{"id":1848,"date":"2010-04-01T01:22:22","date_gmt":"2010-04-01T09:22:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chocolatehammer.org\/?p=1848"},"modified":"2026-06-15T17:07:23","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T01:07:23","slug":"in-a-hostile-country-the-saga-of-cahmel-lets-play-morrowind-part-41","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chocolatehammer.org\/?p=1848","title":{"rendered":"In a Hostile Country: The Saga of Cahmel (Let’s Play Morrowind, Part 41)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Edit: April Fools, of course. This fills the Cahmel slot–we’ll have a new Scraps and Vatsy before the week is out.<\/strong><\/p>\n

When we last left our mighty hero, he was getting his keister handed to him by a pansy beggar; a fellow who appeared, when I saw him last, to be made out of rebar and papier-m\u00e2ch\u00e9. He seems to have gotten a very quick education in the Cloud Strife school of improbable asskicking, because he\u2019s currently demonstrating what the downside of getting clocked with an ebony blade is.<\/p>\n

It friggin\u2019 hurts, in case you were wondering.<\/p>\n

Conventional tactics clearly aren\u2019t going to work, here. I\u2019ve already gone through most of my arsenal:<\/p>\n

1.)\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Tactic One, \u201cThe Compulsive Octopus.\u201d Flail wildly with the biggest sword on hand. Take potions when you get low on health. Run as soon as things go south. Result: Clobbered in a single hit.<\/strong>
\n2.)\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Tactic Two, \u201cThe Discrete Badger.\u201d Run away before things have a chance to go south. Result: Clobbered before I could run away.<\/strong>
\n3.)\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Tactic Three, \u201cThe Cheeky Monkey.\u201d Use the environment to kill them. Examples include driving them off of cliffs, getting them caught on underwater rocks, and getting them stuck on geometry before slinging spells and arrows at them. Result: No such luck. He\u2019s like a hippopotamus on an open plain: there is nothing between me and a very brutal, very humiliating death.<\/strong>
\n4.)\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Tactic Four, \u201cThe Sly Dog.\u201d Make sure nobody is looking, then cheat passionately. Result: Ostensibly, the internet is watching.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Scientifically, I am boned<\/em>.
\n
\nI\u2019m really lost, at this point. There\u2019s not a whole lot I can do. I can only run away for so long before he catches up and drives his pigsticker up my tailpipe, and even if I could escape the area, it\u2019s not really in my best interests to have the temple be off-limits forever. This is important to questlines that I may or may not be completing at some point in the future.<\/p>\n

Well, I haven\u2019t been inside the temple yet. Maybe they sell magic gear in there that I can use against him? It\u2019s better than my other plan, which was to wish for a magical fairy to give me a wand that makes elven bones turn into feta cheese.<\/p>\n

This temple\u2019s a little different from the ones I\u2019ve encountered so far. It\u2019s darker, and the decoration\u2019s a little more on the tendril-swirly-green side than the column-dusty-brown side. It\u2019s a little dizzying, actually. Look at this screenshot for a few minutes and tell me it doesn\u2019t give you a headache:
\n
\n(Ed: Screenshot\u2019s not uploading, for some reason. WordPress keeps throwing me error messages. I\u2019ll let you know when it\u2019s fixed.)<\/strong><\/p>\n

The priests are pretty creepy, too. See that guy in the back? Yeah, nice look, pal. Is that a squid dangling down the front of your pants, or are you just happy to see me? Or, would happy be the right word? Probably not. Also get some moisturizer, dude.<\/p>\n

I talk to a few of them\u2014seems they don\u2019t sell much here. They keep calling me \u201cOutlander\u201d and making fun of me, which I\u2019ve somewhat gotten used to. Apparently, they don\u2019t take too kindly to outsiders in this kind of temple.<\/strong><\/p>\n

