C.o.t.W Chapter 95: What Lies Beneath

  • Hasir and his companions crested a rocky gnoll and beheld the city of Winterhold far off in the distance. Both Inigo and Affraji's eyes

    lit up as they had heard tales of the College but never once dreamed they were about to go there. Hasir laughed to himself as he

    saw their awestruck faces,

    "What idiotss you too are, thinking we are goiing to the College." His face screwed up in comprehension, "You seriously thought this

    is what I was talking about when I showed you the map and pointed near here? Really? Hsss! Hircine help however many brain cells

    you have." He said shaking his head in disbelief. He rode straight past the sign for Winterhold, muttering to himself, "must be all the

    skooma, really messes with your brain, that stuff."

     

    Inigo and Affraji, still bewildered by their apparent situation, followed him only to see him stopped by a tower buried in the snow,

    dismounted and knelt down before the locked door. With he heard the 'click' of the lcok he pushed the doors open and gestured for

    he two khajiit to enter. 

     

    They stepped over the threshold to find themselves in a cylindrical room with a lever in the center of the grey stone floor along with

    broze gears on the walls,

    "Nice gears, er... what do they do exactly?" He asked glancing from Hasir to Affraji

     

    Hasir opened his mouth; Affraji nuudged him in the ribs and shook her head, knowing that he would say something mean-spirited,

    "This one doesn't know Inigo, but she surmizes those gears are linked to the outside gate." She faced the 'elevator' frowning, "in

    similar fashion. this elevator, if that is what the circular platform is."

     

    At this uncertainty, Inigo walked over and pulled the bronze lever; at once the stationary gears started moving. While they desceded

    deeper, Affraji started at Inigo, still wearing that frown she had moments before. Hasir, on the other hand lay against the back wall

    of the elevator shaft smirking to himself at howw Inigo cleverly figured it out.

     

    A loud thump told them they had reached their destination, everyone got out of the elevator just fine except for Hasir who'd fallen

    flat on his back when the elevator came to an abrupt stop. Hasir hissed, rubbing his swore back as he emerged with the rest of them

    in a silmilarly fashion stone chamber, this one, however had bronze pipes spiderwebbing off the walls in various directions. Hasir and

    the other exited the chamber and found themselves in a large round room with a path sloping upwards to their left.

     

    Inigo curiously, walked up the sprial stone path; His eyes nearly popped out of his head when he saw a giant mechanism the likes of

    which he'd never seen before: Several metals arms ending is stain glass suspended above a circular bronze platform and, looking up,

    he saw something-he couldn't tell what-in an opaque, diamond-shaped container.

    Inigo guessed that there was a scroll oraomething valuable in the container and the surrounding focusing lens were used to unlock

    the container. He scanned the room until his eyes fell on a raised platform with four buttons set in dwemer pedestals. Inigo walked

    up to the platform and approached the buttons. A figure stepped out from behind the lexicon recepticle; The angry Argonian's green

    eyes locked onto the blue khajiit's widened orange ones. 

     

    The blue khajiit yelped and toppled backsward onto the circular platform. He called out to Hasir who appeared next to his fallen

    comrade scanning the room wildly for why Inigo sounded so frantic in his call for aid. Hasir's wondering look turned to a menacing

    snarl as he saw on the control platform a female Argonian wearing the silver wolf headed armor of the Silver Hand and unsheathed

    his steel sword.

     

    The female Argonian leaped off of the platform glaring at Hasir; her eyes burning with hatred. The snarling Argonian's eyes bore into

    hers,

    "What in Hircine'ss name are you doing her, Sshallez?" He said in a deep-throated growl, "Come to finish me off just like you did my

    grandmother?" 

    Shaleez said nothing but walked towards him, dagger raised. When she got within a foot of the Argonian she fell to her knees,

    "Hasir, I have not come to kill you," She said sheathing the daedric dagger, "that was never my intention. I killed Ocheeva because

    she killed the head of the Black Hand, the organization I was with previously. I mean, what was I supposed to do, not act?

     

    She shook her head, more in fear of her former comrades than anything else,

    If I'd done that, the acting head, Belmont would have me executed... or turned over to the night mother, Sithis knows what

    punishment she would've doled out."

     

    The argonian looked in disgust at the pitiful lizard at his feet,

    "So you, what, thought switching the color of the hands you were thrust into would make any difference?" 

