#loot their corpses and harvest all the good parts

[fireproofphoenix]

So I've been playing Palworld and it's scratched that itch I had back when Ark was also new and wonky as all hell. I love finding wonky shit that will be patched soon enough that I otherwise would never had seen if it was a polished game already. That's not the point. The point is the day I reached 365 in-game days on my character, I was taken to Hell and God spoke to me.

This is a somewhat long tale because I can't seem to tell a story without lots of details but ehh.

Now I know it wasn't intended as such but I know what I know man. See I'm all about breaking games. I enjoy speed running and clipping objects, and let me tell you about unintended files stored as magic boxes behind a fireplace in Skyrim! Naturally then, I have used some less than authentic things in the year.

Have I maybe held a conversation about the pros and cons between two Chikipi in the inventory of a Black Marketeer while my Quivern roasted him alive in the background so I could loot his corpse of 35k gold? Perhaps.

Have I ever intentionally instigated a riot in one of the only civilized parts of this island of nightmares? Have I led that bloodthirsty mob then against the leaders of the cults and/or organizations that control the island with the intent of forcing their leaders and their partner creature into a sphere thanks to an exploit allowing me to catch them? It's possible.

But no, instead me and Immortal the Shadowbeak decided to visit his home realm. See I was doing the now-known trick of butchering a pal and then riding them to prevent them from dying. Didn't realize how it worked, really, i just knew to try riding him during the second loop of the animation. I'd discovered this from dropping the controller in a panic as my cat made a mad dash and knocked over my coffee.

I figured out the rhythm of it. I was killing and harvesting this beast endlessly! It refused to stay dead under my guiding hand. Sure it was eternally blurred out with that pixil-y cloud, but that's because we should not gaze directly upon the divine, as this death transcendent hippogriff clearly was. I explain this in a sleep deprived mania to my roommate. They suggest a nap. I disagree. Another coffee means I can continue the immortal butchering.

Then we Fell the first time. I'm no stranger to being out of bounds in a game mind you. Hell my favorite mining route meant clipping through a mountain in another game. This is Fine™ so I land in the water under the map. Recall people saying online that the dungeons and whatnot are just hidden pockets under the world. Maybe that's where I was? Didn't care. Immortal Shadowbeak was there with me still. I continued the butchering unimpeded. Must get technology books for unlocking more shelves.

Over time I have repeatedly entered the Undersea. Sometimes its from exploring, but no, I have a Rushoar and he is called Sæhrímnir and he will take me to the Undersea every time. No matter what. Every other Immortal has regenerated every reload of the save and lost their pixel cloud, but remains censored to this day. But a man needs bacon for his eggs so I butcher him like his namesake to feed the people.

Now, like every good casserole recipe, the backstory is finally set, so onto the tale. On the day of my character's 365th day I rolled out of my bed and walked out of my keep. I did a full tour, remembering my tiny three walls and a roof to how far I'd come with my Pals. It'd been a long year, but I decided a feast! We must celebrate! Not just me and my party, but all of us shall enjoy Sæhrímnir! No salads for breaks today!

So me and Sæhrímnir get into position on the Bloodstone. I'd read having one stone foundation away from everything helped with not falling through the ground and while it worked for everyone else, Sæhrímnir is more Divine and thus immune to that so once again I'm riding his not-a-corpse down to the Undersea. I figure I need more meat to fill everyone, what with food level 7s everywhere, so i continue meat making.

Sæhrímnir decided I'd been flaunting his immortality I guess because later at the party he suddenly burst from his palsphere and I was like "Weird, but okay" and decided I'd try "petting him and calming him down" before tossing him back into the sphere. I was still holding the butcher knife I guess and started disembowling him on the table in the center of the picnic area in front of everyone. Only the Immortals knew what they were, having been killed at the Bloodstone far from the eyes of the rest, and now they knew.

But I wasn't gonna let Sæhrímnir die, so I went through the rituals the same as always and down to the Undersea we went. I prepare to go back to base via the keep inventory option in conjunction with the die and respawn button in the menu. It's routine at this point.

"Come" I hear an older man and younger woman say at the same time. I just happened to be looking at Sæhrímnir, about to return him to his sphere. His pixilation ended at that one word and then we started falling through the Undersea. In that short fall, I wondered if we'd fallen somehow into one of those dungeon pockets. As we landed I knew this was truly not somewhere I was supposed to be.

See, the grass was much more gray than green, but there was grass and ground under my feet in every direction I could see. The issue was, I could not see that far, only about five to ten feet through the thick white mist that was static and yet animated. No wait, that part just moved, but the smoke texture wasn't animated. I cautiously begin moving through the mist, careful that the ground may end yet again. Try finding Sæhrímnir, but he's gone. My palspheres aren't working, my character not even trying to throw an empty hand.

On the side of the screen, I see my character has eaten another plate of bacon an eggs. I'm still alive and eating, so that's a bonus. Means this isn't unsalvagable, but curiosity has me. I check and I have all my weapons. The firearms shoot into the White Void and my ammo count went down, so they work. I reload and set off further and faster into the mist.

Even fully sprinting there's nothing but knee high gray grass and flowers and the mist that is everywhere. I opened the map and it says I haven't left my base. I know I've been running in the mist for easily five minutes. I encounter a tree. It's texture is on inside out and is more or less just a mass of spiky vectors in a dead tree shape. I continue. Minutes pass, more trees appearing in the fog. I saw a pal fragment node but it vanished as I approached.

eventually as I get bored, I notice the day is about to end and I consider respawning and going back. The Sun turns into a Moon in the dial and I hear a crashing sound like a felled tree. Everything flashes and the grass is suddenly green, but the mist is turning black like ink. Horror movie vibes as hell. I'm rooted in place watching this glitch and needing to know how it ends.

The double-voice says something again, but they're no longer saying the same thing. Too brief to comprehend what it was. Haywire audio files, no big thing. Happens a lot. Sæhrímnir then appears, or perhaps another boar like him. It squeals and does its death animation as the fog finishes becoming black. Night must've finished falling in the Overworld---

Lights start coming to life around me, brightening and dimming slowly. Lifmunk Statue green and data log/fast travel blue lights started pulsing in the void. I made the mistake of trying to run to one. The camera spins as I start running. Moving is controlling the camera now and the camera is moving the character now. No problem, lemme just unlearn decades of gaming muscle memory real quick.

"COME" the Twin Voices cried suddenly, static accompanying the word. Feel backdoor room vibes and get goosebumps. My nerves are suddenly both taught and shot at the same time. My character has fallen into the distortion world ffs. Time to abort. I select Respawn in the menu. My character doesn't die. Try several more times to no avail. Try double jumping and my Galeclaw still refuses to answer my summons. Palspheres are still not working.

As I get the idea to just hard-close out the game, the sun begins to rise. Like a disney movie, rays of gold and orange shoot through the black and dispel it....why are the rays of light twisting? They start bending around and twisting around invisible objects my character doesn't collide with. Wait, that thing over there kind of looks like part of the assembly machine---

The entire screen suddenly turns white and I hear a sound like a dozen digital demons as the game crashes. I reboot the game and I'm standing in the middle of the party, still in full swing around 4 in the afternoon on the 365th day. Nevermind my night going through the Shadowrealms like I'm mfing Ra crossing the Duat. Nevermind that I saw beyond the veil as many Islanders wish for and I found only horrors.

