I'm the gaming equivalent of a hungry pregnant woman. I get cravings. The other day I had this incredible appetite for party-based RPGs. And since I'd rather fuck a cactus than touch any of Beamdog's "enhanced" shit, and since I consider Pillars of Eternity to be very average and highly overrated, I turned to Bioware and Dragon Age: Inquisition. Again. Figured I'd try a jerk inquisitor this time, maybe a mage, got all sorts of awesome ideas, then stopped playing two hours later, because there's too much soul-crushing boredom in between the good bits. Tons upon tons of fucking filler. There's just no way I'm gonna click on any more elfroot in this life.
In my boredom I clicked my way through Steam's suggestions for "party based RPGs". It recommended a bunch of crap made in RPG Maker, Final Fantasy IX (seriously?) and Avernum, which entertains a small but faithful cult of followers, despite being utter shite since their beginning as the Exile series in 1995. It also recommended classics such as Wizardry 6, which is technically correct, but...
yeah...
And then I tripped upon a game titled Serpent in the Staglands. It's largely unknown and has less than a hundred user reviews on Steam, 24% of which are negative due to the game's insane difficulty and lack of user-friendliness. Larger outlets won't even review it, because there's simply no audience for old, old, OLD school pixelated RPGs, which look like this:
It's bleak, depressing and not that fun to look at. Like England.
Like most games, Serpent starts off with a hooded lady, who asks you a bunch of questions. Why would you save a group of people from certain death, which parting gift do you leave behind for some chick you have seduced and so on and so forth. A little bit like the fortune teller at the beginning of the Ultima games. Then you start your adventure as a god, the Moon Lord, who finds himself trapped in a mortal body and no idea how or why. You get to customize said body by choosing from a whole lot of different races, you get to distribute stats and pick your starting abilities and this is the part where I was really glad that the game comes with an extensive, well-written manual.
You may also roll up to four additional party members, though there are tons of mercenaries and NPCs, who are willing to join you if you can't be bothered to create any more toons. NPC followers have their own personality and banter, but they may choose to leave your group for various reasons. Maybe they're afraid to head in a certain direction or their contract with you simply ends. You can then choose to soulbind these characters, robbing them of their free will and forcing them to stay with you. They'll hate you for it, what with you making them your slaves and all, but heyho. I opted for a custom party, tailored down to my personal preferences and play style. No banter here, but at least they're loyal.
Yep, zoomed-out looks even worse.
The starting area doesn't have any decent blacksmiths. Heck, even if it did, your mortal form isn't exactly drowning in riches, so I equipped my party with frying pans and kitchen knives. They rampaged through the woods and beat the shit out of random goblins and foxes like a bunch of angry Gordon Ramsays. "The fucking bass is fucking RAW!" *BAM*
I actually felt pretty smug at the time, because lots of user reviews and forum threads complained about how this game is oh-so hard and people couldn't even kill the stupid foxes. Meanwhile, I pan-slapped them around like a boss and murdered entire legions of chicken-riding goblins. Yes, that's a thing. Combat happens in realtime and can be paused with the space bar.
Dozens of dead noob-level enemies later, my little troupe of adventurers ran into their first bandit. He had a crossbow, a shield and a real sword. He was basically a god. Frying pans could not penetrate his armor. Meanwhile, his crossbow bolts penetrated the everloving shit out of my guys, so I had to reload over and over again. Dead party members cannot be revived, a dead main character means game over. Serpent also features GTA-level load times, so I had a great many opportunities to think about my life choices.
Level-Ups are painfully slow and do very little.
In the end I used magic to heat up the bandit's weapon, causing him to fumble while my characters beat the crap out of him. He dropped his armor, his helmet, all of his weapons and a bunch of ammo. Now one of my characters could be as strong as a god! Life was good. Then I ran into two bandits.
The first few hours were brutally unfair. My group has two tanks, but there don't seem to be any taunts or provoking abilities. Meanwhile, my main character is a squishy caster. The AI is keen on destroying him, running past the tanks, ignoring the hail of bolts from my rangers and going straight for the squishy one. Ultimately, I had to turn my rangers into nurses, constantly focusing their healing magic on my main character, who runs all over the place like a moron, kiting enemies whilst my tanks try and keep up. It's all a bit messy.
Enough adventuring, let's bone!
Battle is a yoyo. You go up and down, feeling invincible when you finally start beating up the bandits which seemed unkillable a few hours ago, right until the game throws an organized party with tanks, rangers and mages at you, which will make you its bitch and force you to reload another dozen times or two.
