Breaking the Shackle- Did I miss something?

Runefell

So I'm in Coldharbour, and I was on the quest where you rescue Vanus Galerion. Unfortunately, I don't know if I missed something, the quest bugged on me, or what, but I was quite confused by the end.

So I got Vanus all put back together (his three essences and all that), and we set off to destroy the Shackle, which is evil and going to pull Nirn and Coldharbour together. All's well, I'm feeling the flow so far. We end up tinkering with some energy flow beam, and that's where I kind of got lost.

I had to find and switch three other energy flows, that's good. But then there were two soul-shriven people I ended up freeing from cages, a mage and a warrior. No introduction, no explanation. No idea who these people are. I free them anyways, they thank me, and, without further explanation, run off to help Vanus.

Alright, that's... neat.

Back to my job. I finish the last energy flow, follow the quest marker to a balcony, see my now-three companions down below, and go down to say hi. Vanus comments on how he didn't realize that changing the energy would make that poor creature explode. Um... What creature, asks this khajiit. I didn't see or hear any creature explode. That would've been cool to see. This one feels cheated!

Anyways, we charge through the door, and, to my surprise, Cadwell is suddenly there with us. The heck? Where did he come from? I hadn't seen him since I first got to Coldharbour!

Anyways, we finish the job (or so we thought. THANKS Cadwell for bursting that bubble), and head home. Leaving me with no exploding monsters, two new companions that I have no idea who they are, why they're here, or where they came from, and Cadwell, who's suddenly appeared out of nowhere to become a bottomless barrel of exposition.

Anyways, I'm just wondering if that's how the quest normally goes, or if I missed something, and the game just tried compensating for it by throwing the ending at me anyways.

Enodoc

Yep that's basically spot on, nothing important was missed.

I have no idea where those two soul-shriven came from either, they just seem to be there to give you support in the last fight.

The creature that exploded was a Storm Atronach or something, which was in the centre cage that you were reversing the energy flow of. Reversing all the energy flows caused it to explode, but if you're looking in the wrong direction when you activate the last conduit you'll miss it. The concept behind this is noted in the book The Great Mooring, which is on a table near Vanus.

Cadwell popping up in random places for exposition is not uncommon in Coldharbour. He does know where all the secret entrances are, after all.

Melilotta

I know I'm more than a bit late, but...

about the unexpected allies. Sage Tirora and the Nord named Treva are two people who die during quests in the Rift (Ebonheart Pact). It seems that after death their souls got captured by Molag Bal.
(I've just been curious if there were different people in this quest for the other alliances, so I looked and found this discussion).

Edited to hide the spoiler.