I spent 20 hours hiding in an Oblivion Remastered skooma den just to get the perfect Dark Brotherhood kill, and it's given me a whole new perspective on the RPG

I wasn't planning to spend much time with Oblivion Remastered. In a year already filled with great games and with Clair Obscur offering an actual modern RPG to play instead, I thought I'd dabble in Cyrodiil for just a few hours before moving on. So perhaps you can see why I was surprised to find myself, 20 hours into my playthrough, roleplaying a full, hours-long stakeout as part of a Dark Brotherhood quest.

A few contracts into Oblivion's Dark Brotherhood line, you're sent after a mystery figure. All Vicente can tell you is his name, and the fact that he's a High Elf who goes for long walks around the Imperial City. Clearly, there was some sleuthing to be done, so I headed to the Elven Garden District, figuring that would be the best place to get a lead on an enigmatic Elf.

It didn't take long until I had my lead. My target, Faelian, could often be seen wandering around the Tiber Septim Hotel. From there, he'd be easy to find, but my contract required him to be killed in secret, so that his death might look like just another murder. I'd have to follow him, work out where he goes – so to make sure I'd have an excuse for loitering around the fanciest hotel in the Empire, I booked a room for the night.

True Detective

Of course, this is an Elder Scrolls game, and no-one would have batted an eyelid if I'd simply stood outside Faelian's door for 24 hours straight. But my decision to actually stake out my target was a marked departure from a playstyle that had previously hinged around repeatedly battering my enemies to death in Oblivion Remastered's Arena. Suddenly, I felt like I wanted to take my time, and play things out in a more subtle way.

My patience paid off. I located Faelian, but even though he managed to slip away as I waited for the coast to clear, he left behind his long-suffering girlfriend. She was quick to tell me that her boyfriend is addicted to skooma, and that she'd followed him to an abandoned house elsewhere in the city. Knowing that I'd eventually catch him there, I headed to his skooma haunt, picked the lock, and settled in for my stakeout.

Knowing that I had plenty of time – this was early afternoon and I knew Faelian left the hotel in the early hours of the morning – I scoped out the house. For the most part, I found shattered furniture and a few bottles of skooma that I'm yet to find a better use for, but I also discovered the body of the house's former occupant lying in a pool of his own blood in the basement. As a member of the Dark Brotherhood, it's not really up to me to decide who deserves to be assassinated, but it's nice to know that my target (probably) deserves his fate.

Patience is a virtue

Having cleared the house of everything useful, I settled in to wait for Faelian. I figured I'd be here a while, but I didn't really want to just use the 'Wait' function to skip ahead for him to show up. So instead, I read through a few of the books I'd picked up on my travels, and had a snack of bread, cheese, and fruit that I pilfered from the kitchen, all while sat on a chair in perfect view of the door. Faelian would see me the moment he walked in the door, but I figured that there's something appropriately unsettling about someone waiting in your drug den while nursing a bottle of ale.

Ironically, it's Faelian who eventually gets the drop on me. Momentarily distracted in real life, I jump when a wired-looking Elf walks through the door and immediately engages me in nonsense conversation. Thankfully, my surprise doesn't stop me from taking Faelian down in two punches, even as he flees for the door. To keep up the illusion, I drag him to the chair I've been sitting him and bury a knife in his back - a callback to the skooma-fueled murder I assume he committed, and an attempt to cover my own tracks by making this look like a random killing, not a Brotherhood-sanctioned hit. A job well-done, I fade into the crowds of the Imperial City.

Since then, I've continued my Dark Brotherhood roleplaying across a suite of other hits. For the infamous Murder Mansion, I dressed in my finest garb, before slipping out of sight and donning my Brotherhood gear instead. I scouted out a distant stronghold, napping in a nearby camp as I waited for cover of night to infiltrate it, complete with a handy night vision ring. Right now, I'm travelling far to the south of Cyrodiil, disguised as a priest so as to not attract too much attention on the road, sheltering from the rain in nearby caves and scrumping vegetables for my mobile supper. It's a peculiarly honest take on some deeply dishonest work, but it's offering me a connection to Oblivion Remastered that's far deeper than I expected, and the kind of thing that could easily keep me exploring for another 20 hours or more.

Faelian isn't the only skooma fiend in Cyrodiil, thanks to one streamer who turned Emperor Uriel Septim himself into a skoom-hound.