Labrynthian (Vixen and Cobalt)

Vixen had thought that being the Dragonborn would lead her on some rather unusual quests, however now that she had accepted the Greybeards summon and started to learn how to use her voice correctly, Vixen had been inundated with strange quests and she thought that while some were amusing others made her skin crawl just thinking about them.

That was why she was travelling with Cobalt she supposed, that and the fact that he was a charming man and they got along well together as fellow Dovahkin. Hopefully they would be able to get through the trials at Labrynthian together because she didn't think that she would be able to get through it alone.

When she had first told him about this quest however, he had looked like she had gone half mad with the cold up on High Hrothgar, it was something she didn't think that she could ignore any longer though. She had spent time getting to master her voice and now she needed to go back and help the College locate the Staff of Magnus before it was too late.

Despite the fact they were following a vague hope given by a trail of clues, Vixen and Cobalt were approaching the ruins of Labrythian.

"Oh I sure hope that these people know what they're talking about, this place looks like the prime breeding area for Frost Trolls." she sighed a little bit, her shoulders sagging as Vixen took out her enchanted sword, which would burn any enemy on contact "I hate frost trolls."

Cobalt had decided that the guild(s) could do without him for awhile and had decided to spend some time getting to know Vixen. Along with protecting her if she got out of her depth and the like too of course. Helped that she had a fondness for outfits that were either barely there or skin-huggingly tight. Made walking up the steps to the Greybeards a second time oh so much more rewarding that was for damn sure!

But it came with it's share of weirdness, travelling with a dragonborn mage.

For example, being told that a man who could stop time and a purely magical person had told you to go investigate some incredibly dangerous ruins. Yeah that was a weird one he'd never even thought possible before but here he was.

Sighing a little bit as he cursed himself for wearing his skin tight assassin's gear to a snowy area of Skyrim, Cobalt looked out over the ruins of the place with a growl,

"I can see two right now..." he muttered in annoyance, "And some skeletons on top of the stairs... we're going up the stairs to that big, ominous, gate aren't we? What am I saying... of course we are."

He chuckled a little bit as he withdrew two enchanted daggers (one soul trap and one shock) and began to sneak forwards, leading the way stealthily towards the stairs,

"Stick close and maybe we can avoid the trolls..."

Vixen didn't want to admit it to herself but she was incredibly attracted to Cobalt because in Skyrim it was pretty hard to find someone to fall in love with and have them stick around for any great deal of time she had tried her best to avoid forming attachments to anyone. It seemed impossible where this man was concerned however, he was smart, funny, charming, handsome...the list could go on and on.

Now was not the time to think of such things though, now was the time to focus on getting through these enemies alive at the end of it.

Two frost trolls wouldn't be so bad, hopefully her fireball spell would be able to give them a run for their money while Cobalt took on the skeletons, or well, whatever it panned out like. Although Cobalt might be skilled enough to sneak past trolls she didn't think that she would be.

"Alright, we'll try and sneak past them but I don't think I'm quite as good as you at doing that, if I alert their attention, you carry on and take out the skeletons, then come back and help me if I'm not finished with these two." she whispered softly.

Looking up at Cobalt with wide eyes, a little fearful, Vixen gulped, and like a true Battle Born began to make her way past the trolls carefully with a muttered casting of 'Muffle' Vixen hoped that would be enough to get them past.

"Good luck." she whispered to Cobalt as they continued to move, making their way for the steps.

Cobalt nodded a little bit when she pointed out the rather obvious to him - he was not as good as he was at sneaking. This meant that she was likely to gather some unwanted attention from the two frost trolls on the way to the steps. The skeletons were unlikely to go after her though which meant they would always be up to him.

He grinned and gave Vixen a thumbs up,

"Alright we'll do it that way... means we got a plan for if things go south after all." he agreed with a little chuckle, "If you need help just Shout and I'll come down to give you a hand... I still haven't shown you my Fire Breath Shout yet after all..."

As he was making his way up the stairs with Vixen he could hear the trolls getting angsty, detecting something, so he tapped Vixen on the shoulder,

"They're beginning to notice you but haven't seen you yet... use that as a way of getting a sneak attack in." he advised her, "Good luck."

