We Are Officially Snowed In

The Blizzard of '26 raged today, and dumped quite a lot of snow upon us -- my parents are pretty sure we got an additional two feet on top of the snow that was still there from the last snowstorm, and apparently they recorded 32.8 inches in the Official Measuring Spot -- which, according to the news, means this storm has beaten the record set by the iconic Blizzard of '78 (27.6 inches). Yikes. As you might imagine, I don't have work tomorrow, as it's gonna take some time to dig everyone out -- Mom and Dad are of the opinion I might not have work on Wednesday either, or at least might have to take a day off as I wait for the people we hired to come plow out our driveway. And we're actually forecast to get MORE snow on Wednesday! D: Not much -- they're talking light AM snow -- but fucking hell. At least after that it's supposed to warm up into the 40s, but that's got me worried about what happens when all this snow MELTS...at least we won't have to deal with a drought this year? *grimace*

Anyway -- we fortunately did not lose power or internet today, at least, so I was able to while away the time stuck indoors in the manner to which I have become accustomed. To whit --

Tumblr: Just had Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) to worry about today, and while I didn’t do much thanks to a bit of a lazy morning, I did accomplish a couple of things:

A) First, while going through my dash, I reblogged from my friend Newt (aka dont-offend-the-bees) a post by “reiding-and-writing” – “Reblog if you’re a fanfic writer and you wanna know what your followers’ favorite story of yours is ❤” Because, even if I was pretty sure I already knew what stories would top the list (anything from “The Forgotten Vows Verse” or either of my “Londerland Bloodlines” stories), I figured I might as well see if I got any asks with any more interesting answers. Or any asks at all, frankly – nothing yet, but I’m not particularly surprised by that. Very few people seem to respond to these things when I post them. (I also sent an ask to Newt letting him know my favorite stories from him – an old Brotzly story that was part of a series of Todd and Dirk baking together and discovering feelings along the way, where Todd and Dirk baked rainbow cupcakes for a Pride Month picnic and ended up proposing to each other by hiding rings in the same cupcake, and “Crazy,” an old Valice piece about winter coming to Wonderland and Alice describing the scene to Victor in their house in the East End – but he hasn’t answered it yet. And thanks to tumblr being tumblr, I don’t know if he just hasn’t gotten to it yet or tumblr ate it. Meh.)

B) And second, I worked some more on my draft of “Valicer In The Dark Meets Baldur’s Gate III Not-Incorrect Quotes/Shitpost Collection Volume 3!” Specifically:

I. I did a proper write-up for the scene where Smiler, post-Volo-eye-removal-operation, sidles up to Wyll and asks him for any tips he may have on taking care of a false eye (because Smiler now has an enchanted glass one as a “sorry” gift from Volo, and Wyll has a sending stone one thanks to Mizora) – Wyll was only too happy to help them out (starting with “keep some purified water on you at all time to wash out any grit that may get behind it”)

II. I did a proper write-up for the scene where Smiler, Victor, and Alice meet Timber the squirrel and – after she chomps on Smiler’s boot for the crime of wandering into her territory without an invitation – manage to convince her that there’s enough room for everybody and that they mean her no harm (with Alice pointing out she’s the one who resorted to violence first)...which went roughly how it would in the game until Timber mentioned the trees as being hers –

At which point Victor, Smiler, and Alice started panicking because if a tree is green and growing in their world, it’s almost certain to be a Jayan tree, which were created by one of the most talented alchemists who ever lived – and are extremely deadly if you touch them. Cue Victor desperately making sure Timber didn’t actually get through Smiler’s boot; Smiler trying to calm him down by saying they know the antidote to Jayan tree poisoning, before realizing they don’t know how they’d brew up such an antidote here, and besides this wouldn’t be the same as a Jayan tree; and Alice telling Timber that they have no interest in getting anywhere near her tree –

Before noticing the Faerûn natives staring at them strangely and realizing the tree probably wasn’t actually deadly to the touch. And then Timber seizing on the opportunity to try and convince them it was and she was the deadliest squirrel in existence. XD Oh, we do have fun comparing the Blades In The Dark setting to the Baldur’s Gate III one…

III. And, this evening, I added a new idea for a scene based on today’s BG3 session (below) – the group coming across Mirkon being lured into the waters of the Secluded Cove by the harpies, and Alice and Smiler starting to fall victim to the music as well...only for a furious Victor, who managed to resist the charm, to use his own magical music to open a portal to the Void Sea. Cue three harpies getting snatched up and crushed by leviathan tentacles, and the fourth getting the heck out of dodge while Victor screams after her “SEE HOW YOU LIKE IT!”

