Somewhat Stressful Friday
Apr. 24th, 2026 11:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickThough I suspect that's partly because I think the PMS is starting to come on me again -- I AM expecting my period to show up sometime next week, so... I was definitely bitchier and more wound up today, that's for sure! *sigh* I hate my hormones, I really do...anyway, here's the daily write-up:
Work – Well, it started as a fairly quiet and boring Friday – with me doing a rather short GL and that memo to the lady who needs a refund for her Food Bank check, followed by more checking on people’s 2025 Appeal pledges and more matching ID numbers to pledge scans, along with a couple of credit card calls – but then my coworker started asking for my help in looking up certain gifts, and it quickly became a stressful “oh great the credit card company keeps fucking up” kind of day. Long story short, there were three gifts that had been assigned to the wrong person – two because said person shared an e-mail address with the actual donor (it looked like in both cases a child helping a parent make a gift), one for mysterious reasons we’re not sure of (I e-mailed the credit card company about that one – they said they’d get back to us quickly, but yeah, I don’t believe that). For a minute, it looked like there was a fourth, but fortunately that one turned out be one person with two different records. *grumbles* God, I hate our credit card company, I really do… Anyway, between that, someone calling incessantly at the very end of my lunch break (and then not even leaving a message!), and the hormones I mentioned above, it wasn’t a very pleasant day at work in the end. Not HORRIBLE, but – not great. And nearly getting sideswiped by a tractor trailer on the way home didn’t help (started merging into a lane at the same time I did, forcing me to jerk back into my original one). *sigh* At least it’s the weekend now – and a non-cleaning one at that, yay~ I will take it.
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – my final night on the bike this week saw me pedal my way through –
A) The second half of “Let's Play Resident Evil Requiem: ZOMBIE CHEF! ZOMBIE SINGER! ZOMBIE BABY? | Episode 2!” Which featured more of Grace navigating the horrible horrible corridors of Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Center! And I really don’t want to spend as long as I did yesterday summing up what happened in the LP, so let me see if I can keep it a bit snappier this time around by focusing on what Grace found in this portion of the video –
I. Grace found a blood lab! Complete with a blood collector that could gather infected blood and turn it into crafting materials (Jane was dubious, saying it looked more like a vape), a big old bucket of blood to collect blood from (Jane was grossed out, asking if that’s why there were buckets of blood all over the place and noting it was “chunky blood,” like orange juice with the pulp in), and an analyzer for analyzing blood samples and turning them into crafting recipes (once you played a strange atom-based mini-game – Jane: “are you analyzing blood on the ATOMIC level?” Andy: “everyone stop asking difficult questions about Resident Evil”). There were also doctors wandering around the nearby hallways with big old bonesaws for some reason – Jane was baffled as to why they had those in the clinic, asking if anyone’s chronic condition was “having too many limbs.” XD
II. Grace found the waiting room! Complete with a maid cleaning everything with blood and a patient wandering around with his IV muttering about noise – which was a bit ironic, as the trio had just spent some time praising the game’s excellent (and gross) sound design. :p Fortunately, sneaking to the end and unlocking the doors provided a shortcut back to the entrance, and thus to the lobby, allowing Andy to head back into the West Wing, use his new hemolytic injector on the chef (causing him to explode in a horrifying bloody mess – Mike commented that poor Grace was going to “look like a Dragon Age 2 character” (I presume they’re often bloody) – however, a temporary swap to the third-person view for Grace proved she was still only slightly bloody from her own wounds), claim the pantry key, and drop another antique coin in the slot for the “makes you better at shooting” drug prize in the gambling room!
III. Grace found the pantry! Which had a couple more buckets of blood for her to collect from (“the cursed kimichi,” Mike called it after Jane compared them to kimichi buckets), some ammo for the hand cannon (which got stored, of course), and a few other goodies. And Jane demanding to know if the buckets were there pre-everyone getting zombified or what – Andy was of the opinion the chef was collecting them, presumably to use in his “cooking.”
