After everything that had happened with the Eye of Magnus, with Ancano, with the deaths of the Arch-Mage and Mirabelle, it seemed so strange to be back in Saarthal.
In a way Onmund couldn't fault Tolfdir for wanting to return to some semblance of routine; the elder mage was now the most senior member of the College and didn't seem too eager to take on the mantle of Arch-Mage, nor did anyone else really...but as he WAS most senior everyone was looking to him anyway, and his first decision had been to try and strive for normal while things calmed down. "Normal" had included leaving some assigned to try and smooth things over with Winterhold (Onmund did not envy anyone for THAT job) with the rest of them returning to how things had (relatively) been before the incident.
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And because of that Onmund and his fellow apprentices were here in Saarthal once again, picking out those ancient relics for cataloging and study, studying the ancient carvings, and recording the names of those buried here in their quest to learn as much as they could about the people that had once called this place home so long ago.
Their days were fairly simple: wake early, do whatever Arniel badgered them into doing all day, then fall into their (rock hard, incredibly uncomfortable) "beds" to repeat the process again; the same thing, day after day, for...three months? Four? It was hard to keep track of time when you couldn't see the sun.
This morning seemed no different from the others, aside from waking with a mild headache and colder than usual -- at some point during the night he had pushed the top of his bedroll down his body (or, he supposed, he'd pushed his body out the top of the bedroll) and he was uncovered down to the waist. He still had his robes on but the uppermost level of Saarthal was...chilly, to say the least; with a groan Onmund sat up and fumbled to pull his hood up - the fire had gone out overnight which partly explained why it was so cold. Which of them was supposed to keep an eye on it again? It was also difficult to remember who did what each night when "night" didn't really hold any meaning.
'Oh well.' Ugh. Even the tone of his thoughts was resigned to it all. He missed his room in the College, and the library, and the more conventional means of learning instead of poking about in these old ruins; the novelty of it had worn off awhile ago and he was raring to get back to his studies (or the very least stop wallowing around in the dust, dirt, and cobwebs).
Moving slowly, head throbbing, Onmund grabbed a few logs from the pile of spare firewood stacked around the base of a pillar that had wooden steps pounded into carved slots in the stone; he stacked and lit the logs with a quick word and sat there as they steadily burned, thankful for the warmth. Arranged around him in a loose semi circle Brelyna, J'zargo, and Tolfdir were still asleep -- he had no idea where Arniel was but if the man was already awake he would no doubt be coming for the rest of them soon.
Once he'd warmed up a bit his headache eased; he'd never really given much thought to the cold until he'd come this far north to Winterhold and the College -- it got chilly and snowed sometimes when he'd lived at home but Winterhold seemed to be more snow by volume than anything else.
'Maybe I've grown too soft...too used to always having a fire to read beside,' he thought as he stood and sleepily wandered over to the crate of foodstuffs they'd brought in with them; there were ingredients enough to cook a proper breakfast but Onmund knew if he cooked for himself he'd be pestered to share or to cook enough for everyone, and as he still had a bit of a throbbing pain directly behind his eyes he really didn't want to bother. Retrieving a pair of apples he tiptoed back to his bedroll and chewed on them quietly, waiting for someone to wake up and prod him to work.
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Bit by bit they were moving further into Saarthal -- some days they were sifting for relics, others studying carvings and coffins and making sketches and wax rubbings of each; he preferred the rubbing days personally...there was something awe inspiring about touching something so skillfully made that was so old and yet still (mostly) well preserved in those rooms that hadn't had a ceiling or wall collapse.
Right as Tolfdir awakened Arniel had come - there were burial urns and coffins in one of the furthest chambers from here (and three...four? Four levels down) that Arniel was focusing on today; as the older man led Onmund and the others onward he realized, with some trepidation, that the chamber Arniel wanted to examine and document today was actually the large room that had once held the Eye of Magnus -- in fact, the closer they got the more they could hear (and in a small way, feel) the hum of the pedestal that the Eye had once floated on.
