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

Across the bridge in the Vault of Pain awaits Ulguna Soul-Reaver, a huge daedric harvester. To return the soul of Gasteau Charmond who may be my only hope of escape from this macabre prison, I shall need to overcome this soul thief.

Despite its size the harvester seems to rely solely upon its destructive magical capabilities to fight. Shooting azureus orbs and waves of ice from its long fingers, it is a difficult adversary for me to get within skirmish range for my blade to bite. But when I finally do the creature proves it is at its most dangerous when it is hurt. For the Harvester cast a vampiric like spell that ripped my very essence from my body into orbs which it slowly drew unto itself. When the spell hits it is agony and leaves me winded on every occasion.

For the warrior most fights are about hitting your enemy harder then they hit you, but sometimes a battle cannot be won through strength of arm, but through strength of will. It is about having the fortitude and grit to outlast your foe. It is the mortals capacity to endure that separates us from the daedra. No pain that we suffer in life is wasted, every trial that we endure, that we experience, builds up our characters, and our hearts.

S.K

Unlike my cell within the Wailing Prison, this iron gate is unbarred and upon opening I charge into a small group of skeletons and dremora torturing what appears to be a soul-shriven. Once I have banished its tormentors the soul-shriven pitifully begs me to end its existence. With the kind of mercy one feels only when its darkest, I thrust my sword deep into its heart and whisper not for the first time, ‘there but by the grace of the Eight go I.’

I was a little surprised when the spirit of this stricken soul-shriven immediately materialized before me. He tells me his name in life was Gasteau Chamrond, but he can remember little of what this place is beyond that these Vaults of Madness were constructed by one he calls the Mad Architect. Its an eternal prison from which he cannot escape until he is reunited with his soul which has been taken by a daedric Harvester.

I promise my help for this spirit may be my best hope for my own escape. But to reach the thieving Harvester I must first overcome the Cursed One. A dread Wraith whose frost magic freezes the bones of its victim whilst it drains lifes energy from the body.

S.K

What has one without a soul left to fear?

The further north through Coldharbour I travelled the more I became aware of the shadow cast by the twin towers upon the brooding horizon. I find that I am both drawn and repelled, there is a fine line I think between stirring fear and paralysing dread. I arrive at the macabre doorway but do not linger long upon its doorstep, for surely what awaits inside cannot be as frightful as those ghastly gates.

Poor logic is born of fear, for the first thing I find upon entering is a long corridor built with a thousand skulls crammed into its columns. But it is the crimson eyes shining at the corridors end that fixate me, and I am pulled towards them, only to discover what looks like heavy chests.

Is this really all this place is, nowt but a dremoran treasure vault, a repository, an armoury perhaps? I am compelled to discover what these large chests hold, yet as I get close the ground beneath me gives way and I drop into darkness.

Thankfully the fall is not far enough to break anything, but still it is too deep to climb back out of. It appears my only possible course is to follow the corridor downwards further into the dark. Soon however I arrive at a familiar looking iron gate; the last time I saw a gate like this… Of course I should have known, this indeed is what every building in this accursed realm is, and the one thing that one without a soul has left to fear… a prison.

S.K

The Manor of Revelry, yet another forgery of Tamriel in Coldharbour. This counterfeit of Hammerfell is certainly a powerful illusion, and one wonders if seen through would we stand but in the same crumbling ruins as we saw beyond the high walls in the Risen Court.

Another deceit I discover in this accursed illusion is that acted out by that duplicitous wretch Stibbons. The hapless manservant of the noble Lady Clarisse Laurent has time and again played pitiful victim to both mistreatment and circumstance. Only it is here in Coldharbour that we discover the naked truth behind his mendacity. Without his meritorious mistress here to lay blame upon, the reckless fool has managed put himself in the most ridiculous situations. First almost consummated to a daedra at the Spurned Peak, and now almost consumed at the Manor of Revelry. It is clear to me now that it has been Stibbons own fault all along.

I do not know as yet whether his shameful put-on was born from simple dimwitted horkerery, or some insidious motive to undermine the most illustrious Lady’s repute. What I do know is that we need to escape this illusion before dinnertime.

One wonders at the elaboration of such a scheme as this, why did the three sisters not just lock their intended victims in a cage and have done with it?  My only guess is that like the farmer who first fattens and then lets their pigs romp freely in the mud; it is the happy sow that tastes the sweetest.

S.K