(updated March 07, 2009)

Chapter three

26 Last Seed, 3E433 (in the middle of the night, or perhaps very early on the 27th)

For the first time in seven weeks I'm out of my prison cell!  Ok, so I'm still not entirely free, and this small detail about me being very lost at the moment, but at least I'm out of the filthy cell.  My last entry in this journal was just before I put it safely back into its hiding place. That was days ago, and so much has happened since then.  I guess I'd better start at the beginning . . .

It had started out like any other night here . . .  I was cold, sick and miserable.  And had lost all hope of getting out of this prison before I died . . . which was likely to happen fairly soon.  But, while I was writing in my journal, I had heard strange been hurried to my cell door to see if I could catch a glimpse of the strangers.
This might not seem like a big deal to you, but it was the most exciting thing that has happened in my entire stay here.  Actually it was the only exciting thing that had happened - let's face it, being a prisoner is extremely boring! 

Even the annoying Dark Elf in the nearby cell has finally stopped talking, and I'm looking out through my bars trying to see what's going on.  Three heavily armed guards are escorting some important looking noble guy down the prison stairway.  One of the guards is saying something, but my heart is pounding so loudly that I can hardly hear her.  Yes, I said "her" - she's the first woman guard I've ever seen, and she appears to be the one in command.  Things are certainly different here in the capital city! In Morrowind all the Imperial guards were men.

Wait a sec, these guards don't look at all like Imperial guards - their armor is totally different.  Hmm, I wonder who that noble guy is in those fancy robes.  Goodness, they're heading directly to my cell!  Ok, time to look cool . . . yeah, right. I can't even stop staring at them.  This can't be good.

I'm so nervous that I miss most of what they're saying, all I get is something about a mess up.  (Yes, there's a mess up all right . . . your totally incompetent Imperial guards arrested the wrong girl!)  One guy gets out a key and unlocks my cell, but he won't open the door until I go way back to the outer wall.  Oh, yeah . . . I guess I must smell pretty rank.  No wonder they want me way over there, under my window!

Then all four of them enter my cell and the guard with the key locks the door from the inside.  Ok, now I'm really in trouble!  Unable to move, for fear that I'm about to be executed, I just stand there, frozen in place against the cold outer wall of my cell.  But then the elderly noble guy comes right over to me, at the protests of his guards, and starts taking to me.

I'm so surprised that it takes me a few moments to process what he is saying. Goodness, this guy is the Emperor . . . MY Emperor!  He's like the head guy of all of Tamriel . . . which is like my entire world!  Figures. The first time that I meet royalty, and I look and smell like . . . like . . . well . . . really, really bad!  Then he tells me that he knows me, and that I'm the one in his dreams.  I know this is silly, but all I can think about is that I hoped I looked better in his dreams.

Ok girl, calm down and think . . . how does one respond to an emperor?  My upbringing didn't exactly prepare me for this sort of thing.  What is the proper thing to do?  Do I bow, or curtsy, or whatever . . . he's still waiting for a response from me.  So I try to come up with something really clever, but all that comes out is, "What's going on?" THAT was my clever reply? . . . talk about completely blowing it!

But the Emperor doesn't seem to mind at all, and actually answers me.  He says that his family was attacked and killed, and that he is now escaping, with the help of his guards.  The Emperor also says that the Gods may have placed me in this cell so that we could meet.  (Ok, but that seems a bit extreme to me - I mean, why couldn't I have just met the Emperor at his palace?  All I needed was an invitation for tea - when I could have dressed properly and smelled better.) 

The Emperor suddenly turns away.  OK, I guess our little chat is over, and the emperor will be leaving now . . . and I'll be left here alone again.  But then one of the guards pushes on a brick in the wall, and my bed ledge sinks down to floor level, and a secret door opens into a tunnel, which slopes down into darkness.  The brick-pushing guard tells me, "this is your lucky day", and the Emperor and his escorts disappear down the tunnel.

Ok, now what?  There's no telling where that tunnel leads, but it can't be any worse than this horrid cell.
So I pry out the loose stone for the last time, grab my journal, and follow them down into the dark tunnel.

The tunnel descends rapidly and it soon becomes so dark that I keep stumbling over loose rocks. "Ouch!" . . . These worn out sandals aren't much protection at all . . . my poor toes!  The tunnel ends at an opening into a hallway, somewhere on an old lower level of the prison.  The Emperor and his guards are gone, and I don't even hear them.  But there's a bit of light up ahead, so I guess that's probably the way to go.  And it's much easier to walk on the stone floor - although there are still loose stones to avoid.  This place must have been abandoned decades ago - the walls and ceilings are falling in.  My only choice seems to be a crumbling stone stairway that leads down to a lower level. 

