18
i. Öenthir.
At first nothing happened and all the companions glanced at each other with questioning faces. Then the lighting changed from the mellow, sun-like colour to a harsh red that flicked on and off at regular intervals. The door to the outside began to rise and Revna almost dashed to try and keep it open, but stopped by a calming hand on her shoulder by Itagaki.
The noises began, then, as soon as the door closed. The sound of metal grinding on metal, of steam being set free. The metallic clicking sound came more often and louder. And then the floor moved, the thick gears at the side of the room began to turn and the whole floor began to descend.
Slow, at first, and with increasing speed, the floor and the companions descended, past the footprint of the building and down, down, down leaving the building in the distance far above them.
Öenthir tried to calculate how far down they were going, but the rate of descent and the flashing red lights that would appear every few feet at the side of the shaft began to make her feel nauseated. She closed her eyes, still trying to count the seconds.
By the time the descent ended, she found that she had instinctively moved back to the centre of the moving floor and had clasped the arm of the first person she could find.
"It's alright." It was the dark elf's voice and her hand that patted her own. "You can open your eyes. We've stopped."
They had, indeed, stopped and she pulled her hand away from the dark elf, opening her eyes.
The lights had returned to the colour that they had been, revealing a long corridor ahead of them made from the same metal and stone as the building above. On the ceiling, two thick pipes led off into the distance.
"Any idea how far down we came?" The first to step off the platform that had lowered them down here, Itagaki surveyed their surroundings.
"Hundreds of feet." She stared upwards into the shaft they had come down, but there was nothing but blackness above now. "I can't be more specific. It was difficult to keep track."
"More importantly, can we get back up?" The dark elf had, as usual, hit upon the most burning question. "There's little point putting ourselves at risk if we can't get out to take the last gem back, is there?"
Öenthir looked at the dark elf to make a point that she still wasn't talking to her. At least, not as she had before. She looked around the walls and found what she was looking for, another lever, exactly the same as the one upstairs.
"Hypothetically, yes." She aimed the answer to the other two.
"Then let's find this Onzngknd and give him his damned gem back." Revna swung the Argonian hammer onto her shoulder and began to walk down the corridor.
Distance, in the corridor, was difficult to gauge, but Öenthir believed they had walked for almost a mile before they found anything other than the enormous long corridor. To the left, they found a door with grill viewport at about Itagaki's head height. On tip-toes, she could about see inside.
It was a small room that had various banks of switches, levers and knobs set against the walls. The strangest thing, though, was the metal creature that trundled from one bank of switches to another, twisting knobs, flipping switches in some set pattern.
Öenthir found herself fascinated by the contraption. Wondering how it moved on the ball at its base. What is was powered by. What it was actually doing. Her curiosity may never end by such a thing and she had to drag herself away. All of this she could explore later, one day, as soon as they had finished the task and saved the Jarl's daughter.
Whether the contraption had seen them or not, she couldn't tell. It hadn't so much as looked over towards the door and, for certain, had made no move towards it. It was possible it had not seen them, or did not consider them a threat. Regardless, if the rest of this Dwemer tomb was half as docile, this could be the easier of the two tombs they had encountered.
"How much further can this hall go?" As impatient as ever to get to some kind of fighting, Revna was becoming annoyed. "If it goes on for much longer, maybe we should have brought down more supplies with us."
"There's no way of knowing." She tried to placate the Khajiit. "It can't be too much further before we find something."
"What supplies did we all bring?" It should have been something that Itagaki would have thought about sooner and Öenthir could see the Redguard felt annoyed with herself for it taking this long before she considered it. "I have my water skin and perhaps a day's worth of salted meat strips."
"Same." Revna replied.
"I have water." The dark elf shrugged. "Well, half of what I had. It's been a long walk."
"I have some food and spare water in my satchel, but I don't know how long it will last." She watched as Itagaki considered this.
