"I must have a nose for these thnigs," Alanya muttered to herself as she cautiously snuck in, spear ready to call forth its enchantment. "Hmm, maybe that Fjord the Bandit I'm looking for is in here ..."
As it turned out, he wasn't - the closest to a Nord Bandit of great skill and infamy was the female Orc Bandit that was guarding a bridge in the cave, who managed to get the drop on Alanya. That fight was hard - hard enough to make Alanya swig some sujamma with her healing potion - but after that Orc, the rest of the banits were little match for a sneaky woman with a Bound Spear enchantment ^_^.
"Whoa, that sujamma packs a whalop ..." Alanya muttered after her fight with the Orc - well, after her wits returned when the sujamma wore off. "Hmm, there's a good use for my new wealth - we're buying ourselves an enchanted something or other to give me bearlike strength without the kick to the inside of my skull this stuff causes ..."
(Of course, Alanya blithely disregarded the fact that she was a skilled alchemist when making this decision, as brewing Potions of Bearlike Strength would deprive her of an excuse to go visit a certain enchantress in Balmora she had grown to like ...)
And thus began The Quest for the 'Amulet of the Bear', a frightening tale of strained back muscles and weary feet, of overused Amulets of Recall and barely-known Spells of Intervention, of trips to merchants all over Balmora and Caldera, and of course ...
... the meeting of J. Edgar Creeper!
"I'm Creeping! Thank you Caldera, I'm here all week!" sayeth The Creeper!
"... Why do you guys let this thing live ... with you?" Alanya asked the Orcs in the manor.
"He's funny," was the general consensus, followed closely by "And he stinks at card games, so we have plenty of sujamma gold."
"I see ..."
Back and forth, to and fro, selling items, lugging items from cave to cave, dealing with snippity merchants eager for items but leary of parting with gold in the mornings and Cliff Racers flying over her newly-claimed home and rats playing in her new frontyard marsh at night. Oh, and another Dark Brotherhood assassin - or was that just a bad dream Alanya had? She couldn't tell; by now she had lost count of the times these jokers showed up >.<
"Galbedir dearest, must you charge so much for a simple strength-boosting amulet?" Alanya despaired one day in the Mages's Guild. "I've been selling loot for almost a week straight; at this rate I might as well become a trader and hang up my spear ..."
"Oh Alanya honey, I wish I could charge less, really," Galbedir sighed, hugging her favorite customer close. "But enchanting's hard, especially when you can't afford to mess up. There's expensive Potions of Guarenteed Success you got to keep stocked, fees to the Guild for the lab equipment, payments to the city elders for living with the occasional odd smell or rampaging Antronach, the Guildmaster's cut, and of course retirement funds ..."
"And this from an enchanter who loves me," Alanya groaned. "Oh well; another two, maybe three days and I should have the money you're asking for ..."
"Great!" Galdebir cheered, "Now, let me help make the aches and pains of loot-ferrying go away ..."
------
And so Alanya spent close to 26,000 gold to get herself an Amulet of the Bear, and some more enchantment training to try and cut down on the charge cost of her new toy, and I the player started asking myself " ... So, there's like bandits and monsters and lost artifacts and other stuff in this game somewhere; I ought to go look for them ..."
Thus did Alanya think back to the tasks Larrius Varro had asked of her, and finally, fully moved-in to her stylish new cave, she said "Now then, there's a Nord who needs to be found ..."
------
Find the Nord, Round Two had officially begun, as Alanya walked out of her cave, stabbed a Cliff Racer to death to pass through her front door, and tested her Ring of the Toasy Bones on some random Bull Netches that were blocking the sun. Test results - Netch meat tasted good when cooked and shooting fire from her ring was a lot easier than trying to shoot with a bow and then dodge a spew of poison.
" ... Well okay, so it's not quite what the ring was meant for; I might as well put it to some use," Alanya rationalized, munching on some Netch Jerky. "Anyway, let's try searching further north of Hla Oud ..."
And so Alanya went off again, by now painfully aware of how much time had passed since she last spoke to Caius; the old coot may have given up on her by now ... but no matter; there were Nords to find!
Passing prime hunting grounds and foraging sites - Alanya smiled again at her choice of a new home - Alanya happened up ... another bandit cave, north of Hla Oud and sitting in the middle of nowhere. Reasoning that her Nord target was a bandit and thus might be operating out of such a cave, she snuck in, muttering under her breath that the sheer number of bandit groups operating in this one area was just shy of ridiculous ...
"Wow, a bandit cave with Nix Hounds and Shalks," Alanya mused as she snuck up and killed man and beast alike one by one - the two being one and the same to her. "Smart bandits; have blighted hounds wandering the cave to deter would-be adventurers. Wonder how they keep the hounds from attacking their own?"
So curious was Alanya about this that, when the Nord bandit who saw her approaching drew his sword to fight her, she instead said "Wait - before we fight, tell me, what's with the pets you guys have here?"
"Huh?" the Nord grunted, unused to the idea of an intruder looking for conversation.
"I mean, I found two Blighted Hounds; what's up with them?" Alanya asked, stamping her foot in impatience.
"Beats me," the Nord grunted. "I didn't let them in; that would explain why no one's come to relieve me from my post in the past three weeks ..."
" ... Tell you what; let me take care of that for you right now," Alanya offered, and spear and sword clashed in the damp caves of death.
Feeling exuberant after a hard but exciting fight, Alanya dared to rest for a bit ...
"Ha! You're mine!" the Assassin cried, whiffing his dart - stupid assassin.
"Oh? Am I dreaming again?" Alanya asked sleepily.
"No - you're being killed to avenge my four or five other fallen brothers!" the assassin sneered from under his mask.
