Welp, That Explains A Lot
Feb. 16th, 2025 11:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickGuess who got her period this morning! Fortunately it was a polite period that waited to actually get serious until I was on the toilet and didn't stain my clothes, but still. Not a great thing to wake up to this morning! Even if it does explain why I've been moody, having trouble concentrating, and generally thirsty and tired constantly. *grumbles* Freaking biology...
Anyway -- despite the red curse's appearance, I had a pretty solid Sunday --
Tumblr: Fairly productive day over here, even WITH the red curse making life difficult –
Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – Got some good work done in the drafts of this blog before lunch, I’m happy to say –
A) First, I went through my tracked tags to add a few things to my drafts for later reblogging, including:
I. Someone’s mini-essay about Beckett in VTMB and what a hilarious and fascinating character he is (it encapsulated him so perfectly)
II. Someone’s fanart of their Smiler OC Kipp dancing to The Smiler soundtrack (it IS a bop)
III. Someone’s The Smiler-themed valentine (simple but cute)
IV. Someone’s video of their little papercraft Smiler (who is very dapper with his glasses)
V. Someone’s very cute chibi fanart of Alice patting Cheshire on the head (awwww)
VI. And someone’s photoset of a display of Corpse Bride concept art and puppets from The Design Museum (plus one bit of Edward Scissorhands concept art for flavor)
So now I have more things to bulk up my queue, yay~
B) And then I worked on my “Busting Makes Me Feel Good” Mega Ghostbusters AU until it was time for food – covering the Slimer bust (Marty’s the unlucky one who gets slimed); Bumby’s first appearance planting a ghost summoning device in the local subway system; the ‘Busters encountering Jennifer in said subway painting graffiti, and her doing the logo; and Alice, Jennifer, and Clara joining the team (Alice because she wants to stop Bumby doing whatever it is he’s doing; Clara because she’s learned some worrying things about her apartment building and wanted to at least know how to use a proton pack just in case; Jennifer because, well, her boyfriend’s on the team and now they can risk their lives together :p). Slowly but surely getting this post to come together!
Valice Multiverse – Had one ask from Toonsisters tonight for the queue, continuing the theme of messing with the Cuddlepile version of the Valicer trio by quietly making Smiler up to look like the Joker while they slept. Smiler wasn’t particularly amused – though they were begrudgingly impressed by the fact that Toonsisters managed to dye their hair green without waking them up. XD At least yours wasn’t interrupted by an actual creepy monster, Smiler!
Baldur’s Gate III: I did indeed return to the adventures of my Bard/Artificer Smiler and their party of new tadpole-infected friends today, and I’m pleased to say that my second attempt at getting into Withers’s chapel has been going a LOT smoother than my first attempt...well, mostly –
A) Started off with the quartet hanging out in camp where I’d left them after having Smiler make conversation with all their new buddies, where I took the opportunity to try a few things out before sending them back out into the wilderness –
I. I had Smiler test out their ability to make Experimental Elixirs via Arcane Jolts – based on the text I got in the “combat log” when I tried this out, this involves Smiler channeling Wild Magic surges to make either a random potion or a random bomb, depending on which category I pick. And doing this successfully requires Smiler to pass a hidden dice roll – they were successful both times, but I’m very interested in seeing what happens when this fails… Anyway, they made one potion – an Aegis Draught, apparently a thick liquid that hardens the skin and increases armor class (though apparently we’ll have to consume it to be sure of this) – and a Big Acid Bomb (which just does a little extra acid damage when thrown at people). Good stuff – and I like the spellcasting animation for it! Here, check it out:
Don’t they look cool? :D
II. Speaking of looking cool, I also spent a little time dying everyone’s armor appropriate colors so they could all look nice while wandering around exploring the local ruins:
Smiler of course had their main bard jerkin dyed the snazzy yellow and black of Amauntor last time, so I just had to update their boots today – you can see the updated ones in the shot above
Shadowheart got her armor and boots dyed in the colors of her goddess Shar, giving her a mostly black look with purple leggings
Gale had his robe and boots dyed the bright blue of the goddess of magic (and his ex-lover) Mystra
And Astarion – well, I had to play around with a couple of color schemes (using his hat as a test), but I eventually settled on the blacks and dark leather tones of the Mask dye for his hat, armor, and boots. Felt appropriate for a rogue!
So yeah! I didn’t bother dyeing camp clothes or anything yet, though I might later, once Long Resting happens and I can get a look at what everyone is wearing. But as the armor is what we’ll be seeing them in most of the time, I wanted to get that done. Here’s a shot of the party in their freshly-dyed kits right at the start of their adventuring, so you can see what they look like:
I do like everyone being appropriately color-coded! And of course I’ll be updating colors as time goes on (for example, once Shadowheart maybe starts thinking about new goddesses…).
III. And I went ahead and had Smiler use their second “Infusion” slot to give themselves Arcane Focus, which adds +1 to all their spell attack rolls. Might as well, right?
B) With all that done, I had the group leave their camp and go back to their adventure! And I knew exactly where I wanted to send them to – up the pathway past where they found Gale stuck in his waypoint sigil and to the Chapel Entrance, so they could get into the ruins where Withers is hiding! The group thus proceeded along to the lovely little balcony that overlooks the water, picking up a Rogue’s Morsel mushroom for alchemy along the way and very carefully avoiding the twisting vines that grow near the top of the steps that can tangle unwary feet. After exploring the balcony a bit, looking for the dig spot that I knew was there (Smiler crit failed on finding it, but Shadowheart spotted it – unfortunately, nobody in the party has a shovel yet, darn), I had the group proceed through the nearby archway into the central courtyard area –
Where they encountered halfling Gimbleblock and human Traman, scavengers and thieves, having an argument about whether or not they should investigate the crashed Nautiloid and talking about how their friends haven’t been able to get into the crypt below yet. Gimblebock was the first to spot the newcomers and warned them not to come any closer, snapping that the ship was theirs to investigate, damn it. Smiler replied that the ship was full of monsters and that they’d best be off before they got hurt – and because they’re the persuasive sort, and had some help from Shadowheart with Guidance, they smashed the DC check of 10 with a 23. Gimblebock and Traman thus decided that they would be off, thank you, and ran away, while Gale and Shadowheart offered their approval to Smiler for deftly handling the situation. *nods* Thanks guys!
