The story of Ann Thraxx, a survivor of Kvatch Options

[Lady Saga]

Good day fellow Chorrolmates. I am Lady Saga, and today I'd like to talk about the saga of Ann Thraxx.

I originally posted all of the text of posts 1 and 2 over at Bethsoft's Oblivion: general area. Forgive the crudeness of some of the early text, for I was not originally writing Ann's tale as a true story yet. In Post #2, this starts to change. Post 1's text was originally in the Where are you Now #7 thread, and Post 2's text came from my own thread in OB: General.

This character is probably my deepest Oblivion roleplay to date. Originally I wanted her to be "Renee Gade III", which means she'd be some sort of heroic figure. But as Ann Thraxx evolved, it was apparent she's going to have a story much different from what I had originally conceived.

Although I'm on PS3, I performed a couple little tricks which I like to call pretend-mods. I used another character's game save, so that Ann never had to go thru the Tutorial part, then I fast-traveled her to just outside the Imperial City...Chestnut Handy Stables, to be exact. I had no idea why her game started here, though. That was not made known to me, yet. I also didn't know who Ann was, exactly. All of this becomes apparent during the massive text below.





Name: Ann Thraxx

Race: Imperial

Sex: female.

Class: peasant (custom).

Starsign: Atronach

D&D alignment: Chaotic Neutral


Ann Thraxx the wayward peasant has just arrived at Chestnut Handy Stables outside the Imperial City. She arrived here by carriage, and it is nighttime...dark and rainy. She's wearing nothing but one of those horrible Cyrodiilic bras and some sack cloth pants. No shoes, no shirt.

Ann has heard there's a place to stay in "some house on the Waterfront" * so she's walking there now.

* I think there's a free bed in one of the houses on the Waterfront. if there is, no problem. A "friend" told Ann there's a place she can stay. But if there is no free bed, Ann will have no place to stay.

Her family is no more, and she is sad. I'm thinking she was a farmer of some sort, perhaps, and lost her farm. Her husband got killed perhaps, and Ann is right now in serious depression, serious culture shock. She's been to the I.C. before, but never actually lived here. She's used to the wide open plains of the West Weald.

She is poor, but she is also fortunate to have 58 gold in her pocket, along with a soul gem and a few minor things which can be sold. How she got all this stuff? We shall find out, won't we?

Ann Thraxx arrived at the Abandoned Shack, which is anything but abandoned! It was about 6am Cyrodiilic time, and Hillod the Outlaw and a dark elf male (forget his name) immediately rose as Ann walked in the door. Oops...

"Please, I didn't mean to startle you" she said to the dark elf. "I am Ann Thraxx. I have been sent here and was told I could spend the night. I've lost my home and my family..."

What was interesting was the dark elf's greeting had something to do with losing his job or being out of work or something. This fit right in, so that Ann and the dark elf had a short conversation about finding work.

The situation in the Abandoned Shack was awkward as the 2 males stood around staring at Ann. This isn't what she expected! Ann "got to know" Hillod and dark elf, and gave them more than half of her 58 gold (she basically bribed him so she can stay in the Shack). But the guys wouldn't leave!

Ann took a short walk outside, deprived of sleep and getting dizzy. She found a couple beggar beds which were open, but there's no way she's gonna stoop that low.

Finally she made her way back to the Abandoned Shack. It's now 8 am and Hillod + the dark elf are both gone. Finally.

Ann sets off to sleep. When she wakes, she's going to see about looking for work in the Imperial City.

.

This post has been edited by Lady Saga: Apr 12 2012, 07:45 PM

[Lady Saga]

I don't know if I can double-post this or not. I want to keep writing, but if I add more text to the post above, it'll get more and more tedious to edit.

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Chapter VI

Heartfire 5, 3rd Era, Year 433, 12:37 pm

Ann Thraxx wakes with a burning sensation on her head, and stumbles out of bed. It's the bed! she realizes. Such a bed is downright evil with its comfort. She's slept in it far too long, and can almost hear the tongue-lashing her mother (Mara rest her soul) would have given her.

She walks out of her room, into a corridor, and figures out where the door to the downstairs lobby is. As she does so, she clambers down some steps while the proprietor of the Inn suddenly walks over to see his guest. He looks up at her in a manner that seems mildly friendly. As Ann nears him, she can see the name "Luther Broad" upon his rather foppish-looking blue shirt.

"How fares thee, Luther?"

"What do you want?"

"My name is Ann Thraxx. I'm a citizen from Kvatch, and am new here to the Imperial City. I'd like to know if there's anything you can tell me about your city, sir." Ann decides she's not going to ask Luther if he knows what happened in Kvatch yet. She had already been down this path far too often in these last few days.

"I don't trust you enough to talk about that" he says coldly, his face now turning stonish.

Wow!

Ann is stunned. What did I do to deserve that treatment? she asks, totally oblivious to the fact that SHE'S the customer, and the customer is "always right". I'm only asking about the Imperial City, what's the harm in that?"

She looks at Luther a moment, then stares at the floor, her previous self-esteem failing. Feeling suddenly overwhelmed with several emotions at once, Ann makes eye contact with the man, then tells him she'll be off.

"Farewell", he says, almost gladly.

She walks to the exit, and then turns to Luther, looking at him from across the room.



