HP: Sacred Gear Chat Group (2) - Chapter 34 (Patreon)

Chapter 34 - Blackreach

“YOL TOOR SHUL!” Agnar let out a loud bellow as he exhaled a continuous burst of burning-hot dragonflame at the Dwemer Centurion, a large mechanical Dwemer automaton completely dedicated to combat. The flames melted its outer hull before Agnar finished it off with his two-handed Nordic battle axe.

At the same moment, my own Centurion, which I had trapped inside an Earth Fortress Spell I like to call Earth Forge, melted in the flames I was blasting into the enclosed forge.

“Yes! Now that’s what I’ve been talking about! I love a good battle, not sitting around all day while you poke at that blasted box Lady Leonie handed you before we parted.” Agnar laughed as the Centurion crumbled in front of him. He then began skillfully removing the Soul Gem and Dynamo Core from inside it before dragging the remains toward me.

“I said I am sorry. But this is a unique opportunity that will be hard to come by!” I apologized once again as I did the same to the molten remains of my own Centurion.

An important detail about Dwemer Automatons is that they don’t work if you remove the Soul Gem and Dynamo Core, as those are the power generators of the Dwemer Animunculi, or simply Automatons.

“Those Dwemer... they’re truly something,” Agnar commented admiringly as he watched me use Reparo on the Centurions, restoring their structures to perfection as if they had never been damaged, with only their power generators missing. I then stored them in my expanded bags.

Dwemer Centurions are among the rarest and, at the same time, some of the most advanced Automatons ever created, making them invaluable research resources.

“Gone for more than three thousand five hundred years, and their ruins are still crawling with their machines, guarding what they left behind. Aye, those were masters of their craft,” Agnar said admiringly as we moved into the next chamber. A Dwemer mechanism stood in its center.

“This is it, then? This is what we came all this way for? That machine we’re meant to find?”

“Huh? No, that’s the entrance.”

“What do you mean, this is the entrance?! We just fought our way through a damned Dwemer ruin! Automatons, Falmer, traps, and those Centurions were clearly the ones guarding the machine! It’s one of the largest ruins I’ve ever set foot in!” Agnar cried out in disbelief.

“Well, it’s like I said. That’s the entrance to the deepest part of their kingdom, the Blackreach. What we’re looking for is down there.”

As I explained, I placed the Attunement Sphere into the device and activated it, causing a staircase to appear, leading down into Blackreach.

———

Deep in the darkness of Blackreach, the only light came from the glowing fungus and strange ores scattered throughout the massive cavern. Towering stone pillars disappeared into the darkness above, while ancient Dwemer ruins lay half-buried beneath the earth. Far below Skyrim’s surface, the cavern stretched endlessly into the gloom, its vast chambers filled with an eerie, otherworldly silence.

A loud, earth-shattering roar reverberated through the depths.

“How in Shor’s name did they get a Giant down here? And a dragon, too?!” Agnar shouted over the noise as he sent a fireball toward the flying Vulthuryol before rolling out of the way of another Fire Breath sent his way. “Did those Dwemer craft some kind of spell like yours?”

Flinging my own rotating Earth Cannon at the flying dragon, I shouted back, “No clue about the Giant. It’s a mystery. But some temporal shenanigans could have teleported the Dragon here. It’s not impossible! But see! I told you there’s a Dragon down here!”

Vulthuryol turned out to be one of the stronger Dragons in general.

He was more powerful than any of the Dragons I had managed to summon with my Summoning Spell. We had called him by striking a yellow Dwemer gong within the Silent City with a proper Fus Ro Dah.

Fortunately, the enclosed space in Blackreach limited his flying room, making it easier for us to hit him with our attacks while he was in the air. Eventually, we managed to bring him down to the ground.

Once a Dragon is on the ground, it quickly becomes nothing more than a big target for our attacks. While the Thu’um is a powerful tool and their ability to fly makes them annoying to fight, their massive size is also their weakness.

It would be really nice to get our hands on Dragonrend. Fortunately, we are pretty much here to obtain one of the main requirements for learning the Shout. Even if I want to use it for more than that.

With another hit from a Stone Cannon straight into his head, Vulthuryol fell and stopped moving.

“It’s your turn,” Agnar said as he put away his war axe.

“You sure?”

“You’ve already learned how to take a dragon’s soul. Now it’s time you try doing it yourself.” The Dragonborn nodded confidently.

