Sore Sunday

Yes, today was a day of tight hamstrings/calf muscles from my long walk yesterday, plus knotted-up shoulders from my pillow woes. Bleh. >( On the plus side, though, I showed my right foot to Mom this morning, and she didn't see any swelling, so if there was any last night, it went away while I slept. Yay. :) And it doesn't hurt to walk on said foot, so I think I'll be okay. Just gotta stretch out all this tight stuff!

Anyway -- despite my hamstrings and shoulders, I had a pretty decent Sunday overall, hanging out at home and accomplishing the following:

...except that I'm going to have to update this tomorrow with the list, because for some reason it's taking LONGER THAN USUAL to get it sorted. *heavy sigh* What the hell... Anyway, I absolutely have to get to bed now -- night all.

4/7/2025: Okay, it's Monday morning, and after getting a halfway-decent amount of sleep, I can finally give you the actual round-up of my Sunday beyond "I was kind of sore" --

Tumblr: Had a pretty decent day over on the old blogs –

Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – My intent was to work on my drafts before lunch over here – and while I did that, I didn’t do it quite the way I’d originally meant –

A) First, I went through my tracked tags again (since I hadn’t in quite a while) and added a few things to said drafts for later reblogging:

I. Two posts by the same person of their Smiler OC – an older full-color piece of said OC (with a cool fuzzy-collared jacket, asymmetric waistcoat, and syringe walking stick) walking toward the viewer with the marmaliser behind them, and a newer monochrome painting of the OC, along with a bunch of doodles of them living their life, napping and stretching and being Smiler-y (plus an amusing one of the marmaliser stomping along with what looked liked a tiny person, possibly the OC, running along after it trying to contain it XD). Really nice, well-done stuff!

II. Someone’s fanart of Alice in the Misstitched dress from the Dollhouse level, bent over with her hands hidden in her apron as she regards us curiously (the artist complained that he’d forgotten to finish the apron, but honestly it looked fine to me) – I just liked the colors and composition of the piece, and felt he did a good job in capturing the vibe of that level :)

B) And then I came out of my tracked tags and realized I’d accidentally straight-up reblogged one of the things I’d intended to put into the drafts – a screenshot of Nines from VTMB saying how “LA’s the school of hard knocks, so keep your friends close and your enemies in a barbecue pit” from his initial conversation with the fledgling in the Last Round. Because that is a very good line. *facepalm* Well, no big deal, I’d intended to reblog it ANYWAY, just – later. Though, looking at how much stuff I have in there to reblog “later” – yeah, maybe I should just start reblogging more stuff right away.

Valice Multiverse – Had another reblog on the “Forgotten Vows Alice meets a kid named Richard” thread I’ve got going with The Coven Wars at the moment for my queue tonight, with Richard explaining his brother wants to keep an eye on him because he just wants him to be safe – apparently Richard wanders off sometimes. Alice was like “oh. Yeah, I get that” and explained a bit about her own troubles hallucinating back in the day, and how she drove poor Victor to distraction trying to find her. Yeah, I did like torturing them back in “Forgetting You,” didn’t I? :p We’ll see what Richard thinks of that later!

Baldur’s Gate III: Returned to Faerun for a spell (uh, pun not intended) today, for a session that featured a bit of chatting, a bit of inventory management, and a lot of fighting. Let’s dive right into it, shall we?

A) Picked up where I left off last time, with Lae’zel having just joined the party after Smiler freed her from the cage she was trapped in! I was eager to see what everyone thought of her, so after quickly exploring the nearby area – finding a dragon egg mushroom (that went into Smiler’s alchemical pouch for later), a spare shortbow (never know when someone might need one), and a blue wagon with a damaged snare trap next to it nearby (Smiler checked it out and remarked it must have been there a while) – I had the group head back to the “Wilderness” camp so I could do the rounds in peace. (And move the letter and book of “Bitch Queen” shanties they found during their earlier explorations to the Traveler’s Chest to join the other books and documents in their collection – gonna have to start a new row for those soon! Or find a container to store them all in…) Smiler thus went and checked in with all their previous companions as Lae’zel got settled in her tent – Shadowheart noted that Lae’zel had a dangerous look in her eye and hoped she’d keep the violence pointed in the right direction; Astarion found Lae’zel absolutely delightful, in a “she gives off a ‘look at me twice and I’ll dismember you’ vibe” kind of way; and Gale said that he hadn’t anticipated a githyanki joining the party, but that she was a welcome addition nonetheless. *nods* Seems about right for the kind of characters they are at this point in the story!