When she came here to Luther Broad's Boarding House the previous evening, Ann was so exhausted she could barely keep her eyes open. She didn't really get a good look at her innkeeper until now. As she gazes upon him, she realizes he's carrying a giant 2-handed weapon of some sort on his back! Now that's a way to protect your establishment. As she walks outside to a rather foggy day, she tries to imagine Luther's place getting attacked.

Well, if the usual person tried anything funny in there, a thief or a ruffian that is, Luther would no doubt be able to handle it. But what if one of those daedra showed up? What then? Try as she might, Ann couldn't imagine Luther being able to protect himself or his guests from those beasts. And that was not good. It was yet another reason why she really couldn't stay there for long.

She walks down the causeway, and remembers to try her Fire Touch spell again. She waits till noone is around, and then focuses her mind. She waves her hand (palm outwards) but nothing happens. No luck. She must be doing something wrong. So that does it. First order of the day will be to get to Edgar Vautrine's Discount Spells and figure things out.


"A lot of mages swear by Rindir's Staffs." said a Breton man, unseen to Ann.

"Rindir always keeps a perfect selection of staves at hand. It's almost as if he knows my skill level exactly". says another man.

"Aahhhhh" said the first man, apparently yawning.

"Take care"

Ann now walks from this district (which she later learns is the Elven District) to the Markets.

"...disgusting creatures I hope to never see another" says a Breton woman.

"Awful creatures, but I hear their meat is rather tasty..."

Hearing this, Ann at first worries they're discussing daedra, then relaxes when she realizes they're merely talking about mudcrabs. So that's good. If the citizens of the Imperial City are flippantly discussing mudcrabs just as they always do, that must mean that at least everything out here is still safe. No daedra had attacked any of the City's gates. Ann was never so happy to hear a "mudcrab conversation" in her life, she realized.

She walks into the Discount Spells shop, to speak to her first spell-mentor.

"You don't want the very best. You want cheap! And I got cheap!" he says, making his usual pitch.

Over the course of another hour, she and Edgar went over the learnings of the spell, to see what Ann had possibly been missing. It was only after several hours that the problem was finally figured. Apparently, it was Ann Thraxx's Starsign.

Born under the sign of The Atronach, Ann was one of Cyrodiil's rare peoples who couldn't regenerate their own magicka. But never fear, there was a solution to this. As long as Ann kept a bottle of magicka, this wouldn't be a problem. She could merely take a quaff of this mixture, and regain her magicka, or some of it. It was an inconvenience, that's all.

Ann could also gather something up which she had previously picked lots of: flax seed. Flax grew all over the West Weald where she had previously lived. As long as she kept lots of flax in her pouch, she would be fine. Steel entonoma mushrooms were also good at regenerating magicka. No wonder the Mage's Guild in Kvatch always bought up all the flax and steel mushrooms Ann could possibly carry in.

Feeling better, Ann decides she's now going to speak to Thoronir, the wood elf from that goods store she met the previous day.
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Chapter VII

Heartfire 5, 3rd Era, Year 433, 5:35 pm

"Welcome back!" says Thoronir to Ann. He looks at Ann mistrustfully for some reason.

Ann searches her memory (which had of course had become over-taxed these last few days) and realizes she's already spoken to Thoronir the previous day. Matter of fact, when Ann left Jensine's shop, she had come directly over to Thoronir's shop to ask him some questions about his "merchandise". Ann was having a little trouble remembering what exactly happened, but she does remember that the conversation had not gone well.

But while she's here, Ann decides to make small talk anyways. Maybe she can make amends somehow.

"What's been going on lately. Hear anything new?" she asks, suddenly almost afraid what the answer might be.

"Vinivial Melicaya takes all the merchant complaints in the city", he says, starting to glare at her again. It's as if he's saying "got a complaint against me and my prices? Take it up with "Vinivial".

"Listen Thornir. I didn't mean any harm with all my questions yesterday, it's just that some of the Market's shopkeepers are concerned".

"What?" he asks, raising his brow slightly in mock-defence.

"Oh come now....you really need to drop this attitude! Drop it at once!" she says this, finally feeling a small bit of real confidence. This merchant really needed to come off it, she thinks.

"Oh please..." Thoronir says, rolling his eyes.

"Did your mother not teach you at least the basics of friendliness? Of taking care of your customers in a satisfactory manner?"

"You're full of it!"

Well that didn't work. Ann thought for a moment. This conversation was not going as she would have liked. Thoronir was looking so angry at Ann now, his little wood elf face all scrunched up. She decided maybe a new direction was needed.

"You know, if you like, we can make a little pact. I know these merchants are concerned about your prices, but if I promise to keep from further investigation, perhaps you can keep your prices, and I can keep an honest shopkeeper on my side", Ann promises, telling a little white lie in the process

"Good one!"

Now let's keep this our little secret, then. And keep your ruddy wood elf cheeks in good color with a bit of mead, what do ya say?"

"Pleease, I'm embarassed, but thank you!"

"That works for me!" says Thornir as Ann breaks conversation with him.

Ann now leaves the Copious Coinpurse. As she walks outside, the sky is a deep rosey color, and the citizens are out in the Market streets, chattering away. She has no intention of leaving this issue with Thoronir be, that's one thing she promises herself. But could they really want me to investigate this? A lowly peasant? Why would they want me to look into these affairs? Is it because I'm basically an outsider?

Feeling self-conscious all a sudden, she decides it's best if she discusses this with Jensine, the lady who assigned this task in the first place.

.

This post has been edited by Lady Saga: May 30 2012, 07:44 PM