Unearthing Mehrunes' Razor

Overview

Prerequisite: Purchase and installation of Mehrunes' Razor official mod
Faction: N/A
Quest giver: Letter
Reward: Mehrunes' Razor (see the mod article)

Background

The lost Ayleid City Varsa Baalim has been unearthed by a rogue Telvanni arch-mage in pursuit of a fearsome daedric artifact, Mehrunes Razor, which he believes will give him the power he needs to topple the Imperial reign -- but what horrors lie in wait beneath the Valus mountains, and can you overcome them to claim Mehrunes Razor as your own?

Sundercliff Watch

After installing the plugin you will receive a letter, indicating that you have heard rumors about Mehrunes Razor being uncovered and that you should investigate. A quest marker pops up, leading you to Sundercliff Watch, a fort ruin on the extreme eastern edge of Cyrodiil, right next to Lake Canulus. If you start a new game with this plugin loaded, the quest will be given to you right after you enter the sewers from the sanctum in the tutorial level.

Upon entering the ruin, you'll see a small bandit-style camp in the first room, with a few Drothmeri soldiers. Kill or evade the soldiers and proceed down the corridor to a double door. If you try to open it, you are told that "A voice beyond the door calls out: Who gathers stormclouds over Nirn?"; at first, your only option in response is to say nothing. If you check the "abandoned knapsack" right next to the door you will find a Small Diary. Of immediate interest is the password ("Chimer"). The rest of the diary is an entertaining read, revealing that the steward on the other side of the door (according to a note) is supposed to keep an eye on the cousin of Drothan, who appears to be in charge of opening the door. In order to find Drothan there is a journal in his cabin that provides more information.

Use the password to open the door, and deal with the Drothmeri steward, recruits, soldiers, and veterans on the other side. The Steward's Registry on the table reveals that Drothan has been amassing a few troops here. Continue exploring the fort ruins, and you will find a door to the next area, "Sundercliff Village".

(Before you leave this area, you may wish to go back to the start and dump your loot in the chest on the left side of the first room or another suitable container.)

Sundercliff Village

There really is a village in Sundercliff Village... the village is in a huge underground cavern, large enough to contain a half dozen houses, occupied by more of the Drothmeri army, and a handful of Argonian laborers. If you're just interested in getting through the quest, follow your map arrow, which is leading you through to the next area in search of Drothan's cabin.

If you're interested in exploring, though, take some time to check out the village. Be prepared to kill or avoid a lot of people. If you choose to kill them you can collect a lot of loot, including leveled armor, weapons, and a few enchanted items. Additional loot can be found in various chests (inside the houses) and hutches (outside).

The most interesting building in the village is the "Jail", in the northwest corner of the main cave. Inside you will find a Morag Tong Assassin locked in a prison cell. A Jailor's Letter on a table reveals that the jailor has been trying unsuccessfully to find the writ revealing the assassin's target. On the same table are two pairs of the rare, zero-weight Wrist Irons. The assassin isn't particularly talkative, and doesn't seem interested in asking to be released. What to do with him is really just a matter of personal preference. If you release him, he will skulk off to proceed with his assassination; you are likely to cross paths with him again later, and he may help you by killing off a few enemies. Or you may prefer to just kill him and acquire his enchanted armor, which has various unique and powerful enchantments, as detailed under New Items. If you let him go he will end up outside of the Inn of Ill Omen, found during the Dark Brotherhood initiation quest.

The Village connects to two other areas: "Sundercliff Forge" (entrance on the east side of the main cave), and "Sundercliff Commune". The commune has two entrances, both on the west side of the main cave, one on the upper level, and one on the lower level. Your map arrow suggests you should proceed to Sundercliff Commune, through whichever of the two doors is closest.

Sundercliff Commune

Sundercliff Commune features an upper level with a few more houses. A deep chasm in the middle can be descended via a long wooden ramp, revealing another house and an entrance to an Ayleid Ruin. For now the ruin is inaccessible, because some type of enchantment is blocking the entrance. The destination you're looking for, "Frathen Drothan's Quarter's" is on the upper level, to the north of the chasm. Depending upon which door you used to get here from Sundercliff Village, you may be on either the upper or the lower level.

In Drothan's cabin you will find his journal sitting on a table; reading it updates your quest to tell you that your next job is to find two enchanted bezoars in order to be able to access the ayleid ruin, Varsa Baalim. Before moving on it is worth doing a thorough search of Drothan's cabin. Items of particular interest include:

• The book Treatise on Ayleidic Cities that provides more of the backstory.

• A Varla Stone.

• Two vials of Trichobezoar Extract.

• Several Scrolls of Transmutation. Two are out in the open; seven more are hidden behind a locked false wall (on the east side of the room).

