[Dwemer] 3 – Escape

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With the floor of my prison covered in the bodies of the monsters, I felt the creeping Magicka exhaustion begin to take its toll on my mind and body. My veins felt as if they were on fire, my vision grew hazy and unfocused, while my mind began to slow and struggle to remain clear and focused.

I had experienced Mana Exhaustion many times in my youth, but back then, my capacity to hold magicka was far less than it is now that I am an adult, leading to Mana Exhaustion having far more noticeable and pronounced effects on my being. 

The Lurker was still standing, though it was afflicted with a few dozen wounds, wounds that would have killed a mortal in most cases, but the Lurker was a Daedra and was not mortal by any standards. 

Sighing, I called back the tentacles that surrounded me to slow down the drain on my Magicka, and began to transmute the bodies in the room into Magicka that I could use to cast some more spells. 

It would make my Mana Exhaustion worsen, but that was a price I would pay if it meant escaping this prison alive and finding a place to recover to my original strength. Once I had enough Magicka, I cast a series of spells.

Clairvoyance, Dwemer Armor, Mage Armor, Summon Seeker, and Bound Sword.

Clairvoyance would help me find a route to escape my prison, Dwemer Armor was a specialized alteration spell to give my skin the toughness of Dwemer Chainmail, Mage Armor would help me absorb and reflect magic, Summon Seeker allowed me to summon two more Daedra, specifically the Seekrs from Hermaeus's realm to assist the Lurker and my fight ahead, and Bound Sword to give me an alternate method to fight without using more magic.

Two swirling vortices appeared before me, and two Seekers materialized before me, their squid-like faces, four arms, three eyes, and gaping maw in their torsos, as they floated above the ground, continuing to give me chills every time I saw one of their kind. They were the most common foe you'd find in the endless libraries and islands of Hermaeus Mora's realm, and they were effective Mages with Eldritch Magic that could drive any Man or Mer to Madness if exposed long enough or drain the very life from their body.

Regardless of their appearances, they'd be helpful to combatants against whatever other monster we found within this prison of mine. 

After summoning the Seekers, I cast the other spells, finding a slight glow appearing over my skin, a trail of blue light leading out of my cell, and with yet another vortex, a strange sword I was not expecting appeared in my hand.

This blade was not the typical Dremora blade; instead, it seemed to be influenced by my pact with Hermaeus, becoming more eldritch, boasting a long tentacle that wrapped around the back and hilt of a strange silver blade.

Pushing that observation to the side for now, I mentally commanded the Lurker forward and the Seekers to follow behind me. 

With a mental tweak to Clairvoyance, I attuned the spell to 'Seek the way out of this prison and into the outer world.' Such divination magic was notoriously finicky, especially around the Divine, but the magic seemed to work without a problem, so I commanded the Lurker to go forward. 

Once I stepped out into the hall, the more unfamiliar my newfound prison appeared. Built with strange white and smooth material, one would have mistaken this place to be the mythical realm of Jyggalag, Daedric Lord of Order, but this did not feel like the realm of a Daedric Lord.

The halls were bare, but I could hear the sound of distant roars and screams, and much to my dismay, that was the direction Clairvoyance was guiding me.

So, as I headed towards the sounds of what was likely another prisoner fighting against the beasts, I instructed the Seekers to keep an eye on our backs and to scream if a hostile approached before attacking with their cursed magics.

 As the Lurker and I stepped around a corner, we froze in silence as a group of unknown Man-like creatures stood before us, unarmed and ready to fight. 

They looked like the Men of the South and North combined and twisted. One had dark skin like that of a Dwemer, but lacked the ears common amongst my people. However, he radiated a strange and twisted form of Magic unlike anything I’ve encountered before. If my connection with the Librarian was anything to go by, it hadn’t experienced anything like this either. 

They all wore strange clothing that matched neither Dwemer nor Ayelid in design, nor did it resemble the furs of Man. 

They tensed and shouted something; one of them wore strange and colorful clothing with a cape, brandishing strange black sticks, while the one resembling Dwemeri summoned strange whips of Magic. The last one, however, wearing yellow and orange, with a mask with weird symbols, began to vibrate literally, like that of a malfunctioning machine. 

They spoke, but I didn’t understand their words. We stood in awkward silence for a minute before the Mage of the group said something and raised their hands, showing them to me as he released his spell, saying something that I did not understand.

The others looked reluctant but eventually agreed, putting away their weapons.

I could sense through my connection with the Librarian that he was dissecting their language, slowly learning it, but picking up its pace as the three strange men talked.

“What ## we ## now?” Asked the one in Yellow.

“We ##ve t# ####,” the one with a small mask on the top of his face responded, their face not moving from mine.

Before they could speak more, distant roars echoed down the hall as the monsters from before showed themselves.

Cursing, the trio turned around to face the monsters, but before they could advance, I gestured forward and the Lurker lunged towards the monsters, running and shaking the ground with each step. I then commanded the Seekers to assist, watching them float forward and begin to cast their Eldritch Magics.

Either monsters distracted for now, I reached and grabbed one of the men to get their attention and pointed in the direction I came from, as Clairvoyance led me to my potential escape. 

Whoever these men were, they were my key to escaping, and now Clairvoyance would lead me to our way out, or so I thought, as it led me to yet another cell, this one boasting another strange man in one of those pods. They wore an outfit of only white, fitted tightly to their form, and on the man’s chest was a strange red symbol that resembled a snake without a head and a chopped-off tail.

The trio behind me began to talk before the shortest one, with a partial mask covering the top of his face, stepped forward to a panel that had a list of strange symbols I couldn't discern.

Whoever my captors were, they were as technologically advanced as the Dwemer. However, their machinery differed from ours, as there were no visible steam cores or pipes connected to the machine before me.

I could tell Hermaeus held as much interest as I did in the machinery before us as we tried to understand the blistering speed at which the small human operated the machine via a strange board covered in symbols we had seen. 

But before I could examine the machine further, the small human pressed a button, and with a hiss, the machine at the center of the room slid open. The muscular human in white slowly awoke,and  the trio attempted to say something, but faster than I could react, the man in white flew forward towards me, forcing me to defend myself as I raised my bound sword to protect myself. 

With the force of a Giant chieftain, the man’s fist crushed through the sword and directly into my chest, launching me backwards directly into a wall, where I lost consciousness.