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Decent Martin Luther King Jr Day
Jan. 20th, 2025 11:46 pmYeah, we're not mentioning the other thing that happened today, ugh. >( But on a very personal level, today was pretty good. I didn't have to go outside in the cold for any reason; I actually felt awake for most of the day (managed to get to bed right before 2 AM last night, and actually roll over and go back to sleep for a while when I woke up early this morning); I can show off my other new OT3 icon on today's entry; and I got a decent amount of stuff done --
Tumblr: Just Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) to work on today, and I got two key things done –
A) I spent the time before lunch working some more on the “VITD Pets” post draft – cleaning up the section on Dogmeat a little (and copying all the relevant stuff about how “When Freedom Calls” will work in the VITD verse into my master doc for that; see the “Writing” section below) and doing the sections on Dougie and Us! I still have to do all the tags, and I’ll probably want to give everything another once-over before I drop it in an upcoming queue, but – it’s a lot closer to completed now than it was before! Yay!
B) And I spent a couple of minutes tonight adjusting my theme on my main blog so that the center column, where all the posts show up, is as wide as possible – mostly because I’d noticed that the YouTube videos that I embed or reblog for my Song Saturday posts were showing up with half the video cut off because of how narrow the column was. So now the videos show up correctly, yay!
Baldur’s Gate III: Picked back up with the adventures of my Bard/Artificer Smiler today, roaming around the wreckage of the Nautiloid ship and gathering a few party members –
A) Started with Smiler on the edge of the beach, right where I left them – after checking out their new multiclass stats, spells, and goodies (it doesn’t look like Smiler’s Artificer spells can't be changed out whenever for new ones, like they could in the previous mod I was using – eh; on the plus side Smiler’s got four first-level spell slots to play with if they like, when normally level 2 characters only get three) and checking just how far into the water they could go out of curiosity (about knee height? Doesn’t seem like characters can swim in this game), I had them start exploring their surroundings. They picked up a couple of clam shells and six gold off a dead fisher –
Then, just past the flopped tentacle serving as an archway, they encountered the unconscious Shadowheart! Despite having a prime opportunity to try and examine the artifact loosely held in her hand, they chose to just wake her up (they’re nice like that). Shadowheart was like “how the fuck are we alive” – I had Smiler’s bard nature kick in and suggest some “dramatically-timed divine intervention,” which Shadowheart said was unlikely but possible. XD Smiler then inquired as to their “gith friend” (as they don’t actually know Lae’zel’s name yet) – Shadowheart responded “might want to reconsider calling her a friend – looks like she ran off.” Smiler was concerned and wanted to look for her, but Shadowheart was like “no, we’ve got to look after ourselves first” before confirming that yes, she very much wanted to stick with Smiler if they’d have her. Smiler was more than fine with that, and Shadowheart thanked them again for freeing her before, saying she wouldn’t soon forget it. :)
And thus, Shadowheart joined the party! And, because Smiler got a level-up from all the fighting they did on the Nautiloid, she did too, jumping up to seventeen health and gaining the ability to Turn Undead (make them flee) and Invoke Duplicity (cast illusions to distract enemies) from her goddess (guess Shar is good for something). She also had the opportunity to change up her spell set, but I was fine with what she had for the time being – she is the type of caster who can change up their spells on the fly (outside of combat, anyway), so if I really want to update her list, I can do it whenever. :)
B) With Shadowheart officially one of the team, I had her and Smiler do a little more exploration around the ravaged beach, checking all the corpses and containers that they could find (with the help of the left “Alt” button, which highlights corpses and certain containers – not all of them, though, for some reason. Dunno why) as they worked their way up the shore to a big ancient stone building at the other end. Notable finds included –
I. A hand drum in a barrel – I had Smiler grab it as my other Smilers, when appropriate, play both the drums and the guitar, so it made sense for them to have it as a “spare” instrument!
II. An “Ignoble Hat” from a backpack – Smiler picked it up and put it on, but it looked incredibly stupid on them. XD I did have Shadowheart grab the backpack itself for her own use – from what I understand, having a variety of containers on your person so you can organize your shit is a good thing in this game! (If you’re wondering why Smiler didn’t take it, there’s a chest waiting for them at camp with all the DLC goodies I got in it, and one of those is a “Bewildering Adventurer’s Pack,” so that’s going to be Smiler’s “official” backpack.)