Sneaking up the rest of the stairs, Cobalt stabbed one skeleton in the back of the skull with his daggers. Drawing his bow, he fired an arrow that smashed the skull of the other one completely into pieces. Breathing a sigh of relief, he turned back to where he had seen Vixen disappear off to,

"Vixen?"

Vixen wanted to squeak when she heard that the trolls were beginning to notice her from Cobalt, she didn't want them to notice her she had cast Muffle so that they wouldn't! Biting her lip softly she began to sneak closer to them, allowing her fists to become a mass of hot flames ready to send into their bodies, to significantly lower their life span.

She could feel the drain on her magika but that was okay, it would regenerate soon enough with the amulet that the Arch Mage had given her to aid her in this quest.

Sending out the two fireballs into the bodies of the frost trolls, Vixen bolted upright and began to backpedal, each hand shooting out attacks as fast as her magika would allow her to generate them until eventually both of the frost trolls were laying dead on the floor. Of course they had gotten some lucky shots in now and again, and a swift minor healing potion took care of the cuts she had gotten from their claws.

"I'm okay!" she called out happily, as she jogged up the steps after Cobalt "I'm alright, both of them are taken care of now, we should hurry though in case we have alerted any others with our attacks." Vixen advised with a small nod.

Taking out the stone ring she fit it into the holders on the door, making it the handle. Turning it, she looked at Cobalt a little nervously before she opened the door;

"Are we ready? I don't know whats going to be in here, but, as long as we watch each others backs, we're going to be okay." she stated with a soft smile "Thank you for, you know, coming with me. I appreciate it."

Cobalt had to admit that the smell of burning Troll fat was not something that fitted well with Vixen's image but there was little to do about it. Shaking his head a little bit, he stuck his tongue out in distaste at the smell,

"Talos they sure smell... but it's strange that they smell more when they're on fire than they do when they're fine." he shook his head, "I honestly didn't think they would be able to smell any worse after all."

Moving closer to the main entrance to the ruin, Cobalt sighed a little bit as he looked up at the massive expanse of creepiness that was the front door. Sighing a little bit, he slowly drew a sword that he kept around for when frontal battles were going to happen no matter what he did. He had a sinking feeling that was what was about to happen now,

"All I know is that whatever is behind that door will immediately try to kill us with no reason for doing so." He teased her before grinning a little bit, "Ah shucks, it's what I'm here for. Now... let's kick some ass!"

Sneaking into the massive cavern, Cobalt immediately regretted it as a dozen skeletons and a massive skeletal Dragon began to assemble themselves. He swallowed thickly before standing up fully and gripping his sword in one hand and his dagger in the other,

"Dibs on the dragon!"

Charging forwards with a roar meant to attract all their attention to him and not Vixen, Cobalt shouted at the dragon,

"Fus Ro Dah!" He roared, battering it's head into a nearby group of skeletons and he began to hack and stab at the skeletal thing with his sword and dagger, "Die again you weird bone thing!"

Vixen blanched a little bit when the gate in front of them opened and immediately they were best upon by skeletons as soon as they entered the cavern underground. It was a horrible thing that they had to go through but there was time to lament about that later on, they needed to focus now on getting rid of the threats at hand.

Seeing as Cobalt was taking on the dragon Vixen gave out a fierce battle cry as she began to pummel the magic using skeletons with fireball throws until one of them went down.

While she had been doing that the frost attacks from the skeletons were taking her health down something rotten, a few stray arrows from the normal skeletons were making her health dangerously low so she ducked behind a pillar and downed two potions of minor healing. A moment later they took effect and Vixen was back on the field again.

Taking out the other magic using skeleton Vixen cried;

"Ugh I. Hate. Necromancers." she declared, the sound of her roaring flames punctuating her sentence for her as the last magical skeleton crashed to the ground, turning to face the others she drew her burning sword "Bring it, we battle borns never back down from a fight!"

