Osu

[Kishi]

So. Tuesday wound up being a relatively slow day. Like I said, I gave blood, and I try to treat myself rather gingerly after all that, or at least as much as I can.

 

There wasn't any training to speak of as a result of that. Wound up going out to write. Our class it seems has shrunk by half and there weren't a lot of us to start with. We wound up really de-emphasizing the homework, which is fine. Got a lot of good stuff out of the class last night in terms of story structure and where certain things have to go. Feels like a good refresher course. I like this teacher; I'd wish for the chance to go forward with her, but I don't have the money and apparently her helping other people is interfering w/ her own writing, so she's not gonna be doing that anymore.

 

Oh well. Have to find another way forward.

 

Finally managed to get a character onto the Faerie server on FF XIV, where all my local friends are. This is exciting - not that I didn't want to play before but having a chance to connect with people in the locality is the real draw for me and I'm way more excited to play this way. Good stuff.

 

Anyway. Tonight will be food and drink and writing. My fingers are itching, and the only way I know to scratch is to stroke some keys.

[Urgan]

42 minutes ago, Kishi said:

So. Tuesday wound up being a relatively slow day. Like I said, I gave blood, and I try to treat myself rather gingerly after all that, or at least as much as I can.

 

I love this qualifier. +1 honesty.

[Teirin]

Have fun!  I'm open for FF questions too if you have any extras. 

[Kishi]

1 hour ago, Teirin said:

Have fun!  I'm open for FF questions too if you have any extras. 

 

I might just be open to that.

 

1 hour ago, backtrack81 said:

Kishi you are a personal trainer what do you think about these before i pull the trigger https://remcro.wordpress.com/

 

Take a look at this:

 

 

Basically, nothing special. Save your money and invest in a gym membership.

[ReturnOfTheDad]

3 hours ago, Kishi said:

Basically, nothing special. Save your money and invest in a gym membership.

 

+1 to Kishi. We had some guys that retired from the Seals and Rangers at one of the gyms I trained at years ago.They do basic combatives and some advanced combatives, but it was all operationally driven, meaning if they lost all their firearms and were isolated from their team AND support, something had gone terribly TERRIBLY wrong. These guys focused on boxing/kickboxing, Jujitsu and some Filipino martial arts (though most preferred to put time in on the firing range) and sticking to the basics with lots of repetition under stress. What made these guys dangerous was their discipline to regular training, physical attributes, mental toughness, and attention to detail. No shortcuts to those things other than training, training, and more training under knowledgeable and experienced Coaches.

 

For what it’s worth my recommendation is to find a combat sport gym of some kind to get a good basis in some striking and grappling, and begin your journey from there. I like the combat sport side because it stresses physical training as well and develops good foundational skills that transfer to most other styles if you want to branch out later.

 

Always open to feedback if anyone has any thoughts on this.

[Kishi]

11 hours ago, ReturnOfTheDad said:

 

+1 to Kishi. We had some guys that retired from the Seals and Rangers at one of the gyms I trained at years ago.They do basic combatives and some advanced combatives, but it was all operationally driven, meaning if they lost all their firearms and were isolated from their team AND support, something had gone terribly TERRIBLY wrong. These guys focused on boxing/kickboxing, Jujitsu and some Filipino martial arts (though most preferred to put time in on the firing range) and sticking to the basics with lots of repetition under stress. What made these guys dangerous was their discipline to regular training, physical attributes, mental toughness, and attention to detail. No shortcuts to those things other than training, training, and more training under knowledgeable and experienced Coaches.

 

For what it’s worth my recommendation is to find a combat sport gym of some kind to get a good basis in some striking and grappling, and begin your journey from there. I like the combat sport side because it stresses physical training as well and develops good foundational skills that transfer to most other styles if you want to branch out later.

 

Always open to feedback if anyone has any thoughts on this.

 

Nothing beyond QFT.

 

*

 

Another quiet day. Not much to report. Got my writing done despite staying late at work and still got to hang with my friend, which was awesome.

 

Today, will be back out on the mats and will hit the weights afterward. I'm actually really stoked for this to happen.

[Kishi]

Thursday done!

