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Poor Hospital Communication Strikes Again
Jan. 29th, 2026 11:50 pmAs it turns out, the reason Dad felt so good yesterday is because his first doses of chemo came loaded with steroids. Which is fine, if that helps the chemo work better, great, but nobody told us that was the case, so it was a bit of a shock to Mom and Dad to be told today "yeah, that's gonna wear off and you're gonna feel pretty much as bad as you did before." >( Or worse, honestly -- apparently Dad spent a not-insignificant portion of the day either feeling nauseated or loopy from various meds. He was better and more with-it when he FaceTimed me and Mom this evening, which was good, but -- still. Very frustrating that we weren't told about this so we knew what to expect! *sigh* American health care, I swear...
Anyway -- other than that news, it was a pretty quiet day in the house. Mom had some early trouble getting the washing machine running, but fortunately when I woke up and saw the problem, I knew how to solve it, because I'd seen it before (basically, if you have to turn the dials on the front before starting a load of laundry to make sure all the settings are right and then press the start button, all of the lights start flashing because the machine is a prissy little bitch that needs you to confirm your choice or something. Press the button again and it actually starts, you know, filling up with water and washing the clothes). Meaning she could stop stressing out about needing to get the washing machine repaired and I could just do the laundry for her while she was at the hospital with Dad. *nods* Felt good to be able to do that for her! Also felt good to get through the following:
Tumblr: Managed to accomplish a couple of things on both my tumblrs today –
Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – Over here, I managed to drop two things into my drafts before lunch:
I. A post from shutyourmoustache showing off a TikTok featuring the band OK Go essentially putting a bunch of trivia over their iconic “dancing on treadmills” music video, one of the first to ever go viral on YouTube (and rightfully so, it’s great) – including revealing that the whole thing was filmed in the room Damien’s sister Trish Sie built in her backyard to hold ballroom dancing classes in (as she was a professional ballroom dancer back then), and it took 17 tries to get the dance right. I love OK Go, and I love learning things about their amazing music videos, so I had to slap that into the drafts – might be my Song Saturday this week!
II. And a post from satyricon mp3 that simply read “utilising the gift of imagination to hallucinate moments of tenderness between fictional people” – I saw that on someone’s blog and just went “mood” XD
Valice Multiverse – And over here, I dropped an anon ask into my queue tonight – said anon sending in a joke: “I'm a trains-woman, I like trains [line break] I also used to be a dude” I had Cuddlepile!Smiler respond with a snort and “Good one. What’s your favorite type of train?” because they’re nice like that. :p
Writing: Actually got two writing-related things done today:
A) First, after lunch, I did some more edits on Chapter 3 of “The Van Dort Vacancy!” Covering:
I. Alice and Smiler successfully slipping out of the kitchen by grabbing a basket and pretending they had to visit the greenhouse; Alice actually felt kind of guilty for leaving everyone in the lurch, given how overworked all the staff appeared, but Smiler reassured her that they’d helped in some small ways, and maybe they could go back and offer some more assistance once they’d figured out what was going on with their mystery man
II. Alice noting the Van Dorts really like to keep to a theme in their decorating (fancy rugs depicting an artist’s best guess at what a leviathan looks like on the floor; green wallpaper patterned to look like fish scales; electric chandeliers shaped like splashing water), and Smiler noting the same was true of the Advocates – cue me managing to slip in a joke about how the exit tunnel from the coaster is deliberately designed to be a little confusing with optical illusions by Alice noting “this hallway doesn’t seem designed to confound guests on where they should go,” and Smiler arguing “The stripes aren’t that confusing – Victor only walked into one wall.” XD
III. The pair heading to the greenhouse to see if their mystery man was inside (with Alice saying that, if he wasn’t, it was a good place to come up with a new plan because people would expect them to be in there – Smiler liked the win-win), and Alice leading the way inside to find a thick planter of berry bushes beside her on one side – and what looked like a slice of the ocean on the other. Leading to her complaining that “now is not the time, Wonderland” and asking Carpenter if he could tell the Deluded Depths to clear off –
Only for Carpenter to inform her he couldn’t, because what she was seeing wasn’t the Deluded Depths. I left things off there – tomorrow, she gets to discover that, yes, the wall of fish next to her IS real, as the Van Dorts happen to have a MASSIVE aquarium greenhouse full of radiant fish to grow their food. Hopefully I manage to do the image in my head justice with the description!
B) And, this evening, I added to my BG3 Master Doc (which, uh, I have admittedly not updated in a while – hoping to spend some time doing that, and updating the matching F:NV Master Doc, on Saturday if I get a chance) some ideas for silly script scenes (you know, like my famous Not-Incorrect Quotes) that I might like to write at some point – specifically:
I. Smiler talking to Wyll about warlock patrons, and having to admit they know nothing about frozen tongues, actually, Mar-Mal likes them telling others about them
II. Gale telling Smiler about how he’s know some powerful warlocks in his time, but they’re a little too inclined to listen to the devil on their shoulder – cue Smiler reminding Gale “I’m a warlock” (Gale: “In my defense, you act a lot more like a bard.” Smiler: “...fair.”)
