A/n: Help me reach my Goal on P4treon & Join Discord! ➡️ https://linktr.ee/donovel ⬅️
A/n: Vol.8 has ended on Chapter 694, Vol.9 Song of the Dragons begins on Chapter 695. All of them are available on P4treon, read them early over there.
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After meeting Apostle Galyn and the remaining Clockwork Apostles, the group headed outside the Brass Fortress through the secret tunnels.
Glymet didn't seem to be willing to expose Jon's attack plan to the Clockwork Apostles in the city but Laaneth was too excited and revealed that reinforcements are waiting outside the city in order to take Mecinar out. With the same level of excitement, the Clockwork Apostles were very welcoming to the idea of taking on Mecinar and meeting those visitors from the outside world for the first time in two centuries.
Of course, not all of the Apostles were feeling the same and some were fearing an invasion from more outlanders. Some said they would handle it on their own and others seemed to be willing to take up arms against any more invading forces but Galyn, their leader, was adamant about receiving reinforcements. He said that whatever Mecinar is doing deep in the Fortress may be disastrous if left alone more than this.
Also, it seemed very obvious that Mecinar was afraid of whatever was out there and was sending a lot of his twisted creations to fight it and keep it in check. Galyn seemed to know what Mecinar was after but kept feigning ignorance no matter how many times Laaneth asked, however, Glymet took note of that.
In the end, the party of Glymet, Laaneth, Ram, and their Tarnished guide ended up in the Mire Mechanica and started searching for the Treasure Hunters that were hired by Mecinar, the ones who still had Swims-at-Night as their prisoner.
The Mire Mechanica was a place of brass-colored land and deep pits of murky waters that were interconnected through old water pipes. This swampland seemed to have formed thanks to the leakage of some water pipes and its lack of maintenance which slowly became contaminated with all sorts of diseases thanks to the microorganisms that started inhabiting these parts.
Moreover, many other liquids were leaking in the swamps, which included refined and crude oil from the surrounding broken oil rigs. Many alien trees grew in these arid swamplands and some were even growing through and around the brass pipes that were everywhere in this part of the land.
As for finding the Treasure Hunters, it was like a stroke of luck when Ram was sending some feedback signals to the workshop at the Pavilion of Artifice where Jon was and happened to pick up a nearby signal that was being transmitted to somewhere inside the city.
When Ram informed Laaneth of that, she led the four of them to intercept whatever was emitting it. There, they found the Treasure Hunters.
From how things seemed like, four treasure hunters were surrounding a pit that was being dug by someone and they were all armed with advanced weaponry from Clockwork City. Glymet could tell that the one who was digging the pit for the Treasure Hunters was Swims-at-Night as they seemed to be forcing them to dig out something in the murky swampland.
As for getting Swims out of this situation without endangering him, Glymet had a very simple plan.
"Hey!" Glymet called as he walked towards the Treasure Hunters, "The four of you! That's my friend you have there!"
As anger and hostility were displayed on his face, the Treasure Hunters aimed their weapons at him with menacing glares and obvious smirks.
"Well well well. If it isn't the fool we got the ring from." The Leader of the Treasure Hunters, the Blondie called Aldora, spoke as she pointed with her sword at Swims, "Came for your friend?
"Swims!" Laaneth came out from hiding while taking some distance from Glymet.
"Laan… Laaneth?" Peeking his head from the pit, Swims couldn't believe his eyes for the face he just saw was that of one of his oldest friends.
This, however, seemed to have irritated the Treasure Hunters as they weren't expecting more nuisance.
"Hey! I'd hate to get in the way of your reunion with your mate but how about this?" Aldora spoke and got behind the pit where Swims was, "Throw down your weapons and promise to leave us to plunder in peace, and you can have him."
"Don't do it, Glym!" Swims called but Aldora kicked a stone against him to shut him up.
"You want us to trust you? Not likely. We'll get him back the hard way." Laaneth seemed fire-up and her staff started to radiate with Flame.
"Wait! Laaneth!" Glymet, however, seemed more concerned about Swims and took off his sheathed sword from his belt and started to lower it down, "We're just here for our friend."
"Wise choice." Aldora replied and her smile curled upwards even more, "Although… it just occurred to me, why don't we just kill you now and keep our captive?"
"Yes, you can very much do that or…" Glymet said with an expressionless face and then looked at Swims, "… you can lower your head."
