Skyrim Day 029 - Cogwheel Adventure

14 Heartfire, 4E201

Winterhold College

~~~

After a not-very restful nap outside of Ansilvund I was back on the humid road through the springs. I had not gone far before a thief (not a Dark Brotherhood assassin, surprisingly) jumped out of the bushes, literally. I suppose one could commend the man for tradition, if not creativity. 

The worn and dirty Imperial leathers marked him as a likely deserter from the Legion, though the Elven dagger suggested something more nefarious. He demanded my money or my life and I asked him if I looked like I was willing to accept either of those two options. I recommended that he walk away if he wanted to live and to my surprise, he did, backing away and jogging down a path into the hills. Smart man.

The next individual to ambush me was a Khajiit hiding amidst the snow drifts near Windhelm. This time my assailant was a Dark Brotherhood assassin and wielding an expensive Elven sword. I would like to know if the assassins bring their own gear or are equipped by the Brotherhood. It would make putting up with the constant attacks a bit easier knowing I was steadily bankrupting enemies I am not sure how I made.

When I arrived back at Winterhold I visited Birna's shop, sold off some jewelry and gemstones, then hoisted the very heavy dragon claw I purchased from her, with the intention to figure out what to do with it later that day. Like all of my plans, this one did not meet with fruition.

Enthir was gruffly appreciative of having his staff back and handed me Onmund's amulet, a simple gold medallion with a small ruby set inside. Onmund was surprised to see his amulet again and even more to be given it unconditionally. He pledged his undying loyalty, but I assured him that was not necessary. I have not been at the College long, but it is clear that there is no harmony among the students. They will need that once I leave and I hope my easing their personal burdens will allow that to grow, even just a little.

Speaking of the lack of harmony, I tracked down J'zargo next to report on the explosive nature of his scrolls. At my approach he purred that his scrolls had no doubt been magnificent and deflated only slightly when I informed him that they also exploded. Violently. He promised a review of his technique and proudly stated that I had earned the right to fight by his...whenever I needed him. A bit contradictory, but the gesture was appreciated nonetheless.

That left only Arniel and his Dwemer cogwheels. Though not a student, he had approached me about sourcing ten cogs from the Dwemer ruins that dotted Skyrim and I agreed, not realizing at the time how large the things were. I stopped to talk with him while on my way out and inquired as to where the closest ruin was. His answer: Alftand, a few hours walk southwest of the college.

In any other province the distance from Winterhold to Alftand would have taken less than an hour to traverse, but this is Skyrim. I had to contend with a snowstorm during the entire walk, almost plummeted off of cliffs that suddenly appeared in front of me, and was attacked by wolves several times. I finally came upon a crevice marked by Dwemer ruins and eagerly went in, assuming the entrance to Alftand was somewhere just in front of me.

The wind funneling between the hills nearly knocked me flat as I trudged through the snow, but my perseverance paid off, or so I thought. Near the termination of the crevice sat a ruined tower which I thought was the entrance to the Dwemer ruin.

Alas, I was wrong. The tower was just that and each of the two doors inside only led to a single room. It was only when I left the tower that I saw the scaffolding above me, at the lip of the crevice.

So it was back through the little canyon, this time against the freezing wind and around to the top of the hillside, where a collection of hastily-built, dilapidated cottages suggested the origin of the scaffolding that led to the entrance of Alftand. A journal, forgotten and frozen to a table inside one of the cottages, was recently penned.

Its author, Sulla Trebatius, seemed to think that his expedition of seven had stumbled upon a hidden vault of vast treasures and had a notable bias against the College, going as far as to hire an unaffiliated mage at great cost to himself. The journal was only two three pages long and served only to record who had gone into the ruin, not what had happened.

The upper level of the ruin where I and the expedition entered from opened to a cavern of ice. Not far in was a camp site in disarray, the frozen blood spatter suggesting a very rude awakening. Sulla had left another journal here, lamenting the destruction of one of the Dwemer's spidery automatrons, even after it had almost killed two Khajiit that were part of the expedition. Ominously, the journal ended with Sulla wondering to himself whether he had just seen something "humanoid" out of the corner of his eye. Excited, he penned his plan to move the expedition further into the ruin to investigate.

