Chapter 39: Fort Greymoor

[6th – 7th of Midyear 4E 202]

During the last few days I had been around and below Hamvir's Rest with the three archaeologists, the Breton and fellow Companion Irene, the Dunmer Daeril and my Imperial housecarl Antonius. We had found fascinating underground places and had explored the area together with the three mage brothers we had encountered. Deep down we had found an ancient forge and a number of books and notes, which the three archaeologists had considered fascinating, as our findings might shed some light on the lost art of forging Dwemer metal. Naturally, we had had to fight our way forward through ghosts and Dwemer automatons and even a couple of strong Centurions, and we also had had to solve a tricky puzzle. Eventually we had left the underground area using a lift, and we had reached the surface at a hidden place roughly between Halted Stream Camp and Hamvir's Rest.

On the way back to Whiterun, after spending a night on the tundra, we had approached Fort Greymoor on the road from the north and had noticed signs and noises of fighting. Whatever it was, we were soon going to find out as we were going in that direction anyway. At least, judged by what we could see and hear, there did not appear to be a major battle, but more like a smaller skirmish, and soon I could identify the armor of hold guards and Stormcloaks on the parapet walks, which was comforting and a good sign. A little bit later I could see Commander Caius standing in front of the fort and talking to some guards and soldiers, and when he saw us approaching, he turned towards us and patiently waited until we were close to him; then he said:

"Ah, Thane B'lushona and company; you picked an interesting time to pass by here."

"Commander Caius, fancy seeing you out here. What is going on?"

"Jarl Balgruuf has decided to occupy the fort now, with Whiterun hold no longer being neutral; the road point here is just too important to ignore. We have just cleared the place."

"This was about time, in my opinion."

"Same here; I always felt that it was a shame to have a fort so close to the city to be used as a bandit hideout only. But I'm sure that you know how it is; we never have enough people and enough time to do everything we should do."

I nodded, fully understanding what he implied, and asked:

"So, was the fight bad?"

"No, not really. The bandits were well positioned to rob travelers and hunt, but they did not stand a chance against a troop of disciplined and well trained soldiers. Our armor prevented severe injuries, and we did not suffer a single casualty. A few of the bandits surrendered, but most of them preferred to be killed; I guess that they really didn't want to spend a long time in the dungeons. Say, would you care to have a look around before you move on?"

"If that applies to our entire party, yes, sure."

The guard commander did not have a problem with that, at least after I had introduced my companions to him, and so we walked into the fort's courtyard together. The open area was reasonably large, and besides doors to a few watchtowers it had doors to two larger stone buildings as well. One of them was obviously the main fort interior with barracks and such, and we were briefly shown around there by one of the guards. The other door, though, a very sturdy looking wide stone door, was blocked by an unknown mechanism, and when Caius learned that we had three archaeologists in the team, he asked:

"While you're here already, would you mind spending some time here and see if you get this stuck door open? We have been trying for some time, but without success. I would not like to stay here and not know what's behind it."

Helvius, Mila and Hulbert nodded, dropped their packs and got to work right away, and the mage brothers and Daeril got into a conversation with some of the soldiers. Irene, Antonius and I used the opportunity and got up to the highest tower to look around. The view around was nice, and I really wondered why the fort had not been occupied much earlier. I looked down at the courtyard, and when I saw the archaeologists working on the blocked door, I noticed that it was actually placed in the outer wall adjacent to a large rocky area, facing southwest; was it possible that the door would eventually allow access to an unknown cave or so? I could not remember anything like this from playing the game, but on the other hand I had never bothered to do much about that fort, except maybe conquering it once or twice.

"The view from up here is great!" Irene interrupted my thoughts.

Antonius nodded and replied: "Yes, that should also help to see where to go for hunting, I guess."

"That too, indeed, but I was more thinking of just taking it in, like enjoying."

"Sometimes I wonder how it would be to see the world from above, like a bird does." I chimed in.

"Or a dragon!" Irene suggested. "You don't think that we could find one to ride on?"

"Not likely, but who knows…" I did not want to mention that, during the further development of the 'main quest', that might happen, but probably for the Dragonborn only. Of course, this was reality and not the game; maybe some other options were going to offer themselves eventually? Although, I could not really visualize dragons giving rides for fun; a ten minute dragon ride for children, 50 septims? No, not with those majestic creatures.

