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theonecallednickies-blog · 7 years

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The Tale of Nickies Black, Part 2

Read Part 1 Here

Ok, so, last time on my Oblivion Save, I left off with the clone, nicknamed Nickies Black, going missing. He used my full Health Restore + Buff Willpower 100 + Invisibility spell and then promptly vanished. I couldn't find him anywhere.

My main worry at this point was that he equipped my Ring of Khajiiti, which would cloak him with something like 15% Chameleon. This would basically require me to have Detect Life active at all times to stand a chance at finding him... Unfortunately, Mysticism was always the one school I neglected, and so my main method of getting Detect Life was donning the Gray Cowl of Nocturnal and going around as the Gray Fox.

I loaded a few previous saves just to see where he's likely to run to if prompted. They all showed him running South, to the Roxey Inn (which he always cleaned out mercilessly, by the way. The mercenaries, or whatever they are, inside would often try to run down the road only to get blasted in the back with a monstrously damaging spell).

However, after looking around that area with the Gray Cowl on, having to avoid a few Legion soldiers as I did, I just couldn't find him. I gave up.

For the next day or so, I just did regular stuff, including coming up with whatever useful spells I could think of just in case I found him.

Of course, I never actually found him. No, instead, I heard combat music suddenly during a journey from Cloud Ruler Temple to Bruma. When I arrived at the city, I waited around, and lo and behold, here comes Nickies Black, ready to stab me to bits with my own damn weaponry.

Only, something wasn't right this time. He took off the Shrouded Hood, and replaced it with the Helm of the Crusader. Now curious, I fled and returned, which I found often calms him down, and found him near the city walls.

Further observation saw him slowly shifting from Dark Brotherhood armor to the Crusader set. It should be noted that I don't believe the DB gear was broken enough to warrant a switch based on durability, but more evidence for this will come later. As was my natural inclination, I decided that perhaps this second experiment had gone too far, and tried to kill him, but he had put on the better examples of my Enchanted jewelry. For the first time in his second incarnation's life, he was totally immune to magic, and reflected much of my physical attacks.

Following the last of those battles outside of Bruma, he fell out of my sight once more. I found him to the Southwest, in full Crusader armor for the first time. What was puzzling is that his personality almost seemed to change with his equipment. For the first time ever, Nickies Black greeted me with at least passive friendliness (How are you?) and not utter contempt (Is it necessary that you speak to me?). I... didn't let it affect my resolve. The clone was too dangerous to be left alive. We fought, and the battle led us back to Bruma proper. I pity that city.

As we approached, I found, to my great confusion, that I had a 2000 gold bounty on my head. To clarify, I had certainly seen the clone kill somewhere between 4 and 8 guards by this point, but I hadn't killed anyone, I swear. I hadn't even assaulted anyone except for the clone, and I had long since ditched the Gray Cowl. I can't explain why I had the bounty, but I did. Whether or not it was the game attributing the clone's crimes to me, I don't easily buy into, but I can't think of another explanation.

So what followed was a three-way brawl between me, Nickies Black, and the Bruma City Guard. Unfortunately for the guards, Black and I were content to hammer each other with Area of Effect spells that did not affect us at all but one-hit the guards, as soon as a bunch of them would swarm around one of us. For a moment we even teamed up against a swarm of guards near one of the City's gates, but the alliance, while fun and supremely powerful, didn't last long.

Even worse, Black was in a rage at this point. He would often attack any civilian he saw, and only pause to fight me if provoked. I'm not sure how many people are even still alive in Bruma now, but before I led him out of the city, I looked on my statue with true guilt.

As you may have noticed, he switched to a Quartz Cuirass (enchanted Glass with powerful Resist Normal Weapons stats) during this time. However, again, I don't think this was due to durability. He would often switch between the Quartz Cuirass and my Custom Enchanted Perfect Amber gear during the ... ravaging of Bruma. Beyond that, he was apparently able to summon two Lichs at once, despite that being, you know... physically impossible in the game's mechanics.

I resolved to bring him to Cloud Ruler Temple, where I hoped either the Blades would kill him or he'd get stuck. I led him there, watched for a bit, and ran as soon as I saw what was happening.

I returned to find the Blades all dead, the door wide open, and Black nowhere to be found. Loading alternate saves allowed me to find him cloaked inside the temple, back in his full Crusader gear (this is my main evidence for the "Not due to durability" theory), or as far as the road to Chorrol (wearing Imperial Dragon Armor and Sheogorath's Regalia that time) and cloaked with the Ring of Khajiiti. Further investigation in the main save showed he isn't there, however. Once again, he has gone missing. I fear for anything he comes across at this point.

I do want to mention a few key things here. Firstly, at this time he seemed to have ditched the faction-specific dialogue in favor of generally evil lines. However, he still equiped gear in "sets," that is, he'll go from Full Shrouded Gear to Full Crusader Gear to Full Amber to Full Glass, and so on and so forth. To this day I don't understand how he displays such autonomy with his equipment loadout. I've seen him switch between Glass and Amber in the middle of combat, not to mention he still refuses to put on the "AAAAA" hood that'll kill him.

Here’s a Youtube compilation proving that I’m not just making this up.

Further clips are available on my Xbox DVR page, found here.

To clarify, this all occurred on an Xbox 360 save played on Xbox One. The story is ongoing; Part 3 coming soon.

#Oblivion #Elder Scrolls #The Elder Scrolls #Nickies #TESiv #TES #TES4 #Nickies Black #The Elder Scrolls Oblivion

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