Gaming

Thought I'd do a quick little side quest in Skyrim today so I wandered off to the West to a little cave and then explored inside a bit and...
fell down a bit of a hole.
Actually Arissa fell down first and I thought I'd lost her and would have to finish the job without her but apparently she was way ahead of me and that was indeed "The Way".
So down I went too and then fighty scuffles occurred. Then another fight that was a slightly higher level than I expected.
And then another hole. And a door. One more fight. And then...

Hmm, the Ninth Sister could lose a bit of weight.
Imperial uniforms are a bit too tight for that amount of chunkiness.
But...

So I'm wandering sneakily around this rather large royal palace that's populated by faaar too many guards, trying to investigate and work out who is The Snake. Who ...  is The Snake??

 

The high number of guards made it a little risky for big fights so "sneaky" was the right tactic. And I was doing quite well, albeit in a very slow way. I did start the quest when it was night time and easier to hide in the dark but now in bright daylight it's becoming slightly more challenging but even so I was still not detected and had taken out quite a few of the lower level archers and swordy people but... Senu had spotted someone on a ledge below me so I jumped down and killed him with an air attack only to realise that he was stood next to one of those more dangerous chaps with the big heavy mace.
Fight time!
And a few more saw us and joined in.
I survived ...barely... and then began the impromptu unofficial side quest of quickly trying to hide seven bodies in the grass before someone else sees me.
I said, BEFORE someone else sees me!

 

So another big fight then, and after that I'm suddenly expanding that side quest to try and cram twenty bodies in the grass.
Is there enough grass around here to hide all these bodies?
I'm sure there is. Just don't look at the feet.
I said, DON'T look at the feet!

 

But who is The Snake?
And where is the damn key to open that important box? I ended up having to sneak around even longer to try and loot the whole palace and its grounds in the hope of finding it somewhere. It wasn't in any of those places and now it's almost dark again so where is the key??