The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered | Ep. 2 – New Life in Cyrodiil, What Could Go Wrong?
Our new life in Cyrodiil continues! There are quests to complete, dungeons to explore, characters to meet, and an enormous fantasy world filled with opportunities to become distracted by absolutely everything except whatever we are actually supposed to be doing.
That became fairly obvious during this episode. We started at Weynon Priory with the main quest waiting for us and ended the night having joined the Mages Guild, cleared two completely optional dungeons, acquired a castle, walked in the wrong direction for far too long and still barely looked at the main story.
🏰 About the Game
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered takes us back to Cyrodiil in the remastered version of Bethesda’s open-world RPG. The Emperor is dead, mysterious Oblivion Gates are opening across the province, and the forces of Mehrunes Dagon are beginning to threaten Tamriel.
We can follow the main story, explore towns and ancient ruins, join factions, delve into dungeons and build our character however we want. More importantly for this playthrough, the world is full of side quests and interesting-looking places that make it very easy to forget what we originally set out to do.
🧭 Where We Are in the Journey
We picked up exactly where the previous episode ended. The tutorial was complete, our Nord knight had reached Weynon Priory, and we were finally free to start exploring Cyrodiil properly.
We are still very early in the playthrough, but this episode began opening the world up considerably. By the end of the stream we had unknowingly progressed from level one to level four, joined the Mages Guild, earned our first recommendation and somehow acquired Battlehorn Castle as a permanent home.
🔥 What Happens in This Episode
We picked up exactly where the previous episode left us, having finished the tutorial and made our way to Weynon Priory. The Emperor may have entrusted us with something rather important, and the future of Cyrodiil may technically depend on us getting on with it, but there was absolutely no chance we were going straight to the main quest. Instead, we had a rummage around the priory, spoke to the people there to see whether anybody had any work for us, and then headed out to explore the surrounding area.
That soon brought us to Chorrol — assuming I am still pronouncing that correctly — which became the real focus of the evening. Before doing anything particularly productive, we also adjusted the first-person field of view from 70 to 90 because the default setting felt far too tight on the ultrawide monitor. Once everything was a little more comfortable, we started wandering around town and collecting whatever quests happened to cross our path.
Our first stop was the Chapel of Stendarr. Most of the interesting-looking doors inside were locked, so there was only so much rummaging we could actually do, but we spoke to the people there and generally investigated the place anyway. This was also around the point where the remastered NPCs started attracting quite a lot of attention. Chorrol appeared to be populated almost entirely by people with extremely enthusiastic wrinkles, unusual mouths and voices that sounded suspiciously familiar. Gary suggested there must only have been about three people voicing everybody in the game, while chat became increasingly distracted by the faces. Considering we were meant to be investigating quests, a surprising amount of time was spent simply staring at the locals.
From the chapel we wandered up to the Mages Guild, where we discovered that joining was remarkably straightforward. We became an associate and learned that progressing further would require recommendations from the individual guild halls around Cyrodiil. Chorrol conveniently had a recommendation available, although naturally it came with a problem attached. Teekeeus wanted us to investigate Earana, who had apparently been hanging around town and was looking for something.
Before finding her, we continued exploring. Fire and Steel was next, where we had a look through the weapons, armour, repairs and various services on offer. Unfortunately, looking was about the limit of our financial capabilities at that point. We were still extremely early in the game and not exactly wandering around with sacks of spare gold, so after inspecting everything we carried on down the street.
That eventually brought us to The Grey Mare, where we found the woman the Mages Guild had been concerned about. Earana wanted a book called Fingers of the Mountain, which was supposedly located at Cloud Top somewhere outside Chorrol. The name lasted approximately five seconds before becoming Fingering the Mountain, which is probably what it will be called for the remainder of the playthrough whether the Mages Guild approves or not.
We still did not leave town immediately. Chorrol Castle was sitting nearby, and going inside revealed another substantial distraction. Countess Valga had lost a painting of her late husband and wanted us to investigate its disappearance. This was not a simple case of following a quest marker and hitting something with a sword either. She gave us a list of people to question, suspects to investigate and physical clues to look for around the castle.
It sounded like a proper little mystery, so we started interviewing the residents. Unfortunately, this was where we ran head-first into Oblivion’s persuasion mini-game and discovered that none of us had the faintest idea what we were doing. The rotating wedges, different reactions and changing values seemed to result in us annoying people far more reliably than persuading them to tell us anything useful.