Both Laaneth and Glymet ducked to the ground immediately and the sound of gatling thunder broke through the calmness of the swamp forest as a hail of bullets made a brrrrrrrrrrrrt sound and tore through whatever it was aimed at.
In an instant and from left to right, the bullets decimated the heavily armored treasure hunter at the forefront of the group and blasted off the right arm of the Khajiit Archer right next to him. The Orc shamaness that was behind them transformed herself into a small creature and escaped immediately while the Nord Aldora ducked to the ground almost the same instant Glymet and Laaneth did.
As the hail of bullets was over, Swims-at-Night attacked Aldora with his shovel but she rolled away and started running towards where her Orc friend did. She looked back at Glymet, who was chasing her, and shouted in rage as she watched her Khajiit comrade bleed to death.
Glymet didn't chase Aldora for long and ran back to Swims and Laaneth. He saw Laaneth trying to pull Swims out of the pit and so he too gave a helping hand.
"Swims! Thank Azura you're safe!"
As they sat together in the Swamp, Laaneth and Swims started catching their breath from the tension of the situation while Glymet stood over them.
"What was that?" Swims asked with a shocked Argonian expression, "That insane attack. It almost blew my head off."
"Survival estimation, 95%." A voice replied.
Mechanical and emotionless, the owner of the voice stepped out from the cover of dried and charred bushes in his full brass body. Ram seemed to have switched his legs for caterpillar tracks (like a military tank) to withstand the power of the gatling gun he just sprayed around. Seeing him, the Argonian Swims-at-Night had to stand alarmed.
"Relax, it is a friend we met here. Call him Ram." Laaneth said.
"Seriously? Those things run errands for that crazy Mecinar wizard. Can't believe you tamed one!" Said Swims as he checked out Ram from a distance.
"He's not a Factotum. He's a real person trapped in one. If only he can tell us how though." Glymet said, "Jon Dare introduced us to him."
"Right!" Swims became alert immediately as if he remembered something dangerous, "Jon Dare, he's here!"
"We've met him." Laaneth said and stood up, "We need to reunite with him later but we agreed to help the Clockwork Apostles with their Memory Crystal that was stolen by the Treasure Hunters. Now that they've run…"
Laaneth seemed a little bit depressed and Glymet shook his shoulder since he's not going to chase some dangerous individuals like those Treasure Hunters into an unknown plane of existence like this.
"Oh! You mean this?" At that moment, Swims-at-Night forked out something from his pocket.
"That's…" Both Glymet and Laaneth were lost for words seeing the prize they agreed to collect for Galyn and the Apostles in the hands of their sticky-fingered friend.
"How did you get that?" Laaneth asked.
"It looked valuable so I swept it from those idiots." He said with the sinister laugh of a thief.
"You're a wonder, Swims!" Laaneth hugged Swims-at-Night and looked at the Memory Crystal with glee, "Let's move from this place first. We need to take a look at its content…"
And just as she was about to drag her allies and move towards the city, something came flying over their heads. The three adventurers lowered their heads and put on their defense while Ram aimed up his gatling gun and sprayed a hail of bullets at whatever that thing was with extreme prejudice and unshakable accuracy.
That flying thing landed on a tree by getting impaled into one of its branches. As it stopped, it appeared that the flying thing was a headless body that somehow got flung by some extremely powerful attack.
As for the head, it seemed to have fallen in a different location long before the body got sprayed with Ram's bullets. This body belonged to the Orc Shamaness that was with the Treasure Hunters and escaped first just a couple of minutes ago.
As for what came next, all those who were present felt the sound of footsteps slowly approaching them.
"Ram, get ready." Glymet spoke.
"Disapproved!" Ram replied with no interest whatsoever.
"What?" The others felt anxious as whatever was coming with nothing less than an imminent threat.
As the footsteps got closer, two figures emerged from behind the dry trees, the first was Kota in his gigantic form called Dragon and the other was none other than Jon Dare who was wearing armor this time around and dragging the blonde Aldora from her hair.
"Glymet old man!" Jon called while waving his free hand that had some smoke coming from it, for some reason.
"Slaughter! HAHA!" Kota (Dragon) burst into maniacal laughter and started beating down the corpse of the armored Treasure Hunters with his oversized arm, "Thunder Cookie! Again! Again! Hahaha!"
"Hey, peabrain! Only I can do Thunder Cookie!" Jon shouted at Kota (Dragon).
