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Speedy Sunday
Apr. 24th, 2022 11:42 pmBecause, as usual, I'm late updating thanks to a busy evening video-wise. First things first, though -- tested again for Covid: Negative 2 Electric Boogaloo. Whew! That's one load off the mind. *nods* And as for my to-dos:
1. Keep editing Chapter 6 of “Londerland Bloodlines: Santa Monica’s Vale of Tears”: Check – and the edits are complete, with Alice back in Santa Monica and worrying about the future, and Bertram Tung having found out a few interesting things about her accidental ghoul. Including that he’s the son of one of the richest men in the world. XD So, with that done, Chapter 6 is up! Hopefully I have not missed anything major, and hopefully you all enjoy. :) Work starts on the next entry, “Downtown Queensland,” very shortly!
2. Keep up with YouTube Subs and Jon's final F:NV "Utter Chaos" video: Check – got through all these this evening –
A) Started with Call Me Kevin and “I ruined the Sims by starting with NO MONEY” – aka, Kevin uses the “Rags to Riches” challenge to torment his self-Sim some more! Moving Sim Kevin out of his house and away from his wife (whom he married during the “all needs decay frighteningly fast” video) and into an empty field, with the goal being shelter and a job. Sim Kevin did not have a good start in his new life – his attempt at hiding out in the local pub for food and sleeps ended with him trying to get clean by skinny dipping in the river and DROWNING thanks to exhaustion (Kevin was deeply amused by the Grim Reaper in his scuba gear) – but after a reload, a few meals at the Gnome’s Arms and some unsuccessful flirting with owner – he was able to head to Willow Creek and get a job in Education via the library computers! Yes, really. He got some more sleep by sneaking in with a band of Sims into Monica Fyres’s house, then hit up the Salty Paws Saloon in Brindleton Bay for food, drinks, and socialization – including grabbing a celebrity autograph to sell for later! . . .Kevin was actually surprised that he COULD sell it later. XD Slowly but surely, though, he began spending more time at home, and his house came together as he progressed through his career – a camping bed, a freestanding mirror, a cardboard floor, and a large fish tank with a single guppy for fun (which was shockingly effective). He also visited the Bailey-Moons for more autographs, though that went rather poorly – he ended up aging up and then killing the kid, Orange, when he refused to give Sim Kevin an autograph, and then was trapped on the lot while a fire burned inside, necessitating a parody song while he waited for someone to put the damn thing out. XD But it all worked out in the end – another promotion gave him just enough money for walls, an outdoor grill, and a pee bush. He even ended the video having snagged his very first prisoner, the bar lady! XD Oh dear – if Kevin’s now gonna do a series on various Sims challenges, I am VERY much here for it. XD
B) And then it was time for GrayStillPlays and more Happy Wheels! We started with another overly-complicated, color-coded bottle-flip board (where getting “Your Turn” meant that Nixon was smashed to pieces on the flipper, and “Gray Will Find A Way” counted as a win – also, one of the first bottles Gray got was the upside-down “No,” sooo. . .); then moved onto a fairly simple blue rope swing (mmm, swinging on clearly-labeled blueberry ropes); then a mildly impossible harpoon run (where you had to run while JUMPING OVER OBSTACLES – Gray probably hates small triangles jutting out of the ground now); then a “notebook”-styled pogo fight (which was actually really hard because Gray kept getting everyone’s weapons in Pogo Guy’s groin, butt, or head – like, everything was poised perfectly to stab him); a glass break with increasingly-thick panes of glass (that lied about its stabbing potential – also, the last one, “GodStillPlays,” was I think TEN thick panes of glass all lined up in a row – don’t know how long it took armless Bike Dad to smash them all); and finally the “Pasta Masta” trick shot board by Dylan, where Nixon had to throw meatballs into a raw spaghetti Rube Goldburg-type machine to land them in a certain pocket. Took a few tries, but when you’re in a nice hot cup of coffee, time does not matter. XD Usual nonsense, is what I’m saying.