Suddenly loud voices echo from the distance, along with sounds of fighting.  And here I am without any weapon at all, but I'm still going to try to help.  I might be able to whip up a defensive spell, after all, I am pretty good with magic - or at least I used top be.  But spells take energy, so I probably couldn't produce much more than a fizzle right now.  Instead of doing the smart thing . . . which would be to hide up here in the dark, I run down the stairway, and race down another hallway . . . and slam right into the Emperor, who is standing in the darkness overlooking the battle.  "Oops! Sorry your Sirness" (Way to go Arwen.)

The guards are fighting several guys dressed in weird blackish reddish armor.  One of the guards is lying on the stone floor.  I try to cast a small fireball, but the fight is over before I can get off a clear shot.  A guard tells the Emperor that Captain Renault (the woman guard) is dead.  And there are three robed and hooded men are lying dead as well.  (Hey, I was sure that they were all wearing full armor just a second ago; and what happened to their weapons?)  Something strange is going on - these guys are not normal assassins, but must be some powerful dark mages.

The remaining guards lead the Emperor down to a lower level, past an iron gate, and through a doorway. The last guard hands me a small sack and tells me not to follow them, as he locks the heavy wooden door, leaving me alone.  Ok . . . I won't try to follow you . . . but only because I can't get through this heavy locked door! 

So that's it? Is this the end of my great escape? So much for my "lucky day".  Just before the guards left, I heard one of them comment that it was around 1 a.m.  My guess is that it's going to be a really long night.  There's got to be some way out of here. Maybe the captain also had a key.  But she doesn't seem to have one - nor do any of the assassins.  However, I do find Captain Renault's Katana, which is sort of a slender, lightweight long sword.  At least I now have a good weapon, although I would prefer a good bow and a quiver full of sharp arrows.

I also find a smoky torch that is still burning, which I use in my search for another way out of here.  But all the hallways are short ones, with dead ends.  So I try retracing my steps, but the secret doorway from my cell has closed again, and I can't figure out how to open it.  Perhaps one of the guards will send someone back for me once they get the Emperor to safety.  After all, they wouldn't just leave me down here to die . . . would they?  No, I'm sure they wouldn't. Besides the Emperor seems to like me - so he'll send one of them back.

Then I notice that I'm still carrying the sack that the guard gave me.  Goodness I totally forgot all about that.  The sack contains a dinner plate, a cup, a water skin, and a couple of rolls of bandages. There's no food, but the water skin is full. 

"Wait one minute . . . BANDAGES???!!!  Why did the guard leave me bandages?  I mean, this is like keeping a first aid kit handy when you think someone will get hurt . . . and I'm the only one here . . . which means that he thinks that I might need some bandages to use on MYSELF!!!  Ok, calm down girl.  You're just jumping to conclusions here.  The bandages were likely just part of what the guard grabbed when they fled with the Emperor . . . and then he just gave me the bag when they left.  Any way, at least now I have some water - which means that I'll be able to survive down here for a little while.  I guess I'll just go back and wait by that wooden door . . . what else can I really do?" 

On the way back I realize how tired I am - now that all the excitement is over.  Once I get back to that door I can take a nice long nap while I wait for someone to show up.  The door is now in sight and I can see that it's still closed tight.  Suddenly a giant rat jumps out at me at the bottom of the stairway, and I about have a heart attack!  He gives me a couple of really painful bites, before I can pull out Captain Renault's Katana and kill him.  Where did that thing come from? Goodness, it's nearly as big as a dog.  Ok, I'm wide awake now.  This means that there's got to be another way out of here!  Then a second giant rat appears right behind me - thankfully I'm still holding my sword. (Notice how Captain Renault's Katana has now become "my sword"? Ok, so I've become a bit attached to a weapon that has now saved my life twice.)

After attending to my wounds, I cut up some rat meat.  I wouldn't normally eat a raw rat burger, but there's nothing else edible down here - and I am starving!  The worse part is that I can't even make a fire to cook with, as everything down here is made of stone.  My sputtering torch barely warms up the meat, so I have no choice but to hold my nose and bit off a rare chunk.  Eating uncooked rat meat is like chewing on rubber, but it's enough to fill my shrunken stomach.  (And no, I didn't even need the dumb bandages . . . my wounds were not bad at all, and I'm still able to cast a weak healing spell.)  After my "meal," I wander around a bit and soon discover where the rats came from.  I'd have to be blind not to see it.  A large section of the stone wall has fallen in - probably caused by those two rats trying to get to me.