Drothan's journal told you that the enchanted bezoars were entrusted to his two lieutenants, the Drothmeri Commander and the Forgemaster. The easiest is to start with the commander, whose house is right next door. If you released the Morag Tong Assassin, he is likely to show up here just as you arrive and assassinate the commander for you (leaving you free to loot the commander's corpse). The bezoar is upstairs on a side table.

You may also want to explore the Veteran's Lodge on the lower level, where there is another boss-level chest (and a couple Drothmeri veterans looking for a fight). Outside in Sundercliff Commune you can also find several chests with gold, and an underground potato plant patch, complete with its own gardener!

Sundercliff Forge

Your next destination is the Forgemaster. To find him, you will need to head back to Sundercliff Village and cross to the east side of the main cave, where you'll find the door to Sundercliff Forge. Exploring Sundercliff Forge you will realize that you are on the upper of two levels, but there is no way at the moment to get to the lower level; you can just look down through some shafts in the floor. There is a rock wall right by the entrance, but you can't open it from here. Your only option is to proceed to the next area: "Sundercliff Mines".

Once you get to the mines, you will find a new bunch of minions to mince. Some are the familiar Drothmeri soldiers, but you will also find many Khajiit and Argonian laborers, who like to fight with rakes and hoes (all of which are blunt two-handed weapons that you can take and use yourself if you like; see Unenchanted Weapons for their statistics).

You enter the mines on the lower level of a large cavern, filled with iron veins. The passage to the upper level is in the southeast corner. The various parts of the upper level are connected by narrow walkways; make your way to the northeast corner where you will find a small passageway that leads back to the Forge (watch out for rockfalls!).

This door leads you down to the lower level of the Forge, occupied by an Armor Apprentice, a Weapons Apprentice and the Forgemaster himself. The Apprentice's Note on the table in one room, and the Letter Home on the table in another provide some entertainment. You may want to take the time to tip all the buckets hanging from the ceiling, all of which contain some loot. In most cases, it is just the ubiquitous iron ore nugget (which is pretty worthless by itself, but don't forget about the Scrolls of Transmutation), but other buckets will contain some more valuable gems. You can also collect a good deal of iron boots and longswords.

Your target here is the Forgemaster. Killing him will yield a couple unique enchanted items, namely a Forgemaster's Amulet and Forgemaster's Smock; his other armor and weapons may also be enchanted. The bezoar is in the Forgemaster's tent, along with some gems and a boss-level chest (and look under the Forgemaster's bed to find his hidden bedtime reading material). Having accomplished your goal of finding the second bezoar, you can now return

to Sundercliff Village via a shortcut passageway in the northwest corner of the forge; pull the rope to lower the rock wall.

Varsa Baalim

Now that you've obtained both bezoars, you can proceed to open the door to Varsa Baalim. The entrance is back at the lower level of Sundercliff Commune. Activate each of the two "Enchanted Pedestals" by either side of the door to put the bezoars in place; you will then be told that you have dispelled Drothan's barrier.

You will first enter an "Excavated Ruin", where you can watch a combat between a pair of vampires and a Drothmeri soldier. Other than that, there is little of interest. Run through to the other side, and open the door to Varsa Baalim proper.

As soon as your screen loads, you'll get another quest update, saying that "there's no telling what I may encounter here...," a not-so-subtle warning to be ready for combat. You should see some people fighting below you... more of Drothan's army taking on a handful of vampires. Both groups will gladly attack you given the chance, so you're best off hanging back and letting them do as much damage to each other as possible before joining the fray.

Once everyone has been taken care of, take some time to explore this new area, which consists of yet another huge underground cavern, filled with surface-type Ayleid ruin features. There are a couple of doors you can access. Two lead to Cava Arpenia, which is just a small, optional, side area with more vampires, a dead Drothmeri veteran, and one Ayleid cask. The door you really want is for Cava Beldameld, and is located to the west past some very tilted sets of stairs. Cava Beldameld is also small and boring (one vampire), but it leads to a new section of Varsa Baalim...

...Where you find more Drothmeri and vampires fighting each other, again. Backtracking to the east of the door to Cava Beldameld you will find a chest and an Ayleid cask with some gold and other loot. Then proceed northward through a maze of ruined walls, eventually angling to the northeast. Keep your eye open for Ayleid Casks hidden in a few corners, and also watch out for the never-ending vampire attacks. Your destination is the door to Cava Marspanga where (surprise, surprise) another group of Drothmeri and vampires are battling, along with a dead Drothmeri veteran. Clean 'em out, collect the loot from the Ayleid casks, and head back up the stairs into yet another section of Varsa Baalim.

As an alternative to this method, players with sufficient acrobatics skills will be able to leap onto a halved pillar, then vault over a nearby wall, allowing quick and easy entry to the Nefarivigum without having to clean out two caverns first.