"Should we..." he started, pausing when Arniel turned to give him one of his patented looks of annoyance. "Should we be this far in? Next to this thing? I don't really feel properly prepared, considering what happened with the Eye - this might be just what it sat on for ages but I can still feel it from here."
"We will, of course, be careful," Tolfdir broke in before Arniel could reply. "With something like this there are certain precautions one should always take. In fact, approach and I will review them with you."
Tolfdir's 'precautions' involved a few warding spells on themselves and considerably stronger ones placed on the floor in a circle around the empty Eye pedestal; they didn't really ease the feeling that disaster was around the corner however, and even as Onmund set about carefully cleaning away years of dust and dirt to reveal the intricate designs and names carved into the coffins in this chamber he found himself constantly looking over his shoulder to the green glowing circle of inscribed...stone? Metal? He wasn't even sure what the Eye and its base had been constructed of, but he didn't trust it at his back.
It was a long, filthy afternoon...or evening, or -- well, it was a very long day of cleaning and scribing, and rubbing wax and paper over the carvings to create a copy for the library. Arniel usually set them to their tasks and then more or less ignored them unless he needed something - it meant their days were usually ones of silent focus, with little chatter (and lots of boredom).
And it was because they worked in silence that Onmund wasn't certain when, exactly, everyone had left the chamber; he'd straightened up and stretched, arms and shoulders cramping and throbbing, and when he'd turned around he found himself alone -- his attention had been shifting between his work and the pedestal and he'd given no thought to the others there with him, and now...
A small chill went up his spine - alone in the Eye's chamber with that unending sense of dread he couldn't shake and that vibration and humming that gently shook him clear to his bones.
It wasn't ideal, and he tried to tamp down on the sudden spike of fear that hit him when it sunk in that he'd been left behind.
'Don't be foolish. You know the way back. There is nothing dangerous between here and our camp,' he found himself thinking. With a heavy sigh - tinged with annoyance - he gathered up his scattered parchments and bound them up in one large roll then carefully skirted the Eye's glowing pedestal and began to climb up the dry-rotted steps to the higher tier of the room; halfway up his foot broke through one of the steps and he instinctively dropped the parchment roll and caught himself with both hands, feeling the wood splinters bite deeply into his knees and shins as he partly hung there. He gave himself a moment to recover from the sudden shock of breaking through and his near fall and then, with a grunt, hauled himself onto the steps above the broken one and peered over their edge to where his parchment roll had hit the floor below and rolled almost to the Eye's pedestal.
...he'd have to go near it to pick those up. Damn it.
Not wanting to risk another broken step (or a worse injury other than skinned and splinter-filled knees and torn pantslegs) Onmund climbed the rest of the way up then walked around to the other set of stairs that led down to the floor; the closer he moved to the pedestal the smaller, more cautious his steps became -- it seemed both wise and foolish to fear something happening (after all, he'd been feeling that way all day) even though the pedestal only radiated residual power from the Eye, NOT power of its own. Tolfdir had seemed convinced that the power would eventually fade, and wasn't especially useful in the state it was in anyway...absolutely nothing should happen if he just walked up to it, but that feeling of dread...
Onmund ducked to snatch up the parchment roll but only manged to get a few fingers on it -- it slipped from his hand and rolled further along the right side of the pedestal. With a growl of frustration he scurried over and grabbed the parchment, standing and quickly backing up from the pedestal and watching it warily.
Nothing happened, or was happening...and nothing WOULD happen. He was just being overly cautious, and shamefully fearful.
He blew out a sigh of relief and then, oddly, felt a draft across his cheek -- he'd been all around this room all day, steadily moving from one side to the other, and hadn't felt a thing, yet now he felt what was undeniably a soft draft blowing against him. Licking a finger and holding it up, testing for which direction the draft was blowing from, he found that it was coming from his...right. But there was nothing to his right-
No. No, he was wrong, and he stared over at the door that had, up until this moment (or at least until he'd noticed it) been firmly shut.
