Welp, That Explains Things
Jul. 21st, 2024 11:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickTurns out I was completely correct to suspect PMS behind some of my Friday crankiness -- the old red curse showed up this evening after my workout, after giving me a false alarm (or I guess just an early alarm) this morning. Bleeeh -- but at least I have tomorrow off, and thus can spend one of the toughest days of my period at home instead of fighting the brain fog at work. And despite that and some other hiccups, I had a pretty decent day --
Tumblr: Pretty decent day over here, at least on Victor Luvs Alice (Valice Multiverse was, as usual, dead) – I caught up on the dash, then spent the time before lunch cleaning up the main text and adding tags to all seven of the Chill Valicer Save update posts for this week, along with adding image alt text to the pictures on the first and last ones because those had the least amount of pictures to add alt text to (six and five respectively). :p So that’s two out of seven posts completely done, and five out of seven that just need image alt text! Should be able to finish off those remaining posts tomorrow. :) And then, this evening, before Jon, I made sure to reblog Moose’s latest McFlyJuly fic (which was Marlene asking Jennifer why she married Marty in the world where Marty broke his hand in that car accident – gave me real “Linda complaining about the dumb way Lorraine met George in the original BTTF” vibes) and queued up WeirdKev’s birthday fic (of the interview of his VTMB version of his Ducktales OC Phillianne Tropy). So I’m all set there, yay.
Fallout 4: Had a pretty chill hour in the Commonwealth today, taking Victor and Ada on a little adventure up through some familiar locations –
A) Started with the pair right on the edge of Fiddler’s Green Trailer Estates, having cleared that out last time – after taking a moment to survey the landscape and consider my options (confirming that climbing the ridge to my left would just put me back in Fort Hagen, as we were apparently right by the filling station there), I continued straight on, down into a little muddy ravine to what might have once been a river but was now a rather large puddle lake. I had Victor explore the edges of the lake to see if there was anything interesting there (nope), then climb up the side toward the bridge that crossed it. He was checking out a pickup truck off the side of the road by said bridge that looked like it had been carrying someone’s possessions when the bombs hit –
B) When suddenly, behind him, I heard “Hold it right there,” followed rapidly by “fire at will!” Startled, I had Victor whirl around to see a trio of Gunners on the bridge behind him, all holding weapons. “Shit,” I thought, “this is probably one of those ‘toll road’ encounters, and judging by the chatter I’ve already upset them –
“...but, uh, if that’s the case, why aren’t they shooting?” Puzzled, I went up to the leader guy – I had a “talk” prompt, but he wouldn’t actually respond to Victor’s “getting your attention” cough, either with demands or combat. And scanning them with VATS had them all marked as green – aka, non-hostile. Even more puzzled, I had Victor scan the area for anything else they could have been firing at –
And found one softshell mirelurk in the water below that was ever so slightly wounded. Also a Brotherhood vertibird moving in to drop off a patrol, but those guys arrived after I did, so they couldn’t have done any aggroing. Completely puzzled by this point, I did a quicksave, then had Victor slowly and carefully cross the bridge –
Nothing. Gunners watched him, but didn’t actually open fire. I think this WAS supposed to be some sort of “toll road” encounter, but something in the AI broke before they could actually attack Victor or demand the toll. Maybe because I wasn’t looking in the right direction, or wasn’t actually on the bridge when they first started talking? *shrug* Got me. Well, live and let live if they’re not actively shooting at me!
C) With the Gunners apparently willing to let Victor pass, I had him take a moment to finish off the softshell mirelurk (hell, might as well), then prepared to move on – only to hear gunfire very nearby. Looking around, I realized rapidly that the Brotherhood were attacking someone on the elevated highway chunk nearby – and whatever it was was decently powerful, as it managed to take out the damn vertibird! (Though, according to Jon, those things are actually made out of papier-mache, so…). My initial instinct was to just move on, but after the vertibird got exploded, I HAD to see what it was they were fighting. So I crept up, weaving through the various Brotherhood initiates and their guard dog –
And once I was close enough, VATS revealed they were all pissed off at a Protectron Devil up there! Ah, the Rust Devils – even when you clear out their base, they’re a problem. Fortunately, Victor has his Mighty Sniper and its recon scope, and using that, he was able to blow up the problem and get the BOS to calm down. I did spot another Rust Devil robot up there as well, but without knowing how to actually GET UP on that chunk of highway, I decided that the Mr. Handy Wrecker or Destroyer or whatever it was could live in peace. For now. :p
D) What couldn’t live in peace was the wreckage of what looked like a subway car of some kind lying in the water below the elevated highway, nearby to the wreckage of the vertibird. Curious as to if it contained any goodies, I had Victor head down and investigate it. Mostly it was just skeletons half-submerged in the water – but there was also a mirelurk nest down there. Which, of course, exploded into a handful of mirelurk hatchlings while Victor was trying to line up a shot on the wriggly eggs. Fortunately, despite having a tiny bit of trouble targeting them with VATS thanks to various obstacles in the small car, Victor was able to take out all the little buggers, collect their meat, and take the remaining unhatched eggs. Because – well, okay, in my case more food might JUST be a bad thing, as I have loads more than I eat, but cooking is a good way to get XP, so… *weighs hands*
E) With the subway car explored, and further wandering in the little body of water beneath the highway revealing there was something SUPER radioactive down there (I’m not entirely sure what, only that when Victor went a certain way near the vertibird wreckage, he was suddenly taking 10 rads a second – I’m GUESSING it was the vertibird itself, but I don’t think they’re supposed to be radioactive), I had Victor and Ada clamber their way back onto dry land, then head up the hill and around to ArcJet Systems, where the Brotherhood was starting to regroup. I cut around the back of the building and climbed the hill up there to the little generator area with the tractor shed attached (nothing of great interest there except a little .308 ammo – by the lack of fusion core in the generator, I already cleared it out earlier), then started toward Walden Pond as the next viable landmark on my compass. And as I did that, I realized something – I never actually cleared out Walden Pond! There’s a few guaranteed enemies in a little dungeon under the gift shop that I never bothered with any of the previous times I was in the area. And so I decided that My Thing To Accomplish Today would be to take out the little raider camp under Walden and collect as many goodies from there as possible –
F) And then I spotted movement to my left. Having Victor VATS-scan the area revealed that there were a couple of swarmbots and eyebots over there, just sort of hanging around. Victor pulled out the Mighty Sniper again and used VATS to take out the Swarmbots first thing, then dodged laser fire until he could take out the eyebots as well. Going over to loot the shells confirmed they were a Mechanist patrol –
And that they’d apparently just taken out a little caravan camp, as there were a couple of dead guards and a dead trader all around a little tent. :( Damn – sorry Victor arrived too late, guys! I had Victor loot all the bodies for stuff he needed (mindful of his carry weight, as he was definitely starting to edge toward the limit), then headed for the pond to start looking for the secret drainpipe entrance to the raider camp (as much to get out of the driving rain as anything – yes, I was already thinking about how I would interpret this for my Playthrough Progression write-up :p) –
G) And, to my delight, found it almost right next to the little camp! Victor thus looped around and headed inside the pipe, where he slogged through the gunk within, grabbing cans and raiding hidden chem stashes while Ada commented that she was glad she had no vomit subroutine. XD It wasn’t long before I heard enemy chatter, and found myself at the edge of one of the raider living chambers, listening to raider Tweez make an awful pun about how a certain author making sure he had all of his supplies for camping at the pond was “being Thoreau” to his friend Bear. XD I had Victor grab Deliverer (since it felt like the ideal close-quarters gun) and sneak into their room, keeping to the far edge of where the raiders were to avoid detection –
And then, the moment they started to notice something was wrong, took ‘em out with two shots from the Deliverer. Because these poor bastards are LEVEL ONE. XD Yeah, I probably should have just cleared this location out a while ago, huh? Better late than never!
