"That'd explain why the teachers thought we wouldn't have trouble with them."

"And also why they themselves didn't bother, if most of the work is just finding the draugar. It's probably just tedious, to them, while we can use it as proper practice."

"J'zargo has mixed feelings about being used for pest control."

"If J'zargo wants to become the most powerful wizard then J'zargo needs to survive that long and practice with easier tasks is how J'zargo learns how to deal with harder ones."

As usual J'zargo doesn't have a counter to that so instead he just leads on.

The accessible areas of the Midden seem to all only host dangers the four of them are equal to; other than the draugar, the only hostiles they face are giant spiders. Creepy and terrifying, yes, but not very dangerous, especially not after Ruby summons a fire elemental to serve as a tank and distract them.

The inaccessible areas of the Midden, however, are much more mysterious. The layout of these catacombs is confusing, and made worse by the state of disrepair of the architecture, with hallways entirely blocked off by piles of dirt and debris that could in theory be dug through, if one were willing to spend the time needed for it. None of them are, though, especially given that since the draugar aren't going to do it either, the problem they've come here to solve does not require them to.

But more interesting still are the areas that look like they've seen recent activity.

There aren't that many of them, but enough to pique their curiosity: doors that have been reinforced or replaced, locked gates with magical protections, and the like. They run into a large pair of wooden doors, over twice as tall as a man, and though Detect Dead suggests many corpses or undead on the other side of it it does not budge. They run into a thick metal gate on the other side of which is a circular room with a mysterious altar occupying most of it.

Mysterious Altar

And they find a room that looks like it should have been inaccessible but whose gate seems to have been forcibly opened, recently. A few skeletons litter the floor, and in the center stands a black metal gauntlet on a pedestal, the Daedric letter oht inscribed on its palm. 

Daedric Gauntlet

"I think we probably should not be here."

"No, but aren't you curious?"

"...well, yes."

Ruby and J'zargo step into the room, Oakflesh and Lesser Wards up, ready for a trap, but after a few seconds of nothing happening they relax. Ruby walks up to the gauntlet and inspects it from up close, frowning.

Brelyna walks over to a table by a wall and notices something that looks like a journal. After verifying it doesn't seem to be magical she picks it up and starts skimming it.

"Tolfdir says it is not common for people to die of being incautious about magic but I think he might just be miscalibrated about how common it is to die of anything else," Ruby says, walking around and poking the skeletons with Telekinesis.

"...yeah, that tracks," says Onmund, inspecting a little alcove dug into the wall.

"...uh, guys, I think you'll want to see this," says Brelyna, not looking up from her journal.

J'zargo walks up to her and peers at it. "What is it?"

She hands him the journal and looks at Ruby. "Did you say one of the missing students was called Yisra?"

"Yeah?"

"I think I know what happened to her." She looks at the gauntlet and shudders. "It seems like the gauntlet is a Daedric artefact and there's an entity trapped inside."

"That was on the journal?"

"It's a report to an Archmage, but not our current one."

J'zargo offers Ruby the report and he skims over it.

The part of this journal that is a report to a previous Archmage explains that this gauntlet houses some kind of Daedroth*, and after it killed some students the College tried to destroy it and failed, so they sealed it here instead. Somehow Yisra and the other Apprentices managed to sneak into this room—Ruby suspects the artefact wore away at the enchantments sealing it—and the entity convinced them to run some rituals out in the wilderness to somehow gain more power. Yisra wrote about it at the end of the report, which she stole from the Arcanaeum, and she left it here so that in case something happened to her people would know what caused it. Smart, but not smart enough not to fall for the obvious trap by the Daedroth.

...well, Ruby shouldn't make assumptions, maybe the Daedroth used some mind-affecting magic to convince them to go along with the plan. Regardless, it's most likely that the other three also died performing these "rituals" that the Daedroth taught them.

(* Singular form of "Daedra".)

"The journal says the gauntlet is activated by four rings, but I do not see them."

"Maybe they took the rings with them when they went to do the rituals?"

"I didn't see any rings on or around Yisra's body. ...unless." Ruby's been taken to wearing Yisra's amulet, as it seems to be able to serve as a small external magicka battery and doesn't seem to be cursed. He takes it off then brings it close to the gauntlet, and his suspicion is confirmed as it starts to glow and then suddenly turns into a ring. "Interesting."

"...you should probably not wear that."