Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Mr. Strange]

Read trough the whole thing, and I must say LordBucket has done great work in writing this. Not that I'm complaining, but I can't stop thinking that if Michael hadn't got in touch with his players there would have been some serious ADHD shenanigans all around Vvardenfell.

[LordBucket]

Episode 47, part 1: Clover is popular, and annoying the Mage Guild

Apologize and excuse self from angry enchantress, with as little awkwardness as you can muster.

try to make clear to the people here that were are looking for her and trying to save her life.

asking people at the Mage's guild if she's come this way is a good idea, and we should have done it sooner.

You swallow and look around nervously. Everyone's watching, but it's pretty obvious none of them are going to come to your rescue. You suspect Dabienne's tirade is one they've all seen before.

: "Dabienne, look...I apologize. Obviously this is very important to you, and honestly...I envy you. Clearly you know what you're talking about, and you're right. I don't. I can't even cast spells. That's why I'm asking questions."

She backs off a bit, but she's still glaring. You glance around and address everyone in the room.

: "Look, maybe if I just explain the situation, you can all help. Does anyone here know Clover?"

You see a curious mix of reactions at mention of her name. Looks of recognition, sadness...and a couple people immediately turn away and act like they have more important things to be doing. After a moment, the guildmaster, an Argonian, speaks.

: "Yes, we know of Clover. What of it?"

: "I think she's in trouble."

: "Of course. She has corprus. Nothing can be done for it."

: "You know about that? Did she come through here recently? I think she's headed to Tel Fyr and I need to get there too."

At that, some looks of relief wash over the faces of those present.

; "Oh, thank The Divines. She's going to the corprusarium.'

: "That's a sad end for a Wizard."

: "At least she'll be cared for."

: "It is an unfortunate case."

: "How come you all know her?"

: "She holds the rank of Wizard."

: "Fastest rise through the ranks I've ever seen."

: "Personally I was hoping she'd replace Trebonius."

Everyone turns and looks at Dabienne.

: "What? It could happen. Well, I mean...not now. But it could have, if she hadn't caught corprus."

: "So she did come through here?"

; "Yes, last night. Didn't talk to anyone, but we all saw the blisters. Poor thing."


Last night. And apparently she's fairly high ranked in the guild, which means she's probably an accomplished spellcaster. Last you were outside it looked like it was a little after noon, so if she went straight to Tel Fyr there's no way she's not already there by now. If she follows the standard quest path, she'd have spoken to Divayth Fyr shortly after arriving, then made a tour of the corprusarium, probably spoken with the dwarf, then gone up and drunk the potion. Odds are good she's either already left or dead.

But on the other hand, just how closely do things follow the original path of the main quest here? If the concern is that she isn't the Nerevarine and would therefore die from drinking the potion, then would whatever rules are at work here cause Divayth to not give it to her in the first place? In game he only gave it out once. Does that apply?

But even if he does...how much of a problem is this, really? If she is a PC, then her character dying won't matter. Unless it results in a savefile load. If that happens presumably the voices in your head will tell you about it after the fact, but you won't notice any difference and life will go on. And if she isn't, then dying right away from drinking a deadly potion is probably better than suffering a lifetime of corprus. And if the whole PC/NPC thing doesn't exist and isn't relevant at all because everyone here is a living breathing conscious person...what then? You're not even sure what that would imply. Anything goes? But if anything goes, then why are events playing out so closely to how they do in the game? After all, you knew what the original coded message contained. You knew that going to Ilunibi would result in corprus. You knew that after contracting corprus, Caius would send Clover to Tel Fyr. All of those things happened just like you predicted.

But...wasn't some of that actually your doing? Caius said he only knew to send Clover to Divayth because you'd said he had a cure and that she had to catch it and be cured in order to become the Nerevarine. Which was what the Emperor ordered him to do: have Clover become the Nerevarine. So if she dies, isn't it kind of your fault? And if she doesn't and goes on to become the Nerevarine, isn't that kind of your doing too?

But then on the other hand...in-game it was made pretty clear that "the Nerevarine" wasn't necessarily a single person. There was the whole Cave of the Incarnate sequence where you talk to a bunch of other "possible" chosen ones who didn't make it for whatever reason. Maybe being "the Chosen One" doesn't actually have anything to do with being chosen, or being "the one and only" so much as simply being the one out of however many who happens to be successful in the end? Vivec talked about multiple dimensions and being aware of other instances of himself in those other dimensions. Maybe a daedra like Azura could appear to dozens or hundreds of people and send them all off on quests figuring that sooner or later somebody would succeed and then BAM that one of the hundreds she sent was "the" chosen one. So maybe we should talk to Azura? But...if that's really how it works and the Nerevarine is just whomever actually succeeds in this whole thing, then do any of the prophecies or prerequisites matter at all? The prophecies were really vague. If you defeat Dagoth Ur, is anyone really going to stop to care that you did or didn't meet some particular obscure prerequisite? Even in-game, it was possible to bypass the main quest completely and defeat Dagoth Ur by killing Vivec and taking the back path without ever doing any of the other things supposedly required to qualify as the Nerevarine...like contract and become immune to corprus.

