{"id":33463,"date":"2016-07-27T10:30:32","date_gmt":"2016-07-27T14:30:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=33463"},"modified":"2016-07-27T10:34:39","modified_gmt":"2016-07-27T14:34:39","slug":"ruts-vs-battlespire-ch19-hot-cold-and-hott","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=33463","title":{"rendered":"Ruts vs. Battlespire CH19: Hot, Cold, and Hott"},"content":{"rendered":"

So after last week’s fun, painless, and intuitive teleportation process, I’m now standing in the “Shade Perilous.” So far every other place I’ve gone has been named for how much it’s going to kill me, so maybe I’m not as scurred as I ought to be.<\/p>\n

Time for an in-game story update! Gather the wee ones and cuddle around Grandma Cahmel’s rocking chair as I regale you with another classic tale of actual rather than assumptive narrative. You can tell which is which because one’s broken and the other one’s just complicated.<\/p>\n

As you may dimly recall, the one living humanoid still in the mix is a woman named Vatasha Trenelle. She’s left various notes indicating she’s shadowing the invading party and seeing what happens. Anyway, this is what happens.<\/p>\n

She's gonna get captured. That's the take-away. Please don't ever feel like you need to read these.<\/div>
She's gonna get captured. That's the take-away. Please don't ever feel like you need to read these.<\/div><\/p>\n

It’ll be a bit of a shame to see her go, because she was a novice who was, like us, putting it all on the line in a desperate situation. And she probably had pants when she showed up today, so that puts her one above us on professionalism. If she was a little bit better at exploiting bugs she’d probably be the main character.<\/p>\n

Whoop, gotta go, the level’s greeter is on fire.<\/p>\n

Because the fire's blue, you can tell it's that much more hot and powerful than a regular fire daedra. Or, uh, wait. That might be an ice daedra? Well, you can tell that it is either quite hot or very cold, and you can't get any clearer than that. <\/div>
Because the fire's blue, you can tell it's that much more hot and powerful than a regular fire daedra. Or, uh, wait. That might be an ice daedra? Well, you can tell that it is either quite hot or very cold, and you can't get any clearer than that. <\/div><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

When I saw this foe, and he beckoned me to speak, I was instantly seized with dread. That stern martial ensemble, those burning and\/or freezing eyes, that radiant ceaselessly-churning energy. I wasn’t ready to fall in love again. But luckily for everyone involved, it turns out he just wants to trade awesome tough-guy lines.<\/p>\n

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Then we start hitting each other until he falls down.<\/p>\n

Having dispatched Mister Tease in the foyer, I headed along to the next chamber. That’s when I saw the next enemy. Oh. Naturally. So i<\/em>t’s going to be one of <\/em>those levels.<\/em><\/p>\n

Let's try parley--I can't see no reason to put up a fight. I'm livin' for givin' the daedra his duuuue.<\/div>
Let's try parley--I can't see no reason to put up a fight. I'm livin' for givin' the daedra his duuuue.<\/div><\/p>\n

If really cold guys are hostile, maybe really hot guys will turn out to be bros, right? I wouldn’t mind being a bro with a really hot guy right now.<\/p>\n

No. Never trust really hot guys. They’ll only try to hurt you.<\/p>\n

Is this...this isn't roleplay, right? You just want to legitimately hurt me? I think we'd both be more comfortable with that.<\/div>
Is this...this isn't roleplay, right? You just want to legitimately hurt me? I think we'd both be more comfortable with that.<\/div><\/p>\n

Once I’ve doused him, I turn my attention to the other <\/em>guy in the room, a frost daedra standing placidly in the corner. This one’s willing to hash things out a bit. Turns out the frost and fire daedra are a little hot-and-cold in their dealings, and while their bosses are warming up to each other, chilly attitudes and fiery tempers are dominating the okay if I keep this up I’m going to vomit all over my keyboard. Please don’t pick this up in the comments. I don’t want your family finding your post and demanding to know who’s responsible. The upshot is that two factions are occupying this area in service of the invader guy(?), nobody really likes each other, and Frosty will give me a piece of armor in exchange for going out and killing fire daedra on his envious behalf. Since I was probably going to end up doing that anyway, this works out great for me.<\/p>\n

'One more request: quote Arnold Schwarzenegger for me. Oh, I think you KNOW which role. ...Junior? Interesting, uh, choice. Okay. Thanks.'<\/div>
'One more request: quote Arnold Schwarzenegger for me. Oh, I think you KNOW which role. ...Junior? Interesting, uh, choice. Okay. Thanks.'<\/div><\/p>\n

But it’s not all indistinct thermic brutes in this area. The developers know you haven’t seen a boob lately and they’re starting to get a little worried for you. It was worth saving up, but it’s finally time to play the “sexy female demon enemy built around sex” card.<\/p>\n

And yet, lacking the smoldering allure of big fat frozen men.<\/div>
And yet, lacking the smoldering allure of big fat frozen men.<\/div><\/p>\n

I’m so glad RPGs finally grew up, left those behind, and graduated to sexy female aliens built around sex<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What does she want? Two guesses. Sorry, that’s not fair–this is one of them “both your guesses are wrong” situations, because she’s skipping the first two obvious Darwin Fs and heading straight for Flight.<\/p>\n

I can't remember which of these I picked, and honestly, I doubt it matters.<\/div>
I can't remember which of these I picked, and honestly, I doubt it matters.<\/div><\/p>\n

Turns out fleeing is not some kind of next-level combat technique for Seducers. It’s just the regular kind of dumb idea. Anyway, let’s see what kind of sick loot she dropped:<\/p>\n

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NEXT WEEK: YOJIMBOHSHIT<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So after last week’s fun, painless, and intuitive teleportation process, I’m now standing in the “Shade Perilous.” So far every other place I’ve gone has been named for how much it’s going to kill me, so maybe I’m not as scurred as I ought to be. Time for an in-game story update! Gather the wee […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[242],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lets-play"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33463\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}