We are excited to officially announce its attendance at the 2023 Taipei Cycle show. After the pandemic forced the show to close to international visitors the past few years, Bryton is thrilled to be back showcasing its latest products and innovations to the cycling community.
📷GARDIA R300L - Powerful Backing For Your Ride !
Ride with confidence with the Bryton GARDIA R300L rearview radar. This rearview dual rearview radar and tail light provide double protection to guard you on your rides. When vehicles are approaching from behind, in addition to notifications on compatible bike computers and the GARDIA app, the Bryton GARDIA R300L will automatically change light modes to warn oncoming vehicles as well.
📷Highlight Features - Double Protection
📷Radar Detected Distances up to 190 m 📷Smart ANT+ Light Network Control 📷Safety Brake Light Detection 📷Six Variable Light Modes 📷All-In-One Mounting System
📷Rider 750 SE - Gear up for Adventure!
The Rider 750 SE is equipped with advanced navigation and routing features, including Explore, on-device rerouting, and more, all backed up with a powerful 40-hour battery life. Together with innovative features such as Climb Challenge & Radar Control, the Rider 750 SE is the ultimate companion for the adventurer in you!
📷Highlight Features - Explore Your Discovery
📷On-device Rerouting 📷Strong 40-hours Battery life 📷Customizable Alerts 📷Upgraded Quick-Status Menu 📷Bike Rada Ebike Support 📷2.8 Full Color Touchscreen
Bryton is proud to showcase these innovative products at the 2023 Taipei Cycle show and looks forward to connecting with the global cycling community. Please visit us at Taipei Cycle Show from Mar.22- March 25.
📷For more product information: 📷https://www.brytonsport.com
📷Where is Bryton at Taipei Cycle Show? 📷Booth No. K1121, Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center Hall

I did a money diary this exact week last year about signing the offer letter for the company I work at now. I ended up getting a 5K COL adjustment (62k > 67k) once I moved to Philly. I expressed in the previous journal that I was worried about my taxes since I moved states and work for an NYC company from PA. As many suggested in the comments, it ended up being pretty simple (I used FreeTaxUSA).
SECTION ONE: ASSETS AND DEBT
Retirement Balance - $31,400. A mix of Roth IRA, 401(k), and traditional brokerage.
Equity - N/A
Savings account balance - $11,600 in Emergency Funds; $7,500 in a HYSA that I saved up during college and will use to pay off my student loans when payments resume this summer. Because of this, I consider myself debt free.
Checking account balance - $900; I had a $600 sinking fund for my food/shopping/entertainment in Paris, but I got $300 in cash birthday gifts.
Credit card debt (and how you accumulated it) - $0; I pay my cards off regularly.
Student loan debt - $7,500 for a Political Science and Social Policy Degree with a minor in English. I got a full-tuition scholarship, but had small gaps in aid during my first two years because my school required underclassmen to have on-campus housing and a meal plan.
—
SECTION TWO: INCOME
Income Progression: I’ve been at this job 9 months, make $67k, and it’s great. The people, the work, the benefits. It’s my first post-college, salaried position. I have pretty much no complaints about it and am hoping to get a merit raise during our summer evaluations.
Main Job Monthly Take Home: $3,400 (paid semi-monthly)
$1200/mo in total taxes (fed, state, local, SSI/med); $1000/mo to 401(k); Employer pays 100% of health premiums.
No other income currently, no parental contributions, etc.
—
SECTION THREE: EXPENSES (my portions, I live with a roommate)
Rent - $750/mo. Renewing in May; hoping it stays the same or doesn’t increase dramatically
Retirement/Investment contribution - $540/mo to Roth IRA (401(k) contributions detailed in the Income section).
Savings contribution - $460/mo to sinking funds, $200/mo to General Savings/Emergency Fund
Debt payments - None besides regular payments to my cards
Donations - $80/mo to whatever feels right
Food - ~$500/mo ($300 groceries + <$200 dining out)
Electric - $75/mo
Wifi - $65/mo
Cellphone - $300/yr (Mint Mobile)
Renter’s Insurance - $100/yr
Subscriptions - $8/mo; $7 for Apple Music and $1 for iCloud Storage
Annual Subscriptions - $380/yr; $190 for Credit Card Annual Fees; $165 for ScentBird Subscription; $25 for Google Storage
Gym Membership - $10/mo; $50/yr for Annual Membership Fee
I started on a health journey last June (lost 50+ lbs!). Back then, I was in search of any kind of fitness that I would enjoy and actually go to. I ended up getting a $190/mo membership (2 classes/wk) to a RUMBLE (HIIT Boxing) studio and went 2x a week from June - Nov. In December, I bought a flat-fee holiday package that made my classes cheaper ($19/cls vs $23/cls) and more flexible, so I froze my subscription and got a 30 class package.
In January, I started strength training 4x/wk at Planet Fitness and went down to 1x/week at RUMBLE. I love my current routine, but PF and RUMBLE are both a 35 min walk from my house, and I go to the gym early in the morning. So, I’m considering joining the closer (<10 min walk), but more expensive ($72/mo) gym soon.
I’m still slowly burning through the RUMBLE holiday package and plan to cancel my subscription. I’m hoping they do a summer sale so I can buy another class package. If not, I’ll just buy classes ad hoc after I run out.
No pet, car, or therapy expenses currently.
—
SECTION FOUR: MONEY/TRAVEL DIARY
ACCOMMODATIONS
The flight and accommodations for this flight were booked in September after getting an email from Going (formerly Scott’s Cheap Flights) about $500 tickets to Paris the exact weekend of my birthday. I stayed in a Sonder that I also booked back in September for about $480. I bought a $30, 5 GB international eSIM from Airalo. I was able to post on social media, send iMessages, and check my bank accounts with no problems and no extra data needed.
​
Day 1
Today is payday and the beginning of my week off. I clear my credit cards, invest my Roth deposit, and go to the gym.
After the gym, I pick up last minute toiletries ($45.35) and plane snacks ($21.48). I end up on a wild goose chase looking for a Universal Adapter ($34.39), so I get McDonald's (I wanted a Shamrock Shake) while I’m out ($9.15 - this feels expensive for McDonald's?)
My mom gives me a call around 8pm and asks if I’ve checked my bank account. Today was payday, so I had, but not since early that morning. She gifted me $200! After, I spend three hours retwisting my locs and go to bed around midnight.
Day 1 Spend - $108.37
​
Day 2
Today is Sims 4 Expansion Pack (and flight to Paris) day! I can’t install the game until 1PM ET. Lame.I do one last check to ensure I have everything I need, transfer my Paris Sinking Fund ($600) into my checking account, and then play the Sims to pass the time. At 4, I take the Regional Rail to the airport.
I breeze through TSA and read Another Country by James Baldwin until boarding begins. Upon boarding, I’m stopped and informed that my carry-on is “too big.” They were clearly picking people at random to move their bags because as the woman walked down the jet bridge with my bag, she rolled it past a man who had the exact same suitcase as me in another color. Annoying.
They don’t give me a chance to take out my laptop and snacks, this is my first time traveling internationally, I triple checked the sizing requirements, so this stressed me out. I was terrified of my bag getting lost. I vent to my best friend about the bag situation; she helps me calm down. Once we’re airborne, I spend the next 6 hours rotating between reading, watching Wakanda Forever, and listening to music.
Day 2 Spend - $0
​
Day 3 (my birthday!)
We land in Dublin at 8am, and I activate my international eSIM. I see my older brother gifted me $100 via Cash App. Even though it was just a quick layover, being in Ireland on St. Patrick’s Day made me happy. The Irish were teeming with happiness and excitement. I board my second flight and land in Paris at 1pm, finally am reunited with my bag, and get to the section of town I’m staying in via train ($12.18).
While I wait for a friend to arrive on the train from London, I try French McDonalds per the recommendation of my best friend ($14.95 - seriously, why the hell is McDonalds so expensive?)
Friend arrives and we explore Paris! We then stop at a bakery, I grab a pain au chocolat ($1.60) and slip into a bar nearby. My friend lets everyone know it’s my birthday, and they buy us lots of rounds of shots and drinks. My friend closes the tab for the couple of drinks we actually ordered, and we head to a club that’s having a St. Patrick’s Day party around the corner.
I later try to redeem my Starbucks birthday item, but the barista gently lets me know it’s not valid in France. However, he throws in a free refresher and my friend buys me a blueberry muffin. We head back to the hotel so I can freshen up and change into my birthday dress. We take a nap and head back out for the night on the train ($8.96 RT for 2). We have dinner at a delicious restaurant, which my friend pays for.
Our last stop of the night is an Afro-Caribbean spot that has great music and friendly staff. I tell the bartender it’s my birthday and ask for a drink recommendation. He makes some spicy concoction in a gold bowl with peppers. It’s quite delicious but is strong and makes my nose run! The staff gifts me at least two more shots, and I decide to call it quits on alcohol for the night after that. We dance and laugh the night away with the friendly staff, and I pick up the tab before we leave ($27.81).
Day 3 Spend - $65.50
​
Day 4
My friend has been teasing a surprise and finally reveals it’s Disneyland! I laugh and realize I hadn’t disclosed the rest of my itinerary — I have a Disneyland reservation for Monday (after my friends went home)! However, I booked a non-park hopper ticket for Walt Disney Studios, so I’m excited to be able to experience them both thanks to my friend!
We had a late, drunk night last night so we started the day a bit late. Grabbed a quick brunch ($6.74) and head to Chessy via the train ($19.68). We got Premier Access (skip the line/lightning lane) for a handful of rides ($79.15), I bought some Stitch merch ($21.39), and we got ice cream ($5.35).
After a few hours at Disney, we head back to Paris to meet up with one of my friends from college who also lives in London. He’s a hyperextrovert and is ready to hit the town immediately. We wanted to go to the Eiffel Tower, but missed the last bus and grabbed dinner nearby ($89.96). My friend from high school started feeling a bit sick, so she went back to the hotel and my college buddy and I spend the night bar hopping, dancing, chatting, and eating until 3am ($37.44).
Day 4 Spend - $259.71
​
Day 5
Both friends head back to London today but at different times. I start the day a bit late after saying goodbye to my high school friend.
My college friend and I grab breakfast at a nearby restaurant ($41.18). After that, we head out to explore an area of the city near the train station so it’s easy for him to board the 5pm train. We grab some pastries and a baguette ($11.66) and set out to explore. We saw the lock bridge, Arc de Triomphe, took goofy photos, visited the Notre Dame restoration exhibit, and danced alongside a drum parade.
On the walk back to my room, I check my email to see I missed the Eiffel Tower climbing tour I scheduled back in September. I go back to the room, let my phone charge, and pay a fee to reschedule the tour ($10.70). I head out to see the Eiffel and other tourists sites via a Sundown Seine river cruise ($8.99 for 4 bus tickets).
After a few hours, I’m beat and head back to the Sonder. I got a Poke Bowl from a French/Hawaiian/Sushi fusion place we passed by last night and some chicken wings ($22.89). I spend the rest of the night relaxing.
Day 5 Spend - $95.42
​
Day 6
I really want to sleep in, but the Climbing tour doesn’t allow cancellations within 24 hours and charge no-shows. I head out around 9:30 am. Despite being tired and annoyed, the tour was great. I have a lunch Steakhouse reservation at 2:30pm at Disney, so I’m sort of in a rush and happy the tour ends right on time at 12:30. I hop on the train ($10.70 RT tickets) and make it to Disneyland at 1:30 pm.
With an hour before my reservation, I stop into a bunch of stores and buy merch ($70.60). I make my way to The Steakhouse for lunch ($37.44). I am stuffed, so I walk a couple laps around Walt Disney Studios to get a lay of the land, take photos, and walk off lunch before indulging in some shows and rides.
A couple hours go by and I grab some dessert ($4.28) and rent a portable charger ($4.28). I wanted to ride Crush’s Coaster before my dinner reservation, but it had a crazy wait time and premier access sold out for the day, so I buy premier access for and ride Avenger’s Flight Force instead ($12.84), return the portable charger, and head to dinner at Bistrot Chez Remy ($58.83).
I stay until 9:30 pm for the light show, have snacks ($9.63), then head back to the hotel to shower, pack, and sleep.
Day 6 Spend - $208.60
​
Day 7
I have a protein bar for breakfast, check out at 10am, and grab a final ticket ($12.29) to the airport. I start to feel lightheaded and try to drink some water, but it doesn’t help much. So, I get McDonalds ($8.91) before boarding my flight and feel a lot better. I grab a Kinder ($1.72) from a nearby store because I’d never tried one. Amazing!
I am excited to get home and get back into my normal meal prep and exercise routine. I make it back to Philly at 7pm. I take a shower and go straight to bed.
Day 7 Spend - $22.71
—
Week Total - $760.52
Food + Drink - $406.74
Fun / Entertainment - $194.68 (shopping, tour reschedule, premier lanes)
Home + Health - $34.39 (universal adapter)
Clothes + Beauty - $45.35 (last minute toiletries)
Transport - $72.80
Other - $4.28 (portable charger rental)
—
Lastly, reflect on your diary!
While I’d never spend close to this in a normal week, celebrating my birthday in a way I enjoy is very important to me. I’m excited to travel more in the future.
I feel like I spent too much money on individual transport tickets; I should’ve brought the booklet of 10. But $73 for a bunch of days is still pretty cheap. I had a sinking fund of $600 originally, but the cash gifts from my mom and brother increased it to $900.
Overall, Paris was cheaper than I expected. I was worried $600 wouldn’t be enough. I picked up the tab a lot of places since there wasn’t an easy way for us to split the bill in multiple currencies (USD, pounds, euros), and I’m trying to hit the minimum spend on a new credit card. Had I been more willing to figure out bill splitting, I probably could've stayed under $600.
Relatedly - this trip inspired me to revisit my goal of becoming fully fluent in Spanish. French-speakers were visibly irritated when I spoke English (which I wasn’t upset about and expected). I did practice some French (beyond the basics like bonjour and merci) with my sister before the trip, but it always came out sounding like Spanish. So, after the first day, I resorted to starting conversations in Spanish.
If they spoke Spanish, great! However, many were caught off guard and didn’t speak Spanish, so I would then ask, in Spanish, if they spoke English, then converse in English — which made them noticeably nicer. Definitely gonna work on brushing up my Spanish and work towards fluency. I eventually want to learn French and ASL, too.

Timestamp
For sale:
- Glorious GMMK Pro ISO White Ice
- Drop + biip MT3 Extended 2048 Custom Keycap Set (Alphas, ISO International, Media Icons, Modifiers, Icons, Accent Modifiers kits)
Sold with their complete original packages.
Gateron Yellow switches (90) lubed and mounted on the keyboard with Durock switch films.
As a bonus, the package includes Durock Screw-in Stabiliser V2 Clear (Full set), Durock Switch Films, Keygem Switch Lubricant (5ml), Premium Brush Size 0, Lube Tool Collection, Kelowna Switch Opener (small, grey), KBDfans Lube Station (green), Glorious Switch Puller and Glorious Keycap Puller.
​
Price excluding shipping: 300€
Price including shipping: 350€
​
The reason for selling is I do not use the keyboard anymore and sadly do not have time for the hobby.
More pictures:
https://imgur.com/QkyF49N
https://imgur.com/2Qmd6YD
https://imgur.com/JT5y7rt
https://imgur.com/EYG79qP
https://imgur.com/KVfxd70
https://imgur.com/e7tF7VH
https://imgur.com/wjcugrj
https://imgur.com/0gWzUoL
https://imgur.com/y4LkmUZ
https://imgur.com/J6dF4cC
https://imgur.com/cCCcm2W
https://imgur.com/qxwtG20
https://imgur.com/AJOcCdU
https://imgur.com/dX59pII
https://imgur.com/9yQxnGU
https://imgur.com/orXz35r
https://imgur.com/XzRUzs4
https://imgur.com/49qlWAD

Despite the early afternoon hours, the jovial Iron Tankard tavern was packed full with noisy patrons. Mostly regulars, craftsmen, artificers, merchants, off-duty guards, though an occasional mercenary misfit could also be spotted, scurrying around the bounty board or chatting down the innkeeper for job suggestions. The walled town of Ashenfort was relatively small, it being a passing, yet reputable, trade-post along the main road that connected the capital city and the coast-line settlements. Travelers came and went by the hour, never staying for long, turning over goods and coin, but also services. If one was in search for an uncanny set of hands to help along a most arduous task, then this was certainly the place to look.
The joyous, drunken and merry chattering continued through the crowded chamber, with the tavern workers doing their utmost to squeeze past the countless customers and bring the desired orders to their tables. Everyone seemed so keenly busy, to the point nobody noticed the unseemly figure push their way through the front door.
Taking but a single step further, Sir Andrew of the noble house Medellin, had to visually keep himself from recoiling. Unused to the tavern stench, the fickle smell of alcohol, combined with sweat, grease and perhaps even vomit, assaulted his noble nostrils and almost triggered a gag reflex "By the king.." He grumbled under his breath, fixing that ragged traveling-cloak that flapped over his chest and hiding the armored plate underneath. His deep-sea eyes peered across the board, eyeing for someone it seemed, before his gloved hand rose to his lips, covering them as he adamantly cleared his throat. Ignored. Taking a deep breath, the knight stepped forward, brushing his wave-like, sand-blonde hair behind his ear before trying again "Excuse me, gentlemen-"
Dismissed, again, with only a few pitiful glances being thrown his way, more out of irritation for being too close to the table than anything else. The young knight huffed in annoyance, briefly closing his eyes, before opening them as his stern, dramatic voice cried out
"Hear me, men and women of Valeron! I am Sir Andrew Medellin, sword-paladin to the arch-duke of the western-fold, banner-man to his holy grace- Augustus Percivalus Drakefort the third. I was quested by our noble king with slaying the terrible dragon that's been ravaging our western borders, laying waste to our precious serfdom and leaving nothing but scorched earth behind. Though I accepted the task honorably and in good faith, my sword yearning to pierce the foul dragon's wicked heart, I will admit that I find myself outmatched. The dragon's vision is far and great, its breath a flaming sundering.. I have no hope of meeting it face to face in the open. For this, I require to enter the lair of the beast and catch it off-guard.. I require assistance, from one of you, noble characters, someone versed in the art of.. Stealth and deceit, whom could perhaps assist in shrouding my noble approach into the jaws of evil?"
Silence, attention, all eyes on him. The tavern had its breath taken away by the man's speech, but just as a smile of triumph crept onto his tender lips, Andrew was bombarded by a chortling choir of laughter. Amused, some within the crowd nearly choked on their drinks, while Andrew's grumbling expression faded in excitement. After another moment of silence on his side, he added, though with far less enthusiasm in his sighing voice, enough only for a select few to hear- Or rather, anyone that paid attention still.
"I am also willing to compensate you for your troubles.. 2000 coins up front, plus another 8000 when the quest is done. Additionally, the king has given me leave me with issuing amnesty to any.. Unsavory characters that had a run in with our law in the past, pardoning all of their heinous crimes in return for assisting me."
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Simple and, relatively short, premise to a medieval-fantasy prompt that revolves around a pair of unlikely allies teaming up to stop a much bigger, looming threat! If you have any ideas/suggestions or thoughts of your own that you'd like us cleared in advance, feel free to let me know. World-wise this is more or less a blank slate, so in regards to races, magic, politics, geography etc. we'll be able to include a variety.
For this story I'd really like to explore the relationship between a noble, religiously truthful, honorably overzealous, naive knight and a deceitful, witty and playful sort of rogue-like character contrast. My own pitch idea would be an assassin character, perhaps someone who already had a close-encounter with the lord of Medellin in the past, a fact that will be brought up and/or revealed at a crucial moment to intensify their situation or perhaps even strengthen their bond? I have a soft-spot for enemies-turned-friends-turned-lovers sort of dynamics, so this is what I was trying to go for with- Judge me all you want~
I'd preferably not know much about your character in advance, wanting to explore their pasts and stories through the RP, but if you feel it crucial and/or want to take your character in a completely different direction- Do let me know.
I normally write 2-3 paragraphs of detail, with the range mostly varying from how fast the scene is progressing. I prefer quality over quantity and will never nag you if you require more time to reply. I will, however, be nit-picky if you respond to a full-fledged, action-packed, word-exploding essay with a meager 3 line reply -.-
I mostly prefer writing on Discord and Reddit PM's (easiest for me to manage and read), and use chat only to make contact so we can exchange ID's
I am alright with including NSFW themes in regards to story progression and character development, but they are *completely* optional and in no way necessary. Feel free to let me know in advance, otherwise I will assume they are to be omitted.
Hope to hear from you wonderful writers soon!~

