Chilly Fallout Sunday
Jan. 14th, 2024 11:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickMostly because it was really freaking windy -- you could hear it howling off and on all day. We also got a little snow squall about mid-afternoon, though none of it ended up sticking. We might be getting more snow on Tuesday, though -- I'll have to check the updated forecast tomorrow! But as it is, I got to stay warm and snug in the house all day, eating cookies, drinking hot chocolate, and working my way through the following --
Tumblr: A somewhat-more productive day over here, even if I got on later than I wanted –
Victor Luvs Alice – Spent the pre-lunch portion of my day catching up on the dash and my tracked tags over here – found a nice Corpse Bride photo set to put into the drafts by the end, so yay there. Also made a note on my draft of “Valicer In The Dark Incorrect Quotes Volume 3” that I have to come up with a scene where Smiler’s introducing the crew to someone, said someone asks how long they’ve known each other, and they have to admit “MAYBE two weeks?” to make fun of how I make them so immediately “ride or die” for each other. XD It’s something!
Valice Multiverse – One anon ask about a zoo-escaping gorilla – shucked it in the queue! Better than nothing!
Fallout 4: Relatively quiet time in the Commonwealth today – I say “relatively” because Deacon and Victor did kill a lot of raiders. The deets –
A) Started where I left off last time, in Railroad HQ – after a little poking around, taking a bit of Wonderglue and some purified water, I had Victor and Deacon exit through the escape tunnel in the back (this time properly unlocking the final door via the terminal, instead of just going through it because the game isn’t actually that fussy XD). The boys exited out into the North End, and I tried one last time to pick up the next Silver Shroud mission via the signal after putting the signature costume on – nope, still just an episode of the radio show. *sigh* I really hope I haven’t bugged this quest line out somehow – I want to complete the whole thing and play around with the costume more!
B) Ah well – if Kent wasn’t giving missions, Kent wasn’t giving missions. Instead, I checked all the various quests in my Pip-Boy, including the miscellaneous ones, and decided that the best thing to do would be to go put MILA into place for Tinker Tom, then head over to Kendall Hospital to look for the chem stash there, before starting seriously toward Sanctuary and the Red Rocket to rejoin the main quest line (and finish off “Old Guns” by talking to Preston). Thus, Deacon and Victor started toward the nearby bridge to begin their journeys –
Only to find a pair of super mutants on it. Fortunately, neither noticed the pair, and even more fortunately, while Victor was creeping up on them for a better shot with the Mighty Sniper, a Brotherhood vertibird showed up and started firing on them, distracting them. Two shots, and they were both firmly taken care of, yay. :p (And one only had a board on him, so they weren’t THAT dangerous in the end.)
C) Anyway – onward! Victor and Deacon crossed the bridge, then hooked a left toward Ticonderoga. I had them cut through the little park area near the water, just to see if there was anything interesting in there – no goodies, but there was a Mirelurk Hunter buried in the ground near a tree! O.o Fortunately it never woke up and aggroed, so Victor and Deacon were able to go past it (and hell, even WALK ON TOP OF IT) without any trouble. I wasn’t going to make trouble with that bastard if I didn’t have to – mean lobsters are mean! (As Jon of MATN can attest to!) Anyway, they got through the little round park area without issue and came up to the Science Center Gift Shop they passed last time while helping High Rise with H2 –
D) And I thought, “you know what, why not go in?” So that’s what Victor and Deacon did. Inside was a single room strewn with a few bits of tat (like old globes and aluminum canisters and the like), plus a couple of skeletons in the corner near a mannequin. And a Mr. Handy floating behind a cash register near the back. I started investigating the junk, looking for anything I liked –
And saw it was all marked in red, with the interact button reading “(A) Steal.” Curious, I then talked to the Mr. Handy, who asked if Victor wanted a memento of his time at the science center. Victor asked what was for sale, and he said everything he needed to do his own experiments –
And opened up a shop menu! That explained why everything in the store was marked as “owned” – this place was the Mr. Handy’s place of business! I happily browsed the goods and had Victor hand over a bunch of caps for some useful junk items, including a bunch of aluminum shit and a whole PACK of duct tape. :D As the Mr. Handy sold almost exclusively junk, I didn’t think it made sense to do a trade like I usually do – and besides, Victor more than has the money to pay for this kind of stuff now, honestly. :p
E) With items purchased (and one field medkit made on the chem bench beside the main counter), Victor and Deacon continued on down the road, passing Ticonderoga and investigating the ruined building on the other side of the road near the water to see if there was anything interesting in there. There was not, but it did give them a good look at the building up the street that was apparently the spot Tom wanted Victor to set up his MILA sensor. . .
Aaaand it looked like a raider camp. With Victor already feeling tired and night coming on (it was about 8:25 PM in the game), I decided it would be smarter to have Victor and Deacon tackle that in the morning and had them nip into Ticonderoga for a good night’s sleep, riding the elevator up to the main safehouse and bunking down in one of the beds right after Victor got too tired to run. Yeah, definitely didn’t want THAT to happen mid-firefight!
F) Victor woke up the next morning around 5:30 AM, feeling well-rested and finding Deacon bouncing around the room. I had Victor ask him what was up, thinking I might be able to at least get a feel of where they were, affinity-wise –
And, to my delight, Deacon replied he was still up to talk, if this was a good time! Meaning I could start their first proper affinity conversation! :D (If you recall, I had to run away from Deacon’s first attempt to chat because Victor REALLY had to use the toilet. XD) Victor affirmed that it was, and they had their talk, with Deacon telling him that he normally doesn’t run with a partner (too much vulnerability in case someone betrays you), but it’s been nice having someone to watch his back; trying to put a silver lining on Victor having been frozen for 210 years by saying that, at least if he fucks up, his friends and family won’t suffer – the Institute tends to go after the loved ones of RR agents as well as the actual agents (I probably SHOULD have had Victor respond with the “took my son” line, but went for the “why would friends and family suffer” question instead, whoops); and giving Victor the bullshit line about him being a synth (claiming he was an early “cranium job” that got botched, meaning he has no fun false memories) and handing over his “recall code” (which will revert him to a “standard” synth and wipe his new memories, according to him – I think these things actually just serve as a “shutdown” of sorts) to use in case of an emergency (though insisting that he only use it if he absolutely HAS to). I haven’t read the piece of paper yet, but I’ll probably have Victor look at it soon just to see what it says. We’ll see about calling Deacon out on this lie later. :P
G) Anyway – with that over with, and the “recall code” safely in Victor’s possession, it was time to tackle that raider camp and put up MILA! The duo thus left Ticonderoga and headed back down the street, trying to sneak up on the camp. . .only to fail miserably and get spotted by the raiders all around. Meeeh. It took a little while to get them all cleared out – there were some up high that I was having a bit of trouble finding – but Deacon was pretty good at taking out the guys I couldn’t locate, and Victor and his Mighty Sniper took care of all the rest. It wasn’t long before the place was cleared out and the pair could loot and explore! They wandered all around the area, discovering that it looked like the whole place was set up between the wreckage of a little apartment building and some sort of hotel across the road, right by Greentech Genetics (good to have THAT place tagged, since I think that’s where all the courser murder happens later). Took me a little while to find the stairs up to the upper levels of the camp, since neither of the buildings were the kind you could enter (all the doors were boarded up) – turns out they were in ANOTHER ruined building next to the former hotel, with a bridge made out of old road signs stretching between the two. I had Victor wander around until he’d found all the bodies (collecting some armor to scrap down at an armor workbench along the way) and gotten all the loot he’d wanted –
H) But I still hadn’t figured out how the hell you got up to the spot atop the apartment building that was marked as the place where Victor had to put down MILA. Like I said, it didn’t look like either of the buildings could be entered. O.o I had Victor stop at the local cookpot in the “plaza” between the hotel and the stairs building and do a bit of cooking, then go around exploring more of the camp. In the barricades by the apartment building, he found and blew up another turret (having some radscorpion chowder after to regain all his lost health); and in the gap behind the apartment building, all he found was a small flooded area, the terminal to control the turrets and the spotlight, and a gap in the barricade onto the bridge, which let him clear out the inventory of a settler who fell afoul of the turret. And there didn’t seem to be any bridges connecting the hotel and the apartment building. . .Puzzled, I decided to go back up atop the hotel to see if I’d missed something –
I) And I had! A button that, when pressed, brought a little homemade ski-lift-gondola thing trundling over on a zipwire! Pleased, I had Victor hop on and ride it back to the other side, where he found the final raider corpse, a pretty piss poor “congrats, you’ve cleared this area!” chest (with just a stimpack, one camera, and a piece of armor Victor didn’t want) – and the spot to place MILA! Victor dropped the sensor on the board, and that was that – now he just has to tell Tinker Tom it’s in place the next time he drops by RR HQ!
