Howdy, I have a question about the opening dungeon in Daggerfall, the one you wash up in after being shipwrecked in the Illiac Bay. So I've cleared out the whole place, or almost the whole place, but there are some creatures I can't find. I'm wondering where all of the secret doors and entrances are, because I can hear rats squaking as I pass through certain areas but can't figure how to get to them.

Specifically, I'm in the throne chamber, I take the secret door to the left of the base of the grand staircase, I've checked all the obvious rooms, but there are rats squaking through the walls and I continue to hear them as I climb the spiral stairs. It's driving me crazy knowing there could be a stash of treasure or a pickable pocket hidden away somewhere, and the last thing anybody needs is a crazy Dunmer Nightblade hiding out in some dank dungeon somewhere; they'll be putting a quest out on me soon! But I don't want to leave just yet because I know the dungeon respawns once you step outside. Anybody know if there is a secret entrance near where I mentioned?

P.S.: Is it normal to be attacked by a wraith with an insane plethora of magical attacks while sleeping in this dungeon? Because it's happened to me a few times.

P.P.S.: Yes I'm certain it's not an environmental sound effect.

The nearby rat doesn't necessarily have to be easily accessible just because it's close. You may have just missed a single hallway that wraps around a dozen times with a room that happens to be near there, nothing you can do but run around and check your map. And as far as the wraiths, monsters just spawn sometimes when you sleep, the fact that it has repeatedly been a magic hurling wraith is just your unfortunate luck.

I knew it! There's a hidden space behind the places I've explored. I haven't been in it yet, but I kinda-sorta cheated to see it. I found a wall near where the rat squaking was loudest and I climbed the wall so that my head momentarily clipped through the roof and I saw through the ceiling. There's a lot of stuff back there! I must find the entrance!

You may not be able to get to them at all. The dungeons in Daggerfall are built from pre-defined blocks that can be stitched together randomly. Privateer's Hold isn't random, but it's built from the same blocks. Many of those blocks have separate, disconnected pieces of dungeons. For example, it might have a little closet on one side and a big one on the far side. When the dungeon generator builds a dungeon it could choose to use one closet or the other, leaving the second one floating in the void. The effect this has is there are sections of dungeon in the void you can't visit. These floating pieces often have monsters in them,.

If you get a levitation spell later on you can see for yourself. You go somewhere with a sloped ceiling (like a staircase), crouch and then levitate right through the ceiling into the void. Then you can fly around and see there are chunks of dungeon that aren't attached to anything at all. I had a quick fly through Privateer's Hold just to be sure I'm not making up garbage.

In many dungeons the monsters in the floating dungeon pieces are close enough to be heard through the walls. It makes you think you missed something when you didn't and generally makes the game more scary.

Hey, thanks, Aliotroph?. That was actually really informative. I love using cheats and exploits to muck about and see how games were pieced together, so long as I'm not spoiling the game for myself. One of my fondest gaming memories was of finding Wallace Breen's dismembered torso floating in a rust-coloured cube delivering lines into a static camera.

Plus, monsters in the void sounds very Sithian! I love it!

If you miss some hidden space, you're probably don't use the dungeon map. On the map, all hidden doors are shown as regular ones. Although checking the map can be difficult and cluttery when the big part of the dungeon is already revealed, you'll eventually get used to it.