Clouding Up Saturday
Mar. 26th, 2022 11:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickStarted out kinda nice -- sunny, 50s -- but then the clouds just rolled in, and by suppertime, we had rain showers. Which is better than SNOW showers, to be sure, and the cold we're expecting on Monday, but still. Meeh. You want better weather out of your early spring.
Fortunately, I had plenty to keep me occupied while indoors:
1. Clean my room and do the end-of-month laundry: Check – started cleaning around 10:33 AM, right after breakfast, and finished roughly around 12:53 PM, right before lunch! :) Full top-to-bottom dusting, yay. Laundry, naturally, took longer, but I was able to combine my stuff with the stuff Mom was washing, so it just came out with everything else as the day went on. *shrug* All set for another few weeks!
2. Keep up with YouTube Subs and the OXBox list video in my Watch Later: Check, plus a bonus video uploaded today!
A) Started this afternoon with a video from Plumbella – “Can I build an ENTIRE house using 3 random packs?” This was a build challenge idea from a friend of hers – you build an entire house, using three random packs – BUT you can only use one pack at a time, and you can’t move or delete anything from the previous pack, nor go back to what was in the previous pack, once you move on. Plumbella spent a bit of time building an interesting shell and then went over to James Turner’s site to randomize her packs! Started with Movie Hangout Stuff which – while it had no wallpaper or flooring options – did have a variety of cute furniture and a couple of doors, which Plumbella made good use of. She built the main living room area (hilariously WITHOUT a TV – though I think the only ones that come with the pack are the giant ones, soo) and a little sitting area, then moved onto the next pack. Which was – Luxury Party Stuff, aka THE LEAST-WELL-APPOINTED STUFF PACK WE APPARENTLY EVER GOT. I’m not entirely sure what she used from it, apart from a glow-cube in the bathroom. Desperate and without windows, Plumbella randomized her final pack – and got StrangerVille. This DID sort of save her – the pack comes with two wall options and two floor options, plenty of windows, and a homemade bath/shower and a bed – but obviously it clashed terribly with the Movie Hangout stuff, and she had to fake a kitchen with some lab desks and the bar backing, and a toilet with a chair and a tire. And use the debug objects tagged with the pack to make a nice front garden. She was very said that she didn’t get to make her fun fairy cottage that she was hoping for at the beginning. XD Ah well – there will be other chances!
B) Then we moved onto James Turner himself for more “Makin’ Money” Scenario silliness – specifically, “I committed insurance fraud in The Sims to earn $1,000,000 Simoleons!” The plan was to do dumpster diving as a spellcaster to quickly repair the items found in said dumpster, but as you can guess from the title, that went a bit off the rails. XD Semaj this time was a Freegan (for better dumpster finds), a Loner, and Loves The Outdoors, and his aspiration was still Fabulously Wealthy. He started out in Glimmerbrook on the empty lot nearest the portal and gave himself the lot traits Peace & Quiet (for Tense moods to go away faster) and Geothermal (for smaller bills), plus set it as a tiny home using a few free floor tiles to get all those bonuses. From there it was over to the Magic Realm to become a spellcaster and get the spells he needed! Which – went surprisingly well, honestly! He got, right off the bat, Inferniate from Morgyn and Repairio from Simeon, then the potion of Plentiful Needs from L. Faba! He sold a few other things he’d picked up to finance the purchase of a broom (for fast travel), then it was off to Evergreen Harbor to start dumpster diving!
