#but still took some elements from the second game. like introducing tails and getting into his backstory a little bit

[sonknuxadow]

sorry but i dont really get why so many people are expecting sonic 3 to be exactly like sa2.. we dont know anything about it yet other than that shadow is going to be in it and considering this is an alternate universe with a lot of differences from the games its kinda silly to expect it to be exactly the same. but ive seen so many people going "man i cant wait to see this one specific scene from sa2 in the next movie" as if its for sure going to happen

[katehuntington]

Title: Ride With Me (part twenty one) Fandom: Supernatural Timeline: 2008 Pairing: Dean x Reader Word count: ±5850 words Summary series: Y/N is a talented horse rider who is on her way to become a professional. In order to convince her father that she deserves the loan needed to start her own farm, she goes to Arizona for six months, to intern at a ranch owned by Bobby and Ellen Singer. Her future is set out, but then she meets a handsome horseman, who goes by the name of Dean Winchester. A heartwarming series about a cowboy who falls for the girl, letting go of the past and the importance of family.  Summary part twenty one: It’s Dean’s turn to make an entrance in the main arena. The rides lead to an interesting business proposal by a new client, but brings a lot of doubt too. Warnings series: NSFW, 18+ only! Fluff, angst, eventually smut. Swearing, smoking, alcohol intoxication, alcohol abuse. Mutual pining, heartbreak. Crying, nightmares, childhood trauma. Description of animal abuse, domestic violence, mentions of addiction. Financial problems, stress, mental breakdown. Description of blood and injury, hospital scenes, character death, grief. Music: Watching From A Distance - David Ramirez (opening scene) Follow ‘Kate Huntington’s Ride With Me playlist’ on Spotify! Author’s note: Prepare for cuteness and a bit of angst! Thank you @atc74​, @manawhaat​ and @winchest09​ for helping me. Also a special thanks to @jules-1999​, who has offered me her knowledge about rodeo events like these, and @squirrelnotsam​, who knows Arizona like the back of her hand. 

Ride With Me Masterlist

     Saturday morning has started early for the crew of the Gold Canyon Ranch. Before the crack of dawn Benny has mucked out the stables and fed the horses, making sure they had time to digest their pellets before the show starts. Together with Jo, Y/N has hand-walked the animals who are competing today, letting them stretch their legs and graze a bit. She took extra time for Meadow, who always seems to need a moment to adjust to new surroundings. The mare was fresh today, the brisk air only fueling her feisty temper. Her owner couldn’t help but snigger when she lifted her tail and started jogging next to her instead of just strolling along, showing off to anyone who would look at her.

     It’s 8 AM when Dean puts his foot in the stirrup of the saddle, swinging his right leg over the back of the Bon Jovi, the light catching the fringe of his chaps. He pulls his hat a little tighter on his head once he’s seated, while the well-behaved stallion waits patiently for his rider to give him an aid, which he does, after adjusting the length of his reins.

     With the sun only just peeking from behind the horizon, rays break through the leaves of the trees next to the warmup area, adding to the still peaceful surroundings. The commentator isn’t blaring through the speakers yet, the ring isn’t full of other riders trying to find a spot to train without running into each other. It’s the calm before the storm, a bit of peace and quiet both horse and human appreciate. No distractions, no sensory overload for the inexperienced stallion. It’s the perfect way to introduce him to the element of competition.

Y/N has just finished filling up the water buckets in the stables and rests her arms on the fence of the small arena. She watches Dean slowly start up the beautiful palomino, its coat seemingly made from gold in the morning light. Her boyfriend is wearing clean dark jeans and a navy button up, a black Stetson to match his show outfit. Never will she get tired of watching that man ride, but dressed like he is now, she can’t take her eyes off him. Y/N sighs deeply, swooning at the sight. She really did land the most handsome cowboy in Arizona, didn’t she?

     The head wrangler seems composed as ever, not breaking a sweat over having to ride into the ring in thirty minutes, something that she admires and envies all at the same time. She wishes she could feel relaxed right before a test, instead of being the nervous wreck that she usually is. Meadow will not make her entry until later this evening and already Y/N dodged breakfast, well aware that she won’t be able to swallow a bite, stage fright blocking her throat. Just thinking about the premiere of her freestyle makes it slightly harder to breathe, but Dean takes that away when he rides past, breaking his concentration for a second and shooting her a wink and a soft smile. She chuckles as they keep a hold of each other’s gaze for a few seconds as his horse walks by. God, she wishes she has his confidence.

     Other competitors join Dean and Bon Jovi in the warm up area, but the stallion only murmurs at a mare once, its rider gently yet strictly reminding him to keep his head in the game. Before they know it, the same voice that did the commentary on last night’s barrel race competition sounds from the amplifiers.

     “Good mornin’, folks! It’s another beautiful day here at the Flagstaff Horsefair. We’re getting ready for the first class of the day, the Standlee Forage Reining Competition for four year olds. Highest overall score wins five bags of high quality horse food.”

     The commentator continues to promote the sponsors of the event, Dean giving his horse a little scratch on the shoulder when he tenses slightly as the loud voice sounds from the speakers. Aware that it will soon be their turn, the rider allows himself to enjoy the atmosphere as he casts his gaze over the other competitors. He isn’t too worried about the fixture, confident in his own skills and those of his horse.

     “Dean Winchester, two minutes!” A steward announces, looking down at his clipboard to double check the line up.      The cowboy nods in acknowledgement, directing his gaze to Y/N as he waits for her to catch up. He watches as she puts down the grooming bag next to her on the sandy arena footing, attending to the bell boots that Bon Jovi is still wearing. She unbuckles the leather clasps, putting the leg protection away.      “Would you like some water?” she offers.      He shakes his head, casually, taking in the arena. “Nah, I’m good.”

     Y/N looks up at him, trying to read what he is feeling. To her, it is strange how he doesn’t seem nervous. He’s relaxed, collected; reminding her of the still waters at Canyon Lake, where they swam together for the first time on the trail that changed everything. It is as if he can’t register the pressure that should be resting on his shoulders. Maybe he truly believed he is that good.      “Break a leg,” she speaks, fondly.      “Don’t wish that upon me, Yankee,” Dean chuckles. “Kinda need them to do my job.”        She laughs and pats him lovingly on his denim clad thigh. “I don’t know how you can be so calm.”      “Well, I have my good luck charm with me.” He lays his hand over hers, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles. “C’mere.”       She steps closer to Bon Jovi, tiptoeing to reach up while Dean leans over to level with her. His lips brush over hers softly, his nose nuzzling hers in a sweet gesture. She smiles into the gentle kiss.      “Go get’em, cowboy.”

     The wrangler straightens himself in the saddle, while his girlfriend picks up the groom bag and steps back. He guides his horse into the tunnel under the bleachers towards the arena, concentrating on the gates in front of him, waiting for them to open. The reigns feel smooth between his fingers as he drowns out the noise around him. With his free hand, he encouragingly strokes the side of Bon Jovi’s neck, his pearly white manes contrasting beautifully against his flaxen coat. He has grown accustomed to these kinds of events, his nerves not bothering him anymore. He finds solace in his work, seeing it more as fun than as a chore. He enjoys the challenge the youngsters bring him, from the initial moment of putting on a halter, to getting in a saddle, to showing them all for the very first time. In less than a year, the horses go through such growth, and it’s always a pleasure to be a part of their journey.

     “First competitor of the day is Dean Winchester, riding Bon Jovi, a stallion by Renegade. This horse is bred by Victor Hendriksen and owned by the Gold Canyon Ranch in Phoenix, Arizona.”

     Y/N watches as the palomino calmly comes through the gate, not batting an eye at his new and impressive surroundings. Submissive and willing, the stallion responds to his rider’s aids when he’s asked to halt. To witness how trustful each and every horse is with the trainer, surfaces some kind of gratification inside of her. The way Dean schools the animals isn’t based on authority or rank, but much more about collaboration and respect. It’s something she admires about him from the get go.

     Dean leads Bon Jovi through a precise pattern of figures, spins and stops. Reining is all about the athletic abilities of the horse, and the rider controlling every movement. The horse demonstrates attitude and willingness, while the signals given by the rider are nearly imperceptible. The run is evaluated by a panel of three judges, who mark each pattern individually. In this youngster class, speed isn’t key yet, but correctness is. Every stride must look effortless and relaxed, as if the animal and rider have become one. That’s exactly what is on display in the arena right now.

     With a smile of adoration across her face, Y/N leans her forearms on the steel fence, watching the head wrangler. A small crowd that got up at the crack of dawn have occupied the first rows on the bleachers and by the fence, encouraging shouts and whistles rallying the first competitor on. The young horse is so fixed on his rider, that he doesn’t even pick up on the sounds. Bon Jovi isn’t fast in the spins yet, but that’s okay, because his footwork is close to perfect. After three well executed sliding stops, Dean gives the palomino the signal to back up, his spur not even touching the horse’s flank. Submissively, he reverses until his rider drops the reins and rewards the stallion, who blows out a purr through his nose, looking up at the stands curiously when they applaud the performance, much like the commentator.

     “Well, if that ain’t setting the bar, I don’t know what is. What a solid ride from Dean Winchester and Bon Jovi!”

     While Dean exits the arena, he searches the people along the fence and on the bleachers. He’s looking for Bobby, who he finds on the sidelines. His uncle holds his gaze and gives the head wrangler a nod, telling him so much without using actual words. They haven’t spoken about the elephant in the room yet, today’s pace being far too high to squeeze in the awkward conversation, and so both men have decided for themselves to let it rest. Besides, they might have sold a number of horses yesterday, that doesn’t mean they can lean back now.

     The cowboy leads his horse back to the warm up ring, meeting his girlfriend half way.      “Good run!” she compliments, taking Bon Jovi’s reins after Dean swings his right leg over the saddle and dismounts. She shoves the water bottle in his hand this time, knowing if she had asked, he would have declined anyway.      “I had a little wobble in the second roll back, but yeah, the rest was good.” He twists off the cap and takes a swig, thirstier than he likes to admit.

     Since Dean is competing two separate horses in the same class, he’s both first and last to enter the main arena. It’s going to be a race against the clock, and he looks around the warm-up area in search for his next four-legged dance partner.      “Where’s Jo? Ringo is up in thirty minutes.”      “Better get off your high horse, Mister, otherwise this is the last time I’ll tack up for you,” his cousin replies snappily, appearing from behind with a bay gelding named Ringo Starr in tow.      Dean is about to counter her, but he bites his tongue, knowing she’s not kidding and will never do him a favor again if he gives her attitude. And so he mutters a ‘thanks’ under his breath when he takes the Quarterhorse from her.

     As swiftly as he got down from Bon Jovi, he now mounts Ringo, the next four year old for him to compete. As he does so, his score is announced over the speakers, but he can’t quite make out the numbers. When he glances at the scoreboard, he’s pleasantly surprised.      “218.5 points!” Y/N cries out, delighted. “That’s fantastic!”      With a content smirk adorning his features, Dean nods satisfied; that is indeed a good score. Good enough to put Bon Jovi on the podium. Good enough to ask a high price when the buyers come calling. He doesn’t have time to settle on a high cloud, though; he needs to ready Ringo for his run.

     Y/N hoists the groombag on her shoulder and takes the kind palomino stallion to exit the warm-up arena. This is her job after all, she might be dating her supervisor, she’s still the intern. They made a deal when she arrived at the ranch that Dean would not treat her differently, so she intends to do the work she’s come here to do. Jo, however, seems to have a different idea, and nudges her.      “I’ll take Jovi. You go cheer on your John Wayne.” The blonde cowgirl winks at her friend, taking over the load.

     She chuckles, handing the petite blonde the horse. Grateful to be able to see more of Dean’s horsemanship in action, she finds a spot by the fence. The sun steadily rises, casting out what was left of the night’s coolness, the light radiating down on her much warmer and brighter. Wishing she had brought a hat, the cowgirl takes off her jacket and puts it away in the groombag. She watches her boyfriend warm up Ringo, who seems a little bit more nervous, now that the ring is more crowded. His rider does a good job reassuring the young animal, though, giving the bay gelding some light exercises to keep his mind of the commotion around him, rewarding the Quarter every time he shows a sign of relaxation.

     “Beautiful day to be buying horses, isn’t it, darling?”      Y/N startles at the sudden gruff voice, snapping her head to where the sound came from. The supposedly kind words to start conversation are pronounced with a English accent, by a stranger dressed in black. The rather short man who she guesses would be somewhere in his fifties leans on the steel rail, his fingers laced together while he watches riders in the arena.

     “Y - yeah, I suppose so,” Y/N stammers, unsure how to respond.      “My apologies, where are my manners.” The man turns to her and offers his hand. “The name is Fergus. Fergus MacLeod.”      The cowgirl frowns at his introduction. She has heard of him, but has never met the owner of the MacLeod Studfarms in person.      “Y/N Y/L/N,” she returns, slightly hesitant.      “Oh, I know who you are. I’m an admirer of your work. You’re quite the talent,” the Englishman admits. “That run at the State Championships was spectacular.”

     Slightly creeped out, but not trusting her instincts entirely, she stays quiet for a moment. This is a man of great influence in the business, so she does want to hear what he has to say.      “You saw me ride?” she replies.      He nods, an amused smirk resting on his thin lips. “I did indeed, love. Talking about talent, that horse is something else as well. Meadowsweet, is her name, isn’t it?”      “Yeah...” Y/N returns, somewhat suspicious.      “Tell me; are you the owner of that lovely mare? Or are there parents and sponsors involved?”

     Her stance becomes a bit more defensive, not just because of the rapid questions that are fired at her, no matter how charming this gentleman is trying to be. No, it’s his assumption that she’s too young to own such a horse that gets to her.      “I am the owner, as a matter of fact,” she states, a new found strength in her voice.      “Good to know I am talking to the proper person then.” Her company chuckles, apparently pleased by her feisty counter. “Because I have a proposition for you.”      Before he can make her an offer, Y/N intervenes. “Meadow isn’t changing owners, if that’s where you’re headed, Mr. MacLeod.”      Fergus takes her in, narrowing his eyes slightly, but the pleased little smile remains. “I can make it worth your while.”      “I believe you can, but no matter your offer; she’s not for sale,” the cowgirl makes herself clear, a sternness in her voice that should tone the horse trader down.      It doesn’t. Instead he chuckles dryly and takes a little booklet out of the inner pocket of his black coat; it’s a cheque book. Not taking no for an answer, he pulls out a pen and writes down his signature.      “Everything is for sale, love. All one has to do is pay the right price,” he says, wisely.

     Fergus MacLeod rips off the sheet of paper, handing her the cheque. Not wanting to be downright rude, she takes it, staring at the empty line; it’s blank.      “You may write down whatever number you seem fit. It’s up to you,” the Brit elaborates. “Now that I’ve got your attention, would you happen to know where I can find Bobby Singer? I would like to have a little chat with my old friend.”      “He’s by the main arena.” She points in the direction of the entrance.      “Wonderful,” he quips. “It was a pleasure meeting you, darling.”

     A shiver runs down her spine as MacLeod walks away to find her boss. She’s highly aware that he is a very influential and important person in the industry, but he has got some nerve. Y/N might look like an innocent and timid girl, but there is no way in hell that she would ever give up Meadow, no matter how large the figure.

     She stares at the cheque, crumbling it in her hand before she stuffs it in her pocket, angrily. She has never met someone as brazen as Fergus Macleod at a show before, and she has been to enough to know. But she doesn’t want to waste time and think about the confrontation now. The cowgirl would much rather focus on her wrangler boyfriend who is wowing the judges.

     Dean’s run with Ringo Starr is another great one, and with him being the last contestant of the class, the rankings are decided the moment the score comes in. With 215.5 points, he secures the third place, behind another rider and Bon Jovi, who has held on to the lead. An impressive result, one that he knows his uncle is going to be very pleased with.

     When the Dean exits the arena, he is met by his girlfriend, who is smiling widely.      “You nailed it!” she chirps with enthusiasm.      “They did good,” Dean says, rustling Ringo’s black mane, more than satisfied with the performance of both young horses, but not taking the compliment upon himself.

     The cowboy gets down from the saddle, noticing that the gelding is tired from all the first impressions and new sensories that come with the first show. Ringo’s coat is damp, a shade darker because of the perspiration; he gave it his all. Intending to hand-walk the horse back to the stables to shower the animal and give him his hay, he strolls to exit the warm-up area, but Bobby stops him.      “Dean?” his uncle calls out, beckoning him to come over.      Y/N glances up, following Mr. Singer’s voice. Noticing that Fergus MacLeod has found who he claims to be his ‘old friend’, her face falls slightly. She wonders what the Englishman would want, and why Dean has been invited into the conversation.      Questionly, she looks back at her boyfriend and takes over Ringo from him, reckoning she should leave since it’s none of her business what will be discussed, but the man in black has different ideas.      “Y/N, do join us, and bring the horse as well, love.”      The hair on the back of Dean’s neck rises; what did he just call her? Unable to prevent his jaw from clenching, he steps towards the two ranch owners, trying to keep his cool. Who the hell is this dickhead?      “That’s Fergus MacLeod,” Y/N whispers, as if she just read his mind. “He’s the founder of some of the largest stud farms in the country and even has stables in Europe. Owns at least two dozen licenced stallions.”      The wrangler nods in acknowledgement. Great, some snobby bigshot. Very much aware that this new face might have something to offer Bobby, he keeps his mouth shut.

     “Ah, the one and only Dean Winchester,” Fergus’ grins mischievously. “Nice work there in the ring. Your uncle here told me it’s the first time those two horses are competing.”      “That’s right,” the cowboy confirms.      “Macleod is the name. Pleasure to meet ya.”      The Brit extends his hand, which Dean shakes a little firmer than normal. He’s not even sure what he’s trying to accomplish with the display of his own physical strength.

     “Fergus here is interested in buying the four year olds,” Bobby explains, apparently noticing his head wrangler’s suppressed hostility, shooting it down with a piercing stare, warningly.      Dean’s demeanor changes instantly as he raises his eyebrows. If this horse trader is going to bring the big bucks, he knows he needs to  keep himself in check for the sake of the ranch.      “Mind if I have a peek?” Macleod asks, gesturing at the horse.      “Go ahead.” Dean steps back, making room for him to inspect the horse.

     Fergus circles the horse, taking the bay gelding in from several angles. He feels the hindlegs for any swelling or abnormalities and does the same with the front legs, after Y/N has removed the bandages Ringo wore in the ring to prevent any injuries. The horse trader then proceeds to look Ringo in the face and check his teeth. After a satisfied nod the man turns around, straightens his impeccable suit. He then takes a tissue from his breast pocket and wipes his hands.      “It’s a fine looking animal you’ve got here, Singer,” he compliments. “You may take the horse away, my dear.”      Even though she isn’t fond of the degrading way he is talking to her, Y/N obliges. Taking care of the horses when she’s not riding herself is her job after all.      “Oh, and Miss Y/L/N…”      She halts the horse next to her and turns around. The Englishman has his hands in his pocket now, twinkling hazel-colored eyes looking her up and down.      “Bobby here tells me that you’re a well-educated woman. A master degree in Business & Economics? Impressive. Someone as smart as yourself has to acknowledge that it’s a good deal. I assume you will consider my offer on your horse,” he pauses, more intrigued with every detail he learns about the woman before him. “I would like to point out there’s room for six figures on that cheque. What numbers to fill in, is your choice.”

     Dean wants to snap his head at his girlfriend, but keeps his posture. Did this man just offer her several hundred thousand dollars for Meadow? Eyes wide in astonishment, he exchanges a look with his uncle, both trying to keep a straight face.      “She’s not for sale,” Y/N makes clear one more time, pronouncing the words slow to prove a point.      Amused with her stubbornness, the corner of MacLeod’s mouth twitches upward. Cocky, he holds her gaze, but eventually yields. “Very well, then. Let me know if you change your mind. The offer stands.”

     Without responding to Fergus’ tenacious reply, she turns away, nudging Ringo to follow her. The three men watch her leave, Dean knows her well enough to be able to tell that MacLeod has her blood boiling. He’s not surprised Y/N didn’t think twice about shooting the bid down. Meadow means the world to her, more than any amount of money could ever buy. But holy shit. Six figures! Realisation hits him; it would be enough money to save the Ranch.

     The Brit who made the generous offer pulls him from his thoughts. “Alright, lads. Let’s talk business, shall we?”      The three walk away from the few people that are lining around the warm-up area. A little further down, on a crossing of two paths, they stop. The little square is still quiet at this hour. Safe from lurking eyes and eavesdropping ears, they gather around one high table near a drink stand. Even though it’s a non-serve area, the influential man calls the bartender to take their order. The young guy comes back with a coke for the rider - who still has a run later this afternoon - and two bourbons. Dean didn’t even know they served whiskey at this event, let alone this early.

     MacLeod cuts right to the chase. “I will offer you thirty grand for the four year old Quarters, and I will take them off your hands right away.”      Dean doesn’t flinch, being in these kinds of conversations before. He can maintain his poker face, no matter how amble the offer. It is a negotiation after all.      The owner of the two horses thinks about it for a second, but then comes with a counter. “Forty.”      “C’mon, Bobby. Is that how you treat an old friend?” Fergus clicks his tongue, shaking his head slightly after which he takes a sip from his drink. “Now, I know times are tough and that you’re experiencing difficulty staying afloat, but do realize I am already doing you a favor here. Thirty thousand dollars is more than fair.”

     The head wrangler is taken aback by the Englishman’s comment. How would he know the ranch is struggling? Did people in their close circle spill the beans?      Apparently MacLeod spots the unpleasant surprise on the faces of the men opposite of him, because he comments on it without missing a beat. “It’s a small world, lads. People talk. You should know that by now, Singer.”      Bobby moves past the comment rather quickly and ponders about the sum. Fergus isn’t wrong; it’s not just a decent offer. It’s a generous one, one he isn’t going to decline. The Englishman across the table knows it too; the owner of the Gold Canyon Ranch is desperate for money.      “Cash,” he demands, accepting the original offer.      The dark haired man strokes his neatly trimmed beard. “I can arrange that.”

     The head wrangler might not like the horse trader, but he did just make this weekend ten times better. He gulps down the last of his coke, crumpling the can before he dunks it in the trash on the side of the crossroads. The cowboy figures the deal will be sealed with a handshake before they go separate ways, but MacLeod has a second matter to settle.      “I have another proposition for you.”      Having their attention, the middle aged Brit observes their reaction, his eyes full of mischief. The two members of the ranch near Phoenix share a look.      “We’re listening.” Bobby says.

     Fergus swirls his whiskey, studying the amber liquid in his glass.      “I own a stallion,” he starts off, putting the drink to his mouth in the short pause. “I bought him at the Derby Quarterhorse Auction for over a million dollars. He’s licensed, one of the best pedigrees I’ve ever seen, not to mention his conformation and movements. He already covered four hundred mares this year. I expect great things from this horse, he is supposed to bring in the money. There is one slight issue, however.”      Dean listens, intently, wondering where he is going with this. “And what would that be?”

     “The horse has some… behavioral issues,” the stud farm owner claims, careful in his choice of words. “It has quite the temperament, one his former trainers haven’t been able to use in their advantage, my advantage.”      Slowly the head wrangler begins to realize why the price MacLeod is willing to pay for the two Quarters is so steep; he is playing a game of give and take. The way the owner of this stallion is talking about money and business, calling the animal ‘it’, doesn’t sit well with him either. Where is the horse’s well-being in all of this?

     “What’s his name?” Dean likes to know.      Fergus frowns at that, clearly not understanding why it would matter, but he answers anyway. “You might have heard of this horse; his name is Cain.”      Dean has heard of the horse. The whopping 1.2 million that was paid for the talented Quarter made headlines in the industry.

     “What are these behavioral issues?” he needs to know, not taking the bait just yet.      “Typical stallion behavior; dominance is the main problem. The horse has character, what can I say?” MacLeod laughs it off. “Anyway, I am looking for a capable horseman. Someone who can actually break him in.”      The owner of the horse in question shifts his penetrating gaze from Bobby to Dean. The cowboy realizes they are at a verge of a possibly very important business deal, but he cannot stop himself from commenting on the peculiar choice of words.      “I don’t ‘break in’ horses. I teach them to trust and to cooperate,” he states firmly.      “Potato, potahto,” Fergus dismisses. “Are you up for the job, or not?”

     Dean exchanges a glance with his uncle, a silent conversation happening between them, only possible by years and years of working together.      When Bobby rights himself, he has a crucial question. “What’s in it for us?”      Again that small smile on the Englishman’s face; he knows he’s close to persuading them.

     “A thousand dollars each month, paid in advance, and a fifty grand bonus when Cain successfully completes the stallion performance tests in April. Plus, five percent of his earnings in coverage for the coming year. After he passes the exams, we can set up a contract in order for you to remain his permanent rider,” MacLeod sums up.

     Bobby analyzes the offer. It’s tempting in many aspects. Fergus just mentioned that the stallion already covered four hundred mares this year. With his stud-fee being at least a thousand dollars, they are looking at twenty grand cut already. Then there’s the regular income, not to mention the bonus. This deal might be the lifeline his family business was frantically fishing for. It’s up to Dean, though. He is the one who is going to work with this horse, and the only one who can make an educated guess if it’s achievable in five months' time.

     “We would like to see Cain first,” Bobby decides, wanting to offer his head wrangler a moment to evaluate the animal.      “I’m afraid that will not be possible at this time, but I tell you what.” The Brit finishes his bourbon, setting the glass down on the high table. “The horse will be delivered to your property and you will have a week to decide if you want to take on this job. If not, no hard feelings.”