III. A healing potion in a pouch – never hurts to have more of those!
IV. A bunch of mergrass growing near the water, allowing Smiler to make their first alchemical suspension for later potion-brewing, along with a bit of belladonna growing by the Waypoint signal on a big rock near the building – gotta get all the alchemy ingredients for my alchemist!
V. Some fish in some fish baskets on a little wooden walkway/dock thing near the building, along with some water and a couple of apples in a backpack at the end, and a book of “Shanties For The Bitch Queen” (some sort of sea goddess) XD Well, Smiler will need some way to entertain themselves in camp later!
VI. Twelve gold in a barrel, nice – makes me glad I downloaded that “weightless gold” mod! XD
VII. More gold and fish on various dead fishers around the shop...along with a perfumed letter on one particular fisher. Reading said letter revealed it was from their love Anna, urging them to run away with her to Baldur’s Gate. :( Crashing nautiloid definitely put an end to all those plans!
So yeah – not a bad haul. Plus they found the waypoint, which will allow them to teleport to this area from the map whenever they like, yay.
C) Having explored the beach and tried the big old ancient door into the stone building on the other side, only to learn it was locked tight, Smiler and Shadowheart thus proceeded up another little path nearby – one that led to the torn-open interior of the wrecked ship. With a few injured and decidedly unfriendly intellect devourers wandering about. Smiler and Shadowheart were able to stay out of their way at first, examining the mangled and burned bodies of some of their fellow abductees (one of them had 26 gold, another had 28! VERY glad I made gold weightless) – but as they followed the path around, they found that it only led back to where they’d come. So, after picking up what they could from the remaining corpses and containers around the shop (mainly more fish and water), they proceeded into the wreckage of the ship and commenced battle with the leggy brains! Here’s how that went –
Turn One: All three of the intellect devourers Dashed in to get nice and close to their potential prey to claw them up. After considering my options, I had Shadowheart smack one with her mace, then had Smiler use their rapier to kill it before scrambling away to a safer spot to make it harder for the remaining two devourers to get to them.
Turn Two: ...Smiler’s retreat proved to not be far enough, as one of the remaining intellect devourers scrambled over and clawed them, putting them down to half health. *wince* Shadowheart whacked the one next to her with her mace, and got clawed in turn, while Smiler stabbed the one next to them with their rapier, drank a healing potion to restore their hit points (they had six, so I figured I could use one), then attempted to run away to a safer spot – the intellect devourer TRIED to use an attack of opportunity on them as they did (as the game warned me about in a tutorial), but I’m not sure it hit? Smiler wasn’t hurt, anyway, which was good, but neither did they get very far, which was bad.
Turn Three: As if to prove the above point, the intellect devourer beside Smiler easily followed them and clawed them again, this time bringing their hit points down to six. *double wince* However, Shadowheart was able to club her devourer to death and restore her health with a potion, and when Smiler lunged at their devourer with a piercing strike, they got a critical hit! :D Meaning all the brains died without murdering any of my level 2 weaklings, yay. The game suggested I then let them take a short rest, and I was like “yeah, sounds good” and did just that – Smiler definitely needed that little respite to heal up!
D) With the enemies cleared and their strength somewhat stored, it was time for Smiler to loot the ship for goodies! They picked up an intellect devourer cerebellum for future alchemical purposes from their foes; 27 gold off a dead nobleman, along with a red pepper and a locket inscribed with “For Papa” ( :( ); some Arsonist’s Oil out of a nearby cartilaginous chest (dip your weapon in it and you can make fire resistant foes suddenly quite vulnerable to flame); and a void bulb and a healing potion off the dead mind flayer next to the chest (nice, so Smiler immediately replaced the potion they used). The pair then headed out onto the beach on the other side, where they found the remains of a boat, a dock, and an overturned wagon with some crates around it. Smiler was able to grab another clamshell and some more mergrass and belladonna on the beach, and some thieves’ tools from one of the crates –
But then discovered that the final big wooden trunk was locked. Well, good thing they’d just picked up some lockpicks in that thieves’ tools set! I did a quicksave for dice rerolling purposes, then had Smiler attempt the lock – it was only a DC of 5 to beat, but I went ahead and had Smiler use their “Armor of Tools” infusion to make it so Dexterity checks (like this) use their higher Intelligence modifier – it lasts until long rest, so why not? Thus assured that only a critical 1 could screw me over with the modifiers I had, I rolled the dice –
And got a 9, which became a 12. Easy pass, and netted Smiler and Shadowheart 15 more gold and a leather helmet, should either of them want to wear it. :) Yay!
