CHAPTER 2: A TRIO OF THIEVES

Nhedrys didn't know how long she had been falling for, but it felt like an eternity. She fell through a void, her spider clinging to her leg, for what felt like years. It wasn't long until she was used to it, and not long after that until she resigned herself to her fate, that she wouldn't be leaving the void.

She couldn't sleep, couldn't speak, couldn't scream. All she could do was fall. Fall and live with the darkness surrounding her, crushing in on her. She wondered if this was death.

After what felt like an eternity, and maybe it was, she closed her eyes as it was easier then staring into the darkness, and as she did, she felt like she was being pulled. She opened her eyes to see a pinprick of light below her, and as she got closer and closer to it, the tugging sensation grew, and she was flung through it.

She landed on a glass platform, intricate designs scratched into it, a thick layer of dust covering it. She coughed as the dust got disturbed from her fall, and she pushed herself to her knees. She looked up, and saw a very familiar sight.

Above her were disks on the end of long poles, a beam of sunlight pooling just in front of her, a cocoon hovering near the roof. She turned around and saw the control pedestals high on the platform above, the lexicon removed from its pillar next to them. Below her was the large sphere used to control the oculory.

She was in Mzark.

But it was different.

Besides the beam of sunlight coming through the roof, there was no light. The gas lamps that dotted the walls were off, and covered in cobwebs. In fact, most of the corners and the poles above her were covered in thick webs and a layer of dust, like no one had been there in centuries.

Her spider whirred in confusion and sadness at her feet, its metal legs clacking on the floor.

This couldn't be real. It couldn't be. Her people wouldn't just abandon a perfectly good city, no matter what. They were prideful and stubborn ruthless, she was testament to that, and wouldn't let anyone run them out of their cities without a fight. Oblivion, they had turned an entire race of people seeking help into blind slaves, and unleashed horrors on the native people of Skyrim.

She shook her head. They were still there, they just haven't used Mzark since she disappeared, that's all. She'd go back to Fal'Zhardum Din and she'll see her sister and her father and her brother, all worried about her, wondering where she had been, what had happened to her, and they'd rejoice and go back to studying the Elder Scroll.

How did she know what it was called? She didn't before.

But she couldn't have been gone for more than a couple months, maybe a couple years. They're still alive.

Taking a deep breath, and coughing after she inhaled a lot of dust, she nudged her spider into action and descended the ramp that led into Fal'Zhardum Din. She got to the entrance of Mzark, but found it had a bedroll and a bunch of books in piles next to a makeshift cooking spit. The coals were long since cold, a thin layer of dust covering the bedroll. But why would they be there?

She picked up one of the books, one with an orangish-brown cover, and saw letters she didn't know printed on it. She did recognise them, though. It was Cyrodiilic, and she could read a couple words. She was learning it when she had been pulled into the Elder Scroll.

The first word definitely said 'Dwemer', and the Cyrodiilic numeral for two was at the end of the title. Then in the byline was the word 'scholar'.

She put the book in her bag, thinking it would make a good material for learning the language, and left Mzark.

As soon as she stepped into Fal'Zhardum Din she knew that there was something wrong.

It looked the same as it did before. The glowing mushrooms and ores were still there, and she could hear the chime of a crimson nirnroot on the shores of the river, and the lake sat in the distance. She could see buildings in the distance, but they looked… wrong. Like they were broken, almost. The bridge in front of her had a crumbling barrier, and there was no one walking around, Dwemer or slave alike.

But what hit her the most was the silence.

It was never silent. There was always noise, be it from the few that stayed up to work at night or the machines that guarded them while they slept or just the general noise of people working during the day. There was always something going on, always something moving.

But it was still and it was quiet, and it was entirely foreign to her.

She looked down at her spider who let out a sad whir, like it knew that everything they knew was gone. But she couldn't think like that. There had to be people still here. It's Fal'Zhardum Din, for Oblivion's sake, you can't just abandon it.

She made her way across the bridge and deeper into Fal'Zhardum Din, eyes scanning for any sign of life. There was a roar that echoed across the cavern, and she jumped as a dragon flew overhead, heading towards the city and the fake sun.

"That wasn't here before," she muttered to her spider.

It whirred in agreement.

She continued forward, reaching the first of the buildings in the large cavern.

She was right, it was broken. It was in ruin, chunks of stone littering the ground around its base. But did she see movement at the top?

Her question was answered when an arrow flew passed her shoulder, hitting the ground behind her.

She swore, and pulled her bow of her back, nocking an arrow, and aiming it up at whoever shot at her. She pulled back on the string and shouted, "My name is Nhedrys Dzrevnorz, I used to live here."

A guttural sound came from the top of the building, and another arrow flew at her. She dodged out of the way and let loose her own arrow, aiming for where she thought the arrows were coming from. She shot two more arrows, and there was a loud thump as something fell to the floor, and the tendrils of a soul came rushing towards her, placing itself in a soul gem in her bag.

Slowly, she made her way to the object, and from a distance she saw a body with two arrows sticking out of it. Her heart pounded as she realised she had just killed someone, but thought it strange that she'd gotten its soul. She wasn't carrying any black soul gems, the only ones that can hold the souls of man, mer, or beast. But as she approached it, she realised it wasn't any of them.

She recognised the pallor of its skin as that of a Falmer, but it looked… strange. Its limbs were twisted, and it had a hunched back. It's eyes were red and sunken in, only a loose piece of flesh covering what she imagined were small black orbs, too small for their sockets. And their skin was less pure white like her slaves had been, but were instead an off-white, more like the skin of the Nords on the surface.