Link to original story
https://www.reddit.com/nosleep/comments/10meqmh/the_big_rock_candy_mountain_part_1/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
The floor of the cell is covered in decades of mildew and dust. This disgusting carpet does nothing to dull the pain as I skip across it, thrown in by someone with the intention of making a point.
My Name’s Mike, and if any of you are the types to go on a deep dive, you probably know A little about me already.
For those of you that don’t, Jesus I don’t know exactly where to begin.
The Cliff’s notes would be that I spent a little over a decade either being a serial killer or a vigilante. I won’t try to justify my actions, both of those are just sides of the same shitty coin. I’m not a person to be idolized or emulated, so I choose not to plead my case.
Now, while I thought that was just about as screwed up as life could get, one day, out of the blue, after burying my best, fuck, my only friend I found myself, somewhere else. A world that looked and felt like mine, but one where the things that go bump in the night actually existed.
Where I came from, I’d seen monsters, to be sure, but only the kind that happen when people break.
Since I’ve been here? Got caught up in some demented gameshow for demons or something, threw a massive shit in the punch bowl of the thing running the production, and got the world’s unluckiest man his freedom.
And that leads me to my current situation, staring down the rage filled, mildly bruised face of that asshole, that fucking, demonic Ted Turner, Art.
He runs a hand aggressively through his slicked back hair, standing at the door to my cell.
“Looks like your little plan didn’t work, exactly as I predicted, you fuck.
I mean, great try with the little cat thing you had, honestly didn’t see that coming. But, Jesus, Mike, what was your end game? “ Art gloats.
“Cards on the table? It was a lot better, but shit fell through, that whiskey abomination, it was the one that ratted me out I assume?
That being said, still got Kev out. And you can’t really ‘flip off his lightswitch’ if he didn’t let you screw around with his wiring, can you? “ I grin, I keep it, even as a Gucci shoe slams into my face.
Am I scared? Of God damn course I am, I’ve been pissing myself (metaphorically speaking.) since I realised that the rules of reality don’t really apply any more.
Every new grain of sand on the beach of hell my life has become, tosses me further down the road of mental failure. Shit, that’s half of what fucked up my last plan in the first place.
If I could have just kept my shit together long enough, I’d be sipping a beer with Kev in some shit hole town somewhere. But the only thing harder than trying to stamp down fear in the face of God’s and monsters, is trying to do it while projecting some kind of ‘death fears me ‘ persona.
Between you and I? Death doesn’t fear me, in fact, it seems to love to hang around. And every day I have to stare down that grim spectre, the closer I get to losing the tenuous grip on reality I have .
“Oh, fuck Kev. He’s smart enough to stay off my radar, and too stupid to figure out a way to come back at me.
He's got a 1 bedroom in Idaho or something? Salud, good on him.
You, I had high hopes for, and then you decide to wipe your ass all over my carpet, cost me more than I could even explain, and even, get me a little roughed up. My favorite shell, anyway.
I want to recoup some loses Mike. So, you, get to be a part of another one of my projects.
You thought The Path was bad? Oh, you literal, fucking clown, you haven’t seen anything.
I won’t spoil it for you, the devil’s in the details and all, but you know what everyone loves?
Prison.
Not being in it themselves, of course, but seeing others, especially those they hate in there.
This place isn’t fair, the path was a boxing match with Queensbury rules, this is a handcuffed knife fight.
And I can’t wait to see you figure out, all the little surprises it has in store for you. “ Art laughs and tosses me a battered, ancient looking smartphone, “ Feel free to drum me up some good press online if you want. “
My heart is pounding, I have to use every bit of will I have to stop from shaking, to roll my neck and sit against the cold, padless cement bed behind me.
I feel sick, my stomach boiling and gurgling.
“For the love of whatever the demonic equivalent of Christ is, why not just kill me? I’m right here, I have no way of fighting back, and you know damn well that if you give me enough time, I’m going to find a way to wipe my ass on your doorframe next. “ My tone is flippant, or at least, I hope it is.
“The ego on you kid, you think you’re that guy don’t you?
They exist, don’t get me wrong, probably a couple thousand folks capable of taking me out, but trust me, you are not one of them.
This isn’t some ‘Arch’ idiocy where I leave my greatest rival alive. This is me watching you squirm because I can, and making a little profit on the deal.
Don’t flatter yourself. “ Art has produced a long thin knife as he talks, he spins and rolls it absently.
“Before your guys dragged me off, I met something. A corner store, I don’t know if it was haunted, possessed, or if it was some kind of creature that just decided to look like a knock off 7-11.
Point being, it was out there, ethereal, I couldn’t hurt it, outwit it, even slow it down. I ran from that thing as fast as I could. It gave me some serious Lovecraft vibes.
You, Art, are not that guy. “ I notice myself tapping my finger nervously on the slime covered floor, I focus, stopping the tic.
The tip of Art’s knife glows, the sick, grey sheen isn’t heat, but something that makes me start to back up.
“I am, but you will never see that. You’re not worth the effort.
I want to give you a little something though. “ Art stalks toward me, I stand as I back into the farthest corner of the cell, “ Proud of your face paint were you? “
Art grins, and for a moment lets some of his true self slip through. For just a moment I see timeless horror in his eyes, a dark black void of consumed souls and unrestrained evil.
That knife parts my flesh with pain like a whip. Without even using the blade, it’s presence flenses my face, opening up raw, textured furrows in my flesh.
He leaves after he is done, laughing to himself.
The pain makes me black out, my stomach is boiling, I come to dry heaving, the effort sends me back into the oblivion of sleep.
I don’t know how long has passed, my face feels like it is on fire, and the thick steel bars of my cell door are closed.
It takes me two minutes of cupping my hands under the grime laden steel tap to get enough water to clear off a spot on the rusted, old, wall mounted steel mirror.
No mortal hand could have scarred me as accurately as Art did. The wounds, not healed, but cauterised as to not make me bleed out, used depth, and width, to create a colorless replica of my makeup.
I know trauma, physical as well as mental, and these are scars that will never heal. As the fact sinks in that my face is literally no longer my own, I scream, heart pounding, I split open my knees on the cold cement floor.
Pain flares, threatens to send me back to the bliss of unconsciousness, but I don’t care.
I read Kev’s journals, and they paint me in a really… positive light, in a sense.
What I mean is, going by what he thought he saw, I’m some kind of supervillian or something. Tossing three hundred pound air conditioners ( it was the outer shell, seventy pounds, physics and luck did the rest.), wrestling Art ( I was clinging on for dear life, had it not been for Jr and the mass of denizens, I’d have been killed with a flick of his wrist.), or appearing like a ghost (people, even immortal are very unobservant. Especially in an emergency.).
I’m great at seeming horrifying, and that’s a weapon in and of itself, but at the end of the day, that’s all it is.
Kneeling in my own blood, vision blurry with pain, I realise how small, vulnerable, and unarmed I truly am.
By the time daylight shines through the yellow reinforced glass window, I’m already awake. I’ve spent an hour and a half calming myself, trying to find some focus, some centre to keep me going.
I’ve been in prison before, back home, first and last time I tried plying my trade outside of America.
Being the stupid payaso gringo that I am I bit off so much more than I can chew that I wound up choking on it for 2 months in a Mexican prison.
The routine of, count, lineup, chow, remained the same.
The demographics of the population on the other hand…
Being observant is one of my main skills and as I was brought into the absurdly sized cafeteria, I was taken aback at just how many people were here.
Tens of Thousands, easily, maybe a hundred. I try and think of how many missing person cases this accounts for, and even that math doesn’t quite add up.
I quickly inventory the groups that make up the place, not that it wasn’t obvious.
The first, of course are the guards. Some, the majority, appear to be human, well geared up and in intimidating physical condition.
But a handful, they are clearly, something else. Some are smooth featured ebony skinned giants, carrying truncheons that could crush a car engine. Others are grinning, pale skinned bad attempts at human copies, wild eyed and twitching.
Second would be what I called the cultists. They all appeared to style themselves after certain tropes and urban legends, clearly human, but dressing, tattooing and mutilating themselves to appear like, myths, legends, and monsters.
The subtle violence I see tells me I’ve found the gangs.
Third are the Everymen, I can’t see any kind of pattern to them, but they seem to make up the majority of the population. They keep their distance from the guards and the cultists, but on more than one occasion I see then stand, united against attempts at extortion.
The last group, I call the candles, people that are clearly on their way out mentally and physically. Sunken eyed, and set upon from all angles, at any moment these folks could be simply snuffed out.
I keep my distance, and stay respectful, the meandering, twisting line seems to take hours to get me my thick slice of crumbling yellow bread, and thick red slurry that reminds me of porridge masquerading as meat.
My coat is gone but I’m left with the majority of the clothing I fashioned back in the path. I see a mix of unwashed orange uniforms and ‘civilian’ clothing, some of the cultists, bordering more on costume than wardrobe.
As the massive, butchers apron wearing man in smeared clown makeup sits down, I wish I’d have been issued something more generic. I saw this coming the second I noticed a lump of Chlorophiles in blood stained getups.
“You sit with us. “ I can’t tell if it’s an accent or speech pattern, the clown sounds strange, either way.
I eat a spoonful of the red sludge.
“No disrespect intended, I’m not one for clubs. I’m going to make no waves, no plays, nothing. I’m a ghost. “ I say, levelly, avoiding eye contact.
Why, you might ask, having been told about my adventures in murder.
Well, that’s just it. Murder is easy, and any time you saw me end a life, it was just that.
A fight, that’s another thing entirely, especially against someone with a significant weight and height advantage.
“Not asking. You got friends. “ The massive clown moves his bulk closer, it’s like sitting next to a forklift.
I eat the bread, it tastes amazing until I swallow, then has a foul, chemical aftertaste.
I drink some tepid, burgundy fluid that might be caffeinated.
No weapons nearby, no one watching that might step in. I’m full of bruises and sprains, and probably anemic from blood loss. Not to mention one eye is running at about fifty per cent. Art didn’t sever the optic nerve last time, but he wasn’t gentle. My heart races.
“I don’t play well with people who take clowning and slap a coat of dark paint on it.
You guys are Clown Killers. You are good at killing, I’m sure, but the clown part, it’s tacked on.
Myself, I’m a killer clown…. “ I had a really good rant planned, honestly, it was a corker, douche bags would have used it in memes for a decade.
But before I can react, with one massive hand, he bounces my face off of the pitted steel table.
It rings my bell, but not as much as I let on. In clowning terms, what I do Is called a pratfall.
For those of you that don’t speak nerd, I oversell the hit, falling backwards, eyes fluttering.
I tip backwards, reaching out my left arm, as if to steady myself. The meat mountain is unbothered, knowing I have no chance unarmed, in this close, he let’s me grab one shoulder of the butchers apron. The material is thick, and matted in stains that will never come out, literally or metaphorically.
If you want to take someone out, in a relatively harmless way, you don’t want to choke them. It takes forever, usually ends up killing them, and generally is a bad idea for everyone involved.
Your goal is go cut off blood flow to the brain as quickly and fully as possible.
I hook my thumb around the opposite shoulder strap, and snap my body backward, the apron acting as an impromptu Garrotte.
His right arm is knotted through my left, as he tries to struggle, to put his murderous intent and ability to work, the choke only becomes tighter.
I don’t want enemies here, and I only have so many tricks to play before things come to a knock down drag out fight, so I leave the clown unharmed.
I do need friends, but the look I get as I take a seat at a loose collection of men is cold and fearful.
A red haired guy, five foot nine or so, makes eye contact, “Anything we can help you with? “ he says, fearless.
“Yeah, despite the face work I’ve had done, I have fuck all in common with any of those penny wise, Icp, Gacy dressed, assholes.
I need a tribe guys, you all look like the unlucky ones around here, but I don’t want to get involved in bloodshed.
I’m Mike “ I know, that’s only mostly true, but I mean it, either way. I extend a hand.
“Chris. “ the red haired guy says, he wears a white dress shirt and surprisingly blue jeans, “Those stains around your cuffs tell me otherwise.
If you’re telling the truth, that’s great. If you are lying, and still sane enough to keep your word, that’s even better. “ Chris’s tone is mirthless, I read him easily. He’s been here a long time for a short life, he looks thirty max, and I shudder to think how young he may have been when he came in.
Chris catches me up on the ins and outs of this place, beyond what a general knowledge of prison would give.
Everyone here has crimes they were not convicted of, that would, otherwise put them in jail for life. A large amount, obviously are murderers, torturers, real bastards.
But a significant minority are just regular folks, maybe a bit thoughtless, but that have collected a litany of small, petty, in cases almost victim less crimes.
No one seems to be aware of the… reality t.v. Meets demonic fast food aspect of things, but there is a Doom cherry on this fear Sunday.
There is a single way someone can get out. To earn 20 tokens.
And how does one earn these tokens you ask?
Each day the prison holds an event, to call it a challenge would insinuate a level of fair play that is simply not there. The events range from somewhat fair, a fight or game of chance, to esoteric rituals complex enough to rip someone’s soul from their body.
These tokens are also the sole form of currency in the prison, they can buy everything from commissary snacks to literal free passes from guards.
The economy has created a cut throat society, the heads of the cults not even taking advantage of being able to be free, but simply reveling in the power of being psychotic and enabled.
The weak are enslaved, their lives traded on the off chance at tokens.
So, of course, braindead asshole that I am, I signed myself right up. Feeling a little more confidant after climbing Mount Bozo.
It's 8pm and the volunteers are rounded up and brought to a massive room that has all the trappings of a gymnasium, but the scale is large enough easily hold the focus of tonight’s events.
In tiered bleachers all around us, our fellow prisoners cheer and scream. The smell of thousands of unwashed, men is overpowering, the din of excitement is deafening.
But my attention is focussed on the small, single floor home, sitting out of place in the middle of the polished wood floor.
What I wouldn’t give for Demi to appear right now, give me the low down on all the supernatural bullshit that is heading my way. But the longer we stayed in the mountain the less and less the most useful voice in my head could, or would, make an appearance.
I study each of my fellow volunteers, the goal seems simple, last the longest in the home. Men enter and leave within minutes. They come out looking shaken, with minor lacerations, and a general sense of shell shock.
By the time my turn arrives, I think I know what I’m in for.
I’m wrong.
As the baby blue door closes behind me, nothing immediately in the home causes me concern. The fixtures and furniture is a bit out of date, the lighting is, not inviting, and there is a general fog of gloom hanging around.
I smile, I’ve felt this before. Granted I had Demi feeding me supernatural errata at the time, but, I’m positive I can wing it.
“So, I think I may have met one of you guys before. Back in New York, a Happy-Face corner store, anyone you know?
Scary dude, took a couple of pieces out of me.
But this, it’s more like an MMA fight, right? I tap out when you start kicking my ass? “ I stretch, trying to see if I’m getting any kind of reaction.
I inventory the objects around me, last time everything that wasn’t nailed down, shifted, changed and tried to take me apart.
You may have noticed by now, I love using the phrase ‘ last time’, and that’s because up until this moment, I haven’t learned a fucking thing here.
Mike’s first rule of paranormal survival, last time means nothing.
“It’s you” the voice is young, late teens, and male.
I spin, expecting violence, then, wishing violence.
I know the young man, not this pale, older, revenant with a self inflicted gunshot wound, but I know him none the less.
I’m not being metaphorical when I say my heart misses a beat, I almost fall over, pounding at my chest to stop it’s arythmatic pounding.
I knew what happened to him, found it out long after I could do anything about it. And wasn’t in the best of places when I did.
I’ll call him a ghost for simplicity sake, but this kid, he’s my first, and biggest mistake.
I based who I turned into on finding what I thought was one of the worst people on earth. This kid’s father.
I did things to him worthy of what I knew he did. And to top it all off, I had him die by his wife’s hand.
Well, a decade later I find out, the guy wasn’t a Saint, but he didn’t do anything worthy of the twisted shit I put him through.
I got wind of some false information put out there in a moment of rage by a tech savvy ten year old. The kid never intended it to see the light of day
“I found out about you Mike, I saw that you were a hero. “ The voice is thin echoes like a stuck record.
“No kid, don’t think that. “ I mumble, I’m shaking, the air is freezing, each breath comes out as white mist.
I’m sitting on the flower printed couch now, and it hits me.
I’d assumed because Art couldn’t screw around in my head last time, the same went for everything here.
Remember what we said about last time.
“My told me what happened one night, what I made you do.
I destroyed her memory of him, I made a real Hero kill him, I couldn’t keep hurting people. “ I can see images, flashing in my mind, memories that are not mine.
I’m counting seconds, trying to focus, trying to stay long enough to get the token. It has to have been fifteen, twenty minutes at least.
I try to work up a smirk, to convince myself that I’m just being played by the paranormal equivalent of a heckler.
That’s not it though, This place, this house, is reaching inside me and finding places to look. As I stare into the young man’s rotted eyes I know this is some part of him, torn away from whatever rest he was entitled to.
The lights dim, then turn off. The house is silent.
Hollywood gets being both a lunatic and a hitman wrong in equal measure. No matter how much morality you want to inject into the profession, there are going to come times when you make mistakes.
As the lights slowly turn to a dull orange glow, I’m surrounded by the hovering, mutilated forms of mine.
Those that died that could have been spared, those that died because of my inaction, or stupidity. I’ve never forgotten them, I use them to make sure I never make the same mistakes again, but having them looming, screaming, all demanding I hear their stories, their accusations, their placations.
It's too much, I stumble from the couch, trying to avoid the icy touch of these phantoms. For a moment I find some last scrap of courage, I close my eyes, shut out the shrieking din of the dead.
The silence hits like a truck, I focus, trying to calm my burned out nerves.
Then they are reignited like a fucking welding torch.
“This place didn’t bring us here.
We’ve been right next to you for years Mike. We can’t leave. “ The voice of my first mistake.
Like a toddler I try to run with my eyes closed, I trip over a glass coffee table, clawing my way up the door, grasping at the handle.
I can feel a slight pull now, almost magnetic, trying to drag me backwards.
My hands shake too much, I have to steady my right wrist with my left hand, the floor becomes slick, I see the door, escape start to move further away as I’m pulled backward.
I've taken a hit or two, and had a couple of three day benders that have made me piss myself. But as I stumble, trying to make progress on the nearly friction less floor, I have another unpleasant first experience.
I grab the handle, pulling myself out of the house, launching my body into a skin peeling tumble across unforgiving plank flooring.
I’m a shaking, fetal wreck, by the time I’ve pulled myself together enough to take in my surroundings, I see the red Led clock displaying my time.
42 seconds. Bottom of the barrel. The jeers and booing from the crowd do nothing for my frayed nerves or the storm of fear and anxiety going through my mind.
I’m exhausted, but I can’t sleep, it has nothing to do with the concrete slab that serves as my bed.
My stomach has been knotting and cramping, with each passing second I get more worried I blew some internal gasket in one of the many life or death struggles in the past months.
When I finally manage to vomit, the urge is strong enough I get no where near the filth crusted hole in the floor that serves as my toilet. And my worst fears are confirmed as I see the massive pile of vomit is mostly blood.
… and bones? Is that an eyeball? A piece of fur?
The mass begins to pull itself together, bits and pieces forming the most rudimentary attempt at a face.
“Junior? “ I say, stunned.