E) Around this time, I noticed that it was starting to get to the point where I should wrap things up for the afternoon – but before I did, there was one last thing I wanted to do: find Astarion! Everyone’s favorite “I’m totally not a vampire” pale elf. XD I knew he was in the area somewhere, so I looked around for his familiar curly white hair –
And spotted him up on the nearby hill! I promptly had Smiler and Shadowheart head up the slope, where Astarion was calling for help – once Smiler was in range, he revealed that he’d cornered a “brain thing” in the bushes and asked if Smiler could kill it, like the others. Smiler was like “yeah, easy, stand back” and went to check on the monster –
Only for a wild boar to come running out of the bush, and Astarion to jump them and knock them to the ground with a knife to their throat. Astarion warned Smiler not to make a sound if they wanted to keep their neck unslit and Shadowheart to stay back and not get involved, then confirmed he’d seen Smiler on the ship and demanded to know what they and the tentacle freaks had done to him. Smiler was like “wait, no, I’m a fellow abductee” – Astarion didn’t immediately believe them, but then the tadpoles connected their minds, and they each got an eyeful of each other’s memories (Smiler seeing Astarion stalking people in the dark streets). THAT helped Astarion realize that he was indeed attacking a fellow victim, and he let Smiler up and apologized. Smiler took it with good grace, saying they might have done the same were the roles switched (getting a bit of Shadowheart approval), then exchanged names with Astarion, noting they both lived in Baldur’s Gate (Astarion: “we must have moved in different social circles” XD). Astarion asked if they knew anything about the “worms” in their heads, and Smiler explained the whole “turning into mindflayers” thing – Astarion was like “oh, of COURSE it’ll turn me into a monster” (secretly upset because this is the FIRST time he’s been free of his evil vampire master and felt the sun in TWO CENTURIES and now it turns out it has a time limit before he becomes a tentacle creature), then noted that there was still time and if they could find someone to help control the tadpole…well. Smiler was like “control it? We want to get rid of it,” to which Astarion lied “yes, well, first things first.” XD Anyway, Smiler still invited him to join the party, as there was safety in numbers, and he figured that sticking with the herd was the right thing to do in these circumstances and thus accepted.
And so Astarion joined the group, and my final act of the day was to level him up as well – which was pretty easy, as Astarion is a Rogue and thus didn’t have any spells for me to agonize over. XD Though he does have some lovely Cunning Actions he can use as bonus actions – Hiding, Dashing, and Disengaging. Have to remember to try and use those the next time we’re all in a fight… Anyway, I left everyone hanging out together on the pathway where they met – next time I play, it’ll be back into the Nautiloid to find that one mind flayer that tries to get you to let it eat your brain to heal itself, and to find Gale! Who accidentally noclipped out of the world trying to escape the crash (he’s stuck in a nearby Waypoint on one of the rocks XD). Though next weekend we’ll be back to the usual Sims 4/Fallout 4 combo, so that won’t be for a bit yet. Gives me time to plan how I want to handle things, I suppose!
