Quick Update Sunday
Apr. 3rd, 2022 11:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickBecause, as you can see, I'm running late -- last video of the day got started late, and then I had more to do on Valice Multiverse than expected. . .you'll see below!
1. Keep up with the FO4 Playthrough Progression: Check – did that this evening, after supper. You can read the full write-up of my session below, of course, but the main takeaways are Victor now has another dog, Mutt, at his side; Sunshine Tidings FINALLY has some turrets (and a Gunner camp nearby has been taken out); and Preston and Victor are about as close as they can possibly get without kissing (and kissing is definitely on the table, once the two decide to actually act on their feelings – and, in-game, Victor picks up some more Charisma). It’s been a good couple of days for Victor, is what I’m saying. AND, he’s finally on his way to Diamond City, which, yay. XD About freakin’ time.
2. Keep up with YouTube Subs and Jon's F:NV "Utter Chaos" video: Check – pretty simple today, as I only had three videos I wanted to watch –
A) Started this evening with a quick Plumbella video – “An in-depth and unhinged review of every toilet in The Sims 4!” Yes, it was off to Tier-Maker today to rate Sims toilets of all sorts – bushes, toddler potties, public restrooms, litter boxes, you name it. Hilariously, Plumbella did NOT create the tier of toilets – her friend Lilsimsie actually did, which cracked Plumbella up because she didn’t know until she started recording who had done it. XD Anyway, her ranks included putting all the toilet bushes in “iconic” (as they are also woohoo spots); all the public toilets in “useful” (because they are); the regular wooden toilet from the woodworking bench in “odd” (but in a good way); and the stalls from Discover University in “Useless” (because she personally thinks they’re too big, and apparently they don’t snap for her). There was also a digression to find this one fancy wooden toilet that she didn’t see in her game – as per the comments, it’s apparently the NICER version of a wooden toilet you can make on the woodworking bench. Good to know, I suppose! But yeah, a short, silly video about toilets – I can dig it. XD
B) Moving onto the sole Subs video of the day, we had GrayStillPlays and more Happy Wheels! We had a maple-syrup-themed bottle flip by Yeetolism (featuring a bouncing sausage link that Gray never landed a bottle on, but he DID manage to flip onto the mountain in the background); Segway Nixon versus The Color Yellow (as in, all the yellow objects on the board violently murdered him – took Gray a few tries to get through without losing his feet and/or his life); a simple blue rope swing; a crooked and unevenly gapped bottle run; a troll board that Gray managed to win first try through sheer speed; Pogo Man doing battle as he bounced up the red steps to the win (ended up with a man attached to the battle ax he got stuck in his ass, but he did make it); a trip to the backrooms which involved mainly pedaling for miles and miles (and not getting killed by the skin stealer, aka a man made of beige blocks); and a trip to France courtesy of Dylan Snider, in which Bike Dad had to make through glass, cars not stopping at the crosswalk, mind-controlled Parisians, and deadly bread (the bread being the most dangerous part of all this). A very solid episode of the Wheels! XD
C) And finally, we had Jon’s latest “Utter Chaos” episode, in which he tried to complete Dead Money and instead completed Honest Hearts. How that went down is like so:
I. Jon did an episode of “all the things Jon got wrong,” in which he revealed that he actually knew where the door to the restaurant he needed to visit was – it’s the manhole cover that SHOULD lead to the Thorn! He just hadn’t realized because he’d forgotten the NAME of the restaurant. So he went down and –
II. The door was to the BACK entrance, into the gas-filled kitchen. Which meant Jon hit the triggers for that particular area BACKWARDS, further meaning that things didn’t fire off correctly. Namely, while he could go through the kitchen backward, fixing the gas leaks that Dog/God (who in this episode I learned is the split personality of a Nightkin who should be roaming around) set off to kill themselves (well, Dog wants to die, I think God doesn’t) and get into the main lobby to get the key, the game then wouldn’t a) spawn in Dog/God so that Jon could actually take care of them as per the quest, as he’d already come in through the kitchen; b) let him go out the lobby doors, which it wanted him to do, because he hadn’t taken care of Dog/God, meaning he exploded every time he tried; c) let him go out the door he came in, because the game SEALS that door once you’re MEANT to go through it, and you can’t get back through without the pass that Dog/God has on them. And the door into the lobby was apparently a random hidden bunker – that has no other entrance, as Jon confirmed when he teleported in via console command and checked it out (it’s basically just rubble with a few things to loot). Meaning that entrance was in fact inaccessible.