J) With that finally taken care of, Victor rode the gondola back and returned to ground level (I was very briefly tempted to have him jump off the roof and into the river on the other side of the building, but decided it wasn’t worth the risk of Victor missing, hitting the ground, and dying – I mean, I’d been saving often, but still), and I decided the best way to end the episode was to get the boys at least within sight of Kendall Hospital so they could go chem-hunting next time. :) So they headed up along the road past Greentech, detouring through a flooded area by the riverside and taking care of a couple of softshell mirelurks there (Victor tried to blow them up with a grenade, but missed; fortunately his Two-Shot did the job after he got their attention), before turning right up the road to Kendall’s!
Which – looked to be near another raider camp! Figured. . .I had the boys attempt to sneak past, but, well, my personal -1 Perception when it comes to spotting mines on the ground triggered, and Victor blew himself up a bit, breaking his arm and his leg. *wince* I quickly stimpacked him up –
Then just as quickly shot a raider psycho threatening Deacon in the butt. XD What, it was the body part closest to Victor! Anyway, Victor glugged down some Quick Tea (temporarily increasing his movement speed) and some water to counteract the thirst-intensifying effect of the stimpack, then he and Deacon went through the camp, taking out the raiders living there! Deacon actually got most of them (once again, a few of them were weirdly hard for me to find), but Victor killed enough to get a level up to 41! Meaning he could take “Science!” 4 and max out that perk! :D My trifecta of maxed perks is finally complete! :) The fight ended with a garbage squirrel coming around the corner to cause trouble and accidentally triggering a frag mine (om nom, free squirrel), and with me deciding I wanted to investigate the mysterious unmarked office building area the raiders had set up shop around. :p Next time – checking out the headquarters of the office raiders, and then over to Kendall for chems! Should be fun.
Writing: Another update to the FO4 Playthrough Progression, as per usual on Sundays – and this one was pretty much identical to what I did in the game today, with only the tiniest of tweaks (such as Victor refuting Deacon saying that it’s a good thing he was frozen, because now he has no family or friends for the Institute to target, by reminding the guy that he has NEW friends here in the Wasteland and also THEY ALREADY HAVE HIS KID (Deacon did apologize for forgetting that); and Deacon being the one to spot the wire between the hotel and the apartment building powering the gondola and suggest to Victor they head up there to check it out). Hell, even Alice being present in the fanfic verse didn’t really make much of a difference this time, as she had to spent most of this trip in her sleeping bag due to it being sunny out! (She was very grumpy about this, as you might imagine – I did at least have her talk to H2 at Ticonderoga when they stayed overnight before tackling the raider camp and try to convince him not to wipe his own memories. He’s thinking about it!) So yeah, as per the above, Victor, Deacon, and Alice have left Railroad HQ, taken out the raiders beside Ticonderoga and set up Tom’s MILA sensor, and taken out the raiders on the way up to Kendall, with Victor deciding they should investigate the office building the second set of raiders were apparently using as a headquarters. Alice is on board just because it means she gets to get out of her sleeping bag. XD Don’t worry, Alice, I’ll get rid of your little sunlight problem just as soon as I can figure out a good time for you and Victor to hit Dunwich Borers. . .
YouTube: Usual Sunday two in the can, I’m pleased to say –
A) First up, from the Subs, we had GrayStillPlays and “when mothers belong in prison,” aka Gray plays Mother Simulator 3D! This was probably the CRAPPIEST horrible mobile game parent simulator that Gray has ever played (he said as much at the end of the episode!) – the creators made absolutely NO attempt to match any of the assets (the babies in particular were CLEARLY from different sets than Mom and Dad); various objects around the house were either shockingly large (the air conditioner was practically the size of the wall) or amazingly small (the loaf of bread for breakfast was the size of a single Pop-Tart); none of the animations worked right (Mom’s hands never actually touched anything she was holding, the older kids Zaig and Emmy often slid around instead of walking, and the husband was working on a laptop six feet away from him on the table); the house they lived in was a strange misshapen monstrosity with windows on the INSIDE; Gray spent every level being hounded by the dog (ALSO from a different asset pack) until he gave it an empty bowl to eat from; the tasks were basically what you’d expect (wake the kids up, get them ready for school, check on the baby, drown the baby in the giant bathtub, etc), but done in the glitchiest way possible; and the game ended because Gray couldn’t actually pick up the baby for the next mission, and when he clicked on the “Hint” button, all it said was “New Text.” Basically this was one of the most broken, janky pieces of shit Gray has ever touched. And hearing him react to it was delightful, more please. XD
B) And second, from Jon, we had “Fallout 4: Sim Settlements 2 - Part 19 - Mayor Than Meets The Eye!” This episode saw Bob bouncing around the Commonwealth a bit (mainly the Northwest corner, around Sanctuary and Concord), checking in with various people, picking up new quests, and unlocking new game mechanics –
I. First, though, Bob took a trip to Egret Tours Marina to see how they were getting on, and hopefully turn in the books he had collected to Charles Baker (the Brotherhood of Steel scribe who wanted to start his own library)! After some trouble trying to board his vertibird taxi (it landed a few streets away from where he actually threw the signal grenade after leaving the Commonwealth Police Department station, causing him to hurt himself by brushing up against a car and getting Bethesda Physics-ed by it running over there, AND have to fight a whole pack of feral ghouls at the actual landing site), he managed to get to the settlement and checked his quest markers –
And found that Charles had wandered over to the roads by Starlight Drive-In instead, hmph. On the plus side, though, some improvements had been made around the town, including better water and a supposedly-better factory – AND Archon wanted to talk to Bob regarding a new quest, “Pure Energy.” As it turns out, Archon’s job before the bombs dropped was working for a start-up, Newfuel, that was working on a new way to make power – hybrid reactors! He didn’t go into the details, but presumably it combines the best features of a couple of different reactors into one. His company made a prototype that he was fiddling with when the bombs dropped. Unfortunately, he’s pretty sure that prototype was lost when the building came down on him – but, both the Commonwealth Institute of Technology AND the Department of Defense were interested in his company’s research, and had asked for copies in exchange for funding. So Archon told Bob that if he could get him the notes from a CIT or DOD location, he could train up some people to build the reactors! Bob was all for that – and it turned out that he’d already cleared one of the possible places to find the notes – Fort Strong! So Jon made a note to go over there and pick up the notes the next time Bob visited the Prydwen (also to say hi to the people at Nordhagen Beach, since he has a quest to visit them too).
