Episode 38: Fighter's Guild, long talk with Eddie, some dead ends but progress too
Join the Fighters' Guild
join the fighters guild and gather information.
joining the fighters guild and get some quests or something done
I agree with joining the Fighter's Guild
Joining fighter's guild sounds good.
You head to the Fighter's Guild and go downstairs to ask Hasphat Antabolis for an entry examination.
Apparently the combat trials are only required for rank advancements, not membership. The entry exam is just to ensure basic competency, and as a Legion recruit, you pass without difficulty.
After getting his approval you return upstairs to speak with Eydis. She goes over the rules and privileges...don't attack Fighter's Guild members or you can be expelled, free access to the barracks in any guildhall for sleeping and temporary (not long term) storage, where the various guild halls and who the guild leaders are, membership is 25 gold per month with a deductible for approved donations, etc. Most of it is a repeat of your previous conversation. Once she's finished, she accepts 25 gold from you and you sign your name on the member roster.
:
"Congratulations, you're now an Associate of the Imperial Fighter's Guild."see if we can recruit adventurers.
We have insider knowledge on location of treasure; they get an even share
:
"Hey, Eydis. Now that I'm a fighter's guild member in good standing, can I hire adventurers?":
"Of course. Membership isn't required to issue contracts, but we'll take them from members too. What can the Fighter's Guild do for you?":
"How does this work?":
"You tell me exactly what you want done. Then we negotiate a price and a timeframe for completion. Once we're both happy with the terms, we sign a contract and you give me the full amount in deposit up front. I then assign the task to a guild member, or in some cases multiple members, to complete. Or for difficult tasks I my even spread the word to other guildhalls. Once the job is done, our mercenary reports back to me and I pay them a portion immediately from your deposit and the guild keeps the rest. If the contract is not completed by the deadline, you get a full refund.":
"Could I specify a location for an adventurer to go to, then give him a share of the loot?":
"What, give him the loot he collected? No, doesn't work that way. If you have something specific in mind, I'm willing to listen but standard policy allows the member who performs a task to keep any and all spoils not specified in the contract. The guild doesn't get a cut of that and neither does the client. Anything you want retrieved needs to be clearly specified in advance. That works both ways. If you take an assignment you're not expected to hand over any loot unrelated to the assignment either."Hmm. Yeah, probably wasn't reasonable to expect the best of both worlds there.
:
"Do you have a contract you'd like to issue?"put out a quest for Awesomicus to find us and talk to us about an urgent matter of Imperial security
:
"Would it be possible for me to issue a contract for a specific member, rather than you choosing who gets it?":
"Sure. Though it's against guild policy for me to require anyone to accept a commission. It will be up to the individual to decide whether to accept. Who and what did you have in mind?":
"I'd like to talk to Awesomicus.":
"Maximus? The orc?":
"Yes. You know him?":
"Yes, I've given him a number of assignments and he's proven himself quite capable. What do you want with him?":
"I'm a member of the Legion, and I'd like to discuss a matter of Imperial security with him."Eyedis pauses.
:
"I see. Go on."put out a quest for Awesomicus to find us and talk to us about an urgent matter of Imperial security
:
"So I was thinking that I would put out a quest for him to find me and talk to me."She blinks a few times.
:
"That's it? Just talk to you?":
"Yes."She frowns.
:
"Ok, look. I'm going to cut you some slack since you're a new member. You don't need to issue a quest for this. Just write a note and I'll give it to him next time I see him, ok?"Huh. Yeah, that works. You pull out a piece of paper from your bag and write a note:
To: Awesomicus Maximus
From: Michael
I'm sure you remember me from our conversation in Gnisis when you joined the Legion. I was the recruit you met doing the running that you described as boring. And yes, it was boring. But now I am in service to our Emperor greater than merely the Legion, and I would like to speak to you about an urgent matter of Imperial security.
Please contact me as your earliest convenience. I may be found in Balmora.You're not really sure how else to phrase it. How is he supposed to find you? Since you'll probably be moving around, it's probably not realistic to just expect him to magically know where you are at any given moment. But you're certainly not going to sit around waiting in one spot for...days? Weeks? How long will it be until he gets this message? And when he does, will he necessarily even act on it right away? If he is a PC, he might have a long list of other things he wants to do first. And since this is obviously not a standard quest you're issuing, it's not like he can look it up and go to a set of fixed coordinates to find you. You could tell him to go to Caius...but that might end badly. You might need to give this some thought.
