Chapter 36: Hamvir - the mage brothers
[4th of Midyear 4E 202]
When I woke up I needed a minute or two to remember where I was. Right, I had gone with Daeril, Irene, Antonius and the team of archaeologists, and they had been digging at Hamvir՚s Rest, specifically in one of the niches there. Eventually they had been able to excavate a set of stairs and a stone gate, and thanks to a huge key I had found in another niche, we had been able to unlock the gate, using a keyhole which only appeared when the light from both moons illuminated the gate. We had entered a ruin which was supposed to be a Dwemer place, but the entrance gate looked more like Ayleid. It sure would be a fascinating place to explore, and that's what we had on the agenda for today. I might have refused to go in alone, having a vague idea of dangers awaiting us – after all, I was familiar with Ayleid ruins from the 'Oblivion' game – but with a group of capable companions, including my housecarl Antonius and my two saber cats, I felt safe.
While we enjoyed breakfast in the semi-darkness of the small room where we had slept, we discussed our plans, and Helvius stated the obvious:
"Excluding the door we used to get in here, there seems to be only one way forward, my friends. Let's see where this leads to, but we will need to proceed with caution; there might be any kind of obstacles, traps, and guardians ahead."
"Right" I agreed. "My familiar can go first, and she might be able to find some potential traps for us."
I did as I had suggested and summoned Spirit, and she understood my hand signal and started to explore ahead.
Like in Cyrodilic Ayleid ruins, a pale green ambient light provided at least a tiny bit of illumination, although most of the light sources were not visible. We had to follow a set of stairs down, and so far there were no obstacles. Once we had passed a section with pillars and niches, we started to get down another set of stairs, and when we were about to pass through a medium sized room, Spirit was suddenly lifted up from the ground by a section of the floor pushing upwards, and I could just see my familiar being crushed between that section and the ceiling. Every time my familiar perished I wondered if she was able to feel pain, and I assumed that she was immune to that; at least she never looked sad or hurt whenever I re-summoned her.
"All right; better your familiar than one of us, I guess" Daeril stated.
He was absolutely right, of course. When the floor section was down again, any sign of Spirit was gone; we looked at the floor, but barely found any hint indicating the trap; there was just a hint of a very narrow gap, easy to miss, which likely was the idea. I was considering conjuring my familiar once more, but was interrupted by an eerie noise which originated from a side passage. When I turned in that direction, I could see something like a ghost, but blackish instead of white, hovering between the pillars. I was just quick enough to evade an ice bolt propelled in my direction, and Hanni and Nanni attacked right away. However, the ghost like monster did not pay attention to my saber cats but continued to release ice bolts towards us. Daeril retaliated with a fire ball, and that seemed to impact the ghost, as it took more time now before it attacked again. I added my own flame attack for as long as my magicka allowed, and just before I ran out, I got my battleaxe out and ran forward. I had already assumed that this ghost like monster might be immune to normal weapons, like the Oblivion ghosts, but my axe had a fire enchantment and was anything but a 'normal weapon'. While there was no enemy health bar to tell us how weak the ghost was, we seemed to make progress, and Irene's and Daeril՚s large magicka pool helped a lot. Unfortunately, after several hits with my axe I noticed that there was no fire effect any longer, and I realized that I had probably neglected to recharge it in time. However, a final powerful fire blast from Daeril made the ghost drop to the ground, and all of a sudden there was only a pool of greenish gooey on the ground, likely ectoplasm. While I did not know what it might be good for, I collected some of it in one of the special small containers in my apothecary satchel; Arcadia and Mia should be able to find out.
Before we moved on, Daeril helped me to recharge my big axe with one of the filled soul gems I always had in my pack just for such a situation. With a depleted enchantment the axe was still an excellent weapon, but the fire enchantment was valuable specifically against ghosts and such, as we had just noticed. While we worked on that, I mentioned to the group:
"So, the area around here, with the stone walls, arches, niches, and the pale greenish light, that all looks quite like inside an Ayleid ruin, doesn't it?"
"Indeed, it does" Helvius nodded. "Have you been in one of those before?"
"No, not by myself, but, as I mentioned earlier, I read books, and I met people who were and told me about it."
"We are still puzzled about finding places of Ayleid origin that far north" Hulbert added, with some signs of irritation showing on his face. "Admittedly, we don't have many written reports from them and about them, and only a few distinguished people have published their findings. Kier-Jo_Chorvak wrote an essay called 'The Wild Elves', but there is no specific mentioning on their home places."
