Through the Eye of the Machine

30th of Fostfall

It has been a long long past few days.  We left the mill heading onward.  A messenger was dispatched to the Jarl to say  Gilfre is dead.  The mill shut down.

But for now the staff of Magnus is calling me onward. Putting the mill behind us, the road was muddy and treacherous given the amount of rain that was falling.  The river was swollen and the crossing proved difficult and dangerous.  On the ridges above the river we spotted a dragon in the distance and ducked into a nearby cave for shelter only to find ourselves confronted by giant spider.

I hate spiders, giant or otherwise.  The cave proved rich in moonstone.

After what I thoughts was sufficient time, we left the cave heading east among the rough terrain.  We were attacked by a hedge witch, who Lidia slew handily.

The dragon still found us.  Bow fire wounded the animal and it flew off to attack a giant who was nearby.  That was a giant mistake, for the dragon.  Dusk was near, so after waiting for it to grow dark I approached to body to harvest bone, and found I also harvested its power.  So I do not have to slay the dragon myself for its power to come to me. I have learned something new about being "dragonborn".

We overnighted with some hunter in the area and the next morning headed for the ruins of Mufti have been given a general idea of their location from the local hunters.  There proved to be a direct approach from the road.

Immediately inside the dwarven halls we found indications all was not in order.  A mage, from the Citadel it would appear, was dying.  His journal indicated he was one of a number of researchers in the ruins who were trying to do sort of binding with a crystal.  What could they be binding?  With what crystal?

We found a second dead mage.  Perhaps killed by the same strange spider like metal things that attacked Lidia and myself.

Did I say I hate spiders - of all kinds?

The we were attacked by a Charus. I see signs they may be prolific in the ruins and caverns of the mountain.

We discovered a third dead mage and raw dog meat on a nearby table.  Does this indicate they were afraid to try to move outside to hunt?

Then a fourth dead mage.  And a trap, rockfall, not sure if trying to keep something in or something out.

Rising up into the mountain we made our way through the halls of the ruin, though much of the machinery works - to mysterious purpose.  We came under attack by some metal ball man, the first of several such attacks.  Its attacks were predictable but strong.

Then we found a dead Falmer, a blind cave elf.  More animal than elf.  Near the end of this section of ruins we found remains of metal spiders and signs of Falmer activity.  Great.

But Falmer make good souls to harvest, so I unwrapped by blade "Soul slayer"  She drank deep in those halls.  The bloody Falmer had mages.  On several occassions I had to resort to my Orcfire blade.  I almost lost Lidia. She was gravely wounded and I had to expend a great deal of energy and strength in healing her.

Deep in the Falmer area we found another mage, a woman, laying dead inside the hut of a Falmer.  I tremble to think what happened there.

Soon we made our way back into the halls of the Dwarf ruin and I discovered a locked room with a key and ring of power.

It was near middle night. Lidia and I split the watch and grabbed sleep up at the second bell (known in the south as the seventh hour).  It was the 29th of Fostfall.  We worked all day to find our way through those twisted halls.  Our way was blocked at times by rockfalls and caveins and we'd have to backtrack and try another way.  By the time of dusken (the 18th hour in the south) I began to think we had found the inner halls deep inside and near the top of the mountain.  We had to slay a Falmer mage who had a strange crystal object on him.  I took it for further study.  Deeper in we found locked door.  I couldn't pick it.  It took a long while to find the key, but it finally turned up.  It was late so Lidia and I turned in for the evening up at the hour before dawning on the 30th of Fostfall.

The key worked and we found a dead Falmer inside the hall.  At its end another locked door, but this time a voice.  A mage opened door, and then seeing we were not who he expected he attacked us.  But when he soon realized outclassed him he submitted and we both discovered it was a misunderstanding.  His name was Paratus and he said he was a member of the Synod of the Citadel doing research. In our conversation he was delighted to discover I had a focusing crystal.   He walked Lidia and I up and showed us an ancient huge round machine of the dwarves designed to capture the light of stars.

The crystal worked and after adjusting the machine the image of Tamriel was manifest by the light on nearby wall.  Paratus was amazed because it did not show what he expected.  But rather two sources of bright light appeared on the map - one in the college and another to its west in what may be other ruins.  Paratus claimed this demonstrated the college had something of great power.  I wouldn't confirm anything for him and in his effort to get information out of me released that the machine was supposed to have shown all the sources of magical power in the north, but that these two were so powerful it was drowning out all others.  When I refused to say more, he threated that the council would take action and made his leave.  Maybe I should have killed him, but I was once the Archmage of the Citadel.  He didn't know me, but he was once one of mine.  I almost laughed when he had asked me if I was aware of the wonderful sky device in the Citadel that projected the heavens and tracked their movements.  He had no way of knowing how many hours I had spent in meditation there, especially after my brother of the blades was killed at Bruma, God rest his soul. Maybe I let him live too because I lay to rest in humble graves to aspiring mages of the Citadel at that battle in Bruma.  So much blood.

Lidia and I made our way out of the ruins with out event, twisting and turning our way back.  Outside I was uncertain as to my path.  Push north for the college.  Return to Winterrun to find out what was happening that a friend had died.


I was tired.  I decided instead to head west for a town called something like Iverness to see if I can discover if my distant family is still there.