Sundas, the 21st of Evening Star, 4E201
Saya woke up groggy. Normally she would not be very pleased about it, but it was a definite improvement over her state yesterday. Whatever it is that Serana made her drink did good work, and after blowing her nose and drinking some water the Dragonborn felt just as new - or as close to it as she could be, all things considered. Serana herself was nowhere to be found, but her things were still there and the Elder Scroll still lay all nice and tucked away in the vampire's sleeping bag. Saya briefly contemplated the prospect of looking for her with the help of a Shout, but soon dismissed the thought. Last night still left a poor taste in her mouth.
By the time Serana had shown up, Saya was almost done packing. She skipped proper breakfast, given that there was no way to actually cook it without a proper fire, and she wasn't so rich with magicka potions that she could substitute with her own. The two exchanged a clumsy glance of acknowledgment, but otherwise remained silent.
Serana's face grew just a tad more stony at the lack of interaction. Words spun around her head, a curiosity that begged for answers but tempered by the anxiety of having to ask the questions. She didn't catch Saya until she was already asleep last night. She wondered if she should apologize. Then she scolded herself for doubting even for a moment that yes, she absolutely should. But how do you even approach someone with such an apology?
"She agreed to it," Saya said flatly. Serana stopped whatever she was doing, pulled out of her thoughts as she half-turned towards the Dragonborn. Saya didn't even look in her direction, continuing to sort through her things with the same casual ease of movement with which one might brush their teeth. "Yeah, we had a fight and yeah, I slept with her. I won't pretend like either of us was thinking properly when it happened. But I suggested it, and she agreed to it." She stopped, finally looking over at the vampire. "There wasn't a thing that I did that night without her permission." And just like that, she went back to packing.
The rustling of cloth echoed throughout the icy chamber, the only ambience Serana had in the silence that followed Saya's words. "I'm sorry," she said, her voice a half-whisper. Saya did not respond.
They continued collecting their things just like that, not quite avoiding one another but remaining at a certain distance. They exchanged one more wordless glance when Saya put the backpack onto her shoulders, and Serana followed suit as soon as she managed to attach the Elder Scroll to her back again. The Dragonborn herself stepped to the cave exit, looking off into the horizon. The skies looked clear enough today, but dark clouds clustered off to the north. The weather wouldn't last longer than a few hours. They had to move now, if they didn't want to get caught in a storm.
"Are we leaving?" Serana's voice came from behind, a meek and pitiful thing. Saya nodded. The vampire's hands curled into fists and her lips pursed. She didn't even look at her. Serana didn't want it to stay this way. Mustering up the determination to speak, she asked: "About yesterday, I-"
"What you said back then," Saya interrupted her almost immediately. She spoke evenly, impersonally, as though trying to be inoffensive in the presence of a stranger. "The stuff about hurt. You weren't really talking about Brelyna, were you?"
The question was rhetorical. She already knew the answer. Serana didn't respond, and Saya looked at her quizzically - or perhaps with sympathy. And yet there was a certain something in her eyes. An emptiness, one that twisted Serana's stomach in a way that she couldn't describe. It wasn't painful, it wasn't unpleasant. It was somewhere in between, walking the line and tipping back and forth, like some sort of sadistic metronome that didn't even have the capacity for enjoying the misery it brought. She couldn't tell if it was intentional.
"Well, you don't have to answer," the Dragonborn finally said, turning away once more. At once, the tension vanished from Serana's body, but not in a way that brought relief. The lack of pressure almost felt worse than its abundance. "We all have our own secrets to keep."
Saya put up her hood and took the first step outside the cave. It would be another minute until Serana decided to follow.
Ice. Ice. More ice. I wish there was something to distract myself with. Thinking about slipping is exhausting and a bore. I don't want to think about yesterday. Maybe New Life? It's only ten days away, I don't even know if I'll be able to make it back by then. It's probably gonna take us the whole day to get back to shore alone. I'm hungry. I want a proper bed. I'm tired.
My throat's a bit sore, but that's a given. At least I'm not coughing much, not until I use a Shout. Aura Whisper is catching a lot of trails, but it's usually just fish and the like. Sometimes a horker. I could really go for some horker stew right now. Maybe I'll make some later, make a fire out of those planks we found, huddle up somewhere nice and warm.
"...wait, planks?"
Saya had to do a double take. Indeed, right in front of her lay a splintered plank, its other half not very far away. By following the splinters with her eyes she quickly found the origin - it was a boat, lying on its side and come apart at the seams with one half frozen over and the other shattered to pieces. Might've been a curious horker… But more importantly, this meant that someone had to be close by, having left behind their mode of transport.
"Hm?" Serana whipped around in Saya's direction. The Dragonborn had just stopped to put her journal away. "Have you found something?"
