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←Previous Post Weeks Fifty-Eight and Fifty-Nine -- Treading Water With the loss of Junia and a good portion of everyone else having been turned into vampires, with our money supplies dwindling, and yet the game only offering the hardest dungeons it can possibly throw at us, I’m at this point where I’m skeptical of any sort of major goals, so I have to turn back to smaller ones. Money can be less of an issue depending on how we prioritize loot -- especially since that’s the one benefit increasing difficulty gets us, more money -- and our levels are just about set outside of Paracelsus, which isn’t pressing. Our biggest manageable goal, then, is getting another invitation to the Courtyard so we can proceed further into that particular questline and cleansing the Crimson Curse until hopefully the rest of the game, with a smattering of “earn some money and get more people’s equipment fully upgraded” along the way. You’ll notice that those two side goals are at odds with each other and, uh, yeah, they are! Don’t worry about it too hard. I chose the Weald here because it’s got a Focus Ring as a reward, a powerful accuracy trinket that also buffs crit chance (which, you know, increases the amount of stress healing). We already have one, but more is always welcome. Yui plus accuracy trinkets should be able to cleave through most anything, and the rest of the party runs good support, so let’s see how this goes. Oh for fuck’s sake. Literally the first fight, too. I mean, we’ve got a couple of stuns in the party, and Ren can pull the Collector forward into Yui, but it’s still not a great start. It means for the next few fights, Euryale is working overtime to get people back to tip-top shape. Another reason I wanted to go to the Weald is to introduce its Champion-level enemy, the Hateful Virago. The Virago is annoying for a couple of reasons, the most obvious from the screenshot here is its capacity to do a whole bunch of damage to multiple adventurers at a time, something only Junia is easily able to deal with, and we know how that turned out. The Virago is a strict counter to healers like the Vestal, though, because it will turn any leftover corpses into Necrotic Fungi, which aren’t dangerous on their own but negate any and all healing for as long as they’re out. The Virago does if possible at the end of every round, so she doesn’t even have to take a turn off to turn those skills off. Thankfully, she spawned in with three grubs, who notably never leave behind any corpses for her to take advantage of. I suppose that cancels out any bad omens we got from running into The Collector immediately, but we’ll see how that translates into the second run of this post. …You know, in a way, this is a good thing. The Collector drops a hefty gem when killed, and we do need money still, but at the same time, like, come on. Thankfully this is a party with both Boudica and Margaret to hit the back line where the Collector will be, and Sethera to make sure they’re going to hit for a lot. Skaia is also there to pull the Collector forwards and mark him for even more damage, which leads to screenshots like this one. I skipped the provisioning screen for that joke, but I think that adequately describes why I assembled this team. It’s not the best at healing back up, but the run had a campfire and Margaret to keep people alive if things got dangerous, and also you can’t take damage if all the enemies are dead. It’s especially good we took Boudica with us because that enemy in the back there is the Warrens’ Champion enemy: the Swine Skiver. There aren’t really gimmicks with this one. It will just kill you. I don’t have a better way to put it. If you leave this one alive to deal with, say, that Swine Heaver in front of it (normally a high-priority target, right?), it will stun one party member and debuff the other three so that they’ll never recover in time. So I say it again: it’s good that we’ve got a party that can hit the back rank with consistency. So yes, these two weeks could have gone a lot worse. In fact, we did run into some egg sacs in the Warrens, so we even managed our main goal. I’ll have to go back and double-check prospective teams, but I think we might be headed back to the Court to get further into the Viscount quest. Until then, -r ←Previous Post

Chris was generally pretty happy with how his lanky body allowed him to do all the things someone in his professional field might need to do, whether that was the nimble fingers facilitating a good lift or being light enough to climb around in rafters. However, in this moment, in the charge to the exit with enemies still in the way, he wished to be someone more like Sergei. Even without his magic runes to boost his toughness and endurance, he could probably bowl through some enemies like they weren’t even there. Sergei would probably also have been able to scoop up Lana and carry her the rest of the way, something Chris definitely wasn’t strong enough to do either. Oh well, he thought, he’d just have to do the next best thing. “Lana!” Chris shouted, even if he wasn’t exactly sure what he was supposed to say next. “Hold on, Lana, I’m gonna- whoa!” Whatever it was, it was interrupted by Lana swinging her axe wildly, just missing Chris and colliding with the zombie next to him. He changed tactics. “Estellise!” And this time, he didn’t have to say anything else; an arrow of light whizzed past and made sure that the zombie stayed down. He stayed out of range for Lana’s next swing, then rushed in while she was still following through and rammed his sword into the neck of the other zombie attacking Lana. Chris pulled back and kicked, and that got that zombie to the ground as well. He turned around to face Lana and grabbed her hand. Chris could feel her flinch at that, and he was still aware of her axe, so although he tried to calm her down, he did have to talk fast. “Lana, it’s Chris. We’re really close to the exit, so hold on and I’ll make sure you get there, okay? Estellise is going to keep the eye busy and there’s only one more zombie in the way and, like, five of us, so just keep hold of my hand and then we’ll fix whatever that thing just did to you, okay?”

