A Somewhat Frustrating Friday
Mar. 20th, 2026 11:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickIn that I had another annoying day at work, but the evening was all right, at least --
Work – Yes, as per the above, it was unfortunately another frustrating day at work – though I will say that I at least got more of what I wanted to get done, done this time around:
A) I started by doing my time card (didn’t want to forget again), then working my way through the GL – which was fairly big, and just a LITTLE complicated thanks to all the Foundation gifts that were posted the other day
B) Then I put on the latest round of endowment gifts, since my boss asked me to prioritize those
C) Then I spent the rest of the morning going through that thank you QC file from yesterday, finding more problems that needed to be solved and more checks that were actually for the newspaper office, not us (so we’re going to have to take those off and issue a check to them this upcoming week), all while being regularly interrupted by phone calls because the latest mailing went out recently and that ALWAYS prompts a ton of calls along the lines of “I already sent in my gift” or “this person is actually deceased” or “I need to change my parish”
D) Then I started the afternoon portion of my shift post-lunch by returning some messages from the fifty million people who tried to call us during our lunch hour, making one person inactive (they moved out of state) and listening to another rant about how insulted she was that we ask her to give a larger gift (and fun fact, her current gift was actually put on for the wrong amount, so I’m going to have to fix that later)
E) Then I spent some time gathering up supporting evidence (i.e., images of checks and gift envelopes) for those gifts I’d identified as belonging to the newspaper office, along with marking more people deceased as per phone calls and double-checking the gifts of people who were listed as having both a pledge and recurring gift (one was already taken care of, one I shut down the recurring gift because the person in question ALWAYS makes a pledge – we get a fair number of people who make recurring gifts without realizing what they actually are)
F) And I ended the day wrapping up things with a few final e-mails (including one to my supervisor with all the check and envelope images I’d gathered) and posting the batch of credit card gifts we’d done throughout the day
Whew! Lot to do, and the phone ringing so much did NOT help. I started flinching every time I heard it because it was like can you not let me finish one thing. Hopefully it’ll be less chaotic on Monday, but we will see… Just glad it’s the weekend again right now!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – ‘twas my final night on the bike this week, and I spent it pedaling my way through:
A) The rest of “Fallout: New Vegas - The Man With The Platinum Chip” by Jon of Many A True Nerd! Which featured more of Courier Bames Jond wandering around the 10,000% Extra Damage Mojave Wasteland starting fights (both personally and between different factions) and seeing who won! His adventures included:
I. Visiting the NCR Correctional Facility, and – after successfully sniping off Dawes at the door to get inside (as the guy would have seen through his Powder Gangers disguise), only to fall to leader Eddie within when he tried to present himself to do some quests – kicking off the fight between the NCR and the Powder Gangers for control of the prison! Jon remarked that normally the NCR win this fight handily (good to know as Victor WILL be backing them when he takes on the prison) – but with damage on all guns cranked up so high, he suspected that the Powder Gangers up in the guard towers would prove much more lethal in this universe –
And he was correct! The NCR were torn to pieces by the tower snipers despite having arguably better guns because they couldn’t get a good bead on them. Jon actually reloaded the fight after the first go to see if they could do any better, and – not really. One guy managed to survive long enough to get inside the actual facility, and even he fell to the first Powder Ganger he came across. *clicks tongue* Sad. Jon decided that wouldn’t do and reloaded again, this time having Bames Jond take out the tower snipers before kicking off the fight –
And that went a LITTLE better for the NCR, admittedly – this time, three whole guys survived to storm the main facility. And it looked like they actually might have a chance at winning too – until Eddie showed up with a plasma pistol and managed to take them out before they could reach the stairwell. Bames quickly changed out of his NCR armor and made friends with the new crime lord...then shot him and all his buddies in the face because fuck it, why not. XD
II. Deciding to travel to HELIOS One via Hidden Valley and the scorpion-filled gorge right behind it, rather than risk the roads and their now waaaay more lethal ambushes! Fortunately, the place was almost entirely populated with little bark scorpions, with Bames only having to take on one big old radscorpion (who went down in a mere two hits) –
Unfortunately, as Bames discovered, bark scorpions were a little hard to hit, and – more pertinently – could pop up behind him. Bames thus spent most of the journey in a static of mild panic, punctuated by moments of greater panic as he looked behind him and found little brown skittering scorpions coming after him. XD Luckily, he did manage to get them all before they could get him, and he made it to HELIOS One in one piece. Where he helped Jon show off one of his favorite texture mods – the one that turns the NCR doggos from mutated mutts to proper Alsatians – aka German Shepherds. You want some hint of Fallout 4’s Dogmeat in your game? This is how you get it.
