The mystery of the fleeing Claude Maric has been solved after a review of Baa's hand written logbook and a review of some screenshots.


Early in Baa's game she collected all the Ayleid Statues and displayed them at Arborwatch where they still are. She never had any intention of selling them to Umbacano.


On 26Oct2014, Baa and Mooch broke in the backdoor of Malada, found an Ayleid Carving that Umbacano wanted, and stole it. On exiting the ruin http://i.imgur.com/lmLx124.jpg who demanded that Baa turn the carving over to him. She refused and Claude ordered his accomplices to kill her. A desperate fight ensued and when the dust settled, they found the bodies of Rigmor, Brucetus Festinius, and S'razirr, but no Claude Maric. Apparently he fled the fight.


The other day when Baa and Mooch were back in the area for the first time since 2014, they woke Claude up and he started fleeing for the Roxey. He is still there a week later, and still fleeing even after Baa healed him.


mirocu was right, he didn't want to get killed by Baa.

OMG lmao! This is a great case of NPC memory. How cool that you had that stuff written down to refer back too! Awesome stuff.

Awesome story tmar. This is why I still love Oblivion. Just when you think you've seen it all, you haven't.

FreeWitch and bobg: This was one of the stranger episodes Baa has encountered in Oblivion, at least it's the one spread over the greatest amount of time. You just can't make this stuff up.

_____________________________


An update on Claude Maric at the Roxey.


So Baa went and bought herself a Heroism rally spell and zapped the fleeing Claude with it over and over and nothing changed, he was still hunkered down in a ball and fleeing. Rather than leaving Claude there cluttering up the Roxey's floor for the next seven years of her game, Baa took things into her own hands.


Claude is now dead, so are two Imperial Legionnaires and at least two NPCs. Baa did not get charged with murder and things are back to normal at the Roxey except for the dead bodies scattered about. The ever enterprising Malene, who is essential, looted a Legionnaire's longsword and now has it for sell. Mooch and her friend Yuma, have mischievous grins on their faces. And poor Baa claims to know nothing about the whole affair.


See the Screenshot thread tomorrow for pics of the knife fight.

So Baa prefers a bunch of dead bodies all over the place instead of one hulking/fleeing guy?

Makes... sense... not

Just hang in there a while longer until Baa gets through with her shenanigans.


"It ain't over 'til it's over!"

Meanwhile Lothran is back in Skingrad, en route to Imperial City with all the spoils he′s gathered so far. I reckon he′ll be back in the Great Forest and West Weald as soon as his load is lighter

mirocu: What's the matter, you afraid of dead bodies? They'll disappear in a few days anyway! Baa plays the game the way she wants to and has left about 30,000 bodies in the dirt so far. They don't bother her.

________________________________


12April2016

Just a quick statistical update on Baa’s game as it went by 4,100 game hours.


Baa: Breton, Warrior, Adventurer, Stealth Archer, Level 51

Date: Evening Star 19, 3E443

Day: 3,765

Game Saves: 10,655

Baa’s Game Hours: 4,114


Statistics:

Start Date: 15Nov2008

Quests Completed: 174

Skill Increases: 1,414

Master Skills: 16

Fame: 193

Murders: 0

Items Stolen: 1,732

Creatures Killed: 20,474

People Killed: 8,496

Places found: 647

Locks Picked: 2,774

Souls Trapped: 4,555

Potions Made: 5,399

Oblivion Gates Shut: 60

Houses Owned: 13

Artifacts Found; 6

Nirnroots Found: 301

Gold: 40,643,656

A-Bomb fixes: 9


Factions:

Fighters Guild - Master

Mages Guild - Arch-Mage

Knights of the Nine - Divine Crusader

Arena - Grand Champion

Knights of the White Stallion - Knight-Errant

Blades - Knight Sister

Knights of the Thorn - Knight

Nine Divines - Pilgrim

Thieves Guild - Pickpocket

Court of Madness - Citizen

Order of the Virtuous Blood - Sister

Order of the Dragon - Champion of Cyrodiil

Ne′ermind

Baa is dead!


