Quest: Symbols of Office

When you return to Sheogorath, he’ll exit the scene to make way for Jyggalag. All is not lost, however; there’s still a chance to stop the Greymarch if you manage to reconstruct the Staff of Sheogorath. Haskill will point you towards a library of Order in a place called Knifepoint Hollow, where you may be able to gain some clues.

Knifepoint Hollow should be indicated on your map. You can get there somewhat easily by leaving New Sheoth from the northern exit, crossing the bridge, then walking up the slope to the left and proceeding along the ridgeline and attempting to get to the area from the east.

Knifepoint Hollow

Dyus likes listening to Ministry, reading Neil Gaiman books, and dressing up like a vampire.

Near the entrance to the Hollow, you’ll see a doorway in an area to your left that you have to drop down to reach. That leads to the Chantry. Nothing of import there, but near the end of it you’ll find a small chapel that the Zealots here are using. A hidden button on one of the posts will lead to some random treasure.

When you crack open the crystal door here in the Hollow, you’ll find Dyus, a seer character who holds the secrets to reconstructing the Staff of Sheogorath. He asks you to retrieve two items for him: the Eye of Ciirta, in the Howling Halls, and a Branch from the Tree of Shades in the ruins of Milchar.

The Howling Halls

The Halls are located south of New Sheoth, atop a large ridgeline; it’s easiest either to approach from the direct north or south, although you can climb up from the village of Dustwallow if you have that waypoint marker.

Kill the apostle inside the doorway and nab his Howling Chamber Key. Now, if you wish, you can grab one of the Apostle’s Robes off of this guy’s body, or on the bench nearby, and wear that to avoid having the other Apostles be hostile to you. You can feel free to talk to the other Apostles nearby, if you like, but eventually you’ll want to head into the Congregation Chambers.

If you have your robes on at this point, the worshiper named Ra’kheran will speak to you. He wants to help you kill Ciirta, but he’ll only do so if you can bring him three Apostle’s Daggers that some of the other apostles here carry. If you do so, he and his group will assassinate Ciirta.

Ra'kheran and his friends will be able to take down Ciirta without a problem.

It’s up to you whether or not you wish to take Ra’kheran up on his offer. Ciirta can be a difficult kill solo, although with your summoning powers you probably won’t have any problems with her. If you agree to Ra’kheran’s plan, grab three daggers (the three apostles in the first area of the dungeon that you just entered from should all have them), bring them to him, and wait for him to enter Ciirta’s chambers. (If you can't find enough daggers, you can kill the cultists that actually wear them on their hips to find more.) While Ra’kheran and Ciirta talk, you should be able to sneak attack and kill Luminary Kaz. When the fight is joined, help kill Ciirta, then grab her Eye from her body.

If you don't want to help Ra'kheran, feel free to sneak around the base and kill off the cultists with sneak attacks. Heck, even if you do help him, you can do this after Ciirta's dead. It's fun!

Milchar

You can find the entrance to Milchar in the ruins on the hill southeast of the small village of Hale. Find the large tree that grows there; you'll see the root system below it. Head into the Nexus area and save your game!

It's important that you save your game before you enter the Grove of Reflection area here, for a couple of reasons. When you do enter it, the game will instantly create a copy of yourself that you're going to have to fight. If you go in at full power with a lot of equipment, this fight can be all but unwinnable. We personally went in as a day-four vampire with a ton of poisons and scrolls on us, and we got crushed by our reflection.

What you want to do here is find a tree stump or treasure chest near the Grove of Reflection and dump almost all of your equipment into it, being sure to include your poisons as well. When you're completely naked, head into the Grove of Reflection, and you'll get a quest notice reading "I've arrived in the Grove of Reflection…." At this point, the game will generate your shadow copy of yourself. This is a permanent copy, so if you leave the Grove and come back, it will still remain the same. (If you're a vampire, you may want to head to Hale during the night and feed before entering the room to prevent your copy from having the advanced stats that you do.)

Shadow Boxing

Your double will manage to kick your ass if you don’t disrobe before facing him or her.

Thus, what you want to do here is leave the Grove, get all of your equipment back, then re-enter the Grove your normal self. With this done, you can drop down and activate the green stone in the middle of the pool here. Your shadow self will appear nearby and attack you.

Now, your shadow has access to all of the spells and equipment that you had on you when you first entered the Grove of Reflection, so spellcasters might have a harder time here than other classes will. Our fighter character, though, was able to face an opponent with no armor on and who could cast nothing more impressive than Summon Scamp, so this wasn't too difficult a fight for us. Regardless, if you approached this correctly and managed to unequip yourself before entering the area, you should be able to take down your foe without too many problems.

With the shadow dead, you can nab a Screaming Branch by jumping up to the tree at the rear of the room. With that done, press the button on the stone wall in this area to find a teleport back up to the Nexus.

Return to Dyus

With the Eye and the Branch, return to Dyus and he'll create for you the Incomplete Staff of Sheogorath. All that's left is to dip it into the Font of Madness in the throne room in New Sheoth.

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