Parts of a map worksheet

There have been plenty of posts around of people wanting to have a stratagem call in or something along the lines to be able to refill the mechs, for good reason! They're fun, and really good at their strengths (shredding through chaff and medium armor, with the occasional heavy at a hefty ammo cost) but eventually the bullets run dry and fun hose stops delivering fun at 6000 rounds/min.
Once the bullets run out, mechs aren't much more than a really expensive decoy, or maybe a slightly faster way around the map for heavy armor enthusiasts, and with a hefty cooldown, there can be considerable time between the fun. We've had countless posts at this point asking for either buffs to the mechs to make them stronger for the short uptime or to make their uptime better by way of being able to resupply their ammo. I'm personally in favor of the latter, as its both in line with other stratagems (support weapons, other than EATs, have long cooldowns but can be fed by ammo/resupply bricks between cooldowns) and you get to spend more time doing the fun, blasting the shit out of bugs/bots in a big ol mech.
To borrow from a favorite youtuber of mine, I'll go over what (I think) we could do, then go over why we do it.
This is a multi part system, partially to leave room for it to interact with other vehicles/stratagems in theory

1. Vehicle resupply stratagem

• This I think would serve best as a backpack stratagem, but an argument could be made for another style of stratagem deployment
• Holds an amount of charges, personally I think 1, that can be expended to refill a vehicle weapon, similarly to the resupply backpack for helldivers
• Would take a considerable amount of ammunition to refill, multiple resupply bricks and/or a substantial number of ammo bricks (for implementation's sake, maybe have the bar on the hud be multiple segments, but you can only resupply with a full pack, or maybe have it be up to 100% refill scaling to how full the backpack is)
• Distinctly not mechanically identical to the resupply backpack in terms of usage, specifics I'll get to later

1. Vehicle specific "stratagem codes"

Currently you cannot use stratagems while piloting a mech, this was something you could do in helldivers 1, but this would not interfere with that should they give us the ability to do so again.

• Each vehicle will have a stratagem code that corresponds to one of their weapons
  • For example, the Patriot exosuit would have a code for the rocket arm, and a code for the gatling arm
    • Whether or not the code is unique or not I'm not too sure of, would the gatling arm of the Patriot have the same code as the (right) AC arm of the Emancipator?
• Punching in this code would... open up(?) the weapon bay, allowing for the ammunition storage to be removed (taking out the ammo box, missile rack, or whatever appropriate for the weapon) or possibly just straight up ejecting the "magazine" empty or not

All put together it converts the mech's (and potentially other future vehicles) to pseudo team weapons, incentivized to have some teamwork, but serviceable alone.
Its not super free either, someone has to take a stratagem and dedicate a backpack slot to it (granted, you could just not call in the pack until you need it, but dealer's choice in that regard), so I don't think it would push vehicles too too out of line, but still allow for mech enjoyers to be able to lean harder into using their mechs
As a team, you would have

1. Pilot opening up ammo rack for loading
2. Teammate slamming ammo into the arm
3. Weapon is reloaded, back to blasting liberty's enemies

As a lone diver, it would be slower, yes, but still workable

1. While in mech, open up ammo rack
2. Hop out of mech
3. Load ammo into arm
4. Hop back into mech
5. pew pew time

Part of the reason I want to make these as pseudo team weapons and slightly more involved than just "walk up and press button" resupply is because I really enjoy how fun the teamwork feels in this game, some of the most fun I've had running with buddies is backpack swapping for support weapons. A duo with a Recoilless Rifle and Airburst rocket launcher carrying each other's backpacks can handle a helluva lot that the bugs can throw at you. With the mech resupply being the way that it is, you can handle resupplying by yourself during the lulls in the mission, but with teamwork you can theoretically pull this kinda thing off even in the middle of a horde.
The other part is Captain Mifune's last stand from the Matrix Revolutions, its a cool clip and I think it encompasses what I'd like to see for the mechs (I'll see if I can find a decent video or somethin on youtube), and I think perfectly encompasses the thrill of pulling off a mid-horde reload for your buddy in the mech. Yea its a cart in the clip, not a backpack, but I think a cart would run into too many issues with terrain, having a giant ass backpack would be a little less clunky I think, at least for the players, in universe god that thing would be a hefty weight on a diver's back.
Probably pretty batshit stupid all in all, but I think it would be a nifty way to make mech's and other future vehicles resupply-able, I have no idea if/how this would impact balance for vehicles, nor do I know if it would even be possible to implement, but it sure as shit would be a lot of fun I think.

Now that MultiVersus has returned, there is debate as to whether the game arrived with either positive or negative additions to the now fully finished, polished, and launched game. Many argue that the new mechanics have actually improved on the gameplay from the Open Beta alongside other neat additions, while others argue that the execution of the Beta versions gameplay amongst other details were remarkably better than the excuse for a finished game in these people's minds. In my opinion, the Open Beta beats the Official Games "quality" by a huge landslide, and here is why I believe that.

1. "The Camera Zoom And Slow Paced Gameplay:" A lot of people seem to be aware of the camera zoom system that was implemented in MultiVersus (Which by the way, cannot be modified to where it is completely gone), alongside the dramatically slower movement. It seems that a possible reason for why Player First Games included this monstrosity of an addition was because of players reporting the spam of attacks in matches alongside the seemingly way too swift gameplay, which of course lead to Player First Games including the previously mentioned implementations in the relaunch, thinking that players would "think outside the box" with attacks when playing. Back in the Open Beta days, there was a little something called "Attack Decay!" Sounds wonderful right? Well, my friend, here is a description of this glorious mechanic; Attack Decay basically made opponents attempts at spamming attacks utterly useless! This mechanic rewarded players who were already thinking creatively when utilizing their fighters moveset splendidly, but it seems that everyone at Player First Games thought that this aid for players who aren't spamming the same move forgot its existence to where it is M.I.A in the Official Game. About the fast-paced gameplay, let me present a question; Do you really prefer the new slow-paced gameplay, or the way the movement worked in the Open Beta? The movement was arguably floaty during the Beta days, but you would think that the gameplay that for the most part did not need any fixing whatsoever (in most peoples eyes) would be perfected by only editing the very small grievances and glitches in this way of playing the game, right? Nope; we would instead get gameplay that really shows the transparency of the playable characters not fitting in the new gameplay style at all (Iron Giants meets the Dexter's Laboratory Map for example) that seemingly only a small portion of players seem to be content with. I am willing to bet that if a dedicated fighting game enthusiast were to playtest both the Open Beta and Official Game versions of MultiVersus, the enthusiast would prefer the Open Beta's almost near perfect fluidity that was fun to participate in compared to the clunkiness of the Official Game that feels like a chore to play through after a couple of matches.
2. "The Corporate Similarities To Other Free To Play Games:" From the removal of the beautifully drawn 2D renders in game to make way for the ugliest 3D renders, to the layout of the Fighters menu quite literally being the FTP Battle Royale Locker, to the exclusion of a proper fighting game character select screen, almost everything about the new UI for MultiVersus screams "Fortnite" and "Stumble Guys'" unoriginality instead of a celebration of a company's Intellectual Properties with colorful, vivid, and creative design that actually was in the Open Beta. When you launch a game like Super Smash Bros or any MARVEL VS. CAPCOM game besides Infinite, you can feel the authentic love and passion poured into every single aspect of the game. When you log on MultiVersus, you are bombarded with microtransactions that probably cost as much as a wedding ring when accumulated together. Adding to these problems, fighters who should be carefully selected and handpicked with the intent of being well thought-out inclusions to the roster are treated like the average skin that adds no value to the gameplay in the average FTP game. So many people are fine with the idea of MultiVersus having an infinite number of character slots and franchises one day that could give Fortnite's colossal library of franchises a run for its money, but has anyone thought about the example of not having every participant in a baseball game receiving the big trophy, as well as keeping the roster at a reasonable limit to avoid having the roster the same size as a MultiVersus fan roster on DeviantArt? We have characters like Banana Guard before Scooby Doo, Samurai Jack, and many other characters who are objectively better picks for a celebration of Warner Bros as a whole; and yes, every good fighting game has a good selection of joke characters, but MultiVersus has not even reached the excellence of other platform fighters with their current strategy (putting emphasis on the most laughable and unnecessary aspects of a game) to add a joke character in a roster that has missing combatants that are way more important to Warner Bros history. But hey, Warner Bros and Player First Games have to make that green paper somehow, and they more than likely don't care about the fact that adding a "Passion Project" like Banana Guard before Daffy Duck is a massive slap to the face to people who want beloved characters added to the game that are not treated as muses to sell rubbish.
3. "Miscellaneous Stuff That Doesn't Need It's Own Category!!!:"

The Minigames are boring and suck for the most part, except for the Target minigame.
The coloring of the opponent and allies team color on the fighters looks atrocious and weird.
The game has crashed and disconnected over 20 times due to lag that will come at you even if you had the best Wi-Fi and/or Internet on the planet.
If they were trying to make the graphics better with Unreal Engine 5, they failed miserably! Everything looks shiny and gross compared to the Open Betas graphics. "Work Smarter Not Harder" I guess.
The new dash attacks feel very clunky most of the time.
The scrapped Guilds mode sounds a lot better than Rifts mode. They are more or less the same, but the details about Guilds sound much more interesting than what we got in Rifts.
You cannot play as characters you don't own in offline modes such as "The Lab." (They took out the Training map from the game too)
People are missing the characters they purchased with real money???
Hopefully everything gets fixed, as I do want the game to succeed and be in the greatest state it can be because right now, everything is a dumpsterfire compared to the very low lows of the Open Beta days. If you guys have your own problems with the game or have anything to say about the game, leave a comment and have a great day!

I've always had a fantasy of being a good PvPer but there's always the warrior who charges in at the clothies or healers, rogues who just knows how to work their perma CC, and other class shenanigans like using typhoon, hex, polymorph, so forth.
For the most part I have played Destro Warlock, but I took a giant hiatus going into pre-Shadowlands and basically all of the Dragonflight up until now, I had just come back. The only character I managed to be 70 and have decent item level was monk.
Now, I thought to myself, windwalker is pretty okay. But I decided to take the chance and go as a mistweaver. But I had so many basic misses (such as using medallions wrong, not knowing pillars for certain maps) and I just felt so frustrated. I'm not looking to be an elite, but if I were to become one, I wish to be in a really good knowledge of basic PvP ideas.
How would I go about learning such PvP things? I really wish I could do better but it really sucks knowing nothing about how to go against someone else.