I prepare to log out when I check my party. Sæhrímnir is gone. He never returned with me.

The Immortal Pal Experiments have been halted at this time.

[monochromatictoad]

Thinking more about Darkwood and Bugperson.

If the Protagonist gets attacked close to the Bugperson, they'll join in, and attack as well. They'll let the Protagonist loot the corpses first, and then will take what's left.

It's clear the Bugperson is one of the many clones The Being had created, but it's unclear as to who they were before The Being. Given that they are pretty knowledgeable, just unable to speak, it is possible that Bugperson was created from one of the fellow researchers that was injured from the helicopter crash.

The people of the village rumor that they are in cahoots with the Protagonist, because they weren't coming around until the Protagonist was too.

The Bugperson has only one quest. This quest is to grab an important item for them from the Old Woods, before the Protagonist leaves for Chapter 2. They will carve a message as well as a small drawing of the item, that looks vaguely like a bug-like charm. The Protagonist has the option to find this item, or not.

If the Protagonist finds the charm, it'll look like a first attempt charm bracelet, with the only intact charm being a faded spider. The Protagonist will have a journal note that states the item is very familiar, but they can't quite place why it looks familiar.

If the Protagonist doesn't grab the charm, Bugperson will be more Aggressive in Chapter 2, even with wood. The Protagonist will also have to give more wood for just one item.

If the Protagonist gives the charm to Bugperson in Chapter 1, they'll thank the Protagonist, by gifting him two things of gasoline. From there, they will not be aggressive in Chapter 2, and will continue to trade and will even let the Protagonist harvest five Insect once every four days.

If the Protagonist waits to give the charm to Bugperson in Chapter 2, they'll be aggressive, until given the charm. From them, they'll give the Protagonist three free Insect, but won't give the gasoline. The Protagonist will have to trade wood, or kill the Bugperson for it.

If the charm is held on to into the Epilogue, the Charm will return to its former glory, and the name 'Pearl' is spelled out on the charms. The Protagonist will have in his journal that, "One of my comrades brought this from their home across the ocean. They called it their good luck charm, and never let it leave their body.... I wonder where that comrade had gone to..."

The charm bracelet can be given back from here, but only during the Burn It All ending. All the Protagonist needs to do, is set the bracelet down in front of the locked door that the Cicada cries are coming from. The cries will stop, and a leg, belonging to a bug in the order Phasmatodea, will unlock the door and will drag the bracelet back into the room, relocking the door. If the Protagonist goes back to the locked door, a very hoarse, strange voice will simply say "thank you... I miss my home.." before going completely silent. They will not speak anymore from there, but the Cicada cries have completely stopped.

I'll get into the endings in a different part!

[panigamermauser]

So, cut content thoughts part 1. The Upper City.

If their Upper City ideas were too ambitious to make it work at launch - they should put all the relevant NPCs to Karlach's quest from Upper City into the Lower City. 

Do not get me wrong, there are few things I want to see more than Upper City. But Karlach deserves better NOW, not in a year or whenever they decide to patch the Upper City back in.

Like, you can save Gondians. You can harvest shitload of infernal iron and enriched infernal iron from Steel Watch. They do not even have to move Gondian enclave into Lower City. Just get Gondians to take Dammon (if he's alive, ofc) under their wing and teach him advanced demon engine stuff. Or if Dammon is dead, get Barcus to set you up with a specialist. 

Or in case of a murderhobo who never saved a single relevant NPC and yet somehow managed to keep Karlach, maybe put schematics on Gortash, so we can loot them off his corpse? Like, he KNOWS main char travels with Karlach since Act2. So he might want to have an ace up his sleeve when dealing with her.

I honestly do not even care for Cazador's quests in Upper City, because he is in 'dead on sight' type of NPC for me. I'm sure there are players who'd side with him happily and all. And it would be good for them to see more content (though I am not looking forward to the TAKES if this path is ever added back in. Discourse around Astarion is bad enough as is). But I - personally - can live without every other cut Upper City bit except Karlach stuff.

It's probably the biggest reason I put off finishing the game. I do not want to fail my girl💔💔💔

And of course all the missing companions banter and dialogue because they wait on events that currently cannot happen is very sad. I wish I could find datamined examples of it. Running out of things to talk with companions is so very upsetting😭

But I can even live without it. Just add in Karlach stuff ASAP.

[bibatbrat]

Vox Machina Episode 3

if you thought i gave up already you were WRONG

(I mean, Gilmore hasn’t even shown up yet, c’mon)

All of them slapping Grog one right after the other to see if he’s okay is true friendship

“WHAT DO I ASK?!?!?!” “How to fix him...?” “How- Yes, how do we fix it?”

Percy way too excited to use the gun to cauterize people’s wounds as part of interrogation

Matt: you shall all be harvested for K’VARN” 

Everyone else much softer: K’VARN

Vex confidently commanding Vax/Percy/whoever to break the dueregar’s legs and then they’ll leave her and then pausing like, “....is that evil?  That’s kind of evil?”

My favorite thing is Vex noticing things w perception and then pointing them out to Vax (who has not noticed them because he dumb)

I would die for Keyleth

Vax’s gay ass like “welcome back big guy :’) “

TRINKET HAPPY THAT GROG OKAY AGHHHHH

“Just don’t go running off into the dark again >:( “ - Vax is lucky that Grog probably won’t remember this interaction in like 20 episodes

Does Vax own any armor that he didn’t pull off of a corpse jesus

Scanlan always insisting on coming on the stealth mission with the twins and Vax hauling him around while stealthed lmao

“I assume bad things are happening in there... I don’t need to go in there and see it, right..?” Scanlan’s so funny god

Travis doing mental acrobatics to be able to contribute to strategy sessions as Grog is so impressive lol

Vax fucking insisting on still being bait even with the Hallucinatory Terrain and Deck of Illusions... sir please just take up sky-diving or something

Keyleth and Scanlan both giving him buffs... <3

Vax and Tiberius doing their gay little Vox Machina cheer... losers...

Everyone repeating “this is a good plan” in increasingly worried voices lmao

“I flip the double bird and start walking backwards” I really do kin this edgelord bastard huh

“I’m taking that shot because I can shoot forever” Percy about twenty seconds before “oh for the love of God and all that is holy... I misfire”

They all think the carpet is dead lmaooooooooo

Percy waiting to shoot the illithid until he tries to stand up again because it’ll be funnier lol

I love Vex and Keyleth off-roading <3

They were so smart they knew to look behind the waterfall that’s where ALL the good RPG loot is

“Let’s not die together :)”

Clarota is really just a feral cat that they found and decided to keep/help murder a lot of mind flayers

Keyleth and Percy bonding with Clarota over fucking Magneto Helmet

They all just barely remember to roll insight on Clarota’s motive they’re so fucking stupid god bless

Percy getting a nat 1 on insight... he’s just like “wow..... Magneto helmet....”

[darkwoods-darkdreams]

Imagine you’re walking through a forest at night (I)

The town you lived in whispered about the dark. When night fell, they would lock themselves in their houses and snuff out their candles. It was better to act like there was no one home than be surprised by something lurking in the forest. You had believed their superstition as a child, but had outgrown your fear. The night was a good time for you. Most bandits were asleep around their campfires. You were harder to notice in the dark. If anyone was nearby, they would likely walk right past you.

