Unearthed is a long side quest in the Dragonborn add-on built around a money pit, quite literally. At Kolbjorn Barrow on Solstheim you meet Ralis Sedarys, an explorer sent by a mainland financier to recover the Relics of Ahzidal. The barrow is buried under ash, though, and he is almost ready to give up. Put up the money and you become his partner, a decision that slowly turns out to be far more sinister than an ordinary dig.
How to start
Travel to Kolbjorn Barrow and talk to Ralis Sedarys at the excavation camp. He explains how the expedition fell apart and offers you a share if you fund the work. The whole quest costs 11,000 gold in four payments, with a wait of a few days after each one.
Walkthrough
First investment (1,000 gold)
Pay Ralis 1,000 gold. After about three in-game days a courier brings a letter asking you to return. The digging has awakened draugr and the workers are dead, so Ralis needs the barrow cleared and a route deeper inside found.
Head northwest to a room of leveled draugr. Taking the marked skull from the central table opens a door to a dusty chamber with Ahzidal’s Boots of Waterwalking; an adept-locked chest stands on the steps nearby. Clear the draugr and report back.
Second investment (2,000 gold)
Ralis now wants 2,000 gold. Three days later another letter arrives: the miners have been killed again. This time a staircase on the right of the entrance is open, with a novice-locked chest at the bottom, and four new draugr wait in the first main room among dead miners.
Further in, a draugr patrols a catwalk around a central pillar (jump from the ash pile by the northwest doorway to reach it), and a buried Word Wall can be heard chanting. A crypt below holds the body of Bradyn; pull chains open a run of doors to a chamber with a Dwarven Greatsword. Watch for the soul gem trap plate in the southeast passage.
Three gates block a doorway to the northeast, with four handles beside them. Leave the third handle alone, since it fires darts, and pull them in this order: first, second, fourth, first. Beyond, Mireli’s corpse lies among four draugr. Killing them opens the gate you saw earlier. A leveled battle axe sits in an alcove, and a hidden handle behind a wall further northeast opens a secret area holding Ahzidal’s Ring of Necromancy.
Third investment (3,000 gold)
Tell Ralis about the dead miners. He asks for 3,000 gold to hire mercenaries. After three days the letter comes again; more draugr woke up, but thanks to the guards some miners survived. Return and clear the barrow once more.
New ramps and a bridge now reach the floor of the central room. Behind an expert-locked iron door to the northwest wait two albino spiders and a cloaked spider, guarding an emerald geode, a trapped chest and potions. Past a swinging log trap and a series of pull chains, a hidden door in the earlier dead-end room hides Ahzidal’s Gauntlets of Warding (lifting them sets off a poison dart trap). Beyond a falling rock trap, the last group of draugr completes the objective.
Up the stairs to the southeast is a room of glowing pressure plates. Light all of them at once to open a gate to Ahzidal’s Ring of Arcana. Whirlwind Sprint or Slow Time makes this much easier, and Telekinesis can grab the ring through the closed gate. A pull chain above the far gate, past a swinging axe trap, lowers the drawbridge as a shortcut out.
Fourth investment (5,000 gold)
Report to Ralis, who now asks for 5,000 gold to hire stronger mercenaries. When the final letter arrives, the camp outside is a scene of slaughter, with dead miners and guards everywhere. Ralis’s journals, volumes 19 to 23, lie on a table in a tent. They reveal that the voice of the dragon priest Ahzidal had been speaking to Ralis from the start, driving him mad and pushing him to sacrifice the miners to bring Ahzidal back.
Inside, the second large room has been dug down to the floor, finally exposing the Word Wall, where you can learn a word of Cyclone. The marker for Ralis points straight ahead to the northwest, but that way is a dead end. Instead, go right (northeast) across the lowered drawbridge, fight past a few draugr, and in the pressure plate room take the northwest staircase down into a freshly dug section.
The throne room puzzles
A gate slams shut behind you as you enter, which can leave a follower stuck outside. Three draugr wake from their thrones. Afterwards, two gates remain: one in the floor in the middle of the room and one in the south corner. The chains on the southwest and northeast walls turn stones that reveal clue pillars, both showing a whale. Turn both pillars behind the thrones to the whale and pull the lever between them to open the south corner gate, where Ahzidal’s Armor of Retribution waits.
For the floor gate, look at the shields high on the southeast wall across from the thrones: set both pillars to the hawk and use the lever again. A spiral stair leads down past a table of potions to more draugr, a stalhrim deposit in a northwest alcove and a third pillar puzzle to the northeast. The answer there is two snakes; wrong symbols blast fire from the wall, which can light the oil on the floor. Behind the gate is Ahzidal’s Helm of Vision, but step around the spear trap plate just past the gate, and expect a jet of fire from the pedestal when you take the helm.
A tomb southwest of the stairs holds a valuable weapon behind a poison dart plate. Up the ramp, behind an iron door, Ralis is chanting for Ahzidal to awaken.
A rude awakening
Ralis stands on a rune-carved stone circle ringed with the blood of the sacrificed miners. The runes resemble those in the chamber of the Bloodskal Blade. The ritual succeeds: the ground shakes, Ralis is thrown aside unconscious, and the dragon priest Ahzidal rises.
Draugr keep bursting from the sarcophagi around the room, with new ones replacing the fallen, and Ahzidal can raise the corpses of draugr and miners. He relies mostly on fire Destruction magic, including a powerful fire pulse much like Fire Breath. Once he is ash, loot his remains for his mask.
Confront Ralis
Ralis comes to, dazed and horrified. He says he has heard whispers ever since arriving at Kolbjorn, blacked out more than once, and cannot say for sure whether he killed the miners himself. Either way, the quest ends with your decision (see below).
After the fight
A tunnel opens at the southwest end of the chamber. It leads past a chest to a chain-operated gate and a round room containing Black Book: Filament and Filigree and another chest. The short tunnel northeast of that room ends at a lever that opens a spiral staircase; a stalhrim deposit sits in a sarcophagus behind it, and the stairs bring you back up to the second large room. When you step outside, the whole camp has vanished.
Choices and consequences
- Spare Ralis: tell him you believe him. He swears off barrows, moves to the Retching Netch in Raven Rock and offers to lend a hand, so he becomes available as a follower.
- Kill Ralis: refuse to let him go unpunished and he attacks, claiming Ahzidal’s will is on his side. He carries Hoarfrost, a unique Ancient Nordic Pickaxe.
Both options complete the quest.
Rewards
- Ahzidal’s mask
- The full Ahzidal’s Armor set: Boots of Waterwalking, Ring of Necromancy, Gauntlets of Warding, Ring of Arcana, Armor of Retribution and Helm of Vision (worth 9,430 gold together)
- A word of the Cyclone shout
- Hoarfrost, from Ralis’s body or, if he is spared, by trading items with him as a follower
- Ralis Sedarys as a follower, if spared
Tips and notes
- The draugr you must clear are marked on the compass while the quest is active, which makes stragglers easier to find.
- The four payments total 11,000 gold; selling loot from the dead miners and draugr wins some of it back. Talk to the miners or mercenaries after the fourth payment and they all say the same thing: they are doomed.
- Ralis is one of the people in Raven Rock who turn down a drink in It’s All In The Taste. A Black Book is also hidden in Kolbjorn Barrow, see Black Book.
