Friday 19 July 2013

Day 14: Master manipulator

Well I say day 14.  I mean it should be apparent by now that each of these days occurs over several real world days and at least 10 times as many Skyrim days.

I decided to advance the plot a bit because the fate of the world should probably be a concern to me.  I suppose when you think about it, if the world has been eaten by Alduin, eater of worlds, there will be far fewer opportunities to steal things.

And let's be honest now, theft is basically all Dragonbjorn lives for.  That and walking up mountains.

I ponder the wisdom in naming yourself "the world eater" or "eater of worlds".  It conjures up images of Galactus with fire breath.  Now I will admit, that's kind of awesome and all but it really gives people an unrealistic expectation of you.  I've not met Alduin yet but I'm willing to bet that he's now that big because I'm quite sure that sooner or later I'm going to be stabbing him in his stupid fat face.  I'm not sure he could even eat Riverwood, let alone, y'know, a PLANET.

And where would he live then?  He might be a magical beast, but I'm pretty sure that even Gandalf would succumb to explosive decompression if the world around him and the atmosphere were to be destroyed.

Just think about that.

So anyways, I realised that if I hold down E, I can lift things with Dragonbjorn's telekinesis (which you may remember from day 1 in the smith's house in Riverwood).  So we started small with a book, nice and simple.  Don't want to pop that dragonborn brain of his like that one guy in Scanners (you know the one I mean).
 'kay, nice and easy.  Good.  Now let's see what the practical applications of this skill are.


Yes, I'm liking it so far, but can we do any better?

 It's official, I win at books.

Conversations are so much more fun when you make people wear things on their heads or when you pretend to be on fire.  In fact, I think that holds true of real life as well as Skyrim.  Try it out and let me know how you get on!

I think Dragonbjorn is illiterate.  If I so much as open a book with a quest hook in it, I pick up the quest without even turning a page.  The same goes for skill books.  It's quite apparent that he isn't actually reading anything so I figure that all quest and skill books are actually magical and that Dragonbjorn just slams them into his face until he learns more about making potions or wearing... armour...

How do you increase your skill in light armour, anyway?  "I got hit 50 times by a dagger and survived.  Holy shit, my helmet fits better!"


 I found this thing and I think it's great.  The Ring of Peeless Destruction.  There aren't any toilets in Skyrim (except in a couple of dungeons I've seen) so I suppose all people are peeless, but maybe it means that if I set people on fire, the pain won't cause them to void their bladders because MAGIC.

Some lady outside Riften gave me this thing, which I also think is worth pointing out.  She seemed very insistent that I have it and I think the reason for this is quite obvious.  It's clearly one of those boxes where you solve a special puzzle then Pinhead comes and kills everyone you ever loved.

(Note: never blog again at 1AM.  I was haunted by dreams of Pinhead trying to grow gin plants.  Don't... don't ask)

Dragonbjorn can kill anything in Tam'riel but I am NOT about to mess with Cenobytes.  No sir.  This is one puzzle that will remain unsolved.

I... forget why I did this.  I think I was being talked into it.  I seem to recall that we wondered, me and my heterosexual life partner, what would happen if a flame atronach was summoned in a pub.  It turns out that not a hell of a lot happens.

 But if you shield bash a patron, not only will the atronach start burning EVERYONE, the other patrons will begin clapping and singing.  God, Skyrim is either very dull or is on its way to becoming a low-tech Mad Max dystopia.

I'm ready for either outcome.

 I fought an ice wizard who was dueling with a fire wizard.  This is the most clichéd fantasy thing I have ever seen in my entire life, but it was awesome.  It could only have been made better if they were both wearing tall pointy hats, riding pegasuses and had waist-length white beards.  And there should totally be a skeleton riding a motorcycle up the tail of a dragon in the background.

And some women in chainmail bikinis with big swords.

The fight didn't really end well for either of them, though.  Dragonbjorn knows plenty of magic, he just doesn't really understand what it's for (except that firebolt is good for dicking with dragons sometimes).

Well, it turns out that it's not only books that Dragonbjorn can lift with his mind.  He can also lift corpses.  Quite why he has a carry weight of only 450 but he can fling a fully grown man is beyond me, but I'd really like to try killing someone, putting like 10 suits of iron armour on their body then swinging them around as a bludgeon.  I could knock down the entirety of Solitude.

The dark brotherhood told me to kill again.  Dragonbjorn is pretty vulnerable to peer pressure and she was asleep, it's not like anybody was going to see me.

