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Quick WalkthroughEdit
- Speak to Llaalsa Vathras in Vathras Plantation. You will be given 100 Gold & Scroll of Charming to start off with.
- Convince Ahnaissa in Slave Shack 3 to be forthcoming about her background (req. Disposition +70).
- Decide how to deal with the information. Either:
- Claim Ahnaissa wouldn't talk—no reward.
- Tell Llaalsa exactly what was said for 400 gold.
- Lie, and claim Ahnaissa was a thief, for 400 gold.
- Lie, and claim Ahnaissa has no special skills, for 100 gold.
Detailed WalkthroughEdit
Go to the Vathras Plantation, and you will see the litany of slaves tilling the fields and standing ready to serve their masters. If you seek out the plantation's owner, Llaalsa Vathras, she will prompt you with an offer of work in the form of assisting her with her "servant" Ahnaissa. Pressing her, she will explain her "philosophy" regarding her slaves and how she treats and uses them, assigning them stations or selling them to others based on their particular skillset. Ahnaissa is posing a problem as Llaalsa cannot identify what exactly her skillset is, and Ahnaissa is less than forthcoming, though she is aware that Ahnaissa has a unique Pelletinian accent.
You can ask Vathras various questions regarding whether she truly serves Ahnaissa's best interest (she thinks so), whether she's intending to sell Ahnaissa off (likely yes), and whether Ahnaissa was legally enslaved (no). If you refuse the task, she will bemoan your ignorance of how positive slavery is for the economy and the slaves themselves. If you accept, she will direct you to Ahnaissa's shack (slave shack 3), instruct you to use ingratiation (through persuasion or bribery) and serpentine methods of questioning to get Ahnaissa to open up, and give you a 100 drake advance and a Scroll of Charming in case you fail in the aforementioned plan of bribery/persuasion.
Going to the shack and speaking to Ahnaissa, she will have the unique dialogue option "Pelletinian accent". Selecting this prompt with a disposition below 70 will result in Ahnaissa stating she is indeed from Elsweyr, but now languishes as a "useless household slave". Raising her disposition above the threshold and prompting her again, she will remark on your keen ear and reveal that she formerly worked as a dancer in the "nightly dens" of Senchal. She states she was quite good and was showered with coins, which have less meaning to her now that she's enslaved. You can then let Ahnaissa continue, in which case she will state that she appreciates your sympathy and has kept her past secret in fear of Llaalsa (who she calls "the fat Hlaalu") selling her to a brothel, or you can ask her whether she was an erotic dancer, to which she will respond no and draw a distinction between her line of work and that of a common whore. In either case, she will ask that you keep her secret.
Returning to Llaalsa and talking about Ahnaissa, you are prompted with four options:
- To lie and say Ahnaissa would not tell you her skillset, in which case Llaalsa will stiff you and say it was her mistake in hiring someone so un-persuasive.
- To tell the truth (along with an addendum about erotic dance), in which case she will get excited, saying, "It is a good thing she is now with us, to teach her the proper place such... teachings... have in our society", before getting lost in thought, drooling over the coin she will make, and listing a couple possible places (Suran and Narsis) she might sell Ahnaissa. She will then regain her train of thought, rewarding you with 400 coins. Ahnaissa will then disappear from the game.
- To lie and say you believe she was trained as a thief, in which case you will be rewarded 400 coins and Llaalsa will reveal her plans to sell Ahnaissa to a client in Stonefalls on the "lean side of the law" (likely someone in the Camonna Tong, considering their close affiliation with House Hlaalu, ideological attachment to slavery, and presence in Andothren). Ahnaissa will then disappear from the game.
- To lie and say while she acts mysterious, she truly has no skills, in which case Llaalsa, though skeptical, will pay you 100 drakes for your time and say she'll have another pair of eyes look into her at a later date.
This quest touches on a number of different issues, including the savior complex of slave-owning Dunmeri nobles, the tenuous legality of the slave trade, the commodification of slaves as products while simultaneously recognizing their individuality and personhood, and the two-faced nature of the slave-owning class. While the slaves on Vathras Plantation do remark that Llaalsa does not beat or kill her slaves, Llaalsa will herself state that such barbaric practices are anathema to her, all mainland slaveowners (barring the Dres and Telvanni), and particularly to House Hlaalu (despite the fact that just over the hill exists the Savrethi Distillery, another Hlaalu operation in which you can find the skulls of slaves in the master's own chambers, kept like trophies). The quest prompts you to make choices consistent with your character's moral values and views on slavery, as well as to learn more about the Dunmer nobility's justification and ideology regarding a custom that is highly illegal in all other parts of the Empire and indeed in our own world, for good reason.
NotesEdit
- Freeing Ahnaissa mid-quest will not affect the outcome, as Llaalsa presumably does not yet realize she's escaped. Freeing her and leaving the cell before going through the dialogue on her accent will, however, hard block the quest. The slave key is located in a level 75 chest behind a level 80 door on the main floor of Vathras Manor.
Quest StagesEdit
The following Journal ID and Index codes can be used with the Journal console command to manually update the quest to a certain point.
| A Khajiit's Calling (TR_m4_wil_Ahnaissa) | ||
|---|---|---|
| Index | Finishes Quest | Journal Entry |
| 10 | Llaalsa Vathras, the leader of Vathras Plantation, asked me to give her slave Ahnaissa an interview about her past, which she suspects to hold some secret that could help find the right employment for her. Rather than directly confronting her about this, I should build rapport first -- for example, I could ask her about her Pelletinian accent. | |
| 20 | I learned that Ahnaissa used to work as a nightly dancer in Elsweyr, possibly in a moonsugar den. She is worried that Llaalsa would sell her to a brothel, which is why she has been less than forthcoming with her backstory. She asked me not to tell on her to Llaalsa. | |
| 100 |  |
I kept Ahnaissa's secret, but Llaalsa was not pleased with my answer. |
| 101 | |
I let Llaalsa know about Ahnaissa's past. As Ahnaissa had feared, she is likely going to be sold to a brothel. |
| 102 | |
I lied to Llaalsa about Ahnaissa's past, claiming that Ahnaissa is a skilled thief. Llaalsa thanked me; she intends to sell Ahnaissa to a "colleague in Andothren" who she believes could profit from such skills. |
| 103 | |
I lied to Llaalsa about Ahnaissa's backstory, claiming there is nothing behind her mysterious posturing. Llaalsa has rewarded me, but wasn't quite convinced that I really got to the bottom of things. |