Without arguing, I stepped decisively in front of Vulthuryol’s corpse and felt something resonating deep within me as the remains of the Dragon began to glow. Then I felt Vulthuryol’s essence bleed into me, fusing with my Soul.

It strengthened my life force and power while also granting me his knowledge of the Thu’um. I suddenly gained a better understanding of the Thu’um, allowing me to guide that knowledge toward specific Shouts and unlock their true powers. At the same time, I received a small amount of comprehension of all the other Shouts and the Thu’um in general.

A short while later, the feeling subsided.

“That was intense.”

“Aye, it is. But the strength you gain from it is worth the risk.” Agnar nodded approvingly. “Alright, then. Where to next?”

“Since we took care of the biggest threats down here, let’s start collecting some materials!” I decided, my eyes falling on the blue, luminescent ores scattered throughout the cavern. “I really want to take as much of the Aetherium down here with me as I can! And those Crimson Nirnroot and all these different fungi are valuable, too. Even the College didn’t have any to sell to me.”

“Those glowing rocks? Aren’t they worthless? I’ve heard no one can melt the damned things down or work them into anything useful. Even the Dwemer struggled with them, and whatever knowledge they had was lost when they vanished.”

“I still want them for research. They used them in some of their finest works! Better to have some than none at all. My bag has enough space.”

“Damn it, I want one of those bags of yours. Those things are like a blessing from the gods!” the Dragonborn said, having no inventory of his own. If I were as limited as him during my playthrough of Skyrim, I would have gone insane. I am a looter.

“I’ll get you one.” I easily agreed. That was the least I could do with all the help he was giving me during this journey. I was pretty much abusing his fate as one of the protagonists and the Last Dragonborn to get all the good stuff in this world.

But he was a walking incarnation of plot armor!

“Mining it is, then!”

———

Falmer are really disgusting.

The Dwemer really screwed them over by enslaving them and using them for whatever experiments they put them through to make them look like that.

I know they somewhat deserved it for the Night of Tears in Saarthal, the slaughter of an entire Ancient Nord settlement, but was screwing over an entire race really the appropriate response?

Sometimes, the Elder Scrolls lore can be really fucked up. It even has its own Elf Nazis with the Thalmor right now, who probably want to undo all of existence. If that’s not fucked up, then what is?

Okay, what the Falmer probably do with their prisoners is even more fucked up. I always hated playing in Blackreach. But at least it has some good loot.

After disposing of another group of those disgusting creatures, we finally arrived at the edge of a stone bridge leading over a river toward an underground tower.

“This is it?” Agnar asked, having cleaned his axe of blood using the rags of the Falmer he had just slain.

“Yes, the Tower of Mzark.” I nodded as I crossed the bridge toward the entrance of the building, which had been constructed on a spire between two waterfalls.

Agnar stared up at the building, looking toward the Dwemer face carved into its stone walls. “Doesn’t look any different from the other ruins we passed on the way here. You sure this is the right place?”

“Southwestern corner of the cavern, and the description fits.” I shrugged. “We’ll see if we’re inside.”

We entered a short corridor that led into a small chamber. To our right was a stone chair and three tiers of shelves filled with several ruined books, which I immediately stored away in my bag.

“I still don’t understand why you keep collecting those,” Agnar muttered lazily. “They’re worthless. No merchant in Skyrim would give you a septim for them.”

“They’re clearly ancient. Maybe they’re even books left behind by the Dwemer themselves. Most of their knowledge has been lost. But what if I figure out a way to restore these books to their former state? At least it doesn’t hurt to try.” While the Reparo Charm didn’t work—I had already tried it—who was to say I couldn’t figure out another Spell that could accomplish the same thing?

Maybe a combination of Reparo and Time Magic? I already have my first manipulation of time with the Slow Time Shout. It could be a starting point I can build on.

“If you say so.”

Besides that, the room had some other loot, like Soul Gems, a bit of armor, and some materials in a few chests. Nothing of great importance, but good enough to grab.

Further into the tower, we found even more materials and some Spell Scrolls. I already had those, but it was always good to have some spares to study.

Beyond that room, we finally reached the chamber housing our goal.

A large, circular chamber containing the Oculory.

By following the chamber clockwise up a winding ramp, we finally saw it. A large, sphere-like device surrounded by numerous focusing lenses. I could feel a powerful presence radiating from it just by being nearby.

