Pretty Productive Sunday Yay
Jan. 21st, 2024 11:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickNot a perfectly productive Sunday, mind, but I did better than I did yesterday in a lot of respects --
Tumblr: MUCH more productive day over here, yay –
Victor Luvs Alice – I finished off image alt text and tags on all five of my Chill Valicer Save update posts for the week before lunch! :D Mostly because I forewent getting completely caught up on my dash to do so, but having all this ready for midweek WAS more important to me anyway. :) Very glad to have that all set and ready to go for Wednesday – probably gonna do Corpse Bride and Alice: Madness Returns fanart reblogs for Thursday and Friday, and we’ll figure out Song Saturday a little later. *nods*
Valice Multiverse – Nothing happening over here again – and with me having to babysit the “Sim Settlements 2” video of the weekend (see below) a bit to avoid buffering problems, I didn’t have time to chuck anything in the queue. *shrug* What can you do? (Other than wait for someone to send you an ask, of course. . .)
Baldur’s Gate III: Yes, I did indeed go for the double BG3 weekend – what, it’s my newest game, I paid good money to play it (well, my PARENTS did by giving me the Steam gift cards I needed), and after all the hotfix nonsense/anxiety, this is the first chance I’ve gotten TO properly play it since I bought it and started my modded run. We’ll move onto properly cycling through all my games NEXT weekend. :p But today I updated my “Secret Scrolls” mod (again – apparently one of the scrolls recently added was acting wonky), made sure everything was sorted, and got through:
A) More looting on the ravaged beach – Smiler picked up a LOT of fish, some mergrass and belladonna for later alchemy purposes (important, since they ARE going to be an Alchemist-focused Artificer), and some thieves’ tools and a drum from a barrel. Also found a book called “Shanties For The Bitch Queen” on the dock, which seem to revolve around asking the “Wavemother” to keep the seas calm – and if not, the chanters’ skulls are hers. O.o I – know there’s an evil water diety that becomes semi-important later in the game, so wonder if this a reference to her. . .
B) A fight against some weakened intellect devourers (the ones who AREN’T nice like Us) in the wreck of the Nautiloid – I was a little worried about fighting these guys, as apparently they can be real nasty (at least according to some bitching I’ve seen from people on Reddit), but Smiler got a critical hit on the first one with their crossbow, and Shadowheart immediately killed the second with her Guiding Bolt and its radiant damage. The third, which was hiding near the back, proved to be a bit trickier and managed to get in a hit on Smiler after they gave it “gaping wounds” with their rapier (didn’t realize that Smiler would trigger an attack of opportunity as they tried to get away), but Shadowheart was able to take it out on her turn with some more Guiding Bolt, and Smiler got some nice brain matter off it (again for alchemy purposes). AND Smiler was able to recover all their lost hit points with a short rest right afterward. w000!
C) Yet more looting, this time on the Nautiloid and another bit of the ravaged beach just beyond it – Smiler got a bunch of potions and various bulbs off the dead mind flayers, along with some “arsonist’s oil” in a creepy chest (makes any creature resistant to fire damage WEAK to fire damage for a bit, useful – even if Smiler themselves isn’t going to be using fire spells (that’s Wickerman’s purview)), plus another set of thieves’ tools (useful if the first set breaks on a bad roll) on the beach nearby. They also picked their first lock on a locked crate, which yielded some gold and an old leather helmet, nice. :) Lots of stuff to grab in this game!
D) Finding and recruiting Astarion! Discovered him while checking out various paths through the Nautiloid wreckage, standing on the path to the left and claiming he had another intellect devourer cornered (it was actually a scared wild boar). Smiler took the bait and investigated, and ended up with a knife to their throat for their troubles – fortunately, a bit of tadpole mind-tangling helped convince Astarion that they were telling the truth when they said they were another victim. Astarion agreed to join up in hopes of finding someone who could control and/or remove the tadpole, and immediately got to level up to a Level 2 rogue. Again, haven’t done anything special with him when it comes to multiclassing or whatnot yet – might do a little research and see what people recommend.
E) Finding the dying mind flayer on the ship that can nom your brain if you make stupid choices or fail certain checks – Smiler managed to fight off both the initial mental attack forcing them to feel compassion for their jailer and the subsequent attempt to force them to submit to being eaten (with a little help from Shadowheart and her “Guidance” cantrip) and stomped on its head to put it out of its misery. No sense in letting it die slowly – or letting it get its mental hooks into someone else!
F) Finding and recruiting Gale! Discovered him stuck in an unstable magical sigil (actually a waypoint enabling fast travel in the game – as it turned out, Gale’s method of surviving the fall from the crashing ship was to, basically, glitch himself out of the map XD) just past some dead goblins on the path near the Nautiloid – couldn’t resist having Smiler playfully slap his hand when he asked for one. XD They did use their bard training to help calm the sigil’s magic (again, with help from Shadowheart for the check) and get him out afterward, though, and Gale happily joined up with the party to try and find a healer or cleric capable of stopping their little wormy problem before it got worse. He too got to immediately level up to Level 2 Wizard (he’s of the Evoker subclass apparently) – I picked up “Magic Missile” and “Ice Knife” for his new spells and immediately had him prepare the former, as it’s apparently a REALLY good combat spell, so you want to have that handy for trouble.
