The Land of Nowhere

Dad was feeling at least a little better most of the day -- at the very least, he wasn't in bed pretty much the entire day, and he actually had some supper (though he was only able to eat half his meatball sandwich) and kept it down, so -- progress! The weather was also much more summery today -- bright sunshine and warm, though with low humidity so we didn't all Suffer -- which was nice as well. We will take the small joys where we can find them. :) Especially since the killer heat is coming on Saturday...

Anyway -- as for the rest of my day:

Work – Well, I’m happy to say that, while it was another quiet day in the office for the most part, I have been saved from trying to find roster maintenance to do while also working on crosswords stolen from the paper – our supervisor gave me and my coworker a list of “new donors” to check and see if they really ARE new, or if they need to be merged with an older record. So working on that ate up most of my day – the rest of it was spent:

A) Running the usual morning reports and doing the usual check deposit

B) Taking a couple of phone calls – one person updating their card on their recurring gift, and another asking how long we’d be accepting new gifts for (until the end of the month); also had to help my coworker just a little bit on a credit card update call SHE took (pointing out where you checked when the next payment was coming out)

C) And doing a little bit of roster maintenance by marking someone deceased before we got the “new donors” list. *nods*

*shrug* Nothing too exciting, but at least I had something to do! Now I just have to get through tomorrow...which ends an hour early thanks to a graduation, so that’ll be nice. :) Looking forward to it!

To-Do List –

1. Get in a workout: Check – hopped back on the bike again this evening and pedaled my way through –

A) The last thirty minutes of “My first house build in Paralives!” by James Turner! Which featured:

I. James declaring the ground level rooms done...and then realizing that, actually, no, he’d forgotten to put lights in the stairwell. And the front hallway. And the dining room, come to think of it. XD So yeah, had to spend a couple of minutes making sure his Paras could see if they wandered into those areas at night!

II. James doing the upstairs bathroom first once he got to that level, and mixing things up by making that bathroom’s theme turquoise instead of pink, putting in a more modern walk-in shower rather than another shower-tub combo, and using a slightly-different sink. Oh, and he found a gross clump of hair in clutter, so he put that next to the shower drain. XD You gotta admire the commitment to realism from the Paralives team!

( James finishes his split-level home, yay )

B) And the entirety of the YouTube Short “The BEST Weapon in Baldur’s Gate 3 #bg3 #baldursgate3 #baldursgate” by Toyhouze! Because I needed something to fill the last few minutes of my workout, and this fit the bill. This was actually a Top Five of the best weapons, and included:

I. Shar’s Spear Of Evening – a spear that can be wielded one-handed or two-handed, does nasty piercing damage (so it syncs well with things like Bhaalist Armor, which makes enemies vulnerable to that damage), prevents the user from being Blinded, gives them advantage on Saving Throws while obscured (lightly or heavily), does an extra 1D6 of damage to creatures who are obscured (lightly or heavily), and allows one to cast the spell Shar’s Darkness to create magical darkness around your foes. Only downside is that it requires you to let Shadowheart kill the Nightsong, Aylin, and thus go down her evil Dark Justicar path, so anyone who wants to redeem her is going to miss out just out of necessity! The comments indicated most people were fine with that. ;P

II. The Titanstring Bow – a bow that not only has a standard +1 enchantment on it, but ALSO deals extra damage equal to the user’s Strength modifier...and adds that modifier AGAIN if you happen to use a special arrow (like an Arrow of Ice). AND it applies to sneak attack too, so – well. If you give this bow to a companion who is proficient in longbows, give them a level or two of Rogue so they have access to sneak attack, and load them up with Strength-boosting potions, you have a bow that can REALLY ruin an enemy’s day.

III. The Markoheshkir – a staff that gives the wielder +1 to both Spell Save DC and spell attack rolls, has the “Arcane Battery” condition that allows a caster to cast a spell WITHOUT using a spell slot once per long rest (Toyhouze called this a “free Level VI spell slot,” but I think that was him poorly explaining this ability), and the spell “Kereska's Favour,” which allows the caster to attune themselves to an element, gaining resistance to its damage and unlocking appropriately-themed spells. And if you’re a sorcerer and attune yourself to lightning, the “Chain Lightning” spell you get can be Twinned with Metamagic, which normally does NOT work, soo – yeah! Excellent staff for any spellcaster to have!

IV. The Phalar Aluve – a longsword that that has a +1 Weapon Enchantment, adds +1 to Performance skill rolls, and has the ability to Sing or Shriek...with Shriek in particular causing all enemies within range to have a 1D4 penalty to Charisma, Wisdom, and Intelligence saving throws, AND hitting them with an extra 1-4 points of thunder damage to boot – from every other source of damage. As Toyhouze pointed out, just one person in your party wielding this thing boots EVERYONE’S damage! Only lasts five turns and can only be used once per short rest, but still!

V. And the Shadow Blade – a spell that creates a shadowy shortsword for your spellcaster that does Psychic damage! Quite a lot of it, in fact (from 3 to 24 points). And while it’s fine in the early game, it comes into its own once you get the Resonance Stone from the Act 2 mind flayer colony and thus can make enemies vulnerable to psychic damage. Also, the spell make you automatically proficient with the weapon; it has advantage on attacks on enemies who are obscured (lightly or heavily); and because it’s a spell, it can be upcast to do even MORE damage.

