"The Betrayed" [Apocrypha]

Hollow. The only true way to describe the room was hollow. Vast monoliths of stone and metal stood vigilant over the empty chamber, the once great throne room of the Dwemer. In the wretched Darkness of the room, a slight skittering sound could be heard. Scuttles, whispers and soft growls resonated throughout the former city of Afland. Amidst the umbral glow of the few lights that persevered in the Cathedral a great nest of the Betrayed dwelt.

Once the great and noble falmer, these now fallen wretches haunt the ancient bastions of the once mighty Dwemer nation in northern reaches of Tamriel. They lived on the surface as we do, but not as beasts, but as lords. Mighty Mer! Masters of magic! They were the zenith of northern civilization. Then the Nords came. They who were but barbarians blessed with the gift of Aka to interject into the song that is creation with blasphemous notes of independence. Without much thought, they simply called it shouting.

The once white kingdom was painted red and the Falmer knew defeat. They begged their cousins the Dwemer to take them in and save them from the wrath of the Nords. The Dwemer offered to save the Falmer, but at the cost of being blinded. The Falmer agreed with closed fists and open eyes, only be decieved. The Dwemer fed them mushrooms that indeed alter them blind, but they changed the Falmer another way in secret.

It is little known but the Dwemer were masters of an art called "Tonal Architecture. With subtly and skill they engineered their will upon the song of creation.The Barbaric Nords could Shout out the note for "FIRE" and produce a breath of flame. The Dwemer could weave words into their creations. They imbued their metals with the harmonies of "STRONG" "PURE" and "FOREVER." Their minds with "OPEN." "ABOVE" and "PROUD." Their chords were made in ways now lost to even the great Altmer who are the closest of our Ancestor's children, but resonate throughout the very identity of the object for all the time that it exists within the Dream. In their gambit to assert their superiority over the Falmer, they so too gave them a new chord. "BLIND" "FALLEN" "ANIMAL."

No longer were they Falmer, as they once had been. As much as the Moons are not the Sun, the Betrayed were not the Falmer.

-Antarion