We slept for several hours at Venynal until hunger finally gnawed it's way into our dreams. We got up, ate some of the food we had brought with us, drank the water from the skins we had, then proceeded on our way to find Keening, the enchanted blade.

The sun was up, but the weather was no better now than it was yesterday. The sky was blood-red, and the ash and dust in the air made it difficult to both see and breath.

We encountered numerous blighted beasts and ash ghouls, all trying to do us in. One ash ghoul tried a poison spell on me. I summoned a demora, who promptly did battle with this naughty creature. I did a "cure poison" spell on myself, then sat back and watched as my demora did all the work of getting rid of this creature.

It was one creature after another. We encountered an ascended sleeper near an old Dwemer bridge (sorry, they are ALL old).

I wasn't sure where we were anymore. The paths had turned, twisted in circles, and the ashstorm wasn't helping any. Laurenna couldn't see the sun and neither could I. We had no sense of direction.

One hunger after another descended upon us, resisting just about any spell I could throw at them. The only thing that seemed to work was silver arrows. I summoned a bonelord to help detract the hunger while I tossed Laurenna a handful of silver arrows, telling her not to waste the enchanted ones.

Between the silver arrows and my broadsword, with an assist from my summoned bonelord, we finally managed to slay the creature.

Having lost our bearings, we decided to investigate this Dwemer stronghold. We found a path that lead to the bridge heading to the entrance. The bridge had broken in several places, but a levitation spell helped get over that small problem.

We reached the entrance - it was Bthanchend. Well, at least I knew where we were; far to the west of where we wanted to be. Still, as long as we were here, we figured we'd better check it out.

Once inside, Laurenna grabbed a torch and lit it.

"Stay sharp." I said. "I already hear trouble ahead."     

Yes, it was trouble with a capitol "T" in spades. I encountered a number of mechanized guards left over from thousands of years ago, when the Dwemer vanished. There were a number of them behind a huge pair of doors. I summoned a number of creatures to do battle with them. They appeared several feet in front of me, and, naturally, the machines attacked them.

A number of machines came into the battle. I summoned more creatures, including a centurion sphere of my own, as well as a storm Antroch.

Laurenna came to ask if it was safe to go in there yet, and join in the battle.

Just then, there was a blast of shock spell lighting up the room.

"Um, not yet." I said, "Let's wait until they're all done playing first."

There was another blast, this was from the flame Antroch doing battle in there as well.

"Yes, I agree." she said, decided not to get in the middle of this mechanical and magical argument.

Finally, silence. We peered around the door, and the only thing left standing was my own summoned centurion sphere. Around it lay the remains of countless machine guardians.

"Well, I think that about wraps up the problem of what's behind the door." I said, laughing.

We stepped over the carnage into the next room. "I'm not cleaning up this mess." said Laurenna. Couldn't blame her, either; this would be a pretty heavy pile of stuff to clear out.

We made our way into the next room, down some stairs, and found a heavy storage box. I saw the boobytrap wires near the lock.

Getting out my probe, I fiddled with it until the wires gave way. I was hoping that this would finish today's work, but it was not to be. The only thing in this box was some jewels, some ebony, and a spear. If I had the room to spare, we would have taken it home and sold it for a nice profit.

We were a bit disappointed, but at least we had our bearings, knowing which way to go from here.

We left Bthanchend, again encountering another ascended sleeper.

We headed back to Vemynal, were we had found Sunder earlier. Knowing where this place was, I'd be able to get myself back on the correct course to Odrosal, where Keening should be found.

We finally made our way around the northern edge of Red Mountain. In the distance we could see the pylons holding up the Ghostfence.

Suddenly, we came upon the edge of a deep cliff. I looked out into the ashstorm to see if I could find any landmarks ahead.

In the distance, I could make out the outline of a Daedric shrine. The path we had taken ended abruptly, so we would have to go north, and eventually, across the small suspension bridge I could see below.

We made our way down to the bridge, where a small scamp attacked us. Laurenna slew it with just two silver arrows.

"They're pretty handy arrows, aren't they?" I asked.

"Yup." she replied. "I'm getting a pretty good workout with my marksmanship skills today."

Well, I didn't really want to go through here, but since the path we needed to take went this way, I sucked in a deep breath, and we headed across the bridge, towards this shrine of evil.