"Only… you?" Kota (Dragon) tilted his head in wonder before realizing the truth, "Sadge!"
The others realized that Jon's iconic "Thunder Cookie" spell was the method used to blast the Orc Shamaness to death. The lethality of that spell was rumored to be able to make opponents explode on contact and was used frequently by Jon, especially against the people he hated the most, namely the Thalmor agents.
While the others recalled that, Jon ignored Kota (Dragon) whose depression shrunk him back to the normal Kota, and approached Glymet.
"You made contact with living Clockwork Apostles and found a Memory Crystal of Sotha Sil." Said Jon to Laaneth and Glymet, "I can only say this day is getting better and better."
"You seem to have recovered your lost power." Laaneth said, "You've had me worried, you know!"
"Sorry, Ms. Laaneth, just don't rat me out to mom." Jon said with a sleazy smile, "So, can we take a look at the Crystal?"
"Do you have a method to crack it?" Glymet asked.
"Well, now that I have recovered my Magic, I can retrieve all my toys from my Magical Storage. I've all sorts of toys stashed over there." Jon said while showing off his armor then continued, "Also, don't you want to hear about my war plan?"
***
"A War? You really wanna go that far?" Glymet asked with morbid expressions seeing that Jon had filled the Pavilion of Artifice with various machinery.
"A Battle is the right term, old man." Jon replied, "Mecinar has an army and I can't practice Necromancy or Conjuration easily in Clockwork City since I am not quite sure about the outer plane motions from this plane of existence. Even the Magicka in this place is kinda weird."
"Clockwork City has always been reported as a place with abnormal Magicka but that can be said about all planes of existence." Laaneth agreed.
"Indeed. Even if Sotha Sil was aiming to create a world better than Mundus in his own words, he made limitations and restricted many freedoms over the Magicka of his realm. During my visits to various Oblivion Realms, I noticed that many types of Magic were restricted by the will of the Lords of these Realms as the Mortal Plane of Mundus remains the Realm with the most independent Magicka." Jon overanalyzed the subject with Laaneth as colleagues.
"The Vision of Lorkhan when he created Mundus was indeed extraordinary and counted on granting all living beings their freedom of choice. I guess we are still learning about the truth of the Wheel and the Tower even to this day." Laaneth agreed with him, making the rest of the group feel stupid, and Glymet to be barely keeping up.
"But let's not forget that the Dawn Magic has been restricted to Mundus over the years. Can this be some sort of restriction made by Shor (Lorkhan)?" Jon speculated.
"I still take the stand that the Dawn Magic was the Key of Creation and we, the Mortal Races, are unable to access it due to our mortal limitation. What can be called Dawn Magic can actually be something far above our regular ability to cast Magic such as spells of higher tiers." Laaneth explained her opinion.
"Forbidden Magic?!" Jon made an understanding face.
"Precisely. A magic that can redo and undo reality is of a scale such as…"
"Alright! That's enough!" Swims cried in both Laaneth and Jon, "Look at how dizzy everyone is, you goddamn nerds!"
"Oh!" "Sorry!"
Jon and Laaneth retreated from their research ideas and returned to the topic at hand.
"So, the war efforts that I made…" Jon stood from the circle around the fire and pointed at all the large boxes he gathered, "Ladies, I present to you… a Pneumatic Forge Assembly Line!"
Nobody clapped.
Jon had to clear his throat and say the word again but only Kota shifted his personality to Smeed and started praising Jon for collecting all this junk and tinkering it into something that looks useful.
Emotionally Damaged by the underwhelming praise, Jon started to explain his plan.
"So the Pneumatic Forge is the place where Sotha Sil created his Combat Factotums. I ripped off some machines from over there that can help us recycle the junk all around this junkyard and transform it into Combat Factotums." Jon said with dampened spirit and his speech pace increased while his eyes were turning hollow, "It's all wired up to the Power Transformer into the Vale of Tears which I had to bombard earlier this morning in order to mask my attack as an attempt to fight against Mecinar while in fact, I was wiring these contraptions to the power grid in order to create an army of machines that can help us fight the army of Abominations that is being assembled by Mecinar as we speak and coming to rip us all apart."
"Alright, calm down." Glymet said with a sympathetic face, "We were just messing with you. Of course we know what all this Psinomatic Forge…"
"Pneumatic Forge." Laaneth corrected him.
"That, yeah… don't worry, Jonradson! We were just… having a laugh."