But for now, you hand it to Eydis. She folds it and slides it into her armor for safe keeping. You thank her for her time and head for the door. On your way, you remember the donations chest.
:
"Hi, I'm Michael. Do I talk to you for guild chest access?"
:
"Yes. My name's Fasile and I handle all donations and withdrawls when I'm on duty. If you ever need something when I'm not here, go ahead and ask Eydis, but try not to bother her with it otherwise.":
"Ok. That's fine. I'd like to make a withdrawal.":
"Certainly. What can I get for you?":
"Everything?":
"No, we prefer to limit withdrawals to items that people will reasonably use. We wouldn't people turning around and selling guild chest items, for example, when those items might otherwise keep our members alive."Because that's not exactly what you were going to do. *sigh*
:
"Ok, how about some healing potions?":
"I can do that. Here you go, two standard healing potions. Sign here, please."You take the potions and sign for them. You paid 25 gold for guild membership, and Fasile basically just handed you 70-80 gold worth of potions, so really this was a good deal whether or not you do anything later with the guild.
If Caius hasn't killed him, ask that Sleeper if Dagoth Ur thinks we're the Nerevarine. If Caius has killed him, find the other one
You head back to Caius' house. It's just him, now. The sleeper and Nine-toes are both gone.
:
"Ahh, Michael. Just the man I wanted to see.":
"Hello, again. All done with your...guest?":
"Yes, though our conversation was not as informative as I would have preferred. But I have a mission for you."He pulls a sealed scroll from his desk and hands it to you.
:
"There is a Breton Mage by the name of Surane Leoriane. You'll find her at that the Ald Skar Inn in Ald'ruhn. Please deliver this letter to her. Here's 100 gold to pay for travel expenses."You accept the letter and the gold.
Speak to Caius about our need to learn magic as necessary to survive.
:
"Hey, Caius. I'll get on this mission for you, but I've been thinking. I'd be far more valuable to the Blades if I knew some magic, wouldn't I?":
"Very likely. But like I said when we had this conversation before, I have other things...more important things...going on than you. Also keep in mind that when we met the first thing you did was fall over and tell me about having visions. Now that I've interviewed several of Dagoth Ur's sleepers, and having listened to their stories, I'm concerned that you might be a sleeper yourself.":
"I'm not.":
"Whether or not you're aware of it yet. "Oh. Well, that's not good.
:
"In all three cases the subjects spoke of receiving visions, and you certainly seem to know a great about Dagoth Ur. So I don't entirely trust your situation. Even if your intentions are good, it's possible that a week from now you might be a babbling fool telling everyone who will listen about 'the master.' For now, my plan is to keep an eye on you to watch for signs of you becoming one of them."Great. Presumably that's not what's going on, but it does make a lot of sense from his point of view.
see about healing
:
"By the way, could I get another heal?"Caius heals you back to full.
Health is now fullTell fast Eddy that we are part of an investigation into Trebonius
Find out if our information about the possible attempted assassination is worth anything to Fast Eddy
telling him the fact that the leader of the mages guild plans to assassinate the entire Telvanni council?
You return to Fast Eddie's apartment to find him sitting at his table reading a book.
:
"Ahh, the Imperial returns. What may I do for you?":
"I have information that may be of benefit to the Telvanni council.":
"Oh? And what might that be?":
"The Mage Guild is planning to assassinate the council."He waits for you to continue.
