David Ruddock Brute Lines

MAKE SURE TO HAVE AUDIO RECORDINGS SET FOR MONO, NOT STEREO
SPLIT EACH INDIVIDUAL LINE INTO ITS OWN FILE
KEEP QUALITY CLEAN AND CLEAR THROUGHOUT
HAVE THE AUDIO BE AS LOUD AS YOU CAN MAKE IT WITHOUT AUDIBLE CLICKING OR NOISE


COMMENTS IN BRACKETS {} ARE SPOKEN/DONE BY THE PLAYER
COMMENTS IN BRACKETS [] IS WHAT THE PLAYER IS DOING OR WHERE THEY ARE
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{Hello, Rados, I’m [playername]. Got a message from Arnima.}

Good day! Nice to see you people haven’t been overrun by plague. The moment I hear you cough though…

{It’s about your grandfather Mados, namely, his armor…}

[pissed off] Oh by the Eight, not again! Will my children be expected to become fabled heroes too?

{So you’ve been sought out before, unsurprisingly.}

Bah, a dozen times at least, and my father before me. Each time someone’s horse is stolen or some Exiles mug a merchant…

{I doubt think Mados concerned himself with such…}

Tell me about it! They claim to respect him, yet they put him on display in death, deny the old man burial for years!
Ah, you seem alright, and I do hate to make you a bearer of bad news. Let me fetch you some wine for your trouble...

{No, Rados, you have to come with me. Have you heard about the Witchmen?}

Who haven’t, why?

{They aren’t entirely themselves - some really strange magic is afoot, strange and very dark. And they’re getting ready to make a move on Arnima.}

[interested] Dark magic... That actually sounds worthy of Mados. [snaps out of it] Also dangerous as all hell!
Uh, seriously, be on your merry way, friend.


You know what? You’re right. Last thing I want is to go down in history as "Rados twice as tall and twice as yellow as any". I’m in, friend. Lead the way.

{What was the Reach like before all this? The Witchmen, the Orcs?}

That’s simple, there was no Reach before that. The Reach is and has always been its people, and the Reachmen haven’t had a calm night in centuries.

Orcs, Witchmen, Nords, Bretons... And it’s not like the Bretons themselves get along.

{Here I thought I’ve left the civil war in Skyrim.}

You wish. There’s a bleeding mess of a kingdom next to ours called Wayrest, and some fourteen years ago we went to war with it.
King Uther, also called “the Owl”...

(it’s actually “Yu-ther”, but pronouncing it as “Ooh-ter” would both show off Rados’ ignorance and be plain funnier)

{For his wisdom?}

Nay, his cheeks. Well, Uther had some beautiful daughters you see, each one from a different queen, and King Sigmayne was quite fond of one of them. Something Uther wasn’t too fond of himself.
In the span of two weeks, more than a thousand men were dead on both sides. Such was the war over a princess’s cunny.

{Well, a beautiful woman is as good a cause as any.}

Not when she is 9 years of age.

{Uhm...}

Damn near cost His Majesty his head, as during one of his visits Uther had Sigmayne taken prisoner and his retainers banished from the kingdom.

{That’s a solid precaution against the war. Did he escape?}

Aye, some weeks later. Small wonder he wanted to see Wayrest go up in flames after such humiliation.
I was levied three days after, and a week later the army was well on the move towards Wayrest.
Must’ve looked weird back in Evermore, since another week later Uther surrendered. Couldn’t do it before so many of his own men were slaughtered, it seems.
[sigh] Funny thing is, I’ve always hoped to visit the city of Wayrest as a child. Now I’m partly to blame I never will.



{Tell me about the war itself. Those two weeks you mentioned.}

Nasty is the word that comes to mind. We were outnumbering them six to one but the skirmishes were so fierce our Aventuriers had set the countryside ablaze with their spells.

Those were windy months, so by the time my unit had reached the city of Wayrest the smoke was everywhere, and let me tell you, war is hard enough even when you can breathe.

{That does sound rough. What happened to Wayrest after they’ve surrendered?}

Nothing good. The trade had stopped, the crime ran rampant and in the following years not a corner remained in the entire realm that wasn’t raided and sacked.
Today, one of the Bay’s largest cities is not even worth conquering anymore, and half our military has to guard the border against those who blame Evermore.

{I wonder... How did Sigmayne manage to escape after all?}

That’s no wonder, he was broken out by the hand-picked squad of scouts. They crossed the border wearing burlap robes and posing for pilgrims.

One of them, a “devout priest of Mara running an orphanage”, paid some guards off to “see the molestor-King and spit in his face”... made quite a scene, you can imagine!

He also passed Sigmayne a scroll of Recall with a Mark already placed in the woods nearby. Not a single drop of blood shed.

{Damn. And you know that how exactly?}

Well, it wasn’t me who told you this but a certain scout commander from Arnima kind of came up with the whole plan.

{You don’t mean...}

[merrily] Wasn’t me who told you, friend.

