Hello, Don here… On the 15th of September 2022, my wedding took place at a local wedding hall near my hotown. I uploaded so photos and a brief of this new phase of life for . It is unlocked to everyone on P4treon.
URL: slinktr.ee/donovel
As the Clockwork Dragon chased Jon outside the Brass Fortress and cinar managed to find a way to the Chamber of Lorkhan where the chanical Heart is, the party of Glyt had fallen into far depths beneath the heart's chamber.
Disoriented, disorganized, and disabled, they weren't able to move freely until they reached a stable ground. Still, as they started calling for one another, they found that they have beco separate on top of all in these clockwork depths.
And speaking of the Clockwork City, one must always rember that it was built by Sotha Sil, a visionary architect but on top of all, a Scientist. This ans that as the creator of a world, Sotha Sil, has built this world with the process of many trials and errors.
It is safe to say that beneath the surface of Clockwork City are innurable leftovers from previous projects that were covered by other projects until it all turned into one titanic multilayered ruin. This was where Glyt and the other four arrived.
Glyt managed to make sure that his surroundings were relatively safe and started to explore everything slowly. He used "Magelight", "Candlelight", "Clairvoyance", and all the spells that can help in this abyssal darkness.
The ruins he found himself in seed to have ford so underground river from so old maintenance pipes. Seeing it ant that either the water ca from sowhere or went sowhere.
Glyt then used a different set of spells, "Sea Stride" was always his go-to spell for navigating against the streams and so, he went up the underground river.
As he moved from one place to another, Glyt noticed that the upper part of the ruin kept fracturing and collapsing as if he was being haunted by an old architectural curse. If that wasn't the case, the only other possibility is that cinar seed to have taken control of the chanical Heart of Lorkhan and started to "reshape" Clockwork City.
Reshaping a world is a Divine Act, Talos Stormcrown (Tiber Septim) reshaped the land of Cyrodiil from thick jungles to open adows, that was the act that proved him as the Ninth Imperial Divine.
If cinar acquired such power… the re thought was simply terrifying.
There was another idea lurking around Glyt's head as he swam up the river. Recently, he witnessed an Aedric Ancestral Artifact being used and the power it gave to its user was imnse.
That was the Eye of Magnus.
The Eye of Magnus… the Heart of Lorkhan… The "Sothing" of "So God"...
This is not a good sign.
Jon Dare and Laaneth were skeptical about the chanical Heart being as almighty as the original Heart of Lorkhan but this is not Nirn, this is a different world that can be counted as an independent one.
So, what exactly is the Heart?
Sadly there is more than one answer but for that very reason, it is hard to define the Heart for what it is.
The Heart of Lorkhan was once the Physical Heart of Lorkhan, the Creator God who sched to create Nirn. It was separated from its owner as punishnt for cheating the Aedric Deities and rendering many of them Mortals but that's just the orthodox answer.
The other answers include: A Stone that was found in the Heart of the Red Mountain, the Stone of the Red Tower, the Source of the Tribunal Divinity as well as Dagoth Ur, the Core of the Engine that powered the chanical God (the Numidium), the Reason why the Dwarves disappeared… etc.
It's all nice and dandy but this begs the most important question of all. What does it do? What is it ant for? And why is it so important to the very Fabric of Reality?
Is it like a Control Device for Existence? Switch it on, you exist, switch it off, you non-exist. The Dwarves did this non-exist pretty well it seed.
Then there are the rumored Dragon Breaks whenever the Numidium is activated with the Heart.
Nothing is clear when it cos to the Heart of Lorkhan anyway, so what about the chanical Heart, is it the sa?
And the Eye of Magnus… Ancano did ntion that it had the power to undo existence and it seed like a pretty dangerous thing that is awfully similar to the Heart of Lorkhan in that regard.
Fossilized Organs of the Divines are pretty dangerous it seems. One wouldn't want to ss with that… especially after what Glyt saw in the Eye.
His thoughts weren't leading him anywhere but his recent experience with the Eye of Magnus has taught him one thing. If cinar controls the chanical Heart just like how Ancano controlled the Eye, a tool to subdue the Heart is vitally needed just like what Alina Dare did with the Eye using the Staff of Magnus.
Jon Dare did ntion that he is the keeper of the Tools of Kagrenac, the only thing that can override the control over the original Heart. If so, they need to get to Jon and use the Tools to prevent cinar from acquiring any more Divine power.
Now that was the ntality he needed to move forward, lucky for him, once he reached a large chamber that was being subrged with water, he ran into a familiar lizard.
"Glym!"
"Swims!"
Swims-at-Night, the Argonian Smuggler, was waving at Glyt from the side of the room as he hung to a wall.
"Fancy eting you here, a little help here, brother." Swims called.
"I thought Argonians can breathe underwater." Glyt asked as he used his magic to rise to the surface.
"I'm perfectly capable of outliving the lot of you underwater but that's not my current problem." Swims said then pointed towards a certain direction in the water, "Look down there."
As Glyt looked, he saw a sight that terrified him. Thanks to the low visibility, he seed to have skipped that danger while swimming but now, even he started clinging to walls.
There was an entire boarding school of Slaughterfish lazily swimming under Swims and seed more focused on him so they overlooked Glyt.
Clockwork Slaughterfish was just like its usual counterpart, a fish with a crocodile-like head filled with razor teeth and a long eel-like body that had a lot of fins.
"Can you do sothing about them?" Swims asked.
"I can shock them with Lightning spells but this can barely stun them since those pesky slaughterfish are resistant to Shock. Also, if one of ours is nearby, they will get stunned too." Glyt replied.
"One of ours is nearby alright. Down there, actually." Swims replied pointing down at the center of the whirling motion of the slaughterfish.
