A Better, Chiller Sunday
Aug. 31st, 2025 11:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickYes, I am pleased to say that the third day of my long weekend managed to avoid throwing anything truly mood-wrecking my way, allowing me to have a Genuinely Nice Day! Hooray -- glad I managed to get one. (Yes, okay, Friday and Saturday weren't COMPLETELY awful, but the thunderstorms on the former and that stupid stand-off with the maybe-wasp on the latter were real downers for me!) Let me tell you all about it:
Tumblr: It was another “nothing” day over on Valice Multiverse (who is surprised), but I managed to get some stuff done on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) before lunch –
A) First, I just about managed to finish off my Tav!Smiler post, doing a few last-minute edits and adding a concluding paragraph to the very end. Now I just have to finish off the tags, which for some reason were really giving me trouble today. Hopefully I can wrassle them into shape tomorrow!
B) And second, I made some progress on the “VITD vs BG3 Not-Incorrect Quotes Collection Volume Two” post, getting the “Lae’zel sees Alice fight on the Nautiloid and decides she’s possibly fuckable,” “the trio ask Gale if he actually has to physically eat magic items to soothe his strange condition – then try to goad him into taking one bite out of a boot,” “Alice realizes that all githyanki are assholes after the encounter with Voss,” and the final version of the “Wyll asking the trio if the Underdark reminds them of Duskwall” scenes sorted. I also added a new idea for a scene – Auntie Ethel attempting to use Vicious Mockery on Smiler by taunting them with “Terrified you’ll end up like your father, aren’t you?” only to get badly confused when Smiler, puzzled, is like “No?? I’d like to end up like my dad??” It’s only after she’s defeated that either Alice or Victor realize she meant KELMAN, and Smiler is like “well, then she should have said Kelman! I don’t consider that ass my father!” XD Just think it would be funny!
Not too shabby – we’ll see what I can get done tomorrow!
Baldur’s Gate III: Back to Faerun today, with a playsession that saw Smiler finding goodies in the world, filling out their party and cleaning up their inventory! Three of my favorite activities in this game. :P In order, we had:
A) Smiler and Shadowheart checking the last two dead intellect devourers around the first chunk of wrecked nautiloid (the original one in the fiery patch of floor that caused me trouble yesterday, and one just outside) – no cerebellums, sadly. :( Darn it, I wanted to be lucky and not have to wait until Act 2 to snag one!
B) Smiler and Shadowheart gathering goodies around the little dock on the other side of the crash, with the wrecked boat (that USED to belong to those enthralled fishers that appeared in Early Access – I’m sorry I never got to meet you guys!) and broken cart, picking up:
I. A clamshell and some mergrass from the shallow waters around the dock, and some belladonna growing by the nearby rocks – Smiler was able to use the last to create a Sublimate of Belladonna, so now they have some more alchemy ingredients for future brewing purposes
II. Some extra thieves’ tools out of a wooden crate
III. Some rope out of a wooden trunk
IV. 13 gold and a leather helmet out of the locked wooden trunk on the cart, once Smiler got it open with a lockpicking check (got a 10 on the roll with a little help from Shadowheart’s Guidance cantrip, which was more than enough to beat the DC 5 lock)
V. And, out of the Neglected Chest by the wreckage of the boat, 133 gold, 2 Chulton Fireswill bottles (booze, if you were curious), a Grease bottle (for creating slippery surfaces for your enemies to tread upon), a stuffed bear (aw), a candle, a malachite – and the Buccaneer Boots from “Rynny’s Homebrew Collection!” One of the mods that adds magical and interesting items to the game, these boots when worn provide +20 feet to movement, AND boost any attack made with a “buccaneer weapon” (dagger, rapier, trident, or scimitar) with extra force damage equal to the character’s proficiency bonus. :) I’m thinking I may give these to Astarion – perhaps in this playthrough I’ll make him a Swashbuckler and have him play pirate? :p
C) Smiler and Shadowheart proceeding up the slope over to where Astarion was waiting to trick them with his claims that he’d cornered one of those “brain things” and needed help killing it. I thought Smiler might actually pass the passive Perception check to sense Astarion trying to creep up on them with his dagger while they investigated the “brain thing” (actually a frightened boar in the bushes) this time around, as they had a higher Wisdom score, but nope – still a fail. Ah well, it’s more interesting if Astarion gets the drop on them anyway. :p Anyway, they went through the usual rigmarole of Astarion demanding to know what Smiler and the tentacled freaks did to him on the ship; Smiler protesting their innocence, saying they were a victim too; Astarion not believing them until the tadpoles linked their minds and Smiler got a brief glimpse of his memories of hunting in the city; Astarion letting Smiler go and apologizing for nearly decorating the ground with their guts (Smiler taking this in good grace, saying “might have done the same in your position”); Smiler and Astarion introducing themselves properly to each other; Smiler letting Astarion know the bad news about their parasites, and getting a little confused when Astarion started talking about finding someone to help them control the parasites instead of remove them; and Smiler asking if Astarion wanted to travel with them, and Astarion accepting. Really, the only thing that I did even a bit differently from my previous runs was pick a different line for Smiler’s introduction – I always picked the “BALDURIAN” option previously, but as the history I’ve now come up with for Tav!Smiler means they’re not from the city, I instead went with the simple “Tell him your name and your story.” Not a big deal, but it was a nice little roleplay moment I suppose!
D) Astarion leveling up to Rogue Level 2 upon joining the party, which – thanks to my mods – not only afforded him extra health and three Cunning Actions (allowing him to Hide, Dash, or Disengage as a bonus action instead of a regular one), but a feat as well! Like with Shadowheart, I immediately went for an “Ability Improvement” – and after considering my options, I decided to go with upping his Charisma up to 12, as he’s SUPPOSED to be at least kind of charismatic (hell, he’s proficient in most of the Charisma skills)! Might as well get him the extra bonus. (Yeah, I know, I said I was gonna boost the Strength of the male companions, but this is more interesting and more logical I feel – plus we have the ladies if we need to carry a bunch of shit around. :P)
E) Smiler, Shadowheart, and Astarion proceeding further up the slope and into the second portion of wrecked Nautiloid with the dying mindflayer, and Smiler stopping to have a look at it – and as usual, the mindflayer attempted to force Smiler to love it so it could hopefully use them as a meal. NOT as usual, when its attention slid elsewhere for a moment, Smiler actually failed the Intelligence check to probe its thoughts in return, even with Shadowheart lending Guidance (both of them only rolled a 2, meaning they got 4 total on the DC 10 check). Meaning that the mind flayer’s mental defenses proved impenetrable –
And that the mind flayer actually used up the last of its strength mentally slapping Smiler’s intrusion away, instead of getting the chance to try and compel them to bow their head and offer their brain. So yeah, that’s actually one of the rare checks where it’s actually a good thing to fail! Though I do enjoy the extra bit of struggling you have to do against the mind flayer’s will if you do pass – proves it’s a bad idea to get too close to one of these things mentally. (And the Wisdom check to break free is pretty easy, so…) But as it stands, Smiler never got a look into the mind flayer’s thoughts, nor had to struggle to wrench their will free before their brain got ate. Instead, they just stomped on its head and collected a void bulb, a spiked bulb, and a Potion Of Speed off the corpse. *nods* Nice.