III. And – inspired by today’s session, as you will see in my write-up below – Smiler offering to help cure Pandirna, the tiefling with the paralyzed legs in the storage hut, only to be told by Shadowheart, “Healing Word won’t work – she needs Lesser Restoration.” Cue Smiler immediately volunteering Shadowheart to cure Pandirna (Shadowheart: “Hey!” Smiler: “Isn’t it worth it to help someone else who might then decide not to call the guards on us?”)
I don’t know, I just think they’d be fun. We’ll see if and when I get to write up the full versions!
Baldur’s Gate III: Today’s trip to Faerûn to check in with Smiler and their party was pretty short and sweet overall, featuring explosive mushrooms, Pandirna the tiefling getting cured despite Smiler not having the right spell to cure her, more trading, and the game being a little worringly glitchy right at the end. Let me give you the deets –
A) I picked up with the party hanging out in the Makeshift Prison at the back of the tiefling camp in the Hollow, having just returned from helping jailbreak Sazza the goblin and saving Findal the halfling Druid in the Underground Passage (not to mention scoring some really nice goodies from a chest hidden in a dirt pile). Once the world had fully loaded in, I had Shadowheart swap out her Inflict Wounds spell for Lesser Restoration (the spell I knew I would need to help out Pandirna in the storage hut with her paralyzed legs), attempted to have Smiler close Sazza’s open cage – only to discover they weren’t allowed to (which felt kind of weird to me – I don’t like just leaving it open like that), then had Smiler lead the group in jumping back over to the rocky ledge with the stone door into the Passage (where a few members of the party, like Astarion and Wyll, ended up standing in some truly precarious spots – I was seriously worried they were going to slip and fall into the abyss at any second!). From there, our team of adventures had to jump onto a small wooden platform attached to another little outcrop of rock, which sat at the end of the path they needed to follow to access the hole in the roof of the storage hut and meet up with both Pandirna and that rat Smiler was talking to earlier. Smiler, as the leader, went first and successfully made the jump (over Gale, I might add, who was standing in front of them). I quickly had them move forward so the others would have enough space to land as they made their jumps –
But as they did, they passed a surprise Survival check, and spotted some Malnorished Torchstalks growing along the edge of the path, commenting, “I don’t like the look of that mushroom. I should stay clear.” I wasn’t quite sure what the issue with the mushrooms was, but decided it should be okay as I wasn’t planning on having the gang attack them or anything. Though I did hit F5 to quicksave, just to be on the safe side... Anyway, the others made it across safely, and Smiler proceeded to check out a barrel on the other side of the path – empty, but they did successfully spot another torchstalk behind it – before heading up the path toward the storage hut. The others followed, but, as is their wont, scurried around to spread out as much as possible when they stopped –
And that’s when I learned that, oh – Malnourished Torchstalks explode if you linger by them too long. Specifically, they got past the first set without issue, but when Smiler paused on the path, Wyll at least ended up too close to the second set behind the barrel. Cue them popping and hitting him for a couple points of fire damage, ouch. :( Now, this wasn’t a major disaster or anything – Wyll and I think Gale (or possibly Shadowheart) had only gotten slightly hurt –
But, well, I’d JUST quicksaved. And now that I knew what the deal with the mushrooms was, I knew how to avoid anyone getting exploded – click further up the path so Smiler and company went farther along and stopped well clear of the mushrooms. So I reloaded and did exactly that. :p And nobody ended up getting even slightly blown up by a mushroom (or an exploding barrel) this time, yay~
( You know the drill by now )
Workout: Another night on the bike, another night with The Adventures of Useless Steve as I continued “Fallout: New Vegas - The Worst Courier - Part 4 - The Doomsday Device!” Tonight’s chunklet featured:
A) Useless Steve robbing one of the Brotherhood of Steel dorms of caps and energy cells (right in front of Veronica! I’m surprised that doesn’t result in her going “hey, stop that or you’ll have to get yourself a new companion”) before letting Veronica say her piece to Elder McNamara about how the Brotherhood is failing and they need to find a new way to accomplish their goals (or new goals entirely), watching her get shot down by McNamara essentially going “we’ll outlast those upstarts on the surface, and I don’t see anything wrong with the way we’re doing things at all” –
And then approaching the Elder himself and picking up the first of the Brotherhood missions (find these missing Paladin patrols) that McNamara needs an outsider to do (and revealing “hey, here’s a holotape from the Paladins who were in REPCONN HQ – they’re already dead, sorry”). *shakehead* I wonder if seeing McNamara dismiss all her concerns and then turn to the player character and saying “hey, help us solve our problems since we can’t solve them ourselves” sticks in Veronica’s craw. I know it would stick in mine!