Writing: Got a couple of bits of writing done today, making up for the accidental skip yesterday –
A) As per the above, I properly updated the adaptation of “When Freedom Calls” in my list of score-and-story ideas in the VITD master doc by copying all the relevant stuff out of Dogmeat’s section of the “VITD Pets” post. I also updated a story idea for the Three Pillars helping out some students in Charterhall who are trying to develop a new power source for Duskwall to use in case the leviathan blood ever runs out – my original idea was for them to be early adopters of wind power, but I recently read a story from tumblr user marlynnofmany about an exorcist character of hers, Joan, who accidentally makes a “ghost bug zapper” out of a fountain while trying to use magic to make it attract some ghosts and light them up so she could better see what she was doing. And I thought that was so great I was like “I HAVE to use this in a Valicer In The Dark story somehow.” XD So I’m thinking that maybe the students have made something similar to gather electroplasm directly from the dead? I dunno – all I know is that I want that zapper. XD
B) And I also got another page of Chapter 4 of “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland” edited, with Alice meeting Brother Kanker! Who is both very disgusting and very dramatic – Carpenter made it clear that he did not appreciate being compared to the guy. XD But yes, Alice met the Nosferatu today, and made it very clear to him that she would not be joining his death cult – instead, he’d be joining Jezebel Locke in death. I left it off with her getting first blood by shooting him in the shoulder as he did his iconic “feed on your fleessssssh” line – tomorrow, we’ll have the boss battle proper! Which won’t be as difficult for Alice as it is for most fledglings, because unlike her video game character counterparts, she can make proper use of a certain element in his boss arena...
YouTube: ...another day of nothing in my Subs (I thought you were skipping Tuesdays, Gray?), so I turned to the Watch Later instead for my nightly video viewing –
A) First up, we had the latest OXBox list – “7 Games You Can Beat by Doing Nothing at All!” Andy and Mike talking about those games where, if you wait around, you will win, even if it’s not the most satisfying win. Naturally, Far Cry 4 and its “Crab Rangoon” ending (gotten by waiting at the dinner table at the start of the game for Pagan Min to finish his torture instead of trying to escape) was featured, but so was Bendy and the Dark Revival (where you can avoid getting sucked into the ink dimension to fight demon cartoons by refusing to get up from the desk when your character mentions wanting coffee – twenty real-time minutes later, she’ll just get back to work), Tacoma (where you can avoid having to wander around a space station figuring out what happened to the crew by waiting three hours for the relevant data to transfer onto your data pad at each of the three transfer spots, for a total of nine hours of waiting), and Nothing (a free-to-play “game” where you press one key to start, and then watch the “you have been doing Nothing” timer tick up; if you do ANYTHING, you immediately lose). Basically, if you’re the kind of person who just wants to wait and see what happens, these are the games for you!
B) And second up, we had the next episode of CaFae Latte I had to watch – “CaFae Latte Season 19 - TikTok Compile!” Featuring a dude accusing a regular customer who showed up in a wheelchair of faking it and getting the business from her (turns out she has rheumatoid arthritis and while she can walk from her car to the cafe, she can’t do a day out with her friend without the chair – interestingly, the dude did not need to be cursed by Bob to start realizing he was a dick); Patrick and Janine showing up again and giving their military history to a pushy “military spouse” who cut in front of Janine, including wars both mortal and supernatural (and Patrick being very into Janine having previously been a thief targeting vampire aristocracy during one of the latter); a couple of idiots getting owned for their idiot behavior (namely someone grabbing a drink that wasn’t theirs and someone else expecting Bob to know she wanted her drink iced when she didn’t specify); Cyrus having to deal with his old “friend” from college Jake, who just Does Not Get anything outside of his narrow worldview (such as non-binary people, asexuality, and not being a dick); Bob cursing someone who dragged their anxiety-ridden friend out of the house and gave them a panic attack with their same level of anxiety for a week (at the friend’s request, because longer felt too mean); and Bob helping out a trans guy who wanted magical gender-affirming surgery in exchange for his bakery supply company giving her free stuff for a year and half-off future orders for seven years...which allowed her to buy a new, larger location and hire on Jennifer Charles as a proper kitchen manager! :D So yeah, that’s nice! And it looks like the next compilation features Bob interviewing people for positions at the new location – that’ll be fun. :D
Workout: Another night on the bike, another night with the GrayStillPlays compilation “I built a DYI rocket and this happened!” I finished off the “sending weird floppy animals off across the earth and into space on various different rockets” mobile game (with Gray sending a weird pig across the solar system on a giant rocket painted to look vaguely like a person), then got through all of Learn To Fly (a game where you play as a penguin attempting to learn to fly with the help of various hang gliders and rockets – Gray of course did not stop until he’d maxed out everything and could send the penguin at pretty much light speed) and most of Learn To Fly 3 (where the penguins are attempting to reach space – Gray’s gotten to the point where he’s shooting his pink potato “penguin” out of a nuclear reactor to gain the necessary speed to breach Earth’s atmosphere). We’ll see what other nonsense is in store for us tomorrow!
