Busy Back-To-Work Night

Been working on finishing up a good number of things, so let me throw the to-do list at you and head to bed --

Work – Another kind of long day of mostly duplicates, with a few bad pledges and stuff to look at, a donor to e-mail about their payments, and a couple of credit card calls. *shrug* Same old same old at this point! I don’t know if things are going to get any more exciting as the week goes on, but I strongly doubt it. Meh.

To-Do List –

1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night with Oxventure: Extinction – “Life Finds A Dob!” I picked up with the gang in the Fantasy Version of the iconic Jurassic Park jeeps (carriages on rails), traveling to the enclosure where Dob would get bit, with Hammerdahl talking about how important conservation is, especially with so much of the Tangle having been recently burned down, and Corazon and Dob reiterating that fire sometimes brings new life and the important thing is no one knows who did that. XD Anyway, they reached the enclosure (with its Fantasy Electric Fence) before Hammerdahl could confirm any suspicions, and with the blow of a whistle that sounded like a sheep, Hammerdahl summoned the creature –

A somehow-rabid T-Rex skeleton. Prudence was delighted. XD Dob, meanwhile, decided to immediately get this show on the road, put on a collar and a chain typically used for the goats that got fed to the thing (or at least its fully-fleshy counterparts), and was raised into the pen attached to a wooden pole that lifted out of the ground. He was promptly chomped for twenty points of piercing damage. XD Dob tried to indicate to the others that okay, biting part done, get me out of here, and after casting Comprehend Languages to understand Dob’s mumbles (since he was thoroughly pressed up against the jawbone), Corazon activated the mechanism to drag the pole, and thus Dob, back into the ground. Prudence attempted to help by sending an Eldritch Blast over the skeletal T-Rex’s shoulder as a distraction –

Cue the T-Rex whipping its head around to look at the blast, then flinging its head up to “swallow” Dob, who promptly hit the deck as he fell right through the bones and took an additional six points of bludgeoning damage. This looped the chain through the T-Rex’s jawbone and started dragging IT to the dirt too – Dob, in an effort to free himself, used Heat Metal to try and melt the chain (after the others, on the other side of the Fantasy Electric Fence, hastily indicated for him not to heat up the actual collar). While the chain did heat up, melting it was going to take quite a while, and the T-Rex’s thrashing as it was dragged down ended up flinging Dob into one of the poles of the fence (fortunately not getting shocked). Merilwen then tried firing an arrow at the T-Rex, once again to try and distract it and stop it moving so much – all THAT did was make it thrash around more and slam Dob into the same pole, breaking the fence. Poor dazed Dob went ragdoll limp as Corazon started doing sketches for G’eth’s Funniest Home Copper Plates –

And then Merilwen was like, “Uh, Dob? That’s a collar designed to be put on goats – maybe you can just take it off?” XD Prudence backed this assertion up, and Dob was able to find the quick-release mechanism, free himself, and crawl to safety as the T-Rex skeleton got pinned. Corazon promptly Minor Illusioned him lounging coolly on the ground as blood spread in a growing puddle beneath the image. XD Dob was, however, well enough to fix the fence (using the “Mending” part of the “Prestidigitation” cantrip to carefully piece together the pole), all while everyone watched him for signs of rabies. After he was done, he proved not to be foaming at the mouth, happily drank a glass of water, and said he felt no more desire than usual to bite his fellow Oxventurers, so he was declared rabies-immune! Talk promptly turned to gathering up his blood for testing (this time with Dob’s consent), and the gang scooped up all the blood that had leaked out of his various injuries from the ground. Merilwen ATTEMPTED to use Control Water on it, but then an argument started about if that would only control the WATER in the blood and leave other bits behind, and Johnny ruled in the end that Merilwen CAN use Control Water to control blood – but NOT the blood of fellow Oxventurers. Because “the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb,” awwww. Also she’s not allowed to control the blood INSIDE people’s bodies because Prudence is calling dibs on that. XD At any rate, Dob’s blood was stuck into some spare Fantasy Tupperware containers, and Dob said “see you tomorrow” and faceplanted again.

