A Shadow over Hackdirt

Overview
Starting NPC: Seed-Neeus at Northern Goods and Trading NPCs involved: Dar-Ma Ending NPC: Seed-Neeus Quest Reward:

Walkthrough
You are asked to go to the tiny rural town of Hackdirt to discover what happened to the Argonian daughter of a Chorrol merchant. When you arrive, the townspeople will act suspicious of you, and the NPC you are sent to tells you the girl never showed up.

Ask around the town, and you will eventually find a guy who will tell you to meet him in his house after dark. Do so, and he will explain the situation, and give you the key to the caverns beneath the town. He advises you to enter the caverns through the trapdoor in the inn. You can go this way to avoid all of the enemies, as the girl's cell is right next to the ladder. Then all you have to do is get her back to Chorrol unharmed, while the entire town goes hostile on you. You can help her get her horse, but this appears to be unnecessary.

To end the quest, simply return the girl to Chorrol and speak with her mother.

Notes: I read on xbox.forums.com (Ithink) that this quest is BROKEN! Instead of the +5 mercantile bonus, it will LOCK your mercantile skill at whatever level it is at when you finish the quest. This does not occur on the pc version, and is unconfirmed with the 360. ''I do not believe that the +5 mercantile locks your skill, it just gives you a temporary boost. You must still train mercantile through buying and selling those 5 points in order for mercantile to continue to raise normally. So for those 5 levels the bar does not move, so it looks like the skill is locked.''

This quest is a parody of the H.P.Lovecraft short story 'The Shadow Over Innsmouth', featuring a very similar plot; ie. a man visits a strange, semi-deserted village full of ugly, xenophobic villagers, who turn out to be cultists that worship the god Dagon, and eventually chase the man out of town. This story was written in 1927, and has also been adapted into a movie ("Dagon"), as well as a game ("Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth", also distributed by Bethesda). It is also arguably the inspiration for Resident Evil 4, among many other works.