Page 25 of Level Up
I manage to play for an hour before Damien’s stream, and I take a break to watch it while I eat a ridiculously early dinner of—you guessed it—cold cereal. I leave a few comments in the chat, and he responds to all of them. A fact that other people seem to be picking up on.
LinkFarts: why’s this bitch suddenly all over the place?
SammyIsMyBaby: omg my two fave streamers are talking i’m dying
BallsOfAyor: Dude stop acting like she knows shit about this game, I saw her channel and it’s all gay shit
AkilaCowgirl: He smiles every time he says Oddly! I totally ship it <3
All of that, he seems to ignore. I’m sort of okay with that, though, since he’s no longer ignoringme.
I have a couple of hours between our streams to get in a bit moreSOA4time, though Damien and I are both past the tutorial level and have gone off in different directions, based on what we thought each of our characters would do. So we haven’t been chatting as much, since he is very opposed to spoilers.
At least, we’ve not been chatting much about thegame.
“I haven’t decided what I want to stream tonight,” I tell him as I work my way through one of the low level dungeons. My strategy of sending two of my bulkier companions—tanks, as Damien calls them—into battle ahead of me seems to be working well so far.
“You know I’m always a fan ofCloud Quest,” he says, and I can hear his mouse and keyboard clicking and clacking away as he charges through whatever dungeon he’s in now. (I’m tempted to tell him to replace his goddamn stabilizers because the space bar is driving me insane, but he sounds a little preoccupied at the moment.)
His strategy has been to keep a couple of ranged companions behind him while he barrels ahead with Gustav as his so-called tank. And based on the swearing every three seconds, I don’t think using a Rakehell character as a tank is going great.
“AlthoughSteampunkwas cool the other day,” he adds inbetween more bouts of cursing. “I didn’t know that game could be so chill. Minus theripping a guy’s head offpart.”
“There are a lot of cozy bits in fantasy and sci-fi games, if you’re willing to slow down and look for them,” I tell him. “I could easily do a cozy stream ofStones 3, even. Just load up on Invisibility scrolls and wander through Evernight Forest at sundown, or something like that.”
“You totally should,” he says eagerly. “Do you have a character levelled enough in Stealth to go through undetected?”
“I mean, maybe…” I say, stopping to consider it. “Some of the Forest Guardians might be hard to sneak past, but I could possibly distract them with something.”
“Send Hadley in to draw their fire and then run like hell the other way,” Damien says with a laugh.
“I’m not doing that to Hadley. He’s myhusband,” I say jokingly. “And I don’t just mean in the game.”
“No, I know you have a life-size body pillow of him that you cuddle every night.”
“And you wouldn’t?”
“Oh, I definitely would,” he says, and I laugh too. “I think Elliot would probably steal it, though.”
“Who’s Elliot?”
“Oh, right, sorry. Elliot and Nathan are my other roommates,” he clarifies. Followed by more swearing. “Uh, yeah. The two of them are a couple, while Malcolm and I just share a room. With bunk beds.”
“Noted.”
“Anyway, Elliot’s seen me playSOA3sometimes and he has a thing for Hadley, because don’t we all.”
“Of course.”
“But he’s never actually played the game.”
“Blasphemy,” I say, and Damien laughs again.
“None of them play video games all that much anymore,honestly,” he says. “But they let me keep all my shit out here in the living room, so that’s cool.”
“All your shit?”
“Computer desk, PS5, Switch—I even have a refurbished N64 with an adapter that I can use on the TV when I want to break out the vintage stuff.”
