Sonata followed Saerza and Urag out of the burning library while the orc mumbled about losing everything that he and his predecessors had gathered since the College had opened, but Sonata truly wasn't paying much attention to his mumbling. She had, in her hands, the one piece of information that she had been looking for since she learned that her sisters had come to Skyrim, a journal from Starswirl the Bearded. She had known that he had been researching a method to repair gemstones, even magical ones, so to hold the one thing that would help her restore her pendant made her focus on nothing else at the moment. She was sure that Adagio and Aria had gone searching for this very tome, though she knew that they had kept it a secret until she showed up, so they could reforge their pendants at the same time.
She now had everything she needed to find Lord Grul, figure out where he was keeping her sisters, free them from whatever prison he had put them in, and then destroy him and his army before they tried to destroy the world.
When they left the Hall of the Elements, and entered the courtyard, they found that the creature that Mag'zul had summoned had been destroyed before it could do anymore damage than it had already done. The rest of Sonata's friends were cleaning up the remains of the creature, though it was clear that they hadn't fought the creature for every long before it collapsed by itself. That made Sonata wonder if the earthy creature had been linked to Mag'zul in some fashion, but at the moment she determined that it really didn't matter... not when she had succeeded in saving the College and recovering what she had come for.
"Sonata, why are your eyes so red?" Kree asked, worried that something terrible had happened to her friend when she and Saerza had confronted Mag'zul.
"Anger is a catalyst that allowed me to, temporarily, access the next stage of my powers," Sonata explained, sighing for a moment as she calmed herself down and allowed her eyes to revert to their original color, knowing that it would be easier to access her full power once the pendant was reforged, "anger that was brought on by one simple fact; Mag'zul told me that Lord Grul has already defeated and captured my sisters. We finally have confirmation on what happened to them, but that simple fact was enough to empower me with the powers necessary to destroy one of Grul's Lieutenants. This journal that I'm holding is from an old friend of mine, though it holds the necessary information for me to finally reforge my pendant... and give me the power to destroy Grul.
We also figured out where to go for information considering the Elder Scroll, so this entire trip has so far been weighed in our favor... and I would like to keep it that way."
"I'm glad that we stopped Grul's latest attempt to destroy the College... though something tells me that we haven't seen the last of the orcs in this area," Saerza commented, letting out a sigh of her own, "Our only hope for peace is to stop Grul, before he brings whatever foul game he's playing to an end... and that means we'll have to stop Alduin, the vampires, and the Cultists before we can even touch him."
Sonata noticed that Kree seemed overjoyed that they had found something that would allow her to reforge her pendant, and she knew that she was happy to have it, but she had to wonder what secrets Starswirl had to share with her.
Before they departed from the College and continued their search for the Elder Scroll, which Sonata knew that they still needed, Urag pointed to an area on their map that was to the north of where they were at the moment. He told them that Septimus Signus had been searching for something in that area of the sea, something that he assumed had something to do with the dwemer. Urag told them that he was sure that the old man had been obsessed with the dwarves before his disappearance, as if he believed that they might have locked an Elder Scroll away somewhere. Sonata was glad for the information, because it gave them someplace to start their search for the scroll she needed to figure out the Shout that once defeated Alduin.
It took them between an hour to an hour and a half to reach the location that Urag had told them about, where they found a boat that happened to be resting outside a wooden door of sorts. Sonata sighed and jumped down into the area that she found under the door, making note that her friends followed her in as she searched for the person she needed to speak to. She found an old man standing in front of a large metal cube, which told her that this had to be the person that Urag had called Septimus Signus... though he already sounded insane from what she heard him mumbling.
"Are you Septimus Signus?" Sonata decided to ask, to be absolutely sure that she was in the right place and hadn't found someone that she didn't need to bother at all.
"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 figure out a way 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."
"I assume that you need whatever the Elder Scroll says to open this cube?" Sonata commented, figuring that she wouldn't get a straight answer no matter what she asked the old man.
"The ice entombs the heart." Sepimus replied, confirming that he was not answering her questions with any straight answers, which Sonata assumed would only prolong their conversation, "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."
"And where is Blackreach?" Sonata inquired, wondering if it was close or if it was on the other side of Skyrim.
"'Cast upon where Dwemer cities slept, the yearning spire hidden learnings kept.'" Septimus recited from memory, though Sonata was surprised that he could remember all of it without reading from any books, "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."
Sonata looked at the items she had been handed, not sure what to make of either of them, before she returned to her friends so they could figure out where their next destination was. As it turned out Alftand wasn't too far from where they were at the moment, though it would involve a trek through the snow and water so they could get there.
As it turned out they reached their destination without much hindering their progress, save for crossing the ice fields once more and back up the slopes they had climbed down. Along the way Sonata could have sworn that she heard what she thought were war drums, the same ones that she occasionally heard whenever Grul's forces were on the move. If it was the soldiers of her enemy she had to wonder where they were going this time, but she knew that she couldn't afford to get distracted this time, not when she was so close to the ruins. Unfortunately she wasn't the only once that noticed the sounds that were echoing all around the mountain, as Kree turned to the south for a moment and looked around for something that clearly wasn't there.
"Is it possible that Lord Grul knew we were heading to Alftand before we knew we were heading there?" Kree asked, because she was echoing the same thoughts that Sonata was considering at the moment.
"That, or he's really good at guessing where we're going," Sonata replied, glancing at the mountain behind them for a moment, though as she did so she noticed something that she was hoping that they wouldn't see anytime soon, "and it looks like we had better pick up the pace before they overtake us."