     

    Shaleez sighed and dismissed Hasir's thought,

    "That is neither here nor there," She looked hard at Hasir, "Look, you can be mad at me all you want, I deserve it. I may be the biggest

    n'wah on Nirn but I am not the threat here. The real threat is Molag Bal. I ran away from Blackmarsh because he was destorying nature,

    not just because of some ahitty werewolf va. vampire dispute, but because he wants to drag mortals down and make them suffer

    because he's upset about his daedric brethren taking all the better daedric realms and apheres of influence and he had to pick out of the

    bottom of the mead barrel.

     

    Hasir sighed again and hissed at Shaleez; the hatred never leaving his eyes,

    "Stop spewing lies!" He barked, I know why Molag Bal hates me and my kind and that sure as Oblivion is not it. Tell the truth, are you

    working for Molag Bal?" She sighed, looking at him offended, "how dare you insinuate such a thing! I do not work for him or that black

    cat of his. I still work for the dark brotherhood, but, I left the Black Hand because I didn't like their way of soing things: disobey the

    tenets, send the shade of Sithis to take care of the threat. 

     

    She looked at him nervously and began wringing out her tail, despite it not being wet,

    "So, I, er, now operate as an independent. The Black hand found out about me feeling remorse after killing Ocheeva," She glanced at

    Hasir and nodded, "yes, remorse. I did not want to kill Ocheeva. I thought Lachance got what he deserved. I hated how he ran the dark

    brotherhood: the endless writs and not giving us background on the crimes of our victims."

    Hasir grinned despite him not knowing anything of the dark brotherhood; despite being born under the shadow, he did not become a

    shadowscale like the rest of his clutch so this whole thing just flew straight over his head. Hasir didn't know if what Shaleez said was

    true but if that meant having a fourth person the adventure with, maybe even one who knew the dangers that lurked beneath the

    snow-laden mountains of Skyrim, all the better. 

     

    Shaleez straightened her silver armor and extended a hand towards Hasir who smiled and shook it,

    "Nice to meet you Hasir, I'm Shaleez and not a maniacal killer. Now, ready to leave the past behind us and destroy these machines

    so we can go to the other world and finish off the daedra who is responsible for so much suffering?" The Argonian nodded and

    together, they, Inigo and Affraji exited the tower.

     

    Shocked, Inigo turned to Hasir wide-eyed. He had no idea Hasir, nor any argonian, could be so thick.

    "B-but my friend, the Argonian tried to kill you. Are you going to honestly let that slide?"

     

     At this, Hasir nodded shamefully. He had weighed the risks in his head and was ready to take drastic action if the situation called for

    it, even if it meant killing her if she showed any signed of betrayal,

    "Yes, if she turns on us, either you or I will have to put her down."  He sighed heavily, "For now, though, we will have to trust her."

    Inigo looked at his reptilian friend with an annoyed look, "my friend do you hear yourself? How can you put your trust so completely

    in someone you barely know?"

     

    Hasir shrugged,

    "Call it intuition."

     

    Inigo walked across the metal bridge that extended from the tower, shivering slightly,

    "Call it whatever you want. We still have-why did it get so freezing all of a sudden? I am not equipped to deal with friggid

    temperatures, this is new to me." 

     

    Hasir shrugged. Not wanting to say something wrong, he sighed, rubbing his hands together as he felt the bite of frigid air, not as

    much as Inigo however. Hasir did not know where to look for the other three mechanisms. He gestured around the empty cavern

    with outstreched arms,

    "Well, any ideas as to where we may find the three mechanisms? Inigo, Shaleez? Affraji? Any of you?" He glanced hopefully between

    them. Neither of them spoke; no one except for Shaleez.

     

    Shaleez thought for a time, her expression was blank, devoid of emotion. Her voice crashed back to full volume as realization

    dawned upon her,

    "The three dwemer machines are in a small dwarven city located somewhere in the southern quadrant of the cavern, in the top of

    the tower we had just come from and a field laboratory located a few miles east of our current location." Hasir thanked her for

    relieving him of the uncertainty that had plagued him.

     Shaleez led the way as the group headed into the cavern proper, past bioluminescent mushrooms, over waterfalls that seemed to

    fall indefinitely as they took many twists and turns. Hasir had trouble keep up with this as he tried memorizing the path back to the

    tower. Shaleez stopped and sniffed the area, She stopped, hiding behind a rock, telling the other three to do the same as she heard

    the clanking of mechanical automaton up ahead.