"... yeah…" Jon said with gloom gathering over his head.
"And what about that woman?" Laaneth asked while pointing at the Blonde Nord, Aldora.
All that time, Aldora was locked in a makeshift cage. Jon tied her with the only type of knots he knew how to tie… which happens to be… extremely kinky.
"That… right…" Jon looked at the woman, "Right, Aldora and I go way back, actually. She's a Thief turned Mercenary and Sailor and Treasure Hunter from Dawnstar. I tried to hire her to the Dare Corps many times but she is as dishonest as they come."
"No one from Dawnstar likes you, Jon." Laaneth said.
Aldora was conscious and looking at Jon with glaring red eyes. After all, he killed her band of mercenaries and seemed to have some rivalry with them.
"Jon fucking Dare." She spoke.
"Aldora the Daring… you really got to stop this." He replied.
It seemed the rivalry between Jon and Aldora wasn't about Mercenary work only but also about titles. "Dare" and "The Daring" were awfully close to one another. The two of them led rival Mercenary Groups. While Jon's symbol was the Dragon, Aldora's symbol was the Eagle. As only one king of the sky was supposed to exist, Jon pushed Aldora and her group so far to the point where they had to operate on ships and become naval mercenaries, the field where he was also considered the best in thanks to his Magicka-powered ships.
"She's part of the reason I dislike blondes." Jon said.
"You've got an Altmer girlfriend with blonde hair last time I checked." Aldora said.
"Platinum!" Jon corrected her.
"So, you took her for interrogation about Mecinar's plan?" Glymet asked before the conversation derailed.
"I wouldn't bother with that murderous lying whore but if you want to interrogate her, she's all yours." Jon replied, "Personally, I'd like to focus on these Memory Crystals you collected."
"We've collected three of them." Laaneth said, "One from the Ventral Terminus, one from the Halls of Regulation, and the last from the Treasure Hunters."
"These Memory Crystals, or Memory Stars as the people here like to call them, are the records left by the Dead Godking Sotha Sil." Jon said while taking a heavy breath of anticipation.
"What do you expect we'll find out?" Laaneth asked.
"Secrets!" Kota (Spamton) screamed, "Deep and dark!"
"Truth!" Ram reacted.
"Both." Jon nodded.
"And how will you read them?" Glymet asked.
Jon smiled and pointed at Ram.
"He can display them using his Memory Sockets. But there are two vital requirements that we need." Jon said in a serious voice.
"What can they be?" Glymet asked in full seriousness.
"Drinks and Popcorn!"
With that, Jon and the group were about to witness the most important memories left by the Creator of Clockwork City, the Tribunal Deity Sotha Sil.
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A/n: Help me reach my Goal on P4treon & Join Discord! ➡️ https://linktr.ee/donovel ⬅️
A/n: Help me reach my Goal on P4treon & Join Discord! ➡️ https://linktr.ee/donovel ⬅️
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The mechanical sound of Ram's inner workings indicated his system accepting the new Memory Crystal.
Ram's head alone can accept more than just one Memory Crystal and other add-ons that may add to his functionalities and personal memories but right now, Jon asked him to display the Memory Crystals that Glymet and Laaneth acquired.
These memories were displayed on a blank sheet of cloth, which Jon spread over one of the assembly line box-like machines, so that Ram can aim his head towards it and send out the light and the sound that will project the memory.
In other words, it is movie night now but right from the get-go, a voice was heard from the recording along with the visuals of eye blinking. Jon and the group gathered closer to the projected image in order to figure out what they were seeing.
It seemed that the Memory was acting less than a Movie but more like a Record when the thoughts of the memory owner started to form together.
< This day has appeared in all my simulations. >
< The End. >
< My dear friend Almalexia has come to kill me. >
< Now, everything depends on my calculations being correct. My machines need 22 minutes to seal the Chamber of Lorkhan. So that's how long I must live. >
A Living Deity at his final moments. For those who aren't aware about the events of 200 years ago, the Three Living Deities of Morrowind lost their Divine Power with the disappearance of the Heart of Lorkhan, which was caused by the Nerevarine, in order to stop the mad Daguth Ur.
This affected them greatly, the Clockwork City was being threatened to cease existing, and the meteor floating above Vivec City was no longer stabilized by Vivec's power and would soon crash. Whereas Mournhold, the city of Almalexia had no abnormalities like the two, it was sunk in discord and turmoil.