"I might've… Give me a moment." She cleared her throat, drawing a breath. The air was cold, almost painful to inhale. She had to take special care to avoid any accidents. "Laas, Yah." The words left her lips as a whisper and her eyes closed, her mind's vision guided by something other than her body. An odd dozen little lights sparked up all around her, gradually snuffed out until only one remained, the only one she was after.
She looked down. There, she could feel the distant flicker of Septimus' soul. She lifted her head, and in hindsight it seemed almost obvious - one of the many icebergs, glacious mountains that grew atop the solid sheet of ice that covered this part of the sea. She circled the area, looking around for any clue where to go next. It didn't take more than a minute to discover the small wooden trapdoor by the foot of the iceberg, right where it touched the ice sheet. Saya opened it with one hand, revealing a person-sized tunnel carved into the surface along with a ladder leading downward.
Serana had just caught up with her when Saya lifted her head. "Is this it?" The vampire asked, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot.
Saya gave her a side glance, shrugging. "Don't know what else it could be." She stepped down onto the ladder. Not too shaky. Probably frozen solid, then. "I'll go first," she said without looking. The next second, her head disappeared in the tunnel.
It was lighter inside than she thought. Warmer, too, though that could be chalked up to the lack of wind. The ice caught the sunlight in a peculiar way, shining through it like a poorly made prism and lighting the interior bright enough that she didn't even need a spell to see. She waited a couple of seconds for Serana to catch up and unsheathed her sword, continuing deeper in.
It wasn't long before she reached an opening. Now she understood why there was so much light - on the inside, the iceberg was almost completely hollow, a rough circular staircase leading downward around the outer wall of a spacious chamber. At the very bottom, there were the makings of something between a study and a camp, with a worn-looking bedroll lying right beside a small portable table lined with various bottles of drinkable and less-drinkable liquids. Half a dozen books were scattered around the place, some pre-written and some being haphazard collections of notes, while off in the corner stood a… bookshelf? How did he drag an entire- No, stop. She shook her head. She had more important things to worry about than the logistics of moving furniture to an ice field.
Like for example, where its owner was.
"You." Saya turned around immediately upon hearing the decrepit, unpleasant voice. A voice not used to speaking in anything except whispered murmurs and aimless soliloquies. "You come to a home that is not yours. Who are you?"
What stood before Saya was an old man in worn, tattered robes of faded blue cloth. A star-eye stared at her from the center of his chest - the symbol of the College of Winterhold. The man's head was covered by a hood, his eyes peering at her from the shade. His face was pallid and wrinkled, with a large aquiline nose over a messy, filthy grey beard that stretched down to his sternum. He was hunched over in a manner that showed he couldn't fully straighten his back even if he wanted to. In his left arm, he held a large book with a black, featureless cover.
"Septimus." Saya lowered Stormblade, relaxing slightly. Serana, who had just caught up with her, stopped in her tracks right behind the Dragonborn's back. "Hello. I'm Saya. I don't want trouble."
"Septimus," he echoed. "I have not heard another voice utter that name in a long time. You know me who does not know you. A student from the College?" His eyes narrowed curiously as he stepped forward, limping slightly. He examined Saya curiously, as if trying to recall her. "No. Someone else. You come here, seeking. As I did. Seeking what?"
Saya glanced back at Serana, who only gave her a confused shrug. Good. So, she wasn't the only one feeling weird here. "Your help, actually." She tried to push down the feeling of unease so it wouldn't leak into her speech. "I'm looking for an Elder Scroll, somewhere in Skyrim. Urag told me that you would be the best person to ask. Can you help me?"
Septimus hummed, his dried lips stretching into a thin crooked line that only superficially resembled a smile. "The Scrolls. I remember. The warp of air, the weft of time… Ah, yes. The pin-prickles of light at the back of my eyes. Septimus. Septimus…" He shook his head, as if waking himself up from a half-sleep that fogged his mind still. The man's eyes suddenly locked on Saya and he beckoned her over. "Come. Let me show you."
Saya and Serana exchanged one more brief glance before the Dragonborn stepped forward. Septimus led her through the icy chamber, further down and down. The tunnel almost felt unreal, so it curved and twisted and bent the light, which faded so swiftly from the corners of her vision. Until they stopped, and she saw it. A wall of metal, rings upon rings of brass and crystal, shimmering with a faint glint that felt unreal, otherworldly. A shiver ran down her back without her knowing why.
"Behold, the masterwork of the Dwemer," Septimus spoke, lifting both arms and gesturing to the object. Within the ice, she could see the faintest hints of what looked like solid edges - it was no wall, but… a cube? "Deep within, their deepest knowings. Entombed in the ice. The bane of Kagrenac and Dagoth Ur. Hidden. Locked by clever mechanism. But Septimus knows… I have seen the fundaments. Written in the fabric that writes itself."
"The Elder Scrolls?" She asked, turning to him. "You read one?"
