Another Late Night
Aug. 22nd, 2023 11:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickBeen pretty damn busy, as you will see --
Work – Another quiet day, with me mostly cleaning up duplicates and deceased people, with one credit card call around lunchtime. Would have been infinitely more tolerable if my coworkers had managed to shut up for longer than ten seconds, but I can’t really complain. I will, of course, but I can’t put any force behind it. :p
Beanbags – Humidity fucked off today, happily, but unfortunately so did my beanbag throwing skills – not a single win today! Though I did manage to keep the losses to a minimum, at least – and I suppose I can be happy for Mom scoring a win after her previous struggles. :p Final scores were me 2-3-2; Dad W-2-W; Mom 3-W-3. Nice and palindromic. :p
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night Oxventure Presents Blades In the Dark – “Fate Of The Dimmer Sisters!” With Barnaby having gotten in good with Darnelle Ironhook and convinced him to let him ride along (literally, they would be on horses riding alongside the carriages) with the convoy, and Lilith having gotten a good look at the carriages involved as they went into and out of Iron Hook Prison, Barnaby decided that what he REALLY wanted was to employ a carriage with a trick floor in it, because he’d been drinking, gone to a magic show recently, and thought it was a marvelous jape. :p His ORIGINAL idea was to swap serial numbers between one of the busted-up carriages in storage and one of the good carriages, get a trick floor installed in the good carriage that Rosie and Josie could hide in, and then offer it as a replacement when the substituted carriage inevitably failed – Luke decided he loved it, but got a little confused as to which carriage was going to have the trick floor (thinking they were modding the shoddy one), and the plan kind of became “get a trick floor into one of the carriages and hope to hell we can get Rosie and Josie into it.” XD There was also the matter of how to signal Rosie and Josie to USE the trick floor – Barnaby was sure Lilith had something spooky on hand, though, and Lilith said that she was happy to use her little ghost girl friend Finn to deliver a message. Luke approved this, but reminded them that trap doors don’t just magically appear (well, they do, but – you understand), and Barnaby was like “well obviously we’ll use Edvard, man has no social life to distract him!”
Except – when they went to consult with Edvard, he wasn’t there. Neither were Zillah and Kasimir. And none of them had left a note, which was quite odd. . . (I am suddenly VERY curious to see what’s happening in the adventure after this one, “Foundry #12.”) Deprived of their usual inventor, the pair had to find another one on short notice – Lilith decided to ask Flint, her ghost-catcher friend (the one whom she saved from the banshee), since he makes all sorts of ghost traps, if he could finagle something for them. He couldn’t, but he knew someone who could. Cut to the pair arriving at a rather shabby house, Lilith knocking on the door, and someone opening that door a crack, peeping out with a glowing yellow eye –
And speaking in a French accent. Yes, as is custom for the Oxventure, French equals tabaxi, the cat-person race from DnD, and so the pair met Cart-On-The-Road, illusionist and gadgets-maker who had had to leave his own country because he’d faked being a Whisper with the use of his tech. Luke got ENTIRELY too into playing this character and immediately said that he wouldn’t be rolling for anything Cart did because obviously he was fantastic at anything he put his paw at. XD After confirming with Lilith that, yes, the cat person really was a cat person, Barnaby hired Cart to put in a trick floor into one of the Tripot Security carriages big enough to hide the sisters, along with some other stuff that looked like extra security (like a fake – or, hell, real if he could manage it – ghost field) so he could pass it off as them bulking up a carriage for their “special prisoners.” Cart was more than willing to do this, with the caveat that, in addition to the fee, when the trick happened, the pair publicly declared that it was thanks to his handiwork (Barnaby was like “. . .yeah, uh, that’s fine, so long as you’re prepared to deal with the legal trouble,” with Cart replying “they’ll have to catch me first!”) And Luke decided that THIS is where they had to do the engagement roll, totted up the dice (a couple for being daring and exposing a weak point in the systems, though he had to take two potential ones away for their plan being a bit overly-complex and enemies being involved – after all, even if Bakaros doesn’t know who Lilith is beyond “that fucking intern that exploded one of us with lightning,” he IS a Brightener, and thus is extra-dangerous), and rolled –
