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[GlyphGryph]

We didn't get any dejavu before seeing this new PC right?

I've been wondering if the dejavu might be from a new PC entering the world, and not be related to saving at all, but with a new pc and no new dejavu that doesn't really work.

[ShoesandHats]

So? That just means that someone besides us is the hero of Morrowind.

I'm not 100% sure that this actually happening is a safe assumption to make.

Well, the powergaming PCs seem not to have caused too much havoc, besides robbing an alchemist blind.

[Putnam]

The PC would probably have finished the MQ by then...

Not so. The hint was 90 days. Likely finished if we stayed in the Legion for the full year, but not in the next 1 or 2 weeks we have of training.

I don't think the Heart is our path to godhood. We'd still have Dagoth Ur to deal with, and the only way to get rid of him is to get rid of the heart. What I'm more concerned about is missing the chance to talk to him or Sotha Sil.

I think "90 days" refers to 90 in-game days.

[WillowLuman]

Yes, and that's 1-2 ingame weeks till the end of our training.

[Iituem]

I'm pretty sure it's 1-2 real life weeks, and more like 3-400 ingame days.  But, well, Vivec seemed to imply the PCs might be a threat, so perhaps we should take them seriously.

[Putnam]

Yes, and that's 1-2 ingame weeks till the end of our training.

And an entire year till the end of our tour of duty.

[WillowLuman]

I'm pretty sure it's 1-2 real life weeks, and more like 3-400 ingame days.  But, well, Vivec seemed to imply the PCs might be a threat, so perhaps we should take them seriously.

Yes, and that's 1-2 ingame weeks till the end of our training.

And an entire year till the end of our tour of duty.

Look, our officer, a person from this world, said "4 weeks of training," 2-3 of which have elapsed. They can't have meant IRL weeks. And we've got plans to avoid an entire tour of duty.

[Parsely]

Are we stuck right now? I don't see any progress coming from this.

[Supercharazad]

Do not desert, we do not wish to be hunted down and killed.

And I already did all of the calculations. A Morrowind year is 12.6 days.
It's less than two IRL weeks.

[LordBucket]

Cutoff for submissions for episode 29

Episode is almost finished. Mostly just need to take a couple screenshots, but probably won't get it up tonight, as I would like to sleep.

Couple responses to questions/comments:

A question for LordBucket;

How is leveling up handled? Its been awhile since I played Morrowind, but I seem to remember that frivolously leveling would come back to bite you in the ass, as leveling to early would reduce the amount of points you get when you level up to increase your stats with.

I've been hoping someone would look compare levelup information to the spoilered attributes in each update and deduce how the system works, but here's the summary:

1) Leveling up a skill awards .2 points worth of attribute. Some skills award .2 in one attribute, others award .1 in each of two.
2) Every 5 points of full integer attribute gains, you gain one level. .9 strength and .9 speed counts as zero towards levelups.
3) Health is Endurance + (Strength / 2) + (Level - 1)
4) Magicka is Intelligence + (Willpower / 2) + (Level - 1)
5) Every time you gain a level, you also gain 1 point of luck

Consequently, no...there's no reason to worry about managing levelsup points, or getting endurance first, or any of that nonsense from vanilla.

LordBucket

On the note of cursed enchanted items;
Do you have some lorewise explanation for them?
maybe this LP would allow for this?

There are at least two lore explanations for them that I'm aware of, but your question is at least partially answered by the next update-in-progress.

in order to do the Pelegiad trainer, you convinced many of us we'd need a whole pile of money

The actual statement from Ranis was:

: "How much do you think it will cost me?"

: "You'll have to negotiate with him, but a full introductory immersion, from nothing to basic casting competency in all six schools...that's probably worth at least a few thousand gold."

I think "90 days" refers to 90 in-game days.

Yes, but if you're going to refer to the 90 days I mentioned, please distinguish between what I actually said and what some players have speculated that I might have meant. What I said was:

Basic training is 28 days, and last time I played Morrowind, it only takes about 90 to get all the way through the entire game from start to finish. Last time you considered joining, a couple people pointed out that there are other forces in the game besides you and that you probably don't have forever. Whether or not there are any PCs in the world, do you really think that Dagoth Ur is going to sit around doing nothing for the next year?

