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xyzzysqrlLast time, Ashe discovered that she is The Man, that she is stealthy, and that she is not a thief.
However I should mention that my copy of Kingdom Hearts 1.5 HD Remix arrived earlier, so if the game narrative takes on a slightly perfunctory tone it is only because I am twitching to get into that sometime soon.
So Ashe goes back to the Venture Tower and beheads the Prince, saving the world from ... uh something and winning the game. Man, that plot. Modern classic, yeah? Okay bye!
...
OH ALL RIGHT WE'LL DO IT PROPERLY. Uh, last time we had just left the Last Round bar after an angry grumpathon with the Anarchs. Surprisingly, Ashe does not get on with the local rebels. Still, they gave us a lead to check out on this mysterious disease that's been going around, so let's head back up to the apartments and check around for anything funky.
Ashe enters via the sewers and starts to recon places. Floor one, no dice. Floor 2 is Muddy, we know that, and floor 3 is that actress. Floor 4 is inaccessable, but floor 5 has a dead guy. It's "Paul", the sick ghoul and he has an answering machine message from "Hannah" upstairs, who would very much like some cold medication and gives him the code to her door. She can't seem to get out of bed.
Sigh. I feel bad for these two, I really do. I gotta check this out. I head in the front door of Hannah's place and talk to her for a while. She brings up "Jezebel Locke" at the Empire Arms, where she got her sickness. When she asks about Paul, I tell her that he, well, died. She screams "NO PAUL" and promptly rolls over and dies too.
*throw up hands* MELODRAMA. If I had LIED would she LIVE? Good grief. Okay, this Jezebel needs to answer some QUESTIONS. Ashe head down to the Empire Arms, a MUCH fancier place than the Skyeline, and DEMANDS THE KEY to Ms Locke's room from the desk guy. Dominate, I still love you. I find her suite on floor 5 and barge right in.
Jezebel is a member of the "Brotherhood of the Ninth Circle" and seems to have some distinct fascination for spreading death and disease. She mentions the disease is one of her own creation, and cheerfully extorts Ashe to come on in, get seduced and help her spread it around. Then she declares she won't take no for an answer and launches an attack. Whatever else Jezebel is, she's STRONG, but she's no match for a cheap shin gunto katana. She dies and the quest is complete. I may not have saved the local disease vectors, but at least it'll stop spreading THIS way.
I report back to Damsel at the Last Round. She's sad to hear Paul died, but pumped that Ashe dusted a plaguebearer... and she does mean "a" plaguebearer. They took out a second one while I was dueling Jezebel. This is an epidemic and NOT a natural one, this Brotherhood needs to be routed out. Damsel's even willing to team up with a "Cammy" to get this shit sorted. Whatever you say, Chun-Li. Ashe hits the street again.
The local homeless population, when combined with domination to get a clear story out of them, tell the tale of a "beast from the sewers" with long teeth and long claws. Sadly, people keep DROPPING DEAD FROM THE PLAGUE seconds after Ashe tries to coax an answer out of them. I hope this isn't my fault. Have I been dosed with Foxdie? There needs to be some goddamn REVENGE for this. Ashe hits the sewer system.
The Brotherhood of the Ninth Circle is uncomfortably obsessed with icky biological stuff, as "Brother Kanker" in the sewers explains, with lots of rot and maggots and bodies on meathooks. Let's actually not talk about that! Brother Kanker also hits like a small TRAIN, and drops a flyer with a weird symbol on it. ... I've seen that symbol. It's painted on one of the buildings in the back alleys of town. I head out to hunt that down and find it not too far away.
Inside is a very scared young woman who tells me "The Bishop" is upstairs. She can't leave. He Does Things. Can I do anything to ease her fears? ...so Ashe bites her, which puts her in a dizzy dreamy trance for a while. You're welcome. On the plus side, I'm all healed up from that too. Time to put a stop to this Bishop bullshit. Upstairs Ashe is faced with a straight-up no-shit WALL OF ZOMBIES, Doom style. This is not katana weather. Ashe pulls out that crappy little .38 Special she's been carting since the start of the game and puts some ammo into some undead.
