DarK_RaideR's BattlE_LoG

[DarK_RaideR]

Thursday 16 May

Not much to say here, long day at work, then straight into a therapist session, then straight back into our Netheril Dnd campaign after the Easter break. Quick summary for @Jarric and anyone else following these campaign reports:

 

Our trio of characters was introduced to Arcanist Ergon in hopes of earning his patronage. He was extremely fascinated with elves (which had my human character being quiet and grumpy in a corner) and he clearly hopes to gain enough power quick enough so he can enter the circle/court of the enclave's archmage. Our elven spellcaster is interested in how humans approach magic and wants to study at the local arcane academy, so he offered his services (but no murder and no sharing of elven secrets) in exchange for tutelage fees. The half-elf cleric wants to save an injured slave that was going to be pushed into another fight in the arena despite the injuries. Initially, she wanted Arcanist Ergon's patronage so she could fight in her place at the arena, but believing elf blood shouldn't be shed with such ease, he offered to buy the slave instead. As for my character, he agreed to assist him with his research, which seems to be heavily focused on flight, especially ways to make it permanent or craft magical items of the sort. With that out of the way, we finished our tea out of his impressive collection of herbs on display, the cups flew off on their own to get washed and we were shown our quite glamorous rooms in his tower, since he's also offering lodging while we're under his sponsorship. Another interesting touch of magic being commonplace in Netherese society, the beds were especially inviting to sleep in (even the elf who normally goes into a 4 hour trance actually slept for the full 8 or so hours) and we all shared the same vision before our individual dreams began, a scene of Arcanist Ergon and the enclave's Pactmistress surrounding the archmage. Like I said at the time, this felt like a "this dream is sponsored by Arcanist Ergon" unskippable YouTube ad

 

The next day we went to the arena for negotiations, where we ran into the obstacle of the fight already being scheduled and the master of betting strongly objecting to any changes. After some negotiating, I think Arcanist Ergon had to buy both fighters, or compensate the man for bet losses, I dunno I was getting pretty sleepy by then and both cats decided it was zoomies scream o'clock. What I do remember is that because the arena mostly features slaves fighting captured monsters, there was a mention of harpies and my character was sent off to find any literature related to harpy items as magical ingredients or components for magical items. He first visited some tinkering factory of sorts, where he met a grey skinned dwarf smith with a dragon tattoo on his forehead, who was more into crafting than theory. Nice touch to have him be grumpy about having to make springs and coils and components for something he doesn't quite understand (the enclave's metallic golems) and lament simpler times of the past when he'd make simpler, sturdier things that made sense to him, like an axe. I know it's not an intentional comment on labour specialization and workplace alienation, but I choose to interpret it as such. Long story short, my man then visited a magical academy and found a book by a famous magician on flight. Wasn't his spellbook per se, more like research notes, but it's good enough for me and might help us figure out the inner workings of the project. Gave it a glance and was told he can get a copy for 50gp. Which he doesn't have, so he had to sell Arcanist Ergon on how he could go to the library daily and study it, but it might be better to get a copy so they can both read it and save it for his own collection.

[RES]

Enjoy the upcoming vacation ❤️ 

[DarK_RaideR]

16 hours ago, RES said:

Enjoy the upcoming vacation ❤️ 

[random Barry White song fades in]

?

 

Friday 17 May

Another day of trying to wrap things up at work before my upcoming vacation. Been finding it easier to extend my fasting past the 16 hour period, but Thursday I hadn't packed anything for lunch and ended up grabbing something from outside, while hungry. Of course, it was an overpriced carby choice and the next day I'd gained all the weight I'd lost back just like this. Thus, since there's a bit of understanding at work about arrival times, I chose to be a bit late in order to prep my lunch and it paid off. Also, I might have mentioned a case that went awry just before the Easter break because I didn't check it during the appointment when the client brought the papers but only the next day to find out the deadline was expiring on that same day? Yeah, that's been a bit of an issue and during a post-Easter meeting to see court dates ahead there was mention of a need for attention to detail. I'm glad to say that during another appointment on Friday with a case I'm handling, I was alert enough to pick up not one, but two important details we'd all missed before. Chief lawyer was so excited he randomly high fived me after the meeting  It's good to have these wins, makes me feel better about myself as they balance out the bad stuff and it's an even bigger win that it happened around my employer and he's aware.

