I remember that day as though it were only yesterday. My species, the rulers of a vast and mighty interstellar empire, had discovered a primitive species tucked away in a remote corner of our galaxy. Naturally, we were excited to discover them, for a new species on the galactic stage could potentially bring with them many exciting new developments to keep us all entertained for a few millennia.
Our survey ships, vessels of unparalleled stealth and subtlety, flocked to the single star system with its four gas giants, a boon for any developing species, and set up shop in orbit of their homeworld. We were all so eager to see what works of wondrous art and civility they had created, and instead we watched as a planet spanning war erupted. Entire nations were consumed, millions died within the first few weeks and we were left horrified by what we saw.
Yet by our own rules we were powerless to intervene, if it was their destiny to eradicate themselves, then that is what would happen. We expected this war to end in nuclear annihilation, for we had detected vast nuclear arsenals the moment we entered orbit of that glittering blue jewel in the dark.
Yet no such cataclysm came, instead, one by one tensions cooled, warriors dropped their primitive slug throwers and went home, seeking the comfort and peace of familiar and safe surroundings. A new government was formed, a unifying body that kept the peace for the next five hundred years to the best of its ability. Yet even then conflict still raged in the far flung places of the world, and we were left to wonder…
What would happen when they leave their world?
The question terrified us to such a degree that when it became clear they were making concerted efforts to leave their world and venture out into the stars, we panicked. A species as violent towards itself as they are would surely take one look at the galaxy and its many peoples and attempt to see them struck down. Some amongst the ruling body were of the mind that such a primitive and savage species was little more than animals that deserved to be put down.
Unfortunately, they were the most influential faction of our esteemed government. So when the vote was passed for the extermination of the species, the most the rest of us could try was to make it as quick and painless a death as possible. To be kind. But yet again, the most powerful of us decided that wasn’t good enough. They said that such savagery be met in kind, and so a terrible weapon was developed.
Fear and an overinflated sense of superiority drove us towards our ultimate shame.
The Affliction was released upon their homeworld, and any intrasolar outposts that we found were subsequently wiped from existence with lightning fast attacks from weapons of mass destruction. The affliction targeted everything from birth rates to skin growth, causing patches of necrosis to form externally and internally, all while heightening nerve responses. Our leaders wanted them to suffer for their savagery. While the powerful patted themselves on the back for their valiant defense of the galaxy from a potential threat, the rest of us were left to worry, to ponder our failings and hope against hope that we could be forgiven for our ineffectual protests against this course of action.
Another five hundred years passed and the galaxy forgot all about the now extinct species, focusing instead on their own problems and several other primitive races we had discovered. But something had not forgotten us, something had lurked in the darkness and waited till the perfect moment to strike.
At first the only knowledge we had of this entity was the brief contacts our sensor nets had with some strange anomaly. We shrugged it off as little more than a mere glitch, yet over time some of us began to see a pattern as the contacts began to linger for longer periods of time before vanishing.
It was far too late to do anything, as we would soon discover, as our outer colonies came under sudden attack from an unknown enemy. An unstoppable force that seemed to sweep over our defenses with ease. Yet we received no reports of the world being razed, instead the enemy was content to occupy the world and move on, keeping the civilian populace calm and cooperative.
Of course that didn’t mean we wouldn’t fight them, just because they were being civil towards our civilians didn’t make them any less our enemy. And so we mobilized, preparing our defenses as best we could and attempting to deny the enemy strategic resources as well. But as we soon learned, our forces were outmatched even in space.
I remember when I first saw them, having been assigned to a defense post on the planet Dingalea. A tropical resort world, with vast oceans and many pristine beaches. It was a tactically unsound planet to invade, yet this foe was clearly interested in all our worlds, not just the strategically important ones. We figured it was meant to force us to commit the bulk of our forces to liberation efforts, spreading our armies and fleets thin in an attempt to reclaim every planet.
I had taken position in a bunker on a cliff overlooking one of the more popular beaches when we heard a booming sound from the sky. Our eyes turned heavensward, and I beheld what appeared to be spears of metal rain from above. They crashed down into the oceans many yektra (miles) away, yet so massive they were that we all could easily see the detailing upon their exteriors.
From where I was stationed I could only see four of them, but as I would learn later, four was all they would need for the coming battle upon our beach. Granted we had set up defensive positions further inland, but the enemy seemed content to land out at sea which led us to assume that they were mostly aquatic based. How wrong we were.
An aperture opened wide upon each of the spears and from them water based vehicles emerged, elongated and rectangular in form, bouncing over the waves as they fanned out and made for shore. We watched and waited, my gripping hands clutching all the more firmly at my plasma pulse rifle. Heavy emplacements warmed up with a whine of charging power packs, the large turrets turning to face our foe. New vehicles joined the first models, these ones clearly armored assault vehicles of a type that was unfamiliar to us, as so much about our enemy was at the time. They kept a staggered and wide formation with the other vehicles, even as air superiority fighter craft started to fill the sky. I felt something twist in my thorax, a pit of fear threatening to swallow me whole.
As I lowered my eye to the scope of my rifle, I watched as the ring around its edge shifted from red to purple, indicating my target was in firing range. The call to open fire rang out from the fortifications around me and all twelve of the hells was visited upon our foe. Plasma and beams of energy lanced out from our lines, boiling the waters and leaving burn marks upon the metal hulls that approached. Artillery began to pound, hoping to inflict more destructive results upon the invaders.
They succeeded in scoring direct hits on a few of the craft, sending burning wreckage to the bottom of the sea, but the rest simply continued on, unfazed by the death and destruction around them.
The craft reached the beach and ramps descended and what we saw made us shiver in instinctual fear. They were tall, bipedal and heavily armored. What flesh we could spot from this distance was unnaturally white, they had no hair and no features upon their heads either. Yet they sported different body shapes, perhaps indicative of sex? It didn’t mattered, they were the enemy and they needed to be destroyed. Our weapons seemed to do very little to their armor, but any hits to exposed flesh did massive amounts of damage, sending the beings falling or flying into the water and sand, pale blue blood pouring from their wounds.
Then they started to fire back, their rounds weren’t energy based, purely kinetic and yet with the speeds they were flying they were clearly being launched by some sort of rail system. The rounds would strike and bury deep before exploding, heat and shrapnel working their deadly trade. Yet the enemy seemed more intent on forcing us to take cover than actually killing us, as became clear as they took cover in craters and behind resort walls. Then the armored vehicles made it to shore and they became the focus of our efforts. Their booming cannons and spitting rotary guns threatened to destroy bunkers and crew weapons alike. Even the aircraft swooped down to strike at us, dropping bombs and firing their dogfighting weapons as well before climbing back into the sky.
For every ten of the infantry or vehicles we destroyed, another thirty was soon behind them. So focused on simply surviving were we that we almost didn’t notice the newest threat. This one walked out of the sea itself, hulking armored forms that were bipedal like the infantry but not showing a single kepti (centimeters) of flesh. These behemoths strode slowly, ponderously across the beach, waving hands at the entrenched beings who would stand and form up with their larger kin. Almost immediately the incoming fire became more intense and precise, causing us to take cover far too often.
The order to pull back to the next line was given and we did so, just as the first of the behemoths burst through a barricade, the angular helmet it wore turning back and forth quickly. It did moved unnervingly fast, but not fast enough to dodge a shot from an anti-vehicle weapon. It staggered backwards, the shot burning through metal and flesh along one side of the helmet. Yet it did not go down, instead a clawed hand rose and grasped what remained of the melting armor and tore it free, revealing a face that’ll haunt me till my dying day.
It was a face of pale flesh, black fur atop their head and around their mouth and jaw. That mouth was twisted into an angry snarl, the one remaining eye burning a cold blue. Yet it was what was on the other side of their face that haunts me. Flesh had burned down to bone, yet there was no bone to be seen, just gleaming chrome. It leered at me, silver teeth clicking as it worked that jaw and began to advance.
Hours later, the planet was theirs. I suppose they wanted to show us that even in a fair fight we were horribly outclassed. That was a few weeks ago now I believe, they’ve just taken the homeworld and are preparing some sort of galaxy wide broadcast. I wonder what they’ll have to say about all this, will they condemn us all to death for one reason or another?
The screen flickers, the normal view of our governmental building coming into focus as one of these horrible monsters steps up to a podium, our leaders cowering behind them.
“People of the Milky Way. We are humanity, a species that knew not what awaited them outside the bounds of their home system. We were hopeful that when we ventured out into the black that we could have found friendship, instead we were nearly murdered in our cradle. Your leaders sentenced us to death out of fear, sentenced millions of children, both born and unborn to agonizing deaths. Your fear led you down a path of atrocities you were all too eager to visit upon a people that couldn’t defend themselves.” The human spoke, their voice rich and booming, met with a deafening silence by audiences on every planet.
“You thought us eradicated, all traces of our existence mere dust on the wind. But you failed. For you see we are a stubborn species and we are also spiteful, spite encourages adaptation. And adapt we did, for five hundred years we suffered your manufactured plague, till it became little more than a reminder of who we were to hate. Yet while many amongst us do hate you and with good reason, we are not here today to visit the same horrors upon your peoples. Instead, you will suffer the authority of another. Our authority. For the next five hundred years you will work to make amends for all you have done and when that time is up, we shall leave you be. For we are not the monsters you thought we were, nor are we the monsters you inadvertently tried to make us. We are humanity, and we will show your people a new and better way.”
The feed shut off and I could only sit back and sigh, resting my head upon the pillow of my hospital bed, as more of these humans surrounded me and began to treat my wounds. I was left to wonder about the future. I wondered at what humanity could show us over the next five hundred years.
And so I closed my eyes, and dreamt of the future.

When solving a mystery, one has to make some assumptions if one wishes to go beyond a surface level solve attempt of From's mystery. Which effectively means, one must pick an answer to a clue one is fairly certain of, and use that as one might use a jigsaw piece to solve the next clue that connects to it.
For any interested, I share my opinion on what the key strands of clue clusters and the twisted threads therein that I believe need to be woven together into a narrative to form an origin story for Fromland and solve the show.
1. The first strand is historical figures from North American history (and the end of the War of the Roses), falling roughly on the dates on Tabitha's dream sequence. Some historical figures are given far more clues than others, suggesting they might later become characters on the show. In particular Caroline Dye's hoodoo magic, and Alma Hayes the strongwoman.
There are six threads in there as not every timeline will be explored in the series - the main ones are 1930s, 1880s, 1860s, 1770s, 1670s, and 1498.
1498 is by far the most prevalent and perhaps the easiest to start with. Most are from England and to a lesser extent, Italy/Venice, Scotland, Germany, Portugal, Spain, France, Burgundy, China, Iran, Iceland, Greenland/Newfoundland. It's also the best one to solve first, as the historical figures in the 1498 origin story are the archetypes that the historical figures in the other timelines mimic.
For example, I'm absolutely certain one is Richard Amerike - Sheriff of Bristol. There is a lawman/sheriff in every timeline - Boyd is the sheriff now.
Each new historical figure discovered in any timeline is a great puzzle piece. If you find out Emmett Kelly, the Hobo Clown is in the 1930s timeline, you can search for other "clowns" and discover Triboulet, the court jester in the 1498 origin story.
2. The second strand is the sequence of events in the origin story specifically. These clues are far more vague, and easier to explain what I mean by example.
Let's look at Kelly's head spiked to a tree with Boyd yanking it out instead of using the gun. The reasoning was: Kristi did not want Kelly to see or experience the gun, when Kelly is currently blind and the gun is a far better "experience" than the yanking. I contend this is quite a pointed clue that he's recreating a scene in the original timeline. In my opinion, a botched execution by a crossbow at a time where there were no guns to use.
There are threads within this strand. Two are practically strands of their own, with witch trial and torture methods and christmas / lent traditions from the countries of the various historical figures being the most prevalent. The traditions bit is a lot easier if you solve the origin story characters first, since you can then surmise which countries the traditions to look out for might come from.
3. The third strand is the mythology of the show. Ultimately, if one assumes North East Canada is where it all begins, you might make the leap it relates to the mythology related to that area. This has two main threads, the bogeyman, and the fairies. What I came to find were, there were clues pointing to practically every kind of bogeyman and fairy legend in that region. I was wondering if these were red herrings, or maybe it was all of them at once? It took me a long time to figure out what we're being asked to do here - but I figure there are 7 bogeymen and 4 fairy types the monsters and entity are mimicking, and a type of bogeyman and fairy that they really are.
4. Apotropaic magic - specific to the cunning folk of England. Witch's bottles and ladders, that sort of thing.
5. Medieval board and card games, as well as a few other adult medieval games, like stoolball. Main thread here is French tarot cards, but not their witchy meanings and connection to fortune telling, just the playing cards and what they look like. Other substantial threads involve Game of Goose and Pachisi.