II. After a snooze, Bob summoned another vertibird taxi (this one insisted on picking a fight with a super mutant a little ways away from Bob’s preferred landing site, forcing Bob to shoot it with his sniper) and headed northwest, landing at Sanctuary to see how it was doing. Things were progressing well, with lots of updated buildings – Bob was very pleased with the new factory plot, but rather concerned that the bar plot was decorated with lots of human skulls. (“We are not raiders, people!”) He was also concerned by the fact that the settlement was basically completely maxed out size-wise, with no more room for growth of any kind. Jon commented that he was going to have to find some new mods to help increase settlement sizes before next week to prevent this sort of thing – but according to the comments on the video, apparently that kind of mod comes built-in with Sims Settlement 2 (or at least one of the other mods you need to run it, Workshop Framework)! He just has to press spacebar at the workbench to bring up the menu. We’ll see if he reads and remembers this for next week!
III. But Bob hadn’t really come to this corner of the map to visit Sanctuary – he came to visit Concord! So after making sure his stuffed-to-the-gills “industrial backbone” was doing all right, he headed down the street to find some people. First on his list was Caleb Saunders, the CPD detective he learned about from their terminal (and who apparently told the CPD about him before he even actually MET Bob – yeah, it seems Jon did a little accidentally sequence breaking here by doing some quests in the wrong order) – Bob found a notice from him in the local church about how the “Marowski gang” needed to face justice, then tracked him down by a local bus stop. Caleb introduced himself, remarked that Bob looked like the kind of heavy-hitter he needed for the Marowski case, then told him to stop by his place later. Since at this point Bob had learned that later really DID mean later (Jon joked that Caleb wanted to vacuum and put out some snacks), Bob instead went down to the other side of Concord to catch up with Elias the monster-hunter at his place. Elias told Bob that he and Ruby had been talking, and while he wasn’t exactly happy about it, he was willing to hang up his hunting rifle and retire. Or, rather, he was willing to give it to Bob and retire, since he now considered Bob the chief monster-hunter in these parts. He still wished that he’d been the one to get those final kills, but he was glad that if he’d lost to anyone, he’d lost to Bob. Jon promptly felt guilty about possibly breaking Elias’s spirit and forcing him into retirement. . .and then felt even more guilty when he looked at Elias’s gun and found it was a bog-standard hunting rifle with no legendary effects, meaning it was going straight into the scrapyard. At least now he had a reason for why Elias had never bagged those kills!
IV. With Elias’s side mission taken care of, and Caleb still not ready to meet as per the quest log, Bob decided his next mission was to find Charles and give him those darn books (if he hadn’t left them in a workshop somewhere). So it was over to Starlight Drive-In, where he found Charles wandering the nearby roads. Charles happily took the books off his hands, and told him that he’d pay him fifty caps a pop for any new ones he brought his way – and that if he had any comics, to send them his way too! He then became a proper, recruitable settler – Bob promptly sent him to the Marina, as that’s currently his “capital city.” We’ll see what happens there with him later! Maybe he’ll have a “real” quest at some point like Archon. . .
V. Taking care of Charles finally ate up enough time that Bob could go see Caleb, so he went back to Concord, tracked down the guy’s house (ironically littered with outfits Bob had decided he didn’t want anymore and threw in there before Caleb officially moved in), and headed upstairs –
To find Caleb crouching over a dead body, with another one in the corner. O.o Turns out Caleb is the kind of detective who will torture a raider to death to get just a scrap of information out of him. This is – concerning, to say the least. o.O Anyway, Caleb told Bob that the dead raider was someone who had had information on Bombface, the former Marowski associate who had killed his wife, and whom Caleb wanted to see VERY dead – specifically, he’d known the location of one of Bombface’s second-in-commands, Boris (the guy who got the muscle where it needed to be). Caleb explained to Bob that Bob’s task was to go hunt down Boris and get whatever information he could out of him, by hook or by crook or by shooting the guy and rifling through his pockets. Caleb would go himself, but he’s too recognizable to these folks. Bob took the job, and found that Boris was hanging out, not at Mystic Pines like he’d initially assumed, but on the overpass just ABOVE Mystic Pines. Fortunately there was a nearby ramp to get Bob up there – and when getting close to Boris revealed that he was an instant aggro, he just pulled out the sniper and killed him before he could become a problem. (He turned red first, it’s fine!) Looting the body gave Bob a note from Bombface to Boris telling him to get his men under control, as apparently they’d been running a bit wild – they had to be nipped in the bud before “HE” nipped them in the bud. Jon wondered if that meant that the death of Caleb’s wife was the result of a lack of gang discipline instead of an intentional hit. . .and how this note was going to help in any way in tracking down Bombface, as it didn’t actually have any identifying information. XD But then again, the note in the church talking about how the Marowski gang had to be taken down had no identifying information, and Bob still found Caleb through the magic of quest markers, sooo. . .
VI. However, before Bob went back to Caleb to turn in the note and let Caleb do what he would with it, he decided that he had another mission to complete – finally going over to Hubert’s settlement and help him and his friends with the ASAMs! So he made the trek over there. . .to find Hubert (accompanied by Old Paul) being lectured by a ghoul named Stodge about not understanding what “keeping a low profile” means and how he needed to take a day off being stupid. Followed by Stodge pulling his gun on Bob once he saw him and demanding that Bob put his hands in the air and hand over his weapon. Bob managed to defuse the situation, putting on his beautiful dress to convince Stodge to let him keep his gun, and asked him what was up. As it turns out, Stodge’s deal was that he and his friends (including Hubert) were forced out of their previous home by mercenaries looking to make them indentured servants, and he was really worried that they might be walking into the same sort of situation if they just blindly joined up with Bob’s growing empire. He was willing to give the ASAMs a try if and only if he and his got the final say in what they built with them and how they were used. Bob was only too happy to agree to that, assuring Stodge that being part of the Bobwealth would not curtail his independence in any meaningful way. Stodge, mollified, agreed to join up and try out the ASAMs, then announced to his group at large that they needed to pick a leader to help run things in their new settlement. He of course threw his hat into the ring –
As did Hubert – and Old Paul. Stodge correctly noted Paul wasn’t actually one of their group, but Paul said that he’d benefited a lot from ASAMs, and he wouldn’t mind repaying that kindness by helping them set up their new place to live. Stodge decided that was nice, but noted they couldn’t ALL lead, and Hubert suggested letting Bob decide. Bob thus went around and asked each of them what they would do if they were in charge: Hubert said he’d get his friends in the Church to help with any trouble (turns out he’s friends with the Church of Atom!) and make sure people were happy, but that he wouldn’t do any bookkeeping or anything like that – he’s hopeless with numbers; Old Paul declared he’d make sure everyone had guns to defend themselves and knew a few things about how to gather good scrap and maintain their belongings; and Stodge told Bob that he, as an ex-Gunner (back when that “meant something,” so apparently he’s not happy with the current state of the faction) would run a tight and efficient ship – he didn’t care if the people weren’t happy with his decisions as long as they were safe. Bob decided that, since one of their primary objectives these days was to keep settlements safe from Gunner attack, Stodge was the best leader under the circumstances, announced his pick, and sent them off to Red Rocket to set up shop –
VII. And Jon discovered that had actually unlocked a new game mechanic – Mayors! Turns out, if you want a settlement to basically run itself, you can choose someone to be the mayor. Their particular traits will cause the settlement to develop a certain way – for example, Old Paul as a mayor would make defensive plots more effective (due to his love of guns) and industrial plots generate more scrap (due to his past as a scavver), but being a bit of a technophobe (except when it comes to ASAMs), the industrial plots would upgrade slower. Having a mayor means you can also let the settlers build up the settlement completely on their own, tearing down all the plots you’ve set up and remaking them the way the AI likes. Jon was all about using that to build up some settlements he didn’t really care about, so – after a quick stop at Caleb’s to hand over Boris’s note (and note with annoyance that ANOTHER raider body had been added to his pile – stop with the torturing for five minutes!) – he had Bob run over to Sanctuary to build a City Planner desk (and another one for traveling) and select a mayor. After looking over his options (which included Preston Garvey, Old Paul, and Hubert for some reason), Bob decided Old Paul would be the best mayor for Sanctuary – though he refused to let the guy tear down any of his lovely settlement, as he LIKED Sanctuary’s look, damn it. XD He then stopped by Red Rocket to start the building process there with Stodge and his group (admiring the cool cinematic time-lapse cutscene that played out of the citizens setting everything up), then headed over to Starlight Boulevard and let Preston take over that as his new Minuteman base, rebuilding IT from the ground up too (and doing a pretty good job, to Jon’s delight – he liked the new “half-circle” look of the plots around the central water source). Seems like Bob’s going to be doing a lot of delegating with his “lesser” settlements in the near future!
