In a Hostile Country: The Saga of Cahmel (Let’s Play Morrowind, Part 34)

When we last left our mighty hero, he was about to get the everloving crap beaten out of him by a bonewalker. See, this is where the dynamic nature of Bethesda’s world really shines through. With an open world like this one, they have no way of predicting when the player will be having actual fun, so they had to craft a gameworld that could assess joy in realtime and convert it into finger-curling, mouse-breaking, eye-steaming rage.

The battle went something like this.

Thinking quickly, I jettisoned all excess weight to ensure speed of movement. Since I had no way of knowing which parts of my actual gear would be necessary in the battle to come, this mostly took the form of, you know, relieving myself onto the floor. This doubled as psychological warfare, possibly, although to be honest I wasn’t really approaching it from that angle at the time. At this point, I let loose a blood-curdling battle cry, one which imitated the sound of a cliff racer diving towards its prey (which, and this is a coincidence, happens to sound a bit like someone who’s just dipped their crotch into a bucket of spiders). Then I leapt towards him, bringing my wicked blade down in a punishing arc, slashing into its flesh.

Well, towards it, anyway. I mean, I didn’t actually hit him. It’s like I went to swing it into him, and then I…because he…well, I didn’t hit him, okay? So I hauled back and swung again, and this time, I got much, much closer to connecting. And then I swung again, and that one was a little off, I’ll grant you, but I was starting to get a feel for general location when he proceeded to launch his fist through my right nostril, into my nasal cavity, past my tongue, and straight down my throat.

It tasted like the worst goddamn salami you’ve ever been in the same room as. Also, anemia, shame.

He paused for a moment to admire his craftsmanship, lifting me up off the ground a few inches and spinning me around on his wrist. Fighting dizziness, I waved the blade at him like a kid waving a pendant at a baseball game. Except, the kid’s team is losing, he’s dropped his hot dog, and he just found out that he was adopted. That’s not to say I didn’t faze him: I think at some point, the wind from my hurricane of missing hit one of his open sores, and he winced noticeably before using his offhand to pummel my sternum like a speedbag.

Needless to say, I wasn’t ready for things to go this way. Sometimes, the AI pulls a tactic that comes out of nowhere and catches you completely off guard. Case in point: winning. The strategy guide didn’t say anything about what to do when that happens. I consulted passersby, seeking some kernel of wisdom to salvage a victory from, but I didn’t get much useful advice. The non-gamers mostly asked me why I’d installed a screensaver of Frankenstein swinging his fist at the screen over and over while a little girl screams in pain. The gamers were too busy laughing and pointing to offer any constructive criticism.

At this point, I waved my tiny blade somewhere the in vicinity of his ribcage, and felt a tiny dink as it connected.

Imagine a piñata. Imagine a kid hauling back and swinging at this piñata as hard as he could, hitting it with enough force to hear from two rooms away. Now imagine that there was a live grenade inside the piñata, and also the whole thing was shaped like a zombie knockoff, and you’ll get a sense of what happened. He exploded and imploded and shredded apart, bits of corpserot and stankmeat flying around like I was carving up the worst turkey in town with a chainsaw. I took him to the cleaners. I went to town, bought a nice vest, then set off a fireball in the market square. There wasn’t a piece of him big enough to put in a locket as the world’s grossest, also smelliest, keepsake. He was a fine mist that would take hours to clean out of my trendy assassination pajamas, but I didn’t even care. Victory was mine, in the most explosive way imaginable. I was injured, and I was exhausted, but now I had a story that I would tell exactly half of to my grandchildren.

ALTERNATELY:

I walked in, saw a bonewalker, couldn’t hit it for a while, lost a good amount of health and strength, then connected a few times and killed him at a modestly impressive rate. But that’s not as much fun to write, is it?

Anyway, the tomb was pretty bog standard, and I’m not going to bore you with a report on what was, ultimately, a routine raid. I killed some more things, and took some things, and killed some more things, and then left. Mission accomplished: new equipment field tested. Ultimately, I’d call the new blade a success, provided I can find a reliable source of replacement spinal columns once I return to Mournhold.

Speaking of: time to head back. Time, in fact, for some more Mournhold Tales.

Naked Hot Nords

I’m chilling in the Plaza, admiring the statuary, trying to figure out where I’m supposed to be heading. See, the Plaza’s kind of the midpoint of the city, and there are three doors you can take to get to the different areas surrounding it. There’s the Godsreach district (full of fancy houses, fancy boutiques, and virtually nothing of any real interest), the Market district (which doesn’t have many good markets, actually,) and the courtyard to the palace, which is freely accessible. Actually, anyone with working legs can stroll right through the palace, and can even check up on Queen Barenziah and have a little face-to-face chat. A little strange that they don’t screen people a little better: anyone could walk in, from random peasants, to rat merchants, to, and this is purely hypothetical, ex-con serial flashers with a penchant for fraud, murder, and punching various figures of authority right in the face.

But enough about my weekend plans; Point is, there’s this plaza, and in it is a nord. He’s naked. And hot. As in, he’s sweltering. That’s why he’s naked.

He insists that he hasn’t been paralyzed by a witch, and he wasn’t robbed. He’s perfectly ambulatory, it’s just that he’s a little warm, so he’s taken his gear off.

Oh…kay.

So, you don’t need anything from me? No? Are you sure?

I don’t judge, you know. I met a guy just like you—oh, I mean, sorry, like you except he was paralyzed and robbed, instead of just being a naturist, and believe me, I’m right there with you—and I agreed to help him, no need for a reward, no questions asked. Of course, I ended up killing him, and then killing the person who took his stuff, and then taking his/her/their stuff, but I don’t think that’s really the point here.

Don’t need any help? Okay, let me know if the situation develops.

Nice guy.

The Mouse That Roared, And Then Got a Slightly Bigger Mouse

I decide to check out the Godsreach district. Additional note: jaspers, but those doors are huge. Seriously, they’re big. They’ve got to be crazy loud, too, with all the weight bearing down on those hinges. That can not be a good way to maintain property values. I mean, everyone wants to live in a gated community, but when the gate is a.) unlocked, b.) unguarded, c.) loud as hell, and d.) awkward to operate, it’s a liability, like a nuclear power plant, or a neighbor who conducts banned post-WWII era Soviet experiments in his garden every night.

Anyway, I come across this elf fellow. Big surprise, he wants my help. Even more surprising, it’s for something that he has no business asking for my help with, something that puts me in considerable risk and involves me doing all the work while he all but supervises. So surprising that it paralyzes every cell in my body, save those incorporated into my sarcasm glands, he’s not offering much in the way of reward.

Specifically, he got thrown out of the bar by this big Nord, because he’s tiny. Makes sense, seems like the logical thing to do in that situation. The elf’s angry about it for some reason, and wants me to go in and beat the Nord up with my fists.

What? Kid, do I look like some kind of monk to you? For your information, I shave my head because it’s stylish, and because my hair kept sticking out of my flying saucer hat, not because I know secret kung fu. I can just about girly-slap a wimpy Hlaalu official hard enough so that he doesn’t mistake it for a gentle kiss, or a leaf borne onto his cheek by a soft wind. Fisticuffs aren’t my forte. Fists are for holding weapons. If the gods had wanted us to fight with our bare hands, they wouldn’t have invented spiked gloves.

Whatever, I’ve got nothing better to do. I walk up and cold-cock this Nord fellow. Fifteen minutes of gentle scalp massaging later, he’s down for the count, I’m kicked out of the bar, and I’ve got a modest payment. Not the absolute worst use of my time.

No, that was yet to come.