The Memoir of Arch-Mage Ra'jirra, Or, how the hell we got lumbered with this farmboy Options

[Cardboard Box]

This is a new game where I'm using an alternative start mod that actually works, offering you the chance to be dumped in Bravil before kicking off the Main Quest at your leisure. Ra'jirra, as arch-mage, is writing his memoir after an eventful rise to that respected title. His language has yet to catch up with him.

Prologue
I'm not a writing type, but this is special. It's my book, about me, and it's what really happened as opposed to them bard types. All singing about me being in shining armour and a zillion feet tall and riding the Imperial dragon and all that crap. This ain't crap. It's the real stuff. And I'm gonna tell it in my own words, even if they ain't all sweet and proper like. Why? Because sure, I have this fancy place now, and the fancy armour which I only wear on special occasions, and all the titles and crap. But I'm a farmer's boy and always have been. Like poor bloody Martin was.

So there's three people you should thank, not me. There's my ma, Hathor, and dad, Ra'Virra, who finally decided to let me go to Cyrodiil. And then there's that wandering mage, guy called Cornelius Othmar. He's the one, really, who saw what I could do.

So anyway, I remember more or less when it happened. It was market day, and now I think about it it's the only market day I can remember clearly. Maybe it's the Divines or something. But I remember I was standing next to a nice girl, I think her name was Merry or Mary or something like that. I was also on a high because dad and me had really pulled one over on some of those poncy sorts who come to buy our stuff – we have an orchard full of apples, oranges, berries and melons and stuff. Great for knocking up potions for getting your energy back. When we left that day, we had a few less pieces of fruit and some recipes for what they call preserves – it'd meant spending up on flour and sugar and all the jars, all on the quiet of course, but that's how merchanting works. Getting the better deal while letting the other dork think he's got it.

But anyway, me and Mary were watching this Cornelius bloke putting on a show – Mary was watching anyway, I was plotting a course for us to the most private haywain so's nobody would see, at first, but I found myself getting more interested in the mage's doings. Now a lot of what he was playing at was bloody flashing lights, I know, but I was beginning to figure it out somehow. Those of you who're real mages will know all this, and if you don't, you can bloody well ask. As Carahil once said to me, "there is no knowledge without power", and who doesn't want power?

Well, I was mulling the concepts over, and I must have been mumbling under my breath or something, because next thing I know I was literally glowing! Even Cornelius stopped and stared at me as I slowly went red. Easy for him, because everyone else had backed away from me as though I was deadly.

"Whoops!" he cried, "so sorry my boy! Come round the back, I'll fix you right up!" And down he came and pulled me away by the arm!

Anyway, round the back he had this caravan thing, and once inside he turned to me, said something that seemed to literally blow the spell off me. Then he just stared.

"Why did you cast that spell?" he asked me a bit angry like.

"I didn't mean to!" Did I sound like a kitten or what? "I was mulling over what you were doing, I guess I was muttering to myself, I've never cast it before!"

Well, his eyebrows went fair through the ceiling. "I find that hard to believe," say he, "And the dispel I cast on you now, how did that feel?"

"Um... like it blew a sort of... um, cobweb off me," I said. Then, "That's what an enchantment is like, eh? Like a sort of pattern or web that sits on top of your life, um..."

"That's enough," he says, and he's not so mad now. "I wasn't expecting that much wisdom from a farmer's boy. Ever had proper magickal training?"

"No sir, just a couple cantrips to light fires and heal small wounds, sir. And making potions."

So he just sits there and ponders. "You're a natural," says he, "a natural bloody mage. I better talk to your folks, it'd be a damn shame to let a talent like yours go to waste."

So after that I leave the caravan and there's my olds looking kinda relieved and scared and dad about ready to have a go at Cornelius. But he has a few words to my dad and next thing I remember clearly is ma and dad and me and Cornelius at home that evening, finished off a supper of bread and soup listening to Cornelius talk.

"Your son's a natural," he kicks off, "I'm doing my show and next thing I know, this boy, and I thought he's just planning a tryst with that girl next to him, casts Starlight on himself."

