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Chapter 20: What Do You See?
(revised)
According to one of the maps on the walls of the forge laboratory, there was an important item located in the Dwemer temple to Xrib located north and a couple degrees east of the Falmer's Sun's Glory Temple.
Working it out on the map, Curtis figured Sun's Glory was now the Dragon Cult temple on Mount Anthor. The Temple of Xrib, then, was the Skyrim dungeon, the Sightless Pit.
The device was a special music box (Calcelmo's literal interpretation of the name) that coordinated or conducted the various operations of the different soulgem boards they were repairing.
In other words, it was a secondary master CPU that had been constructed and stored off-site in case the primary CPU at Skytemple failed. Yeah, the CPU at Skytemple was barely functioning and parts of it melted.
Unfortunately, Curtis's memory of the Sightless Pit run was almost non-existent except for two things, one, it had no Word wall so it really wasn't of any interest except as a points grinder and two, once you dropped in (no ladder, no stairs, no elevator, you jumped off the pit edge and down onto a series of large pipes or ledges along the drop) you had no choice but to do the whole run if you wanted to leave.
But, if the Dragonborn had explored that cave, might the exit be unbarred and available for use for direct access to the main temple?
Actually, yes. Urag had her map and her notes in the secured "Archimage or Tolfdir authorization required" collection. The Archimage documented her explorations. Tolfdir gave Curtis permission for onetime access to the Dragonborn travel diaries, which were rich with maps and notes and stories and ideas for songs.
Yes! The primary temple layout was here, more rooms than in Game, and he hoped to gods the rooms marked as "collapsed" weren't the rooms with valuable stuff. The four intact "equipment/machine storage rooms" looked promising and worth the risk.
They had to be. They didn't have the know-how or time to figure how to jury-rig the failing CPU.
So, the team would be himself, Ilya, Gelebor, Sgt. Beck, and Aicantar. Curtis wanted this to be a sneak-in/sneak-out mission rather than stomp in with half the returning Winterhold Stormcloak army. Not unless his intention was the wholesale slaughter of anything living down there and the place being put to the torch, was Ilya's warning.
Their armors were enchanted with sneak and muffle and poison resistance spells. They had darts dipped in paralysis drugs. They had magic night-vision goggles. They had individual whistles that each sounded different so they knew who was signaling. For Ilya and Beck, they had ear cups attached to their helmets to amplify sounds. And to carry the CPU out, if they found it, was a floating platform enchanted by Mage-Lord Baladas that could carry up to 300 pounds. That would be the CPU and any number of interesting stuff, or the CPU and an injured body, or two injured bodies. It was too bad he couldn't come with them, but he had business with the Archimage somewhere in the Rift.
Tolfdir had the spell to remove the seal that had been set there by the Archimage so he came with them as far as the small exit cave and to the lift doors. After unsealing the door, he and J'zargo were going to explore the outside area, most especially the altar high above the cave.
As the lift descended, Curtis hoped there wouldn't be a reception party waiting. The machine wasn't noiseless and, after all these eons, there was crackling and squealing and rattling. He could tell just by the grinding that this device was not going to work much longer without some serious servicing. He just hoped it worked one more time, like, to get them out of here. Should the lift stop during ascent or not even work at all, there was a service hatch in the ceiling, not that it would matter anyway because the three lift cables were inaccessible. He figured the Dwemer probably used levitation spells to rescue stranded passengers. At least they could climb out of the lift and send a signal up to where Beck's son, Elden and two of Elden's friends, were camping in the cave above with a long rope ladder.
The lift thumped down. Beck and Ilya put up their shields. Curtis and Aicantar aimed paralysis staves out the sides. Gelebor was center and aiming his ethereal bound bow through the gap between the shields.
Gelebor's arrows thrummed out, the ghostly and faintly luminescent arrows were sufficient light sources for their night vision goggles. The arrows illuminated the two warlords, a spellcaster, the chaurus armored pincer forms, and the acid-spitting mosquitoes. Curtis and Aicantar sent energy blasts following after the glowing arrows to drop them all. More ethereal arrows sprayed out and lit the areas where they landed.
Ilya and Beck and Gelebor went further out from the central altar to look for anything still hiding in the dark. Aicantar set a sleep spell on the paralyzed Falmer and Curtis bound them, wrist to ankles then tight around the waist for the armored ones because the edges of those armors were sharp and he didn't want them cutting their ropes on the edges. Then he gagged the three of them to prevent them from spellcasting. As he gagged the spellcaster, he was surprised to realize it was a female, flat-chested and only wearing a loincloth. The backswept horns he was used to seeing in the Game was actually thick hair bound to form horns. Huh. He'd never really paid that much attention when gaming. Now, up close, he wondered if all the Falmer spellcasters were women.
Beck whistled. Curtis spun around, tense, but it was only two blasts, so not an emergency. One whistle was, "I'm here" or "checking in," two blasts was "not in danger, but someone come here," and three, of course, "HELP!" Gelebor responded with one whistle as he was nearest. Within minutes, Gelebor was jogging out of the darkness.
"Curtis, there are children here."
"What?"
"There are a dozen children hiding in two tents. Their food is still fresh so I think they were just recently gathered here for those three to watch while the parents are working. We need to find the device and get out. No time to let Aicantar do any documenting."
"Well, shit." Curtis grimaced. During the planning, Gelebor had raised this possible situation. Curtis had really been hoping that the Falmer would be sensible and have their nursery in a smaller, better protected and warmer and drier area. Or, it could be that this area was the most structurally stable area if they were afraid of tunnels collapsing. In any case, Gelebor was right and they didn't have time to do any research work before the parents came back. "Aicantar, put 'em to sleep. Gelebor, you and Beck patrol the entrances."