So...what does this all imply? For all your time here you still don't have a good grasp of what's going on or why.

buy or collect so you have one of each of all the 1 gp ingredients you can get your hands on.

+1 to some alchemy experimentation. Why buy stuff if we could "live off the land"?

Don't waste time messing with alchemy right now.

I'd be fine with quickly sampling ingredients if I believed it was actually quick

I'd also like to note that we can't buy any thing until we get the proper documentation.

So far as you know, the hospitality paperwork is only required for making purchases in Sadrith Mora. At the moment you're in Wolverine Hall, which is an Imperial fortification just beyond the city limits. And you have one alchemist in the room with you and another one just downstairs that you have to walk past in order to leave the building, so it won't take much time to check for cheap ingredients. Dabienne gives you a dirty look for buying something from Tusamercil instead of her, but says nothing. Talking to both of the two alchemists, you pick up a number of unfamiliar ingredients for 11 gold. Sitting down with the new ingredients plus the whichwheat you picked ages ago but never got around to taste testing, you chow down and learn some new effects:

New alchemy effects
Ash yam [1]Restore personality
Black lichen [1]Drain Health
Kresh fiber [1]Cure common disease
Stoneflower petal [1]Fortify health
Large kwama egg [1]Restore fatigue
Whickwheat [1]Cure paralysis


Health is now 58/59

investigate whether you can pay to have a long-duration water-walking or speed-boosting
spell cast on you at the Mage's Guild for a fee.

I don't know how many people would keep 300 second Water Walking on Touch spells handy, but it's quick to ask.

You head back upstairs and address the room.

: "Hey, can anyone cast water walking on me with a really long duration?"

People look around but nobody speaks up right away. After a few moments, Dabienne sighs and replies:

: "I know the spell, but mine's on self only so i can't cast it on you."

To which the spellmaker replies:

: "I could reformulate her spell to target you instead of her. But I'd charge for you for it."

To which Dabienne responds, with a bored look on her face:

: "But since you're apparently unwilling to spend even 38 gold for a potion, I seriously doubt you're going to pay to have me learn a custom spell for a single use cast on you."

: "Yeah, how much would that cost?"



That's considerably more cost effective than potions in terms of cost per second, but unless you can talk Dabienne into walking down to the waterfront with you, you'd lose spell time leaving the building. It also happens to be 5 gold more than you have right now. You could reformulate for a shorter duration. Four minutes works out to 253 gold, for example. But you'll need a levitation potion too once you get to Tel Tyr, so doing this would pretty much mean all of your money for a couple minute spell, of which the first minute will probably be wasted leaving the building.

: "...yeah, that's more than I really want to spend on this."

Dabienne's anger from before is rekindled.

: "What, did you really expect it would be cheaper? Not only is it the spell reformulation, I'd probably have to burn through an entire restore magicka potion just to power a spell with that kind of duration. How did you even get into the guild without being able to cast any spells, anyway?"

: "I wonder the same. You are an Edwinna recruit. Perhaps a speaking with Edwinna is required."

...oh, that's right. Edwinna kind of stretched the rules to even let you in. Maybe it would be a good idea to stop attracting attention to how little you know about magic still.

You step outside.

(continued in part 2)

[LordBucket]

(continued from part 1)

Episode 47, part 2: Chatter, boatless imperials and an explanation for 'marks.'

You sit on the stairs and chat with your voices. Looking up you can see the sun just beginning to fall behind the fortified parapet of Wolverine Hall's upper floor.



If you plan to travel before nightfall, it would be best to leave soon.

lets get a simple and cheap fire spell like fireball so we can make our own bottles.

Maybe get a cheap summoning spell?

: "I don't know any spellschools. I can see magicka, I can channel it...but I'd need to learn the destruction school for bottle making, and conjuration for summoning. Also, making bottles with fireball sounds unwise to me."

Our alchemy sucks.

