User:IceFireWarden/Findings In Endusal

Findings in Endusal

by Divayth Fyr

A Telvanni archmage discovers an interesting secret

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Normally I do not run errands myself, when I can simply buy a slave from the market and order them to do it for me (as I usually do). But for this particular research I had to venture out alone, past the foyadas of Molag Amur and northwestward to the caldera of Vvardenfell itself—Red Mountain. Hopefully that bumbling idiot my “colleagues” put in charge of the construction of Tel Fyr will remain operational without me. But then again, I do not deal in hope; I deal in theory, and teach through factual instruction.

Once, in the past at least, one could simply walk along the coast and through Amur directly to the volcano, but its frequent eruptions over centuries have cracked and shifted the ground, creating naturally formed bulwarks that both shield southern Vvardenfell from lava and ashfall, as well as divert any foolish excursions into its deeper areas. Perhaps in the future I shall see these bulwarks gone, and I will be able to travel to Red Mountain in a less asinine way. Lord Fyr does not stand for degradation.

I came to Red Mountain in the pursuit of an item that had eluded me for years beyond count: a functional, intact Dwemeri coherer. I am a collector of the inventions of the Dwemer, whom I try not to remember most days, unless those memories prove useful to my endeavors. They were too rude and too condescending for my taste; a culture whose love for logic and reason went too far. But their trinkets were extraordinary, and the coherer was all I needed to enhance my pursuits into the alchemedia of flesh disseverance and regeneration. The Dwemeri Citadels of Red Mountain were the only places I had yet to search where I knew a pristine sample could exist, and I trusted no slave or Telvanni youth (but really, what is the difference between the two?) with their locations.

But a coherer was not what I found, unfortunately, for in Endusal I discovered something that surprised me (and I thought had I removed that trait alongside my empathy!). Endusal was something of an anomaly amongst the other citadels I explored—smaller in scope, mostly well-preserved, and not buried beneath lava falls and molten rock and ash. I sensed that it was protected by wards generated through some kind of device that used not magicka, but a more ancient and otherworldly energy that was reminisced of the power within Deep Folk automatons. It was only after I immersed myself in the crumbling books, tablets, and pictograms (Dwemeris is a bore of a language, truly) that I realized I stood in the study of Kagrenac, High Craft-Lord of the Dwemer.

I found myself quite unimpressed with it.

For one, the placement of the furniture and the overall design was uninspired. I expected the infamous Kagrenac to have grand surroundings to rival my own, and assumed a “genius” like himself could not allow himself to be bothered with pleasing views and entertaining novelties to stimulate the brain until I found what must have been a trinket described as an Auroborus Shell. One of the few inventions of Bthuand Mzahnch, the Shell was a bronze rectangle that levitated in the air and could be deconstructed into more than a thousand rods and acute angles—its main goal was to use these rods to create an egg within an egg, a task most Dwemer could do with gusto. I found myself chuckling at the half-finished state of Kagrenac’s Shell, but nevertheless decided to take such a rare item with me to add to my collection, as well as a few of the better-preserved tomes of knowledge.

However, what I found to be the most interesting piece of information I discovered in Endusal was a document I shall have to ponder in the weeks following the construction of Tel Fyr, which detailed a mass exodus from Dwemereth after the War of the First Council that I neither heard of nor remembered (disturbing, I know). Unlike Clan Rourken, who departed from the Dwemeri Collective due to their hatred for us, this “Clan Noraken” seemingly left of their own accord when their patriarch Gharen (the forger of the Hammer of Gharen, I presume), a Craft-Lord under Kagrenac, wished to pursue an alternative, less dangerous method to a conundrum then continue with a project I can only assume to be the Numidium.

What followed in the decaying script was hard to make out, although I recognized that it made mention of biology and music theory that Kagrenac himself demeaned, but in the end the Noraken sailed eastward from Tamriel in their search of a land to call their own, where they could work on their projects without the oppressing presence of the rest of their people. They are only mentioned sparsely in the years after their departure, alongside a few personal, apathetic musings of the High Craft-Lord himself.

I do find myself wondering if the Noraken survived their voyage across the Padomaic Ocean and found their safe haven, where they successfully created sapient constructs and new forms of life. Even more so, I wonder if I shall ever get my hands on a Dwemeri coherer. Moon and Star above, they cannot be this rare. At this rate, I will have to discard my entire formula and begin anew without the Dwemeri atomos-cleanser—centuries of work, lost! I suppose I could take Sotha Sil up on his offer, but I am a master of the Telvanni, and that is a discussion for another day. I shall not commit it to paper here.