Hour 48: King of Worms

Only I can now defeat the looming menace of the King of Worms. Perhaps I missed something, but my quest marker tells me exactly where to find him, and I'm not sure how I know this. Shouldn't there be some investigation required? Anyway, I head off to Echo Cave the slay the brute and put and end to his insidious cult of Necromancy. There's a necromancer outside the entrance called Bolor - I slay him and take the key to the entrance from him. Great plan, Wormy - lock the door and place a guard with the key right outside it, waiting to be slain. The Necromancers in the previous mission sealed their door with magic, why didn't you?!

Not only is the cave populated by Necromancers, there are also indigenous undead creatures. Here's a shot of my summoned Faded Wraith doing battle with a skeleton:

The skeleton (I think it's called a Skeleton Hero or possibly Skeleton Guardian) is glowing red because it has been hit by some sort of spell by the Wraith.

Eventually I reach Mannimarco himself (after crossing a cool unique-looking bridge with spiky bony protrusions). He engages me in haughty conversation, telling me he will reanimate me after my death so he can study the source of my power, then attacks me. His onslaught is ferocious but I rush in and cast Immolate a few times. He goes down surprisingly quickly, after a few casts, and his summoned minion/s (not sure if there were more than one, as I was focused on bringing him down) crumble with him.

I was expecting something a little more taxing from the so-called King of Worms. For his insolence, I strip him of his robes and staff. Here I am with his gear:

The Staff of Worms is even cooler looking than the Goblin Totem thing I had a while back. It can reanimate slain opponents for 30 seconds. Hmmm, if only there were a fallen, disgraced corpse lying around for me to reanimate. Oh, wait...

Not so tough now, are you, you insolent fool! Perhaps I'll study the source of your power. Oh that's right... you had none! Bwahahah! Now dance! Dance for your master, you wretch!

The staff looks like it could come in pretty handy in future (provided the reanimated corpse will fight for me, which remains to be seen). I return triumphant to the Arcane University. I have completed the Mages' Guild! I finished the Recommendations after 18 hours, and now, 30 hours later, I have finished all the guild quests. Of course, there were many distractions along the way, and I even started another guild for a while. Overall, I'd say it was a satisfying and epic-feeling experience. There were 7 Recommendation quests and 11 regular quests, most of which were enjoyable, and I felt this was a good amount and provided enough content to feel like a real progression from novice to Arch mage. Could it be improved? Definitely - it is only 11 quests, after all, and I could have completed them much more quickly. I'd love to see multiple sub-plots and maybe a branching quest system which could lead to enhanced replayability - imagine 20+ quests, which branch after 5 and 10 quests, giving you essentially 4 completely different quest-lines to complete, based on your choices. What if I could have joined Mannimarco's side and played another 10 quests trying to bring down the Mages' Guild? That would have been amazing. 

But of course, it's easy to say all that. More content would always be appreciated, but the quest-line I completed was still fun. The only other thing I'd really want from the quests would be some kind of ability progression unlocked by them. Most of the quests did not require me to even be a mage at all, and whatever power increase I gained after unlocking spell-making and enchanting after the Recommendation quests was really all my own doing. I would have liked some stat bonuses or better equipment, so that a mage who has done all the Mages Guild quests is really more powerful than a mage who hasn't.

I decide to head to the Arena and partake of a fight. I am given a choice of opponents - I choose the hardest set, two Ogres and a Land Dreugh. They go down easily. I've never seen a Land Dreugh in the wild - what the hell are they?

It looks like something from The Predator. It's larger than an Ogre and pretty terrifying-looking. I really feel Oblivion could do with some massive creatures. Apart from Mehrunes Dagon at the end of the main quest, the biggest things (I think) are Minotaurs, followed by these crab-things and then probably Ogres. Compare this to Dark Souls, which boasts numerous gigantic beasts. Even Skyrim only has Giants and Mammoths as large beasts, and they're not that big either.