H) With Tweez and Bear dead, Victor was free to loot the little swampy living area and their bodies for goodies, grabbing as many aluminum cans as he could find, along with some beer bottles and other odds and ends. Doing so put him almost right up against his weight limit, though, so I decided that I had to find a way to spare a little room and thus had him drop his portable workbench in a nice spot to do some cooking. But no sooner had I gotten him to boil up some purified water than I heard some surprised raider barks behind him. Startled, I quickly got out of the workbench and turned around –
To see Ada coming back into the room through the exit to the right, having apparently aggroed the raiders Whiplash and Walter in the gift shop basement just beyond. *shakehead* Companions sometimes, I swear. Anyway, the pair were pretty easily taken out (being also super-low-level), and once they were dead, it was right back to cooking. Which mostly involved cooking up all the squirrel Victor had acquired from Fiddler’s Green and the surrounding environs. Along with the mirelurk eggs he had just acquired. Hell, his final dish of the day was squirrel quiche, which used both! Delicious and nutritious, I’m sure. XD
I) With his cooking done and a little more room in his pockets, Victor thus continued on, down the little homemade tunnel (disarming the can chimes along the way) and into the basement of the Walden Pond gift shop. He took a moment to raid Whiplash and Walter of ammo (disdaining Walter’s gift shop key, though I made sure to note he had it for later writing purposes), then grabbed a bunch of useful stuff from the shelves on the lower level, mostly booze and drugs. Then opened the Master-locked safe down there (second try!) for more drugs, ammo, and some meds. (Plus some grenades, but I figured Victor didn’t need those – he has 69 frag grenades, after all. ;) ) I then proceeded up the stairs to the higher level of the basement –
And realized “Oh right, this is where Big Jim the named Legendary Kneecapper Wrench lives! Jon just picked it up in his last SS2 episode, didn’t he? Well, now I gotta take it...wonder how heavy it is, though, still gotta be careful of my carryweight…”
Cue Victor getting hungry and thirsty, and me giving him some mutfruit pie and some power tea to boost his carry capacity and Strength temporarily so he could indeed take along Big Jim. :) Along with more cans, duct tape, and two bottles of economy-sized Wonderglue – one on the shelf, one in a Vault-Tec lunchbox. :D With that, I had Victor go up the stairs to the left to the back door into the actual gift shop and crack that open (another Master lock, but I’ve got bobby pins to spare) –
J) And the second I was past the loading screen and actually in the shop, I had Victor tell Ada to “hold” because I remembered this damn shop has some fun traps in it and I did NOT want Ada setting them off! Once she had agreed to stay still, I then had Victor VERY CAREFULLY creep forward and locate and disarm the three makeshift bombs in the area (one on the gap in the counters, two on the shelves), keeping an eye out for dangerous tripwires the whole time. He also spotted a cymbal monkey alerter set up behind the counter on a shelf and shot the head off of that. Because we didn’t need its creepy ass causing trouble. Once that was all sorted, I had him do a little looting, opening up a suitcase (red dress that Victor didn’t want, though I did get back the bobby pin I broke opening it) and grabbing various toys and other items off the shelves (so many toy cars!). He also took a needed toilet break and read the message from Walter to Tweez that was stabbed into the wall next to the door, angrily informing Tweez that they were locking this door and that he needed to use the drainpipe. Welp, that’s no longer a problem now!
K) At this point, Victor was starting to feel tired (at a normal human time, around 9 PM!) – I thought briefly about having him set up camp in the gift shop, but then remembered, “Hey, Sunshine Tidings is LITERALLY just up the hill from here” – and so I had Victor let Ada know it was okay to move again, then directed them both out the front door of the shop and (a little clumsily) up the nearby rocky slope to the settlement! I had Victor drop off all of his junk after checking what Sunshine actually had available (not a heck of a lot), accidentally asked a settler to trade since I thought he wanted to talk to me for some reason (though this makes me realize, this might be a good place to get rid of some of my unwanted Legendary weapons), do a little bit of chem combining, then hit the sack around 10 PM. Look at him, having an actual proper sleep schedule again. :p He woke up the next morning to a settler saying that if they all pulled together, they could turn this place around (sir, your settlement is at 80% happiness, you’re fine) –
And the sound of guitar music from the local orchestra. Only to investigate and find no one playing. O.o I think the sound on that MIIIGHT be glitched. XD At least it’s not a bad thing to listen to. I left it with Victor having just harvested all the crops and had a quick chat with Ada, who gave him a teddy bear and a couple of bowls for his junk collection. :) Next time, we’ll take a moment to see just EXACTLY what I need to build the mods I want for the Tesla Rifle; organize Victor and Ada’s inventories; pass out a couple of weapons to the locals; then head over to Abernathy Farm to check in with them before returning to the Red Rocket! Should be fun. :)
Writing: Another Sunday, another update to the FO4 Playthrough Progression – and while Victor, Alice, and Ada had the same short trip from Fiddler’s Green to Sunshine Tidings by way of the bridge near ArcJet and Walden Pond, a lot of the specifics actually did get tweaked this time –
A) First off, that glitched encounter with a trio of Gunners I had on the bridge? That became a trio of Gunners getting ready to shake down Victor for a toll when he climbed up from the little lake to check out the pickup truck near the bridge, only to recognize him as the General of the Minutemen and lose their nerve. XD They ended up claiming that they were there to fight mirelurks, leading Victor to shoot the one softshell in the area and then send them on their way with a shit-eating grin when the Brotherhood of Steel landed. XD It was very fun for him.
B) As for the Brotherhood against the Protectron Devil, that was mostly the same as in the game, though I did specify that the pilot of the blown-up vertibird managed to survive by throwing herself out of the ‘bird as it crashed. She’s hurt, but she’ll make it! Victor also shot the Devil and investigated the sunken subway car without any help from Alice or Ada – I had him send them ahead to ArcJet to keep them safe, since I couldn’t think of anything for them to do in that situation.
C) The gang were actually going to swing around Walden Pond and head straight to Sunshine Tidings because of the rain moving in when they headed toward the pond from the generator behind ArcJet – but then Victor spotted and took out the Mechanist patrol and discovered the traders they’d killed (furiously asking Jezebel if she’d done the same thing when she was a working robobrain – she confirmed it, but then added he got no more answers until she got her new body), and THEN while he was making plans to get to the Red Rocket as fast as possible to build Jezebel that body, the sky opened up and the gang ended up taking shelter in the drainage pipe when Alice led them there (she herself led by Rabbit). Which led to them hearing Tweez telling Bear about “being Thoreau” and tracking down the voices – and having to kill the raiders when they too recognized Victor and decided to try and kill him for the bounty on his head. They were not hard for the trio to take down. XD But yeah, no DELIBERATE intent to clear out Walden Pond – this was all happy accidents on their side!