B) Useless Steve then agreeing to help Veronica find some proof that the Brotherhood was destined to fail, or would do better if they followed a different path, in the form of surface-world technology she could shove in McNamara’s face, and taking her to the secret shack by Helios One with the comms terminal Father Elijah (the former Elder, who was a master at sniffing out lost technology and had a good relationship with Veronica, entrusting her with his notes on a few particular pieces – shame he’s the main villain of DLC “Dead Money” and likes to kidnap people and stick explosive collars on them to force them to do his bidding down in the Sierra Madre) used to contact her so she could look up a few good possibilities! Specifically, she said they could pick from between the pulse gun (an experimental pre-War weapon designed to help counter power armor, since the government was worried the Chinese were developing their own version of that), the NCR’s “miracle farming technology” (aka the nonsense that’s going on in Vault 22 that makes plants grow like crazy) –
And the rangefinder. AKA the targeting device for the superweapon at Helios One. Veronica explained to Steve that the Brotherhood had actually held Helios One for a while, but had lost a lot of good people defending it, all for a weapon they could never get working. Her thought was that, if they could find the rangefinder and prove the weapon was a dud, it would show how flawed the Brotherhood’s goals had been! Or, well, even if they proved it worked, it would technically be under NCR control, and thus show the Brotherhood how they’d been incapable of completing their own goals. Steve was all for this, as he wanted a way to use the superweapon he’d struggled to fix with his whole 2 Intelligence. XD
C) Useless Steve and Veronica thus questing across the Mojave to find the rangefinder! A process that included:
I. Steve passing by the shack of the Wins, Sammy and Patricia, and killing them in the hopes of getting the key to their safe and the goodies inside (as he couldn’t talk them out of their plans for their Strip Heist)...only to discover neither corpse had the key on them, meaning he’d killed them for basically nothing. Whoops.
II. Steve and Veronica going to a pawn shop that the quest log said was in Freeside but was actually in WESTSIDE to talk to the owner about the rangefinder – he promptly complained that the only things he could think of that were more useless than an antique rangefinder were an antique horoscope or an antique sandwich, and told Steve not to bring it to him to sell if he did find it. Well, that was a dead end!
III. Steve and Veronica going (via the NCR monorail, since Steve was still in their armor) to the Strip and – after raiding all the magazine vending machines for skill-boosting zines – talking to Sarah at the Vault 21 gift shop to see what she knew. As it turned out, she had actually had the rangefinder – but had recently sold it to a nervous, very average-looking guy who was wearing a big thick metal collar, and who had asked her if she knew of any concrete buildings he could hole up in for free. She told our heroes that she’d directed him to an old ceilingless wreck across from the ACTUAL pawn shop in Freeside, Mick and Ralph’s. Now that was useful information, thank you Sarah.
IV. Steve and Veronica heading toward said ceilingless wreck across from Mick and Ralph’s to find the guy who’d purchased the rangefinder...only to find a headless corpse, and no rangefinder. Because, well, the “thick metal collar” the guy was wearing was, as per Jon, one of Father Elijah’s bomb collars, and he’d set it off trying to get it off (he’d thought he was safe in a concrete building as it might block the signal – nope).
V. Steve and Veronica choosing to ask a random vagrant nearby if he’d seen the rangefinder anyway – and Jon finally getting to show off his favorite line of dialogue in New Vegas that almost no one gets to see. Because, you see, this vagrant has a secret – if you try to talk to him outside of this quest, he just giggles or has generic dialogue. If you have an Intelligence over 3 and try to ask him if he’s seen the rangefinder, he just giggles madly to himself, and you have to bribe him with 10 caps to get him to slur out that he saw some kids with something like that. But if you have an Intelligence under 3, like good old Steve?
This guy turns into the most eloquent motherfucker you’ve ever heard. XD In fact, Steve turns into quite the eloquent motherfucker himself – well, sort of. His dialogue option for kicking off this delightful weirdness is “Hey. You see weird gun?” with “(‘Pardon, but have you seen any pre-war firearm antiquities as of late?’)” behind it, indicating that what Veronica hears and what the vagrant hears are two very different things. Presumably Veronica still hears the vagrant going “hee hee hee oooh hee hee hee hee” when he tells Steve “Indeed I have, my articulate friend. Not a few minutes ago I chanced upon a pair of destitute orphans grappling over just such an item. If you cover the area methodically, I’m quite certain you’ll happen upon them with only the most insubstantial of delays.” XD He even says “fair [sic] thee well” when you tell him goodbye! Jon was utterly delighted to share the line, and I was utterly delighted to receive it. XD Great stuff!
