Vampire Be Gone

Well I have played this game and done this particular quest before. I found it frustrating, annoying and difficult to do the way I want to do it. I have a personal rule that the sole purpose of a game is to provide enjoyment and be fun, so when a game stops being fun then it is no longer worth playing. If I had a choice I would skip over this quest and just not do it, but I don't have that choice... so I must make it fun! I decided this allows me the opportunity to cheat without violating my "no cheat" rule.

Thanks to a friend from the nexus forums I was graced with the magic spell that is called "disease outbreak". Basically what it does is temporarily paralyze a person while slowly and gradually draining their health. The paralyzation wears off before they die but their health continues to fall until they eventually do die. I have never used this spell before and thought it will be a great fun way to complete this quest!

To kill all of the vampire hunters in town I first approached the first hunter closest to me and cast the spell upon him. Luckily there was noone else around to see!

He immediately froze in place for quite a while. I didn't want to stand around for the three or so minutes the paralyzation lasts to see what happens so I left him in search of the others.

I found the leader of the hunters, Eridor, and immediately ran up to him and infected him with "the disease". He immediately froze and fall over in the middle of the street. When I did this, nobody was around to see me do it, but as soon as he fell over a guard came around the corner and I immediately froze in place thinking "oh no! Have I been caught?" and looked very nervous as the guard approached, no matter how hard I tried to look natural. (How natural can I look being the only person in the whole street with a paralyzed body?). Luckily for me the guard didn't stop walking but passed us by, only looking down at the paralyzed Erador as he passed him as if seeing such a thing was an every day occurance. I couldn't help but laugh to myself at this.

I did the same to each hunter one by one until they were all like this. Then I continued to pay a visit to each one to check up and see how far the disease had progressed. The paralyzation spell had worn off and they were walking around doing their normal thing, but were gasping for breath as their health had dropped extremely low and was still falling. None of them seemed to recognise me as having done them harm, for they just turned their heads and looked at me when I approached. Talking to a hunter just presented the same response they always gave, they were ordered not to talk to towns folk.
Eventually they began to die and as I found them dead in different parts of the town. I looted their bodies. Erador, for some reason, was the last one left standing.. and he had taken up shelter in the near by inn.

I followed him, of course, to watch his progress..I stood out of the way in the corner of the Inn for a couple minutes when out of nowhere Erador suddenly goes Berserk!

I quickly ran behind the bar for protection only stepping out briefly when the fight drew further away and of course Val had to step in and defend the attack. The attack wasn't on me, though he did take a couple of swings late in the fight, but on everyone actually. Guards and inn patrons who got swung at were all mixed in there! I have no idea what would cause him to go mad suddenly, it wasn't scripted into the spell but certaintly was interesting! Of course pitted against so many people, some of which are guards Erador was eventually killed and stood no chance of surviving such a foolish act. I looted his body :D

With that out of the way my next act was to go to the cave just outside of town and kill all of the vampires inside. So Val and I began our trek out the city doors and down the road toward the cave when we came upon this odd sight...

For some reason there was a small stack of guards dead on the side of the road. I don't remember killing them.. It all looked as if they'd jumped off of the bridge above them together to commit suicide or something. I looted their bodies and got some good armor and stuff to sell for later, but doing so gave me a couple of diseases so Val and I had to head all the way back in to town to the chapel to get cured, which we did.
Also, on the way back I noticed Val looked different. He had picked up some armor from someone in the bar fight in the inn and donned it. I checked his inventory and found he actually had made a good choice. The new armor he chose actually provides more protection, so I let him keep it.

Eventually we reached the cave and went in. There were only a couple vampires near the entrance and we descended. I of course loot every body I find and one particular was left nude as you can see in a future picture. Little did I know, and I soon found this out, the whole cave as well as everyone inside was riddled with disease and sickness! Soon I was coughing and my throat was feeling tight. I didn't think anything of it at first, one disease or two never slowed me down before I could get to a chapel or find a potion. I turned around to make sure Val was following me Ok behind.

My my... Val has his game face on! for once..
Good for you Val!

Pleased Val was taking things so seriously finally, I turned back around to face forward and took a couple of small sneak steps toward the cave mouth to peer around and see if there were any vampires... when I hear this weird thud behind me that makes me jump just slightly because of the sudden noise.


I turn around to see this...

Oh val.. Poor guy. Turns out he had caught a disease just like me and was suffering for it. I waited for him to recover before continuing into the cave.

We powered our way through vampires, some of them were already dead from disease when we arrived. Each room bestowed upon us more and more disease and even though the loot we gathered on our way was very little and very light we soon found ourselves with very little fatigue and gasping loudly and constantly for air as our chests drew tighter. We aquired brown rot, ataxia, rust chankre, shakes among many others. I found myself stumbling, falling and collapsing many times along the way. Finally after all of the vampires were dead, I decided it would just be too difficult to claw my way out of the cave without a rest first. I used one of the beds on the floor of one of the small rooms in the cave, of which there were many, to have a short rest.
I had a visitation from Lucien Lechance:

He was very friendly to me. I told him I'm no murderer though, but he just gave me a dagger. I'll do this later... After he left I pocketed the dagger among the rest of my loot and continued out of the cave with Val. The rest had recovered me a little bit, but it was still a struggle to get out.
Soon I was right back at the weakness I was at before I had rested and just at the exit I collapsed into a brief unconcious state:

I layed there for a minute or two near a dead vampire body while the gasping val watched over me. Eventually I woke up and we continued out, gathering my wits about me and pushing open the splintered wooden cave door into the outside world... into a world of fog!

Of course we rested again before continuing down the hill to town.
When we arrived in town we were dragging our feet, our postures were slumped and we were both gasping for air badly. We probly looked as diseased as we felt and I thought everyone probably was staring at us. We were a mess! So, desperate by now to get rid of this horrible sick feeling, I lead val as quickly as my strength (or lack there of) could carry me to the chapel! I was met inside by the priest and found out I didn't have enough money to get healed! A second of panic set in while I gasped for air.. Then suddenly remembered "I have a lot of loot to sell!" With an effortfull groan I lead Val back outside, down the street (tripping and falling a few times) to the local pawn shop. I would have gathered more money by selling my loot at the armor shop but the pawn shop was closer and I didn't have the strength to go so far! We burst into the shop a sight and was met with a dunmer lady who owns the shop. She gladly bought our loot and we earned enough to go back to the chapel and get healed! Thank gawd! But not before asking a very strange question:

Ummm.. I feel rather odd being presented with this question... but okay.. I made up a silly amount "500 gold" and she suddenly reacted with relief, saying that's not as much as in morrowind " >.> what.." I decided to leave it be, maybe I don't want to know.. and left.

My next stop was to give the news to the count that all of the vampires, and hunters, were taken care of. He thanked me and told me some grave news:

DUN dun duuunnnn...! For those who are unfamiliar, Mannimarco is the evil equivilent to the mages guild as lord Voldemort is to the magical world of Harry Potter!

Now I have to go tell the arch mage.