Chapter 685: Clockwork Heart

Chapter 684: Clockwork Heart

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The mechanical sound of Ram’s inner workings indicated his system accepting the new Memory Crystal.

Ram’s head alone can accept more than just one Memory Crystal and other add-ons that may add to his functionalities and personal memories but right now, Jon asked him to display the Memory Crystals that Glymet and Laaneth acquired.

These memories were displayed on a blank sheet of cloth, which Jon spread over one of the assembly line box-like machines, so that Ram can aim his head towards it and send out the light and the sound that will project the memory.

In other words, it is movie night now but right from the get-go, a voice was heard from the recording along with the visuals of eye blinking. Jon and the group gathered closer to the projected image in order to figure out what they were seeing.

It seemed that the Memory was acting less than a Movie but more like a Record when the thoughts of the memory owner started to form together.

< This day has appeared in all my simulations. >

< The End. >

< My dear friend Almalexia has come to kill me. >

< Now, everything depends on my calculations being correct. My machines need 22 minutes to seal the Chamber of Lorkhan. So that’s how long I must live. >

A Living Deity at his final moments. For those who aren’t aware about the events of 200 years ago, the Three Living Deities of Morrowind lost their Divine Power with the disappearance of the Heart of Lorkhan, which was caused by the Nerevarine, in order to stop the mad Daguth Ur.

This affected them greatly, the Clockwork City was being threatened to cease existing, and the meteor floating above Vivec City was no longer stabilized by Vivec’s power and would soon crash. Whereas Mournhold, the city of Almalexia had no abnormalities like the two, it was sunk in discord and turmoil.

By that, Vivec was driven into more mysteries above his mysteries, Sotha Sil started working on his final desperate research, and Almalexia was just driven mad.

The Madness of Almalexia was directed towards the other two Living Deities, Sotha Sil and Vivec. She staged an attack by the Clockwork Creatures of Sotha Sil as a pretext to invade the Clockwork City and kill Sotha Sil.

< Your time has come, Sotha Sil! All these years you’ve looked down on me. Have you any last words? >

Illustrious and endlessly beautiful and mad, Almalexia marched in her battle gear that outlined her curves just as neatly as it exposed her golden Chimer skin.

< … Ayem… >

Sotha Sil had a long sigh before thinking of her name and not uttering a single word.

The woman that was the Healing Mother, the Lady of Mercy, and Mother Morrowind, was reduced to a raging murdering madwoman and the red of her hair was extended by the blood of the Clockwork Apostles she spilled on the way to the Dome of Sotha Sil.

Their fight was a swift one, Sotha Sil was a Mage but Almalexia was a Warrior and a cut above any other Warrior, one that lived through hundreds upon hundreds of years and warred with many Daedric Princes and Akaviri Warlords and vanquished them all.

< Your time has come, Sotha Sil! All these years you’ve looked down on me. Have you any last words? >

Almalexia took the silence of Sotha Sil as arrogance and cursed them with malice and hatred.

< Why are you silent? What are you hiding?! Speak, curse you. >

Almalexia shouted till it actually made Sotha Sil almost lose focus.

< Fine then. Die, old friend. Fall before the One True God! >

Almalexia finished Sotha Sil with her blade Hopesfire and watched him as he was left hanged and mingled on his machines.

Sotha Sil’s last fleeting thoughts started to echo through the memory crystal as the scene was fading to darkness.

< I have done it. >

He spoke as if he had done something big. Something that made his last moments worth it. Something that required his focus to be somewhere distant from the fight with Almalexia.

< I die, but what is death? A natural function. >

The thoughts became quieter but Sotha Sil still had that same level of enthusiasm that filled him with a strange power as if he was more alive than anyone else.

< The chamber is sealed, the work has begun. It will take approximately 207 years… but what is that? A rounding error. >

And then the words that made Jon spit his drink and Laaneth scream from their wild shock were heard.

< The new Heart of Lorkhan will be completed. And it will power my city for all eternity. >

***

For those who understood the true meaning of these words from the Memory Crystal, the mention of the Heart of Lorkhan was akin to ringing bells and roaring thunder in their heads.

Jon’s stomach churned over so bad that he ran and started puking all its content.

Laaneth was so pale that by Dunmer standards, she would be a snow elf.

But aside from the two, the rest had no deep knowledge of the Arcana aside from Glymet’s brief readings in the books he rarely enjoyed.

“The Heart of Lorkhan? Wasn’t that a stone buried deep in the Red Mountain?” Glymet asked.

“What’s that anyway?’ Swims seemed to be less informed than Glymet regarding the Heart.

“Azura, save us!” Laaneth shivered in clear panic.

“Sh- Sh- Should we… get p- p- p- panicked too?” Kota asked with worry consuming him and causing him to stutter.

“Certainly.” Ram answered emotionlessly.

Laaneth looked closely at the Crystal that was embedded on Ram’s head and felt hesitant before speaking on the verge of panic.