Cut to the next morning, with more breakfast margaritas, another nacho volcano (now with jalapeno poppers), and Prudence in a gift shop hat. Dob came down and asked Suzette how the testing was going, and she admitted they hadn’t gotten to it yet, because by the time they’d gotten it all sorted, it was margarita time, so they just stuck it in the fridge. Next to the salsa. Cue Corazon having a horrified realization about what he’d been dipping his poppers in. XD Anyway, she also thought Dob would appreciate being a part of the experiments, which he was, and thus talk turned to what they were going to do with the blood. It was decided that they should try feeding it to one of the LESS dangerous rabid animals around and see what happened – Hammerdahl gave them access to a rabid dodo, which Corazon fed a blood-dipped jalapeno popper. Unfortunately, all this seemed to do was make the dodo MORE rabid, or at least extremely hyper. The group THEN struck upon the idea of using the blood earlier in the process – namely, getting the blood into the marrow of some bones ready for necromancy and seeing if that resulted in non-rabid animals. And so they headed down to the necromancy lab (Merilwen staying outside in the spectator’s area, because being too close to all these dead animals reminded her a bit too much of Simon, her beloved cat friend who was turned into a hat by an evil necromancer) and summoned the necromancer – a Bismuth-like creaky crone named. . .I’m pretty sure it’s another gemstone, but I’m not sure how you spell it, so we’ll call her A. Anyway, A was willing to help them, for a price (the price being her own nacho volcano and jalapeno poppers, as she wasn’t allowed in the main cafeteria), and the decision was made to resurrect a giraffe, as those are extinct in G’eth (Dob, who really wanted to bring back a Brachiosaurus, got very passive-aggressive about the giraffe being picked over the dinosaur when it was his blood they were using XD). I left it with A getting ready to do some necromancing – if she could stop dipping her poppers in Dob’s delicious blood. XD We’ll see how that goes, and where the next episode begins, tomorrow!

2. Continue writing “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland”: Check – as Alice is in a version of the VTMB universe that’s running one of Wesp’s later Plus Patches, rather than getting teleported to the roof entrance, she gets dropped off by the cabbie just outside the museum, allowing us to get a good look at the entrance! Complete with its banners for dinosaurs, ancient insects, and human sacrifice! Ah, history. XD At any rate, Alice has successfully made it across the parking lot, and is getting ready to pop the front door – we’ll see how she does inside the place later!

3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: One-third check – I got to the Tubes a little late, so I could only watch yesterday’s GrayStillPlays – “Testing cars vs waterslides in GTA 5!” Another delightful Alex Torture Board, asking only the most important waterslide-related questions so Gray could find the car that could answer them all, such as Which Car Gets Yeeted The Furthest By A Waterslide? (basically Gray had to launch himself from a waterslide across a large sunken “ruler” and onto the platform at the other side – hit the 69 to win!) Which Car Can Climb Faster Up A Waterslide? (Gray had 20 seconds to power up a twisty waterslide to the top to reach a teleporter before a windmill jumped into it and smacked him away – though Gray actually had a lot of luck just avoiding the damn thing) Which Car Can Descend Faster Down A Waterslide? (another 20 seconds to make it DOWN the twisty water slide as fast as possible before a mutant windmill appeared at the bottom to smack him away) Which Car Can Ramp Off A Waterslide The Highest? (variation of the first challenge, only this time Gray had to yeet himself off the waterslide and over the top of a sheer “ruler” wall) Which Car Can Push A Boat Up A Waterslide? (as stated, Gray had to shove a boat up a short waterslide – and then avoid falling off the other end) And Which Car Can Do A Triple Waterslide Spiral (I wanted to do a waterslide turtle, but that was just too dumb)? (your typical wallridey triple-spiral, only now with added water spouts of death!) A lot of the cars couldn’t even get past the first challenge (though the dump truck actually DID make it down the water slide, to Gray’s own shock), and only a handful made it through the others – the quad was the first to yeet itself successfully; a car with extra tires on it (not the Trophy Truck or Dragur, a different one) was the first to climb successfully; the pink Power Metal race car made it all the way past the high leap before succumbing to the boat; and the pink-and-purple “Auto Exotic” car with the “BULKY” license plate eventually completed the challenge! Though not before Gray was carjacked by a mountain lion. I am dead serious. Not sure if Alex did that for fun or if that’s a known game glitch, but – yeah. XD

4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check, though kind of on a technicality –

Victor Luvs Alice – Chill Valicer Save posts are in the queue for tomorrow, followed by the finished version of the “Accused” Valicer In The Dark AU snippet for Thursday! So that’s good!

Valice Multiverse – Nothing FOR me to queue over here (no activity), but I did send Marie a drabble prompt as per her latest prompt post. . .and I just spent most of the night answering Moose’s messages on here, so I think that can substitute for this queue. :p

Whew! But hey, at least I am more caught up on stuff than I was. And now it is definitely time to go to bed -- night all!