Fairly Productive Snow Day Off
Feb. 13th, 2024 11:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickWe fortunately got the lower end of our predicted snow totals (roughly five inches according to my dad), and the actual snowfall was over by mid-afternoon. Now the main worry is the roads freezing and getting slippery overnight. . .but I spend the day safe and snug in the house, and while I didn't get to any video gaming, I did get to a lot of other stuff --
Tumblr: Very productive on one side, bare minimum on the other –
Victor Luvs Alice – Caught up on the dashboard and my tracked tags this morning (sticking some Nick Valentine fanart from the “#fallout 4” tag in my drafts for later), then – after reblogging some important world news stuff about Palestine, because what’s happening over there is a shitshow – worked on my “Smiler’s Otherland: Domains” and “Smiler’s Otherland: Outfits” posts until lunch! The former is almost entirely done – I just need to maybe get a couple more screenshots and links for reference purposes (which informed my YouTube watching; see below); the latter still needs a lot of tweaking – but I’ve got notes on pretty much every outfit that I have a clear idea for in that post now, including Victor and Alice’s outfits for Smiler’s domains. :) Good to make some progress here! Maybe I will get to post these before the heat death of the universe.
Then, this afternoon, after Jon of Many A True Nerd (again see the YouTube section), I spent some time getting my queue ready for the next few days – my three Valicertine’s Day posts for Wednesday (the actual Valicertines, OT3 Math, and the platonic Smileon & Us valentine), and the three asks I got around the time I reblogged that “love life questions” meme over on The Valice Multiverse for Thursday (the Valicer OT3’s love languages, pet names, and how awkward it is when Smiler and Alice both go for Victor’s butt and end up holding hands XD)! Plus reblogging the prompts for an upcoming “OT3 Week” in March for Friday. Haven’t decided on a Song Saturday yet, but I figure that can wait until I swap the queue speed back to one on Thursday night. *nods* So yeah, great progress here!
Valice Multiverse – Aaaand things remained utterly dead over here, so I just hunted around for an RP meme to post up. Found one relating to love and romance headcanons, so, yay, topical. :p We’ll see if anyone throws an ask my way!
Writing: Got another good chunk done on “Start At The Beginning. . .Sort Of” today – covering the discovery of the melted Spirit Warden mask on Barkis’s fried corpse, to Tannen accusing Alice and Smiler of kidnapping Victor and murdering Barkis when he stepped in to marry Victoria, to Victor furiously refuting that and telling Tannen that he can’t just make up stories to throw people in jail. Unfortunately, Tannen’s going to insist on Victor backing up that assertion with something he doesn’t have. . .and then shit is really going to start hitting the fan. . .
YouTube: Main accomplishment here was catching up on my missed MATN video from Sunday and keeping up with my Subs, but I got in a bit of bonus content too, as implied above –
A) First up, something I watched mostly because I thought it would be good “reference material” for my “Smiler’s Otherland: Domains” post – “Alton Towers Festival of Thrills 2023 | 4K | Thrill Films” by, well, Thrill Films! This short video focused less on the actual Smiler Takeover than I thought it would, though, instead showing footage of a number of rides along with a few clips of the takeover. Not useful for my post (especially since it had the “wrong” Felix E. Lated – most videos seem to show the blond one, but my preferred Felix is one of the brunette ones I saw first), but still an interesting watch – especially with the look at a bit of “The Curse At Alton Manor,” which I’ve never actually seen the inside of! So that was neat. :)
B) Then another reference material video – “Festival of Thrills: The Smiler Takeover 2023 Vlog at Alton Towers Resort” by Amy and Mel! This one worked a lot better for my purposes due to being a lot more focused on the actual TAKEOVER, with little clips of the various shows and such. STILL had the blond Felix, though! Darn it. . . Still a fun watch, though! (AND it has links to the full versions of the “Fear Test” and “Meet The Ministry” shows – plus the “Celebration Stage,” but as I said, wrong Felix.) Stuck in my “Smile Always Alton Towers” playlist for later. :)
C) Then, after lunch, it was onto the serious YouTubery, with me finally getting a chance to watch Jon’s latest SS2 FO4 video properly – “Fallout 4: Sim Settlements 2 - Part 23 - Sunk Cost Fallacy!” This one featured Bob more or less wrapping things up with Caleb, joining up with another SS2 faction that had finally set up some proper headquarters for him to visit, doing a bit more base-game stuff, and hitting the water –
I. First up, time to wrap things up with Caleb and his quest for vengeance against Bombface the raider! Because even though Bob was rather shook by the revelations that Pastor Edmunds was a former raider working under Bombface (or may be in fact be a raider spy), and that Bombface didn’t kill Caleb’s wife, she ran away because Caleb is a bit murdery, he agreed that any raider boss named “Bombface” wasn’t someone you wanted to have in your Commonwealth. So he went and talked to Caleb, and – after grabbing “Lone Wanderer 3” for the extra 25% damage from his latest level-up – took the guy over to the ruins of that I-think-it’s-a-school near Fort Hagen so they could check out Bombface’s camp. Along the way, Jon showed off how awesome Bob’s new “Penetrator 2” perk was by sneak-attacking a sentrybot’s hidden fusion core and just exploding the damn thing to kingdom come. :D Anyway, they reached Bombface’s camp, took out a few mongrels that had moved in now that the Gunners that previously lived there were dead, and scoped the place. Caleb was all like “let’s just do a full frontal assault on the place,” and Bob was all for just going in and murdering –
But then he took another look at the camp, which was basically a big box of temporary walls Bombface and Grizzly were hiding in, and got an idea. Namely, to find a good spot and lob a single frag grenade over the top into the camp. One explosion later, and Bombface was himself exploded. XD Jon considered that a delightful case of poetic, lightly-ironic justice. Once that was done, he went and killed Grizzly, then started checking the bodies for information on Madison, just in case –
And spotted a shack with a blue door nearby. A shack that looked like someone might be living in it. He immediately became nervous that Madison might have shacked up with Bombface and cautiously went to see what was inside. . .
Nope, it’s just the “bottle rocket” shack that’s actually in the base game itself, where someone’s set up some gas canisters in such a way that you can shoot them and they’ll fly out like cheapo fireworks. XD Bob, in relief, set a few off, then went and chatted with Caleb. The dude was delighted by Bombface’s death, talking about how the Commonwealth would be a much safer place with this asshole dead. . .
And then said that he was going to stick around, comb the place for intel, and then head back to Concord. Bob is now worried that Caleb is going to find proof that his wife is still alive and faked her death to leave him, and that if he suspects Bob knew beforehand, they’re going to have words. By which he means that Caleb is going to try to kill him. *grimace* We’ll see, I guess!
