"Clever..."

"Clever were the Dwemer, yes, clever well beyond our measure."

"You know where this Alftand is?"

"Hidden buried in the ice, forgotten by time - " he begins, only to be interrupted by Ena.

"He has a map," she says, looking up from a book. "It's a bit southwest of Winterhold; we passed near part of it, actually, on the way here - there's a sealed lift he thinks goes to the depths along the road; the main entrance is on the other side of the mountain, near where we ran into that dragon."

"Convenient. I believe we have everything we need from him, then."

"Mmhmm." She copies down the relevant points on the map, then flips through more of his journals, scribbling down notes in the very few cases she finds something coherent.

It might be there is some trick to reading the cube once it has copied the Scroll, so she won't kill him yet. Once Ena is done, they can leave.

She finishes quickly enough - there's isn't much substantial at all - and nods to Elana. "I think I know where we're going, assuming the mountain paths haven't shifted recently."

"Good."

Onwards, then?

More traveling. The glamorous life of the vampire.

The path hasn't vanished, but just barely. It's rather thoroughly covered in snow.

Alftand itself is hard to spot; it looks like the glaciers decided to start swallowing it, and parts hang precariously out of the glacier-side. Two dilapidated shacks sit near the ice-edge; exploring them reveals the remains of a camp (including a locked chest which, when picked, reveals supplies) and an expedition journal. There's a lift poking out of the ice, but it's blocked by a gate that Ena determines to be locked from the inside.

Quickly leafing through the journal, looks like the only way in is along the rickety catwalk leading to another half-buried tower and a tunnel into the ice.

Sigh. "Never the easy way, is it."

"I'm starting to suspect that's the case around here..."

And onwards into the tunnel; there's occasionally boxes or tables with scattered supplies, and after a while they come upon a camp with a knocked-over fire spit. There's a few minor Dwemeri items on the ground and in one of the two chests. There's voices in the distance, too distorted to hear what they're saying.

Ena alters her walk nearly instinctively, quieting her footfalls and dropping into a half-crouch even while she continues to move at the same pace.

Elana is not as good at stealth. She drops back a ways to let Ena scout.

There's a shout from up ahead, a crash - Ena briefly freezes, but it doesn't seem to be related to them, then continues, poking her head around a corner then returning to Elana. "Looks like one of the workers just killed the other. I'm betting he'll be hostile no matter what we do; shouldn't be too hard just to snipe him, though."

"Go ahead. He's not like to be useful."

He dies rather easily. Ena retrieves her arrow from his body, then continues on, still cautious. They enter properly dwarven areas, and she finds a journal after a bit, flips through it quickly - "Apparently the expedition's been dealing with bloody disappearances, which doesn't sound like something machines would do. We might be dealing with something additional, here."

"Possibly the others have been turning on each other as well."

"Unusual, unless the team was really poorly put together - or something's pushing them into betrayal."

"Bandits? Carnivorous spiders?"

"I was thinking more like 'they might have found a treasure,' but there could be bandits or monsters here, yeah. Nothing for it but to keep our eyes open, and see if any of the other expedition members left clues."

"If you try to kill me here, I'll be disappointed, just so you know."

Snort. "Don't worry, I have a better sense of timing than that."

Further into the abandoned Dwemer city, then.