Online:The Usurper Queen

Quick Walkthrough
#Speak to Abnur Tharn in Riverhold.
#(Optional) Accept Abnur Tharn's invitation of a tour of Rimmen.
#Attend the meeting at Rimmen Palace.
#Escape the Rimmen Palace sewers. 
#Make your way through the Desert Wind Caverns.
#Defeat Lieutenant Lepida.
#Talk to her spirit and listen to Zumog Phoom.
#Return to Riverhold.

Detailed Walkthrough
 
Abnur Tharn offers you a tour of the town. You get to see a number of things - such as the workhouse for the poor, which somehow leaves them worse off even though the are theoretically being paid, making the conditions for poorer Khajiit citizens worse than slavery: the markets, in which various Khajiit-related taxes mean that they are heavily disadvantaged against the non-Khajiiti businessmen: and the improvements to the city and palace walls, including siege weapons and trebuchets... which are pointed, not outside the city to repel enemies, but inside the city to suppress dissent. This tour can be skipped.

You will then go to the palace to meet Euraxia Tharn.  On the way, you'll meet her pet necromancer, Zumog Phoom, and a disembodied head that you may recognize... it's the original Cadwell as he was in life, "Cadwell the Betrayer", of whom the Soul-Shriven Cadwell that we have met in Coldharbour and subsequently is merely an insane echo. Phoom has found and reanimated his head: where the rest of his body might be is not yet known, but his personality (although still insane) is very different to the genial knight we have known.

Euraxia isn't interested in meeting Abnur at all, and takes more of an interest in you. If you've played the main faction quest lines (or at least, the Aldmeri Dominion quests), she will recognize you as the killer of her son Javad Tharn (who, of course, was attempting to corrupt the Mane and unleash the Worm Cult on Reaper's March.)  She is not pleased to see you, of course.  Nor does she seem to care - regardless of whether you Persuade or Intimidate - about your news that the Dragons think that they are the ones using her, rather than the other way around.  She reveals that a certain location - the Desert Wind caverns - has fallen to her forces, and orders an immediate march on Riverhold, and also orders her guards to arrest you both.  Abnur, having come prepared for treachery (he does, after all, know his own family all too well), already has a teleport spell prepared, and casts it to get both of you out of the place...

But he's not as strong as he was: according to him, his advanced age is catching up with him, and he isn't strong enough to have got you past Euraxia's wards, so he's only managed to get you as far as the palace sewers. The first half of this complex contains nothing of interest - a bunch of skeevers, mudcrabs, a salamander or two and an entirely avoidable river troll down a side passage - while the second half is guarded by Euraxian Guards, the Usurper Queen having herself expected Abnur's escape, worked out where it's ended up, and sent the guards in after you.  One or two of the guards will talk about having been told to take you alive: however they don't seem to be trying very hard to do that, and you are of course under no obligation to reciprocate anyway.

Now you have to head in two different directions - to warn Gharesh-ri in Riverhold about the upcoming attack, and investigate the Desert Wind Adeptorium, which is in danger considering Euraxia's statement about having taken the caverns underneath it. Fortunately there are two of you, so Abnur heads to Riverhold while you head to the Adeptorium.

The front entrance to the Adeptorium is barred - it apparently hasn't fallen yet, and there are a number of dead Euraxian mercenaries outside it - so you have to find the side entrance through the cave system of Desert Wind Caverns instead. It's crawling with Euraxian guards and cultists - and the summoned spirits of Senche-Tigers. You do not have to officially complete the Delve (killing its regular bosses - a boss summoner and a Senche-raht spirit) for the purposes of this quest, although you can do so along the way (and don't forget to grab the delve's skyshard as well): in fact you end up taking a side passage indicated by a Khajiit monk of the order, named Zamarak - who will just as quickly leave you, holding up a boulder that you pass, which then falls to block the way behind you, and he will have to find another way. You'll find that the Grand Adept has already just been killed, by Lieutenant Lepida, whom you will have to take down: but after you kill her, her shade reveals that she's been tricked, and is now bound to service by Zumog Phoom (whom we met earlier).  The Euraxian motive for being here is to search for the rest of the body of Cadwell the Betrayer.  

Zamarak, arriving too late, swears that this has roused the Desert Wind order to action, and they will come to Riverhold - few in number, but strong, apparently - to aid in its defense, after giving their Grand Adept the last rites.  You, meanwhile, must return to Riverhold and catch up with Abnur Tharn and Gharesh-ri to end the quest.

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