Nice to make some progress on that! :) Hopefully eventually I can actually finish and POST it…

C) Bonus entry: Marie did like her birthday fic, both replying to it AND reblogging it with her thanks and her glee over how cute it was. :) So that was quite gratifying!

Baldur’s Gate III: What do you do when you’re snowed in by a blizzard? Take another virtual visit to sunny warm Faerûn and play some more with Tav Smiler and friends, apparently! Yeah, I know I said I was probably going to play Portal 2 or Little Corners, but I just really wanted to do more with Smiler and friends (plus Little Corners had an update queued, so I actually COULDN’T play it today). And despite my stated goal to find Karlach and recruit her already, I ended up doing something rather different today – though it did involve a red tiefling, just a much younger one… Let me tell you all about it:

A) I picked up right where I left off yesterday, with the gang hanging out in the Enclave Library with the glowing wolf statue (seriously, I may not like the druids, but their glowy statues ARE quite cool). I decided their first order of business should be to head to the Servant’s Quarters next door to Nettie’s room, as I’d read on the wiki that I could find something to start the “Investigate Kagha” quest in there (which I wanted to do, because more quests equal more fun and more XP) –

But before the party left the library, I decided to have Smiler quickly check the dissected drow’s pockets, because Nettie wasn’t looking and there was supposed to be an interesting note on him. Sure enough, after they climbed up onto the table with the drow (who, according the wiki, is named Ned’Cirannis, which you can learn if you use Speak With Dead on him – I gotta remember that Smiler does have that spell thanks to their amulet and start using it), they were able to locate a scrap of paper in his pocket with his orders: “Track the druid, find whatever burrow he runs to, and report back to me. Remember, you are only a scout. Do not engage. Do not kill anyone. Simply observe and return. I shall decide what we do next. -M.” Hmmm – seems like if you’d listened to your superior, Ned, you wouldn’t be dead on a slab in the Enclave Library! Well, at least in death you allowed Halsin and Nettie to learn more about those terrible tadpoles…

( Oh I HAVE To Spare Your Reading Pages, Trust Me )

Workout: Hopped back on the bike tonight to pedal my way through the beginning of the end of The Adventures Of Useless Steve, Science Edition – aka the first thirty-five minutes of “Fallout: New Vegas - Old World Blues - Grand Finale - The Power of Science!” Which featured:

A) Useless Steve talking to Dr. Klein about all the technologies he’d gathered for him and the Think Tank – the X-2 Antenna, the X-13 Aural Stealth Suit, and the Sonic Emitter (which was not from X-8 but was really handy there) – and discovering that, uh, Dr. Klein didn’t seem to know why he’d actually wanted the technologies. Or how to use them to get into the Forbidden Zone. *facepalm* Cue Dr. Klein desperately trying to cover by saying they were really advanced and he just needed to study them for a bit more, and Useless Steve making things worse by failing a bunch of skill checks and suggesting things like “The antenna looks like it could break things beyond repair. Maybe it could break in?” (which Dr. Klein was actually sort of on board with – I guess he’d seen just how good Steve had gotten at using the antenna as a Booping Stick) and “Maybe the new frequency for the Sonic Emitter can blast open the Forbidden Zone door lock, or…?” (that Klein wasn’t so keen on). Fortunately Dr. Klein was able to figure a plan of attack out by himself after realizing that there was an override code for the Forbidden Zone doors hidden (very sloppily) in the schematics for the three technologies, and that the antenna could be used to boost the Sonic Emitter’s frequencies while the stealth suit could be used to get past the door lock. And since Steve didn’t have the Science or Medicine to realize that this all was a set-up to get him into the Forbidden Zone so he could pop his organs back into his body, he was only too happy to march over there to deliver a message of SCIENCE to Dr. Mobius on Dr. Klein’s behalf and free Big MT from Mobius’s tyranny! Even if Dr. Klein had to tell him what his cue to leave was. XD

B) Useless Steve prepping for his journey by turning on the Smart Lights so he could think better, then fast-traveling to the Forbidden Dome via the Big MT North Tunnel because for once there weren’t fifty million enemies detecting him and thus the game was okay with him doing that. XD Which led to Steve managing to successfully avoid all the robo-scorpions outside with some careful running and jumping –

Only to be confronted with the Giant Robo-Scorpion being powered up in the dome’s entrance! Ready to destroy him with its powerful tail laser! Fortunately Steve had a three-part plan to deal with the monster, which he executed flawlessly:

I. Use the Targeting Drone Terminal right by the front door to activate the targeting drones and distract the Giant Robo-Scorpion with some cannon-fodder Protectrons

II. Scramble up the stairs to the next room (taking down the force field blocking the doorway with the Emitter) and use the Power Regulation Terminal to turn on the backup generator for the scorpion’s laser tail...which ended up exploding and causing a good chunk of damage to the Giant Robo-Scorpion, as the robot wasn’t designed for both generators to be running at once