IV. Grace found a staircase with some zombies back in the East Wing! They were semi-easily taken out with the help of her handgun (though, sadly, none of them fell down the stairs like Jane was hoping – one guy kind of fell UP them, though), but, worryingly, after they died, Andy discovered the game letting him know “hey, you can use the hemolytic injector you just made on these.” Because it wasn’t just good for making already-walking zombies go pop – it was good for stopping dead ones from getting up again worse…
V. Grace found the Lead Researcher’s office! Which contained another one of those weird quartz-storing slot-machine-esque safes (this one with a sun on top)...which unfortunately was sealed tight with a padlock. Which, as per a note, the lead researcher had lost the key to. Meaning Grace had to go find some corrosive to dissolve the padlock (Mike was like “couldn’t we just SHOOT the lock off with a single bullet?” causing Jane to protest “No, we need the corrosive fluid!” XD). While she was in there, though, she was at least able to deduce the correct sequence of symbols to open the damn thing from the photos in the room (the trio were nearly tricked by a photo showing a full shot of the MOON slot-machine safe, but then Andy realized that this was the SUN slot-machine safe, and they were able to figure out it was Star-Sun-Moon-Sun from the other two partial pictures of the machine. Which they decided sounded very much like a weird name someone might give their kid. :P)
VI. Grace found a Level I wristband around the wrist of a dead researcher/nurse, allowing her through all the Level I doors scattered around the place! This was unfortunately immediately followed by a horrific swearing monster zombie baby finding HER (explaining why the music had gone all ham when she found the wristband) and forcing her to flee back downstairs (Mike: “bet they wish they’d fitted a stair gate”) through the waiting room to the safety of the lobby. None of the trio approved of THAT monster!
VII. Grace found the first Level I door back in the West Wing of the center! Which led to another save room with an item box (Andy happily took the opportunity to reorganize her inventory) and a wrench (which they needed for the cold storage room) and – more importantly – to the garage! Where she found an “Artificial Organs for Transplant” box she couldn’t open yet in the back of a van –
And then was promptly menaced by a zombie construction working driving a huge bulldozer straight at her. Mike was delighted and was immediately like “CHANGED MY ANSWER ABOUT WHAT I’D BE DOING AS A ZOMBIE.” XD Fortunately Grace was able to kill the driver, and the digger smashed into enough obstacles before reaching her that it broke down before it could smash her. A close call, though, to be sure!
VIII. Grace found some offices (also past the Level I door, up some stairs)! Containing the bar and lounge safe code (for more goodies), a lockpick (that Andy couldn’t pick up because Grace ALWAYS has inventory problems), and a side room for storing records that had a noise-hating zombie inside (which made it problematic to smash the goodies crate in there – fortunately Grace was able to outpace the guy; UNFORTUNATELY when she then tried to use the shortcut to the bar and lounge, she nearly ran into the zombie singer wandering around).
IX. Grace found one of the original zombies she killed on a set of stairs on her way to check out the other Level I West Wing door – only to see it spasm and turn into a horrible advanced red-headed zombie known as a “Blisterhead.” Grace did not approve and managed to run away into one of the storage rooms, slipping right behind the zombie wandering around there and into the other Level I door! Which in this case simply hid a small goodies cupboard with ammo and another hip bag. More inventory space always good!
X. Grace found the zombie she originally killed in the dining room, ripe for the harvesting – Andy had her stab it with the blood collector right in the butt as Mike and Jane were like “not right in the butt!” XD Unfortunately, it was quickly discovered that her next destination, Cold Storage, was back the way she’d come – and that the Blisterhead was in her way. Cue Grace fleeing away from the dining room for a bit (taking out another lightswitch-obsessed zombie) to try and lure the Blisterhead through the dining room so she could kite around it – unfortunately, it proved to be smarter and faster than the average zombie and got a few chomps in anyway. At least she was able to push it off and escape! (And get past the other zombie in the storage room no problem, as it was climbing back into the room through the window when she passed, which everyone had a good laugh about.)
XI. Grace found Cold Storage and managed to unlock it this time! With the help of the wrench, she busted it open, and found inside a strange artificial heart inside, along with more handgun ammo, scrap, and a bag of infected blood for her blood collector! So well worth getting chomped on by a Blisterhead.