For the first time in almost three years Baa has been killed, but she has survived thanks to something or other with the way the game works and is now up and about drinking her favorite wine and worrying about all of her companions.


Well, it seems that Baa and some of her girls were off in a Valenwood Ayleid ruin on the Strid River near Anvil when they came across one of those slicer-dicer traps with the swinging blades. It was a double set and Baa had made it to the middle position when they were attacked by a Conjurer and his summons. In the ensuing chaos Mooch and another companion were felled in the middle of things and Baa was left alone blasting away with her Wizards Fury. Baa was staggered by a hit and pushed back into the blades. She tried to move back to the safe center position, but got tangled up in the bodies on the floor and got hit again by the swinging blades. With her health down about one, she went to her inventory, which she never does in these situations, and pumped all the heal potions allowed. This brought her health up to less than half, but the next swing of the blades put her down.


There were no dramatics when she reloaded, she just blew the svcker away when he came around the corner the next time.


The last time Baa was killed was in another Valenwood Ayleid ruin at Haven in a similar circumstance when she was trying to push Mooch out of a slicer-dicer trap and failed.

Lothran is currently in the Imperial City and as night fell he thought he was gonna have some fun with the sewer bandits in the Market District. Well, there weren′t any down there but as he tried to attract attention from beyond the door he suddenly got a message saying that Ontus Valus was unconscious. I didn′t even know he ever went down there!

But that′s not all. Suddenly the guards on patrol came down and kept running against the door. No battle music though, and as soon as Lothran spoke to them they returned back up again, only to once again come running down.

After awhile the message stopped appearing and Lothran went up too, and lo and behold there was Ontus, chatting away like nothing happened.

I love these little mysterious happenings in Oblivion

Angel had a similar experience in the same trap. She got halfway through and saw a lich at the end of the corridor. She decided to lure the lich into the blades by hitting it with a flare spell. Instead it cast a summon Skeletal Champion which appeared right beside her and promptly knocked her into the blades. The thing that saved her was restore potions and invisibilty (potions and spells). Still, when she finally escaped the trap, there was just a tiny thread of health left. I was playing dead-is-dead and if she had died, I would never have loaded her again and two forum RPGs and two Fan Fiction threads with hundreds of posts would never have been written.

bobg:

Oh, the circumstances of fate that do play games with us, and then laughs in our face. Angle got the luck of the draw, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vvban8T1858


That reminds me - Off Topic: USAF Weather Detachment, 1966-1973, US army support. Orders from above: The weather forecast is always - It rains every day at 2:00 PM and your armored vehicles will get stuck. And it has come to our attention that you NCOs are crazy and are hereby ordered to no longer ride as door gunners during your off hours… Just throw the card decks out the chopper door, stupid, and let 'em rain down. Whoot!

Sorry about that outburst!

OMG! I didn't think Baa WAS killable lol

I know. It makes the game so entertaining sometimes LOL

LOL!

So for this playthrough, I'm not gonna touch the main quest at all. I dropped off the AoK, and that's as far as I'm gonna go.

I'm doing "The Collector" and I've got 4 of 10 Ayleid statues so far, and Umbacano gave me the potential location of 4 more. This is the most I've collected so far, and I'm not using the UESP or anything (I've never been that type of player, not that there's anything objectively wrong with using guides) so it's been a lot of fun wandering the countryside. So far I've cleared out 18 Ayleid ruins, which has netted me a plethora of Wekylnd and Varla stones. Gold is definitely not an issue, as I've got 56 Weklynd stones and 15 Varla stones to sell off, on top of doing the Black Bow questline and just general loot I'm finding. I've honestly found a new appreciation for the Ayleid ruin design, and I don't think it's as repetitive or dull as some like to make it out to be. Of course, that's just my opinion on the matter, and I know many disagree.


