Better Easter
Apr. 5th, 2026 11:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickThe weather was absolutely miserable, admittedly -- rainy and chilly the whole day -- but Dad was in a better mood after sleeping in this morning and was able to actually eat without throwing up; Mom ended up making chocolate cake to make Dad feel better after having to get rid of a lemon cake neither of them liked, and we all got a piece this afternoon; and she also gave me a little package of Cadbury Caramel Eggs to celebrate the holiday (she said she would have gotten me the Mini-Eggs I like so much, but she simply couldn't find any). So I ended up snacking on a few of those throughout the day. :) Overall, a definite improvement on how things went yesterday! I am extremely glad. *nods*
Also better than yesterday -- my productivity levels! Because I'm now past the worst of my period, and thus was able to focus a bit better and get more done. As the write-up below should clearly show:
Tumblr: As usual, there was nothing happening over on Valice Multiverse today – but I ended up getting a LOT done over on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) –
A) First, I added a scene to Volume VI of the Valicer In The Dark Not-Incorrect quotes – specifically, Adelaide Kingsleigh coming across a gentleman thief in her father’s study and immediately adopting her most seductive pose in the doorway, wondering aloud if he will now ravish her to stop her calling for the guards...only for the guy to turn around and reveal himself to be Victor, coldly reminding her that the last time they met, she said a woman would have to be insane to want to kiss him. Promptly followed by Alice showing up and putting a knife to her throat, commenting that she hopes that the fact the woman who is kissing Victor did spend time in a madhouse is a balm to her losing all her jewelry, and then Smiler appearing and telling her they specifically took the job in response to her laughing in Victor’s face when he tried to ask her for a dance at that masquerade ball mentioned in “The Van Dort Vacancy” before drugging her with slumber essence. And yoinking her necklace after Victor let them know it was valued at three Coin. XD I wanted to do something like this with Adelaide ever since I mentioned her in Chapter 4 of TVDV – glad I got it to come together today! Now I just need at least one more scene for this set so I can finally post it…
B) Second, I whipped up a rough draft of the “when do Victor and Alice (and occasionally others) find out Smiler’s name is ‘Marmaduke’” post that I said I had an idea for in the tags of my Easter Valicer Not-Incorrect Quotes post. Because it is an interesting question! So far I’ve covered the Modern AU, Valicer In The Dark, the Soulmates AU, the Multiplayer Wonderland AU, Londerland Bloodlines, the Severance AU, the Valicer Forgotten Vows AU, and the Smiler In Secundus AU – I think that’s all of the ones where Smiler has the birth name “Marmaduke,” but I’ll have to check my various masterposts to be sure. I have a LOT of Valicer AUs these days, after all!
C) And third, this evening, I answered three questions from mysterious-cat-official, a tumblr blog set up to send questions to people who play the “Snek” game tumblr created for April Fool’s and then just left up through all of Easter weekend (it’s your standard game of “Snake,” but your snake eats stuff like reblog symbols and the icons of your mutuals – you earn questions by eating (?) dots in a game). I played a few games last night and thus got the following three questions:
I. “What video game do you most regret not finishing?” – I said that The Sims 4 may not have an official end, but I still regret that I was never able to wrap up my beloved Chill Valicer Save file the way I wanted (with a few final adventures and holidays for the whole family to participate in) before it got killed by the infinite loading screen bug (please, PLEASE be good, Paralives!)
II. “Best video game water level?” – I said the Deluded Depths from Alice: Madness Returns, both because I do genuinely enjoy the level (no evil unfun swimming mechanics, Alice has a cool dress, and the Bottle Fish’s area is one of my favorite subareas in the whole game) and because I actually haven’t played a lot of other games WITH a water level, so…
III. “Do you consider yourself a lucky person when playing?” – I admitted to being a little confused by this one, and said that I didn’t often feel particularly lucky while playing video games (which I was pretty sure was what the question was referring to) – I mean, I had lucky moments, sure, but I also had unlucky ones, so it all evened out in the end. *shrug* I THINK I answered the question well?
So yeah – plenty going on over there! Nice to make some progress on stuff, especially after being denied the past two days.
Writing: I am pleased to say that I finally finished editing Chapter 6 of “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland” today! ...Well, I finished the first round of edits, but the second “prepping for post” pass should go faster, I hope. *fingers crossed* Today’s final page covered:
A) Alice (in response to Cheshire warning her that it’s probably best that the vampires watching her don’t know about Victor and his newly-revealed riches) remembering Victor mentioning he’d heard the name “LaCroix” before and wondering if the guy had dealings with his father (all the way back in Chapter 2) and commenting that she’d “like to avoid that” – then clarifying to Victor (who thought she was responding to his comment about how buying all of Hollywood out from under Isaac would probably take longer than LaCroix would like) that she was responding to Cheshire and that the thing she’d like to avoid was LaCroix finding out Victor was staying with her. Because she was very worried LaCroix would want to “buy” Victor off her. Victor, confused, insisted there was no amount of money LaCroix could offer him to make him want to work for him, and that he had no idea why LaCroix would even want him around in the first place –
Prompting Alice to tell him that LaCroix might want him to get access to the Van Dort fortune, “once he had control of your mind via his blood.” And that it probably wouldn’t be too hard for him to force Victor to switch sides if he got enough vitae down his throat, given Victor was only one drink into being HER ghoul. Not to mention, his Dominate powers might make getting Victor to drink from him very very easy indeed… Cue poor Victor going pale and agreeing with Alice that he very much did not want that, as he quite enjoyed what they had together, and Alice worrying about the fact that Bertram Tung back in Santa Monica already knew about Victor...but seemingly hadn’t told anyone, making it likely that the secret was big-ticket information and that she was unlikely to be able to bribe him (or Gary, if he’d told his “boss” in the clan) not to leak it eventually…
B) And Victor agreeing that they should refrain from any big purchases (like taking Venture Tower out from under LaCroix), but saying that he’d still like to give Alice something for all she’s done for him. Alice insisted that he’d already given her his company, his understanding, and that lovely blanket nest the previous night, and that was enough for her, but Victor insisted, asking if she really couldn’t think of anything she wanted –
Prompting Caterpillar to fly by and tell her that giving gifts was one of the ways Victor knew for sure to show affection – and that she might as well take him up on the offer, especially as she would be wading back into the sewers soon. Making Alice realize (after a bit of initial internal bitching about having to go into the sewers again) that – oh yeah, Victor could totally buy her a bunch of new clothes to replace the ones that keep getting ruined. XD She thus relayed this to Victor, and the chapter ended with the pair of them preparing to head out on a late-night shopping spree to get Alice some new duds (with Alice making Victor promise to be honest if he thought something didn’t suit her, and Victor joking “so the opposite of what my mother wanted when she dragged me out on these trips” XD).
Nice! I thought that was a sweet note to end things on. *nods* And now it’s time to go back to the beginning and start going through it all over again...like I said, fingers crossed the second editing pass takes less time than the first!
