Well, I'm back! So Hello again! Once again, sorry for the delay. Work has the habit of taking all my time. I know I said this chapter will be longer, and hopefully will end the Noveria mission... but it's not. Yes, yes, I know I said it but I felt that I should update already. This week has been HELLISH. Most of the week was composed of second shifts, which is from 1300 to 2215... which leaves me no time at all to do anything. Barely had time to even write a paragraph. So I decided to once again, cut the planned chapter in half, and give you this. Next chapter should finally end Noveria, hopefully, and we should go on with the story!
Now, without more delays, enjoy the new chapter!
That's it. I'm not sure if I should actually be surprised about it... but I finally crossed the threshold into insanity. I'm rather shocked about it, really.
I'm also rather shocked that I'm actually thinking about this while sitting in the Mako, which happens to bounce a lot awfully close to the edge of the cliffs – as evident by Kaidan's constant panic-filled shouts whenever the Mako bounced one time too much – all the while we are getting shot at by geth turrets... and being utterly scared.
Despite how ludicrous that feels, I'm also kinda bored, mostly because I just can't see what's going on outside, and all I'm left to do is sit in place, doing absolutely nothing but wait until we reach our destination, and this is what shocks me so much. I'm sitting in a freaking Mako, getting shot at with anti-tank turrets and I'm bored. The Mako shakes violently as another missile hits the impacts the grounds a bit too close for Kaidan's liking. "Shepard, can you please watch the road?" he pleads in desperation as he turns our turret around to return fire.
Oh, Shepard and Kaidan were bickering like an old married couple over the Commander's driving skills. It was a bit fun at the beginning, but now it just got annoying... not to mention scary, because Kaidan was freaking right!
"What road?" Shepard shoots back, much to my horror, tearing her eyes off the road just as she uses the thrusters to launch us into the air to look at Kaidan. The feeling of weightlessness stays in place for a second or two before my insides rise up into my throat and we land with jaw-rattling force. "You think I can actually see anything in this blizzard?!"
By the nine hells, if I wasn't scared then, I am officially scared shitless now.
Wrex looks like he just doesnt care and Liara seems to be a full shade paler, and I can see the whites of her knuckles from how hard her grip is on her safety harness. Guess I'm not the only one who thinks Shepard's driving skills are terrifying. Heh, I bet we can defeat Saren just by tying him up in the Mako and let Shepard drive around...
"Are we there yet?" Wrex asks, full of irritation. Ugh, that's so like him, utterly unimpressed by what is happening around us. Just at that moment the Mako swerved sharply to the right and a split second later another explosion rocked the vehicle.
"Would you mind shooting that thing down already?!" Shepard barks angrily, sending an irritated glare at Kaidan.
"How? I can't see where it's shooting us from!" Kaidan replies, sounding frustrated as he glares at his screen.
Wrex grunts in annoyance at the way they ignore him, much to my amusement. "Ugh, just go and get a room already," he growls but once again, he's being completely ignored.
Exactly at that moment the Mako comes to a sudden halt and I'm thrown to the front of the vehicle... or I would have if I didn't have the harness to keep me in place. As it was, I just bumped my head against Wrex's armor – which is quite solid, as my head can testify – and it was quickly followed by a string of curses that would make a pirate blush, which came from Shepard, much to my surprise. "Who the hell put a mountain in the middle of the goddamned road?!" Shepard yells in indignation.
I just rub my quickly-growing bruise and try to ignore my throbbing head. Ugh, I get the feeling we won't see Peak 15 anytime soon...
"Hallelujah!" I breathe out loudly when the Mako finally comes to a halt in front of the very tall building. "By Thor's mightly brass balls, I am never getting into the Mako ever again!" I say as I stumble out of the parked Mako. I land into the knee-deep snow and start trudging my way to the relative safety of the building, not bothering to wait for the other. I know there are geth inside, but it's tons better than this freaking storm. I can at least shoot the geth, unlike the storm.
This place is definitely not like it was in the game. In the game, there was this small blizzard, with nice and lovely effects that added some atmosphere into the scenery. Here? It was a fucking icy hell. Shepard was a crazy driver to begin with, but add almost zero visibility, cliffs and rockets and you get on hell of a ride. Hell, I'm standing not ten meters away from the building and the only thing I can see is the silguette and the bright red lights on the roof someone turned on for idiots like us who had the bright idea to go here in the middle of a goddamned blizzard. Just like the owners of the upside-down and burning Mako that crashed into the gates.
