Category Archives: Story Time

From the journals of Garn:

After my very exciting first night in Skingrad I’m gently woken by the bright morning sunlight and the sound of singing birds chirping merrily outside of my window. I gear up, purchase some fresh fruit from the tavern keeper to eat throughout the morning, and after a quick visit to a few of the city’s shops, am on my way.

I had decided to continue traveling, without much of a goal, towards the northwest. As expected I come across a few odd caves, shrines, and ruins, but, as usual, decide to steer clear of exploring them due to the almost guaranteed chance of them inhabiting vile bandits or, worse yet, monsters or beasts. Instead I take the opportunity to forage and hunt and only have to worry about the occasional encounter with wandering creatures and bandits. After a particularly painful fight against a group of bandits who attempted to ambush me while hunting wolves I decide to head back to he city to rest.

“Admiring Skingrad out of the reach of its psychotic guards.”

After spending the afternoon and much of the evening recuperating I decide yet again to head out. This time I decide that it would probably be wiser to stick to the roads. As I start out on the western road from Skingrad I’m surprised to be almost immediately ambushed by highwaymen. These bandits are either very confident in their abilities or very stupid to be setting up camp so close to a known route of frequent imperial patrols. After a quick but violent battle I soon find my answer – stupidity. I loot their valuables and continue down the road leaving a trail of corpses strewn behind me.

“Garn: Exterior decorator extraordinaire!”

I come to a small cave nestled right beside the road and let my spirit of adventure take hold. What harm could a quick poke around cause? As the cobbled together wooden door of the cave creaks open and my eyes adjust to the darkness of the narrow corridor I immediately know that this place is most likely still inhabited. I encounter a few imps but nothing that can’t be easily dispatched until, that is, I reach what appears to be the treasure room of the cave. It is guarded by a fearsome gargoyle and it takes every ounce of my ability, both as a magician and a swordsman, to defeat it. Upon reaching the treasure chest the beast was guarding I come across a grizzly sight…

“Sometimes you really don’t need to use a spell or ability to know when a chest is trapped.”

The gargoyle, luckily, kept getting stuck on the geometry of the door between the room he was in and the corridor I occupied, making this fight much easier than it probably should have been.

As I fill my bags with what is, ultimately, an unimpressive selection of items I note that the entire corridor opposite me has a very, very high ceiling, yet the corridor walls only reach a third or so of the way up – there’s a second level to this cavern! I search for nooks, hidden passages, and any other ways to access this second floor that I might have missed but come across nothing. Annoyed, I leave the cave and continue on the western road.

I had only walked a short while before I spotted the tell tale sign of grey smoke winding slowly against the near black sky. As I approach its origin it becomes clear that I have found a second entrance to the cave system that I had just been in. I swing the cave door open to be greeted by a giant bonfire burning fiercely in a rather large, and of course smoky, chamber. I encounter many more creatures, mostly varieties of imp, and as I venture deeper into the cavern the system of chambers becomes more and more elaborate.

Perhaps it should be noted that in OOO there are many varieties of imp, including crazed imps, mystical imps, and the rather tough gargoyles.

“At this point I’m wishing this were a steampunk game so I could just hop on the fucking mine tram.”

When I finally reach what I’m sure is the last treasure room of the structure I face yet another gargoyle. This time, however, it pulls an unusual trick. After trading blows with it for sometime the creature simply disappears – unlike most forms of invisibility magic that I have witnessed there is absolutely no trace of the fiend save for the pain of his fiery magic and its small but extremely sharp claws. I make a few wild swings towards what seems to be the origin of the sound of its leathery wings flapping but hit only air – I have no recourse but to run for my life. Indeed, I’m bleeding badly, struggling to keep pace when I unexpectedly trip on a rock and tumble head first into a small creek that runs through the middle of one of the larger chambers. The unpleasantly cold temperature of the water is actually rather sobering. As I snap to my senses I somehow make out a source of light shining through cloudy sediment filled water coming from upstream, under the rocky walls of the room. It is a risky maneuver but I decide to swim for it.

Note that as far as I know this gargoyle turning invisible was a glitch. It almost seemed like he was stuck in the ceiling, below the floor, or something odd like that. He followed me wherever I went, was able to damage me, and I couldn’t seem to lay a finger on him. Role playing aside, running away really was my only option!

“Crap! If I drowned now I won’t even be able to get a good screenshot of my corpse.”

After a short swim I finally make it to another open room. I drag myself out of the frigid water and tend to my wounds. This was a close one. As I search my knapsack for a vial of healing potion I hear the distinct snarl of a wolf echoing through the chamber. I jump up to my feet and pull my sword from its scabbard but see nothing. I cautiously creep through the chamber until I see a smaller, connecting room that is chock full of unpleasant looking creatures.

