I had a disturbing Oblivion experience tonight.

I was near the Hermaeus Mora shrine and talked to the Khajiit there. He said I hadn't followed the right path required to speak to Hermaeus Mora or somesuch.

So I decided to find out what was required. I checked out the wiki and it mentioned someone named Casta Flavus. I'd just been at the shrine and there was no Casta Flavus there.

So I decided to find him. I opened the console and typed "player.moveto a4989". It took me to him, but what I experienced there reminded me of nightmares I've had. I'd been moved to a completely black, bottomless area. I happened to have an Illuminating Oaken staff equipped at the time to provide light. I was slowly falling in the blackness. Casta Flavus was hovering in front of me, lit only by my staff. He wasn't falling like I was, so I slowly dropped below him. Above him, there was a group of around a dozen or so other men, wearing only underwear, floating in the blackness like Casta Flavus*. As I dropped lower, the other men moved beyond the light of my staff. A few moments later, Casta Flavus went out of sight too. Then I was falling alone in the blackness.

So I decided to take a http://www.mediafire.com/i/?soedja93z09391q. It really doesn't do the situation justice. The best I can compare it to is the "lost souls room" from the movie Beetlejuice. If you've ever seriously contemplated - probably late at night, alone in bed - what falling down a bottomless pit would be like, you can probably imagine the unpleasant feelings this scene dredged up.

So I decided to make a post about it. There's a solid chance I'll get the heebie-jeebies later because of this.

If anyone else has had a disturbing Oblivion experience they'd like to talk about, feel free to use this thread.

Sweet dreams,

-cwineman

*Casta Flavus was not in his underwear. He was wearing blue robes. I just mean he and the other men were floating, not falling as I was. I'm not sure what kind of party they all were having, but I hope I'm never invited to one.

If you're on PC, open the console and type tcl in the starting prison cell. Then go below the floor. There you will find textures for each race on a square, flat mesh. It's an oddly horrifying sight to me. It looks like a serial killer has skinned one individual from each race then stretched and mounted the skins on racks. *shudders*

I was not planning on sleeping anyway.

That's like the dead body holding cell in Skyrim lorded over by a naked Malborn. Exponentially more creepy the further in the game you are.

I think that happened because Casta Flavus is only supposed to visit you (ie appear) after you meet the rerequirements for the Mora quest. Which are from the wiki:


http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Hermaeus_Mora

Until then Mr. Flavus is not really in the game, so using the command to get to him sends you to a non-existant place.

Yeah, that's my guess too. The wiki for him is ambiguous. It says he's the one who informs you that the quest is available. But it also says "Once you have accepted Hermaeus Mora's quest, Casta Flavus is removed from the game." suggesting (at least to me) that he is already in the game. Also, the wiki has a picture of him standing at the shrine, so I have no idea what his deal is.**

Also, who are all the dudes in their underwear floating in the abyss? I wonder if I allowed my character to continue to fall I would see more characters floating around? Or would I just fall ... forever alone?

For fun, I transported to this area - or non-area - again and attacked everyone. When I did so, my character tucked his staff away because he needed both hands for shield and sword. So it was pitch black again. Since I was falling slowly below all of them I had to launch fireballs. It was cool to fight in the complete blackness, sometimes hitting an underwear dude or Castus, other times my fireball sailing into infinity. If I hit someone they would light up the area with their healing spells, or with spells cast back at me. The coolest was when I killed someone, they would be lit up by the firewall, and then get knocked out of their floating position and fall into the abyss. Take that, underwear floaters.

** I think I get it. He is removed after you "accept" the quest. Not when he informs you about it as I was thinking. In between those two events must be when he can be seen at the shrine. Before and I suppose after that, he spends his time floating in the non-area with the underwear gentlemen.

In Daggerfall, it was possible to fall through gaps in the adjoining sections of a dungeon. It rarely happened by accident but if you knew about it, you could make it happen. It became very popular to enter the 'void' through these gaps. If you had a 'levitate' spell you could manuever around a dungeon from the outside, then re-enter through another gap (usualy found around doorways or at intersections.) If you didn't have levitate, you would eventualy hit ground zero and die from the fall.

At first I was thinking maybe you had found the 'void'. It might be interesting to use the console TC command to move around and look for a landscape (probably above your location if there is one.)

Casta begins there and is moved to the player at the start of Hermaeus Mora's quest. He is disabled at the end.

The other people are the remnants of a now-defunct way of scripting the Skull of Corruption. Instead of duplicating the target, there were ten NPCs (one for each race/six combo) that were moved around to act as the double. Possibly, at one point "DuplicateNPCStatistics" affected appearance as well.

I guess that explains it then. Thanks.

Despite all the technical explanations offered, this Red Neck’s opinion is that you have experienced a ‘Welcome to Hell’ glitch!