While the mother fussed over the child - their son as they found out soon enough - the father profusely thanked the human, who politely accepted his thanks, but gently refused any monetary compensation, stating that treating the child to a snack would be all the thanks they needed. After the family left, the Ambassador offered to treat everyone to lunch, to which the suun’mahs had to refuse, as his shuttle was leaving soon; after bidding him farewell, the human scooped up his pup, and simply *jumped* over the railing, landing easier than one might expect; but, considering his natural gravity is a Class *12*, it shouldn’t have been so surprising. The other humans followed suit, and they entered the eatery.
They must not have been in there for very long - as they didn’t seem to have eaten yet - when the A.I. that traveled with the Ambassador proclaimed that a ‘Kah’Ri’ was stalking him. This soon turned out to be another drahk’mihn, a beautiful purple woman who seemed just as entranced with his makeup and hair color as everyone in the bar was with her. As she crawled up on the table and over to the human, she had one of the drahk’mihn’s and suun’mahs’s - and apparently *humans* as well, it seemed - signature smiles that flashed her teeth; which for everyone else was a sign of aggression.
At one point, one of the humans made what appeared to be an offensive joke, as the Ambassador wouldn’t even let him finish it, and the other humans looked at him in clear disapproval. Some time after that, they all engaged in a song, with the Ambassador leading. The one who tried to make the joke earlier got up towards the end of the song, after which it was revealed he walked off towards the restrooms. That was when Kah’Ri checked the wrist-mounted monitor she had, and her face fell. After showing the Ambassador, he got up, heading straight for the restrooms, while the other humans convinced her to show them what was wrong. It was apparently a rude message that was blurred out, but the humans reacted with disgust upon reading it - even calling the other man names - so it was pretty easy to guess what it might be about.
About the time that the human Ambassador was having a tense standoff with the other human in the restroom, a brown galan’zhee walked into *his* bar, a mischievous grin coming to the ursid’s face as he saw what everyone was watching; he sat down at the end of the bar farthest from the monitor, ordering a drink and turning his attention to the screen. As he turned his own attention back to the show - after a quick scan to make sure no one else wanted anything - he saw a predatory grin come to the Ambassador’s face as he backed out of the - slightly larger - other human’s face, pulling up his wrist monitor, stating he was calling ‘Vera’, which was the first A.I. they discovered, if he remembered correctly.
After a brief discussion between him and the hologram of a human-looking woman, the other man was instructed to pack his things and leave immediately. After he left, the scene cut to the Ambassador standing outside the restrooms, looking visibly quite angry; he motioned to Kah’Ri that he was going to get a drink at the bar, and had just sat down to wait for the barkeep to get done with their current customer when a large brown-furred hand planted itself in his midsection, forcefully throwing him backward off of the stool, as a familiar-looking galan’zhee took the now-empty seat.
But the human was already back on his feet, hands balled into fists at his side, when he suddenly lunged forward, wrapping his arms around the galan’zhee’s waist, obviously trying to pull the larger man off the seat as well but obviously not really getting anywhere with his efforts. That was until he kicked the connecting bar between two of the legs of the stool, providing just enough leverage to start the galan’zhee to fall; and though he grabbed for the bar to steady himself, he just issued it, toppling over backwards, his head hitting the ground after the rest of his body, but still enough to visibly knock him out for a few seconds.
The human was on his feet immediately, having taken the fall with the ursid, and when the latter didn’t try to move, he turned away dismissively, angrily righting the barstool, and climbing back up. Just as he was gaining his seat, the galan’zhee behind him began stirring, slowly rising to his feet. The human visibly tensed up, obviously ready for a fight, though the other man simply asked,
“What *are* you?” There was no real heat in his voice, it was mostly genuine bewilderment, mixed with a bit of amusement, though before the human could answer, the voice of Kah’Ri spoke up behind him, methodically listing off the stats of the human home world, and how it was 12’s across the board; she finished it up by stating quite clearly that he belonged to her and - stalking past the towering ursid as if he weren’t several feet taller than her - climbed the stool to sit by her human, rubbing the back of his head, and asking if he was alright.
The galan’zhee repeated himself, only with much more amusement, to which the human replied that he was quite lucky, ‘considering’. The barkeep warily came up to the group, where the human ordered drinks for the two of them, and even bought him food, offering the larger man to even come sit at their table. He accepted, and they all made their way over to where the rest of their group were sitting, where the ursid received a rather warm welcome from the humans, considering that he’d basically just attacked their Ambassador; the others at the table were rightfully wary of the larger alien, but welcomed him well enough, seeing as the humans weren’t reacting negatively to him.
And so they sat there for a while, obviously enjoying each other’s companies, when a white vell’prah approached their table, flanked by two suul’mahr bodyguards. After addressing everyone, asking what was happening, the smaller man had one of his guards show security feed from inside the bar which showed their earlier altercation; to which the human denied that it was even them. That drew a few laughs from his *own* patrons as the others at the Ambassador’s table struggled to disguise their laughter on the monitor. The vell’prah asked for the human to join him in private, where he basically pleaded with the larger man to let him arrest the galan’zhee; to which the human was flippantly dismissive about, though the vell’prah was obviously too full of himself to notice the dangerous undercurrent that subtly hid beneath his calm demeanor. Finally admitting defeat, the station leader - as he identified himself - let the Ambassador get back to enjoying the company of his friends.
Later, the scene cut to him talking with the human doctor that had come aboard the station with the others, and he mentioned the Ambassador’s genetic modifications, which were apparently commonplace for humans. They went aboard the ship right then, giving the human and drahk’mihn their own genetic modifications, while uplifting the canine to sapience. During a timelapse video, the ‘blaschko's lines’ he had requested showed up on his skin, a light peppering of brown spots showing up on his face, while his arms had what almost looked like healing injuries, some old scrapes up and down his arms, though they didn’t look particularly unsettling, as they weren’t *exactly* the same color as dried red blood; his stomach and back presented an interesting swirl pattern however, as if they were being ‘drained’ into his core from the outside in.
From there, it showed the now-famous, *unedited*, though still censored version - that had already been released, of course - of his marooning on the primitive planet with his team, and how he readily sacrificed himself - and the team - telling the Captain to get out while they could, and to leave them behind. His team members didn’t voice their objections, which showed either extreme trust in their human compatriot, or their utter terror at the prospect.
Once they got further into the atmosphere, they began picking up a distress signal from an escape pod, which they landed nearby, in a clearing. Once they were down, the human ordered the others to stay in the shuttle while he went to check the pod, leaving his now-sapient canine to protect the others. At the crash site, he found a trok’lade who was quite panicked, and obviously thought he was there to harm her. After a quick standoff, the uncommon ‘explosion’ of a sonic boom - as no one entered atmosphere at such great speeds anymore, after getting the technology to *enter* an atmosphere, instead of simply *falling into* it.
Looking up, he told her to get back into her pod, and made his way back to the clearing, where he dispatched the slavers - with the help of his canine friend - and then ordered them to go hide in the escape pod. He then went into the shuttle, where the vell’prah tried to enter his mind, and was killed. Then to the call between himself and the slaver captain, possibly not having to act *too* hard to seem as insane as he did. Then… nothing. There was no attack, no ‘invasion’; the slavers seemed to have left. So, coming to the same conclusion, the human on screen moved back to the shuttles, where he first washed his face and hands, then went to retrieve his friends.
It was here that they received a massive shock, one bigger than the fact that the humans didn’t have a Gift; they *did* have a Gift, and it was to absorb the Gifts of others. That was how he’d killed the vell’prah in the shuttle, and he stated that he could feel the slaver’s Gift within himself. After clearing the bodies away from their campsite, they went to bed, and the next day he and his canine companion were attacked by a large reptile that the human named a [dragon]. He and the canine were stuck in the trees, until he made a spear out of one of the branches and his knife. The battle which followed was one for the ages, with the human delivering the final, killing blow on the dragon, though he lost his eyes in the process.
After the shuttle landed and he woke up - having passed out from shock - he instructed the A.I. to transplant the dragon’s eyes in place of his own ruined ones, which she was able to easily do after they made it back to their camp. He woke up in the middle of the night, the healing gel he’d stolen from the mahn’ewe enhancing the natural healing process immensely, so that his eyes were already usable, though the gashes in his flesh were still healing, colored black from the soot he’d added long before. After discussing the problem with ratios, they heard a commotion outside, where the Ambassador quickly dispatched another of the ‘dragon’s that was trying to enter the other shuttle, him having claimed the slavers’ shuttle as his own.
They cleaned the dragon, and got it smoking, or preserved in cold storage, after which the canine - Cheshire, he recalled - offered to let the human see if it was possible to receive the Gift of someone without killing them, which proved to be possible. And though he was tired for the entire day, the process seemed to have no ill effect on Cheshire, with his ability to shapeshift returned to full strength by the time he had his general energy back.
Though, they soon had to deal with the problem that they didn’t have enough sugar to feed the trok’lade, with the human stressing over it so much that at one point he snapped at her for offering to skip a meal or two, stating that he was ‘already starving’ her, asking her not to make it worse; though, his guilt immediately attacked him, and he walked away to get a handle on his emotions. It wasn’t long after this that he got the idea to search the entire planet for *some* kind of sugar that the A.I. Kay’Eighty could process into a usable foodstuff for the trok’lade.
Unfortunately, their search turned up fruitless - or ‘*sugar*less’, in a more general sense - and so after a quick rest at their base camp, he went to the other habitable planet in the system, using the slavers’ shuttle, which - being a military vessel - had minimal subspace capabilities. Upon reaching the planet, they immediately found a large hot spring that the A.I. stayed behind to test for acidity - of which they also couldn’t find a trace on the other planet, which would have helped them convert cellulose to glucose - while the others went to examine the crystals that were growing not too far from that location.
Upon getting there, they discovered crystals that apparently amplified the strength of one’s Gift, while also being nearly indestructible. Along with this, they found a cave that the Kay’Eighty reported contained a crystal of solidified light, the intensity of which would literally be blinding to biological races with no eye-coverings. They took samples of both new crystals, and continued their search for sugars, Kay’Eighty informing them that while the geyser was acidic enough to be used if needed, they still had time to search the rest of the planet if they worked as quickly as before.
And so it was that they eventually did find a sugar to use, a thick syrup produced by a flying insect that they determined was on the verge of sapience by a few centuries, at most. Working out a deal with the queen of the hive, he had Kay’Eighty construct a hive out of the white wood that they’d discovered on the other planet, complete with a cage around the crop out of which they made the sugary syrup. They even made a compartment where any overflow would be directed, so as to not bother the hive in their day-to-day dealings. After they had moved the majority of their hive into this new structure, the human was allowed to take what was left in the tree that was their previous home.