C) With Gimblebock and Traman taken care of, the next step was to investigate the overgrown ruins – very carefully, because I remembered from my FIRST attempt at this that if you stepped on a certain crumbling bit of rock in the middle of the courtyard, the whole party would fall down into a room below and you’d immediately be chucked into a fight. Fortunately, after taking a moment to try and read the plaque affixed to the broken statue nearby (turns out time and the elements had pretty much worn away all the writing), I was able to have Smiler slowly lead their party around the broken stone and over to the thieves’ campsite on the other side. There they found a couple of bedrolls, a backpack (containing a torch, a length of rope, some “Chulton Fireswill” booze, a dagger, two more sets of thieves’ tools, and a trap disarm kit), and a burlap sack (with a courgette and a potato) – Smiler looted the two latter, giving Astarion the trap disarm kit because – well, he’s the rogue, he should be doing the most trap disarming – and sticking the rest in their own backpack. With supplies got, the group then proceeded down the stairs and to the nearby door –
Where, upon approaching, a muffled voice asked, “Gimblebock? That you?” Smiler immediately used their bardic performance skills to pretend to be the halfling – and it was fortunate that they only had to beat a 5, because that’s exactly what they rolled. XD Bonuses brought that up to a 14, though, and the guy on the other side of the door, Andorn, commented that “Gimblebock” didn’t sound good and opened up the door to let them in –
Which, to my delight, granted the party their first point of inspiration! :D This is a special resource that you can use to reroll bad results on your die, and you get it from doing certain things that reflect your characters’ backgrounds – Smiler, for instance, as an “Entertainer,” would pick up inspiration from helping Alfira with her song, or telling a tall tale to Volo, the wizard who very much looks and acts like a bard. In this case, Smiler successfully lying and getting Andorn to open the door gave Astarion inspiration, as he has the “Charlatan” background and thus, you know, likes and has experience with that kind of thing. XD Nice to have a free reroll should I need it, yay. Anyway, the party thus went inside the ruined chapel –
D) And of course, upon seeing them, Andorn was like “wait a second, you’re not Gimblebock!” and started a fight! Unfortunately for him, he was one, alone, and two, surprised, so he wasn’t even able to move as the quartet started attacking him. Astarion went first and stabbed the guy – the game CLAIMED he missed, but it looked like he took off some of the guy’s health, so, eh. Smiler followed up with a blast of their Mind Sliver cantrip – unfortunately, Andorn made his save, and it didn’t have much of an effect. Meh. Shadowheart saw this and went straight in with a concussive smash with her mace instead – and that did a LOT of damage and left the poor dude dazed. And then Gale finished him off with his Ray of Frost cantrip, leaving Andorn just a frozen corpse on the floor. *claps* Yay! After the trouble I had with him and his friends on my FIRST attempt to play this game, it felt good to just wipe the floor with him! >D
Anyway – with Andorn dead, Smiler looted his body (taking his bandit’s key and the torch), then explored the area with their friends, looking for goodies. They found some interesting stuff – a cutting board and a milk can on a side table (I’m pretty sure those are just “vendor trash” items, but I like to headcanon they’ll be used in camp for cooking); another ancient plaque, written in a dead language (causing Smiler to remark that whatever god was worshiped here, they were an old one indeed); “The Unclaimed,” an account of a faithful acolyte of Shar who gave up everything for her goddess, even her very name...and then was left, forgotten, in the afterlife by Shar, in a nearby bookshelf (I should give that to Shadowheart); “Death & Divinity,” a book about how death is too big a concept for a single god to rule over, and that’s why there’s multiple gods for different kinds of death and different parts of dying, and “The Mortal View: Eyewitness Accounts Of The Bhaalspawn Crisis,” a book of interviews with people regarding Bhaalspawn, the children of the God of Murder (who are generally not very nice people, as you might imagine), in a stack of books on another side table; eight gold and a nice cup, plate, and chalice in a “looter’s trunk” on a dining table in an alcove; a whole BUNCH of cheese, wine, and sausage links on said table (seems like the looters were preparing a meal – our cheese now!); some quills and an ink bottle in a nearby crate; and a “Portrait of Fane” on a nearby wall (which I did not expect Smiler to pick up and put in their inventory, but – okay then! Pretty sure that’s part of the Digital Deluxe content I bought… *checks* Yeah, it’s art of one of the characters from a previous Larian game, Divinity: Original Sin 2). Not a bad haul! :)
E) With the room thus looted, I had the gang go over to a locked door just past the dining table, with a lever next to it. After making a save, I had Smiler try the lever, hoping they weren’t going to get hit with a trap. Fortunately, all the lever did was open the door –
Unfortunately, one of the other looters, Mira happened to be passing through the room beyond, and saw Smiler when I lingered a moment too long watching her (I didn’t expect her to see Smiler so soon). She promptly started a battle, running to the back of the room and opening another door to let in her friends Torgga, Barton, Cefrey, and Haseid. Despite this, though, things started off pretty well for Smiler and friends – Astarion was able to kick things off by using his short bow to break open a barrel of oil next to the group of looters before going to hide in the corner; Smiler got out of the way of everyone else getting through the door and tossed a void bulb at the group, knocking them all over briefly and hitting them all with a little bit of force damage; Gale got in range and hit the oil with a Firebolt, exploding it and setting the looters on fire; and Shadowheart – well, ATTEMPTED to hit Torgga with a Guiding Bolt, but unfortunately missed. But yeah, I was expecting the fight to go a lot more smoothly this time around –
And then the looters actually got a turn, and it turned out they were NO JOKE. By the time they were done shooting and smashing everyone within range, both Gale and Smiler were down for the count, and very fucking close to death. *wince* I attempted to have Astarion toss a healing potion in their general direction, but accidentally prompted him to drink it himself (I gotta learn how these controls work better), so instead I had him go and help Gale up so the wizard could heal himself up (avoiding Ensnaring Strikes from Torgga) and get out of the way. Clearing a path so Shadowheart could then get Smiler back on their feet and give them a little assistance with a Shield of Faith before retreating.
Aaand then Haseid revealed he was a barbarian and went into a rage, before hitting poor Smiler and downing them again. *grimace* Astarion ran and helped them up before retreating again, and Smiler immediately healed with a potion –
And then – well. I had to get them out of the way of the door so the others could get through, or at least get proper line of sight to start slinging spells and/or arrows. But moving meant triggering an attack of opportunity from Haseid, who was right in their face...meaning the minute Smiler tried to run, they were AGAIN downed. *shakehead* Sorry about that, Smiler – I would have let you disengage first, but I felt healing you was a little more important!
However – that did open up the doorway for Gale to step back through and start shooting Magic Missiles at everybody! Whole reason I took that “100% guaranteed to hit” spell was for situations like these. He hit Haseid with two and Cefrey with one – Cefrey promptly went down, but Haseid stayed standing (darn barbarians and their health). Fortunately, it was Shadowheart’s turn right after that – and THIS time, when she tried Guiding Bolt on Haseid, she hit him square on with Advantage and murderlated him, yay. :D With that danger dealt with, Astarion was free to go help Smiler up again – I attempted to have him hide afterward, but he didn’t have the movement to get into a dark corner, and Torgga had darkvision anyway, so – no dice. Fortunately, Barton’s next shot with his bow missed, and Smiler was able to heal with another potion and book into the doorway of the next room. Torgga missed Astarion AGAIN with her Ensnaring Vines shot (you’re not very good at this, Torgga), and Gale murdered her with a Chromatic Thunder Orb. Shadow followed up by killing Barton with a Firebolt, leaving only Mari, hiding in another room. She came out and managed to get a shot on Astarion with her short bow –
But Astarion returned fire with a Piercing Strike from his bow, and that was enough to bring her down! Meaning all the looters were finally dead, and the battle was won, yay~ I would say that went – SOMEWHAT smoother than it did the last time. At the very least, my party didn’t end up QUITE as beat up – well, except for Smiler. *pats them* I did not mean for your role in that fight to be bait, buddy, I swear.