III. Heading to Novac and recruiting Boone, then taking him to a nearby Legion raid camp to start speedrunning gaining his trust and opening up his companion quest by freeing the captive Powder Gangers there! Which, uh, didn’t go as well as he’d hoped –
a. First, because he got lost trying to find the damn camp while also avoiding various ambushes that could kill him and the now-very-squishy Boone
b. And second, because when he did find the camp, Boone refused to bring any of his legendary sniping skills to bear, forcing Bames to do all the hard work of killing the Legionnaires on his lonesome. Boone did end up killing something near the end, though – when Bames was turned away, grumbling to himself about the guy was worse than useless. XD Figures!
IV. Bringing Boone to Nelson to continue speedrunning his companion quest by helping to free the NCR captives there! This went a lot smoother, happily (mostly thanks to Ranger Milo surviving his initial running in and giving the Legionnaires down there what-for with his cowboy repeater), and allowed Bames to show off a very weird trick to get three “Boone points” (necessary to unlock his quest – you need five to get Boone to trust you enough to open up and tell you about it) in quick succession here –
a. First, he battled his way to the center of town and freed the three NCR troopers hanging crucified there. This caused Boone to remark that he was glad that Bames had found another way to help them other than killing them, netting Bames two “Boone points” (to go with the two he’d already earned saving the Powder Gangers earlier).
b. Then, as the troopers headed out, Bames randomly murdered one of them. Despite all evidence to the contrary (namely, the troopers had been freed and were walking away), Boone considered this a mercy killing (along the lines of the one that he gave to his wife, Carla, when she was captured by the Legion) and agreed with Bames taking the guy out of his misery. Cue Bames getting an additional “Boone point,” giving him the five he needed to unlock the quest!
Yeah, uh – Fallout: New Vegas is a bit weird sometimes. XD And then it forced Bames to reload the save and redo all that before it properly calculated the points and let him start the quest. Best RPG held together with string and a prayer, folks!
V. Heading through a dry dusty area full of ants to get some easy XP (as ants have no ranged attacks), then stopping at Boulder City to resolve the situation between the NCR and the Khans before doing Boone’s companion quest! (Leaving Boone by the front gate so he didn’t try to get involve or get all disapproving or whatnot.) Jon thought that the Khans might have the edge in this version of the fight, given they had the advantage of the high ground in the ruined building they were hiding in, along with rapid-fire weapons –
But nope – while they managed to cut down two of the troopers quickly, the NCR had numbers on their side during this fight, and picked off the outside group very easily. Leaving Bames to deal with the ones inside. He thus headed forward to do so, but decided to free the tied-up hostages along the way –
Leading to them running up to the roof for some reason. And when a baffled Bames followed them up there to see why, the male half of the pair punched him for some reason! Leading Bames to reflexively shoot him, then get shot and killed himself the moment he stepped downstairs despite the fact that the NCR guy started it. XD Leading Jon to grumpily reload the save and complain that he hoped the NCR died –
Ironically while watching them do better than they did the first time around. XD Doesn’t that just figure? This time, Bames actually made it to Jessup and company in the back and kicked off the firefight between him and his men…
Only to die again when most of his shots hit a cash register in the way of his second target. Whoops. :p Fortunately, third time proved to be the charm, and he managed to take out the group by being that little bit quicker on the draw and that little bit more mobile. Whew! Quite the side trip, I think you’ll agree!
VI. And ending things off by taking Boone to Bitter Springs to help in the defense of the refugee camp there against the waves of Legion Raiders coming in to destroy it! Along with two reinforcement squads he picked up along the way from Camp McCarran and Camp Golf, to make sure there were enough NCR NPCs floating around. How did this climactic final battle go?
