A/N: I've taken the liberty of creating a few Dwemeris words of my own. I know Akkadian derivatives appear to be the fan-preferred substitute, but I'm mostly drawing from Baltic languages, including old Prussian and Latvian. I apologize if any Latvian speakers happen to be reading my story; your language is so much lovelier than the distorted amalgam I am presenting (truly I am very sorry).
Rthalzeft.
After the slow, careful climb down the rungs of the empty shaft of the abandoned lift, Nils, Zaryth, and J'zhirr found themselves in a long corridor about halfway down.
Everything was so preserved, so pristine. Nils could even hear the faint whir of machinery. Were these ruins actually abandoned?
"This place feels... alive," he said.
Zaryth quickly piped up.
"Of course it does. I've often come across animunculi that have remained completely intact after thousands of years. Not to mention all sorts of unsavory ilk one might find lurking in other ruins. Vampires, ash monsters and the like. But Rthalzeft is so inaccessible I don't foresee us running into anything like that."
"We can only hope," said Nils with unease, still not entirely convinced that there was nothing to fear in this place. Even the twisting myriad of pipes that lined every wall unsettled him. Zaryth had told them earlier that they had been in place to siphon heat all the way from Red Mountain.
Despite his fascination to explore this piece of history, there was this inexplicable feeling about this place and he almost began to regret dragging J'zhirr out here.
"Nerevar..."
The voice was barely a whisper. Nils looked around. No one else was reacting to it, meaning that only he had heard it. Or it wasn't real to start with.
Was he losing his mind?
Suddenly he realized that Zaryth's orb of light had traveled a bit far ahead of him. He jogged to catch up to the others.
Probably nothing. Just nerves.
They reached a round door at the end of the hallway. Zaryth ran a finger along the engraved plaque above it, reading the lettering.
"Foundry... darbszelts? I'm not entirely certain of that last word, but... judging by the context I think it may correspond to the name they had for their metal, of which our language has no direct translation. That, or it refers to some kind of currency, something of value. Goldwork Foundry, maybe?" she said, wording it as a question as if waiting for someone to correct her. No one did, for they did not know Dwemeris.
"You can read that?" Nils asked, admittedly impressed. The girl was arrogant, yes, childishly so, but it was clear that she was knowledgeable, especially when it came to the Dwemer.
"Well... I can transcribe the lettering, yes. I only have a fairly elementary understanding of the language itself, mind. And I'm hopeless when it comes to colloquialisms."
Nils could tell that she seemed genuinely validated at his acknowledgment of her expertise. J'zhirr on the other hand took it as an opportunity to bait Zaryth into making another racist comment, as it had amused him greatly to do so during their long trek down the chute.
"J'zhirr thinks a foundry of gold sounds nice, yes. Khajiit likes gold."
Zaryth rolled her eyes. She had caught on to his antics by now.
Nils was about to ask her the meaning of the symbol on the coin he had shown her in Sadrith Mora, but then he watched as she pulled a vial of blue liquid from her satchel, drinking half of it. He hadn't realized that she did not have an infinite supply of magicka to maintain that orb of light. Perhaps it was best that they moved along, as they would certainly be at an inconvenience without her light spell. He could always ask her later.
Pushing through the heavy doors of the 'Goldwork Foundry' was a mill or factory of some sort, all contained in this enormous chamber.
Zaryth held a hand up before they continued.
"Wait," she whispered.
The 'Foundry' was still functional. The complex system of gears and pulleys overhead continued to move. Over the steady, repetitive sound of the steam-contraptions and the vibrating from the massive machinery in motion, Nils heard what sounded like tiny metal legs clattering against the floor.
A spider centurion.
"Khajiit thinks we will be fine. It is just a spider. Nils has a big sword with him. Not the best for smashing, but it will do." J'zhirr whispered.
"You forget that you're not traveling with Walde and her big axe," Nils retorted.
"She goes through them like cream. You will be fine."
He wasn't certain if he liked the idea of others depending on him to take care of an ancient Dwarven construct he had never dealt with before. Not only that, his sword wasn't exactly meant for smashing and he didn't think Imperial steel would hold up very well against Dwemer metal.
"But why would we want to destroy it? It is in pristine condition! It still performs the tasks it had been created for." Zaryth whispered. Nils thought she seemed too excited about all of this.
Then he saw it.