F) Anyway – with the danger passed, I activated the party’s second “short rest” to restore everyone’s hit points a bit, then – seeing as it was coming up on 4 PM in the real world – decided to end things by looting the corpses of the looters! :p None of the gang had any great armor or other gear, but there were a few good scores:
I. Haseid was carrying a “greatclub” that, when equipped in the main hand, gave the owner “Tenacity” – basically, if they missed their swing, they still inflicted one point of bludgeoning damage on their target. That plus its greater damage potential meant it went straight in Shadowheart’s inventory – get ready to replace that mace, girl!
II. Cefrey had an interesting-sounding book on them (“Journey Through The Jungle,” which sounded like a pulp adventure story) – but, more importantly, a Scroll of Burning Hands. Now, characters who don’t ordinarily have access to magic can use scrolls to cast a spell once – but WIZARDS can straight up learn spells from them to permanently add to the old spellbook. So I had Gale pocket that – if it’s a spell he doesn’t already know, he’ll be learning it!
III. Torgga didn’t have anything interesting on her, but I had Astarion grab her short bow anyway, with the intent of maybe giving it to Shadowheart later – girl has no ranged options. Plus it felt appropriate, given how many times she tried to shoot him to ensnare him with vines!
IV. Barton had four gold and a simple toxin to spread on a weapon, which Astarion also took because I was just controlling him at the time
V. And Mari had two gold, some basic poison to put on a weapon, some thieves’ tools, and a trap disarm kit – nice useful things for our rogue, so Astarion grabbed ‘em.
And, with all bodies looted, that is where I left off! Next time, we’ll probably do a bit more exploring, then I might send everyone for a long rest. Mostly because Shadowheart no longer has any spell slots and, even with the short rest, a few party members (including Smiler) are looking rather worse for wear. We’ll see what happens!
Writing: After not getting in any proper writing yesterday, I was determined to get in something today, even with the period brain plaguing me – so in between the GSP and MATN videos below, I made DAMN sure to hit the Multiamory March prompts and write up the first draft of my “Smiler fixing up Alice and Victor after a fight on a job” flash fic for the day two “Hurt/Comfort” prompt! Nothing much to it – Smiler just cleaning up a nasty cut on Alice’s arm while Victor lounges nearby with bruised ribs and they all talk about how it was lucky they managed to knock out the other gang’s Hound so they didn’t get shot on top of everything. And how lucky they were to end up with the pearl necklace both crews had been looking for. :P Nice to write something, even if it’s only about 300 words or so – maybe I’ll be able to make a little more progress tomorrow!
YouTube: Got in the usual Sunday Two, I’m happy to say –
A) First up, we had GrayStillPlays and the Sunday Happy Wheels video – “I took insomnia to dangerous extremes!” Best boards this week were the opening bottle flip, where Gray had to get the “Gray Will Find A Way” section standing up while avoiding death by alcoholism (which was very easy to get, let me tell you – on the plus side, he manged to get TWO bottles standing up on the violent-ball-aura-protected platform); “Bottle Run Reverse” by MAXIMPIG, which saw Gray controlling a giant bottle on wheels doing a run over a bunch of Bike Dads (which was not easy, as that bottle did like to tip over); “Big House, BIG PAIN,” which saw Bike Dad and Tom Hardy having to navigate a giant kitchen, avoiding massive cleavers, a fiery stovetop, and a demented mouse (along with big old chocolate chip “cokies”); and “Pogo In Dream Land,” the Dylan Snider board of the episode, which saw Pogo Man taking on deadly bouncing sheep, a staircase of alarm clocks, and a Ferris wheel of Zs in the land of dreams (and nearly taking a Z up the butt when he landed wrong). We do love seeing how creative – and deadly – these board creators can get!
B) And second up, we had Jon of Many A True Nerd and “Fallout: London - Part 30 - The Clone Wars!” The continuing adventures of Lady Aria and Kiera as they headed into the final act of the game, doing such things like –
I. Getting into the tournament that Smythe was supposedly attending to blow up her box! As Aria didn’t have a ticket – and flashing a random piece of paper at the greeter didn’t work – this involved doing the guy at the door a favor – chasing away a sentient Protectron, Guido, standing on the bridge nearby, giving out propaganda about the Fifth Column and upsetting the Gentry in the queue. Aria went over, took a leaflet, asked what the Fifth Column was all about (standing up for the poor and downtrodden, apparently) and who ran it (Eve Varney), then convinced Guido to go away by using her Mysterious Stranger perk to claim an enemy of the Column was following him and that he’d better get moving. Weirdest use of a perk in a dialogue check ever. Also the best. XD
Anyway – that got Aria into the tournament, where she encountered Tristan and Iseult, two Camelot knights hanging out nearby. Aria asked why they were even in Westminster if they weren’t exactly friendly with the Gentry (as evidenced by the Tommy barricade nearby) – turns out after the Gentry drove them out roughly seven years ago, they never finished the paperwork to re-declare them enemies, so now the two groups are just on neutral terms. Despite the fact that Camelot openly wants to take over Westminster and set up a proper representative democracy. XD Aria got from Iseult where to go if she wanted to join (a fort in Wandsworth, where they’re currently headquartered), then headed to the actual tournament grounds, where she found the box that Smythe would supposedly be in. However, before she could blow anything up, she actually needed to procure explosives – all Mr. X had given her was a timer. Aria thus looked around for someone who might have a bomb or two –
And found Krazy Katalyn in the “refreshments” tent, who just so happened to be selling an explosive charge! Aria got that (and found a second one in Iseult’s locker nearby – suspicious), then planted the completed bomb on the side of the box. And then got slightly worried about the presence of a nearby Angel trooper until it was revealed that it was her clone friend from earlier. They chatted briefly (Aria learning that what had galvanized him to such hate for Smythe was his first assignment – killing his fellow clones who’d reached the end of their lives by SUBMERGING THEM IN ACID, damn), then Aria went into the stands to watch the various tournaments until the timer ticked down –
And, as night fell and the dueling was in full swing, the box exploded, killing rather a lot of people. Followed by a couple of TV screens lighting up...and Smythe giving a speech about how tragic this was, how they’d be tightening government control in response, and how, if anyone had any questions, they should go and report to the Head of Civil Services Office, hint hint. Jon was like “I guess there’s a chance that was a prerecorded message, but given we never actually confirmed she was in the box – yeah, I don’t think we’re the good guys here.” :(
II. Realizing that the time had come to maybe start thinking about picking a side between the major factions (mostly because the game had started going “hey, you may want to investigate all these people now” a LOT) and heading to the Head of Civil Services Office because it was the closest of the three – only to get distracted along the way by a strange noise. Turns out, in a little garden off the side of the road was an old lady, Dot, whose beloved cat, Nobbles, was stuck up a tree. Jon was immediately like “WE MUST SAVE THIS CAT.” XD Unfortunately, the game did not give Aria the option to lure Nobbles down with some food – instead, she had to either shake the tree, get a ladder, or somehow talk the cat down. Aria attempted to reason with the cat, but as she lacked the Charisma necessary to impress it, Nobbles was unmoved. So she went and grabbed a ladder from Green Park, climbed up to the branch, and physically fetched the cat. Dot thanked her profusely and gave her 100 tickets, and Jon got to feel a little better about life. :)
III. Making it to the Head of Civil Services Office to check in on Angel and see what they were like as a faction! Getting in wasn’t too hard, fortunately – Ms. Woodcock at the front desk simply insisted that Aria be properly attired in a bowler hat, and a little poking around the office produced none other than Smythe’s own hat for her to wear (which boosted her Perception to boot). Once she had that on, she was promptly buzzed inside, and was able to make her way to Smythe’s office without any trouble –
Where she was greeted with a ringing telephone. With Smythe on the other end. Who congratulated Aria on her tenacity in finding out so much about Angel in such a short time, and offered her a deal – come work for the organization, and she’d pay her back in information, like who Aria really was and what was the whole deal at that lab. Aria wasn’t PRECISELY keen on joining up, given some of what she’d seen and heard (such as Mr. X telling her about how they led him to do more and more horrible things the longer he was in the organization), but decided to play along for now, figuring she’d bail once they asked her to do something that crossed her personal lines. Smythe congratulated her on making a smart choice and told her that her first “initiative” involved following the instructions on the card on the desk before hanging up. Aria thus picked up the card, and found that she was to head to a radiation lab in Lambeth to meet with Director Wesley Hebertson, without delay.