By that, Vivec was driven into more mysteries above his mysteries, Sotha Sil started working on his final desperate research, and Almalexia was just driven mad.
The Madness of Almalexia was directed towards the other two Living Deities, Sotha Sil and Vivec. She staged an attack by the Clockwork Creatures of Sotha Sil as a pretext to invade the Clockwork City and kill Sotha Sil.
< Your time has come, Sotha Sil! All these years you've looked down on me. Have you any last words? >
Illustrious and endlessly beautiful and mad, Almalexia marched in her battle gear that outlined her curves just as neatly as it exposed her golden Chimer skin.
< … Ayem… >
Sotha Sil had a long sigh before thinking of her name and not uttering a single word.
The woman that was the Healing Mother, the Lady of Mercy, and Mother Morrowind, was reduced to a raging murdering madwoman and the red of her hair was extended by the blood of the Clockwork Apostles she spilled on the way to the Dome of Sotha Sil.
Their fight was a swift one, Sotha Sil was a Mage but Almalexia was a Warrior and a cut above any other Warrior, one that lived through hundreds upon hundreds of years and warred with many Daedric Princes and Akaviri Warlords and vanquished them all.
< Your time has come, Sotha Sil! All these years you've looked down on me. Have you any last words? >
Almalexia took the silence of Sotha Sil as arrogance and cursed them with malice and hatred.
< Why are you silent? What are you hiding?! Speak, curse you. >
Almalexia shouted till it actually made Sotha Sil almost lose focus.
< Fine then. Die, old friend. Fall before the One True God! >
Almalexia finished Sotha Sil with her blade Hopesfire and watched him as he was left hanged and mingled on his machines.
Sotha Sil's last fleeting thoughts started to echo through the memory crystal as the scene was fading to darkness.
< I have done it. >
He spoke as if he had done something big. Something that made his last moments worth it. Something that required his focus to be somewhere distant from the fight with Almalexia.
< I die, but what is death? A natural function. >
The thoughts became quieter but Sotha Sil still had that same level of enthusiasm that filled him with a strange power as if he was more alive than anyone else.
< The chamber is sealed, the work has begun. It will take approximately 207 years… but what is that? A rounding error. >
And then the words that made Jon spit his drink and Laaneth scream from their wild shock were heard.
< The new Heart of Lorkhan will be completed. And it will power my city for all eternity. >
***
For those who understood the true meaning of these words from the Memory Crystal, the mention of the Heart of Lorkhan was akin to ringing bells and roaring thunder in their heads.
Jon's stomach churned over so bad that he ran and started puking all its content.
Laaneth was so pale that by Dunmer standards, she would be a snow elf.
But aside from the two, the rest had no deep knowledge of the Arcana aside from Glymet's brief readings in the books he rarely enjoyed.
"The Heart of Lorkhan? Wasn't that a stone buried deep in the Red Mountain?" Glymet asked.
"What's that anyway?' Swims seemed to be less informed than Glymet regarding the Heart.
"Azura, save us!" Laaneth shivered in clear panic.
"Sh- Sh- Should we… get p- p- p- panicked too?" Kota asked with worry consuming him and causing him to stutter.
"Certainly." Ram answered emotionlessly.
Laaneth looked closely at the Crystal that was embedded on Ram's head and felt hesitant before speaking on the verge of panic.
"The Heart of Lorkhan is one of the most powerful and dangerous artifacts in history… if not the most. It's what Sotha Sil and the other two Tribunals used to become gods." She said with an obvious grim look, "The stone disappeared from the world and was said to be destroyed…"
"Liberated!" At that moment, Jon, who was done vomiting and returned to the group with a sickly face, interrupted Laaneth, "The Champion of Morrowind, the Nerevarine, liberated the Heart of Lorkhan by destroying the enchantment that sealed it in the Red Mountain. It returned to the world as it should be."
"I don't understand." Glymet spoke, "Whether it is destroyed or liberated, Lorkhan is the name of the Divine Being that created the World. I, at least, know that his heart was ripped from him as a punishment for creating mortality and it was turned to a stone and sealed in a volcano."
"Ripped from him, yes. Turned to stone, maybe. Sealed in a volcano, no." Jon commented.
"The Heart itself was so powerful that it formed the Volcano around itself when it fell into the sea. The Dragon God fastened the heart on an arrow and sent it away so that the followers of Lorkhan couldn't recover it." Laaneth added.
