Chapter XLIII: Of Forges And Far Eastern Art Pieces

(General POV)

Morning came much slower than many in the camp desired, most of all Katria who was not able to get a wink of sleep as she kept pacing in front of the unearthed Dwemer resonator, frantically scribbling down every detail she could see in an attempt to make time pass faster.

All she got out of it was a headache.

By the time the sun rose her eyes were half bloodshot, the temptation to attempt and activate the machine on her own growing with each second, even if the Aetherium necessary for the act was already given to Lord Dagoth.

She was just about to succumb to exhaustion but just then the flaps of the largest tent in the camp were pushed open and she was already back to her usual state with naught a single sign of fatigue visible.

A part of her mind told her that the Dunmer lord was looking at her like she grew a second head but she was far too excited to pay attention to any of that. Finally she would be able to get a nice present for her friend!

(Reyvin's POV)

'Dear god what in the actual fuck?!' I barely hold myself back from recoiling in surprise as I see Katria's lifeforce bubble with an unfamiliar yet suspiciously tinged power and essentially convince the world that she was in perfect condition.

Scorch too shared my surprise 'Umm... pops, I don't think that is how healing works.'

'Whatever the fuck that was, it sure as shit wasn't healing.' I practically spit out in my mind 'Something fucky is going on here and the fact that I can't detect what it is is not making it better.'

"My lord?" A scratchy voice calls out from nearby "Is there a problem?"

I turn to see the still slightly unnatural form of Eldor looking at me with a concerned frown "It is nothing." I say but still signal for him to be wary "Get everyone up and moving, I will be ready in a moment."

His face twists into a small worried frown but he still bows and does as he is told, heading to Edrassa's tent and not so subtly checking on his dagger.

I pretend to have forgotten something and enter my tent once again "Mephala." I mutter and the Daedric puppet materializes next to mem without waiting for her to speak I point in Katria's general direction and ask "What am I looking at?"

"What, not even a hello?" Mephala tilts her head and pouts.

"Really not the time." I mutter a bit more forcefully.

Her pout turns into a teasing smirk as she just keeps staring at me.

With a roll of my eyes and a tired groan I force a pleasant smile onto my face "A good morning to you, oh most appreciated of irritants. I am so happy and grateful you could take the time out of your no doubt busy day to visit this poor mortal."

She covers her mouth daintily and lets out a slight laugh at my deadpan tone "What a gentleman." She swoons lightly "Now, how can this little irritant help you?" Her tone told me I was going to regret giving her a 'title' and she knew I knew if her smirk was anything to go by.

I roll my eyes once again "What can you tell me about whatever the fuck it was that I just saw?"

She seems confused for a moment before seemingly noticing what I was on about "Oh, that." She sounds surprisingly serious all of a sudden. I go to ask again but she raises a hand "It would seem brother dearest has gotten his bits into yet another curious young scholar."

I slowly palm my face and groan "Bits as in tentacles?" I ask wearily.

She just nods with a strained smile.

"What the fuck do I do about this?" I ask, plans already forming.

Mephala ponders it for a moment before shrugging "Just go with it."

I pause and give her a look "Just go with it."

"Yup." She nods, her posture giving off a 'What can you do?' kind of feel.

"Are you ins-" I go to raise my finger and point at her but stop halfway and shake my head "No never mind."

She pretends to blush and looks away as if I had just given her the greatest of compliments.

I remain silent for a moment, searching for the right words, before settling on a firm "I am not giving that motherfucker access to aetherium of all things woman."

"I am afraid you won't have much choice here." She pauses briefly "He is far, far stronger than I Reyvin and his agents are everywhere."

"So what?" I ask, a bit irritated "Am I to just pretend I didn't see what I saw right then?"

"The fact that you even saw it in the first place is a miracle in its own right." Mephala says with a weight I had rarely felt from her usually relaxed and flippant self "My brother is methodical and patient, making him your enemy will only serve to hinder you in the long run."

