[The Reach;closed] Here Be Savages...

"Oh, don't worry, I'll catch up before long." She teased.

She took a look at the scene they caused, no doubt the rest of the Forsworn would have heard the racket. "Shame no one's left alive, could have told us where our charge was."

As they stopped at the stairway down the hall, no doubt leading to the upper levels, Asren gave a shrug of her shoulders. "Considering that we're dealing with Forsworn, I doubt they'd care to tell us even if we asked nicely." The nord replied, "Plus, I doubt they'd even be able to say anything. You know how Forsworn operate." she added. The silence from the Forsworn they'd killed was disconcerting to her with only the Dunmer having said anything. Grunts and roars aside, the rest were mute. Of course, Asren wasn't as much of an expert having only encountered such things twice before in the past. Both times were slight glimpses and a brief fight, respectively, however.

Asren shrugged once again and made her way up the stairs, noticing something odd about them. Unlike the ones the two had just ascended, these stairs were relatively clean save for faint traces of bloodstains. The stairs led up in a spiral fashion, nothing seemed at all unusual here but Asren could feel that there was some sort of trap laying in wait. The Nord halted in her tracks, then backed away as she glanced at the walls. She glanced to Amelin and motioned for her to check first quietly.

Carefully, Amelin took a step up the stairway, then another. There didn't seem to be anything indicating a trap, at least not yet.

And then her eyes spotted what appeared to be a wire of some sort. Carefully examining it, she could feel the faint touch of metal, a closer inspection would show that the wire was rigged to some sort of mechanism.

Normally, any other person would have been caught unaware, but Amelin had had plenty of experience, both in laying traps and disarming. It didn't hurt that a Bosmer's eyes were more perceptive, hence their reputation as the best archers in Tamriel.

She motioned to her friend, "Trap right ahead, some kind of wire."

Glancing over at where Amelin motioned, Asren gave a nod before making a quick slicing motion. The tripwire itself looked rather flimsy, allowing it to blend better into the environment, and cutting it would be easy enough.

"Good eye." Asren whispered, her eyes darting up to check for more enemies around.

"Bosmer eyes, remember?" smirked Amelin as she carefully cut the wire without triggering the mechanism and whatever trap it was set to trigger.

"I'll go on ahead, make sure there's nothing else in our path."

The path up the stairs contained a few pressure switches, something those fleet of foot would have no problem dealing with, as well as few more tripwires like the first. At the top of the stairs was a door to the upper levels, and a guard stood posted up top...only the guard wasn't Forsworn.

-----Meanwhile-----

Asren remained behind as Amelin scoured for more traps, stepping with a lightness very few people would expect from one in steel armor.

Amelin found a few more tripwires along the path, each one carefully cut and dismantled, thankfully, it seemed the fort was not yet alerted to their presence, which allowed her to take her time traversing the steps.

At last, they made it to the top of the stairwell, carefully peering over a corner, she looked for any sort of presence.

There was a guard standing near a doorstep, which probably led to the upper levels of the fort. But curiously, he was not wearing the usual hides and leathers of the rest of the Forsworn.

"Asren" she whispered "One guard, but he doesn't appear to be a Forsworn"

Hearing that only made Asren more confused, what had been going on around here? Keeping that in mind, she formulated something in her head.

"What's he look like, is he alone?" The Nord whispered back.

She peered over again for a closer look, the guard was an Argonian, matter of fact, decked in fur armor with an iron sword sheathed in its scabbard and a rather disinterested expression across his face. Amelin swore she could hear him grumble about being forced to be on guard duty, or something to that effect.

"Argonian by the looks of it, and he's alone." She whispered back. "Let's try not to injure him too much, could provide some answers as to what's going on here."

Asren nodded quickly. "Take him, quietly." she said simply as she sheathed her sword and slung her shield on her back with a strap, taking out a dagger and positioning herself by the doorway.

To their luck, the Argonian seemed to be nodding off to sleep, that or merely closing his eyes. Either way, this was Amelin's chance.

With light of feet, she reached for the guard, taking every step carefully so as to not attract noise. Her plan was to grab a hold on the Argonian's sword arm, prevent him from drawing his sword, and press the dagger to his neck. Then, extract any sort of information, but primarily the location of the hostage.

The guard continued to be unaware of Amelin, struggling to keep his eyes open. In one motion, the Bosmer reached for his arm...

The Argonian began to struggle as he was dragged back, but having not one but two daggers to his throat was adequate for him to shut up. Asren nodded to Amelin as she shut the door behind them and motioned for the bosmer to hold their source of information to the wall in the stairwell.

"Wh-what do you want?"
The Argonian hissed almost in a whisper, his eyes filled with terror.

"Okay then, You can start by telling us what's going on here, and why there are both bandits and Forsworn killing each other in this fort. And do try to give us a straight answer." She said as she tightened her grip on the Argonian's arm to provide some extra incentive.

The Argonian's tail flailed helplessly, his pain and fear made worse as Asren's dagger began tracing down to the base of his tail.
"The boss told us we needed a new hideout when the Imp's came and cracked down on us all, so we traveled from the east here. There were still Forsworn here, so we kinda took it from them." The lizard said, trembling intensely as the gigantic Nord grabbed him by the back of the neck and threatened to smash his face against the wall.

"Alright then, so why did we bump into Forsworn that were still alive, hm?" Asren snarled, ready to smash the Argonian silly.

