Escape from Nchuand-Zel

I just had time to raise my shield as the automaton's sword came down. My arm cringed as my wound began to bleed and swell. I kicked the Automaton sending him flying a few feet away. As I caught my balance the automaton was already up and racing towards me. It lunged as I side stepped away slashing at it's sword arm, the dwarven sword I had picked up split right through the metal. Almost without feeling, it swung around and shot a bolt at me, I deflected it with my shield and drove my sword into it's gears. I took my sword out and the machine fell apart, gears and pieces of metal rolling and bouncing away.

I decided that with my wound getting worse and my fatigue starting to catch up with me that it was time to leave.  I gathered some more dwarven materials and headed for the exit.  On my way out I discover what seemed to be a control room, I knew there were still falmer within these halls and decided to reactivate the ancient defenses and perhaps allow me to escape without any more trouble. I pulled the switch and pipes began to hiss and lights flickered. I left the control room back into the open cave that I had encountered before. This time the falmer were busy dealing with the mechanical foes. Before I had a chance to leave however a large Centurion automaton had dealt with all the falmer in the area and now had it's sights set on me.

Unlike the smaller form, this machine had a war hammer and battle axe for arms and with those attacks it was not going to serve me well to attempt to block.  As the machine swung and pounded the ground I rolled and dodged slashing and stabbing at the machine.  It's hammer arm swung around and smashed my shield out of my hands, and I watched helplessly as it fell to the watery bottom. Just as the battle axe arm came down I rolled out of the way and slashed at the back of the centurion. It didn't cut the metal but staggered it enough that it stepped backward onto a weak part of the walkway and the stone gave-way.  I watched the automaton plummet to the bottom of the ruin, and smash into the stone debris and water. The rest of the falmer and smaller automatons were still fighting and I was able to leave without any more incident.

Once out from the ruin I backtracked through the cave and left Nchuand-Zel behind me. I told Calcemo of my encounters in the ruin and shared some of my other none essential loot with him, in return for some magical items called soul gems capable of capturing the soul of a fallen enemy. I was intrigued by the art of enchanting but had too many things to wrap up before I got into that. I left Markarth with a nice sum of gold new armor and some new ideas on some future adventures I was to have.