Gary attempted to guide us through it from chat, explaining that the disliked responses needed to land on the smaller values while the things an NPC liked should be matched with the larger wedges. Happy_Cat_Lady also tried asking AIDA for a tutorial, which produced advice involving Speechcraft, charm, bribery and, eventually, the suggestion that singing a cheesy song might help. Her response of “FFS” was probably more useful than the tutorial.
Somewhere in the middle of the investigation we also encountered an NPC who looked suspiciously like Tina Turner, because apparently the stolen painting mystery did not already have enough going on. After repeatedly failing to get useful information out of people, we decided that Canvas the Castle could stay unfinished for the time being. At that stage we were still only level one, so rather than continuing to irritate the population of Chorrol, we left the investigation for a future visit when our character is a little more capable.
There was plenty happening in chat while all this was going on as well. Cheese continued to appear with suspicious regularity, the Mages Guild briefly became the “cheese guild,” and Gary maintained his usual position as both useful adviser and the person automatically blamed whenever anything went wrong. We also had a Hunger Games diversion in which several people from chat volunteered as tributes. Dr Ravenholm somehow emerged as the winner after Gary was eliminated, which immediately resulted in accusations of a rigged competition and bribed judges. Completely unfounded accusations, obviously.
Once we finally escaped the castle, we returned to the Mages Guild and told Teekeeus what Earana was actually after. He was not particularly enthusiastic about the idea of her getting hold of Fingers of the Mountain and instructed us to retrieve the book first. Cloud Top did not look particularly far away on the map, so with a clear objective and absolutely no reason to become distracted, we headed out of Chorrol.
A short distance down the road, we found Pillage Mine.
Obviously, we went inside.
The book could wait while we investigated an entirely unrelated hole in the ground. Pillage Mine was full of goblins, so we fought our way through and cleared the dungeon, collecting whatever useful loot we could carry along the way. The combat itself was not really the problem. The real threat lurking beneath Cyrodiil turned out to be locked treasure chests.
Oblivion’s lockpicking mini-game became the second major source of confusion and frustration for the evening. Getting the pins into position was awkward, lockpicks were being broken, and even containers that should have been relatively simple became far more irritating than whatever reward might have been hiding inside them. Eventually we simply stopped bothering. Gary admitted that a four-pin lock had annoyed him enough to stop playing the game in the past, which did not exactly fill us with confidence about what was waiting later.
We still cleared Pillage Mine, though, and eventually emerged back onto the road to continue west. That was when we stumbled across Battlehorn Castle and something from my original Oblivion playthrough suddenly clicked into place. I remembered playing on the Xbox 360 — I believe around 2011 — and having access to a DLC castle somewhere fairly early in the game that could effectively become a headquarters.
Battlehorn was that castle.
There were four enemies attacking the place when we arrived, so we dealt with them one at a time. Once the last one was dead, the surviving defender thanked us and the game essentially handed over ownership of the entire castle. We had left Chorrol looking for a book and, without really trying, had somehow become property owners.
Naturally, the first priority was not defending the region, planning castle improvements or embracing our new responsibilities. It was storage.
We had a rummage through Battlehorn to see what our new home contained. At the moment it is fairly empty and clearly needs some work, so figuring out how to properly furnish and upgrade the place can become a project for later in the playthrough. For now, the important discovery was a chest conveniently positioned near the entrance. As a dedicated loot goblin, I immediately decided that this would become the main dumping ground for whatever collection of weapons, armour, ingredients and assorted rubbish we accumulate over the coming weeks.
With our new headquarters established, we once again set off for Cloud Top. We did not get there.
Black Rock Cavern appeared behind a waterfall, and there was no realistic version of events in which we were going to walk past a dungeon hidden behind a waterfall. We headed inside, cleared the place out and once again found ourselves fighting with locked containers almost as much as the actual enemies. By this point the lockpicking was starting to interrupt the flow of the game badly enough that we seriously discussed installing a mod before the next stream that would simply let us bypass it.
I normally prefer not to modify mechanics out of a game just because they are difficult or inconvenient, but these locks were becoming irritating rather than interesting. After the stream, however, I investigated things properly. I discovered that we had actually levelled up to level four already, once I worked out how Oblivion’s levelling system was supposed to work, and that at level ten we should be able to acquire an unbreakable lockpick that effectively acts as a master key.