…Weirdly. Jon’s plan was to keep Bames Jond out of the way and let the NPCs and Boone handle things themselves (like he’d been doing for the other fights), but that was somewhat hampered by the NCR troopers having a distinct lack of response to the Legion showing up and trying to raid the refugee camp. The first wave showed up while most of the camp was asleep, and the two who were awake just kept doing idle animations by the fire, refusing to even acknowledge the sounds of battle below. It took until 9 AM in-game for one of the troopers to actually wander in the correct direction, notice the gunfire, and start shooting – and they ended up dead pretty damn quickly (though Jon was pretty sure they took one of the Legion out with them). Eventually some other troopers noticed when a Legionnaire actually made it into their camp, and one of them went over to the sandbag wall and fired down into the camp in the valley below until the remaining Legionnaire died, but as Jon noted, that only took care of the first wave – there were a few more coming in! Bames thus left Boone overlooking the camp with his trusty sniper rifle, and went off to try and trigger more raiding parties to come in –
Aaaand the tradition of the NCR being late to the party continued on through the subsequent waves of Legion raiders arriving to murder the residents of the camp. Like, they’d eventually get their act together and kill the invaders, but it always seemed to take them a hot second! Boone in particular was REALLY bad at actually, you know, shooting anyone, to the point where Jon was starting to wonder if companions just went pacifist if you left them to wait somewhere on their own (which was then followed by a kill-cam shot of Boone sniping someone, so obviously the game was just waiting for the most ironic moment). Didn’t help that Jon’s commitment to keeping Bames out of the action meant that he was always far away on a rock somewhere, meaning it was a bit hard to actually see what was happening, even when he was pointing it out with his scope… In the end, I am pretty sure that the NCR managed to kill all the Legionnaires that showed up –
BUT all of the NCR troopers and refugees died too. Meaning that all the quests related to Bitter Springs, including Boone’s companion quest, failed. Which shocked Jon, because he didn’t know that quest was able to be failed! And Boone himself acted very odd in the wake of it – thanking Bames for bringing him to Bitter Springs, saying “things seem clearer now” (Jon: “Do they???”), but not giving him the extra-special armor you get when you properly complete his quest. It was just kind of bizarre all around –
Which is probably why Bames chose to end the episode by killing Boone as a last hurrah. …After turning on Hardcore Mode, because otherwise Boone just went unconscious. XD Did allow us to see a rather heartfelt letter to his wife on Boone’s corpse that you can never see otherwise, though!
So yeah, that was – weird. But fun. XD Jon clearly had a great time with the “one-hit-kill” mode he worked up for himself, and I did enjoy watching him wander around and show off the various firefights. Though I really, really wish he’d gone to Quarry Junction with this mod on. I very much would have liked to have seen him blast some deathclaws with this mod on. Shame. *shakehead* Ah well, it was fun for what it was! Glad I gave it a try. :)
B) And, just to fill out the little bit of remaining time, the YouTube Short “Baldur's Gate 3: Picking Your Warlock Patrons” by Dungeons & Dragons! (I presume the official YouTube channel of the game.) This was just a quick clip of Nick Pechenin, the Lead Systems Designer over at Larian, talking about the different types of patrons your warlocks can have in BG3 – specifically, the Great Old One (the eldritch monstrosity, which focuses on cold and necrotic damage and having tentacles come up to grab your enemies...unless you’re me, in which case it’s all psychic damage all the time) and the Fiend (naturally a devil – the clip in fact featured Mizora, Wyll’s patron – who focus on channeling the “hot hot fires of hell”). *shrug* It ate up the remaining few seconds of my workout!
2. Continue editing Chapter 6 of “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland”: Check – got through the rest of Alice’s meeting with LaCroix today, which featured:
A) LaCroix announcing that yes, he was officially calling the Blood Hunt on Nines for the murder of Grout, and Alice feeling a wave of relief as the compulsion on her finally lifted, and immediately making plans to run to the Last Round and try to warn Nines once this meeting was over with
B) LaCroix cheerfully noting that Alice had at least removed one other encumbrance from him, then looking at her little entourage and asking if they need more help getting the sarcophagus up to his office; cue Alice awkwardly revealing that the sarcophagus had already been stolen when they arrived while Van, Terrence, and Mercurio all avoided eye contact
C) LaCroix briefly flipping out over the news that his precious sarcophagus was missing, baring his fangs and getting ready to shake Alice – before suddenly realizing who the most likely culprit was and calming down into sullen resignation with an annoyed “Gary”
D) Alice asking who Gary was, and LaCroix explaining he was the Nosferatu Primogen, and how the Nosferatu were the only other ones who knew what had happened to the sarcophagus and how to get at it; Alice proceeded to wonder why he didn’t just use one of THEM to fetch it, then realized that that probably would have been a big mistake – then wondered why one of them would steal it, if they supported the Camarilla, causing Cheshire to point out that she only knew of one member of the clan who supported it, and that supporting the Camarilla in general was not the same as supporting LaCroix in particular
E) LaCroix demanding that Alice find Gary before the sarcophagus was “exploited” – then explaining that no, this wasn’t a Grout situation, Gary just was not an easy person to get a hold of when Alice was like “oh shit, is he not answering his phone either;” he followed up by telling her that the Nosferatu holed up under Hollywood, which was Anarch territory, and that the local Baron, Isaac was at least somewhat civil to the Camarilla and might know how to contact them. Alice was like “guess I should see him to start – and mind my manners,” to which LaCroix replied, “For a change.” XD Alice couldn’t even argue with that after last night! XD
F) And the whole thing ending with LaCroix reiterating that Alice’s task was to find Gary, get him to talk, and then get the damn sarcophagus, before getting the Sheriff to kick everyone out of his office so he could formally announce the Blood Hunt
*nods* Very good progress – the number of pages I have left to edit is officially in the single digits! :D Tomorrow we’ll pick up with everyone leaving the office, and Alice chatting to Mercurio, Van, and Terrence in the aftermath – should be an enlightening conversation for her...