There were flowers that glowed under the moonlight. They were uncommon to most of the area except the forest by the village. During the day, they were indistinguishable from a flower that was poisonous to those who even touched it. The townspeople would have harvested the glowing flowers and sold them for a high price, but they refused to search at night. That left the gathering to you. You would do it in secret, then head to the next town in the morning to sell them. Most buyers trusted you knew what you were doing, since you hadn’t died while gathering the flowers and showed no signs of being poisoned.

Crickets chirped, the trees rustling as the wind swept through the canopies. You glanced up to the moon, wondering how long you had been walking for. A crow fluttered its wings and cawed, drawing your attention away from the sky. You looked down the hill, noticing a caravan. You paused, wondering what they were doing stopped in the middle of the road. Your town wasn’t that far away, they would have been able to see the lights and come to the inn to rest.

You carefully made your way down the hill, moving closer to the caravan. There was no fire. Not even embers or logs laid out in preparation. The horse was gone, the straps that had held to the wooden cart had been cut. Your brow furrowed as you tried to piece together what had happened. You looked down the road, seeing the tracks twist and curve. Had they lost control of the cart? Or perhaps the horse had been spooked and ran off? Further down the road, the forest ended. It used to be a secluded meadow, but the location had become a hotspot for military conflicts between the king and his would-be usurper. Your town remained untouched, well beyond the lines of battle. You could see the abandoned flags and weapons stuck in the mud. You were fortunate to not be able to see the bodies littering the ground. Whoever owned the cart would have had to travel through the battlefield and see what remained of a war neither side had won.

Something scraped the dirt on the other side of the caravan. You tensed, wondering if it was the merchant sleeping. You didn’t want to wake him. You could take whatever supplies you needed from the cart and hurry off to find some glowing flowers. You leaned around the cart’s back corner, watching to make sure that the man was still asleep. He was sitting down, his back resting against the side of the caravan. You waited for him to snore or mutter in his sleep, but he made no sound. You glanced down to his chest, waiting for him to breathe. But there was nothing. He wasn’t breathing. Your gaze fell to his lap, where you found his guts and blood pooled.

You froze. He couldn’t have been dead for long. Whatever had done this to him, whether it was man or monster, was still in the area. You went to take a step back, deciding that tonight was not a good night to be outside, only for something to join you on the road. For a brief moment, you thought it had been a man from its silhouette. But it walked on four legs, the skin on its back stretching over its shoulder blades. In the light of the moon, you could see its face. It was vaguely human. If it had been human at some point in its life, it had been a long time since then. Its skin was dark in some places, as if it had been burned or slightly rotten. Long, dark claws scratched the ground as it approached the dead man.

You understood what had happened now. There were creatures that made their home in battlefields in order to feast on the dead. The merchant had tried to get through the meadow without being noticed, but something had heard him passing through and chased him. The horse had been cut free from the cart during the attack. You wondered if it was dead further down the road and the creature had just returned from the chase. The cart had then slowed and the merchant was killed. You thought that such stories were just made up to keep scavengers from collecting loot from corpses. But the stories were true.

You turned away as the creature opened its mouth to feast upon the body. You couldn’t watch. You carefully moved away from the cart. Risking your life to see what the merchant was transporting could wait until the morning when such monsters went back to their holes or wherever they came from. You moved quietly, heading back up the hill. You prayed that it couldn’t see well in the dark. You didn’t look back, not wanting to waste any time getting back home. Watching your footing was more important.

A chill worked its way up your spine, the hair on the back of your neck standing up. You wanted to dismiss it as the wind, but knew better than to be so optimistic. You turned just enough to glance over your shoulder. Your eyes widened. The creature was at the bottom of the hill, moving noiselessly through the grass. Its gaze was glued to you. You didn’t know when it had noticed you. Maybe it had known you were there all along. But it was smart. It had waited for you to turn your back on it. It seemed it hadn’t had its fill yet.

You faced forward, climbing the hill as quickly as you could. You scrambled, careful not to slip and lose your balance. At the top, your town was in sight. If you could run back to your house and barricade yourself, you could wait out the rest of the night and live to see another day. You were halfway there now. You had a chance.

But you noticed the creature in your periphery. It had caught up to you, moving to one side. It lunged. Its shoulder met the back of your knees, sweeping your legs out from under you. You fell, landing on your back with a thud. Your legs were carried with the momentum, hanging in the air for a moment before hitting the dirt. You groaned, turning onto your stomach as you tried to get up. Your house was so close. If you could keep standing and running when it tried to knock you over, then you had a small chance of surviving.

Something heavy pressed down on your back, keeping you in place. You tensed, feeling the tips of claws between your shoulders. You kept still, knowing that it could easily slice through you. But it could just kill you now. What was it waiting for? Your questions were interrupted by the hand leaving your back. You tried to shift and crawl away, but a low growl warned you against trying to run. You whimpered, tears pooling in your eyes out of fear. You cried out in surprise as your dress was ripped from your body. The sting of cuts made you hiss, but you could tell that they weren’t deep enough to worry about. The creature could have killed you with such a motion, but it hadn’t. Somehow, you were more valuable alive.

It moved behind you, rising up to its full height on four legs. It had kept low to the ground before, but now it didn’t need to bother with sneaking up on you. It crowded your body, hands on either side of your head. You glanced to the claws, fearful as you wondered what it was planning. You would have cried for help, but no one in your village would dare to come outside. If one of them happened to muster up the courage, they would turn and run as soon as they found you pinned beneath some monster. You looked to the houses, your forearms against the ground and pressing onto small rocks. You had been so close.

Something prodded between your legs. You were torn from your thoughts of surviving. You didn’t have the chance to move, the appendage forcing itself into you. You cried out, the movement pressing your knees and arms into the dirt. You tried to crawl away, but you were fenced in by the creature. It wasted no time, setting up a brutal pace. Its hips met yours with each thrust, hitting and rubbing parts of you that made you groan. So this was why it had kept you alive. It wanted something warm to bury itself into. If all it wanted was to use you, then there was the chance that it would leave as soon as it was done with you. You dug your nails into the earth, determined to endure if it meant that you could go back home when the morning came. The appendage was large, causing you to wince when it was especially rough. The creature growled above you, its movements becoming deeper and harder. You were reduced to gasps, desperately waiting for the end.

The creature shifted, moving its hands to press onto your forearms. You struggled, trying to move out from under it, but the sheer weight kept you locked in place. The thing inside of you was growing bigger, twitching. You froze, though the thrusts still forced you to move along with it. If it didn’t care about what you did afterward, it wouldn’t put so much effort into holding you down. No, it wouldn’t be done with you after one night.

You tried to free yourself, but the creature merely growled in response. The appendage was thick now, pressing against your cervix. You feared that it would force its way through, but it didn’t go that far. You panted, chest heaving as the creature became relentless. There was no point in trying to tell it to stop, even if you begged. It wouldn’t understand you. Or maybe it just wouldn’t care.

The creature was rabid now. Its mouth hung open, saliva dripping onto the ground next to your head. It made low, deep noises as it moved inside of you at a pace and depth no man could attempt to replicate. Then, it shifted its stance. It kept your arms pinned, but moved its hips against yours and didn’t pull away. Its feet scraped through the dirt as it tried to force itself deeper, wanting not a single inch of space between your bodies. It spilled its seed within you, the substance thick and lukewarm.

