It wasn't just any day of the week, it was payday. In front of Forelhost, Glyt, Swims-at-Night, and Sails-Through-Storms were eyeing the entrance to the ancient tomb.
"You think the battle down the hill dragged things all the way up here?" Asked Swims.
"Definitely." Replied Glyt, "The camp of the Nord Rebels was surely obliterated by the Imperials and many corpses litter the land."
"Still, we found no living around. Is it normal for battlefields to be abandoned with corpses everywhere?" Asked Sails.
"No." Glyt shook his head, "The winning army loots the losing army. There are also "independent looters" who try to scavenge the fallen soldiers before the winning side but none of that was here."
"My money is that the Undead we found scared off the winners and left this place for fellow looters." Said Swims in a bright mood.
However, the other two looked at him with eyes filled with disappointnt.
"What?" He asked while looking between them.
"If the undead of Forelhost were this mighty, you think we can survive?" Asked Sails.
"While I can deal with the walking dead, the unknowable poses trouble for us." Glyt said, "Swims, you're the one who has been hunting this treasure. I'll leave the decision to you."
"Of course we go ahead until we no longer can." Swims replied naturally.
"I'll turn back and leave if this proves to be too dangerous." Sails, however, showed a different nature from her younger brother.
"Hah! Sister, this is exactly why I am the best Smuggler in Tamriel. I will not shy back from such a minor inconvenience." Swims said proudly while banging his chest.
"Both you and I know that the reason you are the best smuggler in Tamriel is that I don't operate around Tamriel anymore." Sails replied to Swims' taunt with words that made him unable to make a coback.
"What is the story with you two, anyway?" Glyt asked, "You both are old enough to be experienced in your field. But the brother is hunting treasures while the sister is sailing to a different continent. It doesn't fit your smuggler reputation."
Glyt's remark made the two look at him with bothered faces.
"Treasure hunting is just part of the job. It doesn't have to be avoiding Imperial Patrols and sneaking through old caves all the ti, you know." Swims said and then added, "Also, a smuggler must be a great pioneer at finding secret and dangerous routes to be better at what he does."
He then turned to his sister.
"As for her, she is obsessed with Akavir for so reason."
"Not just for so reason." Sails replied with strong emotions, "Traveling to Akavir ans a lot to our family's heritage…"
"Here she goes again." Swims sighed and moved ahead before Glyt and Sails as if he was bothered by what she was going to say.
"Unlike my brother, I am not wasting my talents for re smuggling." She said.
"But you're still a smuggler." Glyt argued.
"That is just a aning to an end, not an end goal to ." She then pointed to the east, "Beyond the Padomaic ocean lies Akavir, a magical land filled with Warriors and unimaginable beauty. A place rarely a native to Tamriel ever reached. Unlike us, the Akaviri people are fully capable of coming to Tamriel and invading our land as they did many tis in history. We, the people of Argonia, pride ourselves to be the original people of Tamriel, the first folk who walked this land even before the Ancient Elves and we share our very essence with the Root of Tamriel."
"But?" Glyt asked.
"But we can't protect our ho if we can't travel out of it." She said, "The furthest place we can reach to the east is the Dragon Isles in the middle of the ocean between Akavir and Tamriel. It is also the land where the Akaviri people don't cross unless they are ant to invade Tamriel. The difference between us and them is that if they want to, they can, but even if we want to, we can't sail to Akavir easily."
"Let stop you for just a mont but didn't we invade a part of Akavir so 500 years ago?" Glyt interrupted her with a question.
"Only because the entire Imperial Legion was dispatched." She said, "Don't get wrong. Sailing to Akavir is not because we are short on good ships or naval charts. It is the Akaviri folk who defend their waters like mad people and they can always intercept you from miles away in the sea. We can't raid them the sa way they raid us."
"They are that good?" Glyt asked.
"They are the best." Sails replied, "Their scouting ability in the high seas is unrivaled and to make it worse, their Weather Manipulation Magic is the bane of all naval enemies. We can't counter them with any of our current ans."