Fallout: New Vegas: While I got to it a little later than I wanted (much like with Baldur’s Gate III on Friday, actually), I did visit the Mojave today to continue the adventures of Courier Victor – though his adventures today consisted mostly of backtracking and trading. Though he did meet an interesting character on the road as well...let me tell you all about it –
A) I picked up where left off last time, with Victor hanging out in the NCR camp on the other side of the little bridge into Primm, which was currently under siege from a bunch of convicts that broke out of the NCRCF. At the end of my last playsession, I’d had Victor agree to go and help the NCR take back their prison from the Powder Gangers –
But at the beginning of this one, I took a look at Victor’s food and drink supplies, checked out the number of weapons he was carrying, and consulted his hunger, thirst, and sleep meters, and went, “Okay – before we go any further, Victor has to get some more water or other items he can drink to keep himself hydrated, and he has to offload some of these guns he can’t actually use – or, at least can’t use effectively.” And, well, the NCR camp didn’t have anyone willing to trade, so that left Victor only one option – backtrack to Goodsprings to hit up Trudy and Chet! I was trying to avoid that, but – needs must. *nods* Accordingly, Victor left the camp and started heading back up the road the way he’d come –
Which, naturally, meant that he encountered the gecko that had attacked the radroach on his way up, coming back to see if there was any more prey to be had. Fortunately, Victor is now pretty skilled in killing these accursed things, and after waiting for it to get a little closer, lined up some good shots on its foreleg in VATS. It did the “chase after the PC before turning around for no good reason and running away for a bit” thing, which just allowed Victor to get close enough to VATS it again, before finally taking it out with a manual shot. The spoils? Two more hunks of gecko meat and a gecko hide. Poor Victor is going to be so sick of gecko steak by the time I get him to Vegas, I swear to God. XD (At least it isn’t endless hunks of mirelurk meat you’re collecting, like your Boston counterpart over in Fallout 4!)
B) Having murdered yet another lizardy menace, Victor thus resumed his trip back to Goodsprings – but as he continued down the road, I noticed something interesting on the compass – an empty triangle, indicating a discoverable location nearby, roughly north-east of Victor’s current heading. (This is before they could do more specific location icons like in FO4.) Curious, I had Victor head in that general direction, leaving the road to creep through the nearby hills of the desert, to see if I could find the location. He spotted another gecko running around as he snuck around the general area, but fortunately he was pretty far away from it at the time, and it ran past and deeper into the hills without ever actually noticing him. Victor thus continued sneaking along, past the wreckage of an old car and back onto the road leading to Goodsprings, while I tried to figure out just where the triangle was actually pointing –
And then, as Victor got close to the intersection that leads to Jean, Primm, and Vegas, I saw a trio of Powder Gangers heading out from the camp they’d made at the side of the road – and realized maybe the triangle indicated that said camp was the location Victor could discover. I didn’t know that was an “official” location! Curiouser and curiouser… I thus had him creep up to the edges of the camp and linger there as I decided just how close I wanted him to get. The Powder Gangers were neutral toward him being there – after all, he was merely “Shunned” by the group, not straight-out “Vilified” – but I didn’t want any of them to decide they wanted Victor dead anyway. Not to mention, there was one enemy over in the camp – a bloatfly that the Powder Gangers seemed happy enough to ignore for some reason. Which, I was tempted to kill for the XP, but, again, didn’t want the Powder Gangers getting any ideas...so, in the end, I just had Victor sneak up close enough to actually tag the location (which, according to the map, is officially called “Powder Ganger Camp West”), then sneak off again, back toward the campsite near the Goodsprings Source. He’s not really in a position to cause unnecessary trouble with people just yet! We’ll see what happens once he finally gets his first companion. :p
C) With another location tagged (and thus another 9 XP got), Victor proceeded to cut through the campsite just underneath the wells of the Goodspring Source, then hop up the various hills and other rocky formations behind the various campfires. This brought him right next to the nearest well, where he gratefully took a nice big swig from the valve (I really wish you could fill up empty bottles at these things, seriously) –
Then started as he saw the Powder Ganger patrol he’d just seen leaving the PG camp jogging by! He watched them for a moment, 9mm in hand – but fortunately they didn’t seem interested in picking a fight, just leaving the area as fast as possible. Possibly they upset some of the local wildlife, who knows. I just hope they weren’t trying to harass anyone in Goodsprings – though, if they were, they didn’t do very well, given they had to flee. >D Victor let them go and instead got back on the road nearby, passing the Indiana Jones fridge where he got his hat and heading back up into the town proper. His first stop was the Prospector Saloon, to see just what Trudy had for sale when it came to food and drink –
But before I could have him head to the bar and ask her to trade, I heard Mr. New Vegas giving one of his news reports on the radio: “A package courier found shot in the head near Goodsprings has reportedly regained consciousness and made a full recovery. Now that's a delivery service you can count on.” Neat! A few days out of date at this point, but neat. :p This was followed immediately by a report on the situation in Primm: “Troubling news from Primm as merchants report a large presence of armed, unsavory figures patrolling the town. Residents are nowhere to be found.” Fits with what the NCR said about the situation – don’t worry, Mr. New Vegas, soon you’ll be able to report that Primm’s been saved and has a new sheriff in town. :) The dynamic news reports in these games are always a lotta fun, I gotta say.
D) Anyway – trading! After listening to the news reports, Victor went over to Trudy and asked to see her wares – she obliged, letting him know that his special discount was still in effect. To my disappointment, she had no water, dirty or otherwise, this time around – mostly just various kinds of booze. She did have some foodstuffs that also reduced thirst, though, so Victor ended up trading her five gecko steaks for a barrel cactus fruit, a honey mesquite pod, an ear of maize, and one Sunset Sarsaparilla. Better than nothing, and I’m sure Victor appreciates having some variety in his snacks!
With his business at the Saloon concluded, Victor left (with a quick nod to Easy Pete on the porch) and headed next door to see if Chet was still in his General Store. He was indeed, and more than willing to sell Victor a few supplies. After going through both men’s inventories and figuring out what Victor did and didn’t need, I had Victor sell him his single shotgun, the 10mm pistol and all its ammo, four gecko hides, a toy Nuka-Cola truck he found somewhere, and buy two cans of dirty water, another honey mesquite pod, three mutfruits (they’re a classic), a dose of Turbo (for emergencies), six .357 magnum rounds, forty-six 9mm rounds, and thirty-eight energy cells (for his plasma pistol). He had to pay Chet 68 caps in the end, but at least he was able to offset the cost by selling him those guns that required a higher Strength requirement than 3 to use! And now he has a decent amount of ammo for the guns he does have, which is good. *nods* Victor then prepared to leave, taking a moment to look at the decorative stock around the actual storefront just for funsies –
Then noticed Chet moving toward the door. Thinking the man wanted to leave and head home for the night, Victor got out of the way of the door – but no, Chet’s actual aim was one of the cans of pork and beans on a nearby shelf. He picked it up, brought it over to a nearby chair –
And proceeded to straight up eat it. Chowed right down on the stuff. I was so surprised and amused that I decided I needed to commemorate the moment with a screenshot:
Chet, that’s your own stock you’re eating, you know. You can’t sell it if it’s in your stomach! (And no, don’t ask me why a can of pork and beans turned into a – *squints* A sweet roll? Maybe? A round thing, at any rate – I guess there’s only so many eating animations!)