Day 1 A news report breaks in [REDACTED] New York about a man waking up the previous morning, and attempting to turn on his TV to watch the latest episode of his favourite show, only for his remote to crumble in his hand. Confused as to what was going on, the man would attempt to manually turn on his TV, only to accidentally pull a chunk of it off. It was at this moment, that the man would discover that his TV had been replaced with a hyper-realistic cake. The man would question his wife about where the TV went, and why there was a hyper-realistic cake in its place. However, his wife was just as confused as he was about the entire situation at hand. The man would attempt to report this to his local authorities, claiming his TV had been stolen and replaced with a hyper-realistic cake. Only to be laughed off as a prankster due to his ridiculous claim. Angry at this, he would take his story to the local news station hoping for justice to be served to whoever stole his TV. Once again, his claims were laughed off and published as a mere joke. The man would claim that there would be more cases of people’s items being replaced with hyper-realistic cakes going forward and that they would all regret ignoring his case.
Day 29 Police reports coming from all over [REDACTED] New York would reveal the man’s words to be correct. Starting after a young woman would attempt to open her purse, only for the zip to completely come off upon being pulled and quickly break apart, taking some of the modelling chocolate with it. Soon people would begin reporting all over the area that their items had been completely replaced with cake. Phones, laptops, bags, earrings, necklaces, rings and even stacks of cash were discovered to have been replaced with hyper-realistic cakes. Local authorities, having now clearly learned that this was no prank, are looking into the cases to try and track down these valuable items. However, one thing these cases all have in common (aside from the cakes being delicious) is the complete lack of evidence pointing to any suspects. No DNA evidence, no signs of forced entry, and no people in the area at the time. Nobody is even sure when these items were replaced with cakes. They all say they could've sworn they were real a second ago, only to suddenly be cake. Almost as if there was no thief and they had just suddenly turned into cake. Authorities are still on the hunt for a possible suspect in this case, even though the wider New York authorities laugh at them for humouring these absurd claims.
Day 47 The situation has escalated much further than anyone could've possibly anticipated. Now the reports of items being replaced with hyper-realistic cake have rapidly expanded to the rest of New York. Hundreds of people are reporting that their valuable items are being discovered to be hyper-realistic cakes. A man would take his phone out of his pocket to check if he'd received any important emails, only for his phone to crumble into pieces of cake in his hand. A woman would attempt to cash in a check of $100,000 to a bank, only for the modelling chocolate on the check to smash into several pieces when placed down on the counter. A couple would attempt to hurry their kids into the car, worrying they may be late for school. Only for the car to fall apart right in front of them, as the door is pulled off and falls to the ground. People are getting scared, they're worrying that at any moment, any of their prized possessions could end up being a hyper-realistic cake. Nobody is sure what is real and what is cake anymore, so they've taken to trying to cut anything they own, hoping to weed out the cake from the non-cake. Many have ended up accidentally destroying many of the things they own in the process of doing this. But those who still have their stuff have taken to putting stickers on them to ensure they know they're real. That was until an edible sticker was found to be on the back of a hyper-realistic cake emulating a mobile phone. Now, people’s only option is to place all their valued possessions into safes, covered in locks with an 87-number code that not even they know. The governor of New York has commented on the situation claiming that he's doing all he can to try and solve the hyper-realistic cake mystery, but he can only do so much to calm the fear and paranoia that has overcome New York.
Day 93 The situation has dramatically escalated even further somehow, as the hyper-realistic cake plague has now begun heavily affecting the nearby states of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut and even some parts of Canada. Reports are coming in from all over the USA and even some of Mexico and South America of people’s items suddenly being replaced with ominous (albeit, tasty) hyper-realistic cakes. The president is doing nothing to quell the fear of US citizens, claiming the whole situation is ridiculous and that everyone is a fool for buying into it. People are starting to riot in the streets believing the president is not doing enough to try and prevent the appearance of hyper-realistic cakes. Many other countries are beginning to consider closing off all travel to the USA out of fear, and some like Germany even going through with it. The safes people were using to hold their valuable items are no longer safe. Many have been discovered to have been replaced with hyper-realistic cakes, leading to even greater fear and paranoia among citizens. And the worst thing of all. The police officer who was in charge of the case in [REDACTED] New York was discovered by his wife the previous night to have been replaced with an identical hyperrealistic cake. There is no evidence of where he may have gone, and there is no evidence pointing to who might've taken him. He has seemingly disappeared without a trace.
Day 149 As fear was reaching its limits, a spark of hope managed to emerge. Tension has been rising as countries all over the world have been receiving reports of people disappearing, and being replaced with hyper-realistic cakes. Even including those that shut off travel to the USA. The president has continued to display pure apathy to the situation, claiming the whole thing to be a farce, until he discovered one morning his wife had been turned into a hyper-realistic cake. Outraged at this, he demanded the perpetrator be immediately found and caught. He banned the selling of any ingredients that could be used to make a hyper-realistic cake, including flour, sugar, eggs, butter, baking powder, chocolate, honey, macaroni and cheese (he does not know how to make a cake, and decided it was better safe than sorry). But even then, hyper-realistic cakes continued to appear. Now even houses and everything in them were getting replaced with giant hyper-realistic cakes, twice the size of an average human being. The president was getting desperate now and was willing to do anything to catch the man responsible for this. So he had cameras set up on every street in every city in every state across the entire USA. And he had every cop working 24/7 on the sight of each camera making sure nothing was replaced with a hyper-realistic cake, and if they were to see hyper-realistic cake-related activities, they were to press a button, sounding the alarm. Yesterday, after weeks and weeks of nothing. An extremely tired officer managed to catch a woman attempting to replace a baby with a hyper-realistic cake. The woman, upon being caught, would quickly admit she was behind the hyper-realistic cake shenanigans. She was immediately brought to Washington DC where the president would proceed to scream and cry at her for hours before demanding she be placed in a holding cell so she could be questioned the following day. This was quickly announced by White House officials and the world began celebrating, praising the president as a hero who was able to end the hyper-realistic cake plague. The joyful people of the world are currently awaiting a word from the US president on who this mysterious woman is, what her motives are and where she’s keeping all these missing people.
Day 180 To the horror of everyone around the globe, the following morning, all hope was lost and all dreams were dashed. The woman taken captive last night was found to have been replaced with a hyper-realistic cake, just as everyone was. The president demanded a search for any evidence indicating how she could've escaped, but they were unable to find anything. Even the cameras meant to keep track of the woman had mysteriously failed to capture anything the previous night. This was the breaking point for the president, and as a result of this, he'd soon become wrapped up in an extremely insane conspiracy. He'd soon begin to believe the cake was a being that was more powerful than any of them, and that it needed to be eradicated at all costs. The presidents would proceed to declare Marshall law and cut off all transport to other countries. People, seeing exactly what was going to happen, attempted to escape the country by piloting the planes and boats themselves. Only to discover the planes and boats were all hyper-realistic cakes, that were unable to fly and would easily sink in water. The president would also declare that all cake is to be thoroughly burned, and anyone believed to be a cake is to be executed on sight, preferably by being cut with a blade. The president would have all secret service agents executed, claiming that they were conspiring with the cake and aided the woman in escaping custody. But even if this wasn't enough for the president, soon he’d begin believing that other countries were made of cake too and declared that any countries believed to be “cake countries” would be bombed off the map. Starting with Mexico, he sent wave after wave of bombs to the country until he was sure anyone inside was dead. He'd soon turn his attention to Germany, believing that it was also a “cake country” due to them previously closing off transportation from the USA there. Soon, Germany was no more, and the president would celebrate that he had destroyed another “cake country”. It seemed like to the president, that every country except the USA was a cake country, and no amount of bombing he did would change that. Everyone knew the sheer amount of bombs he was using was going to destroy the planet, but he didn't care. But just as quickly as this began, it ended. Yesterday, a large angry mob stormed the White House. The president would attempt to bomb the mob, only to discover the bomb launchpad had been replaced with cake. The mob quickly overpowered anyone left supporting the president with sheer numbers, and they swiftly beat the president to death in a manner too disturbing to even attempt to describe. Blood was everywhere, but they didn't care anymore, the dictator was dead.
Day 294 Shortly after the president's death, the USA descended into chaos. People were still being replaced with cake, and nobody had any way to contact people outside the USA, as every single phone was seemingly now a hyper-realistic cake. Many don't even believe there's anyone left out there, and that they were all killed by the president. People quickly began to believe the president was right, and that all the other countries were now just cake. But they took it one step further, they now began to ponder if the entire globe itself was just one giant cake. People began getting so scared of others being cake, that they would attempt to cut anyone they meet just to see if they were cake. There is no food left now besides hyper-realistic cakes, and many are so scared of them that they refuse to even go near them, let alone attempt to eat them. Many are dying from starvation, and those willing to eat the cakes are usually branded as “cake people” and killed on sight. There's still no sign of the people who went missing and were replaced with hyper-realistic cakes. Many believe they just vanished from reality itself or that they were taken by the cake. Some people have begun to worship the cake as a god and make sacrifices to it believing it'll bring their loved ones back. Reality is crumbling, society has fallen apart and it won’t be long until humanity is gone.
Day 334 Not even a year following the first-ever incident, the last human being on earth has died today. Alone, cold and afraid. There is nothing left. No trees, no grass, no water, no animals, no humans, nothing. The only thing that remains now is the hyper-realistic cakes. And that, is the story, of how I destroyed humanity with FUCKING CAKES! I guess in the end you could say… it was real.

Yes its a beta, that's about all we got officially given about it so far. I'll update if we get anything else meaningful about it.
In short, similar to cybertron chest I suppose, you have a small chance of running into a green chest in any battle / map that has a 4 leaf clover on it.
Kill it to get a key. Repeat enough times (I believe starts at 3 but grows with further tries?) to access lucky battle.
Its pretty much a survival gauntlet thing with small RNG. Each time you win, you get a bit of everything, blocks, coin, cards, even a few skips (cap 10 I think) when you finish enough levels.
After each won battle, you can choose to quit and cash out, or continue. If you pick continue, it flips a coin on if you get same difficulty opponent or it ramps up (hence the "lucky" part).
If you lose, then I think its either GG lose everything, or then pay some tiny like under 1$ sum to get a revive. Not full sure on this one, but its the only screen where we saw any kinda payment.
Lastly, it seems the feature is kind of heavy on the phone (even newer ones) especially as you get higher in the battles, and if you happen to crash there's no guarantee you do get your payout. So I recommend if you're skeptical at aaaaall about the game enduring, you cash out early rather than lose your goodies.

Problem: I struggle to think of things I want to do in D&D
Things I think are contributing to this (but if you think there's something else please ask/tell!): - Lack of experience making characters: Usually I mold myself to the most interesting set of characteristics based on my limitations. With D&D there is no limitations, so it's hard for me to pick since it's hard for me to pick one thing over another since there's examples of me having fun with any sort of character in some video game/media. Trying to make a character based off myself is hard because I usually view myself as the most boring person since I am myself all day everyday - I don't know what I want to do in D&D: Probably ties in with character creation & the character's motivation, but I as a player don't know what I want to do. It also makes it very hard that I really really enjoy just sitting around relaxing while people are doing stuff. However if I am doing that I may as well just watch critical role or something. I'm trying to get creative and interact with the world with my friends since I know it is possible to get to something that is significantly more fun than just watching people do stuff - Overly afraid of taking up too much time/making decisions that force players to go a certain way: No one has every been bothered by me taking up too much time, rather they are bothered by my lack of doing anything. They try to be supportive, but there's always part of me that worries too much that it'll make it a bad/boring experience for others. It's not like super massive anxiety like I used to, but there's this lingering feeling of "Uuugh... I reaaally don't want to deal with that right now. I just wanna chill" sort of vibes
Summary of Experiences if you want context on my experience with D&D: - 1st and current Campaign gone on for 4 years once every week: Started off trying to be a Paladin because I wanted to fill the tank & healer roles, not realizing that's really not that important in D&D. Though since it was Paladin, I kinda went full on lawful good paladin, so I was probably putting a lot more restrictions on myself that I didn't need to do. Later was more neutral good due to the rest of the party kinda resembling an loot goblin type party, and it is kinda hard to justify their actions (which also made me feel a bit out of place) After a while after taking a large risk in a dangerous zone, my character got turned into a Hydra (and then later on full on multi-headed dragon and stuff for other reasons). Everyone loves the fact that it's a big ol' dragon and stuff, however after a while it feels like the hydra thing is a crutch, and that it's gotten repetitive at this point since there's not much else to the character than that. Don't think it's a problem, but I do remember old power gamey member (who later left for reasons) being jealous of how strong the hydra was, and being mad at me for not using it's power to just destroy everything. Then my DM was also very confused why I am so afraid to initiate combat with anything. I just don't want to get into combat fights if it means one of my team members might die, especially since I find RP type alternatives much more interesting most of the time. Combat still fun though, it's a nice little break from all the RP stuff. Longer fights do end up feeling like just doing spreadsheets though, and they do tend to make me get a little too relaxed that I start to get very sleepy Recently I've tried to make a more normal character that is just an artificer armorer that wants to research the world, but I realized just how absolute trash I am at making characters once I gave it a few test runs. Even though it's the same level, it's interesting going from my OP other character that has gotten power ups for doing certain things, and being rich from hoarding thousands of gold (since I'm afraid to spend it on anything, or nothing interests me enough to buy), to going to a character that does like 1/3 the damage of other characters and 10 gold. That said, really makes me realize I really can't care about how strong/weak my characters are at all. Again, makes me feel out of place among my loot-goblin party members

• 2nd Campaign was probably half a year: Smallest group of players generally just 2 players for most sessions, but sometimes it got up to 4-5 players. I also attempted to make a jerk kobold character to contrast the character from my first campaign. Couldn't really keep up the rude persona though, and turned more into the guy that has a good heart but is rough around the edges sort of deal by the end of the campaign (also my IRL personality started seeping into the character more as time went on. Part of that was because of all the puzzles that I loved making me have to think really hard). Though sometimes I wonder if I should count this because this was a D&D session in VR where everyone was doing voices and doing poses. We'd play in a D&D map with miniatures, dice rollers, and the DM would draw things to give a better idea of what is happening in the world, and he was very experimental and it was awesome. That said, makes me wonder if it being in VR biased my experience to love this campaign so much. At that point you're basically just LARPing
  
• Various 1 shot campaigns: With random people, but with only one friend in common, it was really hard for anyone to get any sort of good chemistry with each other so it pretty bad
  

Any questions or suggestions?

I feel like a novel or comic series could be interesting as it could introduce new husks to the Fortnite universe.
These tales could be diary entries or classic stories that focuses on survivors who may or may not get rescued by Homebase.
For example, one could be where a group of people are camping when the storm surrounds them. They feel a chill in the air and don't realise that a stalker (new husk that could stalk players from afar, similar to Sirenhead) is watching them. hypothetically, if the stalker was added, it would be something that you can see in the distance but can't actually fight. As soon as a bullet goes near it, it'll camouflage and run away to a different part of the map. It would only be found in grasslands and will stop spawning when a certain percentage of trees is destroyed.
Fortnite was originally supposed to be horror and I feel like this series would be a good way to reintroduce horror to the world. It could also be used to reuse older designs of husks as new species.