This room had a higher tier that was roughly like a squared, sideways "C" with the inner bit of the C facing where the Eye had rested; the doorway he'd come through was up those stairs on that higher level, and there had been a second door at the very back of the room that, to his knowledge, none of them had ever tried. In fact, he'd just assumed it was locked since no one had mentioned trying to get through it.
But now it stood wide open. Had the others just gone ahead of him through it, rather than back to their camp? Onmund wasn't actually certain which answer would annoy him the most; he tucked the parchment roll under his arm and made his way to the door and stuck his head through it.
It opened into a hallway with root and vine-choked walls and strangely there was a scent of moist soil carried on the draft that blew against his face. Did this lead outside? Or maybe there was an underground spring here...he found himself debating whether it was wise to blindly head down the hallway or not -- he couldn't hear any footsteps or voices ahead of him so it wasn't likely the others had come this way.
But if that was true then... Then, whatever was at the end of this hallway would be an area none of the others had seen before. The thought was an exciting one - that he would discover something before anyone else - and yet there was the nagging question of why this door had suddenly opened. Maybe they'd accidentally triggered it? There were levers and switches elsewhere here that had unlocked ancient mechanisms...but he couldn't recall doing that himself, and he really doubted Brelyna or J'zargo could've kept their mouths shut if they'd done so.
If he was careful, and took all precautions he could, there just might be something spectacular at the end of this hallway that he could discover on his own...something he could rub the others' faces in. He bent down to lean the parchment roll against the door frame and began to carefully inch down the hallway; there didn't seem to be anything here aside from crumbling stonework and dead plant matter: nothing jumped out or collapsed down on top of him and in fact the hallway didn't go very far before it took a sharp right turn. At the corner the draft was more like a gentle breeze and was actually strong enough to ruffle the edges of his hood against his face, and it was also rather frigid. There HAD to be some connection to the surface in this direction, or maybe somewhere ahead a glacier had broke through the wall, or...or something, to explain the chill.
And there was still the smell of moist soil, but not the distinctive smell or sound of running water.
The lighting was rather poor here; there was the light coming in from the chamber behind him, and a very faint, sort of silvery light coming from the end of the hallway to his right, but the combination of both still wasn't enough to really see where he was going. With a quiet word and a practiced gesture he conjured a little ball of magelight and threw it to the ceiling above him -- its golden glow lit the hallway considerably but now the far end to his right was lost in a haze of dust floating in the air that was now lit by the light and was about as clear as morning fog to peer through.
Onmund moved slowly and methodically, checking everywhere around him for any nasty surprises as he moved through the fog-dust and finally his boots sank into the damp soil of a seemingly natural ramp made of dirt and rock and as his brain registered what he was looking at he found himself going a little slack jawed.
The room was roughly circular and for the most part left as a natural cave. Mostly. There was a hole in the ceiling through which fading sunlight filtered and it was absolutely freezing in here; at the base of the ramp was a round area full of ferns growing in the tiny circle that received light from above.
But at the rear of the room...in the very back...
A massive wall, shaped like a cylinder sliced in half, was cut from the stone walls of the cavern. There was an enormous stone dragon's head at its center, surrounded with intricate carvings that curled and swirled around the head, and below it was a rectangular part that had been left smooth save for writing chiseled into the rock -- it was angular, blocky writing that he vaguely recognized but not from where, and in general he wasn't even sure what he was looking at...he'd never seen anything like this before. What was it? Why was it here, buried at the back of an ancient, forgotten tomb?
He called the magelight orb to himself and sent it into the ceiling of this room, casting the strange carvings of the wall into sharp contrast with the rest of the shadows around; there didn't seem to be any magical energies here - no dangers that he could sense. Very carefully he slid down the muddy ramp and stepped to the edge of the circle of ferns, admiring the wall... Now he wished he'd brought his parchment and wax after all - to take a rubbing of this would be challenging, but imagine the looks on everyone's faces!