XII. Grace (after a stop-off in her original save room to reorganize her items and save while the OXBox trio pondered the identity of her father, with Jane openly wondering if it was Leon – Andy didn’t think so, but the possibility could not be fully taken off the table) found the conference room! Which was inhabited by ANOTHER singing zombie (Jane, upon first hearing her, was like “not YOU too! We can only handle either you OR big baby!”)...who, upon seeing Grace, screamed awake a whole HOST of other zombies. Cue poor Grace having to take down the horde while occasionally having to deal with being dazed by the singing zombie’s scream attack. Fortunately she did manage to kill them all, including the singer, and get what she needed – namely, the corrosive – while Andy marveled at the state of the place, as if he wasn’t responsible for it (YOU are the one who used a hemolytic injector to explode a zombie at the entrance, sir!). XD
XIII. Grace found Dr. Victor Gideon hanging out in the lead researcher’s office in a cutscene! He was creepily civil with her, commenting on how he “liberated” her (with Andy and Mike both making fun of how he said the word), finally introducing himself, and talking about how she was unique and that, through her, “Elpis can finally be...set free” because “my master made you who you are.” Mike said that, if he was fancasting the movie, he’d consider Alfred Molina for the role, which – given the excellent job he did with Doc Ock in the second Sam Raimi Spider-Man – I can see it. Then an alarm went off, signaling the start of “Phase 2” (which none of the OXboxers were in favor of, especially when they saw someone mutating in the isolation ward) and prompting Dr. Gideon to ask if Grace wanted to see “what’s under the hood” –
And prompting Grace to run out of there, slam the door and stick a chair under the handle to slow him down a bit, then run and open a door at the other end of the hall before running back and hiding behind some furniture. Cue Victor smashing his way out and falling for her scheme, wandering off to find her and yelling about how she couldn’t avoid her destiny. Looks like she’s avoiding it pretty well to me!
XIV. And Grace found the sun quartz cube, obtained by sneaking back into the lead researcher’s office, dissolving the lock on the sun slot machine safe with the corrosive, inputting Starsun Moonsun as per Mike, and claiming it as the door opened! Along with a journal by Dr. Gideon, detailing some of his thoughts on how a strain of the T-virus could control memories and will (with those infected by this strain still retaining pre-infection habits and such), and serve as a “guiding light” for humanity (cue the trio groaning about how “they always say that” and how it’s always something about the “next evolution for humanity” instead of a cure for the common cold) –
And containing instructions on how to open the organ transport box that she found in the garage. Cue her cracking that open and getting a pair of artificial lungs to go with the artificial heart. Yay organs! :P
...okay, that still took ages, though admittedly I WAS taking frequent breaks to do other stuff/talk to friends on tumblr. At least it’s less for you to READ. Anyway, Andy left it off with Grace having found the lungs – next time, the plan is to slot the quartz cube into the quartz door, then the heart and lungs into that guy they found with his chest pinned open in one of the East Wing labs! Should be fun. :P
B) And, to fill out the final minute-and-a-half of my workout (though it ended up being longer than that, ironically), “A Hidden Weapon that Fallout New Vegas Players are Missing! #falloutnewvegas #fnv” by The Fallout Family! A YouTube Short talking about a unique weapon in Fallout: New Vegas that they’re pretty sure everyone misses – mostly because it’s hidden deep in the sewers (accessible via the manhole just outside McCarran). Basically, you have to:
I. Go north, then east from your starting point, fighting your way through giant rats and ghouls to find the corpse of Sweet Jill the prospector
II. Grab the “Luke’s Find” key off her body (and kill the Unnaturally Large Sized Rodents in the next room over if you’re so inclined)
III. Retrace your steps back to where you started and take the west tunnel, fighting off a bunch of Fiends along the way
IV. Go left in a certain room after the Fiends before heading south into another room and climb the staircase to the top, opening the door at the end with Luke’s Find
V. Kill the worryingly-large amount of ghouls in the room at the end of the Sealed Sewers area (which will include at least one Glowing One and one Reaver)
VI. Find the dead prospector in that room and claim your prize from his corpse – the Humble Cudgel! A lead pipe that does four extra points of damage, uses three points less of AP when in VATS, and is 50% hardier than your average pipe. XD Oh, and if you think “that was a FUCKING lot of work for a PIPE,” there is also a set of Reinforced Combat Armor (clothes AND helmet) in a duffel bag in the room. So maybe it is worth it! XD
Fun stuff! I would have never thought there was a unique “lead pipe” weapon in the sewers! Dunno if it’ll really be Victor’s thing, but it might be worth going down there just to clear out the enemies for XP. Once Victor actually GETS there, of course...