Two fours! Success with a complication. Barnaby promptly made use of the fact that he has a controlling interest in the company with his investments to bring Cart over to where they were storing the carriages before the big convoy, and just straight-up told the foreman there “hey, those two witches Rosie and Josie attacked me – in the past, but thank you for the offer of an ice pack, my eyes ARE killing me – and I want to make sure that they can’t try any bullshit during the trip, so I have this fellow here to install extra security. The woman is my spiritual advisor. And yoga teacher. And nutritionist.” (Cue Ellen cracking up both because of how audacious this all was and because she was imagining Barnaby’s giant eyes behind his glasses as he said all this. XD) The foreman bought it, and Cart got to work, making a beautiful trap door and a working ghost field around the carriage. Barnaby unthinkingly scritched his tummy when he came out from under the carriage, and then apologized, but Cart told him it was fine in a rather flirty manner. XD He told them how to work the door – stamp twice on the center of the floor and it would open – then took his leave. Lilith got out her jar with Finn in it and gave her her instructions for helping Rosie and Josie (with Barnaby covering for her by claiming that this is how she makes his green smoothies – weird woman, but he’s as regular as a grandfather clock, so. . .), telling her that if the Dimmer Sisters tried anything, she was allowed to scare them, and warning her that she had to be quiet after she got them under the floor. Finn seemed to understand, and Lilith popped her jar into the compartment under the false floor – though Luke DID note that, because she was using a ghost to communicate with the Dimmer Sisters (known spirit-twisters), this put them in a “risky” position when it comes to the plan going off without a hitch (which seemed like a decent complication to me). Lilith also used the magic of flashback to get her hands on an old invention of Edvard’s – a wind-up portable clockwork spear of sorts, where you wound it up and eventually it popped open to impale things; this prototype model takes AGES to actually “fire,” though – and, with a good Finesse roll, jammed it into the undercarriage of the carriage with the chipped paint she’d seen earlier, wound so that, EVENTUALLY, the spear would pop open and hopefully jam the spokes, forcing the convoy to come to a halt mid-trip (and perhaps giving them an opportunity to get Rosie and Josie out of the carriage entirely). Darnelle appeared to collect Barnaby for the ride-along, and Lilith snuck out and went to find a good spot along the “parade route” (with Luke explicitly citing looking for a good spot to watch a Disneyland parade to make sure she understood what he meant XD), and – after a quick roll to see how well Barnaby actually rides a horse (passably well – he’s used to horses that have been sedated before he gets on them) – the action cut to Iron Hook Prison!
Where the first REAL complication happened – namely, Barnaby noticing that the prisoners were being put into the carriages one at a time as they pulled up to prevent them trying to conspire with each other. This obviously wouldn’t do, so he loudly pointed out Rosie and Josie to Darnelle (noting how well their prison cloaks, black-and-white-striped hoods, flattered them), and then kicked up a fuss when they loaded Josie but not Rosie into the special carriage, insisting they BOTH had to be in there to prevent witchery. Darnelle was put out, but as Barnaby rolled a five on what I presume was a Sway roll, he acquiesced and had the “loading prisoners conveyor belt” of sorts stopped so Rosie could be put in with Josie. We’ll see how that works out, and how the rescue actually goes down, tomorrow!
2. Continue writing Valicer In The Dark, “Home Sweet Lair”: Got another chunk done on this today (keeping the VITD train going through tomorrow, then switching back to “Londerland Bloodlines” as I also switch workout videos to James Turner’s stuff again) – Smiler has assured the others that of course their parents will help them if they ask! The only problem is, they ARE in Silkshore, which is rather a ways away from Six Towers. And everyone’s rather tired from running from the cops and would like a chance to sit down. However, while there are very few benches in Six Towers, there IS this mysterious building that Victor just spotted nearby. . .one that he isn’t sure was there before. And feels “tingly, in a worn-out way” to him. And Cheshire’s just said that, if the building is that unnoticeable, perhaps it’s the perfect spot to have a rest. . . Yup, finally getting into the group exploring my Gutknecht Bend build – we’ll see what they make of the front entrance tomorrow! :D
