A/N: Okay, NOW this should actually post.
Those of you who've lived in student apartments before probably know how much of a hassle it can be to set up WiFi. I'm sore tempted to just rely on an Ethernet cable from now on. Unless this is a site issue or something. In any case, argh.
New chapter is finally here—and after that comes the final battle! Hope you enjoy! - K
XX
The smell of juniper filled her nostrils. She was walking through the steppes of the Reach; where exactly, she could not tell—there were no redoubts or camps for Cosette to gauge her location. Birds wheeled and called above her, too far away for her to identify them.
Suddenly, a whole flock of them swooped down from on high—now that Cosette could see them clearly, she could tell that they were black birds, whose feathers shone like ebony. Ravens, she thought. They were revered by the Forsworn, and thought to enhance their speed and ferocity in battle. Female Forsworn would often decorate the furs they wore with the skulls and feathers of ravens for this reason.
The swarm of ravens was surrounding her, now; dozens, hundreds, then thousands of the birds closed in on her so that all she could see was a wall of black feathers. The cawing noises they made were melding into one long, droning alarm that assaulted Cosette's ears. She clapped her hands over them, trying to block it out, but the presence of the ravens was overwhelming. She overbalanced, and fell to the ground—
—only it didn't feel like the ground. It was rough—under the sheet of filthy linen, it felt almost like wood—and Cosette dimly realized she was naked. There were bowls and instruments all around her—spoons and tongs and knives, all rusted and crusted with dried blood. Immediately, Cosette knew what this was.
It was a ritual altar.
The shriek of the birds grew louder than ever.
Suddenly, two forms appeared either side of her—they had seemingly melted into being from the forms of the swirling ravens. She heard heavy, labored breathing, and heard the faint click of clawed feet. She knew the sources of those sounds well, and despite their familiarity, the Breton still shuddered in terror.
The hagraven to her left—one of the half-woman, half-avian matriarchs of the Forsworn—extended a curved, grubby claw, though no less sharp for the detritus still clinging to the wicked appendage. Without any resistance—or, surprisingly, any pain—the claw sliced through the flesh of her chest with a flash, ripping it to the bone and causing blood to spill. The claws peeled back the carved flesh, and Cosette could see her ribcage and sternum.
The hagraven to Cosette's right, meanwhile, held a crude stone dagger in one clawed hand—and in the other, a greenish, spiky briar seed. Instantly, she felt her throat seize up in panic—she knew what these hagravens were trying to do!
"Heart of thorn," the two abominations chanted in unison, almost unheard over the cacophony of the ravens. The hagravens with the briar seed positioned it right over Cosette. The dagger flashed once—and Cosette's mouth opened in a silent scream as her sternum was sliced in half, and wrenched from its usual place by the claws of the matriarchs.
"Bones of the wild," they continued to intone, as the dagger now raised itself directly on top of Cosette's exposed, beating heart, "in life, Forsworn … "
The dagger came down once more, its rusted blade singing in the air with a cold finality. Then the world turned white, and Cosette Ionsaithe leaped up with a scream that echoed throughout the cavern.
It was some time before Cosette's heartbeat had started to slow, and eventually she realized that she had, in fact, been in the midst of a very vivid fever dream, and was not on the ritual table of a hagraven after all.
It was also around this time that the splitting headache set in, along with everything that had happened up to this point. She groaned loudly, attempting to piece it all together. The last thing she remembered was trying to fend off a veritable sea of mechanical spiders and spheres with one hand, while simultaneously having to carry Malys over her shoulder—
Malys!
All trace of fatigue gone, Cosette sat bolt upright, searching for the Dunmer vampire. She didn't need much time or effort to look; when she found her, she felt her heart sink.
Malys had been draped across a slab of rock not far from where Cosette was laying down. She was in a bad way; her black robes were torn and singed. Several spots were dark red with blood, especially on her torso, and even the rock that served as her bed was dripping here and there. Malys had lost a lot of blood indeed; for a vampire, Cosette imagined, that must surely a death sentence.
"How are you feeling?" asked a voice, soft and concerned. Cosette turned round to see the black mask of Grimnir looming over her.
"Lousy," she croaked. "How long was I out?"
"Half an hour," replied the Arch-Mage. "Vinye was doing her best to heal you. You must have been through a lot, Miss Ionsaithe."
Cosette peered over Grimnir's shoulder; Vinye was standing just behind him, looking rather pale as her green eyes flitted from Cosette to Malys and back again. She felt a grudging gratitude for the Altmer, and managed a weak smile in return. This seemed to bring a little bit of the color back into Vinye's face, and she sighed in relief.
"There's more," Vinye went on. "Have you noticed where we are?"
As a matter of fact, Cosette had not; she'd been too concerned with Malys after waking up. Gingerly, she got to her feet, and took in more of her surroundings of green, blue and gray.
It only took her a few seconds before she saw the familiar giant mushrooms illuminating the cavern, and Cosette laughed in spite of herself. They were only a stone's throw from the Reliquary now; if Solyn was not here, inside this naturally lit cave, then he was inside that final chamber.
He was so close to them now.
But Cosette was more worried about other things. "What about Malys?" she asked, biting her lip, dreading the reply.
Vinye gazed back at the prone Dunmer before she answered her question. "I don't know what kind of magic she was hit with—definitely some kind of lightning," she said sadly. "But on top of burns to her upper torso, she suffered some internal bleeding as well. Grimnir was able to seal the burns with his magic, and we've been feeding her potions to stop the hemorrhaging the whole time you were out cold."
"But it goes deeper than that," Grimnir added. "We haven't been able to get her to regain consciousness. She's in some kind of 'death state'. It's almost as though her body just … shut itself down so it could be protected from further injury."
Cosette knew very little about medicine—the average Forsworn's proficiency in alchemy extended only to what they used for rituals. Anything more than that fell within the purview of the camp's shaman, or as a last resort, the briarheart or hagraven in charge of the forces there. As Cosette was neither of these, she wasn't able to glean anything from what the two mages were saying, other than "Malys is in bad shape, and we can't help her."
"What can we do, then?" she finally asked. "Don't you have any potions that can wake a person up? Magic, even?"
"Magic won't help her," said Grimnir bluntly. "And potions can only get you so far. Miss Vinye and I have been talking, and we've decided there's only one thing we can do. We wanted to wait until you were awake before we discussed this plan with you, Miss Ionsaithe."
