Dishonored, and What's On the Horizon

Not too long ago, I finished off playing Dishonored, my silent killer teleporting all around the city putting his knife to peoples’ throats and ending them something quick.

Actually, he didn’t tend to do that too much.  Where in Skyrim, Red was something of a mass-murderer (I called her “the extinction event for humanity” at one point), Corvo was actually very polite with people.  Well, most people.  He would politely walk up behind them, and then politely choke them out, and then politely hide them while they slept so no one would stumble upon them.

It didn’t always work, of course.  I was climbing a massive lighthouse at one point and could not find an easy way around one of the guards.  So I loaded my crossbow with my patented (non-lethal) sleeping darts, took aim, and shot the guard.  He clutched his neck, stumbled a moment, then fell off the edge of this huge lighthouse.

I don’t think that guy survived.

But still, most times it worked out well.  I could climb all around the city and drop down near people, choking them out and putting them away.  I enjoyed choking out the last person in a line of people who were chatting with each other.  They others would keep talking while I dragged one of them away.  Then I would come back and wash/rinse/repeat.  Soon I’d have a pile of bodies all stacked up, all sleeping together.

Occasionally I would get a little frustrated with the game, give it a quick save, and then rush out and kill anyone I saw.  At the end of the day, I’d be standing in a mess of blood, smiling.  Then I’d go back to the save point and try to beat it without killing anyone.  Like the whole last run-through had been a dream.  Does that make me a sick man?

Anywho, my whole goal was to kill as few people as I could without constantly restarting the missions to get fewer kills.  I had a pretty good record, usually getting between 0-3 kills a mission.  Except one of the missions – the third one.  In this mission, there was a tower that would constantly zap anyone that came around not wearing a uniform.  I learned about its lethality first-hand.  I snuck up to choke out a guard in uniform at one point, and in the middle of choking him, the two of us were zapped by the tower.  He died and I got knocked away.  Another zap and I was dead.  Okay… maybe I should just ignore that group of people then.

I slipped past the tower and then in my exploring, I made my way back to it and rewired it so it wouldn’t shoot me anymore (my first rewiring!).

At the end of the mission, after recalling only a couple kills, the screen came up telling me I had killed 14 people.  What?!  Turns out that in rewiring the tower, it started shooting people with uniforms on instead.  So while I spent another hour or two wandering around and checking out the rest of the city, guardsmen constantly wandered in the way and got blown up.

After I beat the game, I went back and tried the mission again, this time with no kills.  It was much easier after I figured out that I didn’t actually need to do anything to the tower to make it through.

That was also the mission I learned how annoying little girls can be.  I found the Empress’ daughter who had been kidnapped, gave her a big hug, and sighed relieved.  I had just spent a long time cautiously sneaking around the building and making my way to her room without anyone noticing.  She told me she was happy to see me, then told me to follow her.  And she took off running down the stairs.  Running!  Seriousness!  Not knowing what to do I started chasing her, afraid at every turn that I would have a bunch of guards standing in my way.

It didn’t happen, of course.  She was pretty smart – she knew the guard-less route out of the building.  I told her to wait in the dark, cold alley while I headed back in the building and got some killing done.

So Dishonored is finished.  I can’t count all the different ways I died in the course of the mission.  One of my favorites was standing on top of a train that got run through an electric disintegration field.  The next time I tried that one, I jumped off before reaching the field.  I think I was also eaten by piranhas once, and spat at by plants.

But with Dishonored now finished, it’s time to move on to my next game.  By brother-in-law got me Assassin’s Creed 3 for Christmas.  Looks like I’m about to get some more killing done, Revolutionary-War-style!

Red Retired

Today marked the end of Red's career in Skyrim. Dragon attacks were becoming more and more rampant and I decided it was time to do something about it. Whiterun had been built to hold a dragon, so it was there that I started my journey to defeat the evil world-ender black dragon. The journey took me far and wide, trying to broker a truce between the two armies long enough to handle the dragon situation. While I was sitting in the council, I realized that there would be no lasting peace in the lands until I did something about it.

Once I returned to these lands after defeating Aldrun, I went to Solitude and joined the army. Over less than 24 hours, I put Stormcloak after Stormcloak to the sword, liberating many forts with the help of my trusty horse, the only friend I had who joined me.

