The Cyrodiil Look: Cahmel’s New Travels (Let’s Play Oblivion, Part 14)

This is the unnaturally-lit, grease-haired potatoface of the criminal underground.

When we last left our legendary hero, he had just proven that he alone was worthy of doing business with the most low-rent crapartist fence of the Thieves’ Guild, and was now attempting to prove he was worthy of running errands. I am to do this by rounding up knickknacks and selling them to my fence, who will then turn around and…wait, who does the Thieves’ Guild sell this stuff to? They wouldn’t let me do business with them earlier, so I’m guessing that policy extends to all members of the public. So, what do they do with all of these clay plates and cabbages I’m selling them, throw them at the mailman to see if he’s worthy of bringing them packages?

Oh, what’s that you say? They sell ‘em to merchants? Except, if you’ll recall, merchants can magically detect stolen goods and are on record as refusing to buy ‘em from me. You’re telling me they’ll only take them from a sinister shadow organization at marked-up prices?

I think I feel another counterpoint coming on. “Maybe they don’t buy stolen goods from you because the Thieves’ Guild threatens shopkeepers who do business with amateurs?” That would make sense—relative to any given element of a Bethesda setting, anyway—except that the Thieves’ Guild in Cyrodiil has an ironclad reputation as a softie don’t-bruise-their-tender-heads pacifist Robin Hood wussarmy. They actually outright forbid you to kill people when you’re on the clock, so it doesn’t really add up that they’d threaten violence against innocent shopkeepers, or that the shopkeepers would find those threats credible— they’re no more prone to threatening people than House Hlaalu is to holding sexual harassment seminars. Come to that, I doubt merchants would support an institution that’s no doubt responsible for significant losses on their own end. Most of my current haul was taken from businessmen just like them.

Let’s go ahead and recap, because I’m not sure you could absorb that much stupid in one go. The Thieves’ Guild will only trade in goods with an elite clientele of people, these being the absolute best of the realm’s incompetent bunglerogues. Their business consists of buying crappy knickknacks from said bunglerogues until such a time as they prove themselves worthy of selling…slightly more expensive items. These goods are then turned around and sold to the rest of the guild and nobody else. Let’s be generous to an absolute goddamned fault and call this demographic five hundred thieves total. That’s five hundred thieves selling whatever random crap they happen to get their hands on to five or six merchants scattered around the world, with only a very tiny percentage of those people able to even access more than half of said merchants. And to support this entire enterprise, the crap is then purchased by…those same thieves. At the same price you’d buy said crap from a store. Not that you’d want the vast majority of it. Because it’s crap.

Put on your pants-crapping pants, Mr. Grey Flockwit, because here’s an idea that actually makes sense. Make it so that anyone, even—especially—nonthieves, can come in off the street and buy or sell to a fence. Fences will sell these stolen goods at competitive prices, which will attract a vast clientele of poor people and bargain hunters, which will make everyone involved scads of money. In addition, by paying attention to who your  fences’ most regular suppliers of lucrative goods are, you get an excellent idea of who is actually an effective thief and not just some jackass who got himself thrown in prison. Then you approach these people about membership, and then you worry about figuring out who’s ready for more difficult tasks.

I guess my theory is that guild standing is based on incompetence. If you screw up a job and go to prison, you’re offered membership. If you flunk economics, you’re offered leadership.

Then again, that theory’s somewhat shot down by the whole proving your worthy fetish they’re working. Case in point: I have to sell this fence a sufficient quantity of stuff to get offered my first job. I liquidate my first ever haul, the end result of one night’s work.

So proud.

Alright, let’s see what job Armand’s got for us. This had better be good.

It is. Oh, it is. Turns out, while I was gone, an unspeakable atrocity was committed by the city guards, under the control of the fascist robot Lex, a man who had previously demonstrated his depraved character by going on record as not liking the Grey Fox, king of the petty thieves. Demonstrating ill will towards criminals was bad enough—practically unforgiveable–but this time, he’d gone too far.

It was a day like any other on the Waterfront District. The sound of the river lapping against the dock was the only noise that disturbed the early-morning calm, a silence that hung like a bird of prey riding a killing wind.  This peace-loving community of fishermen, odd-job workers, sailors, and innkeepers arose to set about their business…only to find armored puppet soldiers of the state waiting on their stoops and gardens. The people had nowhere to run, and they had nowhere to hide—they could do nothing but cower, defenseless, as guards descended on them and collected taxes.

That’s right. Lex—that grinning, soulless monster–collected adjusted income tax from the innocent proletariat. I know I am not alone in declaring this outrage cannot stand. I mean, legally collecting money from people? That’s practically thievery! We must stand together as one people, raise up our arms, and storm the very walls of the fascist wait this is stupid.

He collected taxes? That’s it? I mean, yeah, I guess these people are poor, but are they really that poor? There’s a couple beggars hanging around, but most of the people here have some kind of job they’ll talk to you about if you ask them. That guy fishes, that lady runs a boarding house for sailors, that dude runs a guild of people who steal things indiscriminately from merchants…all of these people have a steady source of income, so it’s not unreasonable that they should have to give up a couple gold here and there. And hell, even the beggars always seem to have a decent sum on them, probably from all the prospective recruits bribing them for the location of Target X’s house.

Little spoiler, here: you eventually recover the collected taxes, and it’s not that much. In fact, you get to keep it, and it’s implied that the Grey Fox just goes around and comps everyone for their individual losses. What the hell was that point of that, then? Apparently I was “sending a message” that if you collect taxes from the people, someone will infiltrate your tower and steal it right back! I mean, the first time. The next time, I guess you can just staff extra guards to protect it. Or just deliver it to the coffers right away. That would also work.

Is this really what I’m to expect from the guild? A terrible corporate structure, a lunatic fiscal plan, and a social crusade that reads like something from an editorial in a college newspaper? The kind that’s written by someone who wears scarves in July and has a beard thick enough to hide his pirate radio transmitters in?

You know what? Screw this. I think I just proved myself worthy of leaving you people to your inbred capitalism and questionable, if enthusiastic, politics. I’m going to find a job somewhere else.

You know, I guess I said I’d put this behind me, but all the sudden I could really go for killing something.