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from forrest

vice city sunset, album cover, art from vice city, logo from vice city

“Yesterday's faded. Nothing can change it. Life's what you make it”

I was 15 years old when I first heard The Colour of Spring. I even remember where I was and what I was doing the very moment the first track—“Happiness Is Easy”—started playing after I inserted the CD into the disc drive (remember those?) of my Dell something-or-other with one of those fat, black-chassis monitors displaying some sort of low-resolution Final Fantasy wallpaper, no doubt. The year was 2006, and I was at my mom’s house playing Okami for the PlayStation 2, which had been released that same year. Weird association, I know, especially considering the album’s 1986 release date, as you were probably expecting something more along the lines of “I had just finished watching ABC’s afternoon Benson-MacGyver block before I slipped the cassette purchased direct from the local Sam Goody into my stereo system’s tape player.”

But, alas, I am a millennial perpetually dreaming of times in which I did not exist, which worked out well for me because the early 2000s were a sort of '80s revival for teenagers whose parents were video games instead of real, present human beings. This '80s revival was ushered in by Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, whose mature themes and violence prompted some backlash, especially from Christian fundamentalists—particularly a certain disbarred attorney named Jack Thompson, quoted as saying, “If some wacked-out adult wants to spend his time playing Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, one has to wonder why he doesn't get a life, but when it comes to kids, it has a demonstrable impact on their behavior and the development of the frontal lobes of their brains.” (I’m not going to source this because it’s a matter of public record, and the guy wouldn't deny it anyway.) And while Jack Thompson is a reactionary kook, he’s probably right that kids shouldn’t be playing computer games in which they can bang hookers in the back seat of a car, then chainsaw those same hookers' limbs off moments after the deed is done. It follows that Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is very violent indeed.

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is set in a fictitious reimagining of Miami, Florida, circa 1986; the game largely appealed to young male adolescents by allowing them to roam the city murdering people indiscriminately with a variety of weapons (including a katana for beheadings and a chainsaw that could be stabbed into the roofs of cars when jumped atop) while soliciting prostitutes and dealing drugs to buy lavish properties and stealing cars (hence the game’s name). The game also included a series of story missions that mirrored the plot of the 1983 hit movie Scarface, but no one I knew wanted to play these missions; instead, they opted to run around the city engaging in the aforementioned bad stuff, spraying adolescent angst all over the digital denizens of Vice City in some sort of teenage, masturbatory “fuck you” to mom and dad for making them go to school five days a week, clean their rooms, and eat their vegetables—or something.

It’s interesting, considering that most of the kids I knew who could afford a PlayStation 2 and Vice City didn’t have much to be angsty about to begin with (this includes me, as I was not immune)—as if the dullness of modern first-world existence stirs up a primordial angst that is always there just kinda waiting to be unleashed. Or maybe people just need something to be pissy about, and, despite homeostasis and all the distractions in the world, we just wouldn’t be human if we didn’t have something to complain about constantly. (There’s truly a wealth of insight into the human condition to be gleaned from children’s obsession with violent computer games—especially Grand Theft Auto, which has only grown more violent since my time playing it as a kid—but that’s a topic for another piece, and one that I am wholly unprepared to write about.)

Out of all these violent activities, the most important to teenage me was the stealing and driving of cars, because Grand Theft Auto: Vice City included 10 radio stations that played a variety of era-appropriate music from different genres, including Talk Talk’s “Life’s What You Make It” from their album The Colour of Spring, released in 1986. “Life’s What You Make It” begins with Mark Hollis—proverbial frontman of the group, though the entire band was just as important—playing a strong but simple piano melody, like that of a child messing around on the keys for the first time, and this melody steps in weird time and jazz, driven by tribal drumming that is both manic and highly structured, and is just an instant head bob before a majestic guitar riff washes over the whole thing, echoing pure '80s dreamstuff all over the arrangement, accompanied by an organ-mellotron combo that evokes sudden epiphany, like all the things you thought were really serious and important suddenly aren’t so much, and you are just very small and a meteor could hit your place of work at any time and some things are just totally out of your control so you might as well just sit back, relax, and take it all in—as if life is what you make it very much so indeed.

It goes without saying that, as a 15-year-old kid driving a stolen digital car at 80 mph through busy virtual traffic with a low-poly ocean shoreline in one corner of my eye and an electronic sunset dithering pixels of purples and pinks in the other corner of my eye, all while listening to Talk Talk on the in-game radio, the song (“Life’s What You Make It” by Talk Talk featured on Flash FM) had a profound impact on my earliest aesthetic values. Even in a game as violent and ugly as Vice City, you can still find a beautiful sunset and an almost transcendent peace just driving around looking at stuff, and in this way, Vice City isn’t so different from real life. You would think that, with such a strong connection, the song would remain tied to that moment, evoking only Vice City Sunsets. But—much like the entirety of The Colour of Spring—“Life’s What You Make It” doesn’t merely accompany the mood of a time and place; it is the mood. It creates the mood. It carries with it the mood, transforming the aura of any time and place into its own. You could be in a crowded airport, psychic anxiety and stress all around you, and play any song from this album, and you would suddenly be transported to another world. Talk Talk knew this too—just listen to the fifth track, “Living in Another World.”

Every track on The Colour of Spring creates and projects its own world, like jumping into an impressionist painting made of sound. There’s a transcendent sparseness that feels like driving down a beachside road with no care in the world other than what’s immediately right there in front of you. A beautiful shiver runs through the spine; it’s nearly eerie how ethereal the whole listening experience can be. I listened to The Colour of Spring while at the pool with my daughter years ago, and now I have to listen to that album every time I go to that pool; it transformed the space: the pool is beautiful now; the pool is The Colour of Spring now; I cannot explain it; it just is. The album is its own time and place; its own world; its own universe; it creates its own life. Play The Colour of Spring anywhere, and that place is transformed.

In the world of The Colour of Spring, there is simultaneously so much going on and nothing going on that it's hard to put a finger on exactly what makes it so special; there are unexpected flourishes of guitar, both electric and acoustic, over jazzy compositions, and Mark Hollis’ vocals, which can only be described as distantly odd yet strangely intimate—perhaps the most intimate you’ve heard in your life—driving in the ethereal auras as if fallen angels were pushing the head of a pin into the pitch of space, thus poking some light into the void; these angels are not dancing; instead, they are just kind of muttering enochian while walking with a slight sway to their gait on a beach where the clearest blue waters are kissing the most velvety sands and seagulls are hovering overhead not to steal food but to guide the way.

Two years after the release of The Colour of Spring, Talk Talk would go on to record Spirit of Eden, and three years later, Laughing Stock; on these two albums, Talk Talk dropped their synthpop stylings completely, leaning into incredibly sparse jazzy arrangements that border on the improvisational. Both Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock would go on to become cult classics of the quote-unquote post-rock genre, where pop structures are thrown away entirely in favor of sparse, unpredictable arrangements that focus on filling rooms with a certain atmosphere—basically, the whole post-rock thing took its cues from Talk Talk. The Colour of Spring embodies much of these sparse jazzy post-rock soundscapes—especially in songs like “April 5th,” which is only a ghostly synth warble, a basic piano melody, and Mark’s haunting vocals, but also in “Happiness Is Easy,” which bursts here and there with acoustic guitar and organ flourishes dangling from a wild double-bass line that seems to have a mind of its own—and while The Colour of Spring is, at its core, a pop album, it’s a pop album wrapped in a cocoon that is in the process of cracking, with a little proboscis and the tip of a wing popping out. The Colour of Spring exists somewhere between synthpop and jazz, somewhere between virtual and reality, somewhere between adolescence and adulthood, somewhere between ugliness and transcendental beauty, but never ugly itself.

It’s a shame that The Colour of Spring reminds me so heavily of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, because that game is just so violent, disgusting, and ugly. But I can’t shake the mood of driving down those digital roads, watching those digital sunsets while listening to “Life’s What You Make It.” Even in a game as ugly as Vice City, those sunsets were so stunning and beautiful that, perhaps, their beauty imprinted on my mind forever.

But, upon reflection, it seems more likely that those Vice City Sunsets didn’t imprint themselves on my mind—Talk Talk imprinted them for me.

Perhaps the only beauty in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is Talk Talk.


#TalkTalk #Music #GrandTheftAutoViceCity #ComputerGames #Autobiographical

 
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from how do you spell cool

promo image for the zine showing a picture of the zine superimposed multiple times with different coloring

The first issue of the official howdoyouspell.cool ZINE is now available for download!

Download here!

Featuring words from the following articles/authors:

  1. WE ARE BESET BY SUFFERING ON ALL SIDES by forrest @ Mastodon
  2. Long Weekend (Battles Without Honor and Humanity) by Hazardes @ Mastodon
  3. Misc. FrogComPosBand sentiments by CrapKnocker @ Mastodon
  4. Shonen Weekdays by DharmaDischarge @ Mastodon
  5. Hot Dark Love: Work Date by SodiumReactor @ Mastodon
 
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from Sodium Reactor

Early March, The Year Before Everything Happened

====================================== “You're fucking kidding me. I mean she's kidding right?” Sofia Gomez groaned. She stood there on the stage, wearing gym shorts and a sports bra. She'd comfortably made weight for her third professional MMA bout only to watch her opponent shed nearly all her clothing to barely make it under the 136 lb limit on the second attempt. Worse yet, the tall black woman had maintained a starry eyed, goofball expression throughout the proceedings as if she were simply happy to be there.

Sofia wondered if she'd looked that starstruck ahead of her professional debut. She doubted it; back then all she'd thought about was just beating the other girl by any means possible. As a final indignity, when they turned toward each other for the weigh in and matchup photos, her opponent had met Sofia's serious, 'fists raised' pose with a broad smile and a goofy pose more suited for a cartoon than a fighter. Sofia clenched her jaw: this girl must be fucking with her. She might not take Sofia serious yet, but once the cage door closed, this goofy teen would realize just how serious she was.

Unlike Sofia’s first two opponents, tonight's victim came with a little buzz of her own: amateur boxing, kickboxing, and MMA experience, and a famous mother. Her opponent's mother might be “The Assassin” but Sofia wasn't fighting Yolanda Freeman. She was fighting the daughter, an apparently starstruck college freshman. Sofia and her team didn't need tape to expect a technically proficient striker and only needed their eyes to recognize a girl in over her head. She ran her hands through her brown tresses and grimaced. Mauling a famous person's daughter might be just what she needed to finally earn the attention she deserved

“I hope you can back up all that shit you were talking online.” Sofia Gomez challenged as the pair left the stage. “Mom's not here to protect you anymore.”

“Me too. It'd be hella embarrassing to go out there and get knocked the fuck out.” Simone Freeman shrugged and smiled. Her black and red twists hung down her face and past her shoulders, partially obscuring her face and the wide grin she offered. “Make sure you bring your whole toolbox!”

“Wait... what?” Sofia squinted. “You were on Twitter predicting some fucking highlight reel finish for your debut, but in person you're a weirdo.” She menaced, stepping toward her opponent for the evening. “What's up with you?”

Simone didn't back down, just stared back, goofy grin still firmly affixed on her face. “Nah, not a weirdo, just… show me your whole style, OK? It's only worth it if you give it your all. Hit me with the swaggy shit. I mean, real talk, I still have to run your fade or my mom will be pissed. ” the younger fighter ran her hand through her braids with an expression between anxiety and interest. “But we can be friends afterwards? I mean, I'm not pressed but it'd be cool if we coul-”

“Are you serious?” Sofia barked. “You can't talk about 'wanting to be friends' the morning before we fight. Wait... you know we're fighting tonight, right? Against each other?” Sofia explained, unsure if this Black teen was stupid, naive, or merely goofy.

“Well yeah, duh, but we're only fighting because I need your-” Simone began before someone spoke over her.

“Quiet please.” One of the staff demanded and Simone Freeman bit her lip in frustration: banter was the fun part, and there'd be precious little time to trade it once they started trading blows in the cage tonight. Instead she found herself instinctively checking to ensure her mom wouldn't admonish her for her antics. Sofia watched the strange young woman apologize again, give a short sideways peace sign, and followed her team out of the room. The 2-0 professional MMA fighter wanted to follow her, to find out exactly what Simone meant, but the rest of their conversation would have to wait; two other members of her camp still had to weigh in for their bouts that evening.

Sofia could feel the tension drain from her body as Simone left her presence. She wanted more than this, more than this modest regional MMA promotion could offer. She wanted lights and glamour and fat paychecks and maybe an acting gig. “West Coast Warriors” was just the stepping stone towards that next goal, and knocking out a famous fighter's idiot daughter would be just the boost she needed to get noticed and signed by one of the major, national, MMA promotions. Global Fighting Championship or Bellatrix or one of the few others that could offer the money she knew she was worth. All that remained on her road to stardom was to pummel this dizzy, pampered princess.


Later that evening


“And now, fighting out of the red corner, hailing from right here in Inglewood, California and making her professional debut, let's hear it for ‘The Savant,’ Simone Freeman!” the announcer boomed. The college freshman rocked her hips back and forth in a short dance before she reached toward the sky with one open hand. She'd spent weeks thinking about what to do in this exact moment: blow a kiss? Flex? Do a backflip? In the end she'd settled for something that felt authentic and wouldn't draw her mother's ire.

The crowd was sparse, the air was humid, and she could see her mother at cageside complaining to her gym's other cofounder, the one serving as her actual, official MMA coach. Simone relished an opportunity to be somewhere where her mother's opinions couldn't reach her. She was an artist, a martial artist, not a dumb fighter. Tonight she wanted to use her body to make art and use her fists to speak to the woman across the cage. She hoped for a conversation but wouldn't hold her breath. After all, her mother had warned her that the modest MMA promotion had had difficulty finding a willing third opponent for Angie: neither of her first two foes had made it to the third round. For her part, Simone thought this fight wouldn't see the third round either.

“And fighting out of the blue corner, hailing from Ontario, California, with a professional record of two wins, zero losses, both by referee stoppage, Sofia 'The Huntress' Martens!” The announcer's voice pierced Simone's errant thoughts. She watched the woman flexing across the cage and then wondered if anyone cared about what fighters did during their introductions. It was just an unspoken thing that they tried to look tough or intimidating, but why? Anyone scared by this kind of posturing wasn't a factor in the first place.

Simone’s mind roamed and she only found her way back to reality after the referee called them together. Sofia glared at her; Simone resisted the temptation to do something silly while the referee repeated the rules. They were obvious, obligatory. Sofia's green and yellow kit contrasted strongly against Simone's red and white. Sofia thought her opponent looked like a Red Cross logo. The comparison was fitting, since she intended to ensure that Simone left the cage en route to the hospital. So what if this little weirdo had a famous mother? As far as Sofia was concerned, she was the highly touted prospect here, Simone was here to feed her dreams. For her part, Simone wondered if the 22 year old Sofia had intentionally worn Brazil's colors. Or was that Jamaica’s? Damn, now she really wanted to look up the two countries flags…

The referee finally stopped talking and the two women touched gloves and walked back to their corners. The whole arena seemed to hold its breath until the bell rang and the fight began. There'd be no take-backs, no redos, no mulligans tonight. Simone Freeman had begged her mom for a professional MMA debut; whatever happened next was solely ‘The Savant's’ responsibility and would stick with her for the rest of her life. Sofia Gomez looked across the ring and saw a path to stardom running right through this spacey, if broad, rookie.

SCENE 2 Early March, The Year Before Everything Happened

====================================== The two women could scarcely have had more different body language as they left their corners of the MMA cage: Sofia 'The Huntress' Martens advanced cautiously, hands up and ready to meet her opponent, who sauntered out hands low and seemingly unconcerned. Simone Freeman extended her hand, as if to touch gloves. Sofia stared at her, hard, then shook her head and circled. “I'm not here to fucking play with you, little girl.”

