[Hayashi]

After spending some time with MW, I hope someone can clarify some questions I have on the game.

Thus far I've completed most (all?) of the quests in Seyda Neen, and am about to leave for Balmora:

a. Did Flatfoot's quest re: Fargoth
b. Did taxman's murder quest
c. Found the "flying mage" with scrolls of icarus
d. Cleared out the bandit cave & freed the slaves (man, that mage almost *killed* me)

My questions:

- are the prices set by the trainers fixed, or dependent on the character's mercantile/personality scores?
- do different trainers (for the same skill) set the same price, or do prices differ?
- does training improve the score for that particular attribute by just *one* point, or is it a random number? (If just by one point, gosh, I'll need a lot of gold!!)
- is there more to combat than just standing still trading blows?
- why does eating alchemy ingredients sometimes fail? I can understand why making potions depends on alchemy skill, but surely *eating* ingredients should be an automatic success? I almost drowned in the pool in the bandit cave.
- is it a good idea to explore some of the ancestral tombs now, or leave it to later (i.e. after gaining a few levels)?
- ditto for the outlying islands (I'm not sure if I can swim *that* far)
- how does one swim anyway, as opposed to walking on the sea floor?
- what's the diff b/w drakes & septims?

Thanks.