Guide:

Dwemeris

Thoughts

"Speech"

"Dovahzul"

Warnings/Disclaimer: see chapter 4

Chapter Warning(s): Y'all gonna hate me so much for this.

A/N: IMPORTANT NOTICE: Updates might be more sporadic for a while. I'll try to stick to every Monday/Tuesday, but I'm sort of stuck with some writer's block when it comes to this story. I am determined to finish it though, even if it might take longer. Hope you all will stick with me!

Last time…I will go find him if he doesn't get to us first. Even if I have to traverse all of Fal Zhardum Din to do it.

Chapter 56 – Mzark

The tower of Mzark is a welcome sight, despite the heavy, muted atmosphere that hangs thickly between us, the silence a stark reminder of the absence of Marcurio.

It does reach the ceiling, as I had expected it to, but the splendour and the majesty of it all is lost to me as we enter the tower and the heavy golden-coloured doors slam shut with much protest behind Lydia. It effectively cuts us off from the rest of Fal Zhardum Din… and Marcurio, wherever he may be.

Erandur had gone through the trouble of lighting the brazier at the entrance in the hopes that the imperial wizard might be able to recognise the tower if he arrived later.

If he arrives at all.

The elevator leads us up, but as the gears grind after many years of disuse it seems like my heart is only sinking lower. What greets us at the top is a relatively large office area – or at least that's what it had been once, judging from the tables and chairs and shelves.

What am I thinking? He cannot be dead.

The centre of the place is lowered a bit, and within it… A camp. One that seems long since abandoned. A lone, dusty empty bedroll lies rolled out underneath a broken pipe sending warm, dry steam into the room. On the other side some broken-off rocks have been haphazardly placed to create a makeshift fire pit, the cooking pot empty and rusted.

The entire room appears… dull. Derelict. Dim. Not at all interesting, but a good place to set up camp for the night… if it is night time at all. I have learned to live by the same circadian rhythm as all the others above the surface, depending on the sunlight to create my routines.

I lived my entire youth without sunlight or any clear indication of which time it was.

Now it's just disconcerting and disorienting to be unable to tell the time with a glance at the sky.

It makes me feel disconnected to myself.

I'm tired, but I am not stupid – I won't be able to sleep for a long while yet, no matter how late it might be. Not until I get closure… Not until I see Marcurio. Alive. Or dead, a traitorous voice niggles in the back of my mind, after all, he was shot in the chest – and who could survive a fall that deep?

I firmly shove the voice aside, but the effort is in vain. It taunts me, just at the edges of my mind. My fingers cannot stop fidgeting.

I'll go mad if I don't DO something.

"I don't suppose either of you feel like having some rest either?" Erandur cuts through my thoughts, and I shake my head alongside Lydia, who grunts something unintelligible.

"We may as well check what's up ahead." My Housecarl adds, already making her way there as she speaks.

For once I have no qualms about following someone else in silence as we ascend up a ramp that has seen better days, right up to a platform that has a striking similarity to what I'd seen in Mzulft – if even more complicated.

I move up the second ramp to check the puzzle there, a neatly arranged row of buttons and what seems to be a receptacle right to the side. I remove the lexicon from my knapsack and put it in the stand even as Lydia leafs through a journal left behind by yet another adventurer that met a sad ending far underground.

Skyrim's mysteries are all discovered over the backs of countless corpses – and that's when you're not even considering the draughr. Adventurer after adventurer sought glory and found death instead, leaving little clues for the next person to find.

And Marcurio…

The first two buttons are easy enough, but I'm not in the mind for games or solving problems, and so I half-heartedly mash the blue knobs over and over again in a randomized pattern.

… Which is, surprisingly, enough to unlock the mechanism. Strange. I'd at least expected traps for the wrong combination.

It appears that my kin were arrogant enough to think that this room would never be left unattended.

An uneasy tang sits in the back of my mouth. Sour as bile and saturated with a discomforted sensation that burrows its way down into my gut. Something feels very, very off about this.

An intelligent, familiar gaze appears in front of my minds' eye. I can almost hear Marcurio's voice setting about trying to solve whichever puzzle or problem showed up to slow us down.

When I turn my attention back to the room at large, however, I am only met with deafening silence as Lydia and Erandur sit exhausted at two of the stone Dwemer desks down below.

The thoughts of unease fade into the back of my mind, obscured by grey fog as are all my other emotions.

I am drained from the travelling, the battle, and in an attempt to shut away the grief, my mind seems to have reverted to a sort of… emergency setting. Leaving only the necessary means to survive and process information as I see it.

Perhaps it's the shock setting in.

Would I be in shock if he… were dead?

Forget it. Marcurio can't be dead.

But I adhere to logic and reason. And they're not telling me that there is much of a chance that he yet lives.

The unfolding spectacle as the final gears start shifting to unfold the container of the Elder Scroll would have sparked my curiosity, the large green jewel would have aroused my inner blacksmith's interest… If it happened at any other moment than right now.

The only reaction I observe in myself is a dull throbbing in my head. I just want to sleep. I can't bring myself to care for this. Not now. Not when Marcurio is gone, maybe forever.

Apathetically, I move down the ramp to observe the Elder Scroll –

Wait.