Not too shabby at all. And now I have to go to bed, since I do have work tomorrow. Just figures that the long weekend would end right before the two most frigid days this week. >( Ah well...night all!
Tumblr: Just Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) to work on today, and I got two key things done –
A) I spent the time before lunch working some more on the “VITD Pets” post draft – cleaning up the section on Dogmeat a little (and copying all the relevant stuff about how “When Freedom Calls” will work in the VITD verse into my master doc for that; see the “Writing” section below) and doing the sections on Dougie and Us! I still have to do all the tags, and I’ll probably want to give everything another once-over before I drop it in an upcoming queue, but – it’s a lot closer to completed now than it was before! Yay!
B) And I spent a couple of minutes tonight adjusting my theme on my main blog so that the center column, where all the posts show up, is as wide as possible – mostly because I’d noticed that the YouTube videos that I embed or reblog for my Song Saturday posts were showing up with half the video cut off because of how narrow the column was. So now the videos show up correctly, yay!
Baldur’s Gate III: Picked back up with the adventures of my Bard/Artificer Smiler today, roaming around the wreckage of the Nautiloid ship and gathering a few party members –
A) Started with Smiler on the edge of the beach, right where I left them – after checking out their new multiclass stats, spells, and goodies (it doesn’t look like Smiler’s Artificer spells can't be changed out whenever for new ones, like they could in the previous mod I was using – eh; on the plus side Smiler’s got four first-level spell slots to play with if they like, when normally level 2 characters only get three) and checking just how far into the water they could go out of curiosity (about knee height? Doesn’t seem like characters can swim in this game), I had them start exploring their surroundings. They picked up a couple of clam shells and six gold off a dead fisher –
Then, just past the flopped tentacle serving as an archway, they encountered the unconscious Shadowheart! Despite having a prime opportunity to try and examine the artifact loosely held in her hand, they chose to just wake her up (they’re nice like that). Shadowheart was like “how the fuck are we alive” – I had Smiler’s bard nature kick in and suggest some “dramatically-timed divine intervention,” which Shadowheart said was unlikely but possible. XD Smiler then inquired as to their “gith friend” (as they don’t actually know Lae’zel’s name yet) – Shadowheart responded “might want to reconsider calling her a friend – looks like she ran off.” Smiler was concerned and wanted to look for her, but Shadowheart was like “no, we’ve got to look after ourselves first” before confirming that yes, she very much wanted to stick with Smiler if they’d have her. Smiler was more than fine with that, and Shadowheart thanked them again for freeing her before, saying she wouldn’t soon forget it. :)
And thus, Shadowheart joined the party! And, because Smiler got a level-up from all the fighting they did on the Nautiloid, she did too, jumping up to seventeen health and gaining the ability to Turn Undead (make them flee) and Invoke Duplicity (cast illusions to distract enemies) from her goddess (guess Shar is good for something). She also had the opportunity to change up her spell set, but I was fine with what she had for the time being – she is the type of caster who can change up their spells on the fly (outside of combat, anyway), so if I really want to update her list, I can do it whenever. :)
B) With Shadowheart officially one of the team, I had her and Smiler do a little more exploration around the ravaged beach, checking all the corpses and containers that they could find (with the help of the left “Alt” button, which highlights corpses and certain containers – not all of them, though, for some reason. Dunno why) as they worked their way up the shore to a big ancient stone building at the other end. Notable finds included –
I. A hand drum in a barrel – I had Smiler grab it as my other Smilers, when appropriate, play both the drums and the guitar, so it made sense for them to have it as a “spare” instrument!
II. An “Ignoble Hat” from a backpack – Smiler picked it up and put it on, but it looked incredibly stupid on them. XD I did have Shadowheart grab the backpack itself for her own use – from what I understand, having a variety of containers on your person so you can organize your shit is a good thing in this game! (If you’re wondering why Smiler didn’t take it, there’s a chest waiting for them at camp with all the DLC goodies I got in it, and one of those is a “Bewildering Adventurer’s Pack,” so that’s going to be Smiler’s “official” backpack.)
