Skyrim talk:Phinis Gestor

Hired ThugsEdit

Potential spoiler: Near winterhold, on my way to do a companions quest, I was ambushed by "Hired Thugs". One of them had a contract stating that they should kill me signed by Phinis Gestor. This seems like it might be a bug, as my only previous interaction with Phinis was buying some conjuration spells. Phinis himself also has nothing to say about it. Any ideas? 216.246.234.146 16:51, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

I had the same thing happen, but with the Dark Brotherhood before I joined them. I was freaking out! I think its just one of those random encounters things? Did you read about those? Its pretty cool, except when a fugitive and hunter interrupt my fight with an ice wolf and I die because of it. I was SO ANGRY. But that's beside the point. 76.106.74.107 17:24, 12 November 2011 (UTC) Kiira

Hired Thugs are a random encounter triggered by stealing. One of the thugs will always be carrying a contract signed by someone you've stolen from. It is another "consequence" of stealing, which makes sense given how prevalent coin pouches and chests with gold are in the game. Also, you need not be caught in order to have the thugs hired. The merchants are rather smarter than in oblivion and morrowind and will figure out who's been stealing all their stuff - even if they can't catch you at it. Limduhl 18:30, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

They may also be hired if you murder an NPC's relative, though stealing seems to be much more common than murder for most players, so most encounters with Hired Thugs are for stealing. Alphabetface 01:57, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Missing ApprenticesEdit

Skyrim:Phinis Gestor mentions that 4 apprentices have gone missing, this doesn't give a quest marker. He mentions Skyrim:Borvir and his twin Skyrim:Rundi were attempting to setup a meadery competing with black briar by chilling the mead with frost magic. Skyrim:Ilas-Tei was practising illusion magic with skeevers and Skyrim:Yisra was working with improving flame cloaks in arctic conditions. All can be found in winterhold reasonable close to the college, all predictably dead. Each has a named item. The items are not quest items and phinis does not change dialogue even when you have the entire set. I assume either his dialogue is just a pointer to go find them and their minor loot, or its an unfinished quest. 87.194.26.132 18:23, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

It's part of a minor riddle. The rings of the students can be found in a chest in the Arcaneum. If you go to the garbage hold (I don't know the proper English translation) under the college there is a hand of oblivion in one room. If you place the four rings on the right fingers the hand will close and a Dremora is summoned. He will talk to you and will give you the choice of freeing him and getting a map to a high valuable random treasure chest or fighting him back to oblivion. I have chosen the first and got some nice loot. Phinis doesn't comment on this. I don't know about the consequences of banning/killing the Dremora. 91.42.191.59 20:29, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

The above comment is very inaccurate. The rings you find in the Arcaneum Investigator's Chest do exactly what this person has stated, however, these are not the apprentices Phinis is talking about. Besides, one of the apprentices (Yisra) has an amulet and not a ring. You find their jewelry pieces on their bodies around Skyrim, not in that chest. How do you know? Because Phinis tells you the names of all 4 of them, and they do NOT match any of the names of the rings in the Arcaneum's chest. This seems to be a quest that is either bugged or unmarked. There is virtually no information regarding this except for a few cryptic mentions on other wikis about the "Lost Apprentices" quest, which doesn't seem to actually exist. We'll find out someday, I suppose. — Unsigned comment by 24.129.86.96 (talk) at 14:03 on 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Looking through the CK I happened to notice that there actually is a quest called "The Missing Apprentices". It doesn't have any quest objectives, so you're not given any hint in-game that such a quest exists -- other than Phinis' initial dialogue. Nevertheless, it appears to have a reward, making me wonder whether anyone can actually confirm whether the quest can be done in-game.