At that time we heard some rumbling from below, and when we looked down into the courtyard, we could see that the three scientists had somehow managed to get the door open. We hurried down to have a look, but for now there was only darkness in the passage behind. The guards and soldiers were busy cleaning up and getting settled, and as nothing but brute force would keep the three archaeologists away, Caius allowed and even encouraged us to investigate. A few steps behind the door the masonry was replaced by natural stone walls, and a staircase led down. Contrary to expectations, passage and stairs were not particularly narrow, but surprisingly wide, maybe about three meters, and the double-winged door which had been blocked almost matched that width, too. Judged by the amount of dust on the ground, no bandits had managed to get the door open and venture down here, at least not recently. The three mages had decided to come with us, too, and those of us who were capable of magic cast their respective light spells; my own candlelight paled next to the much more powerful magelight spells the mages were able to invoke. After about thirty steps or so the stairs ended, and the passage made a turn to the right, at about 60 degrees. The turn area was enlarged and had a few shelves and two narrow doors; the doors were not locked and allowed access to a storage area with many shelves, all empty, and a guard room with beds, tables, and wardrobes. Nothing much was to be seen here, and we followed the main passage in what I now estimated a northwestern direction. After about one hundred meters there was another two-winged door, this one made of stone and also blocked.

We all looked around, and to my surprise we found a set of six movable pillars, just like similar ones we I had see in some Nordic ruins, like Bleak Falls Barrow; there were three pillars each on both sides of the wall, with a significant variation on animals being depicted. Contrary to many other such puzzles, there were no hints directly visible around, and so we were initially clueless. However, Helvius remembered that there had been some small reliefs on the walls in the section with the turn, and he and Mila went back there to look again. The rest of us settled down and ate something, and soon the two archaeologists were back and smiled; Mila explained:

"We believe that we know the solution now. The reliefs are made in a clever way, with mostly symbols and a few ancient words in between. The pillars on the right need to be turned to land animals, sorted by size, with the largest one closest to the door, and the pillars on the left the same with flying creatures."

We all looked, and we found that this was indeed possible. Consequently, we turned the ones on the right to 'Bear – Wolf – Fox' and the ones on the left to 'Dragon – Hawk – Moth', and as soon as we were done, some subdued rumbling was heard behind the walls; when we tried the door again, we could now open it, albeit with some effort only. As expected, there was all darkness behind, and contrary to many other ruins and caves, there wasn't a single lit torch or brazier. We sensed more than saw that the area behind was a large hall rather than a small room, and soon several sets of blue glowing lights were visible. Of course, draugr. The three mages stepped ahead and conjured their atronachs, and aided by my saber cats, the situation was soon cleared from main threats; none of the draugr had been very powerful. It appeared that, for this place, the main challenge had been to solve the puzzle.

As soon as we had placed some torches in the corners, we could see that the hall was quite large indeed. The base dimensions were, according to my best judgment, about fifty by fifty meters or even more, and the hall was easily about ten meters high, with some variations. Two side walls had balconies or walkways attached a few meters higher, and sets of stairs lead up to them. There was dust and dirt and some cobwebs all around, and a few smaller spiders even appeared from somewhere. However, there was none of those huge spiders we had seen in some other places, and they were easily taken care of as well.

"Would you look at that!" Helvius shouted once the mages had cast their magelight spells to get more light in. "This almost looks like our headquarters in Cyrodiil!"

Indeed, he had a point. I had used the mod 'The Lost Spires' a couple of times for the TES IV game, and the main hall of the archaeology guild there, in the partially sunken fort on the Ring Road south of the Imperial City, had looked a little bit like this here. Wasn't that amazing? I started to visualize the place with some decorations and more light, and I liked what my mind saw. Naturally, we needed to complete our exploration, and we split into teams to find out more about this area, carefully searching each room and corner for potential surprises and threats. A couple of hours later we had confirmation that the place was indeed very much like the guild headquarter in Cyrodiil. The ground floor had lots of open space and several doors opening up to various storage areas, most of them entirely empty. Another door lead to a kind of library, although there were only few books there. There was something like a small back exit, but it could only be opened from the inside. Helvius had seen the library room before and browsed the books, and he beamed when he stated:

"I will of course need days to read the books in detail, but on first glance it appears that this location used to be home to some scholars a long time ago. It seems fair to reclaim it for a similar purpose, I should think."

