Into Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 8 Nirn's Beta-Chapter 117: Factory or forge?

With everything at Yngvild wrapped up and Philip reacquired again. We were traveling along the coast of Dawnstar. Viree interrupted me, "Are you sure you know where this is?"

I scoffed, "I'm looking for the entrance." The quest gave a map marker, one of the few I have received. The problem was the closer we got the more the quest maker dipped into the ground. I sighed when we got to a point I had to concede.

"Its underwater..."

Viree raised an eyebrow, "So?"

I placed a marker on my map, tied Philip to a tree and set out some food for her. with one last fluid motion I took everything off the carriage. Finally I turned to VIree, "Ready for a dip?"

She frowned at me, "Ah, that is what you meant. I was expecting you to part the sea or something?"

I looked up, "I wish, but we have to transport Philip down there. Since I can't part the sea, I need to use magic on Philip. After all, I may cast waterbeathing on a horse, but that doesn't mean you can lead that horse to the bottom of the ocean. Which means we need to find the entrance so i can soothe Philip all the way down."

Viree expression turned into one of understanding. "Yeah, that makes sense."

"We search quickly it shouldn't take long it is about 80 to 120 meters out." I looked at her and she nodded along. "Here is some waterbreathing."

A green glow washed over Viree and she blinked, "Is that it? I don't feel any different."

I smirked, "Would you have preferred to grows gills and suffocate on land?"

She sighed, "Not really, Let's do this."

She stripped her armor and I did the same. "Oh wait, uh... Let me cast Depth-Fin, it will make you swim faster."

She smirked at me and my slip up. The green glow of magic washed over us again though and I dove into the water first. The ocean was interesting, the underwater life swayed and I could see the fish swim around me.

The maker only indicated the area to look. I frowned as Viree swam past me while smirking. I pulled my eyes away and looked around at the sea floor. Eventually I spotted an ugly rock and swam toward it. The rock was a dead metal lamp and I followed a short trail of lights toward a cave. The cave was small and dark. I raised my hand and a glowing magelight revealed nothing within the cave.

I felt a hand on my shoulder and jumped, making me glare at Viree. She pointed toward a large hill in the water. I landed on the bottom of the ocean and got a little creative. Using Tide bell a jet of conjured water crashed into the sea floor. The seabed sprayed into the ocean revealing the buried doorway of a dwemer ruins. I surfaced the water and Viree called out, "You find it?"

I nodded as I got back to the shore. Grabbing Philip I began to cast the magic over her, "Come on Philip, nothing to worry about."

Viree dove back into the water redressed and I reequipped my own armor as Philip followed me. Philip yanked against me as we closed in on the water, but I began to cast magic over and over again. Making Philip calm down as her head dipped below the water. When she realized she wouldn't drown I met VIree at the doors of the ruins. She had yanked a door open and it lead to a deep staircase. Water had long since filled the staircase.

That might be a good thing since if it was empty inside the water would've rushed in. Viree lead the way into the ruins. The lamps despite being submerged in water sustained some light. Viree stopped and pointed at several pockets in the walls and a lever.

I paused as I inspected the pockets, they didn't seem like a trap. I lead Philip into the chamber and Viree pointed to the lever. I nodded and she pulled it down. The pockets released large plates that sealed behind us. A second later the several tubes in the ceiling did something.

I felt the pressure of the water shift and once they stopped tubes in the ground began to do something. The water began to drain from them, but as the water stopped half I realized it wasn't supposed to drain water. Viree finally able to speak, "What is this?"

I shrugged, "At first I thought an air lock, but telling it only drained half way and those jets from above. I think it is was a sanitizer. Something to keep environments clean."

The gate ahead of us opened and let the rest of the water spill out across the floor of an elevator. "Huh, it goes under the ocean most likely. My guess the entrance was once at the shore, but at some point the water raised enough? Actually, no it was likely some what sunken already and on low tides did the entrance reveal. This would be incredibly rare events which meant the dwemer inside were there all year round if not far longer."

Viree looked at me curiously, "So they wanted to keep this place clean to the point of making it difficult to enter during its operation and have a method to clean anyone who enters."

