crossover_chick | Catch Up Tuesday

Mostly on the messages on here, which very much did need to be done. . .and on my to-do list, which is nice and filled out:

Work – Another super-quiet day – I took care of some returned mail, did some credit card calls, stuff like that, but. . .well, I’m honestly starting to run out of things to DO. My two coworkers are ALSO taking care of roster maintenance and obituaries and stuff, so. . . I’m sure I’ll find SOMETHING to fill the time, but right now, things are going rather slow.

Beanbags – Nope – not only was it pretty hot and humid out, Dad went straight from working out to watering the plants outside, sooo. . .yeah. Ended up just staying in. And tomorrow’s supposed to bring at least SOME rain, so – we’ll see how that pans out!

To-Do List –

1. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike, and back to Oxventure Presents: Blades In The Dark – “Ironhook’s Bounty!” Having successfully relieved himself, Barnaby got Lilith to look around the navigation room/captain’s quarters for anything anchor-related. Lilith was able to investigate just fine – the controls for the ship were quite complex, but clearly labeled, and she could easily see the lever marked “anchor” – but unfortunately she failed the Prowl roll to keep her study sneaky, and accidentally bumped the captain, waking him from his drunken stupor. Startled, he lunged for the “general alarm” speaking tube –

And just like that, Barnaby showed just why the group let him stick around, as he was able to quickly talk the captain down with a good Sway roll, explaining that he was down here because he was planning on doing business with Ironhook and wanted to see how the ship was run, and the captain sleeping on the job could be their little secret. . . The dude, very drunk, was willing to accept this, and Barnaby got him on the subject of how the actual ship worked.

Cue a very long, slurred speech on how the whaling ship was retrofitted into a cruise liner. XD Fortunately we didn’t have to listen to it, but Barnaby was clearly quite annoyed. XD However, it did get them some knowledge of how the “anchor” lever even works – it sends a signal down to the boiler room for the men there to start winching it up! Because rather than being situated on the prow, it has a special housing in the boiler room, and a special sluice gate it comes up through, and everything. Apparently it takes two strong men on the winch to get it up too! Barnaby tried to coax him into raising the anchor (using some of the fine whiskey he brought along), but the captain pointed out that they’d start going adrift and it might cause some concern. He was still willing to do it, though, and Lilith got him to rock the boat by throwing the wheel to one side. XD As it stood, though, the anchor stayed where it was for the moment, as did Barnaby and Lilith as the captain stumbled out in search of fresh booze. Barnaby started talking about how they needed to figure out the anchor’s weak point –

And Mike decided to call for a flashback to have Barnaby carouse with the ship’s crew at one of their local drinking spots, doing his “rich idiot” thing to amuse them while also learning everything he could about the damn anchor! Luke allowed this for one stress and Barnaby having to listen to the whole speech the captain gave about the retrofitting of the ship again retroactively. He did pick up a ton of good intel, though – namely, that most of the crew actually don’t like the anchor, because of the fact that, since Ironhook commissioned it as a show piece, it’s not actually great as an anchor. They in fact have a backup in case of emergencies that they can put on the chain, with the final link of said chain having a lock on it so it can be opened and closed. So if they can get the anchor up and get the key, it won’t be too hard to get the anchor itself off. Barnaby ALSO discovered some of the local gondoliers in the pub, complaining about Ironhook because – well. Lilith isn’t the ONLY one concerned about worker rights in this city, the gondoliers are too. Yes, Barnaby had to listen to much talk about unions as well on his night out among the common folk. XD But he also heard them start muttering about going and showing Ironhook a thing or two by crashing his party, and went over and goaded them into doing it at midnight Tuesday!

Cut back to the present, 11:30 PM, where it is part two of this caper and the gang is now very much aware that they have a half-hour before the gondoliers show up and things REALLY kick off. Barnaby brought up the obvious point of “how are we going to get the anchor OUT of here,” and Lilith called for a flashback where she got a friend of hers, Flint (a spirit dealer, sells bottled ghosts) to show up with the gondoliers and provide a boat for them to escape in. Luke had her roll to make the deal –

Hmmm. That was a one. Luke said she made the deal, but. . .hmmm. We’ll see what happens with THAT. With nothing else to interest them in navigation, the pair snuck down to the boiler room to see what was what there. What was what was two men shoveling coal into the furnaces, another man watching some dials, and all sorts of weird machinery to help make the boat go. Barnaby checked that one of the men he’d drunk with was there, and went straight in with “Dave? Dave!” to greet him warmly. Luke made him roll Sway to get away with this (Ellen promptly cracked up and said she wanted “roll for ‘Dave? Dave!’” on a shirt) –

But Barnaby smashed it with a six – a full success in this game! Dave was actually quite happy to see his drinking buddy, and that Barnaby remembered to visit. He introduced Barnaby and Lilith to his fellow worker, Clint (who just gave them a weird look and kept on shoveling), and got Barnaby to recount the “trick” he did with a yard of strong liquor (which was down it all in one go, then throw up in such a way it refilled the tall glass – Lilith was deeply amused). Barnaby got them talking about the ship again (cue the off-screen THIRD recitation of how the ship was turned from whaler into cruiser), and began asking about the anchor. Dave said that yes, he and Clint were usually the ones to raise it, but they couldn’t NOW, not if they wanted to keep their jobs and all that. Barnaby said he understood and said it was a shame that they weren’t paid better for the work they did – why, they weren’t even being allowed to enjoy the party! Surely there would be no harm in them sneaking upstairs for a drink? Dave was amenable to this, so long as Barnaby came along to escort them and help dodge questions. Barnaby agreed, and Clint agreed to come as well, so the three of them traipsed upstairs, with Barnaby just working on getting them as drunk as possible as FAST as possible using his whiskey and the stored wine.