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: One-third check today (but nothing for it, I had other shit I had to do) – caught up with yesterday’s GrayStillPlays, “Cars vs Volcanoes in GTA 5!” As you might imagine, it was another Alex Torture Board (he seems to do these Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays now, with Tuesdays being for Happy Wheels, Fridays and Sundays for random mobile games, and Thursdays for Members Only), with Gray having to take on a variety of baffling volcanoes – starting with “Baby Volcano, Mama Volcano, Papa Volcano, but Papa is an alcoholic” Volcanoes (a trio of volcanoes, each getting bigger and vomiting more rocks to hit Gray and ruin his day – with the third one including an animated arm and giant beer bottle so it could “drink” and provide a ramp in the form of a bottle neck to make it easier to jump), then moving through the “Bulging” Volcano (a giant volcano with even more rocks shooting out of it that Gray had to leap over, hitting the raised platform on the other side), the “Smouldering Tourist” Volcano (a shallower but wider volcano surrounded by tourists – the idea was to ramp the sign in front of the volcano, murdering as many people as possible along the way), the “Face Your Volcano HeadOn” Volcano (a volcano turned sideways that fired heat-seeking rocks at Gray down a narrow pathway – and which Gray had to LEAP THROUGH thumbnail-hole style at the end), and (after a checkpoint), the “Boss” Volcano (a giant volcano complete with rocks, fire, and fireworks all over the shop). Gray, as usual, had to try a LOT of cars to get across the board with even a tiny bit of his sanity intact – some, like the shiny armored Hummer, could barely get past the first couple of volcanoes, while others, like the Burger Shot race car, did REALLY well until they hit the Head On Volcano and then got blasted halfway across the map by a rock while Gray shot out the windshield. XD With that in mind, it seems fitting that the car that ended up making it HAD no windshield – it was Gray’s beloved side-by-side, with a rollcage and springy tires that can climb any surface and do it really fucking well. Took a number of tries to get it over every volcano, especially the boss one, but it made it in the end, and Gray was allowed to bellyflop in the nearby river. XD Kind of a classic Alex board here – I like it. :p
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: CHECK, though it was up to the fucking wire –
Victor Luvs Alice – FINALLY finished cleaning up the text and updating the alt text and tags on the last two posts of this week’s Chill Valicer Save update, meaning I could get all five in the queue for tomorrow! I have GOT to start getting these started earlier if I’m doing fewer but longer posts with more pictures. >.<
Valice Multiverse – Two ask replies (one that I accidentally forgot about when I was doing all those thread replies with Brynlee Marie, the other FROM Marie, so yeah), one thread reply. Too longer than I hoped, but here we are!
Whew! And now I have to IMMEDIATELY rush off and get ready for bed, as I am running SO behind right now it's not even funny. Night all!
Work – Another quiet day, with me mostly cleaning up duplicates and deceased people, with one credit card call around lunchtime. Would have been infinitely more tolerable if my coworkers had managed to shut up for longer than ten seconds, but I can’t really complain. I will, of course, but I can’t put any force behind it. :p
Beanbags – Humidity fucked off today, happily, but unfortunately so did my beanbag throwing skills – not a single win today! Though I did manage to keep the losses to a minimum, at least – and I suppose I can be happy for Mom scoring a win after her previous struggles. :p Final scores were me 2-3-2; Dad W-2-W; Mom 3-W-3. Nice and palindromic. :p
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night Oxventure Presents Blades In the Dark – “Fate Of The Dimmer Sisters!” With Barnaby having gotten in good with Darnelle Ironhook and convinced him to let him ride along (literally, they would be on horses riding alongside the carriages) with the convoy, and Lilith having gotten a good look at the carriages involved as they went into and out of Iron Hook Prison, Barnaby decided that what he REALLY wanted was to employ a carriage with a trick floor in it, because he’d been drinking, gone to a magic show recently, and thought it was a marvelous jape. :p His ORIGINAL idea was to swap serial numbers between one of the busted-up carriages in storage and one of the good carriages, get a trick floor installed in the good carriage that Rosie and Josie could hide in, and then offer it as a replacement when the substituted carriage inevitably failed – Luke decided he loved it, but got a little confused as to which carriage was going to have the trick floor (thinking they were modding the shoddy one), and the plan kind of became “get a trick floor into one of the carriages and hope to hell we can get Rosie and Josie into it.” XD There was also the matter of how to signal Rosie and Josie to USE the trick floor – Barnaby was sure Lilith had something spooky on hand, though, and Lilith said that she was happy to use her little ghost girl friend Finn to deliver a message. Luke approved this, but reminded them that trap doors don’t just magically appear (well, they do, but – you understand), and Barnaby was like “well obviously we’ll use Edvard, man has no social life to distract him!”
