The House of Horrors

After the Boethiah's Calling debacle, I let Uthgerd go home and traveled back to Markarth to clean up a few miscellaneous quests. Shortly after I entered the city, a Vigilant of Stendarr (a kind of militant priest who hates the Daedra and their adherents -- so, my kind of guy) named Tyranus approached me and asked for some backup in his investigation of an abandoned house.  I agreed, and in we went; it became readily apparent that there was indeed something "off" about the house:

Don't go into the light, Carol Anne!

When we reached the basement, all hell broke loose: ghostly voices, flying objects, and an aggressively funereal miasma.  Tyranus suggested that we make a break for it, and I concurred, but when we reached the front door (now unpickably locked), a ghoulish voice commanded me to kill "him," which I took to mean my companion, the Vigiliant of Stendarr.  Again, I'm not in the habit of killing NPCs with whom I have no quarrell, so I continued to look for an exit.  Tyranus, however, proved to be more amenable to the voice:

Here we go again.

Once more, I found myself in the position of having to kill someone I really would rather not.  After reluctantly defeating Vigilant Tyranus, I followed the voice down to the basement in order to confront whatever eldritch abomination was at work in this house.

What I found was a sinister-looking shrine that featured a rusty mace. When I approached the shrine, spiked iron bars sprang up around me, and I found myself a captive audience for the Daedric Prince of Domination and Enslavement, Molag Bal. The entity offered to release me if I promised to find and kill a particular priest of Boethiah named Logrolf the Willful; this priest, apparently, had desecrated Molag Bal's shrine (the one I was currently trapped in), and the Daedra wanted revenge.  The wrinkle was that Logrolf was currently imprisoned by the Forsworn, and therefore out of the Daedra's reach. My job was to "rescue" Logrolf and return him to the Shrine so that I could kill him for Molag Bal's satisfaction.

But for one factor, this would have been an easy quest for me to fail, as it runs in the same vein as the Namira and Boethiah quests.  The complication for me was that the "victim" in this case was a priest of the same cult that just a.) tried to kill me and b.) asked me to deceive and murder an innocent person for their ritual.  Normally, I don't kill non-hostiles, but I was beginning to feel as though most Daedric cultists were fair game; even if they don't attack me personally, the zeal they exhibit for their abhorrent practices means that they are a legitimate threat to the general public.  Furthermore, this was an internecine feud between two despicable entities, so I really couldn't care less what they did to each other:

Logrolf is not helping his case here.

That, however, is not the whole story.  After my experiences with Sheogorath and Sanguine, I was not eager to become a Daedra's puppet again, even if I was choosing to do so consciously this time.  Moreover, the only real difference between this quest and the previous two was the identity of the victim; did the fact that I might have executed Logrolf anyway justify sacrificing him at the behest of a malicious Daedric Prince?  Another factor to consider was the reward, as yet unknown at this point in the quest; how big of a factor in my decision was the anticipated artifact?  After all, I could have either walked away from the quest after falsely promising Molag Bal to retrieve the priest, or purposely failed it by killing Logrolf at a location other than the shrine, but I would get nothing for my troubles in both cases.  Also, I could not ignore the etymology of this particular Daedra: "Molag Bal" sounds a whole lot like a combination of Moloch and Baal.  Would cooperating with Molag Bal violate my moral profile?

Ultimately, I decided to kill Logrolf at the shrine as per Molag Bal's instructions:

• I was inclined to kill Logrolf anyway because he was a priest of Boethiah, and therefore not averse to killing me (or anyone else, for that matter).  I would not have gone out of my way to do so were it not for this quest, but I would not have lost sleep over killing him in other circumstances.
• Despite my obedience in this matter, I feel no particular allegiance to Molag Bal, and I would have no problem betraying him or his followers in the future.  These are bad people doing bad things, so I am willing to play them against each other for my good and the good of Skyrim.

That second point is the stickiest for me.  One of the traits of the Daedra that make most of them seem so diabolical is their penchant for manipulating mortals for their own gain.  Wasn't I doing the same here?  Along the same lines, one reason that I despise the Thalmor is their fondness for creating strife between two groups they dislike (i.e. the Imperial Legion and the Stormcloaks).  In killing a Priest of Boethiah under the orders of Molag Bal, was I now committing the very act for which I was punishing the Thalmor?

Misgivings aside, the Mace of Molag Bal is now one of my favorite weapons.  I wish I could say that the prize didn't matter, but in this case, it really did.