Sunset and her band of companions, now heavy one more orc warrior, left the fortress called Morvunskar and retraced their steps back to Fellglow Keep. As they walked down the dirt road Sunset had to wonder how such a warrior could have been overlooked, by both her collective allies and by herself. She knew that she wouldn't have noticed in the long run, as she had been busy over the last few days, collecting the Daedric Artifacts she held and stopped Tirek's minions wherever they could be found. She could also understand why her allies would have missed a lone warrior, as they had all been busy wiping her fortress into livable conditions and building the skills of their soldiers.
She smiled in the end; she was lucky to have found Orak and was relieved to hear that the orc hated Tirek as well, for either the destruction of Largashbur or personal reasons.
When they arrived at Fellglow Keep Elenwen and Delphine came out to look at the new arrival, who continued to stare at the fortifications that had already been made to the keep, nodding his head every now and then. Sunset knew that Orak was studying the layout of the fortress, as if he was making sure that they were fortified correctly and that it met his standards for an army base. Mages and soldiers stopped to look at the newest addition to the cause, though every time he nodded at something he saw Sunset couldn't help but smile. Eventually they reached the middle of the fortress, the original keep, and he walked up the stairs and got onto the wall for a moment, taking a look at the fortress as a whole, before he returned to them.
"So?" Sunset asked, curious as to what the orc thought about her army and her base of operations, "Do you like what you see?"
"There... is more work to be done," Orak replied, though Sunset could see a slight grin appear on his face, "but... yes... I do like what I see. I would be honored to fight at your side."
Sunset was relieved to hear that the orc was willing to join them, to which Elenwen and Delphine decided to show him to where the warriors trained and where he'd be sleeping. With that deed dealt with Sunset headed into the main area of the fortress and summoned her chest the moment she was inside, carefully placing the Sanguine Rose, the Ebony Blade, and the Dawnbreaker inside. She grinned as she banished the chest back to wherever it rested before she called on it, pleased to have recovered thirteen of the fifteen artifacts. She had saved thirteen of the Daedric Princes from Tirek, though Raja had helped her by sealing the Skeleton Key away, thus keeping Nocturnal safe.
The only problem was that she had two more Princes to find, Hermaeus Mora and Boethiah, and recover the remaining two artifacts, the Ebony Mail and the Oghma Infinium, but she had no idea where to find the Prince of Knowledge. After a moment of consideration she left the main keep and headed to the library, a section that had been built next to the main area almost immediately after they had arrived from Winterhold. Urag had painstakingly collected as many books as he could get his hands on, as well as accepting everything that the Thalmor were willing to lend him for the moment, so the library might actually have something on what she was looking for.
"Ah, Archmage," Urag said, looking up from his stack of books before greeting her and her companions to the library, "What can I do for you and your friends today?"
"I need help searching for Hermaeus Mora's cult," Sunset replied, pulling out Fiona's journal and opening it to the page that was labeled Oghma Infinium, to which the majority of the page was empty, "He is one of the last Daedric Princes whose artifacts have yet to be secured, yet I have no idea where to begin searching for him and his followers. Even Fiona, who painstakingly collected every piece of information in this journal, could barely find anything on the Prince of Knowledge or where his artifact might be."
"Oh, is that all?" Urag replied, a laugh escaping his lips as he slammed his hand on the nearby table, "Archmage, this might not be the Arcaneum of the College of Winterhold, but I do know someone who might have the information that you seek. Granted, its been a few years since I last saw him, but old Septimus Signus should be able to help you located Hermaeus Mora's Oghma Infinium. Last I heard he had found some sort of dwarven artifact in the frozen fields north of Whinterhold, so unless he was hit by Tirek's attack he should still be there."
"Thanks Urag," Sunset said, collecting her journal before heading outside, where she pulled out the map and made sure that there was a path to the area that lead to the fields that she had been told about.
"Something up Sunset?" Bjorn asked, having seen his friend serious like this several times and knew that some idea was currently in the works in her head.
