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Average Wednesday
Aug. 3rd, 2022 11:41 pmNothing really of import to report today, beyond the usual -- which I suppose is a good thing, means I wasn't dealing with major amounts of annoyance or any disasters or anything like that. So here's the to-do list:
1. Continue writing on “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland”: Check – as she’s potentially opening her home to Victor, Alice decided she wanted to know more about him, and – since she’s a vampire – he ended up leading with “I married a corpse bride once.” Naturally she wants to know what all that was about, so he’s doing his best to explain the situation with Victoria – though we’ve taken a rather amusing detour thanks to her commenting about people trying to bribe Dean Liddell to get their children to pass (in response to Victor saying he wouldn’t be surprised if his parents bribed the Everglots to let him date Victoria), and Victor briefly wondering if she was the actual Alice Liddell. XD To be fair, a) time travel would not be THAT out of place in the World of Darkness, and b). . .well, they don’t know it yet, but there’s been some shenanigans in a nearby town by the name of Hill Valley. . .
Bonus – because I played Fallout 4, obviously I had to update my playthrough progression with what happened in my playsession below! I basically got the gang through the main buildings in the National Guard Training Yard – the recruitment office and the barracks – clearing out the ghouls and getting a lot of good loot. Victor in particular has picked up a combat rifle that fires two bullets for the price of one. . .but on the other hand, he also had to deal with a terrifying glowing feral that can bring its dead buddies back to life. Things even out. XD But hey, things are going pretty well regardless, and he and Piper are fresh for a new, sunny day, while Alice hides in her sleeping bag in the shadowy corner of a ruined building. Don’t worry, girl, one day you will be sunlight resistant!
2. Keep up with YouTube Subs and see about getting something out of the Watch Later: Check – one and one today, given my WL videos are all pretty long and I had other stuff I wanted to do –
A) Started pre-workout with the “something out of the Watch Later” – “I completed The Sims 4 Werewolves (Part 12)” by James Turner, aka the end of “Rage To Riches!” Another hour-long episode, this one DID indeed finally wrap up everything that James (and his commenters) wanted to wrap up:
I. Nina and Angus became werewolves again! And it was discovered that you can become a werewolf while pregnant, which is interesting – I know you can’t become a vampire while pregnant, the game grays the option out. No idea about spellcasters and mermaids. . .anyway, Nina talked Greg into turning her, while Angus got an assist from Lily of the Moonwood Collective, and then they both hung around the bar eating as much as possible until they couldn’t afford it anymore and had to go home and eat their own food. XD On the plus side, when they both transformed, they had all of their old ability points refunded! So that was handy – they could basically just get all of their old powers back right away. Though both of them seem to be having trouble regaining control during rampages now – must be a side-effect of curing themselves. Angus also rejoined the Moonwood Collective (and briefly but unsuccessfully tried to become Alpha again), while Nina retook her role as Alpha of the Wildfangs. Nice.
II. Nina had the baby! At the hospital, which we can now confirm is still a glitchy mess. *rolls eyes* Though I think there is a mod to fix that nonsense. . .anyway, she and Greg ended up having a son, which – as per the commenters – James ended up naming Sandalwood. You know, after all the incense Nina left on Greg’s lawn to put him in the mood. XD Sandalwood was basically insta-aged-up into a toddler, then a child, because James wanted to see what he looked like and whatnot, and also to make it easier to keep track of him and other Bigwallets of the same generation. (Because apparently there’s a bit multi-timeline thing going on here where Reginald Bigwallet is actually a teenager in the High School Years LP he’s been running from Early Access, and James hopes to use him to have a couple of generations of Bigwallets within this separate timeline, then merge the two together so we’re all on the same level of the family tree again. Good luck, buddy!)
III. The abandoned factory was pretty much finished! Thanks to the harvests from the money tree, James was able to give Nina and Angus some pretty nice bedrooms, give Cupcake their own tiny playroom with half-walls in Angus’s room (it’s honestly quite cute!), and a proper living room area and dining table out the front – and then, when Sandalwood aged up, James decided to spoil him to make up for the missed toddlerhood and gave him the entire upper level to himself, complete with a sweet custom platform for his sports bed, an awesome RGB gamer desk and setup, the homemade projection screen from Little Campers, the play tent, and the puppet theater. This kid is very well loved, which is kind of rare for a Bigwallet/James Turner Sim child. XD Ah well, at least we have an idea of what kind of Sim he should be after all this!
IV. All werewolf collectibles were found! It took a lot of digging and fishing, but Angus managed to find the final figurine they need to complete the official collection, and (despite his own Squeamishness) fish up the luna fish from the lake. w000! Nice.
