Summary
One thing I respect about the headstrong Hieronymus Lex fromOblivion Remasteredis that he knew something wasn’t right on the Waterfront, and he desperately tried to remedy the situation.
There’s no doubt the Imperial City’s Waterfront is a hive of scum and villainy. The poor of the city tend to congregate here outside the walls, contributing to the area becoming the unofficial headquarters of the Thieves' Guild.
The Waterfront, my Beloved
That’s all well and good; there’s honour among thieves, and they’re only really hurting the wealthy of Cyrodiil. I’ll stop stealing statuettes of Andel Indarys' recently deceased wife when he stops facilitating the habitation of a guild of assassins in the middle of his city.
Also, my beloved decrepit shack is situated on the Waterfront, so I’ve come to appreciate the ‘salt of the earth’ locals, the salty smell of the sea and the salt-coated mudcrabs who occasionally harass me on my commute to my work as Archmage, Fighter’s Guild Master, Dark Brotherhood Listener, Arena Grand Champion and Gray Fox. Oh, and my side hustle as Sheogorath, daedric prince of madness.
So, the thieves are alright in my books. What I simply can’t abide by, however, are all the pirates that litter the Waterfront. They harass me as I walk home, threatening me and telling me to stay away. I wouldn’t come aboard their third-rate vessel even if they allowed me.
As pointed out bySquuma in a recent Reddit thread, there’s a severed arm just lying in a pile of debris near The Marie Elena. If the pirates are responsible, it’s brazen of them to dump the severed arm of one of their victims right beside their vessel.
CaiaTheFireFlytheorises that Bethesda mistakenly placed a bundle of “bloody” debris near the Waterfront, rather than generic crates.
Or, perhaps, this is another clever piece of environmental storytelling by a studio famous for it. Perhaps the pirates stuffed a corpse into a crate and it broke, or a stowaway was accidentally crushed and then disposed of.
The crew of The Marie Elena are targets in a Dark Brotherhood quest, so there’s every chance they’ve been too heavy-handed in their piracy, and the disembodied arm is evidence of that.
It’s difficult to say if this is a developer oversight or if the Waterfront really is that lawless, but either way, nothing will stop me from making my shack into a home with copious amounts of rare gems.