3. Watch something on YouTube: No check, but that was not a surprise, given tonight was Game Night (Parcheesi – Dad won the first game, Mom the second) and I’ve had almost no time for videos anyway given my workout video write-ups are getting longer and longer. *grumbles* Something has gotta be done, though damned if I know what yet...
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: N/A – didn’t have anything to do on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler), and I ended deleting the ask I had on Valice Multiverse because it was just a “hey isn’t the world rather shit”-style one that I didn’t feel like answering. Yes, I know the world is rather shit, but do we have to talk about it on my pretendy-fun-times blog?
So yeah -- not a great day, but I at least feel less stressed tonight than I did last night. But now it is definitely time to hit the sack. Tomorrow's goals: clean my room and do my monthly laundry (since I skipped last week -- wanted to adjust my schedule to account for stuff happening at the end of the month); play some Little Corners (as I expect the room clean and laundry to take a while); continue editing "Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland" (inching closer to the end!); and answer Moose's messages (because they have been sitting in my inbox for a while now). And hopefully watch the OXBox list of the week, but we'll see. *nods* Night all!
Work – Yes, as per the above, it was unfortunately another frustrating day at work – though I will say that I at least got more of what I wanted to get done, done this time around:
A) I started by doing my time card (didn’t want to forget again), then working my way through the GL – which was fairly big, and just a LITTLE complicated thanks to all the Foundation gifts that were posted the other day
B) Then I put on the latest round of endowment gifts, since my boss asked me to prioritize those
C) Then I spent the rest of the morning going through that thank you QC file from yesterday, finding more problems that needed to be solved and more checks that were actually for the newspaper office, not us (so we’re going to have to take those off and issue a check to them this upcoming week), all while being regularly interrupted by phone calls because the latest mailing went out recently and that ALWAYS prompts a ton of calls along the lines of “I already sent in my gift” or “this person is actually deceased” or “I need to change my parish”
D) Then I started the afternoon portion of my shift post-lunch by returning some messages from the fifty million people who tried to call us during our lunch hour, making one person inactive (they moved out of state) and listening to another rant about how insulted she was that we ask her to give a larger gift (and fun fact, her current gift was actually put on for the wrong amount, so I’m going to have to fix that later)
E) Then I spent some time gathering up supporting evidence (i.e., images of checks and gift envelopes) for those gifts I’d identified as belonging to the newspaper office, along with marking more people deceased as per phone calls and double-checking the gifts of people who were listed as having both a pledge and recurring gift (one was already taken care of, one I shut down the recurring gift because the person in question ALWAYS makes a pledge – we get a fair number of people who make recurring gifts without realizing what they actually are)
F) And I ended the day wrapping up things with a few final e-mails (including one to my supervisor with all the check and envelope images I’d gathered) and posting the batch of credit card gifts we’d done throughout the day
Whew! Lot to do, and the phone ringing so much did NOT help. I started flinching every time I heard it because it was like can you not let me finish one thing. Hopefully it’ll be less chaotic on Monday, but we will see… Just glad it’s the weekend again right now!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – ‘twas my final night on the bike this week, and I spent it pedaling my way through:
A) The rest of “Fallout: New Vegas - The Man With The Platinum Chip” by Jon of Many A True Nerd! Which featured more of Courier Bames Jond wandering around the 10,000% Extra Damage Mojave Wasteland starting fights (both personally and between different factions) and seeing who won! His adventures included:
