I recently went through the long chain to cure my paladin from vampirism, because a holy man cant be the spawn of the devil : P
Linktook a very long time, for one I couldn't find any empty grand soul gems, so I had to go through the mage guild quest to gain access to the arcane university, more or less the only place I know of where grand soul gems are obtainable at lower levels. then.
On the vampire dust secton of the quest I encountered an enchanted mace wielding footman vampire, said mace reduced my strength to a horribly low level, thus forcing me drop my gear for the ability to move (excluding my 1h axe, a shield and some health pots)
Upon reaching the "Boss" room, he immediately ran to my gear cache, picked up my huge enchanted 2h axe and swung away, after about an half an hour of Hit-shield-potion-shield-hit he finally fell.
I then had to bring the ingredients to the witch, go to a temple to cure my strength loss, return the vampire cave to get my gear back, and then finally, I got my cure. Took a good 2 and a half days of work that did, all done at level 8-10 (with duped health and mana pots and enchanted unique vendor gear)