As far as I can tell, there hasn't been any developer commentary on the decision for Prismatic's color. So I guess it's time for a little speculation with a lot of reaching and assumptions.
Note: I'm using the color hexes from my personal spreadsheets that are my best approximation (makes me happy) of the elemental colors (without having an official hex color code for each). That in mind, these won't be perfect.
So we know that the Darkness subclasses (so far) are roughly inverted color variants of Light subclasses. Assuming we get a third Darkness subclass some day and it follows the same pattern we should have the below "table":
Solar (#f36f26) roughly inverts to Stasis ( #0c90d9 )
Void ( #ad82ca ) roughly inverts to Strand ( #38da65 )
Arc ( #82e9f7 ) likely roughly inverts to ???? ( #d90c0c )
So then why pink, and why that specific pink, for Prismatic? My first thought was to combine all the existing Light and Darkness subclass colors together, hoping to get some kind of pink color. Nope. We get a sort of patina green ( #7ba7a1 ).
Next step of course is inverting that color, which gives us something close to copper rose ( #84585e ). It's sort of pink, but not really the hopbush pink we see from prismatic. Weeeellll, if you up the brightness a ton and add just a bit more saturation, you get s-not really close either. Any attempt to make it pop more is just too red for what we see with prismatic.
"But wait!" I hear only me saying, "what if we add the theoretical opposite of Arc's color as well to the mix? It might not be out yet, but there have even been some hints of that ruddy red color in parts of the game, right? Why not try to include it?"
And I only have to say to myself in response, "That's what I like about you. You may only hit the mark 10% of the time, but you throw the dart every single time." Unfortunately, I tried that, and all you get is this like wet vac lint gray color.
"But wait!" I hear only me saying again, "What if you put it through a saturate color tool?"
And so I did, which gives me a slightly hopbush-y pink that imo looks pretty close to prismatic pink, albeit a tiny bit dark and over-saturated.
While not a perfect match in color, neither are the EXACT opposites of each of the light subclasses. Those are all pretty muddy and not-so-pretty to look at or to make into glowy-space-magic-powers.
Bungie def used them as reference points and then made them a bit more appealing.
After all this, it doesn't seem like too much of a reach that this might have been how Bungie came up with the color of Prismatic.
(see here for all the colors visually)
Edit: Formatting
Edit 2: I started thinking more about it after finishing and editing the post multiple times, what else is special about this magenta-esque pink? It's an extra spectral color, which to me sounds like above and outside the standard range of Light and Darkness? Plus magenta is usually the color for missing assets in video games, at least in like Gmod, so why not have this outsider, unusual color also represent Prismatic? Now I'm really reaching.

This is an expansion of a recent post and also incorporates some ideas from this theory (by u/ndependent-Design17). Throughout the series the reader is repeatedly reminded that "only death can pay for life" — that magic, especially powerful magic, comes at great cost.

"Only death can pay for life, my lord. A great gift requires a great sacrifice.”

Davos, ASOS
This phrase or variations of this phrase are repeated by Melisandre, Mirri, etc. at various points throughout the series. That which follows is a highly speculative theory on the nature of the cost of magic in the series. Specifically, that souls are central to the exercise of magic and can be used as magic currency.

1. establishing the concept of the soul

Oh, to be sure, there is much we do not understand. The years pass in their hundreds and their thousands, and what does any man see of life but a few summers, a few winters? We look at mountains and call them eternal, and so they seem… but in the course of time, mountains rise and fall, rivers change their courses, stars fall from the sky, and great cities sink beneath the sea. Even gods die, we think. Everything changes.

Bran, AGOT
What happens after we die? Is there some part of us that lives on or do we simply cease to exist. These are fundamental questions that are essentially unanswerable in life but not in ASOIAF. The reader is given a point-of-view account of death in the prologue of ADWD. After unsuccessfully attempting to steal the body of Thistle, a wildling spearwife, Varamyr dies and briefly becomes a disembodied consciousness:

The white world turned and fell away. For a moment it was as if he were inside the weirwood, gazing out through carved red eyes as a dying man twitched feebly on the ground and a madwoman danced blind and bloody underneath the moon, weeping red tears and ripping at her clothes. Then both were gone and he was rising, melting, his spirit borne on some cold wind. He was in the snow and in the clouds, he was a sparrow, a squirrel, an oak. A horned owl flew silently between his trees, hunting a hare; Varamyr was inside the owl, inside the hare, inside the trees. Deep below the frozen ground, earthworms burrowed blindly in the dark, and he was them as well. I am the wood, and everything that’s in it, he thought, exulting.

Prologue, ADWD
Afterward his "spirit," or soul, is eventually transferred into a body of wolf and he begins his second life. This event, and the process of skin-changing more generally, appears to involve projection of a soul from one body into another. The process of transferring souls to either the animal vessels or the weirwoods is central to the magic of the Children of the Forest.

“Someone else was in the raven,” he told Lord Brynden, once he had returned to his own skin. “Some girl. I felt her.”
“A woman, of those who sing the song of earth,” his teacher said. “Long dead, yet a part of her remains, just as a part of you would remain in Summer if your boy’s flesh were to die upon the morrow. A shadow on the soul. She will not harm you.”
"Do all the birds have singers in them?"
“All,” Lord Brynden said.

Bran, ADWD
After death a "shadow on the soul" of the Singers remain in the crows. The soul of Orell is also described as living on in the body of his eagle after his death.
This process appears to take two forms: the soul can be temporarily projected from one body into another (e.g., as happens when Bran skin-changes into Hodor) or can be permanently transferred as is described in the separate examples above.
These transferred souls merge with their recipient, at least to some degree, and may decay over time:

"The wolf is part of you from that day on, and you’re part of him. Both of you will change.”
Other beasts were best left alone, the hunter had declared. Cats were vain and cruel, always ready to turn on you. Elk and deer were prey; wear their skins too long, and even the bravest man became a coward. Bears, boars, badgers, weasels … Haggon did not hold with such. “Some skins you never want to wear, boy. You won’t like what you’d become.” Birds were the worst, to hear him tell it. “Men were not meant to leave the earth. Spend too much time in the clouds and you never want to come back down again.
...
"They say you forget," Haggon had told him, a few weeks before his own death.
"When the man's flesh dies, his spirit lives on inside the beast, but every day his memory fades, and the beast becomes a little less a warg, a little more a wolf, until nothing of the man is left and only the beast remains."

Prologue, ADWD
Bran is provided with similar warnings about the danger of spending too much time in Summer's skin by Jojen.
The Bran that appears to Jon-Ghost in the vision in ACOK is also likely the lingering soul of a non-contemporaneous Bran, contained in the weirwoods and communicating from the future.

The weirwood had his brother’s face. Had his brother always had three eyes?
Not always, came the silent shout. Not before the crow.
He sniffed at the bark, smelled wolf and tree and boy, but behind that there were other scents, the rich brown smell of warm earth and the hard grey smell of stone and something else, something terrible. Death, he knew. He was smelling death. He cringed back, his hair bristling, and bared his fangs.
"Don’t be afraid, I like it in the dark. No one can see you, but you can see them. But first you have to open your eyes. See? Like this." And the tree reached down and touched him.

Jon, ACOK
There is more information about this in the Time Traveling Bran series. Briefly, the version of Bran in this vision does not appear to be contemporaneous because likes the dark, is able to open Jon's third eye, and smells of death. (This is well outside of the scope of this theory however.)

2. shadow magic requires souls

As above the reader is repeatedly reminded throughout the series that "only death can pay for life." What is specifically being sacrificed, though? Is the magic being fueled by the blood of the sacrificed or by something else?
To answer this let us examine one of the most concrete example of magic in the series, the use or exchange of Stannis Baratheon's "life-fire" in order for Melisandre to manifest the shadows used to kill Renly Baratheon and Courtney Penrose.

Shadows only live when given birth by light, and the king's fires burn so low I dare not draw off any more to make another son. It might well kill him."
Melisandre moved closer.
"With another man, though... a man whose flames still burn hot and high... if you truly wish to serve your king's cause, come to my chamber one night. I could give you pleasure such as you have never known, and with your life-fire I could make..."

Davos, ASOS
According to this explanation, the cost of producing these shadow appears to have been part of his "life-fire," or soul. The shadow is also specifically described as having the shape Stannis. Whether this applies to other types of magic — specifically blood magic or fire magic — is less clear but shadow magic very much appears to require the use of souls.
The exchange of seed for soul is also directly referenced in the story of the Night's King.

A woman was his downfall; a woman glimpsed from atop the Wall, with skin as white as the moon and eyes like blue stars. Fearing nothing, he chased her and caught her and loved her, though her skin was cold as ice, and when he gave his seed to her he gave his soul as well. (Credit to u/DigLost5791 for this reference.)

Bran, ASOS
Stannis is described by Davos afterward as follows:

The look of him was a shock. He seemed ten years older than the man that Davos had left at Storm’s End when he set sail for the Blackwater and the battle that would be their undoing. The king’s close-cropped beard was spiderwebbed with grey hairs, and he had dropped two stone or more of weight. He had never been a fleshy man, but now the bones moved beneath his skin like spears, fighting to cut free. Even his crown seemed too large for his head. His eyes were blue pits lost in deep hollows, and the shape of a skull could be seen beneath his face.

Davos, ASOS
Asha later describes Stannis as appearing life a "man with one foot in the grave."

What little flesh he’d carried on his tall, spare frame at Deepwood Motte had melted away during the march. The shape of his skull could be seen under his skin, and his jaw was clenched so hard Asha feared his teeth might shatter.

Asha, ADWD
These descriptions seem appropriate for a character that has lost part of their "life-fire" or soul.
Throughout the series Stannis is forced to make a series of increasingly difficult decisions. The most significant of these decisions regards the fate of his nephew, Eric Storm. Melisandre repeatedly urges him to "give [her] the boy," presumably to be burned, but is rebuffed by Stannis.

“I know the cost! Last night, gazing into that hearth, I saw things in the flames as well. I saw a king, a crown of fire on his brows, burning … burning, Davos. His own crown consumed his flesh and turned him into ash. Do you think I need Melisandre to tell me what that means? Or you?” The king moved, so his shadow fell upon King’s Landing.
"…what is the life of one bastard boy against a kingdom?”
“Everything,” said Davos, softly.

Davos, ASOS
Is the life of this bastard boy worth the lives of millions that would die if the Others break through the Wall? Making a deal with the devil and literally selling his soul in pursuit of some greater good seems very appropriate for his character, thematically.

3. blood and fire magic

As opposed to the creation of the shadows described above, we are also provided an example of blood magic in the leech burning ritual.

“Give me the boy, Your Grace. It is the surer way. The better way. Give me the boy and I shall wake the stone dragon.”
...
Melisandre bowed her head stiffly, and said, “As my king commands.” Reaching up her left sleeve with her right hand, she flung a handful of powder into the brazier. The coals roared. As pale flames writhed atop them, the red woman retrieved the silver dish and brought it to the king. Davos watched her lift the lid. Beneath were three large black leeches, fat with blood. The boy’s blood, Davos knew. A king’s blood. Stannis stretched forth a hand, and his fingers closed around one of the leeches.
“Say the name,” Melisandre commanded.

Davos, ASOS
Following this ritual all of the mentioned individuals do die but do so as the part of separate conspiracies (e.g., Robb Stark is betrayed by the Freys and Boltons, Joffrey Baratheon by Littlefinger and the Tyrells, etc.). It is left intentionally ambiguous by the author but it does not appear that the ritual was responsible.
The creation of the shadows required part of Stannis' soul. Could it be that the leech burning ritual was unsuccessful because blood alone is not sufficient as a sacrifice?
These forms of magic are frequently described, at least in the community, separately as "shadow magic" and "blood magic." These concepts — "fire and blood" and "flame and shadow" — are highly associated with one another in the series:

“Shadow?" Davos felt his flesh prickling. "A shadow is a thing of darkness."
”You are more ignorant than a child, ser knight. There are no shadows in the dark. Shadows are the servants of light, the children of fire. The brightest flame casts the darkest shadows."

Davos, ACOK
I speculate that these are different expressions of the same concept; that all of these fall under the general umbrella of fire magic and share common principles. Fire consumes.
After Alester Florent is sacrificed on Dragonstone Davos describes "the smell of burning flesh" on the wind:

Melisandre had given Alester Florent to her god on Dragonstone, to conjure up the wind that bore them north. Lord Florent had been strong and silent as the queen's men bound him to the post, as dignified as any half-naked man could hope to be, but as the flames licked up his legs he had begun to scream, and his screams had blown them all the way to Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, if the red woman could be believed. Davos had misliked that wind. It had seemed to him to smell of burning flesh, and the sound of it was anguished as it played amongst the lines.

Davos, ADWD
Whether these forms of magic are actually interchangeable or not — whether they each require the consumption of souls — is difficult to prove based on the text. It appears likely given the association between these concepts that sacrifice that powered this "anguished wind" was that of a soul and not a body or blood.

4. dancing shadows

The tent was aglow with the light of braziers within. Through the blood-spattered sandsilk, she glimpsed shadows moving.
Mirri Maz Duur was dancing, and not alone.
...
No, Dany wanted to say, no, not that, you mustn’t, but when she opened her mouth, a long wail of pain escaped, and the sweat broke over her skin. What was wrong with them, couldn’t they see?
Inside the tent the shapes were dancing, circling the brazier and the bloody bath, dark against the sandsilk, and some did not look human. She glimpsed the shadow of a great wolf, and another like a man wreathed in flames.
“The Lamb Woman knows the secrets of the birthing bed,” Irri said. “She said so, I heard her.”
“Yes,” Doreah agreed, “I heard her too.”
No, she shouted, or perhaps she only thought it, for no whisper of sound escaped her lips. She was being carried. Her eyes opened to gaze up at a flat dead sky, black and bleak and starless. Please, no. The sound of Mirri Maz Duur’s voice grew louder, until it filled the world. The shapes! She screamed. The dancers!
Ser Jorah carried her inside the tent.

Daenerys, AGOT
The introduction of shadow magic in the series is provided above with Mirri Max Duur. Following this ritual Drogo is described essentially as a lifeless husk:

"He seems to like the warmth, Princess," Ser Jorah said. "His eyes follow the sun, though he does not see it. He can walk after a fashion. He will go where you lead him, but no farther. He will eat if you put food in his mouth, drink if you dribble water on his lips."

