Following The Gardener of Men, Dragonborn embarks on what is to be the final main storyline quest in, At the Summit of Apocrypha. It’s here where first and last dragonborn will meet to seal their own destinies.
At the Summit of Apocrypha has a number of backtracking twists and turns. Turning around and moving back the way you came is a frequent theme during this quest so be mindful during your play-through.
For other black books, review the Complete Black Book Locations List.
At the Summit of Apocrypha
Chapter 1
- Unlock the ‘Bend Will’ shout.
- Read the book, ‘Waking Dreams’ to enter Apocrypha.
- Move north up the stairs and open Chapter II.
Chapter 2
- Continue upwards and take book ‘Boneless Limbs‘ to reveal a passage to the north.
- Follow the passage to its end and open Chapter III.
Chapter 3
- Move straight through and follow the path to its end.
- Take book ‘Delving Pincers‘ to open the gate located at the entrance to Chapter III.
- Return to the entrance of Chapter III and pass through the gate.
- Activate scrye to reveal passage.
- Optional: Exit to the south and activate scrye to open a gate to the northwest. Move through the northwest gate/passage and loot vessel.
- Cross the southernmost bridge and take book ‘Prying Orbs‘ to open a second northwest gate.
- Move through the northwest gate and open Chapter IV.
Chapter IV
- Choose your path and exit to the south. Tip: Both paths meet at the same point.
- Move east, then south to collapse passageways.
- Exit out the way you entered originally. Note: You’ll notice the room has been altered.
- Move upwards to take book ‘Gnashing Blades‘.
- Move back downwards and enter newly revealed southern passage.
- Follow the passage east and continue forward to activate scrye.
- Backtrack out the same passage. Note: Passage has been altered.
- Follow the new path up to the chamber. Tip: From entrance move west and activate optional scrye. Again, from entrance, move southwest to the corner of the chamber and follow the corridor to activate second, required scrye which opens an exit.
- Climb stairs and open Chapter V.
Chapter 5
- Place books ‘Boneless Limbs’, ‘Delving Pincers’, ‘Gnashing Blades’ and ‘Prying Orbs’ on the proper pedestals located along the outer ring of the chamber. Note: The images on the pedestals correspond to the book names. Tip: From the entrance, moving in a clockwise direction, place the books like so – Gnashing Blades (6 o’clock), Prying Orbs (9 o’clock), Boneless Limbs (12 o’clock), Delving Pincers (3 o’clock).
- Proper placement of the books will trigger a glow in the pedestals and reveal the final chapter.
- Move to the center of the chamber and open Chapter VI.
Chapter 6
- Approach shout wall and gain Word of Power, armor, Dragon Aspect.
- Defeat Sahrotaar. Tip: You must tame Sahrotaar with the Bend Will shout.
- Ride Sahrotaar to meet Miraak. Warning: This particular dragon ride is glitchy. When manually steering the dragon, it can cause the game to disregard all commands and default Sahrotaar to flying in a straight line with no destination. If this occurs, you’ll need to reset to a previous save point. The best way to avoid this bug is to let Sahrotaar do the flying without manual intervention. He will automatically fly to Miraak after a brief skirmish with a Lurker and Seekers.
- Defeat Miraak. Note: Hermaeos Mora is going to steal the glory.
- Complete At the Summit of Apocrypha and the main quest storyline of the Skyrim, Dragonborn DLC.
Rewards
Of course there are rewards for such a stellar performance. Miraak’s gear is naturally available so be sure to loot the corpse. Additionally, there is a perk point reward.
- Read ‘Waking Dreams’, located at the center of the platform, once to trigger the perk exchange reward and Solstheim exit.
- Each perk is shown in a circle around the center of the platform.
- Players can choose to exchange a single dragon soul for a complete reset of any perk tree.
- Perk points spent in a perk tree are added back to the pot for use wherever you wish.
Example: Let’s say you don’t use two-handed weapons, but put two perk points in that perk tree when you were a young adventurer. Exchange a dragon soul to reset the two-handed weaponry perk tree to 0. You are then given the 2 perk points back and you can spend them in other more character appropriate perk trees.
Tip: You can return to the summit anytime and reset perk trees as you desire by reading ‘Waking Dreams’.
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