Part 27: Lizard Wizard, Chief of Staff
Lizard Wizard, Chief of Staff
Last time, Ranis told us we require a Wizard's Staff to ascend to wizardhood. We have two options: buy one for 5000 gold, or go murder some gal who turned evil or something. Obviously, we're going for the killing option.
I'm gonna make a couple of pit stops before heading for Dagon Fel, though. First, we're going to train up our blunt weapon skill to a respectable level, as we'll be owning at least two more of them soon.
Next up is Caldera, as I sorely need to offload my potions on Creeper.
I don't know where Dagon Fel is, exactly, but Ranis did mention the Sheogorad region, so I can just head north.
Okay, this guy. Basically, around the point where the plot hints at the fact that you may in fact be the Nerevarine, these guys show up and tell us how Dagoth Ur is so going to kill you for being a terrible person. I think the game's supposed to pull from a pool of possible models for them, but for about a month now they've all been the same person. So I keep murdering this guy over and over. He's basically Wizard Lizard's personal G-Man at this point. Anyway, moving on.
Some things never change.
After some intensive hiking, at last, there's a town near the coast! Is it Dagon Fel?
Nope, just some fishing village. We can catch a boat to Dagon Fel from here, though.
We could also get a ride to Solstheim, home of the Bloodmoon expansion, where we'll probably wind up becoming some kind of Werezard Lizard or something. But let's not worry about that for the time being.
And here's Dagon Fel! It's less...fell than I was expecting.
We head west, crossing an inlet as promised, and before long...
Yup. That'd be Sud.
Oh boy, a spooky wizard lair. Better break out the Night-Eye.
There's a lightning golem on patrol, but I manage to trick him into overloading.
Boy howdy, I sure do love these slightly curved passages. It's like I'm really in a cave!
I come to this sight, and realize the game expects me to come from a different direction, so naturally I levitate onto the platform.
Then some skeleton shoots me with dispel arrows. It's mildly annoying and turns off my night-eye.
Then I enter a door, and what do you know, wizard duel!
Parry! Riposte! Hit with sword!
Oh, wait. She's not the wizard we're looking for.
This time I'm trying the door on the side the skeleton was on.
There, I engage a Dremora in fisticuffs.
And claim a new weapon.
It's a bit slow, but look at it. It's awesome. I could beat things all day with this.
Finally we arrive at the correct wizard, who tries to distract us with some kinda light show. We then beat her to death with our mace.
Eh. Back to Balmora with us, then.
Lizard Wizard, Wizard Mage!
We're just gonna keep our terrible staff, along with a few other underwhelming weapons, on Lord Persistentcorpse's body here. We've got a better staff to find!
According to Ajira, the staff is in a cave on the slopes of Mount Kand, which is just northwest of Molag Mar. Through a bit of trial and error I discover that Molag Mar is accessible by strider from Vivec.
Huh. Looks rather...Vivec-y. Northwest we go!
Almost immediately we get a chance to beat the snot out of some wildlife. Hooray!
After stumbing around for about fifteen minutes trying to figure out which part of these gray lands is actually Mount Kand, we find the cave we're looking for. Gee, this evil wizard cave is sure gonna be spooky.
Whoa, okay. There we go, Bethesda. A threatening enemy and a mage of the proper species. Now you're learning.
NOT MAKING THIS UP
Tread carefully, Lizard Wizard. Here there be muscular icemen.
We also would have accepted "hunks of ice"
And here comes the owner of Magnus' Staff prancing at us. How powerful was she? I didn't have time to get a picture of her with a not-empty life bar, that's how powerful she was.
Whoa. Okay, that's a damn good effect. For anyone who's not aware, spell absorption gives n% chance to shrug off any spell that hits you and gain magicka from it, where n is the listed magnitude. It's going to be VERY nice to have.
This is probably the cutest thing any khajiit will do in the game.
Also she congratulates us on getting the staff. Furthermore, look at that awesome staff.
A Warlock's Ring, you say? But we just graduated from the warlock rank. Good thing us wizards are backwards compatible!
I'm fortunate enough to have stumbled on Bal Fell before, so it's on my map. It's east of Vivec.
I don't know why I bother getting screenshots of cave entrances anymore. I really don't.
We're greeted by a Frost Atronach. Turns out the staff does enough damage to get us by in combat. It's highly durable, and oddly enough the best attack option for it is thrust, presumably because we're hitting things in the face with the orb.
Like that. Donk.
After going the wrong way and not finding good loot, we levitate to The Correct PathTM. What awaits me up there?
A frost atronach, and more importantly, a chance to use my staff's absorption effect. It's not the most reliable thing in the world, but, like I said, it's very nice when you're up against daedra or mages, and especially nice in dungeons where you're spending all your magicka on Night-Eye.
Next, the ring-having supposed bitch herself! Now, it may not be abundantly clear what's going on here, so let me break it down for you. That shine is me absorbing magic. The more observant among you may notice that she's not in casting stance, and you'd be right -- I found that the effect can even absorb blows from a magic weapon. This is a keeper right here.
I'm not exactly blown away by this ring, but it should make for a pretty good two-pronged defense when combined with the staff.
Ajira's proud of me for getting the ring, but you don't want to see that ol' dialog box. You want to see me fly to Crazy Island for crazy quests!
Morrowind with MGE is downright life-affirming sometimes.
Nope, no quests. Just something that we should maybe mention to one of the Mouths in Sadrith Mora at some point.
But speaking of Sadrith Mora, we can get some more work there now that we're an official bona fide wizard!
I make a beeline for the first stronghold I see.
But it's all good! I got in some great wizard battles.
Two things to note here. The first is that the place was painfully dark, so I downed this crazy powerful Light potion I made at some point. I'm not sure if it's the game's fault or MGE's, but it shines weirdly on the NPCs in this place.
The other thing is that I found a daedric spear here. Funny, that. It's like I've come full circle from training with bound spears. No ash ghouls, though.
This is kind of a neat dungeon in that, true to the note, the way back out is far from where you enter, but other than that it's pretty bland.
While inside, however, I realize that the Staff of Magnus eats charge pretty damn quick. Resting for a full 24 hours only brought back about 200 charge or so. Yaaaay.
So I go to trap up a Golden Saint or two to refill it.
The bad news is my Enchant skill is low, so I'm spilling soul power all over the place while awkwardly fumbling with Azura's Star. The good news is I know how to level my Enchant skill now.
And I have a sorcerous suspicion as to where I can find some Ash Ghouls to-
...wait.
I USED UP THE GRAND SOUL GEMS SKINK GAVE ME.
Next time on Lizard Wizard, Wizard Mage, we do some other quest!
