(31) - Shimmermist Cave - Journal entry -

Morndas 14th of Hearthfire 4E201

When I peeked out of the door of Korvanjund it was still dark, but the skies were clear and an abundance of moonlight refracted of the snow. Good enough for me, so I woke up Lydia for a quick bread and tomato breakfast. Leaving Korvanjund we headed South, making sure to stay close to the rock face of the nearby mountains. In the moonlight I recognized Loreius farm, so I was pretty sure we were indeed heading in the right direction, towards the only area left to search for Shimmermist cave.

Just as I noticed a lightly trodden path towards a crack in the rocks, two bandits made the mistake to attack us. There was no mercy for them.
We followed the path up as the sun shone its first rays upon the mountainside, and indeed it led to a cave entrance. Once we entered it was unmistakably the cave I had been looking for; our legs disturbed a thick layer of mist hanging in the caverns, lit by the shimmering light of glowing mushrooms lining the walls. I killed a skeever from a distance with my bow, had this been the odd creature which the city guard had been talking about?

Shimmermist cave entrance

Well, I soon found out it wasn't. The corridor we were in opened up into a large cavern, and on top of a stone structure I saw an elf-like creature, skinny, but it's claws clearly showing against the backlit cave walls. I readied an arrow, and let it fly. The creature ran up to us, but our axes were ready, and it died quickly. When I touched its skin, wanting to search its body for possession, the intense cold radiating from it immediately made me realize what it was; a Falmer! My grandfather had told many tales about them in my childhood, and what seemed like fables and fiction at the time turned out to be very close to the truth.

A dead Falmer

I asked Lydia to light a torch, and had a good look at the Falmer. Its eyes seemed to have disappeared complete, yet it had been totally aware of our whereabouts after my initial shot. It still had elven features, but these once snow elves had clearly evolved into something adapted to living in these scarcely lit caves. I took both a bow and a sword off it, and both seemed to be made of scaly, tough natural materials. A bit further on I found a helmet and more weapons with the same properties. We also discovered we weren't the first to enter these caves, as we found the bodies of three unfortunate bandits as well.

We continued in, and in a next cavern, its ceiling lit by sparkling light emitting rock fragments,  we sneaked close to two more Falmers. I prepared two arrows with a moderate poison, giving one to Lydia. Both Falmers never got close, falling dead riddled with arrows. One of them had a shield clearly made out of animal chitin. I soon realized from which animal as we discovered lots of chaurus eggsacks in the next corridor. These were nasty poison spitting animals, and we managed to kill three of them in a row, thanks to our sharp axes and good tactics.

... an unlocked door.

We came upon an unlocked door, and behind it I could hear the rhythmic sound of machinery and hissing steam. I signaled Lydia to stay put, as I had a fair idea what I would see next; Dwemer ruins indeed, with the machinery still in tact and running. I peeked around the corner, half expecting to see Dwemer next, but was relieved to see a Falmer working at a table in the distance. My relief was short lived, because the falmer seemed to be barely bothered by my arrow, looking around shortly and then resuming his work at the table.

This was an exceptional strong and hardy Falmer, so I prepared several arrows with slow working poison. I hit the Falmer one arrow at a time, then retreated, waited for him to resume working, then hit him with the next arrow. After 5 arrows, the accumulating poison started to show its effect, and the Falmer finally became alarmed, and seemed to have sensed my whereabouts. I backed up to where Lydia was, and we killed him with our axes, barely managing to do so.

After a few sips of potion of health we stepped into the room trembling of the working machinery, straight into a large metal creature. It was a walking machine shaped like a man, but twice the size, steam hissing from vents and hinges. Lydia and I stumbled backwards into the hallway in fear, which turned out to be our luck. The machine followed us in, barely fitting under the ceiling. It raised it's hammershaped arm, only to get it stuck in the narrow corridor.

Lydia and I kept hitting the mechanical abomination relentlessly, blunting our axes on its seemingly impenetrable outer shell. Finally something inside it broke, and the giant machine fell over backwards slamming on the floor, scattering parts all over. I collected a bunch of the parts, gears, levers, and some rotating device as tokens of my victory. After all it had no tongue to cut out. After looting the remainder of the room we emerged from under a waterfall near the cave's exit. I can tell you I was pretty relieved to breathe the fresh outside air again.

We found our way back to Whiterun just before dusk, and I sold many of my knapsacks contents. Especially the Falmer artifacts sold well, and I avoided any questions about where I had found them. I kept a few falmer items myself; one Falmer bow I stored in the weaponrack at Breezehome, and I attached a Falmer axe on the plaque above the door. Both Lydia and I were lucky to have lived, and to replenish our energy we had an extensive dinner of vegetable soup, cooked beef, venison chop and honningbrew mead.
I'm to tired to read after writing all this, I can only hope the Falmer will not haunt my dreams.