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SPOILER INFO
This fanfic novel is largely based on the events that occurred in an actual game of Skyrim I played. Therefore, it's inevitably a spoiler.
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previous day
4-201-11-22 05:52
Calixto's House of Curiosities, Windhelm, Eastmarch, Skyrim
I meet up with the girls in the bath at the Candlehearth Hall. I'm curious to know what they did last night. They make a half-hearted attempt to get me to report first, but this time I'm unwavering.
Turns out that on Jenassa's suggestion they went to check out the nightlife in the elven quarter. They sat in the New Gnisis inn and got acquainted with a couple of locals, and then they went all together into that shabby inn above the street level. Lydia and Jordis insist and Jenassa denies that Jenassa would have liked to take a room already in the New Gnisis, but then she and her new friend Zirik came along after all. Finally, all three of my followers ended up spending the night there with elven men – in separate rooms this time, though, as Lydia points out.
After breakfast, we set out to the south in the midst of a nice winter morning.
Our destination is the Dwemer ruin Mzulft, but rather than take the highway, I want to go via Kynesgrove and Narzulbur and then try to find a direct way to Mzulft across the mountains.
In Kynesgrove, we make a brief stop at the inn and exchange a few words with the innkeeper Iddra as well as Engrid, the woman with a big axe whom I met in Hviterun. Then we move on uphill to the east.
This is the place where Alduin awakened another dragon that time when we were here with Rudelphine:
We ascend higher still, into the realm of winter. As we approach the Orc village Narzulbur, even a slight snowfall starts:
By the time we enter, the traders are already at work. We also talk to many villagers and visit the mine.
It's half past 10 when we head for Mzulft. After the initial descent down the steep hills south of Narzulbur, the rest is easy. The weather remains beautiful and the air temperature rises quickly. This spruce forest outside the snowy region is utterly adorable. I find myself wishing Mzulft were much farther away than it actually is.
There's no one outside Mzulft. Inside, however, we find a man named Gavros Plinius who is taking his last breaths just as we enter.
Clearly too confused to notice our presence, he drivels something about a crystal and then he's dead. He appears to have been one of those Synod mages from Cyrodiil.
We find a letter on him with instructions from an Adjunct to the effect that a Conclave wants something done in the Oculory . I've no idea what any of that means.
We proceed into robust stone corridors lit by eerie yellow-green lamps, and walk among enormous pipes of dark yellow metal and weird moving things, some of which emit steam – a sight so familiar by now that we barely take notice. Our attention is focused on not missing anything that walks on legs.
As I quickly realize, we also have to watch out for things on the floor that trigger heavy or sharp objects hitting you.
From time to time, we encounter Dwarven Spiders as well as dead Cyrodiilian mages. Eventually we reach a system of caves where there are neither massive stone columns nor metal pipes and mechanisms, but there are still those Dwemer lamps, as well as an odd dead Synod member. It's possible this place used to be a mine.
A few of those Synod researchers are female. It's so sad. Women are meant to spread harmony and happiness,
not to get slain in faraway dungeons pursuing somebody's dubious ambitions.
(Although, who am I to say that?)
not to get slain in faraway dungeons pursuing somebody's dubious ambitions.
(Although, who am I to say that?)
The caves end and we're in another complex of Dwemer structures. Here we begin to encounter Falmers in addition to an occasional Dwemer killer machine. In one hall, we even run across a human bandit fighting a Falmer.
I know it's difficult to see it from a still picture, but those two are making a hell of a racket up there.
I'm having my bow at the ready just in case. I won't be firing that arrow any time soon.
I'm having my bow at the ready just in case. I won't be firing that arrow any time soon.
The bandit wins, but then he's too damned dumb to realize we would pose no threat to him if he'd just walk the other way and allow us to mind our own business.
Eventually we end up in a room that has some of those stone beds typical of Dwemer ruins. They sound much more uncomfortable than they are. As it's past 1 in the night already, I decide we'll get some sleep now.
next awakening
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