D) As per the “he doesn’t need the lockpicking XP” rule, Victor just took the key to the gift shop off of Walter’s corpse and used that to get into the building – though he had to disarm all those makeshift bombs in said gift shop himself! Fortunately in fanfic verse, Ada and Alice were perfectly willing to wait downstairs for him to do that, instead of me having to tell Ada to hold hopefully before she wandered too close to one and set it off. Victor also claimed Big Jim, but less as a melee weapon and more as a useful tool (though he did note its potential kneecapper capabilities), while Alice took the knife Walter used to pin his reminder to the wall of the gift shop, because you never know when you might need a spare knife.
E) And Victor didn’t do any cooking down in the raider’s living space near the drainpipe, because ew (Alice even wondered why they didn’t live in the NICE DRY BASEMENT) – instead, he waited until they reached Sunshine Tidings and cooked up some squirrel quiche while letting the settlers look through his junk piles for stuff they might want. XD
And there we have it! I left off in the fanfic universe with Victor, having just picked the crops with the settlers (while someone ACTUALLY played guitar instead of the guitar glitchily playing itself), getting ready to trade junk and distribute weapons at Sunshine, much like I’m preparing to do in the game. We’ll see how that goes for him in his world, and if he can reach the Red Rocket so he can build Jezebel her body and get his answers about the Mechanist, next Sunday!
YouTube: As per usual, took longer than I wanted (we ate supper much later than expected thanks to my parents being busy trying to fix the lawnmower this evening), but I did get in my usual Sunday Two –
A) First up, snuck in before my workout again, we had GrayStillPlays and “Turning random objects into deadly projectiles,” aka Gray plays more Bowmaster! This is that game where you play random weird characters, and are tasked with destroying other weird characters with your weird weapon (via throwing it at them at just the right power and angle) before they can destroy you with theirs. (Although occasionally you’re fighting waves of zombies or shooting apples off people’s heads. Just to change things up a bit.) Gray today cycled through a mime headshotting people with deadly baguettes; “Young Tree” blowing up Dollar Store Iron Man with his “jetcoon” friend; Raymonde, Queen Of The Sky, slaughtering people with her deadly boomerang plane props; Thor and Upgraded Thor, both smashing people up with their magic hammer Mjolnir and then electrocuting them; Neko and her upgraded form Kistune, stabbing people with their special triple kunai spears; Mike and Upgraded Mike, bludgeoning people AND setting them on fire with their blazing footballs; and finally Betty, smashing people’s heads open with deadly watermelons. It was silly, it was cartoonishly gory, and everyone involved (Gray, myself, and the rest of Gray’s audience) had a wonderful time. XD
B) And then, this evening, after the late supper, we had Jon and “Fallout 4: Sim Settlements 2 - Part 44 - Laughing All The Way To The Bank!” Featuring Bob’s continuing adventures with Lydia Proudmore and Allison Gale of the New Liberty Trading Company as the former seeks to undermine her boss Mr. Glatton, take over, and make sure the NLTC has a continuing interest in the Commonwealth rather than just sucking it dry like it does most places. And today saw The Ron, information broker extraordinaire, join their little gang! How did that go? Well –
I. Episode opened with Bob going to help facilitate a meeting between Lydia and The Ron – only to discover Lydia and Allison already in The Ron’s office, arguing over his name (she refused to call him “The Ron,” insisting on Mr. Ron – or Mr. Spritz, hmmmm) and talking about a bank that he insisted was “Deadsville” – only for her to reveal she’d been keeping tabs on him, and she KNEW he was poking into the records on it that she gave him as payment for the job getting info on Diamond City’s quartermaster. Bob finally made his presence known, and it was revealed that the location the were talking about was one Norwood Bank – a pre-War bank that was practically new when the bombs fell (and yet had somehow already been robbed), and now sat buried in the Glowing Sea. Lydia knew of something very valuable there that would help keep the NLTC interested in the Commonwealth in the long term, and wanted The Ron’s help in getting it. The Ron was agreeable, but had one condition – that he be allowed to tag along on the mission. While he normally relies on mercs and scavs to get the stuff he needs, the idea of something super-valuable being in that bank meant he was happy to get his hands dirty. Lydia was willing to let him tag along (especially since he had all the security codes, and the exact location of the bank, while she had the architectural plans and such), and said that she’d assemble a team to dig out the front entrance and told Bob that he could meet them all over there once he was ready. She also informed him in a separate conversation that the pay for this job would be 2,000 caps, and she was willing to give him an advance of 500 for supplies. Bob, ever the optimist, tried once again to bargain with her – and THIS time, since he was helping her with her coup, he got her to agree to double the advance to a grand. Nice. :) Seems like she CAN be negotiated with, IF you’ve got the power to do so.
II. With that all settled, Bob proceeded to stay the night in Diamond City; got himself a super-fancy Plasma sniper with a bunch of the best upgrades from Arturo’s shop the next morning; then set out for home – though before he hit HQ and the Marina, he made sure to check the area between Big John’s Salvage and Shaw High School for a military convoy that he was pretty sure came with a guaranteed set of power armor, as his still needed a freaking helmet. Fortunately, he was correct, and managed to snag himself a nice T-60 helmet to go with his X-01 set that he picked up on his last expedition into the Glowing Sea. He then hit HQ to check on the cleaning job in the front hall (better than it was, but he still wasn’t FULLY happy) and set up some new building projects (making a chemistry lab and a robotics lab, since he was sure he’d need both and the former would allow him to bypass some needed perks for making some chems), before finally returning to the Marina to upgrade “Lupe’s Revenge” (the VATS-Enhanced plasma gun he got from Lupe for helping her with her virtual reality lounger settlement management thing) with all the mods from the plasma sniper he bought. And put his new helmet on his power armor, before realizing it was also missing a leg. “That’s fine, I can deal with an irradiated leg,” he decided, and headed to bed for a good night’s sleep. XD
III. And so, the next morning, rested and refreshed, Bob climbed into his power armor and headed off into the Glowing Sea! Where he quickly learned he could not deal with an irradiated leg as he waded into pools of toxic water trying to get a Legendary off a ghoul. Fortunately he’d brought Rad-X and purified water for just this situation – and even MORE fortunately, he got some truly good drops off the locals! That ghoul had a Two-Shot Combat Shotgun (though apparently it’s not as good as Jon or I thought, according to the comments), while a bloodbug gave him an EXPLOSIVE HARDENED SNIPER RIFLE. AKA a gun that can EXPLODE enemies – and since Bob already has all ranks in the “Demo Expert” perk, the extra 15 points of explosion damage was doubled AND affected a bigger area. So THAT was nice.
IV. Having grabbed his Legendaries, Bob found his way over to the NLTC team and followed them into the hole leading into Norwood bank – where they were almost torn apart by a giant wave of ghouls in the first room and had to deal with a security lockdown being triggered. Lydia and Allison ended up having a brief spat about the fact that Lydia had known about the lockdown and the possibility of ghouls, but hadn’t bothered to inform Allison – Jon personally came down on Allison’s side, since, yeah, tell the people paid to do the shooting what they may have to shoot, but Bob just told everyone to calm down so they could get on with things. Lydia apologized for losing her temper, and told them that the button to lift the lockdown was through a specific vent – however, Allison, with her street smarts, was able to hear that the vent was flooded, meaning passage through it would be – difficult, to say the least.
