The Speaker 15: In Blackest Reach

• Posted by Clement Bilhorn February 9, 2013 - 803 views

  Finally, I find Blackreach.

  It's really something.

  I haven't the foggiest where to even begin exploring the cavern, but at least I know we're getting close. I check the nearest of the Dwemer buildings, hoping the elevator takes us even deeper.

  

  By now? I should have known better. 

  

  But I know how to appreciate fresh air, clear skies, and old friends, so I linger outside for a bit, before grabbing Lisin and taking the both of us back down into the depths.

  Swearing off elevators entirely, at least until I find the Scroll, I head off in the opposite direction, toward the other end of the cavern, toward the giant orange ball looming above what looks like an old castle. Imagine my surprise to find Noses within.

  

  Well, Noses and just about every other race in Skyrim. No Argonians, though, which means one of three things. The Argonians are too quick to get caught, they've never had the chance to even leave the cities and be caught, or the Falmer don't feel the same way as Windhelm's former owners and think Argonians make bad slaves.

  Whatever the reason for the Falmer's many captives, it doesn't stop Lisin and I from killing every last one of them.

  

  It's a mercy, really. I'm starting to feel sick in my stomach just being this far underground. Surely Akatosh never meant for anyone to live here, where the only lights are the oily haze of the torches and the alien glow of the mushrooms, where instead of birdsong you have the mad gibbering of the chaurus. 

  But it sure is pretty.

  

  In fact, it's so pretty that I forget my recent rule and soon find myself, once again, back on the surface, courtesy of a strangely direct elevator.

  

  Evident subconscious prompting aside, I turn around immediately. Blackreach is worming its way down inside me in a way I don't like, and the only way to be rid of it is to keep pressing on, to plumb its darkest depths for what I need. Then, having conquered it, I can leave it alone.

  At long last, we find the room we've been seeking.

  

  I don't enjoy fiddling with machines of any sort, much less these arcane Dwemer instruments, and Lisin is equally baffled. But finally, after nearly an hour of arbitrarily punching different switches and buttons, something starts happening.

  

  It's working! The machine spins to life and produces the Elder Scroll I've been after. I lift it gently, reverently from its casket, head spinning with the enormity of what I'm holding. Everything I've heard suggests these are the strangest, most dangerous, most endlessly profound objects in the world, and now I'm holding one.

  I wonder what it looks like inside?

  

  Ow.

  Head spinning rather less figuratively, I thrust the Scroll into Lisin's hands and stagger my way toward the elevator. I barely make it out of the shaft when we reach the surface, and gratefully crawl onto the cot of some long dead archaeologist. 

  

  And don't open that Scroll, Lisin. It's a bad trip.