C) And finally, for the last Sunday in April, we had the last episode of Jon of Many A True Nerd’s Fallout: New Vegas “Utter Chaos” series. The episode where everything wrapped up with the battle of Hoover Dam, with Jon necessarily taking the side of an Independent New Vegas as he couldn't actually side with the NCR due to game breakage. However – before marching on the battle for the dam, Jon decided first to play “Where In The World Is” with three major named locations via console command teleporting:
I. Old Mormon Fort, home of the Followers and Arcade Gannon, the local medical center of the Mojave Wasteland. This one was genuinely inaccessible by normal means – one door led into a one-way mine shack; one door led into a mine shack that then led into the one-way Primm’s Sheriff’s Office; and the main gate was locked behind an Old Worlds Blues location that Jon couldn’t get the key for, because he skipped the opening cutscene with the scientists and just murderlated the lot of them. Okay, fair enough.
II. Vicki and Vance Casino, which I guess is the only major casino he never found? At any rate, this one proved to be available in the North Sewers, so Jon just missed this – and when he got there, he found Deputy Beagle’s exploded corpse for no reason. But, on the plus side, he was able to use Dr. Mobius’s old coat to Science his way into turning a Protectron into Primm’s new sheriff, so yay? XD
III. HELIOS 1’s main building – turns out that was in Jacobstown all along, and Jon mistook a balcony door that went to a cap counterfeiting shack to for the main door that lead to HELIOS 1. Welp. He went ahead and did the “restore power” quest there as he found the place, though this involved finding his way to the main observation deck via more door fiddling, then teleporting down to the array and killing dogs-turned-into-cazadores-and-robots to reach the terminals he needed. But at least more people have power now?
Anyway, with that all done, it was time to go to Hoover Dam, face off against the Legion (and possibly the NCR), install some overrides, and secure the area for Independent New Vegas! All in a special pocket universe that SHOULD have normal doors, if nothing else. Jon hit the switch, and off he went with his robot buddy!
To find the Legion, in good combat armor and with decent guns (mostly; one guy was using a kid’s BB gun), taking on an NCR with crap armor, boxing gloves, and knives – and being DECIMATED because one of the snipers on the towers had napalm. XD Granted, a fair few NCR died, but a lot more Legion died once Jon was able to get out the grenade launcher. XD He backed up the NCR fighting the Legion (as he wanted to at least remain on friendly terms with them), then started toward the door he needed –
THE DOORS WERE RANDOMIZED. Meaning the mod DID affect the pocket “final battle” universe. Meaning that, suddenly, Jon was being led on a wild goose chase around such places like Power Plant 2 (where he NEARLY died trapped behind his robot buddy when said robot buddy blew up a Legionnaire with missiles) to Vault 22. Fortunately, though, he realized very quickly that he actually already knew where he needed to go – the control room near where his favorite grenade salesman, Quartermaster Barton, lived. And he KNEW HOW TO GET THERE. Cue him finding his way through the randomized doors, from Westside, to the Sewers, to the dinosaur’s mouth in Novac, then VERY CAREFULLY jumping into Novac itself via the fence, before finally swinging into main offices and by Barton. Who was STILL willing to sell him crap, hilarious. XD
Anyway – Jon found the room he needed (which was also unguarded, EXTRA bonus) and installed the override chip, and said “Yes” to Yes-Man when he said he could reroute power to the robot army in the fort to take out the Legion once and for all. This was a process that involved hitting a couple of switches, though – one was nearby, but one was through another bunch of randomized doors. Jon ran back to Novac, traveled to Camp Searchlight, hiked from there to Cottonwood Cove, through the Tops, and finally to a door that took him back to the top of the Dam. Which, fortunately, allowed him to trip the QUEST “switch” and advance things to “take out the Legion and take care of Legate Lanius, the guy in the big scary mask.”
