Hour 64: Springing to Action

My next quest for the Gray Fox requires me to steal some ancient magic boots - the Boots of Spring Heel Jak, a deceased lord. I break into an old mansion and terrify the lord living there into letting me into the decrepit and haunted cellars beneath his house, which lead to a system of underground catacombs bristling with vampires, skeletons, and zombies. I battle my through them with relative ease and reach Jak's tomb, but he (and the boots) are not there. It turns out Jak is still alive - he is the current lord of the manor, who is a vampire, and was just biding his time before (a bit of a silly twist really. I think there are maybe a few too many of these 'twists' in Oblivion). I return to the mansion to confront him, and slay him with ease.

The boots boost my Acrobatics by 50. I also crafted a spell earlier in the game which boosts my Acrobatics by 80 for a few seconds. With the boots and this spell, my Acrobatics is pushed to over 200 in total, and I am able to perform huge leaps, even leaping onto the roofs of some smaller buildings.

I mess around with my new-found agility for a while before determining to head back to the Arcane University to see if I can make an even better spell.

Unfortunately it turns out that the spells I really want to make, such as a better Acrobatics boost, or a Chameleon spell, require higher skill in certain magical disciplines. And currently, my repertoire of three fire-based spells combined with drain life seem to be working a treat anyway (a ranged spell which causes a weakness to fire, a Ranged fire+drain life spell, and a Touch fire+drain life spell).

Hour 63: Moths & Mages

I go to the Imperial City and 'wait', and before long a messenger arrives telling me to meet the Gray Fox! At last! He has a job for me which involves stealing a crystal from some blind monks. Shouldn't be too hard, right? As an aside, I really feel like Bethesda could have gone out of their way a little more to give the Gray Fox a unique voice actor. I mean they did it with Lucien Lachance. I think they must have wasted too much of their budget on Sean Bean and Patrick Stewart, when they could have had some more perfectly fine voice actors scattered throughout the game instead.

So, I head to the Temple of the Ancestor Moths again, that place I stumbled upon a while ago. There are monks there this time, and I manage to convince one of them to show me to some secret catacombs, after casting my Charm spell on him. After that, it's a fairly simple dungeon crawl to get the artefact. I square off against many cool-looking blindfolded kata-wielding monks, but they all fall relatively easily to my spells.

After I return to the Gray Fox, he thanks me and says he may have more work for me but that I'll be required to fence more stolen good first. Fortunately, I have already fenced so much that I fulfill the requirement immediately. I feel this is a broken mechanic which broke my immersion a little - it would have been nice to have to actually complete some more Independent Thievery. My next mission involves stealing a special arrow from the Bravil court wizard. This quest is pretty involved and has me snooping around in the castle before finding a secret passageway to a tower out in the countryside. Part of the passageway is underwater and I have to defeat a Giant Slaughterfish - a pretty scary fight. The next part of the pathway is so well hidden underwater that for the first time so far I have to actually take to Youtube to find out where to go.

After battling my way through the labyrinthine 'Wizard's Grotto' to reach his secluded tower, and slaying numerous mages and Daedra, the wizard, above, who sports a neat set of ebony armour, is uninterested in me and is tinkering with some potions. I steal the arrow from under his nose and leave without so much as a peep from him. I return to the Gray Fox and must wait again for my next mission (the broken fencing mechanic kicks in again).

During this mission I leveled up for the first time in what feels like forever. I think I just haven't been doing much fighting over the last 10 hours, what with all the Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild quests. I am now level 18, so it's as good a place as any to take stock and have a look at my stats again:

    

Hour 62: Vexing Lex

My next quest for the Thieves Guild requires me to get rid of the pesky Heironymous Lex once and for all. Not with bloodshed, of course, but with subterfuge. It's an epic quest which takes up a full hour and really showcases the diversity of Oblivion's quests. Unlike some other more recent Bethesda games, many of the quests (especially in the Thieves Guild) have no fighting at all, and are essentially just a story where you have to talk to various characters and go to various locations. There's usually a few different ways of completing them and many people to speak to along the way.