For an indie game, the amount of skills, spells, weapons and viable play styles is remarkable. My main character can now polymorph into a wolf, tearing enemies to shreds, whilst one of my tanks swings a magic chain whip, which can disarm enemies. My other tank summons chicken-goblins and buffs the entire group with battlecries, while ranger/nurse #1 litters the place with traps and ranger/nurse #2 melts enemy weapons, causing the bad guys to screw up their attacks and take damage simply from holding their swords.
Abilities and spells can also be helpful outside of battle. My ranger can talk to animals and gathers vital information from rats in exchange for bits of salted meat. My main character can shapeshift into a cat and reach spots, which are too tight for humanoid characters to access. One of my characters can control thieving imps and force them to grant gifts and favours.
You can reach hidden areas by turning into a cat.
Serpent uses a bleak and depressing dark fantasy setting. Seemingly injured kids will beg you to find help and lure you right into the arms of greedy bandits, then sneak up on you from behind and stab you in the back while you fight for your life. A bounty quest sent me out to collect the head of a lady who left her husband and ran off with the family savings, only to have me attacked by a bunch of rival bounty hunters. I discovered a lair of creepy monsters, who possess and eat children. I felt rather proud when I beat the puzzle at the end of that dungeon. I found the clue in an old diary, which I had discovered much earlier in the game, by shapeshifting into a cat.
The most polarising aspect about this game, apart from the ridiculous difficulty, is the story. The world is indifferent to you. You aren't the shining hero or the stereotypical chosen one, the universe doesn't revolve around you and plenty of NPCs simply don't care about you at all. You're a god in a mortal body, pretending to be a spicer, whilst trying to figure out what exactly has happened to you. There are no quest pointers, there isn't even a questlog and the only thing you can do with the game's "journal" is type notes by hand, if you so desire.
It's a big world and I have no idea where to go.
People are working their fingers to the bone to repay a huge debt to a local noble. There's a mysterious disease with no known cure, which only afflicts one of the world's races. Sailors smuggle slaves all over the place. Folks entertain themselves in a secret fight club, hidden in a tavern basement. Everybody has their own problems, their own lives and nobody cares about you and your problems as the player character. They're not waiting for you to show up and save the day. They also don't tell you where to go or what to do next. Dialogue is incredibly well-written and full of swearing, which is always a plus in my book.
There's zero handholding here. Whether that's a good or a bad thing depends entirely on you. You might enjoy exploring a big, open world, where you can go just about anywhere, anytime you want. You may uninstall the game in frustration after hours of trying to figure out where to go, only to get destroyed by monsters, which are way above your party's level.
Serpent in the Staglands is 60% off on Steam while I'm writing this. There's also a GoG version if that's how you roll.
The first of the two DLC expansions for Dark Souls 3 has been released on Monday. And it's pretty disappointing, from the Xbox One leakage shitshow to cheaters spreading the DLC weapons all over the PC version nearly a week before release to the DLC itself simply being a bit half-assed. It isn't terrible, but it's at the bottom of the list as far as Souls-DLC goes.
It looks absolutely stunning, though.
I don't even mind that the new area introduced in Ashes of Ariandel is yet another snowy, painted world. Yes, we had one of those in the original Dark Souls, but this can be forgiven if you follow the lore of the series. The game world and its inhabitants are in an endless cycle of death and rebirth. The strongest souls return time and again, sometimes almost exactly as they were in the previous cycle, sometimes drastically changed. Same goes for the world, itself. Lothric feels like it was built atop the ruins of Lordran. Bits and pieces of Anor Londo appear as the next cycle nears its end and everything starts to collapse. If you're okay with that, then you can hardly complain about getting sucked into yet another painting, much like it happened in the first Dark Souls.
What you can criticize, however, is when they're clearly out of ideas, not just rehashing the same old stuff from previous Souls games, but even from Dark Souls 3. Do we really need yet another shaky rope bridge, which can be destroyed and turned into a makeshift ladder? It was an exciting idea in the catacombs of Carthus, but it just feels lazy when you recycle that exact same mechanic in some DLC for the same game. And the recycling doesn't stop there.
You'll be fighting this guy a lot.
