Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind Part #40 - Two Dungeons, One Cup

Part 40: Two Dungeons, One Cup

Shugojin posted:

Why do so many SSLPers type things up in the post message window? I always did it in a text editor and saved periodically then just copy/pasted the whole thing in.

Yyyyeah, I probably should do that more often.

Hindsight is OP. Let's Play Morrowind!

Two Dungeons, One Cup

After arriving at Urshilaku Camp without incident, our first order of business is to speak to the wise woman about all that good shit we learned about the lost prophecies.

So it looks like we pass the first couple of trials thanks to Lizard Wizard's apparent orphan status and corprus misadventure.

But it's the Ashkhan's job to give us the third trial, because god knows we need to make the doddering old chief feel special I guess.

I guess he's in a bad mood, though, because he wants us to go get a shield, a cup, and a fistful of pus from a nearby Sixth House stronghold before he tells us anything.

Thankfully, he has the courtesy to mark it on our map.

The stronghold has a main hall, and two tinier rooms. I decide to poke my head in here.

Nope, just some betentacled fiend. Let's try the main hall.

If nothing else, I'm bound to find a corprus stalker or something in- hold on.

So far this floor is nothing but tapirmages. This is a worrying trend.
^{Also I need to change weapons.}

In retrospect, I kinda like how the Sixth House cultists seem to like stacking their furniture like crazy. But note that these screenshots are a smidgeon brighter than my gameplay. So basically whenever I come across one of these arrangements I have to get reeeeeeeal close and grope at it looking for items like some gross old Mr. Magoo.

Finally in one of the lower floors I encounter a Corprus Stalker. Come to papa!

WHAT.

Well, that sucked. But eventually I fought my way to the lava tunnels.

And got that shield.

But I still need my corprus weepings and my cup. So I head to a nearby stronghold.

I got the weepings almost immediately, but no cups were to be had.

So it hits me that maybe I missed something in Kogoruhn. This is the other tiny room.

Oh. Well, that's a relief, I guess.

Hm? What's this on the ground? Looks like some kind of code...

Ah well. Probably nothing. Back to the village!

Sul-Matuul tells us some riddle about how to get into the Cavern of the Incarnate. We ask people about the riddle to gain some insight. I learn that the Teeth of the Wind refer to two big ol' rocks that mark the entrance to a place called the Valley of the Wind, which is on the northeast slopes of Red Mountain. The Needle is this rock pillar, and the skin of the pearl refers to some whitish rock at the top of the pillar, which is supposed to be our next clue. I have no idea what they mean about the star, but I'm certain they don't mean the soul gem I'm carrying.

Now lemme tell you something. I hovered around like a goddamn idiot for an hour because of that "slopes of Red Mountain" detail. After that, I re-read my journal and realized that they mentioned the valley was south of Zergonipal. Great. That actually does help.

So I follow the valley to the door, but it won't open. Okay, maybe this isn't the Valley of the Wind and I need to look somewhere else for that pillar.

No, Lizard Wizard, I said to myself, now those are the Grazelands you're looking at. You're fucked and you need to google it.

Yeah, see that? I'm looking up in the general direction of the Cavern of the Incarnate. That's the STONE PILLAR everyone was talking about. Because it's such a fucking pillar.

It overlooks that door to the Cavern of the Incarnate, but there's nothing on top of it, either. So how do you get in?

Well, you have to know that Azura's Star is an actual star that you can see in the sky. And you have to know that it's only visible at dawn and dusk. Don't get me wrong, it's creative. But the game's essentially counting on you to talk to everyone, read every book and grasp the astrology of Tamriel.

Axe Master posted:

I hate this argument the most of all because quests in morrowind had very, very, VERY little depth and skyrim and even oblivion dramatically improved on that. The quest arrow is there because nobody really liked the shitty vague directions. No normal people anyway, because it makes the game a huge difficult pain in the ass unless you have either A. a map or B. autist level knowledge of the game world (which I did at one point, to the extent that I still remember how to get to most locations, at least vaguely), otherwise you wander around, horribly frustrated because yeah, sometimes the directions are good but more often than not it was "oh, it's southwest of al redaynia" which assumes not only that you know where al redaynia is, but 'southwest' can mean a multitude of different things. And that is okay for a cult hit from 2001 but despite what seemingly everyone online thinks (I went through this exact same argument over oblivion at gamefaqs like, 4-5 years ago. A lot), Morrowind wasn't exceptionally popular for a good reason, its flaws are numerous. It is addicting and fun, but saying that skyrim is a bad game or boring or bland in comparison to morrowind is crazy, especially concerning the dungeons, which were the weak point of morrowind due to the overwhelming amount of worthless ones.

I get real mad when people think morrowind is better than it is, and was hoping this topic wouldn't devolve to that. You can like it more, whatever, but claiming that it is a fundamentally better game is wrong.

Eeyup.

So we get in there and grab the ring.

Then Azura yaks at us. I think I picked up something about hortators?

Anyway. We go back to the village, where Sul-Matuul talks our ear off about great responsibility and all that jazz, and then he names us Urshilaku Nerevarine. Back to the Wise Woman!

So we gotta go to the three remaining tribes and get them to recognize us as Nerevarine. Off we go!

Actually...

Look ma, no death! Yup, I'm the Nerevarine.

Anyway, the nearest village is that of the Ahemmusa, which is to the east. I decide to take the seanic route.

We arrive at the village, but there's no Ashkhan in the Ashkhan's yurt.

So we talk to the Wise Woman, who demands that we pay respect to her Gulakhans before anything else.

Or just the one Gulakhan. I couldn't find the others for some reason.

Thankfully that's good enough for her. But we're not just gonna be named the Nerevarine for free. I think this is actually pretty smart of them, using an old shrine for shelter. I mean, they're pretty safe once you clear out all the creeps and monsters.

And as it turns out, I've been here before. Note the conspicuous lack of monsters.

Oh hey, Ordinators. I guess they're here to bust up the daedra worship or something?

Called it!

Yikes. Well, this isn't really surprising. We're basically on a quest to fuck with the Tribunal's eldritch battery, so it makse sense that they'd want to stop us.