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When the Heavy Gate opened and the godjinn Jhuuba reached through it nearly a century ago, the sprawling desert northwest of the city sprung to life in response. The Nam-Yensa desert became the Nam-Yensa sandsea, a sprawling expanse perpetually churning and shifting on the whims of the Earthen deity. The city of Moghad stood just past the southeastern edge of the Nam-Yensa sandsea like a gateway to the Yol-Jhuuba principalities beyond.

The thriving city offered a number of amenities, not the least of which was the arena. Every city of any renown in Akkreja held an arena; in smaller cities the arena might double as the public square. Though the kingdoms of Yol-Jhuuba did not hold physical combat in the same regard as their equatorial neighbors, Moghad's proximity to Akkreja ensured a bustling, well regarded arena flourished there too. Inside it, in a broad lobby reserved for contestants, not spectators, a young man argued his case to one of the arena's many employees.

---

He'd expected more from this place. More theming: dirt and dust, glistening gems, or solid stone intricately carved by expert masons like in the stories his countrymen told about this place. Yol-Jhuuba, a sprawling land of mines and merchants formed less than a century ago from the more than two-dozen fiefdoms that dotted the stonelands. The country lay less than a week's journey southeast of his homeland of Akkreja, assuming a smooth trip across the unpredictable sandsea.

Travelers' tales swore that in Yol-Jhuuba, (frequently shortened to 'Yolj') a man's worth was measured by his money, not his might, and freedom was bought, not earned. Isaiah Wylde looked forward to discovering for himself what kind of place so many of his fellow initiates from the Wylde school had traveled to in order to test their mettle and their spellcraft.

He'd expected glitzy, ostentatious splendor and feverish movement and noise from a sprawling port city that might as well be one giant bazaar. Who wouldn't want to sign up for an arena this big, this widely advertised throughout the city? Instead, the broad youth stood in a long chamber ringed by drab, sand-colored walls. A solitary employee stood behind the counter at the end of the near empty room, yawning and staring at a clock near the counter.

Isaiah Wylde rolled his neck, took a deep breath, and prepared to change his whole life.

---

“I'm here to fight. Where do I sign up?” He smiled, dark red eyes catching the sunlight through a window. He was here to take his place among the proud lineage of Wylde Style fighters who'd traveled the land sharpening their signature style until they were ready to return to the school, complete their initiation via sundance, and earn the title of Wylde disciple. Isaiah had come here to write the next chapter of his own story and the school's.

But the woman behind the counter couldn't care less.

He repeated himself, louder this time, looking to elicit a greater reaction than disinterest. His sturdy shoulders twitched with nervous energy, and he ran a thick hand across the low tower of tightly coiled ash gray hair atop his head.

“Sorry... who're you?” The arena's employee answered, her voice sleepy and apathetic.

“I'm a Wylde Initiate, though you probably knew that from the tunic and sash...” He smiled sheepishly. He'd removed the sleeves of his school's signature tunic enough to show off his impressive muscles. The cord marked him as an initiate wound around his bicep, its near-white color bright against his rich brown skin.

“Am I supposed to know what that means?” The slender woman asked, and she and the would-be competitor shared a confused stare while they each expected the other to explain themselves. Isaiah found his resolve first. He swallowed hard and explained the world as he knew it.

“The Wylde School is one of the most popular endeavors,”

“Endeavors?”

“Endeavors. You know, groups. Schools. Warbands.” He gestured. “The Wylde School is, was one of the fastest growing in Amaru. In Akkreja.” He explained, more nervously than he'd intended. Everyone knew the city of Amaru and there was no need to explain the nation it sat in. “We're not as storied as the oldest ones, but we're growing quickly. Or... at least... we were.” The color drained from his face as he tried to shrug off the nightmarish memory he'd mistakenly unearthed. “The students have to leave the school and travel to finish their initiation, and a lot of the Wylde initiates came here to fight in the arena for a few months or a few years.”

“I don't think so...” the woman cocked her head to the side, partially covering her tan colored skin with her loosely curled auburn hair. “I've been working here for half a year and you're the first person I've ever seen dressed like that.”

His deep red eyes widened, and his chest rose and fell with quick, shallow breaths that lifted and dropped the scuffed metal chest plate sewn into his tunic. Had it been a year? Could it have been? His fists tightened until he consciously unwound them like massive knots. He'd so far avoided thinking about the last time he'd seen the Wylde School, or the reason he'd left. But that was becoming increasingly impossible to do, and the memories that followed sent chills across his skin that even his flame magicks couldn't quell.

“Where's Ruth?” He tried to regain the confidence in his voice, to sound like the reliable man he needed to be now and now the cocky teen he'd been.

“Ruth?”

Sheist. Did this sleepy-eyed woman know any words that weren't questions? He ground his teeth and tried to imagine a flame burning in a fire pit. Burning bright, hot, but contained, useful. Warm. He needed to be that flame.

“Ruth Obeya. She ran this place. Every Wylde that came back to Amaru mentioned that all they had to do was show their tunic and sash and 'Aunty Ruth' saw to it they were taken care of. Apparently, the teachers at the school maintained some kind of agreement with her.”

“I... think I've heard of her?” The woman put her finger on her cheek, light brown eyes staring at the tiles of the ceiling as if someone had stuck an answer up there. Isaiah Wylde dropped his traveling bag from his shoulder and imagined that campfire again. It wavered beneath the cold night winds but stayed lit, perched above the logs that were its throne. The cowardly night could not swallow it. The profane screeches of the wind could not quench it, try as they might. He was that sacred flame.

“I'm here to sign up for a fight. If you don't know Ruth, bring me someone you do know. Someone who knows more people than you do.”

The woman met his gaze with her own defiance. For a moment the young sunland man worried that she might tell him to go pound sand or kick rocks or count pebbles or some other Yolj idiom. Instead, she sighed, rolled her eyes, and turned away from him. It was only after she left that Isaiah realized he did not remember if she was attractive or not. Was this a sign of some burgeoning maturity, of an ability to stop evaluating every man and woman he encountered as a potential bedmate? Or had he simply been too anxious and frustrated by turns to consider anything beyond the bright future she seemed intent on obscuring?

---

The clerk returned, and the stern eyed man she brought with her was a far cry from every definition his schoolmates had ever given of “Auntie Ruth.” A smile did not ever crease his light brown face the entire time he spoke with Isaiah, and his wavy brown hair hung loose onto the shoulders of his ornate blue and gold tunic. It was clear at a glance who was the superior and who was the clerk between the two Yol-Jhubba citizens behind the counter.

“Rozette says she hasn't recognized one name you'd said since you arrived. And that you won't go away either. So out with it, sunlander. What do you want?”

But worse than all the rest of him combined were his eyes. Cold and intense, as if scouring everything within view. Appraising its value. The way this man stared at him, Isaiah might as well be a cheap vase, or a lame calf.

“I'm here. To. Fight. You've got an arena. You hold sundances. I need a partner and an audience.” The young man forced himself to meet the proprietor's gaze. “Now I don't know if Ruth Obeya still runs this place or not bu-”

“She doesn't, though I love the way you Akkreja talk about duels. 'Sundance' is such a poetic term.” He inserted with a smirk before urging Isaiah to continue speaking with a wave of his ringed fingers.

“But I've got two fists and a dream. I'm Isaiah Wylde, speaker of Summer's Advance. I get lit like a sunwolf and brawl like a coalossus. So burn the sheist and tell me what I have to do to get on the next slate of fights.” Isaiah's passion burned in every word, and the heavy medallions on the chains around his neck clanged against his chest plate with each animated gesture. He didn't unclench his fists this time. Unfortunately, our next slate is in 4 days. Unless you're princess Khrudra herself, there's no way I can get you on that card. Can't be done.” His expression remained sharp and hard as flint as he stared down the hulking youth. “Go home. Come back in a week for the next card. Preferably with the blessing of a patron willing to finance your competition”

Isaiah finally heard an opening. It sounded like coins falling onto a scale.

“Shiest. Of course this is about money...” He muttered to himself, kneeling down to dig his coin purse out of the large bag he'd dropped on the floor. “Shady-ass coin counters...” With the latter again secured to his torso, he stood, dangling the heavy burlap sack just above the counter.

“So what's it going to take to get me in that arena?”

The shrewd man with the piercing eyes and regal robes ignored his question. “Well then. Since you're a serious competitor, you've bought a little of my time. Rozette; show him to one of the upstairs rooms. I'll meet you there shortly.”

——————————————————

The room Rozette showed him was the first he'd seen that matched the vision of Yol-Jhuuba that his friends at the Wylde School had described. The details were subtle and he was no stonemason, but even to his untrained eye the fixtures upstairs seemed more carefully considered. Gems embedded in corners or capstones, shining metals inlaid onto solid stone. An array of massive cushions, each sewn with a differently colored and patterned fabric, covered the floor while plush recliners stood flush against the wall. Isaiah prepared to step over one to find a place to sit when the woman behind him cleared her throat. A pile of sandals and boots near the door made their expectations clear.

Isaiah rolled his eyes and unstrapped his boots—removing one's shoes wasn't a foreign custom to him. But the way everyone's demeanor had changed once he'd produced a bag of coins nauseated him. He truly wasn't in Akkreja anymore. Several travelers from outside the sunlands had commented on the peculiar Akkreja distrust of merchants, particularly wealthy ones. He'd brushed it off then. Now he felt it more acutely.

While Yol-Jhuuba contained the Heavy Gate from whence the godjinn Jhuuba had emerged less than a century ago, Akkreja was the land of Akkra. The godjinn of the sun served as namesake to Isaiah's nation and sat at the center of the Bright Gate that fueled their magick when it opened several centuries ago.