IV. Heading down to Lambeth to meet with Director Wesley Herbertson without delay! Specifically, after picking her way through the remains of the fracking accident that had so wrecked the area (and killing some Lamprey Floaters in her way), Aria found her way to the lab hidden in the Clapham Common Pindar – which had a big warning on the floor to “get OUT of here.” Aria was like “what’s going on in there?” as she opened the door –
And then she was confronted by a bunch of ghouls and was like “ah.” However, the moment she finished killing them, an angry voice over the intercom declared to know why she was murdering his “test subjects.” Fortunately for Aria, her overt display of violence made the voice realize she was The Wayfayer, and Smythe’s new lackey (Aria was like “excuse you, I am LADY Aria”), and he calmed down a bit and invited her in to meet him. Turned out he was none other than Director Hebertson, who needed her for a very special job – helping further refine his “revivification” serum to help reverse ghoul feralization! He’d almost gotten the formula right, but he needed some DNA samples from fresh “commuters” to make it work properly. So he tasked Aria with going down into the portion of the lab that had been sort of repurposed as a “habitat” for ghouls and extracting some DNA from some “underachieving scientists” he’d stuck down there to ghoulify. Jon was like, “...well, if you can reverse feralization that would be amazing, but I don’t feel great about your methods.”
But Aria was there, and she needed to complete her job, so down into the labs she went! She’d hoped to rely on some Rad-X to keep her self relatively rad-free, but it soon became apparent that it wouldn’t be enough, so off went all of Aria’s armor and on went the hazmat suit! Fortunately, switching out her clothes didn’t end up making her over carry capacity – and even more fortunately, her and her shotgun were able to take care of all the ghouls in the area, not just the underachieving scientists, before any of them could get close enough to take a chunk out of her and her suit. She got the DNA samples, picked up a keycard for the main Bio Lab, then joined Director Hebertson in the main lab to perform the experiment! Which featured Aria in a key role – joining the four ghouls in the cages after they’d been dosed to see if she could talk to them! Aria was like, “that doesn’t sound particularly safe–”
And indeed it was not, as the first two ghouls were still as angry and aggressive as most feral ghouls are. Fortunately, they were also as weak to Scaramanga, so they posed no real threat. The THIRD ghoul, however, was actually chill when its cage was first opened, even grunting a little bit at Aria when she tried to talk to it. Unfortunately, her attempts at conversation ended with the ghoul suddenly getting mad at her and having to be put down. Undaunted, Director Hebertson had her move onto the fourth ghoul, who was also chill, and even seemed to respond a little when she spoke to them –
Aaaand then she turned to leave and it got up to attack. Forcing her to kill it as well. :( Director Herbertson was still pleased with the progress of the experiment, though, and gave Aria some tickets and a bunch of new gas bombs, along with the ability to craft them herself. Which Jon considered a pretty decent reward for helping with some monstrous science! XD I guess that’s only to be expected from the guy who sided with the Institute on his very first Fallout 4 playthrough… And next time, it looks like we’re finally heading back to the London Aquarium to check out that secret Angel lab Aria stumbled across in there ages ago! Will all the mittenlurks she murdered with Archie have respawned for this new mission? Guess we’ll find out next Sunday!
Workout: Got back on the bike tonight, resuming my Tiny Town adventures with “Swinging to success in Tiny Town Challenge! - Part 20” by James Turner! This one is Sonny’s second episode, and so far he’s spent most of his time bouncing between his little island house in Tiny Town and the MOMA James built for Evergreen Harbor, working on his music to earn the required $40K to do his second-episode home renovation! The most notable highlights of this first half-hour were:
A) Sonny celebrating Winterfest with the family by hosting a second “banquet” – though making the tofurkey proved to be a bit of a challenge, just because Sonny’s first instinct was to take his food AALLL the way across the lot to prepare it on the nicer counters in Reuben’s “cafe.” *sigh* Sims... But we got there in the end (by James locking Sonny in his own house XD) and the family enjoyed a nice meal together! Maybe that room in the town center will now just officially be the banquet room from now on?
B) Sonny jamming on his guitar for tips in front of the MOMA on a cold winter’s day – and two people freezing to death outside the museum because they were wearing inappropriate clothes. Sonny played on while the souls were reaped, gave the dazzled Grim Reaper an autograph, and then collected the urns to start a Tiny Town graveyard. XD I mean, I guess why not...
C) James learning – via Sonny asking Vlad to do so when the vampire showed up for a late-night plasma visit – that getting pushed on the swings by another Sim gave Sonny both Fun AND Social, and abusing it mercilessly to up Sonny’s Social need whenever necessary. It’s the new cloudgazing, as per the video description! XD
D) Sonny getting just enough into gemology to cut an orange topaz on Camillo’s table to help him build all his creative skills faster and avoid burnout for longer! Because James is not afraid to use the power of crystals to help him in all his endeavors. Granted, Sonny DID suffer some creative fog ONCE, but a bit of chess with Semaj and a good night’s sleep and he got over it fast. :)
E) Sonny grinding his way through two guitar songs (one written at the MOMA, one written at home) to complete the “write four songs” goal of his aspiration and finally move onto the final milestones! Which was not easy, as writing songs in this game is a SLOG, baby. I have no idea why they make you spend hours upon hours writing songs but allow you to write like three books in a day. It’s just absolutely ridiculous, and James agrees. *huffs*
F) And Sonny signing with a new, upscale music label (since he lost the old one with Dinky Beats thanks to not being played for a while) and releasing new tracks on the regular because that’s all royalty money, baby~
So yeah, dude’s keeping busy, which is good! Not earning a heck of a lot of money yet, granted, but – keeping busy! XD I left off with James preparing for yet another trip to the MOMA, this time so Sonny could start practicing his piano skills on his newly-purchased keyboard and work up to being able to write songs for THAT as well – we’ll see how the Island Blue Musician life continues for him tomorrow!
Yeah, pretty happy with most of that -- just a little annoyed that a combination of long write-ups and period brain kept me from doing more creative writing. Meh. But it is time for me to hit the sack now -- tomorrow, gonna try to get in at least a little more drafting on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler); maybe play some more Baldur's Gate III and keep poking around the chapel gathering stuff before going to long rest; DEFINITELY writing some more Multiamory March prompts; getting in a workout; and keeping up with whatever's in the YouTube Subs. And hopefully answering Moose's latest crop of messages. We'll see how it all goes -- night all!