This is around the time that the Legion got their regular armor and weapons back, and Jon’s robot army was randomized to be one giant rat that died pretty quickly. *facepalm* Nice work, mod! Fortunately a few more robots (including a House securitron) showed up later, and the door to get Jon to the camp worked correctly, whew! But there was a problem there at the camp – namely, Lanius did NOT want to have his usual “you can get him to stand down with Speech 100” chat. He was also wearing an assassin suit, had a flamethrower, and had traded out his usual scary mask for a White Glove society scary mask, but those were lesser issues. XD But yes, Lanius was on the very fast warpath, and he brought some friends with him. After a disastrous first attempt to kill them all, Jon resorted to mining their spawn point and just nuking the damn camp with as many Tiny Tots nukes as he could. Once THEY were taken care of, it was over to the NCR camp, to HOPEFULLY talk to General Oliver and HIS randomized crew –
Different issue – gang not immediately hostile, but also not talking. Meaning Jon was frozen in place. Even rendering them unconscious with the “kill all” command (since I guess they were in a state where they couldn’t actually die) didn’t work – but fortunately, enabling player controls so he could move and actually START the conversation did. And better yet, the randomization finally worked in his favor when he showed off his firepower – two actual securitrons, a cazador, and a deathclaw, yay! Oliver agreed to retreat, but warned the NCR would be back and that he would have the Courier hung if their positions were reversed – so Jon had Yes Man throw him off the Hoover Dam. XD Feels appropriate, given how this run has gone.
And so the game finally ended, with an Independent and deeply anarchic New Vegas overwhelming the poor Followers with patients; allowing the Powder Gangers to prey on local caravans; sending the final few survivors of the New Khans to Idaho; leaving the Nightkin to suffer their madness and driving the friendly super mutants out of Jacobstown in the end; and leaving Goodsprings a ghost town. At least Primm got a nice new robot sheriff? XD But yeah, that’s the end of “Utter Chaos,” w00. Next week is a one-off, and then after that – well, Jon’s hinted at TWO new series, so that’ll be interesting! We’ll see what comes first for Fallout Sunday! :)
3. Play Fallout 4, do Piper's interview, and pick her up as a companion: Check! Victor and Preston woke up in Diamond City around 6 AM and wandered around as the rest of the city woke up and got to work (with Kyle’s corpse still in the middle of town – apparently that doesn’t get cleaned up until the next time you enter a building). In doing a loop of the town, I found where all the old baseball bases were, and decided to to have Victor run them as there’s actually an achievement linked to it – took two tries, but eventually I got it. :) Victor also overhead the conversation that puts you on the path to the Railroad (one of the residents telling another that the trick is to “follow the Freedom Trail”) and visited the local butcher, Polly – didn’t buy anything, but he did sell her some of his meat and fruit (namely pears) that he didn’t need anymore. By 8:30 AM in-game, I decided Victor had killed enough time for Piper and Nat to be up, and sent him and Preston into Publick Occurrences for the interview. Victor answered honestly that he’d been frozen for 200 years; said that seeing everyone rebuilding like this gave him hope for the future (which Preston liked); said that he wasn’t sure, but the Institute might be behind Shaun’s kidnapping; and offered the advice “take it one day at a time” for anyone who might be in a similar situation. And then, since I have the mod that restores Piper’s post-interview questions about life before the War, Victor told her that his time wasn’t perfect, but he still misses it, and admitted to being a soldier – though I ended up picking the sarcastic option for Piper asking about the war itself, and so he joked about aliens and laser dinosaurs being the cause (she ran with it, joking that then Grognak married the Dinosaur Queen).
With the interview done and Piper available to be a companion, Preston and Victor headed over to Nick’s (after pausing a moment to hear Travis’s report on Victor helping Danse and crew – Travis was extremely worried about the Brotherhood of Steel presence in the Commonwealth, let’s say XD). Of course, all they found was Ellie sadly going through Nick’s effects – Victor asked what had happened, and she told him that Nick had gone missing around Park Street Station, on the trail of Skinny Malone and a girl he might have kidnapped. Victor got the skinny on Skinny (ha) and his possible stomping grounds of Goodneighbor, then promised to find Nick and get him back.
