This guy in the cell across from me is a huge asshole. Well fuck you buddy, I'm buds with the Emperor now! I'm totally going to swim again. First body of water I see, I'm getting in. That'll show him!
This Emperor is a pretty chill dude considering I'm some kind of convict. On the other hand, openly prophesying one's own imminent death in front of your bodyguards is kind of insensitive.
Lockpicking seems to be a dick mechanic
I hope I get to keep the Emperor's sword when he dies in front of me, it looks pretty good.
How am I supposed to help these Blades when they crush all before them with such speed? Oh well, free potions for me.
Hey, this guy took my sweet sword! I mean I guess I got my class in return. I hope someone remembers this later.
Not only did he take my sweet sword, he won't let me take the Emperor's sweet shortsword! I hate this dude.
I think I've figured out who leaked the secret sewer escape route to the cultists: The postmen! They've delivered a ton of mail to me here. They must be so ubiquitous, no-one even thinks to keep secrets from them.
I should rest and meditate on what I've learned. I do not know how to rest.
Died for the first time. There were two dudes! Also, I am not very good at this block and swing play. Possibly should have taken marksmanship instead of blade in my custom class.
Day 2!
I seriously need to get better at melee combat. 6x damage for melee, sneak attack, 3x for range, no bonus for magic. No bonus for stealth fireballs disappoints me.
I put a bunch of the non-combat skills that are generally important in RPGs in my custom class, on the grounds that seriously you always want persuade as a class skill, but now I've remembered all those old comments about how Oblivion and Skyrim scale up combat difficulty with your class level. I see here that my class level is going to go up with all of these important non-combat skills I've picked, and I am too bad at this combat to be screwing myself over with that mechanic.
Maybe I should just never sleep again, so that I don't gain these levels that are going to make the game harder for me. I'm a lizard, lizards don't need sleep, right?
Day 3
I finally killed this goddamn Goblin. That, and the highwayman afterwards, leads me to believe that power attack / block alternation is the best I can manage.
A farm is defended, but a son has fallen. I figure it was scripted but possibly I could have reloaded and saved him.
"This reunion is going to be the happiest day of my life" haha yeah you're going to be delighted to meet your surly drunkard twin. Sure thing.
I have found books with background. Apparently they recount previous games in vague terms to account for player choices. bluefall tells me that there were six endings to 2 and they all happened because WILD MAGIC.
Selene's sword was bullshit. I'm not sure why it stopped working but thank god.
Siege of Kvatch. Desperately brewing potions out of my heavier ingredients to keep my weight below encumbrance. Got me out of Oblivion without having to drop a weapon. I think I'm going to see if I can get this guy through the key carrying step alive, there ought to be a bonus when this is through.
Day 4
I've remembered that there's a difficulty slider. This combat doesn't strike me as very fun, so down it goes!
I hope this Captain retains his mission critical immortality throughout the quest. He "has fallen unconscious" in every skirmish so far.
This room in the Castle is on fire and I'm allowed to sleep in the beds.
The Count's room is also on fire. Sleeping in his bed is possible, but illegal.
This dude likes me so much he literally gave me the shirt off his back. It's an enchanted Kvatch Curiass!
Oh good, Martin didn't get mugged while he waited for me outside Kvatch, alone in the rain.
I can't tell if this Prophet dude is sincerely impressed by the fact that I'm the hero of Kvatch, or is being sarcastic with me.
Oh, you have to be humble to convince him to help you. Good thing I got 3 guesses to go with the 3 options!
Sten! Sten the Ugly? ... You're not Sten!
I am so glad I visited the fighters guild, this office is full of books!
The best thing about this video game so far is the virtual books.
Brother Martin is unconscious. Good to know!
I have picked so many flowers, I can no longer move. Time to brew!
Using "alchemy" to make a "restore fatigue potion" from food ingredients sounds suspiciously like cooking soup to me. Am I a poser?
Oh hey, it's the the guys with vanishing arms and armor. I suppose Jauffre is going to be dead when I find him. I hope the jerks won't have made off with the MacGuffin.
Oh right, this dude is a Blade, and these punks ain't shit to Blades. I guess they make off with the Amulet.
Sweet, free horse!
Oh god, I accidentally shot fire at my free horse!
The horse seems to be fine.
