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The first thing Talrikir noticed when he woke up was the chrysalis pressing in on him from all sides. He couldn't move an inch. The next was the dull ache throughout his whole body. He pulsed some magicka out to deactivate the pod. A flash of blinding agony ripped through him as he did so. A moment later he was dropped eight feet straight down.

He lay there, dazed and confused for a moment. Then there was a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, are you okay?"

He shook his head a bit and started to pull himself to his feet. The man helped him upright. "Thanks. I'm not great, but I'll live, probably." He shook himself out a bit. Turned out that lying in a void unconscious for...Well, probably some huge amount of time left you a bit stiff. The dull ache persisted and didn't appear to be letting up any time soon.

"Where am I, and who are you-" He stopped when he saw the argonian. His posture was suddenly tense as he subtly got into a fighting stance. The lizard noticed, one hand twitching towards the sheath on his hip. He had the look of a warrior, a good one at that, despite the bad impression of wearing such pitiful equipment. The history of the blade was painful to watch; though it did confirm the lizard was not the owner.

Hadvar frowned at the two and stepped between them. "None of that, we need to get out of here. Alive." He looked at Talrikir next. "We're in Helgen, specifically the lower levels of the keep. That probably doesn't mean much to you. It doesn't matter." The building shook again. "That was the dragon attacking the city, we need to evacuate before this whole place comes tumbling down on our heads. You're welcome to come with us." At that, he and the argonian turned to go.

Dragon? There was a distant shout, followed by a booming shockwave. It was either a dragon or a powerful tongue, and he wasn't staying here to find out. Talrikir hurried after them.

The lizard scoffed when he caught up. He ignored it. Now wasn't the time to start a fight, even if he was an argonian. Figuring out what was going on was far more important.

They slowed when they heard voices on the other side of a small gated passage; two men and a woman. Hadvar spoke, "Stormcloaks, they must be trying to escape too. Let's try to reason with them. Plenty of time to go killing each other later."

Talrikir didn't like it. His hackles raised and he could feel the impending violence. It was time to get ready for a fight, even if you didn't want one. He attempted to conjure a blade on reflex. The spell failed as a surge of pain followed the magicka down his arm.

Talrikir grit his teeth and channeled his magicka again. Liquid fire poured through his arm as he cast the spell. Blue motes of light concentrated around his hand, before quickly forming into the shape of a well-balanced shortsword. He staggered a bit from the pain but managed to hold his concentration to form the blade. When it was done he breathed heavily. "Okay, I'm ready." The pain faded to a low burn as he focused on keeping the sword real. The new steel blade was razor sharp and ready for fighting.

A pathetic display, I can barely manage a single steel sword, it's not even magical. This is bad.

"How are you doing that? The only conjured weapons I've ever seen were daedric, and that certainly isn't." The lizard peered at the blade with suspicion writ plainly across his face. He poked at it with one clawed finger. "Not an illusion."

Talrikir grinned "I'm what you might call a special case."

Hadvar approached the gate. "Hello, I-" He stopped talking when one of the men threw a dagger through the gate. They all stared at the knife, wedged between the stones of the wall.

The lizard chuckled, low and threatening. "Perfect, I need a good fight right about now." They readied swords and Hadvar pulled the chain.

Heracles was the first to charge into the small circular room. He parried aside the blade of one of the men before reaching out with his free hand to grab at the man and smash him hard into the nearby wall. With the nord dazed he turned to engage the other man.

Hadvar squared off against the woman, sword meeting sword as they vied for advantage.

Talrikir dashed in to engage the recovering nord. Steel intercepted iron scant inches from the lizard's back.

"Sorry, but I'm having a very bad day, and you're in the way. Sucks to be you." He shoved the man's blade off to the side and leaned in with a punch to the face. Before he could recover, the fox raised his sword and plunged it into the man's chest. He snarled as the man coughed up blood, before twisting the blade free. The man fell, confusion at having lost plain across his dying face.

He turned to check on his companions. Heracles had just killed the last of their foes. It appeared the woman had bested Hadvar, though failed to finish the fight. He wiped his blade clean on the nord's armor. I can't make weapons like normal, not like this. No way I can concentrate enough to make a second weapon either, not with this pain.

They didn't linger, the dead were not good company after all, and the keep was still shaking from the dragon's attack. The next room lead to a spiral staircase, trailing downward. They passed a portal at the bottom of the stairs and found themselves in a narrow but long storeroom.

