I had two days to kill while waiting for my blade to be reforged, so I asked a few of the locals what there was to do around here.

One of them mentioned that there was a Robot Arena not far from my quarters, and that one could bet on the outcome of the battles.

It sounded interesting, so I decided to head on over and see this event for myself.

I found myself entering the home of one Ignatius Flaccus. There was no one upstairs, so I called out if anyone was home. "DOWN HERE!" came the reply. I headed to the lower level, found a closed door, opened it, and found him tinkering with a few items on his table. From the looks of it, it was part of a Dwemer Sphere Centurion.

"Hello there, sir." he said, looking up from his work. "I imagine you've come to see the battles of the Robot Arena. I'm sorry to inform you that there won't be any more battles for some time, unless you think you can help me repair my bots."

"What seems to be the problem?" I asked. "I was told this was something every visitor to Mournhold had to see at least once. I was hoping to bring my wife here to see it as well."

"Well, my enchanting skills are incomparable," he said, "but after so much wear and tear from fighting each other, my robots are simply in need of some new parts." Would you be interested in helping me acquire the parts I need?"

Obviously, I'm a soft touch. "I suppose I have some time to kill, so sure. What do you need?" I said.

"I appreciate the help." he replied. "If you can bring me at least 10 pieces of Dwemer scrap metal, I can fashion the parts I need on my own. When I get the bots repaired, perhaps I can let you watch a fight."

I agreed to assist him, and knew exactly where to find said scrap metal parts.

I figured I had a perfectly good source of Dwemer parts right under everyone's feet. I headed right to the plaza's broken statue, and the hole that would lead right into the Dwemer structure under the city.

I headed back into the corridors, but had forgotten one very important item about Dwemer machines: They tend to repair themselves after a certain period of time.

On more than one occasion I found myself doing battle with hardened steam centurions and powerful sphere machines. I was very glad I had the full set of Rings and Amulets of Leaches with me, otherwise the battle might not have gone my way.

One by one, the machines fell. Most of them produced the pieces of scrap metal I needed to complete my mission.

Once I had ten pieces, I headed back to the surface. I did make one stop, however. There was a room with a number of old, rusty cogs. They were pretty heavy, but I decided to take three of them with me to sell to some of the pawnbrokers in town. Cogs, being part of an ancient civilization not seen for thousands of years, were valuable just being part of the Dwemer artifacts listings. Three were all I could carry. Tucking everything away, I headed back up the ladder to the surface.

I found Ignatius still working on the sphere machine when I returned. He was quite happy with the pieces I brought him.

"Oh, one other thing." he said, slapping himself in the forehead. "Cogs. I need three cogs to complete my work." He looked at me with those pleading eyes that indicated he KNEW he should have mentioned this before to save me the trouble of making this trip twice. I wanted to slap his forehead for him a second time, just for general principles, but I held my temper.

"I had planned to sell these," I said, "but if it'll make them work, I guess you may as well use them."

He thanked me for the cogs, and suggested that I come back in a few hours.

I headed back to my home, found a nice, big book to read, and kept myself occupied for a few hours.

About 5 PM, I headed back to Ignatius Flaccus' house, hoping to see something exciting.

Ignatius was happy to see me. "Welcome back, Eldorf." he said. "As you can see, I've finally got the bots up and running. The fight is about to start. Would you like to make a friendly wager on the outcome?"

"What would I win?" I asked.

"I'll double the money you put down if your bot wins." he replied. "How about it?"

I decided to wager 1,000 pieces of gold on the steam centurion.

There was no danger to anyone in the room, since the shield prevented the bots from even seeing us. He did some kind of spell, and suddenly the two robots ran towards each other (well, the steam centurion ran; the sphere just rolled).

The sphere kept moving back and forth, extending it's sword and retracting it quickly. Spheres are fast.

The steam centurion, though slower, was much more powerful. Using it's powerful mace (it's right hand), it kept slamming into the sphere bot. Most of the time, the sphere dodged the attack, but several times, the mace hit it's target.     

The sphere used it's shield to protect itself as much as possible, dodging and attacking.

On a number of attacks, the sphere's retractable sword managed to slam right into the heavy centurion, causing sparks to fly.

The centurion responded by continuing to pound away at the sphere's shield. The sound of it hitting the sphere's shield left my ears ringing.

The sphere's sword hit the centurion on the left shoulder, and did some pretty obvious damage, as I could see wires hanging loose and steam escaping from it. I was certain I was about to lose my 1,000 gold bet.

Suddenly, the centurion lifted it's mighty right arm up, brought it to the left, and swung it back to the right, smashing the sphere right across the chops!

The sphere went into convulsions, waiving it's arms about, then fell to pieces.      

It was late, so I went to the Winged Guar to get something to eat for dinner, then headed back home. Finding another big book to read, I let the words lull me to sleep. I was hoping that my blade would be ready tomorrow.