Less Stressful Sunday Night

I mean, obviously I'm still updating very late, but I don't feel the time crunch as keenly because I didn't overload myself this evening. Here's what I got up to --

Tumblr: Did a bit of dash-and-tags catch-up before lunch on Victor Luvs Alice, and then went into the drafts and started on the four posts that will make up this week’s Chill Save update (day two of the Valicer Vacation)! Finished the first two in their entirety (pictures, text, tags) and got the pictures and some starter text and tags up for the last two before lunchtime, then finished those off after eating and helping with the laundry and whatnot. So THAT’S all sorted! Also threw a reply-in-progress to Moose’s latest fic over there in the drafts this evening. Nothing going on at all on Valice Multiverse, so I didn’t bother with the queue tonight – had other things on my mind!

Fallout 4: Had a very solid day in FO4 today, with Victor and Nick continuing to make their way deeper into good old Fort Hagen – let me give you the deets –

A) Picked up with Victor and Nick parked by the elevator to the lower levels of the fort – they headed down to “Bwurbb” floor, where they found what I guess was a big old maintenance hall with a turret and a couple of synths at one end. I had Victor use the newly-upgraded Righteous Authority to snipe the turret and one of the synths, then waited for the other one to lose interest before investigating the area further. Unchained a door which led back to the parking lot entrance; disabled a laser tripwire on the floor; had some melon flambe when Victor’s tummy started rumbling; then took out the other synth in the room, who was armed with a lousy shock baton. XD Victor then investigated an oil-filled side room with generators, an armor workbench, and a weapon workbench, along with some good junk and locks to crack (if you’re not already besties with Piper, this is a GREAT place to take her to get besties status – LOADS of unowned locks to pick in here). I poked at my stuff for a moment on the benches, then sent Victor and Nick back to the synth room and down the stairs there, where Kellogg proceeded to mock Victor as his “old friend the frozen TV dinner” and they found a security door into the deeper parts of Hagen –

B) Which was rigged with a tension trigger trap I hadn’t spotted, leading to Nick getting zapped by a Tesla coil trap. As I hadn’t done that much and had a quicksave from right before I did the laser tripwire trap, I backed up and quickly redid everything above before making sure to disable both the tension trigger on the security door and the Tesla coil – less zappage and more XP. This led Victor and Nick through a little office/locker area, then down again to another gate guarded by a turret, which Victor took out with his .44 pistol (as I spent the time upgrading it, might as well USE it).

C) The gate led to the big double doors that led to the Command Center portion of Fort Hagen, with all the computer equipment and stuff (and military skeletons scattered about) – Kellogg told Victor to get lost a few more times as he and Nick made their way through the rubble-strewn hallways and computer centers, taking out a few more synths and stealing their guns and any good gear they had on them. They worked their way around into a little bunk room and locker room, where I had Victor take a moment to scrap down all the guns he’d picked up into their components for later crafting, and rearranged his inventory with Nick (who insisted on wandering off and upsetting the turrets down the hall – good thing I gave him a shotgun!). They proceeded on from there, killing the laser turrets on the ceiling Nick kept annoying and a couple of synths, before taking cover in a bathroom to throw another synth off their trail and get some more loot. Then it was back to kill that bastard, head even further down, and take care of even more synths and turrets. They found themselves in another ruined hallway, with a few doors on the right side – as Victor had started feeling tired in-game, I decided to have him bunk down in a reactor and storage room after snagging some junk for about six hours, 10 PM to 4 AM.

D) Victor woke up needing the toilet – I had him use his port-a-potty, then took the opportunity to scrap a bunch of junk to get him a bit more carry capacity back. After saving Nick from another turret he’d annoyed, Victor then raided a little office at the ruined end of the hallway for all its little typewriters and telephones (making Nick carry them all), then made it to the end of the hall where they found a variety of different rooms and places to go. First place Victor and Nick checked out was a little maintenance area, with a Nuka-Quantum and a toolbox FULL of goodies – including the armory password. :D Handy!

E) Then it was over to the cafeteria, raiding it for good junk – and, to my delight, I found the Energy Weapons Bobblehead there! +25% to all future crits with energy weapons, nice. I – have to start using crits more, I think. XD But yeah, Victor got a bunch of goodies out of there, and he and Nick managed to kill the two synths who spawned in to ambush them. Victor even got a nice Synth field helmet out of the deal – after discovering that upgrading it all the way would give him the same ballistic resistance as his polished metal helmet and MUCH better energy resistance, I had him do that and then switch over. (I only later learned that the damn thing now covers HIS ENTIRE FACE, so I’ll have to remember to take it off for the confrontation with Kellogg.) And as I had the portable workbench out, I finally made a decision about the Two-Shot Combat Rifle and gave it a short ported barrel for better recoil – I don’t need the range on that one, I have Righteous Authority for that!

