Just off the southern desert road out of the city of Hallin’s Stand in Bangkorai, I find the burnt corpse of a Seventh Legionnaire next to the battered and broken remains of a dwarven construct. Underneath his body I recover charred notes that seem to suggest that he had taken the automation from the ruins of Razak’s Wheel to the south with the intention of taking it apart. I wonder what he, and more importantly his corrupted legion, are searching for?

From what I could gather from the Imperial’s books and papers I find scattered about the corridors, Razak was considered to be a quite brilliant Dwemer engineer who was working on the creation of a wholly autonomous construct that would be able to operate freely outside the confines of the Dwemer’s cities without having to employ a control rod. This then explains the Imperial’s interest in Razak’s Wheel. The thought that the Seventh Legion could somehow complete Razak’s designs, and create a tireless army of constructs that lack the human soldier’s mortal ‘flaws’ of morals, empathy and conscience is a frightful thought. Though it is unlikely that the Imperial scholars could achieve what the genius Razak failed to, one can never discount the jeopardy of accident or blind luck.

As I continued to explore the ruins I begin to recall the many books I had read on the Dwemer culture as a daydreaming youth. Having now visited many of the known locations across northern Hammerfell, I am now convinced most were written from the comfort of a scholars study without ever getting their hands or feet dirty in a real delve.

One common misconception I read was that all Dwemer lived in holes in the ground and deep under mountains, and that they would often go weeks, perhaps even months without feeling the warmth of the sun, or brush of the wind upon their skin. But like Volenfell, much of this city is built in and between mountains and hills, with hidden canyons, ravines and gorges linking many of their great halls and workshops. Of course unlike many of the settlements discovered in Morrowind and Skyrim, the Dwemer of Hammerfell had no fear of the elements because metal constructs tend not to rust in the sands.

S.K