//------------------------------// // 10: The Horn of Jurgen Windcaller // Story: Sombra visits Skyrim // by Blackdrag-rose //------------------------------// Raika, now baring the lessons of the Greybeards and their instructions, returned to the main chamber of the monastery to find almost everyone where she had left them. Lydia was still fast asleep in her chair, which meant her weapon was still sitting by her, while both Luna and Celestia were sitting at a table across from her. The sisters appeared to be discussing something that they had found in one of the books they had open, no doubt arguing their points on it like they did with everything else. The only person she didn't see immediately was Sombra, which struck Raika as odd since Celestia was usually somewhere near the nord at all times. "Where's Sombra?" Raika asked, stopping by the royal sisters and likely interrupting whatever they were talking about. "He's out front," Celestia replied almost immediately, almost sounding sad, "He needed some time to sort through his memories and remember exactly who he is. Not even I can help him right now." Raika sighed and moved towards the large iron doors that would lead her back to the stairway in front of the monastery, wondering exactly how the nord might have restored his memories. She threw open the doors, welcomed the cold winter air once again, and walked down the steps until she found the nord standing near the edge of the cliff. Sombra was staring out at Skyrim, taking in the sights as he seemed to be figuring out who he was, whatever Celestia had meant by that. He still wore the armor she and Ralof had found him in, but the weapon that Celestia and Luna had crafted sat on a rock near him, almost like he had forgotten it was right there. "Hey there Sombra," Raika said, noticing that he barely noticed her approach and didn't turn to her call, "Tia tells me that you recovered your memories and I was hoping that you might share something with me." "Celestia," Sombra corrected, his eyes locked on the sight of Whiterun in the distance. "Excuse me?" Raika asked, feigning innocence to the fact that she had known Celestia's true name and had purposely not told Sombra what it had been. "Her name is Celestia, not Tia." Sombra said, letting out a sigh as he turned to face Raika, "When I first met her she introduced herself as Princess Celestia of Canterlot, the alicorn that controlled the Sun, and sister of Princess Luna, the alicorn that controlled the Moon. It wasn't until later that she told me that Luna called her by her pet name, Tia, sometimes and that few ponies knew that name even existed. In all the time I've known my sweet Celestia I have never called her by her sister's pet name, until I lost my memories and you introduced her as such." "So you did recover your memories," Raika exclaimed, surprised that he had somehow done what she had deemed nearly impossible, "that's great." "Not all of them I'm afraid," Sombra replied, turning back to the open area in front of him, "I remember everything leading up to the day that Celestia and I were to be married, but after that there is this black hole where the rest of my memories are supposed to be. Then the next thing I remember is waking up in that cave, feeling the earth shake as if something was trying to destroy everything above me, and seeing you for the first time. The rest of my memories you know, as you shared most of them with me." Raika knew just a tiny bit about what he had done during the time between Discord's arrival and his departure from his home world, but Celestia had elected to not tell her everything. She couldn't tell him anything more about himself because she didn't know any of it, but that didn't mean that she couldn't learn it as he did. All she was concerned about at the moment was could he still fight and actually contribute to the group. "I might be a little early in asking this," Raika started, picking her words carefully, "but I was wondering if you might have uncovered how to properly fight with a sword." The moment the words left her mouth she found the sword that Sombra wielded, the one crafted by Celestia and Luna, was in his hands all of a sudden. Sombra seemed to be staring into the blade itself, as if he was trying to discover the magic that went into creating it so he could either undo it or replicate it somewhere else. "I remember more than fighting with my sword," Sombra said, sheathing the blade before belting it to his side, "I remember a variety of spells that I learned over the years, how to properly fire a bow, and some other odds and ends that help out in a fight. But enough about me, we have an adventure to get underway." Raika smiled and the two of them went back into the monastery, where they found the rest of their friends gathered around the table and a map of Skyrim. Lydia covered her mouth with a hand as she yawned, before pointing to somewhere on the map as if she was explaining something to Luna and Celestia. Raika managed not to laugh as she realized that Lydia was showing the sisters the situation of the civil war, which was currently at a standstill until Whiterun decided which side to join. "My Thane," Lydia said, welcoming them to the table, "before we leave I decided to share with these two the situation that Skyrim faces, in case they wanted to help out in the war effort. But other than that they recommended that we get underway." "We need to head to Ustengrav," Raika said, placing a finger near someplace called Morthal, "the Greybeards want me, and that includes you guys, to recover an artifact called the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller, the founder of the Way of the Voice. Seeing how Ustengrav is another nordic ruin we'll have to deal with the draugr and maybe some walking skeletons, but with our assembled group we shouldn't have to worry about them. I suggest that we leave soon so that catch one of the carriage drivers before they leave Iverstead." Celestia and Luna were quick to agree with Raika, so not a few moments later the group was walking out of the monastery and began the journey back down the mountain. As