With a grin he moved through the ferns, having to pick his feet up higher than his normal stride to keep from getting snarled in their roots. The soil beneath them shifted and his steps sunk in deeply --
He heard a sudden loud crack and froze, and an instant later there were dozens more snapping noises...and then the ceiling was rapidly disappearing above his head.
-- no, the ceiling wasn't moving, HE was. He was falling - the ferns had been growing in soil trapped atop a crisscrossing network of roots that he could just see above him as he plummeted, and his weight had been enough to cause the dead roots to break away and let him drop.
The magelight above him faded to a dim point of light as he plunged into a dark free fall - it seemed odd to him that he wasn't even screaming, but then he did as he slammed into something and his knees were rammed up into his chest and chin and he bit a chunk out of his lower lip as his teeth were forced together.
Whatever he'd landed on was sharply angled and icy and even as he scrabbled for a handhold he was sliding deeper into the darkness; the magelight wasn't even visible anymore but it hardly mattered as again the ground disappeared out from under him and he fell back into open air. Then he hit, and fell, and hit and bounced off something and was sent into a tumble that slammed the back of his head into the next thing he collided with.
With it so dark he wasn't certain at what point he'd blacked out (did it even matter? Was there a difference?) so there was no telling how long and how far he'd fallen when he swam back to consciousness.
His limbs felt...heavy. He couldn't lift them and his mouth was full of blood, his head felt like he'd split it with an axe, and all over his body he hurt; if it weren't for the pain Onmund would have wondered if he'd died, but no...he was in agony, so clearly he was awake and alive.
'Alive...alive is good. Now...where am I?'
He was flat on his back and spread-eagle, and laying on something vaguely...fabric-like, he thought. It wasn't stone, and it certainly wasn't dirt or mud; he wiggled a few fingers -- or, he tried to...nothing was really moving or working, and even thinking hurt. With a whisper he conjured another magelight orb and felt his heart stop as it illuminated his surroundings.
Above him was a jagged hole in a massive expanse of webbing - he'd fallen through several layers of it, and when he went to raise his head he found he could move his head but not his hood: it was firmly stuck to the web below him, as was the rest of him. It wasn't that he couldn't move because of injury, it was because he was trapped in a massive spider web.
'No no no. No, no no...' It was a mantra in his head as he struggled to think on how to free himself. Webs could be cut, but he couldn't move and had no blade...they could be burned, but he was stuck IN it and could incinerate himself before he managed to free himself if he wasn't careful. Could webs be frozen? ...no, no, that was dumb, frostbite spiders spun webs in lots of cold places - if cold could make webs fall apart that would be totally useless for the spiders.
Maybe he could...maybe he could carefully burn away enough to free an arm, and then be a bit more liberal with the flames once he had full control over where he could aim it. It was really the only thing he could think of.
Very carefully, starting with his left hand, he conjured a tiny flame; with the webbing so close to him as it burned it began to sear and blister his own hand but after a few short bursts and the stench of his burning sleeve he had his hand free almost up to the elbow and with how loose his sleeve was now he had a little bit of extra room to work with.
Onmund breathed a sigh of relief - it would hurt but it just might work - then paused as a shudder ran through the webbing; he couldn't see much no matter how much he craned his neck to look up and around the edges of his hood, nor did the magelight reach too far in any direction -- he couldn't see any walls or actual ceiling...just the dark hole he'd punched into the web above when he'd fallen through and an indistinct darkness on all side.
The web dipped again, and then there were regular little...taps, or vibrations.
Something... Oh no. Something was coming.
'No, no...Divines, not like this, please...'
He flattened his palm and pointed it down at the web, letting loose with a rather reckless blast of flames aimed at his own hip; the webbing caught fire and he felt himself tipping in that direction, and could feel the web's hold on his shoulder and armpit loosening as the flames weakened it.
Then, there -- glistening in the darkness was a set of multiple eyes, bobbing up and down as the creature moved steadily toward him.