"Maybe, maybe not," Sunset replied, pointing at the map for a moment and traced her finger along a path that lead to the furthest island that had been documented, "There is one frozen piece near the edge of the sea, which I'm assuming is where this Septimus Signus is hiding out. So here's the plan; we go north, find the man we're looking for, recover the artifact of Hermaeus Mora, and then we can hunt down the final artifact, the Ebony Mail. Then with all fifteen artifacts sealed in my chest we'll call on Erandur's magic and banish all of them to Oblivion, where Tirek won't be able to get his hands on them."
She looked at her companions for a moment, checking to see what they thought about her plan, though she could tell that they were all in agreement with what she had said. Fiona did look annoyed about the whole mention of her never finding much on the Oghma Infinium, but she nodded her understanding towards the plan. So, with their destination in mind, the group said farewell to Fellglow Keep and traveled towards the ruins of Winterhold, where they would be able to trace their path to the hideout of Septimus Signus.
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Getting to the located where Winterhold used to reside was simple, but tracing their path through the frozen waters and chunks of ice was another matter in itself. They carefully picked their way across the chunks of ice, making sure that none of them fell into the freezing water, before Sunset spotted what she assumed was what they were looking for. In front of them stood a trapdoor that was attached to a small mound of snow, one that seemed to be slowly falling apart thanks to the winds that continued to lash out at it. Not a few inches away from the door was a wooden boat that had been long frozen to the spot, though there were signs that it could be removed and used once more. Sunset gently opened the trapdoor and climbed down the ladder, descending into the frozen cave that she assumed held the man they were looking for.
Her friends followed her inside, to get out of the freezing winds, but when they appeared in a cave like chamber they found a man walking in a triangle formation. That was when Sunset noticed the large dwarven cube that happened to be half buried in the wall beside the man, who continued to mutter to himself while occasionally looking up at the cube.
"Hello? Setimus Signus?" Sunset asked, curious as to whether or not the man knew that he had some company, but received no answer until she and her friends were standing much closer to him.
"Do you see this masterwork of the Dwemer?" the man asked, placing a hand on the box as he spoke, almost as if he was trying to unlock it somehow, "Deep inside their greatest knowings. Septimus is clever among men, but he is but an idiot child when compared to the dullest of the dwemer. Lucky then that they left behind their own way of reading the Elder Scrolls. One yet lies in the depths of Blackreach."
At the mention of an Elder Scroll Sunset's entire group, save for herself, took a breath, though all she did was look at the man and wonder if he was insane.
"So, do you know how to find Hermaeus Mora and his artifact?" Sunset asked, choosing a different question in the hopes that the man would answer something for her.
"The ice entombs the heart." Sepimus replied, still not answering her question with a straight answer, "The bane of Kagrenac and Dagoth Ur. To harness it is to know. The fundaments. The Dwemer lockbox hides it from me. The Elder Scroll gives insight deeper than the deep ones, though. To bring about the opening. This Dwemer lockbox. Look upon it and wonder. Inside is the heart. The heart of a god! The heart of you. And me. But it was hidden away. Not by the Dwarves, you see. They were already gone. Someone else. Unseen. Unknown. Found the heart, and with a flair for the ironical, used Dwarven trickery to lock it away. The scroll will give the deep vision needed to open it. For not even the strongest machinations of the Dwemer can hold off the all-sight given by an Elder Scroll.
The box contains the heart. The essence of a god. I have devoted my life to the Elder Scrolls, but their knowledge is a passing awareness when compared to the encompassing mind of divinity. The Dwemer were the last to touch it. It was thought to have been destroyed by the Nerevarine, but my Lord told me otherwise."
Sunset was utterly convinced that the man was insane, but when he mentioned the Nerevarine and an unknown master Sunset had to admit that she wondered what he could mean. She looked back at her friends, finding that they had no idea what to make of what was happening with the man, before she sighed and decided to ask her question.
"And who is your Lord?" Sunset asked, knowing that there were only two more Princes left for her to interact with at this point in her quest, "Which Daedric Prince do you serve?"
