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My Oblivion Wife, or: Of Orcish Bondage
feature
game: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
posted by: Shawn Rider
publisher: 2K Games
developer: Bethesda
keywords:
date posted: 12:14 AM Fri Apr 21st, 2006
last revision: 01:26 PM Fri Apr 21st, 2006



Click to read.I have an Orcish wife in Tamriel. Well, I call her my wife; I\'m not sure what the common law marriage laws are like in Cyrodiil, and I can\'t find anyone to marry us officially (yet). Her name is Mazoga, and she is my best friend.

She says so.

My name is Pendleton Barky (for the blanket on my legs and the sound the dog makes). I am a Redguard, and I have no past. My history starts when I (re?)gain consciousness deep in the dungeons of the Imperial City. I have no idea why I was there. I don\'t know how long I would have stayed there, were it not for the Emperor himself, who passed through my prison cell to access a hidden passageway. The Emperor and his immediate guard were fleeing an all-out choreographed assassination attempt, and in the chaos of the moment, Uriel Septim, Emperor of all Tamriel, personally set me free.

It was a good day, if a bit disorienting.

Since that day, it\'s as if I\'m a new person. I\'ve awakened a Pendleton Barky I never knew, or I don\'t think I ever knew. I have made many comrades, but all in passing. Of course, I sweet talk the ladies and knuckle down on the merchants, but it\'s all fluff. I have solved the mystery of the Emperor\'s assassination, and I personally saved every city in Cyrodiil from imminent doom. From Oblivion. I have quite literally gone to hell and back, yet I have not found a single other with whom I can share my glory, not even a pet. I\'ve seen others with sidekicks, wives, husbands, wolves! Why couldn\'t a hero, a champion, a Grand Champion, find a companion?

I am lonesome in Tamriel. Well, I was lonesome.

On a trip through Leyawiin, I stopped to see my old friend, Count Caro. We had done some business when I saved the city from an Oblivion gate, and I remembered he had another favor to ask when I got through saving the world. That was when he told me about her: Mazoga.

Mazoga is an Orc. I should say, Sir Mazoga, as I\'m introducing you to her for the first time, but I believe that we\'re now such good friends she won\'t mind me referring to her as simply Mazoga.

Ma-zo-ga: Light of my life, fire of my loins.

She has the most green skin, and the cutest upturned nose. She has a husky, deep voice, sultry and enticing. Her hair is arranged in exquisite black plugs that pepper her otherwise bare skull. Those beautiful teeth. She is bold and forthright, never afraid to tussle, and I\'ve personally seen her take a man\'s life in just a few swings of her two-handed sword. She is a sight to behold, and a knight to boot.

She would have been a knight, at least, if she hadn\'t met me. She showed up in Leyawiin and loitered around Count Marius Caro\'s court, asking after Weebam-Na, an Argonian hunter who lives in the city. Count Caro was nervous about her presence and unsure if she could be trusted. But I think that Caro just doesn\'t like Orcs. You don\'t see hardly any in Leyawiin. I usually don\'t go looking for discrimination, after all, I\'m as fine with the lizard people as I am with the cat people, and, to be honest, a warrior\'s blade or a merchant\'s stock is really all I care about.

At any rate, the Count figured since he could trust me, I should check out Mazoga and get her story. I found her in the Castle County Hall, by a planter. She was surly at first: Sir Mazoga, she wanted me to call her. I was smitten. As it happened, Mazoga wanted Weebam-Na because he could tell her where Fisherman\'s Rock is located.

It gets a little soap-operatic, but the short story is that Mazoga was in Leyawiin for the entirely noble goal of seeking blood-revenge for the murder of her friend. I helped her murder the band of outlaw murderers and I thought that would be the last I saw of Mazoga. It wasn\'t.

After returning to let Count Caro know Mazoga\'s reasons for loitering in his hall, Caro wanted us to perform a favor in exchange for knighthood-admission into the honorable order, The Knights of the White Stallion. Caro asked Mazoga and me to do what we could to eliminate Black Brugo, leader of the Black Bows. Brugo is a terrible outlaw who murders and robs innocent civilians in the area. Mazoga, bless her heart, had run with Brugo\'s gang in the past, and she led me to Telepe, where the Black Bows met weekly to handle payroll.

We journeyed to Telepe, and on this trip, Mazoga was all giddy. She called me her best friend and when we met Black Bows, we destroyed them with impunity. It was a good day, that Tirdas so long ago, and as night fell and we stood around the campfire outside of the ancient Ayleid ruins. Mazoga kept me company, re-assuring me that Brugo would show up anytime.

He never did.

We spent weeks, months revisiting the ruins, slaughtering dozens of Black Bows, and camping in front of the ruins. All Mazoga wanted was to become a knight. If we completed our task, her dreams would come true. But try as we might, we could not find Brugo.

Eventually it was undeniable: Brugo had been murdered somewhere else, or else he had heard of our reign of terror and given up the game. I think he\'s still out there, or at least the Count of Leyawiin thinks he\'s still out there, and won\'t give us our knighthood. Mazoga doesn\'t know what to do with herself.

She follows me around constantly. We\'ve had mighty good adventures. But as I grow in power, she is more and more endangered. After one too many close calls routing evil spirits from deep, mysterious ruins, it became clear that I could not keep her safe if she stayed with me. I would have to leave her behind.

So where could I put her except in my house? I told her to stay in my home in Leyawiin, which is a cozy little shack. I rarely use it, so it\'s all hers most of the time. She seems to like it there, but she has never really gotten past the Brugo experience. I know that deep down inside she wants to be a knight-errant, roaming the countryside on behalf of her lord. But now, thanks to me (well, thanks to Brugo and me), she is a housewife.

She is always there for me. Whenever Cyrodiil becomes too lonely, I can return to my home in Leyawiin and my beautiful Mazoga, eternally waiting for me and ready to take out Brugo and his thugs. She happily greets me and never lets it show how disappointed she is that I\'ve given up the quest. I have done all I can-barring some kind of magical alteration to the world to make Brugo appear, I cannot do anything to help her succeed in her goals. My goals.

I never wanted to be your keeper, Mazoga. I wanted to be your friend, your confidant, your companion. I wanted us to grow together, but now you\'ve become the homebody you never wanted to be, and I continue my vagrant lifestyle, checking in on you occasionally and wondering if this is what Abraham Lincoln felt like. It cannot remain this way forever.

Perhaps I will buy you a kitchen set. Or a living room.

If you see Brugo, tell him that Pendleton Barky is after him. I\'ve searched every town in Cyrodiil, and I\'m not stopping there. Someday, somewhere in this vast province, I will find Brugo. I will hunt him, find him, and kill him. And then I will set free that which I have come to love.

-------------------------
By way of explanation: The preceding monologue was inspired by a glitch in the game Oblivion which prevented me from completing the Knights of the White Stallion quest and introduced me to Mazoga.

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