     Dean glances aside, spotting the slight nod of his uncle. Seems like they can’t go wrong here; if Cain turns out to be more difficult than Fergus leads on, they can always send him back.      “You got yourself a deal,” Bobby concludes, extending his hand to the man in black.      “Splendid.” The horse trader smirks, delighted with the arrangement they agreed on, shaking their hands. When he grips Dean’s hand tight, he looks him deep in the eye, as if he recognizes something in the handsome cowboy.

     “You’re John’s boy, aren’t ya?” he realizes. “I bought a couple of horses from that Winchester back in the day. How is he?”      Tension grips Dean’s body, the sound of his father’s name on Macleod’s tongue sending a shiver down his limbs. He tries to breathe in without it being too obvious, finding it difficult to keep his mask on.      “I wouldn’t know,” he answers curtly.

     Fergus furrows his brow at that, clearly curious as of why the two aren’t in touch anymore. He allows a silence to linger between them, their handshake holding on to the apprehensiveness.      “Hmm,” he responds at the peculiar answer. “Well, you are just like your father. I could’ve sworn it was him when I saw you in the arena earlier; spitting image. You have his ways.”

     It’s like MacLeod is deliberately trying to get under his skin, and no matter how hard the young cowboy fights it, the man he’s making a deal with is succeeding. The words spoken with that distinct English accent ring in his head, much louder than they were pronounced, cracking like a whip on his back. You are just like your father. You have his ways.

     Dean releases the stallion owner’s hand, quickly slipping his into the back pockets of his jeans, drying his clammy palms on the denim. He hopes neither of the men in his company notice him shaking. He inhales through his nose, squares his shoulders and stands tall, pushing down the anxiousness that is stirring in his stomach. Disappointed in himself, he chews on the inside of his cheek in search for distraction. He can’t let a simple comment get to him like this.

     Now that he has shut down the attitude the ranch hand was giving him, the Englishman looks down on Dean with a sinister smile on his lips. He keeps a hold of the Winchester’s gaze, until he averts his green eyes. Only then MacLeod steps away.      “We’ll stay in touch. I’ll have my men pick up the two Quarters this afternoon,” Fergus announces, his long, dark overcoat swaying slightly as he turns around once more. “A pleasure doing business with ya.”

     With those words, MacLeod walks away and leaves the two men in the middle of the square. The sun is suddenly uncomfortably warm to Dean. He sniffs and takes a few steps from his uncle, as if the two or three strides would actually be enough to walk it off. He places his hands in his side and dips his hat forward when he faces Bobby again, making sure the older man can’t sense how unsettled he is. But Bobby is no fool. He knows his nephew better than the boy’s own father did, and that’s exactly what’s bothering Dean.

     “You alright?” he checks.      “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” Dean returns just a little too rapidly, shrugging it off.      “Just…” His uncle is careful not to address the subject directly, yet at the same time he needs to offer the opportunity for the wrangler to vent. “With what he said about John--”      “Don’t.”

     The simple word comes out harsher than he meant it to leave his lips, the darkness in his eyes when he shoots his father-figure a glare soon replaced by regret. Dean knows Bobby is trying, like he and Ellen have for the past fifteen years. But no matter how much time passes, he can’t bring himself to talk about what happened in the past.

     His uncle isn’t mad, nor is he disappointed in his surrogate son. He just nods slowly at the dismissal, before he begins to make his way to the stables. Dean remains in the middle of the crossing, his hands still firm on his hips, closing his eyes for a moment as he breathes out. The deal they just made should bring much needed relief, but the meeting leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.

He gathers himself and follows after his Bobby. They have more showings to prepare for, but nothing can cast out the words spoken by Fergus MacLeod. Not the rhythmic thumping of hooves in the dirt, not the chatter and laughs produced by the growing crowd, nor the music that comes from the main arena. All he can register is the painful message, which reopens the deep scars on his heart every time they bounce off the walls inside his head.

I am just like my father.

Thank you for reading. I appreciate every single one of you, but if you do want to give me some extra love, you are free to like or reblog my work, shoot me a message or buy me coffee (Link to Kofi in bio at the top of the page).

Read part twenty two here

[sally-mun]

Why the Sonic movie is so great (SPOILERIFFIC)

AT LAST, I SHALL NOW LIST MY FAVORITE THINGS (and just a couple critiques) ABOUT THE SONIC MOVIE!! Do NOT proceed if you don’t want spoilers!!!

ECHIDNAS AT THE BEGINNING

and those echidnas are clearly from the Knuckles clan (or are at least designed as an homage to them)

using rings as warp rings a la Archie

Sonic playing with an inflatable guitar a la SatAM (even though there he can actually play one)

Sonic eventually getting a car bed a la Archie

Sonic yelling “GOTTA GO FAST” when abruptly waking up

Sonic getting to experience ACTUAL EMOTIONS in spite of all the Sega mandates (granted he didn’t cry, which I know they’re anal about, but still he has such a RANGE in this)

TAILS AT THE END

Sonic struggling to do yoga while copying Maddie

Sonic utilizing chaos energy basically the way Knuckles is known to (even though it isn’t specifically identified as chaos) (yet)

GREEN HILL ZONE IS SO GORGEOUS HOLY SHIT

and they even took the time to have one of the GHZ arches crumble!

also on that note, Green Hill Zone’s theme song turning up, even if it was only for like 30 seconds

getting to hear that oh-so-familiar chime when Sonic drops his rings at the end

Sonic not being able to hit the dart board with the darts a la the cowboy episode of AoStH

Sonic confirming he ate a chili dog, even if it’s not shown (EDIT: Now that I’ve gotten to see the movie a second time I realized that we DID see him eat it; in fact, he ate like 10. I just didn’t remember that detail after the first time!)

the fact that Sonic not doing what he’s told is specifically characterized as him having poor impulse control instead of just being a jerk

and, on that note, that he’s shown TRYING really hard to control himself (even if he still fails)

THE FRIGGIN ‘SANIC’ DRAWING SHOWING UP OH MY GOD

Sonic’s mismatched shoes until he gets the iconic ones

Jim Carry’s take on Robotnik containing individual elements of various other portrayals while still being his own version

being proven ABSOLUTELY RIGHT when I said years ago that this scene in X-Men Apocalypse is “what Sonic would be like if he were human” since the Sonic movie has scenes EXACTLY LIKE THIS

Sonic using a backpack a la SatAM

oh my gOD the elevator scene AND THE AMAZING DIALOGUE that shit was bananas

Sonic having moments of vulnerability! I hate it when he’s depicted as just completely confident ALL THE TIME

that said, Sonic still has his charming level of arrogance a la SatAM, ie referring to himself as “an incredibly handsome hedgehog”

the chase at the end referencing MULTIPLE game environments and scenes, especially the City Escape chase from SA2

and, on that note, that they DO canonically go to San Francisco to kind of back up that reference from the game??

Robotnik having controls for his robots built straight into his gloves, that shit is tight

Robotnik actually explaining WHY he prefers robots over people for once

establishing from the beginning that Sonic gives people nicknames, which easily sets up for calling Robotnik “Eggman” and, presumably, Tails’ nickname if/when we get a sequel (and who knows, maybe even “Knuckles” will turn out to be a nickname too!)

on that note, the reason why the nickname “Eggman” was eventually introduced (I can’t believe I didn’t see it coming)

Tom suckerpunching Eggman not once, but TWICE

Maddie just kind of rolling with it when Tom asks her to examine Sonic

Sonic unintentionally traumatizing a turtle

SONIC FACEPLANTING (and the fact that I called it way before the movie was even finished)

the fact that Tom and Sonic actually had good chemistry!! it would’ve been really easy for the movie to have Tom constantly irritated by Sonic to try to play up the humor of the mismatch, but I appreciate SO much that instead Tom really is kind of charmed by him and also just rolls with it

Sonic’s soul-crushingly intense loneliness acting as a tangible motivation to protect the friends he finally makes!! I mean yeah, we always admire that Sonic places a lot of value on his friendships, but making that the culmination of his character arc instead of the starting point is just SO SATISFYING

the SHEER JOY Sonic gets from being able to give a high-five for the first time

when Tom carries Sonic in his arms, the CG communicates that Sonic has WEIGHT (which I feel like a lot of IRL/CG interactions forget)

Sonic rolling up into a ball, and more than once

how much Sonic genuinely and deeply cares about the residents of Green Hills and kind of lives vicariously through them

Robotnik being, let’s face it, straight-up abusive and occasionally threatening to his assistant, a la SatAM, while also demonstrating that he favors him above all others (tho that’s really not saying that much because anyone that’s not a robot is still a waste of space to him)

Sonic running repeatedly in front of Tom’s radar gun to check his speed

SONIC DOING THE FLOSS I CAN’T HANDLE IT

Sonic’s innocence. It seems like in a lot of media lately he’s been the one teaching lessons or providing others with those little simple joys they’ve been deprived of. It’s really gratifying to see HIM in that position and being so grateful to finally have those experiences.

Sonic saying his legs “feel like spaghetti” due to Tom shooting him with a tranq dart (and the fact that this actually makes him physically vulnerable, which is so damn rare)

Sonic using level 100 smarm to demonstrate to Tom that he doesn’t know how to get to San Francisco by himself

Sonic’s map containing even more game references, including (if I remember correctly) the Blue Sphere ‘planet’

And just a couple things I wish were changed:

In the bar, when the server asks if Sonic is “a kid in a mask” and Tom tells her he’s “43 and has a condition” that makes him look like that, why 43?! He should’ve said 28!! SONIC IS CURRENTLY 28 IT’D HAVE BEEN PERFECT~

The fact that Robotnik only really starts looking like Robotnik as we know him in the couple minutes of the epilogue. I wish his appearance had changed -- or at least started to change -- in time for the final showdown. Like, maybe there could’ve been an explosion that burned off some of his hair (which would explain WHY he decides to shave his head, since the hair’s half-gone anyway) and bushed up his mustache, and then the impact of the chaos-charged spin dash is still when the mustache got all orange

The movie makes a point a few times about how Sonic’s just kind of throwing whatever he can find on his feet, and just before act 3 Maddie even comments on “his poor feet” while examining him. The movie even specifically shows that his shoes and socks have holes in them because of how much stress he puts on them (and it’s not like he can just go get new ones when he needs them). Since he spends most of the movie with inadequate footwear, and the health of his feet is kind of majorly important to his character, I wish Sonic had intermittently complained about them hurting to corroborate that. Or maybe even never verbally complaining about them, maybe just now and then when they have a moment to pause he could be seen rubbing or squeezing them.

I really, really wish Tom’s dog’s name was Muttski! (But hey, given that Sonic is prone to assigning nicknames, maybe that could be a nickname for the dog in a later movie!)

[vios-rockland-corner]

RoR Article 2: Help Callum

To make things easier on myself, I’m splitting up my thoughts on the Rumors of Rockland second article.  I already gave an overview of this game.  Here, I’ll cover whatever random thoughts and observations I had for the events that occur when you choose to help Callum.

[Major spoilers below for Rumors of Rockland Article 2]

First surprise here, Callum can actually hold his own.  Have to admit, wasn’t really expecting that (dude kind of looked sickly in older sprites). Well honestly, I wasn’t exactly expecting the MC to be capable of driving off the drunk dudes themselves unless they were going to threaten to call 911.  More like…I didn’t know what to expect.  Since it was now 2-on-2, was the MC suddenly going to start throwing down? I just didn’t see it happening. No, turns out Callum was quite capable of taking these guys out by himself.  

What I love about this though is that the minute the MC enters the scene, Callum actually goes into protection mode.  He may genuinely have not been afraid of these guys from the start and thought it was even funny to see them riled up.  He’s initially holding back his laughter when the two guys are initially antagonizing him and only got a little serious when they brought Whesker’s name up. Between the first two articles, Callum’s now shown concern for people like Avery, Whesker and the MC.  The MC isn’t even someone he’s close to yet. Maybe I’m calling this a little too early, but Callum might just be a nice and well-meaning guy.  There are certainly a lot of dangerous characters in Rockland, but so far nothing to suggest anything sinister about Callum whatsoever.

Getting back to the scene, I kind of found it adorable that the MC rushing in flips a switch for Callum. It was like he was going, “Hey, woah woah woah.  These guys are a joke, but seriously I don’t want anyone getting hurt now.”  So his playtime had to end.  Otherwise, he seems like he’s pretty goofy and relaxed most of the time.

By the way, who else took a good look at that CG of Callum giving a good kick?  If you look in the background, you can actually see the silhouette of a person.  SOMEONE saw that whole altercation go down, but didn’t interrupt.  We can’t be sure though if the MC hadn’t been there, if this person would have come down to assist Callum instead.  Might not have been someone concerned about Callum (just watching out of curiosity).  In the “Do Nothing” path, Callum does not even mention what happened outside when he goes to talk to Avery (but he doesn’t act frazzled at all).

A curious thing about the silhouette though is that it’s very reminiscent of the drawings seen in the “Nightmare Realized” teaser game for the Misfits.  Coincidence?  We do even see Sydney show up in the “Do Nothing” path.  Was he the one watching and came to help out Callum if the MC doesn’t help in anyway?  Sydney did mention helping his friends, but whether that’s related to Callum or something else, I’m not sure.  Callum is Quill’s brother, but we don’t have evidence yet that Sydney and Callum are friends with one another.

Moving on, it seems Callum is quite similar to Quill when it comes to being very chatty and dropping names like crazy.  Must be a Willow thing (wonder if the parents are like that too).  Callum gives you a lot of interesting information though, but it differs vastly depending on what person you’re most interesting in asking about.

If you ask about Sergio, you learn that the town is basically run by the IRISH MAFIA. That…explains a whole lot.  Prior to this, I had theorized that some of the crime syndicates may have some pull with finances and politics of Rockland when I was trying to think about how the Professionals could operate for so long without repercussions.  I believe this might sum it up pretty well.  It’s kind of funny how normal Callum treats the matter too.  I mean, I appreciate that the mafia aren’t racists and try to keep some order (mafia is indeed ORGANIZED crime).  That’s always nice.  Still…it is a mafia.  Not only does that mean that people in Rockland might not want to get a swelled head for justice around these parts, but crime is still crime.  We don’t know yet what kind of illegal activities the mafia does yet.  Could be just a lot of theft and forgery.  Or perhaps there is a lot of murder and human trafficking behind the scenes.

This also explains why a lot of the characters in Rockland have Irish accents.  Before these games, I knew a couple of the characters like Trevor and Roy were Irish.  Apparently Whesker has an accent too.  I genuinely just thought it was just a foreign type the creators’ favored.  But there’s actually more meaning to having numerous Irish characters in Rockland now.  It also means if you come across someone in Rockland with an Irish accent…maybe do your best to stay on their good side.  Just in case.

Wait a minute…Roy is Irish (or at least he was)…That either could be just a coincidence, or there might be something interesting later down the road about that.  Is he linked to one of the Irish mafia families in anyway? If so, did he cut ties and is in opposition?  Or is he actually still part of that group too?  If it’s the latter, that would mean the police force in Rockland IS under the mafia’s thumb too.  We won’t know this I think until much later though.  Like I said, could also just be a coincidence that he’s Irish (if he still is). Not all Irish people know each other. It’s more likely though in such a small and tight nit town like Rockland.

If you ask about Scarlet, then you just get some fun image in your head of family gatherings for holidays. Cute but what I really want to focus on here is that BEASTKIN ARE OFFICIALLY MENTIONED IN GAME FOR THE FIRST TIME!  I know there are probably several people who are excited about that.  It’s officially our first supernatural element introduced if you don’t include the Zeitgeist demo.  Now we don’t know a lot about beastkin, just that they’re around.  Both Scarlet and Foal are beastkin, but you probably wouldn’t be able to tell Foal is one at a quick glance.  They can have tails (though unfortunately some had their tails cut off), but we don’t know what other kind of physical aspects usually manifest.  With Foal, she has darker skin and white hair.  The darker skin isn’t really a giveaway, but the white hair might be.  I had figured she just dyed it or something, but it’s possible that’s her natural hair color.

If you’re trying to make a beastkin OC for Rockland, not much I could say yet for what is fair game in canon.  Just tails and possible hair color at the moment can give their beast status away. We don’t know anything about abilities yet.   I feel like we’re also going to be focusing on the more human elements of Rockland for the most part.  The beastkin are around, but not the main theme here.  Still nice to know it’s an existing element though.

If you ask about Jett, you learn Callum and Avery play music.  On the website, the Callum and Avery are indeed listed under “The Band” section.  This was more foreshadowing I believe for a future “Battle of the Bands” themed game. Fun, but not much else I feel I need to comment on here.  

After talking with Callum so long, I can’t be certain to say you gain full friendship status with him in this route, but you’re definitely on some pretty good terms now.  Avery probably appreciates hearing that you went to help Callum, but otherwise he’s more occupied with his troubled thoughts in this situation rather than getting to know you better.  You probably have earned good points with Avery here, but not nearly as much as if you do the “Get Help” route where you get much more conversation time with him.

Since you let Callum go after Avery though, Foal seemed to appreciate the choice and you get some positive interaction with her.  So points earned there too.

In the end, choosing to help Callum yourself gets you in good with Callum of course, and a slightly better reputation with Avery and Foal.  Not bad.  I can’t be certain if you’ve earned brownie points as well from the person who was watching in the CG because I don’t know if they were looking out for Callum’s safety or just looking for a show.

[sjrresearch]

Review of Netflix's ‘The Liberator’

So, the internet’s been abuzz with Netflix’s new series, “The Liberator.” I was excited, as well, as it followed the story of a US Army infantry division in the Second World War. It was a great idea. We’ve seen everyone else get their due - Band of Brothers, Saving Private Ryan, Red Tails, The Pacific, Fury - the list goes on and on. But the regular leg infantry really hasn’t gotten their screen time. 

I, therefore, sat down late last week and watched the entirely binge-able 4-episode miniseries. They’re about an hour each, and the animation was an interesting twist. It took some getting used to, but with things like anime and graphic novels being big with younger generations, I think this was a good series to introduce younger viewers to a “dogface’s” view of the Second World War. 

I also liked the division they picked. The 45th Infantry Division was part of the Oklahoma National Guard, and as Mike Rowe put it, the makeup of the division was “…at first Mexicans, Native Americans, and Cowboys.” What they didn’t mention, but perhaps should have, was as the war went on, and more and more draftees filled the ranks of the US Army, the National Guard divisions like the 45th lost their regional character. It’s a small thing, but I think they demonstrated it with Vaccaro, the character who shows up in episode 3 from Chicago, but it could have been illustrated better.

Overall, that seems to be the tone of the series. A for effort, C for results. The show could have used the help of someone like Dale Dye. First off, the rank insignia on the front of the helmets would have been gone by the time the 45th as a whole hit Italy. Those rank insignia make great aiming points for German snipers! Most units in the ETO went with a bar system to the rear of the helmet, a horizontal white bar for NCOs, and a vertical white bar for officers.

I was a little skeptical of the main character being as far forward as he was as even a company commander. I get story demands, but I really wish they’d centered the story around the Native American NCO. I get it. He didn’t write the book that the series is based on, but when you have a major acting like he’s a second lieutenant, my ability to stretch reality is a bit strained.

At times, I thought the terminology was made-up because the writers didn’t know the real terminology. The MP scene at Anzio had me cringing, not to mention the German assault during the episode. It more resembled a human wave assault you’d see from the Japanese or the Russians, and not the fire and movement we’d see from a German-style assault. I also didn’t see any German machine guns till the third episode. And every German soldier, with the exception of one (the German Major in the Anzio episode) was SS, which makes me wonder an aside? Why is every German in a WWII movie a member of the Waffen-SS? It’s a pet peeve of mine. And then there was the 60mm mortar killing a tank. Trust me, it’s not going to happen. 

That’s not to say there were not elements I did like. I thought the episode with Aschaffenburg and Dachau (especially the gruesome beginning) was very well done (things like that happened as Germany collapsed at the end of the war). The scene in the coal yard at Dachau - it actually happened. 

They did a good job of showing not just the incident but the aftermath, and yes, Patton was rather sanguine about it. As he was the military governor of Bavaria, he chose to dismiss it, and yes, our character, Felix Sparks was almost court-martialed, as the show demonstrates. But again, I felt the story was a bit rushed and didn’t explain as well as they should have the true revulsion of the troops involved.

My own Grandfather’s division, the 4th Armored, liberated Ohrdruf Concentration Camp, was part of Buchenwald. The sight was, to say the least, ghastly, and I won’t go into details here. What I will say is I asked him about this photo and incident once. He said to me simply, “Jay boy, we weren’t that dumb. We simply gave the prisoners lead pipes, locked the SS guards in a room with them…and whatever happened…happened.”

I think Netflix overall made a good effort, but the series was too short, and there were more than a few details that could have been done better. All in all, I don’t think the audience for this show is those of us who know and study World War II, but the younger generations who didn’t know veterans of the conflict. I think for them, this is a worthy thing to watch. Still, I’d also have them read books like Beyond the Beachhead, Patton’s Vanguard (admittedly, this one is a view of an entire armored division, rather than an infantry division like the 45th, but the writing is solid), and When the Odds Were Even. 

My main complaint: The series needed four more episodes to do itself right. I just felt the story was too rushed and too choppy at times. I get a lot of the constraints, but I am always of the opinion, “if you’re going to tell a story like this, tell it right.” I think Netflix missed an opportunity here, with an innovative medium, no less. I am hoping someone takes up the baton and gives both the tech and the subject manner the respect they deserve.

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At SJR Research, we specialize in creating compelling narratives and provide research to give your game the kind of details that engage your players and create a resonant world they want to spend time in. If you are interested in learning more about our gaming research services, you can browse SJR Research’s service on our site at SJR Research.

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(This article is credited to Jason Weiser. Jason is a long-time wargamer with published works in the Journal of the Society of Twentieth Century Wargamers; Miniature Wargames Magazine; and Wargames, Strategy, and Soldier.)

[baconsoupforthesoul]

The Ink Demonth- Day 26- Fave AU

Not Alone

A/N: There is no BATIM au more dear to my heart then the Bioshock au. Before getting into Bendy, I knew next to nothing about Bioshock. But seeing all the lovely art and fics made for this au encouraged me to go check out this series and now I’m just as into those games as I am into Bendy. I just finished the first game and I’m trucking through the second one right now and I am loving every minute of it. So I want to thank everyone who was involved in this au cause it introduced me to these amazing games. Not only that but this au is just fantastic in its own right. It takes the best elements from both games and has it’s own orginal story going on that has me dying to know where it’s gonna go. If you haven't already looked into this au then you are missing out cause everything about it is phenomenal. To the lovely creators of this au, I hope this fic is okay as I don’t know everything you have up your sleeves for this story. I’m excited to see whatever you guys have planned for this though. So without further ado, in this au Henry/Alpha belongs to @inkspottie Ross/Omega belongs to @doberart Delta belongs to @trashboatprince and Sigma belongs to @hntrgurl13  and I hope you all enjoy~

Why was it always so damn dark in this studio? The creaks and groans of aging metal filled the air as Henry stepped lightly through the darkened halls of Rapture Studios, his Angel’s Grace plasmid lighting the way for his companions. Normally, he would be content for Ross or even Delta to be leading the way, as they both knew the studio better than he did. However, with the lack of light in this area, he needed to be the one to guide them for now. He spared a glance back at his newfound allies. Ross was staring straight ahead, determination etched into his face. Delta, meanwhile, seemed unfazed by the horrors around him, his posture relaxed as his eyes idly roamed the area, trying to see through the blanket of darkness surrounding them. Bendy was just as calm as his father, resting on his shoulder as his tail flicked back and forth slowly. Sigma, their newest ally, seemed anything but, as he clutched his pistol tightly, stray sparks flying off his other hand from his plasmid as his eyes darted back and forth nervously.

Henry felt about as nervous as Sigma looked, as he turned back to attempt to see where they were going. It had never been this dark for this long before, and the air was suddenly absent of the constant chatter of splicers that usually emanated from every corner of the studio. Henry should have felt relieved, as the splicer’s constant muttering usually kept him on edge, making him think one was going to spring up behind him at any moment. But their absence was conspicuous, as the silence stretched on, the only sounds being their footsteps and breathing as they continued forward.

“Um, am I the only one who thinks it’s a little too quiet in here?” Sigma asked, stepping lightly around a corpse lying on the ground.

“Shhh!” Ross hushed him, putting a finger to his lips. “If it’s this quiet, any enemy nearby is gonna hear you,” He whispered, trying to keep his voice as quiet as possible.

“Don’t bother,” Delta stated, not even trying to lower his voice. “I can’t exactly be stealthy in this suit anyway, they’re gonna hear my footsteps a mile away.”

“Maybe, but just cause they can hear your footsteps doesn’t mean they'll know it’s us,” Ross pointed out, turning to Delta. “We all have bounties on our heads, as soon as a splicer knows we’re here, we’re gonna be waist-deep in the bastards.”

“Pshhh, we’ll be fine.” Delta waved off Ross’s concerns. “There’s four of us now, those half-crazed splicers don’t stand a chance. I could take ‘em down no problem.”

Henry rolled his eyes as his new friends argued back and forth. If the splicers didn't know where they were before, they certainly did now. Not much they could do about it anymore. Henry turned away from his friends and tried to brighten up his plasmid but could still barely see a few feet in front of him. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up suddenly as he heard a rustling above him. He moved his hand up, trying to see if there was anything up there but saw nothing. Some plaster from the ceiling crumbled down next to him and Henry shivered.

“Well I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not have a splicer army coming out of the woodwork to attack us!” Sigma hissed somewhere behind him, as they continued arguing.

