One of the creatures is far more powerful than the others, dressed more heavily in engraved chitin, wielding bolts of lightning, but even that one still goes down.

Once the dust settles, the platform itself can be explored. There's a throne overlooking the orb and city. The orb is tantalizingly close, the detail in the metal cage surrounding it readily apparent. It's bright, up here, almost painfully so after the gloom of Blackreach.

Most interesting. She's not seen anything like this before. What of the throne?

Ornate and metallic, though much of the detail's been covered by layers of grime.

Any connections to the orb?

They're clearly both made by the same people, sharing details in the design, but nothing magical it seems.

That's a little disappointing. She'd hoped the throne would be some sort of control.

Ena, meanwhile, is using the new vantage to scope out enemies - and their path going forward.

She glances uneasily at the sun. "Is it me, or is something moving in there?"

Elana takes a closer look.

There is definitely something moving in there. It's hard to tell if it's the slow swirl of a liquid or something sinuous and coiling.

The sun almost pulses softly.

"Something tells me we would prefer not to find out."

"Yeah. Do you still want a closer look?"

"No. Let us move on."

Nod. She glances around again, says, "I don't think there's anything else between us and that tower we spotted earlier, too, so it shouldn't be too hard from here on out."

"Good."

And back down the lift, across the plaza, and down the road they go. Ena is indeed able to trace a path without any opposition.

There's a lift up from the base of the tower when they get there, and Ena's on high alert as it rises after what happened last time, but the room at the top's entirely empty.

Is it indeed where they want to go?

So far seems like it.

There's a fairly thoroughly picked over room, with a long dead fire and an old satchel set up in the middle.

Past that is another door, leading to a room that's almost entirely taken up by what seems to be an enormous sphere, leaving only a narrow walkway around it - and now faintly they can hear voices above them.

"I'm telling you, we tried that combination. I don't want to keep just random guessing, we don't know if it'll set off a trap or lock us out."

"Hrngh. There's no clues, though, usually the dwemer left behind something hinting at it. I don't know we have another path than going through every combination."

She looks at Ena.

Who has her head tilted back and her eyes closed, and appears to be counting down from a very large number. She does sigh soundlessly, then glance over at Elana, shrug, and nod her head towards the ramp up.

Up the ramp it is.

"Lianda!" Ena calls out when they reach the top, dropping all pretense of stealth. "Fancy seeing you here. How're the munchkins?"

Lianda turns and crosses her arms - she doesn't seem particularly surprised. "They're fine, though Runa's heartbroken you haven't been around. What're you doing here? What could you lot possibly want with another Elder Scroll?"

"Oh, you know, search for eternal knowledge, the secrets of the universe. What do you want it for? The Dawnguard?"