Fear and Loathing in Vvardenfell

The Crazies at the Cult

No one in this damn place is helpful. Everyone has their own goddamn agenda, trying to pedal their cause to you. Trying to sell you something. Trying to get you to join up with their grand crusades. Trying to recruit you to their side, to see things from their point of view, even though the last person you talked to had the opposing point of view. Did I want to be a fucking slaver on a plantation or did I want to free the poor souls? Would I like to promote the taxation of mead or stand for a strong and independent Vvardenfell with high tariffs? Did I have any real views, did I have anything concrete that people cared about or what I just some schmuck to join their cause? And apparently did my godless and heathen self want to join the Imperial Cult in Vvardenfell? At the cost of 'Only 50 septims!'?

To hell I didn't. Give me my money. Take my shitty reports and stories and ship them to the Imperial City, via Imperial Cult Care, to a Mister Pentillius from a Mister Octavius Venandus on assignment to cover whatever in Vvardenfell.

I was greeted by a madhouse as I walked through the door. About fifteen people stood in the relatively tiny room, with about half of them being actual cult members. The rest were workers, bureaucrats, laborers, and politicians having their own unique individual crises that required divine intervention to cure. One man, an obvious skooma-head, was rocking back and forth on a bench on the verge of panic as a cult member tried to comfort him. The look in his eyes was something I'd seen periodically throughout the years; this was a man on the verge of losing his own mind in some skooma-induced psychosis. Surely he'd be fine once he wasn't strung out anymore, but right now in his head the state of reality was constant gloom and doom. Death, anxiety, losing one's self, etc. I was glad I wasn't him nor the cult member desperately trying, and failing miserably, to assist him.

And a beautiful female Altmer, nicely dressed and shaking, and from the few sentences I overheard seemed she had quite the gambling problem. "I've lost everything!" and "I can't tell him...he can't find out..." mixed with sobs, cries, and panicky screeches. I'd seen cases like this before too; the urge to get the next big win, solve all of life's problems in one magical moment of luck where money ceases to be a problem. It's another addiction -- the next rush of adrenaline, the time you'll finally 'make it' -- and it's an addiction that is all-consuming.

A Bosmer was sulking and crying all over his professional and expensive suit. Maybe a tax professional whose wife was leaving him? Too much stress at work and unable to keep her happy perhaps. An impending mid-life crisis, thoughts of not living up to his potential constantly haunting him in the middle of night. The soul-sucking ability of tax and governmental work in general. I couldn't help but feel sorry for him and his plight. It scared me in a way; how long would it be until my own crisis manifested? It didn't seem like an "if" question but more of a "when" question, some impending doom in my future sure to appear someday. Even now with work to keep me busy there was something terrifying in front of me, somewhere out there. How long until I was in the midst of my own crisis?

For the Imperial Cult shrine supposedly being an uplifting religious institution it was shocking to see it as one of the most dismal and depressing places I'd come across in recent memory. Skooma dens and dive bars had better atmospheres than this place. Bad vibrations were everywhere and my instinct was to turn and escape as soon as possible -- I didn't need any more bad vibrations as I had plenty -- but I had no choice. I needed to mail these reports and hoped I could find some cash.

"Can I help you? Are you here to join the Imperial Cult?" a male Imperial asked of me, finally noticing me standing panic-stricken and fearful by the entrance. He appeared young and naive as if he hadn't yet been worn down by the grinding and soul-crushing work of the Imperial Cult.

"No. I'm here to...well. I'm a reporter from the Cyrodillian General Times, newly assigned to Vvardenfell District here in Morrowind. I was told to talk to someone here at the Cult to deliver my reports back to Cyrodiil. I'm also supposed to receive payments from you guys as well." I brought out my press papers and flashed them as I had practiced on the ship yesterday evening. The motion still felt awkward and silly, but it seemed to have some minor effect on people. Maybe it would come in handing on this adventure? At least he seemed mildly impressed by them.