"The Daedric prince of the unknown. Hermaeus Mora." Septimus admitted, somehow giving her a straight answer, despite having given her nothing on the last few questions, "I thought there were no secrets left to know. Until I first spoke to him. He asks a price -- to work his will. A few murders, some dissent spread, a plague or two. For the secrets I can endure. In time, he brought me here. To the box. But he won't reveal how to open it. Maddening."
It was at that point that Sunset knew that she had the very answer she had come for in the first place, but was now walking away with the most important answer of them all. She had found the person that currently served Hermaeus Mora, which told her that whatever was in the Dwemer Lockbox had to be the artifact she was searching for. It killed two birds with one stone, which meant that, in order to open the box, she would need to search a dwarven ruin for something called an Elder Scroll.
"So where do we find this Blackreach?" Sunset asked, now knowing that they needed to give some aid to the madman to get her hands on the fourteenth Daedric Artifact.
"'Cast upon where Dwemer cities slept, the yearning spire hidden learnings kept.'" Septimus recited from memory, to which Sunset raised an eyebrow before ignoring it, "Below the dark. The hidden keep. Tower Mzark. Alftand. The point of puncture, of first entry, of the tapping. Delve to its limits, and Blackreach lies just beyond. Septimus has two objects for you, two shapes. The round one for tuning; dwemer music is soft and subtle, needed to open their cleverest of gates. The edged lexicon for inscribing; to the Dwemer a library full of knowings. Find Mzark and you will find Blackreach. Trust Septimus, he knows you can know."
With the two dwemer shapes in hand Sunset and her friends made their way towards the entrance of the cave, where she stopped and quickly pulled out her map once more.
"Anyone have an idea where Alftand is located?" Sunset asked, hoping that one of them knew the answer, otherwise they'd be heading back to Fellglow Keep to ask Urag.
"Right here actually," Fiona commented, pointing her finger to an area to the west of their location, on the mainland of Skyrim, "I've passed by it several times, but never would I have expected that an Elder Scroll might actually be hidden inside those ruins."
"Okay, someone has to explain that to me," Sunset said, rolling her map up as they made their way outside, "Because honestly, I have no idea what an Elder Scroll is."
"I'll try to explain it to you on the way," Fiona replied, not surprised that Sunset had no idea what an Elder Scroll was, "but trust me on this, it will leave you more confused than you already area by the time I finish."
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Getting to Alftand had sounded easy to Sunset in the beginning, but in reality the group had to traverse the ice fields that they had crossed to find Septimus Signus, climb up some slopes that hindered their progress, and had to do battle with a group of stupid bandits that wanted their gold. Lydia, Bjorn, and Cicero made short work of anyone who dared to come too close to them, while Raja kept an eye out for any more hidden bandits and beasts. Sunset had no idea why there were still some bandits left in Skyrim at the moment, when she and her allies had killed so many of them in the battle for Whiterun.
What had also confused her was that the Elder Scrolls were more complicated than she had originally believed, though she could only sum them up as Fragments of Creation. It was literally the best answer she could come up with and decided that she'd try not to mess with the ancient relic when they finally recovered it.
Eventually they came to where Aftand was located on the map, but they had to work their way around the bridges that the workers left behind and had to deal with several trolls that made the area their home. It gave Sunset the time to observe the fact that the entire ruin had been buried beneath the snow and had either been recently dug out by adventurers, or the quake of Tirek's power had more effects than what they had seen at Winterhold. Once they found the entrance Sunset beckoned for them to draw their weapons, as she knew that stealth would have to be sacrificed in the name of getting through the ruin quickly, as she remembered the last ruin she went through quite well. Sneaking had been hard at the previous dwarven ruin and she knew that the machines that called the place home would be on to them before they got close to their prize.
