Oblivion Day 43 - Miscarcand

10 Frost Fall, 3E433

Skingrad

~~~

Miscarcand was not exactly what I expected. Told it was the capital of  the Ayleids I thought of a sprawling city and instead got a small fortress crammed between Skingrad and Kvatch. That being the case the ruin is far inland and I am a bit confused as to how it would have served as the capital without easy access to the water.

The outside of the ruin was infested with Goblins, but the bloodthirsty creatures did not have sense enough to team up against me and instead attacked as soon as I was seen. They proved far less capable opponents than the skeletons of Sancre Tor and were twice as annoying.

Inside of the ruin a battle was steadily raging between the goblin tribe and the ruin's undead guardians. The undead had the advantage and quickly dispatched any goblins I saw them come across.

Once the small battle below the platform I was on died down I sneaked down to engage the undead myself. The zombies in Miscarcand had the same gaseous clouds hanging about them that the remains of the enslaved Blades in Sancre Tor did, making me suspect that the supposed King of Miscarcand was responsible for his own guardians. The zombies were surprisingly strong opponents and my shield was rendered useless while battling my second zombie assailant.

Fortunately there were far more skeletons and goblins in residing in Miscarcand than zombies and the two groups did their best to wipe the other one out. More often than not the undead were victorious.

I proceeded slowly, content to let the battles between the goblin tribe and the undead finish ahead of me. While carefully walking further into the ruin I saw a glow in an adjacent room that I hoped was the Stone I had come for.

The area of the ruin I was in was oddly devoid of either goblins or undead, so I cynically guessed that this would be were the so-called 'King of Miscarcand' would be found, if he made himself known to me. I was not wrong in this assessment.

I must have triggered some unseen switch somewhere, for as soon as I stepped close to the Stone, there was a grinding behind me and I turned to see a section of wall slide into the ground, revealing two zombies and the dead King of Miscarcand..

Like most Kings, he was content to let his underlings do his work for him. His zombies lurched ahead of him and came at me, but I was able to batter them off the platform and out of the fight. Then it was just me and the unnamed King. He must have been a mage of some power in his day, but either his skill or his guile had faded with time, for he would only float in front of me while casting lightning magicka. Not a very complex strategy, nor an effective one. He fell without much bother.

The 'Great Welkynd Stone' was mine.

Nothing remained of Miscarcand's undead garrison nor the tribe of Goblins that sought to inhabit it, so I made good time out of the ruin and back to Skingrad. Tomorrow I will return yet another item to Martin and he will no doubt have another item for me to fetch. This is getting tiresome, for I find that my freedom of action I enjoyed in Morrowind is something I much more prefer than this.