The Cyrodiil Look: Cahmel’s New Travels (Let’s Play Oblivion, Part 3)

When we last left our noble hero, he was being assaulted by a pair of freakish mutant prison rats with the ability—and inclination–to blast through stone walls. I’m still not 100% clear why they did so, but if I had to take my best guess, I’d say it had something to do with their maniacal lust for human blood.

This is the worst adaption of an H.P. Lovecraft story to a videogame since...well, Clod of Cthulhu.

Now, I know I have a sword in the screenshot above, but that’s actually because I had to go back for that shot and replay the beginning. At the time, I unarmed, and was forced to hit a new low in my career:  practicing the Sweet Science on a pair of rodents.

After punching filth-soaked biting vermin in the face with my bare hands until their skulls fractured, I climbed through the hole to find some loose gear and a chest. The chest is locked, which means it’s time for everybody’s favorite new Bethesda minigame! Because everybody hates the Speech one marginally more!

You'd think, if they're going to go through all of the trouble to install a solid-bronze lock onto a nice wooden backboard, they'd engage more than one of the gleaming golden tumblers.

Lockpicking works like this: you have anywhere between one and five tumblers, all of which start out in the down position. To unlock the chest, you must move all of them to the up position—you do this by manually sliding the lockpick under the tumbler, knocking it up, and clicking at the proper moment in the tumbler’s upward arc to lock (oh my) it in place. The tumblers randomly go up at different speeds, but the sweet spot you have to hit it at remains constant. Where’s the sweet spot? I have no goddamned idea. Seriously, no clue. I’m actually pretty decent at the lockpicking minigame, and if you put me in front of a lock, I can just about pick it open with my eyes closed—but I find it impossible to tell you at one point you need to click to lock the tumbler up, and am unable to explain why this is. I don’t think it’s at the apex…I guess it could be? If I think too much about it, I screw it up.

Anyway, if you fail to jimmy one of the tumblers, your pick breaks and the tumblers you’ve already done fall back down. Increasing your lockpick skill means removing some of those penalties, and doing not a lot else.

Let me make something clear: I plan to pick a lot of locks in this LP. I mean, a whole lot of locks. It’s gonna be Lockapalooza all up in here; I solemnly swear that in this space, on a weekly basis, I am going to rock out with my lock out. Despite this, I am not planning to tag lockpick as one of my skills. Why would I? As long as I have a decent amount of spare picks, I guarantee you that I can pick any lock anywhere in the game world. And hell, even if I sucked, at level 10 you can get an unbreakable godpick that allows absolutely anyone, of any skill level, to pick any lock, given enough time. There’s  a “try automatically” die roller that determines whether or not you succeed based on your skill level, and if you have the unbreakable pick, all you have to do is mash “auto pick” like fifty times and you’re golden. Once you’ve mastered the minigame, the entire thief discipline of lockpicking is reduced to a triviality.

Which is good for me, because it lets me focus on more violence-oriented career skills while still getting the full social and economic benefits of being an inveterate housebreaker.

Moving on a bit: after a few minutes, I came across a goblin standing in the middle of a tunnel.

Can you spot the goblin? Of course not, because if you've been looking at this image for more than a second it'll have crawled up through your retinas and hollowed out a cave in your mind.

He was fifteen feet away from me and had not seen me yet. His back was turned away from me, meaning he’s staring off pointlessly at his semi-distant campfire with his back turned to the shadows. Not that he should be expecting an ambush, since the (previously locked) door I came from is connected to a dank chamber full of rats which is connected, by way of recently-shattered wall, to an escape tunnel that’s probably never been used before now. Remind me what this sub-tunnel area was designed for? Is it some sort of goblin and rat preserve? Are there gobbopologists hiding amidst the moist boulders, observing their primitive—but proud—tribal traditions? Is killing these goblins a criminal offence that could, ironically, land me back in jail?

If so, by the time I get out of here, they’re probably gonna give me the chair on general principle. I’m going to be going through more goblins than someone doing a Tarol Hunt archive binge, with a comparable body count.

