I didn't immediately step forward however and for good reason as a hail of no doubt poisoned darts rained across the space and vanished into expertly placed receiver holes on the other side.
"And that is why you never trust anything that looks too easy with the Dwemer." I say with a chuckle.
"So despite knowing something only another Dwarf should know there was still a trap?" Alontar asked horrified.
"Like any other race not every Dwarf got along. It was likely common practice for them to steal the work of others so they would trap their workshops." I explained as I used [shape stone] to feel out the stone platform the workspace was on top of.
I sneered at the pressure plates I felt under no less than half of the tiles on it that I rendered inert by fusing the tiles together with the stone under them so they no longer had any give. I then walked out onto the platform to look around seriously. The platform was surrounded by the slitted metal gate work that the Dwarves loved to use because it was deceptively strong despite how thin it appeared. The floor of it was covered in worn hexagon tiles with metal squares in their centers.-
On the righthand side of the platform was a long curved workspace littered with parts and tools with very little organization to speak of. Or at least none that I could identify. Additionally an incomplete animunculi of the sphere variety sat waiting for either completion or scrapping. On the opposite side a full magma heated smelter and mold press set sat quietly waiting to be used once more. Near the smelter several stone bins rested with already fabricated parts of various kinds and the stacks of molds for raw metal pressing.-
"This is a remarkably complete workshop. It's very obvious that no one has been here since it's owner vanished." I say with a pleased smile.
"You'll pardon me if this seems rude but it looks like a bunch of useless junk." Alontar said frankly.
"For anyone not familiar with tonal architecture and Dwemer engineering yes that would be the case. To those people all of this was just junk best smelted down and reforged into equipment. For me however it's a collection of things I won't have to build myself to obtain. Additionally I should be able to complete this sphere animunculi which will let me have a loyal defender for this place that I can trust completely to guard it to the end. The tonal enchantment on it's core hasn't been done yet but the core itself is finished otherwise. I'm fairly certain that would have been the next thing done but got interrupted by vanishing." I said picking up the three inch across and tall gyroscopic cage core with the special red gemstone the Dwemer used for their most detailed tonal work.
I knew that Aetherium was a better material for this but that stuff was incredibly rare with only the Dwemer living in Skyrim have been recorded finding it. My theory on that was that it existed there because that place may very well have been where Magnus, the god of magic, made his escape from Nirn after realizing that the project of creating Nirn was a trap. It could also have been caused by the presence of the Eye of Magnus. That artifact put out enough raw energy that it wouldn't be hard to imagine that it could cause a substance like Aetherium to spawn while the world was still new and settling in place.-
Of course as a race that absolutely loved building underground for some reason the Dwemer discovered the stuff and after discovering it's incredible magical properties started utilizing it. The material was in VERY small supply however so there was barely any to go around and definitely not enough to replace the standard red gemstone that they used for their tonal work. As for what the red gemstone actually was? I and maybe a handful of other people likely knew. It was in truth a type of artificial soul gem of sorts that the Dwemer created with tonal magic.-
It couldn't actually hold souls but it was an excellent conduit for magicka and tonal magic. The only problem with it was that unlike Aetherium it was brittle. Any decently heavy strike directly on the stuff would cause it to crack. You also couldn't enchant it like normal but had to use tonal magic to do so. This was actually why only a single person was known to historically be able to replicate Dwemer engineering. Sotha sil, one of the Tribunal, master of the clockwork city and the only known tonal architect of any race beyond the Dwemer.-
He's been dead for over two hundred years though so as it stands I only know two people who can even use the raw stuff, myself and Yagrum Bagarn. To actually enchant with tonal magic still required the energy of souls but with the extra few steps of vibrating the energy into the gemstone at the frequency of the enchantment you want. You could visualize it as making the energy sing permanently. The Dwemer were also clever little shits and enchanted the housing the gemstones were centered to gather raw ambient magicka and convert it to soul-like energy and use that to keep the core "topped off" constantly.-
It wouldn't work for normal soul gems as they were too pure and would crack from the false energy but these artificial ones didn't have that problem. After that it was a mater of connecting the core to the various enchantments that littered the individual parts of the animunculi like a veritable set of muscles and nerves that give the things their "life". The enchantment for collecting atmospheric water and turning it into steam was what gave the frames their driving force while the tonal enchantment controlled the "muscles" and "nerves" to make the things move with purpose.