Episode 48: We're off to see the wizard
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.
I am in favor of buying what we need and leaving
Buy the stuff and let's get going already. Only use it if actually needed.
Good plan, let's do it.
Follow Hugo's plan.
This Plan
+1
Yep, Hugo's plan sounds good.
:
"Ok. Time to do this."2 cheap potions of WW and one of levitation
I still think we need that invisibility potion
I suggest some basic healing potions
You already have two healing potions on you. You consider buying more, but money is still scarce and the plan here is to run rather than fight. If two isn't enough, well, that's what your divine intervention scroll is for. You stop at various alchemists and buy two potions of water walking, and one each of invisibility and levitation for 159 gold, leaving you with 122. You hope you don't regret not buying more healing potions, but at 38 gold each, buying two more would leave you with little enough money that even paying for transportation might become an issue.
Mercantile is now 12Michael, can you see this?
Michael waits a moment.
:
"No, I'm not getting anything. What am I supposed to be seeing?"that "Fort" on my map is Wolverine Hall
:
"What map? You asked me if I could see this...and then you went silent. Was I supposed to see something?"If we head DIRECTLY west of Wolverine Hall, we'll hit a large island.
:
"Ok, verbal directions then. But there are two problems with that. First off, I don't know exactly which way is precisely west. Right now I'm only guessing based on landmarks. Second, I'm pretty sure I'm 'west' of Wolverine Hall right now. There's no island here. All of Sadrith Mora is west of Wolverine Hall, isn't it? So the moment you walk out the front gate, turn left....that's west...and you're deposited into Sadrith Mora. And I remember seeing the sun come up over the Thieves Guild this morning, which I'm pretty sure is more or less north of Wolvering Hall. So the whole 'rises in the east sets wherever' thing is pretty much out."are you sure about the danger level and scaling those walls?
:
"...scaling walls? What walls? You mean...jump off the southern edge of Wolverine Hall rather than leave through the front gate? What's the point of that? The island runs parallel to the direction you want me to go. Why jump into the water first thing rather than walk on the nice, safe dry land guarded by Telvanni guards then go south from there?"Michael thinks for a moment.
:
"Ok, tell you what...I'll go take a look. I don't have a map and it sounds like you guys do. But I think you guys are trying to give me bird's eye view directions, and that doesn't match very well what I'm seeing. But maybe if I just follow the directions one step at a time...maybe that will work."head DIRECTLY west of Wolverine Hall
:
"Ok, I don't know where you guys are getting this. Here's Wolvering Hall. I'm pretty sure I'm west of it right now."
:
"Here's the main entrance."
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"From here, if I cross the bridge and go inside..."
:
"This is the courtyard. There's the well. There's the sun shining over the wall. I'm pretty sure I'm facing south right now. Turning to my right, which should be west..."
:
"...there's a 20 foot brick wall. There's no way I can climb that. But, maybe if I head up the stairs and go to the extreme far southern edge..."
:
"Ok, this is the mid point on the stairway, and pretty much as far south as I can go."Michael gazes at the sun.
:
"The sun is supposed to set in the west, right? It's setting soon, so if that's west...maybe I'm confused about which way is west? I'd thought Sadrith Mora was west of Wolvering Hall, the sun clearly isn't at 90 degrees to the wall, so maybe that really is west, but the keep here isn't oriented exactly at cardinal directions, it's at an angle?"we'll hit a large island. It has a mushroom tree on either end, so that's two mushroom trees.
:
"Ok, well, I see a mushroom tree from where I'm standing now. So if I'm facing west right now rather than south like I thought, that must be the island you're talking about. Well, let's give it a try."Michael climbs up to the stone rail, slides over the edge and hops down.
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"Ok, that wasn't so bad. Hanging off the edge with my hands it was only a couple foot drop."You walk over to the water edge and gaze at the sun rapidly approaching the horizon.
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"Ok, Celestia...work with me here. Give me a little more daylight."The island isn't far. Maybe close enough that you could throw a stone to it. You check the drawstring on your backpack to make sure that it's tight, then remove your shield and loop the string through one of the strings and tie it so that it's more or less secure on your back. Then you pull your coinpurse from your pants and put it around your neck with potions and divine intervention scroll inside for quick and easy access. Then you wade in.
You get to within 20 feet of the island before you see your first slaughterfish. Rather than fighting in the water you ignore it and try to push through.
Light armor is now 22Health is now 41/60Unfortunately, when you reach the island you find yourself looking at a nearly sheer rock wall
Health is now 33/60There's no way you can climb that so you end up swimming around looking for a more level area. Eventually you find one and crawl up between a pair of rocks.
:
"Huh. Apparently there were two slaughterfish on me and I didn't even notice the second one."Then you're engulfed in flames by the shalk beetle you didn't notice at your feet.