Shhh.  There, there my love, rest easily as your bearded angel comes to deliver thee unto your eternal rest.  Hush now, your journey is about to begin.

That was predictably easy.  Oh well.  Now if I've learned anything in my years as a gamer, it's that you need to carefully dispose of corpses to keep people from getting suspicious.  And also that health is always red and mana is always blue unless you're the Legend of Zelda.

Anyway.

I figured that my best bet was to put her in the fire or to sit her at the table.  I elected to try the table because the smell of burning pork is a bit noticeable.

Yep, looks pretty natural to me.  With any luck, it'll be days before people realise she's not moving, eating, drinking or speaking.


Eh, that's close enough for me.

 Turns out that dwarves (I'm not calling them Dwemer.  Come on, now) slept on stone beds.  They knew about making pillows but a mattress was too much?  Apparently the dwarves were masochists.  Call me fussy, I like a warm bed.  What if they were exhausted?  Flop down on that thing, you'll crack your pelvis.

 I found a poo elf house with a hole into oblivion in it.  And not Oblivion like Elder Scrolls Hell, like an actual hole to nowhere.  A poo elf fell into it.  I think they appeared outside the house.

 Oh look, there are more of these things.  This is the least practical entrance EVER.

Well, granted, you won't get many people to fall for this one as it relies on you standing still on a small bit of ground while you get pushed into the ceiling, but bonus points for the creativity and sheer inhuman brutality of it, 'cause this looks really nasty.  I think if I built a dungeon, I'd have a pressure plate in a chest at the end of it that just poured acid from all the walls.  Expensive, but you need to be firm with adventurers.

I mean either that or I'd just not include a chest at all and let them starve to death as they stumble around the dungeon looking for loot that wasn't there.  It's not like dungeons are meant to be full of loot anyway, they're meant to be full of prisoners.

Oh, this self-important pompous creature.  Upon me telling her I didn't believe in fate, she replied with "perhaps that is what you're meant to believe".

That's the kind of cocky, simpering shitty little response that gets RIGHT up my nose.  Seriously, how arrogant do you have t-

Oh, right, it's a fucking ELF.

Well, guess Dragonbjorn's a racist now!  I don't regret killing those guys at the embassy at all now because all those pointy eared, lembas munching, lah-di-dah beautiful girlmen are all the same!  Pompous, arrogant, better-than-you willow-limbed dicks!

And I don't think I like orcs much either because they look like they smell funny.  And those lizard people seem to mostly be thieves or rapists.  So I guess it's just me and the catmen.  To be honest, probably just me because the catmen are on shaky ground as is and I've killed most of the humans.

The mudcrabs are still cool.

I GUESS YOUR PRECIOUS DESTINY DIDN'T GIVE YOU THE FORESIGHT TO BRING A DECENT TENT!  MAYBE IT WAS YOUR DESTINY TO SPEND THE NIGHT IN THE SNOW!  AND MAYBE CATCH PNEUMONIA!  MAYBE IT'S MY DESTINY TO COME BACK, LOOT YOUR BODY AND PEE ON IT!

This man walked into my house.  I don't know who he was, why he was in my house or what he wanted, but he said I might like being a mercenary then left.  I guess Lydia has a man now, which is cool and all, but I really wish she'd get a place of her own because there's only one bed here and I don't want her to use it.

Especially not if she has a gentleman friend over.


On accidentally pressing the wrong button, I emptied my chest of worthless crap into my own pockets, suddenly finding myself holding around 3 times what I could physically lift.  That's fine though.  I didn't need knees or shins, anyway.

God, why am I still alive?

I went to the dark brotherhood to see about some more killing.  Found this nice example of a stained glass window.  Now it's impressive, yes, but imagine the brotherhood is raided someday.  Y'know, imagine we were all murderers and scoundrels and one of us got noticed and followed by a guard.  Not inconceivable.  Imagine, if you will, that they manage to gain entrance and are not tipped off by the symbol on the door.

You're not going to explain the blood red skull window.

