Chapter 78: Ayleid ruin exploration

[12th of Evening Star 4E 202]

Down in Kvatch underground, our party had been met by Selina and Iona, who reported that T'mara and M'lissa were missing; they had found a secret door leading into what we suspected to be a part of the Ayleid ruin, and the two others had not been able to follow before the door had closed again. T'mara and M'lissa were on their own, and although I knew that both of them were very capable and talented, I got worried about my wife and her cousin.

"Just before we got to the door leading to this room here, though," Selina added, "I moved my hands along the walls in the semi-darkness, and by coincidence I found a nice in the wall. At first it seemed to be empty, but when I stretched out my arm I found something – this large key here; I wonder where it fits."

Some ow that key looked familiar, and I though that I had seen something similar before, in my youth, maybe not in reality, but on an illustration. On a hunch I took the key and walked over to the gate to the Ayleid ruin, and it managed to unlock it. That was quite something; nobody had seen those gates open for a long time.

Hadvar nodded approvingly: "I just wondered where such a big key might fit, but you figured it out. I guess I would not have known as there aren't any Ayleid ruins in Skyrim, as far as I know."

The battlemage commented that: "Most of those ruins do not have locks, but those which do have similar keys, indeed. We got quite lucky to find the key close by."

"Yes, but maybe the bandits left it there to be used when needed?" I replied.

Selina nodded and suggested: "Quite possible. So, we can either start to explore the ruin right here or get back and try to find the secret door again, I guess."

I got an idea and told Pammy, who I had conjured again:

"Pammy, search T'mara!"

I thought that she actually got my meaning, as she sniffed the air a few times, and after traversing the room a few times she decided to proceed towards the ruins, rather than heading back towards the passage with the hidden door.

"Okay, why not" Hadvar decided while shrugging his shoulders. In the morning, we had brought a few additional guards with us, and they were ordered to stand guard in the big room, while the rest of us stepped through the big ruin gate. Our ruin exploration team consisted of Hadvar with a battlemage and two archers from the legion, Selina and three swordsmen from the city guard, plus Iona, Valdimar and myself – eleven in total.

Inside the Ayleid ruin, which had the odd name 'Dependeil', as the Hero of Kvatch had found out earlier when he had first looked around here about two centuries ago, we followed a long winding set of stairs downward. One flight of stairs turned into a flat corner, followed by another set of stairs, always clockwise. I almost expected that to never end, but after maybe five or six turns we eventually reached a medium sized hall with four visible access ways, and we stopped for a break. Selina suggested to split into several teams to investigate rather than just follow Pammy՚s nose, and while I would have preferred to head straight into the direction Pammy indicated, I understood that we needed to make sure not to have enemies in our back, too. Hadvar and Selina insisted to proceed 'by the book', as they called it.

I came to join the Imperial battlemage in a team of just two, or rather three, with Pammy, while the others split into three more teams of three people each; we agreed to try to be back in about two hours. We were assigned one of the doors and stepped through it, and we soon found the start of some kind of elevated walkway. The battlemage, a middle aged male Breton called Damien, mentioned that he had been in some Ayleid ruins before, and he warned me to pay attention to potential traps.

"Those elevated walkways can be quite dangerous" he explained. "Some of the stone block might crumble when you walk across them, dropping you down to the lower floor and to any dangers lurking there, and there are sometimes moving grids hanging down from some lines at the ceiling, just like you see here".

He pointed to some barely visible lines above us, which I would have missed; now I could also hear some noise in the distance. The battlemage pulled me into an alcove on the side; Pammy joined us, and about a minute later we could see and hear one of those spiked barriers rushing past us. I was quite glad to have an experienced guide with me, and while we waited to make sure that there wasn't another one coming soon, he told me a little bit about himself:

"After my education in the Arcane University, I joined a few exploration teams into Ayleid ruins, hoping to find valuables like Welkynd Stones and maybe notes about the Ayleids, too. Almost always there was a Thalmor with us, though, kind of supervising us. I know most of the trap types in the ruins, although there is sometimes a variety I have not encountered before."

The sound from the moving barrier had stopped, and we moved on, but close to the end we noticed that a group of zombies was guarding the platform we planned to get to. Damien smiled and asked me:

"Do you want to do this the quick way or the fun way?"

