In a Hostile Country: The Saga of Cahmel (Let’s Play Morrowind Part 3)

When we last left our valiant hero, he was running somebody else’s errands in the nude. I’m not going to say it only goes downhill from there, but there you go.

Suffice it to say, after an uneventful journey (punctuated only by beating up the stout worm-things known as Kwamas and the more familiar rat-things known as rats), I arrived in Balmora.

Balmora, home of about 150 people and about 10 houses.

Balmora is one of the larger cities in the game, and also one of the most metropolitan. There are Fighters, Mages, and Thieves Guild representatives here, as well as an outpost of one of the Great Houses, a good array of shops, and transportation via teleport and silt strider to many other locales of interest.

It’s also fairly well populated. The streets contain many passersby, which gives you a lovely little taste of what the NPC color is like in Morrowind.

It’s probable that many of you have played Oblivion, and can attest that the NPCs in that game give one the impression of basically good-natured people who’ve recently undergone a lobotomy. Morrowind, for its part, is full of people who seem to have been off their meds for a few weeks.

NPCs in Morrowind pace like caged tigers, strutting in aimless triangles about the same stretch of turf ad infinitum. They’re territorial, too—venture within five feet and they’ll immediately twist towards you, give you a fierce glare, and bark something along the lines of, “Spit it out or hit the road!”, “My time is precious, so make it quick,” and my personal favorite, “You like to dance close to the fire, don’t you?” Left to their own devices, with only their voice and the voices in their heads to keep them company, they take to talking aloud to themselves. They say things like:

“Now where did that slave get off to? It was here a minute ago.” (Note: there are no slaves in Balmora)

“So I said, where’s the money in that?”

“I don’t recall using teleportation, but there I was…naked.”

This isn’t part of any conversation, understand. This isn’t just a fierce description of mudcrabs and the annoyingness thereof, this is an articulate, thoughtful monologue written and performed by themselves with a target audience of themselves. Needless to say, it’s a bit disturbing.

Things don’t get much better when you engage them in conversation, either. See, it’s like this. Morrowind is predominately settled by a race called the Dunmer—dark elves,. It’s their homeland, and they’ve got a rich tradition of slavery, appalling climate, and building cities out of giant crabs and mushrooms. Except, the big mean Empire (home of the Imperials, fancy that) has gripped Morrowind and forced it to take in immigrants of all sorts. Since you’re from a Cyrodillic prison (Cyrodil being the capital of the Empire), it is assumed you’re not a local boy; thus, the Dunmer hate you for being a grubby foreigner who eats food not made out of insect by-product and who thinks respecting other races is a novel and intriguing concept. This sentiment is reflected in the way that most Dunmer openly, eagerly, passionately despise your outlander guts.

Speaking Ashlander, Part 1. "N'sera aves." Translation: "If I killed you, nobody would ever search for the body, outlander scum."

And Dunmer are the most common race. So basically, wherever you go, most of the people in the room are going to be entertaining blissful fantasies about dumping your corpse into the canal. This improves after you beat the main quest, which is extremely satisfying.

I like this little touch. It gives you a feeling of being on the fringe of something exotic and hostile—you must prove in deeds that you are worthy of their respect, never an easy task.

Or you could just bribe them. That’s also an option.

Once hitting Balmora, the first thing I do is liquidate the crap I’ve been lugging around. I end up with a very respectable number—a little less than a thousand septims (a thousand gold). A bit too respectable a number, actually.

I was thinking it would be exciting for me to try to raise the money to keep up with staying in inns and eating food, but I’ve basically already secured room, board, repairs, and palm-greasing expenses for the next few weeks. Unless I find something terribly expensive I want to buy, it looks like finances are no longer going to be a challenge. If you don’t know me, you’d think that’d be something worth celebrating. If you do know me, you’ll know that I once created a Sims 2 household that consisted of one man on a blank lot with every penny of his starting money carefully squandered, so that he spent his first miserable days earning enough to buy food, urinating in a ditch, and sleeping on the ground (usually, in the exact same ditch). I like clawing my way through financial hardship in games, an urge which will probably serve me well in this economy.

No matter. Time to figure out where to go from here. Just for laughs, I decide to deliver that package to Cosades—you know, the guy who’s supposed to be my parole officer/government employer from now on—before I leave him and the main quest for good.