Indeed, the animunculus used one of its spindly appendages to pull a crank, which moved a block of casts through a long conveyer. It stretched one of its other arms to operate a lever. The lever controlled a massive crucible overhead, which, were it not empty, would be pouring molten metal into a funnel which directed it into the casts. The spider scuttled to the other end of the assembly line and pulled another lever, which pressed an engraving die against the molds. At the end of the line the molds were emptied into a large metal bin, which was already filled with Dwemer coins.
So the Goldwork Foundry was a currency mint. Even though the furnace no longer siphoned the heat from Red Mountain and there was no liquid metal in the crucible, the machinery worked perfectly and the mechanical spider continued to work uninterrupted as it had been for thousands of years. Nils had no words for it. Incredible. Astounding. If the Dwemer had not met an early end he had no doubt their people would have been able to dominate all of Tamriel by now. Instead of the Septim Dynasty they all would have been ruled under the dynasty of some Dwarven king.
"We can sneak past it easily. As long as its work isn't interrupted, it won't see us as a threat."
Zaryth sounded like she had done this before, and Nils was inclined to believe her. They crept along the wall, careful not to make a sound. Zaryth dimmed the light from her spell, though it did not seem to bother the spider so much either way.
It was J'zhirr who could not resist the temptation to surreptitiously swipe a handful of golden coins from a nearby chest and stuff it into his pocket. He was so swift that he made no detectable sounds and Nils would not have noticed had he not been in front of him, but as if the arachnid worker had been programmed to detect thieves, suddenly the pulleys and gears went still. The centurion spider had immediately stopped operating the machine. All they heard now was the clinking of mechanical legs as it scurried towards them with violent intent.
Zaryth reacted instantly. She jumped in front of the others into a forward lunge on one knee, whipping her hand out, waiting until it was a mere finger width away from her. Nils heard the crackling of static as she sent a small burst of electricity towards the spider. The spark overloaded the automaton's machinery and it fell on its back, arms and legs twitching a moment before it ceased movement altogether.
"I should have known better than to trust a Khajiit not to steal!" Zaryth shouted. She glared at J'zhirr with contempt. The Khajiit shrugged his shoulders.
"Khajiit fails to see a problem. Spider is dead, yes?"
"Sheogorath's beard, no! I've worked on these models before. I know how to overload their sensors to disable them, though I'd never... applied it in that way before. Ordinarily I'm not so idiotic as to provoke one into attack. They may look unassuming compared to other centurions, but you saw how effortlessly it operated that big machine. Think of how much easier it would be to tear your arms and legs out of their sockets," she hissed.
Though the precocious Telvanni girl spoke with unnecessary vitriol as always, Nils would agree that J'zhirr should not have risked dismemberment by eight spindly metal limbs for a handful of Dwemer coins.
"J'zhirr offers his apologies. He usually travels with a big Nord, who smashes things like that."
Even Nils let out an annoyed sigh at that. J'zhirr's constant attempts at provocations were beginning to get old.
Zaryth shook her head solemnly. "I'll pretend I never heard you confess to that horrible crime against historical preservation."
Nils took a few coins for himself now that the threat of mechanical spiders no longer patrolled the foundry.
Moving to a closed door at the end of the room, Nils still felt the pressure of doubt in his chest. He could not quite place it, but there was no denying he had a disturbed feeling about all of this.
"What does the sign say?" asked Nils cautiously. "I mean... we don't want to walk into a room that says 'live arsenal' or 'centurion storage unit' do we?" He still had this looming feeling of danger about this place, but it had nothing to do with the spider centurion.
Zaryth moved the light in front of her and squinted at the sign on the door, sounding out each syllable.
"Uzthureznas... Residence... zaal – Halls of Residence! That sounds safe enough!"
J'zhirr was just as eager, though more so because the treasures they had found thus far were of pristine condition. They could make a fortune if they could find the right buyer for the coins alone.
"We should turn back soon. It's a long way up," Nils mentioned with futility.
J'zhirr laughed.
"Khajiit does not understand. Were you not the one who wanted to come in the first place? Is the dangerous criminal afraid?" he teased playfully.
He was right. By the Divines, he was right. It had been Nils' idea to come here, but only because of some stupid coin that a cryptic Daedric prince told him was important somehow. What did Azura say to him again? That it would bring him closer to the truth? What truth? What did it matter? It all seemed foolhardy now, and as they delved deeper, the dread became even more palpable. At this point Nils was ready to leave. It was not out of cowardice, and certainly not because of the ordeal with the spider. He felt there was truly something deeply, fundamentally wrong with this place.
