TROUBLES WITH KARLIAH (An Adventure In Skyrim)

I played Skyrim regurarely, every day for an hour or two, a few months ago when the screenshots for today's post were taken. I hope I'll be able to successfully reconstruct the story of the quest I'm presenting here from the pictures becouse my recollection of what I played back then in November or December 2024 is vague and quite foggy.

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You can see the epic frozen landscape near the northern shores in this opening screenshot becouse the well-lit diurnal scene makes for an attractive post opening, but that's not where our story began.

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It all started here, in the dark, humid sewers under the infamous southern city of Riften ...

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... the creepy, labyrinthine hideout of the Thieves Guild. The rat in the foreground of the above picture is a friend of mine. That tamed beast follows me everywhere and carries some of my stuff. I found it caged in these very sewers while searching for the shady Guild not so long ago.

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The most direct way to the Thieves Guild leads through a passage hidden inside the chapel on the local graveyard, an unhealthy place where ghosts and criminals are the only souls one can meet at night. They won't harm you only if you are one of them. You can see me sneaking through the chapel in this screenshot. By the way, my sneak ability is at 92, not quite at maximum, but good luck with detecting me without any kind of "Detect Life" magic or alchemist potion.

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I was entering the passage when this screenshot was taken. There is a specific symbol engraved in stone that one must push for the tunnel to be revealed. The symbol is a button, but it doesn't look like one at first sight.

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This is the Ragged Flagon, the hangout place for all kinds of rats and thieves. It's a bar, a trading hub, all in one.

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I've done my share of heists and burglaries to get my reputation here in the sewers high enough to deserve the dubious honor of being assigned a quest like the one I'll document in today's post.

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The dude I'm chatting with in this informative series of ten screenshots is Mercer Frey, the current leader of the Guild. You probably already noticed the name Karliah spawning during the conversation.

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And now, you may ask - who the fuck is Karliah. Well, she's a thief just like me and the company down in the sewers. A former high-ranking member of the Guild.
According to Mercer, she killed the former leader of the Thieves Guild - her former lover, and then disappeared.
My duty was to help Mercer find her ... and then, kill her, I guess. As for her hiding place - everything we knew at this point was pointing towards the place called The Snow Veil Sanctum, an ancient ruin buried deep beneath the snow, ice, and ground. A legendary place that only a few have seen, and even fewer survived.

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I was to meet Mercer at the Sanctum as soon as possible.

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Here you can see me exiting the Guild back through the small chapel in the graveyard. I mean, the floor above me is moving and I'm ready to get out.

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This still picture shows the same scene, but you can't see the hidden mechanism at work here. That's why I decided to take a few consecutive screenshots and create a GIF.

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Upon arriving at the Snow Veil Sanctum, eager for action and exploration, I stumbled upon a big fat disappointment. Namely, I couldn't enter the ruin.
The massive door was locked, stuck, absolutely irremovable. I searched for a key but I couldn't find it. I tried to do something with the "Unlock Magic" but it did nothing, which isn't surprising considering my level of skill in that arcane field.
After an hour of trying ...

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... I started sniffing around in hope to find another entrance. The fairly large hole shown in this screenshot looked fairly promising at first sight, but was heavily barred and therefore impossible to infiltrate.

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About half a mile south of there, near the upper end of a frozen canyon leading downhill to the sea ...

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... I came across another entrance.

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The idea that this place could be somehow connected with the Snow Veil Sanctum seemed fairly plausible ...

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... so I entered and sneaked carefully not to awaken the malevolent spirits, zombies, skeletons, and mummies that usually dwell in these kinds of places.

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It didn't take me long to realize that this attempt won't get me far.

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At some point I collected this screenshot like a tourist obsessed with creepy souvenirs, and then got out.

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Here you can see the same frozen landscape in the beautiful evening light. The hooded figure in the foreground of the picture is Brelyna Maryon, a Dunmer friend of mine, very experienced in the dark art of summoning. I met her not so long ago in the College of Winterhold, a place where mages can explore, study, and practice their arcane craft.
At that point, considering the long trip and hours of rambling in search of an entrance we could open, we decided to overnight right there, in the canyon.

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The next day ...

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... we walked back to the first entrance we explored upon arrival, the one that most definitely oleads to the Sanctum if someone manages to open the damn door ...