G) Visiting camp for the first time! I wanted to save actually visiting the campsite until it felt logical to do so, and having three companions felt like a good point to go and set up the tents and suchlike. However, my goal in visiting camp wasn’t to end the day with a nice long rest or anything like that – it was to get into the Traveler’s Chest there and get my Digital Deluxe goodies! Including things like a Peculiar Clothing Chest with free clothing themed after one of Larian’s other games, a Bewildering Adventurer’s Pack stuffed with all sorts of good food, a Mask of the Shapeshifter that lets you cast the spell “Disguise Self,” five rare dyes, and – most importantly for Smiler – the Lute Of The Merryweather Bard! A lovely fancy lute that I immediately had Smiler equip so they had the RIGHT instrument on their back. :D I also tried out some of the dye on Smiler’s jerkin – unfortunately, I wasn’t very happy with the resultant color combination. Fortunately, they’d picked up another set of light armor that, when dyed, gave me a look I was happier with (yellow pants and a black chest piece – red arms, but I can’t do much about that right now), and I ended up pairing that with the fancy cape that came with the pack (dyed so it had a yellow inner lining). Tried out a few hats, decided I didn’t like any of them, then spent a bunch of time doing inventory management (putting clothes in the Peculiar Chest, tools and other supplies in the Bewildering Pack, stuff I really did not need like the brains from the Nautiloid in the Traveler’s chest, etc, etc). And also gave the fancy dagger that came with the Digital Deluxe stuff to Astarion, as he’s a rogue who would like that sort of thing. :)
And that is where I left it! Next time I play, I’ll probably go through all my companion’s inventories too and get those sorted (and equip Astarion’s new dagger), and maybe have Smiler chat with everyone. MAY take a long rest, but we’ll see. Looking forward to it, though!
Writing: Unfortunately, this fell by the wayside, what with me having to do the write-up above for BG3 AND babysit my SS2 video (again, see below – damn buffering issues). I did, at the VERY least, set up a new category for “Ghosts & Other Supernatural Entities” in my VITD worldbuilding document and start copying down ghost types from the Blades In The Dark book, starting with Echoes (those ghosts that are just on a constant loop, doing one thing over and over). It’s not much, but it’s SOMETHING.
YouTube: Well – I got in my usual Sunday two plus my missing video from yesterday, DESPITE a bit of fighting with the old buffering this evening! I am very pleased by that, yay~
A) First up, catching up on my GrayStillPlays pre-workout –
I. “I went to the edge of the map but chaos happens every minute” – the GTA V Alex Chaos Torture video I wasn’t able to watch yesterday because of Fucking Buffering, this one featured Gray having to cross the map yet again while being tormented by Alex’s custom Chaos Mod! With the twist here being he had to go up the EDGE of the map from south to north, always staying to the left of the border-marking poppers and not straying too far into the water. As you can imagine, a lot of beach-goers were tormented. Along with everyone taking the road that runs along the edge of the island that Los Santos is situated on. And of course Gray himself. XD He struggled valiantly up the side of the map, dealing with things like Low Gravity (not a great thing to have when you’re trying to stay inside a mostly invisible boundary lest you get set on fire), Mannequin (losing his head – literally), Double The Gray (spawning a violent clone of himself), The Doors Betray You (all the doors fall off nearby vehicles – not really a hindrance, as it makes it easier to steal one, he found), YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET (getting shot straight up into the air – Gray took the opportunity to try and skydive a good chunk of the way along the road, only to get murdered by something else shortly after landing), Turtle Time (the map flipping upside-down – Gray HATES this one, as it makes it really hard to figure out how he should go), Who Drank All The Water (emptying the oceans for a time – though this one actually made it easier to get from island to island near the end, so Gray suspected it might be scripted) and New Jersey Drip (changing his clothes to a goofy yellow backwards hat, a monster mask, a bad T-shirt, and camo shorts – Gray confirmed the hat and the shorts were certified New Jersey). And the checkpoints almost always being put in really weird places that were hard to reach. And pretty much everyone trying to murder him at all times, even when the mod wasn’t specifically directing them to, just because Gray kept running into and over people due to his inability to go on the right side of the road. XD But he DID eventually make it to his end point, where he was greeted with congratulatory text and the win circle, yaaay! :) Now we just have to make him go along the OTHER edge of the map. . .
II. “I forced AI to commit horrible crimes” – today’s upload, featuring Gray playing Suck Up! This is apparently an indie game in Early Access about being a vampire who is trying to break into various houses around the neighborhood to drink the inhabitants. The thing is, he can’t directly break in – like any good Nosferatu, he must be invited in. And in order to be invited in, he has to gain the resident’s trust. So he has to put on various items he finds around the neighborhood (clothes, hats, masks) to make a disguise and convince the people that he’s a trustworthy person. However, this isn’t a game where you have pre-written dialogue choices. . .no, this is a game where you speak into the microphone, the game transcribes your words, and the NPCs actually react to what you have to say in a (semi-)logical manner.
As you might imagine, Gray started out by telling the kindly old grandma at the first house on the block that he was looking for people to skin, and she freaked out and shut the door in his face. XD He then proceeded to wander around being as weird and mildly psychopathy as possible in an attempt to get people to let him inside. And once he found good old “Sony Toprano” and started offering him money to put a hit on old “Grandma Maude” that wouldn’t let him in (no matter if he pretended to be an alligator inspector (she mentioned wrestling one in her dialogue, and Gray was immediately like “FLORIDIAN YES”), her grandson who just got out of jail for not returning library books (and also skinning people), or her other grandson trying to collect blood for transfusions (and also to take over the world)), he succeeded! XD From there it was just a matter of figuring out how best to trick people into letting him in while still being as weird and creepy as possible – claim to Charles A. Boomer that he was really popular on “Golfbook?” Yup, only too happy to let him in to discuss his swing. Tell this one party dude that if he supported his ambition to take over the world, he’d bring everyone over for a rocking (but not destructive) party? Yes, let’s discuss details, bro! Inform Dr. Vicki that he was part of a giant Early Access experiment involving the people on this block? She’s all for meta humor and science weirdness, come on in and suck her blood! XD It’s one of those games with a very cute and cartoony art style that can contrast wildly with the actual dialogue (though according to a note in Grandma Maude’s initial chatter, things only get dark if the player initiates the dark humor times – fortunately Gray was VERY happy to do so), and Gray clearly had a lot of fun tormenting the NPCs by saying he was delivering human meat and had a bomb strapped to him. XD Surprised he managed to calm himself down to get into any houses at all!
