As I journey ever deeper into the madness of these vaults and fight my way through the Mad Architect’s daedric minions, I discover more about its creator and the spirits he built this iniquitous edifice to imprison. It proves to be a sombre tale of jealousy, vindictiveness, and vengeance that has me questioning just whether anyone here is innocent, or if indeed innocence is just another form of insanity.

The Vault of Despair is filled with many trapped spirits under the perdurable watch of a very large Bone Colossus rather fittingly called Death’s Head. The giant bone warrior stuck at me violently with fist and foot. Such was the tremendous force of its blows I fear I may need to replace my splintering shield. The monster also displayed some necromantic skill by summoning skeletons from the ground to aid its assault. I wonder if I had managed to hack off one of its mighty limbs, whether it could just summon another from the ground to replace it?

The strangeness of this place just seemed to deepen the further I travelled as I next came upon a seemingly bottomless cavern filled with broken platforms somehow self- suspended in mid air. As I jumped from dais to dais I spied Grothdarr, a huge Flesh Atronach waiting for me on the final floating podium. Assembled from meat, bone and sinew bound together by stitch and necrotic spell, the daedric monster struck repeatedly at me with its giant clubbed arm. Yet it was the scorching flames from it’s torch that proved the real danger, as it’s fire brand threatened to set the whole platform ablaze in unnaturally yellow flames.

Next I was to encounter Achaeraizur the Daedroth in a cavern of rock and azure plasm. So fierce is this beast that it is requires two mage handlers. The monster attacks with no fear like a rabid animal, and just when I’d thought I’d evaded it’s dagger-like claws and deadly crocodile-like jaws filled with rows of razor sharp teeth, the monster opens it’s maw wide and drenched me in flames.

S.K