The battle took place at a high and snowy peak, but I didn't climb the mountainside. I found an entrance somewhere much farther below, thinking that it was a fancy bandit cave and, more arrogantly, that I would have no troubles with it. Turned out to be a Draugr filled, booby-trapped to hell death cave. I, with a paltry sum of potions and arrows and only swag to compensate for it, charged in head first. This roused the angry dead, and they swarmed me. My low stamina allowed me either a few accurate shots or a quick dash away from the skeletal mob. Before long I was overtaken by the ancient Nords, and like that I was back at my prior save. I tried again, and again, and once more, my frustration waxing like a wicked moon. If the Draugrs didn't finish me off, the tripwires and darts and swinging axes would. In my haste, one trap in particular, a swinging wall of spikes, instrumented my doom more times that I could count. My strategy, I realized, was flawed at its core.
I did with Draugr as I did with bandits-- what worked then, though, did not work now. I used to take one stealth shot from a long distance, knowing that they would find me thereafter, and then just pelt them as they rushed me. Bandits, with their weak weapons and armour and their slight health, fell before me as I picked them off from afar, and rarely the did one even reach me before I had slain him. But Draugr, they seemed to laugh ghoulishly at my foolish tactic, and cut me to ribbons.
So, I crept. Slow, steady, unseen and with arrow nocked at max tension for a critical, hidden strike. The eye reticle took on more meaning, and if it so much as peeked, I slipped into a shadow and waited, still, quiet, patient. I slithered to and fro, waking the Draugr and then slipping into the darkness. They all searched and walked around, but I was nowhere to be found. After they stopped searching, reasoning that I had looted the placed and fled, I took what I had come for: Their lives. An arrow whistled, and before anyone could look to see from where, it had pierced through one of their kin, leaving him dead. Enraged, they stormed around with determination sparked anew; but I was nowhere to be found.
I performed this disappearing act again and again until every Draugr in the room was dead and advanced to the next room to repeat, until I found the Draugr equivalent of a bandit chief: A Deathlord. Even my strongest shots, highest tensions and entirely hidden, did not kill this beast, and in fact only served to anger him. He could detect better; as though the shadows were his loyal friends, they denied me shelter. He charged after me with his weathered battleaxe, surely hoping to clean the rust and dust off with my blood. I ran, and he pursued. Thinking fast, I navigated the ancient crypt, remembering the pressure plate and swinging wall. I ran for it, vaulted over the wretched tile, and waited for the Deathlord, arrow drawn fully, well away from the wall. He came, stepped on the plate, and in an instant the wall snapped on him, impaling him with the spikes. It retracted, and he came for me again, the wall not having killed him-- but that was what the arrow was for. I released it, and it burrowed itself in my foe, right between his ghastly eyes. He fell. I looted his twice-over corpse, and then continued.
The Deathlord, it turned out, was only a preview of what was to come. I proceeded through the dungeon, through all the rooms I cleared, until I reached where I'd initially met the Deathlord-- the final room. I exited, and came out on a snowy ledge. I followed the trail, wondering what was at the top. A Shout wall met me, and a treasure chest, and an altar. I knew from experience that the altar would open up and a would-be champion would step out and try to best me. I proceeded anyway, learning the Shout, whipped around with arrow readied to deliver a pre-emptive strike-- and then I saw him. No helmet, just that... mask. He didn't step out of his tomb as I thought he would. Instead, he soared, and before I had time to readjust my aim he rained death from above. Bolts of ice, a most dangerous hail. My arrows, which had brought me such victory before, were too slow to hit the damned Priest, or too weak and too few to kill him. I realized I'd run out before he fell, even if every last one connected.
I hid behind a pillar, and he waited for me; no rush for the cat when the mouse has nowhere to flee. thought about my situation: My arrows would not kill him. I had no sword-- no need for one prior to now. I had only a few potions, health, stamina, and-- magicka. Magic, I realized, might work. I had read several tomes, but since I was on a snowy mountaintop and seeing how he threw javelins of ice at me, I figured fire would be the most effective. It didn't do much damage, but unlike arrows, Magicka regenerates, and what had I learned if not to be patient? So I popped out of hiding and threw flame at him, slowly draining at his health. This occurred for the next thirty minutes or so, until finally, it fell. I cleared the chest and healed my wounds with Restoration, and then approached the Dragon Priest's corpse to reap my prize. I took his gold, his staff, and of course, his mask. Volsung, it said, and on top of being better by several fold than my simple hood, it promised better prices, better bartering, and better carry weight. The ultimate prize for the ultimate challenge. I climbed down the peak with all of Volksygge's treasures, a wealth of gold, a new Shout, a new Mask, and a new understanding of how to use the many shadows of Skyrim.