"The War of the Red Mountain happened between my Ancestors, the Nords, Laaneth's Ancestors, the Chimer, and possibly Ram's Ancestors, the Dwemer if we are not mistaken. The Nords tried to make Shor (Lorkhan) recover his heart but the Chimer and the Dwemer opposed them. This led to the complete disappearance of the Dwemer as a race from all parts of Tamriel, the leader of the Chimer, Indoril Nerevar, was killed by his lieutenants who later used the Artifacts of the Dwemer and the Heart of Lorkhan on themselves to become God-Kings, these three Liutantnets are Sotha Sil, builder of Clockwork City, Nerevar's Wife Almalexia who killed Sotha Sil in the memory we just saw, and lastly Vivec who disappeared during the Oblivion Crisis."
"Wow!" Swims-at-Night exclaimed, "That's a lot of history. I feel like I've heard different accounts of this story before but these were like folk tales when I was young."
"Historical facts, I'm afraid." Laaneth said before turning to Ram, "I am sorry, we were planning to tell you the truth slowly and carefully."
While expecting the young child to be devastated by either the disappearance of his possible race or the change of his other possible race, his response was rather…
"I… see." Ram replied in the same emotionless mechanical voice he uses but this time, more of his personality was being conveyed.
Both Jon and Laaneth were suspecting him to be either Chimer or Dwemer. They haven't arrived at a conclusive answer yet but as far as they are concerned, all there is to Ram is an incomplete Personality Construct stored on a Memory Crystal.
"But to think the Heart of Lorkhan is in this place!?" Jon immediately returned to the main issue they have on hand.
"It is not the real one." Laaneth corrected him, "It is a new one made by the Machines."
"How can mere machines replicate the Heart of Lorkhan, to begin with?" Jon asked.
"We have seen the Eye of Magnus, another Artifact that was attributed to an Original Spirit." Glymet said, then asked, "By any chance, are they the same thing?"
The Heart of Lorkhan, the Eye of Magnus… how related are they?
"It can be that if a part of an Original Spirit was separated from them, they would turn into an artifact." Jon theorized.
Laaneth and Jon started thinking about the possibility but there was no reference they know of or at least remember. On the other hand, Glymet seemed to be thinking as well.
He remembered the confrontation he had with the Thalmor Emissary in the College of Winterhold, the Altmer who was called Ancano. During his brief visit to Winterhold, Glymet assisted the College of Winterhold to defeat that Ancano when the latter managed to tap into the power of the Eye of Magnus and was almost unkillable, if not for the staff of Magnus that was recovered and used by Alina Dare to take control of the Eye of Magnus.
"So… this new Heart of Lorkhan, are there any tools to control it? Like the Staff and the Eye of Magnus?" Glymet asked.
His question came with the memory of what he glimpsed in the core of the Eye of Magnus. Something he couldn't fathom back then and no matter what he tried to remember what he saw and what he heard, it slips through his mind like a dream he saw a long time ago.
"The Tools of Kagrenac!" Laaneth shouted immediately in response to Glymet's question, "They are the artifacts that can…"
She then stopped talking immediately and turned to Jon.
"If they can, how can we acquire them?" Glymet asked but the answer was already in front of him.
The Tools of Kagrenac, the three Dwemer Artifacts that were crafted by Craftlord Kagrenac of the Dwemer race. The first time they were used on the original Heart of Lorkhan, they caused an entire race to disappear.
Jon had those artifacts long ago before he left Skyrim on his three years journey around Tamriel. He acquired them to fix his broken body after he managed to escape from the Realm of Coldharbour when he was trapped there by the vampires of the Volkihar Clan.
These Three Artifacts are the dagger Keening, the hammer Sunder, and the single gauntlet Wraithguard. Each of the three artifacts has a very vital use during the process of utilizing the energy of the Heart of Lorkhan.
The gauntlet Wraithguard was designed to protect the user from the other two artifacts as their powers were a league beyond what any mortal body can endure. It was also designed to empower the other two artifacts.
The hammer Sunder would be used to strike the Heart and cause a specific type and amount of energy to be emitted from it. The enchantment of the hammer can draw Vital and Magical Essence without touching the Life Essence of the Heart.
As for the dagger Keening, it was sharp enough to cut through and reshape the energy of the Heart that was drawing like sculpting on a clay mold. Its enchantment can also help with transforming and absorbing this power.