Yeah, I'm a bit pissed, but I believe I have a right to be pissed, considering what I've just been through.
"I just want to get this done with..." Wrex mutters in annoyance as he steps into the snow. He stops for a moment, looks down at the snow with a sneer before stomping over to me. "I. Hate. Snow," he rumbles angrily.
Huh... well, I should've guessed, with him being a reptile and all. I've never seen reptiles who actually like cold climates and as far as I know, Tuchanka is pretty hot. It's a desert after all. "Oh, just chill out!" Shepard snaps as he jumps out of the vehicle, helping Liara do the same and then she freezes when she registers what she just said. "Sorry," she apologizes to the glaring Wrex, while I'm just snickering to myself.
"Can we go inside? Before I freeze my legs off?" Kaidan pleads as he practically runs over to the entrance. He then notices the odd looks we're giving him, mostly because he actually managed to run in this thick snow. "What? I don't like the cold!" he replies as he runs past me.
Well, that's the kind of logic I simply can't refute. I have nothing against the cold, but I am freezing my ass out here. It's actually supposed to be dangerous too, hence why even Shepard put on her helmet for once.
As quickly as possible we make our way over to the door and stumble inside. Wow, now that's a relief! It's cold inside, but definitely warmer than the outside. The door closes with a hiss and everyone visibly relaxes. I wipe the snow off my visor, since it started blocking my vision by now, and pull out my assault rifle. "There might be geth inside," I say with a shrug at the questioning glances I get. It takes about a second or so, but everyone quickly does the same. Heh, nice to be the initiator of a smart action for once.
"Good thinking," Shepard remarks with a nod, pulling out her own rifle.
We walk further inside where we see the second garage door. Hm, I don't see a console... so how do we open it up? We take a couple more steps closer when without a warning the door slides up, surprisingly quickly for the size of the thing, revealing the interior of the garage... and a giant geth juggernaut, with his weapon already aimed at us.
"Fuck!" I yelp and dive behind the wall, just before the geth unit starts firing. The others quickly do the same, Liara joining my side. The garage quickly gets filled with the roar of gunfire. I lean out and shoot a few bursts at the large geth unit and notice that it's not alone. A small geth drone is flying around, taking potshots at Shepard's side. I'm about to shoot it down, or try to, when a well-placed shot from someone – from Shepard's side – hit's it in the right stop and it crashes to the floor. Apparently, the juggernaut has something against me, since it starts focusing on me, so I take the hint and hide behind cover again, letting the rest of the team take out it's shields for now.
Okay, this thing has a shitload of shield energy. Last time we faced one it took a lot of punishment before it went down... so I might as well help out with the shields. I quick-load an Overload and aim it at the huge unit and apparently, Kaidan was having exactly the same thought. The explosion of sparks and electricity was so powerful the juggernaut actually stumbled back and froze there for a split second before it regained control of it's systems. Not that it helped him that much. An explosive round from Wrex catches it right in the face... or visor, whatever, and without it's shields to protect it, the round tore the head apart. I was half-expecting it to fall down but instead it just starts violently shooting around at our general location, now obviously blind, and defenseless. Against the collective firepower of the entirety of our team it didn't stand a chance. Within a couple of seconds it freezes in place, locked in a violent spasm and froze once again, where it just drops to the floor like a puppet with cut strings.
I'm about to relax a bit, since we just took down a giant of a geth, but Liara completely ruins it by shouting a warning. "Krogan!" I look to the other side of the garage and see exactly that. A trio of krogan warriors approaching us alarmingly fast, with a fourth one following them behind, trying to catch up. Oh, come on! Where the hell does Saren get all these krogan?! Oh, right. He has a whole cloning facility. That's just fucking great.
Liara takes the initiative and biotically lifts one of the large crates that are lying around and hurles it at the krogan at breakneck speed. It was almost funny how quickly their charge came to a stop when they all saw the large container flying through the air. They are tried moving away – keyword being try – and only one of them managed to dodge it in time. The two were easily swept aside by the crate, thrown back like a pair of ragdolls. The fourth one kept on running, probably very glad that he didn't catch up with his pals now.
