Better Than Expected Wednesday

I mean, the weather wasn't GREAT, but the really horrible soaking rain held off until AFTER I got home (it's really pouring out there right now), and while my day had some ups and downs, I still got plenty done --

Work – Almost a complete flip of yesterday – it was a LOT quieter, with no nonsense on the GL and very little in the way of calls. Though I did have to correct a few things that our processors hadn’t put on correctly regardless. And then help my coworker with finding/making records for people in a particular bundle. *sigh* But I was able to catch up with a lot of stuff, and even get in a tiny bit of time for stuff like obituaries, which have REALLY fallen by the wayside right now. We’ll see how tomorrow goes!

To-Do List –

1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, with more D&D shenanigans –

A) First up, we had the end of the Oxventure One-Shot “BATTLE ROYALE!” Five rounds into the competition, and Merilwen was out and Egbert was practically out, as Dob had put him to sleep with the intent of rolling him off the mountain where this battle was happening. That left Corazon, Dob, and Prudence as the key players, and I picked up with Prudence (having just done the “are you not entertained?!” thing with Merilwen’s body) deciding to go and stab Corazon through the blanket he was hiding under after savaging Egbert with his sword. Hilariously, though, she was unable to hit him – it was a very well-made blanket. XD Poor Egbert then lost his turn due to being asleep (Sleep lasts for a minute, combat rounds are only six seconds each), bringing us into –

Round Six: Corazon deciding that he was going to use his movement and Mage Hand to attempt to shove Egbert off the edge of the battle arena and down the mountain. XD This wasn’t QUITE enough to get Egbert to the edge (Johnny ruled that, since Mage Hand can’t carry that much, it also can’t push that much, and thus Corazon was five feet shy of murdering the paladin), so Corazon quickly hid again, getting a nat 20 and thus turning invisible again for all intents and purposes. XD Dob, seeing Egbert’s position, considered going as close to him as possible to use Thunderwave to blast him off, but then decided “no, that has a chance of waking him up, and I don’t want that,” and decided to risk walking up to Egbert, scooping him up, and gently tossing him over the edge, before walking back as far away from the edge as he could. And a good thing he did it that way too, because Mike DID indeed have a plan in mind to survive should Egbert wake up before hitting the ground – use Misty Step to teleport back up into the arena! Which would have been cool, admittedly. . .but no, Egbert was sent to his doom still fast asleep, and – as per Johnny – basically EXPLODED when he hit the ground. *wince* Damn. But then again, Egbert’s whole thing is explosions, so maybe that’s how he would have wanted to go. XD This of course left only two targets for Prudence’s turn –

And she could only see one of them, so it was time for Dob to take another double Eldritch Blast trick shot! This scorched him pretty good, but he was not down, so things moved on to –

Round Seven: Corazon decided it was about freaking time someone tried to hit Prudence (seriously, despite being probably the squishiest among them, nobody had hit her, or even TRIED to hit her)and burst out from hiding to saber her – only to miss and have to go back into hiding again. And while he managed to conceal himself from Prudence, Dob was still able to see him –

Meaning Dob was able to put an end to their alliance by casting Sleep on him. Or, rather, by trying to cast Sleep on him, because Dob’s third-level-spell-slot dice rolls were ten points shy of overwhelming Corazon’s hit points. XD Corazon yawned, sure, but stayed awake – and very disappointed in Dob. XD Prudence, meanwhile, decided to stick with what she knew (because she didn’t have any other good AOE spells other than Hunger of Hadar, and everyone was very much AVOIDING that killer sphere of tentacled doom) and hit Dob with ANOTHER pair of Eldritch Blast trick shots. This pair flayed all the flesh from his ribs, exposing his beating heart and bringing him almost to the end of his rope, but he wasn’t QUITE down yet. . .

( Suddenly Realized These Videos Are Actually New Enough To Be Spoiled )

B) And second up, we had the very start of another Unofficial One-Shot Wonder – “D&D But. . .Everyone Has Amnesia!” (Though actually it’s a two-parter, so maybe it’s a Two-Shot Wonder. XD) This one featured Luke leading Mike, Jane, and special guest start Sullivan Brown (from what I presume to be other D&D Actual Play-based channels No Rolls Barred and Chaotic Neutral) on a special adventure –

Where the players had no idea who they actually were. Luke made up special scratch-card-style character sheets for them to use, with only their species uncovered, with the idea being they would learn about who they were and what they were as they went (with their various stats being uncovered by checks, and their various special abilities and roleplaying quirks as the players saw fit). The scene was set with the three waking up on a beach after what looked like some kind of shipwreck, with no memory of who they were or how they’d come to be there. Jane was a muscly, scarred human dressed in nondescript red clothes, who took the nickname “Red” as a result; Mike was a middle-aged Tabaxi (cat person) in blue clothes, who decided to go by “Tiddles” (as maybe it was an important and sacred name in his culture); and Sullivan was an aarakocra (bird person) in yellow clothes, who naturally decided “Man-Bird” was the only appropriate name. XD The three milled around on the sand for a moment, trying to figure out who they were and what their relationships to each other were (Man-Bird wondered if they were all on opposing sports teams, while Tiddles reasoned that if they’d previously been enemies, they’d had the slate wiped clean for another go, but if they’d been friends, then they’d have to rebuild their relationship from scratch, so, eh), and had gotten as far as “Red feels a connection to the arcane Weave of magic, Man-Bird feels the favor of some divine force, Tiddles feels nothing and may in fact be a nihilist” –