From there they left the planet, where the Ambassador took a huge - comparatively speaking - bite of one of the [honeycomb], as he called it; and though Kay’Eighty tried to stop him, she saw him too late, having already taken a bite. After about an hour, his eyes took on a vacant appearance, and he was near-catatonic for several hours, the THC that was present in the ‘honey’ being at equal levels to the sugar contained, as well. But luckily it didn’t prove to be fatal, though many of his patrons expressed a desire to try some of that goop.
They made it back to the original planet with no more incidents, Kay’Eighty processing a good amount of the honey to filter out the THC for the trok’lade to have a normal meal, sealing the pure THC away into vials that she hid within her mass of nanobots. Upon landing, the human was still high, though he had become ambulatory enough to walk out of the shuttle under his own power, having been obviously annoying his companions, shown through a timelapse of him gaining ‘consciousness’ on their trip back.
It was later on that they began discussing uses for the crystals they’d found, and what they suggested had everyone in the bar muttering in excitement: suits made of the enhancement crystal, run on stellar-spheres made from the ‘light-crystal’. It wasn’t long before Kay’Eighty began working on said suits, with the intention of them enacting a self-rescue, and though the time lapse showed that it took several days, all of the biologicals had suits, leaving only Kay’Eighty to construct a full-sized body of her own, the Ambassador firmly stating that it didn’t matter what the rest of the Federation thought of her, the humans would stick by their A.I. brethren against anyone.
It was -of course - during the time that she was constructing her own body that the ship that had been forced to leave the team behind returned, with human and suun’mahs military ships as an escort. The reunion was short and sweet, after which was a quick communication with the Federation Council wherein they merely relayed that they had survived, and the Ambassador informed them of having found the trok’lade. The clip then cut to the Ambassador making a call to the ory’lagus in charge of the black hole mining company, wherein he informed her that he’d found the original pendant of their company. After a brief explanation as to the history of said pendant, he was invited to return it.
Before he was able to get around to that, however, he was informed by the human Admiral that had been with him every step of the way since arriving that a mahn’ewe had been found, alone, and before he could say any more than that, the Ambassador interjected with,
“Bob?”
Apparently he knew this one, and it had helped him to escape captivity; he gave a brief description as to how he was able to slip that fact past the so’jahl who’d interrogated him. After a quick clip of them seeing the smaller alien in the interrogation room, the to Admiral went into a side room - that the Ambassador had declined wanting to go into - where they saw security footage from the mahn’ewe ship of the Ambassador’s captivity, and escape.
Around the time that this was ending, the Ambassador decided to go into the room with the mahn’ewe, speaking with him like old friends. At one point, the mahn’ewe mentioned something about gravity, causing the human to go very thoughtful. After bidding a quick farewell to the smaller alien, the Ambassador went out to the Admirals, describing his plan to use the ‘crysthril’ to help the ory’lagus enhance their Gift, to then follow the gravity trails from pretty much anyone in the Federation to find the slavers’ homeworld. This could also - of course - be used to find the mahn’ewe, since ‘Bob’ wasn’t giving up the location of his home system, but his main concern was in finding the slavers.
From there, it cut back to the suun’mahs presenter, who announced that the Federation had indeed - through a joint effort of all species having been directly affected by the slavers, with the humans adding in their support, as well - found and successfully invaded the slavers. The people who had been rescued had been sent to the second planet that the Ambassador had been a part of surveying, and which he had donated to a joint effort by all species to help rehabilitate those who needed it. The presenter announced that while all peoples involved had agreed to keep it quiet for the time being, they had found extensive lists of all the Federation traitors who were supplying the kath’loo with slaves, and no longer needed to rely on them slipping up and revealing themselves, one way or another.
The way he said that last part kind of ominously, after which the scene cut to a human space station, in which a gah’rahtoe and a suul’mahr walked down a hall, discussing something about children working. It soon became clear just what kind of ‘massages’ theses children were to give, and he couldn’t deny that it actually looked quite appealing; their nimble little fingers were working their ways into the cracks where the backs of their ears joined their heads, a rather troublesome spot to try to scratch - unless you had those tiny, flat-’clawed’ fingers to work with. Indeed, it didn’t take long for the suul’mahr’s leg to give occasional twitches, an involuntary muscle twitch from their ancient ancestors.
Though the alarms soon started going off, and after the gah’ratoe - ambassador, it seemed - and her husband were rushed to a safe room with the children and their caretakers, they all found out why: pirates had come to take as many humans as possible to the auction block. As the ambassador’s husband was given permission to be part of the defense, they saw the humans gearing up for war, a hard expression mirrored on every primate face in the complex. And then the attack happened, completely one-sided in a way the slavers had obviously never experienced.
Their anti-Gift darts had no effect on a race that had lived their entire *existence* without ever feeling it in the first place, but as stated in its description before, the ‘crysthril’ overpowered that effect, making it so that when they made direct contact with the slavers, they would go down almost instantly, most left unmoving as their human counterparts decided not to hold back, and took it all from them. It didn’t take long before they had subdued - lethally or not, but mostly *not* - the slavers, and had launched craft of their own to board the slavers’ vessels, freeing the people already captured, and taking the crews prisoner; those that *lived*, anyway.
The presenter came on to announce that they would leave on a lighter note, so would show a series of clips from the official First Contact between the humans, and the Federation. First was their actual meeting, a pleasant, formal affair. Then was a trip through the human space station they had landed on, with images of bustling ‘streets’ lined with shops and restaurants the likes of which seemed little different than what one might see anywhere in the Federation.
There was a quick clip of the group playing with one of the human domesticated animals they called a [dog], which ended with a declaration of a dinner. This wasn’t shown, but what *was* shown was the suul’marh’s day at the beach, wherein the humans - most of them young children, by the size of them - practically *flocked* to the aliens, the children even wanting the hulking canine to throw them far out into the water. After some time of this, there was a buffet of food laid out for them all, coupled with music and alcohol. It looked like a good time, and it was easy to forget that these little primates were a Class 12 aggressor species.
Until the last clips, which were of the competition the suun’mahs loved to challenge other races with, the humans obviously taking them up on their offer of hand-to-hand fighting. Though he wasn’t sure what to expect, he was somehow both surprised, and not surprised when the human female effortlessly dispatched her opponent, making use of her feet in a way that - though she couldn’t actually *grip* with them - hinted at her primate ancestry. The way the suun’mahs woman’s arm was twisted couldn’t have been all too pleasant, which was probably the reason she began tapping the mat with such force.
The next match between the men lasted much longer, the suun’mahs obviously having watched the round prior, taking note of the human’s agility and quick reflexes, doing his best to not make any rash actions. This fight actually timed out, both combatants trading heavy blows, and massive slams to the mat. But it was the suun’mahs who won in the end, the human officials agreeing that he landed slightly more blows than the human. And so - as the trophy was being presented - the human stepped forward to take it, only to turn and present it to his opponent, giving an admirable show of respect, and sportsmanship.
As the program ended, he noticed the vell’prah at the bar trying to get his attention, which turned out to him wanting to settle his tab; as he went about that transaction, the galan’zhee spoke up.
“*Heh*,” he started gruffly, though his amusement was obvious, “Yeah, those humans can be pretty crazy, sometimes. That was me, by the way, that Kyle - sorry, *Ambassador Redding* - threw to the ground in that bar. Obviously he had a bit of leverage in kicking the stool out from under me like that, but he didn’t hesitate to take the problem head-on, or in deploying the ‘if I go down, I’m taking you with me’ approach. And as you saw, they’re also quick to forgive, given the right circumstances. I’m proud to call that little ape my friend, and that was before he gifted me and my crew some of *this*.”
Here, he held up his left hand, around who’s wrist was a band of what looked like crystal, colored a gunmetal gray.
“‘*Crysthril*’ as he named it; you saw the effects on the screen, but allow me to give you a demonstration here: observe.” With that, there was a loud explosion of glass as all of the alcohol on the shelves behind him destroyed the bottles they were housed in, all rushing to surround the vell’prah who was almost to the door at that point, and then they did the impossible: the alcohols all froze into deadly spikes, all pointing at some point on the vulpin’s body.
“You *really* should’ve paid more attention to the *planets* of that backwater ‘shortcut’, rather than the ships flying through it; then you would’ve been privy to a prize worth more than you could get for an entire *planet* of drahk’mihn, no matter *who* you sold it to. But instead, you gave it away to Ambassador Redding - who sends his regards, by the way. But don’t worry, I believe that the humans want to put you on trial, rather than kill you by draining your Gift from you, the way Kyle did to *your brother*.” This last part he said with vindictive pleasure, and as he did, many of the other patrons began reaching for their weapons… only to stop with surprised looks on their faces. At the confused one springing up on the vell’prah’s face, the galan’zhee laughed.
“*Enhances*. *Gifts*. So that people who would normally need to make direct contact to utilize their Gifts, can now do so remotely. Like you; like the *keen’yhong*…”
As he said that last part, a good many people became visible around his bar, and not just one per person who had reached for their weapons before; the galan’zhee seemed to have three people for every one that seemed to be working for the vell’prah, and only three of the galan’zhee’s crew were keen’yhong.
“They entered with me,” the galan’zhee continued in a breezy manner, nonchalantly inspecting his claws as two other vell’prah - one solid black, the other of the slightly smaller, tan subspecies - each pointed what looked like smaller copies of the human’s rail-rifle, “Been scoping you and your crew out the entire time. And don’t worry: we already took your ship into our custody; wouldn’t want to skimp out when completing my first job for a new species - first impressions, and all. *Alright everyone*,” he called out, looking around the bar, “Cuff ‘em and stuff ‘em: get this trash to the brig.” As his crew began filing out, he tossed a credit-transfer chip to Par’Lo, who caught it easily; even as this happened - and the vell’prah was being cuffed - the alcohol all flowed back to the shelves behind him, still frozen, but in the shapes of the bottles they had occupied before.
“That should cover my tab, plus the damages, there. You should pour those within the next hour, or so; don’t know exactly how long it’ll last. Just pour ‘em out like you normally would, and they’ll unfreeze as needed. Until then, *drinks are on me!*” He called this last part to the bar in general, which was met with resounding cheers; and after he checked the amount on the credit chip - which contained more zeros after a solid number than he had ever seen actually *coming his way* - he put on his best service smile, pouring drinks out to all the people suddenly crowding the bar. And as the crowd closed in, he saw the bounty hunter and his crew filing out of his bar.

