The city seemed oppressive as I glanced out of the window. Scores of people walked through the Talos Plaza – any of them could have been an undercover agent, a member of the Holy Crusaders without their robe on. In some ways I was glad that we wouldn't be going outside.
The journey through the sewers was thankfully uneventful. The occasional rat troubled us but Galvel, leading with a summoned longbow, was quite the sharp-shooter and quickly took care of them.
At one point, he stopped in a dank, mouldy chamber with a foul stream flowing through its centre, and motioned me into a low tunnel in the wall. I didn't know what its purpose was, but if one stooped they could crawl through it, and thankfully it looked clean.
Frequently, the tunnel would cross vertical shafts through which daylight shone. The smell of rotting fruit was overpowering – rubbish chutes.
Galvel stopped as we reached the ninth one of these shafts. I knew that that fact had significance when Galvel reached across the shaft and pressed a perfectly square brick on the other side, which receded into the wall as he did so.
"How do you know your way around here?" I asked. "Were you a Blade or something?"
"Research projects" Galvel replied. "A bit like this one started out as – I tagged along to make sure no-one got hurt. There are many buried treasures beneath the City"
"Like what?"
Galvel didn't need to answer. The base of the shaft fell away, a hidden trapdoor. A pile of moulding fruit plummeted into unseen depths – the shaft led into a huge cavern, but the pale blue glow of magicka was unmistakeable.
"There's a path down into that cave from every district of the City" Galvel explained. "But this is the only one I know. We're underneath the Arboretum somewhere at the moment"
"Do we have time for this? We're near the University"
Galvel glanced at me. Whatever was in the cave, it was important.
"You've been down there before?"
"Yeah, with a group of architects, of all people. You'll see why"
We climbed down a series of handholds cut into the wall of the shaft. Galvel went first, leaving me to pray that no-one decided to dump a bucket of shit down the chute until we were at the bottom.
The concealed trapdoor seemed to lead on to nothing but a huge plummet, but as Galvel reached the last handhold he swung out across the cavern, landing on a stone walkway suspended just beyond the trapdoor. Knowing that I wasn't as athletic as him, he helped me off the ladder onto the walkway.
Immediately, we heard echoing footfalls. Someone else was down here, and they were getting closer.
Using me to shield the light of the spell from whoever might be watching, Galvel summoned a longbow and knelt down in a marksman's stance.
I saw two figures come into view, and pushed Galvel's arm down just before he fired. It saved our friends' lives. I had caught a flash of green and blue – Althren and Milie, still wearing their robes.
Galvel grinned. "Well spotted. Come on!"
As Galvel led me down yet another ladder, I took in the huge cave. It was circular, about the size of the Arcane University, and in its centre was a gargantuan white pillar, at least forty yards across, ornately carved, filling up the entire height of the cave. I was looking at the foundations of White Gold Tower. From the point where crafted stone met natural rock, huge clumps of Welkynd glass grew, the source of the blue light that bathed the cave.


The only thing that greeted me when Galvel and I met with Milie and Althren was a conversation I did not understand a word of – clearly their nature as researchers could never be repressed.
"It was a thought I had earlier," Althren said at a point where I was paying attention. "When have you ever seen a Wayshrine and an Ayleid well in close proximity? Never. That's because they're the same thing, but the Ayleids knew how to regulate their power"
Galvel motioned the other two to stop talking. "Erris, tell them everything that you told me"
I did.
Silence descended on the cave.
"The Ayleids were trying to save the world…" Milie said softly, in disbelief. "Don't you see? Ayleid wells, Welkynd and Varla stones… they were siphoning the magicka out of the ground and giving it metaphysical form"
Evidently I looked very confused, so Althren explained what they were talking about, and why they had all been drawn to this room.
"For centuries, man has believed that White Gold Tower holds some mythical power, even if they do not know the nature of it. You know that the bulk of the Imperial City was actually built by the Ayleids, don't you?"
I nodded – I'd read a few history books in my time. "We just moved in"
"Exactly. Most of the time Ayleid architecture has no rhyme or reason. Their subterranean buildings are mazes, and what was built above ground seemed to just be a random sprawl. But then they built a perfectly circular city with a huge spire in its centre"
"Over the top of an enormous magicka leak" Milie added. "The Ayleids had been at work on this for a long time… Maybe the mythology behind White Gold Tower is true – it is the source of all magicka in Nirn"
"Maybe. It's something I've contemplated in the past…"
"People, it's not the time for a scientific debate," Galvel said, interrupting them. "Might I remind you that before they gave us a kick through time, we were being held captive by a group of religious madmen trying to guard this secret, the secret they were willing to kill for?"
"We have to know if it's true," I added. The other three turned to look at me, so I produced the golden key from my pocket. "If this is just a key, which doesn't fit in anything, then the world is safe. In fact, the world will be significantly progressed – if we can understand the underground magicka, just think of the potential…"
"I think we need to pursue the riddle written on the wall in Bramblepoint Cave" Althren said, and then recited it from memory.

