(continued from part 1)
Episode 36: Part 2, Combat and re-equipping
a spear is probably a sensible option
The problem with a spear is that the second your enemy gets up close, you're fucked.
Whatever we do, keep a knife
Support upgrading our spear to the silver spear
get a silver spear.
:
"Hmm. Ok, looks like everyone agrees either spear or short blade. But..."Don't go off selling armor and weapons just to buy armor and weapons.
Take a weapon and some armor out while hunting alchemy ingredients
and get into a couple fights with monsters to train while you're doing it.
:
"Yeah. I mean, we spent four weeks getting this gear and training for it. How about we at least try it out, first, before we sell it all and buy something else."You head out the front gate and go west along the river.
+1 AcrobaticsThe silt strider is kind of scary looking for the underside. When riding on them it's easy to forget they're alive. From this angle, seeing how the tentacles are nearly as big as you are...yeah, you decide to skirt the edge of the hill on the far side rather than get too close. Following the river southwest towards the Shulk egg mine, you find a lone scrib wandering in the brush.
:
"Ok, time to do this."You draw your tanto and attack.
Only to be immediately paralyzed. It's...unpleasant. The fact that the scrib takes the opportunity to gnaw on your shins makes it less so. Eventually it wears off and you resume your attack, only to be paralyzed again. And again a third time before you finally manage to dispatch it.
Health is now 42/50:
"Hey, that wasn't too bad."You find another one and kill it too.
+1 unarmored+1 heavyHealth is now 31/50:
"Ok, well, I think I've got a good feel for what fighting with the tanto is like. Let's switch to the spear and try that."You find another scrib, and quickly dispatch it.
Health is now 28/50:
"Hmm. Well, it did die a lot faster, but I'm not sure if that's because the spear is better, or because it never managed to paralyze me so I didn't have to stand around and wait as much"You search the area for more bugs, but don't find any. You stop and talk to a couple egg miners, but they seem reluctant to talk to you. Must be the Legion armor you're wearing.
while hunting alchemy ingredients and get into a couple fights with monsters
You do however find
lots of flowers, and various roots and plants to pick. After a few hours, 36 Heather and various other useful things. But you don't find any more monsters to fight. Glancing upwards, you see the sun peek out over from behind the nearby hills
:
"Hey there, sun. Looks like I've run out of monsters to fight. I suppose I could go into the mine. I'd be sure to find some in there. What do you think?"The sun says nothing.
:
"I'll take that as a yes."You head back to the Shulk egg mine, and step inside.
It's dark and gloomy.
Before long you find a number of large kwama eggs. And by 'large' you mean they're bigger than your head. You remember from your lessons with Nalcarya how the usable alchemical portion is only the tiny germinal disc on the yolk. You consider extracting them from some eggs...but they're kind of creepy and gross looking. Maybe later.
Before long you find a kwama forager. Or rather, it finds you. It's about a foot and a half long worm and the first you see it is when it comes
jumping out towards you from around a corner.
Not only is it disgusting, it's also very much more dangerous than the scribs. You swing your spear frantically at it, but the thing moves fast and it's amazingly good at evading you. And the few times you do manage to hit it, your spear mostly bounces off with minimal penetration. Eventually you give up and leave. This is a losing battle, and you're not going to let a worm kill you. Fortunately it can't open the door, and you're perfectly safe once you're outside again.
Health is now 14/50+1 heavy+1 unarmoredAgility is now 36:
"Ok, guys...after experimenting with both the dagger and the spear, here's what I've concluded:"1) I don't think fighting with tower shield plus spear like the legion taught is going to be realistic. That's for group formations, not one on one fights. I need two hands to use the spear. If I use a short blade, that leaves one hand free. Also, I have to always be carrying it. The dagger I can sheathe, but if I go with the spear, that means dropping my weapon if I ever need two hands for something. What if I have to climb a ladder? If it came to it I could probably figure something out. This particular spear is only 5 or 10 pounds. I could probably grip it with thumb and finger and use my other three fingers to hook onto the rungs. But that kind of thing might become an issue at some point.
2) My chitin spear weighs almost double what my steel tanto weighs. Honestly...I think that's ok. Yes it's heavy, but I can do it, for now. But if this is a long term decision, what about later on? I'm going to want to upgrade eventually, right? How much does a daedric dagger vs a daedric spear weigh? Which of these is the better choice long term?
3) I do like the extra range of the spear. I kind of had to bend over to hit stuff with the tanto. But, the length was kind of a problem when I fought in the mine, because the thing was longer than the corridor was wide. There wasn't enough room to turn around because the spear got caught on the rocks. I can see that being a problem.
4) But...the spear might be useful for things other than fighting: checking water depth. Poking things. Digging. Balance. I could probably use it as a lever. In the right circumstances I might even be able to use it to bar a door or climb out of a pit. The spear has a lot of potential non-weapon utility that the dagger probably lacks.
sell
sell our equipment
sell what we got
Check the armorer in Balmora
buy some light armour
+1 to light armor
:
"Ok. I'm going to try to do this intelligently."It takes a couple trips to haul everything back and forth from Caius' place, but you make the following transactions:
Sell * Chitin club chitin club for 2
* Steel longsword for 36
* Imperial chain cuirass for 40
* Imperial steel helm for 31
* Imperial steel shield for 35
Mercantile skill is now 7Personality is now 43The merchant refuses to buy the legion guard armor.