 

Back home I tried to chill with a bit of videogaming, because my personal cases are falling behind and clients are asking what's going on. Been planning to do a lot of them this weekend, but there's already a bunch of things to do besides the cases, plus deffy is coming soon and it all felt very deadline-y. Although I might not have mentioned it, I've been knocking more games off my backlog and on this evening I began with Outlast. Promising, but just wasn't in the mood for a jumpscare-y game so I added to my "Retired" list, to be revisited at some future time. Next up was Flashback, which (much like Beneath a Steel Sky) I tried to get into, but the handling and level structure is so 1993. Could easily see myself staying up all night back then and getting lost in it, but in 2024 it was real hard to go back to such controls and I just gave up. Last but not least, Stubbs the Zombie, which I do remember seeing from when it came out and liking its humor. Long story short, I spent a few hours having a great time with it and got sucked in, next thing I knew it was midnight. No workout then, rest for the big day tomorrow.

 

Saturday 18 May

Woke up rather early, as I had to drive to a car shop in order to pick up some saddlebags for my dad's motorcycle. He got them off some guy on Facebook market or whatnot, he's an out of towner but was in town a few days back;couldn't meet based on our schedules so he left them there and I went to pick them up. Next up was a haircut appointment, I booked it weeks back to be fresh for my holiday but apparently they also want to do a little photoshoot of me on Monday for the company website, so it's nice timing. Since I was early for it too, I visited the nearby farmers' market to grab some veggies and buy a wok. After the haircut, I was supposed to drive to a carpet cleaner and drop off a carpet belonging to my ex's mom, delivered to me by accident couple of years ago while mine was taken to her house. Got delayed due to traffic tho, so I changed the course to line it up with my wrestling friends visiting the annual comics expo. We had a good time and I ran into some familiar faces for a nerd-out, but nothing at the actual expo really struck my fancy if I'm honest. After that I made it to the carpet cleaners just 20' after they'd closed, so I just took the L and drove back home. Having pushed the fast this far already, I also did my workout in a fasted state.

3x10 Bench Press
3x10 Pull Overs
3x10 Overhead Press
3x14 Biceps Curls
3x17 Skull Crushers
3x17 Rear Delt Flyes
3x17 Lat Raises
3x10 Front Squat
3x10 Romanian Deadlift
3x18 Calf Raises

With that out of the way, I washed my brand new wok and put it to work, making chicken with a mix of peppers, plus soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, bit of honey, sesame and poppy seeds. Had it over cauliflower rice and it was great. It amazes me how the fasting doesn't feel like a struggle, how I'm not spent working out fasted and it even shut my appetite while eating lunch real quick. Hope those are signs of my insuline response sorting itself out. Oh and I should mention, remember that "losses undone" thing when I didn't pack lunch? That was 200gr I'd regained. This morning I was an entire kilogram down, so winning!

 

After lunch, I decided to prioritize personal cases and put some work in that I'm happy with. It's nothing grand, but it's a start, its progress and it's making me see it's not as terrible as it might feel when I think about it. Once I had enough of that, I did a bit of housework, had my shower and dinner, made more food to have handy (extra cheesy beans with lots of lamb sausage). It was late when I finished all that stuff and did my Duolingo, but I did sit to finish Stubbs the Zombie. Which I did, just before I came here to post this update. It is now past 1am, so I should probably head to bed.

[deftona]

9 hours ago, DarK_RaideR said:

[random Barry White song fades in]

?

 

You spelt Madrugada wrong

[DarK_RaideR]

Sunday 19 May

As is often the case, I aspired to do a bunch of things knowing full well I wouldn't be able to get them all done, which was of course the case in the end. On the bright side, I have made my peace with this situation and it doesn't stress me, nor do I feel bad if I don't knock everything off my list. Pretty sure I did something useful in the morning, but don't quite remember it. What I do remember is using my fancy nutritionist's scale to do the full weigh in. I'm still under my starting weight and got a 27,6% body fat if I recall the number correctly, although that might be a bit off given how instructions require you to get the measurements some 3 hours after waking up, no food or water, while I did this barely an hour after I got out of bed. I'm good with a rough estimate though, it doesn't have to be perfect; it's a check in to know where I'm at and a benchmark of sorts now that I'm being more consistent with my nutrition. Speaking of which, it was one of those days where I was super hungry and counting down the timer till I could eat, probably a sign that I got way less calories than I needed the day prior.

 

My midday break was spent playing @Jarric's brand new Planescape campaign, with his girlfriend (a.k.a. as WonderWoman for those following his threads), @WhiteGhost and @Rhovaniel. Feels good to reunite with that crew for D&d and it was a lot of fun, even if we almost TPK'd straight out the gates, courtesy of a flame trap/incinerator (not to flex, but my character was the only one who didn't die from massive damage and just barely made the 5th death save to survive unconscious before everyone's second set of characters found him). I'm already loving my first character, as I've built him to be a pessimistic seen-it-all emo bard, which makes him a fun vehicle for my grognardism towards 5e D&d and for me probably being the most familiar of the gang with Planescape. Don't get me wrong tho, Jarric is one of the finest DM's I've ever played with, plus I'm unaware of 5e's changes to the setting and he's always got free reign to change things for his campaign. Besides, the joy of Planescape lies in the chaos and discovery, if everything is figured out and formulaic and as-written, you kinda lose that magic. Already looking forward to our next session.

