The Second Staff Piece and a Visit from Jagar
The big bad of Arena pays us a visit.
Ambush
Camped beneath a small hillock on the plains of central Skyrim, Talin tosses and turns in a cold sweat within his sleeping furs, plagued by strange dreams. The surreal sights and sounds of his nightmares disperse and begin to take new shape. A mage clad in black robes with sallow skin and steel grey hair leers down at him with malevolent red eyes, the dread usurper himself, Jagar Tharn, speaks...
He awakens with a start. His enemy has revealed himself, and the quest ahead has become exponentially more dangerous. From outside his tent, he hears the rustle of movement and the grunting of bestial tongues. Without time to don his armor, he draws his sword and charges outside into the cold night air…
Jagar Tharn will appear before the player with some threats before ambushing them with some random monsters each time they recover a new piece of the staff. This can occur at any time you go to sleep after retrieving a staff piece but will usually trigger after you are pointed to the next quest by Ria.
After dispatching his enemies, Talin travels to the city of Winterhold on the northern coast of Skyrim. There, Thelen Kaarn, a wizard from the Mages Guild, points him to his next objective, the Fortress of Ice, where a tablet holding information concerning the location of the Labyrinthian can be found.
The Fortress of Ice
The Fortress of Ice is, hold your breath, a fortress made of ice. At this point, the combat difficulty of Arena begins to ramp up. The dungeon is home to many powerful creatures, including snow wolves who can freeze you with their frosty breath, as well as ice golems who are impervious to weapons below Elven quality, but are vulnerable to fire-based magic. Now level twelve, our hero is no slouch himself, and cuts a swathe through his enemies with a mix of blade and spell.
Despite its maze-like structure, the fortress proves relatively easy to navigate and is over quickly. On the lower level, Talin discovers the tablet, which he promptly returns to Thelen Kaarn, who reveals the way to Labyrinthian.
Labyrinthian
Upon entering Labyrinthian, we’re greeted with some backstory concerning two brothers Kanen the Elder and Mogrus the Dim, who long ago deigned to quest the labyrinth and unravel its secrets but failed in their task. Their spirits are now locked within the Labyrinthian and each hold a riddle which lead to the prize.
If unimpeded, one could enter the dungeon and walk straight back to the room containing the next staff piece. However, a nested pair of doors block the way, each requiring a separate key held by one of the brothers. The east and west wing of the dungeon each hold a ladder leading down to a separate partition of the lower level, the Domain of Mogrus and the Domain of Kanen respectively. In each domain, one of the brothers awaits in a cell and challenges the player with a riddle before coughing up their key.
Crossing through the doors with the newfound keys, the final approach to the staff piece is barred by one final riddle.
What force and strength
cannot get through,
I, with a gentle touch, can do;
And many in these twisted halls would stand,
Were I not, as a friend, at hand…
In topical fashion, the answer is “key.” Behind the door lies the second piece of the Staff of Chaos.
Upon returning to civilization, our hero is met with another set of instructions from Ria to the next staff piece, this time to the Elden Grove, an ancient Elven site home to the fabled First Tree. Not to be outdone by Ria, we also get another visit from Jagar Tharn and another band of his beasties. With that, this chapter of our adventure comes to a close, and we will join Talin again next week in the great forests of Valenwood.