I'm also doing the KotN for the first time in a long time, and I've managed to find a wayshrine for every God but Akatosh. I've been combing the wilderness, but no luck so far.


I'm having a lot of fun playing as a heavy armored, sword & board crusader, which is a style I haven't played in ages. I wanna play the Shivering Isles on this save too, but I'm worried that I'm gonna be levelled too high to really enjoy it. I know I could just stop sleeping, but that can really put a damper on immersion. I could also just drop the difficulty, but I'm more just not looking forward to the ridiculous gear NPC's start packing. I'll probably stop once Ebony armor starts appearing sparsely, but I dunno.

Today while traveling the beautiful forests between Bravil and Skingrad, Lothran′s counter reset for the second time, making him having close to 2400 hours.

Cause for celebration if anything!

Congratulations to Lothy and his faithful mentor.

Right now Villja is ill from experimenting with bad herbs and has been left behind in the Kvatch camp to recover.

Prisoner is traveling a lot between Anvil and Skingrad to use up the meager money he makes to purchase training. Despite gains in blade and magic, he is still quite a cowardly fellow. He is starting to appreciate that a dagger can deliver blows fast enough to more than make up for it's lack of high damage.

mirocu: Congrats on resetting to zero. Now Lothie should be able to start the MQ in a new time zone.


bobg: Baa's Vilja lives alone in the house in Bravil. She hasn't been out in years.

________________


Baa was just at the Arch-Mage's Tower making Harrada with the Enchanted Chest, and when she waited the required 24 hours she noticed that the date clicked over another year to:

http://i.imgur.com/uGbhw1L.jpg

I count this as the start of Lothran′s third era

Wow, that′s impressive! Lothran is still stuck in 437

@Bobg - Thanks!

Make sure to treat Vilja for those bad herbs or she may end up complaining

Today Lothran decided to have some fun with the vampies at Bloodcrust Cavern. Usually he sneaks through the cave and lets his Spriggan deal with them in there but today he ran inside, threw his Scout spell (AoE) and then ran outside again to let his Spriggan deal with them there instead. In the sunshine...

I'm an inveterate lurker, but I've enjoyed the character stories I see posted on this forum for a while. So I thought I'd finally share one of my own. Let me tell you the story of Pushabi...

http://imgur.com/OtodYI2

Pushabi the Khajiit started out in Leyawiin. Her story was that she was on some days a laborer and odd job worker, and others a mere beggar. But lately, she'd begun to feel that she'd exhausted the goodwill of the people of Leyawiin. And the racial tensions between Imperials, Argonians, and Khajiit were starting to get ugly. So Pushabi decided she needed to move on. To that end, she took a job from the proprietor of Southern Books, to deliver a shipment to the bookstore in Cheydinhal. Payment would be on delivery. (I used setownership to give myself five books from the store, with the intent of getting "paid" by selling them to Mach-Na when I reached my destination)

http://imgur.com/AQSvVqc

Pushabi had to travel from Leyawiin to Cheydinhal on foot. To complicate things, I was running a number of mods that significantly change the balance of the game. Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul, which adds a lot of nasty critters to the Blackwood region, Basic Primary Needs and Basic Physical Activities which force me to eat/drink/sleep as well as actually have to manage my fatigue... the list goes on. I decided to play Dead Is Dead, so Pushabi only had one shot at surviving the dangerous journey. She carried no weapons and while she had skill in Hand-to-Hand Combat, she'd have to run from almost everything.

She had a hundred gold to spend on supplies, but that amount barely covered a fur cuirass from the general store. Pushabi was forced to scrounge around town to steal supplies like food and a couple repair hammers. By the time she was ready it was a dark, gloomy night and she was far too tired to travel. So she spent almost all her remaining gold on a bed at the Five Claws Lodge.

Despite the innkeeper's insistence on the cleanliness of her establishment, Pushabi contracted Droops from the disgusting mattress. And when she left the inn in the morning, the heavens were roiling in a fierce thunderstorm. As she exited the city gate, Pushabi thought the gods must surely have turned against her...