Cover Art!
Just because you’re transported to another world, doesn’t mean you’ll escape from your pain.
Abused by her parents, thirteen-year-old Frances only wants to be safe and for her life not to hurt so much. And when she and her class are transported to the magical world of Durannon to fight the monsters invading the human kingdoms and defeat the self-titled Demon King, Frances is presented with a golden opportunity. If she succeeds, Frances will have the home she never had. If she fails, Frances will be summoned back to the home she escaped.
Yet, despite her newfound magic and friends, Frances finds that trauma is not so easily lost. She is dogged by her abuse and its physical and invisible scars. Not only does she have to learn magic, she has to survive the nightmares of her past, and wrestle with her feelings of doubt and self-loathing.
If she can heal from her trauma, though, she might be able to defeat the Demon King and maybe, just maybe, she can find a home for herself.
[The Beginning] [<=Chapter 217] [Chapter Index and Blurb] [Chapter 219 June 11 or see the next chapter now on Patreon]
The Fractured Song Index
Discord Channel Just let me know when you arrive in the server that you’re a Patreon so you can access your special channel.
***
Ginger makes an offer to Lakadara. The rest of Telkandra's remaining brood discuss the fate of their allies.
“Not good?” Sara asked as Helias strode into the tent and made his way straight to the bottle of wine.
“Not good,” Helias muttered.
Sara nodded woodenly. “Privacy spell?
The tauroll waved his sheathed Fangroar and after pouring himself and his wife a drink, sat down. “We’re safe. Oh Galena, this is really not good.”
“How dead are we?” Sara asked, her tone light.
“We’re not dead. We’re just in a lot of danger and even if we somehow force the humans to retreat, we’ve lost this war,” said Helias.
“Explain.”
Helias drank deep, noting that Sara was also drinking deep as well. “Thorgoth is going after the humans. That part of the plan is as good as it gets. We’ll be attacking them, and using the dragons, whilst our forces hold off Titania. Our objectives are also well-chosen.” Helias buried his head into his hands and let out a deep groan. “But winning this doesn’t change anything.”
“If we can defeat the humans, why won’t that change anything?” Sara bit her lip. “Unless it renders us unable to beat Titania?”
“Yes. Even on the chance we beat the humans we won’t be able to invade them, we won’t be able to defeat Titania. We’d be at a stalemate and both armies would have to withdraw.” His hands dropping to the table, Helias stared at his wife. “And we don’t have any reserves left. We’re going to lose the war, even if Thorgoth lives.”
“If we defeat the humans—”
The general shook his head. “By defeat, I mean we’ll hurt them but we can’t prevent them from withdrawing. We might kill a few of their leaders, their important mages and Otherworlders, but they will still have soldiers. After coming so close, they won’t surrender. They’ll keep attacking until they kill enough of Thorgoth and Berengaria’s supporters that nobody will help them, or until both of them die.”
“Alright so, what do we do?” Sara asked. Helias looked at his wife, noting how still she sat. Her wings were clamped tight to her back and her lips were drawn tight.
“Sara, I don’t have good answers.”
Sara steepled her trembling fingers as best she could. “They’re going to be better than mine. I don’t know anything about war.”
“Right. Well, you need to surrender to the humans if you are captured. Present yourself as a non-combatant. Cry, scream, anything to declare that you don’t mean any harm,” Helias said.
“Why not Titania?” Sara asked.
“She has every incentive to kill you off and far less compunction about doing so. Killing our family off would allow her to have more land to give away to her loyalists. In contrast, the humans have Erlenberg troops fighting with them along with those of the Lightning Battalion. They’re going to be far more friendly to Alavari civilians,” Helias said.
Soft hands, grabbed onto Helias’s waist with a surprisingly firm grip. “What about you? I can get away, but how are you going to survive this?”
“I don’t know. I—”
“Don’t you dare! Our daughter needs her father and I need my husband!”
The general stared at his wife. “Sara, I can’t surrender to the humans if we win. They want me dead.”
Sara refilled Helias’s glass. “Then you need to help Thorgoth defeat them.”
“Then what? We’re never winning this war. Thorgoth is going to be invaded and—”
Cutting him off with the clink of her goblet against the table, Sara hissed, “And what? Why think that far? We can plan for that after this battle, so long as you are still here and with me.”
Letting out a breath Helias pushed his hair back and allowed himself a sigh. Reaching across the table, he took his wife’s hand.
“Sara, you’re right, but you know you can escape this if Thorgoth is defeated.”
The harorc placed her other hand on top of his. “We’re partners. I need you. We need you. So promise me that you’ll do your damndest to live.”
Helias closed his eyes and nodded. “I promise. First things first, before we turn in we need to talk to the dragons.”
***
Fennokra stalked slowly toward the camp. This wasn’t the collapsed side-passage where she and Yolandra had some privacy. This was the main camp where Thorgoth and their army were preparing for what had to be the final battle.
It was also where her siblings were swallowing the last of what seemed to be a side of salted pork.
“Velkandra, Makentra, we need to talk.”
Their second-eldest sister licked her lips, her neck rising to Fennokra’s level. “I am assuming you mean in private?”
“Of course.” Fennokra could see Velkandra’s haunches tensing to raise herself higher. Her sister was trying to look down on her. Allowing her head to dip, she held her height.
“Alright.” Velkandra flicked her tail and Makentra, licking his lips, followed them.
Since their enemies had set up their siege camp behind them, the Alavari camp had been reduced in size. Still, there was the alcove of the collapsed tunnel. Whilst couriers and soldiers crossed across this natural cavern to the defenses on the other side, they kept a good distance away.
Yolandra was waiting for them, scratching something into the cave wall. Fennokra let out a rumble in her throat and her sister turned from the wall suddenly, shaking her head.
“Velkandra, Mankentra—”
Velkandra puffed a cloud of smoke out. “What’s this all about?” she hissed, lips drawn back to show teeth.
Fennokra took a step away from her sister to take Yolandra’s side, her eyes narrowed. “Are you joking? Do you not think we should at least discuss what is going on?”
“And what would be the point? It is a bit late to be having this discussion. The course of the winds have been chosen,” said Velkandra.
Yolandra rose to her full height on her four legs, but even so she was still shorter than the silent Makendra. “The winds can be fickle, Velkandra, and where we are is proof.”
Velkandra pursed her lips, eyes for the first time, looking toward the ground. “The survival of our family is tied to that of Thorgoth. To abandon him would be death by the hand of the Stormcaller and her allies or by his hand.”
“Besides, if we were to abandon Thorgoth’s cause, that would be dishonorable. We promised to assist him,” said Makendra.
Fennokra blinked at her brother’s tone. It was quiet and yet there was a touch of a deep growl to his voice. His claws were ever so slightly digging into the ground.
“We are dragons. We can think and make decisions for ourselves. We are allowed to consider other options, are we not?” Fennokra asked.
Velkandra’s tail flicked violently side to side as her neck turned to her younger sibling. “Then why does it sound as if you wish to follow in the wingbeats of our elder sister?”
“Who we killed. I was there. I lost a claw striking her down!” Fennokra raised one clawed hand, flexing the remaining digits.
“On that, why did we have to kill Lakadara?”
All golden eyes fixed on Yolandra, who held the gaze of her siblings with a contemptuous scowl.
“Lakadara betrayed us,” said Velkandra, almost growling.
“I’ve been thinking over what happened. Lakadara said nothing about betraying our mother. She merely was questioning if Thorgoth was trustworthy,” Yolandra said.
A scowl flaring his nostrils, Makentra growled. “He fed us, trained us in how the humans and their allies fought. Hid us from their eyes—”
“And now Caldra is dead!” Yolandra exclaimed.
“Which is why we must kill the Stormcaller and her friends! So we can avenge him and our mother!” Velkandra almost completely unfurled her wings. Only the tips slapping the stone forced her to pull them back.
“Then what?” Yolandra asked.
Velkandra frowned. “Then what? We’d have our revenge—”
Yolandra’s tail cracked against the ground. “Then what? You all must have heard of what Thorgoth is capable of. What he’s done to others.”
Makentra rolled his eyes. “Sara’s story is just a story. She might have been just trying to turn you.”
“She was honest and she is not the only tale I’ve heard. You must have heard rumors of what Thorgoth did to his own son, Teutobal,” said Fennokra.
“Propaganda,” Velkandra hissed through her gritted teeth, while smoke wafted through the gaps. “In any case, we have no other option. We fight or we die.”
Fennokra, her claws grinding against the floor, had had enough.
“Velkandra, Makentra, have you ever considered that Thorgoth is perhaps using us for his own goals? We have not even considered what he might do to us after we’ve destroyed the humans and their allies. How do we know the Stormcaller and her allies might treat us better? Besides in the first place, she never intended to kill our mother—”
Fennokra blinked. She was flying backwards, something hard was bearing her into the wall. Dizzy as if struck by one of the Stormcaller’s spells, she realized that the force was the foreclaws of her elder sister. Mad rage lit those golden eyes that were the exact same shade as hers. Horrified, Fennokra tried to throw Velkandra off, but her sister was larger and heavier than her.
“Say that again. I dare you to say that again—ARGH!”
Velkandra rolled off, forced off of Fennokra by the Yolandra shoving into her side. As the elder dragon recovered, the smallest of Telkandra’s brood hissed, “It’s the truth! You are a fool to deny it!”
An ugly sneer on her lips, wings quivering with fury, Velkandra snorted. “The truth? Oh right so we are speaking the truth then. Well here’s the truth. Our kind is doomed!”
Makentra blinked. “Sister?”
“Of course Thorgoth is going to get rid of us or try to after this campaign. He has to, but right now he needs us and that’s what we need to rely on until we gain more strength. Of course, whether he wins or the Stormcaller’s allies win, how can we expect to survive in a world dominated by these lesser species hm? How could they ever not see us as a threat?”
Velkandra stalked toward the wide-eyed Fennokra and Yoandra. Her head turned side to side as she fixed her sisters with wild wide eyes.
“Well? Tell me Fennokra. Speak the truth Yolandra. Or are you both too afraid to admit that our kind are doomed and the only thing is to live as long as we can and hopefully avenge those that hurt us as we do so.”
“You’d have us fly to our deaths?” Makentra asked.
The stammering voice brought Velkandra around. Extending a wing, she touched its tip to her brother’s. “I would at least have us fly together.”
Fennokra shook her head. “We’d knowingly fly with a murderer of children and someone who would want to kill us after we’ve stopped being helpful to him.”
“And we have no other options,” said Makentra. Letting out a breath, he rose to his claws and walked away. “I’ll see you tomorrow, sisters.”
Velkandra, without another word, turned for the exit. “You know it’s true, Fennokra, Yolandra.”
Fennokra closed her eyes. Yolandra, though, narrowed hers. “Doesn’t change that Lakadra’s blood is on our claws.”
Velkandra flinched and left. She strode away so quickly she nearly stepped on Helias and Sara as they came to the cave. She gave the pair no acknowledgement other than a growl.
“See you tomorrow, General,” said Makentra, his tone curt. “We will talk to King Thorgoth ourselves for the plan’s details.”
“Of course,” said Helias. He bowed as the pair left before turning to Yolandra and Fennokra. “I believe we missed something important?”
“Be honest, General Helias. Even if we succeed tomorrow, your king has no use for us after we help him kill the Stormcaller, am I correct?” Fennokra asked.
Sara and Helias didn’t say anything. Their slight move to stand closer so they could hold hands was enough.
“I thought so,” said Fennokra. She let out a sigh and glanced at Yolandra, who nodded. “We will be on the battlefield tomorrow. Where are we going?”
“You’re going with me. We’re attacking the forces sallying from Kairon-Aoun. The plan is that you dragons breathe flame over their army to soften them before we attack.
“Understood. Any questions Fennokra?” Yolandra asked.
Fennokra shook her head. What could be asked anyway?”
Yolandra flashed the pair a joyless smile. “For what it is worth, you two have been good caretakers to us. Even if it was to preserve your own lives.”
Helias didn’t bow. Instead he extended a hand. Yolandra stared at him, but Fennokra, recognizing the gesture, extended a single talon.
“May you always be able to see the sun.” At the dragon’s blink, Helias smiled. “It’s an Alavari saying. It may come from when we used to be enslaved by the Goblin Empire. It means good luck.”
Yolandra nodded and Fennokra found herself smiling.
“Our mother taught us a saying as well. May you never fly alone. I wish that for you both,” said Fennokra.
“Thank you,” said Sara in a quiet voice. She curtsied and the two dragons dipped their heads. They watched Helias and Sara leave with placid smiles.
Then, when nobody was looking, they turned from the entrance to hide their bulks as best they could. The gloomy light of the alcove their only curtain of privacy.
***
Frances slowed slightly as they approached Lakadara’s enclosure. However, Ginger did not slow down.
“Hold on, Ginger, what’s the plan?” Frances asked.
Adjusting her new crown mid-stride, Ginger said, “I’ll show you. I’m certain it’ll work, though.”
Frances’ eyebrows rose. “Is that crown getting to your head already?”
The new Queen of Erisdale flashed a slightly nervous grin over her shoulder. “Yes actually, but I think that’s a good thing in some way. Don’t you?”
Frances found herself nodding. It was strange to see her friend even more confident than usual and so comfortable in the regal crown that she wore atop of a standard Lightning Battalion light blue uniform. Yet she rather enjoyed the new gait that Ginger had.
“I do.” Frances smirked. “Your Majesty.”
Ginger rolled her eyes. “Fuck you.”
Giggling, Frances stopped herself as they drew even closer to Lakadara. The dragon was drawing herself up, placing her massive foreclaws over each other.
“Lakadara. I am Ginger, the new Queen of Erisdale. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
The dragon coughed, blowing out a puff of smoke. “Greetings Ginger, Queen of Erisdale. I’m sorry for your predecessor’s demise.” Lakadara’s golden eyes narrowed. “Why are you here?”
Ginger dipped her head. “Thank you and as to why I’m here. I have a proposition. If you accept it, I will grant you and your kin, the domain of the Erisdalian mountains marked by the Kwent River Valley, Freeburg and Athelda-Aoun as your home in perpetuity, so long as you do not attack humans unless in self-defense.”
“I am unfamiliar with human geography. From the Stormcaller’s expression, I assume that is a lot.”
Frances swallowed and closed her mouth, but she didn’t question her friend. Ginger, still smiling slyly, nudged her. “It is. Frances, can you lend me a hand here?”
Nodding, Frances closed her eyes and imagined a rough map of Erisdale and its territories. With a wave of Ivy’s Sting she created an image of Erisdale, highlighting in red the expanse of the mountains that bordered Alavaria and Erisdale. The area that Ginger had described sketched a rough red triangle between the three points. It was a fairly sizeable area with a low and Alavari human population.
“My husband is in negotiations with Queen Titania and I’ll have to talk to Frances and Prince Timur, but we are quite certain that Athelda-Aoun will also be included in this area,” Ginger said.
Lakadara’s golden eyes were flickering as she examined the land. Suddenly, she turned, long neck arching toward the Erisdalian Queen. “And what must I do? Fight on your kingdom’s behalf?”
Ginger shook her head. “No.”
“No?”
“Nope. If you would like to do so we can renegotiate the agreement, but my husband and I fully intend to grant you this land.”
The dragon’s tail lifted up as her eyes narrowed. “Explain yourself and the favor you seek. This is far too generous.”
“Let me explain myself first. If what I’m told by my experts is correct, you can lay eggs by yourself without a mate, but it takes time right? A few decades?”
“Yes. Still, that doesn’t explain—”
“Here me out. This war is going to end. We may lose, but if we win, banishing you to the north is making you Queen Titania’s problem and she’ll have more than enough problems to deal with. You might just end up coming south again and we know how that ended. I’d prefer to avoid that so that means we need to make an agreement. You need a new home and I need peace for Erisdale. If the kingdom has to give up some poor agricultural land then I’m all for it.”
The dragon nodded. “I see, but why so much land? Why not just give me a cave? Or request my service as Thorgoth did?”
“And how will you eat? Hunt? Where will your grown children go? I’m making an agreement that will last for decades, not just a few years. As for service? I was tempted, but you wouldn’t agree to that anyway and why should you? We haven’t given you any reason to agree.” Ginger gave Frances a wave to dispel the map. “Maybe in the future we can work something out, especially if the dragon population increases. Your service in return for more food, but again, I want to start us off on the right path, not the left path.”
“Left path?” Lakadara asked.
“Erisdalian expression. It means the wrong path,” Frances said helpfully.
Lakadara nodded slowly. “You still ask for a boon, though.”
Ginger nodded. “Yes. I want you to speak to your siblings. Before the upcoming battle starts, tell them of my deal with you. So long as they choose to accept that deal and defect, then I will have it so our forces will not hurt them. After that, you may leave. I will not request you to fight with us.”
“You want me to show myself to Thorgoth? To the siblings that tried to kill me?” Lakadara asked, mouth agape.
Ginger stepped closer to the dragon, who lifted her head away from the queen. “I want you to save your siblings. I want you to save yourself from becoming the last purple dragon in existence. I would rather you not be alone, stewing in hatred for my kingdom and our allies who brought down your family, even if we had just cause. I want peace. What do you want?”
“How do I know I can trust you?” The dragon suddenly grimaced. “Ah, right, you want a lasting peace. You have every reason to want peace.”
Ginger, arms crossed tapped her foot. Frances could see how stiff her friend was, but the action was also comforting. That her magic-less friend had such control over the situation, despite being faced with the dragon was rather…badass.
Letting out a puff of smoke that slowly drifted into the cavern, the dragon pondered the queen’s proposal. Frances held her breath and yet the dragon remained silent, only her tail moving from side to side.
Ginger waited, still content to wait for the dragon’s answer. Frances couldn’t. The tension coiled in her chest, waiting to explode.
“Lakadara, what do you want for your future?” Frances asked.
The dragon glanced at Frances, golden eyes wide. She turned back to Ginger, who continued to stand tall, awaiting Lakadara’s answer patiently.
“I accept your offer, and your promise for the future,” said Lakadara, dipping her head.
“We are glad that you wish the same as we do,” said Ginger. She extended her hand and Lakadara, took her claw and put the tip of it on the queen’s palm.
*Author’s Note: Queenly Ginger was really neat to write 😀 *