Some context to my riding

• Rainy PNW
  
• Commuting (I don't have a car so this is going to do everything for me)(I've lived for a year with only a bicycle so don't bother telling me I shouldn't)
  
• Must reach 80mph with 2 people (want highway capability but will likely avoid it)
  
• Want to adventure offroading / trailing maybe 25% of the time
  
• Will be in a busy busy city for maybe 75% of the time
  

Wants:

• Smooth ride (low vibrations a plus)
  
• Upright seating (I have a bad back)
  
• Stock drop cage would be nice
  
• Stock hand guards would also be nice to mount some goretex hoods on
  
• Anti-theft measures
  
• Box Pannier capabilities
  
• An extra fuel can strapped on
  

KLR? KTM DUKE 390? First bike so I'm a bit lost in the sauce

You Matter to Her in a Way No One Else Could
When you died and were reborn, you became divine. You were love, and you were violence, and you were my miracle. A God sprung forth from the decaying machinery of your broken body. Koishi, the God of Love and Hate—have mercy on us all.
Down by the shore of one of the great Lunar seas, there sat a lonely shack thatched with feathers. Inside, there was a massive wani no less than eight leagues long… and her infant son. To that crocodile who had never known true familial love, that delicate little child—who cooed and smiled at his mother’s every move—was nothing less than a miracle. Such a delicate life in her claws, who knew nothing but unconditional love for his mother—to the crocodile, it was proof there was still good in the world.
She was tired, but the crocodile forced herself to stay awake. There was something she needed to do—a memory she wanted to share with the most important person in her life.
So, with all the caution and tenderness in the world, she picked up her child with her jaws and coaxed him into her throat pouch. The newborn child, perhaps having some shared instinct with his crocodilian mother, did not cry or struggle. Instead, he let out a giggle as he poked his head out from between his mother’s jagged teeth. With a snort, the dragon climbed out of her thatch hut, and crawled along the shore, drawing a meandering trail in the sand as she went.
When she reached the point where the water came to shore in gentle waves, the crocodile set herself down in the sand, letting the waves wash in and lick at her child in gentle sprays. Her child giggled as the Lunar sea’s tickled him with its pure waters, and as he did, his mother couldn’t help but feel at peace.
Nothing. Nothing at all would be able to take this from her.
Her miracle.
Toyohime opened her eye to clear blue skies.
She flexed her fingers, and instead of feeling the cold steel of the ship she started to tear apart, she felt so many tiny pebbles, warmed by their time in the sun. Sand? She brought a fistful of the stuff into her vision, before letting it fall through her fingers and run down her face. It was too real to be a dream.
Toyohime sat up to observe her surroundings. As far as the eye could see, there were infinite stretches of sand collected into wind-swept dunes that obscured the horizon. It was hot. Unbelievably so for what was supposedly the void. She felt a gentle gust of warm wind pass by her and toss her hair. This place… this impossible place… was she dead?
She rose to her feet, fighting biting aches and pains from her battle not too long ago. No—not dead. Somehow, she had survived—there was no other explanation. And as she looked down to assess the damage she had taken, her suspicions were only confirmed. Her right arm was missing, and in its place was nothing but a healed stump. The nasty cuts and bruises she had received in the fighting had all healed over for the most part, the only evidence they happened at all being residual scars that were yet to disappear. The ground was covered in dried blood. She must’ve been laying here in this sand trap for hours.
She brought her free arm, completely healed, up to the general space where her right eye was to find an arrow still protruding from it. Wrapping her fingers around the shaft, Toyohime tore it out in a fluid motion, causing the wound to reopen and drip blood onto the sands below. But, through some miraculous action, it was mere moments before the flow of blood stopped as the wound healed shut. Her right eye was still inoperable, but this healing ability was downright uncanny, even for a god.
She flexed her fingers. It felt like there was a hole in her head from which memories and feelings poured out. The mystery of how she got here, who she killed, and whether she could even trust her own senses had no answer—Toyohime knew she herself had made sure of that. She supposed there was a good reason. The less she knew, the better. That was something she could trick herself into believing.
Though no matter how much she forced herself to forget, she had the horrible feeling she had done something unforgivable—something she would kill over. In a sea of atrocities however, she could hardly even begin to suppose what that might have been. Maybe the heat was starting to fry her brain.
After spending a few minutes snapping the arrows lodged in her body by their shafts, Toyohime looked to the horizon, and then up. Ahead, there was a massive sand dune, no less than five times her height, and beyond the crest—a black pillar of smoke. Toyohime was not alone.
As she made her way up the shifting incline, Toyohime got to thinking about her next course of action. If this wasn’t a hallucination, then it most certainly had to be some extension of Koishi's will. Land in an impossible space… the creation of something impossible like that could only be a factor of a deteriorating mind, or God. And Toyohime had no time to consider the possibility of a crumbling psyche—not when she had a duty left unfulfilled.
But then… that would mean this was the paradise of Koishi’s mind. Surely, by her side is where she would find her salvation. She had already come to terms with it—that there was nothing left for her in the old world. Koishi could pervert and corrupt reality in whatever twisted ways she wanted—as long as it was the creation of her heart, it would be sufficient. Everything beyond that was not worth saving to the former princess.
… But that also meant there would be more enemies. More people she had to kill. She was ready. Ready to kill and ready to die in the name of love.
And as she planted her boot upon the peak of that sand dune, she saw the whole world become bare before her. A fair distance away was the crashed wreck of a golden ship, releasing plumes of black smoke as it burnt away. From this distance, it was difficult to make out any finer details, but she was sure the occupants had escaped. Satori was resourceful and stubborn, if nothing else. Dying in a crash was an impossibility.
She then traced a line from the ship through the shifting sands—to a city upon the horizon. Massive towers of glass and steel pushing against the sky, half buried in the sand, bending light around them as they reflected the intense heat of the sun. It gave the sight an unnatural fuzziness, as if the city was threatening to disappear at any moment.
As she traced the decaying visage of those buildings upwards, she saw a thin line reach beyond and into the sky. The line separated into two before converging back on itself. Above the city, etched upon the sky itself, was a pitch black gap in reality, opened and filled with so many eyes. And above still, the object of Toyohime’s desires and her sole driving factor—Koishi Komeiji.
Though the God’s eye was open, as well as the myriad collection of smaller eyes and drooling jaws that had lined every square inch of her squirming appendages, it was hard to tell if she was awake or conscious. Toyohime knew Koishi best, and if she had any guess as to what Koishi had been doing in the time they spent apart, it was receding back into the numbing comfort of her own mind. Even now, Toyohime figured she was still dreaming, avoiding the cruel weight of her responsibility. What manifested outside of her mind must’ve been some sort of twisted runoff.
Down there, hidden in the dunes, Toyohime knew there were those who would take this dream from Koishi. Those who would hurt Koishi. Those people would’ve done just as well to dig their own graves and build their own coffins. Because so long as Toyohime drew breath, she would protect Koishi with everything she could muster—that was her promise and the nature of her impossible, unconditional love.
Koishi was Toyohime’s second chance.
This time, one way or another, there would be no opportunity for a third.
Mima, on the other hand, had woken up quite a bit earlier than Toyohime had.
She had not suffered any fatal wounds or debilitating strikes leading up to the point where the reality around her started to crumble and distort—but she had briefly lost consciousness regardless. She figured that might’ve been a good thing; an action so absurd and so against everything she knew, perpetrated by an impossibly powerful being… even if a mere glimpse didn’t physically tear her mind to ribbons, she had no interest in trying to understand such a nonsensical event.
Mima awoke not in a desert, but in a grand sprawling city of seemingly human construction. Though the sun still hung overhead, the impossible hills and mountains of sand that caged the city in, always seemed to shift and move in the most calculated way… such that the sun was always put out. Caught in the shade, the city looked like it was in a perpetual night, in spite of the blinding yellow of the endless desert just beyond its limits.
Though that was the case, the city was far from dark. Street lamps, blinding neon signs, blinking traffic lights, apartments and houses with windows illuminated by the fluorescent lights within… It gave the impression the city was alive. It seemed exactly as a real bustling city at night, with its breathing and blinking—but there were no people. No matter how far Mima walked, no matter how many buildings she popped in, she would encounter no souls. She would find, in those buildings, immaculate setpieces filled with lived-in charm, hints and implications of life—but not people. Not even Yukari, who she wandered the streets in search of.
She recognized this place. This city—Tokyo. It couldn’t have possibly been, but it was the same Tokyo she grew up in, back before the Moonlight Descent and before the Kaiju. Before her chance meeting with the youkai who used to be her friend. This city, trapped in the middle of the desert, caught in an artificial night that obscured the flow of time—somehow it managed to be the perfect recreation of a long lost city, as if someone had taken a scalpel to the part of Mima’s brain that held onto the precious memories of her past life. It was comforting, being back in familiar territory, but it also carried along a pervasive uneasiness. The nostalgia said it was real, but the rational mind knew better than to buy into an impossible mirage—made all the more uneasy by the deathly silence of its streets.
After wandering around for a dozen minutes or more, Mima eventually came to find Yukari in a 24-hour fast food joint. She was sitting, out of her suit and miraculously healed, on a stool that faced the street outside, with her head down and a small pool of drool collecting at the point where the corner of her mouth met the countertop. Renko always said Maribel could fall asleep anywhere.
Mima floated back and forth around the gently snoring form of Yukari for a bit, considering her options. She changed back into her Renko form for a second, and after adjusting her hat a little, she reached over to tap Yukari on the shoulder… but then shied away. Glancing at Yukari, then back to her bag, she rummaged through its bottomless contents and pulled out a whole host of items: hand mirrors, makeup kits, two liter bottles of listerine, mints and peppermint breath spray and assorted beauty products.
She stole a quick glance back at Yukari to make sure she was asleep before going at it—in one go, she dumped every minty product she could into her mouth before swishing the unholy mixture in her mouth. It was not a moment later that she coughed out all of that liquid ice with a retch and a gag. Sheepishly, she turned her head to see if Yukari had woken up in all the commotion. Luckily, she was still knocked out something fierce. Mima might’ve guessed she was dead, if it weren’t for the occasional snore.
Undeterred, she opened a hand mirror and began to apply her makeup. Carefully. There was a subtle art to it—she only needed enough to hide any unsightly blemishes she might’ve gotten from her rather shut-in lifestyle as a ghost. Anything more, and Maribel was bound to notice Mima was purposefully fixing her appearance around her. None of that. Mima was trying for a more subliminal approach… It’s what worked in the past, after all.
Well, upon further thought, Mima figured “worked” was too strong a word. She did die before she saw any results, after all. But enough of that, Mima thought—now that she regained her memories, she’s finally gotten another shot. This being the apocalypse and all, she figured she should probably make it count.
She clicked close her portable hand mirror and, along with the rest of her stuff, threw it back into her field bag. She stole one last glance at Yukari, who was still sleeping soundly, before straightening her hat and clearing her throat.
“Maribel…” she said in a quiet, sing-song voice. She placed a hand on Yukari’s shoulder and gave it a gentle shake. “Maribel, wake up.”
No response. Mima pouted as she shook her around again. “Merry? It’s so scary around here—I need someone super strong and amazing by my side. Maybe we could hold hands?”
Nothing but more snoring. Mima’s expression fell. “... Okay, seriously. Wake up.”
“Don’t make me break out the big guns, Merry,” Mima said, digging through her bag and pulling out an airhorn. “I’ll do it. You think I’m bluffing?”
A tense beat passes. Mima stows away the airhorn. “... Ah, I’m just kidding. I wouldn’t do something like that to you. You’re too cute, hehe.”
“I’m not above this, though.” She reaches back into her bag and pulls out a spray bottle filled with water… before giving Yukari’s face a couple of quick spritzes.
That quiet, tranquil expression to Mima seemed almost a timeless representation of the relationship she shared with Maribel quickly contorted into one of disgust. After a moment of being pelted with spray after spray of water droplets, Yukari finally was roused from her sleep, a squinty, grouchy mess.
“Who..? Urgh…” She mumbled with a groan. When Yukari saw Renko, immaculately constructed before her with enough accuracy to convince her she came straight from her memories, she froze. Her voice was barely above a whisper. “... Renko?”
“Hehe… Yep, it’s me! Your best friend. Best girl-friend, even. That is, a girl who is also a friend. Not a girlfriend, you know? Aha… Unless? Kidding, kidding.” Mima flashed an easy smile. “Glad you’re awake. Hey, before you say anything else—how do I look? I look cute, right? I know we’re in the middle of saving the world and everything, but I’ve actually been spending a lot of time taking care of my appearance.”
As Mima continued to ramble on and Yukari continued to wake up, her expression made a slow and gradual pivot. Where at first Yukari couldn’t hide her bemusement from her face—as well as that strange pained expression someone would have, seeing a loved one they have long since finished mourning appear upon their doorstep—she eventually came to settle on an empty stare and a neutral, apathetic expression. It hurt Mima a little, seeing such a radical turn in her demeanor.
“Oh,” Yukari muttered. “It’s just you.”
Mima didn’t think she intended it, but there was a layer of latent annoyance in her words. Or maybe it was disappointment? A thousand years or more apart did a lot to shift their relationship. That much was clear—and it hurt.
Yukari took a moment to look Mima up and down. With a scoff and a roll of her eyes, she delivered an unceremonious answer. “You look fine.”
Mima sighed in response. “Hey, I’ll take it.”
“More importantly…” As Yukari continued, she craned her neck around to absorb every detail of her surroundings: everything from the light fixtures above to the tables that were so meticulously set and prepared. “... Where are we?”
Her eyes naturally gravitated toward the front counter and the kitchen section that was just behind—meticulously wrapped burgers and fresh fries, set underneath heat lamps… it was as if they were all made recently. But that wasn’t even the strangest detail Yukari’s eyes were able to pick out. Upon one of the tables was a tray, filled with half eaten food—as if the patrons ceased to exist in the middle of their meal. This was beyond a mere liminal space, where it gave the impression of once being a place where people gathered—it was closer in relation to the scene of an ongoing disaster, where people had left in a hurry.
In that way, it didn’t carry much of the surreal quality of a place no longer meant for humans—it more so felt like a place with a cursed history, its sinister and mysterious narrative etched into its skin and flesh through the vestiges of human presence. Mima could tell, being a ghost herself, there was more to this place than the physical construction. As to what ‘more’ was, she could not place.
She could tell Yukari was thinking something similar by the way she walked around and took in the feeling of the place. Her posture was rigid and cautious, but not necessarily ready and waiting for danger. There was a quiet dread to the things that weren’t, but should’ve been.
“I’m trying to figure that out myself,” Mima replied, following Yukari around with her arms folded behind her back. “You’re going to think I’m crazy, but… I think we’re back in Tokyo.”
“I don’t think you’re crazy.” Yukari replied. She walked over to the table with the food and traced a finger across its top. No dust clung to the surface of her finger, as if the tabletop had recently been cleaned. She brought the back of her palm close to the food. It was still radiating just a little bit of heat, as if it had been freshly served. “That’s the part that scares me.”
“... Assuming this is all very much real, this must be Koishi’s doing,” Yukari declared, taking a moment to look down at herself. As she flexed her fingers, her eyes narrowed. Mima figured she might’ve just realized she had been healed and mysteriously back to her usual outfit. She still looked younger and weaker than she once was, but there was an undeniable, albeit subtle increase in the vitality she seemed to convey. As Yukari’s eyes wandered to the empty city street outside, Mima couldn’t help but notice that expression—that idle, faraway gaze that looked like Yukari had trapped herself in a vivid daydream. She couldn’t help but realize how much Maribel had changed—and yet stayed the same.
“Whatcha thinking, Merry?” Mima tried, shuffling up to Yukari’s side.
“Yukari.”
“Oh. Right. Ha, that’s my bad. My bad…”
“I’m thinking: why Tokyo specifically?” With a wave of her hand, Yukari opened a gap next to her. Through that little tear in reality was a bird’s eye view of the whole city, as well as the infinite desert that surrounded it. “... There must be some significance to this location, but I couldn’t possibly imagine what it could be. Not right now, knowing what we know.”
“Hey, I grew up in Tokyo, you know? Maybe it has something to do with that? And… y’know, we were teaching in Tokyo before…” Mima gestured vaguely around herself. “... Everything, I guess. Maybe Koishi’s reacting to our memories.”
“Could be. Could just as easily be something related to Koishi. Could be nothing at all.” The view through the gap eventually fizzled out, leaving nothing but the inky blackness of the pocket dimension Yukari held dominion over. She let out a sigh before stitching the gap closed with a wave of her hand. “I’d suggest we keep on moving. Collect as much information as we can about this place. But only what we need—the plan is still largely the same. There’s no telling when she will appear again. Best be as quick about it as we can.”
“Oh. Uh… Alright. That’s cool.”
“... What?”
“Hm?”
“What’s wrong? You disagree?”
“Oh no, ah…” A sheepish grin crawled across Mima’s face. “I was just thinking about how much you’ve changed, is all. It’s just… you know, a huge city missing all of its people is pretty mysterious, huh? Don’t you want to do more exploring? Poke around a bit and take in the sights? Like we used to—just one last time?”
There was an unsettling period of silence where Yukari stared straight through Mima with that flat look. She averted her eyes for a passing moment. When Yukari returned her gaze to Mima, it was steely and cold. “No. Neither of us are kids anymore. We have duties and responsibilities that we can not abandon. Not for anything.”
Yukari brushed past Mima. The gesture wasn’t very rough at all, but Mima felt it come at her hard. As Yukari opened the door, she looked back at Mima and gestured to her to follow.
“Let’s go.”
Orin did not want much from life.
There was Satori, her master, who she cared about deeply. There was Okuu, her best friend, who she loved. There was Koishi, the younger sister of her master, who she felt obligated to take care of. And of course, there was her job of transporting corpses, which she could do endlessly and without tiring. Those things more or less encompassed everything she cared about—Orin was a simple person.
So as she crawled out the emergency hatch located at the top of the ship her master had so recklessly buried into a sand dune, she couldn’t help but feel so hopelessly out of her depth. With a groan, she hoisted herself over the lip of the hatch before losing her balance and tumbling over.
As she tumbled downward, bumping her head against every little edge the ship had on her way down, the visor to her suit cracked and then shattered. But as she flopped down into the warm sand, her arms and legs spread in a state of absolute fatigue, she couldn’t really bring herself to care about the warning tones in her helmet—or the fact she was able to breathe the air here, in what used to be the void. Frankly, all she could think about was how much she wanted to go home.
“Orin! Are you okay?” A familiar voice called from somewhere outside her field of vision. It was followed by the hasty clattering of boots on metal as they no doubt clambered down the ship in a hurry.
All Orin could offer in response was a weak grunt and the extension of a thumbs up.
“Are… are you insane?” Another voice called soon after, all breathless and hoarse. It cracked with exertion, as if it had already been worn out by so much screaming. “Satori, what form of devil possessed you to do that? We could’ve all died!”
Satori, of course, didn’t respond. Not before she entered Orin’s field of view, her own helmet long since thrown away. Her face was etched with a rare look of concern, and she breathed a deep sigh of relief when she saw Orin manage a weak smile. Wordlessly, Satori jostled off the smashed helmet from Orin’s suit and brushed away any remaining debris… before pulling her into a tight embrace.
Orin, dazed and shocked from the crash, could manage little else than to rest her head upon her master’s shoulders as she was pulled in. But through whatever stores of energy she had left, she managed to raise her arms and wrap them around in loose reciprocation.
“I’m okay,” she whispered. “I’m okay.”
Satori pulled back from the hug, but stayed kneeling by Orin’s side. Cautiously, she looked to the horizon, as if she had caught a vanishing glimpse of something stalking them from behind the shifting sands. She extended an elbow for Orin to grab on to. “Let’s go. Can you stand?”
“I… I think so,” Orin mumbled, hooking one of her arms around Satori’s elbow and placing a hand on her shoulder for support. Her master lifted, and in response Orin tried her best to stumble onto her feet, with mixed results. As she straightened herself out with the help of Satori, she heard her bones shift and crackle in strange ways—followed by an absolute lightning strike of localized pain in the leg and the fuzzy static that came to replace it.
After a sharp intake of breath and a pained wince, Orin settled into a decidedly unconvincing posture—she plastered a smile on her face and shifted all of her weight onto the other leg in a poor imitation of nonchalance, but Satori’s face only got graver. It broke Orin’s heart. For a moment, Orin tried to separate herself from her master so she could stand on her own—but Satori only squeezed her in closer, as if she would’ve lost Orin the second she let go.
That didn’t surprise Orin much. She knew better than anyone that the events one year ago were still fresh in her master’s mind. Even now, it haunted her every action, and now the consequences were starting to catch up with everyone involved. But to Orin, that didn’t matter. It never did—not so long as Satori was her master, and Orin was her pet. Satori could march to the deepest pit of Hell, pick a fight with a God, oppose reality itself… and Orin would march along right beside her, no matter what.
Patchouli, on the other hand, did not share the same sentiment. She marched up to the two, at least temporarily uncaring of the fantastical environment they found themselves in, and went straight to airing out her grievances.
“Recklessly engaging with Toyohime like that, against all better logic… one day, and this day might very well come sooner than you think, your obsession with that cursed woman will hurt someone you care about,” Patchouli snapped. As she looked to Orin, whose body was riddled with evidence of blunt trauma, her expression softened. “... It already has.”
“As if we had any other choice. It was our best shot to kill her, once and for all,” Satori replied, stone-faced and cold. “... Besides, let Orin speak for herself. As if you know what she does and doesn’t wish for.”
“... Orin wasn’t the only person who got hurt. Or killed.”
“It just so happens that Eirin conveniently falls outside my definition of ‘people I care about.’ I fail to see the issue.” Satori snorted with disgust, as if offended by the mere implication. Orin wanted to speak up and cut between the fighting, but couldn’t find the strength to oppose her own master. “That aside, who says I was the one who got her killed? She got herself killed, following her own incomprehensible mess of half-baked ideas and strategies. What are you coming at me for?”
“How could you be so cold toward someone like her? Especially since we were all fighting out there together, as comrades? Have you no shame?”
“I’ve no love for her. Not after what she did to my sister.” Satori stared straight into Patchouli’s eyes. Sometimes her master was like this—staring straight ahead through a person, as if judging the content of their soul itself. Sometimes, this was literally the case, given that she made liberal use of her opened third eye. “We might be fighting beside each other, but we’re fighting for completely different things. Yukari, Eirin, Kaguya, even you and I—we’re all fighting for something different. Those are just the facts. Just as it was a fact that Koakuma had darkness in her heart. It’s that kind of fact.”
“How cynical. Aren’t we friends?”
Satori fixed Patchouli with a steady glare as she thought through her answer. Even with an open eye, Orin found her master’s thought process difficult to parse.
“... No. We aren’t,” Satori settled. “It’s not a secret—I’m fighting to get my sister back. I’m fighting to kill the person who turned her into a monster. I’m fighting to protect my family. You are doing none of those things—you’re fighting for a more abstract reason: protecting the world, or preventing human suffering, or whatever other justification you assign to your actions. It’s admirable, but recognize that It’s only by convenience that we’re here, helping each other out.”
“... Is that right?” Patchouli muttered under her breath. “Then if it came between Yukari, or Eirin, or me, or anyone else… and your family. Who would you choose?”
Silence.
“It’s best to be honest with ourselves. It saves us the heartache.”
“I see.”
In the silence that came after, the atmosphere seemed to become heavier. Orin spent each passing beat being suffocated by the pressure. Her eyes darted from Patchouli to her master, and then back again.
“Er…” Orin started. “Let’s ah… could we just figure out what we’re going to do next, maybe? Without fighting—that would be nice.”
“Good plan, Orin,” Satori said. Though strangely enough, she wouldn’t take her eyes off of Patchouli. “I’m not quite sure what we would do without you.”
Patchouli looked away. Orin couldn’t help but feel vaguely responsible—though the second the thought even popped into mind, Satori squeezed a little tighter, as if in reassurance.
“... There’s no use in arguing,” Patchouli said with a heavy sigh. “Or rather, it’s a subject for later, when we aren’t all in danger. For now, I agree—we should figure out our next steps.”
The guns had long since run quiet.
Those satellites—their powerful bodies forged by the greatest minds, cast in the strongest metals, and mounted with the fiercest weapons humanity could muster—how could they have possibly matched the horror of God’s wrath? They could never, and for their hubris, their bodies and their souls were scattered and broken as a million glittering lights upon the ocean.
Those were the kinds of things Kaguya Houraisan thought about as she sat beside a flickering fire, her only source of light deep in the darkness of a desert night, not a few meters from the turned and battered wreckage of the CNS Beyond the Sun. In the void, It was battered by unseen force, turned three times—and upon the fourth, struck down and consumed by the void, as was the divine will of God. To its crew, it might have seemed like nothing less than a castigation of divine nature—but Kaguya knew it was nothing more than the temper tantrum of a child. As infant children must necessarily cry, Koishi must necessarily kill—it was her unconscious will.
Woe upon humanity, as its greatest accomplishment was brought low and made worthless before a child. Her own child. What a dubious honor it was—being the mother of such a terrifying, omnipresent killer.
Kaguya was on the ship when it was attacked by Toyohime. She was there to see Eirin march on to meet her. And she was there to see her die. It didn’t bother Kaguya too much—after all, she had watched Eirin die countless times. She will likely watch her die countless more, before all is said and done. But it was there, seized by the temporary shock, that Kaguya lost consciousness. When she woke up, she was deep within the fresh wreckage of humanity’s greatest weapon—alone. On what happened to her crew, and why Kaguya was spared, she could only make guesses.
With no direction and no plan, Kaguya spent what felt like hours wandering the claustrophobic halls of that great metal cage of a ship. But she was alone. Alone in such a way that not even the impression of humanity remained. Even the spot where she saw three men become atomized by Toyohime’s attack, which had burnt dark impressions of their silhouettes into the steel, was mysteriously void of any sign they were killed at all. The damage remained, but the people were gone—erased from existence in a way only God could manage.
When she eventually emerged from the dark recesses of the ship into a darker night, with nothing but the stars above and the inexplicable ground below, she could do nothing but start a simple fire. The night was cold, and she had a feeling it would be long. Warmth would be needed.
This, alone and huddled by a dying fire, must have been the end. Kaguya shifted closer to the flame, and held her knees closer to her chest. She didn’t know what to do. When her own daughter had sought her out, she didn’t know what to say. All she could do was recognize—that in pursuit of an easy life, she had made things so much worse. She wondered if it was too late to make things right between herself and Koishi. If Kaguya had looked up to her daughter now, and said sorry, would she hear? Would she care?
She wasn’t sure. And she wasn’t sure if she wanted to find out.
As she stared at the stars above, Kaguya heard the shuffling of boots displacing the sand. The sounds came in an irregular, halting motion. When it came to a stop, Kaguya lowered her gaze to the figure who stood at the edge of her fire’s light.
A moon rabbit in a pilot suit, all ripped up, tattered, and blackened by combat. In the gaps of her suit, her skin had melted away from severe burns—and froze in place, creating large patches of gangrenous tissue that covered her body. As Kaguya’s eyes drifted downward, she noticed a patch of body that had a view to the other side. Somehow, by some miracle of medicine, the wound remained stable and closed.
Her face was concealed by her helmet, tinted and patterned by a spider web of cracks, but by the way she stood, so still and lopsided, Kaguya had the impression of an empty gaze just behind the facade.
The moon rabbit carried in her left hand a revolver, its chambers empty and on display as the mechanism that connected the grip to the top half of the hung loose. In her other hand, was an ax, splintered in half at the handle from excessive use and its blade caked in a thick layer of blood.
Without a word, the moon rabbit collapsed into a heap by the fire.
Kaguya rushed to the moon rabbit’s side and, upon removing her helmet, froze.
Atonement—she wondered if it was even possible.
Previous Chapter:
Interim Chapter 11