:
"...and that would be bad.":
"Would it? For them perhaps. For me, it would be most helpful. But do go on. What can you tell me of this plot?":
"Well, Trebonius is behind it.":
"And?":
"...and he's planning to have a mage guild member kill everyone on the council.":
"...and?":
"And that's useful to know, right?":
"Ahh, outlander, it is about as useful as knowing that the sun rose this morning. It is well known that House Telvanni and the Mage guild are not allies. They routinely send their members even at ranks as low as Journeyman to recruit or kill members of my House."(
GM Comment: For example:
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Recruit_or_Kill_Llarar_Bereloth)
:
"I personally dealt with two assassination attempts on my life just during the my brief few years as a Mouth. Perhaps they were sent by the Mage Guild, perhaps merely rivals seeking to replace me. I never asked. That's the way of House Telvanni. The Morag Tong officially refuses to become involved in our conflict with the Mage Guild, of course, but there's rarely any shortage of would-be adventurers willing to attempt unsanctioned executions. Nobody would be surprised to hear what you've just told me. They would be far more surprised to hear that it were not true. Now, if you could provide me with substantial evidence of it...for example, an order signed by Trebonius himself...something tangible that could be shown to Duke Dren to publicly humiliate the guild, that would potentially be of value to the council. But even so it would be of little help to me personally.":
"Why not? If it would be worth something to them, wouldn't you being the one to give it to them make you look good?":
"I hold the rank of Wizard within the Mage Guild, and the council knows this. If I were to walk in and announce that the Mage Guild had issued an extralegal writ to have them assassinated they'd likely assume that I was there to serve the writ myself. I'd be reduced to cinders before I finished my sentence. I didn't leave my position under the best of circumstances.":
"What were those circumstances?":
"Ahh, it's a long story, and one that I don't care to tell. The short version is that a mere few years after I was promoted to Mouth, my councilor announced his intention to replace Gothren as Archmagister of the House. Then died in a less than successful duel attempt. Sadly, Gothren wasn't even present for the duel. He always was clever.":
"So they expelled you from the House?":
"Well, not formally. I'm sure my name is still on a list somewhere. But it doesn't matter. I'm not looking for vendor discounts, I want POWER. I was a Mouth. I spoke on behalf of the council. Another few decades, or an unfortunate accident, and I might have become a councilor myself. But since I didn't distance myself from my councilor before the duel, Gothren made it clear that he would consider me a threat if I remained and advised me to give up my ambitions if I wanted to live.":
"So what would have to happen?"He pauses.
:
"Why are you asking me this?":
"Well, honestly...you have something I want. You know magic, and I want to learn. If I could get you back in good grace with House Telvanni, you'd teach me magic, right?"He looks surprised.
:
"This is all just for magic training? Very well. Yes, if you can return me to my position or eliminate the barriers preventing me from reclaiming it myself, I will fully train you in all six schools."...whoa. He just upped the ante. That's 3500 gold worth of training. Still though, it's not a trivial thing he's asking for.
:
"So what would have to happen?":
"I suppose the best solution would be to murder Archmagister Gothren. He's the one who took offense at my inaction. With him out of the way, I could begin to maneuver myself politically. The other councilors wouldn't care if I were to return. They'd be too busy trying to fill the power vacuum left by Gothren's death. And whomever took his place, and whomever took theirs...somewhere on the ladder there'd be a spot I could potentially take for myself.":
"So murder a thousands years old Telvanni mage-lord. Any other options?":
"Short of finding a sufficiently large bribe for Gothren that he'd be willing to let go of the past, the next best option would be for a councilor to appoint me as their Mouth. Were that to happen, Gothren would be unnecessarily antagonizing a potential ally if he were to make any move against me. His most likely move would be to wait for me to make a mistake. And so long as I didn't...I could climb the ladder normally and rebuild my reputation until it became difficult for him to attack me at all.":
"How would I go about convincing a councilor to make you his Mouth?":
"If I could tell you that, we wouldn't be having this conversation.":
"Right."offer to be his potion bitch if he has materials and we
end up being able to make potions of restore magicka for him.
offer to make him such potions for him once we learn what we need to make them.
First we ask him to help finding and financing getting some common alchemy ingredients.
assuming we can produce magicka potions with common ingredients, we can offer to become his magika potion bitch in exchange for getting education in magic and be allowed to live in house as long as he supply the ingredients
:
"Ok, change of topic. Here's something else I was considering."You explain your proposal to have him fund your alchemy training and procure materials for you in exchange for potions in exchange for magic training.
