Unfortunately, had to cut short the game tonight, and we didn't get very far anyway, and two new PCs had to be introduced. Luckily, this adventure is pretty short, we might still be able to finish it next week. We'll see.

Went grocery shopping this morning. Felt startlingly weak after being the next best thing to bedridden for half a fucking week. I do not approve of this bullshit.

I finished The Gathering Storm. I think I will be picking up Mister Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy sooner or later.

Well, we'll see. I'm onto challenge group F in Gran Turismo. High speed driving challenges. It's on a whole other level!

So our heroes made it out of the shadowlands successfully, have made a couple new friends, and didn't even get tainted for the trouble.

Next time, they can do it without jade!

Well, whenever I next run the work game, it'll at least be interesting, no matter what happens. Fighting for your life against impossible odds is almost always awesome.

This weekend has been spent mostly in sleep, and I'm still tired. The next week at work is probably going to be spent mainly on integration of our project with another project, which is always a fucking pain.

And then I just have to get through a 3 day week and I will have four days off in a row, because I'm taking a short vacation while we're between projects.

Ran D&D at work. Holy fucking shit. The party lost their defender to a job change and move across the state, so Mecha joined as an assault swordmage. They proceeded to run face first into a sub-boss encounter that tore them the fuck up... and then one little dude from the encounter ran a bit down the map... and triggered the boss room.

Then I called it, snapped a picture of the map for posterity, and the next time we play, they have to try to survive. It won't be easy, if they can manage it at all.

Herculean effort managed to get the mod scheduled for yesterday running today instead... which we promptly dismantled like nothing. Dungeon crawls work hella different in L5R with everybody having 2-5 ranks of Investigation to search for shit, instead of one poor sap being saddled with trapfinding duty.

I made it through a dirt track challenge in a few hours today instead of the four days or so the last one took me, and now I'm on to a high speed turning challenge that is seriously kicking my ass. Normal track, fast car, I just don't have enough time or traction. Oy.\

In conclusion: I still haven't touched A Witch's Tale, Persona, or Fate/Unlimited Codes.

I seem to have fucked up my right knee, or maybe the area just below it.

Was trying to arrange a table of HoR2 for today, but it fell through, but managed to reschedule it for tomorrow (almost today) so we can all go out and die to a horrifically deadly mod with shitty rewards that everybody wants to play nontheless.

Recurring villains don't die every day, you know.

So I was sorta looking forward to playing tonight. And then the hours stretched on, and there was nobody but Maha.

So I'm going to bed.

Nothing to do tonight, and Gran Turismo's latest driving challenge, the technical section of Opera Paris, is frustrating the hell out of me. I'm gonna go to bed, do a bit of reading, and try to get a decent night's sleep.

An unfortunately short session tonight, but our heroes are into the shadowlands, and had their first two encounters. One with a muck monster that ate a shugenja and was destroyed just in the nick of time before it could start digesting him, and one with a goblin standing watch on the parapets of Hiruma Castle.

Wish these poor bastards luck, it only gets worse from here.

I have spent most of my evening installing a new memcard in my PSP, trying to get the goddamn PSN to take my money so I could get Fate/Unlimited Codes, and then trying to get my own music working in Gran Turismo.

It was absurdly difficult to get sony to take my damn money.

I hate dirt tracks with a burning passion.
I hate skidding all over the damn place.
I hate the incessant grinding of the engine as I futilely try to find any traction.
I hate having no control over where I'm going because I'M IN THE AIR.

I hate dirt tracks.

Bayushi Katsu, who previously was seen telling a bunch of samurai they were fucking crazy going into the shadowlands on a fool's mission, decided to use his free time to crash a Kakita dojo.

He proceeded to beat all eight students present, even the ones that were his superior in dueling stats, took their dojo sign, and declined to ransom it back, earning him the enmity of every Kakita Bushi in the empire.

In conclusion: Congratulations, and I hope you can survive this, Katsu!

So anyway, looks like four of my six PCs are going to be tromping off into the Shadowlands, aka hell's suburbs. They're going to die, or worse. It will be awesome.

Unfortunately, UPS frequently sucks ass and delivers packages at around 7 PM here, so I do not yet have my book. This displeases me.

I am also stuck on yet ANOTHER cornering challenge. Gran Turismo is going to be the death of me.

I have been trying for four days now to learn to corner properly in Gran Turismo and I just cannot fucking do it. I don't get it!

On the other hand, I have a book on its way to me, The Mermaid's Madness, the sequel to The Stepsister Scheme.

Imma be readin by the end of the week!