So yeah – there are options if you want to do some real damage in this game!

2. Continue writing Chapter 1 of “Londerland Bloodlines: Hollywood’s Deluded Depths”: Check plus, because I actually got two writing things done tonight –

A) First, I did indeed write another page on LB:HDD, covering:

I. Alice gaining access to Isaac’s honestly-rather-fancy office – like, it’s not quite on LaCroix’s level, but he still has a very ornate rug, some quite-intricately-carved columns running up the walls, and a computer with two monitors. He just prefers a darker color scheme, for the most part! Makes sense, honestly, since while he’s an Anarch Baron, he does rather act like a Camarilla Prince (even if he’d take your head off if you ever said that to him).

II. Alice and Isaac exchanging introductions, with Isaac complaining about how “the wooden soldiers of the Camarilla shuffle in a little too often these nights” and asking “That baby-faced, two-bit prince LaCroix got something to say to me?” Fortunate that Alice was not expecting a warm welcome from the Baron of Hollywood! She explained that it was more a matter of LaCroix wanting someone else to say something to her, and getting to that someone else involved going through this domain, before adding that she would have met Isaac earlier if the cab had been able to stop directly in front of his store and that she appreciated having someone greet her and point her in the right direction. Isaac responded it was very courteous of her to stop by, stating that all Kindred who entered his domain were expected to introduce themselves to him, even if some felt it was an outdated formality. Alice was a little surprised by this, saying she hadn’t intended to not say hello and that she’d thought going to introduce yourself to the de facto leader of a place was just what was done – Isaac told her that some barons were a little more laissez-faire about the whole business, but he liked to personally welcome visitors –

And establish an “understanding” with them that meant nobody suffered any “unfortunate accidents” while in town. Alice was like “oh great, another person threatening me with Final Death should I annoy them. Wait your turn, sir – so far LaCroix has dibs.” XD

III. Alice trying to get down to brass tacks and ask Isaac what he knew about the Nosferatu – only for Isaac to interrupt her and explain that first they had to settle the matter of tribute. Alice was like “...I beg your pardon?” and Isaac told her that maybe he was being old-fashioned, but this was his barony, and he expected a token of respect to be paid. He then explained that he’d recently purchased a movie from someone, but the seller had gotten all paranoid now that it was time to deliver the goods for some reason, and was refusing to just meet up with Isaac at his office or drop it off or even answer calls. Instead, he was going to send the location where the movie could be picked up in an e-mail to a computer at the nearby internet cafe, Ground Zero. Alice assured Isaac that she was picking up what he was putting down – namely, that he wanted her to play courier Six – and Isaac in turn told her what computer directory she’d have to look for (JosefK) and what password to use to get into it and access the e-mail (Kafka, unsurprisingly). All she had to do then was go meet the contact, get the movie, and come back. Alice said she’d had much worse jobs and confirmed they’d talk after she did this for him, then headed out the door to get started.

And that is where I left it – tomorrow, Alice storms off once she’s safely out of sight, meets Victor outside the cafe, and has a good rant about how LaCroix never called making her do favors “tribute.” XD Yeah, that word really rubbed her the wrong way...all you had to was say you wanted a favor first, Isaac! Not dress it up in that fancy language that’s convinced her you’re no better than the Camarilla!

B) And second, after chatting with my tumblr friend Nebby for a while, I noted down my idea for her upcoming birthday gift fic! Which is currently looking like a combination of two potential ideas she offered me – Alice, Victor, and Smiler watching the “Dan vs Iron Slugger” fight from one of her recent MediEvil Resurrection II chapters, and Nell and William moving to Gallowmere in an attempt to rub elbows with the nobility there, only for Nell to find yet more weirdness there and decide she wants to move while William is reluctant due to having massive success with his cannery. Basically, I think I’m gonna put Nell and William in the audience watching the Iron Slugger fight, with Nell bitching about how their fresh start in New Shoreditch isn’t at all like she imagined...and then she sees her estranged son hanging around with what looks like circus people and a MUMMY and is like “…” Oh, and Smiler may win a ton of money by betting on Dan in the fight, some of which might be William’s. XD I’ll have to keep poking at it, but hey – at least I have something to build on now!

3. Watch something on YouTube: No REAL check – the closest I came was rewatching the BG3 weapons short while doing the Workout Video Write-Up. Just got to all that a little too late to fit in another video! But I do get out early tomorrow, so maybe I can sneak in something in my extra hour? We’ll see...

4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: N/A – I’m all set on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) for the time being, and there wasn’t anything on Valice Multiverse. I spent the time leaving a second comment on my friend SatiricalDemon’s Beneath A Broken Sky, as I reread it lately and had some new thoughts and realizations about things happening in the fic. Hoped to get a comment on Chapter 2 as well, but just didn’t have the time – hopefully tomorrow!

*nods* Not bad. And now it is time for me to hit the sack and try and get some sleep. Night all!