Morrowind Part 2: Taxman

Part 2:

Now that I'm done mucking around in the Census office, it's now time to leave. As soon as I do, I get greeted by an elf face that's much too close for comfort. Jeez, have these people ever heard of not standing too close to area transitions?

As soon as I finish the configuration for Necessities of Morrowind, I'm greeted by Fargoth, the elf guy in the background. Seriously, I can't keep track of the elf races in this game.

Looks like poor Fargoth got his ring stolen by the guards. As it turns out, it was the ring that the game asked me to take from the barrel earlier. Being the nice guy I am, I give him his ring back. Because of that, his disposition (how much a character likes you) rises to 95 and we become the bestest of friends, with Fargoth complimenting me every time I pass by. Little does he know that we're going to betray him for more money later. After all, money is the best policy! (at least in RPGs) Fargoth also tells us that he'll tell Arrille, the owner of the tradehouse, about us. That'll give us a discount. It's always good to milk NPCs for everything they're worth in this game. (just like in real life!)

I decide to take advantage of Fargoth's goodwill so I go to Arrille's Tradehouse to buy some equipment. 

 

I have no idea how I have any money when I'm just a prisoner fresh off the ship but I do have money. It's not much but I do manage to buy an Iron Spear and an Imperial Chain Coif. It's not much, but it'll be enough until we can get enough cash to buy some decent stuff.

The carpenters of Morrowind must be pretty damn frustrated that no one's using their chairs.

It turns out that Arrille also has a bar above his shop. Also, why the hell is everybody standing up when there's a lot of perfectly good chairs to sit on? Anyway, I buy a couple of loaves of bread and some wine so my character has something to eat. I also talk to Hriskarr Flat-Foot, an Imperial soldier who tells me that Fargoth is hiding gold from them. He says that if I get the gold back, he'll give me a share. This is the part where we milk Fargoth for all he's worth.

After exiting the tradehouse, I come across this hot little number.

Apparently, we can travel together (tee hee hee) if I can raise her disposition high enough. You can raise her disposition by a tiny amount by giving her something to eat or drink. I gave up trying to raise her disposition since I needed food too. Pshhh. Women are so demanding. That's a nice relationship tip for ya: remember to keep stuffing your girl with food and drink to keep her happy.

I also come across this travelling merchant and her pack animal. Most of her stuff's too expensive but I do find this wig. Yeah, a wig. It also somehow has a higher armor rating than an iron coif. 

 

The townspeople are silent about my new hairstyle, but I know they're laughing. I can feel it. I take the wig off since it looks less awesome than my coif. Enough fooling around. It's time to kill stuff! Killing stuff is good! Killing is great! So is looting the cold, lifeless corpses of people! Yeah!

I decide to practice my killing skills on some mudcrabs in the swamps near Seyda Neen. 

They're not much of a threat, seeing as they go down in 2 spear hits. That's assuming that you can actually hit them, since your chance of hitting something in combat is decided by mysterious algebraic formulas based on your stats. That's why combat in Morrowind pretty much consists of you and the offending party staying in one place thwacking each other until you can actually hit them, especially in the lower levels.

While murdering the mudcrab population, I come across this guy's corpse.

Naturally, the first thing I do is to loot his ass! I find 200 drakes on his body as well as a tax record. It looks like he's Processus Vitellius, the taxman in these parts. I mention the corpse to the bald guy in the first part and he asked whether we found any money on his person.

Of course we “didn't”! Like the greedy bastard I am, I keep the gold for myself. Let the people of Seyda Neen worry about their missing tax money, we're going to spend it on some better equipment. But first, let's find the murderer. I mention the murder to the people in town but they don't know anything. Until I come across Foryn Gilnith. He says that he murdered the taxman because he was corrupt and kept the money to himself. Screw his beliefs, he's gonna have to pay for his crimes! And then we're gonna take his house when he's dead!

I engaged in vicious combat with Foryn, and by vicious combat I meant “hoping that the chance to hit is in my favor and getting the hell out of his house whenever I'm getting my ass kicked.” After getting my ass handed to me many times, I finally succeed in killing him! Hooray! He's a poor mofo, so he doesn't have much on him. I do however recover Processus' marriage ring. Not only that, we take possesion of Foryn's shack! Hooray!

I mention the murder again to the bald guy and we get 500 drakes as a reward. Add to that the 200 we stole from Processus' corpse and we get 700 drakes total! Who says the end doesn' t justify the means? I return the ring to Processus' wife and we get 2 Standard Restore Health Potions as a reward. Thanks!

After this, I roam around town looking for stuff to steal things to do. I come across a locked door to the Census and Excise Warehouse. Since it's a warehouse and the door's locked, there's bound to be some good loot in there. Unfortunately, the door's locked. Fortunately, I have this spell called Tower Key which can open a locked door worth 50 points once a day. However, a guard catches me trying to open the door. Good thing the criminal system is fucked up since I only had to pay 5 gold to loot a lot of items inside the warehouse. Thanks broken justice system!

Inside the warehouse, there's containers. Lots of them. Most contain typical stuff like food, pillows, and other random shit but I do manage to loot an Imperial Chain Cuirass and some other useful stuff. Thankfully the guards inside don't seem to matter that I've just broken in and stolen some of their stuff.

As soon as I leave the warehouse, I'm immediately attacked. I thought that the townspeople were going to exact bloody revenge for the theft of the tax funds but it turns out that it was just two random bandits. Thankfully, the guards take care of them right before I was going to run out of health. I loot their corpses for shields and some enchanted swords. Great.