Does he join me after the quest to reclaim his sword or do I have to clear his name first?

Fuck, no wait, it's not him. It's the soldier wearing a pink armor (yeah...), this guy, Hugo Montesque : http://img15.hostingpics.net/pics/214792wtf.jpg He's the only one looking like this throughout the whole game. I don't remember the exact location where you first meet him, but it's very early in the game. When I fire him I can find him back in Hillbrandt, in front of the Brotherhood building.

Oh yep, he just randomly approached me and offered to join. I think the trigger is talking to d'Arvias. He's only lv. 7 (i'm 10 and my dog is 11), so I'm not sure how useful he'll be, but more meatshields are always good.

Companions in this game are just that, meat shields. But that's still very useful when playing as a priest. The one you'll get once you reach the highest rank is actually really useful, as he can paralyze enemies, but he is slow as fuck and you will sometimes have to wait for him before moving to another area.

Ooh, that does sound handy. But yeah, as a Priest I can use all the meatshields I can get. I imagine as a Pally they're a lot less important. In other news, my Wisdom and spell skills are getting high enough that I can cast spells with decent regularity, although I still use Seals against tougher enemies for the enhanced DPS.

Speaking of which, skill question: Do you gain new Mastery Levels of skills as soon as you reach the requirements for it or does it require training by an NPC or somesuch?

EDIT: Also, does anyone know what Curse does? I assume it's a debuff of some sort, but all it says in the spell description is that it Curses, not what the Curse condition actually does. Wondering about Intoxication as well.

No need for training, once you reach the required rank you're good to go.

I think Curse only lowers some stats, not sure which since when I or one my companions were cursed I could only see "neg effect : curse" under their portrait. Same goes for Intoxication. I never really bothered studying those obscure effects since they don't last very long. The others such as slow, poison etc... well it's obvious what their purpose is.