- Fredas, 25th of Morning Star, 4E 201 -
Fifty gold pieces. That's all I have left at the end of today. This is after making a trip to Solitude to sell some things too. At least yesterday I headed to bed with fifty-three pieces of gold in my pocket. Owning a horse is expensive.
This morning I woke early and got ready to head into the cave. To be honest, I didn't sleep that well, just as I expected. The same bedroll that made my back ache last night is going to be my bed again in a few moments. If I had more gold I'd stay at the Four Shields Inn, but I need to conserve what I have at the moment.
My first steps into the cave this morning brought me to a pile of skulls. That's never a good sign. The cave walls were covered in spider web as well. Also not a good sign. I tightened my grip on my mace and continued.
Just ahead of me I could see a man sleeping on a bedroll. I approached quietly, unsure if this man was a bandit or one of the men from the camp I was using. As I reached his side and tried to wake him I realized he was dead. And to my dismay, he was indeed one of the men from the camp.
I left him behind and moved further into the cave. The tunnel smelled musty, and there was ankle-deep standing water covering my boots. I took careful steps. The water was making it more difficult to move quietly, and I definitely didn't want to alert anything in the cave ahead of me.
Spider! To my right, up a narrow passage, I spotted it. It was a tiny one, and I considered using my mace, but I couldn't see beyond it. It was possible there were more spiders, and if I went in with my mace I could be quickly overwhelmed. I chose an arrow instead and ended it's life. There were no other spiders beyond it, but I did find a chamber with several decomposed bodies. I can't tell if any of them were men from the camp.
The chamber was a dead-end, so I moved back out into the main tunnel. Forging ahead in the water I spotted another small spider in a large room. He was skittering back and forth and appeared to be an easy target. Again I chose an arrow, just to be sure I didn't walk into a trap.
Just as I was about to step into the chamber I froze. I remember one of my grandfather's adventure stories. A story where he and a band of three other imperial soldiers entered a cave, much like this one. They had come to a large room, and in the center were the bodies of the thieves they were sent to retrieve. Before my grandfather could stop him, one of the soldiers ran out to examine the bodies of the fallen bandits. Three very large spiders dropped on him from the ceiling above, and he perished before my grandfather could reach him.
Slowly .. I raised my eyes to the ceiling. It was white with spiderwebs. Not one bit of rock was visible. What was visible were two very large frostbite spiders. Their bodies contrasted harshly with the white webbing. They hadn't seen me yet, and I surely owe my life to that.
A slew of arrows and a flurry of swings with my mace rid the room of the fiends, but not until after I had used my voice against one of them.
I was already feeling very uncomfortable in the cave, and fighting giant spiders didn't help that, but especially it didn't help to no longer have my life-saving ability. To build on my feeling of discomfort I found another one of the men from the camp ... deceased.
I decided to call it a day.
Now I lay my head to the ground and pray Mara have mercy on my soul tonight and keep all of the monsters inside the cave. In the morning I will try and finish them off.