Dark Brotherhood Walkthru - Oblivion - Affairs of a Wizard and Next of Kin

Dark Brotherhood Walkthru - Oblivion - Affairs of a Wizard and Next of Kin
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Affairs of a Wizard

This actually isn’t too difficult. Just remember to bring some good armor and weapons. We have a quick cave dive to do. The cave (Leafrot Cave) is in the middle of nowhere to the northeast of Leyawiin. Just walk out to the cave. Try to get a few landmarks along the way, since we’ll have to come back to this general region for the next mission. Also make sure that you travel light. There’s a lot of magical and alchemical supplies you can loot for easy money and it’s also nice to have a nest egg ready for some unavoidable bounties on the next mission.

Once you find Leafrot Cave, just go inside and be ready to kill some undead. They’ll be leveled, so I have no idea what you’ll face. Be ready for wraiths and ghosts. You only have to clear out the first few rooms for a door into the Necromancer’s chamber. Make sure you loot the front study though. There’s a unique skill book for Destruction and also a bunch of alchemical equipment. There’s also a book here, called “The Path of Transcendence”, that gives away the secret to killing a lich easily. Basically, you just have to steal the hourglass off of this wizard’s body to instantly kill him. Note that that’s not the only way. Remember, even a full lich can be hacked to death. This is just the quick way to handle him.

When you enter Celedaen’s chamber, watch for a moment. Wait for him to walk over to the little shrine that he made on the left side. Save and then try to sneak up behind him (feel free to just run, he doesn’t seem to be too alert to noise) and pickpocket him. As long as you grab the hourglass that Celedaen carries, you’ll be fine.

You don’t have to do this. You can just attack him and if you feel confident killing a mage, it isn’t too bad. The problem is that he will immediately cast a very effective chameleon spell and run off while his summoned creature fights you. You’ll basically have to just keep chasing him around for a very annoying fight. Try to get the hourglass to handle it the easy way.

The mission is over once he’s dead. Just loot whatever you want from this second room, then go to Chorrol and follow the marker to the big oak in the center of the city. Look around in the bush for the bag on the ground. 500 gold coins and your next mission are inside.

Next of Kin - Perennia Draconis

Oblivion Walkthrough - Dark Brotherhood - Next of Kin - Applewatch and Perennia Draconis

We’re taking out a whole family for this mission. We need to kill five people before the mission wraps up, and it’s actually a little harder than it should be do to the “wonderful” guard AI in Oblivion.

Regardless of your plans for the rest of the family, you need to start with the mother, Perennia Draconis. She lives all by herself in a farm called Applewatch. I find it more enjoyable to go in and tell her that you want to find her children. Despite the dark tone, she’ll assume that you’re a gift delivering service and pay you 100 gold coins and give you a list with her four children’s locations.

She’s all alone out here. I suggest you just attack her. Her dog will try to help her, but it’s just a dog. Kill them both and walk out to find and kill her children. Note that the order doesn’t matter.

Next of Kin - Matthias Draconis

Dark Brotherhood Walkthrough - Oblivion - Matthias Draconis in Next of Kin

I suggest that you start with Matthias if you want the stealth kill. He’s a mercenary and a private guard for Umbacano (he’s a big collector of artifacts and has his own long questline…that’s not important at the moment though).

You can easily ambush him while he’s at his guard post or while he walks around the city at various times. The problem is that you have to be able to score a one shot kill, or else he’ll raise an alarm and you’ll wind up in a battle with the city guard and a bounty. It’s also quite tough to sneak into his home for a kill, since his roommate usually spends the night watching the front door.

The best way I found to do it was with the old standby of poisoned apples. Just get behind him at some point and reverse pickpocket one onto him while he’s in the city. He eats dinner (only dinner from what I can tell) at the Bloated Float Inn at the Waterfront. He should eat the poisoned apple if you remove the food from the tables and the top of the cupboards. It didn’t count as stealing for me, although that was probably because I did the quest already for the Bloated Float (Unexpected Voyage, just buy a room and go to bed to start it). If you have to, just quietly steal the food. I think he prefers to sit at the table by the wall, but it’s probably a bit random.

Once you clear the tables off, you can just carry out the rest of the killings while he goes through his schedule. After a few days, he should eventually eat the poisoned apple and die.

