The massive doors opened to reveal a wide flight of stairs, leading up to the main floor. The bodies of several Falmer lay strewn about; corpses still warm and limp. A massive barred gate blocked our way, but with nothing alive left to guard them, I soon found the switch to open it. Through the gate, we found several more flights of stairs before coming to an area that stopped me cold.

Two metal arches dominated the landing; both of them were empty. Two massive Dwemer automatons lay sprawled on the stone floor, both with their torsos punctured. The faintest of hissing rose from both, steam still wafting away to nothing as the heated metal began to cool. It was a little past the two gigantic automatons that we finally encountered Umana and Sulla. They had their backs to us as Sulla fiddled with some sort of mechanism on a pedestal.

Umana, a fellow Redguard, put her hand on Sulla's shoulder, "Sulla, let's just get out of here. Hasn't there been enough death?"

Sulla shook her hand off with a sneer, "Oh, of course. You're just waiting for me to turn my back so you can have all the glory for yourself!"

"Damn it all to Oblivion, Sulla! You know that's not true!" Umana's voice cracked with frustration and stress, "I've guarded your back in this pit! I've saved your life many times. I say this without any wish for credit. Valie is dead, and we don't know if anyone else is even alive! We don't know where this goes, or how much backup we may need. We don't even have any more food left! We need supplies and another team. We can come back at any time."

The Imperial turned on her, his hand on his blade. He had long blonde hair and a square jaw. His face was one that I usually associated with men who tended to act excessively masculine. He looked argumentative, aggressive, self-absorbed, and overly confident in his male prowess. My teen years had been filled with the goading phrase; 'Are you man enough for…' followed by boys being dared into stupid, 'manly' tasks. Picking a fight with a sabercat wearing nothing but a loincloth and a dagger was one example. This man looked like one of those idiots, only older.

"I will not be beaten to my goals!" Sulla snarled, and Umana fell back, brown eyes wide in alarm as he drew his weapon. "Either you will help me, or I will run you through."

Umana drew her own blade but did not engage with him quite yet. I could see that she was still trying to reach the man with words rather than violence. "Do you know what kinds of mushrooms are poisonous down here?" She demanded in frustration, "I sure don't! And I'm not going to stuff one into my mouth to find out!"

"Maybe you should, if you're going to turn traitor on me at the eleventh hour!" Sulla shot back.

I gestured to J'darr to be ready with my bow, and Serana to have a spell primed, then cleared my throat.

"Pardon me, Sulla," my voice made both their heads snap in my direction, "but I think you need to take a Potion of Resist Heat and count to ten."

"Thief!" I could actually see the spittle flying from Sulla's lips as he turned toward me. "You will not take credit for my discovery!"

"Well that's not very nice," I said, putting a note of mild offense into my voice. "It's also completely untrue. We found the remains of your team after finding your destroyed camp."

"J'darr," Umana gasped, her eyes on the Khajiit, "You're alive!" Then her eyes dropped to my bow in his hands, held at the ready. Her voice grew uncertain, "What's going on?"

"Yes. This one is indeed alive, no thanks to Sulla." The Khajiit's ears flattened and he glowered at the man, "These people healed, and helped this one. Everyone else is dead, Umana."

Her shoulders slumped, and I saw genuine sorrow on her face. "Not your brother? Not even Yag?" The soft, plaintive tone made me warm a little more toward her.

"No," The Khajiit confirmed, his voice matching her sorrow with his own.

"Enough of this chatter," Sulla snapped. "Umana, kill them. They are here to take my prize!"

I could see the pieces falling into place for Umana, and she turned to face the Imperial with her weapon in the guard position.

Sulla roared wordlessly and attacked the Redguard in the blink of an eye, blade flashing. She parried a blow to the stomach, to her left flank, and her chest in rapid succession.

Forgetting that three potential enemies stood nearby, Sulla's focus was purely on the woman who had refused to obey a direct order.

J'darr was eyeing them, looking for a clean shot that wouldn't hit Umana instead, but not finding one.

Green light blazed across my vision, and when I could see again, both Umana and Sulla were collapsing to the ground like dropped flagons of mead.

"Thank you, Serana," I sighed. The muffled curses locked behind the Imperial's teeth sounded rather impressive. "Oh shut up. You brought this on yourself. Honestly, if I thought you had the sense of a common skeever, I would ask what you were even thinking, just now."

J'darr gently pulled the immobilized Umana away from the Imperial. I realized that my only rope was still hanging from the pipes that had gotten us past the broken ramp. I couldn't restrain the man, and the paralysis spell would only last a few minutes.

I snatched up his sword and backed away, "We're not here to take credit for your discovery, Sulla." I decided not to mention that we were here for an Elder Scroll; I doubted that would go over well.

"Who sent you?" Sulla snarled, as the paralysis spell gave out. Then he began to pull himself to his feet. "The college? The Legion? Or maybe you're just some opportunistic mercenary?"

"No, we-"

"Shut up!" he interrupted, nearly screaming. I could see in his eyes that the ability to be rational had fled, "You are a liar and a thief. Whoever sent you doesn't matter. This place will be your tomb!"

He lunged for my neck with both hands and I sidestepped. Sparks flew as I gave his armored wrists a hard smack with the flat of his own blade. Then I punched him across the face. The powerful blow spun him sideways and he came to a stop with J'darr's arrow protruding from his throat. He made a gurgling sound as he dropped to the floor, blood pooling rapidly under him.

"As J'darr has said; he is quite good with his arrows." The Khajiit's voice was icy, and his lips had curled to expose the tips of his fangs. "A proper shot to the throat severs the artery… and the spine."