And yeah, that wraps it all up! Only thing he didn’t do was unlock every ability on at least one of the werewolves, but he came pretty close – both of them are immortal, at least, so Brodie will always have Angus as a buddy. :) Nice to see this wrap up so satisfyingly!
B) And then, this evening post-writing, we had GrayStillPlays and “Breaking 100 laws in GTA 5” – aka more parkour fun with Alex! This one with a “law-breaking” theme, as you might expect, which does go well with GTA V. Alex made the boards with the laws Gray had to break, and Gray had to pass them. Laws included “you can’t run over a grave” (forcing Gray to drive a Hummer up the stepped plateaus of the local graveyard, launching himself over small tombstones and great concrete caskets); “you can’t flip a tank” (forcing Gray to drive that car that can flip other cars onto the military base and after the tank, which was firing back – he did get it second try, though!); “you can’t park a plane in a handicap spot” (forcing Gray to fly a plane over to a handicap spot and park it – after a couple of crashes, Gray realized he didn’t have to land it there and landed on the road, killing a guy on a motorcycle before maneuvering into the spot); “you can’t capture dolphins” (forcing Gray to use the mini-sub to catch a dolphin with a “dolphin magnet” XD); “you can’t skydive through a Ferris Wheel” (forcing Gray to – well, do just that; this was one of the tougher ones thanks to all the bars AND the fact that it was moving at the time, but he did do it); “you can’t shoot at a hurricane” (ACTUAL FLORIDIAN LAW – forcing Gray to shoot at the pink center of a hurricane made of cars to stop it; after having his rockets and fireworks go all over the place and kill him, Gray finally succeeded with a grenade launcher); and “you can’t run over pedestrians” (forcing Gray to – NOT run over pedestrians, as the twist in this board was that if he hit one, he wouldn’t keep up his speed enough to reach the end ramp before Alex popped in a barrier to stop him. This one took a LOT of effort on Gray’s part to avoid the idiots running in front of the car XD). All in all, a delightfully lawless day for Gray!
3. Either play Fallout 4 and clear out the National Guard Training Yard or work on Blades in the Dark stuff: Okay, I’m calling this a check and a half because I did at least read through more of BitD and have a think about how I’d like to adapt Alice, Victor, and Smiler to that world. Alice and Smiler are easy – the events of AMA and A:MR could still take place in Duskwall, and Smiler of course is an OC whose backstory can always match the current AU. The problem is Victor and Corpse Bride, because I’m still hung up on how friendly I want his ghost experience to be – should Emily mostly have her mind, or not? Hmmm. . .
Well, that’s something to ponder another day – the actual productive part of this list item came with me playing more Fallout 4! Started in the front room of the National Guard Recruitment office, right where I’d left off on Sunday – Victor and Piper took out all the ghouls in there without issue, and discovered the corpse of Knight Astlin at her last stand against the ferals in the corner room. They listened to her holotape and got their next location – the satellite array – then started clearing the rest of the place out. The very holey upstairs yielded the “National Guard Officer’s Password” (necessary for Victor, who couldn’t hack the terminal out into the corridor leading to the barracks), and a safe with some ammo and other goodies in it. After a brief stop to cook up a bunch of stuff using some of the bits of cram and whatnot he’d picked up, Victor used the Password to unlock the door to the barracks, and he and Piper proceeded into the corridor –
Where they were met with a Legendary Reaver! Fortunately the bastard was low level and thus vulnerable to Victor’s Tactical Advanced 10mm and all the shots he can get off with it. :p He proved to have an Exterminator’s Radium Rifle (extra damage against Mirelurks and bugs, also does radiation damage) – not great, but not the worst. Victor and Piper took care of the other ghoul in there before proceeding into the barracks themselves. They cleared the first floor as best they could (a lot of it was blocked off), and worked their way up – there was ANOTHER Legendary Reaver waiting for them on the top level, which Piper ALMOST SET off via her wandering around. >.< Fortunately she only kept the pair in [Caution] mode, and I was able to get Victor to get out his Mighty Sniper Rifle and kill it in one shot. This one had something slightly more useful – a Two-Shot Combat Rifle (shoots an additional projectile, I believe damage is split between the two? But it’s two shots for the price of one). That was something Victor could use. He and Piper investigated the office the Reaver had been standing by, and found the Armory Management Terminal, which Victor could use his Password on and thus use to unlock the Armory door, nice. :) From there they proceeded into the next room, the one with the big hole in the floor and a ramp for ghouls to get up –
