Morndas, 11:44 AM, 16th of Evening Star, 4E 201
Great Lift at Alftand
J'zargo could not make up his mind about the Dragonborn's taste in character. They stood together atop a howling mountainside, ice whipping every which way, nowhere near any sort of living civilization. But they stood in front of a stone structure, which J'zargo wished to say was obviously man-made. But it was not obviously made by men. It was obviously made by dwarves. Or so they were often called. The long-extinct Dwemer, whose artifacts and ruins still outperformed the knowledge of the Fourth Era, were actually elves.
This stone structure bore a massive roof over four thick stone columns, and that was all. It did not even have proper walls, merely bars of metal filling the gaps. The whole thing was barely large enough to be a proper building – but still, it showed the craftsmanship of the deep elves well enough. The bars were closely spaced and made of the golden metal that the Dwemer used for everything. The stone was beautifully carved, and impressively robust. None of this mattered truly, however. As he understood it, this structure was the tip of an iceberg beyond comprehension.
And whom was he sharing this experience with? Who stood with him on this mountain, in front of a standing remnant of a forgotten age? An aging man who had once served as a pair of eyes, a petty thief who belonged in some seedy back alley, and the Dragonborn himself. J'zargo had to remember that the Dragonborn had chosen him as well. That must have meant something.
Two minutes ago, the Dragonborn had pressed an ornate golden button on one of the columns. Now he stood silently, like a statue, in front of one of the barred walls. J'zargo was no archaeologist, or even a native of Skyrim, but it had occurred to him that the Dragonborn's armor was made of the same metal as these Dwemer devices. He walked up to the Dragonborn's side and addressed him in hushed tones.
"Dragonborn. Is this place where you acquired your armor?" Standing so close to the wall, J'zargo realized that there was no floor beneath the stone roof. There was a perfectly smooth circular hole in the earth, descending past his field of vision.
"That's a good question. The answer is… Sort of." The Dragonborn didn't turn to look at the Khajiit but he seemed to appreciate the interest. J'zargo made a note to hold his tongue less often. "It wasn't this exact place, but another ruin nearby. Also I didn't actually find this armor. I got a bunch of scrap metal, melted it down, forged it myself."
The Khajiit winced almost imperceptibly. Of course the Dragonborn didn't simply find his armor in this place. What were the odds that he would locate a suit that fit him? It wouldn't have even been built for a figure of the same race. "I did not know you were a smith," he admitted. Time to act unassuming, he supposed.
"It comes in handy," the Dragonborn answered without revealing more. However, he did reach over his shoulder and tap the weapon slung on his back.
J'zargo leaned to take a look at it, even though he already knew what it was. A war hammer, curiously enough. Fairly plain in build, but made of the same metal as the armor. The apprentice mage noted that the Dragonborn also bore a sword on his hip. It was difficult not to dismiss the Dragonborn's ways as crude and primitive. The limitless expanse of magic, and he limited himself to swinging pieces of metal? Why?
He did not have time to rephrase his idea in a more diplomatic way. His ears flicked beneath his hood at the sound of a distant mechanical grinding. It was coming from that bottomless pit, and it steadily grew louder. Soon, the others had heard as well. Soon after that, the pit was no longer bottomless. A stone-like gray platform rose into view, gears along the edges turning over metal teeth set into the walls. It actually passed above the floor, supported by another, inner layer of vertical bars—and rose to the height of the ceiling, revealing a second platform beneath, this one flush with the floor. The wall of bars split and swung open on unoiled hinges. They were free to enter.
The Dragonborn was the first to step inside. This platform was very plain. The only notable feature was a large lever set in the middle of the floor. Its arm stood straight up. J'zargo immediately followed. The two others were less eager.
One of them, the petty thief, spoke up. "Are you sure this is safe, lad?" His accent was difficult to place. It was certainly very Nordic.