“A-Ah…” You gasped, feeling your body twitch in response. Your arousal had snuck up on you, reacting to the stimulus without understanding the context. It kept you there, beneath its form until it was finished pooling its seed against your cervix. Some of the liquid spilled out, falling between your knees.

Once it was finished, the creature pulled itself from you. You immediately sat up, wanting gravity to take the rest out. You reached toward your entrance, wanting to be rid of the substance, but the monster bared its teeth and growled in warning. You hesitated, moving your hand away. Instead, you got to your feet. You looked to the houses, but the creature circled around you, blocking the way. It stepped toward you, herding you back toward the hill. It wasn’t going to let you go. You sighed, knowing that you didn’t stand a chance against the creature. But it had to eat at some point. It didn’t want to kill you, so it would have to get food from somewhere else. You could sneak away from it then.

You complied, heading back down the hill. It remained behind you, watching to make sure that you didn’t stray from the path it wanted you to take. You passed the cart, heading toward the battlefield. The wind was stronger now, cold against your skin. You shivered, rubbing your arms in an attempt to get warm. Dead bodies were everywhere. You could see more of the creatures, though they didn’t have the same features as the one behind you. They seemed weaker, no claws or discoloration to distinguish them. They only killed through brute force. Some of them noticed you, lifting their heads with maws full of flesh and bone to watch you. One tried to follow, getting close to you, but the creature behind you stepped in front of it. You sighed. It seemed that the most ferocious one had claimed you as his. You weren’t sure if that was a blessing or a curse in such a situation.

You were led to a dip in the earth, dug out by one of the warring sides in order to bury their dead. There were no bodies. You suspected that the hole had been made and then abandoned, or the monsters had already eaten everything inside. You hesitated, noticing the small bones and blood that had been left behind. There were some branches littering the bottom. A nest. They were going to breed you and have you carry their young. You didn’t move. You wondered if it was too late to run. You doubted that you would make it far before they chased you down.

The creature nudged you while you were thinking. You slipped, losing your footing. You slid into the nest. You looked up, watching the monster crawl into the nest with you. The others remained at the top, observing. You didn’t bother getting up. It would just knock you over again. It circled you for a moment, sniffing. It climbed on top of you, burying itself between your legs once more. You remained on your back, petrified by its teeth and bloodied mouth being so close to your face.

It released once more, then moved to the other side of the nest and lied down. It was tired, but didn’t sleep. It watched you, blinking with wide, dark eyes. A gruff sound came from its throat and something moved above you. Another creature. It slid into the nest, less graceful than the one that had already taken you. It did the same as the first, then climbed back out. Another one took its place. You kept still, shutting your eyes and looking away. Trying to push them off did nothing. They were too heavy and too strong.

They continued throughout the night. You were exhausted physically and mentally. The clawed one, which you guessed was the leader, had stepped in at times. The others shied away, letting it have priority. It lasted longer than the others and poured more inside of you. You had tried to sit up once to let everything drain, but the next in line simply pushed you back down. By the time dawn came, the sky above the nest brightening, all but one of the creatures were satisfied. You could hear them sleeping above you at the edge of the nest. The leader remained in the nest with you. It had kept its distance when recuperating from each bout. It seemed that it was the only one allowed to stay in the nest with you.

The last monster forced its seed into you, then left the nest. You sat up, looking down at your stomach. You were bloated from the amount they had given you. Most of it had been forced into your womb. You gently pressed onto the swell of your belly and some of the liquid spilled out. You sighed in relief as some of the pressure dissipated and your chances of actually bearing such vile young was lessened.

A hot puff of air next to your face caused you to jump. It was the leader. It had noticed what you were doing. It nudged you with its shoulder, pushing you back onto the ground. At first, you thought that it wanted the last turn of the night. You tried to keep your legs closed. Your hips ached and your knees were weak. The creature effortlessly forced your legs apart, settling itself between them. It entered you, filling you more than the others had. But, instead of withdrawing and continuing to thrust, it lowered its body onto yours. Its stomach pressed against your belly, but the fluid had nowhere to go. You moaned at the pressure, trying to squirm away, but the creature huffed and lowered its head onto your shoulder.

Your hands moved to its shoulders, trying to push it off. It didn’t move. It was too heavy and you weren’t strong enough. Your hands fell to either side of your head as you gave up, panting. You couldn’t run away like this. You couldn’t even try to dig your way out. Your eyelids drooped, exhausted by the rough night you had endured.

The creature didn’t sleep. Not at first. It waited, feeling your breathing slow as you fell asleep. Your scent had changed in the middle of the night. You used to smell like a meal waiting to be eaten. You smelled of the food you ate and the smoke of the fires you stayed next to for warmth. Now, after a long night, you smelled like him. His seed had taken hold. You were carrying his young. If your scent had changed to another one of the creatures, they would have been the one to stay with you inside of the nest. The others remained outside, protectors that weren’t virile enough. If someone tried to attack, they would fight first. They were expendable, especially since they hadn’t claimed you like he had. If they fell, the leader would be the last line of defense. He was stronger than the rest. Anything that survived the others would die before him. Then he would feast upon their still-warm body to celebrate his victory. No longer hungry, he would return to you and your full womb. He would claim you again, the prize of his victory, before settling down to sleep.

He closed his eyes, pleased with his work. He had made you his.

[rpgsandbox]

“Bear up, my warriors! Bear up! Arise from the mountains and sea! Arise from forests and flat lands! Charge and kill for the king! Maybe the sun is shining one last time for us, maybe we won’t rise our axes to air again! Believe, my warriors! Believe! We will meet in Valhalla! We will drink to glory! Charge! Run and die for the king! For the king!”

                                           - Bear King (Last march to Eastern Horn)

Svilland is a Norse Mythology inspired D&D 5E campaign setting; it is designed to bring the valour, brutality and drama from Norse tales to your roleplaying games. The game is compatible with 5E, but its theme and dynamics are very different than your usual high fantasy game. Sure, there is magic in this realm, a plenty of it even. Yet, it is given in a way that reflects omens, spirits, runes and Norse deities with their true forms in the mythology. In Svilland you will learn the true meaning of blood, magic, raids, and wrath of the gods.

Before the last three ages of northern folks, Svilland was unknown. However, that three ages have changed the whole world and its people. They were forced to settle in a new land that is surrounded by seas, mountains and Vanir lands.

It all began with the freezing of northern shores and poor harvest from farms during the first era, earlier omens of the incoming Black Winter, and Ragnarok. Then, an ice giant (jotunn) named Odd appeared, he became a cruel tyrant of northern folks. Yet, was impaled by his own half-giant brother, who was gifted with a spear from the god Balder, forged by dvergrs.

Deep within the North Mountains, Odd was imprisoned with powerful runes and large chains. However, fate was cruel and when Balder fell into Helheim by the deeds of Odin’s brother Loki, the spear started to lose its power.

                                                   The Tower

In the beginning of second era, The High Council of seidr was assembled to prevent the Black Winter from gaining more power. In order to do that, Sami seidrs were settled down to the towers of the Ymir’s Lash. And there were two kingdoms who ruled over the mainland: Lands of the Bear King and Kingdom of Eastern Horn. Samis, however, had neither a kingdom nor an established rulership during this era, since they preferred to live in their traditional ways, following the footsteps of their ancestors.