The wolf immediately catches my scent and darts towards me, joined by two mystical imps. This is no normal wolf, however, but some sort of spectral wolf. My blows do little to harm it and soon I’m forced to retreat back into the water. The wolf, crazed by the taste of my blood, perhaps, dives in after me. Luckily the creature cannot maneuver in the water as well as I can and after a long, tedious battle I’m able to slay him. I emerge from the water to do battle with the imps. Finally, it is only myself and a lone gargoyle left. I summon a scamp to aid me and quickly pepper the gargoyle with a barrage of flame spells. Although it takes quite some time, with my magic all but depleted, I finally slay the creature.

I certainly have no plans to chronicle every fight Garn gets into but this one was amazing. The entire fight probably took me over 30 minutes of trial and error, reloading, etc. The wolf, the imps, and especially the gargoyle were all extremely challenging and obviously intended as an encounter for higher level characters than I was at the time.

“I see your green glow… thing… and raise you incineration!”

There are three chests in this room and each one is filled with more impressive loot than the last – all manner of magic items and other, miscellaneous valuables. That hard fight is suddenly all worth it.

Note that I turned off OOO’s security skill requirements in order to loot these chests. I understand and appreciate the idea of the change but given my limited play schedule it seemed like it would be far too much trouble to have to worry about raising my security skill before ever being able to loot anything.

If you don’t already recognize my vague description of this place it is Fyrelight Cave. I actually set OOO’s leveling rate back to Oblivion’s default rate after going so long without leveling (again, taking my play schedule into mind) and managed to gain 3 levels entirely in Fyrelight!

Again, apologies for the crummy screenshots. They’ll return back to being a little better setup and shot with the next update.

“…but I did stay at a Faregyl Inn Express last night!”

From Garn’s recollections:

After leaving Hircine’s shrine I needed to bed down for the night and decided to head back towards civilization. After a short while I found a road and soon came upon a small inn where at I purchased a room for the night. The next morning I chatted briefly with the locals one of which recognizing me as an adventuring type asked if I’d find some potatoes that had just been stolen from her. She claimed she saw the thief running away through the woods but didn’t dare to pursue him herself. A bandit, eh? No problem. Hell, I figured it was probably a hungry kid and I wouldn’t even need to draw my blade to get her stuff back.

“Take that, potato snatching pervent!”

I left the inn and headed west through the forest. After not having much luck I took a seat on a hill to catch my breath and maybe eat a little when I noticed a strange figure in the distance. I quickly threw down my half eaten apple, grabbed my sword, and began to cautiously work my way back down the hill towards it. Once I got a little closer I recognized the huge, muscular, grotesque creature instantly – it was an ogre.

Unfortunately I had little time to prepare. A twig snapped beneath my feet and the ogre spun around towards me. It was no time and charged towards me. Although the ogre possessed great strength it was no match for my speed and dexterity. After searching its corpse I was surprised to find the potatoes in one of his belt pouches. The people at Faregyl Inn were lucky all this ogre did was a little pilfering.

“Some people just REALLY don’t want girl scout cookies.”

After returning the stolen potatoes to the Khajiit at the inn I decided to continue heading west through the forest. As usual I picked herbs, skinned some wolves and even a few bears, made note of but steered clear of a few caves, ruins, and other bandit habitats.

I soon came upon a secluded house nestled inside of a small valley. The house appeared to be abandoned so I decided to take a closer look and quietly entered. As I took a look around at the sparsely decorated, dusty den I overheard a conversation coming from upstairs. Oops! I crept back towards the door but froze when I noticed the voices suddenly stop – had they heard me? The very next moment two bandits were rushing towards me, weapons drawn. As it was quite evident that these weren’t simply protective homeowners I did not hesitate to defend myself. After slaying both I looted their corpses and picked the house clean of valuables of which there were few.

“Ahhh, beautiful, scenic end-of-map.”

Next I wandered far south. So far south, in fact, that my herbs and prey seemed to dry up entirely. As night fell I was quite lost in this desolate part of the forest but soon spotted some far off lights and made my way towards them. I did not know if I was approaching friend or foe but as I got closer and saw the silhouettes of a massive ruined temple of some sort I began to suspect the latter. Luckily when I finally came upon the source of the lights, a couple of torch bearing travelers, they turned out to be peaceful pilgrims coming back from a visit to a nearby shrine. I followed them as they made their way along the path back to their town and soon found myself entering Skingrad.

“Off to see the wizard! The wizard… err…’s guild.”

I had heard of Skingrad while in prison. Many of the wines that are found in and around Cyrodiil originate here though I know little else about it. The city seems to be almost entirely walled and I quickly observed that there were an abundance of guards on patrol.

As I spoke to a few locals out in the street I suddenly found myself under attack as an arrow glanced off of my shoulder armor. Thankfully before I even spun around several of the aforementioned guards were pursuing the criminal and quickly slew him. I have no idea why I was under attack – was this an accident, perhaps a case of mistaken identity, or was I the target of a failed assassination attempt?

“Hot guard on guard action.”

I didn’t have time to reflect on this, however, as the guards soon started to turn on each other. What was this? Conspiracy? When the dust settled two guards had been cut down in the streets. I’ve no ill will towards the guards nor the people of Skingrad but opportunity knocked and I looted the downed guardsmen after the public grew disinterested in the scene.