I find his house. Door isn’t locked, so I guess I’ll

oh god

Oh sweet mercy.

That. That’s great. I was worried. I was thinking wow, this is Morrowind, most beautiful game of its generation. Just, just couldn’t wait to see those epic panoramas. The massive Telvani cities built on a hive of magic and almost organic energy. The vast fields of ash, leading up to the red skies above the forbidden mountains and the brilliant illumination of The Ghostgate. The forgotten husks of ancient Daedric temples, still stirring with unkempt flame and feral abominations. And some old guy with his shirt off. That’s lovely.

This is the exact same screenshot. I just thought you might need another dose of a ripped shirtless geezer.

Jeez, Cosades, I…you were told to expect company. Your door is unlocked. Put a goddamn shirt on. What? Is there no Covering, Torso allowance on your budget sheet? Did you use your tunic to fend of a rabid rat attack? Did you have to sell it to afford a silt strider ride to get here? Do you just like being able to pace around a little faster without the weight dragging you down?

I say, what eldritch machination is this? You say that this garment is draped over the torso? How delightfully quaint.

Here! Right here! Here’s your goddamn shirt, Cosades, put the goddamn thing on! It’s not a complicated procedure! You pick up the goddamn shirt, you place your arms through the big hole, you let it shimmy on down past those radiant pecs of yours, you put yours arms through the little holes, and voila, you don’t have to blind neighbors and well-wishers anymore.

Oh, and what? What’s that?

Drugs are bad, man.

Jeepers, Cosades. For those of you playing along at home, that is moon sugar right there, and that is a skooma pipe under the bed. Wow. That’s, that’s awesome. This guy’s my parole officer, huh?

Let me give him the benefit of the doubt, here, and assume the whole shirtless drug addict aesthetic he’s got going here is some kind of cover. After all, as he freely admits to me after I give him the package, he’s a member of a secret government organization called The Blades. Why is all of that a necessary part of his cover? Why can’t he just be some random guy? Like a merchant, or a farmer? Why someone who, by his nature, draws attention to himself, and possibly the attention of certain local non-Empire authorities?

I then come to the blissful realization that it’s not my problem. Bye, Cosades. Have a nice existence, and don’t be afraid of letting shirtfulness enter your life.

So. Now what?

I realize at about this point that I really don’t know what I want to do with my character. I could just explore, I guess, but that’s dangerous at level 1—most of the dungeons will tear you to pieces if you try cleaning them out, and the upper areas of the map are filled with non-level-appropriate behemoths that have been waiting around for weeks just for their chance to claw your throat out. I should really get some levels under my belt before I leave the guidance of primary questgivers.

I want something special for my character—something interesting, something exciting, something that spins a story worth telling. Maybe the venerable organization that is the Fighter’s Guild will fit the bill.

Also, I really wanted to use this screenshot.

I enter.

This shot is less impressive.

And here, we’ve got a woman wearing crappy leather armor that even I, with the allowance I got from that bloke as my getting-out-of-jail present, have surpassed in quality. And in the background, Roy Greenhilt there, who has no armor at all except an awkward shield he apparently insists on wearing at all times.

Not very promising.

So, who’s in charge here?

This woman's name: Eydis Fire-Eye. I think you can get that treated pretty cheaply nowdays.

Okay, that’s what I’m talking about. Bonemold armor. Awesome name. Businesslike demeanor. This I can work with. So, what are the rules?

First rule of Fighter Club: Don't talk about Fighter Club.

Let me get this straight—the rules are be hardcore, kill things for money, and help yourself to our chest of freebies? Where do I sign?

Okay, awesome, I’m now a member of the Fighter’s Guild! Honor! Power! Respect! Virtue! Thus begins my new life, a life led by the hallowed precepts of this most noble of organizations. What’s my first job?

Kill some rats.

…

Thus begins my new life of leaving politely and never coming back.

Next: I find my true quest.

EDIT: WordPress managed to swallow this post after I first assembled it, giving me the opportunity to savor the 20-minute screenshot uploading/resizing/captioning process all over again. I took the shortcut the second time, so some of them are kinda blurry in the thumbnail. C’est la vie.