In the history the Akkreja passed down amongst themselves, when Ajanni and Kya and the rest of the Sunwolves fought a war to open the Bright Gate, the continent's largest, most prosperous merchants had opposed them at every turn. Again and again these traders and bankers and merchants sided with their opponents. Again and again the Sunwolves overcame better armed, better fed, better supplied troops. They proved the sneering, swindling merchants wrong in the end. The cruelest and most untrustworthy of these traders among them paid for that miscalculation with their lives, their massive storehouses emptied and distributed among Akkra's faithful. Merchants were selfish and greedy; nothing he'd seen today challenged that notion

Only when he took a seat did he realize that there wasn't a straight-backed seat anywhere in the room.

“As crooked as their dealings” He smiled to himself.

“How do you find the accommodations?” A voice asked before its owner came into view. The back wall of the room shimmered like a curtain and the man from before stepped through. His expression had softened, if only slightly, and he still wore the same blue and golden tunic from last time, though he'd shed some of his rings and his long hair looked more stiffly coiled than it had downstairs. Isaiah looked around and discovered that Rozette stood near the entry he himself had used, now holding a bundle of papers and a more alert expression than the one she'd worn downstairs.

Isaiah began to stand and greet the still nameless man in earnest before his guest waved him off. “Please, make yourself comfortable. I insist.” He explained before reclining on the nearest cushion.

Now it was Isaiah Wylde's turn to narrow his eyes and stare intently. His host offered tea, then coffee, both likely harvested from the fields of Akkreja, though the plains to the southeast of Moghad were also said to be fertile. The brawny youth declined both, unable to mask his unease.

“Ah. A man of business. My favorite.” His smile bared no teeth and conveyed something that only passed for warmth. “Where were we downstairs?”

“You were going to tell me how much of my coin purse you would take before you opened the arena gates. And after that I hoped you'd tell me your name.”

“You're from Amaru, aren't you?” The implication wasn't lost on the young, dark-skinned man with curly gray hair cut like a high carpet of smoke atop his otherwise closely shaved head. Akkreja was a nation of bishops and warriors, of might and magic. Or so the stereotypes told. But among its great cities, Amaru stood alone as the center of the nation's martial efforts. The Amaru, more an attitude and a region than a distinct people group, valued might over magicks or manners or music. It was no wonder the Wylde School had been planted there and flourished.

“I am.” Isaiah cracked his knuckles and rose to the stereotype. If the man wanted to cast him as an artless thug, let him. He pondered how many soldiers might pour through the back wall should he lunge at his host. He wondered if any would arrive in time to save the man. “And you're....”

“Hezekiah.” The man finally explained with a flourish of his hand. “Hezekiah Thaumah. Master of the Moghad Arena.”

“Isaiah Wylde. Speaker of the Flame that Survived the Night”

“Yes, I meant to ask about that. I'm not terribly up to date on the happenings across the sandsea but I'd heard that the Wylde School had closed after some tragedy. But here you are...” The edge in his voice expected an answer

“How can the school be closed if I'm here, wearing its colors and insignia?” Isaiah shrugged, digging into the thigh pocket of his shortened trousers, then abandoning the search a few moments later. “When Ruth ran this place, Initiates from the school came here to complete their training, sharpen their skills, and prepare to come back to the school and earn their full discipleship. Now it's my turn.”

“Ah yes. So you said downstairs. Let's discuss the realities of that ritual, shall we. 'Melt the ore' if you will.”

Isaiah didn't, couldn't fully follow the way Hezekiah talked, not once he began discussing the terms and conditions of entry into the arena. Instead the tall youth picked out enough words and phrases to follow along and tried his best not to look bewildered. But each time he asked the bright-eyed merchant to slow down or repeat himself, Hezekiah explained himself again in even more complex terms. It was as clear as mud and smelled twice as bad.

What was clear was that he'd fight 3 matches, with the first in only a few days. As he understood it, the majority of fighters found local patrons to finance their use of the arena's accommodations, including rest and recuperation after fights and promotion of them and their fights around the city and beyond. His 3 fights would instead be his live audition to prove he was a marketable fighter and attract a wealthy patron who would finance his future fights. The idea was overly complicated, but he was certain he understood enough. Once he got his hands on some poor, overmatched Yolj warrior on the payroll of some hard eyed merchant with more coins than humanity, the rest of the arrangement would fall into place.

“So what kinds of sundances do you hold here?”

“What do you mean?”

“What city's style do you follow? Royal Guard? Iron Fist? Street Clash? Tour-” Isaiah counted them off on his fingers. A sundance in Akkreja might take any of a dozen different forms; each set of rules governed how many fighters competed for any side and how they were permitted to engage each other. The variety often kept any single group or warband from claiming total dominance over a city.

Hezekiah shrugged. “Nothing so formal. We entertain the crowd and put on fights with warriors who keep their coins flowing like wine. Expect the unexpected.”

“Yeah. Unexpected.” Isaiah's voice dripped skepticism, signing on the presented contract. “So you take the coins, and I show up four days from now and bust ass. That shines. I'm with it.”

“Close enough, but there is one lingering question.” The arena leader asked. “This is just enough to pay the fees for a single bout. I assume you have the rest stored with a local banker?”

Isaiah sat up right, now fully aware. “The rest of what? You said that would cover my entry!”

“Yes. The first bout of your audition. Did you miss the part where discussed the amenities, the shared costs, the licenses, the pre-promotion, the-”

“Shiest!” Isaiah roared, gathering his composure. The image of the campfire loomed large in his mind as he tried his very best not to burn the room down with the three of them still inside it. He'd somehow gotten a raw deal trying to use his one verifiable skill in this ugly, ashen town. His blood boiled. His red eyes caught a beam of sunlight and nearly glowed in the dusk.

And then he caught himself.

He rose off the couch and decided what would follow. In all likelihood he could murder this man, but what would that get him? Notoriety? A manhunt? He still had his two siblings to look out for. Yael and Yve expected him home with money, not a bounty, and he couldn't very well relight the Wylde School while fleeing pursuers across the shiesting Nam-Yensa.

No, his choice was clear and unpleasant when he faced the smug merchant. “You've got 4 days before I step on someone's chest and hear the crowds cheer my name. 'Isaiah Wylde.' Make sure your announcer says it correctly.”

Their business temporarily concluded; the two men left the room. Rozette escorted Isaiah back to the larger first floor chamber, this time flanked by stern looking guards. Isaiah had the distinct feeling that this wasn't the first time they'd escorted a disgruntled fighter. But his money was gone, the contract was signed, and his chest burned. He'd miscalculated, misheard, misstepped. But he wasn't beaten yet. He could still make good on his plan to get rich and his promise to the two young orphans of the Wylde School that'd become his siblings during their years of training. None of them had any family past the school. With it now a smoking ruin, they were the only family any of them had left.

But sentimentality and oaths didn't account for much, especially not here in a land of cold coins and colder hearts. As he left the arena, Isaiah Wylde jammed his hands into his pockets and prepared to make a house call. He hadn't known long but he knew him well. Isaiah had to bet that a passionate night and an earnest plea would be enough to scrounge up enough coins from his new paramour to place a bet on himself. That was the only way he'd earn enough to finance his next two bouts.

It wasn't a great plan, admittedly. Too many things could go wrong. But as long as he could make it to the arena, he had a fighting chance.

——————————————————————————————

He'd been here before, but he'd never been here before. His hometown's arena was smaller, more intimate. This was a colosseum worthy of the name: The sand crunched beneath his boots. The crowd of thousands stared from above and around him. The sights and sounds awed him and frayed his nerves. The thud of the wrought iron gate slamming behind him did nothing to ameliorate that anxiety. The city of Moghad was a major port town on the edge of the Nam-Yensa sandsea, a city large enough to rival all but the biggest of Akkreja's sprawling fortress town cities.

The pitched battles of the Moghad Colosseum were little like those that he'd grown up with in the neighboring country of Akkreja. There, duels called sundances were as common as they were formalized. One might fight for pride or to settle a grudge or for fame, but there was largely a camaraderie between fighters, and between fighters and audience.

Here? This fight felt cold and informal. He barely knew his partner's name and only learned his opponent's names when the announcer bellowed them, using magick to ensure his voice echoed throughout the open-air arena. Reyjan was the big one with the hammer, billed as hailing from the frozen tundra of Ozljan, in the south. Lana was the tall one with the spear and introduced as coming from Almastre, on the continent's southeast edge. This wasn't friendly competition or sport or pride. This was about money, the way that everything in the country of Yol-Jhuuba was.

The bustling city of Moghad sat just across the sandsea from his homeland of Akkreja and had been a part of the latter a hundred years ago. The connection was obvious, but it seemed to Isaiah that each custom or tradition that he recognized from the sunlands had been twisted to serve the local obsession with commerce and greed.

The announcer introduced him first, with as little enthusiasm as Isaiah had ever heard from someone hired to say the names of fighters and shout their exploits. The crowd gave a modest woop at the mention of the Wylde school; it warmed Isaiah to know that rumors of the school's demise hadn't fully soured its reputation or reception.

But he was here to brawl, not bask in adoration. They'd all know more about the Wylde school soon enough. “We didn't get much time to strategize back there.” Isaiah admitted, turning to his partner after the announcer introduced their opponents.

“Don't overthink it. You're new: just try not to get in my way.” The woman replied, barely sparing a glance for the tall youth the arena's promoters had paired him with. Isaiah Wylde tried once more to suggest a strategy: at the very least they should each focus on one opponent each, but the stout, plump woman ignored him. Her dismissiveness was a shame too; the way her heavy armor hung on her sturdy frame suggested sensuous curves that would have been popular in Akkreja. Perhaps she’d be more open to his advances once she saw him in action.