Anyway – having done all his trading and emptied out his inventory a bit, Victor headed back out onto the streets of Goodsprings to discover that night had fallen, and it was rather foggy and dusty out this eve. Accordingly, rather than head back out onto the road, Victor swung around the side of the store to take a couple of extra Sunset Sarsaparillas out of one of the crates there (because it’s only stealing to take the sodas from the crates in front of the store for some reason – the ones on the side/in the back are a-okay), turned the four bent tin cans in his inventory into normal ones at the workbench, then headed through town back over to Victortron’s shack to spend the night in a proper bed. ...And to grab the scrap metal from the bookshelf near the bathroom and the 26 energy cells out of the ammo box in the kitchen, because he had room in his inventory and planned to actually try and use that plasma pistol he’d picked up off Barton’s corpse at some point in the future. :p After that, he had his usual slurp of water out of the sink (gotta stay hydrated!), and turned in for the night at 10:03 PM. *nods* Much as I didn’t want to have to come back to Goodsprings to clear out his inventory, it was rather nice to give him one more night in Victortron’s shack. Victor probably thinks of this bed as “his” now, given how often he’s slept in it. :P
E) Victor got up the next morning bright and early at 6 AM, ready to face the day (October 26th, 2281 if you’re curious) and see what he could do about getting into Primm! After the usual gecko steak breakfast and glass of water out of the sink, he exited the shack, made his way around Victortron, and then headed down the road out of town and back down to the intersection, where he turned his steps back toward Primm and its rollercoaster. I was just starting to consider my options as to how he might get into the town without having to go across the mined bridge (potentially annoying the NCR) –
When I noticed a fellow running up to Victor, looking rather in a hurry to talk to him. “The heck?” I wondered, watching him approach. “Who the hell is this eager to talk to Victor at this point in the – oh, wait a second! I picked up that star bottle cap in the skydiving place – this is probably Malcolm Holmes, isn’t it? Okay Victor, guns away – this guy’s friendly, and he’s got some important information for you.” Victor thus holstered his 9mm and waited patiently –
And a moment later, Malcolm reached him and introduced himself! He started off by asking if Victor wanted to trade, claiming to be missing a few essentials – but moments later, went “oh, screw this. Lying just ain't in my nature” and confessed to Victor that he’d been following him for some time now. (Though, uh, it can’t actually have been THAT long in-universe, as I’m pretty sure that, by the in-game calendar, Victor only got his hands on a star bottle cap yesterday.) Victor, confused and a little creeped out, asked why he’d been following him, exactly, and Malcolm explained “It started off innocently enough. I was traveling, as I often do, and happened to observe you picking up one of those blue-star caps. You didn't show any reaction to it, so I figured you didn't know what you'd gotten your hands on.” Victor promptly asked why Malcolm didn’t say anything when he first picked up the cap then –
And Malcolm replied, “I had to make sure of your disposition. There's a lot of jumpy folks out there that'd shoot a man as soon as talk to him.” Which, okay, Victor had to give him. Malcolm then went on to say “Now that's we're conversing, though, I can tell you what I know about those caps,” and explained about the legend of there being a “fabulous treasure from before the war” somewhere in the Mojave, and that the blue star bottle caps – Sunset Sarsaparilla Stars – are somehow the key to acquiring it. Now intrigued, Victor asked, “What kind of treasure are we talking about?” –
Forcing Malcolm to admit, “No one knows. Money? Weapons? Water? It is, or maybe was, something of value, and that's enough to get people motivated.” Victor allowed that – after all, just the mention of a treasure had been enough to spark his interest – and asked if Malcolm was a collector himself. Malcolm said not anymore – “I gave it up years ago. Too dangerous. And even if I did still collect them, I'd tell you the same. There's people out there so mad with the idea of treasure that they'll attack strangers just on the suspicion that they have some of those caps.” As someone who had been shot in the head recently over one of his packages, Victor wasn’t exactly keen on hearing that! But, well, with one already in his possession, and with a potential treasure on the line, he went ahead and asked how one went about getting more of the Stars. Malcolm informed him that the best source was “unopened bottles of Sunset Sarsaparilla. You'd think they'd all have been picked clean by now, but somehow new bottles keep appearing in the machines. Some say it's old Festus that does it, hoping someone will finally collect enough caps to earn the treasure. Other than bottles, you'll just have to scavenge. You can find caps in the unlikeliest of places, and blue-star caps are no exception.” AKA, in game terms, you have a 5% chance of getting one each time you open a bottle of Sunset Sarsaparilla, and there’s others scattered around the Wasteland, ready and waiting to be collected. And yes, the game knows that there shouldn’t still be unopened bottles of Sunset Sarsaparilla floating around centuries after the apocalypse, but just go with it, will you? XD Victor, for his part, wanted to know more about this “Festus” character who was apparently keeping Sunset Sarsaparilla in circulation way after the end of the world – Malcolm explained that he was apparently the guardian of the treasure, and the one who asks for the special blue-star caps. “It's also said that he's been around since the war, standing a lonely vigil, waiting for someone to come and take the treasure off his hands. That'd make him pretty damn old, but I've met a few people in my travels who claimed they actually met him, and they weren't the lying type either.” Now, you’d probably think this makes Festus a rather single-minded ghoul, which would be perfectly reasonable for the series – but if you’ve seen my write-ups for some of Jon of Many a True Nerd’s various F:NV series, you’ll know already that the truth is a lot goofier…
But that’s for Victor to find out later. As it was, he just thanked Malcolm for all the info and said that he had to be on his way, and Malcolm let him go with one final warning: “If you do end up trying to collect more stars, watch out for a man named Allen Marks. He's killed several people for their stars already.” Which, yes, was useful information, but I think Victor would have preferred a description over a name so he knew who to look out for now in his travels! Ah well – at least I know Victor doesn’t actually have anything to fear from Allen…
F) With that conversation over with (and Malcolm on his way to find his despawn point), it was time for Victor to continue on his way! Aware that he probably wasn’t getting into Primm through the front, he broke off from the main road and headed vaguely in the direction of the Powder Ganger camp, keeping low with his gun out just in case of trouble. Cresting a little ridge revealed that there was a rather disgusting-looking toxic swamp not far from the camp (probably where the bloatfly came from) – Victor skirted around the edge of that, then continued onward, crossing the trash-filled dry creek bed he’d previously traversed on his first trip toward Primm. He paused a moment to pick a couple of jalapeño peppers growing nearby, then worked his way left around a big rock in his way before hugging the “wall” of another big rocky outcrop nearby. He grabbed two more jalapeños and a barrel cactus fruit from the plants growing next to the rock, then continued forward until he found himself in a little field of nettles. He grabbed three white horse nettles from the bunch growing in the middle, then broke left again to hide under a scrubby little tree with drooping willow-like branches – one that yielded another honey mesquite pod to add to his collection. Well – if nothing else, Victor now definitely has plenty to snack on as he tries to figure out what the hell is going on in Primm! XD
And so my playsession ended with Victor noting that there was a big old fence that went all the way around the town straight up to the big rocky cliff at the back of Primm – but that there were also some big old rocks up near the side of said fence. Ones that, if he could clamber on top of them, might just allow him to jump over the top and make his way inside the beseiged town:
I mean, it’s not a PERFECT solution, but it’s worth a shot, right? *shrug* At any rate, next time we play, we’ll see if Victor can get into Primm by that method – and if so, if he can sneak through the town and take out some of those convicts without being completely shot up himself. Might be a good opportunity to put that new plasma pistol of his to work…
Workout: To my delight, Jon actually uploaded the next episode of his F:NV YOLO Remastered series to YouTube early enough for me to watch it with my workout – so today I pedaled my way through “Fallout New Vegas: You Only Live Once Remastered - Part 37 - For Whom the Bell Tolls!” The continuing adventures of drunken melee courier P. D. Shoot in the Sierra Madre as she –
A) Got Dean Domino into position to start the music for the grand Gala Opening! Which was pretty easy in some ways, but harder than she might have wanted in others:
I. First, she and Dean had to traverse the first plaza in Puesta Del Sol North. This was very easy indeed, as she’d already cleared out said plaza while escorting Christine, and she’d already gotten the key to the Service Route while looking for a safe place to stay at the end of last week’s episode, meaning she was able to use it as a bit of a shortcut to get them over to the door to Puesta Del Sol South (where Dean needed to go) faster. And we all know how much P. D. loves to go faster!
