The Tale of Sudhendra Vahl: The Hunter's Moons Options

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There was a hammering on my door this morn and, feeling a little bleary-eyed after last night’s festivities, I threw on a robe and went to see who was there. Outside stood a tall, fair-haired woman with brilliant blue eyes. She was carrying a huge pail, from which rose an appetising smell. Bobbing a curtsey, she stepped inside and walked to the table in the corner. Fetching a bowl from the shelf, she removed the cover from the pail and ladled a grey coloured gruel into the earthenware bowl. “Will ye be having the salt or the honey wi’ yer porridge?” she asked.

“Honey,” I replied, nonplussed. With a smile, she fetched a small wooden box from her apron and, opening it, she scraped a thick curl of honey from the comb inside and dumped it into the steaming gruel. Taking a spoon, I sat and tentatively tasted the stuff. The smell hadn’t lied ~ despite its unappealing appearance, the ‘porridge’ was very pleasant. A thick mixture of some grain and milk, boiled until it was thick and glutinous.

“I have messages for ye,” the woman said. With my mouth full, I indicated with my spoon that she should speak. “The Shaman wishes ye tae see, at your earliest convenience. An’ Snedbrir the Blacksmith has that you visit him asked.”

“Thank you…” I said, raising an eyebrow.

“Anyanka,” she replied, blushing slightly before beating a hasty retreat. As the door shut behind her, I scraped the bowl clean of the last traces of its contents and sat back with a sigh. Since the blacksmith’s forge was closest to Rigmor’s… my house, I decided to visit there first.

“Bloodskaal,” Snedbrir said, setting down his hammer as I stepped into the workshop at the back of his hut. “I have for you something more fitting than the furs ye’re wearing.”

I noticed my Templar armour sitting on a bench. The blacksmith had hammered out the few dents it had picked up and polished it until it gleamed. This, however, was not what Snedbrir meant. Beside the forge was a form, a simple block of wood carved into the rough likeness of a human figure. Adorning this mannequin was a set of armour. Made of a silvery-coloured metal, the tiny interlocking rings glistened in the light of the forge. Elsewhere, beaten panels of solid metal had been worked into various designs ~ swirls and knots predominantly, but there was a scene on the shield that ~ on closer examination ~ showed a stylised Dunmer battling a wolf-like creature.

“My Gods, it’s beautiful,” I breathed as Snedbrir lifted the ring-mail cuirass from the wooden form and helped me into it. It was quite a bit heavier than the Templar armour, but not so heavy that it would cause me a problem. The shimmering links of chainmail flowed like heavy water as I moved. In addition to the long cuirass, there was a pair of greaves, a pair of boots, gauntlets, pauldrons, and a massive helm. The huge, square shield completed the equipment.

Clad in my Skaal armour ~ shield slung across my back in imitation of the Skaal guards, I stepped outside ~ slipping the short silver-blades that I seemed to have inherited into the sheaths that Snedbrir had affixed to the belt. I wished that I had a reflecting glass but the admiring glances of the guards as I walked passed them told me how good the armour looked. Korst seemed quite impressed as I stepped into his hut, nodding his approval.

“A true warrior o’ the Skaal ye now look,” he said. We sat, and Korst told me that he feared that Tharsten Heart-Fang had met a similar fate to Captain Falx Carius. I got the impression that Korst Wind-Eye knew far more about what was going on that he would, or was willing to, tell me. Worried that pressing for an answer might offend the Shaman; I listened as he detailed what needed to be done.

“Afore he went an’ vanished, Tharsten was tae speak wi’ ye about something that needed tae be done. Did he?” I shook my head and Korst sighed. “So, a ceremony there is that we need tae perform. This ceremony is called the Ristaag. I have my suspicions about the threat we’re facing but the Ristaag will confirm it. There is a wee problem. Afore we can the Ristaag perform, we have need o’ a token o’ the Skaal. ‘Tis a necklace, simple leather wi’ a wolf-fang an’ a bear-claw on it.

“‘T’will take a fierce warrior tae get the Totem from Skaalara,” he continued, “and 'tis you that I’m sure should go. It cannae be coincidence that ye here should arrive just as these strange events start tae happen…”

“If you’re implying…” I said, cutting across what he was saying. “…That I had anything to do with whatever is going on…”

“Whist,” he said, dismissing my interjection with a wave of his hand, “the cause o’ the events? I think not. But the trigger that started these events: aye that ye may be. An’ for that reason, ‘tis you who should fetch the Totem of Fang and Claw from Skaalara.”