She had absolutely no idea why there was a second army of orcs in the area of Winterhold, or how they had figured out where she and her friends were at the moment, but she didn't want the orcs to catch up with them. They got moving towards the ruins they needed to search through, but as they did so Sonata kept her eyes on the army of orcs that were still following them across the snow. She had an idea on how to get rid of them, or even slow them down for that matter, but she didn't want to resort to using her magic in case they weren't actually following her. They were still being followed when they arrived outside the ruins, so Sonata sighed and stopped in her tracks, before turning around and facing the orcs that were coming their way.
As the orcs drew even closer she looked at the sky and concentrated her magic, eventually forming a blizzard that would be able to block their enemies from following them any further. She coughed as she joined her friends in their trek across the bridges that took them inside the glacier that was connected to the ruin, annoyed that she had to expand her energy once more in such a short amount of time.
"I didn't know that you could do that," Kree commented as they made their way inside, to which several of the others nodded their agreement as Gol and Mez made sure that they were safe for the moment.
"Queen of Storms... never said that I only commanded lightning storms," Sonata replied, a smile appearing on her face for a moment, though she knew that the orcs would likely make it through the storm, "it wasn't as powerful as it should have been, so we had better get to our destination before our enemies appear behind us."
"And we had better be as quiet as possible," Lorthan commented, sheathing his blade for a moment, "If we can sneak our wave through the ruins we can force those orcs to fight everything that we leave behind... and who knows, maybe the creatures that call this ruin home will kill all of Grul's minions."
Sonata sighed and took a deep breath, focusing her mind for a few seconds as she wondered if she could use one of Starswirl's old spells, one that was designed to allow the caster to become completely hidden from the naked eye. She knew that she could pull off the spell when she was at her full power, though at her current state, and her lack of magicka, she knew that she would be able to use a weaker version of the spell. At best she would be able to hide their footsteps so nothing would be able to hear them, which made her wish that she actually had her full power at the moment... or had her pendant reforged.
She expanded her magic for a moment and cast what she could on all of them, before letting out a sigh as she pulled herself back onto her feet and faced the path they needed to go.
"This spell will only last for an hour, so we had better make the most of it," Sonata said, beckoning for the others to follow her, "We should be able to navigate most of the dangers of this place, without having them discover that we're even here."
As the group moved through the ruins they discovered that there was an expedition that had come here to seek shelter, though it appeared that they had either been betrayed by one of their own or had been killed by something that called the ruins home. Sonata eventually discovered part of the answer, because they found a khajiit walking around and mumbling about something called skooma, but she decided to let him be for the moment. The other part of the answer also revealed itself further down the path they followed, because a pair of metallic spheres left the walls around them and opened up into strange mechanical creatures she had never seen before.
Fortunately Sonata's spell worked like a charm, because the mechanical creatures moved right passed the group and headed the way they had came, though they heard the sound of the khajiit being killed after a few seconds. Sonata beckoned her friends forward before the machines returned to where they were dispensed, though they came to a stop not moments later as they found an area that had been collapsed for some time. Kree pointed into the pit that was passed where the floor beneath them and pointed out the Falmer for Sonata to see for the first time, though the seemingly blind creatures had good hearing as they started climbing the walls around the pit.
That was before she heard the sound of the orcish war drums once more, telling her and her friends that their enemies had entered the ruins and were likely making their way towards them at that very moment. Sonata sighed and leapt downwards just a bit, landing on one of the pipes for a moment before jumping to the platform below them, to which she turned and beckoned for the rest of the group to follow her. They were extremely fortunate that the orcs were making so much noise, because any sound that the group let out was quickly covered by the war drums and whatever the orcs were shouting at each other... and it also allowed them to move through the ruins without having to actually worry about fighting this time.
They waited a few seconds as the large group of Falmer climbed into the passage they had been standing on, letting them head to where the orcs were before getting a move on. With the enemies they would have fought in the ruins heading towards the orcs Sonata and her friends were able to navigate the place without sacrificing any time or energy to fighting. It gave Sonata the opportunity to see the craftsmanship of the dwarves as they walked, though she kept her eyes open for any traps that they still had to get around. They followed the twists and turns throughout the ruins, opening doors and hiding when they spotted more Falmer heading towards the orcs, until they came to a massive chamber that had a gate blocking their way.
Behind the gate, however, was a large metallic creature that appeared to be patrolling the place, though Kree told Sonata that it was called a Dwarven Centurion and that it was something that they didn't want to mess with at the moment. Fortunately they found the lever to the gate right above where they had entered the chamber, so once everyone was out of the way Sonata flipped the switch and lowered the gate. The centurion didn't seem annoyed that the gate was open, it merely continued to patrol the area as if it was waiting for something to come and fight it. After a few seconds Sonata sighed and got into a standing position, dispelling the spell that had been keeping them hidden all this time as she wondered which of her spells could put the creature down quickly.
A smile appeared on her face as she approached the centurion, because as the faint wind started to gather around her she formed some small shuriken, which she sent into the creature's chest and blew it into the wall behind it. With the creature dealt with she approached the door it had been guarding and found that it had been open by two Imperial soldiers... who appeared to have killed each other over something.
"We had best gather anything useful they had before those orcs show up," Kree commented, picking up a blackened blade of some kind from one of them, though it was clear that they call could hear the war drums as the orcs drew even closer to where they were standing.
Sonata pulled out the sphere that the old man had given her and set it in the pedestal before her, to which the floor lowered to reveal a forgotten staircase of some kind. With the way open, and the gear of the fallen collected, Sonata and her friends ventured into Blackreach, where they hoped to find the Elder Scroll that would tell them what Sonata needed to so she could stop Alduin from destroying all of Nirn.