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[WillowLuman]

I think he was specifically talking about our status in the Blades.

Yes.

Ah, I'd forgotten that Michael can hear our theorycrafting. He doesn't always comment on it. Good thing he can't hear the critical discussion of the story itself, that would be rather confusing and messy.

BTW, I recognize the pink dress from one of the Better Clothing mods. Can't remember which one, but it replaced some of the clothes in game.

[Descan]

Aw, I thought it was a good idea. ._.

[Araph]

Short blade skill is now 18
Light armor is now 33
Block is now 14
Destruction is now 18
Acrobatics is now 34
Athletics is now 24

Strength is now 28
Speed is now 36
Agility is now 37
Endurance is now 41
Intelligence is now 44

Level is now 9

Max Health is now 64
Max Magicka is now 73

Aw yis, skill advancements.

For the record, I support heading to Dren Plantation or thereabouts. However, we should make sure to leave Draren in a financially secure position so that he'll want to join us permanently when we meet up with him again. (AW YEAH, GETTIN' A POSSE TOGETHER we totally need a catchy name for our group)

Also, Michael: you're almost definitely not Spike, given how your personality does not match his at all. AT ALL. So you're probably not him.
...But, I mean, if it motivates you to pursue being not-Spike, you might still be him. We can't know for sure.

[WillowLuman]

For the record, I support heading to Dren Plantation or thereabouts. However, we should make sure to leave Draren in a financially secure position so that he'll want to join us permanently when we meet up with him again. (AW YEAH, GETTIN' A POSSE TOGETHER we totally need a catchy name for our group)

Agreed, he seems like such a nice fellow, let's not leave him at a disadvantage.

[QuakeIV]

Also lets avoid bringing Draren with us on our main adventure things as much as possible. I'd rather not see him get killed.

[joemoben]

I would like to point out that our agility actually dropped by .6. Also, I support the Dren plantation, as more PC info is always good.

[IronyOwl]

Holy crap, 18?! That's actually somewhat near serviceable!

: "Then some sort of four legged angel appeared to tell him he was the chosen one"

HMMMM. Support for the notion that they're not native in some sense, I'd say.

: "I know you guys have been keeping secrets from me. Ever since you did that thing where you tried to send me a picture but I couldn't see it, you've been doing that same thing, whatever it is...so that I can't hear you. But before that you sent me a picture I DID get. You remember. The one that looked like a pony changeling? That got me thinking. And ever since then, there have been occasional little tidbits that have slipped through. Just every now and then I'd hear a little comment that was obviously in response to somebody who said something I couldn't hear. And now you're openly talking about it without bothering to keep it a secret from me. So I've got to ask: ponies?"

Oh, whoa. Michael can't see spoilers? I guess we discussed that maybe being the reason for the first image failing, but I kind of wrote it off as something else.

Whoops. Sorry about that, Michael. Wasn't trying to hide anything from you, just trying to keep my endless ramblings accessible yet unobtrusive for my fellow daedric shards of your higher being.

: "and there's one voice in particular among you whose been talking about his 'PCs are ponies' theory for almost half my entire time in Morrowind."

*cough* Yeah, like that. You know how I tend to ramble on.

Uh, but looking back at my most recent insidious findings, the short version is:

-You remember just before you fell into Morrowind, you thought you heard a mumbling voice? Did that by any chance sound like the voice of the Balmora Butcher? Because to us it sounded like a very quiet version of the voice of the Balmora Butcher. Bear in mind that we have a different perspective than you.

-For that matter, did either of them sound like Luna? I'm sure you're familiar with her voice.

-You said you were a Taurus. Given that you failed to remember any other portion of your past save eventually your name, that seems significant.

-Nalcarya said the first urination of the day makes for more potent potions. MAN did I have a field day with that, wondering what constituted a day and whether that was mechanically true and if you could use other peoples' pee and what happened if you did and so on. Oh, and wondering if there's still a four-ingredient limit to potions, since the equipment's easily big enough for multiple batches at once.

-Ra'Virr sold you a steel tanto for 10 gold coins when your Mercantile was 2 (it's currently 13). Their base price is 28. I suspect he may have felt sorry for you or something. We might want to talk to him again at some point.

-Related, remember that one time you were butchered like a pig by a ruthless crime lord with an axe? The first time you bought the above dagger, you mentioned seeming to remember them costing more. Upon "respawning," you mentioned remembering them costing about that much. So apparently even though you don't remember the actual events, some information does carry over. Good to know, right?