"I get that, obviously." I gesticulate with a scowl on my face "It isn't him gaining some knowledge that I am bothered by, it is the fact that he could gain the way of making aetherium, no matter how incomplete, something used to create the closest thing to a literal god possible by mortal hands!"

"Reyvin." She speaks after a moment's pause, a tinge o false worry in her voice "I understand that you are worried but you really shouldn't be." She explains patiently "He only wants the knowledge on everything, he vary rarely if ever uses it."

"That is too naive and you know it." I grumble.

She just gives me a thin smile at that.

I sigh and wipe the small amount of sweat that had gathered on my forehead "Fine, I will try and pretend nothing is happening, out of sight and out of mind and all that." I turn to leave but a hand on my shoulder stops me.

"I will have your back should anything happen." Mephala says genuinely.

"Thanks." I say quietly and walk out, unsummoning the projection with a mental flick.

The whole group had gathered before the resonator by the time I walked out, Edrassa and Eldor accompanied by two dozen guards and an equal number of high quality automata all stood there waiting patiently, while the day's suspect Katria was bouncing around impatiently, barely held back from running up to me by the fact she was already at the supposed entrance.

The eager look in her eyes that was once mildly endearing was now utterly unnerving and I did my best to keep a cold professional mask on my face lest I give the creature that was no doubt watching a hint of what I knew.

'Oh who are you fucking kidding, pops? It already knows you know.' Scorch mutters through gritted beak.

"Everyone ready?" I ask 'calmly' as I approach the group.

A round of affirmatives comes back in answer.

"Do you have it?" The Nord asks excitedly.

Thankfully my response was not tarnished by my worries as I gave her the driest deadpan I could muster "Do I look like a complete idiot to you?"

A couple of my warriors slowly edged their hands to their weapons but as my words passed over her like a light breeze without making her so much as twitch I found that I didn't really care so I simply gave the men a signal to calm down as subtly as I could.

Accepting that this was now my fate I summoned the different shards of the aetherium crest into my hand. The ancient alloy was already radiating power as it is, but what most people could not notice was that the power it was radiating was merely the background noise to the true majesty contained within.

A single shaving of the damn thing could probably power a massive ward system for centuries without faltering once, the sole reason I didn't do so already being the fact that it was also almost completely indestructible, definitely indestructible to any means I possessed in any case.

I approach the unassuming resonator, a small platform with an indent made to fit the crest perfectly, and gently placed all of the bits within. If I was not super tense at the time I would have probably smiled in appreciation of how perfectly crisp the noise the shards made when placed next to each other was.

Giving the thing another quick look I saw no further instructions so I shrugged and pressed the crest into the indentation. Immediately, the machine came to life and an incredibly quiet, barely perceptible hum started to resonate from within.

Nothing else happened so I focused my ears on what I was hearing and patiently discerned that it was asking a question. It spoke not in words but in intent, or as best as I could translate it so far with my admittedly low skill in the art. That was enough for me however as I did pick up the jist of it, that being the question of identification.

 It did not take me long to come up with a solution as I was technically an Apprentice Tonal Architect, and so I brought out the cube and let its own reverberations clash with those of the resonator itself, under the hungry and watchful eyes of Katria.

Seeing as it was not enough I intoned "Bthar Kagrum Mzark!" Presenting myself as an ally of Tonal Architect Mzark.

As my words rang out, the resonator shuddered and sent out a far louder pulse of noise, before stopping and ever so slowly lowering, revealing a circular stairwell which led into a yet undiscovered dwarven ruin.

Thankfully the resonator didn't 'swallow' the aetherium crest and instead stopped at the bottom of the stairs hundreds of meters deep, only my exceptional eyesight allowed me to see the bottom.

"Well then." I turn to the rest, an excited grin on my face despite the situation "Let us go and see what the dwarves felt like hiding so much!"

(Eldor's POV)

Even the idiot Nord was quiet as we descended into the surprisingly clean and orderly underground complex. The lord took back the shiny alloy and hid it in oblivion lest we lose it for whatever unlucky reason.

