Chapter 695: Revelation
Chapter 695: Revelation
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It has been a while since they smelled some clean fresh air. Jon was worried he would get used to the stench of the Clockwork City but now that it is all over, he has got a lot to think about. For that, he sat on the bulwark of the Brass Fortress watching the blue sky that finally emerged over this world for the first time in a very long while.
First, the Fate of Glymet.
Jon was so busy with everything that happened with Yagrum Bagarn to the point where it took his thoughts off the most important lesson that he learned from that journey.
The Fate of a Hero.
At a late point during this last adventure, Jon realized that for the first time, Fate wasn’t turning on him as Glymet was the one to save the day. For the first time in a long while, he was the supporting character in someone’s story.
It wasn’t bad, at least it gave him a new perspective and a pearl of unprecedented wisdom.
He contemplated a lot on that Fate and realized that one day, the World will push it on him the same way it was pushed on Glymet and those who walked the walk before them.
The Eternal Champion, the Agent of the Emperor, the Apprentice of the Battlespire, Cyrus the Redguard, the Nerevarine, Master Tunnel Rat, the Hero of Dawnstar, the Soul of Conflict, the Hero of Kvatch, The Soulless One, and lastly Glymet the Forgotten Hero.
These are a tiny handful of the people that were marked by Fate as saviors and Heroes, people who were given enough power to change the course of history, sometimes multiple times on the same occasion.
But what happened to them in the end?
Some of them disappeared as soon as they achieved their Fate such as the Eternal Champion, the Agent, and the Apprentice. Cyrus the Redguard sailed to the sea and never returned. The Nerevarine attained immortality by the Corprus disease but he also sailed far to Akavir. The Hero of Kvatch mantled the Daedric Prince Sheogorath and became Sheogorath. The rest have mostly disappeared with little to no mention in the annals of history.
Lastly, the Forgotten Hero died during his battle with Mecinar at the Clockwork City.
So… is this the Fate that awaits him as well?
Death, Oblivion, will he be able to trick Fate and find a different way, or will he just perish?
Escaping Fate has proven to be an impossible feat. Even the et’Ada aren’t immune to the turns of Wheel over the Tower, the Spinner over the Spindle, Fate and Time.
Just how will Jon’s journey end?
The World uses Heroes to give normal people a chance to face extraordinary odds but once these odds are no more, the world can’t let a Hero roam around and be some sort of an uncontrolled force with immense power.
To negate that, a Hero must assimilate with a greater being like how the Hero of Kvatch did it or find some other leeway. If not, their demise is only a matter of time.
“There is an end to all things perfect, so one mustn’t be blinded by life’s spectacle. Times as you can see keep twirling, a time one may love and others one may hate.”
“You can just say nothing lasts, hooman.”
“Then I wouldn’t sound deep enough.” He said with a long lazy sigh, “Yet with one sacrifice, many lives were saved.”
“Sacrifice?” Nefertiti turned on her back and liked her paws to clean her face, “But he didn’t really die.”
Jon didn’t react to what that silly cat just said. He smiled and kept playing with her yet in the back of his mind, he knew that what she said was true.
Glymet didn’t really die, he lived but the status of his life is something that can’t be called living.
Glymet is now the Prisoner of the Clockwork, the Heart of the Machine, the secret melody in the hums of its steam engines and the motions of their pistons.
Glymet has become one with the city.
He realized something when he used the Mechanical Heart and instead of choosing life, he chose to be selfless and give life from his own to those who may perish and fall.
Such an act of love…
Jon knows he is incapable of reaching this level of sacrifice but Glymet did so without hesitation.
The state which he is in now is a greater state of being, a step beyond mortality into the realms of power, far beyond the physical restrictions of life and death.
The Dwarf-Orc said something similar about the Dwemer, where they are, and what they have lost and attained.
Speaking of which, the encounter with the Dwarf-Orc left Jon with answers, each of which opened the door for more questions.
However, unlike the madness that struck Yagrum Bagarn, Jon was a man in control of his Greed. He cast away the desire to answer these new questions and decided to let go of the Dwemer pursuit, a path that definitely led many to their demise.
Still, what he learned this time was incredible. The identity of the Dwarf-Orc wasn’t Dumac Dwarfking but someone of his lineage. Someone Sotha Sil got a hold of and used it as an experiment, way before the disappearance of the Dwarves.
Because that individual was isolated in a death-like coma, Sotha Sil used his genius to access their memories and install their knowledge on a Factotum’s head, the one called Ram.
It seemed that this Dwarf-Orc was some sort of knowledgeable person of the arts of the Dwemer and was exploited by Sotha Sil to develop his Clockwork Technology. The fact that would cause a great uproar if were to ever go public.
Sotha Sil is still hailed by some as the mind that rivaled the Dwemer, not the one that copied their knowledge. It was just as Jon said, the Clockwork Technology is more about imagination and imitation unlike the genuine Tonal Architecture of the Dwemer race.
With those answers, Jon was satisfied and chose to ignore the rest.
As for the aftermath of the battle that occurred, the Clockwork City started recovering at a rapid pace as soon as the Mechanical Heart relocated itself deep under the city.
With that, the Halls of Regulation started to function at max output and absorbed the pollution and fumes from the atmosphere to replace them with clean fresh air.
Even the Pneumatic Forge was working nonstop on new Factotum models that were sweeping over the Radius outside the Brass Fortress and cleaning the endless deserts of junk and wastes.
