{"id":33015,"date":"2016-06-28T22:33:14","date_gmt":"2016-06-29T02:33:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=33015"},"modified":"2016-06-28T22:39:58","modified_gmt":"2016-06-29T02:39:58","slug":"ruts-vs-battlespire-ch13-my-dinner-with-daedre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=33015","title":{"rendered":"Ruts vs. Battlespire CH13: My Dinner with Daedr\u00e9"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As part of their invasion of the Battlespire, the daedric armies have apparently deployed tactical questgivers to several locations. Some of their quests have been <a href=\"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=32581\">brief, but eventful.<\/a> I&#8217;ll be happy to get back to a sane and healthy model of interpersonal relations wherein I go around killing and fetching on behalf of standoffish strangers.<\/p>\n<p>After all, I like to keep things professional.<\/p>\n<p><div class='imagefull'><img src='https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/images\/bs_83.jpg' width=100% alt='I know what you&apos;re thinking, but it&apos;s Casual Friday. Gold tips on my bullhorns are permissible.' title='I know what you&apos;re thinking, but it&apos;s Casual Friday. Gold tips on my bullhorns are permissible.'\/><\/div><div class='mouseover-alt'>I know what you're thinking, but it's Casual Friday. Gold tips on my bullhorns are permissible.<\/div><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>But before I can move on from the scouting-and-clouting portion of the level, there&#8217;s a logistical hurdle. I&#8217;m unpleasantly surprised to discover in the process of cleaning scamps out of this zone&#8217;s grouty crevices that the game [i]does[\/i] have a maximum carrying weight. This is a problem not because I&#8217;m burdened with mission-critical gear&#8211;I&#8217;ve pretty much got the clothes on my back and a few potions I&#8217;m comfortable drinking and everything else is trash&#8211;but because it requires literally dozens of clicks to reach all the inlets and reefs of this game&#8217;s pointlessly balkanized inventory. Clearing out the garbage requires:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Weighing the importance of all my items&#8230;\n<ul>\n<li>&#8230;including the magic items with mysterious names and no stats, like Evangelistic Jock Strap of Cunning Perfume&#8230;<\/li>\n<li>&#8230;then my sigils, which are broken up into Almost Worthless and Literally Mission-Critical&#8230;\n<ul>\n<li>&#8230;but look identical, and can only be distinguished by taking my cursor off the scroll icon and clicking on each individual item, which gets old after the fiftieth or sixtieth mouse click&#8230;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>&#8230;and the scrolls, which are all named things like Scroll and need to be individually selected and read to figure out what they&#8217;re about&#8230;\n<ul>\n<li>&#8230;and which sometimes contain important intel on the second or third page&#8230;<\/li>\n<li>&#8230;and which are surprisingly heavy&#8230;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>&#8230;plus potions which have thus far been totally useless, like Ethereal or Jumping, but might turn out to be practically necessary in the next area.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Hunting down everything I can get rid of&#8230;\n<ul>\n<li>&#8230;which means navigating the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=31535\">inevitable clusterfun that is this game&#8217;s nesting bag system&#8230;<\/a><\/li>\n<li>&#8230;and scrolling, one box at a time, one click at a time, down an inventory with many many boxes&#8230;\n<ul>\n<li>&#8230;and many blocks of completely identical items, meaning it&#8217;s easy to actually get lost.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Sorting that which I wish to keep&#8230;\n<ul>\n<li>&#8230;by mixing it in with all the identically-iconned items I&#8217;ve dropped on the ground, because I need to put it aside so I can get it out of its nested bag&#8230;<\/li>\n<li>&#8230;and inevitably putting it BACK in a nested bag, because otherwise the scrolling-through-eternity issue comes up and my wrist starts aching.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I try to be a considerate Battleguest, but Spire Services can go ahead and clean this one up.<\/p>\n<p><div class='imagefull'><img src='https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/images\/bs_84.jpg' width=100% alt='Wait shit where are my keys' title='Wait shit where are my keys'\/><\/div><div class='mouseover-alt'>Wait shit where are my keys<\/div><\/p>\n<p>Now that I&#8217;ve got all that off my chest, it&#8217;s time to get social. In addition to a bunch of rooms full of punks, there&#8217;s three daedra in this area who want to have a chat with me. First up is a Spider Daedra who I am happy to observe does <em>not <\/em>want to seduce me.<\/p>\n<p><div class='imagefull'><img src='https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/images\/bs_86.jpg' width=100% alt='PERTHAN OATHKIN: Hey, I got to tell you. My venom? It&apos;s gonna make you flop like a noodle poodle. And when you&apos;re flopping? Hoowee! Then comes my special-sharp claw dance. La-la-la!' title='PERTHAN OATHKIN: Hey, I got to tell you. My venom? It&apos;s gonna make you flop like a noodle poodle. And when you&apos;re flopping? Hoowee! Then comes my special-sharp claw dance. La-la-la!'\/><\/div><div class='mouseover-alt'>PERTHAN OATHKIN: Hey, I got to tell you. My venom? It's gonna make you flop like a noodle poodle. And when you're flopping? Hoowee! Then comes my special-sharp claw dance. La-la-la!<\/div><\/p>\n<p>Who am I <em>pretty sure <\/em>does not want to seduce me.