Good thing Bob has “Aqua Boy” and can breathe underwater, even in power armor! He thus braved the flooded area with its handful of ghouls and mirelurks to lift the lockdown, before coming back to find his team in the atrium, working on a terminal there. Turns out their target was not actually the bank’s vault, but its archival wing – however, the area was locked down due to “contamination” (aka lethally-high levels of radiation). Allison guessed there would be loads of ghouls in there too, but reassured Bob that this situation wasn’t the worst she’d dealt with. Lydia explained that the environmental controls were behind a specific door – Allison enlisted The Ron’s help in prying it open, while Lydia told Bob that they should search the Office Wing for any keycards they would need to bypass security checkpoints. Bob was suspicious that Lydia was looking for something she didn’t want the others to know about, but agreed –
V. And after a quick check of the vault security door (locked, and won’t open unless you have the master key, which Bob didn’t have and couldn’t find), they headed off down to the offices! Which contained yet more ghouls with middling loot – and, in a side room, a Bank Manager keycard! Lydia happily commented that this whole enterprise was working out very well, and that even the information broker was pulling his weight. She’d almost respect him if it wasn’t for his “delusions.” Bob was like “excuse me, he’s good at what he does,” and Lydia agreed – she just doesn’t understand why people like The Ron or Mr. Glatton have to sell an exaggerated, false image of themselves instead of letting their skills speak for themselves. Or why so many in the NLTC seem to be following their example… Unfortunately, Bob failed the speech check to get her to open up more, so figuring out specifically why she was so troubled by that will remain a mystery in this playthrough. Ah well.
VI. With the bank manager keycard obtained, Bob and Lydia proceeded back to the atrium, where they found Allison and The Ron joking around together after having gotten the door open. Lydia suggested The Ron use his skills with terminals and passcodes to activate the environmental controls and get the rad scrubbers online – The Ron was initially suspicious she just wanted to get into the archival wing first, but she assured him she had no desire to be torn apart by ghouls. She and Allison thus went off to discuss that problem, while Bob and The Ron proceeded to have an adventure together in the Environmental Controls area, killing yet more ghouls (including another Legendary, which gave Bob an Irradiated Gauss Rifle) before The Ron was able to activate the controls, and Bob got to push the button in a flooded security office to activate the scrubbers once they were online. The Ron congratulated both Bob and himself on a job well-done, and asked Bob if he thought Allison was flirting with him (saying he’d be flattered if she wasn’t so scary) – Jon wasn’t sure, as he’d thought Allison was flirting with BOB before –
And besides, the option to ask The Ron about his real name was sitting right there, just waiting to be pressed. And this time, when Bob tried the speech check, it succeeded, prompting The Ron to reveal his backstory! Turns out he was born Eugene Ronald Spritz, a name that he implied got him bullied growing up. So as soon as he could, he flew the nest and set up shop in Diamond City, remaking himself as The Ron, information broker extraordinaire! Not a nobody like he was before, but someone that people actually WANTED to talk to! ...Though he privately admitted to Bob that he’d thought he’d have more friends and less enemies at this point in his life. And that The Ron persona was – sometimes a bit tiring, even for him. Bob reassured him, letting him know that The Ron shouldn’t doubt himself and that people like him because of his life and optimism, not just because of his over-the-top personality – The Ron thanked him and said that while he wasn’t ready to give up the persona entirely, it was good to know that he didn’t have to keep it up all the time with Bob. Bob promptly was like “wanna hug it out?” and The Ron laughed and said, “later, when we’re not covered in decaying rads.” XD So yeah, they’re officially buddies now, it seems – I like it. And I’m sure Jon likes it too (he made a note that the voice actor in particular is hitting it out of the park with this guy).
VII. With that sidequest sorted, it was back again to the Atrium, where the boys found the ladies talking about Allison’s plan to get the ghouls out of the archival wing. Seems like she’d rigged up a specific ghoul-attracting beacon to lure them to a specific “arena” – the parking garage – so she and Bob could destroy them at their leisure. Bob was up for that, and together they proceeded to their chosen battleground – though Bob ended up accidentally running ahead of Allison and dropping a bunch of bottlecap mines all over the place before realizing she wasn’t with him and backtracking to where she was waiting – only for her to suggest he drop a bunch of mines all over the place. And then he accidentally got her to give him more mines by picking the “grenades” option, thinking it meant “I think grenades would be useful too.” XD Never one to turn down a good mine, he went back into the garage and set a few more up, then returned to Allison and told her to start the party. She thus set up the beacon –
And one giant off-screen explosion later (and a bit of help from “Idiot Savant”), Bob had 867 more XP and a whole mountain of dead ghouls waiting for him in the parking garage. XD Unfortunately, there were two more waves after the first one, which Bob was much more unprepared for (given he didn’t know where they’d all be spawning), and he ended up doing all of the PsychoJet while firing wildly with his Two-Shot Combat Rifle to keep himself and Allison alive. On the plus side, he got two level-ups out of it, so – yay? XD
VIII. Once the waves of ghouls were over and Bob confirmed Allison was all right (Jon didn’t show this, so I’m guessing she didn’t have a nice heart-to-heart moment like the other two – understandable, I guess, she is very much all about the murder), the pair headed back to the atrium, where they found The Ron commenting that what Lydia was looking for wasn’t a money-maker, but Lydia insisted she knew what she was doing. She confirmed with Bob and Allison that the pathway was clear, and the group headed into the Archival Wing (with Bob getting one more good Legendary off a ghoul, a VATS-Enhanced Combat Rifle – though he doesn’t think it would be better than the Two-Shot) –
Where it was revealed that Lydia wasn’t after the bank records or anything like that – rather, she was after what was UNDER the bank: a landfill filled Nuka-Wine! A failed Nuka-Cola product buried in select locations that can be distilled into something that even the NLTC considers a major luxury good. Meaning, they will DEFINITELY want to play nice with the Commonwealth to get it. Bob was duly impressed, while The Ron was slightly annoyed she didn’t see the value in the bank receipts, which were a great source of information (she was like “fine, you take them then”). Having secured her prize, Lydia prepared to head back to the Commonwealth to prepare to confront Glatton –
But Bob wasn’t ready to leave with her just yet. He still wants to know what’s behind the locked security gate leading to the bank’s vault, after all! And he actually has another quest in the Glowing Sea, “Fishing Expedition,” that requires him to track down a mysterious radio signal there. AND he wants to swing by the Marina once he’s done to check out all of his new Legendaries and see which ones make the cut (that Explosive Sniper – DEFINITELY). So yes, it appears we know very well what Bob will be doing next Sunday! I’m quite looking forward to it. :)
Workout: Back on the bike again, and starting the next GrayStillPlays compilation on my list – “I spent two hours clicking so you don't have to,” aka a bunch of the “click fast to do stuff” games that Gray has played! Today’s workout saw me get through the game about becoming the best in the world at arm wrestling (which involves upgrading your dumbbell, your gym, your haircut, and your outfit until you look like the stupidest person alive standing on a beach in Florida lifting massive fidget spinners, but are able to smash down the fists of elephant men in one go) and start the game about being the most accomplished eater (Gray has gotten into choco-pies and is hoping to unlock the ability to fart soon). This should be an interesting one. XD
Mmmm -- pretty solid day. Even if it took me longer than I wanted to sum it all up. XD Ah well, like I said, don't have work tomorrow, so I can stay up a bit late. Probably should go to bed sooner rather than later, though, what with the period tired... As for the to-do list, my hopes are to get all the image alt text sorted on the Chill Valicer Save update drafts on Victor Luvs Alice; play Sims 4 (though I'm currently undecided about doing more Chill Valicer save or more Tiny Town planning stuff -- we'll see how I feel); watch the final Oxtra video in my Watch Later and keep up with GrayStillPlays; get in a workout; and get back to work on "Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland" (maybe -- I think I should be good to start editing Chapter 3, but again, we'll see how I feel). Night all!