“Uhhh, guys?” Henry tried to speak up but the others paid him no attention.

“Would you two just keep it down!” Ross chided them, raising his finger up to his mouth again.

Ummmmmm, guys?” Henry tried again, his voice getting higher as he heard more scuttling sounds from up above.

“What do you mean ‘you two’? You’re talking just as much as us,” Delta complained, crossing his arms.

“Guys!” Henry turned around to look at them, his face devoid of color.

“Dads! Dads!” Bendy piped up from Delta’s back. “Angel Dad has something to say!”

“Huh?” The other three all turned to see Henry’s panic-stricken face.

“I-I-I…” Henry struggled to get the words out. “I don’t think we’re alone in here…”

Suddenly, as if on cue, lights turned on all around them, finally illuminating the room they were in. They were in some kind of atrium, with a staircase right in the middle leading up to several adjoining balconies. The room was huge, with dozens of posters for various shows and cartoons lining the walls and a huge window for the ceiling, revealing the dark seascape outside.

“Shit…” Ross’s eyes widened as Sigma held up his pistol and Delta revved up his drill. “This is the perfect place for an ambu-”

Before Ross could even finish the thought, the room was filled with the angry cries of dozens of splicers as the dove down from the ceiling and others burst out of posters, charging down towards their unsuspecting victims.

“Holy-” Sigma turned to see a splicer dragging a crowbar come barreling towards him. He quickly zapped her with his electro bolt before shooting her with his pistol as she convulsed from the shock. “Just how many of them are there?!”

“Who cares?” Delta smirked as his right eye turned red and ink began dripping down his arm. “Let them come! I’ll introduce their faces to my drill!” Delta boasted, charging into the first splicer unfortunate enough to try an attack him.

“Hehehe,” Bendy chuckled from on his back. “Daddy’s givin’ you stars and birdies!”

“Stick together!” Ross called after Delta as he ran up the stairs, whacking a splicer aside and sending them hurtling over the railing. “It’ll be easy for them to pick us off if they separate us!” Ross quickly ducked his head as Splicer crawling down from the ceiling sent a hook hurtling down towards him. Ross raised his gun and with expert marksmanship started shooting down some of the splicers lining the balconies. Ross’s other hand darkened as his nails turned into talons. The air was suddenly filled with dozens of black crows as they launched themselves at the splicers, pecking at their eyes as their caws become deafening.

“Hanger-on! PARASITE!” A splicer screamed as they ran at Henry, swinging their crowbar wildly. He barely had time to raise his axe to block the strike that would have bashed his head in. He pushed back, causing the splicer to stumble as he changed his plasmid. With a snap of his fingers, they burst into flames, before Henry put the poor splicer out of their misery with a slice of his axe.

“There’s too many of them!” He cried out, as more splicers seemed to approach from every angle. “What are we gonna do Ro-” Henry was cut off as he felt something hook into the back of his sweater and yank him backwards. Henry fell to the ground hard, his momentum causing him to roll along the floor.

“Henry!” Ross called out to him and ran to help but was cut off as a couple of splicers descended on him, snarling as they took a swipe at him.

“Ugh…” Henry got up to his hands and knees, clutching his head as his vision blurred. He looked up to see the same splicer that had thrown him come running at him. He yelped and scrambled to his feet as they threw hooks at him. One of the hooks embedded itself in a wall, but as Henry tried to get away from his attacker, the other hook found its mark and embedded itself in his shoulder. Henry cried out in pain and stumbled, but kept up his momentum as he ran out a doorway and down a corridor. He had to create some distance between him and the splicer, come up with a plan of attack and then maybe he could…

A jolt of pain surged through Henry’s as blurry images flashed before his eyes and voices whispered in his ears. Oh no, not here! He couldn’t have this happening here! Flashback, withdraw symptom, whatever it was, he couldn’t afford to break down when half of Rapture was trying to murder them! Henry couldn’t stop it though as he stumbled to his knees, clutching his head as his ears began to ring.

This isn’t what I wanted, this isn’t right! Get rid of him!

He’s a human being, Mr. Drew!

WELL I DON’T GIVE A DAMN!

I see to it that you never remember Omega, and we shall start anew.

Oh my god, Joey what were you doing to him!?

Would you kindly return to the lab?

A failure this one is.

Failure Failure Failure Failure FAILUREFAILUREFAILUREFAILURE!

Henry let out an agonized scream as he hunched over himself. His head felt like it was a fire, the voices blaring in his ears so bad that he didn't even notice the enemy coming up behind him. The splicer shrieked as they grabbed the back of Henry’s sweater and slammed him into the wall. They clenched Henry by the neck as they hoisted him up, cackling as he cried out in pain. Henry tried kicking out with his dangling legs, but he couldn’t get any strength behind it. His head was pounding, his vision was fading around the edges, he was completely at the mercy of this INK crazed monster.

“Nowhere to run now~” They taunted as their face came uncomfortably close to Henry’s. “Bringing you to Joey’s gonna net me a nice juicy reward. He don’t want you alive though, so let’s fix that, shall we?” The splicer sneered as they dug one of their hooks into Henry’s side, and started slowly dragging it across his chest. Henry screamed in agony, his voice filling the hallway as the splicer continued to laugh at his pain. They squeezed his throat, cutting off his cries as Henry tried in vain to claw at the hand restricting his windpipe. Oh god, this was it, he was going to die down here. As Henry’s vision started to tunnel, he heard a loud roar from somewhere down the hall as his attacker turned their head in confusion. Henry managed to look over to see an enraged Delta come charging down the hallway, his drill spinning at a ferocious rate. He slammed into the splicer, driving his drill right into their stomach. Henry heard the splicer’s dying wails as he dropped like a ragdoll to the floor.

“Oh god, Henry!” Ross’s voice sounded horrified as he came in after Delta, running over to him.

“Angel Dad’s hurt Daddy! Ya gotta fix Angel Dad!” Bendy sobbed from Delta’s back, as the Big Daddy turned from his prey to his fallen friend.

“Shit! Henry!” Delta moved over to him but another splicer came barreling out from the atrium towards them. Delta growled as he activated his Ink Spots plasmid, sending a dozen Bendy clones to attack their would-be ambusher.

“Henry! Henry! Can you hear me? Stay with me!” Ross’s voice sounded distant to Henry like his ears were filled with cotton.

“Shit, Delta! We gotta get Henry out of here! He’s losing too much blood!”

“Where’s Sigma though! I lost sight of him during the fight!”

“Fuck! We don’t have much time. If we don’t get out of here now Henry’s not gonna make it!”

“Then get a move on! I’ll cover you!”

Henry’s vision darkened as he heard his friends shouting overhead. Their voices slowly started fading away though, as Henry lost the battle to remain conscious.

---

The first thing Henry registered when he started to come to was pain. He groaned as he clutched at his stomach, scrunching his forehead in discomfort.

“Henry? Henry, can you hear me?” Ross’s concerned voice filled his ears as Henry slowly opened his eyes. “Oh thank God.” Ross smiled as he sagged with relief.

“Ugh,” Henry groaned as he tried to sit up, but Ross gently pushed him back down.

“Easy there, that splicer almost sliced your belly open. Might wanna take it easy.” Ross told him, motioning to the bandages around Henry’s waist.

“Is the sleeping beauty finally awake?” Delta asked as he walked into the room with Bendy still perched on his shoulder.

“Yay! He’s not a sleeping angel!” Bendy declared as he climbed off the Big Daddy and ran towards the couch that Henry was lying on.

“Heh, welcome back to the land of the livin’,” Delta let out a relieved chuckle as he looked down at Henry. “You gave us quite a scare there, almost thought you were a goner.”

“What… what happened?” Henry clutched his head, trying to piece together how he had ended up like this.

“We were ambushed by splicers. Don’t you remember?” Delta raised an eyebrow at him.

“He just woke up Delta, give him a minute,” Ross sighed.

Henry squeezed his eyes shut as memories flooded over him. “Shit…” He had been completely useless back there, having an episode in the middle of a gigantic fight. He was nothing but dead weight for his friends. Speaking of friends… “Where’s Sigma?” Henry asked, opening his eyes and looking over at the three of them.

Ross looked pained as Delta nervously scratched the back of his head. “We lost sight of him during the fight,” Ross told him honestly. “We… you were bleeding out Henry. We had to get you out of there as soon as possible.”

“What?!” Henry shot up and instantly regretted, He hissed and clutched his stomach, feeling like he had almost torn it open again.

“Hey! Easy there, Henry! You’ll tear open your stitches!” Ross warned him, gently trying to push Henry back down but the smaller man was having none of it.

“So you just left him behind!” Henry yelled, looking back and forth between Ross and Delta.

“We did everything we could!” Delta shot back. “You were dying Henry! I covered Ross long enough to get you out of there and went back to look for Sigma but… I couldn’t find him anywhere…” Delta’s voice trailed off, his gaze drifting down to the floor. Henry stared at them in shock for a moment as he let it all sink in. His friends had been trying to save his sorry ass… and poor Sigma had paid the price for it. Henry let himself fall back onto the couch, his hand clutched over his mouth as he tried to keep himself from screaming in frustration.

“He might not be gone.” Ross tried to comfort him. “We didn't find a body, he might have gotten out of there too. Once you’re all fixed up, we’ll go searching for him. We’ll find him, Henry, no matter what it takes.”

Henry wanted to be reassured by Ross’s words, but he felt worse than ever. How many times had his friends had to pick up his slack? How many times had his friends been put in danger because of him? The breakdowns, those… words that compelled him to obey and attack his friends… everything. He was nothing but a failure, dragging his friends down every step of the way. Maybe if he wasn’t around, they would have escaped Rapture by now, not stuck having to bail out a deadweight like him. This was his fault. They were better off without him. They didn't need someone like him. Moisture started building up in Henry’s eyes as he covered them with his arm, ashamed of how pathetic he must look right now.

“Don’t cry, Angel Dad,” Bendy said softly as he noticed the tears sliding down Henry’s face. “Everything’s gonna be okay, Daddy said it would be.”

“No, it’s not,” Henry could feel his breath hitching as despair started to set in “You… you should have just left me there,” Henry sobbed, clenching his other hand into a fist. “I’m just dragging you guys down. I’m… I’m so useless. You’d be better off without me. If weren’t for me, Sigma would still be-”

“Hey! You shut your mouth!” Delta yelled, his one eye turning yellow as he glared down at Henry. “Who the hell do you take us for? As if we would ever just leave you for dead!”

“Delta,” Ross shot the Big Daddy a warning look. Delta quieted down, but he was still clearly seething. Ross turned back to Henry and gently pulled his arm away from his face, revealing watery blue eyes. “Henry, listen to me,” Ross’s voice was steady as he grasped onto Henry’s hand. “We are not going to abandon you. Not now, not ever.” Henry took in a shaky breath as he let Ross’s words wash over him. “You are not useless. We just took on almost an entire splicer army. We’re lucky we even made it out of there alive.”

“But I… I…” Henry sputtered as his words failed him.

“Henry, you were the one leading us through that darkness earlier,” Ross reminded him. “And you were the first one to realize we were walking right into an ambush. We never would have made it this far without you, so don’t sell yourself short, alright?”

“And don’t sell us short either,” Delta added. “We’re not gonna leave you behind if you’re hurting, or if you need us. You help us but we’re gonna help you too. It’s a two-way street.”

“Yeah! What Dad said!” Bendy agreed happily. “Angel Dad isn’t useless, you fixed my bowtie for me!”

“We’re sticking together Henry, no matter what happens,” Ross informed him. “We’re gonna find Sigma, we’re gonna rescue my wife, and then we are getting the hell outta this place, and never looking back.”

Henry stared at his friends in shock, his emotions completely overwhelming him. Even though he knew it would be agonizing, Henry sat up and pulled Ross into a hug, sobbing loudly into his shoulder. The other man wrapped his arms around him as Delta kneeled down and started rubbing comforting circles into his back. Bendy climbed up onto the couch and snuggled up to Henry’s side, being careful of his injured stomach as he hugged the man. Henry could hardly believe it. Despite his breakdown back there, despite having been controlled to attack his friends before, despite everything, they were sticking by him. The stress, the fear and the overwhelming relief of knowing he was not alone filled Henry to the brim as he continued to cry into Ross’s shoulder, no doubt getting tears and snot all over the other man. Ross didn't seem to mind though and the four of them stayed like that for some time.

---

Elsewhere in the studio, Sigma leaned against a wall, trying to catch his breath. He’d only just made it out of there alive, but he had completely lost his newfound allies. He looked up and realized that he had no idea where he had ended up. He had gotten completely turned around running away from those splicers.

Suddenly, a bright light turned on in front of him and Sigma raised up a hand so he wouldn’t be blinded by it.

“Hello? Someone there?” He called out cautiously. “I know you're in here. Come out and show yourself." Sigma tried to sound intimidating but he could tell his voice was shaking.

“I heard you're looking for a Little Angel?” A voice asked him. Sigma lowered his hand, his eyes widening in shock as they went on. “If you’re interested, I have a proposition for you that may help you get your lost angel back?”

[theangrypokemaniac]

@nyarthsis

If Team Rocket 'always had a heart for unpopular Pokémon', that's an admission their Alola catches aren't particular loveable creatures, so I'm not thinking anything too controversial.

You're saying they take pity on the animals no one wants, as in it's normal for me not to find them adorable.

Some Pokémon, such as Lucario, become fan favourites without the advertisement of a regular role the anime. With Wobbuffet, Bewear, Stufful, Mareanie and Mimikyu, do people like them for themselves, or because of their association with Team Rocket?

I think its the latter. I can't imagine there would be such interest in them were they to be owned by a Twerp or appear as a one-off. Really then, it's not what or who they are, it's to whom they belong that matters.

Alola has really devalued catching. Rather than be true to the source material, so battering a Pokémon into submission, as Ash did with Bulbasaur, Primeape, Muk, and many others, now you have to ask their permission!

Bewear didn't even get that. She hung around for no reason, and her 'friend' Stufful was belatedly tacked on. I see why those two were left behind, as Team Rocket had no right to take them elsewhere.

In terms of welfare, Mimikyu and Mareanie are better off staying with them, free and safe, rather than locked in the insalubrious depths of H.Q., but then it never bothered the writers sending previous Pokémon into an uncertain future, so what difference does it make now?

It can only be that, like their predecessors, there is no intention to ever bring them back, but unlike the rest, the fans can't even be allowed the vain hope of a return, not with this rather awkward disposal.

It's feasible that Jessie and James could call their base and request old monsters to join them, but it's difficult to imagine they'd fly across the world to Alola, wander through the woods, pick 'em up and go all the way back again. Why make parting so final and irreversible?

It does imply that Game Freak don't like them, so why should I?

I keep noticing this fickle attitude. A new era starts, we're expected to fall instantaneously in love with every element, beg for more and yet more. Then, once the next region arrives, this adoration asked of us is meant to evaporate and immediately transfer to the next batch.

Well why start to like them, if eventually the makers don't care, to the extent you wouldn't even know previous Pokémon had ever been alive?

Have you heard one mention of Seviper, Yanmega, Dustox, Cacnea, Carnivine, and Mime Junior since they left?

Why were they happy to chuck Wobbuffet after Sinnoh, yet fetched for Kalos?

How could Team Rocket live without it for an entire generation but suddenly it's indispensable again? What do you imagine the rest of their Pokémon felt about that?

Have Jessie and James wondered allowed how Arbok, Weezing, Lickitung and Victreebel are doing?

What of the last two generations?

What is this nonsense where every character is so detached from the past?

Supposing I was to force myself to appreciate them: since they've gone, never to return, I'd be dissatisfied with the show, thus no better off than I am now.

My feelings don't run on a switch. I can't find myself besotted one minute then dump the object of affection without a second thought, just because Nintendo want it from me.

Even if I had a more positive opinion of the current interpretation, there's no benefit to becoming involved when it's all so fleeting.

Mareanie is ugly, with three teeth. I think he's a sea anenome, so ought to be more attractive, but it's covered in nipples instead!

It looks like a bonsai tree growing breasts, reminiscent of the hideous content lurking within an Hieronymous Bosch painting.

The idea that all Mimikyu copy Pikachu, the most famous Pokémon, when in their world it's nothing special, is too stupid for me to accept. How could that be coincidence?

It's referencing reality, acknowledging the real world's view of Pikachu as the star, so if it's breaking the fourth wall, it invites disbelief.

Wobbuffet does sod all. It's a complete dead weight and has no attacks. Yet it's the one to survive generation after generation. Where's the logic in that?

I suspect his popularity rests on being there so long he's considered part of the furniture, the sole catch in which you can invest an emotional connection whilst fairly certain he'll remain around.

By now it ought to have developed some semblance of a personality, but it's as faceless as ever. Other Pokémon that have been and gone had a bit more about them, but Wobba's so bland no one can summon the energy to write him out.

If he went, what would you miss? Breaking out of his ball and hissing 'WAAAAAHBUHFEH'? Is that so integral?

I have several objections:

What is it meant to be?

Why does its tail have eyes?

Why is that never mentioned?

Is it a sort of quadruped, or has it only one foot with four toes, arranged like the bottom of a medical walking stick?

A lot of my reactions to Pokémon are influenced by encountering them in the games. With Wobbuffet, I remember first coming across it in the cave near Blackthorn City, and just as you're winning the fight, it pulls out Destiny Bond and suddenly you're both down.

When you finally get one, it's tricky to train. You have no choice but to guess whether the opposition will launch a physical or special move, and mostly you get it wrong. He never learns anything else and doesn't evolve, so it's that forever.

Persevering with Magikarp is worthwhile, but what's to be gained from taking any time out to fight with Wobbuffet?

The anime eliminates this problem. You're aware of the nature of the approaching onslaught because you can see it coming, and the opponent said it aloud.

In this context Wobbuffet should be the most powerful Pokémon in the universe. Come on, it can deflect every attack!

Is it? No. It has a successful defence about once a generation, and still loses the battle. I can't say if it's worse to be utterly pointless, or to not fulfil one's potential.

I resent it muscling in on the motto, as if it's considers itself of equal rank to Meowth. No it's not!

When I was young, there was a tendency for magazines to refer to Team Rocket as a duo. Meowth was judged to be in the same position as Pikachu: a main character yes, and valuable enough to be accorded the privilege of liberty, but still very much owned by people.

You would see references to Jessie and James as his Trainers, though how they assumed this worked went unexplained. Even if shared, one had to have to caught him, thus be his proper owner.

Later on this developed into them being three equal members, and the term 'TRio' emerged, but now, although perhaps not officially recognised, there's an attitude of treating them as a quartet.

It's just wrong! Wobbuffet's not been around since day one. He didn't join Team Rocket voluntarily because he had nowhere else to go. It was a choice made for him by his original Trainer, so out of his hands, or rather his flippers.

If he was an independent Pokémon who just tagged along one day, that would be different, but it belongs to Jessie. Promoting one of hers means James is lesser, and no longer equal.

In each generation Team Rocket catch at least one local Pokémon, but as Wobbuffet's there, it ends up with Jessie having more on her side than James, and I dislike the imbalance. Plus the one he does get is violent.

It can't be solved by giving him another new one, as then he's captured two in the region, and she has only one, so again it's skewed.

Whilst Wobbuffet does count in numbers, he's not on the level of the rest, who fight regularly. He's both there and not simultaneously.

I'm still irked the way Lickitung was ejected to make room.

It was the best Pokémon they ever had! It took out Pikachu, Vulpix and Bulbasaur with one move! It would've won those Princess Dolls for Jessie if the writers hadn't changed the rules so that Lick only affects those of sound mind!

It was as if they realised their mistake too late, and so Lickitung was featured less and less to avoid it dominating a fight, then hurriedly traded away for something reliably feeble.

The following analogy you may not understand, but I think it fits rather aptly:

There's a game called Final Fantasy VIII. One of the side quests involves you racing through a castle under a time limit. If successful, you are rewarded with Odin as a Guardian Force, which is a deity that will provide a defence.

Unlike others, he is out of your control, but every so often, as you enter battle, he turns up and annihilates your opponents. It's very welcome.

Unfortunately this game was programmed by bunyips, who clearly didn't want the last section of the game to be accidently easier for you. Oh no. If you're progressing, it ain't gonna be through luck, or turning the console on and off until he arises.

Therefore, towards the close, you come up against ex-friend Seifer. Odin is fixed to rush to your aid, but when he does, bloody Seifer slices him in half, horse and all!

He killed Odin, the ancient King of the North! The Lord of Valhallah! The Father of the Vikings!

It's not normal fighting death, it's irreversible. He's gone for good.

After this Gilgamesh introduces himself as a replacement. He too will randomly appear and set about the enemy.

The problem is that whilst Odin destroyed monsters unfailingly, with Gilgamesh it's a rarity.

He uses four swords, and which you get is also a lottery.

One is the same as Odin's, two deal average damage, but not death, and the worst one depletes 1 HP, so it might as well not have bothered.

Not only does it arrive but a fraction of the time, but it's in a fraction of those times that it's of any assistance, which is something of a comedown.

Lickitung is Odin: didn't see it often, but it tore the place apart!

Wobbuffet is Gilgamesh: once in a blue moon it provides rescue, but it's on a lot lower percentage than it's predecessor.

It's difficult not to be disappointed.

[skelenyxx]

Chapter 1 - Old Friends, New Drama ~ It’s Death or Victory

"Where, where will we stand when all the lights go out across these city streets? Where were you when all of the embers fell? I still remember them. Covered in ash. Covered in glass. Covered in all my friends. I still think of the bombs they built." ~ The Only Hope For Me Is You

**********

The sound of my alarm filled my ears as I awoke. I opened my eyes instantly and reached under my pillow, snatching my phone and switching the alarm off.

I smiled as I noticed the date. December 21, 2012. Today was the day. Today was the day that I would finally get to see them, after three years.

I crawled out of bed and started going through my closet, trying to decide what to wear. I eventually decided on a plain purple tee and black jeans. After I had showered and dressed, I applied a small amount of makeup and grabbed my bag. I smiled as I looked in the mirror. I smoothed my long, straight blonde hair and pushed my bangs to the side. My thin line of eyeliner accented my blue eyes perfectly and my outfit was plain and simple. Perfect.

I left my apartment with a smile on my face.

As I walked down the LA streets toward the coffee shop, the morning sun peaking between the tall buildings of the city, I began to think about how all this had come to be and how I had ended up with such amazing friends.

It had started in High School in Jersey. I was a Freshman, taking an Honors math class (like the geek I am). One day I got partnered with a quiet senior guy with dark hair and swirling hazel eyes. He told me his name was Gerard.

Somehow, even though we were practically polar opposites, we became close friends. I was some innocent goody two shoes Freshman girl and he was a dorky Senior boy with few friends and eyes that showed that there was more darkness inside than he let out. He was my first and probably one of my only friends in high school.

Obviously, he graduated that year. But he didn't go off to college. He decided to stay home and help his mom and brother out. It turned out that his brother, Mikey, went to school with me as well and was only two years older than me. He and I also became good friends and on weekends, Gerard, Mikey and I would all hang out, playing video games, talking about comic books, or just generally causing mischief around the old town. We had some good times, and I feel like us being friends was the only thing that kept us each from falling apart from the inside out.

I was in my senior year when Gerard told me he was starting a band. I was so excited for him. He always loved to talk about art and music. I always told him he needed to do something creative for a career because, honestly, I couldn't picture him doing anything else with his life.

One day, after he had gotten the lineup of the band, he invited me to come out to see one of their practices and meet the rest of the members. I had spent the whole day in school anticipating heading to his house afterward so I could meet the guys that he oh so often talked about. I remember clearly how anxious I was as I pulled into the driveway, unsure of what to expect. If Gerard thought highly of them, then they couldn't be that bad. But I was terrible at making friends and I had an unfortunate habit of annoying people I met.

Ms. Way led me to the garage where loud music could be heard. It was interesting, different to say the least. I couldn't even really describe the sort of genre of rock it quite sounded like. But I liked it.

I caught the tail end of a song that the band was finishing practicing. Just by watching them, I could tell that they were in their elements. Gerard was singing (and being a sassy mofo during the process), Mikey was on bass, there was a guy with quite the fro rocking out on lead guitar, and a shorter guy with dark hair and a pretty strong eyeliner game jumping around like he'd had fifty monsters while playing rhythm guitar. Both guitarists did backing vocals as well and I even saw the shorter guy doing some screaming.

(A/N: I'm not mentioning the drummer because the only drummer I have any knowledge on is Bob Bryar and he won't be included in this story)

Gerard introduced me to the others, Ray being the guy with the large hair and Frank being the shorter guy with the eyeliner. After band practice, we all went out to get something to eat and I really enjoyed hanging out with them. They all had pretty unique personalities and Ray and Frank were really cool guys.

Eventually, I became just as close with Frank and Ray as I was with Gerard and Mikey. I went to every one of their local shows in the early days and was overjoyed when they got picked up by a label. We kept in touch while they were touring and I watched as the fanbase grew from a tiny following to sold out stadium shows.

The band was called My Chemical Romance.

But as the band grew bigger and tour grew more hectic, I saw them less and less. One time I went for a whole year without so much as a text message from them. Not that it was a big deal to me, I mean, they were crazy busy and I knew that. And what with my moving to LA to take classes at UCLA, there had just been very little chance to catch up with them.

Fast forward several years and I was receiving a call from none other than Gerard Way himself, telling me that it had been way too long and that everyone wanted to meet up with me when they came through LA. I agreed immediately considering the fact that I'd been missing them like crazy.