The Amits had taken their time. They knew that victory was assured, and so had set about feasting. But eventually they had worked up enough of an appetite to make the final push.
Once more they rushed through a storm of bullets. They disintegrated as the twelve-pounder discharged a cluster of grapeshot, faltered, then charged again. Claws ripped at the broken stone, reaching and grasping. A man was seized by his locks of hair and pulled through the gap; his screams cut short as his body toppled backwards, missing its head. Bayonets jostled and found their mark in pale flesh as pistols rang out in the tight confines and set Rene’s ears ringing.
“Get back!” shouted the engineers, “You’ve done your best! We’ll take it from here!”
The wall of detritus had begun to buckle beneath the weight of the enemy. The engineers brought out the red plunger and ran the wire to the final batch of charges. These were strapped to every major column and support in the room. They were to be buried alive, to deny the enemy their final victory.
The first Amit clawed its head through. It was impaled on half a dozen blades and hurled back. Then the second burst in and bathed a man head to toe in its corrosive juices, melting him down to bare red musculature in seconds. The monsters scrambled into the breach with reckless abandon, and the slaughter began.
The engineer was killed, brained by an axe before he could blow the charges. Crawling across the floor, battered and bruised by the trampling feet of the melee, Rene found the box and pried it from his dead hands. With a final whimper he closed his eyes and depressed the plunger.
Sometime later Rene awoke with a throbbing head. Absently he wondered if the afterlife was supposed to hurt this much, but then he felt a cold film of cave water touch the side of his face, and reluctantly accepted the fact that he was alive.
The chamber was gone. All about him were strewn great slabs of ceiling, under which various limbs protruded. Beside him, Prota had been buried beneath wreckage, her pendant flung clear. Absently he reached over and pocketed it.
His pants were wet; water was streaming through from somewhere. Through a gap in the huge slump of debris at the entrance he made out shadows moving against the torchlight, and heard sounds of them doing unspeakable things.
He dragged himself upright and cried out a second time in misery and pain. Immediately he regretted that action, as a milky white eye came up to the gap and looked about hungrily. It spotted him and tapped its feet against the stone in excitement. A horde of scuttling figures flitted into view. There was a scuffling sound as they began to dig at the obstruction. He groaned, and looked about him for a weapon, anything with which to end his life quickly and in relatively less anguish. Then he saw it.
The chamber had collapsed, and in doing so a broken pillar several tons heavy had knocked against the impenetrable eastern wall, the one that Admiral Prota’s workmen had been chipping carefully at for a year. It had smashed through the obstruction, and now its great bulk held up the fragile archway. More importantly, an opening had appeared. One that looked just the right size for a child to crawl through. Cave water streamed from the rent, lapping at the bodies of the slain. Behind him the Amit shuddered with delight, spitting torrents of acid against the stone in order to get through to him faster.
He went into the crawlspace and found it was a tight fit. He tried flattening his belly. When that didn’t work, he removed the tattered remnants of his sealant suit, and barely managed to squeeze inside.
He emerged into a cool tunnel. Motes of dust millennia old swirled placidly in the still air, lit by glowing phosphorescent mushrooms that lined the damp walls. Water wet his toes as he stumbled painfully along.
The floor was even and polished to a mirror sheen. Across the chamber was an odd doorway, ovoid in shape. He went over to it, searched in vain for a doorknob, then chuckled and gave up. He felt an absence of fear and knew that his lifting spirits had something to do with this place being exposed to the outside atmosphere. He had at best a few hours left to live. He shrugged and peered about him in the murk.
These tunnels sloped down below the open eastern section. If he could reach a ventilation shaft, there was a chance he could live. Assuming of course that he found a mask sometime soon. He had lost his at some point in the brawl. Thankfully he still had the compass. He took it out but watched in disbelief as the needle began to spin like a top. Cleary whatever magnetic anomaly that had plagued the expedition had returned with a vengeance. Shaking his head, uncertain now of everything, Rene wandered aimlessly, a pale and bloodied specter haunting the alien hallways.
Graceful alcoves surrounded him, with effigies sheltered beneath them and primitive paintings upon their curved surfaces. He looked at the closest one. Though the style was surreal and the language foreign, he understood the symbols well enough.
For they were those of ancient scripture.
The war in heaven. Two great armadas clashed in the depths of the void, lances of searing red heat and spheres of anti-matter dancing between their silver prows. The battle raged the length of an entire wall, a lurid display of mythical carnage. He saw a thousand worlds set alight by the conflagration, whole systems burning like tinder, fuel to the madness and the pain.
In its wake, emptiness. The next alcove showed a galaxy bereft of life, the charred husks of planets circling their dying suns, drained of energy in the apocalyptic conflict.
He saw the Fleet emerge, three small ships, together containing all that remained from the great dying: the ancestor--gods of the primordial dawn. They searched long and hard, travelling from one blasted hellscape to the next in search of lasting refuge.
And so at long last they found Arachnea, a virgin planet untouched by strife. They came to sow life in its bleak hollows, to make a home for their children, a peaceful place far from the ravages of a war so ancient they themselves had forgotten its cause. Then they set their Divine Engines to work. The Amit had carved effigies of these machines out of lumps of azure marble. Rene touched their smooth flanks, admiring at the workmanship. They were shaped like squat little men, with massive hands and domelike heads. Where they had walked, the earth had moved aside for them. They carved the channels with their feet, flattened the hills with blows from their fists. They dredged up fountains of molten lava and shaped them into a thousand bejeweled islands. They wove giant webs of glass as strong as the pillars of the earth and stretched them out across the sky to shield the world from the jealous eyes of the twin suns, Raelu and Sardec.
It was in the course of their work the Divine Engines shattered a mountain and unearthed the Amit, the first true inhabitants of Arachnea. They had arrived centuries before the ancestor—gods. The painting showed the Amit stumbling out of a rent in their tunnels, hands held up against the sunlight that no longer scorched their pale, waxen skin. The first thing they saw in their brave new world was a towering behemoth of burnished metal, wreathed in fire and smoke. In terror they had fallen to their knees before it, begging for their lives.
Rene nodded. All of this was familiar. He walked over to the next depiction, expecting to see the ancestor--gods recoiling in disgust, then swiftly recovering and obliterating the insectoid creatures with deadly rays of light, driving them scuttling back into their foul hollows beneath the earth. For it was written that the Amits were the offspring of vague, unholy sorceries, and could only know evil. Indeed, the war in heaven had been fought over similar themes. They could not be suffered to live. But what he saw instead shook him to his very core.
The ancestors came down from their mighty steeds, lifted the Amit to their feet, and embraced them. Quickly Rene ran through the rest of the alcoves, mind raging against the truths he now saw before him. From then on, the work deviated from scripture so much so that he could only piece together their meaning with difficulty.
The ancestor--gods debated among themselves as to what to do with the Amits. This was not the first time they had come across life other than their own, and it was clear that this time they were cautious in their approach. Some advocated for bringing the race to total extinction, but most agreed that best way forward was a peaceful coexistence, reasoning that they had much to learn from the Amits, who had survived the conditions of Arachnea for millennia without the need for terraforming. The ancestor--gods felt guilt over stealing Arachnea from its original inhabitants and wished to make amends. And so a bargain was struck between the races.
The Amits would allow the ancestor--gods to make changes to the world. To correct the tilt of its wayward axis, to vent huge plumes of inert gases from the hot womb of the earth and to seed life forms from long-dead Terra. In return, Man would change the Amit as well. They would grant them strength and cunning, broods beyond number, and bodies hardened against pain and suffering so they too could be as the gods were.
The plan proceeded towards fruition. Both sides were content as the final pieces of the great work fell into place. But unknown to Man and Amit alike, the specter of war had never really left the Fleet. It had hidden away in dark holds within the hearts of men, and there it had whispered of want and of desire, of the beauty of the virgin world and the lust to claim it.
Some of the ancestor--gods resented their share in the great work. They chafed at the fact that they, the superior beings, had to deal with their vassal Amits like equals, exchanging their powers for the mere right to live on the planet that they had rightfully settled.
And so they began to snuff out the Amit in their millions, burning them out of their homes with heat rays that swept clean entire colonies.
Soon two sides were at each other’s throats. The honorable ancestors who had kept to their word fought a bitter war against their prideful kin amidst the ruin of their unfinished works. In the skies at night, the Amit watched as the madness unfolded, as stars appeared and vanished overnight, and great balls of flame came bursting down through the void to crash into the broken earth. At last, as their weapons lay spent and broken, they then turned the Divine Engines against one another. Once the instruments of peace and creation, they soon tore the landscape apart with the fury of their duels, trading blows that sent impacts shuddering deep into the scorched earth.
The Amit were afraid, and betook themselves to the deep places, where the wrath of the gods could not find them. But this was to be their doom. Eventually the changes wrought in the bodies of the Amit made them strong and durable enough the endure the apocalyptic conditions of the surface. But as the ancestor--gods fought and died on the surface in cataclysmic struggle, their magic died with them. The Amit themselves became trapped, betrayed by their own changing flesh. They became unable to revert to their previous forms, and so were forevermore consigned to lives of darkness in their lairs beneath the earth.
Now, Arachnea was unsuitable for both man and Amit alike. The ancestor--gods had become madmen, so overtaken by their hatred for each other that they had cast themselves back into a dark age from which there would be no return.
The Amits emerged into the gloomy wreckage of their planet and starved. Until, that is, they came upon the remnants of a battleground. Huge forces of men had clashed and died, leaving their bodies to rot upon the cold ground. In their desperate hunger, the Amits began to eat.
And they found the meat of the gods to be good. That war, a holy act most strange and terrible, had filled their bellies with meat, this they understood. That gods themselves judged war to be a just course of action was evident. And since all that remained of the gods were a race of thieves and murderers, it was judged that to make war upon them was both just and good.
Rene came to the last alcove. It depicted the final resting place of the Divine Engines, whom the Amit had buried beneath the mountains out of fear, sealing them away from the surface so that they would never again walk the earth.
A great square plaque of shining steel and copper was laid into the stone. To the Amit it was only a mark of some kind, a symbol whose meaning was long forgotten, but Rene felt an odd connection to it. He traced its edges with a blood-stained hand, and realized it was not a square, but a rectangle, and one whose dimensions he faintly recognized.
He took out Prota’s pendant and pressed it into the crevice.
There was a hiss of pneumatics as the great square door to his side gave way. Light fixtures hummed into life through powers unknown. He stepped gingerly into the soft glow.
“Greetings Ensign,” came a disembodied female voice, “Welcome to the Topographical Oversight and Reconstruction Unit (T.O.R.U.). What are your commands?”
A Divine Engine. The Amit had found it and built an entire civilization around it. This behemoth, this secret mountain of metal was what his compass had been steering towards all this time. A giddy sensation flowed through him. In his stupor he passed his hands in front of his face, examining the lines of his palms and the action of his fingers.
A nimbus of light played over him, reading his gestures.
“Command noted. Activating neural pairing.”
The door closed shut with a creak behind him. Steel pinions reached out and wire nodules grasped him, ran painlessly through his eye sockets and into his brain. All at once he could feel the machine coming to life after its long dormancy, reactors coils thrumming with an ancient power that would not be denied.
He straightened his back.
The outpost fell away from him in a cloud of dust and rubble. He strode forward, kilometers tall, a shining colossus of star-metal. He glanced down, saw the multitudes of the Amit streaming about the shattered mound. He watched them for a moment, saw them waving their arms in speechless terror at the sudden apparition.
For the first time, he pitied them. They were unaware of their own savagery, of their own hideousness, even. They did not know the doom that awaited them, of the lengths the Fleet was prepared to go in order to secure its final victory.
But there was nothing that could be done. Mankind could no more change themselves than could the Amit. Rene felt the weight of history bearing down upon his shoulders. Though a different world and a separate time, the same inexorable force drove them towards the same tired conclusion.
But perhaps the sooner it was over, the better. He lifted his foot and brought it down. Once, twice, three times until nothing was left moving below. Then he swung away, the ground quaking beneath him.
So, it was through humanity that the Amits had come to know of war? Well then, today he would show them that they had much left to learn. He turned northward, a god astride the earth, and lumbered towards Mound Euler.
Link to 1st chapter here: 1st chapter on HFY
Link for all the chapters available here: Engines of Arachnea on Royal Road

