The Bound - A Tale Of Tamriel

20

20

i. Revna.

This room was empty, save for the four of them. There were no out of place rock formations, no crates or boxes. Only the ubiquitous rattling pipes, the doors they had entered through and a larger set of doors opposite.

She touched the place on her armour that the arrow had hit, absentminded. It was, indeed, flawless once again, somehow repairing itself having, most likely, saved her life. The barbs on the arrow heads would have torn her flesh to pieces. The bodkin would have pierced deep into her chest. If not for this ancient armour that she had hated wearing from the start. Her own armour, good, strong Nord armour, would have been like paper against those arrows.

Now they gathered before the next set of doors, all of them looking at each other, wary of what they were to see beyond the them.

"I suppose we should get it over with?" Tilly, stood beside her, was fiddling with the pommel of one of her daggers. Nervous, fidgety. "I mean, it couldn't possibly be worse. Right?"

"You had to say it, didn't you?" She looked down at Tilly, a look of confusion crossing the dark elf's face. "Now you've said it, of course it's going to be worse. It's like calling the Prince of Madness' name. Now it has to be worse."

"It will be worse if it is worse. Not because it has been said." Itagaki was holding the Gem of Unison in her hands, turning it over and over with her fingers. She sounded calm, as she usually did, but even she seemed nervous.

"Let's do it then." Öenthir put her hand over Itagaki's, stopping her from fidgeting with the gem. "Together."

Once more, Itagaki held the gem towards the doors before them and the familiar clicks and whirrs and escaping steam came from the doors. Painstaking and slow, they began to open.

Revna, as she was always ready to do, stepped forward, holding her hammer at the ready. She looked through the widening gap of the doors and could already see that the next room was big and not empty. There was movement.

When the doors had opened to their fullest, she could see what had been moving. A metal construct, much like the first one they had seen in the room far back at the beginning of the Dwemer structure. Trundling around on some kind of ball instead of legs, a head that imitated a humanoid face, but with a crest of metal that swept backwards. Its arms did not end in 'hands' like the other, but in something that resembled a crossbow on one arm and a tube, or nozzle on the other.

Revna took no chances. She launched herself forward, swinging her hammer in an overhead arc and bringing it slamming down onto the metal creatures head with a resounding clang. It didn't fall. Its head listed to the side, the crest on its head dented almost double, but the thing still moved, rolling to the side and bringing the crossbow arm to bear on her.

There was a twang as the crossbow fired, flying up past Revna's face and taking a chunk from the tip of her ear. Now the others joined in. Itagaki dancing around the creature, slamming her hammers against its body. Tilly struck a dagger into the gaps of the ball it moved on.

Even without the use of the ball it still managed to stay upright, twisting the top half of its body independent of the bottom half. It brought its other arm around, pointing the nozzle at Itagaki's face, a drip of some kind of liquid falling from the tip.

"Duck!" Tilly couldn't reach Itagaki, but the Redguard heard and reacted. A little too slow.

There was a spark in the end of the nozzle and the a great gout of flame shot out from it, sending fire flying for about twenty feet from the construct. Itagaki had only begun to duck out of the way, but caught a glancing blow from the flames, turning away and screaming, holding her hands to her face, one side of her hair melted to frizzy ball-like strands. If it had been anyone else, their entire head would have been burnt to a crisp.