In Which Tembriel Takes on Bandits in Ulummusa

This was a very low-key session, mostly all about experimenting some more with playing on the Steam Deck. But also experimenting with magic! And investigating Ulummusa, since I’d seen the entrance to that but hadn’t checked it out yet.

Highlights

• Play date: 8/28/2022
• Session number in this run: 11
• Did some training with all the Mages Guild trainers to work on my various magic skills, which burned through most of my gold
• Also bought Water Breathing, Soul Trap, and Strong Resist Shock spells
• Then took silt strider to Ald’ruhn to report in that the book was returned; Edwinna gave me a couple of amulets of Almsivi and Divine Intervention, how nice
• Decided to hoof it back from Ald’ruhn because I was now very low on gold
• Killed assorted creatures en route, a few guar, a few cliff racers, a diseased alit
• Made it into Caldera; discovered the Mages Guild had no quests to give and at least one of the mages there was very testy at me, WTF
• Went to talk to the governor who is in theory a member of House Hlaalu, but he had no prompt to give me quests
• Okay on to Vivec it is! Hoofed it further
• Hi Maurrie, why are you still standing out here, there are guar you know?
• Reached Ulummusa; tried to run the place
• Killed first bandit no problem, second one walloped me with his steel warhammer, and killed me once
• Second time through tried to summon a skeleton since I had a scroll for that, but the guy wasn’t close enough for the skeleton to fight him before it vanished
• Ran like hell to the entrance so i could duck out through it and heal up, while the bandit followed me
• Then ducked back in and out a few times, getting in a few hits on the bandit, then ducking out again to heal; finally took him out that way
• Searched the place; found the silver bowl I need to give back for a quest; also found some moon sugar and other random loot
• Used my Amulet of Almsivi to boing back to Balmora
• Created a few potions out of the ingredients I had on me and ate my bread to get under weight, then went and sold things to Ra’Virr
• Hoofed it back south towards Pelagiad again
• This time I practiced Soul Trap spell on a couple of creatures and successfully filled a couple of petty soul gems
• Hi Maurrie, still out here? Your hot bandit is in Pelagiad you know
• Stopped back at Ulummusa, looted remaining corpse, and got rid of him
• Made it to Pelagiad and sold things to the trader
• Got directions to person who knows how to find the place to hand over the bowl
• Saved for the night

Commentary

Compared to my previous session, which featured both playing on the Steam Deck for the first time and some main plot action, this round of play was a lot more relaxed and groovy. Mostly, I wanted to work on my character’s magic skills.

Because wow are my magic skills in the toilet. None of them, with the exception of Restoration, are things an archer has as notable skills. But I like playing with magic; it’s one of my favorite aspects of Skyrim. So I’m definitely interested in working with it here. What my character’s numbers are telling me though is, if I want my magic to not suck, I either need to play a character class better suited to it (of which there are several), or I need to work hard on training this character’s magic up.

It’s worth noting at this point that Morrowind’s magic system has a few notable differences from Skyrim’s–namely, that Mysticism is a school of magic in this game. And specifically, it’s the one in charge of Soul Trap. Which actually makes more sense to me than it being filed under Conjuration in Skyrim, just because you’re not conjuring anything in this scenario. Except maybe the “trap”.

Also, Unarmored is apparently considered a magical skill? This just strikes me as weird, on the grounds that this is what I see about it on the wiki:

The Unarmored skill lets one avoid or reduce injury during combat while not wearing any armor by evading, deflecting, or absorbing blows.

I don’t see what about that skill description implies “magic”. This seems more like a martial arts kind of thing to me, in which case I’d expect it to go under Combat. But filing it under Magic suggests they were headed in the direction of what we actually have in Skyrim–i.e., the Mage Armor perks and the various spells to bump up your AC.

Anyway, I did actually get a Soul Trap spell this session, as well as Water Breathing and Strong Resist Shock. Now that I know Mark and Recall are things I should be interested in, I’ve started looking for those too, but so far haven’t been able to get them.

Popping into the Caldera Mages Guild in search of quests and/or spells was not as useful as I’d have liked. And it was also odd in that one of the mages in there made actively snotty commentary at me, basically telling me to get the fuck out of Caldera. Seriously, lady, WTF? I just got here! Do I offend? Are you cranky about my armor, or do you just not like Bosmer, or what?

Hmph. 🙂

Likewise, visiting the governor in Caldera was not as useful as I would have liked. I was hoping to get some House Hlaalu quests from him, but he didn’t have a prompt to show me quests. Apparently because I have to get sponsored into the house for his quests to wake up? Except I’m already in the House. There are quests to be had for the House in Vivec, though, so I’ll go work on those!

In the meantime, I did practice the Soul Trap spell while hoofing it through the countryside. And in general it seems like it works more or less like it does in Skyrim–i.e., throw the spell at a creature, then hit the creature. But I am not good at casting spells yet. I’m going to have to see about getting this spell enchanted onto something, preferably a steel or better longsword.

Last but not least, since I was pretty much in “explore the countryside and practice spells” mode, I popped into a cave I’d tried to run before: Ulummusa. The second bandit in the place was a problem again this time. But this time, I actually did succeed at taking him out. Just took judicious use of how NPCs can’t follow me through doors!

Next time

I’m going to see about taking that bowl back to where it needs to go, since that’s near Vivec. And I’ll poke around looking for House Hlaalu quests.

Screenshots

Editing to add

• 11/23/2023: Restored missing gallery.
• 10/10/2024: Converted gallery to a single WordPress image.