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The following is an interesting story I ran across while browsing some boards online. Some guy (named Nickies) used the Skull of Corruption glitch to permanently clone himself and now seems to be implying that his clone has gained sentience and is outsmarting him at every turn. Here's the text, it's pretty long so prepare to read a lot. Most of the video evidence that the original text references is no longer available, but some can be found on YouTube.
*I do not take credit for any of this, it's merely copypasta*
PART 1
PART 2
PART 3
PART 4
What is the likelihood of an Oblivion NPC behaving in this manner? The story seems like a total fabrication but it's also fascinating for some reason. The videos that are referenced did exist at one point, which provided evidence that these tales did happen, but whether or not his save is modded in some way is up for debate.
*I do not take credit for any of this, it's merely copypasta*
PART 1
"Before I begin my tale, allow me to give some background information on my character. He's a male Breton battlemage, whose name (Nickies) is derived from two previous characters I made: a warrior and a mage named Nick and Mikies, respectively.
Nickies represents the culmination of all of my attempts at making the perfect Oblivion character. His gear grants him 100% Resistance to Magic, 40% Spell Absorb, 40% Spell Reflect, and 30% Damage Reflect. He has an insanely large magicka pool, admittedly due to some use of the ring duplication glitch. The spells I threw together on this character were simply obscene.
Needless to say, the game soon became boring. Despite Oblivion being my favorite game of all time, I eventually ran out of things to do and dropped it. Years passed, until a few months ago I read about the Skull of Corruption glitch that allows you to make a permanent clone of yourself. I thought this would be a perfect way to make Oblivion fun again; my character was so strong that the only challenge possible was fighting myself.
So I threw on an alternate set of armor, as to differentiate between the Corrupted Clone and myself, and performed the glitch using Capstone Cave. Note that I purposefully did not equip my best gear, including the Mundane Ring, as to make sure I could still kill the clone.
Once I brought the clone outside, thus making him permanent, he proved harder to kill than I thought. I play on max difficulty as a rule, so essentially he was 6x stronger than me stat-wise, and he would use my massive healing spells whenever he got to a low health. Naturally, he couldn't kill me either, since I too could heal myself.
Even in this first battle, I noticed something was off. He used odd dialogue I had not heard before, such as "I'm sworn to die, are you?" Additionally, his Reflect Damage probability seemed to be much higher than 30%, it seemed like around 80% to me.
So, I broke off the fight, used an Invisibility spell, and left. After some time to plan out a strategy or two, I returned to find the clone in my best gear. I'm not making this up, the clone had switched from his alternate outfit into the actual best gear that I had, Mundane Ring and all (I figured that out as soon as I tried blasting him with a 2000+ damage spell).
What puzzled me the most at this point is how he put on that equipment. As far as I knew, Oblivion NPCs only equipped the gear that was highest (alphabetically) in their inventory when they refreshed their inventory states. By that logic, the clone should have put on a hood I had called "AAAAAAA," which purposefully had such a name because it had a Fire Damage on Self enchantment and was meant to be reverse-pickpocketed onto an NPC as a form of assassination. Yet, the clone did not seem to have any inclination towards wearing it at all.
I and the clone fought several times after this, gradually heading south of Capstone Cave (near Bruma). He continued to say weird dialogue I had never heard before, such as "The training of a thousand years has passed through me!" I lost track of him a few times, on the journey southward. On one occasion I found an entire village that looked to have been ransacked by him, and I swear that at one point I got a 1000 gold bounty when I never committed murder. He wore boots that allowed him to walk on water, and yet when I fought him outside Deepscorn Hollow, he was able to swim and follow me underwater to get inside the home.
After many close calls and several battles, I was only able to kill the clone after leading him into the Imperial City and fighting him alongside the entire Imperial Watch - and he killed dozens of them in the process. In that final battle, our armors and swords broke several times over. He donned Sheogorath's Regalia while I fought with only my Greaves on. After myself and ten Imperial Palace Guards attacked him at once, he finally died. It was over.
Months went by, until just a few days ago. I decided to try to make the clone again, to get to the bottom of just what caused those strange details. This time, after I fought him once, left, then returned, he was not wearing my best gear, as he did the first time, but rather a full set of Shrouded Armor. Since it was substantially weaker than what I wore, I managed to get him to a low health pretty quickly, but then he said something that chilled my bones: "Why, Brother ... why?" I hesitated to kill him, and after about a minute he used my Restore Health / Invisibility spell, said "Night Mother have mercy on you!" and then vanished completely (that is to say, he ran off somewhere while invisible).
