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The Dwemer won't give them any tools. They're carving the Prince's face by hand, rough stone chisel and rough stone hammer, and it keeps getting harder to see.
It's the Dwemer's fault. No one knows how, but it is.
It was the Dwemer who made them to mine the deepest caves for their crystal, claiming it as payment for giving them refuge. The Falmer leaders had been so confused; hadn't that been the kindness of kin? But they learned, down in the depths, or in the golden recesses of laboratories, or in the building sites of monuments, that there is no kindness in the deep elves.
Auri-El answers no prayers. The Dwemer had destroyed the small attempts at temples and shrines even before they demanded their payment. They are no longer in his sight. Perhaps, the more madly fearful say, that is why they are losing their own.
They are losing themselves. It is...no one can teach children to read or write. There is...something is...like their vision grows dim, so do their minds. Falmer keep many journals, but all are finding that they open them and they no longer understand the writing.
It isn't worth it, the youngest say, as they crack an insect carapace by feel over a dinner fire felt more than seen. These things we were, they aren't worth trying to remember. We're here now. This is all just weeping over what can't be reclaimed.
Most of these are too young to have gone far from home, and known the Chantry or seen the Prince in glory upon his throne. Some were born in the dark, their mothers having arrived pregnant to this exile. They don't know of what they speak.
They never will, and they know it.
But one last thing, the leaders say. Many are already blind, their bodies unable to fight whatever Dwemer foulness this is that steals everything. They know they are here, they are becoming...things, not mer, but they will remind their young, and the world, and the Dwemer, even, of what they were. Just one last thing, before...
Before.
Those who remember and see draw the image and create small versions in stone, teaching the others by feel. They destroy these sculptures not long after their students learn. The punishment for being found with them will be terrible. Their masters want them to forget.
The master sculptor tells them that it is as near to a likeness of the Prince as she can remember, sitting with his hand upon the Scriptures of Auri-El and his other hand holding the torch-scepter of his office. It is to be the last unspoiled memory of the Falmer in this world.
So, in the depths of Irkngthand, they carve a massive image of the Prince into stone. It is slow work. Children are born and grow. Some die to the mines or the labs. Many who labor cannot see anything. Some do not understand it, only knowing that is important to their people, so that they may not forget. What they must not forget is lost.
Beyond the carving, the Dwemer stir and fight, their assemblies full of shouting and sometimes blows. The new leaders of the Falmer lack the depth of memory of their predecessors, but they know their slavery and blindness comes from the Dwemer. The sorrow of the fathers becomes the vengeance of the sons. They plot. They plan.
At long last, the image is done. The last who can see brings forth two great gems. They were always a part of the plan, a proper treasure in the old vein, carried from a temple of Auri-El long ago. With his dim sight, he sets them in the sockets of their prince, a shining memorial to Falmer glory. And no Falmer will ever see them.
Time passes without seasons, beyond the sight of the forgotten shining god. The deep elves war, shattering their strength, and the plotting of the slaves becomes chitin swords and poisoned arrows. The Dwemer make themselves dust, and the deeps fall to the Falmer, who know the rage and the betrayal, but not the history. They remember the surface, and they know they had glory. By touch and by battered language, they know the image their failing ancestors built, and they know it is theirs, it is what they were.
They want it again.