A Conjuror's journey

You left your room to avoid emotional nonsense and these two can't have the decency to keep their drama at home? Very well, you will just have to give them a real reason to be upset... might even stand to make a bit of coin too.

Retrieving the miniature cask of werewolf blood from your pack, you pour a few drops onto a nearby spoon before making your way toward the couple. Spoon hidden in your hand, you cover both of their drinks, discretely dipping the blood into the woman's drink as you interrupt. "My apologies to the both of you, but did I hear somebody mention a missing heirloom?"

"You did." The man says, eyeing you warily.

The woman laugh derisively and points her finger at the man. "My darling husband, Paul, had the wonderful idea to sell my grandmother's emerald necklace." She says sarcastically before taking a swig of the tainted drink when you remove your hand. "He comes in one night shouting 'We'll be living the dream in no time, darling!' The pitiful fool thought he could start a vineyard with the money and buy it back... only to piss it all away on booze! Guess what husband? You're dreams are as worthless as this marriage!"

With a poorly aimed toss of her cup, the woman drunkenly staggers out of the bar, leaving you with the weary husband... who looks awfully familiar. Taking the opportunity for what it is, you speak up. "Now, I know this whole fiasco is none of my business... but it could be, for the right price."

"Oh, what's the point anymore? My employer's dead, my wife will probably leave me, somebody stole the bounty money from my office while I was drunk... No, I believe I'll keep my money, drown my sorrows while I can still afford it." With that, the man who you now recognize as the Guard Captain orders another drink. Well, at least you can count on the werewolf bounty.

Half an hour later, you're stealing drinks off the Captain with a few kind words. Before you know it, you're waking up on the floor outside your room with the zombie banging on the door. It's dark outside the window and the pounding headache you now have is your reward for drinking the day away. You do a quick check of your belongings, sighing with relief that you're only missing a Deathbell. You probably put it in somebodies drink, drunkenly poisoning people is why you're banned from The Bannered Mare. Shaken from your reminiscing by the door opening, you come chest to face with Louise. The girl steps back to smile up at you and whatever she was going to say is interrupted by the corpse brandishing a dirty sack of crustaceans.

You've never seen a woman squeal over mud-soaked crabs before, but there's a first time for everything. "We can make the potion now, right?" Louise demands.

"We will have to check the shells to make sure, but they should work." You respond, scooting the girl into the room. You spend the next hour bashing the creatures to death, peeling off their shells, and boiling half of them in the retort. Sampling the resultant liquid shows that, yes, these crabs will work with only slightly weaker effect than Mudcrab chitin.

Setting all this aside, you prepare for bed. Waving Louise's concerns away with a vague promise of 'In the morning', you fall into blissful sleep... Hopefully the headache will be gone by then.

Choose 4 potions to brew:
[] Cure Disease

[] Fortify and Restore Magicka

[] Restore Health

[] Invisibility

[] Paralysis

[] Weakness to Frost

You're pulled from your slumber by a pair of tiny hands shaking your shoulder. Peering through a single cracked eye, you see bright pink hair glowing painfully in the light. You groan and try to toss the blanket over your head, somehow finding yourself on the floor instead. What sorcery is this? You don't remember being cursed last night... how much did you drink? The last thing you can clearly remember is accepting a dare to drink something green that smelled worse than a troll cave. Probably a bad idea, come to think of it. After that, it's all flashes of vomiting, slandering somebodies mother, poisoning one of the kitchen knives with a Deathbell, wandering toward the stairs as a wolf howled, and testing some crabs.

Drunken alchemy aside, you really should get off the floor now, since Louise appears to be freezing your blanket. "Alright already, I get it." You grumble, climbing to your feet and throwing your robes on. "What has you so impatient?"

Bouncing in place, the girl rambles on about her sister. You aren't really listening, considering your pounding head, but you do recall the reason why you were praising Sanguine in the middle of the day. "Cure Disease, prepare the crab chitin with the retort while I am away." You order, heading out the door and down the stairs.

You make your way into the kitchen and spend the next half hour drinking water, rubbing your head, and swearing off alcohol until the next time you decide to drink. Once the pain has subsided into a tolerable level, you return to your room to find Louise with a pint of distilled Crab essence.

