Chapter Seven: Dwemer puzzle box

Merlac walked outside the fighter's guild, feeling even more worried. He had been in a few hand-to-hand fights in the prison, but he had never used held a sword in his hand before. Merlac walked across the street and entered the smith's house.

The room he walked into was rather small. There were high shelves standing on all walls and they were full of different kinds of pieces of armour and weaponry. As Merlac stepped in, the smith who was polishing an iron cuirass, rose his head and greeted.

"What can I do for you? Weapons? Armour? Speak up kid, I haven't got all day. Well actually I do, but please go on anyway.", the smith said unpatiently.

"Err… hi. I'm looking some cheap armour and my friend told me to come here, can you help me?"

"Cheap armour, eh? Well I guess I can help you, as this is probably the only place where you can buy decent armour. The tradehouse has some as well but they are pieces of crap I tell you. Well what is the armour for? Heavy combat? Magical resistance? Something beautiful what you can wear in a party, or just something to keep you warm?"

"Err…", Merlac muttered again. "I'm quite unexperienced with armour, but I think I need something against bandits or like that."

"Bandits, eh?", the smith laughed. "Here you go, this is what you need when you meet some local bandits."

The smith gave a thin leather shirt and gloves made from a bit thicker leather to Merlac, and laughed again.

"Those will keep you warm for a while and keep you safe from wooden swords. If you encounter bandits that can cast spells, which I doubt, just take my hint and dodge them. No common spell-resistant armour could completely reflect basic attack-spells, so it's best not to spend your money on them and get youself a pair of fast legs instead. Now, that would be 40 septims, imperial."

Merlac left the store with his new 'armour'. He smelled it. The leather shirt stank like rotten guar, which was probably the source of the leather. (Guar is a common mammal in Morrowind, used as domestic animal, but can also be found walking free in the nature.)

Merlac walked through the southern gate feeling more and more depressed. He crossed the river and started walking the path to east, swinging his rusty sword clumsily in the air, trying to learn few basic strikes. After twenty minutes of walking, Merlac reached the Moonmoth imperial fort. It was a group of stone buildings, surrounded by thick stone wall and it stood at the root of the hill. One could see soldiers patrolling the walls and the yard. Merlac followed Hasphat's directions and started walking along the path leading up to the hill, past the fort.

As Merlac walked, the scenery started looking grey. There were hardly any living trees or plants at the top of the hill, mainly just rocks, grey sand and more rocks. Few minutes later, Merlac arrived to a wide metallic bridge leading over deep abyss. It began to rain slowly and Merlac's mood dropped even more.

Just before he stepped to the bridge, his breathe stopped. He had seen something like a bright light behind a pile of rocks not so far away from him. He though he had seen a woman. No, it couldn't be, had to be just imagination. Merlac stared at the place he had seen this light, but he saw nothing.

"Yeah, just imagination.", Merlac said to himself, but drew out his rusty sword, just in case.

He started walking carefully across the bridge. The bridge squeaked under him, but otherwise it felt extremely durable. There were few large wooden boxes in the halfway of the bridge. Because they weren't covered in sand like the rest of the bridge, Merlac suspected them to be recently brought here. Just before Merlac reached the boxes, a dunmer man stepped forth from behind the boxes.

"Hi there", Merlac greeted, trying not to show that he had nearly wet his pants.

If Merlac had almost wet his pants, this dunmer was almost scared to death. But as soon as he recovered, pure rage appeared on his face. Merlac watched terrified as the dunmer pointed his both hands at him and started muttering scary-sounding words which Merlac had never heard before. He was clearly casting a powerful spell.

Merlac moved back but stumbled to his own legs and fell down. His sword flew from his hand and almost dropped from the edge of the bridge. Suddenly, a bright green flame emerged from the dunmer's hands and was thrown upon Merlac. But it didn't strike him. Halfway in the air, the flame stopped and dissolved. Merlac watched with growing horror, as a skeleton formed from thin air right in front of him. There were a bright flash and a long, sharp-looking two-handed sword appeared on the skeleton's hands.

Merlac was hardly able to dodge, as the skeleton swung his claymore, which stroke at the nearby box, shattering it to pieces like if it had been glass. Merlac grabbed his sword from the edge of the bridge and clumsily repelled skeleton's next hit. The skeleton was just about to strike again, when Merlac with more of his instinct than skill, thrust his sword right through his ribs. The dunmer behind the skeleton laughed.

Then it came into Merlac's mind. What a fool he had been. No normal weapon could hurt daedric or undead creatures, and this skeleton was very much undead. What could he do now? He didn't have any other weapons nor did he know any spells. Should he try to ran away? Just before the skeleton hit again, the laughing dunmer stepped backwards and the bridge under him collapsed. He crashed right through the ancient metallic structure and fell to the abyss screaming. As his body hit the ground, the skeleton he had summoned dissolved into dust as fast as it had appeared, leaving horror-struck Merlac standing alone on the bridge.

