October 2021: Balter the Night Away

[Ivy]

If the game name wasn't Balter the Night Away then blame Adrian.

Post your memories here!

[Ivy]

Apparently the name of this game was Balter Like No One Is Watching, so blame Adrian for that one, as above.

[Hunter ツ]

Tldr: good game

Friday night:

Hugo’s final night in Holdfast:

Mood: https://youtu.be/KtlgYxa6BMU (or maybe https://youtu.be/SwXseZSjLsw)

- Wander into town, seeking out Taka, Winnie, and Z. Finding them all immediately was convenient.

- Taking them aside, Hugo dispenses his departing gifts: Three talismans to suit the temperament of his three successors. They are all he can offer as his gift and as his blessing, and he hopes they will be used well, to do right in the world. Goodbye Hugo. May blessings be upon Winnie, Taka, and Z, Hugo’s successors, in power, in will, and in spirit.

- Talking with Gull, and almost accidentally giving away Hugo’s citizenship paperwork by accident. I hope you enjoy that little ditty, it might make for a good sing-along song.

- The skele-pumpkin fighting was loads of fun, by the way. Just getting to run about and clobber some undead was heaps of fun (and finally being a competent enough fighter on an OOG level to really take advantage of the hook on  Hugo’s glaive-guisarme was a treat!)

- It’s late, the skeleton horde has abated. It’s time to say goodbye. Leaving the deck was hard, finding the right words was impossible, but that’s how it goes with goodbyes. He got to say his piece, and leave something behind for future generations, and in the end that’s all we can hope for once we turn to make the journey west (or in Hugo’s case, back to the west.) "Perhaps I'll become a priest? maybe a surgeon?"

- All he wanted was to change holdfast for the better, but no one seemed very fond of his idea of a better place. So long Holdfast. If you must bother me, you’ll find me at home, in the Empire. (No i’m not going to tell you where in the Empire )

On an out of game level, I’m so happy with how Hugo’s departure went, and how representative of his six years in Holdfast that he spent his first night and last night there fighting skeletons.


Saturday:

- Wake up at 11, snag some coffee and egg, it’s time to cast!

- Gear up and head out as some Extremely Normal Gentlemen (Redcaps)

- We spy Gull and Roscoe with their red hoods, they must be Redcaps too!

- We take them aside to discuss our master plan, meanwhile the townsfolk stand around the tower and plot to murder us.

- Mr Pingly the Normal and Mr Pingly the Taller had barely jumped out of the window of the tower before we are beset upon by foes!

- I successfully heated Auron’s Forge twice before landing several Bonks and Disarms, dying gloriously.

- (No they weren’t calling for Bonk damage, they were just tapping people with their weapons and yelling BONK.)

- Played a couple spiders, a couple rats, and some fuckin Chimeras! Hell yea!

- I love nothing more as a cast monster than ambushing the shit out of people, and I got to do that in spades, ambushing Auron and driving him off with terror just as Robin arrives to back him up. The Octo-Lizard-Samurai chimera had almost eaten Robin’s leg when Auron returned and successfully beat the chimera in single combat.

- My last lap as a Chimera, I followed the sounds of salvation calls through a very dense patch of forest in silence, sneaking up on the support characters hanging back from (what I think was) the silk road. Very pleased with the outcome of that, downing a few and also Z before going down once I remembered I could charge a sunder attack.

- Listening to Rob perched in Purple room from the Deck’s open window, watching OOG while Winnie and Sebastien ignore the bird noises emanating from within.

- Sitting in Green room OOG:
“Wouldn’t it be funny if I opened the window so Rob could pass me a rat puppet into the Inn?”

- Me, looking out the window and seeing Rob about to bring in a rat from behind the fire pit:


- “Rob Rob Rob! Gimme the rat!“

- Rat crawls into the room, Jaya just flat-out doesn’t notice the rat crawl in and start nibbling at her ankle.

- Going on to do the last rat respawns needed for the ritual. Theo is the woods champion, managing to keep up with me through the thick trees like that.

- On to the main event of the night: Benjamins!!

- Pubic! Fucking Unstoppable Gremlin Baby > : )

- Loads of arm rides, loads of ankle nibbles for everyone!

- “Hey Pubic can you say fuck?”
   No hesitation: “FUCK!”

