Chapter Forty-Five:

Forward March

"So," I said, crossing my arms and raising an eyebrow at the smirking Khajiit in front of me, "you went to the librarian here?"

"Yes."

"And then read some sort of book?"

"Yes."

"And then pursued some mad lunatic to find the location of the Elder Scroll?"

Javin rolled his eyes. "I'll have you know Septimus was once a close friend."

Cha'qim's smirk turned into a full-out grin, and she flashed her fangs playfully at me and the rest listening in (which would include everyone, minus the healer from before. She'd been dismissed since). "Ah, you have paid very good attention to Khajiit's tale. Now, Cha'qim has the information we're looking for. Shall we depart?"

"Already?!"

She nodded. "Well, of course. Cha'qim thought you knew of her legendary information-gathering skills."

I sighed, rubbing my eyes. "Apparently not... And here I was looking forward to snooping around the college here. Have to admit I'm a bit disappointed."

"And I'll admit I'm relieved," Javin put in, raising an eyebrow that made me shrink sheepishly. "Although I'm wondering about Cha'qim. What did you do whilst I couldn't even cast so much of a flicker of a flame at you?"

"Why so suspicious?" Cha'qim asked, pulling her best "innocent" look. "Khajiit was merely looking for the location of the Elder Scroll. She didn't find any secret trapdoors in the corner of the courtyard."

Javin facepalmed and groaned loudly, to which Hiemdall snickered. "So, Cha'qim..." Hiemdall crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. "Where is the Elder Scroll?"

"The crazy man said it would be in a place called Blackreach," Cha'qim answered him.

Javin stroked his beard. "'Cast upon where the Dwemer cities slept, the yearning spire hidden secrets kept.' I've read that passage."

"Then you know where our destination is?"

"Alftand, deep under the tower Mzark. Mzark is an elevator of sorts. Dwemer make." Javin's hand moved from his beard to his head. "Unless I'm mistaken, the door to the tower has been locked for years. We'll have to go through Alftand, and I'm under the impression that an excavation team made their way there several weeks ago."

I smirked. "Then this ought to be the easiest adventure we've had yet!"

Hiemdall shook his head. "Wouldn't be too sure of that. The Dwemer had a lot of machines they made to defend their homes. Not to mention the over-abundance of Falmer down there. We ought to tread carefully."

"Ah! One last thing..." Cha'qim reached into her satchel and pulled out a large, sperical object and a square one about the same size. "The mindless smooth-skin also gave these to Khajiit. We cannot enter Blackreach without them, nor can we retrieve the Elder Scroll."

"Yippee." I examined them in her hands. "Did he tell you how to work them?"

"...No."

"Typical crazy Imperials. Kind enough to give you directions and baubles, but too Gods-damned crazy to give you instructions." I looked at Javin. "How're you feeling?"

The Arch-Mage nodded. "Well. I can leave whenever we're ready." To reassure us, he held his palms up and had lightning jump between his hands. "And everyone else?"

"Cha'qim is ready when everyone else is."

Hiemdall shrugged. "I'm with the cat. I think we're all healed from our encounter with those Altmer."

My eyes immediately flickered to Milos, who patted the thigh that'd gotten the crossbow bolt. "I'll have a limp for a while, but I should be fine. They patched us up good here."

I planted my hands on my knees and stood, grinning. "All right then!" I exclaimed. "Then let's get that Elder Scroll and hit Alduin over the head with it!"

It wasn't an hour later that we had packed our bags with supplies and were on the road, heading west from Winterhold. Hiemdall (Gods bless his thick skull) had purchased some large, albeit heavy fur cloaks to keep us warm while we trudged through the three-foot-tall snowbanks in the frozen north. While it certainly kept our bodies warm, the same could not be said for our feet, and I heard Milos mutter something about fur-lined boots. That comment though was quickly followed by a hiss from Cha'qim, although I did agree with the Argonian, even if Cha'qim didn't.

Aldren, of course, did not complain (a Vampire thing, I'm sure). He brought up the rear, upwind from us, while Javin and I began consulting the map for Alftand, which had been marked on it prior to our leaving.

