Lachance Quests

Of Secret And Shadow

Your next quest is a bridge of sorts. When you hand in the Permanent Retirement quest to Ocheeva, she'll give you a letter from Lucien, who will tell you to meet him at Fort Farragut, northeast of Cheydinhal. You have a special assignment waiting for you...

Farragut will be marked on your map when you leave the Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary; it's only a short walk from Cheydinhal. Head on up and inside.

The interior of Farragut is inhabited by the Dark Guardians, hardier versions of the skeletons you've been facing off against thus far. Dispatch anything that stands in your way and get to Lachance as soon as possible.

The Purification

When you reach Lachance, he'll tell you the truth behind the rumors you've been hearing: someone has indeed managed to infiltrate the Dark Brotherhood, and the spy is, in fact, one of the members of the Cheydinhal cell. Your task? Kill 'em all, and let God sort them out. Lachance wants you to return to the Sanctuary and finish off all of the Brotherhood members there. This is going to be a tall task!

That's way harsh.

Before you head out, though, Lachance will offer you a pair of gifts. One is a Poisoned Apple, which you can use to poison almost anyone. The second is a scroll that will summon Rufio's Ghost to aid you in battle. Note that if you're capable of picking Very Hard locks, there's a barrel in Lachance's little lair that will let you pick up ten more Poisoned Apples. Even if you don't want to use them to finish off your compatriots, you should get nab these if you can, as they're worth a fortune when sold; 300 gold apiece.

A Game of Death Now, the ground rules for this little macabre exercise are fairly similar to those you followed in Whodunit? You need to kill all the inhabitants of the cell, but obviously enough, attacking them directly in the view of each other will make for one heck of a tough battle. It's much easier to divide and conquer and attempt to take them all down that way.

First off, though, you can attempt to ice a few of your targets with Poisoned Apples. In order to do so, head into the living quarters and remove all of the food from the tables and chests. With that done, all you have to do is ensure that your targets find and eat one of your special apples. Note that not all of the characters will eat your apple right away; you may have to wait a while for some of them to actually consume the poisoned pill. If you have time to wait, and prefer to avoid combat, then steal all of the food and sneak around to each character and pickpocket them. Instead of taking anything from them, though, drop a Poisoned Apple into their inventory. The next time they go to eat something, they'll take a bite of it and keel over dead shortly thereafter. Just keep in mind that not everyone eats everyday, and Vicente doesn't actually eat at all, so he won't succumb to your poison pill.

Where's Snow White? Anyway, if you have time, just plant as many apples as you can on to each of your target's bodies, then place a few on the tables in the living quarters for good measure. (You can buy more apples from M'raaj-Dar if you need them, and if you can afford them.) Then...go about your business. We're not sure if you need to be in the building and watch your foes eat the food. We happened to sleep for a few hours and most of the inhabitants still keeled over dead, so we suspect that you can go out and do other quests or explore if you want to give your apples some time to work. No one in the Sanctuary actually reacts at all to any of the dead bodies that they have to step over, so don't worry about that.

Some poisoned apples will thin the ranks in the Sanctuary quite well.

When you've waited as long as you feel comfortable with, return to the Sanctuary and start finishing off any remaining foes. If you wait until your targets are by themselves, in their own little room, you can kill them out of line of sight of the rest of the bunch and avoid making them all hostile, just as you did in Whodunit? Most of the characters have to catch a catnap every now and again, with Vicente in particular choosing to sleep down in his quarters. Ocheeva likewise has her own place to sleep, making both of those characters easy to kill: just wait until they go to sleep, then sneak attack them with your most powerful poison.

The rest of the characters can be assaulted any time you like. If you can catch one of them sitting or sleeping, just sneak attack them and finish them off. You can summon Rufio's Ghost if you get into a pickle, but it probably won't even be necessary to do so.

When you're done with all of the killing here, return to Lachance, who'll tell you that from now on, you'll be working for him directly. You won't meet up very often - he's set up dead drops for you to find your missions at - but he does have a reward for you: the awesome Shadowmere horse. It's fast, it's hardy, and what's more, it'll actually fight your enemies when they get close with its front hooves. Rockin'. Note that if it ever disappears, it'll return to Fort Farragut for you to pick up again.