I asked for elaboration and got told: "The quick way is using fireblasts and other spells, and the fun way is to lure them back to the spiked barrier."

"The latter is something I need to see – let's do that, please!"

"All right!" he grinned.

At some distance to the zombies we made some noise, and soon the whole group of zombies stepped on the long bridge. Being the stupid creatures they were they blindly followed us, not suspecting anything, until we got close to a balcony to avoid the trap. I stayed here with Pammy, while Damien ran forward, activated the trap, and ran back to me. The barrier rushed past us, hit the entire group of zombies, and rushed back to its starting position again. Only a few zombies were still alive, and we dispatched them while we passed to the platform.

The main way forward from there seemed to be a door into a medium sized room, and we looked around to potentially find any clues. There weren't any, but we heard some strange noise from the next room. Damien looked around the corner and stepped back quickly, telling me:

"There is a Gloom Wraith ahead, or maybe even two of them. They are very dangerous ghosts, and the best way to get rid of them is with strong fireblasts. How good is your destruction spell casting?"

"Well, I am better in restoration and conjuration, but my fireblasts are decent, I think."

"Good enough, my friend. Normal weapons cannot hurt them, unless they are made from silver or enchanted with fire damage."

"It just so happens that my greatsword does have a fire enchantment, Damien!"

"Perfect! Let's use spells first, and if we run out of magicka, you can use your sword."

We both stepped around the corner, and right when the wraith noticed us, we both blasted fire at the ghost. I had cast an 'iron skin' protection on myself, and I had seen Damien do something similar, probably something even stronger. The wraith send a few frost spells in our direction, and I did not even try to evade them. Being a Nord, they had little impact on me anyway. We had the wraith almost defeated, when a second one showed up, and we needed to split our attention. Thus I pulled my greatsword and ran it through the first ghost, killing it. We continued to blast at the second one, but I ran out of magicka sooner than the battlemage. When the second ghost was also injured, I ran my greatsword through it as well, but that was not sufficient yet. The ghost turned around and cast another spell on me, absorbing health. Pammy tried to help, but the wraith seemed to be immune to her teeth and claws. While I felt weaker and weaker, Damien had approached from the other side and sent a strong fireball right into the wraith, which finally killed it off.

"Wow," I said, while starting to heal myself with what was left of my magicka pool and a potion, "that was quite a fight; those wraiths are tough."

"Indeed they are" the battlemage agreed. "You have proven to be quite capable, my friend, and your familiar is sure going to be very valuable later on, against other enemies. How did you, as a Nord, or, I guess mostly a Nord, get exposed to magic?"

We needed to rest for a few minutes to restore our magicka supply, and I told Damien a little bit about my own magical education and my background:

"Although I am mostly a Nord, my father is an Imperial, and there are some dormant Altmer genes in the family, too, which obviously have enhanced my size. My father insisted that I practice at least the basics of magics very early in my childhood. My mother wasn't particularly fond of it, but after I had started to help with healing injured soldiers as an adolescent, she stopped complaining. Besides restoration I also focused on conjuration, as having a magical familiar was a tradition in my father's family, and you cannot imagine how proud I was when I was first able to conjure my Pammy, while I was still in my mid teenage years. Later on, when I had moved to Skyrim, I spent quite a few months in the College of Winterhold to train further."

"The College of Winterhold? Really? Are they still independent?"

"As far as I know, yes, they are. They do have a Thalmor wizard there, and I suspect that he's some kind of spy. The last time I was there, he was suspected of odd activities, maybe related to a powerful artifact which had been found in a ruin in the neighborhood. I haven't been there for months, and I wonder what may have happened. But anyway, yes, the college was instrumental in teaching me most of what I know about magic, long before I met my wife."

He smiled and said: "Yes, I have seen your Khajiit wife, and I have heard that she is Dragonborn. But you did not know that when you first met her, right?"

"No, I did not. When I first saw her, she was an exhausted and injured Khajiit girl coming down from Helgen, where she had first encountered Alduin, and somehow my heart opened up for her. It took me some time to realize that her heart also was ready for me, but it turned out that we have made quite a good team, both in love and in combat."

