"Come on Edward, let's go already!" Rita huffed, tugging on the sleeve of my robes.

"Fine, I'll go!" I replied, yanking my arm back, "But at least let me get my dagger first- "

"I enchanted it myself," Jorunn mocked in a false falsetto, his hands on his hips, as he watched from the doorframe, "By the Divines, with your head so big, it's a wonder there's any room in here for the rest of us."

Shaking my, apparently quite large, head good-naturedly, I turned towards the plain wooden drawers that dominated my room. I rifled through them, hurriedly collecting my dagger, satchel, and magicka potions. It was as I snagged the last dull, blue bottle that a flash of a similar red bottle caught my eye.

"Do you think I should bring a healing potion or two, just in case?" I asked, lifting the bottle from the drawer.

"Nonsense, Master Marence taught us those healing spells just today, what would we need a potion for? Are we mages, or aren't we?" Jorunn chuckled, as he knocked the bottle from my hand.

"She also said that we should always have a backup, just in case, remember?" Rita offered, "What if we run out of magicka?"

"That's what those magicka potions she gave us are for," Jorunn scoffed, "Either way, I'll meet you guys by the gate. Hurry up, though, or it'll be dark by the time we get there."

"It's a cave, Jorunn, it'll be dark inside anyway!" I called after him, as he walked out, "Hey Rita? Do you really think we should bring the healing potions? I mean, it's just a cave."

"Not really," she giggled, as she bounced toward me, and wrapped her arms around my shoulders.

"Oh," I replied, and gently kissed her forehead, "Thanks for sticking up for me, anyway."

"We've been walking for hours, Jorunn, I thought you said the cave was close!" Rita complained, as we trudged through shin-high snow.

"It is, Rita, we're almost there," he bit out, no more pleased than the rest of us.

We had travelled along the road out of the city, toward the mine that had recently opened, and I was sure we were lost. The heavy snowfall surely hadn't helped, as we could barely see past our Candlelight spell, and just walking was a chore. From what I could piece together, we were travelling parallel to the peak of the mountain, where it met the glacier below. Jorunn was keeping a careful eye on the rough rock of the cliffs, likely looking for the entrance to the cave.

"There it is!" he exclaimed, eagerly pointing towards what appeared to be a slight dip in the cliff ahead.

Rita and I glanced at each other warily as he bound towards the cave, but I shrugged, and we followed him. While from the road it appeared to be nothing more than a divot in the surface of a cliff, closer inspection revealed a yawning cavern just inside. It must have been a new cave, relatively speaking, as there were no stalagmites (or stalactites), though it was clearly old enough that, according to Jorunn at least, there were a multitude of rare fungi growing inside. While I couldn't yet see any of them, the sharp odor of decay confirmed their presence. Jorunn stood proudly at the head of the cave, his arms spread out as if to show off his wondrous discovery.

"Isn't this just great? Imagine all the money we'll make off these ingredients!" he exclaimed loudly as we approached.

"You told us you hadn't explored the whole cave yet, right?" I said quietly, with an arched brow, "Then you don't know for sure what's in here- "

"That's not true! Can't you smell them?" he shouted, waving his hands around wildly, presumably for emphasis.

"I didn't mean alchemy ingredients!" I hissed, lunging forward to cover his mouth, "What's the first thing Master Tolfdir taught us?"

"That magicka is dangerous, and often unpredictable?" Rita guessed haphazardly, though she seemed to know that wasn't the answer I was looking for, as she, too, was whispering.

"No. That's the first thing he taught about magic. The first thing Master Tolfdir taught us was that, 'If you've never been somewhere or done something before, assume it's dangerous.' This cave could be full of Draugr, or trolls, for all we know!"

"So, what should we do?" Jorunn asked softly, comprehension dawning on his face.

"We'll stay quiet, collect the ingredients, and get out. Make sure to stay close, and use Magelight, not Candlelight," I murmured.

I crouched, and slowly crept towards the closest wall, arm outstretched. When I felt the stone brush against my glove, I reached deeply into my magicka pool, and drew it toward my palm. Seizing direct control over the energy, I began to swirl rings of magicka around and through it, directing them against each other as I tightened it into a ball of vibrating power.

Within seconds, a ball of fire had formed within my hand. However, I didn't cast the spell. Instead, I maintained my focus, and used it as a makeshift candle, casting dim light along the wall of the pitch-dark cave. Glancing along the wall, I searched for any of the alchemical ingredients we travelled here for.

"Creepy," I muttered, staring at what appeared to be a very old skeleton, its empty eye sockets glaring into my soul.

Finding the floor to be, otherwise, empty, I began to slow the spin of magicka. I slowly returned to where Rita and Jorunn were crouched, without allowing the magicka in my palm to dissipate fully. I began to spin the magicka again, but I took care to prevent the rings from colliding. The light within my hand began to grow brighter, but the heat present in the last spell was noticeably absent. I added one final loop to the orb, but I left it open, not connecting it to itself in a ring. Instead, I attached the loose end to the cavern wall I had just left and launched the orb along that line.

As the orb of Magelight attached itself to the wall, I used the light it emitted to scan the cavern floor. There were, in fact, many mushroom nodes scattered throughout the cave, mainly what appeared to be Imp Stool and Bleeding Crown. With a shared nod, we began to gather the ingredients.

It wasn't long, however, before things went awry. I was crouched over a node of Bleeding Crown, gently pulling the volva of individual mushrooms from the rest of the node, when the distant sound of the click of heels against stone faintly echoed throughout the cave. I stilled and craned my neck towards where I knew Rita and Jorunn had been. They were still there, staring at me like an elk watching a Firebolt rushing towards it.