Wow, I’ve only been in this city for few minutes and I’ve already stumbled across some strange, strange stuff.

As Elder Scrolls veterans might suspect the guards were attacking each other because of some friendly fire while they were trying to catch the thief NPC. Oops! Nice loot though.

Apologies in advance for the less than spectacular screenshots this time around. It had been so long since I did one of these that I apparently forgot what the hell I was doing.

“It can be hard to squeeze through the crowds in the capital’s bustling market district.”

From Garn’s recollections:

I entered the Imperial City and began looking for shops at which to offload some of the loot I had gathered. I admit, I was rather paranoid at first walking through the crowded city streets but soon enough I discovered that few people were taking much note of me. “Just another damn adventurer!” I’m sure many of them thought. As my nervousness decreased I found myself testing the waters a bit by going out of my way to strike up conversations with citizens and even the odd guard. Other than a little concerned chatter about the death of the Emperor everything seemed to be pretty normal.

I soon found myself in the Market District where I was able to sell my herbs, pearls, and other miscellaneous looted items to various shop keepers. After a stack of magic scrolls caught my eye I, at a shop keeper’s suggestion, purchased a couple of scrolls of conjuration to study. I decided that it would be in my best interest not to stick around too long to avoid raising any eyebrows and, after renting a room in a nice inn for the night, headed back out into the wilderness.

Since I made a fair amount of gold I decide to continue on my path of gathering herbs and pearls and hunting a bit. I decided to circle the Imperial City yet again only this time cutting a much wider swath out away from the road in order to hunt bigger prey than the simple mud crabs I had been fighting. Things went as expected – plenty of herbs to pick and the occasional wolf to skin all while practicing my new spells along the way. It was pretty uneventful, enjoyable even, and I temporarily let my worries drift away from me.

“This dude was apparently sick on the day his order had the class on how to kill weak ass goblins.”

Since I was feeling a bit more confident about my ability to defend myself I chose to head back into the goblin infested cave south of the city that I had fled from earlier. This time I managed to make it to the very end of the cave killing several more goblins. Along the way I found the remains of a few slain knights who evidently weren’t as lucky as I was. Knowing nothing of their order I pieced together some of their superior equipment for my own purposes hoping that it wouldn’t get me any unwanted attention later on. Overall, despite a few close brushes with death, this new expedition was quite a success.

I believe these dead Dragonborne Knights were added by Oscuro’s Oblivion Overhaul though I don’t know if they serve any purpose save for additional flavor and some helpful loot.

After this little excursion I decided to continue on my trek through the woods around the city. I came across a few interesting sites, such as a shrine devoted to someone named Clavicus Vile, surrounded by his somewhat odd followers. I also came across many more abandoned ruins and shrines which I tended to avoid rather than to explore due to my earlier observations about them often being inhabited by bandits and other unsavory types.

“Eeny, meeny…”

After a short period of time I wandered into an unusual scene – two rather large minotaurs violently attempting to wrangle what appeared to be a unicorn. Upon spotting me the minotaurs threw down their ropes and diverted all attention towards me. Getting the distinct feeling that I was interupting something I wasn’t supposed to have seen I attempted to flee but it was only a matter of time before the massive, muscular minotaurs caught up to me. A vicious battle ensued and I, somehow, came out the victor. Only remembering vague legends about unicorns I decided it would be best if I steered clear of the beast and be on my way.

The truth is while I have no idea how OOO has leveled the unicorn I highly doubt I can kill it. It is unclear to me how the Unicorn is regarded in Elder Scrolls lore and if someone such as the currently mostly good Garn would even consider killing it. I also don’t want to ride it and have its unpredictable, psychopathic ass permanently bound to me as my mount. Argh, damn annoying creature.

“No matter how hard I try I never find these pagan shrines in the woods in REAL life!”

Soon I encountered another active shrine in the wilderness. This one was surrounded by a small group of people who were obviously hunters judging by their garb. They seem accepting of me at first but soon insisted that if I truly considered myself a hunter I should make a sacrifice to their patron Hircine the huntsman. Having spent the last several days in secluded forests living off of the land by hunting animals and picking herbs I wondered if finding this shrine was something other the chance. Perhaps I should indeed pay my dues for, at the very least, continued success.

As I laid a wolf’s pelt at the feet of the statue of Hircine I was startled as a voice spoke to me. It asked me to hunt down and slay the very unicorn that I had aided earlier that day. Now this definitely cannot be coincidence! From the way I was contacted to the way the voice worded his statements pieces were starting to come together. Another foggy fragment of my memory returned – Hircine must be a Daedra! The Daedra are powerful beings from another realm who often dabble in our own world. A few people worship them as Gods though they’re usually considered to be evil and therefore Daedra worship is outlawed in many areas.

As I said my farewells to the other hunters it was apparent that they could tell that I had been contacted and seemed rather impressed though I doubt they suspected that, for better or worse, I would not be honoring their master’s request…