A changeling's visit to Skyrim

Fenora and Stross descended deeper into the barrow, the stone archways covered in spiderwebs. Fenora slashed through them with a sword, one of many weapons she had “Acquired” from the bandit’s corpses. Meanwhile, Stross was busy pulling out the arrows that were still stuck in him. It hurt quite a bit, but with all the energy he was running on, they healed almost intantly.

Once they got deeper in, Fenora spotted a small wooden chest. Seeing as how no one would be down here for a very long time, she decided they might as well take whatever was inside. Unfortunately, it was locked.

“Oh, damn it.” she swore “Stupid lock.”

“Hmm,” Stross thought aloud “maybe I could try and pick the lock to get it open, do you have any small pieces of metal I co-

He was interrupted by a shout as Fenora brought the sword down on the lid, smashing through the rotten wood. She flashed a grin his way as she retrieved the contents of the chest.

“Or just… do that.” Stross sputtered.

As they came to the end of the tunnel, they heard someone shouting for help. At the far end of the room, they saw a bandit cocooned in the doorway.

“Is someone there? Is that you Harknir, Bjorn, Soling? Anyone, everyone, I know I ran ahead with the claw, but I need help, please.” he called out.

“That must be the bandit the others were talking about.” Fenora pointed out “The one who took the claw."

“Yes! The claw!” he exclaimed as they approached “I know how it all works; the claw, the symbols in the hall of stories, all of it! Cut me down and I’ll share the treasure with you.” he bargained “Just hurry before- oh no, here it comes again.”

When they turned to see what he was talking about, they were greeted by an enormous spider dropping down from the open sky-light. It hissed and snarled as it walked towards them, its legs making a horrid popping noise with each and every step.

Fenora reached for one of her many blades, but before she could draw it, Stross blasted the spider with a jet of white flame, Screaming like a lady until the spider was nothing but ash.

Breathing heavily he looked over his work. “Is it dead yet?”

“Yes Stross, I think you got it.” Fenora said blankly.

“You can never be too sure. I hate those things no matter what size they come in.” he shivered “All those freaking legs.”

“How does that even work?” Fenora asked “Aren’t you some kind of bug too?”

“Racist.”

“Umm, if you two are done. Could you help me already?” Arvel yelled from behind, offended that they had forgotten him.

Once they had freed him from his cocoon, the dunmer thief proceeded to tell them all he’d learned about the claw and how it fit together with the word wall, and how it was needed to access the inner sanctum of the barrow. All of this at knife-point of course, trying to run immediately after being saved is hardly a way to show gratitude after all.

And so the three of them continued on through the catacombs, with Arvel leading the way at Fenora’s insistence. It was as they reached the first burial chamber that Stross paused. Everything was silent save for the sound of running water deeper in the cave, but something alerted his senses; he called for the others to stop.

“What’s up?” Fenora asked.

“It’s something about these tombs,” Stross told them “There’s… life in them, I can feel it.”

“Life, you mean something is actually living down here; is it more bandits?”

“No way!” Arvel cut in “Even we’re not crazy enough to live down here with all the dead things.”

“It’s really strange, it feels so cold and empty compared to any other life I’ve sensed.” Stross said as he walked over to one of the burial crevices “It feels like it’s coming from these corpses, but that can’t be righ-

Suddenly, the corpse grabbed Stross, latching onto his face with its decomposing fingers.

“Braaaains. Umm, I mean… Aav dilon.” it said as it grabbed him with its other arm as well.

For the second time that day, Stross screamed like a lady, as he tried to pry the Drauger off of him. “No zombie! That is a no-no!”

Fortunately, Fenora was quick to assist him, pulling the drauger off and before hacking at it several more times until the blue light dispersed from its decomposing eyes.

“Thank you!” Stross gasped as he got to his feet “Freaking zombies, am I right?”

“I know, can’t live with them, and they can’t live.” Fenora said as she retrieved her axe “’Cause they’re dead.”

They both shared a good laugh over this, before Arvel got their attention.

“Umm guys, I don’t know which famous and incredibly talented person you’re ripping off right now, but HELP ME!” he shouted as two more drauger closed in on him.

The next few rooms turned out to be more catacombs, some of them lined with pressure plates, swinging axes, and other traps that were a pain in the flank to get past. And to make things worse, they were also filled with drauger.

“Hey, I think I’m recognizing a pattern here.” Stross said as he lit another patch of oil alight, incinerating another walking corpse “Only the ones wearing clothes get up to attack us.”

“Are you being serious?” Fenora asked as she gave a nearby drauger a sword to the face.

“Totally serious. Look,” Stoss walked over to a drauger resting in a wall “This one isn’t wearing anything, and it’s out like a light. But that one,” he pointed to another on the far side of the room “has armor and weapons.”

Deciding to humor him, Fenora pulled out her bow and fired an arrow into it. Sure enough, the drauger woke up and began to climb out of its crevice.