In the deepest depths
Of the deepest canyon
Of the deepest cave
Where Daedra roam
In the plains of the northern isle
Of the Dark Province
It is here where one will find World's End

"What's the Dark Province, though?" Althren continued. "Black Marsh?"
Milie shook her head. "There's no 'northern isle' though"
"I know where it is," Galvel said evenly. "The place I was born…"
"What, Anvil?" Althren asked.
"No, Morrowind, you fucking moron" Galvel replied. Althren apparently seemed unfazed by the insult. "The 'northern isle' must be Vvardenfell"
"But that's it" I said. "No more clues after that. I imagine there's a hell of a lot of caves in Vvardenfell"
"Yes, there is" Milie said, seemingly thinking out loud. "But we're forgetting another line of the scrawlings in Bramblepoint Cave – consult Molag Bal's daughter"
As they spoke, I thought of the vast wall of text we had discovered in that cave. Everything – the Wayshrines, the Ayleid wells and towers, the key and its keyhole – reminded me of one line.

To interfere with this delicate system is to hold a dagger to the throat of the world.

I drifted off, but something Althren said brought me back to attention.
"We can lie low down here for a few hours"
"Will it be safe?" Galvel asked. Milie nodded, seeming to understand Althren.
"Heavily religious scholars of magic ignore the work of the Ayleids" Althren continued. "They dismiss them as heathens. I imagine our friends The Holy Crusaders will not see the significance of this site"
I wasn't convinced. They had found us in Bramblepoint Hollow easily. But, nevertheless, after a few hours we left, Galvel navigating us through the sewers to the Arcane University.


It was the next day again. I'd spent most of it killing time – under the watchful eye of two Battlemages, whilst Milie and Althren spent the day locked in the Council Tower with Raminus Polus, the administrator.
It turned out that expeditions weren't allowed to begin, or continue, without two Battlemage escorts and, having lost Ratty, they were hesitant to assign anyone else to the quest. The fact that I wanted to continue despite my friend having been killed in cold blood didn't seem to faze them.
Eventually, Magister Althren made the heads see sense by suggesting that someone else like himself joins the quest – that is, someone with a keen interest in the subject who can handle themselves in a fight.
When Althren, Milie and Galvel came to retrieve me, there were in fact two new people with them.
Captain Travian, the head of the Battlemages, was someone who everyone knew. Fifty years old, with slicked auburn hair and a rakish goatee, he was known as a champion archer – an unusual combat discipline for a mage, but he was bloody good at it. Word had it he was also a master fighter with both bladed and blunt weapons. He was also fiercely intelligent and hugely knowledgeable, but always curious to learn more – he would often fly in the face of University regulations and go off on expeditions on his own, knowing he would be able to handle whatever threat he found.
Battlemage Theondel was a Bosmer in her late twenties, stunningly beautiful but with a mouth like a Waterfront docker – it didn't take long before Galvel joked that she had been recruited to replace Ancius on the expedition. She was a field agent for the Battlemages, and had been a key player in the war between the Mages' Guild and Mannimarco a few years earlier, ambushing the necromancer Falcar and pursuing him for three days through the backcountry, eventually apprehending and killing him.
I felt immediately safer around our two new recruits.