The Dragonborn said, "I've already used it, if that's what you mean. Come on, Brynjolf, you agreed to fight the Thalmor, there's no way this is more dangerous."
The thief, Brynjolf, reluctantly entered the chamber. After him, the other Nord, the one in the uniform of the Legion, followed inside. The moment they had all entered, the Dragonborn pushed on the lever with his heel. It didn't budge.
A few seconds of uncomfortable silence passed. The Dragonborn suddenly tried to snap his fingers, but the metal of his gauntlet made it impossible. "Right. It goes the other way." Then he leaned down and pulled the lever back towards him.
First, the doors swung shut of their own accord. Then the platform lurched and dropped. The grinding sound was all around them. J'zargo almost lost his footing. The ground outside the inner layer of bars was rising, quickly. It passed by his eyes, up to the ceiling… And then there was no more daylight.
The Khajiit needed only a split second to adjust to darkness, but there was none. A light fixed to the ceiling flooded the chamber with almost painful brightness. The four men cast stark shadows on the walls. They were still moving downwards, he could tell. That grinding noise persisted, and beyond the metal bars, he could see the rough striations of stone walls shooting upward.
They stood in awkward silence for a minute or so. J'zargo spent it observing his surroundings. This chamber smelled strange. Whatever it was that exotic, ancient machinery smelled like. He wondered if this would eventually be a scent to remind him of his days of early apprenticeship.
The Dragonborn removed his helmet. This was a surprise. The Khajiit had not seen his face before. By the accent of his voice, he had assumed the Dragonborn was a Nord, but his skin was far too dark, more like an Imperial's. He had also assumed the Dragonborn would be an older man. Not so. They were likely close to the same age. It occurred to J'zargo that he knew essentially nothing about this man.
"Hey… Iseus," the uniformed Nord said, loudly, over the sound of the gears working. "How did you find this place?"
The Dragonborn … Iseus, that was something J'zargo needed to remember, his actual name … cracked a smile and shook his head once. "Paarthurnax needed me to fetch him an Elder Scroll, and the only one in Skyrim we know about was in the Tower of Mzark."
"An Elder Scroll?" the two Nords said at the same time.
Iseus shrugged. "I didn't have much use for it. Wouldn't help anyone if I went insane trying to read the damn thing."
"What… Where is it now?" Brynjolf asked incredulously.
"Someplace safe." The Dragonborn gave Brynjolf a look that probably said he should have known better than to ask.
J'zargo spoke. "What would the Dwemer have done with an Elder Scroll, then?"
"Oh, I found it inside a machine of theirs that reflects the text and pictures and stuff from the scroll onto a wall or something. It's supposed to prevent you from going blind by looking at it, so I guess they built that to read it with."
"Someone should notify the Moth Priests," the uniformed Nord said.
"If you can find them, and convince them to relocate to an old underground ruin, Noster, be my guest," Iseus smirked.
J'zargo had to remember that too. When they had all met for the first time, the Dragonborn had introduced them all to one another by name, but, foolish as he was, the apprentice's mind had been on other things. He had been going this whole time trying not to have to address the two Nords, because he wished not to embarrass himself. The thief was named Brynjolf, and the veteran was named Noster. Excellent.
"We'll be arriving soon." Iseus sighed and fitted his helmet back on. It was a peculiar thing. It masked his entire face with a plain visor, and seemed to be made with an incredibly robust philosophy of design – all thick ridges and thicker plates, but still articulate. If J'zargo were to encumber himself with a suit of armor, if agility were no concern of his, he would wish for it to be like the Dragonborn's.
J'zargo suddenly felt much heavier for a moment. He realized the platform was slowing down. It stopped with a lurching clunk. The lever on the floor sprung back to the neutral position by itself. The Khajiit turned around to face the doors just as they opened, and before him lay the entrance to another world.