Honestly, the army at my back was kinda superfluous. They just succeeded in getting in the way of my sword from time to time while I was killing Stormcloaks.



With the forts liberated, Windhelm sacked, and the leader of the rebels dead by my hand, I retired from my life in the army.

I tried a few more minor quests, trying to help out some people I had met along my journey, but they all left me feeling hollow. Nothing I was to accomplish in the future would ever stand up to what I had already done. I finally decided it was time to get married and retire from adventuring altogether.

I went to the town that I had spent my whole early career defending - Riverwood. There I went to the merchant and his sister who I had helped earlier. The merchant didn't want to marry me, but his sister did, so we set a date and headed off to the chapel to get married.

I forgot about the dress code and showed up fully dressed in my armor.



From there, my wife and I moved to Solitude where my house was. I hung up my sword, set my armor aside, and lived out my days in peace.

Lessons from Skyrim

It's been a while since I've written about Red, my warrior-turned-sneaky-git-turned-assassin-turned-blacksmith-and-enchanter. She's been traveling around Skyrim killing dragons, saving people, killing people, etc. I swear, this is one f-ed up land. Here are a few things I've learned:

ON MEETING NEW PEOPLE
When I see someone in the distance, unless I'm in a city, my instinct is to drop down, sneak up, and either shoot them with a bow or, if I'm feeling gutsy, slit their throat with a knife. What ever happened to... I don't know... talking to people you just met?

I guess it comes down to learning. Early on in my career, I tried talking to people, but it turned out they were more interested in killing me. I'd walk into a set of ruins, see someone practicing with a sword and try to shout out, "Hey, sorry to interrupt. Would you happen to know where the closest merchants are to here?" And they'd say, "Hurry up and die so I can count your coin!" And I'd say, "Whoa, whoa, it's not that kind of day. We don't need to get into this violent intercourse!" And they'd reply with "You're easier to rob when you're dead!" By this point, all their friends would be joining in, shooting me with their bows, casting black magic on me, and stabbing me with their swords. I'd sigh, take a hint, and kill them all.

It became fairly predictable, so now my first instinct is to shoot someone as soon as I see them. Only every 20th time or so do I make a mistake, but I figure if I'm killing 19 evil people for every one good person, I'm still coming out ahead, right?




ON THE HOUSING MARKET
So anyway, as my career has progressed, I found myself needing someplace to live. I had two barrels in Riverwood that I used to stash all my stuff (I'm quite glad none of the people who lived there stole it all) but that wasn't enough. Soon I found a nice cave with a tanning station, a cooking fire, a sharpening grindstone, and a ton of barrels. So I walked in and asked politely if I could move in. I was rebuked, so rather than seek the next domestic option, I killed the previous owners. I'm glad the real housing market's not like that. Soon enough, I was moved in and living large. Someone even came in and cleared out all the bodies for me one day. Very polite.

Only soon I found out that if I stayed in the cave too long, someone would steal all my stuff. Well crap, I didn't want that to happen. So I explored my options and decided that Solitude was the city for me. I performed a few tasks, and was given permission to purchase a house. I did so, then went and checked it out. It was sparse. So I ditched all of my gear in a barrel the house (I needed as much room to carry stuff from cave to house as I could), went back to purchase some upgrades, then started the long task of carrying all my stuff from my cave to my house.

I got quite a few comments from people about running around naked and why I should not do that. I ignored them. If I put on my armor, it was one less Dragon Bone I could carry each trip!

So I finally got everything moved in a couple hours and went to the barrel to get my stuff. Only the barrel was gone and had been replaced with a houseplant! I lost all of my best armor and weaponry. Fortunately, I had been spending time learning to Smith and Enchant, and managed to recreate my entire wardrobe.


ON BUILDING A STRONG RESUME
Now finally decked out and having my new house, I embarked on several career paths. I visited the mage's college where I continued my education despite the fact that I completed nearly every task they gave me while using only a sword and shield. Evidently they didn't check my work. They just wanted results. So when they saw they re-dead undead guy, they gave me an "A" for Destruction Magic Use rather than looking at him and realizing there were sword cuts all over him and not a sign of magical fire. Through a series of what I consider colossal blunders in their applicant screening process, I managed to rise the ranks until finally I was chosen to be archmage.