F) With that finished, I found Nick had wandered into the double doors on the opposite side and revealed it as a small infirmary – stole all the drugs, then took on the Synth Trooper and his buddy the game threw at Victor. Then it was down into another maintenance hall, with more of Kellogg telling Victor that it was not too late to walk away, and up into a security gate – which proved to be the armory! Victor used the password to get in, then cracked some novice locks to get himself loads of ammo, health items, and a couple of guns to scrap. There was also a Fat Man and some mini-nukes, but I left those – Victor doesn’t like to use them in my headcanon, and I’ve got perfectly fine ballistic and energy weapons, thanks. Victor then saved Nick from some more turrets before investigating the other rooms – looked to be the private quarters of the higher brass, with a nicer bedroom with a sitting area and attached bathroom (and a US Covert Ops magazine, yay) – and a terminal that Victor managed to crack on his first guess. XD Which was the turret control, but by then Victor and Nick had blown them all up. . .there was also a less-nice bunk room, a laundry and a little reception area of sorts. . .

G) And then, past the door with the fancy American flag bunting. . . Kellogg’s personal bedroom, complete with Institute-given furniture. Kellogg promised to have his synths stand down now that Victor had made it and said they could talk before opening the door to the final confrontation. However, Victor did not take him up on that offer, instead raiding as much of his shit as possible, scrapping down more guns he’d picked up, and doing a tiny bit of cooking by making various juices. . .

H) To get to Level 27! :D I was so close to the level up from all the lockpicking and synth murder I had to get to it. :D My intention was to take the “Science!” perk at level 3 so I could finish upgrading Righteous Authority’s new sniper form, but as it turns out, I need to wait one more level for that – so instead I took the first rank of my modded “Strong Back” perk! +25 carry weight, AND everything Victor’s wearing now weighs half while he’s wearing it. :D Delightful. :D

And that is where I left it! Next time – Victor and Nick confront Kellogg and finally learn where the hell Shaun is, and Victor discovers he’s accidentally helped summon the Prydwen to the Commonwealth! Fun. XD (Oh, btw, did I mention it’s now Christmas Eve in-game? Poor Victor, this is no way to spend the holidays. . .)

Writing: As usual, did the Playthrough Progression write-up after playing FO4 and doing the write-up above – things were pretty much the same as they were in canon for Victor, Alice, and Nick. I decided the reason Victor went ahead and slept in the storage room is because Alice made him promise that he would instead of relying on Nuka-Cola. And considering I woke him up with the need for the toilet and then proceeded to give him electric blue piss courtesy of the Nuka-Quantum he drank earlier. . .yeah, I think he’s gonna try to avoid too much caffeine going forward. Or at least Quantums. XD But yeah, gang made it down into the belly of Hagen, and now, much like in canon, they’re ready to confront Kellogg. . .and given the timing in-game, I may have Victor quote Kevin McAllister’s favorite Christmas movies while shooting the asshole – “Merry Christmas, you filthy animal.” XD

YouTube: Caught up on MOST of my Subs (couldn’t find the time to watch Call Me Kevin’s latest, which was a little over an hour) and Jon’s latest, so that’s all good, at least. And with a long weekend coming up, I might be able to keep up with my Subs for a few days anyway! In the meantime. . .

A) Started with a GrayStillPlays double shot –

I. First up, before my workout, “GTA 5 but I get fatter every minute” – the GTA V challenge board I didn’t get a chance to watch yesterday, where Gray (playing as Franklin) had to complete various Alex-set challenges while getting fatter and fatter. First board featured super-skinny Franklin doing motorcycle parkour in the sky while shooting various piles of soda, burgers, and doughnuts to gain weight (figuring out which paths were real and which were fake, bouncing off burger patties, and sliding his way through a hidden gap at the end – oh, and this was all timed, he only had forty seconds to make it); second board featured a much fatter Franklin going down a water slide – only to discover he was too fat to make the jump to the checkpoint, so he had to take a bouncy motorcycle and do a parkour detour (tightroping and doing a series of “overweight-fat-obese” jumps, before switching to a waterski and dodging the terrible wind turbine water tunnel of doom (couldn’t even jump over it because the boosts on the ramp Alex provided didn’t actually work), before finally humiliating himself chasing after a burger and getting teleported to the checkpoint); third board featured the fattest Franklin having to choose the right vehicle for a VERY SKINNY tightrope (of course, the only one that could actually make it was the VERY twitchy unicycle – Gray was just grateful he was able to SEE it beneath Franklin’s giant butt) before being allowed to go down a waterslide into a pool (the waterslide broke under him the moment he tried to go down it, and he had to waddle his way to the pool himself XD). Oh, and Franklin eventually ended up fat enough to just DESTROY CARS by walking into them. XD Just another excellent troll board of trollness from Alex!