Anyway -- despite the red curse's appearance, I had a pretty solid Sunday --
Tumblr: Fairly productive day over here, even WITH the red curse making life difficult –
Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – Got some good work done in the drafts of this blog before lunch, I’m happy to say –
A) First, I went through my tracked tags to add a few things to my drafts for later reblogging, including:
I. Someone’s mini-essay about Beckett in VTMB and what a hilarious and fascinating character he is (it encapsulated him so perfectly)
II. Someone’s fanart of their Smiler OC Kipp dancing to The Smiler soundtrack (it IS a bop)
III. Someone’s The Smiler-themed valentine (simple but cute)
IV. Someone’s video of their little papercraft Smiler (who is very dapper with his glasses)
V. Someone’s very cute chibi fanart of Alice patting Cheshire on the head (awwww)
VI. And someone’s photoset of a display of Corpse Bride concept art and puppets from The Design Museum (plus one bit of Edward Scissorhands concept art for flavor)
So now I have more things to bulk up my queue, yay~
B) And then I worked on my “Busting Makes Me Feel Good” Mega Ghostbusters AU until it was time for food – covering the Slimer bust (Marty’s the unlucky one who gets slimed); Bumby’s first appearance planting a ghost summoning device in the local subway system; the ‘Busters encountering Jennifer in said subway painting graffiti, and her doing the logo; and Alice, Jennifer, and Clara joining the team (Alice because she wants to stop Bumby doing whatever it is he’s doing; Clara because she’s learned some worrying things about her apartment building and wanted to at least know how to use a proton pack just in case; Jennifer because, well, her boyfriend’s on the team and now they can risk their lives together :p). Slowly but surely getting this post to come together!
Valice Multiverse – Had one ask from Toonsisters tonight for the queue, continuing the theme of messing with the Cuddlepile version of the Valicer trio by quietly making Smiler up to look like the Joker while they slept. Smiler wasn’t particularly amused – though they were begrudgingly impressed by the fact that Toonsisters managed to dye their hair green without waking them up. XD At least yours wasn’t interrupted by an actual creepy monster, Smiler!
Baldur’s Gate III: I did indeed return to the adventures of my Bard/Artificer Smiler and their party of new tadpole-infected friends today, and I’m pleased to say that my second attempt at getting into Withers’s chapel has been going a LOT smoother than my first attempt...well, mostly –
A) Started off with the quartet hanging out in camp where I’d left them after having Smiler make conversation with all their new buddies, where I took the opportunity to try a few things out before sending them back out into the wilderness –
I. I had Smiler test out their ability to make Experimental Elixirs via Arcane Jolts – based on the text I got in the “combat log” when I tried this out, this involves Smiler channeling Wild Magic surges to make either a random potion or a random bomb, depending on which category I pick. And doing this successfully requires Smiler to pass a hidden dice roll – they were successful both times, but I’m very interested in seeing what happens when this fails… Anyway, they made one potion – an Aegis Draught, apparently a thick liquid that hardens the skin and increases armor class (though apparently we’ll have to consume it to be sure of this) – and a Big Acid Bomb (which just does a little extra acid damage when thrown at people). Good stuff – and I like the spellcasting animation for it! Here, check it out:
Don’t they look cool? :D
II. Speaking of looking cool, I also spent a little time dying everyone’s armor appropriate colors so they could all look nice while wandering around exploring the local ruins:
Smiler of course had their main bard jerkin dyed the snazzy yellow and black of Amauntor last time, so I just had to update their boots today – you can see the updated ones in the shot above
Shadowheart got her armor and boots dyed in the colors of her goddess Shar, giving her a mostly black look with purple leggings
Gale had his robe and boots dyed the bright blue of the goddess of magic (and his ex-lover) Mystra
And Astarion – well, I had to play around with a couple of color schemes (using his hat as a test), but I eventually settled on the blacks and dark leather tones of the Mask dye for his hat, armor, and boots. Felt appropriate for a rogue!
So yeah! I didn’t bother dyeing camp clothes or anything yet, though I might later, once Long Resting happens and I can get a look at what everyone is wearing. But as the armor is what we’ll be seeing them in most of the time, I wanted to get that done. Here’s a shot of the party in their freshly-dyed kits right at the start of their adventuring, so you can see what they look like:
I do like everyone being appropriately color-coded! And of course I’ll be updating colors as time goes on (for example, once Shadowheart maybe starts thinking about new goddesses…).
III. And I went ahead and had Smiler use their second “Infusion” slot to give themselves Arcane Focus, which adds +1 to all their spell attack rolls. Might as well, right?
B) With all that done, I had the group leave their camp and go back to their adventure! And I knew exactly where I wanted to send them to – up the pathway past where they found Gale stuck in his waypoint sigil and to the Chapel Entrance, so they could get into the ruins where Withers is hiding! The group thus proceeded along to the lovely little balcony that overlooks the water, picking up a Rogue’s Morsel mushroom for alchemy along the way and very carefully avoiding the twisting vines that grow near the top of the steps that can tangle unwary feet. After exploring the balcony a bit, looking for the dig spot that I knew was there (Smiler crit failed on finding it, but Shadowheart spotted it – unfortunately, nobody in the party has a shovel yet, darn), I had the group proceed through the nearby archway into the central courtyard area –
Where they encountered halfling Gimbleblock and human Traman, scavengers and thieves, having an argument about whether or not they should investigate the crashed Nautiloid and talking about how their friends haven’t been able to get into the crypt below yet. Gimblebock was the first to spot the newcomers and warned them not to come any closer, snapping that the ship was theirs to investigate, damn it. Smiler replied that the ship was full of monsters and that they’d best be off before they got hurt – and because they’re the persuasive sort, and had some help from Shadowheart with Guidance, they smashed the DC check of 10 with a 23. Gimblebock and Traman thus decided that they would be off, thank you, and ran away, while Gale and Shadowheart offered their approval to Smiler for deftly handling the situation. *nods* Thanks guys!