 

I had my lunch during the game's break and it kept me so full I didn't have anything else for the rest of the day. Fooled around a bit with Age of Empires 2 due to a sudden fit of nostalgia for real time strategy games of the era (also got the urge to play Settlers 3 and 4 tbh) till the food was down proper, then I did my workout, showered and took it easy for the rest of the evening, before I talked to deffy on a video call and collapsed to sleep with two cats cuddling up to me.

 

Oh, before I forget, I also got a package my parents sent me and in return, gave away those motorcycle saddlebags I'd picked up for my dad. Said package did contain the weight plates I'd left behind during my Easter holiday, so now I've got the equipment to bump my dumbbells higher than 6kg each once I hit the maximum rep range for my exercises.

3x10 Overhead Press
3x10 Dumbbell Rows
3x14 Decline Pushup
3x14 Hammer Curls
3x17 Triceps Kickbacks
3x17 Rear Delt Flyes
3x17 Lat Raises
3x10 Front Squats
3x18 Calf Raises

[DarK_RaideR]

Monday 20 May

A rather productive day at work, I'm basically past wrapping up stuff for my break and it's just one case with a deadline that my text needs to be greenlit, submitted and served. Had a slump of energy once I got back home, which of course went full circle and led to a second wind around 23:30, so in light of my busy schedule the following evenings, I decided to utilize it and get a workout in, as I reach the end of the rep spectrum with my 6kg dumbbells.

3x11 Bench Press
3x11 Pull Overs
3x11 Overhead Press
3x15 Biceps Curls
3x18 Skull Crushers
3x18 Rear Delt Flyes
3x18 Lat Raises
3x11 Front Squat
3x11 Romanian Deadlift
3x20 Calf Raises

Fasting has been going pretty well and I was glad to weigh in just before writing this post (Tuesday morning) at 98,7kg, when all this time before I was swinging between my starting weight of 100 and anything in the 99+ range. Pretty decent drop, more importantly I'm glad to realize my body is actually responding to effort by losing weight. As mentioned, being already mindful of what I eat and working out regularly, I was a little afraid how responsive it would be to this new level of focus. Fortunately, I'm not stuck in a plateau.

 

On a slightly different note, remember how not long ago I said I've stopped buying videogames because shortly after they're given away for free on Epic Games Store? Well I grabbed the remaining two Dragonage games... *checks notes* two weeks ago, and last week Inquisition was free on the EGS.

[WhiteGhost]

On 5/20/2024 at 2:57 PM, DarK_RaideR said:

not to flex, but my character was the only one who didn't die from massive damage

I thought I had an ace up my sleeve being a shadow sorcerer but DC 55 made it really hard to make that save...  

[DarK_RaideR]

16 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

I thought I had an ace up my sleeve being a shadow sorcerer but DC 55 made it really hard to make that save...  

If there ever was a DC, I missed it. Somethings just shouldn't be reduced to rolls and numbers;we were marching single file in a narrow corridor lined with faces that sprout flames. If the DM just said "You all die a fiery death" I'd be cool with it.

 

Tuesday 21 May

Contrasting the previous productive day, I did one (1) thing all day at work and even that wasn't that hard a task. I'd planned to meet someone from fb market selling the epic ad&d box set of Night Below, but in looking for it they realized they'd already sold it to someone else. Thus, I found myself with both the money to spare and the urge to spend it, so I started browsing online stores. Turns out one of them had a 20% discount on a gaming store near my house, so I used that to buy two books for about half the price: the 4th edition Warhammer Fantasy Role Play core rulebook and Rough Nights & Hard Days, which takes my favourite  2e WFRP adventure ever (if not my favourite adventure ever overall), updates it to 4e and expands it into a full on collection of similar adventures that can be run individually or as a mini campaign. Looking at you and that starter box set @Jarric

 

Between a little detour on the way back to pick up my books and a stand up comedy show I'd grabbed tickets for at 21:00, I just made it home to get out of the suit, put on more comfortable clothes and go to the show. Yes, on my own, I don't even care. I've seen that duo a few years ago, in the same open air summer cinema just a 5' from my house, I've been following them for years, but I can't say as had that much of a laugh. Might be because their new show was more about them hitting 40 and having a family, which I can't quite relate to yet, maybe the texts aren't that good, maybe I'm more familiar with their style now and it doesn't surprise me like it used to, or maybe I'm doing better and not in such desperate need for some positivity to hold on to. Whatever the case, I had a sufficiently good time and got back home real hungry, as I had consumed some 1000 calories all day. Thus, I decided to extend my eating window but at least instead of grabbing takeout on the way back, I whipped up a wrap home with the last tortillia I had left plus whatever ingredients I could find.