"Find cover!" I whispered while I began to scan the area for somewhere to hide.

There was nothing. It was an entirely open room, where the best cover was the very nodes of fungi we had just harvested. And Magelight was still active.

"Shit. New plan. Get over here," I whispered, as I listened to the footsteps getting closer, "We need to try to stay hidden for as long as possible, so stay still, and don't make any noise. If we're discovered, I'll try to talk our way out of it. For all we know, that's just some alchemist out collecting ingredients."

"And if it's not?" Jorunn asked pointedly, and I paused for a moment, considering it.

"Jorunn, you're best at wards, so you'll take point to give us some cover. Try to preserve your magicka, since you're also our best at healing spells," I murmured, "Rita, we all know that your fire spells are terrifying, so you'll deal as much damage as possible."

"I'm supposed to trust my little brother to protect me?" she asked crossly, "I don't think so. I'll stick up front."

"It probably won't matter anyway," I sighed softly, "Even if it's, say, a bandit, I'll be able to use Calm, so we can avoid fighting. So, I guess I'll stick up front. We'll hightail it out of here and report it to the city guard."

"I guess that makes sense," Jorunn muttered, "And we don't have time to come up with anything better. Those footsteps are getting too close."

We sat there in the dark for several minutes, Magelight having finally faded. The steady tap of heals grew gradually louder, and closer, as we waited, and nervous sweat was starting to gather along my spine. Jorunn was shifting nervously, his hands twitching into the first phase of Ice Spike.

While it may have felt like an eternity, it wasn't long before the figure slowly made its way into the chamber. She was cloaked in heavy, darkly colored robes, with a hood draped over her head that concealed her identity. However, her slight form and feminine curves gave away that much, at least, about her. There was a dagger swinging from her hip, barely visible in the darkness, but it was hardly a formidable weapon, so she was likely some sort of mage, or not prepared for combat.

She strode toward the mushroom nodes we had just left and crouched down to look at one of them. She, of course, immediately noticed that they had already been harvested. Tensing, she stood and lifted her face into the air. She gave a long, drawn out sniff, and seemed to know vaguely where we were.

"Strange," I thought to myself, "Perhaps she's a werewolf?"

I didn't have long to ponder it, however, before she was staring directly at me. She had piercing orange eyes that burned with the same light as an ember from the hearth.

"You. Who are you to intrude upon my domain and filch these components I have spent so long cultivating?" she inquired imperiously.

"I can offer only my most sincere apologies, we were not aware that this cave was occupied," I replied, straightening, "Although we can also return what we took, if you wish?"

So far, this was not going at all how I imagined. While she was most certainly not friendly, I had not expected an almost civil conversation with someone I found in such an isolated, dark cave.

"Return them?" she scoffed, shaking her head, "You've uprooted them in such a barbarous fashion that they are surely useless for the purpose I intended for them. No, I have no desire to ever see those ingredients again. But I demand that you leave, and that you never return!"

"I understand," I began, but Jorunn quickly cut me off.

"Vampire scum!" he screamed, launching an Ice Spike towards her.

His spell hurtled towards her, striking center-mass. Unfortunately, Jorunn seemed to have forgotten something quite significant about vampires; they're frost-resistant. She barely flinched as the spell struck, but she instantly raised her arms, her hands already forming the archaic signs of blood-based magic.

I formed my own symbols in response, layering my magicka into a tight, glowing ward that shimmered into existence in front of me.

"That was a mistake," she stated clearly, as she cast her spell- and it flew passed me.

It seemed she wasn't even aiming, but I cleared it from my mind as she began a full-scale assault on my ward with the concentration variant of Vampiric Drain. I could already feel the infectious nature of her magicka eating away at the edges of my shield, turning my own magicka against the spell.

"Use fire!" I shouted, "Vampires are resistant to frost!"

"I only know the basic Flames spell, and I can't cast that around your ward!" he replied, voice tinged equally with fear and hatred.

I was about to reply, when I heard something that will haunt me for the rest of my life.

"Look out!" Rita screeched, and I could hear the rattle of bones and steel.

Knowing I was safe behind the ward, I risked turning to look at them. The vampire hadn't missed with her first spell at all, she just hadn't been aiming at any of us. She had reanimated the skeleton in the corner, sending it towards us while we focused on her, the obvious threat. It had grabbed a sword, and begun sprinting toward Jorunn, who was left defenseless.

It reached him in mere seconds, lunging forward with its sword for a fatal strike. Jorunn was in the final phases of casting a spell to defend himself, due to Rita's warning, but it was going to be too late. The ancient sword pierced through cloth and flesh, killing its victim faster than you could run a hundred feet with the fabled Boots of Blinding Speed. But it wasn't Jorunn that the skeleton struck. Rita had thrown herself between the two, saving her brother's life at the expense of her own.

"Rita!"Jorunn screamed, releasing the Ice Spike he'd been charging directly into the skeleton, who dissolved into a pile of ash.

He was immediately by her side, casting Healing Hands onto her wound, but I knew it was already too late. Healing spells don't work on those who have already died.

I saw red. Though I had to maintain the ward, I began to channel as much magicka as possible into my other hand. I violently seized the power and began to wrench it into a gargantuan ball of flame. My vision began to fade as the spell grew, but I refused to acknowledge it in my fury. With a roar of loss and rage, I sent the Fireball screaming toward the vampire, and promptly lost consciousness.