Players get the opportunity to join a variety of organizations in The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim. Some of them are mutually exclusive, like the Imperial Legion and the Stormcloaks, but most guilds allow the Dragonborn to join up with no complications.
One such organization is the Bards College in Solitude, the Imperial capital of Skyrim. Asking to join is as easy as entering the college building and asking the headmaster to join up, but the quest he starts, "Tending the Flames," is rather lengthy and involves more than just a dungeon exploration.
Starting The Quest
Go to just about any tavern in Skyrim in the evening to hear a bard playing music in the corner. Players can ask them about their profession to be directed to the Bards College in Solitude. Players can also start this quest by finding the college on their own, but asking about the college will create a quest marker that can make the college easier to find. To enter the building, players should climb the stairs and look for a door on the left wall.
Headmaster Viarmo should be in the entry room during the day. He's easy enough to spot since he's a High Elf with yellow skin, the only such elf in the college. Players can ask him straight away to join the college, but he needs the Dragonborn to complete a quest before he can accept their application. The Jarl of Solitude, Elisif, has called off the Burning of King Olaf festival because of the death of her husband, High King Torygg. Viarmo needs a lost section of the Poetic Edda to prove to Elisif that the festival has nothing to do with recent events.
Players should note that this quest can take place at any point regardless of the current state of the civil war in Skyrim. Unlike other Jarls, Elisif will remain in power in Solitude no matter who wins the war.
Viarmo knows the lost Poetic Edda about King Olaf is in a barrow called Dead Men's Respite, but it's a dangerous dungeon. The Dragonborn will need to retrieve it to continue the quest and join the Bards College. Dead Men's Respite is a significant distance south of Solitude, but players shouldn't encounter anything too dangerous on the way over.
Waking The Dead
The enemies in Dead Men's Respite mostly consist of draugr who wait in various shelves and sarcophagi for players to get close or trip various traps. Players can take advantage of this by shooting arrows into every draugr body they come across even before they get up. Some of them aren't enemies, but enough of them will that it's worth spending the arrows.
Players will also see the ghost of Svaknir, the bard who wrote the lost Edda, guiding them throughout the barrow. Svaknir wants the Dragonborn to find his body, so pay attention to where he is and what he's doing.
In the first chamber, players will find a Ruby Dragon Claw on a pressure plate. Pick it up to open the gate straight ahead, but watch out for the sleeping draugr who will all wake up and attack once players take the claw.
Past a pressure-plate trap is a series of rooms with doors that open and shut by pulling on chains. Go forward and then left into the area full of frostbite spiders to find the second chain pull that opens the way forward. Check on the far side of the battering ram trap to find The Buying Game, a book that boosts Speech.
Beyond the maze area is a spider-infested room with two large grates in the floor. The way forward is blocked by a cave-in, but players can pull a chain on the east wall to open a grate and jump down into a flooded part of the barrow. Climb up a spiral ramp and cross a walkway guarded by scythe traps to continue. The gate at the top of the ramp triggers the scythes, but players can prevent this by deactivating the trigger in the bottom-right corner of the gate.
Players should encounter a sealed door that won't open, but there's a hallway to the right of the door. At the end of this hallway is a chamber with a grate in the floor and several side rooms full of draugr that will open once players enter the chamber. After defeating the draugr (and opening the chest in this area), pull the chain on the south wall to open the grate and take the spiral stairs down. Down below, a handle will open a secret door and reveal the body of Svaknir, along with the forgotten verse of the Poetic Edda.
Defeating A Dead King
Players can't backtrack because of the drop into the flooded chamber, but thankfully the ghost of Svaknir will now unseal the large door once the Dragonborn returns to it. At the far end of the room is a lock for the Ruby Dragon Claw. Players can see the correct combination for the lock by checking the palm of the Ruby Dragon Claw in their inventory.
Past the locked door is a room full of draugr sitting in chairs. Entering the room will trigger several waves of draugr who attack both the Dragonborn and Svaknir's ghost, but players can shorten this fight by shooting all the draugr from the room's entrance before they have a chance to get up and fight. Svaknir will then demand a fight with King Olaf, who will rise from his grave and fight the ghost in single combat. Players who want to avoid damage should hang back and use spells or arrows to hit King Olaf from a distance.
Once Olaf falls and Svaknir can rest in peace, players should loot Olaf's body for a magic weapon and a key to his treasury. Approach the wall behind Olaf's sarcophagus to get a Word of Power for the Whirlwind Sprint Shout. Olaf's treasury has a chest, several potions, and a secret door that leads back to the barrow's entrance.
Improvising The Ending
Headmaster Viarmo is happy to see the lost verse, but he isn't happy to see that parts of it are too decayed to read. The Dragonborn will suggest replacing the missing parts, and Viarmo will ask for ideas on what to say.
The choices players make here will have an impact on the final reward for this quest. Something to keep in mind is that the audience is Jarl Elisif, who isn't interested in historical truth or realism. This means the best choices for characters with low Speech are "Olaf found him asleep" and "Olaf ordered disguised troops to attack Solitude?" If players have 25 Speech, they can choose "Olaf was Numinex. A dragon in human form!" And if they have 50 Speech they can then choose "Olaf sacked it in dragon form!"
With the Edda rewritten, Viarmo will head to the Blue Palace to share it with Jarl Elisif. Regardless of player choices, Elisif will reinstate the Burning of King Olaf festival, but players can earn triple the reward in gold if she loves the verse.
After that, only one thing stands in the way between players and becoming a bard: the festival itself. Viarmo will tell the Dragonborn to speak to a bard named Jorn to start the preparations, and after doing so players should wait until around 8 at night and speak to Jorn again. He'll take the Dragonborn to a Solitude courtyard where the festival takes place, and at this point players can sit back and watch as Viarmo sets King Olaf's effigy on fire and announces the Dragonborn's acceptance as a bard. Be sure to speak to members of the crowd to get some free food, then speak to Viarmo to get the reward for completing "Tending the Flames" and officially become a bard of the college.
The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim is available now on PC, PS3, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.