Tag Archives: Elder Scrolls

From Garn’s recollections:

My memory of this time has faded significantly though I still fondly recall the quieter parts of my journey though Cyrodiil. Making my way on horseback slowly across great shimmering fields of blowing grass and wildflower, the fresh air tickling my nostrils, without barely a care in the world.

“Another dark, rainy day in jolly old Eng… Cyrodiil.”

Not everything was so enjoyable, however, as during the several months I spent exploring and mapping Cyrodiil much time was spent in and around many of the less the desirable areas of the world – ancient, haunted ruins, beast filled caves, and bandit camps. The threat of attack was a nearly constant reminder of the deadly nature of my task.

“The only good imp is a dead imp.”

If I recall I rode north from Bravil, past the Imperial City, and through Eastern Bruma first, finding some interesting new sites amongst the frigid forests. I then circled back around to the west and to Skingrad to record my previous findings in the area.

Along the way I hunted for my food and bedded down in the occasional abandoned camp site or amongst the worshipers at various shrines. When convenient I’d stop at cities and villages in order to clean myself up, sell my wares, sleep in a comfortable bed, and actually eat a good meal.

“Sometimes when you can’t find an abandoned camp to sleep at you have to abandon one yourself.”

While at this time, not knowing much about my own origins nor my current status regarding the assassination of the Emperor, I continued to avoid much conversation about who I was and what I was doing. Still, a traveler spotted one of my maps while I was paying for an inn room and inquired about my profession. Another man, an alchemist by the name of Sinderion, propositioned me with an additional task – a hunt for a specific, exotic herb that grows near water all around Cyrodiil. Given that I was already going to be exploring and, from time to time, gathering herbs I accepted his offer.

I had actually obtained the Nirnroot quest much earlier but didn’t see Sinderion until around this time. I already had enough Nirnroot for the first three parts of the chain and gathered the rest during the rest of my journey.

“Say hello to my little friend… summoned daedra!”

I continued west past Kvatch, though I didn’t stop to pay a visit at the city proper. There many strange goings-on in the area immediately surrounding the city and there were even rumors speaking of an evacuation. Some rumors spoke of such unbelievable things as Daedric invasion but many, more believably, suggested a plague. As I neared the city something was obviously a miss so I avoided it for the time being and continued onward, along the road, to Anvil.

“Another pleasant day in Kvatch.”

Something in Anvil jogged my memory. I had definitely been here before but further recollection was beyond me. I spent only a few hours in the town before heading out into the northern wilderness.

“Hey, I can see my house from here!”

Making my way back east through Kvatch and into Chorrol I encountered quite a few deadly beasts such as trolls, minotaurs, and of course various species of imp. There were some very tough fights around this time but I was able to get myself out of every bad situation, thankfully.

I avoided spending too much in Chorrol itself, only stopping at the local Mage’s Guild to purchase some new spells. Weynon Priory, where I was supposed to meet Jauffre regarding the Emperor, was close by and I wanted to avoid it for now.

“Winter Driving Advisory: Poor visibility ahead.”

I continued back through Bruma, this time traveling through the northern mountains before stopping at the city itself. Around this time I stirred a great frost titan while exploring the area immediately around a rocky cave, and had to run for my life. The frost titan, in a rage, pursued me all of the way back to the city where it took a large number of the city’s best men to finally slay the beast. Quite scary.

Frost titans are some tough mofos. I ended up kiting him into Bruma hoping the guards would dispatch him but when they appeared to be losing I upped the cheese factor a bit and drug him directly into one of the guard barracks rooms in the castle. A dozen pissed off guards including a captain resulted in almost instant death.

“Bullfighting Bruma style.”

I made my way through upper Cheydinhal, past the Imperial City once more, and make a quick stop at Bravil once again. The cartographer was delighted by my progress though I wouldn’t let him take any of my work just yet.

I continued south through the city of Leyawiin, along the coast, and back north through the deadly swamps until I arrived back at the Imperial City, my journey complete.

“Sinderion has the good shit.”