That doesn't necessarily mean that the world blows up on day 90. You know that there are other active forces in the world who are busy doing things while you play legionnaire. I wasn't intending to give you a "tip" that you do or don't need to do anything within 90 days, but simply generally commenting that since you KNOW that there are other forces at work besides yourself. At the time of the above comment, you only knew about one, but now you know there are at least three. if 90 days is enough time for a hypothetical PC to do everything and beat the game...28/90 = 31% of that not a trivial amount of time to allow "at least three" individuals to do what they will while you get a couple skillgains. For example, you saw Bjorn turn in a vanilla quest. It would be reasonable to suspect that Awesomicus and the as-of-yet-unidentified dunmer woman are probably also capable of doing quests if they choose to.

How much do you think these three others will accomplish while you sit around in Gnisis for four weeks?

Even if we ignore Bjorn/Awesomicus/dunmer girl, you've observed that "presumed npcs" can also interact meaningfully with the world. For example, you watched Vivec teleport out of his palace to go "do stuff." What do you think he's been doing for the past few weeks? What about Sharn? She outright told you that if you didn't bring back a skull in time, she would personally go raid and loot a tomb. What about Thavere and Vodunius? All indicators suggest that while you were not in Seyda Neen they met, spoke to each other, made plans and then left Vvardenfell together.

Every indicator you have is that even completely minor background characters are able to act of their own volition.

By the end of this next update, you will have spent three weeks allowing an unknown number of parties to interact with the world in ways that you are unable to observe. I think some of you have seriously underestimated the significance of that.

You've also cautioned us not to take risks and be careful about getting killed.

Ok, two comments. First...you're taking me out of context. After Michel died, several people starting suggesting that you deliberately have him repeatedly suicide in order to metagame the death process. My response to that was this:

Just to be clear, you didn't "respawn" so much as "the game" was restored to a previous save state. Not going to explain how or why...that's for you to figure out. But notice that you lost all of episode 17 and the end of episode 16 played out slightly differently. I advise caution in the event of future deaths. Actually, I advise avoiding death algtogether. But if you do die...you probably don't want to remember things having happened, act on the assumption that they have, but then have it turn out that the things you remember were things that were lost.

Interpreting what I said to mean "don't take risks" would be like interpreting me saying "I advise against jumping into moving traffic" to mean "you really should lock yourself in your house, hide under the bed and never go outside." Yes, I do recommend you avoid dying. But if your plan to avoid dying is to spend the next year hiding in a legion garrison, I would call that a gross misapplication of the advice.

Second, I gave you Word of God on this death issue because some of you were suggesting deliberately suiciding, and there is a consequence to dying that has not been revealed yet. I'm not making this whole thing up as I go. I started this with a concept of what was going on and how things would work. Some of the questions you guys have asked, like for example, "why did the game restore to a previous save state so conveniently and immediately after dying?" have very good answers.

Thing is, it never occurred to me that the game would go for this long without you guys figuring out more than you have about what's going on. All of those unrevealed explanations for what is going on and why are still in play even though you don't know what they are. There are consequences for dying, and I advised you guys to avoid it because it just seems unreasonable for you to suffer the consequences of too many deaths without any idea that there would be consequences. For example...and I'm not saying this is what would happen, but imagine if you guys had gone ahead with your "deliberately suicide to metagame" plan, and after dying X times you got a locked thread and an update that said. "Game over, you lose." Again, I'm not saying that's what would happen...but I think it's basically reasonable that I give you some advance warning that death is not meaningless. So, I did. Death is not meaningless. There is at least one, and possible multiple consequence(s) for death/dying that you are presently unaware of. And I advise against discovering what it is/they are through trial and error.

Don't take that to mean you should bury your head in the sand and hide from all danger. But yeah...deliberately suiciding is something I recommend against.

[hostergaard]

I've been hoping someone would look compare levelup information to the spoilered attributes in each update and deduce how the system works, but here's the summary:

1) Leveling up a skill awards .2 points worth of attribute. Some skills award .2 in one attribute, others award .1 in each of two.
2) Every 5 points of full integer attribute gains, you gain one level. .9 strength and .9 speed counts as zero towards levelups.
3) Health is Endurance + (Strength / 2) + (Level - 1)
4) Magicka is Intelligence + (Willpower / 2) + (Level - 1)
5) Every time you gain a level, you also gain 1 point of luck

Consequently, no...there's no reason to worry about managing levelsup points, or getting endurance first, or any of that nonsense from vanilla.