"Nice shot!" Shepard barks out with a brief laugh, raising her rifle to shoot the remaining two krogan. Hm, I have to wonder if there are some genetic flaws in Saren's cloning facility, since almost all of his krogan seem to have suicidal tendencies. They're krogan and all, they can regenerate insanely fast, but against a team like us, it seems like it would be such a glaring issue...
The krogan barely make it halfway to us before they go down under our combined fire. One of them tried hiding behind a crate but a quick biotic push from Shepard pushed the crate out of his reach and foiled his plan before he could even start it.
Once again I'm pretty much speechless at what can be done with biotics. The game was restricted, and limited by scripting and the power of the engine that it ran on. Here... there was nothing like that. A lot of people compared biotics to the force and... damn, I have to agree that there are similarities, especially after seeing the diversity of it's use. In the game it was just a skill you could use when you wanted to but here... a lot more uses, that's for sure.
"Well, that was... quick," I remark, looking at the silent pair of krogans about ten meters in front of us.
Wrex let's out a disapproving grunt. "Pathetic. I'd like to know where Saren dug up these idiots, so I could punch him for it. It's just insulting," he says, walking over to the pair that got knocked out by the crate. He put his shotgun over their heads and let out a single shot into each one, and I'm still amazed that he can hold that beast he calls a shotgun single-handed, despite the numerous times I've seen him do it.
"User alert," a female voice suddenly blares through the loudspeakers, echoing through the empty garage. "All Peak 15 facilities have suffered a great deal of damage. Biohazard materials present throughout facility. Virtual Intelligence user interface offline."
"Huh, that already sounds promising," I mutter. "Biohazard materials? That sounds inviting, isn't it?" I ask with a weak smile. Ugh, I think I know what biohazard material the VI is talking about... the kind with multiple limbs and acidic vomit.
Shepard makes a face at that. "Well, we got to go on. And I really don't want to be out in that storm..." she trails off, looking sceptically at the gate we came through. Well, can't deny that logic.
Liara hums in thought. "We will need to get the reactors back online..."
"It looks like the place is running on emergency power so... that's probably the first thing we need to do," Kaidan agrees.
"Well then, let's go and get it back online. I want to find out what's going on here. It doesn't look like the geth did all the damage..." Shepard muses aloud and I happen to agree with her. If she came to attack the facility, why sneak them through the security? Not that it matters, since I know the real reason, but it's kinda interesting to hear and see this from a different perspective... sort of.
We go to the second floor, still a bit weary for another bunch of krogan to pop out of nowhere. I kinda wonder how he does that anyway. Each time we bump into Saren's krogan mercs... or whatever they are, there are at least four of them. How did they even get in here? Captain Matsuo said that Benezia came through with just some containers. Unless the captain forgot to mention the four grown krogan that came with the Matriarch... it meant that these poor bastards were stuffed into the containers with the geth. Wow, now that I think about it, it's kinda understandable why they were so angry when they saw us.
We open the door that should let us further inside and inside we find a short corridor, with a pair of turrets facing the inside. "Why are they facing the wrong way?" Liara asks aloud in confusion.
"They want to keep their people in as much as they want to keep us out," Wrex remarks, looking at the turrets thoughtfully.
"Well, I agree with Shepard," I say, inspecting the turrets as well. It didn't look like they've been fired yet, so that means nobody reached this point. "I don't think the geth are responsible for this mess..."
Shepard gives me an appreciating nod. "Exactly. I don't think they'd put turrets for their own geth, and I doubt any civilians in here will even get through the geth to begin with."
"Only on way to find out," Kaidan opens the next door and we all walk through. We inspect the side room, which happened to be the security room but since the power was offline, we found nothing useful in there. So we try the next door and we find an elevator. Odd, I must say. With my knowledge about emergency protocol, using elevators is inadvisable. There should be a staircase instead. Well, I didn't design this place and in the game it was used to load the next area, but still!
The doors open to reveal a short corridor, partially filled with snow, which continued to be blown inside through the shattered window. I'm kinda creeped out by the whole place, not just because I know what's ahead, but because the atmosphere of this place is quite... suspenseful. It's completely silent, the silence only broken by the sound of the howling wind blowing through the window. There was just something... anxiety-inducing about this scene. Before now, I've only seen it in movies, and there it always meant there was going to be something dangerous ahead.
Well... shit. It's not like we're going to turn back just because I'm a bit worried about it.