BuyChitin left + right gauntlets for 17
Chitin greaves for 29
Chitin cuirass for 45
Chitin left + right pauldrons for 32
Chitin boots for 12
Leaving you 387 gold.
Mercantile skill is now 8You consider buying a chitin helm to complete the set...but hey, that fur helm is light, isn't it? Your new look:
:
"Yeah, it's amazing how much lighter this is. I'm wearing a full suit of chitin armor, and I think the entire suit weighs less than just the steel cuirass."You stash your spear, legion cuirass and mortar and pestle at Caius' house for now.
:
"Ok, guys. I didn't manage to do everything you suggested, but I think I made good progress. Right now I have 387 gold. I can rent a room for 250/month, and I can complete my alchemy toolset for 120. That would leave 17 gold to buy potion bottles and I could get started on alchemy right away. BUT...the only full recipes I actually know how to make right now are paralysis and restore fatigue, and looking over my materials, best case all I can make is about 5 potions of paralysis, assuming I succeed every time. And even if I do...I'm not sure anybody will buy them. People don't seem to be completely stupid here, and I don't really think I'm going to be able to sell people worthless potions to buy materials to make more worthless potions to sell.
But...I do have some other ingredients I haven't eaten yet. I could do that. And I could use trial and error with that massive pile of heather flowers with everything else I have, and maybe stumble on some new recipes by chance. I just can't guarantee that doing this will be a money making proposition. It might, it might not. I don't know, and it would take all of my money to rent a room and buy equipment just to find out.
Alternately, I'm only 113 gold short of what Eddie said he'd charge to teach me how to channel magicka. I'm sure if you guys want I can probably find a way to scrounge up that much...with or without stealing it and thereby invoking the wrath of the thieves guild. But the 500 would only be to learn to channel, after which I'd then need to learn an actual spell school. So learning to be able to usefully cast anything would take an extra 500 above and beyond the 113. I'm not sure how I'd get that much right now. But on the other hand, he did seem very open to negotiation. Maybe he wants 500 each for channeling and a school, but if I showed up with 900 up front, he might be willing to teach channeling plus one school for that. Or maybe if we can find something else he wants we might be able to get him to teach without paying in gold at all. I have no contacts in House Telvanni at present, but it sounded like he'd be willing to do us a big favor if we can get him back in good standing with them. Though I don't have any ideas how how to do that. And I'm not even sure what the problem is. I thought that all an expelled Telvanni had to do was simply go to the council and ask for readmission. It's possible there might be more going on than we know about just yet.
And finally, while I'm still no veteran...we've proven that I CAN fight effectively now. So if I were to pick up some healing potions, and maybe some cure disease potions or similar just in case...I might potentially be able to go usefully adventuring somewhere, maybe get a bunch of skillups and maybe solve the money problem altogether.
Of course, if you guys have other ideas besides any of the above, I'm all ears.
So...what will it be?"
Level 5
Health 14/50
Armor rating: 1
25.7 Strength (20)
33.1 Speed (30)
35.7 Agility (30)
34.1 Endurance (30)
42.0 Intelligence (40)
43.0 Personality (40)
54.0 Luck (50)
Numbers in parenthesis are starting values
27 Acrobatics (0)
21 Athletics (5)
5 Armorer (0)
5 Block (0)
5 Heavy Armor (0)
5 Medium Armor (0)
5 Unarmored (0)
5 Blunt Weapon
5 Hand to Hand
5 Longblade
5 Shortblade
5 Spear
5 Alchemy (0)
5 Enchanting (0)
19 Speechcraft (10)
8 Mercantile (0)
* Steel tanto, with scabbard and carrying straps
* Colovian fur "helm"
* Chitin left + right gauntlets
* Chitin greaves
* Chitin cuirass
* Chitin left + right pauldrons
* Chitin boots
* Cursed ring of athletics and drain health
* Combat belt
* Commoner's shirt
* Commoner's pants
* Interior coinpurse, containing:
* 100 gold
* 1 Standard Restore Health potions
* 1 empty bottle
Backpack (Worn)
Main compartment:
* Tennis shoes
* A strange note that reads 'Remember, we are watching you.'
* Letter of introduction from Ranis Athrys
* Commoner's belt
* Yellow notepad with 55 pages left
* 1 divine intervention scroll, trigger words 'take me home'
* 1 pen
* "20% cooler" Rainbow Dash t-shirt,
* Denim pants
* a cellphone and wallet with picture ID and $30 in cash
* 2 soulgems of uncertain size
Small compartment
* 287 gold
* 36 Heather (not yet tasted)
* 4 Corkbulb (not yet tasted)
* 1 Comberry (not yet tasted)
* 1 Willow Anther (not yet tasted)
* 1 ampoule Pod
* 1 bread
* 7 bungler's bane
* 3 hypha facia
* 1 kwama cuttle
* 11 luminous russula
* 1 rat meat
* 3 saltrice
* 5 spore pod
* 6 violet coprinus
Blades, Novice
Imperial Legion, Recruit
* Chitin spear
* Imperial steel Cuirass
* Apprentice mortar and pestle
ampoule Pod - [1]Restore speed
Bread - [1]Restore Fatigue
bungler's bane - [1]Drain agility
coda flower - [1]Restore luck
hypha facia - [1]Drain
kwama cuttle [1]Restore health
luminous russula [1]Paralysis
Rat meat - [1]Poison
Saltrice [1]Restore endurance
Spore pod - [1]Paralysis
Small Kwama Egg - [1]Restore Fatigue
violet coprinus - [1]Water Walking
What do you do?