Hard Answers

Hard Answers is a Thieves Guild quest given to the player by Karliah, it begins immediately following the Speaking With Silence quest.

Overview

 * Prerequisite: Speaking With Silence
 * Quest Giver: Karliah
 * Reward: Nightingale Blade
 * Reputation Gain: N/A

Objectives

 * Speak with Enthir
 * Speak with Calcelmo at the Understone Keep in Markarth
 * Gain Entry to Calcelmo's Museum
 * (Optional) Obtain key to Calcelmo's Museum
 * Obtain Calcelmo's Falmer Translating Guide
 * Duplicate the writing on Calcelmo's Stone
 * Return to Enthir
 * Speak to Karliah

Walkthrough

 * 1) Speak to Enthir at the Inn of Winterhold.
 * 2) Travel to Markarth and speak to Calcelmo at Understone Keep - He will not grant you access to his research unless you can persuade, bribe, or intimidate him.
 * 3) Find (or receive through a side-quest from Calcelmo) the key to Calcelmo's Museum on his Alchemy table in the West wing of the Keep.
 * 4) Go to the East wing of the Keep and enter the Museum, the guard at the door will stop you and tell you that you are not allowed to go in, after the dialogue the guard will not stop you for going into the museum.
 * 5) When you enter the museum the first part you are allowed to walk around freely in. If you want to steal anything, make sure you are sneaking. In this first area there are many common dwemer artifacts that are found in different dungeons, and there are a couple different bookcases with adept difficulty locks with books that you can read. In the room behind the gate to the left, there is another Stone of Barenziah.
 * 6) Make your way up to Calcelmo's Laboratory, from now on you will want to sneak because Calcelmo restricted the laboratory from you and guards will not like seeing you in restricted areas. In the laboratory in an area to the left there is a journal and Spider Control Rod that are worth picking up. After a few moments there will be a guard that will walk through the other two doorways opening them up for the player. Guards seem to be on a set path so try to learn their movements and move around them.
 * 7) The doorway on the left is barred so you have to take the right path. Find, pickpocket, or pick the master lock into the next area of the laboratory. Two guards will be talking and eventually travel down a hallway.
 * 8) *Alternately, there is a pullbar on a collumn near where the two guards walk. Pulling the bar activates a spinning blade trap which can be used to kill the guards completely unnoticed.
 * 9) You can either follow the guards and sneak by to get to the staircase to the next area, or go the opposite path and get to the stairway. Going the opposite way of the guards will lead you to a hallway filled with a gas that will kill you fast if you go into it. Opposite the hallway is a button that you need to step on to clear the path and run through before the gas fills the room again.
 * 10) Continue along through the next couple of doorways until you see the door leading to the wizard's balcony. In this room there is a Larceny Target called the Dwemer Puzzle Cube, which should be taken to Delvin Mallory for some gold.
 * 11) When you reach Calcelmo's Tower make your way up to Calcelmo's Stone. If you try to activate it without a roll of parchment and a stick of charcoal in your inventory you will receive an error message. The table in the room behind you has plenty of these. Activate the stone again.
 * 12) Once you receive the rubbing, Aicantar, 2 guards and the City Captain will enter the tower and you will hear their conversation. His nephew insists that somebody is trying to sabotage his uncle's research, and demands that the guard searches the tower from top to bottom.
 * 13) *If you kill Calcelmo's nephew he may have a staff that can command dwarven spiders. If not, try to sneak to the staircase below you on your left, climb up and jump on to the torch nearest to the wall. Leap to the ledge that leads to the exit. (Note: The staff (Spider Control Rod) can be found upon first entrance to Calcemo's Laboratory through the first door on the left, but must be stolen. If taken, Calcemo's nephew will not have another copy of the staff.)
 * 14) *Killing the guards and Calcelmo's nephew seems to give no bounty.
 * 15) *Once you get out of the room with Calcelmo's nephew you will be back out on the balcony between the tower and the museum. You will find you cannot fast travel from that point despite being outside. If you want to avoid sneaking through the museum again (provided you stole the key rather than earning it), you can squeeze between a rock on your left as you are looking at the tower staris and a wall. Follow this down to a nice view of the waterfall and drop into the pool below. Your compass will point in this direction, implying that it was the path you were supposed to use to escape. You will be back in Markarth.
 * 16) Head back down to Markarth.
 * 17) Return to Enthir and Karliah at The Frozen Hearth's cellar in Winterhold.

Journal Entry upon completing the quest
''After Enthir successfully translated Gallus's journal, I've discovered that Mercer's motivations transcend simple greed or murder. As a member of The Nightingales, Mercer was tasked with guarding a place called The Twilight Sepulcher, the Temple of Nocturnal. According to Gallus, he defiled the Temple and betrayed the Thieves Guild. Karliah insists that we bring this information to Brynjolf immediately.''

Rewards

 * Nightingale Blade given to you by Karliah, previously owned by Gallus Desidenius.

Bugs

 * If you complete Calcelmo's favor of killing the Frostbite Spider Nimhe, and then gain safe entry into the Dwemer Museum and obtaining Calcelmo's key after completion of this quest. You may get the quest a second time. Note, that also means you can get the Nightingale Blade a second time. However, this may cause problems with the quest Darkness Returns (may be unable to finish), therefore it's best not to do it a 2nd time.
 * If you complete Calcelmo's favor of killing Frostbite Spider Nimhe, and then gain safe entry into the Dwemer Museum and you persuaded him to let you in for helping him with his love interest it is possible that you will get this quest a second time the next time you return to the museum, and Gallus's Journal will be 'bugged' in your inventory as a quest item. The quest is unable to be complete on the second run do to the final door at the top of the tower being closed and your key no longer working.
 * If you entered Mercer's house and looted Mercer's Plans before completing the quest Hard Answers, The Pursuit will not initiate upon completion of the quest Hard Answers. This can be fixed (on the PC) by resetting the quest Hard Answers to the last stage with the command [setstage TG06 70], dropping the item Mercer's Plans from your (Misc) inventory, and then talking to Karliah and completing the quest again. Do not pick up Mercer's Plans from wherever you dropped them until the quest The Pursuit is on the stage: Discover evidence of Mercer's location. (i.e. after you break into his house, simply leave and go pick back up Mercer's Plans)
 * For an unknown reason, if you want to speak with Enthir at the end of the quest, he doesn't want to talk with you. Use the autosave when you got into the building and it'll be good
 * For an unknown reason, if you gain safe entry into the Dwemer Museum, a guard will stop you and initiate the "The Forsworn Conspiracy" dialogue, "Halt you are under arrest for conspiracy and murder..." Any response chosen leads to an infinite dialogue loop where you can neither submit to the guards nor pay off the bounty resulting in a permanent 1000 bounty in the Reach and getting stuck into the dialogue loop every time a guard sees you. (Note that the bug only appeared after the quests "The Forsworn Conspiracy" and "No One Escapes Cidnha Mine" and upon entering the museum killing the guard.)
 * At the end of the quest, after Karliah tells you to meet her at the Ragged Flagon, Karliah will usually leave the room. However, sometimes she does not and stays in the cellar of the Frozen Hearth forever. Trying to talk to her will only trigger a small quote from her. The quest marker will still lead you to the Ragged Flagon, where all characters stand with weapons' drawn asking why you brought Karliah with you, even though she is not present. It is impossible to continue with any Thieves Guild quests if this happens, and the only solution is to reload a savegame from before you brought Enthir the notes on translating Gallus' Journal. (PS3)