And the LEGENDARY GLOWING ONE hiding in the corner. Is – I knew there was a Glowing One, but is he also supposed to be LEGENDARY?! Victor’s 10mm obviously wasn’t doing the damage against HIM, so it was back over to the Mighty Sniper, which COULD take him down (once Victor's AP properly refreshed) – though not before he’d set off a pulse and revived one ghoul on the lower floor that Victor had already killed. *sigh* Lucky it was just the one – and that he never got close enough to hit Victor! Once the rest of the ghouls were taken care of, Victor checked the corpse – Stalker’s Lever Action Rifle! That makes VATS more accurate if you’re NOT in combat, but at a greater AP cost, and on a gun that Victor has NO ammo for. Well, that one’s in the “sell” pile. *shakehead* Victor and Piper continued exploring upstairs and down, grabbing goodies whenever possible – best loot being the US Covert Operations Manual available in the cafeteria, which permanently makes Victor better at sneaking, yay. :) After making sure they’d gotten everything, they proceeded back outside, where Victor let them out of the little caged area with the terminal –
And that’s when the tired started seriously setting in for him again – he’d gotten tired around 5 PM, but I’d perked him up with a Nuka-Cola after the Glowing One fight. I figured now was a good time for them to hit the sheets – and hey, there was even a convenient ruined nearby building for them to shelter from the thunderstorm that had STILL not abated. Victor took a quick trip up to the roof to grab some grenades and a mine from the box up there, then set up the tent under the remaining chunk of floor covering the ground rubble before spending some time with his portable workbench looking to see how he could improve his new Two-Shot Combat Rifle. Looks like a lot of the best upgrades are locked behind Gun Nut 3, grr, but he was able to get it up to a Powerful Receiver at least! And then it was bed just before midnight, a little bit of inventory management the next morning, and a save to mark my progress! :) Next time, finishing out the Yard and probably going over to the Satellite Array before hitting Finch Farm!
4. Work on tumblr drafts: Check – did dashboard and tags catch-up for Victor Luvs Alice this morning (as per usual), then after a second dash-and-tags check this evening, set up the queue for the rest of the week – the Progress Report on “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland” on Thursday; a VTMB-related reblog on Friday; and the REZZ/Dove Cameron song “Taste of You” for Saturday (because I relate it to the Londerland Bloodlines version of Valice, given they’re both very much into each other’s taste). So that’s all settled, yay~
5. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike this afternoon, to finish off “Oxventure Presents: Blades in the Dark! Dead Man’s Debt!” Barnaby fortunately did succeed at keeping Lizette distracted for a moment, at the cost of some stress (avoiding a Devil’s Bargain from Luke for an extra die in exchange for his reputation being sullied for sleeping with the help – reputation is EVERYTHING to Barnaby!). However, he didn’t succeed without complication – while he did convince Lizette that he was here to sleep with a servant (not that he knew any names – “it’s the help!”), commenting on her sleepwalking reminded her that her butler, Andril, should be there. Barnaby tried to bluff that the guy might have gone to the bathroom, while Kasimir took advantage of “rich person probably doesn’t know what her servants look like” to get out with Edvard to see what the deal was with the butler.
Deal was one very unconscious butler with Zillah and Lilith standing over him looking awkward. XD While Barnaby kept the socialization train going, Edvard asked if they thought he had any chance of standing in for said butler. Upon examination, the gang determined that there WAS a resemblance, but Andril was clearly older and clean-shaven. Edvard decided “not too much a problem, let me just shave my mustache” –
And then Kasimir, Zillah, and Lilith all insisted on “helping” to speed things up. Leading to a Finesse group action.
Where they all rolled like shit. Kasimir took three more stress, and Edvard got basically ATTACKED by his new companions with straight razors and shaving foam, ending up with Level One Harm – Badly Shaved Face. XD (Basically they cut the hell out of his cheeks and shaved off his eyebrows.) An irritated Edvard angrily did his OWN Finesse roll to fix the damage, and got it good enough to actually pass as the butler (taking his clothes to complete the illusion). Fortunately Barnaby IS good at idle rich chatter, and was able to keep Lizette busy for all of this (which took until 4 AM, the time when the servants started to wake up), and was able to convince Lizette to head off to bed for a couple more hours’ sleep, leaving him in “Andril’s” capable hands to take a sneaky look at the collection before being bundled off out a back door. Lizette of course headed out the only door into the room –
Cue Lilith hastily calling a flashback of them dragging the unconscious Andril into a broom closet and hiding there (since while Kasimir can pass as a servant, she and Zillah can’t) – and FINALLY rolling a six. Ellen was so happy. XD So yes, the butler was safely stashed, Lizette left and headed back to her room none the wiser, and everyone gathered in the room to finally find this damn ornate green top! Which was, handily, in an obvious glass cabinet, without even a lock on it!
