Yes, diary, I’m still in Bruma. I got a full eight hours of sleep in my fancy Mages Guild bed, even though the room technically had no privacy and someone could walk in at any time to leer at me. But that’s nothing new. I decided to stick around the city for a bit, since I had some unresolved business from the previous day. The whole situation with the murder investigation bugged me, and now that I knew more of the story, I wanted to talk to Carius “Dick Gumshoe” Runellius again. My unfortunate social skills prevented me from getting the information yesterday, but today I had an idea that just might get him to spill.

See, if there’s one thing I’ve learned from Anal Attorney, bumbling investigative types love men in fuchsia. So maybe, just maybe if I dressed the right way, it would get through to Carius subconsciously. Unfortunately, there is not a wide variety of clothing options in Cyrodiil, so I had to improvise. You might remember that red and purple velvet number I wore back in the Imperial City, diary — I found another just like it in a chest of drawers in the Mages Guild. It can’t be any grosser than pulling clothes out of random barrels on the street or out of people’s houses, so don’t be all judgmental.

This is a woman.

Anyway, about this red velvet outfit. The clothing in this universe has strange magical properties that cause it to change appearance depending on the gender of the wearer. So if Volanaro the Sassy Gay Elf were to wear it, it would transform into a fancy tunic and velvety pants. When I put on the outfit, it becomes a motherfucking blouse and skirt. While I look totally badass in it, like I’m about to betray the shit out of someone in Game of Thrones, it’s not really appropriate for cosplaying as Miles Edgeworth. Oh well.

Even though the outfit was not the right color or style, and I was missing essentials such as a cravat and a penis, Carius was willing to talk to me now. Mission accomplished! Just to be safe, I pretended like I hadn’t already heard the entire story already, but that meant I had to sit through all that exposition again. Perfect. I did find out a bit more than I did from that gossipmonger in town. Namely, that Carius and his fellow guards discovered two bodies with puncture wounds on their necks buried in shallow graves outside the city. Well, the body burying means that no one in the Anal Attorney universe could have done this. Also, the victims were beggars and not supermodels or members of the police force. Conveniently, Anal Dralas, vampire hunter, appeared just in time to help out with the investigation. Nothing fishy about that! He was probably on the tail of the evil vampire! What a standup guy! Anal Dralas used his impressive vampire hunting powers to track down Bradon Lirrian, asleep in his house during the daytime, and plunged a wooden stake into him. Presumably. I didn’t look at the body THAT closely, diary. Continuing to share every detail of the investigation, which had gotten old by this point, Carius revealed that no one had ever seen Bradon outside in the daytime, which must be hard evidence of his vampirism. Right, there is no other reason why he would be out at night and asleep during the day. Great investigating, team! After making me sit through all that, Dick thanked me enthusiastically for my red velvety offer of help, and then basically dismissed me. Case closed!

Ready to impress and delight.

But not so fast! Bradon’s widow, Erline, flagged me down from just a few steps away, insisting that her husband was not a vampire, and all these allegations were just bullshit. I wondered if she might be in deep denial over her husband’s love of, um, biting other men. Still, I know from my recapping experience that detectives are notorious for fingering the wrong person, so I agreed to hear her out.

That meant more exposition — what a great reward! When Erline arrived home earlier, she found her husband dead with “a Dunmer” — that’s a Dark Elf, diary — at his bedside, having been caught in the act. Of murder, I mean. When she tried to call the guards for help, those misogynistic assholes took the word of the murderer — Anal Dralas, obviously — over hers. Her ladybrain was just being hysterical, causing her to overreact with all those messy crying emotions! The guards then found a body in the basement, and they called in Carius to investigate. Just like the other guards, he believed the person with the penis. The story about vampires and vampire hunters was clearly the more credible one!

I pointed out that Carius believed there was hard evidence that Bradon was a murderous vampire — mainly because I wanted to say “hard evidence” — and Erline was all, “No shit, Sherlock, he was framed.” Only an idiot (or an Anal Attorney murderer) would hide the body in his own house, after all. She also explained that Bradon’s inverted sleep schedule was due to him working the night shift. “Why does that make him a vampire?” she wondered. Why indeed. How hard would it have been for Carius to verify this information? To top it off, Erline even thought she recognized Anal Dralas from somewhere, although he claimed he had never met this woman before. All she wanted was for me to clear Bradon’s dead name. Cue the disco porn and get me get my pink tie.

Defense attorney blue.