[WhiteGhost]

10 minutes ago, DarK_RaideR said:

If there ever was a DC, I missed it. Somethings just shouldn't be reduced to rolls and numbers;we were marching single file in a narrow corridor lined with faces that sprout flames. If the DM just said "You all die a fiery death" I'd be cool with it.

You didn't miss it, it is a gimmick that shadow sorcerers have, where if they drop to 0HP they have a chance to survive anyway.  The way it is controlled is they set the DC to be 5+ whatever the damage was so that you are less likely to survive really serious damage.  In this case the damage was so high it was literally impossible to overcome (DC 55) .  That said, if the DM had has just said "U ded  lol" I would have rolled with it, because the game loses a lot of the fun when death isn't a thing  

[DarK_RaideR]

On 5/22/2024 at 12:38 PM, WhiteGhost said:

You didn't miss it, it is a gimmick that shadow sorcerers have, where if they drop to 0HP they have a chance to survive anyway.  The way it is controlled is they set the DC to be 5+ whatever the damage was so that you are less likely to survive really serious damage.  In this case the damage was so high it was literally impossible to overcome (DC 55) .  That said, if the DM had has just said "U ded  lol" I would have rolled with it, because the game loses a lot of the fun when death isn't a thing  

Ah, gotcha. I thought at some point the DM revealed it was a DC 55 Dexterity save to not get burned to a crisp and I missed it. As for "the game loses a lot of the fun when death isn't a thing", it's one of my main gripes with 5e D&d and death saves, both how hard it is to die so there's no risk or consequence to actions, as well as how funny it can be to pop up and down when you're near 0 and keep getting healed/hit. Both of which I tried to channel in a funny way through my character, you might have noticed. Another interesting thing here is how this campaign follows the Planescape:Torment videogame and I'm not just talking about waking up in the Mortuary with Morte floating in saying "You okay there, chief?", which is how the game begins too (also, nice touch to not have Morte leave the room because he's "waiting for someone", that someone being that videogame's protagonist). I'm talking about that videogame's concept, it's designer notes/pitch to producers has been leaked since back in the day and it's a wonderful read about what those people set out to do. One of the things mentioned is how they didn't want the main character's death to result in a game over, as would all RPGs and dungeoncrawler videogames up to that point. Instead, the character would wake up once again in the Mortuary, thus removing the fear of death from the equation and asking the player what they'd do in a situation like that.

 

Wednesday 22 May

Started the day with having to go to court to pick some papers up, so of course I allowed myself to get a workout in first thing in the morning, then shower and set out at my own pace.

3x11 Overhead Press
3x11 Dumbbell Rows
3x15 Decline Pushup
3x15 Hammer Curls
3x18 Triceps Kickbacks
3x18 Rear Delt Flyes
3x18 Lat Raises
3x11 Front Squats
3x20 Calf Raises

Most of the time at the office was spent wanting this to be over so I can leave, but I did manage to be productive and actually get a few more things done, not urgent ones but still taking stuff off my plate when I return and also advancing things without deadlines that do tend to get overlooked in the heat of things usually.  After work and since I had plenty of time to spare, I decided to ditch the subway and walk to my next destination, despite having already hit my steps for the day. Went to a bar doing an open mic night, where a friend of mine from Thessaloniki would be doing his thing. We've been trying to meet and catch up since he came to town but it hadn't happened, plus I had no idea he's been dipping his toes in stand up comedy, so I was curious. It was a nice evening, I had a good time and he was pretty good, then we hung out for a beer or two and I ended up home a little after 2am.