And so the episode ended with Bob checking in on his and Jake’s personal frequency and learning that Jake got the CommHub working! Temporarily – it exploded during the message. XD So next week, we’ll be checking in with him and seeing how that’s going. Plus maybe running around, taking some more settlements, and assigning new mayors to them. We’ll see what happens! :D
Workout: Hopped back on the bike this week, and returned to my beloved Oxventure to catch up on the one set of videos I have remaining – Andy’s “Deadlands” campaign! Featuring the gang taking on the “Weird West” as a set of very colorful characters – Mike was Silas, a bitter ex-lawman-turned-bounty hunter who is eager to bring justice to the West. . .and who is afraid of horses; Ellen was Edie, a monster hunter who moonlights as a saloon girl to pay the bills; Johnny was Nate, an extremely elderly man who was hoping to get out of doing things like digging graves and latrines for his keep; Luke was Delacey, a thirteen-year-old kid with a mean eye, a surprisingly fancy gun on his hip, and a very goofy voice; and Jane was Garnet, a croupier looking for work in a gambling institution and who might be more than she seems (Jane seemed to hint there was more to her character sheet in the introduction). The five of them were on the same train, all heading to the same ranch in the same one-horse town at the end of the rail line, all clutching the same advertisement asking for people of strong character to do bounty work of a “delicate nature” for frankly incredible pay. None of the group were particularly inclined to talk to each other on the train (beyond Delacey asking Nate for a plug of his chewing tobacco. . .only to rethink his request when Nate tried to give him half of the plug he was currently chewing, and Edie and Garnet having a bit of an awkward introduction when Garnet helped her with her luggage and noted that they were both carrying the same ad for a bounty hunter), and when the train arrived at their destination, Croyt’s Wrath (not sure if that’s how you spell it, but that’s what it sounds like), Silas and Delacey immediately peeled off to go visit the local saloon. Silas got himself a “sippin’ whiskey” in the deluded belief that it would rehydrate him, while Delacey objected to being given a double apple juice by the bartender and managed, through sheer luck (he got a crit on one of his dice) to intimidate said bartender into giving him an entire bottle of whiskey to take back to his table.
He immediately choked on it because he’s thirteen and unused to strong drink. XD Silas relieved him of the bottle (Delacey: “You owe me a dollar”) while Edie wandered in hoping to get a temporary job, Garnet wandered in looking for gambling work, and Nate wandered in because his gravedigger senses were going off after Delacey’s crit. XD Edie was very puzzled by the fact that the bartender seemed so terrified of a small boy, and after MAYBE talking him into letting her work for him on commission (it was unclear if he was even paying that much attention to her), went and chatted with Delacey to see what was what. Delacey noted that she had the same ad that he was responding to, and confirmed that Garnet and Silas did as well – he then suggested that they head out to Bulltail Ranch to see the woman who had sent out the ad, Victoria, before “the old fellow” joined up. XD This prompted Nate to start shuffling as fast as he could to try and get there BEFORE the rest of them – fortunately, he rolled well enough on the Athletics roll that the much younger people didn’t IMMEDIATELY overtake him. XD
And so the gang proceeded over to Bulltail Ranch! Along the way, Garnet introduced herself to Delacey, who told her he was hoping to get into the bounty hunting business. Garnet noted his gun and asked if he even knew how to use it – Delacey demurred for a second, saying that he was hoping not to use it in his career (it seems he’s a little squeamish about killing people) –
And then did a cool trick shot, nailing one of the mailbags being taken out of the train, because apparently this thirteen-year-old is an expert marksman. O.o Damn. Garnet was impressed, but also noted that there was mail in those bags, while Nate picked up the pace, thinking he was being shot at. XD Delacey was unrepentant, and they continued on to the ranch itself – a run-down old place with lots of room for animals, but none around beyond a single horse (which Silas was relieved about, though he and that horse immediately regarded each other suspiciously). The gang was a little suspicious that their potential employer had the money she said she had, but Edie noted that some of the richest people around really don’t like to SPEND their coin, and so they continued up to the front door. Nate TECHNICALLY got there first with his old-man shuffle, but Silas just breezed right past him and opened the door, startling the lady of the house. Fortunately, he explained they were here about the ad before he got shotgunned in the face, and Victoria – a dark-haired, dark-eyed woman in a blue dress – came down and met them. She explained that she was looking for some bounty hunters to kill some people who’d done her a great wrong years ago, and that she was prepared to spend the last of her cash to get the justice she’d been denied.
However – it appears that these people, whatever they’d done (she wasn’t willing to say yet), were very dangerous, as she ALSO said that she wasn’t about to send anyone out against them willy-nilly – she’d already hired people to do this job for her before, and, well, they’d all ended up dead. And she wasn’t exactly impressed with this particular ragtag bunch before her right now. So, she told them that she was going to give them a “test job” to see if they were up for the challenge. There was a sort of “traveling museum” train going around the area, bringing culture to the masses with borrowed exhibits from museums back East – she wanted them to rob that train to prove themselves. She didn’t care what they took, she just wanted something. Silas and Delacey initially balked a little (Silas because it wasn’t exactly lawful, Delacey because, again, he seems not to want to kill anybody), but after she mentioned she was willing to pay them $200 each for the job, and that they were free to walk away at any point, they came around. Nate was also on-board (he was already excited about getting to put people into graves for money), but the girls aren’t convinced yet – I left it with Garnet pointing out to Victoria that she REALLY wasn’t giving them a lot of details on this potential bounty she wanted them to track down. Already this is looking like an interesting little campaign – I am particularly loving Luke’s “Delacey” character. This kid is going to get into soooo much trouble. XD And I’m VERY eager to see more of Silas’s weird fear of horses – as someone in the comments noted, this is like Mike making Egbert the Paladin for regular Oxventure and giving him negative wisdom. XD Fun times!
Other: Aaand, after starting answering Moose’s messages yesterday, finished off those today. Sorry for the wait, Moose!
*nods* Not too shabby! But now it is definitely time for me to go to sleep -- I stayed up WAAAY too late last night, and I don't want to make the same mistake again. Especially since we have a furniture delivery in the morning that's liable to wake me up (two new loveseats to replace our old couch and loveseat combo). Tomorrow, the plan is to do some more drafting on Victor Luvs Alice and prepare the queue for this week over there; write some more on "Start At The Beginning. . .Sort Of" and maybe do some timeline stuff on my Valicer In The Dark master doc; keep up with Gray and watch the OXBox video waiting in my Watch Later -- and maybe convince myself that it's okay to at least TRY to play some more BG3. Because my friend Squid DID link me to a set of instructions I can use in case I run into the bug introduced by the latest hotfix. *deep breath* I REALLY do want to play some more, so. . .we'll see if I have the courage. For now, though, bed. Night all!