Septimus looked back at her. Or perhaps, he was looking past her. Or before her. Somewhere in her general direction, but not quite focused. "You look to your left, you see one way. You look to your right, you see the other. But neither is any harder than the opposite," he spoke. Then, he suddenly grinned. An unnerving, wide grin that somehow made him look even more withered than he was. "But the Elder Scrolls… they look at once left and right. Sometimes, they even look up. Theirs is insight deeper than the deep ones. I know of one. Forgotten. Sequestered. One to coax the locks, and to bring about the opening."
Saya's ears immediately perked up at the information. "You know where to find one? Where? How?" She asked, throwing away any pretense of composure. After two weeks of searching, she couldn't let a lead like this slip.
Septimus looked at her silently for a moment before turning away. In some corner, in the darkness, she heard the clinking of metal. "One block lifts the other," his voice echoed from the shadows. When he returned, he brought her two items. "Septimus will show you the way, but you must bring him something in return. Here. Take them," he said, offering Saya two metal objects.
She reached out and hesitantly took them. It was hard to see in the shadows, but she could recognize the Dwemeri metal. A cube and a sphere, both consisting of many sections that twisted like mechanical puzzles. "What do I do with these?"
"Two shapes I give you. One edged, one round." Septimus stretched out his hand, touching the sphere in her left hand. Not for one moment did he look away from her face. "The round one, for tuning. Dwemer music is soft and subtle. The deepest doors listen for its song. Too low for hearings. Too high for sight. It plays the harmony of notes proper for opening." His hand moved to the other shape, a metallic cube. "The edged one, for inscribing. A lexicon. To us, a hunk of metal. To the Dwemer, a library of knowings. But… empty. You will need both, at the point of puncture. The sky-dome buried under the earth."
Saya listened, struggling to understand everything but nodding nonetheless. "I… see," she lied. "And where do I go?"
"Under deep. Below the dark. The hidden keep. Tower Mzark. The buried peak of the city that sleeps… A map. Give it to me." Saya quickly procured her map and Septimus grabbed what looked like a piece of coal from his pocket, scribbling something on it. "There. Alftand. The point of the first entry. Delve to its limits, and the yearning spire lies just beyond, where the blackest kingdom reaches. There, you will find the Elder Scroll." He backed away, placing the map in her hands. Saya looked at it, seeing a series of circles drawn around - and an arrow pointing towards one relatively close by. That must've been the ruin he talked about.
"Okay. I'll be off, then." She folded the map in her pocket and turned to leave.
That was when Septimus grabbed her hand. "Wait. A warning." She looked back at him. He was shaking. "The light. It is fragrant. Do not breathe in. To see the world inside an Elder Scroll can damage the eyes. Or the mind, as it has to Septimus." Saya's brows furrowed. She almost felt an inkling of compassion towards the old man - after he released her. "But the Dwemer found a loophole. If you cannot hear the hum, let your bones do the listening. Use the lexicon. Let the metal hear for you, sing for you. It will fill the library with knowings. When it brims with glow, bring it back here. And then Septimus will know. And then Septimus shall hear. And then the world shall see…"
As he spoke, Saya felt an eerie feeling creep up to her. A tickle at the back of her brain. Something felt off about Septimus, about the way he spoke. "Are you… alright?"
Septimus blinked. He stared at her blankly, wordlessly. And once again, he smiled. "Oh, I am well. I will be well. Wall. Will. Well to be within the will inside the walls." His lips cracked as he spoke. He drew a sharp breath and coughed. Midway through, the cough turned into a laugh. "Go now. Trust Septimus. He knows you can know. And then…" He turned towards the massive door, touching its surface with his wrinkled hand. "...it won't be long until it is reached. The maximal apex."
Saya watched him silently for a few moments, until the discomfort got too much to bear and she decided it was time to get out. The tunnels almost seemed shorter on the way out. Or maybe her eyes were just more sensitive to light after a few minutes in near-darkness.
Serana visibly flinched seeing how fast the Dragonborn was leaving. "I-Is everything okay?"
Saya didn't answer the question, instead placing a hand on her shoulder and looking her in the eye. "Let's go. Quickly. This place is giving me the creeps." Her voice was low and almost commanding, but her expression told a different story through the tension in her jaw and the nervously darting eyes.
Serana was going to protest and inquire more about what they discussed. Instead, she nodded and said: "Alright. I am right beside you." Saya gave her a small smile at her words, short-lived as it was.
As the trapdoor closed behind them and the cold winter sun touched Saya's face, she wondered what it was about simple shadows that made her feel so on edge.
Unlike most of my experiences, Septimus was exactly the kind of person I'd expect an expert in Elder Scrolls to be. Which is to say, I didn't want to spend a moment longer than necessary around him. I looked at my map, I looked at the ice ahead of us, I vaguely saw the College in the distance and then we started moving immediately. I would've loved it if we could use the boat Septimus had, but seeing as it was in no state to move we had to walk.