“Who's playing?” Simone asked, moving too slowly to avoid the first jab of the night. It caught her on the cheek before she ducked the cross that followed and backed away.

The 19 year rookie bounced in her stance, using the wide open space of the MMA cage to avoid most of Sofia's strikes, but throwing precious few of her own in return. Simone's strikes all landed, but Sofia was winning on pure volume and aggression. The college freshman backed away until she felt the cage behind her, shortly before Sofia pinned her against it. The lanky woman corralled her head, pushed and pulled her, hit her, and did everything she could to keep the brawny rookie immobilized and uncomfortable.

“Scared, bitch?” Sofia menaced through her mouthguard.

“Bored.” Simone grunted. She moved her hands, shifted her weight, kept her legs moving. She knew what to do, slowly struggling and slipping her way free from the clinch. But actually executing those steps was so tedious, made moreso by Sofia's stubborn insistence on hitting her with whatever limb she had free.

Sofia shifted too, trying to trip or slam her freshly caught prey. Simone finally found her way out, pushing down, away, moving her hips, and finally sliding off the wall back onto the open mats with a short sharp, “Nope!”

Sofia made a large desperate lunge and found herself at Simone's feet.

“Come on. Get up. You wanted to fight, let's fight.” Simone beamed down at her. “You can lay on the ground later.”

The ref urged her up, and a grumbling Huntressa pushed herself back up to her feet. She'd won her first two fights on pressure and aggression and tonight would be no different. She was going to rough up this diva until she inevitably broke. Easy. Simple. Just keep the fight close, slow, and scrappy. The ref waved for them to continue, and Sofia figured that the judges would reward her for taking the fight to this goofball princess. She crouched low and pressed forward, looking to wrap up Simone's legs and take her to the ground.

Instead, 'the Huntress' caught a bright red glove to her lip before she finished her step. She stared at Simone when she couldn't do anything else; the grinning black rookie had already slid away and out of her range. “Ok, now get me back.” Simone instructed. Between the mouthguard and her tone, Sofia couldn't tell if that was a taunt or a genuine request. It really didn't matter. She tightened her guard and pushed forward into range, leading with quick, straight punches that felt good until they landed on her opponent's shoulder or found only empty air. Simone seemed to bounce in front of her, unfazed, smiling, tagging her with strike that actually landed despite Sofia's efforts, checking her advances with sharp short hooks and elbows, and digging into her leg with a sharp low kick that slowly grew from annoying to threatening every time Sofia failed to block it. Sofia was confused: she was throwing punches, pushing the pace, spending time in the clinch, pushing Simone around the cage.

So why didn't she feel like she was winning?

Even as she threw with more volume, for every strike she landed flush it felt like the smiling, obnoxious brat landed two and then slipped away before Sofia could corral her. “Come on! Show me something cool!” Simone demanded. They both stood there in their orthodox stances, but damn if it didn't feel like there was a fist waiting for Sofia every time she waded within arm's reach. Simone's punches hurt, but so what if theis girl was a good striker? She and her team had predicted that, planned for that. Simone's precision wouldn't matter in a clinch or on the ground.

“Stupid fucking...” Sofia railed, circling again. She wanted to get close, but how, and when?

“Cut the cage off! Level change!” Her corner yelled as the two woman orbited each other.

Sofia absorbed another stray leg kick before an elbow rattled her jaw as she lunged into her preferred range. She bit down on her mouthguard and kept her hands up. She'd never been scared, hadn't gotten this far by being timid. She feinted a jab, took a long, lunging step, and pulled Simone into another clinch. This cocky little girl's punches might hurt, but she wilted when Sofia got her hands on her. The fair skinned, 2 fight veteran had visions of taking the fight to the ground and wringing the life and fight out of this dainty princess. She winged punches, knees, elbows, into whatever Simone didn't coverup, and found herself smiling at the helpless, frustrated grunts that Simone made each time she absorbed another blow. “That cool enough for you?” She mocked.

“This isn't cool at all....” Simone whined, moving this way and that, looking for the path of least resistance out of this annoying, painful clinch. “Your whole strategy is whack and uninspired.”

Sofia fought to keep her arm tucked between Simone's arm and her body, and the underhook was beginning to prove troublesome. Wrestling, grappling, clinching made sense on a theoretical level to the young woman, but in practice it required so much... effort. It was grindy and tiresome and not at all cool or innovative or dynamic. Just two anacondas squeezing the life out of each other, trying to see who'd break first. Sofia's knee crashed into her thigh again and Simone decided she no longer wished to be there and clinch with this woman. In practice she could just go limp or tap out to reset the scenario, but here, here? She'd actually have to fight her way out. It was tedious. Unnecessary. Troublesome. Professional Fighting. The South LA native covered up until she caught Sofia's wrist and slowly, patiently, unraveled their bodies, until she could push off and away. Sofia pushed forward and came with an inch of Simone's knee rocketing up towards Sofia's head. She didn't pursue after that, content to circle and play the next engagement.

Sofia cycled through her strategies and techniques in a hurry. Standing outside of her arm's reach meant absorbing more abuse, more -ouch- pain in her jaw, face, side, thigh. She couldn't compete with Simone Freeman's power or speed or precision. But Simone was a dead fish, or a pillow princess, once Sofia gripped her. She could use that. They bounced, stared at each other for a moment, until Sofia took the initiative: a simple one-two combo, followed by a wrestling shot from long range. But Sofia's takedown attempt was yet another faint, and Sofia rose into a mighty overhand punch that came down and caught the momentarily frozen fighter flush on the jaw. Simone's eye went wide and Sofia happily collected the wild black girl into a tight clinch,

“Wait, an actual feint? Into a ... superman? Finally something cool! I wanna try it!” Simone grunted.

“Stop talking so damn much. Damn!” Sofia shot back, punctuating the demand with another knee.

Simon replied with a few punches of her own, finally fighting through the clinch with a mixture of brute strength and careful movement. The two women traded punches and knees until Simone slipped free and back to the open cage. She planted her feet and threw and a blistering left hook meant primarily to discourage Sofia from following her. The punch was intended to miss, to give Sofia something to consider. The fact that the fair skinned brunette ran headlong into the punch was a bonus as far as Simone was concerned: if Sofia couldn't anticipate the check hook coming, she deserved to get cracked by it.

The punch caught Sofia flush; her eyes widened and she backed off immediately. Simone didn't need her corner's encouragement to pursue. The kicks came first, scything straight into Sofia's side, then her thigh. The older woman winced and gritted her teeth and flinched, committing halfway to pivoting her leg to check a third kick that never came and covering up against further abuse. Instead Simone fed Sofia a stiff straight right through her lazy guard. The punch landed flush and knocked her loopy. Sofia only knew this buzzed, floating feeling in passing; she'd been tagged in training, left wobbly and panicked. But neither of her first two opponents had hit her this hard in their actual matches. She faded against the cage and covered up, unsure of what else to do while she negotiated how to engage Simone. The crowd cheered around, behind her, while the obnoxious debuting fighter menaced her, smiling around her red and white mouthgaurd.

“Show me something.” The ref demanded, monitoring the sudden shift in the fight very closely.

“Show me something cool, Sofia!” Simone added. She was right there in front of Sofia, close enough to touch, if Sofia could only clear the cobwebs and fucking hit her, grab her.

Sofia Gomez had already grown to detest this weird woman, the one who asked goofy questions and smiled in the middle of fights and kept demanding she 'do something cool' like a moron. This was a fight, not a pageant, and in any event, Sofia was operating on a reduced set of goals and instructions while the brain fog cleared. When Simone floated, faded back away from her, Sofia sprung like a trap, lunging at the obnoxious black girl without any consideration for what Simone had in mind.

Simone complained loudly and bitterly as Sofia tackled her to the canvas. The Huntress had grabbed her right in the middle of the sick-ass spinning kick she was about to throw. To make things worse, Sofia had ended up on Simone’s back as well. Sofia wrapped her arms around Simone's torso, pushed her chest against Simone's back, and pressed the brawny striker into the canvas, eventually winging wild punches into Simone's sides and face. Simone covered up, pulled away, and groaned. “How the fu-” She railed before the bell sounded to end the first round of her professional MMA career.

Sofia only let go of her quarry when the ref tapped her on the shoulder for the third time. She released Simone, stood up, and made her way back to her corner.

Simone slapped the canvas and walked back to her corner. Aside from that a few nifty moments, Sofia's fighting style was infinitely less deep and nuanced than she'd hoped. And worse yet, Simone knew her mom and her other coach would disparage her performance so far. Ugh. Nothing about this was cool.

SCENE THREE

Early March, The Year Before Everything Happened

====================================== She knew the question before her mom or her coach asked it. There was no answer they'd accept. They'd demand one anyways. Here her mother also served as her assistant coach, largely because Yolanda 'the Assassin' Freeman had been a fairly famous boxer a decade or two ago, and she now co-owned the gym that 'the Savant' Simone Freeman trained at. The other co-owner was the man to her left, the one serving as her official MMA coach. The two adults tended to Simone's bruises, offered her water, and asked her the questions that the 18 year old knew she couldn't avoid.

“The fuck are you doing in there? Do you even want to win?” One of them asked. Simone winced. There it was. Ugh. Pointed like a rapier, intended to draw blood and shame.

Simone looked up at them blankly. She knew what they wanted her to say. She struggled to want to say it. She settled upon a compromise. “Yeah. I know. That kinda sucked. But I figured it out. I asked a question and found the answer.”

“What are you even talking about?” Her mother demanded.

“She had that little shot-feint. That was cool. Other than that though her style is boring. No depth. No nuance. She's trying to scrap. That's it. Ugly, dirty, mad annoying.”

“And it's working.”

“Nah. I understand. She's just a bigger Ysela. It's fine.” Simone put her hands up to explain, referencing the other rookie member of their gym.

“So fucking put her away! Stop all this spinning shit and just get her out of here if it's so damn simple.” Her mother barked at her until the gym's other co-owner, the one who'd made a full career out of MMA slid between mother and daughter.

“I wanna hear all about it Simone.” He offered, a stabilizing presence. “Tell me everything you found out about her. But tell me tonight, on the drive home, after we get this dub. She's boring. So prove it. To her, to the fans. No spins, no leaping anything. Just break her down. Prove how boring she is.” Her coach asked. Simone nodded at him and smiled slowly, running a gloved hand through her mop of black and red twists. Perhaps she could find some fun tonight after all.

Across the cage, Sofia 'The Huntress' Martens was having a very different conversation with her team. “I can beat her.” Sofia growled. Her spotless 2-0 professional record was in very real danger unless she could keep her opponent out of the striking exchanges that so clearly favored her.

“I know you can, Angie.” Her coach assured her while he tended to her superficial wounds.. “But you're not gonna do it by standing and trading with her. She's got more power than we thought she did, and she's piecing you up on the outside. That's fine. We expected that part. Keep working your way in. Hands up, light on your feet, keep pushing her back. The cage is your friend, use it. Tie her up, beat her up, take her down, and let's finish her, Angie.” The spry slugger bit down and her mouthpiece and nodded. She looked forward to spoiling 'Slick's' coming out party tonight and proving that she was the prospect people should be talking about. “How' your leg?” Her coach asked, still icing the ugly bruises that had already began to form on Sofia's thigh and calf.

“It hurts. It's fine.” Sofia protested. “It's fine.”

“Seconds out!” The referee yelled, and both women stood to continue their bout. Their support staff rose and left the cage, shouting final encouragement and instructions. The two competitors found themselves alone again, save each and the ref. The fight might be scheduled for three 5 minute rounds, but after the action in the first round, no one expected a decision finish. The judges meant to score the fight could likely take a restroom break: no one would be looking at their scores for this fight. Whoever'd booked this fight for the modest Southern California MMA promotion had delivered fireworks to the modest, but passionate crowd.

The bell tolled to begin the second round. Simone bounded to the center ring and stopped fist out as if she expected Sofia to finish the other half of the fist bump. Whether intended as an amicable gesture or an insult, Sofia couldn't be sure. “What? Come on...” Simone insisted as she stared at the shorter, lighter woman. What was certain, however, was that Sofia wouldn't waste an opportunity to take the fight where she wanted it to go. She landed a stiff right hand and quickly wrangled Simone into a clinch, starting the second round as well as she had the first. Simone complained, loudly, bitterly, even before Angie drover her knee into Simone's stomach and backed her into the cage. Simone tied her up as best she could to staunch Sofia's assault and considered her predicament.

'Slick' Simone Freeman had only herself to blame. She'd spent the last minute assuaging her corner's fears, promising them that she'd focus on the fight and only the fight. Then she'd come out and made a friendly gesture, and an obvious lapse in judgement. There was no one to blame but herself. Now she'd have to fight her way out of the clinch before she resumed trying to turn this scrappy brawler's lights off. Damn. Worse yet, even if she won now she'd hear it from her team, from her coaches, from her mother. Damn. And to top it all off, this raggedy brunette was STILL hitting her. Damn damn damn. She pulled Sofia close, wrestled with her, swam and slipped her arms under Sofia's own, pushing and pulling for better position. Grappling was a grind, a series of moves and positions connected by heavy breathing and spent effort. She wanted none of this but had no other option if she was to resume feeding her bright red MMA gloves to 'The Huntress.'

“Get used to this, space cadet..” Sofia snarled before she pivoted to throw Simone to the ground. Unfortunately, the pain in her leg throbbed loud enough to demand attention, robbing the takedown attempt of some of its power. Instead, they collapsed in a heap, Simone half sitting on the canvas, back against the cage, while Sofia held her. It was hardly the definitive takedown that Sofia had envisioned, and Sofia cursed at herself for absorbing those kicks in the first round without making Simone pay in blood.

“You're not strong enough to bully me.” Simone grunted, even as Sofia laid into her with short punches. She held onto the brawler as best she could, then pushed, pulled, and finally found the space to lean backwards against the cage and push herself back to her feet. Sofia still found her own opportunistic offense, digging knees into Simone's thigh as she sought to corral her for a second takedown. but Simone attempted her own toss and though Sofia didn't fall, she at last forced Sofia far enough off balance to disengage and escape back into the open canvas. Simone bounded away and reset back into her bouncy stance, hands at the ready. “I told you, you're too little to bully me.” She smiled. “So now what?”

Sofia Gomez said nothing, just bit down on her mouthpiece and came forward. Simone stunned her with a punch that never came, a feinted jab that whizzed through the air. She took advantage of Sofia's temporary temerity to blast another kick into her thigh. Sofia winced and fired back while hunting for another clinch. The throbbing in her rear leg made it harder to put weight on the limb, harder to pivot, more uncomfortable to use as a base for all of her offence while Simone evaded her at every turn. Simone switched stances and bobbed and weaved while Sofia pushed forward, fists pumping. The weary brawler caught a right hand that pushed her mouthguard back into her teeth. She barely had time to consider the punch before Simone switched her stance and thudded her shin across Sofia's cheek again. Sofia groaned, but returned Simone's smile even as she retreated. She knew better than to show weakness, but dammit, that hurt. They repeated that dance twice more: Sofia finding it increasingly difficult to lay hands on Simone and pull her into the kind of grinding, gritty war of attrition she wanted, instead more of Simone's fluid striking combos found their marks frustrating the threatened 2-0 fighter.

The referee hovered, alert but apparently unwilling to intervene as long as both women were standing and throwing. Sofia landed the stiff right cross she'd come to trust and Simone relented. The two women locked eyes during their brief detente and Sofia turned again to the sneaky combo she'd employed last right. A brief flurry, a feinted takedown, and a mighty right hand that left her in perfect position to take the fight wherever she wanted it to go. But as she rose to throw that downward punch, she found Simone smiling, not cowered. Sofia threw her punch but ate Simone's instead. The exchange was jarring, distressing. Her plot defused, she half-panicked and shot for another takedown. She wrapped her arms around Simone for only a moment before the smiling youngster pushed her down to the canvas and extricated herself from Sofia's desperate lunge. A textbook sprawl.