Today's additions are:

• Ponomarev / Obrazeena Massacre - Sonic Oblivion (Tags: experimental, distortion, drone, feedback, metal, noise, Milwaukee) [Utech]
  
• UNEARTHLY RITES - Ecdysis (Tags: death metal, metal, old school death metal, stenchcore, Finland) [Prosthetic]
  
• Musala nan Eilan - Glossolalia (Tags: rock, ambient, celtic rock, drone, instrumental, neoclassical, oriental rock, post-rock, Nancy) [FOUNDING OUR OWN GLORIOUS CHAPELS . Wild Bless You !]
  
• Aquilus - Bellum II (Tags: atmospheric metal, black metal, metal, neo-classical, neo-folk, symphonic metal, atmospheric metal, black metal, folk metal, grey metal, metal, neo-classical, neo-folk, progressive metal, symphonic metal, Melbourne) [Independent]
  
• Inherits The Void - Scars Of Yesteryears (Tags: atmospheric black metal, black metal, french black metal, melodic black metal, metal, post black metal, black metal, Clermont Ferrand) [Independent]
  
• DEMANDE À LA POUSSIÈRE - Kintsugi (Tags: black metal, doom metal, metal, post metal, post-hardcore, sludge metal, Paris) [Independent]
  
• I LIKE TO SLEEP - Bedmonster's Groove (Tags: free jazz. improvised music, jazz, progressive rock, norwegian jazz, power jazz, powerjazz, powerjazz to the people, prog rock, Trondheim) [Independent]
  
• Nubiyan Twist - Find Your Flame (Tags: afro jazz, jazz, rnb, soul, London) [Strut]
  
• Matt Mitchell - Illimitable (Tags: jazz, improvisation, improvised music, piano, solo piano, New York) [Obliquity]
  
• Travis Orbin - Dotty Ditties, Volume 5: Here Are Some More New Songs (Tags: experimental, funk, jazz, metal, progressive, rock, Delaware) [Independent]
  
• Dan Loomis - REVOLUTIONS (Tags: jazz, choral, deep nu jazz, new music, nu-jazz, New York) [Adhyâropa]
  
• Laura Perrudin - DOKSHA (Tags: alternative, contemporary r&b, future soul, neo-soul, abstract, alternative jazz, alternative pop, electronica, experimental jazz, experimental pop, jazz, noise groove, noise pop, singer-songwriter, vocal jazz, France) [Independent]
  
• Spaceslug - Out Of Water (Tags: metal, doom stoner, stoner doom space rock, stoner rock, stonerdoom, Wrocław) [Independent]
  
• Marjana Semkina - SIRIN (Tags: acoustic, chamber pop, chamber prog, dark chamber, dark folk, folk prog, sleepwalking music, United Kingdom) [Independent]
  
• DJIIN - Mirrors (Tags: 70s inspired stoner doom, french stoner doom rock, rock, fuzz, oriental rock, post-punk, psychedelic, psychedelic rock, rock prog, Rennes) [Independent]
  
• Plastic Dogs - The Third (Tags: alternative, metal, progressive rock, alto saxophone, freestyle, guitar rock, guitars, improvisation, improvised, jazz and improvised music, noise, progressive metal, saxophone, Nagoya) [Ono Ryoko 小埜涼子]
  
• ANCST - culture of brutality (Tags: black metal, metal, metalcore, blackened crust, blackened hardcore, blackened metalcore, crustcore, death metal, deathgrind, grindcore, metallic hardcore, sludge, Berlin) [Independent]
  
• CARNOPHAGE - Matter of a Darker Nature (Tags: metal, brutal death metal, death metal, dissonant, dissonant death, old school brutal death, old school death, tech death, technical brutal death metal, technical death, technical death metal, turkey, turkish death metal, Türkiye) [Transcending Obscurity]
  
• MONUMENT OF MISANTHROPY - Vile Postmortem Irrumatio (Tags: metal, austria, brutal death, brutal death metal, brutal technical death, brutal technical death metal, death metal, deathcore, deathgrind, metal, slam death, tech death, technical death, technical death metal, Austria) [Transcending Obscurity]
  
• WILD POWWERS - Pop Hits & Total Bummers Vol. 5 (Tags: rock, grunge, indie, indie rock, psychedelic, Seattle) [Independent]
  
• Effluence - Necrobiology (Tags: metal, brutal death metal, death metal, experimental brutal death metal, free improvisation, goregrind, United States) [Independent]
  
• Ba'al - Soft Eyes (Tags: atmospheric black metal, blackened post metal, metal, black metal, doom metal, post black metal, post metal, post rock, post-metal, progressive metal, sludge metal, \u200esludge metal, Sheffield) [Independent]
  
• Fergus McCreadie - Stream (Tags: jazz, scotland, folk, jazz-folk, scottish folk, Glasgow) [Edition]
  
• thisquietarmy - Les estampes (Tags: ambient, drone, experimental, post-rock, shoegaze) [Independent]
  
• Wheel - Charismatic Leaders (Tags: coheed & cambria, haken, metal, rock, coheed and cambria, insideout, mastodon, prog, prog rock, progressive, progressive metal, progressive rock, London) [InsideOut Music]
  
• Ordovician Records - GRAND DEMISE OF CIVILIZATION - The Blaze of Abaddon (Tags: metal, black metal, death metal, technical metal, thrash, Minneapolis) [Independent]
  
• Steph Richards - Power Vibe (Tags: brooklyn, experimental, electronic, improvisation, new music, New York) [Northern Spy]
  
• Ghost on Mars - Out of Time and Space (Tags: black metal, metal, progressive rock, dark metal, melodic dark metal, progressive metal, Rome) [Willowtip]
  
• Brume - Marten (Tags: metal, rock, doom metal, heavy metal, psychedelic, sludge metal, stoner metal, San Francisco) [Magnetic Eye]
  
• Into It. Over It. - Interesting Decisions: Into It. Over It. Songs (2020 - 2023) (Tags: emo, indie, indie rock, low-fi, psychedelic, rock, singer-songwriter, singer-songwriter, stoner, Chicago) [Independent]
  
• Agriculture - Living is Easy (Tags: metal, black metal, ecstatic black metal, Los Angeles) [The Flenser]
  
• Liminal Shroud - Visions of Collapse (Tags: canada, metal, atmospheric black metal, black metal, Victoria) [Willowtip]
  
• Necropanther - Oblivion Jones (Tags: black thrash, black thrash metal, blackened thrash metal, death metal, metal, thrash metal, black metal, blackened thrash, melodic death metal, Denver) [Independent]
  
• Ceremony of Silence - Hálios (Tags: metal, atmospheric death metal, black metal, blackened death metal, death metal, progressive death metal, Slovakia) [Willowtip]
  
• Sexual Jeremy - Bleachers (Tags: experimental, experimental electronic, experimental rock, indie rock, no wave, no-core, noise, noise rock, New York) [Decoherence]
  
• Vesseles - I Am a Demon (Tags: depressive black metal, metal, atmospheric black metal, black metal, symphonic black metal, Santa Clara) [Independent]
  
• The God Awful Truth - All That Dark & All That Cold (Tags: metal, technical deathcore, technical metal, breakdowns, deathcore, dissonance, hardcore, mathcore, metalcore, progressive metal, progressive metalcore, Denton) [Independent]
  
• Luke Stewart - Unknown Rivers (Tags: experimental, electronic music, jazz and improvised music, Brooklyn) [π (Pi)]
  
• Mdou Moctar - Funeral for Justice (Tags: alternative, world, africa, guitar, niger, rock, tuareg, Agadez) [Matador]
  
• Olga Reznichenko Trio - Rhythm Dissection (Tags: berlin, jazz, lorenz heigenhuber, maximilian stadtfeld, olga reznichenko, traumton, traumton records, jazz, piano trio, Leipzig) [Traumton]
  
• Moisson Livide - Sent Empèri Gascon (Tags: black metal, death metal, metal, ambient, traditional music, Angers) [Antiq]
  
• Reiko Füting - brokenSong (Tags: choral, contemporary classical, solo piano, vocal, vocal ensemble, New York) [New Focus]
  
• Aklash - Reincarnation (Tags: atmospheric black metal, black metal, doom, metal, folk metal, space rock, UK) [Independent]
  
• USURP SYNAPSE - AssIIAss (Tags: illinois, punk, emo-violence, experimental, noise rock, noise-rock, post-hardcore, post-metal, screamo, skramz, Ladysmith) [Zegema Beach]
  
• Sarah Hennies - Sarah Hennies: Motor Tapes (Tags: ensemble dedalus, sarah hennies, talea ensemble, ensemble 0, Brooklyn) [New World]
  
• Onsetter - Onsetter (Tags: hardcore, metal, noise, punk, sludge, Boise) [Mishap]
  
• DELIRIA - PHANTASM (Tags: atmospheric black metal, black metal, blackgaze, depressive black metal, depressive rock, metal, post black metal, atmospheric doom metal, doom metal, doomgaze, gothic metal, post-metal, shoegaze, shoegaze black metal, San Francisco) [Independent]
  
• Abhoria - Between the Strains (Tags: black metal, blackened death metal, metal, atmospheric, technical, Los Angeles) [Independent]
  
• Modney (Pyroclastic Records) - Ascending Primes (Tags: classical, adventurous music, contemporary, electronic, experimental, violin, New York) [Pyroclastic]
  
• Tim Garland - Moment Of Departure (Tags: jazz, bandleader, composer, improviser, saxophone, London) [Independent]
  
• darius - Murmuration (Tags: rock, hardcore, instrumental, post, stoner, Bulle) [Independent]
  
• 假日貞操 Virgin Vacation - Dapple Patterns (Tags: experimental, instrumental, krautrock, psychedelic, Hong Kong) [Independent]
  
• Ibibio Sound Machine - Pull the Rope (Tags: world, disco, highlife, nigerian, psychedelic, United Kingdom) [Merge]
  
• Simon Nabatov Quartet feat. Ralph Alessi - Lovely Music (Tags: jazz, avant-garde, clean feed, composition, piano, quintet, Cologne) [Simon Nabatov]
  
• Kee Avil - Spine (Tags: alternative, electronic, experimental pop, folk, noisepop, Montreal) [Constellation]
  
• Transcendance - SPHERE - Objet Violent Non Identifié (Tags: atmospheric black metal, black metal, darkspace, metal, sphère, transcendance, astral black metal, cosmic black metal, France) [Independent]
  
• Sulaco - Black Cloud (Tags: metal, death metal, grind, noise rock, progressive, Rochester) [Independent]
  
• Jon Poulin - LITTLE CHAOS (Tags: metal, punk, rock, acoustic guitar, alternative rock, independent, indie, instrumental, Massachusetts) [Independent]
  
• HANDS HOLDING THE VOID - In the Absence of Light: Music for Electronics & Console Guitar (Tags: experimental, ambient, drone, electronic, noise, psychedelic, Chicago) [Independent]
  
• Oddisee - And Yet Still (Tags: hip hop, hip-hop/rap, j.cole, jazz rap, kendrick lamar, mello music group, oddisee, rap, alternative hip-hop, alternativehip-hop, big krit, hiphop rap, jazz, lofichillhop, rap alternative, Washington) [Outer Note]
  
• Diminium - Dominant EP (Tags: black metal, metal, modern black metal, atmospheric metal, avantgarde, death metal, eclectic, groove metal, melodic death metal, progressive metal, ukraine war, war, war metal, Kyiv) [Independent]
  
• Goodhost - Attacks (Tags: Rock) [Independent]
  
• Ellipsis Quintet - Aristotle's Dilemma (Tags: jazz, progressive jazz, progressive jazz fusion, progressive rock, progressive rock, rock, progressive metal, world fusion, worldfusion, Graz) [Independent]
  
• Permanence - The Collapse Of Singularity (Tags: metal, technical death metal, Venezuela) [Independent]
  
• age of strange cults - Age of Strange Cults (Tags: metal, hardcore, instrumental, noise metal, noise rock, post-metal, sludge metal, Vienna) [Independent]
  
• Jack Quartet - John Luther Adams: Waves & Particles (Tags: Classical) [Cold Blue Music]
  
• Amina Figarova - Suite For Africa (Tags: Jazz) [AMFI]
  
• Manuel Hermia - Selene's View (Tags: Jazz) [BMC]
  
• WILLOW - empathogen (Tags: Jazz) [Three Six Zero]
  
• Kamasi Washington - Fearless Movement (Tags: Jazz) [Young]
  
• Olly Alexander (Years & Years) - Odyssey (Tags: Pop) [UMC (Universal Music Catalogue)]
  
• Galactic Empire - Ahsoka Theme (Tags: Metal) [Pure Noise]
  
• Luna Li - Fireworks in the Rain (Tags: Electro) [Independent]
  
• Skyler Parker - Songs With My Friends (Tags: Metal) [Clammiest]
  
• DAATH - The Deceivers (Tags: death metal, metal, progressive metal, Atlanta) [Metal Blade]
  
• From Dying Suns - Calamity (Tags: death metal, metal, progressive metal, thrash metal, Canada) [Independent]
  
• Mat Ball - Amplified Guitar II (Tags: experimental, aleatory, drone, experimental, generative music, prepared guitar, Montreal) [The Garrote]
  
• Mat Ball - Amplified Guitar 2 (Tags: Rock) [The Garrote]
  
• Scott Wollschleger - Scott Wollschleger: Between Breath (Tags: New York) [New Focus]
  

I'm trying to make a list of memorable phrases from the Tim-'n'-Eric cinematic universe, with one (or several) per letter of the alphabet. For reasons.™ Here's what I got so far. Contributions welcome.