He went and found Ilya and they began searching the four mapped storerooms. The Archimage had already looted any valuables (if there would actually be any in reality. Curtis always found it stupid that in the depths of a Dwemer ruin, thousands of years supposedly untouched, there would sometimes be pristine copies of modern books and unspoilt potions or fully-charged magical items).
They were looking for something that looked like a Star Trek Borg Cube, a cubic yard in size, and a little over a hundred pounds in weight. The gods were being nice. They found one and it appeared intact. Curtis also grabbed two brightly glowing dynamo cores which would fit into an internal compartment in the cube. They loaded the cube and anything else Curtis felt was interesting onto the floating platform.
There were no more surprises. The lift worked without a problem and squeaked all the way up to the surface. They had the CPU, a bunch of interesting devices to examine at leisure, and Aicantar had still managed to quick-sketch Falmer armor, some of the children, and the distillery table and enchanting table that was in the spellcaster's hut. Curtis again noted that the Skyrim Game, all the equipment looked alike. But down here, the table frames were made of Dwemer metal and the vials and bottles of the alchemy table were something other than blown glass. The enchanting table's surface had engraved on it, according to Aicantar, Merethic Era schools of magic that have been lost or redefined through the ages. He was unhappy they didn't have the time to find a way to unbolt the tables from the floor so that they could be taken.
X—X—X—X—X—X—X
"They're starving down there," said Gelebor.
"Tell me what you saw," said Curtis, pouring himself another drink. He and Gelebor were in Curtis's workroom on the second floor of the Hall of Countenance. It was one of the rooms allowed to have a lockable door because of the confidential nature of his work. Ilya sat at a desk outside the room, studying her lessons while guarding the doorway and moving along anyone lingering too long in the area.
"Guarding children is not the task of two warlords and a spellcaster. Not unless it's reached a point where their younger adults are becoming too feral from hunger. And what I could see of the adults, they were showing signs of starvation. It's evident that those blocked portals are the only ones to that temple. They didn't dig their way in, they came overland and preyed on the local animals and the lone travelers for meat."
"The ghosts in the storm," said Curtis.
"Pardon?"
"It's a book. The author was writing about Skyrim legends of ghosts that appear in the midst of a snowstorm. He thought it was only a local superstition until his travel party was caught in a snowstorm and he hid while the caravan guards fought off these ghosts. I'm sure Urag can find you a copy if you're interested.
"But nevermind that. So they're starving down there because the Archimage sealed their only ways in and out. The teens are going feral and cannibalizing on the weak ones, the parents have to leave their kids with warlords while they look for food or work on digging a way out, all the while hoping their leaders don't get so hungry they start eating their young. That it?"
"It would be easy for Nords to go down there and clear out that Dwarven ruin. It is a rich resource of ores and metals and other things to plunder." Gelebor's tone was unpleasantly flat and emotionless.
"Nah. I got some experiments in mind."
Gelebor's eyes widened and fixated on him. "What are you thinking?" he demanded softly, his tone was of tight control.
"Well, we start feeding them. Start a little exposure therapy. I think that's what they call it. Basically, they hate and fear the outside world. They're paranoid. We feed 'em. Try and get them comfortable with the handouts. Start introducing stuff to show them not everything from the outside world is bad and trying to kill them. Yeah, I know it's not that simple, but that's the basic idea. Gotta start somewhere. I know plenty of people will say they're just mindless animals and that the world's better if we just seal 'em back in and let them starve to death, but that's not something I can live with."
"Yes," Gelebor whispered, his eyes now shifted elsewhere and examining something only he could see. Curtis mentally shrugged, and plunged on to the next idea.
"We'll need to talk with Colette about finding drugs that won't cause a dependency but will work to calm them down. Anti-anxiety drugs. Not stuff to pacify them until their brains dissolve to sludge, but something just enough so that they don't emotionally freak out every time new stuff comes in. 'Progressive desensitization' I think it's called. Something that knocks out the homicidal auto-pilot response. Of course, she might need to test stuff on you first, just so you're aware. And that's if we can convince her to take one more project on.
"And, oh, hey, here's a wild idea: Music. There's a saying, 'Music soothes the savage breast,' or was it, 'Music has charms to soothe the savage beast?' I forget. English Lit was a long while back. And I seen YouTube vids of people doing some weird stuff with cattle and music. But you remember any lullabies, Gelebor? Old tunes that only the Falmer sang? Hymns even? I'm a big believer in music or art or recreational therapy. Active stuff is easier to introduce than passive meditation exercises 'cuz the importance is expressions from the heart. You have to participate to create, you know?"
"I . . . yes." Tears poured down Gelebor's cheeks and his eyes stared blindly elsewhere. "Athring's ghost told me, 'Let our words and our songs be our guide through the Darkness. Break the silence, the soulless noises of machinery. Honor the mantras of Auri-El,'" he whispered.
Curtis sat forward, alarmed and wondering who was this "Athring" and if it was okay to hug the guy. He settled for reaching out with both hands to grasp the other's wrists.
Previous story reference: The Shopkeepers Wife #49 Show me the Wayshrine
Guest: Dunno. What did you read? I think I'm writing a "what if you wake up in a world you thought was make-believe?" Toss in ghosts, gods, buncha magic rules that just keep changing (because these gods do play dice), and OOCs who don't follow the game script because they don't know one exists. You want answers, give me specific talking points.