“Hell nah. Sorry.” Simone explained before urging the ref to intervene. “Stand her ass up, ref. I came here to fight.” Simone lied. She'd come to play, to explore, to share and demonstrate, and had only grudgingly accepted that Sofia had no interest in any of that. Sofia grumbled and stood up, wondering how much longer this damn round could last. She needed to regroup, to plan something better than this. When she didn't lead their dance, Simone took the initiative, standing just inside the range of her kicks. From there, nearly every move she'd learned was viable or could be made so with a single step in the right direction. The result was a flash of brilliance: a jab was a mere antenna to confirm the range before two scything kicks followed and left room for Simone to float in, throw two punches and another arcing kick before floating away. Sofia threw and stepped and lunged but Simone seemed a half step out of reach at all times until it was her turn to strike. Sofia hit shoulder and her hands slid off Simone's arm or waist. Nothing felt effective. Everything hurt.

Sofia wasn't sure which of the blows had cracked her. It didn't matter. Her legs threatened to betray her and her pulse pounded in her ears. Pain blared across her body and she wanted nothing more than a momentary reprieve. Dammit. This wasn't how tonight was supposed to go. Simone wasn't supposed to be this hard to take down or tie up. Sofia was better than this, she lamented as she shelled up and circled away. She noticed Simone stepping and recognized the motion as the wind up for a kick far too late to do anything but absorb it. The pain radiated through her thigh and she couldn't even remember how she ended up sitting on the canvas but the ref was urging her on, threatening to stop the fight.

Fuck that.

She pushed up to her feet and threw looping punches, more haymakers than measured strikes. Something might land. She just needed to survive, to scare this girl off for a moment and get her bearings as she retreated. Simone's spun and partly connected with a wild kick before whiffing entirely on a Superman punch.

Sofia abandoned any attempt at offence content to survive, until Simone's right hand split her guard and sent her stumbling back into the cage behind her. Every instinct in her brain demanded that she not absorb another punch like that. Instead her frantic thoughts turned towards diving forward and wrestling when Simone wandered too close. She could tie this woman up and run out the clock.

Sofia moved in to tie up the woman. Simone's elbow collided with her cheek, and the knee that followed drove the wind out of her body, but as long as she made it to the bell none of that mattered. Sofia scrambled, trying to contain and corral this surprisingly strong rookie, until she ate another short lead hook. The world beneath her floated and she struggled to find her footing.


Sofia felt a hand on her shoulder and swung her arm to dislodge Simone. Everything felt sluggish and heavy.

“Whoa, whoa, easy there.“ The voice of her coach surprised her, and she froze while the world came into focus. She blinked and breathed and found herself sitting reclined and surrounded by her team and the arena's medical personnel. It took her a few seconds to make sense of the scene, and a few seconds more to form the only word that seemed appropriate. “Goddammit.” She shouted it in her head before she croaked it aloud and muttered it again as the realization washed over her. She stared up at the ringside medic, then at her team, then at the ceiling lights of the arena before someone helped her properly sit up.

This new vantage point brought a new nightmare: Her victorious opponent facing away from the cage wall, hands on her knees, twerking. Fucking twerking in the MMA cage. Shaking her ass with carefree abandon. Simone fucking Freeman had just knocked her out. Goddammit. The words sounded putrid in her head, and she felt nauseous.

The medic asked questions and Sofia answered, focusing for a moment on the crowd around her and not on her still-dancing college student foe. The questions were stupid, obvious: she knew her own name, the date, the time, the city. She merely wanted to forget all of those things, forget any of this had happened. Sofia rose to her feet and could have done so without the doctor's help, but the hands on her shoulders also served to keep her from stopping Simone's celebration by any means necessary. Simone finally seemed to take notice of her and bounded over to her in two long strides. Sofia Gomez clenched her jaw, tried not to rage or scream or cry while she watched her insufferable opponent suppress her insufferable smile and fix her lips to greet her.

“Did the doctors say anything? Are you gonna be ok? Thanks for the fight by the way.” Simone chattered as she reached in to hug her opponent. Sofia wanted none of it, none of this, none of her.

“Yeah. I'm fine.” Sofia growled, half-heartedly embracing her opponent. How were you supposed to treat the woman who'd just knocked you out? This was novel and unwelcome territory.

“Thank God. I was worried, y'know? Like, shit. The way you went down? I was kinda worried. I mean damn, you know? But you do a lot of cool things and I’d love to train together sometime, or at least like… chat, nahmean? I meant what I said about us being friends if you want. Or you can try and get revenge later and shit. Or both. It's all good.” Simone still rode the high of her win, offering sympathy and challenges alike to the still woozy girl she’d fought.

“Mhm. Yeah. Totally.” Sofia muttered, still seething. Right now she wanted nothing to do with this cocky brat. It was easy to be magnanimous when you were distributing concussions, not receiving them. Sofia's temples throbbed. She wanted to sit down and sleep, or at least get the fuck out from under these bright lights.

Simone took the hint and let go of her. “Thank you for showing me your style. ...” She assured the shorter woman. Simone Freeman shot Sofia a last warm smile and then clapped her hands together with a short bow, a sign of gratitude to her defeated foe before she turned away and turned back to her crowd. Sofia just shook her head. Damn. She just wanted to tonight over with.

Her coach offered that she could skip the decision entirely, but the persistent fog in her head made it easier to just go along with what was happening. The simplest choice was to just get this decision read and finish tonight as soon as possible. “Let's just... let's just get this over with.” Sofia muttered to her coach, who nodded back to her. “You're gonna be fine, Angie. This sucks. Forget it. We'll get her next time.” Sofia nodded but didn't fully believe. Not right now at least.

Wrestling with Simone was alternatively frustrating and rewarding, but striking with her felt like a fool's errand. She shook her head, then winced, and tried not to think about the first loss of her career. The ref finally called for both fighters to join him in the center of the ring and Sofia grimaced. Was this what her first two victims felt like? Online, Simone had promised a highlight KO'd and then actually delivered, leaving Sofi to pick up the pieces and figure out what came next. She clenched her teeth as the referee held her arm. She knew she wasn't getting it raised tonight.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the referee has called a stop to this contest at 3 minutes and 45 seconds into the second round.” Sofia looked away as the announcer continued. “Your winner by knockout: 'Slick' Simone Freeman!” The referee announced, to the hearty applause of the modest crowd.

To her credit, Simone at least hugged her first before she ran to the cage wall to start twerking again. She danced a little while longer, gyrating her hips, looking back over her shoulder, tongue out, her short 'victory celebration.' Sofia could already hear the other fighters in the gym giving her shit for getting KO'd by a girl who twerked.

Yesterday Simone had been a prospective victim, a name on Sofia's resume. Tonight, Sofia couldn't shake the feeling that maybe she'd been the one being hunted.

Goddammit.


#Writing #FirstDraft #Series

#BeatPreyLove #BPL #Fiction #Action #Fight #MartialArts

 
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from dharmadischarge and his comics

Eternal Eclipse: Book One of The Brutal Song of Aziel Bartholomew

A prototype of my current main project which will be a comic. this is however a long fragment of a novel that will likely never be finished. I had typed nearly three thousand words by the time dawned on me that this is more visual and would work better as a comic.

Will try to only post comics and updates of making comics on this blog but thought I would share this because I dug parts of this and still do.

Chapter one

Drifting through the lake of stars. Out of the port hole of the celestial cruiser christened Giga-Death, we see a small starship large enough to hold a hundred persons drifting serenely through the lake of stars. Aziel Bartholomew lay in his bunk in his cell waiting for the trial that would lead to his execution. He knows that By the standard of the Scarlet Templars, he is guilty. He betrayed the royal family, and embarrassing the Royals is a cardinal mistake for anyone living around these parts.

The Celestial Dynasty is an empire in the galaxy known as the lake of stars. This empire has over a hundred thousand planets within its space. Each one has a king. Each king has an army. This is an age of fragile peace.

Every gambit of the political spectrum is expressed in how these planets are governed. Some near utopian democracies while others are prisons for breeding prisoners. The kingdom is diverse but power is the name of the game.

Aziel killed two of his comrades in the Scarlet Templars. They were soldiers sent with him to purge a bloc in the urban mess that is Sprawl 4. A megacity in his home world of Lohiri. It was his first day on the job. He had made it back home after some combat in the orbit while on patrol near the Hopecraft's home world. He was a proud veteran of a conflict that did not require a duel between the royal families... and their Holy weapons the Panzer Striders. Yet when he saw what they did to that family... He lost it. Without hesitation nor with fear he executed both men with his Flail Blastor pistol... They were reapers of the law by all means he was guilty. So they sent him before a council of the royal family to be judged.

So he lay in his small cell till he heard an explosion. He walks over to the port hole looking out at the wreckage not knowing why the ship is shattered but still it drifts on the lake of stars and the corpses around it.

Then next to his reflection in the glass he sees a face. With a cone hat angled off to the side. The Bright red clown nose is bulbous and absurd. the black around his eyes like gothic tears contrasting with the white painted face. The clown's red and yellow jumpsuit with blue buttons is profane and grotesque.

Aziel turns around. staring at the terrifying fool.

“Well... Who are you?” Said, Aziel.

“I am the Yama Yama Man.” Said the Clown.

“Be you a Banished Heart? Or Hoblin from the abyss to torment me?” Said Aziel.

“I am a bringer of gifts,” said the clown.

Then fanning his fingers in a dance with a twist of his wrist and a clap of his hands. In his hand appears a bag. Knotted up and balled up it is empty. Yet still in escalating theatricality, he lays the bag down reaching into and pulling out a blade.

The black blade was fat with steel. Glittering red runes on both sides said something Aziel could not understand. The blade was a short sword barely longer than Aziel's forearm. Yet the object screamed authority.

“This is Eternal Eclipse, The cunning of oblivion.” Said the clown.

Then staring at the blade in the light he seemed almost reluctant to humor whatever was on his mind.

“This is a Rune Sword of channeling. A lighting rod for destiny. A blade that needs no sharpening. A gift or a curse.”

Then in his theatricality, he kneels as if presting the blade to a king.

“Take it,” he whispers.

With a vague second of hesitation, Aziel tries to discern if this is fancy or delirium caused by spun sugar withdrawals.

“Take it!” Says a demonic voice without subtlety only dominance.

Whether afraid or Obedient Aziel takes the blade.

The clown please smiles showing golden cavity teeth. His eyes Gnarley with terror. Then he picks up the sack he pulled the sword from and places it in oblivion... it returns to the void.

Aziel looks at his eye's reflection on the blade's edge and does not know what he is considering.

“you will need this.” Said the clown holding out a round canister of spun sugar.

Aziel takes it and while blinking the clown's hand is gone as is the rest of it. Not slowly fading into nothing. but is gone as timed with Aziel's lids closing.

As if waking from a dream He in his frustration clenches the can of spun sugar in his hand and whispers “Eternal Eclipse: The cunning of oblivion...“.

chapter two

Aziel is standing with the Rune Blade. He is feeling the handful of spun sugar dissolve on his tongue. He needs channeling rings. His freedom demands it. Yet he will have to make do.

Aziel holds up the Rune Blade pointing in with the tip at the cell door.

He commands the sword “Open the door.”

The first rune on the side of the blade begins to glow red and then after its glow is vibrant the next. With each Aziel feels like he is pushing a blouder destined to roll back down the mountain. Yet, (and this is the touch of destiny) with each Rune lighting up. The door and wall around it are bending. Through sheer psychic will, The warping of steel is growing in distortion. the steel ballooning away from him until glowing red like lava the door rips outward dissolving and pouring out into the hall.

The growing heat triggers the fire alarms. Hundreds of gallons of water start pouring throughout the Celestial Cruiser. the water sizzling the steel to coolness. Aziel does not hesitate he runs.

/v\/

He pushes his mohawk out of his eyes and off to one side and peeks out looking around the corner. Wearing his Black and white horizontal-striped prison jumpsuit he runs.

He does not make it far before he hears the chugging explosive blast of crusader rifles.

“Wump!-Wump!-Wump!” the rifles scream.

The bullets explode past his body being only saved by the quick use of the words “Protect me!” to the sword.

An inch-thick bullet of warbling steel. stops near his hip then explodes at the two Scarlet Templers. One of them dies instantly from where the bullet struck him. Left only with a fist-sized hole in his face. The other soldier stops firing and runs with a tomahawk at Aziel. His Crusader Rifle hanging from a strap on his side.

They fight without sizing up their opponent. a tomahawk swinging by aziel face. while the rune blade dances close too but is unable to connect a stinging blow to a plate exposure of his opponent's exoskeleton.

Till at last beneath his enemy's left armpit he pierces between the plates of armor. Sending the soldier towards his judgment. Aziel pulled out the blade, blood-stained but ready.

Taking from the dead men a crusader rifle and as much ammo as he could carry (Two belt straps thrown over his shoulders). He leaves at a jog. The wet floor from the sprinklers trips him more than once, as he goes sliding from one side to the other. Occasionally he will hear explosions that he assumes are out of the hull but other times he is not so sure.

He thinks “If by chance this is real I can not waste this opportunity.”

He walks for twenty minutes before running into another living being.

The Electric scorpion-like legs of a Delta Pulse Computer. Its pinchers are jittery and unpredictable in their automation. the Stillborn Fetus that houses the AI of the machine hovers in the scorpion tail. It looks at Aziel and starts squirming and spinning in its plastic and steel tomb. The machine starts to manually scan with a blue laser flickering out in triangles. Yet Aziel to it does not exist. only the baby's eyes notice it and that without understanding.

Aziel thinks “The unborn child is the machine's subconscious. It knows something is wrong but can not rationalize it.”

A door opens in the black halls of the ship. Eight feet from him stands a woman in her late twenties or early thirties. She is wearing a toga.

Aziel thinks “A toga... not only is she a noble... but one that has committed adultery...”

“Don't kill me.” Says the woman.

“He might be my ticket out of here.” she thinks.

Aziel points the rifle at her.

“Please don't!” she screams.

The Delta Puls computer opens its claw revealing plasma blasters. and rotates on high alert back and forth dancing to find whatever has startled her, But, It can not.

“Stand down.” she says to the machine “Return for maintenance your not working properly.”

The delta prime says “As you will.” and wanders off while the fetus clings to the glass in fear, yet wanting to know what happens next.

Chapter Three

Captain Naomi Mercia Stood with her sword tightly clasped in her right hand as her other... the left palm (and artificial prosthetic going from her left fingertips to a surgical implant in her shoulder) rested on the one holding the hilt. Sheathed but dangerous, all attention was drawn to the rapier between her legs. using it to shift her weight forward the aurora of hostility backing it up more than her slight frame. Standing on the deck of Celestial Cruisor: Giga Death.

Her checkerboard short skirt is a Black and Green pattern though with golden shoulder boards. Her blouse was also the standard uniform of her rank. Black and button-up with medals and officer marking all around. Her hair hung loose bleached blonde combed to one side beneath a bicorne with plumes of red feathers out of the top. Polished to precision were black standard-issue-laced the edge of her knee boots.

“Captain!” Says an armored young soldier with his face visor raised.

“Speak.” Says Naiomi.

“The son of Young Bull....” He hesitates and struggles to find the words.

“Yes,” says Naomi

“He has... Taken your wife hostage.” Before he can finish the pronunciation of the word hostage she floors him with a straight jab from her left arm crushing his face and knocking him out cold.

“get this worthless... useless trash off of my deck.” Says Naomi.

Two soldiers drag off the young recruit by the legs leaving a trail of blood and teeth on deck.