Before an alarmed Cosette could ask Vinye what was going on, Grimnir's hand glowed with purple flame. He reached into this flame, and yanked out a flaming, ethereal blade that looked not unlike the Daedric swords Borgakh had carried with her—a bound sword, she recognized.
"We'll have to perform a transfusion," Grimnir told them, using his other hand to produce a bottle from within his robes. "If either of you wants to volunteer, I suggest you speak up—I don't know how much more time Miss Malys might have."
It didn't take long for the Culler to put two and two together, and she stepped back as if she'd nearly trod on a snake. He wants to use our blood?!
Cosette was reluctant for a number of reasons. Every Forsworn patrol had at least one person who was a skilled healer—not just with restoration magic, but with alchemy as well. Both involved the necessity of knowing the human body inside and out, and what do to with it in the case of injury. If the skin around a wound was dirty, clean it up before healing it. If the blood was foul, get it out before starting the healing.
"Foul blood" was the reason why Cosette was so worried. Malys, vampirism or otherwise, was still a Dunmer. Who knew what would happen if her blood started mingling with Malys' own?
And then she kicked herself mentally for forgetting—of course Malys was a vampire; she could handle any kind of blood that she ingested! She'd disposed of that Redguard working for Taron Dreth at the Forge, and drank his blood in the process. And even before that, she'd killed that Forsworn at Arkngthamz—another Breton—and drank her blood as well?
Cosette's knowledge of medicine was scarce, but she knew that transfusions needed donations from a person with a blood type similar to or very nearly that of their own. An argument could be made that they didn't have the right equipment, or enough time to carry out a properly done procedure—but Cosette was sure that Grimnir knew all this already. So why bring up the question?
"How much blood are we talking about here?" she ventured.
"The less time we spend deciding," Grimnir said bluntly, "the less blood she'll need."
Cosette grimaced. Point taken. "Then let me do it."
The words tumbled out of her mouth before Cosette even knew what she was saying, and by the time the Breton had thought to bite her tongue, Grimnir and Vinye were already exchanging glances, leaving the Breton to stammer out some excuse for what she had just said.
"L-look," she began. "I was always one of those people who's been better off working alone. That way, I wouldn't have had to deal with the possibility of having to care about anyone instead of myself." She exhaled, trying to regain her composure. "I'm about to swallow my pride here, but I'm not that kind of person anymore. I can admit that the old me would have left Malys behind right now. But that's not who I am now."
In her mind's eye, she saw images of Madanach, still sitting in his cell with quill and parchment, now hidden deep within the heart of the Reach. Then she saw Orchendor—or rather, the Bosmer's headless body, bobbing and blazing within the molten ocean of Peryite's Pits as the former Shepherd was tortured for his crimes against the Ionsaithe clan and many other innocent people. Then came Katria and Taron Dreth, reunited with one another in death—if only to the displeasure of them both.
And then, lastly, the tattooed faces and red hair of her mother and father surged forth from the storm of memory and thought. The exposed bones of their spines gleamed unnaturally white, while blood and viscera dripped from the flesh of the severed neck. The eyes of both Bretons were not wide open in pain and horror, but were almost closed, as if in welcome of their fate—acceptance that even in suffering such an ignominious death, they had served the Forsworn well.
"I'm not sure that's a good idea, Cosette," Vinye suddenly cut in, interrupting the thoughts of the Culler. "Thus far, Solyn's proved himself to be above our magic completely. We all know what his ash spawn are capable of."
Her emerald eyes glittered recklessly. "But there's two things he didn't count on," the Altmer went on. "One is Grimnir. The other is you, Cosette. I hate to say it," she said, holding up a hand to keep Cosette from speaking out, "but we're going to need more than magic to take Solyn down. Your brute force might give us the edge we need. And we can't risk losing that for a few drops of blood, even if it is for Malys."
Cosette saw Vinye draw out that elven dagger in her belt. "I should be the one," Vinye said, staring at Kinsbane. "You need me less than her, Grimnir. Let Malys have my blood."
There was no reply.
"Grimnir?"
Both mages whirled around, and noticed Grimnir had reappeared right next to Malys. One hand was still clutching his bound blade—but Cosette also saw something dark and red dripping from the jagged edges of the weapon.
And then she noticed Grimnir's other hand, formed into a fist—and hanging inches over Malys' body. The damaged black robes had been pulled back to reveal the gray flesh of the Dunmer, and Malys' black lips were stained with the blood that oozed from a wound in Grimnir's palm.
"That was the last piece I needed," Grimnir told them, his black mask peering over his shoulder at Vinye and Cosette. "I don't doubt how talented each of you are individually—I've run into adepts who have been less creative than you, Miss Vinye. And few people I know are as proficient with a sword as they are with a spell, Miss Ionsaithe.
"But that's no small task for even a novice," Grimnir told them, opening his bleeding fist, and the blood flow from his palm increased just a little bit. "The true test begins when that novice is no longer on his own, but is responsible for the safety and well-being of other people."
Grimnir finally withdrew his palm, and dispelled the bound sword in favor of some healing magic, which he used to reseal his wound in the time it took to draw breath. "I had to learn this myself when I first came to Winterhold—can you imagine?" he chuckled. "A living Nordic legend, having to learn as if he was a schoolboy again? The irony wasn't lost on my instructors—nor on my companions, and my friends."
Grimnir sat down with a grunt. "They weren't unlike you, you know," he said. "Each of them had something to prove, even if the … circumstances of their arrival at Winterhold might have differed. Brelyna wanted to follow in the footsteps of her family, the Telvanni. Onmund wanted to do the exact opposite. And I'd wager my entire collection of masks that you can count the number of Khajiit sorcerers in Tamriel on one hand—so even J'zargo had a great deal of weight on his shoulders as well."
The Arch-Mage sighed. "We didn't start out as a terribly cohesive team," he chuckled again, "and we had some arguments of our own, to be sure. J'zargo would always take too long checking under floorboards for treasure and magickal power. Brelyna never saw the bigger picture for the longest time, so concerned was she about family honor. And what a shadow Onmund had been cast under—the prospect of training to be a master mage alongside the Dragonborn, of all people, must have sounded like such a starry prospect to him. But like Brelyna, he could occasionally be blind to the underlying truth of the matter.
"But then," Grimnir went on, "when it all mattered—when the odds were against us by all accounts—we finally came together. We banded as one cohesive team, and we truly believed we could conquer any obstacle in our way."
The black mask stared at them all, and Cosette almost thought she could see a gleam behind one of the eyeholes. "That's why I believe we can make it today," he confided to them. "That's why I know we can win."