After combing this site and others for the last 5 months, I have not been able to resolve my issue and I now have a challenge for the most expert of Fiero experts out there.
Background: I bought this car in January from someone who bought it from the original owner. The gas tank was rusted out and the fuel was not working. I bought the car, then immediately refurbished the gas tank and replaced the fuel pump and fuel pick-up assembly.
Car Info: 1984 Fiero, 2.5L Iron Duke, 4 Speed Manual, 67,000 original miles.
Primary Issue: I have a slightly rough idle that occurs after the car warms up and the ECM starts to do its thing. The car runs perfect on cold start and proceeds to run perfect for the first few minutes. The rough idle is characterized by a slight misfire every 5-7 seconds after the car has run for about 3-5 minutes. It does not stall out. The tach sits at about 900-1100 RPM, and the misfire causes the RPM to dip to around 700 RPM extremely briefly. The car does not misfire while driving. Sometimes the tach gauge does not work at all, and other times it’s accurate and displays this bounce in RPM.
Replaced parts: - fuel pump - fuel pick-up assembly - fuel filter - fuel regulator - fuel injector - ICM - Ignition coil - spark plug wires - distributor rotor - distributor cap - MAP sensor - IAC sensor - TPS sensor - O2 sensor - Engine Coolant Temp sensor - Engine Coolant Temp sender (for gauge) - All vacuum hoses routing from throttle body - clutch master cylinder - clutch slave cylinder
Other services: - ignition timing (followed the correct procedure with timing light and setting the ECM into the mode required for timing) - oil change - clutch fluid flush - vacuum leak test (ERG is currently plugged) - inspected and tightened all ground connections
Addition info: - the spark plugs appear to be in very good condition and do not display any fowling. They also do their job totally fine during the warm up operation. - I understand the tach filter could be causing the tach gauge issue, but I’m uncertain if the ECM relies on this component to regulate the engine. - the care is displaying NO CODES
PLEASE HELP!! if you have any clue I’d love to hear it. I’m at my whits end.
Edit: more context

Because warriors games have too much traveling around the maps and playing too much my left thumb hurts sometimes, so what i do is use the nail part of my thumb to move the analog stick sometimes lol anyone have a solution for this?
I tried looking for ways to create a toggle so when i press a button the character auto move forward like the new cod games have but unfortunately i didn't have much success yet.

Ok so, I am in the eigth grade and our school does a mini eighth grade “graduation ceremony” for our transition into highschool. Part of this event is three people from eighth grade giving a speech to the student body and parents. I decided to submit my speech and I believe that I did impeccable in my audition, I was able to look up and give eye contact, was able to be breviloquent when reading, and my voice projected enough even without the mic.
After delivering the speech to my homeroom class and the judges I sat down and listened to the next speech. The next speech was by a girl who was infact, dyslexic. She was unable to look up at the crowd and even had to be REMINDED to pause during periods. It was to my utter disgust and trepidation that the dyslexic girl was chosen to deliver the speech.
I just was at a complete loss I what I could’ve possibly did wrong, I had more achievements such as volunteering at a nursing home, being head of student council, being in the gifted program, having the highest MAP testing score, and being chosen to write letters thanking a foundation for donating to my school. Besides I am far better at reading and writing than anybody in our school, even my homeroom teacher said that I am to the entire class!
So I was rather upset by being beaten by someone with a disability and turned to my friend to tell her I believed that this girl was chosen “Out of pity because shes disabled” and one of the teachers ended up pulling me aside to tell me how rude and disrespectful it was that I said that, and said they needed to pick someone who has a harder time to “be inclusive”. I just don’t understand why they couldn’t include someone who can read properly, I mean I know way more about literature than she does! She couldn’t name a classic that wasn’t taught in school, like when I attempted to speak to her about the novel Catch-22.