"Get away!" he snapped. He slung his arm that way and sent a half-formed fireball roaring for the eyes - he couldn't see the spider's body but he didn't need to see more than the eyes to know where it was. He saw a flare of flames and heard an angry chittering, then the spider's retreat set the entire web wobbling as it rapidly backed away and back into the cover of darkness.
"Come on...come on..." he hissed, spraying himself with fire to try and free his legs. The more he burned the more he was tilting downward feet first and saw with some dismay that below him was just more webbing. Where was he? How far above the ground was this web?
The web dipped again, deeply, and there was a sudden shadow blotting out the magelight -- the spider had jumped and landed nearly on top of him.
The spider was massive...larger than any he'd ever seen and now it loomed over him so closely he could count the bristly hairs on its front legs.
"BACK!" he shouted, sending a gout of flame over the spider's underbelly.
It made angry noises and jabbed at him with one of its front legs; there was a tearing noise and Onmund tilted even further downward with a very clear view of the thick webbing that awaited him ten feet below.
The spider made a grab for him and the web tore beneath them both; with a cry Onmund found himself falling again. The remnants of the webbing that clung to his legs flipped him upside down and in a surge of terror he hit the webbing face first and stuck there with one arm trapped uselessly beneath him.
Once again the web sank as the spider hopped down after him; before he could conjure his flames again he was suddenly spinning as the spider seized the webbing around him and began to cocoon him in place.
"Stop! No!" He had one arm bent awkwardly and trapped against his chest and the other, thanks to how the webbing had wrapped as he'd spun, was pinned against his back.
Thrashing to try and rid himself of the leggy grip the spider had him in he also desperately conjured flames with the hand behind his back, feeling their heat and sting as they began to burn, but he was abruptly interrupted with a terrible pain - a pain with impact behind it, like he'd been hit by an entire quiver of arrows all at one time - in his hip just above his backside.
It burned terribly but soon numbed, and the numbness began to spread; his thrashing slowed and then stopped as he lost all feeling and control over first his legs, and then his arms. The flames stopped, his heart was slowing, he was feeling sleepy...the spider's venom slowly removed his ability and will to fight and quietly he slipped into sleep within the web cocoon.
Know the quest Arniel's Endeavor? Okay good. Now, what if Amarei wasn't the one to do it, but her kids did!
Imagine it. The family's on a trip to the College. Koda, Mira, and Balo (all maybe 14 at this point) get recruited by the old man for a hairbrained scheme that has to be done behind Amarei's back.
They fetch 10 Dwemer cogs, having to explain to Mama why Koda has a Spider Worker-shaped bruise on his face.
They tag team on Enthir to get the Warped Soul Gem, and he has to explain to the Arch-Mage why his hair's been singed at the ends.
They trek all over the place to charge the Gem. Then they risk life and limb to retrieve Keening.
AT LAST they take the materials to Arniel, who performs his experiment and then...VANISHES BEFORE THEIR VERY EYES.
Wolf Trio:....
Wolf Trio: MOOOOOOOOMMMM
Amarei: WHAT
Wolf Trio: WE KILLED ARNIEL D,:
Farkas: What'd you do? Crush him with all those cogs you picked up?
Arniel's Shade: Well...That didn't go as planned.
Wolf Trio: OMFG HE'S A GHOST COME TO HAUNT US AFTER ALL THAT BULLSHIT HE MADE US DO
When I went outside to go check Savos to see if he was okay after Ancano blasted him, a dragon attacked. Then Arniel resurrected the dead Savos to kill the dragon. Just wow, way to use your resources, I guess?
The Blue Jackets sported a 10-23-5 record heading into their game last night against the San Jose Sharks. They were in last place in the NHL, which, given that the league has 30 teams, is doing something. They have been beating fans out of Nationwide Arena since they broke training camp and by now there is a consensus that radical change is no longer an idea, it is a necessity.
One thing is certain: The coach has not done the job.