Cosette could not figure out why, but the words of the Dragonborn had inspired something in her. For so long, she'd been trained by the Forsworn to reject the propaganda of the Nords, and their so-called "heroes" with them. Yet here stood one of these heroes before her, and the words he was speaking radiated a fire so intense Cosette nearly mistook it for her own. But where her flames were fueled by fury, and driven only by the Forsworn will to consume and destroy all else, this fire felt more like the roar of a hearth—a welcome feeling after spending so long in the damnable cold of Winterhold.
But just as Grimnir's inspirational speech had fanned the flames beneath her heart, a black smoke rose to choke the Culler as she realized what had happened here.
"You were testing us," she said simply. "That transfusion was just a ruse, wasn't it? You had every intention of shedding your own blood in our place." She placed her hands on her hips. "You just wanted to see if we could live up to your lofty standards, didn't you?"
Vinye was listening to her with a raised eyebrow, and now the elf was directing a progressively more questioning glare at the Arch-Mage, who simply shrugged.
"As mortals, we are best defined in blood and fire," the Dragonborn spoke at length. "It is through trials like these that we can measure the best of us—and the worst of us," he added. "I'd wager you know that full well by now."
Cosette said nothing in reply. She knew she could not betray anything to Grimnir. But deep down, she knew he was right. The Culler had been put through a rigorous trial indeed in the ruins of Bthardamz—being forced to face not only the remnants of her shattered clan, but in reaffirming her allegiance to the Forsworn and the Cullers.
Mercifully, her train of thought was interrupted by a low groan from behind Grimnir, and despite herself, Cosette felt something unclench around her lungs that she hadn't even known she was there.
The Breton breathed a sigh of relief as Malys began to stir on the rocks. She's all right …
Mistress Malys' world was nothing but pain.
This was not new to Her—after all, She gave and took pain as others might take pleasure. But for Her, both pleasure and pain came in brief spasms of sensation—searing through Her body like sparks from a fire; here one moment, yet gone the next.
But the pain in Her chest that She had woken up to was persistent—a constant, stabbing pain that seemed to wrack Her entire body. She groaned, and felt something hard beneath Her body—rough and uncomfortable.
Stone?
Malys opened her mouth and groaned, and felt a most unexpected taste on Her lips. She didn't have to be a vampire to know the metallic taste of blood. She poked Her tongue outward, tasting the blood—it was surprisingly fresh, spilled just minutes ago, judging by how warm it felt. What was more, the pain in Malys' chest felt as though it was subsiding, as if the blood was somehow restoring Her. So it certainly wasn't Her blood …
She opened Her eyes, and saw a blurry mix of blue, green, and gray. If She squinted, she could make out the rough rock walls of a cavern. It was most unusual, though; something She could not see, out of Her field of vision, was lighting the space with turquoise light, like Aetherium—
And then Malys realized how she had come to be here—she remembered the Aetherium-enhanced spider catching her in the chest with a lightning bolt, and sinking into a vast, dreamless nothing; the pain in Her chest seemed to magnify tenfold as She recalled the encounter …
"Ugh," She coughed.
"Don't try to talk," a familiar voice spoke up. Malys lolled Her head to one side, and saw a head framed by a mass of flaming red hair.
"You've been through a rough time," cosette told her. "Those animunculi in the last chamber did a number on You. How are You feeling?"
Malys coughed again. "I feel like I just died," she grinned. cosette failed to suppress a chuckle at the bleak humor, and before long both mages were sharing a lighthearted moment of laughter—a rare occasion, and one that was desperately needed for everyone's morale, considering what they had had to go through to get to this point. Even vinye broke out into a rare smile when she and grimnir came over to see what was going on.
"So what did we miss?" Malys finally asked, after accepting and gratefully downing a potion from Vinye.
"Solyn's been putting that Aetherial pickaxe to good use, for a start," said the elf. "You probably noticed the animunculi around here look a little different from the last time we were in this ruin."
cosette nodded, and began relating the story of their experience in the animunculory to vinye and grimnir.
"There were a lot more of them, too. I guess having all that extra time on his hands must have made Solyn bored," she said with a laugh. "I know I'd try to be creative with my hands if I had to wait for somebody for years on end."
Malys stretched out her joints, feeling satisfying cracks from each one as she tested her body, and eventually decided that the worst of Her injuries had been dealt with. cosette, She was pleasantly surprised to see, did not flinch from the sounds this time around.
"Now's not the time for jokes," said vinye in the meantime. "Those automatons got more than just a change in the way they look—they're much stronger than normal animunculi. The arch-mage and I passed through some kind of foundry earlier. I think the four of us ought to double back, see if we can't do anything to shut it down. Maybe we can halt Solyn's production of any more of these infernal machines."
"You might not need to," cosette chimed in. "Malys and I went through a room earlier that she said was an 'animunculory'?" The breton looked to Malys as she pronounced the word uncertainly, and She nodded back at her. "Anyway, they were assembling a lot of the automatons there—we saw more spiders inside that room than I ever thought a single ruin could have. But we destroyed them all—along with the ash spawn inside them. Something tells me that should have crippled Solyn from making too many of these bloody things."
The arch-mage cleared his throat. "You're forgetting the head of this particular Tsaesci," he said. "Solyn—if we take him out, that's the end of that. And it'll be easier if we just confront him directly than choke his production lines or starve him out. Also," grimnir added, and Malys was taken aback to hear the note of embarrassment, of all things, in his voice, "I might have collapsed our way back to the foundry to block any chance of pursuit. If we went back, we'd have to take a very long trip in the wrong direction."
Malys made as if to get up. "Then what are we waiting for?" She asked. She attempted to heave Herself off the slab of rock on which She'd been resting.
And then, quite suddenly, she fell again.
It was not on account of injury—no, something inside Malys felt very strange now. She could have sworn She had heard a growling noise just now; not from Her stomach—the blood She'd been offered had sated Her for the moment. This growling was something different—as if something feral, like a sleeping beast, older than the world around them, had stirred in its rest. Surely She couldn't be hearing things?
"Are you okay?" vinye asked. She could hear the worry in her voice—and if Malys was honest, She was no less concerned Herself—but She waved off the elf anyway.
"Who gave Me that blood?" She asked, turning around to address the other mages. None of them bothered to speak up.
That vexed Malys greatly. "Who gave it to Me?" She asked again, a little louder this time.
Wordlessly, vinye and cosette pointed towards grimnir, whose ebon mask betrayed no guilt or confession. But Malys knew her two friends well enough to know they would not betray Her to the arch-mage.