Lilith, meanwhile, remained downstairs, having been volunteered to keep an eye on the furnaces, and took the opportunity to have a better look at the place. She spotted the anchor’s special housing (complete with anti-theft bars) and the mechanism to raise it – but at the same time, the guy inspecting the dials (who hadn’t heard any of the previous conversation due to the natural noise in the boiler room) started to turn around. Lilith pushed herself to hide behind the furnace quickly – she succeeded, but found herself in a VERY hot spot that she couldn’t stay in for long. The dial-checking dude ended up coming down the opposite side of the furnace corner to check more dials and ended up stopping right in front of Lilith. She decided it was time to get this guy out of the way and rolled –

Six! She expertly grabbed a shovel, crept up on him, bonked him over the head, got his key ring (completely with clearly-labeled keys), and was even able to drag him over to a box and hide him Hitman-style. XD With some snacks from her coat, because she felt a little guilty. XD With the keys clipped to her own belt, she decided to test the anchor mechanism and see if one person could shift it – she rolled well enough to get it two full turns around before her arms begged her to stop, and when she stopped turning, the crank actually more or less stayed in position instead of just whirling back thanks to a complicated ratchet system! So she did manage to raise the anchor a little!

Meaning the ship is no longer properly anchored and is now wavering a little in the water. XD Upstairs, Barnaby was initially able to pass off the ship rocking a little bit to his companions as them just being in the cups – but then one of the kitchen staff burst in to ask if they’d felt that –

And THEN there was the sound of chaos outside, as the gondoliers mounted the side of the craft with their grappling hooks to start crashing the party! At least that’s good cover for what’s happening. . . It’s all able men to their stations now! I guess we’ll see tomorrow if Dave and Clint are indeed able. XD

2. Continue writing “As Long As You Love Me”: Check – and Victor’s just done what Alice couldn’t (thanks to the universe not authorizing HER to make the kill) – stabbed Barkis to death. Because when he saw her get hurt, he just fucking FLEW to help her, and after Barkis admitted he’d just kidnapped Emily and Victoria to get some ransom money before killing them. . .well. . .Victor lost his temper a bit. Wouldn’t you? Unfortunately, though, this is going to have more consequences for Victor and Alice than just another dead body to dump. . .

3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check – just one upload today, so I treated myself to a bonus video too –

A) First up, a quickie from OXBox in the Watch Later – “7 Weird Fighting Games We Swear We're Not Making Up (Part 3)!” Andy has ANOTHER set of the weirdest, wackiest fighting games you have ever heard of to share – including Inflatality (where you play as a “skydancer,” aka a wacky waving inflatable tube person, fighting other tube people before facing off against a bouncy castle); Write N Fight (where all the combatants are famous authors, with stages relating to the times they lived in and the stories they wrote – for example, you can make Charles Dickens and HP Lovecraft duke it out in front of Cthulhu); and Super Drink Bro’s (where you are a knock-off soda battling other sodas for no clearly defined reason; also, no, I don’t know why it’s “Bro’s” and not “Bros”). Also Multiversus, but really, is “Smash Bros except exclusively Warner Bros owned properties” that weird compared to some of these? I’m much more interested in the idea someone came up with in the comments, where the combatants would be members of British panel shows – like David Mitchell, Frankie Boyle, Stephen Fry. . .I had to weigh in and suggest Greg Davies, drunk on the power of being the Taskmaster, as the final boss. XD

B) And then, it was over to the actual Subs to watch the GrayStillPlays video of the day – “When you launch your pet penguin into space,” aka Learn To Fly! The premise – you are a penguin, and you are determined to learn how to fly. You earn money through your attempts (launching yourself off bigger and bigger ramps) to buy yourself less air resistance, more acceleration, better gliders, and bigger rockets to get yourself flying faster and farther. Gray had a lovely time upgrading everything on his little bullet penguin buddy to the max and sending him both practically into the stratosphere and across the world at top speed. XD Any game where Gray can break all the numbers is a good game! And apparently this is another one most of the commenters used to tool around with as kids – and it has a sequel. . .

4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check on both tumblrs –

Victor Luvs Alice: Got in the Wednesday Chill Save update (Egg Day shenanigans with Valicer); the Thursday update to my post about realizing Victor has a thing for having his neck kissed and sucked (because I had a few more thoughts on that and what it said about his kinks XD); and a Friday reblog of a post saying that you’ll know a pairing is an OTP if you can come up with a mental music video to the Goo Goo Dolls’ “Iris” for them (which I can, and also means Song Saturday is technically set – I’ll just be slotting it in tomorrow when I reset the queue speed to one per day).

Valice Multiverse: Plonked four ask replies in the queue – nothing too difficult, I think!

And that's that for another day! Time to head to bed and hope I can get some good sleep -- though, considering I'm pretty sure I'm moving into PMS mode (I've been both more distractible and irritable today), we'll have to see about that. . . Night all!