The Ebony Renegades (Skyrim)

chapter thirty six

He eventually finished off the dwarven centurion by slamming to circular war axes into its head and dropping it down the ground.

As he looked up at me he retrieved his war axes before walking towards me and the other three who were with me. "Gentu it's been a long time, old friend." He said as i recognized the voice of my old assistent. " Zed, is that really you?" I asked as i spotted the familiar bow Zepher on his back, Zed was with me when we met Katria and she gave him her bow after he broke his during the battle in the aetherium forge against The Forgemaster It made me smile seeing that bow in such pristine condition as we shook hands I could tell he had taken great care of It. " Zed these are three of my teammates. This is Yamma, Shadow-step, and Sabrina." I said the gesturing to the three behind me as Zed gave a nod at a gentle smile under his dwarven mail helmet. "It's a pleasure to meet you all, I'm happy to see that my old friend and fellow dwarven enthusiast is surrounded by good friends thank you for watching after him for so long and by the nine Gentu what the hell happened to your arm?" Zed asked pointing to my bandaged appendage I mentally scolded myself of course my old research partner would be the first to notice something was wrong. "Well we discovered a hidden dwarven ruin a little bit ago and as it so happens it seemed to be the research and design facility." I explained while Zed leaned up against the wall crossing his arms and listening. "Me and Yamma ended up fighting a dwarven colossus of all things along with its four dwarven centurion minions and that's where I got this big hammer on my back." I said as I reached over my back with my one good arm and pulled 'The Forge' off my back as it's aetherial blue internal circuitry started rotating as I wielded it in my one arm. " By the nine that is incredible, I've never even heard of an artifact like this what does it do? does it have any special properties?" Zed asked as I nodded and walked toward a scrap of dwarven metal from the dead dwarven centurian then placed it on the nearby table and started smashing it with the hammer before it inevitably molded into a fully fledged dwarven dagger with a couple dozen slams from the hammer. I noticed that this dwarven dagger was different from the standard dwarven daggers we've seen before. It was much slimmer to the more triangular profile of standard dwarven daggers it had a hollow spine for some strange reason but I couldn't deny that a dagger of this style had more practical use it would enter an exit a body avoiding the vacuum inside of a living creature allowing one to pull the dagger cleanly out much easier. Then I had an idea since we were right down in the depths of one of the four settlements that had access to Blackreach and not ten feet away from us was an elevator that went down to Blackreach and I just so happened to have my dwarven pickaxe at my side I wondered would this hammer allow me to craft aethereum weapons. I decided to put that theory to the test as I walked towards the elevator the other three who were with me along with Zed followed close behind as I put the Attunement Sphere into the resonator the stairway opened up as I start walking down the stairs with the other four following close behind as I opened the door directly in front of me at the bottom of the stairs. Once we opened the door we were met with the damp aroma from Blackreach accompanied by those tall mushrooms that lightly swayed in the wind and directly in front of us with a couple chunks of aethereum right in front of us. I started with the few chunks that were nearby the door. " Shadow-step, Zed can you two cover me from above with your bows? make sure I don't get interrupted by any falmer surprise attacks?" I asked as Shadow-step nodded before climbing up one of the mushrooms and quietly wrapping his tail around the stalk and suspending himself slightly with his nightingale bow out. Meanwhile said pulled Zephyr off of his back housing two dwarven arrows in his bow string and standing at my side while Sabrina pulled out her twins scimitars and Yamma pulled off volendrung as I pulled my Dwarven pickaxe off of my side and brought the tooth of the pickaxe down onto the shiny deposit of aetherium to my delight the dwarven pickaxe cleaved clean through it separating the pieces into manageable sizes, I was quite pleased to see how well it mined aetherium and I knew somewhere on the other side Katria was watching and she had a big grin on her face. I wasn't greedy and chopped an entire Mountain I only mined enough to get like five or six pieces since I didn't plan on making an entire armor set for the whole group at least not until I was comfortable with forging aethereum items. The only real experience I have with aetherium was when I was with Katria and Zed back in the aetherium forge. Once I had enough of the shiny blue rocks I put them in my bag before gesturing everybody to head back towards the door since we had gotten what we came for. Once we had ascended the steps back into the main room I led them to the left where the elevator was I subconsciously reached over and rubbed the skeletal remains of my arm remembering the last time I had to use one of these things. Once all five of us were on top of the lift we took the lift up to the surface. Once we made it to the service I flipped the lever immediately in front of me lowering the gate that closed off the lift from the outside we walked out onto the snowy path and we then proceeded to head east with Zed following us since apparently he left his horse in a similar place climbing up the side of the cliffside we slid down the snowy slope down into the formally occupied bandit camp as we made our way through the courtyard passing the corpses of the bandits with zed retrieving his dwarven arrows and putting them back in his quiver. As we finally made our way back to where we had our horses parked I climbed up onto my dwarven horse as Shadow-step, Yamma, and Sabrina climbed on to theirs. Just as Zed climbed onto his dark brown horse we exchanged a few more words before we parted ways. " So where are you heading next old friend?" I asked as Zed looked up from tightening his saddle. " I think I'm going to go to Markarth and visit Calcelmo it's been awhile since I talked to the old geezer."  I nodded before giving him a satchel to deliver to him from me. " in that case would you mind delivering this to him? Tell him this is the research paper that I did on the dwarven ruin we visited recently." Zed nodded giving me a firm handshake before he rode off towards Markarth as we made our way back to Fort Dunstad.