II. However, all that did complete Caleb’s quest, and with that sorted for the moment, Jon had a new destination for Bob in mind – the area immediately around Diamond City! As a comment had told him to go check that space out, as there was something new there. And since Oberland Station was on the way, he figured he could stop a moment there and get one of Alyssa’s stories for her from the woman waiting there for him. So – after a stop at the water treatment plant to help the Brotherhood of Steel against the super mutants and gunners there, netting himself a Legendary Martyr’s Leather Left Arm in the process (which, unfortunately, is the same arm his Cunning Raider arm is on – Jon thought that was mean) – Bob did just that, meeting up with Laney and hearing her rather tragic story about being woken up in the middle of the night by a super mutant attack (specifically, one of them pounding “Ralphie” into paste), trying to shoot one only for her gun to jam, having to run away, and then sneaking back the next morning to find her brother and her two sisters with their necks snapped. :( Jon was immediately like “but what if we reported it as your siblings were EATEN,” which, dude, you’re lucky the NPC can’t hear you through the screen. XD
III. Anyway – with that taken care of, Bob continued on to Diamond City – and found a Nightingale, one of the new doctor faction, hanging out outside a red door in the building just across from Diamond City. Going inside revealed it was a very makeshift hospital they’d set up, catering to all sorts (as exemplified by the fact Bob saw both a Minuteman and a raider being treated), and introduced Bob to Fiona, the “face” of the Nightingales (literally, one of the first ones he met who wasn’t wearing a plague doctor mask), who immediately recognized him as the guy who was building up the Commonwealth with the ASAMs. She was very impressed by his reputation and said that the Nightingales would be interested in joining forces and helping him – while she was sure he had people who could do basic wound and rad care, the Nightingales know a lot about the most current diseases (and how they’ve mutated since the bomb drops), and they could help him plan healthier settlements in general – for example, using ASAMs to help build proper cemeteries so disease didn’t spread from dead bodies. Bob was all for it, but Fiona admitted that there was a catch – namely, the group was a bit small, understaffed, and underequipped at the moment (especially since they often worked for free), so Bob would need to invest in them to turn them into the proper medical force they longed to be. And, right off the bat, they’d need him to rescue a guy they’d sent off on a mission who hadn’t come back. Bob was still all for it (he’s a protagonist, he knows the score – and Jon was curious to learn if the group would eventually start taking over some of the proper hospitals around the Commonwealth and fixing those up), so Fiona gave him the details of the rescue mission. Namely, they needed him to find a guard, Raphael, that they’d sent off the coast to investigate the wreckage of a ship carrying medical supplies that The Ron had managed to locate for them.
A wreckage that was FULLY UNDERWATER. O.O Now that was a twist – the base game certainly has nothing so interesting under the ocean! (I mean, there was SUPPOSED to be an underwater vault, but it ended up being cut – wondered if any of those assets ended up being repurposed for this?) Fiona had Bob go to see Ellis so he could get some water-breathing chems to make the journey (Ellis saying “don’t ask me how they work, they just do”), but fortunately Bob already has “Aquaboy” (allowing him to just breathe underwater anyway – “don’t ask me how it works, it just does”), so he was already all set. And while looking at his map revealed Fort Strong was the closest spot to the wreckage, Bob realized it wasn’t actually that far a swim from The Castle, and if he swung by THERE he could get most of “Old Guns” sorted and get his various settlements artillery! Nice!
IV. And so it was off to The Castle for the big swim! Along the way, Bob cleared a bunch more super mutants out from around Big John’s Salvage (making good use of Psycho-Jet to take out the first two) and showed off how to access the secret bunker in the area (if you follow the wires, you’ll find a generator with a circuit breaker you can reactivate; that allows you to open up a door to a little bunker hidden in a tipped-over rail car, which has some skeletons curled up together on a bed (presumably Big John and his wife), the safe key, some good junk, and Jon’s favorite, a Railway Rifle (which does MASSIVE damage even unupgraded)); worked his way through the nearby Red Rocket (keeping an eye out for sentrybots to snipe) and past CPD headquarters (which now had a lovely police protectron out the front); became over-encumbered right before reaching the Castle and had to do some Buffout about it; and originally avoided some raiders hanging out on the pier directly across from the Castle – but when a Brotherhood vertibird swooped in, Bob decided he could help with taking out the raiders (even while over-encumbered). Especially since one proved to be a Legendary. :D Doubling back to see what they had netted Bob a Bolstering Synth Chest Piece – Jon was like “the legendary effect is okay, but holy shit, the stats on this chest piece itself is nice!” So, overall, worth!
V. With all that over with, it was time to hit The Castle itself, see how the settlement was coming (Bob was very tickled to see that they’d set up a freaking pizzeria in the place XD), move all the upgrades on the Nimble sniper rifle over to Margeret, the special anti-synth sniper that Old Paul gave him, and meet up with Ronnie to do “Old Guns!” Which was MOSTLY easier than normal – Bob got a nasty lesson in “I can’t set off the mines on the floor, but RONNIE can” early on, but then made up for that by sniping Sarge’s fusion core just as he was starting to power up, blowing him up in one hit. Jon is very, very pleased with the “Penetrator 2” perk, let me tell you. XD Anyway, he got his artillery built and tested (admiring its smashy power against the test spot), used his fresh new level-up to get himself “Chem Resistant 2” so he was completely immune to chem addiction (so he can use all the Psycho-Jet he wants to now), and headed to bed so he could swim out to the Nightingales’ wreckage once it was a little lighter out.
VI. And thus, the next morning, Bob made the big swim over and down to the sunken ship that the Nightingales had sent Raphael to investigate! Fortunately, while the boat wasn’t ENTIRELY watertight, the interior past the initial bulkhead door was RELATIVELY dry. At the very least, it had air! It also had automated defenses and regular announcements from the black box about how the boat sank in the first place (apparently there was a reactor failure, which led to the boat taking on water). Bob shot down the laser turrets and went exploring, opening up some secret paths under cargo lifts and finding some mirelurks to shoot (including a Legendary with some Safecracker armor on it – not worth!), the corpse of the First Officer (and his ID card, which felt important), and a terminal that revealed the boat was carrying Vault-Tec stuff (which Jon was immediately like “that must be what we’re looking for). He also found Raphael, trying to crack a terminal – the dude greeted Bob by saying he owed some dead robot some oil, as he thought it would have been longer until Fiona sent someone down to rescue him. Raphael wasn’t willing to leave without what he came for, though, and asked if Bob could maybe help him crack the terminal. Bob wasn’t exactly the techy sort, but he was willing to give it a go –
And as it turns out, that’s what he needed the First Officer’s ID for! He got the terminal working and opened up the door into the next area, where – after fighting some more mirelurks (including a Deep King Mirelurk, which, a bit yeep) – Raphael located a big crate of books. Books on “pathology,” which – after sounding out the word – he recognized as the thing Fiona was always working on or studying. He figured it might be worth taking up, but noted it would be heavily – fortunately, Bob and his “Aquaboy” powers assured him he could do it, and he collected the crate of literature to return to Fiona.
