Why I Killed That Judgemental Mudcrab In Skyrim

I killed a mudcrab in Skyrim. You probably worked that out from the title.

I killed some four legged creature – I think it was a deer – in Oblivion a few years ago too.

And what do these apparently unconnected acts of animal cruelty have in common? I firmly believe that in both cases the animals were judging me.

In both Elder Scrolls games you have the ability to sneak. A successful sneak attack awards your enemies muchos damage and given that my approach to fighting is kindly described as “enthusiastic” and my approach to blocking is best described as “What the hell is blocking?” you’ll see why I spend an awful lot of my time creeping about in the shadows.

To aid you in your creeping about, Bethesda give you a detect-o-meter in the form of an eye which opens to a varying degree depending on whether you can be seen or not. The downside to this is that it makes no distinction between being seen by people who would like to kill you and being seen by the Tamriel equivalent of a concussed woodpigeon who couldn’t even give you a disgruntled peck.

As it was, I was off doing a spot of contract killing (an elderly tramp in a tent if you must know – I never said I was proud of myself) but every time I sneaked into the tent to relieve him of his vital signs the detection eye opened wide. As the elderly man was asleep it wasn’t going to be him watching me so I was concerned that the local guards might be lurking. After TEN MINUTES of checking for the fuzz I gave up and stabbed the tramp anyway. Nothing happened. Turns out I was being eyeballed by a hugely judgemental mudcrab. What was he going to do with his human-level powers of detection? Grass me up? I think not. But I stabbed him to death as well just to make sure.

SIDENOTE: That crab was carrying eight gold pieces so I don’t know where he got off looking down at his nose at me when he was clearly a dirty thief.

The deer was a similar situation. I was creeping around in a pond in some deserted woodland area looking for nirnroot and kept being detected. After another ten minute search for bandits I realised that I was being watched by an incredibly nosey deer. So I sneaked up behind it and ran it through (6x bonus for sneak attack FYI).

The moral of this story? Bethesda should make their animals less judgemental so I have to kill them less often.