F) The trio heading out of the wreckage up the path nearby, looting the trio of dead goblins there for goodies (getting a handaxe, a goblin scimitar, a goblin bow, a bone, a healing potion, and a camp supply pack) before proceeding over to Gale’s Wonky Waypoint! As usual, Smiler couldn’t resist the urge to slap Gale’s hand when he requested one. XD Once they’d had their fun, though, they used their charismatic warlock magic (boosted by Shadowheart’s Guidance) to attune to the unstable sigil and get it to quiet down before yanking our favorite wizard out of it. Gale introduced himself and, when Smiler asked how he’d even gotten stuck in there in the first place, explained that he’d sensed the sigil’s magic while he was in freefall after the Nautiloid fell apart and had reached out to it with his own “Weaving of words” – only to accidentally noclip into it, essentially. :P Still better than hitting the ground at terminal velocity, let’s all admit! He then asked how Smiler had survived –
Aaand I couldn’t resist having Smiler say that they took control of the ship, landed it safely, and saved the day. XD It seemed like the kind of thing they’d say as a joke! Gale was like “well, the burning wreckage behind you kind of refutes your story, but here you stand before me, so…” XD Anyway, he asked if Smiler too had received an “unwelcome intrusion in the ocular region” (Smiler: “Couldn’t have put it any more repellently myself”), then inquired if Smiler was one of the few who knew how to take care of a tadpole infestation before ceremorphosis set in. Smiler sadly let him know that while their warlock patron offers them many gifts, tadpole extraction unfortunately isn’t one of them. (Trust me, Mar-Mal would if they could!) They were only too happy to travel with Gale to look for a cure when he suggested it though, and thus Gale happily joined the team, with a final thank-you to Smiler for yanking him out of that stone. :) So now we have a full party of four, yay! That’ll make the upcoming fight in the ruined chapel much easier…
G) Gale leveling up to Wizard Level 2 upon joining the party, automatically becoming an Evocation School Wizard in the process, which I was happy to let stand – he can still learn all the spells from the different school, it’s just a little cheaper for him to learn Evocation ones (25 gold instead of 50). In addition to the usual health gain, Gale also got:
I. The “Sculpt Spells” passive, which makes it so his allies automatically succeed their saving throws and take no damage from his Evocation spells (which, given Evocation includes things like Fireball and Magic Missile, is a very good thing)
II. Another Level One Spell Slot, bringing his total up to three
III. Two new spells to add to his repertoire – I chose the classic Magic Missile (which is good because it NEVER MISSES unless the target is outright immune to it, and very few targets are) and Ice Knife (which allows Gale to throw a knife of ice (natch) at enemies, which then explodes – and even if it misses, it still explodes, creating an icy surface on which people might slip – PLUS it can be cast while Silenced). They have replaced Grease and Witch Bolt in his prepared spell list for the time being
IV. And, naturally, a feat, which I, naturally, spent on “Ability Improvement!” After checking his stats, I went with bumping Constitution up from 15 to 16 and Intelligence up from 17 to 18 – he needs a good Constitution score for concentrating on spells, and a good Intelligence score for casting them, after all. AND he’s supposed to be a bit of a magical prodigy, so boosting his Int really only made sense. *nods*
So yeah, he’s pretty well set for whatever comes next!
H) And the gang heading to the Wilderness camp to chill out while I organized everyone’s inventories and made sure everything was to my satisfaction! And I’m pleased to report that, once I hit camp, a certain exclamation mark suddenly appeared above Smiler’s head. Seems like the “Camp Night Notifications” mod might be working after all! :D Anyway, here’s the highlights of my inventory management shenanigans:
I. I had Smiler give all their new party members their smart containers (for storing everything from potions and books to grenades and arrows – thank you, ChizFreak!) out of the Chest Of Smart Containers, and arranged them nicely in everyone’s inventory grids – should be handy for keeping at least some of the items they pick up sorted! (And I have not one, but TWO more chests full of smart containers in the camp chest, meaning I should have MORE than enough for the other companions once they show up!) I also had Smiler move some of their stuff that hadn’t automatically been sorted (like a handful of healing potions, or their Scroll of Revivify for emergency saving of companions) into the correct containers – which taught me that you sometimes have to “refresh” the container by changing how the items within are sorted before everything will show up in one. Which is a minor bug, all things considered, but I didn’t particularly appreciate thinking for a split second I sent three health potions to the void!
II. I briefly started giving Shadowheart all the weapons Smiler had collected on their travels, since she had the most carry capacity – only to realize “wait, I don’t actually NEED these – they’re going to be sold to a trader down the line. I should store them in the camp chest instead.” So that’s what I did, dumping everything except one hand-axe (which Smiler kept as a spare weapon) and one light crossbow (which got handed to Gale as his ranged weapon – because he can’t be out of options when he’s out of spells, and I can’t give him a Glock as per the “Mod Mayhem” short XD) in there. I also put away all the jewelry and gemstones, the two brains-in-jars Smiler picked up off the Nautiloid, the three empty bottles, and the skull and bone they’d picked up in their journeys. So everyone’s traveling a little lighter now, good.
III. I popped open the Peculiar Clothing Chest in the camp chest (courtesy of my Digital Deluxe purchase) and gave Astarion the Needle Of The Outlaw Rogue dagger, equipping it as his new primary weapon, and Smiler the Lute of the Merryweather Bard – which they did not equip because, well, they themselves are not yet a Bard, and thus they don’t have Musical Instrument proficiency. *pats them* Next level-up, I promise!
IV. Speaking of Digital Deluxe items, I also gave Smiler the Mask Of The Shapeshifter (which allows them to cast “Disguise Self” if they’re wearing it – might be handy if they need to not be Smiler for whatever reason) and the Bewildering Adventurer’s Pack, a backpack that’s filled with some tasty food and a few useful potions and elixirs. The latter was promptly emptied (with most of the food going into the dedicated “camp supply” pack all characters automatically get, and the potions and elixirs – well, ELIXIR, there’s only one – going into the Smart Containers “potion bag”) and turned into Smiler’s Personal Backpack for RP reasons. It now contains a bedroll they found in a nook near the camp chest (because if they don’t get a tent, they can at least have a personal bedroll); that rope they picked up before (the traditional 50 feet, I presume :P); a container of mixed coffee (the one item of food that I felt it appropriate for Smiler to keep – they do love their coffee); two bottles of water (because staying hydrated is important!); the FaeRun dyes (because I thought it made sense for them to be in there – does mean I have to open an extra container to dye clothes, so I might move them back out into the “main” inventory next time I play); a random quill they picked up (for writing letters and such); a candle they found (to light their way at night); and the teddy from the Neglected Chest (because it just amuses me to think of Smiler cuddling a teddy when they go to bed). Yes, most of the things in it are random junk that you’re expected to drop or sell, but I like Smiler having a backpack of Their Shit – makes them feel more like a person, you know?
V. And I naturally gave the Brimmed Hat Smiler found earlier to Gale, because a wizard needs a proper wizard hat. :p
And that is pretty much where I left things! Next time I play, I’ll have Smiler chat with all their new friends in camp; dye everyone’s clothes so their outfits match where they are in the story (for example, Shadowheart’s armor will be getting dyed in Shar’s colors as she’s a Cleric of Shar right now); do a little more inventory management if need be; then send the group back out into the world to head over to the Ruined Chapel and start poking around there! Better to get Withers sooner rather than later, after all. :) Hopefully I handle the fights in there better than I did the intellect devourer fight yesterday...