First/Prev
​
“Father?”
Mogan relaxed, wearing something like a small loincloth as he stretched out in something that was either a chair or a bed. After more than a week he still couldn't really tell which. He was leaning towards “bed” simply because he dozed off so often in it, but he thought that had more to do with his schedule than his age. At least, so he hoped.
“Father?”
At that, he was wearing more than most of the people here. Many walked around in clothing that seemed made mostly of strings. While it was an interesting view, he imagined it must be uncomfortable to walk in. Considering how warm it was, most of the San had picked up the local fashion quickly, although a lot of the tourists still considered them pretty conservatively dressed.
Last time he was on a beach like this it was with Hyeshi. Her clothing had been just about as minimal as his, and while he certainly didn't mind the view it had also been easier to see that she was showing with Ellisan.
Mogan had spent some time on the various types of watercraft, and even some of the small fliers, although he took it easy with those—not like Ellisan, certainly—but his schedule was too busy for most of that.
“Father!”
Mogan snapped out of his doze. “Sorry. What is it?”
“They've returned. The... ones... that were escorting the guests.” Even here, she was more careful about references to warriors or soldiers than most.
“Good. They're a day or two late, but I forgot sometimes how slow those guys travel.”
“And everything is fine. Nothing that really needs to be worried about.”
Mogan caught the hesitation around 'really,' heaved a sigh, and sat up.
“It can wait; you're wearing yourself out fixing everything here!”
“Did somebody do something stupid?”
Ellisan sighed. “Yes.”
“Is it something that will cause us trouble?”
She paused. “...Probably.”
“Then I can't just leave it.”
“Maybe, but you've got to delegate at least some of it. You didn't come home last night until almost morning. Breaking up the fight at the Seafront, dealing with the two idiots who got cheated in gambling at the Moonsrise, and then stopping that incident when some fool tried to start some bets on fighting.”
At least she didn't know about the two people he had to carry home because they were too drunk to move.
“Plus those two people you had to carry home because they were too drunk to move!”
Damn it.
“It's getting better.”
“It is.” Ellisan nodded. “They're not stupid, just not used to any of this. But you've done more than enough work. You should be out here enjoying yourself, not catching up on your sleep because you were cleaning up other people's messes all night.”
“Can't. There are two thousand people here, Ellisan, and they've all been through blood and fire the last few months. Most of them are drinking too much, but I don't know how to just cut them off. Tonight there'll be another fight at the Seafront—the owner doesn't care how many fights there are as long as he makes money selling drink. And there was almost a fight down at the walk, over the women offering... services... there. I'll need to be there part of the night. And—”
“And someone else will.”
“The chieftains are already busy.”
“Then tell someone else off,” she continued relentlessly. “Inton, that guy isn't stupid—let him handle the Seafront. And Burjit is the galaxy's premiere expert at dealing with men's stupidity; she can handle the walk just fine. Half of the time you know who the problem people will be, so find something to keep them busy instead of doing something stupid.”
Mogan sighed, defeated. “Alright. I'll delegate away all the hot spots for tonight. But for now, I have to see what this problem is.”
Ellisan shook her head, but lead him to the small gathering area under a few tents where the chieftains were relaxing. Mogan noted that they didn't look nearly as tired as he, which he found irritating. Burya nodded to him.
“I told you you didn't need to take care of every problem, Mogan. None of them tonight. For now... Have a seat. This should be interesting.”
Mogan wasn't sure he liked the way Burya said “interesting.” It sounded a bit like the way Ellisan had said “really.” But he sat, and someone handed him a drink that tasted something like fruit juice. Ellisan wasn't sent away. What her status was now, nobody knew, but she'd obviously saved enough lives to earn a spot in the circle. There was a moment of uncomfortable silence, and then Logog spoke.
“I presume everyone is familiar with my hunter Chadnov?”
“He's not the sharpest spear in the quiver,” Skalli nodded. “But he's certainly the biggest.”
Logog sighed. “That's the one. He was with the escorts. And over the next six days they traveled, everybody spent a lot of time talking. Sort of got to know each other, and...”
“And one of the soldiers is with child, isn't she?” Skalli snorted.
“We didn't know this was possible!”
Ellisan stared at Logog, raising an eyebrow. “You didn't know that humans and Sylfa could breed?” Her lower set of arms waved. “What in the Frozen Valley do you think these are: antlers?”
Logog snorted, trying not to laugh. “It wasn't a Sylfa, Ellisan.”
“There weren't many Shawing there, but they're good people in general.” Mogan nodded. “We should speak to her.”
“It... um... She, uh...” Logog was staring intently at the sand between his toes. “She's not a Shawing either.”
There was a horrified silence, that extended for two full minutes before it was broken by Ellisan's horrified giggle.
“Well....” Mogan paused. “Let's, uh, let's bring in the happy couple.”
“Her name is apparently Karshta,” Logog said, “one of the blade-walls. It seems the Sovereignty will pay them for having Meht children. They're generally considered stupid, so even though their Meht are smaller they're considered to sort of have the best of both worlds. I think we can all agree we don't want the Sovereign to find a Meht with that kind of power and our.... traits.... yes?”
Mogan chuckled. “Too bad Akin isn't here. He really wanted to do a wedding for someone. Still, if she wants to mix her strength with someone else's intelligence, she might have wanted to pick someone... different.”
“The situation is what it is, not what we'd rather it be.” Burya shrugged. Mogan swore he sounded more like an old man than any of the old men present. “But if she's up to it, a marriage would be a good way to solve the problem. She stays with us so the child doesn't end up in the Sovereignty's hands, we get her contributions, and Chadnov has a wife three times his height to keep him from getting a roving eye.”
The others voiced their agreement, and a runner was sent for the happy couple.
They were a nervous couple when they arrived, the man ahead of the Mantu. Chadnov was a huge man, easily the tallest and heaviest of the San. Mogan was of average height, and he didn't even come up to the man's shoulder. He probably weighed twice what Mogan did, for that matter, and he doubted any of it was fat. He had often amused the children—and the ladies—by lifting whatever seemed heavy: barrels, logs, stones, vehicles, prey, whatever couldn't run away. In hunts, he was often known to cast his spear straight through an animal so hard that it stuck into the ground or trees several yards behind it. Mogan wasn't completely sure who was the stronger of the pair. Or the smarter.
Karshta looked fairly petite for a Mantu, which meant that she was a little less than three times his height and probably weighed a little less than a bison. Her legs were bent, but he doubted they could straighten much more, at least not enough to stand any taller, and her feet were three-toed and longer than a spear, with claws that dug into the sand as she walked. A heavy tail trailed behind her, occasionally brushing the ground, and Mogan had no doubt that even without the armor they wore it could be a definite hindrance to any combatant behind her. Her hands were also three-fingered, like her feet. Mogan had thought of her as much like that strange and fearsome lizard he had fought back on New Klon, but those had tiny, useless arms, with sharp claws that were probably never used. Karshta's arms were so long that they almost reached the ground, and while the three fingers, one opposable, had claws, they were clipped and smoothed.
She had a longer neck than any human, or most animals he had seen, but not exactly snake-like, and her muzzle was more than a foot and a half long, big enough that she could probably grab a human by the waist and powerful enough that she could then touch her teeth together. Four eyes marked the front of her head, and two more closer to the sides, smaller ones.
It was a certainty that if Chadnov's attentions were not welcome, she could have made him aware of this in a fashion that left no room for confusion and little for healing. What wasn't certain was just how they had managed in the first place, but Mogan shook his head. That way led to the madness of the Auels.
He was amused to find three of the others shaking their heads as well. What had attracted Chadnov was also something of a mystery. Her own clothing was of the three-strings variety, but she had no breasts, nor hips, and the shape of her legs was mostly the shape of a lizard's legs.
“Welcome, Chadnov and Karshta.” The way Ansam paired the two, as if he was stating one name rather than two, was certainly deliberate. “This will take some time, and we don't want you to be any more uncomfortable. Sit, relax.”
The two sat, looking somewhat nervous. For Karshta, it simply meant folding her legs under her, although Chadnov sat cross-legged.
“Now,” Ansam began. “Rumor has it that you're expecting.”
“Expecting what?” The two spoke together, and brought another moment of stunned silence to the circle.
The silence stretched, as they stared at the two and the two stared at them, with growing expectation, until finally Ellisan broke it.
“The baby?”
“Oh. Yes, I will be giving birth.”
Mogan nodded. “Well... why don't you start with that? Do you lay eggs?”
Karshta seemed offended, but she told them. Apparently Mantu birthed live young, often three or four at a time but usually just one or two for their Meht, after a pregnancy of nearly a full year. While other species often looked down on their Meht, Mantu valued them immensely. This was only in part because the Sovereignty offered a hefty payment, and in part because Meht were able to get jobs that most other species could not. Mantu were often the heavily-armored barrier for Sovereignty armies—blade-walls, they were called—but were often not intelligent enough to manage vehicles or guns. Mantu Meht could carry massive weapons, or carefully pack and load valuable goods, or even serve as police forces or intimidating guards with far less chance of mishaps.
They did not have milk, but the babies were immediately able to eat mashed meat; they were apparently like dogs in that they were generally carnivores but could eat some plants. And perhaps because they had less brain to develop, they grew to adulthood in a shorter time. This made Chadnov quite nervous until he discovered that she was in her nineteenth year, and they usually lived to their sixties.
“And you're certain that Chadnov here is the father?”
Chadnov winced, but Karshta nodded. “He is a cute little thing.” Chadnov winced again.
“Well!” Ansam nodded. “Congratulations to the both of you, then.”
Chadnov's eyes widened in horror as he continued. “That means, of course, that our people have certain duties. We'd like you to come with us, Karshta.”
“You'll need help raising your children now,” Mogan added, “and we can do the marriage right here, if you'll take him.”
“You are referring to... a husband? A... human husband?”
Chadnov stared, and they could almost hear the wheels creaking as they turned. The hunter could refuse the wedding, of course. But “of course” meant the same as “really” and “interesting” in this case—it would be the end of his reputation and his aspirations. He would have a hard time leading anyone, joining hunting parties, or getting near a woman again if it was known that he had gotten a woman with child and abandoned her. All he could hope for was that she would refuse him, and by the look of it that wasn't going to happen.
“And all of your children will be Meht. Here's hoping you have many.”
The smile she turned upon her new fiance was downright predatory, and Chadnov found himself chuckling.

First- Previous
The air ambulance hovered just thirty meters above the raging waters of the river running well above flood stage. My wife, Nalini, piloted the craft with such expert skill that we barely moved, even in the near hurricane level winds. I hooked my safety harness into the airship’s safety line, just above the penetrator basket, while Tajamal leaned out the open hatch, scanning for people to rescue.
“Jabir,” Taj called, “I have three in view. In the trees to our seven.”
The blowing rain made it hard to see, but Taj had the benefit of enhanced vision with his SAR helmet optics. I pulled my visor plate down and sealed it as I looked out the hatch. The optics turned on automatically and I tapped the controls to trigger lowlight and infrared modes. Dalutian’s body temperature is a bit lower than human at 35° but, against the cold river, they stood out like bonfires.
“I see them. Nali, slide us back about twenty meters and I will drop.”
She'd heard Taj’s call and was already sliding back while rotating slightly to the left, placing me in a prime position to drop down into the trees. I remember reading about early search and rescue operations on Terra before the discovery of antigravity technology. They used helicopters, an inelegant, ancient machine that beat the air into submission. The machines were deadly when they malfunctioned, even at low altitudes. Such disasters were rare these days, but no unheard of.
“The wind is picking up,” Nalini called out. “From the north-northeast. Reads twenty-five sustained, gusting to fifty-five.”
“Thanks. I think we can handle it. Maintain at ten meters and keep her steady as you can,” I ordered.
My entire SAR crew was family. My wife is our pilot, her sister Marwa an emergency and trauma nurse. Their brother Zafar and my cousin Tajamal were both SAR pararescue. What was odd about my team is we are all ethnic Arabs that lived among the blond Vikings of Nya Österlen. We had not had the genetic mods to live there which made it a bit of a struggle at times. But we wanted to learn from the best before we moved back home to New Berlin. I will not lie though, the lower gravity here was a relief.
I jumped out of the hatch, swinging from the winch line as Zafar lowered me into the trees. I could see the faces of three Dalutians looking up at us. I could not tell if it was fear, awe, or confusion on their faces. The penetrator pushed through the uppermost branches. I used my feet to push it where I wanted it, edging closer to the natives clinging to the branches.
The wind made it impossible for me to talk to them. The two adults looked absolutely exhausted. I guessed they had been in this tree for quite a while, fighting the wind and rain. They look up at me, eyes wide in shock. I guess I would be too if some strange alien dropped out of the sky to rescue me. I unfolded the penetrator into its basket mode and locked it in place. I motioned to the woman with her child. I pointed at the basket, and she shook her head.
It seems that is the universal ‘no.’ I pointed to her and her child and pointed to the basket again, showing her the harnesses to secure them. The male yelled something I could not understand, and she hugged her child tight and scooted to the basket. I grabbed her around the waist and held them securely as they got into the basket. I quickly strapped their harnesses together and motioned to the last one. I figured he was the father. As he moved around the trunk to where the basket was, he slipped and fell hard. He bounced his head on a thick limb and went limp.
I wasted no time in thought and jumped after him. If he hit the water unconscious, he would die. I could not catch him. He was just out of reach when I hit the end of my tether and hit the quick disconnect.
“What are you doing?” My wife was angry at my choice.
It was, arguably, a bad idea. While by no means as good as a military survival suit, our SAR suits had self-contained rebreathers that allowed us to breathe in toxic or underwater environments. They were tough as hell. The armor was not the ablative, laser resistant military armor but could handle anything I would encounter here. He splashed into the water and sank. I could see his heat signature as the roaring waters ripped him away.
I hit the water. I could feel the cold water momentarily, until my suit’s environmental systems kicked on the heaters. I could see his body with my heat sensors. I triggered the sonar, and the computer painted the inside of my visor with the information. The floodwaters held many dangers, mostly from floating or submerged wood. Often these hazards were entire trees ripped from the ground upriver. I could still get crushed if I made a mistake.
“Jabir?” My wife was really angry.
“I am fine. Take the ship a klick downstream,” I ordered. “Zafar drop the net when I get close.”
“Roger,” Zafar answered. “I have you on the scope.”
All the SAR suits are tied into the airship’s datanet. With the locator beacons and health monitors, the flight crew could track me easily. I was not worried about them tracking me. Retrieving me was another thing entirely. But that was a worry for later. I still had to reach my target. I am an excellent swimmer. Anyone who wants to work in search and rescue is required to be better than average.
I kicked off strongly, pushing hard to catch up. It was easy to do since he was just bouncing along like a rag doll. If I cannot get to him soon, he will drown. I caught up and reached out, grabbing a handful of feathers. I felt some pull loose but enough held that I was able to pull him into a tight hold. He was a lump of dead weight as I pushed to the surface.
I could see the airship hovering over the river. Nalini held it in the perfect position. She held the airship at five meters, with the starboard hatch open and net barely in the water. Zafar and Taj knelt inside the hatch, looking at me as I bobbed down the river. I was at the mercy of the floodwaters. Holding onto the Dalutian meant I had little ability to swim. I kicked as hard as I could to position the best I could for the net to catch us. I hit sideways, my left arm snaking into the net while hooking my legs giving me three points of contact.
“Lift the net,” I yelled. “Lift the net!”
Zafar hit the lift and Nalini pulled up, lifting us out of the water. The net retracted into the roof and deposited us in a wet heap in the deck. Taj closed the hatch as I popped my visor and removed my helmet. Zafar pulled the male out of the net and worked to get the water out of his lungs. Only then I heard the mother and child crying in fear. I could not tell what they were saying, but I could see their concern.
Marwa took over, placing an oxygen mask over his beak. “Get us to a hospital,” she said. “He has a head injury and water inhalation. He’s breathing but it’s shallow. Damn, I wish I knew their physiology better.”
Zafar waved his sensor wand over the male’s little body. I knew they were smaller than us, but I did not realize just how much smaller they were.
“Blood pressure is low,” Zafar said. “At least that’s what the computer says. And body temp is low. Let’s get him on the stretcher and into a thermal blanket.”
I helped move the body onto a stretcher mounted on the bulkhead. All the stretchers were equipped with body heaters and the thermal blankets were little more than high tech electric blankets with the added ability to wick away water. This would help stabilize him, but he needed a full hospital.
The other two were chattering at me but I still had no idea what they were saying. “Do we have the translator package downloaded?”
“You don’t have it?” Zafar asked.
“No. I did not see it in the download files.”
“I pushed it automatically to your suit,” he replied. “Check for a file labelled Dal1.5. It should have installed by itself.”
“Well, it didn’t.” I pulled up the files on my suit’s computer. “Found it. Installing it now.”
With the file installed, I could finally understand what they were saying, for all the good it did me. I could tell they were family. The child was hysterical and the mother struggling to calm her. We got the father strapped in and secure. Through the deck, I could feel the engines vibrating as Nali pushing the airship to its maximum speed. Marwa had the father well in hand, so I turned to his family.
“We will be at a hospital within a few minutes.” I heard my speaker translate my words into their sing song language. It sounded like one of the tonal languages from earth mixed with a parrot’s call. “We have doctors who can help him. Do you understand?”
They both started talking and the mother shushed the child. Or at least, the translation software made the sounds. Often there is something lost in the translation.
“Who are you?” The mother asked.
“I am Jabir Tamraz.”
“No, who are all of you? I have not seen any of your species before.”
“Oh. We are humans.”
“Humans?” She recoiled a bit but then seemed to shake as she digested the news. We knew coming in to this mission that there would be some fear or anxiety. Most of the Confederation species had no real meaningful interactions with humanity. And even though some of the Dalutains had traded with us before, they were the minority.
“Yes, we are humans,” Marwa replied. “There are thousands of us out looking for survivors and doing what we can to rescue them. Just as we did for you.”
“But… Why?” The daughter spoke softly, but the translator spoke at full volume.
“Because… Because we felt it was the right thing to do,” I replied. “Many of our people have needed help. Sometimes desperately needed help. Most of the time, that help came. But not always. But our people have never needed help as badly as yours do. I am sorry we were not able to get here sooner.”
“Our government asked the Confederation for help. But it never came.” Again, the translator could not put her bitterness into the translation we heard. But I could tell by her body language that she was angry and defeated.
“I cannot speak to that. But I can tell you that we are here and not going away.”
“Prepare to land. We will be at the hospital in less than a minute,” Nali called over the intercom.
The ship settled onto the ground with barely a bump. My wife is the best pilot around. The back ramp lowered and several people ran aboard, two picked up the father and carried the stretcher off the ship. Two others checked on our other to passengers and quickly led them off and into the hospital.
I was happy that we had managed to save them, but we had more to do.
Nali grabbed my arm roughly and pulled me around to face her. “What the hell was that?”
“I almost lost him.”
“You broke protocol. We never disconnect the tether in a situation like that! What the hell were you thinking?”
“I was thinking that I could not let him die. Not in front of his family.”
“And what of me? I could have seen you die!” She had tears in her eyes, but they were tears of anger. “You are not immortal. You have a wife and daughter, too.”
“I know. It was a calculated risk,” I replied. “Our SAR suits can take a log of damage before we get hurt, and I had three hours of oxygen. He did not. If I had not gone in after him, he would have died. I was his only hope of surviving. We did not choose this profession because it was safe. We chose it because we felt a calling to save lives.”
“Don’t you die on me.” She grabbed me in a tight hug. “Don’t you dare. I cannot live without you.”
“Don’t say that. You are the strongest person I know. You were strong as steel before I met you. That was why I fell in love with you. And if anything, you are stronger now. You push me to be stronger. If anyone in this universe can survive, it is you.”
“Just… Don’t do that again without warning me. Okay? Promise me.”
“I promise. I will not do something stupid without warning you first.”