: "Well, I'm only going to get better if I practice. But practicing isn't really an option right now because I still don't have a full set of alchemy tools. There's the set in the hallway of the Ald'rhun Mage Guild, but last time I used those I ended up recall-swapped into a dungeon. I guess I could move them. Five feet in any direction would probably be enough to put me out of the mark location, but do we really want to be using SexyWithers' alchemy tools and have her materialize in front of us? That could happen, and I could see it ending badly. I mean...we can do that if it comes to it, but it's not a long term solution. And I suppose I could learn a few more effects by eating raw materials like I've been doing, but that won't really get us anywhere. If we really want to improve my alchemy, we'll need to get a full set of tools, and that means having a place to put them since there's no way I can carry them all around. Either rent a room, or clear out a tomb or something. And then just get a whole bunch of ingredients."

I don't recall there being a potions-per-day limit, though. In fact, I
remember Michael mentioning that he can apparently pee at will now.

: "Yeah, pretty sure once I have tools and a place to work, getting ingredients will be the only bottleneck."

willing to sell us stuff for 100% value rather than 200%, but that'd probably annoy her. So your estimates based on 1 gp reagents may turn into 1.3 or 1.5 gp reagents instead, which can have a rather significant impact on those calculations.

: "...meh, I kind of feel like if we're really needing to compute decimals values of gold coins over time in order to efficiently save seconds on potion duration...I just have to think we're going about the whole thing wrong. I mean, seriously, what was it you guys said about this being hobo simulator?"

a game of Hobo: the Malingering.

unemployment simulator.

: "...yeah, that was it. I've been here for what, six weeks now? What are we doing wrong here that after all that time I still need to spend half a day getting price quotes and trying to cut deals just to get a couple minutes worth of water walking? There has to be a better way to go about this."

Also, look into joining house Telvanni, because why not?

The possibility of joining House Telvani shall not be on the table until we are already somewhat powerful.

I agree it shouldn't be something we do now.

: "...ok. I guess I'll wait on that."

tell Caius about the future of the empire, and how he can improve it.

Warning: Massive amounts of lore on the Oblivion crisis in this spoiler.

The Oblivion Crisis needs to happen.

: "Well, if that's the case then we might have already messed things up pretty bad. Remember we gave Vivec a huge info dump when we first got here. The Mystic Dawn, the Emperor being assassinated, the Bloodmoon Prophecy, the Oblivion Crisis, the fall of Baar Dau, Almalexia going insane...we told him a whole bunch of stuff about the future and he's probably in a better position to alter history than Caius. In fact, we even told him specifically that he'd disappear, so he has personal incentive to make sure some of that stuff doesn't happen. Is this a problem?"

"Come to think of it, after that conversation Vivec had one of his priests act on some sort of contingency based on new information then teleported out. Is it possible that we were the source of the new information? What has Vivec been doing for the past month and a half?"

If it's a rowboat (2 oars), you hold an oar in each hand and pump your arms, moving the boat forward on the push and preparing the next stroke on the pull (forward facing rowing.) To turn, row only the oar on the side you wish to turn towards. You sit facing forward, if you're doing this on your own.

It it's a paddleboat (1 paddle), you literally pull the boat through the water using broom-like motions with the paddle, alternating sides of the boat. To turn, paddle repeatedly on one side. You should be in a kneeling position.

You can also push off the bottom with a long pole, but that's best done from a standing position, which requires practice on the water, and it's probably too deep here.

Michael, can you hear these boating instructions?

: "Well, yes. Although...your description is kind of...I mean...rowing a boat is not rocket science. I'm pretty sure I could figure it out without a detailed description. But the only boats I've seen here are sailboats, and those were way bigger than I think would be realistic to row or push with a pole."

see if we can get any from the legion.

: "I guess I could ask, but I don't understand what the benefit of a boat is supposed to be. Water walking potions were cheap. Though I suppose I'd have to buy a bunch of them since they only last 15 seconds. I'm pretty sure I can run with me just me a lot faster than I can drag me plus a boat through the water. Or there's that swift swim/water breathing at the Mage Guild. That was 3 minutes for 156 gold. Or if it really comes to it...I can just swim without any potions or scrolls at all. Covering the distance isn't really the problem here. The problems are first, cliff racers and slaughterfish. A boat solves the slaughterfish problem but not the cliff racers. But water walking has the same problem: even if I had a stack of infintie water walking potions, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be able to outrun them. The second problem is navigating. Remember I don't have an overview map and I'm looking at this exclusively from a first-person point of view. And it's foggy. I know that Tel Fyr is southwest of Sadrith Mora, but I don't even know which direction is southwest. I mean, yes I kind of know which direction has to be roughly southwestish because I recognize the landmarks. I know the layout of Sadrith Mora. But just heading out blind onto the water...my best guess is likely to be plus or minus 15 degrees and with low visibility from the fog I could probably get within 1000 feet of Tel Fyr and not even realize it. The trip is basically water with nondescript rocks."