The new painted world looks incredible. Sure, we had ice and snow in the main game, but not like this. The snowy mountains look absolutely unlike any other area in the game. Frozen, glacial ravines full of giant, armor-clad enemies with javelins, axes and nasty flame attacks and earthquakes almost make dying fun. There's also a whole bunch of really annoying wolves, who will keep howling for reinforcements if you don't take them out fast enough. Tree monsters will burn you to pieces and grab and strangle you with their branches. Giant fly monsters infest you with maggots, which destroy you much faster than any status effect you've encountered in the main game, apart from curses. There's also a bunch of giant ice crabs I really could have done without.
The first major disappointment is the first boss, some nameless gravetender. I'm sure the lore nuts will find out what this guy is all about, but for now, there's nothing to him, no cutscene, no dialogue, he just drops one of the cool new weapons. What's more, the guy will summon a giant wolf to his side, which can become a problem if you don't kill him fast enough, forcing you to face him and his pet at the same time. The wolf is fun and all, he looks great and is well-animated, but in the end, he's utterly forgettable. Sure, he's a nod at Sif from the original Dark Souls, but the battle against Sif meant something! When we encounter Sif, he watches over the grave of Knight Artorias, who ultimately fell to the abyss. It's one of the most crucial, heart-wrenching and memorable moments in the entire game. Meanwhile, Ashes of Ariandel throws some replacement wolf at us, whilst giving us no (apparent) meaning or context, whatsoever. Again, I'm sure the community will figure out what this is all about and unravel every little bit of hidden lore behind this, but right now it feels cheap, half-assed and like they're just throwing it in there for nostalgia's sake. "Look, here's something to remind you of a battle you used to like!"
I'll take Sif over this asshole any day.
In all fairness, the DLC's main boss is pretty awesome. Sister Elfriede fights using a pair of scythes and she's such a strong nod towards Dark Souls' Priscilla, I could have sworn Elfriede had a dragon tail in the earlier trailers. She's a fairly challenging boss that comes with a whopping three phases, one of which pits you against two bosses at the same time. The whole fight may seem impossible at first, until you realize that Elfriede is yet another boss, who can be staggered, parried and backstabbed. Some may find that a bit cheap, but to me she's clearly the highlight of this DLC.
Another highlight lies within the new weapons, which include the boss' new twin scythes, a pair of claws which doesn't actually suck, a torch, which doubles as a mace and a rapier, which comes with a set of handy throwing-knives, as well as a handy gladiator-style sword & shield combo. There's also a bunch of new miracles such as the frozen weapon enchantment if you enjoy applying the completely useless frostbite debuff. On top of that, there's a new PVP arena, which as of this moment has yet to be completely ruined by cheaters.
Arena matches range from duels with no estus to 4-6 people free for alls and 2vs2/3vs3 team battles with very limited estus. It never took me more than two or three minutes to get a match going even at Soul Level 250, I didn't encounter any of the usual cheats (flying, god-mode, insta-curse, etc.) and it's all good fun. I doubt the PC community will keep this thing alive any longer than they did with the arena in the original Dark Souls, though. Problems already exist, such as only three people spawning into what's supposed to be a 2vs2, which turns the match into a frustrating experience for everybody involved.
Ashes of Ariandel isn't terrible, but it's far from great. It took me about three hours to complete and frankly, I didn't expect it to take much longer, seeing as Dark Souls' Artorias of the Abyss wasn't exactly massive, either. It's okay value for 15 Euros, but you don't miss much if you skip this one, unless you're absolutely dying to fight in the arena. There are no rewards if you win there, either. There is really no reason to ever come back to the painted world once you've fought the bosses and collected all the new weapons and I didn't really enjoy the place enough to include it in future New Game+ sessions. And with people using cheatengine to just magically create the new DLC items out of thin air, there's not even any incentive to buy this thing for the new gear. People have been using the new items in pvp before the DLC was even released and so far, From Software is doing absolutely nothing to stop the blatant cheating, which is plaguing the PC version.
Rejoice! The rumors about my death were slightly exaggerated, though I did just experience a weekend full of hard drugs, old man testicles and watersports of the non-jetski variety. All thanks to my superhuman bladder control and my inability to keep track of WTF I'm even doing with my life.
My job sometimes requires me to intensively play-test a game, then hand in a written review within 48 or 24 hours. This is by no means how it usually works, but if my publisher tells me they'll be extra grateful if I can finish a project early and if I feel I can do it, well... you get the idea. I'll get to work and crank that shit out like a boss.