The fool. Anything looking even vaguely human in a Dwemer ruin was almost certainly going to be Falmer and not just one of them. I followed the trail of blood and began to hear someone muttering, quite clearly a Khajiit, one of the two brothers Sulla had hired to swing pickaxes. As I drew closer the muttering became shouting and I thought he was arguing with someone, but if he was the dead body he was standing over was not much for conversation.

When he saw me the mad Khajiit screamed and charged at me with an axe. That did not end well for him.

The ice gradually gave way to the hot gouts of steam and warm metal floors that the Dwemer preferred, but I found no trace of the rest of the expedition, nor of Falmer. I proceeded cautiously, fought a few spider-things, and found three Dwemer cogwheels.

The deeper I went, the more I found evidence of Falmer living somewhere further below. Fresh blood splattered near bedrolls was the most obvious, but then I began to find discard equipment the creatures regularly glue together from the Chaurus they breed and raise.

I found another one of the expedition members, dead of course, wedged into a small corridor beneath some Dwemer machinery. The man scrawled a final message on a piece of parchment, confirming my suspicion that Falmer ambushed and wiped out the small group, though it did nothing to explain the murderous Khajiit rambling near the entrance. Skooma, perhaps.

The group was not prepared for the ambush and they panicked, half of them fleeing for the surface, two of them missing, and the remainder, Sulla and his bodyguard, actually descending deeper into the ruin. What a disaster.

Below a broken spiral ramp was the body of the Orsimer, simply named 'Yag'. Sulla had hired her to keep the laborers, the two Khajiit, in order, but according to the body of the man I found in the alcove, Yag had stuck with him during their retreat, flinging him on to the broken platform before evidently expiring from multiple arrow wounds, all of them fletched in the distinctive style of the Falmer.

I clambered down some pipes near the edge and peered over the edge of her final resting place. Falmer huts were haphazardly scattered on the floor below, but none were occupied. Behind a door guarded by a Dwemer flame-throwing trap I found the Falmer, in all of their misshapen, hideous glory.

They are said to have exceptional hearing and be able to track their prey by scent alone, so I must be getting much better at sneaking about, for every one I killed, save for two, was from behind with my dagger, silent and instant. Good to see I am getting back into my "old" ways, though I do recall that none of those ways involved effective stealth then.

Sulla's rogue mage, the Altmer Valie, was shackled to a Dwemer table when I found her. The Falmer had eviscerated her, hopefully after she died.

Beyond Valie's violent end was either the end of the ruin or the beginning of it judging by the battlements.

After dispatching the Falmer that were sulking about I opened the Dwemer gate and started to walk across the small plaza when a scream suddenly erupted on my left.

It was not a scream from a foe, but the sound of a lot of steam being sent through ancient pipes...I guess. Whatever caused the sound also activated a giant Dwemer machine built to resemble a Dwemer warrior. A massive war-hammer served as one of the thing's arms, the other a battle-ax. If it had other abilities I did not wait around long enough to see them. A dagger against a semi-living siege engine did not seem a fair fight. As I fled, I noticed that the thing had a companion opposite it, but it had long since fallen to pieces.

The machine did not appear to be able to navigate stairs, so once I was on the top of the stairway I felt like I could finally relax...just as two people walked inside the ruin from the door in front of me, each arguing hotly with the other.

Their argument identified them as Sulla Trebatius and Umana, the pair which Sulla's journal described as loyal and inseparable. I was surprised to see that Sulla was no scholar, but a powerful-looking Legionnaire. Opposite him was Umana, a Redguard with an axe and a cruelly spiked buckler. As I sneaked behind a pillar their arguing grew more violent only to be cut short with a gurgling sound. Umana had smashed Sulla in the throat with her shield, the spikes ensuring his life was extinguished quickly.

She muttered something and started to search the twitching corpse, no doubt very surprised to suddenly find my hand over her mouth and my blade in her neck. So ended Sulla's expedition to Alftand and I never learned what he thought he was going to find here. As for me, I found eight Dwemer cogwheels, two short of what I had sought.

I thought it was close to midnight when I finally emerged from underground and was a bit confused when the sun rose during my walk back to Winterhold. The College was settling down for breakfast as I dumped the cogwheels on the floor.

I hope they can eat quietly, because I am going to bed.

Oblivion Day 29 - Counter-Assault on Oblivion, Part 4

25 Heartfire, 3E433

Anvil

