Last time on Oblivion
Adventures, Shush’Ogar met surprisingly competent resistance on his latest
relic-snatching heist. They were all nonetheless turned into unsurprisingly dead resistance, at least as far as he
could tell. We rejoin our orcish adventurer back in the imperial city...
De elf wit de ice cream cone hair did a gasp when Shush walked in de
room wit his fancy square of rock.
“You’ve done it!” he said. “You’ve actually managed to recover the high
fane! Magnificent! May I please see it?”
Shush handed over de rectangle-thingy covered in squiggly lines an de
fancy elf seemed real happy about dat. He turned it over in his hands a bunch
an traced de lines, mumblin to himself under his breath.
“Astounding, absolutely incredible, this is just...” de elf paused an
looked up. “Is that blood?”
“Oh, yah Shush guess so. It were safe in Shush’s bag, but Shush still
got some a de stuff on him.” Shush held out a hand dat were covered in blood
all crusty-like.
“O-oh.” Said de elf, carefully placin de carvin on de table. “So there
was something dangerous guarding the panel then?”
“Nah, just some angry ghosts. No problem” said Shush cheerfully. “De
real tough fight were wit dat Cloud-Marry guy.”
“Claude Maric?” said de elf, his face goin all white.
“Dat’s de one!” said Shush, tryin ta tap his nose, missin an hittin his
cheek. “He found Shush leavin de ruins place an he said he and a buncha other
guys would hurt Shush unless Shush gave him de panel ting. Don’t worry doe!”
Shush said, seein de elf’s expression. “Shush have been doin dis adventurin
ting for a while, an Shush knows wot dat means.” Shush leaned down conspiratorially.
“It mean dat de Cloud-Marry guy were actually
a bad guy, so it were okay for Shush to smash him!”
Ah, the morals of
adventurers. Won’t see that shit on Blue’s Clues.
“Um...yes” said de elf distantly, not lookin at Shush. “Good,
er...logic. So, ah...your pay! Right right, your pay.” De elf fumbled in his
desk for a bit, den pulled out a bag of gold coins. He handed it ta Shush, de
coins janglin a bit on account of him shakin.
“Okey, thanks for all de money an stuff!” said Shush as he were turnin
around to leave. But den de elf guy spoke up again.
“Wait! I have...one more job for you. It’ll pay far more than the other
ones.”
Shush turned around. “Oh cool! Will anyone try ta kill Shush dis tie?
Cause dat were real annoyin.”
De elf shook his head quick-like. “Nonono, nothing like that. And I
apologize you had to go through that. I, erm, never could’ve predicted he’d do
such a thing.” De elf coughed. “No, what I need you to do now is accompany me
on a journey into one final ruin. The throne of the last Aylied king lies there.
If you can get me inside, you may have whatever you want from his treasure
vault. Gold, jewels and more, I assure you there will be plenty.”
I’m actually skipping an
intermediary step where you steal an Aylied crown from Umbaccano’s rival, but I’m
doing that for a reason. Absolutely nothing interesting happens in the quest,
it’s just a matter of waiting until nightfall, unlocking the door to their
house in the city and grabbing the crown. Best we just cut to the chase.
“Well den what is you waitin for?” said Shush. “C’mon elf-y man, let’s
go!”
De elf blinked. “I don’t mean right this second! Aren’t you tired?”
“Nah, it’s only been a few weeks.”
Umbaccano looked at Shush wit a weird face. “Look, just go to an inn
and rest for the night. Meet me back here tomorrow morning and we’ll head out
to the ruins.”
“Gotcha” said Shush, turning to de door again.
De elf shouted at Shush as he were leavin. “And for Auriel’s sake, wash
off some of the blood!”
***
Shush bought a bed in one a dose inn tings. It seemed like a waste of
shiny coins, on account of Shush havin a perfectly good bed in dat city by de water
dat weren’t even haunted no more. But dat were a couple days jump-walk away an
de fancy elf guy said dat Shush should be back in de mornin. Shush had hopped
in de river outside de city for a bit to get rid of all de blood an stuff, an
even got to smash a few mudcabs on de way, so he were feelin pretty good! Shush
laid down on de bed, clanky clothes shakin all noisy when he did, an tried ta
do dat sleep ting.
You see these so
rarely you forget what they look like.