AND SO STARTED THE SLOG. You thought trying to run a retail store in the “No Skills, No Problem” challenge was tough? This was worse. James WAS just selling from inventory, but he insisted on repairing anything that needed to be repaired first, and basically just – wasn’t getting a lot of high-ticket items. The insurance fraud part of it – which is when you burn an item with Inferniate, get the insurance money, then replace it for free with Repairio – was just to try and supplement his income because dumpster diving was going SO SLOWLY. Eventually he just moved to Evergreen Harbor, and used his tiny home floor tiles to mark out the space where the most expensive burnable objects lived. He did massive dumpster dives off-camera, repaired and sold his items, and then did some burning for the insurance. And then either remembered just in time to discharge his magical charge, or overcharged, fortunately never with fatal results. (Also occasionally burning people who annoyed him, bringing a random vampire who died in the sun back to life, and becoming buds with Grim.) Needs were kept up via the Plentiful Needs potion, because why not? However, after three real life hours of this and not getting anything really good (except, early on, one CC fridge from his girlfriend Deli’s kitchen that he originally couldn’t figure out how to burn and thus just sold; he DID figure out how to insurance fraud it with a fresh one he bought, but then sold THAT because it felt like cheating); he snapped, just bought a bunch of expensive violins, and burned and repaired them until he finally got the necessary cash. It took 19 in-game days, but apparently it felt like a lifetime to James. XD So yeah, NOT a good way to earn a million simoleons if you want to keep your sanity. Or do it with any speed. Back to the drawing board!
C) Then, this evening, it was over to that OXBox list (which was actually an OXBoxtra list, presented by Andy and Luke) – “7 Times Developers Trolled Their Own Players!” From the head honcho at FROM making players scramble to figure out the secret of the pendant gift in Dark Souls, only to later reveal he wanted to play a prank, to new-look brunette Dante getting a brief wig of his old white hair in an early cutscene in DMC: Devil May Cry (and then his hair turns white ANYWAY later in the game), to anyone trying to romance both Triss and Yennefer in The Witcher III: Wild Hunt learning that a potential threesome is just the annoyed girls teaming up to chain Geralt to a bed and leave him to be rescued by the bard Dandelion, game developers do like to tease and torment their players a bit. Though probably the worst troll was hiding the fact that Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty had a brand new protagonist – poor Raiden, he suffered mightily the fanbase’s wrath.
D) And then finally we had GrayStillPlays and Arm Simulator – another shitty mobile game where you are a very wobbly, physics-defying arm, and you have to complete various tasks. Including washing your cat down with a hose (Gray, a known cat owner, was BAFFLED by this), feeding your strange potato dog (who frankly loved it as Gray scattered food everywhere), getting a hole-in-one on the world’s easiest mini-golf hole, whacking a pinata, having a romantic dinner and surprise birthday proposal with your girlfriend (yes, this game apparently has a STORY MODE of sorts – Gray was shocked too), shooting an apple off a man’s head (with a gun that just automatically fires, meaning – well, there are consequences to your aim not being good), and stealing money through a regularly-resetting guillotine. That apparently hurts said wobbly arm bad enough GRAY HAD TO CENSOR IT. I was not expecting that from the shitty mobile game! Anyway, it was lots of fun watching Gray chuckle over how goofy and low-budget the game was – really, these shitty mobile games bring a surprising amount of sunshine into all our lives. By being something we can all mock. XD
3. Play Sims 4, TURN OFF NEIGHBORHOOD STORIES FOR THE CHILL SAVE, then get back to Smiler Always: Check – did this after watching all the Sims YouTube stuff above! And yes, the second thing I did upon getting into the game was disable Neighborhood Stories for my Chill Save (first thing was restart for the Sims Delivery). Once I was sure no Sims would be doing anything like getting a new job without my say-so and thus possibly corrupting my save, it was back into Smiler Always!
Who – actually had kind of a quiet day today? I mean, they went out and about, but it wasn’t as intense as it has been these last few times. I ended up not taking that many pictures. . .but they still got plenty done – to start with, they now have their own plasma fruit tree growing by their house, and they’ve leveled up Vampire Lore to level 10 and Charisma to level 6. That was a productive morning in! Plus they got the Incredibly Friendly reward trait, which makes Sims friends just from saying HELLO to them, so now finishing off the “Friend of the World” aspiration should be a lot easier. ;) I also got them an Odd Job to complete – explore the cave in Sulani, get some treasure, and mail it back to the client!