We’re doing an awful lot of reflective beard-stroking commentary on every new development, so let’s go ahead and summarize this whole upcoming stretch of gameplay: goblin murder. I push on a little further, murder a goblin, push on a little further, murder another goblin with a convenient environmental trap, push on a little further, meet a goblin that challenges all of my preconceived notions about his race, grudgingly come to respect him, form a friendship that will last a lifetime, and murder him. Then I finally empty out into an outcropping that overlooks our old friend, the Emprah, as he escapes by the laughably inefficient route of not a goblin-infested rat-hole.

Hey, don't I know you from that one time I was sprung out of jail by a freak coincidence? Small world, even smaller dungeon/escape tunnel!

Wait a minute, how did these goblins even get up here? The level’s built so you can’t backtrack after you make this drop, so how did those little runts make it up here? Do they subsist entirely on rat? Why? Surely there are better places to set up shop than an uninhabitable cave system under a prison. How about somewhere you can hunt, spread out, get some decent meat, maybe do some light raiding and pillaging? Even if they made it up topside to plunder, what would they take, the unbreakable clay bowls and sackcloth shirts the prisoners have lying around? Or maybe they’d just be ecstatic about being able to sleep in something resembling an actual comfortable bed, and maybe eat something besides poached bloodthirsty tunnel rat.

If they don’t care about raiding, why do they bother attacking humans at all—is it just the principle of the thing? Why wouldn’t they just coexist with anybody who wanders into their midst, as long as they weren’t outwardly hostile? I guarantee you that if they hadn’t attacked me first, there would be anwhere from 25 to 45 percent fewer dead goblins right now, depending on how funny their expressions would be when I triggered the environmental traps.

Oh, look, there’s that reflecting stroke-bearding again. Can I just get out of this damn dungeon already?

Long story short, the Emperor and his guards get attacked again, I show up, the guards want to kill me, the Emperor tells them not to. Then he asks me , like, what’s your sign, baby?

Your birthsign, that is–it’s a character building thing, and this was apparently the smoothest way to ask you which one you want to pick. I pick one that makes me do more damage, which is—while it’s probably the most boring sign there is—is still fairly effective. Once his curiosity about my horoscope was satisfied, the Emperor was content to proceed onwards with me in tow.

Eventually, the tunnel hits a dead end. A door that apparently shouldn’t be locked is apparently locked, and the adjacent chamber has no exits. We’re then attacked by more assassins who draw the bodyguards away from their charge, and in a moment of panic, they confuse me with somebody who gives two turds about the emperor and demand that I guard him personally. “With your very life!”, no less.

Well, this is sort of embarrassing. Baurus—you mind if I call you Walrus?—I think there’s been some sort of misunderstanding. Do you remember, way back nineteen minutes ago, when I was in prison? Those were not good times, Walrus. Just a few differences between my cell and a luxury suite include: no hot tub, no throw pillows, I’m not paying money for the privilege of being there, and I was there because I did something so bad society  decided they didn’t want me hanging around anymore. Now, see, when you ask me to lay down my life for the emperor, you’re making a very critical assumption about my loyalties, and you know what? I can see where it’s coming from. I imagine that your job requires a certain amount of loyalty to the emperor, and the willingness—at a moment’s notice—to lay down your life for king and country. You probably spend your free time praising the Empire, practicing your speed kneeling, and French-kissing your signed 8×11 glossy of His Royal Highness. You know what I spent my free time doing, Mr. Walrus? Kicking an unbreakable bowl around a filthy room and thinking about how much I hate everybody.

While the bodyguards are entangled fighting assassins, the Emperor takes me aside and says, “I can go no further. Take my amulet and give it to blah blah at the blah blah blah, blah blah, blah blah I’m wearing a dress.” That’s what I heard, anyway. I zoned out around the time an assassin somehow peeled a section of wall back, leapt out, and one-hit killed the Emperor with his knife. He then attacked me, for some reason—I was just standing there with my hands in my pockets, on the opposite wall from his escape route—and whatever instant murder mojo he had on his knife, it seemed to have faded, because I ended up taking a half-dozen blows to the face before I put the bastard down.

I just know I’m going to get blamed for this.