Twelfth Step: Genocide, Betrayal, and the Hand of the Pimp

Super King is riding high as a kite, surfeit with the magical items that denote a job well done in the Dark Brotherhood. We're really starting to like these quests, considering they actually involve fun things like dropping moose heads on nobles and tricking nobles to kill other nobles.

Basically, we really like killing nobles. The magic items that come with a perfectly executed contract are just gravy.

For our next run, the rather sultry argument guild leader ships us out to Leyawin, that bastion of racial prejudice. I guess someone doesn't really care for a leader of the guard who just got transferred there. Our job is to kill him and, and this is the really good part, take his finger and stick it in the desk of his successor. It sort of applies new meaning to the phrase "giving the finger" to someone, if you know what I mean. And I think you do!


The Leyawin guards certainly have strange sleeping practices...

After being alternatively arrested/asked to leave while caught snooping around the guard house we decide that we need to change plans. The guild leader saw fit to give to us a special arrow that would kill anyone in a single blow, provided the target wasn't wearing any armor to protect him... we need to find this guardsman at a time when he was wholly unarmored. We thought that catching him in one of the giant man-on-man orgies that goes on in the guardhouse would be perfect, but apparently he likes a bit of the rough-n'-tumble and even in bed he's arraigned in full metal gear.

A change of plans is in order.


Stealth clothes, for sneaking!


No, even Super King still cannot make the Grey Fox hood look good.

A locked door gives us hope, and Super King decides to try out some of his newly earned magical spells on it. While the Alteration spell that involves opening locks is much too weak for even a set of tumblers described as 'Average', the curious ability to actually earn skill levels without successfully completing a spell is rather appealing. I leave the 'Cast' button weighted down by a very respectable hammer and head out for a night of drinking. When I return, Super King has advanced rapidly through the ranks of Alteration. This bears further inquiry...


P-KOW! P-KOW! P-KOW! SKILL UP!

But, even in my hazy state, I am able to perceive a distant splashing. The sounds of merriment in the night hours fill Super King's fanned ears. He snarls with the weight of a thousand tons. Human beings having fun is so... irritating! Don't they know that only dinosaurs are allowed to have fun? Hey, humie, don't you have a field of corn in which to backbreakingly toil in?

I wish you did... then we could steal some more corn. Lord knows the one bad thing about the brotherhood is there isn't nearly enough corn stealing.


Hey, wait a minute! Who are you...?

It's the target!! Well, a more convenient opportunity could never be asked for. He is dispatched with the standard amount of prejudice that dinosaurs account to human victims (i.e.: all of it) and another contract is well and truly completed.


I love this job.

After depositing the finger in the desk, I return to the Brotherhood HQ to retrieve my reward and get my next contract. For some reason Super King is getting some serious glances his way. Now, from the sexy Argonian with the pink skin that's just to be expected. Last we checked, he was a pretty hot dude. When it's the creepy Orc that likes bashing skulls it's a different story... it's not until we retrieve our next mission (go talk to Lucien Lachance) and have already left that we realize our mistake. The cool breeze against Super King's legs signals the problem right away.

We forgot to put our pants back on...


Ooops... AWKWARD!

We redress and continue onwards, blushing like the dickens and glad that the faux pas was confined to super hot dinosaur chicks and a whole bunch of other people Super King could slay merely by staring deep into their souls with his slitted dino-eyes. Okay Super King, it's cool. It's totally cool man, go see what Lachance wants and then we'll commit our ethnic cleansing of the Dark Brotherhood. Nobody has to know! Nobody has to know!!


Apparently Lucien mostly wanted his undead servants to fill me with arrows. Uncool, man, uncool.

Super King is about to ask why coming to see Lucien has to involve wading through an army of the undead, but such things are better left for later. Lachance interrupts him, and it's like the two were fated to meet. Kismet, even! The words that exit his mouth are like the drippings of ambrosia from Mount Olympus.


Dude. It's totally like we're on the same wavelength.

But wait... do I have to kill the hot ones too?

Yes, yes you do...

Deciding, for once, to put advancement before hothothot sex, Super King listens along to what Lachance has to say... sort of. He's already devising a million different ways to kill the Orc, 90% of which involve sticking his head in a trashcan and booting him down a hill. He's not really sure where he's going to go from there, but I defy you to think of a more HILARIOUS way to kill someone.

Also, poisoned Lemmings. Fun for the whole family!

We head back to the guild. Lucien suggested we do a whole bunch of stuff like put poisoned apples out for people to eat, but it seems that our hand-eye co-ordination isn't exactly all it's cracked up to be, and most of the apples just end up rolling off the plate and onto the floor. And Super King would feel bad if he made someone eat a dirty apple, poisoned or not. It's not until much later, after the deed is done, that we realize we could've just stuck them in a closet and been done with it. Now we have a score of poison apples and nobody to kill with them!!

Super King mulls over sticking them in various Fighter's Guilds around the county... but he gets the feeling that Oreyn would probably yell at him if he did. Man, Oreyn is such a pain in the ass.

Okay, it's back to the tried and true method.


I would feel bad about this, but, y'know... I don't.


