Back To Normal Wednesday

As the to-do list will bear out --

Work – Network was back up (though I did have to restart my computer because of a little leftover glitchiness), so yeah, back to running reports and doing duplicates and being bored in the normal way at work. :p Though my supervisor did have me ask some of our outside vendors about the QC files I normally do around the beginning of the month, and they’re gonna have one of those ready for me tomorrow to get done before the vacation, so that’s good. :) Just a pretty standard, quiet day – I’ll take it!

As for beanbags, Mom did indeed get it together today, having a pretty darn good series of games, while Dad faltered in the first and third with a really strong second, and I had a middling first and second while managing to pull it out in the third. :) Final scores were me 2-3-W; Dad 3-W-3; Mom W-2-2. Everybody wins – I’ll take that!

To-Do List –

1. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike, and back to Oxventure Presents Blades In The Dark – “The Wardens of Bellweather Crematorium!” I picked up with Taryn telling Kasimir that she HAD still been sending out her coded messages in the reports that go in the paper – Kasimir told her that if she’d been putting in the messages, but they weren’t going OUT, then she’d been made and it was definitely time to go. Taryn, however, said that she couldn’t leave yet, she needed “proof” and that he had to see something. Kasimir whined about how they ALWAYS insist they need to see something, but agreed to come with her, stripping the unconsciously, lightly fried Warden of his clothes and tucking him in with his friend before heading off with disguises firmly in place.

Switch back to Lilith, who – having just heard that shit was going down with Bakoros in the Progress Division – decided she needed to find this Progress Division and scope out what was going on. Unfortunately for her, the vent did not go all the way to the Progress Division – instead, it ended at the Rookery, where two Spirit Wardens were tending the crows and letting them in and out through a revolving window. There WAS a hallway leading off said Rookery to the Progress Division, though – if she could get past the two workers. Lilith thought she had the perfect distraction in the form of a second stored spirit (as she gets two spirit bottles for one load tick) – a former Billhook called Chaotic Kelvin – which she dropped through the opening underneath her –

But when the bottle smashed and Kelvin came out, the Spirit Wardens inside handled him with merciless efficiency, one taking him down with their electrified mace, while the other dissolved him with a spare vial of the weird goo they use to destroy spirits. (Johnny couldn’t help but point out that they ain’t afraid of no ghost. :P) Lilith was – a little bit traumatized by it. XD Fortunately, they WERE distracted by the resultant ashes, debating what kind of spirit it even was, and with a six on a prowl roll, was able to drop down behind them, edge her way around, and make it down the hall. The doors to the Progress Division itself were easy to spot, being the fanciest doors in the hallway and clearly labeled, but before Lilith could do anything about getting inside, two more Spirit Wardens appeared coming the other way. . .

One of them limping. Lilith quickly faked being lost, and Kasimir agreed that the place was a maze to sell the deception to anyone who might overhear. Taryn, getting that Lilith was a friend, pointed out that she wasn’t really properly attired (aka, with her face visible, she would get far too much attention), so Lilith decided to search the hallway for a closet or something that might provide her the clothes she needed.

Unfortunately, her Study roll turned up double ones. Fortunately, Blades in the Dark does not have crit failures as such, and Johnny promptly proposed Lilith finding two Spirit Wardens tucked away somewhere having a snog – an image Luke found so funny he immediately ran with it, clarifying the Wardens were in a laundry room and hadn’t taken off their masks, meaning their faces were just clinking together. Even more fortunately, Lilith’s stunned reaction of just “closing the door and hoping I can get that out of my head” prompted Luke to have one of the caught Wardens poke their head out and ask her not to tell anyone, and her managing to trade her silence for a mask and cloak. As it was supposed to be a FAILURE, though, Ellen decided that the mask and cloak hadn’t yet been cleaned and were thus very stinky, and Luke added that she didn’t get the cool mace. XD Pretty freaking useful failure, that!

With everyone now properly attired, Taryn led the group into the Progress Division, taking them up on a special observation platform above the main central area so they could see what was going on below. What was going on below was at least ten Spirit Wardens working away at various alchemical and electrical workstations. . .and a group of people in the center trying to unload a wagon full of corpses with horrible inefficiency, shambling and stumbling around like zombies. Which, actually, they kind of were – Taryn identified them as Hollows, mindless husks that result when the soul of a still-living body is drawn out (and usually destroyed). Lilith and Kasimir were appalled, as the creation of Hollows is apparently extremely taboo in Volisport – and they were even MORE horrified when Bakoros himself came storming in, asking why the Hollows were working so inefficiently, and one of his underlings said that they were working on an idea to brainwash the Hollows at the moment of soul-destruction so they’d do one single job until their bodies rotted out from under them. *shudder* Yeah, not fun stuff! Everyone was like “we really need to stop this,” with Kasimir wanting to just smack Bakoros over the head and drag him away. However, it was quickly decided (well, I say quickly – Johnny couldn’t resist making a “Dark Side” joke first after confirming the place was poorly lit, and that was followed by a flurry of Tom Clancy-related jokes for some reason – Johnny’s a fan, I guess? Everyone seemed to enjoy them, though XD) that probably wasn’t the best plan, especially with their exfil points being either the Loading Bay (which was probably too far away to be reasonable) or the Rookery (where they would have to exit through the crows’ window and thus would either end up on the roof or falling from a decently high distance) – Kasimir himself admitted he just wanted to hit someone after this weird and awful day. Taryn insisted they had to bring proof, though, so they decided to try and grab some reports from the room and then sneak out through the Rookery, since they were already appropriately attired. Kasimir led a group Prowl action, using his Foresight ability to give Lilith and Taryn (as Luke was rolling for the NPC in this case) an extra die each by relying on him and Taryn knowing all the usual Billhook sneaking around tricks and getting Lilith to follow their lead –