It was also very hard for everyone to look at, and made those close to it feel cold and sad. Time for Lilith to step up and do Whisper things, it seems! She grabbed the toy, and got a vision of a very angry and sad ghost girl who had owned the top, become attached to it in death, and now was just feeling VERY vicious. Lilith Attuned and managed to Compel the ghost NOT to possess her – Luke offered her a Devil’s Bargain for an extra die on the roll, with it being that, if she got the ghost to leave, it would always be obsessed with her, and Lilith was like “hell yeah ghosts are my THING.” XD So she won the roll and managed to expel the ghost enough for it to form so everyone could see it – the little girl admitted she was just tired of having always to move house, and she just wanted to play with her toy. Barnaby suggested she attach herself to one of the tops here, but she said she liked the one she was currently linked to – and his attempts to put her off it by calling it “gaudy” and “over-embellished” just got him questions on what those words meant, and him getting huffy and saying he can’t deal with children. XD Lilith used a flashback to establish a toy museum in Volisport (which she noted because, ghost children for DAYS in there), and she suggested the little girl, Finn, go there instead – Finn asked Lilith to take her as she didn’t know the way, and Lilith agreed, taking the girl on as a passenger and giving them one unpossessed toy to sell!
Kasimir then promptly lit the room on fire. XD To be fair, his INTENT was to cause chaos and allow them to sneak out the front door in the fuss, but the fancy skirting boards and such went up faster than anticipated, and the whole room was in flames with the door blocked before they could get out. Lilith searched for trap doors, but found none – fortunately, Luke was kind and pointed out the place had windows, and the windows opened onto the side alley of the semi-detached. Kasimir found a nice long rope ladder with hooks (like, fifty foot’s worth of hempen rope XD) in his burglary kit, and they all scrambled down it. More stress for Kasimir for leading a Prowl action (bringing him ALMOST to the end of his track – 12 out of 13 slots!), but Edvard rolled well and so they all got out nicely, slipping away down the alley amongst the confusion –
Only to be confronted by a pair of creepy women, who introduced themselves as Rosie and Josie of the Dimmer Sisters, creepy occultists who are known for a house that, if you enter, you’re likely not about to leave. And they wanted the haunted top. Fortunately, as it turned out, they were more than willing to pay for it – ten coin, on the condition that it was still haunted. Everyone naturally said “haunted as shit” and handed it over – and even more fortunately, it seems Rosie and Josie are not the brightest of the Sisters, as they took its unspooky nature to mean that it was warded and suchlike and thus needed to be studied and prodded thoroughly. (Lilith noted Finn gave her hand a squeeze, as if to say “I’m glad I took YOUR offer!”)
So yeah, with the Dimmer Sisters CURRENTLY satisfied, the gang ran back to the antiques shop, and paid off their debt to Pickett the gang lady from before – with two coin left over, no less! The session wrapped up with downtime actions – Kasimir immediately decided to fulfill his vice, which was an Obligation to his hurt leg (tending it and working on ways to make it hurt less and whatnot), and bring down that stress before he snapped and took a trauma. Had to do it twice to clear a decent amount, but now he’s down to five, whew. Barnaby also decided to fulfill his vice, Pleasure, and go out for a delightful meal and a good drink –
And, having rolled a five when he only had four stress, overindulged, bragging to those near him about the score once he was drunk enough. Cue the crew gaining two Heat with the Bluecoats. XD To his credit, upon learning he had TWO downtime actions, Barnaby promptly went back to the restaurant the next day and claimed that he’d made up everything while drunk – and while he didn’t roll great, he managed to at least reduce the damage down to one heat. XD Oh Barnaby. Of the others, Zillah had no special plans; Lilith took little ghost girl Finn to the toy museum to join the other ghost children there; and Edvard took a moment to tend to his wounds (almost but not QUITE fully healing them, because healing is TOUGH in this game) and try to repair the line leader/grappling hook (not making any progress with this session, but hey, he got in a good field test).
And so that wraps up the first Bladeventurers adventure! I was quite pleased – I’d expected this series to be a lot darker and grittier than the last, but the laughs were pretty damn solid, even with new characters and new dynamics and new systems. I’m REALLY looking forward to watching the rest of this series too – though, first, I gotta catch up a bit more on the main Oxventure. Almost reached 2021! Next time, we should start what I presume to be the 2020 Christmas special, “Silent Knight!”
*nods* Good, productive day! No complaints (well, one complaint, but I'VE got to be the one to figure out how to do more with BitD in any given day).
As for tomorrow's to-dos -- well. The parents have talked me round into maybe going to play mini-golf tomorrow (I've been anxious about this sort of thing, and it's supposed to be way hot tomorrow), which will definitely take up my morning if we go. But I do have a couple of things I want to accomplish no matter what:
1. Continue writing on "As Long As You Love Me"
2. Keep up with YouTube Subs
3. Play (and see if I can finish) Superliminial
4. Work on tumblr drafts
5. Get in a workout
We'll see how it all goes! Night all!