Because of its power weakening, Balder’s spear could no longer contain the might of Odd. The jotunn finally woke up, and power of the Black Winter became even greater and it kept getting stronger and stronger. The High Council of seidr could not manage to contain influence of both Odd and the Black Winter at bay, away from the south.

The Bear King started to think that they could stop the Black Winter only if they sacrifice The High Council of seidr to the gods. In this belief, he marched with his soldiers one night, and sacrificed all of the High Seidr. So began the great conflict; with the seeds of hostility and discord sewn between the Bear King and Eastern Horn.

The third age, which is the age the campaign setting takes place, was started with a war between Eastern Horn and the Bear King. This war divided the land - which was already politically unstable - into three parts: Green Lights of the East, the Nionaem, and the Alsvartr.

                                            The Book Cover

Races: Svilland contains different races within all regions. There are 3 main regions and 6 new races. Austris who live in the Green Light of the East Empire, vestris still living in old ways and struggling with the wild, and mithals who are stuck in a conflict between of two rulers of their kingdom. An ancient race who endured many events, Samis. Outcast half-jotunns, and the best craftsmen of the nine realms, dvergrs.

Class Options: We wrote 38 new archetypes including 14 new domains. You can be a raging Svinfylking (Boar-Skirt) , charging his enemies with a mighty axe or be the hand of Odin as a Sacrifice gothi (the cleric) and spread his word. Go on a sacred hunt of Ullr, God of Hunt, as an Ullr ranger and lure your prey to your lair. Become a master of runes with the new runewalker class. Connect with spirits and channel their powers with the seidr.

                                                The Gothi

Domains: Our domains are designed to reflect the harshness of Norse deities. Their features will make you feel like a real gothi, the respected and feared Norse cleric. Some of the domains have additional dynamics that the canon 5E does not normally have. You will be able to accumulate sacrificial points in Sacrifice domain or Aegir’s Gold in Oceanic domain and use them to gain additional effects with your features.

                                          Gods of Svilland

Cults and Organizations: There are many cults in Svilland and some of them reflect quite opposite sides of a same deity. For example, there are worshippers of Balder who think he is good, and other worshippers of him who think he is evil. This sort of uncertainty and vagueness in belief is unique to Svilland as a D&D campaign setting, and it is a more realistic representation of religion.

Feats: 5 new feats inspired by the real Nordic culture like Lausatök Glima, a hand to hand combat style. With Shield Stance feat you can use your shield like a true viking and give no opportunity. If destroying draugrs is your thing you can enhance your experience with Draugr Slayer feat.

                                             The Barbarian

Items & Equipment: With more than 130 new magical items authentic to Svilland, our setting offers you more variety in ways to slay your enemies and more excitement for looting their corpses. Many items have their own history and lore, and suits the overall Norse theme of the campaign.

Monsters: Svilland has many monsters dwelling within wilderness and ruins. Many of them jump right out of myths and folklores of ancient Norse, designed to fit the theme of the realm and gaming style of 5E. You will even be able to run campaigns based solely on monsters provided in our setting if you wish so.

Geography: Svilland is a vast geography that contains, cities, town, villages and ruins with various climate conditions and geographical features. You could find yourself in a ghost seidr town full of monsters lurking in shadows, big capitals with stone walls, vanir outposts, frozen mountain peaks and more.

The whole geography is divided into three kingdoms; Green Lights of the East, Nionaem, and Alsvartr. Each of them has their own way of life, their cultures differ as well as occupations, social class structures, wares, most worshipped deities, and creatures.

                                           Kingdoms of Svilland

Yes, even now you can directly play and test Svilland! We released a demo booklet containing a small portion of the content we are creating. You can check that out and see the quality of our work before you back us. We value feedback from our backers and supporters a lot while developing the game further. You can download the booklet from here.

Kickstarter campaign ends: Thu, October 4 2018 3:01 PM BST

Website: Dream Realm Storytellers

[theheavymetalmama]

Katie Reviews “Far Cry 5″

Doctor Stupidlove

Another day, another Far Cry game. Whether or not that’s a good or bad thing depends on person to person with a laundry list of variables, including but not limited to personal taste and sensibilities, franchise fatigue, whether or not you bought into the glue-huffing guff that this game held a leftist bias pushing an anti-white, anti-American agenda because for the first time in the series the bad guys are an American fanatically religious death cult instead of brown people from imaginary foreign countries, and a myriad of other things I’m probably missing. I’ll say up front that after Primal and a bunch of other bullshit from Ubisoft between now and the infamous ‘women are too hard to animate’ thing I was pretty much done with the series and Ubisoft as a whole. Then the launch trailer for Far Cry 5 dropped and, having grown up in a dead gold mining community chock-full of racist loonies not unlike the one depicted in the fictional Hope County, my interest immediately peaked.

See, the Far Cry games have a strange pattern to them. No game is perfect, but the Far Cry games stand out in that they have one glaring flaw that mars an otherwise damn good game. Far Cry 3 is held aloft as when the series peaked, and for good reason, but the main character was irredeemably unlikable and the main charismatic villain just up and vanishes from the halfway point in the game. Far Cry 4, or Far Cry 3 2 as some call it, fixed the villain problem but the main character was just dull. Primal was...not good, with a boring lead, a boring villain, and an overall boring game. Sure, Blood Dragon was a ton of fun, but part of the charm was that it was completely self-aware of its’ own absurdity and the characters from the hero to the villain weren’t characters so much as they were walking punchlines.

So how does Far Cry 5 compare? Well, when it comes to story, setting, and gameplay, it’s a step up from Far Cry 4 in some ways, blows Primal out of the water, but has its’ own issues and hang-ups that don’t quite make it live up to Far Cry 3. That’s the short version, anyway. The long version?

Let’s start with graphics, location, and aesthetics. Far Cry 5 looks fucking beautiful. 

I’m not kidding, everything from the wild lands, the forests, the mountains, the lakes and rivers, the settlements, everything in Far Cry 5 is absolutely gorgeous. It’s not quite up there with Breath of the Wild or Horizon: Zero Dawn in sheer style and detail, but it’s pretty damn close. More often than not I found myself forgetting about the mission and spending a lot of time exploring, hunting, and trying to take in the sights. More on the ‘trying’ part in a bit. The atmosphere sucks you right in, everything from the chirping birds and buzzing bees making the world feel alive. Exploring the woods and hearing cultist singing and chanting far off in the distance, especially at night, is legitimately terrifying. Wildlife always plays a key role in the Far Cry games and this is no exception, from docile deer to the always pleasant wolverine providing plenty of opportunities for hunting. Just don’t get skunked.

The game takes place in Hope County, a fictional region in rural Montana. Now I’ve never actually been to Montana, but I did grow up in Washington state and I can’t help but notice many similarities. The woods, the rivers, the god damned apple farms, exploring Hope County felt like I was going home again. Sometimes not for the better, but that’s neither here nor there. In any case, Hope County is beautifully detailed, from the farms to forest to the interiors of the (ugh...) Spread Eagle bar to the small hunting cabins out in the woods. Hats off to the artists and environmental designers for Far Cry 5, because they manage to tell more story about the world and characters with just a ransacked pumpkin farm and a dog mourning his dead owners than Square Enix and Konami ever could with a 20 minute cutscene and a dictionary’s worth of dialogue for each character.