Here is the first chapter of The Chieftainess’ Reincarnated Wife. It will be for a more mature audience. Especially, the dreams (memories). Please enjoy and tell me what you all think:
The Chieftainess’ Reincarnated Wife
Fate’s Call
779 A.C. Scandinavia, Skinwalker Clan Stronghold
Two women stood outside the great hall as their servants and advisors looked over their dresses and appearances one last time. They wore their crowns. One had dark ginger hair with dark bright eyes. The other had dark blonde hair and bright white eyes. When given the approval, they looked in each other’s eyes and smiled at each other.
The blonde asked, “Are you ready for this, my Chieftainess?”
Chieftainess replied, “Yes, my Queen. We should get this over with.” The Chieftainess looked at the high advisor before she continued. “High Advisor, announce us.”
The High Advisor put his fist across his chest. “As you command, Chieftainess.” The High Advisor said.
He turned and walked towards the doors of the great hall as the guards opened them. He walked to the center of the room as those already in the great hall became silent and looked towards him.
The Chieftainess and her Queen walked in the main hall as he began to speak. “I present to you all Chieftainess Elsha Ulfsdottir, the daughter of wolves, most favored by Lord Odin, the shield breaker, and first of her name. As well as Queen Chara Frydenlund the faithful and last of her name.” The High Advisor said.
Elsha and Chara made their way to the two thrones sitting at the far end of the great hall. Those in the room would salute them as they passed by. When they made it to their thrones, they turned to face everyone, and they sat down. The High Advisor approached them.
Elsha said, “Let’s get this started, High Advisor.”
“As you command, Chieftainess. I present to you Birger Unfrid the Brave.” The High Advisor said.
Birger Unfrid walked and stood in front of Elsha and Chara. He saluted them.
Elsha said, “I know why you are here, Birger. You come to fulfill the oath that the former Chieftain had with
your father to give him our blessings for and expedition to find lands across the great sea. Your father passed away, and you are going to fulfill that dream. To honor the oath, I give you my blessings for your expedition and may Lord Odin himself watch over your endeavors.”
“I appreciate your blessings, Chieftainess, but I think you are mistaken in the oath that your father gave to mine.” Birger said.
“Mind your tongue, whelp.” The High Advisor said.
“I mean no offense towards you or your queen, Chieftainess. The oath was that he would lend his entire fleet and able bodies to the expedition.” Birger said.
Elsha raised her hand to silence everyone as she spoke, “I along with my queen and advisors will review the oath. If it is as you say that it is, I will lend to your expedition our entire fleet. Also, the entire clans, including my queen and myself, will accompany you and your clan on this expedition of yours. If not, you will leave my great hall with my blessings alone. You shall have our answer in three days. You and your kin are welcomed to stay until then.”
“Thank you, Chieftainess. I look forward to your answer.” Birger said as he saluted and started to leave.
Elsha said, “Oh, one more thing, Birger. If we do this, your clan must pledge allegiances to my queen and I alone. We are in charge, and everyone will listen to us. Do I make myself clear?”
Birger was shocked. “Yes, Chieftainess. It will be as you command.” Birger quickly replied before he saluted once more and left with his kin.
The great hall doors shut.
Present Day, Tokyo, Japan, An apartment
There was a sudden knock on a bedroom door. A girl groaned as she slowly woke up. She looked at the time and it was eight thirty in the morning. She reached over and grabbed her inhaler and took a couple deep breaths from it.
“Ohayo, Chaisa. Happy birthday. I know that it is summer break, but we have an important visitor who has legal matters with all of us. Please, get dressed and come to the kitchen as soon as you can.” The woman at the door said.
Chaisa groaned in protest and said, “Ohayo and ariagatou, Okasan. I will be there in a few minutes.”
“Hurry up and don’t forget to take your pills.” Chaisa’s mom said.
Chaisa screamed as she got out of bed, “I won’t forget!”
Chaisa quickly got dressed and put on her glasses. She went to the bathroom and filled a cup with water. Chaisa took a sip of water and swallowed her pills. She brushed her teeth and combed her hair. Chaisa headed towards the kitchen where she could hear her mother talking to a man. For some reason, the voice sound familiar to her. She walked to the dining room and was stunned when she saw the man. He looked exactly like the man from her dream. Except, he had a business suit on and not a Viking outfit. Chaisa noticed that her little sister was holding a black stone with some type of symbol on it. When her little sister saw her, she put the stone on the table and ran over to her. She hugged Chaisa around her waist and looked up at her.
“Ohayo, Onee-Chan. Happy Birthday!” Chaisa’s sister said as she smiled brightly at her.
Chaisa smiled as she hugged her sister back and said, “Ohayo, Akahana-Chan. Thank you.”
“He, he, he,” Akana laughed.
“Good morning, Chaisa. I am sorry to bother you on this important day. Let me introduce myself. I am Birger Unfrid, and I have come a long way to meet you and your family.” Birger took a deep breath before he continued. “Kaede, would you please hold the stone for one moment, please?” Birger said.
“Umm…sure. I would be happy to.” Kaede replied as she picked up the stone.
She held it in her palm with the symbol facing her. After a few moments of nothing happening, Kaede handed the stone back to Birger. He took it from her and looked at Chaisa while she couldn’t help from feeling a sense of Deja-vu. Chaisa noticed that he was staring at her.
“Chaisa, don’t be rude. Come and sit down with us.” Kaede said as she looked at her.
Chaisa blushed and said, “Oh right. I am sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude.”
Chaisa sat down and put her hands on her lap as Akahana stood between Chaisa and Kaede.
Birger held out the stone to Chaisa. “I know that this might seem unusual. Please, humor me for a moment by holding this stone for a few minutes before we get started with why I am here.” Birger said.
Chaisa looked at her mother. Kaede nodded. She sighed as she slowly took the stone out of his hand and held it in her right hand. She was drawn to look at the weird symbol on the stone. Chaisa was amazed with how familiar the stone felt and looked, but she couldn’t put her finger on why. Suddenly, the symbol began to pulse as she felt a slight pain in her forehead. The stone started to turn a milky color before shinning a bright white light. Chaisa blinked, and the stone was back to normal. She looked at Akahana and Kaede, but they didn’t seem to notice. She looked at Birger as she reached out to hand the stone back to him. Chaisa noticed the shocked look on his face like he did notice. He took the stone from her as he set his briefcase on the table. Birger opened it and put the stone up before he pulled out some papers and a pen. He set the briefcase aside as he put the papers down in front of him. Then, he looked at Akahana, Chaisa, and Kaede.
Birger folded his hands on top of the paper. “I really do appreciate you welcoming me into your home, and I want to apologize once more for the unannounced visit to your home.” Birger said.
Kaede waved her hand. “There is no need to apologize. I am sorry for the state of my home. It must be quite a mess. You said that you had business concerning my late husband.” Kaede said.
“Yes, of course. I want to extend my condolences for the loss of your husband. I am sure that he was a loving husband and father. But I am sorry for the confusion. The business doesn’t pertain to him specifically, but a distant relative of his who recently passed away. How much do you know about his family?” Birger said.
“I appreciate your kind words. He was a very loving husband to me and cared for our daughters very much.” Kaede paused for a second as she thought before she continued. “I really don’t know much about his family line. He said that he came from Scandinavia or something like that. He never called them, and they never came to visit. Why do you ask?” Kaede replied.
Akahana climbed onto Chaise’s lap as they continued to listen to them speak.
“It is true that he and much of his direct family lived in Scandinavia for a long time. But he had a
Distant relative who lived in Canada that was rich and owned a considerable amount of land. That relative recently passed away from an unknown illness, and they left your family their entire fortune, home, and land. However, there are some criteria that must be met before all of it will be passed on to you all.” Birger replied.
Chaisa interrupted by asking, “What are those criteria that you referenced?”
Birger looked at Chaisa. “The criteria is that you all agree to move to Canada to become the legal landowners. The fortune will also be signed over to you all as well at that time.” Birger replied.
“What happens if we refuse to accept these conditions?” Kaede asked.
Birger shifted uneasy in his seat as he looked at Kaede. “The money will be seized by the local government, the home torn down, land auctioned off, and the last of your husband’s legacy lost forever.” Birger said.
Chaisa asked quickly, “What if we say yes? Then what?”
Birger smiled as he looked at Chaisa and Akahana. “If you all agree; all of your and your father’s medical bills will paid in full. Your belongings will be shipped to your new home. You all will never have want or have to scrape by. You all will begin a new life in a new home and have servants who will take care of all of your needs.” Birger held the papers before he continued. “By signing these papers, you enter into a legal obligation to fulfill all of the conditions. Then, everything will be taken care of from there.” Birger replied.
“If I sign those, when would we leave?” Kaede asked.
“If you sign these, your all will be on a plane to your new home on Thursday morning. Then, the following Monday, you have a job interview with the mayor of the town.” Birger replied.
Chaisa asked, “Do we have to decide now, or do we have a few days to decide?’ “Unfortunately, once I leave your apartment today, the inheritance will be lost forever. So, I need your
answers today.” Birger stood up before he continued. “Pardon me. I need to use your bathroom to give you all time to decide.” Birger replied.
“Of course, take your time, and thank you.” Kaede said.
Birger waved at them before he closed the door and locked it. Chaisa and Kaede leaned towards one
another to get close.
“What do you all think?” Kaede whispered.
Chaisa whispered, “It will be tough for Akahana-Chan and me to leave everything that we know, and this sounds too good to be true. But… it would be great to see you a lot stressed out and worrying so much. It would also be good to know something more about dad’s past. I say… let’s go for it.’
“Me too.” Akahana said as she smiled brightly.
“Are you sure? You are almost a year from graduating high school.” Kaede whispered.
Chaisa nodded as she whispered, “I am sure, Okaasan. I think that a new place could be good for all of us to start over. Maybe, Canada will do all of us good.”
Kaede smiled. “I agree. We should go for it and leave all of our woes behind. I will tell him yes when he gets back. Would you like some coffee? I just brewed it before you got up.” Kaede said as she got up.
Chaisa smiled and replied, “That would be great. Thank you Okaasan.”
Kaede went to the kitchen and took out a mug out of a cabinet. She put creamer and sugar in the mug. Then, Kaede poured coffee into the mug before she stirred the coffee. She brought the mug to Chaisa as Birger unlocked and opened the bathroom door. He walked out towards the dining room. He sat down at the same time that Kaede did.
Birger looked at them. “So, what did you all decide on the matter?” Birger asked.
Kaede looked at Chaisa. She nodded, and Kaede looked back at him. “We have decided to accept the inheritance.” Kaede replied.
Birger smiled. “I am happy to hear that. I just need you to sign these papers.” Birger said as he passed the papers and pen to Kaede.
Kaede took the papers and pen away from Birger. She went over the paperwork as he went over the paperwork with her. Birger would point where Kaede would have to sign. After she was done
signing where she had to, Kaede passed the paperwork to him. Birger looked over the paperwork. When he was satisfied, Birger took the pen from Kaede. He put the paperwork and pen back into his briefcase, closed it, and grabbed it as he stood up. Kaede stood up as well.
Chaisa asked, “What now?”
“Now, you all must pack your bags for what you all will need to take with you. The movers and plane tickets will be sent over later today. I hope you have a great birthday, Chaisa, and best of luck in your new home.” Birger said.
Kaede began to walk Birger out the front door before Chaisa asked, “Wait, where are we moving to in Canada?”
Birger smiled. “I believe it is a little town called Hunangsfall.” Birger replied before he walked out the front door.
As he walked away, Kaede closed the door behind him. When he heard the door closed, Birger smiled and faded away. They decided to start to pack just in case it was true after they had finished eating breakfast. After they had cleaned up from breakfast, Kaede received a phone call from the hospital informing her that all of her medical bills had been paid for. They were shocked, so they started to pack in earnest. After lunch, a courier came with an envelope marked “Urgent”. Kaede opened it and found their plane tickets and itinerary. Kaede contacted their landlord, and he informed them that everything was already taken care of. She just needs to drop her keys off before they leave and wished them luck before they hung up. Chaisa began to help Akahana start to pack her bags, when they heard a knock on the apartment door. Kaede opened the door to discover a moving company was there to start to pack their belongings. Kaede, Chaisa, and Akahana finished packing their bags and watched over the packers. The packers were careful as they packed Chaisa’s father’s shrine and urn. Just before dinner, everything was packed in boxes and had been taken out of the apartment. They looked around their apartment and were amazed on how it looked so bare and empty without all of their belongings in it. They had to throw out the remainder of the food, because they had nothing to cook it with. They decided to eat out as it was Chaisa’s birthday, and it was their last night there. Kaede wanted to let. Chaisa decide where they eat at, but she decided to let Akahana decide. They ate at Burger Palace, and each got a slice of pie for Chaisa’s birthday. When they got home, Chaisa and Akahana took turns calling their friends to let them know that they were moving the next day. Chaisa wrote down her friends’ social media information and helped Akahana get her friends’ numbers. It was soon time for them to go to bed. They changed, brushed their teeth, and Chaisa took her pills as Kaede set an alarm clock for them to get up on time. Then, Chaisa and Kaede laid out a blanket for them to share that evening. Akahana laid down between Chaisa and Kaede. Chaisa put her glasses where she could reach them, but they were safe from harm. They told each other good night. Akahana was the first person to fall asleep. Soon, Kaede had fallen asleep. But, Chaisa felt like she would never fall asleep before it was time to go to the airport. Her eyelids slowly became heavy, and she slipped into a vivid dream.
779 A.C. Scandinavia, Skinwalker Clan Stronghold
Elsha and Chara laid cuddling in bed with just a thick fur blanket covering them. Elsha noticed that Chara was having trouble following asleep. Elsha looked at Chara and kissed her lips.
Elsha was concerned as she asked, “What troubles your heart so much that keeps you from fallen asleep, my love?”
Chara nuzzled Elsha as she replied, “It’s this whole exploration. I don’t know if it was wise of us to accept it.”
Elsha asked, “What do you mean? The High Father Odin has personally blessed our voyage.”
Chara replied, “I know and that’s not what bothers me. Everyone knows that the world is flat and is surrounded by a vast ocean. What if we sail and find nothing but endless ocean or the edge of the
world. Then, our voyage would be for not.”
Elsha silently rubbed Chara’s back before she responded, “It could happen and most likely be true. We sail for eternity and eventually come to Jörmungandr. We would just turn around and come back home knowing more about our world than ever before.” Elsha paused before she continued. “However, what if there is more out there than we could ever expect. What if we find new lands during our travels and new people to blunder. It would make us the first of our kin to sail farther than anyone else ever has. Wouldn’t that be worth it?”
Chara smiled as she sat up to look down at Elsha. Her hair fell around her face, and they giggled before Chara kissed Elsha’s lips. She replied, “Yes, it would be worth it. Besides, we gave Birger our oath. If we back out now, we will be known as oath breakers and be cursed by the gods for all time.”
Elsha smiled as she brushed Chara’s hair out of her face before flipping her onto her back. Chara laughed as Elsha climbed on top of her. Their bodies touching each other’s as they passionately kissed. Some time later, they were cuddling once more as they breathed heavily and were covered in sweat. Elsha laid behind Chara as she kissed the tattoo going sown her back.
Chara said as she sighed happily, “I love you, my Chieftainess, and I will follow you to the ends of the earth.”
Elsha smiled and said, “And, I love you, my Queen, and I will walk with you the entire way to the edge of eternity.”
They soon fell fast asleep as they held each other close.
Present Day, Tokyo, Japan, the next morning
Chaisa woke up groggily the next morning from the sound of Kaede’s alarm clock going off. They slowly woke up as they got up. Chaisa used her inhaler and took her medicine. She went to the bathroom and got dressed. Chaisa helped Akahana get ready as Kaede was getting ready as well. Chaisa put on her glasses before she packed all of her stuff away. They made sure that they had everything packed and wouldn’t leave anything that they would need before they grabbed their stuff and walked out of the apartment. Kaede closed the door behind them and locked it for the last time. They made their way downstairs where Kaede placed their keys into an envelope with their apartment number on it. Then, she placed the envelope in the drop box. They walked out to the street and made their way to the subway. They got on the subway train and rode it to Tokyo International Airport. When it arrived, they got off the train and made their way into the airport. They went to the check in station and checked in their check in luggage at the counter. Then, they went through security and made their way to their terminal. They realized that they still had some time before boarding call, so they made their way to a Konbini to get breakfast. Shortly after they had eaten, it was boarding time. They realized that their tickets were first class, so they loaded first. They had three seats near a window. Akahana wanted to sit near the window. So, it was Akana, Chaisa in the middle seat, and Kaede had the isle seat. They followed all instructions as they put their seatbelts on.
Chaisa asked, “Akahana-Chan, are you excited about your first time to fly in an airplane?”
Akahana looked at Chaisa as she smiled brightly. “Yes, Onee-Chan. I am very excited.” Akahana said.
Chaisa smiled and said, “That’s good. Me too.” Chaisa looked at Kaede before she continued. “What about you, Okaasan?”
Kaede looked at Chaisa and Akahana as she smiled. “I am excited because you two are excited. But this isn’t my first time flying. I have flown from one side of Japan to the other, but this is my first time out of Japan.” Kaede replied.
Soon, the pilot’s voice could be heard over the airplane’s intercom system as the plane backed out of the terminal. The flight attendants checked everyone’s seat belts, seats, and tray tables as the airplane approached the runaway. Then, they made their way to their seats and buckled in. The airplane began to gain speed as it barreled down the runway. Soon, it lifted off of the ground and climbed higher in to the early morning sky as it climbed higher and higher. It flew towards the west with the rising sun behind them. After forty-five minutes, the flight attendants came around with refreshments. Chaisa started to feel motion sickness and just wanted a seltzer. When the seltzer arrived, she used it to take her motion sickness pills. Chaisa put her glasses on her tray table before she leaned her seat back. Akahana started to watch a movie, and Kaede read a book as Chaisa slowly fell asleep while listening to calming music. She was soon dreaming once more.

I’m 30M white belt looking at changing gyms for a couple of reasons but feeling sad about my decision.
Everyone is super nice and friendly and were welcoming when I returned after 3 months away due to groin strain.
They have recently increased their prices - main business owner left out of nowhere leaving the main instructor as business owner. With her accountant she realised they were undercharging customers and were unable to cover costs so they’ve had to hike up prices (above my price range).
The classes are rather small (3-7 people) which is good and bad. There’s good instruction however the drilling partners are always the same. They also don’t have a fundamentals class so as a beginner I’m learning all sorts of advanced techniques such as shin/knee slice from reverse de la riva, squid guard, worm guard etc. It’s awesome learning these things but I lack basic technique for things like escaping mount, side control etc.
I’m trialling other gyms close by but I feel really sad for considering leaving because this place has a really welcoming friendly vibe but with the increased pricing (beyond the owner’s control) it’s getting to be a bit much.
Side note my son trains TKD there so I feel like it’ll be super awkward seeing them if I leave when he trains.

Atreus, Terror of the Sky

Agility Melee

Carry Escape

Tags: MovementSpeed Evasion Mobility AttackSteroid Physical Magical Melee Passive AOE Stun
Playstyle: Glass cannon melee carry with extreme movement speed and reliant on his evasion to avoid being locked down.