Daenerys, AGOT
It has previously been speculated that Mirri "reverse skin-changed" Drogo (e.g., "strength of the mount go into the rider, strength of the beast go into the man."). The description provided is less consistent with a horse soul inhabiting a human body than it is with the complete or near-complete absence of a soul. It appears more likely in retrospect that Mirri sacrificed part of Drogo's soul to summon the shadows, likely as a means to kill Daenerys' unborn child.

“The stallion who mounts the world will burn no cities now. His khalasar shall trample no nations into dust."

Daenerys, AGOT

5. reanimation

If "only death can pay for life" and souls are used as a form of magical currency how does one explain the reanimation or resurrection process?
There is a paucity of information on the reanimation of the dead in the series. The resurrection of Beric Dondarrion, for example, appears to be different in fundamental ways from that of the wights or Cold Hands. (We are potentially given a point-of-view account of this process if you accept that Victarion died in ADWD.)

“Thoros, how many times have you brought me back now?”
The red priest bowed his head. “It is R’hllor who brings you back, my lord. The Lord of Light. I am only his instrument.”
“How many times?” Lord Beric insisted.
“Six,” Thoros said reluctantly.
“And each time is harder. You have grown reckless, my lord. Is death so very sweet?”
Arya, ASOS

There is no immediately identifiable cost for the "kiss of life" and repeated resurrection of Beric. I speculate that Thoros is breathing part of his soul into Beric during this process.

“That first time, his lordship had a hole right through him and blood in his mouth, I knew there was no hope. So when his poor torn chest stopped moving, I gave him the good god's own kiss to send him on his way. I filled my mouth with fire and breathed the flames inside him, down his throat to lungs and heart and soul. The last kiss it is called, and many a time I saw the old priests bestow it on the Lord's servants as they died." (Credit to u/watchersontheweb for providing this quote in the initial thread.)

Arya, ASOS
Thoros is also described as appearing very different after performing this ritual several times in a way that is not entirely dissimilar to the changes in Stannis’ appearance referenced above.

“Here’s the wizard, skinny squirrel. You’ll get your answers now.”
He pointed toward the fire, where Tom Sevenstrings stood talking to a tall thin man with oddments of old armor buckled on over his ratty pink robes. That can’t be Thoros of Myr. Arya remembered the red priest as fat, with a smooth face and a shiny bald head. This man had a droopy face and a full head of shaggy grey hair. Something
...
“Thoros of Myr. You used to shave your head.”
“To betoken a humble heart, but in truth my heart was vain. Besides, I lost my razor in the woods.” The priest slapped his belly. “I am less than I was, but more. A year in the wild will melt the flesh off a man. Would that I could find a tailor to take in my skin. I might look young again, and pretty maids would shower me with kisses.”

Arya, ASOS
Thoros attributes these changes to his renewed devotion to the Red God and spending "a year in the wild" although he is not exactly forthcoming with Arya about the resurrection process. It is also likely that he may not entirely understand what specifically is being exchanged here.
Thoros later describes Beric giving the "kiss of life" to the corpse of Catelyn Stark:

“The Freys slashed her throat from ear to ear. When we found her by the river she was three days dead. Harwin begged me to give her the kiss of life, but it had been too long. I would not do it, so Lord Beric put his lips to hers instead, and the flame of life passed from him to her. And… she rose. May the Lord of Light protect us. She rose.”

Brienne, AFFC
Notably, this process produces a reanimated Catelyn (a.k.a. Lady Stoneheart). The soul of Beric, or at least whatever is left of his soul at this point in the series, is consumed in order to resurrect Catelyn.

6. cold shadows (wild speculation)

The terms "white shadows," "pale shadows," and "cold shadows" are repeated used to describe the Others. The Others are also highly associated with ghosts — the spirits of souls of the dead bound to the earth. (The forrest is literally called the Haunted Forrest.)

The Others made no sound.
Will saw movement from the corner of his eye. Pale shapes gliding through the wood. He turned his head, glimpsed a white shadow in the darkness. Then it was gone. Branches stirred gently in the wind, scratching at one another with wooden fingers. Will opened his mouth to call down a warning, and the words seemed to freeze in his throat. Perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps it had only been a bird, a reflection on the snow, some trick of the moonlight. What had he seen, after all?
“Will, where are you?” Ser Waymar called up. “Can you see anything?” He was turning in a slow circle, suddenly wary, his sword in hand. He must have felt them, as Will felt them. There was nothing to see. “Answer me! Why is it so cold?” It was cold.
Shivering, Will clung more tightly to his perch. His face pressed hard against the trunk of the sentinel. He could feel the sweet, sticky sap on his cheek. A shadow emerged from the dark of the wood. It stood in front of Royce. Tall, it was, and gaunt and hard as old bones, with flesh pale as milk. Its armor seemed to change color as it moved; here it was white as new-fallen snow, there black as shadow, everywhere dappled with the deep grey-green of the trees. The patterns ran like moonlight on water with every step it took. Will heard the breath go out of Ser Waymar Royce in a long hiss. ...
The Other slid forward on silent feet. In its hand was a longsword like none that Will had ever seen. No human metal had gone into the forging of that blade. It was alive with moonlight, translucent, a shard of crystal so thin that it seemed almost to vanish when seen edge-on. There was a faint blue shimmer to the thing, a ghost-light that played around its edges, and somehow Will knew it was sharper than any razor.

Prologue, AGOT
This is again highly speculative but it seems reasonable to consider that these cold shadows are not "ice demons" but are in fact ghosts, the spirits or souls of men that are bound to the earth through magic by the Children of the Forest. (The textual evidence of the creation of the Others by the Children has been previously discussed at length in the community.) Whereas fire consumes, ice preserves.
This would explain several unusual characteristics of the Others as described by Tormund

“Tormund,” Jon said, as they watched four old women pull a cartful of children toward the gate, “tell me of our foe. I would know all there is to know of the Others.”
The wildling rubbed his mouth. “Not here,” he mumbled, “not this side o’ your Wall.” The old man glanced uneasily toward the trees in their white mantles. “They’re never far, you know. They won’t come out by day, not when that old sun’s shining, but don’t think that means they went away. Shadows never go away. Might be you don’t see them, but they’re always clinging to your heels.”
...
Tormund turned back.
"You know nothing. You killed a dead man, aye, I heard. Mance killed a hundred. A man can fight the dead, but when their masters come, when the white mists rise up… how do you fight a mist, crow? Shadows with teeth … air so cold it hurts to breathe, like a knife inside your chest … you do not know, you cannot know … can your sword cut cold?"

Jon, ADWD
A reasonable interpretation of this is that the Others are present during the day, at least in some capacity, and are only able to assume corporeal form at night.
The Others are also described as "going lightly upon the snow" which is in keeping with their nature as spirits.

“The white walkers go lightly on the snow,” the ranger said. “You’ll find no prints to mark their passage.”

Samwell, ASOS

7. conclusions

This highly speculative theory that attempts to reconcile the several seemingly disparate concepts in the series related to magic, namely the actual nature of magical sacrifice ("only death can pay for life") and shadows or shadow magic. More specifically, I suggest that souls are the primary magical currency and can be consumed to summon shadows, create glamours, etc. I also speculate that similar processes took place during Mirri Maz Duur's shadow-binding ritual in AGOT and during the repeated resurrections of Berric Dondarrion in ASOS. I further suggest that the Others are ghosts, the spirits or souls of the dead bound to the earth.
EDIT: edited several times to address formatting issues

This is an expansion of a recent post and also incorporates some ideas from this theory (by u/ndependent-Design17). Throughout the series the reader is repeatedly reminded that "only death can pay for life" — that magic, especially powerful magic, comes at great cost.

"Only death can pay for life, my lord. A great gift requires a great sacrifice.”

Davos, ASOS
This phrase or variations of this phrase are repeated by Melisandre, Mirri, etc. at various points throughout the series. That which follows is a highly speculative theory on the nature of the cost of magic in the series. Specifically, that souls are central to the exercise of magic and can be used as magic currency.

1. establishing the concept of the soul

Oh, to be sure, there is much we do not understand. The years pass in their hundreds and their thousands, and what does any man see of life but a few summers, a few winters? We look at mountains and call them eternal, and so they seem… but in the course of time, mountains rise and fall, rivers change their courses, stars fall from the sky, and great cities sink beneath the sea. Even gods die, we think. Everything changes.

Bran, AGOT
What happens after we die? Is there some part of us that lives on or do we simply cease to exist. These are fundamental questions that are essentially unanswerable in life but not in ASOIAF. The reader is given a point-of-view account of death in the prologue of ADWD. After unsuccessfully attempting to steal the body of Thistle, a wildling spearwife, Varamyr dies and briefly becomes a disembodied consciousness:

The white world turned and fell away. For a moment it was as if he were inside the weirwood, gazing out through carved red eyes as a dying man twitched feebly on the ground and a madwoman danced blind and bloody underneath the moon, weeping red tears and ripping at her clothes. Then both were gone and he was rising, melting, his spirit borne on some cold wind. He was in the snow and in the clouds, he was a sparrow, a squirrel, an oak. A horned owl flew silently between his trees, hunting a hare; Varamyr was inside the owl, inside the hare, inside the trees. Deep below the frozen ground, earthworms burrowed blindly in the dark, and he was them as well. I am the wood, and everything that’s in it, he thought, exulting.

Prologue, ADWD
Afterward his "spirit," or soul, is eventually transferred into a body of wolf and he begins his second life. This event, and the process of skin-changing more generally, appears to involve projection of a soul from one body into another. The process of transferring souls to either the animal vessels or the weirwoods is central to the magic of the Children of the Forest.

“Someone else was in the raven,” he told Lord Brynden, once he had returned to his own skin. “Some girl. I felt her.”
“A woman, of those who sing the song of earth,” his teacher said. “Long dead, yet a part of her remains, just as a part of you would remain in Summer if your boy’s flesh were to die upon the morrow. A shadow on the soul. She will not harm you.”
"Do all the birds have singers in them?"
“All,” Lord Brynden said.

Bran, ADWD
After death a "shadow on the soul" of the Singers remain in the crows. The soul of Orell is also described as living on in the body of his eagle after his death.
This process appears to take two forms: the soul can be temporarily projected from one body into another (e.g., as happens when Bran skin-changes into Hodor) or can be permanently transferred as is described in the separate examples above.
These transferred souls merge with their recipient, at least to some degree, and may decay over time:

"The wolf is part of you from that day on, and you’re part of him. Both of you will change.”
Other beasts were best left alone, the hunter had declared. Cats were vain and cruel, always ready to turn on you. Elk and deer were prey; wear their skins too long, and even the bravest man became a coward. Bears, boars, badgers, weasels … Haggon did not hold with such. “Some skins you never want to wear, boy. You won’t like what you’d become.” Birds were the worst, to hear him tell it. “Men were not meant to leave the earth. Spend too much time in the clouds and you never want to come back down again.
...
"They say you forget," Haggon had told him, a few weeks before his own death.
"When the man's flesh dies, his spirit lives on inside the beast, but every day his memory fades, and the beast becomes a little less a warg, a little more a wolf, until nothing of the man is left and only the beast remains."

Prologue, ADWD
Bran is provided with similar warnings about the danger of spending too much time in Summer's skin by Jojen.
The Bran that appears to Jon-Ghost in the vision in ACOK is also likely the lingering soul of a non-contemporaneous Bran, contained in the weirwoods and communicating from the future.

The weirwood had his brother’s face. Had his brother always had three eyes?
Not always, came the silent shout. Not before the crow.
He sniffed at the bark, smelled wolf and tree and boy, but behind that there were other scents, the rich brown smell of warm earth and the hard grey smell of stone and something else, something terrible. Death, he knew. He was smelling death. He cringed back, his hair bristling, and bared his fangs.
"Don’t be afraid, I like it in the dark. No one can see you, but you can see them. But first you have to open your eyes. See? Like this." And the tree reached down and touched him.

Jon, ACOK
There is more information about this in the Time Traveling Bran series. Briefly, the version of Bran in this vision does not appear to be contemporaneous because likes the dark, is able to open Jon's third eye, and smells of death. (This is well outside of the scope of this theory however.)

2. shadow magic requires souls

As above the reader is repeatedly reminded throughout the series that "only death can pay for life." What is specifically being sacrificed, though? Is the magic being fueled by the blood of the sacrificed or by something else?
To answer this let us examine one of the most concrete example of magic in the series, the use or exchange of Stannis Baratheon's "life-fire" in order for Melisandre to manifest the shadows used to kill Renly Baratheon and Courtney Penrose.

Shadows only live when given birth by light, and the king's fires burn so low I dare not draw off any more to make another son. It might well kill him."
Melisandre moved closer.
"With another man, though... a man whose flames still burn hot and high... if you truly wish to serve your king's cause, come to my chamber one night. I could give you pleasure such as you have never known, and with your life-fire I could make..."

Davos, ASOS
According to this explanation, the cost of producing these shadow appears to have been part of his "life-fire," or soul. The shadow is also specifically described as having the shape Stannis. Whether this applies to other types of magic — specifically blood magic or fire magic — is less clear but shadow magic very much appears to require the use of souls.
The exchange of seed for soul is also directly referenced in the story of the Night's King.

A woman was his downfall; a woman glimpsed from atop the Wall, with skin as white as the moon and eyes like blue stars. Fearing nothing, he chased her and caught her and loved her, though her skin was cold as ice, and when he gave his seed to her he gave his soul as well. (Credit to u/DigLost5791 for this reference.)