II. And then second up, after supper, “When fish evolve to dangerous proportions,” aka Gray plays Cat Goes Fishing, a fishing game I’ve seen Kevin play where you are a cat and you are fishing in – well, I PRESUME it’s the ocean, though the art style makes it look more like a lake. You catch various types of small fish and complete little quests to catch specific fish to earn money and level up, unlocking new and better rods, new and better rod upgrades, the ability to fish on a nice little boat, and – the thing that attracted Gray to the game – the ability to add bombs to your lines to scare away undesirable fish and rockets to propel your casts farther. Gray seemed to quite enough trying to find ways to catch bigger and scarier fish – the game starts you off small with Cuddlefish and Grumpers, but the end of the episode found Gray fighting a whole-ass SHARK with a new giant hook. :D He was very pleased when he finally got it to the surface and found it was worth $64,000. Good times, even if it was a bit slower-paced than his GTA V stuff. XD

B) And then it was over to Jon for “Fallout: Tale of Two Wastelands - Part 5 - Flesh And Blood!” AKA Wanda goes on a lovely little trip across the Wasteland to get some goodies and discovers the quest that WILL. NOT. END. XD Yeah, after a trip to Jury Street Metro station (and a surprise encounter with a man with a bomb strapped to him – Wanda failed at disarming the bomb, but fortunately the man failed to explode as he ran away, so it was all right) to find the remains of Prime and pick up all his goodies (including the special Xuanlong Assault Rifle, which takes special armor-piercing ammo but doesn’t have great damage – Jon chucked it in the locker in Wanda’s Megaton home for now) and visit the super market with its potentially-deadly Rube Goldberg machine made of falling boxes of Abraxo and Sugar Bombs, a pitching machine, and an exploding generator (all to get some skill magazines – oh, and the Sugar Bombs to sell to a drug maker and dealer for caps (if you’re wondering what he wants with cereal, it’s a component of the drug Ultrajet)), Jon spent most of his video today working on the quest “Blood Ties,” which can be started by talking to Lucy West in the Megaton bar and agreeing to deliver a letter to her parents in Arefu (which is up on an old busted highway, under a sign that probably at some point used to read “Careful”). The problem is, once you get to Arefu, you nearly get exploded by the town’s protector as he thought you were one of “them,” The Family –

And then you discover that Lucy’s parents are very very dead. Uh-oh. And when you report this to the protector, Evan King, he asks if you found their son Ian in there, which you did not. Cue him sending you after this mysterious Family, which he is sure has something to do with the deaths of the Wests; you discovering that The Family (holed up in Meresti Train Station) is in fact a bunch of cannibals led by a guy named Vance, who is helping them deal with their cravings for human flesh by giving them rules to live by that make them act like vampires (who might cause less damage to people); getting access to Ian and convincing him to return to Arefu by giving him Lucy’s letter; and then brokering peace between The Family and Arefu by getting the latter to agree to trade blood packs to the former in exchange for protection (specifically, a member of The Family named Alan moves into a formerly-boarded-up shack under the overpass where the brahmin pen is to keep an eye out for trouble). At least, if you’re Jon playing as Wanda, who also offered the following nuggets of information:

I. While you can always see that Lucy’s parents are dead, you can gain a lot more information on how they died depending on your Medicine skill – Wanda has thirty, so she could see that they had bite marks on their neck right down to the damn bone. At 50, you can also discover that there’s less blood around than there should be for these kinds of wounds, and if your skill is REALLY high, find hints of train oil! That last one can also help you find The Family earlier, as when you talk to Evan about where to find them, he’ll list off a few locations that are in the right direction, but don’t actually contain any of The Family (though one, a collapsed metro station, does have that ghoul drug dealer that will point you to the correct location, albeit by telling you there’s a really dangerous trap-filled underground route there). If you noticed the train oil, you can tell him about it, and he’ll point you to the CORRECT location. (That being said, while Jon already knew the right location, he visited two of the wrong ones first, to sell Sugar Bombs to the drug dealer, check out a family’s personal vault (now with cut content lore restored by the mod he’s using), and – through a hole in the latter – get to that cool weapons stash Three Dog gave him the key for (finding a unique gun also restored by the mod – which, to my amusement, was named Wanda, like his character’s nickname. Jon wasn’t impressed with the damage though, sadly, and either left it behind or chucked in the Megaton locker).)