Once we got back to Hsaarik Head, we followed the coastline west. Lots of horkers around. I'm just imagining them as massive bowls of stew at this point. Thankfully, we ran into a hunter camping nearby who had the same idea as me, and he treated us to a little bit of food in exchange for some gold. He also pointed us in the general direction of Alftand - or at least "some weird half-frozen dwarf ruin", which I am fairly sure stands for Alftand.
After we said our goodbyes, we continued along the coast until we ran into… I think it's a valley? But "valley" doesn't seem like the right word for this. It's like the glacier was supposed to be one solid piece, but instead it split right down the middle and this one crack stretched all the way down to the sea. We followed it until we reached a point where the ice closed back up, and I briefly contemplated breaking camp there until Serana noticed something above us - a shoddy-looking suspension bridge. I created a light to look around and just as I thought, it seemed to lead inside the glacier. I think I even saw a little bit of that classic gilded stone that Dwemer liked to use so much.
So, Serana volunteered to scout ahead and try to find a way to get there. I agreed, since it's not like we had much else to do. What I didn't expect is for her to just… step into the glacier and vanish. Like she just straight up phased into the ice and disappeared. What the fuck. Since when could she do that? I mean I guess it never came up until now, but that's… yeah. It's something, alright.
She showed up a couple minutes later. Apparently we were basically right below the entrance, but it was a bit of a walk. We had to make this long hook around the glacier's edge, walk uphill through the snow, and then when we were standing on top of the glacier itself did I finally see the typical Dwemer spire poking out the top of the ice. There was a ruined camp outside with a bunch of dead bodies, which didn't rot from the cold but still looked fresh enough. I found a journal next to one of them - we were apparently just a couple of days behind an expedition by a man named Sulla Trebatius, some Imperial explorer with a grudge against the College of Winterhold. Ten drakes says we'll find him dead halfway in.
Oh also, Serana said that the ice thing is just something all Volkihar do. Apparently the lesser rank vampires who don't have thralls to feed them usually hunt by hiding under frozen lakes and pulling people through the ice. They never find the bodies. I love to hear things like that before bedtime.
Morndas, the 22nd of Evening Star, 4E201
If I go the rest of my life without ever seeing ice again, I'll die happy.
We found the suspension bridge, as flimsy as it looked. I went first, nothing broke, and Serana came after me. I'm not actually sure which of us is lighter, but I'd assume it's not me, given the armor. Either way, the bridge held. So that's good.
It led us into a glacial cave. I want to say it's natural, but I can't be sure. We found a camp pretty early in, as well as a journal covered in blood. Its owner was nearby - some unlucky worker. A sudden quake hit the camp after a blizzard came over, so everyone with their wits about them ran down here as fast as they could.
The tunnels were long and sometimes looped around on themselves. It's like someone with no sense of direction trying to make a mine out of a glacier. I'm guessing the miners were trying to find the ruin under all the ice, and judging by the bodies and scrap metal that most definitely came from animunculi, they found it.
We also found… a Khajiit. Loud fellow, arguing with his brother over skooma, supposedly. The brother was dead, covered in claw marks. I don't think he even realized what he did, the poor bastard. Serana found a couple empty bottles of the shit nearby. She didn't recognize them. I'm not sure if she even knows what skooma is, but I think it might be for the best.
The skittering. Saya would never get used to that droning, unnervingly rhythmical skittering of metal that she would always hear when there was a spider automaton nearby. Serana heard him coming first, but her ice spike didn't find its target, instead shattering against an equally icy wall. The arachnid's legs pierced the glacial surfaces effortlessly and it crawled up the wall, onto the ceiling, and from all around her Serana was assaulted by that disorienting, echoing noise of skittering legs.
Then the moment it leapt to attack, it came down crashing just as fast as Saya smashed the side of its round corpus with the pommel of her sword. Serana turned around to see the Dragonborn wedging the blade into the top of the creature, prying off what looked to be a protective panel of sorts. She reached in, and the moment she pulled out the soul gem from its insides, it ceased to move.
"Mmm. Smaller than I thought. Not worth keeping." She dropped the tiny stone on the floor and turned back to Serana. "You alright?"
The vampire looked a little tense still, but as her shoulders relaxed she gave a shaky nod. "Y-Yes. It did not reach me."
"Good," Saya said and continued on her way. Serana's eyes lingered on the metal carcass for a while before she caught up. The number of side tunnels had been steadily decreasing, leaving them with less options - or less distractions, depending on one's perspective.
They walked in silence. Most of their traveling since the College had been in silence. Serana would throw the occasional glance in Saya's direction, but she either did not notice or pretended not to. Mentally, the vampire bounced back and forth between wanting to make small talk and not wanting to bother the Dragonborn for fear of a negative reaction, even if that expectation had yet to be met a single time.