Except – when they went to consult with Edvard, he wasn’t there. Neither were Zillah and Kasimir. And none of them had left a note, which was quite odd. . . (I am suddenly VERY curious to see what’s happening in the adventure after this one, “Foundry #12.”) Deprived of their usual inventor, the pair had to find another one on short notice – Lilith decided to ask Flint, her ghost-catcher friend (the one whom she saved from the banshee), since he makes all sorts of ghost traps, if he could finagle something for them. He couldn’t, but he knew someone who could. Cut to the pair arriving at a rather shabby house, Lilith knocking on the door, and someone opening that door a crack, peeping out with a glowing yellow eye –
And speaking in a French accent. Yes, as is custom for the Oxventure, French equals tabaxi, the cat-person race from DnD, and so the pair met Cart-On-The-Road, illusionist and gadgets-maker who had had to leave his own country because he’d faked being a Whisper with the use of his tech. Luke got ENTIRELY too into playing this character and immediately said that he wouldn’t be rolling for anything Cart did because obviously he was fantastic at anything he put his paw at. XD After confirming with Lilith that, yes, the cat person really was a cat person, Barnaby hired Cart to put in a trick floor into one of the Tripot Security carriages big enough to hide the sisters, along with some other stuff that looked like extra security (like a fake – or, hell, real if he could manage it – ghost field) so he could pass it off as them bulking up a carriage for their “special prisoners.” Cart was more than willing to do this, with the caveat that, in addition to the fee, when the trick happened, the pair publicly declared that it was thanks to his handiwork (Barnaby was like “. . .yeah, uh, that’s fine, so long as you’re prepared to deal with the legal trouble,” with Cart replying “they’ll have to catch me first!”) And Luke decided that THIS is where they had to do the engagement roll, totted up the dice (a couple for being daring and exposing a weak point in the systems, though he had to take two potential ones away for their plan being a bit overly-complex and enemies being involved – after all, even if Bakaros doesn’t know who Lilith is beyond “that fucking intern that exploded one of us with lightning,” he IS a Brightener, and thus is extra-dangerous), and rolled –
Two fours! Success with a complication. Barnaby promptly made use of the fact that he has a controlling interest in the company with his investments to bring Cart over to where they were storing the carriages before the big convoy, and just straight-up told the foreman there “hey, those two witches Rosie and Josie attacked me – in the past, but thank you for the offer of an ice pack, my eyes ARE killing me – and I want to make sure that they can’t try any bullshit during the trip, so I have this fellow here to install extra security. The woman is my spiritual advisor. And yoga teacher. And nutritionist.” (Cue Ellen cracking up both because of how audacious this all was and because she was imagining Barnaby’s giant eyes behind his glasses as he said all this. XD) The foreman bought it, and Cart got to work, making a beautiful trap door and a working ghost field around the carriage. Barnaby unthinkingly scritched his tummy when he came out from under the carriage, and then apologized, but Cart told him it was fine in a rather flirty manner. XD He told them how to work the door – stamp twice on the center of the floor and it would open – then took his leave. Lilith got out her jar with Finn in it and gave her her instructions for helping Rosie and Josie (with Barnaby covering for her by claiming that this is how she makes his green smoothies – weird woman, but he’s as regular as a grandfather clock, so. . .), telling her that if the Dimmer Sisters tried anything, she was allowed to scare them, and warning her that she had to be quiet after she got them under the floor. Finn seemed to understand, and Lilith popped her jar into the compartment under the false floor – though Luke DID note that, because she was using a ghost to communicate with the Dimmer Sisters (known spirit-twisters), this put them in a “risky” position when it comes to the plan going off without a hitch (which seemed like a decent complication to me). Lilith also used the magic of flashback to get her hands on an old invention of Edvard’s – a wind-up portable clockwork spear of sorts, where you wound it up and eventually it popped open to impale things; this prototype model takes AGES to actually “fire,” though – and, with a good Finesse roll, jammed it into the undercarriage of the carriage with the chipped paint she’d seen earlier, wound so that, EVENTUALLY, the spear would pop open and hopefully jam the spokes, forcing the convoy to come to a halt mid-trip (and perhaps giving them an opportunity to get Rosie and Josie out of the carriage entirely). Darnelle appeared to collect Barnaby for the ride-along, and Lilith snuck out and went to find a good spot along the “parade route” (with Luke explicitly citing looking for a good spot to watch a Disneyland parade to make sure she understood what he meant XD), and – after a quick roll to see how well Barnaby actually rides a horse (passably well – he’s used to horses that have been sedated before he gets on them) – the action cut to Iron Hook Prison!