~~~

As I have been doing lately, I woke very early in the morning to give myself enough time to ride from Skingrad to Anvil while also leaving extra time for any Gates encountered on my way. I anticipated finding many Gates around the ruined city of Kvatch, but as I passed the blackened city only one Gate made an appearance along the road.

The Gate led me to the smaller world which required that I stumble around a gradually ascending cave system which led to the plane's Tower, fighting Scamps and Clannfear the entire way. Waking up early paid off though, for when I stood before the destroyed Gate it was still early in the morning, though the sun had risen. As I trudged back up the hill towards the road I heard the sounds of combat in front of me. By the time I got to the road it was already over; a Legionnaire was standing over the bodies of the Scamps the Gate's destruction had driven away. He greeted me cordially and told me that the Legion was sending what troops it could spare to the locations of known Gates, not to close them, but to slay the Daedra as they emerged. That takes a little of the burden off of my shoulders, though it will do nothing to stop additional Gates from emerging.

A second Gate lay on a hill overlooking the city and must have been quite a sight for the city's residents at night. This is keeping with what I have already seen: two or three Gates opened close to each city by cultists stationed within the cities.

Curiously this gate also led to the same world as the Gate near Kvatch did, only somehow with the Clannfear, Scamps, and Dremora alive and well. I suppose it is possible that each Gate is connected to a separate, tiny piece of Oblivion instead of a few select locations as I originally suspected, but whatever the case I still had to fight my way through the caves for a second time today.

I have been noticing as of late that my reserve of Magicka energy has been regenerating itself. At first it was a slow thing and I thought little of it, but now I can cast a simple Illusion spell and feel just as refreshed in a few minutes as if I had slept for several hours. I can only assume this has something to do with Dagoth Ur's so-called "Divine Disease" and is a secret I will be very sure to keep to myself.

Closing Anvil's Gate turned out to be a very profitable venture for me. On the body of one Dremora I found an amulet enchanted powerfully enough that I cannot determine what it actually will do when worn. The local Mages Guild will be able to tell me what the enchantment is and it will be quite powerful, whatever it is.

Like Skingrad's gate, Anvil's was opened over a shrine, utterly destroying it.

The Gate itself was nothing special and night had fallen by the time it was destroyed. The gate guards had watched me charge into the Gate and gratefully let me in despite the late hour. Only guards were walking around inside, so I went to the Mages Guild where one of the members congratulated me on eliminating the threat to the city. 

No one else was awake, so I have secured an empty bed and will spend a day or so in Anvil before riding all the way to Bravil. One of the things I will be seeking to do at each city is to try to root out the cultists that have been opening the gates. The brazen attack on myself at Skingrad proves that they are still here, I just need to find a way to bring them to me.

