Quest: Rebuilding The Gatekeeper

Don't even think about trying to talk to Relmyna's victims here.

Now that the Fringe is partially secure, Sheogorath wants you to shore up the defenses by building another Gatekeeper. You’ll have to track down Relmyna again to get her help; she resides in a place called Xaselm now. Get there and head through the first area to reach the Experiment Chambers.

The Experiment Chambers are filled with devious traps and experiments that Relmyna has been running on the beasts of the Isles, and not a few humans, to boot. Feel free to explore and read her scrolls if you like, or simply keep to the hallways until you find the Sanctum of Vivisection. You might want to save your game before speaking to Relmyna.

Regardless of your choices in speech here, Relmyna will command you to return to the Gardens of Flesh and Bone and find a few ingredients for the next Gatekeeper. Before you leave, you can feel free to pester her about the victims here. If you continually agree to be tortured in their stead, Relmyna will bust you with a bolt of pain that apparently permanently drains you of five points to a lot of your base attributes. You also get the Manacles of Pain, which drain your Intelligence and Endurance in exchange for a boost to your Strength and Willpower. Not really worthwhile, in other words, unless there’s some other effect that we missed.

Into The Gardens

The Essence of Breath is just one of the ingredients you'll need to reconstruct the gatekeeper.

Head to the Gardens and enter. Not much to see here, save some undead. Keep moving until you reach the second area. Neither of the two ingredients that Relmyna requires here are difficult to find, but you may want to thoroughly explore the northern area of the level before dropping down to grab the Dermis Membrane, as it will be impossible to return to that section of the level when you fall down.

It’ll be really difficult to ensure that you thoroughly explore the Caverns of Susurration, which consist of numerous tunnels that overlap each other on your map. Your goal here is obviously to follow the green breath the flows through the tunnels, as it will lead you to the Essence of Breath pickup spot, but feel free to explore a bit in addition to that if you like. When you get the Essence of Breath, the only other path available will lead you to the eloquently named Natatorium of Wound Bled Tears. The switch to open the door leading to the Blood Liqueur is directly across from the door, on the bottom of the small dias with the chest on it. Grab it, then follow the compass markers to escape from the dungeon.

Return to Relmyna

If you escape from the Gardens and return to Relmyna, she’ll ask you to head into her storage area and pick out some body parts for the new Gatekeeper. It’s a relatively mild form of customization, as far as we could tell, but feel free to pick out what you like. The thing to remember here is that you'll later be able to touch the new Gatekeeper and get some of its powers for yourself, so try to choose anything that you would want to have active on your own character.

Relmyna wants to travel back to where you first slew the Gatekeeper, so travel back there — no need to keep pace with her, you can warp ahead — and speak to her there. After adding all the ingredients to the pool there, stand back and witness the summoning of the new Gatekeeper. After it appears, you can watch it take out the forces of Order that appear. Then get back to Sheogorath.

Quest: The Helpless Army

Self-healing friendly forces? What could go wrong?

After you speak to Sheogorath, a messenger will arrive from his army. The faction you get the messenger from, either the Dark Seducers or the Golden Saints, may depend on the choices you’ve made thus far in terms of which faction you’ve been supporting. We received a Golden Saint messenger, personally, so that’s all we can describe here. The faction that you receive the request from will likely be the opposite of whichever one you became the Duke of; if you took over the Mania group, then it’s likely that you’ll be sent to aid the Dark Seducers.

Anyway, the messenger relates the fact that Sheogorath’s army is under siege by the forces of Order, and requests that you go and assist them. Agree to that, then travel to Brellach, the Golden Saint stronghold. When you arrive, speak to Issmi, who tells you that the captain of the Golden Saints has been captured and is being held captive inside Brellach.

Into Brellach

Enter Brellach with the Saints on your side and start fighting through the forces of Order as you come across them. Don’t forget that you can block and talk to an opponent to yield if you accidentally zap them or hurt them in some fashion. Your Golden Saint charges will fight alongside you, and heal themselves after each fight, so they shouldn’t be overly difficult to keep alive.

Plumb the depths of the fort until you come to the Halls of Reverence. (You’ll notice a large chime hanging from the ceiling in the first area here, near some crystal doors; smash it to break the doors and reveal a crystal chest.) There’ll be a locked door here that’s seemingly impassible, but if you walk up the steps behind it you’ll find a switch for it near an urn. Eventually you will come to Staada, who’s encased in a crystal prison. Find the chime up the steps nearby and ring it to smash the crystal and free her.

This is no time to negotiate!

With Staada in tow, head on to the third section of the dungeon, where you’ll be interrupted by the sound of all of your Golden Saints toppling to the ground. Apparently the Wellspring has been dammed; it’s up to you to get the waters flowing again so that the Saints can be reborn. Head through the zone in front of you and reach the Font of Rebirth. The Font itself is guarded by four or five Knights, so feel free to use your Summoning powers (you should be able to summon a Flesh Atronach and a Dark Seducer) if you have trouble defeating the enemies.

Destroying the crystal on top of the Font will require you to ring four chimes in the corners of the room. These apparently have to be rung fairly quickly, so you probably won’t be able to stealth around to them and ring them that way without alerting the guards. Still, if you get to them quickly enough while avoiding the guards, you can probably resurrect all of the Golden Saints in the area, who’ll finish off the Knights for you. You’ll get a pretty nice set of Golden Saint heavy armor for completing this quest, but keep in mind that the chestpiece actually takes off your boots, greaves, and gauntlets as well. Probably not worth keeping, in other words.

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