There was a cavern. It was larger than anything J'zargo had seen in his life. The stone walls, vaulting up to an impossibly high ceiling, were unnaturally dark, but twinkled with tiny lights like the night sky. It was impossible to judge the true size of this place, for it was filled with a hazy turquoise fog, which made everything past half a mile or so indistinct. There were fluorescent rocks and Dwemer lights everywhere, but in the distance, J'zargo could make out the forms of what seemed to be giant mushrooms, black in some places, metallic cyan in others, glowing brilliantly and filling the cavern with their light.
J'zargo was immediately met with a wave of humid heat. It smelled even more alien than the inside of the vertical shaft, and far more… Alive. He could not describe it. In the far distance, he could hear a faint rushing, like a gigantic waterfall from a mile away.
The vertical-bar doors opened onto a modest stone platform, adorned with a waist-high metal block of pipes and gears. On either side were stairs down to a natural earthy floor. Truly, the floor seemed to be made of actual soil, this far underground, besides where stone paths had been laid down. He stepped out into the open without noticing. In this expanse, he felt no larger than one of those pinpricks of light glittering on the ceiling.
"Welcome to Blackreach," the Dragonborn's voice said from someplace behind him. "This is our stronghold now."
As he scanned the cavern more closely, J'zargo noticed the distant shapes of buildings. Some were built into the walls, some were freely standing. Some were small, some were large. All of them were built with the solid stone walls of Dwemer make. This place had been a city, once. "By the Twin Moons," he breathed. "This place is limitless!"
"Close enough," the Dragonborn's voice replied with a hint of amusement. "This isn't the only entrance. Alftand is in Winterhold, but I've also found exits that lead up to the Pale and Hjaalmarch."
"Three different holds?" This was Brynjolf's voice. "This place must be hundreds of miles wide!"
"You may be right." The Dragonborn again. "Most of it is just featureless rock, but I've searched the rest as best I can. Be on your guard. The Falmer have lived down here, and I may not have found all of the Dwemer automatons."
The Dwemer themselves had been extinct for centuries, J'zargo knew. They were survived by their sightless slave race, and by their mechanical sentries. He knew nothing more than that.
J'zargo began to step down from the stone platform, but as he did, he heard something. A faint ringing, coming from his left. He warily stepped in that direction, and found… A nirnroot. One of that rare species of magical plant, little more than a few jagged leaves sprouting right from the earth, tucked in against the side of the stairs. It cast a bright light around it without glowing, and made an eerie ringing noise without vibrating. This did not surprise J'zargo, for he had seen nirnroots before. But this one was red. The leaves were colored a deep, bright shade of blood red, instead of their natural pale green.
"Iseus," he said uneasily. "What is this?"
"Oh, did you find the crimson nirnroot?" The Dragonborn walked up beside J'zargo and pointed so the others could see. "They're all over the place down here. They've evolved to need nothing more than the nutrients in the soil, I think. I tried replanting some myself, we'll have to find them again."
Noster joined them and gave Iseus a quizzical look. "Why did you replant them?"
"Well, because I took some with me, to experiment with," the Dragonborn shrugged. "And I wanted to see if they were any easier to cultivate than the regular kind. It turns out they're alchemically identical. Anything a nirnroot can do, a crimson nirnroot can do as well."
"Good, uh, good to know," Noster said, not even trying to conceal his ignorance.
The Dragonborn moved on, stepping out onto the stone path and beckoning over his shoulder for the others to follow. "I've brought you three down here because you're all going to be at the forefront of what I'm doing. Noster, J'zargo, you two are probably going to be spending a lot of time down here. Brynjolf… I have no idea what you'll be up to, but I want you to see this anyway."
"I'm honored," Brynjolf muttered.
The doorway they'd entered through seemed to be at a sort of corner in the cavern. The Dragonborn bore right, heading towards a pair of structures that lay surprisingly close by. One was built into the wall. A much larger, higher raised platform, and a doorway to… Someplace. The other was, by Dwemer standards, little more than a shed. Sturdy stone walls, sturdy golden doors, but they just made for a long, narrow box of a building, just across the path from the platform.