Tumblr: A somewhat-more productive day over here, even if I got on later than I wanted –
Victor Luvs Alice – Spent the pre-lunch portion of my day catching up on the dash and my tracked tags over here – found a nice Corpse Bride photo set to put into the drafts by the end, so yay there. Also made a note on my draft of “Valicer In The Dark Incorrect Quotes Volume 3” that I have to come up with a scene where Smiler’s introducing the crew to someone, said someone asks how long they’ve known each other, and they have to admit “MAYBE two weeks?” to make fun of how I make them so immediately “ride or die” for each other. XD It’s something!
Valice Multiverse – One anon ask about a zoo-escaping gorilla – shucked it in the queue! Better than nothing!
Fallout 4: Relatively quiet time in the Commonwealth today – I say “relatively” because Deacon and Victor did kill a lot of raiders. The deets –
A) Started where I left off last time, in Railroad HQ – after a little poking around, taking a bit of Wonderglue and some purified water, I had Victor and Deacon exit through the escape tunnel in the back (this time properly unlocking the final door via the terminal, instead of just going through it because the game isn’t actually that fussy XD). The boys exited out into the North End, and I tried one last time to pick up the next Silver Shroud mission via the signal after putting the signature costume on – nope, still just an episode of the radio show. *sigh* I really hope I haven’t bugged this quest line out somehow – I want to complete the whole thing and play around with the costume more!
B) Ah well – if Kent wasn’t giving missions, Kent wasn’t giving missions. Instead, I checked all the various quests in my Pip-Boy, including the miscellaneous ones, and decided that the best thing to do would be to go put MILA into place for Tinker Tom, then head over to Kendall Hospital to look for the chem stash there, before starting seriously toward Sanctuary and the Red Rocket to rejoin the main quest line (and finish off “Old Guns” by talking to Preston). Thus, Deacon and Victor started toward the nearby bridge to begin their journeys –
Only to find a pair of super mutants on it. Fortunately, neither noticed the pair, and even more fortunately, while Victor was creeping up on them for a better shot with the Mighty Sniper, a Brotherhood vertibird showed up and started firing on them, distracting them. Two shots, and they were both firmly taken care of, yay. :p (And one only had a board on him, so they weren’t THAT dangerous in the end.)
C) Anyway – onward! Victor and Deacon crossed the bridge, then hooked a left toward Ticonderoga. I had them cut through the little park area near the water, just to see if there was anything interesting in there – no goodies, but there was a Mirelurk Hunter buried in the ground near a tree! O.o Fortunately it never woke up and aggroed, so Victor and Deacon were able to go past it (and hell, even WALK ON TOP OF IT) without any trouble. I wasn’t going to make trouble with that bastard if I didn’t have to – mean lobsters are mean! (As Jon of MATN can attest to!) Anyway, they got through the little round park area without issue and came up to the Science Center Gift Shop they passed last time while helping High Rise with H2 –
D) And I thought, “you know what, why not go in?” So that’s what Victor and Deacon did. Inside was a single room strewn with a few bits of tat (like old globes and aluminum canisters and the like), plus a couple of skeletons in the corner near a mannequin. And a Mr. Handy floating behind a cash register near the back. I started investigating the junk, looking for anything I liked –
And saw it was all marked in red, with the interact button reading “(A) Steal.” Curious, I then talked to the Mr. Handy, who asked if Victor wanted a memento of his time at the science center. Victor asked what was for sale, and he said everything he needed to do his own experiments –
And opened up a shop menu! That explained why everything in the store was marked as “owned” – this place was the Mr. Handy’s place of business! I happily browsed the goods and had Victor hand over a bunch of caps for some useful junk items, including a bunch of aluminum shit and a whole PACK of duct tape. :D As the Mr. Handy sold almost exclusively junk, I didn’t think it made sense to do a trade like I usually do – and besides, Victor more than has the money to pay for this kind of stuff now, honestly. :p
E) With items purchased (and one field medkit made on the chem bench beside the main counter), Victor and Deacon continued on down the road, passing Ticonderoga and investigating the ruined building on the other side of the road near the water to see if there was anything interesting in there. There was not, but it did give them a good look at the building up the street that was apparently the spot Tom wanted Victor to set up his MILA sensor. . .
Aaaand it looked like a raider camp. With Victor already feeling tired and night coming on (it was about 8:25 PM in the game), I decided it would be smarter to have Victor and Deacon tackle that in the morning and had them nip into Ticonderoga for a good night’s sleep, riding the elevator up to the main safehouse and bunking down in one of the beds right after Victor got too tired to run. Yeah, definitely didn’t want THAT to happen mid-firefight!
F) Victor woke up the next morning around 5:30 AM, feeling well-rested and finding Deacon bouncing around the room. I had Victor ask him what was up, thinking I might be able to at least get a feel of where they were, affinity-wise –
And, to my delight, Deacon replied he was still up to talk, if this was a good time! Meaning I could start their first proper affinity conversation! :D (If you recall, I had to run away from Deacon’s first attempt to chat because Victor REALLY had to use the toilet. XD) Victor affirmed that it was, and they had their talk, with Deacon telling him that he normally doesn’t run with a partner (too much vulnerability in case someone betrays you), but it’s been nice having someone to watch his back; trying to put a silver lining on Victor having been frozen for 210 years by saying that, at least if he fucks up, his friends and family won’t suffer – the Institute tends to go after the loved ones of RR agents as well as the actual agents (I probably SHOULD have had Victor respond with the “took my son” line, but went for the “why would friends and family suffer” question instead, whoops); and giving Victor the bullshit line about him being a synth (claiming he was an early “cranium job” that got botched, meaning he has no fun false memories) and handing over his “recall code” (which will revert him to a “standard” synth and wipe his new memories, according to him – I think these things actually just serve as a “shutdown” of sorts) to use in case of an emergency (though insisting that he only use it if he absolutely HAS to). I haven’t read the piece of paper yet, but I’ll probably have Victor look at it soon just to see what it says. We’ll see about calling Deacon out on this lie later. :P
G) Anyway – with that over with, and the “recall code” safely in Victor’s possession, it was time to tackle that raider camp and put up MILA! The duo thus left Ticonderoga and headed back down the street, trying to sneak up on the camp. . .only to fail miserably and get spotted by the raiders all around. Meeeh. It took a little while to get them all cleared out – there were some up high that I was having a bit of trouble finding – but Deacon was pretty good at taking out the guys I couldn’t locate, and Victor and his Mighty Sniper took care of all the rest. It wasn’t long before the place was cleared out and the pair could loot and explore! They wandered all around the area, discovering that it looked like the whole place was set up between the wreckage of a little apartment building and some sort of hotel across the road, right by Greentech Genetics (good to have THAT place tagged, since I think that’s where all the courser murder happens later). Took me a little while to find the stairs up to the upper levels of the camp, since neither of the buildings were the kind you could enter (all the doors were boarded up) – turns out they were in ANOTHER ruined building next to the former hotel, with a bridge made out of old road signs stretching between the two. I had Victor wander around until he’d found all the bodies (collecting some armor to scrap down at an armor workbench along the way) and gotten all the loot he’d wanted –
H) But I still hadn’t figured out how the hell you got up to the spot atop the apartment building that was marked as the place where Victor had to put down MILA. Like I said, it didn’t look like either of the buildings could be entered. O.o I had Victor stop at the local cookpot in the “plaza” between the hotel and the stairs building and do a bit of cooking, then go around exploring more of the camp. In the barricades by the apartment building, he found and blew up another turret (having some radscorpion chowder after to regain all his lost health); and in the gap behind the apartment building, all he found was a small flooded area, the terminal to control the turrets and the spotlight, and a gap in the barricade onto the bridge, which let him clear out the inventory of a settler who fell afoul of the turret. And there didn’t seem to be any bridges connecting the hotel and the apartment building. . .Puzzled, I decided to go back up atop the hotel to see if I’d missed something –
I) And I had! A button that, when pressed, brought a little homemade ski-lift-gondola thing trundling over on a zipwire! Pleased, I had Victor hop on and ride it back to the other side, where he found the final raider corpse, a pretty piss poor “congrats, you’ve cleared this area!” chest (with just a stimpack, one camera, and a piece of armor Victor didn’t want) – and the spot to place MILA! Victor dropped the sensor on the board, and that was that – now he just has to tell Tinker Tom it’s in place the next time he drops by RR HQ!