So it's upstairs, downstairs, through the hallways as Ashe cleans out zombies. Eventually she comes face to face with Bishop Vick, who has decided that with the position of God vacant, he might as well fill it and bring BLESSINGS to all. In the form of crippling incurable diseases. He is also using the most delightfully broken power in the game, Celerity, to zip around like the goddamn Flash while blazing away with a shotgun. This fight takes a few tries as I attempt to work out how to beat him without dying.
I fail.
I fail again.
By the way, you're locked into this building once you start this part of the quest. I imagine if you're playing straight-social/stealth, this is the part where you go "WELP", uninstall and play Peggle the rest of the night.
He can't really be SLEPT, he shrugs off katana blows... in the end what works is Fortitude Armor, plus pinning him in a corner and HAMMERING away with the katana and shotgun alternately, while occasionally snacking on those precious expensive blood packs we've been saving up. Finally, Ashe is victorious as Bishop Vick goes down and stays there. It was an expensive, painful victory... but a victory just the same. Damsel the Angry Anarch reluctantly proclaims me "pretty cool", and I admit that she's pretty okay too. For an Anarch. Awkward Cross-faction Fistbump of Cult-Smashing Reluctant Sisterhood.
Then it's back to Strauss. He muses on the stuff the Bishop was yelling, about the "end of the world" being at hand. Then he gives me a material reward: the "Bloodstar", a gem that increases the length of a Blood Buff to 200%. Not exactly shabby. ... But y'know, we're stalling on something. Yes, we've killed a manic cult leader, but we have a JOB from the PRINCE to do. Let's head out and do that, huh?
(Is it just me that takes like fifteen fucking minutes to get out of Strauss's house? Leave, walk down hall, Strauss' door. Turn around, walk down hall, Strauss' door. Turn around, take corner, take corner, Strauss' door. I JUST WANT TO GO OUTSIDE. LET ME LEAVE.)
Now where's this Elizabeth Dane? (Y'all know that's a John Carpenter ref, right?) Back to the Santa Monica docks, where a small motorboat is waiting. I clamber onboard and it's off to the Dane. Where I climb a rope ladder up over the side of the ship and instantly get caught by a guard. Shit. ... except, it's okay. He was bribed to let a reporter on board. That's ME, right? ...yyyysure?
Great! Here's the police report, he'll distract the guards, you just get in and out and he doesn't want any news of this in the papers, got it? ...yyyyyysure? Ashe just nods a lot and pretends to know what he's talking about, and follows his instructions. Before long we're on and off the Elizabeth Dane having checked up on the sarcophagus, gotten the police report and ship manifest, and NOBODY KNEW (aside from that one dude) that we were here -- and he thinks we're someone else.
GO TEAM ASHE! We got the TOOLS, we got the TALENT.
...We've also got a fangirl. A fangirl named Heather. It's the girl from the clinic, and she wants to be a part of Ashe's life. She's completely infatuated due to the ghouling effect, but there's still a chance for her. I tell her to go home. She desperately wants to move in with Ashe. I tell her to start walking. She begs to stay. I beg her to leave. It's for her own safety. She has her life. She's healthy. That's got to be enough for her.
Heather walks away sadly. I hope I did the right thing. There's no room for love or personal attachment in Ashe's life.
As we walk into the Prince's office, he's just dismissing a number of people. One of them is Strauss. The others, I don't know. I present the evidence to the Prince and he twitches a little. The casket looked like it was opened from inside? Let's not... jump to conclusions or anything. He takes the evidence, composes himself, and tells me all about the "Primogens", or the local leaders, which are the people who left as I was coming in. However, one of them (the Malkavian Dr. Grout) did -not- answer his summons. I am to investigate. Of course, sir. At once.
The Prince seems absolutely delighted with Ashe's tendency to get shit DONE and be RESPECTFUL, apparently not something you see in new vampires these days. He rewards Ashe with her own apartment, down at the Skyeline. ...ew, but I guess I couldn't really ask for a suite at the Empire. Gotta keep it on the down-low. I pop back to the 4th floor of Skyeline Apartments and... mmh, it's not too bad. Big fishtank in the wall, lots of morbid art, a freezer full of blood packs, and an email from Mercurio to note that he can hook me up with some good stuff if I swing by his place.
You know ... this is good. This is nice. For just this short time, when nobody's waving a shotgun at her or trying to give her weird diseases or calling her weird hurtful political slang names, everything has come up Ashe.