II. Then, upon arriving in Puesta Del Sol South, rather than going the game-intended way, she used her super-fast crouching speed to just book it straight past a Ghost Person into the Ruined Cafe they were guarding, before they even had a chance to properly react to her presence. After confirming the Ghost Person couldn’t follow her inside, she then ran upstairs, through a door onto the balcony, then over to the room next door through the hole in the wall. This allowed her not only to skip all the enemies downstairs, but to turn on a hologram that would deal with the bastards for her! Cue P. D. happily activating the emitter, then sitting back and waiting as the hologram hunted down all the Ghost People in the area (while she got all the glory for the kills as per the achievements popping up). Even better, that opened up a shortcut for her to get back to the first plaza, and thus back to the main Villa area, once Dean was in position. Nice!
III. Then, once everyone was dead and the hologram had returned to its neutral guard position, P. D. dropped down into the plaza, before speeding right through the Cloud in her way (taking advantage of the fact that Dean’s companion perk meant that she could stay in it longer without being poisoned, meaning she did not have to burn any of her precious Implant GRX to get through it) into the building behind it, then up the stairs to where Dean would have to connect the wires to turn on the music system. Easy peasy lemon squeezy –
Except, uh, at some point during all that, she – kinda lost Dean. Like, he was still tied to her as a companion, as his perk was working, but he himself had wandered off somewhere and was no longer following her. After waiting a few minutes, a frustrated P. D. ended up jumping back down into the main plaza and going through the shortcut door back to Puesta Del Sol North to force him to respawn next to her, then back to Puesta Del Sol South and through the Cloud AGAIN to get him where he needed to be. Not exactly difficult difficult lemon difficult – she never took damage from the Cloud thanks to the power of the perk – but it was very annoying!
VI. Then, once Dean was actually by the broken wire that he needed to reconnect to set off the Gala Opening, all she needed to do was listen to him complain about how his job was just tapping two bits of wire together like cymbals when the time was right; offer to kill all the Ghost People in the area when he told her that he was sure the music would bring a bunch of them swarming to his location; use her excellent Science skill to offer to turn on the guard holograms when he said that her murdering all the Ghost People in the immediate vicinity wouldn’t be enough so they could protect him from any swarms; run downstairs through the door across from the wires to turn on the other guard hologram at the terminal down there; and finally soothe Dean’s fears about the power going out by using her Repair skill to point out the hologram at the central fountain had stayed on since the bombs fell, so these two should to. Making him at last agree to stay put and help with the Opening – though he did sneak in a warning to not try to get into the Sierra Madre without him. Don’t worry, Dean – P. D. wants you to like her so you’ll help her in the grand finale!
V. And finally, with Dean in place, all she had to do was go through her shortcut door back to Puesta Del Sol North, and from there to her favorite waiting place in the Medical Pavilion! Yay!
B) Braved the horrors of Salida Del Sol North to get to the top of the bell tower there to officially start the Gala Opening! A trip that required some pretty precise timing on her part, as the whole thing was built around her burning all five doses of her precious Implant GRX to get up there – and then burning a bunch more to get back down, as fast travel isn’t really a thing in this DLC. Accordingly, she waited until 8:25 PM in the Medical Pavilion, then headed back into Salida Del Sol South, in the opposite direction from where she’d dropped off Dog/God to tend to the fireworks. From there, the trip went like so –
I. She burned her first dose of Implant GRX to disarm a trap on the road, kill the two Ghost People standing in her way, and make it into the house she needed to pass through to reach the tower
II. Then, she burned her second dose to take advantage of a shortcut after passing through the house – ducking through a gate that inside a bit of Cloud AND had a radio nearby AND a bear trap just past it (disarming the trap and just crouch-speeding past the other two dangers), before running around a corner, up some stairs (disarming ANOTHER bear trap on the way), over to a Ghost Person to punch him in the back before he could notice her, and into another wrecked building.
III. Then, she proceed up all the stairs (making sure to disarm every bear trap she came across) to get onto the roof to bypass some radroaches (who, if she left them alive, would help distract other enemies on her way back out), leaping into another gap in the wall just below her, before disarming some traps in her way and descending into the shop area below her to try and take out some Ghost People in the plaza just beyond. Things got a little hairy here as the Ghost People noticed her when she first tried to pop out and sneak attack them, but fortunately she was already planning on burning her third dose of Implant GRX here, so she did that and took them out with a few nasty hits with her bear trap fist, JUST avoiding getting a nasty gas bomb thrown at her by the Seeker. *whew* A close call, but she made it!
IV. Then, she proceeded up the nearby stairs into Campanas Del Sol, the plaza just underneath the bell tower, before going around the corner, disarming another trap, and descending into the morgue – before burning BOTH of her remaining doses of Implant GRX at once to keep the time slowdown effect on long enough to race past every enemy in her path (stopping to kill them if feasible) and get to the bell tower before anybody could cause her problems. The trip proved to be a LITTLE more fraught than it needed to be – P. D. only had the opportunity to kill one of the Ghost People in her way, and Jon got a little confused by where some of the traps and one of the radios where (not helped by his rumble pack going off at a bad moment, making him think P. D. had walked into ANOTHER bear trap – happily not) – but our brave heroine managed to weave around all the Ghost People, disarm every trap that could have hurt her in her escape, and make it to the ladder leading up into the bell tower without taking a lick of damage, yay. :) Where all she had to do was wait one hour, staring at the hotel in the distance, to get all her Implant GRX back. *claps* Good work, P. D.!
C) Finally set off the Gala Opening after a quick check-in with her teammates (Dean warning her that the Villa was going to get nasty afterward, with loads of enemies AND radios to deal with), then – once the spotlights had waved, and the music begun, and the fireworks all been set off – leaving the bell tower and heading back to the fountain in the Villa to get into the actual casino! Which involved climbing back down the ladder, burning FOUR doses of Implant GRX at once to get all Turboed up (reserving one for emergencies), then running like hell back the way she came –
And, by the grace of God, Bethesda, and Oblivion, getting a perfect run back to the start. Seriously – there were pretty much NO Ghost People in her way, and she was easily able to dodge all danger, retrace her steps, make it back to the Villa and the Fountain, and all the way to the main gates of the casino before the slowed time wore off. All without taking even a fraction of a point of damage. :D We love when things actually go P. D.’s way for a change! Jon sure as hell did. XD
D) And finally entered the Sierra Madre Casino proper – only to find all her compatriots knocked out on the floor, before being knocked out herself by the casino’s security releasing gas into the entrance. She woke up a bit later to find her fellow heistmates gone and Father Elijah on the radio. He explained to her what had happened, adding that security had moved the others into different parts of the casino once they’d all been subdued, then wondered if the reason the others had run into said casino had been to help or kill her...before going on to creepily comment about how beautiful and quiet the Sierra Madre was now that all its guests had died, and how the Mojave should be the same way…
And so the episode ended with Elijah telling her that the casino was “sleeping” and that they needed to “wake it up” to get to where they were going (and presumably to let P. D. eventually escape this nonsense), and P. D. preparing to face her fellow heistmates in their big final climactic showdowns. Which – given she did what Christine and Dean wanted, shouldn’t be TOO bad in their cases, but Dog/God? Yeah, those two might be more of a problem… Not to mention, Jon said right at the end that there’s a whole slew of new horrifying problems for her to deal with now that she’s in the casino proper. Next week, we learn all about those and start dealing with them! Should be fun. :)
Not bad, I think! Though, uh, I have stayed up rather later than I'd intended getting all this done, so I should REALLY head to bed and actually get some sleep. ^^; Goals tomorrow include further working on my VLA(NS) drafts; playing some Portal 2; and either starting those final edits on Chapter 6 of LB:DQ, or taking a break day to quickly work on something else. We'll see what happens. Oh, and get in a workout, though I'm not sure what I'll be watching yet...I'll figure it out! Night all!
