has a good five or so bandits therein, one of whom is an Imperial woman guarding a bridge. This lovely lass wields a large claymore and was the death of the character I had started just prior to Alanya - one Kyra, Nord bandit woman. Kyra had been more of a fighter thief type, had seen this woman guarding a bridge, and taken a shot at her with a bow. Missing completely, she pulled out her axe and went to town ... and then the bandit woman got in two lucky shots, nearly killing Kyra and knocking her off her feet. Kyra never got back up; two more whacks were all it took to kill her.
I mention this for two reasons. First, because Kyra's death was the final straw that taught me to carry Potions of Recall, and thus Kyra's death directly led to Alanya's survival in the very encounter which started this story. Second ... because I was really, REALLY looking forward to taking a level 17 character up against this lowly bandit and enacting some revenge.
I always say it's best to approach your current character with an appreciation of the history that lies behind their actions and motivations (insert Evil Manical Laughter Emoticon here - I know they exist, and someday I WILL learn how to incorporate smilies onto this page! MWAHAHAHA ...)
Alanya passed up on sniping this woman; she instead chose to sneak up and stick her Devil Spear into her spleen. She did the same to the Redguard mage standing on the other side of the bridge, and went on to find a Dunmer necromancer - well, I'm guessing he was a necromancer from the books he had in his chests. It was this worth gentleman who gave Alanya her only hard time in this cave - and the fault was entirely mine.
See, I had used the Devil Spear's enchantment to call for the Daedric spear, which could kill thse guys in one or two hits easy. I had popped the enchantment on the bridge, and had killed those two bandits with it, and snuk forward to find the necromancer. Slowly and carefully, I got in range, prepared to swing ...
... and just as I made my attack, the 60 seconds on the enchantment wore off.
I really wish I had gotten a screen capture of Alanya stabing with thin air and getting Critical Damage with no weapon at all, alerting the necromancer and giving him a free shot as the normal spear reappeared in her hands I was so chagrined, I opted to just stand there and poke it out with the normal spear, taking the hits; I was level 17, right? I could take this guy's magic ...
When he died, I had five hit points left; it was at that point that I smacked myself and said "Dummy; no more getting Alanya nearly killed over wounded pride." Still, he was dead and his remaining companions proved a lot easier - especially since I sniped them. And so Alanya got more loot, and ferried it home, and said "Okay; tomorrow, we find the tomb and finish this quest ..."
------
The next day, Alanya set out, having decided to stop with all the side trips and focus on getting Sharn's silly skull post haste. With determination in her eyes, she thus made her way back to Pelagiad and proceeded to pass by the cave she had just cleared, to find the Andrano Ancestral Tomb a stone's throw to the south.
Alanya paused outside of the tomb, looking at the door thoughtfully. Her path here had been far more adventurous than the modest entrance to the tomb would have suggested, with no less than three occasions in which Alanya got seriously hurt - or worse ...
" ... I've been pushing my luck an awful lot on this quest," Alanya admitted to herself, shifting uneasily from one foot to the other. "Sooner or later though, luck runs out ..."
Alanya reached into a belt pouch, where she kept the magic rings she wasn't currently wearing, and exchanged her current rings for the Emperor's gift and her own custom-made Ring of the Toasty Bones. She then checked to make sure that her Amulet of Recall was secure around her neck, and that her potions were easily accessable in thier pouches. Lastly, she looked over her spear, bow, and armor, ensuring that all three were ready for combat.
Her preperations complete, Alanya listened at the door, trying to determine if anything lay immediately beyond it. She heard some faint sounds that she thought could be a ghost, but they were too faint to tell for certain. Carefully, she eased open the tomb's door and slipped inside ...
------
The first inhabitant of the tomb Alanya came across was a recent addition, apparently; the dead body of a previous Dunmer adventurer lay sprawled in the first chamber, flies clustered around it. Alanya frowned; it was rarely encouraging to find the bodies of those who came before you, but to find one right in the first room ...
The ghostly sounds she had heard at the door were louder, and Alanya guessed that there was a ghost in one of the two paths leading out of the first room. Scouting ahead, she caught a glimpse of a ghostly figure heading away, down a long and winding corridor. No other cretures, living or otherwise, graced the first room, however; Alanya still had the advantage of surprise for the moment.
Overcoming her natural relucutance at touching a fly-ridden corpse, and ignoring the nagging question of why a Dunmer was apparently looting one of his race's ancestral tombs, Alanya grimly examined her falllen predecessor, looking for anything useful. Sadly, beyond a few coins and his mostly-salvagable equipment - none of which Alanya was skilled in using but worth some drakes at least - he had nothing to offer Alanya. She did, however, note with a sinking feeling that the corpse had three broken arrows lodged in it ...
Skeleton archers, Alanya thought sourly. Why did it have to be skeleton archers ...
There was nothing else to be learned from the corpse; it was time to start exploring the tomb itself. She looked to the two paths again, and decided to follow the one the ghost had not one down first. Slipping through another door, she snuck down a short corridor and stole into a chamber ...
