4/24/2026 – if you preordered any of the 2000s Nostalgia Merchandise and still haven’t received it, please contact me as soon as possible!
You’ll tell them the truth later. Right now, this is your first time at a Mages Guild as an official member of the Mages Guild, and you want to make a good impression – which means not immediately whining about all your problems and asking for a bunch of help. If you’re going to drop in on them unannounced, you want to at least spend a little time being sociable and getting a read on the situation.
And speaking of getting a read on the situation: you do a quick scan of the room to check what’s going on behind the scenes.
The flame atronach looks to be summoned by Sigrid, while the hot frost atronach is connected to some flat circle in the other room. You sense what you think are a few enchanted items on Stephane and Sigrid, but it’s nothing close to what she was wearing in your last encounter. As far as you can tell, she wasn’t lying about holding onto the jewelry with protective enchantments and getting rid of the gear with charm spells.
You guess Kvatch is just… safe now.
So! What were these major plot events I missed? And, ah, would you happen to maybe have any neat alchemy things to recharge my magic again? If it’s no trouble.
Sigrid raises an eyebrow. What, were you planning on getting into a magic duel before bed or something?
Stephane reminds Sigrid that you’re an Atronach.
Oh, right. She’d almost forgotten that your annoying spell absorption was how you were able to end her evil reign. She didn’t know you were coming so didn’t prep anything impressive for magic restoration. She’ll just get you a… cup of flax seed.
As for what you missed, Stephane continues, we’ve been spending the day negotiating with various upset townspeople and making reparations where necessary.
We’ve mostly just been giving out free money, Sigrid says. Nobody was left that bad off. Honestly, it was a pretty normal level of power abuse for a Mages Guild.
You were mind controlling them!
Just to give me free stuff! It was basically taxes except everyone liked it.
We’re already funded by taxes! You can’t just arbitrarily take more from people.
I was also demonstrating a useful, practical application of magic, and improving the reputation of the Mages Guild. That’s the sort of thing we’re supposed to be all about, right?
To benefit the citizens of Tamriel. Things don’t become morally justified just because you used magic to do them.
And I’m not saying it was morally justified! I stopped! But you’re not getting on Kud-Ei’s case for running an entire guildhall dedicated to mind control spells.
You subtly tell the flame atronach that, yeah, okay, you can see it now.
Kud-Ei is a responsible practitioner of illusion magic. Her more powerful spells are explored purely for research purposes.
The flame atronach signs back to you: right?
Oh, so mind control “for research purposes” makes things fine, and taking money from people who are unhappy about it is fine, but mashing the two together suddenly makes you an evil sorceress.
You ask the flame atronach how she’s sitting on that wooden chair without burning it.
Yes! That should not be contentious to say! There are plenty of things that should remain in research, and things people should retain their ability to be unhappy about.
The flame atronach says that she had angry, rivalrous sex with the hot frost atronach the last time the wizards started going back-and-forth like this. They didn’t notice.
SO, you interject loudly. What’s the story behind the eyepatch?
I got into a swordfight.
She won a swordfight, Stephane clarifies.
I cheated, Sigrid further clarifies.
She used magic to enhance her abilities, Stephane even further clarifies.
I stole the swordfighting abilities from a random redguard in the crowd.
Please don’t tell me “redguard” was your only criteria when picking someone to cast the spell on.
Oh, don’t do this, Steph. You have a crowd of people, and you have a split second to guess who’s been on a swashbuckling, high-seas adventure. Obviously, you pick the redguard.
You talked to him not even an hour prior. You knew he was a former privateer captain.
I talked to a lot of people! I’m not going to waste time remembering things I can assume from stereotypes.
Hold on, you say. Did you actually lose an eye, or…?
No, Sigrid says. I just realized eyepatches look amazing.
It’ll wear off when the skill absorption spell wears off, Stephane says.
It’ll never wear off. I bought this five thousand septim eyepatch to make sure.