B) I of course also had Smiler chat with Lae’zel herself – even if she didn’t seem particularly keen on chatting with them. But then again, I already know that Lae’zel is a bit of a bitch early on in the game...anyway, Smiler asked her about mind flayers (as she’s the current resident expert in the group), and she informed them that she knew more than they could comprehend, and what was important was that she knew where to find the cure for their condition, chiding them to “observe more and question less” (bit of a Cheshire Cat line, that). Smiler inquired what would happen if they weren’t cured, and Lae’zel promptly went into exacting detail about what the change from person to mind flayer involves – terrible fever, memory loss, hair falling out, bones breaking, jaw splitting to accommodate tentacles, flesh turning to gore before being reborn anew. Yeah, that – that tracks with what we saw of that poor lady’s change in the pod earlier! *grimacing* Smiler firmly insisted that would not happen to them, and that they would find a cure, earning a touch of Lae’zel’s respect (yay approval) –

And then she admitted that, by all accounts, the first symptoms of their change should have already started. Something she found very puzzling. Smiler was like “you’re worried that we’re not changing into monsters?” but Lae’zel pointed out this unexpected delay could turn out to be a very bad surprise. And besides, even if they hadn’t started changing yet, it was still on the horizon, so they had to move quickly. Fair enough, Lae’zel – I’d be suspicious why the change hadn’t started yet myself! Grateful, but suspicious. :p

C) Anyway – with all conversations sorted, it was time to move onto the other reason I came back to camp – inventory management! :D My favorite. I thus opened up the “party view” tab and the Traveler’s Chest inventory and did the following:

I. I made a new row in the Traveler’s Chest for gems and other precious non-jewelry things so I could group the ones Lae’zel was carrying with the others properly (there wasn’t room in the top row with all the jewelry). Gotta keep everything nice and organized!

II. While I’d originally planned to have Gale hand over The Watcher’s Guide spear (the one that, if you miss a melee stab with it, you get automatic True Strike on the next hit, that they found in the big trapped tomb) to Lae’zel, while I was looking through the collection of weapons in the Traveler’s Chest, I realized she could use the big old maul we’d found in that side room with the Book of the Dead Gods – and that it did way more base damage than the spear. So I had her take that instead and equip it as her main weapon (putting away in its place the scimitar she found before on the nautiloid), and just let Gale keep the spear as his own melee weapon. I guess it does make sense that he’d have a magical weapon! Just don’t eat it, Gale. :P

III. I gave Lae’zel the Bicorn of the Sea Beast hat that was still hanging around in the clothing chest I got from the Digital Deluxe content – and was delighted to discover that she wore it well! :) I really wanted to give SOMEBODY that hat, and my friend Squid made fun of me when I gave it to Astarion on my last attempt to play this game, so… I also checked to see if she could wear that heavy armor Smiler and the gang picked up from their travels in the temple of Jergal – no dice, but it also had a lower AC than her own current githyanki armor, so no great loss either. And of course I checked through all my custom dyes to see if there was one for her beloved Queen Vlaakith – there was, and I promptly dyed her hat, armor, and shoes with it. Everybody with a god (or a lich queen posing as one) gets clothes that match that god’s colors! :) You can have a look at her updated fit here:



Not entirely sure where she got the tankard from – or all the mounted animal (and mind flayer) heads, frankly. Though I do like that her training dummy is supposed to look like a mind flayer. XD Very on-brand for her!