"Oh - you're number six? Wow; I had lost track ..." sighed Alanya, putting him to sleep with four thrusts.
------
An hour later, Alanya groaned under the weight of the loot she liberated, even with her new amulet and some sujamma. She grunted, asking the slain bodies of the bandits "So, which Dwarven ruin did you guys raid to get all this stuff? You realize how many trips it will take me to convert all this stuff to gold, even with J. Edgar Creeper being totally clueless as to the value of bargaining? Had you no consideration for the heroic Rangers who would someday come by, put an end to your wicked ways, and try to live off your swag?"
Getting no answer, Alanya harumphed, made a teleport hop back to her new cave, stuffed all the crates with her new stuff, and flopped into bed, sighing "We'll go looking for the Nord Fjord when I wake up ..."
------
Find the Nord, Round Three!
Off again to explore north of Hla Oud, and this time, as the sun crept back under the horizon, Alanya saw an imposing figure pacing irritably back and forth near a road she had passed once before.
'Hmm ..." Alanya muttered, sneaking up and whispering "Fjord ... Fjord ..." in her best ghostly voice.
"Argh, what dead beastie seeks Fjord the Bandit!?" the man snarled, whipping out his axe. "I'm Fjord and not afeared of man or monster; give me whatever gold you have specter, and I'll let you stay in the lands of the living for another night!"
"Will you take a Breton lass with perfect legs?" Alanya said teasingly, popping her spear's and amulet's enchantments ...
------
"Ah Alanya, how are you?" Larrius asked as the Breton Ranger returned to the fort.
"All right - found your Nord for you," Alanya said, absently posing.
"Oh? Where is he at?" Larrius asked. "I'll send some guards to take him in ..."
Alanya blinked. "Oh; you wanted him alive ... um ... he's kinda dead ..."
Larrius looked at Alanya, then threw back his head and laughed. "You're quite the huntress there Alanya; don't worry, it's not important. Now, about the bad people ..."
Alanya blinked, then said " ... Let me get back to you in a day for that ..."
Skipping back to Balmora, Alanya made a decision: She had left the old coot Caius hanging for too long, and owed it to him and to the Emperor to at least check in and see what work they needed her to do. Exploring more of Morrowind would have to happen alongside her duties rather than instead of them.
But first ...
"Ah, my favoirte Outlander scum," the Camonna Tong's smith grinned as Alanya strolled into the Council Club once again. "So, have you any new feeble insults to share?"
Alanya grinned and moved into the smith's personal space, murmuring "Oh yes, and before the day turns to dusk you'll be so outraged you won't be able to help yourself from swinging at me ... but first, I want to let your friends downstairs in on the fun. Why deny them the joy of our little game?"
The smith blinked. "Um, Alanya, you're standing on shaky ground here ..."
"I know," Alanya smiled, her grin provocative on several levels. But before the smith could move, she pushed away from him, saying "Ta ta for now; when I come back this way you'll be the last."
Glowering, the smith watched Alanya walk away, thinking to himself that the Outlander had just gone from amusing to bothersome ...
------
"So, you may have gotten under Velas's skin," Madrale Thirith, Camonna Tong thief, smirked, "but he's a lightweight anyway; you'll have to do a lot better than that to get the rest of us to fall for your little ploy, Outlander."
"Oh?" Alanya asked, eyebrows raised. "Better than this?" She slinked up to Madrale, just like she had with Velas.
Madrale, however, simply smiled and slinked right back. "Oh yes, much better than that; who taught you how to act seductive anyway, an Orc?"
"Actually, it was a Khajiit," Alanya smirked. "With an Argonian. You know - civilized people."
The thief glowered. "Nice touch but not enough ..." she muttered.
"How about this then?" Alanya asked with a smile, holding up one of Madrale's lockpicks - one Alanya had just slipped from her pocket.
The thief's eyes widened in anger. "Why you s'wit!" she yelled, whipping out a poisoned blade. "Take this, n'wah!"
Alanya did get cut by the poisoned blade and growled - but she smiled through the growl, saying "Nice hit; my turn ..."
------
Angry stares met Alanya as she sauntered into the main hall of the Council Club, whistling and twirling Madrale's poisoned blade in her hands. "Say, anyone want some used lockpicks cheap? I promise you'll get what you paid for ..."
Three angry cries of "Die Outlander!" told Alanya that she was, indeed, getting better at the art of the insult. Three nasty cuts - one to her perfect legs - told her that she needed to be faster on the retreat into a narrow corridor though. Still, three more corpses told Alanya that her spear skills were improving ^_^.
The bartender looked at Alanya worriedly. "Um, I'm just a businessman, I'm not Camonna Tong ..."
"Of course not," Alanya laughed. "You don't mind me taking out Velas do you?"
Velas, having heard the commotion, answered for the innkeeper, drawing a club and rushing downstairs with a cry of "Damn you Outlander!" before running into Alanya's spear.
"No, not at all ..." the innkeeper said, looking at Alanya - who was herself blinking and saying " ... Well um, I guess he was the lightweight of the lot ..."
------
"Amazing; you not only took out all five Tong members, you did so without breaking the law," Larrius said happily, pulling out a ring.
Alanya raised her eyebrows. "Somewhat sudden, isn't this Captain?" she demurred.
Larrius blinked, then laughed. "You are quite the lively one ... no; this, my dear Breton, is the nice present the Emperor sent for you. And from me ... here; I think you should have this book."
"A ring and a book," Alanya muttered, examining her prizes. "Hmm ... nice ring ... 'interesting' book, I'll grant you that ..."
"Well ... I always had a soft spot for history," Larrius confided. "But if you'll excuse me; there's a certain magistrate who needs to be talked to ..."
"Have fun," Alanya smiled, turning back to Balmora to find Caius ...
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