The beginning of their trek through the ancient dwarven ruin started out dull, but the further they got into the ruin the more Sunset was starting to realize exactly how many of their machines still worked. As they came across an ill fated campsite for some explorers they spotted a mad khajiit talking to himself, but they merely decided to leave him alone as they carried onward. The first group of enemies they actually encountered happened to be two of the sphere like creatures, though Lydia was keen on slapping them around with her ebony battleaxe.
It was only a few minutes later that they reached one of the ruined areas of the actual ruin, where the walkway had been shattered and forced them to consider a different path to get down. That was when Sunset noticed that the steam pipes running through the walls could easily provide them the way they needed, so they carefully climbed down before touching the floor below them. Before they could relax for just a moment they heard the sound of the Falmer behind them, but Cicero turned around and sunk his daggers into one of the seemingly blind creatures, before chucking it off the side of the walkway.
Not moments later Sunset heard more of the Falmer rise from their sleeping areas, gather their weapons, and start banging on their shields as they made their way up towards where Sunset and her friends were waiting. Sunset moaned and realized that they would have to fight their way through the ruin, so she summoned her magic and followed the path that the walkway took her on, blasting one Falmer hard in the chest with a well placed fireball.
It took them quite a while to get anywhere, as they had to stop occasionally to observe the Falmer in the area and devise a plan before attacking them, but they eventually reached what appeared to be an exit route to the open air of Skyrim. This area had an open gate, one that had been sealed at one point in time, and a second gateway, the one that Sunset had noticed when they entered the area, that was being patrolled by a large dwarven construct. The construct noticed them and came charging at them, as fast as it possibly could, but Lydia was ready to smack its feet while the others poured their attacks into its chest, before it finally fell over.
With that deed done Sunset walked up to the exit she had spotted and found a device in the area before the exit, a device that had a few rings and a small indent in the center. There were also a few corpses near the back door, telling her that a few people from the ill fated campsite they saw earlier had made it to the end, but had been slain by the construct. She stared at the device for a moment, remembering what Septimus had said about the sphere opening the way, before she pulled the sphere out and slid it into the indent, which caused the floor around her to slid into the ground. It was then that she discovered a secret staircase, no doubt leading to the mysterious Blackreach that had been mentioned to her, and beckoned for her friends to join her.
When the group passed through the door they found themselves standing on a small walkway that allowed them to stare up at the humongous cavern that the group had suddenly found themselves in. Directly in front of them was a well worn road that split into three directions, one of which would lead them to a small hut of some kind that sat right in front of where they were standing. They had two choices, go to the left or go to the right, though Sunset was still amazed by the sights that they were seeing all around them at the moment. She found it hard to believe that such a place existed below Skyrim, despite having journeyed through one of these ruins before having to visit Alftand.
"So this is Blackreach?" Fiona asked, clearly also amazed at the sheer size of the place they had discovered, "I am simply amazed that the dwarves could keep something like this hidden for so many ages without someone else stepping foot in here. Though the only question I would have to ask now is where do we begin? It could take us weeks, or even a few months, to carefully search this entire place for the one relic we came here to find, before we discovered where it was hiding."
"Let's start by heading to our left and we'll work our way around the perimeter of this place," Sunset said, heading towards the stone pathway in front of them, "Who knows, maybe we'll find the Elder Scroll's resting place by simply walking around and studying what's around us."
The rest of the group decided that going down the left path may actually be the better idea, as it would give them a starting point for them to reference later on, if they hadn't found the Elder Scroll by the time they returned to the point they entered Blackreach through. Even as they started down the path on their left they came across a lone dwarven sphere, one that decided to open itself up and move towards them, to which Lydia decided that she had enough of it and cut it down before it could hurt any of them. Unfortunately for the six of them the more they followed their chosen path the more enemies that they found standing in their way, though not all of them were dwemer machines. There were at least a dozen Falmer standing on the road, surrounded by dozens of their chaurus pets, and none of them looked happy to see the group.