J) With that finally taken care of, Victor rode the gondola back and returned to ground level (I was very briefly tempted to have him jump off the roof and into the river on the other side of the building, but decided it wasn’t worth the risk of Victor missing, hitting the ground, and dying – I mean, I’d been saving often, but still), and I decided the best way to end the episode was to get the boys at least within sight of Kendall Hospital so they could go chem-hunting next time. :) So they headed up along the road past Greentech, detouring through a flooded area by the riverside and taking care of a couple of softshell mirelurks there (Victor tried to blow them up with a grenade, but missed; fortunately his Two-Shot did the job after he got their attention), before turning right up the road to Kendall’s!
Which – looked to be near another raider camp! Figured. . .I had the boys attempt to sneak past, but, well, my personal -1 Perception when it comes to spotting mines on the ground triggered, and Victor blew himself up a bit, breaking his arm and his leg. *wince* I quickly stimpacked him up –
Then just as quickly shot a raider psycho threatening Deacon in the butt. XD What, it was the body part closest to Victor! Anyway, Victor glugged down some Quick Tea (temporarily increasing his movement speed) and some water to counteract the thirst-intensifying effect of the stimpack, then he and Deacon went through the camp, taking out the raiders living there! Deacon actually got most of them (once again, a few of them were weirdly hard for me to find), but Victor killed enough to get a level up to 41! Meaning he could take “Science!” 4 and max out that perk! :D My trifecta of maxed perks is finally complete! :) The fight ended with a garbage squirrel coming around the corner to cause trouble and accidentally triggering a frag mine (om nom, free squirrel), and with me deciding I wanted to investigate the mysterious unmarked office building area the raiders had set up shop around. :p Next time – checking out the headquarters of the office raiders, and then over to Kendall for chems! Should be fun.
Writing: Another update to the FO4 Playthrough Progression, as per usual on Sundays – and this one was pretty much identical to what I did in the game today, with only the tiniest of tweaks (such as Victor refuting Deacon saying that it’s a good thing he was frozen, because now he has no family or friends for the Institute to target, by reminding the guy that he has NEW friends here in the Wasteland and also THEY ALREADY HAVE HIS KID (Deacon did apologize for forgetting that); and Deacon being the one to spot the wire between the hotel and the apartment building powering the gondola and suggest to Victor they head up there to check it out). Hell, even Alice being present in the fanfic verse didn’t really make much of a difference this time, as she had to spent most of this trip in her sleeping bag due to it being sunny out! (She was very grumpy about this, as you might imagine – I did at least have her talk to H2 at Ticonderoga when they stayed overnight before tackling the raider camp and try to convince him not to wipe his own memories. He’s thinking about it!) So yeah, as per the above, Victor, Deacon, and Alice have left Railroad HQ, taken out the raiders beside Ticonderoga and set up Tom’s MILA sensor, and taken out the raiders on the way up to Kendall, with Victor deciding they should investigate the office building the second set of raiders were apparently using as a headquarters. Alice is on board just because it means she gets to get out of her sleeping bag. XD Don’t worry, Alice, I’ll get rid of your little sunlight problem just as soon as I can figure out a good time for you and Victor to hit Dunwich Borers. . .
YouTube: Usual Sunday two in the can, I’m pleased to say –
A) First up, from the Subs, we had GrayStillPlays and “when mothers belong in prison,” aka Gray plays Mother Simulator 3D! This was probably the CRAPPIEST horrible mobile game parent simulator that Gray has ever played (he said as much at the end of the episode!) – the creators made absolutely NO attempt to match any of the assets (the babies in particular were CLEARLY from different sets than Mom and Dad); various objects around the house were either shockingly large (the air conditioner was practically the size of the wall) or amazingly small (the loaf of bread for breakfast was the size of a single Pop-Tart); none of the animations worked right (Mom’s hands never actually touched anything she was holding, the older kids Zaig and Emmy often slid around instead of walking, and the husband was working on a laptop six feet away from him on the table); the house they lived in was a strange misshapen monstrosity with windows on the INSIDE; Gray spent every level being hounded by the dog (ALSO from a different asset pack) until he gave it an empty bowl to eat from; the tasks were basically what you’d expect (wake the kids up, get them ready for school, check on the baby, drown the baby in the giant bathtub, etc), but done in the glitchiest way possible; and the game ended because Gray couldn’t actually pick up the baby for the next mission, and when he clicked on the “Hint” button, all it said was “New Text.” Basically this was one of the most broken, janky pieces of shit Gray has ever touched. And hearing him react to it was delightful, more please. XD
B) And second, from Jon, we had “Fallout 4: Sim Settlements 2 - Part 19 - Mayor Than Meets The Eye!” This episode saw Bob bouncing around the Commonwealth a bit (mainly the Northwest corner, around Sanctuary and Concord), checking in with various people, picking up new quests, and unlocking new game mechanics –
I. First, though, Bob took a trip to Egret Tours Marina to see how they were getting on, and hopefully turn in the books he had collected to Charles Baker (the Brotherhood of Steel scribe who wanted to start his own library)! After some trouble trying to board his vertibird taxi (it landed a few streets away from where he actually threw the signal grenade after leaving the Commonwealth Police Department station, causing him to hurt himself by brushing up against a car and getting Bethesda Physics-ed by it running over there, AND have to fight a whole pack of feral ghouls at the actual landing site), he managed to get to the settlement and checked his quest markers –
And found that Charles had wandered over to the roads by Starlight Drive-In instead, hmph. On the plus side, though, some improvements had been made around the town, including better water and a supposedly-better factory – AND Archon wanted to talk to Bob regarding a new quest, “Pure Energy.” As it turns out, Archon’s job before the bombs dropped was working for a start-up, Newfuel, that was working on a new way to make power – hybrid reactors! He didn’t go into the details, but presumably it combines the best features of a couple of different reactors into one. His company made a prototype that he was fiddling with when the bombs dropped. Unfortunately, he’s pretty sure that prototype was lost when the building came down on him – but, both the Commonwealth Institute of Technology AND the Department of Defense were interested in his company’s research, and had asked for copies in exchange for funding. So Archon told Bob that if he could get him the notes from a CIT or DOD location, he could train up some people to build the reactors! Bob was all for that – and it turned out that he’d already cleared one of the possible places to find the notes – Fort Strong! So Jon made a note to go over there and pick up the notes the next time Bob visited the Prydwen (also to say hi to the people at Nordhagen Beach, since he has a quest to visit them too).