1. Continue writing on “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland”: Check – as she’s potentially opening her home to Victor, Alice decided she wanted to know more about him, and – since she’s a vampire – he ended up leading with “I married a corpse bride once.” Naturally she wants to know what all that was about, so he’s doing his best to explain the situation with Victoria – though we’ve taken a rather amusing detour thanks to her commenting about people trying to bribe Dean Liddell to get their children to pass (in response to Victor saying he wouldn’t be surprised if his parents bribed the Everglots to let him date Victoria), and Victor briefly wondering if she was the actual Alice Liddell. XD To be fair, a) time travel would not be THAT out of place in the World of Darkness, and b). . .well, they don’t know it yet, but there’s been some shenanigans in a nearby town by the name of Hill Valley. . .
Bonus – because I played Fallout 4, obviously I had to update my playthrough progression with what happened in my playsession below! I basically got the gang through the main buildings in the National Guard Training Yard – the recruitment office and the barracks – clearing out the ghouls and getting a lot of good loot. Victor in particular has picked up a combat rifle that fires two bullets for the price of one. . .but on the other hand, he also had to deal with a terrifying glowing feral that can bring its dead buddies back to life. Things even out. XD But hey, things are going pretty well regardless, and he and Piper are fresh for a new, sunny day, while Alice hides in her sleeping bag in the shadowy corner of a ruined building. Don’t worry, girl, one day you will be sunlight resistant!
2. Keep up with YouTube Subs and see about getting something out of the Watch Later: Check – one and one today, given my WL videos are all pretty long and I had other stuff I wanted to do –
A) Started pre-workout with the “something out of the Watch Later” – “I completed The Sims 4 Werewolves (Part 12)” by James Turner, aka the end of “Rage To Riches!” Another hour-long episode, this one DID indeed finally wrap up everything that James (and his commenters) wanted to wrap up:
I. Nina and Angus became werewolves again! And it was discovered that you can become a werewolf while pregnant, which is interesting – I know you can’t become a vampire while pregnant, the game grays the option out. No idea about spellcasters and mermaids. . .anyway, Nina talked Greg into turning her, while Angus got an assist from Lily of the Moonwood Collective, and then they both hung around the bar eating as much as possible until they couldn’t afford it anymore and had to go home and eat their own food. XD On the plus side, when they both transformed, they had all of their old ability points refunded! So that was handy – they could basically just get all of their old powers back right away. Though both of them seem to be having trouble regaining control during rampages now – must be a side-effect of curing themselves. Angus also rejoined the Moonwood Collective (and briefly but unsuccessfully tried to become Alpha again), while Nina retook her role as Alpha of the Wildfangs. Nice.
II. Nina had the baby! At the hospital, which we can now confirm is still a glitchy mess. *rolls eyes* Though I think there is a mod to fix that nonsense. . .anyway, she and Greg ended up having a son, which – as per the commenters – James ended up naming Sandalwood. You know, after all the incense Nina left on Greg’s lawn to put him in the mood. XD Sandalwood was basically insta-aged-up into a toddler, then a child, because James wanted to see what he looked like and whatnot, and also to make it easier to keep track of him and other Bigwallets of the same generation. (Because apparently there’s a bit multi-timeline thing going on here where Reginald Bigwallet is actually a teenager in the High School Years LP he’s been running from Early Access, and James hopes to use him to have a couple of generations of Bigwallets within this separate timeline, then merge the two together so we’re all on the same level of the family tree again. Good luck, buddy!)
III. The abandoned factory was pretty much finished! Thanks to the harvests from the money tree, James was able to give Nina and Angus some pretty nice bedrooms, give Cupcake their own tiny playroom with half-walls in Angus’s room (it’s honestly quite cute!), and a proper living room area and dining table out the front – and then, when Sandalwood aged up, James decided to spoil him to make up for the missed toddlerhood and gave him the entire upper level to himself, complete with a sweet custom platform for his sports bed, an awesome RGB gamer desk and setup, the homemade projection screen from Little Campers, the play tent, and the puppet theater. This kid is very well loved, which is kind of rare for a Bigwallet/James Turner Sim child. XD Ah well, at least we have an idea of what kind of Sim he should be after all this!
IV. All werewolf collectibles were found! It took a lot of digging and fishing, but Angus managed to find the final figurine they need to complete the official collection, and (despite his own Squeamishness) fish up the luna fish from the lake. w000! Nice.
And yeah, that wraps it all up! Only thing he didn’t do was unlock every ability on at least one of the werewolves, but he came pretty close – both of them are immortal, at least, so Brodie will always have Angus as a buddy. :) Nice to see this wrap up so satisfyingly!