Bran, ASOS
Stannis is described by Davos afterward as follows:

The look of him was a shock. He seemed ten years older than the man that Davos had left at Storm’s End when he set sail for the Blackwater and the battle that would be their undoing. The king’s close-cropped beard was spiderwebbed with grey hairs, and he had dropped two stone or more of weight. He had never been a fleshy man, but now the bones moved beneath his skin like spears, fighting to cut free. Even his crown seemed too large for his head. His eyes were blue pits lost in deep hollows, and the shape of a skull could be seen beneath his face.

Davos, ASOS
Asha later describes Stannis as appearing life a "man with one foot in the grave."

What little flesh he’d carried on his tall, spare frame at Deepwood Motte had melted away during the march. The shape of his skull could be seen under his skin, and his jaw was clenched so hard Asha feared his teeth might shatter.

Asha, ADWD
These descriptions seem appropriate for a character that has lost part of their "life-fire" or soul.
Throughout the series Stannis is forced to make a series of increasingly difficult decisions. The most significant of these decisions regards the fate of his nephew, Eric Storm. Melisandre repeatedly urges him to "give [her] the boy," presumably to be burned, but is rebuffed by Stannis.

“I know the cost! Last night, gazing into that hearth, I saw things in the flames as well. I saw a king, a crown of fire on his brows, burning … burning, Davos. His own crown consumed his flesh and turned him into ash. Do you think I need Melisandre to tell me what that means? Or you?” The king moved, so his shadow fell upon King’s Landing.
"…what is the life of one bastard boy against a kingdom?”
“Everything,” said Davos, softly.

Davos, ASOS
Is the life of this bastard boy worth the lives of millions that would die if the Others break through the Wall? Making a deal with the devil and literally selling his soul in pursuit of some greater good seems very appropriate for his character, thematically.

3. blood and fire magic

As opposed to the creation of the shadows described above, we are also provided an example of blood magic in the leech burning ritual.

“Give me the boy, Your Grace. It is the surer way. The better way. Give me the boy and I shall wake the stone dragon.”
...
Melisandre bowed her head stiffly, and said, “As my king commands.” Reaching up her left sleeve with her right hand, she flung a handful of powder into the brazier. The coals roared. As pale flames writhed atop them, the red woman retrieved the silver dish and brought it to the king. Davos watched her lift the lid. Beneath were three large black leeches, fat with blood. The boy’s blood, Davos knew. A king’s blood. Stannis stretched forth a hand, and his fingers closed around one of the leeches.
“Say the name,” Melisandre commanded.

Davos, ASOS
Following this ritual all of the mentioned individuals do die but do so as the part of separate conspiracies (e.g., Robb Stark is betrayed by the Freys and Boltons, Joffrey Baratheon by Littlefinger and the Tyrells, etc.). It is left intentionally ambiguous by the author but it does not appear that the ritual was responsible.
The creation of the shadows required part of Stannis' soul. Could it be that the leech burning ritual was unsuccessful because blood alone is not sufficient as a sacrifice?
These forms of magic are frequently described, at least in the community, separately as "shadow magic" and "blood magic." These concepts — "fire and blood" and "flame and shadow" — are highly associated with one another in the series:

“Shadow?" Davos felt his flesh prickling. "A shadow is a thing of darkness."
”You are more ignorant than a child, ser knight. There are no shadows in the dark. Shadows are the servants of light, the children of fire. The brightest flame casts the darkest shadows."

Davos, ACOK
I speculate that these are different expressions of the same concept; that all of these fall under the general umbrella of fire magic and share common principles. Fire consumes.
After Alester Florent is sacrificed on Dragonstone Davos describes "the smell of burning flesh" on the wind:

Melisandre had given Alester Florent to her god on Dragonstone, to conjure up the wind that bore them north. Lord Florent had been strong and silent as the queen's men bound him to the post, as dignified as any half-naked man could hope to be, but as the flames licked up his legs he had begun to scream, and his screams had blown them all the way to Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, if the red woman could be believed. Davos had misliked that wind. It had seemed to him to smell of burning flesh, and the sound of it was anguished as it played amongst the lines.

Davos, ADWD
Whether these forms of magic are actually interchangeable or not — whether they each require the consumption of souls — is difficult to prove based on the text. It appears likely given the association between these concepts that sacrifice that powered this "anguished wind" was that of a soul and not a body or blood.

4. dancing shadows

The tent was aglow with the light of braziers within. Through the blood-spattered sandsilk, she glimpsed shadows moving.
Mirri Maz Duur was dancing, and not alone.
...
No, Dany wanted to say, no, not that, you mustn’t, but when she opened her mouth, a long wail of pain escaped, and the sweat broke over her skin. What was wrong with them, couldn’t they see?
Inside the tent the shapes were dancing, circling the brazier and the bloody bath, dark against the sandsilk, and some did not look human. She glimpsed the shadow of a great wolf, and another like a man wreathed in flames.
“The Lamb Woman knows the secrets of the birthing bed,” Irri said. “She said so, I heard her.”
“Yes,” Doreah agreed, “I heard her too.”
No, she shouted, or perhaps she only thought it, for no whisper of sound escaped her lips. She was being carried. Her eyes opened to gaze up at a flat dead sky, black and bleak and starless. Please, no. The sound of Mirri Maz Duur’s voice grew louder, until it filled the world. The shapes! She screamed. The dancers!
Ser Jorah carried her inside the tent.

Daenerys, AGOT
The introduction of shadow magic in the series is provided above with Mirri Max Duur. Following this ritual Drogo is described essentially as a lifeless husk:

"He seems to like the warmth, Princess," Ser Jorah said. "His eyes follow the sun, though he does not see it. He can walk after a fashion. He will go where you lead him, but no farther. He will eat if you put food in his mouth, drink if you dribble water on his lips."

Daenerys, AGOT
It has previously been speculated that Mirri "reverse skin-changed" Drogo (e.g., "strength of the mount go into the rider, strength of the beast go into the man."). The description provided is less consistent with a horse soul inhabiting a human body than it is with the complete or near-complete absence of a soul. It appears more likely in retrospect that Mirri sacrificed part of Drogo's soul to summon the shadows, likely as a means to kill Daenerys' unborn child.

“The stallion who mounts the world will burn no cities now. His khalasar shall trample no nations into dust."

Daenerys, AGOT

5. reanimation

If "only death can pay for life" and souls are used as a form of magical currency how does one explain the reanimation or resurrection process?
There is a paucity of information on the reanimation of the dead in the series. The resurrection of Beric Dondarrion, for example, appears to be different in fundamental ways from that of the wights or Cold Hands. (We are potentially given a point-of-view account of this process if you accept that Victarion died in ADWD.)

“Thoros, how many times have you brought me back now?”
The red priest bowed his head. “It is R’hllor who brings you back, my lord. The Lord of Light. I am only his instrument.”
“How many times?” Lord Beric insisted.
“Six,” Thoros said reluctantly.
“And each time is harder. You have grown reckless, my lord. Is death so very sweet?”
Arya, ASOS

There is no immediately identifiable cost for the "kiss of life" and repeated resurrection of Beric. I speculate that Thoros is breathing part of his soul into Beric during this process.

“That first time, his lordship had a hole right through him and blood in his mouth, I knew there was no hope. So when his poor torn chest stopped moving, I gave him the good god's own kiss to send him on his way. I filled my mouth with fire and breathed the flames inside him, down his throat to lungs and heart and soul. The last kiss it is called, and many a time I saw the old priests bestow it on the Lord's servants as they died." (Credit to u/watchersontheweb for providing this quote in the initial thread.)

Arya, ASOS
Thoros is also described as appearing very different after performing this ritual several times in a way that is not entirely dissimilar to the changes in Stannis’ appearance referenced above.

“Here’s the wizard, skinny squirrel. You’ll get your answers now.”
He pointed toward the fire, where Tom Sevenstrings stood talking to a tall thin man with oddments of old armor buckled on over his ratty pink robes. That can’t be Thoros of Myr. Arya remembered the red priest as fat, with a smooth face and a shiny bald head. This man had a droopy face and a full head of shaggy grey hair. Something
...
“Thoros of Myr. You used to shave your head.”
“To betoken a humble heart, but in truth my heart was vain. Besides, I lost my razor in the woods.” The priest slapped his belly. “I am less than I was, but more. A year in the wild will melt the flesh off a man. Would that I could find a tailor to take in my skin. I might look young again, and pretty maids would shower me with kisses.”

Arya, ASOS
Thoros attributes these changes to his renewed devotion to the Red God and spending "a year in the wild" although he is not exactly forthcoming with Arya about the resurrection process. It is also likely that he may not entirely understand what specifically is being exchanged here.
Thoros later describes Beric giving the "kiss of life" to the corpse of Catelyn Stark:

“The Freys slashed her throat from ear to ear. When we found her by the river she was three days dead. Harwin begged me to give her the kiss of life, but it had been too long. I would not do it, so Lord Beric put his lips to hers instead, and the flame of life passed from him to her. And… she rose. May the Lord of Light protect us. She rose.”

Brienne, AFFC
Notably, this process produces a reanimated Catelyn (a.k.a. Lady Stoneheart). The soul of Beric, or at least whatever is left of his soul at this point in the series, is consumed in order to resurrect Catelyn.

6. cold shadows (wild speculation)

The terms "white shadows," "pale shadows," and "cold shadows" are repeated used to describe the Others. The Others are also highly associated with ghosts — the spirits of souls of the dead bound to the earth. (The forrest is literally called the Haunted Forrest.)

The Others made no sound.
Will saw movement from the corner of his eye. Pale shapes gliding through the wood. He turned his head, glimpsed a white shadow in the darkness. Then it was gone. Branches stirred gently in the wind, scratching at one another with wooden fingers. Will opened his mouth to call down a warning, and the words seemed to freeze in his throat. Perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps it had only been a bird, a reflection on the snow, some trick of the moonlight. What had he seen, after all?
“Will, where are you?” Ser Waymar called up. “Can you see anything?” He was turning in a slow circle, suddenly wary, his sword in hand. He must have felt them, as Will felt them. There was nothing to see. “Answer me! Why is it so cold?” It was cold.
Shivering, Will clung more tightly to his perch. His face pressed hard against the trunk of the sentinel. He could feel the sweet, sticky sap on his cheek. A shadow emerged from the dark of the wood. It stood in front of Royce. Tall, it was, and gaunt and hard as old bones, with flesh pale as milk. Its armor seemed to change color as it moved; here it was white as new-fallen snow, there black as shadow, everywhere dappled with the deep grey-green of the trees. The patterns ran like moonlight on water with every step it took. Will heard the breath go out of Ser Waymar Royce in a long hiss. ...
The Other slid forward on silent feet. In its hand was a longsword like none that Will had ever seen. No human metal had gone into the forging of that blade. It was alive with moonlight, translucent, a shard of crystal so thin that it seemed almost to vanish when seen edge-on. There was a faint blue shimmer to the thing, a ghost-light that played around its edges, and somehow Will knew it was sharper than any razor.

Prologue, AGOT
This is again highly speculative but it seems reasonable to consider that these cold shadows are not "ice demons" but are in fact ghosts, the spirits or souls of men that are bound to the earth through magic by the Children of the Forest. (The textual evidence of the creation of the Others by the Children is linked in a separate post here.) Whereas fire consumes, ice preserves.
This would explain several unusual characteristics of the Others as described by Tormund

“Tormund,” Jon said, as they watched four old women pull a cartful of children toward the gate, “tell me of our foe. I would know all there is to know of the Others.”
The wildling rubbed his mouth. “Not here,” he mumbled, “not this side o’ your Wall.” The old man glanced uneasily toward the trees in their white mantles. “They’re never far, you know. They won’t come out by day, not when that old sun’s shining, but don’t think that means they went away. Shadows never go away. Might be you don’t see them, but they’re always clinging to your heels.”
...
Tormund turned back.
"You know nothing. You killed a dead man, aye, I heard. Mance killed a hundred. A man can fight the dead, but when their masters come, when the white mists rise up… how do you fight a mist, crow? Shadows with teeth … air so cold it hurts to breathe, like a knife inside your chest … you do not know, you cannot know … can your sword cut cold?"

Jon, ADWD
A reasonable interpretation of this is that the Others are present during the day, at least in some capacity, and are only able to assume corporeal form at night.
The Others are also described as "going lightly upon the snow" which is in keeping with their nature as spirits.

“The white walkers go lightly on the snow,” the ranger said. “You’ll find no prints to mark their passage.”

Samwell, ASOS

7. conclusions

This highly speculative theory that attempts to reconcile the several seemingly disparate concepts in the series related to magic, namely the actual nature of magical sacrifice ("only death can pay for life") and shadows or shadow magic. More specifically, I suggest that souls are the primary magical currency and can be consumed to summon shadows, create glamours, etc. I also speculate that similar processes took place during Mirri Maz Duur's shadow-binding ritual in AGOT and during the repeated resurrections of Berric Dondarrion in ASOS. I further suggest that the Others are ghosts, the spirits or souls of the dead bound to the earth.
EDIT: edited several times to address formatting issues

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Mythica is a land of myth and living legends. A land where mountains are carved into castles by giant craftsmen, where ancient secrets dwell in the hearts of the deadly primeval forests, where the vice and avarice of mortals transforms them into demons who prey on men and mer. To dwell in mythica is either to live a life ever in the shadow of danger, or to die a storied hero. For time immemorial the Gods have pulled the strings of fate to make mortals their pawns in their divine schemes. It is said that those who meddle in the affairs of Gods are doomed, and live evermore as omens of impending calamity. For millenia the rule of Gods was absolute and indisputable, but times have changed.

