Hour 26: The Mages' Staff

I decide it's high time I continued along with some Mages Guild quests. I spent so long doing all the recommendations, and I am starting to get bored of my piddly little fireball and cold touch spells. I made myself a better healing spell but it isn't actually 'better' - it heals 4 times as much, for 4 times the cost, over 4 seconds instead of 1 second. So, it's quicker than casting the heal spell 4 times, but I'm beginning to feel that I should become a better spell caster than I am.

I've already been told about gathering some special wood to make my own staff, so I head to the cave to do just that. Unfortunately, when I arrive it is crawling with necromancers - and they're no pushover. Ironically they're all bald - you'd think they'd be able to resurrect their dead hair follicles as well as ghosts and zombies, but no. I eventually battle my way through the cave and out into a clearing where I am beset by about five powerful necromancers. It turns into one hell of a fight, one which I think I have no hope of winning at first. They all summon ghosts and start pelting me with lightning and fireballs - by health is stripped by 50% almost straight away. However, by sprinting around, dodging their spells, and repeatedly healing myself, I manage to buy myself enough time to summon a zombie. The zombie keeps a couple of them distracted and I'm able to get a few hits in on the others. They're very tough to bring down since they heal frequently, so I decide the only thing to do is wade in with my Cold Touch spell and just focus them down one at a time. In order to do this, I keep myself artificially alive by raiding my potion supply and drinking almost everything I have - this is the first time I've had to do this.

Eventually I realise that I can hide on top of a rock, which I can jump up onto presumably because of my agility. The vampires can't reach me in melee there, so I just dodge their spells and keep summoning my zombie to whittle them down. Finally they all succumb, and I gather the wood and take it back to the Arcane University.

One thing I do prefer about Skyrim is the College of Magic in Winterhold. As much as I like the Arcane University, the College in Winterhold was truly massive and did a very good job of creating the sense of a being 'sequestered away' far from the rest of the world when you were in it.

I choose to create a staff which has a paralysis spell - this is the spell I used for my previous Warrior character and I found it ridiculously useful. I'm only level 9 so I don't get the best bang for my buck from this staff yet, but I didn't feel like putting the quest off any longer.

Keen to continue with the Mages Guild, after receiving the staff I speak to Raminus Polinus (I think that's his name; I can't be bothered to check) who sends me to Skingrad to speak to the Count about something or other.

I decide to walk to Skingrad. I've done a lot of this walking instead of fast-travelling so far, and I enjoy it. Sometimes I prefer to fast-travel, but often I appreciate the scenery and sense of adventure that walking brings. Come to think of it, I used to have a unicorn, didn't I? I've no idea what happened to it.
As it turns out, the walk was well worth it. I encounter two bears, two trolls, and three imps on the way, and slaying them pushes me up to level 10! I intend to level up when I reach Skingrad, but first, there are some goblins milling around by a nearby cave... I think I'll take a look.