Morrowind Day 29 - Beneath a Red Sky

13 Hearthfire

~~~

You never know how a day that begins in Morrowind will end. Today started pleasantly enough at the familiar Balmora Mages Guild and ends in the forlorn wastes of the Ashlands. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I reviewed my notes for the next Propylon stone over breakfast. The next stone somehow ended up as an offering at the small outpost of Maar Gan, which is situated against the west side of the Red Mountain. I wonder how the stone came to be an offering, for no devout pilgrim would offer up what he thought was a useless stone, yet someone knowing what the stone was would probably try to sell it to a mage. Maybe I'm underestimating the pilgrims' faith. Either way, I faced the task of pilfering the Falasmaryon Index from a presumably well-staffed Tribunal shrine. I remember hoping I could just buy the Index from one of the priests, which only shows how little interaction I've had with the Temple so far.

Before leaving, I left the ring I had found at the tomb near Gnisis with Galbedir to see if she could figure out what it did. Masalinie sent me to Ald'Ruhn and I decided to walk to Maar Gan, assuming the trip would be somewhat hazardous, but mostly boring, the daylight limiting the amount of predators in the Ashlands. What I had not counted on was what Heem-La at the Ald'Ruhn guild called a "Blight Storm", the weather of nightmares.

The sky was the same blood-red sheet of lightning as it was when I was inside the Ghostgate, but I suffered none of the ill effects I had before. The guards were still patrolling the town and people were going about their business, their faces protected with full helmets or wraps of cloth. The dust limited visibility even worse than the usual dust storms, but the Ald'Ruhn Caravaner refused to take the silt strider out. As he explained, the storm was dangerous not only due to the visibility issues, but Blight storms have a peculiar way of bringing out Vvardenfell's worst creatures, some of them enough to seriously wound or kill a silt strider. So I was stuck on my original plan and started walking, very slowly and cautiously, north to Maar Gan.

Ald'Ruhn during the storm

I should not even have bothered. The red sky conspired with the dust to render it even more opaque than usual and I was reduced at times to crawling on my hands and knees along what passed for a road, lest I tumble down the side of a cliff or blunder into one of the many large rocks that dot the Ashlands. The Caravaner was right about the creatures, though his warnings about "the most dangerous ones" strike me as rather exaggerated: all I ran into were crazed Nix Hounds and hungry Kagouti. I think he just did not want to go anywhere in the storm, which certainly seemed the saner decision. Between the red sky and the constant threat of attack in a storm where visibility was barely five feet my nerves were on edge by the time I glimpsed the Maar Gan silt strider, though physically I managed no worse for wear.

Maar Gan is less of a town and more of a cluster of buildings surrounding a lonely temple. It seemed an odd location to build a temple, but I learned from one of the residents that Maar Gan was built on the site where Vivec, thousands of years ago, taunted the Daedric Prince Mehrunes Dagon into throwing a rock at himself instead of his followers.The shrine contains the actual stone...or so I'm led to believe. Pilgrims travel to Maar Gan in order to re-enact this historical event by taunting a captive Dremora held permanently in the shrine. Blessed by a powerful defensive spell prior to the ritual, the pilgrims cannot be harmed and the Dremora cannot be harmed. While I obviously bear no affection for Dremora of any kind, this seems a very unfair and pointless arrangement.

Before snatching the Propylon stone I visited the few services the place offers.The local blacksmith had a steel longbow in terrible condition that I was able to buy for a steep discount. It will be good practice for my repairing skills, as well as a better weapon than my short bow.

I came across a small memorial to a warrior named Ravila Neryon, who fell while she was attempting to cleanse a local egg mine of the Blight. The date of her death was not given, but the memorial's decorations looked fairly new and given that they were also undamaged I assume her body was not recovered.

An unusually talkative Dunmer woman struck up a conversation with me as I was admiring the memorial and confided that she thinks she'll be having a lot more memorials to dust in the coming months, as monsters have been managing to get through the Ghostfence and attack pilgrims and even the town itself once or twice. House Redoran has been soliciting volunteer fighters to defend Maar Gan and the response has been surprisingly good, but in the Dunmer's opinion, it would take a concentrated effort by all of the great Houses to eradicate the threat for good. Her opinion on the chances of that cooperation happening was not optimistic.

When I mentioned I had walked from Ald'Ruhn, she cautioned me that the Blight storms can turn animals into monsters, but I hadn't encountered anything unusual. She had heard that people can become afflicted by being outside in the storms as well, though she admitted there has been no verified cases of that happening.