Seventy years past, the godspawn demigod Agnir took up arms to stand against the will of the gods. Even as he invited divine wrath, he rallied the forces of mortalkind to stand beside him in his blasphemous campaign. Conquering every challenge that stood in his way, using his wit, his strength, and his indomitable human spirit he gathered allies to him who fought a bloody decades-long war against a celestial foe that left battlefields stained red with blood. In the final battle the last of the mortal forces stood strong against countless waves of angelic soldiers. Even as men died around him Agnir and his host sang songs of victory, spit curses at the Gods, and went to their graves smiling and defiant. This display of glorious resistance and petulant spite was enough to incense Alterax, the God of War, to take to the field himself. The war god's battlecry was enough to feel hundreds, and one mighty swing of his sword cleaved half of the defiant army from not only their lives, but existence itself. Even so, the songs and jeers rose to meet him, and as he reared to put an end to this meagre resistance, he failed to see his end approaching. As the bellows of Alterax burst his eardrums, and as the war god's mighty swing took his left eye, Agnir the bold stood his ground, and he took aim. Lifting a humble iron spear, he hurled it with all his might, all his fury, and all his courage. That day, thanks to the indomitable will of mortals, the world learned that not only could Gods bleed, but they could die. The body of Alterax remains there to this day, bones picked clean, clad in armor, with his sword embedded in the ground, a monument to the folly of the gods. Nestled in these remains, carved into the bones, there now exists a city of sin where blasphemers and apostates dwell. Fifty years have passed since that day when the war ended. When the gods ascended and have not since set foot on these lands. But even as men, and dwarves, and elves, and all mortal kind celebrated their freedom, the gods gazed at them from above, and the strings of fate are still wrapped around the fingers of the gods, as they always have been.

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🔎 Game Details 🪑 3/6 spots open ⏰ Weekly, 3-4 hours ✅ Vetted Players ➡️SCHEDULE CHAT 💵 $30/week (10% monthly discunt) 🎧 Discord Community 🌎Website ⚖️Code of Conduct

📄 ADVENTURE DETAILS

Mythica is a land of myth and living legends. A land where mountains are carved into castles by giant craftsmen, where ancient secrets dwell in the hearts of the deadly primeval forests, where the vice and avarice of mortals transforms them into demons who prey on men and mer. To dwell in mythica is either to live a life ever in the shadow of danger, or to die a storied hero. For time immemorial the Gods have pulled the strings of fate to make mortals their pawns in their divine schemes. It is said that those who meddle in the affairs of Gods are doomed, and live evermore as omens of impending calamity. For millenia the rule of Gods was absolute and indisputable, but times have changed.

Seventy years past, the godspawn demigod Agnir took up arms to stand against the will of the gods. Even as he invited divine wrath, he rallied the forces of mortalkind to stand beside him in his blasphemous campaign. Conquering every challenge that stood in his way, using his wit, his strength, and his indomitable human spirit he gathered allies to him who fought a bloody decades-long war against a celestial foe that left battlefields stained red with blood. In the final battle the last of the mortal forces stood strong against countless waves of angelic soldiers. Even as men died around him Agnir and his host sang songs of victory, spit curses at the Gods, and went to their graves smiling and defiant. This display of glorious resistance and petulant spite was enough to incense Alterax, the God of War, to take to the field himself. The war god's battlecry was enough to feel hundreds, and one mighty swing of his sword cleaved half of the defiant army from not only their lives, but existence itself. Even so, the songs and jeers rose to meet him, and as he reared to put an end to this meagre resistance, he failed to see his end approaching. As the bellows of Alterax burst his eardrums, and as the war god's mighty swing took his left eye, Agnir the bold stood his ground, and he took aim. Lifting a humble iron spear, he hurled it with all his might, all his fury, and all his courage. That day, thanks to the indomitable will of mortals, the world learned that not only could Gods bleed, but they could die. The body of Alterax remains there to this day, bones picked clean, clad in armor, with his sword embedded in the ground, a monument to the folly of the gods. Nestled in these remains, carved into the bones, there now exists a city of sin where blasphemers and apostates dwell. Fifty years have passed since that day when the war ended. When the gods ascended and have not since set foot on these lands. But even as men, and dwarves, and elves, and all mortal kind celebrated their freedom, the gods gazed at them from above, and the strings of fate are still wrapped around the fingers of the gods, as they always have been.

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🔎 Game Details 🪑 3/6 spots open ⏰ Weekly, 3-4 hours ✅ Vetted Players ➡️SCHEDULE CHAT 💵 $30/week (10% monthly discunt) 🎧 Discord Community 🌎Website ⚖️Code of Conduct

📄 ADVENTURE DETAILS

Mythica is a land of myth and living legends. A land where mountains are carved into castles by giant craftsmen, where ancient secrets dwell in the hearts of the deadly primeval forests, where the vice and avarice of mortals transforms them into demons who prey on men and mer. To dwell in mythica is either to live a life ever in the shadow of danger, or to die a storied hero. For time immemorial the Gods have pulled the strings of fate to make mortals their pawns in their divine schemes. It is said that those who meddle in the affairs of Gods are doomed, and live evermore as omens of impending calamity. For millenia the rule of Gods was absolute and indisputable, but times have changed.

Seventy years past, the godspawn demigod Agnir took up arms to stand against the will of the gods. Even as he invited divine wrath, he rallied the forces of mortalkind to stand beside him in his blasphemous campaign. Conquering every challenge that stood in his way, using his wit, his strength, and his indomitable human spirit he gathered allies to him who fought a bloody decades-long war against a celestial foe that left battlefields stained red with blood. In the final battle the last of the mortal forces stood strong against countless waves of angelic soldiers. Even as men died around him Agnir and his host sang songs of victory, spit curses at the Gods, and went to their graves smiling and defiant. This display of glorious resistance and petulant spite was enough to incense Alterax, the God of War, to take to the field himself. The war god's battlecry was enough to feel hundreds, and one mighty swing of his sword cleaved half of the defiant army from not only their lives, but existence itself. Even so, the songs and jeers rose to meet him, and as he reared to put an end to this meagre resistance, he failed to see his end approaching. As the bellows of Alterax burst his eardrums, and as the war god's mighty swing took his left eye, Agnir the bold stood his ground, and he took aim. Lifting a humble iron spear, he hurled it with all his might, all his fury, and all his courage. That day, thanks to the indomitable will of mortals, the world learned that not only could Gods bleed, but they could die. The body of Alterax remains there to this day, bones picked clean, clad in armor, with his sword embedded in the ground, a monument to the folly of the gods. Nestled in these remains, carved into the bones, there now exists a city of sin where blasphemers and apostates dwell. Fifty years have passed since that day when the war ended. When the gods ascended and have not since set foot on these lands. But even as men, and dwarves, and elves, and all mortal kind celebrated their freedom, the gods gazed at them from above, and the strings of fate are still wrapped around the fingers of the gods, as they always have been.

APPLY NOW

🔎 Game Details 🪑 3/6 spots open ⏰ Weekly, 3-4 hours ✅ Vetted Players ➡️SCHEDULE CHAT 💵 $30/week (10% monthly discunt) 🎧 Discord Community 🌎Website ⚖️Code of Conduct

📄 ADVENTURE DETAILS

Mythica is a land of myth and living legends. A land where mountains are carved into castles by giant craftsmen, where ancient secrets dwell in the hearts of the deadly primeval forests, where the vice and avarice of mortals transforms them into demons who prey on men and mer. To dwell in mythica is either to live a life ever in the shadow of danger, or to die a storied hero. For time immemorial the Gods have pulled the strings of fate to make mortals their pawns in their divine schemes. It is said that those who meddle in the affairs of Gods are doomed, and live evermore as omens of impending calamity. For millenia the rule of Gods was absolute and indisputable, but times have changed.

Seventy years past, the godspawn demigod Agnir took up arms to stand against the will of the gods. Even as he invited divine wrath, he rallied the forces of mortalkind to stand beside him in his blasphemous campaign. Conquering every challenge that stood in his way, using his wit, his strength, and his indomitable human spirit he gathered allies to him who fought a bloody decades-long war against a celestial foe that left battlefields stained red with blood. In the final battle the last of the mortal forces stood strong against countless waves of angelic soldiers. Even as men died around him Agnir and his host sang songs of victory, spit curses at the Gods, and went to their graves smiling and defiant. This display of glorious resistance and petulant spite was enough to incense Alterax, the God of War, to take to the field himself. The war god's battlecry was enough to feel hundreds, and one mighty swing of his sword cleaved half of the defiant army from not only their lives, but existence itself. Even so, the songs and jeers rose to meet him, and as he reared to put an end to this meagre resistance, he failed to see his end approaching. As the bellows of Alterax burst his eardrums, and as the war god's mighty swing took his left eye, Agnir the bold stood his ground, and he took aim. Lifting a humble iron spear, he hurled it with all his might, all his fury, and all his courage. That day, thanks to the indomitable will of mortals, the world learned that not only could Gods bleed, but they could die. The body of Alterax remains there to this day, bones picked clean, clad in armor, with his sword embedded in the ground, a monument to the folly of the gods. Nestled in these remains, carved into the bones, there now exists a city of sin where blasphemers and apostates dwell. Fifty years have passed since that day when the war ended. When the gods ascended and have not since set foot on these lands. But even as men, and dwarves, and elves, and all mortal kind celebrated their freedom, the gods gazed at them from above, and the strings of fate are still wrapped around the fingers of the gods, as they always have been.

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Again, cautiously I proceed, believing there is a danger in applying anything from one of the novellas in The Fifth Head of Cerberus to one or both of the others. With that caveat out of the way, let me explore the potential provenance of “‘A Story’ by John V. Marsch” in light of the revealed situation in “V.R.T.”
​
“V.R.T.” gives us a Soviet model of crime and punishment which recasts “A Story” as being a work of rehabilitation rather than one of anthropology. I sketch some of this territory in “Appendix VRT8: A Soviet Model” (part of Gene Wolfe’s First Four Novels: A Chapter Guide), but I would like to expand it a bit here.
​
I believe “V.R.T.” is largely patterned on Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon (1940). Koestler reveals in his novel that with the Soviet system, a court case could not advance to the show trial stage until after the prisoner had signed a false confession that had been crafted entirely by the authorities. This fantastical document of made-up crime is referred to as “The Grammatical Fiction,” and by definition it is not written by the prisoner, it is written by his jailers, in order to justify his pre-determined fate.
​
I pause here to note that George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) is really a “happy ending” version of Darkness at Noon. Be aware that there will be spoilers ahead for both 1984 and Darkness at Noon.
​
Robert Borski is on record arguing that prisoner 143 wrote “A Story” while in prison. I am on record arguing against that, both author and setting, but I will go through a steelman argument of what I think such a thing would look like, using elements I have already published, bending and combining them in service to this new task.
​
To prepare the way, I will engage in a long-delayed response to Borski’s “Marschian Sexuality” (2006), a brief article that detects in the Earth anthropologist Marsch a homosexual nature (The Long and the Short of It, 49). Borski notes that Marsch’s journal describes teenage Victor as “handsome in a rather sensitive way,” and that later entries show Marsch increasingly agitated by the idea that Victor might be sexually engaged with the suspected abo girl, an agitation that rises in intensity to the point Marsch writes about shooting them both if he catches them together. As telling as that is, for Borski, “the clincher is he reports in his journal that he’s noticed Victor is uncircumcised.”
​
This is the first I saw such an idea, and I applaud Borski for his textual detective work. I will build upon this, going in a different direction than Borski goes.
​
If a reader believes there are two distinct personalities in prisoner 143, it makes sense that there be differences to distinguish between the two, differences in voice that will appear in text. Both Marsch and Victor are male; one is in his twenties, the other a teen; one is highly educated, the other is barely educated; both are beardless. Totaling these up, they are practically twins, so a difference in sexual orientation could show which personality is writing a given sentence.
​
Borski assigns the misogynistic remark about Celestine Etienne to the Victor side (49), whereas I take this as expressing the Marsch persona, along with the other misogynisms, such as “Most medical men . . . [only] prolong the lives of ugly women” (5HC, 205).
​
By my reframing, prisoner 143 is ostensibly a misogynistic homosexual, yet during his extra-harsh time in the tomb-like underground cell he writes about dream women (5HC, 210-11) and a prostitute he hired on Ste. Anne (212). After this he gets positive reinforcement, being moved back to his original cell (231), being given the best food and a bath (231), and being given an intimate visit by Celestine Etienne (232). Then, when he is about to burn his uncollected notes, his jailers confiscate them (233).
​
This technique employed by the jailers to break him down is not special, it is their standard way, as declared by the letter: “We are pursuing the usual policy of alternately lenient and severe treatment to produce a breakdown” (242). Yet the resulting breakdown might actually serve to wean Victor of the Marsch persona; or to exorcise the Marsch spirit, in possession terms; or, in actor’s terms, to relegate the role into a mere mask. If Victor’s mother can shift between multiple roles, it shows the importance of not confusing a mask for the core.
​
One model I looked at in my chapter guide was that the government fears prisoner 143 is a human sniper disguised as an abo klutz (“Appendix 5HC2: A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing”). The opposite to this would be a sheep-in-wolf’s-clothing, which looks like Red Riding Hood in the belly of the wolf.
​
Returning to the Soviet model of “V.R.T.,” perceptive readers will have been arguing for nine paragraphs that “A Story” does not look like a Grammatical Fiction; it looks more like a fictionalization of a personal psychological reintegration, ending in the killing of an ogre and the subduing of a shadow twin. In a sense, this puts “A Story” in company with I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (1964), a famous fictionalization of a personal psychological reintegration. As such, consider this mapping of “A Story” to Victor’s point of view in “V.R.T.” (similar to the table in the aforementioned “Appendix VRT8”).
​
=A Story: V.R.T.=
Quest to become a man: expedition starts (find abos/mother)
Become a shadow friend: Marsch as patron (*)
The girlfriend (Seven Girls Waiting): the cat/abo girlfriend
Vision of mother in danger: clue in Roncevaux
Trip by river: starcrosser to Ste. Croix
The trap (capture by marshmen): murder of Number Four
The prison: #143
The family reunion in prison: the incoherent neighbor as mother
The girlfriend in prison: Celestine Etienne
The miracle: (black box**, reality breakthrough)
The execution of Last Voice: (black box, the killing of the ogre)
The switch: (black box, the subduing of the shadow twin)
​
* for “Become a shadow friend: Marsch as patron” I am especially struck by the parallel scenes where the hero, facing a threatening male, weeps and is comforted. In “A Story” this is where Sandwalker prepares to fight the intoxicated Shadow Child (5HC, 86); in “V.R.T.” this is where Marsch asks Victor what he will do when he is a man (5HC, 159), and six days later they talk about an anthropology book Victor has read (223). In addition, the way that the Old Wise One of “A Story” speaks in scientific jargon forms an unexpected link to Marsch-as-tutor; and Victor’s imitation of Marsch and Hagsmith swells their camp number to four, similar to the fluctuating number of phantom-like Shadow Children.
​
** by “black box,” I mean that science and technology term wherein an input goes into a black box and the black box emits a transformed output, but the internal working of the box remains mysterious and opaque. One explicit “black box” in “V.R.T.” involves the murder out in the field: we witness events leading up to that incident, and notes after the incident, but the incident itself remains mysterious and opaque.
​
Continuing beyond this mapping, the letter from the jailers to the junior officer names two solutions: execution of 143 as an agent of Ste. Anne; release of 143 as a scientist from Earth, “at least until he further incriminates himself” (241): in effect, the Darkness at Noon option (execution), or the 1984 option (release for eventual execution). In his response, the junior officer writes that neither is acceptable, and that, “Until complete cooperation is achieved we direct you to continue to detain the prisoner” (243). This “complete cooperation” sounds like the prerequisite for “Grammatical Fiction,” but it also could imply an implied third option, a “fork ending” of the sort promoted by Damon Knight (who, you will recall, grew Gene from a bean), where the third ending is not named but subtly foreshadowed. So, if the end result, the black box output, is the production of “A Story” (foreshadowed by appearing in the text before “V.R.T.”), then the implied off-the-page ending of “V.R.T.” is not a list of imaginary crimes to warrant 143’s execution as a sniper agent, but an anthropological romance to allow 143’s release as a scientist from Earth. Yet this is not the simple release of 143 as the 1984 option, it is a third way: to avoid the possibility that he “further incriminate himself,” the jailers must actively remake him as a scientist from Earth, if only as a stable role. According to my thought chains on Manchurian Candidates (ibid “Appendix 5HC2”), the government therefore must first determine that prisoner 143 is not, in fact, capable of being a sniper (i.e., an Earthman with proven skill at long range rifle use), but is an abo klutz.
​
Given that Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) is a “happy ending” version of Koestler’s Darkness at Noon, I hope I have made clear the likely stages required for an even “happier ending” in “A Story” as a rehabilitation document for prisoner 143. The “Grammatical Fiction” has turned into I Never Promised You a Rose Garden; the Soviet-style prison is revealed to be more like a healing mental health hospital, if only for this one exceptional case where the government finds itself in a bind.