Umana was slowly getting back to her feet, expression incredibly tired, "I… Thank you. I knew he was obsessed, and I had suspected he would turn on me. But I had to try reasoning with him. We fought together in the Legion for several years, you know. We... saved each other's lives on many occasions. I had hoped that…" Umana's voice trailed off. She stared at the ground and shook her head. "Good people don't go bad overnight. The signs were there. I'm such a fool..." She took a deep, shuddering breath and met my eyes, "I'm sorry. I don't even know your name."

I extended my hand to her, smiling gently, "Lasirah, Warden of Dawn. This is Serana, a... mage friend of mine. And of course, you know J'darr."

"Umana, former Legionnaire and… I guess I'm an explorer now." She clasped my forearm and Serana's before pulling J'darr into a hug.

"You're welcome to join us if you like," I told her, "As long as you promise not to pull a Sulla…"

"No," Umana murmured regretfully. "Thank you, but no. We found a lift back in the Animonculory that will take me back to the upper level. From there, it is just a quick climb back to the surface. I…" she pressed her lips together unhappily, then said, "I don't want to know what that thing leads to." She gestured at the Dwemer device. "Whatever is beyond this point, Sulla was obsessed with it. I don't know what it is, and I don't care to know."

I nodded my understanding.

She turned to J'darr, "I'm going back to town and… Well, I'm going to salvage what I can from our camps and those destroyed spiders to try to get some pay for this disaster. Then I'm going to look for work on the surface. You're welcome to come with me."

J'darr hesitated briefly, glancing at the two of us.

"Hey," I told him, "You've more than paid back whatever you feel you owe us for… ah… healing you earlier."

Slowly the Khajiit nodded, "If you truly feel so, then this one takes his leave gladly. He is no longer sure what the sun looks like." I gave him Sulla's blade, and he returned my bow and remaining arrows to me.

I nodded, then clasped forearms with both of them, "Take care of each other, okay? Be a team, and for Divine's sake, learn from Sulla's mistakes."

As the pair turned and vanished into the gloom, Serana stood next to me. When she seemed sure they were gone, she murmured, "Why?"

"Why what?" I asked absently, turning back to the pedestal to eye its design.

"Don't play coy with me, Lasirah," Serana's voice was stern. She planted herself on the opposite side of the pedestal and planted both of her hands on it, leaning forward to stare straight into my eyes. "Why did you send J'darr away? He was valuable as a team member. We could have used him for whatever is ahead of us. Do you have any idea what lies ahead? Do you have any idea how much longer we'll be down here, or what we'll face? Why reduce our group to only the two of us?"

I blinked at her in surprise, then hiked my eyebrows a little higher. "Are your questions coming from a purely practical standpoint?"

Serana gave a tiny flinch, but rallied quickly. "Yes." There was a slight quaver in her voice, and a flash of vulnerability in her eyes, that told me she was lying.

I took a slow breath and let it out. Do I call her out or wait until she has the courage to ask me directly? She was afraid of something, and that something was definitely not about practical concerns. If push came to shove, she would be an absolutely deadly opponent, so I doubted her fears stemmed completely from a physical vulnerability. I paused for half a heartbeat, then decided to let her hide behind her bluster and answer her questions at face value.

"I let him go because he wanted to. He and Umana will make a good team, and they can watch each others' backs on the way back up. Also?" I made a face, "They can be up to the surface in a matter of minutes, and in a warm inn in a few hours. At the risk of sounding callous, the food we have is only measured to feed the two of us for a few days longer."

"So you let them go simply because you don't want to feed them?" Serana's brows drew together.

"Not just that, no. If this was about exploring, we could have made it stretch. We could have raided Falmer supplies, assuming that it could be identified…" I thought back to the lumps of flesh that had been laid out by the human bones and shuddered. I definitely would have made sure that I knew what I was eating. I was also sure I could identify the mushrooms if I saw them growing, and fish were clearly swimming in waterways down here. "Or," I continued, "we could have used the elevator to get more supplies and come back."

Serana straightened and put a hand on one hip, "Okay, so what's the main reason?"

"We're after an Elder Scroll," I reminded her. "Blueprint of the gods. An insanely powerful artifact that, coincidentally, can drive people insane. I'm quite sure that both Umana and J'darr are good people. But Sulla's behavior proves that we shouldn't toss that information around too freely."

Something eased in her face and she nodded somberly, "Okay, that makes sense. I'm sorry... I guess I just felt a little… safer with them around."

"Yeah, I may regret my decisions later, depending on what we run into." I rubbed the back of my neck and grimaced at the Falmer corpses at the bottom of the long stairway. "On the other hand, the two of us can move a lot more quietly than four." I dug into my pack and pulled out the sphere. "I'm not sure what will happen, so maybe stand clear but be ready to grab me if scary stuff happens?"

Serana gave a short nod and moved back to the very edge of the platform.

"Ready?" I asked.

"Ready as I can be," Serana shook out her shoulders, shifted her stance, and lifted her arms into position.

I pressed the Attunement sphere into the slot and worked it until it fit with a click. I thought I heard tiny musical notes playing at the very edge of my hearing range. It was too faint to catch or make sense of it, but it had an immediate reaction. There was a rumble from unseen mechanisms, and the platform I was standing on began to move.

I scrambled back, images of the amphitheater where I had found Serana flashing through my mind. Serana seized my arm and yanked me clear. My feet did some less-than-graceful scrambling for the edge of the platform as the stone blocks began to descend.

A narrow staircase soon formed, leading under the pedestal.

I sagged next to her, once I got my footing and Serana let go of me. "You know… that's the second time the floor has decided to do scary things while I was standing on it. I don't think I'm cut out for adventuring in ruins."

Serana tried for nonchalance, "Well, I hope the first time turned out to be worth it."

"So far, so good," I gave her a warm smile.

Serana looked away, but a tiny, shy smile seemed to have snuck its way onto her face.