III. Well, unless you use the console commands, as stated above. To get around the trap, Jon used a teleport from an earlier save, got the key he needed, then got himself into the kitchen via manhole and – yay, Dog/God is there, albeit in larger, regular super mutant form (Nightkins are a special variant). And wonder of wonders, thanks to having full speech, Jon was able to talk them down, get them to cooperate and merge, and get them, at least, a happy ending. ONE happy ending in all these DLCs, yay. . .
IV. With their maintenance pass, Jon was able to escape the loop, get the recordings he needed by popping down other manhole covers into the other areas of Dead Money (and note that, if ONLY he’d been able to pass that speech check with Christine, this could have been SO much easier and less murdery), and finally reaching the elevator that, once unlocked with the right recording, SHOULD have taken him to the Sierra Madre Vault! It was marked as the Mojave Wasteland, but Jon was hopeful that unlocking it might reset its state and let him go to the Vault anyway. . .
V. Nope. Random location in the Mojave. Well shit.
VI. Okay, with Dead Money possibly not even able to be completed, Jon decided to turn his attention to Honest Hearts, simply because he knew exactly how to get the bad ending, which – well, still counts as an ending. Step one was to head into Zion and murder one of the plot-important NPCs – in most of the game and DLCs, this just means you have to learn what you need to from them from a convenient note or something. In Honest Hearts, you just throw the canyon into chaos and have to find one map to escape and see the ending slides. Jon chose to blow up Daniel (I think a missionary to the Sorrows tribe living there? I don’t know Honest Hearts, everyone says it’s awful and racist), and after a couple of failed attempts with a mini-nuke, did just that.
VII. However, the DLC wasn’t complete without finding that damn map, and Jon had some trouble tracking that down via quest marker. Mainly because the markers kept leading him to random spots in the ground (like a random bloodstain in one area) that didn’t actually have doors. Fortunately, he was able to find a different entrance into Zion and locate the camp that had the pot which contained the map he needed (he’d forgotten where exactly it was). He managed to avoid his enemies, kill the ambush that was supposed to come after him, and get out through the door that CLAIMED it went to a refinery of some sort (a Boomers location) –
VIII. But instead got teleported to the sad “everything is horrible now for everyone” ending slides, before getting dropped in the area he was SUPPOSED to go into anyway. Meaning Honest Hearts is now complete, yay!
So yeah – as summed up at the end of the video, that’s two DLCs officially done (even if he got the worst ending for both of them); one DLC done in-spirit as he can’t actually trigger the ending slides for it; and one DLC that may not be complete-able because he can’t find the entrance to the end-game room. (Unless he’s already passed it without realizing.) That one depends on him finding the right state for the elevator he needs. And then all he has to do is figure out how to end the main game, and – well. Looks like April will be the last month for this! And he’s already hinting he’s got some interesting things planned for afterward. . .we’ll see what comes of all that!
3. Play Fallout 4 and START TOWARD DIAMOND CITY DARN IT: Check – and hooray hoorah, I AM actually heading in the right direction toward Diamond City this time! It was actually a really nice and productive play session, in fact – here, let me give you the breakdown:
11/16/2287 – Started at 4 PM in Tenpines Bluff, having just cooked up some food, with my plan being to lug some junk over to Sunshine Tidings, make them some turrets for better defense, and then FINALLY start on my way toward Diamond City. Preston and Victor subsequently set out back toward Sunshine with shotguns at the ready – which was good, as their path took them through Bedford Station again, and they had to kill a few ghouls at the loading dock. Victor also raided said dock for supplies (duct tape, YAY), and read the notes on the terminal (nothing special). Once that was done, they found their way to Starlight Drive-In, where I started trying to reorient myself in the right direction –
And then I saw a raider and a vicious mongrel nearby, under the train bridge, apparently having a fight. I had Victor ready his shotgun and hit VATS –
Not a vicious mongrel.
