The tale of the polymorphed battlemage

I was in a dungeon, following the trace of a renegade Battlemage that had supposedly betrayed his guild. It was obviously that same organisation that had sent me after him: the dreaded Dark Brotherhood...

Once they had already given me a similar task, and I had had no problem whatsoever in finding my prey, for he was locked up in a cage... so I thought even this quest would be an easy one. The mission, as usual, was proving a little boring: I had explored a great deal of the maze and killed scores of monsters and humans as well, but none of them seemed to be the guy I was looking for. Then I came upon a complex set of pits and holes, with elevators commanded by levers. I opted for an easier solution and jumped right into one of them... with my levitate spell active, obviously, just to find out that my way was blocked by a wall of solid stone.

I examined it more carefully and realised that behind it there was some sort of mechanism to move it. I tried one of the levers... and it worked! The wall slided behind giving me access to another part of the dungeon; I was confident I could find my man in there, so I boldly proceeded. To my dismay, though, most of the elevators and holes I came upon led to dead ends, then I noticed I had foolishly overlooked a side opening.

"There you are, no doubt" I thought. I followed a short corridor and entered a small room... it was empty, except for a vicious rat gnawing some bones... My anger was overwhelming me, and in a fit of rage I cut the animal in two with my Dai-Katana. Just before it could exhale its last breath, it spoke!!! "I am not the traitor... the real traitor is..." It was indeed the Battlemage I was sent to kill!!! I don't know what, in this encounter, disappointed me the most, the fact I had reached my goal more by pure luck than by my wits, the warning that something fishy was going on in the Dark Brotherhood (in the Battlemage's last words there had to be a grain of truth)... or that the renegade could cast a spell of Polymorph, even if he could only change himself into a common rat: I always longed for transforming myself in a crow, as the wizards of the Mages Guild assured me I could...

* Writer's note: now I know that the Spell Maker effect Polymorph does not work, but I felt really bad the first time I tried and nothing happened.*