Bending down with my torch in one hand and my sword in the other, I peer into the opening in the wall.  All I can see is a large room, with a dirt floor. But there also seems to be some light on the far end.  Well, it's not like I really have a choice, as I seriously doubt that anyone is actually going to come rescue me.  So I climb over the rubble and step in through the opening . . .

Notes About MODs:

In the "vanilla" (the unmodded) game you (your game character) never have to eat, drink, or sleep.  The game allows you to do all these things, but there is no penalty for not doing them.  Some of my favorite mods are what I categorize in my MOD Pages as Extreme Realism Mods.  Survival mods make up a large part of this category. If you install these survival mods, will actually have to eat food, drink water, and sleep in a bed (or in a bedroll) to survive.  Be sure to also reduce your Timescale, so game time will pass slower.

COBL (Common Oblivion): This very cool mod is a bit different from most mods.  Like many mods it adds to and changes some items in the game - but then it goes further by allowing other mods to make use of these added or changed resources.  Cobl is a new way of allowing many mods to work together in ways that eliminate (or greatly reduce) conflicts.  It is important to understand that Cobl is not a survival mod - you can install it just for the additional items that it adds to the game world - it will not add the requirements that your character has to eat, drink, or sleep - it just provides resources for survival mods to use.

Real Hunger, COBL is a survival mod that requires you to eat in the game.  Some of the shared items that Cobl adds are food items and the Cobl Dinner Plate.  Real Hunger relies on the Cobl food items (and additional food can come from other mods), and then uses the Coble Dinner Plate to extract "nourishment" from these food items.  With Cobl, generally the more a food item weighs, the more nourishment it provides.  But is more complicated than this, because, just like with real life, the amount of nourishment you need is not static - it varies.  The amount of endurance that your character has determines how long they can go without eating before their "hunger" begins to have an impact on their stats. 

This may sound rather complex, but in practice  You just have to remember to plan a bit by always taking some food with you. If you have the messages toggled on, you will be told when you need to eat and when your character gets hungry, you'll also hear their stomach growling.  So, when I wrote in Chapter 2 that my stomach was growling . . . it really does growl in my game now (it just didn't growl while I was still in the cell).  When you first begin the game with this mod installed, your character is full - so it takes a couple of game hours before you begin to get hungry.

FF Real Thirst, COBL is a survival mod that requires you to drink water in the game.  After you activate this mod, you'll find a "Drinking Cup" and a full waterskin (which contains 8 cups of water) in your inventory.  Select you new Drinking Cup and you will instantly drink one cup of water from your waterskin.  When your waterskin gets low, you can fill it from wells, rain barrels, or from running water (like waterfalls).  You can also change how different activities affect your water requirements (through the Cobl options).  This is also a very easy mod to use. You just have to remember to fill your waterskin. If you have the messages toggled on, you will be told when you needs water and when your character gets thirsty, you'll also hear them cough.  The longer you go without water, the more your stats will be affected - and the more water you'll need to totally quench you thirst.

Role-Playing:

The guard's sack: In my game, the guard didn't actually give me a sack - that was just my way of role-playing how I ended up with my Dinner Plate (from Real Hunger, COBL) my Drinking Cup and Water skin (from FF Real Thirst, COBL), and my Bandages (from Oblivion Wound Effects & Penalties, which I'll cover in the next chapter). 

Dialog Choices:  When the Emperor first speaks to me in my cell, I have no choice but to respond with: "What's going on?"  How lame is that?  I know that it's cool that all the dialog in Oblivion is spoken, but I have to wonder if this is actually a good thing, because the trade off was that there can't be much dialog in this game.  Personally, during the dialog exchange (when the game zooms in on the NPC's face), I would rather just read everything if it meant that I could have some actual choices in how I respond.  Giving me a single response (or maybe two - with basically the same outcome) ruins immersive role-playing because it forces my character to have to act in ways that I would never choose. 

Lack of Discovery Options: Why aren't we given more chances to discover things on our own?  It would have been cool if there was a loose stone that I could have pushed on - that opened that escape hole in the wall (the one that the rats came through).  After all, the loose stones in that section of the wall were pretty obvious.  But I wasn't even given a chance to find my own way out, or even time to think about my situation.  After the last guard leaves, the wall immediately collapses, and my problem was solved for me.  My solution: kill the rats, but ignore the hole, while I look for another way out - then return and pretend to discover the opening.

Continued in Chapter 4

Provisions and Treasures