A “Wounded Dog.”
MUTT! IT WAS MUTT! Victor promptly plowed in, shot that raider in the face, then tended to the dog. :D I was JUST THINKING about how I haven’t met Mutt in this playthrough yet! Awww, I still wish you could adopt her. . . But she’s safe now, at least. :) Victor also found the corpse of a junkie the raider had apparently killed, along with a note detailing a chem stash at Kendall Hospital – might be worth looking into later, for caps purposes. *shrug* But yes, I was riding high on saving my favorite random encounter, ready to move on with Preston and Mutt at my side –
And then a radstorm blew in. *sigh* Darn post-apocalyptic New England weather! On the plus side, we were literally right next to Starlight, so I had Victor run in there and shelter from the storm in the apartment behind the screen, and – once the radiation stopped ticking up – sleep there for the night, because why not, he was already tired. Mutt followed us to the edge of the settlement, so I guess she “lives” there now. :p
11/17/2287 – Up at 5 AM in-game, I once again took a moment to orient myself – then noticed Preston wasn’t following me around for some reason. Puzzled, I spoke to him, prepping myself for another “Castle” conversation –
Nope! I could trade with him again! He didn’t even mention the Castle until I tried to speak to him regularly once more, under the “Y” talk option! :) So I couldn’t turn in my quest for Sunshine Tidings, but I COULD at least give him some spare junk again, yay. (I should probably note that I have actually downloaded a mod recently that makes dealing with the Minutemen quests a little easier – it stops Preston from auto-giving you a quest if you just say hi – you have to actively engage his conversation options instead – and you don’t have to report back to him with new quests, since, well, you’re the general. I just didn’t know if it was working because of the awkward time I downloaded it – aka, Preston’s Castle Obsession. But apparently it is!)
Anyway, with that sorted, and Preston properly following me again (I suspect he was actually stuck on some scenery), I got Victor going in the right direction again, and the boys set off back toward Sunshine. We passed the cat trader guy and the wrecked train with the spare power armor along the way – and then had to deviate from the planned path when I saw a SUPER MUTANT BEHEMOTH (aka a BIG BOY) stomping around what I believe is called “Carhenge” directly in front of us. The boys made it around the Behemoth without attracting attention –
Only to stumble straight into a little Gunner camp right by Sunshine! Victor and Preston managed to take out the two Gunners and the turret on ground level, then hid until the remaining enemies up on the highway calmed down. Sheesh – you guys see why was so intent on building turrets in my newest settlement? Victor and Preston finally got back into Sunshine, where I had Victor build two turrets to cover both sides of the settlement, do some cooking (including making veggie starch, because adhesive, yay), and – importantly – build a new port-a-potty because fuck knows what happened to the old one. A midday rad storm interrupted this routine, but fortunately waiting an hour in one of the houses got us through it. Then it was time to do some gun and armor modding at Victor’s portable workbench, clearing out his and Preston’s inventories and scrapping a load of stuff for parts. (Plus finally upgrading his backpack to max carry capacity, yay.) Which made Preston idolize Victor –
And when Victor got some more junk off Preston to store at the workbench, the “Taking Point: Sunshine Tidings Co-Op” quest completed! :D Yaaaay! So THAT’S out of my quest log and into my experience, w00! That just left “Ghoul Problem At Oberland Station” (well, and the Finch Farm recruitment quest, but I’m not doing that just yet) – figured I could at least see where that was on the map now that I was done with Sunshine.
Turns out Oberland Station is on the way to Diamond City. Might as well stop in and get another settlement on the Minutemen’s side then, right? Marked the quest as active, then started heading that way. . .after sending Victor back to the Gunner camp and up the little elevator to the elevated highway to kill the remaining Gunner and turret up there. Who, uh, killed him once as I wasn’t quick enough to realize where the enemies were the first time. Did much better the second time! Did some more cooking at the pot they had up there, then headed back down to ground level, having Victor loop by Arcjet (passing a REALLY radioactive pond with a house in it and a bunch of chickens around it along the way – Child of Atom?), before finding his way back to Weston Water Treatment (unlocking the nearby truck trailer for a few goodies) and setting up camp there around 9:30 PM.