D) And with that, it was time to get back on the road and see what was what! After spawning back in by the wagon, I had the gang take one last look around the area Lae’zel was previously trapped in, then start heading north, since I recalled that was where the tiefling camp was located. I hadn’t gone more than a few steps, though, when Smiler suddenly noted they could hear shouting up ahead. O.o Shadowheart was all “we should investigate! Just be careful,” while I was all “probably time to hit the Quicksave button so I don’t lose all my hard inventory management work!” I thus did so before having them inch forward a bit –

And the game was like “oh hey, let me drop an autosave down here for you.” XD Well, okay then, I’m not going to object! With multiple saves now protecting my progress, I had the quintet continue forward a few steps at a time, toward increasingly-audible shouts and cries –

And then the game spawned in a bunch of NPCs and enemies in front of a big old gate nearby, and a cutscene started! Specifically, a cutscene featuring the human mercenary Aradin and his friends, Remira and Barth (yes, BARTH, I feel sorry for this man), yelling at the tieflings controlling the gate to let them in, damn it, they had goblins on their tail! Zevlor, the guy in charge of the tieflings, was initially like “you led goblins here?! And where’s the druid you were with??” but quickly consented to open the gate. However, the guy manning the control mechanism, Kanon, got shot by one of the arriving goblins, and while Aradin and company tried to grab the door before it fell, they couldn’t hold it up and got trapped outside to face the mini-horde. Fortunately for them, help quickly arrived in the form of a mysterious black man who Eldritch Blasted one goblin and stabbed another, declaring that if they provoked the Blade, they would feel its sting. Who was this man, you may ask?

Well, none other than the penultimate companion I have to collect – Wyll, Blade of Frontiers! :D *waves* Hey there, Wyll! I’m looking forward to recruiting you soon! Not in the least because I’ve decided you’ll be Smiler’s romance option… However, despite his heroics, there were still a bunch of goblins – including their boss, Za’krug – a worg, and a bugbear left on the battlefield –

E) Meaning it was time for my party to join the fight and give these unfortunates some backup! Initiative was rolled, and combat thus commenced! Here’s how it went down:

Round One: Astarion got to go first – which was a bit of a problem, as he was tucked away behind a rocky hill kinda far away from the battlefield (as were pretty much ALL of my characters, damn it). Meaning most of the enemies were out of range of his bow. However, there were some goblin trackers up on the various ledges on the hill beside him – I thus had him clamber up onto one of the lower ledges and take a potshot at the goblin closest to him. Miss, unfortunately, but at least he tried! I then had him prepare for the next round by dipping his Needle of the Outlaw Rogue dagger into the simple toxin bottle he found earlier to coat it in poison, before ending his turn and letting the NPCs go. Zevlor, up on the battlements, ran forward and let out a loud cry –

And all of the friendlies on the battlefield, my guys included, got the “Rallied” condition and a bonus 8 temporary hitpoints! Nice! :D Which was very much needed, as the bugbear tried to smack around Aradin (not very successfully, fortunately), one of the goblins attacked Wyll, and the two goblin trackers on the rocky hill attacked Astarion – only one hit, but it was enough to reduce his temporary hitpoints to 3. *grimace* Good thing he had that buffer!

With that, it was Lae’zel’s turn – I had her move into a better position to actually be able to see her enemies, then spent one of her “superiority dice” to try a ranged Goading Attack on the goblin “booyahg” closest to her with her shortbow, inciting him to focus his attacks on her. The arrow hit true, and he was appropriately goaded! :D And, after the worg tried and failed to take a bite out of Barth, he aimed Ray of Sickness at Lae’zel –

And missed. *shakehead* You do not want to miss those shots against our new Fighter, sir. :p Anyway, boss goblin Za’krug then spent his time up at the front of the pack slashing Remira up a bit – Remira was unable to return the favor, unfortunately – and then Aradin managed to hit the bugbear trying to give him trouble. This led things around to Gale, and I figured the best thing for HIM to do would be to try and take out the goblin trackers on the hill before they could make too much trouble for Astarion. He thus whipped out the old Magic Missile and aimed them at the two trackers –

