The Milk Drinker Ninja (Naruto/Skyrim Crossover)

Chapter 4: A Cold Awakening

'You have been chosen.' A man's deep and seemingly far away voice filled Nia's mind.

"I'm... chosen." Nia mumbled in her sleep as the voice began to wake her.

'You must help them.' The man's voice continued.

"Help..." She mumbled again as she started to open her eyes.

'You are needed.' The man's voice echoed in her head now.

"I am... cold!" Nia shouted to no one in particular as she sat up off of what she guessed was a freezing cold slab of stone before she wrapped her arms around herself to try and stay warm. Though even if she was off of the stone, the air seemed to be the same temperature as each of her breaths blew steam from her mouth. And after looking around her, she soon realized that the temperature was the last of her worries as she found herself in a strange dark room with the only source of light being the candles beside the altar that she was currently sitting underneath.

"W-where..." Nia began to ask before she finally looked towards one corner of the room where a ring of what looked like floating shadows revealed the alley that she'd been in before. Though while it had been empty when she was walking through it, now it seemed to be crowded by ninja and even the Hokage while Kiba seemed to be yelling something and beating his fists against it. Though as he continued to yell, the image started fading before it vanished completely, leaving Nia to wonder just what was happening and why everyone had looked so concerned. But while she was concerned as she watched everyone disappear, Nia soon turned her focus back towards her surroundings as she examined the room that she was in.

With several statues of what seemed to be an extremely angry bird lining the walls, the room only appeared to have one exit which was blocked by a stone door covered in carvings. However, the door was almost too dark to see, especially in the flickering light of the candles before Nia stood and walked towards it while figuring that she would at least attempt to discover where she was seeing as she'd eventually freeze to death if she stayed in the room. And so, after walking to the door, she began to wonder how to even open it seeing as she didn't see any latches or anything similar. But this problem was solved for her when she reached out and touched it as the door started moving by itself, swinging outwards as the sound of stone grinding against stone echoed throughout both the room and the dark hallway beyond the door that was so thickly littered with cobwebs that it would be impossible to walk down it without getting rid of them.

"Naruto, if this is a prank-!" Nia shouted, though she never finished her sentence as she knew that kidnapping and then putting her in such a strange place was a little extreme, even for Naruto. And seeing that even the Hokage seemed concerned and she'd seen them disappear in that strange dark ring, she didn't think that this was any prank. No matter how much she wished it was.

"Hello?!" Nia called out while hoping that whoever had taken her would respond. Though after waiting for several moments, she was only answered by her own voice echoing throughout the hallway. And seeing as it was dark enough that she wouldn't be able to see, she started looking around for a light that she could carry with her while not wanting to use one of the candles seeing as it wouldn't provide very much light by itself. However, she eventually found her light source on the wall beside the door where what looked like an ancient extinguished torch resided on the wall. And after jumping up and smelling it in order to made sure that it still had either sap or oil as an ignition source, Nia had to jump again before she held onto the metal torch sconce and lifted the torch itself free.

Once she had the torch, Nia quickly walked over to the candles before she held her new tool over one of the small flames until it flared to life. And once she had a decent amount of light, she tried the tunnel again while holding the torch in front of her whenever she encountered cobwebs which thankfully made the fire spread rapidly through them until there were holes in the barriers that would allow her to progress. However, even if she was burning the webs, Nia still felt like crying seeing as she was still getting covered in the smaller and less visible webs.

"Hello?!" Nia called out again once she was in the hallway. "It's not nice to abduct someone and then not even introduce yourself, you know!"

Despite her yelling, no one came to greet her. Though Nia had expected as much as she continued through the hallway and the seemingly infinite amount of cobwebs before she burned through perhaps her thirtieth wall of webs and found herself in a large rectangular chamber with four stone support beams in the corners. And even though there were more bird statues in this room, they were all nearly completely covered by cobwebs. Though while she'd just been depending on the torch for light so far, she was thankful for a hole in the ceiling that seemed to lead to the outside as what appeared to be moonlight poured in through the opening and illuminated the room while making everything seem blue-grey in color.

"No convenient ladders..." Nia sighed to herself after a quick inspection of the room. Though her examination did reveal another door at the other side of the chamber, and seeing as she didn't have anywhere else to go, she decided to continue. But while she walked forward, she silently hoped that the person who had brought her here had left her warm cloths beyond the door as she already felt as if she were freezing and the cold gave her a constant reminder that ninja mesh wasn't suited for low temperatures.

Nearly to the center of the room and feeling the large cobwebs at her feet squish underneath her weight, Nia attempted to keep walking forward but suddenly couldn't as something held her right foot to the floor. And while she didn't feel as if anything were trapping her foot, her sandal seemed to be stuck to something before she looked down to see that a massive spider web was clinging to it for some reason even when the others hadn't. And, no matter how much she struggled for nearly a minute, the web refused to both tear or let her foot go before something happened.

In the span of only a second, most of the light in the chamber went dark and Nia wondered what was happening at first until some snow fell on top of her from the hole in the ceiling. However, as she lifted her torch to see why it had dropped seeing as none had been falling before, the blood in her veins froze. And seeing as this was the first time she'd ever seen a spider that was over three times her size, she did the only thing she could think to do in the situations as it slowly descended from the ceiling while heading towards her. And that was to scream.