You need to prioritize your crap like crazy around some of the tighter deadlines. So stuff like Youtube, Youporn, feeding the cats or, say, not completely ignoring your thirst for 8-12 hours, all just have to wait. I had one of those nights not too long ago, where I worked well into sunrise, then realized I had nothing to drink all day and just murdered a big box of tomato juice without thinking about it. You know, drink nothing, then down a carton of salty tomato goo. Super healthy!
Another fun side effect of these nights it that you'll be super fucking tired afterwards. You'll fall into bed and snore. Who needs to brush teeth, take a shower or go piss when the sweet, sweet embrace of bed awaits? BAM! Lights out for twelve hours. And when you finally wake up the next afternoon, you get to enjoy ten minutes of what feels and sounds a lot like taking the biggest morning leak in the history of the planet, but the result looks like Coke. It's alarming, but so is the amount of work waiting in your inbox, people poking you on Facebook and Skype, where's my translation, can you handle these support tickets, DO STUFF ALREADY!
Had a bit of pain in the lower back that day, but the Coke eventually turned back to piss and I didn't really have the time to worry about any of this. It was probably nothing.
Two nights later I had this sharp, stinging pain in my left flank. It was ridiculously painful. I sat in all kinds of weird poses, tried to curl up and die, but nothing would make the pain go away, so I really just walked all around the house like an idiot. Moving around was the only thing to make it borderline bearable. I'm not sure I've ever felt anything that came even close on the pain scale and believe me, I had broken bones, torn springs, had to endure English football and soap operas, but this searing pain was on a whole new level. When it was at its worst, I threw up. I just wanted to pass out, get a few moments of relief, but what actually happened was me puking until there was nothing left but bile. It looks pretty awesome when you vomit slimy green stuff, though, especially since half of it got stuck in my epic mustache. I considered rocking the walrus and picked the best possible moment for it.
So I did something I have never even considered for as long as I've lived in the UK - go to a doctor. We made an appointment at some emergency walk-in center thingie where they asked me to piss in a tube, they pricked my finger, then asked me if I had been a diabetic for long. They took blood twice more and asked me to fill so many test tubes with piss, I'm surprised I didn't just fart dust clouds for the rest of the day.
Eventually, some nice Asian doctor with a name I'm not even gonna try to type out, let alone figure out how to pronounce, gave me a speech about how my body is unable to produce insulin and that he'd send me to the hospital, because my pain would only get worse from there. Oooo-kay!
They also asked me to piss in yet another tube and take it to the hospital, because apparently their results from three tubes of that stuff weren't enough already. So they called us a taxi, karted us off to the hospital, where we greeted the receptionist with a bottle of my finest pee and a whole lot of screaming pain. There were about 38 trillion other people there, because the Queen's Medical Centre is just about the biggest place around and people from all over the country go there. So a doctor saw us about an eternity and a half later and she took my blood and asked me to piss in a tube, because that's the hip new thing to do, apparently. Then she asked me what I thought was wrong, so I told her the doc at the other place said I had Type I diabetes. Her reaction was awesome, starting with the fact that nobody told her I had already been going through the exact same tests she was doing (for the third time), but also because that whole insulin stuff was apparently bullcrap. Whee!
The doc said that I probably had kidney stones (duh, Google told me the exact same thing the night before, also cancer, pregnancy, cancer, syphillis, cancer and cancer), so they queued me up for a CT-scan. After 38 weeks in the waiting area a nurse showed up and tried to get a blood sample. Poked me with a needle once, twice, tried a bigger needle, tried something that looked more like a hollow broadsword, managed to squeeze out half a small test tube of the stuff, then gave up.
Oh well, scan time! A cheerful lady who was totally Ellen DeGeneres in a lab coat put me in a giant metal donut and blasted my bits with magical rays or some shit. Then we went back to the waiting room.
I finally know Iolo's terrible, terrible secret.
Another fine Asian gentleman introduced himself. A Doctor Tarik. Asked me if I could provide a urine sample, because that one never gets old. I was hooked up to a (stationary) IV-drip, so he just handed me a tube and asked me to do it right inside the waiting room. He left us to ourselves, so I pissed in yet another tube and all over the floor, because this shit is difficult when you're full of wires and have limited movement and visibility. I awkwardly shoved the puddle under the bed with my shoes.
