Revealing the Unseen (Skyrim)

Secrets of the Synod
Arch-Mage Savos Aren has requested that you speak to Mirabelle Ervine, who may have some knowledge regarding the Staff of Magnus. You may find her wandering the Hall of the Elements or in the exterior courtyard within the College.

Ask her about the staff, and after a few roundabout conversations, Mirabelle recalls that some Imperials from the Synod were interested in it and came to the College to question them.

Leaving empty-handed, it appears they had a secondary plan: to head toward the sprawling dwarven ruins of Mzulft, which apparently has a derelict observatory that would somehow help locate the staff.

In the foothills by the edge of the mountains that carve through Eastmarch Hold, south and a little east of Windhelm, you come across ancient carved stone columns and archway entrances and a spectacular stone-and-pipework facade with steam still hissing from the hillside. Enter the huge golden door and step inside.

Slumped to the right of the second interior door is an Imperial named Gavros Plinius. He was ambushed while attempting to reach the Oculory, where another member of the Synod, Paratus, is holed up.

Before collapsing, he murmurs something about a crystal being stolen. Search his robes for a couple of important items: a key so you can enter Mzulft and a Research Log. Reading the log allows you to understand who exactly was here (an attendant on behalf of the First Adjunct Oronrel) and what he was doing (delivering a new Focusing Crystal to the Oculory). Fortunately a crystal can be found on a Falmer in Mzulft Aedrome. Now use the key to open the second door.

Onward and Upward
Enter this dwarven labyrinth, heading along the corridor and checking the body of a Synod Researcher. As you reach a connecting corridor of belching steam pipes, tough mechanical Dwarven Spiders attack you. These pester you as you continue up the linked corridors.

Soon you’re met by more Dwarven Spiders and a two huge gold doors. One of the doors is booby trapped so stand to the right of it when you open it, inside room is a vein of moonstone ore. Head through the other door into a more natural cavern, but with elements of dwarven architecture still visible.

In a natural rock cavern, there is more moonstone ore before engaging with your first Chaurus. Use the wooden scaffold to escape it during this war of attrition. Your third and fourth dead Synod Researchers are found here, at the foot and the top of the ramped scaffold. Have a pick axe ready as you can mine ore here.

Beware of a trip wire releasing a pile of rocks as you move through into a second, much taller cavern with a mammoth skeleton, more Chaurus, and an arched granite entrance. Enter another ramped corridor and expect Dwarven Spheres to transform and attack at the top.

Then continue up, pausing to dispatch Dwarven Spiders along a mechanical corridor. Head past a sunken chamber with stone steps until you reach a pipe-pillar room, where you tackle more dwarven creations. Your internal mountain climb continues, past the corpses of a dead Falmer or two, and finally to the gold doors leading into the Mzulft Boilery.

Gaining Focus
The upper chambers inside the Boilery are less tall and have had periodic rockfalls in the past, where ferns now grow. Falmer roam these halls. Dispatch them. Continue into a hub room with cage doors. Go through the open doors to the east, across a raised platform, and through a gap in the wall, caused by Falmer tunneling. This continues past a chest; expect further Chaurus and Falmer encounters. As the tunnels fill with mist and take on a more eerie glow caused by fungus, battle (or sneak past) a small Falmer camp, and ascend further up through another broken wall. Step back into dwarven-built chambers.

The ceilings are higher and the chambers more impressive as you reach a huge gallery with a flooded sunken central area. Falmer are swarming about in this location. Opposite you, at the south end, a trapped door leads to a room with a Chaurus and some nice loot. Search any chests you wish, but be sure to head up the steps in the west wall and into one last corridor. The doors at this corridor’s end lead to the Mzulft Aedrome.

The Aedrome is comprised of three giant chambers connected by corridors of ornate pillars and snaking pipes (the locked door [Master] to the north ends abruptly with a Falmer chest).

