Dear Diary,

I have been so busy, I can barely stand it!

I was really quite tired when I left the sewers — can you blame me? I’m used to recapping, which involves a lot of sitting on my ass. I guess I shouldn’t complain, since I managed to not die horribly. I took a look at my map to double-check the location of Weynon Priory, and immediately changed my plans. No way was I going to make that trek at night with nothing but some crappy armor and spells to protect me. I decided to find my way into the Imperial City proper and sleep at an inn for the night. Then I could spend some time working on my skills so that I wouldn’t be tragically killed by a mud crab on my way to drop off the Amulet.

To my great chagrin, it took me hours to find a gate that led into the city. Just what I needed — more damn walking! It was the middle of the night by the time I got there, which is probably a good thing, because I was half-expecting to be recognized by someone as a criminal. You know, because of that whole getting thrown in prison incident? Well, the city guards were courteous and polite to me, so that was my giant hint that I was probably safe.

I suppose I should describe the Imperial City. It is the Imperial City, after all. A normal person might describe the way the city is laid out in a circle, divided up into sections, much like Midgar. Or a pie. (Note to self: Find something to eat, preferably not mud crab.) A normal person might also mention the fact that the city was built by the Ayleid civilization and as such, is constructed from assloads of whitish-gray stone. But I am not a normal person — I am a recapper. Therefore, I must comment upon the absolutely huge Imperial Palace tower thrusting upwards from the direct center of the city. That is one massive penis. In fact, I have renamed it in my sick mind to the Imperial Phallus. I should probably be careful not to mention that in casual conversation.

The city at night was pretty boring, so I spent some time digging through the various barrels and crates. I didn’t find anything of much value, but I did manage to procure a couple of new outfits. Check it out, Diary:

Yeah, it’s kind of a peasant-y dress, but it’s loads better than those rags I had on in prison, or even that very un-fabulous fur armor. Oh, here’s another one:

Whoops! I guess that outfit was just the top! Sorry about that brain-scarring image, Diary. Although you’re inanimate, so it’s not like you can actually see anything. Whew! Crisis averted!

Is it just me, or do those underwear make me look like I’m sporting a package?

I was unsuccessful finding an inn I could afford and I really did not feel like sleeping in that rickety boat inn on the waterfront. I seriously needed some cash, and fast! I decided to sell off some of my potions and other random crap to the various merchants in the Market District. Did I mention I suck at haggling? I wouldn’t bother mentioning the specifics of this endeavor, except that the shopkeeper I talked to first, a woman named Jensine, could not resist bitching about some guy named Thoronir. I could have said, “That’s nice” and walked away, and that’s probably what I should have done. But you know me and my big mouth — instead I was all, “Tell me all the details.” I’m such a moron sometimes.

Long story short — Jensine is the head of some merchant society in the city and this Thoronir guy was fucking everything up for the other merchants by undercutting their prices. Sounds like I should buy my shit from Thoronir! was my first thought. Jensine and the others were convinced that he obtained his merchandise in illegal ways, and they wanted some poor sucker to investigate. Since I was new in town, I was the perfect person for the job, Jensine said. More like, “We’ve asked around and everyone else said no, so we’ll see if we can butter you up, random person!” Don’t forget I already had that other task assigned to me — like I needed to take on more people’s problems? Yeah right!

Well, then Jensine mentioned a monetary reward for my troubles. I was so desperate in my abject poverty, I think “Yes, I’m the perfect sucker for this job!” was my exact reply. I’m all talk.

It was fucking raining when I left Jensine’s shop, so I hauled ass over to The Copious Coinpurse, Thoronir’s pretentiously named store of evil. With the way Jensine was going on about this guy, I expected him to be somewhat impressive and intimidating. Instead, the infamous Thoronir was a shrimpy little Wood Elf with strawberry blond girl hair and a festive smile. The smile immediately faltered when he caught sight of my boobs and lack of penis, but he quickly recovered, probably remembering that my gold is just as good for buying new velvet clothes as a man’s. Well, if I had any gold, that is.

For some reason, Thoronir took offense when I outright accused him of theft. Maybe I should have played that one a little smoother. I’m not exactly known for my tact and subtlety. His hissyfit didn’t stop him from giving me gold in exchange for all my extraneous crap, and soon I had 416 gold! I felt rich!

I meant to browse the shops after that, but ended up wandering into the Office of Imperial Commerce instead. I was about to turn and leave when the bitchy lady at the counter told me about a house for sale. I hadn’t really thought about settling down, but it would be nice to have a permanent place to stay and not worry about all those mysterious stains in the inn rooms. Well, the deal wasn’t as cool as it had originally sounded — 2000 gold for a crappy, run-down shack on the waterfront. Even so, since there was still a lot of time before Thoronir was to close up shop, I decided to head to the waterfront to check out the house.

I forgot to mention that everyone in town who wasn’t bitching about Thoronir was bitching about someone called the “Gray Fox.” He sounded like some sort of furry to me, but everyone talked like he was some notorious thief. Half the citizens didn’t even believe in his existence. Whether or not he was real, there were still wanted posters of him all over town. In the picture, he was wearing some kind of hood/mask over his face, kind of like an executioner or that one guy from the Fat Albert cartoon. I’m sure that would be very helpful in identifying him if he, you know, wore that thing 24/7. Dumbasses. The last crime listed on the poster was “impertinence.” Wait, that’s illegal now? Shit.