"We should continue. If it starts looking like this place is too big to continue without more rations, we go back. Agreed?" There was a series of nods towards Itagaki and Öenthir added her own.
If push came to shove, she could always summon her rain cloud for water, but food, down here, could be very scarce. Metal environments were not well known to house animal life. At least, not the kind of animals that are generally considered edible.
There were only two options; continue on, or turn back. Neither Itagaki or Revna were the kind of people that abandoned things well, although, as warriors, they understood the benefits of retreat. The dark elf would, most like, turn back now, if she could, but her concerns for that woman ended there. As far as Öenthir felt concerned, if it wasn't for the binding, the dark elf could have run away weeks ago.
And so they continued on, following the seeming endless, almost featureless corridor to whatever there was at the end. She only hoped they found something soon.
ii. Itagaki.
The length of the corridor was becoming monotonous with nothing to show whether it was going anywhere or if there was an end at all. She paid serious consideration to turning around, to return to the surface and get their full set of supplies. The last thing they needed was finding themselves caught far from the entrance without any food or water.
"What is the point of this?" The dark elf had kept up with them, but she seemed to be tiring more than the rest of them. She leaned against the metal wall and took a drink from her water skin. "Why not just have the entrance near the actual tomb? This is ridiculous."
"Maybe it's to discourage tomb robbers?" Revna stood beside the dark elf, worrying as usual. "If you were a tomb robber and faced this journey, wouldn't you give it up as a waste of time?"
"With a chance of gold and riches at the end?" Accepting the Khajiit's offered hand, the dark elf stood upright again. "Not bloody likely."
Öenthir made a derisive snort at the dark elf's money grabbing ways. She had continued on up the corridor for a short distance, staring ahead, tilting her head a slight. She clutched her new staff with both hands, leaning against it.
"The light is different." She looked back over her shoulder. "Down there. I think we're close to something. A junction, or a room."
"Then we had better go see." Itagaki adjusted her grip on the Argonian hammers she carried. They were heavier than her swords and, even with the amount she had practiced with them, they were difficult to carry. "If it is nothing significant, I think we should turn back and get properly supplied."
"Aye. That's probably for the best." Revna gave a light-hearted back hand tap against the dark elf's arm, almost knocking her over. "Especially as this idiot didn't bring anything."
"How was I supposed to know we'd be walking down the longest tunnel in the world?" She hit Revna with a hard, retaliatory punch that didn't appear to even register on the Khajiit's face. "I'm sorry. I didn't think."
"It is not your fault." Despite her feelings about the dark elf, she would not torture the woman with false guilt. "None of us could have anticipated this. Let us check what it is that Wen has seen."
Once again, they started forward. They continued on for another four or five hundred yards. The distance was difficult to calculate. Soon they reached what Öenthir had seen, a right hand turn that seemed to be there for no other reason than for a change of pace, except, ahead, there was another turn, to the left.
With caution, they moved forward. Itagaki placed her back against the wall and glanced around the edge of the left-hand turn and then stepped out. The others followed and soon saw what she had found. A door.
Finally, after what seemed like miles, they had found something different. She made a close examination of the door, but couldn't see any of the markings that they had found on the door on the surface, so she presumed that this did not have a combination lock. She looked towards Öenthir and the wood elf stepped forward.
"No magicka, again. Maybe there's a switch?" She looked around the edges of the doorway and then saw the dark elf leaning against something. "Something like that."
The dark elf turned around, lifting herself away from the wall and, there, where she had been leaning, was a small glowing protrusion from the surface of the wall. The dark elf looked at them all, shrugged, and then pressed the button.
Unlike the door on the surface, which opened downwards, and slow, this door split into two pieces that each shot into the sides of the door frame with hissing whoosh. Beyond the doorway was only darkness. All that they could see was a few feet of the floor lit by the light from the corridor.
Revna shifted the weight of her new Argonian hammer in her hands and began to move forward into the doorway. As soon as she set foot beyond the door, lights began to flicker on in the darkness and they all heard an audible gasp erupt from the Khajiit.
