A Shadow over Hackdirt

Overview
Starting NPC: Seed-Neeus at Northern Goods and Trade

NPCs involved: Dar-Ma, Jiv Hiriel

Ending NPC: Seed-Neeus

Quest Reward: Training in Mercantile

Background
You are asked to go to the tiny rural town of Hackdirt to discover what happened to Dar-Ma, 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.

Walkthrough
Before you do anything, you need to purchase a book called "The Argonian Account, Book 1" which increases your Athletics skill in the Moslin Dry Goods in Hackdirt, as after you complete this quest the whole town will be hostile to you.

Ask around the town, and you will eventually find Jiv Hiriel 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, Blossom, but this appears to be unnecessary.

In the cavern where Dar-ma is locked, there are three crates stacked together in the middle of the room. The large crate will contain blunt weapon or bow, which is generated randomly and changes based on your level.

Upstairs in the inn there is a room that has been damaged (probably from the struggle when Dar-Ma was captured). Her diary is in a chest of drawers in this room. If you take it, the game shows it as stolen, you cannot return it to her.

To end the quest, simply return the girl to Chorrol and speak with her mother. Once you finish the quest, Dar-Ma's disposition to you will be 100.


 * Tip: After Dar-Ma retrieves her horse, she will approach you to talk to you. After she talks to you she will head toward home and you are forced to follow her. Like all NPCs, she tends to walk directly toward any creatures without concern, which makes escorting her difficult. However, if you never allow her to get close enough to talk to you, she will continue to walk toward you, allowing you to lead her around the ogres, trolls, and bears. Only let her speak to you when you've reached Chorrol's gates.
 * Tip 2: Alternately, once you have talked to her and agree to take her back to Chorrol, you can simply fast travel to Chorrol and she should be there with you.
 * Tip 3: Under normal circumstances, nearly all of the town will become hostile towards you at the end of this quest. However, should you not want to fight them, you can max every NPC's disposition. If this is done, they will act as if nothing has happened.

Alternative
Without knowing anything of the captured girl or her mother in Chorrol, you can lockpick and enter any of the trap doors in the village and find the locked up girl in the caves, who asks you to lead her back to her mother, at which point the quest proceeds as above. This method tends to have a higher body count in terms of generic villagers underground.

Also, most of the houses of Hackdirt have a trapdoor in the cellar. This trapdoor is unlocked, so If you can sneak into a basement you can simply use these trapdoors to get into the hackdirt caverns. Most of the Hackdirt Brethren in the caverns have a key to Dar-Ma's cage in their inventory, so kill them or pickpocket them to get it.

You can also find a "Bible of the Deep Ones" in the village church, though this seems to serve no purpose other than alerting you to something strange going on in the village.

Bug
It is possible that instead of the +5 Mercantile bonus, your Mercantile skill may appear locked at whatever level it is at when you finish the quest. However, your Mercantile skill may actually not be locked, but instead just appears like it doesn't move. 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, continue playing and training the Mercantile skill.

Fast traveling after rescuing Dar-Ma causes the quest to hang. In my experience, Dar Ma headed off on Blossom towards home and I had to hang around and fend off some wildlife. I looked around for her, couldn't see her, so I fast traveled to find her already home. Now her mother thinks the quest is over, Dar-ma thanks me for saving her, but the quest is still active, waiting for me to reunite them.

In my case, I ran on ahead of Dar-Ma to her mother's shop after fast travelling to Chorrol and when I got there I waited an hour for Dar-Ma to catch up (using the Wait function, not 1 hour real life), and when she entered she stopped moving and now they both act like the quest is over, but Dar-Ma's disposition remains unchanged (maybe because I rescued her with the Gray Fox Cowl on), but the quest doesn't think its ended and I haven't received the bonus.

The two bugs above can be fixed by talking to her mother about "missing daughter", which remains grayed. Once you ask her, she will ask if she is safe, at which time you say yes and the reward is given to you.

Trivia
This quest is a homage to 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.