Also better than yesterday -- my productivity levels! Because I'm now past the worst of my period, and thus was able to focus a bit better and get more done. As the write-up below should clearly show:
Tumblr: As usual, there was nothing happening over on Valice Multiverse today – but I ended up getting a LOT done over on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) –
A) First, I added a scene to Volume VI of the Valicer In The Dark Not-Incorrect quotes – specifically, Adelaide Kingsleigh coming across a gentleman thief in her father’s study and immediately adopting her most seductive pose in the doorway, wondering aloud if he will now ravish her to stop her calling for the guards...only for the guy to turn around and reveal himself to be Victor, coldly reminding her that the last time they met, she said a woman would have to be insane to want to kiss him. Promptly followed by Alice showing up and putting a knife to her throat, commenting that she hopes that the fact the woman who is kissing Victor did spend time in a madhouse is a balm to her losing all her jewelry, and then Smiler appearing and telling her they specifically took the job in response to her laughing in Victor’s face when he tried to ask her for a dance at that masquerade ball mentioned in “The Van Dort Vacancy” before drugging her with slumber essence. And yoinking her necklace after Victor let them know it was valued at three Coin. XD I wanted to do something like this with Adelaide ever since I mentioned her in Chapter 4 of TVDV – glad I got it to come together today! Now I just need at least one more scene for this set so I can finally post it…
B) Second, I whipped up a rough draft of the “when do Victor and Alice (and occasionally others) find out Smiler’s name is ‘Marmaduke’” post that I said I had an idea for in the tags of my Easter Valicer Not-Incorrect Quotes post. Because it is an interesting question! So far I’ve covered the Modern AU, Valicer In The Dark, the Soulmates AU, the Multiplayer Wonderland AU, Londerland Bloodlines, the Severance AU, the Valicer Forgotten Vows AU, and the Smiler In Secundus AU – I think that’s all of the ones where Smiler has the birth name “Marmaduke,” but I’ll have to check my various masterposts to be sure. I have a LOT of Valicer AUs these days, after all!
C) And third, this evening, I answered three questions from mysterious-cat-official, a tumblr blog set up to send questions to people who play the “Snek” game tumblr created for April Fool’s and then just left up through all of Easter weekend (it’s your standard game of “Snake,” but your snake eats stuff like reblog symbols and the icons of your mutuals – you earn questions by eating (?) dots in a game). I played a few games last night and thus got the following three questions:
I. “What video game do you most regret not finishing?” – I said that The Sims 4 may not have an official end, but I still regret that I was never able to wrap up my beloved Chill Valicer Save file the way I wanted (with a few final adventures and holidays for the whole family to participate in) before it got killed by the infinite loading screen bug (please, PLEASE be good, Paralives!)
II. “Best video game water level?” – I said the Deluded Depths from Alice: Madness Returns, both because I do genuinely enjoy the level (no evil unfun swimming mechanics, Alice has a cool dress, and the Bottle Fish’s area is one of my favorite subareas in the whole game) and because I actually haven’t played a lot of other games WITH a water level, so…
III. “Do you consider yourself a lucky person when playing?” – I admitted to being a little confused by this one, and said that I didn’t often feel particularly lucky while playing video games (which I was pretty sure was what the question was referring to) – I mean, I had lucky moments, sure, but I also had unlucky ones, so it all evened out in the end. *shrug* I THINK I answered the question well?
So yeah – plenty going on over there! Nice to make some progress on stuff, especially after being denied the past two days.
Writing: I am pleased to say that I finally finished editing Chapter 6 of “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland” today! ...Well, I finished the first round of edits, but the second “prepping for post” pass should go faster, I hope. *fingers crossed* Today’s final page covered:
A) Alice (in response to Cheshire warning her that it’s probably best that the vampires watching her don’t know about Victor and his newly-revealed riches) remembering Victor mentioning he’d heard the name “LaCroix” before and wondering if the guy had dealings with his father (all the way back in Chapter 2) and commenting that she’d “like to avoid that” – then clarifying to Victor (who thought she was responding to his comment about how buying all of Hollywood out from under Isaac would probably take longer than LaCroix would like) that she was responding to Cheshire and that the thing she’d like to avoid was LaCroix finding out Victor was staying with her. Because she was very worried LaCroix would want to “buy” Victor off her. Victor, confused, insisted there was no amount of money LaCroix could offer him to make him want to work for him, and that he had no idea why LaCroix would even want him around in the first place –
Prompting Alice to tell him that LaCroix might want him to get access to the Van Dort fortune, “once he had control of your mind via his blood.” And that it probably wouldn’t be too hard for him to force Victor to switch sides if he got enough vitae down his throat, given Victor was only one drink into being HER ghoul. Not to mention, his Dominate powers might make getting Victor to drink from him very very easy indeed… Cue poor Victor going pale and agreeing with Alice that he very much did not want that, as he quite enjoyed what they had together, and Alice worrying about the fact that Bertram Tung back in Santa Monica already knew about Victor...but seemingly hadn’t told anyone, making it likely that the secret was big-ticket information and that she was unlikely to be able to bribe him (or Gary, if he’d told his “boss” in the clan) not to leak it eventually…
B) And Victor agreeing that they should refrain from any big purchases (like taking Venture Tower out from under LaCroix), but saying that he’d still like to give Alice something for all she’s done for him. Alice insisted that he’d already given her his company, his understanding, and that lovely blanket nest the previous night, and that was enough for her, but Victor insisted, asking if she really couldn’t think of anything she wanted –
Prompting Caterpillar to fly by and tell her that giving gifts was one of the ways Victor knew for sure to show affection – and that she might as well take him up on the offer, especially as she would be wading back into the sewers soon. Making Alice realize (after a bit of initial internal bitching about having to go into the sewers again) that – oh yeah, Victor could totally buy her a bunch of new clothes to replace the ones that keep getting ruined. XD She thus relayed this to Victor, and the chapter ended with the pair of them preparing to head out on a late-night shopping spree to get Alice some new duds (with Alice making Victor promise to be honest if he thought something didn’t suit her, and Victor joking “so the opposite of what my mother wanted when she dragged me out on these trips” XD).
Nice! I thought that was a sweet note to end things on. *nods* And now it’s time to go back to the beginning and start going through it all over again...like I said, fingers crossed the second editing pass takes less time than the first!
Fallout: New Vegas: While I got to it a little later than I wanted (much like with Baldur’s Gate III on Friday, actually), I did visit the Mojave today to continue the adventures of Courier Victor – though his adventures today consisted mostly of backtracking and trading. Though he did meet an interesting character on the road as well...let me tell you all about it –
A) I picked up where left off last time, with Victor hanging out in the NCR camp on the other side of the little bridge into Primm, which was currently under siege from a bunch of convicts that broke out of the NCRCF. At the end of my last playsession, I’d had Victor agree to go and help the NCR take back their prison from the Powder Gangers –
But at the beginning of this one, I took a look at Victor’s food and drink supplies, checked out the number of weapons he was carrying, and consulted his hunger, thirst, and sleep meters, and went, “Okay – before we go any further, Victor has to get some more water or other items he can drink to keep himself hydrated, and he has to offload some of these guns he can’t actually use – or, at least can’t use effectively.” And, well, the NCR camp didn’t have anyone willing to trade, so that left Victor only one option – backtrack to Goodsprings to hit up Trudy and Chet! I was trying to avoid that, but – needs must. *nods* Accordingly, Victor left the camp and started heading back up the road the way he’d come –
Which, naturally, meant that he encountered the gecko that had attacked the radroach on his way up, coming back to see if there was any more prey to be had. Fortunately, Victor is now pretty skilled in killing these accursed things, and after waiting for it to get a little closer, lined up some good shots on its foreleg in VATS. It did the “chase after the PC before turning around for no good reason and running away for a bit” thing, which just allowed Victor to get close enough to VATS it again, before finally taking it out with a manual shot. The spoils? Two more hunks of gecko meat and a gecko hide. Poor Victor is going to be so sick of gecko steak by the time I get him to Vegas, I swear to God. XD (At least it isn’t endless hunks of mirelurk meat you’re collecting, like your Boston counterpart over in Fallout 4!)