VI. Steve and Veronica tracking down the rangefinder in the possession of a kid called Max, and Steve paying 1,000 caps to the kid to get it off him because he didn’t have the Barter to talk him down to a lower price, and Jon didn’t feel like trying fifty million times to steal it thanks to Steve’s abysmal sneaking. Max was very eager to see what he could get from Mick and Ralph’s with all this money, while Veronica was just glad the kids hadn’t managed to get the safety off the rangefinder and cause some real damage!
D) Useless Steve demonstrating to Veronica that the ARCHIMEDES II superweapon was in fact very active by using it to obliterate most of a gang of Powder Gangers (barring one guy who was outside the orbital laser’s blast radius, and thus had to be gooified by Steve’s beloved Q-35), which had the added bonus of getting him up to Level 7! Jon took a moment to explain how the gun actually worked (basically, it did a tiny amount of damage at the spot you actually aimed at, then 150 points worth of energy weapons splash damage, which could be modified by your energy weapons skill – not that THAT was a concern for Steve), then boosted Steve’s Energy Weapons skill up to 30 (as he was mainly relying on plasma stuff for his day-to-day), his Speech up to 25 (so he could actually pass a few checks), and his Lockpick up to 30 (so, maybe, one day, he could pick an Average lock).
E) Useless Steve then taking Veronica and the rangefinder back to the BOS bunker, curious to see how Veronica planned to turn “hey, we got the Helios One superweapon working, here is the rangefinder for it” into a reason why the Brotherhood shouldn’t have tried to keep a hold of Helios One – only for Veronica to calmly point out the orbital laser’s weaknesses (namely, it’s only effective outdoors, it only works in a limited radius, and it had a super-long recharge time – you get one shot per 24 hour time period; Jon himself had also pointed out while looting the Powder Ganger corpses just before this scene that the laser is also most effective in the early game, as its damage just can’t keep up with the harder enemies you encounter later on) and tell McNamara that lots of Brotherhood had died trying to protect glorified artillery. (Hey, don’t knock artillery, Veronica – that shit is DAMN useful in Fallout 4!) Jon had to admit, she made a very good argument as to why the Brotherhood should have let the NCR have the facility earlier!
F) Useless Steve watching as Veronica’s findings, and suggestion that they had to start taking on new outside recruits if they didn’t want to die out, were shot down by McNamara again (who refused to go against the Codex), then being asked by her what she should do – stay with the Brotherhood, or leave and try to find a new place in the world, perhaps with the Followers of the Apocalypse? A choice that is supposed to be rooted in what you personally think would be best for Veronica –
But in Steve’s case, had to be rooted in what would keep him alive the longest. So, in a mirror image of the choice P. D. Shoot (Remastered) would make five years later, he told Veronica that she should leave, as it was her only shot at a future, so he could put off the confrontation with the Brotherhood Patrol that tries to murder her (as, if you do this, they wait until she tries to join the Followers to start killing everybody, rather than confronting her at the front door – and Steve did NOT want to deal with them at the front door, as – unlike P. D. – he most certainly did not have the Speech to talk them down!). And then sent her away back to the 188 Trading Post so he could do more work for the Brotherhood without her knowing. *shakehead* All of Jon’s challenge characters really do end up dicks, don’t they?
G) And Useless Steve, on the trail of showing off something else most people have probably never seen in this game but which Jon thinks is really cool, then heading to Nellis Air Force Base and the Boomers, managing to avoid the artillery fire by using two doses of Turbo to sprint across the field in front of the base (and let me tell you, it was WEIRD to see Turbo wear off at the normal rate after seeing P. D. stay on it for literal real-time minutes in her series) before talking with Pearl and agreeing to help out around the base. Before promptly sneaking into the next room and stealing some combat armor for himself out of a locker. XD What, the poor guy needs all the DT he can get!
Excellent stuff, as always – that one eloquent Low Intelligence chat with the vagrant was fantastic and I’m glad Jon insisted on finding a way to show it off. XD I left off with Useless Steve in the medical “tent,” using a Speech skill magazine to convince the doctor there to let him help the injured Boomers by spewing some absolute nonsense, and preparing to show off another fun Low Intelligence option – tomorrow, we should be able to wrap this up and see just what this other super-rare thing Jon was going on about is!
...okay, this time the reason I stayed up too late is because I foolishly went to see if that moment with the vagrant was listed in the "Funny" section of the Fallout: New Vegas TV Tropes page and got caught up in reading other funny moments. ^^; Ugh, getting my sleep schedule back to normal is going to be a pain...all right, I'm off to bed. Tomorrow, Dad MAY be coming home in the evening -- we'll have to wait and see. Until then, plans include doing SOMETHING on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) (as I never did queue up a post for tomorrow, whoops), playing Fallout: New Vegas and seeing how far I can get Victor through Ghost Town Gunfight; working more on "The Van Dort Vacancy;" and getting in a workout and watching the final bit of Episode 4 of The Adventures Of Useless Steve. We'll see what I actually get done! Night all!
