And She Lives!

My husband who for some reason likes hearing about The Hero of Kvatch tinkered with Oblivion for me today.    The title and background music is gone but the game play is stable.

Having no confidence after my failure at the last cave, I went around the lake near Imperial City working the mudcrabs to get my blade skills up a bit, since whenever I panic I just go whack whack whack.

A couple of creatures and a bandit later, I went back to my home sweet shack and practiced my alchemy.

Then off to the Gilded Carafe to sell my potions to Miss Wrinkly Nose the Proprietor  (you know how they smoosh up their faces at you between sentences when they don’t like you).   A few weapons to one of the Three Brothers and over to Edgar’s Discount Spells where I could now purchase a single new spell.  I tortured between Major Wound (Drain Health) and Summon Scamp. 

I do love my conjured skeleton these days and don’t know if the scamp is significantly better but skellie is my pal and the wound might give me an edge.  Major Wound it is.  Now to try it out on some marauders…

Oblivion: Should I kill her off?

My Mage is getting pounded terribly at level 7.  I think I need to back up and not buy my house (though I was up till 2 in the morning one night getting the money) and use the money on spells.

Or, back her way up and re-do her as a better Mage now that I see how to play her, or be a weasly goof and make a warrior as I always do and just slice those stinker marauders with the tip of my Claymore.

I also had about five tries in a row to get a good session (presaged by the playing of the opening music) and nada, so I am discouraged.

This made me want to play Morrowind but I really really want to play it on my gaming pc not my POS laptop.  I can get rid of the Font =0 message by installing in C Program Files rather than C Program Files (x86) but the music error will not go away. I can play the files as Mp3s no problemo in the Bethesda Data Files folder but as the game comes up it’s a no go.

So…Skyrim.  I think I should re-roll her for sure.  I pulled her out of the Temple she was in and sent her down the mountain to regroup.  There was a terrific snowstorm all the way down with a couple of wolf attacks. No problem killing the wolves.

But I’m walking through this field at the bottom and there are three other people casually walking along too, and I’m thinking they’re farmers or townspeople walking around the place at 2 am (game time) when oops they’re bandits and I’m dead pretty quick.  I will definitely start her over.

The Hero of Kvatch…Maybe

As happens I got tired of merely going into the forts and caves surrounding the Imperial City.  I had to back out of a cave with a couple of Conjurors who just flattened me.  😦 

I have always played with Claymore in hand and heavy armor and have used little magic.  Now that I’m depending on magic I really need some strategies for dealing particular kinds of enemies.  Conjurors.  Imps.  Bandits respond nicely to Flare and Shock.

I decided I should go ahead and start the main quest after all and also join the Mages and Fighters guilds. 

This brought me to Kvatch and the Oblivion Gate.  Lootmeister that I am, I’m stopping and gathering every bit of Blood Grass and Harrada Root I come by.  I’m going in any doorways I find such as the Sump of Misery and its extension the Desolate Well.  I love those Fleshy Pods.  My gold level is going up nicely.

Entering the Tower Portal to the Blood Feast (don’t you love these names) I thought I was getting a room with two Imps who succumb nicely to Cold Touch, but to my shock a Dremora Churl came running out of a doorway on the right and I was fighting two Imps and the Churl.  I fought rather long and desperately but died.  😦

Re-entering I went left to try to get rid of the Imp there first.  I got him down quickly but the Churl was suddenly right there.  In a better fight I killed him and restored enough health and magicka to get Imp two.

I’m getting solid non-freezing play sessions now using compatibility settings for Windows Service Pack 3.

For some reason, though I went in and changed the settings, I can’t take screenshots anymore.  I’m not willing to tempt fate by going in and changing the config again.

Picture me dead beneath the feet of a Dremora for now.

The UESP Wiki Map of the Kvatch Oblivion Gate World.  Printed for myself too so I can get all the loot 🙂

The Foaming Flask

I wandered the city a bit hoping a merchant or tavernkeeper might buy my loot.  I spoke with the denizens of The Foaming Flask then wandered around doing a bit more of the same.

Very clunky movement and interface tonight with a couple of freezes.  This put me IN A MOOD so when it began raining and the wind began howling I stopped by the little shack by the docks which is the first house you can buy.

Coming away from the shack I was approached by the unfortunately named First Mate Malvulis who warned me in no uncertain terms that I’d be in trouble if I went on her ship.

So, I did a most unusual thing, I ran and jumped on her ship like a yahoo and sure enough her gnarly crew followed me and made short work of me and my skellie.

A tad unfriendly.   I’ll avoid them once I get my snuggly shack.  I did not save with me dead.

So close to getting out of the sewers…

I’m painstakingly moving along, saving constantly.

Here I stumbled into a chair and couldn’t get out.  Maybe the smell of roasting rat was too appealing.

 Froze a fair few times especially in the last dialogues with the Emperor.  Combat is practically slow motion, it could not be more unresponsive.  Rats, I say.

My character, who turned out pretty well. Usually human faces are really blotchy.

There I was, looking at the archway out of the sewers when a goblin jumped up behind me and I couldn’t turn to cast a spell or swing but he was having at it, my light armor skill kept increasing.   That is rather unfair. If you’re going to freeze the game, freeze the goblin too.

A gratuitous shot of my secret in game crush (besides Martin) Baurus.

On Microsoft’s Windows 7 compatibility page, my edition of Oblivion is marked “compatible”.   Hahahahahaha.