You're almost there! Head to your left (northeast) out of the door, up a small ramp of debris that leads you on top of some ruined walls. Stay up there, crossing the platforms and walls and you will come to a garden-variety Ayleid Ruin spiral entrance. This is at last the Nefarivigum, which based on Drothan's journals was his destination and the location of Mehrunes Razor.

Nefarivigum

Continue down the stairs and you'll see Drothan studying a statue. If he hasn't seen you, sneak over to his bedroll and read his field journal to find out what he's learned about retrieving the Razor.

There are a few ways events can play out at this point. The basic approach would be to kill Drothen yourself and then to read his diary to figure out what method you find appropriate to get the Razor. One option is to force open the gate leading to the Razor; if your strength is greater than 90, the gate will open. Even if you are not strong enough to open the gate, simply attempting will wake up the champion. The other option is to take the Beating Heart from the champion's chest and eat it, upon which you will gain four Infamy points and contract the diseases Porphyric Hemophilia and Cannibal's Prion. Either way, the champion will wake up and attack, however, he will steadily lose health throughout the fight if you chose to take the heart. Alternatively, you can take the heart and then force the gate. The champion will awaken and still take damage, but you won't get Cannibal's Prion, Porphyric Hemophilia, or the 4 infamy points. Once you have killed the champion, he will vanish along with his weapon (even if you try to pick it up, it will crumble to dust).

Another approach involves getting Drothan and the champion to fight each other, allowing you to simply finish off the victor. One way to do this is to sneak over to the gate and attempt to force it open yourself. Regardless of your strength, the champion will awaken and the two will fight, even if you were detected. If your strength is greater than 90, you could take the Razor and leave through the newly revealed door if you do not want any of Drothan's enchanted items. Another option is to sneak over to the champion, steal the heart, back off from the two and eat it. The champion will awaken and fight Drothan. Alternatively, you can steal the heart and force the gate, which will, once again, cause the two to fight each other. If, in any of these situations, Drothan is victorious, the gate will open, yet Drothan will return to studying the statue as if the champion was still there and ignore the now accessible Razor.

Regardless of which method you choose, proceed through the door, and pick up the Razor. Quest complete!

When you grab the Razor, the back wall drops out revealing a door to the Forgotten Tunnels. There's a couple of rats and/or mud crabs in here, no big deal. Once you get to the end, there's a submerged door that will pop you back out in Lake Canulus just south of Sundercliff Watch.

Journal Entries

After installation of the mod:

I've heard talk of the lost Ayleid City called Varsa Baalim where Mehrunes Razor is hidden. If I search the ruins of Sundercliff Watch in the Eastern Niben, I may be able to find the lost city and recover this powerful daedic artifact.

After entering Sundercliff Watch:

I've entered Sundercliff Watch, and can begin my search for Mehrunes Razor.

After reading the Small Diary in the Abandoned Knapsack next to the first set of double doors:

A diary I've found contains a password to explore further, and seems to indicate that some kind of army is amassing here, led by somebody named Drothan. If I can find the journal in his cabin, I may be able to learn more.

When you read Drothan's Journal:

I've read Drothan's Journal. He's gone into Varsa Baalim in search of something called the 'Nefarivigum', which he believes protects Mehrunes Razor. He has left enchanted bezoars in the care of his Commander and Forgemaster. With these bezoars, I'll be able to dispel his enchantment and follow him into Varsa Baalim.

When you come to the door to Varsa Baalim, blocked by magical energy:

I've found the door to Varsa Baalim. An enchantment blocks the door; I suspect two nearby pedestals may be a clue to dispelling the barrier.

After you've placed the bezoars on the pedestals:

I've dispelled Drothan's barrier and can now follow him into Varsa Baalim.

When you've entered Varsa Baalim:

I've entered the lost Ayleid city of Varsa Baalim. There's no telling what I may encounter here; I must be on guard.

When you've killed Frathen Drothan:

Frathen Drothan is dead, and with him dies any threat the Drothmeri Army may have posed to the Empire.

When you've read Drothan's notes about retrieving the Razor:

I've entered the Nefarivigum and read Drothan's notes. They seem to indicate that by eating the heart of Dagon's champion, I'll be allowed to retrieve the Razor. Drothan seemed to suspect some other means of claiming the dagger, though he seemed unsure how.

After retrieving the Razor:

I've recovered Mehrunes Razor, a potent daedric dagger which has a chance to instantly destroy an opponent.

See also

• Mehrunes' Razor

Notes

• This quest is particularly massive, with the entire quest taking about 30 minutes. You will realize this entirely new area is full of unsuspecting enemies with respectable amounts of armor. Training any skill is convenient and easy, so you may find it favorable to come back with a lot of weapons and feather potions for some veritable loot and plenty of training.