“This is it?” Agnar asked as he observed the Oculory himself.

“Yes, the Oculory. A very advanced device created by the Dwemer. I don’t even know what it’s fully capable of. Probably nobody but the Dwemer ever did.” I explained while leading him up toward the control platform.

“Then what in Shor’s name are we here for?”

“While we don’t know its full functions, we do know some of them.” Most information about the Dwemer was unknown, a plot device for the Elder Scrolls developers but a pain in the ass for me. “There is an Oculory that displays a map of Tamriel and can locate magical relics of interest, like Daedric items. And this one can be used to read an Elder Scroll without blinding yourself.”

“That’s what all this is about? Reading an Elder Scroll? Do you even have one?”

“We are, and we do. There is already one inside the Oculory. One that is quite related to your quest. The same one that was used to send Alduin through time until he arrived in our era.”

Meanwhile, I placed the blank Dwemer Lexicon inside the socket.

“Oh, and what does that blasted cube do?” Agnar immediately recognized the Lexicon as the cube I had been studying and tinkering with after we separated from Mom and the others in Morthal. The one she had gotten from Septimus Signus, a former and mad member of the College of Winterhold and, foremost, an expert on Elder Scrolls in Skyrim.

“Normally, if you read an Elder Scroll, you become blinder and madder with each attempt. This Oculory can be used to read an Elder Scroll indirectly without getting blinded by it. But you would still have to handle the sheer amount of information that would slowly drive you insane.”

“And that’s what the cube handles?”

“Yes. Elder Scrolls are fragments of Creation, existing from before Time and Space. Archives of knowledge containing past and future events. While they contain information about all possible futures, once an event has passed, it becomes fixed within the Scroll. That’s something the Lexicon exploits. It’s inscribed with runes that act as a filter, allowing it to search for specific information from the past. That can be anything related to specific events, magic, people, or artifacts. It records anything related to the requested information inside the Lexicon, which can then be used to safely read that knowledge without going mad. Of course, you have to know what you’re looking for, and the scope is far more limited than directly reading an Elder Scroll. Still, it makes it a safe way to do so.”

“So that’s why you’ve got so many of those thrice damned cubes!” Agnar realized, his eyes widening. “You mean to use the Elder Scrolls to uncover forgotten knowledge!”

“Exactly. For other scholars, it would be very difficult to figure out how such a Lexicon works and decipher the Runic Script used in it. But with my unique Ability and a working example, I managed to figure it out quite well myself.”

I gave him a grin as I began manipulating the controls.

The lenses of the Oculory began to move until they reached the correct positions. The rays of light coming from the Elder Scroll were reflected by the lenses before being focused into the Lexicon, which absorbed the information.

“So what was this one for“That’s going to take a while... isn’t it?” Agnar muttered, his eyes widening as he finally grasped the sheer amount of work I’d been doing long before we ever set foot in this ruin. “No wonder you took so damned long. But what in the name of the gods are you hoping to learn from all of that?”?” Agnar asked with interest as he watched me remove the inscribed Lexicon from the socket.

“Oh, that was the one for Septimus Signus. I did his first, just in case I screwed it up,” I said before putting his Lexicon away inside my bag and pulling a pile of hundreds more out.

“That will take a while... won’t it?” Agnar muttered with wide eyes as he finally saw the sheer amount of work I had been doing before we even came here. “No wonder you took so long. What do you even want to know with all of those?”

“Well, it’s still a pretty general search!” I defended myself. “They contain search terms related to notable figures in history, organizations, empires, and all that. I want their research, Spells, Dragon Shouts, science, and whatever other lost knowledge they had. Do you have any idea how much knowledge has been lost in this world, or how much of it is guarded so fiercely? I still don’t know if I’ll get all of that with these, but I created several different attempts for each of those search queries and put them into Lexicons. If even some of them succeed in finding what I want, it will already be a huge win for me.”

He stared at me in disbelief.

“Don’t look at me like that! Just stand there and make sure we don’t get disrupted until I’m finished!” I ordered him with annoyance before placing the first Lexicon inside the socket and beginning to adjust the lenses to their new positions for another point in time.

I didn’t need to mention that Irene had helped me figure out how to properly enchant those Lexicons, while Rias had researched the Wikis and lore for me so I could create much more detailed searches.

Technically, it was cheating, but I was a multiversal traveler.

Knowledge was my cheat! One of them!

[-- End of Chapter --]