Damien smiled again: "I understand that better than you may think. See, during my time in the Arcane University I had a girlfriend for some time, and she was a Khajiit. She was a powerful wizard, about my age and very pretty. We were together for a year or so, but eventually she did not return from an expedition. The Thalmor who had been with the team told us that she succumbed to a trap when she was not paying attention, but I knew that this was a lie. She was very experienced with ruins and traps, and I believe that she was getting too powerful; the Thalmor decided to kill her and make it look like an accident. A few months later I decided to leave, before the same might happen to me, too, and I joined the legion."

I did not know what to say, but that seemed to make sense. I asked: "How long have you been here in Kvatch?"

"For about three years now, and I have also met a nice Breton woman. She is running one of the market stalls, and we have been married for almost two years. I am happy with her, but it's not quite the same as it was with my Khajiit lady."

"Hard for me to comment on that – my T'mara was the only real love I have ever had, and before her I was never real close to a woman."

Meanwhile our magicka supplies were full once more, and we proceeded. Careful exploration of the environment convinced us that this section of the ruin was not likely to be close to a potential bandit hideout, and Pammy had not shown any sign of us getting close to T'mara either. Thus, we returned to our meeting point.

We had to wait for some time until all of the teams were back, and we exchanged information on what we had seen it turned out that the team Selina had been with seemed to have the most promising lead. They were the only ones who had seen some signs of inhabitation, and right at the point where they had turned around they had heard some voices, too. They had wisely decided to sneak back and report rather than investigate further. They had left the room through the center portal, and when I checked Pammy՚s reaction, this was also the one she seemed to prefer. Selina asked me about that:

"Timotheus, this is something I do no understand. As far as we know, your wife did not come that way and never passed this room here. How can your Pammy smell the way to get to her?"

"I am not sure, and I believe that a normal animal probably could not do this. However, Pammy is my familiar, and she has a special bond with my wife and me. I assume that there is some kind of magical effect, too, which enables her to smell us even if the smelling is more magical than physical."

Selina nodded, and we stepped through the gate she had come from. A wide set of stairs led further down, and we passed several rooms, all of them devoid of active traps and enemies. Selina and her team had already checked for traps before, and so we did not have to pay too much attention at this time. Damien and I used the time to talk about magic and our skills a little more, and he asked:

"About your familiar, if I may ask; this seems to be one of the most capable ones I have seen so far, and I am quite impressed. You must have practiced a lot to get her to be like she is, right?"

"Yes, me too. I learned the spell to conjure a familiar already as a young adolescent, more than ten years ago. As you know, this is a novice level spell and not that hard to learn. When I was first able to summon her, she was a tiny whelp, and it was love on first sight, for both of us. My magic teacher taught me to conjure her frequently, both to make her grow and to increase my magicka pool. I soon noticed that this worked, by seeing her grow, albeit slowly, and I kept on practicing. While I do not consider me a wizard, I had plenty of opportunities to conjure her, both as practice and for real, and over the years she grew to her current size and now stays with me for hours at a time. I would not want to miss her any longer, and my wife is also quite fond of her."

Damien, the Breton battlemage, nodded, and he told me: "I had focused on Destruction and Alteration early on. I achieved Expert level on both easily, but getting to Master level is a real challenge. At the Arcane University, there are very few masters at any magic skill, and I suspect that all of them are loyal to the Thalmor."

"You could go to Winterhold, I guess."

"Yes, maybe I should, at some time. Do you think that they'd take me in?"

"The Arch-Mage is a friend of mine, or at least he was. They had some trouble over there last time I was in the area, and I have to admit that I do not know if he is still alive. But even is he is not, any potential successor will gladly accept you for some time; I am sure of that. Capable mages are always welcome."

"Thank you, my friend; maybe I will get back to that once I have served my current term with the legion, and if my wife agrees."

Meanwhile we had almost reached the point where the team had turned around during their previous scouting mission. Selina asked us to be quiet, and we carefully proceeded. From a larger room several passages provided a way forward, and when we checked the first one, one of the city guards pointed at the walls:

"Look, those gaps over there; this looks like swinging blades – there sure must be a trigger for them somewhere!"