i'm working on a novel and would like to know if anyone could tell me any improvements i could make to the first chapter and prologue
Prologue
The day had started the same way it had for the past two years. The only difference was that I was going home. The hallway was crowded with people walking to and from their classes. Everyone was crowded next to each other so the halls were making the area feel claustrophobic. All the people talking mixed with the summer heat made me feel like I was locked in a sauna. I walked with Preston to the last class we would ever have together and as usual he was smiling. I never got why he always smiled even in situations where people should be sad he still smiled. He knew what today meant for me and he tried to keep light of the situation. I kept my head down away from what was ahead of me. My mind was too clouded about returning to see my family to notice anything in front of me. I walked into another student. It felt like I had walked into a wall. I knew immediately I had walked into tree. I stumble onto the ground and the commotion around me slows down to make room for us. He turned his bulky body around and apologized profusely without saying a word even though I had walked into him. He helped me off of the ground before hurrying down the hall.
“Alexandria, are you doing okay?” Preston said he had tilted his body downward so I had to look down to look him in his eyes. The way he was standing made him look like an idiot but he didn't seem to care. The way he acted made me laugh, which caused his smile to widen.
“I'm doing fine, just got lost in my head.”
“Thinking about how you’ll leave soon,” he said
“Was it that obvious?” He was the only person I told about me being an exchange student. I came to spend high school in Newkinawa and he was the only person I ever hung out with.
“I see what you mean,” he said “Newkinawa is a beautiful place with beautiful people to live in it…myself included”
“You wish,” I say with a smile we continue walking through the hallway “I'm just not excited to go back yet”
After I say that his smile grows wider “So you will miss me after all”
“I wouldn't say that much” I responded whilst smiling.
We had made it to our last class only to see it closed with a sign labeled “Uma incident” Uma was a student known for messing with the chemistry lab and destroying school property in the process. I've never actually met her but Preston says “She's a little weird but still nice”
“Guess class is canceled for today,” Preston remarked with a smile “Wanna go out to the court till the bell rings.”
“Sure let's go” I respond
The place we ate every day was outside. It used to be a tennis court before I moved in. Now they put trees and flowers all over the place. Preston really liked the blue color of the flowers but it just never clicked for me. I look over at Preston and he's staring up at the sky. There are a number of clouds in almost enough to block the sun but it still pokes its rays through and lands on Preston's face. The clouds swim in front of the sun till they block out the sun's light. Preston faces towards me.
“I'm gonna miss you Alexandria” he says
“You know you can just call me Alex,” I replied. I start to smile again. “I'll miss you too!" He smiles toward me again as we get up to leave as the clouds start to clump together and rain slowly falls. As we're walking back to the school there's a loud tearing sound followed by screams as the ground shakes.
The ground tears itself apart as the dirt and stone erupt from the ground. The sky blackens and a pale blue light escapes the earth. Then creatures erupt from the ground in a violent ejection from the earth creating a white pillar diffusing as they reach higher in the air. Some are clawing their way out of the cracks like maggots out of a corpse. People are swept into the updraft screaming for their lives.
The creatures descend like a tidal wave and tear apart any people caught in their path. They storm out of the crack in hundreds as more cracks in the earth form. Me and Preston started running away as people were screaming behind us. A girl running next to us has her legs slashed by a creature. The monster begins to tear open her chest as she chokes on her own blood. The monster shovels her lungs and innards into its decrepit mouth. Me and Preston keep running until we're met at the entrance of the school and we catch the attention of a monster as it begins to savagely rush toward us. The monster resembles ghosts my father told me about. But this one looks monstrously horrific. It floats in the air and opens its mouth so wide it nearly replaces its entire torso; its jaws hold savage teeth each the same old gray color of its body. Its eyes glow a rotten yellow color through the dark. It stretches out its arms showing its giant hands and claws like fingers. It swipes at us leaving a giant claw mark on the door behind us but Preston ducks my body down to avoid the attack. We run around it as the monster swaps its focus to another bystander. Screaming past us. Me and Preston run into the parking lot as people scream around us. We hide next to a car.
“What the hell is happening!?” I yell to Preston. More of the creatures fly over us and swoop down to people like vultures on roadkill devouring the fleeing people.
Preston starts to breathe heavily ”we need to get out of here and someplace safer”. As we were talking one of the monster phases through the car we were hiding next to forcing us to run into the street.
“Lets go to your house till things cool down” i say to Preston through panted breaths
“Wait couldn't we head to your house instead” Preston says.
“Why would that matter your house is closer anyways” i respond
“But-” Preston is interrupted by two creatures swooping above us to grab another person. The two monsters begin to pull the person apart while he writhes in pain before having his flesh be torn in half and having his organs be devoured.
“Come on lets go!!” I say as I grab his hand and run even faster.
By the time we reach Preston's house any living person is gone. On the street are just corpses laying torn and mutilated on the roads and sidewalk. The air in the neighborhood feels cold despite the season being summer. When I walk down the street I can still hear the occasional horrific wail the monsters give off. We move closer to Preston's house and I can see him sweating. He looked more worried than before when the creatures were chasing us and he kept darting his eyes away from his home.
“Preston, are you feeling okay?” he doesn't respond to my question and keeps darting his eyes. He walks slowly behind me and as I reach for the door handle and when I touch it it feels nearly freezing. I wrap my hoodie around my hand and slowly open the door. The house is quiet so me and Preston creep further into his house. The inside is cold and damp as if we were locked in a freezer. The further we move into the house the louder a subtle chewing sound is heard.
“It sounds like rats are eating a dead cow over there” I whisper. Preston continues to stay silent behind me. We slowly walk closer towards the kitchen and the sound gets louder and louder and louder until we reach the room.
We're met with a rancid smell of vomit and blood. My blood starts to run cold and every instinct in my body is telling me to run. I can feel Preston breathing get heavier as we get closer. We turn the corner and see Preston's mom lying on the ground dead with one of the creatures hunched over slurping her intestines. The sight causes me to vomit alerting the monster to our presence. The creature turns around and its mouth turns into a mortifying grin as it flies into Preston's moms body. The corpse begins to rise and spur splashing blood over the kitchen. When the corpse stops spasming it picks itself up from the ground and with glazed over eyes it holds its intestines in its hand and gives us the same grin it did when it was outside her body. The possessed corpse lunges at me and starts to chase me around the kitchen. The body is running into the walls and cabinets spraying its blood and other loose organs around the area as I'm avoiding its assault. The corpse leans over and ejects one of its loose intestines towards me, wrapping me in it. It pulls me towards it so fast I'm flung towards the ground. The corpse limbers over to me and raises its free hand aiming for my head. The creature's deranged smile causes the corpse’s cheeks to tear apart. It places both of its bloodied and demented hands on my face and starts to press my skull into the ground. I struggle to breathe. The room starts to get dark and blood escapes my head.
Until Preston jumps on top of his mothers corpse with a kitchen knife and repeatedly stabs it in the head. The possessed body tries to shake him off but he keeps stabbing, blood gets in on his face and tears start to escape his eyes. The creature violently ejects from the corpse's mouth causing her head to nearly explode and Preston stops stabbing the body. The body falls over in a splash of blood and organs. The monster leaves phasing through the roof leaving Preston crying over his mother's body. As the blood mixes with the tears he collapses to his knees crying. I walk over and hug him as the air around us turns bitter and the chill of death leaves the room and us with it.
Chapter 1 Eclipse
It's been 2 months since the apocalypse started. We've kept ourselves alive by looting grocery stores and houses, we hide from the creatures as we have no way to fight back against them. Preston came up with the idea to call them glanter’s. He’s looking better since we left his family home but I can tell something is wrong with him that he's not telling me. Everytime I ask him about it he tells me it's no big deal. I asked him earlier today and he just told me
“don't worry about it, I'm over it” without even looking at me. Now we're walking through the street and I'm walking behind Preston, I can barely see his head past the giant bag we're both carrying on our backs we use to carry supplies. I look up at the sky and it's still pitch black except for the moon giving us any amount of light. Preston turns around to face me.
“Let's check out that house, it might have some cool stuff in it” he points to a white house to our right. The house is a two story building with steps leading to the front door. There's a generator poking out from the backyard. The driveway is empty save for a couple of dried blood stains and tire marks. It's similar to the other houses in the neighborhood except for a couple broken windows.
“Sure why not” We head over to the house and I see something shining on the side of the house in the corner of my eye. I turn my head to look at it closer but it quickly disappears before I can see it clearly.
“Probably squirrel or something” I mumble to myself. Preston walks up the stairs to the house and I walk up the steps behind him as a breeze blows past my face. Preston tries to turn the door knob but the door is locked. I start to pull out a lockpick I grabbed at the store earlier. I motion towards Preston to move out of the way as I kneel down to pick the lock. It takes me a couple of minutes to unlock the door so I walk inside the house and Preston follows behind me while closing and locking the door. The doorway of the house leads to a dark room so I take a flashlight out of my bag to illuminate the area. Were put into the living room and bookshelves are on the walls and a large TV sat in front of a large black couch with smaller chairs surrounding it. Dust is covering every surface of the room and spiderwebs litter the corners of the walls. The area smells like moth balls and there's a lack of blood anywhere nearby.
“Guess the owners got out before the Glanter’s got in, '' I say to Preston. When he doesn't respond I turn around and he's already looking further into the house. When I find him he's managed to find a flight of stairs that lead to a lower portion of the house.
“I'll check on him later,” I think to myself as I headed towards the kitchen to see if we could restock on food. I walk past a bedroom and remark on how childish it looked. The walls were painted with blue and green stripes and a bunk bed sat on the right wall. There's a chest at the foot of the bed so I walk over and lift the top off of it. The box is layered with children's toys, a multitude of dolls, bears, and figures all jut out of the box. I notice a small robot toy and inspect it in my hands.
The cold metal makes my hand shiver and the sharp body shape makes the robot bigger than my hand. There's red lining around the robot's buttons surrounded by the cold gray of the robot's “skin”. It reminds me of a toy my little brother had. My heart feels heavy as I worry about what happened to my family. If they're alive, dead, or worse…possessed. The thoughts send a chill down my spine but I push them aside for now. I put the toy in my bag and exit the bedroom.
I can see the kitchen is down the hallway so I walk down the hall and enter. The kitchen is pretty clean except for a couple of dishes in the sink and the dust. There's a table seated for 3 people in the center of the room. I start opening the cabinets in search for any food or water. There's boxes of cereal leftover on top of shelves and a mix of chip bags and cookies in neat boxes stationed in the cabinets.
“Score,” I say to myself as I begin to put the snacks into my bag. When the cabinets are empty I look inside the fridge. The inside of the fridge ran out of power so most of the food inside is rotted. There are a couple of bottles of water in the front so I shove those in my bag. There's also a bag of oranges that still seem to be healthy in the back. I grab them and toss them on the table. There's rotten sandwich meat hidden in the drawer of the fridge.it smells like a dumpster outside of a butcher shop. I wrinkle my nose at the smell. I look around the kitchen for any bread with no luck.
I continue to look through the fridge until I hear Preston scream from another room. Immediately I bolt out of the kitchen leaving my bag behind and run towards the lower part of the house. I run down the stairs and nearly trip on the steps. The stairs lead to a big room. There are posters to tv shows and movies I don't recognize. The walls are painted black and there's a bear skin rug on the floor. I notice Preston standing next to a really big TV hyperventilating. I walk over to him and ask him.
“Are you ok? What happened?”
He talks through deep breaths “I… saw a… spider.”
“What?!” I respond in confusion.
“It was really big and I had jumped at my face”
“Sure it was.” I say while laughing “Let's go upstairs there's some food in the fridge we can eat”
“Wait, I think you should check this out.” He says while pointing towards one of the walls. I grab Preston's flashlight off the floor and face it towards the wall. Hanging halfway off the wall is a large map labeled Newkiwana scavenger hunt of 76.
“I think we should take it,” Preston says “You can read a map right?”
“A little but I'm not the best at it,” I say to him “can you read a map?”
“it shouldn’t be too hard it’s mainly pictures any way I'm sure I can figure it out”
I walk over to the wall where the map is hung there are trophies covering tables and shelved in their own personal cases one of them reads “1st place 100-meter swimming competition for 1986 Zack Hemmingway” and another one reads “2nd place 100-meter swimming competition for 1989 Zack Hemmingway”
“Guess this guy really liked swimming,” Preston remarks while staring at a wall of newspaper clippings. All of them are about the same person in swimming competitions. All labeled different things like “a new record for Zack “the dolphin” Hemmingway”,
‘Zach Hemmingway our star plans for the future” all the newspapers are about this kind he has paler skin and a bulky enough build to swim pretty well. Most of the pictures have him coming out of the water in a pool, his long black hair soaked and sitting at his shoulders. Another one has him sitting at a desk over a pile of books and his hair in a knot , “vicious wipeout ends the Dolphins career”, and “ex-swim champ Zack Hemmingway found in a drunken stupor outside strip club.
“Everyone has their own hobbies I guess,” I say as I take the map off of the wall and fold it up. “Sucks what happened to Zack though” I walked over to Preston’s bag and put the rolled map in one of the pockets. I walk back up the stairs and Preston grabs his bag and follows behind me.
We make our way towards the kitchen and Preston starts looking through the fridge for anything to eat. I grab an orange from the table and throw it at his head. The fruit bounces off his head and rolls on the floor. He turns around and grabs the fruit from the floor
“Why did you throw an orange at me?”
“It's the only food we have unless you plan on eating spoiled a sandwich“ He starts to peel it while walking towards the table. We both take a seat and start to eat the oranges from the bag. He plants his feet on top of the table and bites into the fully peeled orange. I grab a water bottle from a bag and start to drink from it as Preston says.
“I saw a dvd player in that man cave downstairs we could watch a movie if it still has power”
“Sure it could be fun.” Me and Preston spend the rest of our time eating until the bag of oranges is emptied and we head back downstairs. Preston grabs the DVD player from under the table and blows the dust off the top of it; he plugs it into the wall as I plop myself onto the couch. He plugs the DVD player into the TV and sits on the recliner next to me. He presses a few buttons on the remote and the TV lights up. I squint my eyes at how bright it is. It's the most amount of light I've seen that didn't come from a flashlight. I notice there's a box filled with DVDs. I pull the box over towards me. I ruffle through the box and see movies like Silence of the Lambs, Terminator 2, and Home alone.
“Dude some of these came out just before the world turned inside out” I say to him.
“Really? Let's play one.” He responds. I toss him Terminator 2 and he puts it into the DVD player.
We spend the next couple hours watching movies and laughing together. It's some of our only moments of peace we’ve had since the end of the world and to me it's the most fun I've had yet. We're putting in the next DVD when there's a loud crash outside and the TV shuts off. Preston goes behind it to see if it's still plugged in.
“I think the generator outside is busted” i say
“It seems that way” Preston replies while backing away from the tv” i'm gonna go check it out”
“Don't worry I got it” I say as I hop out of my chair. Preston waves goodbye as I head up the stairs. I make my way back through the hallway leading to the living room and front door. I reach the door and start to turn the knob. I open the door wide as a car speeds down the street. I step out of the door to see what had happened when I hear the screech of a glanter. It cuts through the sky like an unholy opera singer. A group of them fly by and chase the car as I rush back inside the house. I slam the door shut and look through the window as I see a couple of smaller glanters grab and shake the car violently looking for the driver. They tear at it, ripping off doors and breaking the windows. The driver screams as the seats cover with blood and he's ripped out of the car as multiple smaller glanters tear and bite off parts of his body like piranha's until his body is completely devoured. I run back to the man cave to warn Preston about what had happened. I spot him laying in his chair spinning a DVD disc on his finger.
“It's not safe outside right now”
“Why not?
“There's glanter's outside, they just ate a dude in his car”
“Did they see you come inside?”
“I don't think so , they flew off before I went inside.”
“well we're not dead so I'm gonna say they didn't see you. But let's stay here for a couple more hours just to be safe”
“Sounds good i'm gonna go find the master bedroom.” I start to walk back up the stairs to the house
“ Hold on why do you get the master bedroom” Preston says while walking after me.
“Because I'm gonna find it first” I say as I start to run to find the bedroom. He chases after me in pursuit of the bedroom. Me and Preston run around the house looking for the master bedroom. We look through room after room finding closets, the garage, a bathroom and a door leading to a balcony in the back of the house. I manage to run into the bedroom and yell out to Preston.``Found it!!”
He comes walking into the room breathing heavily from the running. We both check out the room. The walls are painted a cream yellow and the bed takes up most of the room's center. The bed has burgundy sheets poking out from its bottom and a quilt with multi-colored floral designs lay sprawled out on top of it. There's a wardrobe built into the wall and a black leather couch sits comfortably on the left wall.
“Dibs on the bed” I say as I jump on top of it. I stretch out on top of the quilt and search for a comfortable part to sleep in.
“Where am I supposed to sleep then?” Preston complains
“You can sleep on the couch it looks soft enough” I respond while pointing towards the couch “I saw some spare blankets in one of the closets”
“Alright i’ll be right back” he mumbles to himself “why do i always get the couch”
“ I'll be right here if you need me,” i call after him. I sit up on the bed and start to look around the room more. I notice the entrance to the wardrobe is cracked open slightly. I hop out of the bed and grab a flashlight from my bag as I walk into the wardrobe. I turn on my flashlight and stare in awe at how many clothes are in there. The room is only half as big as the bedroom but it's still bigger than any closet I've ever had. The wardrobe is full of shirts, dresses, pants, and shoes for men and women. I immediately start to look through the shoes to see if any fit my size. I throw a pair of black high heels behind me as Preston finds me in the wardrobe. He looks around before asking me.
“What are you doing?”
“Finding a new pair of clothes to wear cause I've been wearing the same pair of jeans for waaaaay too long”
“Fair enough. Is there any guy stuff in there?”
“Yeah right there” I hook my thumb behind me to point to the other end of the closet.
“I'm sure they won't mind if we take a couple of things…they're probably dead by now anyways,” Preston says with a slight grin on his face. The way he said made me spin my head to look at him but he was already on the opposite end of the wardrobe looking at suits.
I shake away the thought and continue looking for any pair of sneakers in my size. 40 minutes pass before I walk out of the wardrobe holding a new pair of jeans and a black guns-N-roses t-shirt. I toss the clothes on top of the bed and check to see if the shower in the bathroom still works. I turn the dial and wait for a moment. The shower head chokes a little before water comes pouring out. I reach my hand under the showerhead to feel the water. The water is cold, it causes my hand to shiver when I take it out. I shake the water off and say to myself.
“Good enough” as I start to take off my old clothes and get in the shower. The cold water bounces off my skin, it sends shivers down my spine but I still get the old dirt from the last few months off of me. I step out and see a couple of dry towels hanging off of the door. I grab one and dry my body off and grab another to wrap around my head and dry my hair. I step out of the bathroom and Preston is still inside the wardrobe. I put on my new clothes while his back is turned and walk over towards him when I'm finished.
“Still haven't found anything,” I ask him
He turns around “Nothing yet, the only thing interesting was this coat.” He holds a leather coat up to me. The coat is made of black leather and has a skull covered with blue flames on the back. There's a black shirt inside the coat with a skeleton hand making a thumbs-up embroidered on the front.
“ That's pretty cool, it's better than what you're wearing right now at least” he's outfitted in a blue hoodie with holes on the chest and tears at the sleeves. He also has a shirt with a faded picture of a blue flower printed on it.
“I guess you're right” he gets up from the floor and exits the wardrobe. He lays the clothes on the couch along next to the blanket and pillow he brought into the room.
“The shower works so you can get yourself clean In there,” I say to him
“You know, a shower sounds really good right now.” He gets up from the floor and grabs a pair of pajama pants that were laying next to him. He leaves the wardrobe and enters the bathroom, closing the door behind him. After a moment the water turns on and I hop on the bed to get ready to sleep. I squirm myself into the quilt and rest my head against one of the pillows. I shut my eyes and fall asleep listening to the passive sound of the shower like rain on a car.
I'm in a void. It feels like I'm standing in a puddle of water that reaches to my knees. I wade my way forward looking around for anything in the darkness. In the distance I can see 3 figures l. I moved closer to them and their silhouettes get clearer. I realize they are my dad and brothers. I start to run towards them kicking up water behind me until something grabs my leg. It pulls down violently forcing me under the water without a breath of air. I kick at the thing grabbing me until something grabs my other leg. I look down and see two glanter's each with a monstrous smile on their faces. They stare back at me and one of them tugs my leg harder than before and tears it off of my body. The water around me turns red as the glanter laugh's. The other smiles wider as it starts to fling me around the water forcing any air left in my lungs to be forced out as I scream in pain. The glanter throws me away and I can see my family slowly fade into the distance as I'm flown away.
I struggle to swim back to where I was, one of my legs is missing and the other is broken. The glanter's find me again and I try to get to the surface to escape them. I'm flapping my arms in any attempt to escape as one of the glanter's flies in front of me and grabs my arm. I look at the monster with tears in my eyes as it bites my arm and tears my body away from it. It flings my body away and with my remaining arm I clutch the wound as the water floods into my body leaving me in the void I started in. I look around and the glanter's seem to have left. I turn behind me and see my family again, this time I'm closer than before.
I grit my teeth and drag my body towards them slowly as I leave a trail of blood and tears behind me. I finally reach my family and grab one of my father's shoes. I stare up and he looks at me. His stare causes me to feel cold as a grotesque smile grows on his face. I stare in shock as my brothers each have the same look as my father.
I shoot up from my sleep panting heavily in a cold sweat.
“It was just a dream..just a dream…just a dream” I look at my hands as tears fall into them. I look around the room and see Preston sleeping peacefully on the couch. The room feels frozen in place as a chill runs down my spine. I get out of the bed and walk out of the bedroom. I make my way through the dark hallway and find the entrance to the balcony I saw earlier. I creak open the screen door and head outside. The Balcony is pretty large, about the size of the kitchen in the house. There are some chairs knocked over next to a table and I pick one up to sit on it. I look out into the expanse of the neighborhood, houses lined up next to each other, dozens broken apart by roads, and dead bodies scattered across the roads.
I look up in the sky and sit back in the chair. The sky looks empty except for the moon giving this world its only source of light. Without the moon, we’d be left in darkness. It hangs in the sky alone, no stars, no clouds, nothing but itself, and the void of the sky. I think back about the dream I had. My dad and my brother's all dead and possessed and then they kill me. I start to tear up thinking about it. I try to wipe away the tears but it’s no use. I'm too scared for my family. I don't know where they are if they're alive if they're worried about me I don't know anything! I start to quietly cry into my hands. I don't know how long I'm sitting there until I feel a hand on my shoulder. I turn my head to face it and I see Preston. He was smiling and looking at me. I turn away to wipe my tears and he walks next to me.
“I heard you sneaking out of the bedroom so I followed you to see where you were going.” he says “but that's not my question.” he pauses and looks at me “my question is what’s got you feeling so down?” he leans over the railing of the balcony
“It's nothing, I just came out here to clear my head.” I say as more tears escape from my eyes in big slow drops that ride down the sides of my face.
“if you don't feel like telling me you don't have to but i'll be here if you ever change your mind”. He looks up at the moon before turning to face me and his smile widens “I'll always be here with you…trust me I'm not going anywhere”
I stare up at him and wipe away my tears as a smile grows on my face to match his. I get up and stare over the balcony with him. “So where are we heading next?” I say to him, Preston pulls the map we got from the man cave downstairs out from his pocket.
“After I got out of the shower I decided to take a look at the map for anything interesting we could see.”
“Ok did you find anything?” i ask
“I did,” he points at a spot on the right of the map. “We should head to the museum”
“I didn't want to go to a museum before the apocalypse why would i want to go now?'' I ask him.
“Well the best part of museums is the cool stuff right”
“Yeah what about it”
“The only problem is that you could only look at the fossils and armor but you could never take them.”
“So you want to rob a museum?” Prestons eyes light up at the question
“Exactly they might have a really cool sword I could use, or I could sharpen a dinosaur tooth and use that as a weapon, there might be a cursed shield that can summon the dead to fight for you. This opportunity is too good to pass up. We need to go!”
“That does seem pretty cool but wouldn't carrying that stuff weigh us down. What if a glanter is chasing us and we can't run fast enough because of the stuff we took from the museum.”
“We’ll only take things that are light. Even then I could just block the glanter with my newly acquired 2000 year old shield.”
“Fair enough we can go in a couple hours” I yawn and stretch out my arms. “Cause I'm feeling way too tired to walk all the way over there right now.”
“Alright i'm heading back to my couch and THEN we’ll head out to the museum” he leaves the balcony and heads back to the master bedroom leaving me alone on the balcony.
“Thanks Preston I'm not leaving either” I say into the sky. I turn around and walk back inside the house, closing the balcony door behind me. I walk back into the bedroom and Preston is hunched over and holding a flashlight looking at the map. He’s drawing lines through roads and marking X’s in different areas.
“What are the X’s for?” i ask him
“They’re places that glanter’s usually stay around. I'm marking them off so we remember not to go through them, or at least be more cautious.”
“Cool. Did you find where we are right now?” He points to an area where the lines all converge out of.
“Right around here is where the neighborhood ends. So if we follow this path we can make it to the museum in one piece” I pat him on the back and take the map from his hands.
“Get some sleep Preston, we have a full day tomorrow” he grins to himself before laying down on the couch. I put the map back into my bag and hop on the bed to get to sleep. I cover my body in the quilt and roll over facing away from Preston as he falls asleep. I nestle myself into the bed and slowly fall asleep to get ready for the next day.
I'm awoken by Preston shaking the bed I'm sleeping on. My eyes open and the room is foggy, I wipe away the sleep from my eyes and focus my attention towards Preston. He's practically jumping out of his skin with excitement, he's already fully dressed for the trip and shaking the bed with a wide smile on his face.
“Ok ok i'm up the air feels heavy as a groggy feeling fills my body. I wipe my eyes and the room starts to clear up. I turn to face Preston. He's still shaking my bed to wake me up, he’s already fully dressed and nearly jumping out of his skin in excitement.
“Ok ok, i'm up you can stop shaking the bed” i say
“Then get up we’ve got a long walk ahead of us” he says as he stops shaking the mattress. He grabs the map from my bag and points to one of the red lines.
“We're gonna follow this way to the museum. We’ll move past the hotel around the ice skating rink and around the park. We’ll mainly stick to walking through the streets, we might have to go rooftop hopping to avoid any glanter’s if we see them but i'm sure we won’t reach that point.” he explains
“Wait, wait, wait, why are avoiding the skating rink and the park” i ask
“ everytime we go near the park there's weird noises and light coming out of it”
“And why can't we go to the ice skating rink?”
“I didn't think it would be important”
“It couldn't hurt to check it out at least”
“Fine we could make a detour”
“Ok and how do you plan on getting on top of roofs?”
“I'm sure we'll figure it out when we get to it”
“Ok man as long as you’re sure '' I yawn and step out of the bed. Preston starts to put the map in his bag. I walk into the bathroom with my clothes and change out of my pajamas. Minutes later I walk out and see Preston sitting on the couch twiddling his thumbs.
“Finally you're out” he smiles at me before handing me my bag and slinging it over his shoulder. We took a last look inside the kitchen to see if we missed anything. Afterwards we leave for the outside. The cold air bites at my face but Preston walks down the stairs, his face buried in the map. I jog to catch up to him as we both head into the street.
“Hey Preston, could I see the map?”
“Sure” he hands over the map and continues walking. I look at the map and the numerous lines drawn on roads. I look at the corner of the map and notice a small map key with numerous symbols for different areas like a library, school, hospital, and more. There's even a way to tell how far away each location is. The text reads “1 inch=5 miles” I quickly count how far we are from the museum.
“Dude this museum is like 100 miles away.”
“Yep it'll be a long walk, it'll take us a while to get there”
“Did you plan on us walking there the whole time?”
“We might find bikes or something.” he pauses “well i did think we would walk the whole way”
“This is gonna take us weeks to get there!”
“Did you have anything else planned?”
“Well…i guess not but we should still try to find some bikes or something”
“Ok if we see any way to travel faster we’ll take it”
“Alright cool” I hand him the map back and he folds it back up and puts it in his bag. We walk further until we leave the gated neighborhood we started in. Preston takes the map back out and looks at it before he turns right and continues walking. I follow him staring forward at the expanse of the road. The outside of the neighborhood is surrounded by roads all leading to different parts of Newkinawa. We walk past a sign that reads “Coretown 20 miles ahead” I nudge Preston towards the sign and he checks the map again.
“Yep, the museum’s in Coretown. Would you believe the residents were pretty proud of it. Should be a fun place to explore” he says
“Yeah but it’ll take us a million years to get there.” i complain
“Lighten up, I'm sure it will be worth it”. We continue walking down the road slowly making our way to Coretown.