Then a doctor with the most Japanese name tag I have seen in my life showed up, telling me he needed a blood sample. Great, another one! And out of what must have been something like positive racism, I desperately wanted to be his friend, because... I dunno, Japanese doctor taking my blood, whee! The guy tried to impress me by saying all sorts of random shit in German. Apparently he was desperately trying to be liked by me, as well. I shoulda tried to spout some random Internet-Japanese so both of us could have felt stupid. Anyhow, the guy tried bigger and bigger needles with no luck until I begged him to just get it over with and punch me in the nose, instead. That usually gets the blood to flow, but he opted for sending in another guy with even more needles, instead. I've never seen him again and presume he went to commit seppuku.
Anyhow. Doctor no. 3 failed to draw blood, so they called in guy no. 4. True story. You see, I'm made of 95% pure awesome and a bit of cheese, so it's hard to even find any blood. When their expert had difficulty reaching any of my veins I told him that this shit right there was why I never managed to get into heroin. He opted for an artery, I bled like a pig, everyone was happy. We had been there for about six hours now and nobody had asked me to piss in a tube for a while, so when the nurse replaced my saline drip for something a lot more entertaining (we'll get to that), I asked her if she could wait just a second to reconnect me, because bathroom and all that. "Don't worry, I'll bring you a bottle." Hurray! More pissing in the waiting room. Except the bottle never even showed up. Hey, that's cool, have me sit and wait all day, force-hydrate me with IV-drips, then explode my already messed-up kidneys by preventing me from pissing all day!
But I didn't even care. About anything. For I had just received morphine. I swear, there's this nurse working there, who only has the job in order to experience the reactions of first time recipients of this stuff.
"So, have you ever had morphine before?"
-"No, but I've heard lots of great things."
"Oh, it's the good stuff, alright."
-"Can't wait! But when you're done injecting this, do you think I c... whoooooooooooooa.... dude."
She laughed. Look, if any of you decide to turn my life into a sitcom after I die, please play some Snoop Dogg when you shoot this scene. It feels like... hm. Have you ever been in a pool and you got so relaxed, you just float on the surface of the water? Some people get scared to do that, because you'll start to sink if you panic and cramp up. But if you're completely relaxed, if you just stretch out, close your eyes, you'll just float, gently bobbing up and down. Morphine feels a lot like that, except ten times more intense and relaxing and without the risk of drowning your stupid face.
Meanwhile, CT results said I was gonna give birth to a bunch of lovely kidney stones, so they had to cart me off to a different hospital. I was transported there by this hulk of an ambulance person. Tall, bulky, wide shoulders, a broad, chiseled chin, coarse skin with large pores covered in just a hint of make-up, a pony tail, held together by a cute little rubbery hairband and the low-pitched voice of a blues singer. The name tag read "Emma".
Emma had the heart and soul of a gentle, loving young lady. "Are you cold? Is this alright? Please stay in the wheelchair, I'd hate for you to trip and fall, even though you're handling the morphine really well." Emma also had a body that would have made most male pro-wrestlers absolutely jealous. One of the most genuinely fun people I had met this weekend!
Half an hour later I was in a hospital full of huge, bald, middle-aged folks with the odd walking corpse sprinkled in here and there for variety. Most folks there addressed me as "young lad", which felt incredibly weird. I could have been twelve years old at that moment and it wouldn't have made a bit of difference. Absolutely everybody working there was female, including my doctor, who asked me how I was feeling that night.
-"You mean apart from the kidney stones, oooor...?"
"Right, sorry. I know they must be rather unpleasant."
-"Wouldn't recommend 'em."
She told me the stones were small enough to fuck off without help. "Otherwise we can treat them with shockwaves."
-"I don't know what that is, but it sounds awesome. Let's do that!"
"Oh, it's seriously cool, actually!"
Well, at least I was making friends. Or so I thought until I realized she was a bit stingy with the morphine. She offered me a choice of painkillers or a suppository. The latter option was supposed to be the most efficient, but I opted for pills. "You've had two days of screaming agony and vomitting. Wanna shove something up your ass to make the weekend perfect" didn't seeem too appealing at the time. Of course she didn't literally say it like that, but she may as well have done.
The bed opposite of mine belonged to Steve, who was all to happy to tell me exactly that. He also talked about how they cut a guy's dick open because the urethra was too small to pass a clot. He suffered from some nasty form of cancer and had to get a whole lot of nasty gunk flushed out. "It's nothing personal, but basically they just take your penis, then they shove this hose up y..." ANYWAY. I was ready to go home now and tried my hardest to tune Steve out. From that moment I heard nothing but the crashing waves and the gentle breeze of the ocean whenever he opened his mouth.