"The only way she managed to get the closest to Akavir is by sailing through a storm." Swims interrupted their chat, "I an… that's how she got her na. Sails-Through-Storms."
Glyt made a long humm but still had a burning question.
"But still, what is your personal reason to get to Akavir?" He asked.
"To smuggle, trade, steal, blunder. Imagine if you are the only one who can get items from Akavir directly without going through the Dragon Isles." She said and made a wide sneer, "I'd be richer than Jon Dare himself."
"And what is wrong with the Dragon Isles?" Glyt said, "I heard they are quite close to Akavir."
[A/n: Ok, from now onward, all the Akavir lore I'm bringing isn't all Canon. I have compiled many texts from the Elder Scrolls series and collected stuff around Akavir with hidden pieces of lore and item descriptions from ESO but many of them will be explained by my personal understanding. Other than that, the non-Canon parts I made are as close as I can get to the Canon hints and the Unlicenced Texts. So of it is also a popular Apocrypha written by the TESLore community so let's call it quasi-Canon from now on.]
"Politically, yes. Still, their cultures are eternal enemies." Replied Sails, "The people of the Dragon Isles are the last known descendants of the Akaviri Humans of old."
"So those people are human, not snake people?" Glyt asked.
"Right. The Samai, they call themselves, ans sworn people of the isles. They are humans pretty much like you. Maybe as tall as Bretons but with a different overall appearance like less facial hair, flatter faces, smaller noses, wider cheekbones, and their skin is almost like the Bosr."
"Huh. Interesting." Glyt said, "Almost everyone is obsessed with the Akaviri races but I've never thought that there is a race like that."
"Don't let them hear you say this." Swims said, "If you don't call them Akavir, you're in for a load of trouble."
"If I co across one, I'll be careful." Glyt said nonchalantly.
The group arrived at the top of Forelhost hill and witnessed the reminder of destruction left by the small encounter from earlier. Unaware of what or who had been here before them, they scouted the area well in order to find that out but all that was left for them was the entrance to the Crypt.
"So… so survivors ended up entering the tomb before us." Swims-at-Night said with a concerned face.
"Or soone strong enough to lay waste to the fight down the hill." Sails-Through-Storms replied with a different idea.
"Hmmm…" anwhile, Glyt started checking the entrance, "Sadly, I have more bad news."
"What is?" Sails and Swims asked.
"Only the dead can enter Forelhost." Glyt pointed out at the inscription written around the entrance, "One must drink poison from that chalice over there and walk ahead."
"Well… that's unfortunate." Sails seed to be disliking the idea, "Whoever entered before us have definitely killed themselves. Drinking poison from this chalice, you don't think…"
"Hey!" But it was Swims that interrupted her, "If that door only opens for the dying, I can brew us a special poison I know, won't kill us… but it won't be pleasant."
"I'll go with that plan then." Glyt seed to be on board with Swims.
"You two are mad?" But it was Sails that started lashing out, "Why in Oblivion would you risk your guts for so ring?"
"Huh! Don't you know what that ring is capable of, sister?" Swims asked.
"Oh, please. Just because that ring worked 200 years ago doesn't an it will work now. Moreover, it can't be in there from the beginning and we're just walking in a pit of certain doom." She said with a persistent tone.
"So you're out?" Swims asked.
"Yes, I am out. My ga is out there in the Ocean, I'd rather die on the sea or on Akavir." Sails turned around and gathered her traveling pack.
"Suit yourself." Swims turned away and didn't bother, "More treasure for anyway."
Glyt saw the exchange and approached Sails as Swims started working on his poison.
"You sure about this?" He asked.
"I don't risk life and limb for sothing I am not fully interested in, especially sothing that is the brainchild of one of my idiot siblings." She said with a confident face.
"I am not talking about this." Glyt smiled at her reply.
Sails stopped what she was doing and looked at her brother's back as she understood what Glyt ant.