"We volunteered to do it ourselves," vinye said quietly, not daring to look at Malys, "but he'd already done it … before we'd even thought to stop him … "
Malys understood what had happened, now—it had been grimnir who had done this deed for her, who had shed his own blood so that She might yet live. But She could not feel grateful for this—in fact, She felt all the more uneasy now. No matter how She looked at it, the facts—the reluctance of the mages, in contrast to grimnir's act of self-sacrifice—only led to one possibility.
Somehow, grimnir had known about Her all along. Maybe he didn't know what they knew, but it was enough. Now the arch-mage had something on all three of them—Malys was almost certain he suspected at least of cosette's affiliation with the Forsworn. And She had seen vinye skulking about from time to time, how the high elf's eyes would never quite seem to meet that strange, impassive mask. grimnir had something on her, too; Malys was sure of it—though whether it was vinye's connection to the Thalmor, or something more that that, She could not say.
And this feeling inside Her … it wasn't like anything She'd ever felt after feeding on blood. Something was aching inside Her, now … burning. It did not feel wrong inside her, but neither did it feel right—it just didn't quite belong.
And yet, there was a small part of Her that wanted more.
It took the better part of an hour before Malys had recuperated enough to where she felt able to stand and move under her own power. It was at that point that Grimnir motioned them to continue on—they'd spent enough time resting, and everyone was inclined to agree.
They continued along the same cobblestone road that the mages had trod once before, taking in the sights around them. Grimnir looked particularly enamored with what he was seeing around him, especially with all the glowing fungi and vegetation. Not that Vinye could tell, but the way his mask turned this way and that left her in no doubt that the Arch-Mage was very impressed with this natural cavern.
"It reminds me of Blackreach," he remarked to them. Catching their looks of confusion, he went on, "One of the deepest ruins ever delved by the Dwemer, and certainly the biggest. A cave the size of a whole hold of Skyrim," the mask whispered breathlessly, "uncharted for hundreds of years. Who knows what more could lie down there?"
All the mages looked awed by this, except for Vinye, who merely nodded in understanding. So this place had a name, she thought. It was a pity, though, as Grimnir sounded like he knew more than enough about this 'Blackreach' to have ventured through there himself. Already she could see that treatise to the Synod and the College of Whispers, on the subject of an undiscovered kingdom under Skyrim, fading away into the mists of hopes and dreams—Grimnir would be mad to have not written about the matter himself by now.
So much for exclusivity, thought Vinye. It was no matter to her, however; the discovery of Aetherium had more than made up for this minor setback. And Vinye had not forgotten her promise to Katria. When all was said and done, she would be following through on that promise, and no mistake.
Suddenly her thoughts were interrupted by a familiar sound of metal upon stone. Lightning snaked over the Altmer's arms at the same time she noticed a pair of Aetherial spheres far off in the distance, patrolling the road ahead at a slow but steady clip. They flanked a type of automaton that Vinye had never seen before; a large, squat, spiked machination, roughly as tall as Cosette and just a bit wider, that looked like a crab without claws. The thick 'shell' of this new animunculus glowed too with the hated turquoise gleam of Aetherium, as did the spikes bisecting it down the middle, as well as a spherical contraption that Vinye assumed must be some kind of mechanical eye.
"A ballista," Grimnir grumbled as he saw this crab-like machine. "I've seen those before—the ruins on Solstheim were nigh crawling with them. Be very careful—those bolts they shoot can punch right through ebony armor."
Vinye took another, closer look at the mobile ballista, and noticed that the spikes she'd seen earlier were in fact the tips of some very large projectiles, longer than her outstretched arm. The Altmer shuddered at the prospect of having to deal with Aetherium-tipped ammunition—and Grimnir had even said normal ballista bolts could punch through ebony!
She grimaced. We can't let that hit us, then, she thought.
"Look at this." Cosette tugged on the sleeve of her robe. "Those weren't here before, were they?"
The elf followed Cosette's outstretched finger to a scar in the earth the size of a house. It was recently excavated; Vinye saw giant mounds of dislodged dirt and stone—although the degree to which the stone had been broken apart led her to believe that it had not been merely dug up.
In fact, it looked more like it had been blown apart.
Vinye's eyes flew back to the ballista as a nasty thought sprang into her mind. We really can't let that hit us.
"We'll handle the spheres, Arch-Mage," said Cosette grimly, unclipping one of her Forsworn blades and charging up a firebolt. "You've got more experience with that ballista thing; you take that out first. We'll back you up."
Grimnir aimed a pointed look at Cosette. "Just wait until I give the signal this time," he grunted. "We'll have to strike hard and fast—don't give them any chances to make you a target."
Everyone nodded, and at a silent signal from Grimnir, they dispersed off the road—Vinye and Malys heading left, Grimnir and Cosette heading right—just as the three automata before them began patrolling a section of the road much closer to them than before.
Vinye planned out a strategy as she moved to conceal herself behind an excavated pile of rubble. She knew the spheres would be easy enough to take down with a surprise attack. The Aetherium that formed most of their body armor did not extend to the joints of their body—including their hips and waist, which was by far the most important mechanism in the animunculus' entire body.
A good-size bolt of lightning in the right place might be enough to disable it, Vinye decided. But she would have to be quick; a closer look at the spheres revealed a piston-like mechanism made of Aetherium, placed just below the crossbow mounted on their arm. The Altmer recalled how Cosette had witnessed these spheres firing a blast of compressed air from these pistons that was like the force of a gale, and how it had swept her right off her feet.
Malys could support her from the back with her healing magic, but Vinye had no idea how long she'd be able to do so. She glanced at the Dunmer, and slowly shook her head, hoping the message was clear: You can use that vampire magic—but only as a last resort. Vinye had no proof, certainly, but she did not want to give Grimnir any more suspicion than he already had of Malys' true nature—on the off chance he didn't know already, of course.
All this meant that she would only get one shot at this.
Her mind set thus, Vinye crept out from behind the pile of rubble, sparks arcing across her fingers. She took aim at the nearest sphere, took a deep breath—and fired.
The bolt hit right where she'd been aiming for; the force of the impact put a huge dent in the metal of the sphere's waist joint. The animunculus staggered backward from the force of the impact, overbalanced, and fell to the ground. Two more bolts from Vinye hit one of its knees, ensuring that it could never get up under its own power again.