This – proved to be more difficult than first expected. Firstly, I had Smiler hit up their friend Nalani’s house, as she’s conveniently on the right part of the islands (in fact, she’s RIGHT BY the cave, as I found) – they STARTED having a nice chat, but then I decided to have Smiler use some vampire powers on her. Detect Personality went fine – Compelling for a Small Drink? Not so much. So now Nalani was a bit mad at them, great. I did my best to smooth things over a bit, then sent Smiler to the cave, hoping to at least complete the Odd Job –
Well, they did, but it took them FOUR TRIES. First they encountered a mermaid and listened to their siren tune; then they ran into the same sleeping bat colony TWICE; then they found themselves in a shiny cave – it was only on the fifth attempt that they found a shipwreck and came back with a Heart of Sulani. Worth $1,200 – which Smiler went home and sent away for $509 plus a $76 tip. Not sure that one was worth it, to be honest, especially with all the vampire energy lost to excessive sun exposure. *sigh*
Fortunately, hopping on the computer after that to check their university application FINALLY had them get their acceptance letter! And, hooray hooray, Smiler qualified for Foxbury’s psychology program! I promptly had them enroll and take three classes to start – two core classes, and one Media Production class, as I intend for them to eventually do videos online. They even got a full ride thanks to having both the “Education for All” scholarship and a new Merit scholarship – not sure which one, but I’m guessing their Charisma skill got them the bonus. :) And then Judith Ward called on behalf of the power company to ask if they were prepared for a blackout thanks to squirrels on the lines – Smiler said they were, and Judith told them they passed the test and would get a discount on their next set of bills, nice. :)
And then Brant called with an invite to the Humor and Hijinks festival! I was happy enough to let Smiler go, but I didn’t actually have them join in on the festivities that much – mostly because they couldn’t stay for the whole time; they had to go to work at 9 PM. But (after a failed joke with Brant, and lots of hand-washing to bring up their hygiene – where’s a rainstorm when you need it?), they did have some fun socializing, made an instant new friend in Thiago, and even bought a bit of swag – some Roman candle fireworks, a sparkler, and a snow globe! I promptly had them light one of the Roman candles so they could “watch fireworks” and fulfill the goal assigned to them by Brant before peacing out to the job. They arrived home having done well and earned some money, and I promptly set up a keg party for them on Friday at 1 PM, after their classes. :) So I guess a fair bit happened, just – nothing TOO exciting. Next time, though, we finally start getting into University life – and I’m GETTING that next batch of power points and getting Perfect Sun Resistance, damn it!
4. Work on tumblr drafts: Half-check – I didn’t directly work on anything in my drafts, but I DID just get the pictures for Smiler’s next Victor Luvs Alice Chill Save update sorted (three-poster this week). So that’s something!
5.Either get in a workout or just watch the final episode of "Exhibition Impossible": Check to the latter – ended up skipping the workout bit as, well, cleaning my room feels like it counts on that front (it’s not the BIGGEST room, but it does take two and a half hours to clean fully when I do it!). So I just settled in after Sims and watched the last bit of "Exhibition Impossible," Part III! As you shall recall, we left off with Victor Dietrich very unwisely handing Egbert what is essentially the Wabbajack. XD Egbert gave him some pamphlets in return, and all was well –
Until Victor noticed the alarm going off in the nautical coins room. And Egbert, both panicking and REALLY wanting to try out his new lightly-cursed mace, HIT HIM IN THE BACK OF THE HEAD WITH IT. First hit connected and did some decent damage, but no fun magic stuff; second missed. He attempted to claim he slipped to the shocked Victor, but he was having none of it, slapping a button on the wall before drawing his sword on Egbert.
Quick cut back to Team Coin, with Corazon, Merilwen, and Prudence trapped in a room about to flood with acid from a ceiling tank, and Dob trapped just outside said room. Johnny put an egg timer on the table with the three minute time limit, and everyone began panicking. XD Merilwen turned into a bear and desperately tried to lift the door, with Corazon helping (after he smashed the glass and grabbed the coin – and then successfully SWALLOWED the damn thing for safekeeping) – no go, though. Dob was looking for a way around and maybe a wall he could smash, while Corazon desperately dove into the mechanics that had started the alarm and started to fiddle –
And thanks to a high roll on Dexterity/Sleight-of-Hand and a proficiency bonus that put it over twenty, he managed to successfully disable the alarm. Cue the disabling of the egg timer. XD Dob promptly cast Sleep on the poor curator and put him in his cupboard, Mended the glass and faked the coin inside with Prestidigitation for Corazon, and everyone prepared to leave –
And then a DIFFERENT alarm went “threat detected, automaton released,” and a damn steampunk robot with a cannon arm emerged from a wall. From there we went into battle mode for both Team Coin and Egbert. For Team Coin, Prudence hit the automaton’s cannon arm with a dual-beam Agonizing Blast, smashing up a few plates (and one of the exhibits, allowing them to claim the monkey butt coin); then Corazon, looking for good ways to disable it, managed to fling a golden melon “coin” down the already-damaged cannon, at least stopping it from firing on them.