Few minutes later, Merlac encouraged himself to continue, and he carefully walked to the other end of the bridge. A thin fog floated around the hills, but one was able to see the silhouettes of large orange buildings of dwemer origin, completely made from the same metal as the bridge. Asymmetric towers and strange domes appeared from the fog as he walked forward, keeping his sword ready. Though this fort was almost the size of Balmora while still consisting of no more than dozen buildings, Merlac knew there had to be gigantic caves and endless corridors beneath the ground.

Merlac followed the road until it ended in front of a dwemer tower. In the building's wall, there was a few meters high hemisphere, which looked like a doorway. Merlac carefully knocked it. It was made from rock, and there were no answer. There had to be a switch or something nearby, that would open the door. Merlac looked around, and soon he noticed a rusty crank in the side of a big statue, presenting some kind of warrior just few meters away from the door. He sheathed his sword, grabbed the crank with his both arms and turned it. It was stuck. Merlac tried again, this time pressing the crank downwards with his full weight, and slowly it started turning creaking. Suddenly a loud clatter came from the tower. Slowly the rock-hemisphere split into two and withdrew to the sides, revealing a small metal door. Merlac laughed at himself happily, but startled as the rock pieces started moving back together. He quickly ran to the door before the rocks met themselves, and stepped through the metal door.

Inside the building, clatter of distant machines filled Merlac's ears. He drew out his sword again and started walking down a rock formation in front of him. After few minutes he arrived to a large cave, filled with pillars and metal structures. The walls of the cave were only half-visible, as the inner walls of the tower prevented the whole place of collapsing. Suddenly Merlac understod what had been disturbing him since he entered the building. As he was under ground, there should have been very dark, but instead the whole room was rather luminous, though there were no torches anywhere. The light-green light seemed to come from strange small objects hanging in the walls, glowing smoothly. As the dwarves had disappeared long time ago, that clattering noise had to come from some kind of self-running machines, providing energy for these mechanical torches and god-knows what other inventions under the tower.

Hasphat had said that it was useless to go deeper under the ground than the first room, as the dwemer puzzle box had been seen in another room nearby. Merlac looked around. There were no doorways or corridors, except the one leading steeply downwards. Merlac started feeling worried, was he in the right building? Should be travel further to the caverns and risk getting lost or killed by those ancient guarding robots?

Once again, the solution found Merlac before he found it himself. A new clattering noise started coming closer from the dark corridor. Merlac quickly hid himself behind a pillar which was luckily nearby. Soon, an orange metallic creature clattered to the room. It looked like a small six-legged spider, made totally from metal and it was hardly bigger than a human head. Merlac stared at it in astonishment, as it slowly walked around the room, clearly following a preset path. Merlac gave a short laugh. This little fellow didn't look scary at all, perhaps a toy of dwemer children or something.

Suddenly, the spider-creature noticed Merlac and stopped. Merlac froze and stared at the creature. The spider suddenly made an incredible metallic noise and jumped towards Merlac. Merlac evaded and watched as a sharp, shining spike stuck out from its shell. The spider started running towards Merlac with his short metallic legs, and just before the spike reached Merlac's leg, he stamped on the spider with his full weight. The rusty metal in the spider's bottom crushed against the stone floor and a slight smell of burning came into Merlac's nose from inanimate spider.

Merlac carefully touched the spider with the tip of his sword, making sure the spider was really dead. It was. He felt much more confident after his first victory over ancient dwemer security devices, and his mood improved even more as he rose his look. Near the roof of the cave, was a small metal door, which could not be seen from the main door. Merlac looked for stairs, but there was only a stone formation leading up to the door. He had no choice but to climb there.

After few sweaty minutes, Merlac reached the door. Feeling still confident after his previous combat, he rushed straight through the door just to be slashed with a dagger.

Merlac jumped sidewards and the dagger only cut a small slash in his elbow. The dunmer who was holding the dagger didn't hesitate but yelled and slashed again, this time trying to hit Merlac in his throat. This time Merlac had more time to prepare and he evaded the blade. With more instinct than skill, Merlac kicked the dunmer straight into his stomach. The dunmer yelped in pain and crashed against a wooden shelf behind him. The shelf cracked and fell over the man. A small brown clay pot crashed to the dunmer's head and Merlac watched in horror as the yellow liquid inside it literally scorched through the dunmer's flesh. After few seconds, the dunmer stopped screaming and just lay in the floor, while the smell of burnt flesh filled the room.

It took few minutes for Merlac to stop shaking, but after that he noticed he had arrived to a small room with few dusty shelves next to the walls and few new boxes in the corner, full of spices. This dead dunmer was clearly the companion of the other man in the bridge, both smugglers.

Merlac let his glance wander around the small room, looking the strange small objects in the shelves. And then he saw it. A small metallic cube, standing on a bottom shelf. It was hardly bigger than a child's fist, but something in Merlac's mind told him that object had the be the puzzle box he had been looking for. Feeling relieved, Merlac took the box, put it into his pocket and returned to Balmora, his new home…