Siege at Firemoth (Quest)

'"The island fortress of Firemoth was taken by the skeleton army of Grurn years ago. It's time to take it back. Sellus Gravius, Captain of the Seyda Neen Census and Excise Office, hires you to lead a band of adventurers to the Fort." —Official Summary '

Siege at Firemoth is an official plug-in that adds a small island chain, a fort, a new item and a quest that involves wiping out a large army of skeletons. This is a very combat oriented area. It is possible to face up up to a dozen enemies at a time. At the end, you will face Grurn who is the leader of this army of the undead, and is also a powerful skeleton wizard. You will be rewarded with the Ward of Akavir, a shield with a constant effect Fortify Luck enchantment or 3000 gold for returning it to Sellus.

Overview

 * Quest Giver: Sellus Gravius at the Census and Excise Office in Seyda Neen
 * Locations: Seyda Neen and Fort Firemoth
 * Reward: Ward of Akavir or 3000 Gold
 * Reputation Gain: +2
 * ID: ms_firemoth

Quick walkthrough

 * 1) Meet Sellus Gravius at the Census and Excise Office in Seyda Neen.
 * 2) Meet with Aronil, Hjrondir, and Mara and take a ship to the fort.
 * 3) Fight your way through the fort to the tomb below the island.
 * 4) Defeat Grurn and retrieve the Ward of Akavir.
 * 5) Return the shield to Sellus for a reward or keep it.

Detailed walkthrough
To start, talk to Sellus Gravius at the Census and Excise Office in Seyda Neen. Ask him about "Firemoth", and he will set you up with a ship and a crew to sail there and re-take the fort. Then head out to the docks, where you will meet Aronil, Hjrondir, and Mara. Talk to Silm-Dar, the Argonian shipmaster there, and he will take you to the island.

When you arrive, you'll find yourself on the northern edge of a circular ring of islands. Go either direction, and you'll soon start running into hordes of skeletons. There are lots of skeletons (half of them archers) on these islands, and more in the Keep, so you'll need to pack a good supply to last through them all. The Keep is on the southern edge of the ring, so either direction you go will work. If you take the western side of the ring, you might find a secret entrance which skips half of the dungeon, but you're also missing out on a lot of good loot, so it's your choice.

The Keep itself is relatively straightforward. If you approached from the east, you'll first see two Guard Towers out front. There's very little of value in them, though they do provide a good respite from fighting if you need to rest, as there are no enemies inside. The exterior of the Keep is guarded by many archers on the walls, so you'll want to run in fast to take them down. You could try archery or magic to shoot them from the ground, but there's a lot of them, and they have advantage of high-ground as well as numbers, plus you've got three relatively stupid warriors to protect if they haven't gotten themselves killed already, so the direct approach is most likely to keep everyone alive.

Once you've secured the area, you can either enter via the front doors, or through one of the doors in the two towers in front. They both lead to the same general area, but you can avoid most of the enemies via the tower entrances. From the main room here, you can go to the stairs at the back of the hall to reach the Upper Chambers. Inside is a corpse carrying a key which helps to gain access to the lower areas. Or if you want to avoid fighting, enter through the towers and just go down the stairs as low as you can go, avoiding the hallway that leads to the main room. The stairs to the Great Hall are at the bottom.

The Great Hall is a very large, open rectangular room with lots of skeletons. There's nothing of real value here, but it's pretty hard to avoid having to fight every single one of them getting to the other side, and the doors to the Guard Quarters.

Now you're in the Guard Quarters. One thing not to miss is just before the stairs leading to the next section, turn around to your right and examine the wall behind where you came in. You'll find a secret door and a passageway that leads to a room with a bunch of nice treasure in it. The door to the next section, the Dungeon, is locked. It's a 50 point lock, or you can use the key if you got it before from the Upper Chambers.

Once you enter the Dungeon, you'll be fighting rats. Lots of them. Not very difficult, except that there's over 30 of them, and all carrying diseases. This room appears straightforward, but instead of going straight through, look at the prison cell to the right of the stairs downward. You'll find a second secret entrance to the next section which gives you access to some more help.

Either door from the Dungeon will lead to the Mine. If you took the secret door, you'll be in a passage with a lot of Violet Coprinus and Luminous Russula, and at the end, you'll find some reinforcements, a Khajit archer named J'Hanir. A short drop from this section will lead to the main part of the Mine, which is where you'd have ended up if you took the other door. There are some Raw Ebony rocks here.

Past the Mine are the Upper Caverns. A pretty much linear path leading down to the next section. Three skeletons here.

The Lower Caverns are next. More Ebony, more mushrooms, more skeletons, and you'll notice as soon as you enter the door you would have come in through if you'd taken the secret entrance from the outside of the Fort. This is yet another linear dungeon leading to the final section.

The last area of this place is a tomb in the Velothi style, swarming with skeletons, and all led by Grurn, a powerful Lich. His primary attack is a area-effect shock spell, and he regenerates Magicka so fast that he can keep it up forever. His health also regenerates, so you need to kill him quickly or he'll just heal up again. If any of your companions have managed to make it this far, this is where they will almost certainly die. His spell does 100 points of damage over 5 feet. In addition, Grurn has a shield which gives him a constant effect Luck boost, which will make him somewhat hard to hit. Once you kill him, claim the prize, the Ward of Akavir.

Return to Seyda Neen. If you don't like the shield, you can give it to Sellus Gravius for a 3000 gold reward and 2 points of Reputation. Or you could sell it to somebody else for more money - it's worth 5000. Otherwise, just keep it.