Instead, he looked around the sand-strewn arena, searching for obstacles or useful features: stone columns jutted out from the sand in irregular intervals and angles and on one side the sand gave way to dirt and grass. He couldn't tell from here if the dirt was solid or muddy or how sturdy the stone was. Jhuuba was the godjinn of fields and lands: Isaiah figured that the earth beneath his boots was as much a part of the battle as his opponents were.

With so much about this fight different and new, the burly fighter had barely seen his 19th summer. Now he needed to see a path to victory. His familiar tunic hung on his tall, broad frame; red and beige fabric contrasting against his dark brown skin. The fabric was thick and sturdy, and he’d further reinforced it by means of a broad, metal chestplate. With his size and strength, the weight was easy for him to carry.

He'd tied a brightly colored sash around his bicep. The same sash that marked him as a disciple of the Wylde school. He'd cut his trousers just below the knee, bearing his shins between the fabric and his boots. Some of the adjustments were in line with the fashions of his homeland. Some were merely vain, like the way he’d removed the sleeves from his tunic to reveal his muscular shoulders and the top of his ribs.

His opponents were similarly dressed in clothing both informed by their separate homelands and their shared purpose. Each came from a different edge of the continent: a broad, hulking man clad in the armor of the frozen south: bone and leather and metal and fur. The woman beside him wore light armor and clothing cut into an odd, unfamiliar style. Had the announcer not announced her from the eastern coast of the continent he would have never guessed. The young Wylde disciple looked forward to violent introductions to their culture.

The pairs approached each other, sizing each other up. Men and women fought alongside each other and against each other almost everywhere across the continent; the arena was no exception. Gender was no predictor of ability. His partner held a large sword and an even larger shield and Isaiah realized for the first time that he couldn't remember the woman’s name. Ruth? Eola? Sia? He shook his head and tried to shed his goofy grin. It was certainly too late to ask.

She'd have to be “Shield” for tonight. Akkreja fighters of almost all stripes and styles shunned shields: the best defense was a better offense. Watching his partner heft the unwieldy hunk of metal was fascinating in its own right.

“Ready to lose, sunny?” The woman with the spear sneered, brandishing her polearm with a spinning flourish before settling into her stance. Small trinkets on the handle of her weapon matched those on her clothes, jingling softly with each movement.

“They're gonna carry you out of here on a stretcher, ashy!” The big man with the bigger hammer added.

“Y’all aren’t ready for this. I'm gonna melt y'all.” Isaiah met their taunts with wild excitement, grinning from ear to ear. The fighters stared at their opponents and partner, waiting for the bell to begin the fight until Isaiah slipped into a speech as familiar as a straight punch.

“Each Wylde tells a story with their body and soul,” began the creed each Wylde school member recited before sundances. He slammed his wrapped fists together for emphasis. “I speak mine each time I burst into sacred flame.” The broad youth struck his fists past each other, and both ignited like torches. His partner and opponents alike stared at the roaring flames ensconcing his fists as he brought them near his face and assumed a fighter's stance. He was the only one unbothered by the heat pouring off his hands. “I am Isaiah Wylde, speaker of Summer's Advance.”

Each Wylde creed started the same way and ended with the name of the fighter's style, but the rest of each creed was as unique as the school's adherents and their fighting styles.

The man with the hammer snorted dismissively. “Some dazzled parlor trick, no doubt. We're gonna put those flames out reeeeeal quick.”

The bell rang and the fight was on, for real. His opponents and partner had been introduced as each sponsored by one of the local merchant lords. They’d live to fight another day regardless of the outcome. By contrast, all of his money, and with them, his future, rested on the outcome of this fight.

Money meant power in the merchant kingdoms of Yol-Jhuuba, and Isaiah had bet every penny of his on himself tonight. Failure meant financial ruin and indentured servitude in a foreign land. He had to win. His younger siblings needed him.

Isaiah Wyle tucked his fists close to his face and circled, leaping back out of the arc of the hammer that slammed down with enough force to dent the sand. He prepared to step forward and reengage when Lana and her spear surged toward him. He couldn't back away fast enough to keep her polearm from digging into her chest, near his arm. A shallow wound but enough to draw blood and cheers. “Wait your turn, welp. We'll deal with you in due time.”

The woman's skin was the color of beach sand, and her eyes and wavy hair both featured distinctive green tints. She was lithe, well-muscled but thin by sunlands standards. Sundance partner often became bed partners in Akkreja, but this spearfighter hadn’t caught his fancy.

Yet.

Lana kept her spear pointed at Isaiah as he circled, both warriors measuring each other. Isaiah broke their stalemate, feinting to one side before coming straight at her. She responds by tracing a small arc in the air with her spear. The small shape hung in the air, glowing faintly until he approached. It exploded in a flash of light and the muscular brawler slid backwards, forearms nearly touching his raised guard. Lana cackled as she lept back, spear in constant motion as she traced enough scrawls and scribbles between them to make a minefield. “Don't hurt yourself too badly figuring that one out; I need you lively enough for us to finish you later.”

She turned away from and leapt towards Isaiah's partner, content to leave the newcomer to his own devices. Isaiah considered his situation; his partner held a large shield and would have to fend for herself for at least a little while. What else was the point of that big hunk of metal? Lana's strange magicks hung in the air, rising and falling like buoys on the open ocean, humming softly like crystals plucked from the earth. He strafed and circled, judging the thicket of spellcraft. The magicks nearest him slowly drifted in his direction. That was useful, somehow.

He just couldn't figure out how.

Isaiah considered taking a running start and clearing the magicks in one mighty leap, but he'd be an easy target while hurtling through the air. He dipped into an uppercut sending a gout of flame upwards into the nearest one. It exploded with a soft pop, the magick wisps fizzling out of existence with none of the sharp pain that he'd experienced running headlong into the first one.

Past the low hanging magick threats, his partner was already faring poorly. The crowd cheered as the warrior from Yol-Jhuuba began to wither beneath the tanned woman's prodding and the thudding blows from the large man's oversized hammer. The crowd cheered each impact, and Isaiah felt a rising sense of urgency tugging at him. It wasn't that he didn't trust himself to defeat both warriors.

He didn't want to have to.

He didn't want a stigma as a bad partner. He didn't want to have to defend himself or his tactics later. He didn't want to leave here with regrets: as long as left here with a dub he wouldn't have to. An idea coalesced as he paced. Something risky and ill-advised and very, very appealing. His stance loosened, and the young man took a deep breath, swaying in place. A small flame was thoughtless. This plan would need more.

The Wylde school, when it still existed, emphasized diversity of thought and form to address common need and purpose. Rather than rigid forms, the Wylde School offered goals and purposes that each student satisfied with a specific movement of their own choosing. Once decided, the initiated student refined each movement to better serve that goal. One might deploy a swift kick or an elbow or a straight punch to fulfill the need of a “fast strike to the upper body.”

“Nah... I got this. I'm not going out like that.” He muttered to himself. “Just gotta...” He'd practiced this technique ten thousand times, he thought, taking a half step back to ensure proper spacing with the slowly drifting scrawls. His body coiled like a spring, and he ducked to one side before rising with a ferocious uppercut that summoned a flame nearly as tall as he was. His version of the Wylde upper, its spacing modified. Typically it ended with his fist crashing into someone's jaw. Tonight his fist never made contact with Lana's strange magick, but the flames that followed his punch flung the menacing curl of magick backwards a moment before it detonated. That was enough to set off the ones behind it, and though the domino effect stopped short of consuming every scrap of magic the Eastern woman had laid between them, it was more than enough for Isaiah to cover the distance with a single leap.

“And the Wylde boy takes flight!” The announcer bellowed, his voice enhanced by spellcraft, and Isaiah had just enough time to feel annoyed that the man had ruined his violence. surprise. His fist still alight, the Wylde youth swung down at the nearest target: the big man with the large beard and the bigger hammer. Up close it looked like it was made of bone, more a club than a proper hammer. The sunland's schools taught that the people of the frozen south fashioned all manner of weapon and charm and tool from the giant beasts and ur-trees that populated the region. He'd never gotten to see one of their weapons or suits of armor up close.

His punch missed when the burly man draped in furs leapt towards his own target. Isaiah skidded across the rough dirt of the arena in time to see his two opponents attack the hapless woman with the shield in tandem. The local fighter held up her shield and sword, wavering between the predators harassing her like a scared doe.

In the end she managed to block neither of them, and Isaiah cursed aloud when the hammer slammed into her thighs and the spear stabbed into her back so fast he feared it might come out the other side. The two blows came from opposite angles and sent the heavyset woman spinning in the air. She landed with an ugly thud; her armaments fell out the air and landed out of arm's reach a moment later. Isaiah wasn't the only one who winced.

But the real surprise came afterwards, when the woman laid there, staring up at the dusk sky, moaning.

“Akkra's ashes...” Isaiah swore. “Get up!” The blow had been brutal to be sure, but he expected a grown woman—a trained fighter no less—to endure at least a few of those. The Yolj fighter couldn't have exhausted her soul that quickly, could she?

The only other option was that she'd surrendered, choosing not to rise, but that was unthinkable. Fighters fought, for money or pride or love, but they fought. This was a capitulation. Shameful.

Though this arena might operate with different rules than the Akkreja sundances that inspired it, a fighter laying on the ground was a universal sign of incapacitation or surrender. The man's chest rose and fell at regular intervals; fights were seldom to the death, but she might as well be dead for as much help as she'd be to Isaiah. The crowd counted along with the announcer as his partner was counted out, formally turning their 2-against-2 into a handicapped match.

