“Well, we aren’t getting out that way.” I muttered as I tossed a bit of rubble aside.

Immediately after the ward dissipated everyone went back to the passage leading to the crypt, but Silline had been thorough in her destruction. The entire passage was nothing more than a mound of collapsed stone and it didn’t look like there was a chance we were going to be able to move it by hand. If we were desperate we could try blowing up the rubble even more but we were more likely to bring the rest of the cavern’s roof down on our heads in the process.

No one was panicking just yet though. The cavern was massive and the Ancient Nords rarely built only one way into places like this. There was bound to be another way out somewhere but finding it might take a while.

Which meant Silline was likely in the wind, scurrying back to the Thalmor and the protection of having enough numbers to ward me off from getting to her.

I scowled at the thought, but there wasn’t much I could do about it right now.

“Indeed. The Justicar covered her steps thoroughly, we will need to find another way out.” Erikur agreed.

Thor finally lost the final bit of patience now that it was relatively safe. “I’m sorry, what’s going on? You just kinda showed up and started fighting, and now we’re not?”

“Thalmor were going to kill us. We killed them first.” Jordis explained in her typical blunt manner.

“Kill us? Why? They were the ones that decided to help me in the first place!”

“They just wanted to use you as a meatshield until they found an artifact hidden here.” I disabused him of any notion of the Thalmor being remotely reliable. “Heard a couple of them talking about it on the way here.”

“They were after the Eld...er...the thing sealed in the middle of that structure?” Thor asked, shock in his voice.

Hmm, at least he had gotten a tiny bit better about blurting things out to everyone in the area. It seemed that he had matured slightly since we had gone separate ways.

“Sealed in the structure? I suppose its construction is very odd. It would make sense that its purpose would also be different than preserving the honored dead.” Erikur said thoughtfully. “I’m impressed you were able to deduce its function so quickly however. You must have studied extensively to be so knowledgeable!”

“Y-yeah well, you know what they say. A person’s greatest weapon is their mind.” Thor lied, not that Erikur noticed. He was too busy wandering back to the circular platform we were on earlier; eager to figure out what had been sealed there with Jordis following like a puppy.

The first thing we did was relocate the bodies so there was no risk of them getting in the way. I did notice Thor *accidentally* placing the hand of one of the corpses on the stone steele in the middle of the platform and wondered what he was up to, until I remembered the first part of undoing the seal was to have a stake driven through your hand.

Unfortunately for the Dragonborn there was more to breaking the seal than donating a little blood and potentially crippling your hand.

Now that I had a moment to look around, I saw there were runes all over the place relating to conjuration magic. Or more specifically, relating to different Planes of Oblivion. The first thing I noticed was a bane regarding anything related to Coldharbor. If anyone on the platform had any connection to that particular realm, the seal would not release. It wouldn’t even recognise someone attempting to do so.

A rather clever way to ensure no vampires ever managed to undo the seal even if they managed to find this place.

The next set of runes had something to do with souls. First was the confirmation that whoever was attempting to release the seal had one - which explained why the body Thor used did nothing - and some kind of ritual to siphon off energy and channel it to the center of the structure.

I immediately shared that with the others because the last thing I wanted was one of the nords accidentally getting our souls sucked out because they couldn’t keep their hands to themselves.

“So you know the purpose of this structure then?” Erikur asked.

Yes, but I wasn’t going to come out and say that. “I have a very good guess. The problem is, whoever created this seal did not want the first random explorer coming through here undoing it. Only someone able to withstand multiple soul drains will be able to release the seal. If anyone else tries it is almost a guarantee they will die.”

“Soul drains? I’ve never heard of such magic.” The axe-wielding Nord frowned, looking to Jordis to see if she knew anything.

“Me either.” Though she was just as clueless.

“Isn’t that what mages use to charge soul gems?” Thor asked.

I shook my head.

“You’re thinking of a Soul Trap. It’s a bit similar but instead of capturing a creature’s lifeforce and binding it to a gem, a soul drain pulls that energy directly even though the target is alive. Normally I’d say it is impossible to do to a sentient person because they possess a black soul, but whoever designed this proved me wrong.”

Not that that was especially hard to do.

Conjuration and anything that could possibly attract the attention of the Daedra was something I stayed far away from. I knew enough to hold a conversation, but the practicals and limits of that branch of magic were beyond me and the creator of this structure was clearly a genius of the craft.

“Will breaking the seal mean one of us will forfeit their soul?” Erikur worried, the thought of being denied Sovngarde because his soul was stolen by a ritual clearly unnerving him. “Would it be best to just leave the artifact in place then?”

I shrugged, not letting my true feelings show. I certainly wasn’t going to allow an Elder Scroll of all things sit around where the Thalmor could come back for later but I also wasn’t about to volunteer to have my hand impaled.

Thankfully Thor raised his hand to volunteer like the good hero he was. When the others asked why he was confident the ritual wouldn’t kill him like it might the rest of us he simply responded with the fact he was the Dragonborn like it was nothing.

