Part 32, a return to Kraisal, and my return to actually posting chapters. We get to see the aftermath of the four-part operation, and I get to deal with Reddit formatting changes. I upload Wednesdays, at 4PM to 5PM British Summer Time. Credit to u/SpacePaladin15 for creating the universe of NoP, and the amazing u/ShermanTheMajor for proofreading! And thank you guys for reading. Enjoy the chapter!
Memory Transcript Subject: Second-Lieutenant Kraisal, SC Fighter Pilot Flybird 6, Callsign ‘Mimic’
Date [Standardised Human Time]: July 7th 2168
We all took our seats in this new, bigger briefing room. Despite the concrete walls, it still felt somehow nicer than the last one, more high tech. It might’ve been the lighting, shining down a dim electric blue on all of us.
I looked to the others, who all seemed to be in various states of exhaustion. I still felt pretty energetic, and most of the pilots looked well enough, but the other SCOSG members? Vilik looked like a blood vessel was about to pop, Larsela looked like she was barely awake, and Pegasus… I wasn’t sure. I never was with him. At least we all made it through okay enough. What happened to the others to make them so exhausted, though?
The base commander waved her tail, and we all looked at her as she began to speak. “The operation was a complete success. Despite unforeseen factors in some of the combat operations, you’ve all displayed a commendable level of resilience today. You should be proud of yourselves for making it this far” Damn, the hell happened to the others?
“While most of the pilots in this room were escorting our transports here, Mimic successfully destroyed most of the rebel anti-air and armoured fighting vehicles, with some assistance from friendly partisan forces, and paratroopers from the one-hundred-and-second airborne division. She also successfully shot down an enemy aircraft attempting to intercept friendly planes. Thanks to her actions here today, we all have a place to land, rest, and refuel, as well as a staging area for attacks deeper in enemy territory and towards the planetary defence guns”
“Meanwhile, Quartz One successfully escorted the East Sea Fleet past enemy naval defences, despite resistance from a small enemy fleet blockin her path. She also successfully shot down an enemy mercenary pilot, who was armed with laser weaponry and a superior aircraft. This has allowed us to strike closer to the planetary defence guns without having to rely as heavily on our air support. The Captain of the leading vessel also sent her a bottle of whiskey as thanks, though this will be locked up for the time being”
There was a small amount of chatter at the prospect of alcohol, and a couple people looked to Lars. That lucky bird. All I got was a scratched paint job.
“Quiet!” The base commander yelled, causing the chatter to cease before she continued. “Furthermore, Magnum successfully destroyed several IRBM silo’s, despite heavy ground resistance. He also successfully intercepted two IRBMs before they could reach friendly territory, despite one of these missiles both launching before its silo could be discovered, and being capable of evasive manoeuvres at low altitudes. This has prevented the enemy from launching potentially devastating attacks on our backlines, saving countless lives and allowing us to continue offensive operations unimpeded”
She took a small breath, and cleared her throat, before continuing. “Finally, Pegasus Three successfully escorted the transport carrying defectors into our territory, despite several attempted intercept missions from enemy squadrons, the loss of all decoy aircraft, and the pilot and copilot both being shot, with the former too injured to fly and the latter dead. He also successfully shot down an enemy mercenary squadron attempting to intercept the transport, despite being outnumbered by superior aircraft. The transport successfully landed here, and the pilot is stable. The passengers themselves are mostly unharmed, outside mild bruising from a rough landing, and are going through debriefing”