Speaking of characters, the Far Cry games are loaded with memorable characters and the locals of Hope County are no exception. Returning character Hurk is back and as redneck-y as ever, and it turns out Hope County is his home. We also meet members of his family, like his pyromaniac cousin Sharky, his promiscuous mother Adelaide and her boyfriend Xander who’s roughly 1/3rd her age, and his racist conspiracy theorist gun-hoarding father Hurk Sr. No wonder he’s so messed up.

But Hurk and his folks aren’t the only people you meet, as the game is packed to the brim with memorable characters that you either love or love to hate, from lovable country boy Nick Rye and half-feral huntress Jess Black to the cartoonishly evil Seed family. More on them in a minute. Oh, and you get a pet bear named Cheeseburger.

Combat and gunplay is as tight as ever, and vehicle control is so smooth it gives Grand Theft Auto a run for its’ money. The soundtrack is pretty damn good, featuring a good mix of licensed and original music and songs. To the surprise of nobody my favorite is the one that plays during the stunt missions.

Leveling and character progress has been streamlined a bit. You upgrade your skills not by gaining experience, but by completing in-game challenges and finding ‘perk magazines’ that, you guessed it, give you points to unlock...well, perks. Some may not like that, but in my opinion it makes sense because if you gained experience just by killing stuff you’d reach level 50 before your first boss fight. Things like bigger ammo bags and extra weapon holsters are no longer unlocked by animal skins but through perks, and said said skins are now exclusively a form of making money.

So that about covers it for the good, and now it’s time for the bad. The streamlining I just brought up both helps and hurts the game. On one hand it does make progressing a lot less tedious, but on the other hand it does take away a lot of what makes Far Cry stand out from other typical shooters. It feels less like they were trimming the fat and more like they were cutting corners. For starters, areas that contain loot only contain ammo, crafting components, and sometimes money. There’s no more animations for skinning animals, harvesting plants, looting corpses, or even your character opening doors. That’s not so bad, but I really miss how dynamic and, as much as I’ve grown to detest this word, cinematic meeting new characters in previous games were. Take a look at this scene in Far Cry 4 when you meet Longinus, easily one of the highlights of the game.

And here’s what happens when you meet Sharky in Far Cry 5. (MINOR SPOILERS)

See the difference? Now one can argue that meeting new characters in real time saves some...well, time and is considerably less pretentious, but it just isn’t as interesting. Far Cry 5 still has plenty of scripted cutscenes, but again, they’ve been stripped down to the bone.

Now remember what I said earlier about trying to take in the sights? This game is packed to the fucking gills with enemy NPCs. Now previous Far Cry games had plenty of enemies as well but this went way overboard to the point that you can’t walk or drive 50 feet before running into a convoy or roadblock or whatever. I speak no hyberbole when I say that by the time you’ve liberated your first region, you’ll have killed more cultists than there are people currently living in real-life Montana as well as hunted and skinned more wolves, cougars, and bears than there are wolves, cougars, and bears currently populating the US west coast. Also, in what universe can a fucking turkey pose a legitimate threat to humans!? Does Far Cry occupy the same universe as fucking South Park?

The story of Far Cry 5 is pretty straight forward, but it definitely feels like there’s some pretty big pieces missing from it. This isn’t just me, critics and players across the board agree that it feels like something was cut from the game at the last minute. This is especially true for the endings, but more on that in a bit. I can’t help but feel that the writers and developers had a lot more to say about racism, gender roles and the enforcement thereof, gun violence and gun culture in America, sexism, religious zealotry, far-right extremism, and of course this tire fire of a presidential administration, because the pieces for all of that are still there. A handful of NPCs mention gender roles for a hot second, several of the guns for hire make disparaging remarks about Trump, the symbol of Eden’s Gate strongly resembles the same symbol the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups use, Hurk’s dad is a caricature of far-right ideals purposefully exaggerated for ridicule and contempt, and there’s even a mission where you meet up with another returning character to find Trump’s pee-tape.

All of the elements are there, but the game says almost nothing about any of it. Why?

When the first trailer for the game dropped it was around the same time Wolfenstein II: the New Colossus was close to release and the same mouth-breathing shitheels who screamed about how killing Nazis in Wolfenstein was pushing an anti-white, anti-conservative agenda did the same thing for Far Cry 5. My guess is that the PR guys at Ubisoft saw the oxygen-thieving wastes of space screaming about how the game was “anti-white SJW propaganda” and then panicked and removed huge chunks of the game so as not to alienate any racist shitheads who may want to buy it. Not only does the game say almost nothing about any of the themes and elements that I mentioned earlier, but the cult of Eden’s Gate is multi-racial and gendered where most of the guys have long hair and hipster beards and all the women barring Faith Seed have short hair and buzz cuts. It’s really jarring and feels like something that was added at the last minute, as the male cultists all sound the same and the female cultists say hardly anything at all.

That brings us to the player character; they’re aren’t a character, they’re an avatar and silent protagonist. Now there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but it feels strange. Especially when you play as a female, which I did. Now the character creation itself is fine, especially with the wide variety of outfits, but the rest is pretty bare bones. More to the point, it’s painfully obvious they designed the game with a male lead in mind and then added a gender-switch as an afterthought. Almost everyone in the game refers to you by male pronouns (which to be fair I call my ladyfriends ‘dude’ all the time) but there are a few scenes where you’re found shirtless in the game. Now call me old-fashioned, but I’d have a bit stronger of a reaction than “Oh, you startled me” if I woke up to some weirdo carving the word ‘wrath’ into my tits! I have a sneaking suspicion that they added a gender switch at the last minute because someone reminded them of the time they looked like lazy idiots for claiming your customizable assassin in Assassin’s Creed: Unity couldn’t be a woman because women were too hard to animated.

And now, let’s finally talk about the Seed Family.

We have the leader Joseph Seed, the trainer and disgraced soldier Jacob, the sadistic second in command John, and the seductress Faith. The Far Cry games are known for their charismatic villains and the seeds are no exception, and especially gripping because the second you meet any single one of them you immediately want them dead. The only problem is that, again, they’re so cartoonishly evil that the more you see them the more you want to shove them crotch-first into the mouth of a hungry grizzly bear. Vaas was always one step ahead of you and constantly in your face and Pagan Min was so suave and charming that you kind of wanted to see where he was going with it all.

Not the case with the seeds. When you see them they immediately piss you off, and the more you see them they just keep pissing you off because they keep hiding behind doors, cronies, hallucinations, or plot devices. And hey, that’s fine. As long as you get to shove the barrel of a shotgun right into their mouth and spatter their brains all over the walls of their church then who cares, right?

....

So, let’s talk about the endings of the game.

Once you’ve liberated all three regions of Hope County by killing John, Jacob, and Faith, you return to the main cult compound to arrest Joseph once again. However, once you get there and cuff him you step outside to find your allies under the brainwashing influence of the drug Bliss and a boss fight ensues. When you knock your allies out and revive them, they snap out of their Bliss-induced stupor and turn on Joseph, and once you’ve freed all of them Joseph drops like a hot rock. When Joseph is down and the day is won...this happens.