Workout/YouTube: Yes, for today’s bike ride and after-dinner watch session, we briefly popped back onto YouTube for one video by Jon of Many A True Nerd – “Fallout New Vegas: You Only Live Once Remastered - Part 7 - Flying Too Close To The Sun!” And saw that YouTube now has a stupid “Ask” button for AI bullshit on videos, so yeah, I think one of the things I will be doing tomorrow is downloading FreeTube so I can do my future minimal video watching without seeing that sort of nonsense. *sigh* But enough about YouTube’s shitty AI nonsense – let’s talk about the continuing adventures of our favorite melee-only courier, P. D. Shoot! Who in this week’s episode –
A) Spent some time wandering around Novac and sneaking her way very carefully around the lakebed full of fire-breathing ants near Helios One over to 188 Trading Post, checking out all the shops she could find looking for good “unarmed” weapons (such as power fists and spiked knuckles). Unfortunately, all she found were a couple of Gun Runners’ Arsenal power fists (which she wanted over the “standard” version, as GRA items can be modded), and absolutely no mods to attach to any of them. Shame. At least she found out while talking to a specific trader that, if she ever needs to increase her general Guns skill for a skill check (for example, to actually get access to that trader’s stock), she can slap on her Riot Gear because that gives her +5 to Guns and a boost to Agility, which also increases the skill! Might come in handy in the future.
B) Headed up to Boulder City to see if the traders there had anything good (nope); stole all the booze out of the back room of the local bar (though Jon felt bad enough about it that he did actually go and buy something from the bartender as well); then downed almost EVERY BOTTLE OF BOOZE IN HER INVENTORY to both lighten her load and make herself exceedingly drunk (Jon’s pretty sure she’ll be feeling the effects of some sort of alcohol for the next calendar month in-game). Why?
Well, so she could settle a standoff between the NCR and the Great Khans in the nearby ruins, of course! And the drunker she is, the better her Charisma. She thus stumbled over and volunteered her services to Lieutenant Monroe of the NCR, before weaving her way into the ruins, stealing whatever she could find before making her way over to the building Great Khan Jessup was holed up in. He was rather surprised to see her up and about, given he was one of the Khans in the intro cinematic where she got shot by Benny and thus naturally thought she was dead. XD P. D. recognized him in turn and asked what had happened to the Platinum Chip they took off her – Jessup revealed that Benny stole it, betrayed the Khans, and ran off to the Strip, which dumped a GIANT pile of XP on her head as she finally finished one of the main story quests at last! P. D. then quickly resolved the stand-off between the Khans and the NCR peacefully by using her drunken speech skill to get the Khans release their two NCR hostages in exchange for a polite escort out of NCR territory and back to their own –
Then got busy leveling up, because she’d just hit Level 8 and thus could pick up some fun stuff for her build! Namely, she could finally get her Unarmed skill up to 50 (unlocking the special attacks in VATS), and snag the “Super Slam” perk, which grants all non-thrown melee weapons and unarmed weapons a chance at knocking an enemy down – 15% for unarmed weapons and one-handed melee weapons, and 30% for two-handed melee weapons. Meaning that, while Jon intends for P. D. to go over to unarmed weaponry for her main damage dealing going forward, Chance’s Knife and the GRA nailbat still have a place in her arsenal as fast-swinging weapons that can put an enemy down and then KEEP them down. Which is very important indeed when you are a melee-only character facing off against a lot of terrifying Mojave creatures and people!
C) Finished brokering peace between the NCR and the Great Khans (which basically involved telling Lieutenant Monroe about the deal, him saying “yeah but I just got orders to take out the Khans hostages or no,” her saying “but they gave you back those men in exchange for their freedom,” and Monroe going “good point, they go free” – Jon is pretty sure Monroe’s gonna end up court-martialed XD), then headed up the road to Hoover Dam to take one last shot at finding some good unarmed weapons from the quartermaster there (who she was able to convince to trade with her by leveraging her new “Accepted” status with the NCR and her druken speech skills)! Unfortunately, he ended up having the worst inventory of all the traders she’d spoken to, with only two bog-standard non-moddable power fists. *shakehead* Ah well – she tried! Hopefully another trader in the future will have a better inventory…
D) Headed back to Helios One to do the “turning the power back on for the region” mission there – which, uh, ended up going sideways pretty quickly for her! Let me take you through all the steps of the mission so you can see how it ended up such a clusterfuck:
I. First, P. D. had to acquire two passwords, one for each of the terminals out in the big yard with all the mirror reflectors that help power the power plant. This was the easy bit, as she’d already gotten one of them on her previous visit (picking it up on the way to grabbing the Medicine skill book she wanted), and acquiring the other was simply a matter of tracking down Fantastic, a fake scientist working at the plant who has some truly amazing lines (his explanation of how he got the job is a masterwork of double-talk XD). After she’d chatted with him and gotten the password she needed, she also took a moment to talk with REAL scientist and Follower Of The Apocalypse member Ignacio Rivas nearby, talking about how she wanted the same things he and his friends wanted – peace and the protection of knowledge! Because apparently making sure the Followers are friendly toward P. D. is going to be kind of important to this run’s success...hopefully none of them see her when she’s having to commit nailbat murder. :p
II. Then, she had to actually get at each terminal so she could get into them with her newly-acquired passwords and use them to reset the mainframe connections. Why was this a problem, you ask? Well, both terminals were inside giant cages – and one was full of various traps, while the other was occupied by some nasty dogs (that are TECHNICALLY NCR-aligned but are always hostile no matter what and none of the NCR mind if you kill them). P. D. naturally went for the “traps” terminal first, intending to disarm all the traps inside while avoiding the land mines on the floor –
Only to get too close to a mine while trying to disarm a tripwire and set them off. By sheer freaking luck she took no damage (the mine was behind an obstacle, and she managed to skitter out of the blast zone in time), but that was not a good time for Jon’s heart rate! Ironically, she actually leveled up to Level 9 from the tiny amount of trap-disarming XP while nearly killing herself – Jon dumped most of the points in Lockpicking so she could take on Average locks, since that was a skill she’d need in the near future.
