16th of Heartfire, 4E201
I made myself eat something when I woke up. It wouldn't do any good to have made it this far only to collapse from hunger. When I had first opened my eyes, I sat up and looked around for Jenassa, then remembered what had happened and started crying again. It took a while, but I managed to pull myself together enough to eat and get my armor back on. I got my gear together and took my runes off of the floor, then headed back to the locked door.

I found Jenassa's shield on the floor near the stairs up to the door, and I picked it up. It was still in fair enough shape, so I decided to keep it. I still had a few ingots of  moonstone, but I'd need some blacksmith equipment to get my armor and her shield back in full working order. The key opened the door with ease, and I started down the long hallway towards wherever it led to.

I found another dead creature at the end of the hallway in front of a closed door. It was locked, but a voice came from the other side when it heard me, asking if I was someone named Gavros. I remained quiet and readied my weapon, just in case it was some sort of trap. He wasn't happy to see me, and demanded to know who I was. I didn't tell him my name, just that I had come here looking for the Synod. He congratulated me and told me that I had found them, since it seemed that he was the last one alive. He made a halfhearted joke about being surrounded by angry machines and angrier Falmer. I asked him what a Falmer was, and he gestured to the dead creature outside of the door. So that's what those damned things were! He went on and said that all hope was lost though, and that they had come there for nothing, since Gavros was lost. He'd had some sort of crystal with him that they needed. I asked him about it, and he told me about a focusing crystal, and said that the cold had broken it. Gavros had left to go back to Cyrodiil to get another, and had left everyone to fend off the Falmer. I got the thing with the crystals in it that I had found out of my bag, and asked him if it was anything like what he needed. He became excited then, and said that whoever I was, I may have saved their project. He asked who I was, and I told him that I was from the College of Winterhold. He was a bit hesitant to trust me, since our arch mage hadn't even wanted to give them an audience when they visited the College, but he decided that he would look past that, since I had found the crystal thing for him. He told me that his name was Paratus, and bid me to follow him. He explained that they were there to use some sort of machine that the Dwemer had made to harness starlight and use to figure something out. He wasn't sure what, and it just seemed strange to me. The machine was very large though.As we walked up to the top, I made up my mind not to tell this man the real reason that I was here: to look for the Staff of Magnus. When we got to the top, he had me put the focusing crystal into the machine, and then we had to get it focused. I asked him how we would do that, and he said that I would have use heat and cold to further calibrate the crystal. Without his help, since he was just standing there, I managed to figure out that the three beams of light coming from the crystal would need to line up with three glass circles around the room. There were three buttons on a platform nearby, and each one moved one of the rings that the glass circles were in. The rings were part of the domed ceiling above us, and it amazed me that all of this still worked. It took a while, but at last I managed to get it to work. One of the beams of light illuminated a wall nearby, and it showed what looked like a map of Tamriel. Paratus was excited at first, then said something about the results not being what they should be. He said that the entire map should have been lit up,but that something was interfering with it. Something from Winterhold. He got angry at me then, and accused me of trying to stall his work. I told him that I had no idea what he was talking about. He yelled more, then realized that I really didn't know what he was talking about. Then he said that there must be something very powerful at my College, and asked me what it was. I told him that I wasn't going to tell him unless he told me a few things first. He guessed that we did have something there, and said that it was causing some interesting results. He told me that they had gotten the idea to use this place from the Orrery in the Imperial City, and that they were using it to project a map of Tamriel, and it would show them sources of great magical power. The only places that showed up though were Winterhold, and some place that he claimed could only be Labyrinthian. He then mocked me, and said that he'd beaten my game, and that the Synod now knew that we had something at the College. He told me to go off and get my Staff from Labyrinthian, and that that we could have it since he know knew that there was something even more powerful at the College. He then said that he was going to go back to Cyrodiil and tell the Synod there all about it. I decided not to let that happen. We fought until I defeated him, using Jenassa's shield to crack his skull. I dragged him out to where the dead Falmer was so it would seem that they had killed each other, and messed up the machine so that no one else could use it. I was tired of this place, and hurried to find a way out.

In front of a door, one of the Psijics appeared  and told me that I needed to get back to the College at once and tell the Arch Mage what I had learned. He looked like the one from Saarthal. He assured me that I was on the right path, and that I had  the ability to prevail in the end. Then he vanished. I went through the door he had been in front of, and it led down a small hallway and to the world outside. I ended up on the side of a mountain, but I didn't care. I was outside! The sun was hidden by clouds, but it was enough that its light filtered through them. I carefully climbed down the mountain, and made my way onto the top of some of the ruins. In a chest there  I found a dagger. It was black and deadly looking, with golden scrollwork all over the blade and handle. I strapped it to my belt, and climbed down the rest of the ruins to the ground below.

When I got to the ground, the sun had broken through the clouds. I sat down in the grass and had some food, then decided what to do next. Jenassa still had her map, and I didn't want to have to go back into that place to get it. I had scribbled a few notes and sketches into my journal, but they were mostly of the area around Whiterun. I remembered that I had been close to Darkwater Crossing, so I decided to head there, at first anyways. Then the more I thought about, the more I realized that I would only get sad again when Hrefna asked where Jenassa was. I made it to a fork in the road. One way led to Darkwater Crossing, and the other I had never been on. I took the unknown road, hoping that it would lead me to a town where no one knew me.

