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! Time to wind up the recommendation quests. He tells me that later he 'gave Bruma a good sweeping'. Ha ha, Arch-Mage. Don't quit yer day job.]

8. In Which Ra'Jirra Finishes Off his Recommendations

Having decided to go to Chorrol next, I spent some time mixing potions and went mooching down around Pell's Gate. An attack by conjurers near Sardavar Leed led me to stick my nose inside, where I saw a rather fatal three-way between a sturdy-looking warrior type, some sort of invisible monster, and someone who I now know was a member of the cult known as the Guardians of Oblivion. They're bad, as bad as the notices say. I got out of there before anyone saw me.

Downing my umpteenth feather potion and bagging some poor marauder's gear about Fort Alessia, I finally departed for Chorrol. After a drop-off at my shack I started off up the Black Road, pausing only to have a look around in and on Fort Ash after bowling an obnoxious highwayman, who apparently was stashing things in the upper levels outside.

Chorrol is one of the nicest and best-kept counties I've seen. The whole place is walled, and constables patrol the entrances. And of course there's the great oak under which you can always find the local gentry discussing affairs without resolving anything, which makes them overqualified for the Imperial Council.

To put it bluntly, news had already spread of Kalthar's treachery, but the Chorrol guildmaster Tee-Keeus had a problem of his own, collectively known as Earana, who it turned out wanted a strange book called Fingers of the Mountain. This I explained to Teekee.

“She what? That damnable softskin...” Then he realises that Athragar the balding Basmer battlemage's ears are growing and pulls himself together. “Look, she and I have an unpleasant history. She does not care for Guild regulations, and errantly–”

“You mean 'erroneously',” says an Imperial woman in passing.

“Oh shut up! – believes I am misusing my powers. I would not trust her with a wet piece of parchment, let alone as dangerous an artifact as that. Hmm...”

“Whatever happened to that associate you sent for it last time?” Athragar asks.

Tee-Keeus looks like he's about to incinerate baldy, but relents. “Good point. Ra'Jirra looks like he can take care of himself, yes? Well, Ra'Jirra, go to Cloud Top – it's just down from the Colovian Horn there – and find that book before Earana does!”

And so I walked out of the guildhall into the rain, out of Chorrol's north gate in the rain, and up into the mountains in the rain, and finally found Cloud Top in the rain.

The associate Teekee had sent was lying in the rain by a lone shattered obelisk – very dead, a man-shaped lump of charcoal. The book, soot-smudged, was on him, but I couldn't open it! I remember turning it over and over, but there was no lock that I could see. It was strange, and it was raining, and I decided that I didn't like the way the obelisk was looking at me so I split.

Please note that Fort Rayles, last I looked, was home to the Guardians of Oblivion. Stay well clear.

Tee-keeus was happy with me and I was happy with his recommendation and off I went to Bruma by the Orange Road. My happiness stopped dead when I went peering into Shadow's Rest Cavern. There I was, poking around with Starlight active, and just as I'm heading back to the entrance three trolls come in from the hunt! So there I am, racing back towards the first hiding place I can find, scared out of my wits and nearly crapping myself until the spell wore off!

Moranda was more fun. I staggered out of there laden with imp galls and welkynd stones, but my real treasure is outside Glademist Cave. On a good day you can see clear to the Imperial City and beyond into BlackMarsh. Sometimes I just up and head over there just for the view. Officially I'm after entoloma. But it's the view really.

Toadstool was another worry when I fell through a hole in the floor and had to wade my way back out through the damn undead. And I don't like snow leopards either.

The Bruma guild is a nice place, but the staff ruin it. The consensus is that Jeanne's a dizzy chook and they're pretty right; everyone else there either plays tricks on her or treats her with pity – not a good relationship between head and subordinates. I was, I admit, responsible for hiding her Manual of Spellcraft, which I had to do to get my recommendation for finding J'Skar. Why the daft bint didn't use a spell of life detection I'll never bloody know. It was so easy I spent most of my time there beating up the local goblins while waiting on Volanaro.

After returning home and dumping loot, I headed off to Cheydinhal via Weye and one grateful fisho and an even more grateful populace of Aleswell. What happened there is another reason for a mandatory assistant system.

I'd been getting a lot of practice in on Destruction by the time I reached Cheydinhal. I was directed to someone called Falcar down in the basement, but the directions involved warnings to watch my back. And no wonder.

Falcar was a snotty Altmer and his hairdo seemed just as arrogant. Or maybe hearing him pull up before calling me a fur-licker just put me right off him.

“What do you want anyway?” he asks, “Don't tell me you're looking for a recommendation.”

“I'll tell you what then,” says I, “let's do a deal. I do a little job for you, and you write up a recommendation for me. That way we both win and you don't have to look at my face any more. Deal?” Didn't tell him that I wouldn't have to look at his face either, but haggling's like that.

He just snorts a bit and finally out comes, “Don't waste my time if you're not ready for this. Are you prepared to do what is necessary to gain a recommendation from me?” As though the Arch-Mage hangs on his every word. Just like old Maro.

“Yes,” says I, keeping as steady as possible and trying not to let him know that I think he's spent too much time with his head up his own bunghole.