• A: Abso Lutely
• B: Bilb Ono, Business Hugs, Brule's Rules
• C: Celery Man, Chrimbus, Churched Mouse
• D: Dang Hunk, Dogs Should Be Raw
• E: Eyes in the Sky
• F: Feminine Pizza Bag, Flarhgunnstow
• G: The Ghost of LeVar Burton, Gravy Robbers
• H: Hamburger Taxi, Handsome for a Man, Home Lab
• I: I Want to Meet That Dad
• J: Just Enough Information
• K: Krunkle Kick
• L: Limp Lip, Live With My Dad
• M: Magnus Magnus
• N: Nah Rumph
• O: Oh-Hungee
• P: Pep-Pep & Nanna, Petite Feet
• Q: Quirky and Geno
• R: Raz, Rolo Tony Brown Town
• S: Sand Sphere, Slingdingers on Patrol, Spraynard Kruger
• T: TAARGÜS TAARGÜS, Tairy Greene Machine, Tall Cat Parade
• U: Uncle Muscle's Hour
• V: Values Under Attack
• W: Where's My Chippy?, Winterman
• X: ???
• Y: ???
• Z: Zone Theory

So Bryce is Ichiban's final boss and he seems to be generally agreed to be a pretty underwhelming one. Lots of people think that Ichiban's imagination or the nuclear waste should've made Bryce transform into some mutant monster or god to show how all-powerful he is. But there also people that say that Bryce is underwhelming on purpose to show how much of a fraud he is, and I agree with that. Still, having a final boss that's underwhelming on purpose is still pretty disappointing for what's supposed to be a climactic fight. So why can't we have both? Have Bryce be both all-powerful and weak at the same time? My idea for making this work is by basically making the Bryce fight a big reference to Ichiban's favorite video game series: Dragon Quest. This would fit especially since the boss right before the Bryce fight, the giant squid, already seems to be a reference to one of Dragon Quest bosses.
So in Dragon Quest III, the final boss is this big bad demon lord named Zoma and in his fight he has this protective barrier around him that makes him really hard to defeat. But by using this MacGuffin called the Sphere of Light, you can remove the barrier around Zoma to make the fight easier.
Dragon Quest XI references this fight by also making the final boss, this big bad dark god Calasmos, surrounded by a barrier, which you have to use the Super Sword of Light to get rid of, which makes the fight easier.
Infinite Wealth could reference these two fights by making the real Palekana pendant a item that is given to Ichiban by Akane and Lani before he heads to Nele Island. When the final fight starts, Bryce transform into some big fantasy creature and the fight is super difficult. (This wouldn't really make sense story-wise since Ichiban already knows that Bryce is a huge fake, but they could just hand wave it as the Bryce's grunts influencing Ichiban's imagination or some shit. Idk this imagination bullshit is already absolutely ridiculous so why the fuck not.) But if Ichiban uses the Palekana pendant during the battle, Bryce transforms back into a human and the boss fight turns back to what it is in the current game, but perhaps even weaker and with some enemy mooks randomly fleeing the battle due to them realizing that Bryce isn't the almighty God they think he is. I think this idea would've been really and worked great both mechanically as a final boss fight and a neat reference to the Dragon Quest games.
There's still the plot hole of why the fuck Bryce's followers would care if his pendant is fake or not when they're already so crazy dedicated to him, yet the pendant is treated as his one big weakness for reason, his sole threat to his power. But this was already a plot hole that existed in the original story and I think in an ideal hypothetical Infinite Wealth rewrite this problem would definitely be addressed.

Any veteran reader who comments in the newbie thread will be banned from WoT for 5 days. Please read the full the rules before commenting.
This is the newbie thread. Visit the veteran thread if you have already read the series.
For more information, or to see the full schedule for all previous entries, please see the wiki page for the read-along.
BOOK THIRTEEN SCHEDULE
This week we will be discussing Book Thirteen: Towers of Midnight, as a whole.

• January 31, 2024: Prologue and Chapters 1 through 4
• February 7, 2024: Chapters 5 through 11
• February 14, 2024: Chapters 12 through 16
• February 21, 2024: Chapters 17 through 20
• February 28, 2024: Chapters 21 through 24
• March 6, 2024: Chapters 25 through 31
• March 13, 2024: Chapters 32 through 38
• March 20, 2024: Chapters 39 through 46
• March 27, 2024: Chapters 47 through 52
• April 3, 2024: Chapters 53 through 57 and Epilogue
• April 10, 2024: Towers of Midnight - Final Thoughts & Trivia <--- You are here.

BOOK FOURTEEN SCHEDULE
Next week we will be discussing Book Fourteen: A Memory of Light, Prologue and Chapter 1.

• April 17, 2024: Prologue and Chapter 1
• April 24, 2024: Chapters 2 through 6
• May 1, 2024: Chapters 7 through 12
• May 8, 2024: Chapters 13 through 18
• May 15, 2024: Chapters 19 through 24
• May 22, 2024: Chapters 25 through 30
• May 29, 2024: Chapters 31 through 36
• June 5, 2024: Chapter 37 (Part 1)
• June 12, 2024: Chapter 37 (Part 2)
• June 19, 2024: Chapters 38 through 49 and Epilogue
• June 26, 2024: A Memory of Light - Final Thoughts & Trivia

​

• July 3, 2024: Short Stories
• July 10, 2024: The Wheel of Time - Final Thoughts & Trivia

DISCUSSION
In lieu of chapter summaries this week, I have some information to present to you. Some of the information comes from outside interviews, or are the culmination of fan speculation to reach a consensus on certain unclear events that aren't elaborated on in future books.
As a caveat, nothing I write below can in any way be considered a spoiler. I will be providing a few bits of trivia that, while not in and of themselves spoilers, do concretely answer some questions that have been asked, whose answers have been revealed by the end of this book, but in easy to miss ways. I will, however, be placing this trivia behind spoiler tags for those who wish to avoid it.
Beyond that, I'd like everyone to use this thread to give their overall thoughts on this book. Let us know your predictions going forward, your favorite characters, things you liked and disliked about it. Feel free to ask open ended questions, or for clarification if you feel you didn't understand something.
PREVIOUS TRIVIA
Here are links to the trivia posts for the previous books, in case you missed them:

• The Eye of the World
• The Great Hunt
• The Dragon Reborn
• The Shadow Rising
• The Fires of Heaven
• Lord of Chaos
• A Crown of Swords
• The Path of Daggers
• Winter's Heart
• Crossroads of Twilight
• New Spring
• In Memoriam: The Life And Death of Robert Jordan
• Knife of Dreams
• Introductions - Brandon Sanderson and The End Of The Wheel of Time
• The Gathering Storm

PROPHECIES
I have compiled a list of all of the prophecies you have encountered to date. It has now been updated with the prophecies from this book. You can find a link to each book's prophecies from this wiki page. The prophecies are presented as they are found in the books, completely spoiler free, with no comment as to when or if they've been fulfilled.
TIMELINE / GOING FORWARD
Well, up until now, I've done the best job I can at providing you with an accurate timeline. Going forward, things get difficult. I've made the choice to not continue the chapter dates for the last book, and I'll explain my reasoning for that in the trivia for the last book. Here is a quick section about the timeline as it stands now, with technical spoilers for the structure of the last book, but I don't think it's worth avoiding reading: As of the end of this book, everyone's storylines are in sync, with the "current date" being July 1st. The exception is the single Lan POV in the epilogue, which takes place on July 2nd. Now that the timelines are sync'd from the last two books, the final book will proceed linearly. You should more or less be able to tell how far along the story progresses and there will be no unannounced or unclear flashbacks. As I said above, I'll have a bit more to say about the timeline at the end of the next book, but I don't foresee any overt confusion about the progression of the story. You're welcome to ask, should you get confused, and I'll answer if I can.
Here is how long this book spanned: 71 days (or 70 days + Lan's epilogue scene on July 2). There was 42 days of overlap with The Gathering Storm.
It has been this long since the start of the series: 832 days (or 831 days + Lan's epilogue scene on July 2)
IN THE F@#CKING GLOSSARY?!
I didn't have a super detailed plan when I started the read-along. However, I did start some sections of the trivia solely because I knew there would be payoffs in later books. The glossary section of the trivia posts was one, and it has finally come to fruition. Prepare yourself to be whelmed! Graendal killed Asmodean. What?! you say? That came out of nowhere! Of course it did, unless you've read the glossary for this book:

Graendal: One of the Forsaken. Once known as Kamarile Maradim Nindar, a noted ascetic, she was the second of the Forsaken to decide to serve the Dark One. A ruthless killer, she was responsible for the deaths of Aran'gar and Asmodean and for the destruction of Mesaana. Her present circumstances are uncertain.

And the 10 book, 17 year long mystery came to a conclusion not with a bang, but a whimper. Though the reasoning behind this is pretty neat, in my opinion. I'll let Sanderson explain himself:

As for why the big secret was included in the glossary, I've said before that Harriet made the decision where it would go. I actually did suggest it, though I later changed my mind and thought I would put it in somewhere else, but she said, "No, I love this idea of the glossary." The reason I think that we like the glossary location so much is because the instruction I received from Robert Jordan was just a Post-It note that had written on it, "This is right," attached to a sheet of paper that was an explanation, one of the many, printed off from the internet, talking about who killed Asmodean. That Post-It note saying "This is right" was all there was—I didn't know the how, the why, the circumstances, any more than you know. So we felt that rather than extrapolate all of that ourselves, the best thing to do, as frustrating as it might be, was to give you the information much in the same way that we got it, as simply a "This is the person." That still allows a bit of theorizing on how this person was involved in the event, whether it was by her hand directly, or whether a servant was involved, or that sort of thing. That allows for theorizing.

In other interviews, Sanderson stated that one of the first things he did when getting access to Jordan's notes was sift through them to find Asmodean's killer. He first suggested putting it in the glossary to give readers the same experience he had of finding out the answer: not in the text of the story, but as a random note. Although, if you were paying super extra close attention, you may have noticed this line in the Epilogue: "Mesaana has fallen," Shaidar Haran whispered. "Three Chosen, destroyed by your actions. The design build, a lattice of failure, a framework of incompetence." Emphasis mine.
Robert Jordan repeatedly claimed the mystery of who killed Asmodean was "intuitively obvious to the most casual observer" and was confused as to why it was such a mystery to fans. 10 years prior to the release of Towers of Midnight, a fanfic depicting Sherlock Holmes deducing the identity of Asmodean's killer to Watson circulated among the fandom and became pretty popular. I don't think Sanderson ever confirmed it, but it is likely the article Jordan left the Post-It note on. Feel free to read the fanfic here. The page itself is free from spoilers of any sort.
SIMILAR SIMILARITIES
In the previous trivia post, for The Gathering Storm, I mentioned that Jordan wrote enough material to be spread across the prologues of the final three books. (As well as other scenes, but I won't be mentioned those until the end). This is the section written by Jordan in the prologue for this book: The fort in the Borderlands.
A comment on Mat's character: Some of you felt that Mat was a bit off last book. Sanderson agrees with you. He's commented before that Mat was one of the hardest characters for him to get right. In my opinion, he steadily increased each book and Mat is appropriately "himself" in A Memory of Light.
LITHIUM
Also mentioned in the last trivia post, the community gravitated towards the term "Darth Rand" when referring to Rand at his darkest moments. In this book, the community coined the term "Zen Rand" and you'll usually see that when referring to Rand in his current state. "Jesus Rand" is also another popular name for him.
LOVE PENTAGRAM > RHOMBUS OF LOVE
Rand's relationships are the source of countless discussion on /WoT and other Wheel of Time spaces. I call it the Rhombus of Love, but there isn't really a solidified fandom term for it. For all the talk it gets though, there is an even more powerful love polygon hidden in the background of the series. It often goes unnoticed, but is wild once you see an image of the Love Pentagram. I shall share the image here, without commentary. I think it speaks for itself.
JAIN FARSTRIDER DIED CLEAN
The circumstances surrounding Jain Farstrider are some of the longest running, deepest lore cuts in the entire series. I've considered bringing some of the information in this trivia to light at multiple points throughout the read-along, but it never felt appropriate. Given the opportunity, I would probably bring up some of this during the trivia for The Eye of the World. We (the vets) discussed it at the time and thought it would be too leading, but given how things turned out, it may have been more impactful to bring it up earlier than now. With that said, let's dive in...
We learn at the end of The Eye of the World that a man named Cowin Gemallan Fairheart, a nobleman of Malkier and Darkfriend, attempted a coup that ultimately resulted in the fall of Malkier. A young Jain Charin, already known as Jain Farstrider, was also a Malkieri, hunted Cowin down, bringing him back to the Seven Towers in chains. This happened around the year 955 NE. He would go on to publish his exploits in The Travels of Jain Farstrider in 968 NE, and then disappeared in 981 NE, after a trip into the Blight.
In Knife of Dreams, "Noal" is talking to Olver about Jain Farstrider, and says the following:

