Kinda Stressful Friday
Jan. 23rd, 2026 11:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickMostly because Dad finally had the biopsy done this morning, but then proceeded to have a very bad day having to deal with people who apparently didn't have a clue what was going on with him. Which stressed out Mom, who was there with him, and me, who heard about it via various texts and Mom's ranting when she got home tonight. Add in us not being able to get a hold of Dad immediately when we tried to FaceTime him tonight (fortunately he called us back later), and me mistaking Mom having to yell into her phone during a later call with him to make sure he could hear her as her calling for ME for some reason, and the wind absolutely HOWLING outside my window earlier, and -- yeah. Not exactly the most relaxing day! Or at least the most relaxing evening... *sigh* At least tomorrow he should finally get to come home! Which will probably bring its own stresses, but still. Better to have him here than not! Especially since there's a pretty big snowstorm looming on the horizon for Sunday...
Anyway -- despite all the stressful stuff, I was still able to get some stuff done, the details of which are noted below:
Tumblr: Today was another day where I actually managed to accomplish things on both tumblrs, shock of shocks –
Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – Got THREE things done today over here, go me –
A) First, I picked my Song Saturday song for the week and added it to the queue – a reblog of “This Year” by The Mountain Goats, which is famous for the line “I’m gonna make it through this year if it kills me.” I last reblogged it at the beginning of 2024, but given the way both the USA and my personal life have been going to shit all throughout January, it felt MORE than appropriate to bring it back around for 2026. *shakes head* I am going to be so happy when the 2020s are over...
B) Second, I revised more of “The Miseries Of Margaret Kelman (AKA What Happened To Smiler’s Birth Mother?)” since I was on a roll with that post yesterday – adding another reference link to the intro (to one of the times I reblogged my post featuring the “Smiler Shop TV” video so people know who Matt and Carol Alton are), adding “oh hey, her maiden name was Margaret Wallace” to the list of facts about her (and admitting I’d gotten that from my Shaun The Sheep Wallace & Gromit pin that currently lives on my desk XD), and writing up her situation in the Modern AU universe and the Londerland Bloodlines universe, as those are the only two universes so far where she actually has a chance of getting away from Kelman alive and unmolested (in the Modern AU, she successfully divorces his ass when he goes down for running a cult, surrenders Smiler when she realizes she doesn’t want to be a mother, and starts over fresh in another part of the country; in the Londerland Bloodlines AU, she runs when he’s attacked by the patient who will become his Sire, thinking he’s going to die (which, he kind of does), surrenders Smiler when she doesn’t want to be a mother, and starts off fresh in another part of the country – with the caveat that Kelman MIGHT try to track her down to ghoul or Embrace her, in which case she kills herself rather than be under his control again). *nods* Making good progress here – just gotta do the outro, give it another once-over, and do the tags, and it’ll be ready to pop into the queue at some point!
C) And third, I added a quick idea for a not-incorrect quote to the upcoming Volume VI of Valicer In The Dark Not-Incorrect quotes – Smiler introducing the Three Pillars to someone, and said someone recognizing Victor as the son of canned fish magnate William Van Dort, Alice as the woman from Rutledge the Doskvol Illustrated kept writing about, and Smiler as the creator and seller of that new hot drug on the market, Joy Serum...and asking how they get away with any crime (Alice: “We’re very good.”) XD I came up with it last night, remembered it after lunch, and decided I had to write it down before I forgot it!
Valice Multiverse – And over here, I put another anon ask into my queue for tomorrow – a long ramble by Fact Core about how in 1927, Hebert Hoover declared war on Cuba; bread was sold for a nickel per gallon; and two men, Jeremiah Phillips and an unnamed associate, became millionaires from starting a new dance craze called the “You summabitch” (inspired by the unnamed associate kicking two children when Phillips met him) and poured all their money into constructing the Empire State Building over the next seven years...only for an Ice Age to set in and slowly kill all of humanity. I had Aperture Wage Slave!Victor respond by pinching his nose and noting that was a lot of nonsense, even for Fact Core, and ask if anyone had taken a look at his code lately. XD You know, feels appropriate to get a Portal-themed ask shortly after I started replaying Portal 2! Thanks anon! :)
Writing: Once again, got another chunk of edits done on Chapter 3 of “The Van Dort Vacancy” before heading into video game territory – today’s chunklet featured:
A) Alice and Smiler re-entering the busy kitchen, and Alice getting a bunch of potatoes dumped in her arms and told to chop them up into thumb-sized chunks; Smiler, meanwhile, ran over to help one of the other maids, Cecily, with a shadefruit (aka tomato – they’re in the nightshade family, hence the Duskwallian name) soup that didn’t taste right – they figured out it was too acidic and suggested honey to cut the sting
...and the rest of it is going to have to wait until tomorrow, because I'd actually forgotten I hadn't finished this section and it's 2:20 AM in the morning right now. *facepalm* Okay, time for bed -- I'll finish this and fix the spacing on the stuff before tomorrow! EDIT 1/24/2026: Spacing fixed and cuts added below -- here's the rest of the writing-sum up:
B) Smiler shocking Cecily and Mrs. Pemberly with the reveal that they’d been right on the money to suggest honey to reduce the acidity of the soup, leading to them getting assigned to making a cream sauce for some chicken, and Mrs. Pemberly being further impressed by Alice’s chopping skills; Alice couldn’t help but brag a little about being speedy with a knife, and in Wonderland the Duchess agreed and said that the only reason she fared so well when Alice fought her way back when was because she was just as speedy with her pepper, before declaring that the moral of the little anecdote was “Haste makes waste, but it also keeps you alive,” which Alice was happy enough to agree with
C) And Mrs. Pemberly, now properly convinced “Allison” and “Simon” actually had experience working in a kitchen, apologizing to Alice about doubting them, even if she still thought it was odd Nell hadn’t told her about the new hires, as she was usually pretty good at keeping on top of that; Alice suggested that she’d been too busy planning the party, and Mrs. Pemberly agreed, saying that if she’d put a tenth of the effort she’d put into arranging the event into trying to find her son...then stopping because now was NOT the time for gossip (shame, because I’m sure we all would have loved to hear it!)
So yeah, pretty productive page! I left off with Alice going to wash her knife in preparation for getting some shadefruit to slice up – next time, she’ll have a quick meet-up with Smiler at the sink, then get back to her temporary kitchen duties – at least, until she hears a familiar voice behind her...