Next time, we see how long THAT lasts.
However I should mention that my copy of Kingdom Hearts 1.5 HD Remix arrived earlier, so if the game narrative takes on a slightly perfunctory tone it is only because I am twitching to get into that sometime soon.
So Ashe goes back to the Venture Tower and beheads the Prince, saving the world from ... uh something and winning the game. Man, that plot. Modern classic, yeah? Okay bye!
...
OH ALL RIGHT WE'LL DO IT PROPERLY. Uh, last time we had just left the Last Round bar after an angry grumpathon with the Anarchs. Surprisingly, Ashe does not get on with the local rebels. Still, they gave us a lead to check out on this mysterious disease that's been going around, so let's head back up to the apartments and check around for anything funky.
Ashe enters via the sewers and starts to recon places. Floor one, no dice. Floor 2 is Muddy, we know that, and floor 3 is that actress. Floor 4 is inaccessable, but floor 5 has a dead guy. It's "Paul", the sick ghoul and he has an answering machine message from "Hannah" upstairs, who would very much like some cold medication and gives him the code to her door. She can't seem to get out of bed.
Sigh. I feel bad for these two, I really do. I gotta check this out. I head in the front door of Hannah's place and talk to her for a while. She brings up "Jezebel Locke" at the Empire Arms, where she got her sickness. When she asks about Paul, I tell her that he, well, died. She screams "NO PAUL" and promptly rolls over and dies too.
*throw up hands* MELODRAMA. If I had LIED would she LIVE? Good grief. Okay, this Jezebel needs to answer some QUESTIONS. Ashe head down to the Empire Arms, a MUCH fancier place than the Skyeline, and DEMANDS THE KEY to Ms Locke's room from the desk guy. Dominate, I still love you. I find her suite on floor 5 and barge right in.
Jezebel is a member of the "Brotherhood of the Ninth Circle" and seems to have some distinct fascination for spreading death and disease. She mentions the disease is one of her own creation, and cheerfully extorts Ashe to come on in, get seduced and help her spread it around. Then she declares she won't take no for an answer and launches an attack. Whatever else Jezebel is, she's STRONG, but she's no match for a cheap shin gunto katana. She dies and the quest is complete. I may not have saved the local disease vectors, but at least it'll stop spreading THIS way.
I report back to Damsel at the Last Round. She's sad to hear Paul died, but pumped that Ashe dusted a plaguebearer... and she does mean "a" plaguebearer. They took out a second one while I was dueling Jezebel. This is an epidemic and NOT a natural one, this Brotherhood needs to be routed out. Damsel's even willing to team up with a "Cammy" to get this shit sorted. Whatever you say, Chun-Li. Ashe hits the street again.
The local homeless population, when combined with domination to get a clear story out of them, tell the tale of a "beast from the sewers" with long teeth and long claws. Sadly, people keep DROPPING DEAD FROM THE PLAGUE seconds after Ashe tries to coax an answer out of them. I hope this isn't my fault. Have I been dosed with Foxdie? There needs to be some goddamn REVENGE for this. Ashe hits the sewer system.
The Brotherhood of the Ninth Circle is uncomfortably obsessed with icky biological stuff, as "Brother Kanker" in the sewers explains, with lots of rot and maggots and bodies on meathooks. Let's actually not talk about that! Brother Kanker also hits like a small TRAIN, and drops a flyer with a weird symbol on it. ... I've seen that symbol. It's painted on one of the buildings in the back alleys of town. I head out to hunt that down and find it not too far away.
Inside is a very scared young woman who tells me "The Bishop" is upstairs. She can't leave. He Does Things. Can I do anything to ease her fears? ...so Ashe bites her, which puts her in a dizzy dreamy trance for a while. You're welcome. On the plus side, I'm all healed up from that too. Time to put a stop to this Bishop bullshit. Upstairs Ashe is faced with a straight-up no-shit WALL OF ZOMBIES, Doom style. This is not katana weather. Ashe pulls out that crappy little .38 Special she's been carting since the start of the game and puts some ammo into some undead.
So it's upstairs, downstairs, through the hallways as Ashe cleans out zombies. Eventually she comes face to face with Bishop Vick, who has decided that with the position of God vacant, he might as well fill it and bring BLESSINGS to all. In the form of crippling incurable diseases. He is also using the most delightfully broken power in the game, Celerity, to zip around like the goddamn Flash while blazing away with a shotgun. This fight takes a few tries as I attempt to work out how to beat him without dying.