B) Having murdered yet another lizardy menace, Victor thus resumed his trip back to Goodsprings – but as he continued down the road, I noticed something interesting on the compass – an empty triangle, indicating a discoverable location nearby, roughly north-east of Victor’s current heading. (This is before they could do more specific location icons like in FO4.) Curious, I had Victor head in that general direction, leaving the road to creep through the nearby hills of the desert, to see if I could find the location. He spotted another gecko running around as he snuck around the general area, but fortunately he was pretty far away from it at the time, and it ran past and deeper into the hills without ever actually noticing him. Victor thus continued sneaking along, past the wreckage of an old car and back onto the road leading to Goodsprings, while I tried to figure out just where the triangle was actually pointing –
And then, as Victor got close to the intersection that leads to Jean, Primm, and Vegas, I saw a trio of Powder Gangers heading out from the camp they’d made at the side of the road – and realized maybe the triangle indicated that said camp was the location Victor could discover. I didn’t know that was an “official” location! Curiouser and curiouser… I thus had him creep up to the edges of the camp and linger there as I decided just how close I wanted him to get. The Powder Gangers were neutral toward him being there – after all, he was merely “Shunned” by the group, not straight-out “Vilified” – but I didn’t want any of them to decide they wanted Victor dead anyway. Not to mention, there was one enemy over in the camp – a bloatfly that the Powder Gangers seemed happy enough to ignore for some reason. Which, I was tempted to kill for the XP, but, again, didn’t want the Powder Gangers getting any ideas...so, in the end, I just had Victor sneak up close enough to actually tag the location (which, according to the map, is officially called “Powder Ganger Camp West”), then sneak off again, back toward the campsite near the Goodsprings Source. He’s not really in a position to cause unnecessary trouble with people just yet! We’ll see what happens once he finally gets his first companion. :p
C) With another location tagged (and thus another 9 XP got), Victor proceeded to cut through the campsite just underneath the wells of the Goodspring Source, then hop up the various hills and other rocky formations behind the various campfires. This brought him right next to the nearest well, where he gratefully took a nice big swig from the valve (I really wish you could fill up empty bottles at these things, seriously) –
Then started as he saw the Powder Ganger patrol he’d just seen leaving the PG camp jogging by! He watched them for a moment, 9mm in hand – but fortunately they didn’t seem interested in picking a fight, just leaving the area as fast as possible. Possibly they upset some of the local wildlife, who knows. I just hope they weren’t trying to harass anyone in Goodsprings – though, if they were, they didn’t do very well, given they had to flee. >D Victor let them go and instead got back on the road nearby, passing the Indiana Jones fridge where he got his hat and heading back up into the town proper. His first stop was the Prospector Saloon, to see just what Trudy had for sale when it came to food and drink –
But before I could have him head to the bar and ask her to trade, I heard Mr. New Vegas giving one of his news reports on the radio: “A package courier found shot in the head near Goodsprings has reportedly regained consciousness and made a full recovery. Now that's a delivery service you can count on.” Neat! A few days out of date at this point, but neat. :p This was followed immediately by a report on the situation in Primm: “Troubling news from Primm as merchants report a large presence of armed, unsavory figures patrolling the town. Residents are nowhere to be found.” Fits with what the NCR said about the situation – don’t worry, Mr. New Vegas, soon you’ll be able to report that Primm’s been saved and has a new sheriff in town. :) The dynamic news reports in these games are always a lotta fun, I gotta say.
D) Anyway – trading! After listening to the news reports, Victor went over to Trudy and asked to see her wares – she obliged, letting him know that his special discount was still in effect. To my disappointment, she had no water, dirty or otherwise, this time around – mostly just various kinds of booze. She did have some foodstuffs that also reduced thirst, though, so Victor ended up trading her five gecko steaks for a barrel cactus fruit, a honey mesquite pod, an ear of maize, and one Sunset Sarsaparilla. Better than nothing, and I’m sure Victor appreciates having some variety in his snacks!
With his business at the Saloon concluded, Victor left (with a quick nod to Easy Pete on the porch) and headed next door to see if Chet was still in his General Store. He was indeed, and more than willing to sell Victor a few supplies. After going through both men’s inventories and figuring out what Victor did and didn’t need, I had Victor sell him his single shotgun, the 10mm pistol and all its ammo, four gecko hides, a toy Nuka-Cola truck he found somewhere, and buy two cans of dirty water, another honey mesquite pod, three mutfruits (they’re a classic), a dose of Turbo (for emergencies), six .357 magnum rounds, forty-six 9mm rounds, and thirty-eight energy cells (for his plasma pistol). He had to pay Chet 68 caps in the end, but at least he was able to offset the cost by selling him those guns that required a higher Strength requirement than 3 to use! And now he has a decent amount of ammo for the guns he does have, which is good. *nods* Victor then prepared to leave, taking a moment to look at the decorative stock around the actual storefront just for funsies –
Then noticed Chet moving toward the door. Thinking the man wanted to leave and head home for the night, Victor got out of the way of the door – but no, Chet’s actual aim was one of the cans of pork and beans on a nearby shelf. He picked it up, brought it over to a nearby chair –
And proceeded to straight up eat it. Chowed right down on the stuff. I was so surprised and amused that I decided I needed to commemorate the moment with a screenshot:
Chet, that’s your own stock you’re eating, you know. You can’t sell it if it’s in your stomach! (And no, don’t ask me why a can of pork and beans turned into a – *squints* A sweet roll? Maybe? A round thing, at any rate – I guess there’s only so many eating animations!)