She liked to think that if the skeletons were human they would have been scared, but, Cobalt often said she looked no more scary than a startled rabbit most times. Which was pretty degrading.

Cobalt didn't like battling regular dragons, they were massively strong, breathed fire, had tough scales and they liked to battle from high in the air.

But what he had decided he hated even more than a living dragon was a skeletal dragon. This thing had all of the strengths of the regular kind of dragon but instead of scales there were only dragon bones. And they were perhaps the only thing stronger and tougher than Talos-damned dragon scales! With the added bonus on being the only place he could hit the beast,

"Die you stupid sack of bones!" he roared as he stabbed both sword and dagger into the skull of the weakened dragon harder and harder, "Just die! Why the hells... won't you... DIE?!"

Seeing it weakened, Cobalt dashed forwards and pressed his face up against the empty eye-socket of the dragon's skull,

"FUS... RO DAH!"

The top of the skull exploded outwards, killing a few of the annoying archer skeletons as the dragon fell to the ground, falling apart as it did so. Growling weakly, he drew his bow and began to idly, weakly, help Vixen take on a few more skeletons,

"Stupid... dead things..." He muttered before looking down and noticing he had close to a dozen arrows in his chest, "Erm... healing potion please?"

Vixen couldn't help but giggle softly when she heard Cobalt having trouble with the dragon skeleton, she thought that he might need her help when she was done with the smaller skeletons but it seemed as if he had finished with them before she had done taking them out. Which was good because the dragon was the strongest thing there, she would feel bad if he then had to help her out as well as dealing with that.

Seeing the state of Cobalt though when he turned around made Vixen gasp softly;

"Oh of course right away!" she stated, taking three minor healing potions out of her bag "Have these, they should put you back to normal in no time. Do you want me to help you take those out, some of them look like they're stuck in pretty nasty places."

To be honest she didn't think it would be appropriate for her to pull things out of Cobalt's body without his express permission so while he was busy she was gathering up some gold and other loots from the urns and bodies of the skeletons. Frowning a little bit she turned to Cobalt, placing some coins in their joined purse;

"You know what I'm confused about...if these skeletons are wearing no clothes and have no pockets to hide things in to speak of, where do they put the gold coins they have on their persons? Where does it come from?"

Scratching her head a little bit, Vixen smiled, all ready to continue to the next room.

"Are you feeling okay now Cobalt? Should we move on?"

Cobalt winced a little bit as he grabbed an arrow and yanked it out of him, setting it down on the small pile of the things he had next to him as he sat down to repair himself. Taking a deep breath, he gripped around arrow before willing himself to relax... before yanking it out as well with nothing above a small growl of pain,

"Fuck... fifteen." he muttered to himself, "A new personal fucking record..."

Accepting the healing potions eagerly, he chugged all three of them down in record time before sighing as his wounds healed up completely. He wasn't going to complain about the wonders of healing potions but sometimes he wondered what the hell kind of logic they followed. Shaking his head a little bit, he stood back up with his bow and arrows at the ready,

"I have no idea where they hide it all..." He admitted before pausing and shaking his head, "Same place Dragons hide entire chests of gold and warhammers inside their bone-corpses I guess."

Shrugging his shoulders and moving around to see if he was alright, he grinned a little bit,

"Oh I'm ready to move on." He assured her before smirking slightly, "But could you be the one to move ahead first? I think it might... aid my recovery..."

Vixen nodded her head at the logic of some of these things, perhaps they weren't meant to be answered however, and certainly they didn't have the time to ponder about these things now, they needed to hurry up and get to this staff before the college was completely destroyed and Winterhold along with it.

Biting her lip softly when Cobalt asked her if she could go ahead, Vixen nodded her head, although she was so nervous about going first if Cobalt was still hurt then she would be happy to go first. It would be only right.

"That's perfectly fine Cobalt I'll go first, while you continue to heal up, I don't want you getting hurt out there any more than you have to be after all." she stated with a bright smile, which faded a little to a nervous one when she turned away and made her move to descend the stone steps into a colder part of the building.

There were things here, things she had never seen before! Black shadows trimmed with red and purple hazes. What did you do against such things?!

