Hello people of the gamesas-forum, I want to ask you about something that happened yesterday as I was playing Morrowind, but before I begin I want to address that I've been playing this game since I was nine years old, off and on of course. So I’d call myself a veteran and somewhat of an expert at this point, I don’t really play the game for exploring and adventuring as much as for nostalgic reasons is what I’m trying to say.

Now… I started a red guard the other day ‘cause I wanted a simple character that’d advance in ‘long blade’ relatively fast, and since I wasn’t planning on doing the main quest I figured the slight resistance to disease that you get from being red guard wouldn’t hurt. (Since I obviously won’t get the ultimate cure from the main quest on this character)

And you know… not being my first character by a long shot, I didn’t put my heart and soul into naming him “Shockolate” which… you know, the un-funny little jokingly, obviously sarcastic racist in me thought was genius, also: not knowing I was going to ever share this information with someone else. Anyway, that’s what I named him, it was a male.

Everything was running fine, as you’d expect, I stole everything in the first room, and did that easy murder-case quest that gives you 500 gold, as well as the fargoth-quest that brings in another 300. Ended up clearing the thieves den/slave-ruler hideout behind Seyda Neen, next to the ‘silt strider’, rescuing all the slaves and taking the skooma as well as moon sugar from the barrels in the lower level of the dungeon. After that I just started walking towards Balmora, picking mushrooms as well as flowers on the way there (to finish off the first stages of Mages Guild, to bring in easy gold upon selling all the alchemy-creations from Ajira.)

I also slayed the egg-mine poachers for the fighters guild quest.

This is a routine that I’ve always done on my characters, to get them started more easily. Well, it’s a routine that I’ve been doing since I stopped stealing the soul gems in Balmora Mages Guild to creeper for easy money, since I always realized it took away loads of the fun ‘poor’ beginning of my characters. I mean, most of them ended up having everything in the end anyway.

Anyway, this time something else happened, you see… I usually start by selling some crap in my inventory to the trader (who is addicted to moon sugar I believe) hence why he has always been willing to buy off my moon sugar and skooma, but not this time. Whenever I tried selling my hard-earned drugs to this guy (can’t recall name, he’s next to Mages Guild in balmora) he’d say “I don’t do business with the likes of you.”
Upon clicking several times for that random “it might work next time, this is Morrowind-luck” I checked my status-screen, looking for any weird diseases that I might have gotten on my way to Balmora that’d make me not able to sell to this trader and… nothing, just the usual stuff.

The thing here is that he was willing to buy anything else, this only applies to the moon-sugar and skooma. Which I figured was weird, but at this point I’m taking for granted that there is a part of the lore that I don’t know of where khajiits don’t like red guards or something. Either way, I ended up dropping the crap on the ground in front of him in the shop.

Not having much more to sell, I turned in my already finished quests at mages and fighters guild (having to complete the classic cave rat infestation first) and after that joining thieves guild to turn in a diamond I already had from the slave-dungeon earlier. After this I finished the rest of the fighters and mages guild quests in Balmora, including travelling to Caldera through the mages guild summoner/fast travel girl in order to kill the Telvanni agents in their hideout not far from the town. After not too long I ended up with that distinct “Code Book” quest where you have to convince the nord in the thieves guild (I believe her name is Sottilde) to give you her code book that the fighters guild are interested in.
This time she won’t give it to me, now I am aware of the fact that this is a common flaw in the game, that she won’t give it to you sometimes if you already are a member of the thieves guild upon getting the quest, and I’m not usually doing it in this order; I just happened to find a diamond in the first dungeon I explores and figured this was faster than going an extra time around Balmora to steal the diamond from the alchemist as described in the quest.

But here’s the thing… she says “I don’t do business with the likes of you.”

If the bug or flaw or whatever you want to call it would happen, she’d explain details about the book if she likes you enough, if not she’s express that she doesn’t want to share that information or that she has no idea what you’re talking about. This line, I’ve never seen in the game… let alone, from this person. This is when I really start to wonder… what is going on, why is she saying this as well?