The trip took several hours, mostly because of the high winds and treacherous steps, but we eventually made it to the campsite outside of Alftand. I peeked out from under my hood, squinting at the whiteness of the land. A cabin lay not far from us, and there was a tower high to the left. I headed towards the tower with Milos and Cha'qim while Hiemdall, Javin and Aldren took a look at the cabin.

I gripped the bars and shook them, hoping they would open, but when it became clear they would not I pulled my gloved hands back under my cloak and rubbed them vigorously.

"Locked!" I announced to the others over the high and shrill winds. "We have to find a key! Or another way in!"

Aldren had wandered away from Hiemdall and Javin. I spotted him crouched over something.

"Bodies here!" Aldren pointed to some fallen tents, one of which he was examining. "Frozen! May have been here a few days, from the looks of it!"

Hiemdall left the cabin holding something above his head. "Expedition manifest! Looks like they weren't keen on sharing these ruins with the College!"

"We need to find a way inside!" I shouted down at him. "The tower parapet is sealed shut!"

"There's another way if we follow these bridges!" Milos yelled. "Hurry up! This storm's only going to get worse! And I'd rather not freeze my tail off!"

"Here, here!" Cha'qim agreed, and followed after the Argonian at a jog.

Despite our rush, we tried to do our best not to slip from the ice on the bridges and the stairs and break our necks. Thankfully, we managed to reach the opening that the explorers had created with minimal damage to ourselves.

Once inside the fissure we made our way forward, cautious of the glistening icicles hanging above our heads. It wasn't long until we discovered an abandoned and ruined campsite within the cave, and I managed to spot a journal on a barrel beside a lamp before we moved on.

"We tried to get through the glacier at the top, but we couldn't find any way into that tower parapet. Yag spotted in the glacial wall and construction of a catwalk was finished just in time for a storm to hit. At first we thought to wait it out, but it has only gotten worse. A shift in the glacier took out several of the new labourers.

"I ordered everyone to quickly move as much of the supplies as we could into the fissure and we managed to get most of it. One of the hands decided he wasn't going to listen and tried to make it out through the storm, but got blown off the catwalk by the wind.

"Looks like we are well and truly stuck in here. But for all that I feel more driven that I should be the one to uncover the mysteries of this ruin. I'm tired of all the credit for my work going to the Mages or the Legion. It will be my name that goes down in the history books for this discovery."

I snorted. "Yep. I suppose we all know where this is going... This guy's gonna be just as crazy as that mage you met up with, Cha'qim."

The cat looked over my shoulder and trumpeted air from her nose. "Khajiit does not understand. Did this person desert the Legion?"

"Because he couldn't handle sharing glory," I affirmed. "Idiot."

Milos stuck his arm out to stop us, his eyes narrowing at the scene in front of us. "Look. Blood. Seems like there was a fight."

Milos was right; blood spatter covered the walls and floors, and well as some droplets that were frozen solid to the roof of the cave.

I nodded in agreement. "That, or there was some sort of spontaneous childbirth that sent all the men running."

Aldren rolled his eyes and crouched to examine the blood. "Hm... This is a few days old, too. Maybe whatever happened here drove those corpses topside to escape?"

"Mutiny?" Javin asked inquisitively as he took the journal from my hands. "What was the name of the man leading this expedition?"

"Sulla Trebatius," Hiemdall answered, flipping through the pages of the manifest he'd found outside. "Writing looks similar in both books. He also mentions the College in each."

"Oh, great," I said sarcastically. "So, we're delving into a Dwemer ruin to find an Elder Scroll, and we're coming after whoever—or whatever—did all this?!" I waved my arms to elaborate on the scene.

So Hiemdall grabbed my arms and steadied them. "On the bright side, we have an assassin, a mage, a thief, two very big, very strong and very attractive but very humble warriors, and the Dragonborn. We'll be fine."

I frowned. "You might want to check on that humility again."

"Nah. It's fine where it is." Hiemdall grinned.

I automatically grabbed my bow and took point in the troop. "Well, let's not waste any time! I doubt Alduin's patiently waiting for us to succeed!"