The Cyrodiil Look: Cahmel’s New Travels (Let’s Play Oblivion, Part 13)

When we last left our gifted hero, he’d impressed the thieves’ guild recruiter by being able to run a little bit faster than all of the other butterfingered ex-con prospective thieves. Having thus proven myself, I was admitted entrance into their ranks, which apparently satisfied their hiring quote indefinitely.

Now, wait a minute, how come they’re only going to allow one guy entrance? I mean, let’s break this down. Their rigorous screening process for potential applicants involves finding people anywhere on the continent who have gone to jail. Whether or not you had previously expressed any interest in joining a guild, you are then slapped with an invitation to come over to the Imperial City, whereupon your thieving abilities are put to the test—abilities, I might add, that were quite recently and conclusively tested by Johnny Law. Of those tested, only one can possibly be admitted.

More to the point: here we have a glut of desperate and woefully unskilled applicants being forced to compete to fill a very small vacancy, leaving most of them SOL and one of them very dubiously fortunate. It’s a hiring process that feels less Oceans 11 and more The Grapes of Wrath.

I guess it makes sense, though. Of all the guilds in the realm, you might argue that this is the one that runs the operations that can least afford failure. Criminal jobs are traditionally time-sensitive, low-profile operations where a false start or a botched approach can spell intractable failure and the imprisonment of all involved. It’s reasonable to be cautious when finding employees for this sort of business, and frankly, this is really the sort of screening process Hlaalu should have been subjecting its employees to.

“Alright,” I ask. “Let’s get to work. So, what do you need stolen that you’re too busy and/or lazy to steal for yourself?”

He blinks. “Huh?”

“My job. What’s my job?”

“Job? You don’t have a ‘job,’ dude. What you have is the deliberately and artfully prolonged absence of a job. What you have is unemployment, only less socially acceptable.”

“Yeah, but like, what do you want me to do?”

“You want me to give you something to do? What am I, your boss?”

“Yes. Yes, that is exactly what you are.”

“I don’t know, man. I guess you could steal stuff. Sell it to a fence. Sound like good times?”

“Let me get this straight. You go through all of this trouble to prove whether or not I’m worthy of joining your super cool awesome larceny club, and then you don’t make me do anything that would actually require me to be skilled?”

“That was to see whether or not you were worthy of gaining access to our fences.”

“Oh, that makes sense. You wanted us to prove whether or not we’re worthy of doing business with you. Kinda like how restaurants round up all their customers and make them play musical chairs to see which one gets to eat that night.”

“Well, I guess we do have some missions, but you only get to undertake them after you’ve proven your worth.”

“Oh, alright then, that’s what I want to do. What’s my first job?”

“No, you have to prove your worth again.”

“How do I do that?”

“By selling stuff to the fences. We give you access to one of the poorer ones, and then as you advance in rank, we give you access to ones that handle more expensive goods.”

“So, if I’ve got this really lucrative stolen item, you just straight-up won’t take it from me until I’m a higher rank?”

“Yes. You need to just sort of keep that ‘proving your worth’ ball in the air.”

“So, remind me why you can’t just open all of the fences to all prospective applicants, without arbitrarily eliminating two thirds of them from the market, then determine which of those people is worthy of undertaking more difficult tasks by how much lucre they bring in on a regular basis? And then you get access to a wider range of operatives and stolen goods, meaning more profits for everyone?”

“Because you have to prove you’re worthy first. Keep up, man.”

“Okay, fine, I’ll goddamned prove myself! What do I need to do to get my first mission?”

“Sell fifty gold worth of stuff to a fence.”

“Wow, it’s like, I’ve already got that much. I’ve already got literally ten times that much, all from half a night of burglary in one town. Yeah, you guys just have crazy high standards. Alright, I’m not going to complain, this actually does seem relatively convenient. Where’s my fence?”

“Frozen ass end of the north.”

“Outstanding.”

I travel to Bruma to meet with my fence. My quest arrow points to his house, so I drop in midway through the day to see about offloading the couple hundred pounds of stolen goods I’m toting around with me.

I manage to catch him just before he leaves. Unfortunately, he’s unwilling to trade with me—not because, as I initially feared, I had to first prove my worth, but because it was daytime. Obviously, it was too dangerous to do business with him in the privacy of his own home while everyone else was away working. He insisted that I instead meet in a more discreet location, which turned out to be the middle of the local pub during peak hours.

This is all somewhat encouraging. If I’m going to make a livelihood out of thwarting law enforcement, it’s good to know that these are the brain trusts whose policy on the thieves’ guild is, “It’s just a legend.” So far, these guys have managed to be slightly less underground and low-profile than McDonalds.