“Huh, that’s good to know.” Fenora said as she fired another arrow and finished it off.

After several detours around collapsed tunnels, they finally managed to make it to what Arvel referred to as the hall of stories, a large empty room with intricate carvings on the walls. The murals depicting some sort of embalming and entombing process that ended with an ascension into a light in the sky. Neither Stross or Fenora really knew what it all meant, but that didn’t really matter, as their goal was now in sight.

But before they could make their way to the door at the end of the room, Arvel ran ahead of them. “You fools.” he shouted as he placed the golden claw into the keyhole “I found the treasure, and I’m not sharing it with anyone!”

It would seem that karma has a way of catching up to you however, as the second Arvel turned the claw, he was pelted with poisoned darts from the walls encircling the doors.

“I have no problems with this.” Fenora stated blankly.

“I’m okay too, surprisingly.” Stross confirmed.

They walked up and took the claw off the traitorous thief, and pondered how they themselves would get through the door. The dragonstone was surely on the other side after all.

“It’s probably these symbols on the door.” Stross spied the animal images “We probably need to put them in the right order. If I adjust each one in by one rotation at a time and use my magic to turn the claw from a distance, then by process of elimination I can-

Once again, Fenora interrupted his ramblings. Quickly adjusting the panels to bear, moth, owl, she then turned the claw. Stross immediately grabbed his elf friend and dove away from the door, but to his surprise, no darts were fired at them. Instead, the door opened and slid into the floor, allowing them to move forward.

“What the- How did you know?” Stross asked her.

Fenora simply held up the claw, revealing the correct combination on the under-side.

“Oh… I never would have guessed but it just seems so obvious now that I know.”

“That’s great Stross, but… could you maybe, get off me now?” Fenora asked, a blush spreading across her face.

Stross only had to look at the position they were in for a split second before practically leaping off her.

“I- umm… sorry.” he stuttered as he helped her up.

Fenora gave a slight chuckle as she led the way into the caves.

The duo reached the main chamber with relative ease, though at one point, Fenora had to force Stross to stop eating all the glowing mushrooms off the cave walls, stating that “Because shrooms.” was indeed, not a valid excuse for stuffing unknown fungi into one’s mouth.

The main burial chamber was actually quite beautiful, if not also foreboding. Holes in the ceiling let daylight inside, and waterfalls rushed down the rocks surrounding a massive black wall. In front of this wall was an ornate stone coffin, and next to that, a chest.

This is naturally were they checked first, searching the chest and the nearby pedestals. To their disappointment, the dragonstone was not there. Suddenly regretting the fact that they hadn’t asked Farengar what the dragonstone even looked like, Stoss and Fenora set about searching the rest of the chamber. After finding nothing but two additional chests behind the waterfalls, they were seriously beginning to wonder what they had missed.

But before they turned around, Fenora noticed something she hadn’t before. It was quiet at first, but grew steadily louder and clearer as she approached the massive word wall in the center of the room.

“Do you hear that?” she asked as she approached it.

“Hear what?” Stross followed her.

“It sounds like voices… chanting. It’s coming from this wall.”

“I don’t know; I’m not hearing anything.” he stared at the scratches on the wall, some kind of language he had no knowledge of “Do you know what any of this says.”

“I don’t know, it’s all kind of… kind of-

Fenora seemed to pass into a trance as she stared at the wall. The scribbles carved into it were entirely foreign to her, and yet they seemed to make perfect sense. She couldn’t read it, but somehow she knew exactly what was written.

“Here lies the guardian, keeper of dragonstone and a force of unending rage and darkness.” she said in an even monotone “Force... force” she lingered on the word as the others became shrouded from view. The one word, ‘force’ seemed to glow now, staying with her, resonating with her. It was only when Stross finally spoke up that she snapped out of her trance.

“Here lies the keeper of the dragonstone? Wait, does that mean what I think it-

It seemed the universe liked to make a game of interrupting Stross, because the moment his realization was voiced, the solid metal coffin behind them was blown apart from the inside. From it stepped a heavily armored drauger, carrying a massive glowing sword.

“Oh shi-

And so a glorious battle was waged within the walls of Bleak fall barrow that day. Though spell-slinging and swordplay, they defeated the powerful undead warrior. The heroic duo’s teamwork won through the day, and they knew that without each other, they would have surely-

Oh screw this.

The truth is, they ran around the room like it was the Benny Hill show until the big zombie finally tripped and landed on its own sword. But hey, a win’s a win.

“I still can’t believe you tried to use me as a meat-shield.” Fenora steamed as she and Stross made their way down the mountain on the other side of the barrow.

“I said I was sorry.” Stross reminded her “And besides, you wouldn’t give me a sword to use. You’d picked up like ten!”

“It was eight swords and twelve axes, that are mine. And besides, you know magic.”

“Have you ever used magic? It’s exhausting.”