There were a few candles and torches to provide sporadic light, along with a low table for eating.

Barrels and crates filled every wall that wasn't occupied by shelves. The main point of attention however was the four nords going through the cupboards.

Hadvar bumped into a torch-post, and the ringing of metal landing on stone echoed out into the room. "Oops." Everyone turned to look at the sharp noise.

The nords drew a mix of shortswords and axes and charged in. Heracles met two of them, though he was forced immediately onto the defensive. Hadvar faced the shortest of them, iron axe to imperial steel. Talrikir squared off against the last one.

His foe-charged sword held high to swing. He caught the blade on his own, only to be met with a vicious kick to the ribs. They broke apart for a brief moment, Talrikir gasping for breath, before clashing again sword to sword. Steel met nordic Iron again and again as they fought. Talrikir managed to push the nords blade to the side. He stepped into the enemy's guard and hooked a foot behind their leg. A sharp push on their chest as he yanked on their foot sent them tumbling to the floor. From there it was as easy as butchering meat to cut them down.

It is far more difficult than it should be to deal with such pathetic warriors. He shook his head and glanced over to see the others looking through the supplies for anything useful. He took the time to rest. The pain was only getting worse, and it was beginning to affect his fighting. He was practically a civilian right now.

His ears perked at the sound of clashing steel from up ahead. Talrikir took up his steel and ran through the far door. The shouts were loud. A larger fight then.

After traversing a few hallways he made it into the next room. It was a torture chamber. No other words could suitably describe the large open room with its cages and tables, each surrounded by various implements. The real giveaway though was the blood. Not a single part of the room was free of stains. A few of the cages had bodies, partially rotted away inside. It was vile. At least his people had the decency to kill the argonians quickly.

In the middle of the room, a pair of nords faced off against a pair of Imperials, one in a set of robes, wielding a small steel dagger. One look was all it took to know that it was a tool, more than a weapon; this was shown a handful of seconds later. The nord blocked the blade with his bracer and sliced deep into the man's collarbone. The Imperial dropped like a sack, gurgling on his own blood.

Talrikir charged in and plunged his sword down to the hilt in the other nord's skull. It was somewhat unfair he thought, attacking from behind. But this wasn't a duel, and he wouldn't die over sentiment. He wrenched the blade back out as the corpse dropped and faced off with the other nord.

Iron flew at him and he raised his sword to block. "You look like you'd make a fancy rug, cat." His foe had an axe in one hand and a large iron shield in the other. Not a good match for a shortsword. He hopped backward from the next strike to think over his options.

"Come on, that's not even the right species. Try again, and I'll give you half credit on the racism if you get it this time." The nord advanced slowly, eyes hard and brow set. Damn, It's easier when they get angry.

Talrikir took his chance. He ran up and kicked the shield with all of his weight and strength behind it. Something crunched in his foot and the nord was knocked backward, shield hand braced against the ground to catch himself. He grit his teeth at the pain of a broken heel. Not good, gotta end this.

He took his sword and brutally chopped into the man's shield arm at the shoulder. With the limb no longer able to hold him the nord collapsed to the ground. Talrikir gave the man no quarter as he raised his good foot and stomped on the back of his skull. Once. Twice. Three times until the bone gave way to a gory mess.

The imperial soldier stood against the wall some distance away, shaking. "D- Don't come any closer." He brandished his weapon, though with the way it was shaking he wouldn't be able to fight a skeever.

Talrikir limped over to a wall as he spoke. "Calm down. If I wanted to hurt you...Well, you've seen how that went for them." Talrikir turned to look at the sound of hurried footsteps. A few seconds later Hadvar and the lizard ran through the door with weapons drawn. They lowered their guard after scanning the room.

Hadvar spoke. "Soldier, lower your weapon. He's an ally." He directed the next comment to Talrikir "You shouldn't run ahead of us in here. It's dangerous with all those Stormcloaks wandering about." He took a slow look around the room and its contents. "By the Nine. I knew that there was a torturer in Helgen but this is... I wish we didn't need this."

Heracles scowled at the man's back, he turned to Talrikir. "You're hurt." Hadvar looked over at that. It was true. He was being careful not to put weight on that foot.

"It's not that bad, just the one broken bone." He grimaced as he tried to walk on it.