"Have you encountered that sort of machine before?" She asked, and immediately chided herself as her words echoed across the icy tunnel. Of course she had, she'd been to Dwemer ruins before. She even told her as much. Stumbling for a recovery, she quickly added: "How did you know where the soul gem would be?"
Saya gave her a curious look, but made no remark. "It's a generic design. The Dwemer liked their spiders, pretty much every ruin has them," she explained. "That one was a worker. More or less the same everywhere, from my experience."
"A worker?" Serana echoed. "Are there others?"
"Well, it's what we call them now. The Dwemer probably had some other unpronounceable name for them." The Dragonborn paused, looking around for something. Once she saw that something, she nodded to herself and started walking a little more confidently. "There's also guardians, or fighters, or whatever you want to call them. You can tell them apart by looking at the top. The workers have a panel to protect them from debris, like an armored plate. The fighters leave their soul gems exposed, or a small cage just barely covering it."
"That seems… ill-advised."
"I know, right?" Saya snickered. "It's because they don't count on being repaired. If a guardian spider is too damaged, it won't try to defend itself. Instead, it'll overcharge the soul gem and throw itself at you right before it explodes into a bunch of flaming scrap." She glanced at Serana. "If you're lucky, you can snag the soul gem before it happens. Zaps like a bitch, but it beats getting blown up."
Serana wasn't sure how to respond to that, so the conversation died down rather quickly. She seemed like she was speaking from experience, but would she be interested in discussing that experience? Was she even interested in talking, still? With all those thoughts in mind, Serana went with the neutral option, something that could serve as an end to the conversation as well as a continuation: "I suppose we'd be lucky to avoid such encounters, then."
"I wouldn't say that," Saya shot back almost immediately, startling the vampire. "They're only as troublesome as you let them be, and they're always a good sign regardless."
Serana blinked, confused. "How come?"
Saya turned, giving her a slight smile. "They're called guardians for a reason. They're guards. And when you find a guard, whatever it is they're protecting is never far." She pointed at the floor and Serana's eyes flashed with recognition. They were scratches - little marks in the ice where the mechanical spider walked, leading somewhere they couldn't see quite yet. "We should… wait, do you hear that?"
Serana watched as the Dragonborn whipped around, pointed ears twitching with irritation. Her expression was a grimace of discomfort, like a person who just noticed their own headache and was now all too aware of its existence. Serana lifted her eyes in the same direction Saya was looking, directing all her senses into the glimmering tunnel.
"I did not hear anything," she said. "What is the sound like?"
"It's… a drone. Repeating over and over. I think it means something, but I-"
Before Saya could finish the sentence, a low rumble rolled across the glacial walls around them. The floor shook beneath their feet and Serana struggled to maintain her balance. A loud crash came from behind them, followed by a gust of cold wind and shards of ice. Serana stayed close to the wall just in case. Then, when the rumble had finally settled down, she let out a bated breath and looked over towards her companion.
The sight of Saya covering her ears and clutching her head while standing on her knees wiped the relieved smile off Serana's features. The vampire approached her and tried to get a look at her face. Just then, the Dragonborn stood up on wobbly legs, wiping cold sweat off her forehead. She saw Serana's face marred with worry and waved her off dismissively. We can worry about me later, she thought. Right now, we have more pressing issues.
They continued walking in silence once again. Their pace was quicker than last time, an urgency in their footsteps. Saya heard that droning noise a few more times. After the third, she noticed the pattern and the timing, though it did nothing to ease her discomfort. Serana did not voice her concern about the fact that her own ears heard no such noise. They could not afford the delay.
It was another twenty odd minutes that passed before they had found where the spider crawled in from - a large hole in the wall, the ice partially melted around it and covered in debris. No doubt, explosives were at work here. Saya was all too happy to walk on the ice no longer, visibly relaxing when her feet touched the solid stone floor. With a wave of her hand, a ball of magical light appeared above her.
It was… a room. A simple interior chamber, decently spacious. A thick layer of dust lay atop the furniture, scattered in disarray - a couple of chairs, a table, a broken cupboard. Saya trailed her hand along the side of a counter that ended in a metal sink. There were still unwashed dishes inside, though whatever mold had grown on them had long since starved and died from the cold. Saya picked up a stray fork and twirled it around in her fingers. Four people. Not recent. The fork came to a stop and she chuckled grimly. Good to know even the Dwemer were too lazy to do the dishes sometimes.
"What is this place?" Serana's voice was quiet, like she didn't mean to say the question out loud. Saya glanced at her and then placed the piece of cutlery down onto the counter.
"A kitchen. Or at least, it used to be." Serana's eyes drifted to the table beside her and the glimmer underneath. Once she picked it up, she realized it was a small empty vase, cracked from falling onto the floor. "This was someone's house. Let's look around, there should be an exit somewhere around here."