- Getting the knife:


- Losing the knife

- Z giving me the knife again: Yes I’ll be quiet > : )

- Using the knife to stab Datura to death nigh-instantly:
“Threemetalthreemetalthreemetalthreemetalthreemetalthreemetalthreemetalthreemetal”
*Datura does nothing*
Datura: “Oh wait that’s three damage”
*Datura drops into bleed*
I guess he’s used to having a certain amount of toughness or wear armour on

- Calling everyone standing in the field cowards, jumping up and down on people who died in the game, and generally being a shitter for the duration of the evening. Lexicus MVP tho


Sunday:

- Hunter wanders in, everything is different, and there are way more mushrooms than usual.

- New tower!!

- Hunter makes friends with Arman in tower, practices recorder.

- A bunch of people in the field get spooked by a strange noise coming from the woods. From the tower I can watch and see it’s just a (admittedly massive) greyjay making the racket.

- Spend some time in the Inn: Rosco fixed my mitten!

- Vibin in the Inn, worked on actually writing down Hunter’s planned bard songs.

- Rat Hunt! Absolutely going John Wick Mode with Z and Dimitri to hunt down and destroy the Sunday morning popcorn.

Game gets called and immediately there’s a massive brawl lol.

All in all I’m very happy with my one appearance at game this year, between work/life imbalance and covid it’s been hard to find the time and will to go, so I’m so glad with how things went.

See y’all at the gauntlet!

[Rosco Agassi]

Friday Night:

-New friend both ig and oog! Adam and the others had been telling me about Marcy (Ryn) for months. It was so cool to finally meet them.

-Oh good, a Mist guard meeting— Did someone say skeletons outside?— Oh shit do they need a medic?— Ah fuck, they're looking for me. Bones, tell me what happens (he didn't). Who the hell has a meeting Friday night in Holdfast, anyway?

-Patching up Caliegh - I LOVE when people give me reactions and sick injury descriptions to work with during medic rp.
-Additionally: Getting to see, first hand, the defeat on Sharon's face when Rowan put the pumpkin on his head. Every day I fear she strays closer to ttking us all.

-MORE FUN SURGERY! Nevermind they're using fire magic. Pretty sick that the plant is in his nervous system though.

-Lord Robin telling panicked Rosco to calm down and be competent at his job. "Shut the fuck up," — realizing he just mouthed off to an elf with a title — "Respectfully."

-Pouting outside, as per usual. A group of people dragging a Skeleton into the inn because they were so upset with the lack of help. They almost led it in alive until Rosco pointed out the major surgery happening on the floor.

-Didn't matter regardless. Theo had just told me to move out of the way incase it woke up again when - you guessed it, it woke up and immediately put Kez in his bleed. Sounds like bedtime to me.

Saturday Morning:

-8am gathering! Finally made it without people leaving without me - only because Auron was also running behind.

-Jack shit and fuck all in the woods! This fucking sucks. At least Rudi got a state back from a mod. I'm missing one too, maybe they'll let me have the next one.

-Oh yes! Another psychic mod! "A violent energy around you. It feels smothering: lose all psychic states." Are you fucking kidding me?

-Back to the inn to meditate.

-First of many times I would work on an embroidery flower and softly tell myself the story of a young pirate.

Saturday Afternoon:

-Goblins are GOOD in Epoch, right? These ones are silly, I like them.

-THEY'VE CHOSEN ME!

-All three Pinglys take me and Gull to the watchtower. Apparently "Red Caps" are not friend shaped, so I learned when we started a lengthy discussion on how mine and Gull's cloaks were made of blood.

-They think we're two of them. They want us to help them sneak out and kill Holdfast. We play along and all I can think about is how much better Gull is at this than me. Thank God he's here.

-Heads up everyone: They're gonna kill you. May want to get a jump on that.

-Shockingly easy to kill, although Mitchell's Pingly started twitching post death. Sorry I cut off your head.

-In the bunks with Bones for something or another, we hear loud banging coming from inside one of the doors. I don't see which, but I do make a point to say "That's the wrong side of the door for knocking."

-On an OOG level we think a lock broke or something. Bones opens the door and a Chimara who I later find out to be George runs out at full speed. 10 METAL 10 METAL 10 MET— Bones makes it into my bunk room and I slam the door in it's face before it can get to us. Sorry George.