The two elevated walkways provided access to many side rooms, which could be used for living and studying, and Helvius probably had a point. Personally, I would not want to live down here, as there was no daylight anywhere and no windows; archaeologists might be used to that, though. Anyway, the three archaeologists seemed to love the place, and the three mage brothers apparently shared that view. However, the location did not belong to us or to them; they could not just claim the cave, specifically as it was attached to Fort Greymoor. While the three mages, Mila and Hulbert stayed down here to continue the exploration, Helvius, Daeril, Irene, Antonius and I went up again to report to Commander Caius. He was discussing something with two guards when we came up and we needed to wait for a few minutes, and when it was our turn, we reported about our findings.

"Well, this is quite unexpected" he replied. "I am not aware of similar places in other forts, although I have to admit that we have not really investigated all forts in the hold in much detail. As I see it, we probably don't have much use for that place, but it is connected to the fort after all. Why don't you stay here for the night, I also look down there tomorrow morning, and then we can go back to Whiterun together. I will need to report to the Jarl anyway about the fort, and then you can ask him about his plans for the cave."

That sounded like a reasonable plan. There weren't enough beds around for everybody yet, but I was used to rough it when traveling, and a corner with a large pile of soft straw was enough to put my bedroll down. For sleeping, there was no need to fully get in, but I just stretched my body of top of the blanket, and Hanni and Nanni cuddled up to me from both sides.

Commander Caius was up early on the next day, and I took the opportunity to show him downstairs before official breakfast was called. We met Mila and Hulbert in the big hall below ground, and Caius got the big tour. He was reasonably impressed, and just when we were about done we could hear a faint sound from above through the open doors – the call for breakfast. The guard commander nodded, thanked our guides for the tour, and headed upstairs, with the rest of us following him.

The morning meal was served in the main room in the guard barracks, which had a number of large tables and the kitchen area right next door. Food was improvised, as they had to use what the bandits had left. Over the next days some effort would have to be spent to get more supplies out here, I assumed. That, however, was not going to be my problem, but something Caius would have to get organized. Consequently, as planned, Caius, Irene, Daeril, Helvius, Antonius and I started to walk towards Whiterun, whereas Mila, Hulbert and the three mage brothers staid in the fort; they also planned to help the guards making the fort a little more livable.

The six of us, or eight, counting Hanni and Nanni, passed the Western Watchtower and exchanged a few words with the guards there, before we moved on. We got to the city around noon time and headed right up Dragonsreach. The Jarl was just about to get lunch, and when he learned that there were some reports to be delivered, he invited us all to sit with Irileth and him at the large table close to the open fire.

Caius opened up with his brief summary of how they had easily defeated the bandits and conquered the fort with no casualties on their side, and he briefed the Jarl on the situation there, specifically mentioning further equipment and supplied they'd need. He concluded with the blocked door and allowed Helvius to continue. The archaeologist described what we had found further down and illustrated the report with a few sketches he had created. Helvius stated:

"That place is near perfect for our guild headquarters in this province, I should think. It is well protected by the fort, and it is centrally located, too. There is more than enough space for living quarters and exhibits."

"Caius, would that area downstairs be any use for the troops?" Jarl Balgruuf wanted to know.

"No, I don't think so, my Jarl" the guard commander replied. "We have plenty of space in the barracks in the fort itself, and any troops garrisoned in the caves below would be too far away if urgently needed. Potential enemies trying to storm the fort could block the long passage too easily. From a military point of view, I'd much prefer to have the soldiers and their equipment above ground, in the main barracks area, which has more than one exit."

The Jarl nodded and continued: "I can understand your reasoning, and this makes sense. However, as far as I can see, the cave is part of the fort and thus Whiterun hold property. What is in for me and the hold if I give you permission to settle there?"

Helvius smiled and responded: "We have not had a chance yet to tell you what we found behind and below Hamvir՚s Rest."

"Hamvir՚s Rest? The same place where the Headless Huntsman has been seen around a few times?"

"The same place, yes. B'lushona actually had a sheet of paper with some valuable hints, and with that help, we were able to find a large underground area there, with Dwemer background and even some Ayleid influence."

"Ayleid influence? That far north?"

"Yes, indeed, quite surprisingly."

We alternated in telling the Jarl what we had found there, and when we were done, the Jarl stated:

"Hold on, this is a lot to take in. You don't mind if I have some points verified by my own experts, right? I will need to discuss the issue of Dwemer metal with Eorlund and Adrianne, and I will want to have Farengar look at some of your notes. Learning about Ayleid influence that far north is quite interesting, I have to admit, though. B'lushona, can you confirm everything so far?"