His opponents turned to him in unison, haughty smiles plastered on their faces.

“Awwww, too bad, sunlander. You're such a shitty, irresponsible teammate that you got your very first partner knocked out without either of you laying a hand on your opponents.”

“So much for Wylde teamwork.” The bearded man laughed. “Izmael will be feeling that one for a week, healer or not.”

His fists tightened at the insult. He moved to answer before the tall woman interrupted him

“So much for Wyldes in general.” Lana added. “Now, Reyjan, what do you say we put this pup to bed?”

Isaiah's eyes went wide at the threat. “Me? I couldn't lose to y'all if I closed my eyes and sat down.” His waning flames flickered back to life with his renewed determination. Y'all are kindling for the flames. Bait for wolves.”

“Big words from a boy who's done literally nothing. You're light work, ashmonger.”

“Bet!” Isaiah yelled, already running headlong at them. “Light? Nah. I'm flames, and this is lit!”

He'd long grown used to being at a reach disadvantage; such was the reality of bringing only wrapped hands to contend with all sorts of spellcraft and weaponry. The trick was gauging that reach, learning the opponent's range and timing. He'd long since learned how to compress his soul, blunting the force of an incoming blow to deliver one of his own. Once he'd closed the gap he'd trust his own timing and prediction to bludgeon his opponents into submission. Even if it took a few iterations, Isaiah Wylde was big enough, strong enough, quick enough to succeed. There were only a handful people who'd consistently beaten him in those point-blank encounters, and roughly half of them had returned to the grace of Akkra when the Wylde School burned down. He'd bet his life that neither of tonight's opponents would join that exclusive club.

Isaiah raised his guard as he approached, a precaution before he diverted and slipped to one side. He needed to gather data and gauge their reactions before he could commit to their demolition. The woman favored one side, constantly circling that way, seeking to trap him between her and the southman. But it was too obvious. He'd just need to match her. The man with the massive club was as slow as he looked, trudging after his partner and remaining foe. Isaiah took a good look at him; his armor was a mix of furs, bone, and what looked like metal or stone. He couldn't tell. But unlike Isaiah, this man's armor covered him from his toes to his nose and exposed only the top of his head.

His heart pounded in his ears; he might have fought a hundred sundances already, but the sensation of real, live combat lit a fire in his chest. He wanted this. He craved it. He found something he liked in Lana's stance, guessing correctly that she'd put her full bodyweight into her strike now that she had her partner to cover her. Her polearm dug into the air where his shoulder had been a moment before; now he leaned against her spear, knocking her off balance.

Lana leapt backwards to reset her stance but couldn't outrun the Wylde disciple streaking toward her like a shooting star. His fist cracked her jaw, turning her head with the fiery blow. She grunted, then gasped when his fist dug into her stomach. Two more blows followed, meant to stun more than wound before he dipped again. This Wylde upper crunched against her jaw and a still smoldering Lana traced a short arc through the air before she landed in a path of sand.

The lithe warrior lay there for a moment, and the small patches of flames on her chest subsided, extinguished by her still vibrant soul. She was a fighter alright. He'd need to batter her, clobber her to put her down for the count. But he didn't have that kind of time. Not with that great club-

He discovered where the weapon and its wielder were when the former slammed into his back. He sputtered and staggered forward, briefly falling to his knees before he shot up to feet, whirling around in the same motion. “Don't dally with the small fry ashborne.” He menaced, slapping his chest armor with one meaty hand. “I'm the big fish in this pond.”

“Then you're the one I'll fry first, fatass.” Isaiah refused to let any insult go unanswered. Not in his first match. Quiet confidence was the domain of tired old men. His soul still burned with youth and passion.

The colosseum trio repeated this dance over the next few minutes: Isaiah trying to separate them long enough to trade blows with one before the other sundancer intervened. It was slow going and more frustrating than he'd imagined, especially once the woman caught on and changed tactics. Rather than try a pincer movement, she orbited the bigger man like a protective moon.

His chest burned, but his fists barely did. Their flames sputtered and flickered like starving campfires. He was losing and he knew it. Panic nipped at the edge of his mind, thoughts of losing here, of letting his two siblings down, of trapping the three of them here in a foreign country. Akkreja prided itself on communal living; a destitute neighbor shamed the whole community.

But Yol-Jhuuba was nothing like that. Here, currency was power; everyone seemed eager to separate him from all of his. The arena’s proprietor had seemingly come up with new exorbitant fees on the spot before allowing Isaiah to even sign up for a bout. It was clear that the wealthy patrons and sponsors held real power here, not the fighters themselves. The idea scared him more than his opponents. They’d been almost transparent about their preference for penniless fighters they could exploit for years at a time. If he wanted to avoid that fate, he had one choice:

Win.

But the truth was that he was desperate. He’d had to borrow from his latest paramour, a cute, soft-spoken man who worked as a cook, to scrounge up the coins to bet on himself after exhausting his own funds paying the entrance fees. That same desperation haunted him when Isaiah overextended himself during one of these skirmishes, and he was frustrated with himself even before the club found his chest and sent him sprawling.

He clutched his chest, feeling the dent in the metal plate on his tunic. His breaths were ragged and slow, and he fought to gather his focus and his resolve.

Bravery was strength. Courage was necessary. Desperation was both a close relative and a lethal weakness.

He squeezed his eyes shut, blinking away pain and daze beneath a cheering crowd. His opponents' voices sounded distant, and he struggled to see them clearly or sit up straight. But one phrase pierced his fog.

“No no, I'll finish him. Give the crowd a show. 'Sides, I wanna show this welp that he ain't the only one can make flames, yeah?”

They were talking about him. How to embarrass him. He was a target. A prized trophy. The very idea burned in his chest, blood hot beneath his skin. He was insulted. Irate. Heated.

And that was enough.

Isaiah Wylde pushed himself up to one knee, chest heaving with the effort. Lana met his desperate gaze and cackled, but where was the big man? Her eyes flicked up, and Isaiah caught sight of the man falling toward him like a rockslide. A thin sheet of shimmering heat partially obscured Reyjan's form and gave him the distinct appearance of a meteor falling from the sky.

And that was when Isaiah knew he'd well and truly won.

The eldest of the Wylde children surged to his feet, legs braced and palms outstretched above his head.

“Falling Sky!” The heavyset man announced, wicked glee twisting his visage.

“And there’s Reyjan Greathammer’s Falling Sky!” The faceless announcer bellowed to the delight of the audience. “Incoming!”

But no decisive thud followed. Instead Reyjan landed awkwardly, and his body sagged, arms and legs limp.

“H-howwww?” He demanded, weakened by his own collision with the youthful brawler.

Isaiah Wylde stood to his full height now, gripping the southern warrior by his chest and leg. Reyjan's strength returned a moment later, and he flailed and kicked, desperate to plant his broad feet upon the safety of the ground once again. But his opponent had other ideas. Isaiah tossed the man, groaning with the mighty effort. The warrior didn't go far into the air: maybe a leg's length above Isaiah's head. But that was time enough for Isaiah to whirl around and catch the man flush in the face with a single punch strong enough to change the falling behemoth's trajectory.

Of all the techniques initiates to the Wylde School had to learn before earning the title of “disciple,” the Wylde Draw was the most critical. The ability to pull soul from nearby sources, to steal the magicks from any source that matched your own elemental affinity, was a closely guarded secret. IT was also the source of much of the success its students had enjoyed. Today, Isaiah had drawn the flames from the man's own flourish to empower himself. The sheet of shimmer heat as the heavyset gladiator fell onto him was just enough to fuel the young brawler's second wind.

Now Isaiah was going to demonstrate the cost of the older man's carelessness.

The uppercut almost spun the man fully onto his back. Instead, his heels caught the loosely packed dirt just enough to trip the man into a pratfall; this was an opportunity the brawny youth wouldn't pass up.

The dark skinned sunland native caught hold of Reyjan's, wrapped hand firmly clutching the fur collar of his armor. The brawny met the newcomer's gaze, beholding the untempered joy illuminating his face.

“Wylde.” Was all he heard before Isaiah's other fist, wrapped and flaming like a soldier's torch, crashed into his face, again and again. The pain was intense: his eyes watered with the second blow, and he flailed, struggling to lift his club or stand or shake the wild youth free. He wavered, the world beginning to flash and spin around him. But a new thought pierced the fog clouding the veteran fighter’s mind.

Where the hell was Lana?

The third member of their clash finally shook herself free of the malaise that had claimed her. Watching Reyjan's finisher turned so completely against him beggared belief; from her angle the upstart newcomer had stolen Reyjan's heat from him in the blink of an eye, thrown the massive man to the ground, and begun pummeling him in the span of a few breaths. None of it made sense. But she could understand it later, once they'd well and truly won a match that had been well in hand a few moments before.

The other veteran fighter tightened her grip on her spear and sprinted toward the pair. From this angle she and the brawny Akkreja pugilist could see each other clearly. She aimed for his head, spear at the ready. But she didn't arrive in time. The young brawler noticed her approach and changed his, no longer pummeling her senseless and ailing partner.

Instead the muscular youth gripped Reyjan's armor with both hands and whirled toward her. Isaiah roared as he spun all the way around. Reyjan's weary legs traced a sloppy circle in the dirt before her partner flew toward her. Lana’s gray widened; Reyjan's stomach thudded against the edge of her spear before she had time to fully divert the weapon and the pair of colosseum favorites collapsed in a heap near the arena's ringed walls. Reyjan gurgled something, likely suffering a concussion, but worse yet was his position. Piled together and sprawled out on the muddy arena floor, they'd both be counted out unless one one of them stood.