First of all I have to steal a letter intended for the countess of Anvil, which recommends a new guard captain for her. Lex is not in the running, but I need to change that.

I don't think I've been to Castle Anvil before. The courtyard, above, is probably my favourite place in Cyrodiil. Nay, Tamriel even! I especially liked it in the evening but couldn't get a good picture there due to screen glare, so I went back during the daytime to get a picture. The screen glare is still there unfortunately but it's not as bad due to the brighter on-screen colours.

I steal the recommendation letter, which she hasn't seen yet, from the castle, with the help of a blacksmith traitor working for us. I then find a master forger living in an abandoned shack in Anvil, and he agrees to forge the letter for a good bit of gold. He says it will take him a day, and it's little touches like this which really flesh out a lot of Oblivion's quests. Of course, I could just 'wait' 24 hours and go back to him, but the set-up sort of prompts you to go off and do some other things rather than just pressing 'wait' - it feels more natural and a nice jumping-off point to get other matters sorted. I remember I am low on lockpicks so I head off to the Imperial City to find Shady Sam, who sells them. Along the way I speak to the stablehands at the Imperial City stable and they both complain about losing all their horses. However, the stable seems to be fully stocked with horses - an oversight, perhaps? An abandoned side-quest that Bethesda forgot about?

I return to Anvil and get the forged letter, which now highly recommends Lex. This quest has already been more involved and interesting than practically any of the quests in Skyrim, but it goes one further still. The letter must be sealed with the official imperial seal - so I head back to the Imperial City and infiltrate a guards' office there, and use one of their stamps to seal it. I am seen by a guard and chased out, but I find Armande Christophe in the Waterfront District and pay off my fines and bounty.

Finally, I head back to Anvil and deliver the letter to the Countess. She assumes I'm a courier (even though I'M THE ARCHMAGE -_-) and thanks me, asking me to deliver the news to Lex myself. Altogether a fairly involved and satisfying quest, with no combat whatsoever, and a good bit of travelling round between two cities.

After returning to Bravil to inform Skriiva of my success, she tells me I should expect to be contacted by the Gray Fox soon. Awesome!

Hour 61: Thief Is Me

Before I can get any more Thieves Guild missions I have to some more 'independent thievery', and steal at least 400 gold worth of items. I'm already in Cheydinhal, so I take a look around and decide to break into a house called Riverview. It's the early hours of the morning but a servant is up and about. He asks me to leave but I ignore him and rush upstairs - he doesn't follow me! There's a man, presumably the lord of the manor, asleep in bed, but it seems I've struck gold because all around his room, and elsewhere upstairs, there are Skooma bottles strewn everywhere. Each one is worth 75 gold, and I snatch up about ten of them. Before leaving, I break into the basement just to take a look around, only to find filthy bunks full of people in rags! No more Skooma, but they do have this shepherds pie on the table:

I'm pretty sure I haven't seen any shepherds pie anywhere else! Not wanting to outstay my welcome, I head out again, and as I know the Skooma won't actually fetch 75 gold on the black market, I decide I had better steal some more things. I break into an armour shop and steal several helmets, gauntlets and shields, then head to Bravil to sell the stolen wares on to a fence.

My plan worked and I easily had enough to sell to advance with the missions. Skriva tells me that the Gray Fox is looking for a particular rare book, but that the thief who stole it hasn't been seen since he disappeared in Skingrad. I head there and learn that he was caught and imprisoned in the castle dungeons! I learn this from a beggar in Skingrad (beggars serve as the eyes and ears of the Thieves Guild. Hooray for stereotypes...).

The beggar glitch in Oblivion is well known (all the beggars have frail and decrepit 'common' accents when asking for money, but if you ask them about 'Rumours' then they switch to a completely different voice and become very well-spoken), but this instance is particularly hilarious: the beggar says the first half of the information in his normal beggar voice, then switches to the posh 'guard voice' for the entire second half:

This can't be a glitch at all, since those lines of text were only ever going to be said by a beggar, so there would have been no need to record them in a different voice. Therefore it must have been deliberate, so perhaps the other beggar 'glitches' aren't really glitches at all either!