2. Continue edits on Chapter 5 of “The Van Dort Vacancy”: Check – did another page right after Game Night (Sequence – Dad SMOKED me and Mom with four wins to Mom’s two and my one! At least we all won one game) and my ice cream. Tonight’s chunk covered –
A) Barnaby attempting to bluff to Steven (who’d noticed the flavor of slumber essence in his glass) that the gin wasn’t drugged, it was just good – the sleepy feeling was totally normal! Steven didn’t buy it, however, and started yelling for help as Alan attempted to stumble off – fortunately, Smiler managed to slap a hand over his mouth and quiet him until the slumber essence did its job, and Alan didn’t get very far before keeling over himself. Barnaby’s glasses didn’t even get chipped, which is what he was most worried about. :p
B) Kasimir admitting that he probably should have put a few more drops in the gin before saying he hoped they hadn’t gotten anyone’s attention – Alice said that the hallway seemed pretty secluded, and Victor confirmed (after shaking off Alan’s comment about how his mother would have only been happy to see him in a Bellweather Crematorium vase) that any servants that might be down this way would probably be at the party attending the guests. Smiler noted that was a lucky break, then asked Victor if he wanted a hug, given what had just been said about him and his mother’s relationship. Victor decided he’d take one later, as right now he just wanted to get into that damn vault and prove to his parents it WASN’T a fortress.
C) Kasimir seconding leaving the touchy-feely stuff for later, as they needed to get into and out of the vault before anyone came along and found the guards sleeping on the job, prompting Barnaby to go “well SOMEONE should hide them then” with a significant look at Alice and Smiler – Alice promptly asked “where?” pointing out there were no other doors down this end of the hall, meaning their only real option was to drag the guards into the vault and lock them in –
Prompting Victor to tell her that they couldn’t really do that, as they were only at the entrance to the entrance to the vault. Clarifying at her request that the big doors Steven and Alan were guarding led to a hallway full of traps that led to the actual entrance to the vault. Barnaby was like “well, they’re your traps, just turn them off,” but Victor said he didn’t know how, as he’d always been down here with one of his parents, and THEY always had the traps turned off beforehand. (And honestly, he wasn’t sure either Nell or William remembered to turn off the traps either – that was the servants’ job.) Fortunately, William had run him through what all of the traps were, so he could point them out as necessary.
D) And Victor opening the doors and – after a lot of hard squinting – finding the first trap: a nearly-invisible tripwire right past the entrance, which would trigger a loud alarm if tripped. I left it with Victor pointing out the barely-visible gleam of the wire in the flickering sconce-light of the hallway, and warning Barnaby that he’d have to lift his coat – next time, the gang will get past Trap #1, and start moving onto Traps #2, #3, and #4...
3. Watch something on YouTube: No check, but then that’s not surprising given the combination of Game Night and Long Workout Video Write-Up. *shakehead* Well, we’ll see what happens tomorrow.
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: N/A – Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) is all set for the moment, and – as usual – there was nothing happening on Valice Multiverse. At least that meant it was one less thing for me to worry about while getting the Long Workout Video Write-Up done!
And there we have it! And I should really try to drag myself to bed sooner rather than later. Tomorrow's goals include working on some of my drafts on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler); playing some Fallout: New Vegas and getting Courier Victor into Primm; and hopefully watching both whatever CaFae Latte compilation may pop up AND the latest OXBox list video. If I have time, I'll also work some more on "The Van Dort Vacancy," but we'll see what happens. *nods* Night all!