B) And then, this evening post-writing, we had GrayStillPlays and “Breaking 100 laws in GTA 5” – aka more parkour fun with Alex! This one with a “law-breaking” theme, as you might expect, which does go well with GTA V. Alex made the boards with the laws Gray had to break, and Gray had to pass them. Laws included “you can’t run over a grave” (forcing Gray to drive a Hummer up the stepped plateaus of the local graveyard, launching himself over small tombstones and great concrete caskets); “you can’t flip a tank” (forcing Gray to drive that car that can flip other cars onto the military base and after the tank, which was firing back – he did get it second try, though!); “you can’t park a plane in a handicap spot” (forcing Gray to fly a plane over to a handicap spot and park it – after a couple of crashes, Gray realized he didn’t have to land it there and landed on the road, killing a guy on a motorcycle before maneuvering into the spot); “you can’t capture dolphins” (forcing Gray to use the mini-sub to catch a dolphin with a “dolphin magnet” XD); “you can’t skydive through a Ferris Wheel” (forcing Gray to – well, do just that; this was one of the tougher ones thanks to all the bars AND the fact that it was moving at the time, but he did do it); “you can’t shoot at a hurricane” (ACTUAL FLORIDIAN LAW – forcing Gray to shoot at the pink center of a hurricane made of cars to stop it; after having his rockets and fireworks go all over the place and kill him, Gray finally succeeded with a grenade launcher); and “you can’t run over pedestrians” (forcing Gray to – NOT run over pedestrians, as the twist in this board was that if he hit one, he wouldn’t keep up his speed enough to reach the end ramp before Alex popped in a barrier to stop him. This one took a LOT of effort on Gray’s part to avoid the idiots running in front of the car XD). All in all, a delightfully lawless day for Gray!
3. Either play Fallout 4 and clear out the National Guard Training Yard or work on Blades in the Dark stuff: Okay, I’m calling this a check and a half because I did at least read through more of BitD and have a think about how I’d like to adapt Alice, Victor, and Smiler to that world. Alice and Smiler are easy – the events of AMA and A:MR could still take place in Duskwall, and Smiler of course is an OC whose backstory can always match the current AU. The problem is Victor and Corpse Bride, because I’m still hung up on how friendly I want his ghost experience to be – should Emily mostly have her mind, or not? Hmmm. . .
Well, that’s something to ponder another day – the actual productive part of this list item came with me playing more Fallout 4! Started in the front room of the National Guard Recruitment office, right where I’d left off on Sunday – Victor and Piper took out all the ghouls in there without issue, and discovered the corpse of Knight Astlin at her last stand against the ferals in the corner room. They listened to her holotape and got their next location – the satellite array – then started clearing the rest of the place out. The very holey upstairs yielded the “National Guard Officer’s Password” (necessary for Victor, who couldn’t hack the terminal out into the corridor leading to the barracks), and a safe with some ammo and other goodies in it. After a brief stop to cook up a bunch of stuff using some of the bits of cram and whatnot he’d picked up, Victor used the Password to unlock the door to the barracks, and he and Piper proceeded into the corridor –
Where they were met with a Legendary Reaver! Fortunately the bastard was low level and thus vulnerable to Victor’s Tactical Advanced 10mm and all the shots he can get off with it. :p He proved to have an Exterminator’s Radium Rifle (extra damage against Mirelurks and bugs, also does radiation damage) – not great, but not the worst. Victor and Piper took care of the other ghoul in there before proceeding into the barracks themselves. They cleared the first floor as best they could (a lot of it was blocked off), and worked their way up – there was ANOTHER Legendary Reaver waiting for them on the top level, which Piper ALMOST SET off via her wandering around. >.< Fortunately she only kept the pair in [Caution] mode, and I was able to get Victor to get out his Mighty Sniper Rifle and kill it in one shot. This one had something slightly more useful – a Two-Shot Combat Rifle (shoots an additional projectile, I believe damage is split between the two? But it’s two shots for the price of one). That was something Victor could use. He and Piper investigated the office the Reaver had been standing by, and found the Armory Management Terminal, which Victor could use his Password on and thus use to unlock the Armory door, nice. :) From there they proceeded into the next room, the one with the big hole in the floor and a ramp for ghouls to get up –