LordBucket

On the note of cursed enchanted items;
Do you have some lorewise explanation for them?
maybe this LP would allow for this?

There are at least two lore explanations for them that I'm aware of, but your question is at least partially answered by the next update-in-progress.

Right, I had been thinking about doing just that, but then being lazy I decided it was easier to just ask. Thanks for the answer!

Edit: Two? Two explanations? Wait, maybe you mean to say there is individual explanations for each items curse, but no overall explanation which I speculated if there where, which falls under shit and gigglers reason for me.

[WillowLuman]

Yes, we all know what we've gotten ourselves into. We know we've gotten into a large time investment. But since we have, we might as well take every opportunity it can give us. My argument is that we'd have wound up wasting 30 days trying to get skillups anyway, so we might as well take a guaranteed route.

[LordBucket]

Episode 29: Legion training, week 3. The big payoff, interspecies diplomacy and PC speculation

Talk to Strillian first, he said himself that you got potential for metamagical math. Your combat and strength training is fine, but suggest that perhaps you could be very useful to the legion if you got some magical training. They already shown that there is a lot of room for special cases and individual needs. Maybe the legion could facilitate you magic training? If they do not have in house trainers, maybe they can sponsor an outside one? In fact, you just happen to hold a letter of recommendation for a trainer. Maybe they could send you there for some special training?

talk to the commander first. Say we would best serve the legion as a battle mage, show him the letter of recommendation

: "Hey, Strillian. I really think it would be better for everyone if I learned magic instead of melee combat. I'd be good at it. You said so yourself. And see...here I have a letter of recommendation from Ranis Athyrs of the Balmora mage guild saying I'd be good at it too. Can we do that instead? If you can't do the training yourself, maybe the legion would pay to have me learn somewhere else?"

Strillian frowns, but doesn't answer right away. After thinking for a moment, he speaks.

: "What are you asking for, Michael? What exactly are you asking me to do? Yes, maybe you'd be good at magic...but what do you want me to do about it? I'm a low ranking supply officer. I have no authority to authorize sponsored training, and I haven't the skill or resources to give it to you myself. I'm presently under orders to put you through basic training, so I'm putting you through basic training. Are you asking me to disobey my orders? Are you asking me to go to the General and tell him that the new recruit who's been here two weeks knows better than he does what he should be doing? I'm not going to do that.

Would you make a good mage? Sure, based on your metamagical math knowledge, I think you'd make a pretty good mage. But what do you want me to do about it? You came to the legion with no skills and no resources and agreed to be a grunt, so a grunt you will be. Now..if you'd spoken to the General before you signed up, demonstrated good potential for magic and asked for a conditional contract to join only if we provided you with special training...honestly I think the General would have agreed to that. But that's not what you did. Can you think of any military on Nirn that would let a new recruit just randomly stop halfway through basic training to go do something else? I'll bet you can't.

If you want to be a mage, that's fine. But I'm going to follow my orders and finish your training. Once it's finished, if you want to talk to the General about magic training instead of going immediately on active duty, that's fine. I'll even put in a good word for you based on what you've shown me.

But I'm not going to jeopardize my own position by disobeying orders for a new recruit who's obviously getting cold feet."

Continue training until that time comes.

Take up Strillian's offer

finish up what we're doing, get more training done

finish our less than two IRL weeks of legionary work

Finnish our training.

(once we are done with basic training)

Whatever you do, do NOT go AWOL.

Let's just go AWOL like I suggested after we get our combat training finished.

Basic training, day 15
Today Strillian teaches you how to defend yourself with shield and how to fight with a spear.

New skill Block is now 5
Max Health is now 46
New skill Spear is now 5

Basic training, day 16
Today Strillian teaches you how to move more effectively in armor, as well as how to position yourself to take hits to more heavily armored parts of the body.

Heavy armor skill is now 5
Max Health is now 47

In addition to heavy armor, he also issues you an Imperial chain cuirass to train you in medium armor. It's 21 pounds to the heavy armor's 29.

New skill medium armor is now 5
Max Health is now 48

-~=Michael is now level 4=~-
Max Health is now 49
Luck is now 53

At some point it might benefit you to choose one armor type. For now you stick with the heavy, and stash the chain at your bunk with the rest of your growing pile of equipment. It occurs to you that if you decide to go AWOL, it's unlikely that you'll be able to carry everything with you.