III. ANYWAY – after successfully reaching the “traps” terminal and resetting the mainframe connection on it, P. D. then had to get to the “dogs” terminal and reset the mainframe on that too, followed by braving the central tower and the various robots inside so she could actually reach the mainframe computer itself. Her plan for doing this? Go to the nearby Black Rock Cave; activate a Stealth Boy right outside it; sneak into the cave past the local Nightkin and grab the Paladin Toaster, a unique “zap glove” weapon that does loads of bonus damage against robots; fast travel back to Helios One; sneak into the cage with the dogs and activate the terminal; then head into the tower and invisibly zap-punch three key robots before her Stealth Boy ran out before avoiding the rest of the mechanical menaces by going through some specific locked side rooms (hence why she needed the Lockpicking skill). How did it work out? Well –
a. She completed Black Rock Cave no problem – went invisible, avoided the also-invisible Nightkin (looking for the shimmers in the air to tell where they were), got the Paladin Toaster, then headed outside and fast-traveled straight back to Helios One’s front door. However, in order to fast travel more efficiently, and to get back to where she needed to be in the back yard quicker, she had to stand up. And when you stand up, even with a Stealth Boy active, you are much more noticeable. Which didn’t mean anything while she was booking it through the corridors of the main building, or running around the mirrors outside –
But when she tried to enter the cage with the dogs – yeah, they promptly noticed her and took offense to her presence. She managed to escape the cage before they did any damage to her, but Jon (having not realized she wasn’t crouched) was completely baffled as to how she’d been seen and wasted precious invisibility time both waiting for the dogs to calm down and trying to figure out how things had gone wrong. Fortunately, it didn’t take TOO long for the dogs to chill out, and P. D.’s second attempt at reaching the terminal went a lot more smoothly thanks to her being crouched, but still. It was a very stressful moment for Jon! (And a very embarrassing one for Future!Jon, who realized what had happened by the time of editing and added in some snarky comments toward his past self. XD)
b. As for getting through the tower – well, first she went into the building with a lot less time on the clock than she wanted because of the incident with the dogs outside. And second, while she got past the first Protectron okay, happily showing off the new “uppercut” attack that had been unlocked by getting Unarmed up to 50 (adds 15% more damage to each attack!), she made the mistake of standing up right as she reached the door into the next part of the facility –
And promptly got shot by a turret that Jon had completely forgotten was there. Because he was so focused on avoiding the turret in the room beforehand. She managed to get through the door BEFORE being turned totally into Swiss cheese, but she still lost a whopping 25 points of health, which brought her down to 249 out of 280 HP. Yikes. Jon was pretty horrified, both by the loss of health –
And the loss of time on her Stealth Boy, because the incident had given her like twelve minutes to get to the two other robots she had to zap-punch. And while Jon was able to get her over to the robobrain in time, just as she entered the room with the Mr. Gutsy she had to kill, her Stealth Boy officially ran out, and she popped back into the world of the visible. Jon dithered for a while about what to do – because ironically, it was more dangerous for her to go back and scuttle the mission because of those turrets – but in the end, had to bow to the inevitable and use another Stealth Boy so he could sneakily zap-punch that Gutsy without totally risking her life before heading for the mainframe. He was not happy about it, but it had to be done!
IV. Having successfully murdered part of the robot menace in the tower and avoided the rest, P. D. then had to, ironically, repair the generator powering the mainframe so she could interact with it. This required her to have both scrap and a decent repair skill, both things she was not in possession of –
But what she did have was a Poseidon Energy ID card, picked up in one of the previous rooms, which she was able to use to wake up repair bot Python and get him to fix the generator and its wonky wires. So that was good!
V. With the generator fixed, P. D. then had to choose what regions the power plant would be powering (or if she wanted to instead power up the secret orbital superweapon, ARCHIMEDES II, attached to the plant) – as she wanted to keep the Followers Of The Apocalypse happy with her, she chose to fully power the entire region and ignore the superweapon. The system warned her that fully powering the region would lead to brownouts as the infrastructure tried to handle the load, but that is what the Followers wanted, so that is what they got! I guess we’ll see how grateful the citizenry really are later.
VI. And with the region to power chosen, P. D. finally had to head out onto the tower observation deck and use the mirror realignment panel to realign all the mirrors so they’d actually provide the power. Which could only be done at a certain time of day (between 9 AM and 3 PM, specifically), so she had to wait in one-hour increments next to the panel so she could get it to work –
Except the first time she did this, the panel glitched out and refused to function, and then the game crashed. *facepalm* Fortunately, all her waiting by the panel had triggered an autosave, so she didn’t lose any progress. And, just as before, her second try at getting it work went better, with her just needing to wait one hour to get inside the specific time window so she could throw the switch and move those mirrors.
And with that, the whole ordeal was done! And what did P. D. get for it? Well, apart from Paladin Toaster and a pile of XP, she received from one Ignacio Rivas –
Some medical supplies she couldn’t use (though she could sell) and a Big Book Of Science. Which raised her Science skill up 3 points. Which made it a whole 32 while she was drunk. ...I can see why Jon did not consider the use of TWO Stealth Boys on this mission to be an acceptable trade.
And so the episode ended with P. D. MORE than ready to leave Helios One behind and instead work her way up to the outer edges of Vegas, checking all the stores for whatever goodies she could get along the way! So it looks like next week’s episode is going to be P. D.’s Mojave Mall Crawl! I am looking forward to it. :)
Writing: Got to the old writing a bit late today, but I did type up another page on “The Van Dort Vacancy,” featuring Victor getting the big old safe in the vault open so everyone could rob it! ...on the second try, because after a brief terrifying moment where he thought his parents might have changed the combination, he realized he’d swapped the final number, “68,” into “86” when Smiler and Alice encouraged him to go over the combination again. *pats Victor* It’s okay, buddy – I swap numbers in my head like that all the time! Anyway, once he’d put in the RIGHT combination, he was easily able to open the door and let everyone into the compartment for “petty cash” – a drawer full of ten satchels, each filled with a Coin’s worth of money. (William is in favor of having plenty of liquid funds, it seems.) Kasimir suggested a fifty-fifty split, while Barnaby attempted to charm the trio into a sixty-forty or even seventy-thirty one – however, one reminder from Alice that she can take on six Bluecoats on her own and win made him back off and agree to equality just this once. XD The two groups thus cleared out the satchels, with Victor offering some of them to Alice and Smiler in case they’d be more comfortable holding some of the money – Smiler assured him that they didn’t think he was going to run off anytime soon, but Alice said that it probably would be smart to split up the take just in case something went wrong and one of them was captured or something, and Smiler had to agree. :p I left off with them discussing how they were going to get back out again – the hallway won’t be a problem, as they know where the dangers are and how to avoid them now (and Victor’s quite sure Slugs won’t be bothering them again), but escaping the mansion itself might prove tricky. Fortunately, Victor’s pretty sure the tradesmen’s entrance isn’t far from the vault, so they could slip out that – as long as they can get there… We’ll see how that goes for them tomorrow!
Other: Weather was nice today (a little windy in the morning, but that was gone by the afternoon), so we all went out and played beanbags around 5 PM – and I’m pleased to report we all did good today, with Dad winning one game and me and Mom each winning two! :) Nice change from all the frustrating “somebody constantly gets shut out” games we’ve been playing, that’s for sure. Final scores were me W-W-3-2-3; Dad 2-3-W-3-2; Mom 3-2-2-W-W. :) Dunno if we’ll have the chance to play tomorrow – we’re going to Westerly in the afternoon – but we’ll see!
Yeah, pretty good overall! With my only complaint being that, thanks to the F:NV YOLO Remastered write-up once again taking ages, I have once again stayed up far too late. *shakehead* So I'd better get to bed. Tomorrow -- well, as stated, we're heading to Westerly tomorrow afternoon, so there's definitely not going to be any video gaming. But I intend to spend the morning working on tumblr drafts on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) (REALLY want to finish that Tav!Smiler post already!); then the evening MAYBE getting in a workout (depends on how much walking happens in Westerly -- might start a rewatch of Ghostbusters if I do), writing on "The Van Dort Vacancy" (gotta start wrapping up Chapter 5 with the gang's escape), and getting FreeTube set up (so I can occasionally watch a video of interest without giving YouTube any DIRECT traffic from my account). Oh, and see if I can answer Moose's latest round of messages, though that may have to wait until Tuesday -- we'll see. Night all!
