The whirring machinery and steaming vents were no longer such an unfamiliar sight to Riviere, though the possibility of contraptions springing from the walls and traps emerging from the floors was still enough to, quite rightly, make the young thief uneasy. Over the years she had learned that keeping low down and close to the walls, always watching where she put her feet, and making as little noise as possible were all good tactics, though she had yet to make it from one end of a Dwarven ruin to the other without alerting something to her presence.
On this occasion, however, she didn't really have to worry, for the way ahead of her had been almost entirely cleared of mechanical guards and most of the traps disarmed. A few of the more complex contraptions were still in operation, though these were few in number. The falmer, too, the blind creatures that were almost always found within these ruins, had been slain by those that had preceded Riviere's arrival. Walking through one passage after another, into one large chamber, then a smaller one, Riviere wandered further and further, going deeper into the ruins until she came across a recess in one of the stone walls. Inside the opening was a large, circular plate on the floor, and a rusty metal lever in the centre of the plate.
"I was hoping to find one of these earlier," Riviere sighed as she stepped onto the plate. "An elevator from the entrance down here would have been much faster…" Though she had no idea where she was actually heading within the ruins, she had followed the trail of defeated foes to this point, where it seemed to stop right in front of the ancient mechanism. "I hope this one goes down," she said as she grabbed the lever. "At least, it seems to be where whoever came just before me was heading. I hope." The lever was heavy and at first didn't want to budge, so Riviere let go with her hands and instead picked up her right foot and kicked down hard on the metal shaft, pushing it into position with a loud click. The elevator began to whir and grumble, and before long the circular plate was descending downwards into the ruins.
After a fairly long and slightly shaky descent, the platform ground to a halt in a small, dimly lit passage. When Riviere stepped off the plate, all she could see was a sharply drop downwards, either a set of stairs or a ramp down to a large set of doors at the far end. But though she could not see anything, almost as soon as she had stepped off the plate she was sure she had heard a whisper followed by she sound of blades being removed from their sheaths. Riviere quickly unfastened and took hold of her bow, drawing an arrow quickly but steadily as she edged her way forwards. The sight that greeted her, however, brought a sense of relief. Standing below her, at the base of a short flight of stairs, were two figures, both clad in armour that matched hers, the armour that she, Brynjolf and Karliah had acquired back at Nightingale Hall. The two figures had their blades ready to strike at the figure who emerged at the top of the stairs, but it was less than a moment before all three realised who was standing before them.
"Lass? That you?" Brynjolf called up the stairs.
"Yep, it's me," Riviere replied, stepping quickly down the stairs to reach the others. "I am so glad to see you guys, like you have no idea…"
"We were wondering how long it would be before you arrived," Brynjolf said as he placed his arm around Riviere's shoulders and gave her a light squeeze.
"Luckily for all of us, not long at all," Karliah said.
"Aye," Brynjolf nodded in agreement. "We've only been here a few minutes."
"Which is still more than enough time," Karliah went on. "Mercer's been here, just ahead of us it looks like. I hope we aren't too late… Come on."
"Wait, before we go," Riviere said, putting her arm out gently to stop Karliah from walking away. "Just one thing. Back near the entrance to this place, the first hall you step into from the front doors. The men that were there…"
"The bandits?" Karliah asked.
Riviere nodded.
"Brynjolf and I found them as such. Mercer's work, I suspect. And so, if that's all you wished to ask, I think we should get going. We must catch up to Mercer before he does too much more damage. We cannot afford to let him get away with this."
"Of course," Riviere replied.
"And we should tread carefully," Karliah added, putting particular emphasis on that last word as she glanced quickly in Brynjolf's direction. "Mercer made it through this far without disarming the traps and mechanisms. We had to do that ourselves. It wouldn't surprise me if there are even more of them to navigate as we go deeper."
The journey deeper into the ruins was, as expected, filled with plenty of traps to navigate around, for Mercer had made sure to leave as many of them operational as he could. He did, however, leave an easy to follow trail of dead falmer, most of which had their throats slashed in the same manner as those bandits from near Irkngthand's front entrance. Those creatures that were left roaming the darkness were either left alone when possible, or quickly and quietly dispatched by an arrow from either Riviere or Karliah. On more than one occasion, the trio of Nightingales caught sight of Mercer far ahead of them, usually down below or up above, on the far side of a chamber, always just within view and just out of reach. The frustration only mounted when eventually, the trio practically had Mercer within their grasp, but he managed to slip into a large cavern just ahead of the others and, on his way through, woke up every device he could without making himself the target, armed every trap he could, and on his way out stood there long enough to enjoy the sight of the Nightingale trio struggling to defeat the army of falmer and Dwarven constructs.
"You bastard!" Brynjolf yelled after Mercer, picking up a large rock and hurling it as hard as he could in the ex-guildmaster's direction. The rock sailed through the air, going not even a quarter of the distance to Mercer's position, but it did land down with a hard thud on the head of one of the falmer, crumpling the blind creature to the floor. Brynjolf was in the thick of the skirmish, swinging his pair of swords this way and that, cutting through the falmers' flesh and the metal of the constructs. He was being battered on all sides from the various foes, but try as they might to slash and stab at his body, his armour protected him better than he could have imagined. A few small nicks and cuts burned his skin, and he knew that he would be absolutely covered in bruises by the end of the day, but somehow nothing had done any significant damage. Fighting with ever increasing fury, he kept going and going until there were no more hits flying at his head, no more blades slashing at his arms, no more projectiles flying through the air and bouncing off his chest.
Meanwhile, Karliah was moving around the edge of the fight, picking off enemies one by one with carefully placed arrows. Initially, Riviere followed suit, taking a position across from Karliah and taking down the enemies from the other side. At one point when a group of enemies broke away from focusing on Brynjolf as most were doing and instead began turning on Karliah, Riviere called out to the elf to keep firing while she switched her own bow for her twin daggers. Running as fast as her legs would allow, Riviere ran in Karliah's direction, up a small flight of stairs, and then leaped off the edge into the middle of the group that had begun to form around the other woman.
"Take left!" Riviere yelled to Karliah, signalling for the elf to continue firing at the left side of the group. Riviere then ducked to the right and in a flurry of quick jabs and slices interspersed with cautionary rolls and leaps, she downed one, two, three, four enemies while Karliah filled the same number on her side with arrows.
Once all of the enemies had been defeated, the trio grouped up briefly to check on each other. All three were incredibly surprised to discover that despite a couple of small holes and slashes in the tough leather, their armour had managed to save them from serious injury.
"Bloody hell!" Brynjolf exclaimed. "What in hell is this armour made from!?"
"Leather," Karliah replied.
"Yeah, well, magical leather," Riviere said as she inspected her own armour. "It has to be right? We received it from magical glowing rocks, after all."
"Aye," Brynjolf nodded. "That we did. I still don't understand that process at all, by the way."
"Well, let's just let it be that this is Nocturnal's doing," Karliah said.
"Yeah, because you have no idea either, do you?" Riviere laughed.
"Not a clue," Karliah shrugged.
After a final inspection of each others' arms and armour, the trio prepared to set off once more after Mercer, and to bring an end to his treachery once and for all. But as they walked through the cavern, up and through a large gazebo-like structure, a large burst of steam and a loud whirring noise filled the air. All three thieves looked in unison to their left, in time to see a huge metal figure uncoupling from a support structure beside them.
"Oh, for fuck's sake!" Riviere cried.
"Not again..." Karliah groaned.
Brynjolf just grunted and readied his swords once more.