After a brief interlude in a Thalmor camp I meet Paratus, an Imperial that leads me, painfully slowly, to the Oculory, where I'll learn the staff's location. Mzulft feels like the same Dwemer chamber copied and pasted, the same mechanical spiders jumping out from behind the same golden pillars every 30 seconds. That's never truer than in the Dwemer ruins of Mzulft, where I'm soon spelunking in search of the Staff of Magnus. You face some tricky enemies-no match for my modded Eastern Dwemer war axe-but it's generally a parade of low-level foes who fight in roughly the same style. It's a string of fetch quests in dungeons, some of which feel like an endless series of repeating corridors.
Do shouts count as magic? Perhaps, but they're certainly not spells, and smashing a wall with your voice is much cooler than a blast of ice.ĭelving into Saarthal, I'm reminded how tedious this questline can be. But after flirting with the main quest long ago, Bolrag does know how to shout very loudly. Pick a spell, any spell, Tolfdir says, which of course I won't.
The only way out is by blasting through a cracked wall. Next stop is Saarthal, where I'm asked to hunt down some artifacts and end up triggering a trap by snatching an amulet.
