Interlude I: The Quest for Aetherium
(General POV, a few moons before Harkon's demise)
A small group comprised of seven elves and one human can be seen moving down a narrow path to the south of Markarth's hold. Five of them were simple guards, armed with halberds and armored in the usual dark hue preferred by their lord, all of them were relaxed and chatting amongst each other while one held the reins of the singular horse drawing a small cart behind it.
The scene on the cart was less relaxed.
One corner was occupied by a short and slightly feral looking Falmer playing with a throwing knife while mumbling something to himself while in the other sat a Nord woman currently looking over a messily arranged map. The leader of the group, a young pale haired Dunmer woman, sat at the cart's front with a deep frown on her face.
Edrassa Moabain tsked in irritation as Katria once more rearranged the map and opened yet another book, its pages scrawled over with notes and references.
"I still can't believe you lied to his face and got out alive." Edrassa addresses the Nord woman, startling her out of her research "To think you promised so much only to end up with mere hints."
"Well, I did say it was going to be a search." Katria retorts hotly, annoyed by the distraction "Just because I don't know the exact location of everything we might need doesn't mean I am in the wrong. Besides, I have seen the resonator beacon" She turns almost frantic as she continues justifying herself "It had a slot meant to hold some kind of key and I am sure we will be able to find it in Arkngthamz!"
"Well, you obviously know something at least." Edrassa scoffs "You would not have survived otherwise."
Katria gives her an odd look "I highly doubt someone of your lord's renown would have killed me over a single lie. Kicked me out, yeah sure, but he did not strike me as the cruel kind."
'Poor innocent fool' Edrassa laments her temporary colleague's naivety but quickly redirects her thoughts toward something more productive "I knew we were going to need to explore, I am just disappointed with how shallow your preparations are. For all we know this could very well be a massive waste of our time."
"I see what is going on here." Katria hums knowingly "You just don't like leaving your luxuries, do you?"
The Dunmer pointedly looks straight ahead "And what is so wrong with that?"
"Oh, nothing at all." The Nord coos at her as if she were a child.
Before she can show the irritating human her place, Eldor clears his throat "Is there a point to all this bickering? The lord is a powerful seer, and if she sent us here he naturally believed we would find something of worth at least."
"See, even the goblin agrees!" Katria smirks triumphantly, causing some of the soldiers to let out quiet chuckles.
"Now look here you little shi-"
"Eh hem." Edrassa interrupts "We are here."
The bickering bunch raise their gazes and are met with the usual monolithic architecture of the missing deep elves. Before any of them can so much as blink, Katria is already armed and armored, her enchanted bow in hand and a bunch of leather bound books loaded on her back.
Edrassa and Eldor share a look of pure suffering and the Falmer sighs "This is going to be a thing, isn't it?"
Cursed with long experience in such matters, the Dunmer just accepts her fate and signals for the soldiers to stock up, hopefully the idiot human wouldn't get herself killed too quickly.
---
They found Katria just inside the first passage, fiddling with the lock of the large bronze gate hiding the entrance into the true facility. Thankfully the well over a dozen traps had been triggered so many times before that all the bolt launchers in the walls failed to skewer her.
Instead of bothering with scolding the human, Edrassa simply walked up to her, gave the gate one quick look, and proceeded to tap certain sections of the bronze metal. The contact sent out a faint ringing sound through the place and then as if it were never locked in the first place, the gate simply opened.
Suddenly out of her fugue, Katria gave her guide a look of genuine surprise "Wha-?"
"I was stuck with this task for a reason." Edrassa explains smugly "Now let us find the fabled aetherium that was for whatever inane reason stuck in this forgotten place."
"Well, it all had to do with a war between the Dwemer holds-" Katria begins only to be interrupted by the Dunmer.
"Yes, yes. You wrote a whole book about it already. I may not like you but I am not stupid enough not to get informed about what I am doing."
Stuck between being flattered and insulted, Katria had to run after the group as they left her behind almost a full minute ago. She really needed to get her head out of the clouds, didn't she?
---
"Yup, that sure looks like a ruin." An amused voice echoes through the rocky cave covering a massive portion of the once great city.
"Your powers of observation are noted, Eldor." Edrassa almost growls.
The sleazy Falmer bows "Why thank you, my lady, I exist to impress."
