This is a short story I wrote some time ago, kindly edited by raggidman. The punchline is a little injoke that is probably only understood by those who are familiar with the item's description in TES3. The short-story was just intended to hopefully give players a little comic relief, and to kick of Silgrad Tower's new Literature Development board. There, we share and discuss books and stories related to the Morrowind Province which we'd like to include in our upcoming Oblivion mod.
(Yup, you read right - it's an Oblivion mod set in the Morrowind Province)
If anyone here has written a book that would be appropriate for a Morrowind Province setting and would like to give us permission to use it, I'd be much obligued if you would consider reposting it on our forum.

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Root of the Confusion
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"You're doing it wrong", Decatho noted.

Marellius, rubbing his back, glared back at him. "Really? And you're suddenly an expert, are you?"

"Guess it depends on what you compare it to, now doesn't it?" Decatho scoffed.

Marellius just groaned in pain, holding his back.

"But I know from watching you chew and spit out ten leaves that that's not the way to do it!" Decatho exclaimed, as he tossed another log on the fire.

"Doesn't the book say *anything* else?"

Decatho picked up the rugged book next to him and flipped through the pages. "No, it just says the Dunmer love to grow the stuff and that it has healing properties. Maybe you're supposed to boil the leaves?"

Marellius stared at him with an annoyed look in his eyes: "That's your solution to everything, Decatho! No, we're not making tea again!"

Decatho rubbed his neck. "Well it couldn't hurt... my throat is killing me."

"Quit whining", Marellius snarled. "Like your cough compares to a rake in the back."

"So you got a whack and ran off. Who had to carry the bags all the way from the farm? It's not like we thieved herbs or anything, these damn things are *heavy*!" Decatho complained.

Marellius just sighed, leaving their discussion to taper off into a shared feeling that life was hard and unfair to both of them.

Reminded by the pain in his back, he poked a finger at Decatho, signalling him to throw over the book. He browsed through it for a few minutes...

"Right..." he thought out loud: "We know that Dunmer love to grow Corkbulb, that it has healing powers, and that you don't get healed by chewing the leaves."

"The healing part might just be superstition", Decatho pondered. "I mean, like thinking that drinking soup cures you of your cold because you get better if you do it for a week. You don't know that you'd get better, whether you drank it or not, so you just keep on drinking soup because you know you'll get better if you do."

"Wouldn't surprise me... maybe this thing is a vegetable and the locals eat the root. Like it does something good for their health," Marellius said. "Right. Well, let's boil it up and see what happens."

Decatho chopped off a piece of the fat root and threw it in the pot. "After it's done", he inquired cautiously, "can I throw a couple leaves in?"

"Yeah, yeah", Marellius laughed, "Go ahead my friend."

Decatho suddenly felt something tap him on his shoulder, and jumped into the air, screaming his lungs out, with Marellius following suit a split second behind him, wildly spinning around as he clutches his injured back.

In the flickering light of the logfire they could make out three figures staring at them. Two of them had the distinct silhouette of Redoran guards, but the third was harder to distinguish. Then he stepped forward, glaring at them with beady, fiery-red eyes, whiteknuckled hands clutching a rake.

There he stood, quivering before them, staring at the chopped-up corkbulb root boiling in the pot and the spitball leaves around Marellius's feet, furiously scratching scratched his head. Baffled, he thundered: "What the hell are you thieves doing to my firewood?"

Interesting wok of fiction to add to your mod. But it's not that funny. The 2 imperials, I believe, steal something from a farm thinking that it's corkbulb but it's actually fire wood. I must say though that books in Morrowind never gave a description of how objects look like and the PC magicaly knew that that plant was a corkbulb and not wickwheat. I'll look over the Literature Board anyway. I love your mod if nothing else and would simply be honoured to write something that would get featured into the game.

Ok.