Jesus Christ, I thought my mission was the hard one. At least I didn’t have to dogfight a fucking missile.
“Overall, this leaves Coalition forces in a highly advantageous position in the war going forwards. The only remaining advantages held by the rebels is the fog of war, and the planetary defence guns, and we are almost in a place where we can wipe out the latter. Excellent work. Dismissed!”
As we all filed out of the briefing room, I began moving through the crowd, when I felt someone tap me on the shoulder. Turning around, I noticed one of the paratroopers, looking to me with a slight grin on his face. “Hey, you’re that pilot that saved our asses, right? I wanted you to have this” He then held out a pack of jerky. “As thanks”
“Oh shit, thanks dude!” I replied, grabbing it and immediately devouring its contents.
“It’s the least I could do after you brought us through a second suicide mission alive. Shit, at this rate there’ll be propaganda posters with you on em”
“Eh, just doing my job” I grinned. “Look, I gotta go, see you around?”
“Sure” He replied casually, before walking off.
I turned around and began heading to my friends, managing to intercept Vilik and Larsela. The formers tail was wrapped firmly around his leg, while Larsela was rubbing her eyes with her talons, as if trying to stay awake. “Hey you two!” I greeted “How did you handle things? You both definitely look… Rough”
“How does it look!?” Vilik snapped, before audibly sighing. “Sorry, sorry. Just stressed. I had to deal with five fucking missiles, two of which managed to launch, one which had stealth capabilities, and the other nearly reached criticalaltitudeand-”
“Okok!” I cut him off. “Go figure out which bunk is yours and lie down or something, jesus!”
“Fine, fine! I’m going” And with that, he stormed off, leaving me and my very tired pal alone.
“So…” I began. “What about you?”
She stared into the ceiling for a moment, before slowly looking at me. “Hm? Oh, yeah. It went ok…” She then yawned, and began to stagger off. “I need to lie down though. Maybe we can walk and talk before I find my bed?”
“Sure!” I replied, walking after her. “That works!”
“Right, right… Yeah things went well, most of the fleet made it out untouched. The fact the Promenade had a railgun certainly helped. The rebels surrendered after the second ship was horizontally cut in half”
“Oh, that sounds cool as fuck!”
“More scary than cool” She responded, as we entered one of the barracks. “I felt it firing in my bones…”
“Oh, damn. Nevermind then… So uh, remember this morning? When you were gonna ask me something?”
“Hom? Yeah, kinda… Why do you ask?”
“Oh, I was just wondering what you were gonna ask me is all!” I chuckled.
“Oh, it’s… It was nothing” She muttered, before coming to a halt at one of the bunk beds. She quickly checked the two footlockers sitting at its foot, before crawling to the upper bunk. I decided to check the lockers too, noticing my stuff was there along with hers.
“Lucky coincidence…” I murmured, before sitting on the lower bunk, stretching, and taking a moment to relax, staring up at the bunk above me as I rested on the hard mattress. That moment to relax was then interrupted by an officer walking in, looking around the room, then walking up to me and Lars.
“Excuse me” They began. “Have either of you seen a uh, ‘Pegasus’ around here?”
Larsela waved a wing and flicked her tail feathers, signalling no, while I sat up slightly and shrugged. “Why are you looking for him?”
“The wife of one of the passengers wanted to thank him for saving her husband” They responded. “I believe the passenger in question is the one that flew the plane after the pilots injury, as well”
“Try checking the runway or something. I don’t know, maybe he’s checking out the hangars. He was usually around that kind of area in the last base, anyways”
“Right, thank you” They nodded, before walking off. I flopped onto my back, closed my eyes, and rested.
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I've (imperfectly) tallied the results of yesterday surprisingly successful thread. Here we go:

Who will you vote for in November?

Biden - 127 (56.6%)
Trump - 25 (11.1%)
RFK Jr - 19 (8.4%)
Other - 17 (7.6%)
Abstain - 20 (8.9%)
Undecided - 15 (6.7%)
Justin Trudeau (shout out to our fellow Canadian user) - 1 (0.04%)

What state are you in?

Out of 38 states represented, here are the top 6:

1. California - 23
   
2. Texas - 20
   
3. Illinois - 13
   
4. Florida - 11
   
5. Pennsylvania - 10
   
6. (tie) New Jersey - 9
   
7. (tie) North Carolina - 9
   
8. (tie) Colorado - 9
   

What is your biggest issue for this election?

Many users had several issues, but here are the top 6:

1. Democracy - 60
   
2. Economy - 43
   
3. Foreign Policy - 32
   
4. Extremism - 31
   
5. Character - 20
   
6. Abortion - 15
   

Notable findings:
• Biden enjoys a clear majority of support, but his fractured opposition is still formidable. 44% of the sub does not support him.
• RFK gets the most support from purple states (TX, FL, NC) as opposed to being a protest vote in a safe red/blue state.
• Abstainers and Undecided voters were in safe blue/red states, with their most common issue being "fuck the system."

If deciding between a PPO and HMO Medicare Advantage when he loses coverage through work (disability) only 50, cancer, can you please tell me if I am understanding these different options.
Option 1 HMO Lets say your primary doctor is in the Mercy Health Network, but every cancer and other specialist you already have is in in the Promedica Network. Can your primary refer and continue to let you go to all of the specialists in the Promedica Network when her network is different from theirs, or can she only refer you to any specialists in her Mercy Network? Or does it not matter as long as both the Mercy network primary and the promedica network specialists are all covered under that plan.
Option 2 PPO
His primary can send him to anyone in any other network as long as they are also covered by that insurance plan?
Please let me know if I am understanding these differences correctly. My husband currently on a PPO but will lose coverage through work soon due to having to go onto Long Term Disability, Only 50 and stage 4 cancer so his only option will be Medicare Advantage Plan. We live in Ohio. I would hate to see him lose any of his specialists for cancer he has already had for 5 years.

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Other Features

• Forward messages to anyone without forwarding the tag.
• You can select all chats at once from the home screen of this app.
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• Anti-ban feature, you will not be banned from using WhatsApp.
• Stickers from other apps can be added.
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• Enable drag to reply in group call.
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• Feature hide visiting cases to your friends.
• Hide the two check marks (correct) when receiving the message.
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Conclusion

In today’s article we have told you about some special features of GBWhatsapp. We hope that you have understood all this information well. As we have mentioned earlier that WhatsApp is a third party app which cannot be trusted blindly. Most of the people around the world are using it but some people also say that all the data of this app has been leaked. Actually GB WhatsApp promises its users that no WhatsApp user’s data will be leaked. But you have to use it very carefully so that you never face any problem due to which you have to worry. Apart from this, there are many other flaws in it due to which people have to get a little worried.
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So I recently came across the term 'Local Superiority', where if you have more numbers than your enemy in an area then you have local superiority. Say you had 2 Red Vs 1 Blue. The Red have local superiority, but how much of an advantage is this? If one Red dies and the Blue is still fine then the advantage in numbers meant nothing, even if the next Red wins against the Blue. So having greater numbers must have more advantage than just being the sum of its parts, otherwise there's no point. But how would this actually go down in a head-on battle, say with 2 people Vs 1 person, what actually happens so the side with 2 people have a greater advantage than the sum of their individuals?