"What does that door go to?" Noster pointed to the great platform on the right.
"Alftand," the Dragonborn remarked. "It's the ruin I came down through to get here. J'zargo, that's where I originally got the metal for this armor. And this little building is… Well, I dunno what it originally was, but I think it was being used as a sort of laboratory—"
He suddenly stopped and held his arm out to the side, palm downward, in an obvious 'wait' gesture. J'zargo obediently froze in his tracks. "Dwarven sphere," the Dragonborn said quietly, "just in front of the lab. See it?"
J'zargo peered at the laboratory's front door. Not five feet away from it, a ball of beautifully fitted metal plates, about the size of a curled-up person, was twitching mechanically and releasing tiny puffs of steam. This must have been one of the automatons the Dwemer had left behind.
"I destroyed one out here on my last visit. It must have been replaced." The Dragonborn was sinking into a fighting stance, and slowly drawing forth the massive war hammer on his back. "Stay here."
What happened next, J'zargo would remember for the rest of his days. The Dragonborn did not bother with stealth. He walked in the sphere's direction with the easy confidence of a tradesman heading to work. After perhaps ten paces, the sphere detected him, and unfolded—this part absolutely baffled the Khajiit—into a figure with arms and half-legs. It rolled on the remainder of its outer shell towards the intruder alarmingly quickly. J'zargo realized that instead of hands, this automaton's arms ended with rugged metal weaponry.
But the sphere never got the chance to use any of them. The Dragonborn hefted his hammer, twirled it once in his hands. Just as the automaton got just close enough to take a lunge at him, he brought the hammer around in an unstoppable uppercut. There was an earsplitting metallic WHAM as the hammer's head smashed straight through the sphere's upper body. Pieces of automaton flew out in the direction of the swing. There was nothing left intact enough to even move. The sphere-shell rolled to a halt right in front of the Dragonborn's metal boots.
And just like that, the Dragonborn stowed his weapon and turned back to the others. "I think we're fine. Stay on your guard, though, there could be more."
J'zargo fell in line silently, grinning to himself. He thought he could understand why this man preferred his tactic of swinging pieces of metal around.
Brynjolf walked up to the remains of the sphere and lifted up one of the smaller curved plates. "This is good dwarven metal," he said. "If it weren't all mangled, it'd fetch a handsome price, I reckon."
"If you want me to melt it down into a sword for you, I will," the Dragonborn said mirthfully. He was already back to walking.
Noster had caught up with them by now. "Iseus!" He stopped by the sphere to have a closer look at it, then continued. "Where are we going?"
"Oh, now that we're here? I thought we might take a look at where you'll be working."
Over the next half hour, J'zargo learned many things about Blackreach. The Dragonborn, in his explorations, had located four main areas that had been built in. Three were at the mouths of Dwemer ruins that could be accessed by the surface. Alftand, Mzinchaleft and Raldbthar, if he recalled correctly. These elves had been excellent in many fields, but perhaps not in the field of naming things.
In any case, these three sites featured Great Lifts which allowed for direct travel aboveground. The fourth area was a central sort of hub, and hosted the Tower of Mzark, where the Dragonborn had found his Elder Scroll. This area also featured an exit to the surface, though it was less direct, as one had to transfer platforms by passing through the oculory. The Elder Scroll storage room, as J'zargo understood it.
The Dragonborn seemed uninterested in showing them the other sites. Apparently, it would involve either many hours of walking, or riding on some sort of shuttle machine. So they remained in the Alftand corner of the cavern, and toured the local buildings.
There were derelict Dwemer houses, strange giant glowing mushrooms, strange crimson nirnroots, strange white rocks which glowed with internal purplish-blue light, and veins of ore which the Dragonborn said could actually be harvested for soul gems. There were also wrecked remains of other automatons. The Dragonborn had taken credit for most of them, of course.