I came across a small settlement called Shor's Stone. The blacksmith there, a man named Filnjar, welcomed me, but told me that he hoped I hadn't come looking for work in the mine. I asked him why not, and he told me that it was full of spiders. They'd almost killed him and one of the miners when they showed up. He was worried that soon they'd come out of the mine soon to look for food. I asked him why the I'd seen around hadn't helped him, and he scoffed and said that they gave him some nonsense about looking out for enemy soldiers. I offered to kill the spiders for him, if he'd help me fix my armor in return. He made an even better offer, and said that if I kept my word, that he would not only gladly help me, but he'd line my pockets with as much gold as he could scrape up. I agreed, and went to the mine to kill the spiders. The spiders weren't much of a challenge, and I found some ore veins in the mine.I was going to leave them, but noticed that the ore looked like my new dagger. I dug out some of it, then went back to tell Filnjar that the spiders were dead now. He was very happy, and gave me one thousand septims for my help. He hadn't been kidding about lining my pockets. We went to work on my armor and weapons, and in a few hours we had them all looking like new again. I asked him if he knew where I could get some supplies and a map, and he told me to head down the road to Riften. I thanked him for his help and set off, waving goodbye to him from the road.

There was a fort over the road not far from Shor's Stone, but it looked like it was full of bandits. I crept around it, since I didn't want to deal with any fighting right now. I made it to Riften not long after that, and one of the guards at the gate tried to get me to pay some "visitor's tax" for the privilege of entering the city. I told him that this was obviously a shakedown of some sort, and he gave up and let me into the town. It amazed me that the neither Filnjar or the guards here commented on my appearance. I hadn't bathed or anything since getting covered in Falmer blood. I probably smelled horrid too. I decided to go to the general store in town to get some soap as soon as possible. Jenassa had been carrying mine.

In the market, a man stopped me, and tried to tell me that I'd never done an honest day's work for all of the coin I was carrying. I ignored him, and he said that he could take a hint, and told me to come and find him if I wanted to make some money. He then went back to his stall and started trying to sell people something called "Genuine Falmerblood Elixer" I fought the urge to flake off some actual dried Falmer blood and throw it at him. I went over to the blacksmith nearby, to see if he had any better armor that I could wear. I'd gotten some boots from Filnjar, but I needed better gauntlets. The smith, Balimund, asked me if I'd come to see him perform miracles with steel. I smiled and told him that he seemed proud of his work and he gave credit to his forefathers, and their recipe for flame. Apparently, his forge used fire salts, and it allowed him to forge superior weapons. I was impressed, but he seemed sad. I asked him what was wrong, and he said that he'd used the last of the fire salt that he had, and his forge was dying. I happened to have some in my bag. I handed them over, and he thanked me and told me that I'd "warmed an old smith's heart". He then rewarded me with one thousand septims. He didn't have the gauntlets I needed, but at least I had managed to help him, and make some coin in the process. He told me that I could come back and use his forge anytime, and thanked me again for my help. I managed to find the general store, and bought myself some soap, a map and fresh clothes. I also sold him a few things, and asked if there was an alchemy shop in town. He told me that there was, and that it was down on the lower level near the canal. I managed to find it, and I was greeted warmly by a woman inside. She introduced herself as Hafjorg, and told me that this was her husband Elgrim's shop. I sold her a few potions, and she asked if I would mind doing her a favor. I said that I would, and she asked if I could go to Shor's Stone and pick up an ore sample from Filnjar. I wondered why he hadn't mentioned it while I'd been there, but I supposed that he'd been to happy about the spiders and it had slipped his mind. It was starting to get dark when I left the alchemy shop, so I decided to head to the inn to get some food and a room.

When I got to the inn, a priest was there yelling at everyone, and saying that dragons had returned because Mara was angry at everyone's constant drunkenness. The innkeeper, an Argonian named Keerava, got onto him, and the barman talked to the priest and asked him to stop using the dragons as an excuse to harass their customers. He then asked him to keep the sermons at the temple, and to let everyone sin in peace. Keerava wasn't  very friendly, but the barman Talen-Jei was. He offered to make me one of their special drinks if I wanted one. He also asked if I was an adventurer. I told him that I was, and he asked if I could do a favor for him. He explained that he and Keerava were in love, and he wanted to marry her. But, according to Argonian tradition, he needed three flawless amethysts to finish an engagement ring for her. I had gotten a few of them in Mzulft, so I handed three over to him. He thanked me, and gave me some sort of poison as a reward. I thought it was strange, but put it in my bag to sell later. I rented a room from Keerava, and asked her to bring up a kettle of warm water. She did, but it was cold, so I just heated it up with a flame spell. I bathed myself as best I could, and got all of the blood off of me. Then I put on some of my new clothes and got into bed to write. Riften wasn't the best town, but I had seen a few other Dunmer here, and they didn't seem to be racist against us here. And a few of the people I had met were nice. I looked over my map and made a few notes on it, then tucked it away in my bag. I'd forgotten to buy dinner, so I ate some of my food stores, and decided to get something fresher for breakfast.