In a Hostile Country: The Saga of Cahmel (Let’s Play Morrowind, Part 27)
(I don’t know why there aren’t any screenshots for this segment. I distinctly recall taking them–I think I might have actually run low on disc space. I recently cleaned out my Fraps folder, and it was filled to the brim with pointless and space-hogging crap.)
When we last left our indomitable hero, he was enthusiastically soiling his trousers as he was ambushed by 1.15 graveyards full of undead. Any pretense of this being a fair fight had been dropped—at this point, the game is directly, transparently punishing me for choosing House Hlaalu.
5 skeletons and an ancestral ghost? All at once? With no backup? I just can’t get over how pointlessly, wildly dangerous this mission is. Bottom line: this isn’t a job for a lone intern, unless your house happens to employ Bruce Campbell or Egon Spengler. Fighting this group directly was not an option for me.
Courageously, I ran away. Technically, I’m not being ironic there: I didn’t turn tail and flee back up the staircase, I ran through the bloc of adversaries, ducking their attacks and plunging deeper into the tomb. See, at the rate I am (failing to) taking down these skeletons, I might just as well sprint past the hordes of enemies, find the necromancer, kill him, and hope his flunkies poof away. Worst case scenario, I have to find a good place to do a U-Turn and run away again. Anything’s better than being forced to take on all of these guys at once.
I dash down the hallway, take the first turn I see, run up to a door, open it, run through…
Hm. This, uh, this appears to be a dead end. That’s…sub-optimal.
I turn around just in time to see the hordes of enemies coming towards me like a freight train.
Thinking quickly, which would have served me well about thirty seconds ago, I slam the door shut. That should keep them busy—the way the door is situated, they’ll most likely get stuck on it when they try to open it. Exploiting bugs for the win? Or the postponed loss, at any rate.
A moment of respite bought, I begin meditating over my next move. This is a slightly more dignified way of saying, “I curled up in the corner and started sucking my thumb,” but I actually did find the time to go over my assets.
Okay, so, large mob of enemies on the other side of that door. Technically, this fight could be doable. All I’d need is an enchanted sword, a buff spell running, control over the door (so I could manage the rate at which enemies attack), and maybe a couple health potions. Naturally, my sword’s dry, my buff spell has run out, the door’s glitching out a bit, and I’ve got no potions of any kind. So, mathematically, I’m screwed forever.
For a moment, my gaze lingers on my scroll of Divine Intervention. Just click on it, cast it, and I’ll be safe as houses in my friendly local Imperial Shrine, miles away from this godforsaken pit. Maybe I could restock, do a few minor quests, get myself in fighting shape, then come back and do this properly. Yeah. Just step out for a while, then come back when I was ready. All I’d have to do is click the icon. Cast the spell. Cut my losses.
Run away.
The words tasted bitter in my mouth, like a bitter root or some sort of particularly bitter drink. I’d like to think it’s a little like how ash yams taste, but I don’t know; even if they existed, I’d never eat something called a goddamn ash yam. Seriously, that’s disgusting. Nobody wants to eat ashes, and the yam-eating demographic’s slim enough as it is.
I seem to have digressed somewhat. Suffice it to say: I didn’t feel right just running away from this mission. I mean, okay, I kind of ran away earlier today, but that was more like a strategic withdrawl. I wasn’t skedaddling halfway across the continent, I was nipping outside for some fresh air and a break from getting flensed by skeletons. And I suppose you could call my little jaunt during the kwama queen quest “running away”, but I never technically started that quest. I’d walked inside, died, reloaded, and reconsidered. In this case, I’d walked in, talked to people, promised to bring back someone’s captured sister, saved, and then realized how hopelessly outclassed I was. I can’t just walk away from this, not after I’ve committed. Those cowardly, lazy NPCs were counting on me, dammit.
So, it’s settled, then. I’m going to hold my ground. Maybe running away from danger like frightened schoolgirls is sufficient for those bastards whose job I’m currently doing, but Cahmel’s made of sterner stuff. I’m going to—
OH GOD THE DOOR’S OPENING! RUN FOR IT!
I barrel past the slightly-miffed ancestral ghost, bones and swords clattering after me as I tear down the hallway. At random, I bank down turns, run through doorways, run out of doorways, desperately trying to lose my pursuers. Finally, I turn into another dead end, a skeleton dead on my heels. I turn around, hack wildly at him…
WHAM. Through some miracle, my sword had a bit of juice that I’d missed. Just enough, in fact, to stun the skeleton and throw him off his attack. Leaning into him, I start hacking relentlessly, trying to bear him down before his buddies show up. With a triumphant slash, I drop him, surprising nobody so much as myself, and run past as the rest of the mob arrives in a murderous conga line. Finally, I bob and weave my way to the exit, stumble outside, and rest up until all of my buffs and enchantments are restored.