Over with Egbert, he managed to smack Victor unconscious with his mace, no trouble – and then proceeded to prod him with it for AGES real-time (that is, Mike just kept rolling his D6) until the Wabbajack effect hit and Victor turned into a seal. Egbert promptly cured his wounds, told him not to complain because he could have eaten him (like how Victor ate the bandit he turned into a chicken, then killed), and took him along as the new team pet, Seal Gaiman. XD Egbert has had an ENTIRELY different adventure from the rest of the team.
Meanwhile, back with Team Coin, Merilwen was GOING to try Poison Spray on the automaton, but after Dob thought it was a good idea (and she was reminded you couldn’t poison robots), decided to go with Moonbeam instead. Moonbeam, which is a giant beam of concentrated moon energy that just obliterates anything it hits. Moonbeam, which is five foot wide – and forty foot tall.
TOO LATE, ELLEN REALIZED SHE JUST HAD MERILWEN MOONBEAM THE CEILING AND THUS THE ACID TANK. Johnny was kind and said that, since the effect wouldn’t PROPERLY start until the automaton’s turn – and fortunately they were LAST in the initiative round – they could have the next two rounds to think of a solution. Panniers, who came next, didn’t know about Moonbeam and just went at the automaton, doing some decent damage with his cutlass but also searing himself with the radiant damage. And then it was Dob’s turn, with his one shot to save everyone from the inevitable acid flow.
HE GRABBED THE HAMMER OF ETHELFRIT, SUMMONED THE SKELETONS, AND HAD THEM BODILY CARRY PRUDENCE, CORAZON, MERILWEN, AND THE CURATOR OUT OF THE ROOM AS FAST AS THEY COULD GO. And then paused briefly to encourage Panniers to leave before hoofing it himself, because – tempted as he was to rescue him – Panniers IS technically immortal thanks to the curse, sooo. . . Everyone managed to outrun the acid wave, and the skeletons took the group all the way to the Joyful Damnation (Egbert spotting them and joining the group, and Prudence, Merilwen, and Corazon a little emotionally worse for wear because the skeletons whispered nasty things to them all the way there – Dob specifically said “don’t hurt them physically but right now I don’t care about emotionally,” so yeah). Panniers actually caught up a short time later as a skeleton himself, to politely ask Corazon to hold off on breaking the curse for a few months while he caught up with Panniers II and regrew his flesh as per the curse, then sailed off in the fisherman’s skiff –
Straight into a sea mine. Setting them all off in a spectacular chain reaction. Fortunately, his smoking remains WERE happily reunited with his whale, and the gang was safe and sound on the deck of the Damnation, watching the show with their new kidnapped curator and museum-owner-turned-pet-seal. XD Talk about endings you could NOT see coming from a MILLION miles away. . .
Additionally:
-->Didn’t realize until I was going to bed last night that I’d forgotten to put “Continue the final posting edit of Chapter 5 of ‘Londerland Bloodlines: Santa Monica’s Vale Of Tears’” on the to-do list! But I did do just that this evening after my shower, getting through the second half of Alice convincing the Voermans to work together (with some clever exploitation of “no one is allowed to talk bad about my sister but me” and bringing up the loss of her own Lizzie) and them deciding to pretend to still be at odds so they can court both sides and see who their enemies are. Congrats on getting the best ending to that quest, Alice! :) Now we just have a quick aside with E, Lily, and Rosa, then it is time to meet Tung!
