I'm doing this quest where the Countess of Leyawiin has this ring that belongs to some cat woman or something. Anyways, after I get into Leyawiin, I start talking to a couple beggars and the khajit who needs the ring back. I surmise I'm supposed to go into the castle.

So I go into the castle. Before I talk to anybody, I decided to just walk around all the free areas, you know, the areas I can go without anybody yelling at me. I go into the dungeon (sneak to the door, unlock it) and free the lizard man who's stuck in jail, and then I start exploring the basemant area.

I looked thru the entire basemant, just because that's what theives do....they look for anything of value. I didn't see anything other than the usual crates, barrels, and food/mundane items, so I moved on.

Later on, I figure out that I'm supposed to talk to the Countess's handmaiden. So I talk her up, bribe her, and finally she tells me the Countess has a secret or something in the basemetn area (where I just was).

Here's the clever part! I go back in the basemant, where I already searched. I figure, there can't be anything hidden there! But I decided to sort of "expand" my search a little....looking for a hidden doorway under the carpet or something.

I walk up to this barrel. It's one of the open-top ones. Just for the hell of it, I look in the barrel. Wow, a lever! I activate the lever and a hidden door opens.

It's jsut a bit of cleverness. WE're all in the habit of passing by barrels with open tops, right! There's never anything in them! So Bethesda decides it'll play a trick on us and actually hide something in an open-top barrel, knowing it's gonna get passed by unless somebody is actively LOOKING for it! Clever.

Congratulations for finding it!

In particular for finding it on your own without hints, that must have made it much more fun!!

'tis true, 'tis true. I've blown a few quests in the past (looked at map or whatever) so nowadays it's much more fulflilling using just the beggars and my imagination

Most epic quest in Oblivion -> Accidents Happen.

When those things happen, that′s when you can say you had a good Oblivion run

I′m not sure since it was such a long time ago but I think I did the same thing. Back in the days it wasn′t many pixels I didn′t look twice at and I think I spotted it on my own as well while snooping around.