Bjorn drew his bow and swiftly put an arrow between the eyes of one of the Falmer, knocking it off its feet before causing it to crash against the ground behind his allies. The rest of the Falmer, now realizing that they had enemies to fight, gathered their weapons as Lydia and Cicero charged towards their enemies, their weapons at the ready. Sunset and Fiona summoned their magic and immediately began to launch spells at the enemies that were at the back of the Falmer's lines, allowing their friends to fight those closest to them. However, just like when they started fighting the machines at the beginning of Alftand, their fighting only awoke the sleeping dwarves machines that were near them.
As it turned out the remaining machines seemed to wake from their slumber and zeroed in on the Falmer that happened to be walking by them, inducing a fight between the two groups. Sunset and her friends, taking advantage of the fighting, decided that it was now the perfect opportunity to sneak around any fights they came across. As they bypassed several groups of enemies Fiona tapped Sunset's shoulder and pointed a a perfectly circular shaped cylinder off in the distance, one that looked like a tower of some kind. She nodded her understanding and directed the group towards the tower, hoping that it was where the Elder Scroll was located, otherwise they'd be looking around Blackreach some more.
Surprisingly they managed to avoid any more enemies, though that made sense seeing how all of them were engaged in battle with each other all over Blackreach. Once they reached the tower that Fiona had mentioned Sunset entered the area and waited for them all to pile in around the lever, where she pulled it the moment they were ready. The floor began to rise and the group patiently waited for it to stop, where they found themselves outside an open chamber that was filled with a variety of ingredients for alchemy. How any of the ingredients were still good after thousands of years was beyond Sunset's guess, but Fiona quickly gathering them up, clearly indicating that she would be using them regardless.
Sunset cast a look at the room and spotted a second door, to which she opened opened it and revealed a large dwarven machine that looked as if it hadn't been used since the day that the dwarves vanished. The group walked up a ramp and noticed that there were large crystals hanging above their heads, all of which were attached to metal beams in the ceiling. Sunset spent a few minutes to marvel at the machine before them, before spotting a control panel on a walkway above them, one that had a small indent that she assumed was the area that the lexicon was supposed to fit into. Once she reached the control panel she pulled out the cube and gently placed it in the indent, hearing a soft click before the entire room began to wake up once again.
One of the buttons near her opened up, causing her to wonder what it would do before she called for her friends to join her so they could all watch what was about to transpire. Then, once they were all together, she took a breath and pressed open button, causing the rings in the center of the chamber to shift before their very eyes. Sunset immediately noticed the changes and pressed the button a few more times, causing the rings to continue to turn before another button opened up, allowing her to change the structure on the floor a couple more times. When the third button opened up and Sunset pushed it the entire system of beams that were handing from the ceiling began to move, lowering to the floor where her friends had once been standing. After a few more presses and the fourth button opened up she hesitated, wondering if there was some obvious trap that she was overlooking, but then shook her head and pressed the final button.
The crystals began to move, separating from each other as the larger one came to a rest in the center of the room and cracked open, revealing a golden scroll with gems on the case.
"This is an Elder Scroll?!" Sunset asked, remembering to take the lexicon from the pedestal before she approached the ancient relic, with her friends following behind her, "There's some sort of... ancient power I'm feeling from it. I am so not leaving something as important as this for someone else to take."
She had no idea what to do with the Elder Scroll, she honestly didn't, but she picked it up anyway and slid the ancient relic onto her back, knowing that, in time, they would find either a use for it or a new home that wasn't an old ruin. She had no idea what Tirek was doing now, but with the fourteenth Daedric Artifact soon to be in her possession she knew that she had a better chance of beating him.
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It had taken Tirek, and the undead corpse of Mercer Frey, the majority of the day to walk the distance from his base in the Rift to the location of the Twilight Sepulcher, which happened to be in the Hold called Falkreath. It had been well hidden in the mountain side, as he suspected from the Thieves Guild, but thanks to his 'partners' knowledge of its existence they found it quite easily. Tirek smiled as they entered the hidden temple of Nocturnal, feeling the power of the Daedric Prince, however latent it actually was, all around him. Mercer, on the other hand, clearly wanted to be released from his undead state, so he could leave Skyrim and begin stealing items from people in another province of Tamriel.