"Though I suppose if I'm in a boat then I don't need to worry about potions wearing off. Ok, sure. Let's ask."

You walk down the stairs...

Acrobatics skill is now 31

...and approach a Legionnaire.

: "Excuse me?"

: "Yes, citizen?"

Interesting that he called you 'citizen' and not 'Legionnaire.' Does he not know, or does he know and he's just trying to avoid blowing your cover?

: "I'm presently on detached duty in service to the Emperor. I need to get to Tel Fyr. Do you by chance have any boats I could borrow? Even a rowboat"

The guard looks thoughtful for a moment.

: "No, none. We have no need for them. You might try to find a ferry captain at the docks to take you, but Tel Fyr is restricted without approval from the Telvanni council. If this is official business, could you ask them?"

Hmm. Maybe you could try talking to them. The ferry would be both safer and cheaper than your other options. But there isn't any reason for the Council to approve your visit. You'd certainly need some reason more compelling than to try to talk a high ranking Mage Guild member with corprus out of taking a potion that might either cure or kill her. Whether she dies and rids them of a Mage Guild wizard, or lives and therefore advances the art of medicine, either way they'd probably be happy with the result.

: "...suppose Council permission wasn't an option?"

He nods.

: "In that case I advise you either to fly or water walk."

: "I don't suppose I could requisition potions from you?"

: "No, our local depot is very limited. We maintain only a token presence here. I suggest speaking with any of the Mage Guild or Cult alchemists inside Wolverine Hall."

: "Speaking of which, why so few Legionnaires here? This is a major town."

: "We're all still on alert due to the genocide at Khuul, and there are other settlements in greater need of protection. The Telvanni are very good at maintaining order."

Hmm. Khuul, right. Kind of forgot about that. And it's probably true that this town is one of the last places in need of Legion protection. Even as a player in-game you're pretty sure nobody really likes to mess with the Telvanni. Here where ncs aren't confined to their rooms and unable to open doors, if a hostile force presented itself, Master Neloth, his personal guard and retainers plus half a dozen Council Mouths are all within a minute or two away. That actually brings up a good question though: In the game there comes a point where you can pretty much kill anything. Even naked and unarmed it's possible to punch npcs like Archmagister Gothren or Divayth Fyr to death once your skills get high enough. Is it like that here too? Or are "powerful" npcs actually powerful? You vaguely remember Strillian comment during Legion training that there are wizards who can solo entire armies. Was that hyperbole or was it literally true? You personally witnessed Fast Eddie grinding spell training and from what you saw he'd been doing it for at least days, possibly weeks. Just how tough is a Telvanni magelord in this world?

I'm liking the "ask the Legion for help, maybe official business" angle. Dunno how eager a
heavily armored Legionnaire is going to be to try to take a swim with us, but it's worth a shot.

: "One last question for you: suppose I get transport arrangements in order. Would you or another guard be willing to provide an escort?"

He frowns at that.

: "Much as this town isn't in need of protection, I will not abandon my post without either orders or a very good reason. A very good reason, especially to enter a restricted area in violation of local laws. Detached duty or no, I do outrank you, recruit."

Pretty much the answer you expected. You thank the guard for his time and move on.

Get papers and Mark.

You head to the Gateway Inn and approach the Innkeeper.



: "Hello, are you Anger...Angerheld..?"

: "Angaradhel, yes. What can I do for you?"

You notice that his voice is a bit less gravelly than most male dunmer you've spoken with.

: "I was told to see you for Hospitality Papers."

: "Ahh, yes of course. For how long will you be staying in Sadrith Mora?"

: "Umm, I was hoping to leave before nightfall. I just want to buy some potions. But I'll probably come back again at some point."

: "How about a standard 30 day business visa, then?"

: "I'm sure that will be plenty, yes."

: "Will you be buying only, or selling goods also?"

: "Probably both."

: "Do you intend to import any of the following: dwemer artifacts, preserved corpses, moon sugar, skooma or walnuts?"

Walnuts?

: "No, none of those."

: "Will you be engaged in the buying, selling, or transport of slaves?"

: "...erm, probably not. I don't think so. But that's legal, isn't it? I passed the slave pen earlier."

: "Yes, but there's an extra 5 gold surcharge for the slave-handling endorsement."

: "Really? Huh. No, I hadn't planned on slaves...I don't think, anyway. If I change my mind later can I get it added?"