And managed to kill the first and injure the second! Nice! :D He ran up closer to the action, sticking next to Lae’zel, as I switched over to Shadowheart – she climbed up onto one of the ledges on the rocky hill, then killed the injured Booyahg with a Guiding Bolt before snagging some tongs and a bit of gold off his dead tracker friend and climbing up even higher for some real high ground advantage. *nods* Good work, Shadowheart! Once she was in position, the turn passed over to Smiler, who moved forward for a better view of the battlefield, then tried out their new Dissonant Whispers spell on the goblin brawler in the middle of everything. Jerk made his Wisdom save to resist the worst of the spell, but took a little psychic damage anyway, hooray. Smiler then played a little song to Bardically Inspire Lae’zel on her next turn, before handing control back to the NPCs. The brawler managed to slash Aradin despite his headache; Wyll utterly DESTROYED the goblin trying to attack him with Arms of Hadar before leaping down to help with the worg; and Barth managed to miss attacking the worg right in front of him. *shakehead* NPCs sometimes…

Round Two: Astarion, now out of immediate danger, climbed up to the top of the hill where the other goblin tracker was and stabbed her with his poisoned knife – despite this being a crit miss, she did still take some damage, she just didn’t get toxined. Meh. He quickly retreated down to a lower ledge, as Zevlor took out the brawler from above with his crossbow. Aradin then took a hit from the bugbear, and the remaining tracker ATTEMPTED to shoot Astarion but missed. This brought things back around to Lae’zel, who I had scramble atop one of the higher ledges to get the high ground for a ranged attack –

Only to discover I’d brought her to a spot where almost all of her enemies were out of range of her bow. *grumbles* I thus had her descend back down so she could hit the worg with another Goading Attack arrow – it flew true, but the worg decided it was still going to attack Barth, despite getting Disadvantage on all attacks on anyone other than Lae’zel. And, indeed, it missed him, biting only thin air. Za’krug kept up his attacks on Remira, slashing her up a little more – she was unable to hit him in return, but was at least able to shove the guy over so he’d stop bothering her for ten seconds. And Aradin used one of his own special abilities to try and attack the bugbear twice – and crit missed twice. *facepalm* Aren’t you guys adventurers for hire or something? How the hell are you all still alive?!

Anyway, with that nonsense over with, it was Gale’s turn to try and show them all how it was done. He thus moved up a bit more, then aimed two hits of his new Scorching Ray spell on the worg, and one on the bugbear. One ray missed, but two hit, taking 4 HP off the worg and bugbear respectively. *shrug* Not nothing! Shadowheart then stepped up and climbed up to the top of the hill to kill the final goblin tracker with her greatclub, steal her gold and mug off her corpse, then clamber down to a lower ledge. XD This brought things around to Smiler, who moved closer to the action, snagged a scroll of Grease off the dead booyahg’s corpse, then attempted to hit Za’krug with Tasha’s Hideous Laughter –

And succeeded! Leaving the goblin leader helpless on his back laughing hysterically. Nice. :D With him temporarily out of the picture, Wyll was free to use the Arms of Hadar on the worg – unfortunately it didn’t work quite as well as on the goblin he’d fought before, as the worg managed to save against the necrotic damage the arms wrought. And the Barth missed his attack on it again. *sigh* YOU’RE RIGHT NEXT TO THE DAMN THING! (Though, then again, it kept missing you too…)

Round Three: With the enemies growing thinner on the ground, it was back around to Astarion – I had him give himself Dash as a Cunning Action (aka a bonus action), then run up into the thick of the action to try and shoot the worg. Miss, unfortunately, but at least he was in a much better position to fight! Zevlor also shot at the worg, and got a hit, while the bugbear managed to miss clubbing Aradin. Lae’zel shot the worg with a regular arrow for a change (didn’t want to spend all her superiority dice on this fight), then got down off her ledge so she could get closer to the main action. The worg, angry about all this mistreatment, managed to actually bite Barth for once, while Za’krug tried and failed to shake off his fit of the giggles and Remira failed to land a hit on him with her bow. Gale then stepped up and got out the Magic Missile again, hitting the worg once and the bugbear twice – the worg fell under the blast, and the bugbear, while still standing, didn’t enjoy the experience. He ran closer to the action while Shadowheart did the same and killed the bugbear with a Guiding Bolt –

