In a Hostile Country: The Saga of Cahmel (Let’s Play Morrowind, Part 48)

(Sorry, misplaced this post–that’s why it took so long to get up. Oh well, no harm done.)

When we last left our daring hero, he was working his way through a Necromancer’s lair that was slightly less dangerous than Disney’s Haunted Mansion. I was ostensibly working as support for a Buoyant Armiger, and indeed, we ended up splitting the workload more or less evenly. I handled all of the tasks involving:

*Killing the undead
*Securing the area
*Protecting us
*Vanquishing evil
*Taking damage
*Scouting ahead
*Flanking the enemy
*Drawing my weapon

Whereas she leapt on any situation that required:

*Spitting out one of three combat taunts
*Getting stuck on doorways
*Baring biceps
*Possessing a can-do attitude
*Sobriety

Together, we made a good team, and an even better me-doing-everything-while-she-sort-of-shuffles-behind-me-and-talks-a-good-fight. We were like Aragorn and the gaffer, Sergeant Angel and his peace lily, La Femme Nikita and her grocery checkout boyfriend, Bruno and Vatsy—a badass duo, in that I was Bad and she was just plain Ass.

It didn’t take me long to get to the end of the tomb, a sort plush apartment space at the top of a couple staircases. There waited Whatsisface, Dunmer necromancer, apparent evil dude, and the guy whose shenanigans necessitated this mission. I’m still not sure what he was actually doing—it’s possible my ally would have informed me, if I’d expressed even the faintest smidgen of interest. It’s also possible he would have given me the pitch himself, if I hadn’t hacked him into peppersteak the instant I moved within melee range of his corpus.

It was actually pretty funny to watch. A high-speed camera would show the full range of actions: he blinks into his whuzzat-oh-yeah-there’s-an-enemy-on-the-screen-now NPC violence mode, raises his hands up as if fondling an invisible basketball, informs me that there is a marked dearth of egresses*,  and moves like he’s about to cast some awesome spell that turns my bones into gelatin and my nerve endings into pixie-stix. However, before he gets halfway through the animation, I introduce him to the possibilities of physical violence and get to see that facial expression—you know, the one that means, “I spent twenty years studying the makeup of the universe that I might bend physics to my will and reanimate the dead, and I just got schooled by some homeless punk with a sharp metal stick.”

I wiped off my short sword, whistling as non-smugly as possible (read: smugly enough to poison infants and small animals). It is at this point that my companion limped up to the top of the steps, breathing heavily and clutching the handrail.

“Oh god, I told you, don’t make me run. Keep in mind that I’m weighed down by a basically adequate amount of armor over here.” She plopped down on the ground, groaning softly. “Man, rough dungeon, huh?”

I glanced down at the corpse at my feet. “I guess.”

“Yeah, it’s not easy being in the Buoyant Armigers, is it? Don’t worry, though, you’ve managed to keep up. Not everybody can.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I mean, like, my mom came with me once because she wanted to see what I did for a living—she never really got over me quitting my job as a party clown. Anyway, she could only handle fighting like two skeletons at once, so I kept having to stop and wait for her.”

“Uh…huh. So, what, you ran up ahead of her?”

“Well…” She waved a hand. “You know, it’s not my job to stop and fight every single enemy. I’m really more looking for the necromancer himself, the guy behind the hordes of skeletons.”

“So, you run up ahead to search for him?”

“Best thing to do.”

I glanced around the plush bedroom. “Where do you search?”

“Oh, you know…closets, basements, under tables. Sometimes, if I don’t find him before long, I’ll go search the tavern in the nearest town.”

“They run out of the tomb full of undead and go hide inside town?”

“I know, right?” She snorted a little too loudly. “Cowards.”

After a moment’s silence, she cleared her throat, then leaned forward as if trying to touch the toe of her boot. “Uh, so, I’m actually just going to stretch my hammies a little here. Don’t want to sprain anything. So, if you want to keep looking for the necromancer, that’s cool with me. I’ll catch up.”

“Excuse me…sorry, what did you say your name was?”

“Huh?” She blinked. “Armiger Ulyne Henim, defender of–”

“Ulyne, would you mind if I asked you a personal question?”

“Well, no, go ahead.”

“You’re ponderous, incompetent, and a complete disgrace to the profession of adventuring. You couldn’t kill a suicidal cockroach that was taped to the bottom of your boot. There is demonstrably not a single aspect of your job you are suited for, up to and including the part where you dress yourself. I would recommend that you throw yourself onto your spear, but that would require you to draw it and then successfully kill something with it—both skills you do not seem to possess. Consequently, I will simply recommend that you go lie in a ditch and try very hard to discover shame, that you might die of that instead.”

When she regained control of her face, she said, “You didn’t ask a question.”

“No, I just wanted to make sure you were comfortable discussing personal matters. Your shortcomings certainly fall under this category, since you are not so much flesh as mobile, badly-armored failure. Godspeed.”

With that, I took my leave. Funny, I thought–I’d rejoined the Fighter’s Guild to get some of my self-esteem back, and it was working like a charm.

*Every other enemy in Morrowind informs you, “There is no escape!” This is often false, but in this case, it is entirely accurate. Technically speaking, one does not actually escape a mangled corpse.