It was Thursday night streaming and Ixchel had gone back to something of an oldie but one of her favorites: Skyrim. She had started a new play through for the stream a few weeks back because it was something familiar enough to use to fill content, as her work life was getting hectic and her roommates were being especially loud. Ixchel had easily sunk hundreds of hours into the game over the course of her life so it was easier to have commentary over it and enjoy something to unwind with after a long week.
Tonight was primed to be perfect. Ixchel had cleared out her workload and most of the townhouse was empty as Audrey, Phoebe and Uma had gone off to catch a basketball game. Plenty of open time to relax with a favorite game and her stream crowd.
Ixchel had made herself a new Khajiit character, a fantasy feline race, and had made steady progress through her past streams on a mixed faction run. Pure vanilla, which was something of a rarity in streams of Skyrim, as most people showed off ridiculous mods but Ixchel's classic approach had found a dedicated, if small niche.
Ixchel had cobbled together an impressive array of tech for her budget, after accounting for rent, but she had an eye for quality with her electronics. Her mic had cost her a pretty penny but it was worth the improved audio quality.
"Back at the College," Ixchel narrated, as she returned to Winterhold, the location of a school of magic, wanting to inform new viewers, "there is a glitch that can be pulled off using the black market, it's really hard to pull off but if I had set it up, I could have gotten --"
CLICK!!
After a hard click and the dying fizzle of electronics, realization hit Ixchel as she found herself in the dark. "No. No! NO NO NO NO NO!!!" Her frantic key strokes did nothing. Her rig, the fan, the lights, everything was without power.
THUMP!
"OW!" Ixchel swore, losing all composure as she lost her bearings and slammed her knee trying to get out from her computer desk. She fumbled over to the wall switch, which provided only further proof of the power outage. How could this have happened? She was on her favorite quest line! She hadn't saved in forty minutes!
"Hey Chel, you up there?" A muffled call came from outside the door. Ixchel patted around for the doorknob. When she opened it the beam of a flashlight assaulted her in the face.
"Damnit Reagan!"
"Sorry," the rambunctious twin lowered the light. "Although don't go blaming me for this. I checked outside too, the whole damn block is dark."
"Great. Just great," Ixchel seethed. There would be no recovering her stream now.
"Did you have your equipment fry, in the middle of your fantasy quest?" Reagan teased.
"Shut it," Ixchel snarled, in a rare bad mood given how her stream had been interrupted by the power outage. "Why don't you be useful and come help me with the fuse box."
Making their way down to the utility closet in the basement, the two roommates spent several fruitless minutes with the fusebox. "Told you," Reagan shook her head. "Whole damn street. The only power we've got is our phones."
Ixchel sighed. "The others won't like to hear about this when they get back. Did it effect their game?"
Reagan looked up from her phone. "Doesn't look like it, the grid's only out in our neighborhood." The tone of her voice turned from frustration to mock horror. "Shit, the jello!"
"Wha-?" And then Ixchel remembered. Win or lose, the rest were going to come back that night and celebrate with a team colored jello mold Audrey had set up before the game.
Making their way back up to the the ground floor in the dark, Reagan shone her flashlight into the dead fridge. Ixchel picked up the bowl and curiously peered into its contents.
Reagan whistled. "Well, that didn't finish setting up." The colors had blurred together as the gelatin remained a mostly liquid slurry. She turned the light back to the fridge. "Most of this stuff is going to go bad if the power outage keeps up. Imma going to find some candles, Audrey has those flowery ones in the towel cabinet." The scented bath candles disgusted Reagan but they were the only available light sources in the townhouse at the moment.
"People are going to be so pissed with the landlady," Reagan said as she came back with lowlight wicks on juniper candles, only to find Ixchell seated at the breakfast nook with a gravy ladle into the jello. "What happened to waiting for everybody else?"
"You saw it, the jello was already ruined," Ixchel said darkly. Healthy lifestyles be damned, she was so crushed on how the power outage had ruined her stream that she needed to find solace, and the only source of that was the inoperable fridge.
"None of this will last anyways," Reagan shrugged, deciding to join Ixchel for a bite as she poked at a box of leftover stirfry.
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