"What's that?" dad asks. I was turning red, but then dad adds, "Starlight I mean."

"It makes you glow for a time," Cornelius explains, "so you don't need to carry a torch. Well, I thought he'd done it on purpose, so I hustled him into my caravan to dispel it and give him a piece of my mind, but that's when I found out he's a natural. He should be in the Guild."

Well, dad just looks at him. "Why?"

"Why? Because he worked out how to cast a spell without training! When I dispelled it, he told me what it felt like to him as though he's already learned about the school of Mysticism! I tell you, this boy's a natural – put him in the Guild and he'll make you proud!" And he looks at me as if to say you better bloody do so too.

Dad's about to say something, but then the door bangs open and in bursts the priest. Let me describe him. Julius Maro, old, boozy, fat, thick as three short planks and up himself so far he can see daylight again.

"What is this man doing here!" Like I said, up himself. Nothing he likes better than to bang on about the Nine as though they're a pack of marauders who can only be held off by doing what he says. And woe betide you if he sees you dozing, or being bored, in his chapel. I hated his guts obviously.

"He has been invited here." Dad didn't like him either. Especially not after that business about tithes. "You weren't."

"This man is a menace to your souls! A traitor to the Nine! A dabbler in the dark arts! He should be shunned by all right-thinking men!" Maro was wobbling with rage. He was good at that.

"Says you," dad replies, "But he's not after our souls. He's told us our son's a natural mage."

Now Maro turns purple, so it looks like he's got a big wobbly blackberry for a head.

"Monster!" Looking back I think he was trying to bellow really impressive like, but all he did was squeak from the top end and trumpet from the lower one and his guts rose about three inches. No really. I couldn't hold a snort, and then Cornelius giggled, and then my parents broke up. And all the bloody priest could do was sputter about necromancers and daedra worshipers and other phrases.

And then he pulls his copy of "One Command, Nine Divines" out of his robe and bangs me on the head with it!

"I invoke the mercy of the Nine!" he starts going off, "Of Akatosh, of Dibella, of Stendarr, of-"

Now Maro didn't like us and we didn't like him. If you're an Imperial, you got to understand a lot of you are real bastards to us beastfolk. Knock it off. You're beholden to one now, remember?

Anyway back then he got my dad's fist in the mush and then his boot in the bum and off they go with dad yelling that good folks don't go around bashing sons on the head in front of their parents and Maro sputtering back that we were all something or other as he wobbled off.

"You'll have to excuse our priest," he explained to Cornelius, "he's stupid and a saleswoman."

"I guessed that," Cornelius replied, "anyway, as I was saying, he's got a brain on him that it'd be a shame to waste. Now," and he pulls out his purse and takes out about fifty bloody septims. "I'll put that toward getting him to the guildhalls in Cyrodiil. They're the bloody best."

Well, ma and dad look at him, at the coins on the table, and then at me.

And I look back and think that if I go, I'll be leaving everything I know behind. And if I stay, Maro at least will make my life a misery, and I'll never know what I missed out on. But the fact that dad was willing to have a go at a priest about this pretty much settled the deal.

"I can come back if it doesn't work out, right?" I asked.

"Of course, son," dad says, and I can't remember right what happened after that except there was a lot of drinking and a lot of tears. Whenever dad called me 'son', it was always when he was really proud of me or being kind. 'Boy' was what he used when I was in the poo.

And then a few weeks later I was sailing on the Coy Carp to Anvil.

[Cardboard Box]

Finally broke open the CS to get at some of the dialogue. This is a long one, and frankly Ra'Jirra didn't enjoy this quest at all.

6. Dirty Deeds in Leyawiin

Apparently some people think Leyawiin's nastier than Bravil, and having made my way down there I can understand. The western road was chocka with bandits – but the alternative is to cross the Imperial bridge near Pell's Gate and brave whatever's on the eastern bank.

Anyway, jaguars. Nasty bits of work, and I'm a cat person.

But I survived and entered Leyawiin on Tirdas 11 Heartfire, felling that bit more smarter, wiser, even tougher. I was also muttering to myself about getting a better shield spell or finding one for invisibility or chameleon I could actually use. Affording it would also be nice.