 

Thursday was a really good day, actually. I did my writing, got out on time, and managed to make it to the mats. Our in-depth exploration of rear guard and chokes continued. It was just me, another white belt, and Professor last night, so after class we got a lot of rolls in. Professor decided to test me with a 10-minute round, and we got through most of it before he decided to break it off to teach us about leg-bars. Then, he capped it off by putting another stripe on my belt.

 

That brings me to 2. Neat.  Professor's said I should start looking for more opportunities to roll, which makes my long term decision to get over to the kickboxing school seem like the right one. Hopefully the OT I'm working these days will help with that, although apparently we're only budgeted for that for this month and the next. That government work life, though.

 

Got a little food in me afterward and went to go lift weights. It was satisfactory; weights are going up faster on the Deadlift than I thought they would. Used chin ups as part of the warm up for where I am now - straight-leg inverted rows - and left elbow complained to me about it. Feels fine today, and it didn't complain during the actual strength work, so I'm not sure what to make of it. Especially since pull ups themselves don't bother it at all. Might could be a function of the grip; if that's the case, I could probably go do neutral grip pull ups on the way to pronated grip and that would spare my elbow some grief.

 

Anyway. Got as far as the assistance work before deciding to call it early on account of gym closure.

 

Tonight is Fight Night! Should be fun times. I invited brother a couple weeks back but no response, so I guess that's a sign he's not coming. Ky-sensei posted about acquiring new, bigger space, and given how relentlessly positive he's been in terms of supporting me on my journey, it feels kind of shitty to leave. But on the flip side, again, I'm not here to play babysitter for him, and while learning to get along with kids is itself a good skill, it's not what I signed up for. Besides, there's plenty of kids over at the other place and it looks to be mixed, so I can do that too.

 

So. One night at a time. Fight night and gym after. Whoof.

[ReturnOfTheDad]

18 hours ago, Kishi said:

Then, he capped it off by putting another stripe on my belt.

 

Congratulations!!! Those 10 minute rounds are no joke. Well done!

[Kishi]

On ‎7‎/‎20‎/‎2019 at 9:19 AM, ReturnOfTheDad said:

 

Congratulations!!! Those 10 minute rounds are no joke. Well done!

 

Thanks! It was definitely no joke. Really had to learn to pace myself and remain composed as opposed to rushing to do what I wanted to do.

 

*

 

Fight night happened! It was me, sensei, another adult, and the adult's kids. And instead of just sticking to their style of things, I decided to loosen up and just play. Didn't really focus on wading in and trading blows so much as using lots of lateral movement, staying on the balls of my feet, and even going for throws when I thought I had them.

 

The overall results were good! They didn't really know what to do with me dancing around. And I was able to play around with grappling. I didn't really have any gi grips so I wasn't used to it; I didn't do so well as I would have liked as a result. Still had a ton of fun, though, and we all finished up in that happy delirium what seems to take people who fight hard together and get to be friends after. They've expressed interest in going to the open mats that we're doing over at the judo dojo, which is exciting if for no other reason than that it gives us an opportunity to all kind of grow closer together. One hopes.

 

After Fight Night, I went to the gym and lifted weights. And boy howdy, lemme tell you, I was smoked. I could lift the weights, but I had to rest a lot more and my shadowboxing was a lot softer than it normally is. Which doesn't bother me in the least - I would have rather left my energy on the mats than in the weight room - but it sure did take a while. I was able to hit the Armor Complex afterward and at pace to boot, but I could only sustain it for 8/30 reps, which just goes to show how tired I was.

 

The other notable thing about Fight Night was that my brother did get back to me and said he'd be interested in doing some kind of training. We almost locked down Sunday until his D&D group was able to get back together, and then he had to be on for that. Of course, he ended early enough that he could have come to roll on Sunday, but he and I have it in common that we like to do a big thing in the day and then spend the rest of our time getting chores caught up.

 

Saturday's plan originally was going to be working OT and then going out to Karaoke to celebrate one of my friends from That Group scoring a travel contract for her nursing specialty - we'll call her Nurse. That did not happen. Instead, I wound up going to lunch with my folks who were in town for jury duty. It wound up being a long lunch and by the time we were done I would have got to the office in time for it to close. I consider the trade to be a worthy one, however.

 

Wound up going out to dinner with the Friends. The DO was not there; otherwise I wouldn't have gone. We ate pho and talked about life and went out to the Karaoke bar - which was full up as we hadn't made any reservations. Which we wouldn't have; we've been multiple times and got there early enough for the place to be dead. Anyway, Shepherdess and her husband decided to go buy a karaoke machine and we elected to go back to Nurse's house to set up booze and the machine.