Decked out in some new threads (which I promptly put on a mannequin in my home and redonned my dragonscale armor), I decided to explore other options. I joined the Companions, a group of fighters, and due to an unfortunate mishap that claimed the life of their leader, I was given the role of being the new leader with less than a week's membership under my belt.

Next I joined both the theives' and assassin's guilds. It's harder to accomplish these two at the same time because they have very different methods. The assassins want me to kill their targets and the thieves want me to keep their targets alive to be exploited yet again. It leads to rather amusing conversations like one I had at the thieves' guild a few days ago:

THIEVES' GUILD LEADER: "So you need to go and find this guy. He's betraying us!"
RED: "Betraying us? I'll slit his throat for that!"
THIEVES' GUILD LEADER: "Whoa, simmer down there, Red. We don't want to kill him. He'll still be useful later."
RED: "Oh, right."

I'm also evidently learning to become a cannibal, a treasure hunter and a pirate-killer on the side. I checked back over my completed quests yesterday and I'm quite versatile.

Until I realize that each of those quests accounts for, on average, ten people dead. Then I realize I'm a sociopath.




ON THE IMPORTANCE OF FRIENDS
Having selected, primarily, the assassin track, I have found my jobs are much easier when I'm doing them alone. But in the past few days, my circle of friends has expanded from zero to three.

First, I befriended an undead ghost. Well, maybe "befriended" is too strong a word. I achieved some task and was given the ability to summon him once a day. So really, this guy has no choice but to be my friend. I think he likes me, but he's usually kinda freaky. If I'm the silent sociopath, he's the loud and bragging one.

On the plus side, he makes my looting much easier. I mean, I have no reason to loot anymore - I have more food, ingredients, magical weapons, potions, scrolls, wooden bowls, armor, gems and money than I can possibly need in a lifetime, but I can't help put steal every potato and set of butterfly wings I can find. So when I summon my new friend, he'll go running head-first into a fight while I wander around and pick up apples and grilled leeks until he's killed (again).

My second friend is a horse that came out of a black pit of tar or something. I'm a little hazy on how all this works, but now I have a black horse with red eyes. Very unnatural. I couldn't get the hang of riding a horse and was hoping honestly that its owner would take him back, but she gave him to me instead and now I'm stuck with a horse. I was unhappy until the first time a dragon appeared when I had my horse and the horse ran up and started attacking the dragon. Good on him! I mean, he was severely outclassed, but still. That's some initiative, right?

Had another occasion where I was coming up on a group of folks. I jumped off my horse and crept closer, getting a count and eye on my targets (remember, I don't talk to people first... just kill them). Only before I could get to them, I found that my horse had found them first and was engaged in combat with three bandits. Hilarious to watch!

My third friend was a little unusual. I was wandering around Solitude, headed out for some quests, and then came back to my house and there was a woman sitting in my chair. "You get lost?" she asked demandingly. I was freaked - what was this woman doing in my house?! But then I remembered - my Jarl told me she was assigning me a Housecarl because I was the new Thane (add that to my resume). Now she hangs around my house all day in her armor. I think she secretly wants me to ask her if she wants to join me on a quest. Like the teenager who sits by the telephone in case it rings, she doesn't want to miss that one opportunity. So she sits in my front chair watching the door dressed and ready to go adventuring.




ON MARRIAGE
I did talk to her at one point. It was very odd - she commented on my medallion, and than said she was surprised that I wasn't already taken. I asked her if she was interested in me, and she said that of course she was, then asked if I was interested in her. I exited that embarrassing conversation right quick.

She's not the first person to hit on me. The archer in the Companions also hit on me and asked me to marry her.

Laura (my real-life wife) was watching the game at that point and thought it was hilarious how only women seemed to want my character, who was also a woman. We went back through some of the other characters in the game we had met and decided immediately on who we wanted to marry:

J'zargo.

I mean, that man is the best! He's funny, confident. As J'zargo says, there is much for J'zargo to be confident about. Magical prowess, charm. He's got it all. He is a cat, which would be a little odd with the copulating and the shedding, but I think we could get around that with an open mind.