As we moved onto the elevator, Philip jerked a little as it activated from the lever. It lowered us slowly with a smooth descent. "The gears here aren't dwemer metal. They are made of some kind of..." My magic washed over the walls and I blinked. "Calcium silicate fused to a carbon crystal lattice, I think it uses some kind of enzyme as the bonding agent."

Viree raised an eyebrow and I laughed, "The Calcium Silicate is a heatproof material, though I don't know any additional uses. For the bonded Carbon Crystal it is Synthetic Diamond. Finally the two are bonded together with some kind of waterproof enzyme that melds Calcium and Carbon."

She stared at me as we continued to lower down the elevator, "I still didn't really understand that. However from what you said I assume it was made to withstand heat and water or what not. Basically the elevator was built to be pretty sturdy for its environment."

I nodded as I looked up the elevator shaft. "Telling that we are still going down. I think they made this place built to last. Which makes we wonder what this actually is. I just got the map location from a book. This is getting suspicious."

She laughed, "This is only getting suspicious now?"

I nodded, "Dwemer structures are filled with strange shit. The actual thing that makes me suspicious is the book. Have you ever heard of the book Aetherium wars."

She stared at me, "Like less than a month ago I couldn't read on my own. Just explain it."

This content is taken from freeweɓnovel.cѳm.

That was a fair point, "Aetherium wars was written by a man named Taron Dreath who stole credit from another adventurer named Katria. The books were spread out and blah blah blah. You get it?"

She nodded and I continued, as I took out the book. "The book describes this place in some detail, such as the outside location and the deep elevator that leads into the crust. We will likely need to kill some guardians as it describes three unique automatons. The book goes on about the factory and various things it made. However the book doesn't describe the author, why the book was written, or even any explanation as to the purpose of this place."

Viree paused in some thought, "The purpose seems obvious, no?"

I shook my head, "You would think, but how deep are we now? Can you tell? It has been what 30 minutes?"

Viree frowned as she petted Philip. I looked at Philip as she had her eyes closed. The slow whirr of machinery was getting louder, "It seems we are getting close to the bottom. Proving my point further."

Viree nodded, "I hear it too, and you are right. This is deep into the ground. The ride was slow, but thinking about it. It only felt slow, the distance was just that great."

A minute later light spilled from a doorway and the elevator locked into place at the bottom of the shaft. Stepping into the next room Philip the ever silent horse stretched her legs. I looked around in the large spacious area.

Viree spoke as I walked over to a small office space. "This place looks crazy."

The area I stepped into reminded me of a security office. Several levers that led to traps were bolted down. I picked up a book off the desk and frowned. It was mummified, the book was written in dwemer. I turned one of the pages and shook my head. It wasn't worth translating anyway. It was a just a book that indicated the use of the levers. I paused and pocketed the book anyway. I could sell it to a collector like Calcemo and he would have no idea.

Viree pointed, "Check this out."

The next room was lined with several books, tools and cubes. "A dwemer library?"

I picked up a book and realized it had no binding. It was a folder? I flipped the pages within and blinked. "Schematics."

I couldn't read the pages, but they were clearly schematics. Several iterations of a single machine were documented in this one folder. I flipped more and found the finished design. I slipped the page out of the folder and and smiled. I could collect all the schematics I want from here.

I paused again and moved toward the lexicons. Several cubes were stacked up on a shelf. Several were filled lexicons while others were completely blank. I took out my own lexicon that was given to me by Deepest-Fathoms. Several of the lexicons had different designs. I picked up a folder next to lexicons and flipped through.

Each lexicon version was documented. I flipped through the schematics and found the version of Lexicon I had. Sure enough i couldn't really understand the words, but with some context I raised an eyebrow. Looking at the shelf I pocketed three other Lexicons.

Viree called out behind me, "What are those for?"

I held up my original lexicon, "This version of Lexicon grants direct knowledge, at least I think. The diagram shows pictures of the lexicon and a brain. I can't understand a word of it though, so it is hard to say."