11/18/2287 – And we started the next day and ended the playsession with Preston having his final affinity talk with Victor, thanking him for saving his life and helping give him a reason to press on, with Victor saying he’s very glad Preston stuck around. :) “United We Stand” perk acquired! :D No romance yet, but I plan to pick it up on one of Preston’s “hey, here’s another shot at romancing me” convos – just want to give Victor some better Charisma first! It is a red check, after all. . .
4. Work on tumblr drafts: Check – on Victor Luvs Alice, got this week’s short-but-sweet look at “2 Olde Mill Lane Haunted,” my build for Victor, Alice, and Smiler’s eventual Henford-on-Bagley home for the Wednesday Chill Save update, and worked on a post about pets in the Fallout of Darkness universe that’s been sitting in my drafts for a while. (And then had to edit it just now because, as stated above, I just met Mutt in my current playthrough. :) ) And on Valice Multiverse – five asks to drop in the queue for tomorrow! This is what I get for taking a night off for focus reasons yesterday.
5. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike today after FO4 funtimes, and back with the Oxventure crew for the next stream – “Sect Appeal!” So far, the short summary is “the Oxventurers accidentally join a cult while chasing after Prudence’s book and orb babies while drunk out of their minds.” XD To put it in more detail, after some technical difficulties (Mike’s microphone was muted for the general stream – Corazon claimed he’d taken a vow of silence, while Dob played him a little song to encourage him to talk again, which morphed into Prudence claiming he’d sold his voice to a sea witch for human legs and Dob going “now we all think Prince Eric is hot. . .”), Johnny started the adventure with everyone in a tavern in one of Geth’s prime vacation spots, having drinks to celebrate Egbert’s recent good work at the Paladin Trials. Egbert had gotten three new converts over three days, which is good for him – especially since he’d been drinking all the while. In fact, as per a roll from Luke, everyone in the party had been drinking for a while, as they’d been at that tavern for twelve hours. XD The landlord warned them as Corazon went up for another round that they’d be closing early due to a spate of kidnappings – a couple of dozen people over just the past week – but after the Oxventurers asked if they could just stay at the tavern, the landlord agreed and foolishly let them have a few more rounds. This resulted in terrible karaoke from Corazon, Merilwen making awful puns, the gang deciding that they couldn’t be kidnapped if they kidnapped each other first (with Dob putting Corazon in a bag to roll him down a hill), and general goofiness all around.
And then the Puzzle Palantir rolled out of Prudence’s bag and out the door at a pretty freaking epic pace, chased by Frisky and the Darkness, the puppy grimoires. Everyone gave chase, and Dob made a good attempt at catching the orb, but no dice. The orb and the tomes continued on into the mountains – most of the party rolled well enough to follow the trail, but Prudence herself, who’d overdone it on the gin, was too overcome with emotion about how everything leaves her to follow, forcing Corazon to go back and carry her piggyback along the trail. The gang managed to track the runaway eldritch items to a cave, where a nice lady in white robes asked them if they were the new initiates, ready to start their new lives dedicated to the Blessed Lady. The very drunk Oxventurers said yes, giggling about “doing a trick,” and were allowed in to eat some stew (Dob slurping down the entire pot of the vegetarian option – yeah, apparently he’s a vegetarian! – and then crawling into the kidnap bag and being six before having five more pints of the gin Merilwen had brought along) before being escorted to their dormitory. Most of them just passed out in their comfy fur “camping beds,” but Dob volunteered to stay on watch – and ACTUALLY MADE the Constitution check to stay awake! Not that he actually SAW anything out of the ordinary, but. . . XD Oh, this is already looking like such a fun adventure. . .
Man, busy Sunday! But I did get everything I wanted to get done, done, so that's good. And now it's time to start the final full week of work before my Easter break. Hopefully it's not too much of a clusterfuck, but we'll see. *nods* Night all!