Anyway – having done all his trading and emptied out his inventory a bit, Victor headed back out onto the streets of Goodsprings to discover that night had fallen, and it was rather foggy and dusty out this eve. Accordingly, rather than head back out onto the road, Victor swung around the side of the store to take a couple of extra Sunset Sarsaparillas out of one of the crates there (because it’s only stealing to take the sodas from the crates in front of the store for some reason – the ones on the side/in the back are a-okay), turned the four bent tin cans in his inventory into normal ones at the workbench, then headed through town back over to Victortron’s shack to spend the night in a proper bed. ...And to grab the scrap metal from the bookshelf near the bathroom and the 26 energy cells out of the ammo box in the kitchen, because he had room in his inventory and planned to actually try and use that plasma pistol he’d picked up off Barton’s corpse at some point in the future. :p After that, he had his usual slurp of water out of the sink (gotta stay hydrated!), and turned in for the night at 10:03 PM. *nods* Much as I didn’t want to have to come back to Goodsprings to clear out his inventory, it was rather nice to give him one more night in Victortron’s shack. Victor probably thinks of this bed as “his” now, given how often he’s slept in it. :P
E) Victor got up the next morning bright and early at 6 AM, ready to face the day (October 26th, 2281 if you’re curious) and see what he could do about getting into Primm! After the usual gecko steak breakfast and glass of water out of the sink, he exited the shack, made his way around Victortron, and then headed down the road out of town and back down to the intersection, where he turned his steps back toward Primm and its rollercoaster. I was just starting to consider my options as to how he might get into the town without having to go across the mined bridge (potentially annoying the NCR) –
When I noticed a fellow running up to Victor, looking rather in a hurry to talk to him. “The heck?” I wondered, watching him approach. “Who the hell is this eager to talk to Victor at this point in the – oh, wait a second! I picked up that star bottle cap in the skydiving place – this is probably Malcolm Holmes, isn’t it? Okay Victor, guns away – this guy’s friendly, and he’s got some important information for you.” Victor thus holstered his 9mm and waited patiently –
And a moment later, Malcolm reached him and introduced himself! He started off by asking if Victor wanted to trade, claiming to be missing a few essentials – but moments later, went “oh, screw this. Lying just ain't in my nature” and confessed to Victor that he’d been following him for some time now. (Though, uh, it can’t actually have been THAT long in-universe, as I’m pretty sure that, by the in-game calendar, Victor only got his hands on a star bottle cap yesterday.) Victor, confused and a little creeped out, asked why he’d been following him, exactly, and Malcolm explained “It started off innocently enough. I was traveling, as I often do, and happened to observe you picking up one of those blue-star caps. You didn't show any reaction to it, so I figured you didn't know what you'd gotten your hands on.” Victor promptly asked why Malcolm didn’t say anything when he first picked up the cap then –
And Malcolm replied, “I had to make sure of your disposition. There's a lot of jumpy folks out there that'd shoot a man as soon as talk to him.” Which, okay, Victor had to give him. Malcolm then went on to say “Now that's we're conversing, though, I can tell you what I know about those caps,” and explained about the legend of there being a “fabulous treasure from before the war” somewhere in the Mojave, and that the blue star bottle caps – Sunset Sarsaparilla Stars – are somehow the key to acquiring it. Now intrigued, Victor asked, “What kind of treasure are we talking about?” –
Forcing Malcolm to admit, “No one knows. Money? Weapons? Water? It is, or maybe was, something of value, and that's enough to get people motivated.” Victor allowed that – after all, just the mention of a treasure had been enough to spark his interest – and asked if Malcolm was a collector himself. Malcolm said not anymore – “I gave it up years ago. Too dangerous. And even if I did still collect them, I'd tell you the same. There's people out there so mad with the idea of treasure that they'll attack strangers just on the suspicion that they have some of those caps.” As someone who had been shot in the head recently over one of his packages, Victor wasn’t exactly keen on hearing that! But, well, with one already in his possession, and with a potential treasure on the line, he went ahead and asked how one went about getting more of the Stars. Malcolm informed him that the best source was “unopened bottles of Sunset Sarsaparilla. You'd think they'd all have been picked clean by now, but somehow new bottles keep appearing in the machines. Some say it's old Festus that does it, hoping someone will finally collect enough caps to earn the treasure. Other than bottles, you'll just have to scavenge. You can find caps in the unlikeliest of places, and blue-star caps are no exception.” AKA, in game terms, you have a 5% chance of getting one each time you open a bottle of Sunset Sarsaparilla, and there’s others scattered around the Wasteland, ready and waiting to be collected. And yes, the game knows that there shouldn’t still be unopened bottles of Sunset Sarsaparilla floating around centuries after the apocalypse, but just go with it, will you? XD Victor, for his part, wanted to know more about this “Festus” character who was apparently keeping Sunset Sarsaparilla in circulation way after the end of the world – Malcolm explained that he was apparently the guardian of the treasure, and the one who asks for the special blue-star caps. “It's also said that he's been around since the war, standing a lonely vigil, waiting for someone to come and take the treasure off his hands. That'd make him pretty damn old, but I've met a few people in my travels who claimed they actually met him, and they weren't the lying type either.” Now, you’d probably think this makes Festus a rather single-minded ghoul, which would be perfectly reasonable for the series – but if you’ve seen my write-ups for some of Jon of Many a True Nerd’s various F:NV series, you’ll know already that the truth is a lot goofier…
But that’s for Victor to find out later. As it was, he just thanked Malcolm for all the info and said that he had to be on his way, and Malcolm let him go with one final warning: “If you do end up trying to collect more stars, watch out for a man named Allen Marks. He's killed several people for their stars already.” Which, yes, was useful information, but I think Victor would have preferred a description over a name so he knew who to look out for now in his travels! Ah well – at least I know Victor doesn’t actually have anything to fear from Allen…
F) With that conversation over with (and Malcolm on his way to find his despawn point), it was time for Victor to continue on his way! Aware that he probably wasn’t getting into Primm through the front, he broke off from the main road and headed vaguely in the direction of the Powder Ganger camp, keeping low with his gun out just in case of trouble. Cresting a little ridge revealed that there was a rather disgusting-looking toxic swamp not far from the camp (probably where the bloatfly came from) – Victor skirted around the edge of that, then continued onward, crossing the trash-filled dry creek bed he’d previously traversed on his first trip toward Primm. He paused a moment to pick a couple of jalapeño peppers growing nearby, then worked his way left around a big rock in his way before hugging the “wall” of another big rocky outcrop nearby. He grabbed two more jalapeños and a barrel cactus fruit from the plants growing next to the rock, then continued forward until he found himself in a little field of nettles. He grabbed three white horse nettles from the bunch growing in the middle, then broke left again to hide under a scrubby little tree with drooping willow-like branches – one that yielded another honey mesquite pod to add to his collection. Well – if nothing else, Victor now definitely has plenty to snack on as he tries to figure out what the hell is going on in Primm! XD
And so my playsession ended with Victor noting that there was a big old fence that went all the way around the town straight up to the big rocky cliff at the back of Primm – but that there were also some big old rocks up near the side of said fence. Ones that, if he could clamber on top of them, might just allow him to jump over the top and make his way inside the beseiged town:
I mean, it’s not a PERFECT solution, but it’s worth a shot, right? *shrug* At any rate, next time we play, we’ll see if Victor can get into Primm by that method – and if so, if he can sneak through the town and take out some of those convicts without being completely shot up himself. Might be a good opportunity to put that new plasma pistol of his to work…
Workout: To my delight, Jon actually uploaded the next episode of his F:NV YOLO Remastered series to YouTube early enough for me to watch it with my workout – so today I pedaled my way through “Fallout New Vegas: You Only Live Once Remastered - Part 37 - For Whom the Bell Tolls!” The continuing adventures of drunken melee courier P. D. Shoot in the Sierra Madre as she –
A) Got Dean Domino into position to start the music for the grand Gala Opening! Which was pretty easy in some ways, but harder than she might have wanted in others:
I. First, she and Dean had to traverse the first plaza in Puesta Del Sol North. This was very easy indeed, as she’d already cleared out said plaza while escorting Christine, and she’d already gotten the key to the Service Route while looking for a safe place to stay at the end of last week’s episode, meaning she was able to use it as a bit of a shortcut to get them over to the door to Puesta Del Sol South (where Dean needed to go) faster. And we all know how much P. D. loves to go faster!