"What? Who?" Glyt asked with a terrified face.
"That bastard Ram!" Swims said, "We ought to leave him. He opened that door for cinar after all."
"No! He had his reasons for sure." Glyt said, "Is there any way to help him out?"
"He's a full tal Factotum. How can sothing like that even swim up for us to help." Swims argued.
"Then we only need his head. Jon Dare said that he found a functioning head and assembled it with the rest of the body." Glyt said.
"Yeah yeah, how can we get past the fish though?" Swims asked impatiently.
Glyt thought for a second before evoking a Lightning rune and casting it on the water. Once the rune exploded, all the slaughterfish were stunned. Glyt and Swims kept watching the fish for a while before it regained consciousness and started moving again.
"That's about 12 seconds?" Swims asked.
"Yeah. Can you reach Ram, bring his head, and swim up in 12 seconds?" Glyt asked.
With a long sigh, Swims looked at the water and then at Glyt.
"I guess it's ti to live up to my na." Swims said and readied himself, "Shock them!"
Glyt cast another Lightning Rune that exploded on contact with the fish and right after, Swims took a straight dive to the depth of the subrging aqueduct.
Ti passed, 3 seconds, 4, 5, 8, 9…
"Hurry, Swims!" Glyt called.
10 seconds…
One of the slaughterfish started twitching and moving…
11 seconds…
A stream ca from the water and soone jumped out…
12 seconds…
The first fish moved and one jumped from the water high enough to bite on Swims' tail.
"FUCking… BAL!"
Swims cursed and waved his tail against the chamber wall to hit the fish and cause it to fall.
"You alright?" Glyt asked.
"I am… Hist-damned fish!" Swims cursed as he replied and showed Glyt Ram's head.
"Got him!" He said.
"He's with us?" Glyt asked while trying to see whether Ram is responsive or not.
"Yo! Tinhead!" Swims shook Ram's head to get him to work.
"… Sorry…"
With an apologetic tone accompanied by a chanical voice, Ram's voice was heard.
"Why did you do it, Tinhead? Why did you open the chamber?" Swims asked with an irritated voice.
"… Sorry…" Ram gave the sa reply.
"Stop it, Swims. He's just a kid, we'll talk with him once this is over." Glyt spoke.
"Yeah, whatever."
Swims lowered a knapsack that was hanging on his back and put Ram's head in it. Once the head entered, it started making a tal rustling noise.
"What's in there?" Glyt asked.
"Ah, let's say that recovering Ram didn't take much effort but this… this was worth the risk." Swims said with a crafty smile.
"What's it?" Glyt asked.
"Ah… a little thing I had my eyes on." Swims said, "Don't worry, I'll share with you. Sharing is caring, no?"
"Shut up." Glyt retorted in annoyance, "Now let's get out of here."
"Oh, yes. Do follow , good sir." Swims said, "I spotted our way out but you'll need to stun the fish one more ti."
***
As the two managed to swim their way out of the subrged aqueduct, they arrived at a large chamber where they magically ran into another two familiar faces.
"You two are a sight for sore eyes." Laaneth walked out to them and extended her staff for them to climb out of the water.
"Kota's with you?" Glyt asked.
"He's over there." She replied while turning in Kota's direction.
The small Argonian appeared at the end of a large hallway of so ruined facility. Laaneth seed to have illuminated the place with magic and at its end where Kota was, there was a large gate.
"You can't open it?" Glyt asked.
"It needs a lot of force from two directions." Laaneth pointed out, "The gate's lock chanism is based on two pistons here and here. I can use all my power to bring one down but as soon as I let go…"
"It springs back up." Glyt understood.
"Hey, Kota! Tell Dragon to co out!" Swims called out to Kota who was desperately hanging to one piston.
"Go away! Kota doesn't want to speak!" Kota replied as he struggled with pulling down the piston that didn't even move an inch.
"What's with him?" Swims asked Laaneth.
"He switched through all his personalities and they all failed to make the piston budge so it seed that they have all insulted him and he is upset about them all." Laaneth replied.
"And Dragon, the Behemoth one?" Swims asked.
"He only cos out in fights." Laaneth replied.
"So let get this straight, you can pull one down with all your Magicka. So this will take the two of us." Glyt asked.
"Yes, unless you want to rest for a bit first." She replied.
"I am good." Glyt readied himself.
"Alright, let's do it together. You're on the right, I'm on the left." Laaneth said and stood in place.
"Hey, Kota. Co down." Swims called.
"No! Kota will do it." Kota seed more stubborn than timid and held onto the piston.
"Leave him be." Glyt said and mustered all the Magicka within him.
With a nod, Laaneth and Glyt cast Telekinesis and started pulling down the pistons that only corresponded with Magic. As the pistons moved, other small pistons started moving inside the chamber ruin and the gate started opening slowly.
"Ah! I can finally see light." Swims cheered.
"I'm doing it! Kota's doing it!" Kota started shouting as well, wholly unaware that Glyt was the one pulling down the piston.
With great effort, Laaneth and Glyt finally pulled the pistons to the threshold that trapped them down. As they were done, the two of them sat on the ground from exhaustion.
"Blessed be the light of Akatosh! Let's get out of here!" Swims helped the two tired mages up and urged them to walk.
"Potion?" Laaneth offered Glyt her last Magicka Potion.
"Thanks!" Glyt drank half the amount and returned it to her.
As the group started going out of the Piston Cavum, the gate they opened started to slowly close behind them as the pistons were released from the thresholds and they were on the path of no return… as if any of them wanted to return, to begin with.
Still, it was just about ti for them to witness what happened to the Clockwork City.
A/n: Help reach my Goal on P4treon & Join Discord! ?? slinktr.ee/donovel ??
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