1. Keep up with the FO4 Playthrough Progression: Check – did that this evening, after supper. You can read the full write-up of my session below, of course, but the main takeaways are Victor now has another dog, Mutt, at his side; Sunshine Tidings FINALLY has some turrets (and a Gunner camp nearby has been taken out); and Preston and Victor are about as close as they can possibly get without kissing (and kissing is definitely on the table, once the two decide to actually act on their feelings – and, in-game, Victor picks up some more Charisma). It’s been a good couple of days for Victor, is what I’m saying. AND, he’s finally on his way to Diamond City, which, yay. XD About freakin’ time.
2. Keep up with YouTube Subs and Jon's F:NV "Utter Chaos" video: Check – pretty simple today, as I only had three videos I wanted to watch –
A) Started this evening with a quick Plumbella video – “An in-depth and unhinged review of every toilet in The Sims 4!” Yes, it was off to Tier-Maker today to rate Sims toilets of all sorts – bushes, toddler potties, public restrooms, litter boxes, you name it. Hilariously, Plumbella did NOT create the tier of toilets – her friend Lilsimsie actually did, which cracked Plumbella up because she didn’t know until she started recording who had done it. XD Anyway, her ranks included putting all the toilet bushes in “iconic” (as they are also woohoo spots); all the public toilets in “useful” (because they are); the regular wooden toilet from the woodworking bench in “odd” (but in a good way); and the stalls from Discover University in “Useless” (because she personally thinks they’re too big, and apparently they don’t snap for her). There was also a digression to find this one fancy wooden toilet that she didn’t see in her game – as per the comments, it’s apparently the NICER version of a wooden toilet you can make on the woodworking bench. Good to know, I suppose! But yeah, a short, silly video about toilets – I can dig it. XD
B) Moving onto the sole Subs video of the day, we had GrayStillPlays and more Happy Wheels! We had a maple-syrup-themed bottle flip by Yeetolism (featuring a bouncing sausage link that Gray never landed a bottle on, but he DID manage to flip onto the mountain in the background); Segway Nixon versus The Color Yellow (as in, all the yellow objects on the board violently murdered him – took Gray a few tries to get through without losing his feet and/or his life); a simple blue rope swing; a crooked and unevenly gapped bottle run; a troll board that Gray managed to win first try through sheer speed; Pogo Man doing battle as he bounced up the red steps to the win (ended up with a man attached to the battle ax he got stuck in his ass, but he did make it); a trip to the backrooms which involved mainly pedaling for miles and miles (and not getting killed by the skin stealer, aka a man made of beige blocks); and a trip to France courtesy of Dylan Snider, in which Bike Dad had to make through glass, cars not stopping at the crosswalk, mind-controlled Parisians, and deadly bread (the bread being the most dangerous part of all this). A very solid episode of the Wheels! XD
C) And finally, we had Jon’s latest “Utter Chaos” episode, in which he tried to complete Dead Money and instead completed Honest Hearts. How that went down is like so:
I. Jon did an episode of “all the things Jon got wrong,” in which he revealed that he actually knew where the door to the restaurant he needed to visit was – it’s the manhole cover that SHOULD lead to the Thorn! He just hadn’t realized because he’d forgotten the NAME of the restaurant. So he went down and –
II. The door was to the BACK entrance, into the gas-filled kitchen. Which meant Jon hit the triggers for that particular area BACKWARDS, further meaning that things didn’t fire off correctly. Namely, while he could go through the kitchen backward, fixing the gas leaks that Dog/God (who in this episode I learned is the split personality of a Nightkin who should be roaming around) set off to kill themselves (well, Dog wants to die, I think God doesn’t) and get into the main lobby to get the key, the game then wouldn’t a) spawn in Dog/God so that Jon could actually take care of them as per the quest, as he’d already come in through the kitchen; b) let him go out the lobby doors, which it wanted him to do, because he hadn’t taken care of Dog/God, meaning he exploded every time he tried; c) let him go out the door he came in, because the game SEALS that door once you’re MEANT to go through it, and you can’t get back through without the pass that Dog/God has on them. And the door into the lobby was apparently a random hidden bunker – that has no other entrance, as Jon confirmed when he teleported in via console command and checked it out (it’s basically just rubble with a few things to loot). Meaning that entrance was in fact inaccessible.
