to escape the dungeons and teleports them to a different province through a mystical Shift Gate. The player is informed that the only way to stop Tharn is to get hold of the Staff of Chaos which holds his lifeforce. This staff has been split by Tharn into many fragments throughout the continent of Tamriel. Each time one is found, Ria appears to the player the next time they rest, in order to provide the general location of the next fragment. At the end of the quest in 3E 399 (a decade after the start of the game), the player finds the final piece and reassembles the staff. This, however, does not release the Emperor as all of the staff's power has been drained into the Jewel of Fire, an oversight by Ria. The player travels to the Imperial City to confront Tharn's minions, the player finds the Jewel of Fire and touches it with the Staff of Chaos, this destroys both the jewel and the staff as well as releasing the Emperor. The jewel also turned out to be where Tharn has stored his lifeforce and the destruction of the jewel resulted in his death. As a token of respect and gratitude, Uriel Septim grants the player the title of Eternal Champion, and Ria Silmane finally enters the afterlife. Development Background Designer Ted Peterson recalls the experience: "I remember talking to the guys at SirTech who were doing Wizardry: Crusaders of the Dark Savant at the time, and them literally laughing at us for thinking we could do it." Peterson worked alongside Vijay Lakshman as one of the two designers of what was then simply Arena, a "medieval-style gladiator game". Staff Ted Peterson, Lakshman and Julian LeFay were those who, in Peterson's opinion, "really spear-headed the initial development of the series." Game journalist Joe Blancato credits company co-founder Chris Weaver with the development: "If Weaver had a baby, Arena was it, and it showed." During the development of Arena, Todd Howard, later executive producer of Oblivion and lead designer on Skyrim and Fallout 3 and 4, joined Bethesda Softworks, testing the CD-ROM version of Arena as his first assignment. Peterson had joined the company in 1992, working assignments on Terminator 2029, Terminator: Rampage, and Terminator: Future Shock, as well as other "fairly forgettable titles". Influences Peterson, Lakshman and LeFay were longtime aficionados of pencil-and-paper role-playing games, and it was