So there I was, languishing in the Imperial Prison, when in comes a trio of Blades and the Emperor himself - Uriel Septim VII. No, I'm not jesting. Apparently my cell was directly in the path of their escape route.
The blades were none too happy about it, but the Emperor let me follow along... and then, when the assassins attacked, he told me to find his son, confront the Daedra Lord Dagon, and close the Gates to Oblivion.
I always knew I'd pursue a life of adventure. I mean, my oldest brother was always going to inherent Dad's alchemy practice, and our sister was constantly being groomed for an advantageous marriage; so there wasn't much left for me, except clearing out necromancers and goblins and bandits in the wilderness. And to be honest, that suited me just fine. For one thing, the idea of spending days in the shop and nights in the lab, well... boooorrrring. For another, there's good money to be made as an adventurer, at least if you can avoid taking an arrow in the knee or being gruesomely ripped to pieces by trolls.
What I'm saying, I guess, is that at least I wasn't just some random farmer when the Emperor asked to save his son and take on a Daedra Lord. I'd been expecting a life of creeping down darkened corridors, unraveling ancient magics, and facing powerful enemies in mortal combat. I knew how to use a blade and move while wearing armor. I could move quietly, and open recalcitrant locks - though, admittedly, that was what had landed me in prison in the first place. And I could use magic to heal myself, or to throw fire at my enemies, or to see in the dark...
...Sort of.
See, the reason - the whole, entire, only reason - that I'd studied Illusion magic was so I could learn to see in the dark. Because, when you're creeping through nighted corridors in search of bloodthirsty bandits, you basically want two things: you want to see the bandits, and you want them not to see you.
So what did old Urgle Gro-Barsnich teach me? She taught me a light spell. That's right: a light spell.
So now, when I'm creeping down a pitch-dark corridor with danger on every side, I can glow in the dark. This accomplishes two things:
1. I can see. I can, in fact, see things a good three or four feet in front of me.
2. Anything and everything around can see me - no matter how far away I am.
As you might imagine, this has not done a lot to improve my ability to sneak around unseen. In fact, the only thing I've successfully crept up on is a single goblin, and the only reason I managed that is because he had his back to me and was staring at a camp fire.
What has improved is my skill with armor - being constantly battered by unseen attackers will do that to you. And, even more than that, it's improved my skill with healing magics. You would not believe how much practice I get with that.
So what I'm going to do is this: I'm going to find the Emperor's son. I'm going to give him the amulet. I'm going to confront the Daedra Lord Dagon. And then, just before the last Gate to Oblivion closes, I'm going to grab Urgle Gro-Barsnich and shove her through it.
Bloody Orcs. Bloody light spells...
LOL that's hilarious and rather horrible at the same time. Do you get to shove her in at the end?
ReplyDeleteTragically, no -- Urgle Gro-Barsnich isn't actually a character in the game. It's one of those hideously complex roleplaying games where you get to customize your character within an inch of his (or her) life -- chooose your race, choose your sex, choose your skills -- and then grow more powerful in tiny little increments until eventually you're basically the most powerful thing on the face of the planet. So on the one hand, I get that if you choose magic skills to start with, the designers don't want to just hand you all these awesome powers; that's supposed to come later. On the other hand, I picked the college of Illusion, and what I got to start with was that bloody light spell. So this is my explanation for how that must have happened, in character.
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