Of course, I made one more trip to Bravil to receive my payment and then headed back to Skingrad to present the alchemist with his “Nirnroot”.

Although this lengthy undertaking didn’t help jostle my memory as much as I had hoped I certainly had much in the way of opportunity to improve my combat skills, both in magic use and in swordsmanship. Feeling stronger, the next step in my preparation was to earn more funds. Most cities had odd jobs to take so figured I’d start there, in Skingrad.

“Riding off into the sunset.”

I managed to make it to level 15 by the time my quest was over. I was shooting for more along the lines of 20, though riding on horseback for most of my journey allowed me to avoid many of the confrontations that would have helped me skill up. The trade off was worth it though as I’m dying to kick this Oblivion campaign into some of the more interesting stuff – you know, actual quests and the like. 😉

From the journals of Garn:

With my various bags now bulging with loot I decide to head back to the city to lighten my load a bit. I figure that it might be best to head for the bustling Market District of the Imperial City to barter my wares – more shops, more money, and less of a chance of anyone raising an eyebrow about the origin of any of my goods. I head to a seedy little tavern in Skingrad to drink an ale and plot my course. With my tattered road map rolled across the bar I plan out a path that will take me through some more territory I’ve yet to explore before eventually reaching the capital.

As I had hoped my journey takes me through many relaxing scenes dotted with the occasional desolate ruin. Beautiful fields of tall, blowing grass and wild flowers, herbs and other valuable spell reagents abound, and not even as much bother by the usual variety of wild predators that I seem to always be finding myself having to fight off. A peaceful day so far.

“Ewwwwwwww…”

Eventually I come across a small but well stocked bandit camp nestled in the hills and decide to go on the offensive. I drop some of my bags by a boulder and creep stealthily into their camp, killing them one by one as quietly as possible, looting as I go. Don’t get me wrong, these bandits would have attacked me if they had spotted me first and I would have ended up fighting them regardless but my attitude towards killing has definitely changed since the day I left my cell. My blade just feels right in my hand and I’m starting to forget that I ever went a moment without feeling the tickling warmth of a flame spell dancing in my palm.

“Time for some Sam Fisher style shit!”

As I travel further I eventually encounter a small compound nestled in a valley in what seems like a very isolated location deep in the forest south of the Imperial City. It includes a large, perhaps once fairly nice house and a small but well constructed chapel. This place, whatever it once was, has evidently gone unused for many years as the buildings are strewn with debris and the dust in the air is almost chokingly thick when stirred. This does seem like it might be a nice place to clean up and call home though. Actually, I really could use a base of operations. Somewhere to stash all of the belongings that I have been lugging around this entire time. I don’t know how comfortable I am attempting to lay claim to this place though.

“What kind of freaks live here? It reminds me of my old boarding school.”

I eventually journey north and find The Gold Road that runs between Skingrad and the capital. As night falls I find myself increasingly stalked by the threatening sounds of cracking twigs and other signs of movement just off of the sides of the road. My attempts to inconspicuously observe the source of these noises takes more and more of my time until I’m watching the tree line practically the entire time. That’s when I spot it – a large troll attempting to shadow me. I waste no time and blast it with a shot of flame before drawing my sword and shield and dashing towards the beast. After a quick battle I’ve bested him. Feeling pretty good about myself I continue down the road.

Suddenly, as a traveler that I had passed heading the opposite directly down the road slips out of view I find myself in the midst of an ambush. Another troll and, of all things, another gargoyle! I concentrate on the troll and quickly dispatch it but the gargoyle is relentless in its attacks and my attempts to dodge them begins to fail with increasing frequency. The traveler I had passed, perhaps hearing the commotion, runs to aid me, and another coming down the road towards us draws his blade and joins the fray. I summon a scamp minion and charge towards it.

“Everyone in this picture died at least once. It’s official, I hate gargoyles.”

The gargoyle is far too powerful. It quickly slays both of the travelers who attempted to aid me and has me on the run. Luckily I’m greeted by an imperial guardsman on patrol. With his assistance I’m finally able to whittle the creature down and dispatch it.

