Am I understanding correctly that there is no native keyframe animation available in the CK? That if I want to have a section of wall slide away I have to make an animation in Max/Maya?

I am looking for ways to spice up my quest and most of the ways turn out to involve some sort of player interaction. Puzzles etc...

But I am hazy on how things like this are implemented. There seem to be plenty of options for Nordic sets but there doesn't seem to be very much available to Dwemer.

As far as I can tell the only thing that I can use to block the player is the sliding spikes. I would much prefer to have it be a section of wall a la the Aleyid ruins in Oblivion.

You can swap the meshes out in nifscope, find the right NiNode with the mesh piece you want to replace - the spikes mesh with a wall / slab mesh instead.