Serana followed the Dragonborn as they left the kitchen and entered a different, much larger room. An array of pale crystalline lamps hung from the ceiling. Only two still worked, flickering on and off and buzzing obnoxiously when they did. It appeared to be some kind of common room. A half-constructed apparatus of some kind lay in the corner, a peculiar aggregate of spheres and rings layered atop each other in an increasingly elaborate manner. On the long table in the middle, a small puzzle-box that was not unlike the lexicon Septimus had given to Saya, though much less complicated in design. The table was not completely level in shape either, the biggest protrusion being in the center where an oddly-geometric opening was located, once covered with a glass lid that now lay in shards, scattered across the table surface. It almost felt like Saya should put something in there, but she couldn't tell what, or what would happen if she did.
A vague sense of discomfort washed over Serana as she looked upon it all. She was all too happy to leave when Saya told her she'd stay and search the room for anything useful. As she supposed, it must've been a common room judging by the number of rooms it connected to. The first door she opened led to what was unmistakably a bathroom, though the once-smooth tiles have been randomly smashed to pieces by what looked like a metal shelf that was violently ripped off the wall. She didn't suppose water still ran to the sink, but she checked anyway. It did not.
The second room she saw had a dead body inside. Fresh, relatively speaking. It was a muscular-looking man in simple, warm clothes. He had a partially bandaged stab wound in his side and his shirt was soaked with now-frozen blood. Serana couldn't tell how long he had been there. The body had not decayed much at all thanks to the cold, and the vampire found herself rather grateful. She didn't even want to imagine the stink it'd have otherwise.
A small note lay by his side. It was scribbled in haste, unfinished. A barely legible curse addressed towards the Dwemer and their 'damn spiders'. He didn't have the time to finish writing his name.
"Find anything?" Serana almost dropped the scrap of paper when she heard Saya's voice behind her. The red eyes blinked upon noticing the corpse. "Ah. Anyone, then."
"He must've been part of the earlier expedition," Serana said and Saya hummed back in acknowledgment before examining the room herself. The vampire watched her pick through the various containers in the room, open and close the night stands, even look inside the closet. Something about the ease with which she did it made her stomach turn. "What about you?" Saya turned quizzically. "Have you found anything?"
"Just scrap and rubbish, for the most part. Nothing useful yet." Saya continued pacing around the room while she talked. One thing she noticed was the beds: the corpse lay on the stone frame of what used to be an average-sized bed for a single person, but there was another just like it on the opposite side of the room. A room for two… and there were four people. Kids? No wonder she hadn't found anything of value, then. "Have you checked the other room?"
Serana shook her head. Saya took that as a signal to leave, and promptly headed for the door to the right of the one she'd just closed. The chamber seemed to be much more spacious, which normally would be a good sign.
Instead, she found that almost all of that space was crushed and buried under cold grey stone. The caved-in ceiling left little room for her to maneuver inside of the room. She could just barely see the edge of the bedframe peek out from under the debris. A piece of a broken mirror glimmered at her feet and she kicked it away. Saya was ready to call for Serana and look for a way out when something caught her eye and she stepped closer to take a better look.
It was a strongbox. A small, unassuming little thing, but definitely sturdier than she dared to assume. Wiping away the thick layer of dust revealed a dark metal exterior with decorative accents of that classic golden-orange brass. She quickly grabbed the thing and brought it back to the common room, where Serana had already been waiting for her.
"What is that?" The innocuous question was soured somewhat by her expression. Saya pulled up one of the chairs and placed down the box onto the table.
"Something I found just now. Gonna crack it open. Can you make a light?" She asked without looking up, sifting through her lockpicks to find one which would best fit. Serana said nothing. A couple seconds later, a magical orb lit up the surroundings, floating gently by the Dragonborn's shoulder. "Thanks," she said and immediately got to work.
Serana watched her silently for a while, the echoing clicks becoming background noise to her thoughts. Saya's face was a mask of concentration, completely focused on the thing in front of her. Somehow, seeing it didn't instill her with confidence. Serana's eyes drifted around the room, mentally reconstructing it and cleaning up the place. Putting the vase back together, placing a bouquet of flowers inside, making the lights bright and warm. Imagining a family of four sitting here, eating, talking…
"Fuck-"
The curse pulled Serana out of her thoughts immediately. She looked down at the Dragonborn who continued to labor over the small lock. Her lips tightened, but she said nothing.
It took her four minutes to finally defeat the mechanism. All tension seemingly left Saya's body when she heard that coveted click. The box came open with a pained creak, revealing a small red cushion upon which rested a golden locket. She picked it up, pulling out the chain of the same color and simply holding the thing in her hand. It felt heavier than it looked. Her eyes practically gleamed as she took in all the details of craftsmanship that still survived. If she found the right person…
"Hey." She glanced over at Serana, who now stood right beside her. Maybe it was just the light, but she almost looked paler than usual. "Do you… need to take that?"