“The Heart of Lorkhan is one of the most powerful and dangerous artifacts in history… if not the most. It’s what Sotha Sil and the other two Tribunals used to become gods.” She said with an obvious grim look, “The stone disappeared from the world and was said to be destroyed…”

“Liberated!” At that moment, Jon, who was done vomiting and returned to the group with a sickly face, interrupted Laaneth, “The Champion of Morrowind, the Nerevarine, liberated the Heart of Lorkhan by destroying the enchantment that sealed it in the Red Mountain. It returned to the world as it should be.”

“I don’t understand.” Glymet spoke, “Whether it is destroyed or liberated, Lorkhan is the name of the Divine Being that created the World. I, at least, know that his heart was ripped from him as a punishment for creating mortality and it was turned to a stone and sealed in a volcano.”

“Ripped from him, yes. Turned to stone, maybe. Sealed in a volcano, no.” Jon commented.

“The Heart itself was so powerful that it formed the Volcano around itself when it fell into the sea. The Dragon God fastened the heart on an arrow and sent it away so that the followers of Lorkhan couldn’t recover it.” Laaneth added.

“The War of the Red Mountain happened between my Ancestors, the Nords, Laaneth’s Ancestors, the Chimer, and possibly Ram’s Ancestors, the Dwemer if we are not mistaken. The Nords tried to make Shor (Lorkhan) recover his heart but the Chimer and the Dwemer opposed them. This led to the complete disappearance of the Dwemer as a race from all parts of Tamriel, the leader of the Chimer, Indoril Nerevar, was killed by his lieutenants who later used the Artifacts of the Dwemer and the Heart of Lorkhan on themselves to become God-Kings, these three Liutantnets are Sotha Sil, builder of Clockwork City, Nerevar’s Wife Almalexia who killed Sotha Sil in the memory we just saw, and lastly Vivec who disappeared during the Oblivion Crisis.”

“Wow!” Swims-at-Night exclaimed, “That’s a lot of history. I feel like I’ve heard different accounts of this story before but these were like folk tales when I was young.”

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“Historical facts, I’m afraid.” Laaneth said before turning to Ram, “I am sorry, we were planning to tell you the truth slowly and carefully.”

While expecting the young child to be devastated by either the disappearance of his possible race or the change of his other possible race, his response was rather…

“I… see.” Ram replied in the same emotionless mechanical voice he uses but this time, more of his personality was being conveyed.

Both Jon and Laaneth were suspecting him to be either Chimer or Dwemer. They haven’t arrived at a conclusive answer yet but as far as they are concerned, all there is to Ram is an incomplete Personality Construct stored on a Memory Crystal.

“But to think the Heart of Lorkhan is in this place!?” Jon immediately returned to the main issue they have on hand.

“It is not the real one.” Laaneth corrected him, “It is a new one made by the Machines.”

“How can mere machines replicate the Heart of Lorkhan, to begin with?” Jon asked.

“We have seen the Eye of Magnus, another Artifact that was attributed to an Original Spirit.” Glymet said, then asked, “By any chance, are they the same thing?”

The Heart of Lorkhan, the Eye of Magnus… how related are they?

“It can be that if a part of an Original Spirit was separated from them, they would turn into an artifact.” Jon theorized.

Laaneth and Jon started thinking about the possibility but there was no reference they know of or at least remember. On the other hand, Glymet seemed to be thinking as well.

He remembered the confrontation he had with the Thalmor Emissary in the College of Winterhold, the Altmer who was called Ancano. During his brief visit to Winterhold, Glymet assisted the College of Winterhold to defeat that Ancano when the latter managed to tap into the power of the Eye of Magnus and was almost unkillable, if not for the staff of Magnus that was recovered and used by Alina Dare to take control of the Eye of Magnus.

“So… this new Heart of Lorkhan, are there any tools to control it? Like the Staff and the Eye of Magnus?” Glymet asked.

His question came with the memory of what he glimpsed in the core of the Eye of Magnus. Something he couldn’t fathom back then and no matter what he tried to remember what he saw and what he heard, it slips through his mind like a dream he saw a long time ago.

“The Tools of Kagrenac!” Laaneth shouted immediately in response to Glymet’s question, “They are the artifacts that can…”

She then stopped talking immediately and turned to Jon.

“If they can, how can we acquire them?” Glymet asked but the answer was already in front of him.

The Tools of Kagrenac, the three Dwemer Artifacts that were crafted by Craftlord Kagrenac of the Dwemer race. The first time they were used on the original Heart of Lorkhan, they caused an entire race to disappear.

Jon had those artifacts long ago before he left Skyrim on his three years journey around Tamriel. He acquired them to fix his broken body after he managed to escape from the Realm of Coldharbour when he was trapped there by the vampires of the Volkihar Clan.

These Three Artifacts are the dagger Keening, the hammer Sunder, and the single gauntlet Wraithguard. Each of the three artifacts has a very vital use during the process of utilizing the energy of the Heart of Lorkhan.