 

Which left me in the position of going to pick up more booze with the former crush - we'll call her the Librarian. And instead of it being some fraught awkward thing, it was just easy. We talked, joked, laughed, and it was nice. We got to talking about the DO and compared notes to find that we reached the same conclusion. Which is damned reassuring.

 

Also, realized today that I can refer to her as a former crush without some kind of emotional pain. So I guess I'm done carrying that particular weight. And honestly? I'm more relieved than anything else.

 

Anyway, we drank and sang the night away. Got together with everyone again for breakfast the next morning at one of those Southern joints that looks like a wooden house, barely has working A/C, and serves grease in the shape of food. And for what felt like the first time in a while, I actually got to sit and talk about my problems. Which was weird in a good way. Again, it makes me doubt a lot of my earlier conclusions about how I look at things versus how they look at things. I really probably haven't given them enough credit. I guess when we don't have a bunch of dramatic people about to draw our resources, we can be ourselves with each other.

 

And then they shaved my head.

 

It was something I'd been thinking about doing for a while anyway and we'd talked about it Saturday night, so Sunday afternoon, we shaved my head. And I don't have any pictures to prove it but y'all, this look works for me. I was told I should get a six pack and I'd be able to convincingly cosplay Kratos in his latest build.

 

I had to admit, I did go looking for training programs for that kind of thing, but then I thought about it and I was like, "You know, if I got to the point where I was lifting heavy and could do a Hollow Back Press and do 10 pull ups for multiple sets, that'd probably get me a good part of the way there." So I decided to stay my course here. Good stuff.

 

And today, well, I weighed in at the doctor's office below 200 for the first time I can recall, and things are looking better. Thyroid's in normal range although on the lower end of that so we're gonna have to up that again. The blood lipids are looking better, but we did a little too good and killed my HDL numbers, so we're gonna have to readjust that.

 

Otherwise though... yeah. Life feels pretty good.

 

We'll see what training happens tonight. I'm hopeful I get to the gym but the DM who's going to run things doesn't always end early, so.

[Urgan]

9 minutes ago, Kishi said:

They didn't really know what to do with me dancing around.

 

Oh I'm sure if you give them a few rounds they'll figure out something.....

 

[Teirin]

Good update!  Hair pics?  Glad things were good and not awkward :-)

[Kishi]

17 hours ago, Urgan said:

 

Oh I'm sure if you give them a few rounds they'll figure out something.....

 

 

Lawd, and they'd do it too.

 

12 hours ago, Teirin said:

Good update!  Hair pics?  Glad things were good and not awkward :-)

 

Hair pics before the day is out! On the work computer right now and can barely see gifs or photos; I'll want to make sure I can see what I'm doing so I present something good.

 

*

 

Well, after telling you All The Things that happened over the weekend, there's not much to report for Monday. Wound up with a late session as I figured I would, so no gym time. Really glad I decided to stick to my minimalist schtick. Of course, come to think of it, I could have done S&S, but I'm wanting to hold off on that until I get through a cycle on this plan as it is now. Non-tourney prep is 12 weeks to be repeated with a week off in between, and I'm on week... 7, I think? Once I make it to the end, I'll reassess and see if I want to do anything different.

 

Pavel's apparently putting out a new book which is apparently meant as more of a tagalong program than S&S is, but he also says you should have at least the Simple (32 kg swings and get ups if you're a man) to really get the benefits of it. I'll buy the book either way when it's out on Kindle because I love his work and want to support him, but that's kind of why I'm bringing S&S up again. I'm particularly pleased that my hamstring appears to be under control and I really want to be careful with any idea of giving it more work again.

 

Anyway, this friend is aware of the situation with the DO and after gaming she needed me to stick around and do some emotional labor in terms of listening to her anxieties about where the business is going and how to manage DO, who is apparently now trying to mend things with her estranged husband and maybe possibly trying to bring him up here to live so she can move back in with him? Leaving her boyfriend with a lease that he can't afford?

 

I really don't know the specifics, as I've Noped out of that whole thing, although if my Messenger is to be believed, there was apparently a flurry of activity and DO appears to have clarified/walked things back a bit. And honestly, I'm kind of like WTF-ever, yo. I'm done.

