Very early on during my questing in Oblivion I managed to contract Vampirism. I wasn’t aware that it was even possible at the time I got the disease, so I didn’t bother trying to cure it. It wasn’t until the light started burning me as I exited the Rielle caves that I knew something had gone horribly wrong. Over time I noticed I could feed on unsuspecting npcs to allow me to operate in normality for a few more days.

Finally I managed to start the horrendous quest (when I told my friend I’d been on the quest to find the cure he told me that it’s common knowledge that if you contract Vampirism you may as well start cheating, since the quest is a pain) to find a cure for my Vampirism. However, the first things required of me were 5 empty grand soul gems.

Being a very humble level 3 or so when I started this quest (I’m currently only a level 8) I had an extremely difficult time locating them. Here are the locations in which I found mine:

1 free one is located under the burnt out fireplace that leads to Melisande’s (the lady who actually requested the 5 Grand Soul gems from you) basement in Drakelowe.

1 free one is located behind a skeleton guard at the end of the Squandered Mine that’s on the hill northeast of Melisande’s house (the hill directly behind her house, you should be able to jump up it gradually.)

1 was purchased from The Mystic Emporium in the market district of Imperial City.

And the last two were purchased from the Bravil and Leyawiin Mages Guilds respectively. A good quick tip to purchase them from the Mage’s guilds if you don’t have any gold is to loot all of the books, silver, crystal balls and apparatuses located around the massive gold mines that are the various rooms in the Mage’s guild.

Hopefully this information is helpful and saves somebody all of the trouble I had.

Happy questing!