Inspired by a moment in The Elder Scrolls 4:Oblivion that reminded me why I love video games. Result is the musings of my character before during and after said inspirational moment.
Strolling down this narrow market district path, this one that I have traversed innumerable times, I can't help but feel a lingering disillusionment. When I pass the citizens, they remark at how easily I defeated the Grey Prince. They are unaware that he threw the fight, and I feel I should tell them, but that would turn his last honorable moments into pitiable, mournful events, and I respected him far to much to do that. When I breeze past the beggars they nod their heads ever so slightly, but their eyes shine with exaltation for their Robin Hood, for their king of thieves. When I happen to cross paths with one of the wayward sorcerers who come here to visit the Edgar's or Rindir's shops, I am forced to stop and listen to some cryptic report on their most recent breakthrough and reject their requests for more funding or manpower. When I'm unlucky enough to encounter a wayward adventurer, I have to waste my time referring him to the only two weapon shops in the entire Imperial city. When I pass the guards they are courteous enough to shortly say "Hail, champion of Cyrodill" and let me be off.
It seem as though this life has run its course, as though there is nothing more to conquer, no-one else to beat, no title left to seize, no more quests left to brave.
All that is left, all that I do, everything that I am, is pacing the city's streets, one never ending circuit.
Walking down this narrow street yet again, my footsteps acting like periods to my thoughts, I hear a faint chime, like diamonds being poured over a rivers stone. This street is the one by the north door, the side with no shops and a small garden. I look to the floor and I see as plain, steel longsword. I pondered as to it's origin, as the others of this city are too meticulous and perfect to drop anything.
Suddenly, in a flood, I remembered. This had been my longsword. The only weapon I had actually ever bought. When I first emerged from that tunnel, when I first had lain eyes upon that rotting bridge and those beautiful arching ruins that have been forever burned into my mind, I had been a poor man. My first act thereupon was to enter the great city to my back and sell all that I had gained in those stretching catacombs. My crude iron vestments were immediately replaced by glimmering steel plates, but my foresight was questionable. The glint of the armor had blinded me from what I truly needed. Realizing my mistake, but reluctant to part with my new purchases, I was in a bind. It was then that I realized I was unable to leave this city. No one was keeping me here, there was no impending task I needed to attend to that didn't permit me crossing that great bridge. It was the world itself that kept me inside these towering walls. The vastness of it all terrified me so, that I could not bring myself to leave the comfort of these towering walls.
And so, for the first days of my new life, I spent all of my time sorting through the numerous crates and barrels that sat outside the shops, selling whatever I could so that I could make at least twenty gold, enough for a night at the Merchants Inn. In time, I was able to save enough excess gold to by back my bravery. To purchase that blade for which I so longed. It was on that day that I could first bring myself to venture beyond those towering walls.
I bend down to pick up the discarded piece of my history, when I notice that in my obsession with the blade I had ignored its companion. Beside the sword, resting in the gutter, lay an imperial guardsman's helm. The memories came not as a flood this time, but instead as a bolt of lightening.
This helm had been my prize from a guard I had struck down in a dispute. And from his body I took a set of armor that put my steel to shame. That thick, sturdy legion armor that I had worn for so long. And then there was the sword. Oh that sword which shone so brightly in the light, whether it be sun or moon or flame. It was then that I discarded that sword which I had so toiled for and that helm for which I did not care. The steel armor would be sold later. This was the day that I realized the best things in this life could not be bought, they must be won through blood.
All that was before I was thrown into prison for the murder of that guard. All that was before the next time I slept and Lucien Lechance was upon me, offering me what I ultimately became. All that was before some strange dunmer thrust a note into my hands as I had been waiting for a shop to open.
All that was before I killed the Gray Prince, before I had braved the perils of the old way and emerged from the library with that precious scroll, before I watched my friend Traven die so that I could kill Manimarco the worm king, before I had slaughtered the innocents of waters edge and before I destroyed the Blackwood company, before I stood idly by and watched the last member of a great and noble bloodline martyr himself for a nation of people who didn't even know his name.
All that was before I learned to hide my face under a hood, to conceal my movements under dark robes, to lash out with venomous intent from the shadowed depths of the keeps and caves I so often was called upon to secure. It was all before I allowed myself to become a murderer, a sneak who gives his enemies no chance to defend, who cares not for the contest of battle, who's every move was the epitome of efficiency.
Before, I fancied myself a swordsman. Though I was no more that a thug who flailed his blade around as hard and fast as possible, there was always this feeling after victory. It was like pride mixed with happiness and some other emotion that welled from deep in the pit of my stomach.
These trivial items, that I had so easily discarded at the time, remind me of why I continue to live this life.
There. I really tried to instill how truly aweing this game was to me at first, and how I love being an assassin but really had fun as a warrior, but I don't feel like I really got it across.