And there I was, walking down the early morning LA street, pulling my brown leather jacket closer around me to keep the chill of the early morning air from seeping into my bones. The streets were already bustling with people, calling cabs and pushing past people without so much as an "excuse me."

I was relieved when I entered the quiet and warm coffee shop. It was a family owned shop, and better than any chain coffee place you'd find in LA. I came here regularly and the smell of coffee and the hint of chocolate was somewhat comforting. I ordered my usual, a caramel macchiato (fancy, I know), and took my usual place at the booth in the corner and waited.

Every time I heard the ring of the bell on the door, my head snapped to the front in hope that it was them. But even after forty-five minutes of waiting, they were yet to arrive. They were late.

I was beginning to wonder if they had forgotten when the bell rang yet again. I looked to the front of the shop to see a man with shocking red hair walk through the door, followed closely by a man with a brown afro, a man with brown hair and glasses, and a short man with nearly black hair and a wide grin on his face.

Gerard.

Ray.

Mikey.

Frank.

My guys.

My best friends.

Gerard's hazel eyes scanned the room and he smiled as they landed on me, sat in the corner of the room. I smiled and waved at them.

Their faces almost seemed to light up as they saw me and walked in my direction. My smile grew bigger as I stood from the booth, fixing my shirt in the process, so that I could give them a hug. God, I'd missed them.

As they got closer in the few brief seconds, Frank ran past the others and half shouted, "Skylar!"

I laughed as the man grabbed me and spun me in a circle. I didn't care that people were looking at us weirdly, they could get over it. Frank put me back on the ground and wrapped his arms around my torso and squeezed me tight. I buried my face into his shoulder and smiled. I loved his hugs.

He stepped away from me and I noticed the others had reached us, each with their own signature grin plastered on their faces. Frank ruffled my hair a bit and I pouted at him. He just smirked, his greenish hazel eyes sparkling as he brushed his dark hair from his face. It had grown significantly longer since the last time I'd seen him.

Mikey came next, smiling as he bent over a bit, since he was considerably taller than myself, to give me a hug.

"Man, did we miss you," He chuckled.

I laughed again. "I missed you guys, too."

He pulled away and Ray said, "Alright my turn!"

He, like Frank and Mikey, wrapped me in a tight hug.

"Careful, his hair might eat you, Sky," Someone said behind me.

"Shut up, Iero," Ray laughed, his chest vibrating with the action. I pulled away and patted Ray's hair.

"Nah. It's friendly," I laughed.

"Alright, come on. Don't I get a hug?" Gerard asked, feigning hurt.

"Of course you do, Gerard."

He pulled me in for a hug. "God, I fucking missed you," He said quietly.

I smiled. "I missed you too, Gee."

We pulled away and filed into the booth. Ray and Mikey sat on one side of the table. Gerard sat down on the other side, followed by myself. Before I even had the chance to move over more so Frank could sit, Frank was sitting on my lap.

"Um, excuse me sir, but what are you doing?" I asked him.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" He replied, turning a bit to look at me and send me a smirk.

"Shouldn't I be the one sitting on your lap, considering I'm the girl?"

He shrugged, continuing to smirk.

"Unless there's something you're not telling us, Frank..." I trailed off. This time it was my turn to smirk.

"Wh-" Before he could even finish his reply, I shoved him off of my lap. He only barely managed to keep his balance and avoid falling face first onto the tile of the coffee shop. The guys laughed and Gerard gave me a high five as I scooted over so Frank could sit next to me.

Frank sat down next to me, squishing me between Gerard and himself on the small bench.

"So how have you been, short stuff?" Frank asked me.

"Look who's talking, shorty," I replied.

"Hey, at least I'm taller than you."

"Barely."

"It's enough for me."

I laughed, rolling my eyes at the clown of a man.

"No, but really, how have you been, Sky? It's been forever since we've seen you," Ray said from across the table.

I smiled and laced my fingers on the table. "I've been good. My life has been absolutely insane but it's been pretty good."

"How's college been going for you?" Mikey asked.

"It's probably the most stressful thing I've ever done in my life, but I'm surviving. I actually graduate in a few months." I smiled again.

"What are you majoring in?" Gerard asked.

"Science. Biological sciences to be exact. I'm hoping to go into Criminalistics."

"Ooooo gonna be a scientist for the police department, huh?" Frank asked.

I nodded. "I'm also taking a course to be a certified EMT."

"Emergency Medical Technician, right?" Ray asked.

I nodded again.

"What for?"

"Well, you guys know my dad was an EMT. He taught me that it was always good to have emergency medical skills. You never know when you could need them. And, plus, it can save you a whole hell of a lot of money on medical bills when you can fix the problem yourself."

"And that's the Skylar we know, always thinking ahead," Gerard said with a smile, brushing his red hair out of his eyes.

I chuckled. "Yep, that's me. So what about you guys? How's everything with the band been going? I hear you guys are going in to record your fifth album."

"Yep. It's been great. The fans are amazing and it's great to just be doing what we love for a living. I couldn't think of anything else I'd rather be doing with my life," Gerard said.

"Man, it feels like it was just yesterday that you guys were still a garage band. You guys are huge now. It's mind blowing."

"Yeah. I can't say that we really believe it half the time," Mikey chuckled.

"So how are the fans?" I asked.

"They are the best fans you could ever ask for. They are so supportive of everything and they are so spirited it's just crazy," Ray laughs.

"I hear they have a thing for shipping you guys together," I laugh. "The one I hear of the most is between you two." I look at Gerard and Frank.

Gerard laughs a bit. "Frank and I can't even have a conversation on Twitter without them commenting 'Frerard.'"

"No kidding," Frank said.

"I don't even get why it's called 'Frerard,'" Gerard commented.

I turned to look at him. "What do you mean?"

"I mean why does Frank's name come first? Why can't it be something like, I don't know, Grank or something?"

I laughed.

"Because I'm awesome and Grank sounds stupid," Frank said.

"It sounds better than Frerard."

"It so doesn't."

"It totally does!"

Frank was silent for a second before replying in a mocking tone. "Or maybe it's because I would totally top in that relationship."

I was trying my hardest not to fall off the bench from laughing so hard.

"No way in fucking hell. I would totally top," Gerard replied, his voice serious.

"Nu-uh! It would be me."

"Not a chance, shorty."

"Skylar?" Both said in unison, asking my opinion on the apparently serious controversy.

I looked back and forth between the two of them before replying. "I ship it," I said with a smirk.

We all bust up laughing and began talking about other things, the conversation being put aside and forgotten.

************

It was later in the evening and we were walking down the slowly emptying LA streets, headed to their tour bus so I could see them off. We had spent the day wandering around the city, going into stores with no intention of buying anything, visiting a street fair, and even seeing a movie. It had been a really good day, but it had gone too fast and now they were leaving again. God knows when I would be seeing them again.

The guys had slowed their pace and were whispering to each other behind me. I stopped walking and turned around to face the whispering bunch.

"What are you four being so secretive about?" I asked, quirking my eyebrow.

Gerard sighed. "Well, it's been three years since we've seen you. That means we've missed three birthdays and three Christmases. We've missed quite a lot lately and haven't been keeping up with you nearly as much as we should. So, to help make up for that, we got you something."

"What have I told you guys about getting me gifts?" I asked. I'd told them time and time again not to get me gifts. Half the time, I couldn't afford to get them anything and even when I could, it never compared to what they got me. And honestly, I didn't want anything. As cheesy as it sounds, their friendship was all I needed.

Frank waved his hand dismissively. "Oh shut up and just accept the gift, Sky," He said with a smirk.

Gee pulled a small, rectangular, black box from his jacket pocket and handed it to me. I flipped open the lid and gasped at what I saw.

It was a necklace. It had a sturdy looking golden chain and hanging from it was a simple, golden circular disc, appearing to be approximately one inch in diameter. It was simple and elegant and I loved it.

"Flip the disk over," Mikey instructed. I did as he said and had to practically fight back tears. On the back of the circular charm, my name was engraved in the center. And following the edges of the circle, each of their names were engraved, creating a circle of their names around mine. It was beautiful.

"This way you can always have something to remind you of us and know that we are always here for you," Ray said as I looked up at them.

"Oh, guys," I said, looking at each of them. "It's beautiful. Thank you so much." I pulled them in for a group hug and still had to fight back tears. It was just a necklace, but it meant the world to me.

Gerard grabbed the box from my hands as we broke the hug and fastened the necklace around my neck. I smiled as I felt the cold metal of the disc touch my skin. "I'll never take it off," I said.

"So when's the last time you saw one of our shows?" Gerard asked as he came back around to the front of me with the others.

I thought for a second, trying to remember. "At least four years," I said. "Not since the beginning of the Black Parade tour." The guys each began to smirk at me. "What?" I asked.

"You're coming with us, then," Ray said.

"What?"

"You're going to come up to the Northern California shows over the next several days with us and we'll pay for you to fly back before we leave the state," Mikey replied.

"We even have an extra bunk in the bus for you. We can stop by your apartment on the way out so you can get your clothes and stuff," Frank said with a smile.

My head was exploding with excitement. I loved seeing their shows and it'd been so long since I'd seen one. I get to spend the next several days with them, traveling around California and seeing them play for the fans. It'd be amazing. But I decided to mess with them a little bit first. "And what makes you think I would want to spend the next several days trapped on a bus with you guys?" I asked seriously, crossing my arms over my chest for an added effect.

For once, the guys actually looked confused and at a loss for words. My face broke into a grin. "I'm just kidding. I'd love to." The guys cheered.

************

It was the middle of the night when I woke up in my bunk on the bus. I was in my loose white tank top and black flannel pajama pants. After all, that's what I had put on for bed. I sighed as I checked the time, realizing it was close to eleven o'clock at night, the same night that we had left LA. I pulled back the dark curtains blocking the entrance to my bunk and slid out into the hallway. I chucked as I crept past the other bunks, the sound of the guys' snores resonating throughout the hall.

I pulled out a plastic cup from the cupboard in the main room and filled it with water, gripping the counter a bit to keep myself from falling over due to the bumps in the road. I glanced around the main room and spotted my backpack lying in the corner of the room. The very bag that held my clothes, a few bottles of water and several of my favorite granola bars (because I loved those things and refused to leave my apartment without them), and my extensive first aid kit that I always brought with me, thanks to the fact that I was a training EMT. When I showed the guys everything I had in it, they claimed that I could perform surgery with all of the supplies I had in it. That was pretty much true.

I looked out the window of the bus, watching as a sign reading "Route Guano" passed by. It appeared that we were in the middle of the California desert at that point. No sign of civilization in sight.

I shivered as I thought back to the chilling nightmare that had woken me from my sleep.

I was standing in the middle of the desert, the beating sun baking my skin as I stared and the motionless bodies of my best friends, each of them lying in a pool of their own blood. They were wearing strange clothes and there were strange guns scattered around the scene. Before I had the chance to move, the scene changed.

I was standing in a building, heat blistering my skin and the smell of smoke depriving my lungs of oxygen. A flash of red hair passed my vision. I called out to it, in hopes that they could tell me what was happening. But before they could do anything, a flaming mass of ceiling collapsed on me.

The scene changed again before I could feel the pain. I was crouched behind an overturned table beside Frank. Strange flashes of light passed over our heads and beside the table. Frank stood up quickly, firing a strange green gun in the opposite direction of us. Without warning, he collapsed to the ground beside me, blood pooling from a wound in his chest. I panicked as I scrambled beside him and tried to stem the bleeding. I called his name in desperation, trying to keep him alive as long as possible. Panic rose in my chest, choking my brain and causing me to not be able to think clearly. I didn't know what to do. His frantic hazel eyes met mine as he gasped for breath. He tried to say something to me, but his breathing hitched, cutting his words off. Then, he was still, his chest stopped rising, and his vacant eyes stared into mine.

I screamed in anger and rose from the ground, wielding a strange purple gun and firing at men in white suits. I didn't know what I was doing or why, but my body behaved as though it were second nature as I shot down person after person. Then, I noticed the other bodies on the ground, deathly still and pools of blood around them.

Ray, Mikey, and Gerard.

I was alone.

Then I woke up.

I had never had such a strange and chilling nightmare before. It's not like it meant anything, but it was just weird.

I had just started to head back to my bunk when the sound of an earth-shattering explosion pierced through the silent night. Before I knew what was happening, the world began to spin and I was flying through the air, my brain barely processing the sound of tearing metal and shattering glass.

My head hit something hard and the world turned black.

[talesofealdancynedom]

Tale 21: What The Wagon Was For (3/8)

Tale 21: What The Wagon Was For (chapter 3 - Family Recipe 3/8 ) part 6. Stories of wizards

none

Fairies are by far Morgan’s favourite. Particularly Naiads. Of course, he loved all magic; But something about fairies appealed to him. The glittering ice, pastel aesthetic, and the radiant portrayals of them in art. They could transmute, learn, and had the most human form of all fey. They had a special smile when they felt joy; Closing their eyes to put on a rosy checked doll like expression. Fairies also wielded the most powerful elemental and healing magics. They are easily befriended, and very helpful to humans that they are fond of. The Fairy King made her children for one simple reason; Befriending humans. Even their appearance and nature, was enticing and cheerful. They contained ignorant bliss, and ambiguous morality; Like they were trying, but still didn’t understand humanity; Yet, very badly wanted to. Lastly, they were the fey that got infatuated the most often, and their love requited because of their human forms. The most convincedly human, are the nymphs; The embodiments of nature.  

           Morgan’s first encounter with fey was with the Theamen River nymphs, at the city zoo. He was too young for school then. It startied his magic journey. Fey didn’t judge him, or hurt him. They talked with him politely, and shared kind greetings and smiles. Particularly once he learned Elden Anglian. Morgan’s first fey friend was a wolf prince, Eobreth, and his second mentor was a fountain nymph. Morgan nearly feinted at the sight of such a rarity, living indistinguishable from an ordinary man. Where ever Morgan wandered, there was fey; And every fey, was a friend.

           After his first visit to the Shadow Veil, Morgan lusted for more. Coming home, he realized how scary and overwhelming his life was. He had forgotten what it was like to have fun, enjoy learning, and feel safe. Luckily, his parents didn’t find out about his most recent spell experiments. To be extra sure, he ate dinner so they wouldn’t worry. At dinner, Morgan’s mother and father said they were going on an anniversary vacation to the countryside. Morgan dropped his fork; He was going to stay with his grandmother. For a whole week.

           Though grandfather’s magic garden reminded his parents of their father’s passing; It reminded grandmother of her true love. Grampa Patrick loved magic, and was sweet, silly and kind to everything. That sort of charisma is rare. His death in the line of duty was a tragedy, and a great loss to Morgan’s family. It gave them a mistrust of magic. Thus, Morgan’s mother, Icthya, kept her one and only miracle child away form magic. But there was also grandpa’s garden. For the Calci Tree, Whist, was a kind fey; Who made Morgan’s wishes came true. She taught Morgan how to speak with fey. Grandmother’s house was a haven, where Morgan could gently observe and study magic, without anyone stopping him. Often, Morgan wondered if his grandmother knew he was a mage, and learning magic, the whole time. Perhaps, she never stopped him because it reminded her of her late husband.

           A magic garden full of fey friends wasn’t all that waited for Morgan, in that cozy pastel cottage core Pepperidge home. There was also was baking with his grandmother. Homemade biscuits for the spaniels, and his favourite cookie; soft raspberry thumbprint cookies. His grandmother made Morgan an avid gardener, and baker. Each time he visited, he had injuries. Morgan’s relationship with magic, was second to her suspicions of a troubled home life. She just needed one ounce of proof, to be sure her grandson wasn’t safe.

           After a day of baking and gardening, Morgan went to bed early. He slept on the couch in the basement, out of preference. Sometimes he would roll out of the blankets, and his grandmother would tuck him back in. But tonight, Morgan had a nightmare. Unable to go back to sleep, he focused on the only thing that distracted his racing mind: Magic. His visit to the Shadow Veil proved that the Beast Kings liked the same things as their fey children. The Stone King was like a person, and he likes potatoes and games. No different then a friendly troll or tiny goblin. Morgan went into his backpack and found the smooth stone with the rune on it. He put it away. Then he went to the kitchen, and started stuffing his backpack. He brought cookies, dog treats, tea, broken key chains, and then headed to the shed. He grabbed one of his father’s horse brushes, some chalk, candles, and the garden hose. Quietly, Morgan returned to the basement, and drew the candle gate again; he wanted to see the veil once more.

           First, Morgan ran to the fairy kingdom. But he soon found out the gate he made went to the Wolf Kingdom. A luck calico came, and starting rubbing his leg. The orange of her patches and red of her collar stood out against the grayscale ether. Morgan gave her a good petting. She was so cute. He then followed her into the woods. In a clearing, Morgan lost track of the cat fey he was following. He looked around. There was a giant rock in the center, and trails going in every direction. He saw the platform of the Wolf Gate; it was also closed, just like the Stone Gate.

“Gud Deigan Mage.” Morgan heard in a growling voice. Looking up to the rock, he saw a giant timber wolf, clad in armour. Morgan’s face lit up. If Eobreth wasn’t a chip off the old block! Morgan bowed before the Wolf King, and introduced himself.

“Wait dear,” a soft voice spoke. “He is hurt. Let me heal him before you play. There is no love like a mother’s love, and no magic as powerful as love. The kiss of a Beast Queen will heal all ailments.” She continued. Morgan turned to his left to see a woman of the Far North, turn into a sizable white wolf. She licked his face, and his scars and bruises vanished.

“Oh. Thanks Wolf Queen?” Morgan inquired.

“Queen Flowen.” She smiled. Morgan hugged her. She was comforting and soft.

“My true love said play! There are my children mage boy,” The Wolf King boomed, looking into the brush. There were two puppies; one silver, one roan, and a grown white Aliki wolf princess.

“Do you want to hunt with us? I smell my eldest son on you! Of course, you want to!” The Wolf King laughed heartily. He was wagging his tail. Morgan was sure wolves couldn’t do that; But they were magic wolves.

“I don’t know about hunting… I don’t like hurting things. But I did bring you something you might like.” Morgan said quietly. He reached into his bag, took out the dog treats he baked, and opened the bag. There was silence as four royal wolves perked up and pointed their ears in his direction. Flowen turned back into her human self, to laugh.

“Do you know fetch? I bet you can catch these in mid air!” Morgan exclaimed.

           Morgan looked at the smooth stone he got from the Wolf King. It had the rune Ing on it. For the wolf kingdom he suspected. When he looked up, Morgan noticed he was in a forest of frosted trees. It was like a prettier version of winter. An ice bridge went over a creek, that had nymphs sleeping in it. There were nymphs everywhere; And pixies in the trees. Morgan was in a state of euphoria. The Fairy Kingdom was beyond his wildest dreams. After blacking out from excitement, he woke up on a sparkling lavender bed, in a purple glittering tent. A large woman, of gentle build and icy eyes,with long sunny hair, and a crown of ice was looking at him. Morgan gave her a thumbprint cookie, from his bag.

“A human who is a mage, is giving me a cookie!” She yelled. The Fairy King was the most childlike, innocent, and loving Beast King. She grabbed the biscuit, and ate it. The thumbprint cookie, made with love between a grandmother and grandson, was the best the Fairy King had yet.

“Thankyou!” She smiled.

“No, thank you. For your children. They are good friends.” Morgan smiled, getting up slowly “Sorry for feinting. I do that sometimes.” He whispered. The Fairy King was eating another cookie, her hand gently on her face in endearment. She had that same fairy smile as her children.

“As a mage, would you like fairy robes?” She spoke. She had already started making them, and putting them on Morgan before he could say anything. His pajamas were now protective, enchanted, navy and gold, raven kingdom robes.

           Morgan found a stone in his pocket, like the others, with the rune feor on it. Wealth, for the fairy kingdom it is. Heading in no particular direction, Morgan found himself in a dewy vibrant jungle oasis, before gently flowing springs. He had no clue where he was.

“You should go. She doesn’t like company.” Said a South-Central man, smoking a pipe. He mildly resembled a Galada, but with indigo monkey kingdom fairy robes. Morgan’s books sure made him make sense of the place; That must be Monkey Queen. Looking up, Morgan saw a golden baboon sitting upon an iron rod. She was wearing violet monkey robes, hooked with black and gold lotuses. She looked mad.

“Go away,” She snapped. “Me, and my children, like solitude to reflect on our wisdom.” She said in an assertive voice. The Monkey King, though pleased to see a mage in her kingdom, was unhappy to be interacting with someone. Before she finished her reflection, Morgan was on his way out. Fey didn’t have to ask him to do anything. He, like fey, would do anything for a friend. Surprised and amused, the Monkey king threw an apple and a stone at him. The apple tasted like rose water; the stone had the rune for Mann.

<---PREVIOUS

NEXT--->

[cursewoodrecap]

Session 18: The Trollstones

It’s time for LORE.

Before we head out to our next adventure, we obviously have to go shopping. Clem buys a bunch of liquors and mixers, to test out the Boozenomicon we found at the artist house. Gral gets himself a “phat outfit makeover.” Shoshana and Clem buy something out of the back of a caravan called Old Badgerbeard’s Fine Valdian Liquor, guaranteed to add +2 to any Taint save by remindin’ ya of the simple joys in life.

Shoshana spends a little time playing translator and introducing people to the couple of orcish outriders who are gonna stick around. (“This is K’evin, he likes long walks on the beach and mah-jongg…”)

Anyway: we’ve just saved a town from people who hate parties, so naturally it is time to roll on the carousing table. Valeria finds a group of people to teach her favorite game, Man-go, and proceeds to lose 25 gold gambling against “complete newbies.” Clem wins a suspiciously similar amount at gambling, and can neither confirm nor deny that the noob hustling Valeria is just her in a fake mustache. Gral and the outriders teach a few orcish games, and Gral handily cleans everyone out by channeling the spirit of an experienced gambler. Bard Poker ain’t for amateurs, y’all.

Shoshana, still getting used to having more money than her entire village combined, buys a couple of drinks for some folks…then gives some cash to some needy travelers…and then the word gets out she’s giving out free money, and she has to use her Shadow Powers to gtfo before she’s swarmed. Whoops!

In the morning, Clem sends a letter back to her caravan, saying hi and updating them on the latest news. It’ll probably arrive alongside the original package, but that’s fine.

We head out and spend an uneventful journey retracing our steps to Mornheim. We notice Old Lady Jolene has moved out; the cottage stands empty and abandoned. Before long, the trees begin to take on that distinct skeletal cast and the skies begin to dim. We get that familiar sensation of the life draining away from the land. The birds stop chirping, except for the harsh caw of carrion birds. Flies cease to buzz. The air takes on the dusty, dry smell of grave dirt as we once again approach the necropolis Mornheim.

The hastily assembled walls of the town rise up before us. A few people are out working the orchards, with sentries posted to keep an eye out for the dead.

(There’s a wooden sign posted: “NO DEAD PEOPLE. This means you, Frank.” This sign won’t stop Frank because Frank can’t read! It’s posted on the end of a shovel, probably for hitting Frank when he comes back around again.)

Kyr Crabber is on duty when we show up, leading some repairs on the walls. “Oh hey, yer back!” He hauls the gates open for us. “Where’d you go? Heard you were going off to get some medicine. Want me to get the doc?”

Valeria shifts awkwardly. “Um…I’ll tell her myself?”

“So you’re not delivering meds, then.”

“Uh, it’s a magic thing. Don’t worry about it. How’s the town?”

He lets us deflect. “We got hit hard last night, and the Penitents didn’t show. Some sort of super-ghoul, I guess? It hit the walls pretty hard. Lady Aubrey took a hunting party out to the catacombs to try to track it down and kill it. They musta only left an hour or two ago.”

Shoshana shouts up that we’re gonna do a magic ritual to purify the water supply so it stops making the people sick. He’s like huh, it’s the water that’s doing that? That’s why I don’t drink it. 😉 Shoshana tells the old drunk an ancient Valdian proverb: HYDRATE OR DIEDRATE.

Anyway, It’s still early in the day and Valeria is buzzing with excitement, so we’re gonna get right to it. She’s gonna get to Be A Hero!

The ritual has a limited range, and the notes on the scroll say to plant the magic item at the river source, so we hike on up to the local landmark known as the Trollstones. Crabber says they looked pretty normal the last time he did a patrol; looks like a “big pile of rocks with water comin’ out.” Well, he’s not wrong.

In Valdia, “trollstones” is a catch-all term for any kind of standing stone, henge, or menhir, the assumption being that they were erected by trolls in ancient times. Many of them are assumed to be old druidic sites. This one, though crude, is huge and impressive. Hundreds of enormous stones are piled into a huge cairn. River water flows out of the gaps – some upper sections in impressive waterfalls, some flowing from underneath directly into the river basin. The water has a murky look to it, and the grass closest to the water is sickly and dying.

Valeria Investigates the area by strapping the Eyegis to the Aethis and sendin’ them swimming in. Our very good gator soon finds an entrance into the Trollstones! Turns out there’s a pretty substantial hollow under the big pile of rocks.

There’s air inside the cave, but we’ll have to swim a bit to get there. Shoshana strips off her big heavy skirt and Valeria hauls her onto the gator. We all dive underwater. CON saves all round! Valeria rolls a six and picks up 2 taint as the necrotic curse in the water seems to sap the life out of her. The cave is dark and dank, so we light up A-Luxor. We can now see a tall, craggy cavern, water dripping in rivulets over the jags of stone. Between the running water, uneven rocks, and slippery moss, it’s definitely difficult terrain. Clem nat 20s a Perception check and shudders as she feels the visceral power of the Pale King pulling at her soul.