Due to his equipping of Shrouded Armor, a few of my friends have suggested I call the clone, "Nickies Black," referencing Dragonball Super. The name has since caught on. I haven't found Black since, although I did discover some dead bandits and a dead Legion soldier not far from Bruma. The entire situation is simply puzzling to me.
This all took place on an unmodded Xbox 360 (ported to Xbox One) save."
Nickies represents the culmination of all of my attempts at making the perfect Oblivion character. His gear grants him 100% Resistance to Magic, 40% Spell Absorb, 40% Spell Reflect, and 30% Damage Reflect. He has an insanely large magicka pool, admittedly due to some use of the ring duplication glitch. The spells I threw together on this character were simply obscene.
Needless to say, the game soon became boring. Despite Oblivion being my favorite game of all time, I eventually ran out of things to do and dropped it. Years passed, until a few months ago I read about the Skull of Corruption glitch that allows you to make a permanent clone of yourself. I thought this would be a perfect way to make Oblivion fun again; my character was so strong that the only challenge possible was fighting myself.
So I threw on an alternate set of armor, as to differentiate between the Corrupted Clone and myself, and performed the glitch using Capstone Cave. Note that I purposefully did not equip my best gear, including the Mundane Ring, as to make sure I could still kill the clone.
Once I brought the clone outside, thus making him permanent, he proved harder to kill than I thought. I play on max difficulty as a rule, so essentially he was 6x stronger than me stat-wise, and he would use my massive healing spells whenever he got to a low health. Naturally, he couldn't kill me either, since I too could heal myself.
Even in this first battle, I noticed something was off. He used odd dialogue I had not heard before, such as "I'm sworn to die, are you?" Additionally, his Reflect Damage probability seemed to be much higher than 30%, it seemed like around 80% to me.
So, I broke off the fight, used an Invisibility spell, and left. After some time to plan out a strategy or two, I returned to find the clone in my best gear. I'm not making this up, the clone had switched from his alternate outfit into the actual best gear that I had, Mundane Ring and all (I figured that out as soon as I tried blasting him with a 2000+ damage spell).
What puzzled me the most at this point is how he put on that equipment. As far as I knew, Oblivion NPCs only equipped the gear that was highest (alphabetically) in their inventory when they refreshed their inventory states. By that logic, the clone should have put on a hood I had called "AAAAAAA," which purposefully had such a name because it had a Fire Damage on Self enchantment and was meant to be reverse-pickpocketed onto an NPC as a form of assassination. Yet, the clone did not seem to have any inclination towards wearing it at all.
I and the clone fought several times after this, gradually heading south of Capstone Cave (near Bruma). He continued to say weird dialogue I had never heard before, such as "The training of a thousand years has passed through me!" I lost track of him a few times, on the journey southward. On one occasion I found an entire village that looked to have been ransacked by him, and I swear that at one point I got a 1000 gold bounty when I never committed murder. He wore boots that allowed him to walk on water, and yet when I fought him outside Deepscorn Hollow, he was able to swim and follow me underwater to get inside the home.
After many close calls and several battles, I was only able to kill the clone after leading him into the Imperial City and fighting him alongside the entire Imperial Watch - and he killed dozens of them in the process. In that final battle, our armors and swords broke several times over. He donned Sheogorath's Regalia while I fought with only my Greaves on. After myself and ten Imperial Palace Guards attacked him at once, he finally died. It was over.
Months went by, until just a few days ago. I decided to try to make the clone again, to get to the bottom of just what caused those strange details. This time, after I fought him once, left, then returned, he was not wearing my best gear, as he did the first time, but rather a full set of Shrouded Armor. Since it was substantially weaker than what I wore, I managed to get him to a low health pretty quickly, but then he said something that chilled my bones: "Why, Brother ... why?" I hesitated to kill him, and after about a minute he used my Restore Health / Invisibility spell, said "Night Mother have mercy on you!" and then vanished completely (that is to say, he ran off somewhere while invisible).
Due to his equipping of Shrouded Armor, a few of my friends have suggested I call the clone, "Nickies Black," referencing Dragonball Super. The name has since caught on. I haven't found Black since, although I did discover some dead bandits and a dead Legion soldier not far from Bruma. The entire situation is simply puzzling to me.