For the record, I would probably prefer it if there were no actual voices, as that way they could add tons more dialogue options and you wouldn't actually lose anything from the game. At least in Oblivion your character doesn't speak, which something that completely ruined Fallout 4 for me. God, why did they make the character speak in Fallout 4?! What a dreadful, wrong-headed, immersion-destroying decision!

I manage to gain access to the castle dungeons by accepting a job delivering food to the prisoners. A great little touch is that after accepting the job, the castle guards start being horrible to me and say things like 'out of the way, slop drudge!'. It turns out the thief was killed by a vampire who feasts on the prisoners (I presume this is connected to the Count in some way) but his cellmate learned of the location of the book, and tells me after I free him.

All in all this was a great quest - it took some time to do, involved a bit of role-playing and some interesting conversations, and Castle Skingrad itself feels huge and realistic to explore. 

Hours 59 - 60: Latter Day Assassins

Over the course of just over an hour, I continued with the Silencer quests from Lucien's dead drops. I completed four more. They were all fairly similar, with instructions to kill a target in a distant city who was usually known to be deadly in one way or another, but varied enough to keep them interesting. One had me swimming through a flooded mine in order to find an Argonian, who was able to attack me underwater, which led to some moments of panic before I was able to find solid ground again and immolate her with my fiery fireballs. Another saw me ascend to the snowy peak of Mount Gnoll in order to slay my quarry:

The dead drop instructions were usually left in tree stumps or hidden boxes, but one was underwater, behind a locked door inside an Ayleid ruin, guarded by a Minotaur. What the hell, Lucien?!

After my fourth victim was slain, Lucien Lachance appeared and informed me I had been killing the wrong targets! Someone had been switching the dead drop instructions for fake ones (it turned out to be some oik who runs scared when I confront him - so how the hell did he get past the Minotaur?!), and I had been gradually eliminating key members of the Black Hand - the organisation that runs the Dark Brotherhood! Well it serves them right, they were all pushovers and no match for my advanced archmagic techniques.

I set about trying to uncover the identity of the traitor but it was too late, as the Black Hand took revenge on Lucien (fortunately suspecting nothing of me, as I was only following orders). They stripped him, hung him upside down and brutally mutilated his body, before killing him, which I then discovered. It was actually a genuinely horrific sight and pretty macabre as I spoke to each of the surviving members of the Black Hand and they took great delight in telling me of the thrill that torturing him had given them. Unfortunately I knew about this twist already (overheard someone mention it years ago). If I had not then I would have been hugely shocked and upset!

The Black Hand fools, who couldn't see the flaws in the imbecilic logic which lead them to conclude that Lucien was the traitor, led me down with them to the Night Mother's shrine, to consult her. They give me some badass Black Hand robes, which of course I try on:

You can see I've also amassed a good bit of gold by this point too. 

In the Night Mother's shrine, the traitor finally reveals himself and I slay him (not before he actually tries to futilely stab the ghost of the Night Mother - what a fool! Then again, I suppose I *do* fight and kill wraiths and ghosts all the time, so I don't know why she was immune to his swipes).

I am then informed that I will work for the Night Mother as a Listener, and gradually rebuild the Cheydinhal Sanctuary which had previously been cleansed in the Purification.

With that, I've reached the end of the Dark Brotherhood questline! Looking back, it did seem epic - 29 quests all-told, far more than the Mages Guild, although they were mostly very straightforward assassinations that didn't take long to complete. There were several twists and I'm glad I've finally completed it now. I did find the very end, where you meet the Night Mother, a bit anti-climactic though.

And that's the best part of another two hours gone. The quests were interspersed with jaunts back into local towns in order to sell my loot (usually glass weapons or enchanted weapons) and a few random fights here and there (I killed another Land Dreugh and a couple of Spriggans). I guess I will have a go at finishing the Thieves Guild next!

