radio414

←Previous Post -- Next Post→ Week Sixty -- The Road to the Viscount (Part Two) This is the first time I’ve been actually salty at this game. On previous catastrophes, there were ways I could rationalize it away. “Oh, there was no way we were beating that Collector, but we’ve got time to get our revenge later.” “That’s just what the Hag does. It sucks, but it happens.” “I really got too greedy there, huh?” This one barely even gave me the time to see it coming. I only just managed to get a screencap of it before the relevant text disappeared. But I’m getting ahead of myself. The biggest hurdle is Damian is still afflicted with the Crimson Curse, which is why we packed a stack of extra blood. There are some other, smaller hurdles like Hakima needing extra food (presumably for his dog) and a trinket Euryale is carrying gives her a debuff to her maximum health, which is relevant given her already fragile constitution. It’s entirely possible that was the big failure point and I should have known better. Oh, and that blue key is not droppable, which means by bypassing the gate last time we were here it’s just stuck in our inventory for our remaining attempts at the Viscount. Backtracking two weeks ago might have been the smarter play. Speaking of maximum health debuffs, Euryale joins Damian in the Crimson Curse club pretty early on in the run, putting her at a paltry 25 health. She does have benefits, of course. Her healing cures bleed and blight, which is rather prevalent in the Courtyard, and she can work with Hakima to keep stress down. And one of the fights we run into is quadruple grubs, and we’re still not hunting for the “die to a grub” achievement, so things were looking up for a hot minute there. If you’re following along on the map from two posts ago, we get all the way to the yellow gate without much issue at all, and even have a pair of campfire logs to keep everyone even more healthy. So in Magic: the Gathering, there’s a witticism when it comes to the more midrange, grindy decks. These decks are really good at grinding their opponents down to zero cards in hand and winning because their cards are just better in that sort of parity situation. It’s something to the effect of “You can’t beat the top card of their deck.” The opponent knows your strategy, and sometimes they’ll just draw the right card at the right time and there’s nothing you can do about it. In Darkest Dungeon terms, you can be playing out of your mind managing the various resources, but sometimes the Chevalier crits your healer for 21 and gives her a bleed… and sometimes your healer just bleeds out before you even get a chance to do anything about it. So we’re down two healers now. I don’t remember this quest being that bad on my casual playthrough, I promise, but we do need to switch tacks here. I think at this point, we need to rush the Darkest Dungeon and I’ll just figure out which missions we can do without a main healer. That’s going to take a bit of research, but that’s next week’s radio’s problem. Until then, -r ←Previous Post -- Next Post→

In high school, Brian had fallen in with the swim team, a group that was a bit bro-y for him, but it meant he was part of something, and if you were a part of something in high school, your chances of getting bullied drastically went down. Even when he was technically the one “nerdy” one on the swim team, what with his head always being in a book and trying to figure out how it worked, his times and making the varsity roster sophomore year kept things in his favor. All this was to say, no, he didn’t have a bad experience in high school, and the fact that Carmen seemed to cower before even the slightest hint of high school pressure told Brian a lot about her. “What took you so long to get here?” Ms. White asked. Brian responded with a sign of the cross of his own, though he intentionally did it wrong. He wasn’t about to entertain protections that didn’t work. He also noticed a bit of refried bean that had dripped out of his chalupa and stuck to his jacket, so he wiped that off with his index finger and stuck it in his mouth. It tasted about the same. “Pretty sure trades give two-hour windows of when they might show up for a reason,” he said. “Honestly, I thought we made pretty good time, all things considered.” The woman seemed to grow paler by the second as both of the young adults spoke. “Oh, what a trial you have given me tonight,” she muttered. “Well, you’re here now, so… you can get rid of it, right? I didn't wait all this time in this forsaken place for nothing?” “Of course we can, Miss White,” Brian said. “Just gotta get some tools and you’ll be demon-free in no time. Just gotta…” He went to the back of the van (intentionally exposing Carmen to the woman’s insanity for a moment) and came out with the box of seals Shiki had left them. “Alright, he said. “You’re going to have to show us to these bathrooms, you know. Sorry, your trial’s going to involve a bit more.” “S-show you? Oh no, no no, I couldn't possibly go anywhere near...those places. It’s not a large school, surely you can find them yourself.” She begins muttering to herself, “I’d rather just lock up and leave and come back in the morning, to be honest, but then oh what might they do to the school while I am away…” “If you say so,” Brian said. “I guess we’ll find you in the principal’s office under the desk when we’re done then?” He hefted the box again and added, “Let’s go, Carmen,” before heading towards the door. As they crossed the threshold, though with the door still open and certainly within the woman’s earshot, Brian couldn’t help but add an additional crack. “What do you think she teaches, anyway? I’m going to guess Biology.”