This all took place on an unmodded Xbox 360 (ported to Xbox One) save."
PART 2
"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. Firstly, he seems to have ditched the faction-specific dialogue in favor of generally evil lines. However, he still equips 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. Eventually I do think he'll start switching to the Imperial Dragon gear and the non-armor robes / clothes I keep on me, as he did in the other saves, but 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. There are undoubtedly still more mysterious to unravel with this clone."
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. Firstly, he seems to have ditched the faction-specific dialogue in favor of generally evil lines. However, he still equips 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. Eventually I do think he'll start switching to the Imperial Dragon gear and the non-armor robes / clothes I keep on me, as he did in the other saves, but 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. There are undoubtedly still more mysterious to unravel with this clone."
PART 3
"Last time on my Oblivion save, Nickies Black, the corrupted clone of my main Oblivion player-character, went missing following an apparent escape from Cloud Ruler Temple. The Blades were all but extinct, and Bruma had been sacked and left to smolder.
After over an hour of searching, I located the clone just off the northermost road to Chorrol (which, I must say, is an impressive distance). I immediately pressed my advantage, pushing him farther and farther South. At one point he pulled our fight East, but, trying to keep it away from Chorrol, pulled it West. At first, my plan to keep our fight in the Wilderness was working... until a Black Horse Courier rode by.
Nickies Black chased the courier over half of the distance to Chorrol. I caught up easily, but he had still healed himself of most of the battle's damage by then.
Unfortunately, a grim realization hit me. The only way I'd beaten Black the first time was through using a city's garrison to help me, and on maximum difficulty so the guards hit 6x harder. If I were to have any hope of beating him again, a city would once more be required.
Not wasting any more time, I guiltily led Black into Chorrol. To avoid incurring any bounties, I entered the city under the guise of the Gray Fox, and started fighting my clone there. Despite the guard's initial hostilities, using a clever combination of Invisibility and provoking Black, I was able to turn them on him.
It was in vain. Black used summons and my own Area of Effect spells to make quick work of them. Humorously, the Battlehorn Castle soldier I had brought with me didn't even make an effort to help me. He fought against things that attacked me or Black, but never interfered in our actual one-on-one.
The townspeople soon joined in, on Black's side. I guess attacking what looks like the Champion of Cyrodiil as the Gray Fox doesn't get you much help in a place like Chorrol. They too didn't last long, as Black's summons and my own quickly picked them off.
My own sympathies for civilian casualties have waned significantly since Bruma. The clone has to die, and I have to pile on as many attackers on him at once until he does.
When the townspeople and the guards were all slaughtered, I finally had Black on critically low health. Even on maximum difficulty, I was able to keep pace using self-buffing spells (which I lovingly nicknamed "Super Saiyan") to match him hit for hit, and I was a bit smarter with using my Healing than he was. Even better, I knocked him down with a Backwards Power Attack just as he tried to heal. When I started hammering away at him, however, my spells expired. My fatigue fell into the negatives, and I collapsed face-first at Black's feet.
He got up before I could, hit me a few times, then thought better of it and fled, healing himself as he did. When I got up, he was gone again, although this time I was able to find him rather quickly: he was just outside the North Gate of Chorrol.
The Chameleon he'd used in the city (courtesy of the ring of Khajiiti) was still on him, so I had to remain as the Gray Fox in order to find him. When I did, it seemed as though he had settled into an outfit consisting of Sheogorath's Regalia and a Dark Green Robe Hood. Most strangely, for the very first time, he was using normal NPC dialogue. Gone were his usual "Is it necessary that you speak to me?" and "I don't like you. Go. Away," replaced with pleasant lines like "Hail!" and "How are you doing today?" not to mention those compliments on my skills and attributes that NPCs often give.
Looking back on the destruction I'd just created in Chorrol, I knew attacking him again, at that time, was pointless. I can only really beat him if I have significant friendly support.
I hate to say it, but city after city will have to help me, no matter the cost. Nickies Black is a threat too dangerous to be left alive.
The weekly highlights video, featuring many of the moments I mentioned, can be found here. I wonder, do you guys prefer more lively highlights like these or the more quiet ones like last week?
Also brought up last week was the idea of turning these into videos, with an "audio log talking over relevant background images / videos" theme. Is this really something you guys want to see?