And he knew just the person help him do it – Piper! She and Nick are canonically friends, so Victor headed back to hers and picked her up as a companion, with Preston heading back to Sanctuary (telling Piper to listen to Victor, “he’ll keep you out of trouble” – Piper’s response was essentially “what’s the fun in that?” XD). And so Victor and Piper headed out into the Fens beyond Diamond City –
Aaand promptly had to wait an hour at the entrance because the game chose that moment to stir up a giant dust storm. *sigh* But they eventually made it out into the ruins of Boston. Came across a junkyard with a small pack of vicious mongrels (good eatin’ on those dogs), then continued on until encountering a radroach ambush at Police Precinct 8. I sent Victor in to pick up junk and get the Eddie Winter holotape and the locations of the other holotapes, of course. Then it was around past the Public Library, into a small raider camp near Layton Towers – Victor and Piper took care of most of them without too much issue, though I lost one raider up high. *shrug* Then they reoriented themselves toward their goal, and took out two super mutant guards at Wilson Atomatoys HQ before moving on to –
Warren Theater! This is a custom interior added by my “musical instruments” mod, and happily it happens to be in the same area as the one Victor and Piper needed to search. They went inside at 6:46 PM in-game, collected a bunch of junk from the lobby, then took the elevator upstairs to the musical raiders who’d killed Evie, the woman who made the instruments and who left the bounty in Diamond City. Victor was able to take out one raider quickly, but the others proved more difficult, with one of them throwing molotovs and setting both Piper and Victor on fire for a bit (and breaking both Victor’s arms, ouch). But they prevailed with the help of some stimpacks and Nuka-Cola, and Victor took the Enraging Acoustic Guitar weapon and the plans to build the actual instruments from Evie’s corpse, along with some other goodies. Also cracked open the safe there, and – well. It’s Victor – I had him take a moment to play the piano as well. :) Piper took a moment on the banjo herself afterward.
And with that, the pair headed back outside, into the rainy overworld, to camp, because I was ever-so-slightly nervous about sleeping overnight in a mod location. It is now 11/23/2287, Victor’s just taken care of his port-a-potty needs, and there are no immediate enemies nearby – I think next time, we’ll be visiting a statehouse. :) (And yes, I did do a write-up for all this in the Playthrough Progression doc, because I gotta keep up on that too! I mean, Victor finished THREE QUESTS in this particular playsession – that’s definitely gotta be noted!)
4. Work on tumblr drafts: Check – did my followed tag trawl this morning and added some neat stuff I saw in there to my drafts, then before lunch got the first drafts of my four-part Chill Save update sorted on Victor Luvs Alice. Finished up all the text after lunch, so that’s all good to go, yay. :) And just one ask reply on Valice Multiverse, which is good because keeping up with “Utter Chaos” took a while!
5. Get in a workout (optional): No check – there was a reason I marked this “optional,” after all. Just too tired most of the day, and then beanbags and the Playthrough Progression write-up for my FO4 session today ate up all of the time I would have used for it. Tomorrow!
Additionally:
-->Answered Ace’s latest FF.net PM, as seems to be tradition on Sundays now. *shrug* Better than never answering it at all!
-->Despite being colder and cloudier today, it got just warm enough for us to play five rounds of beanbags – and while Dad had a hot streak in the middle, Mom and I both played well enough once to pull out a win each. Final scores were me W-3-2-2-2; Dad 2-W-W-W-3; Mom 3-2-3-3-W. Hooray!
So yeah, pretty busy day, even without the workout. Those Jon videos on Sundays always seem to run over -- I'd watch them earlier in the day, but he tends to upload fairly late in my timezone, sooo. . .we'll see what I can do next Sunday. As it stands, I gotta run to bed as I do have work in the morning. *sigh* Night all!