II. Then, upon arriving in Puesta Del Sol South, rather than going the game-intended way, she used her super-fast crouching speed to just book it straight past a Ghost Person into the Ruined Cafe they were guarding, before they even had a chance to properly react to her presence. After confirming the Ghost Person couldn’t follow her inside, she then ran upstairs, through a door onto the balcony, then over to the room next door through the hole in the wall. This allowed her not only to skip all the enemies downstairs, but to turn on a hologram that would deal with the bastards for her! Cue P. D. happily activating the emitter, then sitting back and waiting as the hologram hunted down all the Ghost People in the area (while she got all the glory for the kills as per the achievements popping up). Even better, that opened up a shortcut for her to get back to the first plaza, and thus back to the main Villa area, once Dean was in position. Nice!
III. Then, once everyone was dead and the hologram had returned to its neutral guard position, P. D. dropped down into the plaza, before speeding right through the Cloud in her way (taking advantage of the fact that Dean’s companion perk meant that she could stay in it longer without being poisoned, meaning she did not have to burn any of her precious Implant GRX to get through it) into the building behind it, then up the stairs to where Dean would have to connect the wires to turn on the music system. Easy peasy lemon squeezy –
Except, uh, at some point during all that, she – kinda lost Dean. Like, he was still tied to her as a companion, as his perk was working, but he himself had wandered off somewhere and was no longer following her. After waiting a few minutes, a frustrated P. D. ended up jumping back down into the main plaza and going through the shortcut door back to Puesta Del Sol North to force him to respawn next to her, then back to Puesta Del Sol South and through the Cloud AGAIN to get him where he needed to be. Not exactly difficult difficult lemon difficult – she never took damage from the Cloud thanks to the power of the perk – but it was very annoying!
VI. Then, once Dean was actually by the broken wire that he needed to reconnect to set off the Gala Opening, all she needed to do was listen to him complain about how his job was just tapping two bits of wire together like cymbals when the time was right; offer to kill all the Ghost People in the area when he told her that he was sure the music would bring a bunch of them swarming to his location; use her excellent Science skill to offer to turn on the guard holograms when he said that her murdering all the Ghost People in the immediate vicinity wouldn’t be enough so they could protect him from any swarms; run downstairs through the door across from the wires to turn on the other guard hologram at the terminal down there; and finally soothe Dean’s fears about the power going out by using her Repair skill to point out the hologram at the central fountain had stayed on since the bombs fell, so these two should to. Making him at last agree to stay put and help with the Opening – though he did sneak in a warning to not try to get into the Sierra Madre without him. Don’t worry, Dean – P. D. wants you to like her so you’ll help her in the grand finale!
V. And finally, with Dean in place, all she had to do was go through her shortcut door back to Puesta Del Sol North, and from there to her favorite waiting place in the Medical Pavilion! Yay!
B) Braved the horrors of Salida Del Sol North to get to the top of the bell tower there to officially start the Gala Opening! A trip that required some pretty precise timing on her part, as the whole thing was built around her burning all five doses of her precious Implant GRX to get up there – and then burning a bunch more to get back down, as fast travel isn’t really a thing in this DLC. Accordingly, she waited until 8:25 PM in the Medical Pavilion, then headed back into Salida Del Sol South, in the opposite direction from where she’d dropped off Dog/God to tend to the fireworks. From there, the trip went like so –
I. She burned her first dose of Implant GRX to disarm a trap on the road, kill the two Ghost People standing in her way, and make it into the house she needed to pass through to reach the tower
II. Then, she burned her second dose to take advantage of a shortcut after passing through the house – ducking through a gate that inside a bit of Cloud AND had a radio nearby AND a bear trap just past it (disarming the trap and just crouch-speeding past the other two dangers), before running around a corner, up some stairs (disarming ANOTHER bear trap on the way), over to a Ghost Person to punch him in the back before he could notice her, and into another wrecked building.
III. Then, she proceed up all the stairs (making sure to disarm every bear trap she came across) to get onto the roof to bypass some radroaches (who, if she left them alive, would help distract other enemies on her way back out), leaping into another gap in the wall just below her, before disarming some traps in her way and descending into the shop area below her to try and take out some Ghost People in the plaza just beyond. Things got a little hairy here as the Ghost People noticed her when she first tried to pop out and sneak attack them, but fortunately she was already planning on burning her third dose of Implant GRX here, so she did that and took them out with a few nasty hits with her bear trap fist, JUST avoiding getting a nasty gas bomb thrown at her by the Seeker. *whew* A close call, but she made it!
IV. Then, she proceeded up the nearby stairs into Campanas Del Sol, the plaza just underneath the bell tower, before going around the corner, disarming another trap, and descending into the morgue – before burning BOTH of her remaining doses of Implant GRX at once to keep the time slowdown effect on long enough to race past every enemy in her path (stopping to kill them if feasible) and get to the bell tower before anybody could cause her problems. The trip proved to be a LITTLE more fraught than it needed to be – P. D. only had the opportunity to kill one of the Ghost People in her way, and Jon got a little confused by where some of the traps and one of the radios where (not helped by his rumble pack going off at a bad moment, making him think P. D. had walked into ANOTHER bear trap – happily not) – but our brave heroine managed to weave around all the Ghost People, disarm every trap that could have hurt her in her escape, and make it to the ladder leading up into the bell tower without taking a lick of damage, yay. :) Where all she had to do was wait one hour, staring at the hotel in the distance, to get all her Implant GRX back. *claps* Good work, P. D.!
C) Finally set off the Gala Opening after a quick check-in with her teammates (Dean warning her that the Villa was going to get nasty afterward, with loads of enemies AND radios to deal with), then – once the spotlights had waved, and the music begun, and the fireworks all been set off – leaving the bell tower and heading back to the fountain in the Villa to get into the actual casino! Which involved climbing back down the ladder, burning FOUR doses of Implant GRX at once to get all Turboed up (reserving one for emergencies), then running like hell back the way she came –
And, by the grace of God, Bethesda, and Oblivion, getting a perfect run back to the start. Seriously – there were pretty much NO Ghost People in her way, and she was easily able to dodge all danger, retrace her steps, make it back to the Villa and the Fountain, and all the way to the main gates of the casino before the slowed time wore off. All without taking even a fraction of a point of damage. :D We love when things actually go P. D.’s way for a change! Jon sure as hell did. XD
D) And finally entered the Sierra Madre Casino proper – only to find all her compatriots knocked out on the floor, before being knocked out herself by the casino’s security releasing gas into the entrance. She woke up a bit later to find her fellow heistmates gone and Father Elijah on the radio. He explained to her what had happened, adding that security had moved the others into different parts of the casino once they’d all been subdued, then wondered if the reason the others had run into said casino had been to help or kill her...before going on to creepily comment about how beautiful and quiet the Sierra Madre was now that all its guests had died, and how the Mojave should be the same way…
And so the episode ended with Elijah telling her that the casino was “sleeping” and that they needed to “wake it up” to get to where they were going (and presumably to let P. D. eventually escape this nonsense), and P. D. preparing to face her fellow heistmates in their big final climactic showdowns. Which – given she did what Christine and Dean wanted, shouldn’t be TOO bad in their cases, but Dog/God? Yeah, those two might be more of a problem… Not to mention, Jon said right at the end that there’s a whole slew of new horrifying problems for her to deal with now that she’s in the casino proper. Next week, we learn all about those and start dealing with them! Should be fun. :)
Not bad, I think! Though, uh, I have stayed up rather later than I'd intended getting all this done, so I should REALLY head to bed and actually get some sleep. ^^; Goals tomorrow include further working on my VLA(NS) drafts; playing some Portal 2; and either starting those final edits on Chapter 6 of LB:DQ, or taking a break day to quickly work on something else. We'll see what happens. Oh, and get in a workout, though I'm not sure what I'll be watching yet...I'll figure it out! Night all!
