Do not tangle with wizards.

• Posted by Mike W November 18, 2011 - 909 views

   

  Being an Elder Scrolls old timer, I became complacent in the knowledge that magery and magecraft had seemingly been weakening in the transition between Morrowind and Oblivion. My heavily armoured, ebony battle axe wielding orc had slaughtered countless apprentices and adepts. Whose fiery missiles, while a joy to witness in Skyrim due to their quick and sharp execution, proved little challenge in the face of a berserkers determination.

  How wrong I was. While I knew magic in Skyrim had improved in bounds, I was still unintiated in the true potential of how devastating such power could be. In my travels I had arrived at a snow covered stone fortress, one of many a criminal haven that were scattered in the wild wastes. I had no sooner set foot inside its courtyard when I was set upon by a group of fledgling mages. A motley group of young hopefuls who unleashed a barrage of fire and ice upon my person.

  I crushed them like the children they were decapitating what I imagined was the leader of his peers, a dark skinned necromantic elf. I then set foot in the fortress proper to claim my gold and pheasant breasts. It was there that I met her.

  I did not even see her at first, all my orcs last audio visual experiences were that of a roaring ball of flame, exploding into a nexus of hellfire and hurling his now charred corpse hard against a dark moss covered wall, where it crumpled in an undignified and humiliated heap.

  I threw my orc into the fray again and witnessed her form truly. A fire wizard. Sheathed in a spinning protective cage of living fire which burned all that it touched. She threw exploding balls of flame at me as easily as one would breath in spring air. I was pinned and helpless behind a pillar as she hurled both insults and living hell at my surroundings. Would I know such utter defeat so unexpectedly and so soon?

  My one sliver of hope came when she, only for the briefest of moments had a lapse in her defence, allowing me a shout so powerful that it froze her in a crystal cocoon of ice. Her flame still burned strong and in mere moments she shattered her prison and burned harder, brighter than before, but, her fury could not match my beserk state. As my world turned red and my focus turned to her I saw nothing but visions of her broken bloody corpse. Her flames licked and caressed opening blistering, boiling wounds on my ork as his own armour betrayed him, broiling him inside, but still I hacked away, my orc panting with exhaustion as his stamina spent down to nothing.

  Then, she fell and as her head cracked against those dark flagstones, so did my respect and caution for the new wizards rise. I vowed I would not allow myself to be caught so unawares again.