The central chamber has numerous Falmer, but one is especially important: a Centurion Sphere Master boss, or a Falmer Gloomlurker that carries a Focusing Crystal (be sure to loot this as you will need it soon (You cannot pickpocket Falmer)). After you have the crystal head east, down a long corridor, check your minimap, into a dead-end chamber dotted with Falmer corpses and a powerful automaton with a nasty ice spell. Open the door in sneak mode and smash him with the most powerful arrows/spells/staff that you've got. You can hover around the door and hide whilst he casts and pop your head out and keep hitting him with long range attacks or storm in with your sword, depending on your skill and health. There is an important chest here: a semi circular shape on the back wall, it contains the key that will open the important chambers on this level.

Oculory Jocularity
Paratus Decimius is behind a closed door up the western corridor ramp, accessed via the key. He is expecting Gavros Plinius (the Synod Researcher you found dead at the entrance) and is displeased by your presence. Inform him you have the Crystal, and Paratus strolls along the corridor leading to a giant Dwarven Armillary.

Paratus isn’t sure what the dwarves called this huge focusing globe, but from the Synod’s research, the machinery appears to have been made to collect starlight, for an as-yet-unknown purpose. Paratus replaced one of the elements with his crystal, after months of perfecting it. Using the Focusing Crystal will allow the Synod’s research to continue. And you’re the one who has to activate the giant, tumbling machinery!

After you follow Paratus into the Armillary chamber (and optionally speak to him about related matters), you are instructed to approach the Oculory, the giant series of lenses atop the Armillary. Activate the Dwarven Armillary.

Gaze around the curved observatory chamber, and you’ll notice a series of circular blue focusing mirrors on the ceiling panels around you. Directly above the center of the Oculory are three focusing lenses.

During the daytime, a stream of bright light bounces off them, onto the ceiling. Some of the blue focusing mirrors are lit with starlight, as is the main circular mirror in the center of the ceiling. Head up either ramp and look to the stone table, upon which is a number of valuable items:

Items Gained

 * Antecedents of Dwemer Law
 * Dwemer Cog (3)
 * Dwemer History and Culture
 * Dwemer Inquiries Vol I
 * Dwemer Inquiries Vol II
 * Dwemer Inquiries Vol III
 * Spell Tome: Flames
 * Spell Tome: Frostbite

Puzzle Solution
If you do not already know the Frostbite spell, read the Spell Tome: Frostbite sitting on the desk behind the control panel up the stairs. Then stand directly below the Oculory and fire a continuous stream of Flames or Frostbite (use ONLY these novice spells, apprentice or higher leveled spells will move mirrors differently) up at the crystals until each beam of light is focused on the center of a separate horizontally rotating panels on the ceiling with the blue mirrors in them.


 * Now move the blue mirrors. Each of the Dwemer pedestals atop the ramp rotate one of the three horizontal ceiling panels. The trick is to press the button on each pedestal so the panels shift sideways until one of the blue mirrors lines up with the light beam. (The inner row will be behind you to the right, the middle will be just to the left and the last will be just on the right.) The beam then ricochets off and up to the ceiling mirror. When all three light beams hit the ceiling, you know the Oculory is focused properly. If nothing happens right away, try alternating between Flames and Frostbite.

As a map of the northern part of Tamriel is projected onto the wall underneath the buttons, Paratus is initially excited to watch the results of his months of work. However, this is tempered slightly as the results come in: Something is creating a huge amount of interference, something at Winterhold.

You can speak to Paratus (and be as honest or as cagey as you like), but he is highly suspicious of the mages. He angrily wants to know what you did and thinks you have something at your College. Whether you tell him about the Eye of Magnus or not, steer the conversation to the Staff of Magnus’s location. Paratus finally reveals its location: Labyrinthian!

As you head away from the Oculary room, Nerien, another representative from the Psijic Order, appears from a side corridor to tell you that trying times are ahead. It is imperative that you return to your College immediately. You must take swift action and show what you’re capable of. He believes you will prevail.

Now exit through the pair of doors Nerien was standing behind (the latter of which you unlock with the Mzulft Observatory Key), and step outside into the inclement weather. Unless you fancy a precarious descent, Fast-Travel back to the College.