    "This way." She hissed, "if we are quick enough we can move to the city without those metallic morons from knowing we were here."

     

    She waiting for a gap in the automaton and darted to another rock, this time closer to the strange dwarven city. Hasir peeked out

    from his hiding spot-a rock a ways behind Shaleez-and saw an army of Falmer; ugly blind remnants of their former snow elf selves,

    walking to and fro atop the city's walls alongside what looked like the same automatons the Argonian had seen back when he was in

    that manor. He knew the machine was hidden somewhere in there. 

     

    Hasir snuck up to Shaleez, who was staring at the city in shock, and grabbed her by her shoulder and whipped her around to face

    him. The Argonian female stared frantically into her clutchmate's eyes like a cornered rat,

    "Shaleez, listen. I know these automatons. Let me talk to them and see if they know where this machine is."

     

    Shaleez shook her head, looking uncertainly at Hasir,

    "I, erm, don't think that is a good idea... unless of course-" She looked about for Hasir and found him a few feet from her

     

    She swore as she saw Hasir running toward the city waving his hands like a moron trying to get the automatans attention. He

    shrieked and hid behind a tan pillar as he saw the automaton draw a sword and advance towards him. He'd thought the automaton

    would be friendly like its brethren in the secluded manor near Dawnstar, it wasn't, his tail thumped the ground as he thought of if he

    wanted to greet the automaton, he probably would end up being run through, or fight. The automaton's red eyes bore into his as he

    leapt out from the behind the piilar. He knew it was foolish to think the circuits of these automatons and those of the manor were

    one and the same; these smelled the same, but modified somehow as if the emotional circuit was taken from them. 

     

    Hasir called the flame whip to his hand and lashed out at the oncoming automaton. The metal become white-hot, the cogs within its

    chest fried and it toppled over. He did the same thing for the fallen automaton's brethren would came for him, angred at the state of

    their comrades. The argonian stepped over the fallen bits of metal,dispelling his whip. As he walked up the half buried steps, he

    thought where the machine could be hidden.

     

    He got down on one kness and called upon his wolf. The familiar sensation came over him as his mind flew over the citie's stone

    buildings and pillars/ In aa small building far to the southwest corner of the city, he could see a smaller model of the machine that

    was in runoff cavern. He call his wolf spirit back to his body, stood up and headed for the tower the ability had shown him. He

    scanned the air, even sniffed the air to discern the tower's exact location. He picked up a scent, but it was not metal or stone; it was

    the smell of magic ttrapped in a pile of rubble near were he was.

     

    He put him nose to the dirt floor and sniffed; confirming the scent was genuine and not a trick of some kind. Hasir followed the

    scent, which zigzagged across the city's earthen floor, until he came to a purple spelltome buried deep in the earthen floor. Hasir

    sniffed the book; the argonian stepped back as if burnt and saw, quite clearly, a vision of an Imperial adventurer who did not even

    breach the city's wall before he was killed by swamrs of falmer. In his last ditch effort, he tried to summon a bow made of ethereal

    energy. A falmer killed him with an arrow, knocking the tome out his hands to land a few feet away.

     

    Hasiir put his claw in the dirt and sniffed it. He frowned as he'd thought the dirt would be fresher than it was,

    "That adventurer must died ages ago." "He rubbed the dirt on his trousers, "this dirt isn't even fresh."

     

    He bent down and dug the book out. He looked at the Oblivion symbol on the front cover, opened it and like other spell books he'd

    read was bombarded with swirlong symbols-He thought they were daedric or, perhaps, aedric-and didn't even flinch as the symbols

    went inside his body. Hasir thought hard on those 'woords' he had just seen and, seconds later, a ethereal bow and a matching

    quiver of arrows appeared.

     

    Hasir could not wait to try this new spell out so he aimed the bow at the automatons and falmer that had, just now, noticed there

    was someone here that shouldn't be; the arrows flew through the air on after another and tore into the chests of the falmer, killing

    them instantly. Hasir smirked as he eyed the automatons heading straight for him, conjure his flame spell in his free hand a lit the

    tips of three arrows aflame as he shot them at the dwemer menace. The automatons slowed and fell over; arrows puncturing the

    place where, instead of a heart Hasir knew, was a crystalline heart.