But books weren’t what they were actually looking for, and in another area of the ship, Bob found the real good stuff – a mini Vault-Tec lab full of drugs and cryogenically-sealed virus strains and their matching vaccines! Bob happily took all the drugs, and had Raphael take one of the cryo units to bring back to the hospital. Which sounds like a good idea, but Jon was very worried that Raphael taking that unit meant that those viruses were NOT going to stay frozen for very long, and that they might have accidentally infected him with all the diseases. . .at least he has all the vaccines too?
And so the episode ended with Raphael doing the NPC teleport back to the hospital, and Bob swimming back to The Castle, wondering if he’d done the right thing. XD Next Sunday, Jon DOES intend to have Bob check in with Fiona, but he’s also determined to see what’s going on with the CPD lately, and he also also has a new radio message from Jake to listen to. Which starts a quest called “Hostile Takeover.” Oh, that’s worrying. . .should be good watching this weekend!
D) Then, this evening, it was over to the Subs to catch up on those videos, starting with the latest from Josh Way – “Fun With Shorts: Liberty!” An old propaganda short about how great America is and how liberty stands for everyone who comes to its shores and how people are free to be whoever they want to be and form unions for fair pay and you gotta wonder what shorts the REPUBLICANS have been watching because this sounds really inclusive (even if it doesn’t LOOK that way – still an all-white cast!). But yeah, the usual bullshit about how amazing our country is, undercut by Josh’s snark and cynicism as these things always are. XD It’s funny, but yes, in a bit of a sad way, I’m afraid.
E) And finally we had GrayStillPlays and “I had 30 seconds to escape,” aka Gray plays Riddle Transfer! This is a puzzle game where you play as Phil, a dude who apparently has been abducted by aliens twice, and was bumming around with his alien friend Diz and his other friends (Smiley, Phred, and Zack) before they were captured by discount Area 51 and taken into custody. You have to figure out how to escape your cell (hint – it involves ripping something out of your toilet – no, not like that), rescue your friends, and get out of the base – a process that involves making the other prisoners in the base happy in some way. These prisoners include a goat who has for some reason been mistaken for a goat-man; the Mock Mess Monster, Messie; Bigtoe; and the Negotiable Snowman, who played the “Learn 2 Shave” board game and is now naked. Oh, and a genuine flying pig. XD As you might expect, a world full of such bizarre things requires bizarre items to make the creatures happy – for example, there’s a liquid-grass vending machine in the employee break room that you can redirect into the goat’s habitat to fill his pen with gorgeous green grass and flowers, one of which you will need to pick to free one of your friends, who has been tied up and needs to sneeze himself loose, basically. Gray cursed the puzzles (though I think he was a little hard on himself, he did pretty well with them from what I could see), but delighted in the weirdness of the world, enjoying just how goofy so much of it was. XD I did too – and the set-up seemed to imply this was part of a series, so maybe there’s more games like this for Gray to play for our amusement. . .
Workout: Hopped on the treadmill today for a slightly extended walking workout (managed to avoid getting any blisters on my toes, but the bottom of my foot feels a little sore now, might have to keep an eye on that), getting through the end of Oxventure: Deadlands, “The Town That Dreaded Justice, Part I” and starting Part II! We started with the trio – having just been taken into custody for cursing (Nate), practicing law without a license (Silas), and wearing a waistcoat with three colors (Garnet) – oh, and also helping one of the other prisoners escape a hanging – being dragged into the courthouse and thrown in a holding room to wait for their public defender. A holding room dominated by a giant picture of their target, Judge Boudreau (now sporting a Colonel Sanders-style beard and mustache), sitting on a horse patriotically holding a flag. The painting was so big that the horse (whose eyes seemed to follow you around the room) was in fact life-sized, and Andy demanded Silas make a spirit roll against his terror of horses. Fortunately, Silas rolled double sixes, so he was able to steel himself against the horror.
And then he promptly declared he wanted to get the painting off the wall and drag it in front of the door, for unknown reasons. Andy told him it was screwed onto the wall and made him roll Athletics to get it off –
Silas rolled so well he apparently got the painting off the wall through SHEER RAGE. And then managed to drag it over to the door and put it in front of it. Silas was still fucking handcuffed at this point in time, I would like to point out – a fact that everyone, including Andy, only remembered when Silas heard the door open and declared that he wanted to punch whoever was coming in. Denied the ability to punch, he instead tried to headbutt, and rolled amazingly AGAIN, so he punched his head straight through the painting –
To come face to face with the public defender, Jerry. Jane was like “he doesn’t actually hit him? With THAT roll?” and Andy was like “he doesn’t have a three foot long neck!” Mike pointed out that Silas was gonna soon, earning himself a benny – and then Johnny suggested that Silas’s head had gone straight through the horse’s head on the painting and earned themselves a benny too. And then Mike followed all THAT up by telling Jerry the public defender “I’m pleading insanity,” which he agreed was a good idea. XD
ANYWAY – after they’d somehow managed to get Silas back into the room (with his head still sticking through the painting, mind), Jerry asked them about their crimes, which the group relayed back to him. He was deeply horrified to discover they’d done such things like saying “Beans!” and wearing multicolored waistcoats and helping a man escape a hanging, saying that they were going to swing for sure. He sure as hell wasn’t going to win their case – the only reason that he’s the public defender is that he was brought in for excessive sneezing and was allowed to work off his sentence through public service. (Silas was like “practicing law without a license!” but Jerry showed off that they HAD given him a license, even if it was essentially worthless.) Nate attempted to explain to Jerry that they were here to kill Judge Boudreau, and that getting rid of him should hopefully cause the justice system in this town to become at least somewhat more reasonable – unfortunately, he attempted to do so by using the metaphor of cutting the head off of a snake, which just panicked Jerry because that too was illegal. XD The gang was thus forced to conclude that Jerry was likely to be of – limited help.
And then – trial time! A couple of cops showed up to escort them to the courtroom (extracting Silas from the painting and desperately trying to get the horse’s head back into place, afraid that they’d get in trouble if it was seen to be damaged), where a bunch of very well-to-do people were observing everything in the jury box through opera glasses. Judge Boudreau was announced and marched up into his – judge seat (Andy didn’t actually know the name of where a judge sits, and I don’t either XD), and demanded to know the charges. Jerry ATTEMPTED to explain the charges, but he stammered so badly Boudreau had him dragged away and told the group to just tell him themselves.