I visited the shrine and realized that it would be nearly impossible to just snatch the stone and run. I had expected the shrine to be similar to the little shrines dotted in the cantons of Vivec, but this was a large room with a permanent staff and regular foot traffic in the form of patrolling guards, visiting pilgrims, and the captive Dremora. I spoke to one of the staff about the stone, but he denied any responsibility, telling me to speak to the priest in charge.

The priest was of no help, insisting that the stone was a valuable gift from a pilgrim and could not be sold for any price. I resisted telling him that the stone was of no value unless it was put to the use it was made for. Eventually he grew tired of my inept negotiation and snapped at me that he hoped my business would be concluded soon. With that, he retired through a door in the back of the shrine and an idea came to mind.

Of the many worthless items I frequently come across, empty soul gems of the "petty" and "common" classification are frequently found. I've been holding on to a few of each with the idea that if I come across a soul trapping scroll, I could sell a charged gem to Galbedir. The "petty" variety, as the Dunmer refer to it as, looks pretty similar to the Propylon stone. Without the priest at his station, the only permanent staff at the shrine was the guard and the Dremora, the latter of which would probably be amused by the whole thing. All I had to do was stay out of the guard's sight and wait for a moment when the stream of pilgrims slowed down so that I could swap the stone for the soul gem.

I didn't have to wait long and I quickly stuffed the Propylon stone in my bag, gently placed the soul gem on the donation plate, and walked out of the shrine.

Close enough

The Caravaner in Maar Gan was made of sterner stuff than his compatriot and had no issues with taking me back to Ald'Ruhn with the storm still raging. Erranil, the Altmer guild guide, commented on my need for a bath, disapproving of the amount of dust I was trailing into the guild. Not my fault I have fur.

It was about four or five in the afternoon when I found myself back in Caldera's Mages Guild. Folms paid me another five hundred Septims for the stone and pointed me towards my next target: the Valenvaryon stone, held by a "wise woman" of one of the nomadic Ashlander tribes. He was only able to tell me that their camp was close to the fortress of Valenvaryon itself, east of Gnisis, the stone possibly having come into the tribe's possession through a raid on the ruined fortress.

I'm not sure why I felt it would be quicker to reach the camp from Ald'Ruhn rather than Gnisis, but I teleported back to the Ald'Ruhn Mages Guild (with Erranil's disapproval, I'm sure) and started walking, as before, north. The storm had died while I was in Caldera though and the comparatively clear sky of Vvardenfell was a welcome sight, though one that did not last long.

I had left Ald'Ruhn too late in the day to make it to Maar Gan before night set and the horrors of the Ashlands woke to greet me. I encountered no Nix Hounds or Kagouti this time, but did run into what used to be a man of Breton or Imperial origin, who was moaning and drooling uncontrollably as he staggered towards me, arms outstretched. His clothing was worn to nearly nothing and his skin was a sickly gray pallor seemingly stretched over his frame. I knew there was no helping the man recover from whatever ailed him and gave the help I could, skewering him with my spear and sending him to a merciful sleep. Rats and scribs, normally not hostile creatures, attacked me and all of the hostile creatures had the beginnings of the same growths that I saw on the Nix Hound several days ago. Symptoms of the Blight storm disease? I'll have to remember to look into it later.

I was hiking along the peaks of the Ashland valleys to avoid more combat and even with my Khajiit vision, managed to trip and tumble right down the side of a hill...into a camp of bandits. Not tumble a distance away from the bandits, no: I stopped rolling maybe two feet away from their camp fire. To say I surprised them would certainly be an understatement. Covered in red and grey dust, I wonder what their first thoughts were as to what creature I was. Whatever their guess, I was a deadly one, fatally striking the closest of the three in the neck with my claws, a weapon I disdain to use, especially against people. I flung her body away from the campsite in a surge of adrenaline and the other two backed away, flinging spells and arrows at me.

Their haste, and the night, lent nothing to their accuracy once I moved out of the light of the fire. Neither of them had any method of augmenting their night vision and I spent at least an hour stalking the two of them through the ashland as they fled. To their credit they didn't split up, but I do wish the last one hadn't begged for her life. It's the first death I've felt genuinely guilty about in quite some time, but had I let her live, what assurance did I have that she wouldn't have returned to cut my throat in the night? I hope she finds peace in whatever awaits us.

Another uneasy, restless night in the Ashlands. The best I can hope for is an hour or two of half-sleep before moving on to Maar Gan and eventually the tribal camp. Once I track down all the Propylon stones I'll be able to fling myself to every corner of Vvardenfell, greatly extending my ability to explore this land and find out more about what is occurring here.