they traversed the seven thousand steps again they didn't have to worry about being attacked by any stray animals or trolls, seeing how they dealt with all of them on their trip up earlier that day. The three hunters they had met were still where they had previously found them, praying to the shrines and maybe hunting some animal that passed them by. As they entered Iverstead Raika spotted the carriage arriving and immediately hailed the driver, paying out the price for him to deliver them to Morthal. During the ride to Morthal Sombra sat right next to Celestia, resting his head on her shoulder as they stared out at the passing scenery, including the gates of Whiterun. Luna smiled at them, glad to see that her sister was finally happy to have the stallion that her heart connected with the most back in her hooves...or hands at the moment. He may not have remembered all the dark deeds he had committed after Discord hit them, but she was glad that they didn't have to deal with that problem at the moment. Lydia spent most of their ride reading one of the books that one of the Greybeards let her take from the monastery, only with the promise that it be returned in due time. Raika, on the other hand, merely kept an eye out for any problems that would prevent them from reaching their destination, like maybe some more bandits or another dragon. Eventually they arrived in Morthal and were greeted by the townspeople standing outside a building, shouting at the guards about some unfortunate deaths that seemed to have happened sometime before they arrived. While the guards were distracted Raika led the group north, getting as far away from the gloomy town as they could so she didn't have to deal with being accused of something she didn't do. They wandered through a swamp like area, looking for the signs of a ruin that could very well be anywhere while fighting some rather large spiders that crossed their path. After about two hours of wandering through the swamp, half of it spent staring at the map of Skyrim, they finally found the sunken entrance to Ustengrav. Unfortunately the entrance was surrounded by five living people, each wearing a black robe over their body, and five seemingly dead bandits that moaned every now and then. "What in Tartarus is this?" Sombra asked, leaning against the rocky wall as they formed their plan of attack. "Necromancy," Raika spat, clearly hating even talking about the subject, "Some mages think its okay to bring the dead back to life in their service, leaving them to wander the world of the living and kill whoever their master wishes. Most mages in all of Tamriel dislike the reanimation of the dead and go as far as to destroy the Necromancers whenever they reveal their ugly heads. Even the College of Winderhold, where almost all the mages in Skyrim learn about magic, forbids the use of the dead in their lessons and even remove students who break that rule. Though I've never seen more than two necromancers together at any moment, so having five in the same area is very unusual." "Luna and I can take the two necromancers in the back," Celestia was saying, pointing to the two robed figures she meant, "thus disabling their minions and allowing us to get closer to the entrance. Lydia, I trust that you can use that weapon of yours to disrupt the necromancer closest to us while Raika and Sombra deal with the other two. Once we've taken care of these mages I have no doubt that we might encounter one or two more inside the barrow itself, but we'll have to see about that when we get inside." The moment Celestia was finished speaking she and Luna were on their way, giving the others no time to object to how they had planned their attack strategy. Sombra let out a chuckle as he silently drew his sword, Celestia was acting like the mare he had met back in the Crystal Empire that fateful afternoon. The necromancers in the back, startled by the noise of beating wings, barely had time to issue commands to their minions before Luna and Celestia were on top of them. As the other three necromancers turned their heads towards the commotion Lydia burst out of their hiding spot and slammed the head of her battle axe into her target's minion, causing the dead to return to the grave. Before they were left out of the fun Raika and Sombra entered the fray, quickly finding their individual targets and engaging their minions. Raika, having more experience with necromancers, easily dispatched her target's minion and pinned the caster to the ground, but Sombra moved with grace and cut his foe's legs out before sending the unfortunate soul back to its resting place. "Sombra, your necromancer is getting away," Luna shouted, causing Sombra to glare at the fleeing women. The necromancer was used to having her minions hack and slash her enemies to pieces so she could reanimate them for the growing army all the necromancers were working towards. She wasn't used to seeing her minions torn to pieces by some stranger, whose band managed to tear apart the others and their own corpses. So, while her friends and enemies were distracted by the fighting, she turned to the south and immediately began to run for her life. And she might have succeeded, had one of her enemies not spotted her and called out to one of the others, the nord that had torn her own minion to pieces. She turned around in time to see him completely vanish, as if he had been just another summoned creature, but before she could even relax she found a sword blade sticking out of her chest. "You should not have run my dear," Sombra sadly said, slipping the women's dagger out of her right hand as her body went limp, "I hope you achieve enlightenment in whatever plane you find yourself in." As the others cleaned up the area, collecting the weapons, armor, and gold of the fallen, Celestia smirked as she watched Sombra finish up with his opponent. She could tell just by watching that he was acting more like the stallion she had known, using his magic and weapon as if they were merely extensions of himself. And as he finished off the necromancer she saw his mouth move, likely wishing the fallen warrior some form