Skyrim- From Calcelmo to Nchuand-Zel: Task Complete, New Quest Recieved

Take care as you muck about in the lower portions of the chamber though, for one of the smaller frostvenom spiders lurks in the tunnel leading onwards, and its curiosity is easily roused.  You really don’t need a dose of poison in the back.

Speaking of the tunnel, there are two veins of iron ore in the walls- but don’t touch them yet.  The two frostbite spiders in the next section of the dungeon are vicious and large, and they will both hear you if you start mining so close.  Instead, use the fact that they tend to be facing each other and the exit to the tunnel is close to them, and leap to the ambush!  Thankfully, there are only two of the huge creatures, so you shouldn’t have too much of an issue taking them out.  With the spiders nearby cleared out, you can go back and mine the two veins of iron, and also go for the vein of corundum ore in the room with the two spiders.  There is a chunk of Dwemer plate metal lying around in here as well, so you should take that too before moving on.

Use a weapon or just your fist to bash through the webs covering the human-size tunnel leading on from here (which begs the question of how those two immense spiders passed through such a tunnel, given it’s narrower than their thoraces, nevermind their abdomens) and quietly lift the shovel lying in the turn of the tunnel so you can drop it elsewhere- running across it might injure you, and it will definitely make sure that Nimhe hears you coming and is prepared to poison and devour you before you even notice her.

The next chamber is the last in the excavation site, and it contains the spider Nimhe.  While Nimhe is a terrifyingly powerful and large frostbite spider, she curiously is not the size of the truly Giant Frostbite Spiders- and while dangerous, she is neither as strong nor as deadly as they are either.  This means that you should be able to handle her fairly well once she drops down from the huge tunnel web on the ceiling, though you may have issues if you don’t bother looking up or fail to try skirting around her drop area.

Once the spider is dead, you can return and tell Calcelmo about it- but there is something else of note here in her chamber.  Lying on a stone platform before a Dwemer metal door webbed over by the spiders is the corpse of an Imperial soldier, identified as Alethius.  In his hand is a letter containing some notes of his.  Apparently the soldier was escorting an expedition of scholars into the mine- the sort of scholar that dies quickly in horror or science fiction films by not noticing anything around them the instant there’s a piece of ancient work to study, and who refuse to be hurried along (especially if it will save their lives).  However, Alethius is here, and the scholars are clearly not.