It didn't take long at all to find the stairs leading down, and like most buildings throughout Cyrodiil this one contained an extensive basement. The stairs lead to a passage that branched off into several rooms, each with their own purpose and each of various sizes. One was obviously designed as a larder of some description, large enough to contain food for dozens of people and another was an armoury despite the lack of weapon racks and armour stands.

  The largest basement section though was an empty expanse half the size to the courtyard above, but made in such a way that it was obviously used for training as well. Stairs dropped the floor down another metre which allowed those within to wield their weapons to their fullest and in my mind's eye I could easily pick out where training dummies would have been hung. It was in the exact same dimensions and design as the interior training rooms of Legion forts that were used during inclement weather.

  "Mrannd'ssinss." Viconia said softly as we moved into the training hall. "Over there."

  Following the direction of her arm, I saw the recessed portion of the wall and where an obviously sturdy door was set. While made of wood it was extremely well built, reinforced with steel and decorated with a single blood red diamond that covered a majority of its surface. Other than the grime of the years it was in perfect condition and judging with my first glance I would have sworn that the surrounding stone walls would have been easier to batter our way through.

  "Looks like we really are in the right place then." I said simply, recognising the symbol of the Order of the Nine. We moved together, approaching the door and looking at the way the years had been unable to wear or corrode it.

  "Magically reinforced and with wards of protection imbued into the materials. Whoever built this wasn't taking any chances."

  "Powerful?"

  Viconia nodded, scuffing her feet in the dust at our feet as I held a magical ball of flame in my hand to allow us to see. "I wouldn't recommend trying to batter it down with brute force. The feedback from the energies would kill you quicker than a stab to the heart."

  "I'll keep that in mind, but thankfully we know how to open it."

  "The ring?"

  "The ring." I replied, patting my way through the handful of pouches I still were and my pockets until I found Sir Amiel's ring. There was a tiny recess in the very centre of the diamond, a circular crevice that looked very much like a lock. Putting the ring on my middle finger, I pressed the ring and my fist into the locking mechanism, feeling it click into place and allowing me to twist and rotate the lock.

  There was a grinding of stone, the faint hints of metal clinking and groaning as the moving parts came free for the first time in centuries. There was no enormous shift into the floor or sliding away into a hidden recess, instead the door simply came loose on its hinges, shifting away into the void behind and allowing me to push it open.

  "So far so good."

  "The door wasn't the source of the magicka though."

  Viconia's face was slightly pale and I looked between her and the darkened passage beyond the door. "It isn't?"

  "No. Something else through there is extremely powerful and enchanted, and I can't tell what it is."

  "I'm hoping that it's a relic."

  "I'm hoping it doesn't get us killed."

  Chuckling darkly to myself, I lead the way, holding the tiny ball of magical flame in my palm like a lantern to allow us to see where we were walking. The passage behind the door was small, angling down a handful of stairs before opening up against into a room of similar dimensions to the training hall. This was not a simple, single rectangular room but a series of alcoves lining the walls around a central chamber. Each alcove was a couple of meters long and a metre or two deep, some laying empty but others containing what were obviously tombs.

  Each of the tombs were sparely decorated, each bearing nothing more than names and dates. Moving over to the left I stepped close enough to read the engravings, feeling Viconia's presence at my back as I leaned in closer.

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  "Never allow the beauty of the world to be lost on your eyes." My words were soft but sounded extremely loud in the silence of the under croft. "Gregory Arcio. Born, 3E96. Died, 3E124."

  "We've found them." Viconia said softly and I nodded.

  "Which means that with luck the cuirass is here also."

  "The far end."

  Aided with the ball of fire in my hand, I used my vampiric sight to peel away the shadows and I could see that in the direct opposite of the entrance door that another, smaller alcove was set where an armour stand was situated. It was tiny, purposely put out of the way and like the rest of the tomb it was devoid of ornamentation and detail. There were no extravagant signs of wealth and nothing to show the power and fame that the Order had once held two hundred years before. It would have been easy to think that their marble tombs were signs of riches but they were simply made, hand carved and from some kind of locally quarried stone. None of their titles were carved into or near where they had been laid for their final rests, and they all were made equal by death.

