A Mage's Bodyguard

A Mage's Bodyguard is a Mages Guild quest available during the events of. The Agent is tasked with defending a high profile mage for three hours, as the latter attempts to perform a ritual to permanently escape their enemies.

Background
After completing several mundane tasks for the Mages Guild, and improved their magical skills, the Agent will be accepted as a member of the Guild. Guildmagisters will therefore begin to offer the Agent more difficult tasks, rewarding them with and a boost to their reputation, meaning they can climb further through the Guild's ranks.

Objectives

 * Speak with a Guildmagister from the Mages Guild.
 * Wait in the Guildhall for the attackers to appear.
 * Kill the nightblade assassins.
 * Continue waiting until the three hours has elapsed.

Walkthrough
After gaining a fair amount of reputation within the Mages Guild, the Agent will be given an intriguing offer. According to a Guildmagister, a famed mage has decided to perform a ritual within the Guildmagister's Guildhall, and has personally asked to have the Agent as their bodyguard. All the Agent has to do is deny anyone from accessing the Mage over the next three hours.

A Mage's Man
Once the three hour time period has begun, the Agent should not speak to another person, for engaging the mage in a conversation will cause the quest to fail, and the mage to attack. Loitering in the Guildhall is fine, however, and the loiter will be interrupted once the assassins, a trio of nightblades appear in the Guildhall. The Agent should attack them on sight, with the first successful strike on a nightblade causing them to exclaim:

"Stand aside, apprentice whelp! We mean to cut down [mage's name] before he can awaken. Move or we'll cut you down too."

- A nightblade assassin

Once all three assassins/nightblades lie dead, the Agent must wait for the three hour period to end. Once it has done so a notification will appear informing the Agent they have completed the quest.

Rewards
The Agent will receive a random magical item from the Mage's "assistant" (ie the notification), alongside the boost to their reputation within the Guild. The penalties for failing the quest are relatively high by comparison, but will also see gains among some anti-Mage Guild factions:

Disturbing the Mage during their meditation will see an addition penalty:

Furthermore, should the Agent kill the mage themselves, they will incur a severe reputation penalty:

Trivia

 * Killing the Mage will see the Mages Guild send hired thugs of various class after the Agent for the next week.
 * When asked for any news, NPCs will make a variety of comments referencing the quest:
 * Acceptance:
 * "[Mage's name] is a legend in [town]."
 * "[Mage's name] has been resting after casting a powerful spell."
 * Success:
 * "[Mage's name] awoke after [his/her] long sleep, good as new."
 * "[Mage's name] was attacked while [he/she] slept, but [he/she] was defended by a guard."
 * "Everybody's talking about that atronach that [player's race] hunted down?"
 * Failure:
 * "Something happened to [mage's name] while [he/she] slept. I think [he/she] may be dead."
 * "[Mage's name] disappeared. No one knows if [he/she]'s alive or dead."