Mmm -- pretty productive day, honestly. And I am very glad I watched the end of "Exhibition Impossible," that was GREAT. XD And now it is time to set up Sunday to-dos:
1. Keep up with the FO4 Playthrough Progression, and final posting edits on Chapter 5 of "Londerland Bloodlines: Santa Monica’s Vale Of Tears"
2. Keep up with YouTube Subs and Jon's F:NV "Utter Chaos" video
3. Play Fallout 4 and finish up Sunshine Tidings before moving on to Diamond City
4. Work on tumblr queues
5. Get in a workout
I think this is all doable, yes. Typical Sunday stuff, really. As it stands, I've gotta get back to some conversing/RP with a friend, so, night all!
Fortunately, I had plenty to keep me occupied while indoors:
1. Clean my room and do the end-of-month laundry: Check – started cleaning around 10:33 AM, right after breakfast, and finished roughly around 12:53 PM, right before lunch! :) Full top-to-bottom dusting, yay. Laundry, naturally, took longer, but I was able to combine my stuff with the stuff Mom was washing, so it just came out with everything else as the day went on. *shrug* All set for another few weeks!
2. Keep up with YouTube Subs and the OXBox list video in my Watch Later: Check, plus a bonus video uploaded today!
A) Started this afternoon with a video from Plumbella – “Can I build an ENTIRE house using 3 random packs?” This was a build challenge idea from a friend of hers – you build an entire house, using three random packs – BUT you can only use one pack at a time, and you can’t move or delete anything from the previous pack, nor go back to what was in the previous pack, once you move on. Plumbella spent a bit of time building an interesting shell and then went over to James Turner’s site to randomize her packs! Started with Movie Hangout Stuff which – while it had no wallpaper or flooring options – did have a variety of cute furniture and a couple of doors, which Plumbella made good use of. She built the main living room area (hilariously WITHOUT a TV – though I think the only ones that come with the pack are the giant ones, soo) and a little sitting area, then moved onto the next pack. Which was – Luxury Party Stuff, aka THE LEAST-WELL-APPOINTED STUFF PACK WE APPARENTLY EVER GOT. I’m not entirely sure what she used from it, apart from a glow-cube in the bathroom. Desperate and without windows, Plumbella randomized her final pack – and got StrangerVille. This DID sort of save her – the pack comes with two wall options and two floor options, plenty of windows, and a homemade bath/shower and a bed – but obviously it clashed terribly with the Movie Hangout stuff, and she had to fake a kitchen with some lab desks and the bar backing, and a toilet with a chair and a tire. And use the debug objects tagged with the pack to make a nice front garden. She was very said that she didn’t get to make her fun fairy cottage that she was hoping for at the beginning. XD Ah well – there will be other chances!
B) Then we moved onto James Turner himself for more “Makin’ Money” Scenario silliness – specifically, “I committed insurance fraud in The Sims to earn $1,000,000 Simoleons!” The plan was to do dumpster diving as a spellcaster to quickly repair the items found in said dumpster, but as you can guess from the title, that went a bit off the rails. XD Semaj this time was a Freegan (for better dumpster finds), a Loner, and Loves The Outdoors, and his aspiration was still Fabulously Wealthy. He started out in Glimmerbrook on the empty lot nearest the portal and gave himself the lot traits Peace & Quiet (for Tense moods to go away faster) and Geothermal (for smaller bills), plus set it as a tiny home using a few free floor tiles to get all those bonuses. From there it was over to the Magic Realm to become a spellcaster and get the spells he needed! Which – went surprisingly well, honestly! He got, right off the bat, Inferniate from Morgyn and Repairio from Simeon, then the potion of Plentiful Needs from L. Faba! He sold a few other things he’d picked up to finance the purchase of a broom (for fast travel), then it was off to Evergreen Harbor to start dumpster diving!
