Horray, post-vivec: Level 13!

For all practicle purposes I'm done with Vivec. At least I hope to avoid it as much as possible.

As of now I have enough levels to be extremely high ranked in almost all the factions I'm currently joined to. I'll I have to do is a whole lot more quests for them all. After the quest in the ruins for scrap medal I was having a little trouble trying to decide what to do next. I remembered someone in Vivec had mentioned something about a guy who owed money in Hla Oad. Starting from Balmora I decided that's where I was going next.

Didn't seem to be a quick way via roads so I decided to head out via cross-country. Part way there I found a place apparently called the "Odai Plateau". Not sure what that is or if it's important but it's now on the map. About half way between the Plateau and the Hla Oad I found a cave (I'll have to look up the name). Didn't seem to be any people around so I went in. The first I went in there was a fork in the path and down one fork was a (I think it's called) Fire Elemental. I wasn't ready though so I died in that instance. The next time I came in I ran past that path and went to the end. Mostly it seems to be a good supply of raw ebony but not much else. I did run into some bandits but managed to take care of them rather quickly.

Finally I went back toward the entrance to take care of the other path. This time instead of fire there was a frost elemental (or whatever). I managed to care of him with a combination fireball ring and uber-sword. I think I remember reading somewhere about a quest invovling a lost ebony mine. My journal I don't think updated so either this isn't the mine or I read it online.

In Hla Oad I found the guy who owes the money. After some bribing he told me to look under someone else's house to find what I was looking for. There I found a big treasure chest containing around 900 gold. Upon checking the journal it looks like this individual owed 800 gold and I could keep half.

I explored more of Hla Oad and found out there was some sort of Dwemer imports expected by a local citizen. After artificially raising that citizen's disposition of me to 100 he still would only give me "what dwemer artifics" or "what are you talking about". Somehow this seems like a bug to me but I'll have to wait and see if anything else comes of this.

I then decided I would wander some more along the coast. Actually the last time I played this game I had left it at a rather treasure-rich cave. I can't quite remember but I think that cave was outside of Hla Oad. Or perhpas it was another city, I just remember it was long the coast some where.

Upon a rather short wandering time I found a dock and ship with a few people aboard. After saving several times ahead a time I went aboard the boat. Luckily no one started attacking but no one would say anything particulary helpful or new or at all indicative of a group of smugglers or bad guys. In the lower hold I did some barrel and crate exploring and found a rather nice looking two-handed Nord sword. My pick-pocketing skills really aren't terribly good however. Again saving several times I tried to sneak to the crate containing the nice sword as well as a grand soul gem and some other items. I was caught rather abruptly however and had to fight the guy off. Upon beating him I noted I had never recieved a messsage about a crime being reported and upon checking there was no bounty on my head. I decided not to risk any thing else and recalled back to the fighter's guild in Balmora.

Everybody still likes me and I'm not dead so it looks like I got away with it. Or perhaps those were smugglers who were ok to kill. I don't know. I should probably be careful with the stuff I got from him though or else it could get taken from me by some guards. I'd hate that.

While in Balmora I started to think some more about enchanting and potion making. I am a member of the mages guild now after all. I actually downloaded a seperate program that shows me all the ingredients for almost all potions but I decided I would just start with the ingredients I had a large number of and then drop each of the other ingredients in combination and see if anything came up. Eventually I did find some combinations but more often then not the potions fail. But then my alchemy skill is rather low. My armorer rating is at 39 and I still fail when I try to do that. So I know I have a long way to go as far as alchemy skills.

I also started experimenting with Soul Captures. I purchased the spell a while ago but still don't have even close to enough magica/intelligence to cast it. So purchased some scrolls and set out with my shiny new "Grand Soul Gem". With the help of my glass jink sword I managed to paralyze a few critters and capture some souls. Not know better however I ended up with a rather low-level critter in my Grand Soul Gem. As far as I know there's no way to actually expunge a soul from a soul gem once it's in there. So I went back to Balmora to see if I could use this soul to enchant an item at the Mage's Guild.

Well it looks like this can often be rather expensive. I also attempted this myself, a bad idea as you may have guessed. I didn't think the Soul Gem would be destroyed if I failed I thought it would only lose the soul. So I destroyed a Grand Soul Gem. I suppose I could have gone back and reloaded my save game but I didn't.

I also did some experimenting with "spell making" at the Guild-of-Mages. This can be done rather easily and cheaply. At least to get the custom spell anyway. Again casting it successfully is another problem altogether. Except that I could enchant that custom spell to an item with a soul gem which I could do if I had more money. Did you get all that? In conclusion I need more money.

With that rather obvious realization I went back to Hla Oad to find that mystery cave I know has lots of treasure. I run back to Hla Oad and continue looking for more caves.

I should also mention I had purchased the Game of the Year edition of the game so I could get the two expansion packs together. I didn't want to be bothered with the plots of those two expansions until I had finished with the main quest. But after reading of the various journal and map enhancements I decided I would install them after all.

In Hla Oad I did eventually find yet another cave entrance. After saving I entered and was immediately attacked by two bandits. I guess I'm getting better because the two of them really weren't much of a challenge. I did have to do some healing however. A further jog down the cave revealed two more bandits. Unfortunately these two managed to take me out. Upon reload I healed up and manged to attract the attention of only one of them. I broke out the paralyzing jink blade to paralyze then beat him down. Then attracted the attention of the second guy and did much the same. This time I barely had any life left but at least I beat them.

Upon looking at the bodies and all the crates and barels I realized this was a rather treasure-rich place. In fact I found at least four more grand soul gems and several other soul gems of various degrees. Soon I realized it would take several trips to sell all this stuff. So I loaded up and recalled back to Balmora where I sold off some of the trinkets I had collected in the cave. I then ran back to the cave, grabbed more treasure and recalled one more to Balmora. Fortunately the fighter's guild guy had come into money and had 2000 gold each time I recalled back.

Then I decided all this running was pointless and realized I could take the silt strider in Balmora to Vivec where I could catch a boat back to Hla Oad. This take a long time in game-time but is much faster for me in real-time. I'm now in day 52 and have reached level 14.