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.

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Wow, I had a busy day today, diary!

The sheets must not have been woven from Tidus pubes, as I slept soundly with no nightmares. I almost felt rested this morning, but it’ll take more than one night to make up for all my misadventures and missed sleep over the past few days. The tavern was empty when I went downstairs for breakfast, but Olav shared some of the town gossip with me — apparently a local couple named Arnora and Jorundr were having some type of redneck domestic dispute. Sounds like something I should get right in the middle of. Why do I have a feeling I’m not joking about this?

Ongar, my fence, was nowhere to be found at this bright and early hour, so I decided to explore Bruma in the daytime. I might as well make the most of it, since I put all that effort into getting to this frozen hellhole. The morning was cold and foggy, as expected, which was not a promising start. But things could only get better, right? Right?

I started off my exploration in a methodical fashion along the outer wall of the city. After discovering multiple identical locked houses in a row — and it was too risky for my traditional B&E at this time of day — I finally encountered an unlocked house I could enter without risking arrest. Unfortunately, I recognized the name on the door — or rather, the informational text overlay when I neared the house. This fine wooden shack belonged to Arnora, the redneck lady. I didn’t want to end up in the middle of a chair-throwing, screaming fight, but admittedly, that would be more interesting than anything else in this city so far. So I took a chance and walked in uninvited.

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I really should have slept in longer. Five hours really isn’t long enough, especially after a day of being molested by zombies and necromancers. But I was so excited to sell my shit that I was up at the buttcrack of dawn. Which for me is 9AM. I visited Jensine again and offloaded a bunch of stuff I’d collected in the dungeon — including that pointy statue thing, which was worth over a hundred gold! — some potions I’d made, and some stuff I’d found in crates out in front of her shop. I guess those items are free for the taking and aren’t considered stolen, which makes a whole lot of sense. Still, who am I to argue with free money?

This is unbelievable, diary, but I ended up with 2021 gold by the end of the transaction! That was enough to buy a house! Sure, I’d only have 21 gold left after all that, but who cares — I would no longer be homeless!

I ran as fast as I could with my sack full of gold to the Office of Imperial Commerce and plunked the whole pile on the counter. My excitement waned when Vinicia told me I’d have to buy the damn furnishings myself. Shit! I’d just spent my hard-earned coin on an empty shack! How lame is that? At least Vinicia told me where to buy the stuff: from some guy named Sergius Verus at Three Brothers Trade Goods. From the name of the store and the man, I’m guessing this isn’t the most heterosexual of shopping establishments. “Brothers.” Right. They’d better not try to drive up the prices just because I’m a woman. Maybe I should have Thoronir put in a good word for me.

But then I got a great idea. I don’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me before. Now that Agarmir was dead, I could loot his house with no fear of him walking in and making me a permanent feature of his death basement. Sadly, Agarmir owned very little of value, and those items that would fetch a price were still considered stolen goods by the local merchants. So here I was, with a pile of cloth, clothing, and a crystal ball, and it turned out I had to lug that shit to Bruma to sell it. God damn it.

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Once again, I made it through the night without dying. I didn’t sleep well, obviously — I can’t imagine most people would enjoy the damp coldness, not to mention that dusty old smell. But I slept a lot better than I thought I would. I was just so tired from all the previous day’s killing. I probably should have taken a personal day rather than charging right into a dungeon, but…well, I don’t really have a good excuse. And I know it was stupid to sleep in those ruins, where more bandits could have shown up, or even worse things from the tombs. I don’t really have an excuse for that either, except that I was just so tired. I was probably safer inside the ruins than out in the open where I could have been eaten by a bear. Besides, nothing horrible happened.

I’m a fairly new adventurer, but I’m going to have to get used to all this fighting and sleeping in dungeons and stuff, diary. There’s really no way around it.

It’s like I have my own Sphere Recorder Bob to take photos of my adventures now!

I trekked back to the Imperial City to sell the stuff I had collected. Naturally, it was raining again. There’s nothing like running around in soggy fur and leather armor. I’m sure Squally would know all about the perils of that particular material combination. I had the bandits to thank for the fur helmet, gauntlets, and greaves. I know, I’m really fearsome. But at least my head is protected now.

I sold my stuff to Jensine, just because I wanted more money from her. I may have been able to haggle a better price elsewhere, but honestly, I just wasn’t in the mood to visit every store in the vicinity and compare prices. Even so, just selling the poor quality weapons and armor I found in the ruins earned me much more than 100 Gold. Suck it, Jensine.

After another back-and-forth journey from the ruins to the Imperial City to sell merchandise I couldn’t carry the first time around, I realized I didn’t feel like doing that a third time. No, it was time for me to face my fears and just explore the damn tombs already. Surely there must be a valuable treasure lurking down there. That’s the way it always goes, right?

Well, the tombs were not all that creepy. Not at first, anyway. I mean, they were creepy, but not in the “rotting zombies humping my head” kind of way. I kept expecting something to jump out at me, but nothing did. There was only some dumbass furry bandit skulking about. A single fireball took care of him. Not scary.

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After eight hours of glorious, free, non-rapeful sleep, I left the pirate ship and headed out into the fine, fish-smelling air of the waterfront. I had a shop to visit, and a homosexual Wood Elf’s day to ruin. I decided to wear some of my graverobbed clothes for the occasion.

This time, I tried to use tact when I informed him that his entire inventory had been stolen off corpses. I shouldn’t have even bothered, since the little asshat jumped right down my throat. He accused me of making shit up so that Jensine could get rid of him. This pissed me off. I had just escaped some creepy fuck’s basement of death, and now I was getting verbally reamed by a guy who wore his sideburns in pigtails? I don’t think so.

I practically threw the incriminating book at him, and after he took a look at it, he quickly changed his tune. According to Thoronir, he had no idea where his goods came from. I guess the smell of rotting flesh didn’t tip him off. Also, considering the items in Thoronir’s shop inventory, people are buried with some weird shit. I mean, fruits and vegetables? Gross.

As soon as Thoronir started saying stuff like an apology wasn’t enough to make up for this horrible crime against the dead he had perpetuated, and he wished he could find some way to make it up to everyone, I quickly cut him off at the pass. If he was desperate enough to offer favors to a woman, then he must really be in a bad place. I decided to give him a task much more suited for his particular talents: help me take down Agarmir. Thoronir perked right back up when I said this.

After promising to never, ever, EVER see Agarmir again (not sure I believed that), he told me that Agarmir had put him off earlier, saying he had urgent business elsewhere. Thoronir took this literally, and with the information I had just given him, he decided that Agarmir must be plundering corpses at this very moment. In the middle of the morning in broad daylight. He would have to be seriously dumb. But hey, the guy had blood and other horrible evidence in his basement and only an Average level lock on the door, so we’re not talking about genius level thinking here.

I wasn’t going to risk confronting an unstable freak while wearing my fine clothing of the dead, so I changed into my formidable leather armor for the occasion. To the graveyard!

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