He was a fool ... He went gallivanting about the world and left a good and loving wife to die of a fever without him there to hold her hand while she died. He let himself be made into a tool by--

This is a reference all the way back to The Eye of the World, where Ba'alzamon made this claim:

"Jain Farstrider, a hero," he twisted the word to a sneer, "whom I painted like a fool and sent to the Ogier thinking he was free of me."

This is an event that Loial later recalls to Moiraine, telling her about a man who came to Stedding Shangtai shortly after the Aiel War, on the verge of death, but then vanished again after recovering: "He said the Dark One intended to blind the Eye of the World, and slay the Great Serpent, kill time itself." This was one of several trails that Ba'alzamon laid to lure Rand to the Eye of the World. This man was Jain Farstrider. This was the result of Compulsion and abuse by Ishamael. We don't know the specifics, but Ishamael essentially manipulated Jain into being a Darkfriend, and this is the deep dark secret Noal is ashamed of, because he never realizes it was Compulsion.
After he left the Ogier, he shed the Jain Farstrider identity and became Noal Charin. He devoted his life to hunting down other Darkfriends, trying to atone. The phrasing Ba'alazmon used, "thinking he was free of me," becomes relevant. Loial states that the man intended to go to Tar Valon to give them warning as well, but he never made it. He turns up again in the prologue of The Fires of Heaven. Rahvin goes to visit Graendal and notes the following:

a large room full of pools and fluted columns, nearly nude acrobats and attendants wearing less. Oddly, a lean old man in a wrinkled coat sat disconsolately among the performers.

So Jain eventually winds up in Graendal's clutches, undergoing even more Compulsion. It seems at some point, his usefulness ends and he is cast out. As Noal, he sometimes complains of difficulties with his memory, and this is the cause. Mat first runs into Noal in A Crown of Swords in Ebou Dar. Noal is watching Carridin (Bors) when Mat follows Mili Skane and watches her enter Carridin's palace there. Noal informs Mat that the place belongs to Carridin. The won't be properly introduced until Winter's Heart though, when Noal saves Mat from the gholam and Mat invites him to join his men.
Jain's sacrifice in the Tower of Ghenjei is his final attempt at redemption. He believes he abandoned his wife and became a Darkfriend. And he believes his countrymen, the Malkieri, know about his activities. His last request is essentially asking Mat to clear his name.
EMPLOYEES MUST WEAR HAIRNET AT ALL TIMES
This is a bit of trivia I cut from the Winter's Heart trivia post because it got too long. It concerns the ornaments Cadsuane wears in her hair. We do finally get a name for the set of ter'angreal Cadsuane wears in her hair. Rand calls it a "paralis-net". It seems to be a general term for a set of ter'angreal that work together. Nynaeve's set of jewelry that she wears might possibly be a paralis-net. And it's speculated that Lanfear had one as well, before Moiraine tackled her into the redstone doorway. She was always described as wearing silver pendants in the shapes of moons and stars. Cadsuane got hers from an old Wilder who trained her in the years shortly after she became an Aes Sedai. Below is a list of Cadsuane's ornaments and their functions. This information comes from a combination of the books and some information provided by Jordan's notes/interviews.

• A bird that looks "a little like a shrike" is an angreal, it is not very powerful but still steps her up to the top male level of strength, above any unaided woman
• A double ter'angreal in the shape of two intertwined crescent moons, facing one another and overlapping; they function like Mat's Foxhead medallion, causing flows directed at Cadsaune to dissipate and also warning that someone close is embracing the Power; they become cold, but do not distinguish between saidin and saidar (though they work on and warn of both).
• A ter'angreal in the shape of a hummingbird is a Well.
• A ter'angreal in the shape of an eight-pointed star with four long and four short wavy rays; it detects the ability of a man to channel within a distance of thirty or forty paces. But it did not identify which man inside that range could channel, only the presence of one. It vibrates in the presence of men who can channel, more so with increasing numbers.
• A ter'angreal in the shape of a bird that seems a swallow; it detects the use of every very small amount of saidin and saidar within as much as three miles; if held by its chain it would turn to point its beak to the direction of use. It can detect only saidin and saidar used alone, not combined.
• A ter'angreal in the shape of a six-pointed star. When triggered it forms a thin "armor" against the skin of the wearer. This protection is invisible except to whoever is using it. It protects against the blows of swords, knifes, arrows and even maces because it dissipates the force of the blow over the entire body, thus reducing it.
• A ter'angreal in the shape of a sleek fish with sharp fins. It enables the wearer to pull someone else into an involuntary circle under hehis control guiding the flows. It works only if the other person has already seized saidin or embraced saidar.
• A ter'angreal in the shape of a shadowed moon: a full moon disc with a part chiselled leaving a brightly burnished crescent. Its use is unknown.
• A ter'angreal in the shape of a leaping fish that looked like a trout. Its use is unknown.
• A ter'angreal in the shape of a fish that looked like a carp. Its use is unknown.

Cadsuane herself affirms that she does not know the purpose of some of the components. But we know from the fight against Semirhage that Cadsuane has a ter'angreal that disrupts weaves at close proximity. So one of the last three ornaments has this function. Here is an image of Cadsuane wearing her paralis-net.
PRECOCIOUS PUPIL
This is a quick bit of trivia about Nicola Treehill. Nicola spent the entire series trying to rush ahead of herself. She wanted to follow in Egwene's footsteps, but acted as kind of a foil to the advancement we see from the Wonder Girls. She met an untimely end when she entered Tel'aran'riod unauthorized. Egwene had given her a ter'angreal to pass some messages in the World of Dreams with the express purpose of baiting an attack from the Black Ajah. The bait worked, but Nicola used the ter'angreal during that battle and was kill in the crossfire. From Jordan's notes, it was revealed that, in true Nicola fashion, she rushed ahead and bonded her friend Areina (the woman who idolized Birgitte in Salidar) as her Warder. She likely died in a rage when Nicola died, however, the Companion lists her fate as "unknown", so it's possible she was saved.
ON GENDER AND SOULS
This is a quick commentary on how Jordan chose to do his world building. According to Robert Jordan, souls are gendered, and the ability to channel is tied to one's soul. The strength of a channeler's soul doesn't appear to vary. Although it can be influenced by physical properties temporarily, such as the Finn draining Moiraine and Lanfear; their reborn souls in another Age would return to their default/stronger values. Also, no one can channel during the 1st Age (our current Age), regardless of the soul's ability.
Jordan made a few comments in interviews, in reply to specific questions, that souls were gendered and seemingly always wind up in the correct bodies. The only attempt Jordan makes in the books to display anything like transgenderism is with Halima. I'd like to stress that this information comes from him answering on the spot question, usually in front of a large audience. I think that Jordan was ahead of his time in talking about gender dynamics, and he wanted to focus on that, and the zeitgeist of the time was centered around that. The entire language and terminology around transgender identities didn't even exist when Jordan was writing the series. I think if he started the series today, it would play a more prominent role in the story, and I don't think anyone should be told off for questioning and theorycrafting how a trans person would exist or function in the 3rd Age. I also don't think Jordan should be penalized for only being 20 years ahead of his time, instead of 30. He chose to build his world in a specific way and that's all he chose to focus on.
So that said, there were some user questions about female Dragons. Jordan stated that there was a female equivalent to the Dragon, but she would never be born in the 3rd Age and undergo Rand's journey. She'd never earn the title Dragon or Dragon reborn. Instead, he simple referred to her as the female Champion of the Light. Her name is Amaresu and she is a Hero of the Horn, just like Rand/LTT is. She is the real-world parallel to the Japanese Sun Goddess, Amaterasu.
WEAK SAUCE
Some information about Moiraine: In the trivia post for Winter's Heart, I provided you with a ranking of all the important channelers in the series with their strength levels. Moiraine's new, weakened strength is the only entry I left off of that list. Moiraine's reduced strength is level 66(54), which is 6 steps above Morgase. The angreal she possesses is so strong it's almost a sa'angreal. We don't know exactly how strong it makes her, but with it she is stronger than she was before the Finns took her.
SO TOWER, MUCH MIDNIGHT
This is a quick discussion about the meaning of this book's title, Towers of Midnight. Unlike some other books, the title for this book is maybe too obvious, or overly represented in the book. I went to go research, to make sure I got all of the meanings, and the top result was my own comment from 4 years ago. This happens about half the time I need to look something up about the Wheel of Time. I may comment way too much in this subreddit...
Anyway, hooray for my past self making this section easy to write. CTRL+C, CTRL+V: This is kind of a catch-all metaphor title. The literal Towers of Midnight (in Seanchan) include 13 towers, this is book 13. Lots of Black Tower machinations happen in this book. Black = Midnight Tower. Egwene has a Dream about various 13 towers rising and falling, which represent the 13 Forsaken (= Evil = Black = Midnight). Various "tower" related plots in general: Black Tower, White Tower, Tower of Genji. Seven Towers of Malkier if you want to stretch the metaphor to include Lan's journey in the book. The Epilogue/ending poem is the dark prophecy that includes mention of Perrin/Hopper and "Midnight Towers". All in all, it's more relevant than Knife of Dreams.
ADVANCED NORSE MYTHOLOGY
In this book, we have the culmination of Perrin's arch to embody the "real events" that led to the mythological Norse god Thor. He has crafted Mah'alleinir, which many of you caught sounds an awful lot like Mjölnir.
Way back in the trivia post for The Shadow Rising I outlined how Mat embodied Odin. I almost left out that section of the trivia because I thought it might be too leading. If you know your Norse mythology, you know that Odin only has one eye. Lesser known is why. In his thirst for knowledge, Odin plucked his own eye out and sacrificed it to the Well of Urd, allowing him to drink from it and gain knowledge/wisdom. It seems no one caught the similarities at the time. It wasn't until around The Path of Daggers when I introduced the prophecies wiki pages that some of you re-read through them and started theorizing about "half the light of the world".
VERIIIIIIIIIIIIN
There were many questions surrounding Verin's decision to drink poison and reveal herself to Egwene. This section tries to clear up the timeline and reasoning behind her actions. First, to address the questions I've seen of why Verin didn't tell Egwene about the attack in Caemlyn. If you've been paying attention, there have been a lot of letters with red wax seals in various characters' possession. Verin was very thorough in her delegation. She has been telling specific people specific things, relative to where they are in the world and what spheres of influence they have. She had limited time with Egwene and assumed she had Caemlyn handled with the letter she left Mat. Unfortunately, she underestimated how well she knew Matrim Cauthon.
And her letter to Mat is what sealed her doom. As I've mentioned, the timeline of these two books is nebulous at best. The reason Verin poisoned herself was because she couldn't violate her Oaths to the Dark One. She had to be dead before the date Mat could/would have opened the letter, because in that letter she betrays the Dark One. Had she been able to release herself of the Oaths with the Oath Rod, she could have Travelled back to Mat, taken the letter, and just told him about the attack. With limited time due to her misunderstanding of Mat's stubbornness, she made the choice to poison herself and reveal what she knew about the Black Ajah to Egwene.
Also, because I couldn't find a better time to mention it. I saw some comments speculating, but I just want to confirm that Verin did use her custom form of Compulsion on all of the White Tower Aes Sedai that were captured at Dumai's Wells. She Compelled them all to swear fealty to Rand, even Elza Penfell, who she knew was a member of the Black Ajah.
LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLE, PART 2
In the 2000's and 2010's a website called suvudu.com (gone now, it redirects you to one of those spam celebrity article sites) ran yearly "tournaments" where they pitted characters from popular sci-fi and fantasy novels against each other in death matches. The authors of the respective books were invited to write short stories about how they thought such a fight would play out. Wheel of Time characters featured prominently in 3 different years. I'll share one in the trivia of each of these last 3 books (for spoiler purposes, do not go searching them out).
The 2011 match ups featured Perrin. He was paired up against Tasslehoff Burrfoot from the Dragonlance series, which he won. Perrin then lost in his next round against Quick Ben from the Malazan series. Sanderson didn't do extensive write-ups this year, but he did have the following to say about Perrin's match up with Tasslehoff:

Perrin against Tasslehoff. Really. We're doing this? Okay, well, here's what we've got. Perrin is an extremely skilled fighter whose very nature (being ta'veren) causes probability to warp around him and bring to him the things and people he needs at the moments he needs them. He has a power-forged hammer, the allegiance of tens of thousands of trained soldiers, and the ability to call upon hundreds of wolves if he really needed to. He is a berserker on the battlefield, and has the power to move in the World of Dreams, where he has near-absolute control of his surroundings. He is guarded by Aiel warriors and two powerful Asha'man who can wield the One Power that made Rand such a force in the previous tournament.
Tasslehoff has a stick that throws rocks.
Okay, I'm underplaying it. Tas is a clever, brave little guy. (Actually, I think he may be immune to fear or something.) He's prone to have a few tricks up his sleeves, magic items stolen here or there. But he's also got a childlike view of the world, and has nowhere near the ruthlessness that Perrin has been forced by fate to learn. Tas can't win this fight. I declare that this battle plays out like so: Tas defaults on his match by not showing up. He's off picking Jon Snow's pockets. Perrin wins. (And Wheel of Time fans, don't prove me wrong. We'll never live it down if Perrin loses to Tasslehoff.)

MORE ANIMATED BATTLES
In the trivia post for The Path of Daggers, I shared some YouTube videos, created by Luinedhel, that depicted various battles in the series in an animated fashion. Feel free to take your time to watch these and comment on them later if you'd like.
Important: I try really hard to keep you all spoiler free. The only thing I can't control are external resources like this that I link to you. I would strongly suggest a few actions on your part to help remain spoiler free. First, don't like or subscribe (though, after the read-along, doing so would benefit the YouTuber). You should be fine to watch the video as an embedded link, but if it takes you directly to YouTube to watch it, try to find a way to watch it incognito. Both of these are to prevent being suggested other videos by him, or other YouTubers that may have spoilery titles. Lastly, do not read the comments or descriptions of the videos, or look at any of the recommended videos. (The end card suggested videos may seem safe, but I've watched all of them by this user. The other ones have subtle spoilers for the last book and should be avoided. I'll share this channel again in the final trivia post and it will then be safe to watch the rest of the videos.)
The first video is The Battle of Shadar Logoth, otherwise known as the Cleansing. I would have shared this video earlier, but it spoils the hammer Perrin creates in this book.
The next two videos are The Battle of Serana and The Battle of Darluna, which illustrate Rodel Ituralde's campaign against the Seanchan on the Almoth Plain.
The next video is The Battle of the Malvide Narrows; Mat's campaign against the Seanchan as he attempts to flee Altara.
This video is The Battle of Malden, which shows Perrin's assault on the town of Malden in order to free a captive Faile.
The last video is The Battle of Tar Valon and outlines the Seanchan raid on the White Tower.
MEMES
We have a sister subreddit called /WetlanderHumor. /WoT does not allow memes, so /WetlanderHumor is the place for them. Unfortunately, it's only open to people who have finished the series, since they do not have any sort of spoiler policies. I've personally vetted these memes, so you will not be spoiled for anything beyond the end of this book.
CLICK HERE FOR MEMES
READER QUESTIONS
There were a few questions asked by various readers throughout the read through of this book. They did not receive clear answers from other readers, or explicitly from the books, so I will be answering them here. I will be including that section as a stickied comment below.

Updated on 4/24/24

Hakkarb Loading

Class: Druid

Format: Wild

2x (0) Aquatic Form

2x (1) Naturalize

1x (1) Sphere of Sapience

2x (3) Dreaming Drake

2x (3) Feral Rage

1x (3) Healing Touch

1x (3) Hedge Maze

1x (3) Imprisoned Satyr

2x (3) Pendant of Earth

1x (3) Prince Renathal

1x (3) Smothering Starfish

1x (4) Baron Rivendare

1x (4) Big Game Hunter

2x (4) Dew Process

2x (4) Poison Seeds

1x (4) Royal Librarian

1x (4) Spiritsinger Umbra

1x (5) Antique Healbot

1x (5) Beetlemancy

2x (5) Death Blossom Whomper

1x (5) Emperor Thaurissan

1x (5) Sky Mother Aviana

1x (6) Best in Shell

1x (6) Crystal Cluster

1x (6) Spreading Plague

1x (7) Dreampetal Florist

1x (7) Malfurion the Pestilent

1x (7) Topior the Shrubbagazzor

1x (7) Winged Guardian

1x (9) Tree of Life

1x (10) C'Thun, the Shattered

1x (10) Hakkar, the Soulflayer

AAEBAbPaBRiFBvsO0Q/1D9YRycICoM0CmdMC5PsClooD/7UD5LoDj84Dv+ADpPYDlKAEjbUE794E+uIEl+8EuZgFzp4GoKAGqrEGCOkBig6L5AO4oASuwATV3QSE7wSaoAYAAA==

