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Chapter 24: Blackest Kingdom Reaches, pt.1

Bandits loved these old Dwemer ruins because everybody else avoided them, and as long as they didn't go too deep, they were relatively safe from the Falmer. It was an uneasy camping because automatons, manufactured somewhere deep in the structure, periodically came up through the pipes to emerge to perform patrols.

So when Curtis and company entered Raldbthar, they weren't surprised to hear the sounds of battle.

The ruptured, flame-jetting pipe in the anteroom still flamed. Curtis gave it a quick listen and heard the faint clicking through the pipe of a still-working pressure relief valve venting compressed natural gas at regular intervals. He shook his head in amazement. 5000 years. Everyday miracles.

And nightmares. 5000 years and the deep machines were still punching out security 'bots. They all were listening from the telltale sounds of multiple metal spider legs tap-dancing over stone or the clanking of internal gears as metal rolled over stone.

The fighting was in what Curtis thought of as the banking area, that room with the ballistas and the long wall that was half security grates. He could imagine a line of clerks on the inside handling monetary transactions with customers. This building was called the "deep market" and bottom section in Blackreach (a.k.a. Fal'Zhardum Din, a.k.a. Blackest Kingdom Reaches), also had similar security grates and rooms for clerks. They had entered that room through a back security corridor that let them into the upper area where guards manning the ballistas would have kept watch, and so they also coldly watched the battle between 'bots and bandits. The bandits lost, the survivors fleeing, leaving the machines in the room.

And the winners got J'zargo and Arniel blasting them to scrap parts with fireballs and lightning spells.

The goal of this mission was to get to the deep market. The copy of the exploration map donated to the College by Helsette Faro, mercenary, indicated large storage area on the Blackreach level that contained bewildering array of machine parts. Curtis hoped they were the same stuff they were finding in the upper level storerooms. This place appeared to be a sort Dwemer version of specialty parts warehouse. Bandits, breaking into the storerooms of the upper level, had scattered and destroyed the contents looking for precious metals, gems, and that sort of stuff. Curtis saw the Dwemer equivalent of "Circuit City," that sold circuit boards, specialty metals and solders, etching acids, lubricants, small, delicate parts, reels of special tubing and wiring — parts and tools needed to repair the giant computer at Skytemple.

Ralis guided the way through and Curtis identified the traps. Most were obvious pressure traps and, with his new elf ears, he could hear the ultrasonic triggers that set off the whirly blade traps. He told Ralis what to listen for and how to foil the ultrasonics with a blanket.

They got past the machines. Now, they were at the Falmer level. Everyone had muffle spelled boots and anti-poison amulets. The humans in the party had optional ear cups to amplify sound. The ear cups acted like parabolic reflectors that intensified sounds coming from the forward direction. Unfortunately, it blocked sounds from the side and from the rear, and so the users constantly had to turn their heads to scan their surroundings. Ilya and Tyra preferred to use them; Alfher and Melvin didn't.

"How are they doing?" Curtis asked Ilya during a meal break. Ralis led the other three guards on a sweep of the immediate area while J'zargo did a longer patrol.

"As good as I expected after their first encounter with a Falmer war party," said Ilya crisply. "Alfher, Melvin, and Tyra are not the type to lose their nerves with an unknown. They are also not reckless to continue forward without better information. But it never occurred to me to ask until now — how is it blind creatures are such excellent bowmen? Is there a way I can explain it to the others?"

"Sight is the born talent of the Falmer," said Gelebor quietly from where he sat, resharpening his sword blunted by stabbing at automatons. "The Dwemer took the physical eyes, but while that crippled us terribly, it could not entirely destroy the eyes of the mind. The archers, besides having exceptionally keen hearing, can possibly see us like a life-detect spell where living creatures show as blobs of light floating in darkness. I have that talent, and I can both sword fight and shoot a bow in total darkness.

"But I have trained decades to train my inner eyes to see what my physical eyes see. The advantage for us is that they, being blind, do not have the mental references of armor or weapons and so their mind vision cannot see, cannot recognize such details. As I said, blobs of light. And variations of sight depends solely on the individual, the strength of their talent, of their personal reserve, on the strength of their mind to interpret what their senses tell them. Yet, in general, common range of even mental eyes operate on the line-of-sight principle."

"Default setting," Curtis muttered.

