The Gemino Glitch

Chapter 7: Fortune Favours the Felix

When she finally caught up with T'ariq, he was crouched in the shadows with fire dancing at his fingertips. Rebecca followed his line of sight to a bandit in the centre of a lit room up ahead. An intense flashback to the game made her throw out her arm to stop him from stepping forward. T'ariq recognised the look in her eye and instead of attacking, sat back to watch, extinguishing the magic with a snap of his fingers. The trio breathed quietly in the dark of the barrow as the bandit pulled a lever in front of him, clearly hoping that it would open the barred door opposite. Sadly, it was instead his doom. Rebecca flinched and had to look away as a moment later he was shot full of poisoned arrows, until his body went rigid and collapsed on the ground.

Rebecca heard the whistle and clunk of the trap stop and opened her eyes, almost gasping in fright to see Felix watching her with a curious expression on his face. She would have scolded him for staring and told him to get a move on had it not been for those ridiculous chocolatey eyes. Rebecca felt herself positively melting in them, sure that he was working some kind of spell to keep her so transfixed. But the next second the fleeting look of interest had disappeared, and was replaced by that irritatingly smug smirk that slapped her back to her senses.

"It looks as though we must shift the pillars in the correct order to open the gate." T'ariq concluded, stroking his chin and peering up at the stone symbols on the walls in front of them.
"Yup." Rebecca grunted as she hauled the first pillar into place, barely glancing up at the depictions as she moved on to the second, and then the third – snake, snake, whale. This mission in particular was essential to every playthrough she had ever completed, hell, to the game of Skyrim itself. As such, Rebecca knew the ins and outs of this barrow like the back of her hand. And, although the real life rendition was a little more exciting, for the most part she just wanted to get it over with.

Walking confidently to the lever, she heard T'ariq draw a sharp breath as she threw it backwards, no doubt in her mind that the gate would clunk open before them. She felt bolder going ahead, knowing that the rest of the enemies in this crypt were all dead. Killing people was something she couldn't quite bring herself to do, but cutting down draugr? Rebecca was quite sure that she could chop and roast all day when it came to the undead.

But as they rounded the next corner, bagging extra gold coins from burial inns and potions from shelves as they went, a chilling draught crept through their bones until the three were shivering quite violently. And, with the whistling wind up ahead came an increase in cobwebs hanging above them. Eventually they found themselves face to face with a doorway covered completely by webs, from which the cold seemed to be emanating.

"Oh no," Rebecca whispered. T'ariq looked at her with concern.

"What is it?" he asked urgently. Rebecca shook her head, squeezing her eyes tight shut as an image drifted to the surface of her mind.

"I just remembered..." she murmured, trailing off as the sounds of pincers clicking and the squirming of long, slimy legs travelled to their ears from behind the doorway. Rebecca slid to the back of the group as subtly as she could, making sure at least ninety percent of Felix's body mass was directly in front of her before she spoke.

"Cut down the webs," she told T'ariq. "And get ready for a fight." He nodded and stepped forward to blast flames at the tangle of sticky webbing while chopping intermittently, until there was a sizeable hole big enough for the three of them to step through. Rebecca felt her heart stop as she caught a glimpse of the giant, furry black body with its long, creepy legs in the next room. It hadn't noticed them enter, but as it turned around, its many eyes like pits of the night, blinking at different times, Rebecca exhaled slowly.

Felix, never missing an opportunity, turned his head a little so that they were inches apart in the doorway.

"Don't worry princess," he murmured, his deep voice sending shivers through her spine. "I'll protect you."

T'ariq and Felix went running off into battle, leaving her behind to shudder at the sudden absence of the Imperial's golden torso against her chest.

"Bloody hell," she cursed, frowning as she tiptoed towards the sounds of battle. "He gets me every damn time!"

Rebecca stepped into the icy chamber, the wind blowing her hair away from her face as T'ariq jumped forward to take a mighty swing at the spider. It screeched in agony as he slashed one of its many legs clean off, a thick, disgusting green liquid spewing from the hole where it had been. But the spider seemed only more enraged by this, and sent another leg crashing down on top of T'ariq, who went skidding across the floor with the force of the blow. Rebecca caught him as he slid towards her, taking his place while he recovered from the stun. She stepped forward cautiously, sword drawn and one hand out, lucky that the spider was more than preoccupied with Felix. Remembering what T'ariq taught her, Rebecca closed her eyes for a split second to conjure up that fiery energy that had been waiting inside of her to burst out. She opened her eyes at the last minute, glinting green with determination. And, to her relief, that tickling sensation returned, blasting out from her hand to burn the spider's flank before she cut it off, feeling the recoil setting in.

Rebecca stepped back to perch on a piece of rubble until her head stopped tipping from side to side. But to her horror, just as that moment, Felix turned towards her, concern in his eyes as she wobbled on her perch. The spider rose up, pincers bared and legs raised. It gave a ferocious scream just as Rebecca shouted a warning, and lunged down on the boy. Felix turned just in time to watch as the spider slipped on a piece of stone, and fell with a rumble onto the ground beside him. Taking the shot that had been handed to him, he plunged both swords into the monster's ugly head. It gave one last squeal before its remaining limbs sagged, and it lay motionless before Felix, a picturesque finish as he leant on his blade.

With that same cheeky glint in his eye, Rebecca saw his gloat coming before he even opened his mouth. "Luck." he shrugged, laughing as he yanked his swords up and out of the spider, now covered with its icky, pungent blood.

Rebecca helped T'ariq to his feet and raised an eyebrow as she passed him, grimacing at the green slime coating his weapons.

"Doesn't look so lucky to me." she shrugged. He shot her an unamused glare, wiping the steel on a nearby thicket of cobwebs.

Rebecca started as a familiar voice sounded from the doorway in front of them, bundled in amongst the webs – Arvel the Swift. Rebecca gave a heavy sigh as she approached him, wishing she didn't know this game so well.

"You, over there! You did it. You killed it!" he gasped. "Now cut me down before anything else shows up." he demanded, struggling against the webs. T'ariq glanced at Rebecca for confirmation.

"The claw first, Arvel." Rebecca held a hand out expectantly. The man blinked, stunned into silence as he momentarily paused his wriggling.

"Well I can't give you anything like this, can I?" he yelled, frantically attempting to wiggle himself free.

"Alright, alright." Rebecca stepped forward to cut him out of the webs, T'ariq following her lead. Her mind whirred to life with different strategies, unsure of how to proceed. Could she justify it to the others if she ran him through once they got him down? Hell, forget the others, she thought. Can I justify it to myself? Killing a spider here and there was not the same as a dead man. She wasn't sure she could do it.

Rebecca held her hand out for the claw, and felt her heart soar in relief when he reached for his pocket. He placed something in her hand, but what, she couldn't tell. Fiona frowned. It certainly wasn't big enough to be the claw.

In one swift motion Arvel yanked on her hand and twisted her to face T'ariq and Felix, now both drawn and watching the two with concern, their eyes flitting back and forth between them. Rebecca felt her breath stop altogether as the familiar cold edge of a knife was pressed against her neck, Arvel the Swift chuckling darkly in her ear.