Work – Well, it started as a fairly quiet and boring Friday – with me doing a rather short GL and that memo to the lady who needs a refund for her Food Bank check, followed by more checking on people’s 2025 Appeal pledges and more matching ID numbers to pledge scans, along with a couple of credit card calls – but then my coworker started asking for my help in looking up certain gifts, and it quickly became a stressful “oh great the credit card company keeps fucking up” kind of day. Long story short, there were three gifts that had been assigned to the wrong person – two because said person shared an e-mail address with the actual donor (it looked like in both cases a child helping a parent make a gift), one for mysterious reasons we’re not sure of (I e-mailed the credit card company about that one – they said they’d get back to us quickly, but yeah, I don’t believe that). For a minute, it looked like there was a fourth, but fortunately that one turned out be one person with two different records. *grumbles* God, I hate our credit card company, I really do… Anyway, between that, someone calling incessantly at the very end of my lunch break (and then not even leaving a message!), and the hormones I mentioned above, it wasn’t a very pleasant day at work in the end. Not HORRIBLE, but – not great. And nearly getting sideswiped by a tractor trailer on the way home didn’t help (started merging into a lane at the same time I did, forcing me to jerk back into my original one). *sigh* At least it’s the weekend now – and a non-cleaning one at that, yay~ I will take it.
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – my final night on the bike this week saw me pedal my way through –
A) The second half of “Let's Play Resident Evil Requiem: ZOMBIE CHEF! ZOMBIE SINGER! ZOMBIE BABY? | Episode 2!” Which featured more of Grace navigating the horrible horrible corridors of Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Center! And I really don’t want to spend as long as I did yesterday summing up what happened in the LP, so let me see if I can keep it a bit snappier this time around by focusing on what Grace found in this portion of the video –
I. Grace found a blood lab! Complete with a blood collector that could gather infected blood and turn it into crafting materials (Jane was dubious, saying it looked more like a vape), a big old bucket of blood to collect blood from (Jane was grossed out, asking if that’s why there were buckets of blood all over the place and noting it was “chunky blood,” like orange juice with the pulp in), and an analyzer for analyzing blood samples and turning them into crafting recipes (once you played a strange atom-based mini-game – Jane: “are you analyzing blood on the ATOMIC level?” Andy: “everyone stop asking difficult questions about Resident Evil”). There were also doctors wandering around the nearby hallways with big old bonesaws for some reason – Jane was baffled as to why they had those in the clinic, asking if anyone’s chronic condition was “having too many limbs.” XD
II. Grace found the waiting room! Complete with a maid cleaning everything with blood and a patient wandering around with his IV muttering about noise – which was a bit ironic, as the trio had just spent some time praising the game’s excellent (and gross) sound design. :p Fortunately, sneaking to the end and unlocking the doors provided a shortcut back to the entrance, and thus to the lobby, allowing Andy to head back into the West Wing, use his new hemolytic injector on the chef (causing him to explode in a horrifying bloody mess – Mike commented that poor Grace was going to “look like a Dragon Age 2 character” (I presume they’re often bloody) – however, a temporary swap to the third-person view for Grace proved she was still only slightly bloody from her own wounds), claim the pantry key, and drop another antique coin in the slot for the “makes you better at shooting” drug prize in the gambling room!
III. Grace found the pantry! Which had a couple more buckets of blood for her to collect from (“the cursed kimichi,” Mike called it after Jane compared them to kimichi buckets), some ammo for the hand cannon (which got stored, of course), and a few other goodies. And Jane demanding to know if the buckets were there pre-everyone getting zombified or what – Andy was of the opinion the chef was collecting them, presumably to use in his “cooking.”