A Bonewalker and a Skeleton patrolled this room, walking along the rectangular path. The room itself, Alanya would soon see, was less a room and more a skylight looking down into a chamber several floors below; beyond the downward 'path' however, the room was a dead end. Still, there were the two monsters patroling around ...
Alanya had been slightly unlucky in entering this room; the Bonewalker was as silent as she and had been coming around the corner obscured by the opening door, and thus saw Alanya just as she saw it and the Skeleton. With a loping bound, the undead threw itself at Alanya, swinging its arms and giving voice to a chilling cry ...
So much for the advantage of surprise.
Oddly enough, the Skeleton in the back of the room didn't seem to be rushing to the Bonewalker's aid yet, a small favor for which Alanya was grateful. She fell back into the short corridor, luring the Bonewalker into the doorway, and fended off its sweeping arms with her spear, stabbing when the chance presented itself. Bonewalkers being Bonewalkers, the monster fell quickly enough to Alanya's practiced hand, leaving only the Skeleton to worry about.
An arrow streaked through the doorway right after the Bonewalker fell; had Alanya not immediately ducked after slaying the Bonewalker she'd have been hit. Alanya sighed, and rolled through the doorway, keeping low enough that the low wall surrounding the skylight protected her from further arrows, and started sneaking around to the corner opposite the skeleton, intending to play a game of cat and mouse.
Readying her bow, Alanya waited a second, then risked popping up, catching the skeleton off guard. The skeleton swung its own bow around to draw a bead on Alanya, but Alanya fired before it could, her arrow striking a shoulder and almost cutting the arm clean off. Unable to return fire, the Skeleton elected to jump down the skylight ...
Alanya blinked; this was somewhat unexpected behavior to her. Carefull,y she looked over the wall, but saw no sign of the Skeleton; it must have survived the fall, one which she herself was not eager to make, and fled further into the tomb.
Alanya sighed; her tomb crawl had just gotten a lot harder ...
Alanya left the skylight room and made her way back towards the first path, the one which had a ghost floating along it. Only thing was, by this time the ghost had floated back into the first room and was coming over to see what was making the noise in the skylight room; Alanya practically walked right into the poor thing as she turned to leave. On the positive side, the ghost was a lot more surprised than Alanya was, to say the least; Alanya never realized that ethereal skulls could be so ... expressive.
One ghost later, Alanya was creeping down the long, winding corridor, unease growing with every step. In the distance, she could hear the faint sounds of bone on stone, and she was sure the Skeleton that evaded her had sounded the alarm with its undead cronies. Her advantage of surprise was gone, and she debated making a strategic withdrawal and coming back in a few days, when things hopefully would have quieted down. The dead body lying in the front room only added weight to the idea of pulling out.
Alanya wrapped her hand around her Amulet of Recall, taking reassurance in its presence. It took but a second to call upon the amulet's power; she could afford to do a little more scouting of the tomb, get an idea of what lay ahead of her, and if she got seen again, she could leave instantly. She'd just explore a little more ...
The winding corridor eventually led to a long ramp descending deeper into the tomb, with a door halfway down to a side room. Alanya could hear the sounds of Skeletons milling about below, and told herself she would just go down, look to see how many awaited her, and pull out. No need to be foolhardy about this, she reminded herself as she slowly crept down the ramp. However, as she passed by the door halfway down ...
She was sure she hadn't made any noise; there was nothing on the floor for her bare feet to crunch or skid upon, and she couldn't even hear her own breathing, much less the sound of her feet on the floor. Yet the door opened violently, and another Bonewalker gave voice to a loud cry before tossing itself upon her. Startled, Alanya fought back instinctively, her Amulet of Recall forgotten in the panic of the moment. Unfortunately, the ramp was narrow and confined, and the Bonewalker had closed in quickly enough to grapple with Alanya, making her spear less than effective.
Alanya lost her balance, and together she and the Bonewalker went tumbling down the ramp, into the room below, where she had heard Skeletons. Frantically, Alanya beat on the Bonewalker with her fists, trying to get the undead thing off of her; her spear clattered on the floor and was soon out of reach, but she at least succeeded in pushing the Bonewalker off of her. Swearing, Alanya jumped to her feet ...
... and saw no fewer than a dozen Skeletons staring back at her, one of which was even now picking up her spear and looking at it curiously. The Bonewalker seemed to grin at her ...
Alanya felt hopelessness take hold of her; there was no way she could handle this many Skeletons at once, even if she had her spear. Her hand reached again to her Amulet of Recall - this was no time for foolish heroics ...
"WAIT!!!!" yelled a strange, scratchy voice from a corridor beyond the Skeletons. "Don't skip out on us yet Miss Alanya, we've been waiting to see you!"