The DM debuts a Special Location Rule. Due to the uneven footing, we may either treat the area as difficult terrain or try to move at full speed with a DC10 acrobatics check. If you fail, you slip on the rocks and fall prone partway through your movement.

We spot carvings in these stones, all over the place. Massive letters, deeply chiseled into the cave walls in a script we don’t recognize. However, there’s a smaller carving underneath in Old Valdian, seemingly a translation. Shoshana reads it out to the others: “This is the Tomb of Urdemak, First and Last King of the Trolls. Grandson of the Woods, so [unintelligible] with Life, that Death could not hold him. May we weep for his passing, and dread his return.”

Gral considers. “Perhaps this Urdemak is an agent of the Pale King?”

Shoshana rolls her eyes. “Uh, DUH. He sounds undead, don’t he?”

“No, I mean like the Lurker, or that creepy ringmaster. Something that’s higher in the Curse’s hierarchy than the dybbuk, something that’s controlling the Curse in this town.

Before we can plan a potential Boss Fight, Clem hears movement coming from outside the radius lit up by A-Luxor. It sounds like the rattling of bones. She draws her Warhammer and we all roll for initiative!

Shoshana backs up behind Aethis and readies a Chill Touch while Gral readies his crossbow and Clem draws her sword. Two massive skeletons lumber into view. Judging by their shape and their enormous claws, these are troll skeletons, clattering across the slick terrain with surprising ease.

One charges Clem, bowling into her like a truck even as Gral and Shoshana strike at it. She stands her ground, though, and meets it head on with her hammer for two crushing blows, bloodying it. (Well, if it had blood.)

Behind us, the water roils as two huge shapes rise out of the pool, forming into Water Weirds. Each has a skull floating in it. Valeria uses her shield as an umbrella against a deluge of water and breathes ice at them, but their churning water breaks up the ice crystals that form.

Clem whacks the crumbling troll skeleton again. Shoshana Burning Handses out of panic as the Weirds close in on her, which turns out to be a terrible idea against water monsters.

Gral manages to hook a troll skeleton right on a vertebra – hey, this looks important! – and yanks it right out of the spine, collapsing the skeleton. Meanwhile, the Water Weirds try to engulf Valeria and Shoshana, grappling them.

Valeria casts Command on the one holding her and tells it to Drop It. It obligingly drops her into the shallow waters. Aethis loyally slaps the Weird with its tail, cutting a slice through the water. It blorps itself back into shape, but clearly it’s been disrupted somewhat. Then, unfortunately, it just picks her right back up again. Aethis just keeps on slappin’.

Shoshana, like any cat that has been picked up against its will, claws and bites at the big water hand, dealing a decent amount of damage. In retaliation, the water rushes up over her face, and she takes 1 Taint as she chokes on stank cave water.

Meanwhile, Gral casts Phantasmal Force to momentarily convince a troll skeleton that magic shackles are wrapping around it. Clem sees a skeleton acting like it’s restrained and is like sure, I’d hit that. She crunches it to dust, Second Winding and charging toward where Valeria and Shoshana are getting absolutely soaked.

Gral, out of skeletons to fight, casts Dissonant Whispers on Valeria’s captor. It fails, but he damages it, and he uses his bonus to wooble Valeria out of the water. She takes 3 psychic damage as things get not Water Weird, but Key Weird, and she shlorps out of the water and hits the ground hard. Ow. Meanwhile, Shoshana finally manages to squirm free, dodging an AOO to go hide behind the tanks.

Gral loads up his heart-seeking crossbow bolt, hoping it’ll target a skull just as well, and nails the floating troll head for a chunk o’damage. Unfortunately, that means it’s noticed him, and he gets picked up by the big ol’ water hand. Aethis continues to twerk, thrashing the monster with its slappy tail.

Clem pulls her greatsword and strikes decisively with Great Weapon Master, severing one of the elementals from its water source, and it collapses into harmless water.

Shoshana, finally able to use ranged attacks, shoots the remaining one with a blast of cold, hoping to freeze it. And it does, icing over. Gral makes an athletics check to break out of the crumbling ice sculpture, and manages not to become art.

We stand in the dripping cavern once more. A-Luxor flits around happily, not sentient enough to notice there was a fight.

Valeria burns her new candle, and we take a short rest. The light of the holy wax candle is pleasant and it seems to keep the darkness and dread of this place away. Also, we don’t get a pile of taint, which is nice. Eventually the wick reaches its last, seeming to burn far faster than a candle should, but for a short time it was bright and cheerful in this dark, dank place. The joyful, flickering flame departs and we are once again left with the dark and the wet, the sound of rushing water and old ghosts.

We must pick a path. For lack of any differentiation, we go left. There’s a pile of skulls and bones piled up on the side of the tunnel. (Valeria grabs a troll vertebra as we pass by. It is quite old. It’s a T11 anteclinal vertebra, in dog anatomy terms. It’s the one that’s best for stabbing, apparently? We don’t have time to unpack this, Dr. Valeria’s Player.)

Shoshana rolls a nat 20. With her excellent darkvision, she sees another carving. Most of them have been in Troll – most of the party didn’t know trolls had written language, but here it is. The rest of this part of the cavern seems to be propped up by a few not-especially-sturdy wooden support pillars. We hear some scrambling coming from our left, and a pair of ghouls with axes rush out of the side tunnel.

Shoshana pokes her head out toward the noise and does a wink-and-finger-guns. One hit, one crit. Both ghouls instantly melt from acid. The DM complains because they were gonna chop down the support pillars and drop the ceiling on us in a fun puzzle fight, but NOPE LOL. You’re gonna need tougher enemies than that! (Shoshana’s player immediately knows she will regret saying that.)

With the ghouls out of the way, we take a closer look at the carving, its lower half reading in Old Valdian:

“His mother was a River-Queen and Daughter of the Wood, and her love suffused him with such life that no spear nor axe could fell him, unique among the Trolls. He feared not the touch of flame or acid, as no wound upon him could cause lasting harm. As he grew, he became the great champion and defender of the woods. For the first time, the [unintelligible] had a King.”

This seems to be a continuation of the first set of troll-runes. We want to show Dr. Kjeller, or perhaps Dr. Galvan.

Shoshana makes a Knowledge!Religion check. The Way of the Woods has a large but loose pantheon of wood spirits. The most powerful are affectionately referred to as Baba and Gramps, the grandmother and grandfather of the woods. They have many children, who are powerful wood spirits in their own right. If Urdemak’s mother was known as the River Queen and Daughter of the Wood, she would be one of the children of Baba and Gramps, which would have made Urdemak a wood troll demigod. That certainly explains the bit about not fearing flame or acid.

We listen ahead. From the rightward path we hear something scratching against stone. On the left we hear the sounds of rushing and dripping water, and wailing. This place seems, unsurprisingly, to be chock full of undead. Gral does a stealth ahead to the left path and doesn’t see much. The wailing is from a lot deeper in; whatever’s making it just has a darn good set of lungs.

Sneaking over to the right path, he sees something very interesting. There’s some sort of man-made structure! There’s carved stone pillars and smooth, rectangular construction. Huh, maybe the undead have construction tools? Also, he sees a large creature. It’s wearing a cloak.

Shame it’s spotted Gral.

He can barely see it, but he can feel the thing’s gaze upon him, sapping the life out of him. “That is NOT A FRIENDLY THING,” he hisses back to us.

The Bodak, as the DM calls it, slithers toward Gral and uses its Withering Gaze, trying to crumble him to dust. Despite a save, he still takes a hefty chunk of damage.

Shoshana aims a Fireball down the tunnel, roasting something that’s crawling out of a shadow and charring the Bodak. More skeletons and ghouls are pouring in, and the ones that avoided the blast squeeze their way out of the side tunnels and begin to funnel down toward us. Gral casts Bane upon the Bodak and two of his minions.

Clem charges ahead, keeping her footing on the slippery rocks, and cleaves a skeleton apart. Valeria throws a trident from a distance, forking another in the ribs. She holds her hand out, and glowing rose vines extend from Kyr Marius’ gauntlet to snap the trident back to her for another throw.

The Bodak steps forward, its eerie breath rattling out of its round mouth, and turns its terrible gaze on Valeria. Valeria’s holy aura defends her, and she only takes half damage.

If we want to make direct attacks against it, we must either avert our gaze (granting disadvantage) or make a Con save vs 3d10 damage. Shoshana sidesteps the decision with a Shatter spell, aided by Gral’s Bane, that destroys the second skeleton and bloodies both the ghoul and the Bodak, luckily just missing one of the support pillars. The ghoul charges Clem and misses, which is a mistake, since Valeria is right there to Sentinel it. She forks it with the trident like she’s picking up trash on the side of the road, and tosses it lifeless (un-lifeless?) into a corner. The Bodak hisses in displeasure. “Uuuuuseless…”

Gral uses Phantasmal Force to convince the thing that he is charging into melee with it, even though he’s staying well clear.

(“The Phantom of the Orc-era is theeeeere, insiiiiiide your mind…” one of the players quips.)

Clem heads on in with a Great Weapon Master attack, able to avoid its gaze as it turns to attack the illusory Gral. With a mighty swing, she takes a huge chunk out of the strange creature, tearing through its rotting robe.  

Valeria risks the CON save against its horrible stare, and passes. She throws her trident twice – a nat 20 and a nat 1, natch. The trident clatters against stone as the thing dodges out of the way, and then she yanks the trident back with her glowing vines, burying it in its back and shredding its rotted flesh. She is mildly a Fire Emblem character now, so she gets to do epic crit poses. Victory!

We cautiously emerge into the chamber that’s now been vacated. Valeria can recognize the style of construction! With A-Luxor’s light, we can now see that the Bodak was scratching at a carved stone door. Wait, this is Aquilian architecture! Valeria would know that style anywhere. There’s brick, and a bit of a frieze of eagle, and the columns are carved with legionnaire motifs. It’s simple, as Aquilian style goes. A heavy stone door is set into the center of the wall. We investigate it and, of course, check it for traps.

Valeria crits her investigation and finds the mechanism to open the door. It looks like the mechanism is broken, but with a bit of fighter-and-paladin muscle we can get the door open, no problem. Valeria doesn’t read much Old High Aquilian, but there’s writing on this. Something maybe like “Place of…” something.

Is it the nuclear waste message? “This is not a place of honor?” Only time, and reckless decisions, will tell.

With a nat 20, Valeria realizes something important. The writing wasn’t part of the original design. She can tell there was some sort of latent spellwork, like a low-level Stone Shape, that was set up to supersede the carving that was originally there. Something happened to trigger the spell, and a bunch of letters engraved themselves over the stone. Valeria’s not sure, but she thinks it says something along the lines of Containment Breach.

Uh-oh.

Shoshana copies down the writing, so we can double check with Lucinius, and then we crack that bad boy open.

There are four huge coffers here, like treasure chests. One is open and empty. (Shoshana’s player gets excited, assuming this is where they got that Warden mummy! But no, the DM said coffers, not coffins.) There is a sunken hollow in the center of the room, which has only a metal grate covering the opening to the water close below. Gral can see heavy chains dangling into the flowing water; something was once chained up there, but the chains have now been broken. Hmm.

Maybe this troll king Urdemak is the Pale King, and this is where he was imprisoned?

We think about it, but we’re doubtful. The Aquilian structure postdates the construction of the rest of this place, pretty substantially. This isn’t part of the troll tomb; this is something the Aquilians placed within the tomb site centuries later.

Our investigation reveals no traps. The coffers seem like some kind of foot locker? At the end of room, there is an altar with a bird on it – an altar to Oberok, flanked by austere stone lecterns. Valeria knocks over the statue of Oberok, because Rack’s sacrifice wasn’t for nothing, dangit! (Archaeologists Hate Her!)

In the carvings on the walls, we recognize a repeated word. It’s the word Lucinius pointed out in the mummy’s tattoos, the one he told us meant “Warden.”

Lucinius would be So Mad at us for ruining an archaeological site, but he’s not our dad. We find 400 old Aquilian gold coins. Valeria can easily tell us that we COULD use them as gold, but they’re more valuable as collector item. We roll a ONE HUNDRED on the loot treasure hoard table and nearly win a Rod Of Beating The Game. Instead, we find in the next locker a set of 4 Aquilian icons, each depicting an Aarakocra version of the four lesser gods, as they were before the Deicide. Rack the Soldier (which is weird to us), Lethe the Smith (without martial accoutrements), Torme as an owl-faced bird holding a tome, and a small, insignificant crow-like figure wrapped in a cloak – surely an old version of Guile.

In the third locker, we find a book. It appears to be written primarily in High Aquilian but with a lot of diagrams. Perhaps a training manual? Most of it has translations into Old Valdian, it seems! Shosh takes a look at the text. It’s titled: Warden’s Training Manual: The Spear and the Spell.

This is a magic item. If we train with it for a week, we gain advantage on saves vs each other’s attacks. Interestingly, it’s been modified to work for non-Aarakocra and translated, which means it was yet another collaboration between the Aquilians and the people they supposedly never invaded.

Meanwhile, Shoshana rolls well and finds a surprisingly well-preserved scroll in the lectern, with high Aquilian calligraphy inscribed on it. It feels magically inert to Shoshana – this is no spell scroll. Valeria rolls poorly on an Int check and doesn’t recognize most of the words. But the bit at the end is a common phrase.

As far as we can translate, which isn’t much, we read:

“First Prisoner, Item #5

Containment Procedure: [Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet] waters blessed by local spirits [consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor] influence of the prisoner.

As per request by [unintelligible], [incididunt un labore et dolore] disruption [magna aliquia].

Description: [Ut enim ad minim veniam] First Prisoner.

Let the Vanquished be forgotten, let the Victorious reign eternal.

Glory to Oberok.”

The scroll is damaged, but it doesn’t look like intentional damage, it’s just Real Old. This is important as hell! It’s clues!

With a nat 20, Valeria realizes something about the door.  Based on the way the rest of the door is weathered, in this wet cave, the Containment Breach message is comparatively very new. Within-the-last-couple-of-years new, compared to the ancient ruins. Maybe around a decade old? A little less?

That’s not too far from when the first stirrings of the Curse arose. This could have easily happened after the Curse began – or perhaps simultaneously.

We wrap up our exploration. The Aquilian structure is at a dead end, so we backtrack and begin to go down the tunnel with the wailing. We come across a third carving, though cracks and erosion have made parts of it illegible:

Man, no wonder the Pale King set up shop here.

“[unintelligible] that the Great Wyrm came. The sky filled with flame and fury; the wood burned with the Wyrm’s wrath. Urdemak led the Woods against the great Wyrm. He [unintelligible] the spear [unintelligible] aloft by a dozen giant eagles and [unintelligible] onto the Dragon’s Back.

Urdemak’s claws tore open the Dragon’s throat as it was filled with terrible flame. The fire, straight from the dragon’s heart, scorched Urdemak’s flesh from his bones. As the dragon’s death-spasms faded, the defenders of the Wood gathered around, awaiting their King’s regeneration.

But so thorough was his destruction by the dragon’s flame, bane to trolls, that he could not call the power of life to restore him, and so instead, the king’s grasping soul found only Death”.

As we move past the third carving, the sounds of rushing water echo through the dripping, dank cave. Gral’s keen ears hear something underneath that, clattering and clanking in the passage off to the left. He Mirror Images and we move ahead. Sure enough, there’s a big ol’ skeleton in plate armor waiting for us.

Valeria charges in, but as she passes by one of the piles of scattered bones, a skeletal hand snakes out and grabs her ankle. Startled, she fails to wrench her claw out, and she topples to the ground. The DM is pleased we are FINALLY next to one of the bone piles during a fight, we’ve avoided them like three times by chance. Valeria pushes to her feet and smacks the pile with a wrench, scattering the skull pile and sending the bones pinging off the rocks, but she’s lost her move on the skeletal knight. Gral throws Faerie Fire at it, but it dodges with practiced ease. No other enemies seem to be illuminated by the spell.

Clem charges the skull knight, smashing down on it with her Warhammer. It parries with its longsword and slashes down on her with a Blinding Smite of dark power.

Squeezing out of the rocks like a roiling dark mist comes a wailing, ghostly figure. The wraith drifts to Shoshana and grips her from behind. Her maximum HP is reduced by 21. That’s a LOT for a sorcerer! She chokes and pales as the life drains out of her.

Valeria decides she does not like this wraith thing that just ate her buddy, and mightily smites it, bloodying the cursed thing. Aethis twerks at a second pile of skulls that is swiping at Clem’s feet and smashes it apart, coming away with a hand clutching its tail. It derisively shakes off the weakened bones.

Gral throws a Dissonant Whispers at Ser Spooks the Skull Knight, and makes it afeared. It tries to flee, which gives Clem a chance to swing at it.

As Gral connects with the mind of the skull knight to frighten it, he gets flashes of this guy’s life the same way he sees into the Allsoul. This was originally a Paladin of the Order of the Hammer who left Valdia. There’s images of fighting pirates? Much of it is first person view of wielding a sword, smoke billowing from it as his Blinding Smite summoned Lethe’s flames. This guy’s maybe decades dead – not centuries, but not yesterday either. And the armor is clearly ceremonial rather than practical – something he might be buried in. Seems whatever’s haunting the Trollstones is recruiting from Mornheim’s catacombs.

As it tries to run past Clem, she catches it with her Warhammer, dealing it a terrible blow. She gives chase, dropping her hammer and drawing her greatsword. This thing’s armor was once a set of glorious full plate, but much of it has fallen away, and he’s not defending himself well – like he’s using a shield that isn’t there anymore. Aethis snaps its jaws shut on the Skull Knight’s leg, grappling it. It tries to drain Clem’s life force, but she shrugs off its magic. With Great Weapon Master, she brings her silvered greatsword down. The shock of the blow crumbles its cracked bones apart.

Shoshana’s claws manage to catch in the wraith’s mists, tearing holes through it. Gral runs toward the wraith with his silver dagger out, shoving Shoshana out of the way and plunging it into the wraith with the help of his Psychic Blades.

He summons the power of Blank Mask, a covert ops orc bard from the Asciension War. As he strikes through the wraith, the ghost of a hooded orc with a blank bard mask appears, grabs Gral’s dagger, and pulls the wraith’s head back to slit its throat like an assassin. The dagger clatters to the floor as both Blank Mask and the wraith fade away.

The way stands open, and there is another inscription on the wall.

“The power of Death filled him as Life had before, but, as Life begets Life, Death must spread itself, and Urdemak, now a thing of rot and decay, proceeded to lay waste to those he once protected. His great strength and will to live magnified by the cold grip of death. Eventually, the children of the Wood, the sons and daughters of the great ones, took to the field against their nephew. Many died, but eventually the thing that had been Urdemak was defeated.

The Trolls constructed a great tomb of many large stones to house the body. His mother was reduced to tears [unintelligable], and with those tears flowed her wish that none would ever suffer as she had suffered, that none would see their children returned as twisted servants of death.”

Well that certainly explains…literally everything about Mornheim.

Valeria reaches out and grants a blessing from Rack upon her friends with Aid, which our HP totals all very much appreciate.

We short rest again in the warden’s outpost, Gral singing a Song of Rest, and all take 4 taint. We return to the passage of the fourth tablet and find our way forward.

As we approach the tomb itself, we can hear a voice ahead, speaking modern Valdian. “They’ll be here any minute! Wake up, you old idiot!”

Gral can sense something up ahead, similar to how he senses the Allsoul. If the Allsoul is a rock concert, this is a kid on a triangle. But for a single soul to even be audible? That’s astounding. If that’s a single voice, that’s a voice of immense power.

“I know you’re in there! You ingrate! What, afraid you’ll make your mother sad? After everything I did for you,” a sodden-looking figure in ratty robes is shouting, waving his arms in frustration.

As we make it into the huge chamber, we can see he is dwarfed by the imposing standing stones. Massive stone sarcophagi tower in a semicircle over a burbling, whirling spring. To the side, an enormous rock landslide partially buries the skeleton of a mighty dragon.

Every inch of this cave wall has been carved with Troll words, depictions of life and deeds of Urdemak. Given that the centerpiece is a pretty epic mural of Urdemak fighting the Great Wyrm, we can guess where the dead dragon came from.

One of the sarcophagi has been broken open, and someone has placed an enormous troll skull, massive even for a troll, on top of it, turning the tomb into a huge stone altar. A small, human-sized silver crown is placed upon its head; we recognize the same style of crown from the Pale King tapestry we looted from the castle.

Somebody’s turned this place into an altar of the Pale King. Possibly that little dude over there.

Valeria would like to object to that, preferably with violence. Gral would like to alter that altar.

The skull must be Urdemak, first and last king of the trolls. The crown, though – perhaps it was the thing that was being held in the Aquilian chamber?

The little man still hasn’t stopped complaining. “Wake. Up!” He throws a rock at the skull and misses. “Useless ingrate!”

As we approach, armor clanking, the figure turns around and groans. “Oh. You again.”

I’m sorry, have we met?

Shoshana sarcastically waves hello. Gral rolls insight. It’s not trying to hide who it is. Gral’s not sure whose skin it’s wearing, but it’s that frickin’ dybbuk again.

“What are you trying to do here?” it complains. “I put a lot of work into this place!”

Shoshana stops waving and flips him off.

The dybbuk raises his voice, in that spooky cadence necromancers use for sounding dramatic. “Urdemak!” it intones. “These interlopers have violated your tomb! If you would, rise up and destroy them!”

The skull does not move.

We roll for initiative anyway.

The dybbuk moves first. “Fine. You won’t kill them yourself? I can still make use of you!” It begins to chant, mumbling quickly with pronunciation that sounds archaic even for Old Valdian. Something about “Guardian of the River Morn, servant of my-“ It switches language, but clearly it’s summoning something. The dybbuk deftly steps back onto the altar and gestures as the waters begins to writhe and roil and spin, rising to engulf the massive skull and claws from atop the altar.

Now if you’ll excuse the DM, he needs to add one more thing to the initiative order. This thing, he calls…the Pale Spring.

As this thing’s health bar grows across the top of the screen, we recognize it looks similar to the Water Weirds on a far larger scale. More human and troll bones rise from the pool into its swirling mass, but Urdemak’s mighty skull and claws form the cornerstones of its shape.

If we’re coming here to put a sword in the water, the DM figured the water should have a chance to object first.

Gral slaps Clem with an inspiration and makes a joke in Orcish along the lines of “who pooped in the pool?” Shosh rolls her eyes, but it fails its save. Let us be clear: you, sir, are stank water.

The Spring raises itself up and the chamber begins to flood. Its claws seem to be wreathed with some kind of horrible necrotic energy. We all manage to keep our feet against the huge wave it throws at us, except for Aethis, who was swimming instead of standing. The gator is dashed against the rocks and bursts into a cloud of sparkles, gone until Valeria can resummon it.

Valeria, outraged, charges forward and hurls a trident, her gauntlet allowing her to whip it back a second time. She also casts Shield of Faith on Shoshana. Shoshana, who is aggressive but no fool, casts Mirror Image on herself and tries to hide behind a rock.

Clem tries to slog through the deep water, rolling good Athletics to avoid it being difficult terrain, and whiffs both her attacks, sword slicing harmlessly through the water – until Gral’s bardic inspiration kicks in. The bones seem to flow into place to form armor to block her swings, but she manages to crack some femurs.

It uses its legendary action to crit Clem. It’s facing the other way, but the troll claw flows through its center as a new watery arm grows out and rockets into the drow.

The dybbuk leans casually against the empty sarcophagus. “Y’know, if you would have shown some gratitude and killed them, this could all have been avoided!” It wiggles its hands and some skeletons crawl out of the cracks in the rocks and form out of the mounds of bones. “You! Throw things at them!” it commands them.

It spares a glance toward the dragon skeleton. “No. Don’t even think about it. We’re not there yet. I know better than to trust YOU.”

The Pale Spring’s claws surge with energy, giving it an extra d10 on attacks. Both Clem and Valeria get slammed as the bones hurtle toward them on powerful jets of water.

Valeria gets up in the Spring’s face and smites it. After all, it’s both undead and an elemental. As Valeria raises her sword She-Ra style, vines grow around it and down into the water. s she strikes into the mass of water, The bones try again to form armor but the glowing rose vines grow through the cracks, wrapping around the bones and crushing them to powder. It roars with anger, and for the first time, the dybbuk looks genuinely concerned.

Gral rolls perception at the DM’s request. That note he heard before, he hears it clearer and louder now. From the skull, from the claws, echoing from the unbroken stone sarcophagi. Gral has talked to powerful ancient spirits before; he gets the unmistakable vibe that Urdemak is deeply enraged. But there’s no animosity toward us; he’s angry at the way this dybbuk has disturbed his rest and dared to use him.

Shoshana squeaks an “I’m sorry, Clem” and casts a fireball toward the melee. The chamber lights up with flames and rattles with a mighty KABOOM. The dybbuk is pretty scorched and any mook skeletons in the way are gone to ash, but Clem manages to dodge the worst of it. Steam rises off the Pale Spring as it turns to retaliate, the frigid water coming to life and sucking Shoshana under. The bony fingers of the Pale King wrap around her and in her terror she falters – and lets the Pale King gift her 10hp in return for 2 taint.

Clem rushes at the Dybbuk, intent on destroying the one who turned the Red Hand into a death cult, but the Spring strikes at her as she runs, knocking her unconscious. She takes 3 taint as she falls toward death, into the Pale King’s domain.

Gral’s nearly out of spells, but he throws a Healing Word at Clem. He channels an Orcish drill sergeant yelling “DID I SAY IT WAS NAPTIME, SOLDIER? GET UP, SOLDIER, YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO BLEEEED.” Then he draws his sickle and goes in! His Psychic Blades barely scratch it, rolling low.

