I've finished this quest to the point of collecting all of the blood samples. Somehow, when I left on the quest, I got away from Septimus without the Wretched Abyss appearing. When I return to Septimus to give him the blood samples, the Wretched Abyss is blocking the entrance. The text says "Talk to Wretched Abyss" and tells me to press "A", but nothing happens from multiple angles. There is also an "activate Wretched Abyss" option, which also does nothing. I can't jump over or go through it, and killing Septimus from here causes the quest to fail.

Rolling back to an earlier save at the point after I got the Lexicon but before I leave to get the blood samples is going to set me WAY back.

Has anyone encountered this glitch? I almost seem to be on the wrong side of the Abyss, making it so I can't talk to it.

Thanks!

are you on the pc version?

If your at the point where you already got the lexicon activated, haven't got the bloods but aren't in the cave with the save then reload. Getting the 5 bloods is really easy, the other lost data will svck but you can redo that stuff if you have to and hope for the same amount of good items that you've gotten.

I'm on the Xbox version...I can roll back to where I activated the lexicon, but that was...well many, many hours of play ago. Let's just say THAT batch of lost data is going to svck. The bloods weren't hard to get but I kept getting sidetracked on the way, so I've leveled up quite a bit since then. If I decide to just let the quest fail, is that going to mess me up down the road? I have the Elder Scroll.

This glitch is not specific to your situation. Skyrim has a general glitch where objects just will not activate for some reason. You have to exit and reload the map. In a situation like yours where you're not able to exit the map, load a save from before you entered it.

its not a mandatory quest (you can still advance the main story without it) but the item you get at the end of that quest is very awesome (unless you are already super high level or maxed on skill trees, then it would be useless)

Just do the Infinium glitch to make back the levels you lost. Bam. Problem solved.

Good point @Cutter! I've loaded an earlier save, and realized exactly what had happened. When I returned to give Septimus the Lexicon, he was outside. I returned the Lexicon outside of his cave, causing the Abyss to spawn while I was outside. It doesn't let you talk to it from the outside side, and when you return with the blood samples Septimus has returned inside and you are stuck inside!

I went back to just after I had inscribed the lexicon, taking me from level 21 back to 18, but I'm collecting the blood and I'll go back and to the book glitch to recover my levels.

A pretty frustrating glitch!