Hour 4: Gruesome Vigilantism

In completing the Recommendation, I forget to dump my items outside the well. This means that I have to leave them in well, floating around next to a nasty old corpse, like so:

I take the ring, and run back to Deetsan in the buff. Our conversation is an example of why Oblivion seems much more engrossing than Skyrim - once she has given me all the information, and each topic is 'greyed out', I can get new speech from her by re-selecting 'Vidkan'. She just re-iterated her sorrow at what's happened, but it's these extra little portions of content, which are entirely optional, which add that extra layer of detail and round the characters out in a way in which Skyrim never manages.

I run back the well to collect my gear. After I've left I realise I left my damned sword down there still! Hell if I'm going back in. I'll just have to rely on my trusty fireball spell until I can nick one off a brigand.

I spoke to Llevana Nedaren and learnt about the corrupt fines being levied on the citizens of Cheydinhal. Might as well do this little side-quest, it sounds interesting. I manage to persuade and bribe Garrus to give me information, although I still don't fully understand the persuasion mechanics. I think I'll just invest in a good Charm spell in future. If you ever talk to him, ask him about Aldos and listen to how he says "Aldos is living on the street". Quite a funny accent he's got there, it's almost like the actor accidentally slipped into the 'beggar' voice for a second!

In completing the quest, I chose to listen to Llevana rather than Garrus, and the result was pretty awesome. Llevana has me lure the corrupt captain Ulrich to her house, then she paralyses him and feeds him to some giant rats. It looks a bit clumsy in-game because of the limited graphics (Ulrich's body being pushed around the room as the rats bite him, for example) but it's still pretty morbid. I ransack his corpse and am now decked out in a set of chainmail armour. Here I am posing with Ulrich's sweet silver axe:

I wonder whether 2-handed + spells would be a worthwhile set-up, but decide I'll probably sell the axe in favour of sword and board, for a more defensive approach.