"You had these tools on you all the time?" Swims-at-Night asked.
"I am this generation's owner and keeper of the Tools of Kagrenac." Jon replied with a foreboding tone, "Morrowind has made many complaints over the years and asked me to hand them to the Dunmeri Council but these things are on a scale with Weapons of Mass Destruction, I wouldn't trust a soul with them, that applies to everyone here."
"But…" Laaneth tried to argue but Jon interrupted.
"This new Heart, whatever it is, may prove to be a tremendous pain in the ass for us. If the time comes and I find a need to destroy it, I will." Jon stated.
"Thank you." Laaneth nodded, "I trust your judgment."
"Can't we take it and… I don't know… sell it?" Swims asked.
Everyone turned to Swims-at-Night with their eyes void of any expressions.
"Oh! Did I speak that thought out loud?" Swims backed off right away with an awkward laugh.
"I have a Daedric Titan pet called Xikil, I'll send him after your ass if you were to ever think of the idea of recalling the moment you had that thought… ever… again."
"By Sithis! You guys can't take a joke." Swims made sure to put between him and Jon a good enough distance to start running for his life if the need arose.
"Then the new Heart of Lorkhan is what Mecinar after all along?" Glymet asked.
"If he already has that, I doubt any of us would still be alive." Jon said, "Let's hope the project was a failure and try to kill Mecinar as soon as possible."
"Indeed." Glymet agreed with Jon wholeheartedly, "From what I understand, the Heart is vital for the life of this Realm, we should consider leaving it be once the threat is dealt with."
Destroy the new Heart or Preserve it, a tough decision that holds the Fate of the entirety of Clockwork City and its inhabitants. A decision they'll have to take when the time comes.
"We need to gather more information then." Swims-at-Night spoke, "We have more of these Crystals, so let's see what they hold."
He may have just spoken what was on everyone's mind and from this point, they gave Ram the two remaining Memory Crystals.
The information on these Crystals didn't offer as big of a surprise as the first but they learned a few more things.
Some of these memories were the lessons Sotha Sil gave to one of his best Apostles, Mecinar. Mecinar was young in these memories and quite the eager and genius apprentice. He worked hard to please Sotha Sil and gain his acknowledgment but Sotha Sil was always aloof and distant.
Sotha Sil suspected Mecinar's betrayal before it even arrived but what he didn't suspect was the Abominations that were created by Mecinar, the same things he creates now to fight off Jon.
Sotha Sil banished Mecinar from Clockwork City and changed the locking combination on the Chamber of Lorkhan that contained the new Mechanical Heart. This was the good news that finally made the group calm down.
If Sotha Sil has secured the chamber, it would take Mecinar a lot of time to crack the locking combination.
The other Memory Crystal was one much earlier than that of Mecinar or the Mechanical Heart, it was about Dagoth Ur, the enemy of the Tribunal Gods.
Long ago during the War of the Red Mountain between the Nords, the Chimer, and the Dwemer, Dagoth Ur was a subordinate of Lord Indoril Nerevar, leader of the Chimer, just like Almalexia, Vivec, and Sotha Sil before their Apotheosis.
In the account where the Tribunal Gods betrayed their leader Nerevar and used the power of the Tools of Kagrenac on the Heart of Lorkhan, Dagoth Ur opposed them and tried to avenge Nerevar but ended up defeated and presumed dead under the Red Mountain. Other accounts claim that he betrayed Nerevar but that is mostly the side of the story told by the Tribunal.
After centuries, Dagoth Ur and his people, the House of Dagoth, were mutated by the effects of the Heart of Lorkhan after they were driven to extinction. They returned as Ash Vampires, beings of terrible power and extreme violence, and they ambushed the Tribunal and ripped them off their Divine Powers, which caused the living Gods to slowly decline over the years.
At the end of the memory, Sotha Sil seemed to have created a new hidden chamber beyond the Inner Curiosity where the new Mechanical Heart was revealed. This memory showed how to access that chamber.
Knowing how to reach the Mechanical Heart and how to exploit it, the team was finally a league of steps ahead of Mecinar.
Only one thing remained.
"Activate the Assembly Line!" Jon spoke and started punching switches on the machines he put together, "By dawn, our army will be produced and we will go to war."
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A/n: Help me reach my Goal on P4treon & Join Discord! ➡️ https://linktr.ee/donovel ⬅️
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GOT IT