Upgrades and Hammers

Daily Ramble 149: Upgrades and Hammers

I continue with my adventures in Horizon Zero Dawn again today as I wave goodbye to Olara and Brom and head to find Rost at the North Gate. I’ve made it to level 6 so I get the opportunity to add a new skill and I also take the time to improve some of my equipment. I have to keep remembering to updgrade my gear so I don’t fall behind and allow that to slow me down. In particular, I need to be able to hold more arrows. And health potions might be good too.

I also finish off the 2nd episode of American Gods. That show is a lot of fun but it is getting a bit ominous. Wednesday and Shadow head to Chicago to meet up with some Slavic gods and things look like they could turn out poorly for Shadow.

Heading to Rost

So yesterday I finished helping Olara find her brother and she’s gonna take care of him going forward. The fact that he hears voices is interesting since I don’t know if this is a psychosis or if he’s actually hearing the ancients. I mean, with my Focus I’ve been able to listen to recordings of people from the times before the fall so perhaps he has that ability. Who knows but maybe down the road I’ll look up Brom to investigate these voices further.

Upgrades

For now though, I’ve made it to level 6 so I take the time to upgrade my skills and equipment. First I improve my quiver so I can carry more arrows – 20 shots is just not enough and even 10 more will be hugely beneficial. I also added the Scavenger skill to my repertoire. This’ll improve the resources I retrieve when I loot the machines. I figure I’m gonna be doing this a lot so it can’t hurt to improve and increase the amount of stuff I get.

I also realized as I was heading to meet up with Ross at the North Gate that I could use some extra materials to improve my equipment before I went on the Proving. To that end, I sought out a few Watchers to practice on.

But now that I’m met up with Rost, I want to make sure I’ve got enough time to take the next step so I set things aside and campe at the fire for the night.

American Gods Episode 2: The Secret of Spoons, part 4

In this installment of American Gods, we head to Chicago where we meet some new and interesting people – Czernobog (played by Peter Stormare), Zorya Vechernyaya (played by Cloris Leachman), Zorya Utrennyaya (played by Martha Kelly who I love in the show Baskets), and Zorya Polunochnaya (played by Erika Kaar). All four represent Slavic deities and all four have pretty thick accents. Czernobog is the god of the dead and chaos while the other three represent the evening star, morning star, and midnight star and Wednesday is there trying to recruit them into his service.

Interestingly, while two of the Zorya sisters seem to get along alright with Wednesday, as soon as Czernobog shows up after work he throws a lamp at him. Apparently they know each other and the Slav is not interested in dealing with the man he calls Woton (a reference to Odin). He eventually listens to what Wednesday has to offer and still is unconvinced to help him out. Meanwhile, Vechernyaya offers to read Shadow’s future and the best thing she can say is that he won’t die of cancer.

Czernobog really doesn’t like what Wednesday has to say particularly since it seems he almost died last time he went along with one of Wednesday’s schemes. Woton tries to pique his interest by saying if he doesn’t show up, then the others won’t know what strength really is…hmm it seems this Slavic god is pretty powerful. In any case, he tells an interesting tale about how his brother was considered the good one since he had blonde hair and light skin while Czernobog had dark hair and dark skin. Now that they’re older, they both are gray so hair and skin color makes no difference.

Czernobog has lots of stories to tell and it turns out he’s good at killing…cows for the slaughterhouses and that is the job he got when he moved to Chicago. He was good at using a sledgehammer to hit the cows precisely so they would die quickly…now they have devices that do the same work so anyone can kill. With his enjoyment of killing, this episode definitely takes a darker turn when he offers to play Shadow in checkers. He suggests a wager – he’ll follow Wednesday if Shadow wins but if he loses, Shadow gets a personal experience with the hammer and as they play Czernobog sings the Secret of Spoons…

My love made the sweetest coffee
With no sugar at all
She only stirred with her spoon and it was done
Now my drink is bitter
The secret of spoons forgotten
When my voice breaks on this song
Remember old love gone
And drink bitter coffee

Shadow loses and at sunrise, Czernobog gets to knock his brains out with his hammer.

This is a pretty good episode and it ends in a very ominous manner. How is Shadow going to avoid the deal he made with this Slavic god? Will Wednesday be able to help him? So far they’ve been able to get outta everything so I gotta figure things will work out but I’m not sure what either can offer Czernobog to convince him not to kill Shadow.