With a simple movement, we open the door and it parts away to reveal us a single geth unit. It turns it's head at the source of the sound, making those weird digital noises the geth always make, and spots us. Unfortunately for the geth, we already have our weapons raised, aimed and ready to fire. It survives for a split second before the sheer mass of rounds we shoot it it hits something important and 'kills' it.
And right then all hell breaks loose.
Two more geth units pop out from behind the corner and start shooting at us. A quick biotic pulse from Liara sends them stumbling back and I shift my aim to the newcomers. I pull the trigger in a couple of bursts and one of the geth drops down with more than enough holes in it's torso. I'm about to shoot the second one but a headshot from Shepard finishes it off before I could pull the trigger.
More shots come from the right and we react accordingly. "Spread out!" Shepard barks out and we do just that. I hide behind one of the weirdly place walls and try to pick a shot at the the geth that hides behind their energy shields, while another one tries to take us out from above us on the elevated part of the room, though I guess I won't be needed in dealing with that one, considering the fact that it's now floating in the air and being shot at. I turn my attention back to the shield and simply pull the trigger. Round after round impacts the shield, constantly wearing it down and with one final shot, the shield vanishes away, leaving the geth hiding behind it wide open. I continue firing at the geth, managing to take down it's shields but just as I'm about to finish it off, my rifle stops firing and an overheat alarm starts blaring on my HUD.
Oh. Shit. The geth is about to recover so I do the first thing that came to my mind. I reach down for my omni-tool and load an Overload and launch it at the geth. The geth was about to raise it's rifle but instead starts jerking around violently before it drops to the floor, smoke rising up from it's body. I'd say something awesome about it, but I'm not really in the mood. Shit is about to get real.
I look around and see no more geth around. Looks like the party is about to get started. Just as that thought crosses my mind, I hear something that sounds like a groan. The sound continues for several more seconds. "What was that?" Liara asks as she looks around, her rifle raised and ready.
"Probably debris. Don't have a panic attack. I'll protect you," Wrex replies nonchallantly Oh, is that a joke Wrex? Really good timing, I must say.
"I don't like the sound of it," I remark. Even more so because I know what's causing it.
Speaking of good timing... fuck me. As soon as I say that, we hear a high-pitched... squeal of some kind, which is followed by a dozen or so small green bugs. Small green and very icky bugs that are climbing down the stairs in a very, very alarming pace! I don't wait for Shepard's orders. I just start firing at the things. Apparently, that snapped everyone else out of their stupor, not that I blame them. I'd be very surprised too if giant green bugs started charging me all of a sudden.
I don't really have to aim to hit anything, since they're rather tightly packed, just running at us in a large group. Whenever one of our rounds hit them, they blow up with a loud and sickly 'pop' and release this green... fluid that stuck to everything it touched. Just... eeeew!
Despite the suddenness of their attack, they're pretty easy to dispose of but just as I thought that things were calming down, two huge bugs come around the corner. One of them opens it's maw and spits out a sickly green fluid... right at me.
I duck down with a yelp, allowing it to sail over my head. I glance back at where it landed on the ground only to see the sizzling hole in the snow... and the floor beneath it. Just fucking great. More things puking acid at me. Just what I need. I turn around and quickly level my rifle and aim it at the rachni drone. "What is it with things vomiting on us all the time?!" I yell out as I fire at the drone.
"I can ask the same thing!" Shepard yells back as she narrowly dodged another acid puke-bomb that came sailing our way.
With a grunt bordering on a growl Wrex biotically lifts one of them and slams it against the wall. The second drone, seeing that it won't have any success in this battle decides to suicide charge us. Why suicide charge? Because from all the rounds that constantly hit it, it doesn't even reach the bottom of the stairs. It drops down on the snow, a puddle of green – and I'm going to assume putrid-smelling from the looks, thank the gods my helmet is sealed – fluid pulling out of it's mouth.
The firing stops and we silently, and I'm going to say nervously too, wait for more of these things to attack us. "What... what were those?" Liara asks in wonderment as she carefully approaches the dead drone.
"Damned if I know... but someone on this mountain does," Wrex remarks, the usual gruffness and vague amusement in his voice now completely gone. Now he sounds just... confused. Shepard leads us further inside, though I notice that our pace is much, much slower now, not to mention the fact that everyone, me included, are looking at the sides for anything suspicious.
"I guess now we know what they wanted to keep inside," I say, still looking at Wrex. I got a feeling that Wrex knows exactly what these things are.