"What is it with bad guys and being completely full of themselves? Montague's plan might possibly screw over Helios Island if his attack on Mount Olympus was something to go off of. And it appears he's getting as much help as he can. Staging a mutiny within the pantheon, conspiring to retake control of Helios Island... What else does Montague know that Willow and I don't? Well... I guess we'll find out soon enough, and it all starts from what the Greek Mythology would call a storied hero." Within Reckless Railways, at a local restaurant, Ableton Rinzler, Willow, Splode, and Deimos are all sitting at a table with both Aphrodite and Poseidon. Splode looks at Ableton and Willow and questions them. "So... Care to explain what's going on here? I'm kinda confused about everything that's happening right now, aside from those crazy armored guys attacking our home earlier." Ableton turns to Splode and answers him. "From what I can understand, Zeus is casting unfair judgement upon the people of Helios Island. Aphrodite and Poseidon first tried to appease Zeus by restoring the constellations to the Statue of Atlas in Mount Olympus, which didn't work. Alongside that, Montague is also planning who knows what with this whole Greek ordeal. He's begun recruiting various gods to try and take the pantheon down. Whatever he's planning, it doesn't seem good." Poseidon looks at everyone and speaks. "Alright. So everything seems kinda bad now, with that mortal recruiting gods against the pantheon. But there still is one bigger mystery. That being Pandora's Box. After it opened, and the troubles and woes were cast onto Helios Island, it suddenly went dormant. If the mortal's plan to defeat Zeus fails, he could turn to Pandora's Box as a last resort. After all, he has Medusa with him, and she's very familiar with the magic behind Pandora's Box." Aphrodite looks at Poseidon with fear and responds. "Then that means that the mortal might bring something worse onto the island. Something that might challenge Zeus on a cosmic level. Something ancient... and evil..." Ableton looks at Aphrodite and responds to her. "I got someone who can help out with our little problem with Montague." The group then leaves the restaurant, as they begin venturing towards the edges of Helios Island. From the rooftops of Reckless Railways, Montague and Medusa are overseeing the group's plan. "So those two think they can stop me? They will certainly be halted in their tracks." Medusa turns to Montague and speaks to him. "I've always loathed Zeus... But his time grows short. Together, we will make it shorter. Over the years he's surrounded himself with powerful items. A gauche show of his absolute rule. Fortunately for us, they're not his items. Most of them were made by me. Stolen from me. I think it's about time we reclaim my property, don't you?" Montague chuckles, as he holds the Shadebox in his hands. "We hold the key to starting a Greek Tragedy! Once Zeus and his pantheon are dealt with, I will soon be able to rebuild The Society and rule over Helios Island once more!" As Montague and Medusa slowly advance towards Mount Olympus, Medusa speaks to Montague. "Perseus will deal with those troubling mortals you desperately despise." Over near the edge of Helios Island, past Snooty Steppes, the group arrives at an unmarked house. Willow looks at Ableton and speaks. "This is the place, right?" Rinzler faces Willow and answers her. "It should be. Silas did say he and his Rogues ransacked a house near the edge of the island. This has to be the place he was talking about." Splode looks at Ableton and responds to him. "Alright! Let's get the party started!" Splode walks up to the door and knocks hard. Katt's voice is heard, as she speaks up. "Who's there? We're currently closed at the moment." Ableton walks towards the door and responds. "It's Ableton Rinzler. We're here to see Silas Hesk, if he's around." The door opens, as Katt walks out. "Silas is a little busy, but I'll see if he's open for anything." Everyone enters the house, as it is filled with crates, all of which are filled with weapons and ammunition. Katt knocks on a door, marked with an ouroboros, as she speaks. "Silas! Your two favorite clients are here!" The door opens, as Silas speaks up. "I can tell by the look on your faces that something's up." Ableton looks at Silas and speaks. "There's currently some conflict going on among the Greek Gods that currently inhabit Helios Island. A large chunk of which was caused because of Montague. You wouldn't happen to know how to stop a god... or several of them." Silas looks at Ableton and answers him. "I have done many bounties within my criminal career, but not one against a god." Aphrodite looks at Silas and responds. "But we're not trying to kill my father, but to quell his judgement." Poseidon then backs up Aphrodite, as he walks forward. "Zeus is casting unfair judgement upon the mortals of this island, and this crazed mortal seeks to take advantage of this. He's taken steps necessary to supposedly start a tragedy among the pantheon." Silas facepalms and responds. "Of course Montague would go to such lengths. He's probably pissed about The Society losing control of Helios Island that he's resorting to such measures. I'll lend my services to your cause." Silas then turns to Lana Llane and speaks. "Lana! We got a job to do." Lana grabs her Striker AR and assists the group in their plan. Once they exit the house, Aphrodite is quick to notice the glowing blue eyes on the statue over at Mount Olympus. She turns to everyone and speaks. "Something's happening at Mount Olympus, and it doesn't look good." Deimos looks at Aphrodite and responds. "Great... Just another problem to deal with..." A faint DMR shot is heard, as Poseidon reacts. "Everyone! Watch out! Someone must've followed us!" Over near one of The Society's forecast towers, Perseus scopes in with his Huntress DMR, as he aims for Aphrodite. "Let's see Zeus mourn the death of his beloved daughter. Medusa and the mortal cannot be stopped." Perseus fires another shot, as Poseidon puts his hand in front of Aphrodite's face. The bullet gets stuck in Poseidon's hand, as he quickly pulls it out. "Distant combat... This