1. Keep editing Chapter 6 of “Londerland Bloodlines: Santa Monica’s Vale of Tears”: Check – and the edits are complete, with Alice back in Santa Monica and worrying about the future, and Bertram Tung having found out a few interesting things about her accidental ghoul. Including that he’s the son of one of the richest men in the world. XD So, with that done, Chapter 6 is up! Hopefully I have not missed anything major, and hopefully you all enjoy. :) Work starts on the next entry, “Downtown Queensland,” very shortly!
2. Keep up with YouTube Subs and Jon's final F:NV "Utter Chaos" video: Check – got through all these this evening –
A) Started with Call Me Kevin and “I ruined the Sims by starting with NO MONEY” – aka, Kevin uses the “Rags to Riches” challenge to torment his self-Sim some more! Moving Sim Kevin out of his house and away from his wife (whom he married during the “all needs decay frighteningly fast” video) and into an empty field, with the goal being shelter and a job. Sim Kevin did not have a good start in his new life – his attempt at hiding out in the local pub for food and sleeps ended with him trying to get clean by skinny dipping in the river and DROWNING thanks to exhaustion (Kevin was deeply amused by the Grim Reaper in his scuba gear) – but after a reload, a few meals at the Gnome’s Arms and some unsuccessful flirting with owner – he was able to head to Willow Creek and get a job in Education via the library computers! Yes, really. He got some more sleep by sneaking in with a band of Sims into Monica Fyres’s house, then hit up the Salty Paws Saloon in Brindleton Bay for food, drinks, and socialization – including grabbing a celebrity autograph to sell for later! . . .Kevin was actually surprised that he COULD sell it later. XD Slowly but surely, though, he began spending more time at home, and his house came together as he progressed through his career – a camping bed, a freestanding mirror, a cardboard floor, and a large fish tank with a single guppy for fun (which was shockingly effective). He also visited the Bailey-Moons for more autographs, though that went rather poorly – he ended up aging up and then killing the kid, Orange, when he refused to give Sim Kevin an autograph, and then was trapped on the lot while a fire burned inside, necessitating a parody song while he waited for someone to put the damn thing out. XD But it all worked out in the end – another promotion gave him just enough money for walls, an outdoor grill, and a pee bush. He even ended the video having snagged his very first prisoner, the bar lady! XD Oh dear – if Kevin’s now gonna do a series on various Sims challenges, I am VERY much here for it. XD
B) And then it was time for GrayStillPlays and more Happy Wheels! We started with another overly-complicated, color-coded bottle-flip board (where getting “Your Turn” meant that Nixon was smashed to pieces on the flipper, and “Gray Will Find A Way” counted as a win – also, one of the first bottles Gray got was the upside-down “No,” sooo. . .); then moved onto a fairly simple blue rope swing (mmm, swinging on clearly-labeled blueberry ropes); then a mildly impossible harpoon run (where you had to run while JUMPING OVER OBSTACLES – Gray probably hates small triangles jutting out of the ground now); then a “notebook”-styled pogo fight (which was actually really hard because Gray kept getting everyone’s weapons in Pogo Guy’s groin, butt, or head – like, everything was poised perfectly to stab him); a glass break with increasingly-thick panes of glass (that lied about its stabbing potential – also, the last one, “GodStillPlays,” was I think TEN thick panes of glass all lined up in a row – don’t know how long it took armless Bike Dad to smash them all); and finally the “Pasta Masta” trick shot board by Dylan, where Nixon had to throw meatballs into a raw spaghetti Rube Goldburg-type machine to land them in a certain pocket. Took a few tries, but when you’re in a nice hot cup of coffee, time does not matter. XD Usual nonsense, is what I’m saying.