Hour 58: The Silencer

I now work for Lucien Lachance as his 'Silencer', receiving assassination quests from dead-drops. I complete three over the course of the next hour.

One of the quests requires me to travel all round Cyrodiil to assassinate a whole family. I return to the Imperial City to track down one of them. Look at the awesome view above. Oblivion's graphics may be over 10 years old now but for me they retain a timeless charm and still manage to take my breath away.

The third quest, 'Broken Vows', proves the most challenging, as I must slay a Khajit 'master of unarmed combat' who is also expecting me. I track him down to his basement, which is kitted out as a training room, and inform him he's about to die. His powerful swipes stagger me, leaving me almost unable to respond before he lands the next blow. With some frantic jumping, dodging, and healing, I manage to eventually land a few Immolates on him and he goes down mercifully quickly.

I intend to plough straight on with Lucien's assassination quests, as I'm eager to see where the plot will take me.

Hours 56 - 57: The Swing of Things

Well, here we are again! It seriously does not feel like three fricking years have gone by since I last played Oblivion. More like 6 months! Reading back over some of my old posts it almost feels like yesterday!

My latest foray into the world of Cyrodiil comes hot on the heels of finishing one of the best games I've ever played: Horizon Zero Dawn. Yes, I recently purchased a PS4 and HZD just came as part of the bundle. I was not prepared for how engrossing and well thought out the world and the gameplay would be. If you haven't played it, I suggest you rethink your life choices.

Unfortunately, Fallout 4, Uncharted 4, and The Witcher 3 all left me underwhelmed and a bit depressed (especially Fallout 4 - stop phoning it in Bethesda!). I considered purchasing Skyrim Special Edition, but the more I thought about it the more I remembered how lifeless and empty Skyrim felt in comparison to Oblivion. I then remembered I was part way through the Dark Brotherhood quest-line with Woodley, so I fired up the old PS3 and dived back into Oblivion.

I spent a good hour or so reacquainting myself with my spells and equipment. I wandered around for a bit and made my way into a cave, where I promptly got my arse handed to me by some powerful undead creatures. It's a testament to the breadth and depth of the game that I took stock afterwards and it all started to come back to me. I'd need to remember what spells I had crafted and in what order to best cast them, I remembered old bits of equipment I had picked up and what they did. I am only just scratching the surface of the gear available in the game, having basically just picked up odds and sods, and I was eager to explore and increase my power. I felt once more like a minnow in the ocean, an underdog eking out an existence in a vast world. This after 55 hours already! What an amazing game.

I think part of it is to do with how the map feature works. In Skyrim, you can view a lot more of the map at once (you might even be able to view all of it? I can't remember) and the shape of the 'world' is more rectangular. In Oblivion, I only have a 'sense' of where I am; I'm north of Anvil, or Cheydinha is to the West, or I'm near the Imperial City. I know the lay of the land and the relative locations of the cities, but I never seem to revisit places other than cities over and over again like I often did in Skyrim.

During my travels I kill a Spriggan, which I think might be my first. Then again it might not, I can't remember. They're pretty cool looking things which can summon bears to fight for them.

After mucking around for a while longer, I complete the quest to assassinate an imperial captain. As I approach it him it turns out he was bathing in the buff so proves an easy target for my poisoned arrow (which I had been given by the Dark Brotherhood).

Unfortunately I am somehow seen committing the murder, and am chased around town by the guards. I accidentally go into the Castle and the guards start brawling with an orc called Mazoga, whom they slay!

I escape and make it back to the Imperial City, whereupon I pay off my bounty to the Thieves Guild. 

My next quest from the Dark Brotherhood comes from Lucien Lachance himself, and he tells me I must kill all of the Dark Brotherhood members as part of a Purification! I am genuinely shocked at this twist and more than a little saddened, as I liked talking to some of the guild members. Nevertheless, I carry out the task, and they prove to be fairly easy pickings for me as I get to grips with my spells again.