Saya blinked. Need? "What do you mean?"
Serana's fingers closed around the cloth of her cloak. Once more, she regretted opening her mouth. Now that she was on the verge of voicing her thought, it seemed so stupid. Childish, even. But it was too late to back out now. "This locket- it seems like a very…" She paused, struggling to find the right words. "W-What I mean is, it does not seem enchanted or useful in any way, so maybe it'd be best to… leave it?" Saya's growing confusion at her words only served to undermine her confidence further.
Saya did not respond immediately. "Hmm…" She spun the locket around in her hands. "Why?" She asked without looking. Serana jerked where she stood from the question. "The Dwemer have been gone for Seht knows how long, it's not like they'll have much need of it."
Serana didn't have an immediate retort to that. It was true, of course. The Dwemer had been gone for millennia. They definitely wouldn't mourn the loss of one or two trinkets. But at the same time a peculiar kind of guilt scratched at the back of her consciousness.
She sighed. "It's… It feels wrong. That is all." Saya watched her wordlessly for a while before turning back to the locket. A strange noise escaped her, not a laugh but a weird hum, as though she herself wasn't sure what to think.
"You know, it's been a long time since I thought of it this way," she finally spoke up. Serana looked at her face and couldn't quite figure out what her expression was supposed to be. "I started out this whole adventuring business looting ruins like this one back in Morrowind. I used to feel bad about taking even half the stuff I carry without a second thought these days." She sighed, looking back at the vampire. "But at one point, I just figured feeling guilty wasn't worth it."
Now it was Serana's turn to tilt her head in confusion. "What do you mean?"
Saya thought for a moment what to say. Then, she lifted the locket and showed it to Serana. "When I show you this, what do you see?"
"A… locket?" Serana said, unsure.
"Well yeah, duh. But what is this locket? Why does it matter?"
Serana paused. Now the weight of the question actually sank in. "In that case… I think it was a gift, or an heirloom. Either way, it was something precious to… to the people that lived here. They wanted to keep it safe. It must've been important to them."
Saya nodded, smiling slightly. "Yep. And the metal is unusual. It's lighter than the ones normally used for this kind of thing," she said. "Custom-ordered. That, or handmade. Look here-" she pointed to the ring where the chain connected to the locket. "-see how the ring isn't perfectly circled? A machine wouldn't have made that kind of imperfection. This is a unique design, something you won't find anywhere else." She turned towards Serana again. "It's a piece of history. A precious fragment of someone's lifetime from long, long ago. Do you get what I mean?"
Serana didn't know how to respond, so she wordlessly nodded. She understood what she was getting at, but she wasn't sure where she was going with this thought. All she could do was listen.
"There's people all over who collect this kind of history. Put it in museums, write books about it, make it known to the world that this is something that existed. But none of that will happen if it's left abandoned here." And there it is. "And to me personally, this is enough gold to feed me for a month. Maybe more, if I find the right buyer. So in the end, we can either leave this precious thing here to keep gathering dust until someone else grabs it and pawns it off for a bottle… or we can take it now and later find someone reputable who'll put it to good use, and help me not starve to death. What do you say?"
Serana shifted uncomfortably from one foot to another. She could tell she was being persuaded right now. Part of her even wondered if all she said was one big sham and all she really cared about was the money. But at the same time, she couldn't deny that she hadn't considered her point of view either, until now. Not to mention that Saya had been complaining about not having a proper meal, too…
The vampire pursed her lips. "Alright. You've convinced me. But I still don't feel good about it."
Saya snorted at the reply, shaking her head. Then, after a moment of thought, she grabbed her hand and placed the locket in her palm. Serana looked up at her, surprised, and she said: "Good. With all the bad folk running around, people who remember how to feel bad are in short supply."
Once again, life finds a way to steal my joy of being right. Yes, we were in a residential area. Probably one of the biggest I've ever seen, honestly. There wasn't much in the way of tunnels, it was just massive fake-caverns with tall ceilings and… streets. Just rows of houses, some of them big, some of them small. I won't pretend I wasn't itching to go and loot every single one of them. However, as mentioned earlier, life had different plans.
There were patrols. A lot of patrols. The expedition that came through here before us definitely put a dent in the automaton count, though they did lose a couple more people. Now, though, there were workers crawling EVERYWHERE - picking apart the broken machines, one by one, all while being guarded by the explosive ones. Whenever one finished the deconstruction, a few of them would come together and take it elsewhere, always in the same direction. So, we followed.
