Skyrim Stories : The Tale Of The Corpse-Fondlers

In the real world, you hear stories about post-revolution countries slipping into a state of violent lawlessless. You hear that the high-profile toppling of a figurehead doesn't magically cure the system-wide corruption and self-interest of the government institutions. And you hear about revolutionary heroes whose morals aren't as pure as their followers would like to think. Well, that just happened to me.

When you first turn up in Markarth, it's made clear that this isn't a place that welcomes questioning souls. There's the threat of forced labour in the silver-mines for anyone who dissents, and the Silver-Blood family who run the place are, to coin a phrase, dicks.

Your actions along a certain mission chain will cause a brief but deadly skirmish through the town. Guards will die. A new set of clothing will be earned. And forever more, when you brush up against someone in the street, they'll say "OH YOU'RE THE GUY WHO DONE THAT THING HIYA".

I went there later on, to assassinate some guy for the Dark Brotherhood. And I found that the people in post-change Markarth were slightly odd. The junction with the two shopping carts and the beggar had a dead guard on it, and the shopkeepers and a small child were... fondling it. I stared at them for over a minute. Watching them fondle a dead man.

There's no other explanation. I leant over the body, and it had loads of valuables on it, so they weren't robbing it. To make sure they weren't robbing it very slowly, I relieved the corpse of its belongings and attire, and they carried on caressing it. Is it just me, I thought, or is it getting hot around here?

Those thoughts cheerfully fled my brain when I noticed the person on the right was a child. I spoke to her. "Do you want to play a game? You choose, tag or hide and seek!" Slightly sickened by her nonchalance, I said no. "You're no fun," she said.

If the dialogue option "Well, I've seen your idea of fun, you tiny monster, and if I killed you right now with a nozzle of palm-flame, there isn't a jury in the world who'd convict me" had popped up, I would be using this opportunity to declare my unending love to Bethesda. As it was, the girl simply turned away from me, and watched her adult friends continue their necromaniacal menage-a-trois. With her arms folded. Like she was overseeing this posthumous molestation.

I tried talking to the other two, they did the same. Stood up, acted like nothing was going on, then resumed their daily lives. I assassinated my target - who was also a bit of an ass-pipe, if I'm being honest - and a living guard took umbrage at what he called murder.

I thought Markarth was as good a place as any to try out the "last witness eliminated" method of wiping out a price on your head. So I saved my game, and killed everyone who tried to bring me to justice. Killed the entire town's guard. Killed the two adult corpse fondlers. My bounty just kept going up and up. I killed everyone I could.

But you can't kill children. Or harm them.

So it got to the stage where it was just me and that awful, disgusting child. I didn't want to talk to her, go through the routine of another game of tag. She knew I'd killed everyone in her town. I knew that the second I left that place, she was going to start fondling the nuts off of them all. Who is the real monster here, I pondered, sending a palmful of flame harmlessly into her face.

I've reloaded the game, now. She doesn't remember a thing. But I'll always know what that little child-beast's AI routines are capable of.

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