Tumblr: Pretty decent day over here, at least on Victor Luvs Alice (Valice Multiverse was, as usual, dead) – I caught up on the dash, then spent the time before lunch cleaning up the main text and adding tags to all seven of the Chill Valicer Save update posts for this week, along with adding image alt text to the pictures on the first and last ones because those had the least amount of pictures to add alt text to (six and five respectively). :p So that’s two out of seven posts completely done, and five out of seven that just need image alt text! Should be able to finish off those remaining posts tomorrow. :) And then, this evening, before Jon, I made sure to reblog Moose’s latest McFlyJuly fic (which was Marlene asking Jennifer why she married Marty in the world where Marty broke his hand in that car accident – gave me real “Linda complaining about the dumb way Lorraine met George in the original BTTF” vibes) and queued up WeirdKev’s birthday fic (of the interview of his VTMB version of his Ducktales OC Phillianne Tropy). So I’m all set there, yay.
Fallout 4: Had a pretty chill hour in the Commonwealth today, taking Victor and Ada on a little adventure up through some familiar locations –
A) Started with the pair right on the edge of Fiddler’s Green Trailer Estates, having cleared that out last time – after taking a moment to survey the landscape and consider my options (confirming that climbing the ridge to my left would just put me back in Fort Hagen, as we were apparently right by the filling station there), I continued straight on, down into a little muddy ravine to what might have once been a river but was now a rather large puddle lake. I had Victor explore the edges of the lake to see if there was anything interesting there (nope), then climb up the side toward the bridge that crossed it. He was checking out a pickup truck off the side of the road by said bridge that looked like it had been carrying someone’s possessions when the bombs hit –
B) When suddenly, behind him, I heard “Hold it right there,” followed rapidly by “fire at will!” Startled, I had Victor whirl around to see a trio of Gunners on the bridge behind him, all holding weapons. “Shit,” I thought, “this is probably one of those ‘toll road’ encounters, and judging by the chatter I’ve already upset them –
“...but, uh, if that’s the case, why aren’t they shooting?” Puzzled, I went up to the leader guy – I had a “talk” prompt, but he wouldn’t actually respond to Victor’s “getting your attention” cough, either with demands or combat. And scanning them with VATS had them all marked as green – aka, non-hostile. Even more puzzled, I had Victor scan the area for anything else they could have been firing at –
And found one softshell mirelurk in the water below that was ever so slightly wounded. Also a Brotherhood vertibird moving in to drop off a patrol, but those guys arrived after I did, so they couldn’t have done any aggroing. Completely puzzled by this point, I did a quicksave, then had Victor slowly and carefully cross the bridge –
Nothing. Gunners watched him, but didn’t actually open fire. I think this WAS supposed to be some sort of “toll road” encounter, but something in the AI broke before they could actually attack Victor or demand the toll. Maybe because I wasn’t looking in the right direction, or wasn’t actually on the bridge when they first started talking? *shrug* Got me. Well, live and let live if they’re not actively shooting at me!
C) With the Gunners apparently willing to let Victor pass, I had him take a moment to finish off the softshell mirelurk (hell, might as well), then prepared to move on – only to hear gunfire very nearby. Looking around, I realized rapidly that the Brotherhood were attacking someone on the elevated highway chunk nearby – and whatever it was was decently powerful, as it managed to take out the damn vertibird! (Though, according to Jon, those things are actually made out of papier-mache, so…). My initial instinct was to just move on, but after the vertibird got exploded, I HAD to see what it was they were fighting. So I crept up, weaving through the various Brotherhood initiates and their guard dog –
And once I was close enough, VATS revealed they were all pissed off at a Protectron Devil up there! Ah, the Rust Devils – even when you clear out their base, they’re a problem. Fortunately, Victor has his Mighty Sniper and its recon scope, and using that, he was able to blow up the problem and get the BOS to calm down. I did spot another Rust Devil robot up there as well, but without knowing how to actually GET UP on that chunk of highway, I decided that the Mr. Handy Wrecker or Destroyer or whatever it was could live in peace. For now. :p
D) What couldn’t live in peace was the wreckage of what looked like a subway car of some kind lying in the water below the elevated highway, nearby to the wreckage of the vertibird. Curious as to if it contained any goodies, I had Victor head down and investigate it. Mostly it was just skeletons half-submerged in the water – but there was also a mirelurk nest down there. Which, of course, exploded into a handful of mirelurk hatchlings while Victor was trying to line up a shot on the wriggly eggs. Fortunately, despite having a tiny bit of trouble targeting them with VATS thanks to various obstacles in the small car, Victor was able to take out all the little buggers, collect their meat, and take the remaining unhatched eggs. Because – well, okay, in my case more food might JUST be a bad thing, as I have loads more than I eat, but cooking is a good way to get XP, so… *weighs hands*
E) With the subway car explored, and further wandering in the little body of water beneath the highway revealing there was something SUPER radioactive down there (I’m not entirely sure what, only that when Victor went a certain way near the vertibird wreckage, he was suddenly taking 10 rads a second – I’m GUESSING it was the vertibird itself, but I don’t think they’re supposed to be radioactive), I had Victor and Ada clamber their way back onto dry land, then head up the hill and around to ArcJet Systems, where the Brotherhood was starting to regroup. I cut around the back of the building and climbed the hill up there to the little generator area with the tractor shed attached (nothing of great interest there except a little .308 ammo – by the lack of fusion core in the generator, I already cleared it out earlier), then started toward Walden Pond as the next viable landmark on my compass. And as I did that, I realized something – I never actually cleared out Walden Pond! There’s a few guaranteed enemies in a little dungeon under the gift shop that I never bothered with any of the previous times I was in the area. And so I decided that My Thing To Accomplish Today would be to take out the little raider camp under Walden and collect as many goodies from there as possible –
F) And then I spotted movement to my left. Having Victor VATS-scan the area revealed that there were a couple of swarmbots and eyebots over there, just sort of hanging around. Victor pulled out the Mighty Sniper again and used VATS to take out the Swarmbots first thing, then dodged laser fire until he could take out the eyebots as well. Going over to loot the shells confirmed they were a Mechanist patrol –
And that they’d apparently just taken out a little caravan camp, as there were a couple of dead guards and a dead trader all around a little tent. :( Damn – sorry Victor arrived too late, guys! I had Victor loot all the bodies for stuff he needed (mindful of his carry weight, as he was definitely starting to edge toward the limit), then headed for the pond to start looking for the secret drainpipe entrance to the raider camp (as much to get out of the driving rain as anything – yes, I was already thinking about how I would interpret this for my Playthrough Progression write-up :p) –
G) And, to my delight, found it almost right next to the little camp! Victor thus looped around and headed inside the pipe, where he slogged through the gunk within, grabbing cans and raiding hidden chem stashes while Ada commented that she was glad she had no vomit subroutine. XD It wasn’t long before I heard enemy chatter, and found myself at the edge of one of the raider living chambers, listening to raider Tweez make an awful pun about how a certain author making sure he had all of his supplies for camping at the pond was “being Thoreau” to his friend Bear. XD I had Victor grab Deliverer (since it felt like the ideal close-quarters gun) and sneak into their room, keeping to the far edge of where the raiders were to avoid detection –
And then, the moment they started to notice something was wrong, took ‘em out with two shots from the Deliverer. Because these poor bastards are LEVEL ONE. XD Yeah, I probably should have just cleared this location out a while ago, huh? Better late than never!