"Shor's bones." Revna muttered to herself in a state of semi-shock.
They had emerged, through the door, into an immense cavern, stretching far above them and dropping far, far below them. The cavern seemed made partly from some kind of natural cave, with some parts reinforced with stone and the strange Dwarven metal that they had found almost everywhere through the corridor. Lights, exactly like the ones in the corridor and the building on the surface but larger, hung at exact intervals around the sides of the cavern and at similar intervals going upwards and down into the depths.
They found themselves on some kind of landing with no barrier between them and the steep drop beyond. The landing led to a descending walkway made from sections of the Dwarven metal, about ten feet across and twenty feet long, hugging the sides of the cavern but seeming not attached to anything but each other.
The walkway spiralled downwards to a bottom that they could not gain clean sight of, far below them.
"Well, I don't know about anybody else, but I'm impressed." The dark elf, without an ounce of fear, leaned over the edge, her hands on her knees, staring down.
iii. Tilly.
She felt useless. The others all had something that they could contribute to this part of their expedition, but she had nothing but her wits and an ever expanding hoard of daggers and knives. One she had 'found' in the Argonian village was the sweetest. Carved in its entirety from some kind of bone.
If what the others had told her was true about the kinds of things they could find, down here in this metallic place, her daggers and knives would be as useless as using her hands. Creatures made of metal with no blood to spill and no muscles to slice? What can a dagger do against them?
Nevertheless, she followed them down into the depths of this sprawling Dwemer construction, hoping that she could, at least, stay out of the way if things became hairy.
"I think I can see the bottom." She had, once again, stared over the edge of the spiralling walkway. She wasn't afraid of the height. It was the sudden stop at the end of a fall that would concern her if she fell.
"I'll take your word for it." The Khajiit had almost hugged the side of the walkway that was closest to the wall. Tilly would have laughed, but it was quite adorable that the big Khajiit, afraid of no creature, first into battle as often as she could be, recoiled at the thought of high falls.
"Are either of your gems doing anything?" She asked of Revna and, by implication, Itagaki. "Like Wen's in the other place. Glowing? Making a noise? Anything?"
Revna reached under her 'Scorpion Black' armour and pulled out a small pouch. She loosened the drawstring, opened it and tipped out the gem into the palm of her hand. The gem was dark and lifeless. Revna shook her head and replaced the gem into its bag and the bag back under her armour.
Itagaki had taken out her gem. It, too, appeared to be devoid of any life. She turned to continue down the walkway, starting to put the gem away as she moved.
"Wait!" Öenthir put her hand on the Redguard's arm, stopping her from replacing the gem. "I saw something. Move it around in different directions."
The Redguard held up the gem and pointed it one way. Nothing happened. She tried two other directions and still nothing happened, until she pointed it in the last direction when a very dim glow began a slow pulse, within the gem. She moved it away and it stopped, then back to see the glow begin to pulse again. She pointed the gem downwards in the same direction and the glow grew a slight brighter. The pulse, a slight faster.
"We have a compass." Itagaki smiled at Öenthir, even though it had been Tilly's idea.
She didn't care. To know that she had thought of something the others hadn't was enough for her. Well, she did care. Only a little. But, as Itagaki and Öenthir continued walking down the spiralling path, it was Revna that acknowledged her ingenuity.
"Good work, little elf." She didn't even shrug the Khajiit's arm away when she placed it over Tilly's shoulder and squeezed. "I would never have thought of that."
"Of course you wouldn't!" She even smiled at Revna. "You're just a big dumb cat."
And there it was again, that high, musical laugh of the Khajiit. A laugh that almost shined and didn't seem possible from someone so large. It was quite sweet, in its own way. Revna clapped her hand on Tilly's shoulder and moved to follow the others, still laughing.