It’s a long, dull, frustrating process, but I eventually manage to clear out every last undead in that area. Of course, the princess is in another castle—the necromancer (and prisoner) have set up shop further into the tomb, so I’ve hardly begun to fight cheapo undead. Still, at least I can finally rest up without jogging outside and rolling into a ditch.
Uh. I can, right?
…why is it telling me there’s enemies nearby?
Paranoid, I draw my sword and canvas the area room-by-room. I check everywhere, but there’s nothing but dust and dead things anywhere nearby. What the hell, game?
Eventually, baffled by the false positive the game’s giving me, I noclip away to make sure there’s nobody I missed. It’s then that I see the problem.
For no reason that I can currently discern, the level designers stuck a large room 20 yards below the level proper. This room contains:
• Several skeletons
• Dirt
• Ambiguous Light Sources
• Absolutely No Way to Enter or Exit
So, without cheating, there’s basically no way to ever rest in the entry area of Odrinarn, ever. Thanks, guys. Wouldn’t want to make it easy on us, would you?
The hidden room is definitely an oddity. Bethesda probably sneaked it in there just to screw with people. Like the secret cave with the proverb spewing Vortigaunt in the Water Hazard chapter of Half-Life 2. Damned Easter eggs.
Heh, some great writing in this one. Also, very odd room.
I would totally try an ash yam.
As for the sword’s magic just re-appearing, Even if the sword (or other magic item) is dry, it will still occasionally fire. I noticed this when I didn’t charge my axe for an in-game week and then suddenly it fired on me anyway. I’ve repeated the experiment, and apparently every couple hundred or so swings the magic will burst forth without a source. A trifle odd, to say the least. Maybe it’s a glitch. Maybe Bethesda wanted to be kind to adventurers down on their luck and unable to afford recharges. Maybe you really did not notice the charge left in the bottom of the barrel, and I’m just insane. Who knows.
The charge on enchanted items slowly recovers over time, so if you’re willing to wait a good, long time instead of sleeping, you can get a few charges back. Or you can carry a few soul gems with critters in ’em to recharge on the quick, although I don’t think that works in combat. I don’t remember.
On reflection, the room might have been placed as part of a pit or teleport-trap that was never finished. I don’t know, I’m just speculating.
Yeah. Maji, you’re thinking of Oblivion–that’s the one where you have to pay for recharges.
In most aspects I think Oblivion was an improvement compared to Morrowind. But no trickle-recharging was mean, and magic and enchanting in general went downhill. Except the better casting. It’s kind of hilarious that your hand-to-hand hero takes five seconds to open his fists when beginning to cast in Morrowind.
I’ve seen this particular design decision in several other games. The hidden room’s probably there to make Odirnan “haunted” – to generate random enemy sounds even when no enemies are there.
Well, I meant more in the way of: having to pay for a soul gem.
Also, I second Greg, and maybe it’s there as a freak-out: did enemies spawn behind me? Are they lurking around the corner? Are they…invisible?
But yeah, it’s cheap. Cheap and dirty.
“at this point, the game is directly, transparently punishing me for choosing House Hlaalu.”
As well it should.
“I’d like to think it’s a little like how ash yams taste, but I don’t know; even if they existed, I’d never eat something called a goddamn ash yam. Seriously, that’s disgusting. Nobody wants to eat ashes, and the yam-eating demographic’s slim enough as it is.”
You make a compelling point. Ash yams. Yuck.
Your necromancer quest reminds me of a necromancer quest you do for the Tribunal Temple.
Last time I attempted it, I managed to kill the necromancer right before dropping dead from one of his long-term damage spells.
We both died and I decided that spiritual advancement was not for me.
Now I’m thinking of yams with Bruce Campbell’s face…
Also, if your magic weapon is bone-dry, it will still damage the ghosties.
As will a silver weapon.
Keep in mind that the Telvanni still have to deal with the undead. We get sent there on a mission to deliver some books. Killing the Hlaalu and skeletons is incidental to our true mission: FedEx. We’re just better at it than the Hlaalu.
Yeah, we can levitate, and turn invisible. So there.
And if we put a Mark right inside the council chamber, we only have to go through the baddies (or, more accurately, the probably-more-goodies) one way, allowing us to do the mother of all run-throughs.
Freight train!
Also, have you tried resting in the farthest corner of the dungeon away from the mystery room? Sometimes you can get enough distance to catch a nap, even though there are still enemies active on the level. Careful, though, you can sometimes sleep so long that enemies respawn.
Burke: the room’s pretty big. I haven’t found a spot in the dungeon where I’m out of the threat radius.
I don’t claim to be an expert on the Morrowind engine, but creating an entire underground cavern, filled with enemies the player will never even see, just to prevent resting and/or create spooky noises? That just sounds needlessly complicated to me.
Andrew – but it’s very very easy to do in Morrowind’s editor. The work of about a minute, while creating the sounds without the enemies attached would be a much more complicated process.