Fuck all y'all, I'm on a horse!
I stopped to help some NPCs who were being attacked by bandits. Afterwards, two Imperial Legion Soldiers were shooting arrows at each other. After one died and the other ran off, I couldn't find my free horse!
I am never stopping to help NPCs again.
FREE HORSE! Let's never be separated again!
I thought I'd missed something, so I quickloaded. My last quicksave was like five feet outside of the Priory.
Day 5
I am torn between feeling like "quick travel" is a kind of cheating that is built into the game, and feeling like no sane person could ever complete this game without using it. Since my stupid quickload yesterday nullified a lot of time spent on a horse, I'm going to use it to get back to Blades HQ.
I am now a Spectre Blade. Free sword!
My free cool kid's club sword has over-encumbered me. Time for cooking alchemy!
Hey, advanced alchemy equipment! And I can grab anything here I want!
This book about "Nightingale" and Barenziah reads like someone's (mine) vague idea of a cheap romance novel.
These arches with Akaviri swords hanging off them are a serious earthquake hazard.
Ah, so this oddly un-spartan bedroom is for Martin. Curiously, I'm allowed to grab all his stuff, but they didn't forget to mark sleeping in his bed as illegal.
This lady just pronounced comrade "comraid."
I'm stuffing a bunch of crap that I figure I won't have immediate need for in a cupboard next to where I found the alchemy equipment. I hope this temple is as secure as I have been led to believe!
Frostcrag Spire isn't far from Cloud Ruler Temple as the crow flies, but finding the path turned out to be a bit of a hassle. Nevertheless, here I am, and that sure is the Oblivion Gate sky effect as I approach.
"The Kvatch mages guild is no more" :(
I was expecting a lot more trouble from this place.
Portal from Frostcrag to Imperial City: Convenient! No evidence of return portal: Not convenient. Time to quickload.
Checked out a random Oblivion Gate. Quickloaded midway through because I found an enchanted weapon and didn't have nearly enough spare weight. Note to self: Stash aggressively before entering a Gate.
These brothers are awfully glad to have the run of a ruined cottage full of human bones and rotting, toothless ogre corpses. (I took the teeth.)
These better be some fucking monstrous rats.
Ahaha, well played, Oblivion questwriters. Well played.
This Allesia Ottus character is hella snooty.
I've exhausted the Fighter's Guild quests here. Time to find the rest of those way-shrines. And by "time" I mean "tomorrow."
Day 6
Dumped more of my stuff in the cupboard at Cloud Ruler. Wayshrines time!
Only two Shrines to go. Curiously, it's the two near Anvil. I thought I'd done those.
Time to close an Oblivion gate! Dremora maces are ridiculously heavy. However, the enchanted ones are worth so much money. I carried two out with me. Only barely cut enough weight to walk away.
Where the fuck is the Arkay shrine?
Shouldn't Pelinal Whitestrake have got all his wondering out of the way in, like, the first century after his death? Isn't that enough time?
This lady gave me scrolls to help with a quest and now I can't move.
She also gave me a key to the LIBRARY.
Apparently, just looking at someone's pockets is still a crime.
Hey Highwayman, do you see that soldier right next to me? No? He sees you.
I just mistook the guard's horse for my own. Got packed off to the nearest Castle (wasn't very near at all). Quickload!
Ghosts want me to assemble a bunch of holy stuff so I can fight the ghost who killed a bunch of people in Anvil.
MY STUFF IS GONE. THE STUFF I PUT IN THE CUPBOARD IS GONE!
I was gonna stash the Holy Relics in there, but after all my stuff vanished from inside of it I don't know what to trust!
Day 7
Ugh okay my shit is gone this save is hosed fuck everything that isn't the main quest
Crazy cult books have oddly frequent paragraph breaks with big fancy letters. GREENEMPEROR, WAYWHERE.
Two doors outside of the mage college: Green Emperor Way. I wonder if I can sequence-break this.
Tomb of Prince Camril has an action, but doesn't do anything. "Come bearing four keys." Looks like I need all 4 books.
This dude who was buying the third volume panics easy. TOWERTOUCHES.
Had to reload the Mythic Dawn meet because I friendly-fired Baurus. "My killing has been observed by powers unknown." Probably has to do with The Nine faction and the Relics quests; doesn't matter now.