Lore

While the Skywrath Kingdom is known to outsiders as a monarchy ruled by a bloodline of ancient mages, this was not always the case. The expanse of the sky is too vast to be ruled by any one clan, and in the old days before Shendelzare's great grandmother united them another flock once proudly ruled from a roost called Cloudhaven. Loyal to the ways of Avilliva, the wingless Accip'auk clan ruled over the massive floating city's spires and bridges with the help of the Order of the Gryphon, their royal guard of Gryphon-riding knights. It was from this guard that Atreus, champion of the annual sky-jousting tournament, slayer of the Feathered Serpent and captain of Queen Shendelezar's personal guard, arose from mere ignominy to become the last of his fated bloodline. Because, you see, while the Skywrath Kingdom of the present has known peace for centuries, all lasting peace must be born of bloodshed. The conflict between winged Skywrath and their wingless forerunners is oft forgotten by the victors of the conflict, but to Atreus his clan's cursed fate cannot be forgotten: to fall, helplessly, from great heights as you watch your whole world crumble before you. As the white marble halls of Cloudhaven crashed to the ground, it was Atreus's Gryphon, Drachon, who stopped his fatal descent. Faced with an impossible battle against Scree'auk's winged zealots and the death of his Queen, Atreus made the decision to go into hiding, carrying with him the relics of Avilliva in the hopes that he could one day return his kind to their rightful place in the sky.

Appearance

A wingless Skywrath (like Vengeful Spirit) riding an armored Gryphon and wielding a sacred spear. His mount walks on the ground normally, taking flight while his Q ability is active. His armor is dark green with a visor covering his face except for his jaw, and his feathers as well as those of his gryphon are silver.

Design Goals

• Dota lacks a flying mounted melee hero, and the community have been clamoring for a new hard carry hero
  
• In addition to the inclusion of two underutilized mechanics, evasion and movement speed, also must include completely new mechanics (spell evasion and attacking while moving)
  
• Intended to not need Boots or BKB as core items, helping give the hero a unique identity through itemization
  

Overview

Q: Winged Pursuit

Take flight, gaining evasion and flying movement, as well as the ability to attack while moving.

W: Tail Sweep

Leaps to the target point and sweeps enemies off their feet with Drachon's tail, stunning and damaging enemies in the area.

E: Talon Dive

Attacks have a chance to deal bonus damage based on current movement speed and ignore the target enemy's armor.

R: Sky Terror

Gain movement speed for a duration each time you attack. While moving at over 500 movement speed, sources of evasion also apply to enemy spell effects.

Shard (new ability) D: Soar

Swiftly flies to a distant location. Cannot be used for 3 seconds after taking damage from an enemy hero or Roshan.

Scepter: Sky Terror

Increases attack range and grants uncapped movement speed.

Attributes

STR: 17 + 2.2 AGI: 20 + 3 INT: 14 + 2
Movement Speed: 330
Turn Rate: 0.8
Attack Range: 200 ( 300)
Projectile Speed: instant (melee)
Vision: 1800/800
Base Damage: 26-32 (46-52 total at level 1)
Base Armor: -3 (0.333 total at level 1)
BAT: 1.7
Attack Time: 0.38 + 0.5s

Talents

Level 10: 400 Winged Pursuit Flying Vision OR -2 Armor Corruption
Level 15: +15 Strength OR +15 Agility
Level 20: +180 Tail Sweep Damage OR +1 Movement Speed per Agility
Level 25: +30% Evasion OR +100% Sky Terror Duration

Abilities

Q: WINGED PURSUIT no target

Take flight, gaining evasion and flying movement, as well as the ability to attack while moving.

Cast Time: instant
Duration: 6s
Evasion: 30/35/40/45%
Flying Vision Radius: 0 ( 400)
Effect cannot be purged by enemies
9/8/7/6s 50/60/70/80
Notes:

• Does not give flying vision unless the flying vision talent is taken.
  
• Allows attacking without turning while active, so you can control your movement direction independently of your attack target. Automatically attacks an enemy in range while flying.
  
• Can be placed on auto-cast with Alt+Q, but can't cast while stunned, silenced or rooted. Also may not be manually cast while rooted.
  

W: TAIL SWEEP target point, magical

Leaps to the target point and sweeps enemies off their feet with Drachon's tail, stunning and damaging enemies in the area.

Cast Range: 800/900/1000/1100
Radius: 225/250/275/300
Stun Duration: 1/1.2/1.4/1.6s
Damage: 50/90/130/170 ( 230/270/310/350)
Stun and damage blocked by enemy spell immunity
12s 70/75/80/85
Notes:

• Cannot be cast while rooted.

E: TALON DIVE passive, physical

Attacks have a chance to deal bonus damage based on current movement speed and ignore the target enemy's armor.

Proc Chance: 9/12/15/18%
Move Speed as Damage: 20/30/40/50%
Enemy Armor Ignored: 100%
Disabled by break Not blocked by enemy spell immunity
Notes:

• Talon Dive procs also grant true strike.
  
• Talon Dive's bonus damage counts as a separate instance from attacks so does not factor into critical hit damage calculation, but does not count as a spell either (different from Spirit Breaker's Greater Bash). Both the main attack hit and Talon Dive's bonus damage from movespeed ignore armor.
  
• Effectively sets the enemy's armor to zero for damage calculations, with minus armor applied afterward, meaning minus armor still has a benefit.
  
• Visually, when Talon Dive procs an afterimage appears and dives at the target as if you moved so fast that you appear to have not moved.
  

R: SKY TERROR ultimate, passive

Gain movement speed for a duration each time you attack. While moving at over 500 movement speed, sources of evasion also apply to enemy spell effects.

Movement Speed per Attack: 3/4/5%
Bonus Movement Speed Duration: 12/16/20s ( 24/32/40s)
Bonus Attack Range: 0 ( 100)
Disabled by break Not blocked by enemy spell immunity
Aghanim's Scepter Upgrade: Increases attack range and grants uncapped movement speed.
Notes:

• Spell evasion works similarly to Faceless Void's old Backtrack (without the self-healing part), but can also trigger on any targeted or AOE spell that would hit you, avoiding the effect entirely. Spells that cause an effect over time roll for spell evasion for each tick, meaning you can evade the first tick of an effect but then be effected by a later tick of it.
  
• The spell evasion component only works while moving, meaning that if you stop moving or are otherwise prevented from moving at 500 movespeed or greater the effect is deactivated.
  
• Sources of accuracy that effect a spell, like for example Ember Spirit using Sleight of Fist with MKB, also gain accuracy towards spell evasion for those spells. There may be some exceptions, for example Faceless Void's Chronosphere or Enigma's Black Hole, which cannot be spell evaded.
  
• Your mount glows and gives off additional, bright cyan wind lines while moving at 500 speed or above to show that spell evasion is active.
  

D: SOAR target point
( Unlocked with Aghanim's Shard)

Swiftly flies to a distant location. Cannot be used for 3 seconds after taking damage from an enemy hero or Roshan.

Cast Range: 3000
Travel Speed: 2000
Damage Cooldown: 3s
30s 100
Notes:

• You cannot attack or take other actions while soaring, but also cannot be targeted by enemies or hit by ground/AOE effects. Soar may not be stopped early.
  
• Cannot be cast while rooted.
  

Discussion

Normally I don't like to write a novel of my thoughts after the hero, as the design should speak for itself, but with this potentially controversial design I wanted to be clear about what problems this hero solves.
The concept started from the idea of a flying mounted carry hero, and I immediately decided on melee to avoid similarities to Batrider. The next objective was to come up with some existing mechanics that are underutilized for carry heroes, which led to Evasion and Movement Speed being the hero's main mechanics. Separately from this process I had already designed the W as the hero's primary "do shit" active ability, however its tuning was crucial to make playing the hero as a non-carry difficult.
I wanted to avoid similarities to other heroes (both official and some of my old concepts) so at this point I reached a critical decision: I knew the hero would have a proc effect, but what? I wanted the hero to have a different playstyle than other movement speed-based heroes like Spirit Breaker, Bloodseeker, Weaver, Phantom Lancer, etc, but realistically looking at how to make a carry that benefits from moving fast I decided that Spirit Breaker's Bash scaling probably needs to go anyway. I think Talon Dive's similarities to Spirit Breaker's Bash are small enough that they can co-exist, but realistically no one builds Spirit Breaker to deal damage via moving fast, and that niche ought to be reclaimed so we can have a hero who does.
At this point the hero didn't feel very unique, and I was still waiting to check the box for "has a new mechanic". Some of you may remember an old hero concept of mine, Antares, which featured the ability to attack while moving as a ranged carry—with this hero I decided Antares finally needs a full rework to make that niche available. There are too many reasons to list for why Antares needed a change, but it's safe to say that attacking while moving is a potentially very overpowered effect and giving it to a ranged hero is dubious, not to mention the reworked Antares will be much less of a carry and more of a terrain-manipulating Agility 3-pos or 4-pos-type hero.
With the hero's Q going from bland to its current form I just needed to top the hero off with an appropriate ultimate, but simply giving movement speed per attack didn't feel exciting enough. At this point I was wracking my brain for ways to give an active effect to the ult, but that was when the idea of a conditional for moving over a certain speed popped into my head. Spell Evasion as a concept is so inherently broken that I almost dismissed the idea out of hand, but it certainly checked all the boxes: both giving the hero a unique mechanic and a reason to avoid traditional carry items like BKB.
I've explored several potential caveats for the Q and R interaction, such as removing the Q's evasion when taking damage, putting a cap on spell evasion % or making certain types of spells (like slows) always pierce spell evasion, but ultimately the current balance is my attempt to let the hero be overpowered in order to find their natural counters. I would like the hero to be hard-countered by certain slows, like for example Warlock's Upheaval or Venomancer's Venomous Gale which could drop him out of Spell Evasion by putting him under 500 speed. I also think it would be nice to have another hero besides Phantom Assassin who forces the enemy to build MKB, in this case to allow attacks to pierce your evasion and then Bash or Slow you down below 500 speed.
For the hero's Aghanim's upgrades, the goal was to further enhance the hero's strengths to give him a more obvious niche: Soar gives incredible farming mobility to help you avoid the need for Boots of Travel, Blink or using W to farm, while the Scepter upgrade is meant to make up for the hero's inability to use Dragon Lance and encourages you to stack movement speed. Originally the level 20 +1 Movement Speed per Agility talent was part of the Scepter and the Scepter's uncapped movement speed effect was a level 25 talent, but this arrangement hopefully gives the hero a higher power ceiling pre-level-25 while still letting you skip Boots if you don't absolutely need them.
Whatever your view of the new mechanics I'm exploring here, I'd love to hear your take on ways to make a flying mounted Agility melee carry. I'm always trying to come up with new characters that fit in the Dota world, and this one, inspired by Pegasus Knights from the Fire Emblem series and the most recent World of Warcraft expansion, Dragonflight, hopefully gives you some ideas of your own!
Also quick note I'm planning to add some artwork in the coming days, so check back for that!
Thanks for reading!

Part 1 https://www.reddit.com/DrCreepensVault/comments/11y06d4/headgames/
Opening his eye’s, it was dark and Michael sensed he was sitting up rather than laying down as one expected to be when sleeping. His neck was sore and when he tried to move his head to relieve the tension, he found it impossible. He wondered if maybe he were still dreaming and tried to will himself to wake up, but nothing changed. He thought maybe if he pinched himself that would work, but he could not feel his hands, or the rest of his body for that matter.
At the back of his neck a dull pain throbbed as if tension had built up and he needed to pop his neck. It wasn’t sharp pain but rather irritating, and he thought he would go mad if he didn’t find a way to relieve it. Finding himself immobile with no way to relieve the tension, Michael changed his thoughts to take his mind off of it.
Remembering the visit from the prison warden, Michael recalled the man saying that certain precautionary medical measures were taken to prevent aggression and wondered just what had been done to him. He thought about what he knew of that could be done to prevent aggression and other than his earlier thoughts of reduced testosterone levels or increased levels of estrogen, he could think of nothing which would require immobilization.
‘Unless they castrated me!’ he thought suddenly and wished he could reach down to feel if his parts were still intact. But he wasn’t a sexual offender, so that didn’t really make sense. This thought calmed him and he continued to search his mind for answers.
Michael’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of footsteps coming closer. He couldn’t see anything, but he felt someone had come into the room with him. The lights came on, hurting his eyes and Michael squinted to shield them. He could hear the other person moving around but had no idea where they were or what they were doing.
Finally he could open his eyes fully and saw immediately that he was in a white room not unlike the one where he had received the shot. The wall in front of him was bare except for the mortar joints of the cinder block it was constructed of and a small stainless steel rolling cart parked directly in front of him.
“So, are we awake yet?” a man’s voice asked.
Michael tried to talk but couldn’t.
A face popped up in front of him, grinning at him in a weird way with eyes bulging. This guy was way too happy.
“How you doing, Michael?” he asked with his rather high, effeminate voice. “Did you sleep okay?”
Michael tried once again to answer but no sound came forth. In fact, he could not even feel his breath moving through his mouth.
“It’s okay, Mikey boy. I know you can’t talk, but what you can do is blink your eyes. So when I ask you a question, just blink once for yes and twice for no. Okay?”
Michael blinked once.
“Very good, Mike!” he said in a patronizing tone. “Now the first thing we need to do is make sure you are okay. So I’m going to pull up a seat and we’ll go over a few things.”
He stepped away from Michael’s view for a moment and returned carrying a clipboard and pushing a stool. He sat on the stool with a flourish, reaching down to adjust himself at the crotch and Michael found himself wishing he could do the same thing.
“Alrighty then, let’s continue shall we?” he said with a broad grin, cocking his head to one side. “Remember, blink once for yes and twice for no.”
Michael blinked once to acknowledge he understood.
“Awesome! Now, let’s see,” he said flipping up a page on the clip board. “Are you in any pain?”
Michael thought for a moment of how to answer. He wasn’t in pain, but he was very uncomfortable with a dull throbbing in the back of his neck. He blinked three times.
“Well, okay Mike. I see we have some work to do.” he sat up straight and laid a finger to the side of his mouth. “You blinked three times which is neither yes nor no, so it means something else, right?”
Michael blinked once.
“Okay, I asked if you were in pain and you didn’t say yes, but you also didn’t say no, so you’re not in pain but you don’t feel good.” He looked to Michael quizzically.
Michael blinked once.
“Oh good, we’re making progress!” He clapped his hands together and smiled broadly. “Is it a headache?”
Michael blinked twice.
“Alright, does your neck hurt?”
Michael blinked once, paused and blinked twice.
“Oh I see, yes and no,” He maintained the silly grin. “Your neck is uncomfortable?”
Michael blinked once.
“Let me see if I can help,” he reached around behind Michael’s head and began to massage the back of his neck.
Michael felt the warmth of the man’s smooth hand as he massaged and soon the knot began to relax. Looking at his new friend, Michael wondered what had brought someone of such a personality to work in a place like this. His blonde hair was shoulder length and stringy but time had not been nice as he was mostly balding on top. He had a very large rather pointed nose that sloped steeply back to his eyes. Up close he could see the eyes were somewhat sunken in and there were large dark circles around them, indicating the man did not sleep well. But what really got him was the smile. A goofy grin with his large but well maintained teeth.
“How’s that?” he asked, removing his hand.
Michael blinked once.
“Good. Now let’s get on with the other questions so we can start to get you settled in.” He looked to the clipboard. “Do you have any other pains?”
Michael blinked twice.
“That’s great. A lot of times, guys come out of surgery like you did and they have headaches or other pains and there’s not much I can do but give them a painkiller.” He noted something on his chart. “Now, your neck doesn’t hurt now but it may start to as the healing progresses so I want you to let me know if it does and we’ll take care of it.”
Michael blinked once.
“Oh by the way,” he looked serious at Michael for a moment. “My name is Peter and I’ll be the one who takes care of you from now on. There is another attendant by the name of Marco who comes in late at night, but he doesn’t do much other than make sure the equipment is running right. Marco is, how should we say, a little strange. And then there‘s Natalie. You already met her. The nurse who got the room ready when you first got here.”
Michael thought about the nurse he had seen. He didn’t really see her well, but figured it didn’t matter as there would be plenty of time for that. What he did remember though was she had a great body and it was something to look forward to seeing again.
“Anyway, Michael, we run in three shifts here. Natalie works seven am to three pm, I work three pm to eleven pm and Marco works eleven pm to seven am. So there is always someone here to see that you boys are taken care of. Okay, do you have any questions?”
Michael blinked twice.
Peter reached around to one side of Michael’s head and pulled a very thin computer monitor around for him to see, angling it off to one side so as to not block Michael’s view forward, but still easily seen. The screen was divided into several parts which looked to be medical monitors and a small box in the lower corner which reminded Michael of a chat box he and his friends used on the internet.
“This is your life support monitor and it also serves as a way for you to communicate with me.” He reached up to adjust a small object at the top of the screen. “I need for you to look directly at this point for a few minutes Mike so I can calibrate it.”
Michael looked at the point indicated where Peter’s hand rested. There was a small beam of light emitting from a very tiny hole and he could also see a picture of his eye coming to focus on one part of the screen. He realized it was a camera of some sort.
“This is an optical mouse,” Peter explained. “It follows the iris of your eye so that once calibrated, wherever you look on the screen, the mouse pointer will follow. And like a mouse, you can click on menu’s but instead of a finger, you simply blink twice rapidly to click the mouse.”
Michael watched as Peter continued to calibrate it and saw a mouse icon appear on the screen.
“There we go.” Peter sat back satisfied. “Now Michael, I need for you to look at the screen and look at what I tell you to so we can make sure the mouse is calibrated.”
Michael blinked once and turned his eyes to the screen. He watched the mouse rove the screen as it followed his eye movements.
“Look at the blue circle,” Peter instructed.
Michael searched the screen and looked directly at the blue circle in the corner as the mouse followed to rest there.
“Good, now find the red box.”
Michael looked across the screen, the mouse icon following his eye until he found the red box.
“Excellent. Now let’s do a little more. Find the word menu and click the mouse.”
Michael looked until he found the word menu above the small box which resembled a chat box. He waited for the icon to settle on the word and blinked twice. A small box slid down with menu choices and he read them, the icon following his eyes across each one.
“Okay Michael, this is your communication interface. From here you can type messages in the box below by opening the keyboard on the menu.” He reached over and pushed a button on the screen to make the keyboard appear on the screen above the chat box. “At first, your eyes are going to get very tired as you type messages, so don’t try to do a whole lot at first. As time passes your eyes will become accustomed and grow stronger.”
Michael looked at the interface and wondered just how long he was going to have to use this. The way Peter was talking this would be his only means of communication for a long time to come. Just what had they done to him to make it so he needed to be immobilized for such an extended period of time?
“Now, if you’ll look up here for a moment,” he pointed to an exploding star symbol at the top of the screen with a small black box under it. “Before you are finished healing, there are probably going to be times when you do have pain and since we won’t always be around you to know, you can simply click this icon and get a small dose of painkiller. After it is administered, the counter will appear in the box below the icon so you will know when the next dose is available.”
Michael blinked once.
“But I gotta warn you, Mike.” Peter got real close to Michael’s face and he could smell his aftershave. “The painkiller is a strong narcotic. The computer will only let you have a dose every two hours, but that is still enough to get you addicted. Once the doctor determines you are healed, the painkiller will be removed, so don’t get yourself hooked on it. I’ve seen a couple guys do this and believe me, the withdrawal is very painful and there’s nothing we can do but watch you suffer through it as you quit cold turkey.”
Michael blinked once.
He wasn’t interested in the painkiller. In fact, other than aspirin, he wouldn’t take any medications when he was free unless a doctor prescribed an antibiotic for infections.
“Okay, Michael, I’m about to get off shift so let me show you one more thing before we stop for today. On the menu, you will find the heading “games”. When you select it, you are given a choice of several different computer games which can be played with the optical mouse.” he looked at Michael and grinned proudly. “These were my idea and I programmed them in so you guys wouldn’t get too bored. I know it must really suck to be immobilized like that.”
Michael blinked once.
“So anyway, I would suggest trying one of the simple games like tic tac toe or hangman at first until your muscles get used to using the optical mouse. Also, the games will turn off for fifteen minutes of every hour in order to prevent eye strain and headaches that can result from these.” He stood up and moved the stool over against the wall. “I gotta go now, but I’ll be back in the morning. Get some sleep and play with the games if you like. Marco will come and check on you before too long.”
Michael watched him walk out of sight, listening to his footsteps fade in the distance. Suddenly he felt very sleepy and questions of his situation no longer seemed important. He looked at the computer screen for a moment and decided he would check it out further later on. Right now, he needed to rest. He closed his eyes and waited for sleep to come.
But sleep did not come as he could not make himself feel comfortable enough to sleep. The familiar pressure against the back or side of his head when he lay down was missing and he had the ever present feeling of sitting at attention. He opened his eyes and looked at the computer screen, considering if he should dose himself with the narcotic to induce sleep. He immediately decided against it as he remembered Peter’s warning about not becoming addicted. He would have to find some other way.
Wondering how he would deal with his inability to make himself sleep, Michael became aware of a squeaking sound. Very faint at first but it was slowly getting closer and louder. He wondered what it was and wished he could turn his head to see, as he could really only hear it out of his right ear. This meant the sound was originating in the hallway as that was the way Peter had gone when he left.
The noise came even closer and now Michael could hear footsteps walking in time to the squeaking as if the irritating noise was a marching cadence. As it shifted around his position, he watched as a gurney came into view being pushed by a very strange looking man. He assumed that this was Marco and knew the gurney was not for him as there was already someone laying on it, covered entirely by a white sheet and Michael found himself wondering why the person under the sheet seemed to have no head.
“Well, well, lookee here,” he said mockingly, as spittle gathered at the ring in the corner of his lower lip. “If it isn’t the big bad bank robber who killed all those people in cold blood. Not feeling so tough now, are you dude?”
Michael tried not to let the man’s words get to him. He had been taunted by guards and even other inmates before who didn’t believe he was innocent. This time, unlike those other times though, he had no choice but to keep silent.
“So you’re Michael Chaste. You don’t look so tough.” He leaned in very close. “In fact, you look like a bitch. That’s right, you heard me bitch!”
The man’s breath was horrible and Michael found himself wondering if this guy chewed on road kill at meal times. He had short greasy black hair, an eyebrow piercing, the lip ring piercing he had noticed at first and a tattoo on his neck of a flying bird which looked to Michael like a swallow. Oh the fun he could have with this guy if he had his voice and was not incapacitated.
“So, I guess Peter got you all hooked up on the monitor since it’s pulled around now. Enjoying them drugs, dude?” He looked at the screen. “Oh, you haven’t taken any yet, huh?”
He walked out of Michael’s site to the left and could be heard moving something around in a drawer. When he returned, he was carrying a small thin strip of something clear like tape.
“Okay Mike, here’s the deal. Since you can’t talk or even really communicate yet, let me give you the rundown.” He pulled the rolling bench over and sat in front of him as Peter had done.
“Open your mouth,” he held the strip close and laid it on Michael’s tongue.
The taste was very sweet and he realized it was also dissolving slowly. Whatever it was, he liked it.
“That my friend is a treat for you,” Marco said calmly. “I know I can come off all bad ass and all but really I feel for you cause it has to be one major bummer to be in your position. I don’t really care if you wasted a bunch of people. Hell, I’d waste people too if I could get away with it. Most of them are worthless as tits on a boar hog anyway.”
He spun around in the chair, as if making a point. “Fact is, I don’t think there’s any crime in the world so bad that you should have to be treated this way, but I don’t make the rules. I just exploit them.”
He got up from the stool and headed off around the room again. Michael could hear him running water in a sink and sloshing something around, but had no idea what was happening. Again he wished he could turn his head. After a few minutes, Marco came back and sat down. There were now dark blotches on his smock.
“So like I was saying, I exploit the rules to get what I want out of this crummy job. But I really can’t complain. I come to work about the time all my friends are passing out and I get off in time to sleep before it’s time to party again, so it’s cool.” Marco lit a cigarette. “Hope you don’t mind if I smoke. I’m not supposed to but there’s nobody here at night but me and you guys.”
He sat back and inhaled deeply from the cigarette and for once Michael could imagine what it was smokers got from smoking as he recalled his last smoke. The smell in the air was actually a pleasant change from the sanitary smell of cleaners, disinfectants and purified air. He watched Marco smoke and play with the cigarette. He was a strange one, but seemed to have a certain quality that Michael found he could like.
“So dude, I guess you met Peter.” Marco looked him straight in the eye. “Is that dude a flake or what? Man, the first time I saw him I was thinking to myself, dude, there’s a weird one if ever I saw one! And what’s with that hair? I mean, come on. If you’re bald on top you don’t let the sides and back grow. He looks like he tried to jump up too fast and his head pushed through the top of his scalp.”
He jumped up abruptly and did a little dance, ending up leaning back against the body on the gurney. He reached back and patted the stomach.
“Wow, that’s pretty muscular.” He pulled up his shirt to reveal a small paunch and rolls. “I wish I was that muscular. The chicks would really dig it.”
He walked to the far side of the gurney and lifted the sheet up between them.
“Holy shit!” he exclaimed, “Man, you were hung weren’t you buddy. Talk about a trouser snake. It’s like a damned boa constrictor.”
Michael could hear the sound of slapping and wondered just what Marco was doing to the body. He watched as he dropped the sheet and walked over to lean in close.
“Dude, you were really something, weren’t you?” He smiled and reached out to touch Michael’s nose gently. “I bet the ladies loved you.”
Michael was confused. What was he talking about?
Seeing his confusion, Marco walked over to the body and whipped back the sheet. Reaching down, he grabbed hold of the bodies penis and lifted it for Michael to see.
“Man, do you know what I could do if I was hung like that?” He smiled and seemed lost in his own perverse joy. “I could have any woman I wanted.”
Michael felt wrong. He couldn’t say watching Marco man handle the obviously dead body made him sick cause he felt nothing of the sort, but it did feel wrong.
“Oh, I get it now,” Marco said slowly. “You still don’t know what’s really going on yet, do you?”
Michael blinked twice.
“Oh yeah, Peter taught you the blinking thing. Good.” He walked out of sight, returning with something in his hand. “Okay, let me lay it out for you Mike. Part of my job is to take the bodies to the incinerator here and cremate them, which is what I was on my way to do when I stopped in here to see you. Being that you’re new and all, I thought what the hell, let’s take some time to get to know the new guy and maybe have a little fun. So here we are in this damned cold ass prison, just the two of us in a plain white room with a stiff, except the stiff isn’t just any stiff It’s you!”
Michael was completely confused now. What did he mean the stiff was him? He was right here looking at him and being talked to, so how could the dead body be him.
“Still confused, eh, Mike?”
Michael blinked once.
“Okay, maybe I should ease you into this and let you know what my job is really all about.” He sat on the stool and lit another smoke. “I come in here every night and, aside from cremating stiffs, I also maintain all the life support equipment that keeps you guys alive. I mean, there’s the blood oxygenation re-circulator which acts like a heart to keep blood flowing to the brain and the feeding solutions which are added to the blood to make sure you have the nutrients you need. That’s the easy stuff. Then there’s about ten other solutions that have to be added to the blood continuously since you don’t have the organs to make them. And of course, the blood is also then continuously cleaned so you don’t get infections or blood poisoning. I’m telling you, Mike, it’s like maintaining a whole laboratory for each one of you guys and I do it all myself.” He turned and looked at Michael seriously. “If it weren’t for me, I’d be cremating all of you!”
He got up, walked to the end of the gurney and began to push it toward the door opposite where he came in.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes, dude,” he called back.
Michael thought about everything Marco had just told him and tried to grasp the point that was alluded to, but never made. It was as if he was supposed to understand something that was beyond his comprehension and he couldn’t put it all together. He had said the body was him, but how could that be when he was still right here and the body was now on it’s way to be cremated?
“Okay dude. I’m back,” Marco said entering the room. He came back and sat on the stool once again. “So, did you figure it out yet?”
Michael blinked twice.
“Man, I don’t know whether you’re just not that smart or just in denial.” Marco sat back and moved something around in front of him. “Okay Mike. This is going to be painful, but you have to know before you can be moved into the ward with the rest of the inmates.”
He held up a small mirror so Michael could see himself.
Disbelief filled his eyes and Michael wondered how what he was seeing could be true. They had shaved all of his hair off, including his eyebrows and there were multiple patches with wires stuck all about his head which ran off to a bundle that wandered away from the base of his neck. Around his neck was what looked to be a black leather collar connected to some sort of rubber sheet which was in turn fastened to the tabletop his head protruded from. There were small silver bolts in the circumference of the leather collar and there was no doubt in his mind that they actually were attached to him in some manner.
He looked from the mirror to Marco and back again. Now Marco moved the mirror back a little to give him a broader view and Michael was horrified. He could see the edge of the tabletop under him now and below it, instead of his body, was a vat of clear liquid only a few inches deep. Now he understood what Marco was trying to tell him and he looked at the man as if he held some answer that would take the horror away.
“I’m sorry, Mike. Like I said, I do not think any crime deserves for this to happen to you.” He put the mirror down. “But that was your body I just took to the furnace.”
Marco got up and rolled the stool over by the wall. “I have to go and check on the others now, but I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”
He went out the door he had first entered and Michael listened as the sound of his footsteps faded away. His mind was numb and he couldn’t think. He wanted to scream and yell and rage at the world about how he had endured so much without ever once acting in any way to justify what was happening to him and now they had done this to him.
They had taken his body and mounted his head on a plate like a trophy. A living trophy. Michael looked over at the monitor and looked directly at the painkiller icon. He blinked twice, feeling immediately as the narcotic began to flow freely into his brain, numbing his thoughts and senses.
He looked again and saw the monitor was now counting down from two hours, but still tried to administer another dose. If he could somehow overdose, the nightmare would end. But the machine refused to respond and he was left to stare blankly at the counter as it worked it’s way down to his next dose.
Narrated by me on YouTube https://youtu.be/kPnf7LDXhUM
My YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwyAE1VdOplNBMyqEDeNOeA
Check out my author page on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/Steven-Knies-325198035130
Find my books @ Amazon.com https://www.amazon.com/Steven-Knies/e/B00JHRUGP6
Eternal Convictions / HeadGames Steven Knies (c) October 23, 2009