Took a day trip and wrote this around 9:30PM. Enjoy.
Everyone has those dreams they want to accomplish in a lifetime. The ones that seem so far fetched but still obtainable. In my case it has always been on my bucket list to travel every corner of Texas. I have been blessed in my 27 years of life to have gone as far north to see the Panhandle plains near Amarillo and as far east to see Huntsville surrounded by the piney woods. I’ve been able to see the Third Coast from H-Town through Corpitos, down to McAllen and Harlingen. I’ve drank on 6th Street in ATX, and have had countless nights I couldn’t remember in San Anto. I’ve seen a Cowboys game in Arlington while staying in Dallas with family, and I’ve floated down the rivers in San Marcos with friends. I know the backroads of South Texas between Uvalde and Laredo, like the back of my hand, and if I needed too, I could probably drive between El Paso and Fort Stockton blindfolded. In the past 4 years, I’ve spent the majority of the 100,000 miles I’ve driven, on Texas highways and county roads. Passing through small towns that people would never know existed, such as Dryden, Camp Wood, Orla, Goliad, and Dilley, where my son lives. There’s so many other cities and towns I could name which would take up the majority of this story and bore you but there is one area of Texas that I’ve always wanted to see with my own eyes and be able to experience it all. This place is actually a lot closer than many of the places I mentioned. It’s pretty much the next door neighbor to my hometown of El Paso.
On December 28, 2023, I was finally able to see it. Big Bend and Terlingua. As I was driving into the national park I stopped at the park’s entrance sign and took a typical picture in front of it like everyone does, but after, I turned back down the road, made a right and drove 28 miles to La Linda. I did this all without having a GPS or signal on my phone after I lost it passing Marathon which about an hour or so from the park entrance. I followed the old green highway signs down a road that you could tell was hardly used because of all the weeds and brush growing in the middle and side of the road. I was probably the only truck on the road with the expection of two trucks going the opposite direction that had passed me. I kept going until the road ended at a blocked off bridge that only a small car could drive over. The only time I had ever seen this place was through Google Maps when I’d sit there looking at random places that you’d think no one would ever go. I got off my truck and look around, it was quiet but the sound of the river is what got me. It was surreal to say that across that bridge was Mexico and the river I heard was the Rio Grande, which surprisingly had water in it and wasn’t dry like the way it is in El Paso. As I was looking at the graffiti on the bridge I noticed a part of it said “Chuco Town” which I though was weird because why would some slang from El Paso be tagged on some random bridge literally in the middle of nowhere. So I got curious and ended up making my way down underneath the bridge where I found this clear box with a small notebook in it. Several people had written in it with their names and when they had visited the bridge. It was like an Easter egg. I wrote my name in the book, put it back and went to go look for a way to get to the river but I couldn’t because of all the bushes and trees. I spent like a good hour looking around before getting back to my truck. I ended up driving about two hours to the Big Bend National Park Headquarters where I finally got signal on my phone. The drive into the Chisos Basin was beautiful. The color of the rocks and trees made it feel as if it was still the Fall season. The canyons were huge, the road curved through the mountains, the air hitting me through the windows was fresh. Seeing the amount of trees, for the mountain range being in the middle of a desert was crazy. Again, I only spent about an hour or so before driving through the park and into Terilingua. As I drove to Terlingua, the scenery changed drastically. It went from mountains covered in trees to something out of a Mad Max scene. It was nothing but desert with little plant life. I ended up stopping at a gas station where two the highways met. One would take me to Alpine and the other to the Terlingua ghost town. After fueling up, I drove through the ghost town to find a couple of restaurants open. I ended up eating some green enchiladas that were good but nothing compared to the ones found in El Paso. I continued to drive down the highway towards Presidio as the sun started to set. About half way to Presidio, I turned back around to head back. By this time it was 7pm. The sun had almost set completely. I pulled over to the side of the road so I could look at the sky. I had heard so many stories and seen so many pictures of the Terlingua night sky. I wanted to see if it was real. As I stepped out and looked up I saw more stars than I could ever imagine. Everything around me was pitch black, except the sky. There were hundreds of stars, they were brighter than ever. There were no clouds. I stayed looking at them for a good minute, actually I stayed looking up so long I ended up laying in the bed of my truck trying to take it all in. I ended having to go back into my truck because of the cold. Even with a thick hoodie and thermals underneath I couldn’t stay out any longer. I continued my drive back to the gas station where I had first put gas so I could type this out before my plan to head back into Big Bend. I only arrived about 8 hours ago, drove down to the La Linda bridge, drove through the national park, drove through the ghost town and saw a night sky many wont get to see in their lifetime but maybe on this drive back, I’ll be able to find the moon.