After spending the night at Five Claws Lodge I fronted up at the guild and was directed to Dagail, the master of mysticism in the Guild. I didn't know that at the time and fronted up to a scholarly Bosmer with a distressed expression, poring over A Life of Uriel Septim as though her life depended on it.

“You seek wisdom from me, child?” she asks, “Ah, no. You seek words. Words are... difficult. They come and go. The... the voices, though. So loud they are, they... they drown out of... of words... words.”

And there I am watching this bird's hands waving away and thinking, what in Oblivion? It was like she was struggling to string her thoughts together.

“Without my amulet, my stone to... to lock the voices... voices away, the words will never come... come and stay.” She took a breath, scrunched up her eyes, then, “Would you lift your hands to help another, to help me find the words?” came out in a rush.

Well, I have a think, and realise that she's in a bad way and asking for help. “All right,” says I, “What must I do?”

Her mouth flaps a bit, and she finally manages to get out, “You speak, yet I cannot hear. You... you listen, yet I cannot... speak. When the voices... voices grow quiet, then shall our... time... time be at hand.” And her face scrunches up like she's trying to think with Sheogorath singing in her ear. Then she brightens up a bit but there's still this desperate look in her eyes. “Agata has heard the voices, though I speak for them all. It is to her you must now go.”

I asked around and found Agata in the kitchen off the main entrance getting some breakfast and talking to a wierd-looking guy with the most extraordinary and disagreeable eyebrows I'd ever seen this side of Caffrey. He had just one that went from one side of his face to the other.

Anyway after He of the Eyebrows finished his chat and wandered off, I sat down next to Agata and introduced myself as an associate.

“Good to meet you Associate,” she said around a mouthful of bread, “I'm Agata, your local enchanter. Looking for a recommendation?”

“Um, yeah,” says I, “but I've spoken to Dagail and... well...” How the hell do you tell a senior Guild member that their head's losing it?

“Did she ask you for help?” Agata pushed her plate to one side and looked at me square on. I just nodded.

“Well, get this straight. She's not crazy, okay? She has visions, for lack of a better term. While they used to be helpful at times, they have lately become problematic. There was an amulet, a family heirloom, that she wore to suppress, and sometimes focus, the visions. She's lost the amulet, and so has lost control.” And then she sighs a bit.

I'm still floundering, but I manage to say, “Look, what do you mean by visions? The only experiences I've had with folks who saw--”

And I stop because she's picked up a knife and is looking daggers at me.

“She. Is. Not. Crazy.” Very, very cold. Then she pulls herself together and carefully spreads some jam on a piece of bread. “At times, they served her well. She gained something of a reputation in the guild, and was highly valued by the Council. As she aged, the visions became less coherent. Rather than cast her aside, the Council gave her a position here. Some resent her, and wish she'd disappear. I do not. I am proud to help her with her daily tasks.”

“How do we help her then?” I ask.

She looks a bit surprised at the “we”. “Find her amulet, I guess, I'm not really sure what she wants. Hells, I'm not even sure what the amulet looks like.”

So up I get and go to talk to Dagail. “You seek more from me, child? It is as I have seen,” says she. Before I can even explain that I'd been speaking to Agata her eyes go strange and she doesn't so much say as recite:

“I know what you would ask. You would bring light to that which is in darkness, bring silence to the voices so loud. I know where you must go. Blood ran blue, and dragons flew high. Under broken towers and broken bodies it now lies, waiting to be found. What was my sire's must be mine, if you would have the words you seek. You must go and find his stone.”

I'm a bit shaken at this, and I just sit there beside Dagail, who doesn't seem to notice I'm there. Eventually my brain started working again and several things slotted into place. “Dragons flew high” sounded like a reference to an Imperial fort, probably a ruin if what I'd seen of Fort Redman was any indication. Was there a Fort Blueblood too?

I went looking for Agata and heard her squaring off with Mister Eyebrows in the library. “All I'm saying is that she should have retired years ago,” says he.