Claire, who had to put up with my shit all day was finally allowed to go home. This was also the point where I realized that the hospital's "pain killers" were really just candy. The morphine had worn off and their pills... well, imagine you just had this really perfect steak and when you go for seconds they offer you a block of wood, painted in cow's blood. I gnashed my teeth, tried to ignore the pain as best I could, kept asking for more and more pills until the sum of them finally knocked me out for a bit. And then I woke up in hell.
It was almost completely dark. Snoring and farting everywhere around me. So. Many. Farts. One of the worst offenders, some 90 year old gentleman named John, suddenly rose from his bed and kicked off his covers likey they were on fire, then pissed all over the place. The night nurse alarm thingie beeped for what seemed like an eternity, but nobody showed up. I was too drugged, in too much pain and frankly a little too put off to do anything, even if that makes me a bad person. It didn't take much for me to hate him that night, even if I hated myself a little for hating him. He couldn't help it, he was just old and messed up. A nurse eventually showed up and freaked out at him for pissing everywhere. "I TOLD you! I have told you I pee every hour!" He wasn't kidding. He was incredibly matter of fact about it, really. "I have gone 17 times in the past twelve hours." He kept repeating that line over and over for the entire duration of my hospital visit. Over and over, as though he was rehearsing for a big Broadway show.
Thing is, John's timing was a little off. He literally rose every fifteen minutes, kicking off his blanket in this wild, exaggerated panic, jumping on his feet and pissing in one of his 38 bottles if he could fine one on time. Try really hard to go to sleep when that shit happens right next to you. "Okay, I can hear him fill up the bottle now... ten seconds... twenty... he's totally still going...". Splash. Full bottle. He wouldn't fucking stop. I ended up throwing all of my piss bottles at him, since he clearly needed them more than I ever would.
John wasn't the only one who made sure I wouldn't find any sleep that night. One of the elderly folks resting his bones among us urinally challenged would make dog noises in his sleep. He growled and barked, just like the real thing, I shit you not. My bed was also right next to the toilets. Granted, all the bathrooms have doors and everything, but if fart noises and people pissing all over the place aren't entertaining enough, imagine a whole bunch of old people puking and shitting less than twenty feet away from your bed.
Meanwhile, I was writhing in agony until I just couldn't handle the pain any longer and started walking around the place. The painkillers made me drowsy, so I kept bumping into things, but stubbing your toe or slamming your face into a wall can make a nice distraction from a bunch of fucking kidney stones. It didn't help when the sun started to come up and John just stood there, sticking his ancient dick into piss bottles every fifteen or so minutes. I don't know where his pants had gone, but I had enough problems of my own, really.
They gave me all the painkillers that night. Whole trays full. Just no morphine. Bastards! Eventually I had so much I just passed out and slept until lunch time. It was surreal. They went around the place with a menu, pictures and everything, asking folks if they wanted minced lamb or roast beef, fruit salad and custard or ice cream. Or whatever the fuck a vegetarian cobbler is.
I'm used to hospital food being served on a tray full of stuff, that not even a self-respecting dog would touch. What we got was a dinner lady with a massive cart that came loaded with all sorts of vegetables and sauces and meat and... it almost looked like a mobile hotel buffet! The sight and smell of food was so overwhelming, I couldn't help but run and puke my fucking guts out.
Everybody heard it. Funny thing is, nobody even gave a fuck and they all just continued to eat like it was nothing. Men, amirite? The nurse offered me some medicine to help counter the sickness.
-"Nah, I should be alright now."
I threw up again five minutes later. She handed me the pills with that look on her face that said we had been married for thirty years and if she fucking tells me so, then she fucking tells me so. Why do I have to be so difficult? She knows what's best for me. Amazing stuff. She didn't say a word. Didn't have to.
There's no spectacular ending here or anything. The pain eventually just disappeared as suddenly as it came. No cool shotgun noises when the stones eventually went. I'm supposed to come back in two weeks to make sure everything's alright and that's that. I think I'm gonna have to bring a bunch of flowers. These people, everybody working there, spend countless hours every day, every night, pulling ridiculously long shifts, putting up with so much abuse, piss, puke and bullshit for wages, which cannot possibly be anywhere near enough. How they all manage to function and to retain such a friendly, positive attitude is entirely beyond me. I shook Steve's hand on the way out and wished him all the best. I'm whining like a baby about fucking kidney stones. That guy has fucking cancer. And he was so happy for me when I could leave and didn't need any complicated treatment. Still, I hope I can avoid shit like that from now on. I need to drink more. Where's the vodka?
