Crossbows and Colleges – Medic in Skyrim part 5

Oh hello again! I’ve just got back from visiting Paarthunax. Nice guy. Taught me a shout. Then told me that I needed an Elder Scroll. I suppose the name of the series would appear at some point to bite me in the backside. I’ve been asking around. Everyone’s clueless. Someone suggests that I ask Esbern, but I’m on the Throat of the World, I’ll be damned if I’m walking back to their lame fortress to ask a question I’m certain no one knows the answer to. But the Greybeards suggest I go to the college of Winterhold.

So I do that. And after accidentally setting the woman at the front on fire after she asked me to prove I could cast a spell, I completely ignore her and go straight to the library. Makes sense, right?

I like this guy. He’s realistic. Tells me what I need to know. He only had two books available about the Elder Scrolls (not that great a library then, when you think about it…) and one of them was pretty much gibberish. Much like my note books after a hard night of drinking and experimentation. But at least I try and clear up my work afterwards. Anyway, Urag is helpful and points me in the direction of a crazy scie- um, mage, out in the middle of nowhere.

You know, when he said the middle of nowhere, I didn’t think he meant it that literally. Bloody hell. And it’s really, really cold out here. If only I had my fur-trimmed coat or something.

This place doesn’t look very structurally sound. It’s inside a lump of ice. I had to swim across water and ice to get here. Good thing I’m not using that Wet And Cold mod, otherwise I’d be dead. Thankfully it’s nice and warm inside, so I sit by the fire and ignore the guy I’m supposed to be talking to. It’s cold. I don’t want to go out there and risk life and limb to find some scroll.

Anyway, yes, Septimus IS insane. But he mentions some place in the mountains which is probably where I want to go. Something about Dwemer? Great.

Wow, this place has seen better times. Looks like some sort of camping trip gone wrong. I bet you they came here on some sort of scie- um, magic trip and accidentally woke something up deep within which killed everyone. Oh well. The big tower is locked from the outside, so I need to find a side entrance.

Inside is really depressing. It’s wet and horrible and there’s water pouring around. Surely some of this water would have dried up or flooded the area completely by now? Oh well. I’m not an Engineer. We have Dell for these predicaments. Shame he’s not here.

I stumble around and find this dead guy. Poor thing. Brought his skooma-addicted brother along in an attempt to save him from his habits, then his brother killed him. J’zhar’s brother, you’re a bastard. Who also attacked me as I entered. I mean, a place like this, I didn’t expect to find people alive inside. Well it was self defense. I tried talking sense into him, but nooo, stupid Khajiit decided he wanted to eat syringes. A fitting death, really.

Much of this place is random machinery randomly turning on and off and weird, mechanical spiders. And contraptions that roll around as balls. Place makes no sense. Engineer would fucking love it here though. It’s just so duuuuuuull.

I clearly have to go through this door. Whether I had markers on or off, it would have been obvious. I know die-hard fans bitch about the game having markers to tell you where to go and apparently that ruins everything, but you can always turn them off if you want and people’s directions in Morrowind were shit.

Moving on, the next place is slightly more interesting. Slightly.

Wow, random glowing piles of feces. Turns out, they’re eggs? I don’t know. I take some for further study. I’m not going to eat them, of course. Only idiots do that.

There appear to be new enemies here. Breathing ones. Insectoid Charus and whatever Falmer are. From the mer bit, I assume they’re elves of some sort. Never liked elves, and these ones are stuck up enough to leave obvious traps lying around.

Bloody hell.

I mean, seriously.

Part of me is tempted to use that Feim shout to jump down and see what happens, but I haven’t saved in a while. I’ll walk. And stay away from that edge.

This one-footed Falmer attacks me for no reason. I don’t know why. I didn’t do anything or say anything. I might have been here to offer free sweets for all they know. As I kill him, he slides down the slope then off the edge. Or her. I don’t know. Interesting weaponry though, and they do appear to be blind. Maybe that’s why my (low) sneaking abilities don’t work so well.

I don’t even know what to say about this. I assume somewhere there’s a switch to turn it off? I never found one, so I just walked around it very, very carefully. I don’t suppose the Dwemer built it like that intentionally.

A cathedral? Surely the Dwemer with all their science were above gods? Or did they try and create a god? As far as I know, they basically made a machine that nope-d them out of existence. Apart from one ghost who was too busy to join in the mass build-a-god experiment gone wrong.

Odd-looking cathedral. Especially with the giant crossbow there. Oh yeah, I unlocked the Crusader’s Crossbow. It’s much better at making sneaky kills than the Syringe Gun, which is noisy as hell. The Crossbow is a normal, well, crossbow. Nothing special. But my sneak skill makes it work.

Past the random giant crossbow, there’s a giant gold walking statue thing. I run around like a lunatic trying to kill it after it brings me down to half health in one hit. I kill it good though. Then, further up, there’s two LIVING BREATHING THINGS. Someone dressed up as an imperial guard and someone in orc armour who clearly isn’t an orc. They’re arguing over some sort of discovery. Then they start killing each other. Then he kills her then attacks me. So I kill him and then accidentally fall down a staircase, because I didn’t think that lever did that. There’s a door ahead and it takes me to…

Blackreach…

This place is beautiful. Glowing ceiling. Glowing mushrooms. Piles of untouched soul gem ore. All ruined by the nasty Dwemer architecture and more of these damn Falmer. Something tells me I should pity them, but it’s hard to pity something when it keeps on trying to kill me.

I follow my pointy thing here, using Clairvoyance to lead me along. This place is huge. How does Skyrim not routinely collapse in on itself with so many huge caverns beneath it?

I continue my journey and go through yet another golden door.

These Dwemer certainly had some big balls. This thing is huge. With random green things in the side. The Elder Scroll is inside, apparently.

I’ll be honest, I just pressed all the buttons. I don’t know how to do this puzzle and there’s no real clues on how to do so. Or maybe there are and I haven’t seen them? I did press one button like four times in a row and something happened, but as I said before, I’m a doctor, not an engineer. Eventually though that green capsule opens.

It’s got a gold scroll thing inside. I forget to take a screenshot of it inside, so it looks empty. I would have been so pissed though if this had been like the horn of Jugen and there’d just been a note inside. Probably one just saying “lol, i stealed it, ask for room that don’t exist at stupid in!” or something. But thankfully it’s here. So I take it.

I should probably leave a note here saying that I’ve taken the scroll, but I don’t have a pen on me. I’m not going to be lame and write it in blood. I could get an infection.

Below is a pathway that leads to the world outside. I take the lift upwards, scroll in hand. I’m not going to read it, not now. I’m not stupid. Although I’m going to have to, aren’t I? Hmmph, I don’t fancy going blind.

Once again, I see sky. I am happy now. Let’s take a quick breather before trekking back up to the Throat of the World.

I’m pooped.

Read part 6!