MATCH RESULTS

Winner	Loser	Match Finish	Stipulation
Michin	Tatum Paxley	Soeul Food	Women's North American Championship Qualifier
Ridge Holland	Riley Osborne w/ Chase U	Redeemer
The Good Brothers	Edris Enofe and Malik Blade w/ Brinley Reece	Magic Killer
Lola Vice	Arianna Grace	305 Backfist
Dante Chen	Lexis King	Crucifix Pin
Kelani Jordan	Wren Sinclair	Split-Legged Moonsault	Women's North American Championship Qualifier
Trick Williams and Je'von Evans w/ Sexy Red	Gallus	Trick-Shot Knee

IMPORTANT NOTES

• Kickoff with Ava in the ring welcoming us to the show. She says NXT has the greatest women's division in the world and they're about to prove why in two weeks when 6 women will compete in a ladder match for the new Women's North American Championship. She also says they have a special guest and welcomes out Sexy Red. Sexy thanks Ava for her introduction and says she has a special announcement, she will be hosting Battleground in Vegas. Ava says she also has one more special task and starts a drum roll as Sexy reveals the new Women's North American Championship. Tatum Paxley creeps into the ring and tries to steal the belt away from Red before Michin runs in and starts brawling with Tatum and their match starts.
  
• Joe Coffey is talking to Mark saying only two of them are allowed at ringside when they are approached by Meta-Four where Oro demands to know why they took out Noam last week. Joe says if they attacked Noam they'd have known it and walk off. Oro and Jackson accuse Trick of being behind the attack while Lash defends him.
  
• Lola Vice is shadow boxing when Arianna Grace walks in and says as the locker room leader, and leader of women in general, she asks if Lola is seriously going through another barbaric NXT Underground match? Lola says of course she's serious and Arianna says oh sugar. She says Shayna is dangerous and was hoping it was just Lola's temper getting the better of her. Lola calls her princessa and tells Grace she can learn how dangerous she is tonight. Grace says oh shit.
  
• After their match Ridge Holland extends a hand to Riley but Riley denies it and leaves the ring.
  
• The Good Brothers are interviewed backstage, Luke says they are done with being dodged by a team that's existed for 6 months while they had title reigns longer than that. He says the beat downs will continue until they get what they want and Karl shouts at Axiom and Frazer if they have their attention now. We cut to another camera where we see Oro Mensa has been assaulted as Lash and Jackson go to check on him along with officials.
  
• Axiom and Nathan Frazer ambush the Good Brothers after their match, drop kicking them to the outside. Nathan tells the fraudulent clowns that they are never getting near their titles and goes to call them pieces of shit but Axiom cuts him off and says they'll see the Good Brothers at Battleground.
  
• Dante Chen says he's been waiting two days to get his opportunity and the reaction he got was all worth it. While he'd love to bask in this victory forever, he is ready for another and is ready for whoever is next.
  
• Backstage Lexis King tells Dante Chen his win meant nothing and it will never happen again. Dante says he'll prove it's not a fluke and challenge to face Lexis again tonight.
  

*Trick Williams thanks Je'von for his help last week but says they need to be on their a-game tonight against Gallus. Sexy Red comes in and twerks as Trick and Je'von hype her up. She wishes them luck in their match tonight and Je'von asks her to come out with them tonight.

• Roxanne Perez makes her way to the ring. She says she is the only woman in WWE who's appreciated this championship from the very beginning, from when she first one it on 2.0, until when she won it back she saw it used by waste after waste who used to to move on to something bigger rather than relishing it. She says at 13 she started training specifically to win this championship. She never cared about Raw or Smackdown, she only cared about the NXT Women's Championship. To everyone else this title represents future greatness but to her it represents current greatness. She says it is incredibly disrespectful that she has to find out her opponent like this and the only thing her and Ava agree on is that she deserves to be treated better. She demands to know who the hell her opponent is going to be when Ava makes her way out. Ava says she never said Rox was a bad champion, but the question will be if she's still champion after Battleground. She announces her opponent for Battleground will be TNA Knockout's Champion Jordynne Grace! Grace says some of them may remember her from the Rumble earlier this year, but if they don't allow her to formally introduce herself. She says she is the TNA Knock-Outs Champion. She tells Roxanne that she built her name NXT the same way she did in TNA, but who has built the stronger foundation? Jordynne wants to find out and she is ready to leave Las Vegas a double champion.
  
• Eddy Thorpe has a return vignette, he says to his people fire has a deep spiritual connection and it is used as a form of healing. He has looked to the fire a lot these past few months and says his path is illuminated and through the fire he is reborn.
  
• Backstage Riley says Ridge can't be trusted as Chase U try to figure out what's the matter. Duke admits he sees what Riley is talking about and goes off to talk with him. Thea says she can't deal with all this with her match next week and storms off. Ridge checks with Andre who tells him it was a good match and not to worry,
  
• After her victory, Lola Vice says Shayna Bazler has one of two options, she taps out or she gets knocked out, her choice bitch. Shayna comes storming out being held back by security. She says she was born in the Underground as she fights trying to get to Lola.
  
• We get a vignette for Carlee Bright, going over her history as a Division 1 Cheerleader and says once she stepped foot in NXT wrestling became her new love and says the ray of sunshine is coming to NXT.
  
• Backstage Natalya tells Carlee she crushed it last week as Izzy comes in and tells Nattie her compliments are shallow. Karmen Petrovich tells her to get her negative energy out of here and the two start to brawl.
  
• Charlie Dempsey says ever since he lost the Heritage Cup he felt he lost a piece of himself. Damon Kemp he knows how he feels but Charlie asks if he really does. He says they need to learn from Tony's family and that they need to learn discipline and chain of command and tells Damon he's facing Tony next week.
  
• Oro is being checked out in the trainer's room and Jackara tells Lash that she's worried one of them one may next and she has to ask Trick to make sure he has nothing to do with this.
  
• Lexis King attacks Dante Chen after his victory, dragging him to the outside where he hits him with a running knee to the back of the head. Lexis pulls back the ringside mats and hits Dante with the Coronation on the concrete.
  
• Josh Briggs says he was signed in 2020 and had big dreams of breaking out on his own but his dreams were a bit big at the time so he found himself a little brother and little sister, they had success but it was time to go off on his own. He says he's bet on himself a few times but questions if it paid off and he is going to find out who Josh Briggs is. Shawn Spears is shown to be watching and says he has been down the same path as Briggs and knows it can be taunting, but he will guide the youth and be their answer.
  
• Backstage Tony tells the family their current target is the No Quarter Catch Crew and nothing matters until they deal with it since to them the Cup is part of them. Luca says he's looking into the legality of the Catch Clause. Tony says he's preparing for Damon and they're going to beat the Crew at their own game.
  
• Backstage Stevie Turner asks Ava what Jordynne has done to earn a NXT Women's Championship match and why she wasn't invited to the combine. Ava says her complaints are legitmite as Jordynne comes in and says she couldn't help but overhear so how about next week she proves why she deserves her shot and Stevie can put herself on the map.
  
• Wes Lee says he's upset he had to share his victory last week, Gallus are three pissed of Scotsmen but tells them they won't be getting all the titles because he will make sure they won't get the North American Championship. Oba Femi comes by and says it doesn't matter how many men he faces, the title remains with him. Wes says he's made a career out of proving people like him wrong.
  
• After the main event Lash Legend makes her way out to confront Trick as Sexy Red and Je'von leave. She tells Trick he has to be honest with her if he's the one who attacked Oro and Noam. Trick grabs the mic and goes to speak but the lights go out. The lights come back on and Ethan Page is here! He says he attacked Oro and Noam and attacks Trick and then nails him with a knee strike in the corner.
  

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Timestamp: https://imgur.com/a/c5Icd8o
Spring cleaning sale - help me fund a 300blk MCX. All prices include shipping.
Team Wendy Epic Specialist Ballistic Helmet tan sz L - $800
product link: https://www.teamwendy.com/products/helmets-accessories/helmets/epic-ballistic-helmet-range/epic-specialist-ballistic-helmet
Purchased from Custom Night Vision. Only tried on and mocked up different set ups with NV so there is minimal salt. Couldn't get them to seal properly with AMP arms.
PWS mk111 Pro 11.85 upper - $600 This is a long stroke piston upper that is discontinued. Purchased on here on GAFS and put about 30 unsuppressed rounds through it. Little amounts of salt from mounting accessories and adjusting gas.
Right to Bear nickel teflon upper receiver - $70** Built out and fired maybe 60 rounds with an 11.5 barrel. Almost no salt.
F5 JAKL stock in black - $260 Had this mounted on a 300 blk JAKL that went through about 100 rounds. Comes with all the parts needed to install onto any milspec AR lower. I guess this is an earlier one since the "ears" on the adapter have the F5 logo on them.
Vortex Spitfire 1x prism - $150 Mounted on the mk111 for 30 rounds. Works perfectly, no salt.
Deadair keymo flash hider DA301 1/2x28 - $50 Catch and release. Didn't end up going keymo. Average amount of wear.
Reptilia Recce stock in FDE - $90 Little salt. About 200 suppressed rounds fired with this stock installed
PRI M84 gas buster charging handle in FDE with large latches - $60 Moderate salt, used for about 200 suppressed rounds.
LBX Armatus II in Ranger Green Sz M with Mini MAP and low pro utility/mag panel in MAS grey - $160 Pretty much in new condition. Only larped with indoors. Comes with the standard cummerbund the mentioned front and back panels as well as the original mag panel and molle back panel.
Again, all prices include shipping. Paypal F&F preferred. If G&S, buyer takes the fees.
Thanks for looking! If my prices on anything are way off, lmk. I'm basing most off previous GAFS history. I did not have time to take pics of each newly added item from my previous post. DM if you want more detailed pics.

