The Authorized Biography of Arch-Mage Sebastian Ashcroft: Forward

by stormcallerbooks

A serialized telling of my current Oblivion Playthrough. I attempted to take as few liberties as possible with the source material to keep the series as true to the game as possible. Story lengths will vary but I aim to keep them at a manageable word count to be no longer than a standard short story. Hope you enjoy!

My Time in Hell: The Authorized Biography of Arch-Mage Sabastian Ashcroft

Recorded by Valin Elenil

Forward

Welcome good readers to the only authorized biography of the last Arch-Mage of the Mage's Guild!

The Mage's Guild.

The name conjures up images of a storied past where valiant Battlemages roamed Cyrodill as knight-errant wielding magic to do battle with the forces of evil. Or perhaps you see a wise old Wizard, book sprayed out before him pipe between his lips pondering the greater mysteries of creation.

Or, perhaps more likely, mention of the Mage's Guild prompts you to spit over your shoulder and utter a prayer to Stendarr to ward off the evil they unleashed on this world.

For years we have been told that the Mage's Guild were largely to blame for the Oblivion Crisis, but is that the truth?

In this volume I have collected a series of interviews I did with Arch-Mage Sabastian Ashcroft, the last man to hold the title. He shared with me the true story of the Oblivion Crisis. The untold story. A story that might change your mind about what part the Mage's Guild played in the entire affair!

A few housekeeping notes before we start. My original articles were intended to be a monthly serial in the Black Horse Currier but due to outside interference only a few saw print in The Currier originally, the others were largely printed by underground sources with very limited distribution. Luckily I had concluded my interviews with Arch-Mage Ashcroft prior to publishing and had written the articles contemporaneously with my interviews so I can present to you this story as I heard it.

I present it to you raw and uncensored. It is a story of death and life…addiction and recovery…arrogance and humility. It is the story of a man who saw Oblivion and returned to tell us of it.

Whenever possible I will tell this story in his own words, as he recounted it to me. I will delineate my comments or the comments of others using italics so the reader will not be confused or footnotes if additional information is needed to better understand the context of what is being said.

And with that I invite you, dear reader, to join me on an adventure that saw the end of an Era, the fall of an Empire, and the rise of a new way of life for all of Cyrodill.