More than Nothing: Captives

[Part of the Party Time journal]

Years after their victory at Skydagger the Numerologist zeal has grown oppressive and our heroes are seeking other answers to life. Surely there is more than nothing in the fields of science and magic!?

Ughhh works on the power of convincing
Moomba works on the power of invisibility
Raah-min works on the power of teleportation 
Jerghon G works on the power of... jazz? wtf? 

Too bad for them before they get far in their studies they are arrested as heretics by the Inquisition and with burlap sacks on their head are taken to the courtyard of Duchess Adele Verona who beheads another prisoner ahead of them. Due to time constraints they are taken away to a prison pit while the rest of the court prepares for the arrival of Papa Smurf. 

In prison pit they meet a tattooed guy who is concerned about their presence there and says the future itself depends on them listening to him. A powerful blood hex is in the bell tower, a trap to eliminate Papa Smorfonof and everyone within a few miles. To have any chance of survival they need to disarm it before it explodes and escape North to Belesia where they won't be persecuted.

As the chubby guard above dies from drinking tea, the tattooed man continues "there's no time to explain. It's called the Bridgerton Blood hex and everything they need to know is in a book in the library in the West Wing." He needs to do one more thing to give them a chance to survive this and proceeds to violently kill himself with a rock while chanting, splattering his blood and tattoos onto them!

Then there is a sound of a bell ringing and a moment later an explosive sound erupts from the grounds. A red wave of energy passes through the walls and quivers with heat distortion as they feel their blood boil and flesh drip away from their bones. Then all is darkness... and then the burlap sack is removed from their heads and they find themselves back in the courtyard as they arrive, now caught in a time loop. Only this time the tattooed man is gone, and they already have pieces of his tattoos.

Moomba gains a bird tattoo
Raah-min gains a unicorn tattoo
Ughhh gains a possum tattoo
Jerghon G gains a tattoo of "an anthropomorphic wolf playing clarinet"

For fun all skill checks here use Jenga now, and any collapse of the tower reset the time loop but the "difficulty" (number of pieces to pull) reduces as their characters gain knowledge from each loop.

[Inspiration from Long May She Reign]

Neagley and Mr Inbetween

Two good TV series that somehow involve Damon Herriman.

Neagley

This spin off from the Reacher TV show follows the titular Frances Neagley (played by Maria Sten), a private investigator who comes across a case involving a personal connection to herself. The pacing, writing and action sequences here are all really nice - comparable to Reacher actually, and while the big man does have some cameos here Neagley quickly demonstrates that she's not really one to be messed with either. Recommended and off to an impressive first season start. Definitely worth trying if you are enjoying the Reacher TV series.  

Mr Inbetween

This three season Australian dark-comedy crime drama follows the life of Ray Shoesmith (played by Scott Ryan) who "works in security" (he's a hit man). It's a very down to Earth affair that's as likely to show Ray looking for some "dimmies" drowned in soy sauce and having a hilarious or heartfelt time with his friends and family as it is showing him hunting people down and forcing them to dig their own graves in the dead of night. While not a big budget production, the writing, acting and cinematography is top notch. I especially enjoyed the violent bits that add a level of realism compared to the standard fare. This one is definitely worth watching! Highly recommended! 

The Librarian: Quest for the Spear, Return to King Solomon's Mines, Curse of the Judas Chalice

The first three Librarian movies!

Easily described as a low budget but funnier Indiana Jones, these campy adventure films all share a comedic slant, dated special effects, kinda bad action sequences but have decent plots, and star the charismatic Noah Wyle as protagonist Flynn Carsen.

Flynn is a "perpetual student" who is really smart but doesn't do so well with people is finally "kicked out" of college and is forced to look for work. A letter for a job in the Metropolitan Public Library sounds like a good fit for him except this isn't any ordinary library... no, this one stores and protects magical artifacts in its basement complete with campy old special effects to go with them. He quickly learns that part of his job is retrieving other artifacts out in the world before "bad guys" can get them. 

While I really liked these flicks I think the easiest way to see if you like it is if you enjoy the first one: Quest for the Spear, because the other two are in the exact same tone and hilariously, seemingly in the exact same budget effects wise. They do each continue to grow Flynn's character and are not "the same movie three times" which I do appreciate. Thumbs up from me!

Wildcat, Terror on the Praire and Deep Cover

Where bullets never hit unless the plot decides they should.

Wildcat

This action film follows ex-spec ops Ada (played by Kate Beckinsale), who calls on her old comrades and buffoon of a brother to pull off a heist to save her young daughter. Why didn't they just go rescue the daughter directly and why does the already small team split up to do their individual side-quests? To fill/pad out the runtime! One of those said side-quests could have been cut out all together and it would have improved the film. Also Kate's no longer the action-vixen she was in the Underworld movies (now she's just a vixen :P), and her melee skills now detract to the whole thing. There's also friendly fire incident is also pretty bad as is the way the film tries to handle Ada's brother's character who definitely should have been left at home as he just puts everyone in danger all the time. Not recommended.

Terror on the Praire

This Western has Gina Carano starring as a normal wife trying to eke out a living on the inhospitable frontier, and that's before a band of bad dudes shows up at her door! While the boiled down main story of this is ok, they sure put a lot of filler scenes to the point I think the movie runtime could be cut in half and still be able to tell its story. Also while I do like that our protagonist really is not very bright and definitely terrible at shooting, that just makes it harder to fathom why the bad guys have such low morale in shootouts, continually being pushed back after what seem to be decent enough tactics to close ground. You outnumber your cornered and unskilled prey. WTF guys. Not recommended.