Health is now 28/60
:
"Gah!"...running away...running away...fortunately it can't keep up with you and you manage to get to the safety of the middle of the island. For certain values of 'safety' that involve a two ton kagouti lumbering up the hill towards you.
You down the first of your two healing potions and feel your flesh rapidly begin to re-knit itself as you run the other way. You're pretty it can't swim, so if you can get to the water in time, you can get away from it.
The kagouti managed to butt you with its horns a few times, and the over-time effect of the healing potion wears off before you reach the water. Once you get there, you see a tomb on the next island over and dive into the water. The kagouti gives up its pursuit.
Health is now 51/60Acrobatics is now 32:
"Glad those things don't swim."Unfortunately, while the swim is unventful, when you arrive at the island there's a massive mouth-on-legs thing you don't remember the name of waiting for you.
Its jaws are massive, but like the Kagouti, it doesn't seem to want to get into the water. Fortunately with no slaughterfish on you you have time to think, and an idea occurs to you: you drop below the surface of the water and swim around to the far side of the reeds. When you resurface, you glance over to see the mouth-creature still staring at the spot where you submerged. Apparently they're not very smart.
Now, however, you have a bit of a problem.
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.
You have no idea where you are and the directions you have no longer apply. You're looking at a tomb entrance, and you're pretty sure if there were a tomb on the path you were supposed to take one of the voices would have mentioned it. Plus, the water was deep enough that your feet weren't touching the bottom. You're clearly in the wrong spot.
You have a seat on a nearby rock and think.
Michael, what are your objectives? At this point, do you want to try to help save the world, or are you content just to try to make a life for yourself in Morrowind? Are you willing to take risks in the hope of becoming the Nerevarine, or do you just want to learn magic and try to rise in one of the guilds?
:
"....ehh. It's not that simple. Not dying sounds really good to me. But if I go hide in a cave and Dagoth Ur takes over the world and me and everybody ends up as diseased corprus beasts...yeah, dying cleanly might be better than that. But if stopping Dagoth Ur means catching corprus without knowing whether I'll get cured...you see how it's kind of complicated? I don't think just 'making a life' in the sense of learning to bake and marrying a hot dunmer chick is really an option. Remember, unless something changes, this whole island is going to become a giant hole in water in a few years, and that's even if Dagoth Ur is stopped. Becoming a god sounds kind of awesome. And that's a well established thing here that people can do. Talos, the Tribunal, etc. And I'd like to think that if I'm a god, that pretty much takes care of all the other problems. Whatever happens, I'd definitely like to live through it. Living as a rich and powerful hero, so much the better. Becoming a god, well...that sounds awesome"the ways to become a God are well-known here.
1. Prolix Tower. Don't really know. Perhaps godhood by patience. I don't think that's an option for us.
2. Enantiomorph. A king, a rebel, a witness. The king and rebel are near impossible to distinguish. And guess what? "Hortator and Sharmat, one and one, eleven, an inelegant number. Which of the ones is the more important? Could you ever tell if they switched places? I can and that is why you will need me." That's pretty convenient. Talos did this.
3. Seeing a path your enemy places for you and walking it anyway. I think that's what we're doing right now, actually, with Corprus and all that. Think Talos may have done this too.
4. Mantling. See: Champion of Cyrodiil, Talos, heck, maybe even us.
5. CHIM. Vivec, Talos. Extremely dangerous, failure likely. Probably not wise to pursue.
6. Soul combination. Numidium. ALMSIVI. Talos (again). May not quite be an option.
Michael squints and squeezes the bridge of his nose between his fingers, and slowly exhales.
:
"...yeah, I don't entirely follow all of that. And I think most of you don't either. Mantling is pretending to be a god...'taking up their mantle.' ...doing it so well that the universe can't tell the difference between you and the god. So you become the god. Right? Ok. Who would we pretend to be? Vivec? I don't really believe that sitting around in a locked room all day with my legs crossed will result in ascension. Sheogorath? Yeah, I don't think I want to be insane. How would we do that anyway? And how is mantling different from soul combination or some of the other things you mentioned? 'The king and the rebel are impossible to distinguish.' Isn't that basically describing the same thing?""What about CHIM? what exactly is CHIM? Vivec talked about it when we spoke to him, and he seemed to think we 'got it.' At least that was my impression. CHIM is...what, knowing that you're in a game? Then what? Using the construction set? We've already tried to access the command console a couple times and it hasn't worked. Obviously I'm in a game. This is Morrowind, and Morrowind is a game. So I realize I'm in game. Does that make me a god now? Vivec even confirmed that I'm in a game. But then he said I wasn't in the game I thought was. And one of you said recently that this was a forum game. Ok, so I'm in a forum game. What does that mean? I asked you guys about it, but nobody answered. And who are you guys? Are you gods? Are you players? Or are gods and players effectively the same thing, since this is a game? Does that mean that you guys should be the ones mantling rather than me? But then Vivec said you guys were my 'higher self.' So...am I supposed to mantle with you? Pretend that I'm the one playing a game, pretend that I'm you...and then somehow magically we both become gods? How is this supposed to work?"Michael shakes his head.