Once you have arrived at the college, visit Savos Aren in the Hall of the Elements. You will find that Savos refuses to talk to you about the Staff of Magnus because the Eye of Magnus has been taken over by Ancano, who has also barricaded himself inside the room. Savos and Mirabelle hit the barrier with Sparks and Frost, respectively, and to destroy the barrier you hit it with fire to complete the trio. Be careful not to hit Mirabelle, however; if you hit her she will not speak to Ancano and the quest cannot continue without you reloading. Once you get into the room with Ancano, a short cutscene unfolds where Savos attempts to speak to and stop Ancano, and everything goes white.

Tips

 * Be certain that you are attempting the Oculory puzzle during the daytime. At night there is no beam, an issue that has been mistaken as a bug.
 * For lower levels the Centurion Sphere (Master) guarding the key may be too challenging. An available tactic is to drop a lightning rune and run back down the hallway. When you hear the rune activated, drop another, while running. When you reach the large room with the pillars the Master Sphere should be far enough behind that it returns to it's home. Wait an hour (autosave) and repeat.
 * Use all the Dwemer Artifacts to care and melt down into Dwarven Metal Ingots, to increase your smithing skill.
 * When fighting the Centurion Sphere (Master), be aware that it cannot get through the door, so use this to your advantage and stay back, and attack him with a bow, spell, or summon creature.
 * It is advised to stealthily open the door, wake it up, then hide and let a summon fight it out.

Bugs

 * Gavros Plinius at entrance of Mzulft frozen, will not die, cannot pickpocket. This has also happened in PC versions of the game. Cut-scene did not appear. May be caused by attacking him while he is talking or attempting pickpocket. Doesn't appear to be fixed by coming back later or rebooting game so reload as soon as it happened.
 * A way to get into Mzulft if your game won't let you talk to Gavros Plinius to get the key for the door is use the console (`) and type in the following - Player.additem 0005DCB9 1 to get the key. Needs to be typed exactly as I have it for it to work.
 * Believe this is caused by leaving and re-entering Mzulft before he dies.
 * Entering in stealth appears to have done it in my case, he didn't see me so he did not begin cutscene.
 * Sometimes ending the quest will not trigger the next quest in the series. Savos Aren's corpse will be outside, but no NPC will speak to you and trigger the next quest. Cause unknown. This can be fixed on the PC version by entering setstage MG05 0 in the console.
 * The not triggering of the next quest is likely related to separate quest strings. I consistently replicated this bug with the main quest at A Blade in the Dark (after Kynesgrove, not yet returned to Riverwood) and with the Dark Brotherhood line at With Friends Like These... (about to enter the Sanctuary). Brought the main quest to after Diplomatic Immunity and Dark Brotherhood to after A Cure for Madness and the bug went away. Not sure which did it, but progressing quests beats waiting on a patch.
 * Fighting enemies outside the door to the Oculory area will cause Paratus to say "stay away." Paratus will not open the door for the player once enemies are killed, player cannot unlock with key.
 * Some players may still be unable to focus the occulary, even at day. On PC, this workaround may be inputted into the game's pc cheat console if you are stuck or too lazy to focus the Oculory: player.SetStage MG06 55. Xbox 360 Users can use Modio to transfer the save game to a PC and using the PC Cheat Console to get around the bug and then transferring the save game back to the Xbox 360.
 * If one leaves when trying to focus the Oculory and returns the buttons may not work for a time but may return to operation however the Oculory itself will not respond to having spells cast at it. *Has anyone found a fix for this?*
 * Some players on PC have reported not being able to see any beams of light before or after placing the crystal. unknown what causes this. (Might be related to "low" graphics settings; I just tried it with everything on low, and the beams were almost invisible. There was a very slight hue only that can easily be overlooked)
 * I found a way around that worked for me on the above bug. By advancing the time to daytime, saving and then quitting the game I was able to reload my saved game and all beams were back and the crystal could be moved again.
 * Mirabelle Ervine might become stuck on a low, hard to reach rock outside the college so you might not be able to go further into the quest. (Xbox 360, PC)
 * Depending on the time when you arrive back to the college, Nirya and more of the college staff might be trapped on the other side of the magical barrier gate. This can result into the trapped staff simply walking up and opening the door, skipping to the white flash in an instant. This tends to freeze the system 50% of the time..