At the same time, Cosette—from a house's length over to her right—hurled a fireball at the other sphere. The Breton was not so lucky; the sphere had reacted just quickly enough to block the flaming missile with its left arm. Fortunately for the mages, this was the arm that contained the crossbow and Aetherial piston; the tiny mechanisms within these destructive weapons were jammed by the mage-fire, rendered useless in the time it took to draw breath.
As the sphere raised its Aetherium-edged blade, Grimnir made his move, leaping out from behind the rock pile with a grunt. "Fus … Ro DAH!"
There was a deafening clap of thunder. Vinye saw a wave of blue energy blast out from Grimnir's mouth, expanding wider and wider until it engulfed the three animunculi in its path. The sphere Vinye had disabled was swept up like flotsam in the tides; it sailed away from the mages until it hit another nearby rock pile with a loud CLANG. The second sphere—the one Cosette had partially disarmed—staggered backwards a fair distance, and floundered drunkenly to regain its balance, but was otherwise unaffected. The ballista, meanwhile, hadn't been affected at all. With a click-click-clicking noise, it turned to face Grimnir.
The Arch-Mage must have seen what was coming, Vinye thought, judging by his next shout—"Feim … Zii GRON!"—just as the ballista released a heavy-looking bolt, tipped with an Aetherium point the size of Vinye's hand, right at Grimnir. But by then, more of the blue energy appeared from around him—and this time encased his own body. Suddenly, Vinye could see through him now, past his body and toward the other side of the cavern—he'd changed his state of phase, she realized; he was nothing more than a very heavy gas at this point.
The ballista can't even touch him as long as he's like this, she thought as the bolt sailed right through where his heart and lungs would have been, impacting a pile of rubble with a tremendous burst of sound and blue-green light. He really does know his way around these things.
But the effect was only temporary; inside of a second, Grimnir was his normal, solid consistency once more. The Staff of Magnus twirled in his hand, aiming right for the ballista. Vinye noticed his black mask was now a cold, steel gray this time.
Then the staff released its ancient energy in a lance more blindingly white than Vinye had ever seen, slowly but surely drilling through the Aetherial armor of the ballista like it was nothing more than tissue paper. Within seconds, Grimnir had burned right through to the other end of the ballista, leaving behind a neat hole—dead center through the automaton's Aetherium shell—that looked wide enough to fit Vinye's entire arm.
Yet somehow—incredibly—the ballista was still standing. It was severely damaged, and sparked as it tried to bear down on Grimnir once more. The remaining sphere attempted to assist by charging forward at Grimnir, but the Arch-Mage was one step ahead of it. His free right hand erupted in golden energy, and solidified into the crude form of a dragon's scaly head. The ethereal gauntlet blocked the swordblade with a single swipe of Grimnir's arm, upon which he stabbed out at the sphere with the butt of his staff. The turquoise shard of crystal pierced its sword arm, splintering the smaller mechanisms of the appendage into metal fragments. A final fireball from Cosette blew up in its metal visage, sending it tumbling backwards into the rubble, never to rise again.
But the sphere, perhaps knowingly, had not sacrificed itself in vain. Its actions had given the ballista enough time to stumble back on to its feet, and aim another Aetherium bolt directly at the Arch-Mage.
Vinye knew there was no time for her to distract the animunculus. She could only watch as the bolt seemed to sail in slow motion from within the ballista—and straight towards the Dragonborn.
Cosette attempted to send a firebolt at the ballista, but the Aetherium, damaged though it was, still deflected it with little effort. Malys, daringly, tried to intercept the bolt and rush it down, and likely would have succeeded to some extent had Vinye not pulled her back—
"Fus … Ro DAH!"
Suddenly there was an enormous explosion, quickly followed by a flash of bright aquamarine light that sent everyone sprawling on the excavated ground. Then—with what little hearing she could spare—Vinye heard a crunching noise from ahead and off to her left, roughly where the ballista had been before the explosion.
Slowly, she clambered up to her feet, sealing up the cuts and scrapes she'd suffered with her magic. Then she saw the scene before her, and forgot about her own state of health.
No …
Where the explosion had taken place, a whole section of the ground—and the cobblestone road on it—was simply gone. There was no trace of debris at all, not even the slightest bit of metal or dust—or of Grimnir.
Vinye whirled back to her left, where the crunching noise had come from. The ballista was completely destroyed, and by its own bolt, no less; the projectile had lodged itself deep within where its shell had once been. Now, there was no trace of the automaton's Aetherial armor left, save for twisted bits of the mineral, barely the size of septims that littered the whole area.
Auriel, save us, she thought in awe and terror at the scene.
A sudden, faint noise from off to her right distracted her; one of the piles of rubble was … groaning?
Vinye's heart nearly stopped. Grimnir's alive! "Malys, Cosette!" she yelled. "Come on—help me dig the Arch-Mage out!"
The two mages stumbled up to answer her. Neither had fared better or worse than the other—a bit of blood still trickled from a head wound that Cosette now appeared to have sealed up, and Malys had a bit of a limp to her step. "I'll walk it off," she told Vinye shortly, before rolling up her sleeves to move away all the rock that covered the Arch-Mage.
It was quicker work than they expected; the biggest rocks were few and far between, and hardly bigger around than the average human head. Once they'd cleared away all of these, Grimnir stirred beneath the rest of the rubble, spilling it all to the ground as he slowly got to his feet.
"Right," he grunted. There looked to be a chip or three in that steel-gray mask, and Grimnir definitely sounded a little punch-drunk, but otherwise, he looked unharmed. "I'm not doing that again," he said decisively. "Something in that bolt reacted with my Voice, caused that huge explosion. If I hadn't put on a flesh spell just before I'd Shouted, we might not be having this conversation—and you three might be digging out a corpse instead of an Arch-Mage."
And true to his word, Vinye saw the edges of his body glowing with the telltale sea green layer of magic that identified a flesh spell. The elf shuddered as she considered what might have happened if not for that spell. The world without a Dragonborn … Such a thought was almost inconceivable.
"It did answer one question, though," Cosette said as they resumed their journey to the Reliquary. The Breton peered at the road under her feet; several more Aetherium-tipped bolts littered over the road. "These bolts must've been how they were mining all the Aetherium here. Nothing else could break through the stuff."
Vinye gasped—Cosette was right. And she was, too; Vinye had suspected Solyn had known where to find more Aetherium the moment she'd seen the pickaxe he had forged. She had not, however, suspected he'd been able to find a source of the mineral that was so close to home, so to speak—never mind in such large quantities.
The process was simple, now that she thought of it: use the first pickaxe to begin breaking down the Aetherium deposits. Then, once enough had been extracted and pulverized into a more manageable size, use that inside the construction of the Aetherial automatons they'd encountered in Rkund up till now.