Which meant there was exactly one enemy left – old Za’krug! Smiler thus ran past the worg (taking a moment to yank out two of its fangs as important alchemical ingredients) and hit the incapacitated goblin with a Mind Sliver cantrip! This did shake the goblin out of his laughing fit, but also inflicted 5 psychic damage and Disadvantage on his attack rolls and saving throws. Should have been easy-peasy to finish him off, right?

...Wyll proceeded to miss with his Eldritch Blast, while Barth missed with his weapon. *facepalm* Come ON, guys…

Round Four: Well, at least I knew that, one way or another, Za’krug was going down this round. And to speed up this process (literally), I had Astarion use another Cunning Dash to close the distance between them, then sneak-attack stab him with the poisoned Needle. This inflicted both regular AND poison damage, which was lovely, but not quite enough to kill him. Unfortunately, Zevlor then missed his crossbow shot from the ramparts, and Lae’zel her shortbow shot. *sigh* I had her go ahead and loot the brawler and bugbear corpses instead, taking six gold off each, along with a rogue’s mushroom off the bugbear to give to Smiler later. This allowed Za’krug to take his turn this round – fortunately, being poisoned AND at a disadvantage thanks to the mind sliver, he missed both of his attacks on Astarion –

And even more fortunately, Aradin finished him off with his next attack, ending the fight at last! Zevlor had the gates opened to let everyone in, while I discovered Lae’zel had gotten inspiration from this battle – “No One Left Behind” for managing to save all the defenders. :) Nice! We do like it when everybody lives for a change, yes. :)

And so the session ended with me having Smiler loot a bit of gold off the brawler corpse (...I guess Lae’zel didn’t actually take it?) before saving and quitting because I’d already played for longer than I’d originally intended. ^^; Battles just take a while, you know? Both because of considering tactics and because of taking notes on everything that’s happening. But next time, we finish looting the corpses of the fallen, then head into the camp to defuse an argument between Zevlor and Aradin and pick up some new quests! Should be fun. :)

Writing: Didn’t have much time for writing today, but I did manage to do fifteen minutes’ worth of editing on “Start At The Beginning...Sort Of,” working through the first draft of my rewrite of Smiler’s introduction to better describe what they look like! And frankly, I feel like it would be easier to just share the new paragraph as it is so far rather than try to describe what I wrote, so, here:

“Gave you a bit of a fright there, huh?” one Smiler Alton observed, grinning at her from over the top of their little traveling salesperson’s case. Now that she was paying attention, she wasn’t quite sure how she’d missed them – between the bright yellow shoes, the equally-sunny waistcoat with its thin purple checks and purple pocket square, and their brilliantly yellow eyes, they were practically a beacon of light in the fog. “Sorry about that.” They snapped the case’s lid shut, then gave the legs underneath a quick kick. They obligingly folded up, turning what had been a display of gleaming syringes back into an – well, not an ordinary briefcase, as Alice was pretty sure most of them weren’t decorated with a swirl of yellow and white paint on their top. But it was in the same family, at least. “You looked pretty deep in thought just now,” they continued, moving the case to one pale hand and adjusting their black flat cap with the other. “Everything all right?”

Not too bad, I think – at the very least, you get a better idea of what the hell they’re wearing, and I establish the glowing yellow eyes pretty quick. And I’m very happy with what I did with their traveling salesperson’s case – that thing needed to be a little more unique, a little more Smiler. :) I’ll probably keep poking at it a bit more after I finish up Chapter 3 of “A Murder Shared Is A Murder Thirded” and see what else I might be able to add in. My Sims 4 Smiler generally wore a little yellow-black-and-white chevron bracelet with the outfit after all...