If you find honey, eat just enough— too much of it, and you will vomit. -Proverbs 25:16 (NIV)That girl is watching you the computers said of Fiona. Melissa tried not to notice, or rather, she tried to act like she hadn’t noticed. It was a game she was familiar with, of surreptitious glances and pretending not to care you were under observation even though you absolutely did. It was a bit of a shameful game, especially how if someone broke serve and confronted the other, the match result was more of a mumbled draw than anything meaningful, but they were at least disciplined players, and she could respect that at least. Still, the game was a little easy given the circumstances. With ice cream and active conversation happening around them, there were enough distractions to allow going full minutes between looks. When Fen brought up her weird palate -- weird for a cook, even -- Fiona couldn’t help but even be engaged with everyone else, and Melissa couldn’t blame her. She couldn’t help but associate eating bugs with that one kid in elementary who would do it to gross everyone out. From listening to conversations at youth group, it seemed like every school had that kid. But she also didn’t know Fen’s circumstances, just as her group leader didn’t entirely know hers. Fen had made the comment that using Duel Monsters to resolve conflicts was inherently a more peaceful endeavor than the mortal peril they were experiencing now, but Melissa wasn’t so sure about that. There were a whole bunch of ways the technology could fail, for a safety subroutine in the dueling matrix to not trip when it needed to and someone end up seriously hurt. Melissa had neglected to mention how just over two weeks ago now her time a malfunctioning duel disk had caused her whole campus to fall into chaos, or how a week or two before that she’d had some chips she was carrying split open by a squealing cartoon pig wielding a butcher’s cleaver. You could argue these things were exceptions, but there was no way Melissa was the most exceptional person in the world. She was lucky enough to still be alive and with ice cream in her hands. That was something, at least. She finished her sundae in measured bites, carefully avoiding a brain freeze (though she was ready to advise anyone else at the table on cures if they needed them) and washed it all down with some complimentary water. “Tell you what, Fen,” she said as everyone else finished up as well. “The next time we’re out and about we can get some Yu-Gi-Oh!” -- was that how you pronounce it? -- “cards and we can learn this new game together… if that’s okay with you.”

this is a question to ask after you've written a first draft as you're going into revisions, not while you're in the planning stage.