Tumblr: It was another “nothing” day over on Valice Multiverse (who is surprised), but I managed to get some stuff done on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) before lunch –
A) First, I just about managed to finish off my Tav!Smiler post, doing a few last-minute edits and adding a concluding paragraph to the very end. Now I just have to finish off the tags, which for some reason were really giving me trouble today. Hopefully I can wrassle them into shape tomorrow!
B) And second, I made some progress on the “VITD vs BG3 Not-Incorrect Quotes Collection Volume Two” post, getting the “Lae’zel sees Alice fight on the Nautiloid and decides she’s possibly fuckable,” “the trio ask Gale if he actually has to physically eat magic items to soothe his strange condition – then try to goad him into taking one bite out of a boot,” “Alice realizes that all githyanki are assholes after the encounter with Voss,” and the final version of the “Wyll asking the trio if the Underdark reminds them of Duskwall” scenes sorted. I also added a new idea for a scene – Auntie Ethel attempting to use Vicious Mockery on Smiler by taunting them with “Terrified you’ll end up like your father, aren’t you?” only to get badly confused when Smiler, puzzled, is like “No?? I’d like to end up like my dad??” It’s only after she’s defeated that either Alice or Victor realize she meant KELMAN, and Smiler is like “well, then she should have said Kelman! I don’t consider that ass my father!” XD Just think it would be funny!
Not too shabby – we’ll see what I can get done tomorrow!
Baldur’s Gate III: Back to Faerun today, with a playsession that saw Smiler finding goodies in the world, filling out their party and cleaning up their inventory! Three of my favorite activities in this game. :P In order, we had:
A) Smiler and Shadowheart checking the last two dead intellect devourers around the first chunk of wrecked nautiloid (the original one in the fiery patch of floor that caused me trouble yesterday, and one just outside) – no cerebellums, sadly. :( Darn it, I wanted to be lucky and not have to wait until Act 2 to snag one!
B) Smiler and Shadowheart gathering goodies around the little dock on the other side of the crash, with the wrecked boat (that USED to belong to those enthralled fishers that appeared in Early Access – I’m sorry I never got to meet you guys!) and broken cart, picking up:
I. A clamshell and some mergrass from the shallow waters around the dock, and some belladonna growing by the nearby rocks – Smiler was able to use the last to create a Sublimate of Belladonna, so now they have some more alchemy ingredients for future brewing purposes
II. Some extra thieves’ tools out of a wooden crate
III. Some rope out of a wooden trunk
IV. 13 gold and a leather helmet out of the locked wooden trunk on the cart, once Smiler got it open with a lockpicking check (got a 10 on the roll with a little help from Shadowheart’s Guidance cantrip, which was more than enough to beat the DC 5 lock)
V. And, out of the Neglected Chest by the wreckage of the boat, 133 gold, 2 Chulton Fireswill bottles (booze, if you were curious), a Grease bottle (for creating slippery surfaces for your enemies to tread upon), a stuffed bear (aw), a candle, a malachite – and the Buccaneer Boots from “Rynny’s Homebrew Collection!” One of the mods that adds magical and interesting items to the game, these boots when worn provide +20 feet to movement, AND boost any attack made with a “buccaneer weapon” (dagger, rapier, trident, or scimitar) with extra force damage equal to the character’s proficiency bonus. :) I’m thinking I may give these to Astarion – perhaps in this playthrough I’ll make him a Swashbuckler and have him play pirate? :p
C) Smiler and Shadowheart proceeding up the slope over to where Astarion was waiting to trick them with his claims that he’d cornered one of those “brain things” and needed help killing it. I thought Smiler might actually pass the passive Perception check to sense Astarion trying to creep up on them with his dagger while they investigated the “brain thing” (actually a frightened boar in the bushes) this time around, as they had a higher Wisdom score, but nope – still a fail. Ah well, it’s more interesting if Astarion gets the drop on them anyway. :p Anyway, they went through the usual rigmarole of Astarion demanding to know what Smiler and the tentacled freaks did to him on the ship; Smiler protesting their innocence, saying they were a victim too; Astarion not believing them until the tadpoles linked their minds and Smiler got a brief glimpse of his memories of hunting in the city; Astarion letting Smiler go and apologizing for nearly decorating the ground with their guts (Smiler taking this in good grace, saying “might have done the same in your position”); Smiler and Astarion introducing themselves properly to each other; Smiler letting Astarion know the bad news about their parasites, and getting a little confused when Astarion started talking about finding someone to help them control the parasites instead of remove them; and Smiler asking if Astarion wanted to travel with them, and Astarion accepting. Really, the only thing that I did even a bit differently from my previous runs was pick a different line for Smiler’s introduction – I always picked the “BALDURIAN” option previously, but as the history I’ve now come up with for Tav!Smiler means they’re not from the city, I instead went with the simple “Tell him your name and your story.” Not a big deal, but it was a nice little roleplay moment I suppose!
D) Astarion leveling up to Rogue Level 2 upon joining the party, which – thanks to my mods – not only afforded him extra health and three Cunning Actions (allowing him to Hide, Dash, or Disengage as a bonus action instead of a regular one), but a feat as well! Like with Shadowheart, I immediately went for an “Ability Improvement” – and after considering my options, I decided to go with upping his Charisma up to 12, as he’s SUPPOSED to be at least kind of charismatic (hell, he’s proficient in most of the Charisma skills)! Might as well get him the extra bonus. (Yeah, I know, I said I was gonna boost the Strength of the male companions, but this is more interesting and more logical I feel – plus we have the ladies if we need to carry a bunch of shit around. :P)
E) Smiler, Shadowheart, and Astarion proceeding further up the slope and into the second portion of wrecked Nautiloid with the dying mindflayer, and Smiler stopping to have a look at it – and as usual, the mindflayer attempted to force Smiler to love it so it could hopefully use them as a meal. NOT as usual, when its attention slid elsewhere for a moment, Smiler actually failed the Intelligence check to probe its thoughts in return, even with Shadowheart lending Guidance (both of them only rolled a 2, meaning they got 4 total on the DC 10 check). Meaning that the mind flayer’s mental defenses proved impenetrable –
And that the mind flayer actually used up the last of its strength mentally slapping Smiler’s intrusion away, instead of getting the chance to try and compel them to bow their head and offer their brain. So yeah, that’s actually one of the rare checks where it’s actually a good thing to fail! Though I do enjoy the extra bit of struggling you have to do against the mind flayer’s will if you do pass – proves it’s a bad idea to get too close to one of these things mentally. (And the Wisdom check to break free is pretty easy, so…) But as it stands, Smiler never got a look into the mind flayer’s thoughts, nor had to struggle to wrench their will free before their brain got ate. Instead, they just stomped on its head and collected a void bulb, a spiked bulb, and a Potion Of Speed off the corpse. *nods* Nice.