In the end, though, the four of them ended up circling around to the laboratory. It felt larger on the inside than it had looked on the outside, which was odd, because inside it was quite cluttered. It was obvious someone had lived here recently. There was regular wooden furniture, cookware, books on shelves, and, on one end of the narrow chamber, equipment to practice alchemy. J'zargo had gone straight to this area.
Noster flipped idly through one of the books. "Are you sure we can't just get back out there? I'd like to see more."
"Not until I find out where that sphere came from," the Dragonborn said while standing over J'zargo's shoulder. His helmet was across the room from him, on the dining table. "I'm not letting you just wander around by yourselves."
This laboratory, the Dragonborn had said, had once belonged to a man named Sinderion, who had wished to learn about the properties of the crimson nirnroot. When he'd arrived, Sinderion's skeleton was still on the floor. Something about that was deeply exciting to J'zargo. To think, he'd thought the College of Winterhold had been an ultimate frontier.
The Dragonborn had graciously raided the shelves and given J'zargo a few ingredients he knew worked well together. The recipe of the day involved a crimson nirnroot and a chaurus egg. J'zargo would have dismissed it as idiotic if he hadn't tried the Dragonborn's ways of alchemy for himself. Now, sitting at this stone countertop with two ingredients he had never seen before, he wondered if he should dismiss himself as idiotic instead.
He was simply grinding them together in a mortar and pestle, nothing more. The Dragonborn had said that this part required the most care, especially with the nirnroot. They paste it reduced to did not look like something J'zargo would wish to put inside his body.
"J'zargo is not certain he is following your directions correctly," he said with obvious unease.
Fortunately, the Dragonborn still stood right there above him, watching. "You're doing fine. I think you're actually ready to put that in the alembic."
There was a glass bottle of sorts, over a low flame. Its neck bent downwards to the center of the lab table. Excellent for distillation, J'zargo supposed. But really, could he focus on these technicalities? He was deep underground, in a field laboratory in a forgotten Dwemer ruin, learning alchemy from the Dragonborn himself. It was not easy to get over this fact.
Once inside, the mixture almost immediately began to let off steam. The interior of the glass bulb began to fog over. Iseus helpfully placed an earthenware vial at the alembic's lip.
"And we can just leave that for a few minutes," the Dragonborn said with an air of finality. "The chaurus egg has even more moisture than the nirnroot. You should see what it's like trying to distill vampire dust, I usually actually need to add water for that."
"Forgive J'zargo's ignorance, but what exactly is a chaurus?" J'zargo twisted around in his seat to look up at his new mentor. Up close, in the warm torchlight of the laboratory, Iseus looked like any other young Imperial man. Without the armor, the Khajiit might have thought him to be an artist, a bard, perhaps. He seemed too gentle in demeanor to be a warrior.
"Oh, it's an animal the Falmer raise, they build practically all their tools out of its shell material. It's like a… It's like a scorpion, but big as a hound, and instead of a stinger and claws, it just has huge teeth. Oh, and its stomach's contents are extremely poisonous, it can use them as a projectile weapon."
Brynjolf made a strangled noise behind them.
"Ah." J'zargo nodded slowly. More likely than not, then, they would be very common in Blackreach. This was something of a double-edged sword, and J'zargo was not fond of swords. "I wonder what they normally eat. I have not seen any smaller creatures in this cavern."
"I dunno, I think they're carnivores," Iseus said, scratching his scalp with his metal fingers. "The Falmer like to just go out, grab whatever creatures they can and throw them into the chaurus pens, but down here? Uh… I dunno. I haven't explored the cave network enough to know, honestly."
"So you don't really know all of what's out there," Noster said. "I mean, if we haven't even figured out the food chain down here."
"Of course, Noster, there's a reason I have you two in the lab with us. I think being in the same room as me is a pretty good guarantee of your safety, right?"
"Well, yes…"
"I was more interested in that sphere just showing up. I already destroyed the automatons that patrol this area."