Based on the CK data, you can take each of the four apprentice's unique items (Borvir's Dagger, Rundi's Dagger, Ilas-Tei's Ring, and Yisra's Necklace) back to Phinis, prompting a different dialogue each time. Once you have taken all four items back to Phinis, there's then a final dialogue:

Well, all of the previous Apprentices have been accounted for, thanks to you. Here, why don't you take this. It was intended to be given to the best in their group as a reward for their hard work. It's the least I can do for your help in putting this matter to rest. Oh dear, I didn't mean to say it like that. That wasn't a joke, really.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure what the reward is, because the related script can't be accessed.

If anyone could confirm that the rest of the quest can be completed, I'll go ahead and create a quest page. I just can't easily check it myself right now. --Nephele^Talk 00:35, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Having collected all four items returning to Phinis with them fails to initiate any new dialogue options or reponses. — Unsigned comment by DM (talk • contribs) at 12:12 on 17 June 2012

that's because the quest stage never quite proceeds past 10 (no trigger that does that, try setting stage manually)--Lampuiho 06:28, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

I just set the stage of the quest freeformwinterholdcollegeB to 10 and all those dialogue options appear without even aquiring those specific items. Even though this quest is incomplete script-wise, the audio recording and lip-sync files are available.--Lampuiho 06:39, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Setting the stage to 200 will end the quest and provide you with the reward. — WrigleyP 00:16 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Incorrect InfoEdit

The page talks about the missing apprentices and has confused them with the people mentioned in the Midden Incident Report. The Apprentices that Phinis mentions are just random corpses that can be found at certain locations and their items have nothing to do with the Gauntlet in the Midden Dark. Lord Eydvar 22:03, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

I removed it from the page, no point in leaving it if its incorrect. — Kimi the Elf ^{(talk | contribs)} 22:13, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Lost apprenticesEdit

Done just about everything i can think of, but still no mention of these from phinis. Tried finishing all other mage quests, collecting parts w o the talk topic etc and still no luck triggering the dialog. So far, none of his "lectures" mentioned it.

Anyone know if there is a specific time when he lectures since you can't simply wait in the hall for the next one? — Unsigned comment by 71.57.234.118 (talk) on 6 March 2012

Ive had that dialog option with him at 8am in his room with the sarthaal quest started before heading to sarthaal. 69.204.41.246 13:44, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

He thinks I'm trespassing?Edit

So, not sure where this came from but for some reason, whenever I'm in the Hall of Countenance now, Phinis follows me around and yells at me that I need to leave. I can't think of what I did to piss him off, but damn it, I'm the Arch-Mage, I leave when I want to. He seems fine when I actually talk to him, and so far he hasn't reported me to the guards, but it's getting a little annoying having him yelling at me all the time. Has anybody seen this happen before? Any idea what might cause it and how to fix it? TheRealLurlock (talk) 05:32, 10 February 2013 (GMT)

Eye of Magnus: Phineas Closed for BusinessEdit

During the Containment quest, all Phineas says is "Protect yourself, We're under some kind of attack," and during the Staff of Magnus quest: "Can you imagine the kind of power behind this?"--Lmstearn (talk) 05:49, 11 April 2014 (GMT)

This will be noted when the page gets filled out. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 18:12, 11 April 2014 (GMT)

Phinis GestorEdit

Phinis Gestor just keeps saying 'Can you imagine the power behind this' how do i stop him because i need to speak to him? — Unsigned comment by 124.148.54.224 (talk) at 04:13 on 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Missing Apprentices - Fixed by the mod Cutting Room Floor - SSEEdit

As this is an incomplete and broken quest, the well known Cutting Room Floor - SSE [[1]] fixes many aspects : a note left on the wall, by the master conjurer himself, begins the investigation on the missing apprentices (which have nothing to do with the tower 'celler/dungeon'). Map markers are added to make this much easier, as the missing students are spread out across the icy region. — Unsigned comment by Baraz (talk • contribs) at 02:09 on 4 February 2022

Thanks for the note. We usually only cover the unofficial patches, not CRF, but I've added a link to the page so that at least it's clear that this is a reference to an unfinished quest. – Robin Hood ^(talk) 02:32, 4 February 2022 (UTC)