YouTube: Welp, didn’t have time to catch up fully with the GrayStillPlays videos like I’d hoped (summarizing that BG3 section took a while, and of course I wanted to get in SOME writing), but I at least got in my usual Sunday Two:

A) First up, I decided it was time to watch the GSP video I missed on Friday: “I tried GTA 6 clickbait games so you don’t have to!” Yes, Gray returned to trawling through the depths of mobile awfulness in this video, checking out three “GTA 6” clickbait games to see what value they actually had as games, and to rate them based on just how clickbaity they really were. In order, we had:

I. Go To Town VI – a very cheap simulation game by the developer “Biceps,” where you play as a dude with INCREDIBLE pectorals who leaves his house, immediately gets a driver’s license, and is told by his friend to move to an apartment in the city, where he can do missions like “pick up all these coins in the road before time runs out.” There is a surprising number of police cars even in the suburbs; you can spawn whatever car you want (including an amazing hover car) but have to pay real money to use them; and you can go around shirtless and barefoot with sunglasses but apparently can’t actual theft any autos. Or get hit by cars, as they just stop and honk at you if you do. Gray gave it a 5/10 for the dude’s pecs and the fact that every NPC looked incredibly depressed.

II. Merge Gangster GTA6 Online – one of those “merge things together to fight your way past other things” games, only the things you were merging were gangsters, and the things you were fighting were cops coming to try and arrest you for stealing money from a bank. Not the world’s best example of one of these games (the gangsters were either useless or totally OP), but it did have two off-brand GTA characters in “Tony” and “Claus” (apparently based off “Tommy” and “Claude” from earlier entries) and one straight-up ripoff in Lamar from GTA V, so Gray gave it a 7/10. Probably more than it deserved, honestly!

III. T.R.E.V.O.R. FIRST STORY MAD CITY CRIME – an EXTREMELY glitchy game where you roamed around as an off-brand low-graphics-quality Trevor from GTA V, attacking people, claiming their money and weapons (which notably included a freaking flamethrower), and occasionally being hit by cars and broken in half before wildly glitching back together. All while trying not to get motion sick because the mouse sensitivity was OFF THE FUCKING CHARTS. Like, even at the lowest level everything just went out of control. Rather hard to watch, honestly! But Gray was extremely pleased by its horrible glitchy nature, and the fact you could get SIX wanted level stars, and thus gave it a 7.5/10, making it the winner of the trio. And to be fair – Trevor attacking random citizens and cars with a flamethrower? That is an extremely Trevor thing to do, so – kudos, horrible game designers!

B) And second up, we had Jon’s latest – “Fallout: London - Part 37 - The Bucket List!” Featuring Lady Aria helping her buddy Arthur Mountbatten complete his pre-feralization bucket list – and making sure that, no matter what, he got exactly what he wanted, because shortcuts would NOT do for her friend. The list, in order, consisted of:

I. Buy a fancy bottle of Sipperson’s Gin at a fancy Westminster pub – except that when Aria showed up there to purchase the bottle, the bartender informed her that they didn’t have any, because the brewery where it was made closed down years ago. So, rather than tell Arthur they didn’t have the bottle, or settling for the second-best brand of gin they had, Aria took him around to the Houseguard Gin Distillery to get a bottle straight from the source. A trip that involved a quick stop at the Imperial War Museum so Aria could steal their copy of Henry VIII for the Shakespeare people (a Private Bishop spotted her and objected, but she used her 8 Agility to go “look over there!” and run away really fast XD); a stop at a local pub, the Tabard, to pick up its special coaster (the “Chem Connoisseur” coaster for 5% less chance at getting addicted to stuff – handy for someone who’s been drinking a lot to impress her friend); Aria murdering a bunch of Industrialists in her way and giving Arthur all their flamer fuel, along with the special flamethrower Hans gave her last week; and finally Aria killing a bunch of radrats in the Distillery itself with her new blade and climbing up the conveyor belts to the very top room to get an additional special coaster (the Science Coaster, with its pretty lousy “one extra guess when hacking terminals” perk) and the keys to open the display case with the wanted bottle in the very first room. Because of course that’s how these things work. XD But Mountbatten was very grateful, and that’s all she cared about!