"Which gives us all the more reason to find Benezia and ask her what the-" Shepard starts but is interrupted by a wall panel to our right dropping to the floor with a loud crash and depositing a lone rachni drone. Shepard let's out a very uncharacteristic yelp – which sounds way too girly for her – and starts firing on the drone. I have to admit that I nearly crapped my pants when that happened, but I at least can say I didn't scream out, so... bonus points for me! The poor drone had absolutely no idea what it was doing, since it attacked us of all people, and all our collective weapons aimed at it didn't seem to bother it much. Can't say that all our collective firepower actually allowed it to think things through, considering we totally went with the 'shoot first, then shoot some more and then forget to ask the questions because piles of meat pulp can't speak' approach to the whole encounter. The drone stops moving after about five seconds of constant fire and Shepard leans against the wall, letting out a loud, slow breath. "Okay... stay away from walls, and shoot everything that moves and has tentacles."
I'm... going to have to agree with her. Tentacled bugs just make me shiver.
We slowly move further into the facility, trying as much as we can to stay silent and not make much noise. Even Wrex is trying to stay quiet. At one point, we hear a now-very familiar squeal coming form one of the rooms but after exchanging looks we all decided to simply ignore we heard it and move on, not bothering to see what was inside, other than suspiciously feeble wall panels, like the one we encountered not a minute-earlier. Wall panels are dangerous like that.
We clear the short corridor and at the end find another elevator, which we use without complaint. I'm not going to complain about this now. The sooner we finish this mission, the sooner we can get the hell out of here! After several seconds we finally arrive to our destination and exit the elevator to a short corridor. We stop in front of the door and Shepard signals us to be ready. No need to say that to me. She pushes the button and the door slides open, revealing the... server room, I think, and another dozen or so green bugs all over the place, with more coming in from the VI server.
Once again, there's no need for any commands. We open fire and quickly mow down the green buggers. I'm mostly trying to ignore the sickening pops they make whenever we hit them. Once they stop coming we allow ourselves to lower our weapons and step inside. I still have my weapon ready though, with the drones having the tendency to pop out of everywhere with no warning.
"Shepard, that is the power backup system for the station mainframe," Liara says after we inspect the room for a few seconds. Oh, so it's the mainframe... well, thankfully, I didn't call the place a server out loud. That would've been awkward with how much I don't know about stuff. And how does she even know it's the mainframe-thingy just from looking at the place for several seconds?
"Exactly the place we're looking for," Kaidan remarks as we step further inside.
"So whack it and turn this thing on!" Wrex pipes in, looking around the place in a very suspicious manner. I guess I'm not the only one expecting the things to pop out of every hole.
"Critical startup error. Virtual Intelligence use interface offline. Manual boot required," the VI's voice drones over the loudspeakers. Well... that's what we're here for!
We walk over to the other side of the room, where the big round... thing is located. It all looks incredibly sophisticated and I doubt that I'll ever know exactly what these things are for... other than making sure the VI will work... or something. Ugh, I really should get my head back to topic. Like big freaking bugs wanting to tear us apart. Hm, I guess it's not a very cheerful day. I bet it's Thursday, since I stopped following days weeks ago...
We find the small elevator which should take us down to the core of this thing, where we need to go in order to get the VI back online. "So... who is good with these things?" Shepard asks aloud, looking rather sheepish.
Kaidan rolls his eyes and steps forward into the elevator. "Just give me a minute or so," he says as he pushes a button and starts descending into the core. A minute? Yeah right. It took me ages to solve that crappy puzzle when I was playing! We're going to be stuck here for hours.
Hm... I guess I can try small conversation while we're waiting. "So... what do you think these things are?" I ask aloud.
"Doesn't matter... we'll just squash them," Wrex replies, sounding a bit troubled.
"Sounds like you know something," I try to prompt a reply from the krogan.
Wrex looks at me for a couple of seconds until he shakes his head. "Maybe. I'm not sure."
Hah! So Wrex does know something about them! I knew I was right. "A maybe is better than a no. Tell us what you know," I try, hopefully that will get him talking.
Wrex seems to consider it but as soon as he opens his mouth the whole core lights up and a hologram of the VI pops up. The elevator slowly rises to reveal a very smug looking Kaidan. What? No way! It was less than a minute! I bet he cheated!
"It looks like you're trying to restore the facility. Would you like help?" the VI hologram asks.