....no, really. 

Right the fuck out of nowhere a nuke lands somewhere in the outskirts of Hope County and you scramble to escape, and pretty soon you black out and wake up in a bunker chained to a bed with Joseph hovering over you saying that you’ll be his first new recruit in the cult. All the allies you previously made die as Hope County is wiped off the map and the game ends, not even giving you a continuation like previous games did and rendering every single thing you did up to this point totally and utterly meaningless.

Now some people have defended this, including the developers, saying that there are radio broadcasts in-game talking about how tensions are raising in Russia and North Korea. I spent hours driving around in the game listening to the radio and I heard no such thing, but if they’re indeed there then this only furthers my suspicion that this was a last-minute change because of the backlash from racist shitbirds and wasn’t the ending the writers and developers originally intended. 

For starters, the escalating tensions between Russia, the US, and North Korea aren’t mentioned anywhere else in the game except in the radio broadcasts (which again, I never heard) and despite the Seeds going on and on about “the collapse” we never get any idea of what the collapse is until the end of the game. It’s not even a convincing depiction of a nuke going off! Just some burning trees and a few animals dropping dead as you make your escape with Joseph in tow and neither of you having so much as a sunburn. If this ending was what they planned from the start then they would have went all out, showing in graphic detail the horrors of a nuclear holocaust. How much of a gut-punch would it have been to see Nick Rye hug his wife and newborn daughter just before the skin is blasted off their bones like that scene in Terminator 2 that made me avoid mesh fences for two fucking years? Or Jess run one of her own arrows through her heart to spare herself an agonizing death? Or hell, Hurk, one of the few returning characters in Far Cry, desperately begging the player for help as his face melts off his skull? That would have hit players and hit players hard and people, myself included, wouldn’t be bitching about how out of nowhere and shit the ending is! And that’s to say nothing of the idea of North Korea wasting one of the handful of nukes they have on rural fucking Montana! Jesus H. Tap-dancing Christ, Ubisoft, how fucking stupid do you think we are!?

...okay, fair enough. But still!

Now I know what you’re probably thinking. “Well, damn, that’s grim. Anyway, what’s the good ending like?” 

That IS the good ending.

No, I’m not even kidding. Despite the end scenario being Doctor Strangelove by way of Deliverance (and no, that’s not me being snarky, the game references the movie by playing “We’ll Meet Again” during the final cutscene) that’s the good ending because you, the player, are still alive. The bad ending is that after you arrest Seed and see your friends and allies under the influence of Bliss, you’re given the option to let him go and walk away. You then then your Bliss-induced allies walk with Joseph peacefully into the church and then leave with the same three people, in which they get into a car and leave while chatting about getting the army involved and taking Seed out once and for all. One of them then turns on the radio, the song “Only You” plays, and a red haze takes over the screen just before the credits roll heavily implying that you succumbed to the brainwashing drug (which you’re exposed to several times in the game) and either attacked or killed the people you spent the time in the game trying to save. Either way, each ending renders your actions completely and utterly meaningless.

Why did they do this? Well, partially because the Far Cry writers really love the “There is no objective good or evil, everything and everyone is equally terrible” cliche and they assume everyone else does too, but once again I have no doubt in my mind that the ‘good’ ending wasn’t the original ending and was in fact a last-minute change to appease angry racists in order to not alienate what Ubisoft thinks is their core demographic. What a bucket of cocks.

Final Thoughts

Now despite the endings being complete and utter hot garbage that renders all your actions meaningless, there’s still plenty of fun to be had in Far Cry 5. The combat is satisfying, base jumping and flying around never gets old, the characters are great, and despite chickening out on the themes introduced it’s still a plenty serviceable story. It won’t be winning any awards anytime soon, and if you’re looking for some post-2016 return of the Nazis catharsis then I’d go with Wolfenstein II: the New Colossus instead, but there’s still plenty fun to be had exploring the beautiful wilds of Northwest America while gunning down religious nutjobs, hunting dangerous game, and completing side-quests from uprooting doomsday prepper bunkers to making a bull testicle cook-off to raise morale possible.

B-

A solid B-

[dunmerofskyrim]

32

It was only this year, I think. This year and yet a world ago. I was a boy then. A mercenary contracted to the company of the Red Vahn, in the pay of Jarl Ulfric Stormcloak.

There had been a battle. I had no hand in it. Held neither shield nor spear but went among the bodies with the throat-slitters, the scavengers, beside my quartermaster to take what we could from the wreckage. Pulling gold teeth from out the jaws of death; cutting arrowheads from the fallen.

It was the first I’d seen. Death I’d seen before. I’d killed — not clean, not often, yet all the same and even so. But a battle’s something else entire. Like a thing that shouldn’t be: a great ripeness of carnage, corpses. Springtime in the Rift and the reek and the flies and the hunger of wasps made the whole spectacle more than could fit in my head. Waste, as far as the eye could see. Ground boggy underfoot despite weeks without rain. And then there were the wounded. And they were almost worse.

No hand in the killing, and perhaps that thickened my guilt. Fight in the throng and you protect those around you. Your violence is also an aegis for the fighters ahead and behind, to left and to right. I’d saved no-one that way. I begged our company’s healer, at least let me help with the wounded. He was an Altmer, tall, lines round his eyes like the cracks in pottery too small and tight to let even water seep through. Clovis, an Altmer with a West Nordic name. Healer to our company, barber and surgeon, plier and puller of real teeth when they rotted.

He’d let me help him before. My mother had taught me plants good for poultices: ravelbyne, willowbark, the white from the eggs of the Skyrim rock-warbler. I’d been useful to him then. Keen eye and listening ear, I’d learnt from him. I helped him cut cloth for dressings and he cut my hair. (And I still wear the outgrown aftermath of that cut now, mussed from the sack thrown over my head, slicked to my brow with sweat.) But when the wounded came in from that battle on the plain, I begged him.

“Let me help you again.”

“You don’t know how.”

“So teach me.”

In the back of a wagon he taught me words. A mantra in Altmeris so old no-one speaks it, save when they don’t want to be understood. Words to distance myself from pain and quicken the mending of my own body.

“What use will that be when more wounded come in?”

“If you’re among them? Plenty.”

“And if I don’t plan to be?”

“A healer heals what he knows. As far as bodies go, I assume you know your own best. If not, you’ve – ah – had a youth more interesting than mine. But the fact remains: to learn healing, start with yourself.”

“But where does the magic come in? It’s just words.”

“There’s nothing for magic to work on, is there? Are you hurt, Simra?”

And now I collapse, and I think: Yes, I’m hurt, yes. I collapse on the floor of the towerhouse and the buckle of my knees, the pain in my hands as I catch myself, tell me I ought never have got up. My vision is dark. A feeling like strong drink starts in my skull. And I roll onto my back, then onto my side. The flank where I’m wounded is upright. My shirts stick to the skin and beneath it my torso feels caved in, bruised, beginning to throb.

The mantra Clovis taught me. The Rift. It was only this year, and I was only a boy, and I’ve not yet stopped being that. I’m not yet nineteen. That’s a truth I’ve tried of late to put from my mind, but bleeding and starting to whimper I feel every part a child again. Lost and afraid and not knowing how to save myself. It’s that childish feeling that starts me crying. A wrenching hopelessness, as I realise my only hope is myself. No-one is coming to help.

