The Cyrodiil Look: Cahmel’s New Travels (Let’s Play Oblivion, Part 27)

Go, sickness mini-update!

I admit to being a little bit underwhelmed by that first mission. I show up to a docked boat in a heavily-populated harbor, walk past the bodies of security I had previously killed by accident, and murder my target in two swings without him drawing his weapon. Most of the job was spent walking in broad daylight, doing legal activities. I felt less like a nightclad assassin and more like a delivery guy, except it’s generally more bothersome to get someone to sign for a package than it was to sign that guy’s jugular with my knife. I can’t remember, but I don’t even think the door was locked. I’m a little suspicious that one of my co-workers wrote ahead and asked the dude to go easy on me, it was my first day. Or that I blocked out being diagnosed with a terminal case of corpus or something, and this was the Make-a-Wish foundation letting me pretend to be an assassin for a week.

I get a nice little ring as my reward for the job. I’m not entirely clear on the particulars, but I think the ring might be a special bonus for not having alerted any of the crew? In which case, I guess I would have had to have worked pretty amazingly goddamned hard not to get that ring. Maybe I could have broken into hell just to throw a pair of calipers at one of them and go, “Hey, yeah, it’s me. Finally getting’ around to killing your captain now. Thought you might be wondering why he wasn’t down here—I dunno, I guess I just figured that if the captain had been present at the time, he would have come out and done something about the fact that his asshole crew was getting slaughtered outside. Maybe he just has really bad hearing. Or maybe he hates you guys! You should ask him. Hold on, I’ll set something up.”

I indicate that I’m ready for my next job. This one goes like this:

Apparently, there’s this gentleman named Baenlin who lives up in Bruma. His hobbies include obeying a ludicrously strict schedule that doesn’t involve leaving his house or engaging in any legitimate activities, and his interests include sitting under precariously balanced stuffed heads and somehow antagonizing groups of assassins. My job is to make the hit look like an accident. You might think this would involve getting there, seeing that he spends most of his day sitting under a glaringly obvious deathtrap of a stuffed minotaur head, and extrapolating that you’re supposed to drop it on him and then sneak out at your leisure. You’d be wrong. Instead, it involves getting outright told by your handler that you’re supposed to go there and drop a minotaur head on him. Say what you want about the Dark Brotherhood, but they’ve got crackerjack intel.

“Alright, initiate. Blood to see you. Am I right?”

“Uh, yeah, good one.”

“Now, to business. Your job is to find a way to slay Valmont Boucherie, the scrib jerky merchant. You are to make it look like an accident.”

“Very well, brother. Have you any advice to give me?”

“Valmont has a pair of guards. They take bathroom breaks between 1:00 and 1:15 every single day, and when they do so, they tend to hang their scabbards on the stall doors.

“This is useful information, brother. Thank you for…”

“Also, Valmont has a deathly allergy to cinnamon. He begins to go into cardiac arrest if he consumes any of it. The only treatment involves the application of scabbards.”

“Aha…a plan begins to form. I will go and acquire some cinnamon before I….”

“You can find it in his spice cabinet. First on the left, top shelf.”

“Oh. Well, that’s…thank you, brother, that will be convenient. I suppose I can place it in his supper…”

“He takes a snack at 1:30 every day. The snack is prepared by a chef who’s a notorious drunk.”

“I guess that’s more convenient? So I guess I bribe the cook…”

“Or get him drunk. You should really just get him drunk.”

“Alright, alright. So I’ll get the chef some wine…”

“I’ll even give you a bonus for it.”

“..and then put the cinnamon in his snack, after stealing the scabbards. And then I’ll escape through the back door.”

“Side door’s quicker.”

“Look, I don’t mean to be rude, but is there a reason you didn’t just do the job yourself?”

“Vaaaaaaa-mpire.”

“Right. Fine. Right.”

I make my way to Bruma. Well, this mission’s pretty much cut out for me; get in, undo some screws, get out. The temptation is pretty strong just to breeze through like a sumbitch; really, at this point, my potential for failure is pretty slim.

On the other hand, I find it does generally paid to be prepared, and in my long experience, “preparation” means talking to everyone in, involved with, or geographically near my job. So I seek out the nearest human being and try to start a conversation:

Once again, I have underestimated my own potential.