"Hmm, wh-…" Noster halted. "I… Noticed there wasn't any debris from the last one you destroyed, out there."
"Oh, it'll be up on the platform," the Dragonborn said nonchalantly. "The entrance to Alftand. I lured it up there first. You're very perceptive, though."
There was a half-minute or so of silence as everybody thought things over.
"So what do you all think?" Iseus brightly asked. "Of this place."
Another bit of silence.
"I'm still struggling with the fact this cavern exists," Brynjolf said. "It's been right here, beneath our feet this whole time."
"Aye," Noster nodded. "But if anyone is going to be down here, I'm glad it's the Dragonborn."
"What were those mushrooms?" Brynjolf suddenly added, as though it had just occurred to him to ask. "The big glowing ones. What is that?"
"Uh… I think it's just a bigger version of what we find on the walls of caves all the time," the Dragonborn shrugged. "I don't know if they have a special function. I'm not touching them until I figure that out, though."
"Well, how are you going to do that?" Noster asked.
"You'll be organizing whatever surveyors, alchemists, botanists, whomever we get, into a committee to study the workings of Blackreach, once things are in place a bit better."
"I will?"
"Yeah, that'll be one of your first tasks as the Steward of Blackreach."
"But— I don't—" Noster's command of language failed him.
The Dragonborn remained silent.
"Why?"
"I think you already know the answer to that, Noster." And that seemed to settle that, because Noster said nothing more. Iseus looked down at J'zargo. "You've been quiet."
"It's done," J'zargo said. The misty film on the inside of the alembic's glass was gone. No more fluid dripped out into the vial. It seemed to be full. He stood up, edging past Iseus, and held the vial in front of his face.
"Oh, good," Iseus said, "now why d-"
J'zargo was suddenly possessed by an impulse to tilt the entire bottle's contents down his throat. He barely even tasted it. It just went down into his belly, and… When he lowered his head once more, he could not see his hand, or the vial in it. In fact, his entire body had become invisible!
Noster suddenly stood up and almost tripped over his chair. "Wh— he's vanished!"
The Dragonborn politely nodded to where he was fairly certain J'zargo was. "Congratulations, apprentice. You've just successfully brewed a potion of invisibility."
Brynjolf was leaning back in his seat and smirking. J'zargo padded up to him, cloth boots almost entirely silent on the stone floor. Then he dropped the vial into the Nord's lap. The moment he did, his body reappeared with a red flash and a rush of air.
He had to give Brynjolf due credit—the man's reaction was impressive. The moment the Khajiit appeared next to him, he rolled out of his seat onto the floor, and came up on one knee with a dagger in his hand. He only relaxed when he realized what exactly had just happened.
"Relax. J'zargo means no harm." J'zargo gave him a toothy smile, then turned to Iseus. "So, the nirnroot and the chaurus egg can both provide the effect of invisibility?"
"So can vampire dust," Iseus nodded. "But yes, those two make an excellent invisibility potion. I'm sad you interrupted it. I would have liked to see how long it lasted."
"Next time, then," J'zargo said. He did not care. That experience was enlightening. Invisibility, he knew, was a very advanced spell in the illusion school of magic. He had just replicated it with a few exotic odds and ends, and almost no effort. If this sort of thing was what alchemy had in store for him, he almost resented the College of Winterhold for not teaching him more of it.
"And a next time there will be." Iseus hopped up and sat on top of the alchemy counter. It was solid stone, but this said much of his priorities, J'zargo thought.
"Well, what happens now?" Brynjolf looked between the other three of them, and stopped on Iseus. "What've you got for us, lad?"
J'zargo had never answered the Dragonborn's question. What did he think of this place? Of Blackreach? He thought it was an opportunity. To this day, the Dwemer had many secrets, some stored in this place, and that would be useful. But as he listened to what his mentor had to say, J'zargo realized that the greatest opportunity of Blackreach was that he would be under the wing of the most powerful mortal alive.