She cursed the man for being so big, so heavy, as she crawled out from beneath him. The effort winded her as much as their sudden impact and subsequent collapse had injured her. But she beat the count, if only barely. The crowd gasped as she stood with scarcely more than a second to spare, cheering the new development. Across from her, a jubilant young man stopped pumping his fists and bellowing long enough to mock her.

“Akkra's rays, I told you two you were bait for a sunwolf. Kindling for flames.” His dark red eyes caught the lights of the arena and seemed to glow. “I am Isaiah godsdammed Wylde and I'm the one. I'm him. Speaker of Summer's Advance. Burning like a wildfire. Shining like the morning sun and-”

“Shut it, you ashborn welp.”

His tunic had ripped in several places and his tattered wraps had both begun to come loose, but he still found enough strength to beckon her toward him. Bruises and cuts decorated his face and arms, and there was more than a little dirt trapped in his tightly coiled hair that sat on top of his head like sheep’s wool set ablaze.

Lana spat blood and saliva and hefted her spear. She might be tired and ailing, but she had more than enough soul left to teach this hotblooded pup his place in the pecking order of the Moghad Colosseum.

The two wounded warriors met in the center of the arena for a third and final duel. No assistance. No teammate. No quarter. Only strength against strength. Soul against soul.

Lana got the better of their initial exchanges. The boy might be big and strong, but his creeping exhaustion made him easier to keep at bay, easier to lead into sharp stabs and the scraps of floating spellcraft that were all she could muster. His punches summoned flames that leapt off his fists, but they, like him, lacked their earlier speed or ferocity. She jabbed at him and he retreated, then forced him to back away a second time.

She'd learned his rhythm and habits; beneath his bluster and explosive power he was just another impetuous youth. Impatient and braying like an ass. He was no true threat. She realized then that he'd only thrown punches throughout their entire contest, never even attempting a kick, knee, or elbow. He was already fighting barehanded, a style she'd come to associate with a specific kind of Akkreja madness and bravado. But to not even use all of the meager tools he did have?

But when whirled her polearm into a sweeping strike to punish another of the brawler's advances. This clash of soul against soul felt different. He'd hardened his soul as he approached, weathering her blow while he prepared his own. The blow knocked her arm into her face and sent a sheet of dirty sweat flying off her tired face. She blinked away the pain but could fully slide out of the way of his next punch. His fist bounced off her face twice in quick succession, snapping her head back with each rapid blow.

She needed to reestablish the distance that was her shield and armor, but he matched her step for step, harassing her with punches too fast to fully duck, even if they were too light to fully topple her. But when she lifted her weapon to menace him he ducked and dug a punch below her ribs that reminded her of the flavors of the breakfast she'd enjoyed that morning. She gasped, confused, insulted, and took a shaky step backwards.

Isaiah could have finished this with his eyes closed. As far as he was concerned, the woman had never truly caught onto his feints or steps or timing. Theirs was a sundance and he'd always had another dance move or rhythm to demonstrate. When she staggered back, he finally gave her the space she'd so clearly wanted. Just in time to gather all his remaining flames into his cocked back hand.

The audience took a collective gasp the moment before the punch collided with its intended target. This was no uppercut; instead he'd punched straight and true, catching her cheek and turning her head with the force of the blow. Her body followed reluctantly and the woman from Rabanastre collapsed without a word, her stubborn frame taking a few drunken steps before she sank and finally capsized, laying there on the barren dirt at the center of the arena. The count was as academic as it was mandatory: the screaming audience counted along with the announcer as small flames danced along her skin.

Isaiah threw his fists into the air and roared like he'd won the finale at a sundance festival. It didn’t matter that this was a fight in the middle of a small event. He'd triumphed. Against two opponents, and while saddled with a woman who resembled nothing so much as a sandbag. He'd done it.

He folded forward as soon as the count finished, hands tugging on the hem of his short trousers. His breaths came hot and ragged as if irate at having to leave his heaving chest. His mother at the Wylde School would have berated him for his poor stamina, even as she celebrated his victory with him. But she was gone, her ashes and spirit returned to the Sun spirit. She'd never speak her story again. And so he had a duty to carry on the Wylde School, even if he was the only disciple still walking the continent. It could not end with him. Not until he'd exposed Solomon of Ilkai and his newfound power that was as mysterious as it was deadly. He'd keep his siblings safe and find justice in his homeland. He was going to reestablish the school he'd lost and honor the memory of his mother, his myriad teachers, and...

He hadn't even noticed that he'd collapsed until a hand grabbed his shoulder. His own blood and sweat and spit pooled beneath him, and he looked up to find several arena staff carrying his still-unconscious opponents away. Good. He'd made a successful first appreciation. The face above him wavered on the edge of his vision, but he recognized it all the same.

“Nyla?”

“Hmm? I don't know who that is. I'm Janae Oneta, and you're in need of a lighthouse.”

He blinked away. She was not the pretty, fierce eyed woman who'd come to the Wylde School on the orders of her family. The one who'd been a lover and a peer to him. But this woman was Akkreja too, as clear as her pretty, coiled, ash gray hair and deep red eyes. Features they shared. But it was her diction that'd given her away to the woozy Wylde disciple. ‘Lighthouse’ was a sunlander term, owing to the massive, glowing balls of incandescent spellcraft that provided the healing magicks each lighthouse offered. The term had fallen out of favor among the people of Yol-Jhuuba and never caught on elsewhere.”

She was one of his people.

But so were the members of the Dawn Tradition, the endeavor trying to kill him and every Wylde who'd seen the dark, forbidden magick that ended their school.

Isaiah briefly wondered if he'd ever wake up again before exhaustion claimed him. He drifted to sleep in Janae's arms, head nestled against her squishy, bountiful chest.

#WyldeBlueWander #WBW #Sieres #Fiction #MartialArts #Fight #Action #Magic

The midgame in FrogComPos Band is characterized mainly by trying to cover your resistances while still doing enough damage to be able to kill monsters. You'll also want to pick up as much speed as possible. But the main thing you'll be doing is exploring. While in town, go ahead and hit that < key and take a good long look at the wider world around you.

You'll notice other towns, dungeons and paths between cities. For now, try and stay on the path to reduce the chances of getting ambushed by random monsters. It might not be much more than annoying now, but later on in different zones the enemies can quickly ramp up in difficulty. For now, head to Anambar, the city in the northwest, and down to the troll / orc caves just southeast of it.

If you get stuck there, try some of the other dungeons around your level. Try to pick up useful detection staffs and rods, especially detect monster and detect traps. Keep potions of cure critical wounds on you at all times, just like teleport scrolls. Do the various quests found in different towns throughout the world. Be aware that these quests are usually quite a bit harder than the danger level indicates, especially the Cloning Pits quest.

Once you've got the cash flow, you can teleport between towns you've visited by using the option in the inns. This can be helpful when you're flush on dosh and would like to upgrade some equipment. Take a shopping trip to every city’s black market and you might find a handy ring or stat potion. Perhaps a staff of Enlightenment to map the dungeon for you? As you level up, the black market will offer better and better quality items to purchase.

You'll be towards the back end of the midgame when you're going through different dungeons, hunting dragons and other bigger monsters for their tasty item drops. Your resists will start to look good; you'll have something close to double coverage of your base resists and decent single coverage of some of the high resists. You’ll start swapping different sets of equipment in to try and get better combinations that will let you do more damage or have better resists. You’ll start thinking about diving down Angband to finish off the final bosses of the game.

The Endgame

I can’t give too much advice on the endgame, having only gotten there a handful of times myself, but in general, be a coward. Detect everything as thoroughly as you can before ever entering a room. Kill every weak enemy you can for exp and use every cheesy strategy you can come up with. Dig holes in walls to draw out powerful monsters and fight them one on one. If you’re an archer, use scrolls of phase door to bounce around once a monster gets into melee range with you. Use every advantage at your disposal, because once you’re in Angband facing down monsters that breathe multiple elements simultaneously, can stop time, and summon enemies that then summon more enemies, you’ll wish you had run practiced running away earlier.

In general, keep more items in your inventory than you think you'll need. When you have more than 300 HP, start carrying around potions of Healing for emergencies. Speaking of Healing and Healing potions, you'll want to hoard all you can of these to prepare for the final fight. Use them if you need to, it's stupid to die with an inventory full of healing potions, but keep as many as you can for later.

Check out the Angband ladder for FrogComPosBand https://angband.live/ladder/ladder-browse.php?v=FrogComposband&r=&c=&n=&e=&s=0, especially other characters of your class. Read spoilers on monster levels, spells, anything you can find.

Advice for quests found in towns: https://pastebin.com/ZLZZz45j

Demigod mutations: https://pastebin.com/hTi24Nky

Arena rewards and various other small spoilers: http://nikheizen.github.io/pages/rewards.html

Dungeons, dungeon guardians and quests: https://pastebin.com/AVsp31k8

One last bit of advice, maybe try the Munchkin personality if you get stuck in a rut. It gives huge boosts to your stats, makes it easier to level up, and starts you with a million gold. You can't really get credit for beating the game using this mode, but it is great for trying new character combos and learning how places you've never been work. It's worth checking out at least once, especially if you're learning the game.