-The town is Chimara hunting so the inn is filled with alchemists, smiths, other general non-combat friends and Dog - who is solid asleep in the corner. In wanders a rat. Anyone else got this? No one? Rowan has a bow but that takes a chunk of time to load when I can just — bonkbonkbonk. I can't believe I was the only one in that fucking inn concious with a melee weapon.

-Our new gauntlet friend, Vanilla, falls from the sky. I manage to offend him a lot in under a minute. I stopped talking.

-Ryn: "Can I touch your down?"
Vanilla, gruffly: "Can I touch your ears?"
Ryn: "GASP. YES!"
Vanilla: ......"Yeah okay."

-In wander the apprentices from a few months back. They look older. I wander away with Ceridwynn to investigate.

-So they fell asleep in our beds a few months ago but they think it was yesterday. Now they've aged. That's fucked up.

-Ceridwynn come pick me up I'm scared.

-The next hour and a half is filled with fun rp. My favourite.

-Closed mod is over, Ceri and I go hang out in the bunk room OOG while we "Walk back to town". Rob walks in with a rat puppet; "Are you guys ig? No? Probably for the best. Chewing through floor one...."

-He gets into the room. That stinky little rat nose finds my alchemy kit and begins TEARING everything apart. I'm laughing through the physical pain of helplessly watching this giant rat eat all my alchemy kit flowers. Thank god I hide most of my ingredients.

Saturday Night:

-The hand. Everything from how convinced I was it meant something deeper to it being entertained by Theo's hip new moves and tunes.

-The fucking Addams family. I should have seen the reference coming a mile away but by god did it get me. I spent the first ten minutes of their arrival just laughing at the gd references and the PSYCHIC BABY.

-Z gave the baby a knife. Of course he did. Time to wrestle the baby for the knife back and try to ignore the pain as he calls one mauling while biting my ankles.

-JESUS CHRIST THE BABY IS IN THE ASTRAL PLANE.

-I am losing my mind. This is great, isn't it?

-That firefly game seems dangerous....I don't know....

-Please don't make me dance.

-PLEASE DONT MAKE ME DANCE.

-"Blah blah blah something something healing dance because im a medic." Okay fine I'll dance. (Turns out dancing was really important.)

-I am tired and grumpy but I have a cup of cider now and the baby has said fuck. Everything is right in the world.

Sunday Morning:

-Skipping gathering. I'm mad at the woods now.

-More fun rp! Watch the reading distinctly-not-monkey throw Ryn across the room and my zero hesitation stepping between them. That probably wasn't a great idea but it's fine.

-I let Z destroy my armor and rough me up a bit to teach Niko some important skills. It's all fun and games until I bother him later and he hits me with that firm "eighteen wood" which instantly sends me bleeding.

-The last of the morning is lighthearted fun time. Watching Dog's enchantment and waiting around for end of game so Marcy/Ryn can experience her first fun-filled "Game called" brawl.

All in all I'm happy to have capped off the season wirh good memories and lots of my best friends. Remember Rosco is always down to get letters in his off-season in Radiant Junction!

[Z]

Final game of the season! And it was a pretty great one all in all!

Friday
It's Friday night, and Taka immediately informs me that Hugo wants to see me, Hugo is in town? Why does he want to see me? Turns out Hugo is leaving, and he's used the last of the spice to make some amulets, and is giving one to me because he sees me as one of his spiritual successors, I'm honoured, and thankful, and damn is this a powerful amulet. Hugo sticks around long enough to help us fend off these weird pumpkin headed skeletons, before leaving his journal and splitting town, talking about maybe being a surgeon elsewhere, or a preacher, or a number of other things, it was a bittersweet departure.

Saturday Morn
Ah, another chilly and wet holdfast day, got up early to go out gathering with some folks, Degren had made this jam that was rather useful for avoiding danger in the woods that he treated us to for breakfast, and off we went. Not much actually in the woods, though I did hear this weird voice in my head, not sure what that was about though, otherwise the gathering was good, if a bit cold and damp.

Coming back we find a notice from Krembler about this Chimera nearby? Damn, I hate magic beasties, so much more complicated than regular ones. Regardless, we set out to go hunting. Turns out they found us pretty quick as well, they hit like a truck, and had this screech that just caused anyone to hear it become so despaired, that was really rough actually, but we persevered after all. Went deeper into the woods continuing to hunt them, and it went well for the most part, got roughed up a decent bit, same with some of the newer folks in town, of which there were 2! Ryn and Armon, and they both seemed very enthusiastic considering all the shit that happens here, which was nice. My fav moment with the Chimera's was when me, Auron, and Degren got separated from the rest of the group hunting one, (played by Sage) that kept fleeing deeper into the woods, but I was nimble enough to keep up with it, and empowered by Theo's mark I took it down on my own, felt really good tbh.