:
"I think I won't understand until you do. Anyway, I'm still lost on an island in the middle of somewhere cold and wet that I don't particularly want to be and it's dark now."You glance over at the sun. It's a good 30 degrees below the horizon now, but you can see the magicka streaming from it through the planet as easily as through sky. It occurs to you that you'll always know roughly what time it is.
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"Well, guys. Last time I got lost near a tomb you said to take a look and you'd figure out where I was. So let's do that."You fish your last healing potion out of your coinpurse and keep it ready in case you'll need it. Then you make a mad dash for the tomb. The mouth-creature hears you and turns, but you make it inside before it can catch you, and hastily close the door behind you...
...and turn around to see a scamp barreling up the hallways towards you. A rat once fought you to a draw. You're not going to try to take on a daedra. Instead you open the door and rush out...
(
GM Comment: That's either a clipping error or the Alit's trailling leg is behind it because it's running. Don't read too much into that.)
...into the waiting jaws of two massive beasts. You chug the potion in your hand and push between them in a full run. The kagouti catches you with its tusk as you run, tearing a chunk out of your lower torso, but not slowing you down any and the damage can't keep pace with your healing. Fortunately the water isn't far and you make it before the healing potion wears off.
Health is now at fullOnce chest deep in the water you turn to see the kagouti standing at the water's edge, staring at you. The other one you have no idea where it is, but you decide not to stick around to find out. Instead you pick a direction and start swimming.
:
"Well, I guess this as a good a time as any to use a water walking potion."You fish the potion out and swallow, then feel your body bob up the the surface of the water amidst a flurry of purple sparkles.
You've long since lost track of which direction you're supposed to going, but you know the direction you came from, so you make a best guess and start running. 15 seconds later the potion wears off and you fall back in with enough momentum to end up completely submerged with a mouthful of water. It tastes an unpleasant mix of salt and ash.
When you come up you spit out the water and notice that your hat is gone. You decide to abandon it rather than go fishing around for it. That potion didn't get you very far, but at least there are no slaughterfish. You're beginning to get tired though and the weight of your armor and backpack is pulling your head under the water. You switch to taking big breaths and swimming underwater, then pushing to the surface for air. It works, but you can't do this forever.
Athletics is now 23 -~=Michael is now level 8=~-
Max health is now 61
Luck is now 57This route requires crossing far less water.
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"...ugh. Just shut up and let me swim."Fortunately there's a small island ahead that gives you a chance to rest. Good thing, too. If it hadn't been there, you probably would have needed to ditch your backpack. After a few minutes you walk to the other side, and...is that a boat?
Did Tel Fyr have a ferry? Well, at this point you're not going to complain even if you're in the wrong place. Readjusting your pack and taking a deep breath, you wade into the water and start swimming towards the boat. About halfway, a large structure begins to become visible through the fog.
Tel Fyr.
The rest of your swim is tiring, but uneventful. To your surprise however, as you come up alongside the boat you hear a female voice saying something you can't make out. Turning, you see that the boat is occupied.
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"...if that's yet another dreugh gnawing on my boat, so help me..."She pokes her head over the edge with empty hands held as if ready to cast.
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"Wait! Don't shoot!"She looks at you for a moment, clearly unimpressed. Then shakes her head and disappears from view. You climb up onto the beach and look up at the massive mushroom structure before you.
Definitely a Telvanni tower. But before going inside, you decide to talk to the woman on the boat. Her regal robes shimmer with a hint of magic, and she carries no weapon.
"Can I help you?"Her tone is not entirely friendly.
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"Hi, my name's Michael. Is this Tel Fyr?" "No, this is my boat. That's Tel Fyr."She points to the giant mushroom tower behind you.
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"...right. So, umm..."You struggle to think of something to say. Nothing very intelligent comes to mind. You're still a bit frazzled from your swim.
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"Do you come here often?"She raises an eyebrow.
"Are you flirting with me?"You facepalm.
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"Ok, I can see you're a busy woman...minding your boat. And I don't want to bug you. So, I'll just be going."You turn around and head back to dry ground, feeling the peculiar bouncing of the dock beneath your feet.
"Hey."You turn.
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"Yeah?" "Cinia.":
"...what?" "My name. It's Cinia."She has an amused smirk on her face when she says it. It's not exactly warm and inviting, but at least you're no longer worried about her incinerating you. Before you can respond she turns around and goes back to whatever she was doing. You stand there for a moment feeling dumb, then head to the entrance to Tel Fyr.