As always, here is a link to the XboxClips page in which you can find proof of the validity of these events. Note that some of the clips are taken from alternate saves I made to screw around in without repercussions."
After over an hour of searching, I located the clone just off the northermost road to Chorrol (which, I must say, is an impressive distance). I immediately pressed my advantage, pushing him farther and farther South. At one point he pulled our fight East, but, trying to keep it away from Chorrol, pulled it West. At first, my plan to keep our fight in the Wilderness was working... until a Black Horse Courier rode by.
Nickies Black chased the courier over half of the distance to Chorrol. I caught up easily, but he had still healed himself of most of the battle's damage by then.
Unfortunately, a grim realization hit me. The only way I'd beaten Black the first time was through using a city's garrison to help me, and on maximum difficulty so the guards hit 6x harder. If I were to have any hope of beating him again, a city would once more be required.
Not wasting any more time, I guiltily led Black into Chorrol. To avoid incurring any bounties, I entered the city under the guise of the Gray Fox, and started fighting my clone there. Despite the guard's initial hostilities, using a clever combination of Invisibility and provoking Black, I was able to turn them on him.
It was in vain. Black used summons and my own Area of Effect spells to make quick work of them. Humorously, the Battlehorn Castle soldier I had brought with me didn't even make an effort to help me. He fought against things that attacked me or Black, but never interfered in our actual one-on-one.
The townspeople soon joined in, on Black's side. I guess attacking what looks like the Champion of Cyrodiil as the Gray Fox doesn't get you much help in a place like Chorrol. They too didn't last long, as Black's summons and my own quickly picked them off.
My own sympathies for civilian casualties have waned significantly since Bruma. The clone has to die, and I have to pile on as many attackers on him at once until he does.
When the townspeople and the guards were all slaughtered, I finally had Black on critically low health. Even on maximum difficulty, I was able to keep pace using self-buffing spells (which I lovingly nicknamed "Super Saiyan") to match him hit for hit, and I was a bit smarter with using my Healing than he was. Even better, I knocked him down with a Backwards Power Attack just as he tried to heal. When I started hammering away at him, however, my spells expired. My fatigue fell into the negatives, and I collapsed face-first at Black's feet.
He got up before I could, hit me a few times, then thought better of it and fled, healing himself as he did. When I got up, he was gone again, although this time I was able to find him rather quickly: he was just outside the North Gate of Chorrol.
The Chameleon he'd used in the city (courtesy of the ring of Khajiiti) was still on him, so I had to remain as the Gray Fox in order to find him. When I did, it seemed as though he had settled into an outfit consisting of Sheogorath's Regalia and a Dark Green Robe Hood. Most strangely, for the very first time, he was using normal NPC dialogue. Gone were his usual "Is it necessary that you speak to me?" and "I don't like you. Go. Away," replaced with pleasant lines like "Hail!" and "How are you doing today?" not to mention those compliments on my skills and attributes that NPCs often give.
Looking back on the destruction I'd just created in Chorrol, I knew attacking him again, at that time, was pointless. I can only really beat him if I have significant friendly support.
I hate to say it, but city after city will have to help me, no matter the cost. Nickies Black is a threat too dangerous to be left alive.
The weekly highlights video, featuring many of the moments I mentioned, can be found here. I wonder, do you guys prefer more lively highlights like these or the more quiet ones like last week?
Also brought up last week was the idea of turning these into videos, with an "audio log talking over relevant background images / videos" theme. Is this really something you guys want to see?
As always, here is a link to the XboxClips page in which you can find proof of the validity of these events. Note that some of the clips are taken from alternate saves I made to screw around in without repercussions."
PART 4
"For the first time, and the last time, this story actually begins with me knowing exactly where Nickies Black, the corrupted clone of my end-game, fully-optimized Oblivion character, is. He was right outside of Chorrol. I didn't even bother attacking him outright: we've fought countless times, and it's only proven that we're seemingly incapable of killing each other.
Bruma and Chorrol had already been ransacked in my attempts to get City Guards to help me kill him, with no success. I reasoned that it was pointless to keep throwing smaller cities' garrisons at him. I'd have to take him back to the Imperial City, where the first clone had died before him.
