06 June 2012

Playing Oblivion: Day 3 part 8 – Human again

This is part of an ongoing series. If you want to start at the beginning, go here.

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. 



Martor is finally healed but the quest isn't over. I fast-travel to Skingrad to deliver the cure to the count so he can use it on his wife. His secretary/steward/house lizard lady tells me to follow her and leads me down into a rather ominous crypt below the castle, where the count is standing by a bed with a woman on it. He tells me that Melisande is going to wake up his wife so she can take the medicine and pass on peacefully and I can watch if I want. Melisande? She's standing right there in the corner. As I came by horse and she doesn't have one at her house, I really wonder who she got here before me but it's okay. If murderers in movies can off-screen-teleport, I guess it's fair if an ally does it for once.


Melisande awakens the countess and she is scared and confused but her husband comforts her and tells her that it's over and she can finally rest. This would be a moving scene if the translators hadn't fucked it up again and the count calls his wife „my dear“ in German form that adresses a masculine person („mein Lieber“). Fuck the translation-studio or whoever is responsible for the fucked-up process behind this. The countess swallows the quest-item-potion that I couldn't, twitches a bit and drops dead. I guess you can't skip years with vampirism. The count tells me to leave him alone for 24 hours (always 24 hours, isn't it?) so he can grieve his wife. I decide it's time to celebrate me being a human being again. And eat something.

There isn't really much in the way of celebration for Martor. He doesn't have any friends who would celebrate with him. There are not whores to spend money on in this world either. There is only one thing: Go to a tavern, alone, and get drunk, also alone.

I go to the nearest Skingrad tavern and order lots of food. They irritatingly don't have any wine so I sit down, munch on pork, bread and cheese and drink wine I have brought myself. All I can drink, in fact, so Martor must be quite wasted. It's about 10 in the morning too and people around react to that, telling me that they have killed worse things than me. Thanks. I only just recovered from vampirism. There is a woman in the bar who introduces herself with the last name god-hater and tells me she hates gods and if I have a problem with that she hates me to. I don't say anything but she keeps glaring at me with the most evil look the facial animations of Oblivion can muster up. I leave the establishment and people on the street take the liberty to insult me. I turn and face an orc so he can repeat what he said while walking past me in my face but he just rambles the usual propaganda about the fighters guild fucking hiring people. I leave. What do I do to pass the time?

Looking at my character history, I read that I spent an astonishing 14 days as a vampire, about half the in-game time I have played in total, but I haven't bitten any necks. Yay me, I guess. I wait til the next morning, renting a room in one of the taverns, and then go back to the castle.

Lizard-lady tells me to wait while she gets the count. He comes into the entrance hall soon enough, from a totally different direction. I walk towards him as he is walking directly towards me. My reward...? „Go now!“ says with anger in his face. Alright, alright, fuck this place. Once it gets to „who will close the hellgates that are surrounding our city?“ I guess I'll be your idiot-for-hire again. For now I leave Skingrad for good.

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