Deep Cover

When a trio of stand up comedians are recruited by law enforcement to act as undercover operatives it puts their improvisational skills to the test as they quickly find themselves getting into deeper and deeper trouble as what's supposed to be a superficial job somehow gets them deep into layers of organized crime. There are some decent laughs to be had in this comedy, but to make it work it is filled with silly bad guys and plot armor saves like you wouldn't believe. All up an OK flick if you have nothing else to watch.

Drowning in too many things

Hmm, that's actually a good title for a de-cluttering type of post but it's actually just the continuation of my work overload. On the plus side, I've found a good set of youtube tracks to listen to that gets me in the working mood. AI generated cyberpunk synth music? It's pretty cool.

Here are a few of my regulars:
1999 - Drift into Memory 
2088 - Protocol: Airstrike
1999 - Momentum Over Fear 
1996 - Neural Link Broken
1989 - Walk Through Fire

The Friday night game sessions are currently Ready or Not, which is a FPS law enforcement game that reminds me a lot of SWAT3. DL has a video of one of our play throughs of that for those who prefer a more visual stimulus. :) 

More than Nothing: Skydagger

[Part of the Party Time journal]

The squad remains at Hazelbrook for months until a message via raven suddenly arrives instructing them to destroy the Hazelbrook bridge that fords a deep and wide ravine. The get to it immediately, witnessing a small squad of crusaders fleeing from a massive dust cloud caused by a horde of cavalry of the Wang Dynasty. They get the squad across the bridge before collapsing it, dropping some of the pursuers to their deaths below. 

From across the chasm, general Wang Bang mocks them - showing off his coin-sword and the head of Ino Imzoro, promising to make their whole nation bow to the mighty Wang - the descendants of the Bhir'Beli Tigidig worshipers, before leading his horsemen away. The survivors tell them they are the last of Ino's crusaders, having been wiped out by the Wangs who were also purging the worm worshipers of El Kanadar from their end. 

At least there were survivors - which is more than nothing, but knowing they can't hope to survive against that number of enemies without a strategic advantage, the squad and their 35 allies quickly make their way back towards Skydagger - losing five to the giant cats in a rainy, red leaf forest as they opt to go fast instead of safe.

They then travel through a large underground cave of giant spiders but don't linger, also bypassing a supposedly abandoned prison but flickering lights in the windows and screams from within indicate otherwise. They deftly dodge pit traps around the facility, even pulling an escapee to freedom who joins them: the clockwork knight Kenrick! 

Finally they make it to the ruined Skydagger fortress and spend their time currency to train, rest up, and build walls and a siege engine just before the horde of horsemen arrive in waves. Moomba's archer team and Ughhh's siege weaponry hold most of the enemy at bay though the few that make it do kill some of the defenders. At the end, General Wang Bang himself appears and eliminates an ambush squad who waited the whole time for him (coin sword is a coin toss) but an arrow finally puts down the general ending the threat. Ever Worthlessman is among the 17 allies that died in battle.

Eventually they are reinforced by Aeternian's reserves and return to their homes as heroes. For a time.

[Inspiration from Band of Blades]

More than Nothing: Crusaders

[Part of the Party Time journal]

Ughhh's direct approach to the rescue attempt leads to a brief melee which involves Jerghon G pole vaulting over Walram's guards to hold the Lord at sword point, but the skirmish is interupted by the arrival of of a massive army of crusaders led by Yuno Imzoro and his nephew, the famously best swordsman in Aeternia who wields the magical coin-sword - Ino Imzoro.

By decree of the new Papa Smorfonof (aka Papa Smurf) all Aeternians from the lowest slaves to highest lords must join the holy crusade against the worm worshipers of El Kanadar to the East. Lord Teck tries to talk his way out of it and by doing so is found guilty of heresy and put to the stake (he is impaled upon it and set alight). No one else questions the order after that and our teenage heroes and their friends join as camp followers, doing menial tasks of cooking and cleaning while also receiving basic training as the massive host easily makes ground into heretic lands.

Only upon reaching the natural bottleneck between Aeternia and El Kanadar, the foolishly abandoned stone ruins of Skydagger fortress in a narrow mountain pass, do they receive their crusader mantle and are sent to into missions, the first being an easy one where Ughhh critically succeeds in convincing a village converted into a field hospital to basically convert religion and aid them.

Their next task is liberating the mining town of Karel where Jerghon G and Raah-Min sneak upon the fortress past inattentive guards and jam their gate, letting the others easily free the enslaved miners in the work site outside and with bolstered numbers the fortress soldiers surrender on the spot.

Finally they reach El Kanadar's Capital of Rakash where they are hand picked by Yuno Imzoro to join him in a heroic charge - just the five of them against the full enemy line - to prove the might of Numero Uno. It doesn't go well as their horses are brought low by enemy archers mere meters away from the enemy infantry and leaving them very far from support. Yuno is hurt severely but Ughhh goes out of his way to defend the man while Moomba takes out the enemy worm caster leader. 

They manage to hold until Ino brings up the infantry who then win the day with heavy losses, a result he squarely blames the party on. As such he stations them and a small squad at the seemingly insignificant hamlet with of Hazelbrook while he continues  the crusade to the East, but that location will soon prove to be more than nothing. 

[Inspiration from Darklands and  Lost Eidolons]