“And get someone to clean this mess up,” says Naomi. wiping off the blood from her prosthetic arm with a handkerchief.

“Where is the slut?” Says Naomi.

“Captain we still can not locate the prisoner.” says someone looking at the screen of the scans from the Delta Pulse computers. “We're not seeing anything.” He continues.

“put a guard detail around the little punks Panzer Strider: Wizard Tusk. We may not know where he is but we know where he is going.” Says Naomi.

Then staring off into space she turns red in the face and screams with Rrimal glory an expression of not only what she was feeling but everything she could feel and it trailed off with guttural glory

“FUUUUUCK!”

(The Brutal Ballad of the Young Bull)

How am I to tell the ballad of the Young Bull? Well for one that was not his name. His name was Bartholomew Rainwater. He was the leader of a group known as the Battle-Axe Horde. A bunch of violent psychopaths Would tie their prisoner's hands with ropes soaked in gasoline and then set them alight.

They were a primeval kind of debauchery about the lifestyle of that gang. They aspired to be a crew of Star-Rogues but even if they were a major player on their block in the grand scheme of things Even if he was tribal king to millions... On his last day... He was a serf-like you or me. Property of the Royal Blood.

They planned a kidnapping that was not properly thought out. It never should have happened. They kidnapped a minor noble's daughter who has a small claim of blood to the Ashe birth line and its inheritance. When they sent the transmission saying they had the young women. the soldiers sent back the question “Who is the young bull that has my daughter.” Bartholomew Rainwater laughed and said, “I am the young bull”. He raped the poor women. He Got her pregnant and when the nobles sent word there would be no ransom paid. He decided to keep her as a concubine.

What he did not know was the nobles had been lenient for a thousand years. They let the cities be run how we the people saw fit. as long as our quota of product (whatever that be!) was met.

Within twenty-four hours the noble sent the whole fleet to orbit the planet shooting anything out of the sky that tried to leave orbit. A single ship. A celestial cruiser. opened its mouth and spit lightning and fire. With one blast megalopolis-4 was removed from existence taking billions of lives with it.

That would be the end of the story... except... the concubine of the young bull was smuggled out of the city to another of the megalopolis. She gave birth to a healthy baby boy... well... that's another story.

chapter four

“My name is Terry Mercia. My wife is captain of this vessel, as long as I am still breathing you can use me to get off of it.” Says the young woman.

Aziel says “The only way we're getting off this ship is with my Panzer Strider. Where is carrier bay?”

“How can you believe what I said... how can you trust me?” Says Terry.

“I don't. But I will kill you if you turn out to be lying,” says Aziel. “it's no skin off my teeth, either way.”

Terry nods in agreement. Then thinks “He is telling me the truth. Every word he has said is as honest as it could be.”

“It's an elevator ride away.” Says Terry.

Then she turns with Aziel following sword in one hand and a rifle hanging at his side. It is a short walk to the elevator. they get to the carrier bay without conversation or hitches. Crawling with Scarlet Templars. the bay could be a quarter mile with small fighter ships lining the floor and large carriers that are nearly twenty-five feet long.

“what are we going to do?” says Terry.

Aziel closes his eyes and points to Wizard Tusk his Panzer Strider. Seemingly on its own, it activates. Stomping and killing Dozens of soldiers bighting some in half and spitting out the mess. A twenty-five-foot tall psychically fueled weapon of mass destruction. Going into a full Rampage. Roaring with unnatural sounds like a whalesong or a gorilla's bark.

When most are dead it fly's over Aziel's chest opening after it sits in full lotus zazen posture he climbs on its legs. and into it's cockpit.

“You staying?” Says Aziel.

“No,” says Terry running at a full stride toga bouncing in the wind. she climbs onto his lap and the hatch shuts. inside there is little room. a locker opens where he places his weapons and they seemingly are swallowed by the Panzer. Even the seem disappears as they are locked away. an orb lowers in front of Terry and Aziel. He places his hands on it and possesses the Panzer.

Soon after some explosions, they are outside. making the jump

 
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from dharmadischarge and his comics

one-page comic with full description below for alt text.

comic-1.jpg

panel 1 “This is me renewing my dreams with a bootleg handheld game console.”

image a cartoon anthropomorphic cat playing a Gameboy clone in a computer chair. The cat looks kinda like Felix the Cat but with fur on his chest and a scar on his forehead. he has mischievous eyes and fangs on his mouth that are nearly always visible.

panel 2 close up of the cartoon cat staring off from his game remembering the past while the game still says beep boop while he is distracted.

panel 3 the cartoon cat as a kid watching roo rami (a legal parody of Toonami name but from a kind scooby doo influenced place in my heart.)

the text above the image says “When I was a kid I watched anime and played retro games.

panel 4 him sitting in in a side view

the cartoon cat says “it doesn't get better than this right guys?)

below the text says “those are my fondest memories.”

panel 5 the cat looks back at the reader and sees he is alone with the text “Where did you go? overlayed over his head.”

panel 6 The view is like panel 4 with the only difference the cat cartoon cat is crying while a Toonami promo plays and says “A boy has the right to dream.

 
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from forrest

ellie and zale, chapter 3 the deal titlecard

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3


    At the core of all things—planets and stars, moons and meteorites, supernovae and comet tails, pulsars and nebulae, flesh and stone, decayed wood and rusted metal, and those once-things long turned to dust; even in always and neverwas, in awareness and sleep, in rainbows and rainclouds too—there is magic; the 183rd element: hecatinium.

    This element set the modem facility aglow on this 8th night of Gamelion, AH386. The static purr of the miniature megaliths, themselves wired with hecatinium and HyperNet, was drowned out by an oscillatory hum emanating from a metal wand propped between the weight of two machines, one of life and one of death—a medical unit and a handgun, both of TatNos model and make—wires wrapped in black electrical tape running from the contradictory devices into slots on the wand itself. The wand was consuming the very essence of both things, like some sort of energy vampire, spitting that energy back out with tricephalous force; a line of green plasma swirled from the tip of the humming spanner, spasming softly as it spread itself some ten feet above the tip of the wand, forming a lime-colored bubble dome about the size of six people.

    Within the bubble were four bodies, three of which were lying motionless on the hard metal floor; the one in motion was Ellie, squatting near a black tower, her eyes shadowed by a dark pair of circular glasses. She was wrapping two wires together with black tape, accented by a light blue glow woven between the adhesive threads. The wires shot a spark, which struck the young woman’s freckled face, causing her to grimace while letting out a primal noise not unlike keweee! She quickly peered into the reflective surface of a nearby megalith to observe the extent of her wound: The spark had burned a dime-sized hole about two layers deep into her right cheek, revealing something red and stringy underneath. And as quickly as she went to touch the wound, it sealed itself shut as if there had been no wound at all. This realization morphed the pained expression on Ellie’s face into something resembling pride.

    “Well, the field works at least,” Ellie said to herself; her voice had a deep softness to it like the midnight hoot of an Old Earth owl; there was a hint of surprise there too, as she had her doubts about wiring two diametrically opposed devices into her spanner, but it appeared to have worked, judging by the regenerative bubble—yet did it work well enough to bring life back to three people on the brink of death? She had never used her spanner in such a way before.

    The spanner itself was given to Ellie on her seventeenth birthday by her grandmother; it was a hand-me-down, as Gigi had not the credits for anything else. Officially, the spanner was a standard TatNos 3rd Generation Diagnostic Wrench resembling a falchion in both shape and size; it ran the Minx operating system on a 2nd Generation Hypnos Atom-State Drive sporting 16 PB of RAM and running a microCHU processor powered by a single fingernail-sized H Crystal that fit into a slot underneath the removable plate locked on the bottom of the handle of which was grafted with a rubbery black polymer. Upon close contact with nearly anything mechanical, the wrench would instantly display diagnostic information for whatever it was pointed at, this information displayed on a palm-sized liquid-crystal display located on the nearly indestructible black vanadium shaft; the information displayed could range from internal temperatures to loose screws to packet-transfer speeds to CoO (Complex of Origin) to CHU-usage percentages by core to the name, birthdate, and current location of the last person who serviced the scanned thing (provided that person was chipped, which nearly all Thessalonians were). Functionally, the spanner emitted pulses of hecatinium-infused energy from a retractable repulsor ring in the middle of the spanner’s torque jaw (retractable so that the torque jaw could be used for its intended manual purpose if needed); the pulses were used to adjust the various mechanical details of any machine—from turning screws to replacing internal chips—all controlled by the thoughts of the wielder, which were interpreted by the Minx operating system through the wielder’s cerebrum implant, which interfaced with the wrench through a barely noticeable pin-prick upon gripping the handle. Each 3rd Generation Diagnostic Wrench was installed with a so-far uncrackable Biological Rights Management system intended to allow only the owner of the wrench to utilize its hecatonic functions, but a quirk in the 3rd Generation BRM allowed any blood relative to use the wrench—which was what allowed Gigi to gift the spanner as a hand-me-down to begin with. Unofficially, the wrench—which Ellie had taken to calling The Spanner of Queens for laughs—was modded with a number of enhancements, one being the grafting of a hecatome glove’s innards into the spanner’s own guts, and replacing the original repulsor ring with the ring from the cannibalized glove, which was a necessary modification to accommodate the additional output afforded by the hecatome glove’s internal chipset. These modifications allowed the spanner to manipulate hecatonic energy in such a way that it was not dissimilar from a magical wand out of a fantasy book, capable of much more than simply fixing machinery, and these hecatonic blasts output in the wrench's original green coloring, which coincidentally matched its wielder's big eyes. But Ellie’s intention was not to make a deadly weapon; the hecatomes programmed into The Spanner of Queens matched those Ellie was trained in at polytechnic: tomes of defense, manipulation, and incapacitation—defensive walls and bubble barriers, hands of god and restrictive tethers, and all the soft electrics; and while she had intended to learn regenerative weaving, the tomes were much too complex for her to grasp, and as such she found no way to program them into the spanner’s operating system herself. But hecatonic shock was programmed with no problem at all, as this tome was one she was well-versed in—a simple, non-lethal means of self-defense that proved invaluable for complex life, albeit a self-defense she had only used outside of the Net thrice before; the third time being just a few moments ago.

    This hecatonic shock was the lightning that struck the mouse—the same mouse Ellie had seen from her spot in the facility's deep noir, the same mouse that had attacked the people she heard after realizing she had left the door wide open, those same people she only got a good look at once they were splayed out on the floor, being tortured by the rodent all wrapped in hellfire. So, when she lifted The Queen and thought of hecatonic shock and those emerald waves of electricity burst forth thus enveloping every inch of the holographic mouse, she believed she had done the right thing; although she had never run 1,200 volts through a man wearing a holo before, and the mouse’s shaking was far more violent than she had ever expected. But despite all that, she believed she had done the right thing. And when she checked the pulses of each person and noticed that the mouse man had no pulse whatsoever, she still thought she had done the right thing; after all, one of the fallen had a TatNos Medical Unit, known to pump non-beating hearts full of life once more—or at least that’s what she had read on the Net—and although she had never used a TatNos Medical Unit before, the thing was straightforward enough, and she figured it out in less than a minute. The medical unit was lacking an H Crystal, but Ellie’s spanner had one to spare, as did the mouse’s gun, and wiring all three devices would allow the spanner to draw power from the handgun while channeling the regenerative hecatonics from the medical unit. The wiring was a simple matter of electrical tape and know-how, and thus: the regenerative bubble now turning the room into a plasmatic jungle of life.

    The green of the do-it-yourself regenerative field was dabbed with spots of red as the HyperNet towers blinked angry blinks of connectivity error. But the colors coalesced into the emerald glow shortly after Ellie, filled with reckless confidence, pulled her face out of an open tower panel, her eyes obscured by the glasses on which her hand was resting, tapping one of the many buttons on the frame. Her toothy grin brighter than ever as she brushed her hands together then rubbed the tip of her hooky nose.

    Floor 3 was online, but there was little time to celebrate; a groan broke through the room’s electronic purr, and this immediately put Ellie on high alert. She slid behind the central network tower for cover, a single sweaty palm pressed against the matte megalith as she peeked her head out toward the room’s only door, which was now firmly closed and locked old-school with a tilted metal chair as the door’s electronic locking mechanism was fried.

    There, near the entrance, a messy-haired young man was twisting around on the floor, wrapped in his own long coat; muted curses as he wrestled his arms free from coattails, propped himself on knee, foot and palm, then rubbed his face with a bare hand, accidentally smearing blood across his face like a wolf after a feast. The coppery smell tipped him off, and he looked down at his bloody palm, blank expression, lost remembering events just minutes before. His reverie snapped when he noticed the green reflecting from the gooey red on his palm, which caused him to do a quick scan of the room—a scan that resulted in a double take at what looked like a ritual totem spewing emerald plasma just a few feet away from him.

    “What in the—” Gray whispered, brushing at his knees before scanning the scene: he saw Jules face down in blood, one hand outstretched in his direction; and the mouse man was mouse no more, just a husk, all ceilingward, his one good eye rigored wider than the festering hole on the opposite side of his face which billowed gray smoke like a mortal volcano post-eruption. This smoke could have doubled as visible stink lines, as there was a fetid mix of ozone, excrement, and burned hair oozing from the rodent’s corpse. “Zeus almighty,” Gray whispered as he covered his nose and repressed a gag.

    Gray hurried to Jules, kneeling down beside them. Jules had suffered two blast wounds, one to each leg, which was obvious from the singed holes in the artist’s poofy pants, the only evidence of wounds that were now closed shut. A third blast smoldered near the fallen artist’s head—a miss—and a fourth had just grazed the side of their smooth stomach, if the small flames slowly creeping along the mesh of Jules’ fishnet shirt were any indication.

    Gray placed a single finger on Jules’ forehead, which must have been the touch of life because the artist instantly turned over and blinked their alien blue eyes up at the young wolf peering down at them. Jules spoke oblivious as if just being snapped out of a weird trance. “I had the strangest dream; there was a mouse, a red mouse, and—”

    “—they had very bad aim, right?” Gray said with a smirk that failed to hide the joy on his face.

    Jules propped themselves up into a lotus position, then made a quick scan of their body, which prompted a gentle laugh. “It’s hard to aim with only one eye.” And then they both laughed, not at the joke—or even at the absurdness of the situation—but at the realization that their friendship had not been cut short, that they still had time to spend together. Their laughter slowly became louder as if the someone were delicately twisting the volume knob to eleven.

    The laughter stopped as Jules noticed the totem, prompting them to tilt their head as if processing the supernatural. Gray looked too, mesmerized by the green plasma fluctuating and twisting and burping in what seemed like eight-dimensional space. Gray broke the silence, “Clearly that’s the thing that saved us, but—” The two friends exchanged puzzled glances before accidentally speaking simultaneously: “Who?” They paused for a moment, then spoke simultaneously once more, “And why?” The laughter returned.

    Jules pushed a long finger into the tip of their nostril, forming a lopsided piggy face, lost in bubble glow. Gray stepped toward the humming totem, approaching it with an arm outstretched, as if to touch the thing, but before he could, the no-nonsense hoot of a serious owl rang out: “Don’t even think about it!”

    Gray and Jules turned siamese to the hoot. Ellie stood with one hand in the opening of her dark messenger bag and the other on the frame of her shadowy glasses, tapping a single button as if toggling data, haptics tickling her face with each tap.

    “You don’t look like a doctor,” Ellie said, peering at Gray over green-reflecting lenses. “And is that your real name—Autolycus? I’ve never heard that one before.”

    “It’s Gray,” the wolf responded matter-of-factly, in a somewhat defensive tone.

    “And you—” Ellie scanned Jules, her lips curling into a curious smile. “Nothing on you.”