“What events?” I asked. The Shaman sat, lost in thought for a moment, and then responded to my question.

“Some ~ the disappearance o’ Tharsten an’ your Captain Carius, the sudden appearance o’ so many werewolves, the flames on the open ice ~ ye ken already. Some, such as the unquiet dead, ye dinnae know anything about. There are others that I will nae discuss wi’ ye at this time. Others have not yet come to pass and, askin' the One’s favour, willnae.”

“Unquiet dead?” I asked.

“There have reports been,” he said, “o’ the walking dead near tae Telos Rin. I’m no convinced that these have anything tae do wi’ the Blood…” he stopped suddenly. “Anything tae do wi’ the problems we’re facing,” he concluded. “Ye may want tae look into it. Telos Rin is down by the coast, speak tae the caretaker if ye’ve a mind tae investigate.”

Finding Telos Rin wasn’t difficult, I just headed over the edge off the hill and down towards the shoreline. The caretaker was a thin Nord named Fjolfr Brown-Eyes. He seemed to think that there are catacombs below the tombs but he knew very little about the recent disturbances: in fact, he asked me to report back to him if I discovered anything about them. With Fjolfr’s blessing, I entered the dark Barrow that housed the tombs of the Skaal.

The Barrow was quite small, just four chambers branching off from the main entrance. In one of the chambers, I discovered a Dragon-Slayer blade ~ a heavy, two-handed sword of the sort favoured by the legendary warrior Kilgarn. Despite its unwieldy size, I took this ancient blade ~ even if I cannot use it, it will make an excellent addition to my growing collection of artefacts. In one of the side-tombs I discovered a hidden door that led down into the catacombs below the Barrow.

A short, snowy passageway hacked into the ice led down to another set of chambers. The grey stone walls stretched away in front of me, broken on the left by a passageway. Deciding to head down the short passageway, I quickly found myself in a central burial chamber. The mouldering corpse that had been chained to the pillar of stone directly opposite the entrance to the crypt gave me pause for thought ~ as did the note affixed to its grinning head:

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Be Warned:

All who seek their fortunes amongst the remains of the dead shall find only remorse.  I will no longer stand by and let my family's remains be pawed over by mere thieves.  Leave this place, and remove nothing, lest fate deal with you as it has those who've come before you.

Above all else - do not approach the resting places of these honored warriors.  

You have been warned.



Melos Rin

Son of Felos "Bear Kin"

6th Year Necromancer

Well, you might as well wave a sword at a Nordic warrior as put something like that on a note in a crypt. Any self-respecting thief, rogue, or adventurer is going to be compelled to examine the contents of the tomb after a warning like that. I was no exception. The fluttering banner identified the scattered bones in the first niche as Felos Bear-Kin. Arrayed by the shelf were some fur-covered armour (from the bear’s head helm I guess that this was bearskin), a large, double-headed Nordic axe, and a small stone chest. This stone box yielded up five ten-Septim pieces.

Since nothing untoward had happened when I’d taken the coins, I moved around the chamber to the second niche. The rotting banner identified these bones as having been one Kelos Keen-Eye. Now this was more like it: there was a demon-bound longbow, three pieces of armour, and a chest containing ten five-Septim pieces. Touching the box seemed to trigger some form of summoning spell, there was a clatter of bone behind me and I turned to face three skeletal warriors armed with axes.

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The Blodskal sang a triumphant song as it cleaved bone, spinning white shards flying off with every impact. The shield proved to be a gods send, allowing me to block the axe-blows and force the weapons up and away while I hacked away at the skeletons from underneath. When I had reduced the defenders of Kelos to small splinters, I turned back and examined the armour ~ which was of a type I’ve never seen before.

Much of the armour was made of the same glistening metal as the armour I wore but, where there were glistening sheets of tiny metal rings on my suits of armour, there were solid plates of a pale blue metal on Kelos’ armour. When I picked the armour up, it was far lighter than I expected ~ the massive plates of metal had made me think the armour would be very heavy yet it was, in truth, not much heavier than the chainmail I wore. Since I was unable to carry the armour in my pack, I took the cuirass, greaves, and helmet to the top of the icy slope and stacked them there ~ along with the demon-bound bow ~ so that I could take them with me when I left.