So, I led him back to the Capital, attacking him as I did to try and soften him up for the guards. When we arrived, the first wave of guards took down a fair bit of his health, but couldn't quite get past the "barrier" represented by the threshold of health past which he healed himself. I had no choice but to lead him further into the city.
Rather hauntingly, the bodies from that first battle with the original Nickies Black were still there. We passed through the Palace district, but this time I wasn't keen to lead him back into the Palace. I realized I'd probably get more guards to help me if I kept leading him through more parts of the City. In the Arena District, with over a dozen guards down, we finally started to get him down to critically low health levels. I incurred a bounty due to some friendly fire at this point, but I was too close to victory to let up.
Then, he ran. He used that "Rest" spell I had, and ran away while invisible. I tracked him down throughout the District, and then when he reappeared, he started running throughout the entire city.
We ended up back in the Arena District, anyway. Most of the guards were dead by this point. I was using all the buff spells I had, but we were still evenly matched. I could get his health down while the spells were up but if I wasn't careful, when they ran out I'd collapse from exhaustion. We fought for a while there...
Eventually, however, he turned and entered the Market District. I followed him. On the other side were more guards, ready to fight ... both of us, apparently. I guess my bounty was high enough for them to attack us both by then. Only, something was ... off. Their attacks weren't doing anything. In fact, they were dropping dead from their own strikes.
As it turns out, Black had finally started to fully optimize my gear. Truth is, I technically always had the items necessary for 100% Damage Reflection, but I purposely never used them. I felt it made the game incredibly boring, and I liked getting Spell Absorption instead anyway - it allowed me to kill magic users faster. Apparently Nickies Black had no such qualms with using 100% Reflect Damage, and had started doing so.
This was a huge problem for me. The only skills I knew of that could bypass 100% Reflect Damage and his existing 100% Resist Magic were Marksman and Alchemy (via poisons) - I was only Level 30ish in either. My character was a Battlemage, through and through, and the City Guards' arrows weren't nearly enough to kill Black on their own.
Even worse... he started using some of my buff / "Super Saiyan" spells for the first time ever. He was matching my enhanced damage output now. This was truly the strongest Nickies Black has ever been.
With Black now invulnerable to most forms of damage, I threw out my own reservation for using 100% Reflect. I had to match him. By this time, the guards became more of a nuisance. It seems Black shared my thoughts, because he stopped fighting me and we started fighting the Guards together. Actually, our begrudging alliance was quite a bit of fun; one time as we were mopping up the last few guards I hit him by accident, and he growled "Hit me once more and I'll kill you."
When the guards died, he naturally turned on me again. However, for some reason, he had temporarily taken off some of his gear. I had the idea that perhaps his Magic Resistance was no longer 100%, but after trying many Offensive spells, it was. As you can see in the previous clip, I tried a Command Humanoid spell... and after several attempts, I actually got it to work.
Now I could lead him anywhere I wanted, but where should I? Where was a place where I could kill this clone once and for all? With the game paused, I thought about everything that could kill someone with 100% Damage Resistance and Immunity to offensive spells. I had already considered Marksman and Alchemy, but I realized I had actually left two things out. Fall Damage, and Physical Traps. I'd tried throwing Black off of Dive Rock once before, but somehow he lived - so that was out of the question. That left Physical Traps as my modus operandi.
But, what traps were deadly enough to kill a Nickies? I needed something that was a one-hit kill no matter what.
Then it hit me. There was such a thing. There was a void in Arkved's Tower - the dungeon involved in Vaermina's Daedric Quest... the very same quest that gave me the Skull of Corruption. I was going to end this where it began.
I quickly led Nickies Black out of the Imperial City, towards the dungeon where our final battle would be had. Along the way, I noticed some ... peculiarities in his behavior. He'd ditched his nice / normal NPC demeanor, instead adopting his "I don't want to talk to you" lines again whenever I got closer to him. Also, he was hostile to anything and everything (except for me) again, for the first time since his creation. If he detected so much as a single deer, he hunted it down and ended it.
This wouldn't be so much of a problem, if he hadn't learned how to use my +100 Speed Spells in these hunts.
He made my progress towards Arkved's Tower painfully slow, but I still managed to get us somewhat close. Unfortunately for me, there were a ton of deer, and other creatures, in the area. He went berserk.