And there was more. "Remember those tunnels in the foundry we passed through, Arch-Mage?" Vinye asked.
Grimnir nodded.
"I'm willing to bet there were more of those ballistae in there, too," said the Altmer. "You might have even destroyed one of them when you cut a way through to this cavern. They must be trying to search for more deposits of that Aetherium within Rkund—I wonder if there might actually be any more."
"Oh, there's bound to be plenty of it. Which is why we need to put an end to Solyn's plans—whatever they might entail—as quickly as we can," said Grimnir. "But there's one thing I don't quite yet understand. I had a look at that Aetherium Wars book Urag told me he'd picked up, and I seem to recall that it was virtually impossible to work with. Alchemically inert, unbreakable with conventional tools, among other things."
Vinye did not mention that the book was fraudulent—the chances were that Grimnir suspected this, too, and even if he didn't … well, Vinye didn't think it was all that relevant, all things considered. "So?" she challenged him.
Grimnir's mask bored holes into Vinye. "So how is it that Solyn was able to bend this material to his whim?"
Malys looked ready for this question. "There's a special forge, hidden deep beneath the Rift," she piped up. "That's where Solyn created a pickaxe out of the Aetherium we'd already collected."
"You misunderstand me," said Grimnir. "How did Solyn manage to not only smelt all this Aetherium, but incorporate it into these animunculi, without the aid of that forge?"
Vinye had no reply to this—that was something she admittedly hadn't considered. But Cosette still sounded skeptical. "We don't know that he didn't use the Forge," she answered. "This is a Chimer we're talking about her—one hell of a sorcerer. Solyn could've set up a link of some sort between here and the Forge—he could cross between the two in the blink of an eye."
"I'll admit that's true," said Grimnir as they reached the ramp that spiraled all the way to the top of the ruins—leading to the final hallway before the Reliquary. "But you're forgetting about his claudication spell. When you seal off a region in time and space, you have to leave yourself an anchor point—in this case, that would be the entrance to Rkund. Once the spell has been cast, there's simply no other way in or out—not even through teleportation. If Solyn was indeed teleporting to this forge you found, then the claudication spell would've already been broken—and our intervention would have slowed him down even more."
Vinye listened to this with a growing sense of confusion.
Grimnir clucked his tongue before he continued on. "Before I left to catch up with you," he said, "Solyn visited me in my sleep."
There was a general outcry of surprise from the three mages—none more vocal than Malys. "Why didn't you tell us this?" she demanded.
"Up until now, I didn't consider it all that important," answered Grimnir, as they reached the top of the ramp, and approached the door framed by masses of pipes upon pipes, "just the delusions of another power-mad elf. But Solyn sent me a vision while he talked with me … and I think he's building something inside this ruin. Something big. Something he'd need a large amount of time for—and a claudication spell to boot—in order to make sure he completed it in time."
Vinye felt her confusion slowly turning into dread. Grimnir didn't know what they knew—that Solyn was after the Heart of Lorkhan. But surely he knew the things that infernal artifact had been associated with. The disappearance of the Dwemer … the transformation of the entire Chimer race, save for Solyn … the construction of the thousand-foot-tall Second Numidium …
"Whatever it is," Cosette said, her voice trembling slightly with a sense of foreboding, "I think we might find out soon enough."
By now, they had arrived at the door that had been trapped to excess with an incredible amount of spiders. Vinye had no doubt that with Grimnir by their side, such a trap would prove trivial the second time around. However, Grimnir had performed another detection spell at their insistence ("Laas … yah nir") and they were all pleasantly surprised to hear that there was nothing lying in wait for them.
But then Grimnir forced the door open, and in the instant before horror and blind panic set in, Vinye—and everyone else, judging by the similar expressions on their faces—knew that the Arch-Mage had miscalculated very badly.
Filling the doorway completely was a massive centurion. Its shoulders, legs, and chest glowed with Aetherium, and Vinye could see that its face and the weapons mounted on its hands were lined with the substance as well. It stepped forward, and the floor shook with every step as the heavy construct plodded towards them.
The centurion suddenly hefted its halberd-arm at the mages. "Move!" Grimnir hollered. Cosette did so, and just in time—a massive burst of lightning arced from the tip of the weapon, and exploded where her feet had been just moments ago. Bits of the lip of the stone platform crumbled off and tumbled to the ground below.
"Back down!" Vinye was ushering them to the ramp, out of the animunculus' line of fire, and then she heard a rumbling noise from far off in the distance. She looked towards the far end of the ruin, and felt her heart sink well past her stomach and into her bowels as she watched two more Aetherium-enhanced centurions emerge from hidden recesses in the rock walls.
Now there were three centurions—three massive automatons, each one capable of destructive firepower, against three mages and a living legend of Skyrim. Even Vinye—who had been through the horrors of the purge of Falinesti—did not like those odds.
Especially considering that they were now well and truly trapped.
"How did you not detect those bloody things?" Cosette was seething at Grimnir as they scrambled further down the ramp, the first centurion still in pursuit.
"I don't know!" the Arch-Mage retorted, the black mask back upon his face. "That damned Aetherium, I'll wager. It must have masked the rest of the golem from my Shout somehow."
"We have to split up!" Malys shouted, grunting as a stitch tore through her. "We're dead if we stay together!" The Dunmer peered upward at the top of the ramp, where the centurion still lay in waiting, and suddenly skidded to a halt.
"You three take those two behind us!" she hollered. "I'll handle this one!"
"Do you have a death wish?" bawled Cosette—Vinye, despite her knowledge of Malys' power, couldn't help but agree with the Breton here. "You can't take one of those things on by yourself!"
Malys smirked. "Trust me," she winked devilishly. "It'll be just like that one time in Arkngthamz."
And before either Cosette or Vinye could say anything, the vampire had doubled back to face what was surely an insurmountable challenge. There was a war cry, followed by another blast of lightning. More bits of metal and stone were hurled into the air; Vinye thought she heard a scream, but there was too much noise to be certain.
She made as if to go back upstairs to check on Malys—perhaps lend a hand if necessary—only to be stopped by Cosette. "Leave her," the Breton said resolutely, nodding towards the other two centurions, who were more than halfway across the cavern now. "We've got our own problems to deal with at the moment."
Vinye cast a long look upwards where Malys was. Another echo of cannon fire sounded from above—that had to mean Malys was still alive and on her feet, if only just. Vinye sighed—there was nothing else for it. Lightning wrapped around her hands, and she sprinted off after Cosette after downing a quick potion to help restore her magicka.