The others did not share his sentiment, and he stood back as he watched Zaryth and J'zhirr pull open the round metal doors to the Halls of Residence.
The hall was narrow and claustrophobic compared to the Goldwork Foundry they had just come from. The sleeping quarters likely housed the workers of the Foundry. There were ten beds in this room in total; five pushed against one end of the wall and five on the opposite end. Even the dormitories looked neat and symmetrical...
J'zhirr darted around the room as he was wont to do. Before Nils could understand what he was looking for, suddenly J'zhirr had begun to crawl on all fours under a bed, emerging with an ornate chest. He hopped back to his feet, wiping the dust from his fur.
"Can you pick the lock?" Nils asked J'zhirr, knowing that the Khajiit usually carried a few lockpicking tools.
J'zhirr shook his head.
"Dwemer locks are complex. Too many subtle grooves on the keys. Khajiit does not wish to set off a trap."
"The key must be around here somewhere," Nils said, searching aimlessly under sheets, under pillows, under beds. Zaryth began to search frantically as well, obviously wanting to get to the contents of the chest before the "thieves" had a chance to plunder it.
But J'zhirr had already taken his knife to the pillow at the head of the bed. The Dwemer definitely didn't stuff their pillows with feathers, Nils observed. He didn't even know what that sand-like substance was that poured out of it. Was that even comfortable?
"Found it," purred the Khajiit, grinning at having won the unspoken contest. He inserted the curious cylindrical key inside of the lock and all three of them hovered over the chest as they heard the gears inside turning.
When the lid sprang open, the chest definitely contained some notable treasure. A purse of coins, a sealed glass jar of Sload soap, and a pearl-encrusted hairpiece. J'zhirr reached for the hair piece and coinpurse while Zaryth immediately snatched away the Sload soap, a rare alchemy ingredient in these parts. But Nils was quick to grab what he saw underneath.
A simple book, a slim volume, perhaps only about a hundred pages. The beige front cover was bound with a soft leathery material. The cover was mostly unadorned save for a single large symbol in the center with a much less prominent subtitle below it.
But the only thing about the book that had caught his immediate attention was that the symbol on the front cover was exactly the same as the one on his coin, the one that had brought him here in the first place.
Zaryth's eyes were now on Nils, and so was her wrath.
"What do you think you're doing? Give that here – you can't even read it!"
She was right. Nils wordlessly handed it to her.
"What does it say?" he asked quickly.
"The symbol is just a letter, a syllable – meaningless if transcribed literally. But prose, even Dwemer prose, is always rife with metaphor. In their oculories, the Dwemer used letters to represent the twelve constellations along with other celestial bodies. This particular character, if I recall correctly, corresponds to the cosmic anomaly that we ignorantly believe to be the thirteenth Serpent constellation, though the Dwemer theorized that the cluster was not made up of actual stars but what they called un-stars – "
"I was born under the sign of the Serpent," Nils said quietly.
Is this what Azura wanted him to find? Or was she simply toying with him for her own idle amusement?
"Fascinating," Zaryth answered drolly. "So are countless others when the Serpent decides to slither its way into the sky every now and again. Supposedly the Nerevarine would be born on such a day, if you believe in that Ashlander nonsense."
Nerevarine... Nerevar.
"Listen, Zaryth, I don't care about anything else in these ruins. If – if there is any way that you can translate that book – "
Nils expected her to respond with some rude comment about how she didn't owe him any favors, or that he was a stupid outlander who couldn't comprehend it, but to his surprise she nodded in agreement.
"When we get out of here, I'll see what I can do. I suppose you're staying somewhere in Tel Aruhn?"
Before they knew it they had begun walking down another corridor, though two more rooms that were identical to the last dormitory.
"You could say that. We're... not going to be staying much longer."
"Oh? Might I inquire where you're – "
All three of them stopped where the path ended. Now they faced a forked end. The writing on the wall was not carefully engraved in the Dwemer writing, but roughly painted in the very familiar Daedric lettering that could be seen almost everywhere in Morrowind. At least this was something Nils could read, though after he was finished he immediately wished he hadn't read it in the first place.
Chanthrax blight ash woe blight brown rot rotbone bonelord but the bones of our ancestors in their tombs were defiled only ASH remains all turns to ASH but from ASH we are born
LORD DAGOTH
the unmourned House lies not in ruins
the sky is RED with the blessing of DAGOTH UR
Along the corridor on the left someone had scrawled the same name over again, their writing gradually becoming more crude and unintelligible, the paint dripping.