#FrogComPosBand

i bought a box set of three films directed by Takeshi Kitano (aka “Beat” Takeshi) “Violent Cop”, “Boiling Point” and “Sonatine“

Kitano is very famous in Japan. for most of the 1980s he was known as a stand-up comedian and tv host before moving into film directing and acting. in 1989 he was set to star in “Violent Cop” with Kinji Fukasaku directing, however the scheduling didn't work out due to Kitano's tv commitments and Fukasaku dropped out of the project, leaving the film without a director. someone suggested to Kitano that he direct the film himself and that's what ended up happening

i watched Violent Cop last weekend expecting great things, and it certainly is a film about a violent cop. Kitano stars as Azuma, a police detective with a habit of using excessive force when dealing with criminals. Azuma is assigned to investigate the murder of a drug dealer and the film follows the investigation, and Azuma's life when he is off the clock. the plot is a fairly standard crime film along the lines of something like Dirty Harry but what makes it interesting is Kitano's direction. i mentioned Kinji Fukasaku was set to direct, and if you have read my earlier posts you'll know what i think of his yakuza movies like Battles Without Honour and Humanity, there is so much energy in them, particularly the action sequences, with the camera violently shaking all over the place. you can practically feel the energy crackling through the screen like a jolt of electricity

well, with Violent Cop it's like Kitano decided to do the exact opposite of what Fukasaku would've done. the camera hardly moves, and i don't even know if you could call the performances acting. there is virtually no emotion at all in the entire film, the actors deliver their lines in long drawn out scenes with no camera movement, long pauses, and sudden outbursts of extreme violence. it gives the film a very nihilistic tone, but it feels completely lifeless and when it finished i just kinda sat there feeling nothing at all about what i had just seen

i can kinda see what he was going for but it just didn't work for me. i didn't care about anything that happened. there's even a pretty nasty rape scene involving Azuma's disabled sister but it's filmed in such an emotionless dispassionate way that i sat staring blankly at the tv

weird as fuck

Boiling Point is Kitano's second film, about a hapless duo of lowlifes who work at a petrol station. their boss is beaten up by a local yakuza and they go on a trip to Okinawa in order to buy a gun and get revenge

filmed in exactly the same style as Violent Cop with all the same problems, lack of emotion, and nihilistic style. i enjoyed it a little more as the characters are more fleshed out and interesting, and there are a few moments of black humour

Sonatine is the final film in the set, and Kitano's fourth as director (his third, A Scene at the Sea is not included here) the plot follows a yakuza gang led by Kitano who are sent to Okinawa by their boss to help resolve a gang war

the plot reminds me of Fukasaku's yakuza movies, and is full of the same allegiances, betrayals, and violent revenge that characterised them, and it's definitely the most interesting film of the three. but again i just found it dispassionate, emotionless, and nihilistic due to the way it was shot

here's an example of an “action” scene from the film, to give you an idea of what i mean

Sonatine bar shootout

contrast it with this from Fukasaku

Battles Without Honor And Humanity Shuji Yano death scene

so yeah, Takeshi Kitano. definitely a unique director, but his style just doesn't work for me. like the characters in his films i just sit there expressionless while events unfold on the screen in front of me, feeling nothing. and when it's over i slowly walk over to my tv, take the disc out of my player, and put it back on the shelf

When I got my account banned from the Mastodon server hosting it earlier this year¹ I had motherfucking feelings. I was confident ² that I hadn't violated the spirit or the law of the server's rules. Being banned for a first offense felt particularly egregious.

Per the server, I had the chance to make a single appeal within 30 days, and I planned to use it to express the following sentiment. I knew that I was never gonna get my old account back, (partially, if not primarily because) I never had any intention of apologizing.

I'm not contrite now³, was even less so then, and dishonesty has always fit me poorly. If I'd already been escorted across the bridge, why not burn that motherfucker?

But I decided to sit on it. To resist my first impulse. “Tomorrow's me deserves a vote on this decision” I told myself. I also told myself I'd return to the effort. To craft a more useful, more well considered response. At least one more confident and less petty.

But something strange happened.

The deadline to send that “appeal” passed this week. I didn't send one. My feelings are much smaller, much more subdued. Less “fuck that shit” and more... “hmm... I have a chance to write like.... something. I like writing. I should write something in that text box.”

It was, after all, my first time getting formally banned from any online service ever in my 20 years online. Like a first tattoo or a first broken bone.

That indecision about what to write soon faded into ambivalence and then apathy. What was there to feel strongly about, let alone mad about? I landed on a cool server. I reconnected with the people I needed and made some exciting new friends too.

We good over here. Thumbs up and shit.

No petty malice. No defiant vitriol. No antipathy. Just a desire to look ahead, not behind.

As the saying goes, “You know what that is? Growth.”

Rather than utilize my last chance to say anything to that server or its mods, and rather than workshop some 'woulda been, coulda been”-ass statement, I'll let this post be my memorial for my old, first account.

Cherished. Taken. Gone. Eventually forgotten.

I'm more confident in embodying all the #tags that make up my identity. And expressing every sentiment that doesn't fit in my brain. Still excited about carving a lil niche here on the fediverse. More excited to be NaClKnight. Known? Loved? Doesn't matter. I'm warm, and bright, and loud. Like a campfire. Grab a seat and stay a while.

I am not going to always have correct or benevolent opinions. I'll get it wrong sometimes. I'll keep trying though, and I certainly don't imagine that I'm some objectively good person. I'm just a poster trying to orient his actions and words toward his ethics, and one trying to reevaluate what those morals and ethics are.

But that's not why I'm here.

I'm here to commence the ceremonies and pour one out for my old account.

Here's to the friends I made there; the ones I kept and the ones I didn't.

Here's to learning how to use Mastodon one post at a time. To muting and blocking and posting like a motherfucker.

Whatever you drink, grab it. With that eulogy completed and its moment of silence behind us, I can move onto more pleasant things.

Raise a toast to a new Mastodon account on a different server and everything it represents. A new direction and a new path. Walking alongside new faces and familiar ones.

May it surpass its predecessor in all facets. More friends. More longevity. More memories. More smiles. More stubborn honesty.

More Chivalrous Sodium. More Saline Solutions.

Here's to more NaClKnight.

¹ for posting clothed, suggestive, pinup photos of curvy models from Twitter and saying I found them attractive. I didn't even get banned for something egregious or hostile or funny. ² still am. Make no mistake ³ still aren't. Fuck that shit

#NonFiction #Fediverse

we used to sleep here in mucor under the moon until floor fell through

#poetry

So how do you actually play FrogComPosBand, and more importantly how do you win?

First off, you have some options in playing the game. I highly suggest you download the precompiled binaries from the author's GitHub. You can also compile directly from the source code, but unless you know exactly what this means and what it entails, don't do this. You can also play online through your browser via angband.live.

Visually, you have options too. You can try to use the graphical tiles option, but I've found that most unique enemies are not rendered correctly and end up basically invisible using this method. I therefore suggest going native and playing in good ‘ol ASCII mode. That way you get proper representation of your monsters and you can pack a lot of info on your main screen to boot.

Speaking of screens, since these types of games date back to the days of the terminal, you have some additional options that can make your life easier. You can freely resize your main window to show as much of the game as your resolution can handle, but you can also have additional windows that serve specific functions. In game, press the equals key (=) to go into that menu, by which I mean hold shift and press the + key at the same time. Yes, the game differentiates between lower case and upper case letters and the same goes for all the other keys on the keyboard. There are a lot of things you can do in this game, and there is a unique input for each one.

I like to have a window showing my inventory, one with my equipment, one showing the message log in case I missed something important and a final window showing the visible enemies in the area. This is mainly because the game is designed to fuck with you and occasionally throws things your way like the space monster, which is represented on screen by a blank space. Or the creeping coins, represented by a dollar sign that looks exactly like piles of treasure but these attack and poison you. Being able to tell foe from dungeon feature will save your life more than once.

The Early Game

If it's your first time playing, you'll have to create a character and I've already run through the ridiculous amount of options there. But for a first-timer I'll suggest a Mercury Demigod Warrior. Warriors are a pretty solid class, easy gameplay consisting of hitting monsters with the biggest weapon you can muster and the Mercury demigod heritage gives you some speed on top of all of that.

Once you actually pop into existence in the starting town of Outpost, you'll need to control your character. You move by using the number pad keys. You attack in melee by going up to a monster and ‘bump’ attacking them (moving into them), trading blows each turn until one of you backs off or dies.

There's also a bevy of shops and places to go in town, so I'll do a quick overview of those. Armor, weapon, potion, magic items and booksellers are in every town, as are a food and light source vendor, and a temple shop that sells healing potions among other things. Finally, there's the black market where you can buy rare and expensive items.

For your first purchases I recommend buying a brass lantern and a flask of oil to fill it, since that gives you an extra square radius of light compared to the torches you probably started with. You should also probably buy a few pieces of basic armor from the armor shop. This should improve your initial survivability.

There's also an inn and mayor’s office where you can accept quests. Quests are optional, usually single level challenges that come with a reward upon completion. The first two available in Outpost are the Thieves’ Hideout and the Trouble at Home quests. Do the Trouble at Home one from the inn first, as it's the easiest. Once you go down the stairs that have appeared in town (you have to enter > to go down the stairs, yes I mean shift plus period) you'll be faced with killing a few mean mercenaries. The good thing is that they don't come after you until you attack them. If you have a sling or other distance weapon, fire it to aggro one to you and get a free hit or two along the way. Get used to maximizing every advantage you can against the monsters, they definitely don't fight fair. You'll probably have to finish off the merc in melee, which will knock you down a few HP. Rest up between fights (either hit the 5 key a bunch of times or R to specify how long) and kill all the happy singing drunks that stumble about, there's no downside and they sometimes drop money. Finish off all the rest of the mercs and feel free to explode a bit before you take the stairs back up. There are a few potions and rations in the back you can nab to sell in town to get you a bit of extra gold. Sell all the potions, they aren't that useful. Keep the rations for when you get hungry later. Don't forget to get your reward from the inn when you're done.

