Well, this is just fucking bullshit, diary. I had a new entry almost ready to go, and some ball-licker made off with it. Who in Cyrodiil would want to steal pages out of my personal journal? There’s nothing remotely interesting in it at all. You’d have to have a serious screw loose to spend time reading any of the stuff I write in here. Uh, no offense diary.

Anyway, I’m sure you’re feeling just as violated as I am, so let’s move on. So what was contained inside those thrilling pages I lost? For starters, I’m still dealing with that dumb bastard Agarmir and his apparent refusal to leave his house. I probably should stake out the place just so I’ll know when he leaves, but that’s boring. I’d rather explore the rest of the city, you know?

Speaking of which, I discovered the arena, a place where…well, shit, diary. You’re inanimate, and you probably know what the arena’s all about. Not only can I watch people and monsters brutally kill each other, but I can participate. Yeah. That sounds like a great idea. I’ll just go battle minotaurs with my fur armor and shitty skeleton summon. Don’t get me wrong, though — I’m definitely filing this away for later. There’s probably money involved. And money can buy alcohol.

I also discovered a mysterious plant called a Nirnroot. As soon as I plucked it from the ground, I had a strong feeling that I needed to bring it to a knowledgeable alchemist (read: not me) to find out more about it. Hopefully it’s not an illegal substance, and if it is, hopefully it’s one in high demand.

Wow. Just rewriting that makes me realize how little I’ve really accomplished since my last real entry. I should get crackin’!

After some more schmoozing the random buttholes around the city, I discovered a scary looking elf woman who offered to give me lessons in Security. For a price, of course. Hey, I had money, and I figured some lockpicking lessons would come in handy when I had to break into Agarmir’s empty house. If he ever freaking left it.

I wasn’t quite as rich afterward, but I’m sure my lockpicking skill would cover that at some point in the future. What? Don’t look at me like that, diary. Some of these people are real jerks. They don’t deserve to have nice stuff. Don’t judge me.

A short time later, I encountered a smelly poor person named Simplicia the Slow. Did her parents name her that? How charming. She seemed nice enough, and after I gave her some gold — hey, I need all the good karma I can get — she seemed more willing to talk. About what, you ask? Why, the Gay Fox, of course. Simplicia wanted to know if I was looking for him. Uh, it wasn’t the first item on my to-do list, but since she seemed so eager to give me information, I said that I had some interest in becoming a thief, too. It wasn’t a total lie. Didn’t you even read that last paragraph, diary?

I must have been convincing enough, because that’s all it took for old Simplicia to spill the beans. If I went to the Garden of Dareloth in the Waterfront at midnight, I could meet the Gay Fox. Yeah, right. Now, I’m no dummy. This sounded to me like, “Go to the shittiest place in the city while it’s dark, where we can loot your corpse without being seen by the Watch!” But hey, nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? If anyone tried anything, I always had my summoned skeleton to give ’em the bone.

It was about 3:30PM at that point, not even close to midnight, so I decided to kill some time traversing the countryside, killing mud crabs and collecting alchemy ingredients. I know you’re jealous of my exciting life, diary. Don’t deny it. By 8PM I had enough crab meat to open my own sushi restaurant. I’m sure mud crab tastes awesome.

I made it to the Waterfront just in the nick of time, thanks to my aimless wandering. Making sure my sword was in hand and very noticeable in order to cut down on the amount of rape that might happen, I looked around conspicuously for this Garden of Dareloth. Diary, I don’t think I need to tell you that this shithole had nothing remotely resembling a garden. But there was a low-walled area behind one of the shacks where a guy stood holding the biggest torch I’ve ever seen. Very secretive — I’m sure no one would ever find this sneaky fellow. Was this the Gay Fox, I wondered? The giant flaming phallic object would not be out of place, I’m sure. But this guy wasn’t wearing a mask, and if those wanted posters were to be believed, the thing was attached to the guy’s face 24/7.

It turned out that the flaming torchbearer was a man named Armand Christophe. Oh, yeah. That name is totally straight. With him was a spiky-headed lizard man and a…a female Wood Elf. Huh. I imagined they were a race of dudes who just humped each other all the time. I wonder what the women are for. Maybe they’re all lesbians.