I. Visiting the NCR Correctional Facility, and – after successfully sniping off Dawes at the door to get inside (as the guy would have seen through his Powder Gangers disguise), only to fall to leader Eddie within when he tried to present himself to do some quests – kicking off the fight between the NCR and the Powder Gangers for control of the prison! Jon remarked that normally the NCR win this fight handily (good to know as Victor WILL be backing them when he takes on the prison) – but with damage on all guns cranked up so high, he suspected that the Powder Gangers up in the guard towers would prove much more lethal in this universe –
And he was correct! The NCR were torn to pieces by the tower snipers despite having arguably better guns because they couldn’t get a good bead on them. Jon actually reloaded the fight after the first go to see if they could do any better, and – not really. One guy managed to survive long enough to get inside the actual facility, and even he fell to the first Powder Ganger he came across. *clicks tongue* Sad. Jon decided that wouldn’t do and reloaded again, this time having Bames Jond take out the tower snipers before kicking off the fight –
And that went a LITTLE better for the NCR, admittedly – this time, three whole guys survived to storm the main facility. And it looked like they actually might have a chance at winning too – until Eddie showed up with a plasma pistol and managed to take them out before they could reach the stairwell. Bames quickly changed out of his NCR armor and made friends with the new crime lord...then shot him and all his buddies in the face because fuck it, why not. XD
II. Deciding to travel to HELIOS One via Hidden Valley and the scorpion-filled gorge right behind it, rather than risk the roads and their now waaaay more lethal ambushes! Fortunately, the place was almost entirely populated with little bark scorpions, with Bames only having to take on one big old radscorpion (who went down in a mere two hits) –
Unfortunately, as Bames discovered, bark scorpions were a little hard to hit, and – more pertinently – could pop up behind him. Bames thus spent most of the journey in a static of mild panic, punctuated by moments of greater panic as he looked behind him and found little brown skittering scorpions coming after him. XD Luckily, he did manage to get them all before they could get him, and he made it to HELIOS One in one piece. Where he helped Jon show off one of his favorite texture mods – the one that turns the NCR doggos from mutated mutts to proper Alsatians – aka German Shepherds. You want some hint of Fallout 4’s Dogmeat in your game? This is how you get it.
III. Heading to Novac and recruiting Boone, then taking him to a nearby Legion raid camp to start speedrunning gaining his trust and opening up his companion quest by freeing the captive Powder Gangers there! Which, uh, didn’t go as well as he’d hoped –
a. First, because he got lost trying to find the damn camp while also avoiding various ambushes that could kill him and the now-very-squishy Boone
b. And second, because when he did find the camp, Boone refused to bring any of his legendary sniping skills to bear, forcing Bames to do all the hard work of killing the Legionnaires on his lonesome. Boone did end up killing something near the end, though – when Bames was turned away, grumbling to himself about the guy was worse than useless. XD Figures!
IV. Bringing Boone to Nelson to continue speedrunning his companion quest by helping to free the NCR captives there! This went a lot smoother, happily (mostly thanks to Ranger Milo surviving his initial running in and giving the Legionnaires down there what-for with his cowboy repeater), and allowed Bames to show off a very weird trick to get three “Boone points” (necessary to unlock his quest – you need five to get Boone to trust you enough to open up and tell you about it) in quick succession here –
a. First, he battled his way to the center of town and freed the three NCR troopers hanging crucified there. This caused Boone to remark that he was glad that Bames had found another way to help them other than killing them, netting Bames two “Boone points” (to go with the two he’d already earned saving the Powder Gangers earlier).
b. Then, as the troopers headed out, Bames randomly murdered one of them. Despite all evidence to the contrary (namely, the troopers had been freed and were walking away), Boone considered this a mercy killing (along the lines of the one that he gave to his wife, Carla, when she was captured by the Legion) and agreed with Bames taking the guy out of his misery. Cue Bames getting an additional “Boone point,” giving him the five he needed to unlock the quest!
Yeah, uh – Fallout: New Vegas is a bit weird sometimes. XD And then it forced Bames to reload the save and redo all that before it properly calculated the points and let him start the quest. Best RPG held together with string and a prayer, folks!