III. Scramble across the arena and up another set of stairs to the Turret Control Terminal – the only one that needed to be hacked, but fortunately Steve was able to get the Science skill necessary to attempt it by slapping on Dr. Klein’s scrubs – and use that to get the turrets to target the Giant Robo-Scorpion

End result? The Giant Robo-Scorpion never actually landed any hits on Steve, and Steve only personally had to shoot it a couple of times before it glitched out and exploded early under the onslaught of laser fire from the Protectrons and turrets. Causing the turrets to fire at nothing for a little while. Because New Vegas is gonna New Vegas. XD But hey, at least Steve survived the big boss fight! (As did the Protectrons, which really surprised Jon.)

C) Useless Steve then going to confront Dr. Mobius (after looting his control center, of course – had to get his scrubs, those boost Science, Intelligence, AND Charisma)...only to find a doddering, quite friendly old man instead of the evil genius he was expecting. One who politely asked him to move into his FOV cone so he could see him better, offered him Mentats, and kept using the word “raisins” when he meant “reasons.” Over the course of their conversation, it became apparent that Dr. Mobius was putting on the “evil genius” act to keep the others in the Think Tank occupied (though, thanks to his own mental deterioration, he’d kind of forgotten that was the plan)...and that he’d stolen Steve’s brain because he didn’t want them to know how successful the brain extraction had been. And that, if Steve’s brain was put back in his body, he’d be able to just walk past the radar fence no problem. Because, well, while the Think Tank had been Dr. Mobius’s friends, he knew that they were honestly quite dangerous to the outside world – to the point where, when he’d helped turn them into the floating brains-in-jars robot creations, he’d altered their perception and programming to get them stuck in permanent loops, reinforced by their own new names, and done the same to himself (“Mobius” referring to a Mobius strip, “0” of course being one big loop, “8” being an infinity symbol stood upright, etc). The idea had been to keep them unaware of the outside world and thus unable to wreck it with their ludicrous super-science –

But unfortunately, the previous visitors like Elijah and Ulysses had begun to shake that programming, and the Think Tank managing to drag Steve in with their probe just confirmed for them that there was a world outside the radar fence. And then Steve turned out to be the perfect candidate for brain extraction, thanks – weirdly – to having been shot in the head previously, and Dr. Mobius had realized that the Think Tank was dangerously close to figuring out how to escape (basically, put their brains back in organic bodies). So he’d stolen Steve’s organs and tricked the Think Tank into sending Steve out to get the technologies he’d need to get into the Forbidden Dome so Mobius could talk to him and tell him what he needed to know. ...And so he could make an elaborate Wizard of Oz reference, with the X-2 Antenna – able to amplify certain thought waves – standing in for the brain, the Aural Stealth Suit – able to regulate the wearer’s heartbeat to help with stealth – standing in for the heart, and the Sonic Emitter – which was originally used as a “medicinal vertebrae-pulse-de-sensitizer,” whatever the hell THAT is – standing in for courage – aka, spine. XD Not that HE knew it was an Oz reference – he remembered the story as a bunch of thugs murdering people to get the items despite possessing them themselves. And he didn’t want the Think Tank doing the same, which – fair. (Now I’m wondering if you can map any of the Think Tankers to various Oz characters… Mobius must be the Wizard, of course, and the PC Dorothy…)

D) And Useless Steve then going to collect his brain – only to discover that this brain had developed a personality of his own outside of his body, and it was not eager to hop back inside his skull. Especially after some of the things he’d subjected it to during his lifetime, like running around tetanus-infested vaults, or trekking off to New Vegas looking for revenge, or, you know, getting shot in the head (though, admittedly, two of those things didn’t happen in this playthrough, though Jon allowed they happened in the Official Useless Steve Continuity – aka, the last one :P). Steve attempted to point out that his brain was responsible for him doing all that shit (because, you know, BRAIN), but his brain insisted it was the fault of all his glands that pumped him full of chemicals and gave him feelings. And no, he did not consider any of it “fun.” XD Steve tried to talk him around into joining up again, but his brain was not keen on leaving the safety of its jar and having to worry about things like grievous injuries and the need to urinate again – it wasn’t even that fussed about losing out on the ability to go out and see the sights around the Wasteland. Steve then attempted reverse psychology of the “well fine, I’ll just leave you there” variety, but the brain wasn’t having it, hitting HIM with some sarcasm about how dare Steve deprive it of the opportunity to get dragged through a wasteland “so bleak, it was actually improved by the end of the world” –