H) With Tweez and Bear dead, Victor was free to loot the little swampy living area and their bodies for goodies, grabbing as many aluminum cans as he could find, along with some beer bottles and other odds and ends. Doing so put him almost right up against his weight limit, though, so I decided that I had to find a way to spare a little room and thus had him drop his portable workbench in a nice spot to do some cooking. But no sooner had I gotten him to boil up some purified water than I heard some surprised raider barks behind him. Startled, I quickly got out of the workbench and turned around –
To see Ada coming back into the room through the exit to the right, having apparently aggroed the raiders Whiplash and Walter in the gift shop basement just beyond. *shakehead* Companions sometimes, I swear. Anyway, the pair were pretty easily taken out (being also super-low-level), and once they were dead, it was right back to cooking. Which mostly involved cooking up all the squirrel Victor had acquired from Fiddler’s Green and the surrounding environs. Along with the mirelurk eggs he had just acquired. Hell, his final dish of the day was squirrel quiche, which used both! Delicious and nutritious, I’m sure. XD
I) With his cooking done and a little more room in his pockets, Victor thus continued on, down the little homemade tunnel (disarming the can chimes along the way) and into the basement of the Walden Pond gift shop. He took a moment to raid Whiplash and Walter of ammo (disdaining Walter’s gift shop key, though I made sure to note he had it for later writing purposes), then grabbed a bunch of useful stuff from the shelves on the lower level, mostly booze and drugs. Then opened the Master-locked safe down there (second try!) for more drugs, ammo, and some meds. (Plus some grenades, but I figured Victor didn’t need those – he has 69 frag grenades, after all. ;) ) I then proceeded up the stairs to the higher level of the basement –
And realized “Oh right, this is where Big Jim the named Legendary Kneecapper Wrench lives! Jon just picked it up in his last SS2 episode, didn’t he? Well, now I gotta take it...wonder how heavy it is, though, still gotta be careful of my carryweight…”
Cue Victor getting hungry and thirsty, and me giving him some mutfruit pie and some power tea to boost his carry capacity and Strength temporarily so he could indeed take along Big Jim. :) Along with more cans, duct tape, and two bottles of economy-sized Wonderglue – one on the shelf, one in a Vault-Tec lunchbox. :D With that, I had Victor go up the stairs to the left to the back door into the actual gift shop and crack that open (another Master lock, but I’ve got bobby pins to spare) –
J) And the second I was past the loading screen and actually in the shop, I had Victor tell Ada to “hold” because I remembered this damn shop has some fun traps in it and I did NOT want Ada setting them off! Once she had agreed to stay still, I then had Victor VERY CAREFULLY creep forward and locate and disarm the three makeshift bombs in the area (one on the gap in the counters, two on the shelves), keeping an eye out for dangerous tripwires the whole time. He also spotted a cymbal monkey alerter set up behind the counter on a shelf and shot the head off of that. Because we didn’t need its creepy ass causing trouble. Once that was all sorted, I had him do a little looting, opening up a suitcase (red dress that Victor didn’t want, though I did get back the bobby pin I broke opening it) and grabbing various toys and other items off the shelves (so many toy cars!). He also took a needed toilet break and read the message from Walter to Tweez that was stabbed into the wall next to the door, angrily informing Tweez that they were locking this door and that he needed to use the drainpipe. Welp, that’s no longer a problem now!
K) At this point, Victor was starting to feel tired (at a normal human time, around 9 PM!) – I thought briefly about having him set up camp in the gift shop, but then remembered, “Hey, Sunshine Tidings is LITERALLY just up the hill from here” – and so I had Victor let Ada know it was okay to move again, then directed them both out the front door of the shop and (a little clumsily) up the nearby rocky slope to the settlement! I had Victor drop off all of his junk after checking what Sunshine actually had available (not a heck of a lot), accidentally asked a settler to trade since I thought he wanted to talk to me for some reason (though this makes me realize, this might be a good place to get rid of some of my unwanted Legendary weapons), do a little bit of chem combining, then hit the sack around 10 PM. Look at him, having an actual proper sleep schedule again. :p He woke up the next morning to a settler saying that if they all pulled together, they could turn this place around (sir, your settlement is at 80% happiness, you’re fine) –
And the sound of guitar music from the local orchestra. Only to investigate and find no one playing. O.o I think the sound on that MIIIGHT be glitched. XD At least it’s not a bad thing to listen to. I left it with Victor having just harvested all the crops and had a quick chat with Ada, who gave him a teddy bear and a couple of bowls for his junk collection. :) Next time, we’ll take a moment to see just EXACTLY what I need to build the mods I want for the Tesla Rifle; organize Victor and Ada’s inventories; pass out a couple of weapons to the locals; then head over to Abernathy Farm to check in with them before returning to the Red Rocket! Should be fun. :)
Writing: Another Sunday, another update to the FO4 Playthrough Progression – and while Victor, Alice, and Ada had the same short trip from Fiddler’s Green to Sunshine Tidings by way of the bridge near ArcJet and Walden Pond, a lot of the specifics actually did get tweaked this time –
A) First off, that glitched encounter with a trio of Gunners I had on the bridge? That became a trio of Gunners getting ready to shake down Victor for a toll when he climbed up from the little lake to check out the pickup truck near the bridge, only to recognize him as the General of the Minutemen and lose their nerve. XD They ended up claiming that they were there to fight mirelurks, leading Victor to shoot the one softshell in the area and then send them on their way with a shit-eating grin when the Brotherhood of Steel landed. XD It was very fun for him.
B) As for the Brotherhood against the Protectron Devil, that was mostly the same as in the game, though I did specify that the pilot of the blown-up vertibird managed to survive by throwing herself out of the ‘bird as it crashed. She’s hurt, but she’ll make it! Victor also shot the Devil and investigated the sunken subway car without any help from Alice or Ada – I had him send them ahead to ArcJet to keep them safe, since I couldn’t think of anything for them to do in that situation.
C) The gang were actually going to swing around Walden Pond and head straight to Sunshine Tidings because of the rain moving in when they headed toward the pond from the generator behind ArcJet – but then Victor spotted and took out the Mechanist patrol and discovered the traders they’d killed (furiously asking Jezebel if she’d done the same thing when she was a working robobrain – she confirmed it, but then added he got no more answers until she got her new body), and THEN while he was making plans to get to the Red Rocket as fast as possible to build Jezebel that body, the sky opened up and the gang ended up taking shelter in the drainage pipe when Alice led them there (she herself led by Rabbit). Which led to them hearing Tweez telling Bear about “being Thoreau” and tracking down the voices – and having to kill the raiders when they too recognized Victor and decided to try and kill him for the bounty on his head. They were not hard for the trio to take down. XD But yeah, no DELIBERATE intent to clear out Walden Pond – this was all happy accidents on their side!
D) As per the “he doesn’t need the lockpicking XP” rule, Victor just took the key to the gift shop off of Walter’s corpse and used that to get into the building – though he had to disarm all those makeshift bombs in said gift shop himself! Fortunately in fanfic verse, Ada and Alice were perfectly willing to wait downstairs for him to do that, instead of me having to tell Ada to hold hopefully before she wandered too close to one and set it off. Victor also claimed Big Jim, but less as a melee weapon and more as a useful tool (though he did note its potential kneecapper capabilities), while Alice took the knife Walter used to pin his reminder to the wall of the gift shop, because you never know when you might need a spare knife.
