{"id":2888,"date":"2010-10-07T00:33:13","date_gmt":"2010-10-07T08:33:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chocolatehammer.org\/?p=2888"},"modified":"2026-06-15T17:07:22","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T01:07:22","slug":"the-cyrodiil-look-cahmels-new-travels-lets-play-oblivion-part-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chocolatehammer.org\/?p=2888","title":{"rendered":"The Cyrodiil Look: Cahmel’s New Travels (Let’s Play Oblivion, Part 8)"},"content":{"rendered":"

None of these events are embellished. Everything NPCs say in this episode is a direct quote from the game. <\/em><\/p>\n

When we last left our increasingly uninspiring hero, he was turning petty theft into a passion and livelihood. Personally, I blame society. What\u2019s a hip young adventurer like me to do, man? You got people on every street corner slinging Fighter\u2019s Guild invites, violence outside, dodgy AI inside\u2014where else but crime am I gonna turn to? I mean, I guess there\u2019s the Mage\u2019s Guild, if you\u2019re into, like, pestles. <\/em>That\u2019s just not who I am.<\/p>\n

Of course, now that I\u2019ve pilfered the rough GNP of Cheydinal, it\u2019s time I got to selling some of it, which means I have to get arrested. For those of you who missed last episode: there is a correlation there, but explaining it won\u2019t make it make sense, so I shan\u2019t bother.<\/p>\n

Planning my arest was exactly like the montage of a heist movie, but with the complete opposite goal in mind. My plan was to commit a crime that was instantly noticeable to everyone, but that wouldn\u2019t completely screw me over. This is a little harder than it sounds, mostly because it turns out there\u2019s no actual rule <\/em>against public nudity in Cyrodiil.<\/p>\n

Before long, I\u2019d formed a plan I could be\u2026well, not proud of, obviously. It was a plan I\u2019d acknowledge having come up with, with a bare minimum of murmuring and failing to make eye contact. It had, as its output, my certain incarceration.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Ever walk into a restaurant on a slow day and feel bad for the owner? Yeah.<\/p><\/div>\n

Stage one of the plan was entering the local tavern. I don\u2019t know what the Radiant AI determines are peak hours, but evidently, 3:40 in the afternoon was not it. Except for the patron, the place was completely unoccupied.<\/p>\n

As I approached the bar, I hesitated. There are some instincts it\u2019s hard to repress. As an adventurer, I\u2019d long ago swallowed my silly taboo about grabbing other people\u2019s property and stuffing it down my pants, but my mama\u2019d brought me up with the common decency to wait until they\u2019d turned around first. I\u2019d once stood near a shopkeeper for the better part of a morning waiting for him to check out the window so I could swipe an armoire.<\/p>\n

But it had to be done. After all, I was an aspiring master thief. I couldn\u2019t afford to be subtle.<\/p>\n

I waited until I knew the bartender was paying attention. This took the form of her saying, \u201cGreetings,\u201d in a tone like she was hailing me from a passing train. Nestled within it was that wistful fantasy of me disappearing into the sunset, leaving her alone and peaceful far away from my smelly outlander hide.<\/p>\n

That made this a little easier\u2014the realization that I hated all NPCs almost as much as I hated working. And you know what? Maybe this little operation would be good for me. This wasn\u2019t going to be pretty, but if I was gonna be a thief, I was gonna have to learn to be ungentle.<\/p>\n

I took a step forward, reached out\u2014her eye twitched involuntarily–and touched the mug on the bar.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou treacherous little filcher!\u201d she spat, expression immediately screwing up into one of bitterest rage. I retracted my hand, then walked outside.<\/p>\n

Right into the scowling face of a guard.<\/p>\n

\u201cIT\u2019S AL OVER, LAWBREAKER!\u201d he howled, froth flying from his mouth. \u201cYOUR SPREE IS AT AN END! I\u2019LL TAKE ANY STOLEN GOODS YOU HAVE. THE NEXT MOVE IS YOURS\u2014PAY THE FINE, OR I HAUL YOU AWAY!\u201d<\/p>\n

(Bounty: 1 Gold.)<\/p>\n

The fine for touching someone\u2019s worthless cup–put out on display on a public bar–is apparently one gold. I\u2019d complain, but in Morrowind, the penalty for taking someone\u2019s fork was citizen\u2019s execution, so globally speaking this is actually pretty liberal.<\/p>\n

I politely informed the guard that I\u2019d like to be put in jail, please.<\/p>\n

\u201cHOPE YOU ROT, CRIMINAL SCUM!\u201d<\/p>\n

Jail is one of the great disappointments of Oblivion, at least for me. There was a lot of vaguely plausible marketing noise made about the game\u2019s brand-spankin\u2019 new system for dealing with incarcerations, saying jail would be playable and escaping would be possible. Technically, both of these things are exactly correct, and also the opposite of what I was imagining.<\/p>\n

The image those statements invite is of a playable prison area, with other inmates and a schedule and guards you have to outwit. You\u2019d be able to escape through brute force, by overpowering guards and stealing weapons, through stealth, by filching keys and stuff, or through cunning, by persuading people to give you a hand and tricking guards.<\/p>\n

What we ended up getting is a 5-by-5 prison cell with a bed and a door. Using the bed skips your sentence, which means it\u2019s basically the jail system from Morrowind with an extra loading area. As for the door, it\u2019s got a level 5 lock, and you\u2019re allowed to smuggle in one lockpick. Assuming you can get the door open, which isn\u2019t unreasonable, you can then escape from prison\u2014if by escape, you mean stumble around, fight a bunch of guards, get your gear back, and then leave with every law enforcement officer on the planet out for your blood and a bounty at least <\/em>a few hundred higher than it was before. At which point, you\u2019ve locked yourself out of every town or quest in the game. Congratulations.<\/p>\n

Obviously, escaping from prison isn\u2019t so much a choice as a self-imposed penance, and has the approximate effect of just resisting arrest in the first place. Actually, it\u2019s slightly worse than that, because it puts you in a position where it\u2019s harder to run away and it kicks your bounty up a notch.<\/p>\n

I consider my options, then quietly decide to just serve my damn time. This turned out to be about a day in jail, a day in which I somehow lost a point off my Armorer skill. I guess a day of not repairing things inside a stone room is way worse for the ol\u2019 muscle memory than a day of not repairing things in a grassy field.<\/p>\n

This better turn out to be worth it.<\/p>\n

Next episode: The worst morning ever, followed by a journey of epic proportions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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