“Damn rat!
Always popping out of these dark corners to gross people out!” Sio was fiercely and forcefully stomping on the dead skeever.
Why was Little Dog so angry?
Naturally, it was because the moment she and Kaye walked down the spiral staircase, they were startled by three skeevers rushing out from the shadows.
If she hadn’t dodged quickly, it wouldn’t have just been a few strands of hair the skeevers snatched away, but her eyeballs.
Skeevers, creatures that often lurk in dark corners…
Hmm, they couldn’t exactly be called small animals.
Dealing with skeevers wasn’t difficult, but they carried all sorts of germs.
A moment of carelessness and you’d get infected, necessitating a trip to the temple for healing.
Carefully raised skeevers might become clean, but it was impossible for a skeever to become fragrant and soft.
Kaye just let Sio vent her anger—it was better than bottling it all up.
After crossing the spiral staircase, they seemed to have arrived deeper within Bleak Falls Barrow.
There were no traces of bandits or draugr here, but someone’s footprints had been left behind.
“One person, walking in a hurry.” Kaye rose from his crouch and pointed at the indentations on the ground.
“Wow, you know so much?” Sio teased him with a grin, nudging his waist gently with her elbow.
“…My adoptive father taught me how to track footprints.” Kaye held his weapon in his hand.
“The bandits ahead didn’t have the golden claw, so it must be on this guy.
Be careful.” “Mm-hmm.” Sio became uncharacteristically obedient.
Previously, Kaye had never mentioned any adoptive father to her; she had assumed Kaye only had a mother.
Now wasn’t a good time to ask; she would wait until they were resting~ She followed behind Kaye, also beginning to pay attention to the slight noises around them.
As a Breton with a trace of elven blood, Sio’s hearing was a bit sharper than a human’s.
She could hear some rustling sounds by her ears, like small insects crawling through rock crevices.
Ugh…
she, just a little, really hated bugs.
She hoped it was just auditory hallucination.
But reality was always cruel.
After taking only a few steps, Sio saw spiderwebs clinging to the walls.
The silk was still sticky; clearly, the eight-legged cutie that left the web hadn’t kicked the bucket yet!
“Spiders…” Sio looked disgusted and covered her mouth and nose with her hand.
Not only the walls, but the path leading forward was also sealed layer upon layer by spiderwebs.
They couldn’t proceed without breaking through.
The rapier at Sio’s waist wasn’t suitable for this kind of work!
Her dagger was too short!
Besides, she didn’t want to touch it at all!
She cast a look of appeal toward Kaye.
Looking at her pitiful, watery, large eyes, Kaye had no choice but to shrug and draw his longsword, intending to slash through the webs.
“Who…
is someone coming?
Haknir?
Bjorn?
Thorin?” A voice that didn’t belong to either of them came from behind the webs, the tone flustered and urgent.
Sio could even hear the tugging sounds of the webs as the person struggled.
…Oh, a survivor.
At the same moment the man spoke, Kaye had already slashed through the webs, bringing Sio through the obstruction and arriving at this cavern where the ceiling had collapsed.
The cavern had completely turned into a spider’s nest, with the webs covered in egg sacs and cocoons.
Near the archway, a man with dark skin and pointed ears was entangled in spider silk, struggling and calling for help desperately.
No one cared about a bandit’s life; Sio just let it go in one ear and out the other.
It would be more useful if he died!
But, ah, but…
a huge shadow occupied the void where a faint light shone through.
A massive spider descended from the sky, spitting a glob of venom from its chelicerae.
The moment she saw the spider, Sio was scared into jumping three feet high.
If Kaye hadn’t grabbed her and rolled on the ground in time, she likely would have been sprayed directly by the venom.
Frostbite Spider.
A spider that had adapted to the cold environment of Skyrim and possessed a massive physique.
It was much more dangerous than its cousins active in High Rock or Cyrodiil.
This Frostbite Spider was the largest, but there were obvious scars on its body, clearly left by the bandit who had fought hard but failed, inadvertently leaving an advantage for them.
“We have to deal with it first.” Kaye settled Sio aside and immediately drew his sword to engage.
The spider’s mandibles struck swiftly, and their hardness was comparable to steel.
Even with Kaye’s strength, it was hard to say he could always gain the upper hand in a contest of strength.
He dodged to the side and delivered a horizontal slash aimed at the spider’s joints, forcing the spider back.
It seemed it wasn’t that stupid.
Even if it was just a spider, it could perceive signals of danger and knew how to dodge.
The spider’s compound eyes stared at the two people in front of it.
Perhaps it possessed an intelligence that could be called “cunning.” Rather than continuing to fight these two, it would be better to…
The Frostbite Spider rubbed its chelicerae and slowly retreated until it reached the side of the trapped bandit.
It raised a mandible to press against his neck, neither piercing it nor spraying venom, just holding that posture.
“Is it using that guy as a hostage?” Sio put one hand behind her back and pointed a finger skeptically at the front.
“Save me!
Get it away!
I…
right, you’re here for the treasure too, right!
I know the secret of the golden claw!
If I die, no one will know the clues!” With his life threatened, the bandit didn’t even have the courage to struggle; he could only beg for mercy repeatedly, hoping the two people before him could help him escape.
“Bandits can’t be trusted.” Kaye frowned slightly, trying to warn Sio.
But Sio gave him a mischievous, “plan succeeded” smirk, keeping one hand behind her back as she slowly walked forward.
The moment she took a step, the spider let out a threatening hiss, pressing its mandible tighter, as if it would pierce his neck at any moment.
“Good child.
I’m not interested in that guy’s life, but I like you…” Sio tried to use gestures to soothe the spider’s mood.
Just as the spider felt confused by this, she casually flicked her hand and threw a glass bottle filled with dark green liquid from behind her back.
The glass bottle hit the spider’s chelicerae.
The Frostbite Spider instinctively bit it, and with a crisp shattering sound, the liquid inside splashed out, with the vast majority being absorbed into the spider’s body.
In the blink of an eye, a large amount of thick smoke sprayed from the spider’s chelicerae.
The venom in the spider’s body reacted violently with the liquid in the bottle, causing its body to fester and burn from the inside out.
It couldn’t even bother to continue holding the hostage; it just flailed its limbs wildly, eventually collapsing to the ground, convulsing until it turned into a charred pile of remains.
“Antidote~” Sio lifted one side of her mouth with a finger.
“But this bottle obviously has a more…
potent effect.” Topical antidotes do indeed make the injured person feel a burning pain as if their skin is on fire, but the antidote Sio swiped from Aunt Agna was clearly unrefined, which was why it had such a violent…
effect.
She had even prepared for Kaye to deliver the finishing blow.
“You did it!
While nothing else has come yet, hurry and let me down…!” The bandit entangled in the spiderwebs continued to struggle, eagerly wanting Sio and Kaye to let him down.
“You know.” Sio made a gesture for Kaye to follow behind, while she held her rapier and walked slowly toward the bandit.
She revealed a smile to the bandit.
The smile blooming on her pretty face was enough to intoxicate anyone; even the Dark Elf bandit was stunned for a moment.
Appreciating beauty, after all.
But, why…
was she smiling?
The answer was revealed at this moment.
Sio raised her left arm, and her rapier slashed through the spiderweb, allowing the entangled bandit to regain his freedom and fall to the ground.