Skyrim- From Calcelmo to Nchuand-Zel: Emergency Override Activation

At the end of all of this is a small room with a potion and a lever on one table, and a large stone chest beside it.  Loot the stone chest and have a look at the gate opposite the control panel- the gate will not open, curiously.  Thankfully, pulling the lever opens this gate and the gate behind it- but perhaps more importantly, it activates the various inert Dwarven Centurions standing in places throughout the ruin, which will then battle and kill any Falmer that you happen to have not dealt with yourself.  (And fie on you for not taking care of those- not only are they good experience, but it’s lazy!  Lazy lazy lazy.)

Going through the gate brings you to a stone walkway leading back to the area over the hallway you entered Nchuand-Zel Control through.  Here you can find a couple of valuable potions and an unlocked large stone chest of some value.  With a little agility, you can even safely jump down from the walkway to the area right beside the door to Nchuand-Zel’s main chamber, saving yourself quite a bit of walking and time on the way.

Exit Nchuand-Zel and you will discover that not only have more Falmer returned, the Dwemer guardians are already busy slicing, dicing, and julienne fry-ing them to keep them out of the Dwemer city.  Sadly, the automata do not distinguish between the Falmer and you- both of you are Not Dwemer and thus to be reduced to a fine, steam-broiled paste immediately, if not sooner.  Take advantage of the Falmer presence to escape the city intact, or you may find yourself blowing a lot of healing potions preventing Death By Dwemer Centurion from occurring before you can leave Nchuand-Zel.

Use the ledge you emerge on to vastly shorten your trip to the door of the ruins, and then exit via the Excavation Site, bringing the notes and knowledge to Calcelmo, and still more Dwemer scrap to the smelter.  When you speak to Calcelmo and show him the remaining notes, he admits that he didn’t expect the group to come out alive, and considers this merely something that sometimes happens.  He tells you that he will take on the burden of informing their next of kin- and then hands you a sack of money.  The gold, he explains, would have gone to the expedition when they returned in exchange for their work, but they obviously have no use for it nor way to retrieve it at this point anyways.

Completing this task for Calcelmo puts him in a good enough mood regarding you that he will let you take the smeltable scrap metal lying around his enchanting table and alchemy station if you like as well.  Combining this with the smeltable scrap from the floor of Nchuand-Zel and what you are likely to have found on the destroyed Dwemer automata (regardless of whether any individual one was destroyed before you arrived or by you) should put you at a total of around four hundred ingots of Dwemer metal.  This massive total ought to be plenty for anyone, enough for more than a few sets of armor and weapons and refinements for each and every item besides.  If you have the necessary talent in Smithing to make Dwarven items, you should have little to no trouble working your skill up to a solid and very high rating the very next time you feel like it (or right now, if you haven’t got anywhere to store all the ingots and are tired of moving at a steady crawl).