B) Then, this evening, we had Jon and “Fallout 4: Sim Settlements 2 - Part 20 - On The Scrap Heap!” Featuring Mayor Bob doing Main SS2 Plot Stuff at Jake’s behest and picking up a few more side missions along the way –
I. After starting with a little review of the City Leader mechanic that Bob unlocked last week by helping Hubert and his gang set up at the Red Rocket by Sanctuary (and Jon assuring the commenters that he IS aware of the SS2 Triangle of Death in that area of the map and thus he will NOT be building up Abernathy to any major degree to avoid Game Death), Bob started down toward Concord to check in with Jake and his adventures with the Comm Hub – only to find the formerly-abandoned house near the edge of the Concord city limits now had a resident! Said resident was Alyssa Stevens, an up-and-coming reporter in the Commonwealth hoping to set up her own newspaper. Seems like our beloved Piper is going to have competition! O.o However, Alyssa had a problem – while she had big plans and some money her dad left her, she didn’t have a printing press. Fortunately for her, she already knew Bob was in the business of solving problems, and offered him a cash reward if he found her the schematics for a NUCLEAR-POWERED PRINTING PRESS somewhere in the old Boston Bugle building north of Goodneighbor. Bob said yes, figuring he’d be in the area at some point to pick those up for her, and her side quest got added onto the pile sitting in Bob’s Pip-Boy. XD We’ll see if and when THAT ever comes to fruition!
II. With that sorted, it was over to Jake at his workshop – Bob told him that everything was all set with Hubert’s group, and Jake showed him that he had the CommHub ALMOST up and running. However, before they could get full use out of it (using it for intersettlement communications and helping with efficiently dividing up labor and all that), they needed to finish repairing it. The problem was, it needed some very specialized parts, that were going to be found inside other tech out in the Commonwealth. Fortunately, Jake had the solution – a list of locations with the parts he needed; an updated Protectron bot (now named M.A.L.A.) that could strip the parts out of whatever tech they were currently in and bring them back to be installed; help from the local settlers in gathering the salvage – and, of course, his partner Bob to go and make sure those locations were clear of enemies before dropping down a special ASAM sensor and setting up a locator beacon for M.A.L.A. to hone in on. Bob was up for the task, so Jake uploaded the list of potential locations to his Pip-Boy – locations ranging from that ship of ghoul raiders all the way out by the Warwick homestead on the coast, to deep in the Glowing Sea, to a mystery spot not far from Egret Tours Marina. Luckily for Bob, the list ALSO included a few places that he’d already cleared out – and Jon zeroed in on one, the Revere Satellite Array, as an excellent starting point because that would ALSO put him near the Prydwen to refresh his vertibird signal grenade supply; Nordhagen Beach to fix their kidnapping problem; and Fort Strong so he could get those hybrid reactor notes for Archon at the Marina!
III. And so it was over to Revere Satellite Array via vertibird to set up the first sensor and beacon! Which involved going to a particular location (in this case, one of the sheds at the edge of the array), dropping the sensor, letting it scan for viable junk, and then watching it turn into a beacon to call M.A.L.A. in. XD It also involved helping his vertibird taxi take out a nearby hostile robot with his sniper, which got him a level-up to level 37 – and as Jon was chasing those sweet sweet Penetrator perks, Bob’s level up took him all the way up to Perception NINE. This feels weird, given that Jon’s whole deal during these videos is that he’s horrible at actually spotting stuff out in the world and picking up on things that might be important later on. XD
IV. Anyway – with the first locator beacon all set up, Bob then hiked over to the Boston Airport to go visit the Prydwen, buying both a bunch more vertibird grenades AND an almost-fully-upgraded overcharged laser sniper rifle from Teagan (all he needed to do was slap the fine-tuned beam focuser from his current, crappier rifle on it and he was set), before sleeping the night away. He woke up with a quest telling him to go visit “Detective” Caleb over in Concord to see about tracking down another member of Bombface’s gang, but left that for the moment to head back down to ground level and then swim over to Nordhagen, since that was the fastest way to actually get to the settlement. He met the husband by his little shack, who told him about how his wife had been kidnapped by raiders, who were demanding a 200-cap ransom –
And Bob decided to take the path of least resistance and just give him the caps to pay the raiders off the next time they came around. XD Settlement claimed WITHOUT having to spend any time hunting down raiders! Better yet, there were ALMOST enough raw materials in the settlement to build a city planner desk so Bob could set them up with a proper local leader – he just needed a bit more circuitry. Which was easily found down the road at Fort Strong – along with Archon’s hybrid reactor notes, yay! Bob came back with his spoils and built the desk and checked out the potential leaders –
And was slightly dismayed to learn that only Hubert and Sneake were available (he needs to recruit some more special characters, it seems! Or a few more companions, as apparently they can lead settlements too). His initial thought was to put good old trusting Hubert in charge of the place, but – after having to run back to the Prydwen to buy enough ASAMs for the settlers to actually set themselves up with everything they needed (he has unfortunately misplaced his boxes of ASAMs somewhere) – he decided the best defense against untrustworthy raiders was another untrustworthy raider and put Sneake in charge. XD Sneake promptly set up some waterfront property, which Bob was very pleased by – he does love a house overlooking the beach or a good entertainment pier, after all!
