licki

Just to add onto your idea for fast smithing xp: Hitting the mines for iron ore is a good idea as well. Spam-smith iron daggers as they only take 1 iron ingot (1 ore) and 1 piece of leather strip. Iron is extremely plentiful and dirt cheap from vendors as well. Go into a mine inhabited by bandits in Whiterun or near Riverwood and clear it, walk out with 25- 40+ iron ore each. Adding on to my adding on... I've been playing around and found a good way to farm conjuration and alteration! When I play, I fight my way through a dungeon, saving looting for last. After I'm done, I now have a dungeon full of dead bodies. I dual cast oakskin/raise zombie at a body. Once it rises, I hit it with flame or whatever. After a certain amount of damage, the zombie turns against me the same way that follower npc's do. This triggers the combat requirement for skill xp. Taking down your own zombies gives you conjuration, alteration and whatever you used to kill it xp!

Just to add onto your idea for fast smithing xp: Hitting the mines for iron ore is a good idea as well. Spam-smith iron daggers as they only take 1 iron ingot (1 ore) and 1 piece of leather strip. Iron is extremely plentiful and dirt cheap from vendors as well. Go into a mine inhabited by bandits in Whiterun or near Riverwood and clear it, walk out with 25- 40+ iron ore each.

I'm still working on a battlemage that is hand to hand. Only lvl 23 so far, but it is very fun. Race: Kahjiit Spent the first few levels farming heavy armor skill to get the Fists of Steel perk and yes, my mage wears heavy armor gauntlets and boots. Her spell power was weak at first, but the main reason I did this anyways was that anything I couldn't kill with spells, I can finish off with my fists. I keep in inventory a heavy helm and armor to swap out with my robe and hood. Toss in my shouts now and there are very few things that can kill me... Thanks to haevy armor farming, I have good restorative skill and I'm getting into orcish smithing. I'm working my progress somewhat similar to Robaz's "Badass viking" tutorial, so my goal is Daedric Armor. I may not be able to max out the magic trees, but it's fun punching a dragon to death as a mage :3

So this means that the bound swords also benefit from the one hand skill perks? Do they build one hand skill as you use them, or just conjuration? I was thinking of going this route as well for the soul trap and atronach bane perks. My mage is still in infancy tho, so not too late for me to change if this turns out to be teh suck.

Don't know how to get those off your quest register... but for the Keep, did you use your quest log to show the quest location on your map? It should be that when looking at your quest log, click to 'activate' the quest (puts an arrow on it similar to when you've selected an active power) and at the bottom of the screen it'll show you a button to "show on map". Then it'll pull up your map automatically and show an icon that looks like a doorway with an arrow pointing into it. If the location is inside a dungeon or town, you'll have to go in there first and follow the icon on your compass.