After the Chimera's me and Theo went for a walk so he could train me to be the Woods Apprentice, and it was some very nice rp, just out in the woods talking about it, understanding the position and then some. Shoutout Theo.

Then we had some normal woods beasts that morning, Z brought the score to 2-1 against the Spring Bears which was good.

Saturday Afternoon/Night
Might be misremembering, I don't recall much that afternoon, I think that's when we got things for Teek's cleansing ritual? We had to find a bunch of monster bits and flora, and we combed the woods, it was cold. Then that night we had The Benjamins show up, they were funky, and I was extremely wary at first, but once it was clear they weren't here to kill us outright they were cool.

Before we got to the ritual they wanted our aid in, there was a bit of a meet and greet, mingle sorta thing, Z got pretty drunk, and had some... interesting, rp with the mistress of the family, very much looking forward to finding out more on that front, he's already asked around a little bit.

After the meet and greet, we got to the meat of the night, the bloodsport! Classic Holdfast, we had to sneak around in the woods, disarmed of most of our skills and magic, and try to retrieve these fireflies they kept, it was a touch wet, and aside from the threat of murder (it's ok people got better after) was a lot of fun! Favourite bit was being maybe 6ft away from one of the firefly tubes, and waiting to move in and seeing one of the Benjamins (It was Sage but I cannot recall the char name ) walk on over, take a quick look around almost close enough I could touch them, count the fireflies, then leave. After which I took my spoil and got out undetected, never made it back another time though unfortunately haha. Back at the in we played some Yenga for the ritual, and had a dance to ward off death as well (it made people get better).

Lastly with the Benjamins, they had this little kid named pubic, and god I loved him, gave him my knife and let him run around with that, was a ton of fun, it got confiscated but I got it back to him for a round 2, kid deserves to have some wacky fun.

Sunday
Sunday was pretty good too, another chilly Holdfast morning, I actually don't quite recall what happened that morning, but I know we had some more beasties out and about, that about all I got. Last going off, Me, Dimitri, and Hunter ended up chasing down a rat through the woods at mach 5, that was a ton of fun, really enjoyed that.

All in all, very good game, end of the season too but I'm looking forward to the Gauntlet!

[Rudi]

Friday
-Oh boy howdy do I love skellies. I love those bois and I would VERY much like to cast one someday.
- Surgeries! Kaylee? Caleigh? Kaylie? Niko's sister had a real mcfucked hand that me and Rosco had to fix. All was well. good, chill surgery with her screaming and Niko trying to distract her (good job, Niko). Then... Rowan puts a pumpkin on his head.
- He starts being A Zombie, just a lil, we knock him out and have to surgically remove the pumpkin with fire and surgery. Thanks, Holdfast.
- I would die for Cricket. I would die for him.
- Hugo left and I didn't get to say goodbye :<. Oh well.

Saturday
-Fuck, Shit, and all in the woods. Even the psychic energy was bad :<. Teek's ritual better work.
- Vanilla!!!! I loved them. That interaction with Ryn was so good. And Vanilla was so sarcastic, I love banter. It was really great.
- Dog finding an orcthorn amd thinking "oh, cast is doing a neat thing with physreps!" then Teak saying she needed it for a ritual.
- Some Completely Normal Folks Wearing Red Hats show up, kidnap Gull and Roscoe, and we murder them because they had to audacity to say bonk when they hit us.
- Chimera! Legs were eaten, people were downed, I got to use Focus Mind. It was all good.
- The grand Orcthorn and Rat Hunt were also very good, and Rudi gave a thing to give up to Teak.
- .. she DID also end up telling like 3 people her entire backstory but c'est la vie.
- I fucking... love the Benjamins. I love them. I also loved dancing, even if my hips will never forgive me for dancing as much as I did.
- WE DID IT!

Sunday
- I didn't cry at Dog's ritual, wdym?