II. If you want to get a unique bit of dialogue from Lucy, you have to stop your search for her brother in the middle of the quest and go back to Megaton to tell her her parents are dead right away – if you do it at the end of the quest, she doesn’t have a proper reaction.

III. When you first get to The Family, you’re not allowed to see Ian right away as he’s, well, struggling with the fact that he basically ate his parents. Jon happily pointed out that there are a SHIT-TON of ways to get access to him without getting Vance’s permission – depending on your perks, you can seduce a couple of people for the passcode you need, or just ask one of his friends if you’re an Impartial Mediator (+30 to Speech if you have Neutral Karma, which Jon strives to have because if you’re too Evil or too Good in this game, you get bounty hunters on your ass). But the easiest way is to just find the terminal on The Family’s rules, read them over, then talk to Vance about his take on vampirism – be cool and civil and he’ll let you in. (Also the terminal you use to unlock Ian’s room is also the one that allows you to activate the security – if you’re in an evil mood, you can just murder everyone with the security protocols, but Jon cautions against that because then no rewards.)

IV. Also, if you’re wandering around, you’ll hear some ambient conversations between the locals that will reveal that Karl the shopkeeper went a little mad and attacked all of Arefu’s brahmin, explaining why they’re all dead in their pen when you arrive. Broker peace and they magically revive – yes, fine, they’re probably meant to be NEW brahmin, but still.

V. Don’t do this quest without Lucy’s letter if you want the easy way to a good ending – that letter gets you past the guard outside the main Family compound without issue, and its the easiest way to convince Ian to return to Arefu, because he believes his sister still loves and cares about him.

VI. The quest itself actually ends when you report back to Evan after talking to Ian – brokering peace between The Family and Arefu is technically quest clean-up, even if you can talk Vance around (via speech checks, Medicine checks, etc) before you go to see Evan)! But you do get the weapon schematics for the Shishkebab sword and a special vampire perk that allows blood packs to heal you better from Vance if you broker that peace, so it’s worth doing. Also worth doing is talking to one of the other residents of Arefu to get a whole BUNCH of new locations on the west side of the map to explore; going in Evan’s house and Alan’s new digs to steal skill magazines from them; stealing everything you can from the The Family’s shop (Jon found some GREAT new armor for Wanda); and learning more about Ian’s strange hunger from the man himself, which reveals Lucy actually knew her brother had cannibalistic fits and tried to help him through them. . .at least, until she moved out and he ate their parents.

VII. What’s not worth doing? Doing a final report to Lucy about all this, because her ending dialogue for the quest is basically, “I almost forgot I sent you to do all that! Thanks for the update.” Yeaaah, it’s – very anticlimactic and John was baffled as to why. He thinks someone must have forgotten to write a proper ending for Lucy before the game shipped or something. *shrug*

Yeah, it’s a surprisingly complex quest that involves a lot of running around and a lot of potential use of perks if you’ve got the right ones, hence why Jon was eager to show it off. And hilariously, him using an “alternate universe” (separate save) and console commands to get Wanda up to level 8 to show off the “Impartial Mediator” perk way of getting to see Ian ended up informing his own perk choice when she REALLY leveled up to level 8 at the end of the video. XD I mean, hey, if you’re gonna have that neutral karma, might as well take the most advantage of it, right? :) So yeah, all you could ever want to know about Arefu and The Family this week. And next week? More Wasteland Survival Guide fun, yay! :p Should be interesting!

Workout: I was reluctant to go in the very cold basement, but I got myself down there for half an hour on the treadmill and a start on the next Oxventure Presents Blades In The Dark – the final episode of “Phase 1” (the first half of Season 1), “The Dreadful Dimmer Sisters!” This one picked up pretty much immediately after the last one left off, with Zillah limping home to Edvard, Lilith, and Kasimir to inform them of Barnaby’s capture by Rosie and Josie (accepting a steak from Kasimir for her various bruises while holding off Edvard trying to put an electrical wound-curing hat on her). Nobody was particularly concerned about the loss of Barnaby, but then Zillah brought up the whole “only Barnaby knows where our money is” bit (regarding him sticking the take from the Fight of Fights in a vent in Cross’s office in The Splintered Bone, but getting spirited away before he could let anyone know where it was). And even then, Edvard’s first thought was “I shall build a marvelous mechanical man who will think just like Barnaby and be able to get our money for us” – his attempt with a bucket with a face painted on, broomsticks for limbs, shredded cardboard for hair, and some spark-craft to pull it all together ended up shockingly making a genuine mechanical man with consciousness – Luke speculated a ghost had gotten stuck in the gears – but that consciousness was solely comprised of screaming and begging for death. Zillah ended up ripping its head off. XD