Hadvar rushed over and fished around in a sack. "I've got a healing potion. Don't drink it just yet, we need to make sure the bones are set right first. Here, bite down on this, it will hurt." He passed a glass bottle with a reddish fluid and a thick piece of leather over.

Talrikir bit down and closed his eyes. Then Hadvar pressed on the bones. The pain was excruciating. He barely felt scaled hands hold him upright when he started to fall. The next thing he was aware of was someone prying the leather off of his fangs and making him drink.

The potion's magic was intense, minor scratches closed up with brief flashes of searing pain. A moment later it reached his foot. He ground his teeth as the bone fused and the bleeding stopped. He didn't open his eyes again until the pain stopped.

"Better?", Hadvar said.

He gingerly rested some weight on the healed foot before pulling away from Heracles. "Yeah, let's get out of here. Getting sick of this place."

Heracles appeared to have re-armed himself; the iron shield and axe from that nord seemed a much better fit in his hands than the iron sword he had been fighting with. "I agree."

The next room was made up of a series of low platforms connected by short bridges. The path was around the far periphery of the room. Through the center a shallow river flowed, likely for disposing of waste from the Keep and town.

The architecture proved itself to be a challenge for them. Standing on the nearest platform to the entrance was a trio of Nords wielding a mix of melee weapons. The real threat came from another trio of archers on the far side of the room.

As soon as they stepped into the room Heracles pushed Hadvar down to catch a volley of arrows on his shield. The two imperials formed up behind the lizard's shield as they advanced on the close nords.

Talrikir cut the connection to his conjured sword and watched as it shattered into blue bits of floating magicka that quickly burned out. He grabbed the leather from earlier and bit down, before conjuring a new weapon. The pain was stronger, far stronger. He guessed it had something to do with using more than one material, or perhaps it was the larger size. Regardless he bit down hard enough to pierce the leather as he summoned a wooden bow and a trio of arrows.

That done the pain quickly faded back to a dull throbbing as he continued to focus on maintaining the projections. He spit the ruined leather out and stepped into the room with the bow in one hand. In the same motion, he drew and fired a shot into one of the archer's throats.

The stormcloaks immediately shifted their aim, but not before Talrikir could fire another shot. This one struck the second archer in the eye for an immediate end.

The last archer managed to hit him in the arm. He was too slow. He ignored it, barely noticing it through the other aches, and fired his last arrow. A perfect shot into the man's forehead put him down. Talrikir looked over to the side to see Hadvar and Heracles downing potions. The soldier they had rescued was dead; with an arrow in his sword arm and an axe in his chest.

Talrikir snapped the arrow in the middle and slid both ends out of his flesh. He was lucky enough that it had gone all the way through. A healing potion later and he was fine if a bit bloodied.

Heracles was the first to speak. "Impressive shooting."

Hadvar's eyes were wide as he looked over the bodies. "That's more than impressive. I've never seen an archer like that. Where did the arrows go?"

Talrikir let the bow fade, he couldn't hold it much longer through the pain anyway. "I have to maintain anything I make in that way. When I stop feeding magicka into it, the earth bones start remembering that it shouldn't exist, and so it doesn't." He paused for a minute and chuckled when the two made faces at the explanation of higher magic theory.

"Don't trouble yourselves with understanding that; it takes mages years to grasp those concepts. The simple version is that if I don't maintain them, they fade away when the magic runs out; more magic makes it last longer. Why continue to maintain an arrow that has already hit your target?"

Heracles grunted, "Makes enough sense to me. Let's get out of here."

Talrikir grabbed a bow and a quiver of arrows from the dead archers as well as the dead legionnaire's sword. He wasn't sure he could make more weapons right now, and he didn't want to be unarmed if he had to fight again.

The exit took them into a network of caverns. They had to kill a handful of giant spiders that had a rather nasty poison, though thankfully nobody got bitten. The only other threat was a rather large bear that was quickly put down by Hadvar and Talrikir volleying arrows into it from a distance.

A short trek later had them outside. Hadvar pulled them down behind a boulder just in time to hide. The dragon roared as it flew out and over the mountain. A few seconds later it disappeared into the distance. Were it not for the smoke rising into the sky they might even be able to tell themselves it hadn't happened.

"That was too close.", Talrikir said. The other two simply nodded.

Hadvar stood up and brushed himself off. "The closest town is Riverwood. I'm going to be heading that way myself. You're welcome to join me if you want."