  There were however only seven marble caskets in their recesses which left the under croft feeling almost entirely empty. It was obvious that it had been constructed specifically to house dozens of fallen knights, with the option of further excavations to allow for many more. Of the original Knights only two did not lay within the under croft. Sir Berich Vlindrel was buried somewhere between Counties Chorrol and Bruma, and Sir Amiel still lay where he had died in the flooded shrine of the Crusader.

  My hesitation was obvious, and Viconia stood beside me as I made no attempt to move deeper into the under croft towards the armour stand at the far end. "I might just be overly suspicious but does this seem all too easy to you?"

  "It feels like a trap." She replied simply, watching me carefully unclasp my cloak from around my throat and setting it and some of my travelling pouches on the floor.

  "Exactly. Is the magicka still active?"

  There was brief nod from her. "Yes. From the far end and it has been building slightly ever since we entered."

  I could sense the same thing. It was a building pressure growing in the back of my mind and I could feel it beginning to throb. Unlike Viconia I couldn't sense where it was coming from but I could feel it growing. "That's one thing I was afraid of."

  Carefully I began making my way forward, keeping my eyes looking about carefully and taking each step only when I was certain was wasn't going to be setting off a pressure plate or engraved rune. Other than the series of perfectly smooth red tiles making an enormous red diamond in the middle of a sea of white tiles, there was nothing at all suggesting traps. Even with my vampiric sight and senses I couldn't detect anything under the floor, above the ceiling or even in the walls except the building energies as I grew closer to the centre.

  Carved into the series of support columns were a collection of tiny half-bowls where various flammable oils would have once been put to provide light, and as I reached the centre of the room they all suddenly, and spontaneously burst into ethereal flames. The blueish-white lights suddenly lit the room in an intense, but strangely soft and soothing glow that nearly made me fall backwards out of surprise.

  "What did you do?!" Viconia growled from her position near the entrance. Her eyes were looking about in all directions at the strange flames burning impossibly in bowl sconces, long since containing anything flammable.

  "I didn't do anything!"

  "You did something, you triggered whatever enchantments are down here."

  Pushing through the sense of unease I began taking a few steps backwards, first moving as carefully as before and when I hadn't been struck down by a magical bolt of energies I turned and began to run instead. I made it less than five paces before I came to a sudden and sickening halt as the air itself seemed to solidify and become as unyielding as the stone beneath my boots and I was left on my back groaning with blood streaming from my nose.

  "What the fuck is that?"

  "Magical wards you wael. You triggered everything down here." Viconia moved back and forth, her hands outstretched and feeling along the invisible wall of energies that had been erected in the room itself. To my own growing horror as well as hers I soon realised that we were on opposite sides.

  "Can you breach it?"

  "Not without understanding how it is being generated or sustained." She replied, the snap in her tone partially annoyance and the rest building alarm. "Spells like this should be short lived."

  "How short are we talking about?"

  "Ten or twenty minutes." A hand wreathed in glowing energies pressed into the invisible wall and I was left with after images of glowing lights as the entire length of the barrier was revealed for a heartbeat. It was solid and without a single breach, cutting the tomb in two and trapping me within it.

  Viconia's expression was one of growing concern at the way the barrier had reacted to her magicka. "Maybe longer."

  Out of the corner of my eye I suddenly saw the way the air was growing thicker, and I could feel the temperature beginning to drop as the magicka began sucking all the energies out of the environment itself. My breath began steaming and it wasn't long before mist began wafting up from the floor, appearing to somehow grow out of the very tiles themselves.

  "I don't think that we have that long."

  She too saw the mist and nodded simply, her face growing tight with concentration as she began probing the magical wards for weaknesses. Even with the distance separating us I could sense the stabbing sensation in my mind as she drew her magical reserves into herself for the task ahead.

  "Do you hear that?" I asked simply, catching what I could have sworn were whispers emanating from the coiling mist as it rose up around my ankles. There was a strange rumbling that could be felt through the soles of my feet and I was left watching with growing dread as the unnatural fog began boiling out of the tombs themselves.