II. Buy back from a fellow named Drood the family locket Mountbatten sold to him at the beginning of his data entry career – presumably to help keep food on the table while he got settled in his job. Fortunately, this one was as easy as it sounded – Aria just had to track down Drood, a fellow ghoul, in the Piccadilly Circus. Drood remembered Mountbatten and informed Aria that he couldn’t part with the locket for less than 2,500 tickets – as she lacked the strength to intimidate him, she instead tried bargaining, but he wouldn’t budge. So she handed over the tickets, and Drood was like “oh fuck yes, thanks, here’s the locket, tell Arthur thanks for being such a sod, I’M RICH.” XD But Mountbatten was again extremely grateful, which made it all worth it.

III. Build a water well for Brickton, because, as a Westminster resident (or a former one, anyway) he feels partially responsible for the contamination over there, and he wanted to give back to them. This one made me go “aww,” I admit. :) He gave Aria 250 tickets for the cause (Aria was like “I, uh, I think building a well will cost somewhat more than this, Arthur”), then the two of them went over to Brickton to meet up with his old workmate Graham! Graham, as it turned out, was the person in charge of helping to make sure Brickton got the supplies it needed to keep thriving (he was probably working with the Tommies before Aria drove them away, but fortunately apparently decided to stick around after they left), and was only too happy to help them build a well. He explained that their choices were to build a pretty shitty temporary well for 250 tickets; a better-but-still-temporary well for 500 tickets; or get him some supplies from the construction site nearby so he could build a real, proper well. Aria of course went to get the proper supplies, though Jon made her take out the good shotgun because they were near Wimbledon Lake and he was SURE there was going to be a womble on the premises –

But nope – there were just a few tough Utility Protectrons wandering about. Aria took them all down in two shots each, got the supplies, and handed them over to Graham, who cheerfully constructed the Mountbatten memorial well. It was a very nice little well, and Mountbatten was very pleased with it – possibly because Aria didn’t have the heart to tell him the water inside was still a little radioactive. XD

IV. Find his parent’s burial place so he could say a proper goodbye, because he was starting to forget them – and if the previous item made me go “aww,” this one made me sniffle. :( Aria thus brought him over to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to look for clues (after a quick stop at 10 Downing Street where Aria found a notice saying that election season was coming up and that all paperwork should be dropped off here for the new administration...something to look into later, perhaps), and fortunately they were easily able to find his file in one of the offices. This revealed that his family had lived, and presumably died, in Hackney. The pair thus headed in that direction to raid the nearby hospital St. Leonard’s for any burial files on the elder Mountbattens –

And to complete an item on Aria’s bucket list – finally finish the mission “Choose Life!” This is the mission with old Prince Pete and the Roundels versus Miller’s Men, which glitched out near the end and wouldn’t let Aria progress because it kept insisting she had to give Prince Pete his Sober to get him off the drugs when she’d already done so. The comments had informed Jon that the issue might have been someone was trying to speak to Aria, but because she wasn’t facing them, the dialogue box never appeared to finish the conversation. Aria thus went down to the basement where everyone was stuck idling and poked around –

And, behind a door behind Joan, she found Wrench, the woman who’d run telling them of Miller’s Men coming right after Pete got himself together – and a dialogue box allowing Aria to respond to her! :D Aria was only too happy to say she was ready to smash some skulls after all this time – Wrench thus informed everyone that all their Houses had fallen and the Men had claimed Cawdor Street. Pete declared they would fight, and “Choose Life” FINALLY completed –

Aaaand then the next quest, “Lost & Won,” promptly glitched out because Pete wouldn’t actually leave the basement, and if Aria tried to talk to him, she just got two options, both of which were “Goodbye.” And if she tried going to Cawdor Street herself, neither enemies nor Roundels spawned up. *facepalm* Welp – she tried! (Fortunately, the comments on THIS video suggested the issue was lousy pathfinding, and if Jon used console commands to teleport Pete around a bit, he MIGHT actually be able to get these guys moving and, you know, FINALLY COMPLETE THIS QUESTLINE. We’ll see!)