 

Thursday 23 May

Somehow I keep dropping in weight. I mean, the day before I had leftover beans and lamb sausage for lunch and skipped dinner altogether knowing I'd be having a beer or two, but despite the beers I still lost weight, which is nice. Other than that, I woke up early an rested despite going to bed late the night before and somehow managed to do all the things I was hoping to do for the day. Started with picking up a supermarket order I'd placed the day before so I'd have all the basic supplies in light of deffy visiting (I do tend to run a rather minimal setup in my kitchen/fridge/pantry), then I finally dropped off that damn carpet my ex had left at my place, so she can pick it up from that place when winter rolls around again. Was hoping to maybe meet my friend from the night before and have a morning coffee, but he never read my texts so I assumed he was asleep, which would later prove to be the case. After returning home to put the groceries in place, I walked to a nearby pastry shop to grab a few delicacies, brought them home and prepped two meal packs for deffy (one savoury, one sweet) because I knew she'd be waking up at 3am her time to start her trip and assumed she'd be rather hungry upon landing. I also printed out a sign with her name which I held up outside arrivals and it was pretty cute. After picking her up from the airport, we got back home and with the exception of a quick evening break for me to walk to my therapist and back, we just hung out and made up for lost time.

[WhiteGhost]

1 hour ago, DarK_RaideR said:

I also printed out a sign with her name which I held up outside arrivals and it was pretty cute.

I hope it had a picture of someone getting suplexed

[DarK_RaideR]

On 5/24/2024 at 11:43 AM, WhiteGhost said:

I hope it had a picture of someone getting suplexed

It did not and now I wish I'd thought of it, but she's never had someone wait for her with a sign so it was still exciting.

 

Predictably enough, I haven't been updating daily, which confirms I was right to not do a challenge this round. I'm only posting this because I'm at work, the last of 2 days I have to work while deffy's here. We've been having a great time regardless, but there's certainly a feeling of me having to wrap this work thing up first before we can fully, properly enjoy our holiday together. No workouts have been had (at least not in the traditional sense) and I've been slightly looser about my exact fasting hours or exactly tracking what I eat, but I'm still on point and it helps that deffy's doing that fasting thing anyway, plus the heat here doesn't really make it easy for her to eat much even if she wanted to. As a result, I'm still dropping in weight despite not being 100% on it, weighing in at 97,9kg this morning.

[deftona]

5 minutes ago, DarK_RaideR said:

It did not and now I wish I'd thought of it, but she's never had someone wait for her with a sign so it was still exciting.

 

It was the sweetest and most wonderful thing ever ?❤️

[DarK_RaideR]

Oh hey, deffy's gone, I'm back to work and active on NF. Been a hot minute. Literally, because it's like casually 35C or more here, on the daily.

 

Needless to say we had a wonderful time these two weeks together and I can't wait to get out of this limbo so we can properly start our lives together. As far as the fitness stuff is concerned, I did spoil treat my girl and that included food/dessert, but given how she's also into the fasting thing and can't eat much in general and in such hot weather in particular, we held it together quite well. The only exception were those last few days, where we came back from a few days out of town, I had no supplies and didn't really feel like cooking, so I casually curated feasts of food to be delivered. No workouts were had, at least not in the traditional sense of the term, but we did spend one day of sightseeing that put us over 20k steps and a couple of days in the sea, even if that mostly meant chilling in the shallower bit of the waters.

 

I checked my weight records today, on May 23rd when she landed, I stood at 98,3kg. In the following days, I kept dropping and June 3rd was my lowest, at 97,2kg. I weighed in again on June 6th, which is when the numbers started going back up again, scoring 97,6kg that day. This morning (after a toilet visit) I clocked in at 97,5kg, not my lowest but only by 300gr and still a net loss, almost a kilogram down from the start (or roughly 2 pounds if you're using a made up system of measurement based on random dice rolls).

 

This all nicely coincides with the start of Week Zero, so I have some time to ease myself back into some seblance of a fitness schedule. There was also some debate about maybe doing a joint challenge with @deftona after that, but that's still up for debate.

[DarK_RaideR]

Yesterday was mostly a slow day, catching up at work and also because more than half the people were out with leave due to being appointed for the EU elections. I'm aware such occasions usually come with a bad feeling of returning to work and also finding loads of stuff waiting; fortunately, I had a wonderful time during this break and it still keeps me going, I don't hate my job (yet) and things were either stationary or my colleagues picked up some of the slack while I was away, so in that sense I do appreciate this and don't take it for granted.

 

While at work, I completely forgot I'd agreed to meet my wrestlefriends for a screening of NXT Battleground, so once I was off I joined them to watch the show and have a good time. We also put on the Anarchy at the Arena match from AEW Double or Nothing a few weeks back. Been a while since I saw those guys and even longer since I watched wrestling (with friends or otherwise) so a fun night was had. Wasn't that mindful with the delivery food we had, or the crisps and pop corn, but didn't go overboard either and today the scale said 96.8kg, lower than my lowest score while deffy was here and another 700gr in just one day. Imagine if I start doing my workouts again (come to think of it, I hope some of that weight loss isn't muscle mass!)

[DarK_RaideR]

New challenge is up