This was truly an epic fight. Not only did the Gargoyle kill both travelers and my scamp (multiple times) but as I ran up the road hoping to bump into a guard I was attacked by a spriggan and its bear minion as well. The guard actually took quite a while to dispatch the gargoyle. Wow… and on a major road too!

I finally reach the city and purchase a room for the night. The next morning I head into the busy streets of the Market District and peddle my wares to a variety of shopkeepers. By the time I’m done I’ve amassed several thousand gold. While I’m far from wealthy I’m certainly no longer in need of scraping together the meager profits from hunting mud crabs. In fact, with my gold pouch in hand I head over to the Office of Imperial Commerce where I hear they have a few vacant city houses for sale. After some careful consideration I decide to purchase a small house on the outskirts of the Waterfront District.

“…and I live in a shack down by the river!”

The neighborhood, while fairly rundown and low class for a part of the Imperial City, has its charms. For one, a great view of the lake. One could also swim the short distance across said lake to quickly reach the area south of the city. A admit the house itself has few amenities but I prefer the idea of owning my own place to that of crashing someone else’s house, seemingly deserted or not. The shack affords me a regular place to sleep while I’m in the area and, more importantly, a place to store my loot. I have plenty of loot as well, as I’ve yet to decide what to do with the majority of the magical items I’ve found throughout my travels so far. While many of these items are potentially worth quite a bit on the market they may be more valuable for me to keep around in the long run. With such an expensive collection locked away in my meager shack I make it a priority to spend several days repairing and securing my new house.

“My house is entirely full of other people’s stuff. Rent-A-Center eat your heart out!”

Soon enough it is time to head back out onto the road. I journey south down to the quiet port city of Bravil. At least I thought Bravil was quiet – as I near the front gate I arrive on the scene of a massive fight between an unusually large gang of bandits and some traveling adventurers. I’m quick to join in but not quick enough to save the adventurers, unfortunately.

I theorize that this unusually large random battle was made up of a chance combination of 2 or 3 separate groups of bandits and 2 or 3 traveler NPCs.

“Have at thee, foul practitioners of banditry!”

I head into the city, visit a couple of shops, swing by the Great Chapel, and just generally take in the sights. While walking the streets I bump into a Breton scribe who, recognizing my garb to be that of an adventurer, offers me a job. He claims that he’s a budding cartographer and needs someone to scout out the locations of all of the ruins, caves, shrines, and other interesting landmarks around Cyrodiil. He offers me a flat fee per location of note discovered.

While the Breton’s fee isn’t remarkable it is steady work and I’m hoping that the long, hopefully interesting trip will present me with many opportunities to improve my skills and perhaps regain some of my memories. A trip of self discovery, perhaps? He offers me writing utensils and parchment which I place along with those that I already use for my own personal maps and, of course, this journal. I purchase a horse from Bay Roan Stables and, as quickly as I arrived, leave Bravil to begin my journey.

“Where I keep my stuff.”

As I head north I take one, long last look at the White Gold Tower of the Imperial City and reflect upon the last wishes of the Emperor. I will embark upon his quest soon enough but first I must complete my own tasks in order to prepare for the possible consequences of facing his Blades. I briefly wonder what kind of debates and discussions are taking place in the great halls of Cyrodiil regarding the future of the throne. I wonder if Baurus, the only surviving Emperor’s Guard, reported what I had told him the emperor said about his heir. Did the powers of the empire wait impatiently for my arrival – did they even know of my existence?

Obvious to most Oblivion players but this cartographer’s quest doesn’t actually exist. I just made it up. Why? Just felt like it.

I think I’m too anal to not have all of those little icons all over the map like they should be. “Discovering” them is basically what I’ve been doing up to now anyway, I might as well go all out and indeed it should help bolster my levels before embarking on any real quests. As an added bonus it should make traveling to them when I actually feel like I’m capable of doing more dungeon crawls a breeze.

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!