Blackreach

It seems I can delay my Dwemer ruin adventure no longer, so I trek through the snowy tundra west of Winterhold to the ruin of Alftand. Either it's built into the side of a glacier, or the glacier has shifted over the ruin, I'm not really sure which. Whatever the case is, apparent recent excavationers somehow managed to sling a suspension bridges across the face of the glacial cliff in a feat of engineering that I would pay to see.

I suppose they might have used magic, but that's much less exciting.

The ruin is dark and cold (for a change) but unlike the eerily quiet locations I've visited previously, this ancient place echoes with clangs and bangs, hisses of steam and the turning of gears.

The Dwemer must have been a fascinating people, turning from worship of both the Aedra and the Daedra to revere instead their own intelligence and the work of their hands.

It's this work that now makes regular attempts to kill me. Mechanical spiders and strange humanoid shapes on wheels have a nasty habit of popping out of the walls and assaulting me violently. Clearly my illusion spells have no effect (except of course in making me harder to find) but my atronach provides an adequate distraction. There's also some convenient oil spills which respond appropriately to the ignition source which is my atronach.

I manage to sneak past the majority of the smaller automatons and find myself in a part of the ruin that is half-construction and half-cavern. There's a rancid scent in the air that I recognise by reputation. Falmer.

Revolting and deformed, the Falmer were once cousins of my folk, but they were betrayed and nearly destroyed by the Dwemer. When the Dwemer disappeared their feral slaves lived on, breeding in the dark.

Despite their highly aggressive tendencies, the darkness has made the Falmer blind which works exceedingly well in my favour. Masking the sound of my footsteps with magic, I can walk right past one undetected. Unfortunately it doesn't work so well when you bump into them. Oops...

At least they are as weak-minded as they are weak-sighted and it's entirely up to me whether I calm them down or pit them against each other. I use a mix of both, particularly when I come across a spider who can, in fact, see me quite clearly.

At the bottom (or I thought it was the bottom) of the ruin lies a fortified entrance of some kind. There's a few Falmer, but by now they're of little concern. What's more concerning is that behind the gate is an enormous Dwemer Centurion. A larger version of one of these monstrosities almost destroyed my people in the days of Tiber Septim and I'm not keen to re-create history on a more personal scale. Fortunately it's not too hard to distract with some spells in the wrong direction and I sneak past.

There's a pair of adventurers whispering in the shadows past the Centurion, but they seem more interested in fighting each other, so I slip a small device that the old Hermit in the ice gave me into a Dwemer lock and jump back in surprise as a staircase opens in the floor. The random adventurers are still busy killing each other so I leave them to it, entering the lift at the bottom of the stairs and plunging even deeper into the depths of the earth.

When the lift finally comes to a halt I emerge in an enormous underground cavern. I shudder to think about the how much solid mountain is looming above me but it doesn't take long for me to forget that I'm underground in the first place.

This place is huge and seems lit exclusively by giant, glowing mushrooms. Just when I thought Skyrim couldn't get any weirder. In all fairness this may not even be Skyrim anymore. Does it count if we're buried deep, deep underneath Skyrim?

The place is scattered with Falmer and nasty bug creatures whose carapaces creak unsettlingly. It seems easier to just calm down any enemies I come across and if I keep my feet muffled most of the Falmer don't notice me anyway. There's another Centurion locked in a frame nearby so I edge over to take a look. Everything seems okay, as long as I stay away from that lever...

After I'm sure I've run across enough ground to fit Solitude in this place twice over, at last I reach the tower where I will supposedly find an Elder Scroll...