Brute “I should have warned you Caesar does stuff like that,” Bard said. “It’s my fault. I was focused on other stuff, getting all three gangs collated together. Sorry.” He rushed on ahead and held the door open for both Override and Director Sekelsky as they returned to the sweatbox meeting room. “It’s not an excuse, but I’ve been dealing with a large influx of information, so I’ve also been dealing with some migraines. Nothing out of the ordinary, but still…” He winced and rubbed his forehead. “You’re continued presence, as always, is appreciated,” Director Sekelsky said. He gestured for Override to sit before doing the same. “I’m glad we agree about the necessity of this truce. Six months is one of those gaps of time that’s long enough to be meaningful, but still short enough that it will creep up quicker than you think. Scarlet City needs all its resources at its disposal, even the… less savory ones, so petty squabbles would just get in the way of the greater good.” “The greater good,” Bard echoed, having moved on to rubbing his temples. Sekelsky shot him a look, before continuing. “I won’t keep you too long. We’ll have to get in touch with Aeon at some point for her debriefing, and someone will get in contact to get P.I.X.E.L.’s recording of the day, but you can go get food as well if you like. You’re dismissed.” “There’s more,” Bard said. “More you should probably ask him now before he leaves.” “Come again?” Bard responded, but he looked at Override as he said it. “All the wheeling and dealing done to get those signatures. That’s something you should talk about now.” Director Sekelsky looked like he wanted to throw his chair across the room, but this only manifested in clenching his fists to the point of whitening them. “Fucking… you’re right. Okay. Override, what have you promised them? What are they going to be dangling over my head when I meet them next week?” Fawn Lachesis laughed. “I’d say ixnay on the anclay stuff but you’re right,” she said. “She would find out sooner or later and probably not even from the news or anything. Full disclosure, Aeon currently works for G3. Of course, I say ‘currently,’ like, she used to work for the Zodiac, and probably has some other stints I don’t know about. I also say ‘currently,’ because, like…” She let that last sentence trail off with a cheeky grin. “But no, you’re right, we should get food. There’s a real greasy burger place just up those stairs back there, and I’m pretty sure it’s open seating in front of it in case you want the weird rice bowl place or anything else.” She was right. The variety of options was demonstrable. The greasy burger place took up the most space, and many locations (including a franchise sandwich shop with bread that barely qualified, legally, as bread) just had a stall with enough room for a singular worker, or maybe one plus a manager there to keep them off their phone, but they were all up there. The seating was placed so you could look down on everyone else navigating Easton Town Center’s ground floor; it was a prime people-watching spot if ever there was one. Lachesis sat down across from Sibyl and Aeon with a burger, fries, and a soda all on a tray, some ketchup packets and napkins scattered around for good measure. “So,” she said. “I do want to be serious for a second, sorry. I’ve been reading this book called The Passage of Power. It’s structured like a biography, though its subject, a politician called Lyndon B. Johnson, is obviously a fictional character. It’s a sprawling work, like, I’m not even close to finishing it, but one quote stood out to me.” She took a bite of her burger and washed it down with her soda. “I’m going to butcher this ‘cause I don’t have the book on me, but it’s something like, ‘Power doesn’t corrupt, power reveals. The more power you have, the more you’re able to do what you always wanted to do.’ With the election, with Caesar and the Gibbons acting out again, and, of course, the End Of The World, like, a lot of power’s about to get spent. And I’m just like, what would the people I know want to do with it if it was theirs?” Another bite. “Aeon, I know we already kind of talked about this, but I’m interested in specifics. You want Skitty to change, and you have all the power in the world -- what would you change it to? Sibyl, you too. You too even more, actually since, you know, you work for us. Would be a bit rude if we didn’t listen to what you had to say. “Oh, and help yourself to these fries,” Lachesis said. She shoved her tray to the middle of the table. “There’s no way I’m going to be able to eat all of these.” OOC

←Previous Post -- Next 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 -- Next 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