III. A healing potion in a pouch – never hurts to have more of those!
IV. A bunch of mergrass growing near the water, allowing Smiler to make their first alchemical suspension for later potion-brewing, along with a bit of belladonna growing by the Waypoint signal on a big rock near the building – gotta get all the alchemy ingredients for my alchemist!
V. Some fish in some fish baskets on a little wooden walkway/dock thing near the building, along with some water and a couple of apples in a backpack at the end, and a book of “Shanties For The Bitch Queen” (some sort of sea goddess) XD Well, Smiler will need some way to entertain themselves in camp later!
VI. Twelve gold in a barrel, nice – makes me glad I downloaded that “weightless gold” mod! XD
VII. More gold and fish on various dead fishers around the shop...along with a perfumed letter on one particular fisher. Reading said letter revealed it was from their love Anna, urging them to run away with her to Baldur’s Gate. :( Crashing nautiloid definitely put an end to all those plans!
So yeah – not a bad haul. Plus they found the waypoint, which will allow them to teleport to this area from the map whenever they like, yay.
C) Having explored the beach and tried the big old ancient door into the stone building on the other side, only to learn it was locked tight, Smiler and Shadowheart thus proceeded up another little path nearby – one that led to the torn-open interior of the wrecked ship. With a few injured and decidedly unfriendly intellect devourers wandering about. Smiler and Shadowheart were able to stay out of their way at first, examining the mangled and burned bodies of some of their fellow abductees (one of them had 26 gold, another had 28! VERY glad I made gold weightless) – but as they followed the path around, they found that it only led back to where they’d come. So, after picking up what they could from the remaining corpses and containers around the shop (mainly more fish and water), they proceeded into the wreckage of the ship and commenced battle with the leggy brains! Here’s how that went –
Turn One: All three of the intellect devourers Dashed in to get nice and close to their potential prey to claw them up. After considering my options, I had Shadowheart smack one with her mace, then had Smiler use their rapier to kill it before scrambling away to a safer spot to make it harder for the remaining two devourers to get to them.
Turn Two: ...Smiler’s retreat proved to not be far enough, as one of the remaining intellect devourers scrambled over and clawed them, putting them down to half health. *wince* Shadowheart whacked the one next to her with her mace, and got clawed in turn, while Smiler stabbed the one next to them with their rapier, drank a healing potion to restore their hit points (they had six, so I figured I could use one), then attempted to run away to a safer spot – the intellect devourer TRIED to use an attack of opportunity on them as they did (as the game warned me about in a tutorial), but I’m not sure it hit? Smiler wasn’t hurt, anyway, which was good, but neither did they get very far, which was bad.
Turn Three: As if to prove the above point, the intellect devourer beside Smiler easily followed them and clawed them again, this time bringing their hit points down to six. *double wince* However, Shadowheart was able to club her devourer to death and restore her health with a potion, and when Smiler lunged at their devourer with a piercing strike, they got a critical hit! :D Meaning all the brains died without murdering any of my level 2 weaklings, yay. The game suggested I then let them take a short rest, and I was like “yeah, sounds good” and did just that – Smiler definitely needed that little respite to heal up!
D) With the enemies cleared and their strength somewhat stored, it was time for Smiler to loot the ship for goodies! They picked up an intellect devourer cerebellum for future alchemical purposes from their foes; 27 gold off a dead nobleman, along with a red pepper and a locket inscribed with “For Papa” ( :( ); some Arsonist’s Oil out of a nearby cartilaginous chest (dip your weapon in it and you can make fire resistant foes suddenly quite vulnerable to flame); and a void bulb and a healing potion off the dead mind flayer next to the chest (nice, so Smiler immediately replaced the potion they used). The pair then headed out onto the beach on the other side, where they found the remains of a boat, a dock, and an overturned wagon with some crates around it. Smiler was able to grab another clamshell and some more mergrass and belladonna on the beach, and some thieves’ tools from one of the crates –
But then discovered that the final big wooden trunk was locked. Well, good thing they’d just picked up some lockpicks in that thieves’ tools set! I did a quicksave for dice rerolling purposes, then had Smiler attempt the lock – it was only a DC of 5 to beat, but I went ahead and had Smiler use their “Armor of Tools” infusion to make it so Dexterity checks (like this) use their higher Intelligence modifier – it lasts until long rest, so why not? Thus assured that only a critical 1 could screw me over with the modifiers I had, I rolled the dice –
And got a 9, which became a 12. Easy pass, and netted Smiler and Shadowheart 15 more gold and a leather helmet, should either of them want to wear it. :) Yay!