 

Writing class tonight followed by the gym. Should have time to manage it.

[Urgan]

9 minutes ago, Kishi said:

Well, after telling you All The Things that happened over the weekend, there's not much to report for Monday. Wound up with a late session as I figured I would, so no gym time. Really glad I decided to stick to my minimalist schtick. Of course, come to think of it, I could have done S&S, but I'm wanting to hold off on that until I get through a cycle on this plan as it is now. Non-tourney prep is 12 weeks to be repeated with a week off in between, and I'm on week... 7, I think? Once I make it to the end, I'll reassess and see if I want to do anything different.

 

This way if you do add something back in you can do it a bit at a time and if anything goes sideways you'll know what might have done it. If you absolutely must layer things back on lol.

 

11 minutes ago, Kishi said:

Anyway, this friend is aware of the situation with the DO and after gaming she needed me to stick around and do some emotional labor in terms of listening to her anxieties about where the business is going and how to manage DO, who is apparently now trying to mend things with her estranged husband and maybe possibly trying to bring him up here to live so she can move back in with him? Leaving her boyfriend with a lease that he can't afford?

 

DO never ceases to impress. Just when you think you've hit the bottom, oh look sub-basement 2! Turns out you can make reconciling with your husband into a scumbag move! Amazing.

 

12 minutes ago, Kishi said:

I really don't know the specifics, as I've Noped out of that whole thing, although if my Messenger is to be believed, there was apparently a flurry of activity and DO appears to have clarified/walked things back a bit. And honestly, I'm kind of like WTF-ever, yo. I'm done.

 

 

And you prolly could have gone your whole life without knowing what you already know.

[Kishi]

56 minutes ago, Urgan said:

This way if you do add something back in you can do it a bit at a time and if anything goes sideways you'll know what might have done it. If you absolutely must layer things back on lol.

 

Right, like I'm not even sure there's a need to or if it's just the old habit of feeling like I need to do something. Part of it has to do with being told that I could make a Kratos cosplay work. I like the latest iteration of his build, so part of me absolutely wants to do that. The other thing is that I found my cardio a little lacking on Fight Night; the footwork was tiresome, and I'd prefer it not be. So I'm already dabbling with the idea of adding in a cardio day - which is quite within the strictures of the program - and... I dunno. Play it by ear.

 

57 minutes ago, Urgan said:

DO never ceases to impress. Just when you think you've hit the bottom, oh look sub-basement 2! Turns out you can make reconciling with your husband into a scumbag move! Amazing.

 

Right? Like I genuinely don't get it. The concept of someone being so selfish is actually alien to me. I get making bad decisions, but you're supposed to take responsibility for those actions.

 

1 hour ago, Urgan said:

 

And you prolly could have gone your whole life without knowing what you already know.

 

It would have been nice. I suppose I should mention at this point that the Emotional Deceiver - ED - has a pretty hard crush on the DO because she's the one girl who's shown him consistent general interest. So this new turn is probably going to be hard on him.

 

Just another source of fireworks at this point, though.

[Urgan]

2 minutes ago, Kishi said:

Right, like I'm not even sure there's a need to or if it's just the old habit of feeling like I need to do something. Part of it has to do with being told that I could make a Kratos cosplay work. I like the latest iteration of his build, so part of me absolutely wants to do that. The other thing is that I found my cardio a little lacking on Fight Night; the footwork was tiresome, and I'd prefer it not be. So I'm already dabbling with the idea of adding in a cardio day - which is quite within the strictures of the program - and... I dunno. Play it by ear.

 

Managing stress and prioritizing some of the surplus time to keeping your home environs where you want it might get you closer to that goal than you think. That's not to say rearranging more or less what time your are spending training to accommodate some deficiency, of course. Having a habit of spending some of your week at home comes in real handy from time to time in the event Stupid rears its head...not like that would ever happen anytime soon, of course....

 

6 minutes ago, Kishi said:

It would have been nice. I suppose I should mention at this point that the Emotional Deceiver - ED - has a pretty hard crush on the DO because she's the one girl who's shown him consistent general interest. So this new turn is probably going to be hard on him.

 

Just another source of fireworks at this point, though.

 

* insert image from Pompeii here *

[Kishi]

Because @Teirin asked...