(stay tuned for the epic conclusion!)

Lothran is now traveling the Colovian Highlands. He has visited (but not re-explored) Infested Mine, Fort Ondo, Fort Dirich and other places on his way to Chorrol which he just entered.

He has enjoyed his latest hobby of entering caves etc, throwing his Scout spell to attract the "companions of fun" inside and then run out again where he summons his Spriggan and enjoys the show from a safe location

(The epic conclusion...! no one cares about)

The first part of Pushabi's journey went surprisingly smooth. With her innate Khajiit power of Night-Eye, she was able to see through the early morning gloom and thunderstorm. She encountered nothing but deer (which, though she would have liked to catch for their tasty venison, were too fast for her) all the way up to the town of Blankenmarch. The locals there didn't seem too friendly, so Pushabi just surreptitiously stole some produce from their farm and went on her way.

And then it all went nuts. Ever heard the saying, it never rains but it pours? It poured on Pushabi- suddenly she encountered a bandit, and her attempts to flee only resulted in running into more and more bandits! At one point I think at least three were chasing her. Poor Pushabi had to drain every last ounce of her stamina to run away, even tripping and falling over in exhaustion at one point. She'd managed to shake all but one of her pursuers when she crossed a bridge and saw a sign for an inn. Desperately hoping for a friendly face and assistance in dealing with the bandit, she ran down a rocky path, the bandit still hot on her heels. She entered the Imperial Bridge Inn and collapsed in a heap on the doorstep, yowling for help. In a stroke of good fortune, there was an Imperial legionnaire staying at the inn, and at Pushabi's plea he immediately drew his sword and went to deal with the outlaw. Pushabi crept back out and watched the soldier cut down the bandit, from a safe distance.

At last, Pushabi had a chance to rest. She stayed at the inn for a couple hours, eating and regaining her strength. When she left, the storm had finally broken, and the sun was at last shining through a break in the clouds.

It seemed like a fortuitous omen. For the first time since her journey had begun, Pushabi felt that luck was with her. She embarked once again towards Cheydinhal, full of hope and vigor.

The enormous beast of a timber wolf that leapt upon her as she made her way back up the path had other ideas. And unfortunately for Pushabi, it was much faster and stronger than her.

...

Well, I know that seems like an anticlimactic ending, but I at least had fun playing the short journey of Pushabi. I'd never done Dead Is Dead before; does anyone else here play that way? Do you find your characters usually end at the most disappointing of times?

I hope this little story was at least enjoyable for someone. If not, oh well, at least I had fun with it!

And that′s all that really counts

As for your question, no, I don′t play DiD. If my character dies, which has happened a couple of times, it′s instant reload baby!

I have given DID a serious go in the past. With Severus Snape I had over 700 hours in the game when he died. He was followed by Sarrah with over 500 hours. Finally there is Angel whom I visit only rarely these days. I'm not sure how long I have played her since I tend to load older saves and then take off from there in some new direction. I would estimate it's around 500 hours. With my currently active character, Prisoner, I don't have any qualms about reloading and tend to treat him more like a tourist than a hero. So far he has not died so it's a moot point.

I can tell you that DID can take you to a depth of connection with your character that ordinary roleplaying cannot. When Severus died, I grieved for days. His loss made those awesome sunsets and riding through rich green forests with Sarrah feel bittersweet knowing that she too might die some day. I was reluctant to play Angel at all since she was my most vulnerable character. I made her and reduced her size with a console command to simply take a screenshot and post on the forum that I had found a child in Cyrodiil. That was before any of the mods that actually added kids. Then I decided to spend an hour or two just to see what she would do. What she did was steal my heart. I couldn't bear it if she died so I leave her safely tucked away in my disk drive most of the time despite the fact that she has attained max level and is a powerful mage. She serves to test new magical combinations such as combining a light spell with a destruction spell to help keep your opponent targeted.