Garnet immediately said they were there to put the system on trial. XD Unfortunately, she didn’t have anything PAST that initial statement (though she said if she was given some time and some coffee she could prepare something), so Boudreau just waved that aside and started reading out the charges himself. Garnet then continued winning by demanding where his evidence was for her wearing a three-color waistcoat when SHE WAS STILL WEARING THE DAMN THING. It earned her a benny. XD He also brought up Nate’s cursing, causing Nate to repeat all his various “cusses” (heck, darn, ninny) while answering his question about what he’d said. He also pointed out that the judge had told everyone to “shut their butts” when he first arrived, but Boudreau insisted that was not a curse word, he was referring to barrels that people stored things in. And then told Nate to shut his butt. XD Things just kept getting ever-more chaotic from there – Boudreau, looking up other crimes he knew about, brought up the exploded Sasquatch from the first score, and Garnet, after pointing out that the crime wasn’t even in his jurisdiction (a fact Boudreau didn’t care about), CLAIMED SHE HAD DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY. Nate promptly declared that they were from Spain and that she was the Infanta. XD And followed that up by actually saying she wasn’t speaking Spanish because she wanted to blend into other cultures – in Spanish, because APPARENTLY Nate speaks a little! Boudreau didn’t understand a word and promptly made speaking Spanish illegal. XD Silas’s role in the death of Ducrow last episode was brought up as well – Silas claimed that whoever did it was dressed a lot fancier than he was, only for Boudreau to point out someone was wanted for stealing a set of the late Senator Waxman’s clothes too. Silas countered by pointing out that Boudreau’s record wasn’t exactly clean –
AND PULLED OUT HIS WANTED POSTER FROM VICTORIA’S HOUSE. (Nate was like “why didn’t you lead with that?!”) There was a little bit of “ooooh” from the crowd, but Boudreau had the poster brought up to him and promptly declared it something he had done at a fairground last year. Silas was like, “well, I’m out.” XD Boudreau then leveled an accusation at Nate, telling him he looked like someone wanted for robbing the grave of Nathaniel Yancy –
Nate was like “well, I AM Nathaniel Yancy and I got up out of that grave myself” and showed off the death wound before explaining about the whole “demon-possessed corpse” thing. Boudreau was appropriately rattled. But not rattled enough to stop the trial – honestly, everything they said and did just made this guy angrier and angrier, until he was calling for order in response to them breathing, basically. It was hilarious. XD At any rate, he told the jury they were going with a “guilty” verdict, and then had his guards unveil the gallows kept in the courtroom. He then, very unwisely, had Nate dragged up first to the platform to be hanged. Nate had the noose fitted, said “No” in response to the question if he had any last words, and dropped through the trap door at the bottom –
And then just hung there, because, ZOMBIE. He doesn’t need to breathe. Silas tried to take advantage of the distraction to steal a guard’s gun (never mind that he’s still handcuffed and the guards are paying attention to them, not the hanging) –
And rolled snake eyes, aka a critical fail. Mike thought this meant that Silas was going to manage to shoot himself in the ass, but Johnny revealed that Nate had the hindrance “Trouble Magnet (Major),” meaning that bullet was going to somehow end up in Nate. Possibly through Silas’s ass, yes. XD Andy was nice though and declared that Silas just dropped the gun, which discharged and hit Nate in the shoulder, causing no actual damage. Boudreau, pissed off at this clown show and that Nate wasn’t dead, ordered him cut down and the trio taken to the cells while his lawmen procured better rope – SHARP rope! No, he doesn’t care that normally you can’t sharpen rope, get some metal rope or something! XD He stormed off, and the episode ended with the group being dumped in a very depressing cell with almost none of their gear. Not a great way to end the first part of your assassination mission!
However, the group were not down and out – Part II opened with Silas pounding on the door and yelling for the guard, and when the guard huffily came around, asking about their last meals. The guy was like “yeah, fine, what do you want” – Silas ordered a whole roast chicken; Nate asked for his jerky, though he wasn’t sure if he was eligible for a last meal given they just tried to hang him, and he was pretty certain tomorrow’s hanging wasn’t going to work either, so he expected to eat again later – the guard cut into his ramblings with “so you want nothing?” and then stopping him again once Nate reiterated he wanted his jerky –
And Garnet asked for a bag of sugar. Which she had to roll Persuasion to get, because it was a bit of a bizarre request, but she succeeded. The guard went off to acquire the items, and Nate asked what the heck Garnet’s plan was – after confirming the guards wouldn’t hear if she spoke in an undertone, she explained that she wanted to attract a bunch of ants for Nate to command. He was on board with this plan, and so the gang waited patiently for their requested foodstuffs (Garnet playing some solitaire, as the guards, despite taking her “starter miner’s kit” with the dynamite, hadn’t thought to take her cards). The guard eventually came back with everything – well, sort of; unable to find chicken, he’d instead brought Silas some roast snake. Silas was a little put out, but willing to work with it – after all, as Nate pointed out, snake is essentially “desert chicken.” He managed to gobble down all the meat with a Survival roll, then started checking the bones to see if any could maybe be used as a lockpick (and starting a brief digression where it was revealed that Jane hadn’t though snakes had ribs – she thought there was just a central spine that had snake wrapped around it). Perhaps they could, but as Andy pointed out, the cell door had no keyhole for Silas to pick – all the locks were firmly on the OUTSIDE. An annoyed Silas stored the bones in case something ELSE needed picking further on. XD
Anyway – with Silas’s plan a complete failure, Garnet enacted her plan by throwing the sugar all over the floor, then waiting to see what happened. The ants were a bit slow to arrive, but the gang passed the time well – Nate ate jerky until the bullet wound in his shoulder healed (having previously managed to dig out the bullet), and Garnet knocked on the walls of the cells beside them to see if anyone else was locked up. Turns out one man was due to be hung for cutting his lawn too short, while the other was due to be flayed for leaving his lawn too long. Garnet informed them she was planning a jailbreak, and was told that was definitely a hanging offense – her response was that she was already sentenced to hang and you can’t hang a person more than once. Nate was like, “Um – before today, I might have agreed with that.” XD Eventually, though, they got enough ants, and Nate was able to get part of the swarm to open the little hatch on their door to peep out, an action Andy just let happen because he had no idea what to make Johnny roll for it. XD We’ll see how the jailbreak goes tomorrow!