V. Heading through a dry dusty area full of ants to get some easy XP (as ants have no ranged attacks), then stopping at Boulder City to resolve the situation between the NCR and the Khans before doing Boone’s companion quest! (Leaving Boone by the front gate so he didn’t try to get involve or get all disapproving or whatnot.) Jon thought that the Khans might have the edge in this version of the fight, given they had the advantage of the high ground in the ruined building they were hiding in, along with rapid-fire weapons –
But nope – while they managed to cut down two of the troopers quickly, the NCR had numbers on their side during this fight, and picked off the outside group very easily. Leaving Bames to deal with the ones inside. He thus headed forward to do so, but decided to free the tied-up hostages along the way –
Leading to them running up to the roof for some reason. And when a baffled Bames followed them up there to see why, the male half of the pair punched him for some reason! Leading Bames to reflexively shoot him, then get shot and killed himself the moment he stepped downstairs despite the fact that the NCR guy started it. XD Leading Jon to grumpily reload the save and complain that he hoped the NCR died –
Ironically while watching them do better than they did the first time around. XD Doesn’t that just figure? This time, Bames actually made it to Jessup and company in the back and kicked off the firefight between him and his men…
Only to die again when most of his shots hit a cash register in the way of his second target. Whoops. :p Fortunately, third time proved to be the charm, and he managed to take out the group by being that little bit quicker on the draw and that little bit more mobile. Whew! Quite the side trip, I think you’ll agree!
VI. And ending things off by taking Boone to Bitter Springs to help in the defense of the refugee camp there against the waves of Legion Raiders coming in to destroy it! Along with two reinforcement squads he picked up along the way from Camp McCarran and Camp Golf, to make sure there were enough NCR NPCs floating around. How did this climactic final battle go?
…Weirdly. Jon’s plan was to keep Bames Jond out of the way and let the NPCs and Boone handle things themselves (like he’d been doing for the other fights), but that was somewhat hampered by the NCR troopers having a distinct lack of response to the Legion showing up and trying to raid the refugee camp. The first wave showed up while most of the camp was asleep, and the two who were awake just kept doing idle animations by the fire, refusing to even acknowledge the sounds of battle below. It took until 9 AM in-game for one of the troopers to actually wander in the correct direction, notice the gunfire, and start shooting – and they ended up dead pretty damn quickly (though Jon was pretty sure they took one of the Legion out with them). Eventually some other troopers noticed when a Legionnaire actually made it into their camp, and one of them went over to the sandbag wall and fired down into the camp in the valley below until the remaining Legionnaire died, but as Jon noted, that only took care of the first wave – there were a few more coming in! Bames thus left Boone overlooking the camp with his trusty sniper rifle, and went off to try and trigger more raiding parties to come in –
Aaaand the tradition of the NCR being late to the party continued on through the subsequent waves of Legion raiders arriving to murder the residents of the camp. Like, they’d eventually get their act together and kill the invaders, but it always seemed to take them a hot second! Boone in particular was REALLY bad at actually, you know, shooting anyone, to the point where Jon was starting to wonder if companions just went pacifist if you left them to wait somewhere on their own (which was then followed by a kill-cam shot of Boone sniping someone, so obviously the game was just waiting for the most ironic moment). Didn’t help that Jon’s commitment to keeping Bames out of the action meant that he was always far away on a rock somewhere, meaning it was a bit hard to actually see what was happening, even when he was pointing it out with his scope… In the end, I am pretty sure that the NCR managed to kill all the Legionnaires that showed up –
BUT all of the NCR troopers and refugees died too. Meaning that all the quests related to Bitter Springs, including Boone’s companion quest, failed. Which shocked Jon, because he didn’t know that quest was able to be failed! And Boone himself acted very odd in the wake of it – thanking Bames for bringing him to Bitter Springs, saying “things seem clearer now” (Jon: “Do they???”), but not giving him the extra-special armor you get when you properly complete his quest. It was just kind of bizarre all around –
Which is probably why Bames chose to end the episode by killing Boone as a last hurrah. …After turning on Hardcore Mode, because otherwise Boone just went unconscious. XD Did allow us to see a rather heartfelt letter to his wife on Boone’s corpse that you can never see otherwise, though!