Seeing as she was still hidden Vixen drew her Dwarven Bow and sent a flaming arrow into one of the nearby ghosts, alerting its attention along with the other two in the room, however she was up on her feet swiftly charging at the already damaged spirit with her Burning Flame Sword. Although she wasn't the best physical fighter still, she could but practice to get better in situations like these.

Cobalt didn't have the heart to tell Vixen that the reason why his recovery could be better behind her was that he was planning on looking at her ass as they moved. It would just make her a little bit more self conscious if he did that after all. And he wouldn't want that! He also wouldn't want her to think about taking her tight little ass away from him either it had to be said.

Smirking a little bit as he snuck behind her, his bow readied just in case, he licked his lips as he watched her ass moving in front of him,

"Thank you Vixen but I'll keep fighting if we find anyone worth killing don't you worry." he assured her with a small grin, "After all, I have to protect you now don't I?"

Laughing a little bit to himself as he killed a few of those flaming outline things with some arrows, he rolling his neck as they last of them died,

"I can take point from here." He told her with a grin as he began sneaking forwards, "Follow my lead and we'll kick some ass!"

Of course they'd had to fight some damn drauger but between the two of them they were easily dispatched. The only thing he had to worry about was the drauger deathlord who was 'asleep' in his throne ahead of them, many drauger around him. Thankfully they hadn't seen Vixen and Cobalt,

"Alright see the big guy in the throne? He's not dead - I'd bet my ass on it. So what we shall do is both hit him with arrows from hiding right now!" He grinned as he notched an arrow and pulled it back, "Wait for it... now!"

He fired his arrow and it thundered into the Deathlord's forehead, staggering him even as he stood but even with a large chunk of his health gone, the thing was still alive,

"Arrows from hell! Let's riddle these fuckers with arrows!"

Vixen was unable to stop her small blush when she heard and dwelled on the fact that Cobalt wanted to protect her and was willing to fight with her to protect her, it made her feel so cherished that someone would put their life on the line to help her. Not only in this quest but on so many other occassions she had been fighting with Cobalt, and it occurred to her that she did the exact same thing. She too put herself in danger to help protect Cobalt's life.

Now though she needed to think about what was going on, she couldn't zone out with Draugr everywhere it just wouldn't do. She didn't want a stray arrow to mean the death of her after all.

Fire was the best way to kill these things and so she sent fireballs at the Draugr while she could, while they were sleeping it did untold damage and she hoped that she would be able to continue in this manner for as long as she could. Her magika was holding up and the attacks were not draining it like she had feared they might.

They could do this!

"Okay, I'll try my best to take as much health as possible off this monster!" she whispered softly, her brow furrowed as she circled around the other side, her bow drawn "Oh no, there's his dog here...I wonder if I should shoot that, or the Draugr." Vixen whispered to herself.

When Cobalt went for the Draugr though she did too, taking a large chunk off it's health along with Cobalt. Standing up she charged a fireball and sent it spinning towards the warhound which quickly after two shots collapsed onto the floor, which just left the larger wholly more intimidating figure of the deathlord.

Gritting her teeth Vixen spammed him with flames, making sure not to hurt Cobalt in the process.

Cobalt had to admit that of all the creatures of Skyrim, he hated none more than the Drauger.

They dogged his every step through the ruins which contained all of the best treasures and they had come close to ending his life more times than he cared to ever mention. He sighed a little bit every time he saw one, mainly because every time he saw one it was the one he'd thought he'd killed before. The damn things all looked alike to him!

Except the Deathlords.

They just looked like the most annoying bastards he had ever heard of or seen. The damn thing right in front of him was a very good example of just how annoying they could be. Both he and Vixen had just hit the damn thing in the face with good arrows, good bows, enchantments and from hiding... and it was roughly half it's full strength.

It was ridiculous!

Growling in annoyance, Cobalt noticed that it was going to Shout but he got there first, coating it's head in ice with his Ice Form Shout before repeatedly hacking it's frozen head while Vixen assaulted it with fire spells. With the Deathlord finally out of the way Cobalt and Vixen picked the others apart before resting slightly.