    Jules lifted a pale hand and waved an exaggerated wave, unfazed by Ellie’s clairvoyance, tucking a blonde tuft behind their ear before flashing a childlike smile, which Ellie returned in kind.

    Gray watched the ginger girl, who stood shadowed in fluctuating emerald glow, which made her look beautiful, like a grassy meadow dotted with sunflowers at dusk darkly. He stared transfixed, as if he had just come face to face with a faerie. But, like any true skeptic confronted with the supernatural, his expression shifted from wonderment to confusion to anger to a superficial cool in phases spanning only milliseconds, and then, finally, the questions. “Why did you save us?”

    Ellie blinked big greens, “Why not?”

    Gray’s eye twitched at this non-answer. He didn’t immediately respond; instead, he slipped a hand into his coat pocket, which made him feel a little more comfortable. “Why were you here? Are you with the Consortium? What’s your name? And your glasses—are they Net-enabled?”

    Ellie’s thick brows furrowed. She sensed where this was going—“This is stupid”—and intended to cut it short: “My name’s Ellie. I’m in my final year of polytechnic, and I was getting an assignment in class before this whole thing started. I was fixing the Net so I could finish my class, but I found you and your girlfriend being attacked by some—” She gesticulated at the smoking mouse man, “—some mouse person, and I figured, ‘Hey, that mouse seems like a pretty bad dude; why not stop an obvious double homicide?’ which, admittedly, wasn’t very well thought out, and I probably should have just hidden in the back until this all blew over, and—”

    Jules’ smile twisted at the ‘girlfriend’ remark, and Gray, too, looked perplexed. Ellie paused, noticing this shift. “W-What? Was it something I said?”

    “Jules is not my girlfriend—” Gray exaggerated his next word, “—they are my best friend.”

    Ellie’s expression dropped, her eyes wide, the freckles underneath stretched to infinity. “I’m so sorry—you’re totally right. What was I thinking? I just figured the only reason you would be in here during an outage is to get away and—err—kiss—err—I don’t know, do something together, and I just kind of assumed and—” She stopped to collect her thoughts. “Jules, was it? I’m so so sorry. I really don’t know what I was thinking. I’m just flustered right now. I normally don’t do this kind of thing. I—”

    “My name is Euterpe—Julian Euterpe. I think some people call me Jules.” Jules smiled, they sensed beauty in Ellie, but not in the same way Gray might have sensed that beauty—this was a fizzy beauty, there was an understated intelligence in Ellie’s demeanor, expressed through an effervescent weirdness that was both a little immature and a little charming, they thought.

    Gray’s skeptical look softened. He removed his hand from his coat pocket and spoke, “Well, it’s a strange coincidence, still, you being here. I don’t—”

    And then there was a loud mechanical burp; the green bubble wobbled out of phase, then returned to normal, then warbled, then returned once more. The spanner started vibrating just enough to create an audible rattle that overtook the room’s default purr. This prompted Gray to turn and approach the totem.

    Ellie shouted, “Don’t!”

    Gray ignored Ellie’s frustrated hoot. “It sounds like it’s overloading.” He took a moment to appreciate the eldritch wiring between the three devices. “This is really impressive. I’ve never seen anything like it. I’m surprised it even works,” he said, reaching out to touch the magical wrench.

    Ellie shouted again, “I said don’t touch it!”

    Gray heard a faint whoosh and felt the air by his face shift as if he had just barely dodged a bullet. Ellie had removed a thick screw from her bag and thrown it at him, which barely missed, crashing into the spanner with a loud clang. The spanner toppled over, and the regenerative bubble burst as if it were made of green slime, pooling on the metal floor like goo before dissipating into little green dots.

    Ellie gasped, realizing her mistake. But instead of rushing to the spanner, she bolted to the mouse man on the floor and grabbed his stiff wrist, pressing down hard with her thumb; she put her head to the man’s breast, listening closely. Then she popped up, positioned her hands on the man’s chest, one atop the other, and began pressing in turns. She started counting but lost track, and when there was no response, she hung her head and went silent.

    Jules wonder-watched as Ellie played first responder on what was obviously a corpse. Gray approached, as if to stop Ellie, but Jules lifted their hand and shook their head. Several moments passed in near silence—the only noise being Ellie’s whispered curses as she dropped her head to the man’s chest to check for a heartbeat one last time.

    Gray thought, surely this care for the mouse’s life was because Ellie was a Consortium member herself and the mouse man was her colleague—otherwise, why would she care at all? His eyes narrowed at this thought, but then he considered how Ellie had saved their lives, which only served to confuse him more. Moments of contemplation passed before waves of revelation washed over him, leaving nothing but a stoic expression on the shore; he concluded that Ellie simply did not want to kill anyone, and this annoyed him, as she was now trying to save the life of the person who had nearly murdered him just moments earlier.

    Jules did not share their friend's annoyance; they were instead smiling a yin-yang smile, both somber and serene, as they enjoyed learning more about Ellie with every passing moment.

    Ellie, however, was not smiling; she lurched toward Gray, who put his hands up as if to defend himself. “You idiot! Why did you have to go and mess with my spanner?” Her emerald eyes lit up like a forest fire. “If you just listened, this guy wouldn’t be dead right now!”

    Gray shot back, “You threw the damn thing!”

    “I wouldn’t need to throw anything if you just listened to me!”

    Jules took a lanky step toward the heart of the forest fire, hoping to quell the flames. “You deserve credit for trying, but the mouse had already given up the ghost.”

    Ellie, still scowling, heard Jules but ignored them; she was fixated on Gray. “Neither of you knew that! And those medical units have healed worse!”

    Gray took a step back, giving Ellie some room. “Don’t you think he would've healed by now? Whatever you did to that guy ghosted him quick. In fact, he’s been dead for—” Gray peered down at the glowy square on his wrist. “—over twenty minutes now.”

    Ellie’s eyes welled into mossy pools, extinguishing the wildfire, and Gray felt like he was stepping into a mossy pool himself, his understanding of the young woman’s motivation deepening as the water rose around his legs. For a moment, it was as if Gray were being purified by Ellie’s healing waters.

    But Gray resisted purification. “He was trying to ghost us. He was a gangster. He would have ghosted you too. You shouldn’t feel bad. He had it coming.”

    Ellie shook her head. “It was just Hecatome: Shock,” she mumbled as she placed a hand on her face. “It’s like a taser. It’s designed to incapacitate. I programmed it myself. There’s no way it could kill someone. No way.”

    “Well, it incapacitated him straight into a grave,” Gray said, misreading her shift in tone and topic, which resulted in a fresh look of disdain from Ellie, whose mossy pools seemed to evaporate instantly as the wildfire returned. “What?” Gray said, gesturing nervously. “I’m just saying.”

    “I have no right to take anyone’s life. That man should have been arrested, tried, sentenced—something! You could have been trying to kill him first—I don’t know!”

    Gray started with soft chuckles that grew into deep guffaws.

    “What’s so funny?” Ellie demanded, defiantly stomping the floor with one foot.

    “It’s just—” Gray interrupted himself with loud “ha's.” “—just cute that you think the justice syst—” He couldn’t stop, half of his sentence lost in laughter. “Especially in a complex—” He placed a hand on his stomach as if to contain a gutful of guffaws.

    Ellie, eyes welling with tears, stomped right up to Gray and pushed his shoulders—“Shut up!”—causing the wolf to stumble lightly backward, his laughter calming somewhat. She pushed him again and again and again, into a wall. and the wolf was not retaliating.

    Sensing this was getting out of hand, Jules held out their own gloved hand; it glew blue, and, as if by magic, a long Old Earth concert flute dotted with many keys appeared, semi-transparent and azure in its holographics; they held the instrument to their lips and played a jingle that was sharp enough to be annoying but melodic enough to be hummable. This jingle caught Ellie’s attention, who turned to Jules with abrupt curiosity. Jules then snapped their fingers; the flute faded like aerosol into atmosphere.

    There was a moment of silence.

    Gray was leaning back against the metal wall, no longer laughing, his dark hair tufted and ruffled, his face still streaked with his own blood—he wore the expression of someone playing the punching bag to a person who just had to let it all out. He no longer thought Ellie was a member of the Consortium—she had passed a number of internal checks, and he now believed her to be exactly who she said she was: a student in the wrong place at the wrong time; a student gifted in tomes and engineering. And so, the next words Gray spoke came from a place of sincerity: “I appreciate it—you saving us. I owe you big time. But you’re free to just walk out of here. I won’t tell anyone what happened—this was my problem, and it still is.” He flicked his wrists dismissively, as if gesturing a lighthearted joke. “I release you.”

    Ellie turned to face Gray once more. “You don’t get to release me! Do you think leaving solves anything? I’ll still know what happened! I won’t be able to live with myself! And if anyone finds out, I’ll be expelled from polytechnic—I’ll never be able to run for office or change things for the people stuck down here!”

    Gray’s brown eyes narrowed, and the corner of his lip curled as if he had some brilliant insight about Ellie’s character forming in his mind—an insight manufactured to overwrite the truth that he was envious of Ellie’s ability to care so deeply about human life when he himself cared so very little. He didn’t understand this care fully, but he understood it well enough to see that perhaps Ellie knew something he did not—something about life and its sacredness that he could not comprehend. At the very least, he thought, there was something fundamentally different between Ellie and himself, and this made him crack inside. Was she better, ideologically? This envy simmered into a soft rage beneath his projected persona of cool, and, intending to hide the rage with some insightful quip, he accidentally expressed it with the following words—words that cut to the truth he had made for himself, this false truth that calmed his envious mind, made him feel a little better, and filled him with dubious justification: “Is that what you really care about then—your standing at school?”

    Ellie stood glaring wildfire once more. She saw Gray’s face covered in blood, looking like a rabid wolf, ready to draw more blood with words if he could, and she knew this about him simply from the vitriolic tone of his question. She closed her wildfire eyes for a moment and took a deep breath, and when she opened them, they were verdant once more. She calmly walked to her fallen spanner, picked it up off the floor, detached the wires connected to the medical unit and the handgun, and then proceeded toward the only exit in the room, all without exchanging another word.

    But before Ellie could exit, her attention was captured by the dead man’s cargo pants, which started to rustle and buzz loudly. The fabric of the dead man’s pocket burst at the seams, and out flew a black ball the size of a fist. Its metal body reflected the space around it, and it seemed to have a mind of its own, floating as if magnetized opposite the floor. The ball buzzed around the room like an amphetamine bee, dodging modem towers and navigating webs of wire effortlessly. Ellie watched, her head tilted; Jules leapt for the thing, missing and landing flat on their face; Gray, a fearful look overtaking his faux stoicism, pulled out his whirring pen and whirred it in the direction of the flying ball, but the thing was much too fast to get a clear lock. The ball zoomed toward Ellie’s head, stopped just short of impact, then opened a small panel on its reflective surface and flashed a matrix of bright red, lighting up Ellie’s pale face, who tried to swat at the metal bug with her spanner, but it zoomed toward the exit with such force that it crashed through the metal door, leaving a sparking hole in its wake, zipping down the outer hallway, never to be seen again. Ellie was left rubbing red out of her eyes.

    “Necromone,” Gray said confidently, slipping the pen back into his coat. “Wasn't expecting that. Rare tech, haven't seen one in a while—mostly because they’re really expensive.”

    With one final rub, Ellie’s vision focused. Still angry, she let out a “Whatever” and approached the exit.

    Jules intercepted her, “It’s dangerous to go alone.”

    “You’re not going to let me leave?” Ellie proclaimed, placing one hand on the curve of her hip, spanner dangling from her other hand.

    Gray spoke, “The thing that scanned you—the Necromone—it profiled you, likely already sent everything back to Ursa Major.”

    “Ursa Major?” Ellie asked, side-eyeing the wolf.

    “The boss of Complex 42,” Gray replied, exaggerating the word “boss” with a tinge of sarcasm.

    “Zeus?” Ellie blinked.

    Gray laughed. “You really don’t get out much, do you? Spend too much time in classes, I guess.” He paused to pick up the fallen TatNos Medical Unit, sliding it into a large inner-coat pocket as he continued, “Complex 42 is controlled by the Callisto Consortium.”

    Ellie's single raised eyebrow revealed her curiosity, but her face was still flushed with frustration.

    “Consider yourself lucky not knowing about the Consortium. Every credit goes through them, one way or another. Cross them, intentional or not, and you’re dead—or their slave, in which case you might as well be dead.” Gray took a moment to brush muddy bangs from his dark eyes, parting his hair to the side, intentionally revealing a small keloid scar shaped like the letter C. “Some of us are born into it; barely anyone gets out; everything is about money; ‘pay, perform, or perish,’ that’s their catchphrase.” There was a pause before Gray ruffled his bangs once more, covering the scar. “I guess, depending on your circumstances, you may be able to avoid dealing with the Consortium growing up. But, since you live here—in a lowly complex underneath the stars—you can’t avoid them forever, so it’s about time you learned. I’m just sorry you had to learn this way.”

    “There’s no way I wouldn’t know about this.” Ellie looked incredulously between Gray and Jules. Her little bump of a gut told her that Jules was the more trustworthy of the two, so the singer’s serious expression helped alleviate some of her initial skepticism, as did Gray’s scar, but she was still doubtful. “The Pantheon would never allow another group to gain control like this. It’s ridiculous.”

    “Do you honestly believe that a bunch of Star Touched who call themselves ‘gods’ would really care about what goes on down here?” Gray’s tone was bitter, almost angry. “The Pantheon is up there in their starships, playing in literal gardens, eating Old Earth delicacies, while we’re down here withering on a radioactive desert planet surrounded by cold steel, subsisting on nothing but BioBars and mind-numbing drugs that they are supplying us!” His bitter tone morphed into mockery. “The ‘gods’ are gorging themselves while we’re slowly dying.”

    Ellie protested. “The Pantheon does care about us—even if some of them individually do not. The economy, and society as a whole, would collapse without complex workers. Plus, we elect them! Things might not be great right now, but they can be changed. We can vote!”

    Gray tilted his head down, a single hand covering his face all to hide a massive eye roll.

    Ellie’s scowl was stronger than ever, but so was her raised eyebrow. “If this Consortium really existed, it would be all over the Net. You can’t hide something like this.”

    This prompted a sharp laugh from Gray. “The Consortium are pros at wiping away their existence.” Gray scanned Ellie up and down, this time with a more critical eye. “What are you, seventeen, eighteen?”

    The non-sequitur irked Ellie, but the low estimate coaxed a grin out of her at the same time. “I’m twenty-two.”

    “Twenty-two years of ignorance. Lucky you.” Gray paused, a finger underneath his nose like a pretend mustache, thinking carefully about how to drill the seriousness of this situation into someone as stubborn as himself. “You know that mouse you ghosted?”

    Ellie’s poise broke, her shoulders sagging under the weight of shame. She spoke meekly. “Quit saying that.” She looked down and gripped the rubbery hilt of her spanner tighter than before. “My memory isn’t that bad.”

    “He was a Consortium operative. An Alkaid—footsoldier—I think. He attacked me in The Idyllic Garden, over a—” Gray’s thin lips pursed, the mask of confidence he wore so well now slipping, “—an old debt.” He then scanned the room, walked to the mouse’s long-barreled handgun, picked it up, analyzed every inch of it, nodded to himself, and then slid it into his coat before turning back to Ellie, whose attention was bound to the floor, as if speaking to cold metal with her mind.

    Ellie was formulating her next steps, preparing her mental talk track; once she believed herself to have it all worked out, she spoke with shaky conviction: “This is all a misunderstanding. I’m going to turn myself in to the Moral Agents. Explain everything. I was only attempting to stop a crime. The Complex Authority can pull the biometrics from the room and figure it out themselves. Easy.”