The Thieves’ Hideout is a little tougher, you'll probably want to be level 3 before attempting it. What I like to do to make this leveling process a bit faster is to go on the stairs to the dungeon just outside of town, go down to see if there's anything interesting just within that first room and go directly up if not. People on forums and messageboards call this stairscumming and it's fairly useful throughout the game. Kill a few low level enemies, grab a few items to sell, level up and buy a ranged weapon if you don't have one and maybe better armor. Go down into the den once you're ready to take on the quest.

Don't move once you're down the stairs, you are surrounded by traps except for in one direction. Which direction you won't know immediately. The bad guys will start coming to you, so when you see them start shooting them with arrows or pebbles or whatever. They will probably hit you and steal a little gold then teleport away. This is irritating, but actually to your advantage right now. When they run up again you can shoot them a few more times until you wear them down and (hopefully) kill them all. But still, don't move. Hit the s key to search around you until you locate the traps. You can try to disarm them (D), but it might be easier to go around. There are several more traps throughout the level so search a bit before you step. Gather up the treasures remaining and head back up. Get your reward, probably a magic weapon, from the mayor and you're well on your way into the early game.

With the cash you get from that, it's time to buy some things that will save your life. First, healing potions. Go to the temple shop and buy 5-10 of the largest healing potions you can afford. Go to the potion / scroll shop and buy 5-10 scrolls of Teleportation. Use these liberally throughout your game! It may feel cowardly to run away, but it only takes one fatal mistake to end your entire run. Stay safe and live longer. They put that low HP warning in the game for a reason.

With those quests under your belt, you can start diving into the early dungeon right outside of town. Dive a few levels in, always resting up between combats, until the monsters start to feel hard. Once your inventory fills up with items, head back up to town to sell and clear up space.

This is a good time to tell you about item identification. As you probably noticed with the potions, you don't always know what an item can do upon first encountering it. You can drink a potion to identify it, but this can be a bad idea if it turns out to be a potion of Poison or Death. If you hold onto weapons for a while in your inventory, you will eventually get a feeling about the quality of the item. The game will pop up a message about this and the item will say something like {good} or {excellent} in your inventory. The good or excellent ones are magic, you can read a scroll of Identify on them to figure out their exact stats. Same goes for potions, but very early on that might be cost prohibitive so you can just sell one in a stack to find out what they all are. Same goes for stacks of ammunition. To get around buying all those individual identify scrolls, I like to make my next goal in the early game to get enough cash to buy a staff of identify, usually sold by the magic item shop in town. They go for 2-3k but recharge themselves for free, so save up.

Once your item identification needs are met, you've probably leveled up once or twice and are tired of going up and down all those stairs. Let me introduce you to the Scroll of Word of Recall. Reading it in town takes you to the lowest level of whatever dungeon you've visited. Reading it in the dungeon brings you back to the most recent town you were in. So helpful. This will be your main mode of transfer range back and forth throughout the game. Keep an extra one in your inventory in case your last one gets burned up.

Now that you've got easy access to the dungeon, you can resume diving to try and get down to the bottom of the Warrens and kill Mugash the Kobold Lord. He doesn't have any special powers, but he does hit hard and have a whole group of other kobolds along with him. Don't let them surround you, fight them one at a time and retreat and heal if you take too much of a beating. Once you take him down you'll probably want to use the stat point you get to up your strength. That lets you hit harder and carry more stuff in your inventory before you get overloaded and start to lose points of speed (always a bad thing).

Once you kill Mugash at the bottom of the dungeon you can continue your adventuring exploits in the Hideout dungeon to the southwest. It starts at level 9 and has more human-type enemies which results in much better drops. You will probably see your first excellent items down here and if you're lucky an artifact or two. There are also some heavy unique monsters that show up here, so beware.

One of the biggest pitfalls I've succumbed to again and again in this dungeon is lack of confusion resistance. One particular unique, the Variant Maintainer, causes confusion on hit but more irritatingly also summons software bugs that also confuse on hit and explosively multiply. There are also quiver slots that shoot arrows that confuse on hit, so without confusion resistance you'll be stuck with no means of escape. Keep an eye out for rings with confusion resistance while shopping throughout your early game playthrough.

Once you've conquered your second dungeon, you begin to enter the midgame.

#FrogComPosBand

Being a roguelike that has been passed around like the proverbial town bicycle, the mechanics of FrogComPosBand are an agglutination of lots of people's ideas of what might be fun over an extended period of time. Needless to say, they're complicated.

Regardless of your character choice, you'll have the same basic stat categories: strength, intelligence, wisdom, dexterity, constitution and charisma. The game again shows it's D&D influence here by adopting the 3rd edition style of stat progression. In that system, stats start at zero and go up to 18, which is considered peak human ability. Above that, stat increases are incremented by the 18/10 notation, meaning that for every 10 after the slash in the total is basically an extra point in that stat.

Attributes can be increased by equipment, temporary buffs, rare and expensive potions, by hitting level up milestones, or by defeating guardians of different dungeons throughout the world.

Backing up a bit, Nethack and older games started you out in the dungeon and had towns where you could buy and sell equipment randomly found throughout. Somewhere along the line, people added an overworld and static towns that you would teleport to back and forth from the dungeon. Like other variants, FrogComPosBand has an overworld with multiple dungeons as well as multiple towns to buy, sell and complete quests in.

One of the other core systems of the game is the resists system. As you might expect, monsters can cast spells and breathe various elements to try and kill you. This damage can be mitigated somewhat by having resistance to that element.

Resists can come intrinsically; if you're playing as a red dragon it wouldn't make sense to be vulnerable to fire. But the majority of your resists will come from equipment.

Press C (by which I mean shift+c, it has to be a capital C) to see your character page. Hit page down and page up to scroll through it quickly. Here you can see what your current resists are along with what equipment, if any, is affecting them. There is tons of information on this screen, read through it all at your convenience.

As you might expect from a family of games that have been forked and maintained for more than 30 years, there are more than your basic assortment of elements. Acid, electricity, fire and cold are your basic resistances, but by no means are they the end of the story. Poison, light and dark attacks also exist but are less common than the basics. Then you get into the more exotic, or ‘high’ resists: confusion, sound, shards, nether, nexus, chaos, disenchantment and time.

Interestingly, each element, base and high, has their own special effect if you get hit with it without any resistance. Acid degrades your armor, reducing your overall AC and making you easier to hit. Electricity can destroy jewelry in your inventory, fire can burn scrolls and books, and cold can shatter potions you are holding.

Poison starts a counter that slowly decrements, causing damage each turn until it expires or is cured. Light and dark can blind you and also change the lighting status of the dungeon.

Confusion is a status effect that causes you to move randomly and prevents you from using certain magic and items. Sound can stun you, reducing your ability to hit monsters and cast magic. Shards cause cuts, a more severe status that behaves similarly to poison. Nether is used by most undead enemies and reduces your maximum HP, stats, experience and overall level. Nexus can teleport you, polymorph you or permanently scramble your stats which can be devastating to the unprepared. Chaos has several random effects including extra damage, stat loss and healing the monster that hit you. Disenchantment permanently reduces the bonuses your equipment provides you. Time is the rarest element found in the game, only used by a handful of monsters, resistance provided only by a small number of items. Getting hit by it can ‘turn the clock back’ and reduce your stats, experience, and level.

Having a resistance to an element reduces both the damage you take and the likelihood of receiving a negative effect like potions shattering by like 90%. Having double resistance to an element reduces damage further and lowers the chance of negative effects by like 99%. When you get breathed on by a Great Wyrm of Perplexity, you're going to want all the confusion resistance you can get.

Along with all those bad things, there are several other status effects that can cause you trouble. You can be afraid, hallucinating, paralyzed, have your life drained, be slowed down, be hit by invisible enemies, afflicted by hunger, have your equipment cursed, contract an illness, get ancient blood curses cast on you, or even be crushed by earthquakes. All of these have various ways of being mitigated but the unwary can have their run cut short by any one of them.

Aside from stats and resists, there is another very important consideration for the aspiring adventurer: speed. Most roguelikes run on the basis of turns, i.e. you act and the monsters simultaneously get to act. But if you have a greater speed than the monsters you will get to act more frequently and vice versa. Underneath this system in FrogComPosBand is the energy system. In general, you get a certain somewhat randomized amount of energy each turn and the higher your speed the more energy you get. If you have above a certain threshold, you get to act. Slowed enemies take longer to cross that threshold and therefore get fewer turns. So the more speed you have, the better.

Outside of player characteristics, you've also got a rather large world to explore. Dungeons exist outside the towns with randomly generated layouts, each one with its own general theme. Some feature narrow twisty passages between rooms, some have rooms with open areas between. Some have forests that block line of sight between you and the monsters. Some have constant elemental effects that can damage you. Certain dungeons have families of monsters found within, like dragons found high in the mountains or knights in castles.

Dungeons have a difficulty rating indicated by their depth. In old versions of Angband they used feet notation, i.e. 3750’ deep, which is still referenced in some odd places in FrogComPosBand like the scrolls of Rumor that give random, occasionally helpful advice. In modern versions they use ascending level depth, meaning the higher the dungeon level, the harder the difficulty.

The overall goal of the game is to descend to the 99th level of the dungeon Angband, kill Oberon the guardian to be able to go to level 100 and then kill the Serpent of Chaos therein. Making this extra difficult is the quirk of the Angband dungeon to feature out of depth monsters. As you descend levels, monsters are generated to populate the dungeon. But in Angband, the game pulls harder monsters from its repertoire than any other dungeon in the game.