: "Yes. Though there's an additional 5 gold fee for adding an endorsement to an already-issued visa."

: "So 5 now, or 10 later. Ok, how about put it on, just in case."

: "Slave handling endorsement...check. Finally, are you presently, have you ever been, or do you intend to ever become a covert operative, spy, or secret agent of any Vvardenfell Greathouse or foreign government?"

Now is probably not the best time to admit to being a Blades Operative.

: "...umm...no?"

: "Very good. Just give me a moment, and...here you go. That will be 30 gold please."

You hand him the coins and he hands you the paperwork. After accepting it he casually waves his hand and a bolt of dark blue light bursts from his hand into your face.

: "Gahh!!! What did you do?!?!"

It doesn't hurt at all, in fact you can't even feel it, but with your new magic vision you can see a tiny patch of blue pulsating inside your head.

: "Get it off!!!!"

: "Sera, please calm down."

You don't think you're injured, but there's now a blue spot in your vision that wasn't there before. Well, not in your vision, exactly. It's more like, inside you?

: "What did you do?"

: "I simply gave you the Hospitality Mark you asked for. You're approved for business transactions within Sadrith Mora."

It takes a moment for that to sink in.

: "Mark?"

: "Yes, so any merchant can see that you are properly licensed. "

: "Isn't that what the papers are for?"

: "Well, yes, but only in the event that your mark is lost. Papers are very easily forged.

: "So, what exactly did you do?"

He frowns at the question.

: "I gave you a simple Telvanni Hospitality mark. It's no different from your others."

: "What others?"

: "For example I see that you're a Mage Guild Associate."

He points to a spot on your forehead. You close your eyes and focus on your light-aura. It takes a moment, but you think you see the spot he means. With your eyes closed, everything kind of looks like the Matrix. Except that everything is made of magic light instead of computer code.

: "The green?"

: "Yes, that's it."

Has that been there all along? It was a small motion he made with his hand. It's possible the other factions similarly marked you when you joined and you just never noticed because you couldn't see magicka the in same way you do now.

: "What other marks do I have?"

He raises an eyebrow in apparent bewilderment that you would ask this.

: "Well, I see that you're in the Legion, though I don't recognize your rank designation. And that yellow mark is an Imperial Fighter's guild mark, one of the lower ranks I believe. And these two here...hmm. I don't recognize those. And of course, here I can see that you recently ran afoul of the guard for a minor offense that was paid in full."

: "So anyone can know all this just by looking at me?"

: "Of course." He pauses. "Well, not anyone. Anyone with any magical training can see the marks if they look, but seeing isn't the same as knowing what they mean. I recognize the Telvanni and imperial Mage Guild marks because I work with them so often, but the others I'm less sure of. But if you'll excuse me, I need to file your paperwork."

This might bear further investigation. Was this part of that last week of Legion training that you missed out on? Or maybe they didn't bother teaching you about this because you had no magic training? Would it be possible to impersonate someone important, say...a guild head, just by getting a proper mark? Actually, it's probably not that simple. Edwinna and Eydis both entered your name into a book when you joined the Mage and Fighter's guilds, and Angaradhel gave you hardcopy just now too. If somebody walked in and claimed to own the place they'd probably check. Come to think of it, while the Telvanni guard that was following you earlier said you lacked a mark...he did ask for papers before trying to arrest you. So they're probably not stupid about this. And everyone at Wolverine Hall seemed to know Clover by name. It's probably difficult to impersonate anyone very important. But this is probably something Caius would know about. He is a spymaster, after all.

You close your eyes and stare in Angaradhel's direction while he fiddles with some paperwork. It's...yes. You can see the light that composes his being. It's difficult to make out since your eyelids are made of light too and they kind of get in the way. Plus of course the sun is streaming a constant, overwhelming barrage of magicka through the building and into the ground beneath your feet. There's a lot of light everywhere and you have to really focus to not be distracted by it all. You focus in on his head, and...there! He has a couple marks just like yours...well, not exactly like yours. One is blue, one is...red? No, two are red. And there's another couple that might be marks or just background...body. It's difficult to tell. You don't recognize what his marks mean, but if you look carefully enough, you can more or less see them.