C) And finally, for the last Sunday in April, we had the last episode of Jon of Many A True Nerd’s Fallout: New Vegas “Utter Chaos” series. The episode where everything wrapped up with the battle of Hoover Dam, with Jon necessarily taking the side of an Independent New Vegas as he couldn't actually side with the NCR due to game breakage. However – before marching on the battle for the dam, Jon decided first to play “Where In The World Is” with three major named locations via console command teleporting:
I. Old Mormon Fort, home of the Followers and Arcade Gannon, the local medical center of the Mojave Wasteland. This one was genuinely inaccessible by normal means – one door led into a one-way mine shack; one door led into a mine shack that then led into the one-way Primm’s Sheriff’s Office; and the main gate was locked behind an Old Worlds Blues location that Jon couldn’t get the key for, because he skipped the opening cutscene with the scientists and just murderlated the lot of them. Okay, fair enough.
II. Vicki and Vance Casino, which I guess is the only major casino he never found? At any rate, this one proved to be available in the North Sewers, so Jon just missed this – and when he got there, he found Deputy Beagle’s exploded corpse for no reason. But, on the plus side, he was able to use Dr. Mobius’s old coat to Science his way into turning a Protectron into Primm’s new sheriff, so yay? XD
III. HELIOS 1’s main building – turns out that was in Jacobstown all along, and Jon mistook a balcony door that went to a cap counterfeiting shack to for the main door that lead to HELIOS 1. Welp. He went ahead and did the “restore power” quest there as he found the place, though this involved finding his way to the main observation deck via more door fiddling, then teleporting down to the array and killing dogs-turned-into-cazadores-and-robots to reach the terminals he needed. But at least more people have power now?
Anyway, with that all done, it was time to go to Hoover Dam, face off against the Legion (and possibly the NCR), install some overrides, and secure the area for Independent New Vegas! All in a special pocket universe that SHOULD have normal doors, if nothing else. Jon hit the switch, and off he went with his robot buddy!
To find the Legion, in good combat armor and with decent guns (mostly; one guy was using a kid’s BB gun), taking on an NCR with crap armor, boxing gloves, and knives – and being DECIMATED because one of the snipers on the towers had napalm. XD Granted, a fair few NCR died, but a lot more Legion died once Jon was able to get out the grenade launcher. XD He backed up the NCR fighting the Legion (as he wanted to at least remain on friendly terms with them), then started toward the door he needed –
THE DOORS WERE RANDOMIZED. Meaning the mod DID affect the pocket “final battle” universe. Meaning that, suddenly, Jon was being led on a wild goose chase around such places like Power Plant 2 (where he NEARLY died trapped behind his robot buddy when said robot buddy blew up a Legionnaire with missiles) to Vault 22. Fortunately, though, he realized very quickly that he actually already knew where he needed to go – the control room near where his favorite grenade salesman, Quartermaster Barton, lived. And he KNEW HOW TO GET THERE. Cue him finding his way through the randomized doors, from Westside, to the Sewers, to the dinosaur’s mouth in Novac, then VERY CAREFULLY jumping into Novac itself via the fence, before finally swinging into main offices and by Barton. Who was STILL willing to sell him crap, hilarious. XD
Anyway – Jon found the room he needed (which was also unguarded, EXTRA bonus) and installed the override chip, and said “Yes” to Yes-Man when he said he could reroute power to the robot army in the fort to take out the Legion once and for all. This was a process that involved hitting a couple of switches, though – one was nearby, but one was through another bunch of randomized doors. Jon ran back to Novac, traveled to Camp Searchlight, hiked from there to Cottonwood Cove, through the Tops, and finally to a door that took him back to the top of the Dam. Which, fortunately, allowed him to trip the QUEST “switch” and advance things to “take out the Legion and take care of Legate Lanius, the guy in the big scary mask.”
