A few days after completing "The White Phial" quest, a courier will give you a Letter from Quintus Navale. When you read the letter, this quest starts. His master is still alive and Quintus asks you to come and talk about possibly repairing the Phial.
In order to repair the Phial, Quintus asks you to find three ingredients: Unmelting Snow from the Throat of the World, Mammoth Tusk Powder from a certain Giant encampment, and a Briar Heart. The Mammoth Tusk Powder was in a bowl in the middle in the emcampment, but there are two chests which can be looted without causing the Giant to get unduly upset. The Unmelting Snow was in a snowbank marked with a caret symbol. And the Briar Heart can be taken from a living (by pickpocket) or deceased boss-level Forsworn, but the map will point out a place to get one.
Once you have all three, return to Quintus and watch him repair the Phial. He takes the Phial upstairs to show it to his dying master, Nuelion. As soon as he does, Nurelion finally dies. Quintus says his master died happy realizing his life's work was completed. However, Quintus can't stand to have the Phial around anymore because it reminds him of Nurelion's obsession. Instead he gives it to you! However, since he isn't as skilled as Nurelion, the Phial will only regenerate a single kind of magical liquid. You get to choose what it will produce:
- I'd like it to have the power of healing. (+100 health)
- I want to resist the forces of magic. (20% magic resist for 60 seconds)
- I want to be tougher in battle. (+20 stamina for 300 seconds)
- I want to strengthen my magical skills. (+20 magicka for 300 seconds)
- I want to deal more damage in battle. (+50% to one handed damage for 60 seconds)
- I want to be better hidden in the shadows. (20% harder to detect for 60 seconds)
Make your choice and it appears in inventory as a special Miscellaneous item. Drink it and the name changes to "empty", but it regenerates in 24-hours.
Bug
If you already have completed a quest where you took a Briar Heart and it was in your inventory when this quest started, it is possible for the script of the quest to break. After getting the other two ingredients, the following commands in the console (PC only) may help you get past the glitch and complete the quest:
SetStage MS12b 30
SetStage MS12b 40
SetStage MS12b 50
SetStage MS12b 60
At this point you should see a displayed note to return to Quintus and you can follow the normal process of quest completion to the end.