13th of Heartfire 4E201
I woke up fairly early, and found Jenassa already up and having breakfast. I sat down to join her, and we made small talk about how we slept, and all the crazy stuff happening at the College. Mirabelle walked by the dining room and told us good morning as she passed the doorway. I got up and went after her, stopping her to ask about the Staff of Magnus. She thought it was a strange question, and asked why I wanted to know about it. I told her about the possibility of it being connected to the Eye of Magnus. She dismissed the orb as not being legendary enough to be called that, and told me to not jump to conclusions. I told her that the Augur had called it that, not me. She gave  me a look and chided me about getting into something over my head, and warned me to be very careful. I reminded her that I had asked about the Staff, and she told me that it was supposedly very powerful, but it had been missing for ages and was likely nothing but a myth. She added that the last she'd heard anything about it had been a few months ago, from the Synods, the mages from Cyrodiil. She told me about them, and about how she suspected that they weren't true mages like us at the College, but used more smoke and mirror style magic and were all talk. It seemed that they were asking about the Staff since they were trying to hoard magickal artifacts in an attempt to appear more powerful. They had seemed to think that the Staff was somewhere in Skyrim, in a dwarven ruin called Mzulft. She suspected that the Synod would be there, but warned me that they likely wouldn't want to help me.

Jenassa and I went to our rooms and got our gear together, then went to town for supplies before starting down the road to the south. We got interrupted during our shopping  trip by a dragon. It breathed ice at us, and kept landing on rooftops out of our reach. It finally landed after we enough fire and arrows into its hide, and I summoned a sword to attack it with. The guards and some of the townspeople helped, and we finally killed it. I thanked everyone for their help, and we went to the store at last. We got some supplies and sold her a few things, and I bought a ring from her that was enchanted to help your magicka recharge faster. Then, at last, we left town, walking around the dragon skeleton on our way down the road.

I wasn't looking forward to our trip, since the gods no longer made the animals stop attacking us. I was reminded of this when a bear near the road tried to tear us to shreds. This was going to be a long trip.

Another assassin tried to kill me!! I had almost forgotten about the Dark Brotherhood, and an Argonian woman came out of nowhere and attacked me! Thankfully Jenassa helped me kill them. Their note said the same thing as the other one had. They never said anything to me but yelled insults and taunts. I stood there by the road holding the note and shaking. Jenassa grabbed what she could from their body, then kicked it a few times for good measure. She managed to get me calmed down some finally and we continued down the road.

According to Jenassa's map, Windhelm was the next city between us and Mzulft. I didn't like it there, but I wasn't sure what choice we had. It was still barely past the middle of the day, so Jenassa suggested that we get as close to Mzulft as we could, and we could perhaps find a camp or inn along the road to stay at. I readily agreed, since  I didn't want to deal with the Nords in Windhelm.

We found a town! It was a small mining town south of Windhelm, called Kynesgrove.  We met a Dunmer woman in town named Dravynea, and she asked us to get her some frost salts. She used them to make a potion to keep herself cool in the mines. Without here there, the tunnels might collapse on the miners. I happened to have some frost salt in my bag, and I gladly gave it to her. She seemed surprised that I had helped her, and taught me about Alteration spells in return for my help. I also met the mine's owner, Kjeld, and he told us that he paid a fair price for any ore we managed to dig up. We still had a few hours left before dark, so I decided to help them out and make a few septims. Jenassa didn't like mines, so she said that she'd take our things to the inn and go ahead and get us a room for the night. I met a nice man in the mine named Roggi. He talked more about mead than mining though. He said that he'd even tried to make his own, but he'd been terrible at it. He also told me about the ore in the mine, and said that it was used to make glass weapons and armor. I saved a few to smelt into ingots in to work on Jenassa's glass mace with, and I sold the rest of the ore to Kjeld. He gave me four-hundred and twenty septims for only fourteen pieces of ore. I went to the inn to tell Jenassa the news.

I ran into Kjeld's son in the inn. His name was Kjeld the Younger, and he was very rude. He kept asking why I was there, and saying that I didn't look tough and he could best me with no problem. I sighed and ignored him and joined Jenassa at a table across the room for some dinner. At least his father was nice.

I told Jenassa all about the mine, and about the people there. She seemed impressed with how many septims that I had made, and thanked me for saving some of the ore to use on her weapon. After dinner, I went out to the smelter near the mine and made  the ore into ingots, then used some basic smithing equipment that I found near the inn to work on her mace. It took a while, but at last I finished. When I gave it back to her, she thanked me and said that it was even deadlier now than it had been. She told me that her art would be a little more beautiful now thanks to me. I was confused, but took it as a compliment.

There weren't any rivers or lakes close enough to the town for comfort, so I asked the innkeeper for a kettle of water and bathed off the best I could. My soap was starting to get low though, so I'd have to get more in the next large town that we came to.I washed my clothes as best I could, then Jenassa helped me and we managed to get all of our armor and weapons polished and cleaned. As I got ready for bed, I remembered Jenassa's compliment, and then it dawned on me. When I'd met her, she'd compared vanquishing her foes to making art. She was strange, and a bit morbid at times, but I was still thankful to have her here with me. Hiring her was the best thing I had ever done with five-hundred septims.