The sound of huffing draws them from their conversation as Katria catches up and is greeted with the same sight as they "Well, that doesn't look good."
"You don't say." Edrassa snips dryly.
"But I am sure we will be able to find what we are looking for!" Katira exclaims excitedly "We just need to give the surface level a once over and we will no doubt find an intact passage."
The Nord woman starts looking around the place without even waiting for them, surprisingly enough finding a couple of passages and leading the group into a vast opening which led to an odd looking Dwemer construct in the distance.
"Something tells me that is exactly what we are looking for!" The Nord sates with complete certainty after a full three seconds of looking.
"Delusions are not a valid source of actionable information." The already emotionally exhausted Edrassa snarks.
"Oh come off it you stick in the mud." Katria waves her off with her ever increasing excitement "We just need to reach that spot and the proof will be ours!"
The Dunmer prepares to make a passage from the nearby stone but goes completely ignored by the Nord who was already looking at everything with the speed of a hamster on cocaine.
Minutes later Katria gives the group a slightly embarrassed look "Um... do you have any ideas?"
Without a word, and while staring the woman straight in the eyes, Edrassa walks up to the ledge and keeps walking as a sturdy stone bridge forms under her feet.
Katria pointedly shuts up after that.
With cautious steps, the group approaches the structure from the side, all of them being very careful about loose floor tiles or pressure plates.
"Those are minor resonators!" Katria takes only a moment to recognize the mechanisms stuck in the wall "We need only hit them with something and they will activate the doorway!"
By the time she finished speaking she had already drawn her bow and aimed it at one of the resonators, but thankfully for the whole group Eldor and two of the soldiers had long since learned to take care around her and immediately dogpiled her without letting her draw her bow.
One immensely infuriated rant by Edrassa and righteously scolded Nord later, the group had retreated behind cover, which was then thoroughly fortified by the resident alteration mage to more resemble a bunker than an actual alcove in the rock wall.
Only once she was completely sure they would be safe from whatever happened did Edrassa summon her own animonculus sphere and had it shoot at the resonators.
It took some doing, a couple of sudden earthquakes, and dozens of Dwemer spiders getting spewed out of the nearby walls and then promptly disassembled before the gates opened up and all traps were deactivated once they finally got the combination right.
Finally having gotten it into her head that running ahead like an idiot was a bad idea, Katria kept her pace with the group as they entered the presumed vault.
And sitting there, practically in the open was a small fragment of blue crystalline metal passively radiating more power than most mages, surrounding it was a veritable mountain of bronze slabs covered to the brim in Dwemer writing.
"Is that...?" Edrassa asks with genuine surprise.
"It must be!" Katria, already having forgotten her previous lessons, much to the chagrin of everyone but her, runs up to the fragment and starts touching it, thankfully not dying in the process.
She is soon joined by her Dunmer compatriot, who having a much greater sense of self-preservation uses her magic to scan the thing and comes to much the same conclusion "It is an alloy that radiates power and that has not been seen in millennia. If it isn't aetherium then we just found something just as valuable." She concludes.
"And look at these tablets!" Katria draws her attention "Look, this one looks like a map and a record!" The Nord starts stacking up her books and writing equipment as she speaks "I will need some time to translate it all but the wait will be worth it!"
As she spoke she did not even notice Edrassa grabbing the tablet from her hands and bringing it up to read, she tried mumbling the words out but her tongue got twisted and she started choking on her own words a mere minute in, she then wisely decided to just read in silence, completely ignoring the baffled Nord in the process.
"Heh." Eldor coughed/chortled "Hope their vile spawn choked on their own words like that when they taught them to speak. Fucking deep cunts would deserve it too."
Temporarily distracted from her staring, Katira gives the snow elf an odd look "You speak as if you hate them?"
Eldor gives her his most deadpan look "Woman, what am I?"
"A Falm- oh." Katria once again finds herself shutting up out of sheer embarrassment.
At least they may find the locations of the other fragments here, right?
---
(A month later)
The entire group, covered in some kind of green goop, ran out of a Dwemer lift and onto an open platform, even the Dunmer welcoming the frigid mountain air of Skyrim as they crawled out of the putrid curse that was the underground remnant they were just forced to crawl through.