The third niche contained little more of Belos Swift-Feet than a few shards of bone and a lot of dust. There were two pieces of fur armour, the dark colour made me suspect that they were made of wolf-skin, beside the niche but they were so rotted as to be almost unusable. A demon-bound short-sword didn’t add to the value of the goods, although the inevitable stone box contained another fifty Septims. If there was a spell on the remains similar to that one the skeleton of Kelos, time had eroded it.

Nearby was a simple stone altar, the dishes and plates arrayed around and upon it filled with decayed vegetable matter. The one hundred and seventy-five Septims stacked on top of the altar was much more interesting.

Returning to the main corridor, I made my way cautiously down it “'n waedlyd Annwfn!” I yelled, throwing myself flat on the floor as a section of the passageway went ‘click’ under my foot and a huge spinning fireball launched itself down the corridor at me. As the spell detonated against the snow-covered incline that led back to the tomb, I risked looking up and down the corridor in the direction the fireball had come from. Dimly I could make out a small hole in the wall at the end of the corridor, the orifice surrounded by soot. Okay, this Telos character hadn’t been joking when he said he’d trapped the catacombs.

On my hands and knees, I crawled forwards down the corridor ~ cringing every time I moved my hands forwards. Inevitably, Telos hadn’t been content with a single trap: the floor went ‘click’ under my hand and I threw myself down as a pair of fireballs, one after the other, vomited forth from the trap at the end of the tunnel. Crawling past the boulder that marked the edge of the trap, I went past the charred remains of a former adventurer ~ one who’d not been as lucky as I was.

The second trap in the corridor proved to be the last ~ although the pair of rotting and skeletal wolves that guarded the golden door at the end of the next corridor showed that Telos was pretty adamant about deterring unwelcome visitors. This door led into a simple chamber ~ the centrepiece of which was a raised and shaped stone platform. On this lay the preserved remains of a Nordic warrior. In the final chamber I discovered another shredded corpse, although there seemed to be no trap associated with this one. Fluttering near the body was a note which stated that Melos Rin has grown tired of treasure-hunters and tomb-raiders defiling his family’s tomb and that he had ‘taken steps’ to protect the catacombs. Having narrowly avoided death on several occasions as a result of those ‘steps’, I thought this somewhat of an understatement. Several books nearby indicated that this Melos was a fairly powerful necromancer ~ which would certainly explain Korst’s ‘unquiet dead’. Since Fjolfr Brown-Eyes would probably be interested in this information, I decided to return to the surface.

Except that, somewhere in the maze of narrow passages, I took a wrong turning. The long corridor I found myself in ended in a door ~ upon which was carved ‘HALLOWED GROUNDS’ in Nordic runes. No amount of brute-force, magic, or finagling with a lock-pick would convince the door to yield so, defeated, I backtracked and sought out the surface one more. Fjolfr Brown-Eyes was, as I’d thought he would be, interested in hearing that Melos was defending the tomb. He thanked me for exploring the catacombs and giving him the news. As a reward, he gave me a ring he described as ‘The Rin Family Crest’. The ring bore some minor enchantments so I thanked him for it.

I made my way to the place Korst had said I would find the Totem of Claw and Fang, the Tombs of Skaalara. There was one interesting snippet of information that the Shaman had neglected to mention ~ the damn place was crawling with werewolves! Drawing the twin silver short-swords and preparing a line of healing spells, I stepped over the corpse of the first werewolf and ventured into the tombs.

I was fortunate, in a way, I was carrying many potions that I’ve picked up in my travels and some of them ~ the restore health, restore magicka potions certainly came in handy as I hacked and slashed my way through the dark tunnels ~ the eerie howling of the lycanthropes echoing all around me. The spells that Jaron taught me also came in very useful ~ the swirling frosts and killer snows I was able to create helped push back my attackers when things got very crowded. With flashing silver, explosive spells, and my heart in my throat, I pressed on….

Shaken by my experiences in the tombs of Skaalara, I beat a hasty retreat as the sun set. Korst was delighted to receive the Totem of Fang and Claw and rewarded me by teaching me something of the Skaal magic. Since their magic is intimately tied to the land, much of their Craft revolves around manipulation of stone and trees. Some of it is a little more… aggressive, and it was one such spell that Korst taught me. When I left the Shaman’s hut, I was accompanied by a padding shadow, a spectral wolf that I had successfully conjured up out of thin air.