Baldur’s Gate III: Got to this a bit later than I wanted, but I did get to it – and today’s trip to Faerûn to continue the adventures of Tav!Smiler and friends focused pretty much entirely on goblins and death! What do I mean by that? Let me explain:
A) I picked up where I left off on Tuesday, with Smiler and company hanging out in the Makeshift Prison at the back of the tiefling camp, having just convinced Arka the tiefling to spare the goblin prisoner Sazza instead of murdering her in a futile attempt to avenge her brother Kanon’s death at the gates. Reason? Well, as Smiler said last time, Sazza still had a story to tell, and they wanted to hear it – especially the bits about this “Absolute” who kept coming up… I thus briefly swapped control to Wyll to have him close the door into the prison (wouldn’t do for any of the tieflings to peek in and see the group apparently colluding with the enemy – Smiler will be resolving this situation in your favor, guys, I promise!), then went back to Smiler to quickly check the containers around the prison for anything interesting (nothing in the “Equipment” or “Evidence” chests, which I presume contains your stuff and any ill-gotten gains if you get sent to prison, and the barrels only had one carrot and one chicken – guess we know what the prisoners eat now!) before returning to the cage to chat with Sazza. She greeted them with “Ain’t sure why ya protected me. Don’t care, neither,” before cheerfully warning them that “It’s too late to make friends, worgmeat. My tribe’s comin’. They’re gonna burn this pretty place for the glory of the Absolute and ‘ang ya by yer guts.” *grimaces* Pleasant. Smiler, though, saw their opportunity and seized it, asking, “Who is this Absolute you’re so fond of? Your god?” An annoyed Sazza corrected them with “Goddess,” before declaring worshipfully that “We’re burnin’ Her name across the face o’ the world, we are. The Absolute is gold from the sky, She is. The blessin’ in the storm an’ the storm itself.” Smiler, quite intrigued, admitted that Sazza had caught their interest and asked if she might have any holy literature on her. Sazza responded that her tribe could fill them in –
Then revealed, “Absolute blessed one of our own – Priestess Gut. Got a whole lab set up. Cooks up potions that fix our lads no matter how much of a beatin’ they take. Could probably stick yer head back on if someone woz to chop it off. Mighty booyahg.” (Gale cut in here to clarify that “booyahg” was the goblin word for “magic,” adding “Primitive to a fault, but not entirely without merit.” ...that feels vaguely species-ist, Gale. But then again, that’s kind of a baked-in flaw of D&D…) Smiler told Sazza that they were very keen on meeting Gut if that was the case, and Sazza offered them a deal – if they got her out of the grove, she’d tell them where to find her. Smiler accepted her terms (to the disapproval of Lae’zel and Wyll), and Sazza urged them to hurry up and let her loose – “My tribe ain’t as friendly as I am.” Yeah, I suspect they are not, Sazza! Anyway, that wrapped up the conversation between Smiler and Sazza –
B) Meaning it was Astarion’s turn to be the main character, as he was the one with the deftest hands in the party and thus the one with the best chance of picking the lock! I briefly had him try to hide, just in case that was necessary/would help with the lockpicking (as it WAS an illegal action) – however, he just stood up again because Sazza immediately spotted him with her goblin Darkvision and asked if he had something to hide. Figuring “well, SHE’S not about to report me to the authorities,” I then had Astarion approach the cage and click on the locked door –
Which started a conversation with Sazza, as I’d forgotten that, to start lockpicking, you had to RIGHT-click on the locked item and select “lockpick” from the menu. *facepalm* Hey, I don’t actually do lockpicking all that often in this game! (Not to mention I’m juggling it with a few others now…) Anyway, Sazza greeted Astarion with “I already met your friend. You here to get me out of here?” As he indeed was, I had him reply, “Just be patient. I’ll break you free soon enough” –
And Sazza grumped, “Well, ‘urry up. I got all the time in the world. You don’t.” Lovely woman. *shakehead* Fortunately, that ended the cutscene, and Astarion was able to get to work actually PICKING the lock – and with his fifty million bonuses (including the Gloves of Power we looted from the goblins at the front and a bit of extra Guidance from Shadowheart), he easily beat the DC 10 check with a 23. The cage door was opened, and Sazza walked free –
C) Leaving the question of “how the hell do we get her out of here without upsetting all the tieflings??” Because, yeah, I didn’t think walking her out through the front gate would go very well! Fortunately, I’d done a bit of research about this previously, and knew there was a secret door somewhere around the back of the prison that led to an underground passage that the gang could sneak Sazza through. The trick was finding it! My first thought was to look behind the “rusted prison door” across from the cage and see if it was hidden somewhere behind there –
But when I had Astarion approach it, it proved to be locked. And when I tried to have him pick it, the game insisted he “couldn’t reach” it. Despite the fact that he was standing right next to said door. O.o Um – okay? Don’t know how that could be possible, but okay? (Maybe it’s only accessible if one of your party has ended up in prison and you need to break them out from behind it…) I instead spun the camera around and began looking at the rocks and platforms behind the main prison area –
And spotted a fairly large platform off to the left, behind Sazza’s cage, covered in mushrooms and greenery, with a few wooden pillars atop it and a mysterious crack in the rock above it. Hmmm. That seemed like a viable place for a hidden door to be! I sent Smiler over and confirmed they could jump onto it –
And sure enough, the moment they landed, they passed a passive Wisdom (Perception) check, and a secret stone door covered in fancy swirls was revealed! Excellent! I thus had Smiler move forward and wait for all the other members of their party to jump down and join them, ready to head into the secret passage and get their temporary goblin ally out of there –
Except – uh – said goblin ally didn’t come down and join them. Sazza remained by the open door of her cage, complaining about the “tiefs” everywhere. “Oh shit – I have to go and talk to her again to get her to come with us, don’t I?” I realized, annoyed. “God damn it…” So everyone had to jump back UP onto the original platform (starting with Wyll, as he was the closest to the edge and thus the best one to initiate the jump party) so Smiler could go over and remind Sazza they broke her out for a reason. She greeted them with “Ready to go meet my tribe? Just say the word” – girl, we were ready the minute we let you out! Smiler much more politely went “Follow me. I’ll keep you safe,” to which Sazza replied “’Appily. Lead the way” –
And that attached her to Smiler as a follower, making her an official member of the party and forcing her to follow them around! Finally! Yes, I know, my fault for not realizing she wouldn’t automatically join them, but still. Bit silly, that!
D) With Sazza now part of the group, the gang jumped back down to the platform with the secret door, where (after Smiler took a quick poke in the rotting basket nearby, and found nothing but rotting food – shocker), they headed into the caves of the Underground Passage! Smiler led the way forward through all the stalactites and stalagmites and mud, pausing only briefly to pass another passive Perception check and note there were glowing eyes ahead. And indeed there were – a few sets of them, in fact, belonging to a handful of goblins – Warrior Gresh, Sharp-Eyes Gurza, and Tracker Torrack – standing by an unconscious druid, Findal, that had just loaded in at the other end of the passage. They were fortunately unaware of the party, instead chatting with each other about how they would “get the druid talking” and how they were sure the grove was full of magic, with Torrack declaring that that was why he kept killing all the rats – they might be spies, after all. *nods* You know what, Torrack – smart. Feeling like I was prepared to meet these goblins, in conversation or in battle, I had the group carefully move forward –
Aaand then something started shooting fiery rays at the various members of the party. Fiery rays that took out not only Sazza (who only had 9 HP and thus was very squishy), but also our lovely wizard Gale! And did a pretty good number on Astarion too. Baffled, and not wanting to IMMEDIATELY fail at rescuing Sazza, I exited to the main menu as Gale’s projection (a magical hologram of himself he set up to appear should the worst happen) popped up to warn Smiler that Gale had to be resurrected post-fucking-haste (because you leave Gale dead long enough, and the orb in his chest just fucking explodes), then reloaded my last save, which was right before the gang had “recruited” Sazza as a follower. I thus had Smiler re-ask her to follow them, then sent the gang back into the Underground Passage to see what was up. And this time, when Smiler passed the Perception Check to spot the glowing eyes, I took a proper look around the room to see what they’d found, instead of just assuming they’d spotted the goblins –
And saw a “Guardian Statue” of a big old bear just ahead, tucked into the side of the wall. “A trap!” I realized. “That explains all the murder and death last time. Okay – so how do I get past it without setting it off? I don’t see any obvious triggers…” I decided my best bet would be to send a few members of the party up alone to see if they made any more Perception checks, so I toggled off the “group” mode (where all your companions automatically follow you) and sent Smiler creeping forward...then, realizing Sazza was still following them, had them hold position and instead sent Astarion forward. Neither of them noticed anything, but the bear didn’t start shooting at either of them, so I considered that a win. “Is it as simple as sneaking past it?” I wondered briefly –
Then went “no, Vic, your phone’s RIGHT THERE” and instead looked up what the hell I had to do. Because might as well take advantage of the internet rather than getting any of my party killed! A quick skim through the wiki revealed that the guardian statue (of which the bear was only one – there were two others, featuring different animals, that I was likely to encounter along the way) could be turned off by interacting with the correct rune on the wall. Fortunately, I’d already noticed the “Rune Of The Bear” stuck to the rock on the opposite side of the passage –
Unfortunately, the rune was past where the bear started shooting fiery death from its eyes. Bit of a conundrum, that! Fortunately, the wiki had an answer for that too – either a brave character could risk using a dash to get to the rune and shut the damn thing off...or someone could cast Mage Hand and get the hand to do it for them. And guess who has Mage Hand in his list of cantrips? That’s right – none other than our man Gale! I thus had him cast the cantrip, summoning the hand before him –
Where it got immediately murdered by a fire bolt from the statue. *sigh* “Okay, my fault for casting it within range of the bolts,” I thought. “Let’s just cast it again and – what the fuck do you MEAN, you need a short rest first???”