"Very good, my apprentice. This potion is easy to make, but difficult to gather the ingredients for, which is the only real reason why it is uncommon to find it in stock at an apothecary... in Tamriel, here it is because of ignorance. Anyway, the reagents available in my home country are: mudcrab chitin, hawk feathers, charred skeever hide, and vampire dust. Shooting down a hawk can be difficult, skeevers carry enough diseases to require a dose of the potion you are trying to make, and... I doubt I need to explain why hunting down vampires is dangerous. Luckily, I happen to always keep vampire dust with me because of it's usefulness and alchemy friendly nature." You declare, rummaging through your pack. Pulling out your urn of dust, you pass it to the girl. "Simply stir this into what you have already, mixing it in a three to one ratio favoring the liquid crab, and bottle the potion."

With shaking hands, Louise follows your instructions. You start on your own potions, first making a strong dose of Restore Health with some Blisterwort, Blue Mountain Flower, Imp Stool, and Swamp Fungal Pod. Using your longsword, you painfully strip the mean from the outside edge of your hand before taking a sip to heal yourself. That necessary bit of self mutilation done with, you mix your flesh with some Imp Stool and Swamp Fungal Pod to make a paralysis poison that would bring down a bear with ease.

By noon, you finish those potions and explain the process of how you made them to your apprentice. Afterward, you steal a quarter of Louise's creation for yourself, storing the small vial in your robes for when you need it.

Lastly, you spend three hours showing the girl how to brew a potion that has been a major boon in your magical endeavors: Elixir of Magicka. Simply combining some Creep Cluster, Mora Tapinella, and Red Mountain Flower gives you a powerful potion that not only refills your magicka, but also doubles it for almost an entire day. However, this brought up your little problem.

"Why would you need something like that, aren't you already a powerful mage?" She asks.

Nodding, you explain. "While I know many spells and powerful magics, having studied rituals, 'lost' magics, and stories of ancient cultures around Nirn... I had the fortunate misfortune of being born under the celestial sign of the Atronach. You see, as I explained before, the stars are opening through which magicka flows into the world. While the soul generates magicka, which is the reason we use them for enchanting, a single soul cannot generate even a fraction of what comes from the heavens. Most people absorb raw magicka into their bodies and naturally filter it through their soul to make it theirs, those born under the Atronach cannot properly do this. Instead, they have the ability to absorb the already filtered magicka from the spells of other mages."

"So... you need potions because your willp- magicka doesn't refill itself?" She asks, compressing your whole lecture into a single sentence. You nod, ignoring her stumbling to avoid using the local terms. "What if I used my magic to refill yours? I doubt I could make nearly as good a use of it as you."

You shake your head, having thought of this before. "Considering that the rate of absorption is not perfect, we should limit that to when we need it. I am not too fond of being hit with combat spells by allies... maybe once I teach you some Illusion magic."

Her face lights up at the prospect of more spells, but you have another topic in mind for now. "Before we go off on a tangent, I have a question for you. If we were to upgrade your... familiar, what would you want?"

"A familiar is bonded for life, I can't get a new one." She says.

"A mage may summon as many beings as they have the knowledge, power, and strength of will to control... but I was referring to physically and magically upgrading your undead servant itself, not trading it out for a new one." You explain patiently, ignoring your recurring irritation at the local ignorance. Just one more advantage you possess over them.

Surprise overtakes control as her jaw drops open for a moment and she sputters. "As many- physica- You can do that?!" She finally shouts out.

"But of course I can, I am one of the greatest wizards of the modern era after all." You humbly profess, accepting the notion that there might be others equal to yourself... Neloth of House Telvanni was a respectable enough mage, if a bit arrogant and too focused on heart stones for the two of you to enjoy working together. "We can do basic armoring if you like, or we can be more interesting."

With a quizzical look, she asks, "Interesting how?"

"How about more arms? Tentacles? Extra sensory organs? Grafted on armor? Enchanted armor? Enchanted bones? Wings? With the proper materials, we could make a rather formidable construct."

The two of you debate what features are a necessity for your first redesign of the zombie, Louise maintaining that it must not be too much larger than an adult human or else it couldn't serve her indoors. Other than that, she desires speed and does not care how many limbs it has as long as it can funtion with them.

Choose 1:
[] 1 working arm is good enough for now.

[] Replacing the damaged arm should be enough.

[] 4 arms means four potential weapons.

[] Who needs arms when you can have pseudopodia? 3 branching tentacles, eat your heart out Hermaeus Mora. (Gandalfr incompatible)

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In the end, you decide that the most important features are-

Choose 2:
[] Regeneration.

[] A human appearance.

[] Magical ability.

[] Stealth.

[] Reach and flexibility.

[] Write in.