Day 124 - Last Game Day

Food Prepping

August 9th, 2015

Cotton mouthed and a mentally off-balance, I remember that we drank the night before and chug a few glasses of water. Shimou continues to sleep for another hour, while I relax next to her. After getting out of the shower, she informs me that there is actually a full house, with a handful of additional Chinese people over for making a big lunch. I wish I could stay, but today is the final game day and I had committed last week. I'm always torn between organization and chaos. If you're too organized, you have everything planned but no freedom for random events. This is a problem younger me would never have faced, except for being so disorganized that I had to scramble to finish things.

After walking to the train station and realizing I forgot something, Andrew agreed to pick me up at Shimou's instead of in town. Sweet. I sit on a bench after grabbing what I needed, watching the cars pass by on a calm, overcast afternoon. The wind blows gently, allowing me to enjoy the mild briskness. Andrew pulls up, and I hop in.

Getting down to the Games

I recount to him events of the night before, shaking my head at how ridiculous the night was. Normally, I actually try to make things crazy. I push myself to do uncomfortable, possibly strange things. “Make it a better story, push the limit” I think. And then when I just hang back, shit gets unintentionally unleashed.

At the game day, Brian gave me his favourite show which he says is the best show ever. “Talk it up much?” Andrew said, which Brian concedes. He said he was skeptical before watching it, too. Even after it being talked up, he said it was better. Well, I know what I’m watching on my 12h flight to China.

Nerd Time:

Fire Elemental

The last game left off with us waiting for a ship to arrive to sail.. somewhere. A meteor fell and there was money to be made there. We have about three days to wait. Since I had taken the ability to make cool items, I take the opportunity to make cool things. A bandage that heals you as if you were laying in bed, resting all day? Uh, yes! A pair of sleeves that can turn into any outfit? Fashionable and Functional! A belt that allows me to easily move past people who want to kill me? Get down with it.

The ship arrives aaaaand we're attacked. BOOM! Fire elementals are on board of the ship. “Run” I command one with a spell, and it sprints off the ship, into town. Their problem now, I guess. The fight moves forward like a two legged dog - slowly, and hitting the ground a lot. We notice a stupid crow up top that was shooting fire balls at us. It’s a druid, circling 60 feet up. I can only do anything within 30 feet, which means I'm forced back to support roles by buffing our Ranger to shoot it down. Instead, he pins its wing to a mast, forcing it to transform back to human, then back to an even bigger bird. We shoot it a couple more times, and he tries to fly away. A few hundred meters out, he bleeds out over the water, falling to his death, I guess. None of us bother to ask why this took place.

That's the druid.. Sure.

Anchors Aweigh! Sailing, sailing, sailing. That was actually my characters profession before. Hey, a pirate ship! Shouldn’t be a problem since we’re flying the flag of the pirate village. Oh wait, they don't actually care!

We attempt some fancy sailing, aiming between the pirates and treacherous rocks. Rocks it is! Boo! Let’s throw in some combat on top of that! Double boo! The party jumps on the pirate ship and starts cracking skulls, and while I work at putting fools to sleep. Literally. Their captain goes down, but this only brings out the pirates reserve team, which vastly outnumbers us. They capture our captain, forcing a stalemate. Pirate code: we keep our shit, they keep theirs. Close enough to a win.

Well, at least we found a scroll of winds (or something) that Sorcerer Ryan uses to blow us clear of the rocks, and we're lucky enough that the boat is still sailable. Upon landing, 11 of the 16 crew members are either dead, injured, or exhausted. Guess we won't be getting much help from them. And with that, the final session is over.

Arrr

I say goodbye, thank them for dinner (they paid for KFC), and thanked them for the weeks of gaming. I shook Joel’s hand, thanking him for hosting and running the games. He’s the least mentioned in these sessions, but the most important person to these games, as he is the one planning, hosting, and running it. 

I regret not taking a picture, which slipped my mind at the time. Andrew drove me back to the train station in Perth, and we talked about his drone hobby. Seems relatively popular here that people buy these private drones you can fly around, looking through the drone’s eyes through headgear or a small screen. His has been broken, and he’s currently figuring out how to fix it. Part of the fun of these sorts of hobbies, if you ask me! We wish each other luck, and part ways.

Back home, I spent the rest of the night watching flight prices. It seems that 3 days ahead exactly is the cheapest, particularly for a monday or tuesday, while friday is the most expensive. Makes sense, since people will want to take a weekend trip to Melbourne from Perth. I decide to delay the decision, and switch to Hardcore History (podcast) while playing The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth. Shimou reveals that she’s having cold feet about going to Melbourne, fully telling me she won’t go. Well that might be a problem.