Neesa huffed. "I can only hope. Most Dwemer 'scholars' don't have as much understanding of even the Dwemer language as they think they do. It is hard to understand a written explanation nuanced mysteries of reality when you can't even comprehend the words that are written. I mean, just look at you all: still thinking that the Dwemer relied on something as mundane and limiting as 'magic.' It's cute, almost. You're all like children who just started trying to read the books with bigger words. Ah, how to even begin explaining tonal manipulation? Let's see...well first, do you at least understand the fundamental nature of reality?" She asked, as if it were an average question. 

As much as Meesei felt as if Neesa's questioning was just meant to mock them, she decided to play along for the moment. "I would say that is a rather vague question, in truth. And I would not know if my notion of reality was correct. The Dwemer had an exceptional understanding of the world, yes, but even those records that are complete are written in a way that seems vague, or perhaps just hard to understand without knowledge of their culture." 

Neesa was, as expected, unimpressed with Meesei's answer. "Well, of anything you could study, the Dwemer would lead you the closest to the correct answer. Looking around, it seems like you have lived in the Dwemer's capital for quite a while, yet you apparently have not even recognized the hints. My question was not vague; I would say it was rather straightforward. What is the fundamental nature of reality? If you reduce everything you see around you, the stones, dirt, flesh, magic, energy, all of it, down to its most basic component. If you were to break everything down into its parts until there was nothing left to separate, what would you be left with? Bah, I can see you haven't the faintest idea. It is tones." She explained, ending rather abruptly, and smirking at the inevitable confusion her answer brought. 

"Tones? Do you mean the world is made of sounds, or was that their name for something else?" Meesei asked. 

Again, Neesa gave a huff. "Is it really not clicking into place yet? Tonal architects, resonators, attenuators, harmonic stability; did you think that the Dwemer simply picked these names because they had a fondness for music? No, the basis for [i]everything[/i] in Aurbis, all of reality, are tones. Our world, our bodies, our spirits, are all, at their core, tones. And the Dwemer were the most skilled people in history at manipulating them. It is not exclusive to the Dwemer, but they were the only ones who understood what they were doing. Calling it [i]magic[/i] is so laughably incorrect. Magic no matter how powerful or incredible, follows the rules. Magic is a part of Aurbis' song, while the Dwemer could write their own songs. Spells, like creating a fireball, for instance, can be imagined like a song on a page. When you cast a fireball, you play the tones in the right order, expend a bit of magicka, and just like that, you have a fireball. Now, if you were to use tonal manipulation to light a fire, it would be like taking the sheet music for the world in front of you and writing in some new notes of your own that call for fire. Then, Aurbis reshapes itself to match your new song. No magicka is needed, because a spell was not cast. Naturally, tonal manipulation is not limited to copying the effects of spells. With complete mastery, it can re-shape the world according to any song you feel like writing."