←Previous Post -- Next Post→ Week Fifty-Seven -- The Road to the Viscount (Part One) The feasting and revelry would last for weeks at a time. Great stone tables were set with such an abundance of rare delicacies that we would stuff ourselves until the exotic became mundane. When the lavish spread began to spoil, a ravenous gourmand gleefully proposed that we sample from the fetid pile of composting refuse! The notion was dismissed as decidedly unhealthy. But days later, he was found cackling madly atop a heap of rancid comestibles, licking his fingers in delight. This post has been so tough to write because this is another one of those marathon dungeons, where you’re expected to take a break to return to it later, but I was impatient and did more than I did should have. I’ll try to condense it down, but this’ll still be more of a ramble skipping over a bunch of stuff. Three major things happened. The first is a result of what happened at the end of the last run two weeks ago. We gathered all the doctor’s bags in the Weald, which means there’s an event related to doctors ready to show up. This is really convenient since getting most of the adventurers up to Resolve Level 5 has been a bit expensive. We’ve gotten the blacksmith and guild as cheap as they can be and it’s still tens of thousands of gold to get a single person to maximum equipment and skills. We haven’t spent a lot of time managing quirks or diseases. This is a free opportunity to do some of that, and we’re going to take it. The second major thing is, of course, the Viscount fight itself. Here’s the lineup. It’s a pretty standard Crimson Court lineup, I think. The biggest worry our stress healing slot is taken up by CowCow who would much rather be doing damage, and with the unique stress mechanics of the Crimson Court and these adventurers having a slightly elevated stress level, that’s what Cow ends up doing. Is that going to have a knock-on effect where we don’t have enough burst damage to kill the Champion-level enemies of the Crimson Court? Well, yeah. That’s kind of the third major thing that happens this week. It turns out, one of the hardest dungeons in the game… is hard! First, I’m going to post the map for this thing because it’s huge and then I’m going to post some consequences. The further up the difficulty curve you are, the more likely it is that even a random attack will deal stress damage. Anything that does deal stress damage only deals more. Even LordCowCow can’t keep up. Now, the reason I kept going is that this map also introduces a curio that allows you to camp in this dungeon. My rationale was: if I can just get to the first campfire log of the game, I can mop up most if not all of this stress damage, and the team will be functioning again. I’m already hitting every other stress relief curio on the map, and I still have a bunch of Blood to keep these Crimson Curses at bay. This was a fatal mistake, though. An adventurer can only take so much stress after all, and so, after countless rounds of chewing out her teammates, Junia gets a series of heart attacks that kill both her and the week. Recovering from this will be difficult, but not impossible. We still have 60,000 gold in the bank, which isn’t a lot but will be enough here, and though Junia was the primary-est of the primary healers, we do have a number of backup options. At the same time, the process of grinding back involves multiple Champion-level dungeon runs. I feel like the whole run is on a knife’s edge after this week, and these next few weeks are going to determine whether or not we’re actually going to be able to complete the Darkest Dungeon. -r ←Previous Post -- Next Post→

Brian sighed as he bit into something called a “Black Bean Chalupa Supreme®” which tasted, well, it didn’t taste great, but then again, he wasn’t going to Taco Bell at ass-o’clock at night for a majestic palate experience. He was doing this to pay off a debt. That justification worked for the broader scenario too. He owed his life to Shiki, didn’t he? Come inside. Come inside. He shivered. His Chalupa wasn’t appealing to him anymore, which left the videotape and Carmen. The girl was Carmen, right? She’d already outed them both as associates of Shiki, though she hadn’t introduced herself yet despite Brian doing so and he wouldn’t put it past their employer to make that sort of logistical issue. He’d just call her Carmen and see where that took him. If she wasn’t, he figured she would say something. Carmen did say something, but it still was barely anything worth listening to. “I don’t feel comfortable driving,” she said. Which was fine. It was fine. “That’s fine,” Brian said. “I can drive, no problem. Just let me…” He took another bite of his Chalupa, managing to hold back his gag reflex long enough to keep it down. A sip of lemonade helped, but as he got back into the camper van he still wedged the thing into one of its cupholders and tried to forget about it. He grabbed the steering wheel and positioned his arm so he wouldn’t even have to look at it, but he was still aware of its presence and the grip was awkward, so he moved it back. His hands went to his coat pocket again. Still no cigarettes. Okay. Shiki wanted them to poke around in a bathroom for a couple hours, so that’s what they were going to do. He turned the key in the ignition and the camper van sputtered to life once more. “Let’s get this over with.”

