The mage in town won’t sell me spells. What does he actually want?

Steps

1. Find him on the western side of town. One player reading his own notes screen places him selling magic on the western wall of Magdal’s Rest; the tavern-keeper’s introduction to the town simply says an apprentice lives there who can teach the magical arts.
2. Ask to buy spells. He refuses the first time — “I’m not sure you can handle this” — and then offers the trade himself. You do not have to guess that a favour exists; he names it in the same breath.
3. Listen to the errand rather than looking for a marker. He says the last person he sold a tome to disappeared, and was last seen out on the beach shouting about the saint. A player asks his chat about this on launch day and answers it on camera — the game has no quest markers — so that sentence was the whole of your directions. Update 7 has since added TES3-style area marking, which narrows the beach without pointing at him.
4. Go northeast along the beach. Two recordings state the direction out loud on the way; a third simply walks the coast until it finds him.
5. Take the tome off the madman. One player kills him and loots the body; the tome comes off the corpse either way. Nothing in the sources requires a fight or forbids one.
6. Bring it back and let him talk. He calls it already used and worthless, then lectures you about envisioning the world as thousands of little threads. Both recordings of this scene cut the lecture short, so nobody has transcribed all of it.
7. Take the free tome and open his stock. He hands over one tome at no cost — both completed runs receive the same one — and from then on the buy option works.

What he says, and the one thing he refuses

He introduces himself with a title: “I am Theodoris, Threadbare of the [djinn]. In mundane parlance, you could consider me an apprentice fresh out the academy, looking to make a name for myself.” The species word is left in brackets here because four caption tracks render it four ways — gin, jin, fin — while agreeing on the sound. This page prints the name Theodoris because three unrelated recordings of the tavern introduction transcribe it identically, and prints nothing for the species.

The refusal is the part worth knowing before you spend an evening on him. Asked to craft a spell rather than buy one, he answers: “I’m not accomplished enough in the art to help you. I’ve got my own spells to worry about.” That is a flat no, and the fetch quest does not change it — the player who receives that line goes on to complete the errand, and comes back to a shop.

A townsperson gossips about the errand before you ever reach him. Two recordings on different channels transcribe the same line word for word: he is the most interesting person in town, and he “sold some madman a magic tome. I’m sure that’ll end well.” That line is available to a player who has not met him yet, which is unusually generous signposting for a game that shipped without markers.

The stock, once it opens

The free tome both completed runs receive is the same one, and it is a joke at your expense: a tome of pitiful floating. One player casts it later and reads the effect — it levitates you for three seconds.

Beyond that his shelf is read aloud on two recordings and the lists overlap without contradicting each other: anchor, the first bulwark, flame touch, frostbolt, heal self, meager flame, night eye, perilous acrobatics, summon skeleton, unlock, and a depleted tome sitting among them. One player calls the prices expensive enough to reorganise his spending around.

Tomes are consumed. Reading one adds the spell to your magic tab and leaves behind a depleted tome, described in one session as a book that formerly held great secrets and is now completely blank. Several recordings show depleted tomes cluttering an inventory afterwards, and one player has to double-click them to get rid of them.

Casting is not automatic once you own a spell. The player who acquires a teleport tome has to work out that the spell must be equipped before it can be cast — “you have to put it, you have to equip it, if you will” — which is worth knowing before you conclude a purchase did nothing.

Requirements / limits

• This is recorded play from five channels, not documentation. NerveLabs has published nothing about this NPC, this quest or this shop in any changelog cited here.
• The completed run is on three channels; the refusal line is on one. Only one recording asks to craft rather than to buy, so his exact wording on that option has a single source even though its consequence — no crafting interface after the quest — is visible on all three completed runs.
• The western-wall location has one source, a player reading his own in-game notes. Everyone else finds the NPC without stating where.
• The species word is not printed. Four caption tracks disagree on its spelling, so this page leaves a bracket where the game presumably has a proper noun.
• Nobody has transcribed the full lecture. Both recordings of the hand-over talk over it or cut away, and one player says outright that it goes on for some time.
• All five recordings are from 17–20 August 2026. Update 7 landed on 21 August and says spellcrafting was refined and rebalanced without listing what changed. The same changelog says directions to many quests were improved and that quests now correctly mark areas on the map in a TES3-style way, so the navigation described here may be easier than these recordings show; no cited source says this quest in particular was touched, and none says it was not.

Common mistakes

• Concluding the NPC is unfinished content. Two co-op players do exactly that — first that he “didn’t actually tell us what he wanted us to do”, then three hours later that “there was a spell crafter, but he didn’t want to do anything… I’m not sure it’s in the game yet.” Three other recordings complete the errand he asked for.
• Waiting for a floating quest marker. A player asks his chat directly on launch day and answers it on camera: the game does not have quest markers. Update 7 added TES3-style area marking, which shades a region of the map rather than pointing at the man, so the spoken direction is still what you navigate by.
• Expecting the reward to be spellcrafting. It is a shop. He says he is not accomplished enough to craft for you, and finishing his errand does not change that answer.
• Buying a tome and assuming the spell is ready. It goes to the magic tab and still has to be equipped before you can cast it.
• Hoarding depleted tomes. Reading a tome empties it; what is left is blank paper that several players end up clearing out of a full inventory.
• Treating the free tome as the prize. It levitates you for three seconds. The prize is the shop it comes with.

Still unverified

• Does the quest have a journal name?Not verifiedNo recording cited here opens the journal on this errand, so whether it is tracked as a named quest is unknown.
• Can the tome be recovered without killing the madman?Not verifiedOne recording kills and loots him. The others do not narrate how they obtain it, and nobody tries pickpocketing or dialogue.
• Is spellcrafting available anywhere else?Not verifiedThe Steam trailer copy names spellcrafting as a system and Update 7 says it was refined and rebalanced, but no recording cited here reaches a working spellcrafting interface through this NPC or any other.
• What is the species word his title uses?Not verifiedFour caption tracks render it gin, jin and fin. No source cited here shows it written on screen.
• Does his stock change or restock?Not verifiedTwo recordings read the shelf once each. Nobody returns later to compare.