With the night still being quite young I soon found myself strolling through my underground foundry. Its tall metal-reinforced ceilings only served to increase the echoing noise from the dozens upon dozens of different machines working all over the place even if today the great workshop still felt far quieter than usual.
Only two elves were present within, both of them mere apprentices to Edrassa, as the rest were already making their way to the suspected entrance of the Aetherium Forge. They both offered quick bows in greeting and quickly returned to whatever it was they were fiddling with. Besides, they were only ever entrusted with basic repairs and maintenance and I wasn't about to bother looking over their shoulders when I had more interesting things to check on.
A good chunk of the place was occupied with the more traditional automatons, mass produced to be used and thrown away by my forces or to gather resources where hard labor was usually required. A couple of the immigrants grumbled when I told them I did not have many positions open for them in the mines but I wasn't about to go out of my way to be inefficient just to not hurt a couple of peoples' livelihoods.
They got some basic training for free in other fields anyways.
What occupied the most space, however, were the numerous boilers, pipes, and forges, many of which were in differing stages of development. All kinds of prototypes were haphazardly littered in between the actual working projects with even the basic ideas of a steam locomotive and an airship gathering dust somewhere in a corner.
They were quite literally placeholders though, as much as I may would have liked to take the time and dedicate myself to making them for real it was just time that I didn't have. I had to focus on developing my ability to murder things and things were sadly going to remain as such for a long while yet I suspected.
Though the oncoming apocalypse did not stop me from indulging in a bit of vanity research when it came to things that truly mattered.
And what was so important that I would waste time so blatantly? One might find themselves asking.
Running water and toilets, of course!
Living in a fantasy world is all kinds of fun until you find yourself using public latrines and having to carry your water around in buckets. True, I could probably circumvent all of that with magic but fuck to that I say! No people of mine are going to be cursed with the stench of medieval cities, I would have civilization or I would have death!
Was it completely scuffed for me to be using the ancient knowledge of the deep elves to reverse engineer a nice smelling shitter?
Absolutely.
Would I do it all over again for a convenience?
Fuck yes.
Shaking my head at my idiotic internal monologue I finally reached my destination.
Awaiting me within a secluded workshop, locked behind a tonal key, was a large stationary silhouette fully forged from ebony and towering a good two meters above me. It was made to vaguely resemble an armored Dunmeri knight with my own personal spin on it and looked exactly as intimidating as I had planned, which was very.
With a flick of my hand, Mzark's cube appeared in my grasp and started to twist around rhythmically, its internal components singing out their own quiet song as it did.
Letting out a low hum, a barely perceptible sound to most, I started guiding the parts around, slowly making the box unravel almost to the point of completely unlocking it.
I understood the little tunes and what they wished to say, the magic of the Dwemer or more precisely tonal architecture was not a terribly complex thing in application, it was essentially a higher form of alteration and transmutation which allowed someone to make certain parts of a thing work in concert to produce some kind of effect.
A rudimentary and at the same time highly advanced form of programming utilizing the power sound held within Mundus to produce an effect if you will.
Any idiot could make a bunch of components and make them spin in funky and interesting ways, but enforcing your will upon an unliving thing and making it commit to a purpose was a far more daunting proposition.
Sure it was perfectly doable with enchantment, it had to be ridiculously complex and slurped down power like a motherfucker, but it could be done and that was indeed how most of my automata worked to begin with.
Even my poor, beloved Gatecrasher was but an enchanted facsimile of a true animonculus, glorious as it was.
But tonal architecture I found, was a whole another beast in its entirety. The sheer complexity and efficiency it granted someone when it came to imbuing objects was quite literally out of this world, it effectively allowed me to program something to understand and execute highly complex commands without me even needing to say anything with the right connection.
Its only true downside is that it took immense concentration and patience, with a very big emphasis on the tone used when 'casting' the magic by way of humming or specialized tuning forks. Lucky me Dagoths had an affinity for sound in general so I could bruteforce my way through learning the proper hum instead of being limited to mere copies.
And so naturally, I took it to its logical conclusion... and extreme.
Before me stood what was effectively an entire library's worth of enchantments, carved into the comparatively tiny figure of a mere four meters tall of crystalized divine blood. The intended 'programing' was enough to create a very convincing facsimile of a person and make it a complete monstrosity when in combat, that being its true purpose.
This would be my master work, my final step in understanding the teachings of Mzark and my first step outside of his teachings at the same time, a momentous occasion even by Dwemer standards.
All that was left to complete my master work was a power source.
I touched the automaton and it disappeared into my storage.
-------------------------------
"Are you sure you don't need help?" Minthara asked again as we exited Tel Dagoth the following morning.
Twirling a trio of amulets in my hand I shook my head "No need to worry yourself, if the trio of cunts managed to hurt me in any way I will literally eat my dagger."
She makes a mildly disgusted expression "Isn't your dagger a Daedric artifact?"
"Yup." I give her a thumbs up.
She just shakes her head, exasperated.
