Cirrem

left to right:

vakuu makes deal with the ironclad and neow develops a poison (the blight) with help from other ancients

ironclad kills everyone and the architect drinks the poison

architect is effected by the poison, and the blight spreads

the ironclad (im assuming to still be a servant to vakuu) enters the spire (along with the silent) (and the merchant) (also this is when the spire turns from a tree into the spire)

ironclad, defect, and silent all (together?) defeat the heart. the ironclad sets it ablaze, and this consumes the blight.

then the blight disappears and everythings good

then this happens

then this happens

then the doors to the spire open, neow wakes up,

monsters are pouring out of the spire, and the ancients also decide to return.

also vakuu says the spire should be his

i guess what makes the most sense is:

neow (maybe with or without vakuus help) creates the poison that puts the architect to sleep.

it spirals out of control! they need to put a stop to it!

vakuu sends the ironclad to help. together with the silent and defect (and neows ressurections) theyre able to kill the heart and with it the blight! (this is probably where neow promises him he can rule the tower or something)

but bc the blight is dead the architect wakes up and decides that hes going to be EVERYONES problem.

so he grabs the heart and extinguishes it (I had assumed to rebuild but he may just want to study it), which reawakens the blight in the silent, and starts building monsters to terrorize the area

and the ancients are like "yo lets just straight up kill this guy instead of the poison thing except not directly we'll just help neow's climbers kill him"

also the architect might be the one changing the spire for daily runs. which would be a really funny in game explanation.

theres a few big questions i have about the lore:

Have we seen any of "The Mistakes"? is the heart one?

2. "The parasite".... im assuming this is the heart, though it could be the blight itself. regardless... what is the heart? exactly? is it a part of the architect and because he was poisoned it got poisoned? is it from the blight? if the heart is a "parasite"... what?

3. how did neow escape imprisonment? is she still imprisoned?

4. is the spire neow's tree? (the one she was born in) (ancients are born in trees from ancient seeds)

im thinking that 1: this is neows tree 2: its part of why shes so mad of the architect for living up there and why she could have traded ownership to vakuu for help killing the architect 3: the blight forming a symbiotic relationship with her tree -> the heart is the center of the blight and thats why its there 4: neow is still imprisoned, but shes still able to ressurect us which is why the game can happen. 5: the architect is studying the blight, for possible nefarious reasons, and thats why the heart is ther

i do think another possible explanation is that the heart is heavily connected to the architect, through a symbolic-magical way. when he got the blight, it got the blight. after it was destroyed, the blight was destroyed and he woke up, but presumably meaner and angrier. because his heart was destroyed. and now hes trying to fix it. but we keep on interrupting and trying to kill him.

also im curious about the length of time between events. because it seems like a whole city was built around the spire and it became a trading hub by the time the architect woke up.

specifically, in sts2 there is no artifact, no orange pellets (which clears debuffs), no medkit, no blue candle, and more. what do they have in common? preventing or removing dangers.

this is a GOOD change. why? because that theyre gone the devs can be more creative with how the things they counter can impact the gameplay.

for example, the queen, hunter killer, knowledge demon, knight trio, shrinker beetle, ceremonial beast, living fog, terror eel, lagavulin matriarch, the beta infested prism, and lost+forgotton fights all focus around status effects. like imagine walking to fight the queen with orange pellets or terror eel with artifact. half the thing that makes the fight interesting dissapears!

similarily, the slimes, phrog parasite, soul fysh, myte, entomancer, insatiable, slimed bezerker, mecha knight, test subject phase 2, and aeonglass all focus around adding statuses to your deck. imagine fighting the insatiable or phrog parasite with medkit. mytes becomes a pushover. there are still easy solutions to these fights (exhaust, discard, minions, cleans + etherial, FLAK CANNON), but you need to actually draft your deck and pick cards to deal with statuses.

other relics (blue candle, ginger/odd mushroom/turnip), were probably not brought back 1) bc theyre kind of boring 2) because removing them make the things they cancel (curses, weak, vulnerable, frail) always impactful. (this was probably done to make things easier to balance).