Dibs rules apply. All prices are shipped USPS with tracking. Payment expected promptly upon placing dibs or will move on to next person. Paypal F&F (no notes) and Cashapp are the accepted payment methods. Everything ships first thing tomorrow morning
2: 10.3" 5.56 Complete Upper

• All parts are brand new. Includes BKF assembled Upper with T-marks, BKF BCG, BKF billet charging handle, BKF 9.875" Mlok Handguard with barrel nut, BKF .750 adjustable Gas Block, BKF melonite gas tube, Ballistic Advantage 10.3" 5.56 Govt Profile Carbine Length Chrome Lined Classic Series Crane Spec gas port barrel, and Rearden Plan B compatible flash hider.
• Note: Supressor in pic is not included, just added to show gap between Mount and handguard for reference.
• Pics: https://imgur.com/a/q3Rc45a
• $300 Shipped

3: AR15 Lower Build Kit

• All parts are brand new. Includes:
• 8 position fluted anti tilt buffer tube
• Milspec end plate and castle nut
• Carbine buffer and spring
• Milspec trigger group
• Billet trigger guard with hardware
• BKF Mod-1 Combat Control Kit lower parts kit with ambi safety
• Magpul MOE-K2 in Black
• Pics: https://imgur.com/a/CRoEuDh
• $100 Shipped SOLD

4: Grey Ghost Precision G26 Complete Upper

• Condition is 9.5/10. Only rounds fired were to test fire after assembly. Includes GGP G26 slide with cover plate and screws with original packaging, GGP G26 threaded barrel with thread protector and original packaging, and OEM Glock upper parts kit installed.
• Pics: https://imgur.com/a/3gtncLn
• $350 Shipped

5: Kaw Valley Precision Gas Block Dimple Jig

• Like new in original packaging. .750 journal.
• Pics: https://imgur.com/a/uYgQ66K
• $20 Shipped SOLD

6: Daniel Defense Micro T2 Mount

• Used but good condition. Includes mount, lower 1/3 spacer, sets of different length screws, and original packaging.
• Pics: https://imgur.com/a/lcrv2FP
• $40 Shipped SOLD

Hi!
I'm thinking of getting a puppy in a few years from a responsible breeder. I'm kindly asking for your knowledge!

1) Will this be your first dog? If not, what experience do you have owning/training dogs? * I had a labrador for 13 years. I was a teenager however, and didn't know much about training. 2) Do you have a preference for rescuing a dog vs. going through a [reputable breeder]( http://ownresponsibly.blogspot.com/2011/07/identifying-reputable-breeder.html)? * I have specific wants, so I'd rather have a puppy. I also want to live the experience (or nightmare) once in my life. Rescues don't have many dogs where I live. 3) Describe your ideal dog. * A companion I can take walks with and teach tricks. Big enough to be scratched with two hands on their belly. 4) What breeds or types of dogs are you interested in and why? * Labradors because I had two in my life, they are wonderful companions and very cute. Otherwise, I like most breeds. 5) What sorts of things would you like to train your dog to do? * Tricks, perhaps agility if a place isn't too far. Maybe deep pressure therapy if it can be done safely. 6) Do you want to compete with your dog in a sport (e.g. agility, obedience, rally) or use your dog for a form of work (e.g. hunting, herding, livestock guarding)? If so, how much experience do you have with this work/sport? * At most I would do agility for fun. I have zero experience. **Care Commitments** 7) How long do you want to devote to training, playing with, or otherwise interacting with your dog each day? * I work from home, so I can play with them a bit during the day. With my late dog, we used to play before supper and pet her after supper. 8) How long can you exercise your dog each day, on average? What sorts of exercise are you planning to give your dog regularly and does that include using a dog park? * 2 walks per day, around 30 min. More during the weekend if need be. There are many dog parks in my city. 9) How much regular brushing are you willing to do? Are you open to trimming hair, cleaning ears, or doing other grooming at home? If not, would you be willing to pay a professional to do it regularly? * I can brush every couple of days and clean ears. I could do basic trimmings, but it's stressful so I would rather leave it to a professionnal. I don't mind grooming fees, but dealing with appointments is stressful and I already have many. **Personal Preferences** 10) What size dog are you looking for? * Medium. Around 20-30 lbs. 11) How much shedding, barking, and slobber can you handle? * Shedding is fine. Limited barking. I'm not sure about slobber, but I would say just a bit. 12) How important is being able to let your dog off-leash in an unfenced area? * I live in an apartment/condo, so I can only let a dog off-leash in a dog park. **Dog Personality and Behavior** 13) Do you want a snuggly dog or one that prefers some personal space? * I like to pet dogs, but I'm fine with dogs that aren't cuddly. Snoring on their dog bed at my feet is great. 14) Would you prefer a dog that wants to do its own thing or one that’s more eager-to-please? * Eager-to-please. 15) How would you prefer your dog to respond to someone knocking on the door or entering your yard? How would you prefer your dog to greet strangers or visitors? * One bark is fine. They can be happy or aloof, but not agressive and defensive. 16) Are you willing to manage a dog that is aggressive to other dogs? * No. 17) Are there any other behaviors you can’t deal with or want to avoid? * Excessive barking. Protects its food. **Lifestyle** 18) How often and how long will the dog be left alone? * I'm almost always home. If it's not me, a family member is. 19) What are the dog-related preferences of other people in the house and what will be their involvement in caring for the dog? * Well-beheaved dog. Probably not fans of shedding, but we have a Dyson now 😎 20) Do you have other pets or are you planning on having other pets? What breed or type of animal are they? * Maybe a cat. 21) Will the dog be interacting with children regularly? * No. 22) Do you rent or plan to rent in the future? If applicable, what breed or weight restrictions are on your current lease? * None. 23) What city or country do you live in and are you aware of any laws banning certain breeds? * I live in Canada where there is snow. I don't know of any laws like that where I am. 24) What is the average temperature of a typical summer and winter day where you live? * - 15°C in winter, although it goes lower some days, and 30°C in the summer. It's a nightmare. **Additional Information and Questions** 25) Please provide any additional information you feel may be relevant. * I'm a tiny person. I would like to have some control over my dog, and also be able to pick up for stairs or transport. 

A few weeks ago my(26f) husband (32m) went to celebrate his late bachelor party in Costa Rica with 15 friends. We decided since he’s already in north America we will make a trip out of it and we will meet up in Mexico to celebrate Valentine’s Day and his birthday. So, a day before he left on vacation we wanted to try using condoms which we never used before. We tried it, and didn’t like it. He told me to return them online and I said ok! We have a great time on vacation and get back and I’m doing all the laundry. I noticed his bag from Costa Rica isn’t cleaned up so I decided to put all his dirty clothing in the laundry and clean it for him. As I’m taking out his clothing from the dryer, I noticed 2 condoms come out. I asked him how come he had condoms mixed in with his clothing? He laughed and said he has no idea and that that’s very weird. He then changed the subject and said our pet is walking towards the washing machine so to look out. I found it weird, so I walked to him and said those 2 condoms came out with his load from Costa Rica. He started answering me weird and said he could’ve gotten some laundry from his drawer (which is where the condoms are) and it got mixed in with the laundry or maybe he brought it for us. I asked him, why would he grab clean laundry from his drawer and grab condoms and put it in the washing machine? He said he had no idea. I tried to just brush it off because he kept saying “who would I use those with aside from you?”. I said okay fine I was just confused towards how you answered me. I went to take a bubble bath and it ended up being very short because I didn’t like how he seemed defensive and got upset for questioning him. I finished up early, and like a crazy girl counted the condoms and saw 2 more missing from the ones we used. I went up to him again and said I didn’t like how he got so defensive and I asked him why would say he got condoms from a clean drawer and put them in the washer. Now, I don’t think my husband would ever cheat on me and I trust him. I was just taken off guard with his terrible answers. I let go and told him to leave me alone for a bit and he kept coming in the room to make me laugh and was asking me what fun things I’d like to do one the weekend and I told him to just give me some space once again. The next day we were okay and I was making us food and trying to clean the house and we didn’t bring up what happened. He began keeping his distance from me and hasn’t talked. I asked what’s wrong and he told me I owed him a big apology for accusing him of something so terrible. I told him I didn’t accuse him of anything. I didn’t yell. I didn’t do anything but ask him questioned that concerned me and I did have an attitude when I told him to leave me alone because he was trying to be funny when I wasn’t in the mood. It’s been a few weeks now and we aren’t back to normal. He has slept on the sofa or guest room every single day since and gives hot and cold treatment. There’s more to the story but I’d like your opinion before I do an update

Introduction

1. Will this be your first dog? If not, what experience do you have owning/training dogs?

I did some basic obedience with the family dog when my mom and little brother brought her home just shy of 10 years ago, but this will be my first dog that is exclusively mine. I've watched way too much Dogs 101 and Its Me Or The Dog but I know that's no substitute for real in person experience.

1. Do you have a preference for rescuing a dog vs. going through a reputable breeder?

I'd honestly probably prefer a rescue because I'm not sure a puppy is a good fit for me, but the breed specific rescues in my state(New Mexico) are few and far between, and most of the shelters just have bully mixes, shepherd mixes, or husky mixes. I'm not averse to getting a dog from a breeder though.

1. Describe your ideal dog.

I would like a dog that is willing to cuddle up in my lap sometimes, but won't feel the need to follow me from room to room. Something that doesn't need a ton of exercise but will go on walks around the block or to the local park(not a dog park). A dog who will snuggle up with me when I've had a bad day and need extra companionship. Potentially an ESA because I am autistic.
4) What breeds or types of dogs are you interested in and why?
I'm not set in any one breed. The ones that seem to fit my lifestyle don't fit the climate and vice versa.
5) What sorts of things would you like to train your dog to do?
At least basic obedience and good canine manners.
6) Do you want to compete with your dog in a sport (e.g. agility, obedience, rally) or use your dog for a form of work (e.g. hunting, herding, livestock guarding)? If so, how much experience do you have with this work/sport?
I think agility would be fun, but realistically I'm not going to compete with it. I do not have an escape proof spot I could set anything up in.
Care Commitments
7) How long do you want to devote to training, playing with, or otherwise interacting with your dog each day?
30-45 minutes a day of active playing, I can go hours of low intensity interaction with cuddles and such.
8) How long can you exercise your dog each day, on average? What sorts of exercise are you planning to give your dog regularly and does that include using a dog park?
30-45 minutes. A few laps around the block(I'm not in good physical shape so no more than that right now), some lower intensity things with puzzle toys.
9) How much regular brushing are you willing to do? Are you open to trimming hair, cleaning ears, or doing other grooming at home? If not, would you be willing to pay a professional to do it regularly?
I'd prefer a dog that only needs brushing once a week to every few days. I'm open to doing / learning how to do basic grooming myself, the nearest groomers is too far away to be realistic.
Personal Preferences
10) What size dog are you looking for?
Small to medium, ish.
11) How much shedding, barking, and slobber can you handle?
Shedding is not a problem for me, I grew up with cats and they got fur everywhere. Barking needs to be minimal because I share a wall with neighbors. Not a huge fan of slobber, would prefer minimal but I know it can't be completely avoided.
12) How important is being able to let your dog off-leash in an unfenced area?
It's not going to happen, too many other irresponsible owners who allow their dogs to roam.
Dog Personality and Behavior
13) Do you want a snuggly dog or one that prefers some personal space?
Somewhere in the middle? I'd like a dog who is willing to cuddle in my lap but I don't want a Velcro dog.
14) Would you prefer a dog that wants to do its own thing or one that’s more eager-to-please?
More eager to please will probably be easier for me to handle.
15) How would you prefer your dog to respond to someone knocking on the door or entering your yard? How would you prefer your dog to greet strangers or visitors?
I don't get a lot of visitors, but I would prefer a dog who doesn't react. I don't want a watchdog.
16) Are you willing to manage a dog that is aggressive to other dogs?
No
17) Are there any other behaviors you can’t deal with or want to avoid?
Resource guarding, poop eating.
Lifestyle
18) How often and how long will the dog be left alone?
Anywhere from 3-8 hours depending on my schedule.
19) What are the dog-related preferences of other people in the house and what will be their involvement in caring for the dog?
I live alone.
20) Do you have other pets or are you planning on having other pets? What breed or type of animal are they?
I might get a fishtank at some point but I'm currently only allowed to have one dog / cat at a time
21) Will the dog be interacting with children regularly?
Probably not, but the kids in my town don't have good manners around dogs so there is a chance that they'll do the "squeal a puppy" run to pet routine while on walks. Will be avoiding the area around the schools for this reason.
22) Do you rent or plan to rent in the future? If applicable, what breed or weight restrictions are on your current lease?
Currently renting, 35 pound size limit.
23) What city or country do you live in and are you aware of any laws banning certain breeds?
New Mexico, USA. I don't think there are any local laws regarding specific dog breeds. We have local leash laws but nobody pays attention and nobody enforces them.
24) What is the average temperature of a typical summer and winter day where you live?
Summer average is 85 but we've had days in the high 90s and even hit 100. Winter averages mid to low 40s but we definitely get sub freezing temps.
As a note: I have to go to work now so I won't be able to respond to things for a while, but I'll try to answer any potential questions when I can!