"I can, indeed, my Jarl, and I am also astonished about that. There are of course details which need further interpretation and investigation, but I believe that we should follow up on all that. Even if we don't learn much more, the abundance of ore of all known types in the underground area should be valuable enough on its own, and I can imagine that being able to us stronger metals for weapons and armor will be welcome for soldiers, including potential fights against dragons."

Jarl Balgruuf the Greater nodded slowly, pondered what he had learned for a couple of minutes and then asked, addressing the archaeologist:

"So, you and your two colleagues plan to settle down in my hold, if you can, right?"

"Indeed so, yes. Naturally, we are only the advance party, and once we have agreed on a proper place to settle down, more of us will arrive. Whiterun being in the center of Skyrim would make a good location for us. For now, the three mage brothers we met seem to like sticking around, so there would be six of us to start with."

"How many of you would I have to expect?"

"The absolute minimum would be a few people to occupy the place permanently, for housekeeping and such, a few scholars to examine artifacts in much detail, and at least one sizable exploration party, preferably two, so total at least about a dozen people, hopefully more. The underground area connected to the fort has living space for at least fifteen people."

"How do you plan to get food for all?"

"With all of the farms in your hold and the place located in the tundra, too? We should be able to purchase enough food, I expect, and maybe we can employ a hunter, too."

"And if you find other interesting places, you will exhibit some items in your potential new residence?"

"Absolutely, yes."

"What are you going to live on?"

"Well, long term we will have to sell some loot to make money, I guess. We do expect some occasional visitors later on, but potential money we get from those will not be enough by far."

"What about the discovered forge?"

"We are no smiths. However, we would love to continue looking into the scientific aspect and find out more which might eventually lead us to be able to create Dwemer metal. Maybe an expert blacksmith from the hold might be able to help, too."

The Jarl was silent for a few minutes, and then he stated:

"Listen, this is about what I have in mind. I tend to allow you to claim the underground area connected to Fort Greymoor as residence, and the guards will provide supplies and food for a low price; if you want, you can join them for meals, too. You are allowed and even encouraged to explore places in my hold further, and any valuables you may find are to be split between your group and me. Any scientific findings, like anything more about Dwemer metal, can be shared with me and my staff only, but nobody else, unless I authorize it."

"That's some obligations for us, but I think that we can agree, in general. We will have to discuss what we can share with our guild members in other provinces."

"That it something we will need to talk about in detail, yes, specifically if any of those findings are relevant for the Civil War. Now, as compensation, I will give you a small stipend for the first few months, and depending on the profits we get from the forge and the ore veins north of Hamvir՚s Rest, I may be willing to increase it later on. Of course, the deal is only valid if further investigation into Hamvir's Rest by Farengar and my own experts confirm what you just told me. How does that sound?"

"My Jarl, I believe that we have a deal."

That was that, and I was glad to hear it. I could understand that the Jarl was cautious, and in theory I could have been deceived by the archaeologists; I was sure that the Jarl's own experts were soon going to verify the findings. The three archaeologists and the three mages were going to move into their new Skyrim headquarters, which was not so very far from Whiterun, Jarl Balgruuf was going to be able to reap some benefits from them being in the hold, and more archaeologists were going to arrive sooner or later. I was looking forward to seeing how they were going to equip and decorate their space, and even if it wasn't going to be as elaborate as the Cyrodiil fort had been in the game, it was going to be fascinating. There was one comment I needed to add:

"My Jarl, may I suggest to also contact Calcelmo in Markarth about the new discoveries. He is a Dwemer expert, I believe, and if he's interested, he might be able to help with related investigations."

"Calcelmo! Right, good idea. How have you heard of him, B'lushona?"

"I have his nephew working on my house construction site, together with his wife. They focus on more practical Dwemer aspects, like the potential use of the Dwemer pipes and such for heating and plumbing. It appears that many in Markarth are not so open for related experiments, but I am."

"Hm, why don't you send this nephew up here to talk to me first."

"Sure thing, my Jarl; I will let him know."

[Author's Notes: If you still play TES IV Oblivion and are not averse to modding, you may want to have a look at the 'Lost Spires' mod, which greatly inspired me; the guild headquarter there is IMO so cool.]