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Starting Elder Knowldege
Searching The College Of Winterhold
Finding Septimus Signus
Getting Through Alftand
Alftand Animonculory
Alftand Catherdral
Navigating through Blackreach
Solving The Tower Of Mzark Puzzle
Your meeting with Paarthurnax atop The Throat Of The World has given you a clear objective; find an Elder Scroll. It is the other thing in the game's title, before Skyrim. With no obvious places to turn to, you need to find out where to find an Elder Scroll and manage to take it.
Related: Skyrim: All Magic Schools, Explained
With this in mind, you need to set out on a quest that will bring you to some of the province's deepest areas and face enemies you've probably never seen before. You will probably want to use a guide to get through the immense challenges ahead.
Starting Elder Knowldege
This quest begins after your introduction with Paarthurnax. He tells you that the only way to see and learn the shout used to defeat Alduin is to read an Elder Scroll at the Throat Of The World. Unforuntately, being a hermit, he does not know where to find one and advises you to speak to your allies to find out.
You may speak to Esbern or Arngeir to find out, though they will give you the same answer. The College of Winterhold would be the most likely people to know.
Searching The College Of Winterhold
Entering the College isn't as straightforward as walking in. A High Elf, Faralda, will demand that you prove your worth to the College before she lets you in. Here, you have three options.
Tell her you are Dragonborn | Demonstrating the Thu'um to her is impressive enough for her to let you in. |
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Take a test | Proving that you have a degree of magical proficiency will demonstrate that you are skilled enough to enter. |
Pursuade | You need to have Speech 100 for this to succeed, though you can convince her to step aside. |
Entering the College will also start the quest First Lessons, the first part of The College of Winterhold questline. You do not have to play the rest of the quest to progress, however.
You want to visit the Arcanaeum, the College's library, to look for clues. Asking the librarian, Urag gro-Shub, for help will get you a pair of books on the topic. One of them, Ruminations on the Elder Scrolls is genuinely impossible to understand. Bringing it up with Urag will tell you about Septimus Signus, an expert on Elder Scrolls that happens to be alive.
Reading Ruminations on the Elder Scrolls will also begin the quest Discerning The Transmundane, large parts of which runs in parallel with Elder Knowledge.
Finding Septimus Signus
With your only lead identified, you need to head into the Sea of Ghosts in the north of Skyrim to find Septimus. He will be found far to the north in the middle of ice floes at Septimus Signus's Outpost.
What he says is incredibly hard to follow but you decipher his ramblings regardless. You can find an Elder Scroll in old Dwarven ruins buried beneath Skyrim. Giving you a Lexicon and an attunement sphere, he points you at Alftand, an exposed ruin that you can use to enter the underground Dwarven city.
The next part of the quest involves and extended dungeon delve. Make sure that you are fully stocked on potions and other supplies before you begin.
Getting Through Alftand
Alftand itself is in the middle of Winderhold. Though getting there is hard, the ruins themselves will be hard to miss. Climb on to the exposed bridges and find your way to the marked entrance. You will be able to enter the Alftand Glacial Ruins from there. Inside, you will find the remnants of a recent expedition.
One member, J'darr is alive and has gone insane from Skooma withdrawals. He will attack you immediately though he won't be hard to kill.
Follow the trail of dropped torches and lanterns to navigate through Alftand. Dwarven Spiders will attack you as you explore, recognizing you as a trespasser. If this is your first time fighting them, their small stature and explosive death may catch you by surprise.
That said, they are far less dangerous than Dwarven Spheres. Their presence marks a sharp increase in difficulty as the old constructs can easily defeat low-leveled players.
Dwarven Spheres are resistant to magic and immune to frost and poison damage. They are also able to fight you up close and from afar.
You will have to fight through several rooms filled with Dwarven constructs until you reach Alftand Animonculory.
Alftand Animonculory
The next leg of the journey gets more complicated. One of the first challenges you encounter is a Dwarven Sphere in an oil-filled room. Setting the oil on fire will damage it and give you an edge as you go deeper.
A ramp covered in pressure plates will block your path through the ruins. Triggering it will send a pair of spinning blades down there ramp, dealing massive damage. Use Whirlwind Sprint or try and dash up in a zig-zag pattern to avoid the pressure plates.
You can find clues about the fate of the expedition if you pay attention to the corpses you find in this area.
With that trap out of the way, you will need to descend deeper into Alftand. Reaching a large, deep shaft, you need to navigate fallen masonry to reach the bottom and exit. You will encounter Falmer as you descend further down the mine shaft. These enemies are more deadly than your average bandit and will put up a tough fight.
The Falmer make frequent use of poisons. Having a countermeasure for lingering damage over time will help you survive the encounters.
You will reach a Falmer camp at the bottom. Be prepared for more of the blind enemies waiting for you. It doesn't get better in the next room, where Falmer archersuse flaming machinery to keep you at bay while shooting with impunity.
The Falmer are blind, making them easier to sneak around or shoot from beyond their hearing range. They are capable at detecting you from a distance, just that they use their hearing instead.
Muffling your sound is a better strategy against them than going invisible as a result.
The two Falmer-filled rooms mark the end of the area and bring you to Alftand Catherdral
Alftand Catherdral
The final part of Alftand, though far from the last part of your journey, is the Cathedral. This area will have you fighting more Falmer and even a Dwarven Centurion.
It will be a direct path through this area until you reach a gate. There, take the stairs by the entrance to the room and pull a lever. This will open the gate and awaken a Centurion.
Dwarven Centurions are slow, lumbering enemies that excel at fighting in close quarters. Their sole ranged attack is spewing steam breath at enemies though their resistance to ranged attacks limits the effectiveness of staying beyond its reach.
After dispatching the Centurion, you will come across a pair of living humans by a pedestal. As the remaining survivors of the expedition, they start bickering before turning hostile. You can leave them to kill each other or join in.
Umana, one of the humans, has the unique shield The Targe Of The Blooded, a spiked shield that makes enemies bleed when bashed.
Interact with the pedestal to insert the attunement sphere to progress further into Blackreach.
Navigating through Blackreach
Blackreach is a massive, underground area that forms a whole new part of Skyrim. There is a lot to this place but to complete Elder Knowledge, you need to focus on reaching the Tower of Mzark.
Take a left immediately after leaving Alftand to reach a Dwarven Centurion head with a button. This will activate a lift that will make it easier for you to get to Blackreach in the future.
To do that, head west toward the quest objective, fighting the many enemies that will get in your way. Between Falmer, Chaurus and Dwarven constructs, the journey to the Elder Scroll will be difficult.
At the objective, enter The Tower Of Mzark
Solving The Tower Of Mzark Puzzle
At the final step, you find yourself in a massive Dwarven chamber full of refracting lenses. After placing the lexicon in the pedestal, you need to manipulate the mechanism to release the Elder Scroll. To solve it, refract the light into the relevant lenses. If you are struggling, follow the below order. The buttons are numbered from left to right.
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
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This will release the Elder Scroll. Pick it up to end the quest and start the next one, Alduin's Bane.
Next: Skyrim: Unanswered Questions We Still Have About The Dark Brotherhood
