Hard Answers

File:Enthir.jpg

Hard Answers is a Thieves Guild quest given to the player by Karliah, it begins immediently following the Speaking With Silence quest.

Overview

• Prerequisite: Speaking With Silence
• Quest Giver: Karliah
• Reward: Nightingale Blade
• Reputation Gain: N/A

Objectives

• Speak with Enthir
• Speak with Calcelmo at the Understone Keep in Markarth
• Gain Entry to Calcelmo's Museum
  • (Optional) Obtain key to Calcelmo's Museum
• Obtain Calcelmo's Falmer Translating Guide
• Duplicate the writing on Calcelmo's Stone
• Return to Enthir
• Speak to Karliah

Walkthrough

1. Speak to Enthir at the Inn of Winterhold.
2. Travel to Markarth and speak to Calcelmo at Understone Keep - He will refuse you access to his research unless you can persuade him.
3. Find (or receive through a side-quest from Calcelmo) the key to Calcemo's Museum on his Alchemy table in the West wing of the Keep.
4. Go to the East wing of the Keep and enter the Museum, the guard at the door will do nothing if you enter.
5. Carefully sneak through the Museum, which is more of a dangerous dungeon with lots of treasure. Do not be detected by guards and let any survive, if you try to escape no guard will yield to you. (Note: There are not only city guards but Calcelmo's private guards, Wizard's Guards.)
6. When you reach Calcelmo's tower make your way up to Calcelmo's Stone. If you try to use it without a roll of parchment and a stick of charcoal in your inventory you will receive an error message. The table in the room behind you has plenty of these. Activate the stone again.
7. Once you receive the rubbing, Aicantar, 2 guards and the City Captain will enter the tower and you will hear their conversation. His nephew insists that somebody is trying to sabotage his uncle's research, and demands that the guard searches the tower from top to bottom.
   • If you kill Calcelmo's nephew he may have a staff that can command dwarven spiders. If not, try to sneak to the staircase below you on your left, climb up and jump on to the torch nearest to the wall. Leap to the ledge that leads to the exit. (Note: The staff (Spider Control Rod) can be found upon first entrance to Calcemo's Laboratory through the first door on the left, but must be stolen. If taken, Calcemo's nephew will not have another copy of the staff.)
8. head back down to markarth.
9. Return to Enthir and Karliah at The Frozen Hearth's cellar in Winterhold.

Journal Entry upon completing the quest

After Enthir succesfully translated Gallus's journal, I've discovered that Mercer's motivations transend simple greed or murder. As a member of The Nightingales, Mercer was tasked with guarding a place called The Twilight Sepulcher, the Temple of Nocturnal. According to Gallus, he defiled the Temple and betrayed the Thieves Guild. Karliah insists that we bring this information to Brynjolf immediately.

Rewards

• Nightingale Blade given to you by Karliah, previously owned by Gallus Desidenius.

Notes

• Invisibility potions are useful at critical moments.
• The translation key is inscribed on a stone. It must be duplicated with a Roll of Paper and piece of Charcoal, which can be found on nearby tables.
• If you haven't received the key from Calcelmo, a good amount of sneaking is required once you gain access to the Dwemer Museum. A good way of getting past all the guards is to start sneaking immediately and head towards the left. While the two guards are talking sneak by to the left. Be cautious as there is a third guard more watching the entrance to the next area. Continue to sneak as the third guard looks away and patrols the area.
• If you encounter a guard and don't want to go to jail, you can kill him without a bounty added to your head if you have conjurations do the killing for you. However a Dremora summond using the Sanguine Rose does cause a bounty to be added.
• Another way to avoid a bounty being added is to sneak and use archery to avoid being seen by the guards and allow a follower (I used Aela the Huntress) to do any final killing if needed and just remaining hidden until all the guards are dead.
• There is a Larceny Target, the Dwemer Puzzle Cube, in Calcelmo's Laboratory.
• Another way to obtain Calcemo's Key to the Museum is to defeat the giant frost spider Nimhe inside the Nchuand-Zel Excavation Site. This method will not make the guards in the Museum portion hostile, initially.
• Upon picking up Aicantar's Spider Control Rod, Aicantar's Spider will spawn in the room, non-hostile toward the player. It is very easily destroyed by either the player or nearby guards. It cannot be revived.
• Enthir's dialogue after the player give him the rubbing has a typo, he says 'undertsand' instead of 'understand'.
• There is also an easier way of doing this quest if you are a Werewolf. Simply gain legit accsess to the first part of the Dwarvern museam (reccemended if you have low sneak skill) so no guards will attack you while not in sneak mode. Once inside proceed to the door that is locked that leads to the second part of the museam where you are not permited. Pick the lock and go inside. Now that you are inside, transform into a Werewolf and go on a rampage. There are several people that will need to be killed but with the Howl they should run away so you can pick them off one by one. Once they are all dead, follow the quest marker to the door to outside, go through that. Once outside go right and up to the tower. In the tower the tablet is in the middle of room and high up but fairly easy to reach. When up near the tablet, wait until the transformation wears off and then grab your roll of paper and charchol. Copy it down and guards will come through the door, wait until none are near the door and jump down in front of the tablet, then simply sneak out. Now that you're outside, you can either sneak back through the museam or scale down the mountain. (I scaled down it, so I would reccemend that for people with high health, armor or know where to land) then complete the quest normally without guards following you or having any bounty.

Bugs

• If you complete Calcelmo's favor of killing the Frostbite Spider Nimhe, and then gain safe entry into the Dwemer Museum and obtaining Calcelmo's key after completion of this quest. You may get the quest a second time. Note, that also means you can get the Nightingale Blade a second time.
• If you complete Calcelmo's favor of killing Frostbite Spider Nimhe, and then gain safe entry into the Dwemer Museum and you persuaded him to let you in for helping him with his love interest it is possible that you will get this quest a second time the next time you return to the museum, and Gallus's Journal will be 'bugged' in your inventory as a quest item. The quest is unable to be complete on the second run do to the the final door at the top of the tower being closed and your key no longer working.
• If you entered Mercer's house and looted Mercer's Plans before completing the quest Hard Answers, The Pursuit will not initiate upon completion of the quest Hard Answers. This can be fixed (on the PC) by resetting the quest Hard Answers to the last stage with the command [setstage TG06 70], dropping the item Mercer's Plans from your (Misc) inventory, and then talking to Karliah and completing the quest again. Do not pick up Mercer's Plans from wherever you dropped them until the quest The Pursuit is on the stage: Discover evidence of Mercer's location. (i.e. after you break into his house, simply leave and go pick back up Mercer's Plans)
• For an unknown reason if you want to speak with Enthir at the end of the quest, he doesn't want to talk with you. Use the autosave when you got into the building and it 'll be good