    There was a brief silence. Jules fiddled with their gloved hand, biting their thick bottom lip, eyes shifting back and forth from glove to Gray to Ellie and back, as if watching a pivotal drama play out between characters in Old Earth Broadway.

    “The Complex Authority is the Consortium,” Gray said, watching Ellie intently, trying to predict her thoughts, but he couldn’t even begin to guess; to Gray, the two seemed nothing alike apart from the stubbornness.

    The room’s electronic hum was as clear as cicadas on a holographic summer night. This hum vibrated all around Ellie, who stood peering over dark glasses at the metal below, her brow furrowing here and there, her grip on The Queen’s rubbery handle going from hard to soft and back again, as if this had a calming effect.

    Gray became impatient. “The point is, the Consortium thinks you killed one of their operatives. They won’t stop coming after you. That Necromone scanned you. They know you now—your name, your age, where you live, your DNA, your living relatives, the last time you took a piss, probably even your favorite band.”

    Ellie, overwhelmed, abruptly turned to the exit, nudged past Jules, pushed aside the chair, and made her way through the now holey, sparking door. The harsh light of the hallway contrasted with the darkness of the modem facility, temporarily blinding her; she went to cover her eyes but let out a loud sneeze instead. When she regained her vision, she looked down both ends of the hallway, a dead sign indicated HABITATION TERMINAL B to her left and FLOOR 3 CONCOURSE to her right. She turned right in a huff, soon finding herself in the massive Floor 3 hub of Complex 42.

    Ellie wandered through the hub, seeking a Moral Agent to confess her sins, but she only saw walls of chromatic steel stretching into misty vapor, dark swirling columns decorated with inert light-emitting diodes lined in endless rows, gigantic ducts, vents, and fans sucking and swirling high up in the walls and ceilings, occasionally blasting her with gelid winds as she passed. She saw once-moving walkways, now silent and still, mingling with hover chariot pathways, converging into intricate, circuit board-like mazes across the gunmetal expanse. She saw lost souls, all fetal against the chrome, their spirits burned into the retina displays of their plastic headsets. She saw dead neon signs on every wall and corner, and she read these signs in passing: PREGNANT? NO PROBLEM! and ALL TOMES MUST GO and SEE DEMONS: SYNTHETIC ABSINTHE and CYBER-SUSHI-24HR-BUFFET and SNOW SYNDROME TREATMENT and GIRLS! GIRLS! GIRLS! and CHEAP INTELLECT ENHANCERS and REAL WATER NO WEIRD ADDITIVES and EZ LIMB REPLACEMENT and HEPHAESTUS’ HOVER CHARIOTS and ANY FLAVOR BIOBARS and GET GUNS QUICK: NO BACKGROUND CHECK and MECHANIZED OPTOMETRY YOU CAN TRUST and another that just read SWORDS. She broke into a jog, her rusty hair bouncing in tandem with her messenger bag as she searched for absolution, cold twisted neon unfolding with every step: BOYS! BOYS! BOYS!, CATALYSTS & TECHNO-MAGERIES, WHITE HOT NOVA TOPIC, PANTHEON OF POWER: FREE PULLS WITH EVERY PURCHASE. She shifted her head from side to side, searching for signs of life and non-life alike. ECHOS MYRON MEMORY BANK, CHEAP H CRYSTALS, FEEL GOOD INC., AUTO-CAT EMPORIUM, LIGHTLY USED HEADSETS & HOLOTABLES, and one near a seedy corner that just read SAD? :)—its purple-blue fluorescence flickered faintly, as if the complex’s auxiliary power fueled all sorrow on the planet regardless of circumstance and was happy doing so.

    Ellie had never seen the concourse so barren. She felt uneasy. She thought of the Consortium. How could she not know of the Consortium? She was aware of the major gangs of Complex 42—the Children of the Nightmare Kernel, the DDR69s, the Eliminator Jrs, the Boomslang Distribution, to name a few—so why was she just now learning of the Consortium? How could she go twenty-two years without hearing about them? Gray’s words repeated in her mind: “They know you now—your name, your age, where you live, your DNA, your living relatives.” She thought about Gigi. But it had to be nonsense, right? But what about Gigi? Is Gigi safe? Is she alive?

    Ellie’s mind flooded with Gigi, who was likely, at this moment, sitting on the hard cushions of the couch in the glorified box that was their living room, flipping through holos for something to watch now that Floor 3 was online, clueless about the trouble her granddaughter was getting into just a few terminal blocks away. Senile and nearly blind, unaware if someone had broken into their quarters, and likely to become insolent at the slightest provocation—a trait she passed on to Ellie—she was completely defenseless against any two-bit assassin this Consortium could throw their way.

    Ellie knew that if anything happened, it was her own fault, and, however irrational these thoughts may have been, they caused her to stop her fruitless jog through the dead neon to make a quick call. She lifted her hand to the frames of her glasses and started tapping, haptics vibrating the skin around her eyelids. There was a positive jingle, and then the ringing started, a ringing that only Ellie could hear, bouncing around inside her skull. It rang and rang and rang. The silence that followed twisted Ellie’s stomach into a knot, and this knot caused her to abruptly turn, dashing off in the opposite direction as fast as she could.

    Ellie nearly skid fire behind her as she turned the corner into the hallway from whence she had come just minutes before, rushing to the habitation terminal that lay just beyond one final turn. As she rounded the corner into Terminal B, the steel-gray walls of which were imprinted with the letter B and caked in stylized graffiti and band posters—JENOVAKILL, Audiovisual Adolescence, The Peggy Suicides—all yellowing and peeling at the edges, she thought for a moment that she had kicked up real flames as something brilliant and orange reflected off a nearby sign that read HABITATION TRANS-AM: TERMINAL B in dead glass. But it wasn’t Ellie’s shoes that had kicked up flame; it was someone else. Someone was playing with fire, and that someone was surrounded by a mass of people who stood odd-watching in awestruck quietus, drawn moth-like to flame. The fire rose higher than the tallest head in the crowd, butterflies and birds burned the oxygen above.

    Ellie, as if possessed by some supernatural force, forgot all about her grandmother and was compelled to approach the flame, to become one with the crowd; and when she did, the masses parted like the seas of Old Earth religious texts, revealing the solitary flame caller—a terminal performer. The performer stood majestic, flames exhaling from a part in their lips as if they had dragons in place of lungs. The flames were blown onto a long, curved blade, which then flicked the fire into the air, this time flashing a momentary constellation in the shape of a vicious bear that supernova’d into hundreds of smaller horses, which fizzled out as they galloped off somewhere near the massive industrial ceiling fans that spun so large that they could slice ancient giants in twain.

    The performer towered over the masses, standing nearly seven feet tall. They wore a tan, pyramid-shaped hat woven with synthetic bamboo; the tip added inches to the performer’s already incredible height, and the wide, sunken brim obscured their eyes and cast long shadows over their square face. They wore a long, dark blue robe over their mountainous, masculine shoulders; the robe itself was threaded with many golden moons—from new to crescent to quarter to gibbous to full—and these moons played amongst smoky clouds that were so amorphous they seemed to billow and burst at even the slightest wave of the fabric. Around the performer’s waist was a simple brown rope, tied tightly above the hips, which produced a subtle hourglass shape to the performer’s imposing figure. Tied on the left of the belt was a long, curved sheath of glossy black, itself dotted with golden moons. The sheath was empty, as the performer held the blade at their side while blowing flames from their mouth after taking long sips from a jug imprinted with a single foreign symbol on its tan surface. The blade, which Ellie assumed was a katana of Old Earth Russian make—or so she had read on the Net—was longer and more curved than any she had seen before, with a circular golden guard that separated the glistening steel—of which the metal was both like a black hole and a sea of silver—from the hilt, which was the size of a short sword all wrapped in midnight-blue cloth.

    Both the performer’s fire-breathing and strikingly foreign aesthetic captured Ellie’s attention, but what she thought most interesting of all was the performer’s shoes, which were simple raised sandals made of synthetic wood that hooked around the performer’s large, brown feet with a single red strap, reinforcing Ellie’s impression that this was, indeed, a terminal performer on the clock, as they were wholly unequipped for everyday complex life otherwise—after all, Old Earth blades were considered antiques for a reason: they couldn’t withstand a single hecatonic blast.

    Ellie was suddenly overcome by great shame; she had forgotten all about her grandmother, however momentary, and this realization broke the performer’s spell on her. She stepped backward twice in a daze before turning completely, intent on hurrying home. But she only made it a few feet before she felt an extreme heat on the back of her neck, which caused her to turn toward the performer, who had blown a large flame directly at her. The blaze billowed out just inches away from her face, singeing at least two freckles and frizzing the tips of her already fiery tresses. When the flame vanished and the smoke cleared, she found her eyes locked upon those of the terminal performer. But the performer’s eyes were like nothing she had seen before: white stars, dead television, holes in space. A tingle ran down her spine, her body locked up, and her right hand tensed on the grip of her spanner. As soon as she froze, the crowd unfroze, as if snapping out of a magicked reverie in unison, everyone looking around at each other with their wild haircuts and grafted metal, all confused, as if they didn’t know how they had gotten there. Then the crowd dispersed, leaving Ellie face-to-face, frozen, with the terminal performer holding the longest curved blade she had ever seen in her life.

    There was silence in the ghost terminal.

    Ellie’s mind was working, but her body would not cooperate. She realized she wasn’t breathing, and this caused a mental panic that was only made worse by the performer’s next words.

    “Pay. Perform. Perish.”

    Ellie’s eyes would have gone wide if she could have moved them at all. A million thoughts raced through her mind in the span of ten seconds, and she tried to grab only the most important ones: the words the performer used—they were the same words Gray used to describe the Consortium: pay, perform, perish. So Gray was telling the truth, unless this was a practical joke—but no, that’s not important; she discarded that thought. What’s important? What was this man doing to her? That’s important. He wasn’t holding a hecatonic device that could cause paralysis like this, unless it was the sword, but the sword looked antique, classical. Maybe he drugged her without her noticing? The fire? Something in that tan jug? But this seemed to happen after she made eye contact with the man. But those eyes, those white eyes—blind? Some sort of fleshy machinery—inserts?—maybe a hypnotic sine wave or a subliminal message? She had never seen or read anything like this. No, the reason doesn’t matter—or does it? What matters is that she’s stuck, unable to move. But was she really? Perhaps this was all mental; she tested this theory: tried to move her hands, tried to tighten her fist, but it was of no use. She wanted to close her eyes, lose herself in darkness, formulate a plan of some sort, but she couldn’t close her damned eyes. She had so many thoughts. Useless thoughts. She became flustered, frustrated. Hopelessness set in. She felt a cosmic dread wash over her at the sudden realization of her own fragility—immortality, lost. “How immature was I.” She was going to die. Then panic set in. She knew Gigi would be next. Images of Gigi’s head rolling on the floor, a bloody path behind it like the slime trail of an Old Earth snail. Her grandmother’s old, faded eyes blinked up at her from the floor as she stood helpless, unable to move. The pit in her stomach became so wide that her brain fell through it. She became thoughtless.

    And then her vision went black.

    Within the inky dark, she saw a faded green bump map of a three-dimensional face poking through voidant space. Ellie felt as if she were standing in the void, watching this bumpy face as it tried to push its way through a thick cloth of pitch black, its light barely poking through, leaving only an outline. The experience would have been frightening, but there was a strange familiarity to it all, similar to bio-circuiting into the HyperNet, and this put Ellie at ease.

    The bump map face, still unrecognizable, started to glitch wildly, and suddenly a cacophony of noise erupted throughout the void. The noise was like the sound of machines being murdered. Amidst the hellish clamor, there were faint voices—one voice, many voices; it was hard to tell. But as the noise continued, Ellie was able to pick out the phonetic sounds, assemble them in her mind, and make meaning from the chaos.

    XX?/s/dfs/dfs/??G?Sdgsdgsgsgs//!!!!!!!!!!!!/WEGwegCANYOUHEARwgw2@!%@!#%@THIS!#$!#@66IMPORTANT!#@5123fdsaMOMENT53564xzczxTURNINGrwetwPOINTqwr13r$^3453365//wnANCIENThtn/2352352/5gasdBREAKf2439ut2352!23526Xx@#%@!#%52352CURSEgaweg42g////////////////GEKKOMAHI/////////////////fqf243324623476sad&^&4573w5THINKITdsfdsagasdgFEELITqwr3qr1524720194514t55@GRAYS#%0^$#&$..12.JULES4124/GONE1/STILL12/4142-12DEADsdgdsag41024AN294IMTHEasfasfONLY2358ONExxqtegLEFTxsaxXNOW3u3215151Iefwegwq@253235sad235626326213t521ewwTHEefxxEGGxxafw2t42q4652641

    Gekko Mahi. These words stood out, but what did they mean? Ellie, in this voidant world, this mindspace, stepped toward the twitching, bumpy face; it was as big as a star in this black hole realm. Ellie spoke like an Old Earth monkey trying to communicate with a god. “What does it mean? Gekko Mahi?”

    As she thought these final words, she snapped back to her senses, finding herself once more in Terminal B. She reflexively stepped back in real time and space, lifting her spanner into a defensive stance, disheveled but hiding it well. The terminal performer stood before her, emotionless, but something in his posture indicated a level of surprise that mirrored Ellie’s own—she could move again, but how?

    The performer, a veritable swordsman, lifted his long steel and pointed it directly at Ellie, who was slowly stepping back, making sure not to make eye contact with the man. He spoke, his voice deep but calm, as if hiding the fact that he could tear down a mountain with a single shout. “Pay. Perform. Perish.”

    “Never,” Ellie said. She meant to wave her spanner in front of her, but instead accidentally looked into the performer’s eyes, which rigored her body, locking her in place once again. She cursed herself mentally.

    The swordsman slowly walked toward Ellie, the sharp tip of his blade sparking against the floor. There was a hesitation in the man’s approach, but not from fear—more from curiosity. This curiosity quickly vanished in one elegant motion as the blade flashed vertically through Ellie’s frozen body.

    But Ellie had already figured it out: “Gekko Mahi.”

    In an instant, Ellie clasped the rubbery grip of her spanner with both hands, holding it like the horizon, the swordsman’s blade caught on the nearly indestructible black vanadium of the spanner’s shaft. The blade appeared still, but the wrench shook violently, typhoon-force waves sending ripples up the skin of Ellie’s arms; the adrenaline pumping through her veins made her unaware of the blood dripping from her palms as she held the blade back, her meek muscles bulging, drool dripping from her lower lip. Seconds passed before Ellie was able to shift the force of the blade slightly to the left, breaking posture; the swordsman was nearly unfazed, but the force sent Ellie stumbling backward several feet, nearly slamming her back against a wall plastered with Old Earth brick decals. The wall turned into a thin hallway that dead-ended into a garbage chute. She took this opportunity to slip around the turn, pressing her back against the wall in a quick attempt to gather her composure. Thoughts of getting back to Gigi—doing it for her—kept her focused and calmed her nerves. She kneeled slightly, placing one hand on the fake brick behind her, flipping her spanner to view the now cracked LCD—25%—and pressed an up arrow that cycled through words before she settled on one with a nod.

    Ellie poked her head out from behind the fake brick to catch a glimpse of the swordsman, who was iconic in his slow, silent stride, his blue robe flowing like midnight waves reflecting serious moonlight on a beach with a hurricane just one mile out. She knew she had to act quickly, incapacitate the man, make her escape down Terminal B, hopefully without killing him. But she lacked confidence in her hecatonic shock after the last incident—but what choice did she have? The calm of seconds before started to slip away, but Ellie remembered Gigi’s words from when she was young, playing at the Recreational Facility for Children on Floor 7, when she leaped from platform to platform without a hint of hesitation—”My little Elpis, recklessly confident, as always!“—and Ellie figured this was a good trait to have when facing off against a fire-breathing moon assassin without an exit strategy. Her confidence returned, and after a single gulp, she jumped out from cover and called lightning; crackling lines of lime green sparked in the air between her and the swordsman, who merely lifted his long blade vertically, one hand on the hilt and another in half-prayer on the steel. All the electricity began to pull into the black side of the blade as if it were some sort of magnetic energy vampire. The sword's silver metal pulsed green, as if it had its fill of sparks, and in the next instant, a silver flash returned the green lightning back at Ellie in the shape of a crescent moon.