...
...
...
“You sleep quite soundly for a mur-“
*SMACK*!
*CRASH*!
...
*Thump*!
***
The next morning, an imperial guardsman interviewed a very distraught
Augusta Calidia, proprietor of the Tiber Septim Hotel.
“Now ma’am, I’m going to need you to calm down” he said.
“Calm down?! There’s a corpse in my courtyard!” she shrieked.
“Ma’am, please. We won’t be able to help you if you can’t slow down and
CALMLY explain what you saw. Alright? Can you do that?”
The middle-aged, blonde Imperial woman nodded, taking deep breaths and
trying to hold her hands steady out in front of her. After a minute of this,
she looked back at the guard and continued in a more level tone of voice.
“I was coming out to water the plants, and I found this...man. I haven’t
touched the body, it’s just as you see now. Crumpled up in my begonias, dressed
in an all-black robe apart from...the stains. It looks like he fell out of the
window in the room above. Someone had booked the room last night, a large orc
gentleman. He’s hard to miss, he had bright orange skin and a purple ponytail.
But he was gone by the time I discovered...all this.”
The guard nodded, writing down her words on a notepad. He gestured with
his pencil to a puddle next to the corpse. “I presume the vomit is yours?”
“Yes” she said miserably. “I’m sorry I haven’t cleaned it up, but it’s
been a very hectic morning. How can you stomach to look at him? I mean, the
spine and...just...ugh.”
“I was at Kvatch, miss, I’ve seen much worse than this.” He looked
backed down and grimaced. “Although, not by much. Looks familiar, honestly.”
“Shouldn’t you send out a call for your fellow guards to apprehend that
orc?”
“Well, that all depends...ah, there you are, Captain Lex.”
Hieronymus Lex, one of the city watch captains, stepped between the
two. He was clad in the shining, gold trimmed armor typical of captains and
wearing a scowl on his face. But then, nothing was unusual about that.
“Alright soldier, this better be worth it. I was trailing a very
important lead concerning the Gray Fox, I’ll have you know.”
The guard rolled his eyes behind Lex’s back. “As you always are, sir.
But given that this is an actual, physical crime scene I’d prioritize it. When
I saw the cadaver I noticed it matched a description you once told me. Can you
confirm the identity?”
Lex grunted and knelt down in front of the body. He slipped on some
gloves and tilted the head by its chin to get a good look at the face. There
was a sharp intake of breath, and he was silent for a moment. Then he looked
back up at the guard with a sharp nod. “That’s Lachance, alright.”
Imagine this face but bloodier,
uglier and much DEADer.
Augusta looked back and forth between the guards. “Who’s that? Are you
going to arrest that orc or not?”
“He’s a member of the Dark Brotherhood” said Lex, continuing over her
gasp, “and a high-ranking one at that. At least, as far as we can tell. It’s
hard to get information on the world’s most infamous group of covert assassins.
We can probably guess why he was in some adventurer’s room at night. So rather
than arrest your orc, I’d say give him a medal.”
Hieronymus looked back down at the corpse. “Well, we would. But upon
reflection, I think we’ll all just keep our distance.”
***
So let’s take a minute to
clear things up for those who haven’t played Oblivion. The Dark Brotherhood is
essentially the Assassin’s Guild. You perform jobs killing people and they
reward you with money and unique loot. To gain membership, you have to murder
an innocent. When you do for the first
time, the game states that “Your killing has been observed by forces unknown.”
The next time you sleep, Lucien Lachance appears by your bed when you wake and
invites you to join the family. So the first question you may ask is: How did
Shush draw his attention?
Well, it’s actually for a
very stupid and very Oblivion reason.
You see, in the last quest where Claude Maric ambushed us, he’s supposed to get
away. After giving his speech he turns invisible and flees on his horse. Whether
he’s alive because he fled or because you gave him the panel, he shows up in
the final part of the quest with an annoying “no hard feelings” attitude. I
wasn’t about to let him get away with that (he was the only one I really wanted payback on, after all). So I
immediately targeted his not-actually-hard-to-see invisible getaway and made
short work of him. Fortunately, Bethesda wasn’t extremely stupid and let me
kill him. Unfortunately, they still left him tagged as an innocent civilian.
Poor guy, all he
wanted to do was brutally murder us for profit!
