Progress 10/2

We're down to four games left in Round 3! Time to play The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, the longest game ever created! Today I'm back to the main quest!

Martin, the heir to the throne, needs me to get him a giant rock in order to help open a portal to where the evil cult is that assassinated the royal family so we can get even-stevens with them, by slaying them all! There is one in a dungeon called Miscarand, according to Martin's research.

Right-O! It's dungeon-crawling time. The place is clearly marked on my map, and I get on my horse and teleport there through the game's nifty instant-travel technique. If you've been somewhere once, you can simply teleport there again. Nice.

What? Just goblins and skeletons? Cake Walk City.

I go to one of my houses, and dump stuff that I won't need for this particular quest. I go to the shop and sell stuff off that I'll never need, and then I'm off to the dungeon. I get attacked by a pair of goblins outside, and slay-i-fy them in mere seconds. Once upon a time, those kinds of low-level monsters constituted a threat to me. But I have done so many side quests and of course, helped out the God of Insanity a bunch already, and my character is souped up both with stats and weapons/armor.

I enter the dungeon and after the initial stairwell, headless undead charge at me. HA! I alternate whacking them with arrows, fireballs, and giving them the whatfor with my spare sword. I always keep two swords on me, because my main one has a nice frost attack on it, but those take up charges. There is no way to turn it off and just use the sword. So you don't want to use it on low level monsters and then have nothing left for the big boss later.





Ah, a locked gate. Guess I need to explore the level.

I defeat plenty of goblins and undead, which vary between skeleton warriors, skeleton archers, and headless zombies (How do they know where to go?), until I come to a locked gate. Bah! I consult the map and start heading towards the areas that I have not explored, until I find a big blue button in the wall. That's not obvious or anything!





Should I push eet? Could be something gooood....could be something....baaaaad.

I push the button. Nothing seems to happen, but I know better.  I head back to the area with the gate, and wah lah, it's open! I head into the next area.

And get immediately charged at by a whole lotta undead, and some goblins too! I cast a huge fireball, draining most of my mana, but the goblins and zombies are burned to a crisp. Now I just have to deal with six skeletons! Gulp! They surround me and start their fun game whack-a-hero!

Fortunately for me, I have superior armor, shield spell, and of course, I switch to my kickass sword. It takes quite a few minutes of battle, but eventually, all six of those suckers go down! Yee-Ahhh! Finally, there was a challenge worthy of me.

I use some healing potions and spells, and fix all of my armor and weapons before moving further.

Pretty big map. The architect of Miscarand had a big job.

ooh, shiny!

Heading further into Miscarand, I begin to realize that the goblins and undead don't like each other, and fight whenever they see each other. There are goblin corpses spread around. HAHA! So basically, the goblins were all like "This looks like a good new place to live." And the Undead were all like "Oh no you didn't!"

The enemy of my enemy is still my enemy though. Both groups immediately attack me when they see me, so that makes the politics quite simple. I cut off their heads, then loot the bodies!

Not a lot of treasure in Miscarand. That's been the case with most of the mission dungeons. Fortunately there's over 100 other places to loot in the game environment, so I haven't had problems going on treasure-raising missions. Not today though!

The door to the third and presumably last section of the dungeon. Hoo Hah!

I head through the door and into the new area. Aside from some random goblins, I don't seem to be under siege. That's a little too quiet for THIS GUY's liking. It's a trap, I smell it. There are a bunch of stairwells that I can't access because they are blocked by stone blocks. That's very odd.





Er...me no can get up the stairs. I smell a trap.



I backtrack to an area on the level I haven't been, and find a backdoor route up another stairwell. Ah HAAAH! I walk right into a chamber with the largest, shiniest stone I've ever seen. That must be what Martin wants.

I'm in a Prudential commercial. Okay, I'll get a piece of the rock, damn it.

I take the giant rock. I put it in my bag. That's how video games work. So there!

That's right! Quest Updated. Who da Man?

But every good adventurer knows that the quest isn't completed until you escape from the dungeon. So I turn to---

AAHHH! The King of Miscarand, who happens to be a levitating Lich, teleports in. Those blocks guarding the stairs slide away, turns out they are directly under my current position. A horde of Headless Zombies storm up all four of them. I try and take a picture for your benefit, but they start whomping on me, sorry! I have to fight, ya'll! 

Okay then! I blast the zombies with small fireballs. Not my big one, I need to save my mana for healing and shield spells. The King sends some nasty magic my way, silencing me. GAH! I change my amulet to one that absorbs magic, and pull out my magic sword and begin to hack away at him. He's immune to frost damage. GAH! But fortunately, not immune to the normal damage that comes from the magic sword. Good.

It takes a few minutes but I hack him to his second death. Then I clear away the Headless Zombies one at a time with fire and swordplay.

They go down, and I only lost half my health. Not too long ago, this battle would have been too tough for me, but my character is nearly maxed out these days. So neener to you, King of Miscarand. I loot his body, there is a key on it. 

I head to the portion of the dungeon I haven't been to, thinking the key must lead to major treasure! I unlock a door with it, kill some more Headless Zombies, and find some minor chests that all together lead to 300 gold pieces. At this juncture of the game, that's like, nothing. Bah. 

Another dungeon conquered. I'm the hero!



I leave the dungeon.  Time to head to Martin's headquarters at Stone Peak Mountain. He's there conferring with Jaufre, the guy who recruited me and helped with my initial training and is now preparing Martin to eventually become Emperor.

I give Martin the stone, and he realizes we now need its opposite number, which can only be found in HELL! Great. I keep going through portals to hell, I've done it like six times already in the game, with plenty to go. My goal in there is usually to close the portal to protect the territory that was threatened by its presence.

Now Martin wants me to talk to the leader of the city Bruma, which is close by, and tell her that we're going to intentionally allow the enemy to open the portal in Bruma as they plan, so that I can get in there close enough to a major citadel on their side and steal the big Sigil Stone that we will need to pair with this one, and gain the opportunity to kill the big bad guy.

Martin has a plan! A suck plan, but a plan nonetheless.

Ergh. Well, eventually I'll play messenger and do that. But not for awhile, as it'll be side quest time next round! That's a checkmark! Sword Slashing Category COMPLETE!

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