The Pale Spring readies its claws, charging them up again to strike with extra damage. Clem dodges, narrowly avoiding another killing blow, but it manages to slam Valeria hard against the rocks.

The dybbuk orders the remaining skeleton to throw something at us. Its aim is not great. A clavicle just sort of clatters toward us awkwardly.

Shoshana leans back and lets raw electricity course out of both of her hands, blasting her usual twinned Chromatic Orb at a much higher level. The dybbuk is booted completely out of its flesh suit. We see the familiar floating skull in the bell of the jellyfish as the body it was wearing falls apart. The Pale Spring takes a heavy hit too, the electricity surging through it in a brilliant crackle, steam rising. It retaliates, trying to drag Shoshana down into the undertow, but she hangs onto a sturdy rock and keeps her feet under her.

Clem pushes herself to her feet, Second Winds, and buries her sword into the currents. It’s got more bone fragments than bones inside now, and she manages to take a chunk out of one of the huge troll claws. It swipes back, but feebly, for minor damage – which allows Valeria to strike in with a Sentinel.

The dybbuk’s lost its body and the Pale Spring’s nearly down; it’s not gonna stick around. It woobles away down through the cave floor, eluding us once again.

Gral throws the last of his inspirations into a Psychic Blades. A ghostly circle of orc heroes raise their lances and plunge them into the water, all at once. The elemental lashes out, flailing as the circle of orcs presses inwards, its claws passing through the specters even as they crush its bones. It falls, reduced to simple water, back into the spring, and the two troll claws wash back down into the central pit.

The waters recede and we are left standing in the tomb of Urdemak the Troll King. Wait, no, there’s still a skeleton mook there. We give it a sternly worded Go Away.

Valeria runs over to Clem, patting at her for 15hp and healing herself 15hp as well. We managed to turn around fast enough to avoid one of the fight mechanics. If the dybbuk got desperate, it would have awoken the dragon. It hesitated when Clem went down, and then Shosh nuked it.

We all take a deep breath. Clem’s a bit miffed that she didn’t get to beat the crap out of the dybbuk for possessing her old friend, but such is life.

We set to moving the piles of bones out of the water. Shoshana uses her Mage Hand to remove the crown from Urdemak’s skull, since nobody wants to touch that thing. The skull is suffused with necromantic energy. To Valeria’s Detect Magic, the crown is lighting up like a bonfire. Gral’s getting vibes from the skull, though – it’s feeling a lot more chill with the dybbuk driven off.

It takes some elbow grease and ingenuity to place the enormous skull and claws back into the open stone sarcophagi and close them again.

We roll against Taint for exposing ourselves to the necromantic energy of the fight. Everyone succeeds.

Hey, what do we do with this evil crown?

We talk it out. Judging by what we’ve seen down here, it sounds like the River Mother’s blessing on this tomb and these waters was what was stopping all undead from rising in Mornheim. The Aquilian containment zone worked by submerging the evil undeath crown in the blessed waters.

It looks like the dybbuk, or another agent of the Pale King, managed to remove that blessing and turn the tomb into an altar of undeath. Valeria’s ritual will slow down the undead and stop the Curse from poisoning the city through the water, but it won’t restore the blessing of the River Mother. Submerging the crown, at this point, would just start tainting the water again. We decide to put it in a foot locker in the Aquilian structure; at least it’ll be contained.

While we worry about the crown, Valeria begins her ritual. Shoshana has coached her on the pronunciation of the Old Valdian incantation. There is a section that’s invocation of the Power; written to reach out to Grandmother and Grandfather but Valeria switches to Draco-Aquilian to invoke her patron Rack.

She raises the sword we prepared, anointed with the druidic poultice made of the plants we gathered in Bad Herzfeld, the vine of the moon lily wrapped around the sword like a chain of Rack. As she reads the words aloud and drains power from the scroll into the sword, the writing on the scroll melts away.

Standing on the altar where the skull used to be placed, Valeria strikes the sword down, sheathing it into the water. It stays upright as it leaves her hands. The moon lily’s vine grows upwards, blooming into a massive flower above the water, its roots extending deep down into the spring.

The sickly, murky look fades from the waters and they once again run clear. The purified water begins to flow down through in rivulets through the tomb of Urdemak and down into the River Morn.

Valeria has Achieved Her Quest! +1 Inspiration!

 We take some time to admire our work and clear the Pale King’s trappings out of Urdemak’s tomb, but soon it’s time to leave. As we turn to go, Shoshana places her hand on the stone sarcophagus holding Urdemak’s mighty claws, and pauses as she feels a wave of overwhelming power.

It feels like gratitude.

As she blinks stars out of her eyes, Shoshana sees her hand atop the king’s tomb, overlaid by the ghostly shape of a troll’s heavy, sharp claws. She blinks again and the image is gone, along with the strange sensation, but as she flexes her claws she feels like something has changed.

(Shoshana has received a boon: Claws of the Troll King! Grants an extra d4 of damage to the Primal Savagery cantrip, with an additional d6 of damage for each sorcery point spent, up to 3d6. Each additional die also heals the caster that many hit points. Requires attunement.)

We climb our weary way out of the caves. Luckily, it seems we’d already cleared the area of nasties, or they’re avoiding the newly blessed waters, and we’re mostly undisturbed on the way out. We are drained, exhausted, and of course absolutely soaking wet.

As we hike back to town, we see the clear waters flowing through the still blighted land of Mornheim. Maybe it’s our imagination, but the area around the river seems just a little less Tim Burtony. It’s been several hours; the sun is almost down as we hurriedly drag ourselves to the safety of the walls. Near the city, we see a ragged group emerging from one of the catacomb entrances. It’s Lady Aubrey and her crew; they look quite scorched except for Mercedes. We, on the other hand, look quite damp.

Aubrey squints at us. “You’re back? The fuck’ve you been up to?” She hasn’t been home to find out we showed up.

Valeria chirps, “We Purified the Water!” You can almost hear the capital letters. Shoshana just points at Valeria and nods. “What she said.”

Gral, thankfully, is a master storyteller and actually gives Aubrey the deets as we schlep back to town.

“…And you found this scroll in my house?” she asks, once he’s done. We nod and hand over the scroll. The spell incantation has melted away, but the instructions on spell components still remain. Aubrey’s obviously taken aback by what she sees. “…this is my mom’s handwriting. I don’t…you’re gonna have to tell me everything. We should get inside the walls.”

She composes herself, back to business for now. “So did it work?”

Valeria nods. “Yup. We weren’t able to restore the blessing, but the water won’t be making everyone sick anymore.”

“Wait, wait, the water was blessed?”

Shoshana nods. “Yep, uh, the Trollstones is this big troll grave, and there was a blessing from a Child of the Woods to prevent her son from rising as undead, and the Curse seems to have broken it-“

“Why does it feel like you learned more about my home in a day than I’ve known in my entire life?!”

“Uh, we went…real deep. And fought monsters about it.”

“Yeah, I’ve gone real deep! I’ve fought monsters! You know what I found out? I found out there’s SUPERGHOULS.”

When we get to the walls, the old troll gardener, Skulbjor, is guarding the gate. “Oh! It’s dem! Hey, where’s your chomper?” he asks, looking around for poor exploded Aethis.

“…Don’t worry, they’ll be back!”

“Oh good, dat’s a good chomper. How was your hunt, Lady Aubrey?”

“Well the thing is dead. Again.”

As we drag ourselves inside, Gral approaches the old troll. “Skulbjor, how familiar are you with the legends of this place?”

“Well, I grew up here,” he says. “I’m older than most anybody what lives here.”

“Have you ever heard the name Urdemak?”

Skulbjor considers for a minute, his face scrunched up in concentration. “No, I don’t know dat one. Where’s he buried?”

“The Trollstones were his tomb. He was a great troll king, whose power was perverted by the undead in this place. His spirit was angry, but I think we were able to put it at peace.”

The troll considers this quite seriously. Finally, he nods. “Dat’s good to hear. One thing the previous troll told me is dat it is a very old troll tradition that there must always be a troll in Mornheim, and to never ever mess with the Trollstones. Lady Rosalind went there a lot. She went there the day she got sick, even. I found her there, yanno. Brought her back to the castle myself, but she never woke up.”

Man, do we have a story for him later.

While walking, Valeria takes moment and thanks Shoshana for helping with the translation and pronunciation of the spell, and helping save the town. There’s hugs. 😊

The two adventuring parties stumble into the gates of Mornheim as the sun sets, sharing stories. Skulbjor looks out over the hills for a long moment before closing the gate. “Urdemok. Wow, das interesting.”

Valeria and Gral roll CON saves against the Pale King’s taint. Clem and Shoshana, meanwhile, have gained enough taint to receive an Offer.

[steveandtorixinthemiddle]

Steve, Tori, and X in the Middle

Hello and Welcome to our new blog (If I’m being completely honest, I will probably be the one posting the most) about the next adventure in our lives. I suppose we should introduce ourselves. Let’s start with Steve because he’s the funny one.

Who is Steve? Well he has been a construction worker in various fields for most of his adult life. In 2011 he discovered Wii golf, which got him interested in the actual game. At first it was just playing on his PS3, but eventually we were able to find a decent set of second-hand clubs meant for a lefty. The first time he came home from the golf course (after what he described as the most horrible round in history) he was grinning from ear to ear and happier than I had seen him in a long time. He said he didn’t get remotely close to par, but he’d enjoyed himself immensely. He has gotten better but says he will never be a pro.

Steve is funny. I mean gut-splitting, spit milk out your nose, pee your pants funny. Most of his quiet little comments go unnoticed by those who don’t know him, and they are missing a lot of laughs because of it. He has bought nearly every stuffed animal I own (and I own a lot of them, mostly ladybugs) because he enjoys making other people smile. Okay, mostly me.... Then again, he also worked two jobs to put me through college, so you have to know he’s a good guy.

Funnily enough, people actually think Steve looks a little scary. I don’t usually see it though. I see a big teddy-bear, or a really goofy guy who just wants to have fun. Sometimes I accuse him of being a ten-year-old in the body of a grown man (I guess like BIG) because he loves fart jokes and many of the other things every boy I’ve ever known has liked. This man used to sit down and watch a couple hours of Sponge Bob when our son was small. He watches Red Green, Monty Python, Mythbusters, and the Mel Brooks movies and wishes he could do something like that.

Now me, I suppose. Well, I’m in my late thirties, but sometimes feel three times my age. I haven’t had an easy life (who has?) and my body is feeling it. In 2017 I had a pretty bad fall that resulted in lingering pain for years. Pain so bad that I couldn’t even walk. We had no medical insurance at the time (we were poor, but not poor enough, and living in SC, a state that didn’t take kindly to the ACA), which meant that the injury went untreated, even undiagnosed.

If the physical injury wasn’t enough (it really was if you ask me), the meds that they gave me to treat my PTSD were late a couple times. It was a medication with a warning I was never given. Occasionally someone will withdrawal from certain medications in such a way that it causes damage. This particular withdrawal caused me to have seizures, brain zaps (which can only be described as electricity zipping through your head every time you move it, or even your eyes) and suicidal thoughts so severe my husband had to take several days off work just to sit with me.

All totaled I was trapped mostly in bed or in a wheelchair. I was depressed and anxious. My PTSD was worse than ever. I was feeling hopeless and alone all the time, and I honestly wasn’t sure if there was any reason to keep going. I would have really great days, when I was able to get my wheelchair down the ramp, take the bus to the store, even see my friends. And then there would be days when my hip would lock and I would fall down.

After a fall I could usually expect to be trapped for days in my bed, in unending pain, and mostly alone as my husband had to work, walk the dog, take care of me, do all of the household chores, and literally everything else. My only contribution to our life was using the phone to pay bills and make cigarettes. I felt like I was a burden to my husband. It just got worse and worse and I didn’t see an end.

It’s interesting what life gives you sometimes. One afternoon, when I couldn’t find any inspiration for a fanfiction story I was working on, I started looking on YouTube for anything that would keep me entertained. As I was scrolling through, I saw a video from Trent & Ally (Experienced Van Builder Creates Masterpiece (4k) Van Tour). When the video ended I remember thinking, ‘if I’m going to be stuck in bed all the time, I wish it moved.’ I had no hope of having “van-life” adventures. Not with my health so bad, or with my mental health not much better. Still, it gave me something to dream about.

Then one day my husband sat down in his chair across from the bed, looked me in the eye, and said “we’re going back to Maine.” He’d had enough of seeing me suffer. So, we came back to Maine. It didn’t work out the way we planned. We had to leave our dog Chyko with my cousin (his original owner, who had raised him from a pup) and his family and take the train and a bus to get there, which meant leaving almost everything behind for the second time (we’d done that when we moved to SC after I found my mom).

Almost immediately after getting to Maine we were able to rent a lot with an old trailer on it (1972) not far from Steve’s brother. Right after moving in, I applied for Maine Care, which is Maine’s version of Medicaid. After a while, with the proper medication and a LOT of hard work, I started to get better. First it was just walking from the bedroom to the kitchen. Then I wasn’t staying in bed all day anymore, I would sit at the table. After a while I was walking several times a day from one end of the trailer to the other.

You should have seen my husband’s face when I told him I was going to walk to the store for the first time. I actually thought he might cry. He walked beside me the whole way, telling me over and over how proud he was of me and grinning from ear to ear as he “showed me off” to the people of the town he had grown up in.

It’s funny the way things happen. Covid shut down the country. More and more I wanted out of my house. I took over walking the dogs (who we adopted from Steve’s brother when they moved to a place that wouldn’t allow dogs) twice a day. I started going out with my sister-in-law to stores and walking through them, first in my walker, and more recently on my own two feet with absolutely no help!

Over the past year I have gotten stronger. I will never be where I was before. I will never walk 23 miles with a toddler on my back again (yes, I did that once). I won’t be skydiving, or cliff jumping, or any of the major things I wish I could have tried at least once when I was young enough to survive (he he he). Still, I have a lot of life ahead of me. I’m glad my husband didn’t let me give up.

And now we are preparing for our next adventure. We are going to buy a shuttle bus and turn it into our home on the road. We have several reasons for this. One of those reasons is to pay off all of my outstanding medical bills. I literally owe so much that if I keep paying at my current rate it will take me 417.8 years to finish. So in part, I suppose this is about making sure we don’t leave that debt to our son.

There are other reasons though. One of them is that I would dearly love to meet a few of the couples/families/individuals I began following on YouTube over the past three years. Another reason is because we will never be able to afford a retirement on what my husband makes working in a grocery store (which was his only option after moving here) and we need to go where the work is. We also want to see the country, find out who we are now that “mom and dad” aren’t our biggest titles anymore, and to keep us both active and healthy.

(Okay, and because someone told me I couldn’t do it and I’ve never been able to resist proving people wrong when they say that, so long as I actually WANT to do it).

I’m sort of hoping my husband can put together a show of his own, that people actually enjoy watching on YouTube. Sort of a mix bag kind of show that brings in elements from his favorite shows and movies that really speak to us both. We would love to make videos about how and where to fish, or how to get a fishing license in a state other than your own. I’d even like to do my own short segment, sort of like what Mariah Alice does in her videos. Just talking about what I’m feeling, and why. Figuring out where I go from here.

And... both of us want to help others in our situation (low income) make a go of the life. We watched, horrified, over the last year as more and more people lost everything to wild-fires, floods, even evictions. We want to make it possible for other people to take their homes on the road with them. We want to help families who are really struggling figure out what to do next. And we want to really join in the community (which will be hard with my social anxiety, but not impossible).

Mostly, I think we just want to live while we still have time. I’m done existing. I want to really enjoy what is left of my life. And I want to keep getting better. If I am ever going to check off the last item on my bucket list (WALKING the full length of the Appalachian Trail) then I need to get much stronger than I am now.  

As for who is traveling with us...

The young Marine in the picture is our son, Tim, who has made us incredibly proud. He lives on base and seems to be doing very well. I wish he would call more, but what can I say, he’s an adult now and deserve the right to start his life, not keep his mom worry-free. He won’t be traveling with us, unless he decides to visit when he can build up some leave time.

If you look at the picture of me lying on the couch covered in dogs however, you will meet Madison (a twelve year old pitt mix) who we adopted from Steve’s brother. She is sweet and affectionate, but tends to bark at strangers and friends alike (you can only tell the difference by the beating your knees take from her tail). Beside her is Avalanche, her son, whose name fits him perfectly. His father was mostly lab, which shows. He is super affectionate, and if he doesn’t get my attention he will put his paws on my leg and lick me half to death until he does.

Both our dogs tend to bark when there are strangers around, though we are trying to get them into the habit of only giving one bark, to warn us. Unfortunately it is a bit more difficult to retrain older dogs, so it hasn’t been as easy as it was with retraining Chyko. Thankfully neither of them have huge health issues, but Madison is getting older. We’re hoping that since she isn’t full-blood pitt she will live a little longer than it says online.

Our plan is to stay in Maine during the summers, except perhaps an occasional trip, and mostly travel in the fall, winter, and spring. We do want to avoid the heat (mostly because my husband is afraid I will go supernova and take half a state with me if I get too hot), but we really want to see our son and visit with our other family down south, but then we will probably follow the weather to avoid costs associated with heating or cooling.

Right now we are just at the beginning. We’ve only just made the decision and haven’t even gotten our shuttle bus yet (though we are looking for the right one). We are gathering the supplies we will need to start. We plan to live in the bus during most of the build. Basically we have to do the insulation and redo the floor, walls, and ceiling of the bus before we build out anything, but the whole idea of hooking up the solar terrifies me and makes my husband a bit nervous too, so we will probably wait on everything but a little Jackery until we really know more.

We’ve been watching hundreds of YouTube videos a week for the past two weeks! We have a list of the things we NEED, and the things we want. Right now we are focused on needs first. Things like the ability to cook and wash dishes and have light at night. There is so much more to do, and it will probably be fall before we even get on the road in a barely renovated bus.

We might be crazy. We probably are. A least a little insane. Still, if that crazy makes us happy, gets us out of debt, lets us figure out who we are now, and enables us to see friends and family we dearly love and miss, then I’ll take a bit of that crazy any day of the week.

[jonathanalumbaugh]

Weekly Digest

Dec 16, 2017, 3rd issue.

A roundup of stuff I consumed this week. Published weekly(ish).

Read

Whoever your graphic design portfolio site is aimed at, you have to remember that people’s time and attention is limited. Employers, to take one example, may look at dozens of portfolios in the space of 10 minutes. So you only have a few seconds to really grab their attention and enthuse them.

—8 great graphic design portfolio sites for 2018

Paying for more than 3,500 daily drinks for six years, it turns out, is expensive. The NIH would need more funding—and soon, a team stepped up to the plate. The Foundation of the NIH, a little-known 20-year-old non-profit that calls on donors to support NIH science, was talking to alcohol corporations. By the fall of 2014, the study was relying on the industry for “separate contributions to the Foundation of the NIH beyond what the NIAAA could afford,” as Mukamal put it in an e-mail to a prospective collaborator. Later that year, Congress encouraged the NIH to sponsor the study, but lawmakers didn’t provide any money. Five corporations—Anheuser-Busch InBev, Diageo, Pernod Ricard, Heineken, and Carlsberg—have since provided a total of $67 million. The foundation is seeking another $23 million, according to its director of development, Julie Wolf-Rodda.

—A MASSIVE HEALTH STUDY ON BOOZE, BROUGHT TO YOU BY BIG ALCOHOL

When Starbucks (SBUX) announced that it was closing its Teavana tea line and wanted to shutter all of its stores, mall operator Simon Property Group (SPG) countered with a lawsuit. Simon cited in part the effect the store closures might have on other mall tenants.

Earlier this month, a judge upheld Simons' suit, ordering Teavana to keep 77 of its stores open.

—America's malls are rotting away

The Dots claims to have a quarter of a million members and current clients include Google, Burberry, Sony Pictures, Viacom, M&C Saatchi, Warner Music, Tate, Discovery Networks and VICE amongst others.

—Aiming to be the LinkedIn for creatives, The Dots raises £4m

The Cboe's bitcoin futures fell 10 percent Wednesday, triggering a two-minute trading halt early Wednesday afternoon.

—Bitcoin futures briefly halted after plunging 10%

Through a very clever scheme, the people behind Tether can continue to send Bitcoin into the stratosphere until it reaches a not-yet-known breaking point. 

—Bitcoin Only Has One Way To Go If This Is True

—Bitcoin Price Dilemma: Bull and Bear Paths in Play

—Botera – Free Font

"He is being a huge assh*le and avoiding you so it literally forces you to be the one to break up with him because he's too much of a coward to do it himself. GOD, I HATE GUYS."

—"Breakup Ghosting" Is the Most Cowardly Way to End a Relationship

—Britain rejected the EU, and the EU is loving its new life

“Although the science is still evolving, there are concerns among some public health professionals and members of the public regarding long-term, high use exposure to the energy emitted by cellphones,” Dr. Karen Smith, CDPH Director and State Public Health Officer, said in a statement.

—California Warns People to Limit Exposure to Cellphones

There is a way CSS can get its hands on data in HTML, so long as that data is within an attribute on that HTML element. 

—The CSS attr() function got nothin’ on custom properties

“The recent coverage of AI as a single, unified power is a predictable upshot of a self-aggrandizing Silicon Valley culture that believes it can summon a Godhead,” says Thomas Arnold 

—Former Google and Uber engineer is developing an AI 'god'

Here are two facts: 1) Throughout the tail end of Matt Lauer’s tenure at NBC’s Today, ABC’s Good Morning America beat it in the ratings, and 2) In the two weeks since Lauer was kicked to the curb for sexual misconduct and replaced by Hoda Kotb, Today’s viewership has surpassed GMA’s by a considerable margin.

Here are two opinions: 1) No one ever really liked Matt Lauer, but tolerated him as you would a friend you’ve known for 20 years but have nothing in common with anymore, 2) Hota Kotb makes everything better.

—A Funny Thing Is Happening to Today Now That Matt Lauer Is Gone: Its Ratings Are Going Up

The game challenges you to build an empire that stands the test of time, taking your civilization from the Stone Age to the Information Age as you wage war, conduct diplomacy, advance your culture, and go head-to-head with history’s greatest leaders.

—Get the newest game in 'Sid Meier’s Civilization' series for 50% off

Amazingly, despite the mind control and hypnosis, the girl resisted being totally drawn into her father’s “cult of three.” But she suffered from self-loathing and took to self-harm as a coping mechanism.

—Girl’s father tortured her for a decade to make her ‘superhuman’

The most searched for dog breed was the golden retriever.

—Google's top searches for 2017: Matt Lauer, Hurricane Irma and more

"A few months ago, I started collecting stories from people about their real experiences with loneliness. I started small, asking my immediate network to share with their friends/family, and was flooded with submissions from people of all ages and walks of life.

"The Loneliness Project is an interactive web archive I created to present and give these stories a home online. I believe in design as a tool to elevate others' voices. Stories have tremendous power to spark empathy, and I believe that the relationship between design and emotion only strengthens this power.

—Graphic designer tackles issue of wide-spread loneliness in moving campaign

While the Windows 10 OpenSSH software is currently in Beta, it still works really well. Especially the client as you no longer need to use a 3rd party SSH client such as Putty when you wish to connect to a SSH server.

—Here's How to Enable the Built-In Windows 10 OpenSSH Client

In America we have settled on patterns of land use that might as well have been designed to prevent spontaneous encounters, the kind out of which rich social ties are built. 

—How our housing choices make adult friendships more difficult

Today was "Break the Internet" day, in which many websites altered their appearance and urged visitors to contact members of Congress about the pending repeal (see the gallery above for examples from Reddit, Kickstarter, GitHub, Mozilla, and others).

—How Reddit and others “broke the Internet” to support net neutrality today

“He’s the Usain Bolt of business for Jamaica,” Richards said. “For each Jamaican immigrant, Lowell Hawthorne is me, he’s you. He was the soul of Jamaica, the son of our soil, and all of our struggles were identified with him.”

—How the Jamaican patty king made it to the top — before ending it all

—How to break a CAPTCHA system in 15 minutes with Machine Learning

After the trap has snapped shut, the plant turns it into an external stomach, sealing the trap so no air gets in or out. Glands produce enzymes that digest the insect, first the exoskeleton made of chitin, then the nitrogen-rich blood, which is called hemolyph.

The digestion takes several days depending on the size of the insect, and then the leaf re-opens. By that time, the insect is a "shadow skeleton" that is easily blown away by the wind.

—How the Venus Flytrap Kills and Digests Its Prey

Back at The Shed, Phoebe has arrived. She's an intuitive waitress who can really get across the nuances of our menu, like how – by serving pudding in mugs – we're aiming to replicate the experience of what it's like to eat pudding out of a mug. 

—I Made My Shed the Top Rated Restaurant On TripAdvisor

In order to create a candlestick chart, you must have a data set that contains open, high, low and closevalues for each time period you want to display. The hollow or filled portion of the candlestick is called “the body” (also referred to as “the real body”). The long thin lines above and below the body represent the high/low range and are called “shadows” (also referred to as “wicks” and “tails”). The high is marked by the top of the upper shadow and the low by the bottom of the lower shadow.

—Introduction to Candlesticks

The object in question is ‘Oumuamua, an asteroid from another star system currently zipping past Jupiter at about 196,000 miles per hour, too fast to be trapped by the sun’s gravitational pull. First discovered in mid-October by astronomers at the Pan-STARRS project at the University of Hawaii, the 800-meter-long, 80-meter-wide, cigar-shaped rock is, technically speaking, weird as hell—and that’s precisely why some scientists think it’s not a natural object.