Yeah, uh, apparently Mage Hand is that rare cantrip that cannot be cast willy-nilly – it’s limited to one cast per short rest. Don’t ask me why, that’s just the rules. *facepalm* I was initially annoyed...but then I thought “you know, part of the reason you’ve been so reluctant to long rest is because you haven’t used up any of your short rests yet. And Astarion’s been walking around with a few hit points of damage for a while, and I’m pretty sure there’s a fight coming up with those goblins up ahead...yeah, all right, let’s use up a short rest.” So I did, refreshing the party and restoring Gale’s ability to summon a magical hand. And this time, when I had him cast the spell, I had him cast it at the edge of his range, right in front of the rune that needed pressing. The hand this time manifested without a problem –
And one slap of the rune later, the bear was deactivated! Yay! That definitely took longer than it should have, but yay!
E) With the killer bear statue no longer an issue, and the Mage Hand having poofed out of existence shortly after doing its job (and Gale having also taken a moment to restore one of his level one spell slots with an Arcane Charge, just in case), the group was free to continue forward and confront the goblins down the passage (who’d spent their time talking about how they’d like to set the entire grove on fire and wondering if the fight at the front had gone bad). Warrior Gresh spotted the group first and mockingly asked, “Did some bleeding hearts show up to save the druid? I’ll cut ya to pieces!” Sazza demanded to know what the guy was doing, pointing out it was her, one of the people on his side –
But Gresh replied, “You and them other idiots mucked up the whole raid. The Absolute don’t like failures.” A furious Sazza shot back, “I ain’t a failure – I’ll be a hero when I tell the boss about this place. Adn you’ll be maggot food,” prompting an equally-angry Gresh to snarl, “I’ll be tellin’ the boss myself Kill ‘em!” –
And, as expected, a fight broke out between the party and the goblins – who, I was surprised to learn, actually equaled four in number – turns out there was another tracker, Tracker Worm, on a high ledge waaay above the others. (Findal and the Guardian Statue were included too, but as the former was unconscious with one HP and the latter deactivated, they didn’t really do much.) Initiative was rolled, and the battle began, starting with:
Round One – Astarion got to go first – as there was no place for him to hide and try and pull off his Rogue tricks, he instead decided to take advantage of the spell granted to him by his new fancy bow and applied a Hunter’s Mark to Gresh, ensuring that he’d do extra piercing damage if he landed a shot on him, before, well, trying to shoot him. Sadly, he missed, and – unable to figure out anything to do with his bonus actions – he just scurried across the path to get a better shot for the next round. Lae’zel was up next, and decided to try a Ranged Menacing Attack on Gresh by spending a Superiority Die – unfortunately, she missed too (though that at least meant she didn’t lose the die). With nothing better to do, I had her move in front of Astarion to serve as a meat shield of sorts, since she had more hit points and better armor than him. Sharp-Eyed Gurza then took her turn, and shot an arrow at Astarion – but while she managed to hit him for three points of damage, she was not able to use Ensnaring Strike on him, as he made the saving throw. Whew! This brought things around to Shadowheart, who readied a second-level cast of Guiding Bolt and shot it at Gresh –
And hit! Dropping him immediately to 1 HP out 15! :D I am SO glad that the “Shadowheart always misses” meme does not apply to my game. I moved her in front of Smiler, then moved over to Wyll to see what he could do. My first thought was to have him cast Arms of Hadar – but as it turns out, that is a surprisingly close-range spell, requiring Wyll to be within ten feet of his targets. So instead I had him use the Standard Warlock Cantrip, Eldritch Blast, to take out Gresh, before moving him up front with all the people who had more HP than Smiler and Gale. XD This brought things around to the two trackers, Torrack and Worm – the former fired his arrow at Wyll and took off about 3 HP (thank the gods for False Life!), while the second took advantage of her high ground to fire at Lae’zel, and take 8 HP off her total. *wince* Fortunately, though, that brought things around to Gale in the turn order –
And Gale, of course, has the old classic Magic Missile – the spell that ALWAYS HITS. Gale thus targeted each of the three goblins remaining with a missile, and managed to take 3 HP off Torrack, 2 off Worm, and 3 of Gurza. Which doesn’t sound like a lot, but Worm and Torrack only had 7 HP each, while Gurza had 12, so – not an insignificant chunk of health there! Sazza was technically up after Gale, but after realizing the little goblin woman had absolutely no weapons, nor much movement, I sent her to instead hide behind a nearby pillar to keep safe and moved immediately onto Smiler. Who quickly examined one Sharp-Eyed Gurza to see what her Wisdom score was –
And then, upon learning it was an 8, hitting her with good old Id Insinuation! Incapacitating her and inflicting Psychic damage, Smiler’s favorite kind of damage. They then capped off the round by giving Astarion a bit of Bardic Inspiration, in case he needed it. Which brought us to –
Round Two – Which started with Astarion, feeling pretty good about life, recasting his “Hunter’s Mark” spell on Torrack before shooting him with his bow – THIS time, the arrow flew true, and Torrack immediately died. Astarion thus scurried forward, onto a little ledge near where Findal was lying, and moved the Hunter’s Mark to Worm with his second bonus action before passing the turn to Lae’zel. After a bit of thought, I decided to have her go for a straight up Main Weapon Attack on Gurza to see if she could take her out. “I will not know failure!” Lae’zel cried as she ran forward and up onto the ledge where Gurza was standing stunned, sword at the ready –
And then proceeded to critically miss. Uh, yeah, I think you will know failure, Lae’zel. I’m a little surprised Shadowheart didn’t start cackling! XD Lae’zel, caught flat-footed, chose to use her bonus action to heal herself with her Second Wind ability (restoring 7 of her lost hit points). The turn then passed to Gurza –
But, uh, Gurza was a little bit distracted by all the conflicting desires floating around her head to actually DO anything. She failed both the saving throws to throw off the Id Insinuation, taking 8 Psychic Damage in the process, and remained incapacitated. Yay! :D The turn then passed to Shadowheart, who – wanting to save her remaining spell slots – chose to fling her Sacred Flame cantrip at Worm up on her ledge. Sadly, the goblin managed to save against it, meaning she took no damage from that –
And then Wyll stepped up and hit her with an Eldritch Blast, and she immediately died. Well then. XD Gale then finished off Gurza with a nice quick Firebolt, and the battle was won! Astarion promptly declared “I’m so tired. How do people do this all day?” XD Don’t ask me, Astarion – I’m DEFINITELY not fighting people all day!
And so the playsession ended with the party in the Underground passage, ready to loot their goblin foes of any goodies before helping Sazza continue her escape attempt (I’m, uh, gonna leave Findal unconscious for the time being unless the game FORCES me to wake him up – he probably wouldn’t look kindly on us sneaking a goblin out of the grove)! Next time, the group will continue down the passage, and hopefully not get killed by any more guardian statues. We’ll see what happens – at least now I know what to look for and how to turn them off!
Workout: My final night on the bike this week saw me switch gears from Fallout: New Vegas content to Baldur’s Gate III content for my Friday ride, as I watched “Can You Beat Baldur's Gate 3 Using Only Pink Actions?” by Proxy Gate Tactician! This challenge run saw Proxy’s pink dragonborn Dark Urge Bard Barney and his party of misfits limited to only using actions that have a pink icon – no jumping, no normal weapon actions, no drinking healing potions, and nothing that Proxy decided shaded too far toward purple, like Thunderwave. It was all pink, all the time – Proxy even downloaded an unlimited pink dye mod to make sure everyone’s armor was as pink as their actions. XD As usual, the quest was to reach the end of the game and secure whatever ending best suited the Pink Panthers (which is NOT what Proxy called them, but what he SHOULD have called them). Did they succeed?
Yes – but it was a ROYAL pain in the ass for poor Proxy, who apparently spent fifty-six hours on this particular run. O.O Highlights of this cavalcade of pink pain for our favorite BG3 challenge runner included:
A) Barney, Lae’zel, and Shadowheart nearly dying during the tutorial level – specifically, while trying to get to the transponder to END said tutorial level – because there were no pink-colored actions to help them move faster, and their combat options were kind of limited to Shadowheart’s “Command” and Barney’s “Vicious Mockery,” neither of which was great. In fact, a lack of damage-dealing pink spells and actions remained a problem for most of the run, with the group having to rely on “Vicious Mockery” and Astarion’s Swashbuckler Rogue “Pocket Sand” until they finally reached Level 7 in the Shadow-Cursed Lands and unlocked “Evard’s Black Tentacles” to murder people through eldritch terrain
B) Proxy deciding that the group had to have Karlach in it this time around due to the color scheme (okay, Karlach’s clearly RED, but close enough) – only to be foiled by the fact that nobody could ford the river or traverse the nearby broken bridge to reach her spot with their allowed actions (jump is forbidden, remember?); cue him:
I. Consulting the BG3 Wiki and discovering that the “Charger” feat apparently had a pink version of the Shove action that he could use to shove people across gaps that normally you’d have to jump
II. Traveling around what bits of Act 1 he could reach with Astarion, Shadowheart, and Gale, retrieving Withers from his tomb for Gale-resurrection and class-change purposes (no, not to make everyone Bards, even though Proxy had realized that was probably the smartest party comp under this ruleset – he wanted to play with UNIQUE classes, so instead Shadowheart become a Sorcerer and Gale a Warlock to maximize their pink powers – as previously stated, Astarion stayed a Rogue) and getting them as much XP as possible when their only real damage-dealers were “Vicious Mockery” and Gale’s necrotic corpse
III. FINALLY reaching Level 4 and taking the “Charger” feat – only to discover that the icon for its unique shove is in fact A RED SWORD (apparently a pink shoving hand is what the people using CONTROLLERS see, not the people using keyboards and mice. Whoops). Proxy was most upset, as you might imagine
IV. Realizing that his only chance to get across that gap was to cast Silence (which I think is more purple than pink, but I’ll let it slide) repeatedly with Gale respecced to a Wild Magic Sorcerer and hope against HOPE that he got a Wild Magic Surge that gave the guy telekinesis so he could throw Barney over and open the waypoint – he got there in the end, but it took so long he refused to ever put himself through that for the rest of the run. At least he WAS finally able to recruit Karlach after that!
C) The party trying to bait NPCs into doing stuff and killing enemies for them, which worked sometimes (getting the duergar in Grymforge to set off the bomb to free True Soul Nere from the rubble...which then almost ended in True Soul Nere killing the party), but not others (not only did the Harpers at Last Light Inn refuse to help with the Shadow-Cursed Vine Mounds the group lured toward the Inn, Isobel ended up siding with the Mounds to fight the group, and they allowed one of the Mounds to arrest Karlach! Proxy was as confused as anybody, though he did at least welcome the chance to Vicious Mockery the Harpers to death for the XP)
D) Shortly after getting Evard’s Black Tentacles, the party heading back to the Act 1 areas (how, I’m not sure – I thought the game forcibly transformed you if you tried to leave Act 2?) to kill a bunch of bosses – and show off the combo that would get some actual damage dealers to join their party: “Polymorph” plus “Dominate Beast.” Because, if you polymorph someone – say, the high-ranking githyanki warrior Ch’r’ai W’wargaz (say that three times fast) – into a sheep, then have a companion use “Dominate Beast” to turn them into a sort of temporary companion, you can then send that companion and their sheep back to camp, dismiss them to get rid of the polymorph sheep, then re-recruit them to get the original form of the enemy you polymorphed and dominated as a permanent glitch-summon. Naturally, Barney and friends could only “recruit” enemies who had pink actions of their own to use, but that still included people like W’wargaz (who had some pretty nasty psychic stuff going on, including “Psychic Rend,” which inflicts 2D8 +3 psychic damage AND can force Disadvantage on the target’s Intelligence and Wisdom saving throws and checks), True Soul Nere (who had “Wicked Coercion” to force enemies to fight at his side), and a spectator (who had Paralyzing and Wounding Rays), who proved at least somewhat useful during the battles in Moonrise and beyond (their damage-per-second was horrible, but at least the spectator could kill all the eyeballs that kept following them around!) – unfortunately, their method of recruitment meant that when they, and future enemies glitched into the party in this fashion, died, the group had to keep dragging their corpses around with them. A harsh punishment indeed!
E) Proxy murder-hoboing his way to Level 9 in Act 2 and unlocking the actual “Telekinesis” spell, which finally put an end to the group being foiled by small gaps that required jumping – the relief in his voice when he got it was palpable
F) The party accidentally turning their spectator into a “stuns everyone on the screen, including its friends” bomb in the Astral Plane while trying to help the Emperor against the githyanki attack, by telekinetically flinging it around and causing it to build up charges that would eventually be converted into the stunning spin attack! Proxy was more annoyed that it didn’t prompt the Emperor to join the encounter, though – probably because the Emperor is a little bitch
G) Proxy discovering a new way to get past the “5 turns or you’re dead” murder-ghost in the murder chasm leading to the Temple of Bhaal – use fog clouds to get past him and trigger combat with some of the OTHER Bhaalists around; kill them and get a key to a door that leads to a path AROUND the murder chasm; follow that path, picking off all comers with all the team’s psychic damage nonsense; then finally reach the ghost and mock and sand him to death! Just another reason Proxy does these damage runs – he always seems to learn something new about the game!
H) Barney using the power of dominated “summons” to cheat during his Dark Urge duel with Orin (as normally companions can’t interfere or it turns into the usual free-for-all) and utterly wreck her shit, getting not only her Netherstone, but “Power Word: Kill” – a pink one-time-use spell that can force an enemy with 100 HP or less to die, and which would become crucial to the end game
I) Proxy experiencing all sorts of fun new glitches when he joined Gortash at the Morphic Pool to try and dominate the Netherbrain (having decided against betraying the “handsome young man” when he could barely beat one of the Steel Watchers in the street) – first Gortash disappeared, then most of the game world disappeared, leaving a dragon from the upcoming fight against the brain hanging in midair in the distance. And then the game just straight-up froze for thirty seconds when the Netherbrain tried to lecture Barney about how he would NOT be dominating it to help spread Bhaal’s scourge across the world – Proxy seriously thought it had crashed for a second (mostly because the game had ALREADY crashed twice in Act 1, causing him to reflexively curse Todd Howard the second time XD)
J) And the party cheesing their way past most of the run to the Netherbrain via Telekinesis tricks (including flinging Shadowheart into a breakable grate and at the Netherbrain’s long gross spinal cord to skip certain bits); discovering their only hope to get to the actual portal to dominate the brain and take on its will mano-a-mano was to go straight up the middle past the dragon and lay all their hope in their bevy of stunning spells to keep most of the enemies from murdering them; getting to just cast Karsus’ Compulsion without any issues regarding their challenge because – surprise – it’s a pink action; and almost every member of the party dying to the Netherbrain’s will during the big fight against it...but managing to get its heath down to 99 HP in the process, allowing Barney, the last dragonborn standing, to slaughter it with “Power Word: Kill.” And then betray all his allies and dominate the brain to become king of the world and probably kill everyone in Bhaal’s name. Because this dinosaur was not about love and peace and friendship – only pink.
...one of these days I will learn how to sum up a Proxy video more quickly. *shakehead* Just – so much good stuff happens in each one, and I want to tell you all every fun thing, and – yeah. It’s a me problem, trust me, I know. One day.
EDIT 1/24/2026: ...okay, what I think I really need to do is just not double-up on games and videos that I KNOW will take me a long time to sum up. No more Proxy if I've played BG3, for example. Sad, but has to be done! Though I don't think it'll be much of a problem after this week, given I will have less free time to play video games...we'll see.
Anyway -- despite all the stressful stuff, I was still able to get some stuff done, the details of which are noted below:
Tumblr: Today was another day where I actually managed to accomplish things on both tumblrs, shock of shocks –
Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – Got THREE things done today over here, go me –
A) First, I picked my Song Saturday song for the week and added it to the queue – a reblog of “This Year” by The Mountain Goats, which is famous for the line “I’m gonna make it through this year if it kills me.” I last reblogged it at the beginning of 2024, but given the way both the USA and my personal life have been going to shit all throughout January, it felt MORE than appropriate to bring it back around for 2026. *shakes head* I am going to be so happy when the 2020s are over...
B) Second, I revised more of “The Miseries Of Margaret Kelman (AKA What Happened To Smiler’s Birth Mother?)” since I was on a roll with that post yesterday – adding another reference link to the intro (to one of the times I reblogged my post featuring the “Smiler Shop TV” video so people know who Matt and Carol Alton are), adding “oh hey, her maiden name was Margaret Wallace” to the list of facts about her (and admitting I’d gotten that from my Shaun The Sheep Wallace & Gromit pin that currently lives on my desk XD), and writing up her situation in the Modern AU universe and the Londerland Bloodlines universe, as those are the only two universes so far where she actually has a chance of getting away from Kelman alive and unmolested (in the Modern AU, she successfully divorces his ass when he goes down for running a cult, surrenders Smiler when she realizes she doesn’t want to be a mother, and starts over fresh in another part of the country; in the Londerland Bloodlines AU, she runs when he’s attacked by the patient who will become his Sire, thinking he’s going to die (which, he kind of does), surrenders Smiler when she doesn’t want to be a mother, and starts off fresh in another part of the country – with the caveat that Kelman MIGHT try to track her down to ghoul or Embrace her, in which case she kills herself rather than be under his control again). *nods* Making good progress here – just gotta do the outro, give it another once-over, and do the tags, and it’ll be ready to pop into the queue at some point!
C) And third, I added a quick idea for a not-incorrect quote to the upcoming Volume VI of Valicer In The Dark Not-Incorrect quotes – Smiler introducing the Three Pillars to someone, and said someone recognizing Victor as the son of canned fish magnate William Van Dort, Alice as the woman from Rutledge the Doskvol Illustrated kept writing about, and Smiler as the creator and seller of that new hot drug on the market, Joy Serum...and asking how they get away with any crime (Alice: “We’re very good.”) XD I came up with it last night, remembered it after lunch, and decided I had to write it down before I forgot it!
Valice Multiverse – And over here, I put another anon ask into my queue for tomorrow – a long ramble by Fact Core about how in 1927, Hebert Hoover declared war on Cuba; bread was sold for a nickel per gallon; and two men, Jeremiah Phillips and an unnamed associate, became millionaires from starting a new dance craze called the “You summabitch” (inspired by the unnamed associate kicking two children when Phillips met him) and poured all their money into constructing the Empire State Building over the next seven years...only for an Ice Age to set in and slowly kill all of humanity. I had Aperture Wage Slave!Victor respond by pinching his nose and noting that was a lot of nonsense, even for Fact Core, and ask if anyone had taken a look at his code lately. XD You know, feels appropriate to get a Portal-themed ask shortly after I started replaying Portal 2! Thanks anon! :)
Writing: Once again, got another chunk of edits done on Chapter 3 of “The Van Dort Vacancy” before heading into video game territory – today’s chunklet featured:
A) Alice and Smiler re-entering the busy kitchen, and Alice getting a bunch of potatoes dumped in her arms and told to chop them up into thumb-sized chunks; Smiler, meanwhile, ran over to help one of the other maids, Cecily, with a shadefruit (aka tomato – they’re in the nightshade family, hence the Duskwallian name) soup that didn’t taste right – they figured out it was too acidic and suggested honey to cut the sting
...and the rest of it is going to have to wait until tomorrow, because I'd actually forgotten I hadn't finished this section and it's 2:20 AM in the morning right now. *facepalm* Okay, time for bed -- I'll finish this and fix the spacing on the stuff before tomorrow! EDIT 1/24/2026: Spacing fixed and cuts added below -- here's the rest of the writing-sum up:
B) Smiler shocking Cecily and Mrs. Pemberly with the reveal that they’d been right on the money to suggest honey to reduce the acidity of the soup, leading to them getting assigned to making a cream sauce for some chicken, and Mrs. Pemberly being further impressed by Alice’s chopping skills; Alice couldn’t help but brag a little about being speedy with a knife, and in Wonderland the Duchess agreed and said that the only reason she fared so well when Alice fought her way back when was because she was just as speedy with her pepper, before declaring that the moral of the little anecdote was “Haste makes waste, but it also keeps you alive,” which Alice was happy enough to agree with
C) And Mrs. Pemberly, now properly convinced “Allison” and “Simon” actually had experience working in a kitchen, apologizing to Alice about doubting them, even if she still thought it was odd Nell hadn’t told her about the new hires, as she was usually pretty good at keeping on top of that; Alice suggested that she’d been too busy planning the party, and Mrs. Pemberly agreed, saying that if she’d put a tenth of the effort she’d put into arranging the event into trying to find her son...then stopping because now was NOT the time for gossip (shame, because I’m sure we all would have loved to hear it!)
So yeah, pretty productive page! I left off with Alice going to wash her knife in preparation for getting some shadefruit to slice up – next time, she’ll have a quick meet-up with Smiler at the sink, then get back to her temporary kitchen duties – at least, until she hears a familiar voice behind her...
Baldur’s Gate III: Got to this a bit later than I wanted, but I did get to it – and today’s trip to Faerûn to continue the adventures of Tav!Smiler and friends focused pretty much entirely on goblins and death! What do I mean by that? Let me explain:
A) I picked up where I left off on Tuesday, with Smiler and company hanging out in the Makeshift Prison at the back of the tiefling camp, having just convinced Arka the tiefling to spare the goblin prisoner Sazza instead of murdering her in a futile attempt to avenge her brother Kanon’s death at the gates. Reason? Well, as Smiler said last time, Sazza still had a story to tell, and they wanted to hear it – especially the bits about this “Absolute” who kept coming up… I thus briefly swapped control to Wyll to have him close the door into the prison (wouldn’t do for any of the tieflings to peek in and see the group apparently colluding with the enemy – Smiler will be resolving this situation in your favor, guys, I promise!), then went back to Smiler to quickly check the containers around the prison for anything interesting (nothing in the “Equipment” or “Evidence” chests, which I presume contains your stuff and any ill-gotten gains if you get sent to prison, and the barrels only had one carrot and one chicken – guess we know what the prisoners eat now!) before returning to the cage to chat with Sazza. She greeted them with “Ain’t sure why ya protected me. Don’t care, neither,” before cheerfully warning them that “It’s too late to make friends, worgmeat. My tribe’s comin’. They’re gonna burn this pretty place for the glory of the Absolute and ‘ang ya by yer guts.” *grimaces* Pleasant. Smiler, though, saw their opportunity and seized it, asking, “Who is this Absolute you’re so fond of? Your god?” An annoyed Sazza corrected them with “Goddess,” before declaring worshipfully that “We’re burnin’ Her name across the face o’ the world, we are. The Absolute is gold from the sky, She is. The blessin’ in the storm an’ the storm itself.” Smiler, quite intrigued, admitted that Sazza had caught their interest and asked if she might have any holy literature on her. Sazza responded that her tribe could fill them in –
Then revealed, “Absolute blessed one of our own – Priestess Gut. Got a whole lab set up. Cooks up potions that fix our lads no matter how much of a beatin’ they take. Could probably stick yer head back on if someone woz to chop it off. Mighty booyahg.” (Gale cut in here to clarify that “booyahg” was the goblin word for “magic,” adding “Primitive to a fault, but not entirely without merit.” ...that feels vaguely species-ist, Gale. But then again, that’s kind of a baked-in flaw of D&D…) Smiler told Sazza that they were very keen on meeting Gut if that was the case, and Sazza offered them a deal – if they got her out of the grove, she’d tell them where to find her. Smiler accepted her terms (to the disapproval of Lae’zel and Wyll), and Sazza urged them to hurry up and let her loose – “My tribe ain’t as friendly as I am.” Yeah, I suspect they are not, Sazza! Anyway, that wrapped up the conversation between Smiler and Sazza –
B) Meaning it was Astarion’s turn to be the main character, as he was the one with the deftest hands in the party and thus the one with the best chance of picking the lock! I briefly had him try to hide, just in case that was necessary/would help with the lockpicking (as it WAS an illegal action) – however, he just stood up again because Sazza immediately spotted him with her goblin Darkvision and asked if he had something to hide. Figuring “well, SHE’S not about to report me to the authorities,” I then had Astarion approach the cage and click on the locked door –
Which started a conversation with Sazza, as I’d forgotten that, to start lockpicking, you had to RIGHT-click on the locked item and select “lockpick” from the menu. *facepalm* Hey, I don’t actually do lockpicking all that often in this game! (Not to mention I’m juggling it with a few others now…) Anyway, Sazza greeted Astarion with “I already met your friend. You here to get me out of here?” As he indeed was, I had him reply, “Just be patient. I’ll break you free soon enough” –
And Sazza grumped, “Well, ‘urry up. I got all the time in the world. You don’t.” Lovely woman. *shakehead* Fortunately, that ended the cutscene, and Astarion was able to get to work actually PICKING the lock – and with his fifty million bonuses (including the Gloves of Power we looted from the goblins at the front and a bit of extra Guidance from Shadowheart), he easily beat the DC 10 check with a 23. The cage door was opened, and Sazza walked free –
C) Leaving the question of “how the hell do we get her out of here without upsetting all the tieflings??” Because, yeah, I didn’t think walking her out through the front gate would go very well! Fortunately, I’d done a bit of research about this previously, and knew there was a secret door somewhere around the back of the prison that led to an underground passage that the gang could sneak Sazza through. The trick was finding it! My first thought was to look behind the “rusted prison door” across from the cage and see if it was hidden somewhere behind there –
But when I had Astarion approach it, it proved to be locked. And when I tried to have him pick it, the game insisted he “couldn’t reach” it. Despite the fact that he was standing right next to said door. O.o Um – okay? Don’t know how that could be possible, but okay? (Maybe it’s only accessible if one of your party has ended up in prison and you need to break them out from behind it…) I instead spun the camera around and began looking at the rocks and platforms behind the main prison area –
And spotted a fairly large platform off to the left, behind Sazza’s cage, covered in mushrooms and greenery, with a few wooden pillars atop it and a mysterious crack in the rock above it. Hmmm. That seemed like a viable place for a hidden door to be! I sent Smiler over and confirmed they could jump onto it –
And sure enough, the moment they landed, they passed a passive Wisdom (Perception) check, and a secret stone door covered in fancy swirls was revealed! Excellent! I thus had Smiler move forward and wait for all the other members of their party to jump down and join them, ready to head into the secret passage and get their temporary goblin ally out of there –
Except – uh – said goblin ally didn’t come down and join them. Sazza remained by the open door of her cage, complaining about the “tiefs” everywhere. “Oh shit – I have to go and talk to her again to get her to come with us, don’t I?” I realized, annoyed. “God damn it…” So everyone had to jump back UP onto the original platform (starting with Wyll, as he was the closest to the edge and thus the best one to initiate the jump party) so Smiler could go over and remind Sazza they broke her out for a reason. She greeted them with “Ready to go meet my tribe? Just say the word” – girl, we were ready the minute we let you out! Smiler much more politely went “Follow me. I’ll keep you safe,” to which Sazza replied “’Appily. Lead the way” –
And that attached her to Smiler as a follower, making her an official member of the party and forcing her to follow them around! Finally! Yes, I know, my fault for not realizing she wouldn’t automatically join them, but still. Bit silly, that!
D) With Sazza now part of the group, the gang jumped back down to the platform with the secret door, where (after Smiler took a quick poke in the rotting basket nearby, and found nothing but rotting food – shocker), they headed into the caves of the Underground Passage! Smiler led the way forward through all the stalactites and stalagmites and mud, pausing only briefly to pass another passive Perception check and note there were glowing eyes ahead. And indeed there were – a few sets of them, in fact, belonging to a handful of goblins – Warrior Gresh, Sharp-Eyes Gurza, and Tracker Torrack – standing by an unconscious druid, Findal, that had just loaded in at the other end of the passage. They were fortunately unaware of the party, instead chatting with each other about how they would “get the druid talking” and how they were sure the grove was full of magic, with Torrack declaring that that was why he kept killing all the rats – they might be spies, after all. *nods* You know what, Torrack – smart. Feeling like I was prepared to meet these goblins, in conversation or in battle, I had the group carefully move forward –
Aaand then something started shooting fiery rays at the various members of the party. Fiery rays that took out not only Sazza (who only had 9 HP and thus was very squishy), but also our lovely wizard Gale! And did a pretty good number on Astarion too. Baffled, and not wanting to IMMEDIATELY fail at rescuing Sazza, I exited to the main menu as Gale’s projection (a magical hologram of himself he set up to appear should the worst happen) popped up to warn Smiler that Gale had to be resurrected post-fucking-haste (because you leave Gale dead long enough, and the orb in his chest just fucking explodes), then reloaded my last save, which was right before the gang had “recruited” Sazza as a follower. I thus had Smiler re-ask her to follow them, then sent the gang back into the Underground Passage to see what was up. And this time, when Smiler passed the Perception Check to spot the glowing eyes, I took a proper look around the room to see what they’d found, instead of just assuming they’d spotted the goblins –
And saw a “Guardian Statue” of a big old bear just ahead, tucked into the side of the wall. “A trap!” I realized. “That explains all the murder and death last time. Okay – so how do I get past it without setting it off? I don’t see any obvious triggers…” I decided my best bet would be to send a few members of the party up alone to see if they made any more Perception checks, so I toggled off the “group” mode (where all your companions automatically follow you) and sent Smiler creeping forward...then, realizing Sazza was still following them, had them hold position and instead sent Astarion forward. Neither of them noticed anything, but the bear didn’t start shooting at either of them, so I considered that a win. “Is it as simple as sneaking past it?” I wondered briefly –
Then went “no, Vic, your phone’s RIGHT THERE” and instead looked up what the hell I had to do. Because might as well take advantage of the internet rather than getting any of my party killed! A quick skim through the wiki revealed that the guardian statue (of which the bear was only one – there were two others, featuring different animals, that I was likely to encounter along the way) could be turned off by interacting with the correct rune on the wall. Fortunately, I’d already noticed the “Rune Of The Bear” stuck to the rock on the opposite side of the passage –
Unfortunately, the rune was past where the bear started shooting fiery death from its eyes. Bit of a conundrum, that! Fortunately, the wiki had an answer for that too – either a brave character could risk using a dash to get to the rune and shut the damn thing off...or someone could cast Mage Hand and get the hand to do it for them. And guess who has Mage Hand in his list of cantrips? That’s right – none other than our man Gale! I thus had him cast the cantrip, summoning the hand before him –
Where it got immediately murdered by a fire bolt from the statue. *sigh* “Okay, my fault for casting it within range of the bolts,” I thought. “Let’s just cast it again and – what the fuck do you MEAN, you need a short rest first???”
Yeah, uh, apparently Mage Hand is that rare cantrip that cannot be cast willy-nilly – it’s limited to one cast per short rest. Don’t ask me why, that’s just the rules. *facepalm* I was initially annoyed...but then I thought “you know, part of the reason you’ve been so reluctant to long rest is because you haven’t used up any of your short rests yet. And Astarion’s been walking around with a few hit points of damage for a while, and I’m pretty sure there’s a fight coming up with those goblins up ahead...yeah, all right, let’s use up a short rest.” So I did, refreshing the party and restoring Gale’s ability to summon a magical hand. And this time, when I had him cast the spell, I had him cast it at the edge of his range, right in front of the rune that needed pressing. The hand this time manifested without a problem –
And one slap of the rune later, the bear was deactivated! Yay! That definitely took longer than it should have, but yay!
E) With the killer bear statue no longer an issue, and the Mage Hand having poofed out of existence shortly after doing its job (and Gale having also taken a moment to restore one of his level one spell slots with an Arcane Charge, just in case), the group was free to continue forward and confront the goblins down the passage (who’d spent their time talking about how they’d like to set the entire grove on fire and wondering if the fight at the front had gone bad). Warrior Gresh spotted the group first and mockingly asked, “Did some bleeding hearts show up to save the druid? I’ll cut ya to pieces!” Sazza demanded to know what the guy was doing, pointing out it was her, one of the people on his side –
But Gresh replied, “You and them other idiots mucked up the whole raid. The Absolute don’t like failures.” A furious Sazza shot back, “I ain’t a failure – I’ll be a hero when I tell the boss about this place. Adn you’ll be maggot food,” prompting an equally-angry Gresh to snarl, “I’ll be tellin’ the boss myself Kill ‘em!” –
And, as expected, a fight broke out between the party and the goblins – who, I was surprised to learn, actually equaled four in number – turns out there was another tracker, Tracker Worm, on a high ledge waaay above the others. (Findal and the Guardian Statue were included too, but as the former was unconscious with one HP and the latter deactivated, they didn’t really do much.) Initiative was rolled, and the battle began, starting with:
Round One – Astarion got to go first – as there was no place for him to hide and try and pull off his Rogue tricks, he instead decided to take advantage of the spell granted to him by his new fancy bow and applied a Hunter’s Mark to Gresh, ensuring that he’d do extra piercing damage if he landed a shot on him, before, well, trying to shoot him. Sadly, he missed, and – unable to figure out anything to do with his bonus actions – he just scurried across the path to get a better shot for the next round. Lae’zel was up next, and decided to try a Ranged Menacing Attack on Gresh by spending a Superiority Die – unfortunately, she missed too (though that at least meant she didn’t lose the die). With nothing better to do, I had her move in front of Astarion to serve as a meat shield of sorts, since she had more hit points and better armor than him. Sharp-Eyed Gurza then took her turn, and shot an arrow at Astarion – but while she managed to hit him for three points of damage, she was not able to use Ensnaring Strike on him, as he made the saving throw. Whew! This brought things around to Shadowheart, who readied a second-level cast of Guiding Bolt and shot it at Gresh –
And hit! Dropping him immediately to 1 HP out 15! :D I am SO glad that the “Shadowheart always misses” meme does not apply to my game. I moved her in front of Smiler, then moved over to Wyll to see what he could do. My first thought was to have him cast Arms of Hadar – but as it turns out, that is a surprisingly close-range spell, requiring Wyll to be within ten feet of his targets. So instead I had him use the Standard Warlock Cantrip, Eldritch Blast, to take out Gresh, before moving him up front with all the people who had more HP than Smiler and Gale. XD This brought things around to the two trackers, Torrack and Worm – the former fired his arrow at Wyll and took off about 3 HP (thank the gods for False Life!), while the second took advantage of her high ground to fire at Lae’zel, and take 8 HP off her total. *wince* Fortunately, though, that brought things around to Gale in the turn order –
And Gale, of course, has the old classic Magic Missile – the spell that ALWAYS HITS. Gale thus targeted each of the three goblins remaining with a missile, and managed to take 3 HP off Torrack, 2 off Worm, and 3 of Gurza. Which doesn’t sound like a lot, but Worm and Torrack only had 7 HP each, while Gurza had 12, so – not an insignificant chunk of health there! Sazza was technically up after Gale, but after realizing the little goblin woman had absolutely no weapons, nor much movement, I sent her to instead hide behind a nearby pillar to keep safe and moved immediately onto Smiler. Who quickly examined one Sharp-Eyed Gurza to see what her Wisdom score was –
And then, upon learning it was an 8, hitting her with good old Id Insinuation! Incapacitating her and inflicting Psychic damage, Smiler’s favorite kind of damage. They then capped off the round by giving Astarion a bit of Bardic Inspiration, in case he needed it. Which brought us to –
Round Two – Which started with Astarion, feeling pretty good about life, recasting his “Hunter’s Mark” spell on Torrack before shooting him with his bow – THIS time, the arrow flew true, and Torrack immediately died. Astarion thus scurried forward, onto a little ledge near where Findal was lying, and moved the Hunter’s Mark to Worm with his second bonus action before passing the turn to Lae’zel. After a bit of thought, I decided to have her go for a straight up Main Weapon Attack on Gurza to see if she could take her out. “I will not know failure!” Lae’zel cried as she ran forward and up onto the ledge where Gurza was standing stunned, sword at the ready –
And then proceeded to critically miss. Uh, yeah, I think you will know failure, Lae’zel. I’m a little surprised Shadowheart didn’t start cackling! XD Lae’zel, caught flat-footed, chose to use her bonus action to heal herself with her Second Wind ability (restoring 7 of her lost hit points). The turn then passed to Gurza –
But, uh, Gurza was a little bit distracted by all the conflicting desires floating around her head to actually DO anything. She failed both the saving throws to throw off the Id Insinuation, taking 8 Psychic Damage in the process, and remained incapacitated. Yay! :D The turn then passed to Shadowheart, who – wanting to save her remaining spell slots – chose to fling her Sacred Flame cantrip at Worm up on her ledge. Sadly, the goblin managed to save against it, meaning she took no damage from that –
And then Wyll stepped up and hit her with an Eldritch Blast, and she immediately died. Well then. XD Gale then finished off Gurza with a nice quick Firebolt, and the battle was won! Astarion promptly declared “I’m so tired. How do people do this all day?” XD Don’t ask me, Astarion – I’m DEFINITELY not fighting people all day!
And so the playsession ended with the party in the Underground passage, ready to loot their goblin foes of any goodies before helping Sazza continue her escape attempt (I’m, uh, gonna leave Findal unconscious for the time being unless the game FORCES me to wake him up – he probably wouldn’t look kindly on us sneaking a goblin out of the grove)! Next time, the group will continue down the passage, and hopefully not get killed by any more guardian statues. We’ll see what happens – at least now I know what to look for and how to turn them off!
Workout: My final night on the bike this week saw me switch gears from Fallout: New Vegas content to Baldur’s Gate III content for my Friday ride, as I watched “Can You Beat Baldur's Gate 3 Using Only Pink Actions?” by Proxy Gate Tactician! This challenge run saw Proxy’s pink dragonborn Dark Urge Bard Barney and his party of misfits limited to only using actions that have a pink icon – no jumping, no normal weapon actions, no drinking healing potions, and nothing that Proxy decided shaded too far toward purple, like Thunderwave. It was all pink, all the time – Proxy even downloaded an unlimited pink dye mod to make sure everyone’s armor was as pink as their actions. XD As usual, the quest was to reach the end of the game and secure whatever ending best suited the Pink Panthers (which is NOT what Proxy called them, but what he SHOULD have called them). Did they succeed?
Yes – but it was a ROYAL pain in the ass for poor Proxy, who apparently spent fifty-six hours on this particular run. O.O Highlights of this cavalcade of pink pain for our favorite BG3 challenge runner included:
A) Barney, Lae’zel, and Shadowheart nearly dying during the tutorial level – specifically, while trying to get to the transponder to END said tutorial level – because there were no pink-colored actions to help them move faster, and their combat options were kind of limited to Shadowheart’s “Command” and Barney’s “Vicious Mockery,” neither of which was great. In fact, a lack of damage-dealing pink spells and actions remained a problem for most of the run, with the group having to rely on “Vicious Mockery” and Astarion’s Swashbuckler Rogue “Pocket Sand” until they finally reached Level 7 in the Shadow-Cursed Lands and unlocked “Evard’s Black Tentacles” to murder people through eldritch terrain
B) Proxy deciding that the group had to have Karlach in it this time around due to the color scheme (okay, Karlach’s clearly RED, but close enough) – only to be foiled by the fact that nobody could ford the river or traverse the nearby broken bridge to reach her spot with their allowed actions (jump is forbidden, remember?); cue him:
I. Consulting the BG3 Wiki and discovering that the “Charger” feat apparently had a pink version of the Shove action that he could use to shove people across gaps that normally you’d have to jump
II. Traveling around what bits of Act 1 he could reach with Astarion, Shadowheart, and Gale, retrieving Withers from his tomb for Gale-resurrection and class-change purposes (no, not to make everyone Bards, even though Proxy had realized that was probably the smartest party comp under this ruleset – he wanted to play with UNIQUE classes, so instead Shadowheart become a Sorcerer and Gale a Warlock to maximize their pink powers – as previously stated, Astarion stayed a Rogue) and getting them as much XP as possible when their only real damage-dealers were “Vicious Mockery” and Gale’s necrotic corpse
III. FINALLY reaching Level 4 and taking the “Charger” feat – only to discover that the icon for its unique shove is in fact A RED SWORD (apparently a pink shoving hand is what the people using CONTROLLERS see, not the people using keyboards and mice. Whoops). Proxy was most upset, as you might imagine
IV. Realizing that his only chance to get across that gap was to cast Silence (which I think is more purple than pink, but I’ll let it slide) repeatedly with Gale respecced to a Wild Magic Sorcerer and hope against HOPE that he got a Wild Magic Surge that gave the guy telekinesis so he could throw Barney over and open the waypoint – he got there in the end, but it took so long he refused to ever put himself through that for the rest of the run. At least he WAS finally able to recruit Karlach after that!
C) The party trying to bait NPCs into doing stuff and killing enemies for them, which worked sometimes (getting the duergar in Grymforge to set off the bomb to free True Soul Nere from the rubble...which then almost ended in True Soul Nere killing the party), but not others (not only did the Harpers at Last Light Inn refuse to help with the Shadow-Cursed Vine Mounds the group lured toward the Inn, Isobel ended up siding with the Mounds to fight the group, and they allowed one of the Mounds to arrest Karlach! Proxy was as confused as anybody, though he did at least welcome the chance to Vicious Mockery the Harpers to death for the XP)
D) Shortly after getting Evard’s Black Tentacles, the party heading back to the Act 1 areas (how, I’m not sure – I thought the game forcibly transformed you if you tried to leave Act 2?) to kill a bunch of bosses – and show off the combo that would get some actual damage dealers to join their party: “Polymorph” plus “Dominate Beast.” Because, if you polymorph someone – say, the high-ranking githyanki warrior Ch’r’ai W’wargaz (say that three times fast) – into a sheep, then have a companion use “Dominate Beast” to turn them into a sort of temporary companion, you can then send that companion and their sheep back to camp, dismiss them to get rid of the polymorph sheep, then re-recruit them to get the original form of the enemy you polymorphed and dominated as a permanent glitch-summon. Naturally, Barney and friends could only “recruit” enemies who had pink actions of their own to use, but that still included people like W’wargaz (who had some pretty nasty psychic stuff going on, including “Psychic Rend,” which inflicts 2D8 +3 psychic damage AND can force Disadvantage on the target’s Intelligence and Wisdom saving throws and checks), True Soul Nere (who had “Wicked Coercion” to force enemies to fight at his side), and a spectator (who had Paralyzing and Wounding Rays), who proved at least somewhat useful during the battles in Moonrise and beyond (their damage-per-second was horrible, but at least the spectator could kill all the eyeballs that kept following them around!) – unfortunately, their method of recruitment meant that when they, and future enemies glitched into the party in this fashion, died, the group had to keep dragging their corpses around with them. A harsh punishment indeed!
E) Proxy murder-hoboing his way to Level 9 in Act 2 and unlocking the actual “Telekinesis” spell, which finally put an end to the group being foiled by small gaps that required jumping – the relief in his voice when he got it was palpable
F) The party accidentally turning their spectator into a “stuns everyone on the screen, including its friends” bomb in the Astral Plane while trying to help the Emperor against the githyanki attack, by telekinetically flinging it around and causing it to build up charges that would eventually be converted into the stunning spin attack! Proxy was more annoyed that it didn’t prompt the Emperor to join the encounter, though – probably because the Emperor is a little bitch
G) Proxy discovering a new way to get past the “5 turns or you’re dead” murder-ghost in the murder chasm leading to the Temple of Bhaal – use fog clouds to get past him and trigger combat with some of the OTHER Bhaalists around; kill them and get a key to a door that leads to a path AROUND the murder chasm; follow that path, picking off all comers with all the team’s psychic damage nonsense; then finally reach the ghost and mock and sand him to death! Just another reason Proxy does these damage runs – he always seems to learn something new about the game!
H) Barney using the power of dominated “summons” to cheat during his Dark Urge duel with Orin (as normally companions can’t interfere or it turns into the usual free-for-all) and utterly wreck her shit, getting not only her Netherstone, but “Power Word: Kill” – a pink one-time-use spell that can force an enemy with 100 HP or less to die, and which would become crucial to the end game
I) Proxy experiencing all sorts of fun new glitches when he joined Gortash at the Morphic Pool to try and dominate the Netherbrain (having decided against betraying the “handsome young man” when he could barely beat one of the Steel Watchers in the street) – first Gortash disappeared, then most of the game world disappeared, leaving a dragon from the upcoming fight against the brain hanging in midair in the distance. And then the game just straight-up froze for thirty seconds when the Netherbrain tried to lecture Barney about how he would NOT be dominating it to help spread Bhaal’s scourge across the world – Proxy seriously thought it had crashed for a second (mostly because the game had ALREADY crashed twice in Act 1, causing him to reflexively curse Todd Howard the second time XD)
J) And the party cheesing their way past most of the run to the Netherbrain via Telekinesis tricks (including flinging Shadowheart into a breakable grate and at the Netherbrain’s long gross spinal cord to skip certain bits); discovering their only hope to get to the actual portal to dominate the brain and take on its will mano-a-mano was to go straight up the middle past the dragon and lay all their hope in their bevy of stunning spells to keep most of the enemies from murdering them; getting to just cast Karsus’ Compulsion without any issues regarding their challenge because – surprise – it’s a pink action; and almost every member of the party dying to the Netherbrain’s will during the big fight against it...but managing to get its heath down to 99 HP in the process, allowing Barney, the last dragonborn standing, to slaughter it with “Power Word: Kill.” And then betray all his allies and dominate the brain to become king of the world and probably kill everyone in Bhaal’s name. Because this dinosaur was not about love and peace and friendship – only pink.
...one of these days I will learn how to sum up a Proxy video more quickly. *shakehead* Just – so much good stuff happens in each one, and I want to tell you all every fun thing, and – yeah. It’s a me problem, trust me, I know. One day.
EDIT 1/24/2026: ...okay, what I think I really need to do is just not double-up on games and videos that I KNOW will take me a long time to sum up. No more Proxy if I've played BG3, for example. Sad, but has to be done! Though I don't think it'll be much of a problem after this week, given I will have less free time to play video games...we'll see.
no subject
Date: 2026-01-25 12:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-01-25 05:23 pm (UTC)