F) The trio heading out of the wreckage up the path nearby, looting the trio of dead goblins there for goodies (getting a handaxe, a goblin scimitar, a goblin bow, a bone, a healing potion, and a camp supply pack) before proceeding over to Gale’s Wonky Waypoint! As usual, Smiler couldn’t resist the urge to slap Gale’s hand when he requested one. XD Once they’d had their fun, though, they used their charismatic warlock magic (boosted by Shadowheart’s Guidance) to attune to the unstable sigil and get it to quiet down before yanking our favorite wizard out of it. Gale introduced himself and, when Smiler asked how he’d even gotten stuck in there in the first place, explained that he’d sensed the sigil’s magic while he was in freefall after the Nautiloid fell apart and had reached out to it with his own “Weaving of words” – only to accidentally noclip into it, essentially. :P Still better than hitting the ground at terminal velocity, let’s all admit! He then asked how Smiler had survived –
Aaand I couldn’t resist having Smiler say that they took control of the ship, landed it safely, and saved the day. XD It seemed like the kind of thing they’d say as a joke! Gale was like “well, the burning wreckage behind you kind of refutes your story, but here you stand before me, so…” XD Anyway, he asked if Smiler too had received an “unwelcome intrusion in the ocular region” (Smiler: “Couldn’t have put it any more repellently myself”), then inquired if Smiler was one of the few who knew how to take care of a tadpole infestation before ceremorphosis set in. Smiler sadly let him know that while their warlock patron offers them many gifts, tadpole extraction unfortunately isn’t one of them. (Trust me, Mar-Mal would if they could!) They were only too happy to travel with Gale to look for a cure when he suggested it though, and thus Gale happily joined the team, with a final thank-you to Smiler for yanking him out of that stone. :) So now we have a full party of four, yay! That’ll make the upcoming fight in the ruined chapel much easier…
G) Gale leveling up to Wizard Level 2 upon joining the party, automatically becoming an Evocation School Wizard in the process, which I was happy to let stand – he can still learn all the spells from the different school, it’s just a little cheaper for him to learn Evocation ones (25 gold instead of 50). In addition to the usual health gain, Gale also got:
I. The “Sculpt Spells” passive, which makes it so his allies automatically succeed their saving throws and take no damage from his Evocation spells (which, given Evocation includes things like Fireball and Magic Missile, is a very good thing)
II. Another Level One Spell Slot, bringing his total up to three
III. Two new spells to add to his repertoire – I chose the classic Magic Missile (which is good because it NEVER MISSES unless the target is outright immune to it, and very few targets are) and Ice Knife (which allows Gale to throw a knife of ice (natch) at enemies, which then explodes – and even if it misses, it still explodes, creating an icy surface on which people might slip – PLUS it can be cast while Silenced). They have replaced Grease and Witch Bolt in his prepared spell list for the time being
IV. And, naturally, a feat, which I, naturally, spent on “Ability Improvement!” After checking his stats, I went with bumping Constitution up from 15 to 16 and Intelligence up from 17 to 18 – he needs a good Constitution score for concentrating on spells, and a good Intelligence score for casting them, after all. AND he’s supposed to be a bit of a magical prodigy, so boosting his Int really only made sense. *nods*
So yeah, he’s pretty well set for whatever comes next!
H) And the gang heading to the Wilderness camp to chill out while I organized everyone’s inventories and made sure everything was to my satisfaction! And I’m pleased to report that, once I hit camp, a certain exclamation mark suddenly appeared above Smiler’s head. Seems like the “Camp Night Notifications” mod might be working after all! :D Anyway, here’s the highlights of my inventory management shenanigans:
I. I had Smiler give all their new party members their smart containers (for storing everything from potions and books to grenades and arrows – thank you, ChizFreak!) out of the Chest Of Smart Containers, and arranged them nicely in everyone’s inventory grids – should be handy for keeping at least some of the items they pick up sorted! (And I have not one, but TWO more chests full of smart containers in the camp chest, meaning I should have MORE than enough for the other companions once they show up!) I also had Smiler move some of their stuff that hadn’t automatically been sorted (like a handful of healing potions, or their Scroll of Revivify for emergency saving of companions) into the correct containers – which taught me that you sometimes have to “refresh” the container by changing how the items within are sorted before everything will show up in one. Which is a minor bug, all things considered, but I didn’t particularly appreciate thinking for a split second I sent three health potions to the void!
II. I briefly started giving Shadowheart all the weapons Smiler had collected on their travels, since she had the most carry capacity – only to realize “wait, I don’t actually NEED these – they’re going to be sold to a trader down the line. I should store them in the camp chest instead.” So that’s what I did, dumping everything except one hand-axe (which Smiler kept as a spare weapon) and one light crossbow (which got handed to Gale as his ranged weapon – because he can’t be out of options when he’s out of spells, and I can’t give him a Glock as per the “Mod Mayhem” short XD) in there. I also put away all the jewelry and gemstones, the two brains-in-jars Smiler picked up off the Nautiloid, the three empty bottles, and the skull and bone they’d picked up in their journeys. So everyone’s traveling a little lighter now, good.
III. I popped open the Peculiar Clothing Chest in the camp chest (courtesy of my Digital Deluxe purchase) and gave Astarion the Needle Of The Outlaw Rogue dagger, equipping it as his new primary weapon, and Smiler the Lute of the Merryweather Bard – which they did not equip because, well, they themselves are not yet a Bard, and thus they don’t have Musical Instrument proficiency. *pats them* Next level-up, I promise!
IV. Speaking of Digital Deluxe items, I also gave Smiler the Mask Of The Shapeshifter (which allows them to cast “Disguise Self” if they’re wearing it – might be handy if they need to not be Smiler for whatever reason) and the Bewildering Adventurer’s Pack, a backpack that’s filled with some tasty food and a few useful potions and elixirs. The latter was promptly emptied (with most of the food going into the dedicated “camp supply” pack all characters automatically get, and the potions and elixirs – well, ELIXIR, there’s only one – going into the Smart Containers “potion bag”) and turned into Smiler’s Personal Backpack for RP reasons. It now contains a bedroll they found in a nook near the camp chest (because if they don’t get a tent, they can at least have a personal bedroll); that rope they picked up before (the traditional 50 feet, I presume :P); a container of mixed coffee (the one item of food that I felt it appropriate for Smiler to keep – they do love their coffee); two bottles of water (because staying hydrated is important!); the FaeRun dyes (because I thought it made sense for them to be in there – does mean I have to open an extra container to dye clothes, so I might move them back out into the “main” inventory next time I play); a random quill they picked up (for writing letters and such); a candle they found (to light their way at night); and the teddy from the Neglected Chest (because it just amuses me to think of Smiler cuddling a teddy when they go to bed). Yes, most of the things in it are random junk that you’re expected to drop or sell, but I like Smiler having a backpack of Their Shit – makes them feel more like a person, you know?
V. And I naturally gave the Brimmed Hat Smiler found earlier to Gale, because a wizard needs a proper wizard hat. :p
And that is pretty much where I left things! Next time I play, I’ll have Smiler chat with all their new friends in camp; dye everyone’s clothes so their outfits match where they are in the story (for example, Shadowheart’s armor will be getting dyed in Shar’s colors as she’s a Cleric of Shar right now); do a little more inventory management if need be; then send the group back out into the world to head over to the Ruined Chapel and start poking around there! Better to get Withers sooner rather than later, after all. :) Hopefully I handle the fights in there better than I did the intellect devourer fight yesterday...