Okay, so saturday I went to nuke-con, to get a couple mods in and do the interactive, which had an iaijutsu tournament.

We get there, and I find out that the tips I'd received on the format are completely fucking wrong. It didn't hurt me in any way I could have avoided, mind, since there were no specific preparations I had made, but as it happened, the actual format was really, really fucking bad for me.

So the first round, I get matched up with Laurel's Akodo, who is, while not quite as awesome as I am, still really freaking good. So the format of this round is, there's a big pit of pebbles, and the pebbles are MOVING, and you gotta make a raw earth roll, and the higher you roll, the lower your penalty is. Roll high enough and you can get a bonus. I roll a +0, which would have been a +5, but I happen to have Wrath of the Kami for EVERY ELEMENT. She takes me to TN 75 before her focus gives out and I win.

Second round, we have to walk out at least thigh deep in the ocean and duel. Same thing, but with water. My water is a 2, on top of the freaking -5 penalty for Wrath of the Kami. I'm facing Galen's duelist, and he gets a +10. Me? I have a -15. Still, I -far- outclass him, as he's a new character after a character death, and even with karma, he can only be so good, and I take him to TN 65 before he gives in.

Third round, and this is the fucking best, third round we duel in a RING OF FIRE, STANDING ON A GIANT WOK. I am not even fucking joking. On top of the +5 to -5 deficit I have on the raw fire, we're both taking 3 points of damage per focus. BTW, if you kill your opponent, you are graciously allowed to perform seppuku in order to spare your family the dishonor of your bad self. Worse, my opponent is Doji Mikado. Doji Mikado is one of the most feared duelists in the entire campaign. To make it even harder on me, after we do our information gathering, he sees I have 4/4/4 for stats, while he has 5/5/6... and I choose the 6. Deliberately. On top of the +2 he has on me for his dueling trait, he has 4 more focus attempts than I do, AND he has 11 void points to my 4.

Fucking Kakita Bushi.

So we both start throwing dice and taking damage from the giant fucking wok. We get the TNs up into the seventies, where I have to start spending void JUST TO KEEP FOCUSING. Then the TNs hit the eighties. And then the nineties. I make my focus at ninety, have to honor roll it, and make it on the reroll. He goes for 95 and misses because of the wound penalties, fails the Luck reroll, and strikes, and I win.

And then I find out that in the finals, I get to face Kakita Noburo. Doji Mikado's mini-me. Exactly the same school, the same general build, just a few less XP.

We're in the Air stage. We get to duel atop bamboo poles that are being actively pushed around by wind kami. He approaches me before the duel and asks for a pact to choose each other's highest dueling traits. I am completely fucking crazy and this is PURE disadvantage to me, as I don't HAVE a highest dueling stat, so I agree. So when my assessment reveals his traits to be 4/4/6, instead of going for the even matchup, I give him a two point advantage on the dueling trait. In addition, he is ALSO a Kakita Bushi, and has an advantage of +10 on the raw air roll, to my +0, so he has +10 static bonus on me, plus he has 11 void points to my 4, plus he has 8 focuses to my 6, and he's not even getting the wound penalties that saved me with Mikado.

We focus and focus, hit TN 60, where I run out of focuses.

We hit TN 70, and I make it.

We hit TN 80, and I make it and regain a void, but I had to reroll, so it's a wash.

We hit TN 90, and I make it.

We hit TN 100. I am now OUT of void, and had to use Falcon Tattoo to honor roll just to make it. If he makes TN 105, I have to call strike.

He rolls for 105, gets only one explosion, and it craps out on a thirteen. He lucks it, his last chance, and his dice crap out again, and I strike for the win.

...and win a cert that effectively gives me 0 benefit. Oh well, I had no business winning those last two duels anyway. I was pretty badly outclassed, and only outrageous amounts of luck put me in the winner's circle.

I am up way too early, and will be leaving in half an hour or so to go to NukeCon and play L5R all damn day.

I am going to be so dead when I get home that I may even get some real, actual sleep.

just finished running an hor mod for some peeps. It was quite a bit of fun,e ven the parts that normally sucked, I think. I hope.

In conclusion: I have to get up in 5 hours for convention. Tomorrow is going to hurt so bad.

I'm about to go to bed, because I am exhausted from trying to get someone at work to give up his freaking attachment to an algorithm he's already written when it should be handling things a different way.

I'm going to have to go shopping on friday, because saturday is taken up again, this time for NukeCon.

And another adventure down, a maho tsukai apprehended and then lost to be a recurring villain...

In conclusion: tainted PC count: 1