Alduin's Wall (Quest)

is a quest in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

Overview

 * Prerequisite: A Cornered Rat
 * Quest Giver: Esbern 
 * Reward: N/A
 * Reputation Gain

Walkthough
After you and Esbern arrive in Riverwood, meet with Delphine at the Sleeping Giant Inn. They say you must go to Alduin's Wall. The massive Karthspire is located in Sky Haven Temple. You may travel with Delphine and Esbern or meet them at the Karthspire.

Arriving in Karthspire or meeting up at the entrance to the Karthspire camp, your group will encounter a number of leveled Forsworn enemies and perhaps Hagravens. Note: The lower wooden bridge continues up the hill to the other side with more Forsworn. If you don't get them initially, they will attack from above with Ice blast as you cross on your way into Karthspire (Sky Haven Temple). A dragon may also spawn at the camp, on some occasions.

Enter into the caverns and encounter several more Forsworn, but push through them. Delphine and Esbern run ahead, so you can look for loot. They stop at the first puzzle which controls a drop-bridge to continue into the mountain. The puzzle solution, with Esbern's hint, is to align them so that all three show the "Dragonborn symbol". The bridges drop and your group crosses and goes higher into the mountain.

Again, the party stops when Esbern looks ahead and sees danger in a patio area, comprising of pressure plates with symbols on them. If you have a follower, tell them to "wait" to avoid interference as you carefully walk across the pressure plates. Esbern points out the Dragonborn symbol and, sure enough, walking only on these plates gets you safely across to where you can pull a chain which disarms the trap part of the plates. Immediately, Esbern and Delphine run ahead. If you have a follower, go back and tell them to "follow" again.

The tunnel opens up into a large room just prior to the Temple. In the wall ahead, there is a very large stone face and a few feet in front of it is a circular platform. Esbern thinks the entrance will open if you shed a few drops of Dragonborn blood onto the pressure plate. If you click on the plate, a cut-scene plays as you cut your hand to dribble some blood -- the face slides up and reveals a doorway.

Instead of racing ahead like they have up until now, Esbern and Delphine decide you should have the honor to be first to enter the great Sky Haven Temple. As you come up into a large open room with a large table and a carved stone frieze, Esben reverts to historical scholar. As he examines the frieze wall, he explains that it tells the story of Alduin and the time of dragon rule, the human rebellion led by those who could "shout", and finally a panel that shows Alduin defeated by a Shout. Esbern fears that only this Shout will defeat Alduin. Delphine isn't at all enthusiastic about involving the Greybeards at High Hrothgar, but agrees that you will have to return to them and ask to learn that Shout.

After your conversation with Esbern, he offers to give you a Dragonslayer's Blessing which will increase your critical chance against dragons by 10% for 5 days. You can talk to him and get the blessing again, but he advises that you only get it if you are expecting to kill some dragons.

Explore the Temple for a moment. One room has a complete set of Blade Heavy Armor and an upper room has a room with a number of beds. Delphine decides the Temple will be the new Blade headquarters. If you have worthy warriors who will drop previous allegiances and swear to the Blades, you may send them to Delphine at the Temple to build up the numbers of Blades.

Bugs
Step 2) Fast travel to kargath camp (outside of the cave). Step 3) Enter the cave and run to the first bridge. Step 4) NPCs will now get stuck at the bridge and not move. Step 5) Run to the quest arrow (the big face on that opens when you put your blood on the seal). Step 6) Run back to where the NPCs are and they should now start moving towards the main quest area. Step 7) Once you reach the quest area do it as you normally would. Step 8) After quest NPCs will say something like "you go ahead." Don't go ahead, run behind the male NPC and use your level 3 force shout to throw him into the now open hallway behind the face. The quest should then proceed normally.
 * There have been instances in which the player fast travels and Esbern disappears. If this is the case, return to The Ratway Warrens. Once near Esbern's room, he should reappear engaging in combat with various Thalmor enemies. However, completing the quest in this manner is frustrating as Esbern will not "follow" the player despite being described as following the player. Esbern will walk at a slow pace from the Warrens in Riften to the objective in Riverwood. Waiting or fast traveling again will cause him to permanently disappear, forcing the player to follow him for around 2 hours real-time. Also, Esbern's pathing will often become confused, making him go in reverse. This is correctable by aiming an unrelenting force shout at Esbern in the correct direction to the objective, knocking him down the path and heading in the correct direction. If this is not corrected properly then they can appear later with torches in their hand and certain conversations between NPCs do not occur. All of this can be circumvented by going into the console (`) clicking on him, fast traveling to Riverwood, and using the "moveto player" command (NPC ID 19DFD). Instead of waiting around for two hours. Just a bit easier.
 * This bug can cause the NPC's to disappear from the location after forcing the quest to completion. (Main questline will still work)
 * When Esbern's conversation is skipped too fast, it might not trigger Delphine's dialogue. To correct this, simply talk to Esbern again and cancel the conversation, this should trigger Delphine's next dialog.
 * If you have found Karthspire and Sky Haven Temple before starting this part of the main quest, and have already completed the puzzles there, do not travel directly to the Temple. Esbern and Delphine will meet you in front of the temple, but upon opening it they will run back to the first puzzle and not move.
 * In order to fix the bug directly above, the user "Meepinz" on the Steam forums came up with this fix: Step 1) Restart game before you travel to the cave.
 * If you have already discovered Sky View Temple and have already solved the puzzles, and Esborn and Delphine just stand still at the top of the first staircase, near the three puzzle pillars before the first bridge, try reloading a save back before Delphine and Esborn's reunion. When Dephine asks if you would like to meet them at Karthspire, or go as a group, choose to meet them there. Go outside and "wait" for about 12 hours, enough time to show their quest marker is already at Karthspire. Fast Travel directly to Sky Haven Temple. "Wait" for a few more hours and they should appear at the entrance of the temple.
 * Delphine may randomly try and kill the player. When it happens, the main quest is not finishable, you must reload the last save. Be sure to save often due to this bug/glitch happening very often.
 * Esbern might disappear when entering the last room of the temple, having the objective marker positioned inside Alduin's Wall. Just head upstairs, exit the temple through the door and head back in and Esbern may be back in front of the Wall.