As before, I approached the Standing Stone.

As happened several times before, words slowly appeared in the Earth Stone.

"Travel northeast to the Cave of the Hidden Music, and hear the Song of the Earth."

Well, directly northeast of the stone was a barrow (burial chamber). We headed there, but it was locked with a boobytrap. Obviously not the cave we were looking for.

We continued northeast for a while, then turned a bit more to the north. I could see that this wouldn't be a very easy cave to find.

What we did find, of course, were more Spriggens, wolves and bears.

Quite by accident, Laurenna called out to me, "Hey, this one had the type of markings on it I think you were looking for."

It was a barrow, but not actually a burial chamber. This had to be the place.

We found a more than a few creatures of the darkness in here, so I went in first, God's Fire spell at the ready.

As we rounded a corner, we found a doorway leading to a much larger cave system. And a very dark creature, seeing us at the door, charged to the attack.

Standing in the doorway, I summoned a Wall of Fire, then took several steps back. Within seconds, the spell took hold, blocking the creature in the other chamber.

It shrieked in it's frustration as it tried to get through the wall that it could not see, killing itself, and yet not knowing that it was doing so.

Eventually, it fell dead, and the spell faded from view.

We went down a number of halls and tunnels, all leading to dead-ends. I was beginning to wonder if we were actually in the right place. We were heading to the exit when I noticed a small tunnel leading upwards along side the tunnel we were already in. Deciding to give it a try, we found ourselves looking at a very large door.

The door didn't open very easily, having to shove some of the rocks behind it out of the way, but it eventually yielded to our pushing and grunting.

Once inside this new chamber, we beheld a most unusual view.

A huge chamber, with a podium at the other end of it. Three stalactites and three stalagmites.

The stalactites at the top of the assembly kept repeating a musical sequence.

As I touched the stalagmites, they also made musical notes, same pitch and key as the ones above.

"What are you supposed to do?" asked Laurenna. "Just listen to the notes?"

"Not sure." I replied. "Let me toy with these stones on the floor and see what happens."

Using my summoned broadsword, I tapped each stalagmite, hearing the note they made. On a hunch, I tried matching the notes in the same sequence coming from the stalactites up above.

Suddenly, the stalactites changed their sequence, as if in response to what I was doing. I had to listen to it a few times, but I eventually, I tried hitting the stalagmites in the same sequence.

As soon as I matched that second sequence, the entire room was filled with sound, as if freed from the very rocks themselves.

"Good guess." Laurenna quipped.

"I guess so." I replied.

"Did you know you were supposed to do that?" she asked.

"Well, er, um, it seemed like the logical thing to do." I replied. "No one said to play music with the rocks, you know; it just said to listen to the music. However, in Aevar's story, he used his mace to strike the stalagmites on the floor, so I figured that was what I was supposed to do."

"Pretty smart." she said.

"Well, they don't call me 'Eldorf the Wise' for nothing, you know." I said, giving her a wink.

Once again, the Stone responded.

"The Gift of the Earth is with the Skaal again. The Lands are rich again, and will bear life."

With that, the Stone gave off a gentle green glow, I guess to indicate that it was happy with us.

We decided to head up to the Water Stone, which was almost directly due north of the Earth Stone.

On our way, we encountered a number of bandits hanging out along the coast.

After dealing with them, I decided to check some of our equipment. Laurenna's armor and shield had taken quite a beating, and based on where we were headed (if we were to believe the map), we'd be heading directly into very frozen territory.

We broke out the tent and camping equipment, and I used some of my armor skills to fix some of the equipment. I only had two hammers with me, and one of them broke half-way through the repairs. The other one lasted long enough the fix all of Laurenna's equipment back to full working order. Since some of those bandits were kind enough to provide us with a full set of Nordic fur armor, I figured this would be a good time to try it out.

"How do I look?" I asked Laurenna.

"You look like a short Nord." she said, smiling.