------
A brief intelude if I may, and an apology to longtime fans of the game; this next bit is going to ... well, take liberties with established canon, as near as I can tell. Hopefully the story is good enough to be likable even with that ^_~
------
Alanya blinked; after the silence of the first few rooms she had explored in the tomb, hearing an actual voice was jarring. The fact that said voice not only sounded strange, almost inhuman, and was calling her by name, only added to the unsettling effect. Still, she waited, though her hand didn't move away from her amulet.
The Skeletons shuffled to the sides, allowing a Bonelord to float into the room, its four arms waving agitatedly. "There, that's better," it said, proving itself to be the owner of the scratchy, inhuman voice. "Ya s'wits, you want to scare the poor girl to death!? We rotate two extra crews into this tomb so you can ruin the main event before it starts!?" it ranted at its fellow Skeletons, resulting in something Alanya had never seen before - Skeletons acting embarrassed.
"Um ..." Alanya muttered, "What's ... going on here ..."
"Oh nothing; I'm just chewing out the newcomers," the Bonlord said distractedly. "... Oh; that's not what you're talking about, huh?"
Alanya shook her head, her eyes wide in confusion and worry.
"Well Miss Alanya, it's like this, you see," the Bonelord started, before he interuppted himself. "Oops, hang on; I haven't introduced myself! Ahem; I am Sereth Andrano, Mage and former Disciple of the Temple, as well as a former Retainer of Great House Redoran. Three blessings, sera."
" ... Three blessings ..." Alanya said, still taken aback by the whole Talking Bonelord thing. The presence of a dozen Skeletons - and one smiling Bonewaker - didn't help.
"See! And they say Outlanders can't learn to be polite!" Sereth enthused. "Living folk are always saying silly things ..."
" ... Er, um ... can all of you talk?" Alanya suddenly intejected, feeling very out of sorts; it was one thing to destroy undead in a tomb when they were shambling monsters, but if they talked ...
"Sorry, I'm the only one," Sereth said apologetically, as the other Skeletons shook their heads. "Really hard trick to master you know, talking without lungs or a lower jawbone; we all use real simple telepathy or sign language to talk among ourselves, least while we're in the living world. The afterlife, now that's different ..."
"I see," Alanya said. " ... Er ..."
Sereth stopped for a moment, looking at her, then chuckled. "Lemme guess; you're suddenly feeling a wave of guilt for having killed skeletons before, having thought them mindless undead beasties that were just there to get in the way of your tomb-robbing activities, right?"
Alanya blushed a deep crimson, causing Sereth to say "Yup; that's a sign of an adventurer with a conscience, or at least part of one. Well, before we get on to the main event ... don't worry too much about any previous skeleton bashing you've indulged in. We're already dead and having our bones broken just means being rotated back into the Afterlife for a spell; sooner or later we get pulled back on active duty and then poof! Good as new."
" ... Oh ..." Alanya said, blinking. " ... But wait; you're supposed to be guarding these tombs, right? Don't you get in trouble or something if the tomb gets robbed?"
Sereth made a dismissive gesture with his hands. "Eh, no," he said. "Truth be told, half the things we're guarding in these tombs ought to be out in the world where they can be doing something useful for our descendants anyway, not gatheirng gravedust. Besides, sooner or later, our descendants bring new treasures to replace the old, so it's not like we're going to ever not have things to guard ..."
As Alanya digested that bit of information, Sereth floated behind her and clapped a bony hand on her shoulder. "See Miss Alanya, here's a little secret; the Afterlife gets boring for us guardians after a while. Oh sure, we're all committed to our sacred duties, just like our ancestors before us and theirs before them and so on and so on, but after a century or two, even former Ordinators start getting a little tired of walking back and forth in the same old musty tombs day in and day out. We rotate people around some to provide a little variety, and cover holes left by tomb raiders like yourself, but really, unless one of us is lucky enough to be called out through a long-term summon spell to help an adventurous descendant ... well, it's nothing but musty halls for us. So when folks like you come poking around, we perk up; gotta have some excitement ..."
" ... That sounds like a dreary existance ..." Alanya said softly.
"Ah, it's not nearly as bad as it sounds," Sereth said jovially, slapping Alanya's shoulder in a friendly manner. "There's other things about being dead that I'm not mentioning - and won't mention, so don't bother asking - that makes it not so bad. Just, like I said, the guarding tombs detail gets old fter a while, and gigs last for centuries, so we look forward to what excitement we can get. Adventurers are a fairly diverse lot; you meet some good people now and then, even if you gotta try killing them, but any good adventurer can handle themselves so it's all good."
"How encouraging," Alanya muttered, " ... So, this main event you alluded to ealier; that's for you to relieve boredom?"
"Pretty much," Sereth grinned - an impressive feat. "See Miss Alanya, you caught the Afterlife's collective eye a little while back, taking out not just three of the most talented newcomers to our illustrious Bonearchers Irregulars, you also took down one of the most celebrated, decorated, and proven champions of the Afterlife in a surprising upset ..."
" ... So we all decided that a rematch was in order."
Return to the Previous Chapter
Go On to the Next Chapter
Return to the Main Story Main Page
Return to the Home Page