DAGOTH DAGOTH DAGOTH DAGOTH DAGOTH DAGOTH DGHOT DAHGTO DOGATH DATHOG DAHTOG DHATGO DOGTHA DAOGTH DGGTH DTTTHH DDDGGGTHH
"I think we should leave..." Nils whispered. He felt ill, his thoughts being confirmed that something was horribly wrong with this place. This had to be the work of those ash creatures J'zhirr told him about.
"My thoughts exactly," answered Zaryth. They all turned around, with Nils stuck in the rear as they briskly headed back towards the direction they came from.
He swore he saw something in his peripheral vision.
The moment he dared to turn around he saw it, he saw the thing that skulked behind them so silently.
The ash-creature. It was a ghoulish thing, something that at one point may have been a Dunmer. Its body was emaciated, dark flesh clinging to bone. It had the pointed ears of a mer and a hole carved where its face should have been; no eyes, no mouth, only an insectoid proboscis protruding from that hole. With its skeletal hands it reached for Nils, though his reflexes were thankfully fast enough upon seeing something so horrifying and he quickly dodged out of the way.
"Run!" he shouted to the others. His arm reached for his longsword from his back and he brandished it in front of him defensively, backing away from the ash-creature down the corridor.
"I have no mother I have no father I am REBORN from ash I was not born of flesh..."
Its voice was like a death rattle. The thing was speaking. It had no mouth. How was it speaking?
When the creature raised its arms to ready a spell, Nils slashed quicker than the thing could cast. He chopped the arm clean off, and Nils discovered that it bled ash. Some of the ash got into his eyes and he tried to blink it out quickly, but not before the thing managed to swipe its clawlike hand at Nils' right shoulder, tearing through his tunic. It was not going to be an ordinary wound, he could already tell from the caustic, scathing feeling seeping through his skin and into his bloodstream, but he ignored this pain for now.
He had managed to back the creature all the way into the Foundry where the other two were waiting, watching in horror. Now it was easier to move around and Nils could risk a bold attack.
He felt particularly brave and heaved the sword with a heavy grunt, slashing at the thing's neck in an attempt to behead it. In Cyrodiil, that was one effective way to get rid of an undead creature.
Indeed, its head did come off, immediately disintegrating into a pile of ash on the floor. But if the body had been aware that its head was missing, it did not show it for it continued to stalk towards them unhindered. These creatures were not like the undead in Cyrodiil, that was certain.
The headless, one-armed ghoul readied another destruction spell.
Nils immediately leaped out of the way of the ash-ghoul's lightning. The electricity crackled and the stray bolt bounced across the room, and to everyone's surprise it landed on the disabled spider centurion. It sparked back to life, leaping to its feet. But the spider did not wait a moment longer when it perceived the genuine threat in the room. Unfortunately, that threat happened to be engaged in combat with Nils, and the automaton treated them as the same entity, leaping forward with its eight splayed limbs. Both of them were pinned to the ground, at the mercy of an unlikely arachnid adversary. Thankfully it seemed to be focusing on the ash ghoul right now and managed to tear a hole in its chest and spill more ash on the floor, though with another devastating lightning spell the ash ghoul overloaded the spider yet again. The construct shook violently and Nils could hear the rattling of loose gears inside of it. It clattered to the ground. Broken.
Nils had no time to pick up his sword when the ash creature clutched his neck with its remaining hand. Its fingernails were like tiny knives digging into his throat and he found it hard to breathe. He felt his life energy draining out of him... this was bad.
He found himself backing up through the narrow corridor, and he didn't have time to look behind him to see how close he was to the very long and painful drop that soon awaited him. If he could just pry himself free...
Nils felt something pulsating. A steady heartbeat.
The ash creature's heart! The Dwarven spider had opened a wound into the creature's chest!
Nils' vision was growing cloudier by the second but he forced his hand through the thing's chest cavity. Deeper, deeper he had to force his hand, its insides turning to ash as he bore a deeper hole through. His hand closed onto something solid, something pulsating. With all of his remaining strength, Nils pulled the ash-creature's heart out from its chest.
Then it all happened so fast. The ghoul released its grip on Nils' throat and crumpled into ash in front of him. He heard the creature's dying word in his head.
"Nerevar..."