C) With Gimblebock and Traman taken care of, the next step was to investigate the overgrown ruins – very carefully, because I remembered from my FIRST attempt at this that if you stepped on a certain crumbling bit of rock in the middle of the courtyard, the whole party would fall down into a room below and you’d immediately be chucked into a fight. Fortunately, after taking a moment to try and read the plaque affixed to the broken statue nearby (turns out time and the elements had pretty much worn away all the writing), I was able to have Smiler slowly lead their party around the broken stone and over to the thieves’ campsite on the other side. There they found a couple of bedrolls, a backpack (containing a torch, a length of rope, some “Chulton Fireswill” booze, a dagger, two more sets of thieves’ tools, and a trap disarm kit), and a burlap sack (with a courgette and a potato) – Smiler looted the two latter, giving Astarion the trap disarm kit because – well, he’s the rogue, he should be doing the most trap disarming – and sticking the rest in their own backpack. With supplies got, the group then proceeded down the stairs and to the nearby door –
Where, upon approaching, a muffled voice asked, “Gimblebock? That you?” Smiler immediately used their bardic performance skills to pretend to be the halfling – and it was fortunate that they only had to beat a 5, because that’s exactly what they rolled. XD Bonuses brought that up to a 14, though, and the guy on the other side of the door, Andorn, commented that “Gimblebock” didn’t sound good and opened up the door to let them in –
Which, to my delight, granted the party their first point of inspiration! :D This is a special resource that you can use to reroll bad results on your die, and you get it from doing certain things that reflect your characters’ backgrounds – Smiler, for instance, as an “Entertainer,” would pick up inspiration from helping Alfira with her song, or telling a tall tale to Volo, the wizard who very much looks and acts like a bard. In this case, Smiler successfully lying and getting Andorn to open the door gave Astarion inspiration, as he has the “Charlatan” background and thus, you know, likes and has experience with that kind of thing. XD Nice to have a free reroll should I need it, yay. Anyway, the party thus went inside the ruined chapel –
D) And of course, upon seeing them, Andorn was like “wait a second, you’re not Gimblebock!” and started a fight! Unfortunately for him, he was one, alone, and two, surprised, so he wasn’t even able to move as the quartet started attacking him. Astarion went first and stabbed the guy – the game CLAIMED he missed, but it looked like he took off some of the guy’s health, so, eh. Smiler followed up with a blast of their Mind Sliver cantrip – unfortunately, Andorn made his save, and it didn’t have much of an effect. Meh. Shadowheart saw this and went straight in with a concussive smash with her mace instead – and that did a LOT of damage and left the poor dude dazed. And then Gale finished him off with his Ray of Frost cantrip, leaving Andorn just a frozen corpse on the floor. *claps* Yay! After the trouble I had with him and his friends on my FIRST attempt to play this game, it felt good to just wipe the floor with him! >D
Anyway – with Andorn dead, Smiler looted his body (taking his bandit’s key and the torch), then explored the area with their friends, looking for goodies. They found some interesting stuff – a cutting board and a milk can on a side table (I’m pretty sure those are just “vendor trash” items, but I like to headcanon they’ll be used in camp for cooking); another ancient plaque, written in a dead language (causing Smiler to remark that whatever god was worshiped here, they were an old one indeed); “The Unclaimed,” an account of a faithful acolyte of Shar who gave up everything for her goddess, even her very name...and then was left, forgotten, in the afterlife by Shar, in a nearby bookshelf (I should give that to Shadowheart); “Death & Divinity,” a book about how death is too big a concept for a single god to rule over, and that’s why there’s multiple gods for different kinds of death and different parts of dying, and “The Mortal View: Eyewitness Accounts Of The Bhaalspawn Crisis,” a book of interviews with people regarding Bhaalspawn, the children of the God of Murder (who are generally not very nice people, as you might imagine), in a stack of books on another side table; eight gold and a nice cup, plate, and chalice in a “looter’s trunk” on a dining table in an alcove; a whole BUNCH of cheese, wine, and sausage links on said table (seems like the looters were preparing a meal – our cheese now!); some quills and an ink bottle in a nearby crate; and a “Portrait of Fane” on a nearby wall (which I did not expect Smiler to pick up and put in their inventory, but – okay then! Pretty sure that’s part of the Digital Deluxe content I bought… *checks* Yeah, it’s art of one of the characters from a previous Larian game, Divinity: Original Sin 2). Not a bad haul! :)
E) With the room thus looted, I had the gang go over to a locked door just past the dining table, with a lever next to it. After making a save, I had Smiler try the lever, hoping they weren’t going to get hit with a trap. Fortunately, all the lever did was open the door –
Unfortunately, one of the other looters, Mira happened to be passing through the room beyond, and saw Smiler when I lingered a moment too long watching her (I didn’t expect her to see Smiler so soon). She promptly started a battle, running to the back of the room and opening another door to let in her friends Torgga, Barton, Cefrey, and Haseid. Despite this, though, things started off pretty well for Smiler and friends – Astarion was able to kick things off by using his short bow to break open a barrel of oil next to the group of looters before going to hide in the corner; Smiler got out of the way of everyone else getting through the door and tossed a void bulb at the group, knocking them all over briefly and hitting them all with a little bit of force damage; Gale got in range and hit the oil with a Firebolt, exploding it and setting the looters on fire; and Shadowheart – well, ATTEMPTED to hit Torgga with a Guiding Bolt, but unfortunately missed. But yeah, I was expecting the fight to go a lot more smoothly this time around –
And then the looters actually got a turn, and it turned out they were NO JOKE. By the time they were done shooting and smashing everyone within range, both Gale and Smiler were down for the count, and very fucking close to death. *wince* I attempted to have Astarion toss a healing potion in their general direction, but accidentally prompted him to drink it himself (I gotta learn how these controls work better), so instead I had him go and help Gale up so the wizard could heal himself up (avoiding Ensnaring Strikes from Torgga) and get out of the way. Clearing a path so Shadowheart could then get Smiler back on their feet and give them a little assistance with a Shield of Faith before retreating.
Aaand then Haseid revealed he was a barbarian and went into a rage, before hitting poor Smiler and downing them again. *grimace* Astarion ran and helped them up before retreating again, and Smiler immediately healed with a potion –
And then – well. I had to get them out of the way of the door so the others could get through, or at least get proper line of sight to start slinging spells and/or arrows. But moving meant triggering an attack of opportunity from Haseid, who was right in their face...meaning the minute Smiler tried to run, they were AGAIN downed. *shakehead* Sorry about that, Smiler – I would have let you disengage first, but I felt healing you was a little more important!
However – that did open up the doorway for Gale to step back through and start shooting Magic Missiles at everybody! Whole reason I took that “100% guaranteed to hit” spell was for situations like these. He hit Haseid with two and Cefrey with one – Cefrey promptly went down, but Haseid stayed standing (darn barbarians and their health). Fortunately, it was Shadowheart’s turn right after that – and THIS time, when she tried Guiding Bolt on Haseid, she hit him square on with Advantage and murderlated him, yay. :D With that danger dealt with, Astarion was free to go help Smiler up again – I attempted to have him hide afterward, but he didn’t have the movement to get into a dark corner, and Torgga had darkvision anyway, so – no dice. Fortunately, Barton’s next shot with his bow missed, and Smiler was able to heal with another potion and book into the doorway of the next room. Torgga missed Astarion AGAIN with her Ensnaring Vines shot (you’re not very good at this, Torgga), and Gale murdered her with a Chromatic Thunder Orb. Shadow followed up by killing Barton with a Firebolt, leaving only Mari, hiding in another room. She came out and managed to get a shot on Astarion with her short bow –
But Astarion returned fire with a Piercing Strike from his bow, and that was enough to bring her down! Meaning all the looters were finally dead, and the battle was won, yay~ I would say that went – SOMEWHAT smoother than it did the last time. At the very least, my party didn’t end up QUITE as beat up – well, except for Smiler. *pats them* I did not mean for your role in that fight to be bait, buddy, I swear.
F) Anyway – with the danger passed, I activated the party’s second “short rest” to restore everyone’s hit points a bit, then – seeing as it was coming up on 4 PM in the real world – decided to end things by looting the corpses of the looters! :p None of the gang had any great armor or other gear, but there were a few good scores:
I. Haseid was carrying a “greatclub” that, when equipped in the main hand, gave the owner “Tenacity” – basically, if they missed their swing, they still inflicted one point of bludgeoning damage on their target. That plus its greater damage potential meant it went straight in Shadowheart’s inventory – get ready to replace that mace, girl!