"That was the most disgusting damned thing I've ever..." Edrassa trails off as she realizes just how filthy she is and promptly summons a bunch of water with her magic, completely covering her, Katria and the guards in it without a care.
"Oh gods, the smell is still there." One of the younger soldiers nearly weeps.
A noise draws everyone's attention to a particularly filthy looking Eldor dragging a bunch of Dwemer metal trinkets behind him in a massive bag, he was so covered in the filthy stuff that he outright looked like a goblin now.
"What?" The Falmer asks as if his current state was completely natural.
"How can you...?" One of the guards trails off while pointing at him.
"Eh" The goblin looking creature shrugs "Crawl through one pile of goop, you've crawled through all of them." He grins "At least I got a nice payday of out it this time."
His grin is promptly wiped from his face as Edrassa slams a burst of water into him with the force of a power washer.
An hour of rest later they find the next shard sitting in the open and immediately pack it up.
And then Edrassa notices something in the distance.
"THERE WAS A SIDE PASSAGE THE ENTIRE GODS DAMNED TIME?!"
---
(Yet another moon hence)
"Not it!" Katria blurts, followed by all of the guards chorusing after her.
Before the distracted Falmer can catch on Edrasa forces herself to grit out "Not it."
"Wha?" Eldor turns from his looting spree and gives everyone a confused look.
"Congratulations, Eldor!" Katria clapped her hands "You just got volunteered to unclog the gears stuck beneath the water!"
"And you know where you can voluntarily stick it you-"
"Eldor." Edrassa cuts him off with a threatening smile "Get in the water or I will confiscate your loot for research purposes."
He shivers "You wouldn't."
"You did endanger the group multiple times due to your constant pillaging." Her smile widens, the expedition having long since brought out a bit of a sadistic streak in the young Dunmer "I wouldn't even be lying to Lord Reyvin if I said that."
"Gah" The Falmer flinches "Fine, fine. I will get in the damn pool."
A few minutes later the sound of turning gears fills the room and the water level lowers enough for the gate that barred their path to be opened.
And then the gate opened on its own.
And a centurion barged out from within.
As the sounds of gears were replaced with those of battle, Eldor found himself suddenly enjoying the now shallow pool of water. Truly, one should enjoy the little things in life.
He did not enjoy it much after a stray lightning bolt struck the water though.
---
(Weeks later)
The ragged group of adventurers approached yet another Dwemer ruin, all decorum and pomp long since forgotten as they were forced to avoid Stormcloak patrols for days at a time.
Even Edrassa failed to look prim and proper, and she had access to alteration magic.
They approached the gates of Mzulft, many of their weapons and armor replaced by scavenged Dwemer metal as even with the many enchantments they were blessed with the constant fighting had overburdened their lord's gifts and now the lot of them looked more like mercenaries or bandits than proper soldiers.
Before Edrassa could unlock the gate, she felt Eldor tugging at her sleeve and turned to see him pointing at a small shed like structure nearby "I think we should check that one out first."
"Just because you got an admittedly good price for your loot doesn't mean we are going to waste any more time scrounging through any more holes than necessary." Edrassa shakes him off.
Eldor looks just about ready to accept her words when Katria speaks up "Maybe we should check it out? It may be some sort of storage building."
It does not take them long to explore the small building, and once they managed to unlock one of the small doorways within they came upon a wonderous sight. The last fragment sat there, beckoning them like sweet salvation at the end of a torturous pilgrimage.
"I could kiss the both of you right now." Edrassa almost cries now that her task was technically completed.
"We do still need to go to the main resonator." Katria pipes in.
"No." The Dunmer rejects her with finality.
"No?" Eldor looks surprised.
"We are going to Winterhold." Edrassa nods to herself for her impeccable logic "Lord Dagoth no doubt wants to see the forge himself and us wasting the metal on accident sounds like a good way to get our asses fried."
"You just want your bed back, don't you?" Katria teases immediately.
"YES DAMN IT, BY AZURA I WANT TO SLEEP IN AN ACTUAL BED NOW GET MOVING YOU DAMN N'WAH!" Edrassa practically screams and starts pushing the chuckling Nord out of the storage room.
She could not even bother being surprised once she learned about everything that happened during her absence.
-----------------
You too must now go on a quest for a certain mineral of great potence
it is the law.
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