Other: Found an online Valentine’s Card to send to my parents, yay~
*nods* Not bad, not bad at all. And now I have to go prepare for bed, because -- barring complications in the morning -- I do have work tomorrow. Hopefully it won't be too bad out there, both in regards to the roads and in regards to the day. . . Night all!
Tumblr: Very productive on one side, bare minimum on the other –
Victor Luvs Alice – Caught up on the dashboard and my tracked tags this morning (sticking some Nick Valentine fanart from the “#fallout 4” tag in my drafts for later), then – after reblogging some important world news stuff about Palestine, because what’s happening over there is a shitshow – worked on my “Smiler’s Otherland: Domains” and “Smiler’s Otherland: Outfits” posts until lunch! The former is almost entirely done – I just need to maybe get a couple more screenshots and links for reference purposes (which informed my YouTube watching; see below); the latter still needs a lot of tweaking – but I’ve got notes on pretty much every outfit that I have a clear idea for in that post now, including Victor and Alice’s outfits for Smiler’s domains. :) Good to make some progress here! Maybe I will get to post these before the heat death of the universe.
Then, this afternoon, after Jon of Many A True Nerd (again see the YouTube section), I spent some time getting my queue ready for the next few days – my three Valicertine’s Day posts for Wednesday (the actual Valicertines, OT3 Math, and the platonic Smileon & Us valentine), and the three asks I got around the time I reblogged that “love life questions” meme over on The Valice Multiverse for Thursday (the Valicer OT3’s love languages, pet names, and how awkward it is when Smiler and Alice both go for Victor’s butt and end up holding hands XD)! Plus reblogging the prompts for an upcoming “OT3 Week” in March for Friday. Haven’t decided on a Song Saturday yet, but I figure that can wait until I swap the queue speed back to one on Thursday night. *nods* So yeah, great progress here!
Valice Multiverse – Aaaand things remained utterly dead over here, so I just hunted around for an RP meme to post up. Found one relating to love and romance headcanons, so, yay, topical. :p We’ll see if anyone throws an ask my way!
Writing: Got another good chunk done on “Start At The Beginning. . .Sort Of” today – covering the discovery of the melted Spirit Warden mask on Barkis’s fried corpse, to Tannen accusing Alice and Smiler of kidnapping Victor and murdering Barkis when he stepped in to marry Victoria, to Victor furiously refuting that and telling Tannen that he can’t just make up stories to throw people in jail. Unfortunately, Tannen’s going to insist on Victor backing up that assertion with something he doesn’t have. . .and then shit is really going to start hitting the fan. . .
YouTube: Main accomplishment here was catching up on my missed MATN video from Sunday and keeping up with my Subs, but I got in a bit of bonus content too, as implied above –
A) First up, something I watched mostly because I thought it would be good “reference material” for my “Smiler’s Otherland: Domains” post – “Alton Towers Festival of Thrills 2023 | 4K | Thrill Films” by, well, Thrill Films! This short video focused less on the actual Smiler Takeover than I thought it would, though, instead showing footage of a number of rides along with a few clips of the takeover. Not useful for my post (especially since it had the “wrong” Felix E. Lated – most videos seem to show the blond one, but my preferred Felix is one of the brunette ones I saw first), but still an interesting watch – especially with the look at a bit of “The Curse At Alton Manor,” which I’ve never actually seen the inside of! So that was neat. :)
B) Then another reference material video – “Festival of Thrills: The Smiler Takeover 2023 Vlog at Alton Towers Resort” by Amy and Mel! This one worked a lot better for my purposes due to being a lot more focused on the actual TAKEOVER, with little clips of the various shows and such. STILL had the blond Felix, though! Darn it. . . Still a fun watch, though! (AND it has links to the full versions of the “Fear Test” and “Meet The Ministry” shows – plus the “Celebration Stage,” but as I said, wrong Felix.) Stuck in my “Smile Always Alton Towers” playlist for later. :)
C) Then, after lunch, it was onto the serious YouTubery, with me finally getting a chance to watch Jon’s latest SS2 FO4 video properly – “Fallout 4: Sim Settlements 2 - Part 23 - Sunk Cost Fallacy!” This one featured Bob more or less wrapping things up with Caleb, joining up with another SS2 faction that had finally set up some proper headquarters for him to visit, doing a bit more base-game stuff, and hitting the water –
I. First up, time to wrap things up with Caleb and his quest for vengeance against Bombface the raider! Because even though Bob was rather shook by the revelations that Pastor Edmunds was a former raider working under Bombface (or may be in fact be a raider spy), and that Bombface didn’t kill Caleb’s wife, she ran away because Caleb is a bit murdery, he agreed that any raider boss named “Bombface” wasn’t someone you wanted to have in your Commonwealth. So he went and talked to Caleb, and – after grabbing “Lone Wanderer 3” for the extra 25% damage from his latest level-up – took the guy over to the ruins of that I-think-it’s-a-school near Fort Hagen so they could check out Bombface’s camp. Along the way, Jon showed off how awesome Bob’s new “Penetrator 2” perk was by sneak-attacking a sentrybot’s hidden fusion core and just exploding the damn thing to kingdom come. :D Anyway, they reached Bombface’s camp, took out a few mongrels that had moved in now that the Gunners that previously lived there were dead, and scoped the place. Caleb was all like “let’s just do a full frontal assault on the place,” and Bob was all for just going in and murdering –
But then he took another look at the camp, which was basically a big box of temporary walls Bombface and Grizzly were hiding in, and got an idea. Namely, to find a good spot and lob a single frag grenade over the top into the camp. One explosion later, and Bombface was himself exploded. XD Jon considered that a delightful case of poetic, lightly-ironic justice. Once that was done, he went and killed Grizzly, then started checking the bodies for information on Madison, just in case –
And spotted a shack with a blue door nearby. A shack that looked like someone might be living in it. He immediately became nervous that Madison might have shacked up with Bombface and cautiously went to see what was inside. . .
Nope, it’s just the “bottle rocket” shack that’s actually in the base game itself, where someone’s set up some gas canisters in such a way that you can shoot them and they’ll fly out like cheapo fireworks. XD Bob, in relief, set a few off, then went and chatted with Caleb. The dude was delighted by Bombface’s death, talking about how the Commonwealth would be a much safer place with this asshole dead. . .
And then said that he was going to stick around, comb the place for intel, and then head back to Concord. Bob is now worried that Caleb is going to find proof that his wife is still alive and faked her death to leave him, and that if he suspects Bob knew beforehand, they’re going to have words. By which he means that Caleb is going to try to kill him. *grimace* We’ll see, I guess!
