Who knew?

Completing "an apprentice task" will cause you to fail "the curse of magic." Go figure. It ought to fail you for giving your first item to the apprentice, just to keep me from wasting time and effort...

Yeah that is always a bummer

Yeah that is always a bummer the first time you find that out. Here is what fails that mission:

Completing "an apprentice task"
-using a rod/wand besides rod of recall
-using runes
-receiving an escort reward talent that gives you positive, negative, or mana

actually its alright to

actually its alright to complete a escort that gives you a mana, pos, or neg bar. As long as you dont use the skill that gave you that bar.