Spoiler: Stats (click to show/hide)

Level 7
Health 58/59
Magick 69/69
Armor rating: 4

Spoiler: Attributes (click to show/hide)

27.1 Strength (20)
34.9 Speed (30)
37.0 Agility (30)
39.9 Endurance (30)
42.4 Intelligence (40)
40.0 Willpower (40)
44.4 Personality (40)
56.0 Luck (50)

Spoiler: skills (click to show/hide)

Numbers in parenthesis are starting values
31 Acrobatics (0)
22 Athletics (5)
 7 Armorer (0)

 6 Block (0)
 7 Heavy Armor (0)
 5 Medium Armor (0)
 21 Light armor (0)
 9 Unarmored (0)

 5 Blunt Weapon
 12 Hand to Hand
 5 Longblade
 6 Shortblade
 8 Spear

 7 Alchemy (0)
 5 Enchanting (0)

21 Speechcraft (10)
11 Mercantile (0)

Spoiler: Equipped (click to show/hide)

 * Cruel Viperblade
 * Chitin shield

 * Colovian fur "helm"
 * Chitin left + right gauntlets
 * Chitin greaves
 * Chitin cuirass
 * Chitin left + right pauldrons
 * Chitin boots

 * Combat belt
 * Commoner's shirt
 * Commoner's pants
 * Interior coinpurse, containing:
   * 2 Standard restore health potions
   * lockpick

Backpack (Worn)
Main compartment:
 * Tennis shoes
 * A strange note that reads  'Remember, we are watching you.'
 * Letter of introduction from Ranis Athrys
 * Sadrith Mora Hospitality papers
 * Yellow notepad with 54 pages left
 * 1 pen
 * "20% cooler" Rainbow Dash t-shirt,
 * Denim pants
 * a cellphone and wallet with picture ID and $30 in cash
 * 1 divine intervention scroll
 * 2 lesser soulgems (empty)
 * 29 Whickwheat
Small compartment
 * 281 gold
 * 8 empty bottle
 * 2 Ampoule Pod
 * 1 Black Anther
 * 18 Bonemeal(?)
 * 1 bread
 * 7 bungler's bane
 * 5 Chokeweed
 * 3 Corkbulb
 * 1 kwama cuttle
 * 25 Heather
 * 3 hypha facia
 * 11 luminous russula
 * 4 Racer Plume
 * 1 Rat Meat
 * 8 saltrice
 * 1 Scamp Skin
 * 2 Stoneflower petals(?)
 * 5 spore pod
 * 6 violet coprinus

Spoiler: Faction standings (click to show/hide)

Blades, Novice
Imperial Legion, Recruit
Fighter's Guild, Associate (1 quest completed)
Mage Guild, Associate
Registered Sadrith Mora business visa, with slave-handling endorsement

Spoiler: Equipment (currently at Nine-Toes house in Balmora) (click to show/hide)

 * Steel tanto, with scabbard and carrying straps
 * Imperial steel Cuirass
 * Apprentice mortar and pestle

Spoiler: Spells known (click to show/hide)

None, yet

Spoiler: Alchemy Knowledge (click to show/hide)

Alit Hide [1]Resist Poison
Ash yam [1]Restore personality
Ampoule Pod   [1]Restore speed
Black Anther   [1]Resist poison
Black lichen [1]Drain Health
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
Hound Meat [1]Poison
Hypha facia   [1]Drain speed
Kresh fiber [1]Cure common disease
Kwama cuttle   [1]Restore health
Large kwama egg [1]Restore fatigue
Luminous russ.   [1]Paralysis
Marshmerrow   [1]Resist common disease
Muck      [1]Poison
Racer plume [1]Levitate
Rat meat   [1]Poison
Roobrush   [1]Restore intelligence
Saltrice   [1]Restore endurance
Scale      [1]Swift swim
Scathecraw   [1]Paralyze
Spore pod   [1]Paralysis
Stoneflower petal [1]Fortify health
Sm. Kwama Egg   [1]Restore Fatigue
Violet coprinus   [1]Water Walking
Whickwheat [1]Cure paralysis
Willow Anther   [1]Water Breathing

What do you do?

[LordSlowpoke]

micheal played morrowind a lot and had many different characters

these way he played these characters is what gave the pcs their personalities and goals (they'll want to do what micheal did ingame)

to become the neverafgsfds, he must first understand himself and his playstyles

theorycraft'd

ps. micheal you look fucking ridiculous in that hat take it off and channel magicka into it

you'll either learn something or destroy the hat

win/win

[WillowLuman]

Well we've got to find out whether Clover's the Nerevarine or not. It would help us discover our own path. Therefore, it's time to get a levitation potion, and swift swim or waterwalking (whatever has longer duration) and set out. Checking in game, if you leave from the fort, it's about -15 degrees southwest in a straight line. Of the two, at least slaughterfish can be dodged by pulling up onto shore, or outswam with swift-swim.