"Th-there are still Forsworn here?" The Arogonian asked in confusion before Asren pushed him towards the wall by a fifth of an inch, about to shriek before he caught himself mid-cry. "Gah! Uhhh...they were probably hiding out or they were away when we showed up..." he muttered.

Asren glanced over to Amelin and shrugged, for all they knew the Argonian was never really 'in the loop'.
"Let him go." She said to Amelin simply, the Argonian's eyes going wide in disbelief.

"I...what." The lizard asked at last.

Amelin frowned, she didn't want to risk him alerting the other guards if she let him go free. Nonetheless...

"You're not going to get another chance." She said as she released her grip. "If you tell anyone else we're here, we'll come looking for you, and I might not be so merciful next time. Now get out."

"Oh, mercy of Stendarr bless you both. I'll never forget this, I swear it to you!"
The Argonian promised, whispering words of thanks as the Nord and Bosmer released him. He backed away from the two, after handing Asren a ring of keys, and ran off. The fact that he didn't seem to set off any of the traps was a miracle left to the divines to explain.

Asren gave an amused smirk, and glanced up at Amelin as she slowly opened the door. "That went better than I'd hoped." she mused after a long silence. The tall Nord peeked out at the hallway, perking a brow as she looked around. "Nobody's up here, but keep on your guard." she warned as she crept through the doorway and raised her shield high.

"Right" she nodded whilst readying another arrow.

The hallway had four rooms with two doors on each side, it was indeed empty as well. Which suggested to Amelin that there wasn't anything of value, hence why the bandits only left one guard. Nevertheless, it paid to be thorough.

"Let's search these rooms two at a time. I'll take the left one"

"Aye. Be careful, friend." Asren bid, taking the room on the right. Inside was a mere bedroom, looking untidy but otherwise innocent enough...at least at first glance.

The room Amelin picked out was locked from the outside, and none of the keys Asren was given seemed to fit with it. Regardless, the lock looked easy enough to pick had the Bosmer any lockpicks on her.

Having used the last key, and still not having unlocked it, Amelin reached for a hairpin, which made it useful as a makeshift lockpick.

Thankfully, the lock was relatively easy to pick, just adjust the tumblers and...there done.

She entered the room, it was the same as the other, albeit a bit less tidy with the bedsheets sprayed about, and dusty too. Otherwise, nothing of interest.

"Other two rooms, same as last time."

Once again; save for a few supplies which were taken quickly, the two found nothing of use. Asren gave a shrug as she walked back into the hallway, eyes scanning everywhere. She wasn't as sharped eyed as Amelin was, but Asren had trained herself to keep an eye out for whatever threats were out there.
"So much for those infamous Forsworn ambushes, guess the bandits got all the fun this time." Asren mused dryly, her guard maintained as before. A scream penetrated the air, and brought the Nord to a halt in her tracks as she strained to figure out what it was. The scream could be tracked to a closed door at the end of the hallway, this could only have been where the 'fun' really was.

"Looks like we go up once again, stay behind me." Asren said at last, creeping towards the doorway with her sword and shield ready.

Amelin nodded, readying another arrow.

If its our hostage...well, we'll see what this is.

Outside the door, Asren and Amelin found themselves a bigger host than before on the fortesses' outside walls. Behind a group of no less than fifteen Forsworn and skimpily dressed bandits was a tower that no doubt led to their charge. However, the men and women facing the two was more of an immediate threat to them. The leader was a breton of late-thirties, clad in only boots and a loincloth with a headdress adorning his head and his arms wrapped in bracers. The Breton glowed with a magical flame in one hand and electricity in the other, his eyes glowing with unholy hatred.

The rest of the enemy had glowing chokers around their necks, like collars given to a warhound of some sort, and carried swords, axes, maces, daggers either made from crude means or forged by blacksmith. A couple even wielded spears; one was more or less a wooden pole with a sharpened rock tied to the tip while the other was an Imperial-forged pike that'd seen years of use and had the rust the match.

Asren, glancing to Amelin with a nod to fire when ready, laid about herself with a vengeance. She cut a swathe through three of them, a Forsworn-clad Bosmer and two Khajiit bandits instantly, decapitating one of the khajiit and disemboweling the Bosmer before knocking another of the feline Bandits to the ground with her shield. The massive nord then brought her shield's edge down on top of the downed Khajiit's neck, severing his head from his shoulders with a roar of effort.

This gave one of the battle-axe toting brigands, a massive orc with a broken tusk and scars all across his bared chest, an opening to charge towards her with a savage roar of bloodlust. Asren swore, hoping to the Nine that Amelin was feeling quick on the draw today...

Amelin caught site of the rampaging orc, she would need at least several arrows to take this behemoth down, and he was already lunging for Asren.

As before, she aimed for the orc's throat and let an arrow fly. Just as quickly as she released the first arrow, she readied another, this one directed at its chest.

Hopefully, it would either kill him, or buy Asren some time to deal with him herself.

The orc was hit in both the chest and arrow, only staggering him slowly enough for Asren to wrench her shield free and tackle the Orc with great force. The nord then ran the Orc through with her blade and twisted the sword hard.

With the four of their number already dead, the Breton ringleader threw a large fireball at Asren, which was dodged by the tall Nord as she called at Amelin "Target the mage!! Break their morale!" Asren signed as she slit the belly of a war-axe toting Argonian and kicked him into the frenzied crowd.

Amelin noticed that she only had a few arrows remaining in her quiver. The mage had also noticed her presence and sent a bolt of electricity towards the archer.

Deciding to make the most of it, she aimed and released another arrow towards the breton's chest.