To add to the incessant Gray Fox talk, some random guy on the waterfront gave me a copy of the Black Horse Courier — I guess that’s the local newspaper — with an article all about the damn furry thief. Jeez, the people of this city need to get a new hobby, I thought. The most important tidbit I picked up from the article — apart from the larger-than-life legends surrounding the guy — was that an Imperial Watch Captain named Hieronymus Lex was even more obsessed than the average citizen with the Gray Fox. Yeah, I’m pretty sure I know what that’s all about, Diary, if you follow me.

The shack was just as small and lame as I’d expected, and my prospective neighbors looked rather unfortunate, to say the least. I decided to hold off on buying real estate for the moment. On my way back to the Imperial City proper, I stopped to chat with this pirate chick standing near the dock. At first, she seemed nice, but then she got all up in my grill about her dumb pirate ship, threatening me for no God damn reason! Just to be contrary, I walked down the dock to her ship, and that was enough to make her and her two ass pirate cronies attempt to murder me. Somebody was PMSing. I quickly changed into my fighting gear and cut all three of them down with my long, hard blade. Seriously, me against three pirates. They must’ve never picked up a sword before that point, because all I did was kind of flail around madly. But hey, my clumsy flailing produced results.

I looted the pirates’ broken, bloody corpses while simultaneously flipping them the bird. Oh, and I took one of their pirate swords, too! It even had the little skull and crossbones on the base of the blade. I could look totally badass with that thing. The best part was that the Imperial Watch didn’t even care, since those buttfuckers attacked me first. Okay, I lied — that wasn’t the best part. The best part was the killin’. I have a violent streak sometimes.

Then, holy crap, I actually met that Hieronymus Lex guy who had a hard-on for the Gray Fox! It wasn’t just his finely-coiffed ponytail and armor skirt that set my gaydar pinging — the guy also had these plump dick-sucking lips. And I think he was wearing lipstick, too — apparently the dick-sucking hadn’t smeared it. What sort of one night stand gone wrong had caused him to pursue the Gray Fox with such vigor? I decided I just had to find out. This is the kind of stuff a recapper lives for. Stay tuned for more of this juicy tale, Diary!

By the time I made it back to the Market District, it was almost closing time. I crouched down around the corner from Thoronir’s shop, waiting for him to leave. Although I was out of sight of Thoronir, I was still standing in plain view of everyone else in the vicinity. No one alerted the watch, so a random female blatantly spying on someone must not be that unusual in the Imperial City. Finally, just as my legs were starting to cramp, Thoronir left his shop and I tiptoed after him. I doubt I was that stealthy, what with my huge rattling sack full of potion bottles, weapons, and armor, but Thoronir didn’t even notice me. As he passed into the center area of the city with the creepy gravestones, a bunch of other residents were milling about. Again, they didn’t say anything like, “Hey, lady, why are you tiptoeing after that guy?” nor did they point me out to Thoronir. I’m not sure if I should be thankful or kind of disturbed by this. I hope that if someone were stalking me that one of the citizens would freaking tell me.

For over four hours, I followed that little dicknibbler through the city, with intermittent rain soaking my new spiffy clothes. I was all ready to give up on my cash reward — not only was the rain totally cramping my style, but Thoronir wasn’t doing anything all that suspicious. Unless you consider standing in one place doing nothing for twenty minutes at a time suspicious. But it turned out my efforts were not in vain — at that exact moment, Thoronir crept into a small courtyard and was soon joined by some blond guy. Who had to walk right past me to get into the courtyard, meaning he’d probably been following me the whole time. And no one told me! I knew it!

Anyway, the blond guy’s name was Agarmir — I knew that because Thoronir practically shouted it. No, Diary, they weren’t engaged in anything sexual — color me surprised. After all, Agarmir looked like Thoronir’s type: male. As I hid in the nearby bushes, I listened to their conversation and found out that Agarmir was the one supplying Thoronir with his goods. Again, that was not meant to be sexual. I didn’t learn any important details — such as where Agarmir was procuring this stuff — but if it was legit, then they wouldn’t need to meet in a dark courtyard, would they? It looked like my stalking endeavors were not yet over.

This time, I followed Agarmir around the fucking city. He eventually disappeared into his house in Talos Plaza. I couldn’t very well break in while he was still home — at least not with my crap-ass sneaking skills. Once again, I had to skulk around until he left. Unless Jensine was planning to pay me thousands of gold for this little outing, I could probably make money a lot faster and more comfortably by mixing potions and selling them.

I doubted that Agarmir would come out any time soon — and you can interpret that any way you like, Diary — so I treated myself to a room at the fancy-schmancy Tiber Septim Hotel. I could afford it tonight. And that’s where I am right now as I write this. It’s 3:30AM on the 29th day of Last Seed, and I am fucking beat. I don’t know what tomorrow will have in store — there are so many things on my plate right now. Will I finally deliver the Amulet of Kings to Jauffre? Will I find out more about the torrid love affair gone wrong between the mysterious Gray Fox and Homonymus Lex? Or will I get to the bottom of this silly situation with Thoronir? My life’s becoming a God damn soap opera.

Jeanne Recapiere
Last Seed 29