AND SO STARTED THE SLOG. You thought trying to run a retail store in the “No Skills, No Problem” challenge was tough? This was worse. James WAS just selling from inventory, but he insisted on repairing anything that needed to be repaired first, and basically just – wasn’t getting a lot of high-ticket items. The insurance fraud part of it – which is when you burn an item with Inferniate, get the insurance money, then replace it for free with Repairio – was just to try and supplement his income because dumpster diving was going SO SLOWLY. Eventually he just moved to Evergreen Harbor, and used his tiny home floor tiles to mark out the space where the most expensive burnable objects lived. He did massive dumpster dives off-camera, repaired and sold his items, and then did some burning for the insurance. And then either remembered just in time to discharge his magical charge, or overcharged, fortunately never with fatal results. (Also occasionally burning people who annoyed him, bringing a random vampire who died in the sun back to life, and becoming buds with Grim.) Needs were kept up via the Plentiful Needs potion, because why not? However, after three real life hours of this and not getting anything really good (except, early on, one CC fridge from his girlfriend Deli’s kitchen that he originally couldn’t figure out how to burn and thus just sold; he DID figure out how to insurance fraud it with a fresh one he bought, but then sold THAT because it felt like cheating); he snapped, just bought a bunch of expensive violins, and burned and repaired them until he finally got the necessary cash. It took 19 in-game days, but apparently it felt like a lifetime to James. XD So yeah, NOT a good way to earn a million simoleons if you want to keep your sanity. Or do it with any speed. Back to the drawing board!
C) Then, this evening, it was over to that OXBox list (which was actually an OXBoxtra list, presented by Andy and Luke) – “7 Times Developers Trolled Their Own Players!” From the head honcho at FROM making players scramble to figure out the secret of the pendant gift in Dark Souls, only to later reveal he wanted to play a prank, to new-look brunette Dante getting a brief wig of his old white hair in an early cutscene in DMC: Devil May Cry (and then his hair turns white ANYWAY later in the game), to anyone trying to romance both Triss and Yennefer in The Witcher III: Wild Hunt learning that a potential threesome is just the annoyed girls teaming up to chain Geralt to a bed and leave him to be rescued by the bard Dandelion, game developers do like to tease and torment their players a bit. Though probably the worst troll was hiding the fact that Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty had a brand new protagonist – poor Raiden, he suffered mightily the fanbase’s wrath.
D) And then finally we had GrayStillPlays and Arm Simulator – another shitty mobile game where you are a very wobbly, physics-defying arm, and you have to complete various tasks. Including washing your cat down with a hose (Gray, a known cat owner, was BAFFLED by this), feeding your strange potato dog (who frankly loved it as Gray scattered food everywhere), getting a hole-in-one on the world’s easiest mini-golf hole, whacking a pinata, having a romantic dinner and surprise birthday proposal with your girlfriend (yes, this game apparently has a STORY MODE of sorts – Gray was shocked too), shooting an apple off a man’s head (with a gun that just automatically fires, meaning – well, there are consequences to your aim not being good), and stealing money through a regularly-resetting guillotine. That apparently hurts said wobbly arm bad enough GRAY HAD TO CENSOR IT. I was not expecting that from the shitty mobile game! Anyway, it was lots of fun watching Gray chuckle over how goofy and low-budget the game was – really, these shitty mobile games bring a surprising amount of sunshine into all our lives. By being something we can all mock. XD
3. Play Sims 4, TURN OFF NEIGHBORHOOD STORIES FOR THE CHILL SAVE, then get back to Smiler Always: Check – did this after watching all the Sims YouTube stuff above! And yes, the second thing I did upon getting into the game was disable Neighborhood Stories for my Chill Save (first thing was restart for the Sims Delivery). Once I was sure no Sims would be doing anything like getting a new job without my say-so and thus possibly corrupting my save, it was back into Smiler Always!
Who – actually had kind of a quiet day today? I mean, they went out and about, but it wasn’t as intense as it has been these last few times. I ended up not taking that many pictures. . .but they still got plenty done – to start with, they now have their own plasma fruit tree growing by their house, and they’ve leveled up Vampire Lore to level 10 and Charisma to level 6. That was a productive morning in! Plus they got the Incredibly Friendly reward trait, which makes Sims friends just from saying HELLO to them, so now finishing off the “Friend of the World” aspiration should be a lot easier. ;) I also got them an Odd Job to complete – explore the cave in Sulani, get some treasure, and mail it back to the client!