(Ed: This was going to be a screenshot of a their god\u2019s statue. I didn\u2019t catch the name, but it was probably something guttural and confusing. This one also failed to upload–to be honest, this one was kind of corrupted when I took it. I wonder if the problem\u2019s on FRAPS\u2019 end.)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Enough of that nonsense. Nothing for sale? You know, it\u2019s obstinate non-participatory people like you who ruin the adventurer economy. All of this magical mojo and you\u2019re just sitting on it? That\u2019s downright criminal, that is. It\u2019s up to me to do the ethical thing by recirculating it into the free market, i.e., stealing it.<\/p>\n

I break into an unguarded side closet. They seem to be fresh out of potions, but that\u2019s okay, because they apparently have dead bodies in stock.
\n
\n(Ed: Dead body here. He\u2019s an imperial male, name of Jack. That\u2019s kind of refreshing, actually. Most of them have names like Flabbicus Bowel.)
\n<\/strong>
\nSorry, mate, but I can\u2019t actually report this to any authorities or anything. I can only honor you in my own way, which is to frisk you for portable, valuable items.<\/p>\n

Locket? Looks like a quest item, probably useless. Books? Eh, maybe I can flog them. Journal? Probably full of boring entries that lead to a quest I don\u2019t care about\u2014pass. Some weapons I\u2019m not proficient with, including a club of some kind. Basically, this guy\u2019s inventory is a wash.<\/p>\n

Out of boredom, I do flip through his journal. Looks like he was trying to break some guy out of jail or something, and then he got tortured by an electricity-using destruction mage, and then he went up against cultists and died. I guess I\u2019m supposed to care about what\u2019s happening to him, but I really don\u2019t. He sounds like more of a moron than anything\u2014not the kind of guy whose shoes I\u2019d eagerly fill. The story of our times, basically.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a tragic tale, I guess, but it\u2019s also full of really bad puns. It\u2019s kind of in bad taste, really. I put it aside.<\/p>\n

I step back out into the main chamber, and all of the priests and other commoners in the place immediately turn towards me. One of them shouts, \u201cDie, heretic!\u201d and they all proceed to start charging me with knives.<\/p>\n

What the hell?<\/p>\n

Confused, I start fighting back. Individually they\u2019re not so tough, but there are a lot of them, and I have to bottleneck in the closet. These guys are such fanatics that they\u2019ll scramble over the bodies of their buddies just for a chance at attacking me\u2014it\u2019s kind of stupid, really. The fight\u2019s over in a matter of minutes, and all of their bodies have formed a sort of meat drift that\u2019s impressive to behold. You know, the AI isn\u2019t usually quite this bad.<\/p>\n

Killing over, commence looting. Hey, holy friggin\u2019 crap\u2014those are some nice weapons. Good sell value, twice the damage of my daedric sword, and enchanted to boot. Good thing they couldn\u2019t use those things, or else I\u2019d be lit up like a yuletide log right about now. Time to\u2026<\/p>\n

Huh.<\/p>\n

Why can\u2019t I pick them up?<\/p>\n

I guess they\u2019re bound, or something? That makes sense, I guess, but it\u2019s still frustrating. Nothing tantalizes like quality weapons. I go into the menu to make sure my settings are right, and when I get back out, the bodies are gone.<\/p>\n

Whatever\u2014I\u2019m done with this temple. It\u2019s ugly, it\u2019s full of enemies and bodies, and it has no good loot.<\/p>\n

Plus, I swear to god, I\u2019m getting dumber every second I stand inside it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Edit: April Fools, of course. This fills the Cahmel slot–we’ll have a new Scraps and Vatsy before the week is out. When we last left our mighty hero, he was getting his keister handed...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[153,268],"tags":[300,151],"class_list":["post-1848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lets-play","category-lets-play-morrowind","tag-lets-play","tag-morrowind"],"yoast_head":"\nIn a Hostile Country: The Saga of Cahmel (Let's Play Morrowind, Part 41) -<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.chocolatehammer.org\/?p=1848\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"In a Hostile Country: The Saga of Cahmel (Let's Play Morrowind, Part 41) -\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Edit: April Fools, of course. 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