Lyrics: D. Gibson, "Climbing Up The Mountain"
Chapter 12: Up The Mountain
Next level up, more offices, some doubling as individual bedrooms, and central areas for dining or meetings. Noticeable choices in decor — half were typical Dwemer-type wall carvings and ornaments, while others favored planters and flowerpots and embroidered tapestries of garden scenes. One room even had a giant terrarium. The "glass" was something else. Only three millimeters thick and unbroken despite thousands of years. This massive thing was still uniform in thickness with no flaws. Transparent ceramics? Transparent aluminum, a.k.a. aluminum oxynitride?
The tropical jungle within was then, what, over five to six thousand years old? He was no expert, but Curtis was willing to bet none of the plants inside were local. The terrarium glowed and hummed. Yeah, there were nirnroots in there. The glowing also came from other fungi in the depths of the moss.
In another room, he recognized a whiteboard. The water-soluble ink still stained the surface, but only barely and because of the moisture in the air and because the lighting was artificial and had none of the bleaching effects of true solar light. Baladas wanted to copy the writings and diagrams. Curtis shared his fears. Just breathing on a section had caused some of the pigments to puddle and drip.
Baladas insisted on staying behind in this room to copy the formulas. Curtis was inclined to agree, except that the writer had also drawn what looked to him like a mer in a layered sleep pod with lines at various points that led directly to relevant formulas.
"They've been here since before the First Era; they'll be here when we come back," he said to Baladas. "There's more to explore. And call me crazy, but that…" he pointed at the illustrations, "…that looks like sleeper pods to me. Did I ever get around to telling you that I've been having dreams from, I guess, my patron god in Apocrypha, the owl god who took over, that there are people still alive down here?"
They all looked at him.
"No, you neglected to mention that," said Baladas. "And what is this about an owl god? Hermaeus Mora IS Apocrypha. Each realm of Oblivion is created from the very beings of each Prince. They cannot be separated or dispossessed."
"How about shoved into a closet in their own house while someone else pretends to be the homeowner?" said Curtis.
"Still not possible," Baladas said adamantly. "The Prince can reshape its realm."
Curtis threw up his hands. "Look, I won't argue 'cuz I don't know fuck-all about how Oblivion operates or the biology of gods. If I was thinking of cheap plot shticks, then maybe Tentacle-Brains got knocked out by some young punks with hockey sticks, and the Owl God is keeping him comatose. How the fuck should I know? All I know is what they tell me. When we get out, go talk to Urag.
"But back to the point. The late Archimage Savos Aren tells me the sleepers inside will die if we don't get to them in time."
Baladas looked between him and the whiteboard illustration. "You had better be right about this."
"Do I understand this correctly, sera, there are living people somewhere inside this ruin?" asked Ilya levelly.
"So I've been told."
"By a dead man in your dream." She was expressionless, and her tone was even pleasant. "So there might still be living Dwemer since this place appears to be Dwemer built. And there might be Falmer since this is likewise before they turned into those twisted cannibal goblins. And if they are alive and you intend to wake them, how do we talk to them? I doubt they speak Imperial common." She turned to Baladas. "Or you, honored serjo, might you know Dwemeris?"
"I barely remember Chimeris, the language I was born to," Baladas grumbled. "But what I do remember won't help if these Dwemer weren't born in Vvardenfell. Of Falmeris, I know nothing."
"Calcelmo would probably be able to help there with a writing tablet. Maybe even Senior Researcher Enthir," said Curtis, recalling the Thieves Guild quest lines. One of the quests had been to sneak into Calcelmo's study and make a copy of a Falmer language tablet so that Enthir could complete a translation of the previous guild master's diary. "They've done independent research into the Falmer language. And if there's a Dwemer here, they probably shared the base written language even if their spoken language might have drifted during the migrations.
"And we don't even know the origins of this group yet. There were Dwemer clans that settled and stayed in Skyrim who never bothered with Vvardenfell. If I remember correctly, there were already three great clans in Tamriel before Clan Rourken left Vvardenfell in a snit because King Dumas declared an alliance with Nerevar.
"That was the aetherium forge quest. Each clan retained an aetherium piece, and conceptualizing and building the forge required the cooperation of all four clans. Of course, when they got it working, that's when the in-fighting began.
"So let's stick to what we have on hand. Master Baladas, can you read this stuff?"
"Y-yes," said Baladas hesitantly as if startled out of deep thought. "I know the letterforms, but the precise meaning escapes me. My best guess… calculations of power decay or fade. Power expenditures to compensate for fluctuations caused by time? Bank failures?" he gestured to various lines then lapsed into thought; frowned as he scoured the writings with new intent. Abruptly, he swung away from the board. "If you are right about sleepers…" he said to Curtis, "…then there isn't much time. Even if I've guessed a-rightly, these calculations are moot in the face of elapsed eons. No soulgem, even the hundreds we've seen below, can sustain their energy.
"You must find a way to drain the lower levels before we can begin to repair the soulgem banks. We'll new fresh gems just to sustain. To revive, we will need a larger amount of fresh energy. A lot of gems. Black gems. A strong, uniform source rather than multiple white gems for which we would first need to construct a device to concentrate and homogenize the power flow."
"Shit," Curtis muttered. "Who in hell keeps a store of black soulgems?"
"The archimage," said J'zargo, surprising them. "Vampire masters, necromancer masters — she thinks it only fitting their souls fills her black gems and be damned to a place she calls the Soul Cairn. She has a large basket of Volkihar souls."
"All right then," said Curtis. "We finish exploring this level and then try the next one up."
The other rooms had nothing new except one. A sort of shrine room. A Falmer one since he couldn't imagine the Dwemer honoring their gods with gardens. This shrine had planter boxes of dead plants, and the shrine had one shining piece of white marble of a stylized sun.
"Auri-El, the fiery heart of Aetherius," said Baladas. "An ancient form and symbol. This was before he became more closely associated with the dragon, or it became understood that the dragons came from his blood."
"The First Star. Great," drawled Curtis. "Well, if the only other choice is the Old Man of the Void or the Father of Dragons…" Curtis took a small wax candle from his emergency kit and touched the flame to it. "Here's for the darkness. We could use a clue, Auri-El." He also took a swig from the wine flask he'd brought along as part of his lunch kit. As Ilya led the way up to the next level, Curtis softly started singing an old Sunday-school spiritual.
"I'm climbing up the mountain. I'm climbing up the mountain
Once I've traveled in the valley
So low, lonely, and weary was I
Now I travel in the valley no more
And I'll reach the other side
By and by.
Well, well, I'm climbing up the mountain
To the sky
I'm a going where I'll never
Never die…