12th of Heartfire 4E201
I only slept a few hours last night, since I'd gotten so much rest in the carriage.After breakfast, I hurried off to find Tolfdir and ask him about the Augur. He told me that he hadn't spoken to him in some time, and supposed that he was still somewhere called the Midden. He then asked if I was going to go and see him, and that I tell him hello for him. I asked where the Midden was, and he told me that it was below the College, and warned me that it could be dangerous down there so I had better go prepared. I asked him for more information about the Augur. Apparently, he was a brilliant  student, but seemed too focused on how much power he could acquire, which led to an accident of some sort. On the way to the Midden, I ran  into Onmund and Brelyna. Both of them asked me to do a favor for them. Onmund asked me to get an amulet back for him from Enthir, and Brelyna asked me if she could practice some spells on me. I told Onmund I would help him, and he thanked me and hurried back to his studies. I then asked Brelyna what was involved in the spell casting, and she assured me that they were harmless. I warily agreed, and closed my eyes, bracing myself. She cast the spell, and I felt a little odd. She then asked if I felt alright, since I looked a little green. I opened my eyes slowly, and everything was green!! I scowled, and she started apologizing profusely, and said that she had tested the spell and that this wasn't supposed to happen. I asked what she did to me, and she sheepishly admitted that she wasn't sure, but that it should wear off at some point. I sighed and went back to my room and decided to learn my new spells and read the books Urag had given me until everything stopped being green.

It took almost four hours for that spell to wear off! I was thankful when it did, it was starting to make me sick. I went to find Brelyna and tell her the good news. She was glad that it had, and asked if she could try again, since she was certain that it would work this time. I sighed and agreed, hoping that this one wouldn't mess up. IT MESSED UP!! She turned me into a cow, then a horse, and then a dog! Finally she turned me back to normal, and I felt so sick that I threw up into the nearby magicka pool. She patted me on the back, and thanked me for being a good friend and for my help. I asked that we never speak of this again, and she agreed. She offered to follow me on my travels in Skyrim as a reward, but I thanked her and declined. There was no way that I was going to have her  watch my back until she learned more about spellcasting. Otherwise we might be in a fight, and she'd accidentally turn a bandit into a dragon! I told her goodbye and we went to find Enthir. On the way to his room, Jenassa jokingly said that I had made a fine steed. I punched her in the arm and stuck my tongue out at her. She just chuckled.

Enthir was not a very friendly mage. He was a Bosmer, and apparently dealt in hard to find goods. I asked him to give me Onmund's amulet, and he insisted that Onmund had made a deal with him, and that all deals were final. The only way I could persuade him to possibly return it involved getting a staff for him from a place called Sunderstone Gorge, which was located far to the south between Whiterun and Falkreath. I agreed, then went to find Onmund to tell him that I was working on getting his amulet back. When I found him, he was overjoyed, and thanked me profusely. Now it was time to find the Midden, and the Augur within.

I found a hatch on the edge of the courtyard, and we climbed inside. I readied my spells as soon as we got to the bottom of the ladder. A draugr and an ice wraith or two were the only threats in the first section, but we found an amazing forge thing of some sort. It needed something else to work completely though, some sort of round object according to the journal I found on a table nearby. I decided to try something out. There was an offering box that you placed items into, and then you pulled a lever to see what happened. I put in a broom, some frost salts, some moonstone ore, and a greater soul gem. Then I pulled the lever and a staff appeared! I tried out the staff, and it summoned what seemed to be a Frost Atronach.  The salts and moonstone were both pale and icy looking, so it made sense. I would need more ores, and more brooms, to try to make any more staves. Luckily there had been a broom nearby. I was definitely going to be coming back down here, especially once I found whatever piece was missing. We explored a bit more, and found a door leading further into the Midden. Not far inside we found a strange decoration on the wall, consisting of a skull, five hands, and what looked like leg and arm bones. It was the creepiest thing I had ever seen that wasn't trying to kill me. Further in, we came across some spiders, which explained the skeletons everywhere. Past the spiders, we found an odd room, with a daedric glove in the middle of it. According to a journal of sorts nearby, some students had been trying to summon something with its help, but they were found dead, killed in a terrible sounding manner. The investigator who left the journal had written that they were unable to move the glove from its pedestal, but he had pried the rings off of its fingers and placed them in the Arcaneum. He also conveniently left us a key. A room nearby was full of bones. Just full of them. There must have been at least ten or fifteen sets of remains here. Two sets got up and attacked us, but we knocked them back to the floor. In the room after the skeleton one, I found an alchemy lab, and a book that I tucked into my bag for later. After a little more exploring, we found another door. When I approached it, a voice said "Your perseverance will only lead you to disappointment" I slowly walked closer to the door, and the voice said "Still you persist? Very well, you may enter" Then the door opened and I saw the most amazing thing I had ever seen in my life. It looked like a magicka pool at first, but then a glowing mass of energy formed above it, filled with what looked like beads of ectoplasm. I had to squint my eyes from the brightness of it. It was the Augur. It told me that my efforts were in vain, and that those who sent me had not told me what they seek.  He told me that I was seeking knowledge, which would lead to my ruin, as it would also ruin Ancano, who had come here before me. He was looking for information about the Eye of Magnus. I knew he was up to something! That bastard. The Augur told me that to avoid the coming disaster, I would need something to help me see from Magnus' Eye without being blinded: I would need Magnus' staff. He then told me to go and inform the Arch Mage about all of this. The Augur then vanished, and the room became mostly dark. We hurried and found our way out of the Midden, so that we could warn the Arch Mage about Ancano, and to tell him what we had learned.

We found the Arch Mage in the Hall of Elements, standing near the orb. I told him that I had information, and that we needed to find the Staff of Magnus, since it was connected to the orb we found. He asked how I knew this, and I told him about my conversation with the Augur. Instead of being mad like I thought he would be, he seemed impressed. He even suggested that I have the honor of going to find the Staff, and rewarded me with. an enchanted circlet that would help boost my magicka reserves. He then suggested that I go and find Mirabelle, since she had been talking about the Staff recently. I was yawning and stumbling as I walked, so I decided to go and find her in the morning. Hopefully the fate of the College could wait a few hours. Even dragonborn mages need their beauty sleep.