Dwemer Tones on Secunda

By Jagne Stormskull

Age unknown. The two words could mean many things, depending upon the identity of the subject. For those that write them, the words show a lack of knowledge, but for the subject about which they are written, they can bring to mind a long dead tale. In this case, I am the subject, and the tale it reminds me of, is certainly dead.

Though these words were written in the two-hundredth year of the Fourth Era, they bring me back to work that I did which ended in the first year of the Second. Soon, the Potentate would recall the Imperial Mananuats back to Cyrodill, and our great legacy would be nothing more than that: a legacy, a legend, of patriots of the Empire exploring a world beyond our own. I was with the organization as a researcher, analyzing the effects of Secunda's unique form of magicka on the strange Dwemer technologies and magicks that the Empire had discovered, with the ultimate culmination of my work being a request from a relative of the Potentate with an interest in the Dwemer to harness this strange magicka with the purpose of replicating the mysterious tones described in tales of Dwemer history.

My first task was to decide how to create such a device. I of course consulted the Dunmer tales of their battles with the Dwemer, and their accounts of the legendary tonal architect Kagrenac. One such tale, coming from a Dunmer spy, indicated that a young Kagrenac had used enchanted gears to vibrate a string at various frequencies. This legendary string was made of arcane silk, which I chose to take from some of my robes. The gears were made of Dwemer metal, something that I had been given as part of my contract for the expedition.

I had no trouble finding someone on Secunda that was capable of fashioning the silk into a string, however the creation of the gears was going to be more difficult. I had the smith that forges the crew's armor create the gears. By the time that I got the gears back, a carpenter had assembled a simple frame, and I was prepared to make the construct.

After adding the gears and string to the frame, I channeled the Secunda magicka into the gears, giving them a poor man's bastardization of the arcane power that the Dwemer must have used. Once that was done, I began to experiment with it. The tones were incredible, and though I can hear them as freshly as I did while the experiment occured, I still cannot grasp the words to fully describe every dimension of them. They were more than simple sounds, they were more like audible knowledge, not knowledge as words, but knowledge in its most pure form, knowledge in the form that the gods must know it in. Once I broke from my euphoria, I realized something terrible: I had no data on what the frame that Kagrenac had used was. I had, with no knowledge of the outcome, simply asked a carpenter to fashion a crude wooden frame. The frame started to shake; the tones became chaotic, and uncontrollable. In my greatest moment of fear, I heard a whisper.

"I can save you... If you serve me..."

"Who are you?"

"Your last hope..."

"What must I do?"

"You must seek knowledge... For knowledge's sake..."

"I agree! I enter into this contract willingly!"

Chaotic energies surged around me, and through me, but the whispers told me how to regain control. I took control of the gears, and warped the machine, upon which I had inscribed the name Sciotone, to a place beyond that. I felt the matter in my form breaking down, but soon it reformed, in the dominion of the dark god that had whispered to me. I was in Apocrypha.

Once I returned to Nirn, I realized that I no longer aged. My exposure to the tones had changed me, and the full range of those changes was yet to be known for me. To those who read this, I advise you: if you manage to obtain a power source that allows you to harness the tones, or rediscover the Sciotone, then please, exercise caution. Until you feel the tones for yourself, you will never comprehend the power that you toy with.