"It doesn't matter." She said, "It is only and him in this world and I know he has his own desires. I won't stop him from living his life even if it ant for him to walk into certain death."
"That's a weird kind of love." Glyt smiled.
"You don't have anyone?" Sails asked.
"The only person I care about is in Winterhold… safe… and happy." Glyt replied then a smile slowly appeared on his face, "So… after we survive this, do I get a post on your boat?"
"Ah!" Sails smiled and passed a coin to Glyt, "I always appreciate a brave soul. My ship's docked in Solitude. It will be a few months before I head out but be sure to be there before the eve of the coming Morning Star."
"And that?" Glyt asked while holding up the coin.
"A ticket." She said, "A ticket to Akavir."
***
Deep in Forelhost, not sure how much ti passed, Glyt and Swims-at-Night hid behind a pillar from a volley of deadly arrows that swooshed towards them.
"Fucking Oblivion! Can't you do anything?" Swims shouted at Glyt.
"Your Magicka Dispersing Poison is just draining my life away. Wait until I gather another spell." Glyt replied and worked hard at gathering his Magicka before firing a strong sun spell.
Sadly, that took him almost a minute since his Magicka wasn't regenerating at all.
But after his spell landed on the undead creatures that were bothering them. It gave them enough space to run from behind the pillars with their blunt weapons to bash the heads of those undead.
It was a tough fight that might have ended easily if not for the poison Swims made. He stated before drinking that it would only cause a little headache but what he didn't know is that headache is one of the symptoms of running out of Magicka. He wasn't a spell caster so that was that.
"You okay now?" Swims asked.
"It's bearable. I can feel the effect stopping." Glyt replied, "I only need to drink Magicka potion to recover."
"Do that." Swims passed the potion to Glyt.
"Will take an hour to kick in but let's keep moving." Glyt said after drinking.
The two of them were carefully moving ahead in the Forelhost Catacombs until they arrived at an iron gate.
The two n managed to figure out the chanism and as they moved ahead, they found themselves in a very ancient chamber, one that seed locked from the other parts of the crypt.
In the center of that chamber, there was a certain Sarcophagus and a lot of power was resonating from within. That was noticed by Glyt, however, Swims' reptilian eyes noticed a red gleam on top of that sarcophagus.
"The Ring!" He shouted and stepped ahead.
"Careful!"
But in a split of a second, Glyt jumped and dropped Swims down along with himself.
He felt the power surge from the sarcophagus and just as he predicted, a deep roar ca from within it as its lid ca flying towards Swims.
After saving his friend by a hair's width, the two looked up with pale faces before seeing the thing that ca out to greet them.
"Don't tell !" Swims was on the verge of tears.
"A Dragon Priest! MOVE!"
Glyt kicked Swims away as a blast spell landed in their spot and the two rolled away. It was then that Glyt started to retaliate at the Dragon Priest with spells of his own.
The Magic attacks flew across the chambers left and right, up and down, until the noise started to attract the undead that were originally locked out.
By that, Glyt was facing the Dragon Priest while Swims-at-Night was fending off the undead.
Their tag-team efforts were enough to block the undead from killing them but not enough to prevail in their current state. Glyt was restricted from casting big spells and it started to beco exhausting until he ca up with an idea.
"Swims! Line them up for ." Glyt shouted.
"All of them?" Swims asked.
"All of them… along with the Dragon Priest." Glyt replied.
"Fuck!"
Swims whipped one undead skeleton with his tail and shattered it before starting to run between Glyt and the Dragon Priest while pulling a tail of undead pursuers behind him.
During that, Glyt took cover in the undead as the Dragon Priest started to hit his own allies and lessen the burden on the two of them. Glyt then stopped firing spells and put his right hand inside his robe.
*Click*
And he brandished a blade… an Akaviri Katana Blade… One with a golden blade that was wreathed in Flas.
He raised the blade up and sothing akin to a Dragon's Fire Breath happened.
That was Glyt's trusty companion since the end of the Great War, the sword Goldbrand.
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