Viree looked around at all the folders and binders, "Are you really going to look through all of these?"

I waved, "If you want to explore go ahead."

She laughed, "I'll just help you."

I nodded and we began sorting through the folders. Several were a little more useless schematics like the pipes and pressure valves. Though I still took them as they might be good for designing a proper toilet. Within some time we found everything that could be taken and I closed it all up in a empty folder I had found.

Viree held up an older schematic, "The Dwemer were weird."

I nodded, "Telling that I am pretty sure one or two of the schematics we found are sex toys I think it is safe to say they were experimenting with everything."

Viree got up and stretched. "What time is it? I'm hungry."

I tossed her some prepared food and she caught it. "This is cold." I rolled my eyes and heated the metal bowl up.

"Better?" She nodded and began to eat while I took out a bowl of my own. "Okay I think I have a good idea what this place was for. The entrance there is a security office while this is a schematics library. If we go further in we will likely find those three guardians. If we don't find them, we will likely find an Oculory."

Viree nodded, "Any idea what these guardians may be from the schematics?"

I nodded and flipped through the taken schematics. "Likely this centipede construct design or one of these colossi design."

She nodded and lifted up Volendrung. "Are we ready?"

I nodded and motioned toward the hallway. Looking down the path several dorms, break rooms, and kitchens were contained. We looted each, but looking at the kitchen I laughed. "It's like a fast food hamburger."

I lifted up the disturbingly fresh grilled sandwich. Viree stared at it and shook her head, "That's disgusting."

I nodded and dropped it back down on the plate. "It seems this place was really set up as an office and several people lived here while working."

Viree whistled, "Check this out."

I entered the actual kitchen area and I blinked in surprised. "The food is all enchanted. Like zip locked freezers that sterilize the food to prevent cross contamination." I paused and thought about it, "I think they set this up to prevent purity loss in metal."

Viree looked at me, "Purity loss?"

I nodded and pulled out the schematics again. "We took just about all the notes on dwemer alloys, right? Well for the basic alloy it has these symbols here. This symbol is clearly a percentage. Which means the metal forging for the common dwemer alloy is very precise. Either that or the dwemer were just very specific about it."

Viree nodded and left back into the hall. "We haven't seen any automatons. Aren't dwemer ruins filled with them?"

I paused and nodded again, "They would need to be oiled frequently. Which could cause purity loss of they exchange workers. Several automatons break down and will fall apart due to the lack of joint control. The metal doesn't rust, but it certainly can scrape against itself."

Viree nodded and stopped at another sanitizer gate. I looked back at Philip who was eating the preserved sandwich I had tossed. Viree pointed up at a metal sign. "What do you think that means?"

I shrugged, "Open the gate and find out."

She laughed and pushed the lever down. The gate did its routine and opened up to reveal an open space. Viree peering inside spoke, "Whoa."

I entered the room next and nearly choked. The space was massive and my eyes flickered across the massive room. "What the hell is this place." Viree's words echoed in the room.

I covered Viree's mouth as several dwemer constructs moved. I slowly backed up and flicked the lever. When I closed the gate Viree spoke again, "What was that room, any ideas?"

I nodded, "A fucking Cargo Bay. A massive fucking cargo bay that had hundreds of constructs."

Viree nodded, "Yeah I saw those, but did you see those massive doors?"

I nodded, "One likely leads to the ocean. Several rails lead toward the farther door and looking at a few of those constructs they were likely made for underwater travel." I pulled out the schematics and found the ones I saw. "Yeah, some kind of submarine transport unit. A construct that could be piloted or move on its own."

Viree spoke, "And the other side and constructs?"

I flipped through the schematics, "Dynastors, Delvers, and Perforator constructs. My assumption is they dig through the earth to transport things. My guess is that past the closer cargo door is open earth that they dig through."

Viree looked back at Philip, "What do we do? I'm up to kill some dwemer constructs, but that was a lot of machines."

I nodded, "Let's take some time to think about it. We can relax in one of the dorms."

Viree nodded and paused, "Uh, what do we do with Philip."

The horse huffed as if making the point, "Well..."