E) Around this time, I noticed that it was starting to get to the point where I should wrap things up for the afternoon – but before I did, there was one last thing I wanted to do: find Astarion! Everyone’s favorite “I’m totally not a vampire” pale elf. XD I knew he was in the area somewhere, so I looked around for his familiar curly white hair –
And spotted him up on the nearby hill! I promptly had Smiler and Shadowheart head up the slope, where Astarion was calling for help – once Smiler was in range, he revealed that he’d cornered a “brain thing” in the bushes and asked if Smiler could kill it, like the others. Smiler was like “yeah, easy, stand back” and went to check on the monster –
Only for a wild boar to come running out of the bush, and Astarion to jump them and knock them to the ground with a knife to their throat. Astarion warned Smiler not to make a sound if they wanted to keep their neck unslit and Shadowheart to stay back and not get involved, then confirmed he’d seen Smiler on the ship and demanded to know what they and the tentacle freaks had done to him. Smiler was like “wait, no, I’m a fellow abductee” – Astarion didn’t immediately believe them, but then the tadpoles connected their minds, and they each got an eyeful of each other’s memories (Smiler seeing Astarion stalking people in the dark streets). THAT helped Astarion realize that he was indeed attacking a fellow victim, and he let Smiler up and apologized. Smiler took it with good grace, saying they might have done the same were the roles switched (getting a bit of Shadowheart approval), then exchanged names with Astarion, noting they both lived in Baldur’s Gate (Astarion: “we must have moved in different social circles” XD). Astarion asked if they knew anything about the “worms” in their heads, and Smiler explained the whole “turning into mindflayers” thing – Astarion was like “oh, of COURSE it’ll turn me into a monster” (secretly upset because this is the FIRST time he’s been free of his evil vampire master and felt the sun in TWO CENTURIES and now it turns out it has a time limit before he becomes a tentacle creature), then noted that there was still time and if they could find someone to help control the tadpole…well. Smiler was like “control it? We want to get rid of it,” to which Astarion lied “yes, well, first things first.” XD Anyway, Smiler still invited him to join the party, as there was safety in numbers, and he figured that sticking with the herd was the right thing to do in these circumstances and thus accepted.
And so Astarion joined the group, and my final act of the day was to level him up as well – which was pretty easy, as Astarion is a Rogue and thus didn’t have any spells for me to agonize over. XD Though he does have some lovely Cunning Actions he can use as bonus actions – Hiding, Dashing, and Disengaging. Have to remember to try and use those the next time we’re all in a fight… Anyway, I left everyone hanging out together on the pathway where they met – next time I play, it’ll be back into the Nautiloid to find that one mind flayer that tries to get you to let it eat your brain to heal itself, and to find Gale! Who accidentally noclipped out of the world trying to escape the crash (he’s stuck in a nearby Waypoint on one of the rocks XD). Though next weekend we’ll be back to the usual Sims 4/Fallout 4 combo, so that won’t be for a bit yet. Gives me time to plan how I want to handle things, I suppose!
Writing: Got a couple of bits of writing done today, making up for the accidental skip yesterday –
A) As per the above, I properly updated the adaptation of “When Freedom Calls” in my list of score-and-story ideas in the VITD master doc by copying all the relevant stuff out of Dogmeat’s section of the “VITD Pets” post. I also updated a story idea for the Three Pillars helping out some students in Charterhall who are trying to develop a new power source for Duskwall to use in case the leviathan blood ever runs out – my original idea was for them to be early adopters of wind power, but I recently read a story from tumblr user marlynnofmany about an exorcist character of hers, Joan, who accidentally makes a “ghost bug zapper” out of a fountain while trying to use magic to make it attract some ghosts and light them up so she could better see what she was doing. And I thought that was so great I was like “I HAVE to use this in a Valicer In The Dark story somehow.” XD So I’m thinking that maybe the students have made something similar to gather electroplasm directly from the dead? I dunno – all I know is that I want that zapper. XD
B) And I also got another page of Chapter 4 of “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland” edited, with Alice meeting Brother Kanker! Who is both very disgusting and very dramatic – Carpenter made it clear that he did not appreciate being compared to the guy. XD But yes, Alice met the Nosferatu today, and made it very clear to him that she would not be joining his death cult – instead, he’d be joining Jezebel Locke in death. I left it off with her getting first blood by shooting him in the shoulder as he did his iconic “feed on your fleessssssh” line – tomorrow, we’ll have the boss battle proper! Which won’t be as difficult for Alice as it is for most fledglings, because unlike her video game character counterparts, she can make proper use of a certain element in his boss arena...