Basic training, day 17
Today Strillian teaches you how to fight with bladed and blunt weapons.

New skill Blunt Weapon is now 5
New skill Long Blade is now 5

Basic training, day 18
Today Stillian teaches you the basics of enchanting.

New skill enchanting is now 5

Specifically, you learn how to recognize enchanted effect on an item by wielding them, and how to recharge depleted energy by using a soul gem. Unfortunately since you are unable to cast any spells, Strillian is unable to show you how to enchant spell effects on to an item. However, significantly, you now are able to identify the effects of any magic item just by wielding it.

make sure to ask how the basics of enchanting works, why does cursed items exist, can you make tradeoffs?

: "Why do cursed items exist?"

: "Usually they're enchanted by daedra to fool the unwary."

: "What? Really?"

: "Yes. Be careful if you ever try looting a daedric shrine. Very often they contain treasure that will summon a daedric lord the moment you pick it up."

: "No, I mean like items that drain health. For example..."

You take your ring off and hand it to him. He puts it on and thinks for a moment.

: "Fortify athletics and damage health on self? Why would anyone make a ring like this?"

: "That's what I was wondering."

: "Where did you get it?"

: "From a trader in Seyda Neen. He said he bought it as an investment, but didn't know anything about enchanting himself and didn't know about the drawback."

: "Hmm. I suppose it's possible it might have been made at an enchanting forge, but I've never even seen one. "

: "Enchanting forge?"

: "Yes. Ancient history, Recruit. Before the Imperial mage guild came to be, the leading organization for the study of magic was known as the Psijic Order. It was an elitist group, very particular about who they let in. One of their members, a mage by the name of Vanus Galerion disagreed with a number of their philosophies. He felt that magic should be made available to everyone rather than kept to only a select few. He ended up founding the Mage guild as we know it today, but one of the things he did to bring magic to the masses was build Itemmaker forges. You have to understand, Recruit, that at that time, magic was still developing. Enchanting wasn't a common skill that just anyone could learn. Enchanting was a little-known art and making even a simple item took vast resources of time and study. Vanus found a way to automate the process."

Wait...you know about this. This is straight out of Daggerfall.

: "Rather than devoting decades to learning magic and enchanting, Itemmaker forges allowed anyone to go them and simply flip a number of levers and switches to designate certain enchanting properties and strengths, then deposit large quantities of gold to be used as fuel for the enchanting process. It was completely automated. No knowledge of magic required. But, just like our enchanted items today, they still needed to be powered by a captured soul. And while any commoner could kill, say...a rat...rat souls give very little power. Nothing really useful can be made with them. Whereas the soul of a daedra, for example, would give much power...but how many could reasonably be expected to capture one? So Vanus designed his Itemmaker to draw power directly from the wielder."

: "So by having a negative effect, you could have a positive effect too?"

: "Exactly. If this ring was made by an Itemmaker forge, then the fortify athletics effect it gives is at least partially powered by the health that it drains from you."

: "Interesting. Do any of these forges still exist?"

: "Sure, probably hundreds of them. Maybe thousands.  At one time and in some provinces there was an Itemmaker forge at every mage guild. But so far as I know they stopped being built centuries ago, as the art of enchanting developed and became more common. But this was before Morrowind was even part of the Empire, and I've never seen one in my lifetime. I doubt there are any in Morrowind, and if there are they're probably in the hands of an ancient Telvanni mage-lord. Or you might try asking Trebonius Artorius. He's the Arch-Mage in charge of all Mage Guild operations in all of Vvardenfell. If anyone on our side would know it would be him. But...honestly, I'd advise you you to avoid him. He's...kind of got issues. Anyway, if that ring was made by a forge, it's probably very old and was made outside of Morrowind. Of course...there's also a much simpler explanation."

: "What's that?"

: "Somebody might have made it to trick someone desperate or foolish into killing themselves."

Basic training days 19 and 20
Strillian takes his days off, asking you to be sure to practice what you're learned while he's away. You however, have other plans.

ask that orc out for dinner.

keep training until we can go ask the orc out.

: "Today, my fellow legionnaires...I intend to ask out an orc. Are there any good restaurants in town? I thought we might get dinner."

: "I'm telling you, Michael...don't go there."

