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About a week-and-a-half ago, I accepted a quest from the Resolution of Z'en in my current home city (Glenpoint). Apparently they did something-- again-- that angered Z'en (probably said his name backwards, or held a wild orgy without his approval), so they sent me off to (IIRC) the Ruins of Old Morgayne's Shack to find an especially pure sample of Orc's Blood. I searched everywhere but couldn't find the Orc's Blood, so eventually I returned in shame to the Resolution of Z'en, a broken Nord.

Upon talking to the questgiver at the temple (in the vain hope that perhaps he'd accept the "regular" Orc's Blood I'd found), he screamed at me about his lover, who'd been kidnapped by the Thieves Guild and was being held for ransom. Would I please, please, please save her? Here's a Malachite to pay the ransom with, but if possible, would you be so kind as to not pay the ransom and simply rescue her instead? So I trotted off to the city where I was to meet up with the guy from the Thieves Guild, managed to find the house where I was supposed to meet him (no thanks to all of the rude pedestrians who wanted to know why the hell they should tell the likes of me where to find him), refused to pay the ransom, killed the hired muscle who'd done the actual kidnapping, looted his kidnapping instructions from his still-warm corpse, raced off to the dungeon where the kidnapped lover was being held, and managed to find her (surrounded by a host of Vampire Ancients) right off the bat, killed her "special guardians," and decided to go ahead and fully explore the rest of the dungeon since I had plenty of time left.

When I finally returned to the Resolution of Z'en with the rescued red-headed maiden and talked to the questgiver, he gave me the silent treatment, despite the fact that I had his rescued lover in my custody, along with his piece of Malachite and the kidnapper's instructions, and still had 2 days to spare before the deadline. What the...!

In frustration, last night I decided to load my saved game from just before I'd entered the Ruins of Old Morgayne's Shack, so I could have another go at finding the blasted Orc's Blood. (I've noticed that sometimes a missing quest objective will magically appear if you exit and reenter the dungeon to reset it.) I quickly explored the place again from top to bottom (thanks to having become very familiar with it a week ago), but still could not find the Orc's Blood. My final hope was that it might be in one of the four locked rooms at the bottom of the pyramid-shaped pit, although I'd looked there the week before and it wasn't there. The switch in one of the rooms opens one of the four trap doors to reveal a levitation plate (for lack of a better term) that rises up into the air when you step onto it so you have a way to escape from the pit.

In a moment of desperation I thought, what if it's under the plate? I stepped onto the plate but then immediately jumped off, letting it continue to rise up without me. And lo and behold, there's a freaking hole under the plate, so I cast a Levitation spell, floated leisurely down, and there was the blasted Orc's Blood at the bottom of the hole! Holy cannoli, I had never noticed that before! So now I have yet another "secret place" to check when I encounter that particular dungeon module in other dungeons.