If this has happened to anyone else, please tell me…. What is this?

Are you using mods?
It sounds like a mod problem.

No, no mods what-so-ever. I recently moved to England, coming from Sweden. I only brought my moms old laptop which... barely works, but it didn't have Morrowind so when I played this the other day I had to install it clean.. There are no mods.

Do they have really low Disposition?
What happens if you get it above 70?

I tried boosting both to 100, nagging them down to 0, they say the same on all dispositions. I also checked for the line in the construction set, no one in the game says "I don't do business with the likes of you." This is just weird.

Hmm, weird. The only time I recall getting the "I don't deal with the likes of you" is because that person had a disposition of less then 20. (usually it's less then 20 and a shopkeeper wont deal with you). What's the disposition of these people?

If that's not it, then I don't know what else it could be..

There is no line of dialog in the CS that says "I don't do business with the likes of you." or "I don't deal with the likes of you'"

Therefore, it's from a mod.

Unless that is not the exact line of dialog.

I bet it's not, since I'm sure I just ran into to something like that myself recently. It had something to do with me openly stealing stuff from Balmora Mages Guild, thus getting expelled, then doing Larrius Varro's bloodbath quest and getting my bounty off, going back to MG just to see the NPCs still aggro even if there was no bounty anymore (I had encountered it before and was prepared for it; this was all intentional), but for some reason everyone didn't. The tall Altmer lady there didn't. I also Commanded the guild guide lady, started a dialogue with her, and tried to ask her to transit me to Vivec MG. I bet both, while trying to use their services, said something like that, "I don't deal with the likes of you". I think people in Vivec also said that line, I bet it was even a spoken line. Tell you what, I'm looking into it right now, since I'm still expelled from the Guild.

There it is! An NPC called Orrent Geontene spoke it to me in Ald'Ruhn Mages Guild: "I won't waste my time on the likes of you". It either has to do with being expelled from a Guild, or just low disposition with certain NPCs. Of course, I can't know if this even is the exact same line / has to do with the problem you're referring to, OP. I can't imagine Ra'Virr, who I think the trader you visited is, saying that because of Moon Sugar and Skooma... He's always bought them from me before, too!

<2nd edit> Now I've heard every guild member in Ald'Ruhn Mages Guild at least saying this to me. My disposition with all of those is 7/100 and, as said, I'm currently expelled. So, have you been expelled from the Fighters Guild, is that it? Doesn't explain Ra'Virr, though, since he doesn't belong to any faction...

Off-topic but some nice-to-know tidbits anyways related to the opening post: Morrowind still paints Khajiit as some kind of Skooma junkies. This is evident in the quest you do to Ahnassi about her former mate; it is mentioned that Khajiit often get into Skooma and Sugar, that they can't resist them. Every Khajiit vendor in Morrowind dealing with potions and alchemy ingredients buys your Sugar and Skooma and thus (STOP! You) violate(d) the law(!), and it's made to look like it only has to do with this "irresistibleness" of that stuff for them. Ever heard of catnip before?

Now, I think Bethesda's policy has changed after that. The Keyes novels state that Moon Sugar doesn't affect Khajiit the same way as the other races (the wise-old-Dunmer type told the Imperial protagonist not to eat their food because it has Sugar in it and might be, can't remember, lethal or just extremely bad for health ). In Skyrim, too, there is Elsweyr Fondue, where Moon Sugar is one ingredient. Apparently they've made Khajiit from junkies to being immune to that stuff, just consuming it naturally for nutrition. If I got this right. Might also be that it's just the Sugar that doesn't harm them like it does other races, but Skooma, as an extract, still does.

The exact line I got was "I don't do business with the likes of you." Which is the weird part, that line actually isn't supposed to be in the game. Thank you though Archmagister, what a great post. Loved it.

Except that "I won't waste my time on the likes of you" is never Dialog... It's just a Voice. So it would not occur when the mercantile window is open.
He also says that Sottilde says it in Dialog. (not Voice)

Are you sure you don't have mods?
I find no instance of that line anywhere in the CS. (and it's an easy thing to search for)