: "No, no...I want to do this."

: "Ok. It's your funeral."

You swap out your armor for your stylish commoner's clothes and fluffy hat, then head to the orc barracks and go looking for the object of your affection. You are slightly inconvenienced by the fact that orcs all kind of look alike to you and you never got her name. You're pretty sure she was downstairs, so you head in that direction hoping that she'll be in the same spot. You are surprised to discover not one, but two orcs.



You're really not sure which was the one you spoke to. Or even if either of these two are her. Fortunately while you stand there deciding what to do, one of them speaks.

: "Hey there, little man. Did you lose your mommy?"

: "...no, actually I was looking for some...company tonight."

Orcish facial expressions are a bit different than human expressions. You're not quite sure how to read the response.

: "You're that swit I found wandering around here a few weeks ago, aren't you?"

Oh, good. Sounds like this is the one. Probably.

Also tell them that your one weakness is her beauty and that she has wide, child-bearing hips

: "Yes, that was me. I came back because I couldn't stop thinking about you. I was once told never to admit weakness to an orc, but your beauty has smitten me and I am entranced by your your wide, child-bearing hips. Wanna get dinner?"

: "You're not serious."

: "Absolutely, I'm serious."

: "Idiot. Ok, let's do this."

The orc smacks you across the face, sending you reeling to the floor. It occurs to you that Vibuis said that Imperial women would interpret a statement about wishing to give a woman children and complimenting her hips as a proposal of marriage. He never said anything about how an orc might interpret it. It's possible you might have just insulted her, or issued a challenge to the death or something.

Health is now 47/49

Before you can get up she pounces on you and begins clawing at you. You hold your arms up in a feeble attempt to defend yourself. You cry out for help and hear the other orc in the room laughing at you.

Health is now 46/49
Unarmored skill is now 3

This is it. You're going to die again. Torn to shreds by an orc. You close your eyes and resign yourself to your fate. there's no way you can fight her off. Why is she tearing your clothes off?

Health is now 44/49
Unarmored skill is now 4















*much later*

Health is now 39/49
Unarmored skill is now 5

: "That was...not quite what I expected."

: "I did not give you permission to speak."

: "Right. Sorry."

A few minutes pass while you lay amidst the tattered remains of your clothes with an orc woman straddling you. As you look up at her you contemplate the fact that you just gave your virginity to an orc. And that the first reaction of the other orc in the room was to laugh and watch. And that her second reaction was to gather up all the other orcs in the barracks to come watch too. Eventually they got bored and wandered off. Most of them. You also contemplate the fact that while you're now naked except for your shoes and what's left of your shirt, while she somehow managed to keep her armor on the entire time. In fact, the metal knee-plates on her leg armor are rather uncomfortably tucked into your armpits right now. You briefly wonder at the design of the pelvis portion of her lower body armor hidden underneath the chainmail skirt of her body armor. In fact there are all sorts of interesting things you could contemplate, consider and wonder about...but eventually you decide on a simple one.

: "May I ask you a question?"

: "You may speak."

: "What just happened?"

She leers at you with a toothy grin.

: "You said I made you feel weak. I decided to test it. So you're mine now."

: "...erm...what?"

: "By the Code of Malacath, you now belong to me, and I may do with you, and dispose of you as I please."

: "I don't recall agreeing to any kind of...duel for possession."

: "And I don't recall asking your permission. Now, groom me."

She hands you a brush and you proceed to brush her hair.

: "I thought orcs were-"

She smacks you in mid sentence.

Health is now 38/49

You continue brushing her hair while you try to replay in your mind how exactly your life came to this.

: "You may speak."

: "...umm. Well. I...thought orcs were all about respecting strength, and stuff. Obviously I'm not that strong-"

: "Hehheh. I noticed."

: "...so, why...this? I wouldn't have guessed that I'd have been..umm, desirable for you. Honestly my plan was just to take you out to dinner. You know, friendly get-to-know-each other kind of thing. Not...this."

She looks at you for a moment then shrugs.

: "At home I would belong to a chieftan. Today, I got to be chieftan."

: "So you're saying that in orcish culture rape is a legitimate dating practice? What's marriage like, then?"

She frowns.

: "Neither of those words exist in the Orsimer tongue. In the homeland, all orcish women are either the wife, daughter or mother of the chief. When one clan raids another, or when a chief trades a woman away to another clan, the wives and daughters of one clan may become the wives and daughters of another clan."

