It's early 2012 and I'm playing The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Why? Because I (finally) can. Join me on my path to glory and the stabilization of the status quo in almost-Tolkien-land.
It's night in the Imperial Capital. A
figure wanders through the streets, from shadow to shadow but without
any real aim. It's Martor, the hero, the traveler, the unwilling
vampire. The thirst must be killing him by now but his quest has only
just begun. At some point, I realize, I must wait until the day. I
have come to the capital because I have heard that one can buy a
soul gem here. In fact, I know so, because after all I have read the
online wiki about how to complete this vampire-cure quest. It turns
out that without reading that, I wouldn't have stood a chance. It's
hard enough as it is: Martor burns up quickly upon contact with
sunlight, which I could help with by drinking someones blood. But
Martor has sworn never to do such a thing.
The problem is that the stores are only
open during the day. During which Martor will quickly perish when
outside. I go into a tavern that is across the street from an
alchemistry-shop and rent a room. Sleeping until the morning, Martor
has another set of nightmares involving food that rots and is full of
maggots. I get up and go to the door, formulating a plan. I ready the
heal-spell, which Martor can cast four times before running out of
magick, healing him about ten percent of his total health. Not much.
I get out of the door and run across the street to the store, blinded
by the glaring light and hurt by the sun. Inside it's all right again
and I use a batch of heal-spell to heal up. Then I talk to the owner.
He doesn't have a soul-gem. He doesn't have any, actually and it
dawns on me that I may be in the wrong place. Consulting the map, I
realize that there is a wizardry-store too. It's halfway across the
district. Well at least the alchemist can sell me bloodgrass and some
garlic, which I will need for the second stage of the quest. While
I'm here I also stock up on health-potions, which may save my life
when I get caught in the open during daytime... Martor waits and
heals up over the course of two in-game hours. Then I open the door
and run. I had already planned out the route to run, ignoring the
people I pass telling me that I look sick, running and casting that
pathetic little heal-spell. Martor stumbles into the door with no
magick and a total of four health points left. That was incredibly
close.
The owner of the store is willing to
sell Martor a great soul-gem for less money than I had feared. That's
the first out of five. Good thing I know where to find the other
four. After healing up, I look at my map again, noticing a place
called the Golden Caraffe close by. Assuming it is a tavern I can
rent a room at and sleep until it's dark outside again, I leave the
door, suffer in the sunlight and run there. It is not a tavern, but a
store for whatever. Now Martor has to wait and heal up until the sun
goes down. As I don't yet know when exactly that is, I have to try
going out every once-in-a-while and see if the outside world is still
killing Martor. At some point I have it narrowed-down to about 8 pm.
As it gets dark, I leave the place and fast-travel to a place close
to where I know that the ruins of Nornal are (which should contain
another large soul-gem), to find the place from there.
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