Next of Kin - Andreas Draconis

Oblivion Walkthrough - Dark Brotherhood - Next of Kin - Andreas Draconis

This is really easy. He’s the bartender at a popular inn, the Drunken Dragon Inn, on the road to the northeast of Leyawiin. You should have some close landmarks from the Affairs of a Wizard quest. There’s usually a patrolling Imperial Legion soldier resting at a table in the inn, so a direct attack is almost impossible. Thankfully, you can talk to him and inform him that you butchered his mother like a pig. This makes him equip a pathetic little dagger and attack you. You should actually be able to just run up the steps and block for a moment. If the soldier is inside, he’ll kill the “insane” bartender for attacking you. Loot the body and leave.

Next of Kin - Sibylla Draconis

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Oblivion Walkthrough - Dark Brotherhood - Sibylla Draconis

ibylla is another easy one. She’s basically a barbarian/bandit at this point. Go into the marked cave, Muck Valley Cavern, and wear a nice set of fighting armor. You will need to kill a few leveled creatures as you move through. Sibylla is in back. She’ll attack as soon as she sees you. Just kill the animals with her and then block and attack until she dies. She’s not wearing much armor, so she’ll die quickly.

Next of Kin - Caelia Draconis

Next of Kin - Oblivion Walkthrough - Caelia Draconis

This is much harder than it should be thanks to the way that they do the guard AI and the bounty system in Oblivion.

The problem is that there isn’t a great way to actually kill Caelia. You can taunt her and threaten to kill her to make her strike first, but it will still count as a murder. Worse, she even seems able to report her own murder. Just being attacked while you run away from her, usually results in an assault bounty too. This is pretty awful.

If you can use Chameleon or Invisibility, you might be able to sneak into the barracks when she takes her nap in the afternoon. That will be one of the only times she won’t be in full armor and is ripe for a stealth kill. Otherwise, you’ll have to do a whole lot of damage to take her out.

Besides her nap in the barracks, she’s usually alone during her night patrol and she sits alone in a room to at the Three Sisters’ Inn for most of the morning. If you rent a room, you shouldn’t count as a trespasser (it might say so the first time you go in, and you’ll have to pick the lock, but she won’t react). Unfortunately, she doesn’t seem to eat, so you can’t use a poisoned apple on her. You have to take a direct approach.

So, unless you can successfully pull off a one-hit stealth kill against a leveled guard, your options aren’t too good. Just blame the game’s crime engine.

You can exploit a few things to keep your bounty low though.

For example, you can officially kill her with poison. If you don’t personally deliver the death blow (poison should count as an unrelated stat affect), then you’ll only get the assault bounty.

The trick I ended up using was along those same lines. I threatened to kill her as she finished her patrol in the morning, and then ran straight to the Fighters Guild branch in Leyawiin. Since I already joined the Fighters Guild, they were all counted as allies and attacked the guard. Since it was early in the morning, only one extra city guard followed her. Non of the fighters inside the Leyawiin branch are too vital, except as weapons trainers, and they are actually pretty good at handling the guards. Just save first. If you don’t attack her, you’ll only get an assault bounty for threatening her.

Worse comes to worse, just kill her in broad daylight and either run away to a Thieves Guild Doyen or yield to the guards (block and then try to talk to them). The high bounty stings, but you can steal all your stolen equipment from the evidence chest and earn the gold back quickly on a few easy missions ahead.

This post is part of the series: Oblivion Walkthrough - Dark Brotherhood - Part 2

We’re almost done with our work for the Dark Brotherhood. We have now moved up to directly deal with Lucien Lachance for the Dark Brotherhood. If you’d like some help with the Purification or any of the final Dark Brotherhood missions through the dead drops, just look here.

  1. Oblivion Walkthrough - Dark Brotherhood - The Purification
  2. Oblivion Walkthrough - Dark Brotherhood - Affairs of a Wizard and Next of Kin
  3. Oblivion Walkthrough - Dark Brotherhood - Broken Vows, Final Justice and A Matter of Honor
  4. Oblivion Walkthrough - Dark Brotherhood - The Coldest Sleep and A Kiss Before Dying
  5. Oblivion Walkthrough - Dark Brotherhood - Saving the Night Mother