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I have never felt so tired in all my life, nothing compares to this deep exhaustion that has settled in my bones. Every step is a struggle to take, every breath labored and every thought a chore. I could not tell whether this was a result of lack of sleep or something caused by the maze. Regardless, I had to press on, had to keep moving forward.
The maze, as it turned out, was far more challenging now. Granted there wasn’t any mind altering fog or automatons chasing me. But as it turned out, the maze wasn’t quite done trying to kill me. I put my foot down and felt a stone shift, sinking into the floor. Immediately I jerked backwards, spikes shooting out of either wall and spearing the spot I had just occupied. Each was about as thick as my arm, barbed and covered in something that steamed. Whatever that was, I wasn’t about to find out.
The spikes retracted with a clanking of gears, allowing me to pass eventually. Though exhausted, the near death experience had sharpened my focus. I moved a little slower, my eyes sweeping side to side in the hope I might spot more pressure plates. Instead I felt a soft tug around what could be considered an ankle, followed by the soft ping of a tripwire disconnecting from something unseen.
Immediately I burst into motion, small panels on the walls dropping to the ground and presumably poison tipped darts whizzing just behind me. This was one of those times where my particular body shape was not a good thing, as I had to put on a bit more speed than I really was capable of to ensure my ass didn’t get punctured by far too many darts.
Still I made it through that particular trap with nary a scratch, though in my weakened state I was left breathless and hunched over, trying to rein in my jackhammer heart. I did so slowly, starting off once more and taking turns entirely at random. I hadn’t the patience to deliberate over every choice that was presented to me.
I dodged yet more traps, though I wasn’t able to emerge unscathed. I received several cuts, mostly shallow ones that would be more of an annoyance than a hindrance, though a few were quite deep. Luckily they were in easy to reach places so bandaging myself up wasn’t difficult.
The most serious injury I incurred was a broken leg. I say broken, I should say it was utterly pulverized. Unfortunately there was little I could do about it, healing wise that is. So I bound it to my lower body and drank a pair of healing potions. That dulled the pain at least, but I didn’t know if the leg would even heal properly.
Oh well, not really all that much I could do about it, being anything but a healer as I am. Much to my delight, the traps were more of the same, giant spikes, pit falls, poison darts and crushing blocks. Each of these I managed to avoid once I began to recognize the signs. But even still my strength was starting to wane once more and I began to wonder if it wouldn’t be a good idea to take a rest somewhere. But that ran the risk of triggering some new trap, something meant to keep me moving. I wasn’t about to find out if such a trap existed and so I pushed myself onwards.
Eventually I found my way out, the next courtyard a blessed safe haven. Alford was conspicuously absent, the pedestal with the crystal already risen and waiting for me to touch it. Stumbling closer I reached out for it, my vision starting to blur as exhaustion exacted its dastardly toll. I felt the crystal under my fingers just as my consciousness slipped away at last, and darkness enveloped me.
I awoke some time later feeling refreshed and raring to go. By now I had for sure lost all sense of time in this place but hopefully I hadn’t been stuck here for too long. I wonder how Sae and the others are doing, I hope everyone is getting along at the very least and that tensions aren’t flaring up. Oh well, I’ll get caught up once I get back.
Pushing myself to my feet I groaned at how stiff everything was, and once more found myself face to face with Alford.
“Sleep well? I should hope so, you’ve been out for quite some time.” He said while I cracked my human back.
“Have I? I didn’t notice.” I quipped, looking around for any sign of my next test. “So, what do I have to do now?”
“Nothing,” He said with a shrug. “You’ve passed the last test. All you had to do was make it this far before passing out and you did. I would say it was a test of your will or endurance, really I just wanted to weed out the people who’d give up when they got far too tired.”
I stared at him, my brow slowly but steadily furrowing.
“What? I was insane when I built this place, or at least when I finished it. It stands to reason that the last test wouldn’t make any real sense beyond my own amusement.” He stepped away from me and headed towards where the exit was. “So congratulations, you’ve completed the trials I set out for you, you’re free to claim your prize. It’s right over there.” He motioned towards the exit, which slid open to reveal what looked like a sphere of metal about the size of a baseball.
I continued to frown at him and slowly approached the prize, on guard for any sort of tricks. Just as I raised a hand to reach for it, the way forward slammed shut, the world growing dark and cold. Insane laughter echoed around me and I whipped around to face him. I could only watch in shock as the man grew beyond normal proportions, his fine attire replaced with flowing robes that flapped in some magical wind.
“Did you truly think it would be that easy? That I would simply let you leave with my life’s work?” Alford’s voice boomed, causing the stone walls to shudder and crack. He grew and grew till he quite nearly touched the roof of the cavern with the top of his head. “You are unworthy of such power! And so you will be destroyed!”
Flames erupted from his hand, and he thrust it down towards me. A veritable tornado of fire streaked towards me and I threw myself out of the way, desperately trying to escape it. It struck the ground with a resounding boom and caused the ground to heave and buck, nearly throwing me off balance. The heat was unbearable, but I would persevere, calling forth my sword and rushing for the legs of the man that had aided me not too long ago. But my forward momentum was quickly halted as the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, a crackling, fizzing sound filling my ears.
Again I threw myself to one side, sword clattering away as I lost my grip on it. Lightning struck the very ground I’d stood upon, a storm of arcane energy that would have reduced me to ash in an instant had it made contact. I had not been expecting this in the least and I knew not what other tricks he had up his sleeves.
But I wasn’t about to give up, not just yet. Another blast of lightning and I dodged away, drawing the rifle that I had kept and sighting in. Blast after blast left the muzzle, causing Alford to hiss with minor annoyance at my attacks. For all the power the weapon had, it was inconsequential to him.
Which left me with little to nothing left to fight him with. I couldn’t get close for melee, ranged attacks did jack and I had no real offensive magic either. I spent the next ten or so minutes dodging incineration by fire tornado or lethal electrocution by lightning storms. It was most irksome. I felt so powerless against his might, like he was one of those unbeatable boss fights that you were never meant to beat.
Finally an opening presented itself and I rushed forwards, scuttling between his feet and beginning to climb. This was apparently the right move as he couldn’t help but react like any normal person would to a large spider climbing quickly up their body. He began to panic, all thoughts of extreme magic death forgotten and replaced by a need to swat at me. Thankfully I was far faster than those giant hands of his and soon found myself clambering up his back, reaching a point where he couldn’t reach me with his hands.
“You little… This won’t go the way you think it will!” He roared, casting the same fire spell though this time directly at his own feet. He seemed not all that bothered by the intense heat, but considering I was at the center of it I was subject to the inferno in its entirety. Gritting my teeth I called forth my sword and got to cutting, even as I felt my flesh starting to blister and my blood boil. With a cry I managed to expose vulnerable flesh and dove forward, mouth open wide.
I bit deep, potent venom shot straight into his spine. The inferno ceased immediately, just as I felt something important pop in my spidery bits. Life began to flee quickly from the both of us as I dumped every last drop of venom I had into his body. Together we collapsed, the life ebbing from us both.
“You are… worthy.”
I snapped out of the trance like I’d been slapped, and Alford stood before me, utterly normal and not murderous.
“Well done, you’ve completed the real trial.” He said, beaming proudly at me. I quickly looked myself over, noting that my skin was unblemished and my spidery behind hadn’t exploded. I was entirely healthy and whole, which was a relief.
“Was… Was that all a hallucination?” I asked, still feeling a tingle of heat upon my skin.
“Aye, it was. A meeting of minds so to speak. Everything transpired in a shared mental space. A battle of wills and I must say, you have quite the devious mind.” He said, stepping aside and revealing the metal sphere once more. “It’s yours, claim your prize.”
My eyes darted between him and the sphere, and he raised his hands and stepped even further aside.
“No tricks this time, you have my word.”
Squinting I approached the sphere, my hand closing over it and plucking it from its stand. Immediately it unfolded, blooming like a flower and revealing to me a simple charm necklace. It was an exquisite piece, one that would surely have fetched a price so massive as it would bankrupt all of Earth. I could not take my eyes off it, a trance of sorts settling over me the longer I looked at it.
That is, till my metal hand closed around it, hiding the necklace from my gaze. Like a veil being lifted I was given my freedom to actually ‘see’ the necklace once I turned my hand over and unclenched my fist. As it turned out, the chain itself was quite simple, a thread of what looked like copper wrapped with leather. The pendant was modeled like one of those gyroscopes they use to train astronauts, a series of rings within rings that spun rather easily, but at its center was a stylized hourglass. Granted, the hourglass was so small it would have conceivably only been able to hold a few grains of sand, but it was still clearly an hourglass. How fitting.
Setting the now open container aside I slipped the necklace over my head, tucking the pendant away and turning to face Alford, who looked somewhat expectant.
“So, how does holding ultimate power feel?” He asked, rocking slightly on his heels.
“It feels… Wrong. I wish there was another way but either I simply can’t see it or there isn’t one. So I’ll do what I must and then I don’t know… Put it away, maybe back here.” I said. Alford nodded, heaving a great sigh.
“I thought much the same, even amidst my madness. It is good you feel so, such power should not linger in mortal hands for too long, ere they think themselves above the divine.” He said, clapping his hands together. “Now, a few things before you go. Firstly, I shall teleport you back to the entrance of my charming little maze. Secondly, the use of this gift is simple. You first need to be in the exact location that you desire to be when you pop out elsewhere in time. For example, say you wished to travel four hundred years into the future at the start of my maze, then that is where you must activate the power. It only travels through time, not space. It does keep you rooted in place however, just shifts time around you. I could get into the minutiae of the mechanics behind it but that’d take centuries. That’s really it, except you cannot be in the same place as yourself. The resulting duplication paradox would destroy reality.” He explained and I’m glad I was actively paying attention, even though it was giving me a migraine already.
“That’s it really. Oh! To activate it, give it a hearty spin. There’s no wrong way to spin it, so you won’t accidentally hurl yourself forwards or backwards in time by spinning it the wrong direction. Anyway, that’s all for now. Enjoy having control over time itself!” He said with a cheery smile, and I was just about to utter several burning questions when I felt arcane energy envelop me.
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Today's anniversaries are:
2004

• Spastic Ink - Ink Compatible (Pop, Metal)

2010

• Chasse-Galerie - Ars moriendī (black metal)

2011

• Caligula's Horse - Moments from Ephemeral City (Rock)
  
• The Odious - That Night a Forest Grew (grindcore, metal, rock, funk rock, jazz, oregon, portland, progressive metal, Portland)
  

2012

• Lightning Bolt - 20 (noise, noise, pattern, raging, repetition, rock, raw power, rock, Providence)

2013

• Fallujah - Nomadic (death metal, fallujah, nomadic, technical metal, unique leader, progressive metal, Naples)

2015

• From the Petrified Forest - Neon on the Inside (rock, dream pop, math, post-metal, progressive-hardcore, shoegaze, space rock, thinkrock, Portland)
  
• The Dystopian Project - Death Leaves an Echo (progressive rock, rock, progressive metal, Dublin)
  

2016

• Avast - Avast (metal, black metal, blackgaze, blackmetal, post-black metal, post-blackmetal, post-metal, post-rock, Stavanger) Read our review.

2017

• Antethic - Ghost Shirt Society (electronic, experimental, ambient, atmospheric, cinematic rock, instrumental, instrumental rock, post-metal, post-rock, progressive, russia, saint petersburg, Saint Petersburg)
  
• Bréag naofa - Cearo (metal, atheist, d-beat, doom metal, post-metal, progressive metal, Seattle)
  
• Monoceros - Space Dungeon (metal, doom metal, drone, heavy, nightmare, progressive, sci-fi, slow, stoner metal, Canberra)
  
• Solipsismo - Sangre antigua (death metal, metal, instrumental, melodic death metal, technical death metal, Ecuador)
  
• Wojciech Golczewski - The Signal (electronic, chiptune, retrowave, soundtrack, synth, synthwave, Poznań)
  

2018

• Antagoniste - Fragmented Soul (avant-garde black metal) Read our review.
  
• Weasel Walter - Skhiizm (brutal prog, no wave, noise rock, the flying luttenbachers, weasel walter, New York) Read our review.
  

2019

• Kalpa - A Grand Misconception (rock, hardcore punk, math rock, noise rock, post-hardcore, Greece)
  
• Spacemusic Ensemble - Is Okay Okay Is Certified (experimental, heida karine johannesdottir, jazz, karl bjorå, rohey taalah, signe emmeluth, spacemusic ensemble, improvised music, Oslo)
  

2020

• Rob Magill & Alex Gray - The Push of a Button (free jazz)
  
• यात्री (Yātrī / Yaatri) - Reach (jazz fusion)
  

2021

• 72% & Modern Technology - Drowning in a Sea of Bastards & Lorn (noise rock)
  
• Álvaro Pérez & Álvaro Domene - Zodos (avant-garde jazz, free improvisation)
  
• Anemic Cinema - Anemic Cinema (jazz metal)
  
• Arelseum - Swamps (ambient)
  
• Arx ātrāta & Bleakwinter Shrine - The Warrior Cycle (atmospheric black metal)
  
• Bâtard - Brise-lames (experimental black metal)
  
• Bones of the Earth - Ⅱ: Eternal Meditations of a Deathless Crown (post-metal)
  
• Bridge Burner - Disempath (blackened hardcore)
  
• Bruit ≤ - The Machine Is Burning and Now Everyone Knows It Could Happen Again (post-rock, classical) Read our review.
  
• Bryce Dessner - Impermanence/Disintegration (contemporary classical)
  
• Burst Synapse - Moloch (experimental deathgrind)
  
• Capris - Ⅰ & Ⅱ (free improvisation)
  
• Cosmic Collective - Afraid 2 Die (nu jazz)
  
• Crust - Stoic (post-metal)
  
• Dead Neanderthals - Rat Licker (jazzcore)
  
• Ensemble Pamplemousse & Line upon Line Percussion - Pamp(lul)e (experimental jazz, electroacoustic)
  
• Fuoco fatuo - Obsidian Katabasis (doom metal)
  
• Gloom Influx - Twilight (darkwave)
  
• Godspeed You! Black Emperor - God’s Pee at State's End! (post-rock)
  
• Jute Gyte - Helian (avant-garde black metal)
  
• Kady Diarra - Burkina hakili (world, pop)
  
• Kaidi Tatham - An Insight to All Minds (jazz fusion, funk)
  
• Light Machina - Light Machina (free improvisation)
  
• Lynxx - The Magi (experimental electro)
  
• Monochromatic Residua - Eternal Mountain (experimental black metal)
  
• Occam's Laser - Odyssey of Noise, Volume Ⅲ (darkwave)
  
• Odd Circus - Mantha (progressive rock)
  
• Olhava - Frozen Bloom (blackgaze)
  
• Onion Bun - Giraffodil (math rock)
  
• Patrick Shiroishi - Staying Human (free improvisation)
  
• Peter Gilbert - Burned into the Orange (contemporary classical)
  
• Proudhon - The Damaged Bodies (blackened grindcore)
  
• Rorcal & Earthflesh - Witch Coven (post-black metal)
  
• Soia, Julien Sénélas, and Jérôme Vassereau - « Terry Riley's In C » pour 11 oscillateurs et 53 formes (contemporary classical, electroacoustic)
  
• Sourdure - De mòrt viva (experimental folk)
  
• Sphere - π (atmospheric black metal)
  
• Spine Readers - The Hook and the Snake (progressive rock)
  
• Spread Joy - Spread Joy (punk, no wave)
  
• Steel Bearing Hand - Slay in Hell (blackened thrash metal)
  
• The Dystopian Project - Reprise (progressive rock)
  
• Unflesh - Inhumation (death metal)
  
• Urthshroud - Eternal Forecast of Sorrow (ambient black metal)
  
• Vitrail - Les Pages oubliées (blackgaze)
  
• Мытищи в огне (Mytišči b ogne) - Хорошо у нас в аду (Xorošo u nas b adu) (post-punk)
  
• Отоцкий кварте́т (Otockij kvartét / Ototsky Quartet) - Stamp a Spot (avant-garde jazz)
  
• 夢遊病者 (Muyūbyō-sha / Sleepwalker) - Noč na krayu sveta (avant-garde black metal)
  
• 生き作り (Ikizukuri) & Susana Santos Silva - Suicide Underground Orchid (free improvisation)
  
• 那須野満と小埜涼子 (Mitsuru Nasuno to Ono Ryōko) - New Duo, Series 023 (free improvisation)
  

2022

• Panda House - Enjoy Your Habitat (post-hardcore)
  
• The Dark Atom - Robotic Manipulation (progressive metal)
  

2023

• Toilet Penis - Asleep & Dead (cybergrind)