Avoiding Vivec...I give up (avoiding) - part 2

I'm fairly certain I was in the cave with psycho imperial guy wearing the lord's mail when I found this enchanted dagger. Another rather valuable item (around 6k) that is rather useless since no NPCs actualy have that much money. The enchantment is paralyzation for about 10 seconds.

In one of the under works I found what looked like a shrine albeit guarded by a heavily armored nord. I saved before I was within eye-sight of him and tried many times to beat him but never could quite do it. I tried potions, echanted items, turn invisible to get the jump on him, everything. Finally I got out the dagger-of-paralyze and tried that. Too bad my short blade skills are so lousy. After several seconds of swiping madly at the air I finally hit him and he was frozen for a few seconds at which point I beat him rather harshely. Then the paralyze wore off and it was time to run and swipe at the air till I hit him again and beat him some more. Finally, I took him out. I don't know why he was so good. I have a way higher armor rating, my weapon is better too. Maybe my dodge is just lousy or he was a higher level. In any case I'm sure I wasn't supposed to be able to beat him at my level but I did.

Once inside the shrine he was guarding it was even more fun. This also took a long time snce there were so many people all firing at me at once. Luckily they all fall for the invisibility ring and I manage to make it to a back room. Here I find a "sheild level 3" scroll and a "summon fire elemental" (something like that) who helps immensely. The first time I tried this I had saved but the I still managed to die. The second attempt the elemental was turned on me I still managed to beat everybody.

In another underworks there was yet another shrine also with someone guarding it. This one didn't kill me however. Seemed not to care I was there at all. Upon entering the shrine however I encounter three bad guys all going for me. After many reloads I do manage to kill the weakest of the group however between the battle mage and the guy with the crossbow-and-lightning-bolts I don't survive very long.

After an hour worth of reloading the same save game I decide I may not be of a high enough level or I need a new strategy. So I move on.

I did have an interesting adventure in the "Puzzle Canals" below the Palace. The Palace has but one door: locked at 100 and trapped to boot. I seem to be good enough now I can disable a trap (traps don't have complexity ratings apparently) but I can't come even close to a 100 level lock. Maybe if I had a spell or scroll. Eventually I'll be able to afford a scroll or amulate or whatever that can do door unlocking.

I have also found a new sword with the name something to the effect of a demon blade. It allows me to summon an even cooler blade, albeit just really lite and effective not necessarily uber-damaging.

In the Puzzle Canals, a multi-leveled pyramid-like structure with water ways, or canals I suppose, at each level. Each great is an entry into the structure itself. Inside looks just like the underworks of the Vivec cantons accept a little smaller and simpler. You enter one great and there's another greate at the other end. There's also passages to the side where there's another passage with more grates. When you exit via a great you come out on another level of the pyramid. As for as I know there's no combination of enters/exits that actually gets you into the temple at the top. On level 3 is something interesting however: a platform with gap and what looks like another room protected by a barrier. A nearby shrine-looking object gives you a supposed clue on how to get in.

If you want to know how to get across the gap/lower the barrier you'll have to cheat on the internet as I'm not going to spoil it. All I will say is read the clue given and don't over-think it. No metaphors involved, no analogies, no book reading. Just take it literally. And save first :). Remember this is a religious shrine so faith may be invovled...

There's one place in Vivec I never did visit on account it's a giant levitating rock with no way to get up to it. Accept for potion of levitation and the one scroll I used to have to give me 1000 jump. I didn't have either of those however so I skipped it. The locaiton in question is called the "Ministry of Truth". I think.

There's several sub-quests assigned via various characters in Vivec. One involves a serial killer. Another an invisible man. Yet another an annoying rash that doesn't seem to go away. Eventually I'm sure I'll finish these what I call "busy work" errand quests. But right now I'm not terribly motiviated.

I also found a guy who said he found some sunken ship somewhere or other. For an alcoholic beverage he told me where the ship was and gave me a key to get into it. Appears there's some sort of enchanted axe on ship. Them Nords sure do love their axes don't they? Good thing they didn't have Frued back then, heh.

Having thoroughly exhasted myself of Vivec and everything Vivec-related I finally went back to balmora. Here I tried to turn in my info to Caius Cosades but was promptly told I needed the rare book one of the contacts mentioned to me. So back to Vivec I went. Wasn't too terribly hard to find this rare book as the store that carried it was called "rare books". I guess banned books aren't too banned in that placed. So back to Balmora and finally Caius Cosades accepts me and my accomplishment of a boring Vivec adventure. After some pressing he gives me a new quest.

So I new I have a choice: either jump straight to the next Blades quest or tackle some more Legion/Fighter's Guild/Imperal Cult/mages guild quests.

Ya, I joined the mages guild too. Not sure why really. Wasn't much reason.

As a side note I found one of the best Morrowind sites out there. I also managed to find a rather easy way to find them: at google type anything related to the game followed the word morrowind. For instance if you needed help with Vivec go to google and type in Vivec morrowind and the first link will be this site. Or just use that link and click morrowind once there for the home page and you can find help on anything else you need. Like the solution to every quest for every faction and the secrets to every location. Or use the link. Either way.

I did decide to do at least one Legion quest. I headed to Ft. Moonmoth and grabbed the quest: appears there's a contest between the Legion and another group. The Legion is to get some scrap medal from the ruins while the other group is to find some "corpus meat". I went back to balmora to talk to the fellow in the basement about a key to the lower ruins he had mentioned. This secured I headed back to the ruins. It was fun to be back in there and killing those mechanical creatures once more. I certainly did find enough scrap medal for the contest. Actually I wasn't told how much to get, just to get some. So I had 10 peices of scrap medal. As far as I know for virtuallly every level I've progressed I've added to the strength level. I'm assuming there's a cap to that attribute and I have a feeling I'll be reaching it pretty soon.

Officially (more or less) done with Vivec, time to move on.