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... and we battled a mighty Frost Troll on the way there.
Trolls are vicious creatures, while Frost Trolls can be described as ordinary Trolls on heavy drugs and steroids.

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We were busy around the door, trying and repeatedly failing to open it until the cold blue night fell upon our tired fellowship.

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It took me plenty of time and frustration to figure out the way in.

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Now, with the benefit of hindsight it all looks ridiculously easy.
All I had to do is stop trying and let Mercer Frey do the lockpicking work.
The right course of action at this point in this specific quest is to make Mercer follow you to the door until he reaches a place that triggers the reaction seen in the trio of screenshots that form the above picture.

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Once inside, we were ready for the action that would eventually form the final chapter of today's adventure.

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We fought occasionally the undead mummified warriors that fell into their doom and departed from the living ages ago in forgotten ancient battles ...

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... and yes, we did loot a few large chests full of gold, potions and exotic weapons as any experienced adventurer would, but ...

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... but for the most part we were just sneaking around in hope to pass unnoticed.

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Here you can see us attacking an undead warrior and the Frost Atronach (Some kind of Golem made of frost) he summoned from another dimension.

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Those damn Atronach can be really hard to crush. I used a combination of electroshock and fire magic to beat this one.

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By fighting together, I, an ordinary thief with no title, and Mercer Frey, the leader of the Guild, were kinda on the way to become friends ...

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... or so I thought.

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Every chest we found along the way looked like it was begging to be opened. When we approached the one shown in the above photograph, a simple alarm trap made of bones hanging on a rope mounted like some sort of fence in front of the potential treasure got triggered ...

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... awaking yet another ancient warrior that we got to put back to eternal sleep or die trying.

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I don't remember what we found once I picked the fairly simple lock.
Was it worth the risk? Who knows ...

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In this screenshot, we are walking along some kind of elevated corridor, or an interior bridge of sorts, I don't really know how to define it, while in the following one ...

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... you can see us posing in one of the many burial rooms that host urns, chests, and coffins.

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I found some very useful potions in the next room.

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On one occasion, a trap set to get us, got one of the undead guardians of the catacombs instead.

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Here you can see us standing in front of a very special room.

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When we entered ...

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... I found this amazing thing in one of the corners.

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It's a Dragon Shrine ...

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A place that can grant some cool magical powers to a Dragonborn dude like me.

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You can see the power being delivered through some magic words carved in the stone in this screenshot.

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An animated GIF can render an even better idea about what was going on.

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The room itself was fairly photogenic ...

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... so ...

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... I took a few more screenshots there.

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This is a neat little detail, isn't it?

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This screenshot shows the place as seen from the Dragon Shrine in the corner.

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At some point after more sneaking, fighting, and exploring ...

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... we came across another massive door. The thing was intricately decorated with elegant engraved abstractions and three circles that looked like a part of some mechanism.

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The door was a puzzle, a puzzle that Mercer knew how to solve.

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The second I entered, I fell on the ground.

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I felt an arrow bite me like a venomous snake and then a nightmarish paralysis took all of my body while my terrified mind remained awake, maybe even more lucid than before.
We found Karliah at least, but it seemed that I wouldn't be the one who would go around telling the story about our adventure in the Snow Vail Sanctum.
The damn dunmer bitch was a talented cuttroat and thief, I had to give her that.

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Little did I know that Karliah wasn't the only one I should be worried about.
Mercer lured me there to get rid of me for reasons I couldn't figure out.
The game, rigged from the start, did a good job of convincing me that this was just another straightforward heroic mission.
I should have known better. There's no honor among thieves.

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He tried to kill Karliah too ...

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... but she took a potion that gave her a chance to disappear from the scene.

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The Snow Veil Sanctum was cold and dark while I was dying ... or was I?

AND THAT'S IT. AS ALWAYS ON HIVE, EVERYTHING HERE IS MY WORK. I MEAN, I PLAYED THE GAME, I TOOK THE SCREENSHOTS AND CREATED THE GIFs IN THE ADOBE PREMIERE PRO 2020, AND THE MOST IMPORTANT THING - I WROTE THE STORY THAT COMPLEMENTS THE PICTURES. NO ARTIFICIAL INTELIGENCE WAS INVOLVED IN THE CREATING OF THE POST.