IV. Grace found a staircase with some zombies back in the East Wing! They were semi-easily taken out with the help of her handgun (though, sadly, none of them fell down the stairs like Jane was hoping – one guy kind of fell UP them, though), but, worryingly, after they died, Andy discovered the game letting him know “hey, you can use the hemolytic injector you just made on these.” Because it wasn’t just good for making already-walking zombies go pop – it was good for stopping dead ones from getting up again worse…
V. Grace found the Lead Researcher’s office! Which contained another one of those weird quartz-storing slot-machine-esque safes (this one with a sun on top)...which unfortunately was sealed tight with a padlock. Which, as per a note, the lead researcher had lost the key to. Meaning Grace had to go find some corrosive to dissolve the padlock (Mike was like “couldn’t we just SHOOT the lock off with a single bullet?” causing Jane to protest “No, we need the corrosive fluid!” XD). While she was in there, though, she was at least able to deduce the correct sequence of symbols to open the damn thing from the photos in the room (the trio were nearly tricked by a photo showing a full shot of the MOON slot-machine safe, but then Andy realized that this was the SUN slot-machine safe, and they were able to figure out it was Star-Sun-Moon-Sun from the other two partial pictures of the machine. Which they decided sounded very much like a weird name someone might give their kid. :P)
VI. Grace found a Level I wristband around the wrist of a dead researcher/nurse, allowing her through all the Level I doors scattered around the place! This was unfortunately immediately followed by a horrific swearing monster zombie baby finding HER (explaining why the music had gone all ham when she found the wristband) and forcing her to flee back downstairs (Mike: “bet they wish they’d fitted a stair gate”) through the waiting room to the safety of the lobby. None of the trio approved of THAT monster!
VII. Grace found the first Level I door back in the West Wing of the center! Which led to another save room with an item box (Andy happily took the opportunity to reorganize her inventory) and a wrench (which they needed for the cold storage room) and – more importantly – to the garage! Where she found an “Artificial Organs for Transplant” box she couldn’t open yet in the back of a van –
And then was promptly menaced by a zombie construction working driving a huge bulldozer straight at her. Mike was delighted and was immediately like “CHANGED MY ANSWER ABOUT WHAT I’D BE DOING AS A ZOMBIE.” XD Fortunately Grace was able to kill the driver, and the digger smashed into enough obstacles before reaching her that it broke down before it could smash her. A close call, though, to be sure!
VIII. Grace found some offices (also past the Level I door, up some stairs)! Containing the bar and lounge safe code (for more goodies), a lockpick (that Andy couldn’t pick up because Grace ALWAYS has inventory problems), and a side room for storing records that had a noise-hating zombie inside (which made it problematic to smash the goodies crate in there – fortunately Grace was able to outpace the guy; UNFORTUNATELY when she then tried to use the shortcut to the bar and lounge, she nearly ran into the zombie singer wandering around).
IX. Grace found one of the original zombies she killed on a set of stairs on her way to check out the other Level I West Wing door – only to see it spasm and turn into a horrible advanced red-headed zombie known as a “Blisterhead.” Grace did not approve and managed to run away into one of the storage rooms, slipping right behind the zombie wandering around there and into the other Level I door! Which in this case simply hid a small goodies cupboard with ammo and another hip bag. More inventory space always good!
X. Grace found the zombie she originally killed in the dining room, ripe for the harvesting – Andy had her stab it with the blood collector right in the butt as Mike and Jane were like “not right in the butt!” XD Unfortunately, it was quickly discovered that her next destination, Cold Storage, was back the way she’d come – and that the Blisterhead was in her way. Cue Grace fleeing away from the dining room for a bit (taking out another lightswitch-obsessed zombie) to try and lure the Blisterhead through the dining room so she could kite around it – unfortunately, it proved to be smarter and faster than the average zombie and got a few chomps in anyway. At least she was able to push it off and escape! (And get past the other zombie in the storage room no problem, as it was climbing back into the room through the window when she passed, which everyone had a good laugh about.)
XI. Grace found Cold Storage and managed to unlock it this time! With the help of the wrench, she busted it open, and found inside a strange artificial heart inside, along with more handgun ammo, scrap, and a bag of infected blood for her blood collector! So well worth getting chomped on by a Blisterhead.