     

    Hasir looked was amazement from the bow to the fallen falmer and automatons,

    "How did I not find out about this spell sooner? This thing is awesome!" He exclaimed happily the bow evaporated into thin air

    causing the Argonian  to scuttle along the ground like a insect, turning over every rock and speck of dirt to see if he'd dropped it.

     

    Inigo seized his reptilian friend by a single bone spike on his head and uprighted him; causing Hasir to snap back to reality,

    "You complete moron," Inigo said, exhasberated, "You didn't drop it. The bow went to... er, wherever bound bows go until you've

    need of it again." Hasir just gawked at him, clearly not catching anything the khajiit was saying.

     

    Inigo groaned as he gazed between his fingers at the stupid hatchling before him, "I don't

    have time to tell you about how I know that the bow was sheathed and didn't just disappear altogether..." He voice trailed off as he

    sighed, look, we have a machine to find." He said exhasberatedly, "We can probe the mysteries of Aetherius later." He gestured

    towards the tower, "Can we get a move on, please?" 

     

    Hasir nodded and walked towards the rapidly growing stone tower, pulled the lever that lay a few inches in front of the tower's

    entrance. Hasir entered and the large gated doors swung shut. Hasir couldn't see anything because the scalding hot steam shrouded

    everything-that coupled with the astronomically high temperature inside the tower made this almost unbearable.

     

    His eyes cut through the mist that was rising through the grates that decorated the floor. The Argonian's ears went into overdrive as

    he tried to listen for any sign of movement as he walked through the rapidly rising steam. He saw at the corner of the room a raised

    stone platform with a dwarven charging station holding a large deactivated dwemer automaton. When the argonian came into view,

    the automaton's circuitry activated and it clanked raapidly toward him; Steam blossoming out of the holes in its metallic casing. 

     

    Hasir leapt up on the raised platform opposite, conjured the bound bow and fired one arrow after another at the dwemer centurion,

    but the arrows passed harmlessly through the metal plating. He snarled as he conjured the flame spell, dipped the arrow into the

    flame and fired at the centurion again. The arrow, again, passed through the centurion; not harming it. Hasir's tail flopped around in

    agitation and drew his sword, running at the centurion and tried stabbing it into the bronze metal. Upon contact with the hard metal,

    the blade shattered like a cheap pane of glass. 

    Hasir tossed the sad looking hilt aside and scanned the room. He slithered through the room, avoiding the jets of steam and turned a

    red wheel on another raised platform. Hasir sighed with relief as the acrid smell of the smeat as well as the elevated temperature

    had disappeared. Hasir gasped as, the moment the steam vanished, a large metallic arm caught him hard on the head. Hasir

    stumbled sideways, momentarily dazed. He shook off the dizziness and turned the valve on again. steam erupted from the grates,

    catching the dwemer centurion offguard; not being able to take the heat of the steam, stumbled a bit and fell forward.

     

    Hasir tore his eyes from the deactivated dwemer centurion and gazed skyward and saw that the machine did not simply exist in the

    room, but, in a way, the entire machine was enitre room. He saw an opening in the wall near where he stood, mouth agape. He

    walked over to the tiny hole in the dwemer piping and thought on this for a good while. He smiled as he leaped off of the platform

    and found, on the centurion's body, a small gyro-like orb of red and bronze.

     

    He scrambled back up on the platform and placed the small dwemer orb into the crack in the metal pipe. Hasir knew he had to get

    out of the tower quickly as rubble came crashing down around him. Hasir leapt behind a rock as orange and blue fire emanated from

    the direction of the tower,

    "Whew! I just narrow got out of there. If I haven't, I would've been roasted alive." He imagine he'd died and called out to no one in

    particular, "Crispy saxhleel! Get your crispy Saxhleel here." He sniggered as he started walking back to where Inigo stood.

     

    Inigo and Hasir navigated the blue dirt path back to where Affraji and Shaleez sat; waiting for them to return. Affraji smiled at them

    while Shaleez stared at him in anger, striding towards him and pinnng him against the stone wall with a scaly, green hand,

    "Why in Oblivion did you run toward the tower alone?" She snarled, "didn't we agree that we were to destroy the machine together?"

     

    Hasir looked stupified; his voice failed him as Shaleez shot him an accusatory look,

    "Well? What have you got to say for yourself?" She asked, hands on her hips; tapping her foot impatiently

     

    Hasir nodded, not daring to say anything. Inigo asked what their next stop was. Shaleez looked at him, immediately forgetting her

    anger with Hasir and said they would be going west to a laboratory run by a dwemer enthusiast. As they walked, Hasir told Shaleez

    about the destruction oif the machine that lay within the dwarven city. He asked her if there would be something similar at the

    laboratory.