I figured that, if I had to take a wild guess, that's probably where the Animonculory is. An Animonculory is where animunculi get made, repaired, scrapped and so on. Most big Dwemer cities have one, though they're not in working order more often than not. Finding one is always a good sign though - means you're more or less at the heart of the city. Automata are used for all kinds of things, be it mining or smithing or whatever, and that means they're constantly needed everywhere. Therefore, almost every Animonculory doubles as a sort of central hub from which you can get to basically any part of the city. If there's anywhere we can start searching for an Elder Scroll, that'd be the best bet.
Okay. So, we followed some workers back to the Animonculory so we didn't have to run around looking for it like headless chickens. And I only have one question - what the fuck kind of city needs an Animonculory THIS BIG? Ayem's mercy, you'd think this was a whole district the way it just sprawls outwards. It's a whole complex!
If my back wasn't killing me as is, I'd be stuffing my pack with all the shit in here. It's still functioning, just as I thought, so there's heaps of absolutely pristine parts, animus cores, weapons… Bloody hell, you couldn't clear this place out with a horde of workers, forget just the two of us. I snagged a few bits and pieces here and there, but there's only so much space I can give up. We still have food to worry about. At least I do, anyway.
Speaking of which, remember how I said the Animonculory is more or less a hub? Well, after a bit of wandering, we actually stumbled upon a farm. An actual underground farm, with actual vegetables. The Dwemer even had crops brought in from Morrowind! It is outrageous that I don't have a proper kitchen available to me, what I wouldn't give for some tartlets right now… Oh well. Guess I'll settle for vegetable soup.
Plain vegetable soup, apparently. I'm out of salt. Tits.
Bubble-bubble-bubble. The noise was quite hypnotizing once Saya got used to it. Especially with how lacking regular conversation was.
The saltrice went in first. While that was going on, she carefully diced the yams and set them aside. Then came the cabbage. Serana watched her work, figuring it'd be better not to interfere than to try and help. She kept that thought process going right up until Saya tapped her shoulder and placed a few heads of garlic in her hands. Their eyes met for a moment and they both immediately turned away. No words were exchanged.
By the time Serana had finished peeling the garlic, Saya cut up about a quarter of the cabbage and put away the rest for another time. It probably wouldn't spoil. Probably. She could worry about it later. For now, she had a pot to keep an eye on, and a headache to be annoyed about. It never quite reached the same intensity as back in that tunnel, but it came and went in waves. Most of the time it would be a barely-present buzz at the back of her skull. Occasionally, it would spike and she'd once again get that throbbing pain at her temples, making her vision blur. Thankfully, those spikes were quite infrequent.
The yams went in second. Once more, Saya lamented the lack of salt at her disposal. Spices in general were in short supply, but salt in particular also had a great demand to go with it. She probably could have found something if she looked around properly - but was a bit of flavor really worth the risk of getting shot by a stray arbalest sphere?
Saya would prefer not to answer the question.
Everything was more or less done by the time she added the cabbage. She only needed to let it simmer for a few minutes. Finally, Saya took the garlic - minced and crushed to a fine paste - and added it at the very end. A brief moment of consideration later, she threw in some dried herbs as well. Just a bit. Maybe she should've done that earlier, in hindsight, but she could let them soak for a while until everything cooled down. And until then, all she had to do was wait.
And so she waited. And then waited some more. Serana watched her watching the pot and fought a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. Eventually she remembered she had a journal to write in, and so she began scribbling away. She chewed on her pencil a lot, Serana noticed. She didn't know if it was habit or hunger.
At last, the moment came. Saya produced two wooden bowls from her pack and carefully poured the rice… cabbage… vegetable soup she had going on. Serana didn't even fully register what that meant until the bowl was placed right in front of her. She blinked confusedly, looked up to Saya giving her a spoon, and took it. Saya seemed pleased enough with that when she sat back down. Then, without a care in the world, she dug in.
The soup was frankly underwhelming by her usual standards. But, given the circumstances…
They ate in silence. Saya was much quicker, much less dignified. Serana tried to ignore the slurping. She took her time, waiting for it to cool down a bit more before carefully trying the dish. Then she visibly picked up the pace, pleasantly surprised by the flavor. Manners mostly went out the window after that.
A few minutes later, they were both finished. They exchanged glances, then both tried to look away when their eyes met only to turn away at the exact same time. An awkward air hung over them, and the silence felt all too heavy now that there was no background noise to break it up or any distractions to take the attention away from it.
"I"m not mad at you," Saya said eventually. Serana lifted her head, surprised. She shrugged. "I messed up, you messed up. Who am I to judge?"
A brief pause. "Thank you." Another pause, a little longer this time. "The soup was good."
"You think?"
"Mhm," Serana nodded. Saya couldn't help but smile proudly at that. The vampire smiled after seeing her smile. Neither of them had anything to say to that, so they just sat there like two smiling idiots. And they were content to stay that way for a while, until Saya stood up.
"Seconds?" She asked, reaching out with her hand for her bowl. Serana nodded, grinning.
"Yes, please."
And that was that.