The other quirk in Angband is that certain levels are guarded by what's called a unique enemy. Unique enemies have their own specific name, generally have higher HP and do more damage than their normal versions and have special powers not present in their more common versions. Early on, you might encounter an orc boss that is resistant to confusion and can summon other orcs to his aide. Later on, uniques can get mountains of HP, breathe exotic elements on you, teleport away when their HP gets low or cast devastating spells on a regular basis. The fun really comes when the game has selected an especially nasty guardian for that level and until you kill them the stairs to the next level won't appear.

The flip side is that uniques drop better items than any other enemy type in the game. Items in FrogComPosBand come in a ridiculous variety. There are daggers, short swords, long swords, two-handed swords, rune swords, diamond edges, and blades of chaos. There are bo staffs, glaives, hatchets, scimitars, latajangs, sticks and fishing poles. There are slings, bows, crossbows and guns. There are dozens of different types of body armor, boots, gloves, shields and helmets. There are light sources like lanterns, jewelry, and crowns. There are also consumable items like potions and scrolls. There are books to cast magic from. There are magic wands, rods and staves that produce spell effects.

Equippable items come in four varieties. Normal, magic, highly magic (or ‘ego’ items), and artifacts. Magic items generally have a bonus to hit and damage or armor. Ego items come with a bouquet of enhancements like resists or extra effects on hit. Artifact items have all of the previous effects and usually one or two other things you can't really get anywhere else. By the end of the game, you will be wearing primarily artifacts. You want artifacts, you need artifacts.

Enemies can drop any kind of item at any level. There are low level unique bosses that can drop low level unique items. The deeper you go into the dungeon the better the quality of the items that drop from monsters and that can be simply found on the ground.

One important exception to this are vaults. Vaults are special areas that can be generated in any dungeon that contain treasures and monsters better and harder than you would normally find at that level. This ups the risk/reward calculation you're constantly doing while playing the game. And greed has been many a character’s fatal downfall.

#FrogComPosBand

After my win in ToME 2.3.4 I tried a few different roguelikes. I bounced off Brogue, as it was too distantly related to the style of game I knew so well. I ended up playing and eventually winning Tales of Maj’Eyal with a Dwarven Bulwark, even though the systems there were still fairly distinct from Angband.

I bought Caves of Qud, which is an amazing game, albeit very far removed from Angband. It pulls off its far far future setting much better than any other game I've ever played. Still haven't won that one, though.

Which brings me back to FrogComPosBand. I was looking for a game I could play during my commute with my dinky, graphic-card-less laptop. I searched around for what the new hotness in roguelikes was at the time and found this guy.

FrogComPosBand is what happens when decades of work on different variants of the same game get mashed together. One of the big ‘selling’ points of this game over other variants is it's kitchen sink approach to game design. It contains the vague Tolkien theming of Angband, the Amber references of Zangband, the Cthulhu monsters along with dozens of other sources of influence from other videogames like Doom to much farther out references to books and anime.

It also has dozens and dozens of different classes to play. From your standard fighter to mages of many different stripes to rogues. But there's also real oddballs like the mirror master and magic eater classes. Playable monster races are also well represented by orcs, skeletons, mummies with special curse mechanics, vampires, and liches. Again there are odder choices like boits and kutars along with half-titans and klackons.

But my favorite addition to the player pantheon are the monsters that have no distinct class, the ones that radically transform how you play the game. For comparison, your standard warrior can equip things you would expect: swords, shields, magic rings and the like. But you can also play as a hydra which starts with two heads and able to equip a helmet on each one. As you level up you gain more heads, more attacks, and more head equipment slots. Or you could play a jelly which starts with only four equipment slots but is able to equip any type of item in them without restrictions.

Or you could be a straight-up dragon with a powerful breath weapon and claw and tail attacks. They can equip tons of rings, but have limited slots for other equipment. Dragons come in many different elemental flavors as you might imagine but are also able to specialize in one of several areas. They can choose to augment their breath weapon, making it even more devastating. They can specialize in melee attacks, giving them an even greater edge in up-close combat. They can also become masters of different forms of magic, from teleportation to summoning.

But my favorite monster race is the lowly filthy rag. Unable to equip anything and unable to attack aside from a basic punch, you gain power by absorbing other sets of armor, gradually getting better armor class, resistances and other core attributes. It starts out weak but can be overwhelming if you survive into the endgame.

And that's not even the only monster type with that mechanic! There are death swords that do the same for melee weapons. And the tricky ring monsters that ensnare wearers and absorb the essences of other jewelry.

And all that is just the tip of the iceberg in character creation!

#FrogComPosBand

today was a public holiday here in the UK and i had the day off work. it's the end of the month and i have no money left so the plan for today was to sit around at home, do a couple of chores around the house, have some dinner, and then watch a load of films

mission accomplished!

i ended up marathoning the last three films in the Battles Without Honour and Humanity series, which will come as a shock to you i'm sure. i said writing this blog would give me an excuse to watch them all again. i honestly don't think i've ever been as into a series of films as i am these, like i mentioned in an earlier post they're just so dense, and i really feel like i'm learning lots of things while watching them; language, history, culture, all of it very alien to someone who grew up half a world away

the third and fourth films; Proxy War and Police Tactics are the two films in the series that are the most closely linked together, Police Tactics follows directly on from the events in Proxy War, and tells how an all-out gang war erupted in Hiroshima between rival yakuza factions in 1963, and the subsequent crackdown from the authorities. the plot gets very heavy in these two, when i talked about the first film i mentioned that it can be hard to follow in places, and that is magnified here as there is so much going on, it all follows the familiar pattern of alliances, betrayals, and violent revenge, but i did find it a lot easier to keep track of who everyone was the second time round

it's funny, you'll spot an actor and be like “oh i recognise him he's so and so from the first film” but then you remember that the character he played two films ago was brutally murdered and that same actor is playing someone completely different now. this happens quite a lot

one actor i have to mention is the amazing Nobuo Kaneko who plays Boss Yamamori in all five films. i came to absolutely love him by the end, Yamamori is a slimy double-crossing cowardly snake, and Kaneko delivers such a memorable performance. he appears in loads of other Japanese films i've watched recently from around this time too, always playing similar characters – scheming bosses, corrupt politicians, he was definitely typecast, and he's great in them all. i looked him up on Wikipedia and he had a really long career, even hosting a popular cookery show on Japanese TV towards the end of his life. such a character

the fourth film Police Tactics was originally planned to be the final film in the series, and it's written that way, however it was such a success that Toei put up the money and got Fukasaku to direct one more. i'm glad they did because Final Episode is an absolute banger movie and a great send off for the series. set a few years after the events of Police Tactics, the public have turned against the yakuza and their constant violence forcing the gangs to try and rebrand as respectable businesses and a “political organisation” called Tensei. predictably this doesn't go well and infighting soon leads to more violence

you really get a sense of how tired of it all Shozo Hirono (Bunta Sugawara) is by the end, when he realises that he's become the boss sending the young footsoldiers out to die

so, which one of the five films is the best? i can't decide, please don't put a gun to my head and force me to choose, all five of them are simultaneously the best film i've ever seen, but Proxy War is probably my favourite

still can't believe i got the box set for twenty-five quid

I was working a summer internship at a mosquito control company many years ago with two other people. We traveled a lot to different areas which gave us a decent amount of downtime where we could do what we pleased. Being dudes, we played a lot of videogames.

One guy had his own shard on Ultima Online where we all made characters and farted around. This was fun, killing monsters and navigating the weird economy of UO that had built up years after most of the player base had moved on. But occasionally I would see the other guy playing a game on his laptop with tons of windows open and weird tiny little tiled graphics. I asked him what the heck that was and he told me it was ToME, short for Tales of Middle Earth. It was a free game, so I installed it and gave it a whirl.

The game I played was ToME 2.3.4, the final release of that version before the developer went on to make an aborted attempt at ToME 3, then moving on to the much more successful Tales of Maj’Eyal. Which is a great roguelike in its own right, but before I tell you that story, I need to tell you this story.

Rogue was released for Unix microcomputer systems in 1980. It was a text-based game that centered around going through a dungeon, battling monsters and acquiring items. It was inspired by Dungeons and Dragons and other computer games of the time. One of the selling points was that every time a new game was started the dungeon would be different and that once a player character died, it was permanent and irreversible.

Eventually, the source code for Rogue was released so people could add or change the behavior of the game. This led to variants like the still popular today NetHack which eventually gave birth to variants like SLASH'EM (Super Lotsa Added Stuff Hack – Extended Magic). All of these games had a similar design ethos, a single character traversing a huge, randomly generated dungeon to accomplish a difficult goal with only one chance to succeed.

Angband was another one of those variants. Since the antecedents were heavily influenced by Tolkien, as was much of early nerd culture, it's only natural that a game would fully embrace that heritage. Angband is named for the huge dungeon of Morgoth and many of its items and enemies carry on that theming.

Angband, like it's predecessor, also ended up open source which allowed for even more variants. Zangband (short for Zelazny Angband) incorporated elements from Roger Zelazny’s Chronicles of Amber novels. Cthangband used monsters from H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos. ToME went all in with a fully explorable Middle Earth.

I was hooked on ToME for a good long while. The early game was fairly easy to get through and there were a few ways to bypass it entirely, although not without risk. After quite some time playing, I managed to push through to the end game and actually win with a Dark Elf Mindcrafter (#515 on the Angband ladder!).

I eventually got fired from the internship after bringing in a router so all us interns could get on the Internet at the same time. At the start they told us there would be a possibility of getting hired full time afterwards, but I checked years later and they were still offering that same internship position so I think they were full of shit.

#FrogComPosBand #roguelikes