Blackreach (Skyrim)

Description
Blackreach is a colossal underground cavern found under the Tower of Mzark, filled with glowing mushrooms and Falmer.

It can also be accessed from Mzinchaleft Gatehouse via the Dwemer mechanism in the final room to your left when facing the door out; as well as similar locations at the nearby Dwemer ruins of Alftand and Raldbthar. From the outside, Blackreach can be accessed by the Great Lift at Alftand, the Great Lift at Raldbthar, and the Great Lift at Mzinchaleft. The cavern encompasses the area between all three of these Dwemer cities, and connects them as well.

Blackreach was originally a Dwemer city, but has long since been taken over by massive, luminescent mushrooms.

Items of Interest
Please note: because of the vast size of Blackreach, these figures may not be exhaustive.


 * 31 Geode Veins can be found here, which produce soul gems (Petty to Black) or Corundum ore.
 * 12 Corundum Veins
 * 3 Quicksilver Veins
 * 2 Moonstone Veins - 1 Near the Gold Vein
 * 1 Orichalcum Vein
 * 1 Gold Vein - Under a bridge
 * Crimson Nirnroot - (At least 41 - including what can be found in the linked areas)
 * 4 Chests
 * 3 Ebony Veins - 1 Between the Pump Station and 2 Falmer huts; Almost directly under the balcony from the pumping station. The only other known one has been found far south of the Debate Hall and slightly due east from the Derelict Pumphouse behind the edge of the waterfall that splits on either side of the rock that has a Crimson Nirnroot sitting on the very tip.

Enemies

 * Frost Troll
 * Falmer
 * Frostbite Spider
 * Falmer Servant
 * Chaurus
 * Chaurus Reaper
 * Dragons
 * Dwarven Sphere
 * Dwarven Centurion
 * Giant
 * Wisp
 * Wispmother

Blackreach contains Crimson Nirnroot. Harvesting one will start the quest A Return To Your Roots.

The dragon Vulthuryol will spawn if you use Unrelenting Force on the large golden orb hanging above the Debate Hall.

Locations in Blackreach
From Blackreach one can reach the following areas:
 * Alftand Cathedral
 * Raldbthar Deep Market
 * Mzinchaleft Gatehouse
 * Tower of Mzark.
 * Great Lift at Mzinchaleft
 * Great Lift at Raldbthar
 * Great Lift at Alftand
 * Hall of Rumination
 * Debate Hall
 * Pumping Station (Silent City)
 * Derelict Pumphouse
 * Silent City Catacombs
 * Farm Overseer's House
 * Silent Ruin
 * War Quarters
 * Reeking Tower

During the main quest, you need to retrieve an Elder Scroll in order to go back in time to learn the long lost Dragonrend Thu'um, created by the Nords to defeat Alduin. There is a tower at the end of Blackreach which contains the Elder Scroll. The tower does not have any enemies although there is a simple puzzle to get the Elder Scroll off the ceiling in order to grab it. When you exit the tower through the alternate exit behind the puzzle room, you'll appear out just southwest of the Dwemer fort entrance.

There seems to be a bug in Blackreach when the main quest line gets to this point (on the PC version). The marker indicates an apparently impossible-to-reach second floor door in the corner of the central city of the zone, but that's not where the quest item is. You actually need to go pretty far from that marker and up one of the several elevator lifts throughout the zone. It's the elevator lift just past the giant waterfalls area.

Lifts to the surface can occasionally cause the game to effectively freeze on the loading screen, barring all actions apart from quick-loading. It can be fixed by pressing tilde and waiting 5-10 sec, then press tilde again to close console. (on xbox360 if you disable auto-save before using the lift, it should fix this problem, and keep it from freezing).