Once everyone who was interested had seen the Aetherium shard, she took it once more and held it up in front of her. “I believe I should clarify that Aetherium, as the Dwarves used it, may not necessarily have been indestructible. We have not found a way to break this crest, or Aetherium in its raw form, but it may not be as durable once forged. None of the Dwemer sources seem to refer to it as being indestructible. It does, however, hold a great deal of power. Unfortunately, we do not know what that power might be. The sources we have are not specific, though if it originates from Aetherius, as the name suggests, then it may hold power outside the bounds of normal magic. But, with the number of unknowns, I would not recommend making this a priority. We do not know if this Aetherium forge is even still intact, and if it is damaged, we are unlikely to be able to repair it. It is certainly an avenue of research I would like to pursue in the future, but for now, I believe some of the others have more tangible discoveries. Brenann, you have something for us?”

Standing alongside the table, the short Breton man practically jumped when he heard his name. He was one of the scholars of the Dwemer that had accepted Meeseir’s request to join the Blackreach clan. He wore a loose brown robe, despite the fact that the still-active Dwemer machinery made the air in the Silent City somewhat warm. Interestingly, he was not actually a lycan, but rather, his sister was a lycan in one of the Hamerfell clans, which happened to also use a smaller Dwemer ruin as its clanhome. Given that he had lived peacefully among the clan for the past ten years, he was deemed to be trustworthy. He swallowed nervously, and held up a parchment of notes in front of himself. “Oh, yes, of course…Champion. Um…let’s see…”

Looking through his notes, Brenann took a deep breath before beginning to read directly from them. It was quite obvious that he was uncomfortable being the center of attention. “As you all know, um, probably. Probably know…we have been working on restoring function to the Silent City’s ancient machinery. Dwemer machines are incredibly complex, and even the…brightest of today’s scholars cannot understand their more complex creations. But, we do have enough understanding to at least maintain…some of the machines. One of these is the pumping station. Now that the rubble has been cleared, we were able to repair some of the more important pipes and get steam power flowing through the system once more. As of yesterday, the Silent City once more has water flowing through it, and at least half of the fountains are functional again. We hope to find the blockages to the rest of the fountains and have them repaired in the next few weeks. We have also been studying the lifts, and finally found the mechanisms to lower or raise them without needing to pull the lever on the lift itself. So, we won’t need to assign anyone to lift duty anymore. We also believe we have enough of an understanding of their mechanisms to repair them if they happen to break, but with how long they have survived so far, we believe that is unlikely. But, our must exciting discovery so far has been…” He began, turning briefly towards the crate beside him before nudging one of the much taller Nords that had helped carry it in. “Ulfar…open the thing.” He whispered. 

The Nord pried off the side of the crate, then rolled out a seemingly inactive, but undamaged Dwemer sphere from within. “We have discovered that Raldbthar’s animunculory is still active, and has been building new automatons as the old ones are destroyed. We believe it was set to maintain a certain number of the machines at all times. It is why we still ran into them occasionally in Raldbthar, even after we cleared the ruin. We have shut down steam power to it, so it is no longer producing automatons, but we have also been studying it non-stop. It is…complex beyond anything I, or any of the other Dwemer scholars, have ever seen. We have been selectively powering parts of it for our experiments, and we managed to produce this.” He explained, motioning to the automaton beside him. After a brief pause, he delivered a light kick to the side of the sphere, which prompted it to suddenly come to “life” and deploy itself into its more humanoid form. Although, unlike other machines of its kind the clan had encountered in the past, it did nothing more than roll back and forth in place.

Even Meesei was visibly impressed with the machine. She clasped her hands together and leaned forward onto the table. “So you have managed to take control of the animunculory and produce a full automaton of your own; I will say that is certainly more than I expected. Does it follow your commands?”

“Um…no.” Brenann answered in an almost embarrassed voice. “It…doesn’t really listen to us at all. Or do much of anything other than pack and unpack itself into a sphere. But, it also [i]isn’t[/i] hostile, which shows we can successfully modify their behavior. I think the problem with this one is that it doesn’t have a…mind, so to speak. No one understands exactly how automatons function, but there is something within them that controls their decision making. Some scholars believe that the soul gems found inside each of them are what serve as their center of thought, and I am inclined to agree. The soul gem in this automaton is empty, and it does not do anything beyond basic reactions to simple stimuli. What we do not yet know is how to ensure that an automaton we produce [i]with[/i] a filled soul gem would actually be allied to us. That will require much more research.”