You're wandering through the Reach, maybe just trying to avoid a Forsworn arrow to the knee, and you stumble upon a corpse. Not just any corpse. It's Katria. She’s been dead for ages, but her ghost is standing right there, looking at her own body with a mix of regret and stubbornness. That’s how Skyrim Lost to the Ages starts. It isn't some radiant quest where you fetch a cabbage for a farmer. Honestly, it’s arguably the most mechanically rewarding and lore-heavy side adventure Bethesda ever tucked into the Dawnguard DLC.
Most players just want the loot. I get it. The Aetherial Crown is brokenly powerful if you know how to use it. But if you rush through, you miss the tragedy. This quest is basically a 4,000-year-old cold case involving the Aetherium Forge, a legendary site where the Dwemer once crafted artifacts that defied the laws of Mundus. It’s a story of betrayal, obsession, and a research project that literally tore a civilization apart from the inside.
Finding the Aetherium Wars
To even get the ball rolling, you need to find a book. Specifically, The Aetherium Wars. You can find it almost anywhere—the Bard's College, Dragonsreach, or just sitting on a dusty shelf in a necromancer’s cave. Reading it marks Arkngthamz on your map.
Arkngthamz is a nightmare. It’s a massive Dwemer ruin filled with those annoying Falmer and chaurus hunters that spit poison at you every five seconds. When you meet Katria's ghost, she’s skeptical. She spent her entire life trying to find the Forge, and it cost her everything. Her apprentice, Taron Dreth, stole her research and published it as his own. If you’ve ever met Dreth in a random encounter on the road later in the game, you know he’s a total jerk.
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The first real hurdle is the Tonal Lock. Most people mess this up. You see these giant glowing resonators. If you hit them in the wrong order, the security system spawns leveled Dwarven automatons that will absolutely wreck your day. You have to look at the scraps of paper Katria left behind. The sequence is actually logical if you pay attention to the musical pitch, but most of us just look for the dead bodies of previous adventurers to see where they failed.
The Long Hunt for Shards
Once you clear Arkngthamz, you realize the Forge isn't there. Obviously. That would be too easy. Instead, you get one Aetherium Shard. You need four. This is where Skyrim Lost to the Ages turns into a province-wide scavenger hunt.
- Raldbthar: This one is deep in the mountains between Windhelm and Dawnstar. It’s a multi-level dungeon that connects to Blackreach. You’ll have to clear out some gears jammed with bones and scrap metal to get the bridge to drop.
- Mzulft: You don't actually go into the main ruin (which is tied to the College of Winterhold questline). The shard is in a small outbuilding called Dwarven Storeroom. It's an easy grab, luckily.
- Deep Folk Crossing: This is way out in the northwest. No dungeon here, just a beautiful stone bridge and a pedestal. It’s peaceful, which feels weird for Skyrim.
Gathering these feels like a chore if you’re just fast-traveling, but if you walk, you start to see the scale of what the Dwemer were doing. They had a logistical network across all of Skyrim just to process this blue ore. Aetherium is volatile. It can't be smelted with normal fire. That’s why the Forge had to be built so deep underground, using the heat of the earth itself.
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The Forge and the Choice That Matters
After getting all four shards, you head to the Ruins of Bthalft. It’s just an altar in the middle of some bandit-infested woods south of Ivarstead. You put the shards in, the ground shakes, and a massive elevator rises from the dirt. This is it. The Great Lift.
Down there, the air is thick with steam. You have to shut off the steam valves while fighting off a massive Dwarven Centurion named the Forgemaster. He breathes fire. It’s a chaotic fight, especially on Legendary difficulty where one puff of steam can take half your health bar.
When he’s down, Katria thanks you. It’s a quiet, heavy moment. Then, you get to use the Forge. You can only pick one item. One. And you can never come back to craft the others because the Aetherium is spent.
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- The Aetherial Crown: This is the objective "best" choice. It lets you have two Standing Stone powers active at the same time. Want the Steed Stone for carry weight and the Lover Stone for XP? You got it. It’s the ultimate tool for power-leveling.
- The Aetherial Shield: Hitting an enemy with this turns them ethereal for 15 seconds. They can’t attack you, and you can’t attack them. It’s great for crowd control when you’re being swarmed by Deathlords.
- The Aetherial Staff: This summons a Dwarven Spider or Sphere. Honestly? It’s kind of underwhelming compared to the other two, unless you're doing a specific "Dwemer Commander" roleplay build.
Why Taron Dreth Is a Warning
A lot of players finish Skyrim Lost to the Ages and think they're done. They aren't. If you picked up Katria's journal, keep it. Eventually, you might run into a Dunmer traveling with some bodyguards. That’s Taron Dreth.
If you're wearing the Aetherial Crown, he recognizes it. He freaks out. He realizes you found the Forge he claimed didn't exist (or that he claimed he found already). He’ll try to kill you to keep his secret. Killing him feels like justice for Katria. It’s one of those rare moments where Skyrim’s world feels reactive to your choices. It turns a dungeon crawl into a narrative about intellectual property theft and the ego of scholars.
Actionable Strategy for Your Playthrough
If you’re starting this quest today, don't do it at level 10. Wait. The Forgemaster is a leveled boss, and the rewards are better when you have the combat perks to back them up.
- Grab the Zephyr Bow: Inside Arkngthamz, look for a log hanging over a ravine. Katria’s bow, Zephyr, is sitting there. It fires 30% faster than standard bows. It is one of the highest DPS weapons for archers in the entire game. Don't leave without it.
- The Crown Swap Trick: If you choose the Aetherial Crown, put a "once-per-day" power on it (like the Ritual Stone). If you unequip and re-equip the crown, the cooldown resets. You can literally raise an army of the dead over and over again. It’s completely broken and incredibly fun.
- Bring a Pickaxe: There are rare ore veins in these ruins that you won't find anywhere else. Dwemer scrap is heavy, but the pure ore is worth the inventory space.
Ultimately, this quest represents the best of what The Elder Scrolls V offers: a mix of environmental storytelling, challenging puzzles, and gear that actually changes how you play the game. Katria might be gone, but the Crown stays. Just make sure you're the one wearing it when Taron Dreth comes looking for trouble.