The gauntlet Wraithguard was designed to protect the user from the other two artifacts as their powers were a league beyond what any mortal body can endure. It was also designed to empower the other two artifacts.

The hammer Sunder would be used to strike the Heart and cause a specific type and amount of energy to be emitted from it. The enchantment of the hammer can draw Vital and Magical Essence without touching the Life Essence of the Heart.

As for the dagger Keening, it was sharp enough to cut through and reshape the energy of the Heart that was drawing like sculpting on a clay mold. Its enchantment can also help with transforming and absorbing this power.

“You had these tools on you all the time?” Swims-at-Night asked.

“I am this generation’s owner and keeper of the Tools of Kagrenac.” Jon replied with a foreboding tone, “Morrowind has made many complaints over the years and asked me to hand them to the Dunmeri Council but these things are on a scale with Weapons of Mass Destruction, I wouldn’t trust a soul with them, that applies to everyone here.”

“But…” Laaneth tried to argue but Jon interrupted.

“This new Heart, whatever it is, may prove to be a tremendous pain in the ass for us. If the time comes and I find a need to destroy it, I will.” Jon stated.

“Thank you.” Laaneth nodded, “I trust your judgment.”

“Can’t we take it and… I don’t know… sell it?” Swims asked.

Everyone turned to Swims-at-Night with their eyes void of any expressions.

“Oh! Did I speak that thought out loud?” Swims backed off right away with an awkward laugh.

“I have a Daedric Titan pet called Xikil, I’ll send him after your ass if you were to ever think of the idea of recalling the moment you had that thought… ever… again.”

“By Sithis! You guys can’t take a joke.” Swims made sure to put between him and Jon a good enough distance to start running for his life if the need arose.

“Then the new Heart of Lorkhan is what Mecinar after all along?” Glymet asked.

“If he already has that, I doubt any of us would still be alive.” Jon said, “Let’s hope the project was a failure and try to kill Mecinar as soon as possible.”

“Indeed.” Glymet agreed with Jon wholeheartedly, “From what I understand, the Heart is vital for the life of this Realm, we should consider leaving it be once the threat is dealt with.”

Destroy the new Heart or Preserve it, a tough decision that holds the Fate of the entirety of Clockwork City and its inhabitants. A decision they’ll have to take when the time comes.

“We need to gather more information then.” Swims-at-Night spoke, “We have more of these Crystals, so let’s see what they hold.”

He may have just spoken what was on everyone’s mind and from this point, they gave Ram the two remaining Memory Crystals.

The information on these Crystals didn’t offer as big of a surprise as the first but they learned a few more things.

Some of these memories were the lessons Sotha Sil gave to one of his best Apostles, Mecinar. Mecinar was young in these memories and quite the eager and genius apprentice. He worked hard to please Sotha Sil and gain his acknowledgment but Sotha Sil was always aloof and distant.

Sotha Sil suspected Mecinar’s betrayal before it even arrived but what he didn’t suspect was the Abominations that were created by Mecinar, the same things he creates now to fight off Jon.

Sotha Sil banished Mecinar from Clockwork City and changed the locking combination on the Chamber of Lorkhan that contained the new Mechanical Heart. This was the good news that finally made the group calm down.

If Sotha Sil has secured the chamber, it would take Mecinar a lot of time to crack the locking combination.

The other Memory Crystal was one much earlier than that of Mecinar or the Mechanical Heart, it was about Dagoth Ur, the enemy of the Tribunal Gods.

Long ago during the War of the Red Mountain between the Nords, the Chimer, and the Dwemer, Dagoth Ur was a subordinate of Lord Indoril Nerevar, leader of the Chimer, just like Almalexia, Vivec, and Sotha Sil before their Apotheosis.

In the account where the Tribunal Gods betrayed their leader Nerevar and used the power of the Tools of Kagrenac on the Heart of Lorkhan, Dagoth Ur opposed them and tried to avenge Nerevar but ended up defeated and presumed dead under the Red Mountain. Other accounts claim that he betrayed Nerevar but that is mostly the side of the story told by the Tribunal.

After centuries, Dagoth Ur and his people, the House of Dagoth, were mutated by the effects of the Heart of Lorkhan after they were driven to extinction. They returned as Ash Vampires, beings of terrible power and extreme violence, and they ambushed the Tribunal and ripped them off their Divine Powers, which caused the living Gods to slowly decline over the years.

At the end of the memory, Sotha Sil seemed to have created a new hidden chamber beyond the Inner Curiosity where the new Mechanical Heart was revealed. This memory showed how to access that chamber.

Knowing how to reach the Mechanical Heart and how to exploit it, the team was finally a league of steps ahead of Mecinar.

Only one thing remained.

“Activate the Assembly Line!” Jon spoke and started punching switches on the machines he put together, “By dawn, our army will be produced and we will go to war.”

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