Cobalt kicked the Deathlord,

"The hell are these things..." he muttered in annoyance as another blast of a strange voice robbed him of his magica, "Please tell me we're moving away from that ominous voice... yeah didn't think so... you okay to continue?"

Vixen slumped against a nearby wall as soon as they had defeated the Deathlord, the Warhound, the two Draugr Scourges and the Frost Atronauch. It seemed as if the world did not want them to go and get this staff today, they were doing it to save countless lives here shouldn't the luck be with them just a little bit more than it had been already?

She didn't suppose now was a time to let the sorrows build on her, they had defeated the monsters and that was all that mattered at the end of things. They hadn't bested her or Cobalt and they both lived to fight another day, even if they were exhausted for a small while.

Sitting down on the floor Vixen took comfort in the knowledge she would be safe, at least for now after clearing those beings from the room.

"Ugh I don't know but, I'm developing a keen hatred for Necromancers and their desire to bring these things back to life and make trouble for us!" she stated with a small frown, kicking a pile of rocks next to her shoe "I just need a small minute to rest and then we can keep going if you'd like. I kind of want to get out of here as soon as I can.!

Looking around Vixen grimaced a little bit;

"It's cold, dark and smelly down here. Really not a place you'd be wanting to spend some of your free time. I hope that the mages appreciate this!" she scowled.

Cobalt sighed a little bit and handed Vixen a potion of magica to return the favour for the healing potions she had given him only a little while back. Pulling himself to his feet, he pulled some of his good arrows out of the drauger that they had defeated. Sure they looked a bit nasty now but they would kill his enemies just as well as if they were brand new,

"That's why the Dark Brotherhood have a policy to kill all necromancers on sight." he admitted with a little chuckle, "And pay anyone who will do the same rather handsomely it has to be said. That's how they contacted me originally... I was killing a lot of necromancers in my profession as a dungeon crawler I have to admit."

Smirking a little bit, he shook his head,

"I bet the bloody mages don't even know what to do with the god-damn staff!" he joked, "I bet you end up having to be the one to use it and have to end up fighting that weirdo elf with the 'Eye' thing the mages have been cooing over since it was found."

Shaking his head a little bit, he put a game face on,

"Come on... time to finish this."

The rest of the journey was rather uneventful as far as dungeons go. Of course there were some weak drauger and some skeletons but to be honest there wasn't anything too hard. And only the annoying voice getting louder in their ears led them to believe they were going the right way. Entering a massive chamber with a series of high walls, Cobalt spotted what looked like two of the ghostly mages being forced to keep... something, locked away in a magic ball.

"I'm going to guess what we have to do..." he muttered, "Is kill the two ghosts before fighting that thing they died to imprison... sneak up behind them, sneak kill and then throw down whatever you got at the thing alright?"

Getting into position behind one of the immobile ghosts, Cobalt gave the signal before stabbing it with a dagger, dispelling it instantly. In the same moment he grabbed hold of a scroll he had prepared,

"Lightning!"

Arcs of white-blue lightning shot from his hand to connect with the dragon priest even as it returned fire with it's staff.

Vixen had to admit she would have liked to have stayed in the resting room for a lot longer she didn't want to go out and face what they had to after the Deathlord she wondered just what could be worse than this that would be hidden away at the last room in the dungeon. Hopefully both her and Cobalt would be able to take it on, provided of course there was only one of these things.

If there were more than one well...they might just have to run away and inform the mages they would return with back up later on.

"Alright let's continue, I think if I stay in here too long I will lose the courage to continue on!" she half joked with a soft smile "We will find what is at the end of this nightmare path and when we have finished we can have it's head on our wall as a trophy...eh...so to speak."

With a playful smile Vixen followed Cobalt through the dungeon, only pausing a brief moment to admire his ass in those leather trousers, he never normally went before her at an occassion for her to have a swift look. She'd have to find more occassions in the future.