When the sand beneath them stirred, and the trio were force to make their first Dexterity check! As it turns out, all of them were very dexterous, but Mike unfortunately rolled low, meaning poor Tiddles’s cat-like reflexes were not what they were when he was younger. Red and Man-Bird scrambled out of the way as Tiddles was sent flying and knocked prone (not “not prone,” as the players initially heard) by the arrival of a giant crab beast, ridden by an evil fish-man (a “Sa-hoo-li-gan,” it sounded like). I left it with the players taking stock of this situation (once they’d determined that Tiddles had NOT managed to land on his feet), and tomorrow, I expect a fight against a giant crab! Should be fun. XD

2. Continue editing “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland”: Well, I started late again *frowns at the took-longer-than-anticipated write-up of the workout videos above* but I DID get more done than last time – about three-quarters of a page of Victor wandering the streets of Santa Monica trying not to think of Alice, going into The Asylum trying not to think of Alice, and utterly failing and thinking of Alice. XD I think I can wrap this “prologue” scene of sorts up on Friday – and then, because at least one person asked me “hey, when is the next installment :(” on AO3, it might be time to go back to Chapter 1 and start The Final Edit next week. . .

3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check – another GrayStillPlays-only day, with “Armored Cars vs 1,000,000 Layers in GTA 5!” As you might expect from the title, this one saw Gray taking on a bunch more layers with the most well-protected cars in the game – plus the BMX bike and a handful of meme cars, because funny. XD The official challenge was “Break through eight levels of layers, but every next layer brings more pain,” and Gray had 2 minutes to get busting and reach the win. Oh, and if a car blew up or fell off the board, he wasn’t allowed to use it again. Oh, and the levels had to get through? Well, they were the typical Alex Torture Board stuff –

Level 1: Flesh – Gray had to best layers of mountain lions, bodybuilders, and deer – all still alive. Whether that was fortunate or unfortunate is up to you XD

Level 2: Traffic – Gray had to get through various road barriers, from temporary fencing to flaming barrels to a couple of different kinds of concrete half-walls. Nothing special, though I think Alex missed a trick not including Gray’s hated enemy traffic cones

Level 3: Balls – Gray had to bust through boxes of beach balls, lines of gumballs, a row of oversized cartoony bombs (which fortunately didn’t blow up), some soccer balls, and some what I assume to be pool balls. All the balls, basically :p

Level 4: Wood – Because of course that would come after Balls. XD Anyway, Gray had to get through various wooden fences, stacked caskets, and some pretty thick boxes – mmm, thick wood. :p

Level 5: Festive – Very much not in time for the holidays, Gray had to get through stacked cardboard boxes, a snow wall of ultimate doom, the world’s toughest snowmen, stacked presents, and Santa’s sleigh. Just your typical GrayStillPlays Christmas!

Level 6: Metal – Gray had to bust through various increasingly-fancy metal fences, some satellite dishes, and a shipping container. Though not the one that always makes me think of Dr. Robotnik from Sonic, which is a little sad.

Level 7: Rocks – Gray had to make his way through walls of increasingly large rocks, starting with regular-sized rocks and ending with one big boulder, which REALLY resisted being moved.

Level 8: Explosive – And finally, as a final challenge, Gray had to make it through some rocket platforms, a trio of fuel pumps, and one other explosive I didn’t get a good look at! Because it wasn’t enough for Alex to make sure the challenge was timed – no, he had to make sure the last set of layers could KILL CARS. Gray had to find the toughest vehicle to tank those layers!

So, how did the various cars and such do? Well, amazingly, the BMX bike that Gray started out with just for laughs actually got through LOADS of stuff, thanks to its ability to jump a number of problems – it finally met its match with the heavy wooden crates at the end of the “Wood” level, though. The cloth-topped SADDER car got a little farther before Gray got it stuck on one of Santa’s sleighs, while the trike SADDEST did really well up to the snow wall – and the problem there wasn’t that IT got stopped by the snow wall, it’s that GRAY got stopped by the snow wall (specifically, he flew off the bike, got stuck under the collapsed sections, and glitched through the board). As for the “actual” cars, the two-wheels-in-the-back Vapid had a really good run, finally giving up the ghost after hitting the shipping container in Metal and exploding on the first layer of Rocks, and the green fire truck got all the way to the final boulder, but just could not move it enough. For a moment, it looked like our favorite rocket-tank the Chernabog was going to be the winner. . .

And then it got exploded by the fuel pumps. Meaning the ACTUAL winner was the so-heavily-armored-it-could-tank-three-explosions-in-a-row Insurgent! *whistles* Damn – that is one tough car. At least when you stick a load of metal plating on it. XD I am actually much more impressed by the bike’s performance, though – now I want a layers challenge that Gray has to beat on the BMX. XD Maybe Danny could make a special guest appearance to help make it happen?

4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – just Victor Luvs Alice tonight, so all I had to worry about was resetting my queue speed to one per day for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and getting my Song Saturday post sorted – and I had a brainwave about that getting out of the shower today. Namely, I’ve started doing the “Smiler’s Otherland” series, so I reblogged a song that I associate with Alice showing people around her Wonderland: the Kenny Grey remix of Fiona Apple’s cover of “Pure Imagination.” XD From a post all the way back in 2018, damn. But yeah, that covers the rest of this week there, yay! Now I just gotta plan for the next one. . .

*nods* I'm good with that -- and now I very much have to head to bed. XD Hopefully Thursday goes reasonably well -- night all!