During our conversation I also needed to comfort Hanni and Nanni. They had bravely attacked the ghost, but their attempts had been fully ignored; the ghost had not taken any damage from those physical attacks. They had not encountered such a situation before and seemed to be irritated at least; while I scratched their bellies, I heard Mila contributing to the discussion:
"In the book 'The Amulet of Kings' by Wenengrus Monhona we read that the Ayleids, or the Heartland High Elves, ruled central Tamriel, but there is no mentioning of any outposts they may have had. Naturally, the term 'Central Tamriel' doesn't have to be the same as 'Cyrodiil' and could potentially cover a larger area."
"Maybe we learn more when we proceed and explore?" Daeril suggested.
That plan found common agreement, and thus we moved on again. At the bottom of the next set of stairs a passage took us through several turns and finally on a long balcony, overlooking a larger room a few meters below. I could see a few shelves leaning against the walls, a set of three bedrolls on the ground and a campfire; a small table was filled with various food. It did appear that somebody actually lived here, but nobody was visible. Although, once we had stopped, I thought that I could hear distant noises, like fighting, and I told my companions. The noises grew louder and came closer, and we decided to stay put and hide behind the balcony railing for now to observe what was going on. I put my hands briefly on my saber cats' heads to tell them to keep quiet, and a few minutes later we saw three people with robes fighting against someone or something while having their backs to us. Right across from our position there was a passage leading forward, and judged by multiple ice bolts coming across the mages, there could be a group of ghosts or wraiths or so attacking them. They seemed to be used to that, though, and always had a ward up when one of the ice blasts came too close, and they retaliated, one of them with fireballs, the second with frost spikes, and the third with lighting bolts. One of the robed people cast a different spell now and conjured a fire atronach, and soon there were no more ice bolts coming in.
One of the three mages spoke:
"Well, brothers, that was that again. It's a pity that we can't somehow block this passage."
The second one replied:
"Or that we can't keep the ghosts from respawning."
Respawning? That was only a game concept, wasn't it? Was that term used by scholars to describe a similar effect with different background? I didn't have a chance to ponder this further, as the third person added:
"Or that we can't find our way out of here again."
"I bet that there's a way out from the balcony up there."
"You may be right about that, but there's no way up from here."
"True, and even if we could get up there, it would be such a pity not to be able to get to the central treasure area."
"Assuming that some treasure actually is there, brother."
"According to the notes, it must be!"
"Yes, but how long ago have the notes been written?"
"And our firepower is just not enough to get there; those mechanical monsters are just too nimble and too many."
"But they can be harmed by my fire!"
"Yes, they can, but not quickly enough; it's only you who can do that, after all."
"We need to conjure our atronachs more systematically and have them attack all at once!"
"But there are always more of those spiders and spheres coming out!"
"And some of those ghosts and wraiths, too!"
"They can't be endless; we need to make better plans, brothers."
"But we cannot afford to sit around for too long; our supplies aren't endless."
I looked at my companions, and we agreed that now was a good time to show ourselves. Antonius started this part, as he clearly looked much less threatening and intimidating than I did, and he stood up and called down:
"Hello down there, I wonder if we can help you?"
Naturally, the three mages all looked up and prepared spells in their hands, but they also listened and asked back:
"Who are you, and what do you want?"
"We are a group of explorers and archaeologists, and we are looking for whatever we can find. Look, we don't want to harm you, and I don't see why we can't work together. Will it be all right if I come down alone first?"
My housecarl՚s natural charm worked again; after looking at each other briefly, the three mages nodded, and with the help of a rope Antonius climbed down to the hall. The mages were still careful and did not trust him, but this was my charming housecarl, and within less than ten minutes he had managed to alleviate their suspicions. One by one the rest of us came down, but we kept the rope attached and firmly tied around a couple of pillars, so that we could get back if required. Although, while the others could probably not do that, at least I should be able to jump high enough to grab the railing if needed, even without a rope. The mages might have been able to get up with one of them standing on the shoulders of another one, but maybe they had not thought about that option or weren't desperate enough to try yet. Introductions were made, and we learned that the three mages were brothers:
"Each one of us specializes in a different class of magic. My name is Ennac and I am a fire mage, my brother Ennoc is a storm mage and my brother Ennic is an ice mage. Unfortunately, we have learned that ice spells are no help at all against ghosts and shock spells only some; only my fire magic really keeps them at bay. We weren't aware of all of that, and maybe we should not have jumped down into the abyss from the side where we came in. We don't think that there's a way back there, and judged by various skeletons we found, some others ran into the same trap."
"Well, at least there is a way back on our side, and we can always climb back and get out. We had to dig out the entrance first, though. May I ask what you expected to find in here?"