V. With that all done, Bob hitched a ride back to Concord and reported in with Jake, picking up his second sensor/beacon combo before going over to Caleb’s to chat with him. Caleb told him that he’d tracked down their next target – a guy who went by the name of Knifepoint, who might have some more information on him regarding Bombface. Bob agreed to take out Knifepoint, and was rather delighted to see that said guy was right between Jamaica Plain and the South Boston Military checkpoint – the latter being another viable salvage location for Jake’s beacons! So he took a vertibird over to Jamaica Plain and climbed up onto the nearby chunk of elevated highway (as these guys are apparently always on chunks of elevated highways), using his new laser sniper to take Knifepoint out before he was even detected. Searching the corpse got him a holotape, with a couple of messages from Bombface – one specifically to Knifepoint saying that his recent activities in the Commonwealth had been too visible, and that if he didn’t cut it out, he’d seen “Grizzly” after him; and one about how a mysterious “HE” was getting suspicious of their group’s activity, putting their “business plan” in jeopardy, and how with Caleb and the CPD sniffing around, they had to make sure that “HE” thought they were still “his.” So it seems that there is someone ABOVE Bombface in the current hierarchy, someone Bombface is eager not to piss off. . .hmmm, seems like things are going to get rather more interesting in this quest soon. . .
VI. Anyway – with Knifepoint taken care of, Bob took care of a raider attack on Jamaica Plain (nasty raiders too, with power armor and everything), and – seeing he accidentally left the recruitment beacon on and attracted some new settlers to a settlement that was literally just supposed to be a caravan stop – made sure to set up some defense and a couple of new home plots before he continued on his way. He set up the second beacon at the South Boston Military Checkpoint with no problems, then flew back to Concord to get the third and final beacon from Jake and give the holotape to Caleb so he could figure out their next target (dragging a dead raider out of the guy’s house in the process, as that’s just unhygienic). With all that sorted, he then headed down to his beloved Egret Tours Marina to give the hybrid reactor notes to Archon (unlocking a better power plant plot in the process), then prepared to head over to the third and final salvage location – the mystery spot just over the nearby bridge! What was it?
The Electrical Hobbyist’s Club! A location Jon pretty much never comes to because it’s not on any of his usual travel routes AND because it is absolutely cocking full of rads and various traps! Plus an Assaultron in the basement! Fortunately Bob had enough Rad-X to get him through the rads if he hurried, and the Assaultron was not on when he entered the cellar (possibly because he never triggered any of the traps), so he was able to kill it quick and drop the sensor in the indicated spot so M.A.L.A. could clear the place out. This got him the Mark I scrap beacons that he could set up at cleared locations so his local caravaners would come around and search it for salvage, AND new communication plots that could replace the standard recruitment beacon and attract better settlers to his settlements! Pleased, Bob got himself out of the rads (and then ran across a whole bunch of rad barrels because, no matter how good Bob’s own Perception is, Jon’s is -1 XD), took a moment to kill some synths on the bridge back to the Marina (with one of them being a Legendary with an Unyielding Combat Armor Right Leg – that armor gives you +3 to all stats when you’re at 25% or less health, so Bob is KEEPING that, thanks), then headed back on to Concord –
VII. Where he found Aiden the Gunner hunter inside Jake’s ransacked workshop, and no sign of Jake. O.O Turns out Aiden showed up recently to ask the pair a few questions about their recent activities, only to find the workshop busted up and Concord a ghost town (presumably because the residents are out getting salvage, though Jon was quick to point out that Concord is in fact a bustling town with a clothing shop, a priest, and a local murderer in Caleb). He encouraged Bob to search for clues, and after some poking around, Bob found a holotape Jake was in the middle of recording when he was captured. The holotape indicated that Jake had been captured by what sounded like Gunners (though he did successfully kill one of them) – who had an engineer with them who was in charge of moving the tech in his workshop. An engineer with a feminine voice that the commander only allowed in once they had Jake’s head covered in a bag. Jon’s immediate thought was that it was Jake’s wife, but me and most of the other commenters are pretty sure it’s actually his daughter, backed up by the fact that the Engineer was called “kid” by the others and it WOULD be thematically appropriate, given the whole thing with Shaun and the Institute. Yeesh.
But yes – episode ended with Jake in enemy hands, and Bob needing to talk to Aiden about what he’d found so his partner could be rescued before anything horrible happened to him! Seems like we’re in for an exciting episode next Sunday as we start Act II in the SS2 plot arc! Can’t wait!
Workout: Back on the bike this evening, watching the beginning of the latest GrayStillPlays compilation video I had to catch up on – “Testing 100 Cars in GTA 5!” Another compilation of Alex Torture Boards for our pleasure. :D Though, as usual, the video started with some new content – namely, Gray having to find out which of three motorcycles could keep up with a moving tightrope as it sped past windmills and under various obstacles Gray had to pop over (starting with small flat platforms and moving onto giant ramps forcing Gray to jump over sections). The pink scooter had NO chance, poor thing, and while the middle bike had some good handling, it just didn’t have the speed, so Gray had to take the blue “anime” bike (and its tendency to fly off to the side) to the checkpoint and thus the win. :p After that, the compilation started in earnest, and I pedaled my way through the “cars versus waterslides” episode (where Gray had to find the car that could ramp, climb, descend, push boats along, and wallride waterslides the best – and also the one where a cougar stole his car at one point) before stopping right before the “thick and thin cars” episode (the one with the modded cars that are either super-thin or super-wide). I think this compilation will be perfect for a few Sundays while I’m working my way through “Oxventure: Deadlands” – nice and easy to sum up before I watch my Jon of Many A True Nerd video! :)
Whew -- yeah, wish I could have done more with my writing at least, but the need to catch up on yesterday's GrayStillPlays and the usual problem of having to watch and sum up the SS2 video late (compounded by having to work around the YouTube buffering issues near the beginning) meant that there was just no time. And, frankly, I really need to head off to bed now, as I do have work in the morning. Fingers crossed it's not a horrible Monday -- night all!
