Skyrim- From Calcelmo to Nchuand-Zel: Threatening Statuary of Murder

At the top of the stairs you will find five Dwemer statues- two of Spheres, two of Spiders, and one of a Centurion, all standing watch over a chest- and now over the corpse of Erj and yet another Falmer.  Check Erj’s journal to find out that the man is more of a thief than a researcher, looking for things to sell on his own to make himself rich, rather than trying to find lost lore.  The chest he is lying dead against is unlocked, so feel free to pilfer it yourself.

The real adventure in this room strikes once you open one of the two locked gates beside the Centurion statue- a pair of Dwemer pipes will deposit a Dwarven Sphere and a Dwarven Sphere Guardian into the room, which will immediately move to attack you in retribution for disturbing the buried city.  Destroy the two automata in order to secure your safety as you loot the area.  Behind the locked gate on the left are a metal chest and some salvageable scrap, and the open gate to the left of it admits you to another small chamber with some scrap in it.

The locked gate to the right of the statue protects a complete set of Dwarven armor including a shield, as well as some more scrap and a small chest.  To the right of this is an unlocked gate, and the small area behind it holds only an excessive amount of weighty additional scrap, mostly in the form of the bulky Heavy Dwemer Scrap and Ornate Large Dwemer Strut items.  Continue along the stone platform on this side to collect more smeltable scrap, and you can then turn your attention to the hallway leading onwards up a short staircase.

Be careful as you enter the subsequent room, for a floor panel just inside triggers a spear trap in the hallway.  On the upside, the spear trap is far enough back that it might not even touch your follower.  On the down side, the trap is very noisy and will likely alert the Falmer and its pet spider waiting up the stairs leading out of the room.  This, hilariously, will often trigger the other trap on that entrance to this room, where a pressure plate at the top of the stairs triggers continuous jets of fire that hit the stairs, but not the floor beside them.  This often results in a half-roasted Falmer and spider basically collapsing the moment they encounter your weapons at the bottom of the stairway.

Wait for the flames to die down and you can ascend the slightly longer stairs from here, keeping to the side so as not to trigger the fire trap yourself.  This will then let you ascend a yet-slightly-longer stairwell to exit the Armory into the last unexplored part of Nchuand-Zel’s ‘hub’ room.