Oblivion:Etira Moslin

Etira Moslin (RefID: 000280E6)
Home Town	Hackdirt
Store	Moslin's Dry Goods
Race	Imperial	Gender	Female
Level	PC+0	Class	Trader
RefID	000280E6	BaseID	000280C7
Services
Available	8am-8pm every day 8am-8pm; 6am-8am
Merchant
Gold	200	Mercantile	Master (100)
Sells	General Goods
Buys	Armor Clothing Weapons Ingredients Potions Books Apparatus Misc. Items Magic Items
Other Information
Health	40 + (4+1.4)x(PC-1), PC=5-43
Magicka	113 + 3.5x(PC-1) (max=250)
Responsibility	100	Aggression	0
Faction(s)	Hackdirt Brethren

Etira Moslin

Etira Moslin is an Imperial trader and the proprietor of Moslin's Dry Goods in the infamous settlement of Hackdirt. She is related to Hackdirt's founder Irlav Moslin, and she was the one who found Irlav's copy of the Bible of the Deep Ones. She managed to translate the runes within, leading to the kidnapping and planned blood-sacrifice of Seed-Neeus' daughter Dar-Ma.

On the surface, Etira lives her life as a typical merchant with the usual opening times between 8am and 8pm, even though she is incredibly hostile towards anybody but the townsfolk. After closing up shop, she heads for the Chapel of the Brethren where she recites passages from the Bible for the other cultists, Natch Pinder, Jiv Hiriel, Marlena Brussiner and Vlanhonder Moslin. At 1am, the whole group leaves the Chapel and finds a convenient entrance to the caverns underneath Hackdirt. Down there, the Hackdirt Brethren await them and they all spend five hours worshipping the Deep Ones before going their separate ways at 6am. For the remaining two hours before opening, Etira wanders around the ground floor of the main trading room.

With a Mercantile skill of 100, she might be one of the toughest merchants in Cyrodiil, but her hostility has not provided her much wealth. She wears a set of typical lower-class attire consisting of a coarse linen shirt with matching linens and rough leather shoes. She carries around the Hackdirt key and a small amount of gold.

Related Quests

• A Shadow Over Hackdirt: Seed-Neeus' daughter Dar-Ma has gone missing.

Dialogue

When you meet her for the first time, she will give you one of three random Hackdirt greetings or simply just treat you like dirt:

"Let me give you some advice, stranger. Leave. Now. You ain't welcome here."

"You're not welcome around here."

"We don't like strangers poking their noses into our business."

"If you're not careful, the brethren will have to teach you a lesson."

She proves a bit more talkative when you ask her about Hackdirt and the Brethren:

Hackdirt

"We scrape by, not that we've ever had nought but trouble from outsiders like you. You'd best be moving on, if you know what's good for you."

The Brethren

"That's none of your concern, outsider."

Quest-Related Events

After meeting Dar-Ma in Chorrol for the first time, you may start to hear rumors about her disappearance. When you speak to her mother, Seed-Neeus, she will ask you to help her out and mention Etira:

"I'm [sic] don't mean to impose, but I'm hoping you can help me. My daughter, Dar-Ma is missing and I don't know what to do."

Missing Daughter

"That's right, my daughter Dar-Ma never came back from Hackdirt. I'm dreadfully worried something may have happened to her. Can you help?"

Yes, I'll help find Dar-Ma.

"I can't thank you enough for your kindness! She was supposed to make a delivery to Etira Moslin in Hackdirt, so I would start there. In case it may be useful, she was with Blossom -- her horse, I mean. Dar-Ma loves that animal, and would never willingly abandon her."

If you ask Seed-Neeus for more background, she will expand on her relationship with Etira:

Hackdirt

"A rather isolated village, south of Chorrol. We do some business with the trader there. Small volume, but she pays well."

Travel to Hackdirt on Dar-Ma's trail and ask Etira about her, though she will more or less deny everything:

Dar-Ma

"I don't know any Dar-Ma. If you're talking about that cursed Argonian swindler from Chorrol, I'd like to know where she is, too. She never showed up. How am I supposed to run a shop without any merchandise? You tell her I want half off on my next delivery."

After discovering that Dar-Ma's horse Blossom is stabled in her own backyard, she will persist in her lies, with a different response depending on whether you already spoke to her or not:

Dar-Ma

"I already told you, she never showed up."

"I don't know any Dar-Ma. If you're talking about that cursed Argonian swindler from Chorrol, I'd like to know where she is, too."

What's her horse doing here then?

"I already told you, she never showed up. That's my horse. Owned it for years. Now either buy something or get out."

After Jiv Hiriel has told you the truth about Dar-Ma, asking him about the town will reveal that Etira is the mastermind behind the whole plot:

Hackdirt

"I was only a boy when the soldiers came. We hid, vowed revenge. But the Deep Ones never came back. Etira, she's the one that found them old books. Learned the runes, how to speak to them again. But they want blood, she says, or they'll not help us."

You may also overhear villagers discussing Dar-Ma's impending sacrifice and Etira's role:

"I'll be there. Etira promised us some good sport tonight."

If she detects you while trying to rescue Dar-Ma, she will immediately flee due to her low aggression. She will also react similarly if you later return to Hackdirt, when other denizens will instead aggressively attack you.

Notes

• If Etira or her husband are killed before you receive the related quest, Dar-Ma is never kidnapped and the quest will never start.
• Although her inventory is limited, she can be a good source of iron arrows and bear pelts. She has an infinite supply of both and will always stock at least 20 iron arrows and 5 bear pelts.
• If you check Etira's statistics in the construction set, you will find that her mercantile skill is reported as only 40. However, that value is meaningless on two counts. First, she is a leveled NPC whose statistics are automatically calculated so normally her mercantile skill would be level-dependent. More importantly, her mercantile skill is always overridden in-game by scripting that resets her mercantile skill to 100.
• Etira is one of the few merchants in the game who does not have a merchant chest and therefore keeps her entire stock of merchandise on her person. She will wear the best quality items in her inventory, including enchanted items purchased from the player. One implication is that items she offers for sale can instead be pickpocketed from her. Another implication is that any items you sell her will never disappear: if you need quick cash, you can sell her items you may later need, then return and buy them back (although other merchants with this glitch, such as Hamlof Red-Tooth or Sinderion, provide much better deals).
  • The Unofficial Oblivion Patch fixes this bug.