Gelebor heard and nodded slightly. "You can't hide behind a shield, but you can hide from sight behind furniture or a wall or a door. And those only work if they can't hear you or smell you."

"Hence the muffle spell and that greasy cream you insist we slather on that temporarily takes away the stink of sweat and our individual body odor," she said, grimacing. Curtis kept his mouth shut on sight abilities that weren't "common," like the ability to see kirlian auras, or that worked like heat sensors. When the other three humans came back from patrol with Ralis, she passed onto them the explanation and leaving out the detail that Gelebor was Falmer, inferring that the knowledge came from Curtis. There were some low grumbles about typical officers forgetting to tell troops important details. Curtis called out, "I can hear you. And I remind you, Falmer hearing is better than mine."

J'zargo got back from his scouting. It wasn't good news. The Falmer had recolonized the lower levels and, it seemed, in greater number. They had aggressively moved in more chaurus pens and there were cocoons everywhere. Evidently, when Faro took out the centurion guarding the Blackreach door, she'd also left the stairs open. Big oops. And the Falmer were destroying the guard and the maintenance 'bots as faster than the autonomous system could produce.

"We should retreat," Curtis said resentfully after J'zargo had finished. "But we need those parts."

"What is so special about those things?" asked Alfher. "What are you building at the College that you need these unnatural metal workings? Some monstrous thing like Tiber Septim got from Morrowind that stomped all the known world for him?"

"Not another Numidium, no," said Curtis. "I'm not interested in any weapon of mass destruction. It's an old Dwemer puzzle box that needs to be repaired before it can be opened. The College is interested in what secrets must be locked in there. And, no, we don't believe it to be gold or gems. We would consider it a colossal waste of time and effort if that's all it was."

"Not another Eye of Magnus thing, is it?" asked Tyra. "Cousin Haran told me about that. I don't think I'd like being any part of any project that would bring on another horror like that."

"Won't know until they open the box," said Melvin resignedly. "Wizards — always poking where they shouldn't."

"So are we withdrawing?" asked Alfher. "Maybe the College needs to get this Helsette Faro," he shot a quick glance at Ralis who scowled back, "to come back here and deal with her mess."

"The serjo would be happy to if she wasn't off having a baby," Ralis shot back. "And the decision to leave the stairway open was bad in hindsight, but at the time she had been planning an expedition with Calcelmo of Markarth, but things happened and that detail was forgotten when the expedition was postponed indefinitely." He gave a huge sigh and ran fingers through his hair. He looked at Curtis. "It's not impossible. We can sneak through to the storage area, but it will take us longer to do so, and we will have less time than you wanted to pick through the storerooms because we did kill some of them, so they will know we're here when they check and find their front line dead."

But I need that time, Curtis thought, feeling sick. Thing is, he knew the parts he needed might be there, but truth was he didn't exactly know what parts. This was criminally irresponsible, he knew, endangering all their lives. He hoped Arniel would recognize necessary parts, while Arniel was trusting him to know what was needed. And he did. He just didn't know if he would recognize the forms. It was like knowing theoretically how a car's engine operated, then breaking into a general machine parts warehouse and having to pull all the correct parts to put theory into practice. They had two floating carts on this trip, and he was pretty much hoping to fill them both to capacity with whatever looked promising and hope that later most of them would prove useful.

The responsible act would be to retreat. Instead, he heard himself say, "Okay, then we go ahead with the mission."

X—X—X—X—X—X—X

Three flying chaurus hunters. Demonic, how meter long wasps zipped around and hovered like nightmare attack helicopters. They were near impossible to hit with a precision weapon like a bow or crossbow, even for a master marksman like Gelebor. And he didn't even try, favoring a short-range, wide area flame spell. It came down to J'zargo's firewall or Arniel's chain lightning, or just waiting until they attacked and hope your shield and sword arm were fast enough to block and counterstrike.

Tyra hadn't been fast enough, and she was on the ground writhing and screaming as poison twisted her limbs. Curtis was pinning her down and struggling to get a bottle of anti-poison down her throat. Gelebor stood over them just doing shieldwork to block Falmer arrows and chaurus.

"I've got it clear! Retreat!" Ralis screamed from the hall they'd entered the chamber from. Four armored Falmer warlords who had popped up behind them lay dead at his feet. The flames of his racial burst of flame power were fading. He looked halfway dead from exhaustion. Curtis threw the still writhing Tyra over his shoulder, vainly trying to hold her while running to the exit. Gelebor trailed behind, covering still. Arniel also headed their way with Ilya and Alfher covering him. J'zargo lingered behind, hissing and throwing down shock runes.