II. Cefrey had an interesting-sounding book on them (“Journey Through The Jungle,” which sounded like a pulp adventure story) – but, more importantly, a Scroll of Burning Hands. Now, characters who don’t ordinarily have access to magic can use scrolls to cast a spell once – but WIZARDS can straight up learn spells from them to permanently add to the old spellbook. So I had Gale pocket that – if it’s a spell he doesn’t already know, he’ll be learning it!
III. Torgga didn’t have anything interesting on her, but I had Astarion grab her short bow anyway, with the intent of maybe giving it to Shadowheart later – girl has no ranged options. Plus it felt appropriate, given how many times she tried to shoot him to ensnare him with vines!
IV. Barton had four gold and a simple toxin to spread on a weapon, which Astarion also took because I was just controlling him at the time
V. And Mari had two gold, some basic poison to put on a weapon, some thieves’ tools, and a trap disarm kit – nice useful things for our rogue, so Astarion grabbed ‘em.
And, with all bodies looted, that is where I left off! Next time, we’ll probably do a bit more exploring, then I might send everyone for a long rest. Mostly because Shadowheart no longer has any spell slots and, even with the short rest, a few party members (including Smiler) are looking rather worse for wear. We’ll see what happens!
Writing: After not getting in any proper writing yesterday, I was determined to get in something today, even with the period brain plaguing me – so in between the GSP and MATN videos below, I made DAMN sure to hit the Multiamory March prompts and write up the first draft of my “Smiler fixing up Alice and Victor after a fight on a job” flash fic for the day two “Hurt/Comfort” prompt! Nothing much to it – Smiler just cleaning up a nasty cut on Alice’s arm while Victor lounges nearby with bruised ribs and they all talk about how it was lucky they managed to knock out the other gang’s Hound so they didn’t get shot on top of everything. And how lucky they were to end up with the pearl necklace both crews had been looking for. :P Nice to write something, even if it’s only about 300 words or so – maybe I’ll be able to make a little more progress tomorrow!
YouTube: Got in the usual Sunday Two, I’m happy to say –
A) First up, we had GrayStillPlays and the Sunday Happy Wheels video – “I took insomnia to dangerous extremes!” Best boards this week were the opening bottle flip, where Gray had to get the “Gray Will Find A Way” section standing up while avoiding death by alcoholism (which was very easy to get, let me tell you – on the plus side, he manged to get TWO bottles standing up on the violent-ball-aura-protected platform); “Bottle Run Reverse” by MAXIMPIG, which saw Gray controlling a giant bottle on wheels doing a run over a bunch of Bike Dads (which was not easy, as that bottle did like to tip over); “Big House, BIG PAIN,” which saw Bike Dad and Tom Hardy having to navigate a giant kitchen, avoiding massive cleavers, a fiery stovetop, and a demented mouse (along with big old chocolate chip “cokies”); and “Pogo In Dream Land,” the Dylan Snider board of the episode, which saw Pogo Man taking on deadly bouncing sheep, a staircase of alarm clocks, and a Ferris wheel of Zs in the land of dreams (and nearly taking a Z up the butt when he landed wrong). We do love seeing how creative – and deadly – these board creators can get!
B) And second up, we had Jon of Many A True Nerd and “Fallout: London - Part 30 - The Clone Wars!” The continuing adventures of Lady Aria and Kiera as they headed into the final act of the game, doing such things like –
I. Getting into the tournament that Smythe was supposedly attending to blow up her box! As Aria didn’t have a ticket – and flashing a random piece of paper at the greeter didn’t work – this involved doing the guy at the door a favor – chasing away a sentient Protectron, Guido, standing on the bridge nearby, giving out propaganda about the Fifth Column and upsetting the Gentry in the queue. Aria went over, took a leaflet, asked what the Fifth Column was all about (standing up for the poor and downtrodden, apparently) and who ran it (Eve Varney), then convinced Guido to go away by using her Mysterious Stranger perk to claim an enemy of the Column was following him and that he’d better get moving. Weirdest use of a perk in a dialogue check ever. Also the best. XD
Anyway – that got Aria into the tournament, where she encountered Tristan and Iseult, two Camelot knights hanging out nearby. Aria asked why they were even in Westminster if they weren’t exactly friendly with the Gentry (as evidenced by the Tommy barricade nearby) – turns out after the Gentry drove them out roughly seven years ago, they never finished the paperwork to re-declare them enemies, so now the two groups are just on neutral terms. Despite the fact that Camelot openly wants to take over Westminster and set up a proper representative democracy. XD Aria got from Iseult where to go if she wanted to join (a fort in Wandsworth, where they’re currently headquartered), then headed to the actual tournament grounds, where she found the box that Smythe would supposedly be in. However, before she could blow anything up, she actually needed to procure explosives – all Mr. X had given her was a timer. Aria thus looked around for someone who might have a bomb or two –
And found Krazy Katalyn in the “refreshments” tent, who just so happened to be selling an explosive charge! Aria got that (and found a second one in Iseult’s locker nearby – suspicious), then planted the completed bomb on the side of the box. And then got slightly worried about the presence of a nearby Angel trooper until it was revealed that it was her clone friend from earlier. They chatted briefly (Aria learning that what had galvanized him to such hate for Smythe was his first assignment – killing his fellow clones who’d reached the end of their lives by SUBMERGING THEM IN ACID, damn), then Aria went into the stands to watch the various tournaments until the timer ticked down –
And, as night fell and the dueling was in full swing, the box exploded, killing rather a lot of people. Followed by a couple of TV screens lighting up...and Smythe giving a speech about how tragic this was, how they’d be tightening government control in response, and how, if anyone had any questions, they should go and report to the Head of Civil Services Office, hint hint. Jon was like “I guess there’s a chance that was a prerecorded message, but given we never actually confirmed she was in the box – yeah, I don’t think we’re the good guys here.” :(
II. Realizing that the time had come to maybe start thinking about picking a side between the major factions (mostly because the game had started going “hey, you may want to investigate all these people now” a LOT) and heading to the Head of Civil Services Office because it was the closest of the three – only to get distracted along the way by a strange noise. Turns out, in a little garden off the side of the road was an old lady, Dot, whose beloved cat, Nobbles, was stuck up a tree. Jon was immediately like “WE MUST SAVE THIS CAT.” XD Unfortunately, the game did not give Aria the option to lure Nobbles down with some food – instead, she had to either shake the tree, get a ladder, or somehow talk the cat down. Aria attempted to reason with the cat, but as she lacked the Charisma necessary to impress it, Nobbles was unmoved. So she went and grabbed a ladder from Green Park, climbed up to the branch, and physically fetched the cat. Dot thanked her profusely and gave her 100 tickets, and Jon got to feel a little better about life. :)
III. Making it to the Head of Civil Services Office to check in on Angel and see what they were like as a faction! Getting in wasn’t too hard, fortunately – Ms. Woodcock at the front desk simply insisted that Aria be properly attired in a bowler hat, and a little poking around the office produced none other than Smythe’s own hat for her to wear (which boosted her Perception to boot). Once she had that on, she was promptly buzzed inside, and was able to make her way to Smythe’s office without any trouble –
Where she was greeted with a ringing telephone. With Smythe on the other end. Who congratulated Aria on her tenacity in finding out so much about Angel in such a short time, and offered her a deal – come work for the organization, and she’d pay her back in information, like who Aria really was and what was the whole deal at that lab. Aria wasn’t PRECISELY keen on joining up, given some of what she’d seen and heard (such as Mr. X telling her about how they led him to do more and more horrible things the longer he was in the organization), but decided to play along for now, figuring she’d bail once they asked her to do something that crossed her personal lines. Smythe congratulated her on making a smart choice and told her that her first “initiative” involved following the instructions on the card on the desk before hanging up. Aria thus picked up the card, and found that she was to head to a radiation lab in Lambeth to meet with Director Wesley Hebertson, without delay.
