Shiny Distractions and WiPpet Wednesday

Sooo...  After another fairly unproductive week (but I wrote 271 words on Gabrys's story and... a sentence? on Jonathan's, so that's something, right?), my preorder of The Witcher III arrived yesterday and therefore I'm pretty sure that all production is now firmly out the window.  (I'm lucky it arrived at all; my bank have now frozen my account for fraud protection three times this year—third time being straight after my preorder shipped—and it's a massive pain.  Weren't so keen to protect me when I was broke!)

I'd read The Last Wish and loved it (I've read it three times now) but I couldn't get into Blood of Elves at all and all the other books took so long to be published in the UK that I actually ended up with them all fan-translated from other languages before I had the physical paperbacks...  So on the whole I was a little dubious about the games, but my mother bought me The Witcher II for the 360 for my birthday, and after a somewhat convoluted saga I even got to play it—and loved it.

Because of my attention span issues (mostly that I don't exactly have an attention span) it's quite rare for me to finish games.  That's why gaming has its own New Year's Resolution: it's the best way to get me to finally finish some although, like books, I continue insist on buying them.  So with that in mind, when I say that I powered through all 30 hours of my first playthrough of The Witcher II, finished it and then promptly restarted it so I could play through the other side of the story, that should tell you just how much that game excited me.

In the end I spent 60 hours on that game, it's gorgeous, I never did find Odrin, and the Harpy feather quest has become a household running joke.

This one is even more gorgeous, and I suspect it'll take me more than 60 hours just to play it once.  It's huge.  When they said it made Skyrim look small, it doesn't seem they were exaggerating.  I've already gotten lost a couple of times, even with the quest trail marker on.  Sod finding Ciri, I'm having enough trouble finding myself...

WiPpet Wednesday

WiPpet Wednesday is a weekly blog-hop where participants share excerpts from their Works in Progress that in some way relate to the date, either via simple maths (like 20 sentences for the 20th) or somewhat less simple maths such as dividing the date by the month for 4 paragraphs.  You can find out more, read other participants' entries and join in yourself here.

My picture of RQ finally rendered!  It's not much but I do like making pictures of him...  Poor Fayth is distinctly neglected in this department, I'm sorry to say, which is kind of a shame because he does have his own charm too...

Convoluted maths today so I can get my own way (which is pretty much the only reason I'll ever willingly do maths): adding together the year, 2015: 2 + 0 = 2; 1 + 5 = 6; 6 - 2 = 4.  Today is the 20th May, so 20 - 4 = 16, for sixteen sentences that follow on from Fayth and RQ making good their escape from the Orenda.

Once the ship was comfortably blazing along in slipspace, an aurora of colour dancing across the cockpit window, Fayth unbuckled his straps and stretched in his seat with his arms above his head. “That went better than expected.”

Wordlessly, the Rose Queen turned to Fayth and raised both hands, held together at the wrist.

“What’re you—oh...” Fayth’s voice trailed off as he stared at the metallic cord still binding his narrow wrists together. “But just now, you touched me—”

The Rose Queen wiggled one set of fingers at him. “Them being tied together doesn’t stop me from using them independently, you know.”

He had a point, but Fayth couldn’t help wishing that a smile had accompanied the gesture, or at least something that didn’t indicate the Rose Queen thought him a complete moron. He’d had other things on his mind, like fulfilling his request; he couldn’t be expected to remember everything.

Judging from his blank expression, the Rose Queen expected him to.

Fayth sighed as he set to work untying the knot that seemed to have worked itself tighter since he’d first tied it. Every brush of his knuckles over the Rose Queen’s soft skin sent a jolt of energy the length of his arm and straight to his heart if he was romantic—straight to his groin if he was honest—but the black-haired man sat and watched the movement of his fingers without the slightest hint he felt anything similar. And why should he? They’d known each other for less than a day and soon enough they’d never see each other again.

It was going to be a long three weeks.