level 9: 10/15?

I seemed to have encountered a few bugs since my last post. Seems I'm doing less and less writing in favor of the actual playing. Imagine that!

I did finish the quest for skull from last time. Since Caius Cosades's only next mission for me is to visit the giant, frustrating city of Vivec I decide to do some other stuff. There's a fort in Gnisis taking on new recruits for Legion for instance so I may as well start there. But I don't feel like walking any more so I take the silt Strider.

In Gnisis I join the Legion thanks to General Darius. He tells me what I need to do and being in uniform is important. He then gives me an imperial charias. It's rather useless as I outgrew that particular piece of armor a long time ago. But he wants me to always be in uniform when I'm around him.

The first mission was to get the deed to the Widow Vabdas' land. So after a lot of wandering I finally find her. She says the Imperials killed her husband and she won't sell. Her husband had worked in the local egg mine of course.

Oddly enough the first merchant I visited actually sold me a pass to get into the egg mine without issue. However I'm an imperial and General Darius gave me a key anyway.

I'm also told by a local there's a secret entrance into the lower, more restricted part of the egg mine through a secret underwater door. Which I forget about.

Instead I just run past the guard into the next door. There I talk to the Ghost of Widow Vabdas' husband who tells me a guard murdered him and there's an axe at the bottom this pond to prove it. So I dive to the bottom and get the axe. I give it to General Darius and he says "oh, looks like he was murdered. Go murder the murderer will ya". Sure, no problem. Too bad that's the Queen's room and there's some killer ant-warrior things in there. I do kill him eventually though.

During one of my many trips to General Darius in fort inside Gnisis a guard apparently takes notice I have a lot of looted and found stuff. My armor and favorite lightning sword for instance. Why didn't any one notice this up until now? Well that wasn't very funny. Lost my lightning sword, flame axe, summon-slinker-belt; just about all the good stuff really. So keep that in mind! Even if you're not caught at the time you take stuff from a barrel you can still get caught with it later. And it will be taken away from you.

The next mission from General Darius was to cure the Kwama Queen of blight in the egg mine. Well the Kwana warriors were waiting and not too nice. Finally I managed to run to the queen, cast the cure spell on her and some how run back to the entrance before the warriors could kill me. Ya definately need some resist lighting if you want to survive. As I found from a lack thereof.

All this time I had been leveling up. However I started to notice at some point the level indicator that conveniently tells me how close I am to the next level in tents of a level started to go above 10. I didn't make it to level 8 until I was 15/10 of level 7. Only then did I recieve the indicator that "I should meditate and think about what I've done" i.e. sleep so I can distribute the new levels points accordingly when I wake up.

I don't know if that's the way it's supposed to be or if I just found some kind of bug. I also get a lot of crashes to the desktop. Good thing I got an auto-save script!

I did notice after all my stolen stuff got confiscated by the man General Darius stopped mentioning I need to be in damn uniform. From reason even the thing HE gave me got taken away. Then all of sudden it's not important I be in uniform? And what does he keep saying "why aren't you at your post"? Does everyone think I'm an NPC now or what?

After the Kwana queen General Darius sent me to rescue a pligrim named Madura Seran near Ald Velothi. I explored Ald Velothi some but didn't manage to find anything of interest. I did learn the pilgrim was just south of town held in a camp. Eventually I find this camp. The ringleader in the "yurt" (tent thing) along with the hostage said he'd release her for 500 gold. I didn't like that idea (and it had nothing to do with my lack of funds) so I talked to the pligrim who said she'd go with me but the kidnappers would attack.

And so they did. The first guy wasn't too difficult but once outside the other two kidnappers were a challenge. Eventually I took out the weaker of the two and the second got caught behind an obstacle, giving me enough time to heal up. After taking him out I took the pilgrim to Ald Velothi and went back to talk to General Darius at the fort.

The next mission was rescuing Ragash gra-Shuzgub from the local mad-wizard, Baladas Demnevanni who apparently didn't take too kindly to tax collectors. I didn't have the mad skills to pick that complex of lock (but did disable the trap) on the cell door where Ragash gra-Shuzgub was being held. So I talked to Baladas Demnevanni for what seemed like a long time and after some pleading, unreasonable promises and bribing I got the guy released from the prison.

The next mission was to investigate a mysterious cult inside the Legion called the Talos Cult. Apparently General Darius' own men were members. After some bribery one of the guards mentioned a name. Eventually I found this man who rather quickly initiated me as a Talos Cult member and directed me to a hatch in one of the storage rooms of the barracks. Inside there another Talos Cult member gave me some clues about the plot the Talos Cult was hatching but refused to give any details (even though I was welcome to look around and see the details).

I found a small chest locked at only 10 but if I tried to take what was inside he would attack. I didn't know if this was steeling from another legion member or just getting the clue necessary for the mission. Eventually I figured out I was just pissing off the two Talos Cult hardcore members in the barracks, not everybody. So I killed those two and took the note back to General Darius.

At this point my only options were more down Vivec/Ebonheart way. That's redicously far south from Gnisis. In Ebonheart is the Imperial Cult cathederal where I can get more missions and I'm sure more Imperial Legion missions while Vivec holds the next Blades missions for that half of it. I'm not looking forward to Vivec because of it's endless halls of indentically named locations and people. It'll just take forever, I know it.

So I decide to try and make it to Fort Buckmoth for more Imperial missions. Again walking to help with the Athletic skills and earn more experience.

On the way I run across another rather rude pilgrim, this time going to the "Ghost Gate". I cut across country; after all, this pilgrim wants to be there within two days. I find lots of interesting creatures and I'm not sure if the cross-country was really any faster. We make it to the ghost gate rather quickly but I have a hard time finding the shrine she wants. So I go in the gate and look around. There's tons of things to look at and experience to be gained via books in there but apparently this isn't the shrine in question.

Finally I figure out the shrine is on the other side of the Ghost Fence up the hill a little ways and some ways to the north east. She doesn't give me much of tip.

Finally rid of the damned pilgrim I make my way to Fort Buckmoth, by road this time. That wasn't a good idea as some kind of fire demon was hanging out on the road and manges to kill me rather quickly. Apparently I'm very susceptible to fire. Upon save reload I manage to RUN past the demon and eventually arrive at fort Buckmoth.

Talking to the local residents I find there is a local general in charge however he's in the shrine "downstairs". I search the whole fort several times over and never find any shrine or any general down stairs. Finally I give up and go the nearby city of Adl'Ruhn.

Here I find another blade who gives me some information. It's at this time I'm around level 9 and notice my level indicator no longer goes to 10. It now says 15/10 for the level progress bar. I still don't know if that's a bug or the way it's intended. And I have a "disturbing dream" in the form of convenient message box.

I explore the city, take to many people solve many tiny quests. I run into one person who says I've "woken them up" from a trance cast on him by the "mysterious sixth house". I also enter someone's house to find she already dislikes me 0/100 and then attacks me for no reason. Conveniently she has a locked and trapped trap door in her house and no else to tell on me if I go down there. Too bad I don't have the skill to get into it yet (or the scrolls/spells).

The rest of the adventure will have to wait for next time.