I fail.
I fail again.
By the way, you're locked into this building once you start this part of the quest. I imagine if you're playing straight-social/stealth, this is the part where you go "WELP", uninstall and play Peggle the rest of the night.
He can't really be SLEPT, he shrugs off katana blows... in the end what works is Fortitude Armor, plus pinning him in a corner and HAMMERING away with the katana and shotgun alternately, while occasionally snacking on those precious expensive blood packs we've been saving up. Finally, Ashe is victorious as Bishop Vick goes down and stays there. It was an expensive, painful victory... but a victory just the same. Damsel the Angry Anarch reluctantly proclaims me "pretty cool", and I admit that she's pretty okay too. For an Anarch. Awkward Cross-faction Fistbump of Cult-Smashing Reluctant Sisterhood.
Then it's back to Strauss. He muses on the stuff the Bishop was yelling, about the "end of the world" being at hand. Then he gives me a material reward: the "Bloodstar", a gem that increases the length of a Blood Buff to 200%. Not exactly shabby. ... But y'know, we're stalling on something. Yes, we've killed a manic cult leader, but we have a JOB from the PRINCE to do. Let's head out and do that, huh?
(Is it just me that takes like fifteen fucking minutes to get out of Strauss's house? Leave, walk down hall, Strauss' door. Turn around, walk down hall, Strauss' door. Turn around, take corner, take corner, Strauss' door. I JUST WANT TO GO OUTSIDE. LET ME LEAVE.)
Now where's this Elizabeth Dane? (Y'all know that's a John Carpenter ref, right?) Back to the Santa Monica docks, where a small motorboat is waiting. I clamber onboard and it's off to the Dane. Where I climb a rope ladder up over the side of the ship and instantly get caught by a guard. Shit. ... except, it's okay. He was bribed to let a reporter on board. That's ME, right? ...yyyysure?
Great! Here's the police report, he'll distract the guards, you just get in and out and he doesn't want any news of this in the papers, got it? ...yyyyyysure? Ashe just nods a lot and pretends to know what he's talking about, and follows his instructions. Before long we're on and off the Elizabeth Dane having checked up on the sarcophagus, gotten the police report and ship manifest, and NOBODY KNEW (aside from that one dude) that we were here -- and he thinks we're someone else.
GO TEAM ASHE! We got the TOOLS, we got the TALENT.
...We've also got a fangirl. A fangirl named Heather. It's the girl from the clinic, and she wants to be a part of Ashe's life. She's completely infatuated due to the ghouling effect, but there's still a chance for her. I tell her to go home. She desperately wants to move in with Ashe. I tell her to start walking. She begs to stay. I beg her to leave. It's for her own safety. She has her life. She's healthy. That's got to be enough for her.
Heather walks away sadly. I hope I did the right thing. There's no room for love or personal attachment in Ashe's life.
As we walk into the Prince's office, he's just dismissing a number of people. One of them is Strauss. The others, I don't know. I present the evidence to the Prince and he twitches a little. The casket looked like it was opened from inside? Let's not... jump to conclusions or anything. He takes the evidence, composes himself, and tells me all about the "Primogens", or the local leaders, which are the people who left as I was coming in. However, one of them (the Malkavian Dr. Grout) did -not- answer his summons. I am to investigate. Of course, sir. At once.
The Prince seems absolutely delighted with Ashe's tendency to get shit DONE and be RESPECTFUL, apparently not something you see in new vampires these days. He rewards Ashe with her own apartment, down at the Skyeline. ...ew, but I guess I couldn't really ask for a suite at the Empire. Gotta keep it on the down-low. I pop back to the 4th floor of Skyeline Apartments and... mmh, it's not too bad. Big fishtank in the wall, lots of morbid art, a freezer full of blood packs, and an email from Mercurio to note that he can hook me up with some good stuff if I swing by his place.
You know ... this is good. This is nice. For just this short time, when nobody's waving a shotgun at her or trying to give her weird diseases or calling her weird hurtful political slang names, everything has come up Ashe.
Next time, we see how long THAT lasts.
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Date: 2013-12-05 04:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-05 03:08 pm (UTC)