The two centurions, meanwhile, had halted their advance in the middle of the cavern. They watched through unseeing eyes at the three mages now recklessly charging for them.
Suddenly, those eyes began to glow. Vinye heard the sparks just barely, and the hairs raising on every single part of her body told her what was going to happen an instant before it did.
"DUCK!" she screeched, diving behind a pile of rubble—and not a moment too soon. The glowing eyes of the centurions flared—and suddenly a deafening, never-ending crackling noise split the world in two as lightning poured forth from the Aetherium implanted within those eyeholes.
Vinye clapped her hands over her ears. It was more lightning than she had ever experienced in a single moment of her lifetime—even that day when she had encountered the Dragonborn for the first time, when he had used his own immense lightning attack to counter and deflect the lightning-breath of a deadly dragon. The baleful stare of the centurions vaporized everything in their path, ripping the cobblestone road apart and leaving foot-deep gashes of rough, grayish-black glass in the ground.
Then, almost as quickly as it had begun, the assault had ceased. Vinye heard a screaming noise through the ringing of her ears, and it was only when she took her hands off her head that she realized that had been her screaming all this time. Her heart was almost humming, it was racing so quickly; she could not believe the awesome power she had witnessed from Dagoth Solyn's deadliest creation yet encountered.
"Krii … Lun AUS!"
Vinye turned just in time to see a wave of bright purple fire erupt from Grimnir's mask, now bluish-green again instead of black. The flames washed over the centurion nearest them, and immediately it began to glow a sickly, pinkish color.
"Now's your chance!" roared the Arch-Mage. "I've weakened its armor! Pour it on!"
Vinye knew this was no time to slack off and let her own self recover. Grimnir had given her and Cosette a chance to strike while the iron was hot, and neither of them wasted no time in taking advantage of the opportunity.
Both her and the Breton let fly with lightning and fire. Cosette had even summoned a flame atronach to assist her, and both of the slender daedra's searing claws were applying a steady volley of firebolts at the weakened centurion. The missiles peppered the Dwemer golem in every possible place they could reach, but it was clear that even now, they weren't doing enough damage to the godlike animunculus.
Once, several of her lightning bolts hit the Aetherium armor of the centurion—which was thicker in some places than even the dense shell of that ballista Grimnir had disabled—and had actually bounced off. One had even singed the sleeve of her robes, on the same hand that had fired that particular bolt. Since then, Vinye was very careful to aim at a part of the body that wasn't covered in that accursed bluish-green substance.
Then Grimnir joined them with some summons of his own—more of the flaming, ghostly wyrms Vinye had seen him use to kill that dragon. They snaked outwards, one from each hand, and wrapped themselves around the centurion's arms. Grimnir roared in exertion as he pulled tightly against the opposing force of the automaton.
Vinye watched the spectacle in amazement—the Dragonborn was incredibly strong, there was no doubt about that. But flesh and metal had their own separate advantages and disadvantages—and not even the Dragonborn could continue this feat of strength for much longer.
Then Grimnir pulled his head back and inhaled—and Vinye suddenly realized that Grimnir had no intention of prolonging this battle any longer.
"Yol … Toor SHUL!"
A massive stream of fire erupted from the Dragonborn's mask, and hit the centurion right in its unarmored groin. When the flames had subsided, there was nothing left of the joints there but a lump of molten Dwemer metal. The centurion's legs crashed to the road with a very final-sounding SMASH, and the rest of it followed soon after. Only then did Grimnir release his spectral dragons, no longer needing to immobilize that automaton any further.
But there was still one more of the centurions to deal with—and another torrent of lightning sprayed from its metal eyes an instant after Vinye had recognized this obvious fact. As she downed another potion from the safety of the rock pile she'd just dived behind for cover, she decided to follow Cosette's lead in approaching this next foe.
When taking on an opponent of this size and danger, numbers were crucial—the more of a fighting force you had, the better off you'd be in the battle to come. Vinye and Cosette both knew this to be true; just like Ugluk of Largashbur in his Daedric armor, whatever enchantments lay within the enhancements of the Aetherium in this automaton wouldn't help it fend off multiple attacks from multiple angles. No—the centurion, for all its raw power, could only focus on one target at a time.
With this knowledge in mind, Vinye knew what to do.
From the safety of the pile of rubble beneath her, she placed both hands upon the rocks and called forth a storm atronach. The daedra exploded up from the pile of debris, crackling with electricity as it lunged for the centurion.
Next to her, Grimnir had summoned an atronach of his own—a hulking monstrosity of semi-transparent ice, half as tall and broad again as he was. The frost atronach brought its jagged, cauldron-sized fists together in a silent challenge to the animunculus, before it too charged into the fray.
Finally, Cosette had brought out another flame atronach, bringing the odds to six-against-one.
Vinye hoped that would be enough.
The centurion released another lightning blast from its eyes, wiping out Cosette's atronach in the blink of an eye. The Breton didn't look all that fazed as the daedra exploded harmlessly far from the centurion; she ducked and weaved from one pile of rubble to the next, stopping only to hurl the occasional fireball at the automaton. One of the missiles hit the centurion full in the face, staggering it and leaving an ugly black blotch on the metal visage.
"I think I've taken out its eyes—it won't be able to shoot that lightning now!" shouted Cosette from her cover. "Vinye, get in up close and personal with that son of a bitch! It won't be able to reach you in close combat—their bodies don't allow for it!"
Grimnir had heard this, and had already sent in his frost atronach to within melee range—perhaps to test out Cosette's strategy. To Vinye's surprise, it appeared to be working; Grimnir's atronach, as a creation of ice magic, could not damage Dwemer with the extreme cold it generated, as with other elemental cloaks like fire and lightning. But it didn't take a master mage to discern that this particular species of atronach was built for causing brutal physical attacks as well, and Vinye could already see that the frost daedra had already caused a few dents in the unarmored parts of the centurion.
She reached out to her storm atronach. Closer, she commanded.
The storm atronach obeyed her right as the centurion raised its halberd-cannon at Grimnir's atronach. It fired, and the ball of lightning blasted the frost daedra into a fine mist of vapor. It took aim again, this time for Vinye's atronach, and fired a second burst. But this summons, as a creation of lightning as well, was unfazed by the assault, and swatted aside the centurion's third volley with a swipe of its electrified arm as it continued to push forward.
