Hour 45: A Mission for Mora

I enter the book, Epistolary Acumen, and traverse the shadowy realm of Apocrypha once more. This time it's a bit more substantial, and consists of several 'chapters'. It also features some fairly unique 'moving terrain features' (I think this might have been in one of the other books, but not to this extent) where you have to get on a revolving platform and then time your jumps on and off lest you fall to a watery gravy in the inky black waters below. I don't think I've seen anything else like this elsewhere in the game, so it's quite impressive.

I reach the end without too much difficulty, even with my reduced summons, and eventually come face to face with Hermaeus Mora himself. He says that in order to defeat Miraak I'll need the final Word of the Bend Will shout, and he'll only grant me knowledge of it if I deliver the secrets of the Skaal to him. Therefore it plays out in a fairly typical 'infernal bargain' type fashion, with the fickle Daedric Prince revealing that he'll cast Miraak aside for one he deems more interesting or worthy - after all, it's just a game to him. I agree to help him, and return to the Skaal.

Upon speaking with their leader/elder, he accepts, and starts to read the Black Book himself, whereupon he is seized by daedric tentacles:

That's gotta hurt...

Mora thanks me for delivering the secrets of the Skaal to him, and true to his word teaches me the final word of the shout. I have no idea what secrets he was after or whether I could have learnt more about the secrets by speaking more to the Skaal - the whole thing seems a bit shallow and convenient to me. Oh, and the Skaal elder is, like, totally dead.

In any case, it seems I have what I need to challenge Miraak now - except that I still need to unlock the final word of the shout by consuming another dragon soul! I head back to the same island as before in case the dragons respawn, but it seems they don't. Research tells me that I can get missions from Jarls to hunt down dragons. Therefore, I decide to head back to the mainland briefly to see if that's the case. The Jarl of Falkreath doesn't have one for me - nor does his steward - and I'm fairly certain that Whiterun doesn't have such missions (I could be wrong). I've never been to Markarth yet and I decide this is as good a time as any to check out the western portion of the map, so I fast-travel to the shrine of Peryite and trek to Markarth from there. It's a decent journey, though fairly uneventful - on the way through the mist-wreathed wilds I only slay an 'Orc Hunter' and a giant Frostbite Spider.

Eventually, I reach the impressive gates of Markarth: