Things Remain Rough
Jan. 26th, 2026 11:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickYeah, today was another day where the vibes were just completely off for large parts of it -- Dad was struggling with eating and with coughing up gunk for most of the day (he had fluid in his lungs as a side effect of getting fluids at the hospital to combat his dehydration, and it's still coming out); he and Mom were having trouble with all the orders they've been getting online (Mom being unable to find some of the books -- I was called into service to find one this morning, but didn't succeed, sadly -- while Dad was getting pissed off with his computer not working correctly); and not only did Mom have to shovel another six or so inches off the driveway and the paths this morning before I got up (which, admittedly, I got up pretty late, around 10 AM -- felt rather guilty about that), this EVENING, we discovered it was snowing AGAIN and she had to clear another couple of inches (I was already in my pajamas, having just taken my shower). She was royally pissed. *shakehead* And now it looks like Dad will be going back into the hospital again tomorrow so they can start his chemo treatments right away instead of waiting until Friday, so I had to take another day off work...very glad my supervisor is being very understanding about all this! It's just -- it's all a lot, seriously. *shakehead*
Anyway -- I did actually manage to accomplish a bit more today, despite all the bad vibes --
Tumblr: Didn’t get anything done on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) today, but, in a surprise twist (because I don’t usually visit this account on Mondays), I did get something done on Valice Multiverse! What happened is, I saw an ask waiting for me from thesatiricaldemon over there yesterday, but finishing up all my write-ups for my F:NV Courier Victor session and the YOLO Remastered Recap kept me from getting to it. So I decided to make an exception to my “No Valice Multiverse on Mondays and Wednesdays” rule and answer it today. Because Satirical is a nice guy and responsible for the Eldritch Hellworld Valicer nonsense. XD Basically, he sent me an exceedingly weird television commercial for socks (and a “COOL GUY” shirt) sold by a guy named Mike Dragons-Wrath which included lines like “You can NOW purchase these FOOT CONTAINERS that aliken a HORRIBLE, EVIL WIZARD” and “BLEASE buy these clothing arti-cles, NOW! They will be all you need in you’re wardrobe. BUY....NOW! Before LIMBS enter FROST NECROSIS,” and I had Londerland Bloodlines!Alice reply that, honestly, all that weirdness actually did make her want to buy some socks from the guy, “just to see what the fuck I receive,” before asking Victor if he wanted his own “COOL GUY” shirt – Victor said “I – I think we can make our own.” XD Good silly stuff on a snowy day!
Portal 2: Found the time to play the first four chambers from “Chapter 2: The Cold Boot” today after lunch – these are the ones that introduce Thermal Discouragement Beams, aka deadly lasers! In order, we had:
Chamber 1: A mostly-wrecked room with one laser emitter coming from ceiling and one receiver poking out of the floor, and a platform that raised up to the crooked exit door when the laser entered the receiver – I initially thought that the platform emerged from a deadly water pit and you had to somehow portal your way onto it, but as it turned out the water around it wasn’t high enough to be murdery, so I just had to walk over the rubble onto it, then use portals to put laser in receiver. Easy!
Chamber 2: Another, somewhat-less-wrecked room that introduced the redirection cube (the one with glass sides that you can use to bend lasers and make them go at 90 degree angles and stuff), with a laser going across the room into a wall, a receiver at a 90 degree angle to the laser on the other wall, a redirection cube in the corner behind some rubble, and an elevated platform only accessible by some stairs that rose up when you put the laser in the receiver, which had a big floor button near the exit door. I took a moment on arrival to detach one of GLaDOS’s cameras from the wall (because that remained fun – one day I have to go back to the original game and get the achievement for taking out all the cameras too), then hopped over the laser when prompted and headed over to the debris-blocked corner to get the redirection cube –
And was delighted to see Wheatley pop his optic out of a panel above the cube briefly! :D I don’t remember if I caught all his sneaky “checking in on you” moments during this part of the game, before he officially reveals himself during the “Faith Plate” section, when I originally played it, so it was a pleasure to catch this one now. :) Anyway, once he’d finished his cameo, I solved the puzzle without much issue – just had to portal past the rubble wall to get the redirection cube and bring it to the laser; put the cube in front of the laser and then, with a little wiggling, get it to redirect the beam into the receiver; portal past the laser and mount the steps to the platform with the button; then use a portal on the floor to get back down, grab the cube, and get back up onto the platform so I could drop the cube on the button and leave. Nothing too taxing!
Chamber 3: This one featured two lasers – one going across the room width-wise, the other lengthwise over a raised platform in the middle – and one redirection cube up on an even higher platform, with the receivers on the wall perpendicular to the lengthwise laser and on the ceiling over the higher platform. Solving this one involved portaling up to the highest platform to get the cube, then using portals to get onto the raised platform the lengthwise laser was going over (slightly burning Chell in the process) and using the cube to redirect the laser into the wall receiver. Then it was just a matter of using portals to redirect the width-wise laser into the ceiling receiver, and job was done! Though, as I went to the exit door (listening to GLaDOS make a joke about how Chell managed to “pack on a few pounds” while in suspension), I spotted a big open hole in the wall that seemed to lead somewhere in the wall to my right. Curious, I went and investigated –
And found a Ratt Den! One with a pair of fancy murals themed around the song “Exile Vilify,” an indie rock song written specifically for the game by the band the National (the uncapitalized “the” in their name seems to be deliberate), along with a radio playing the song. Which is honestly a really nice song – very chill with a sweetly melancholy tone. I ended up hanging out there until the very end of the song, taking the radio with me so I didn’t have to sit in one corner to listen to it. After having to listen to all those radios playing the Standard Portal Song (an upbeat lyricless remix of “Still Alive”) in the original game, it was really nice to encounter one that was playing something new. So nice, in fact, that I memorialized my time in the Ratt Den with a screenshot:
Best shot I could get that included a bit of both murals. :) Anyway, as stated, I hung out there until the end of the song, then portaled my way out and redid the laser portals to reopen the exit door. Nice.
Chamber 4: This one took a moment to get to, as GLaDOS needed to move a bunch of crap out of Chell’s way first – apparently she was getting through the chambers too quickly and completing them before GLaDOS had time to finish the next. XD Anyway, the chamber proved to be one of those with a deadly water floor when Chell arrived, with a platform at the entrance; a nook in the wall across from Chell width-wise with a cube dispenser; the exit door and associated button in the other corner next to the cube dispensation nook; a laser between them cutting across the room width-wise; and a receiver on the wall opposite from Chell lengthwise. And a camera on a chunk of metal wall, meaning it couldn’t be killed like the other cameras I’d been taking down. Darn. :p Fortunately, the chamber itself wasn’t too difficult – I had Chell use portals to get over to the cube dispensation nook and grab herself a Weighted Storage Cube, then had her go back to the original platform and set up some portals to sent the laser into the receiver (slightly burning herself in the process because, well, she was kind of standing in front of the laser when it came out of the portal). This activated a moving platform on the other side of the room, which moved back and forth along the wall containing the cube dispensation nook and the exit door – Chell waited until it was in front of the cube dispensation nook, then used portals to hop over there with the cube (naturally stopping the platform as it was no longer powered by the laser), before getting on the platform and re-setting up the portals to fire the laser into the receiver so she could ride the platform back to the exit door. There was a brief moment when I worried she was going to get burned again, as the platform had to pass across the laser to reach the other side of the room –
But, well, her Weighted Storage Cube was in front of her, and that ended up blocking the laser first. Allowing her to get on the other side of the platform and – after a little fiddling – grab and lift the cube out of the laser’s path, allowing her to continue on unmolested. And then she hopped off in front of the exit door, plopped the cube on the button, and headed for the elevator, as GLaDOS snarked that yes, she’d told Chell to slow down, but she didn’t have to go that slowly. XD
Good times! I do enjoy a good puzzle game, especially one with snarky and silly robots. We’ll see how many chambers I manage to complete next time I play! Looking forward to reaching the Faith Plates, personally, those are always fun.
Writing: Got another page of “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland” Chapter 6 edited tonight, because I was determined not to skip another night of writing – tonight’s session included:
A) Alice, post-Pisha fight, finally arriving at the museum – or, rather, at the street corner closest to the museum, courtesy of her usual cabbie, who explained that this was as close as he could get at this time of night when she pointed out the skip (dumpster) outside her door probably didn’t count as a museum, despite possibly having some relics hidden in the trash. XD Alice agreed she could walk up the nearby hill without issue and paid him, then watched as he did a potentially-illegal U-turn down a dead end, before wondering to herself if he was a spy put into the cabdriver ranks by LaCroix (as he always seemed able to find her and never had any questions about her destinations or why she went to them so late at night or what she did there). Cheshire told her that LaCroix likely had ghouls who were also cabbies, but that her particularly ferryman was interested in her for different reasons, and reiterated that she wanted to stay on his good side, as he was NOT someone you wanted to fight; Alice reassured him she had no intention of antagonizing the man
B) Alice walking up the hill to the museum, and being struck by how big it was and by the fancy banners on the outside for exhibits like “DINOSAURS” (current), “ANCIENT INSECTS” (upcoming), and one other thing she couldn’t quite read (but which was on a very fancy red background). She decided she’d check out that one once she got closer and proceeded to brave the parking lot – which proved to be empty of any guards, and indeed of anything else save one bright red car with a “01” painted on the sign. Alice commented it was a shame she wouldn’t get to ask the owner the significance of that – at least, not without said owner wondering what she was doing in the museum in the middle of the night and starting a kerfuffle
C) And Alice reaching the front steps without issue and indeed taking a moment to read that banner she couldn’t see before...which proved to be for an exhibit on the history of human sacrifice. Alice was like “fun one for the kiddies,” and Caterpillar reminded her that museums catered to more than just children – indeed, sometimes they catered to eager ghouls trying to help their accidental domitors. Alice couldn’t help a chuckle at that. :P
Not bad – felt good to make some progress, despite everything conspiring against me when it comes to keeping my focus. I left it with Alice confirming she had both the maps Victor had given her and the keys LaCroix had handed over – tomorrow, she officially breaks into the Museum of Natural History and starts skulking around the place!
Workout: Got back on the bike tonight and pedaled my way through some more of The Adventures Of Useless Steven in “Fallout: New Vegas - The Worst Courier - Part 3 - Idiot Savant” by Many A True Nerd! Tonight’s half-hour featured:
A) Jon attempting to show us a little campsite in the hills near the Mojave Outpost where you can find another Wasteland Survival Guide (and thus add another +3 to your Survival skill, which is important even if you’re not using the Hardcore survival mechanics because it controls how effectively food works as a healing item and how much of a boost certain consumables can give your stats – upping her Survival stat is how P. D. Shoot from YOLO Remastered got the most of all the booze she so loves, after all) – only to be foiled by Feral Ghoul Roamers roaming around in one direction, and Giant Radscorpions hanging around nearby in the other (Useless Steve getting stung and dying shortly thereafter when he tried to run past them). Would have been nice, but this character is just NOT equipped to get there!
B) Useless Steve returning to Primm and going into the wastes in the opposite direction to raid The Prospector’s Den, a little hidden settlement (made with a not-inconsiderable amount of Little Lamplight assets) that used to be full of prospectors, but was now full of Jackals (the raider gang, not the animal). Useless Steve went there to grab the Tumblers Today Lockpick skill book that was on the premises (because Lockpick is a very important skill in New Vegas, apparently *takes notes*), but also ended up looting pretty much all the corpses (both already-dead prospectors and murdered-with-his-grenade-rifle Jackals) of 10mm pistols and submachine guns because they were good money, thus once again ending up overweight and needing the help of booze to actually truck his shit around. XD One trip to the Gun Runner’s shop later, his caps were all the way up at 2,790. Not quite enough for another implant to improve his terrible SPECIAL, but he’s getting there!
C) Useless Steve nipping back to Nipton to do some looting in the wrecked town – only to get jumpscared by a bark scorpion appearing out of nowhere to try and wreck him. Poor Jon was like “oh BLOODY HELL” before laughing and apologizing. XD Steve fortunately managed to kill the thing without getting stung and – after a change into less NCR-ish armor, just in case the Legion were still floating around the area – proceeded with his looting. Which consisted of:
I. A trip into the Town Hall (killing all the leftover Legion Mongrels inside, which was a bit of a pain for poor old Steve as every time he killed one, another seemed to come out of the woodwork), where Steve acquired quite a lot of Sunset Sarsaparilla (a very good healing item, and a 5% chance of scoring a star bottle cap for his collection every time he opened one), a Big Book of Science (+3 to Science, naturally), two Programmer’s Digests (for a temporary +10 bonus to Science, as that’s what magazines do), some mentats (Steve could DEFINITELY use the smarts-boosting drug :P), and a Future Weapons Today (for a temporary +10 boost to Energy Weapons)
II. A trip into the motel at the edge of town, where Steve looted all the armor off the dead NCR in there (along with their dog tags to turn in later) – he’d hoped to merge them all into a nice set of armor he could sell, but the weight-to-value ratio just wasn’t there, so he just ended up using them to repair his own NCR armor for later (which also completed the “Fixing Things” challenge for an additional 50 XP, nice)
III. And a trip into a house by the big old bonfire in town, where Steve raided the children’s bedroom for 100 BBs and another spare BB gun to keep his own Abilene Kid LE BB Gun loaded and in good condition
*nods* Not bad, not bad at all! Also showed off how solid the service rifle is against low-level enemies, at least – will have to remember to acquire that for Victor at some point!
D) Useless Steve leaving Nipton via the east road and trying to take on a Viper (again, the raider gang, not the animal) ambush near a wrecked truck in a canyon to get some ammo for his grenade rifle (since Jon knew these guys had one), which went – well, the first attempt saw Steve manage to dome one of the attackers on the opposite side of the road, only to fall rapidly to the other two when he tried to sneak up on them on the cliffs. The second attempt went a little better, with Steve managing to kill the first attacker in one shot, but then went somewhat pear-shaped when he went after the one low-ground attacker, thinking she was the one with the grenade rifle, only to be proven wrong when she emerged with a knife and the actual grenade-launcher guy managed to cripple one of his arms. Fortunately, he managed to pull things back by killing the lady with a knife; repairing his busted arm with a doctor’s bag; then – when the remaining pair of Vipers reappeared on the rocks in front of them after a fight with an unseen assailant above – managing to lure the last two guys into some mines and blow them up. And after all that, did Steve get any ammo for his grenade rifle?
Nope – the Vipers had used it up on him during the attack. Darn. *shakehead* Well, at least he was able to loot the rifle they were using and use it to repair his own, so…it’s SOMETHING.
E) Useless Steve taking a moment to hit Wolfhorn Ranch (aka Ulysses’s ranch, as – as per the “Lonesome Road” DLC – he used to live there at one point) to grab another Tumblers Today skill book (getting Lockpick up to 31 with the help of his hat), a unique cleaver, and a bunch of ammo to sell, nice
F) And Useless Steve, following the nearby Legion patrol, wondering if he could use them to kill some raiders for him and deliberately running into the “Ruined Farmstead” along the way to spawn some raiders lying in wait so he could lead them toward his new friends – only for the Legion to not give a shit and one of the raiders to spawn with a grenade rifle, leading to Steve getting VERY blown up. XD Good thing Jon dropped a save first!
Fun times! I do love The Adventures Of Useless Steve – they’re very funny and I feel like they’re teaching me a lot about Fallout: New Vegas and the sort of things I should prioritize with Victor. *nods* I left off with Steve preparing to follow the Legion patrol into NCR territory, in the hopes that they would die and he could loot their stuff – we’ll see how that goes for him, and the Legion, tomorrow!
And now I really need to go to bed and try and get some sleep. Tomorrow -- well, we'll see what happens. Gonna aim mainly for getting another page of edits on "Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland" and more Useless Steve during my workout -- if things are okay, maybe some more Baldur's Gate III to continue sneaking Sazza out of the grove. But that's very much up in the air for now. Night all!
Anyway -- I did actually manage to accomplish a bit more today, despite all the bad vibes --
Tumblr: Didn’t get anything done on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) today, but, in a surprise twist (because I don’t usually visit this account on Mondays), I did get something done on Valice Multiverse! What happened is, I saw an ask waiting for me from thesatiricaldemon over there yesterday, but finishing up all my write-ups for my F:NV Courier Victor session and the YOLO Remastered Recap kept me from getting to it. So I decided to make an exception to my “No Valice Multiverse on Mondays and Wednesdays” rule and answer it today. Because Satirical is a nice guy and responsible for the Eldritch Hellworld Valicer nonsense. XD Basically, he sent me an exceedingly weird television commercial for socks (and a “COOL GUY” shirt) sold by a guy named Mike Dragons-Wrath which included lines like “You can NOW purchase these FOOT CONTAINERS that aliken a HORRIBLE, EVIL WIZARD” and “BLEASE buy these clothing arti-cles, NOW! They will be all you need in you’re wardrobe. BUY....NOW! Before LIMBS enter FROST NECROSIS,” and I had Londerland Bloodlines!Alice reply that, honestly, all that weirdness actually did make her want to buy some socks from the guy, “just to see what the fuck I receive,” before asking Victor if he wanted his own “COOL GUY” shirt – Victor said “I – I think we can make our own.” XD Good silly stuff on a snowy day!
Portal 2: Found the time to play the first four chambers from “Chapter 2: The Cold Boot” today after lunch – these are the ones that introduce Thermal Discouragement Beams, aka deadly lasers! In order, we had:
Chamber 1: A mostly-wrecked room with one laser emitter coming from ceiling and one receiver poking out of the floor, and a platform that raised up to the crooked exit door when the laser entered the receiver – I initially thought that the platform emerged from a deadly water pit and you had to somehow portal your way onto it, but as it turned out the water around it wasn’t high enough to be murdery, so I just had to walk over the rubble onto it, then use portals to put laser in receiver. Easy!
Chamber 2: Another, somewhat-less-wrecked room that introduced the redirection cube (the one with glass sides that you can use to bend lasers and make them go at 90 degree angles and stuff), with a laser going across the room into a wall, a receiver at a 90 degree angle to the laser on the other wall, a redirection cube in the corner behind some rubble, and an elevated platform only accessible by some stairs that rose up when you put the laser in the receiver, which had a big floor button near the exit door. I took a moment on arrival to detach one of GLaDOS’s cameras from the wall (because that remained fun – one day I have to go back to the original game and get the achievement for taking out all the cameras too), then hopped over the laser when prompted and headed over to the debris-blocked corner to get the redirection cube –
And was delighted to see Wheatley pop his optic out of a panel above the cube briefly! :D I don’t remember if I caught all his sneaky “checking in on you” moments during this part of the game, before he officially reveals himself during the “Faith Plate” section, when I originally played it, so it was a pleasure to catch this one now. :) Anyway, once he’d finished his cameo, I solved the puzzle without much issue – just had to portal past the rubble wall to get the redirection cube and bring it to the laser; put the cube in front of the laser and then, with a little wiggling, get it to redirect the beam into the receiver; portal past the laser and mount the steps to the platform with the button; then use a portal on the floor to get back down, grab the cube, and get back up onto the platform so I could drop the cube on the button and leave. Nothing too taxing!
Chamber 3: This one featured two lasers – one going across the room width-wise, the other lengthwise over a raised platform in the middle – and one redirection cube up on an even higher platform, with the receivers on the wall perpendicular to the lengthwise laser and on the ceiling over the higher platform. Solving this one involved portaling up to the highest platform to get the cube, then using portals to get onto the raised platform the lengthwise laser was going over (slightly burning Chell in the process) and using the cube to redirect the laser into the wall receiver. Then it was just a matter of using portals to redirect the width-wise laser into the ceiling receiver, and job was done! Though, as I went to the exit door (listening to GLaDOS make a joke about how Chell managed to “pack on a few pounds” while in suspension), I spotted a big open hole in the wall that seemed to lead somewhere in the wall to my right. Curious, I went and investigated –
And found a Ratt Den! One with a pair of fancy murals themed around the song “Exile Vilify,” an indie rock song written specifically for the game by the band the National (the uncapitalized “the” in their name seems to be deliberate), along with a radio playing the song. Which is honestly a really nice song – very chill with a sweetly melancholy tone. I ended up hanging out there until the very end of the song, taking the radio with me so I didn’t have to sit in one corner to listen to it. After having to listen to all those radios playing the Standard Portal Song (an upbeat lyricless remix of “Still Alive”) in the original game, it was really nice to encounter one that was playing something new. So nice, in fact, that I memorialized my time in the Ratt Den with a screenshot:
Best shot I could get that included a bit of both murals. :) Anyway, as stated, I hung out there until the end of the song, then portaled my way out and redid the laser portals to reopen the exit door. Nice.
Chamber 4: This one took a moment to get to, as GLaDOS needed to move a bunch of crap out of Chell’s way first – apparently she was getting through the chambers too quickly and completing them before GLaDOS had time to finish the next. XD Anyway, the chamber proved to be one of those with a deadly water floor when Chell arrived, with a platform at the entrance; a nook in the wall across from Chell width-wise with a cube dispenser; the exit door and associated button in the other corner next to the cube dispensation nook; a laser between them cutting across the room width-wise; and a receiver on the wall opposite from Chell lengthwise. And a camera on a chunk of metal wall, meaning it couldn’t be killed like the other cameras I’d been taking down. Darn. :p Fortunately, the chamber itself wasn’t too difficult – I had Chell use portals to get over to the cube dispensation nook and grab herself a Weighted Storage Cube, then had her go back to the original platform and set up some portals to sent the laser into the receiver (slightly burning herself in the process because, well, she was kind of standing in front of the laser when it came out of the portal). This activated a moving platform on the other side of the room, which moved back and forth along the wall containing the cube dispensation nook and the exit door – Chell waited until it was in front of the cube dispensation nook, then used portals to hop over there with the cube (naturally stopping the platform as it was no longer powered by the laser), before getting on the platform and re-setting up the portals to fire the laser into the receiver so she could ride the platform back to the exit door. There was a brief moment when I worried she was going to get burned again, as the platform had to pass across the laser to reach the other side of the room –
But, well, her Weighted Storage Cube was in front of her, and that ended up blocking the laser first. Allowing her to get on the other side of the platform and – after a little fiddling – grab and lift the cube out of the laser’s path, allowing her to continue on unmolested. And then she hopped off in front of the exit door, plopped the cube on the button, and headed for the elevator, as GLaDOS snarked that yes, she’d told Chell to slow down, but she didn’t have to go that slowly. XD
Good times! I do enjoy a good puzzle game, especially one with snarky and silly robots. We’ll see how many chambers I manage to complete next time I play! Looking forward to reaching the Faith Plates, personally, those are always fun.
Writing: Got another page of “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland” Chapter 6 edited tonight, because I was determined not to skip another night of writing – tonight’s session included:
A) Alice, post-Pisha fight, finally arriving at the museum – or, rather, at the street corner closest to the museum, courtesy of her usual cabbie, who explained that this was as close as he could get at this time of night when she pointed out the skip (dumpster) outside her door probably didn’t count as a museum, despite possibly having some relics hidden in the trash. XD Alice agreed she could walk up the nearby hill without issue and paid him, then watched as he did a potentially-illegal U-turn down a dead end, before wondering to herself if he was a spy put into the cabdriver ranks by LaCroix (as he always seemed able to find her and never had any questions about her destinations or why she went to them so late at night or what she did there). Cheshire told her that LaCroix likely had ghouls who were also cabbies, but that her particularly ferryman was interested in her for different reasons, and reiterated that she wanted to stay on his good side, as he was NOT someone you wanted to fight; Alice reassured him she had no intention of antagonizing the man
B) Alice walking up the hill to the museum, and being struck by how big it was and by the fancy banners on the outside for exhibits like “DINOSAURS” (current), “ANCIENT INSECTS” (upcoming), and one other thing she couldn’t quite read (but which was on a very fancy red background). She decided she’d check out that one once she got closer and proceeded to brave the parking lot – which proved to be empty of any guards, and indeed of anything else save one bright red car with a “01” painted on the sign. Alice commented it was a shame she wouldn’t get to ask the owner the significance of that – at least, not without said owner wondering what she was doing in the museum in the middle of the night and starting a kerfuffle
C) And Alice reaching the front steps without issue and indeed taking a moment to read that banner she couldn’t see before...which proved to be for an exhibit on the history of human sacrifice. Alice was like “fun one for the kiddies,” and Caterpillar reminded her that museums catered to more than just children – indeed, sometimes they catered to eager ghouls trying to help their accidental domitors. Alice couldn’t help a chuckle at that. :P
Not bad – felt good to make some progress, despite everything conspiring against me when it comes to keeping my focus. I left it with Alice confirming she had both the maps Victor had given her and the keys LaCroix had handed over – tomorrow, she officially breaks into the Museum of Natural History and starts skulking around the place!
Workout: Got back on the bike tonight and pedaled my way through some more of The Adventures Of Useless Steven in “Fallout: New Vegas - The Worst Courier - Part 3 - Idiot Savant” by Many A True Nerd! Tonight’s half-hour featured:
A) Jon attempting to show us a little campsite in the hills near the Mojave Outpost where you can find another Wasteland Survival Guide (and thus add another +3 to your Survival skill, which is important even if you’re not using the Hardcore survival mechanics because it controls how effectively food works as a healing item and how much of a boost certain consumables can give your stats – upping her Survival stat is how P. D. Shoot from YOLO Remastered got the most of all the booze she so loves, after all) – only to be foiled by Feral Ghoul Roamers roaming around in one direction, and Giant Radscorpions hanging around nearby in the other (Useless Steve getting stung and dying shortly thereafter when he tried to run past them). Would have been nice, but this character is just NOT equipped to get there!
B) Useless Steve returning to Primm and going into the wastes in the opposite direction to raid The Prospector’s Den, a little hidden settlement (made with a not-inconsiderable amount of Little Lamplight assets) that used to be full of prospectors, but was now full of Jackals (the raider gang, not the animal). Useless Steve went there to grab the Tumblers Today Lockpick skill book that was on the premises (because Lockpick is a very important skill in New Vegas, apparently *takes notes*), but also ended up looting pretty much all the corpses (both already-dead prospectors and murdered-with-his-grenade-rifle Jackals) of 10mm pistols and submachine guns because they were good money, thus once again ending up overweight and needing the help of booze to actually truck his shit around. XD One trip to the Gun Runner’s shop later, his caps were all the way up at 2,790. Not quite enough for another implant to improve his terrible SPECIAL, but he’s getting there!
C) Useless Steve nipping back to Nipton to do some looting in the wrecked town – only to get jumpscared by a bark scorpion appearing out of nowhere to try and wreck him. Poor Jon was like “oh BLOODY HELL” before laughing and apologizing. XD Steve fortunately managed to kill the thing without getting stung and – after a change into less NCR-ish armor, just in case the Legion were still floating around the area – proceeded with his looting. Which consisted of:
I. A trip into the Town Hall (killing all the leftover Legion Mongrels inside, which was a bit of a pain for poor old Steve as every time he killed one, another seemed to come out of the woodwork), where Steve acquired quite a lot of Sunset Sarsaparilla (a very good healing item, and a 5% chance of scoring a star bottle cap for his collection every time he opened one), a Big Book of Science (+3 to Science, naturally), two Programmer’s Digests (for a temporary +10 bonus to Science, as that’s what magazines do), some mentats (Steve could DEFINITELY use the smarts-boosting drug :P), and a Future Weapons Today (for a temporary +10 boost to Energy Weapons)
II. A trip into the motel at the edge of town, where Steve looted all the armor off the dead NCR in there (along with their dog tags to turn in later) – he’d hoped to merge them all into a nice set of armor he could sell, but the weight-to-value ratio just wasn’t there, so he just ended up using them to repair his own NCR armor for later (which also completed the “Fixing Things” challenge for an additional 50 XP, nice)
III. And a trip into a house by the big old bonfire in town, where Steve raided the children’s bedroom for 100 BBs and another spare BB gun to keep his own Abilene Kid LE BB Gun loaded and in good condition
*nods* Not bad, not bad at all! Also showed off how solid the service rifle is against low-level enemies, at least – will have to remember to acquire that for Victor at some point!
D) Useless Steve leaving Nipton via the east road and trying to take on a Viper (again, the raider gang, not the animal) ambush near a wrecked truck in a canyon to get some ammo for his grenade rifle (since Jon knew these guys had one), which went – well, the first attempt saw Steve manage to dome one of the attackers on the opposite side of the road, only to fall rapidly to the other two when he tried to sneak up on them on the cliffs. The second attempt went a little better, with Steve managing to kill the first attacker in one shot, but then went somewhat pear-shaped when he went after the one low-ground attacker, thinking she was the one with the grenade rifle, only to be proven wrong when she emerged with a knife and the actual grenade-launcher guy managed to cripple one of his arms. Fortunately, he managed to pull things back by killing the lady with a knife; repairing his busted arm with a doctor’s bag; then – when the remaining pair of Vipers reappeared on the rocks in front of them after a fight with an unseen assailant above – managing to lure the last two guys into some mines and blow them up. And after all that, did Steve get any ammo for his grenade rifle?
Nope – the Vipers had used it up on him during the attack. Darn. *shakehead* Well, at least he was able to loot the rifle they were using and use it to repair his own, so…it’s SOMETHING.
E) Useless Steve taking a moment to hit Wolfhorn Ranch (aka Ulysses’s ranch, as – as per the “Lonesome Road” DLC – he used to live there at one point) to grab another Tumblers Today skill book (getting Lockpick up to 31 with the help of his hat), a unique cleaver, and a bunch of ammo to sell, nice
F) And Useless Steve, following the nearby Legion patrol, wondering if he could use them to kill some raiders for him and deliberately running into the “Ruined Farmstead” along the way to spawn some raiders lying in wait so he could lead them toward his new friends – only for the Legion to not give a shit and one of the raiders to spawn with a grenade rifle, leading to Steve getting VERY blown up. XD Good thing Jon dropped a save first!
Fun times! I do love The Adventures Of Useless Steve – they’re very funny and I feel like they’re teaching me a lot about Fallout: New Vegas and the sort of things I should prioritize with Victor. *nods* I left off with Steve preparing to follow the Legion patrol into NCR territory, in the hopes that they would die and he could loot their stuff – we’ll see how that goes for him, and the Legion, tomorrow!
And now I really need to go to bed and try and get some sleep. Tomorrow -- well, we'll see what happens. Gonna aim mainly for getting another page of edits on "Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland" and more Useless Steve during my workout -- if things are okay, maybe some more Baldur's Gate III to continue sneaking Sazza out of the grove. But that's very much up in the air for now. Night all!