E) And Victor didn’t do any cooking down in the raider’s living space near the drainpipe, because ew (Alice even wondered why they didn’t live in the NICE DRY BASEMENT) – instead, he waited until they reached Sunshine Tidings and cooked up some squirrel quiche while letting the settlers look through his junk piles for stuff they might want. XD
And there we have it! I left off in the fanfic universe with Victor, having just picked the crops with the settlers (while someone ACTUALLY played guitar instead of the guitar glitchily playing itself), getting ready to trade junk and distribute weapons at Sunshine, much like I’m preparing to do in the game. We’ll see how that goes for him in his world, and if he can reach the Red Rocket so he can build Jezebel her body and get his answers about the Mechanist, next Sunday!
YouTube: As per usual, took longer than I wanted (we ate supper much later than expected thanks to my parents being busy trying to fix the lawnmower this evening), but I did get in my usual Sunday Two –
A) First up, snuck in before my workout again, we had GrayStillPlays and “Turning random objects into deadly projectiles,” aka Gray plays more Bowmaster! This is that game where you play random weird characters, and are tasked with destroying other weird characters with your weird weapon (via throwing it at them at just the right power and angle) before they can destroy you with theirs. (Although occasionally you’re fighting waves of zombies or shooting apples off people’s heads. Just to change things up a bit.) Gray today cycled through a mime headshotting people with deadly baguettes; “Young Tree” blowing up Dollar Store Iron Man with his “jetcoon” friend; Raymonde, Queen Of The Sky, slaughtering people with her deadly boomerang plane props; Thor and Upgraded Thor, both smashing people up with their magic hammer Mjolnir and then electrocuting them; Neko and her upgraded form Kistune, stabbing people with their special triple kunai spears; Mike and Upgraded Mike, bludgeoning people AND setting them on fire with their blazing footballs; and finally Betty, smashing people’s heads open with deadly watermelons. It was silly, it was cartoonishly gory, and everyone involved (Gray, myself, and the rest of Gray’s audience) had a wonderful time. XD
B) And then, this evening, after the late supper, we had Jon and “Fallout 4: Sim Settlements 2 - Part 44 - Laughing All The Way To The Bank!” Featuring Bob’s continuing adventures with Lydia Proudmore and Allison Gale of the New Liberty Trading Company as the former seeks to undermine her boss Mr. Glatton, take over, and make sure the NLTC has a continuing interest in the Commonwealth rather than just sucking it dry like it does most places. And today saw The Ron, information broker extraordinaire, join their little gang! How did that go? Well –
I. Episode opened with Bob going to help facilitate a meeting between Lydia and The Ron – only to discover Lydia and Allison already in The Ron’s office, arguing over his name (she refused to call him “The Ron,” insisting on Mr. Ron – or Mr. Spritz, hmmmm) and talking about a bank that he insisted was “Deadsville” – only for her to reveal she’d been keeping tabs on him, and she KNEW he was poking into the records on it that she gave him as payment for the job getting info on Diamond City’s quartermaster. Bob finally made his presence known, and it was revealed that the location the were talking about was one Norwood Bank – a pre-War bank that was practically new when the bombs fell (and yet had somehow already been robbed), and now sat buried in the Glowing Sea. Lydia knew of something very valuable there that would help keep the NLTC interested in the Commonwealth in the long term, and wanted The Ron’s help in getting it. The Ron was agreeable, but had one condition – that he be allowed to tag along on the mission. While he normally relies on mercs and scavs to get the stuff he needs, the idea of something super-valuable being in that bank meant he was happy to get his hands dirty. Lydia was willing to let him tag along (especially since he had all the security codes, and the exact location of the bank, while she had the architectural plans and such), and said that she’d assemble a team to dig out the front entrance and told Bob that he could meet them all over there once he was ready. She also informed him in a separate conversation that the pay for this job would be 2,000 caps, and she was willing to give him an advance of 500 for supplies. Bob, ever the optimist, tried once again to bargain with her – and THIS time, since he was helping her with her coup, he got her to agree to double the advance to a grand. Nice. :) Seems like she CAN be negotiated with, IF you’ve got the power to do so.
II. With that all settled, Bob proceeded to stay the night in Diamond City; got himself a super-fancy Plasma sniper with a bunch of the best upgrades from Arturo’s shop the next morning; then set out for home – though before he hit HQ and the Marina, he made sure to check the area between Big John’s Salvage and Shaw High School for a military convoy that he was pretty sure came with a guaranteed set of power armor, as his still needed a freaking helmet. Fortunately, he was correct, and managed to snag himself a nice T-60 helmet to go with his X-01 set that he picked up on his last expedition into the Glowing Sea. He then hit HQ to check on the cleaning job in the front hall (better than it was, but he still wasn’t FULLY happy) and set up some new building projects (making a chemistry lab and a robotics lab, since he was sure he’d need both and the former would allow him to bypass some needed perks for making some chems), before finally returning to the Marina to upgrade “Lupe’s Revenge” (the VATS-Enhanced plasma gun he got from Lupe for helping her with her virtual reality lounger settlement management thing) with all the mods from the plasma sniper he bought. And put his new helmet on his power armor, before realizing it was also missing a leg. “That’s fine, I can deal with an irradiated leg,” he decided, and headed to bed for a good night’s sleep. XD
III. And so, the next morning, rested and refreshed, Bob climbed into his power armor and headed off into the Glowing Sea! Where he quickly learned he could not deal with an irradiated leg as he waded into pools of toxic water trying to get a Legendary off a ghoul. Fortunately he’d brought Rad-X and purified water for just this situation – and even MORE fortunately, he got some truly good drops off the locals! That ghoul had a Two-Shot Combat Shotgun (though apparently it’s not as good as Jon or I thought, according to the comments), while a bloodbug gave him an EXPLOSIVE HARDENED SNIPER RIFLE. AKA a gun that can EXPLODE enemies – and since Bob already has all ranks in the “Demo Expert” perk, the extra 15 points of explosion damage was doubled AND affected a bigger area. So THAT was nice.
IV. Having grabbed his Legendaries, Bob found his way over to the NLTC team and followed them into the hole leading into Norwood bank – where they were almost torn apart by a giant wave of ghouls in the first room and had to deal with a security lockdown being triggered. Lydia and Allison ended up having a brief spat about the fact that Lydia had known about the lockdown and the possibility of ghouls, but hadn’t bothered to inform Allison – Jon personally came down on Allison’s side, since, yeah, tell the people paid to do the shooting what they may have to shoot, but Bob just told everyone to calm down so they could get on with things. Lydia apologized for losing her temper, and told them that the button to lift the lockdown was through a specific vent – however, Allison, with her street smarts, was able to hear that the vent was flooded, meaning passage through it would be – difficult, to say the least.