must be the work of Perseus, the Storied Hero." Aphrodite looks at Poseidon and questions him. "Why would he ally himself with Medusa and the mortal?" Ableton faces Aphrodite and answers her question. "Because Montague and Medusa likely promised him something if they succeeded in ending Zeus' rule." Poseidon notices a structure right near Pleasant Piazza, as he yells out. "To that structure! We can try to see what the scrying pool foretells over there." Everyone begins running towards the structure, as Perseus continues firing shots at the group and missing. They eventually reach the scrying pool, as Silas and Lana begin fending off Perseus' attack. Aphrodite yells out to the scrying pool in a worried tone. "What is going on at Mount Olympus? Why is the statue brimming with Zeus' power?" The scrying pool bubbles up, as it then shows an apparition of Zeus' Stormforged Hourglass. Ableton looks at the apparition and responds. "An hourglass? What could this mean?" Poseidon responds with fear. "Zeus' Stormforged Hourglass! It brims with Zeus' energy. If Perseus is here, then the other gods working with the mortal are likely commencing an assault on Mount Olympus." Aphrodite looks at the scrying poll and yells again. "Where is Hades and Cerberus?!" The scrying pool then projects Helios Island within the water, as both Hades and Cerberus appear to be marching through Reckless Railways on their way to Mount Olympus. Aphrodite looks at Ableton and Willow and yells. "We need to get to Mount Olympus! If the mortal is over there, he will doom us all if he gets Zeus' Stormforged Hourglass." The group then makes their way to Mount Olympus, while under heavy pursuit by Perseus. Over at Mount Olympus, hell has broken loose. Several of Zeus' minions attempt to protect the main palace, but are quickly shot down by Ares. Artemis and Apollo try to hold back Medusa, while Montague opens the Shadebox and unleashes the souls within, contaminating all the water within Mount Olympus. The souls from the Shadebox begin tampering with the water, almost matching the same composition as the River Styx. Medusa knocks down both Artemis and Apollo, as both Hades and Cerberus arrive at the battle. Montague points at the main palace and yells. "Time to dethrone Zeus and claim my rightful power!" Everyone then runs towards the palace, as they collectively confront Zeus. Montague holds up the Challenger's Staff and opposes Zeus. "Your reign over Helios Island will end, blunder god!" The group then begins their attack on Zeus, as he begins holding everyone back with several bolts of lightning. Ableton and the group arrive at Mount Olympus, as Aphrodite quickly spots both Artemis and Apollo, who are wounded from Montague's attack on Mount Olympus. Aphrodite runs towards the two and speaks. "What happened to you two?" Artemis shrivels her response to Aphrodite, as she points to the main palace. "The mortal has recruited gods to threaten Zeus' rule. Your father can't hold him back for long." A stray lightning bolt flies out of the palace, as Poseidon reacts. "We gotta get to the palace!" Everyone rushes towards the palace, as they witness Montague using the Challenger's Staff to weaken Zeus. Aphrodite yells in fear, as both Silas and Lana begin firing at Montague. Medusa and Ares protect Montague, while he tries to collect the Stormforged Hourglass from Zeus. Splode tosses some Cluster Clingers at the opposing group, until Hades shoots them out of the air with his Harbinger SMG. Cerberus fires his Gatekeeper Shotgun into the group, as Montague yells out to Ableton and Willow. "You've toiled my affairs for the last time." Montague kicks the now weakened Zeus towards Aphrodite, as he pulls out the Stormforged Hourglass. "Now! Terminal power is mine to wield! Watch as I use my newfound power to take back Helios Island and rebuild my Society!" Montague's hands now brim with lightning, as he holds the Stormforged Hourglass in the air. Lightning spews from his hand, as storm clouds form above Montague. Medusa nods at Montague, as he begins manipulating the lightning to strike near Restored Reels. The storm clouds clear, as Willow looks at Montague. "What did you do?" Montague looks at Willow without answering her, as Ableton yells. "What the hell did you do?!" Montague points to the door, as both groups head outside. Over at Restored Reels, Pandora's Box has been heavily damaged by the lightning Montague charged up. Ableton looks behind him and yells. "Montague, you little..." Both Montague and Medusa get away, as Aphrodite speaks. "What did the mortal do?" Hades faces Aphrodite and responds. "He and Medusa tricked us. He wanted power, but not just to defeat Zeus. He seeks to awaken the Titan." Deimos looks at Hades and reacts. "The what?" Poseidon helps Zeus up, as he answers Deimos. "The Titan resides within Pandora's Box. A partial piece of him escaped when the mortal first opened Pandora's Box. Now that it's damaged, he and Medusa now have a chance to unleash true ancient evil. And with Zeus' Stormforged Hourglass, the mortal now has a means to an end." Cerberus faces Aphrodite, Ableton, and Willow and speaks. "If the mortal isn't stopped, he will awaken the Titan and doom the island and Zeus' pantheon. All this to establish what he would call his perfect Society." Aphrodite and Poseidon face the group with urgency and yells. "To Restored Reels! We gotta stop that mortal from awakening the Titan!" Splode faces Aphrodite and speaks. "But can we make a stop first? I kinda need Ableton and Willow to drop me off for my afternoon TV binging." Ableton facepalms and responds to Splode. "Fine, we'll take you back and grab Stratus for this. We just gotta stop Montague before he dooms us all... again." Everyone all runs out of Mount Olympus, as the skies slowly turn black. True godlike power wasn't just normally stolen, it was elaborately stolen with destructive intent. Montague, now having powers of a god, will do anything it takes for him to rebuild The Society. Even potentially putting the entirety of Helios Island at risk, again. Oh well. Just another problem for Willow and I to solve. The secrets of Pandora's Box seeks to break free. To awaken true ancient evil.