Workout/YouTube: Yes, for today’s bike ride and after-dinner watch session, we briefly popped back onto YouTube for one video by Jon of Many A True Nerd – “Fallout New Vegas: You Only Live Once Remastered - Part 7 - Flying Too Close To The Sun!” And saw that YouTube now has a stupid “Ask” button for AI bullshit on videos, so yeah, I think one of the things I will be doing tomorrow is downloading FreeTube so I can do my future minimal video watching without seeing that sort of nonsense. *sigh* But enough about YouTube’s shitty AI nonsense – let’s talk about the continuing adventures of our favorite melee-only courier, P. D. Shoot! Who in this week’s episode –
A) Spent some time wandering around Novac and sneaking her way very carefully around the lakebed full of fire-breathing ants near Helios One over to 188 Trading Post, checking out all the shops she could find looking for good “unarmed” weapons (such as power fists and spiked knuckles). Unfortunately, all she found were a couple of Gun Runners’ Arsenal power fists (which she wanted over the “standard” version, as GRA items can be modded), and absolutely no mods to attach to any of them. Shame. At least she found out while talking to a specific trader that, if she ever needs to increase her general Guns skill for a skill check (for example, to actually get access to that trader’s stock), she can slap on her Riot Gear because that gives her +5 to Guns and a boost to Agility, which also increases the skill! Might come in handy in the future.
B) Headed up to Boulder City to see if the traders there had anything good (nope); stole all the booze out of the back room of the local bar (though Jon felt bad enough about it that he did actually go and buy something from the bartender as well); then downed almost EVERY BOTTLE OF BOOZE IN HER INVENTORY to both lighten her load and make herself exceedingly drunk (Jon’s pretty sure she’ll be feeling the effects of some sort of alcohol for the next calendar month in-game). Why?
Well, so she could settle a standoff between the NCR and the Great Khans in the nearby ruins, of course! And the drunker she is, the better her Charisma. She thus stumbled over and volunteered her services to Lieutenant Monroe of the NCR, before weaving her way into the ruins, stealing whatever she could find before making her way over to the building Great Khan Jessup was holed up in. He was rather surprised to see her up and about, given he was one of the Khans in the intro cinematic where she got shot by Benny and thus naturally thought she was dead. XD P. D. recognized him in turn and asked what had happened to the Platinum Chip they took off her – Jessup revealed that Benny stole it, betrayed the Khans, and ran off to the Strip, which dumped a GIANT pile of XP on her head as she finally finished one of the main story quests at last! P. D. then quickly resolved the stand-off between the Khans and the NCR peacefully by using her drunken speech skill to get the Khans release their two NCR hostages in exchange for a polite escort out of NCR territory and back to their own –
Then got busy leveling up, because she’d just hit Level 8 and thus could pick up some fun stuff for her build! Namely, she could finally get her Unarmed skill up to 50 (unlocking the special attacks in VATS), and snag the “Super Slam” perk, which grants all non-thrown melee weapons and unarmed weapons a chance at knocking an enemy down – 15% for unarmed weapons and one-handed melee weapons, and 30% for two-handed melee weapons. Meaning that, while Jon intends for P. D. to go over to unarmed weaponry for her main damage dealing going forward, Chance’s Knife and the GRA nailbat still have a place in her arsenal as fast-swinging weapons that can put an enemy down and then KEEP them down. Which is very important indeed when you are a melee-only character facing off against a lot of terrifying Mojave creatures and people!
C) Finished brokering peace between the NCR and the Great Khans (which basically involved telling Lieutenant Monroe about the deal, him saying “yeah but I just got orders to take out the Khans hostages or no,” her saying “but they gave you back those men in exchange for their freedom,” and Monroe going “good point, they go free” – Jon is pretty sure Monroe’s gonna end up court-martialed XD), then headed up the road to Hoover Dam to take one last shot at finding some good unarmed weapons from the quartermaster there (who she was able to convince to trade with her by leveraging her new “Accepted” status with the NCR and her druken speech skills)! Unfortunately, he ended up having the worst inventory of all the traders she’d spoken to, with only two bog-standard non-moddable power fists. *shakehead* Ah well – she tried! Hopefully another trader in the future will have a better inventory…
D) Headed back to Helios One to do the “turning the power back on for the region” mission there – which, uh, ended up going sideways pretty quickly for her! Let me take you through all the steps of the mission so you can see how it ended up such a clusterfuck:
I. First, P. D. had to acquire two passwords, one for each of the terminals out in the big yard with all the mirror reflectors that help power the power plant. This was the easy bit, as she’d already gotten one of them on her previous visit (picking it up on the way to grabbing the Medicine skill book she wanted), and acquiring the other was simply a matter of tracking down Fantastic, a fake scientist working at the plant who has some truly amazing lines (his explanation of how he got the job is a masterwork of double-talk XD). After she’d chatted with him and gotten the password she needed, she also took a moment to talk with REAL scientist and Follower Of The Apocalypse member Ignacio Rivas nearby, talking about how she wanted the same things he and his friends wanted – peace and the protection of knowledge! Because apparently making sure the Followers are friendly toward P. D. is going to be kind of important to this run’s success...hopefully none of them see her when she’s having to commit nailbat murder. :p
II. Then, she had to actually get at each terminal so she could get into them with her newly-acquired passwords and use them to reset the mainframe connections. Why was this a problem, you ask? Well, both terminals were inside giant cages – and one was full of various traps, while the other was occupied by some nasty dogs (that are TECHNICALLY NCR-aligned but are always hostile no matter what and none of the NCR mind if you kill them). P. D. naturally went for the “traps” terminal first, intending to disarm all the traps inside while avoiding the land mines on the floor –
Only to get too close to a mine while trying to disarm a tripwire and set them off. By sheer freaking luck she took no damage (the mine was behind an obstacle, and she managed to skitter out of the blast zone in time), but that was not a good time for Jon’s heart rate! Ironically, she actually leveled up to Level 9 from the tiny amount of trap-disarming XP while nearly killing herself – Jon dumped most of the points in Lockpicking so she could take on Average locks, since that was a skill she’d need in the near future.