Tyra gave one great convulsive jerk, throwing Curtis off-balance, causing him to stumble. With her on top of him, he couldn't protect himself as he crashed into the rubble of broken cement blocks and marble, cracking his head against a jagged edge.

Gelebor swore and dropped to his knees beside them. He pushed Tyra off. Ilya and Alfher picked her up at his orders and took her and Arniel to the exit. J'zargo crouched between them and the chaurus hunters, using shielding and firebolts to hold them off while Gelebor mustered his lackluster healing ability to stop the bleeding of Curtis's head wound.

Curtis woke, his eyes unfocused, his expression angry. "Gthar duu!" he snarled.

"Get off me," Gelebor heard. To his amazement, it was Dwemeris, but an oddly accented one, possibly a different dialect than the one he'd learned so long ago.

"Thu … nge?" you well? He asked, uncertain. In truth, he had been better at listening to Dwemeris than speaking. It was a very guttural language and he was never sure if they were speaking or clearing their throats from all the sand and smoke they must inhale underground.

Curtis, or whomever it was, accepted his help in getting up, but then brusquely shook him off. He stared at the chaurus and the Falmer behind them. He shook his hands, as if relaxing them. Then they snapped up, glowing with power, and then loose stones from all around flung themselves at the flying chaurus, knocking them down and crushing them; at the Falmer, driving them back. Then the stones organized themselves into a crude wall and solidified into such, imprisoning the Falmer. They could hear bone and chitin weapons striking the stones as the Falmer tried to break out.

Curtis snapped something in that strange Dwemeris tongue and began stalking across the room to the other side.

"We advance!" Gelebor shouted to the others.

"Aren't we retreating?" called Arniel from the corridor.

"No."

"I've never seen him work such magic," said Ilya after Curtis, again, seemed to command the very stones to drive back the Falmer and their creatures.

"Alterations, but on a level I've rarely seen," said an awed Arniel. "I know Tolfdir doesn't even teach using Alterations other than in defense. Telekinesis is an Adept-level, but this is mastery I never thought possible. And transmutation! Tolfdir can turn iron into gold if he wants, but warping the earth? The stones? Is that even possible? How is he doing this? He has never, ever shown any talent for magic in all these months at the College."

"Never mind the magic," said Alfher. "The man; what is wrong with him? Did that knock on the head do something to him? He isn't acting naturally."

"Possession," said Gelebor. "This injury seems to have put him in a fugue state. There is something else, someone else in control of his body. I have seen this before. Whoever he is now, he is speaking Dwemeris. He is using, I presume, Dwemer earth magic."

"Should we be following him?" asked Ilya.

"I think we must," said Gelebor. "He's mad, but I do think we can trust him."

"We go forward," said Ralis tiredly. He was leaning on Ilya for support. The stamina and magika potions he'd taken had done little to revive him and just made him sick. He was beyond artificial stimulation and needed sleep. "There's too many behind us to make it out. Our only chance is getting to the exit lifts in the Deep Market."

"Agreed," said Gelebor. He directed J'zargo to take the right flank while he took the left. Arniel and Ilya were to bring up the rear while Alfher carried Tyra and Melvin supported Ralis.

At the Centurion room just before the descent to Blackreach, Curtis dashed into the side cage room. With a burst of fire, he cleared out the webs and cocoon husks. He gestured and shouted and Gelebor echoed, "Into the guard room and hold the door." And so they crowded into the small space. Alfher and Melvin held the cage door shut and Ilya jabbed her two-pronged Dwemer spear through the steel bars to keep the Falmer from getting too close. Curtis, in the meantime, was pulling panels off the wall and below the counter to reveal gem-studded sockets. He pulled many crystals out and replaced them with filled ones they'd brought or had found along the way.

Distant bells sounded. Soon spiders and spheres popped out from ports hidden behind sliding panels. Curtis said something and Gelebor translated, "Anything outside guard post dies." When nothing but machines moved out there, Curtis changed the gem placements, and the spiders scuttled back to their ports as did half the spheres. The other half returned to their resting spherical shape. Curtis gestured for Alfher and Melvin to move away from the cage doors. He walked confidently out and past the resting guardians.