Seeing, what could only be described as a sheer amount of trouble in the form of a dragon priest, Vixen nodded her head and agreed with Cobalt's plan; "I'll take the one on the left, and you can take the one on the right, then I'll shock the thing to death."

Trying to gather up her courage Vixen slipped on her sneak ring and managed to get behind one of the ghosts, silently she shot at it with a flaming arrow from behind which meant that they were both now free to attack the priest that they had been keeping locked up. To be honest she didn't think it wise to kill them and set it free, it was obviously locked up for a reason but if it had the staff, it had to be done.

"Lightning bolt!" she cried, shooting a heavy stream of electric at the target, backing away slightly to keep it from immediate striking distance.

Cobalt had to admit that she was right.

If they had stayed resting too long he had no doubt that they would have convinced themselves that it was a much better idea just to leave these freaking ruins. And, to be honest, he was convinced that they probably would be better off doing that. After all, anything that would be better than a Deathlord was something he wanted no part in fighting unless he had absolutely no other choice,

"I think if we stay here too long then running away would become way too sensible." he joked a little bit, "I can already tell that it would be a very sensible idea... best get going forwards to do something incredibly stupid then!"

Of course something incredibly stupid was exactly what they got.

How the hell was it even possible that something this magically strong existed?! Everything they were throwing at this dragon priest was pretty much doing nothing because the staff it was carrying was absorbing most of the magic that was sent it's way. Deciding that perhaps something needed to be done about this, Cobalt took a deep breath,

"Distract it enough for me to get close!" he shouted to Vixen, "I'm going to try and Disarm it!"

Rushing along the walkways towards the damn creature, he raised his very seldom used shield in a vain attempt to block some of it's electric magic. Growling in pain, he got close enough to it and grinned,

"Got you!" he roared before Shouting at it, forcing the Staff of magnus to go flying from it's fingertips. He threw himself away from the priest, "BURN IT!"

Vixen couldn't express the helplessness that she felt when she was fighting this man she thought that he was one of the most powerful beings that she had ever seen before and she didn't know quite what to do that would make an impact on his health and bring him down. Alternating different types of magic didn't quite work and she couldn't get close enough to actually lay a hit on the guy!

The stronger forms of his magic were going to be the death of the two of them and she knew that they shouldn't have come on this quest just the two of them it would be ridiculous to think that she could have done this on her own like the Mages wanted her to.

"Be careful Cobalt!" she squeaked when she heard that he was going to try and get closer to him to disarm him, biting her lip she continued to send shocks of electricity towards the dragon priest to successfully get its attention.

Unable to stop herself from crying out in pain when all its attacks, or most of them, were then focused on her she applied some fast healing to herself to boost back up before she got hit again. Hopefully Cobalt would disarm the priest, she was going to reach her limit for magicka soon and after that she didn't know what distractions she could use.

"You got it!" she yelled, uncorking a magicka potion before letting rip with firebolt on both hands, laying into the dragon priest as much as she could and not knowing if it was going to work or not, but praying that it would "It's getting weaker! The health it's going down! Thank the eight!" she laughed happily, continuing to plough her magic into the form of the Dragon Priest.

This priest was not going down!

Even now that it had lost it's weapon of choice the thing was using the same Fast Healing that Vixen herself was using. Growling in annoyance, Cobalt hacked and slashed at the thing with his sword even as it fired point blank fireball after fireball at him. He was a hardy type of guy though so although it burnt like hell he clung on in there and hammered away at it with his enchanted sword.

Of course it then had to Shout at him.

In an ironic twist of fate it used the Shout to Disarm him and Cobalt's weapon of choice went flying off into the distance,

"Motherfuck... that was very expensive!" he growled at the priest before using a scoll, "Eat this!"

Activating a fire storm scroll did some damage but most of it had been blocked by a ward spell the thing had sent up. Growling in anger, Cobalt charged through it's flame attack to tackle it, wrapping his arms around to pin the disgusting thing in a full nelson lock with it's arms pulled to the side. It began to shock him through it's skin and he could feel blood pooling in his mouth,

"Vixen! Hit it with some Ice Spikes or something! Aim for it now while it can't put up a ward!"