"You're the virtual intelligence that runs the place?" Shepard asks, stepping forward. The VI turns her attention to the Commander. I gotta say that it's pretty banged up. Her image is flickering all the time.
"This system is monitored to respond to the name "Mira." May I ask your name?" Mira asks. Wow, pretty sad that the most polite thing on this planet happens to be a VI...
"Commander Shepard. Spectre," Shepard replies shortly and to the point.
"One moment please," Mira says, pausing for a couple of seconds before continuing. "Council authority confirmed. You are entitled to secure access of all systems. Please note that queries relating to corporate secrets require privileged access. Privileged access is only available to Binary Helix executives. This system is ready to process queries. You may access me at any holographic interface within Peak 15."
You may access me... wow, that just sounds wrong. And funny.
"I need to find Matriarch Benezia," Shepard asks.
"Lady Benezia departed on the passenger tramway to the Rift Station subsidiary labs. User alert! The tramway system is currently inoperable."
"What's the situation here?"
"One moment please. Diagnostics in progress," Mira says and Shepard sighs with a roll of her eyes. I guess I'm not the only one who is tired from all these questions and answers. I already know the whole thing, so it's doubly frustrating to me. Shepard should be interested in this... at least more than me. "Critical failure. Main reactor shut down in accordance with emergency containment procedures. Manual restart required. Critical failure. Landline connections are disabled. Passenger tram systems are offline. Report complete. Do you have additional systems status query?" Shepard asks more about what needs to be fixed and Mira politely gives out what information she could gather. Finally, Shepard reaches the bottom of Mira's information well and nothing else, at least useful, can be learned. "Do you have additional systems status query?"
"No... that's all I need for now," Shepard says.
"Very well Commander. Logging you out," and with that, Mira 'blinks' out, leaving us in silence.
"Well, looks like we're going to play Engineering Crew for a while. Can't go on if we don't get this place back online. So... I suggest we split up to cover more ground and speed up the process."
Wait... split up? "Uh, have you ever watched movies? Splitting up is like a death sentence," I say out loud, shooting her an incredulous look.
Shepard just rolls her eyes. "Then take Wrex with you. You two go to the roof and get the landline back online. The rest of us will get the reactor back online."
Wait... I've just been volunteered to go to the roof. By the nine hells, that's just fucking peachy. As if this place wasn't cold enough. At least I'll have Wrex with me... so I won't be torn apart the moment I step outside. At least something good about this crazy idea. You never split up the party! That's a core rule!
"Anymore questions?" Shepard asks, looking pointedly at me.
"No, Ma'am," I reply, giving her a pointed look, telepathically trying to ask her if she's genuinely insane or just tries to look like she is. With that Shepard takes the rest of the party and leaves off to the direction of the reactor, leaving me and Wrex in front of the door to the roof. I glance at Wrex, who is not happy about our situation. He's actually glaring at me. "What? It's not my fault!"
Wrex huffs in annoyance. "Why am I always stuck with you? You should've kept your mouth shut and then maybe we wouldn't be freezing our asses on the roof."
"Hey, you can't blame me! Splitting up is always a bad thing to do! Even you should know it!"
Wrex grunts in annoyance. "Just shut up. I just want to get this over with as soon as possible. Your talking is distracting. And annoying," and with that he marches off towards the roof. Oh, that's just fucking great. That's exactly what I need. Shooting bugs on a frigid roof with a pissed off Wrex. The chances of friendly fire are suspiciously high at the moment.
Fucking Noveria. If I'll ever have to return here in the future, I'll shoot myself in the leg. Worst. Planet. Ever.
And we're done! Yes, chapter 35 is done! Now that I think about it... just wow. 35 chapters written. That's a lot. I'm quite proud of myself, if I have to admit. Either way, I'll try to finish the next chapter as soon as I can, since I'm honestly tired of Noveria, since it IS my most hated mission of all time. I hate bugs. Especially big ones with tentacles.
In regards to my personal issues that I wrote about last week... well, let's just say that they're solved! I just went and flat out asked her if she has any friends that would be interested in meeting me. So... yeah. Thanks for your responses though. I'm glad to know that people cared and some of your advices helped me out. So... thanks!
So... thanks for reading and reviewing! I'm very glad that you enjoy this story! I'll try to finish the next chapter as soon as I can... but for now, I think I'll grab myself a beer and try my best to do as much nothing as I can after a long and hard week of work. So until then, Delvaro out!