II. After a snooze, Bob summoned another vertibird taxi (this one insisted on picking a fight with a super mutant a little ways away from Bob’s preferred landing site, forcing Bob to shoot it with his sniper) and headed northwest, landing at Sanctuary to see how it was doing. Things were progressing well, with lots of updated buildings – Bob was very pleased with the new factory plot, but rather concerned that the bar plot was decorated with lots of human skulls. (“We are not raiders, people!”) He was also concerned by the fact that the settlement was basically completely maxed out size-wise, with no more room for growth of any kind. Jon commented that he was going to have to find some new mods to help increase settlement sizes before next week to prevent this sort of thing – but according to the comments on the video, apparently that kind of mod comes built-in with Sims Settlement 2 (or at least one of the other mods you need to run it, Workshop Framework)! He just has to press spacebar at the workbench to bring up the menu. We’ll see if he reads and remembers this for next week!
III. But Bob hadn’t really come to this corner of the map to visit Sanctuary – he came to visit Concord! So after making sure his stuffed-to-the-gills “industrial backbone” was doing all right, he headed down the street to find some people. First on his list was Caleb Saunders, the CPD detective he learned about from their terminal (and who apparently told the CPD about him before he even actually MET Bob – yeah, it seems Jon did a little accidentally sequence breaking here by doing some quests in the wrong order) – Bob found a notice from him in the local church about how the “Marowski gang” needed to face justice, then tracked him down by a local bus stop. Caleb introduced himself, remarked that Bob looked like the kind of heavy-hitter he needed for the Marowski case, then told him to stop by his place later. Since at this point Bob had learned that later really DID mean later (Jon joked that Caleb wanted to vacuum and put out some snacks), Bob instead went down to the other side of Concord to catch up with Elias the monster-hunter at his place. Elias told Bob that he and Ruby had been talking, and while he wasn’t exactly happy about it, he was willing to hang up his hunting rifle and retire. Or, rather, he was willing to give it to Bob and retire, since he now considered Bob the chief monster-hunter in these parts. He still wished that he’d been the one to get those final kills, but he was glad that if he’d lost to anyone, he’d lost to Bob. Jon promptly felt guilty about possibly breaking Elias’s spirit and forcing him into retirement. . .and then felt even more guilty when he looked at Elias’s gun and found it was a bog-standard hunting rifle with no legendary effects, meaning it was going straight into the scrapyard. At least now he had a reason for why Elias had never bagged those kills!
IV. With Elias’s side mission taken care of, and Caleb still not ready to meet as per the quest log, Bob decided his next mission was to find Charles and give him those darn books (if he hadn’t left them in a workshop somewhere). So it was over to Starlight Drive-In, where he found Charles wandering the nearby roads. Charles happily took the books off his hands, and told him that he’d pay him fifty caps a pop for any new ones he brought his way – and that if he had any comics, to send them his way too! He then became a proper, recruitable settler – Bob promptly sent him to the Marina, as that’s currently his “capital city.” We’ll see what happens there with him later! Maybe he’ll have a “real” quest at some point like Archon. . .
V. Taking care of Charles finally ate up enough time that Bob could go see Caleb, so he went back to Concord, tracked down the guy’s house (ironically littered with outfits Bob had decided he didn’t want anymore and threw in there before Caleb officially moved in), and headed upstairs –
To find Caleb crouching over a dead body, with another one in the corner. O.o Turns out Caleb is the kind of detective who will torture a raider to death to get just a scrap of information out of him. This is – concerning, to say the least. o.O Anyway, Caleb told Bob that the dead raider was someone who had had information on Bombface, the former Marowski associate who had killed his wife, and whom Caleb wanted to see VERY dead – specifically, he’d known the location of one of Bombface’s second-in-commands, Boris (the guy who got the muscle where it needed to be). Caleb explained to Bob that Bob’s task was to go hunt down Boris and get whatever information he could out of him, by hook or by crook or by shooting the guy and rifling through his pockets. Caleb would go himself, but he’s too recognizable to these folks. Bob took the job, and found that Boris was hanging out, not at Mystic Pines like he’d initially assumed, but on the overpass just ABOVE Mystic Pines. Fortunately there was a nearby ramp to get Bob up there – and when getting close to Boris revealed that he was an instant aggro, he just pulled out the sniper and killed him before he could become a problem. (He turned red first, it’s fine!) Looting the body gave Bob a note from Bombface to Boris telling him to get his men under control, as apparently they’d been running a bit wild – they had to be nipped in the bud before “HE” nipped them in the bud. Jon wondered if that meant that the death of Caleb’s wife was the result of a lack of gang discipline instead of an intentional hit. . .and how this note was going to help in any way in tracking down Bombface, as it didn’t actually have any identifying information. XD But then again, the note in the church talking about how the Marowski gang had to be taken down had no identifying information, and Bob still found Caleb through the magic of quest markers, sooo. . .
VI. However, before Bob went back to Caleb to turn in the note and let Caleb do what he would with it, he decided that he had another mission to complete – finally going over to Hubert’s settlement and help him and his friends with the ASAMs! So he made the trek over there. . .to find Hubert (accompanied by Old Paul) being lectured by a ghoul named Stodge about not understanding what “keeping a low profile” means and how he needed to take a day off being stupid. Followed by Stodge pulling his gun on Bob once he saw him and demanding that Bob put his hands in the air and hand over his weapon. Bob managed to defuse the situation, putting on his beautiful dress to convince Stodge to let him keep his gun, and asked him what was up. As it turns out, Stodge’s deal was that he and his friends (including Hubert) were forced out of their previous home by mercenaries looking to make them indentured servants, and he was really worried that they might be walking into the same sort of situation if they just blindly joined up with Bob’s growing empire. He was willing to give the ASAMs a try if and only if he and his got the final say in what they built with them and how they were used. Bob was only too happy to agree to that, assuring Stodge that being part of the Bobwealth would not curtail his independence in any meaningful way. Stodge, mollified, agreed to join up and try out the ASAMs, then announced to his group at large that they needed to pick a leader to help run things in their new settlement. He of course threw his hat into the ring –
As did Hubert – and Old Paul. Stodge correctly noted Paul wasn’t actually one of their group, but Paul said that he’d benefited a lot from ASAMs, and he wouldn’t mind repaying that kindness by helping them set up their new place to live. Stodge decided that was nice, but noted they couldn’t ALL lead, and Hubert suggested letting Bob decide. Bob thus went around and asked each of them what they would do if they were in charge: Hubert said he’d get his friends in the Church to help with any trouble (turns out he’s friends with the Church of Atom!) and make sure people were happy, but that he wouldn’t do any bookkeeping or anything like that – he’s hopeless with numbers; Old Paul declared he’d make sure everyone had guns to defend themselves and knew a few things about how to gather good scrap and maintain their belongings; and Stodge told Bob that he, as an ex-Gunner (back when that “meant something,” so apparently he’s not happy with the current state of the faction) would run a tight and efficient ship – he didn’t care if the people weren’t happy with his decisions as long as they were safe. Bob decided that, since one of their primary objectives these days was to keep settlements safe from Gunner attack, Stodge was the best leader under the circumstances, announced his pick, and sent them off to Red Rocket to set up shop –
VII. And Jon discovered that had actually unlocked a new game mechanic – Mayors! Turns out, if you want a settlement to basically run itself, you can choose someone to be the mayor. Their particular traits will cause the settlement to develop a certain way – for example, Old Paul as a mayor would make defensive plots more effective (due to his love of guns) and industrial plots generate more scrap (due to his past as a scavver), but being a bit of a technophobe (except when it comes to ASAMs), the industrial plots would upgrade slower. Having a mayor means you can also let the settlers build up the settlement completely on their own, tearing down all the plots you’ve set up and remaking them the way the AI likes. Jon was all about using that to build up some settlements he didn’t really care about, so – after a quick stop at Caleb’s to hand over Boris’s note (and note with annoyance that ANOTHER raider body had been added to his pile – stop with the torturing for five minutes!) – he had Bob run over to Sanctuary to build a City Planner desk (and another one for traveling) and select a mayor. After looking over his options (which included Preston Garvey, Old Paul, and Hubert for some reason), Bob decided Old Paul would be the best mayor for Sanctuary – though he refused to let the guy tear down any of his lovely settlement, as he LIKED Sanctuary’s look, damn it. XD He then stopped by Red Rocket to start the building process there with Stodge and his group (admiring the cool cinematic time-lapse cutscene that played out of the citizens setting everything up), then headed over to Starlight Boulevard and let Preston take over that as his new Minuteman base, rebuilding IT from the ground up too (and doing a pretty good job, to Jon’s delight – he liked the new “half-circle” look of the plots around the central water source). Seems like Bob’s going to be doing a lot of delegating with his “lesser” settlements in the near future!