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"Ok, guys. Looks like we made it."
You sit down and take a quick inventory, squeeze water of your things and generally rearrange your gear to how it was before your swim. You lost your hat. And you vaguely remember tossing a couple potion bottles to the ground after drinking them on the run. Worse though, it looks like pretty much everything you had in your bag that was made of paper was destroyed by the water. Your letter of recommendation from Ranis and your hospitality papers are strips of mush, and while there's a mostly dry section in the middle of your notepad, the sides and edges of every page are soaked. At least your cellphone still works, though you notice the battery is low. Even turned off like it's been it doesn't look like it's going to last much longer. Pouring water from your coinpurse to check the insides, your remaining potions - levitation, invisibility and water walking - are all still properly sealed, but it looks like your divine intervention scroll is soaked and the ink has run in a blotted mess all over the page. You close your eyes and check it for magic. Unfortunately you don't really know what you're looking for.
Everything is made out magic-light, including the paper, the ink and the water soaked into them both. You look at your dagger and see vibrant patterns of reds and purples. The scroll doesn't look like that at all, but you don't know for certain whether it's supposed to. Comparing it to the regular paper though, you suspect that the magic of the scroll was lost when the ink smeared. That's unfortunate. You assumed it would survive getting wet. Actually, you assumed most of your gear would survive getting wet. At least your alchemy ingredients should be fine. Fermentation is a mandatory alchemical process prior to calcination, so a little mold shouldn't hurt the final product at all. Though you suspect that the water-soaked bread will probably stink up your bag if you let it sit in there. Although...there's an awful lot of salt in that water and none of your wounds have ever become infected. Maybe mold isn't a problem here? Deciding not to chance it you toss the easily replaceable bread, along with some of the meaty animal ingredients. The plant ingredients should all be fine given a little time to sit in the sun tomorrow. Also, what's this granular white goo that's stuck to everything?
You scrape some up and sniff it. Bone meal. All over everything. Yeah, no way you're going to be able to recover that. You clean up as best you can, and wash your clothes in the water and squeeze them out. Then you scoop up the various wet papers, shake them out and put them back in. You doubt you'll be able to use them when they dry, but you decide it's better to carry around some destroyed paper with you than to introduce yourself to one of the most powerful wizards in Morrowind by leaving a mess on his doorstep.
You push at the door. It's not locked.
(
GM Comment: I dare any of you to try to get to Tel Fyr with a low level character running from everything trying to kill him, without using either the overview or radar maps, and based solely on the directions you gave him. Michael got the direction he was supposed to be going mixed up twice, and got lucky that those two mistakes canceled each other out and he basically stumbled on Tel Fyr by chance. Also: most image-intensive episode to date. And congratulations on the levelup. It's been a while.)
Level 8
Health 61/61
Magick 69/69
Armor rating: 4
27.2 Strength (20)
35.0 Speed (30)
37.2 Agility (30)
40.1 Endurance (30)
42.4 Intelligence (40)
40.0 Willpower (40)
44.6 Personality (40)
57.0 Luck (50)
Numbers in parenthesis are starting values
32 Acrobatics (0)
22 Athletics (5)
7 Armorer (0)
6 Block (0)
7 Heavy Armor (0)
5 Medium Armor (0)
22 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)
12 Mercantile (0)
* Cruel Viperblade
* Chitin shield
* 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:
* lockpick
* 1 standard invisibility potion
* 1 potion of water walking
* 1 standard levitation potion
Backpack (Worn) (damp)
Main compartment:
* Tennis shoes
* 3 illegible water logged papers
* 1 illegible water-logged scroll of divine intervention
* Yellow water-damaged notepad with 54 pages left
* 1 pen
* "20% cooler" Rainbow Dash t-shirt (damp)
* Denim pants (damp)
* a cellphone and wallet with picture ID and $30 in cash
* 2 lesser soulgems (empty)
* 29 Whickwheat
Small compartment
* 122 gold
* 8 empty bottle
* 2 Ampoule Pod
* 1 Black Anther
* 7 bungler's bane
* 5 Chokeweed
* 3 Corkbulb
* 25 Heather
* 3 hypha facia
* 11 luminous russula
* 4 Racer Plume
* 8 saltrice
* 2 Stoneflower petals
* 5 spore pod
* 6 violet coprinus
Blades, Novice
Imperial Legion, Recruit
Fighter's Guild, Associate (1 quest completed)
Mage Guild, Associate
Registered Sadrith Mora business visa, with slave-handling endorsement
* Steel tanto, with scabbard and carrying straps
* Imperial steel Cuirass
* Apprentice mortar and pestle
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?
Author
Topic: Marooned in Morrowind (FINISHED) (Read 434710 times)