2 max hp each fight and 15 healing when i enter a shop

woke up

dilly dallied until i had to get ready to do research

got dressed and caught the bus

scheduled another (!!!!!!!) metallurgist job interview for next week

did research (i cut 4 different samples at the EDM (electric discharge machining) machine today. (its a machine that does machining) (it cuts things), and then was told theres nothing more for me to do

went to the gym, where i my new fitnes plan was:

pull ups (easier than i remember)

planks (AAAAAAAAAAAAA)

farmers xarries (i dont know a good place to do them)

and then cardio. i ran a mile in 10:34 (like the fastest ive ever ran cardio

walked all the way back to the MSE department for board games!

ate an equivilent of a whole pizza

died in first in bang and went home bc yeah :/ (nothing really for me to do after dying)

made myself a proteinshake, which i then drank

passed out

untile 10:00 pm, when i was woken up by my roommate on the phone >:(, after which i got ready for bed and such amd texted him like >:(

part of my "worlds worst X" series, this being the worlds worst FPS.

you have... 5 bullets. if you run out you die. if you get hit you die. fortunitally, you have infinite bullets when you enter a room, and headshots instantly kill. most enemies are just a head and a gun.

so good luck!

this is literally the fastest ive ever heard back from anyone

i had completely forgotten about them for a little bit but now im like...

dont put work experience on your resume. put something else.

for example, ive put a bunch of projects ive done for college classes. like "Trained a ML model to predict the young’s modulus of Iron-based alloys, with an R squared of 0.71 and average percent error as 12.04%.". this is 1000x more relavent to metallurgical jobs i want than knowing i worked at target last summer. if you have a relevent job put it on the resume, but you really dont need everything.

i do still have a work experience document, but i just copy paste the fields into the application instead of submitting it and it takes like 30s. also have ine for education in general, but thats less important.

this is nice bc

you dont have to put the same info in twice

if everyone else is still putting work experience on their resume, you have all your work experience + a LOT more important non-work experience while they waste space with doubling work experience. this gives your application better than theirs.

this was a "shiv" + weak deck, starting with an afterimage from neow

than an up my sleeve, soon followed with an accuracy and blade dance

soon a blade of ink and a paper krane led to a lot more defence that synergized well

and then the lagavulin matriarch gave me this:

then in act 2 i got

so now my strikes are 0 mana deal 9 damage, much like the 0 mana deal 10 damage shivs i was getting, and worked will with the finisher + i got act 1

last notable thing from act 2 was the shop before the boss, where i picked up shockwave.

act 3 i saw these bosses:

and was very scared. i decided to go with nonipunes

because i didnt really have any good solution to the aeonglasses withering status cards, and hoped that potions would be helpful with that.

i also found a potion belt later this act

which was very helpful.

i picked up and upgraded another footwork, 6 dex is very nice even when the bosses are weak and afterimage is in place,

i used a gnarled hammer to give some attacks, most notably finisher, extra damage

grabbed a strike dummy from a chest, making my 0 mana deal 9 (18 with tracking (27 if also vulnerable)) damage strikes into 0 mana deal 12 (24 with tracking, 36 if also vulnerable), and my shivs dealing a similar 30 damage (33 if they were inky). and yeah.

pantograph and delicate frond activated for each boss, which was very nice as the test subject clears debuffs upon respawning and i took some damage

and i managed to make my way to victory!

once again, defensive and healing relics were very important to this run

with the crane, ticket, blood, pantograph, and planisphere, and sometimes frond giving sustain. i feel like i should be valuing relics like these a LOT higher than i currently do.

also an impactful strike dummy in act 3??????????? usually its a "wins you act 1 and does nothing later" relic, but it was very nice.

a small change in what ill call "inner radius" leads to a small change in the area that is equal to the perimeter.

this is not true if you were to look at say, the distance between the center and the corner (they differ by a factor of cos(pi/n)) or if you use side length (see a square: A = s^2, dA/ds = 2s, P = 4s)

lets try the equations with a square just be sure..

Area: 4*tan(pi/4)*(s/2)^2 (were using s is tbe side length, and the distance from fhe center of the square to the side is 1/2 the side length (this makes it easy to check)).

tan(pi/4) = 1, so we get 4*(s^2/4 = s^2

dA/dr = P = 2*4*tan(pi/4)*s/2= 4*s.