And then there was a knock on the door, and they opened it to find a heavy and sticky package on the doorstep. Bets were taken about what was inside (fingers, kidney, teeth eyes and tongue all in one) – it proved to be BARNABY’S ENTIRE SEVERED FOREARM, ELBOW TO FINGERS. Fortunately, it also proved to be some sort of horrible illusion, as it faded away to nothing, leaving only a note from the Dimmer Sisters saying that this was a trick, but they’d start posting real body parts if they didn’t get their ten coin back. There was some discussion on how to handle the whole situation (break Barnaby out, risking war with the Dimmer Sisters; find Barnaby’s family and get them to post ransom; find another horrible gang to con ten coin out of), but Kasimir ended up hitting on a potential winning solution – break in, find Barnaby, get the location of the money out of him, and then LEAVE him there so they could get said money. And then wait for Barnaby to start coming back in the post. XD Fortunately he then realized that just paying them off and getting Barnaby back alive and in one piece would mean they were square and probably prevent further issues with the Sisters, and as he really didn’t want a war with them. . .

And so the preparation phase began! Lilith called for a flashback so she and Kasimir could have gone out and seen the house at some point to know where it is and what it looks like (big stately mansion on its own grounds, with the other houses nearby looking like they want to get away from it); Zillah went back to the Nightmarket food markets to see if she could get the inside scoop on how they get their food (eventually found a fruits-and-veg seller who brings them their deliveries twice-weekly, though he can’t actually get in the door – he leaves it just inside the front gate on the grounds, and takes the previous delivery’s cart back with him as the girls take it inside); and Edvard recalled an article he’d read on the mansion and its architect to glean some details about the place (has a big spooky ballroom in the middle, and is built on top of some old temple, meaning it has some of the best sewers in the city). Edvard was all for using the sewers to sneak into the place – Kasimir wasn’t keen, as he’d had to soak his coat in vinegar to get the goat smell out of it from HIS last adventure with Edvard, but Zillah and Lilith agreed that it was the sneakiest way in. Edvard even suggested timing their ingress with one of the food deliveries, so the Sisters would be distracted by bringing in their groceries. This plus the fact that they were exploiting a weakness in the Sisters’ defenses around the house meant that, with the “bold and daring feat” die, Luke was able to give them four dice for their engagement roll. He said that it would take some doing to screw this up!

. . .highest roll was a three. Johnny was like “you had to say it.” XD Luke decided that this meant that they got into the sewers safely, waded waste-deep through the muck (Edvard promptly marking off “hip waders” from his load to stop him getting all gucky like the others), found a probable entrance into the Sisters’ house. . .and ended up in a HORRIBLE TORTURE BASEMENT where the Sisters BRUTALLY EXTRACT PEOPLE’S SOULS from their still-living (at the time) bodies. And worse yet, there was a guy in there, still alive, who the minute he saw them started screaming for them to help him! Cue a “Discovery” clock being created, though it at least has six segments. Lilith was able to shut the guy up by covering his mouth, but he was a bit too out of it to get her explaining that they could let him go and he could slip away into the sewers, but they really needed him to be quiet, still moaning and crying against her hand. Zillah pointed out releasing him might alert people that they’d come in, but Kasimir said they could release him on their way BACK – they just needed a way to keep him quiet NOW.

Cue Edvard basically chloroforming the guy. XD Well, it worked! I left it with them preparing to get out of the horrible torture basement – there were stairs up to a door, but Edvard was sure a house like this would have secret passages, and a good Study roll meant that he found one behind a bookcase! It was just a bit noisy when he opened it up. . .watch that “Discovery” clock, guys! Ooh, this is gonna be good. . .

Social: Answered my friend Ace’s FF.net PM (which I did NOT get an e-mail for, grumble). Still need to answer Moose’s messages, but I should be able to get to that tomorrow.

*nods* Not too shabby -- and the long Kevin videos are less of a problem this week, as I have two and three-quarters days at work (I get out a little early on Wednesday) to catch up. For now, though, I have to head to bed and hide under my big thick blanket because it's fucking COLD, y'all. And super-windy too, meaning it felt like it was in the 20s all day. *shudder* Winter is coming. . .at least for Thanksgiving weekend it's supposed to warm back up into the low 50s! Keep your fingers crossed that forecast doesn't change. Night all!