Humans are Weird – Storm Watching

Original Post: http://www.authorbettyadams.com/bettys-blog/humans-are-weird-storm-watching
“Why did we even bother building a base on the land anyway?” Rollsaround asked as he absorbed the dim light filtering through the wide windows of the base.
The windows gave an impressive view of what the humans in their generosity called a “coastline”. Instead of gently undulating coral beds easing down into the water the glittering volcanic rock dropped abruptly from the graminoid covered highlands and dove down dozens of meters to where it usually met the heaving surface of the water below. Today however the water had seemingly decided to express its objections to the separation and was attempting to scale the cliffs in massive waves. The base vibrated from the force of a gust of wind and Rollsaround hunkered deeper into his mineral bath.
“Do you require another introduction of thermal-loaded water?” Tenth Cousin asked from where she perched on a Shatar couch, reading something that was supposed to be very masculine poetry from her homeworld.
“I do not,” Rollsaround reassured her. “I was just reacting negatively to the storm.”
She tilted her head to examine the weather conditions with a thoughtful set to her antenna.
“I think it is a pleasant change,” she said. “The harsh, unfiltered lights of the suns here means that we have no real night. The clouds at lest allow the illusions of dusk, and the wind overhead is not entirely unlike breezes in Father’s canopy if you can focus your attention on some pleasant task.”
“Well if we can’t go outside during clear weather without protection due to the radiation,” Rollsaround grumbled, “and we can’t go outside in stormy weather due to the, well, the storm, I say we should have just built a floating base that we could submerge during storm weather.”
“There is perhaps logic in that,” Tenth cousin agreed, and very deliberately tilted her head back to the poetry.
Rollsaround drooped his leading appendages over the edge of the bowl and absorbed the storm light in a slightly sulky mood. The airlock cycled open and Third Sister stepped in with the brisk stride that Rollsaround had noticed that high ranking sisters only used when they were looking for someone who had committed some infraction. Tenth Cousin brought the poem up closer to her face and started moving her mandibles as if she was completely focused on sounding out the words. Third Sister tilted her head the examine the cousin and then abruptly swiveled her body to focus on Rollsaround.
“First Ecologist,” she began, “do you know First Mechanic’s current location? The exterior vents in my lab require percussive maintenance.”
“He is off shift by now,” Rollsaround said. “You should check the washrooms and his quarters.”
However even as he offered this sound advice Rollsaround felt a ripple of unease. Human Friend Conner almost never went to his quarters after his shift. He was highly social, even by human standards and usually came to the main room to chat first thing.
“I have already checked both of those locations,” Third Sister stated. “He is not there and he is not answering his comm.”
Rollsaround mulled over that. Clearly Third Sister needed to find the human. An improperly vented laboratory in such a base as theirs was a serious health risk.
“Have you checked the storage areas?” he asked.
“I did a ping for his comm,” she replied, “but it is not reading as in the base at all so I could not locate the room he was in. I was surprised as I didn’t think we had any shielding strong enough to block the comm signal in the base-”
She cut off as Rollsaround suddenly surged up out of his mineral bath and crawled out of it.
“What is the matter First Ecologist?” Third Sister asked in confusion.
“He has gone out for a walk,” Rollsaround said, forgetting in his rush to add emotional undertones to his words.
“Out?” Third Sister demanded, her antenna going lax with confusion.
“Out to watch the storm from withing the wind currents,” Rollsaround explained.
“How do you gather that?” Third Sister demanded.
“He has described storm watching on his homeworld to me,” Rollsaround explained as he opened the hatch to the sub floor currents. “He also mentioned what he thought the perfect storm watching spot would be on these cliffs. That spot is behind enough rocks to block the signal. Now if you will excuse me I am going to go fetch him.”
“He has broken regulations!” Third Sister clicked, her frill flashing red with alarm.
“That on a secondary vine,” Tenth Cousin interjected as she came up to them. “The same regulations apply to you First Ecologist! The wind-”
“I am rated as fully wind resistant under these conditions,” Rollsaround said with a dismissive wave, “one of the perks of not being built like a windmill.”
“Your thermal mass-” Tenth Cousin tried again.
“I am fully warmed at the moment and I will turn back if my core temperature drops too low,” he interjected again. “Now if there are no further objections?”
Without waiting for their objections he dropped down into the sub-floor current and tapped the control panel to direct the current to the main outlet. He bundled his appendages and let himself be swept into the cold, but fresh exterior water. He bumped up against the smooth rise of the outlet and edged up out of the water. The wind was powerful. He could feel it tug at him if he raised a gripping appendage high, but at least over the main path there were eddies along the ground that were so comparatively we that he couldn’t even feel them. He began shuffling at top speed along the path. A the crest of the first high spot the winds did hit him, shoving his body sideways. However, as he had expected it required barely a fraction of his strength to grip the path firmly with his set appendages as he moved the free appendages forward. It barely even slowed him down, the roar of it was rather disconcerting when it wasn’t muted by the base walls however. He did wonder how the human had made it this far. After a long steady shuffle he rounded the corner that was blocking the signal and spotted a tall figure down at the cliff’s edge that wasn’t normally there.
Rollsaround activated the comm he was holding pressed against the ground. There was a significant delay before the human responded.
“Human Friend Conner,” Rollsaround said, trying to put firmness in his tones. “Come now and carry me back to the base. I am at the crest of the hill looking down at you.”
There was an odd sound from the comm that suggested the human was trying to say something back, but human speaking organs were not optimized for shielding the microphone of a comm while speaking so the human simply gave two short radio bursts and the tall figure on the cliff’s edge began swaying back and forth as it moved towards the path. Rollsaround anchored himself more fully against the blasts and watched in grim interest as the gusts blew the tall human form to one side and then the other as the human struggled up the path.
When Human Friend Conner finally did reach him the human didn’t bother speaking. He just reached down with a grin and tried to lift the Undulate off of the path. For one long moment Rollsaround hung on to the ground in a show of strength. He wasn’t sure if it would impress the human but a little dominance display did seem called for. He let go when the look of perplexity fully formed on the humans face but before he could give a more powerful tug and they headed back to the base.
Being carried over a meter above the ground in this wind was another experience altogether. The swaying of the human in the wind felt far wilder than it had looked, and Rollsaround found himself clutching tightly to the human’s coat as the wind tried to rip him away. They finally made the base airlock and stepped through to the blessedly still air. Rollsaround dropped to the floor and shook the cold water off of himself.
“I think Third Sister would like a word with you,” he said.
Granted she would probably want a word with him too, but Human Friend Conner didn’t need to know that.

Science Fiction Books By Betty Adams

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Humans are Weird – Storm Watching

Original Post: http://www.authorbettyadams.com/bettys-blog/humans-are-weird-storm-watching
“Why did we even bother building a base on the land anyway?” Rollsaround asked as he absorbed the dim light filtering through the wide windows of the base.
The windows gave an impressive view of what the humans in their generosity called a “coastline”. Instead of gently undulating coral beds easing down into the water the glittering volcanic rock dropped abruptly from the graminoid covered highlands and dove down dozens of meters to where it usually met the heaving surface of the water below. Today however the water had seemingly decided to express its objections to the separation and was attempting to scale the cliffs in massive waves. The base vibrated from the force of a gust of wind and Rollsaround hunkered deeper into his mineral bath.
“Do you require another introduction of thermal-loaded water?” Tenth Cousin asked from where she perched on a Shatar couch, reading something that was supposed to be very masculine poetry from her homeworld.
“I do not,” Rollsaround reassured her. “I was just reacting negatively to the storm.”
She tilted her head to examine the weather conditions with a thoughtful set to her antenna.
“I think it is a pleasant change,” she said. “The harsh, unfiltered lights of the suns here means that we have no real night. The clouds at lest allow the illusions of dusk, and the wind overhead is not entirely unlike breezes in Father’s canopy if you can focus your attention on some pleasant task.”
“Well if we can’t go outside during clear weather without protection due to the radiation,” Rollsaround grumbled, “and we can’t go outside in stormy weather due to the, well, the storm, I say we should have just built a floating base that we could submerge during storm weather.”
“There is perhaps logic in that,” Tenth cousin agreed, and very deliberately tilted her head back to the poetry.
Rollsaround drooped his leading appendages over the edge of the bowl and absorbed the storm light in a slightly sulky mood. The airlock cycled open and Third Sister stepped in with the brisk stride that Rollsaround had noticed that high ranking sisters only used when they were looking for someone who had committed some infraction. Tenth Cousin brought the poem up closer to her face and started moving her mandibles as if she was completely focused on sounding out the words. Third Sister tilted her head the examine the cousin and then abruptly swiveled her body to focus on Rollsaround.
“First Ecologist,” she began, “do you know First Mechanic’s current location? The exterior vents in my lab require percussive maintenance.”
“He is off shift by now,” Rollsaround said. “You should check the washrooms and his quarters.”
However even as he offered this sound advice Rollsaround felt a ripple of unease. Human Friend Conner almost never went to his quarters after his shift. He was highly social, even by human standards and usually came to the main room to chat first thing.
“I have already checked both of those locations,” Third Sister stated. “He is not there and he is not answering his comm.”
Rollsaround mulled over that. Clearly Third Sister needed to find the human. An improperly vented laboratory in such a base as theirs was a serious health risk.
“Have you checked the storage areas?” he asked.
“I did a ping for his comm,” she replied, “but it is not reading as in the base at all so I could not locate the room he was in. I was surprised as I didn’t think we had any shielding strong enough to block the comm signal in the base-”
She cut off as Rollsaround suddenly surged up out of his mineral bath and crawled out of it.
“What is the matter First Ecologist?” Third Sister asked in confusion.
“He has gone out for a walk,” Rollsaround said, forgetting in his rush to add emotional undertones to his words.
“Out?” Third Sister demanded, her antenna going lax with confusion.
“Out to watch the storm from withing the wind currents,” Rollsaround explained.
“How do you gather that?” Third Sister demanded.
“He has described storm watching on his homeworld to me,” Rollsaround explained as he opened the hatch to the sub floor currents. “He also mentioned what he thought the perfect storm watching spot would be on these cliffs. That spot is behind enough rocks to block the signal. Now if you will excuse me I am going to go fetch him.”
“He has broken regulations!” Third Sister clicked, her frill flashing red with alarm.
“That on a secondary vine,” Tenth Cousin interjected as she came up to them. “The same regulations apply to you First Ecologist! The wind-”
“I am rated as fully wind resistant under these conditions,” Rollsaround said with a dismissive wave, “one of the perks of not being built like a windmill.”
“Your thermal mass-” Tenth Cousin tried again.
“I am fully warmed at the moment and I will turn back if my core temperature drops too low,” he interjected again. “Now if there are no further objections?”
Without waiting for their objections he dropped down into the sub-floor current and tapped the control panel to direct the current to the main outlet. He bundled his appendages and let himself be swept into the cold, but fresh exterior water. He bumped up against the smooth rise of the outlet and edged up out of the water. The wind was powerful. He could feel it tug at him if he raised a gripping appendage high, but at least over the main path there were eddies along the ground that were so comparatively we that he couldn’t even feel them. He began shuffling at top speed along the path. A the crest of the first high spot the winds did hit him, shoving his body sideways. However, as he had expected it required barely a fraction of his strength to grip the path firmly with his set appendages as he moved the free appendages forward. It barely even slowed him down, the roar of it was rather disconcerting when it wasn’t muted by the base walls however. He did wonder how the human had made it this far. After a long steady shuffle he rounded the corner that was blocking the signal and spotted a tall figure down at the cliff’s edge that wasn’t normally there.
Rollsaround activated the comm he was holding pressed against the ground. There was a significant delay before the human responded.
“Human Friend Conner,” Rollsaround said, trying to put firmness in his tones. “Come now and carry me back to the base. I am at the crest of the hill looking down at you.”
There was an odd sound from the comm that suggested the human was trying to say something back, but human speaking organs were not optimized for shielding the microphone of a comm while speaking so the human simply gave two short radio bursts and the tall figure on the cliff’s edge began swaying back and forth as it moved towards the path. Rollsaround anchored himself more fully against the blasts and watched in grim interest as the gusts blew the tall human form to one side and then the other as the human struggled up the path.
When Human Friend Conner finally did reach him the human didn’t bother speaking. He just reached down with a grin and tried to lift the Undulate off of the path. For one long moment Rollsaround hung on to the ground in a show of strength. He wasn’t sure if it would impress the human but a little dominance display did seem called for. He let go when the look of perplexity fully formed on the humans face but before he could give a more powerful tug and they headed back to the base.
Being carried over a meter above the ground in this wind was another experience altogether. The swaying of the human in the wind felt far wilder than it had looked, and Rollsaround found himself clutching tightly to the human’s coat as the wind tried to rip him away. They finally made the base airlock and stepped through to the blessedly still air. Rollsaround dropped to the floor and shook the cold water off of himself.
“I think Third Sister would like a word with you,” he said.
Granted she would probably want a word with him too, but Human Friend Conner didn’t need to know that.
https://i.redd.it/gdoknun0390d1.gif