At the Centurion's fallen body, he shook his head and scrambled up on top of the body to inspect the damage done to the chest and head. When he appeared satisfied, he jumped off and led them down the stairs to the Blackreach storerooms.

One room excited him. They could see it was filled with spiders. Curtis slapped at the cage lock with his odd magic, and the doors unlocked and swung open. He went to the back of the long room, looking for something, and found a long bejeweled rod that he attached a fresh pair of soulgems to. Lights twinkled along the rod. Then 14 spiders stirred. He appeared happy and inspected each activated spider, and oiled a few creaky joints with the Dwemer oilcans that were piled in an urn. These spiders were smaller than the attack spiders they'd just seen, and with more limbs that seemed specialized. He spoke to them with words and odd whistles that Gelebor had no hope of translating except to tell his companions to stand back and let the spiders work.

The small 'bots scattered to various rooms, opening doors, scuttling inside and coming back holding various objects that they piled into the float carts. Curtis, too, inspected the storerooms and, with gestures and impatient sounding words, had Arniel and Ilya helping him to carry larger objects too heavy for the 'bots. When the carts were full, Curtis had excess items transferred over to the spider room. "For later retrieval," Gelebor translated.

"Come back here through all that? Is he insane?" Arniel breathed.

"Strange Dunmer has always been so," said J'zargo. "Khajiit hopes Dunmer leaves himself notes on how to get back."

They went up. The lift deposited them on a hillside. To the east they could see a wood mill. And further south from there, one of the mountain guard posts of Windhelm. Curtis took some items off one of the float carts and picked up one of the spiders that clung to sides of the carts. He did more of his magic and sunk two receptacles on the inside and outside of the walls of the lift house. The little spider fussed with the wires for a bit, then Curtis snapped on the facings when the spider was done. He tested with the attunement sphere that the gate would now activate from the outside, so a future trip would go directly to the storerooms.

"Anga's mill," said Ilya, pointing to the mill house and the small cluster of houses around it. "We need rest. And Master Curtis looks ready to drop. Whatever has him is pushing him too far. We get him there. We can pay to borrow one of their horses and I can get to Windhelm and fetch back healers."

That couldn't be denied. Curtis was swaying as he walked, his eyes had a sunken, bruised look to them, and the skin of his hands had whitish patches of dried skin from the overuse of magic. There were painful cracks in the white patches that seeped blood. As they made their way to Anga's, the angry look in his eyes faded, leaving the dull, unfocused look of exhaustion. By the time they'd reached the mill town, Ilya and Gelebor were both supporting him, and he passed out while J'zargo was paying for rooms and a horse.

X—X—X—X—X—X

It was his first summer job working in a donut shop that belonged to a classmate's father. The automation of the machines that formed, fried, and chugged the treats through the frosting and sprinkling process fascinated him. That was the robotics most people didn't think of as robots. He watched the batter drop into the fry pool. Wait, were those donuts looking like Dwemer cogs?

A customer at the drive-thru window buzzed.

"Good morning! Welcome to The Daily Dozen. What can I get you?"

"How about you not getting yourself killed too soon?" demanded Savos Aren.

"The special this week is maple donuts. Buy a dozen maple old-fashions and get a second dozen of maple old-fashions or a half-dozen of maple bars half off."

"Yes, fine. But remember, you have people who love you and need you now. The ones you've lost in your old life, they were good people who would want you to live your new life. They would never want to be the reason you held back."

"Would you like anything to drink with that, sir?"

"Kafe. Black."

He presented the order to the grumpy-faced, dark elf cosplayer with a mohawk who paid him with dollar size gold cogs. "Keep the change."

X—X—X—X—X—X

He woke up in his room in the College. His mouth was dry, his stomach growled, and he needed to pee with urgency. But his head ached so; he must have coshed himself good because he almost gave up the effort. But he was too old to piss his bedding. He rolled over to one side with a long groan and felt under the bed for the bucket. The blanket slid off him, weighted down as it was by Colette sleeping on top of them on the other side of the bed.

Sitting up to pee was too much effort, so he simple slid his legs off the bed and his body followed. He'd worry about getting back up onto the bed later.

While piss was trickling out of body, Colette woke up. She got up, picked the blanket off his bed, and draped it over his nude body. He grunted softly, "Thanks." When he was done, she helped him back into bed.