    The resulting shock dropped Ellie to the hard floor, convulsing on her side in the wild agony of 1,200 volts. Her high-pitched scream echoed down the terminal hall.

    The swordsman, without a single word, unclipped the jug from his belt, took a sip, then flicked the contents of the jug toward Ellie's now quivering figure. He blew a wicked flame that caught the spilled contents around Ellie, encircling her in a ring of fire, as if she were a demon being sealed. The swordsman stepped through the flame, unaffected. He towered above Ellie, who, through great strength of will, had managed to writhe her way through the electric pain, bringing herself to a crouch. She tilted her head up to get a glimpse of the man, forgetting about his deathly orbs, and found herself locking eyes with him once more, which froze her solid. But she thought the words—Gekko Mahi—and regained control, falling to her bottom and pushing herself with hands and feet to the far edge of the burning circle.

    “Interesting,” the swordsman said to himself before sheathing his long blade, the curved sheath nearly touching the floor. He peered down at Ellie through eyes tuned to a dead channel—Ellie was unsure what he was actually seeing—then he spoke the words once more, as if offering another chance: “Pay. Perform. Perish.”

    Ellie, flames reflecting deviously off her flecked face, covertly tapped a button on her spanner, making sure not to look up at the man. “I told you my answer!” Ellie smirked as she lifted the spanner; a green hand shot out of its ring—Hecatome: God Hand—the emerald hand was massive and attempted to clench around the swordsman.

    “Odachi: Gekko!”

    An instantaneous flash of light left a circular afterimage in the shape of a golden crescent in the space between the swordsman and Ellie, and the hand of god shattered like porcelain, leaving only a green mist behind; the ghost moon soon faded, too, leaving only a gold vapor in its wake; the swordsman stood majestic amidst the golden green, his sword drawn in a vertical two-handed grip, the flat side close to his face.

    Ellie looked at the swordsman; wide-eyed, medusa'd, defeated.

    The swordsman flashed one final flash into Ellie’s frozen figure.

    There was a loud blast; the terminal walls flared red. At the same time, the swordsman’s blade arm twisted into a defensive posture over his face, dragging steel along with it, red vapor trailing from the silver side of the blade; a smoking hole appeared in the wall behind him. The swordsman’s head tilted toward the far hallway, from which Ellie had arrived earlier, and there stood The Wolf Itself—Gray—arm outstretched, long-barreled handgun in hand, red vapor dancing ballet from the barrel. He shouted across the hall while wiggling the handgun slightly, “No BRM!”

    Beside The Wolf stood The Artist—Jules—ethereal blue flute in hand, blonde hair covering one side of their face.

    With the swordsman’s attention diverted, Ellie quickly got to her feet and, with reckless abandon of which Gigi would be proud, ran as fast as she could through the circle of fire, her arms covering her face in a cross, spanner pressed against her chest. She gambled that the swordsman would not cut her down right then and there, and her gamble paid off as she skid to a stop near Jules, who looked at her with a rare seriousness before speaking in a whisper, “He felt bad.”

    Ellie returned Jules' glance with an uncertain smile before a burning sensation on her hip made her acutely aware of the flame smoldering on her cargo pants; the sound of frantic patting disrupted the silence between all parties: Gray, gun pointed at the circle of fire, his smirk fading into stoicism; Jules, holo flute raised to their lips, as if ready to play a solo; and Ellie, now done with her patting, holding The Spanner of Queens in front of her chest in something of a contrived action pose. The three of them stood protagonistically, as if they had just leapt out of a holotable game, and the whole thing felt dreamlike to Ellie, who was trying very hard not to think too deeply about the situation, lest her reckless confidence turn into sudden hyperventilation.

    The swordsman walked slowly through the flaming wheel, his robe unscathed, his expression unfazed, a blaze of dancing fire along the edge of his blade. Odachi: Kagero. The flame wheel fizzled out behind him.

    Gray spoke softly, “Ellie, on three, I want you to throw out your best tome, then turn around and run for your life—oh, and hold your nose.”

    Ellie’s eyebrow raised at the nose bit. She side-eyed Gray and Jules, throwing her voice, “He’s got this thing—a tome maybe, I’m not sure—freezes you.” She noticed both Jules and Gray were focused on the swordsman’s feet, not his face, as if they already knew. “The words ‘Gekko Mahi’ seem to break the spell.”

    “One…” Gray flipped a switch on the gun’s grip, a faded crystal discharging from the bottom panel, which fell into his free hand and was swiftly pocketed. The swordsman drew closer. “Two…” Gray hurled the gun at the swordsman, and as quickly as it was thrown, it was sliced in two, the pieces whizzing past the swordsman’s head, small explosions sparking as they impacted the wall behind him. “Three…” Gray’s coat hand emerged, holding a small tan ball with a rudimentary fuse burning near the end; he lobbed it at the swordsman, and it exploded into a dank cloud that engulfed the halls of Terminal B.

    Ellie gagged at the pungent smoke but managed to wave her spanner through the gross cloud, weaving an opaque barrier before the party; it was the size of two men standing atop each other and as thick as the densest emerald. Hecatome: Mighty Guard. The wall moved slowly toward the swordsman, hovering just inches off the ground, growing larger with each passing moment. Jules then blew a sharp note on their flute, which reverberated into a shrill cacophony, as if a siren had been summoned into the hall.

    Noses pinched, the party bolted down the hallway.

    “That’s Zale! Trained Parivir—whatever that means!” Gray shouted mid-sprint, his voice funny as he held his nose, his coat lashing at the nasty smoke that spiraled down the narrow hallway. “We’re no match. Gotta lose him.” Still sprinting. “Guy’s blind—had to mess with his senses a little bit.”

    Questions flooded Ellie’s mind as she ran alongside Jules and Gray. Where were they going? What about Gigi? Was she safe? Ellie could feel her stomach knotting again, but she didn’t have time to dwell on it because, in the very next moment, a great pillar of flame rose before them, spreading into a wall of fire that blocked the hallway from wall to wall.

    “Run through it!” Gray yelled, ducking his head as he sprinted faster.

    “Meow!” Jules shouted, preparing to leap feline as they approached the flames.

    Ellie gulped.

    As they closed in on the wall of fire, a sudden gale launched them backward. Ellie’s spanner twirled through the air, landing several feet away, and her circular glasses went flying with such force that they shattered before even reaching the floor. Miscellaneous items from Gray’s coat scattered ceilingward, each chiming as they hit the metal floor below. Jules was like a cat caught in a tornado before being thrown against a wall.

    Zale stood where the fire once burned, blade drawn. How he got there was anyone’s guess. Ellie regained composure just enough to see that Zale was walking toward her, so she fumbled around the floor for her wand, but it was much too far away. Her legs were weak from the attack, she was unable to stand, but she tried, and this only toppled her further, putting her in an even worse position with her back against the wall. A sharp melody rang out—it was Jules—but the melody was cut short as the swordsman’s odachi, with supernatural precision, flashed across Jules’ gloved hand, causing the flute to blink out of existence, leaving only a trail of sparks behind.

    Gray hurried to his feet and rushed Zale, holding something like a hilt without a blade, the only item he could find in his coat pockets; but Zale closed the distance for him, palm striking the wolf’s stomach and slamming him into the wall with a yelp.

    “My contract is only for the girl,” Zale spoke solemnly from within the shadow of his bamboo hat. He afterimaged to Ellie’s fallen frame, blade drawn, the tip less than an inch away from the young woman’s forehead; yet this still placed Zale over four feet away from her. “She has some promise, but she has refused the offer.”

    Ellie kept her head down, avoiding eye contact, insane options racing through her head until she realized that she had no options left except for the worst ones. She gulped. “If I accept…” Her voice meek, defeated. “If I perform…” A single tear turned into a chime on the cold steel below. “What will happen to my—”

    Gray’s shout echoed down the hall—“Article 16 of the Callisto Covenant!”—like magic words that commanded Zale to click his blade back into its sheath. “I accept her blood debt,” the wolf said, now standing tall, gusts of air from a nearby vent whipping his coattails all around, his dark hair a windy mess.

    “No!” Ellie shouted, overcome by dread. “Whatever you’re doing—stop!”

    Gray ignored her plea. “Zale, you and I both know she has no say in this—she’s not a member of the Consortium.”

    Zale nodded, his large-brimmed hat tipping along.

    “Transfer her debt to me.”

    Zale was silent for a tense ten seconds before he spoke. “Look at me, Wolf.”

    Gray shifted his gaze to the swordman’s white orbs but was not paralyzed.

    “The killing of a Consortium agent comes with a great price.” The swordsman placed a dark hand on his left ear, pausing as if listening to something only he could hear. “We doubt you can afford it.”

    “I’m good for it. Just scored big off a recent job.” Gray hoped that the slight tensing of his shoulders went unnoticed as he feigned alpha wolf confidence.

    “And there are other crimes of which you are guilty.”

    “I’ll settle those too.”

    Ellie, stumbling to her feet, inserted herself between the two men. She faced Gray, her hooked nose scrunched in anger. “I don’t need a white knight, you moron!” she shouted, but Gray responded only with a sideways glare. Jules watched from the nearby wall, big ocean eyes shifting back and forth between all three parties. “Jules, you’re his friend, right? Tell him to stop!” Ellie gestured toward the musician, but they said nothing.

    After a tense feeling of forever, Zale’s hand lowered from his ear to rest on the pommel of his great blade. “The Consortium has agreed to the terms outlined in Article 16 of the Callisto Covenant. The debt has been transferred—all six million credits' worth.”

    To anyone else, Gray’s posture was unchanged, but to Zale, who lived and breathed even the most minute atomic shifts, the wolf’s rigid stance relaxed; and this made Zale smile an unusual smile before he tipped his hat with a single dark digit and said, “You have three days to pay the debt—the Consortium will give you no more chances, Wolf.”

    Ellie blinked, and just like that, the swordsman was gone. She wasn’t even sure how he left; he just wasn’t there anymore.


Chapter 4 (Coming Soon)

Artwork by ComicFarm.


#TheEgg #Fiction

 
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from Crapknocker

Just a few bits of general advice on playing #FrogComPosBand gleaned from dying over and over and over.

Once you’re deeper than level 30, watch out for summoners. Lots of different monster types can summon on you, which is generally a really bad thing to have happen. Watch out for qulythulgs, as that’s their main jam to summon nasty stuff right on top of you. Bigger demons can summon as well, which can also lead to chain-summoning which can royally ruin your day. Always have a means of escape; teleport scrolls work very well for this. You can also find ways to cast the genocide or mass genocide spells to clear things out, but be aware that for every monster you delete using these methods you lose 1 HP. When the dungeons fill with hundreds of monsters, this might do more than just sting. Also be aware that uniques are resistant to genocide.

Keep out of open areas, for the simple reason that monsters seeing you will begin to attack you. If you’re playing a stealthy class they might not see you until you’re closer or at all, which is highly to your advantage. Whenever you can choose the battlefield and tilt things to your advantage, you should do so. Open areas give the monsters the initiative to start chasing you, and many have very nasty distance attacks like Hell Lances or Mana Storms. Keeping out of sight of summoners can prevent them from summoning on you as well.

Buffing yourself up before a fight is almost always worth it. Potions of Speed, Heroism, Resistance, and temporary armor buffs like Stoneskin can make the difference between having to retreat and heal and sticking out that last turn and killing that tough unique. Eventually you will find a rod of Heroic Speed to hit you with both at once and perhaps save an inventory slot.

Always have a source of healing! Early on you will have to use potions of cure (light, medium, whatever) wounds but towards the midgame those won’t be as effective as you would like them to be. You can search for staffs of cure wounds that can have you back up in a jiffy, but as you go on, you will need to rely on potions and later staffs of Healing unless you have some healing magic to fall back on. Stockpile these potions! Buy them from black markets when you can. In the late game, staffs and rods of Angelic Healing can replace some of these needs, but having potions as your backup is a zero fail method you can always depend on. Potions do give you nutrition, so if you’re planning on chugging a bunch of potions, you may want to come on an empty stomach, as being Gorged slows you down significantly.

Always have a source of detection! Knowing what’s coming and how to deal with it is paramount. If there’s a tough unique up ahead, you would definitely rather know about it rather than just blindly getting ambushed. Furthermore, knowing the layout of the dungeon around you is helpful for the same reason. Taking a quick sprint across two tiles is much safer than walking up to that big summoning monster and just hoping they don’t get too many shots in before you get there. In the early game you will have to find or buy rods or staffs of Detect Monsters, scrolls of Magic Mapping and Detect Traps, but towards the midgame you will replace all these with rods of Detection, which rolls a bunch of useful things into one (monsters, traps, items, stairways). You will also find staffs of Clairvoyance later on to help map the terrain and light things up for you. You can also use potions of Enlightenment on levels you think will be tough to find out the whole layout at once.

Ideally, here’s how a battle against a difficult enemy would go: you use your rods or staffs or whatever to detect the enemy far off in the distance. You do a little magic mapping to see the terrain. You choose the best possible approach, one that keeps you out of line-of-sight until you’re right next to them. You buff up before you engage. Then you hit them until they drop all that delicious loot.

What actually happens in practice is that there’s some element you’ve forgotten or something unexpected occurs. For example, just out of range of your initial detection radius could be another difficult enemy that wakes up when you’re fighting the first, putting you at more of a disadvantage. The enemy could escape or even steal something of yours before running away. Enemies can also buff themselves with berserk rages and globes of invulnerability and the like. Some enemies can dispel your precious buffs or suck the charges from your wands, rods, and staves. One of your potions of speed might shatter after an enemy’s elemental attack, causing that enemy to be much faster than you were originally estimating.

You can always ‘l’ook at a monster and hit r to recall information you know about it. If you’ve seen that type of enemy before, you might know what it resists, what it’s immune to, it’s speed, it’s HP, lots of different information. This is invaluable, and you can turn on the ability to remember this info between characters in the settings. There’s a billion kinds of enemies, so having this info around can keep you out of the frying pan just a little while longer.

One last thing, don’t rush. The game doesn’t do anything on its own until you press a button to move or act. Take time to pay attention to what enemies are around you and what they might do in the next few turns. Other games may have conditioned you to push buttons quickly to get yourself out of danger, but doing this only gives enemies more turns to act while you might not be noticing what they’re doing. It’s tempting to start smashing the move buttons after an enemy gets you down to half health in one round, but acting without thinking, especially in the lower depths of the dungeon, will get you killed. If you get in a tough spot, think over your options before doing anything. Teleporting out is usually safe, unless there’s a big enemy you’ve passed by that’s awake somewhere else on the level that you might accidentally end up next to. Staffs and rods have a chance to fail and if you do in the midst of combat, the round you spent trying might be your last one. Keep low or no-fail options like scrolls or potions in your inventory as well.

Level feelings

I’ve you’ve been playing the game, you’ve probably noticed a message pop up, something like, “This level looks relatively safe.” This is the level feeling and can give you an idea of what’s waiting for you out there in the rest of the level you’re on. The color of the level indicator in the lower left of the main screen will change depending on what message you get. This only applies to the level you’re currently on, if you to a new level in a dungeon you’ll need to wait a bit there until you get a new feeling.