Where the first REAL complication happened – namely, Barnaby noticing that the prisoners were being put into the carriages one at a time as they pulled up to prevent them trying to conspire with each other. This obviously wouldn’t do, so he loudly pointed out Rosie and Josie to Darnelle (noting how well their prison cloaks, black-and-white-striped hoods, flattered them), and then kicked up a fuss when they loaded Josie but not Rosie into the special carriage, insisting they BOTH had to be in there to prevent witchery. Darnelle was put out, but as Barnaby rolled a five on what I presume was a Sway roll, he acquiesced and had the “loading prisoners conveyor belt” of sorts stopped so Rosie could be put in with Josie. We’ll see how that works out, and how the rescue actually goes down, tomorrow!
2. Continue writing Valicer In The Dark, “Home Sweet Lair”: Got another chunk done on this today (keeping the VITD train going through tomorrow, then switching back to “Londerland Bloodlines” as I also switch workout videos to James Turner’s stuff again) – Smiler has assured the others that of course their parents will help them if they ask! The only problem is, they ARE in Silkshore, which is rather a ways away from Six Towers. And everyone’s rather tired from running from the cops and would like a chance to sit down. However, while there are very few benches in Six Towers, there IS this mysterious building that Victor just spotted nearby. . .one that he isn’t sure was there before. And feels “tingly, in a worn-out way” to him. And Cheshire’s just said that, if the building is that unnoticeable, perhaps it’s the perfect spot to have a rest. . . Yup, finally getting into the group exploring my Gutknecht Bend build – we’ll see what they make of the front entrance tomorrow! :D
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: One-third check today (but nothing for it, I had other shit I had to do) – caught up with yesterday’s GrayStillPlays, “Cars vs Volcanoes in GTA 5!” As you might imagine, it was another Alex Torture Board (he seems to do these Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays now, with Tuesdays being for Happy Wheels, Fridays and Sundays for random mobile games, and Thursdays for Members Only), with Gray having to take on a variety of baffling volcanoes – starting with “Baby Volcano, Mama Volcano, Papa Volcano, but Papa is an alcoholic” Volcanoes (a trio of volcanoes, each getting bigger and vomiting more rocks to hit Gray and ruin his day – with the third one including an animated arm and giant beer bottle so it could “drink” and provide a ramp in the form of a bottle neck to make it easier to jump), then moving through the “Bulging” Volcano (a giant volcano with even more rocks shooting out of it that Gray had to leap over, hitting the raised platform on the other side), the “Smouldering Tourist” Volcano (a shallower but wider volcano surrounded by tourists – the idea was to ramp the sign in front of the volcano, murdering as many people as possible along the way), the “Face Your Volcano HeadOn” Volcano (a volcano turned sideways that fired heat-seeking rocks at Gray down a narrow pathway – and which Gray had to LEAP THROUGH thumbnail-hole style at the end), and (after a checkpoint), the “Boss” Volcano (a giant volcano complete with rocks, fire, and fireworks all over the shop). Gray, as usual, had to try a LOT of cars to get across the board with even a tiny bit of his sanity intact – some, like the shiny armored Hummer, could barely get past the first couple of volcanoes, while others, like the Burger Shot race car, did REALLY well until they hit the Head On Volcano and then got blasted halfway across the map by a rock while Gray shot out the windshield. XD With that in mind, it seems fitting that the car that ended up making it HAD no windshield – it was Gray’s beloved side-by-side, with a rollcage and springy tires that can climb any surface and do it really fucking well. Took a number of tries to get it over every volcano, especially the boss one, but it made it in the end, and Gray was allowed to bellyflop in the nearby river. XD Kind of a classic Alex board here – I like it. :p
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: CHECK, though it was up to the fucking wire –
Victor Luvs Alice – FINALLY finished cleaning up the text and updating the alt text and tags on the last two posts of this week’s Chill Valicer Save update, meaning I could get all five in the queue for tomorrow! I have GOT to start getting these started earlier if I’m doing fewer but longer posts with more pictures. >.<
Valice Multiverse – Two ask replies (one that I accidentally forgot about when I was doing all those thread replies with Brynlee Marie, the other FROM Marie, so yeah), one thread reply. Too longer than I hoped, but here we are!
Whew! And now I have to IMMEDIATELY rush off and get ready for bed, as I am running SO behind right now it's not even funny. Night all!