So I went off to the mages' college to talk to J'zargo. I had already done a lot to help him in the past (reading scrolls to undead and getting burned in the process), and he had joined me several times when dragons attacked the college. Plus I was his superior officer, so I had the whole sexual harassment angle I could pull too. I found him, cornered him, and started talking. "Ah, you are a woman to warm the heart of J'zargo in this cold place," he said. Great intro, right? Only he never gave me the chance to ask him to marry me. J'zargo's too much to be a one-lady man, I guess.

Lunch hour... it's not just for eating anymore

I am lucky enough to have a job that's only a few minutes away from my house. Lately around 1:30 or so I'll roll out, head home, throw some lunch on the stove and then fire up Skyrim. Today was no exception. Also, I figured out how to take snapshots during the game, so I have a few scenes from my journeys.

I started out heading to my cave I live in. There's a bunch of dead bodies and heads on pikes out front, but I swear that's from the previous tenants. I dropped off a bunch of stuff, picked up about 15,000 gold, and headed out into the great wide world. I was close to level 41, so I wanted to pay someone to make me smarter at something. My goal was to get my Smithing or Enchanting up, but after wandering around for a while and not finding anyone who wanted to teach me, I settled for the first person I could find at the mages' place. A rather unattractive and mousy woman came up to me and practically begged me to tell her that Restoration Magic was a real type of magic (it reminded me of my college days when I tried convincing people that my major, psychology, was a real science). I rolled my eyes and told her she was special too, then paid her a bunch of money to teach me Restoration magic.



From there I headed north to the great snowy lake. It looked cold. I mean real cold. I wandered around looking for somewhere to explore and saw a boat on my map. Crazy, I've never been to a boat. I kept following it until it forced me out to sea. I wondered briefly if I would freeze to death in these waters, but evidently not. I swam and swam and soon passed the boat. Huh? I swam back and passed it again. I pondered for a minute, then dove underwater. Holy hecks, there's a huge shipwreck at the bottom of the ocean! I swam around it for a while, exploring, and then my life started draining. Uh oh. I pushed out of the boat and started swimming to the surface but got caught under a piece of ice and drowned.

I considered going back to the boat after I respawned, but decided I'd better wait until I had something to help me breathe underwater. I got to the boat so it would be on my map, and then headed out another way. I found an undead guy chilling on an ice island and put him in his place. He rewarded me with a sweet bow that has a chance of paralyzing people. Not too bad, right?

From there I headed to the next place to explore on my map. It was a cave of some kind, and I snuck in down the ice tunnel. Soon enough I found what looked to be a huge brass box.



There was a guy in the cave who talked nonsense and told me to go get him some stuff so he could figure out the box. Whatever. I'll get to it soon enough.

From there I swam to the end of the world. There was nothing there but more snow and ice. So I headed back.

After a misadventure at a huge fort where I was experimenting at blowing up undead with a friend's scrolls and got killed by two arch conjurers, I decided to go where it was warmer. I found a cave and went digging around in it. It was filled with those blind elf-looking critters. I killed a few of them and then crept into a room with two of them. They spotted me and charged me, flanking me. I took one down and then turned around to kill the other one. As soon as I delivered the killing blow, he disappeared. I couldn't find him to loot him. Until I looked on the ceiling. Crazy - he fell up and got stuck on the ceiling of the cave!



I kept heading deeper in to the caves and found some more dwarven architecture. Cool stuff! Until a dwarven mechanical guard came after me. He was quite frightening. Until I started fighting him, that is. At that point he just stopped moving and looked at me as I dismantled him. Odd, right?

I guess that's good enough for lunch. I signed off and headed back in to the office.

It's a... What Kind of Dragon is it?

It had been a long, harrowing trip. I found some dwarven shields, lots of ore, weaponry and jewelry. I was able to enchant them to get better with magic and to increase their value. Things were looking good for Red, local adventurer extraordinaire. I packed up my ill-gotten loot and headed to Riverwood to sell it. Seriously, this merchant always has money and he loves me. Good man.

I walked into Riverwood and heard the tell-tale music again. A shadow crossed overhead. I started looking around, saw the dragon, drew back my bow and laughed. What a fool, coming to MY town. Let the arrow go and it scored a direct hit, and the enemy name came up: Elder Dragon. The life bar moved down a hair. Oh S---! It saw me, chased me, and breathed on me. My life dropped by a third immediately and even after he stopped breathing on me, I kept burning. I put away my shield and pulled out my healing spells. I ducked under an awning as I heard other villagers scream in terror. No time for that – I had to heal myself back up. I peaked around and shot arrows.

