The tunnel away from the interrogation chamber had only the bare minimum alterations to make it usable. The floor was uneven and in places the passage narrowed until it was barely wide enough for one person. The enchanted lighting was often the only sign that it wasn’t a wholly natural tunnel.
Every now and then, there were forks or side chambers which Hadvar checked for enemies before returning to the main path. There were arrows carved into the ground at each intersection to mark the way, though none of the side passages were very large.
Eventually, they once again heard voices echoing from the tunnels ahead. They back tracked to a wider section and Simon moved to the front.
He crept forward, a fair way ahead of the others. The tunnel was a lot rougher than before, with pebbles and flakes of chipped stone on the ground. Thankfully, his sneak was high enough for him to keep his steps silent so long as he took his time.
After several minutes of creeping, Simon reached the entrance to a cavern several times the size of the last one. It had a curved base with a small pool of water gathered at the bottom and a several metre wide lip which ran around the cavern wall.
On the far side of the cave was a door. It was at least six metres tall, three metres wide and made from a dark grey metal which Simon would guess to be ebony. Although, plenty of things had been different from the game so it could easily have been something else. Countless locksmithing lines were carved across the door. They were so thin and intricate that Simon couldn’t make out much detail from across the cave.
Standing in front of the door was a crowd of Stormcloaks. Simon counted twenty-two of them, which made this group the remainder of the Stormcloak prisoners.
They seemed to be arguing about the door, though half a dozen of them were speaking over one another so it took Simon a little while to figure out exactly what was going on. Annoyingly, they were too far away for him to get any Sneak XP.
The Stormcloaks were divided into three groups. The first and largest, which seemed to be led by Ralof, wanted to head back through the tunnels and fight their way out of Helgen like true nords. Dragon be damned. The second group, championed by a slender woman armed with a pair of daggers, wanted to wait in the tunnels until the dragon killed everyone and leave through the ruins.
The last, and by far the smallest, group was made up of three particularly vocal morons. They loudly declared that they wouldn’t be stopped by “some stupid door.” A minute or so after Simon started watching, one of them raised a massive warhammer and tried to smash it into the door.
A veritable wall of mist appeared to catch the hammer. Its momentum vanished in an instant causing its unprepared wielder to stumble to the floor in a heap. The other Stormcloaks took a moment to laugh at him before returning to shouting at each other about whether they should wait or fight.
With a decent grasp of the situation, Simon slunk back to Hadvar and Larenia. When he reached them, he gestured that they should move further back along the tunnel. When they reached a slightly wider section, out of earshot of the Stormcloaks, Simon took a breath.
“There’s 22 of them.”
Hadvar grimaced. “That’s too many. Any chance they’ll move ahead of us?”
“No, they can’t get past the door. I assume you have a key?”
A delicate, thumb sized key, covered in razor thin Locksmithing lines appeared in Hadvar’s hand. “I do,” he said, “but that many Stormcloaks will wear us down long before we can use it.”
“I thought so,” Simon said, nodding, “but it sounded like they’re going to turn around, either now or in a few hours. We could hide in one of the side tunnels and leave once they’re gone.”
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“I don’t like it. They might not check the side tunnels since they’ve already passed through, but we’d be relying on luck.”
“Why don’t I just take the key and unlock the door?” Larenia suggested. “I’m not an Imperial soldier and,” she looked at Simon, “I didn’t get their leader killed so the Stormcloaks have no reason to see me as an enemy. Once the way is open and they move on, you two can follow at a safe distance.”
“Are you sure you can talk your way past them?” Hadvar asked with a worried frown.
“Yes.”
Hadvar looked taken aback by the diminutive elf’s confidence. His frown deepened and he closed his eyes for several long breaths. When he opened them again, his expression smoothed into a placid mask.
“If you fail, you will be on your own,” he said, holding out the key.
Larenia nodded. She took the key and headed off towards the Stormcloaks, seemingly trying to make her steps as loud as she could.
Simon gave her a thirty second lead before following behind. He made sure to just barely poke one eye around the last corner so that the Stormcloaks wouldn’t be able to see him.
The group of rebels tensed as Larenia approached, raising their weapons in preparation to fight. Once she had their attention, but before the couple of Stormcloaks with bows could fire, she vanished her Imperial armour into her Pocket, revealing the prisoner’s rags underneath.
“And here I was starting to think you were all dead,” she said.
The Stormcloaks’ weapons hovered between ready and relaxed, the contrast between Larenia’s words and actions seemingly leaving them confused.
“I found a half-dead Imperial captain in that last tunnel.” She gestured back towards the entrance to the cave. “He left a trail of corpses behind him. Prick wouldn’t even talk, just came right at me with a sword.”
Ralof made his way to the front of the crowd. “How many dead did you find?”
“Fourteen Stormcloaks, one Imperial inquisitor.”
Ralof sighed, the warhammer in his hands vanishing into his Pocket. “May we meet in Sovngarde,” he muttered before taking a deep breath and refocusing on Larenia. “I’m afraid this is the end of the road, lass.”
“Maybe not,” she said. The key appeared, spun around her finger for a few seconds, then vanished again. “That Imperial had a pretty fancy key in his Pocket. I’d say it’s our ticket out of here.”
Larenia’s plan was solid and she was surprisingly smooth when she wasn’t off balance. Logically, there was no good reason why she should fail. Unfortunately, one of the “Let’s destroy the indestructible door,” idiots existed in a logical blindspot.
“Are we really gonna trust some elf bitch?” he said, somehow managing to make the word elf into an insult. “I say we take the key before she can stab us in the back.”
A solid half of the Stormcloaks readied their weapons again. One of the archers spoke up as she nocked an arrow. “You saw her armour, I bet she sold us out.” Despite making absolutely no sense, that seemed to spur many of the remaining rebels to distrust.
They stood in a tense silence for a few moments. Even from the other side of the cave, even though she was facing away from him, Simon could tell that Larenia was livid.
Then, as Ralof, still unarmed, took a breath and began to turn towards his fellows, the same idiot who had attacked the door charged Larenia and swung his warhammer down at her with a yell.
The tiny elf blurred for a fraction of a second. When she stilled, her swords were in her hands and the Stormcloak attacking her collapsed into a pile of severed limbs.
“You pathetic mayflies are just as bad as the Thalmor,” she spat into the stunned silence that followed. “If you want to do it the bloody way, fine. We’ll do it the bloody way.”
Her right sword returned to her Pocket for a moment as she swept her hand out, unleashing a cone of fire that roiled over the Stormcloaks and caught on cloth, hair and fletching.
As the rebels were distracted by her magic, Larenia shot forward towards them, moving far faster than she had in any previous fight.
With a dancer’s grace she twirled amongst them, striking each rebel twice. Once to drop their Health and once to decapitate, dismember or impale.
In the first few seconds she cut a path to the archers, reducing them to bloody chunks. With the ranged enemies dispatched, Larenia turned back to carve an arc through one side of the group.
There was no back and forth, no trade of blows. Just the futile resistance of dead warriors walking and the incandescent fury of their reaper.
In less than half a minute the 22 Stormcloaks were left in pieces, scattered and splattered across the cave floor. The only sounds were Larenia’s deep, heaving breaths and the slow drip, drip, drip of blood falling from her swords.