And so the episode ended with Bob checking in on his and Jake’s personal frequency and learning that Jake got the CommHub working! Temporarily – it exploded during the message. XD So next week, we’ll be checking in with him and seeing how that’s going. Plus maybe running around, taking some more settlements, and assigning new mayors to them. We’ll see what happens! :D
Workout: Hopped back on the bike this week, and returned to my beloved Oxventure to catch up on the one set of videos I have remaining – Andy’s “Deadlands” campaign! Featuring the gang taking on the “Weird West” as a set of very colorful characters – Mike was Silas, a bitter ex-lawman-turned-bounty hunter who is eager to bring justice to the West. . .and who is afraid of horses; Ellen was Edie, a monster hunter who moonlights as a saloon girl to pay the bills; Johnny was Nate, an extremely elderly man who was hoping to get out of doing things like digging graves and latrines for his keep; Luke was Delacey, a thirteen-year-old kid with a mean eye, a surprisingly fancy gun on his hip, and a very goofy voice; and Jane was Garnet, a croupier looking for work in a gambling institution and who might be more than she seems (Jane seemed to hint there was more to her character sheet in the introduction). The five of them were on the same train, all heading to the same ranch in the same one-horse town at the end of the rail line, all clutching the same advertisement asking for people of strong character to do bounty work of a “delicate nature” for frankly incredible pay. None of the group were particularly inclined to talk to each other on the train (beyond Delacey asking Nate for a plug of his chewing tobacco. . .only to rethink his request when Nate tried to give him half of the plug he was currently chewing, and Edie and Garnet having a bit of an awkward introduction when Garnet helped her with her luggage and noted that they were both carrying the same ad for a bounty hunter), and when the train arrived at their destination, Croyt’s Wrath (not sure if that’s how you spell it, but that’s what it sounds like), Silas and Delacey immediately peeled off to go visit the local saloon. Silas got himself a “sippin’ whiskey” in the deluded belief that it would rehydrate him, while Delacey objected to being given a double apple juice by the bartender and managed, through sheer luck (he got a crit on one of his dice) to intimidate said bartender into giving him an entire bottle of whiskey to take back to his table.
He immediately choked on it because he’s thirteen and unused to strong drink. XD Silas relieved him of the bottle (Delacey: “You owe me a dollar”) while Edie wandered in hoping to get a temporary job, Garnet wandered in looking for gambling work, and Nate wandered in because his gravedigger senses were going off after Delacey’s crit. XD Edie was very puzzled by the fact that the bartender seemed so terrified of a small boy, and after MAYBE talking him into letting her work for him on commission (it was unclear if he was even paying that much attention to her), went and chatted with Delacey to see what was what. Delacey noted that she had the same ad that he was responding to, and confirmed that Garnet and Silas did as well – he then suggested that they head out to Bulltail Ranch to see the woman who had sent out the ad, Victoria, before “the old fellow” joined up. XD This prompted Nate to start shuffling as fast as he could to try and get there BEFORE the rest of them – fortunately, he rolled well enough on the Athletics roll that the much younger people didn’t IMMEDIATELY overtake him. XD
And so the gang proceeded over to Bulltail Ranch! Along the way, Garnet introduced herself to Delacey, who told her he was hoping to get into the bounty hunting business. Garnet noted his gun and asked if he even knew how to use it – Delacey demurred for a second, saying that he was hoping not to use it in his career (it seems he’s a little squeamish about killing people) –
And then did a cool trick shot, nailing one of the mailbags being taken out of the train, because apparently this thirteen-year-old is an expert marksman. O.o Damn. Garnet was impressed, but also noted that there was mail in those bags, while Nate picked up the pace, thinking he was being shot at. XD Delacey was unrepentant, and they continued on to the ranch itself – a run-down old place with lots of room for animals, but none around beyond a single horse (which Silas was relieved about, though he and that horse immediately regarded each other suspiciously). The gang was a little suspicious that their potential employer had the money she said she had, but Edie noted that some of the richest people around really don’t like to SPEND their coin, and so they continued up to the front door. Nate TECHNICALLY got there first with his old-man shuffle, but Silas just breezed right past him and opened the door, startling the lady of the house. Fortunately, he explained they were here about the ad before he got shotgunned in the face, and Victoria – a dark-haired, dark-eyed woman in a blue dress – came down and met them. She explained that she was looking for some bounty hunters to kill some people who’d done her a great wrong years ago, and that she was prepared to spend the last of her cash to get the justice she’d been denied.
However – it appears that these people, whatever they’d done (she wasn’t willing to say yet), were very dangerous, as she ALSO said that she wasn’t about to send anyone out against them willy-nilly – she’d already hired people to do this job for her before, and, well, they’d all ended up dead. And she wasn’t exactly impressed with this particular ragtag bunch before her right now. So, she told them that she was going to give them a “test job” to see if they were up for the challenge. There was a sort of “traveling museum” train going around the area, bringing culture to the masses with borrowed exhibits from museums back East – she wanted them to rob that train to prove themselves. She didn’t care what they took, she just wanted something. Silas and Delacey initially balked a little (Silas because it wasn’t exactly lawful, Delacey because, again, he seems not to want to kill anybody), but after she mentioned she was willing to pay them $200 each for the job, and that they were free to walk away at any point, they came around. Nate was also on-board (he was already excited about getting to put people into graves for money), but the girls aren’t convinced yet – I left it with Garnet pointing out to Victoria that she REALLY wasn’t giving them a lot of details on this potential bounty she wanted them to track down. Already this is looking like an interesting little campaign – I am particularly loving Luke’s “Delacey” character. This kid is going to get into soooo much trouble. XD And I’m VERY eager to see more of Silas’s weird fear of horses – as someone in the comments noted, this is like Mike making Egbert the Paladin for regular Oxventure and giving him negative wisdom. XD Fun times!
Other: Aaand, after starting answering Moose’s messages yesterday, finished off those today. Sorry for the wait, Moose!
*nods* Not too shabby! But now it is definitely time for me to go to sleep -- I stayed up WAAAY too late last night, and I don't want to make the same mistake again. Especially since we have a furniture delivery in the morning that's liable to wake me up (two new loveseats to replace our old couch and loveseat combo). Tomorrow, the plan is to do some more drafting on Victor Luvs Alice and prepare the queue for this week over there; write some more on "Start At The Beginning. . .Sort Of" and maybe do some timeline stuff on my Valicer In The Dark master doc; keep up with Gray and watch the OXBox video waiting in my Watch Later -- and maybe convince myself that it's okay to at least TRY to play some more BG3. Because my friend Squid DID link me to a set of instructions I can use in case I run into the bug introduced by the latest hotfix. *deep breath* I REALLY do want to play some more, so. . .we'll see if I have the courage. For now, though, bed. Night all!