People started prattling on about seeing the night mother.  Not sure what that was about, but Cicero is cool and polite and it seemed important to him so I figured I could at least have a chat to her.
 She's in there.  In the coffin?
 No.  No, don't climb in the coffin.
 STOP.  PLEASE, JESUS THIS IS CREEPY
 STOP IT, STOP IT, WHY ARE YOU TALKING TO ME, HOW ARE YOU TALKING TO ME, I'M LOCKED IN HERE PRESSED UP AGAINST A CORPSE AND I'LL NEVER SEE THE SUN AGAIN AND I DON'T WANT TO BE AN ASSASSIN ANY MORE, I JUST WANT TO MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLEASE JUST LET ME OUT OF THIS BOX RIGHT NOW AND I'LL NEVER DO ANYTHING BAD EVER AGAIN I SWEAR TO GOD I'M BEING HONEST THIS TIME JUST LET ME OUT LET ME OUT LET ME

Phew.  I met some ghosts.  They went on about stealing the lexicon.  I guess they all got killed by those flying bladed ball things.

 Skyrim dwarves are kinda steampunks.  That's cool.  I like that as a social statement.


Whoops.  Well, that's the lexicon unravelled.  Guess I'm going to have the flesh torn from my bones by a thousand tiny needles or something now, huh?  Not that it'll matter.  I've come to realise that my power doesn't lie in my shouts, nor my ability to absorb the souls of dragons.  My power lies in respawning and in loading saves.  No matter how big a blunder I commit, Dragonbjorn can undo it by sheer force of will.  All pickpocket attempts succeed, no dungeon can kill him, no foe is too great.

I must use this power wisely.  I hold the power to influence all probability and ultimately to shape the very world itself.

IOREK BYRNISON, NO!


 I found some nutcase who seemed to have tracked down a medieval equivalent of GLaDOS or something.  He talked a lot about nothing in particular and asked me to find some stuff for him which isn't so very far away from everyone in this game.  Except this guy was less direct about it.  Where someone else would ask for a book, he would utter "seek the knower, the speaker, the granter of understanding, confined to a leather-bound prison".  I don't think he actually gave me a quest, you know.  I think Dragonbjorn may have found the only guy in the world who outdid him in terms of batshit insanity and just decided to distance himself from the situation on the pretence that he had a prior appointment.

We've all done it.

GHOOO-LUM.  GHOOOOO-LUM

Or maybe it's the Crypt Keeper.  Looks a bit like that guy.

I wandered into a very pretty place.  Very blue, very bright.  I really wish there was more to say about it but there isn't, only that it was very beautiful and contained very little in the way of loot so I got bored and wandered off.
Oh shit, it's that alien laser from Independance Day.  So I... just put the lexion in there now, yes?
Yeah, I don't know what this machine is even for, but the bank of controls in front of it puts me in mind of that one keyboard from...

Uh, never mind.
Ah, that's what it was.  A scroll case.

A SCROLL CASE.

I think I know why the Dwemer died out.  They overcomplicated the simplest things to the point where they forgot how to breed without the use of an intricate brass device.

Still, it's an Elder Scroll.  I mean, that's what this entire series is named after so this must be a big deal.  I bet this thing is filled with MAD skill points or special abilities and stuff.
Ehhh nope.  It just blinds you.  That's what I like best about magic books, y'know, when they make you go blind so you can't read them.  FUCKING WIZARDS.  I bet an elf wrote this thing!  I mean, they even descended from dwarves in this world, so now I hate dwarves twice as hard.  If I ever meet a dwarf, I am going to kill and eat it.
What's that, talking cloud?  You're a god and want me to pledge my loyalty to you?  Well, guess I'd better listen because Dragonbjorn apparently takes orders from every deity, demon and supernatural entity he encounters.

I wouldn't do this if I had a choice, mind you, but if I help a human I'll get something along the lines of "thank you, you have saved me and my family from a great and terrible fate.  Have 500 gold and I won't look if you steal from my house".

If I help a daedric elder thingy I'll get "allow me to grant you a boon, my disciple.  This sword not only emits a fresh pine scent and is the most powerful weapon in the multiverse, it can also absorb the souls of other swords, increasing in power and ultimately firing orbital lasers at your foes".

So yeah, demons.  Demons are good.
There's a funny caption here, but I can't think of it.

Let's have a caption competition!  Leave a caption in the comments of this post and I'll name a weapon in honour of the winner!

I hurt myself today.
To see if I still feel.

Thought for the day
Why can't I transmute my enemies' weapons into gold so they can't hurt me as much?

2 comments:

  1. Caption: "and now I'll just put the Slave-Leah outfit on the Dragon..." Skyrim: pioneering new levels of depravity one Norseman at a time.

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    Replies
    1. That's... that's actually not a bad idea. I need to try that!

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