Tumblr: MUCH more productive day over here, yay –
Victor Luvs Alice – I finished off image alt text and tags on all five of my Chill Valicer Save update posts for the week before lunch! :D Mostly because I forewent getting completely caught up on my dash to do so, but having all this ready for midweek WAS more important to me anyway. :) Very glad to have that all set and ready to go for Wednesday – probably gonna do Corpse Bride and Alice: Madness Returns fanart reblogs for Thursday and Friday, and we’ll figure out Song Saturday a little later. *nods*
Valice Multiverse – Nothing happening over here again – and with me having to babysit the “Sim Settlements 2” video of the weekend (see below) a bit to avoid buffering problems, I didn’t have time to chuck anything in the queue. *shrug* What can you do? (Other than wait for someone to send you an ask, of course. . .)
Baldur’s Gate III: Yes, I did indeed go for the double BG3 weekend – what, it’s my newest game, I paid good money to play it (well, my PARENTS did by giving me the Steam gift cards I needed), and after all the hotfix nonsense/anxiety, this is the first chance I’ve gotten TO properly play it since I bought it and started my modded run. We’ll move onto properly cycling through all my games NEXT weekend. :p But today I updated my “Secret Scrolls” mod (again – apparently one of the scrolls recently added was acting wonky), made sure everything was sorted, and got through:
A) More looting on the ravaged beach – Smiler picked up a LOT of fish, some mergrass and belladonna for later alchemy purposes (important, since they ARE going to be an Alchemist-focused Artificer), and some thieves’ tools and a drum from a barrel. Also found a book called “Shanties For The Bitch Queen” on the dock, which seem to revolve around asking the “Wavemother” to keep the seas calm – and if not, the chanters’ skulls are hers. O.o I – know there’s an evil water diety that becomes semi-important later in the game, so wonder if this a reference to her. . .
B) A fight against some weakened intellect devourers (the ones who AREN’T nice like Us) in the wreck of the Nautiloid – I was a little worried about fighting these guys, as apparently they can be real nasty (at least according to some bitching I’ve seen from people on Reddit), but Smiler got a critical hit on the first one with their crossbow, and Shadowheart immediately killed the second with her Guiding Bolt and its radiant damage. The third, which was hiding near the back, proved to be a bit trickier and managed to get in a hit on Smiler after they gave it “gaping wounds” with their rapier (didn’t realize that Smiler would trigger an attack of opportunity as they tried to get away), but Shadowheart was able to take it out on her turn with some more Guiding Bolt, and Smiler got some nice brain matter off it (again for alchemy purposes). AND Smiler was able to recover all their lost hit points with a short rest right afterward. w000!
C) Yet more looting, this time on the Nautiloid and another bit of the ravaged beach just beyond it – Smiler got a bunch of potions and various bulbs off the dead mind flayers, along with some “arsonist’s oil” in a creepy chest (makes any creature resistant to fire damage WEAK to fire damage for a bit, useful – even if Smiler themselves isn’t going to be using fire spells (that’s Wickerman’s purview)), plus another set of thieves’ tools (useful if the first set breaks on a bad roll) on the beach nearby. They also picked their first lock on a locked crate, which yielded some gold and an old leather helmet, nice. :) Lots of stuff to grab in this game!
D) Finding and recruiting Astarion! Discovered him while checking out various paths through the Nautiloid wreckage, standing on the path to the left and claiming he had another intellect devourer cornered (it was actually a scared wild boar). Smiler took the bait and investigated, and ended up with a knife to their throat for their troubles – fortunately, a bit of tadpole mind-tangling helped convince Astarion that they were telling the truth when they said they were another victim. Astarion agreed to join up in hopes of finding someone who could control and/or remove the tadpole, and immediately got to level up to a Level 2 rogue. Again, haven’t done anything special with him when it comes to multiclassing or whatnot yet – might do a little research and see what people recommend.
E) Finding the dying mind flayer on the ship that can nom your brain if you make stupid choices or fail certain checks – Smiler managed to fight off both the initial mental attack forcing them to feel compassion for their jailer and the subsequent attempt to force them to submit to being eaten (with a little help from Shadowheart and her “Guidance” cantrip) and stomped on its head to put it out of its misery. No sense in letting it die slowly – or letting it get its mental hooks into someone else!
F) Finding and recruiting Gale! Discovered him stuck in an unstable magical sigil (actually a waypoint enabling fast travel in the game – as it turned out, Gale’s method of surviving the fall from the crashing ship was to, basically, glitch himself out of the map XD) just past some dead goblins on the path near the Nautiloid – couldn’t resist having Smiler playfully slap his hand when he asked for one. XD They did use their bard training to help calm the sigil’s magic (again, with help from Shadowheart for the check) and get him out afterward, though, and Gale happily joined up with the party to try and find a healer or cleric capable of stopping their little wormy problem before it got worse. He too got to immediately level up to Level 2 Wizard (he’s of the Evoker subclass apparently) – I picked up “Magic Missile” and “Ice Knife” for his new spells and immediately had him prepare the former, as it’s apparently a REALLY good combat spell, so you want to have that handy for trouble.