—Is This Cigar-Shaped Asteroid Watching Us?

I tried out LinkedIn Career Advice and Bumble Bizz over the course of a work week and compared them in terms of how easy they are to use and the kind of people they introduce you to.

—I tried LinkedIn's career advice app vs. dating app Bumble's version and discovered major flaws with both

“The Bitcoin dream is all but dead,” I wrote.

—I Was Wrong About Bitcoin. Here’s Why.

—Jessen's Orthogonal Icosahedron

In the study, depressed patients who got an infusion of ketamine reported rapid relief from suicidal thoughts—many as soon as a few hours after receiving the drug.

—Ketamine Relieved Suicidal Thoughts Within Hours in Hospital Study

We are trying to create an Open Source Website that searches through an open database of Interactive Maps focused on learning in a linear way. It leverages all of world’s knowledge in a unique way. It takes the Wikipedia model of curating knowledge but applies it to curating links in a meaningful and visual way.

—Learn Anything White Paper

"It was a very new word [in 1841]," Sokolowski said. "[Noah Webster’s] definition is not the definition that you and I would understand today. His definition was, 'The qualities of females,' so basically feminism to Noah Webster meant femaleness. We do see evidence that the word was used in the 19th century in a medical sense, for the physical characteristics of a developing teenager, before it was used as a political term, if you will."

—Merriam-Webster's word of the year for 2017: 'Feminism'

The Wall Street Journal issued a new note on its style blog earlier this week, suggesting the publication not write about millennials with such disdain.

"What we usually mean is young people, so we probably should just say that," the new WSJ note reads. "Many of the habits and attributes of millennials are common for people in their 20s, with or without a snotty term."

—'Millennials': Be Careful How We Use This Label

As of writing, the CoinDesk's Bitcoin Price Index (BPI) is at $16,743 levels. The world's largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization has appreciated 0.72 percent in the last 24 hours, going by CoinMarketCap data.

—No Stopping? After New High, Bitcoin Price Eyes $20k

People who tested as being more conscientious but less open were more sensitive to typos, while those with less agreeable personalities got more upset by grammatical errors.

"Perhaps because less agreeable people are less tolerant of deviations from convention," the researchers wrote.

Interestingly, how neurotic someone was didn't affect how they interpreted mistakes.

—People Who Constantly Point Out Grammar Mistakes Are Pretty Much Jerks, Scientists Find

Hydrogen particles are made up of an electron and a proton. Exciton particles, then, are made up of an electron that’s escaped and the negative space it left behind when it did so. The hole actually acts like a particle, attracting the escaped electron and bonding with it; they orbit each other the same way an electron and a proton would.

—PHYSICS BREAKTHROUGH: NEW FORM OF MATTER, EXCITONIUM, FINALLY PROVED TO EXIST AFTER 50-YEAR SEARCH 

For reasons that people are now trying to determine, this weekend the internet turned its collective gaze to a short story called “Cat Person.”

Response to the story has varied from praise for its relatability to flat dismissal to jokes about how everyone is talking about a—Who’da thunk it?—short story of all things.

—The reaction to “Cat Person” shows how the internet can even ruin fiction

—Regular Icosahedron

—Repeal Day Poster – Summit Brewing Co.

[Dr. Simon Bramhall of the UK] pleaded guilty to charges that he etched his initials, “SB,” onto the livers of two transplant patients with an argon beam in 2013. Bramhall admitted the assaults in a hearing in Birmingham crown court on Wednesday, according to several news outlets.

—SB WUZ HERE: Surgeon pleads guilty to burning initials into patients’ organs

I get what you’re doing. Really, I do. You’re trying to shit on people’s musical tastes to either appear more well-versed in music than them or you just want to see the shocked look on people’s faces as you besmirch their favorite band. And listen, I don’t blame you for either. They’re both fun activities that I partake in on the reg. If you name me a band you like, I will find a hundred different ways to judge you on your taste. If the band happens to feature a white guy with dreads, make it three hundred. But The Beatles, dude? The fucking Beatles? You are really scraping the barrel if you are knocking people for liking The Beatles, you moron. 

—Shut Your Dumb, Stupid Mouth about the Beatles Being Overrated

—Sonakinatography I Movement #III for Multi-Media

The font the menu is written in can convey similar messages; for instance an italic typeface conveys a perception of quality. But using elaborate fonts that are hard to read could also have another effect – it could alter how the food itself tastes.

A study conducted by researchers in Switzerland found that a wine labelled with a difficult-to-read script was liked more by drinkers than the same wine carrying a simpler typeface. Spence’s own research has also found that consumers often associate rounder typefaces with sweeter tastes, while angular fonts tend to convey a salty, sour or bitter experience.

—The secret tricks hidden inside restaurant menus

On Allison Benedikt, Lorin Stein, and the perils of extracting universal principles from fairytale endings...

“My career, at the time, was in his hands,” Allison Benedikt wrote at Slate this week, about the beginning of her relationship with John Cook, her husband of 14 years. They were colleagues at a magazine when they first kissed, and he was her senior. That kiss took place “on the steps of the West 4th subway station,” Benedikt writes, and Cook did it “without first getting [her] consent.” The piece is an intervention into the conversation on office sexual harassment, with Benedikt fearing “the consequences of overcorrection” on this issue.

—So You Married Your Flirty Boss

“We encourage the use of Teslas for commercial purposes and we’ll work proactively with these customers to find charging solutions that work best for them,” the statement said.

—Tesla Tells New Taxi, Uber Drivers Not to Use Its Superchargers

The deep web refers to anything you can’t access in a search engine, either because it’s protected behind a password or because it’s buried deep within a regular website. The dark web is a subsection of the deep web that you can only access with a special browser like Tor to mask your IP address.

—Things You Can Do on the Dark Web That Aren't Illegal 

—This Graphic Explains Just How Crazy The Cryptocurrency Bubble Is

One such study published in the journal Neuroimage and highlighted on PsyBlog actually found that some forms of daydreaming cause measurable changes in the brain. This suggests that, done right, daydreaming actually requires attention and control.

—This Is the Correct Way to Daydream, According to a Harvard Psychiatrist

"VR can be stored in the brain's memory center in ways that are strikingly similar to real-world physical experiences," said Stanford's Bailenson, author of the forthcoming book "Experience on Demand," about his two decades of research on the psychological effects of virtual reality. "When VR is done well, the brain believes it is real."

—The very real health dangers of virtual reality

Respect for children means respect for the adults that they will one day become; it means helping them to the knowledge, skills, and social graces that they will need if they are to be respected in that wider world where they will be on their own and no longer protected. For the teacher, respect for children means giving them whatever one has by way of knowledge, teaching them to distinguish real knowledge from mere opinion, and introducing them to the subjects that make the mind adaptable to the unforeseen.

—The Virtue of Irrelevance

—You Will Lose Your Job to a Robot—and Sooner Than You Think 

Watched

—Jessen's Orthogonal Icosahedron

[slimacwrites]

Dance With Demons- Ch. 31- Boston

Killian Jones is fighting a losing battle with his vice and hiding it behind his music persona. Emma Swan is the cop who arrests him for it. But that isn't the first time the two of them have met. After Emma impulsively offers him her apartment to recover away from the tabloids, it also won't be the last. For her it's just giving someone a chance she never had. But can it be more? Read the rest here.

Warning: This chapter contains mentions of alcohol abuse.

Disclaimer: All aspects of Once Upon A Time belong to ABC and the show’s creators.

Header by the amazingly talented @shady-swan-jones

Killian had to press down on his leg to keep it from bouncing. Not that there was anyone around to see him but the Uber driver. But still, news traveled fast. Especially when a celebrity was involved.

And why would Killian Jones have anything to be nervous about.

He was about to return to the world of music properly, that radio interview over a month prior had been a teaser and he was about to go on live tv. His paycheck would take a massive climb and countless numbers of fans would soon be screaming his lyrics along with him in the biggest stadiums in America.

Everything was great.

Except for the fact that Killian Jones wasn’t anything like the persona now. And yet he had to be exactly what everyone expected. The radio wasn’t bad because people didn’t need to see him. He could do as he pleased so long as he sounded like sex, drugs and rock and roll. But on live tv? With a record deal and executives that expected very specific things?

Yeah, that was a different kettle of fish all together.

Because people would see. All those fans who knew every swaggering step, every smirk, even his preferred brand of black eyeliner- they would be watching. And noting if something was off.

So Killian Jones wasn’t nervous, but the person who wore his suit, Killian Jones, was.

Regina had already had his supplies, his chosen wardrobe, guitar, ear piece, everything, sent ahead to Boston with his gig man so that the guitar would be ready for the talk show he was performing on that afternoon. Which was probably a good thing because Killian was pretty sure he would have forgotten his guitar in his nervousness.

The Uber pulled up onto the tarmac of the private lot, slowing as they neared the private plane for Boston. Usually Killian would take a regular plane, not really fussed, but Regina had decided, and Killian had been not so secretly grateful, that Killian wasn’t ready for that kind of public exposure. His manager, bless her icy exterior, was going to protect him as long as she could. Though it was probably nice for her to have the help of his assigned protector, Emma, for the more hands on stuff.

It was obvious that Emma was looking forward to getting into the security job. She’d gone ahead of Killian, not that she’d stayed at his place the night before, but he had been texting her, so she could scope out the area and debrief with Regina. Killian actually looked forward to seeing Emma in her element, far away from the treatment in the precinct. It would be a glorious sight and one that did much to calm his frayed nerves.

Killian sucked in a deep breath before nodding to the driver and slipping out of the car, to-go coffee cup in hand. The stairs for the plane were down and Emma stood beside them, watching the flight crew carefully. She wore her hair tied up in a tight pony tail and a black polo embroidered with the Poison Apple logo in green just below her left shoulder. A gun was holstered to her hip in as non-flashy a holster as one could really get while still making sure people knew it was there. A little smile flicked up her lips when she noticed Killian arrive.

Killian crossed the tarmac to her, finally smiling for the first time that morning.

“Hello, lass,” he greeted, moving to kiss her.

Emma turned quickly, moving her arm as if she were ushering him inside the plane instead of returning the greeting. “Inside,” she murmured, lips barely moving. “There are paparazzi outside the gate. Someone got hold of your flight schedule.”

Killian gulped, trying to stop from turning immediately and running. Fuck. The protection he needed for Emma had nearly been blown, and would have been if it weren’t for how careful and aware she was. Would the paps think anything of the weird almost kiss?

Not when Killian Jones was a known flirt. With a deep breath Killian steeled his features and turned towards the metal fencing around the private airport. Sly grin in place, eyebrow climbing higher every second, Killian raised his coffee cup in a salute towards the place where cameras were not so subtly peaking from around bushes. At least this would give better pictures than whatever the awkward bob did and increase the likelihood of this planned picture being published in the magazines and gossip sites.

“Inside,” Killian muttered, feeling an uncomfortable tug, as if his muscles didn’t want to play this game. Didn’t want to smirk and wink and swagger. Oh, how he wished he’d taken up Victor’s offer and gotten some more anti-anxiety meds, those ones that worked in a panic attack. But he was already taking his SSRIs and there was this fear that as someone so prone to vice, introducing more meds, especially strong ones like he’d originally been taking for the immediate anxiety, would cause more trouble than fix.

Emma returned with a sharp nod before going back to watching everyone move around the plane. Killian climbed the stairs and took his seat. Regina raised a brow from her own.

“And how are we today, Mr. Jones?”

“Peachy,” he answered grimly, taking a sip of his now cold coffee.

“You forgot the eyeliner.” Regina held up a black pencil, offering it to him.

Killian cursed softly before taking the pencil and slipping to the tiny onboard bathroom. Killian Jones was never without eyeliner. It was part of the appeal, the image expected of him. Without the eyeliner he looked more like himself, more vulnerable. Without the eyeliner people could get in. Without the eyeliner people were reminded of the band he was once part of, with a brother and friends. A few slicks of black khol and Killian Jones had arrived. Almost as if a mask had slid into place.

Killian exited the bathroom just as Emma came on board, the staircase folding up into a door behind her.

“Morning, lass,” Killian greeted, reaching out and catching her hand.

This time Emma smiled properly and squeezed his hand. “Morning, Killian.”

“That’s better,” he grinned, kissing her cheek quickly before taking his seat. Emma slid down beside him, buckling up.

“You doing okay?” she asked, leaning down beside him to murmur in his ear while Regina started typing away on her laptop.

“Ask me later?”

She gave him a weak smile. “How little sleep did you get?”

“Three hours?” Killian put in with a self-depreciating shrug. “How can you tell?”

“I actually used to be a detective,” Emma grinned back. A wave of gratitude shot through him that this guard position had been open and that Regina had agreed for her to take it. Emma was joking about her time as a detective. And it wasn’t self-depreciating or bitter.

“Really?” Killian returned, happy to go with her mood on the subject. “I didn’t know that.”

Emma rolled her eyes. “You haven’t been having coffee at all anymore and here you are with a grande.”

“A ginger shot just wasn’t going to cut it.”

“You should sleep now,” Emma suggested, interlacing her fingers with his and moving her neck, as if to create a space for him. Killian watched for a moment before nodding, that weary anxiety weighing heavily on his bones. In private things were easier. Easier to just be. With a sigh Killian settled his head against her shoulder and allowed the whirr of the plane engine and the warmth of Emma’s body to lull him to sleep.

The rest of the morning went by in a buzz. Killian managed to sleep the entire trip to Boston, as well as the car ride to the TV station through traffic. Sleep was an oblivion, enough to pull him out of the stress, especially when Emma sat next to him, unable to hold his hand in the public Uber but only a few inches away. Once they reached the television station, Emma shook his shoulder, rousing him.

“There’s a crowd gathered.” Emma’s voice was tight.

“What?” Killian asked blearily, peering out the tinted window. Sure enough there were at least twenty teenage girls and a few harried adults standing outside of the back door to the station.

Fuck.

“It will be okay,” Emma whispered. “I’m here. The door’s unlocked and we’ll get through it.”

The Uber next to them holding Regina parked and his manager got out, sweeping inside without a problem, no doubt throwing one of her famous glares at the girls. Or they just didn’t know who she was. But they knew who Killian was.

Emma spoke into the mic hanging from the earpiece she wore, listening to the response. Killian wanted to ask her who she was contacting but he was too busy watching the girls with their signs. They probably wanted him to sign those bristol board posters. Killian’s hands shook at the thought, forcing him to grasp at the black denim jeans he wore. How much of an asshole was he for not wanting to sign autographs and take pictures? Oh how much easier this was when he was halfway to the bottom of a bottle already. At least then if he decided he couldn’t pretend to be Killian Jones that day he was too far gone to care.

“I can’t talk to them today,” Killian whispered, catching Emma’s attention quickly. “I can’t pretend anymore than I already have to.”

“It’s okay,” she replied. “I can be a bitch for you.”

Killian had to snort out a laugh, but the sound was quickly stopped when Emma climbed out of the car. She quickly hurried around the front of the car to Killian’s side, pulling the door open.

“Deep breath, and mask on. We’ll be inside in thirty seconds.”

Killian shut his eyes for a moment. It was way easier to pretend to be sex drugs and rock and roll when he was never sober. Killian pushed himself out of the car, nearly climbing back in when the crowd started to scream and push closer to him.

“Mr. Jones has no time to sign autographs today.” Emma put herself between the mass and himself when they didn’t stop, hands up. “Back off,” she barked, hand dancing over the revolver at her hips. A few of the girls and all the parents stopped, eyeing her warily. But not all. Again, Killian had to stop himself from running. Or spilling the entire truth so they would just back off.

“Back off. I won’t ask again.” The vitriol in her voice made even Killian glance at her. It sounded how she’d talk to a criminal, maybe someone attempting to run her through with a knife to get away. “I will have you all arrested.” That got all their attention and the remaining girls to stop.

“Thank you,” Emma answered, softer now. She reached back to grasp Killian’s elbow and guided him through the crowd with no issue. Oh, Emma was glorious. He wished he wasn’t quite so anxious and could actually appreciate it but he was too busy trying to keep smirking and throwing the occasional wink at the fans.

A few moments later, Emma was pulling open the big steel station door and allowing him into the relative quiet of the station. The speaker in Emma’s ear crackled and she stopped to listen before leading him further up the hallway.

“Your dressing room is up here. Regina’s already in a meeting getting everything set up.”

Killian just nodded, following Emma up the cement lined hallway, made to isolate sounds for the studio. Halfway up the hallway was a black door with his name taped to it. She opened the door and moved aside so Killian could enter. Killian slipped into the dressing room and sunk down onto the nearest chair, an old upholstered thing. Emma shut the door and grabbed a bottle of water on the counter with the rest of the rider requests Regina had sent in and handed it to him.

“I shouldn’t be in here but I just wanted to ask- how are you doing?”

Killian glanced up at her and sighed. “Are you sure I can do this?”

“Are you sure you can’t?” Emma returned, squatting down in front of him and placing her hands on his knees, warming and grounding.

“It’s just exhausting,” Killian answered truthfully.

Everything was exhausting. Out here, he felt like a lie. Killian only felt like himself when he was in his house or Emma’s apartment, no illusions between them. He didn’t want to put on those leather pants and the leering smile that he’d be furious if someone sent at Emma.

“You won’t always have to lie.”

“Everyone here wants something from me.” It was hard not to sound whining and he felt a bit bad about that. Because Killian knew he was lucky but he was just so tired of all this. Of the lies and the persona and not getting to figure out who he was. Because he wasn’t who he was before the alcohol, too much had happened since, but he also wasn’t the man Emma had pulled off that boat two months prior. Eight weeks wasn’t a long time to be sober- well it felt like an eternity- but it also was so short a time to figure himself out after years of floating and fumbling.

Emma nodded, pulling him back to the present. “But think about this- tonight it will be just me and you in the hotel. No one else to need anything.”

Killian raised a brow. “You and me in a suite?”

Emma grinned and Killian had to study her carefully because it actually seemed like she was implying something beyond just sleeping. And damn, didn’t that make his stomach flip with anticipation. And also a bit of hesitation and confusion. They’d slept together a few more times the past week and each night seemed to get more difficult. Each night they seemed to come together and spoon quicker. Each night he slept more soundly but dreamed more vividly. Each morning he woke harder. And not just because he was always a bit sleepy and spent too much time watching Emma sleep.

“Oh?” Killian asked, slightly breathless.

“Oh,” Emma answered, standing. “Get ready. You’re on in thirty.” She pressed a kiss to his lips and left, Killian’s groan following her out.

Damn temptress.

The two of them alone, in a fancy hotel room. A mini-vacation of sorts. With Emma clearly interested in trying. Trying being the operative word because Killian had no idea what he was capable of. Killian groaned again, this time for a different reason.

Emma had saved him only to be the death of him.

Killian guzzled the water bottle before standing to change into the leather pants and black t-shirt with the rips in it that Regina had set out already. The leather pants didn’t go on quite as easily as they had before on tour, his legs having filled out a bit from all the running he’d done. At least this was one way to see the progress beyond a lack of a daily hangover. Killian would need to order new pants before tour because there was no way he was dancing around in these for three hours. Once he was dressed Killian mussed his hair so it flipped around like he’d just had really good sex, pulled the v-neck of his shirt even lower and then slipped into his heavy black boots again, singing to himself.

The leather and black costume helped. It almost made him feel like the person he was supposed to be, as if it were easier to pretend when he looked the part. Killian never could have pretended to be the rockstar in that yellow t-shirt he’d loaned Emma the week before. Not that anyone would have taken him serious in that.

A few minutes later there was a knock on the door. “Mr. Jones? You’re on in five.”

Killian sucked in a breath that may have been a gasp before grabbing another bottle of water and opening the door. A PA stood beside Emma, checking her schedule. She nearly squeaked when Killian appeared, eyes widening. Despite the anxiety flooding him, Killian had to grin. Emma caught his eye and rolled her own.

“This way,” the PA instructed after coughing into her hand, heat climbing her cheeks. Killian motioned for her to lead the way, Emma following into step beside him.

“Like what you see?” Killian whispered, raising a brow saucily.

“Enough that I’m glad Regina got us a big bed.”

Killian couldn’t respond because they’d entered the main station floor where he’d be performing. All he could do was sputter when Emma winked at him and moved to stand next to Regina off camera. Killian had to force himself to think about Regina riding a tricycle to stop himself from embarrassing himself. Because those leather pants were damn tight and didn’t hide anything.

Killian hadn’t had sex since the first time he met Emma, that time she threatened to shoot him, nearly three months prior. At first he hadn’t known why but he’d since come to realize that Emma had caught him off guard so much that morning that he started to question all his decisions. Including finding all those bar flies each night. And then everything else got in the way. Was this Emma’s way of saying she was ready? She wasn’t going to run? Or was she just as horny as Killian was? Either way, Killian really wanted to leave and go to the hotel and find out exactly what she was doing turning him on.

Killian grabbed his guitar, stood behind the mic, and looked towards where Emma stood, smiling a bit like the cat who got the cream. Oh, she was going to pay for the dangerous game she’d started.

The producer waved at him. “Twenty seconds Mr. Jones. Give us an intro then sing. We’ve an intro tape already playing.”

Killian nodded, he’d seen that a few days prior, a mix of the hosts thoughts and old clips of Killian’s tours and shows meant to tease the longer interview the next day on the morning show. It was standard but would please the fans and hopefully attract new with the clips of some of his best work- and gratuitous shirtless and tight pants images.

The producer pointed at him, before counting down from five on her fingers. When she pointed again, the light on the camera facing him came on and Killian stepped closer to the mic so that his lips nearly touched it.

“Good afternoon,” he purred, lowering his voice to the one he had heard equated to sex, accent thick and husky. “This is a song from my new album, called Chipped Tea Cup. Enjoy.” A quick wink at the camera before Killian started to strum. It wasn’t meant to be a sexy song, meant more as a sweet love song that so often attracted the fans to the album as a whole- he really should write a few new ones of those- but he wouldn’t be the man who created the Killian Jones persona if he couldn’t turn anything into an innuendo.

Especially when the most beautiful and sexy woman he’d ever had the pleasure of knowing was watching.

And apparently it worked because Emma’s face was red when he glanced at her halfway through the song. Killian didn’t know if he should be proud or nervous of the can of worms he’d opened. Or maybe bed sheets he’d turned down.

Once the song ended, Killian very intentionally licked his lips and smirked. The producer waved off the camera and then he was free, the day’s obligations over. When he glanced back at Emma she was shaking her head, biting her lip against the grin, hand flat against her chest.

“You’re bad,” Emma whispered when Killian had joined her again in the dressing room.

“You started it,” he responded.

“Care to end it?”

“You’re really serious about this?” Killian asked, the words coming out before he could stop himself.

Emma nodded. “I’ve been thinking a lot about it and we’re here and together and I’m not saying we fuck.” Killian snorted at her bluntness. “I’m just saying we explore. I mean, if you want to.” Emma shrugged and looked away.

Explore?

Relief filled Killian. No sex but still fooling around. It was still too soon for Killian to trust his body and Emma still seemed conscious of her chance to run. Maybe fooling around would be the fun thing to kick start things. They may have only been together for nearly two months, but, Killian would have fallen into bed far sooner before. Not that they weren’t in bed. But Killian would have been in bed in his birthday suit weeks ago. Hell, he and Milah had gotten it on a week after their first date. It was definitely time to see Emma shirtless.

Killian grasped her hand, pulling her closer. “Oh, I want to.”

“Good.” Emma kissed him hard and quick. “Now get ready. You have dinner and stuff to go to.”

“Oh, stuff alright.” Killian lunged to touch Emma’s behind but she dodged the hand with a wink before jumping out of the way and letting herself out the door. Once again Killian found himself groaning at his girlfriend.

And wishing he wore sweatpants all through dinner as he watched Emma slip food into her mouth, lips wrapping slowly around the fork as she smirked saucily when Regina wasn’t looking.

And cursing the Boston traffic.

And Regina for wanting to review the set list for the next day’s show in his room.

It was after nine before Regina left, leaving Killian sitting on the edge of the bed and Emma perched on the windowsill. The minute the door shut behind Regina, Killian stood and threw the door lock.

“Finally,” he sighed.

Emma laughed and stood, meeting him in the middle of the large suite, bare toes digging into the plush carpet. Killian stopped about a foot away, watching her.

“Do you still want to explore?” Killian asked, feeling like a virgin asking if he could cop a feel at the school dance. At least Emma seemed just as nervous, the two of them having sat on their arousal and thoughts for far too long.

Emma nodded, biting at her lip. “Yeah.”

“What if I can’t get hard? Or stay hard?” Killian asked, face heating up.

“What if I freak out? Or I missed a patch of hair shaving this morning?”

“I’m not trying to be funny,” Killian replied, scowling a bit.

Emma quickly shook her head. “I didn’t mean that, Killian” she answered, reaching to grab his hand. “I mean that, I’m scared too. I want this to be good. I’m at the point now where I want it to be so perfect I’m actually worried if I missed the hair on my ankle.”

Of course Emma was worried about the little things. She wasn’t used to this type of intimacy either. She was just as emotionally hurt as he was physically when it came to sex. But they’d never move on if they didn’t try.

“I won’t look at your foot,” Killian replied.

Emma grinned. “Good, because I was thinking that we could explore your body.”

“Mine?” Killian asked, nervous but also a bit excited.

Emma nodded. “I mean, you’re really worried about everything when it comes to sex. Asking you to go straight into that isn’t fair so I was thinking we could slowly start to build up your confidence in what you can do now that you’re getting healthy. And I think that taking care of you like this might help me to.” Emma muttered the last bit, still not totally comfortable in showing her emotions. It reminded Killian of the first day he was at her place, when she researched all the food he needed during recovery. Emma coughed. “Plus, I really want to give you a blow job.”