: "Raids are a legitimate way to gain wives? You're not saying that we're married now, are you?"

: "No. You'd be more like war booty. But since since this is an Imperial barracks, and I'm a Legionnaire, I doubt they'll let me keep you. So go away."

She takes her brush back then gets up and proceeds to ignore you, leaving you sitting half naked in a pile of torn clothes. You try to salvage what you can of them, but the shirt is barely held onto your body by one arm and the pants are shredded except for a few bits where they loop around your ankles. Eventually you give up, collect your coinpurse from the tatters and simply wander back to the barracks wearing nothing but your shoes. Oh, and your hat. Your fluffy hat was undamaged. You put it on on top your head-no, wait. Actually you can think of a much better place for it. Just temporarily.

Stepping outside you're immediately greeted by a warm, friendly and glaringly bright morning sun gazing fondly at you with what seems like a little too much enthusiasm.



: "What do you want?!?!?" you yell, shaking a first at the sky. "I'm just going for a walk. Maybe get a nice...full body tan. Can't I do that? Huh? Can't I?!!?"

The sun, wisely, doesn't respond. Hmph. Serves it right.

When you return to the Cyyrodiil side of the barracks, the other Legionnaires welcome you back with whistles and catcalls.

: "Hey, good looking!"

: "So how was dinner? Did you taste good?"

: "Heh, joined the legion to become a man and became a woman instead, huh?"

You head to your bunk and spend the rest of the day sleeping dreamlessly. When you wake up in the morning it occurs to you that you still didn't get her name.

Health restored to full

Basic training, day 21
When Strillian returns you are still without pants, but at least the leather skirt portion of your body armor covers your genitals.

: "What happened to your pants?"

: "...I asked an orc out on a date."

: "Oh. Bad idea. We keep the two barracks separated for a reason. Female orc, at least, right?"

: "...yes."

: "Well, thank goodness for that. Here, let me issue you some new clothes."

Strillian gives you a new shirt and pants. You spend the last day of the third week learning unarmed combat.

New skill, hand to hand is now 5

-~=Michael is now level 5=~-
Max health is now 50
Luck is now 54

He would also have taught you unarmored defense, but since you've apparently already learned the basics of that, he teaches you how to fight with your tanto instead.

New skill Short blade is now 5

So that's it, then. three weeks in the legion and you've gained a complete set of basic knowledge of all weapon and defense forms except light armor and marksmanship, plus knowledge of enchanting minus the ability to actually enchant anything since you don't know any magic, and some extra athletics and acrobatics practice. To be fair, you do feel quite a lot stronger than you did three weeks ago. But this is the high point of your training. Next week will be spent learning about actual guard duties. How to enforce laws, how to approach and apprehend criminals. Patrol routes and how to fill out reports. You're not sure how useful any of that would be to you. If you're going to go AWOL, this might be the time to do it. Though on the other hand, if you wait another week and go on active duty, you might be able to bloody up your guard armor and leave it on the road, or something. They might conclude you died rather than that you abandoned your post. Of course that's assuming you get a road patrol. Would be difficult to pull that off if you're assigned to barracks duty with half a dozen other guards nearby at all times.

We didn't get any dejavu before seeing this new PC right?

That's actually something you've been thinking about recently. Over the entire three weeks you've been in basic training, the only time you've felt any sense of deja vua at all was that time Strillian told you that you'd be a good mage after you did that math problem for him. But you actually did have a similar conversation with Ranis fter doing a math problem for her. So was that a game load, or did it just feel familiar because you'd actually had pretty much the same thing happen?

You're not completely sure, but either way...this seems odd. The first week you were here you felt the deja vue three times. But now three weeks have gone by with at most one, and possibly none at all? If there were a PC restoring from previous saves...wouldn't they be doing it more often?

I've been wondering if the dejavu might be from a new PC entering the world

That's possible. Let's see...dunmer woman, Bjorn and Awesomecus are our suspected three PCs right? And we've had...three senses of deja vue: first while leaving the Balmora mage guild, next while exiting the silt strider that time we almost fell off the ramp, and the third time...when was the third time? There was a third time, wasn't there? Or was it only two? Hmm. You thought there were three, but now that you actually try to count them, you only actually remember two. Does anyone remember for sure? Or maybe that deja vue while talking to Strillian really was a deja vue, and not just because the conversation was familiar. But wait...we saw the dunmer woman before the first deja vue, didn't we? So maybe she arrived at the same time or before we did, and the two deja vus we felt were when more PCs showed up? But what about the fact that the first and second time we felt it were so different? The first was just a mild, "oh, huh...deja vue." The second was so strong that you nearly fell over from vertigo. Why such a difference?