ANYWAY – after sort-of-but-not-really advancing the situation with Prince Pete, Aria and Mountbatten went over to St. Leonard hospital, where – after fighting multiple Protectrons and feral ghouls – they found a way into the room with the terminal they needed. Turned out Mildred Mountbatten used to work at the hospital as a nurse, and her old employee record included a note of when she’d died and where she’d been buried – New Chapel Cemetery alongside her husband Frederick, down by New Shoreditch Church. Mountbatten was stunned by this and said that they had to go, because if it was where he thought it was, they were both in for a surprise. Puzzled, Aria led him over there –

And it turns out the surprise was this cemetery wasn’t actually that far from where Aria had first met Mountbatten in the first place. He’d been so close to his parents and hadn’t even realized it! But he knew it now, and proceeded to have a really heartfelt chat with their graves, reminiscing about an old beach trip when he was a little kid before breaking down in tears. It was – well, it really pulled the old heartstrings, let me tell you. Voice actor did a great job with the speech. Anyway, he then thanked Aria, saying they’d completed his list, but that he had one last thing he wanted to do with her...

V. Watch the sunset together, over at Wimbledon Lake, by the well he helped build. Aria was a little puzzled by this (especially when Mountbatten started going on about how he didn’t feel like he was saying “goodbye” to anything, but rather like he was saying “hello” to a brand new day – both Jon and I were like “shouldn’t you have done this at SUNRISE then dude?”) – but when she asked how he was feeling post-list completion, he told her he was very grateful and satisfied. And that by going to all that trouble to help him complete his list the right way, he’d come to consider her his family. :) So he wanted to give her some presents in return – the 500 tickets that represented his last salary as a clerk; his Webley service revolver (which just so happened to be a WOUNDING Service Revolver – anything that causes bleed damage is all right in Aria’s book!); and – most importantly – his beloved bowler hat to remember him by. Aria was deeply touched – and impressed that the hat improved Endurance and Luck, which is nice. Unfortunately, though, the Brickton Shadow hat boost Agility and Perception, which are more important to her build, so she’ll be keeping that on and just carrying around Mountbatten’s hat as a memento. But there was one thing that she didn’t get from him –

A companion perk! Yup, all this nice gear, but no special abilities. Hmmm. Well, Kiera’s took a bit to pop after Aria completed HER companion quest, so perhaps Mountbatten’s is the same way. And Jon said he had no objections to traveling some more with the guy – especially since he’d been quietly worried that this mission would have ended with Mountbatten asking Aria to kill him while he was still himself. Yeah, uh, I was rather concerned about that myself, Jon, not gonna lie! Just glad it ended in the heartfelt way instead of the sad one. :)

And so the episode ended with Aria and Mountbatten preparing to go on more adventures – specifically, down in Bromley! Because apparently the people in the comments have been on Jon to explore that area of London more – plus, he’s got another Shakespeare play to pick up there, and a talking tree to find! So yeah, we’ll see what happens with that next week!

Whew -- all right, with the benefit of a night's sleep, I can pinpoint the problem last night as starting the GrayStillPlays video later than I should have, meaning I had to rush to watch Jon's video and then try to summarize BOTH while also chatting to my friend Squid last night. Which is the main problem -- the timing of Jon's uploads means that I'm generally trying to multitask the chatting and the summarizing, and I'm just not good at that. Combined with me consistently underestimating how long something is going to take, and -- yeah. Something's gotta be done, I'm just not sure what yet. And I've got to go to work now anyway, so -- I'll come back to this in Monday's OFFICIAL entry. See you then!