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s also this lady. She&#8217;s got a quest for me that I gather is nonessential. That&#8217;s good, because much like every other objective in this game it&#8217;s an overbearing pain in the cojones and surgical strike in Operation Slam Use Key on Every Moderately Unique Asset.<\/p>\n<p><div class='imagefull'><img src='https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/images\/bs_87.jpg' width=100% alt='Incidentally, she is by FAR the most fully-clothed woman in the game. Seriously. I checked the wiki.' title='Incidentally, she is by FAR the most fully-clothed woman in the game. Seriously. I checked the wiki.'\/><\/div><div class='mouseover-alt'>Incidentally, she is by FAR the most fully-clothed woman in the game. Seriously. I checked the wiki.<\/div><\/p>\n<p>So Wosherface here wants me to get her <a href=\"http:\/\/en.uesp.net\/wiki\/Morrowind:Scourge\">a mace<\/a> that she&#8217;ll trade for one of the collectible MacGuffin crumbs that open the next area. There&#8217;s a surplus of said crumbs, but they&#8217;re hidden all over, guarded by low-level enemies, and really annoying to find. So sure&#8211;anything that means less killing scamps and painstakingly searching rooms for secret compartments.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, the mace is in a secret compartment. How do you find it? You go into one of the cubbies, turn around, look up, and hit &#8220;use&#8221; on a mace that&#8217;s hung up above the door. It opens a vault full of scamps.<\/p>\n<p>The good news is, when you give her the mace she&#8217;s teleported to a dimension of eternal suffering.<\/p>\n<p><div class='imagefull'><img src='https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/images\/bs_88.jpg' width=100% alt='Sometimes I worry I don&apos;t do enough for the daedric community.' title='Sometimes I worry I don&apos;t do enough for the daedric community.'\/><\/div><div class='mouseover-alt'>Sometimes I worry I don't do enough for the daedric community.<\/div><\/p>\n<p>Then there&#8217;s this chum I found standing around in total darkness. He&#8217;s surrounded on all sides by a placid dremora entourage, none of whom react to my approach or friendly greetings. All the while he insistently beckons me to speak with him.<\/p>\n<p><div class='imagefull'><img src='https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/images\/bs_85.jpg' width=100% alt='Or he &apos;gestures for a parlay (sic).&apos; Really, this LP doesn&apos;t need to get any more purple than it is.' title='Or he &apos;gestures for a parlay (sic).&apos; Really, this LP doesn&apos;t need to get any more purple than it is.'\/><\/div><div class='mouseover-alt'>Or he 'gestures for a parlay (sic).' Really, this LP doesn't need to get any more purple than it is.<\/div><\/p>\n<p>I mightn&#8217;t have bothered. Turns out he&#8217;s one of about a hundred daedric dudes I&#8217;ve met so far who want to talk to me <em>exclusively <\/em>so they can tell me I suck and they&#8217;re going to kill me. No diplomacy&#8211;no listening to reason&#8211;no sensible dialogue choices. With a contemptuous laugh, he orders his men to attack. And they do, in spectacular fashion. Jackhammer fireballs drop one after another at point-blank range. The fight&#8217;s over in two seconds&#8211;and then it&#8217;s just me and Jabroni blinking away spellflashes in a cloud of settling dremora ashes, neither of us having budged, his hands still planted awkwardly in his glistening armpits.<\/p>\n<p><div class='imagefull'><img src='https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/images\/bs_90.jpg' width=100% alt='&apos;Well, at least I know they&apos;re loyal. Were. Were loyal.&apos;' title='&apos;Well, at least I know they&apos;re loyal. Were. Were loyal.&apos;'\/><\/div><div class='mouseover-alt'>'Well, at least I know they're loyal. Were. Were loyal.'<\/div><\/p>\n<p>Less out of spite and more to break up the awkward silence, I attack him. As soon as I do I lose a chunk of health and go flying backwards. Not sure what else to do, I verify firstly that this does indeed happen <em>every <\/em>time and secondly that it is literally his only means of inflicting hit point damage. It seems like ordering his two dremora bros to fry me was the only move he had memorized. He doesn&#8217;t seem to be taking damage, either.<\/p>\n<p>Not really knowing what else to do, I talk to him again. <em>Worked great the first time.<\/em> It triggers&#8211;well, not the SAME conversation. Just a subtly different and obviously equivalent one which has a peaceful dialogue option.<\/p>\n<p><div class='imagefull'><img src='https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/images\/bs_89.jpg' width=100% alt='&apos;Summon my minions?&apos; Are they anything like your last minions? You&apos;re definitely going to want to mention the &apos;tearing&apos; thing.' title='&apos;Summon my minions?&apos; Are they anything like your last minions? You&apos;re definitely going to want to mention the &apos;tearing&apos; thing.'\/><\/div><div class='mouseover-alt'>'Summon my minions?' Are they anything like your last minions? You're definitely going to want to mention the 'tearing' thing.<\/div><\/p>\n<p>Developers, was I supposed to get this far?<\/p>\n<p><strong>NEXT WEEK: A STEADILY NAKEDER CAHMEL<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As part of their invasion of the Battlespire, the daedric armies have apparently deployed tactical questgivers to several locations. Some of their quests have been brief, but eventful. I&#8217;ll be happy to get back to a sane and healthy model of interpersonal relations wherein I go around killing and fetching on behalf of standoffish strangers. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[242],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lets-play"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33015\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}