"You just focus on resting and leave the adventuring to me for now." I change the topic "I will be back in a day or three so go and bother Krein or something." I make a shooing motion, obviously joking.
Her eye twitches and she flips me off.
"I am afraid I am not that easy." I wink and activate the teleport spell.
The instant I appeared just outside of Markarth, I immediately teleported up and above the clouds, my wings already unfurled as I began flying south east and toward a seemingly unassuming cave.
An hour or so later I landed half a hold away, still smiling due to the pleasant flight.
"Woe." Scorch appears on my shoulder as we enter the cave which was our destination "I have been replaced."
"Oh you poor dear." I coo sarcastically.
"At least you didn't try the superhero landing this time." He shudders "Even I felt that one."
"You just can't appreciate my refined sense of adventure." I raise my nose with a pompous huff.
Scorch covers his beak with one of his wings "Maybe your refined ass could look where he was going?" He half warns half mocks.
I just stare at him as I walk off the cliff in front of me and continue walking on the air by way of levitation, completely ignoring the magnificent sight around me.
With a roll of his eyes he decides to unsummon himself, leaving me to get a good look at the place.
The cave was a vast, vaguely circular thing, filled with anything from moss to straight up trees and lit by numerous holes in its ceiling. It was almost like an underground nature preserve, or it would have been if not for the large platform in its center connected to a bridge which led to an old Nordic sealing gate.
Upon the platform was a small slab of stone housing the usual claw keyhole.
I probably had a couple of them sitting in my storage and did make sure to take the ones I felt were necessary for this place, but for once I felt like experimenting a bit. The last time I tried manually unlocking a Nordic tomb I found myself rebuffed quite easily, but that was ages ago and I felt it in my gut that things would be different this time.
And so I placed my hand upon the keyhole and closed my eyes, allowing my magic to get a feel for the entire enchantment holding the place under lockdown. It did not take me long to detect the parts which would receive the claws and then determine if it was the proper key or not.
I could have opened the gates then and there but I was quite curious as to how the whole enchantment worked so I dove even deeper than that. There were a few defensive mechanisms which tried to burn my mind or curse me as I delved into the magic of this place, but they were so ancient and eroded that I did not need to so much as twitch to resist them completely, and mere moments later I had found what I was looking for.
And barely held myself back from starting to shatter the place out of sheer disgust.
A bunch of souls, willing or unwilling, were imprisoned below the ruins and were being used to both ward them and lock them down, their identities having long since disappeared with only their purpose yet remaining.
With a gentleness I did not feel, I grasped the center of the ward and then slowly unraveled it, setting the souls free and unlocking the way forward.
The gate before me lowered, opening the way to another gate, and another, and another... twenty entire gates guarded the way into the tomb of Archmage Gauldur.
"Quite a dramatic bunch, eh?" I ask aloud and shake my head, walking in with a pep in my step.
Before I entered the final chamber I activated my third eye, directing it with my soul for the first time, and immediately I was bombarded with a bunch of images overlapping with each other.
Thankfully, my mind was strong enough to understand at least a part of what it meant and I quickly found myself coming up with a cunning plan.
(General POV)
Before their foolish guest could enter their disturbed prison, the three Gauldurssons made agreement to face him together. The interloper's foolish meddling had given them the opportunity for freedom and now he was the only thing still standing between them and the mayhem they yet yearned to spread onto the world.
The interloper's approach came with a wave of power the trio had not felt even from their father but they steeled themselves and prepared for battle.
Or at least they thought it to be a mere wave of power and not a massive terramancy spell, made even more effective by the sudden lack of wards
As the masked figure of their guest entered, all three of the brothers moved in for the attack... and quickly found themselves so in a rather unfortunate position.
Sigdis drew his bow and loosed, purposefully missing to draw the elf's attention and quickly teleporting to another spot, directly behind his target, and going to shoot yet another arrow, or at least he tried to as he found his head slamming into a stalactite that wasn't there before, sending him tumbling down without an immediate ability to react.
Mirkul tried charging his foe but found himself tripped by a an entire row of spiked rocks which swiftly mangled his foot and sent him sprawling forward.
Jyrik swung his staff forcefully, incidentally impaling it on a spear of iron sticking out of a nearby wall, recoiling to free himself he slammed his head into a rocky outcropping behind him, also ending up falling forward like his brothers.
All this happened in less than a second.
(Reyvin's POV)
"Game, set and match, bitches." I grin and with a fanciful twirl I summon Magnus' staff into my hand, pointing it at them and channeling my nascent divinity into the spell, blasting the bundled trio of half Draugr half specters with a mix of divine denial and some plain old sacred sunlight.
And just like that they were gone in a flash.
"Aight, I admit, that was pretty cool." Scorch pats my very spiked helm with his wing and hisses in pain when he realizes what he was doing.
But I was too busy staring at a certain figure to even bother paying attention to the bird boi, for on the other end of the chamber stood the specter of an ancient looking bearded Nord, gazing at me with a mix of sadness and appreciation.
"We meet at last, Gauldur." I greet him with a grin.
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!ENOTS EROM sdnamed draoh ehT
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