Very good game and very good season! Well done, everyone

[Malva]

Friday (Taka):
-Soo many skeletons!
-Rowan that was a bad idea but props for doing it anyways

Saturday (Malva):
-Actually got up early enough to gather with the union!

Vanilla!
  -"Can I pet your down? "
   "Can I pet your ears? "
   "Sure "
  -"I'm sorry, but what is the Paradigm Blink?"
   "Well think - what's a paradigm? And what's a blink?""
  -"I don't need to eat or sleep but I do need to go piss yolk"

-Finding orcthorn! It was getting dark and we were still short three. I eventually concluded that we'd have to check the field; not because they were particularly more likely to be there, but because we'd actually see them if they were. Got two more this way!
-We had figured out that they were at like, the bases of things. I saw Theo check around the wheely thing and I thought to myself "Wow that's so clever! Looks like he didn't find one though..." I go search the woods some more, come back out and see one sticking out *exactly* where he'd checked

Saturday (Taka):
The Benjamins

-"Wow, is that poison I would literally die"

-Pubic!
-Little gremlin baby with a knife omg

-The hunt! Ur all cowards but that's kinda fair.
1st Run: Snuck in, thought "There's people around, but I'm the most quiet, I should be able to make it in." *Gets taken down first*
2nd Run: Crawled all the way in and got soaked, approached the fireflies in a narrow block of shadows from a tree. Can't fit my fingers in the tube. I can tell that That is camping the area. I wait for them to get distracted by other players and invert the container to get a firefly, pretty sure I was still seen though. I hear someone flanking behind me, can't tell if it's That or a fellow player. Realize I'll almost certainly be caught if it is That, so I just get ready to throw the firefly. I'm not hiding the light well, the footsteps get closer and the second I hear a damage call I yeet the firefly as far as I can - which wasn't very far - But then I hear Ryn yelling "I got the light! I got the light!" and start running. Turns out she tried throwing it just like me, but it went out and got lost... Oh well.
3rd Run: I go to talk strategy or something with Lexicus, but as I arrive, Wilhelm is just leaving to go check on the total. I whisper "How long will he be gone?" and Lexicus whispers back "Just go". We head in quickly and undetected and successfully secure our lights. Unsure when he's be back, Lexicus says "I'll run ahead and distract them and you sneak out". He runs out without pursuit, so I just start running too. Meters from the edge of the forest, I hear Wilhelm behind me. I manage to trip *three times* on the way out. The third time I'm literally scrambling with my glasses falling off my face, didn't think I was out far enough, can't get up fast enough to get ahead of Wilhelm, he catches up to me, and then drops out of hunter mode. I was out of the treeline. Safe.
-Next I played distraction for other people which was also really fun! Honestly if we had better teamwork from the start, this was really the way to go.

Sunday (Malva):
-My only Sunday memory is going to go arcane dissect a spider. I go to take the blood and Dog says "Hey, can you leave some for me?" I say "Oh, what do you need it for?" Dog, realizing what he's saying as he says it: "To sell to... you."

[Kez Shiras]

Friday Night
God being at LARP again was so good. Even just setting up the tent felt so nice.
Mist Guard meeting! I stayed for approximately 5 seconds and then left. Kez can't sit still.
I knew going into game that calling for a high grapple would be nice, but holy shit disarming the Pumpkonstruncts was a power trip. I felt like I was actually helping a significant amount in combat instead of just hitting for 5 metal, lol.
Pulling off some pumpkin heads, failing at others. Got nicked by hits a few times when going to grapple, so soon went "aw shit, I gotta get healed."
George getting dragged into the inn as a skeleton, Kez walking up and not paying attention, suddenly getting my SHIT ROCKED because he woke up. FML. Fell into a table.
Got weirdly bittersweet at Hugo leaving? Its always hard to see someone leave.
Leaned in through the window at some point to sign up for the Mist Guard officially, getting the very quick version of the expectations and then saying "that's not so bad! count me in."
Noticing Dimitri and Val chatting late into the night just the two of them, for like, hours and hours. I'll pop in and say hi! They welcome me with open arms, and Val offers me to ask a few questions of her. I ask some silly shit, and end up with one question left. There's a huge ordeal internally on what question to ask. Kez is a fool.
I think that might be it for Friday night? I remember staying up late that night, I think I talked with Niko and Kailey about coming with them to Ner Batin. Character plot...
Might finish this later. This was a great game tbh.

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