“Hrmph. Very well. We shall see how prepared you actually are,” snorts he, but the crap's too far up his nose to snort out. “There was a particular ring of Burden I was testing some time ago. Another stupid Associate somehow got his hands on it, and managed to misplace it. If I didn't know better, I'd say he purposely tossed it down the well behind the guild hall. Why he would do such a thing is beyond me.”

Didn't sound right. “And you want me to go get it.”

“Exactly,” says he, as though he wasn't expecting me to be that bright. “You will retrieve this ring for me. Should you manage to do so, I shall consider sending a recommendation to the University.”

Money for jam thinks I, “Right. I'll go get it then,” says I.

“The well is locked, so you'll need the key,” says he, “Deetsan should have a copy of it.” I think he was about to tell me to get moving except I already was.

So up I goes and find Deetsan working away at alchemy, or she was, when I interrupted her and asked for the key.

“Don't tell me Falcar's given you the same task he gave Vidkun!” cries she, then looks over the balcony like she's checking we're alone. “If I didn't know any better, I'd say he's trying to get you killed!”

“What do you mean?” says I, “I mean, yes, he's an arsehole, but...”

“He gave poor Vidkun the same task, and we never saw him again. I'm reasonably sure there's a connection, but I can't prove it,” she says bitterly, “Anyway, here's the key, and something extra.”

And so I learn a spell of Buoyancy, which I refrain from telling her I don't need since I have an amulet for that. “I don't know if it will be of use to you, but from what I've heard of Falcar's ring, it may come in handy. Oh, and if you find anything about Vidkun, let me know.”

I felt a bit daft changing from my nice clothes into my battle gear, but I didn't know what was at the bottom of the well. So down I go, into what looked like part of an old Imperial fort, and there was Vidkun, drowned, one hand on the stone floor.

That wasn't right. Sheathing my mace I swam over and saw an odd ring on his finger. When I pulled it off, his hand rose free and drifted about like you'd expect a corpse's hand to do.

And no wonder! The ring, even in my pocket, weighed a ton. Ring of Burden indeed! It wasn't even magickal – just an impossibly heavy bit of jewelery!

Climbing out of the well was agony on my poor overburdened arms to the point that once I managed to haul myself over the side, I had to drop my weapons to be able to stand up and trudge back into the Guildhall and up to Deetsan.

“We have a problem,” she says, “And it might affect your recommendation.”

“It's not about this damn thing?” says I, hauling out the blasted ring.

She just looks at it like it's made of dog turds. “Oh, just drop it anywhere. I don't think he really cared about it. I think it was some sort of sick joke on his part,” spits she. Being tidy, I put it on the display case fronting the main door. I'd like to see the thief who tried to snaffle it.

Relieved of all that weight, I manage to notice that the other guildies are all standing around looking like they just saw Molag Bal with a sheep of the appropriate sex.

“So what happened?” says I.

“I'm just so tired of the way we've all been treated by Falcar! I was worried about you, and angry about Vidkun, so I confronted Falcar directly,” says she. “He flew into a rage! I didn't even understand some of his ranting, but he said that our days are numbered, and then he stormed out!”

“Hang on a tick,” says I, “did he ever have anything to do with necromancy?”

“You mean like Kalthar in Leyawiin? I don't know, but...” I could see wheels beginning to turn in her head. “Look, you should check his room in the living quarters. If you see your recommendation, or anything unusual, let me know. I'll gladly send it to the Council.”

“Oh, one thing,” says I as I head off, “I found Vidkun. He drowned in the well.”

Someone gags and Deetsan sags. “I was afraid of that... I'll see he's laid to rest and the well cleaned out. That's all we need, tainted water...”

So down I go looking for Falcar's quarters. Turns out the dopey sod hadn't bothered to write anything about me, so I went looking for answers as to why he'd blown up like he did. In a drawer I found two soul gems that didn't look right. Gems are usually bluish, but these were a malevolent black. I took them to Deetsan who went white.

“Oh, Gods. This is worse than I'd expected,” says she, and plucks them from my hand. “All right. I'll just take these filthy things from you. I'll need them for my report to the Council. No recommendation I take it?” I just shake my head. “Fine. I'll write one and include it in my report. In light of the circumstances, I believe they'll find it more than adequate.”

“And that should be all of them,” says I, “Seeing as I've been to Anvil, Skingrad, Bravil–”

I saw her grin. Gods, news gets around fast!

“Leyawiin” – good, that got rid of the grin – “Chorrol and Bruma. So I can head for the Arcane University eh?”

Deetsan just blinks and nods. “You've been through quite a bit, haven't you? Well, I think you have proven yourself worthy. The Arcane University awaits you now. Once there speak with Raminus Polus about getting settled in.”

I made my excuses and left, picked up my gear from the well and went home. That night I took a couple of bottles of ale on a walk down to the little graveyard on the waterfront and looked over at the walls of the Arcane University.

I'd done it bar the ceremonies, whatever they were. I'd fulfilled my oath to my parents. Tomorrow I would be a full-fledged member of the Mage's Guild.

This post has been edited by Cardboard Box: May 28 2010, 11:19 AM