{You’ve got friends in Arnima. Friends got to mean something in a place like this.}

Well I wasn’t planning on leaving my friends, you know. I was leaving the town Raven Spring had become.

{And what was Raven Spring like?}

Oh, none too unusual. There was even a joke that that’s what you’d call a temple, a sewer and a wall brought together.

However, there was a real sense of community! We were proud like the Reachmen should be. We are older than the three Empires combined, most of the world doesn’t know we exist and the Bretons want to believe we don’t.

Back then Mortifayne seemed like the finest lord the place has ever had. Strict but fair, blunt but honest, a terrific swordsman on top of that.

{It’s as if we were speaking of two different towns entirely.}

Well, the Siege of Raven Spring had changed it all. Those two months broke some in ways healers could do nothing about.

The hero’s death, the doom of Grey Belmor, the bodies mounted on the pikes... My father couldn’t handle Mados's demise - took to the bottle and in the following years there wasn’t much left of him.

And Mortifayne had lost his wife. That alone had made the man once called “Made-of-Iron” fearful for his life, secretive and cruel. And soon he had the bodies on the pikes make a return.

This new Mortifayne could’ve been Made of Iron alright, so many he had put to death with it.

{So he did go mad. Why didn’t anybody oppose his rule?}

Anyone could be accused of treason and put to death neither painless nor swift, so the people were afraid of gathering or even talking too loud. We felt like we were living on borrowed time.

No one dared speak up against the lord, but by that time he was so severely paranoid he needed an excuse rather than a reason.

And all of it under the watchful dead eye of old Mados, hoisted like a deer carcass. It was sickening.

So I left, simple as that. Some would say I should’ve tried to be the big damn hero - Jackos had a plan ready, no doubt - but it’s the soul of the town that was gone, and bringing that back is no task for a blade.
And that’s the end of the story so far.

{And quite a story that is.}

(sigh) As always to you foreigners.


Let's get this over with before we freeze to death.


*cough* Ugh… when they write a story about this they best not mention the smell.


Uh, let’s not linger. This place feels all kinds of not right.

What on Nirn is that? ...Forget it, I don't want to know. [Surprise]

Mara, feel like I'm gonna throw up.


Goddamn savages. Can’t even say “good witchman’s a dead witchman” – bastards know necromancy.

Evermore's really the only place worth fighting for on this side of the realm.

Truth be told, I missed fighting the good fight. Evermore ain’t perfect, but the alternatives are… well, you’ve seen the alternatives.

Let's not dally, up the tower and it's over. Priest promised that we'll be home when we grab that stone, by the gods I hope he's right.


Hope you know what you’re doing, Jack. Then again, you always did.

As far North as I've ever been, and I have no intentions of coming here again.

Ol' Raven Spring, time hasn't been kind to this town. Glad I left before it truly went down the gutter.

It wasn’t called “Arnima” back when I left. Some might disagree, but I appreciate the name change – this way Raven Spring I knew has remained unsoiled.

I... I need a rest. [Tired, fear]

Don't think I'll ever have a good night’s sleep again.

[Sigh]...Can't believe we made it.

Grab the stone! Get this over with!

Stop stalling. [Angered]

[NPC ATTACKING OTHER NPC]

Back down!

Stinking hag!

Come on fatty.

Don't you dare...

Gods, you're ugly.

Get away from me!

Come on now, don't be shy.

Where in Oblivion did you crawl out from?!

[NPC CONVERSATIONS]

{What are you going to do now?}

Make haste for the gate and get out of the Reach for good, I would say that you and this town owe me for this, but to be honest I don't want anything to do with Arnima ever again.

You can keep my grandfather too, I wouldn't want to make the people here more miserable than they already are by taking away whatever pride they have left in this town.

And I wouldn't want Mados looking down on me from whatever heaven he's in. I can't compare to a man like that, and this whole experience only affirmed that belief. He was one of a kind, but gods knows we need another in times like this.



Come to talk to me? Sit down, don’t wanna feel like you’re interrogating me.

[player sits down]

*hic* Better.

{How are you, Rados? What are you gonna do now?}

[sounds sad and a little tipsy throughout the conversation] I want to leave. Run more like. I know I already did once, but this time I’ve paid my dues to the realm once and for all.

{The king will surely recognize saving him from the Daedra as a civic duty, eh?}

[laughs a little] Aye, he should. Agh, I could’ve had Mados’s courage, resolve, willpower, even cruelty. And all I get is his iron gut, can’t even get rightly drunk!
[cools down, worried] And I keep hearing them, those poor souls from Oblivion. Why couldn’t we find them? Save them? Maybe we just didn’t try hard enough...

{Hey, hey! Look at me, Rados.}

[slowly] Aye, alright.

{That place tried to affect us and I felt it too, believe me, but the weepers weren't real. And we did good. We saved the goddamn world, Rados.}

You’re… you’re right. Damn shame about Jack, though. You’ve no idea what a man he were! To sly for a Reachman but every bit as honourable.
I hope he’s alright after all. Because gods know I ain’t. Now, leave me to my drink. Iron gut or not, I’ll keep trying.