Baurus lives. Fourth book: MIDDAYSUN
The quest arrows seek to tempt me into Trespassing!
OH RIGHT, Dark Brotherhood! That must be the powers unknown.
Jeelus is fleeing.
I guess that dude wasn't supposed to make it through? I hoped that there could be a hook if you get him out of the shrine alive.
Thanks for the lore, Countess, but I got shit to save.
I hope the blacksmith's shop is open now. Gotta re-stock myself on repair hammers.
Hey, Keep Baurus alive, get free blades skill.
So I need a Daedric artifact. I wonder if Mehrunes' Razor, an official DLC item, counts for this quest. I believe it's the most dramatically appropriate item to use.
So "steal hit points as a touch attack" is a Restoration spell. Why would anyone need any other school of magic? And what point could there possibly be to being a vampire?
This armor apprentice I just murdered seems to have been a decent sort. His ostensible friend, the weapon apprentice, was a petty social-climbing asshole. Now they are both dead and it doesn't matter!
I would expect Vampires to be less wasteful of blood. The stuff is smeared all over the walls!
The Razor is not a valid sacrifice. Looks like I get to stab suckers with it!
I have contracted Porsomething Hemophilia.
So, once I'm done granting her vampiric former followers the peace of death, I hope Azura doesn't seal me in here to become a vampire and then get slain by the next dude who comes through looking for a boon.
The quest log says I have killed all of the vampires in the gutted mine. About that...
Prayed at altar at nearest temple. Through faith, my afflictions are banished!
So, if you serve The Nine and get bit by a vampire, you go to the nearest holy pit stop and get it cleared up. Serve Azura and get bit, you get sealed in a cave until someone gets sent to earn a favor by killing you.
"I won't ask what you went through to get it. I know all too well the depravity of the Princes of Oblivion." I mercy-killed some vampires, dude. Azura was cool. Not as cushy a job as serving the Nine, but neither was it a pact with evil.
Joffre just asked me to close a gate to Oblivion as you would ask someone to go buy groceries. "Go show the guards how it's done, they'll be able to handle it on their own from then on."
Okay soldiers, time to play Diablo 2: LoD save your town from an Oblivion Gate! Here's the tutorial: Step through a gate to hell, fight past the demonic servants of Baal Mehrunes Dagon, Lord of Destruction, and grab the arcane keystone of the aforementioned gate with your bare hands, causing it to collapse while you're inside. You'll be fine.
Captain Burd is unconscious. He got laid out by a trap.
One of the guards was whittled down by attrition. The other barely survived the Sigil Key bearer and was finished off by the Caitiff. I gotta learn heal other before I take another NPC along for this ride.
See? Just as it looks like the tower is about to burn up or explode with us inside, pow! We're out. The magic also expelled the corpses of the two fallen guards, so they can get a proper burial or something.
I am so sneaky goblins can run directly into me and not notice I'm there.
So we need a Great Sigil stone like the one they used at Kvatch? Hey good news buddy: I still have the stone I got from closing the Kvatch gate and have thereby averted the need for this very dangerous plan you are about to describe. Right?
Wrong.
Gonna get a mod for that next time around.
Setting a hard save before The Final Battle, on account of I didn't get any allies and that might mean some kind of Bad End. Also, my automatic backup is happening and that causes Oblivion to freeze.
Day 7
Friendly fire incident during the Battle for Bruma. Counted as a murder; I've paid the fine but everyone's Attitude score got set to near 0. Quest dialog is still "oh congratulations you're a hero" but the expressions are determined by attitude.
The smith still likes me, and that's all that matters. My enchanted Curiass is repaired and it's time to retrieve a MacGuffin.
Stabbed Camoran in his arrogant face with Mehrunes' Razor. Shoulda kept better track of this thing, Dagon!
Dagon's dagger doesn't hurt him, but he's pretty dumb when it comes to trying to kill me and Martin.
Martin's voice says I get to write an Elder Scroll now. Was there supposed to be some explanation of what an Elder Scroll is? I wasn't even sure that they were A Thing in the setting.
So I guess there's no "hero retires, roll credits" after you beat the main quest?
I ain't gonna sit around for two game-weeks just to get a suit I can't use. GAME OVER.