Back to Saarthal

It seems as though everybody is exactly where I left them when I return to Saarthal. Tolfdir, my bearded mentor, doesn't seem to mind that I just ran off days ago when he asked me to find some enchanted rings. Going with the mood of the crowd, I continue as if no time has passed.

I manage to get myself stuck in a cage and then blast a hole in a wall. Fortunately for me the wall crumbles to a Fury spell, because I don't even know any true damage spells! Behind this wall is a now-familiar feeling dark tunnel. I now have some experience with undead so I proceed with an optimistic level of confidence.

At the end of this tunnel I enter a room where I'm visited by a strange time-controlling, teleporting wizard. He says a whole lot that I don't understand and seems to think he's entitled to judge my actions. Pssh, whatever. No sooner does he leave them the walls burst open and undead some crawling out. No coincidence if you ask me. Tolfdir is around to help me though and I simply distract the creatures while he finishes them off.

We enter a large cavern with crypts lining the walls. Skyrim has become, as a rule, fairly predictable in this regard, so I head for the safest part of the room, a bridge in the centre. Tolfdir is busy admiring the tombs when they all start cracking open. Who didn't see that one coming? Tolfdir, apparently. I fling a few turn undead spells around the room and armour up (magic armour of course!), while Tolfy burns them to a crisp.

At this point my dear mentor, having received adequate demonstration of my ability, still deems it the best choice to send me on alone, because he wants to examine the crypts! Like all these helpful people I encounter, there's no talking him out of it, so off I go.

It doesn't actually go to badly. The fear spells work great. I can't really kill anything, but I can keep it running away from me. It does get a little hard to maintain as the numbers grow. At one point there's about six Draugr doing laps around me, but we all manage.

Finally, just after I've made it past the angry undead, Tolfdir rocks up again, saying something about it being time to catch up with me. With all due respect, little bearded man, it was never 'high time' to leave me in the first place!

We enter a large chamber, and there's some sort of enormous, glowing orb behind what is clearly a ward. If I could learn to cast a spell like that around myself, I'd be fine!

My attention is quickly diverted however, as the corpse in a large chair in front of me gets up. Tolfdir doesn't seem too alarmed, but his plan is simply imbecilic! He runs off into the corner, presumably to do something with the orb, leaving me to fight the undead. There's nothing for it, so I summon my atronach. In the flamey fiend's defense, she's never harassed me or done anything untoward. Maybe she's not that bad. It's definitely a she, regardless.

The undead warrior banishes my atronach back to Oblivion a few times, but I simply recall it and cower in a corner. Yup, I'm a predestined hero.

When we (I mean, my atronach) finally defeats the Draugr, Tolfdir gives me pretty clear instructions to hurry back to the Arch Mage and tell him what happened. That works for me, since I need to ask about an Elder Scroll too. Looks like I'm heading back to Wintercold.