Well...what about that dunmer sorceress and sulking orc that Darvame mentioned she took from Seyda Neen to Balmora? What if they both arrived together, and having multiple PCs entering at once means a stronger sense of deja vue? But if that's the case, then what about Awesomicus and Bjorn? Even if we assume dunmer-woman-with-dagger doesn't count for some reason, that would still leave two PCs to correspond with only a single, relatively weak deja vue incident. Or...maybe not everyone we suspect is a PC is actually a PC? Come to think of it, while we saw Awesomicus equip armor impossibly fast, and we know that the dunmer woman did her strange merchant voodoo on Nalcarya, all we saw Bjorn do was turn in a quest. Maybe he's not a PC? How would we know?

Vubius, the guard not named in the game.

Huh. That's actually a good point. Bjorn and Awesomicus are names not from vanilla Morrowind, but neither is Vibius. Is Vibius a PC? Or is he non-vanilla modded content? Or...is this world of Morrowind simply different enough that there are non-vanilla characters in it, in which case...what reason do we have to think that Bjorn is a PC? sure, he turned in a quest, but on the other hand, we were more or less raped by an orc just yesterday. That's not exactly vanilla behavior either. Maybe Vibius and Bjorn are just ordinary non-vanilla npcs, and Awesomicus and dunmer woman are the only two PCs? Or maybe...maybe there aren't any PCs at all, and we've been guessing wrong this entire time? But if that's the case, then how do we explain what we saw Awesomicus do? Maybe we can explain away the dunmer woman's mercantile-fu as a result of magic and/or personality potions, or because maybe she actually is the Nerevarine, but how can we explain Awesomicus swapping out armor in under a second and the fact that his old armor vanished before our eyes?

: "Sorry, guys. I'm just not sure what to think right now."

Spoiler: Stats (click to show/hide)

Level 5
Health 50/50
Armor rating: 1

Spoiler: Attributes (click to show/hide)

25.7 Strength (20)
33.1 Speed (30)
35.7 Agility (30)
34.1 Endurance (30)
42.0 Intelligence (40)
42.6 Personality (40)
54.0 Luck (50)

Spoiler: skills (click to show/hide)

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)

17 Speechcraft (10)
 6 Mercantile (0)

Spoiler: Equipped (click to show/hide)

 * Cursed ring of athletics and drain health
 * Chitin spear
 * Imperial steel Cuirass
 * Imperial steel helm
 * Imperial steel shield
 * Combat belt
 * Commoner's shirt
 * Commoner's pants
 * Tennis shoes
 * Interior coinpurse, containing 44 gold

Spoiler: Faction standings (click to show/hide)

Imperial Legion, Recruit

Spoiler: Equipment (currently under your bed at fort darius (click to show/hide)

Stashed under your bed in the imperial barracks at Fort Darius
 * Steel tanto, with scabbard and carrying straps
 * Chitin club
 * Steel longsword
 * Imperial chain cuirass

Backpack (also under your bed in the barracks at Fort Darius)
Main compartment:
 * A strange note that you don't know where it came from
 * Letter of introduction from Ranis Athrys
 * Colovian fur "helm"
 * Commoner's belt
 * Yellow notepad with 56 pages left
 * 1 pen
 * Apprentice mortar and pestle
 * 1 Standard Restore Health potions
 * 1 empty bottle
 * 2 soulgems of uncertain size
 * "20% cooler" Rainbow Dash t-shirt,
 * Denim pants
 * a cellphone and wallet with picture ID and $30 in cash
Small compartment
 * 122 gold
 * 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

Spoiler: Alchemy Knowledge (click to show/hide)

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?

[Aseaheru]

Ha. That went remarkably how i sorta thought it would.

[Supercharazad]

That is the funniest thing I've seen all week.

Let's finish our basic training, then go see the commander and ask about that magic practice and sponsorship and that. Also never, ever, ever go near orcish women ever again.