II. However, all that did complete Caleb’s quest, and with that sorted for the moment, Jon had a new destination for Bob in mind – the area immediately around Diamond City! As a comment had told him to go check that space out, as there was something new there. And since Oberland Station was on the way, he figured he could stop a moment there and get one of Alyssa’s stories for her from the woman waiting there for him. So – after a stop at the water treatment plant to help the Brotherhood of Steel against the super mutants and gunners there, netting himself a Legendary Martyr’s Leather Left Arm in the process (which, unfortunately, is the same arm his Cunning Raider arm is on – Jon thought that was mean) – Bob did just that, meeting up with Laney and hearing her rather tragic story about being woken up in the middle of the night by a super mutant attack (specifically, one of them pounding “Ralphie” into paste), trying to shoot one only for her gun to jam, having to run away, and then sneaking back the next morning to find her brother and her two sisters with their necks snapped. :( Jon was immediately like “but what if we reported it as your siblings were EATEN,” which, dude, you’re lucky the NPC can’t hear you through the screen. XD
III. Anyway – with that taken care of, Bob continued on to Diamond City – and found a Nightingale, one of the new doctor faction, hanging out outside a red door in the building just across from Diamond City. Going inside revealed it was a very makeshift hospital they’d set up, catering to all sorts (as exemplified by the fact Bob saw both a Minuteman and a raider being treated), and introduced Bob to Fiona, the “face” of the Nightingales (literally, one of the first ones he met who wasn’t wearing a plague doctor mask), who immediately recognized him as the guy who was building up the Commonwealth with the ASAMs. She was very impressed by his reputation and said that the Nightingales would be interested in joining forces and helping him – while she was sure he had people who could do basic wound and rad care, the Nightingales know a lot about the most current diseases (and how they’ve mutated since the bomb drops), and they could help him plan healthier settlements in general – for example, using ASAMs to help build proper cemeteries so disease didn’t spread from dead bodies. Bob was all for it, but Fiona admitted that there was a catch – namely, the group was a bit small, understaffed, and underequipped at the moment (especially since they often worked for free), so Bob would need to invest in them to turn them into the proper medical force they longed to be. And, right off the bat, they’d need him to rescue a guy they’d sent off on a mission who hadn’t come back. Bob was still all for it (he’s a protagonist, he knows the score – and Jon was curious to learn if the group would eventually start taking over some of the proper hospitals around the Commonwealth and fixing those up), so Fiona gave him the details of the rescue mission. Namely, they needed him to find a guard, Raphael, that they’d sent off the coast to investigate the wreckage of a ship carrying medical supplies that The Ron had managed to locate for them.
A wreckage that was FULLY UNDERWATER. O.O Now that was a twist – the base game certainly has nothing so interesting under the ocean! (I mean, there was SUPPOSED to be an underwater vault, but it ended up being cut – wondered if any of those assets ended up being repurposed for this?) Fiona had Bob go to see Ellis so he could get some water-breathing chems to make the journey (Ellis saying “don’t ask me how they work, they just do”), but fortunately Bob already has “Aquaboy” (allowing him to just breathe underwater anyway – “don’t ask me how it works, it just does”), so he was already all set. And while looking at his map revealed Fort Strong was the closest spot to the wreckage, Bob realized it wasn’t actually that far a swim from The Castle, and if he swung by THERE he could get most of “Old Guns” sorted and get his various settlements artillery! Nice!
IV. And so it was off to The Castle for the big swim! Along the way, Bob cleared a bunch more super mutants out from around Big John’s Salvage (making good use of Psycho-Jet to take out the first two) and showed off how to access the secret bunker in the area (if you follow the wires, you’ll find a generator with a circuit breaker you can reactivate; that allows you to open up a door to a little bunker hidden in a tipped-over rail car, which has some skeletons curled up together on a bed (presumably Big John and his wife), the safe key, some good junk, and Jon’s favorite, a Railway Rifle (which does MASSIVE damage even unupgraded)); worked his way through the nearby Red Rocket (keeping an eye out for sentrybots to snipe) and past CPD headquarters (which now had a lovely police protectron out the front); became over-encumbered right before reaching the Castle and had to do some Buffout about it; and originally avoided some raiders hanging out on the pier directly across from the Castle – but when a Brotherhood vertibird swooped in, Bob decided he could help with taking out the raiders (even while over-encumbered). Especially since one proved to be a Legendary. :D Doubling back to see what they had netted Bob a Bolstering Synth Chest Piece – Jon was like “the legendary effect is okay, but holy shit, the stats on this chest piece itself is nice!” So, overall, worth!
V. With all that over with, it was time to hit The Castle itself, see how the settlement was coming (Bob was very tickled to see that they’d set up a freaking pizzeria in the place XD), move all the upgrades on the Nimble sniper rifle over to Margeret, the special anti-synth sniper that Old Paul gave him, and meet up with Ronnie to do “Old Guns!” Which was MOSTLY easier than normal – Bob got a nasty lesson in “I can’t set off the mines on the floor, but RONNIE can” early on, but then made up for that by sniping Sarge’s fusion core just as he was starting to power up, blowing him up in one hit. Jon is very, very pleased with the “Penetrator 2” perk, let me tell you. XD Anyway, he got his artillery built and tested (admiring its smashy power against the test spot), used his fresh new level-up to get himself “Chem Resistant 2” so he was completely immune to chem addiction (so he can use all the Psycho-Jet he wants to now), and headed to bed so he could swim out to the Nightingales’ wreckage once it was a little lighter out.
VI. And thus, the next morning, Bob made the big swim over and down to the sunken ship that the Nightingales had sent Raphael to investigate! Fortunately, while the boat wasn’t ENTIRELY watertight, the interior past the initial bulkhead door was RELATIVELY dry. At the very least, it had air! It also had automated defenses and regular announcements from the black box about how the boat sank in the first place (apparently there was a reactor failure, which led to the boat taking on water). Bob shot down the laser turrets and went exploring, opening up some secret paths under cargo lifts and finding some mirelurks to shoot (including a Legendary with some Safecracker armor on it – not worth!), the corpse of the First Officer (and his ID card, which felt important), and a terminal that revealed the boat was carrying Vault-Tec stuff (which Jon was immediately like “that must be what we’re looking for). He also found Raphael, trying to crack a terminal – the dude greeted Bob by saying he owed some dead robot some oil, as he thought it would have been longer until Fiona sent someone down to rescue him. Raphael wasn’t willing to leave without what he came for, though, and asked if Bob could maybe help him crack the terminal. Bob wasn’t exactly the techy sort, but he was willing to give it a go –
And as it turns out, that’s what he needed the First Officer’s ID for! He got the terminal working and opened up the door into the next area, where – after fighting some more mirelurks (including a Deep King Mirelurk, which, a bit yeep) – Raphael located a big crate of books. Books on “pathology,” which – after sounding out the word – he recognized as the thing Fiona was always working on or studying. He figured it might be worth taking up, but noted it would be heavily – fortunately, Bob and his “Aquaboy” powers assured him he could do it, and he collected the crate of literature to return to Fiona.