This – proved to be more difficult than first expected. Firstly, I had Smiler hit up their friend Nalani’s house, as she’s conveniently on the right part of the islands (in fact, she’s RIGHT BY the cave, as I found) – they STARTED having a nice chat, but then I decided to have Smiler use some vampire powers on her. Detect Personality went fine – Compelling for a Small Drink? Not so much. So now Nalani was a bit mad at them, great. I did my best to smooth things over a bit, then sent Smiler to the cave, hoping to at least complete the Odd Job –
Well, they did, but it took them FOUR TRIES. First they encountered a mermaid and listened to their siren tune; then they ran into the same sleeping bat colony TWICE; then they found themselves in a shiny cave – it was only on the fifth attempt that they found a shipwreck and came back with a Heart of Sulani. Worth $1,200 – which Smiler went home and sent away for $509 plus a $76 tip. Not sure that one was worth it, to be honest, especially with all the vampire energy lost to excessive sun exposure. *sigh*
Fortunately, hopping on the computer after that to check their university application FINALLY had them get their acceptance letter! And, hooray hooray, Smiler qualified for Foxbury’s psychology program! I promptly had them enroll and take three classes to start – two core classes, and one Media Production class, as I intend for them to eventually do videos online. They even got a full ride thanks to having both the “Education for All” scholarship and a new Merit scholarship – not sure which one, but I’m guessing their Charisma skill got them the bonus. :) And then Judith Ward called on behalf of the power company to ask if they were prepared for a blackout thanks to squirrels on the lines – Smiler said they were, and Judith told them they passed the test and would get a discount on their next set of bills, nice. :)
And then Brant called with an invite to the Humor and Hijinks festival! I was happy enough to let Smiler go, but I didn’t actually have them join in on the festivities that much – mostly because they couldn’t stay for the whole time; they had to go to work at 9 PM. But (after a failed joke with Brant, and lots of hand-washing to bring up their hygiene – where’s a rainstorm when you need it?), they did have some fun socializing, made an instant new friend in Thiago, and even bought a bit of swag – some Roman candle fireworks, a sparkler, and a snow globe! I promptly had them light one of the Roman candles so they could “watch fireworks” and fulfill the goal assigned to them by Brant before peacing out to the job. They arrived home having done well and earned some money, and I promptly set up a keg party for them on Friday at 1 PM, after their classes. :) So I guess a fair bit happened, just – nothing TOO exciting. Next time, though, we finally start getting into University life – and I’m GETTING that next batch of power points and getting Perfect Sun Resistance, damn it!
4. Work on tumblr drafts: Half-check – I didn’t directly work on anything in my drafts, but I DID just get the pictures for Smiler’s next Victor Luvs Alice Chill Save update sorted (three-poster this week). So that’s something!
5.
Until Victor noticed the alarm going off in the nautical coins room. And Egbert, both panicking and REALLY wanting to try out his new lightly-cursed mace, HIT HIM IN THE BACK OF THE HEAD WITH IT. First hit connected and did some decent damage, but no fun magic stuff; second missed. He attempted to claim he slipped to the shocked Victor, but he was having none of it, slapping a button on the wall before drawing his sword on Egbert.
Quick cut back to Team Coin, with Corazon, Merilwen, and Prudence trapped in a room about to flood with acid from a ceiling tank, and Dob trapped just outside said room. Johnny put an egg timer on the table with the three minute time limit, and everyone began panicking. XD Merilwen turned into a bear and desperately tried to lift the door, with Corazon helping (after he smashed the glass and grabbed the coin – and then successfully SWALLOWED the damn thing for safekeeping) – no go, though. Dob was looking for a way around and maybe a wall he could smash, while Corazon desperately dove into the mechanics that had started the alarm and started to fiddle –
And thanks to a high roll on Dexterity/Sleight-of-Hand and a proficiency bonus that put it over twenty, he managed to successfully disable the alarm. Cue the disabling of the egg timer. XD Dob promptly cast Sleep on the poor curator and put him in his cupboard, Mended the glass and faked the coin inside with Prestidigitation for Corazon, and everyone prepared to leave –
And then a DIFFERENT alarm went “threat detected, automaton released,” and a damn steampunk robot with a cannon arm emerged from a wall. From there we went into battle mode for both Team Coin and Egbert. For Team Coin, Prudence hit the automaton’s cannon arm with a dual-beam Agonizing Blast, smashing up a few plates (and one of the exhibits, allowing them to claim the monkey butt coin); then Corazon, looking for good ways to disable it, managed to fling a golden melon “coin” down the already-damaged cannon, at least stopping it from firing on them.
