My lvl 29 character is having a hard time finding empty soul gems. Most vendor's soul gems are already filled, usually with a lower soul, and it's been slim pickin's in dungeons, forts, etc. I've cleaned out all the mages guilds. (Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places?)

Anyway, is there a mod that empties them?

Yes, http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/41676

Or better yet, try http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/35393 that makes soul gems act like how they should in the first place.

Oh man I'd never run across that mod.

And of course, its by TheNiceOne.

I tried d/l and installing both mods (the one you linked to and the one referred to by the mod dev http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/2529). However, no spell at the Mystic Emporium in the IC with either mod. Tried moving the latter mod up to the just below the unofficial patch (wyre bash), still doesn't work.

Are you talking with "Calindil at the Market District of Imperial City?"

Don't know what you meant by "talking with." He has two merchant choices - spells and merchandise. There's no spell that empties soul gems. (The dialog options are "Imperial City" and "Rumors.")

I meant talking with as in trading with the correct NPC. I'm not sure what your problem may be if it's not showing up there.

In wrye bash, I right-clicked on empty soul gems 2529.esp, clicked on mod cleaning\scan for dirty edits and got this: "This is a report of records that were detected as either identical to master (ITM) or a deleted reference (UDR). Detected one dirty mods: empty soul gems-2529.esp: UDR: 0, ITM: 1, Oblivion.esm: 02C163"