III. Well, unless you use the console commands, as stated above. To get around the trap, Jon used a teleport from an earlier save, got the key he needed, then got himself into the kitchen via manhole and – yay, Dog/God is there, albeit in larger, regular super mutant form (Nightkins are a special variant). And wonder of wonders, thanks to having full speech, Jon was able to talk them down, get them to cooperate and merge, and get them, at least, a happy ending. ONE happy ending in all these DLCs, yay. . .
IV. With their maintenance pass, Jon was able to escape the loop, get the recordings he needed by popping down other manhole covers into the other areas of Dead Money (and note that, if ONLY he’d been able to pass that speech check with Christine, this could have been SO much easier and less murdery), and finally reaching the elevator that, once unlocked with the right recording, SHOULD have taken him to the Sierra Madre Vault! It was marked as the Mojave Wasteland, but Jon was hopeful that unlocking it might reset its state and let him go to the Vault anyway. . .
V. Nope. Random location in the Mojave. Well shit.
VI. Okay, with Dead Money possibly not even able to be completed, Jon decided to turn his attention to Honest Hearts, simply because he knew exactly how to get the bad ending, which – well, still counts as an ending. Step one was to head into Zion and murder one of the plot-important NPCs – in most of the game and DLCs, this just means you have to learn what you need to from them from a convenient note or something. In Honest Hearts, you just throw the canyon into chaos and have to find one map to escape and see the ending slides. Jon chose to blow up Daniel (I think a missionary to the Sorrows tribe living there? I don’t know Honest Hearts, everyone says it’s awful and racist), and after a couple of failed attempts with a mini-nuke, did just that.
VII. However, the DLC wasn’t complete without finding that damn map, and Jon had some trouble tracking that down via quest marker. Mainly because the markers kept leading him to random spots in the ground (like a random bloodstain in one area) that didn’t actually have doors. Fortunately, he was able to find a different entrance into Zion and locate the camp that had the pot which contained the map he needed (he’d forgotten where exactly it was). He managed to avoid his enemies, kill the ambush that was supposed to come after him, and get out through the door that CLAIMED it went to a refinery of some sort (a Boomers location) –
VIII. But instead got teleported to the sad “everything is horrible now for everyone” ending slides, before getting dropped in the area he was SUPPOSED to go into anyway. Meaning Honest Hearts is now complete, yay!
So yeah – as summed up at the end of the video, that’s two DLCs officially done (even if he got the worst ending for both of them); one DLC done in-spirit as he can’t actually trigger the ending slides for it; and one DLC that may not be complete-able because he can’t find the entrance to the end-game room. (Unless he’s already passed it without realizing.) That one depends on him finding the right state for the elevator he needs. And then all he has to do is figure out how to end the main game, and – well. Looks like April will be the last month for this! And he’s already hinting he’s got some interesting things planned for afterward. . .we’ll see what comes of all that!
3. Play Fallout 4 and START TOWARD DIAMOND CITY DARN IT: Check – and hooray hoorah, I AM actually heading in the right direction toward Diamond City this time! It was actually a really nice and productive play session, in fact – here, let me give you the breakdown:
11/16/2287 – Started at 4 PM in Tenpines Bluff, having just cooked up some food, with my plan being to lug some junk over to Sunshine Tidings, make them some turrets for better defense, and then FINALLY start on my way toward Diamond City. Preston and Victor subsequently set out back toward Sunshine with shotguns at the ready – which was good, as their path took them through Bedford Station again, and they had to kill a few ghouls at the loading dock. Victor also raided said dock for supplies (duct tape, YAY), and read the notes on the terminal (nothing special). Once that was done, they found their way to Starlight Drive-In, where I started trying to reorient myself in the right direction –
And then I saw a raider and a vicious mongrel nearby, under the train bridge, apparently having a fight. I had Victor ready his shotgun and hit VATS –
Not a vicious mongrel.