As Tirek stepped into the main entrance of the temple three ghosts, clearly the guardians of Nocturnal, appeared out of thin air and rushed them, but Tirek was not amused by their attempts. He smacked all three of them backwards before sucking in their power, however little of it remained, before they crumbled to the ground in heaps of ashes.
"You shall go no further, intruder," another ghost said, drawing his blades as he approached the people who dared to step foot in his master's sacred temple.
"You should learn to take a hint," Tirek replied, smashing the swords into pieces before draining the ghost dry, to which he looked back at Mercer for a moment, "Be glad you aren't among them at the moment, otherwise you'd be dead as well."
Mercer gulped as he followed the dremora into the temple, pausing to look at the pile that had once been Gallus, who had been called to protect the temple from Tirek. He had killed Gallus the first time, so he felt nothing for the former Nightingale, but still he followed his partner into the sacred temple and watched as the Guardians fell before the dremora. If he had been alive, and still served Nocturnal before he decided to use the Skeleton Key for his own gain, he might have felt something for them, but all he felt was nothing.
It took them ten minutes to walk through the temple, where it would have taken a skilled thief at least half an hour to an hour to clear the entire course, before they reached the end of the road. Tirek smiled as they reached the wellspring that Mercer had promised would be there, feeling the power of Nocturnal pulse around them, as if she knew they were there.
"Okay, you've got what you wanted," Mercer spat, holding his hands out, "Now restore to me my body and let me leave this place. I do not want to be here when Nocturnal arrives."
That was when Tirek grabbed Mercer's neck and held him up, draining what remained of the man's former power and watched the life drain from his dead eyes.
"I never intended to yet you live," Tirek laughed, enjoying the pain the man felt in the last hours of his second life, "I came for the Daedric Prince's powers... which you have so graciously delivered to me."
Once the man was dead, for real this time, Tirek shattered the body into a fine dust and turned towards the wellspring, where he placed his hands on the shrine and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath and allowed the magic of the spring to enter his body, knowing that it would be a matter of time before the Prince of Thieves arrived to see what was happening. Not two minutes later he head someone clear their throat, to which he opened his eyes and found a women, wearing a dark blue robe with two ravens resting around her, staring down at him with a hint of anger in her eyes.
"So, you are the mortal that dares to disturb me," Nocturnal stated, glaring down at Tirek while the ravens moved towards the two sides of the chamber, "and the same one who dared to summon someone back from my realm of Oblivion. I shall take great pleasure in destroying you."
"Do not take me for some pathetic mortal," Tirek shouted back, chains sprouting out of the ground and wrapping around the Prince, "I'm the most dangerous creature in the realm of Tartarus, one that even the denizens of Equus feared to fight, and I have destroyed countless nations. Trust me on this, you will be drained of your power and all of Nirn shall slowly feel my power ruin the world beneath their feet."
That was seconds before the chains shattered and Nocturnal extended a hand, hitting Tirek square in the chest and knocking him into the back wall of the chamber.
"I will not easily be defeated," Nocturnal shouted, applying her anger to her magic as she pressed Tirek into the wall, "You face the power of a Prince of Oblivion and will be crushed like the worm you are."
Tirek chuckled as a vile green sphere wrapped around Nocturnal, cutting her magic off and allowing him to pick himself back up, a look of joy in his eyes. He had prepared such a spell ahead of time, just in case the first Prince he encountered was more powerful than he was originally expecting and needed to be restrained. It was similar to what he used against Twilight Sparkle and her friends, though with his power level he was grateful that the sphere was holding for the moment.
"I shall take my time draining you and your wellspring," Tirek said, patting the prison sphere before heading back to the wellspring, "after all, you have one other item that I require to shatter this world... one that had been stolen and returned by your newest champion, only for it to land in my hands not a week later."
The best part about this arrangement was that there was no one, in all of Nirn, that could stand up to him at the moment... and he knew that Sunset Shimmer would never reach the level of power that was his full potential.