[Quest Idea] - Mages Guild - Marked for Slaughter

[Tondollari]

A murder has occurred on an open plaza in broad daylight, and what's more, a sword did it.

That is, a sword appeared out of thin air some distance above the victim's head and fell into him. The sword is enchanted, so the Imperial guard has asked for the guild's help.

The sword had a Recall enchantment on it. Apparently, whoever sent the sword hurtling towards the victim first levitated over the plaza and "Marked" the sword to that position. Then s/he waited for the victim to walk into place (Possibly marked by an X on the ground or something else obvious).

An experienced Enchanter of the guild managed to alter the sword's Recall enchantment. Now, if the player uses it while equipped, the sword and player will transport to wherever the sword was before it Recalled into descent.

This turns out to be the murderer's house, directly in front of the murderer. S/he sees the player, sword in hand, and immediately starts combat (unless the player is Chameleoned?)

The player kills the murderer or escapes (bonus for escaping undetected). Reward might be some free Enchantment training.

This all seems very "high magic" so this may have to be some part of a grander plot. The concept could also fit into Telvanni politics. The biggest question is, though, if this use of magic breaks any lore, or if it seems too ridiculous to handle.

[Gnomey]

I actually think this works as a simple Mages' Guild quest; I don't think it needs to be part of a larger plot, as such. Rather, I think it could be used to show the extreme end of the rivalry that often springs up between MG members, and how badly such rivalries can turn out if you're dealing with experienced mages.
I think it's nice to occasionally confront the player with complex magic outside of larger questlines; it can make for short but very memorable and entertaining experiences. If we only do complex stuff in large questlines, it will start to seem more like we're just bending the rules for the plot, almost in the direction of deus ex machinae.

The use of magic is certainly a question; naturally it is out of bounds of in-game Mark and Recall, but that's hardly a problem. More broadly, though, I'm not sure about using Mark and Recall on an object. It hardly breaks lore, which is extremely flexible in the use of magic, but may strike players as rather too convenient.
My suggestion would be that the murderer used the sword to create an alternate Mark location for himself. The murderer levitated to the location in the sky, imprinted the location on his sword, which could have a modified (scripted) Recall enchantment, and then used the sword to teleport to that location at the right time, naturally with invisibility or chameleon. He then dropped the sword and used his own Recall to return to his house. The sword would naturally just recall to the location in the sky, (might be fun if a low-health player tries to use it without knowing what to expect), which would reveal the location from which the sword was dropped but (at least the murderer assumed) nothing more.

As for how the player catches the murderer, magic use leaves certain tracks behind. (Not sure if this is mentioned in lore or if I'm making it up, but I think it sounds convincing). The enchanter merely further modifies the Recall enchantment on the sword to -- instead of having a specific imprinted location -- be extremely sensitive to such markers. The player is then told to levitate to the location above the victim's corpse before using the enchantment. (It would be sort of funny if, when used elsewhere, the player is teleported to completely random locations, but that would probably be too much trouble. The sword would probably just do nothing instead).

[Tondollari]

Alternative idea: instead of a sword, a starving nix-hound is transported next to the victim, who is killed and devoured. The Guild examines the creature's carcass and is able to fashion a "Recall" type spell that sends the player to wherever the beast came from. Maybe a cave with a bunch of nix-hounds and at least one rogue mage.

I think this would also ramp up anticipation about where the spell is going to lead. I mean, you're transporting into something very much expected to be a deathtrap.

[arvisrend]

I am torn. The falling sword out of nowhere sounded really cool and refreshing, but the nixhound strains the immersion less. Though I would use a daedra instead of a nixhound; I'd rather not paint a picture of nixhounds being particularly dangerous. Either way, I think this should not be presented as an everyday occurrence, or else the player will wonder why such a practical and riskless method of getting rid of annoying people is so seldom used. This could be something a Telvanni does to a betrayer, or maybe Imperial agents do to people they consider a danger to their mission. If the culprit is to be from the MG, then this requires a lot of motivation.

[rot]

I also really like the Damocles idea, someone falling dead a sword stuck in their head in the middle of a crowd and having to find out why is just so much more engaging than the usual summoning shtick. Not so concerned about the convenience of killing someone that precise way (if you're able to levitate, teleport and turn invisible to begin with... and one is very much able to recall around with whatever they're wearing already, so the technicals aren't straining the potential of magicks there), worries are, on the contrary: one would have to know the exact spot the target is going to be at, make sure the weapon doesn't rotate in the air... (there's an idea: sword enchanted to be vertical, body crumpled around it still standing?)
if that can be dealt with or swept under rule of cool, I could see a lone mage with a dedicated grudge and a penchant for theatrics setting it up ~ (Still a bit far-fetched)

[Gnomey]

Might be fun to expand the story a little to give context to the method of murder; for example the murderer is an enchanter who sent a sword he wanted to work on to a blacksmith to get fixed up, but was unhappy with the quality of the fix, and so 'sent it back'.

I agree with rot that the sword out of nowhere is more engaging than a summoning.