We paid attention to the floor, and thorough examination revealed three pressure plates close to each other; all three of them had been camouflaged and were hard to distinguish from the floor. Damien whispered that this was unusual, and standard pressure plates were not that hard to see. Bandits must have worked on the system and improved it. With some care, though, the plates could and should be avoided; the sound from the activated sweeping blades might have alerted somebody. On the other hand, finding this kind of trap increased the likelihood that this might be the proper path to follow. A quick examination of the other two options showed that they both met dead ends, one of them with ceiling spikes in a room, and we entered the narrow passage with the inactive swinging blades. Pammy was also smart enough to not step on the pressure plates, and we all managed to navigate the passage and enter a smaller room, which showed signs of occupation. There were a couple of bedrolls, a few shelves along the walls, and even remnants of a campfire, but no living beings in here. However, we heard voices from an adjacent room, and when I carefully looked around a corner, I could see two people sitting at a table and eating. Selina was next to me, and we could understand some of what they said:

"We should get back to our post; if the boss checks on us and find both us eating and taking a break at the same time, he'll get angry."

"Come on, no reason to panic. Besides, we'd sure hear the noise from the blades if somebody actually comes our way."

"But what if somebody manages to avoid the pressure plates?"

"Unlikely; we have spent extra effort to make them almost invisible."

"But still..."

"Yes, I know, the boss does not like to take chances. They should realize that we need to eat from time to time, but good enough, I am full; let's get back to the guardroom."

Selina and I hurried back; we made the others hide in a corner and placed ourselves left and right of the door. When the two bandits entered, each of us grabbed one, and they both had a dagger to their throat. Without any trouble Hadvar՚s soldiers could bind and gag them.

An investigation of the other room did not provide additional insight; we only found eating and drinking supplies in there together with a few shelves with plates, bowls and some other utensils, so that we followed the only other exit the guard room had. The two captives were guarded by two soldiers, and they stayed behind for the moment.

For now, Pammy lead our group, and she seemed to agree with our way of proceeding. After a few turns we entered another larger room, and it had a pedestal with a glowing crystal in it. I hesitated to approach, and Damien informed us:

"Everybody, keep back, please; I think that this is dark Welkynd stone. It is not active at this time, but it is likely to become active when we move and approach."

"Is it dangerous?" Hadvar asked.

"It depends. When becoming active, it will blast frost and shock damage around, but the intensity is different and cannot be predicted."

"What will make it become active?"

"People moving around it, but the critical distance is not the same for each stone."

"But surely the bandits in the ruin know a way to pass it?"

"Likely, yes."

We decided that we'd have to try to stick to the walls and move slowly, assuming that this was what the bandits down here did. Initially that worked well, but when a few of us had reached the section of the wall closest to the stone, it changed color and started to fire. Those of us being hit yelped, and we quickly retreated, including those who were already ahead and past the stone. I had received a blast as well, but it had been a frost blast and thus did not hurt much.

We spent a few minutes healing the injured, and soon we heard more voices. The loud blasts and yelps had apparently alerted somebody, and the last of us still in the room could see people approaching on the gallery overlooking the room. A few arrows whistled in our direction until we had all retreated into the passage we had come from. This was not good; the archers had a clear field to shoot and had good cover themselves. Even worse, a few minutes later we heard more voices coming from the direction we had come from. We pulled our weapons and prepared spells, but nobody came close to us. Instead I heard a strange noise, and an odd fog like cloud approached from a square grill in a nice not far from us.

"Gas trap!" Damien shouted.

The situation was getting critical – we had some of the enemies and the gas one on side and the archers on the other. Somehow the bandits down here seemed to be very organized, and the obviously had plans to deal with intruders, even with larger groups like ours. Despite our caution we had run into a trap and were stuck for now – what to do?

[Author's Notes: Ayleid ruins can be quite dangerous, specifically when we have to worry about organized bandits above and beyond the 'normal' dangers. In the TES IV and V games, the bandits are normally not very organized, to put it mildly, but this here is slightly different.

Story progress is a little it slower at this time, as I am thinking about a proper path to concluding the current plot; rest assured that there are a few more chapters coming up, although we are slowly approaching the end of the story.]