The daedra's next strike was a very hard right into the groin of the centurion that made even Vinye cringe to see it. Then, she heard a loud bang from somewhere in the casing of the automaton, and the massive golem sparked, jerked spasmodically, and finally toppled backward with a deafening CRASH.
When the noise of the battle subsided, it was replaced by a silence that felt like it was pressing in on Vinye's eardrums. But she didn't care—the three of them had just taken out two of the toughest enemies they'd yet faced. Cosette didn't even care that she hadn't got to land the final blow on either of them; the Breton was happier than Vinye had ever remembered seeing her—if Vinye hadn't already known better, her clan and her family might still be alive, she was grinning so widely.
And then Vinye remembered the third centurion, and a chill swept over her body.
"Malys," she said softly—and then bolted for the ramp to the Reliquary, Grimnir and Cosette not far behind.
The stonework had been absolutely ravaged—there were places in the ramp where Vinye had to jump to find sure ground, so scarred was the surface. There was complete and total silence from the ramp above, and Vinye could not know what to make of it. She'd expected to hear the plodding footsteps of a centurion by now, patrolling the summit to pick off any survivors—but there wasn't any sound of any kind, only the ever-present hum of unseen machinery echoing in the cavern.
As they neared the top, Vinye bade the others slow down, and she crouched down until she was nearly on all fours—if that centurion was indeed still there, she wanted to maintain any advantage they had for as long as they had. She held out her hand, ready to loose a lightning bolt at a moment's notice.
Slowly, almost painfully so, she peered over the lip of the platform at the top to take in the scene before her. As she had expected, the centurion was still there.
But she had not expected said centurion to be scattered into a hundred pieces over the floor.
Nor had she expected Malys to be sitting in the middle of the wreckage, sipping a potion as if she had all the time in the world.
"I was wondering what happened to you," said the Dunmer quite calmly, her eyebrows slightly raised as if she'd just encountered a particularly fascinating sight. Her face and robes were drenched in oil. "What took you all so long?"
"How did you do it?" Vinye was asking for the third time, still as slack-jawed as she was five minutes ago, while Cosette took the time to rest up and get her strength back.
"I had to wait until he let his guard down," Malys replied, shooting a look at Grimnir, and then lowering her voice. "You know I can't really say more than that."
Cosette listened to the conversation with only a minimal amount of interest. Malys had not been lying when she claimed it would be like Arkngthamz all over again—vampire magic and all. It was a pity they could not have stuck around to see the fight for themselves—though perhaps that was for the best, Cosette thought as her eyes flicked over to Grimnir, who was calmly drinking a restorative potion of his own.
Inevitably, she found her gaze drifting back toward Malys. A month ago, Cosette would have been beside herself with fury at the sight of the Dunmer seated in front of her—a frost mage of a Dunmer, no less, who had just taken out a dwarven centurion that had been upgraded to Oblivion and back.
But over time, she'd gotten to know this dark elf. They'd had their rough patches, certainly—Cosette would never quite forgive her for keeping the fact she was undead a secret from her for so long—but in the time since that first lesson with Tolfdir, and their first foray into the ruins of Rkund, she felt almost like a sister to the Breton now.
An annoying younger sister, maybe—well, perhaps not younger, but a sister nonetheless. They'd shared all their secrets with one another now—something that not even the Dragonborn could lay claim to. Cosette no longer cared about how much Grimnir knew about her past or her affiliations.
Right now, she was just happy that they were all alive.
But eventually, the reality of the situation would come to surround them all—and it was at that precise moment that the four mages, no less the worse for wear, finally arrived within the Reliquary.
The circular room was markedly different than first time she'd been in here, noted Cosette—not least because of the smooth pillar of rock that had seemingly erupted from out of nowhere. The lamps had all been lit as well, throwing the whole room into a bright, flickering light that would have almost felt welcome if not for what lay beyond. The platforms that held the carvings for Kagrenac's Tools were still there, but they almost looked a little cleaner than Cosette had remembered them.
And then it hit her. He's here.
"Laas … yah nir," Grimnir muttered again. He was silent for a few moments, before calmly striding forward to the pillar in the center of the chamber.
"It's all right," he said. "There's nothing else in here. There's no other automatons, no other nasty surprises in store for us."
Even as the three mages stepped forward to follow him, Cosette sensed Grimnir wasn't done talking—and she was right.
"However," Grimnir went on, "there is something else here. It's faint, but alive and well—and a hundred feet straight down."
Even as he said the word, the pillar began to move, slowly rotating around its axis until Cosette could see a tiny tunnel threaded into the stone. She barely caught the glimpse of a spiral staircase, and torchlight dancing on the walls of the way down.
"This is it," Vinye whispered under her breath; Cosette almost didn't hear her. "There's no turning back now."
Malys nodded. "No matter what happens ... from here on out," said the vampire, her voice unusually thick, "I'm glad I got to know you all."
"Likewise," Vinye replied back. Grimnir nodded silently in agreement.
"Same here," Cosette heard herself say, as though her own body was miles away from here.
It had felt like such a long trip—and yet such a short trip as well. But Cosette hoped that when it was all over, she would finally be at peace.
But in order to find that peace, blood would still have to be shed—and Cosette Ionsaithe had no intention of letting her own blood be spilled before she had her revenge.
"We stay together," Grimnir murmured beneath his mask, and everyone nodded in agreement. "Krif voth ahkrin … wah faal dinok."
With that, the Arch-Mage of Winterhold led the way down the staircase. Cosette followed behind him, then Malys, and finally Vinye.
It seemed to take an eternity before the narrow stairs opened up into the open space beyond—but when it did, Cosette had forgotten completely about her promise of revenge.
It was just like inside the Aetherium Forge—a massive cavern, wide enough to swallow Winterhold in a single gulp. Gigantic pipes pierced the rock ceiling, winding this way and that, and then dipping straight down into the veritable sea of molten rock that encircled the stone island a hundred feet in every direction. The heat was unbearable.
But it was not this that held Cosette's attention so thoroughly—or indeed, that of the other mages as well. It was the sight of the familiar-looking mass of pipes and metal before them, that spat magma by the barrelful and belched whole clouds of steam.
Suddenly those clouds of steam were swept aside, as if by some giant invisible hand, and Cosette Ionsaithe felt her blood boil hotter than the bubbling lake of lava around her as she saw the scene clearly for the first time.
There, before the massive construction, attended by a full dozen ash spawn—almost perfectly camouflaged against the Dwemer metal in a gleaming golden robe—was Dagoth Solyn.
Next chapter: Solyn reveals his final, shocking trump card.