Anyway -- other than that news, it was a pretty quiet day in the house. Mom had some early trouble getting the washing machine running, but fortunately when I woke up and saw the problem, I knew how to solve it, because I'd seen it before (basically, if you have to turn the dials on the front before starting a load of laundry to make sure all the settings are right and then press the start button, all of the lights start flashing because the machine is a prissy little bitch that needs you to confirm your choice or something. Press the button again and it actually starts, you know, filling up with water and washing the clothes). Meaning she could stop stressing out about needing to get the washing machine repaired and I could just do the laundry for her while she was at the hospital with Dad. *nods* Felt good to be able to do that for her! Also felt good to get through the following:
Tumblr: Managed to accomplish a couple of things on both my tumblrs today –
Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – Over here, I managed to drop two things into my drafts before lunch:
I. A post from shutyourmoustache showing off a TikTok featuring the band OK Go essentially putting a bunch of trivia over their iconic “dancing on treadmills” music video, one of the first to ever go viral on YouTube (and rightfully so, it’s great) – including revealing that the whole thing was filmed in the room Damien’s sister Trish Sie built in her backyard to hold ballroom dancing classes in (as she was a professional ballroom dancer back then), and it took 17 tries to get the dance right. I love OK Go, and I love learning things about their amazing music videos, so I had to slap that into the drafts – might be my Song Saturday this week!
II. And a post from satyricon mp3 that simply read “utilising the gift of imagination to hallucinate moments of tenderness between fictional people” – I saw that on someone’s blog and just went “mood” XD
Valice Multiverse – And over here, I dropped an anon ask into my queue tonight – said anon sending in a joke: “I'm a trains-woman, I like trains [line break] I also used to be a dude” I had Cuddlepile!Smiler respond with a snort and “Good one. What’s your favorite type of train?” because they’re nice like that. :p
Writing: Actually got two writing-related things done today:
A) First, after lunch, I did some more edits on Chapter 3 of “The Van Dort Vacancy!” Covering:
I. Alice and Smiler successfully slipping out of the kitchen by grabbing a basket and pretending they had to visit the greenhouse; Alice actually felt kind of guilty for leaving everyone in the lurch, given how overworked all the staff appeared, but Smiler reassured her that they’d helped in some small ways, and maybe they could go back and offer some more assistance once they’d figured out what was going on with their mystery man
II. Alice noting the Van Dorts really like to keep to a theme in their decorating (fancy rugs depicting an artist’s best guess at what a leviathan looks like on the floor; green wallpaper patterned to look like fish scales; electric chandeliers shaped like splashing water), and Smiler noting the same was true of the Advocates – cue me managing to slip in a joke about how the exit tunnel from the coaster is deliberately designed to be a little confusing with optical illusions by Alice noting “this hallway doesn’t seem designed to confound guests on where they should go,” and Smiler arguing “The stripes aren’t that confusing – Victor only walked into one wall.” XD
III. The pair heading to the greenhouse to see if their mystery man was inside (with Alice saying that, if he wasn’t, it was a good place to come up with a new plan because people would expect them to be in there – Smiler liked the win-win), and Alice leading the way inside to find a thick planter of berry bushes beside her on one side – and what looked like a slice of the ocean on the other. Leading to her complaining that “now is not the time, Wonderland” and asking Carpenter if he could tell the Deluded Depths to clear off –
Only for Carpenter to inform her he couldn’t, because what she was seeing wasn’t the Deluded Depths. I left things off there – tomorrow, she gets to discover that, yes, the wall of fish next to her IS real, as the Van Dorts happen to have a MASSIVE aquarium greenhouse full of radiant fish to grow their food. Hopefully I manage to do the image in my head justice with the description!
B) And, this evening, I added to my BG3 Master Doc (which, uh, I have admittedly not updated in a while – hoping to spend some time doing that, and updating the matching F:NV Master Doc, on Saturday if I get a chance) some ideas for silly script scenes (you know, like my famous Not-Incorrect Quotes) that I might like to write at some point – specifically:
I. Smiler talking to Wyll about warlock patrons, and having to admit they know nothing about frozen tongues, actually, Mar-Mal likes them telling others about them
II. Gale telling Smiler about how he’s know some powerful warlocks in his time, but they’re a little too inclined to listen to the devil on their shoulder – cue Smiler reminding Gale “I’m a warlock” (Gale: “In my defense, you act a lot more like a bard.” Smiler: “...fair.”)