Spoiler

 

 

[DarK_RaideR]

It's one of those things you never knew would be so cool until you finally did it. Loving the new look!

[Kishi]

3 hours ago, DarK_RaideR said:

It's one of those things you never knew would be so cool until you finally did it. Loving the new look!

 

Yeah, exactly. Thanks!

 

*

 

All right, Tuesday down. Not much to report there either. Went to writing class and it was changed up as my friend's wife was there on account of her plans getting rained out. She's a Creative Writing teacher and so we wound up talking more about critique groups and how to organize classes and such like that rather than the meat and potatoes of writing. Which I was totally fine with. I was actually really happy with the idea of knowing what to look for in a critique group, and while a lot of what we talked about wasn't necessarily useful for her, I got a lot out of it.

 

Was able to squeeze in a gym session. Hit my main lifts and realized I was warming up a bit too much - deadlifts are a good warm up for pull ups on account of using a lot of the same muscles, so I was able to save myself a lot of time. Wasn't fast enough to hit finisher or corrective work, however. Oh well. It wasn't a waste of time.

 

Today's looking like it's going to be a quiet one. Reckon it'll be writing tonight, which is okay. Might do yoga and ab stuff later, IDK.

[Mistr]

I like your new look!

 

Good to hear you are maintaining some distance from The Drama. Also that the rest of the group really are decent friends.

 

Nice that you got something useful out of the writing group. All kinds of things to learn for fostering your writing career besides simply putting words in order.

 

I always enjoy seeing how you tailor your training. I can see it makes sense to add some cardio. I've found that just 10 minutes of HIIT as a warm up twice a week makes a difference for me.

[Teirin]

Love the shaved head!  You look great!!

[Kishi]

16 hours ago, Mistr said:

I like your new look!

 

14 hours ago, Teirin said:

Love the shaved head!  You look great!!

 

Thanks, y'all.

 

16 hours ago, Mistr said:

Good to hear you are maintaining some distance from The Drama. Also that the rest of the group really are decent friends.

 

Nice that you got something useful out of the writing group. All kinds of things to learn for fostering your writing career besides simply putting words in order.

 

Distance plus time turns Dramedy to Comedy, or something like that. And I'm glad to see that my friends were my friends. Like I said, I've just been living in my head a bit much.

 

That also is true. It's the part I've really struggled with the most in my writing - not necessarily the putting down of words but how to balance writing with the other tasks that support writing.

 

16 hours ago, Mistr said:

I always enjoy seeing how you tailor your training. I can see it makes sense to add some cardio. I've found that just 10 minutes of HIIT as a warm up twice a week makes a difference for me.

 

This time it does, yeah. The tricky part is, the one day that I really have to do it on any consistent basis is also the one day where everyone wants to pull me out of the gym to do stuff. I value that time, so I don't want to lose it.

 

*

 

Another quiet night. Went to hang with the friend and play board games. Wound up playing Marvel Munchkin and The Cure which is a dice game version of Pandemic by the same people. Had a good time with both of them and even won the Pandemic variant we played, although I suspect that we probably cheated a little in order to make it work. As one does when first playing that kind of game.

 

In any event, tonight will be tonight. I've been invited out to Karaoke with some friends of mine, but TBH I feel like I'd have more fun on the mats, so that's what I'm gonna do. Besides, gotta get a little last practice in before Open Mat tomorrow night.

[Kishi]

All right. Let's go ahead and catch things up, shall we? Bit of a whirlwind weekend.

 

So, let's start with Friday. Friday was good. Friday was the end of the work week and also Open Mat. It was a small turnout but high quality, including my most consistent partner who was way overdue for her 2 stripes when she finally got them. So we pretty much just rolled for an hour straight. It was a blast. Beers were had afterward, as is apparently the custom. (have I told you how much I dig BJJ's style? Like just the attitude with which they seem to comport themselves. I'm sure there are assholes here, but I ain't met them and in the meantime, man, everyone is so cool and relaxed).

 

Professor, it turns out, likes Stouts, because he's a good man. I managed to find his favorite, which turned out to be a Canadian beer that is super tasty and also 9% ABV. I had a couple, and this was after a full day of fasting and an hour's worth of rolling. I was promptly incapacitated for a couple hours and pretty much just held the fort for a while until the world settled into something I could drive through.

 

So no additional training after that.