A “Wounded Dog.”
MUTT! IT WAS MUTT! Victor promptly plowed in, shot that raider in the face, then tended to the dog. :D I was JUST THINKING about how I haven’t met Mutt in this playthrough yet! Awww, I still wish you could adopt her. . . But she’s safe now, at least. :) Victor also found the corpse of a junkie the raider had apparently killed, along with a note detailing a chem stash at Kendall Hospital – might be worth looking into later, for caps purposes. *shrug* But yes, I was riding high on saving my favorite random encounter, ready to move on with Preston and Mutt at my side –
And then a radstorm blew in. *sigh* Darn post-apocalyptic New England weather! On the plus side, we were literally right next to Starlight, so I had Victor run in there and shelter from the storm in the apartment behind the screen, and – once the radiation stopped ticking up – sleep there for the night, because why not, he was already tired. Mutt followed us to the edge of the settlement, so I guess she “lives” there now. :p
11/17/2287 – Up at 5 AM in-game, I once again took a moment to orient myself – then noticed Preston wasn’t following me around for some reason. Puzzled, I spoke to him, prepping myself for another “Castle” conversation –
Nope! I could trade with him again! He didn’t even mention the Castle until I tried to speak to him regularly once more, under the “Y” talk option! :) So I couldn’t turn in my quest for Sunshine Tidings, but I COULD at least give him some spare junk again, yay. (I should probably note that I have actually downloaded a mod recently that makes dealing with the Minutemen quests a little easier – it stops Preston from auto-giving you a quest if you just say hi – you have to actively engage his conversation options instead – and you don’t have to report back to him with new quests, since, well, you’re the general. I just didn’t know if it was working because of the awkward time I downloaded it – aka, Preston’s Castle Obsession. But apparently it is!)
Anyway, with that sorted, and Preston properly following me again (I suspect he was actually stuck on some scenery), I got Victor going in the right direction again, and the boys set off back toward Sunshine. We passed the cat trader guy and the wrecked train with the spare power armor along the way – and then had to deviate from the planned path when I saw a SUPER MUTANT BEHEMOTH (aka a BIG BOY) stomping around what I believe is called “Carhenge” directly in front of us. The boys made it around the Behemoth without attracting attention –
Only to stumble straight into a little Gunner camp right by Sunshine! Victor and Preston managed to take out the two Gunners and the turret on ground level, then hid until the remaining enemies up on the highway calmed down. Sheesh – you guys see why was so intent on building turrets in my newest settlement? Victor and Preston finally got back into Sunshine, where I had Victor build two turrets to cover both sides of the settlement, do some cooking (including making veggie starch, because adhesive, yay), and – importantly – build a new port-a-potty because fuck knows what happened to the old one. A midday rad storm interrupted this routine, but fortunately waiting an hour in one of the houses got us through it. Then it was time to do some gun and armor modding at Victor’s portable workbench, clearing out his and Preston’s inventories and scrapping a load of stuff for parts. (Plus finally upgrading his backpack to max carry capacity, yay.) Which made Preston idolize Victor –
And when Victor got some more junk off Preston to store at the workbench, the “Taking Point: Sunshine Tidings Co-Op” quest completed! :D Yaaaay! So THAT’S out of my quest log and into my experience, w00! That just left “Ghoul Problem At Oberland Station” (well, and the Finch Farm recruitment quest, but I’m not doing that just yet) – figured I could at least see where that was on the map now that I was done with Sunshine.
Turns out Oberland Station is on the way to Diamond City. Might as well stop in and get another settlement on the Minutemen’s side then, right? Marked the quest as active, then started heading that way. . .after sending Victor back to the Gunner camp and up the little elevator to the elevated highway to kill the remaining Gunner and turret up there. Who, uh, killed him once as I wasn’t quick enough to realize where the enemies were the first time. Did much better the second time! Did some more cooking at the pot they had up there, then headed back down to ground level, having Victor loop by Arcjet (passing a REALLY radioactive pond with a house in it and a bunch of chickens around it along the way – Child of Atom?), before finding his way back to Weston Water Treatment (unlocking the nearby truck trailer for a few goodies) and setting up camp there around 9:30 PM.