Good evening! Or morning/afternoon depending on your time zone. You can call me Dae, and I am a 34 year old DM looking to recruit 1 more playes for a game using the Alien TTRPG published by Free League. I recruited a group of players off of lfg a few weeks back. We held a session 0, and have gottne through most of the introductory scenario. Unfortunately one player had to drop from the game, so I am opening recruitment again so we can find our fifth. I am looking for one person who would be interested in running through all 3 cinematic Scenarios (Chariot of the Gods, Destroyer of Worlds & Heart of Darkness) that make up the Draconis Strain trilogy.
You might be wondering at this point how familiar one must be with both the system and the setting to apply. Mechanically, it's 100% fine to have no experience with Alien or any Free League TTRPGS. Its also fine if you are an expert, and have already played or run these scenarios (so long as you can enjoy it and not spoil the surprises for anyone else). The rules are quite light, same with any of the Year Zero systems published by Free League, and very easy to learn. Having seen at least the original Alien and Aliens is nearly essential for anyone interested in the game, as the rules and tone directly follow what was established in them. What is unique about Alien, and the scenarios that I wish to run, is that they are run using a set of guidance from within the game going for what the publishers describe as a ‘cinematic’ feel.
Pulling directly from the core rules, cinematic play is described as follows:
A Cinematic scenario emulates the dramatic arc of an ALIEN film. Designed to be played in a single session, this game mode emphasizes high stakes and fast and brutal play. Conflict between player characters is likely, and you are not all expected to survive. In fact, most of your PCs probably won’t live to see the end of the scenario.
The scenarios nail the feeling of the franchise. Horror, desperation, anxiety and dread run rampant as your characters will attempt to survive a terrifying situation thrust upon them. All while trying to accomplish their own personal agendas which may place them at odds with each other. This mode is not designed with players creating their own characters in mind, but rather assuming the role of one of the pre-generated characters and breathing life into them, following the agenda assigned and really making them their own.
The 3 scenarios that make of the Draconis Strain will all likely take 3-7 sessions each. They should present an interesting mixture of RP, intrigue, danger and horror fun.
Quick Game Bullet Points

• IMPORTANT - Please make sure your Discord profile is accepting friend requests. Having recruited several times now off of LFG, I have had several great applications not go through as I had no way of contacting the player on discord and following up.
• When - Saturdays 10:30 - 2:30 PM EST. Joining on 6/1 to start Chariot of the Gods.
• Where - Discord for voice and Foundry VTT for the games maps & rolling
  
• How - Simply fill out this Questionnaire!
  
• Requirements - Age 21 +, Mic for voice chat, LGBTQ friendly
  
• I will reach out to candidates who seem like a good fit for a one on one chat.
  

When it comes to my style of DMing, I would like to think that I am well rounded and player focused. I have run long term games in 3.5E, 5E, Pathfinder 1E & 2E, SW EDGE, World of Darkness and several games using various cortex systems. My emphasis has been, and always will be, on player enjoyment. To me the players are the main characters of the story and deserve to be elevated as such. The tales I tell always attempt to treat the players and their characters as a focal point. I'd like to think that over the years of running games I've found the right balance of preparing material for sessions and being able to create and tell a story on the fly for when things go off the rail.
I do want to emphasize that this is a horror TTRPG. Blood, guts, and terrifying spectacles abound. If you are not comfortable with body horror, extreme violence, and the fraying of ones sanity this might not be the game for you. Similarly, the game in its cinematic mode has a very high lethality. This is expected and something all should be prepared for (death of a PC doesn’t mean the end of your role either, as there are plenty of NPCS just waiting in the wings for just such an occasion).
It's integral to the success of these stories that you engage with them. These are not designed for the sandbox style of gameplay. Players who are resistant to engaging with horror, who simply want to stay in their cabins and avoid any and all risk, will not do well. Knowing that there is a line between character reluctance (“Damn Yutani corpo bloodsucker. I’ll investigate the site but I better be paid a fortune for it”) and player reluctance will be a vital component to having a good time. Like any good horror movie, you need to accept that your characters will routinely be thrust into situations of high danger. Its all part of the story and the fun.
Thanks for reading and happy gaming!

I'm only typing this because I believe there are people at Arrowhead who care about this game and want to make it great. I've spent countless hrs playing this game and I really do enjoy it (currently lvl 110, only saying this as support that I play the game A LOT) but it's starting to feel like fewer players are online. I like that this game is designed to be hard, but can we focus on perhaps making the game more enjoyable through removing nagging frustrations? These are a few of my humble suggestions:

• Can we have an option to disregard dropped primaries in game? I know what loadout I want and those dastardly primaries always get in the way when I am trying to pick up samples and gear. And because you throw a wall of bugs/bots at us every second, I've had several frustrating moment occurs when I'm trying to sweep in and make a play. Never have I picked up a primary and thought, "Gee, this is exactly what I wanted" and the only problem this has ever fixed is if a mate accidentally spawned in with the wrong loadout but that rarely happens and they will lose the primary they swapped after death and since primaries aren't marked on the map, they won't be able to find them again if they die.
• Can we improve the entire mechanic of picking things up? There are several times I am opening up a resource pod and there's a weapon inside that I want and the "pickup item option" will not be available. This will result in several minutes of coming at the pod from every angle and sometimes I'll have to stand beside it and look at it from such an awkward angle that the option will momentarily prompt for a split-second. Well you can imagine how problematic this can be when you are getting spammed with an exorbitant amount of bugs/bots from everywhere!
• Mystery holes? What are they and why do we even have them? I can't tell you how many times I'm being swarmed by packs of hunters and I jump to the side and inevitably fall into one of these mystery holes. Ya know, they are the ones you can throw a grenade into and cause an explosion which is basically useless (I only see them on bugs, I believe). And to make things worse any items you had before falling into this hole are now lost. If you are going to keep having these silly mystery holes, then can you at least give us some way to retrieve our gear? Let's throw a grenade in there and have it erupt, throwing all the items out or something. Falling into a hole when you have super samples is a feeling that I would not even wish upon my greatest enemies!
• Can we give priority to STIMming? This game has about a dozen wonky mechanics that need to be fixed, but in the meantime, you could ameliorate a ton of disgruntled players by allowing the STIM command to take priority. How many times have we had to endure an awkward falling sequence because we dove and landed on a rock or steep hill? Typically we are diving because we are trying to evade some bug or bot that is running us down and the 5-second falling sequence without the ability to STIM means we are toast. And look, this prolonged falling sequence triggers at the worst possible times, plus with all of the funky physics of the game, I will try to climb over a fallen bile titan and suddenly be flung across the map. Allow me to the ability to STIM while this is happening and I will be much more willing to forgive these problems because I can use the invulnerability of the STIM to negate the fall, therefore saving me a lot of hassle trying to run back across the map to get my gear when I have been wrongfully jettisoned across the map.
• Why is it when I call in a stratagem and/or resupply, the game thinks I want to climb these things instead of picking them up? Spoiler alert: I never want to climb on these vital components of the game that bugs/bots somehow instinctively swarm to even in the 6-13 seconds it takes for me to call them in. I need these vital resources to complete my mission, not to climb upon them so that I may appear taller like some failed politician.
• Who at Arrowhead thought that the exploding smoke pellets would add value to the game by hurling players when they explode? Well, they were wrong. Too often this creates scenarios where (again) you throw an army of bots at us and as we are trying to evade the sheer volume of crimson laser blasts hurling in our direction, but one shot strikes an unseen smoke pellet behind us and hurls us directly into a moshpit of Hulks and Devastators. The smoke pellets should be there to give us cover and obstruct the ridiculously broken mechanic of bot vision, but in most cases, it just serves as another random obstacle to frustrate us.
• Again, let's talk about Bot vision because there are absolutely not enough people at Arrowhead playing this game. I enjoy running bots more than bugs, but I can't tell you how many times I get completely bombarded with a litany of lasers from the other side of the map, piercing darkness, rain, and about every other obstacle that obstructs my vision but somehow not theirs. I believe blizzards are the only thing that stops their insanely broken vision. No amount of skill can save you on open terrain with any combination of 3 bots that are Heavy and Rocket Devastators. They always seem to sync their fire in such a way that you are completely pinned down and can't move. If you are going to give them such powerful weapons, then at least limit their vision.
• AA defense effect is horrible and should be removed from the game immediately! I've posted on this topic before so I'll curtail this rant, but people play this game because of the stratagems and limiting them as some lazy way of making the mission different only adds frustration and does not promote fun. If you added a new difficult level that gave Helldivers no weapons, no stratagems, and no armor and just asked them to run around and get massacred, how many people do you think would play it? Sure there would be a dozen streamers playing it to somehow win their parents approval or get likes, but no one would play it because it wouldn't be fun. I will say it again, we should have more stratagem slots. This past weekend, when he had free access to the new emancipator exosuit, that was fun and it felt like Helldiving! Even if I had to farm a ridiculous amount of samples to unlock a useful stratagem like orbital precision strike or eagle airstrike as always a part of my loadout at no stratagem cost to me, I would bust my butt to get that because it would add value and fun to the game, which should be the primary goal as you look at ways to bring players back.
• Can we have a use for medals and samples? I've unlocked everything in the game and I have no use for medals, samples, and requisition slips. I don't care what it is, but can I use them on something so that when I pick them up in-game it actually means something? Even if donating your samples and medals and slips give an infinitesimal amount of progress toward our major order, or we can use those in-game to replenish our exosuits, just give me a reason to collect these because being maxed out at 250 medals, 500 samples, 250 rare samples, 100 super samples, and 50k in requisition slips absolutely chokes the fun out of this game for me.
• Can someone revisit the hitboxes of Bile Titans and Hulks when it comes to Hellpods? Again, a unique feature of this game that brings enjoyment to the players is our ability to call in fallen comrades as weapons. Putting yourself in peril to help out your mates is the ultimate experience but I find it very inconsistent when trying to hit Hulks and especially Bile Titans. There are so many times that I put myself in harm's way only to somehow not kill a hulk/titan even though I went directly through them and I know that I am significantly more advanced than most casual players of the game. If people don't feel like they can contribute, they won't play. Especially since the pods are often restricted in mobility (and someone pls remind me why I unlocked power steering again because it doesn't work), please just do something that favors the helldiver for once and I promise people will like it!
• Speaking of chargers, they seem to have a new flair built in that ragdolls you after you have dodged them. I don't know if it is their legs widening after they stop but it creates many a scenario where you successfully run around a charger when it charges, it immediately stops, and then the side sweeping action of the legs when it stops ragdolls and mostly kills you. This didn't use to happen but it is very annoying to successfully dodge a charger and then still have it kill you.
• Suggestion: can we get the exosuits to eject us like the cockpit of a fighter jet when they explode? I don't run the mechs that often, partially because you can have this powerful yet bulky suit that can do everything right but somehow get destroyed by a charger that pops up behind you. But if that suit were to eject me and allow me to prolong my life, that would be a clutch feature for the game. But once again...and I know this is going to sound foreign...but it would create fun gameplay and awesome clips that people would post and it would inevitably influence new players to play the game. Have the cockpit eject into a hellpod that you can use to exact revenge on the menacing charger that destroyed your mech!

So I know this is a lot and thank you for reading. I'm passionate about this game because I really want to see it grow. Every time there's are updates, inevitably there will be grumbling about change, but I have seen a lot of my mates fall off this game. I personally like the challenge of the game but it does feel like every update obsesses on taking advantages away from the helldiver and that same isn't applied to the enemy. When two or three of these advantages occur, you take it in stride but when you play a good game and still get relentlessly hit with these unfair glitches it just turns players off. Anyway, I am rooting for you all because I love the game, but like all toxic relationships, you can only love something for so long as it continues to mistreat you. Keep the game hard but please remember that it should be fun first!

I'm new to city (and to hiking as well) and yesterday I went to the Pennybacker bridge overlook. Beautiful view and the hike up isn't too bad. I saw on Google maps that there are 3 watchtowers nearby and I was wondering if I could get to all 3. So, I decided to follow the trail. I got to the first tower pretty easily, but then things started getting pretty challenging. The trail all of a sudden becomes essentially a cliff's edge trail but I was doing pretty good until what appeared to be the endpoint. Before even reaching watchtower 2, the trail gets insanely steep with no sort of safety, meaning if you lose your footing you'll be heading straight down to the river. My questions is, for those who have gone all the way there, am I just a noob and more experienced hikers can make that climb just fine? Or is that actually the end of the hike? Or did I take a wrong turn somewhere and that's not even a part of it?

As the title says. My players forced Amrik Vanthampur to draw them a map of the dungeon under the villa, and they entered through the sewers, which meant they could go straight to the vault after making a slight detour to rescue Falaster Fisk. They didn't fight Kreeg but just arrested him (one of the PCs is in the Flaming Fist). I am using the Avernus DM's Bundle from DM's Guild, and I tried both of their suggestions: first, Kreeg tried to poison himself (the paladin healed him, expelling all poison) and then Reya Mantelmorn tried to attack him (the PCs won initiative against her and restrained her).
So now Thavius Kreeg is sitting in prison. Fisk suggested retrieving the puzzle box and mentioned that Sylvira would reward them for it. They ended the session by getting the box from Thurstwell, and they announced that they plan to take it back to Kreeg and make him open it for them. That would mean they won't need to go to Candlekeep and thus they won't get the clues needed for the next phase of the adventure.
Any suggestions on how to handle this? Here are the ideas I've had so far:

• Kreeg gets killed or kills himself in prison while the PCs are away. (But that feels like a cop-out, and I'm afraid the players will see it that way too.)
• Kreeg can't open the puzzle box either--it was magically sealed as part of the contract. (Also feels like a cop-out but maybe slightly less bad?)
• When the players give him the puzzle box, some devils appear to drag Kreeg down to hell and stop him from breaking their contract. (But it's hard to be sure they get away with it. This party tends to punch above their weight in combat and I'm afraid they'll just defeat the devils and then I'll be right back where I started.)