From the momentum of ripping out the ghoul's heart, Nils' foot caught the edge where the corridor ended and the precarious drop into nothingness began.
And then there was nothing below his feet and he was falling, but not before he saw the end of the ash ghoul and the horrified faces of Zaryth and J'zhirr looking down at him.
And then Nils only saw the shrinking pinprick of light from Zaryth's spell as his body plummeted helplessly downwards.
Nils squeezed the ghoul's heart still in his hand as he fell, feeling its heartbeat abruptly stop. Down, down, down. He closed his eyes.
Why did it have to end like this?
He thought of Azura's all-knowing little smile, the way she spoke to him like a mother speaking to a child. He clutched the heart even harder. Why did she have to be the last thing he thought of before he died?
And then – suddenly – he stopped falling. But... he had not hit the floor. Nils opened his eyes, but he still could not see anything. He was suspended midair.
Had time just... frozen?
His body began to float upwards. Yes – float. He felt a wave of nausea and turned his head to the side to empty the contents of his stomach. The woozy thought in his head was that two thousand years from now his sick would be preserved for the next generation of adventurers to find.
He wasn't certain if he were even still alive, or if this were his ascent to the afterlife. He thought about murmuring a prayer to Arkay to guide him into the next plane, but decided against it. If an ash ghoul like the monster he had just faced was allowed to live, Arkay surely was not watching over this corner of Tamriel.
Slowly Nils continued to levitate up until he could see a tiny light come into focus. His vision was so blurry that it turned into a spectacular cascade of orbs.
Was he heading towards Aetherius? It was beautiful... he felt light, lighter than he had ever felt...
But then Nils squeezed the ghoul heart in his hand and understood that he was holding something tangible, something real.
He wasn't dead.
He was very much alive, and when his vision cleared he saw that he most certainly not was ascending to Aetherius but towards Zaryth's dimming light spell.
When Nils caught the edge of the entrance J'zhirr immediately helped him up. The levitation spell faded. He vaguely realized that Zaryth had cast it to save his life. He supposed he ought to thank her for that. But no words came out. His body felt too weak to stand, and J'zhirr helped prop him upright against the wall far a safe distance away from the ledge.
"J'zhirr will pay for as many drinks as you want when we return to Tel Aruhn. That was amazing!" the Khajiit said. Nils appreciated the gesture but drinking copious amounts of alcohol wasn't really the first thing on his mind right now.
"Just... need to rest a bit," Nils murmured, his vision still hazy as he had hardly any idea what was going on. He still had the ghoul heart in his hand, the trophy of his victory. Perhaps he should feel proud about it, but mostly he was just relieved that it was dead.
He saw Zaryth take an empty glass bottle from her bag and scrape as much of the ash-creature's remains into it as she could.
"J'zhirr does not judge, but he thinks that is disgusting," he heard the Khajiit remark.
"I'm sorry that you're so woefully ignorant. No, truly. I actually feel bad that you didn't know these ash salts are a valuable alchemy reagent. Even if you don't care about alchemy, I'm sure you'd love nothing more than another opportunity to extort an unfortunate traveler out of their hard-earned gold..."
Their voices sounded so distant as they continued to prattle when Zaryth's light spell finally flickered into nothingness, plunging them all into an unsettling darkness.
"The light..." Nils said weakly, still not having recovered from the fog in his mind.
"I used all my magicka with the levitation spell. Drank all the potions I brought, too. We'll have to wait until I recover before we continue."
Her voice carried an audible tremor. Nils heard a rustle of skirts and he knew the girl had moved across the hallway to sit beside him. Nils did not understand. Was she afraid of the dark or something?
After all the horrors they had seen in this place, she chose to fear the darkness.
Strange child...
"You... you killed an ash ghoul! You actually killed that thing!" Zaryth exclaimed, the wonder still present in her voice. She had broken a long silence, during which Nils was pretty sure he had dozed off. He killed an ash ghoul. A blight creature. It was difficult for him to believe it, too. It all seemed surreal.
"Yes... I suppose I did, didn't I...?" he said, closing his eyes.
It was tiring just to talk. His head pounded, he felt a little sick, and he felt pain in many different parts of his body, but he was alive.
An exhausted smile spread across his face. He killed an ash ghoul. He had its disembodied heart in his hand to prove it. Nerevar, Dagoth Ur, Azura, the book... all of these thoughts could wait. For now, he had to take what little time he had to rest so that he would be able to make it out of here intact. That would be nice.