The Path of Knowledge is the Dragonborn main quest where the hunt for Miraak’s secrets moves from the Skaal to the Dwemer. To beat him you need the Black Book that gave him his power, and the one person on Solstheim who knows where it is happens to be the irritable Telvanni wizard Neloth. The book itself lies sealed in the drowned Dwemer archive of Nchardak.
How to start
The quest picks up after The Fate of the Skaal. Storn Crag-Strider tells you to go to Tel Mithryn and ask Neloth about the Black Books.
Walkthrough
Talk to Neloth
Enter the base of the mushroom tower and float up the magic lift to Neloth. He identifies the Black Books as artifacts of Hermaeus Mora, the Daedric Prince of knowledge and fate, and notes that nobody really knows where they come from; some seem to be from the past, others perhaps from the future. He can tell at a glance that you have read one.
His comments depend on Discerning the Transmundane. If you have read the Oghma Infinium, he is openly envious, having looked for it himself for years. If not, he suggests leaving Mora’s books to wiser heads like his own.
Neloth owns a Black Book of his own, but it is unrelated to Miraak. The one you need was taken by the Dwemer for study and sits in their reading room at Nchardak, locked in a protective case that defeated him on his last visit. He hopes two of you can do better, and sets off.
Travel to Nchardak with Neloth
Nchardak lies north of Tel Mithryn along the coast, not far away. On your way out, Talvas Fathryon may stop you to start From the Ashes. Neloth may bring his own Ash Guardian. Up the main stairs, Reavers have moved into the ruins and need clearing. At the door Neloth uses a control cube on a pedestal to unseal the entrance he locked himself to keep out meddlers.
The reading room
In the centre of the reading room the book is visible inside a large golden ring, tantalisingly out of reach. Neloth insists no magic will open it. The case needs steam, and the steam supply has failed. He opens a door with his cube and takes a lift down to the Great Chamber.
The Great Chamber and the cubes
Nchardak was once the City of a Hundred Towers, the largest of the great Dwemer Archives, and most of its lower levels are now flooded. Neloth puts his cube into a pedestal and the old pumps drain part of the chamber, but they only run while a cube sits in the pedestal. Four boilers here feed steam to the reading room, so the plan is simple on paper: find four more cubes, five in total, one for the pumps and four for the boilers. Take the cube back when he tells you to.
A display panel shows where the remaining four cubes are; most were moved down to the lower levels, perhaps to fight the flooding. Three lie beyond the sealed door to the Nchardak Workshop, which you open with the cube Neloth gave you. Neloth can recap the plan at any time if you ask.
Nchardak Workshop
The first cube is waiting on a pedestal next to Neloth. Taking it shuts down the fire traps ahead. Fight past Dwemer spiders to a bridge lined with automatons, where Neloth marvels at the Great Workshops of Nchardak, once said to build a complete automaton in a single day.
At the far end of the bridge stand two more control pedestals, and Neloth points out that the water has to come down. A cube in either pedestal lowers it, which wakes several automatons. Once they are scrap, a cube in the switch at the foot of the stairs raises a staircase to the north, but a brass bridge blocks it. Walk up and around to the bridge, use the switch there to lift it out of the way, then go back to the first switch and climb the new stairs to the door.
Up the stairs, a turn east and then south leads to a room with an Adept-locked chest. Going west and then south instead brings you to a small cage holding the second workshop cube. Taking it lets the water rise again and sends a few spiders your way. Return to the east end of the bridge and pull the original cube from its pedestal; the water climbs far higher than before.
Neloth now leads you to a door on the south side, behind which lie flooded halls. Swim through them, dealing with Dwarven Spiders on the way, to the third workshop cube on a pedestal by the north wall. Grabbing it raises the water once more and rouses a Dwarven Centurion. After the fight, take the staircase along the west wall up to the south and east. An automaton guards a switch to the north; activate it to drop a bridge to a door back into the Great Chamber.
The final cube
Neloth explains that the last cube lies beyond the northern door of the flooded area. Put two cubes on the pedestals in the upper part of the Great Chamber and the water drains completely. Follow him down, destroy the two Dwarven Ballistae guarding the north door and use the switch beside it to unseal the Nchardak Aqueduct.
Inside, Neloth spots the pump control, but three raised bridges stand in the way. Turn south and climb the ramp to three control switches overlooking the aqueduct. Pull the right switch, then the left one, and all three bridges come down, along with a few automatons that have to be dealt with.
Cross the bridges and look for a newly visible switch at the western end of the room. It opens a door to a ramp leading left (south) into a small trap room: a pressure plate that drops iron bars near the entrance, two spinning blades before the gate to the cube, and another pressure plate by the pedestal that fires poisoned arrows. Take the final cube and the water rises again. Swim back to Neloth in the aqueduct; he pulls his cube from the pump control, flooding the place even higher, and you can swim back to the Great Chamber entrance.
Fire up the boilers
Climb the southern ramp, past more automatons, to the main control pedestals. Taking one of the cubes already sitting there reveals a round platform below to the west carrying the boiler pedestals. Place the four remaining cubes there and all four boilers start up. A bridge then lowers on the far west side and releases another Dwarven Centurion. When it falls, Neloth heads upstairs to check the steam. Loot the chest in the centurion’s alcove across the bridge, then go east and south to a lever that takes you back up to the Nchardak Reading Room.
Release the book
Neloth waits at a control pedestal. Press the button and four beams of light focus on a large crystal above, the room shakes and the book rises from its sealed case. Neloth graciously lets you have the first look, mostly because these books are known to drive readers mad. The quest ends here and The Gardener of Men begins at once.
Rewards
- Black Book: Epistolary Acumen
- Leveled loot from the Adept-locked chest and the centurion’s chest along the way
Tips and notes
- Neloth ignores Varona Nelas’ corpse outside Tel Mithryn if Reluctant Steward left her there.
- Legend says the Dwemer sank the whole city beneath the sea to wait out Nord invaders. Neloth has his doubts, and suggests the flooding happened during the first cataclysm of Red Mountain instead.
- Neloth is slow on his feet. Wait for him and let him finish speaking before you take a cube or rush ahead, or his scripted lines can stall the quest.
- Bringing Frea along earns extra comments from her, but she leaves after the Black Book while still taking a follower slot. Dismiss her before reading Epistolary Acumen, or at Skaal Village right after returning and before talking to Storn, or you will have no follower until the main quest is over.
- Neloth calls the Dwarven Centurion a Steam Centurion, the name it had in Morrowind.
- Neloth does not hide that he brought you for the dirty, dangerous parts of the job.