But books weren’t what they were actually looking for, and in another area of the ship, Bob found the real good stuff – a mini Vault-Tec lab full of drugs and cryogenically-sealed virus strains and their matching vaccines! Bob happily took all the drugs, and had Raphael take one of the cryo units to bring back to the hospital. Which sounds like a good idea, but Jon was very worried that Raphael taking that unit meant that those viruses were NOT going to stay frozen for very long, and that they might have accidentally infected him with all the diseases. . .at least he has all the vaccines too?
And so the episode ended with Raphael doing the NPC teleport back to the hospital, and Bob swimming back to The Castle, wondering if he’d done the right thing. XD Next Sunday, Jon DOES intend to have Bob check in with Fiona, but he’s also determined to see what’s going on with the CPD lately, and he also also has a new radio message from Jake to listen to. Which starts a quest called “Hostile Takeover.” Oh, that’s worrying. . .should be good watching this weekend!
D) Then, this evening, it was over to the Subs to catch up on those videos, starting with the latest from Josh Way – “Fun With Shorts: Liberty!” An old propaganda short about how great America is and how liberty stands for everyone who comes to its shores and how people are free to be whoever they want to be and form unions for fair pay and you gotta wonder what shorts the REPUBLICANS have been watching because this sounds really inclusive (even if it doesn’t LOOK that way – still an all-white cast!). But yeah, the usual bullshit about how amazing our country is, undercut by Josh’s snark and cynicism as these things always are. XD It’s funny, but yes, in a bit of a sad way, I’m afraid.
E) And finally we had GrayStillPlays and “I had 30 seconds to escape,” aka Gray plays Riddle Transfer! This is a puzzle game where you play as Phil, a dude who apparently has been abducted by aliens twice, and was bumming around with his alien friend Diz and his other friends (Smiley, Phred, and Zack) before they were captured by discount Area 51 and taken into custody. You have to figure out how to escape your cell (hint – it involves ripping something out of your toilet – no, not like that), rescue your friends, and get out of the base – a process that involves making the other prisoners in the base happy in some way. These prisoners include a goat who has for some reason been mistaken for a goat-man; the Mock Mess Monster, Messie; Bigtoe; and the Negotiable Snowman, who played the “Learn 2 Shave” board game and is now naked. Oh, and a genuine flying pig. XD As you might expect, a world full of such bizarre things requires bizarre items to make the creatures happy – for example, there’s a liquid-grass vending machine in the employee break room that you can redirect into the goat’s habitat to fill his pen with gorgeous green grass and flowers, one of which you will need to pick to free one of your friends, who has been tied up and needs to sneeze himself loose, basically. Gray cursed the puzzles (though I think he was a little hard on himself, he did pretty well with them from what I could see), but delighted in the weirdness of the world, enjoying just how goofy so much of it was. XD I did too – and the set-up seemed to imply this was part of a series, so maybe there’s more games like this for Gray to play for our amusement. . .
Workout: Hopped on the treadmill today for a slightly extended walking workout (managed to avoid getting any blisters on my toes, but the bottom of my foot feels a little sore now, might have to keep an eye on that), getting through the end of Oxventure: Deadlands, “The Town That Dreaded Justice, Part I” and starting Part II! We started with the trio – having just been taken into custody for cursing (Nate), practicing law without a license (Silas), and wearing a waistcoat with three colors (Garnet) – oh, and also helping one of the other prisoners escape a hanging – being dragged into the courthouse and thrown in a holding room to wait for their public defender. A holding room dominated by a giant picture of their target, Judge Boudreau (now sporting a Colonel Sanders-style beard and mustache), sitting on a horse patriotically holding a flag. The painting was so big that the horse (whose eyes seemed to follow you around the room) was in fact life-sized, and Andy demanded Silas make a spirit roll against his terror of horses. Fortunately, Silas rolled double sixes, so he was able to steel himself against the horror.
And then he promptly declared he wanted to get the painting off the wall and drag it in front of the door, for unknown reasons. Andy told him it was screwed onto the wall and made him roll Athletics to get it off –
Silas rolled so well he apparently got the painting off the wall through SHEER RAGE. And then managed to drag it over to the door and put it in front of it. Silas was still fucking handcuffed at this point in time, I would like to point out – a fact that everyone, including Andy, only remembered when Silas heard the door open and declared that he wanted to punch whoever was coming in. Denied the ability to punch, he instead tried to headbutt, and rolled amazingly AGAIN, so he punched his head straight through the painting –
To come face to face with the public defender, Jerry. Jane was like “he doesn’t actually hit him? With THAT roll?” and Andy was like “he doesn’t have a three foot long neck!” Mike pointed out that Silas was gonna soon, earning himself a benny – and then Johnny suggested that Silas’s head had gone straight through the horse’s head on the painting and earned themselves a benny too. And then Mike followed all THAT up by telling Jerry the public defender “I’m pleading insanity,” which he agreed was a good idea. XD
ANYWAY – after they’d somehow managed to get Silas back into the room (with his head still sticking through the painting, mind), Jerry asked them about their crimes, which the group relayed back to him. He was deeply horrified to discover they’d done such things like saying “Beans!” and wearing multicolored waistcoats and helping a man escape a hanging, saying that they were going to swing for sure. He sure as hell wasn’t going to win their case – the only reason that he’s the public defender is that he was brought in for excessive sneezing and was allowed to work off his sentence through public service. (Silas was like “practicing law without a license!” but Jerry showed off that they HAD given him a license, even if it was essentially worthless.) Nate attempted to explain to Jerry that they were here to kill Judge Boudreau, and that getting rid of him should hopefully cause the justice system in this town to become at least somewhat more reasonable – unfortunately, he attempted to do so by using the metaphor of cutting the head off of a snake, which just panicked Jerry because that too was illegal. XD The gang was thus forced to conclude that Jerry was likely to be of – limited help.
And then – trial time! A couple of cops showed up to escort them to the courtroom (extracting Silas from the painting and desperately trying to get the horse’s head back into place, afraid that they’d get in trouble if it was seen to be damaged), where a bunch of very well-to-do people were observing everything in the jury box through opera glasses. Judge Boudreau was announced and marched up into his – judge seat (Andy didn’t actually know the name of where a judge sits, and I don’t either XD), and demanded to know the charges. Jerry ATTEMPTED to explain the charges, but he stammered so badly Boudreau had him dragged away and told the group to just tell him themselves.