of enlightenment or something, exactly like he had done in the past. The stallion she had known was back in business. "Here," Sombra said to Raika, handing over the dagger as she counted her new weapons, "this is the only weapon I could find on my opponent and knew you'd want to add it to your collection." "Oh, thanks." Raika replied, accepting the dagger and placing it with the other weapons, "Let's see here; several steel daggers, seven iron axes, one silver sword, and, not surprising, two staffs of unknown magical origins. Well then, I guess it's time to descend into the ruins and find that horn." They descended into the ruins without any problem, but before they really got very far they found two more necromancers waiting in the first chamber, who had no idea they had company. Before anyone made a move to deal with them Sombra held up a hand and stopped them, allowing the magic to gather before a bow appeared out of the shadows. He gripped the bow tightly, weighing it in his hands before pulling out a steel arrow and nocking it, letting out a sad sigh as he pulled the string back. A few seconds later he released the arrow, sending it flying into the chest of one of the necromancers and causing the other one to fall on his back in terror. Sombra nodded to the others and Raika was the first to react, copying Sombra's move and pinning the remaining enemy to the wall with her own arrow. They moved deeper into the ruins, turning from fighting necromancers to fighting the draugr that the necromancers had foolishly awoken while they were digging. The true undead were relentless in their attacks, almost as if all of them had been awoken in a fury that was brought on by the necromancers awakening them and trying to bind them to their wills. Raika was glad for Celestia doing whatever she had done, because whenever she watched Sombra fight he fought as well as the sisters did and was quick to heal anyone if they got hurt. Celestia had told the truth to her, she promised that she would awaken who Sombra truly was and now they had someone who was pulling their weight. Eventually they came to a wide open chamber, one that split in two directions, while they could hear the tell tale signs of a waterfall somewhere in the area. Raika led them around the walls, fighting more skeletons until they came to the base of the waterfall and found a second word wall at the end. Raika frowned as the magic slammed into her body, but instead of falling over she held her ground until the magic settled down inside of her. "A moment, if you will," Luna said as Raika turned to head back up, "My sister is collecting all the words of power that she comes across, in order to aid you and any other Dragonborns. Give her a moment to collect the translation and we'll be on our way." Raika nodded and took a seat near the water, giving the sisters as much time as they needed while taking a break and soaking her feet in the water. Lydia stood behind her Thane, her eyes scanning the water in case a draugr sprung out of the depths and tried to attack them. Sombra, on the other hand, closed his eyes and leaned against the stone wall, listening to the sounds around them as Celestia worked on the translation. "Ah, let's see here," Celestia said, her translation book open to a new page, "'Noble Nords remember these words of the hoar father - it is duty of each man to live with courage and honor lest he fade unremembered into darkness.' Strange, the ancient nords aren't really telling us anything that might actually help us out." Raika sighed and pulled herself up, leading the group back up the sides of the chamber until they came to another puzzle that involved stones. Only this one was designed to have the stones light up as someone stood near them and immediately begin to fade the moment that someone stood away from it. Raika had everyone stand back for a moment before standing near the first stone, causing it to light up before she sprinted through the other two stones. The moment the other two stones were lit up the gates in front of them were open, but before they closed Raika suddenly vanished and appeared at the top of some stairs as the gates closed. "A decent shout from the Greybeards," Raika said, watching them figure out how to get through the trap themselves, "Wuld, from the Whirlwind Sprint shout, allows me to travel some distance in an instant." "Decent for you," a voice said behind her as Sombra stepped out of the shadows, "but the shadows could have easily gotten all of us through without having to waste your breath." True to his word the other stepped out of the shadowy portal he had opened in the wall, which made Raika wish that he had told her he knew how to do that. She could have saved her breath and already be at the horn, but she couldn't fault him for not sharing since he was just remembering everything himself. She sighed and they pushed even deeper into the ruins, coming to one more water filled chamber that shook moments after they entered. They watched as a walkway rose out of the water and connected their side to the other side, to which Raika immediately ran across in case it was designed to descend back into the water. She saw the stand that Arngeir had described, so she would have known where to find the horn in case they had actually made it to the end of the ruins. But where the horn was supposed to be was a simple piece of paper. She picked up the piece of paper and unfolded it, staring at a note as the others approached. "Dragonborn-- I need to speak to you. Urgently. Rent the attic room in the Sleeping Giant Inn in Riverwood, and I'll meet you there. --A Friend" Raika held the note for a second, trying to understand what the note was even implying, but when the truth dawned on her her fury from before returned. Someone had stolen the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller and was calling out the Dragonborn, no doubt intending to ransom the treasure for all the gold that she had. Raika growled, it seemed like there was someone that she was actually going to have to kill and she hoped that the others let her deal with whoever was messing with her.