Tonight after doing my Jester's Festival stuff on both NA and EU, I decided to switch back to NA PC to head into Cyrodiil for a little while. I had a treasure map to use, plus I wanted to see this "We can't use our skills" problem in person.

My main is a DC character, not that that's important, but whatever.

I grabbed a scouting mission and a capture resource mission, then headed south to use the treasure map first. It was deep in AD territory-- Treasure Map II, way down near the AD home base. I made it down there just fine, killing off every Imperial camp I came across because they sometimes drop useful stuff like wall repair kits. I found the buried treasure without incident.

Then I headed to my scouting mission-- Drakelowe Mine. I crossed the Niben Bridge, passed Cropsford-- which was conveniently held by DC, although it was completely cut off from any other DC-held stuff-- and scouted Drakelowe Mine without incident.

Then I headed to my capture resource mission-- Alessia Farm, which I'd already seen on the map was being contested by EP and AD; AD held the keep, but EP held all 3 resources. I decided it would be safer to cross the Niben Bridge again, then head north toward Alessia. I crossed the bridge without incident, but decided it would be safer to stick as close to the river as possible. I was jumping my mount from rock to rock trying to get a little farther away from the ledge and the river, but as I jumped from one rock to another my horse slipped, and down we went into the river.

Oops!

I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but as of at least several months ago, if not longer, the slaughterfish no longer eat up you as instantly as they used to; it seems like there's a little lag before they start to nibble at you, which gives you a fleeting hope that maybe you can swim to the rocks and climb out, even though you're already dead and just don't know it yet. I actually managed to swim to the rocks, except there's nowhere to climb up to, so... yeah.

I resurrected back at DC hone base, turned in my scouting mission, grabbed another scouting mission, hit the bank, then headed back into AD territory for the second scouting mission-- Faregyl Lumbermill. I like to do the scouting mission first, then the capture resource mission, since there's a good chance I'll get killed trying to complete the capture resource mission.

Anyway, I made it down to Faregyl Lumbermill without any trouble, scouted it, then headed up to Alessia Farm.

As I said, Alessia was being fought over by EP and AD, so I was sneaking to be on the safe side. When I got to Alessia Farm, I was hiding up in the rocks overlooking the farm, and sure enough there was an AD player there who'd just finished killing off the EP NPCs. A few other AD players rode up and joined the first one, to speed up the flipping of the flag. After the flag flipped, they rode off, but I wanted to wait a minute or two to be sure they were gone before I made my attempt. But I went ahead and summoned my Clannfear and Nightwing Matriarch in preparation for making my move.

Suddenly I realized that there was an EP player up by the rocks near me, and my stupid pets were attacking him.

Oops!

I was still hidden, so I slunk away as quickly as I could to try to escape detection-- and just plain escape. As soon as I got far enough away, my stupid pets reappeared beside me, although the EP player was still a little bit aways from me on the other side of the rocks. I dismissed my pets, hoping it would help me evade detection-- I didn't want the bozos going on the attack again-- but either the EP player figured out which direction I must be headed in, or he popped a Detect potion or skill, because he made me and came after me. So I started fighting him, which I knew wouldn't last very long since I have substandard DPS and wasn't really equipped for PvP-- no potions, etc.; plus, I fight with a greatsword, and he was using a staff, so the only way I could do any damage to him was to get close, whereas he could attack me from a distance and dance away if I tried to get close.

I decided my best bet would be to run toward the flag and the AD NPCs, who would hopefully give the guy a hard enough tome that I could escape. So I ran toward the flag, summoning my pets again-- or maybe I'd summoned them again as soon as he'd started attacking me; my mind was confused in the fog of war-- and I ran into the tower, went out on the ledge, jumped down, and ran off.

I actually got far enough away to try to hide among some of the surrounding rocks, but the EP player made me again, so I took off running while he kept zapping me with his staff. I was hanging in there pretty good as far as health, since I'm kind of tanky and I could heal myself with my Clannfear. But he would not stop chasing me and zapping me with his staff, and his skills would NOT not fire. And believe me, I kept hoping that they WOULD not fire, but they wouldn't.

Anyway, I made it far enough away to mount again-- I'm not sure, but I suspect it was only because he probably stopped chasing me for a bit so he could change up his slotted skills-- but then he was behind me on his mount, zapping away at me. Eventually he either dismounted me, or I may even have accidentally dismounted by hitting a key or button I shouldn't have, and we started fighting again. Then I tried to make another break for it.

Needless to say, he eventually did kill me, so I resurrected at the nearest DC-held keep. He had whispered to me-- "lol," "no escape "-- so I whispered back, "whatever i was just trying to capture the farm for a job but thanks for the fun ". Then I decided that it was best to just call it a night, so I took the shrine back to home base, turned in my second scouting mission, hit the bank again, and slunk back to Daggerfall with my wounded pride.

Just my luck that when I go to Cyrodiil, skills fire just fine, even though I was wishing that they wouldn't!