Also lets avoid bringing Draren with us on our main adventure things as much as possible. I'd rather not see him get killed.

This was my initial thought as well, though less for getting him killed and more for... well, treating him like a temporary companion, really.

Which in turn got me thinking: Why? If he wants to come with us and hear Applejack explain all about Equestria, so what? We can probably trust him not to immediately declare us crazy or sell us out or something, right? Maybe? I guess the ponies might be more shy around people they're trying not to disrupt, but even then we could probably just ask him to give us a minute.

And as for getting him killed, is he really in more danger than we are? We are fairly tanky, but we're still pretty weak overall. Unless we get into a situation where we just can't get between him and a danger source in time, I'm curious whether he's actually at greater risk than us.

So if he'd rather just stay at home and come shroomhunting with us next time we come around, that's cool. If he'd rather come with us on our adventures, healing us up and harvesting new and exotic plant life, I say that's fine too. We're friends and really pathetic adventuring buddies now, right? Let's start acting like it.

For the record, I support heading to Dren Plantation or thereabouts. However, we should make sure to leave Draren in a financially secure position so that he'll want to join us permanently when we meet up with him again. (AW YEAH, GETTIN' A POSSE TOGETHER we totally need a catchy name for our group)

Agreed, he seems like such a nice fellow, let's not leave him at a disadvantage.

I would like to point out that our agility actually dropped by .6. Also, I support the Dren plantation, as more PC info is always good.

He's been taking a cut of our profits and hasn't had any expenses that I'm aware of, so he should be pretty good right now. Certainly his normal living expenses should be rather low.

Which brings us to the next issue: I'm in favor of heading to Dren Plantation. By which I mean the new construction near Dren Plantation. You know, the one we have no information about.

So. Dren Plantation is located near Pelagiad. People in Pelagiad or Dren Plantation might be able to tell us more. I believe but cannot swear that the stuff around Pelagiad is generally fairly weak, with the exception of potentially getting there. Let's see...

The main danger going between Balmora and Pelagaid is cliff racers, which thus far are amongst the most dangerous things we've encountered There are a couple canyons on the way that are often chock full of them. The Seyda Neen route, on the other hand, only rarely has cliff racers, and the most dangerous thing that's likely to appear are nix hounds. The Kagouti are only likely to show up if you wander around north of pelagaid.

Balmora to Caldera has less cliff racers, but a worrying amount of alits. Still, less dangerous than Balmora to Pelagaid.

Ah, yes. So assuming this is accurate, we should be able to just walk there with relatively little trouble assuming I'm remembering everything correctly. Furthermore, there probably isn't an easier way short of hiring an escort.

So my official vote goes to:

Explain to Draren that we need to go talk to someone near Dren Plantation. He's welcome to join us if he'd like, but of course we wouldn't mind if he'd rather stay put. Then head to Pelagiad, ask around about the new construction. You should be able to make it, but don't hesitate to run if you encounter anything dangerous. I cannot swear there won't be any nix hounds in the way.

If nobody in Pelagiad knows anything, Dren Plantation isn't far behind Fort Pelagiad. Just pretend you were able to follow the main road right through the fort. Someone there might know something, or if we're really lucky it might be visible from or near it.

[LordBucket]

I would like to point out that our agility actually dropped by .6.

After checking, it appears there are a couple errors. Seems I added points that were supposed to go to agility to other attributes instead a couple months back and never noticed. And this past episode made a silly adding mistake. This happened once before too. It's a a result of the fact that I'm manually adjusting attributees to compensate for certain quirks of the leveling mod I'm using. I explained the details ~80 some thread pages ago, I think.

Anyway, I'm not going to retroactively fix the mistakes in the previous ~15+ episodes affected, but I'll fix it next episode. Correct current agility appears to be 43, but two other attributes are higher than they should be.

[gordy]

Ok. I actually just finished re-reading the entire game (just LB's game posts really) and it took about 5 days. Sometimes obsessively, often just a few eps at a time.


1) Nothing to really report except for suggesting someone start to catalog our proposed criteria for what constitutes a PC, and what constitutes what we might consider an NPC+. Also, who we might consider as friends.

I would say a PC counts as a PC if they display any characteristics that a player in the game might have - instant changes in inventory (weapon. armor swapping), blatant exploitation of rules, rapid rise through factions, ect. Examples - Adorabella, Awesomicus, all the ponies.