XII. Grace (after a stop-off in her original save room to reorganize her items and save while the OXBox trio pondered the identity of her father, with Jane openly wondering if it was Leon – Andy didn’t think so, but the possibility could not be fully taken off the table) found the conference room! Which was inhabited by ANOTHER singing zombie (Jane, upon first hearing her, was like “not YOU too! We can only handle either you OR big baby!”)...who, upon seeing Grace, screamed awake a whole HOST of other zombies. Cue poor Grace having to take down the horde while occasionally having to deal with being dazed by the singing zombie’s scream attack. Fortunately she did manage to kill them all, including the singer, and get what she needed – namely, the corrosive – while Andy marveled at the state of the place, as if he wasn’t responsible for it (YOU are the one who used a hemolytic injector to explode a zombie at the entrance, sir!). XD
XIII. Grace found Dr. Victor Gideon hanging out in the lead researcher’s office in a cutscene! He was creepily civil with her, commenting on how he “liberated” her (with Andy and Mike both making fun of how he said the word), finally introducing himself, and talking about how she was unique and that, through her, “Elpis can finally be...set free” because “my master made you who you are.” Mike said that, if he was fancasting the movie, he’d consider Alfred Molina for the role, which – given the excellent job he did with Doc Ock in the second Sam Raimi Spider-Man – I can see it. Then an alarm went off, signaling the start of “Phase 2” (which none of the OXboxers were in favor of, especially when they saw someone mutating in the isolation ward) and prompting Dr. Gideon to ask if Grace wanted to see “what’s under the hood” –
And prompting Grace to run out of there, slam the door and stick a chair under the handle to slow him down a bit, then run and open a door at the other end of the hall before running back and hiding behind some furniture. Cue Victor smashing his way out and falling for her scheme, wandering off to find her and yelling about how she couldn’t avoid her destiny. Looks like she’s avoiding it pretty well to me!
XIV. And Grace found the sun quartz cube, obtained by sneaking back into the lead researcher’s office, dissolving the lock on the sun slot machine safe with the corrosive, inputting Starsun Moonsun as per Mike, and claiming it as the door opened! Along with a journal by Dr. Gideon, detailing some of his thoughts on how a strain of the T-virus could control memories and will (with those infected by this strain still retaining pre-infection habits and such), and serve as a “guiding light” for humanity (cue the trio groaning about how “they always say that” and how it’s always something about the “next evolution for humanity” instead of a cure for the common cold) –
And containing instructions on how to open the organ transport box that she found in the garage. Cue her cracking that open and getting a pair of artificial lungs to go with the artificial heart. Yay organs! :P
...okay, that still took ages, though admittedly I WAS taking frequent breaks to do other stuff/talk to friends on tumblr. At least it’s less for you to READ. Anyway, Andy left it off with Grace having found the lungs – next time, the plan is to slot the quartz cube into the quartz door, then the heart and lungs into that guy they found with his chest pinned open in one of the East Wing labs! Should be fun. :P
B) And, to fill out the final minute-and-a-half of my workout (though it ended up being longer than that, ironically), “A Hidden Weapon that Fallout New Vegas Players are Missing! #falloutnewvegas #fnv” by The Fallout Family! A YouTube Short talking about a unique weapon in Fallout: New Vegas that they’re pretty sure everyone misses – mostly because it’s hidden deep in the sewers (accessible via the manhole just outside McCarran). Basically, you have to:
I. Go north, then east from your starting point, fighting your way through giant rats and ghouls to find the corpse of Sweet Jill the prospector
II. Grab the “Luke’s Find” key off her body (and kill the Unnaturally Large Sized Rodents in the next room over if you’re so inclined)
III. Retrace your steps back to where you started and take the west tunnel, fighting off a bunch of Fiends along the way
IV. Go left in a certain room after the Fiends before heading south into another room and climb the staircase to the top, opening the door at the end with Luke’s Find
V. Kill the worryingly-large amount of ghouls in the room at the end of the Sealed Sewers area (which will include at least one Glowing One and one Reaver)
VI. Find the dead prospector in that room and claim your prize from his corpse – the Humble Cudgel! A lead pipe that does four extra points of damage, uses three points less of AP when in VATS, and is 50% hardier than your average pipe. XD Oh, and if you think “that was a FUCKING lot of work for a PIPE,” there is also a set of Reinforced Combat Armor (clothes AND helmet) in a duffel bag in the room. So maybe it is worth it! XD
Fun stuff! I would have never thought there was a unique “lead pipe” weapon in the sewers! Dunno if it’ll really be Victor’s thing, but it might be worth going down there just to clear out the enemies for XP. Once Victor actually GETS there, of course...