So one of our more
justified murders so far turns out to be arbitrarily criminal. But this may
lead to a second question: Why did I murder Lachance? Well first of all, I didn’t,
that asshole IS invincible*. But there are several reasons why Shush did. None
of them are because the questline is bad. In fact, the Dark Brotherhood
questline in Oblivion is a candidate for best in any Elder Scrolls game.
*Okay I looked it up, apparently he’s only invincible after you
complete his first quest. I just assumed from past experience.
As you might expect,
there’s a lot of skullduggery and betrayal that goes on before the end. What
you might not expect is some pretty amusing black humor throughout. Your fellow
assassins have a lot of personality compared to many of Oblivion’s NPCs, who
are often rather bland. They also delight in murder as much as, well, someone
playing a video game with no real-world consequences would. This is backed up
by the gameplay being equally engaging.
Quests in the Dark
Brotherhood always involve some level of scripting, people to circumvent or
plan around. There are always bonus conditions you can fulfill by killing a
contract in a certain way, netting you extra rewards. Some are quite inventive,
the high point being a quest entitled “Whodunit?” which is exactly what it
sounds like. You and five other people are trapped in a mansion for the night
and take place in a murder mystery where you’re
the murderer. It’s a premise that seems so tailor-made for video games I’m
surprised more haven’t tried it. It puts in effort too. All the victims have
different personalities and react differently to their housemates dying, and there’s
a bonus for killing everyone without them catching on.
Of course this is still
Oblivion we’re talking about. Plenty of the quests are buggy, awkwardly
implemented, or annoyingly scripted. The mechanics aren’t robust enough to
allow anything too crazy, the combat is still average, and the writing won’t win
any awards. But it’s simply a fun time, and when I’m asked to think of my
favorite quests in these games it usually springs to mind...which is why it
would be a terrible idea to write about it. It’s very hard to make fun of
something that’s already funny and interesting. On top of that, Shush’s
personality doesn’t gel with the comedic psychopathy of the Brotherhood.
Perhaps most importantly, this series is already going to run pretty long as it
is. So I’ve said my piece on the Dark Brotherhood, but that’ll be the end of it
in this let’s play.
***
“Here we are” said de fancy elf, as he an Shush walked up to de door of
some old ruins stickin outta de ground near a river. “In all its majesty: Nenalata.
Last surviving kingdom of the Aylieds before their disappearance.”
“...it looks kinda a bit exactly like all de other ruins.”
Well, he’s not wrong.
“Quiet you orc filth!” de elf snapped. “I mean, um...the structures are
mostly underground. Do not judge the mighty Aylieds by outward appearance.”
“Well at least we got here pretty quick” said Shush. “Shush only
counted four bandits an three wolf attacks, so it couldn’t have been dat far.”
“Yes, you were very...efficient.” De elf frowned at a blood-stain on
his silk shirt. “I can see how you’ve performed so admirably thus far. But now
is not the time for discussion, not when the fruit of my studies lies so close!
Onwards!”
Den de elf opened de door to de ruins, ran down de stairs inside,
stepped forward three times an den got his head chopped off by a skeleton.
Uh...hang on. That doesn’t
seem right.
Let’s rewind that,
shall we?
This quest is an escort
quest, and anyone familiar with video games knows what that means. Hint: It
doesn’t mean anything good. The first
time I marched inside Umbaccano was killed by a skeleton in, not one hit, but a
mere four or five. As soon as we got within a mile of our bone-chilling foe the
unarmored nobleman with no combat experience sprinted over to it as fast as he
could, apparently trying to set a world record for quickest execution of a
terrible idea. By the time I reached him he was half dead, and I couldn’t
distract the undead nuisance quick enough to save him.
After that I told the
moron to sit tight by the entrance until I slowly purged the entire floor of
anything bigger than a cockroach. Then I had him follow me, dip his toes in the
next floor and repeat. There wasn’t much interesting about it, so let’s skip
ahead to the end.
“This is it!” said de elf, some time later. “Here we are!”
Shush scratched his head. “It just look like an ordinary wall wit a
hole innit.”
“Hmph. Well so it would appear to one of you less intelligent races.
But I know the workings of my genius ancestors at work. Observe!”
