He grimly got back to work today, resignedly saying the following: "Every time I restart this game, it doesn't matter how long it's been, I've actively forgotten how to play." We saw an actual living woman, but of course only spoke to her through a barrier, and she not-so-politely declined our request to join forces. It was nice to have someone to talk to, though.
We found ourselves near a store, and he bought himself some new guns, since we were previously trying to navigate these dire halls with just the plasma cutter and javelin. I'm pretty sure I've shocked myself using the javelin, so it's not my favorite. Also, there's only 5 shots available on it right now, and the reloading is terribly slow.
As soon as we were out of the store, a number of necromorphs came roaring down the hall, including a spitter and a pregnant. It was a very wide and long hall, though, so he was able to dispatch them efficiently. There were a few booby traps, though, which took a chunk or two out of his health. Also, while he was busy with those, a few more necromorphs got the drop on him.
The objective trail led us into a brightly colored elementary school, and you know things are gonna get ugly in a place like this. We saw a living woman through a window that we could not communicate with, and you know that's going to end badly, too. Yup, she cuddled a necromorph baby, and they both blew on up. Gross. And, of course, you know that's not the last we're going to see of those babies. As you enter the nursery area of the elementary school, a whole horde of them come crawling out of the duct-work. I didn't say that game wasn't predictable, I said I enjoyed the delivery of the story.
Next up was a children's theatre, and Isaac needs to take a convoluted path to get to the stage area - as usual, Xian took it very slowly and deliberately, first vanquishing the necromorph children that came crawling over the stands, and then a dark spitter underneath the bleachers. He got a really good scare from a cardboard sun backstage that dropped in his face, and we had a momentary hallucination phase-out. Nothing too scary, this time. When he activated a control panel backstage and all the obstacles retracted, we knew things were about to get serious, and tons of babies and children came pouring out from the stands toward the stage. Had to repeat that one a few times, but the death sequence was not too bad - the sight of Isaac blowing up is actually really tame, compared to some of the bad stuff that's happened to him, honestly. We also found what appeared to be a stasis "bomb" - a lamp-like object that you can blow up or throw that creates a stasis field. Awesome.
We got out of the elementary school and finally reached the transport hub, where we met up with Ellie (the lady from before who declined to join forces with us) and Stross (our CrazyFriend). "Meet up," meaning that they were somewhere Isaac couldn't reach, and instead we faced off alone against a Brute. Xian called it quits after a few deaths.