Good thing Bob has “Aqua Boy” and can breathe underwater, even in power armor! He thus braved the flooded area with its handful of ghouls and mirelurks to lift the lockdown, before coming back to find his team in the atrium, working on a terminal there. Turns out their target was not actually the bank’s vault, but its archival wing – however, the area was locked down due to “contamination” (aka lethally-high levels of radiation). Allison guessed there would be loads of ghouls in there too, but reassured Bob that this situation wasn’t the worst she’d dealt with. Lydia explained that the environmental controls were behind a specific door – Allison enlisted The Ron’s help in prying it open, while Lydia told Bob that they should search the Office Wing for any keycards they would need to bypass security checkpoints. Bob was suspicious that Lydia was looking for something she didn’t want the others to know about, but agreed –
V. And after a quick check of the vault security door (locked, and won’t open unless you have the master key, which Bob didn’t have and couldn’t find), they headed off down to the offices! Which contained yet more ghouls with middling loot – and, in a side room, a Bank Manager keycard! Lydia happily commented that this whole enterprise was working out very well, and that even the information broker was pulling his weight. She’d almost respect him if it wasn’t for his “delusions.” Bob was like “excuse me, he’s good at what he does,” and Lydia agreed – she just doesn’t understand why people like The Ron or Mr. Glatton have to sell an exaggerated, false image of themselves instead of letting their skills speak for themselves. Or why so many in the NLTC seem to be following their example… Unfortunately, Bob failed the speech check to get her to open up more, so figuring out specifically why she was so troubled by that will remain a mystery in this playthrough. Ah well.
VI. With the bank manager keycard obtained, Bob and Lydia proceeded back to the atrium, where they found Allison and The Ron joking around together after having gotten the door open. Lydia suggested The Ron use his skills with terminals and passcodes to activate the environmental controls and get the rad scrubbers online – The Ron was initially suspicious she just wanted to get into the archival wing first, but she assured him she had no desire to be torn apart by ghouls. She and Allison thus went off to discuss that problem, while Bob and The Ron proceeded to have an adventure together in the Environmental Controls area, killing yet more ghouls (including another Legendary, which gave Bob an Irradiated Gauss Rifle) before The Ron was able to activate the controls, and Bob got to push the button in a flooded security office to activate the scrubbers once they were online. The Ron congratulated both Bob and himself on a job well-done, and asked Bob if he thought Allison was flirting with him (saying he’d be flattered if she wasn’t so scary) – Jon wasn’t sure, as he’d thought Allison was flirting with BOB before –
And besides, the option to ask The Ron about his real name was sitting right there, just waiting to be pressed. And this time, when Bob tried the speech check, it succeeded, prompting The Ron to reveal his backstory! Turns out he was born Eugene Ronald Spritz, a name that he implied got him bullied growing up. So as soon as he could, he flew the nest and set up shop in Diamond City, remaking himself as The Ron, information broker extraordinaire! Not a nobody like he was before, but someone that people actually WANTED to talk to! ...Though he privately admitted to Bob that he’d thought he’d have more friends and less enemies at this point in his life. And that The Ron persona was – sometimes a bit tiring, even for him. Bob reassured him, letting him know that The Ron shouldn’t doubt himself and that people like him because of his life and optimism, not just because of his over-the-top personality – The Ron thanked him and said that while he wasn’t ready to give up the persona entirely, it was good to know that he didn’t have to keep it up all the time with Bob. Bob promptly was like “wanna hug it out?” and The Ron laughed and said, “later, when we’re not covered in decaying rads.” XD So yeah, they’re officially buddies now, it seems – I like it. And I’m sure Jon likes it too (he made a note that the voice actor in particular is hitting it out of the park with this guy).
VII. With that sidequest sorted, it was back again to the Atrium, where the boys found the ladies talking about Allison’s plan to get the ghouls out of the archival wing. Seems like she’d rigged up a specific ghoul-attracting beacon to lure them to a specific “arena” – the parking garage – so she and Bob could destroy them at their leisure. Bob was up for that, and together they proceeded to their chosen battleground – though Bob ended up accidentally running ahead of Allison and dropping a bunch of bottlecap mines all over the place before realizing she wasn’t with him and backtracking to where she was waiting – only for her to suggest he drop a bunch of mines all over the place. And then he accidentally got her to give him more mines by picking the “grenades” option, thinking it meant “I think grenades would be useful too.” XD Never one to turn down a good mine, he went back into the garage and set a few more up, then returned to Allison and told her to start the party. She thus set up the beacon –
And one giant off-screen explosion later (and a bit of help from “Idiot Savant”), Bob had 867 more XP and a whole mountain of dead ghouls waiting for him in the parking garage. XD Unfortunately, there were two more waves after the first one, which Bob was much more unprepared for (given he didn’t know where they’d all be spawning), and he ended up doing all of the PsychoJet while firing wildly with his Two-Shot Combat Rifle to keep himself and Allison alive. On the plus side, he got two level-ups out of it, so – yay? XD
VIII. Once the waves of ghouls were over and Bob confirmed Allison was all right (Jon didn’t show this, so I’m guessing she didn’t have a nice heart-to-heart moment like the other two – understandable, I guess, she is very much all about the murder), the pair headed back to the atrium, where they found The Ron commenting that what Lydia was looking for wasn’t a money-maker, but Lydia insisted she knew what she was doing. She confirmed with Bob and Allison that the pathway was clear, and the group headed into the Archival Wing (with Bob getting one more good Legendary off a ghoul, a VATS-Enhanced Combat Rifle – though he doesn’t think it would be better than the Two-Shot) –
Where it was revealed that Lydia wasn’t after the bank records or anything like that – rather, she was after what was UNDER the bank: a landfill filled Nuka-Wine! A failed Nuka-Cola product buried in select locations that can be distilled into something that even the NLTC considers a major luxury good. Meaning, they will DEFINITELY want to play nice with the Commonwealth to get it. Bob was duly impressed, while The Ron was slightly annoyed she didn’t see the value in the bank receipts, which were a great source of information (she was like “fine, you take them then”). Having secured her prize, Lydia prepared to head back to the Commonwealth to prepare to confront Glatton –
But Bob wasn’t ready to leave with her just yet. He still wants to know what’s behind the locked security gate leading to the bank’s vault, after all! And he actually has another quest in the Glowing Sea, “Fishing Expedition,” that requires him to track down a mysterious radio signal there. AND he wants to swing by the Marina once he’s done to check out all of his new Legendaries and see which ones make the cut (that Explosive Sniper – DEFINITELY). So yes, it appears we know very well what Bob will be doing next Sunday! I’m quite looking forward to it. :)
Workout: Back on the bike again, and starting the next GrayStillPlays compilation on my list – “I spent two hours clicking so you don't have to,” aka a bunch of the “click fast to do stuff” games that Gray has played! Today’s workout saw me get through the game about becoming the best in the world at arm wrestling (which involves upgrading your dumbbell, your gym, your haircut, and your outfit until you look like the stupidest person alive standing on a beach in Florida lifting massive fidget spinners, but are able to smash down the fists of elephant men in one go) and start the game about being the most accomplished eater (Gray has gotten into choco-pies and is hoping to unlock the ability to fart soon). This should be an interesting one. XD
Mmmm -- pretty solid day. Even if it took me longer than I wanted to sum it all up. XD Ah well, like I said, don't have work tomorrow, so I can stay up a bit late. Probably should go to bed sooner rather than later, though, what with the period tired... As for the to-do list, my hopes are to get all the image alt text sorted on the Chill Valicer Save update drafts on Victor Luvs Alice; play Sims 4 (though I'm currently undecided about doing more Chill Valicer save or more Tiny Town planning stuff -- we'll see how I feel); watch the final Oxtra video in my Watch Later and keep up with GrayStillPlays; get in a workout; and get back to work on "Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland" (maybe -- I think I should be good to start editing Chapter 3, but again, we'll see how I feel). Night all!