This is around the time that the Legion got their regular armor and weapons back, and Jon’s robot army was randomized to be one giant rat that died pretty quickly. *facepalm* Nice work, mod! Fortunately a few more robots (including a House securitron) showed up later, and the door to get Jon to the camp worked correctly, whew! But there was a problem there at the camp – namely, Lanius did NOT want to have his usual “you can get him to stand down with Speech 100” chat. He was also wearing an assassin suit, had a flamethrower, and had traded out his usual scary mask for a White Glove society scary mask, but those were lesser issues. XD But yes, Lanius was on the very fast warpath, and he brought some friends with him. After a disastrous first attempt to kill them all, Jon resorted to mining their spawn point and just nuking the damn camp with as many Tiny Tots nukes as he could. Once THEY were taken care of, it was over to the NCR camp, to HOPEFULLY talk to General Oliver and HIS randomized crew –
Different issue – gang not immediately hostile, but also not talking. Meaning Jon was frozen in place. Even rendering them unconscious with the “kill all” command (since I guess they were in a state where they couldn’t actually die) didn’t work – but fortunately, enabling player controls so he could move and actually START the conversation did. And better yet, the randomization finally worked in his favor when he showed off his firepower – two actual securitrons, a cazador, and a deathclaw, yay! Oliver agreed to retreat, but warned the NCR would be back and that he would have the Courier hung if their positions were reversed – so Jon had Yes Man throw him off the Hoover Dam. XD Feels appropriate, given how this run has gone.
And so the game finally ended, with an Independent and deeply anarchic New Vegas overwhelming the poor Followers with patients; allowing the Powder Gangers to prey on local caravans; sending the final few survivors of the New Khans to Idaho; leaving the Nightkin to suffer their madness and driving the friendly super mutants out of Jacobstown in the end; and leaving Goodsprings a ghost town. At least Primm got a nice new robot sheriff? XD But yeah, that’s the end of “Utter Chaos,” w00. Next week is a one-off, and then after that – well, Jon’s hinted at TWO new series, so that’ll be interesting! We’ll see what comes first for Fallout Sunday! :)
3. Play Fallout 4, do Piper's interview, and pick her up as a companion: Check! Victor and Preston woke up in Diamond City around 6 AM and wandered around as the rest of the city woke up and got to work (with Kyle’s corpse still in the middle of town – apparently that doesn’t get cleaned up until the next time you enter a building). In doing a loop of the town, I found where all the old baseball bases were, and decided to to have Victor run them as there’s actually an achievement linked to it – took two tries, but eventually I got it. :) Victor also overhead the conversation that puts you on the path to the Railroad (one of the residents telling another that the trick is to “follow the Freedom Trail”) and visited the local butcher, Polly – didn’t buy anything, but he did sell her some of his meat and fruit (namely pears) that he didn’t need anymore. By 8:30 AM in-game, I decided Victor had killed enough time for Piper and Nat to be up, and sent him and Preston into Publick Occurrences for the interview. Victor answered honestly that he’d been frozen for 200 years; said that seeing everyone rebuilding like this gave him hope for the future (which Preston liked); said that he wasn’t sure, but the Institute might be behind Shaun’s kidnapping; and offered the advice “take it one day at a time” for anyone who might be in a similar situation. And then, since I have the mod that restores Piper’s post-interview questions about life before the War, Victor told her that his time wasn’t perfect, but he still misses it, and admitted to being a soldier – though I ended up picking the sarcastic option for Piper asking about the war itself, and so he joked about aliens and laser dinosaurs being the cause (she ran with it, joking that then Grognak married the Dinosaur Queen).
With the interview done and Piper available to be a companion, Preston and Victor headed over to Nick’s (after pausing a moment to hear Travis’s report on Victor helping Danse and crew – Travis was extremely worried about the Brotherhood of Steel presence in the Commonwealth, let’s say XD). Of course, all they found was Ellie sadly going through Nick’s effects – Victor asked what had happened, and she told him that Nick had gone missing around Park Street Station, on the trail of Skinny Malone and a girl he might have kidnapped. Victor got the skinny on Skinny (ha) and his possible stomping grounds of Goodneighbor, then promised to find Nick and get him back.
