Oblivion Guide - Thieves Guild - Untaxing the Poor
Independent Thievery
You need to fence 50 coins worth of loot, which is quite easy. Just robbing one house or a single piece of armor from a smithy will solve this one. Sell it to Ongar the World Weary in Olav’s Tavern (or at his home if you catch him during a nap and don’t feel like waiting). Once you get past 50, you’ll be able to talk to Armand about a new special Thieves Guild mission. You still need to wait until the nightly meeting in the Garden of Dareloth to talk to him about Thieves Guild matters. Note that you might want to go ahead and do a big stealing run and steal off all you can. The value of the fenced items still stack after your goal, so you can steal a lot in one trip and avoid having to robbery to unlock each mission.
Untaxing the Poor
T
his actually isn’t that hard. The official description involves breaking into a heavily guarded Imperial Watch tower and robbing the captain’s desk, but it’s actually pretty easy. You have two real times to do this reliably (waiting for periods of an hour might reveal another opportunity between random patrols, but that’s just pure luck). The guards change out at the 9s. At 9 PM the evening shift will take over for the day shift and vice versa. Within about an hour, the old shift should all be asleep while the rest of the guards leave to take up their new patrols. You can wait in the lobby. It isn’t considered trespassing. Make sure that you take off any armor for optimal sneaking (unless you have some nice light armor, like you’d get from joining the Dark Brotherhood).
If you do it at night, Hieronymus Lex will be asleep (allowing you to potentially steal his armor). He won’t be around during the day. If you run into a soldier while trespassing, just go back to the lobby and wait a moment or two for them to forget about you and go back to bed. Other than that, just move up the series of ladders and trapdoors until you get to Hieronymus Lex’s room.
Unlock the desk to the right and steal the tax records and the small amount of gold inside (should be about 53 pieces). Loot anything else you want from the bedroom and then go back down to the lobby. Feel free to grab some more armor on your way out if you don’t mind taking a chance of getting caught.
You can hand the tax records over to Armand Christophe the next evening in the garden. The gold you steal is your reward, so enjoy.
The Elven Maiden - Stealing the Bust from the Chapel
You’ll need to have fenced 100 gold worth of items. Just stealing some food or wine should accomplish that, although hopefully you’ll already have the items fenced from the last run.
This is a fairly standard theft. You need to steal the bust of a deceased countess from the undercroft of the temple in Cheydinhal. You can get a marker by paying a few coins to a beggar.
The only real trick is that the chapel’s undercroft is now guarded. There is one very dedicated guard who does nothing but patrol the length of the chapel. She doesn’t sleep, so you will just have to deal with her. Note that killing her yourself will count as a murder and you’ll have to pay 1000 gold to the thieves guild to pay down the blood price.
Now, technically you can use a few tricks. For example, if you run outside the guards may side with you and kill her. It’s not actually that hard to sneak past her though. There’s a clear vulnerability in her path. As always, invisibility or chameleon spells/potions will help, but they aren’t necessary (I don’t use them). Strip off any heavy armor before you go.
She just walks up and down the main corridor and looks straight into the wings. When you enter the Chapel Undercroft, look to the left. The bust is placed near the coffin with a shrine in that side room. Wait for the chapel guard to walk past and quickly slip right behind her. Get into that side room and grab the bust (Don’t take anything else or loot the coffin, since that will trigger the ghost). Now just wait for a moment. You can wait right by the door. She only stands in the center lane to look into the room, so if you stick to the wall you won’t be seen.
Try to watch for her shadow, listen for her footsteps or use the third-person view to peek around the corner. As soon as she turns around and walks away, slip right behind her again and leave. Travel back to the Imperial City Waterfront right now for a surprise. It seems like we can’t finish the mission, since Armand Christophe is in hiding (he’s actually hiding in a warehouse by the docks, if you really want to speak to him. You can’t end this mission this way though). We need to fix this mess, especially since it looks like there was a leak in the Thieves Guild.
The Elven Maiden - Framing the Traitor
Talk to Methredhel. She’s the one with the main plan. The informant is Myvryna Arano and her house is right in the middle of the Waterfront District. Wait a moment for the guards to move away. You can use the wait command and wait an hour to speed things up. There’s no trick to this. You just have to hope that they run off to question the people on the docks. Once the coast is fairly clear, break into her house and use the cupboard to automatically plant the stolen bust into it. Wait until midnight if Myvryna is still awake or inside (she doesn’t seem to be home much).
With the bust planted, you can just follow the marker to find Hieronymus Lex. You’ll need to either charm him or bribe him, since you’ll need a very high disposition to get him to actually inspect her house. Once he agrees, just follow him and watch the scene play out.
After the informant is arrested and the bust retrieved, Hieronymus Lex will have no choice but to abandon the manhunt for Armand Christophe. He’ll show up in the garden for his usual vigil at midnight. Talk to him then to complete the mission and receive your payment. Note that this is the last mission we’ll run directly for Armand Christophe. We’ll handle the next four missions with our new Doyen, S’krivva
This post is part of the series: Oblivion Walkthrough - Thieves Guild Missions - Part 1
We’re officially joining the Thieves Guild and helping the Gray Fox in Imperial City. Our first missions are through Armand Christophe in the Waterfront District. I’ll help you join the Oblivion Thieves Guild and work through all of Armand Christophe’s missions.