The guards were all kinds of twitchy as they observed every single thing happening around them, expecting an attack to come from all directions, but all that was forgotten as we approached a grand engraved gate made of dwarven bronze and all of them stood in awe.

The entirety of the gate's surface was covered in Dwemeris script, some of which I recognized as historical dedications and whatever else the grandiose pieces of shit wanted to immortalize upon it. The damned thing probably contained more information then anyone possessed on the deep fuckers.

Katria decided now was the perfect time to start bothering Lord Dagoth about the writing but he simply shooed her away and did not hesitate in pushing the gates open, a wave of heat slamming into all of us the moment he did so. Myself and the other two Falmer present soon found ourselves breathing heavier while the Dunmer all looked to be completely relaxed, and even at ease in the new heat.

Lucky cunts.

The sight beyond the gates quickly explained the heat though, as we found ourselves on a surprisingly luxurious stone platform overlooking a veritable sea of lava surrounding a singular structure in its center, connected to us by a single metal bridge.

I heard Lord Dagoth let out a light laugh "Well, at least they saw fit to install cooling enchantments into the bridge or we would have all been fried."

"And what of this place?" The Nord got into his face again, the lord visibly hiding a scowl "What do you think it was used for? Could it be some kind of fancy workshop?"

Visibly irritated the lord simply pointed toward a row of doors and opened them telekinetically, quickly showing everyone that this was some kind of residential district. Though my eyes widened just as quickly as I saw the numerous trinkets within, but before I could run off and grab them I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to see Edrassa glaring at me.

"Eldor." She says warningly.

I raise my hands in surrender "I just wanted to check for traps, I swear!"

A couple of the asshole guards next to us chuckle.

"Shut it." She brushes it off and then speaks much more quietly "I wanted to ask you something."

I frown "Yeah?"

She gives the irritated Lord Dagoth a quick look just in time to see him point at the Nord warningly before looking back and speaking "Don't you think Dagoth is behaving a bit... odd?"

"When isn't he?" I fire back on instinct.

Her eyes narrow "Be serious for a moment."

"Fine." I huff "Something is off with Katria."

Edrassa's eyes narrow further "What?"

"How the fuck should I know?" I give her a dumbfounded look "He must have seen something we can't and even he didn't she is acting far too subdued... almost as if she is waiting for something now that I mention it."

As if she had heard me speak, I see Katria give me a quick look, a light sickly green seemingly shining in her eyes. I felt a sudden need to blink and when my eyes were open once more the shine was gone, and so was Katira's interest.

"Something is very fucking wrong here Edrassa." I croak.

"Agreed." She whispers, too spooked to badger me for not addressing her properly.

We spent a few minutes checking for traps and other deep ones' fuckery before Lord Dagoth stepped onto the bridge and lead us toward our destination.

The glowing halls of magma soon gave way to a place which looked as if it came from a whole different world, advanced even by the standard of our traitorous kin it was covered in some kind of brightly glowing lanterns and a bunch of tiny automata were quietly skittering on the sides of the hall, cleaning up even the slightest hint of dust.

A few turns, and a bunch of incredibly confusing sights, later we stepped into a massive chamber. It looked like some unholy combination of a boiler room, a forge, an enchanting chamber and a magma pool all combined into one sleek design.

But our eyes were not drawn to the supposed forge, oh no, all of us were too busy staring at the gigantic fucking centurion standing in the middle of the lava pool, its bright aetherium blue eyes staring straight at us.

"Motherfucker." I heard the lord mutter before all of us were blasted with a wave of steam of such potence I didn't doubt for a minute we would have all been deleted from existence if not for the lord's ward pushing it away.

I quickly slinked into the back of the formation, positioning myself behind Katria who was looking at the giant in awed curiosity. Someone had to keep an eye on her after all, no?

I wasn't trying to run and hide, swear!

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!SENOTS RIEHT EM EVIG DNA SELOH REMEWD ESOHT NEPO PIR

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