"There are rumors about treasure in the ruin, and the part further down looks like a Dwemer ruin; this part here is oddly different, and we had not expected ghosts and wraiths. But, mostly, we were just curious; exploring ruins and caves and such is fun for us."
That was a sentiment the three archaeologists could relate to, and thus they smiled, telling the three mages about their own profession. Helvius Schliemann added:
"This section actually looks like an Ayleid ruin."
"But Ayleids were in Cyrodiil only, I thought!"
"That's what we thought as well, but maybe this assumption is wrong. Anyway, we would like to explore further, and I wonder if the three of you wanted to join us? We have some more supplies, too."
We quickly reached agreement on that and moved on. The hall had only one exit, the one the ghosts had been using to approach, and we carefully followed that one. Daeril and Ennac, the fire mage, took the lead position, and both of them conjured fire atronachs continuously, just in case. The section which looked like an Ayleid ruin was relatively small, and while wraiths kept coming, that did not bother us; the two fire atronachs easily kept them at bay. Less than one hour later the three brothers showed us a secret door and a set of pressure plates; when stepped on in a specific order, the door would open for about a minute before it closed again. They assured us that it could also be opened from the other side, and we all passed through.
On this side we were clearly in a Dwemer ruin, which was obvious by various pipes along the walls and the different type of stones and occasional ornaments being used; this became even clearer when we found a couple of side rooms with typical Dwemer furniture, like stone beds, tables, and shelves.
"This is absolutely fascinating" Helvius mused. "I have seen Dwemer ruins to be accessed via caves a few times, but never one covered by an Ayleid ruin."
The passage we followed opened up into a small hall with a total of four exits, including the one we were in, and the ice mage brother pointed to one of the others:
"This is where we came from, and we are sure that there's no way back from there, unless somebody can jump up more than five yards. The next one leads to a large chamber with many automatons, and we did not dare to explore further; we do not not know about the fourth exit at all, as the wraiths prevented us from going back."
So we had two possible ways to go, one completely unknown and the other one with a number of Dwemer automatons. We debated our options, and the majority voted for facing the automatons first. The three mage brothers nodded and led the way, and after a few turns we found ourselves on a balcony overlooking a larger hall again. Contrary to the previous location, though, a set of stairs led down to the lower area. Down there, a number of mechanical spiders and spheres were actively patrolling, and there was an inactive monster which I believed to be a Centurion in the background, too. We knew that the automatons were frost resistant, so that the ice mage could not do much, but both fire and shock magic should work. Daeril, Irene, Ennac, Ennoc and Hulbert, who was also quite decent with magic, took the front row, while Antonius and the ice mage stayed back and were going to provide potions if needed; I also got my crossbow ready.
When the others were in position, I opened up combat and hit one of the spheres with a bolt, damaging it badly. The automatons reacted quickly and started towards the stairs, and from my position I could hit more of them. Daeril had placed a fire rune close to the top of the stairs, and when the first nimble spider got there, the rune exploded, killed that spider and the next one and had debris dropping downstairs, damaging a few more automatons on the way. Meanwhile, a couple of spheres made it to the top, but were exposed to murderous crossfire from four mages at once; they did not survive. I kept sending my bolts towards automatons further down, and soon the attack was over. However, there was deep rumbling in the distance, and when I looked up, I could see a huge automaton slowly moving towards us; the fighting noise had awakened the centurion. Naturally, I released bolts in this direction now, but they seemed to cause little damage. The mages stood side by side and blasted ice spikes, fire balls, and lightning bolts, but the centurion was not impressed. The mage brothers looked at each other and cast different spells; each of them conjured an atronach of their specialty, so that the centurion now had to face a flame atronach, a frost atronach and a storm atronach. While the automaton was immune to frost, the sturdy ice atronach at least blocked the way, so that the centurion could not move on. When the frost atronach soon succumbed to the hot steam, the storm atronach landed a good hit, and for the first time we could see the centurion stumble. It managed to raise its huge hammer, though, and pulverized the storm atronach with a single immensely powerful hit; I was glad that it had not been me being hit like this.
Somehow more reserves were coming in from the hole where the centurion had been waiting and resting, and a new group of Dwemer spiders raced around. This was something Hanni and Nanni could handle, though, and with Spirit's help, they ran forward to deal with the new threat. The rest of us kept focused on the centurion, and we had to be on our guard to take cover as soon as it started to blast hot steam in our direction. Our combined effort finally overcame the big automaton, and we suddenly had it crashing to the ground about ten meters in front of us, right at the base of the stairs. This had been quite a challenging fight, and I suspected that the centurion had been one of the most powerful variants. The three saber cats had managed to defeat the remaining spiders, mostly via mechanical impact, and we could proceed through the huge hole in the wall where the centurion had rested.