They argued the pros and cons of their preferred combat style until they somehow moved on to what foods taste best. Then they talked about what their homes were like, and finally forgot what they were talking about in the first place.

When they reached the outskirts of Riverwood, they were decently tired from lugging roughly five-hundred pounds of treasure with them, and decided that it would be best to rest up for a while before continuing onwards. But first they needed to give Lucan back his claw.

Making their way to the Riverwood trader, Fenora entered first. Stross lingered outside for a second however, as he felt eyes watching him. He looked around to see the townspeople staring at him, pausing in whatever they were doing as they did so. When they noticed him staring back, they quickly returned to what they were doing; a little bit hastier than before.

Stross knew those looks. They were the looks he would receive when someone suspected him of being a changeling back in Equestria. But that was impossible; here in Skyrim no one knew what a changeling was. Wasting no more time in the doorway, Stross entered the shop as well.

Inside, Fenora had just finished returning the claw to Lucan.

“There it is. Strange, it seems smaller for some reason.” Lucan said as he placed it back on the countertop, overjoyed to have it back.

“That might be because of your eye.” Fenora pointed out the large bruise on Lucan’s left eye “What happened?”

“Oh you mean this.” Lucan laughed “It was when Camilla returned with Faendal and Sven in that wheelbarrow. I made the mistake of asking about the claw before I asked about her.”

“And now you won’t forget it!” came a voice from upstairs. Lucan grumbled in response.

“None the less, I owe the two of you a debt of gratitude. I’ve got some money from the last shipment, but you’ve more than earned it.” he handed then a bag of four-hundred septims.

“You’re welcome, I’m glad we could help.” Fenora said as she accepted the money.

“If you don’t mind, could you tell me why everyone’s staring at me out there?” Stross asked.

Lucan sighed “That’s probably because of what Sven and Faendal said as soon as they woke up.” he explained “Screaming at the top of their lungs about some flaming demon from the depths of Oblivion that would rip your soul right out of your body. I’m sorry to say, but you match their description pretty well.”

“I did let those bandits have it pretty hard.” Stross looked at the ground. He just had an idea though “Do you have any blue robes for sale?”

“You both are always welcome in my shop, thanks again.” Lucan called after them as Fenora and ‘Farengar’ left his shop.

It was the first time he’d ever tried to disguise himself as any form of bipedal, but it seemed to work quite well for Stross, especially considering how he’d only seen Farengar once. But then again, he didn’t need to be that detailed with everything, just his face and hands; the robes covered the rest rather nicely.

“So… Farengar… it’s only about four ‘o’ clock. Mind if we stop for something to eat before we get back to Whiterun?”

“We really shouldn’t waste our precious time when there’s important work to be done.” ‘Farengar’ said with his signature lisp “There’s so much about dragons to ramble on about, and so many tedious and potentially dangerous errands to send you out on.” Stross said in an overly sarcastic tone.

“You do that a little too well.” Fenora laughed.

Stross mentally smiled as they entered the inn.

Inside, more than half of Riverwood had gathered around the ‘heroes table’, enraptured as they told about the battle of bleak falls. Faendal and Sven telling of the flaming scourge that slaughtered the bandits, and their daring escape; taking care to leave out the part where they fainted. Meanwhile, Fenora and Stross ate at the other side of the bar, the latter still disguised as Farengar.

Orgnar, the bartender sighed as Stross squished various fruits into a bottle with his bare hands, making quite a mess of the counter. But he could tolerate the mess, as Fenora had bought nearly two-hundred septims worth of food and drink.

“What?” she asked though a mouthful of pie as Stross eyed her “This is the first decent meal I’ve had in like two days. You’re not the only one that gets hungry."

Stross shrugged and got back to pulping his fruit, this time trying to liquefy it with magic.

“So I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Fenora said as she bit into another chicken leg “if there are other changelings like you, and you essentially feed off love or life-juice or whatever, why can’t you just feed off each other?”

Stross nearly dropped the bottle of juice he’d just made. “We can’t do that!” he said, a little louder that he intended. He took a deep breath and began again.

“Back in Equestria, there’s a story about two nobles who fell victim to a love poison. But what the story doesn’t tell, is that those ponies were actually changelings in disguise. Each intended to put the other in a trance so that they could feed off them, but neither knew the other was a changeling as well.” Stross retold the story as best he could remember “I don’t know the exact details of the exchange, but essentially, they were each under the other’s spell; unable and unwilling to break free, each feeding off the other’s energy in an endless cycle. The energy shared between them became more tainted and stagnant with each pass, until it eventually killed them.” Stross ended his story on a sad tone.

“So you see, we can’t feed off each other; energy passed between changelings acts like poison to us.” he sighed “It’s such a shame really. I haven’t met many other changelings like myself, but some I have met were starving to the point they couldn’t move… and I couldn’t help them.”

Fenora scooted closer and put her arm around him. Stross smiled back at her and found she was trying to shove a chunk of sweetroll into his mouth.