And he knew just the person help him do it – Piper! She and Nick are canonically friends, so Victor headed back to hers and picked her up as a companion, with Preston heading back to Sanctuary (telling Piper to listen to Victor, “he’ll keep you out of trouble” – Piper’s response was essentially “what’s the fun in that?” XD). And so Victor and Piper headed out into the Fens beyond Diamond City –
Aaand promptly had to wait an hour at the entrance because the game chose that moment to stir up a giant dust storm. *sigh* But they eventually made it out into the ruins of Boston. Came across a junkyard with a small pack of vicious mongrels (good eatin’ on those dogs), then continued on until encountering a radroach ambush at Police Precinct 8. I sent Victor in to pick up junk and get the Eddie Winter holotape and the locations of the other holotapes, of course. Then it was around past the Public Library, into a small raider camp near Layton Towers – Victor and Piper took care of most of them without too much issue, though I lost one raider up high. *shrug* Then they reoriented themselves toward their goal, and took out two super mutant guards at Wilson Atomatoys HQ before moving on to –
Warren Theater! This is a custom interior added by my “musical instruments” mod, and happily it happens to be in the same area as the one Victor and Piper needed to search. They went inside at 6:46 PM in-game, collected a bunch of junk from the lobby, then took the elevator upstairs to the musical raiders who’d killed Evie, the woman who made the instruments and who left the bounty in Diamond City. Victor was able to take out one raider quickly, but the others proved more difficult, with one of them throwing molotovs and setting both Piper and Victor on fire for a bit (and breaking both Victor’s arms, ouch). But they prevailed with the help of some stimpacks and Nuka-Cola, and Victor took the Enraging Acoustic Guitar weapon and the plans to build the actual instruments from Evie’s corpse, along with some other goodies. Also cracked open the safe there, and – well. It’s Victor – I had him take a moment to play the piano as well. :) Piper took a moment on the banjo herself afterward.
And with that, the pair headed back outside, into the rainy overworld, to camp, because I was ever-so-slightly nervous about sleeping overnight in a mod location. It is now 11/23/2287, Victor’s just taken care of his port-a-potty needs, and there are no immediate enemies nearby – I think next time, we’ll be visiting a statehouse. :) (And yes, I did do a write-up for all this in the Playthrough Progression doc, because I gotta keep up on that too! I mean, Victor finished THREE QUESTS in this particular playsession – that’s definitely gotta be noted!)
4. Work on tumblr drafts: Check – did my followed tag trawl this morning and added some neat stuff I saw in there to my drafts, then before lunch got the first drafts of my four-part Chill Save update sorted on Victor Luvs Alice. Finished up all the text after lunch, so that’s all good to go, yay. :) And just one ask reply on Valice Multiverse, which is good because keeping up with “Utter Chaos” took a while!
5. Get in a workout (optional): No check – there was a reason I marked this “optional,” after all. Just too tired most of the day, and then beanbags and the Playthrough Progression write-up for my FO4 session today ate up all of the time I would have used for it. Tomorrow!
Additionally:
-->Answered Ace’s latest FF.net PM, as seems to be tradition on Sundays now. *shrug* Better than never answering it at all!
-->Despite being colder and cloudier today, it got just warm enough for us to play five rounds of beanbags – and while Dad had a hot streak in the middle, Mom and I both played well enough once to pull out a win each. Final scores were me W-3-2-2-2; Dad 2-W-W-W-3; Mom 3-2-3-3-W. Hooray!
So yeah, pretty busy day, even without the workout. Those Jon videos on Sundays always seem to run over -- I'd watch them earlier in the day, but he tends to upload fairly late in my timezone, sooo. . .we'll see what I can do next Sunday. As it stands, I gotta run to bed as I do have work in the morning. *sigh* Night all!