G) Visiting camp for the first time! I wanted to save actually visiting the campsite until it felt logical to do so, and having three companions felt like a good point to go and set up the tents and suchlike. However, my goal in visiting camp wasn’t to end the day with a nice long rest or anything like that – it was to get into the Traveler’s Chest there and get my Digital Deluxe goodies! Including things like a Peculiar Clothing Chest with free clothing themed after one of Larian’s other games, a Bewildering Adventurer’s Pack stuffed with all sorts of good food, a Mask of the Shapeshifter that lets you cast the spell “Disguise Self,” five rare dyes, and – most importantly for Smiler – the Lute Of The Merryweather Bard! A lovely fancy lute that I immediately had Smiler equip so they had the RIGHT instrument on their back. :D I also tried out some of the dye on Smiler’s jerkin – unfortunately, I wasn’t very happy with the resultant color combination. Fortunately, they’d picked up another set of light armor that, when dyed, gave me a look I was happier with (yellow pants and a black chest piece – red arms, but I can’t do much about that right now), and I ended up pairing that with the fancy cape that came with the pack (dyed so it had a yellow inner lining). Tried out a few hats, decided I didn’t like any of them, then spent a bunch of time doing inventory management (putting clothes in the Peculiar Chest, tools and other supplies in the Bewildering Pack, stuff I really did not need like the brains from the Nautiloid in the Traveler’s chest, etc, etc). And also gave the fancy dagger that came with the Digital Deluxe stuff to Astarion, as he’s a rogue who would like that sort of thing. :)
And that is where I left it! Next time I play, I’ll probably go through all my companion’s inventories too and get those sorted (and equip Astarion’s new dagger), and maybe have Smiler chat with everyone. MAY take a long rest, but we’ll see. Looking forward to it, though!
Writing: Unfortunately, this fell by the wayside, what with me having to do the write-up above for BG3 AND babysit my SS2 video (again, see below – damn buffering issues). I did, at the VERY least, set up a new category for “Ghosts & Other Supernatural Entities” in my VITD worldbuilding document and start copying down ghost types from the Blades In The Dark book, starting with Echoes (those ghosts that are just on a constant loop, doing one thing over and over). It’s not much, but it’s SOMETHING.
YouTube: Well – I got in my usual Sunday two plus my missing video from yesterday, DESPITE a bit of fighting with the old buffering this evening! I am very pleased by that, yay~
A) First up, catching up on my GrayStillPlays pre-workout –
I. “I went to the edge of the map but chaos happens every minute” – the GTA V Alex Chaos Torture video I wasn’t able to watch yesterday because of Fucking Buffering, this one featured Gray having to cross the map yet again while being tormented by Alex’s custom Chaos Mod! With the twist here being he had to go up the EDGE of the map from south to north, always staying to the left of the border-marking poppers and not straying too far into the water. As you can imagine, a lot of beach-goers were tormented. Along with everyone taking the road that runs along the edge of the island that Los Santos is situated on. And of course Gray himself. XD He struggled valiantly up the side of the map, dealing with things like Low Gravity (not a great thing to have when you’re trying to stay inside a mostly invisible boundary lest you get set on fire), Mannequin (losing his head – literally), Double The Gray (spawning a violent clone of himself), The Doors Betray You (all the doors fall off nearby vehicles – not really a hindrance, as it makes it easier to steal one, he found), YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET (getting shot straight up into the air – Gray took the opportunity to try and skydive a good chunk of the way along the road, only to get murdered by something else shortly after landing), Turtle Time (the map flipping upside-down – Gray HATES this one, as it makes it really hard to figure out how he should go), Who Drank All The Water (emptying the oceans for a time – though this one actually made it easier to get from island to island near the end, so Gray suspected it might be scripted) and New Jersey Drip (changing his clothes to a goofy yellow backwards hat, a monster mask, a bad T-shirt, and camo shorts – Gray confirmed the hat and the shorts were certified New Jersey). And the checkpoints almost always being put in really weird places that were hard to reach. And pretty much everyone trying to murder him at all times, even when the mod wasn’t specifically directing them to, just because Gray kept running into and over people due to his inability to go on the right side of the road. XD But he DID eventually make it to his end point, where he was greeted with congratulatory text and the win circle, yaaay! :) Now we just have to make him go along the OTHER edge of the map. . .
II. “I forced AI to commit horrible crimes” – today’s upload, featuring Gray playing Suck Up! This is apparently an indie game in Early Access about being a vampire who is trying to break into various houses around the neighborhood to drink the inhabitants. The thing is, he can’t directly break in – like any good Nosferatu, he must be invited in. And in order to be invited in, he has to gain the resident’s trust. So he has to put on various items he finds around the neighborhood (clothes, hats, masks) to make a disguise and convince the people that he’s a trustworthy person. However, this isn’t a game where you have pre-written dialogue choices. . .no, this is a game where you speak into the microphone, the game transcribes your words, and the NPCs actually react to what you have to say in a (semi-)logical manner.
As you might imagine, Gray started out by telling the kindly old grandma at the first house on the block that he was looking for people to skin, and she freaked out and shut the door in his face. XD He then proceeded to wander around being as weird and mildly psychopathy as possible in an attempt to get people to let him inside. And once he found good old “Sony Toprano” and started offering him money to put a hit on old “Grandma Maude” that wouldn’t let him in (no matter if he pretended to be an alligator inspector (she mentioned wrestling one in her dialogue, and Gray was immediately like “FLORIDIAN YES”), her grandson who just got out of jail for not returning library books (and also skinning people), or her other grandson trying to collect blood for transfusions (and also to take over the world)), he succeeded! XD From there it was just a matter of figuring out how best to trick people into letting him in while still being as weird and creepy as possible – claim to Charles A. Boomer that he was really popular on “Golfbook?” Yup, only too happy to let him in to discuss his swing. Tell this one party dude that if he supported his ambition to take over the world, he’d bring everyone over for a rocking (but not destructive) party? Yes, let’s discuss details, bro! Inform Dr. Vicki that he was part of a giant Early Access experiment involving the people on this block? She’s all for meta humor and science weirdness, come on in and suck her blood! XD It’s one of those games with a very cute and cartoony art style that can contrast wildly with the actual dialogue (though according to a note in Grandma Maude’s initial chatter, things only get dark if the player initiates the dark humor times – fortunately Gray was VERY happy to do so), and Gray clearly had a lot of fun tormenting the NPCs by saying he was delivering human meat and had a bomb strapped to him. XD Surprised he managed to calm himself down to get into any houses at all!