 

Saturday morning was D&D with the folks. We got our asses kicked last session, so the party basically continued down its road and ultimately managed to get its groove back with a much-needed combat win. Admittedly, there will be more trouble down the line, but sic semper D&D.

 

Galaxycon was afterward. Managed to sit in on a panel with Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day, who were funny and charming as one expects practiced folk to be. Managed to be in the same room as Jason David Frank, David Yost, Edward James Olmos, and Mary McDonnell, among others, but we were a little too starstruck and a little too poor to walk up and say hello. The friends were able to get photos with Jonathan Frakes which made their damn day; also, apparently David Tennant and Catherine Tate were in attendance and some other friends got photos with them.

 

As for me, I was happy just to take it all in. Money management has lately been a problem again, so I didn't really have the money to engage in a meaningful way and to be honest I probably shouldn't have been there (in the sense of spending money on a ticket, etc). But it was nice to go, and to spend some time with friends and to watch that First Con gleam. We went out for dinner and beers afterward and played lots of games together, including Wizard, where they ceased to take it easy on me and I still tied for first. Yay.

 

Sunday was gonna be a training day, but it didn't turn out that way. Brother's been running the 5e version of Curse of Strahd, and everybody including the DM thought that they were gonna end it.

 

The only thing they didn't count on was that they decided to fight Strahd on his home turf, and he's apparently impossible to kill there. I said I'd be there for their stream and what followed was a marathon session where, despite all the prep work and all the planning and everything going as right as it possibly could, they still couldn't seal the deal. A couple of ally NPCs went traitor at the worst possible time and they just couldn't overcome; at the end, half the party was dead and the other half has gone to lick their wounds.

 

I'm sure they're all rather exasperated by this turn of events; at the same time, it's fascinating to see the loss and to see what happens now. Like I said, they pretty much did everything right, but they just couldn't make it happen; this is relatively uncharted territory for everyone now, it seems, as this was supposed to be endgame and the game didn't end. So. Be interesting to see how it plays out.

 

Anyway, as you've probably guessed, training really didn't happen much this past weekend. I tried to hit up some handstands on Sunday, but body just wasn't feeling it - couldn't hit my balance point on the warm ups and I decided to take that as a sign and just do ab work. Abs were glad to do something. Missed out on the additional gym work, though, which wouldn't be a big deal except it was half the work, and I'd rather adjust my long term training schedule than miss out on opportunities to socialize. Fortunately, the planned adjustment is relatively small and should be easily managed.

 

Tonight, we game. Depending on who's up we'll either end early enough to train or we won't. Plans to be adjusted accordingly.

[Urgan]

1 hour ago, Kishi said:

The only thing they didn't count on was that they decided to fight Strahd on his home turf, and he's apparently impossible to kill there. I said I'd be there for their stream and what followed was a marathon session where, despite all the prep work and all the planning and everything going as right as it possibly could, they still couldn't seal the deal. A couple of ally NPCs went traitor at the worst possible time and they just couldn't overcome; at the end, half the party was dead and the other half has gone to lick their wounds.

 

All I could think of was

 

[Kishi]

18 hours ago, Urgan said:

 

All I could think of was

 

 

God, that's it exactly. I don't even think they had chicken.

 

*

 

Monday worked out to be a bit of both things, where we had the DM who ends early, but he still ended late enough to interfere with my gym plans. I was able to get most of what I wanted, but I missed out on finishers again. That's annoying, although I still maintain that lifting that shadowboxing to stay warm is good enough without necessarily being what I want. I tire of settling.

 

Tonight's the last night of the writing class. After that should be some yoga and maybe some ab work. It'll be good to get back to that.

[DarK_RaideR]

21 hours ago, Kishi said:

Brother's been running the 5e version of Curse of Strahd, and everybody including the DM thought that they were gonna end it.

 

The only thing they didn't count on was that they decided to fight Strahd on his home turf, and he's apparently impossible to kill there. I said I'd be there for their stream and what followed was a marathon session where, despite all the prep work and all the planning and everything going as right as it possibly could, they still couldn't seal the deal. A couple of ally NPCs went traitor at the worst possible time and they just couldn't overcome; at the end, half the party was dead and the other half has gone to lick their wounds.

Part of the campaign's charm. I'm running a bunch of friends through it too, though much earlier, they're still in Vallaki.