An NPC+, (because i do think there needs to be another category), might be someone that displays some non vanilla behaviours like cashing in quests. Bjorn comes to mind. Consider also characters that have given us substantial dialogue and expanded on lore. Our legion trainers, some mage guild members, plus Divayth and the dwarf.

Finally, our friends - people that either they or Michael have expressed fondness for each other, and more crudely, those from whom Michael has received speechcraft improvements from. Ranis, Cinia, Draren.

Am sure there are more, if someone wants to continue to catalog. LB did ask what our criteria was.

2) Skill improvements. LB or Michael himself might have something to say, but since Michael gets no benefit out of skill books, but he does from Trainer training, would it be of any use if us forumites were able to give him any suggestions on skills? I personally was a longsword trainer (long blades), and crafted and wore mail (medium armor) and shield (block). I'd have more than passing familiarity with marksman, spear, axe and heavy armor. I assume anything I could teach him was already covered in his Legion training. But consider the skills in which he has no points - surely someone could talk him through sneaking, or marksman, or axe. Enough for a point or two would be something. And if he does have specific questions about skills that us 'trainers' could assist in, please ask.

3) Speaking of above, with Michael stocking up on daggers, but assuming archery is right out (the weapons are too heavy, michael might be too weak to draw properly or otherwise too expensive), he could consider leading an easy combat with a thrown dagger or two. He'll suck at the start but if he sticks to fights he an Draben can win, they'll always recover the weapon, and they are cheap anyway. Throw your blunt ones first and combat with a sharp one. It'll teach your agility (speed?) no less than our acrobatics is, and wont waste any time. Could be useful in any case. Lastly, and most importantly,

4) Buy a scabbard/sheath for your viperblade and all daggers. From now on whenever you buy a weapon you might need access to, you MUST wear it on your person in a way it can be drawn and used. Wearing bare weapons in your belt or bag is asking for trouble - you could cut yourself at any time, damage your armor, belt or bag. Digging through your bag to draw your best weapon wastes time and could be fatal. If you have your shield in your left hand, put your viperblade on your right hip. It should be short enough you can draw it with your right hand with no problem. Practice this. Dont put it on your shield side hip where it could get tangled at a critical moment. Feel free to put your main dagger there though. Is there such a thing as a potion belt or bandolier?

5) Get your dirty clothes and bags washed so they're not so crunchy, and stash any excess weight at Drabens, like clothes you aren't wearing anymore (tshirt excepted). If he's getting a good deal on alchemy ingredients, should we consider selling some?

That's all I've got. Thanks for reading.

[gman8181]

Consider offering Draren some training in alchemy if he helps us pay for alchemy equipment. He can even keep it as his house for a while. This can be done before or after the plantation visit. Personally I'm in favor of doing it before but if Draren doesn't actually have enough money then maybe later.

Also he might get some interesting alchemy ingredient effects.

[GlyphGryph]

So, our destruction skill is 15 - is that high enough that a decent destruction spell might actually prove useful against a cliff racer?

[MonkeyHead]

Or a ranged one - say, a lightening spell what with the most populous race on the island being fire resistant...

[Descan]

I suppose going to the Dren plantation is a good idea, but I still think we should look into being able to do quests as a two-man team with Draren if he's up for it.

And also, asking him about himself and seeing if he has any connections him and Michael could use.

[WillowLuman]

We have 70 magicka, about as much as a starting mage, so a decently lethal destruction spell for animals could be feasible.

Let's see, Acrobatics is 34... Michael, you know those rope fences on found next to the roads in some places? Try jumping over those if you get into trouble. The stupider animals may be hindered by them.

[catenate]

Since we know what needed to be done in the vanilla game in order to win the main quest, and (according to one interpretation) we have super-powerful friends(hip is magic) in other ponies (none have attacked us, at least), why don't we set the goal of collecting the cavalry into a pony party and go do the main quest as a team?

If this is an agreed goal, it seems we could do this to start in this direction:
Find "Applejack" at Dren plantation.
If he is honest, be honest with him, tell him what we want to do, and ask for his help.

If the other ponies know him to be honest, he can really help convince them to help us do the main quest, since they know he wouldn't lie to them.  So in this direction, with "Applejack", visit each of the ponies' mansions, as well as the one that put all her stuff haphazardly in a room, and Nord/Fluttershy as well, recruit them, and trot like the Nerevarine till he trots like us.