Hour 7: Caveat Lector

I fight my way through Benkongerike room by room. It's a fairly standard Ancient Nord dungeon, except it's infested with vile Rieklings. These are actually far more annoying than Draugr, as they hide inside urns and crates and pop out to make ambush attacks. It only takes a single spear thrust from a Riekling to slay me, so I have to be constantly on my guard, and ensure that my skeletons protect me from all angles.

Eventually, I reach the end of the dungeon, and am surprised to find that one of the previously-mentioned Black Books lies at its heart:

I read it, and am transported Apocrypha, the realm of Hermaeus Mora, essentially the Daedric Prince version of Tzeentch. Yes! I shall glean much arcane knowledge and nefarious power from the secrets hidden within this realm!

It isn't long before I come across the bizarre floating Seekers, and also discover an arcane tome allowing me to add a 'Summon Seeker' spell to my repertoire. Here is one such summoned minion:

They make powerful adversaries, with a deadly ranged attack and lots of health, and very useful minions, although disappointingly they only last for 60 seconds. There's just something reassuring about the way I can keep my skeleton horde alive indefinitely so that they're always traipsing around with me.

Apocrypha is so much more visually satisfying and interesting than the Deadlands (Mehrunes Dagon's plane, which you explore in Oblivion). There are piles of books stretching up into a glowing green sky, pages of arcane lore littering every room and corridor, and otherworldly doors and stairways that loom at unsettling angles. It's a fairly simple realm to traverse, and apart from a few Seekers the only other foes are Lurkers (I fight 3 of these all-told), which are giant-sized humanoid amphibian monstrosities. As I only ever fight one at a time, it's a simple matter to keep them tied up with skeletons or Lurkers and whittle them down.

At the end of the dungeon, which is essentially a series of rooms and corridors linked by chapters of a book which serve as portals to the next area, I finally gaze upon my prize, the Untold Legends black book:

Tharon-Zul prepares to glean ancient knowledge from a black book

This allows to me to choose one of three rewards - an on-demand Dremora butler (i.e., a loot-mule), an on-demand Dremora trader, or a stamina boosty thing. It turns out I can return to this area at-will by re-reading the black book, and change the reward, so it's not locked-in. Whilst not exactly the powerful magical rewards I was hoping for, the Dremora rewards actually sound pretty useful. It's nice to have the Summon Seeker spell too, and I might see if the Phenderix chest in Whiterun has a copy of the spell which will make them last longer, now that I've at least gained it 'fair and square'.

The whole thing takes up the best part of an hour, and I then return to Raven Rock to sell my wares (with the help of my new-found butler), after slaying a few more random Rieklings and some bandits camping out in the wilds.