It wasn't long before they finally reached the bottom of the spiral walkway, finding themselves in a circular area that had four doors leading from it. The gem, in Itagaki's hand glowed when pointed towards one door.
There was no viewport in this door and no handle with which to open it. Standing to the side, nodding at Revna to see if she was ready, she pushed at the door which swung inward.
But there was nothing there. It was a small room with pipes along the walls and odd looking crates and boxes stacked, haphazard, in the corner. Itagaki opened one of the crates and picked up one of the contents, a small, thin arrow-like thing.
"Crossbow bolts?" The Redguard held it up to show Revna.
"Too thin for a crossbow bolt." She took one out of the crate herself and turned it over, examining it up close. "Too short for a normal arrow. And look, notches in the shaft. I have no idea what could fire this."
Tilly opened up another crate and found bottles of some kind, full and heavy with a convex bottom bulging out. She broke the seal and sniffed the contents.
"Oil." She tipped some out onto her fingers and rubbed them together. "Too thin for lamps, though. It'd burn far too quickly and too hot, I should reckon. What is all this stuff for?"
They returned to the circular area to find that Öenthir had been checking the other doors, without help, like a fool. Luckily, two of the other doors led to similar sized rooms with similar contents of pipes, crates and boxes.
"This fourth door seems to be locked." Tilly could tell that Öenthir didn't want to, but the mage looked at her, inquiring.
With a sigh, Tilly moved to the door and began examining it. There was no lock that she could find. Likewise, at the sides, or above, she could find no switch or lever to facilitate opening the door. The only thing that was incongruous was a slight, shallow indentation in the centre. An indentation that was about the same size as the gem Itagaki carried.
"This is for you." Tilly stepped aside and waved Itagaki forward. "In the centre. Touch your gem to it."
Itagaki did so, slow and with care, touching the gem to the indentation. It glowed, brief and bright, and then dimmed again as they heard the sound of bolts shifting within the door. Finally, with a click, the door swung open revealing a short corridor, about thirty feet in length before it turned to the right.
The thing that caught the attention of all of them, though, was the cluster of about twenty, at a quick count, strange, spider-like metal things, about the size of mid-sized dogs, that lined the sides of the walls.
"Bugger me!" She exclaimed to herself.
iv. Revna.
She stepped forward, in front of Tilly and Öenthir, her big Argonian hammer at the ready. She was ready to start swinging that hammer like there was no tomorrow. A sword or an axe would be almost useless against these metal things if they attacked.
"Why aren't they moving?" It was Öenthir, making a foolish attempt to step around the Khajiit's big frame. Revna put her arm out, stopping the mage from going any further.
"Are they dead?" Tilly now looked around Revna to get a better look.
"They are creatures of metal." Itagaki held her two smaller hammers at the ready. "I do not think they can be called alive or dead."
The Redguard stepped forward, cautious, slow, staring at the nearest 'spider'. It didn't move. Even as she stood beside it and crouched down, trying to get a closer look. She looked up at Revna, her eyebrows rising in question.
Revna shook her head and shrugged her shoulders at the silent inquiry. She had never encountered a Dwemer creation. She had heard of them, of course. Skyrim had several recorded Dwemer ruins, it was possible the hard to reach valleys and passes of the region's mountains held more, but she, herself, had never been even near one.
Itagaki stood again, making slow movements. Taking each step as quiet and precise as she could, she moved further down the corridor, passing each spider, concentrating for the slightest movement. She finally reached the turning point of the corridor and looked down it before turning her head back.
"There is another door and more of these things." Her whisper seemed to echo louder than it should in the confines of the corridor. "I will try to open it."
She disappeared around the corner and it was all Revna could do not to run after her, smashing anything metal she could lay the head of her hammer on. Every second the Redguard was out of sight felt like an hour. She could tell that both Tilly and Öenthir were feeling tense, too. The binding sharing what the mage was feeling and Tilly toying with one of her daggers, flicking and turning it in her hand in an absentminded fashion.
It seemed to take too long and Revna was about to follow Itagaki when the Redguard reappeared around the corner. She waved her hand for them to follow her. Revna turned to the other two.
"One at a time. Move quickly but carefully." She held their eyes to drive the point home. "Do not stop moving. For any reason. Wen, you first."
Nervous, her eyes wide, the wood elf stepped through the doorway. She began moving forward, head turning from side to side as she passed each spider. Revna tried to urge her to move faster, but the mage did gain speed as she got closer to the turn in the corridor. She must have seen Itagaki, as she turned the corner, her face showing strained relief, and she disappeared from sight.
"My turn, then." Tilly patted Revna's arm and squeezed it. "For luck."
With a thieve's grace, Tilly moved up the corridor like a shadow creeping along a wall. Her feet made no sound and stepped with such care and speed that Revna could do nothing but admire her skill.
There was a click. It seemed to be far louder than it should have sounded. Revna immediately glared at each spider in the corridor, but none seemed to have moved. It was then, in her peripheral vision, she saw the door swinging closed. It must have been set to close after a certain amount of time.
Without thinking, she jumped through the doorway before Tilly had reached the turn in the corridor, missing the door as it closed by less than an inch. It was unfortunate, then, that her unanticipated movement caused her to touch the nearest spider with her foot.
She tensed, staring at the spider, intent, focussed, willing it not to move.
At first, nothing happened and Revna believed she may have got away with it, but then one of the spider's legs raised and fell with a metallic click upon the floor. Another raised leg followed and clicked as it fell again. Then the next spider in line raised a leg then returned it to the floor. And the next spider and the next.
"Run." Revna whispered too loud as she stared at the spiders. She then raised her head to see Tilly had stopped and turned to look at her. She raised her voice. "Run!"
The spiders had begun moving, now. The sound of small gears turning, clicking of metallic legs hitting the floor, a strange wheezing sound all came as they moved, turning, almost as one, towards both Revna and Tilly.
Revna had no idea how these metal spiders could attack, but the one nearest to her, the one she had knocked, appeared to 'look' up at her as if it was aiming. She brought her hammer down upon the top of its casing, sending its legs sprawling beneath it, a great dent in its top. It sparked and 'wheezed', but its legs still jerked and twitched.
She didn't waste any more time. Holding her hammer with one hand, she began to race through the awakening spiders, slamming into the wall at the turn of the corridor. She made a quick recovery and started to run again. She could see her friends through the next doorway urging her onwards as spider legs nipped at her heels, but there was also one spider that had moved to the centre of the corridor, standing in her way.
She didn't stop running. With a mad, one-handed swing, she smashed the hammer into the spider, sending it flying through the doorway, almost hitting the heads of her friends. Bursting through the doorway, she trusted her friends to close the door after her and, drawing the hammer high into the air, brought it down, full force, with a great howl upon the metallic body of the spider she had hit, sending legs, gears and other pieces flying away from it.
Spinning around, she readied her hammer again, but her friends had not disappointed her. The door had closed and the sound of the spiders' ineffective thumping against the door was far more welcome than the spiders following her through.
"It had to be you." Tilly, her back against the door was grinning at Revna. "You great clod!"
"Aye, well we can't all be as agile as a thief, can we?" Revna winked at the dark elf. "Is everybody else all right?"
"We are well, my friend." Itagaki patted Revna on her back. "Get your breath back. I think we shall need it."
Revna hadn't taken the time to look around, but she did now. They had emerged into a large, long room, the majority of which held a large stretch of water. Presumably for the steam that they had heard hissing through the pipes throughout this bunker.
A bridge across the water had collapsed, or someone had destroyed it, and now only one section on either end remained.
Revna moved to the water's edge and dipped her hand into the water with care.
"Warm, but not hot." She shook the water from her hand and then gave a pained look towards Itagaki. "We're going to have to swim, aren't we?"
She groaned to herself. She hated swimming.