Science Fiction Books By Betty Adams

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Check out my books at any of these sites and leave a review! "Flying Sparks" - a novel set in the "Dying Embers" universe is now avaliable on all sites!
Please go leave a review on Amazon! It really helps and keeps me writing becase tea and taxes don't pay themselves sadly!

Everything in my inventory is up for trade. The most valuable items are listed here, the rest you can find in My Inventory

Feel free to Add Me or even better send a Trade Offer. Open for any suggestions: upgrades, downgrades / knives, gloves, skins / stickers, patterns, floats.

All Buyouts are listed in cash value.

KNIVES

★ Butterfly Knife Lore (Factory New), B/O: $7194.77

★ Butterfly Knife Autotronic (Minimal Wear), B/O: $2025.74

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★ M9 Bayonet Ultraviolet (Field-Tested), B/O: $557.87

★ M9 Bayonet Stained (Well-Worn), B/O: $529.41

★ M9 Bayonet Boreal Forest (Field-Tested), B/O: $465.39

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★ Talon Knife Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $1295.27

★ Bayonet Tiger Tooth (Minimal Wear), B/O: $746.28

★ Karambit Bright Water (Field-Tested), B/O: $688.15

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★ Flip Knife Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $547.93

★ Flip Knife Autotronic (Minimal Wear), B/O: $476.69

★ Flip Knife Case Hardened (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $278.18

★ Flip Knife Black Laminate (Well-Worn), B/O: $258.83

★ Flip Knife Urban Masked (Field-Tested), B/O: $181.64

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★ Stiletto Knife Marble Fade (Factory New), B/O: $686.04

★ Stiletto Knife Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $665.41

★ Stiletto Knife, B/O: $601.39

★ Stiletto Knife Crimson Web (Field-Tested), B/O: $418.25

★ Stiletto Knife Night Stripe (Field-Tested), B/O: $227.80

★ Stiletto Knife Boreal Forest (Field-Tested), B/O: $194.96

★ Stiletto Knife Safari Mesh (Field-Tested), B/O: $192.79

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★ Nomad Knife Crimson Web (Field-Tested), B/O: $518.11

★ Nomad Knife Scorched (Field-Tested), B/O: $169.78

★ Nomad Knife Forest DDPAT (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $166.88

★ StatTrak™ Nomad Knife Blue Steel (Field-Tested), B/O: $335.79

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★ Skeleton Knife Stained (Well-Worn), B/O: $442.05

★ Skeleton Knife Urban Masked (Minimal Wear), B/O: $426.24

★ Skeleton Knife Boreal Forest (Field-Tested), B/O: $314.03

★ StatTrak™ Skeleton Knife Fade (Minimal Wear), B/O: $2361.28

★ StatTrak™ Skeleton Knife Urban Masked (Field-Tested), B/O: $376.53

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★ Ursus Knife Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $557.12

★ Ursus Knife, B/O: $471.42

★ Ursus Knife Blue Steel (Minimal Wear), B/O: $212.37

★ Ursus Knife Case Hardened (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $187.66

★ Ursus Knife Damascus Steel (Field-Tested), B/O: $178.18

★ Ursus Knife Ultraviolet (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $155.13

★ Ursus Knife Boreal Forest (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $124.26

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★ Huntsman Knife Black Laminate (Minimal Wear), B/O: $204.83

★ Huntsman Knife Black Laminate (Field-Tested), B/O: $184.50

★ StatTrak™ Huntsman Knife Lore (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $224.11

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★ Bowie Knife Gamma Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $2142.02

★ Bowie Knife, B/O: $230.44

★ Bowie Knife Damascus Steel (Factory New), B/O: $209.20

★ Bowie Knife Ultraviolet (Minimal Wear), B/O: $180.51

★ Bowie Knife Ultraviolet (Field-Tested), B/O: $131.03

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★ Falchion Knife Night (Field-Tested), B/O: $132.54

★ Falchion Knife Urban Masked (Well-Worn), B/O: $112.81

★ Falchion Knife Scorched (Field-Tested), B/O: $108.81

★ Falchion Knife Forest DDPAT (Field-Tested), B/O: $107.82

★ Falchion Knife Safari Mesh (Field-Tested), B/O: $107.46

★ StatTrak™ Falchion Knife Ultraviolet (Field-Tested), B/O: $143.08

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★ Paracord Knife Crimson Web (Minimal Wear), B/O: $486.48

★ Paracord Knife Blue Steel (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $163.12

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★ Survival Knife Blue Steel (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $138.26

★ Survival Knife Night Stripe (Field-Tested), B/O: $131.03

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★ Gut Knife Sapphire (Minimal Wear), B/O: $1127.79

★ Gut Knife Gamma Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $286.17

★ Gut Knife Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $246.55

★ Gut Knife Marble Fade (Factory New), B/O: $240.77

★ Gut Knife, B/O: $210.49

★ Gut Knife Lore (Field-Tested), B/O: $194.22

★ Gut Knife Case Hardened (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $151.51

★ Gut Knife Blue Steel (Minimal Wear), B/O: $124.94

★ Gut Knife Rust Coat (Well-Worn), B/O: $118.99

★ Gut Knife Boreal Forest (Minimal Wear), B/O: $109.80

★ StatTrak™ Gut Knife Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $237.96

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★ Shadow Daggers Gamma Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $264.92

★ Shadow Daggers Marble Fade (Factory New), B/O: $253.03

★ Shadow Daggers Tiger Tooth (Factory New), B/O: $237.22

★ Shadow Daggers Crimson Web (Field-Tested), B/O: $153.40

★ Shadow Daggers Autotronic (Minimal Wear), B/O: $144.42

★ Shadow Daggers Blue Steel (Field-Tested), B/O: $105.20

★ StatTrak™ Shadow Daggers Damascus Steel (Minimal Wear), B/O: $150.46

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★ Navaja Knife Fade (Factory New), B/O: $365.99

★ Navaja Knife Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $228.93

★ Navaja Knife Marble Fade (Factory New), B/O: $227.43

★ Navaja Knife Slaughter (Factory New), B/O: $209.06

★ Navaja Knife, B/O: $203.16

★ Navaja Knife Case Hardened (Well-Worn), B/O: $132.57

★ Navaja Knife Damascus Steel (Factory New), B/O: $121.69

★ Navaja Knife Damascus Steel (Minimal Wear), B/O: $109.95

★ Navaja Knife Damascus Steel (Field-Tested), B/O: $100.41

★ StatTrak™ Navaja Knife Fade (Factory New), B/O: $369.01

★ StatTrak™ Navaja Knife Damascus Steel (Field-Tested), B/O: $109.95

GLOVES

★ Sport Gloves Amphibious (Minimal Wear), B/O: $2394.67

★ Sport Gloves Omega (Well-Worn), B/O: $572.33

★ Sport Gloves Bronze Morph (Minimal Wear), B/O: $338.88

★ Sport Gloves Big Game (Field-Tested), B/O: $323.66

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★ Specialist Gloves Marble Fade (Minimal Wear), B/O: $1652.07

★ Specialist Gloves Tiger Strike (Field-Tested), B/O: $599.14

★ Specialist Gloves Crimson Web (Well-Worn), B/O: $231.57

★ Specialist Gloves Buckshot (Minimal Wear), B/O: $126.21

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★ Moto Gloves POW! (Minimal Wear), B/O: $996.99

★ Moto Gloves POW! (Field-Tested), B/O: $383.31

★ Moto Gloves POW! (Well-Worn), B/O: $276.00

★ Moto Gloves Turtle (Field-Tested), B/O: $180.28

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★ Hand Wraps CAUTION! (Minimal Wear), B/O: $502.29

★ Hand Wraps Giraffe (Minimal Wear), B/O: $180.73

★ Hand Wraps CAUTION! (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $178.32

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★ Driver Gloves Queen Jaguar (Minimal Wear), B/O: $181.01

★ Driver Gloves Rezan the Red (Field-Tested), B/O: $101.66

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★ Broken Fang Gloves Jade (Field-Tested), B/O: $127.88

★ Broken Fang Gloves Needle Point (Minimal Wear), B/O: $124.55

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★ Bloodhound Gloves Guerrilla (Minimal Wear), B/O: $127.94