“You’re truly Dragonborn?! Then you must be an incredibly accomplished warrior! You will have to share tales of your adventures, we would be fascinated to hear them.”

“I’ve only known that myself recently and I’ve been training a lot, but I have some stories! The escape from Helgen, venturing into a tomb to retrieve an artifact, slaying a dragon, and a few others…it's been a busy few weeks.”

I decided to interrupt before we ended up doing nothing but telling stories.

“If you don’t mind, can we save storytime until after we get whatever is hidden here and escape?”

“Spoilsport.”

I gave Jordis a look at her mild betrayal for not backing me up. Granted, while she wasn’t very talkative, she was still a Nord and as such seemed to share a cultural love of boasting. So much for girls sticking together.

-o-

Breaking the seal was fascinating to watch.

Just like I remembered, it started with Thor getting a spike through his hand - though it wasn’t as bad as I expected and easily treated - from there, I was overwhelmed by a complex weave of blood and soul magic I don’t think anyone alive today had a hope of replicating.

From what I could understand, the structure was using Thor’s blood and the energy it siphoned to revitalize what I knew was the vampire sealed inside, but it also was using those things to connect to the several braziers I had ignored as simple light sources. That energy was flowing through carved grooves in the floor and doing…something…

I actually couldn’t tell. It was all kinds of frustrating.

“Woah, that looks so cool…” Thor exclaimed, waving his hand through the air.

I looked closer but there was nothing there.

“You see something?”

The Dragonborn turned back to me and waved incredulously at the empty space.

“Yeah, do you not see the giant purple wall of flames?”

I checked with Erikur and Jordis to make sure, but neither of them saw anything either.

“Well it’s there and the flames are stopping in those little depression here, I think we need to move the torch thingies to keep it going.” And then the fool moved to do just that before anyone could argue against it.

“No wait!”

The brazier slid forward easily despite being made of stone - obviously more magic at work - and stopped in one of the hollows. The second it did so, Thor stumbled like he had been punched in the chest, gasping for breath for a couple seconds before he recovered.

“What the hell was that?”

“I warned you to wait.” I sighed, outwardly calm though my own heart was beating quickly. “The structure is using the energy of your soul to write the unlocking rune, I told you it was basically a series of Soul Drains, but you just didn’t listen. You’re just lucky your soul could take the shock or you’d be dead right now.”

Thor gave the now glowing brazier a nervous look. At least he was smart enough to listen after the fact rather than keep going out of stubbornness.

“So what is the purpose of this ritual then? If anyone can unlock it by just guessing the arrangement it can’t be that secure.” Erikur asked.

“It's not meant to be secure. The only criteria to undo the seal is a soul strong enough to power the ritual in the first place and the knowledge of which rune to use along with an impressive number of banes that prevent certain people from even trying. The problem is there are nearly a hundred and fifty ritual runes, twice that if you consider the reverse runes, and the strain of trying to guess one by one would kill anybody stupid enough to try and brute force it.”

“That's a lot of runes.” Jordis commented.

“They had their purposes.” I said with a shrug. “But there is a reason not many bother with them nowadays. Far too complex and not very flexible. Very long lasting though, obviously.”

“How are we supposed to figure out which one to use then?”

“Well, luckily for us like I said, whoever made this wasn’t interested in keeping everyone out. The correct rune to use is actually written here,” I pointed at a seemingly blank space in the runes covering the main steele. “The rest of the runes in that line form the ‘alphabet’ of the runic language. This blank is where Anse should be. So we just need to write that out and the seal should break.”

“I guess that means I start pushing?” Thor said in a show of bravado, though it was obvious he wasn’t eager to be a human(dragon?) battery again.

“I can tell you how to draw the rune.” I agreed. “But if you feel like you need to rest do not push yourself. We can wait a little more for you to recover, but if you overtax your soul that’s it. There is nothing we can do but wait for it to heal naturally or hope a god decides to intervene.”

So under my instructions, the Dragonborn undid a seal that had probably been in place since the Second Age at least. When the last brazier fell into place, the steele started rumbling before rising out of the ground along with a stone monolith.

I imagine it must have looked much more impressive to Thor, since he could actually see the soul energy while I could only vaguely sense the magika moving through the runes, but even this limited display was an impressive feat of engineering, considering everything still moved smoothly despite centuries without anything resembling maintenance.

The pillar came to a halt and Thor walked up to it without a care.

I must have missed a trigger because as soon as he got close, half of the pillar fell away revealing an attractive dark haired nordic girl who practically fell into the Dragonborn’s arms.

“Wh-what…” the girl rasped, voice dry and rough from disuse.

“Well hello there,” Thor said in a way that screamed he practiced this speech beforehand. “I normally don’t get pretty girls throwing themselves into my arms, but I’d love to get to know you better. How about it?”

…

Everyone - even the newly awakened vampire - just kind of stared at the Dragonborn and his painful flirting. Then Erikur and Jordis noticed what the girl was and things got loud.

’This may take awhile’ I thought, watching as the three nords devolved into an argument on what to do with the vampire that we had woken up.