After about 10 minutes, I finally grounded it in the streets and charged it. It turned its head, saw me, and breathed a massive gulf of flame on me. I cut the dragon a couple times, but before I could pull out my potion to heal myself, I was burned down.

Respawn, find the dragon again.

This time I tried to lure him down the river away from Riverwood (as I did, I realized why the Elder Dragon decided to attack - someone had gotten rid of all the dragon skeletons! He didn't know he was going to die here!) I hustled to the river and found a rock outcropping to put my back to as the dragon came by. Didn’t even slow down – just put fire on me and flew on. Damn. He circled and did it again. The rocks weren’t helping. I dove underwater to try to avoid being shot at by the breath weapon. Eventually the dragon bored of fighting me and went back to breathing on the town. I ran back to help out and the dragon landed on a building. He looked at me as I shot him and, no joke, one breath took me IMMEDIATELY from full to dead. Ouch! Crit, I guess.

Respawn again.

This time I was more cautious, using the buildings to shoot at him from afar. I’d take only a couple shots and if he ever looked like he was about to breathe on me, I ducked for cover. Finally grounded him back in the lumberyard and kept shooting from a bit away. There were villagers for the dragon to kill instead of me, so that's good, right? Eventually he was low enough that I charged him with my sword and cut him down.

Take that, Elder Dragon!

Skyrim

Evidently there’s a game called Skyrim out there that’s taking off. A week and change ago I did a little research (it’s really hard not to do research on this game – just going to any nerd blogs or sites I was bombarded by images and stories) and decided that this might be a game for me. I loved Fallout 3, and I liked Dragon Age, so combining the two sounded pretty cool.

This game has been a tremendous ride so far. I jumped in, was lost as to what to do for a little while, went meandering around, happened back upon the main story for a while, and have now spent the last 20+ levels ignoring what the game is telling me to do and just wandering around finding bandits to kill and tombs to rob. Evidently there’s a civil war going on that I can join a side in. And I guess I could find out why all the dragons are back. But I’m having too much fun amassing a massive fortune and exploring the world.

One thing I like about it is how it doesn’t really go easy on you in the early game. When I was level 5 or 6, I spotted a fire off in the distance so I headed that way. I saw wooly mammoths and thought, “that’s awesome!” Then I saw a giant tending them. Sweet! The giant spotted me as I tried to sneak around and see what else was around. He took two huge steps, swung his club, and in one hit, I was flying through the air dead.

Okay, lesson learned. Don’t see the giants. But it gave me a goal – now I can take on the giants without worrying too much, so long as I plan things out right. Can’t take out a pair of giants and their wooly mammoth friends, though.

I had a similar experience the first time I found a troll. I learned quickly how to sneak at that point and managed to bypass him, but it took a few failed fights to figure out that I should try things differently.



Outside the main story, the first time I saw a dragon was hilarious. In the main story you end up fighting one with a large group of soldiers at your side and manage to kill it off. But soon, dragons start appearing elsewhere as you’re wandering around. I remember I was in the mountains by the river near a waterfall when a huge shadow passed over me. I looked up and… “OH SH--!!!! DRAGON!!!!!” It kept flying past me and breathing fire on me. I tried to get to high ground to be able to attack it, but it kept out of reach. I tried to pull out my bow and shoot at it, but I was pretty bad with my bow. Soon, dying, I decided escape was the best route. I dove into the river and followed the rapids, trying to outpace the dragon. I saw white foam ahead a little too late, tried to fight the current, and got swept over the edge of the waterfall, crashing on the ground dead.

I spent the next few levels learning how to shoot a bow.

The next time a dragon came around, I was in Riverwood, heading out from selling off a bunch of loot. The dragon attacked and I dodged from building to building, pulling out my bow and taking shots as I could. Finally the beast was grounded and I charged it with my sword, cutting it down. It was awesome.

The people of Riverwood hauled the skeleton of the dragon out of their village and left it in the road as a warning for other dragons not to mess with Riverwood. It didn’t work. There are now three dragon skeletons out front serving warning. Riverwood is under MY protection, bitches!