Morrowind talk:Erla

Discrepant Shortsword

Erla has an Imperial Shortsword which, once purchased from her, does not appear to be legally transferred to your possession in the script. In training my Armorer skill by purchasing used miscellaneous weapons & armor and repairing them myself, I found that after making this sword good as new and selling it back to her, she reacted as merchants do when you try to sell them their own gear you've stolen from them, and I was swarmed by her castle-mates. (And this particular character was a Legionnaire up for Knight Errant! Lol - needless to say, we visited the Reload screen.)

Not necessarily. Unfortunately, the way the game sees stolen items is very limited (and very different from Oblivion if that's what you're used to). If you steal an Imperial Shortsword EVER, then for the rest of your character's life, ALL Imperial Shortswords will be marked as stolen, even if the one you actually stole is no longer in your possession. The reason it might not have appeared as stolen before was that it was damaged. When you repaired it, you made it look exactly like the one you (I'm guessing) stole a long time ago. The game has no way of distinguishing one fully repaired Imperial Shortsword from another, so they will both be forever marked as stolen from the Imperial Legion, as will any Imperial Shortsword you ever acquire by any means, legal or otherwise. Now, you can easily sell the sword to someone NOT in the Legion, and you shouldn't have a problem. In fact, it's usually best in general to avoid selling anything to a merchant who belongs to a faction. Non-aligned merchants are the least likely to believe an item belongs to them when it really doesn't. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 23:04, 1 September 2008 (EDT)