In fact... I lost track of him entirely at one point. Lucky me... now I had to track him down again. Even better, when I finally did find him... Command Humanoid didn't work anymore. I guess he changed his loadout slightly again (but, he still did have 100% Damage Reflection). Fantastic. Well, at least we were pretty close to the Tower by that point, so it wasn't too hard to lead him the rest of the way by attacking him.
We went in through the trapdoor that you usually leave through, to save ourselves the effort of going through the entire dungeon. It was ... a fittingly morbid place for our final battle. It was fittingly strange, as well.
At long last, we reached the bridge over the endless void. I used my strongest buff spells, and was extremely careful not to let them dangerously deplete. This was no longer a battle of pure damage, but now a King of the Hill Ring-Out match to the death.
I managed to push him off first. My heart jumped for a second ... but he appeared back at the doorway seconds later.
Was I wrong? Did the void not kill people instantly after all? I didn't think that was the case.
He pushed me further back on the bridge, and hit me off of it. When I hit the bottom, I died instantly.
Unlike what you may think, I was happy to have died. It meant that I now knew how the void worked - you had to be far out on the bridge when you fell in order for it to kill you. I suppose it's unfair to say that I didn't lose that fight right then and there, since he technically hit me off first... but I had an unfair advantage of reloading saves. If you'd rather view this as him having won, that's probably a valid interpretation. Regardless, I reloaded and entered the bridge with Black once more.
I led him out as far as I dared. We fought for minutes, trying to position ourselves better than the other fighter.
Finally, he stepped a little bit too much to the side. I power attacked - and hit him off the bridge. Immediately I listened to the combat music, trying to gauge if he'd come back or not.
It stopped. Peaceful exploration music immediately took its place.
Nickies Black ... was gone. He was thrown into the void, forever.
It was over.
I sheathed my sword, and exited the dungeon. The game's world seemed peaceful for the first time in weeks. I was free of having to worry about a Corrupted Clone of myself.
Contented, I made my way back to my throne in the Shivering Isles, sat down, saved the game, and exited."
Bruma and Chorrol had already been ransacked in my attempts to get City Guards to help me kill him, with no success. I reasoned that it was pointless to keep throwing smaller cities' garrisons at him. I'd have to take him back to the Imperial City, where the first clone had died before him.
So, I led him back to the Capital, attacking him as I did to try and soften him up for the guards. When we arrived, the first wave of guards took down a fair bit of his health, but couldn't quite get past the "barrier" represented by the threshold of health past which he healed himself. I had no choice but to lead him further into the city.
Rather hauntingly, the bodies from that first battle with the original Nickies Black were still there. We passed through the Palace district, but this time I wasn't keen to lead him back into the Palace. I realized I'd probably get more guards to help me if I kept leading him through more parts of the City. In the Arena District, with over a dozen guards down, we finally started to get him down to critically low health levels. I incurred a bounty due to some friendly fire at this point, but I was too close to victory to let up.
Then, he ran. He used that "Rest" spell I had, and ran away while invisible. I tracked him down throughout the District, and then when he reappeared, he started running throughout the entire city.
We ended up back in the Arena District, anyway. Most of the guards were dead by this point. I was using all the buff spells I had, but we were still evenly matched. I could get his health down while the spells were up but if I wasn't careful, when they ran out I'd collapse from exhaustion. We fought for a while there...
Eventually, however, he turned and entered the Market District. I followed him. On the other side were more guards, ready to fight ... both of us, apparently. I guess my bounty was high enough for them to attack us both by then. Only, something was ... off. Their attacks weren't doing anything. In fact, they were dropping dead from their own strikes.
As it turns out, Black had finally started to fully optimize my gear. Truth is, I technically always had the items necessary for 100% Damage Reflection, but I purposely never used them. I felt it made the game incredibly boring, and I liked getting Spell Absorption instead anyway - it allowed me to kill magic users faster. Apparently Nickies Black had no such qualms with using 100% Reflect Damage, and had started doing so.
This was a huge problem for me. The only skills I knew of that could bypass 100% Reflect Damage and his existing 100% Resist Magic were Marksman and Alchemy (via poisons) - I was only Level 30ish in either. My character was a Battlemage, through and through, and the City Guards' arrows weren't nearly enough to kill Black on their own.
Even worse... he started using some of my buff / "Super Saiyan" spells for the first time ever. He was matching my enhanced damage output now. This was truly the strongest Nickies Black has ever been.