So instead Steve pointed out that the Think Tank wasn’t doing so hot, brains-wise, and how was his brain going to avoid THAT fate? And when it tried to say, “Oh, give me a few decades and I’m sure I can solve the problem,” he used the power of Smart Lights, Dr. Klein’s glasses, Dr. Mobius’s scrubs, and a Programmer’s Digest to point out that biogel has a corrosive effect on brains, so his brain had better have figured THAT into its calculations. His brain was initially pissed off that Steve thought it hadn’t…

Then relented and admitted that yes, perhaps staying as functional as it was right now was probably going to take more work than it realized. Though it was still very reluctant to get back inside Steve – especially when he used his Lady Killer perk to flirt with it. (Which, uh, does seem to indicate that Steve thinks of his brain as a girl...you have anything you want to share about your gender identity, Steve?) And then it revealed that even it if wanted to get back into Steve’s skull, they’d have to go to Dr. Klein’s lab to do it – and the Think Tank were unlikely to want to share. Steve was like “but they promised to put me back together after I did everything for them,” but his brain explained that they would be far too interested in using it to figure out a way past the radar fence to do that – and there was of course always the risk that one of them would decide to just use STEVE as their host body. An angry Steve was like “well then, let’s MAKE them share, it’s violence time” and his brain very reluctantly agreed to come along with, adding that Steve could pick up his other organs and get them put back in by the Sink’s Auto-Doc if he so wished.

And so I ended tonight’s chunklet with Steve preparing to collect his brain, and a level-up to Level 12! Tomorrow, we’ll end this mini-series by seeing how Steve handles the Think Tank, and how this whole Science Adventure will end! Hopefully well – Jon put in a lot of work to try and get a good ending, after all.

Writing: Got to this late thanks to the absurdly-long write-ups above (I swear I used to be able to do those faster...probably because I put in a lot less detail), but I did get to it, and managed to edit another page of Chapter 6 of “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland!” Which featured –

A) Alice sneaking through the back hallways of the restricted area, smugly enjoying how her boosted Obfuscate kept her safe from the cameras and lamenting that she wouldn’t have it after tonight...but she was unwilling to drain Victor every night to try and keep it, as all that would result in was a dead Victor. And after the trouble she’d gone to to keep him alive – well, she was willing to just keep practicing and hope eventually her Obfuscate became naturally good enough to beat the cameras. Cheshire delighted in the opportunity to hit her with a double-pun in the form of “Purractice makes purrfect.” XD (Alice pointed out in response that it wasn’t her fault LaCroix kept sending her on stealthy missions...then decided that, since she actually liked using Obfuscate, she shouldn’t really complain about that. XD)

B) Alice making her way around some corners before coming to the end of the corridor, which terminated in a section with two windows looking into the hall. Once of which showed a server room, and the other a security room with a guard in it – with his gun out. Alice briefly panicked that he’d somehow heard her coming (since he obviously couldn’t see her) –

Before overhearing him going “pew, pew” and realizing that he was just bored and playacting fighting bad guys. Causing her to note that if he was doing that with a loaded gun, that was an accident waiting to happen, and if he was doing it with an unloaded one, then he was unprepared for trouble. Before commenting that a museum guard probably shouldn’t be trying to shoot people anyway – besides the obvious problem of injuring and maybe killing another human being, they could cause damage to the very items they were trying to save! Carpenter pointed out that most guards and police officers were much more concerned with getting to experience some action over such niceties, though – well, that or eating as many donuts as possible while at work, like good old Chunk. Alice had to stop herself from laughing at that.

C) And Alice sneaking past the guard’s window – only to discover a door in her way that was just in the guy’s line of sight. Fortunately, the guy was so distracted by his imaginary antics that he didn’t even notice her dropping her invisibility to try the knob (though, for safety’s sake, she did wait until he’d turned his back) – and even more fortunately, the door was not locked, nor had a camera behind it. Alice thus was able to get through it and into the next room no problem –

Only to be confronted with something right out of a spy movie – a whole bunch of lasers she had to navigate her way through. As she said, Obfuscate wasn’t going to help her with that! I left it there for the night – tomorrow, she figures out how to deal with the lasers, then finally makes her way to the sarcophagus – or, well, where the sarcophagus is supposed to be...

Not too bad -- wish I'd had the time to watch something on FreeTube, but something's always gotta be cut when I play one of my RPGs, and I really wanted to do my writing, so... *shrug* Maybe tomorrow! As it stands, it is for once well before 2 AM, and I really ought to hit the sack, especially since there's a non-zero chance I'll be helping Mom shovel a bit tomorrow (we at least need to clear the path to the front door). I know I'll also be doing another workout and working some more on "Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland" -- but whether I'll be playing Portal 2, Little Corners, or Fallout: New Vegas will depend on how I feel and how much time I think I have. Might even turn into a video catch-up day, depending. We'll see! Night all!