:
"...so you're asking me to give you at least hundreds, possibly thousands of gold to go buy ingredients just to learn enough about alchemy to know what you even need to make the potions I want?":
"Would it be that much?":
"Wouldn't it? There are several dozen standard alchemy regents. Some of them cost hundreds of gold each. And I assume you've already experimented with the cheaper ones, and it's the more expensive ones you need funding for, yes?":
"...well, sort of. I mean, not all of them. Just the really cheap ones. There are plenty of 5 to 25 gold ingredients I don't know what they do yet.":
"I see. So maybe we get lucky and it only takes a dozen or so of these 5 to 25 gold ingredients to discover what you need. That's a couple hundred gold that I could simply buy potions with instead of gambling on you. And what if we don't get lucky? Maybe no first tier ingredients give you restore magicka at all and even after trying all of them you still don't know how to make restore magick potions. But even if we do get lucky, even after giving you hundreds, perhaps thousands of gold to experiment and train alchemy just to find out what you need to make the potions I want, you would then need me to fund you for the actual materials themselves too, right?":
"...yes.":
"And in exchange for giving you all of these hundreds or thousands of gold for you to train and learn alchemy, what I get in return is the privilege of teaching you magic?":
"Well, you'd be getting the potions.":
"Or I could just buy the potions in the first place without all the risk. This is a terrible deal, and I think you don't even realize how bad it is. You're asking me to put up a lot of gold merely for the opportunity to find out how much more gold I'd need to give you to maybe be able to be useful. And there's no certainty that you will be. I use diamonds and void salt for restore magicka potions. What if you need something even more obscure? I'd be paying thousands of gold just to find out you can't even help me. And even if the materials you need are reasonable, the fact that you don't even know what they are tells me that you're a completely fledgling alchemist, and the potions you'd make would be terribly low quality, and probably a great many of them will fail. Meaning you'll need to burn through the majority of your materials making only a small number of low grade potions.":
"Hmm. I hadn't thought about failure rates.":
"Even if succeed with every potion you make, you're asking me to fund your ability to train yourself so I can fund your training to inefficiently make small quantities of low grade potions. Next you'll be asking me to borrow my alchemy tools because you don't even have any."and be allowed to live in house as long as he supply the ingredients
:
"...umm, well...actually...":
"What, seriously?":
"...yeah, ok maybe that wasn't such a good idea. I'll, umm...just be going now."
Discouraged, you take a brief walk along the river running through town while chatting with the voices in your head.
offer to let him use drain magicka on you whenever he needs to in exchange for what we need.
:
"I'm not really sure that's a good idea even if it would work. After draining me, I'd still have to restore it back before he could drain me again. Even assuming I'm worth a standard potion per drain...which is a wild guess because i can't even cast spells yet, that's only about a 35 to 40 gold value. And that's break-even rates. He has no reason to credit me 40 gold worth of magicka drain when he can just as easily buy a potion for that much that he can use whenever it's convenient for him rather than on my schedule when I'm available. Even if we ignore that, what exactly are you suggesting? That I give him a 35-40 gold value worth of magicka, then sleep for 8-12 hours to recover it and repeat? What, are we going to ask him to coordinate synchronized sleeping schedules so he can drain me efficiently? And even if he does and even if he gives full value of the drain rather than simply buying far more convenient potions, we'd best case need to spend roughly the next 10 days sleeping in order to give him 1000 gold worth of magicka to train for channeling plus one school.
10 days for 1000 gold, with no skillgains, no other progress and the whole rest of the world continues on without us? Haven't we already spent the past four weeks of Legion training barely accomplishing anything? I have to believe we can come up with a more efficient use of time than this."Try and find the Mages guild questline character. Ask if there were new members recently.
:
"We already tried that once before. Ranis said she was unwilling to give out information about members to non-members. Plus, it's been weeks since we met the people we suspect to be PCs. They're unlikely to be "recent" members at this point. And I guess one other thing to consider is that they might not even have spoken to Ranis. I arrived in the middle of a swamp halfway to Hla Oad. I'm not sure how safe it is to assume that PCs necessarily go to Balmora first."seek out another Sleeper
approach another sleeper
You wander around Balmora for a bit. Unsurprisingly you don't find anyone who stands out as being a sleeper. After walking in on Caius' interrogations session the other day you walked to Fort Moonmoth, slept, and then walked back, fought monsters, talked to several people and toured a Balmora apartment. It's been almost a full day since you saw that sleeper. Caius had plenty of time to deal with him and his partner.
:
"Actually, come to think of it there are only supposed to be two sleepers in Balmora, but Caius said he'd spoken with three. So either a third was found in Balmora, or he's finding them elsewhere too."Use this down-time to make friends in the city, figure out the political and economic situations,
:
"...could you be more specific? I've already made significant contact with Ranis Athrys who is the guild stewrd of the Imperil Mage Guild here in Balmora, Caius Cosades the highest ranking Blades spymster in all of Vvardenfell, Nalcarya the alchemist, Nileno Dorvayn, who seems to be a business manager for House Hlaalu, and Fast Eddie who is a former House Telvanni council Mouth.
Who exactly do you want me to talk to? What do you want me to find out? 'Make friends and figure out situations' is kind of vague. We did find out some interesting politics from Eddie just now, but if I'd just walked up to him as a stranger and asked him to tell me about local politics...I doubt I'd have got the information I did."try to formulate a plan on how we're going to use what we know to further our own objectives
:
"Yes, that sounds like an excellent idea. What do you suggest?"What date is it?