De elf put de fancy rock wit de swirly markins onnit inside de hole in
de wall. Suddenly de whole wall shook an den a part of it moved up into de
ceiling, leavin a big door in front of Shush. On de other side of de door dere
was a room wit a big stone chair.
Well, a normal-sized
chair. It’s a reused asset, after all.
“Huh. Dat’s weird. Why did dey put de throne room behind a secret wall?
Aren’t people s’posed to see it?”
“Silence, you stupid oaf!” said de elf, jogging past Shush. “I have no
use for you any longer!”
De elf reached into his bag an pulled out a funny-lookin hat. Den he
crammed de hat around his giant hair, threw his bag to de ground an started
walkin forward.
“Finally, after years of searching, I shall achieve my dreams. By
sitting on my ancestor’s throne with the crown in tow, I shall become a conduit
of nigh infinite arcane energies! My birth right will finally be mine! Soon all
of you filthy inferior races will be pushed back into the dirt where you
belong, as I usher forth a new era of the Aylied empire!”
Shush’s grandma always said Shush weren’t de brightest knife in a bag
of rocks, or somethin like dat. De point was Shush were not de smarterest orc. Actually,
Shush were probably one of de most smarterest around, on account of all his
Supa-Smart enchant-y armor. But dat were a DIFFERENT kinda smart. Even doe Shush
had trouble wit dose type-a brain thinkins, Shush was startin to get real
familiar wit stuff like dis.
Shush sighed. “So is Shush gonna hafta kill you?”
De elf sat down on de chair an yelled: “NOW MY ASCENCION TO AN ALL-POWERFUL
BEING WILL BEGIN! ALL SHALL FALL BEFORE ME! AHAHAHAHAHA!!!”
Lightning shot outta de glowy stones in de corners of the room and all
went straight into de fancy hat dat de elf were wearing. He started floatin in
de air an havin real bright eyes. Den holes started openin in de walls an a
buncha skeletons started comin outta dem. Shush rolled his eyes an pulled his
hammer offa his back.
“Yeah, Shush thought so.”
The fight with Umbaccano
and his minions isn’t too bad, but it does stand out. You see, Oblivion didn’t
really have “minion” style enemies like some later Bethesda games did.
Everything was scaled closely to your level, so fights are mostly kept to one-on-one.
One-on-four at most. However, in this fight...
SOOOOOO MANY
SKELETONS!
The game throws like
eight of these boney buggers at you at once, on top of the dairy queen haircut
tossing lightning bolts at your face. Even though the enemies didn’t do TOO
much damage, everyone foe in Oblivion has vast oceans of health in reserve and
it was wearing me down. Fortunately, after I gave the elf a quick tap on the
shoulder and he crumpled like tissue paper, I found a handy solution to my
problem. You see there are these little side passages the anatomy army poured
out of, and...
Ha, suck it boneheads!
Single-file slaughter!
And so Shush triumphed
over another bumbling megalomaniac. Our reward is the crown itself, which has
some nice enchantments and is worth a whopping 9100 septims! Wow, that’s a lot
of money right? Well...here’s the thing: Oblivion vendors have a maximum amount
they can pay for sold items. These typically range from around 400-1200,
meaning even if you’re worse at negotiating than Claude Maric’s bloated corpse
you’ll still get far less than you could for it. We’re talking as much as any
standard loot after 10 or 15 levels. It has some potentially useful
enchantments, but I’ve been gaming the enchant market far too much for it to
surpass my creations. Besides, it’s light armor.
So we went on a perilous
journey through ten separate deadly ancient ruins. Even more since it took a
while before I got fed up and looked online for the artifact locations. Then
after all those dangerous forays into musty old tombs we promptly delved into
another with an ambush at the tail-end. Then we broke into someone’s house,
escorted a suicidal nobleman through a gauntlet of angry post-life individuals,
and practically suffocated in an avalanche of marrow-muscled femur fighters. Our
reward...was more money we don’t need because we could already buy every
building in the country twice over.
But hey, at least I got
to make a bunch of lame skeleton puns and murder people. And in the end, isn’t
that what life’s all about?
...that’s rhetorical.
Please don’t answer that.
And so Shush looks forward
to a new dawn of adventure...
...dawn. Dawn, dawn,
hm. I feel like there’s something dawn
related we’re forgetting.
...
Ah well, probably
nothing.
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