LIFE IN MORROWIND - DAY 3

I am once again in Seyda Neen, preparing to spend the night on a rough bedroll in a back room of the Census and Excise Offices. It's been less than three days since I've arrived here, but each of these days has been more eventful than an average year of my previous life. Today is no exception, especially considering that I've actually killed a man. But I should start at the beginning.

This morning I took the Silt Strider to Seyda Neen. The journey has been just as nauseating and uncomfortable as the one two days ago, but I did not want to risk going here on foot yet. And I needed to make the journey one way or the other, in fact I had as many as three reasons to come back to this town.

For one thing, there was the task from Ajira, collecting the mushroom. I knew they could all be found in or nearby this town, and I was not mistaken. I have all the four requested samples sitting in my pouch. This was the easiest part.

Then, there was the matter of Fargoth and his hiding place. I had known exactly how this would play out: I had a chat with Arrille, the owner of the tradehouse, and he mentioned Hrisskar. I spoke with Hrisskar and he requested me to find the hiding place. This had to wait until the evening, and in the meantime I had one more thing to do.

I knew that I would find the body of a dead tax collector somewhere in close vicinity of the Seyda Neen. I've set out looking for it - but that turned out a lot more difficult than I had anticipated. The town was surrounded by a swampy area, overgrown with lush vegetation and teaming with hostile oversized critters. My newly found confidence was put to a serious test, but I did not give up. And I really enjoyed using magic. How can I describe what it feels like to fling a ball of lightning from your hands and watch it consume a monstrous creature that locals apparently call a "crab"? Or casting a different spell and literally walking on the water? The very real danger of these situations made it all the more exhilarating.

Finally, I found what I was looking for. Sort of. When you play the game, you always find these dead bodies completely intact. Now, consider for a moment, what a dead body would look like after lying in the middle of a swamp for a couple of days? A swamp, I should add, inhabited by a multitude of carnivorous denizens. When I saw it - and smelled it - I almost threw up. And yet I knew that I had to approach and search it... and after some internal struggle, I did. I found what I was looking for: a crumpled paper with the tax records, a bag with 200 gold coins, and an expensive ring. With these, I headed back to town.

Now, I faced a very difficult choice. Keep the 200 coins, or give them up to Socucius Ergalla in the hope of later receiving 500? My experience so far clearly showed that overall, the events should play out just as I remembered them from the game, but the details could be strikingly different. Did I really want to confront Foryn Gilnith and likely fight him to the death?

I wonder why I made this choice. It was clearly very risky - and it involved killing a person - something I'd never even consider doing before. Apparently I have changed a lot in this world. And I'm not even concerned about it. This makes me wonder once again if everything here is a dream - for it is often like this in dreams: you find some situations quite normal, while in your waking life they would appear terrible or absurd. This line of thought, however, feels less and less plausible. I am surrounded by a vibrant, living world, both terrible and amazing, and after three days here I feel more alive than I had ever felt before. If anything, it is easier for me now to believe that all my previous life had been a dream, an endless repetitive nightmare, from which I finally woke up three days ago in a small ship docked in the harbour of Seyda Neen.

The fight with Gilnith was actually not too hard. Physically, of course, I was no match for him and he could have crushed me easily, but I used a summon skeleton spell as well as my shock spells, and he was dead in a few seconds, while I was only a little bruised. I reported to Ergalla and received my 500 coins. It was getting dark by now, so I climbed to the top of the lighthouse and took my position there, watching and waiting for Fargoth to reveal his hideout. And soon enough I saw him sneaking around and watched him place his ill gotten goods in an old tree stump. As soon as he left, I went there and cleared his stash. I will not be giving any of this to Hrisskar, of course. My work here is done and tomorrow morning I will return to Balmora.