     

    Shaleez looked at him and shrugged, not having been there herself,

    "Dunno, I've heard tales of Sinderion's laboratory, but, I've never been there so," She shrugged again, "anything's possible,

    suppose." 

     

    Hasir answered her shrug with one of his one and keep walking, transfixi=ed by the beauty of the bioluminescent mushroom

    everywhere. He did not see where he was going and nearly bumped into into the stairs leading up to a small dwemer-stle house.

    Hasir shook this off and walked up the stairs and into the field laboratory where, Shaleez told him, was were Sinderion conducted his

    experiments.

     

    When they stepped over the threshold, Hasir raised a spiky eyebrow, He saw dwemer chests lying in one corner and two dwemer

    bookshelves with bits of what seemed to be a broken down dwarven spider along with a cube and pieces of dwemer plate metal

    scattered across the shelves as though in no coherent order or pattern,

    "What experiments would he conduct in here?" He asked her, looking around with disgust, "This place is a dump. If I owned a place

    like this, I would've kept things organized." 

     

    Hasir head the door open at the far end of the room; thinking quickly, he grabbed one of the pieces of plate metal and held it like a

    shield. He edged closer to the door, holding the 'shield' high, ready to strike when a blue head poked into the room,

    "My friend, if you want to marry someone, at least find a better spot." He glanced around, "This place is messier than Mister

    Dragonfly's jar."

     

    Hasi put away his 'weapon' and looked confusedly at the blue khajiit,

    "Inigo, you thought Shaleez and I were-?" He glanced at the female Argonian who rapidly shook her head, "By oblivion Inigo, that's

    just..." "Gross." Shaleez finished, walking over to him, "Inigo how dare you say such outlandish things. We came here to look for a

    machine of some kind, not to have sex, get your head of your ass!" She said, shocked. 

     

    Hasir went back to searching the laboratory for anything that looked even remotely big enough to be an energy-sucking machine. He

    saw, on one of the bookshelves, a small dwarven cubes with various symbols painted on each of the four sides and examined it,

    thinking it was some kind of puzzle he'd have to decipher for the way to the machine to become clear. He brought it over to Shaleez,

    who knew even less than he did.

     

    After many minutes of thought provoking silence, Inigo snapped his fingers,

    "When I went to the top of that tower, I remember there being a dwemer mechanism there-maybe that is the machine you speak of

    -not only that but I also saw, before Shaleez nearly scared the fleas off of me, four buttons and a tall blue and bronze recepticle. I

    wonder if that dwemer cube, I think I heard it called a lexicon, fits inside said recepticle."

     

    Hasir nodded and his tail thumped on the floor, kicking up dust,

    "Well, we can try." He glanced over to Shaleez who nodded her approval. Together Hasir, claw gripping the lexicon, Inigo and Shaleez

    left the laboratory and headed back to the tower.

    Shaleez led the Argonian and Khajiit past the laboratory and navigated their way through the massive underground cavern to the

    tower that they'd once seen once before. Hasir gazed amazedly at the tower as he, Shaleez and Hasir walked across the bridge and

    into the tower proper. Inigo walked up the familiar spiral stone ramp with Shaleez and Hasir. 

     

    Inigo grabbed the lexicon from Hasir's claw, causing the Argonian to look at him, annoyed, 

    "Inigo, what in Oblivion do you think you're doing?" Inigo pointed to the bronze reecepticle; stating he should be the one who put it

    in the recepticle because he had seen the upper level of the tower before the others did. Shaleez leaned forward and tore the lexicon

    out of Inigo's grasp, "I believe it is I who should do it as I was her first," She said, her tail swaying behind her.

     

    The two bickered for ten minutes as to whom it would be to have the honor of placing the lexicon. Hasir stepped forward and put his

    hands out, seperating the two creature and eyeing each of them coldly, "You two can continue to fight... or," He said, "we can work

    together. Your choice. If we fight amongst ourselves then Molag Bal's won, however, if we work together, we still have a chance to

    destory the machine, or whatever is in the opaque glass cylinder." He said glancing up at the three rings of mirrors.