And the LEGENDARY GLOWING ONE hiding in the corner. Is – I knew there was a Glowing One, but is he also supposed to be LEGENDARY?! Victor’s 10mm obviously wasn’t doing the damage against HIM, so it was back over to the Mighty Sniper, which COULD take him down (once Victor's AP properly refreshed) – though not before he’d set off a pulse and revived one ghoul on the lower floor that Victor had already killed. *sigh* Lucky it was just the one – and that he never got close enough to hit Victor! Once the rest of the ghouls were taken care of, Victor checked the corpse – Stalker’s Lever Action Rifle! That makes VATS more accurate if you’re NOT in combat, but at a greater AP cost, and on a gun that Victor has NO ammo for. Well, that one’s in the “sell” pile. *shakehead* Victor and Piper continued exploring upstairs and down, grabbing goodies whenever possible – best loot being the US Covert Operations Manual available in the cafeteria, which permanently makes Victor better at sneaking, yay. :) After making sure they’d gotten everything, they proceeded back outside, where Victor let them out of the little caged area with the terminal –
And that’s when the tired started seriously setting in for him again – he’d gotten tired around 5 PM, but I’d perked him up with a Nuka-Cola after the Glowing One fight. I figured now was a good time for them to hit the sheets – and hey, there was even a convenient ruined nearby building for them to shelter from the thunderstorm that had STILL not abated. Victor took a quick trip up to the roof to grab some grenades and a mine from the box up there, then set up the tent under the remaining chunk of floor covering the ground rubble before spending some time with his portable workbench looking to see how he could improve his new Two-Shot Combat Rifle. Looks like a lot of the best upgrades are locked behind Gun Nut 3, grr, but he was able to get it up to a Powerful Receiver at least! And then it was bed just before midnight, a little bit of inventory management the next morning, and a save to mark my progress! :) Next time, finishing out the Yard and probably going over to the Satellite Array before hitting Finch Farm!
4. Work on tumblr drafts: Check – did dashboard and tags catch-up for Victor Luvs Alice this morning (as per usual), then after a second dash-and-tags check this evening, set up the queue for the rest of the week – the Progress Report on “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland” on Thursday; a VTMB-related reblog on Friday; and the REZZ/Dove Cameron song “Taste of You” for Saturday (because I relate it to the Londerland Bloodlines version of Valice, given they’re both very much into each other’s taste). So that’s all settled, yay~
5. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike this afternoon, to finish off “Oxventure Presents: Blades in the Dark! Dead Man’s Debt!” Barnaby fortunately did succeed at keeping Lizette distracted for a moment, at the cost of some stress (avoiding a Devil’s Bargain from Luke for an extra die in exchange for his reputation being sullied for sleeping with the help – reputation is EVERYTHING to Barnaby!). However, he didn’t succeed without complication – while he did convince Lizette that he was here to sleep with a servant (not that he knew any names – “it’s the help!”), commenting on her sleepwalking reminded her that her butler, Andril, should be there. Barnaby tried to bluff that the guy might have gone to the bathroom, while Kasimir took advantage of “rich person probably doesn’t know what her servants look like” to get out with Edvard to see what the deal was with the butler.
Deal was one very unconscious butler with Zillah and Lilith standing over him looking awkward. XD While Barnaby kept the socialization train going, Edvard asked if they thought he had any chance of standing in for said butler. Upon examination, the gang determined that there WAS a resemblance, but Andril was clearly older and clean-shaven. Edvard decided “not too much a problem, let me just shave my mustache” –
And then Kasimir, Zillah, and Lilith all insisted on “helping” to speed things up. Leading to a Finesse group action.
Where they all rolled like shit. Kasimir took three more stress, and Edvard got basically ATTACKED by his new companions with straight razors and shaving foam, ending up with Level One Harm – Badly Shaved Face. XD (Basically they cut the hell out of his cheeks and shaved off his eyebrows.) An irritated Edvard angrily did his OWN Finesse roll to fix the damage, and got it good enough to actually pass as the butler (taking his clothes to complete the illusion). Fortunately Barnaby IS good at idle rich chatter, and was able to keep Lizette busy for all of this (which took until 4 AM, the time when the servants started to wake up), and was able to convince Lizette to head off to bed for a couple more hours’ sleep, leaving him in “Andril’s” capable hands to take a sneaky look at the collection before being bundled off out a back door. Lizette of course headed out the only door into the room –
Cue Lilith hastily calling a flashback of them dragging the unconscious Andril into a broom closet and hiding there (since while Kasimir can pass as a servant, she and Zillah can’t) – and FINALLY rolling a six. Ellen was so happy. XD So yes, the butler was safely stashed, Lizette left and headed back to her room none the wiser, and everyone gathered in the room to finally find this damn ornate green top! Which was, handily, in an obvious glass cabinet, without even a lock on it!