11/18/2287 – And we started the next day and ended the playsession with Preston having his final affinity talk with Victor, thanking him for saving his life and helping give him a reason to press on, with Victor saying he’s very glad Preston stuck around. :) “United We Stand” perk acquired! :D No romance yet, but I plan to pick it up on one of Preston’s “hey, here’s another shot at romancing me” convos – just want to give Victor some better Charisma first! It is a red check, after all. . .
4. Work on tumblr drafts: Check – on Victor Luvs Alice, got this week’s short-but-sweet look at “2 Olde Mill Lane Haunted,” my build for Victor, Alice, and Smiler’s eventual Henford-on-Bagley home for the Wednesday Chill Save update, and worked on a post about pets in the Fallout of Darkness universe that’s been sitting in my drafts for a while. (And then had to edit it just now because, as stated above, I just met Mutt in my current playthrough. :) ) And on Valice Multiverse – five asks to drop in the queue for tomorrow! This is what I get for taking a night off for focus reasons yesterday.
5. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike today after FO4 funtimes, and back with the Oxventure crew for the next stream – “Sect Appeal!” So far, the short summary is “the Oxventurers accidentally join a cult while chasing after Prudence’s book and orb babies while drunk out of their minds.” XD To put it in more detail, after some technical difficulties (Mike’s microphone was muted for the general stream – Corazon claimed he’d taken a vow of silence, while Dob played him a little song to encourage him to talk again, which morphed into Prudence claiming he’d sold his voice to a sea witch for human legs and Dob going “now we all think Prince Eric is hot. . .”), Johnny started the adventure with everyone in a tavern in one of Geth’s prime vacation spots, having drinks to celebrate Egbert’s recent good work at the Paladin Trials. Egbert had gotten three new converts over three days, which is good for him – especially since he’d been drinking all the while. In fact, as per a roll from Luke, everyone in the party had been drinking for a while, as they’d been at that tavern for twelve hours. XD The landlord warned them as Corazon went up for another round that they’d be closing early due to a spate of kidnappings – a couple of dozen people over just the past week – but after the Oxventurers asked if they could just stay at the tavern, the landlord agreed and foolishly let them have a few more rounds. This resulted in terrible karaoke from Corazon, Merilwen making awful puns, the gang deciding that they couldn’t be kidnapped if they kidnapped each other first (with Dob putting Corazon in a bag to roll him down a hill), and general goofiness all around.
And then the Puzzle Palantir rolled out of Prudence’s bag and out the door at a pretty freaking epic pace, chased by Frisky and the Darkness, the puppy grimoires. Everyone gave chase, and Dob made a good attempt at catching the orb, but no dice. The orb and the tomes continued on into the mountains – most of the party rolled well enough to follow the trail, but Prudence herself, who’d overdone it on the gin, was too overcome with emotion about how everything leaves her to follow, forcing Corazon to go back and carry her piggyback along the trail. The gang managed to track the runaway eldritch items to a cave, where a nice lady in white robes asked them if they were the new initiates, ready to start their new lives dedicated to the Blessed Lady. The very drunk Oxventurers said yes, giggling about “doing a trick,” and were allowed in to eat some stew (Dob slurping down the entire pot of the vegetarian option – yeah, apparently he’s a vegetarian! – and then crawling into the kidnap bag and being six before having five more pints of the gin Merilwen had brought along) before being escorted to their dormitory. Most of them just passed out in their comfy fur “camping beds,” but Dob volunteered to stay on watch – and ACTUALLY MADE the Constitution check to stay awake! Not that he actually SAW anything out of the ordinary, but. . . XD Oh, this is already looking like such a fun adventure. . .
Man, busy Sunday! But I did get everything I wanted to get done, done, so that's good. And now it's time to start the final full week of work before my Easter break. Hopefully it's not too much of a clusterfuck, but we'll see. *nods* Night all!
