Fear and Loathing in Vvardenfell

The Road to Gnaar Mok

"Funny Head. Funny Head! Hey! Wake up! We leave. We kill Dagoth Gares. Wake up!"

I rolled over in my cot and groggily looked at who was speaking to me. I already knew who it was obviously, but in the haze of waking up I tried to get my bearings. Pip, of course it was Pip. And where were we? Oh...that's right. Buckmoth Legion Fort outside of Ald'Ruhn. And why were we here anyways? Oh...that's right: we have to go into a Sixth House base and confront/kill some demented humanoid creature named Dagoth Gares. Well, shit, this doesn't sound like something you should be excited about and definitely not something you want to wake up to.

"Okay, Pip. i'm awake. I'm awake! What...what time is it anyways?"

"It twelve. You sleep too long. We leave. Leave now."

"I only slept for a few hours; I can't work off of that! Fuck, Pip, really?" Pip ignored me and paced back and forth in the Imperial Cult dorm we had napped. "Okay, fine. Let me smoke a pipe and have a tiny drink and I'll be ready to go. And when did you become so eager to do your job anyways?"

Twenty minutes later we were ready to leave. The Cult was nice enough to give us a simple 'breakfast' if you could call eating after midday 'breakfast' in the first place: kwama eggs along with saltrice. It was filling but lacked anything fancy. A poor man's meal. But we were both poor so it was fitting and I couldn't complain. Free food is free food.

Before we left the fort we raided the chest that was ours to raid, filled with supplies scrounged up by the commander of the fort, Ms. Pullia. Opening it we found several sets of armor, and I opted to wear a rusted chainmail set. It weighed more than I thought it would and didn't really want to deal with it, but armor is better than nothing, especially when you're not as capable of self-defense as Pip was. Pip, wearing his shitty mage robe, opted to not put any other armor on; he'd 'defend himself' just fine without it.

The same was true for Pip regarding the weapons left to us; he didn't need anything besides his club. And I was happy with my dagger mostly because I didn't know how to use anything else. Maybe I'd take up archery someday -- that sounded interesting -- but not immediately before raiding a Sixth House base. These were The Bad Guys and I wasn't about to use a new weapon to defend myself from the murderous and insane bastards.

The chest also contained many other supplies, many of which Pip and I took. Potions to heal and cure disease, and even a couple of levitation potions. Pip knew how to levitate (being an esteemed mages' guild member) but I was ignorant so took the bottles. Potions to heal injuries and cure diseases were obvious enough to bring, but the fact was you never knew when you needed to fly into the air for a few seconds.

I grabbed a magic scroll -- an unassuming piece of paper with cryptic words that unleashed magic in various forms -- labeled 'Divine Intervention.' "Hey Pip," I asked, "what the hell is 'Divine Intervention?'"

Pip giggled in his strange Argonian way with hisses and gurgles interspersed with his chuckles. "Funny Head new to Morrowind. For Sure. Divine Intervention is magic, magic take you to Imperial Cult Shrine. It magic."

"So, I open this scroll, read it, and I magically appear at a Shrine?" Pip nodded. "What shrine does it take me to?"

"Whatever close to you."

"Okay." Picking up another similar scroll I asked what 'Almsivi Intervention' was.

"Almsivi Intervention mudcrab shit. The worst. It work same as Divine, but take you to Tribunal Temple Shrine instead." Pip spit on the ground in disgust.

"So what's so bad about it? It sounds like it does the exact same thing as Divine Intervention."

"Yessss. True. Pip hate Almsivi. Pip hate false gods. Almsivi. Alm-Si-Vi. Almalexia. Sotha Sil. Vivec. Three false gods. Scum of Mundus."