It was also very hard for everyone to look at, and made those close to it feel cold and sad. Time for Lilith to step up and do Whisper things, it seems! She grabbed the toy, and got a vision of a very angry and sad ghost girl who had owned the top, become attached to it in death, and now was just feeling VERY vicious. Lilith Attuned and managed to Compel the ghost NOT to possess her – Luke offered her a Devil’s Bargain for an extra die on the roll, with it being that, if she got the ghost to leave, it would always be obsessed with her, and Lilith was like “hell yeah ghosts are my THING.” XD So she won the roll and managed to expel the ghost enough for it to form so everyone could see it – the little girl admitted she was just tired of having always to move house, and she just wanted to play with her toy. Barnaby suggested she attach herself to one of the tops here, but she said she liked the one she was currently linked to – and his attempts to put her off it by calling it “gaudy” and “over-embellished” just got him questions on what those words meant, and him getting huffy and saying he can’t deal with children. XD Lilith used a flashback to establish a toy museum in Volisport (which she noted because, ghost children for DAYS in there), and she suggested the little girl, Finn, go there instead – Finn asked Lilith to take her as she didn’t know the way, and Lilith agreed, taking the girl on as a passenger and giving them one unpossessed toy to sell!
Kasimir then promptly lit the room on fire. XD To be fair, his INTENT was to cause chaos and allow them to sneak out the front door in the fuss, but the fancy skirting boards and such went up faster than anticipated, and the whole room was in flames with the door blocked before they could get out. Lilith searched for trap doors, but found none – fortunately, Luke was kind and pointed out the place had windows, and the windows opened onto the side alley of the semi-detached. Kasimir found a nice long rope ladder with hooks (like, fifty foot’s worth of hempen rope XD) in his burglary kit, and they all scrambled down it. More stress for Kasimir for leading a Prowl action (bringing him ALMOST to the end of his track – 12 out of 13 slots!), but Edvard rolled well and so they all got out nicely, slipping away down the alley amongst the confusion –
Only to be confronted by a pair of creepy women, who introduced themselves as Rosie and Josie of the Dimmer Sisters, creepy occultists who are known for a house that, if you enter, you’re likely not about to leave. And they wanted the haunted top. Fortunately, as it turned out, they were more than willing to pay for it – ten coin, on the condition that it was still haunted. Everyone naturally said “haunted as shit” and handed it over – and even more fortunately, it seems Rosie and Josie are not the brightest of the Sisters, as they took its unspooky nature to mean that it was warded and suchlike and thus needed to be studied and prodded thoroughly. (Lilith noted Finn gave her hand a squeeze, as if to say “I’m glad I took YOUR offer!”)
So yeah, with the Dimmer Sisters CURRENTLY satisfied, the gang ran back to the antiques shop, and paid off their debt to Pickett the gang lady from before – with two coin left over, no less! The session wrapped up with downtime actions – Kasimir immediately decided to fulfill his vice, which was an Obligation to his hurt leg (tending it and working on ways to make it hurt less and whatnot), and bring down that stress before he snapped and took a trauma. Had to do it twice to clear a decent amount, but now he’s down to five, whew. Barnaby also decided to fulfill his vice, Pleasure, and go out for a delightful meal and a good drink –
And, having rolled a five when he only had four stress, overindulged, bragging to those near him about the score once he was drunk enough. Cue the crew gaining two Heat with the Bluecoats. XD To his credit, upon learning he had TWO downtime actions, Barnaby promptly went back to the restaurant the next day and claimed that he’d made up everything while drunk – and while he didn’t roll great, he managed to at least reduce the damage down to one heat. XD Oh Barnaby. Of the others, Zillah had no special plans; Lilith took little ghost girl Finn to the toy museum to join the other ghost children there; and Edvard took a moment to tend to his wounds (almost but not QUITE fully healing them, because healing is TOUGH in this game) and try to repair the line leader/grappling hook (not making any progress with this session, but hey, he got in a good field test).
And so that wraps up the first Bladeventurers adventure! I was quite pleased – I’d expected this series to be a lot darker and grittier than the last, but the laughs were pretty damn solid, even with new characters and new dynamics and new systems. I’m REALLY looking forward to watching the rest of this series too – though, first, I gotta catch up a bit more on the main Oxventure. Almost reached 2021! Next time, we should start what I presume to be the 2020 Christmas special, “Silent Knight!”
*nods* Good, productive day! No complaints (well, one complaint, but I'VE got to be the one to figure out how to do more with BitD in any given day).
As for tomorrow's to-dos -- well. The parents have talked me round into maybe going to play mini-golf tomorrow (I've been anxious about this sort of thing, and it's supposed to be way hot tomorrow), which will definitely take up my morning if we go. But I do have a couple of things I want to accomplish no matter what:
1. Continue writing on "As Long As You Love Me"
2. Keep up with YouTube Subs
3. Play (and see if I can finish) Superliminial
4. Work on tumblr drafts
5. Get in a workout
We'll see how it all goes! Night all!