Hi, I've been reading tons of these threads and you guys have been super helpful when thinking about what breeds would be right for us. We are probably about 6 months to a year away from seriously looking at the available dogs in the area, so I've been doing breed research - figured I would post my exact answers to confirm or deny the breeds I had in mind. SO and I are in our mid-20s and will be in apartments for the forseeable future (thanks housing markets!). Here are my answers to the questionnaire:
Introduction

1) Will this be your first dog? If not, what experience do you have owning/training dogs?

I have had dogs growing up, and am generally pretty good with handling them and understanding their cues - but my SO has not, so I am mostly considering breeds that are better for first-time owners.

2) Do you have a preference for rescuing a dog vs. going through a reputable breeder?

I am somewhat mixed on this. Both have unique challenges. I like the idea of a rescue, but will need to keep reading about this.

3) Describe your ideal dog.

Good companion dog, medium energy, super friendly, basically the temperament Goldens have, but maybe in a medium sized dog. Emotionally supportive would be great especially, as my SO is a very emotional person. Something with soft fur would be great for the same reason!

4) What breeds or types of dogs are you interested in and why?

Personally, I just love the look of Spitz breeds. Samoyeds, Shibas, Schipperkes, Keeshonds - just adorable dogs. But I understand that there are various reasons certain spitzes are either not great for new owners or are fairly rare dogs to come across that would require traveling or going through a breeder with a waitlist. Hence my research has shown me a lot of dogs that are more accessible and suited for first time owners, namely goldens, labs, and greyhounds.

5) What sorts of things would you like to train your dog to do?

Nothing showy, just enough to behave on walks/at the park.

6) Do you want to compete with your dog in a sport (e.g. agility, obedience, rally) or use your dog for a form of work (e.g. hunting, herding, livestock guarding)? If so, how much experience do you have with this work/sport?

No, just a companion dog.
Care Commitments

7) How long do you want to devote to training, playing with, or otherwise interacting with your dog each day?

We both work full time, thankfully I am remote so I can pretty much hang out with the dog all day.

8) How long can you exercise your dog each day, on average? What sorts of exercise are you planning to give your dog regularly and does that include using a dog park?

I am remote and flexible, so I can do a 30m-1h walk in the morning and another after work or even during the day. I have heard that dog parks can mess with a dog's socialization so I'll need to keep reading about this. I understand that high energy working dogs, while adorable, are not suitable for new owners so I've been ruling out Aussies, Huskies, and Border Collies.

9) How much regular brushing are you willing to do? Are you open to trimming hair, cleaning ears, or doing other grooming at home? If not, would you be willing to pay a professional to do it regularly?

I don't mind regularly brushing a dog to control shedding. I would prefer to do trimming at home, but I'm not fully against paying for a groomer if the breed is better in the hands of a professional.
Personal Preferences

10) What size dog are you looking for?

So, I have only had large dogs and am looking at something more on the medium-smaller size. I've never had a small dog, so I can't rule them out, but to me a dog around the size of an Aussie is good. My SO is pretty light, so a dog that couldn't drag them but is large enough for them to walk alone and feel safe would be perfect.

11) How much shedding, barking, and slobber can you handle?

I don't mind regularly brushing a dog to control shedding. Excessive barking in the breed would be a problem since we are in apartments, so we'd need to train this away if it's an issue. Same with slobber, "reasonable" is fine.
12) How important is being able to let your dog off-leash in an unfenced area?
Not important. If I'm on a hike I'd rather keep a dog on a leash to be considerate of other hikers.
Dog Personality and Behavior

13) Do you want a snuggly dog or one that prefers some personal space?

Snuggly dog! Velcro OK. Part of the reason a medium-sized dog would be great would be to allow it to sit on our laps when we watch movies. A teddy bear dog.

14) Would you prefer a dog that wants to do its own thing or one that’s more eager-to-please?

Leaning eager to please?

15) How would you prefer your dog to respond to someone knocking on the door or entering your yard? How would you prefer your dog to greet strangers or visitors?

We are new to our city and live in apartments for the foreseeable future and plan to meet new people here. Ideally the dog would be friendly to strangers, but "guarded" is okay - just not outright aggressive or nonstop barking around strangers.

16) Are you willing to manage a dog that is aggressive to other dogs?

Willing to try and train this away and finally keep it away from other dogs if need be, yes.
17) Are there any other behaviors you can’t deal with or want to avoid?
Really just aggressive behavior that can't be trained away. This accounts for some hesitancy when we look at rescues.
Lifestyle

18) How often and how long will the dog be left alone?

While SO and I are remote at the moment, that could obviously change. I would prefer a breed that could be left alone during the workday without tearing up the apartment, if needed.

19) What are the dog-related preferences of other people in the house and what will be their involvement in caring for the dog?

SO is new to dogs, but they will be involved. It's just the two of us.

20) Do you have other pets or are you planning on having other pets? What breed or type of animal are they?

No other pets. I suppose years down the line when we're in more suitable housing we'd want a second dog.

21) Will the dog be interacting with children regularly?

Nope.

22) Do you rent or plan to rent in the future? If applicable, what breed or weight restrictions are on your current lease?

Yes, we rent. Apartments here have various rules against pits, dobermans, rotties, GSDs, Malinois. My last dog was a lovely pit/GSD mix that never bit anybody but I'm fully conscious of why apartments often don't allow them. I'm unaware of weight restrictions but am mostly looking at medium breeds anyway.

23) What city or country do you live in and are you aware of any laws banning certain breeds?

Seattle, Washington. Not aware of laws, but will hold to the above apartment banned breeds.

24) What is the average temperature of a typical summer and winter day where you live?

It rains a lot here and spans 35-80 degrees throughout the year with a week or two of snow in the winter. A dog that doesn't mind the rain would be ideal. I understand that short-coat breeds would need winter gear.
Additional Information and Questions

25) Please provide any additional information you feel may be relevant.

Thanks for reading!

26) Feel free to ask any questions below.

N/A

Strap in folks, I'm here to tell a story, and I love writing with dramatic flair. I promise to have a TLDR at the bottom :]
So, I'm currently 19, but every day I feel more and more like a frail old man. But all the way back in Ye Olden Days of being 12 in middle school, I had an Instagram account for posting my digital art. I had a couple hundred followers, 99% random follows from random people discovering my art. It was hardcore garbage on very pixelated canvases and I refused to study anatomy or color theory at that time, but that's besides the point.
My point, is that without fail, every single post (which was about once or twice a week) would get several comments asking the same most awful, horrible, no good, very bad questions: "What brushes do you use?" "What app is this?" "What tablet did you use?"
And without fail, I LOST MY MIND EVERY TIME! The first few times I got the question, I politely let them know that I made my own custom brushes (again, very awful and pixelated and I sucked) and they weren't any of the default ones. Or I just said that I used the Procreate app. Or that I have last year's iPad.
I started getting annoyed by the questions, because it was EVERY POST! So I started replying with a bit more snark, (this may have been my very first taste of CraftSnark and BEC energy), just saying "It's in the hashtags :)" to every comment. Because it's true! I started getting so annoyed that I just added a hashtag for #custombrushes #procreate #ipad to my posts to streamline my weekly q-n-a sessions.
Then, after a YEAR of these shenanigans, I was 13 and jaded. I straight up put the words "app" and "brushes" into the blocked words list so people couldn't even comment the questions at all.
And alllllll of that brings me to today. I don't really draw (garbage) portraits as much anymore, just sometimes, but when I post any of my art/craft work (crochet, art, 3D models, etc), I straight up just say No :) when I'm asked about my supplies. I use a bunch of the default brushes in the current drawing app I use, and guess what? THEYRE MINE NOW! Forever to be closely guarded like an Italian grandmother's meatball recipe.
I don't care if it makes me petty, or a gatekeeper, or a jaded Italian grandmother. I'm gatekeeping my knowledge and keeping my secrets forever!!
TLDR: i really do not care that people gatekeep their digital art brushes/yarn brands/material suppliers. literally who cares, nobody is obligated to tell you jack or shit lmaoooooo (edit): again, this whole post is just me being tired and petty LMFAO

Let's try this again without everyone thinking I'm Idyl because of my poorly made post... I meant to post this when I had some notable progress on the account, which I now have, but I also have a terrible problem with procrastinating so I can play runescape. You probably wouldn’t understand…
This post and future posts are meant for those more interested in immediate updates about progress rather than watching a progress series. But if you would rather watch the episodes the playlist here.
​
THE RULES
Here is the concept. Treat gilenor as you would real life. Any action not repeatable in the real world is not repeatable in game. Killing a specific creature, picking an item up off the ground, mining a rock, chopping down a tree, hunting a creature, collecting some quest items, etc. etc.
For simplicity's sake, and my own sanity, actions like shearing a sheep or cutting down jungle brush, actions that would be repeatable after a relatively short time irl will also be treated as one time resources. I have also applied this logic to the inventory of shops, deciding that I may only buy up to the base inventory of any given item in any particular shop. (Ie 3 buckets in a shop I can only ever buy 3 buckets from that shop)
THE GOALS

• Complete every possible quest that does not remove a more difficult quest from the available options. (If completing ratcatchers would for some reason stop me from completing shilo village or something obviously harder and more important it will be skipped)
• Complete a grandmaster quest. No, I do not know if this is possible with my restrictions.
• Utilize every resource Gilenor has to offer, no tree unchopped, no rock unmined, no creature unkilled, no item not picked up. Basically, piss off the world, my character is a real stand-up guy.

TRACKING PROGRESS

• The tracking of everything previously mentioned will be through the use of tile tags. Depleted resources or picked up items will be marked with a plain tile tag. Shop inventories will be logged with labeled tile tags showing x/max inventory item bought.
• - Creature kills/hunts will be marked in the same manner, using a labeled tile tag to mark how many creatures killed in a particular spawn grouping. All of these will be doubly logged through screenshots, google docs, and spreadsheets so if my tile tags are lost my account isn’t over.
• Chunk maps will also be used to visualize the overall progress of the account, using different chunk maps to show chunks that have completely depleted resources, no creatures left to kill, areas with no more item spawns, and chunks that have had all available content utilized.

A few notable things:

• I am an ironman, not a uim, I have access to banks
• I am not area locked, I have free range of gilenor. I am simply using chunks to log progress.
• If an npc explicitly states that they have multiple/infinite of an item/service (ardougne cloak for example) I am able to reclaim that item if lost or continually utilize that resource.

My early progress in the first few days of the account. These will be spoilers for episodes 1-5 of my 1nDone series, so if you don’t want to ruin an episode you should not go further.
EPISODE 1 SPOILERS

• I began by killing (12xp wasted in atk, the rest in str) an imp, some rats, some spiders, and a woman in lumbridge before pickpocketing to get to level ten theiving or so. No particular reason for this, I was kind of just feeling out my system and getting used to the unusual gameplay.
• I then began clearing the first chunk as much as possible. I’m not planning on clearing runescape chunk by chunk, but I do want to do this here to get a better understanding of the process in its entirety.
• I did restless ghost, forgot the skeleton in mage tower attacks you and I had to run away, wasting the xp it provides since I cannot ever pick that skull up again from the alter.
• Next I ran up to varrock to max out the available attack xp training on combat dummies and got up to level 8 attack with only 12 of that xp wasted since I forgot to switch to strength when I first started killing things. EPISODE 2 SPOILERS
  
• On my way back I stopped to film an intro bit for my series, then running back to lumbridge dc’d next to the prison and died to a guard, losing my hardcore status 📷
  
• I then began chopping down every regular tree in the Lumbridge chunk.
  
• First beginner clue scroll out of a nest and Im able to complete it right away for leather vambraces and an earth staff.
  
• I then chopped down the rest of the trees in the chunk and just before completion got lvl 10 woodcutting, which surprised me. It really doesn’t seem like there are that many trees in this chunk at first glance.
  
• I decided to chop into the chunk west of lumbridge as well so I could get my wc high enough to chop oaks so I could clear those out of the lumbridge chunk as well and get a feel for how to handle multiple log trees since I will be banking all logs I chop for almost the entirety of the account. When I finally got to a tree that gave me more than a full inventory i dropped logs and chopped until it was cut down, refreshed the dropped log pile, banked the inventory, and ran back and collected the dropped logs.
  
• I then picked up every loose item spawn and searched every crate and sack (theyre all empty in Lumbridge by the way).
  
• I then did cook’s assitant, marking the wheat and eggs required to complete the quest, but not marking the cow because as in irl you can milk a cow multiple times.
  
• While collecting those items I also started the sheep shearer quest. I sheared all of the sheep on fred’s pen which only turned out to be 16 sheep, 4 short of what fred asks for.
  
• I then went around to the different pockets of sheep in asgarnia to collect up their wool. Did you know that there are only 80 sheep in all of runescape, and a handful of those can’t even be sheared? In Asgarnia, besides Fred’s 16 sheep, there are 10 south of varrock, 3 west of Edgeville, and 7 at the Makeover Mage (but i forgot about them) and 2 unshearable sheep just west of Lumbridge castle. I sheared all available sheep, at least 6 out of those were not able to be sheared since they are models of the sheep that do not have excess wool.
  
• I then began my journey of woodcutting into further chunks. I wasn’t quite sure what to do so I thought maybe just focusing on cutting down all the trees from the salve to the member’s gate would be a good idea.
  
• Quickly in to this i got a clue scroll that required me to get level 10 fishing to catch a herring for charlie the tramp.
  
• I decided to cut down the regular trees around the mage training arena after training up to level 10 fishing at the spots south of the al kharid bank.
  
• I got level 30 woodcutting chopping the trees around varrock and then went back to lumbridge to chop a willow there first, helping to clear out the first chunk.
  
• I pickpocketed my way up to 1k gp then went back to varrock to buy a house. I kept on choppin and got a clue scroll that required us to get level 14 crafting to make a leather body for charlie.
  

EPISODE 3 SPOILERS

• I went to the HAM hideout to pickpocket ham members for the buttons to see how far along that and opals from them could get me through crafting.
• That didnt’ seem to be doing so well so I decided to do some easy quests that reward crafting xp. We got our first easy clue.
• On the way to complete it I went through ardougne and stole items from the first stall. For stealing from stalls, we only ever steal from it one time for each item on it that resembles what we can steal. I stole from the baker’s stall, which has 7 items on it, so when I had stolen from it 7 time I stopped and tagged the tiles it was placed on to denote that it was depleted.
• I got several clue scrolls from ham members I could not do due to crafting level requirements which I dropped. After about 4 or 5 of these I decided I would not be dropping anymore clue scrolls that were not completely impossible for me for one reason or another.
• I started both the great kourend quest and the corsair’s curse quest for clue scroll access but did not complete either quest.
• I then got a clue scroll that required me to get level 31 crafting to make an emerald necklace.
• I then did goblin diplomacy, using red and yellow dye from an infinite source located on some shelves in a house to the south of the farming guid in kourend as to not use up any permanent resources in the world.
• While I was in Kourend I sheared all of the sheep there as well, 12 at watsons house and 2 in hosidius, all shearable. On the way back to the mainland I stopped by the makeover mage and sheared the 7 that were there.
• I began killing the rams here as well just to clear them out of the world since they are not used for slayer. I took a trip over to ardougne to shear the 10 sheep that were there as well to collect all the currently available wool to use.
• After spinning al of the collected wool I was at level 6 with about half of the way to level 7 completed as well.
• I then started rag and bone man and then killed every ram in gilenor besides one I could not reach in lletya. I got the ram skull.
• I then did misthalin mystery quest. This got me up to level 10 crafting. I also cut down all the trees in the quest area.
• I killed a giant rat for the rat tail bone for rag and bone man.
• I then did dwarf cannon quest which needs no resources I did not already have. This got me up to level 13 crafting.
• I made a gold necklace and a few pieces of leather armor (made from leather from ham pickpocketing) to get to level 14 crafting, then made a leather body to finish off the beginner clue that started this crafting grind.
• I then went up to seers village and picked all of the flax. I picked the flax until it disappeared and then marked the tile where it was marking it as depleted. I got a total of 250 bowstrings from this and got up to level 22 crafting.
• I then did murder mystery quest which got me to level 24 crafting. I also discovered an infinite source of flour for my account. The barrel in the murder mystery house can be filled with a pot and the flavor text says that there is plenty more.
• I collected up every resource in the chunk and killed everything except for the level 64 wolves for obvious reasons.
• I then went and did druidic ritual, killing the bear north of falador before starting. The rest of the required meats were already banked from previous kills or buying from shops.
• I ran into issues killing the bear with magic so quickly went and did witch’s potion, killing all of the rats in rimmington and marking that with a tile.
• I finished druidic ritual and again picked up some various items, marking them as I did. I also gathered up the flax from the 3 plants in taverly, I got a total of 16 flax.
• Being close to port sarim I took the boat to lands end and collected 10 flax, depleting the plants there, I also picked the redberry bushes. As always, the depleted resources were marked with a ground tile.
• I ran up to the field in hosidius to collect up the flax there as well. I lost track of the number I got from that field but followed the usual process marking them.
• I then went to uzer in the desert to do the golem quest. I mined 4 clay at the mine where the phoenix is, marking the clay and marking a tile saying I had collected the feather.
• I picked a black mushroom in the uzer basement, marked it.
• While stealing the golem quest item from the museum I did the natural history quiz to get level 9 slayer and hunter.
• I finished the golem quest for level 25 crafting and level 28 thieving. I collected the gems from the demon throne.
• I chopped down the singular teak tree in the uzer ruin chunk (the newer teak trees weren’t in the game at the time of this recording) for 2 teak logs.

EPISODE 4 SPOILERS

• I did observatory quest, using the nearby super antiposion spawn (I should not have used it here, I realize now) and not killing any creatures along the way. I picked up every bone in the observatory basement and buried it. This got me no prayer levels, and my quest reward was 3 tuna and a sapphire, as well as getting me up to level 27 crafting.
• I went back down and killed the 4 rats in the observatory basement.
• I spun up my 240 flax collected which got me up to level 30 crafting.
• I then collected up all of the flax in and around the gnome stronghold which yielded me 360 flax. I spun this flax up which got me to level 33 crafting.
• I made an emerald necklace for the clue, bought some iron platelegs in al kharid, and an oak longbow in varrock, all for the clue.
• Upon realizing I couldnt wield the bow I decided to try for my first slayer task, and I got 19 scorpions which didn’t go well with my single digit range level, especially since my dumbass tried ranging with IM armor thinking it had a range boost 😅. So i decided to get level 5 range by killing every spider spawn on the surface of the world. This is an example of a creature i can kill with impunity, its not used for quests or slayer, and although killing all 105 spiders left (after the 7 i killed in lumbridge) will put me well over the xp for 5 ranged I still want to go ahead and kill them all now since there’s no point in saving them for anything and it will help my tracking process if I can mark off a larger subset like all surface spiders rather than 3/x spawn groupings. I did unfortunately kill the 22 spiders in the wilderness which could have been used for wildy slayer but that is only 44 slayer xp wasted. I will still probably come to regret this.
• In killing the spiders in the lovakite mine i died to the gas clouds and almost lost my clue, but I got back in time to reclaim it. I then immedia did the clue before going back to finish off the rest of the spiders.
• I then went back to finish my slayer task. I decided to kill the 9 scorpions at al kharid mine, the one south of al kharid, the 6 at ruins of uzer, and the final 3 at the zoo in ardougne for a perfect 19 with no overlaps into other spawn groupings.

EPISODE 5 SPOILERS (comes out tomorrow)

• This episode was quite concentrated, we really just finished chopping the trees in the free to play area. I posted here about it when I finished and reddit kindly let me know I had missed the trees around the karamja volcano and in the sewers of varrock, and I also missed the single tree in the varrock castle bear cage.
• My original goal was to cut the trees from the salve to the members gate, although i had planned to get the karamja f2p trees I just forgot. I did cut down all the trees in the digsite area and silvarea. I did not cut down any trees in lands end but tuat was intentional, i plan to get those with the rest of kourend later.
• I got a back to back birds nest which is a 0.0015% chance.
• I got level 20 fishing for a clue scroll.
• At 14.5ish combat I couldn’t get the last willows at draynor because the dark mages kept attacking me. I decided to kill all the cows in the east lumbridge cow pen and the faldor farm cow pens. I thought they couldnt be assigned for a slayer task. I’m still not entirely sure if they can be, actually.
• We got the last part of the beekeeper outfit and will now begin recieving flax from that random even, which is great because i really need banked crafting xp
• I finished off the final trees with 157k woodcutting xp, at level 54 woodcutting, with 2245 regular logs, 1792 oak logs, and 509 willow logs.
• I finished off the episode by chopping my first maple tree, the one just south of seers village bank, and recieved a single log.

That is the progress up until the current point of the videos, the final of which (ep5) comes out tomorrow. The next post will come out approximately one day prior to episode 6 and I will endeavor to keep this format and system with future episodes and progress posts. I have a newly created discord for helping me keep track of the progress, the kill lists the shop inventory lists, npc interactions, and the various chunk maps to plot my progress. Thanks for checking this out!
Tldr: go watch the 1nDone series or drop a toxic comment about another snowflake ironman.