Armand got kind of snippy with me when I tried to talk to him, but then I explained how Simplicia the Slow told me where to find his sad little garden party. That namedrop was all I needed for him to pull a 180 and tell me all about how the Gay Fox is the “King of Thieves” and the beggars are his eyes and ears or some such. I kind of tuned him out because I was wondering just how stealthy a group of thieves could possibly be when they stood out in the open and took, “Uh, yeah, I found you by talking to a beggar” as a sure sign that I could be trusted.

So then Armand started in on his little spiel about the Thieves Guild. I guess the other two were also looking to join, and it wasn’t — as I had originally feared — the makings of a gangrape session. Not that Armand would be interested in my sweet bod. Anyway, I had “passed the first test” by completing the very difficult task of finding him. Since there were three potential recruits, Armand decided to be a dickhole and make us compete for the “honor” of joining. From the way Armand addressed her, it seemed the lesbian elf chick Methredhel already had some sort of history with the guild. Then why would she need to participate in this contest? Amusei, the lizard man, whined like a little Tidus over the unfairness of forcing us to compete with one another. He had a point, but his crybaby act prevented me from agreeing with him.

The task, much to my surprise, was something that actually required some skill. Rather than competing to see who could find the Imperial Phallus first, we were to go to the house of some guy with the pretentious name of “Amantius Allectus” and steal his diary.

Hey, wait a minute!

I gave Armand the most suspicious, accusing look I could muster. He just looked back at me innocently. I briefly considered ripping the torch from his hand and shoving it firmly up his ass, but figured it wouldn’t be that much of a punishment for him. Motherfucker. I couldn’t believe the Thieves Guild stole my diary entry — it was probably a test just like this one for some douchey new recruit. Well, maybe I could get it back if I hung around with these asshats long enough.

But first, the task! Unfortunately, murder was not allowed — that would have made things a lot easier. Armand made a big deal about this, too, as if stealing someone’s possessions is totally okay. I mean, yeah, it’s better than murder, but don’t act like you’re some saint because you only break certain laws.

Armand had lockpicks for sale — SWEET! Now I didn’t have to loot rotting treasure chests in caves to find the damn things. Taking the time to buy them slowed me down, though, and freaking Methredhel was already off and running, lickety split. I was huffing and puffing like I was going to pass out any second, and she was still faster than me. I did not mean that innuendo. Although I’m sure some sick ticket would probably write a fanfiction about the two ladies and their sexy competition to join the Thieves Guild. Let’s move on.

Obviously, Methredhel entered the house before I did. Shit. I decided to go in after her, just in case she had spontaneously dropped dead or something before she found the diary. By the time I broke about half of my fucking lockpicks trying to pick an EASY lock — how awesome for my ego — I figured she’d probably be on her way out. Also, how lame is it that she relocked the door on her way in? Ass. To my great surprise, when I finally entered the house, she was barely past the front door, and her exaggeratedly slow method of sneaking allowed me to dart past her to the desk and nab the diary. Seriously, diary, you should have seen her sneaking technique. It’s like she thought if she jostled a dust particle slightly, the entire house would wake up.

I admit that I was a poor winner — I flipped her off on the way out, then did an obnoxious victory dance all the way back to the “garden.” Hey, I never said I wasn’t a dick. Plus, I considered it payback for all the running she made me do. Annoyingly, Armand was leaving when I finally returned, and wouldn’t talk to me about the quest until the next midnight. Not cool! Now I had to lug this random asshole’s stolen diary around with me for another full day. Such is my life.

Now that it’s 2AM, I am once again resting in an inn. Not the nice one. Nope, I’m stuck in some basement room. It’s big, but that’s about it. Plus, there’s food and wine on the table that I’m not allowed to fucking eat and drink, or I’m stealing! Aw, what the hell. I’ve already got a stolen diary in my possession, for that extra ironic flavor. Bottoms up!

Jeanne Recapiere
Last Seed 30
3E433