Over with Egbert, he managed to smack Victor unconscious with his mace, no trouble – and then proceeded to prod him with it for AGES real-time (that is, Mike just kept rolling his D6) until the Wabbajack effect hit and Victor turned into a seal. Egbert promptly cured his wounds, told him not to complain because he could have eaten him (like how Victor ate the bandit he turned into a chicken, then killed), and took him along as the new team pet, Seal Gaiman. XD Egbert has had an ENTIRELY different adventure from the rest of the team.
Meanwhile, back with Team Coin, Merilwen was GOING to try Poison Spray on the automaton, but after Dob thought it was a good idea (and she was reminded you couldn’t poison robots), decided to go with Moonbeam instead. Moonbeam, which is a giant beam of concentrated moon energy that just obliterates anything it hits. Moonbeam, which is five foot wide – and forty foot tall.
TOO LATE, ELLEN REALIZED SHE JUST HAD MERILWEN MOONBEAM THE CEILING AND THUS THE ACID TANK. Johnny was kind and said that, since the effect wouldn’t PROPERLY start until the automaton’s turn – and fortunately they were LAST in the initiative round – they could have the next two rounds to think of a solution. Panniers, who came next, didn’t know about Moonbeam and just went at the automaton, doing some decent damage with his cutlass but also searing himself with the radiant damage. And then it was Dob’s turn, with his one shot to save everyone from the inevitable acid flow.
HE GRABBED THE HAMMER OF ETHELFRIT, SUMMONED THE SKELETONS, AND HAD THEM BODILY CARRY PRUDENCE, CORAZON, MERILWEN, AND THE CURATOR OUT OF THE ROOM AS FAST AS THEY COULD GO. And then paused briefly to encourage Panniers to leave before hoofing it himself, because – tempted as he was to rescue him – Panniers IS technically immortal thanks to the curse, sooo. . . Everyone managed to outrun the acid wave, and the skeletons took the group all the way to the Joyful Damnation (Egbert spotting them and joining the group, and Prudence, Merilwen, and Corazon a little emotionally worse for wear because the skeletons whispered nasty things to them all the way there – Dob specifically said “don’t hurt them physically but right now I don’t care about emotionally,” so yeah). Panniers actually caught up a short time later as a skeleton himself, to politely ask Corazon to hold off on breaking the curse for a few months while he caught up with Panniers II and regrew his flesh as per the curse, then sailed off in the fisherman’s skiff –
Straight into a sea mine. Setting them all off in a spectacular chain reaction. Fortunately, his smoking remains WERE happily reunited with his whale, and the gang was safe and sound on the deck of the Damnation, watching the show with their new kidnapped curator and museum-owner-turned-pet-seal. XD Talk about endings you could NOT see coming from a MILLION miles away. . .
Additionally:
-->Didn’t realize until I was going to bed last night that I’d forgotten to put “Continue the final posting edit of Chapter 5 of ‘Londerland Bloodlines: Santa Monica’s Vale Of Tears’” on the to-do list! But I did do just that this evening after my shower, getting through the second half of Alice convincing the Voermans to work together (with some clever exploitation of “no one is allowed to talk bad about my sister but me” and bringing up the loss of her own Lizzie) and them deciding to pretend to still be at odds so they can court both sides and see who their enemies are. Congrats on getting the best ending to that quest, Alice! :) Now we just have a quick aside with E, Lily, and Rosa, then it is time to meet Tung!
Mmm -- pretty productive day, honestly. And I am very glad I watched the end of "Exhibition Impossible," that was GREAT. XD And now it is time to set up Sunday to-dos:
1. Keep up with the FO4 Playthrough Progression, and final posting edits on Chapter 5 of "Londerland Bloodlines: Santa Monica’s Vale Of Tears"
2. Keep up with YouTube Subs and Jon's F:NV "Utter Chaos" video
3. Play Fallout 4 and finish up Sunshine Tidings before moving on to Diamond City
4. Work on tumblr queues
5. Get in a workout
I think this is all doable, yes. Typical Sunday stuff, really. As it stands, I've gotta get back to some conversing/RP with a friend, so, night all!