With Black now invulnerable to most forms of damage, I threw out my own reservation for using 100% Reflect. I had to match him. By this time, the guards became more of a nuisance. It seems Black shared my thoughts, because he stopped fighting me and we started fighting the Guards together. Actually, our begrudging alliance was quite a bit of fun; one time as we were mopping up the last few guards I hit him by accident, and he growled "Hit me once more and I'll kill you."
When the guards died, he naturally turned on me again. However, for some reason, he had temporarily taken off some of his gear. I had the idea that perhaps his Magic Resistance was no longer 100%, but after trying many Offensive spells, it was. As you can see in the previous clip, I tried a Command Humanoid spell... and after several attempts, I actually got it to work.
Now I could lead him anywhere I wanted, but where should I? Where was a place where I could kill this clone once and for all? With the game paused, I thought about everything that could kill someone with 100% Damage Resistance and Immunity to offensive spells. I had already considered Marksman and Alchemy, but I realized I had actually left two things out. Fall Damage, and Physical Traps. I'd tried throwing Black off of Dive Rock once before, but somehow he lived - so that was out of the question. That left Physical Traps as my modus operandi.
But, what traps were deadly enough to kill a Nickies? I needed something that was a one-hit kill no matter what.
Then it hit me. There was such a thing. There was a void in Arkved's Tower - the dungeon involved in Vaermina's Daedric Quest... the very same quest that gave me the Skull of Corruption. I was going to end this where it began.
I quickly led Nickies Black out of the Imperial City, towards the dungeon where our final battle would be had. Along the way, I noticed some ... peculiarities in his behavior. He'd ditched his nice / normal NPC demeanor, instead adopting his "I don't want to talk to you" lines again whenever I got closer to him. Also, he was hostile to anything and everything (except for me) again, for the first time since his creation. If he detected so much as a single deer, he hunted it down and ended it.
This wouldn't be so much of a problem, if he hadn't learned how to use my +100 Speed Spells in these hunts.
He made my progress towards Arkved's Tower painfully slow, but I still managed to get us somewhat close. Unfortunately for me, there were a ton of deer, and other creatures, in the area. He went berserk.
In fact... I lost track of him entirely at one point. Lucky me... now I had to track him down again. Even better, when I finally did find him... Command Humanoid didn't work anymore. I guess he changed his loadout slightly again (but, he still did have 100% Damage Reflection). Fantastic. Well, at least we were pretty close to the Tower by that point, so it wasn't too hard to lead him the rest of the way by attacking him.
We went in through the trapdoor that you usually leave through, to save ourselves the effort of going through the entire dungeon. It was ... a fittingly morbid place for our final battle. It was fittingly strange, as well.
At long last, we reached the bridge over the endless void. I used my strongest buff spells, and was extremely careful not to let them dangerously deplete. This was no longer a battle of pure damage, but now a King of the Hill Ring-Out match to the death.
I managed to push him off first. My heart jumped for a second ... but he appeared back at the doorway seconds later.
Was I wrong? Did the void not kill people instantly after all? I didn't think that was the case.
He pushed me further back on the bridge, and hit me off of it. When I hit the bottom, I died instantly.
Unlike what you may think, I was happy to have died. It meant that I now knew how the void worked - you had to be far out on the bridge when you fell in order for it to kill you. I suppose it's unfair to say that I didn't lose that fight right then and there, since he technically hit me off first... but I had an unfair advantage of reloading saves. If you'd rather view this as him having won, that's probably a valid interpretation. Regardless, I reloaded and entered the bridge with Black once more.
I led him out as far as I dared. We fought for minutes, trying to position ourselves better than the other fighter.
Finally, he stepped a little bit too much to the side. I power attacked - and hit him off the bridge. Immediately I listened to the combat music, trying to gauge if he'd come back or not.
It stopped. Peaceful exploration music immediately took its place.
Nickies Black ... was gone. He was thrown into the void, forever.
It was over.
I sheathed my sword, and exited the dungeon. The game's world seemed peaceful for the first time in weeks. I was free of having to worry about a Corrupted Clone of myself.
Contented, I made my way back to my throne in the Shivering Isles, sat down, saved the game, and exited."
What is the likelihood of an Oblivion NPC behaving in this manner? The story seems like a total fabrication but it's also fascinating for some reason. The videos that are referenced did exist at one point, which provided evidence that these tales did happen, but whether or not his save is modded in some way is up for debate.