YouTube: ...another day of nothing in my Subs (I thought you were skipping Tuesdays, Gray?), so I turned to the Watch Later instead for my nightly video viewing –
A) First up, we had the latest OXBox list – “7 Games You Can Beat by Doing Nothing at All!” Andy and Mike talking about those games where, if you wait around, you will win, even if it’s not the most satisfying win. Naturally, Far Cry 4 and its “Crab Rangoon” ending (gotten by waiting at the dinner table at the start of the game for Pagan Min to finish his torture instead of trying to escape) was featured, but so was Bendy and the Dark Revival (where you can avoid getting sucked into the ink dimension to fight demon cartoons by refusing to get up from the desk when your character mentions wanting coffee – twenty real-time minutes later, she’ll just get back to work), Tacoma (where you can avoid having to wander around a space station figuring out what happened to the crew by waiting three hours for the relevant data to transfer onto your data pad at each of the three transfer spots, for a total of nine hours of waiting), and Nothing (a free-to-play “game” where you press one key to start, and then watch the “you have been doing Nothing” timer tick up; if you do ANYTHING, you immediately lose). Basically, if you’re the kind of person who just wants to wait and see what happens, these are the games for you!
B) And second up, we had the next episode of CaFae Latte I had to watch – “CaFae Latte Season 19 - TikTok Compile!” Featuring a dude accusing a regular customer who showed up in a wheelchair of faking it and getting the business from her (turns out she has rheumatoid arthritis and while she can walk from her car to the cafe, she can’t do a day out with her friend without the chair – interestingly, the dude did not need to be cursed by Bob to start realizing he was a dick); Patrick and Janine showing up again and giving their military history to a pushy “military spouse” who cut in front of Janine, including wars both mortal and supernatural (and Patrick being very into Janine having previously been a thief targeting vampire aristocracy during one of the latter); a couple of idiots getting owned for their idiot behavior (namely someone grabbing a drink that wasn’t theirs and someone else expecting Bob to know she wanted her drink iced when she didn’t specify); Cyrus having to deal with his old “friend” from college Jake, who just Does Not Get anything outside of his narrow worldview (such as non-binary people, asexuality, and not being a dick); Bob cursing someone who dragged their anxiety-ridden friend out of the house and gave them a panic attack with their same level of anxiety for a week (at the friend’s request, because longer felt too mean); and Bob helping out a trans guy who wanted magical gender-affirming surgery in exchange for his bakery supply company giving her free stuff for a year and half-off future orders for seven years...which allowed her to buy a new, larger location and hire on Jennifer Charles as a proper kitchen manager! :D So yeah, that’s nice! And it looks like the next compilation features Bob interviewing people for positions at the new location – that’ll be fun. :D
Workout: Another night on the bike, another night with the GrayStillPlays compilation “I built a DYI rocket and this happened!” I finished off the “sending weird floppy animals off across the earth and into space on various different rockets” mobile game (with Gray sending a weird pig across the solar system on a giant rocket painted to look vaguely like a person), then got through all of Learn To Fly (a game where you play as a penguin attempting to learn to fly with the help of various hang gliders and rockets – Gray of course did not stop until he’d maxed out everything and could send the penguin at pretty much light speed) and most of Learn To Fly 3 (where the penguins are attempting to reach space – Gray’s gotten to the point where he’s shooting his pink potato “penguin” out of a nuclear reactor to gain the necessary speed to breach Earth’s atmosphere). We’ll see what other nonsense is in store for us tomorrow!
Not too shabby at all. And now I have to go to bed, since I do have work tomorrow. Just figures that the long weekend would end right before the two most frigid days this week. >( Ah well...night all!