IV. Heading down to Lambeth to meet with Director Wesley Herbertson without delay! Specifically, after picking her way through the remains of the fracking accident that had so wrecked the area (and killing some Lamprey Floaters in her way), Aria found her way to the lab hidden in the Clapham Common Pindar – which had a big warning on the floor to “get OUT of here.” Aria was like “what’s going on in there?” as she opened the door –
And then she was confronted by a bunch of ghouls and was like “ah.” However, the moment she finished killing them, an angry voice over the intercom declared to know why she was murdering his “test subjects.” Fortunately for Aria, her overt display of violence made the voice realize she was The Wayfayer, and Smythe’s new lackey (Aria was like “excuse you, I am LADY Aria”), and he calmed down a bit and invited her in to meet him. Turned out he was none other than Director Hebertson, who needed her for a very special job – helping further refine his “revivification” serum to help reverse ghoul feralization! He’d almost gotten the formula right, but he needed some DNA samples from fresh “commuters” to make it work properly. So he tasked Aria with going down into the portion of the lab that had been sort of repurposed as a “habitat” for ghouls and extracting some DNA from some “underachieving scientists” he’d stuck down there to ghoulify. Jon was like, “...well, if you can reverse feralization that would be amazing, but I don’t feel great about your methods.”
But Aria was there, and she needed to complete her job, so down into the labs she went! She’d hoped to rely on some Rad-X to keep her self relatively rad-free, but it soon became apparent that it wouldn’t be enough, so off went all of Aria’s armor and on went the hazmat suit! Fortunately, switching out her clothes didn’t end up making her over carry capacity – and even more fortunately, her and her shotgun were able to take care of all the ghouls in the area, not just the underachieving scientists, before any of them could get close enough to take a chunk out of her and her suit. She got the DNA samples, picked up a keycard for the main Bio Lab, then joined Director Hebertson in the main lab to perform the experiment! Which featured Aria in a key role – joining the four ghouls in the cages after they’d been dosed to see if she could talk to them! Aria was like, “that doesn’t sound particularly safe–”
And indeed it was not, as the first two ghouls were still as angry and aggressive as most feral ghouls are. Fortunately, they were also as weak to Scaramanga, so they posed no real threat. The THIRD ghoul, however, was actually chill when its cage was first opened, even grunting a little bit at Aria when she tried to talk to it. Unfortunately, her attempts at conversation ended with the ghoul suddenly getting mad at her and having to be put down. Undaunted, Director Hebertson had her move onto the fourth ghoul, who was also chill, and even seemed to respond a little when she spoke to them –
Aaaand then she turned to leave and it got up to attack. Forcing her to kill it as well. :( Director Herbertson was still pleased with the progress of the experiment, though, and gave Aria some tickets and a bunch of new gas bombs, along with the ability to craft them herself. Which Jon considered a pretty decent reward for helping with some monstrous science! XD I guess that’s only to be expected from the guy who sided with the Institute on his very first Fallout 4 playthrough… And next time, it looks like we’re finally heading back to the London Aquarium to check out that secret Angel lab Aria stumbled across in there ages ago! Will all the mittenlurks she murdered with Archie have respawned for this new mission? Guess we’ll find out next Sunday!
Workout: Got back on the bike tonight, resuming my Tiny Town adventures with “Swinging to success in Tiny Town Challenge! - Part 20” by James Turner! This one is Sonny’s second episode, and so far he’s spent most of his time bouncing between his little island house in Tiny Town and the MOMA James built for Evergreen Harbor, working on his music to earn the required $40K to do his second-episode home renovation! The most notable highlights of this first half-hour were:
A) Sonny celebrating Winterfest with the family by hosting a second “banquet” – though making the tofurkey proved to be a bit of a challenge, just because Sonny’s first instinct was to take his food AALLL the way across the lot to prepare it on the nicer counters in Reuben’s “cafe.” *sigh* Sims... But we got there in the end (by James locking Sonny in his own house XD) and the family enjoyed a nice meal together! Maybe that room in the town center will now just officially be the banquet room from now on?
B) Sonny jamming on his guitar for tips in front of the MOMA on a cold winter’s day – and two people freezing to death outside the museum because they were wearing inappropriate clothes. Sonny played on while the souls were reaped, gave the dazzled Grim Reaper an autograph, and then collected the urns to start a Tiny Town graveyard. XD I mean, I guess why not...
C) James learning – via Sonny asking Vlad to do so when the vampire showed up for a late-night plasma visit – that getting pushed on the swings by another Sim gave Sonny both Fun AND Social, and abusing it mercilessly to up Sonny’s Social need whenever necessary. It’s the new cloudgazing, as per the video description! XD
D) Sonny getting just enough into gemology to cut an orange topaz on Camillo’s table to help him build all his creative skills faster and avoid burnout for longer! Because James is not afraid to use the power of crystals to help him in all his endeavors. Granted, Sonny DID suffer some creative fog ONCE, but a bit of chess with Semaj and a good night’s sleep and he got over it fast. :)
E) Sonny grinding his way through two guitar songs (one written at the MOMA, one written at home) to complete the “write four songs” goal of his aspiration and finally move onto the final milestones! Which was not easy, as writing songs in this game is a SLOG, baby. I have no idea why they make you spend hours upon hours writing songs but allow you to write like three books in a day. It’s just absolutely ridiculous, and James agrees. *huffs*
F) And Sonny signing with a new, upscale music label (since he lost the old one with Dinky Beats thanks to not being played for a while) and releasing new tracks on the regular because that’s all royalty money, baby~
So yeah, dude’s keeping busy, which is good! Not earning a heck of a lot of money yet, granted, but – keeping busy! XD I left off with James preparing for yet another trip to the MOMA, this time so Sonny could start practicing his piano skills on his newly-purchased keyboard and work up to being able to write songs for THAT as well – we’ll see how the Island Blue Musician life continues for him tomorrow!
Yeah, pretty happy with most of that -- just a little annoyed that a combination of long write-ups and period brain kept me from doing more creative writing. Meh. But it is time for me to hit the sack now -- tomorrow, gonna try to get in at least a little more drafting on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler); maybe play some more Baldur's Gate III and keep poking around the chapel gathering stuff before going to long rest; DEFINITELY writing some more Multiamory March prompts; getting in a workout; and keeping up with whatever's in the YouTube Subs. And hopefully answering Moose's latest crop of messages. We'll see how it all goes -- night all!