     

    The bickering party decided working together would be the better approach, jumped on the platform with the recepticle and the four

    deactivated buttons. Shaleez inserted the lexicon into the recepticle which, sensing the cube, glowed with a strange blue light which

    in turn activated the four buttons.

     

    Inigo and Hasir gazed at the buttons and were about to press them when Shaleez voiced her opinion,

    "Wait! Before we start pressing buttons randomly, let's look at this logically, do you see the mirrors below the platforms we are

    standing on?" SHe asked, gesturing to the round platform with blue-gree lenses on it. Hasir and Inigo nodded, "Well those must not

    be mirrors but focusing lenses. If you look above them,"

     

    She gestured skyward where more focusing lenses could be seen, "There are three rings, one containg focus lenses and the other

    two must have something to do with the starry ceiling above us."

     

    She looked at the khajiit and argonain, both of their heads looked like they were going to explode from all the information. She took

    a deep breath and sat down on the edge of the platform with the buttons, chin in her paws,

    "Anyways, before we start randomly pressing buttons, this one must think this through logicallly and see if she can't discern a

    pattern that might unlock the crystalline tube in the center of the mechanism." She gestured to an empty strentch of ledge beside

    her, if Argonian and khajiit want to figure it out to be Affraji's guest. If not," She sighed, She understands."

     

    Inigo and Hasir cocked their heads at her in confusion,

    "I'm sorry what?" They asked in unison

     

    Affraji put a hand on her hips and sighed,

    "Did you two ever pick a lock?" She asked them

     

    Inigo shook his head but Hasir nodded,

    "Exactly, just think of this huge bit of machinery as if it was a huge lock that you have to pick to get at the treasure inside. Except

    t this one has with gears and buttons instead of tumblers."

     

    She gestured to Hasir and jerked her head towards the platformsi, "Affraji is anxious to see if khajiit can unlock it, khajiit is good at

    puuzle, yes?"

     

    Inigo looked uncertainly at her as he stepped onto the platforms and beheld the glowing buttons,

    "No problem. This should be easy." 

     

    He looked at the controls and instantly knew that this would be a daunting and confusing task. Inigo called out for Haisr and Affraji;

    expecting one of them to look up and help but Affraji, still on the ledge, was too deep in thought to care and Hasir was sitting on the

    floor; looking up at the opaque green crystal wondering what was inside it.

     

    Inigo cast around for anything that could help him but quickly succumbed to the fact that he'd have to figure this out by himself,

    without any help from his friends; who were too involved in their own thoughts to come to his aid. Inigo scratched his head and tried

    pressing buttons in no particular order. He heard the machinery move along three rings in the ceiling, not only that but the round

    half-sphere near where Hasir sat rotated with three reflective lenses that switched locations with each press of the far left

    button. 

     

    Inigio glanced from the far left button to a button next to it which controlled the lenses that extended from the ceiling on spindly

    arms. He pressed the button to the right of a button that looked like a diagram of the occulory that hung above and Inigo press it

    and the focus lenses jutted outward and rearranged themselves so they positioned perfectly above the three mirrors on the bottom

    sphere. Lastly, Inigo pressed the button on the far right with rotated the secondary lenses. 

     

    Inigo went back to the butoon to the far right of the platform and pressed it twice. He could see steam issuing from the half-sphere

    as it turned over thrice in a row so that there was a metal bar thick as two dwarven ingots in the middle. Inigo smirked to himself as

    his fingers hovered over the second button, pressing it three times so that the lenses were focused right above the three ground

    lenses. He pressed the third button twice and the far right button, which controlled a hatch at the top of the starry dome, once.

     

    The light causing Affraji and Hasir, who stood up, to shield their eyes. Inigo gasped as he saw the light bounce like a lightning spell

    arcing from one target to another off of the many dark blue crystals that acted like mirrors. The lights finally-after many long

    minutes-connected with the mirrors on the lower sphere which caused the light to bounce off them, in turn, to be reflected on the

    remaining lenses. 

     

    When the light was evenly distributed, there was a sound like stones seperating coming from the center of the mechanism. Inigo and

    Affraji leapt off of the platform and stood beside Hasir, who stared amazed at the open crystal which lowered down from the ceiling,

    dropping the crystal structure at Hasir's feet. He stooped, grasped the fallen crystal with both hands and pulled.

     

    Out of the crystal fell what looked like a normal stone, but on closer inspection, Hasir found it was a round green stone made of a

    strange material with two dragons holding up a green pearl with their snouts.