★ Hydra Gloves Case Hardened (Field-Tested), B/O: $102.55

WEAPONS

AK-47 X-Ray (Well-Worn), B/O: $478.95

AUG Hot Rod (Factory New), B/O: $425.83

StatTrak™ M4A1-S Hyper Beast (Factory New), B/O: $413.95

M4A4 Daybreak (Factory New), B/O: $309.51

StatTrak™ AK-47 Aquamarine Revenge (Factory New), B/O: $305.43

AK-47 Case Hardened (Well-Worn), B/O: $196.38

StatTrak™ M4A4 Temukau (Minimal Wear), B/O: $174.64

P90 Run and Hide (Field-Tested), B/O: $167.03

AWP Asiimov (Field-Tested), B/O: $153.33

Souvenir SSG 08 Death Strike (Minimal Wear), B/O: $140.00

M4A1-S Printstream (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $124.70

StatTrak™ M4A1-S Golden Coil (Field-Tested), B/O: $117.48

AWP Asiimov (Well-Worn), B/O: $115.97

StatTrak™ Desert Eagle Printstream (Minimal Wear), B/O: $112.96

StatTrak™ AK-47 Asiimov (Minimal Wear), B/O: $110.85

Souvenir M4A1-S Master Piece (Well-Worn), B/O: $102.42

AK-47 Bloodsport (Minimal Wear), B/O: $100.53

Trade Offer Link - Steam Profile Link - My Inventory

Knives - Bowie Knife, Butterfly Knife, Falchion Knife, Flip Knife, Gut Knife, Huntsman Knife, M9 Bayonet, Bayonet, Karambit, Shadow Daggers, Stiletto Knife, Ursus Knife, Navaja Knife, Talon Knife, Classic Knife, Paracord Knife, Survival Knife, Nomad Knife, Skeleton Knife, Patterns - Gamma Doppler, Doppler (Phase 1, Phase 2, Phase 3, Phase 4, Black Pearl, Sapphire, Ruby, Emerald), Crimson Web, Lore, Fade, Ultraviolet, Night, Marble Fade (Fire & Ice, Fake FI), Case Hardened (Blue Gem), Autotronic, Slaughter, Black Laminate, Tiger Tooth, Boreal Forest, Scorched, Blue Steel, Vanilla, Damascus Steel, Forest DDPAT, Urban Masked, Freehand, Stained, Bright Water, Safari Mesh, Rust Coat, Gloves - Bloodhound Gloves (Charred, Snakebite, Guerrilla, Bronzed), Driver Gloves (Snow Leopard, King Snake, Crimson Weave, Imperial Plaid, Black Tie, Lunar Weave, Diamondback, Rezan the Red, Overtake, Queen Jaguar, Convoy, Racing Green), Hand Wraps (Cobalt Skulls, CAUTION!, Overprint, Slaughter, Leather, Giraffe, Badlands, Spruce DDPAT, Arboreal, Constrictor, Desert Shamagh, Duct Tape), Moto Gloves (Spearmint, POW!, Cool Mint, Smoke Out, Finish Line, Polygon, Blood Pressure, Turtle, Boom!, Eclipse, 3rd Commando Company, Transport), Specialist Gloves (Crimson Kimono, Tiger Strike, Emerald Web, Field Agent, Marble Fade, Fade, Foundation, Lt. Commander, Crimson Web, Mogul, Forest DDPAT, Buckshot), Sport Gloves (Pandora's Box, Superconductor, Hedge Maze, Vice, Amphibious, Slingshot, Omega, Arid, Big Game, Nocts, Scarlet Shamagh, Bronze Morph), Hydra Gloves (Case Hardened, Emerald, Rattler, Mangrove), Broken Fang Gloves (Jade, Yellow-banded, Unhinged, Needle Point), Pistols - P2000 (Wicked Sick, Ocean Foam, Fire Element, Amber Fade, Corticera, Chainmail, Imperial Dragon, Obsidian, Scorpion, Handgun, Acid Etched), USP-S (Printstream, Kill Confirmed, Whiteout, Road Rash, Owergrowth, The Traitor, Neo-Noir, Dark Water, Orion, Blueprint, Stainless, Caiman, Serum, Monster Mashup, Royal Blue, Ancient Visions, Cortex, Orange Anolis, Ticket To Hell, Black Lotus, Cyrex, Check Engine, Guardian, Purple DDPAT, Torque, Blood Tiger, Flashback, Business Class, Pathfinder, Para Green), Lead Conduit, Glock-18 (Ramese's Reach, Umbral Rabbit, Fade, Candy Apple, Bullet Queen, Synth Leaf, Neo-Noir, Nuclear Garden, Dragon Tatto, Reactor, Pink DDPAT, Twilight Galaxy, Sand Dune, Groundwater, Blue Fissure, Snack Attack, Water Elemental, Brass, Wasteland Rebel, Vogue, Franklin, Royal Legion, Gamma Doppler, Weasel, Steel Disruption, Ironwork, Grinder, High Beam, Moonrise, Oxide Blaze, Bunsen Burner, Clear Polymer, Bunsen Burner, Night), P250 (Apep's Curse, Re.built, Nuclear Threat, Modern Hunter, Splash, Whiteout, Vino Primo, Mehndi, Asiimov, Visions, Undertow, Cartel, See Ya Later, Gunsmoke, Splash, Digital Architect, Muertos, Red Rock, Bengal Tiger, Crimson Kimono, Wingshot, Metallic DDPAT, Hive, Dark Filigree, Mint Kimono), Five-Seven (Neon Kimono, Berries And Cherries, Fall Hazard, Crimson Blossom, Hyper Beast, Nitro, Fairy Tale, Case Hardened, Copper Galaxy, Angry Mob, Monkey Business, Fowl Play, Anodized Gunmetal, Hot Shot, Retrobution, Boost Protocol), CZ75-Auto (Chalice, Crimson Web, Emerald Quartz, The Fuschia is Now, Nitro, Xiangliu, Yellow Jacket, Victoria, Poison Dart, Syndicate, Eco, Hexane, Pole, Tigris), Tec-9 (Mummy's Rot, Rebel, Terrace, Nuclear Threat, Hades, Rust Leaf, Decimator, Blast From, Orange Murano, Toxic, Fuel Injector, Remote Control, Bamboo Forest, Isaac, Avalanche, Brother, Re-Entry, Blue Titanium, Bamboozle), R8 Revolver (Banana Cannon, Fade, Blaze, Crimson Web, Liama Cannon, Crazy 8, Reboot, Canal Spray, Night, Amber Fade), Desert Eagle (Blaze, Hand Cannon, Fennec Fox, Sunset Storm, Emerald Jörmungandr, Pilot, Hypnotic, Golden Koi, Printstream, Cobalt Disruption, Code Red, Ocean Drive, Midnight Storm, Kumicho Dragon, Crimson Web, Heirloom, Night Heist, Mecha Industries, Night, Conspiracy, Trigger Discipline, Naga, Directive, Light Rail), Dual Berettas (Flora Carnivora, Duelist, Cobra Strike, Black Limba, Emerald, Hemoglobin, Twin Turbo, Marina, Melondrama, Pyre, Retribution, Briar, Dezastre, Royal Consorts, Urban Shock, Dualing Dragons, Panther, Balance), Rifles - Galil (Aqua Terrace, Winter Forest, Chatterbox, Sugar Rush, Pheonix Blacklight, CAUTION!, Orange DDPAT, Cerberus, Dusk Ruins, Eco, Chromatic Aberration, Stone Cold, Tuxedo, Sandstorm, Shattered, Urban Rubble, Rocket Pop, Kami, Crimson Tsunami, Connexion), SCAR-20 (Fragments, Brass, Cyrex, Palm, Splash Jam, Cardiac, Emerald, Crimson Web, Magna Carta, Stone Mosaico, Bloodsport, Enforcer), AWP (Black Nile, Duality, Gungnir, Dragon Lore, Prince, Medusa, Desert Hydra, Fade, Lightning Strike, Oni Taiji, Silk Tiger, Graphite, Chromatic Aberration, Asiimov, Snake Camo, Boom, Containment Breach, Wildfire, Redline, Electric Hive, Hyper Beast, Neo-Noir, Man-o'-war, Pink DDPAT, Corticera, Sun in Leo, Elite Build, Fever Dream, Atheris, Mortis, PAW, Exoskeleton, Worm God, POP AWP, Phobos, Acheron, Pit Viper, Capillary, Safari Mesh), AK-47 (Steel Delta, Head Shot, Wild Lotus, Gold Arabesque, X-Ray, Fire Serpent, Hydroponic, Panthera Onca, Case Hardened, Vulcan, Jet Set, Fuel Injector, Bloodsport, Nightwish, First Class, Neon Rider, Asiimov, Red Laminate, Aquamarine Revenge, The Empress, Wasteland Rebel, Jaguar, Black Laminate, Leet Museo, Neon Revolution, Redline, Frontside Misty, Predator, Legion of Anubis, Point Disarray, Orbit Mk01, Blue Laminate, Green Laminate, Emerald Pinstripe, Cartel, Phantom Disruptor, Jungle Spray, Safety Net, Rat Rod, Baroque Purple, Slate, Elite Build, Uncharted, Safari Mesh), FAMAS (Waters of Nephthys, Sundown, Prime Conspiracy, Afterimage, Commemoration, Dark Water, Spitfire, Pulse, Eye of Athena, Meltdown, Rapid Eye Move, Roll Cage, Styx, Mecha Industrie, Djinn, ZX Spectron, Valence, Neural Net, Night Borre, Hexne), M4A4 (Eye of Horus, Temukau, Howl, Poseidon, Asiimov, Daybreak, Hellfire, Zirka, Red DDPAT, Radiation Hazard, Modern Hunter, The Emperor, The Coalition, Bullet Rain, Cyber Security, X-Ray, Dark Blossom, Buzz Kill, In Living Color, Neo-Noir, Desolate Space, 龍王 (Dragon King), Royal Paladin, The Battlestar, Global Offensive, Tooth Fairy, Desert-Strike, Griffin, Evil Daimyo, Spider Lily, Converter), M4A1-S (Emphorosaur-S, Welcome to the Jungle, Imminent Danger, Knight, Hot Rod, Icarus Fell, Blue Phosphor, Printstream, Master Piece, Dark Water, Golden Coil, Bright Water, Player Two, Atomic Alloy, Guardian, Chantico's Fire, Hyper Beast, Mecha Industries, Cyrex, Control Panel, Moss Quartz, Nightmare, Decimator, Leaded Glass, Basilisk, Blood Tiger, Briefing, Night Terror, Nitro, VariCamo, Flashback), SG 553 (Cyberforce, Hazard Pay, Bulldozer, Integrale, Dragon Tech, Ultraviolet, Colony IV, Hypnotic, Cyrex, Candy Apple, Barricade, Pulse), SSG 08 (Death Strike, Sea Calico, Blood in the Water, Orange Filigree, Dragonfire, Big Iron, Bloodshot, Detour, Turbo Peek, Red Stone), AUG (Akihabara Accept, Flame Jörmungandr, Hot Rod, Midnight Lily, Sand Storm, Carved Jade, Wings, Anodized Navy, Death by Puppy, Torque, Bengal Tiger, Chameleon, Fleet Flock, Random Access, Momentum, Syd Mead, Stymphalian, Arctic Wolf, Aristocrat, Navy Murano), G3SG1 (Chronos, Violet Murano, Flux, Demeter, Orange Kimono, The Executioner, Green Apple, Arctic Polar Camo, Contractor), SMGs - P90 (ScaraB Rush, Neoqueen, Astral Jörmungandr, Run and Hide, Emerald Dragon, Cold Blooded, Death by Kitty, Baroque Red, Vent Rush, Blind Spot, Asiimov, Trigon, Sunset Lily, Death Grip, Leather, Nostalgia, Fallout Warning, Tiger Pit, Schermatic, Virus, Shapewood, Glacier Mesh, Shallow Grave, Chopper, Desert Warfare), MAC-10 (Sakkaku, Hot Snakes, Copper Borre, Red Filigree, Gold Brick, Graven, Case Hardened, Stalker, Amber Fade, Neon Rider, Tatter, Curse, Propaganda, Nuclear Garden, Disco Tech, Toybox, Heat, Indigo), UMP-45 (Wild Child, Fade, Blaze, Day Lily, Minotaur's Labyrinth, Crime Scene, Caramel, Bone Pile, Momentum, Primal Saber), MP7 (Teal Blossom, Fade, Nemesis, Whiteout, Asterion, Bloosport, Abyssal Apparition, Full Stop, Special Delivery, Neon Ply, Asterion, Ocean Foam, Powercore, Scorched, Impire), PP-Bizon (Modern Hunter, Rust Coat, Forest Leaves, Antique, High Roller, Blue Streak, Seabird, Judgement of Anubis, Bamboo Print, Embargo, Chemical Green, Coblat Halftone, Fuel Rod, Photic Zone, Irradiated Alert, Carbon Fiber), MP9 (Featherweight, Wild Lily, Pandora's Box, Stained Glass, Bulldozer, Dark Age, Hot Rod, Hypnotic, Hydra, Rose Iron, Music Box, Setting Sun, Food Chain, Airlock, Mount Fuji, Starlight Protector, Ruby Poison Dart, Deadly Poison), MP5-SD (Liquidation, Oxide Oasis, Phosphor, Nitro, Agent, Autumn Twilly), Shotguns, Machineguns - Sawed-Off (Kiss♥Love, First Class, Orange DDPAT, Rust Coat, The Kraken, Devourer, Mosaico, Wasteland Princess, Bamboo Shadow, Copper, Serenity, Limelight, Apocalypto), XM1014 (Frost Borre, Ancient Lore, Red Leather, Elegant Vines, Banana Leaf, Jungle, Urban Perforated, Grassland, Blaze Orange, Heaven Guard, VariCamo Blue, Entombed, XOXO, Seasons, Tranquility, Bone Machine, Incinegator, Teclu Burner, Black Tie, Zombie Offensive, Watchdog), Nova (Sobek's Bite, Baroque Orange, Hyper Beast, Green Apple, Antique, Modern Hunter, Walnut, Forest Leaves, Graphite, Blaze Orange, Rising Skull, Tempest, Bloomstick, Interlock, Quick Sand, Moon in Libra, Clean Polymer, Red Quartz, Toy Soldier), MAG-7 (Copper Coated, Insomnia, Cinqueda, Counter Terrace, Prism Terrace, Memento, Chainmail, Hazard, Justice, Bulldozer, Silver, Core Breach, Firestarter, Praetorian, Heat, Hard Water, Monster Call, BI83 Spectrum, SWAG-7), M249 (Humidor, Shipping Forecast, Blizzard Marbleized, Downtown, Jungle DDPAT, Nebula Crusader, Impact Drill, Emerald Poison Dart), Negev (Mjölnir, Anodized Navy, Palm, Power Loader, Bratatat, CaliCamo, Phoenix Stencil, Infrastructure, Boroque Sand), Wear - Factory New (FN), Minimal Wear (MW), Field-Tested (FT), Well-Worn (WW), Battle-Scarred (BS), Stickers Holo/Foil/Gold - Katowice 2014, Krakow 2017, Howling Dawn, Katowice 2015, Crown, London 2018, Cologne 2014, Boston 2018, Atlanta 2017, Cluj-Napoca 2015, DreamHack 2014, King on the Field, Harp of War, Winged Difuser, Cologne 2016, Cologne 2015, MLG Columbus 2016, Katowice 2019, Berlin 2019, RMR 2020, Stockholm 2021, Antwerp 2022, Paris 2023, Swag Foil, Flammable foil, Others - Souvenirs, Agents, Pins, Passes, Gifts, Music Kits, Cases, Keys, Capsules, Packages, Patches

Some items on the list may no longer be available or are still locked, visit My Inventory for more details.

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