Something doesn't quite match up.

Something is off.

I approach the centre of the room and the green crystal, glowing faintly, casting white light onto its golden restraints.

It's all wrong.

I stare, uncomprehending. The silence in the room is louder than any shouting or yelling, more disorienting than the deafening ringing in my ears, clouded in disbelief and fear and frustration-anger-grief-pain because –

This cannot be.

It cannot be possible.

I draw in a deep breath of stale air, coughing up bile as my eyes tear up. I cannot fully blame the dust for the drops of salty water that stream down my face.

Was it all for nothing?

Because, contrary to all evidence, contrary to all possibilities I'd considered…

The Elder Scroll is gone.

Mutely, I turn back the way we came, leaving a befuddled, quiet Lydia and Erandur behind as I make my way to the previous room.

I sink to my knees at the camp set up in the indent of the floor. The stones are closing in on me, and contrary to my usual resistance against it, claustrophobia threatens to cut off my lungs and makes my head spin in endless circles as a crushing weight falls onto my shoulders.

I can't do this.

I can't do this.

What was I thinking? That I'd have an Elder Scroll, return to Paarthurnax, play the hero? That I could make a difference? I made no difference. I will make no difference. The world will be destroyed because I cannot do this. I am no hero. I was never a hero. I'm just a blacksmith and a fool.

Skyrim needs a hero and I failed them all.

I can do NOTHING without that Scroll.

I am NOTHING without… I am…

I…

My breathing is ragged. Blood drips down my palms and onto the floor as my nails dig crescent marks in my palms. I don't notice any of it.

There are gods out there. I know it for I have seen it now. But I am of Mer descent. Not Man. And the Nords don't like elves. It's obvious their gods wouldn't like them any better.

Their gods have forsaken me.

I am not a hero.

I never was.

Sharply, I drag my bag towards my chest. I open the flap and search around in it mechanically, taking out potions, a half-depleted water skin and food and setting it next to the abandoned bedroll.

But I have to endure for the others that rely on me. My next priority is to help Vulthuryol, here in Fal Zhardum Din. And these supplies… I will not return to this tower. Not after this. But…

Should Marcurio be alive… Should the gods have had mercy on him… Then he will be able to use these.

He IS still of Men, after all.

I scrape myself together as much as I can, failing miserably at doing so, and return to where Lydia and Erandur had been left to wait. Still-wet stains mar my cheeks, but I've wiped all emotions away from both my face and heart. All that's left is an empty, cold sensation that settles uncomfortably tense in my stomach and lies as a heavy weight on my shoulders.

My voice comes out in a monotone, and I carefully form the vowels and consonants that roll over my tongue to not give away any turmoil I might be experiencing.

I feel as if I am trapped in Sithis' cold embrace.

"Lydia. It is time for us to part ways. Return to Whiterun safely and take care of yourself. Keep the weapons I had you carry this far and sell them – do with the money what you will. Erandur." A momentary pause as I see the Dunmer priest fiddle with the now glowing blue lexicon.

Ah. It worked. The Woodland Man will be pleased. Not that it matters much.

"Take that to Septimus Signus for me, if you would? Be careful with Hermaeus Mora, he's with him. Perhaps ask Lydia if she may accompany you to the lockbox – Urag in Winterhold will give you directions if she has no wish to. I am afraid that what I must do now I am better off doing alone."

"Mara guide your steps, friend." I give the elf a smile that comes out more feeble than I'd intended.

"As you order, my Thane… Please, do be careful."

And then, with the screeching of the elevator still echoing through the chambers, I am left alone in the Tower of Mzark, a place that many a Dwemer would have given an arm and a leg to visit. I would give aforementioned limbs for the chance to forget I ever came, and that I never needed to be here at all.

Maybe Vulthuryol can tell me where the fuck that Scroll is.

I'm grasping at straws and clinging to them desperately, because I have no clue as to where I'd even begin to search if this entire endeavour turns out to have been fruitless. Useless. A waste of the time I don't have.

A sigh passes my lips, my gaze hooded as the cold sensation in my core spreads. I am sick and tired of the frustration and the anger and the whirlwind of emotions I am put through on a daily basis. I've had enough.

I either lock away that part of me or succumb to it.

And succumbing means failure. My inability to endure.

A small part of me, sequestered away in a tiny corner of my mind that hasn't given up on ever becoming someone my mother would've been proud to call 'son' calls out that I cannot give in like this.

Endurance. Endurance in the face of danger.

I'm proud of my Dwemer heritage, and ma would not have wanted me to surrender this part of my identity. I have sacrificed enough of the things that make me out of sheer necessity. I have been cordial with thieves, I've lied, stolen, murdered people for the money and for the simple fact that they were in my way… But I've never been this close to quitting.

Marcurio might be dead. There's no Elder Scroll and, really, what can Vulthuryol do? Alduin is going to be impossible to beat at the pace I'm forced to take getting to him…

I should… I should just give up.

Succumb to it.

After all… I've already failed.

A/N: AAAAND we're stopping here. On a cliffhanger and the lowest point of the fic (or is it..?) Told you you'd hate me. R&R what you think of my plot twist… I've never seen it done before and figured it would do well in derailing the main quest.