The mantra can be begun at any point along its length. It’s a circle. Only touch to a point in its circumference and trace around. I grope and grovel towards the place it has in my mind now. I touch, and begin to trace, begin to talk it through. Unfamiliar sounds in a language I don’t know. But they chant the rhythms of the body, the cycles of waste and renewal. And their rhythms force my breath to slow where it had grown tight with panic. That’s the mantra’s first mercy.

Still there’s dark seeping into my eyes. A threat on the edges of my mind, made of memories that beckon, beg me to drown as I dream them. Anything but live in the now, where the pain pounds like a drumbeat, overshouting the stamp of my heart.

Awake. I need to stay. I need to stay awake. The sleep that wants me will swallow me whole.

Simra’s pen hovered. His hand paused til the nib went dry.

Chronicle, account, book-to-be — whatever it was, it was growing messy. Like a once-groomed garden left unchecked. It had started out as neat squares of prose on the folds of parchment he’d bought in Bodram. Now it was a roll of papers, extraneities, scraps scribbled here and there and tied all together with a strip of someone’s torn shirtcloth. Good parchment at its heart and oddments furling round and outwards. Only Simra could order them now, and that bothered him…

The leaf he was working on rested on the back of his satchel. Stiff leather, stiff paper or parchment laid over it. It had served him fine as a writing desk for years when nothing finer could be found.

The little Telvanni-made notebook sat next to him, beside his inkstone in its carved bone box. It was open to his calculations, scribbled down from memory after that morning in Othrenis. Just to check he’d not cheated himself, or let himself be cheated. Just to keep track rather than count out all his coin again. Just so that if someone in Senie asked – a merchant, a traveller – at what price rice for retail down the southwestern road, he’d be able to tell them. Information’s a saleable luxury too, and lighter by far than coin.

He’d bartered away what he couldn’t use. The helmet with its bonemould peak and mail coif; the shell earring and painted luckstone. He’d walked into town with five pairs of boots slung across the saddle of the guar that he led for a pack-beast.

Some of it went in trade. A toothless pantryman in the fuggy warmth and shade of his shop, amongst the shelves of jars and baskets of potsherds. He’d smiled too often as Simra traded him the earring, the luckstone, for their worth in wares. A refilled flask of the local sujamma; worse by far than Tamsora Minu had served him, but not too bad to drink if you weren’t too proud to drink it. A leaf-wrapped parcel of black-flecked white scuttle. A small jar of preshta-jan to season days of nothing but rice, and a paper-bagged handful of black dried hunter’s mushrooms.

The helmet went to a smith. But she was the tools-and-nails backcountry kind, and Othrenis is a small town, and Simra knew better than to ask for all its worth in coin.

“You have rice? Millet?”

“My winter stores.”

“Any you can sell?”

She put up two pounds from her pantry, brown hulled grains, black now and then with wild rice, errant from off the plains. A skillet too, of dark-hammered iron, and two-dozen fowling arrows: a gift to keep Noor in temper about a morning wasted on trade.

“D’you sharp blades too?”

“Two shil a knife. Three for a longer blade.”

“A yera and four then.” Simra unsheathed his four knives, his heavy-bladed sword, laying them down. At once he felt half-helpless without them. Even with a looted hatchet through his belt and magic at his fingertips. “Be back for them and the remaining – what? – call it two yera and four?”

“Two.”

“Just two?”

“Just two. Buying it’s no sure thing. Who’d I sell helmets to herebouts?”

“Only people like me.”

“Only people like you,” she nodded.

Simra didn’t argue. Only carried on through Othrenis to its narrow corner of a marketplace.

No rain today but the ground was still churned to mud from the traffic of traipsing feet. A streetfood seller roasted groundnuts and grilled skewers over rocks he kept hot with flames from his fingers. Cone-hatted farmers wrapped up against the cold in all the clothes they owned grouped together round cauldrons of trama-root and brown rice tea to sell their surplus.

Scant harvest this year, Simra reckoned over their baskets, their urns, their bundles. They had little to sell and prices were dear. Winter rewards the miser, he thought. But he bought three more pounds of saltrice, five starchy white winter dirtyams like hairy crooked fingers, and a bunch of long onions with skins like paper. Paid in coin. Would have felt almost charitable if not for his own slimming funds. Winter rewards the miser but the hearts of the hungry belong to the generous; the maxim finished itself, bitter in his thoughts. Where had he read that? Heard that? It wasn’t Temple creed, that was certain. Eight or Nine? It would come to him, but wouldn’t come now…

Returning to the smithy, Simra bought a skewer of three plump grilled dumplings. Wasn’t that what he’d wanted, after all? They were hot, comforting, filled with fermented rice-bran paste and shards of crushed numb-pepper. He forced himself to eat them slow, staving off guilt with each chaste small half-mouthful.

When Simra left had left Othrenis that morning, he left with a feedbag of rice and yams and onions slung over the guar’s neck. A string of dead men’s boots still hung there with it. Not even the farmers would buy them.

Four shils worse off. That’s where the page said he stood now, in blot and bleeding ink. No matter the pay he’d had from House Minu; he’d lose that soon enough as well. He had the arrows, the sharpened steel. The skillet where a simmer of scuttle and yams and preshta-jan was steaming down now, starting to smell good as it fried. But the page of calculations still briared at him.

He closed it. Stowed it in his bookbag where it wouldn’t look at him and he needn’t look back.

“Who taught you?”

Tammunei asked it from across their camp before Simra could go back to writing. They half-rose to hunker a stride or two closer, around the small fire, the seething skillet and its contents. Red oil, sliced black scuttle, chunks of yam gone the colour of rust as they softened and sizzled.

“Taught me what?” Simra asked, leaning over the satchel and parchment in his lap to put the words into his torso’s shadow.

Tammunei’s eye went to the skillet, the steam.

“My ammu, mostly.”

“No,” Tammunei frowned. “You weren’t very good before. You haven’t seen her since.”

Something tightened in Simra’s throat and he told himself it was only the insult. “You mean when I met you? I thought I was alright…”

“You’re better now,” Tammunei offered. “So I wondered who taught you, between here and then?”

“Morrowind,” Simra lied, short-tongued, a little sharp. “Didn’t know the ingredients when I came here. That’s all. Scuttle, scrib — where’d I learn to cook that in Skyrim, hm?”

Now they’ve got you remembering, Simra thought. Tammu and Ebonheart and all that came after. Every word he wrote now drew him closer to writing that out.

“I’m sorry,” said Tammunei. “I’m interrupting.”

“No. No, I’m done writing.” Simra began to fold his parchments, his papers, clean his pen while his inkstone went dry. “Food’ll be ready soon. Best get to it.”

“Noor’ll be back soon. I should look useful. Or thoughtful at least.”

“And so the witch sweeps in from off the plains to scowl at my cooking…”

“Shul! It smells good! She’s grateful. Only she shows it badly.”

“I got her arrows. Hunting ones. Another reason for her to pretend she doesn’t know the words for ‘thank you’.”

“She’ll like those.”

“And I’d like if she caught us some racer with them. Deer, goat, nix. Thinks any of that’s likely?”

“Not deer. Not for five days now.”

“Not even gonna ask how you know that.”

“Less goat too with every eastward step.”

“Hm. I’m sure we’ll manage.”