III. And – inspired by today’s session, as you will see in my write-up below – Smiler offering to help cure Pandirna, the tiefling with the paralyzed legs in the storage hut, only to be told by Shadowheart, “Healing Word won’t work – she needs Lesser Restoration.” Cue Smiler immediately volunteering Shadowheart to cure Pandirna (Shadowheart: “Hey!” Smiler: “Isn’t it worth it to help someone else who might then decide not to call the guards on us?”)
I don’t know, I just think they’d be fun. We’ll see if and when I get to write up the full versions!
Baldur’s Gate III: Today’s trip to Faerûn to check in with Smiler and their party was pretty short and sweet overall, featuring explosive mushrooms, Pandirna the tiefling getting cured despite Smiler not having the right spell to cure her, more trading, and the game being a little worringly glitchy right at the end. Let me give you the deets –
A) I picked up with the party hanging out in the Makeshift Prison at the back of the tiefling camp in the Hollow, having just returned from helping jailbreak Sazza the goblin and saving Findal the halfling Druid in the Underground Passage (not to mention scoring some really nice goodies from a chest hidden in a dirt pile). Once the world had fully loaded in, I had Shadowheart swap out her Inflict Wounds spell for Lesser Restoration (the spell I knew I would need to help out Pandirna in the storage hut with her paralyzed legs), attempted to have Smiler close Sazza’s open cage – only to discover they weren’t allowed to (which felt kind of weird to me – I don’t like just leaving it open like that), then had Smiler lead the group in jumping back over to the rocky ledge with the stone door into the Passage (where a few members of the party, like Astarion and Wyll, ended up standing in some truly precarious spots – I was seriously worried they were going to slip and fall into the abyss at any second!). From there, our team of adventures had to jump onto a small wooden platform attached to another little outcrop of rock, which sat at the end of the path they needed to follow to access the hole in the roof of the storage hut and meet up with both Pandirna and that rat Smiler was talking to earlier. Smiler, as the leader, went first and successfully made the jump (over Gale, I might add, who was standing in front of them). I quickly had them move forward so the others would have enough space to land as they made their jumps –
But as they did, they passed a surprise Survival check, and spotted some Malnorished Torchstalks growing along the edge of the path, commenting, “I don’t like the look of that mushroom. I should stay clear.” I wasn’t quite sure what the issue with the mushrooms was, but decided it should be okay as I wasn’t planning on having the gang attack them or anything. Though I did hit F5 to quicksave, just to be on the safe side... Anyway, the others made it across safely, and Smiler proceeded to check out a barrel on the other side of the path – empty, but they did successfully spot another torchstalk behind it – before heading up the path toward the storage hut. The others followed, but, as is their wont, scurried around to spread out as much as possible when they stopped –
And that’s when I learned that, oh – Malnourished Torchstalks explode if you linger by them too long. Specifically, they got past the first set without issue, but when Smiler paused on the path, Wyll at least ended up too close to the second set behind the barrel. Cue them popping and hitting him for a couple points of fire damage, ouch. :( Now, this wasn’t a major disaster or anything – Wyll and I think Gale (or possibly Shadowheart) had only gotten slightly hurt –
But, well, I’d JUST quicksaved. And now that I knew what the deal with the mushrooms was, I knew how to avoid anyone getting exploded – click further up the path so Smiler and company went farther along and stopped well clear of the mushrooms. So I reloaded and did exactly that. :p And nobody ended up getting even slightly blown up by a mushroom (or an exploding barrel) this time, yay~
( You know the drill by now )
Workout: Another night on the bike, another night with The Adventures of Useless Steve as I continued “Fallout: New Vegas - The Worst Courier - Part 4 - The Doomsday Device!” Tonight’s chunklet featured:
A) Useless Steve robbing one of the Brotherhood of Steel dorms of caps and energy cells (right in front of Veronica! I’m surprised that doesn’t result in her going “hey, stop that or you’ll have to get yourself a new companion”) before letting Veronica say her piece to Elder McNamara about how the Brotherhood is failing and they need to find a new way to accomplish their goals (or new goals entirely), watching her get shot down by McNamara essentially going “we’ll outlast those upstarts on the surface, and I don’t see anything wrong with the way we’re doing things at all” –
And then approaching the Elder himself and picking up the first of the Brotherhood missions (find these missing Paladin patrols) that McNamara needs an outsider to do (and revealing “hey, here’s a holotape from the Paladins who were in REPCONN HQ – they’re already dead, sorry”). *shakehead* I wonder if seeing McNamara dismiss all her concerns and then turn to the player character and saying “hey, help us solve our problems since we can’t solve them ourselves” sticks in Veronica’s craw. I know it would stick in mine!