Garnet immediately said they were there to put the system on trial. XD Unfortunately, she didn’t have anything PAST that initial statement (though she said if she was given some time and some coffee she could prepare something), so Boudreau just waved that aside and started reading out the charges himself. Garnet then continued winning by demanding where his evidence was for her wearing a three-color waistcoat when SHE WAS STILL WEARING THE DAMN THING. It earned her a benny. XD He also brought up Nate’s cursing, causing Nate to repeat all his various “cusses” (heck, darn, ninny) while answering his question about what he’d said. He also pointed out that the judge had told everyone to “shut their butts” when he first arrived, but Boudreau insisted that was not a curse word, he was referring to barrels that people stored things in. And then told Nate to shut his butt. XD Things just kept getting ever-more chaotic from there – Boudreau, looking up other crimes he knew about, brought up the exploded Sasquatch from the first score, and Garnet, after pointing out that the crime wasn’t even in his jurisdiction (a fact Boudreau didn’t care about), CLAIMED SHE HAD DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY. Nate promptly declared that they were from Spain and that she was the Infanta. XD And followed that up by actually saying she wasn’t speaking Spanish because she wanted to blend into other cultures – in Spanish, because APPARENTLY Nate speaks a little! Boudreau didn’t understand a word and promptly made speaking Spanish illegal. XD Silas’s role in the death of Ducrow last episode was brought up as well – Silas claimed that whoever did it was dressed a lot fancier than he was, only for Boudreau to point out someone was wanted for stealing a set of the late Senator Waxman’s clothes too. Silas countered by pointing out that Boudreau’s record wasn’t exactly clean –
AND PULLED OUT HIS WANTED POSTER FROM VICTORIA’S HOUSE. (Nate was like “why didn’t you lead with that?!”) There was a little bit of “ooooh” from the crowd, but Boudreau had the poster brought up to him and promptly declared it something he had done at a fairground last year. Silas was like, “well, I’m out.” XD Boudreau then leveled an accusation at Nate, telling him he looked like someone wanted for robbing the grave of Nathaniel Yancy –
Nate was like “well, I AM Nathaniel Yancy and I got up out of that grave myself” and showed off the death wound before explaining about the whole “demon-possessed corpse” thing. Boudreau was appropriately rattled. But not rattled enough to stop the trial – honestly, everything they said and did just made this guy angrier and angrier, until he was calling for order in response to them breathing, basically. It was hilarious. XD At any rate, he told the jury they were going with a “guilty” verdict, and then had his guards unveil the gallows kept in the courtroom. He then, very unwisely, had Nate dragged up first to the platform to be hanged. Nate had the noose fitted, said “No” in response to the question if he had any last words, and dropped through the trap door at the bottom –
And then just hung there, because, ZOMBIE. He doesn’t need to breathe. Silas tried to take advantage of the distraction to steal a guard’s gun (never mind that he’s still handcuffed and the guards are paying attention to them, not the hanging) –
And rolled snake eyes, aka a critical fail. Mike thought this meant that Silas was going to manage to shoot himself in the ass, but Johnny revealed that Nate had the hindrance “Trouble Magnet (Major),” meaning that bullet was going to somehow end up in Nate. Possibly through Silas’s ass, yes. XD Andy was nice though and declared that Silas just dropped the gun, which discharged and hit Nate in the shoulder, causing no actual damage. Boudreau, pissed off at this clown show and that Nate wasn’t dead, ordered him cut down and the trio taken to the cells while his lawmen procured better rope – SHARP rope! No, he doesn’t care that normally you can’t sharpen rope, get some metal rope or something! XD He stormed off, and the episode ended with the group being dumped in a very depressing cell with almost none of their gear. Not a great way to end the first part of your assassination mission!
However, the group were not down and out – Part II opened with Silas pounding on the door and yelling for the guard, and when the guard huffily came around, asking about their last meals. The guy was like “yeah, fine, what do you want” – Silas ordered a whole roast chicken; Nate asked for his jerky, though he wasn’t sure if he was eligible for a last meal given they just tried to hang him, and he was pretty certain tomorrow’s hanging wasn’t going to work either, so he expected to eat again later – the guard cut into his ramblings with “so you want nothing?” and then stopping him again once Nate reiterated he wanted his jerky –
And Garnet asked for a bag of sugar. Which she had to roll Persuasion to get, because it was a bit of a bizarre request, but she succeeded. The guard went off to acquire the items, and Nate asked what the heck Garnet’s plan was – after confirming the guards wouldn’t hear if she spoke in an undertone, she explained that she wanted to attract a bunch of ants for Nate to command. He was on board with this plan, and so the gang waited patiently for their requested foodstuffs (Garnet playing some solitaire, as the guards, despite taking her “starter miner’s kit” with the dynamite, hadn’t thought to take her cards). The guard eventually came back with everything – well, sort of; unable to find chicken, he’d instead brought Silas some roast snake. Silas was a little put out, but willing to work with it – after all, as Nate pointed out, snake is essentially “desert chicken.” He managed to gobble down all the meat with a Survival roll, then started checking the bones to see if any could maybe be used as a lockpick (and starting a brief digression where it was revealed that Jane hadn’t though snakes had ribs – she thought there was just a central spine that had snake wrapped around it). Perhaps they could, but as Andy pointed out, the cell door had no keyhole for Silas to pick – all the locks were firmly on the OUTSIDE. An annoyed Silas stored the bones in case something ELSE needed picking further on. XD
Anyway – with Silas’s plan a complete failure, Garnet enacted her plan by throwing the sugar all over the floor, then waiting to see what happened. The ants were a bit slow to arrive, but the gang passed the time well – Nate ate jerky until the bullet wound in his shoulder healed (having previously managed to dig out the bullet), and Garnet knocked on the walls of the cells beside them to see if anyone else was locked up. Turns out one man was due to be hung for cutting his lawn too short, while the other was due to be flayed for leaving his lawn too long. Garnet informed them she was planning a jailbreak, and was told that was definitely a hanging offense – her response was that she was already sentenced to hang and you can’t hang a person more than once. Nate was like, “Um – before today, I might have agreed with that.” XD Eventually, though, they got enough ants, and Nate was able to get part of the swarm to open the little hatch on their door to peep out, an action Andy just let happen because he had no idea what to make Johnny roll for it. XD We’ll see how the jailbreak goes tomorrow!
Other: Found an online Valentine’s Card to send to my parents, yay~
*nods* Not bad, not bad at all. And now I have to go prepare for bed, because -- barring complications in the morning -- I do have work tomorrow. Hopefully it won't be too bad out there, both in regards to the roads and in regards to the day. . . Night all!