III. ANYWAY – after successfully reaching the “traps” terminal and resetting the mainframe connection on it, P. D. then had to get to the “dogs” terminal and reset the mainframe on that too, followed by braving the central tower and the various robots inside so she could actually reach the mainframe computer itself. Her plan for doing this? Go to the nearby Black Rock Cave; activate a Stealth Boy right outside it; sneak into the cave past the local Nightkin and grab the Paladin Toaster, a unique “zap glove” weapon that does loads of bonus damage against robots; fast travel back to Helios One; sneak into the cage with the dogs and activate the terminal; then head into the tower and invisibly zap-punch three key robots before her Stealth Boy ran out before avoiding the rest of the mechanical menaces by going through some specific locked side rooms (hence why she needed the Lockpicking skill). How did it work out? Well –
a. She completed Black Rock Cave no problem – went invisible, avoided the also-invisible Nightkin (looking for the shimmers in the air to tell where they were), got the Paladin Toaster, then headed outside and fast-traveled straight back to Helios One’s front door. However, in order to fast travel more efficiently, and to get back to where she needed to be in the back yard quicker, she had to stand up. And when you stand up, even with a Stealth Boy active, you are much more noticeable. Which didn’t mean anything while she was booking it through the corridors of the main building, or running around the mirrors outside –
But when she tried to enter the cage with the dogs – yeah, they promptly noticed her and took offense to her presence. She managed to escape the cage before they did any damage to her, but Jon (having not realized she wasn’t crouched) was completely baffled as to how she’d been seen and wasted precious invisibility time both waiting for the dogs to calm down and trying to figure out how things had gone wrong. Fortunately, it didn’t take TOO long for the dogs to chill out, and P. D.’s second attempt at reaching the terminal went a lot more smoothly thanks to her being crouched, but still. It was a very stressful moment for Jon! (And a very embarrassing one for Future!Jon, who realized what had happened by the time of editing and added in some snarky comments toward his past self. XD)
b. As for getting through the tower – well, first she went into the building with a lot less time on the clock than she wanted because of the incident with the dogs outside. And second, while she got past the first Protectron okay, happily showing off the new “uppercut” attack that had been unlocked by getting Unarmed up to 50 (adds 15% more damage to each attack!), she made the mistake of standing up right as she reached the door into the next part of the facility –
And promptly got shot by a turret that Jon had completely forgotten was there. Because he was so focused on avoiding the turret in the room beforehand. She managed to get through the door BEFORE being turned totally into Swiss cheese, but she still lost a whopping 25 points of health, which brought her down to 249 out of 280 HP. Yikes. Jon was pretty horrified, both by the loss of health –
And the loss of time on her Stealth Boy, because the incident had given her like twelve minutes to get to the two other robots she had to zap-punch. And while Jon was able to get her over to the robobrain in time, just as she entered the room with the Mr. Gutsy she had to kill, her Stealth Boy officially ran out, and she popped back into the world of the visible. Jon dithered for a while about what to do – because ironically, it was more dangerous for her to go back and scuttle the mission because of those turrets – but in the end, had to bow to the inevitable and use another Stealth Boy so he could sneakily zap-punch that Gutsy without totally risking her life before heading for the mainframe. He was not happy about it, but it had to be done!
IV. Having successfully murdered part of the robot menace in the tower and avoided the rest, P. D. then had to, ironically, repair the generator powering the mainframe so she could interact with it. This required her to have both scrap and a decent repair skill, both things she was not in possession of –
But what she did have was a Poseidon Energy ID card, picked up in one of the previous rooms, which she was able to use to wake up repair bot Python and get him to fix the generator and its wonky wires. So that was good!
V. With the generator fixed, P. D. then had to choose what regions the power plant would be powering (or if she wanted to instead power up the secret orbital superweapon, ARCHIMEDES II, attached to the plant) – as she wanted to keep the Followers Of The Apocalypse happy with her, she chose to fully power the entire region and ignore the superweapon. The system warned her that fully powering the region would lead to brownouts as the infrastructure tried to handle the load, but that is what the Followers wanted, so that is what they got! I guess we’ll see how grateful the citizenry really are later.
VI. And with the region to power chosen, P. D. finally had to head out onto the tower observation deck and use the mirror realignment panel to realign all the mirrors so they’d actually provide the power. Which could only be done at a certain time of day (between 9 AM and 3 PM, specifically), so she had to wait in one-hour increments next to the panel so she could get it to work –
Except the first time she did this, the panel glitched out and refused to function, and then the game crashed. *facepalm* Fortunately, all her waiting by the panel had triggered an autosave, so she didn’t lose any progress. And, just as before, her second try at getting it work went better, with her just needing to wait one hour to get inside the specific time window so she could throw the switch and move those mirrors.
And with that, the whole ordeal was done! And what did P. D. get for it? Well, apart from Paladin Toaster and a pile of XP, she received from one Ignacio Rivas –
Some medical supplies she couldn’t use (though she could sell) and a Big Book Of Science. Which raised her Science skill up 3 points. Which made it a whole 32 while she was drunk. ...I can see why Jon did not consider the use of TWO Stealth Boys on this mission to be an acceptable trade.
And so the episode ended with P. D. MORE than ready to leave Helios One behind and instead work her way up to the outer edges of Vegas, checking all the stores for whatever goodies she could get along the way! So it looks like next week’s episode is going to be P. D.’s Mojave Mall Crawl! I am looking forward to it. :)
Writing: Got to the old writing a bit late today, but I did type up another page on “The Van Dort Vacancy,” featuring Victor getting the big old safe in the vault open so everyone could rob it! ...on the second try, because after a brief terrifying moment where he thought his parents might have changed the combination, he realized he’d swapped the final number, “68,” into “86” when Smiler and Alice encouraged him to go over the combination again. *pats Victor* It’s okay, buddy – I swap numbers in my head like that all the time! Anyway, once he’d put in the RIGHT combination, he was easily able to open the door and let everyone into the compartment for “petty cash” – a drawer full of ten satchels, each filled with a Coin’s worth of money. (William is in favor of having plenty of liquid funds, it seems.) Kasimir suggested a fifty-fifty split, while Barnaby attempted to charm the trio into a sixty-forty or even seventy-thirty one – however, one reminder from Alice that she can take on six Bluecoats on her own and win made him back off and agree to equality just this once. XD The two groups thus cleared out the satchels, with Victor offering some of them to Alice and Smiler in case they’d be more comfortable holding some of the money – Smiler assured him that they didn’t think he was going to run off anytime soon, but Alice said that it probably would be smart to split up the take just in case something went wrong and one of them was captured or something, and Smiler had to agree. :p I left off with them discussing how they were going to get back out again – the hallway won’t be a problem, as they know where the dangers are and how to avoid them now (and Victor’s quite sure Slugs won’t be bothering them again), but escaping the mansion itself might prove tricky. Fortunately, Victor’s pretty sure the tradesmen’s entrance isn’t far from the vault, so they could slip out that – as long as they can get there… We’ll see how that goes for them tomorrow!
Other: Weather was nice today (a little windy in the morning, but that was gone by the afternoon), so we all went out and played beanbags around 5 PM – and I’m pleased to report we all did good today, with Dad winning one game and me and Mom each winning two! :) Nice change from all the frustrating “somebody constantly gets shut out” games we’ve been playing, that’s for sure. Final scores were me W-W-3-2-3; Dad 2-3-W-3-2; Mom 3-2-2-W-W. :) Dunno if we’ll have the chance to play tomorrow – we’re going to Westerly in the afternoon – but we’ll see!
Yeah, pretty good overall! With my only complaint being that, thanks to the F:NV YOLO Remastered write-up once again taking ages, I have once again stayed up far too late. *shakehead* So I'd better get to bed. Tomorrow -- well, as stated, we're heading to Westerly tomorrow afternoon, so there's definitely not going to be any video gaming. But I intend to spend the morning working on tumblr drafts on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) (REALLY want to finish that Tav!Smiler post already!); then the evening MAYBE getting in a workout (depends on how much walking happens in Westerly -- might start a rewatch of Ghostbusters if I do), writing on "The Van Dort Vacancy" (gotta start wrapping up Chapter 5 with the gang's escape), and getting FreeTube set up (so I can occasionally watch a video of interest without giving YouTube any DIRECT traffic from my account). Oh, and see if I can answer Moose's latest round of messages, though that may have to wait until Tuesday -- we'll see. Night all!