B) Then, this evening, we had Jon and “Fallout 4: Sim Settlements 2 - Part 20 - On The Scrap Heap!” Featuring Mayor Bob doing Main SS2 Plot Stuff at Jake’s behest and picking up a few more side missions along the way –
I. After starting with a little review of the City Leader mechanic that Bob unlocked last week by helping Hubert and his gang set up at the Red Rocket by Sanctuary (and Jon assuring the commenters that he IS aware of the SS2 Triangle of Death in that area of the map and thus he will NOT be building up Abernathy to any major degree to avoid Game Death), Bob started down toward Concord to check in with Jake and his adventures with the Comm Hub – only to find the formerly-abandoned house near the edge of the Concord city limits now had a resident! Said resident was Alyssa Stevens, an up-and-coming reporter in the Commonwealth hoping to set up her own newspaper. Seems like our beloved Piper is going to have competition! O.o However, Alyssa had a problem – while she had big plans and some money her dad left her, she didn’t have a printing press. Fortunately for her, she already knew Bob was in the business of solving problems, and offered him a cash reward if he found her the schematics for a NUCLEAR-POWERED PRINTING PRESS somewhere in the old Boston Bugle building north of Goodneighbor. Bob said yes, figuring he’d be in the area at some point to pick those up for her, and her side quest got added onto the pile sitting in Bob’s Pip-Boy. XD We’ll see if and when THAT ever comes to fruition!
II. With that sorted, it was over to Jake at his workshop – Bob told him that everything was all set with Hubert’s group, and Jake showed him that he had the CommHub ALMOST up and running. However, before they could get full use out of it (using it for intersettlement communications and helping with efficiently dividing up labor and all that), they needed to finish repairing it. The problem was, it needed some very specialized parts, that were going to be found inside other tech out in the Commonwealth. Fortunately, Jake had the solution – a list of locations with the parts he needed; an updated Protectron bot (now named M.A.L.A.) that could strip the parts out of whatever tech they were currently in and bring them back to be installed; help from the local settlers in gathering the salvage – and, of course, his partner Bob to go and make sure those locations were clear of enemies before dropping down a special ASAM sensor and setting up a locator beacon for M.A.L.A. to hone in on. Bob was up for the task, so Jake uploaded the list of potential locations to his Pip-Boy – locations ranging from that ship of ghoul raiders all the way out by the Warwick homestead on the coast, to deep in the Glowing Sea, to a mystery spot not far from Egret Tours Marina. Luckily for Bob, the list ALSO included a few places that he’d already cleared out – and Jon zeroed in on one, the Revere Satellite Array, as an excellent starting point because that would ALSO put him near the Prydwen to refresh his vertibird signal grenade supply; Nordhagen Beach to fix their kidnapping problem; and Fort Strong so he could get those hybrid reactor notes for Archon at the Marina!
III. And so it was over to Revere Satellite Array via vertibird to set up the first sensor and beacon! Which involved going to a particular location (in this case, one of the sheds at the edge of the array), dropping the sensor, letting it scan for viable junk, and then watching it turn into a beacon to call M.A.L.A. in. XD It also involved helping his vertibird taxi take out a nearby hostile robot with his sniper, which got him a level-up to level 37 – and as Jon was chasing those sweet sweet Penetrator perks, Bob’s level up took him all the way up to Perception NINE. This feels weird, given that Jon’s whole deal during these videos is that he’s horrible at actually spotting stuff out in the world and picking up on things that might be important later on. XD
IV. Anyway – with the first locator beacon all set up, Bob then hiked over to the Boston Airport to go visit the Prydwen, buying both a bunch more vertibird grenades AND an almost-fully-upgraded overcharged laser sniper rifle from Teagan (all he needed to do was slap the fine-tuned beam focuser from his current, crappier rifle on it and he was set), before sleeping the night away. He woke up with a quest telling him to go visit “Detective” Caleb over in Concord to see about tracking down another member of Bombface’s gang, but left that for the moment to head back down to ground level and then swim over to Nordhagen, since that was the fastest way to actually get to the settlement. He met the husband by his little shack, who told him about how his wife had been kidnapped by raiders, who were demanding a 200-cap ransom –
And Bob decided to take the path of least resistance and just give him the caps to pay the raiders off the next time they came around. XD Settlement claimed WITHOUT having to spend any time hunting down raiders! Better yet, there were ALMOST enough raw materials in the settlement to build a city planner desk so Bob could set them up with a proper local leader – he just needed a bit more circuitry. Which was easily found down the road at Fort Strong – along with Archon’s hybrid reactor notes, yay! Bob came back with his spoils and built the desk and checked out the potential leaders –
And was slightly dismayed to learn that only Hubert and Sneake were available (he needs to recruit some more special characters, it seems! Or a few more companions, as apparently they can lead settlements too). His initial thought was to put good old trusting Hubert in charge of the place, but – after having to run back to the Prydwen to buy enough ASAMs for the settlers to actually set themselves up with everything they needed (he has unfortunately misplaced his boxes of ASAMs somewhere) – he decided the best defense against untrustworthy raiders was another untrustworthy raider and put Sneake in charge. XD Sneake promptly set up some waterfront property, which Bob was very pleased by – he does love a house overlooking the beach or a good entertainment pier, after all!