These marks are very disconcerting. What other marks do we have? A spy agency surely would not be stupid enough to mark us, but did Vivec bestow something on us? Does the Sixth House have a mark? Does one of our marks come from being dropped here from another world? We need to get these identified. Also, us not knowing about them is probably good indication that we're really not from around here, and could help convince certain people. We should find out if it's possible to hide marks, when we get the chance.

Time is of the essence.

[IronyOwl]

ps. micheal you look fucking ridiculous in that hat take it off and channel magicka into it

you'll either learn something or destroy the hat

win/win

Consider losing our current hat a reward for finding a better one.

Well we've got to find out whether Clover's the Nerevarine or not. It would help us discover our own path. Therefore, it's time to get a levitation potion, and swift swim or waterwalking (whatever has longer duration) and set out. Checking in game, if you leave from the fort, it's about -15 degrees southwest in a straight line. Of the two, at least slaughterfish can be dodged by pulling up onto shore, or outswam with swift-swim.

These marks are very disconcerting. What other marks do we have? A spy agency surely would not be stupid enough to mark us, but did Vivec bestow something on us? Does the Sixth House have a mark? Does one of our marks come from being dropped here from another world? We need to get these identified. Also, us not knowing about them is probably good indication that we're really not from around here, and could help convince certain people. We should find out if it's possible to hide marks, when we get the chance.

Time is of the essence.

I still think we need that invisibility potion; we have no plan for cliff racers. We're also going to need a lot more than 15 seconds of whichever water-traversing potion we take, unless we get extraordinarily lucky.

I'm also dubious that swift swim will let us outrun slaughterfish. Remember, we're relatively slow; not massively sluggish, but I was under the impression that slaughterfish are relatively quick (if often a little derpy) and Swift Swim isn't that severe.

Finally, remember that Michael doesn't have a map or a compass (or a sextant). We're going to need to direct him with landmarks from his perspective.


All that said, I am in favor of buying what we need and leaving. For me, that seems to be an invis potion, levitation potion, an unknown number of water walking potions (or that swift swim scroll, if it's more effective than I thought or we think we can land-dodge slaughterfish well enough)...

...and possibly some thought to how we're going to get back again. We've been so busy thinking about how we're going to get there (and related subjects) that we haven't actually thought about that one, have we? Fyr's supposed to be pretty nice, but I'm not sure if he'd be willing to get us back home again.

[MonkeyHead]

As for getting back - dont we have a recall scroll?

[IronyOwl]

As for getting back - dont we have a recall scroll?

Ah, right. Or rather, divine intervention, right? Unless someone stepped us through setting a mark or set it for us or something.

Anyway, the point is our teleportation scroll is probably cheaper than whatever we'd need to slaughterfish-dodge our way through, so that's sadly probably a good option.

In fact, just checked. Creeper probably gives us better prices than most, but he sold us our scroll for 63 gold. That's amazing, problem solved.

[WillowLuman]

As for getting back - dont we have a recall scroll?

We do. And using it would be less expensive than other means of getting back.

Listen up: I've just looked at my map. This will be easier than we thought. If we head DIRECTLY west of Wolverine Hall, we'll hit a large island. It has a mushroom tree on either end, so that's two mushroom trees. Continuing west, there's a slightly smaller island with a single shroomtree on it. Seperating the two is a mere ditch, water only ankle to knee deep. No biggie. From this island, there's a tiny island further west, and to the southwest is the huge island that Tel Fyr is on. If you splash over to the tiny island, then the island we want to be on is just to the south and a little bit west. We could probably even see it from there. You'd just need to cross the water and keep going south, then there'd be a bridge to Tel Fyr. This route requires crossing far less water.

2 15-second waterwalking potions should be sufficient for the entire trip The first one for crossing from this fort to the 2-tree isle, the next for crossing from the tiny island to the Big Island with Tel Fyr On It.

I'll draw up a map.

[Descan]

What exactly are our priorities right now?
Is it getting to Clover? She's probably already taken the potion. There's no real reason to get their immediately any more, she's either cured or dead. Nothing we do will affect that. At most, we'll get information, but if we keep our ears and eyes open we might well get that same information. Betcha gossip will be everywhere if the corpus-infected Wizard arrives back at the Mages guild fit as a fiddle.

And what are our (marketable) skills?

Obviously we're not very good by the standards of the game world, right? But we DO have a major trump card. Modern SCIENCE!

We can trade knowledge, or create devices to trade. Light-bulbs, electric generators, engines of many kinds. Perhaps we could create a flying machine?