So yeah, that was – weird. But fun. XD Jon clearly had a great time with the “one-hit-kill” mode he worked up for himself, and I did enjoy watching him wander around and show off the various firefights. Though I really, really wish he’d gone to Quarry Junction with this mod on. I very much would have liked to have seen him blast some deathclaws with this mod on. Shame. *shakehead* Ah well, it was fun for what it was! Glad I gave it a try. :)
B) And, just to fill out the little bit of remaining time, the YouTube Short “Baldur's Gate 3: Picking Your Warlock Patrons” by Dungeons & Dragons! (I presume the official YouTube channel of the game.) This was just a quick clip of Nick Pechenin, the Lead Systems Designer over at Larian, talking about the different types of patrons your warlocks can have in BG3 – specifically, the Great Old One (the eldritch monstrosity, which focuses on cold and necrotic damage and having tentacles come up to grab your enemies...unless you’re me, in which case it’s all psychic damage all the time) and the Fiend (naturally a devil – the clip in fact featured Mizora, Wyll’s patron – who focus on channeling the “hot hot fires of hell”). *shrug* It ate up the remaining few seconds of my workout!
2. Continue editing Chapter 6 of “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland”: Check – got through the rest of Alice’s meeting with LaCroix today, which featured:
A) LaCroix announcing that yes, he was officially calling the Blood Hunt on Nines for the murder of Grout, and Alice feeling a wave of relief as the compulsion on her finally lifted, and immediately making plans to run to the Last Round and try to warn Nines once this meeting was over with
B) LaCroix cheerfully noting that Alice had at least removed one other encumbrance from him, then looking at her little entourage and asking if they need more help getting the sarcophagus up to his office; cue Alice awkwardly revealing that the sarcophagus had already been stolen when they arrived while Van, Terrence, and Mercurio all avoided eye contact
C) LaCroix briefly flipping out over the news that his precious sarcophagus was missing, baring his fangs and getting ready to shake Alice – before suddenly realizing who the most likely culprit was and calming down into sullen resignation with an annoyed “Gary”
D) Alice asking who Gary was, and LaCroix explaining he was the Nosferatu Primogen, and how the Nosferatu were the only other ones who knew what had happened to the sarcophagus and how to get at it; Alice proceeded to wonder why he didn’t just use one of THEM to fetch it, then realized that that probably would have been a big mistake – then wondered why one of them would steal it, if they supported the Camarilla, causing Cheshire to point out that she only knew of one member of the clan who supported it, and that supporting the Camarilla in general was not the same as supporting LaCroix in particular
E) LaCroix demanding that Alice find Gary before the sarcophagus was “exploited” – then explaining that no, this wasn’t a Grout situation, Gary just was not an easy person to get a hold of when Alice was like “oh shit, is he not answering his phone either;” he followed up by telling her that the Nosferatu holed up under Hollywood, which was Anarch territory, and that the local Baron, Isaac was at least somewhat civil to the Camarilla and might know how to contact them. Alice was like “guess I should see him to start – and mind my manners,” to which LaCroix replied, “For a change.” XD Alice couldn’t even argue with that after last night! XD
F) And the whole thing ending with LaCroix reiterating that Alice’s task was to find Gary, get him to talk, and then get the damn sarcophagus, before getting the Sheriff to kick everyone out of his office so he could formally announce the Blood Hunt
*nods* Very good progress – the number of pages I have left to edit is officially in the single digits! :D Tomorrow we’ll pick up with everyone leaving the office, and Alice chatting to Mercurio, Van, and Terrence in the aftermath – should be an enlightening conversation for her...
3. Watch something on YouTube: No check, but that was not a surprise, given tonight was Game Night (Parcheesi – Dad won the first game, Mom the second) and I’ve had almost no time for videos anyway given my workout video write-ups are getting longer and longer. *grumbles* Something has gotta be done, though damned if I know what yet...
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: N/A – didn’t have anything to do on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler), and I ended deleting the ask I had on Valice Multiverse because it was just a “hey isn’t the world rather shit”-style one that I didn’t feel like answering. Yes, I know the world is rather shit, but do we have to talk about it on my pretendy-fun-times blog?
So yeah -- not a great day, but I at least feel less stressed tonight than I did last night. But now it is definitely time to hit the sack. Tomorrow's goals: clean my room and do my monthly laundry (since I skipped last week -- wanted to adjust my schedule to account for stuff happening at the end of the month); play some Little Corners (as I expect the room clean and laundry to take a while); continue editing "Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland" (inching closer to the end!); and answer Moose's messages (because they have been sitting in my inbox for a while now). And hopefully watch the OXBox list of the week, but we'll see. *nods* Night all!