V. With that all done, Bob hitched a ride back to Concord and reported in with Jake, picking up his second sensor/beacon combo before going over to Caleb’s to chat with him. Caleb told him that he’d tracked down their next target – a guy who went by the name of Knifepoint, who might have some more information on him regarding Bombface. Bob agreed to take out Knifepoint, and was rather delighted to see that said guy was right between Jamaica Plain and the South Boston Military checkpoint – the latter being another viable salvage location for Jake’s beacons! So he took a vertibird over to Jamaica Plain and climbed up onto the nearby chunk of elevated highway (as these guys are apparently always on chunks of elevated highways), using his new laser sniper to take Knifepoint out before he was even detected. Searching the corpse got him a holotape, with a couple of messages from Bombface – one specifically to Knifepoint saying that his recent activities in the Commonwealth had been too visible, and that if he didn’t cut it out, he’d seen “Grizzly” after him; and one about how a mysterious “HE” was getting suspicious of their group’s activity, putting their “business plan” in jeopardy, and how with Caleb and the CPD sniffing around, they had to make sure that “HE” thought they were still “his.” So it seems that there is someone ABOVE Bombface in the current hierarchy, someone Bombface is eager not to piss off. . .hmmm, seems like things are going to get rather more interesting in this quest soon. . .
VI. Anyway – with Knifepoint taken care of, Bob took care of a raider attack on Jamaica Plain (nasty raiders too, with power armor and everything), and – seeing he accidentally left the recruitment beacon on and attracted some new settlers to a settlement that was literally just supposed to be a caravan stop – made sure to set up some defense and a couple of new home plots before he continued on his way. He set up the second beacon at the South Boston Military Checkpoint with no problems, then flew back to Concord to get the third and final beacon from Jake and give the holotape to Caleb so he could figure out their next target (dragging a dead raider out of the guy’s house in the process, as that’s just unhygienic). With all that sorted, he then headed down to his beloved Egret Tours Marina to give the hybrid reactor notes to Archon (unlocking a better power plant plot in the process), then prepared to head over to the third and final salvage location – the mystery spot just over the nearby bridge! What was it?
The Electrical Hobbyist’s Club! A location Jon pretty much never comes to because it’s not on any of his usual travel routes AND because it is absolutely cocking full of rads and various traps! Plus an Assaultron in the basement! Fortunately Bob had enough Rad-X to get him through the rads if he hurried, and the Assaultron was not on when he entered the cellar (possibly because he never triggered any of the traps), so he was able to kill it quick and drop the sensor in the indicated spot so M.A.L.A. could clear the place out. This got him the Mark I scrap beacons that he could set up at cleared locations so his local caravaners would come around and search it for salvage, AND new communication plots that could replace the standard recruitment beacon and attract better settlers to his settlements! Pleased, Bob got himself out of the rads (and then ran across a whole bunch of rad barrels because, no matter how good Bob’s own Perception is, Jon’s is -1 XD), took a moment to kill some synths on the bridge back to the Marina (with one of them being a Legendary with an Unyielding Combat Armor Right Leg – that armor gives you +3 to all stats when you’re at 25% or less health, so Bob is KEEPING that, thanks), then headed back on to Concord –
VII. Where he found Aiden the Gunner hunter inside Jake’s ransacked workshop, and no sign of Jake. O.O Turns out Aiden showed up recently to ask the pair a few questions about their recent activities, only to find the workshop busted up and Concord a ghost town (presumably because the residents are out getting salvage, though Jon was quick to point out that Concord is in fact a bustling town with a clothing shop, a priest, and a local murderer in Caleb). He encouraged Bob to search for clues, and after some poking around, Bob found a holotape Jake was in the middle of recording when he was captured. The holotape indicated that Jake had been captured by what sounded like Gunners (though he did successfully kill one of them) – who had an engineer with them who was in charge of moving the tech in his workshop. An engineer with a feminine voice that the commander only allowed in once they had Jake’s head covered in a bag. Jon’s immediate thought was that it was Jake’s wife, but me and most of the other commenters are pretty sure it’s actually his daughter, backed up by the fact that the Engineer was called “kid” by the others and it WOULD be thematically appropriate, given the whole thing with Shaun and the Institute. Yeesh.
But yes – episode ended with Jake in enemy hands, and Bob needing to talk to Aiden about what he’d found so his partner could be rescued before anything horrible happened to him! Seems like we’re in for an exciting episode next Sunday as we start Act II in the SS2 plot arc! Can’t wait!
Workout: Back on the bike this evening, watching the beginning of the latest GrayStillPlays compilation video I had to catch up on – “Testing 100 Cars in GTA 5!” Another compilation of Alex Torture Boards for our pleasure. :D Though, as usual, the video started with some new content – namely, Gray having to find out which of three motorcycles could keep up with a moving tightrope as it sped past windmills and under various obstacles Gray had to pop over (starting with small flat platforms and moving onto giant ramps forcing Gray to jump over sections). The pink scooter had NO chance, poor thing, and while the middle bike had some good handling, it just didn’t have the speed, so Gray had to take the blue “anime” bike (and its tendency to fly off to the side) to the checkpoint and thus the win. :p After that, the compilation started in earnest, and I pedaled my way through the “cars versus waterslides” episode (where Gray had to find the car that could ramp, climb, descend, push boats along, and wallride waterslides the best – and also the one where a cougar stole his car at one point) before stopping right before the “thick and thin cars” episode (the one with the modded cars that are either super-thin or super-wide). I think this compilation will be perfect for a few Sundays while I’m working my way through “Oxventure: Deadlands” – nice and easy to sum up before I watch my Jon of Many A True Nerd video! :)
Whew -- yeah, wish I could have done more with my writing at least, but the need to catch up on yesterday's GrayStillPlays and the usual problem of having to watch and sum up the SS2 video late (compounded by having to work around the YouTube buffering issues near the beginning) meant that there was just no time. And, frankly, I really need to head off to bed now, as I do have work in the morning. Fingers crossed it's not a horrible Monday -- night all!
