In a Hostile Country: The Saga of Cahmel (Let’s Play Morrowind, Part 20)

When we last left our hero, he’d just royally and publically screwed over his boss. Keep in mind that this fellow, despite having just been caught red-handed in the middle of an act of fraud and larceny, has not been demoted or reprimanded in any observable or public fashion. He is, in fact, going to be giving me my next handful of missions.

I’m sure this won’t be awkward at all.

I return to him. I’m half-surprised when he passive-aggressively informs me that he did, in fact, see what I did there…and he doesn’t like it. Chances are good that my next mission is not going to involve eating all of the leftover donuts and breaking in the latest team of ponies.

It’s better than I’d expect, though. I’m given a mission to locate and retrieve some missing Caldera Mining Company documents. A snoop mission, eh? You know, I’m considered quite the detective back in Balmora. There was this one time where I had to find out who killed this guy…man, I was all over that action. Within minutes of talking to the nearby witness who’d gotten a good look at the killer, I knew exactly what the killer looked like and what kind of weapon he was using. Within mere hours of tracking down the killer, I’d managed to trick him into denying his guilt. They call me Cahmel, and I’m a private eye. Gets to be times where a man’s cheap blade and hideous hat are his only friends in the world, and that’s the time where you have to take any case that comes into your quest log.

These were the facts I had to work with:

1.)    Someone was stealing the Caldera mining ledgers.

2.)    This person was probably not a Dwemer.

3.)    That’s because the Dwemer are extinct.

4.)    I figured that one out on my own. In case you were wondering.

5.)    It probably wasn’t me.

And that’s it. Seriously, I had no idea where to begin on this one.

So I started walking around town, interviewing various dudes and asking if they’d seen my ledgers. The answer was a polite, uniform no. Okay, so, clearly I’d have to step up my game.

Ah! Who’d know the skinny on the locals? Why, the innkeeper, of course.

The bar at Shenk’s Shovel smelled like cheap brandy and expensive regrets. I slid into my usual chair.

“What do you know about the stolen Caldera mining ledgers?”

“Uh. Nothing? I’m an inkeeper.”

“Don’t give me that innocent ‘all I do is sell food and room keys’ act,” I snarled. “I know what kind of joint you’re running here. What do you think the odds are that if I started breaking open a few boxes…” I casually kicked open a crate. “Oh, look, what do we have here? Why, is that alcohol? You wouldn’t be running a speakeasy, would you?”

He stared at me for a moment. “I…okay, first of all, alcohol is legal everywhere here. Secondly, I have a liquor license. And thirdly…” He gestured. “That crate was full of scrib jerky.”

“Oh.” I paused, then bent down and scooped up a piece. “So,” I said through a mouthful of jerky, “What you’re saying is, you’re finally willing to cooperate?”

“I–”

“Oh, I see how it is. You types disgust me. Alright, I’ll play your game.” Scowling, I slid 100 drakes over the table. “Now tell me what you know.”

“Nothing! I don’t know anything about your damn ledger! Now go away, I have customers!”

I stalked off, mollified. Okay, so maybe this chump didn’t know anything, but maybe his customers did.

After pestering a few, one of them finally had a bright idea: maybe I should investigate the new arrivals, since they’re obviously more likely to be spies? These new residents included a local storekeeper and a random woman on the fringe of town.

I hit up the storekeeper first. Immediately, I confronted him with my accusations—he told me to search all I wanted, and that he didn’t want any trouble. Maybe you should have thought of that before you stole Caldera property, pal.

I searched the main area and didn’t find anything. Then I found a staircase away from the main selling floor, leading to his bedroom upstairs. I prepared to pick the lock and investigate…but then I saw that he had a guard stationed next to it! Hiring a legitimate officer of the law to guard thievery-prone areas of your establishment, are we? Suspicious indeed.

Since stealth wasn’t an option, I decided just to damn the torpedoes and try to pick the lock. I failed. The guard noticed what I was doing, stopped me, and demanded that I pay the five gold fine for trying to pick a lock. I relented. Then I sat down and tried to pick the lock again. The guard turned to me again, took five gold, and returned to his post. This continued a few times until I’d forced my way into his bedroom. Either they don’t pay this guard enough or they pay him far, far too much.

And for all of that, his apartment was clean. What a rip-off.

I found the documents in the other house. Turns out, they were being stolen by a woman from the thieves’ guild, of which I am actually a member. So she was quite happy to part with the documents and let me bring them back, their interests and her seniority be damned. Not that I’m complaining.

So, that went well.