B) Useless Steve then agreeing to help Veronica find some proof that the Brotherhood was destined to fail, or would do better if they followed a different path, in the form of surface-world technology she could shove in McNamara’s face, and taking her to the secret shack by Helios One with the comms terminal Father Elijah (the former Elder, who was a master at sniffing out lost technology and had a good relationship with Veronica, entrusting her with his notes on a few particular pieces – shame he’s the main villain of DLC “Dead Money” and likes to kidnap people and stick explosive collars on them to force them to do his bidding down in the Sierra Madre) used to contact her so she could look up a few good possibilities! Specifically, she said they could pick from between the pulse gun (an experimental pre-War weapon designed to help counter power armor, since the government was worried the Chinese were developing their own version of that), the NCR’s “miracle farming technology” (aka the nonsense that’s going on in Vault 22 that makes plants grow like crazy) –
And the rangefinder. AKA the targeting device for the superweapon at Helios One. Veronica explained to Steve that the Brotherhood had actually held Helios One for a while, but had lost a lot of good people defending it, all for a weapon they could never get working. Her thought was that, if they could find the rangefinder and prove the weapon was a dud, it would show how flawed the Brotherhood’s goals had been! Or, well, even if they proved it worked, it would technically be under NCR control, and thus show the Brotherhood how they’d been incapable of completing their own goals. Steve was all for this, as he wanted a way to use the superweapon he’d struggled to fix with his whole 2 Intelligence. XD
C) Useless Steve and Veronica thus questing across the Mojave to find the rangefinder! A process that included:
I. Steve passing by the shack of the Wins, Sammy and Patricia, and killing them in the hopes of getting the key to their safe and the goodies inside (as he couldn’t talk them out of their plans for their Strip Heist)...only to discover neither corpse had the key on them, meaning he’d killed them for basically nothing. Whoops.
II. Steve and Veronica going to a pawn shop that the quest log said was in Freeside but was actually in WESTSIDE to talk to the owner about the rangefinder – he promptly complained that the only things he could think of that were more useless than an antique rangefinder were an antique horoscope or an antique sandwich, and told Steve not to bring it to him to sell if he did find it. Well, that was a dead end!
III. Steve and Veronica going (via the NCR monorail, since Steve was still in their armor) to the Strip and – after raiding all the magazine vending machines for skill-boosting zines – talking to Sarah at the Vault 21 gift shop to see what she knew. As it turned out, she had actually had the rangefinder – but had recently sold it to a nervous, very average-looking guy who was wearing a big thick metal collar, and who had asked her if she knew of any concrete buildings he could hole up in for free. She told our heroes that she’d directed him to an old ceilingless wreck across from the ACTUAL pawn shop in Freeside, Mick and Ralph’s. Now that was useful information, thank you Sarah.
IV. Steve and Veronica heading toward said ceilingless wreck across from Mick and Ralph’s to find the guy who’d purchased the rangefinder...only to find a headless corpse, and no rangefinder. Because, well, the “thick metal collar” the guy was wearing was, as per Jon, one of Father Elijah’s bomb collars, and he’d set it off trying to get it off (he’d thought he was safe in a concrete building as it might block the signal – nope).
V. Steve and Veronica choosing to ask a random vagrant nearby if he’d seen the rangefinder anyway – and Jon finally getting to show off his favorite line of dialogue in New Vegas that almost no one gets to see. Because, you see, this vagrant has a secret – if you try to talk to him outside of this quest, he just giggles or has generic dialogue. If you have an Intelligence over 3 and try to ask him if he’s seen the rangefinder, he just giggles madly to himself, and you have to bribe him with 10 caps to get him to slur out that he saw some kids with something like that. But if you have an Intelligence under 3, like good old Steve?
This guy turns into the most eloquent motherfucker you’ve ever heard. XD In fact, Steve turns into quite the eloquent motherfucker himself – well, sort of. His dialogue option for kicking off this delightful weirdness is “Hey. You see weird gun?” with “(‘Pardon, but have you seen any pre-war firearm antiquities as of late?’)” behind it, indicating that what Veronica hears and what the vagrant hears are two very different things. Presumably Veronica still hears the vagrant going “hee hee hee oooh hee hee hee hee” when he tells Steve “Indeed I have, my articulate friend. Not a few minutes ago I chanced upon a pair of destitute orphans grappling over just such an item. If you cover the area methodically, I’m quite certain you’ll happen upon them with only the most insubstantial of delays.” XD He even says “fair [sic] thee well” when you tell him goodbye! Jon was utterly delighted to share the line, and I was utterly delighted to receive it. XD Great stuff!
VI. Steve and Veronica tracking down the rangefinder in the possession of a kid called Max, and Steve paying 1,000 caps to the kid to get it off him because he didn’t have the Barter to talk him down to a lower price, and Jon didn’t feel like trying fifty million times to steal it thanks to Steve’s abysmal sneaking. Max was very eager to see what he could get from Mick and Ralph’s with all this money, while Veronica was just glad the kids hadn’t managed to get the safety off the rangefinder and cause some real damage!