And I do mean WE. Michael has a trump card over everybody, even the PCs (if that is what they are) because a) he has us, we can give him the knowledge he needs, and we have demonstrated the ability to show him images such as diagrams, and b) he can affect the world with that knowledge. An NPC doesn't have that knowledge, and a PC wouldn't be able to affect the world in that way. Can't create an engine without being able to bolt the metal together, right?

That is my proposal. Find someone willing to loan us enough cash to get started on creating marvels of the modern world (we might be able to do it without a loan, but it would be slow going), and sell those to pay that loan back and get some damn cash instead of running around and hoping to sell some piss-water for a few coins.

Perhaps the legion would be interested in some electrical lighting? And with magic in the setting, we can try and merge those together eventually. No need to burn coal if you can cast fireball on the steam engine.

[MonkeyHead]

... and on that note, Yagum Bagarn is in the corpusarium. He would be worth talking too...

[Descan]

That's right, the Dwemer were fairly high-tech, comparatively. Steam power and all that, right? Might be useful to talk to him, see what's different physics-wise and get any ideas they might have had. Would suck if we tried to create an engine from our-world specs and it turns out the world doesn't quite work that way, eh?

[WillowLuman]

We have all sorts of reasons to get there in time. We're trying to found out where, exactly we stand in all of this and what kind of metaphysical shennanigans are going on. And possibly stop a save wipe. And keep on Caius' good side.

Oh, and not to mention talk with Yagrum Bagarn.

Michael, can you see this?

Spoiler: image (click to show/hide)

Just 2 cheap potions of WW and one of levitation, and we're good. It's not even that far.

[GlyphGryph]

Agreed. Buy the stuff and let's get going already. Only use it if actually needed.

[Rabid_Cog]

Let's take a step backwards for just a moment. At some point, you are going to have to start becoming strong enough to be self sufficient, whether through magic or some of the physical arts. Is there any reason NOT to make that the first priority? I mean, are you in a hurry to get to the corprusarium? Will it make your life easier somehow? Or will it just have a really high chance of killing you?

Think about it. Clover has already arrived there, or died on the way. Either way, there is nothing you can do about it. Like, literally nothing. In fact, there is literally nothing you can do about ANYTHING. You have no combat ability. At all. A single rat is a dangerous opponent for you. A cliff racer a mortal danger. A Kagouti? You are so screwed its not even funny. What will knowing where you stand in this metaphysical mess help? You won't be able to do jack shit about it and it sure as hell won't be making you any stronger.

I think you should prioritize your survival skills. For that you need money to buy magic training. In order to get money, you need some way to generate money. You can't adventure, BECAUSE YOU ARE USELESS. Forget about the Corprusarium for now. (if there is something valuable/powerful to be picked up there for free, then Clover will either have grabbed it herself, or someone else). Any money you spend going there is money you are not spending trying to make more money.

On that same note, Stop trying to game the system. It has done nothing but bite you in the ass. That goes double for trying to use 'modern science'. The laws of physics are clearly fucked in this world, so why do you think that anything would work the same? Just forget it. Knowledge is NOT your advantage in this world, because it is clear you don't know shit about how it really works. You may have known what MIGHT have happened in the future, but I think its pretty safe to say you've completely fucked the timeline by this time, so even that is becoming more and more useless. Your advantage is brainpower. You have a natural aptitude for magic. We should use that.

To start generating cash and learning magic, the following is probably the fastest way to do it. I think. I'm open to suggestions, but this must remain a priority.
1) Buy crappy house. As crappy and as cheap as you can get. If you can squat somewhere without getting thrown out (like a cleared dungeon or an abandoned house), so much the better.
2) Hire a slave to carry stuff. There are a few slaves lying around balmora, if memory serves.
3) Buy a set of the cheapest alchemy gear you can find.
4) Have the slave cart the alchemy gear to your house. House being close is a big bonus.
5) Identify what potions you can make for cheaper than the alchemists sell them for.
6) Make those using purchased components and sell them. Use money to pay for magic training.

Alternative, you can shortcut the alchemy things and go straight for magic training if you have enough cash. Which you don't. As soon as you are able to defend yourself, you can start being an adventurer and getting filthy rich the way they do - by killing things and taking their money.

So, in summary:
Buy cheap house in Balmora -> Buy cheap alchemy equipment -> Carry it to the house -> Make potions! -> Profit!

It is unlikely Sexywhithers will notice you nicking one or two of the more expensive things she has collected, like glass weapons or maybe some ebony stuff, as long as it isnt her top of the line crap. Sell that for some play money. It also seems that unless she tells the guards about the theft herself (or you steal it right under their noses), they don't realize the items have been stolen. That also means dead people's stuff is fair game. Something to keep in mind.