The level feeling takes around a hundred turns to pop up. But once it does there are several useful things you can take away from it that might change how you play the level. Possibly the best one is “There is something special about this level.” in a baby blue color. This means that somewhere on the level is an artifact, just waiting to be picked up. Depending on the level you’re on, this could be a huge find.

There are a few levels of messages that indicate how difficult the enemies you will be facing on the level are. The first, in light brown is something like, “You’re feeling nervous.” In the early levels (0-20), this probably means there’s a unique monster somewhere on the level. Next is, “You have a bad feeling about this level” in dark brown. That means there’s more difficult enemies waiting for you, probably still a unique or a few out of depth monsters waiting for you. The next level is in orange text and I can’t remember the message. The final one that I’ve seen is in dark red, indicating that there’s something extremely dangerous out there. Probably a vault or a bunch of out of depth monsters.

Line of sight

You’ve probably noticed that enemies don’t start firing distance attacks at you until they see you. There are a few ways to keep out of sight of monsters but still cause damage to them. The first is by using a rod, wand, or ammunition of exploding to fire an area of effect spell that hits the monster without you being in its line of sight. This becomes extremely useful when dealing with enemies like qulythulgs and druj (drujes?) that are immobile but can cause all sorts of problems for you if they see you. If you can avoid being seen by these guys and have enough charges or ammo, you can safely kill them from out of sight without them being able to do anything about it.

Personalities

These are options in character creation that can add some additional wrinkles to your run. A few of the easiest ones to ‘get’ are the Combat and Mighty personalities. They are trading your int and wis for additional strength, dex and con. If you’re planning a warrior-type, these can give you some extra early game oomph at the cost of higher device and spell failures in the lategame. On the flipside, there is Crafty or Shrewd, which somewhat does the opposite of the previous two mentioned.

Some of the wackier choices are Unlucky, which gives you a boost to all your stats, but makes it harder to get good drops, occasionally makes you miss in combat and gives you higher spell and device fail rates. The opposite of this is Lucky.

Sexy gives you a boost to a few stats but gives you inherent aggravation, which causes enemies to instantly wake up on level generation. This puts you at a serious disadvantage to start with, but can be mitigated a few different ways. And you can wear items that aggravate since you have it already.

The in-game help has good descriptions of how each of the different ones work, so check through the list and see if one might make an interesting twist on your character.

 
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from Lucifer Orbis

Some months ago, I bought a book called En Reise til Roma – I sporene til pilegrimen Nikolas Bergsson året 1152 (A Journey to Rome – In the footsteps of the pilgrim Nikolas Bergsson in the year 1152) by Hans Jacob Orning and Svein Harald Gullbekk. Both authors are history professors at the Oslo University and have made research in the fields of Norwegian and European history in the Middle Ages. Svein Harald did also run research projects in the area of numismatics. I think they must be a very interesting duo and their classes are surely packed with curiosities about history, big societal questions, nasty details about religious relics, period currency and also tips and tricks about bike maintenance. Yes, both gentlemen are passionate about cycling.

The book is about an Icelandic monk called Nikolas Bergsson and the pilgrimage he undertook from Iceland to Rome and then Jerusalem. He left a travel guide to help other pilgrims. The document is called Leiðarvísir og borgarskipan. As a trve icelandic man, Nikolas was sceptic of authorities, didn't dabble too much in political intrigue, still had the saga of Sigurd Fåvnesbane and Gudrun in his imaginary, had a special interest in saints and relics and whether or not he found what he was looking for in his pilgrimage is still a mystery. Of what is known, he managed to go safely back to Iceland. He became abbot of the benedictine monastery of Munkaþverá in Eyjafjörður.

So what did Hans Jacob and Svein Harald decide to do? Walk in the steps of Nikolas and see the world through his eyes to the best of their ability? Of course not! They would cycle! The book's title is A Journey to Rome because the authors opted to make the first half of Nikolas' pilgrimage from Iceland to Rome and experience the world from their bike seats. They had to make sporadic use of transportation and resort to current-day facilities but soon found themselves in Norway. Thus the book, in general terms, tells the story of what they are able to see and find in the places Nikolas visited at a time when most territories in Europe were part of the Western Roman Empire. What did Nikolas see? More than that, what was he aware of?

The book is packed with historical facts and curiosities from the get-go and it can quickly get a bit overwhelming. The authors followed the guide very closely, informing the reader about the instances they deviated from and why. It's an astronomical amount of research that my brain, used to read texts focused on one aspect of historical thinking, struggled a bit to keep up. I can't say I didn't get distracted at times, but there was always something grabbing my attention a few sentences sooner or later. I think I saw a bit of myself in Nikolas, going back to something I've mentioned two paragraphs ago as is expressed here:

Det var helgener, relikvier og kirker han [Nikolas] var opptatt av, ikke paver, ei heller kirken som helhet eller ideologi. (p. 61)

“Nikolas was interested in saints, relics and churches, not popes or the church as a whole or as ideology.” I can see this. Do I share a bit with Nikolas? Maybe so. After what I learned about him I could see myself walking by his side and drinking some beers with him, exactly how Hans Jacob and Svein Harald imagined if they were in the same pilgrimage. I'm just not so sure, though. There's a lot of speculation about Nikolas' thinking – if there was some interest in the church as an institution it may be lost to us. However, it strikes me as odd if there's a total disconnect between a future abbot and his current-day church affairs. The authors don't seem to be very interested in the church as an ideology either, especially when there's emperors and politics to think about. In any case, in good academic spirits, it's always good to maintain some neutrality when it comes to matters of religion and faith, even in a book which is supposed to be about the complexity of the time period it illustrates, the travel and Nikolas pilgrimage. In the end the authors painted a very profound picture of the mentality of people in the Middle Ages, their interconnected webs of actions and reactions, the spiritual and the mundane connected, the supernatural realm and its impact and significance in the physical world. At times, I struggled to see the difference between this mentality and the unique experience of meeting (some) religious people today.

I continued reading the book and our friend Nikolas made his way through Speyer, he saw the Speyer cathedral – a massive building with cruciform plan, a central nave and two side aisles, the transeptum, a big vault and a deambulatorium. It's a large, earthly, serene, and powerful construction built with red sandstone and the final resting place of emperors. By the time Nikolas visited the cathedral Conrad II, Henry III, Henry IV and Henry V were already buried there. The authors were completely drawn to it and me too. I want to visit that cathedral for other reasons, not of the same world as our author’s, but now that I have a little more information, I also wish to take a look at the graves and marvel at them, not only at the Divine. I want to see the cathedral from the outside and see it, not only as the house of God, but as house-like, an oversized house that doesn’t project itself to the skies like a meteor.

The reaction of our travel companions to the Strasbourg cathedral was visceral to say the least (p. 134). Its rayonnant gothic architecture didn’t allow for an opportunity to rest the eye. Used to Protestant churches with minimal religious imagery, I can only imagine the overwhelming impact gothic architecture has on people who aren’t religious or are used to simplicity and practicality. I myself love gothic churches for their artistical, architectural and engineering value; they’re like a museum or an open book which tells many stories if we’re able to comprehend or identify them. I just don’t see them as optimal places of prayer. I never entered a gothic church and got that pull to sit in introspection or say a word of prayer. The reaction of our authors shocked me at first but now in hindsight I can see where it came from. Who were those bells and whistles made for anyway? How did people react at the time the rayonnant part was finished? Was the objective to disturb or to invite? Or both?

The chapters about the church, relics, and saints are among my favourites. The exciting practice of stealing relics from a city to considerably increase the economic power of another city is described in such a way that almost I forgot that stealing is wrong. Our authors call it kulturkriminalitet which dispenses any translation. The idea of cultural crimes is a relatively modern one and at the time of Frederik Barbarossa it meant serious business (p. 84). When his troops took over Milan they got access to massive loot. Among the goodies were the relics of the Three Kings. This was a wonderful score handed to the Archbishop Rainal of Dassel that made Cologne into one of the most important centres of pilgrimage. What I find most captivating are the discussions between both authors at the end of the chapters, where the subject shifts from a very compressed mixture of names, places, dates and events (all relevant and well structured) to little bits of introspection, analysis and reflection. They themselves reflected upon the relics and what they felt upon seeing them.

Many such stories, like the one I described, populate the book like illuminated manuscripts. Reflections about religion, doctrine, mentality, faith, fear, danger, wars, beauty and contemplation are present more or less prominently across the book, through Nikolas’ experience of the world around him, and the author’s experience from their informed perspective – rational, relevant and informed. A lot about Nikolas is clouded in uncertainty but of the many times Hans Jacob and Svein Harald stop to take a breather, they think about the motives of a pilgrimage, its biggest triumph, if it’s the higher heavens and salvation or something more. They left donations only to the small churches that were in most disrepair and need. They eventually met the heroes of this story – Andrea and his family. Isn’t this also a part of a pilgrimage? The human connection, the experiences and the edification (danning) we derive from it.

There will be a lot of back-and-forth in History to comprehend the world Nikolas moves in, his 12th century of constant clashes between papal and imperial powers. By the end of the book we find a modern translation of the Leiðarvísir with all the most likely locations Nikolas visited. They must have decided not to add the part from Rome to Jerusalem but it can easily be found online. There’s also a timetable with the approximate number of days the pilgrimage took. Also a bibliography with commentary from where I underlined about nine books to read.

As a closing note, both Hans Jacob and Svein Harald are research colleagues and they had the idea of writing this book after working on a project called Standardization in the Middle Ages supported by The Research Council of Norway. The research resulted in a book which is now in open access in its whole or in parts. The book En Reise til Roma was also supported by The Research Council of Norway and the Norwegian Non-Fiction Writers and Translators Association. It was published by Dreyers Forlag in 2024. I hope the book gets an English translation soon. If it does, I’ll read it again, maybe in ebook format. I can’t say that I didn’t get stuck at times. Norwegian is still a new language to me. Even though I speak it every day, I don’t make much use of it outside of my job, and my reading habits in the language have been very lacking. English is our Latin. Jumping right into an History book wasn’t the best idea, or maybe it was. I have read light romance novels where I didn’t struggle so much. My head is extremely tired but I am very satisfied with overcoming this reading without interrupting the flow to check the dictionary. This book was also a pilgrimage to me. I can’t wait to read some articles about standardisation in the Middle Ages!

 
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from Crapknocker

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 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. Preparing to fight big J

Some tips I've gleaned from excessively reading winning posts on the Angband ladder on what to do and how to prepare to fight the Serpent of Chaos:

Double breaths

You have to have a bunch of HP to even think of fighting the serpent. The main reason for this is that the big guy is super fast and even at +35 speed can get two moves on you before you have a chance to react. If the serpent decides to breathe some exotic element on you like chaos, it’s a problem. If he decided to do it twice in a row, it can be deadly. Having a big batch of HP is the best way to deal with this. That way, if you get taken down to minimal HP you can teleport out to heal before resuming the fight.

Another thing to keep in mind is that these double moves can occur halfway through the fight or when you’ve got him down to his last bit of health. You will need to keep your HP above a certain level to avoid instant death if the serpent gets a double move on you. The energy system underlying the turns in the game is somewhat randomized, so you won’t know this is coming until you get hit with it. Keeping your HP up is the best defense alongside having your resistances covered.

To help buoy your HP levels, you can do a bit of manipulation with your Life Rating. If you managed to come across a potion of Self Knowledge, you probably noticed you had something called a life rating. Here’s how I understand this system to work. Every level up, the game rolls some dice behind the scenes to determine how much HP you gain. Over the 50 levels you have available, a series of bad rolls can really hamper your total HP. To counteract this, you can drink potions of New Life, which reroll these dice and can give you a larger HP pool and potentially different stat maximums. Your life rating is a general feel of how high you could’ve gotten on these HP rolls. Anything over 100% is great here and potentially worth keeping. Basically if you stockpile enough potions, you can drink a New Life followed by a Self Knowledge to see how good your new life rating is. This can get you 50 or more HP in the endgame, which is nothing to sneeze at and may save your life.

Summon uniques

The Serpent of Chaos has a power that I think no other boss in the game has, to summon unique monsters. If you have gotten to him (it?), you have probably gotten surrounded by bunches of high level undead summons, dragon summons and tons of others. But summoning unique monsters is probably the most nasty one of them all. As you probably already know, unique monsters are some of the hardest to defeat in the game and can complicate any encounter they pop up in. This goes double if the encounter is with the toughest boss in the game, the Serpent of Chaos.

The quirk here is that the serpent will only summon uniques that are currently living, i.e. those that you haven’t defeated yet. The problem here is that there are a bunch of high-level uniques that can make your life hell in the lower depths of Angband. Some especially nasty ones are Godzilla and Nodens, both of which have boatloads of HP and devastating attacks so you don’t want to be engaging with them at the same time as the serpent.

One approach is to troll the lower levels of Angband in the 90+ range and try to kill all the uniques that pop up there. This is useful for two reasons, one it lowers the amount of uniques that the serpent can summon and two it gives you the really useful drops of the uniques from that low in the dungeon. Better equipment is always better.

Another way to deal with unwanted summoned uniques is to use scrolls or staffs of Destruction, which turn the usual dungeon terrain into random mashes of stone. Uniques caught in the radius of a destruction spell will be despawned from a level (not killed). However, if you accidentally catch the serpent in the radius of your destruction spell, he will also be despawned. But then he will immediately be respawned elsewhere in the level at full health, so you really don’t want to do this unless you’re trying to escape or something.

But destructing the level before the serpent finds you can be a useful strategy to limit line of sight and the summons that might occur. Enemies can only be summoned in the squares surrounding your @ character. If your back is to a wall, that’s a few less squares that bad guys can occupy trying to kill you. The only downside to this is that the serpent immediately knows where you are on the level as soon as you go down to 100 and will begin making his way toward you, smashing down any walls between you and him as he goes. Even if he tunnels through a few walls, taking control of the terrain you fight on can give you an edge in this battle of attrition.

There are a few things you can do to help even the odds, though. The first, if you’re planning on fighting the serpent in melee is to have as much damage as you can without sacrificing too much in the way of resists. Having a few pluses to hit and damage on random bits of equipment can end up giving you hundreds of extra damage per round. You’ll want at least 500 damage per round to even stand a chance in melee, and the more the better.

A few notes about the Serpent of Chaos. First is that he’s not immune to stun, so if you have a weapon that stuns or a reliable stunning attack, you can make the fight much easier by keeping him stunned, which I believe increases his chance to fail casting any magic (including summons) and lowers his chance to hit you in melee. Second, he’s considered an evil, living monster so if you use gloves of slaying that do extra damage against either evil or living monsters, they will work on him as well. My third note is that he frequently breathes chaos, so bring along at least double chaos resist to help mitigate that damage. He also has an aura of shards, so don’t go up against him without resisting that.

There are a few other techniques to reduce or prevent the serpent’s summoning powers. If you can mix it into your equipment, there are amulets of anti-summoning that exist in the game (denoted by [Sm). Keep your eyes out for those. Some classes have access to anti-magic, which also helps prevent summoning, which is also available in amulet form ([M). You can also turn the tables and have your own summoned minions occupy all the spaces around you so that big J’s summoning is blocked that way. This can be doubly helpful if you bring heavy monsters of your own to fight on your behalf. Some classes can summon dragons and Great Wyrms of Power (GWOPs) and Steam-Powered Mechanical Dragons are two types that I’ve heard hold up decently against the serpent. Even non-summoning classes can get in on the act by capturing these monsters in the capture balls available in certain stores, then throwing them (‘v’) when you want to release them, Pokémon-style. But be aware, the chaos breath he breathes has a tendency to polymorph monsters occasionally, so your big badass summons might get turned into tiny, fragile rats.

 
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from Sodium Reactor

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

 
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from Crapknocker

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

 
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from hazardes

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

 
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from Sodium Reactor

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

 
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