The Cyrodiil Look: Cahmel’s New Travels (Let’s Play Oblivion, Part 19)

When we last left our noble hero, he was considering whether or not a career in straight murdering people was feasible. I mean, it’s not too much of a stretch. I’ve been doing the whole physical violence against my fellow man/woman thing for ages, and while most of that has been at the amateur level, there’s at least a couple of professional dude-killings I can stick on my resume. Those guys in that cave that one time, for example. And that dude-lady in the house. And the other guys in that cave that other time. I don’t think I’ve ever been paid money to assassinate an innocent person before, but it’s a pretty fine line, right? Except in the legal, ethical, or practical sense.

And hey, I’ve been practicing all the right things. Over the course of the past week or so, I’ve been working almost nonstop building up my stock of bribe money, my tolerance for squirrely quests that go outside of my best interests, and my general misanthropy. And also sneaking and daggers and stuff. I am fully equipped to creep up behind someone, work up a lather of uncalled for hatred towards their potato faces, shank them, pay the guard not to arrest me afterwards, and accept a completely meager and disproportionate reward for the whole business before circling back for some more.

Yeah, you know what? I’ve found my calling. I’ve found the one thing on this continent that I’m willing to do. I’m not going to duke it with hobos in the hopes of scoring someone’s lunch money, I’m not going to steal from the middle-class and act irritatingly paternal towards the poor, I’m not going to do jobs for a Grapes-of-Wrath-soundin’ company looking to hire up starving stragglers and throw them at actual literal wolves, and as for that saving the world and returning the rightful heir to the throne in order to prevent the apocalypse thing? Sorry, but I prefer to do jail time and/or pay off the system to excuse my multiple homicides. Performing community service just ain’t my scene.

Mommy, I’ve decided what I’m going to do when I grow up. I want to kill lots and lots of people that probably don’t deserve it.

The trouble is that the Dark Brotherhood won’t even consider your application unless you have already iced a minimum of one punk, and even then, only if it was an unprovoked assault. I guess the Brotherhood can just sense whenever anyone murders any other person at any time, which, while it’s not exactly an exclusive criterion, at least it’s more relevant than the Thieves’ Guild qualification exam, which is bred specifically to select  individuals the Guild shouldn’t want. At least this test is sloppy and generalized in the right direction.

Actually, there’s a good point—the Dark Brotherhood can apparently magically detect whenever someone illegally murders someone else. That would mean they just know whenever a murder is committed, Minority Report style. Setting aside the vast implications of that for a moment: does the Dark Brotherhood visit absolutely every murderer, or just the ones who look buff and pretty enough to do the organization justice? I mean, let’s say I stab some random beggar in order to loot their meager savings and incongruous accent. Is the DB really gonna look at me and go, “Yeah, he’s got what it takes?” Because I’m pretty sure they’d have to interview like thousands of people a year if that was the case. And at least a couple of those interviews would have to be kinda unpleasant.

DB RECRUITER: You sleep soundly for a murderer. Perhaps, within your uniquely dark soul, even you realize that you have the potential to accomplish great and terrible what are you doing to that live stoat?

FISHBOY FRANK: This dance keeps me alive! It is the hound-beast that culls the freshest chicken!

DB RECRUITER: I hate this job so much. I really gotta score that transfer to Murdering People.

Enough screwing around—time to figure out how I’m gonna do this. I guess step one is figuring out who to kill to get cred with the other murderers. Technically, anyone would do, but I make a habit of never being randomly cruel when I can score petty revenge on a specific individual instead. And at this point, it’s really not so much a matter of figuring out who I want dead as it is picking out which ones I would want to kill the least. Into this I’m factoring in how much they’ve wronged me, how smug they were when they did it, how smug their face is, and whether or not I can take them in something that shares a few incidental characteristics with a straight fight.

Armand Christophe, the guy who turned the process of joining the Thieves Guild into a dumbass reality show that carried with it the crappiest benefits ever committed to contract? He did screw me over, and his face is pretty smug, but on the other hand, he’s all super important and stuff. I bet you a million dollars of anyone’s money that he’s unkillable.

Arena dude? He’s spent the last decade or so hurling childish insults at starving, desperate, heavily-armed hobos. He’s either tough as nails or he’s managed to turn stupidity into adequate body armor. Either way, too risky.

The Emperor? Hm. That’s actually not a bad oh, wait, someone beat me to it.

Dammit, this is hard.