Fear and Loathing in Vvardenfell

Accepted

Mr. Venandus,

You giant sack of mudcrab shit, now what am I going to do? The lead editor, Mr. Pentillius, just informed me of a certain "new Vvardenfell reporter" with the name that is curiously the same as yours. I wonder who that could be? He even mentioned that this new Morrowind-assigned reporter works for the Skingrad Gazette and lives in Skingrad: it's you you filthy bastard, isn't it? Now what am I supposed to do? Do you know how many reporters we (meaning myself) have in Skingrad? One. Well, zero now, because that one used to be you. You know how the town of Skingrad is; who the hell am I supposed to find to write for our paper now? I now have to sift through the utter rejects in town for someone to replace you. I bet 75% of the residents aren't even literate and I'm supposed to find someone to write for a job? You've just made my life a living hell, and to hell with you.

While I might be pissed -- and I hope I made myself clear about that -- I am writing to confirm that, yes, you have been reassigned and promoted from a lowly and solitary Skingrad Gazette reporter to a national Cyrodillian General Times reporter based in Morrowind -- Vvardenfell of all places. Mr. Pentillius intended to write a 'formal' letter notifying you of this, but I decided to do him a 'favor' and write it myself. This way I can make it abundantly clear how much you've inconvenienced me with your silly promotion. Anyways, your orders are as follows: report to the Imperial City as soon as you can. Talk to Mr. Pentillius at the offices and he will give you your proper assignment and press papers. Thanks for fucking me over, Octavian. Rot in Oblivion.

With love and best regards,

Rufus Salvaso

What a magnificent way to start the day. It had been about a week since I sent resume along with my request off to the Imperial City, and I was beginning to lose all hope about it. The denizens that haunt the payroll of the Cyrodillian Post are incompetent, but I assumed a rejection/acceptance letter would've arrived much earlier. For all I know they could've shipped my papers hallways across Tamriel because they literally are that incompetent, but luckily something showed up promptly in the mail.

I also want to clearly state for the record that I have zero regret for screwing my immediate supervisor over. My reporting is basic and there is nothing special to it; he will be able to find a replacement easily. Even if this means he has to hire an illiterate person to do the work along with a second person to write down what the illiterate new-hire says. And Skingrad might have to go without their local news stories for a few weeks. How will the poor, paranoid fools manage?! Oh no!

...A Few Days Later

I've arrived. What a journey. And I mean that in the most sarcastic way possible; the journey was hell. But as before, it was a boring type of hell. The Imperial City is close enough to Skingrad to not require a rented horse, but far enough away that walking was still a pain in the ass. I hiked along the road towards the city for days with nothing surrounding me but open grassland and claustrophobic forests. Imperial Legion guards lined the roads frequently enough that bandits were never an issue for me; the road between the IC and Skingrad is a major trading route and is well-guarded. A raid along this road would be a suicide mission for any intrepid bandits who we're ballsy enough to try it. There were no issues, which I almost regret with the boredom I suffered through. Sometimes I wanted action. Sometimes I wanted to kill some goddamn bandits. The dagger on my right hip hasn't seen any real action. Ever. The steel is as reflective as the day it was forged.

The IC's walls loomed massively in front of me as I crossed the bridge to the main gate, the walls glowed a luminescent white that seemed to emit light even in the dark. The main spire standing in the middle of the city rose towards the heavens like a needle, the tallest building in Cyrodill: this is the imperial palace where the much hated and despised Uriel Septim VII resides, frequently referred to as Senile Septim the Seventh by a majority of the people. When you don't have a democratic government The People require no pride in their ruler. He would never be voted out; he was there by birth and would be there until death and very few people actually liked the guy or his flawed policies. Seeing the palace rise up into the sky like that I couldn't help but wonder where Senile Seventh actually was inside the spire. What if he was looking out a window at this poorly dressed traveler crossing the main western bridge into the city? I waved towards the spire just in case. None of the windows returned a wave as far as I could tell.