“Shut it, Kalthar!” snaps she, “I won't hear that kind of talk, and out of courtesy to you I'll pretend you never said that. Again. I take care of what little administrative work there is because Dagail isn't interested. I do it because it has to be done, and no one else wants to do it.”

“More like she can't do it, the way she is!” And he goes all wheedling like. “Honestly, with your talents and experience you should be head of the hall, not Dagail.”

At this point I decide to prevent something violent happening and deliberately make some noise pushing the door open. Both spin around and look at me, both sort of relieved at the interruption.

“Well,” says Agata, “Um, we'll discuss this some other time, Kalthar.” And I'm thinking that further discussion might involve explosions at twenty paces if Agata's expression has anything to do with it.

“Sorry,” says I, “I was looking for mistress Agata, I had some questions about enchanted arms?” And I put on a dumb expression.

So Kalthar excuses himself and takes off like Molag Bal's after him and I'm alone with Agata.

“All right,” says I quietly closing the library door, “What's this stone Dagail wants me to find in Fort Blueblood?”

Agata sits down at the table furthest away from the door. And sort of sags. “All right, yes, her seer's stone is missing. It's the one thing that has kept her visions at bay, and without it, they're nearly crippling. She can't function. We haven't yet spoken to the others, for fear they would be less than accepting of her situation. Perhaps it is time, though.”

“That guy, Kalthar,” says I, “He already suspects doesn't he?”

Agata just stiffens and her face goes hard. “Oh, he does all right. I don't think he really knows one way or the other, but I don't trust him. He stayed on and changed his ways when Archmage Traven banned necromancy, but damnit, he...”

And then she gets this expression like she's put two and two together. “You have a map?”

I do, so she marks a spot east of town on it. “What's left of Blueblood is around here. We paid one of the local loafers to go that way and pick up some ingredients a week ago, and he said he saw bandits hanging around. So,” and she gives the map back, “head on over there as soon as you can and bring Dagail's father's amulet back.”

Well, I don't hang about. I'm out of the guildhall sharpish, and then over to the nearest armory, a place called The Dividing Line. Tun-Zeeus has a nice spiel he likes to open ceremonies with, and until then he had a nice silver mace. I think I still have it.

All the trip out, I felt like I was being followed, but I couldn't see anyone. And it wasn't the sense of being followed by an enemy, either. Because of that I nearly got skewered by an archer patrolling outside the entrance into the fort's bowels.

Agata's informant was wrong. Bandits don't usually swan about in heavy armour. These were marauders. To this day, I still don't know how I managed to stay alive long enough to reach the chamber entrance to the crypt where Dagail's father lay.

I certainly wasn't expecting Kalthar to yell, “Hey, j-just stop right there, all right?” behind me.

“Where the hells were you?” I snapped back, “A man could've used the help earlier on.” Now also note that I'd basically bashed, stuck and spelled my way through what must have been a dozen foes, almost dying in the process. So I was not in a good mood.


Kalthat stepped back a bit, but his shoulders were set. “I need that amulet. Right now.”

“Why?” I didn't really care, but a villain talking is a villain not hurting me.

“I took the other one, and that should've been enough. I shouldn't have to go through all this, just to get rid of her!” And he starts raising his voice and waving his arms. “It's not even as if I was going to keep it forever. I was going to give it back to her, once I'd gotten what I wanted. That's not so wrong, is it?” Would you believe he tried to look at me with puppy-dog eyes underneath those eyebrows?


I just look at him, tightening my grip on my good old mace. “What you wanted?”

“Once she helped me advance out of that place, and stepped down, then she could have it back! Why did you have to get in the way?” I swear I heard something go ping inside his head and he started screaming.

“Why are you trying to ruin everything!?” and off we went!

To be blunt, it wasn't all that uneven a fight. Kalthar was good with that little silver dagger of his, and I also had his skeleton whacking on me as well. But nevertheless Kalthar fell. So much for his plans to get out from under Dagail.

There isn't much to say about what happened afterwards. Dagail's return to reality was as easy as putting on the amulet, and last I saw of her she was sitting down at her desk writing my recommendation. News spread fast, and it was agreed all round that you can't trust necromancers of any sort except dead ones.

Then I saw a house for sale and things went strange.