In a Hostile Country: The Saga of Cahmel (Let’s Play Morrowind, Part 5)

When we last left our hero, Cahmel, he was hopelessly, ridiculously, absurdly lost. Somehow, his brilliant strategy of wandering out into the roads, identical canyons, and inscrutable wasteland of this hostile countryside did not pay off terribly well. Next thing I knew, the map indicated that I was going exactly the opposite direction from my intended destination. This is what seasoned trailblazers like to refer to as, “the wrong way”.

Now, some of you might be thinking: if you know generally where the city is, why don’t you just walk there in a straight line and hope to bump into it? T’ain’t that simple. See, the entirety of Morrowind seems to be made up of tumor-like, obscenely rounded canyons that jut up on either side of the road, like giant, intelligence-insulting barriers preventing you from getting too lost. Oh, alright, that’s not fair—that’s really only towards the center of the landmass, and in the areas around Balmora. Still, I accidentally wandered off a road I was sure was Vivec-bound, and ended up in one of these canyons with no choice but to stick it out until I ended up anywhere else. Once I broke out of this canyon, I was free to move around a bit more intelligently.

Finally, after studying my map, picking my roads carefully, and rechecking my position relative to Vivec twice a minute, I arrived, footsore and weary, at the magnificent gates of

Wait, isn't that

Balmora OH GOD DAMN IT.

That’s right, folks! Rather than pansy around with that stupid elitist 19 gp Silt Strider, I had to take the long, scenic route that ended up exactly where I started from. My head swam from the sheer, brilliant stupidity at the core of this journey. Somehow, the never-ceasing gaze of my gnarled she-witch companion looked a little more accusatory than usual, something I had considered only academically possible. I was dejected, exhausted, broken, injured, hungry and ashamed. Overall, this was not one of my greatest triumphs.

Right. That’s it, then. I give up. This journey has given me nothing but grief, bad luck, and misery. At least with the silt strider, there’s not gonna be any nasty surprises.

…

Double. The. The prices are…double.

They doubled.

While I was out there, marinating in travel dust, breaking my face open upon the claws of unspeakable plague monsters, being picked apart by cliff racers, and generally being murdered by all things outdoors, meanwhile, up here, there’s price hikes.

Somewhere from within my crushed soul, a single thought echoes: It’s genius, really. I mean, there was no way I was going back out there—he didn’t have to hook my with low rates anymore. He knew for sure I was going to use his services, or else die of old age standing right there. It’s just that I hadn’t anticipated this sort of business savvy from a mangy NPC.

Wait a minute…

It's like, I was just thinking, "Hey, what has a track record of being a worthless lump that makes the process of getting from Point A to Point B a thankless, miserable task," and this name just pops into my head.

Ah-HA. I was being charged extra because of my leech. The wrinkled parasite is apparently incapable of paying her own fare, so I gotta double down. See, where’s the justice in that? If I take her across the country, miles away from where she is paying me to take her, then I have to pay for it. How inconsiderate!

So, I’ve got two choices here. I can pay extra to tote around a clingy sack of uselessness with me, or I can drop my obligation and the extra fee at the same time.

Not a difficult choice, is it?

Unless, you know. You’re thick.

The…sigh…the two of us take the strider to the great city of Viviec.

Not pictured: friendly, accepting neighborhood, tourist hotspot, fast-paced center of commerce, a city that's less than a nightmarish chore to navigate.

Vivec…oh, my, Vivec. My days of being lost were not quite over.

Vivec is not, per se, a city. Vivec is like a malevolent Hershey bar—rather than being a standard, unified whole, it’s broken up into fragments that sit over the water like massive tiered pontoons.

Try a couple Google searches including Vivec, and you’ll get a few different recurring themes. How do I find this, how do I find that, where’s this guy, where’s that guy, here’s a map, here’s a guide, here’s a mod that fixes the city into something easy to find your way around.

Take a look at this map of Vivec:

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/File:MW_Map_Vivec.jpg

You’ll notice that there are many different sections, each with a different focus, set of shops, NPCs, etc. You’ll notice that they’re all connected by bridges. What you may not notice, from this aerial view, is that it is goddamn impossible to find your way around at first and time-consuming once, after great pains, you’ve figured out just what the hell you’re doing.

The first five times I went to Vivec, I would wander aimlessly, ascending ramps, moving from bridge to bridge, ducking in and out of shops, stumbling into the canals, contemplating suicide—I didn’t go on jaunts into the city, I went on expeditions of sweat, blood, and tears. I wouldn’t leave, I’d escape, and once I had I would hack my hand open with a dagger and swear a blood oath to never, ever, ever return.

And then a quest would come up, and I’d have to go back again. And eventually, I etched a map of the city into my brain, inch by inch, room by room, step by painful step. Although I never became fully familiar with Vivec, I did learn to muddle along with a minimum of difficulty, so long as I had access to a map.

Seriously. You think I’m exaggerating, but the actual bloody NPCs have dialogue about how confusing Vivec is. They hang a lampshade on that nonsense.

Still, upon entering the city, I managed not to panic. All I needed to do was get to an inn, sleep till morning, buzz all the Great House cantons, and get out as soon as humanly possible.

I’m sure things won’t go hilariously hinjinx-ladenly wrong.

Tune in next week when things go…sigh…you know.