That changes the plan slightly. Rather than installing a mod, we may simply ignore locked containers unless they are required for a quest. Once we eventually reach level ten, we can go and acquire the unbreakable lockpick and return to our career of opening absolutely everything that is not nailed down.
After Black Rock Cavern we resumed the journey towards what I believed was Cloud Top. We walked for quite a while. Then a little longer. Then long enough that I started wondering why a destination that had looked relatively close to Chorrol was apparently on the other side of the province.
Eventually the White-Gold Tower appeared prominently in the distance ahead of us.
That was a problem.
If we could see the Imperial City getting closer, we were very clearly not heading towards Cloud Top. Opening the map revealed what had happened: somewhere around our visit to Battlehorn Castle, the active quest had changed. Instead of following the marker for Fingers of the Mountain, we had spent a substantial amount of time obediently walking back towards the Imperial City.
So we turned around and started walking in the opposite direction. Gary was blamed, because by this stage blaming Gary had become the safest explanation for unexplained events.
Eventually — genuinely this time — we reached Cloud Top. I had been expecting some sort of dungeon or dramatic final area after the amount of trouble involved in getting there. Instead, Cloud Top contained a dead bloke lying on the ground. That was more or less it. We found Fingers of the Mountain, picked it up and began the journey back to Chorrol.
We handed the book over to Teekeeus rather than Earana, completing the local Mages Guild task and earning our recommendation from Chorrol. The book was still unopened when we gave it to him because I had not actually realised there was an option to open and read it until Teekeeus mentioned that fact during the conversation. Apparently our approach to mysterious magical literature is simply to carry it around without checking what is inside.
That was where we wrapped things up for the week, saving just outside the Mages Guild. We had begun the evening at Weynon Priory with the main story waiting for us and somehow ended it with a Mages Guild recommendation, two cleared dungeons, an unfinished murder-mystery-style painting investigation, a newly acquired castle and a growing resentment towards lockpicking. We had also levelled from one to four without really noticing.
Most importantly, we still had not done anything meaningful with the main quest.
Which, at this rate, is probably going to become a recurring feature of this playthrough.
Once everything was saved, we closed out the night by raiding into AngryJoeShow, leaving Cyrodiil behind until the next session — when we can hopefully continue exploring, start sorting out Battlehorn Castle, perhaps return to that stolen painting investigation and, theoretically, remember that the Empire is supposed to be in danger.
🎥 Watch the Episode
You can watch the complete stream episode here: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered – Episode 2.
If you enjoy the episode, leave a like and let me know in the comments whether you would ignore the locked chests until level ten or surrender to the lockpicking mod. You can also subscribe to Dr Ravenholm on YouTube and follow the full series through the Oblivion Remastered playlist.
🔴 Join the Adventure Live
The recorded episodes show you where we ended up. Watching live lets you see how long it takes us to get there, including the wrong turns, unexpected caves, chat distractions and whatever Gary gets blamed for next.
Come and join us live on Twitch or YouTube. The community is a big part of these streams, whether they are explaining Oblivion mechanics, finding mods, starting Hunger Games or watching me walk towards completely the wrong city.
🌐 Community & Links
If you want to stay around after we leave Cyrodiil for the evening, there are plenty of places to keep up with the streams, videos, music and everything else happening around the community.
Live — Come along when the next distraction begins:
Twitch | YouTube
Community — Continue the conversation between streams:
Discord
Socials — Follow the clips, updates and general activity elsewhere:
TikTok | Bluesky | Instagram | Facebook | Threads | X
Music — There is more to listen to once the game music stops:
Spotify | Apple Music
Support — Help support the channel and future streams:
Fourthwall | Teespring | Streamlabs
More — Explore the other projects and services beyond the streams:
Business Centre | Download the Brochure | About Me | Blog
🗝️ A Castle, a Book and the Wrong Way Home
For an episode where we deliberately avoided the main quest, quite a lot happened. We now have Battlehorn Castle as a base, our first Mages Guild recommendation is complete, and there are already unfinished quests waiting for us back in Chorrol.
Next time we can continue exploring, work towards level ten and that unbreakable lockpick, perhaps return to the stolen painting investigation and possibly even remember that there is supposed to be an Imperial crisis going on somewhere.
— Dr Ravenholm
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