So my next step was tracking down Anal, which I knew wouldn’t be too difficult in this town of white-ass Nords. Various shopkeepers around town revealed that he was staying at Olav’s Tap and Tack, though somehow we had never crossed paths during my stay there. Olav himself thought the vampire story was a pile of horseshit, but didn’t suspect Anal might be involved until I came asking around. People around here do not have great reasoning skills, I’m noticing. But that’s all Olav would say to me, acting like he only shares gossip with people he knows well. Wait, he was gossiping like crazy at me just the day before, but suddenly I’m not cool enough for him? Jeez, this town.

No matter how many ways I (verbally) tried to convince Olav to tell me more about Anal Dralas, he refused to budge. But there was one tool in my toolbox I still hadn’t tried — something I had been quite reluctant to use until this point. Jesus, diary, I’m talking about money. After I handed over nearly 100 septims that I had earned from my own hard work selling stolen shit and meth potions, Olav suddenly decided he could trust me. Nothing says “trustworthy citizen” like bribery, after all. Speaking of untrustworthy, he actually handed over the key to Anal’s room and gave me his blessing to snoop around. And then he acted like he was totally doing it out of the goodness of his heart and compassion for Bradon and Erline. What a nice guy, taking my money like that. I wondered if he would have handed over the key to my room if some other asshole had given him enough cash. Gross. Out of spite, I stole a torch and some yarn from one of Olav’s cabinets. That’s right, yarn. Suck my balls, Olav, I’m knitting a big “fuck you” scarf with this!

In Anal’s room, I quickly discovered a poorly-hidden journal behind a set of drawers. I opened up “Gelebourne’s Journal” only to find a boatload of exposition about an ambiguously gay adventuring trio. I will summarize, out of respect for you, diary. I just realized that I am summarizing someone else’s diary in my own diary. So many layers.

Where could it be?!?!?!

Bradon Lirrian, Anal Dralas, and this Gelebourne dude once traveled the wilds, plundering Ayleid ruins and probably each other, at least until Bradon settled down with a lady. One day they found a fantastic Ayleid artifact of some sort! The three of them stashed it in a cave near Bruma, a fact surely unrelated to the events now taking place in Bruma. In order to make sure none of them could betray the others and run off with the treasure, Bradon had a chest constructed with three locks. Each of the trio would have his own key, and all three keys would be needed to open the chest. No phallic symbolism here!

Yeah. I think by now dogs know where this story is headed, but naturally it would be impossible to run up to Carius and tell him what was really going on here. There’s a law that these things must be dragged out. Plus, I am a woman, so he’d probably tell me not to worry my pretty little head about it. I headed downstairs and asked Olav — not that I wanted to ever speak to him again — if he knew anything about this Gelebourne fellow, and it just so happened that Anal namedropped him as the last vampire he killed. Anal is not good at this. I mean, sort of kudos for him for coming up with a convoluted plot to steal the Ayleid artifact from his friends, but he was just shooting himself in the foot here. Come on, man. Anal took down Gelebourne in Skinflute, fittingly, and stories of his legit vampire hunting skills made it all the way here to Bumfuck Bruma, hence all the broing around with the guards and their willingness to believe his silly story.

Racist!

It was late afternoon by that time, and I was mostly tired of dealing with all this exposition. Bradon wasn’t getting any deader and I had a hunch Anal wasn’t going to check out of the inn until I talked to the right person. So I changed into my adventuring clothes and went out exploring, but first I checked in on redneck Jorundr in the Bruma dungeons. The guard in charge acted so inconvenienced when I asked to see the prisoner, as if I was interrupting his important evening of sitting at a table doing nothing (spoiler alert: probably jacking). Everyone was being such a PMSy bitch today. Speaking of which, of course Jorundr wouldn’t talk to me either. I was an “outsider” which could mean anything from “you’re not a shirtless redneck Nord” to “you don’t have a penis.” Remembering Arnora’s suggestion to “be creative” in getting him to talk I came to the sudden realization that I would have to get myself arrested and become a literal prison insider to make this fucker trust me. Wait a minute. I just escaped from prison a few days ago — why would I willingly go back on the off chance I might end up with a tiny portion of gold? Nooooooooooooope.

I spent the rest of the evening picking flowers and shrooms, discovering caves and ruins, and killing furry bandits. I even looted the corpse of a dead guard for some armor to sell, and the living guard nearby didn’t give a shit. Now I’m back at the guild, in a bed that is hopefully not for sale to the nearest creepy bidder, with a sack full of stuff to sell tomorrow. Good night, diary!

Jeanne Recapiere
Heartfire 5
11:41 PM
3E433