Icarus crocked his brow at the puzzles this time around. It was quite literally the same thing– same pattern, same portraits above the pillars, same lever.
Icarus snorted as he assigned the stones to their assigned portrait from above. “By the eight, I knew the Nords were dull beasts,” the supercilious tone in his voice would’ve grated on anyone, “But I genuinely did not think that they were this incompe–”
The yank of the old lever was followed by a stream of shrill Altmeri obscenities as darts shot across the room and coating the unfortunate lads inside.<”Fucking shit!”> The justiciar spat, viciously yanking the darts from his arm, <”I did that damn puzzle correctly, what the hell happened?!”>
He immediately spotted the issue- one of the pillars- no, two of them- had been misaligned.
No, that can’t be right, he knew he moved that one!
… Unless…
“Dammit, you two-legged furry bastard!” The high elf spat at his Khajiiti companion, chucking the darts. “How about you don’t touch, and we can get out of this frozen hell hole a little faster?!”
He’d just about had it with this arrogant little brat, ears pressing back as his teeth flashed in the dim light of the barrow.
“I didn’t touch anything! Maybe if you had brains rather than dung in your skull you’d notice I’m way over here, and the pillars are moving way over there!” The Khajiit pulled a dart out of his side, one of the few that had tagged him before he fully realized what was about to happen, throwing it at the mer’s face in frustration and irritation before walking towards the pillars. He’d handle this himself before this damned field trip had a casualty. Or before he got another round of darts shot at him.
There was a brief moment that J’hasi looked over the pillars properly, thinking over which stones he’d seen move in response to the Altmer’s meddling before he started turning them. That one turned three, but that one turned two…
It clicked. The Khajiit moved to each pillar in turn, spinning them to the correct animal shown above it. First the far left, the near left, far right, near right and… His eyes flicked over the stones, double-checking the symbols before pulling the lever, glad that the damned door simply opened rather than giving them another sharp present in response.
J’hasi passed the whelp without giving him a glance, ears flicked back and adjusting his grip on his blades as he headed down a small set of stairs, pausing directly in front of one of those pressure traps like the one Icarus had set off earlier, putting his arm out with a sharp glare at his irritating tagalong.
“Don’t step on that. I have had enough holes put in me for one day.” he snapped quietly. An ear pricked when he heard footsteps, turning around to ready himself against a draugr before…
“Hold on, hold on!” Oh. Tolfdir. The Khajiit relaxed a little as the elder trotted around the corner and down the stairs to meet up with them.
“I thought it high time I caught up with you two. The carvings here are simply fascinating…” J’hasi felt a little relief that someone had joined them. He was starting to seriously reconsider his unspoken promise to the Thalmor brat’s brother and have him find a little ‘accident’ in the barrow. Aldaril seemed to be the only person who would mind, actually. The Khajiit rolled his shoulders a little before he made his way down the next hallway, ears pricked for any signs of unlife, pushing open another set of doors to find…
“Well now…would you look at that…”
vvardenfellcat 