She lit the candle on the bedside table and he could see a water pitcher and a tall bottle of health potion. "Think you can drink something?" He grunted again, and she poured a small cup half full of water and half potion and held it against his lips for him to drink. Not water, but chicken consomme that soothed his stomach. As he was drifting off, she said, "Curtis." When he didn't respond, she shook him gently, repeating, "Curtis."

"What?"

"Oh, nothing. Just good to have you back. Sleep well."

When he woke up again, she was sitting back against the headboard and reading through a stack of papers. She smiled down at him. "Feeling better, my love?"

"Yeah." He reached over to pluck her nearest hand away from the papers to rub against his cheek. "So, it takes me getting my brains practically bashed out before you stay the night in my bed?"

"I didn't have a choice. Slitter was hysterical. He wouldn't let go of me."

"Slitter? What the hell?" His grip on her hand tightened possessively.

"Are you sure you're fit for this?" she asked. "It's a confusing story." She put her papers aside and shifted closer, leaning over him to brush his hair away with gentle fingers. He could feel the warmth of her hand and the soothing tingling of her magic where she touched. The last of his headache faded away.

"I'm good, babe. So what happened?"

"What do you last remember happening in Raldbthar?" she asked.

"Tyra going in convulsions. I lost balance and dropped her. I must have hit my head."

"That seems to be a bad habit with you. I know I constantly say you need a good thump on the brains, but I hope you know I don't literally mean it. Gelebor says it was a bad hit. He exhausted his healing magic to repair what he could, but he says that when you woke up, you weren't anybody he recognized. For one, you would only speak Dwemeris. Then both Arniel and J'zargo state you used Alteration magic that was beyond master level, manipulating rock and metals in ways they hadn't thought possible. You got all of them safely to the Deep Market, you reactivated Dwemer defenses, you found a device that controls 14 small spider animunculi designed to repair — which Arniel has already brought to Skytemple and loosed them to make repairs — and you did something to the exit gate so we can now use it to bypass the ruins and go directly to the storage level. J'zargo and Gelebor have already gone with the carts to fetch more stuff, and they should be back in another day or two.

"But when you first got out of there, Gelebor tells me you passed out. When you woke up, it was Slitter in control, and he was hysterical, babbling about how you had gone mad. He claims you had reverted, changed back into someone older. That your soul had called back an ancient incarnation."

"Slitter? Slitter was hysterical? What the hell?"

"Surprised us, too. Master Ed tried to consult Revyn Sadri, but he's away on King Ulfric's business in Riften. Master Ed thinks that since you came from somewhere outside our concept of reality, Slitter wasn't allowed to go wherever Dunmer like him go to because for your soul to transition over as it did, you needed, well, a slave soul to carry and support you while you, um, adjusted."

Curtis took a few minutes to think that over. "So I'm a zombie virus. Great," Curtis said sourly. "So when I unexpectedly checked out of the pilot's chair, Slitter popped up as the emergency autopilot."

"Yes. Gelebor had him restrained, and they brought him to me as fast as they could. Slitter seems to trust me. He latched onto my hand and refused to let go. We could have forced him to sleep if we used spells or potions but, mentally, that would have made it worse for him. It was easier to sleep beside him."

— She loves us. She protects us. —

"Yeah. He trusts you, too, babe. Almost as much as me." Curtis nuzzled against her soft belly, but he was still frowning as he contemplated Slitter's existence.

That kid, Joric, had seen it. Figures. Like he always knew the player was the Dragonborn the instant they'd met. And so he had seen that Slitter's soul had stayed hidden in his body with Curtis sitting on top of it. It was creepy. Yet, strangely, it was comforting. He'd lived since first awaking with the fear of schizophrenia. So, it was a master/slave function between him and Slitter, and when the primary function showed corruption and disassociation, the secondary system had reverted to automatic functions. Slitter had run to where he felt safest, which was in Colette's arms.

Well, it was good they both agreed on something.

— Warm, feels good, protected. —

But … What was this "ancient incarnation" Slitter babbled of? Joric — Joric claimed to be the incarnation of the ancient Archimage Gaulder.

Farfetched as hell. He needed to talk to the kid.

List of OCs: Alfher, Melvin, Tyra = Winterhold guards.

Related Shopkeeper's Wife Stories: #15 Aegisbane, #49 Show Me The Wayshrine, #71 Forbiddent Legend, #73 Into The Briarpatch