Hmm. That's a reasonable question. You stop a guard.
:
"Excuse me, what's today's date?"
:
"Today's the 9th of First Seed, outlander."That's right. Morrowind calendar.
go wandering outside (away from any cliff racer areas)
:
"Easier said that done. The whole sky is cliff racer area. Only reliable ways to get away from them are to stay in town or be indoors. A dungeon, possibly?"get Mentors ring from the Samarys Tomb near Seyda Neen
There is a low level bandit cave near Seyda Neen that could be worth checking out
By now I'd just make the assumption that Seyda Neen and Balmora is almost all tapped out
:
"Hmm. If we can grab Mentor's ring, that could potentially solve all our money problems forever. I mean, maybe. Economy is obviously different here, but still...it's an artifact. Though we'd still have to find a buyer. That was always kind of a problem in-game. Also, honestly I'm not sure I'm tough enough to survive a tomb. They tend to have those skeletons with longswords and bonelords, any one of which could probably slaughter me.
see if we can recruit adventurers
:
"That might be an option. It wouldn't be a standard Fighter's guild contract, but if I offered a couple hundred gold plus half of loot or something...I could probably make a deal of some kind with somebody. Or alternately, even if I can't cast spells I can use scrolls. If I were to buy a couple summon scrolls we could probably get through a tomb. Atronachs are tough. But we'd have to be very careful with that. For example, it would be annoying to get past the tomb guardians, get to the treasure and find it locked with no way to open it, then on the way out discover that my summons had expired without killing anything.I bet we could pull it off, but we'd need to think it over very carefully. And decide for certain where I'm going to go. I'd rather not spend all my money prepping for an adventure only to find out we'd chosen a place that's already been cleared."[/i]
(
GM Comment: attributes/skills are not entirely accurate at the moment. I've been copy and pasting from previous episodes and incrementing point increases one at a time, but apparently I've missed a few over the past few episodes. Will probably update the entire list next episode.)
Level 5
Health 51/51
Armor rating: 1
25.7 Strength (20)
33.3 Speed (30)
36.6 Agility (30)
35.0 Endurance (30)
42.0 Intelligence (40)
43.2 Personality (40)
54.0 Luck (50)
Numbers in parenthesis are starting values
27 Acrobatics (0)
22 Athletics (5)
5 Armorer (0)
5 Block (0)
5 Heavy Armor (0)
5 Medium Armor (0)
8 Light armor (0)
5 Unarmored (0)
5 Blunt Weapon
5 Hand to Hand
5 Longblade
5 Shortblade
6 Spear
5 Alchemy (0)
5 Enchanting (0)
19 Speechcraft (10)
9 Mercantile (0)
* Silver spear
* 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
* 3 Standard restore health potion
Backpack (Worn)
Main compartment:
* Tennis shoes
* A strange note that reads 'Remember, we are watching you.'
* Letter of introduction from Ranis Athrys
* Sealed Letter for Surane Leoriane
* 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
* 224 gold
* 1 empty bottle
* 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
Fighter's Guild, Associate
* Steel tanto, with scabbard and carrying straps
* Imperial steel Cuirass
* Apprentice mortar and pestle
Ampoule Pod [1]Restore speed
Black Anther [1]Resist poison
Bread [1]Restore Fatigue
Bungler's Bane [1]Drain agility
Chokeweed [1]Drain health
Coda Flower [1]Restore luck
Comberry [1]Drain health
Corkbulb Root [1]Restore luck
Crab Meat [1]Restore fatigue
Gravedust [1]Burden
Green Lichen [1]Night Eye
Heather [1]Poison
Hypha facia [1]Drain speed
Kwama cuttle [1]Restore health
Luminous russ. [1]Paralysis
Marshmerrow [1]Resist common disease
Muck [1]Poison
Rat meat [1]Poison
Roobrush [1]Restore intelligence
Saltrice [1]Restore endurance
Scale [1]Swift swim
Scathecraw [1]Paralyze
Spore pod [1]Paralysis
Sm. Kwama Egg [1]Restore Fatigue
Violet coprinus [1]Water Walking
Willow Anther [1]Water Breathing
What do you do?
Author
Topic: Marooned in Morrowind (FINISHED) (Read 434105 times)