2. Continue edits on Chapter 5 of “The Van Dort Vacancy”: Check – did another page right after Game Night (Sequence – Dad SMOKED me and Mom with four wins to Mom’s two and my one! At least we all won one game) and my ice cream. Tonight’s chunk covered –
A) Barnaby attempting to bluff to Steven (who’d noticed the flavor of slumber essence in his glass) that the gin wasn’t drugged, it was just good – the sleepy feeling was totally normal! Steven didn’t buy it, however, and started yelling for help as Alan attempted to stumble off – fortunately, Smiler managed to slap a hand over his mouth and quiet him until the slumber essence did its job, and Alan didn’t get very far before keeling over himself. Barnaby’s glasses didn’t even get chipped, which is what he was most worried about. :p
B) Kasimir admitting that he probably should have put a few more drops in the gin before saying he hoped they hadn’t gotten anyone’s attention – Alice said that the hallway seemed pretty secluded, and Victor confirmed (after shaking off Alan’s comment about how his mother would have only been happy to see him in a Bellweather Crematorium vase) that any servants that might be down this way would probably be at the party attending the guests. Smiler noted that was a lucky break, then asked Victor if he wanted a hug, given what had just been said about him and his mother’s relationship. Victor decided he’d take one later, as right now he just wanted to get into that damn vault and prove to his parents it WASN’T a fortress.
C) Kasimir seconding leaving the touchy-feely stuff for later, as they needed to get into and out of the vault before anyone came along and found the guards sleeping on the job, prompting Barnaby to go “well SOMEONE should hide them then” with a significant look at Alice and Smiler – Alice promptly asked “where?” pointing out there were no other doors down this end of the hall, meaning their only real option was to drag the guards into the vault and lock them in –
Prompting Victor to tell her that they couldn’t really do that, as they were only at the entrance to the entrance to the vault. Clarifying at her request that the big doors Steven and Alan were guarding led to a hallway full of traps that led to the actual entrance to the vault. Barnaby was like “well, they’re your traps, just turn them off,” but Victor said he didn’t know how, as he’d always been down here with one of his parents, and THEY always had the traps turned off beforehand. (And honestly, he wasn’t sure either Nell or William remembered to turn off the traps either – that was the servants’ job.) Fortunately, William had run him through what all of the traps were, so he could point them out as necessary.
D) And Victor opening the doors and – after a lot of hard squinting – finding the first trap: a nearly-invisible tripwire right past the entrance, which would trigger a loud alarm if tripped. I left it with Victor pointing out the barely-visible gleam of the wire in the flickering sconce-light of the hallway, and warning Barnaby that he’d have to lift his coat – next time, the gang will get past Trap #1, and start moving onto Traps #2, #3, and #4...
3. Watch something on YouTube: No check, but then that’s not surprising given the combination of Game Night and Long Workout Video Write-Up. *shakehead* Well, we’ll see what happens tomorrow.
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: N/A – Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) is all set for the moment, and – as usual – there was nothing happening on Valice Multiverse. At least that meant it was one less thing for me to worry about while getting the Long Workout Video Write-Up done!
And there we have it! And I should really try to drag myself to bed sooner rather than later. Tomorrow's goals include working on some of my drafts on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler); playing some Fallout: New Vegas and getting Courier Victor into Primm; and hopefully watching both whatever CaFae Latte compilation may pop up AND the latest OXBox list video. If I have time, I'll also work some more on "The Van Dort Vacancy," but we'll see what happens. *nods* Night all!