Killian felt his knees start to buckle. Oh. That sounded brilliant. Even better because Emma had actually thought about all this, about what they needed to keep moving forward in a physical way. How was he supposed to say no to something he wanted so badly, that also had the potential to really help him understand his new body?

Nerves still filling him but not enough to shove down his determination to do this with Emma, he raised a brow. “Well what are we waiting for?”

Emma grinned and shoved him onto the bed.

[legendaryedhplays]

Magic Design History - Legendary Creatures

Hello everybody, we’ve finally reached 2017 and I have returned from a night of heavy drinking to dive into an aspect of Magic with you to discuss the history of it’s development. This installment will focus on an aspect near and dear to my heart and the larger purpose of this blog, Legendary Creatures!

This topic has a number of story points, in fact its probably more nuanced than I’m even choosing to outline. That said, this could be a long one!

In the Beginning…

In the beginning, there were no Legendary Creature (Legends for the sack of my fingers). Actually, there were no multicolored cards either. I guess that is kind of important for my story.

Then came Legends in June of 1994 as the third non-Core Set expansion. This set was designed mostly before the official release of Magic and brought about the idea of Legendary Creatures - specific people who existed in the world we were visiting. To highlight these characters - who by the way, many were based on the designers’ D&D campaigns - the choice to flip the script was made and they made as Magic’s first multicolored cards. Every one of them.

As a history lesson, I believe the Legend Rule started out being that if I had Dakkon Blackblade out any new copies of Dakkon Blackblade would immediately go to the graveyard when played, thus marooning all other copies in either players’ hands. Because, like, why bother casting a spell that was just going to the graveyard?

I feel this addition to Magic canon was hugely important. But I am biased as I participate in a format that is driven by the quality of Legendary. It is funny to think though that Gold cards were also introduced here and many players will never know realize that all Legends in Legends were Gold and all Gold cards were Legends.

Continuing Trends

Because Legends was an expansion existing before the official release of Alpha, that means that sets following it were aware of legends during their design. That meant that Legends became apart of every set, by my research. So the trend of kicking out a handful of Legends began and with the Legend Rule in its beginning state, it became a design tool to help control the power level of some cards deemed too powerful in multiples. This would be the design philosophy for Legends for the next three years.

I don’t know that anything remarkable happened in this era, this is a point in design that I often flip through in hopes of finding a creature worth building around for it’s color identity and abilities. I am often disappointed. As the next section’s influences begin to come into focus, some of the Legends designed before Tempest would get retrofitted into the story.

Introducing Story

As I stated before - and is terribly obvious - Legends are fabled people existing in the worlds we visit and some time around 1997 - with the release of Weatherlight and Tempest - the cards started introducing more story elements. This meant the Legends being printed began showcasing the characters of those stories. I think this was a great choice that pulled in or retained many of the community personalities we love that identify as a Vorthos.

The story that started it roots in Weatherlight ran through the next four blocks and culminated in the final set of the Invasion block, Apocalypse. Through out all of this, Legends like Mirri and Gerrard were being featured on cards to help showcase their place in the story. My one complaint during this era was that aside from a few characters like Ertai and Croax, we never saw more than one card appearance of characters, leaving the players with no sense of the character’s arc.

Everyone is Legendary

Around the tail end of 2004 Magic took a trip to the new plane of Kamigawa, a Japanese-Shinto inspired world that made the mistake of putting Creative before Design - making for an ill-received block - and now us Samurai enthusiasts must forever pay the price. This was also where the Legend Rule was retooled to make any copies beyond the first destroy all copies of a Legendary Permanent with the same name.

The giant flag waving over all of the Kamigawa block was that it was featuring Legendary Permanents in mass - 163 by my count. Suddenly everything was legendary, including the enchantments and lands and sort of the spells. I think this is real cool in concept, but in the 13 years since, I can see how it might have lessened the special nature of Legends in one way or another.

I personally loved this influx of Legends as a Commander player, because more than half were not linear to build with. The major set back was that Kamigawa was almost entirely mono colored and meaning we were never given allied/enemy paired Legends for any of the tribes used such as Samurai, Ninja, Foxes or Rats.

Thankfully, the following year - Ravnica block - also featured Legendary Creatures in high numbers - 20 in total - and brought about allied/enemy creatures that would also prove to be relatively open-ended once Commander gained popularity. This was an important block in Magic history, because it gave an identity to each of the two-color pairs, something that wasn’t defined until 2006.

Lastly, from a lore prospective, this era of Legends were a mixed bag of important to the stories being told in the novels and completely unmentioned.

Displaced Heroes

Capping off a prolonged period of Legends, Time Spiral block could be described as a nostalgia block. Occupying the space that I see Commander products slowly embracing more and more, the designers turned their attentions to defining the characters of early Magic in card form, sometimes being as fleeting as appearing in flavor text of one card. Thankfully we were not restricted mono colored creatures this time around.

This was another stage of design that I think had it’s ups and downs. Part of the nostalgia also meant making the creatures feel like cards from their respective ages of design. In some cases this made for really interesting designs, like Ib Halfheart or Jhoira of the Ghitu, but (to me) there was a large batch of confusing designs that were more in-jokes than anything, like Mangara of Corondor, Tivadar of Thorn or Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder.

While I think this was an important time in Magic design, I don’t look as fondly back on this time as I might Kamigawa or Ravnica. And while I would more than love another Time Spiral block, I think it’s more for the wink-nod designs of the cards filling the entire set than the Legends specifically. In my eyes, this was a weak point in design, as the Legends were often confusing, though not yet pandering.

The Rise of Commander

 Now we’ve reached Magic circa 2009, and the rise of Commander.

Fun fact: Commander was popularized in the 2008-2010 era, but its roots have been said to go as far back as a 1995 Duelist article, with the format being cultivated in 2001 [x]

As the 100-card singleton format began to take root in the general Magic community - and designers started designing towards it - the use of Legends evolved and their significance began to ramp up. Suddenly, the state of being legendary and the colors that creature occupied were a huge deal. In this era we also saw the Legend Rule change with Theros, now Legendary things only exploded if they occupied the same side of the battlefield.

The reasoning for this explosion in popularity, to me, comes from the release of Shards of Alara and the heavy influx of 3-color Legends, many of which were also well suited for themed decks or archetypes. My one gripe being that many of the Legends in Shards block were very linear. But Wizards heard the community’s love for the format and gave us Magic the Gathering: Commander in 2011, which took the number of wedge colored cards from a handful to double digits.

But that leads up to the final or better yet, most recent, point in the design of Legends…

The Fine Line

So now Wizards is going out of their way to design a product for us, becoming yearly in 2013. And with this attention towards Commander, I think two things began to come into focus:

1) The Commander community started complaining when a Legend didn’t work well in the format.

2) Wizards tried to give us what we asked for, but missed the mark.

Truthfully, both points have merits to both sides of the issue.

With the first point, Commander players got a bit of big head, Dragonlord Kolaghan probably being the best example in recent memory. Yes, Kolaghan is legend, sadly it doesn’t work well or at all in Commander.

We want cool legends, and it sucks when one of a cycle doesn’t fit into the Commander mold. But maybe it wasn’t designed for us. Or maybe just the being a Dragon part was.

The second issue more leans towards my hatred of being pandered to, I liked Kamigawa block because the Legends were never built with Commander in mind and thus, they worked as both build arounds and just unique creatures. With Wizards constructing creatures per our requests, it was nice, but there was a communication error that would occur (see Ulrich or the not-yet-confirmed lack of a UR legend that cares about artifacts in Aether Revolt).

And so, as much as I want to knock on @markrosewater‘s door and request specific things, it takes some of the fun out for me. Though, it does make the game I love feel more approachable.

The End…

Man, are you still here? Wow. Thanks.

So, we’ve just covered a solid 1000+ words on my thoughts about the design of Legendary Creatures across Magic’s history. I hope I educated and not just spouted my shallow thoughts, because this took a lot of research and several attempts on my part. What did I skip over that I could highlight in the future? Where would you like to see the series go in the future?

Either way, thanks for any feedback and I hope to catch you later!

[aurelliocheek]

Welcome to the Jungle: Making of Shadow of the Tomb Raider

In 2013, a videogame icon made its return to the screen. In 2018, at the peak of her career, she took players on an adventure that climaxed in the emotional grand finale of a celebrated trilogy.

Lara Croft is undoubtedly one of the most renowned characters in videogames history, who first took players on her adventures in 1996. A fearless female Indiana Jones, who dual-wielded her way through dangerous caves and ancient tombs and pistol-wipped her enemies into oblivion. Many sequels and movies accompanied the British archaeologist on her way to popcultural immortality, and it was in 2013, when Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Montréal brought her back in a more than well-received reboot. In September 2018, Eidos released the third and final sequel of a trilogy that portrayed a young and unexperienced Lara Croft from her early beginnings to the peak of her career.

On the following pages, Eidos Montréal‘s Narrative Designer Jason Dozois, Animation Director Wilson Mui and Audio Director Rob Bridgett take us on a trip to learn more about how the studio approached the trilogy‘s grand finale– enjoy!

The Narrative Heart of Tomb Raider Jason Dozois worked in the games industry for over 17 years, mainly as a Narrative and Level Designer for various projects. In 2010, Dozois joined Eidos Montréal, his previous projects including »Deus Ex: Mankind Divided« and »Tomb Raider«.

»I was the Narrative Director on Shadow of the Tomb Raider where I managed a team of writers and worked closely with all other departments to make sure the story and flow of the game was consistent and what we wanted it to be. That means a lot of discussions with all the different trades – from concept artists, to level artists, lighting, animation, and audio. Narrative has always been my main interest. In the past with smaller teams, the level designers worked on the integration and assembly of the game, so they most directly influenced the story through the integration of gameplay. As teams got bigger over time, more specialization was needed, and when the opportunity appeared to focus solely on narrative, I jumped at it.

Headlessly rushing into things isn’t the smartest thing to do – and Lara has to find out for herself. To defeat her enemy, she has to become one with the jungle.

The Challenge of Storytelling »Narrative Design in a video game is very complex,« Jason explains. »Even in a more linear story like the one we have in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the player still has immense control over the pacing and how fast or slowly they progress through certain levels. So a lot of the work is making sure people understand what they need to understand at any given moment in the story. Through extensive playtesting, we evaluate if we’re on track and make adjustments to narrative elements of the game as we go. We plan out the high level of the story, then we break down each individual level into subsections, and plot those out. The rubber really hits the road when we start building it. We are delivering a video game not a document. So the real measure of something is on screen. And if it doesn’t work on screen we adjust/change/cut to make it work.«

Conception for Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Lara‘s long-lasting battle against her nemesis Trinity started very early on. »At a high level, Lara’s arc was planned from the beginning. The lower level you get the more open it was for us to interpret and deliver the best story and experience we possibly could. The main goal was to complete the origin story in a satisfying way. Now everyone’s vision of what that is, is a little bit different. So my job was to curate all the possibilities and make sure we had the best one. We wanted to really push Lara’s characterization in this game, push the envelop on both sides: light and dark. There are a lot of dark moments in this game but there are many really quiet and intimate moments as well, and I’m very proud of these; the game has a nice pacing and variety. There’s a scene with Lara and Jonah in the jungle where they’re talking about their pasts and you get a nice sense of who they are. They feel like real people.«

Create, Review, Repeat Iterating and adapting are a crucial part of every development process, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider was no exception. »We worked a lot on the main opponent of the story« Jason recalls. »His first iteration was more classic, and since he didn’t have a lot of screen time, this wasn’t connecting with most of us, or our playtest audience. As we improved him and made him more relatable, we created another problem; some people thought he was too sympathetic. So what we did was create a new character: Commander Rourke. HE would be the military lead of Trinity. The ›fist‹ to balance the ›heart‹ of our main opponent, Dr. Dominguez.

One of my favorite sequences of the game is the tailing sequence in ›Day of the Dead‹, near the beginning of the game. In that sequence we expose Trinity (Dr. Dominguez and Commander Rourke) as well as show Lara’s obsessiveness in her pursuit of them. And while the geometry of the level had been locked for a long time, we revised the content of that tailing sequence several times until it was just right. It’s very important to introduce your characters in a memorable way and I’m very happy with the introductions we did in the Day of the Dead level.«

Shortly after Lara‘s first appearance in Tomb Raider, she grew from an innocent adventurer to a killer – even though in self-defense – in almost no time, which partly felt pretty heavy. In »Rise of the Tomb Raider«, players were already used to her having no problem killing and even executing people, and to a certain degree it was ok, as it came with her growing into a way more experienced adventurer who knows how to take care of herself. In Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Lara even goes a large step further.

»It’s not just about escalation, it’s about momentum. We certainly had a character momentum and evolution coming from the previous two games. And we took that to an extreme in this game, Lara is going too far. She is so competent and capable that she’s potentially a danger to the whole world, not just to herself. And in the game she learns to temper and moderate her actions, becoming more strategic and less reactive in the process.«

Ending up too sympathetic for a villain, the team had to find an emotional counter-weight Dr. Dominguez and eventually created Commander Rourke.

Environment meets Narrative »It’s not a coincidence we chose the jungle,« Jason clarifies. »The story world should be a reflection of the character. The first time you arrive in the jungle, you feel like you’re in a new world. This was done intentionally. The jungle is personified by the jaguar and Lara’s trial with that predator teaches her how to be like it and use the environment as a weapon. So stealth and environmental abilities are at the forefront of this game. They are an expression of Lara herself. The jungle has the power of life and death, as does Lara.

Already well-known to fans of the series are the vast number of collectibles: relics, documents, murals, crypts and more, giving players not only something to do but also serve as a means of telling people more about the story and the region‘s background – but there is more. »One of the new ways of expanding the narrative along with relics, documents, and murals, were the side quests and the hubs. We wanted this game to be a more social experience. Not only about traversal and combat, but actual interaction (non-violent) with people. Each hub had its own theme, all different variations of Tomb Raiding. The first hub was Tomb Raiding as Pillaging. Outsiders are coming to this town, stealing artifacts and the people are suffering. The second hub, Paititi, was Tomb Raiding as Anthropology. We learn about the culture and the people and the main conflict between the rebels and the Cult of Kukulkan. The final hub was Tomb Raiding as Adventure. We wanted to harken back to a more innocent time, a feeling of wonder and excitement of discovery. All these themes are reflected in the side missions present in each hub.«

In Times of Diversity With diversity being an important and evergrowing topic today, more and more developers choose female protagonists for their titles, for example Chloe Frazier and Nadine Ross in Naughty Dog‘s »Uncharted: The Lost Legacy«. And while Lara Croft has always been a true badass, she was also well-known for her sexiness, which may seem like a challenge for writers and designers who want to adequately bring such a character on today‘s screen.

»Lara is an iconic and strong character. She drives the story forward. That’s the role of a protagonist in a story. It’s no more difficult to write a story for a female lead character than a male lead character. Each character has their own unique take on life and we simply need to give them an objective and tough challenges and have them push through those challenges. In our case we had external and internal challenges as well as interpersonal challenges (Lara’s relationship with Jonah) that gave us multiple layers to play with.

I can’t speak for other games, but this is Tomb Raider. Lara is ubiquitous; everyone knows who she is. When working on other games most non-gamers have no idea about the characters or games I work on. But when it comes to Tomb Raider, everyone knows. It’s a license that crossed over in to the popular culture in multiple different ways. The challenge with Lara, like other iconic characters, is to keep her in the present, in the now. These stories are meant to feel timeless, but they’re not set in the past. They are always set in the present. So the main challenge is to keep Lara feeling like she is part of our current time and tastes, which is why adjustments were to make when the origin trilogy was started.

In terms of difficulty, Lara’s final adventure takes her skills to the ultimate test.

Achieving Memorable Greatness Considering the amount of people working on a massive project like Shadow of the Tomb Raider, chances are high that, in hindsight, different members of the team have different personal highlights.

»I’ll pick two things: 1) From purely story and character, I love the fact that Lara’s impatience causes the story to happen. Normally a story starts with an event from the outside; Lara is her own inciting incident. This surprised a lot of people and the guilt she feels over her actions early in the game drive the story forward. And 2) I love the relationship between Lara and Jonah in the game. They are a nicely balanced duo, the range of emotions they both show and the performances that Camilla and Earl gave for those characters, is ultimately my favorite part of the game‘s narrative. If there was another sequel coming up, I’d love to see more of the lighter side of Lara’s personality. We glimpsed it at times in this game, but I’d love to see more« Jason ponders.

A Personal Wishlist Even with an impressive portfolio, one can still dream. »I love the legend of ›Zelda‹ series and RPGs in general, including ›Skyrim‹. I’ve never worked on a massive RPG with an open world, like one of those games, and I would love to be involved with helping to create a world and characters like that.«

Jason Dozois is Narrative Director at Eidos Montréal

The post Welcome to the Jungle: Making of Shadow of the Tomb Raider appeared first on Making Games.

Welcome to the Jungle: Making of Shadow of the Tomb Raider published first on https://leolarsonblog.tumblr.com/

[seraphladyvenom]

We Are Family. [Fairy Tail FanFic]

Chp.2: Meet the guild.

Most of the guild was gathered around you, concern painted on their faces.  You sat on a bench with an ice pack on your head.  Shifty eyes went back and forth to each and every one of them them as you sat there with a grimaced frown, debating if you should say something or just blast them all into the next life.

Lira sat on the table in front of you as she looked up with concerned brown eyes.  She kept quiet though because she knew you were in a rather foul mood, which was understandable, I mean really...you had a fully grown man thrown at you like a sack of potatoes.  I mean what can anyone say to that really?

"Here you go." A soft, and gentle voice spoke as a beautiful, white haired woman placed an X bandage over the bumps on your forehead and back of your head.  It was Mira.  Mirajane Strauss, an S class fairy tail wizard also known as the shedevil.  Which was a rather strange nickname seeing as she was nothing like a devil of the sort.  She had kind eyes and a friendly smile and her voice that could sooth and calm even the devil himself.

  Almost immediately your anger subsided just by her voice alone.  "Thank you." you managed to say as you pulled the ice pack away from your head.  "How are you feeling?" Another heavenly voice spoke.  You looked up and noticed the blonde haired woman looking down at you with sincere worry in her big brown eyes.  It was Lucy Heartfilia.  The Celestial mage who helped save Fiore from the impending dragon attack not too long ago.  Of course, she did have a part in starting it to begin with but...

"My head still hurts a bit, but not like before." You managed a smile.  She sighed in relief.  "Thank goodness, I was so worried there for a second, when I saw Gray crash into you like that I expected the worst!" She exclaimed as she pointed towards Gray with her thumb.  Gray was standing not to far back behind the crowd, shirtless and arms crossed as he leaned on a pillar, a small scowl on his face as he just huffed at Lucy's response.

That sparked an immediate response from Lucy as she began to yell loudly at him.  "Hey!  At least show a little sympathy for the poor girl!  You almost killed her for crying out loud!"  "Hey don't blame me for her not being quick enough to dodge."  "Really Gray?!  How can you be so rude, clearly she had no idea just what goes on around here on a daily basis so how do you expect her to react quickly?!  AND WHERE ARE YOUR CLOTHES?!"  Grey clicked his tongue but immediately panicked and looked down letting out a small gasp when he saw he was bare again.

You sweatdropped.

She sighed once more.  "Honestly, just what are we going to do with you." She shook her head disapprovingly as she massaged her temple.

Gray reacted the only way possible by pointing at the pink haired fire eater who was just giggling away.  "Don't get mad at me!  If anything it's HIS fault!  He's the one who started it!"  Natsu snapped back with a simple "What'd you say?!"  "You heard me lava for brains!" The little tick forming on his forehead and they were face on face.  "You wanna fight then fine let's duke it out right now!!  But don't go crying when I beat you ice princess!"  "Bring it on cinder brain!"

"Quit it guys!  Your interrupting my drinking time!" A voice from the bar spoke.  The woman in question was sitting at the bar downing a full barrel of alcohol and your eyes nearly popped put of your head at the sight alone.

"Cana, when isn't it drinking time for you?" The older blue haired gentleman spoke.  It was Macao Conbolt, former master of this guild.  The girl was Cana Alberona, the girl who can use the Fairy glitter spell, one of Fairy Tail's strongest spells, and obviously this guild's heaviest drinker.

That's right, you knew exactly who each and every member of this guild was, you did your homework and studied them for quite some time now.  And you needed to for a reason.  You averted your eyes towards the rumbling duo on your left while Lucy tried to break them up, obviously now doing a very good job.

Gray Fullbuster, the Ice wizard who once faught the demon Deliora.  Powerful, but quite the nudist.  "Oh Gray my love, you look so dashing even in the midst of a fight!" She spoke with hearts in her eyes.  She was wiggling like a worm just pulled out from the dirt.  Juvia Lockser, the water mage who was once with Phantom Lord's element 4, turned good.  It's obvious why this bimbo changed sides judging by her reaction toward the streaking Ice prince.

You quickly dismissed them as Gray tried to pry her off him as she latched onto him in the middle of the squabble.  Your eyes gazed towards the pink haired mess standing with his arms crossed next to Lucy with a childish pout on his face.  Natsu.  Dragneel.

You knew that name all too well.  There wasn't anywhere you could go without his name coming up wether it be about the magic games or how he nearly took out a village.  Yes he was famous, but to you, his name meant something more.  "Natsu..." You whispered to yourself.

"Hmm?" He looked up at you questioningly and it was then you remembered about his dragon slayer magic.  He could hear a mouse take a piss from across the street in the middle of a rush, of course he'd hear you whisper his name.  A small tint of pink powdered your face and you immediately looked down and put the ice pack on your head to try and distract this whole situation.

Before anything could be said Grey's voice broke the awkwardness when he yelled at Juvia to back off.  As he did he pryed her off but stumbled backwards and crashed into Natsu, causing another dispute against them.  You mentally sighed in relief and thanked the wizard God's for intervening in the knick of time.

Before the fight could ensue even more a loud, deep, womanly voice thundered throughout the guild.  "Enough!"  This alone sent both men to their side of the corners in a frightened state.  Hell, it made the whole guild minus a few tremble in fear.  The red haired vixen clad in armor stomped up and gave a menacing glare.  Even you and Lira had to admit that even y'all were a bit shaken.

"Can't you see that you've caused enough problems for today?!  Your reckless actions nearly cost this poor young woman dearly and all you can do is continue fighting?!" Her voice was dark and threatening.  "That's enough out of you two."  "Yes ma'am!" They yelped in unison.

Erza Scarlet.  Also known as Titania Erza, queen of the faries.  Her requip was so fast and so rare and her collection of armours was so vast.  Her presence alone was intimidating.  It's no wonder she's the strongest female of the guild.  You felt those butterflies in your belly start acting up again.  She was indeed an amazing woman and seeing her in person was just so...cool.  Her menacing stare then turned towards you.

Nevermind.

You heart sank to your ass as she began to approach you.

What did you do to piss her off?  Was she going to scold you too?  Was it illegal to come into the guild if you weren't a member?  Just what was gonna happen?!  As she approached her stare softened alot and a smile appeared on her face.  "Please forgive the craziness in here.  I am truly sorry you had to go through that ordeal earlier.  It's quite an embarrassment and very shameful on our part."

You relaxed your shoulders and smiled waving franticly.  "Oh no, it's okay really, it was my fault, I should have announced myself before just barging in!"  "Don't be silly, you needn't announce yourself before entering.  Are you feeling alright?"

"Huh?  Oh yes.  I'm much better thank you.  It takes a lot more than that to bring me down, honestly." you chuckled nervously.  Erza chuckled in return.  "I can see that, what's your name?"  "Oh that's right!" You stood up and bowed.  "Forgive me, my name is Seradith, it's a pleasure to meet you all even under these certain circumstances." You smiled.  "Pleasure to meet you Seradith.  My names Erza."

"Oh I know!" You immediately mentally berated yourself at how desperate and creepy that sounded.  "I mean...what I meant to say is I've heard a great deal of this guild and read a lot about you all on Sorcerer Weekly.  I'm...that is we..." You look Lira. "Are bit of a fan." You blushed ever so slightly and looked down.

"Wow to think we've gotten this big and have such a strong fan base, it's so amazing!" Lucy sighed dreamily as she clenched her flushed cheeks.  "Pretty soon, I'll have adoring fans rushing to me asking for my autograph, and men just throwing themselves at my feet wanting a chance to be with a star such as myself!"  "You need to wake up from your dreaming Lucy." Natsu replied monotonously with an unimpressed look on his face.

"Can it jerk!" she snapped back.  "So what brings you to Fairy Tail Seradith?" The small blue haired child asked curiously.  Wendy Marvell.  The sky maiden.  A small, petite little girl with the power of a sky dragon slayer, clearly looks can fool you.  She was amazing, you heard the stories and you see her right in front of you oozing with such power, it was exciting.  But the question asked made you a bit uneasy as you sat back down, both you and Lira looking down shyly.

"Well you see..." You began.  It was a few moments of silence that made everyone sort of on edge and curious as to what y'all were about to say.  "It's just that, we are really big fans of Fairy Tail...and we came here in hopes of meeting you all..." Lira proceeded.  "And maybe meet our idol's." She fiddled with her paws.

"Aww how cute, that's the sweetest thing!  Of course you can meet us, we won't turn you down cutie!" Lucy exclaimed as she cuddled her tightly causing Lira to blush and giggle.  Pretty soon the whole guild was riled up about their new fans coming for a visit and it wasn't long before you were introduced to the members currently in the guild and things went back to the normal fairy tail way.