A member of an order called the Keymasters of Aetherius, Sariel is on a mission to find artifacts of the god Magnus and strengthen her knowledge of magic in service to him. While on route to investigate a cave system near to Solitude, she was apprehended by Thalmor agents. Wearing the robes of a Priest of Talos, she was arrested and sent to the Imperial Jail in Cyrodiil under the charge of being a Talos worshipper.
After the shipwreck she and her fellow captives survived, she endeavored on a journey to reconnect with her group and find her way back to Solitude to find the answers she was truly after in the first place.
Upon arriving in Solitude she spoke with the leader of her organization, a man calling himself Zurin Arctus, and learned of the Staff of Magnus. It had once been housed in a museum in Solitude but was now missing and possibly in the hands of a group of Altmer thieves and assassins named the Summerset Shadows.