This world seemed as if it had acquired a new will of its own and was functioning on an automated order of tasks. With the rate it is going on, it would take one year to reach peak efficiency, two years to harmonize with the output of the Mechanical Heart, and at least five years to clean every last spot in this realm.
Despite that, there was something gentle about this whole thing. The Factotums were all functioning according to the general Artificial Intelligence that is being transmitted from the Brass Fortress. While most Factotums have their personal Data Units and set of protocols, they still upload data and download commands from the main unit. Jon noticed that around Laaneth, these Factotums were acting with absolute care and offered her all the assistance she needed, they also helped Kota reunite with his sister who happened to be a Nord human native to this realm, it even requested that Ram can be recovered to the main unit in order to transmit the personality construct of the Dwarf-Orc subject into its core as it was originally intended, and finally, the Factotums handed Jon two items, a sword and a coin.
It seemed that despite his sacrifice, part of Glymet had lived inside the machine. Galyn claimed that the Hero who saved the Clockwork City is present within the Heart as a whisper of its churning gears.
The Clockwork Apostles thanked their saviors for their courage and sacrifice. While it is not enough to return the dead, everyone has lost someone in the latest crisis.
As for Laaneth, it is known for a fact that Elves, who lived for more than a hundred years, would suffer immensely whenever they lose someone from their days of youth. They would either grow sorrowful, cold, or sometimes cynical and violent. Laaneth was still recovering from the loss and the effect it would take on her was unknown.
As for Yagrum Bagarn, he decided to stay behind in the Clockwork City for a few extra years in order to watch over Ram, a half Dwarf who may have memories from the time of the great Dwemer nation.
Kota decided to gather the survivors of the Tarnished nomads and return to the Radius even with Galyn’s offer for them to stay as citizens. Trust wasn’t prominent between the Tarnished and the People of the Fortress and so they wished to continue living their freedom outside the walls.
Finally, Jon headed back to the Pavilion of Artifice and started collecting some toys and mementos. He also gathered a few organic materials in order to see how such things will materialize from the metaphysical realm of the Clockwork City into the physical realm of Nirn, a process he was most curious about.
Moreover, he left a prisoner in the Pavilion of Artifice right before the final battle and that was a Blonde Nord Mercenary that had a rivalry with Jon, Aldora the Daring.
“I shall offer you safe passage to Skyrim.” Jon said to her as he broke her cage, “If the Clockwork Apostles were to find you, you’d be killed as Mecinar’s last living lackey.”
“What’s the catch?” She replied, “I shall never work for you after you killed all my subordinates.”
“And I wouldn’t go out of my way and offer you freedom unless there is a catch.” Jon said, “Your employer won’t be me, but a friend of mine. I’ll only fill your pockets with gold and you take your orders from her.”
“Want to write a contract?” Aldora asked with a mocking face.
“Your word and reputation shall be enough for me.” Jon said and cleared the way for Aldora to meet with Laaneth.
While being one of the people who had a bitter relationship with Jon because of how he expanded and took over the business, Aldora was still a famous adventurer and a competent sailor whom Jon tried to hire many times. Moreover, she was from Dawnstar, the town where Jon has no fans whatsoever.
But with a job given to her and an employer as important as Laaneth, Aldora was willing to take the job and see it through. Her tonicity was clear when she was hired by Mecinar and remained under his service despite his actions.
For now, Jon has fulfilled Laaneth’s last request.
“Tell Master Nurina that I was honored to work with her.” Laaneth said, “And when you inform your uncle Tyr of what happened here, make sure he doesn’t do anything reckless.”
“I will.” Jon nodded.
Laaneth was leaving. She no longer wanted to remember her sorrow and chose to leave everything behind.
“You have it?” She asked Jon.
“Glymet’s last belongings.” Jon nodded and offered the sword and the coin to Laaneth.
Laaneth looked at the sword with sorrow as if her heart was shrinking from inside and she closed her eyes to squeeze out two streams of burning tears.
“I’ve always hated that sword.” She said and cried bitterly.
She held out her hand and took the coin, Glymet’s farewell. That coin was given to him by Sails-Through-Storms, the sister of Swims-at-Night, and the captain of a ship that sails to the Dragon Isles on the road to Akavir.
It is a ticket to that ship.
Laaneth was truly leaving it all behind.
“You’ve grown into an incredible man, young Jon.” Laaneth said, “I still remember our first research together.”
“The Flame Horse Atronach.” Jon smiled, “It feels like ages ago.”
“It feels like yesterday to me.” She said, “Farewell, Jon.”
And she left with Aldora through the portal leading to Skyrim.
Jon kept standing there with Glymet’s sword… or rather Boethiah’s sword, Goldbrand.
Soon after, he gave the Clockwork City one last look before turning around and walking through the portal back home.
He may have been too busy to notice but watching him from afar was a pair of mechanical eyes that belonged to a Factotum. It kept watching over the whole thing as a patch of Factotums was scrapping the junk in the surrounding area. Just as they left, the Factotum looked at the sky with no visible emotion on its mechanical face.
And then returned to its new life.
***
*Two Weeks later, High Hrothgar*
The Dragonborn gathered the lords of Skyrim to the summit of High Hrothgar and as they all shouted and argued, he took off his helm.
On that day, Thane Jon Dare of Winterhold was revealed to be the Last Dragonborn.
[Volume 8 End! Don’t forget to vote!]
[Laaneth will return in the sequel “Dragonborn Saga: Mysterious Akavir” ISA.]