Nothing else attacks them once they're done, and Ena sets to healing her wounds.

She glances around, but it looks like the only way through is a door up ahead. There's a broken pipe of some kind venting gas that keeps catching on fire; they'll have to time slipping through or try to edge around it.

Is there a consistent timing?

Not super much so, though it takes at least a second or two at the shortest for the gas to build back up, and it's so far been mostly a lot longer than that.

So it's a simple matter to wait until a burnout fades, then dart across the danger zone.

Seems so, as neither of them get burned, though it's a bit close for Ena.

Good enough.

The door leads into a narrow room with tables full of junk along one side. There's steps down, then a strange hut made of the same material as the creatures' shields and other structures. Ena is able to barely spot a creature sitting in its entrance, and inches along a narrow ledge beside the steps, but she can't get a good shot - and she spies another creature on the level below. She hesitates, then drops a flame atronach in the middle of the two creatures. They rush to attack, and she gets a good two arrows in before either notices her presence.

And that exposes them enough for Elana to nail them with a pair of ice spikes.

That takes care of them easily enough.

Once they're down in the room, a corral of sorts containing bloody skeletons from at least three people and scraps of cloth becomes apparent, tucked up against one wall. Ena barely spares it a glance.

The next room is full of cut pipes leaking flaming gas; luckily, there's a high shelf that can be jumped on, taking them behind the explosions, and the two creatures past that are easily sniped from the safety of cover.

The rooms beyond are dark, and Ena barely notices the next group of creatures - she puts an arrow in one, and it doesn't go down, and then three more powerful creatures are on them, one a spellcaster, though they go down easily enough once faced with both vampires.

The room, once Ena pauses to look around, contains two tables, one with a bloody skeleton, one with a dead high elven woman shackled to it. There's an open gate, beyond which is a small room crowded with countless bones, and opposite that a long table full of surface items of varying worth.

Where are all these people coming from? That elf is recent. Part of the expedition, maybe. Did the eyeless tie them up, and if so, why? Simple pleasure, or information? Their technology is rudimentary but extant. They may be intelligent enough to be planning something. Not that there's been any other signs of that. And on reflection, she doesn't care enough to put more effort into figuring it out.

All very good questions, especially since the landscape above is a frozen wasteland. Unfortunately, answers aren't precisely forthcoming, as the creatures don't seem to keep convenient journals lying around.

The next room is a platform overlooking an atrium with three creatures and a giant spider. Ena's able to down one and then another before they get close, and the remaining creatures go down easily. Then, past that, a dark hallway, half of which is taken up by a rather obvious claw trap that looks like it's meant more for rats than humans. The next hallway has several pressure plates that Ena slides around, a single creature with its back to them (dead before it knows what's happening), then a cavernous room with two creatures. The apparent way forward is sealed by a gate of spears; there's no lever readily apparent, but the room continues around the side of the central plaza, and there's stairs up, and after a bit of searching they're able to find the lever to open the gate on a platform above their entrance.

The area beyond the opened gate starts to change, glowing mushrooms peaking up through the floor, strange luminescent grass wriggling through cracks in the stonework, a bit of rubble fallen to reveal bright blue stones.

Ena sneaks up onto a platform ahead of them - and immediately throws herself back as a automaton shudders to life beside her. It's enormous, shaped vaguely like a man, steam pouring from its joints as it swings at Ena, who drops a flame atronach to give herself space. The conjuration is destroyed before it can get off a single attack.

Well that's very much not good. She shifts to give herself a boost and aims a spray of ice at the joints.

That doesn't seem to have any effect.

Ena dodges one swing, is clipped by a sudden breath of boiling steam, then, unable to back up enough for her bow, darts in until she's practically hugging its legs, too close for the automaton's wide swings, and goes to work with her daggers. She isn't doing much damage, but she's doing some.

Then she'll try to keep it busy from range. She should be fast enough to dodge from this distance.

She is, as long as she's able to spot the signs that the creature's about to breathe steam, since it's currently more focused on spinning to get a blow at Ena. It's slow, at least, no matter how powerful, and Ena dances around it. Between her and Elana, they finish the automaton, though it's a slog of a fight.

Ena breathes out heavily when it falls and starts healing herself while looking around. There's a second automaton of the same make, destroyed, across the landing, and further stairs up.

Good, she doesn't want to have to fight another just yet.

Slink slink slink, up the stairs she goes - and pauses on the landing near the top, hearing faint voices. She glides forwards and peeks around a corner - the last two (and most heavily armored) members of the expedition have apparently survived to this point, and are now arguing over who gets the glory. The woman's trying to talk down the man, who attacks her with a frustrated scream - and is quickly killed.

The woman recovers neatly after her killing blow, breathing heavily - and is immediately felled by Ena's arrow through her windpipe.

Ena walks over, looks around the room, and doesn't find any further enemies. There's a lift up directly ahead of them, and in the center of the room a complicated mechanism. Ena glances over at it, and says, "I'm pretty sure that's where the key goes."

"Seems like." One dwarven sphere, coming up. There's an obvious depression at the top that she drops it into.

The mechanism shudders and then whirls, and the floor falls beneath them into stairs that descend towards an ornate door.

Beyond is - the word 'cavernous' doesn't do it justice. Behemoths of stalactites fall from the ceiling, and a soft blue glow envelops the enormous space as the distant cave vanishes into mist. Mushrooms taller than most trees nod their heads, trailing glowing lines like overgrown jellyfish. They're on a landing of some kind. Shortly in front of them, on the ground itself, is a small building, with a dwarven sphere resting curled up on its stoop. A giant crossbow-like thing points at the door of the building, a lever beside it. There's further buildings, barely visible in the gloom, and the soft rush of a waterfall somewhere to their right, the chime of nirnroot echoing all around them.

"Well. Here's a place."

"Yeah. This is - something else."

"Answers the mystery of how there could be an underground tower."

"This is practically an underground city. Outlying lands and all."

"Mightn't be a bad place to live. Though getting food all the way down here would be a problem."

"Would be convenient for vampires, and anything else that dislikes the sun. And these mushrooms are growing somehow, and those creatures were getting food from somewhere."