Lilith got a five, Kasimir a four, and Taryn a six! :D So all successes, and the best of the lot was the one they took – cue the group doing a cool Batman-style vault over the railing of the observation platform, and then gliding around and pretending to be just regular workers, observing everyone’s experiments. Kasimir managed to grab some diagrams of the proposed Hollow brainwashing device (which was a horrifying Clockwork Orange set-up – Kasimir immediately made it clear Edvard was to NEVER get his hands on these, and he would hand over the cool electric mace as a distraction once they got away), and the three reconvened in the center near the Hollows to prepare to get out –

Unfortunately, Kasimir made one too many bad Billhook-related puns (such as “let’s hook it” instead of “let’s book it”), and Luke had Bakoros think they were trying to get his attention with their whispered conversation. Johnny deemed this a fair punishment. XD Lilith quickly began bullshitting that they had some ideas to make one design on one of the plans more efficient – and when Bakoros demanded to be shown, as he wanted results, she led him over to a random workstation, took out her multitool, started tinkering –

And then cast Tempest, filling the room with fog at the cost of two stress. And then whacked Bakoros over the head with some books for good measure, knocking him cold. A perfect opportunity to get away – but Kasimir wanted a peek behind that mask first. . .we’ll see what he finds, and if it’s anything particularly significant, tomorrow as we wrap up the final ten minutes or so! :D

2. Continue writing “The Joker And The Queen”: Check – did all the happy reunions today! Which also revealed all the other coaster’s “real” names – Thirteen/Theresa got out of the van first and found her sister Prudence; Rita followed to see the reunion and found her own family – Scott Sr., Diane, and Scott Jr., otherwise known as “Spinball” (Rita) and “Whizzer” (his dad); Oblivion/Oliver followed them just in time for his dad Alex “Lord of Darkness/DJ Sidor” Towers to come out of the actual station and find him; Galactica/Gayle followed just to see if all their families really were there – and confirmed it by reuniting with her parents Agatha and Charlie; and finally Matt and Carol got reunited with Smiler. :) Hooray for lovely, emotional reunion scenes! Next up is everyone trying to EXPLAIN what happened, which – is less lovely and emotional and more slightly ridiculous. XD

3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Two-thirds check – I’ve caught up on everything posted yesterday, anyway –

A) First up, the latest from Josh Way – “SKETCHY: Spider Gwen!” A number of fairly rough sketches of Spider-Gwen from the two Spider-Verse movies, mostly in costume but one of her actual face, all inspired by his recent viewings of Across The Spider-Verse! They were very well done, even if they weren’t as cleaned up as some of this other sketches on this little show have been, and it was nice to hear him enthuse about how much he liked Spider-Gwen’s design, his ideas on the appeal of Spider-Man in general (he puts it down to the whole “being able to swing through the air and do all those cool stunts”), and about how he’s getting a little tired of multiverse offerings in the main Marvel Cinematic Universe, but Spider-Verse somehow keeps it interesting. :) Fun stuff!

B) And second up, the second-latest from GrayStillPlays – “Forcing people to vlog for 9999hrs straight,” aka Gray plays Happy Wheels! :D We started with the traditional bottle flip – this one a yellow yeet-flavored one, where Gray decided to go for the awkward Save/Replay ledge in the corner (took him a few tries and one death, but he got up there in the end), then moved on through the lady on the scooter taking a trip to the grocery store (ramping a broken bridge and taking fifty crossbow bolts to the back of the neck in her quest to get watermelon); a rope swing that looked a bit like it was drawn on loose-leaf paper (featuring some close-to-spike death swings and a conveyor belt, as is only proper); a “normal” spike fall that was in fact very deep and very very deadly (and also there was a “secret” area for Gray that was nothing but explosions); a harpoon featuring both heat-seeking harpoons chasing Gray from behind and a section of harpoons firing from below (Gray managed to get through this one with sheer speed); a cliff-diving board where Nixon had to dive through a cliff thumbnail hole and then grab a vine to swing to the win, all while avoiding the fifty million mines all around (Gray exploded a LOT before he finally did it); a “pogo fight with physics” where all the fake chairs and stools the characters were standing on fell apart as Pogo Guy knocked them over (also there was a fake win that fell apart onto the boosted real win below); a rope swing into a spike-surrounded thumbnail hole (Gray took a LOT of katanas to the groin before finally managing to get through); a simple watermelon run (Gray lost his son and a leg but won first try); and finally Dylan’s board, which featured “BestDad69” vlogging his parkour through the Grand Gross Canyon (featuring men with weapons guarding a rope bridge and a whole series of thwomps ready to kill him), Canada Land (with snowmen that froze in place after a second when you knocked them over, a bottomless pit, and a huge mountain to climb), and the Ankha Desert (featuring giant dust-rocks that could squash you flat – Gray quickly got tired of being crushed). XD Good stuff, as always – and it’s fun to see Dylan picking up the “69” thing. XD Can’t let Alex have all the fun!

4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: N/A except for resetting the queue speed on Victor Luvs Alice to one per day so the right posts fire on the right days! But I did answer Ace’s latest FF.net PM in halfway-decent time, and I caught up on my #the smiler, #alice madness returns, and #corpse bride tracked tags on Victor Luvs Alice – and put one CB gif set in my drafts, so I guess this is actually a check just for that? :p

Whew! So yeah, back on my normal schedule now! Including getting to bed too late, so let me do that now. XD At least it's cool enough to sleep even without the AC for the moment. . .but we'll see how long that lasts. :p Night all!