A Return to Normalcy When Override returned to G3’s headquarters, he was met at the front door by Director Sekelsky, Bard, and a third person who, unless Override had been poking around in G3’s employee database, he probably wouldn’t recognize. That person’s name was Chet, a new paralegal hire, and he looked exceedingly uncomfortable standing around next to G3’s highest position and one of its premier heroes. The first thing Director Sekelsky said was, “Where’s Aeon?” At some point, she had run off, leaving Override to complete the task they had been assigned alone. “She wanted to go get food,” Bard said, already cringing at the director’s inevitable response. “She wanted to go get food,” Director Sekelsky repeated in a mocking tone, the kind that probably could have been represented with some good old-fashioned camel case. “Sweet Zorro. Okay. First thing’s first: quarantine.” He leaned in and spoke directly into the side of Override’s ear. “You hear that? Stop mutilating your henchman trying to be sneaky and or creepy. You’re not.” “It’d probably be best not to antagonize him,” Bard said. “You are going to be seeing him in a week now.” “Probably,” the director said, straightening himself back up and readjusting his suit. “But I wouldn’t be able to say that to his face even if I wanted to.” He turned to Chet, who straightened up as well but in a stiffening sort of way. “You understand the nature of what you are accepting here? Who you’re going to be sharing your senses with?” “I do,” Chet said. Director Sekelsky motioned for him to take the signed papers -- all three of them, not just the one with Legion’s blood on it -- and Chet did so before scampering off. The quarantine was simple. G3 had a pretty good, though still imperfect, idea of how long Legion’s power lasted. Chet already had a minimal security clearance inside the building, and would likely be accompanied by guards even if he did encounter something he shouldn’t. In the meantime, he could do busywork or read or just listen to music. Bard and Sekelsky watched to make sure he made it through the doors to be collected by his chaperone, before returning their attention to Override. “We’re going in too,” Sekelsky said. “Debriefing and all that. Caesar being snooty can’t be the only thing that happened to you. You’re going to tell me everything. This was your first time meeting Scarlet City’s three gang leaders, right? What are your first impressions? Do you think a longer truce is feasible?” Where Money Flows Like Water Scarlet City’s biggest mall, Easton, was actually not far from the warehouse Sibyl and the others had just attacked (though with Adler’s help, the physical distance didn’t really matter, did it?). It had a hybrid indoor-outdoor layout. There was a massive building in the center of it all, called “Easton Town Center” where most of the food options resided, though there were some outlets in there as well as one of those movie theaters with an actual kitchen and an actual service staff that would bring you actual food in the middle of a movie if you ordered it. Most of the outlets were outside the building, though, sprawling outwards offering any sort of mundane ware one might want. Perhaps the most important feature of the mall was its status as a neutral ground despite its distance from the rest of the city. That was a big thing Easton’s management had pushed for prior to the foundation being laid however many countless years ago that was. Even capes registered as heroes or villains could see each other without issue here. Adler and Vi hadn’t been hungry just yet, so Adler tossed Sibyl a couple of crumpled bills so she could buy an overpriced burger or rice bowl or whatever else her heart might have desired before they went to the Hot Topic on the Town Center’s second floor. “You can gouge yourself on cookies and ice cream for all I care,” Adler said. “Toodles.” So Sibyl was alone. She wasn’t alone for long, though. As Adler and Vi disappeared into the Hot Topic never to be seen again, Sibyl got a text on her phone: Behind you lmao. It was Lachesis, a singular Fate without her sisters, though she didn’t seem too concerned by their absence. “Just wanted to catch up eye-arr-ell after all that mess,” she said. She looked Sibyl up and down. “You didn’t get too hurt, right? Just gonna be sore tomorrow or even better than that or- Oh, I know this person hang on. Hey! Hey Aeon!” Lachesis tried to wave the immortal hero over, and if that didn’t work she jogged over to Thessa, who had also entered the Town Center. “How’s tricks? Told you Caesar’s shorter in person than all those descriptions about him, right? You wanna hang out? Of course you do, come on.” She didn’t guide Thessa by the wrist again, but she did make sure the hero followed her back to where Sibyl was still standing. “Sibyl, this is Aeon, Aeon, Sibyl,” Lachesis said. “You’ve probably heard of each other? Or you’ve seen Sibyl’s art around town and Aeon, well, she speaks for herself. But we’re going to probably be officially working together soon so might as well get cordial now.” OOC