Dragonborn Saga

Chapter 688: Clockwork Depths

Hello, Don here… On the 15th of September 2022, my wedding took place at a local wedding hall near my hometown. I uploaded some photos and a brief of this new phase of life for me. It is unlocked to everyone on P4treon.

URL: https://linktr.ee/donovel

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As the Clockwork Dragon chased Jon outside the Brass Fortress and Mecinar managed to find a way to the Chamber of Lorkhan where the Mechanical Heart is, the party of Glymet 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 become separate on top of all in these clockwork depths.

And speaking of the Clockwork City, one must always remember that it was built by Sotha Sil, a visionary architect but on top of all, a Scientist. This means 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 innumerable leftovers from previous projects that were covered by other projects until it all turned into one titanic multilayered ruin. This was where Glymet and the other four arrived.

Glymet 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 seemed to have formed some underground river from some old maintenance pipes. Seeing it meant that either the water came from somewhere or went somewhere.

Glymet 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, Glymet 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 Mecinar seemed to have taken control of the Mechanical 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 meadows, that was the act that proved him as the Ninth Imperial Divine.

If Mecinar acquired such power… the mere thought was simply terrifying.

There was another idea lurking around Glymet'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 immense.

That was the Eye of Magnus.

The Eye of Magnus… the Heart of Lorkhan… The "Something" of "Some God"...

This is not a good sign.

Jon Dare and Laaneth were skeptical about the Mechanical 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 schemed to create Nirn. It was separated from its owner as punishment 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 Mechanical 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 meant 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 seemed.

Then there are the rumored Dragon Breaks whenever the Numidium is activated with the Heart.

Nothing is clear when it comes to the Heart of Lorkhan anyway, so what about the Mechanical Heart, is it the same?

And the Eye of Magnus… Ancano did mention that it had the power to undo existence and it seemed 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 mess with that… especially after what Glymet 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 Mecinar controls the Mechanical 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 mention 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 Mecinar from acquiring any more Divine power.

Now that was the mentality he needed to move forward, lucky for him, once he reached a large chamber that was being submerged with water, he ran into a familiar lizard.

"Glym!"

"Swims!"

Swims-at-Night, the Argonian Smuggler, was waving at Glymet from the side of the room as he hung to a wall.

"Fancy meeting you here, a little help here, brother." Swims called.

"I thought Argonians can breathe underwater." Glymet 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 Glymet looked, he saw a sight that terrified him. Thanks to the low visibility, he seemed 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 seemed more focused on him so they overlooked Glymet.

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 something 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." Glymet 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?" Glymet asked with a terrified face.

"That bastard Ram!" Swims said, "We ought to leave him. He opened that door for Mecinar after all."

"No! He had his reasons for sure." Glymet said, "Is there any way to help him out?"

"He's a full metal Factotum. How can something 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." Glymet said.

"Yeah yeah, how can we get past the fish though?" Swims asked impatiently.

Glymet thought for a second before evoking a Lightning rune and casting it on the water. Once the rune exploded, all the slaughterfish were stunned. Glymet 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?" Glymet asked.

With a long sigh, Swims looked at the water and then at Glymet.

"I guess it's time to live up to my name." Swims said and readied himself, "Shock them!"

Glymet cast another Lightning Rune that exploded on contact with the fish and right after, Swims took a straight dive to the depth of the submerging aqueduct.

Time passed, 3 seconds, 4, 5, 8, 9…

"Hurry, Swims!" Glymet called.

10 seconds…

One of the slaughterfish started twitching and moving…

11 seconds…

A stream came from the water and someone 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?" Glymet asked.

"I am… Hist-damned fish!" Swims cursed as he replied and showed Glymet Ram's head.

"Got him!" He said.

"He's with us?" Glymet 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 mechanical 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 same reply.

"Stop it, Swims. He's just a kid, we'll talk with him once this is over." Glymet 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 metal rustling noise.

"What's in there?" Glymet 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?" Glymet 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." Glymet retorted in annoyance, "Now let's get out of here."

"Oh, yes. Do follow me, good sir." Swims said, "I spotted our way out but you'll need to stun the fish one more time."

***

As the two managed to swim their way out of the submerged 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?" Glymet 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 some ruined facility. Laaneth seemed to have illuminated the place with magic and at its end where Kota was, there was a large gate.

"You can't open it?" Glymet asked.

"It needs a lot of force from two directions." Laaneth pointed out, "The gate's lock mechanism 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." Glymet understood.

"Hey, Kota! Tell Dragon to come 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 seemed that they have all insulted him and he is upset about them all." Laaneth replied.

"And Dragon, the Behemoth one?" Swims asked.

"He only comes out in fights." Laaneth replied.

"So let me get this straight, you can pull one down with all your Magicka. So this will take the two of us." Glymet asked.

"Yes, unless you want to rest for a bit first." She replied.

"I am good." Glymet 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. Come down." Swims called.

"No! Kota will do it." Kota seemed more stubborn than timid and held onto the piston.

"Leave him be." Glymet said and mustered all the Magicka within him.

With a nod, Laaneth and Glymet 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 Glymet was the one pulling down the piston.

With great effort, Laaneth and Glymet 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 Glymet her last Magicka Potion.

"Thanks!" Glymet 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 time for them to witness what happened to the Clockwork City.

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