D) Useless Steve demonstrating to Veronica that the ARCHIMEDES II superweapon was in fact very active by using it to obliterate most of a gang of Powder Gangers (barring one guy who was outside the orbital laser’s blast radius, and thus had to be gooified by Steve’s beloved Q-35), which had the added bonus of getting him up to Level 7! Jon took a moment to explain how the gun actually worked (basically, it did a tiny amount of damage at the spot you actually aimed at, then 150 points worth of energy weapons splash damage, which could be modified by your energy weapons skill – not that THAT was a concern for Steve), then boosted Steve’s Energy Weapons skill up to 30 (as he was mainly relying on plasma stuff for his day-to-day), his Speech up to 25 (so he could actually pass a few checks), and his Lockpick up to 30 (so, maybe, one day, he could pick an Average lock).
E) Useless Steve then taking Veronica and the rangefinder back to the BOS bunker, curious to see how Veronica planned to turn “hey, we got the Helios One superweapon working, here is the rangefinder for it” into a reason why the Brotherhood shouldn’t have tried to keep a hold of Helios One – only for Veronica to calmly point out the orbital laser’s weaknesses (namely, it’s only effective outdoors, it only works in a limited radius, and it had a super-long recharge time – you get one shot per 24 hour time period; Jon himself had also pointed out while looting the Powder Ganger corpses just before this scene that the laser is also most effective in the early game, as its damage just can’t keep up with the harder enemies you encounter later on) and tell McNamara that lots of Brotherhood had died trying to protect glorified artillery. (Hey, don’t knock artillery, Veronica – that shit is DAMN useful in Fallout 4!) Jon had to admit, she made a very good argument as to why the Brotherhood should have let the NCR have the facility earlier!
F) Useless Steve watching as Veronica’s findings, and suggestion that they had to start taking on new outside recruits if they didn’t want to die out, were shot down by McNamara again (who refused to go against the Codex), then being asked by her what she should do – stay with the Brotherhood, or leave and try to find a new place in the world, perhaps with the Followers of the Apocalypse? A choice that is supposed to be rooted in what you personally think would be best for Veronica –
But in Steve’s case, had to be rooted in what would keep him alive the longest. So, in a mirror image of the choice P. D. Shoot (Remastered) would make five years later, he told Veronica that she should leave, as it was her only shot at a future, so he could put off the confrontation with the Brotherhood Patrol that tries to murder her (as, if you do this, they wait until she tries to join the Followers to start killing everybody, rather than confronting her at the front door – and Steve did NOT want to deal with them at the front door, as – unlike P. D. – he most certainly did not have the Speech to talk them down!). And then sent her away back to the 188 Trading Post so he could do more work for the Brotherhood without her knowing. *shakehead* All of Jon’s challenge characters really do end up dicks, don’t they?
G) And Useless Steve, on the trail of showing off something else most people have probably never seen in this game but which Jon thinks is really cool, then heading to Nellis Air Force Base and the Boomers, managing to avoid the artillery fire by using two doses of Turbo to sprint across the field in front of the base (and let me tell you, it was WEIRD to see Turbo wear off at the normal rate after seeing P. D. stay on it for literal real-time minutes in her series) before talking with Pearl and agreeing to help out around the base. Before promptly sneaking into the next room and stealing some combat armor for himself out of a locker. XD What, the poor guy needs all the DT he can get!
Excellent stuff, as always – that one eloquent Low Intelligence chat with the vagrant was fantastic and I’m glad Jon insisted on finding a way to show it off. XD I left off with Useless Steve in the medical “tent,” using a Speech skill magazine to convince the doctor there to let him help the injured Boomers by spewing some absolute nonsense, and preparing to show off another fun Low Intelligence option – tomorrow, we should be able to wrap this up and see just what this other super-rare thing Jon was going on about is!
...okay, this time the reason I stayed up too late is because I foolishly went to see if that moment with the vagrant was listed in the "Funny" section of the Fallout: New Vegas TV Tropes page and got caught up in reading other funny moments. ^^; Ugh, getting my sleep schedule back to normal is going to be a pain...all right, I'm off to bed. Tomorrow, Dad MAY be coming home in the evening -- we'll have to wait and see. Until then, plans include doing SOMETHING on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) (as I never did queue up a post for tomorrow, whoops), playing Fallout: New Vegas and seeing how far I can get Victor through Ghost Town Gunfight; working more on "The Van Dort Vacancy;" and getting in a workout and watching the final bit of Episode 4 of The Adventures Of Useless Steve. We'll see what I actually get done! Night all!