Hey guy! How's tricks?

Killing the Orc is especially sweet. Sometime since Super King last left the guild he's tricked himself out with a rather fetching set of Daedric armor. Well we just HAVE to have that.


It's not really as fashion-conscious as the ebony set, but it'll do...

Back at Lachance we're congratulated and given a shiny new, unkillable horse! That... I was never able to find. I even killed my old horse, the one that stupid monk gave me, but to no avail. Shadowmere is out there somewhere, Super King knows it, but damn if he's ever been able to find her. That's cool, who really wants to ride a cursed undead horse from beyond space anyway?


All in a day's work, homey.

We get too ahead of ourselves, though, in asking Lachance for contracts. He informs us that we won't be speaking for a long time, instead Super King will receive his orders from a serious of dead drops, notes left in things like trees and barrels. I'm not really clear on how this is a particularly safe endeavor. If there's even a single person in the world like me, there's someone out there that STILL isn't bored of checking every single barrel for tomatoes and wheels of cheese. Someone's bound to stumble on some of these notes...

Lachance won't hear of it, though, and sends me off to do my thing. I get to kill a whole family! Now that's hot stuff.


Wow... this is totally gonna be awkward when I come back later...


Wake up buddy, I got your present!


Matthais Draconis sets the land-speed record for fasted armor change!

Okay. So we do this quest. Then what follows is a series of excessively boring quests that act like the REST of the quests in Oblivion. We're told to go kill something, then receive a pittance of gold for my efforts. No magical items, no more undead horses, and it feels like a YEAR since we last dropped a moose head on a noble. Uncool, man, what happened?

So it takes us about three hours to get through that waste of time...

Lucien approaches us after about the fifth one and tells me exactly what happened. The dead drops have been comprimised, and We've been killing the high ranking members of the Dark Brotherhood. 'Well nuts to them!' says Super King, 'they went out like total wussies anyway!'

Lucien doesn't want to hear it, I guess it's something sissy about his "life being on the line" or some bullcrap. Super King is entreatied to go track down the inside mole, who apparently was not among those slain in the Cheydinhal guild. Our dinosaur about has an embolism when he hears this. You made me kill that hot dino-chicky for NOTHING?!

Whatever, there will be more girls. With half the guild dead this seems like ample opportunity for advancement. Our investigation leads us to a basement apartment in a lighthouse near Anvil. It's stuffed to the brim with rotting corpses, dogs and humans. 'God!' bemoans Super King 'Humans never know how to clean up when they're expecting guests!'

In the filth and decay lies a solitary book. Its contents are... interesting, to say the least.


Oh... well... huh. Wasn't expecting that one.

We hurry to Lucien's hiding spot to inform him of the good news, but it seems we dallied just a little too long...

You bastards!! You killed Lucien!! WHY?!


I... I'm sorry, what was that?

The appraisal of his new position in middle management elicits only one response from Super King 'Lucien? Lucien WHO?'


Ah, yeah... sorry about that one, bro...


I know what SOMEONE's getting at the office Christmas party!

So, I guess somewhere in the scuffle back during the dead drops we killed the Number #1 leader in the Dark Brotherhood. That's unfortunate, because according to my calculations killing the Number #1 leader should make US the Number #1 leader. Apparently that chick who granted us our title disagrees, I blame affirmative action. You shouldn't be allowed to promote a girl just because she's a girl! There was a candidate who was TOTALLY more suited for the position of 'guy who tells people who to kill'!

ME!

Super King is more than a little incensed, but he decides to follow the crew to their little pow-wow at the state anyway. He was just gonna grab a couple beers with Lucien tonight anyway, and, for obvious reasons, those plans have sort of fallen through.


You guys go ahead and do your crazy rain dance, I'mma just wait over here.

Their ritual is not for naught (say that ten times fast!). A few choice words of prayer and the statue opens, leading down to an ancient crypt...


Ghost chick, natch.

Before Super King even has the chance to react a commotion breaks out behind him. One of those fruits in the long robes thinks he's gonna take out the ghost girl.


Listen, bro, I don't know if you know this but... it's sort of hard to kill a spirit from beyond the grave...

He slays a few of his Brotherhood companions with ease, but the rest of the fight involves him hacking against the ghost chick with his pathetic dagger until Super King gets bored and clobbers him over the head with his sword. Goodnight, lamer! That's for writing that creepy journal!!


Lady, there are about twenty things I take exception to in that sentence.

Apparently the whole thing was like some sort of cosmic job application and the ghost chick (who is, apparently, the Night Mother) confers upon Super King the title of 'Listener', which is like being a Guild Master but instead of hiring recruits you get to totally kill people for no reason. She knew from the start that Super King had the world's strongest "Pimp Hand" and that no woman could ever seek to rise above him in status. Why, that would be like the water rising above the air!

The girl first-in-command is disappointed at her loss of status, but Super King suggests she go back into the kitchen and start making bread (or alternatively, babies) and she seems to take to the suggestion with a fair bit of aplomb.


You dang right lady. The pimp hand is strong with this one.

Come to think of it... she's got a cute butt.