As the high elf trudged through the gloaming and the dank that infested the until-recently undisturbed tomb, Aenyarin was very quickly reminded of why she had chosen to step back from the more active parts of her duties. Tombs like this one were not ones she had been intimately familiar with, but she had read enough of the reports to know what could transpire in these hidden-away relics of a civilisation long passed, and she endeavoured first and foremost to not join the ranks of the dead that were laid to rest in here - though she suspected that her own demise may well be significantly more inglorious than the hallowed ceremonies that no doubt accompanied the ancient dead leaving behind their mortal vessels within these very walls.

Merci's magelight was sufficient - it could have been better, she thought - and as it lead the pack of unlikely adventurers further into the depths of the earth, Aenyarin made sure to run over in her mind things that could go wrong. Nordic tombs were frequently infested with traps, and the low light levels did not lend themselves well to rigorously checking wherever one went. Still, if the reports she had read were accurate, the pressure plates that were famous in these tombs had a tendency to exist within the center of the paths to increase the likelihood of the unaware tomb-robbers stepping on them. Aenyarin made a conscious effort to step slightly to the side to avoid any such unfortunate events. When Balen stepped on the very sort of pressure plate she had been worried about triggering herself, she was both amused that one of her lesser companions had triggered the trap, and entirely more derisive that it had been triggered at all. She reasoned to herself that someone had been bound to, but she had expected the Dunmer to be a little more cautious of such things and not quite so wrapped up in his own head that he forgot to look at the ground.

As the draugr begun to animate themselves once more after centuries of inactivity, the group closed in on itself, forming a rough circle with the mages that did not have any obvious physical skills in the center. Aenyarin found herself among the ranks of those in the middle, and begun formulating a plan of action while she still had the luxury of time. When she had to rely on her skill in Destruction magic, Aenyarin had always favoured the element of frost as a means to exhaust her opponents and prolong their suffering - physical pain made the mind much less resistant, after all - but that worked poorly against even living Nords, never mind their deceased brethren. She could hazard a chance at Fire, but she knew very few spells that would not bathe a large area around them in flame and potentially cause harm to people it had no business harming - amusing as it would be to catch the Bosmer or the Nord with a lick of flame, she did not want to endanger herself by endangering her front line of defence against the rising dead.

Unfortunately, before she could finish that train of thought, the dead were already among them. When Venym asked if she could delude the dead into believing that they were still dead, she let out a derisive snort and replied with a haughty quip:

"No more than you can delude your corpses into believing that they're alive again."

The exchange of words did serve as a focal point for the ideas brimming in the Altmer's mind, however, and she may not have been able to delude the dead... But those in the tomb still living could be. She had read once that the illusion of confidence was just as powerful as the real thing, and while she did not know about that specifically, the illusion of an emotion or a state of being often evoked reactions comparable to or greater than the real thing. It was telling of the fragile nature of the mind, and that fragility had always struck Aenyarin as a weak point to be exploited - perhaps there was greater strength in that fragility than she had believed possible. As she allowed the magicka to well up inside her,  she concentrated the intent on that of confidence and bravado, a rally, a call to arms. If she could not delude the dead or risk harming the living, then she would put her primary talent to the best use she could by giving her allies the strength of will they needed to fight at their very best.