After we had followed a short passage, we entered a medium sized room with one other exit and some kind of obelisk in the center. To make sure that we did not have any danger close by, we followed the other exit first; it opened up into a long passage, and in the middle a wide locked door was built into the wall. One of us managed to pick the look, and there was a Dwemer lift behind, hopefully leading up to the surface; we were going to look at that later on. The passage itself led to a small kind of tower with round stairs leading upwards. We encountered a door which was blocked on our side, removed the guard and opened the door, and the passage behind led to the hall with four exits we had been in before. All right, now we knew about this at least, and we slowly moved back to the room with the obelisk.
Said obelisk was a structure with four sides in the center of the room, and each side was facing one of the corners of the room, so that the sides of the obelisk were at a 45 degree angle to the walls of the room. Each room corner had an inscription with a few words carved in stone, and our three archaeologists soon agreed that the text was written in the Ayleid language. They were experts for Dwemer and not for Ayleid culture, though, and translation was cumbersome, specifically as the meaning seemed to be unclear. It turned out, though, that Mila had a solid knowledge of the Ayleid language as well, and she started to explain:
"Look here, this text reads as 'Av molag anyammis', and I believe that this is something about fire and life."
Somehow those words rang a bell in my head, but I was unsure why. I asked:
"Can you read the others, too?"
"Sure. The next one is: 'av mafre nagaia', mentioning cold or frost, and the third one 'av latta magicka', which means something like light and magic. The fourth one is barely readable, and I think that one word is 'lattanya', light of life."
Now my brain finally made the connection. In my previous life, I had not only played the 'Skyrim' game, but also its predecessor, 'Oblivion'. As part of the mages guild quests there one had to go into an Ayleid ruin where some mages where already trying to solve a puzzle, and that puzzle had had quite similar inscriptions. The solution had been to cast spells aligned with the words from the corresponding corners towards the obelisk, and when done correctly, sections were going to move and a secret passage would finally open up. If a wrong spell was used, the obelisk would send out powerful destruction spells on its own, though. Before mentioning that I also asked:
"Are there any numbers or so assigned to the corners?"
Mila responded after checking carefully:
"As a matter of fact, yes. I almost missed that, but there are numbers from one to four written below in each corner. Why do you ask?"
"Ladies, gentlemen, I believe that I know how to solve this puzzle."
"What?" "How?" "Tell us!"
"Sure, it's a guess, but an educated guess I believe. The words seem to be related to specific magic spells, and I assume that one is supposed to cast those spells towards the obelisk in the proper order."
"That's a reasonable assumption, actually" Daeril nodded. "So, that would be a fire spell and a frost spell for the first two, I guess. But what about the third? Light?"
"Maybe a shock spell – lightning?" the storm mage suggested.
"Makes sense, but the last one? Light of life?"
"As we had lighting already, maybe healing? Restoring life?"
"Good guess, indeed."
I was really happy to see how teamwork helped to proceed with the details. We could not be sure, of course, and we'd probably just have to try. I asked:
"I believe so, too, but what if we are wrong? Like with some other puzzles, don't we risk to be hit by some powerful retaliation spell or some poisoned arrows?"
Daeril looked around carefully and suggested:
"I don't see any openings where arrows might come from. Thus, I believe that spells might be the likely consequence of being wrong. If somebody would cast the assumed spells, I could keep up a ward for some time as protection."
"And who is going to do the casting itself?"
"As we need different spells, why don't we have the mage brothers cover the first three, and maybe you, B'lushona, do the last one, the healing?"
That sounded like a good plan, and we all agreed. As soon as everybody was in their respective corner, the fire mage started and blasted a fire ball against the obelisk; Daeril raised a ward right afterwards, but that was not needed. There was some rumbling noise from within the obelisk and something seemed to move, but that was it so far. The ice mage continued and cast an ice spike, and more rumbling resulted. After the lightning bolt from the storm mage, there was a tiny bit of an opening close to the top, and when I finally used my healing spell, the opening widened, but not enough. We looked at each other, hoping that the process might continue, but it did not. Instead, after a few minutes, more rumbling happened and the small opening closed again, returning the obelisk to the original state. What had we missed and done wrong?
[Author's Notes: For finding Ayleid ruins that far north, also see chapter 41 in 'Tales of the First Era' by 'Blackvvater'; that story covers Falkreath and south only, though, and I am going one step further here.]