She wondered what could have happened to it to make it look like that.

She decided she didn't want to find out.

She approached the entrance to Raldbthar, killing more of the twisted Falmer as she went, their souls filling the stones in her bag, and entered. The entrance was just as derelict and forgotten as what she had seen of Fal'Zhardum Din so far, and the stone stairs that led up to Raldbthar were closed, pushed up against the ceiling. There was no way into the city, as there was no control panel down here.

She swore and left the entrance, and collapsed onto her knees as tears welled in her eyes, and she began to sob. She clutched her spider as her body trembled, tears streaming down her face as the realisation set in that there was no one down there but her and the twisted forms of the Falmer, the race her race had enslaved.

She didn't know how long she had knelt there for, crying into her mechanical pet, when she felt the floor shaking. She looked up to see a giant walking passed, its giant club thrown over his shoulder, slowly making his way towards the lake where the wisps liked to play. She wondered if they were still there as she watched him pass.

She wiped her eyes and cheeks and let her spider free from the prison of her arms, standing up. She couldn't stay down there, not with the Falmer and the dragon and the giant, and she didn't want to be alone. So she made her way back to the Tower of Mzark, as she knew there was an elevator there that could take her to the surface. There were others, both in the connected cities and dotted around Fal'Zhardum Din, but there was a clear path she could go through where she wouldn't have to kill anything else.

So she entered Mzark and climbed the ramp to the Oculory, eyeing the cocoon near the ceiling, wondering if the Elder Scroll was still there, and made her way to the elevator.

The elevator wasn't much. It was just a platform with a lever in the middle, with a platform at the top that would open and close as a platform approached or left the top of it. From what Nhedrys remembered, it was in the middle of nowhere, but so were the other ones. She'd just have to go in one direction until she reached civilisation or someone that could point her in the right direction, or even just a road.

She pulled on the lever and the platform shuddered, obviously not having been used in a while, but she panicked slightly as she wondered if it wasn't going to work, if she was stuck along in Fal'Zhardum Din forever.

The platform shook again, and then started rising, the exposed gears and cogs turning, working to get her up there. She let out a laugh and sat down, knowing it would take a couple minutes to get up there, and smiled at her spider as he shook in pseudo fear, clutching her leg for support. She pat him on the head to try and calm him down.

She watched as the roof got closer and closer, and then finally pulled back to show the sky. It was obscured by the cover that covered the elevator and the bars that surrounded it, not letting any unauthorised visitors enter. But through the bars she could see a clear blue sky dotted here and there with a couple clouds, and the cold hit her almost straight away. She was glad she was still wearing the cloak she wore to go soul gathering with her sister however long ago it was now.

The platform shuddered to a stop at the top of the elevator, and she stood up, stretching her limbs. Her spider followed suite.

Someone spoke next to her, something she didn't understand. It was so unexpected that she screamed and jumped, and her spider went into defence mode. She looked over, her heart still pounding to see that there were in fact three people standing outside the gate, clad in strange black leather armour with way too many pockets and buckles to be practical, the middle one having spoken.

The one in the middle, an Imperial by the looks of it, chuckled nervously and said something, before repeating what he said. She just looked at him with a blank expression.

Next to him, a Breton man sighed deeply. He said something, and she recognised the words 'us' and 'in'. They were speaking Cyrodiilic.

"Sorry," she said in Cyrodiilic, wracking her brain for more words she remembered. "Don't, uh, Cyrodiil."

The third one muttered to the others, and Nhedrys only just realised she wasn't human like the other two. No, she was an elf, but not a type she had seen before. She had brown hair, grey skin, and purple eyes, a combination she had ever even heard of on someone.

The Breton rolled his eyes at what she said and said something back. She caught the word 'doesn't'.

"What are you even doing here?" Nhedrys asked in her own tongue, drawing the attention of the three people. "This is the middle of nowhere."

The Imperial's eyes lit up, and he said something to his two companions. He then turned to Nhedrys and said, not in Dwemeris, but in Falmeri, "That's Dwemeris, isn't it? I don't speak Dwemeris, but I speak the Falmer language. Do you know it?"

She nodded. "Yes. Of course I do. How does an Imperial like you know it?"

"I was interested in it. Look, can you just pull that lever and let us in? We're interested in Dwemer history and culture and this is the only place we could find that has an entrance into one not covered in bandits or wizards."

"This isn't going to take you to a city," she told him. "It's just a large cavern." Which was true, but only half so.

He deflated, and translated everything to his companions. She couldn't understand what the Breton was saying, but it obviously wasn't nice.

Nhedrys pulled the lever that opened the gate, and it swung open, causing the three of them to back up, and she motioned for her spider to stay docile. It did as it was told.

"Do you know where the nearest town or city is?" she asked the Imperial. "I'm trying to find my people."

He frowned. "Your people?"

"The Dwemer."

He looked confused for a second, before realisation dawned on him and he paled, taking a step back, his mouth hung open in disbelief. He muttered in Cyrodiilic, something she knew, "You're a Dwemer."

"Obviously."

The Breton and the elf looked disbelieving when the Imperial translated what she had said to them. Every word he said in Cyrodiilic, she paired to a word in Dwemeris, and from that was slowly learning the language. She was glad her race was so smart.

The elf said something, and Nhedrys asked him to translate for her. He looked wary, but did so.

"But that's impossible," he translated. "The Dwemer disappeared four thousand years ago."

Thanks for reading! Please consider leaving a kudos or a comment, as they really motivate me to write. I'll see you next time!