Hello everyone. I had a question about Medi-Cal. I did not meet the income requirement to keep my silver 94 PPO Blueshield. I recently got Medi-Cal Anthem.
I have an endocrinologist I have been seeing for about 10 years. I see him two times a year and pay out of pocket for the visit. He does not take any insurance. He is not part of any networks.

1. My medications from my out of network endocrinologist... When he sends medications to the pharmacy they are fully covered by Medi-Cal Anthem. This is such a big help to me It's life-changing.

Q: I was wondering why are the meds being covered since I have an HMO and he's not in network? (I'm not complaining, just curious).

1. On my medical card is a number I can call to locate labs to draw blood.

Q: Since the insurance is covering my meds from him, will they also cover bloodwork too? Can I go to one of these labs and hand them a lab slip for my endocrinologist and draw blood?
This has been stressing me out a lot. With my last insurance Blue shield PPO I could go straight to the lab and hand them the lab order and they would draw it. Or I could go to my primary care and she would punch in the labs from my endocrinologist and run the labs for me.
Q: How can I get lab work done in my case? I'm still looking for a primary care doctor. Will my primary care Dr be able to do this for me? I only need it done once a year...maximum 2 times a year.
Thank you for your help. Please let me know if I need to clarify anything or provide more information.

The two lovers stand side by side as they stand before the patrol, one of the venators fires their crossbows upon the two, and Ravoth blocks the bolts with a shield spell before charging forward, Fenvys's poleaxe quickly impaled a charging legislator before he could reach her,
The blue dragonborn's sword crackles with lightning as he engages a soldier every blow he dealt breaks a piece of his foe's shield until his final blows shatter it into splinters and slice through the soldier, by that time the venators had reloaded and were about to fire when they were engulfed in the flames of Fenvy's breath attack,
The distraction however allowed a legislator to catch him by surprise, the force of the twin hammers nearly brought Ravoth to his knees, the legislator hammered away Ravoth's shield and when he attempted to strike back, the legislator dodged and bashed his arm with one of his hammers, Ravoth groaned in pain as he dropped his sword, Fenvys heard this and locks out a solider she was fighting to heal her love
Just when the Legislator is about to deal the killing blow, Ravoth calls his bonded sword to his hand and stabs him through the eye openings of his helmet killing him instantly, now comes the hard part
An inquisitor praetorian, Fenvys was the nearest so she engaged the inquisitor first, most of her blows were glanced off the inquisitor's heavy armor and large shield, and the Inquisitor's scythe hooks onto Fenvys poleaxe and was pulled away from her grasp
" Fenvys step away, now!"
A beam of blue light hits the inquisitor, covering him in ice, Fenvys takes advantage of this and conjures a mace of pure force and smashes the frozen inquisitor, scattering ice shards everywhere, Ravoth returns Fenvys's halberd, and the two move on

So recently, I enrolled in the BCBS MyBlue Silver 807 plan, which is an HMO plan. Essentially, this plan being an HMO, it gives me a far more limited line of medical professionals I can navigate through for a lower cost as compared to it’s PPO counterparts.
Specifically, I enrolled in this plan because of the comparably low out-of-pocket maximum amount for medical treatment costs (I qualified for subsidized coverage).
The reason I did this is because the surgical procedure I’m pursing is said to take on this figure determined by the maximum out-of-pocket cost as detailed by the insurance provider.
Prior to enrollment, I tied in my prospective surgeon’s name to the 807 plan, and he was listed as a compatible doctor despite this plan being an HMO plan.
Though, after initiating the formalities of this process shortly after, I’ve learned that I’ll need to obtain a referral to a specialist, like my prospective surgeon, from my chosen PCP.
My question now becomes, if my prospective surgeon’s clinic’s website lists BCBS as a general insurance company they can accept, do I need to worry about my specific insurance plan (807) interfering with my eligibility for this surgery?
Do I need to confirm that the clinic itself accepts my plan assuming I’m able to find myself at a consultation with this prospective surgeon? Regardless of where he’s practicing?
I’m just kind of confused as an adult navigating insurance this way for the first time.
Thank you!

[OC Intro: The game is modded to increase basic jobs cost, seasonal events are disabled. Much of the crash details are based on NASA/SP-2008-565 Columbia Crew Survival Investigation Report recommendations especially Chapter 3 "Occupant Protection".]
The ship is without power, and Tightniks can't run the radar much without draining the batteries. He has only a few minutes of APU power left, goes over the best clearing he can find, and radars it. It varies by only a few feet from the aerodynamic glideslope there. He spots it out on the cameras and circles to go after that spot. He's only at two hundred feet now. With one hand on the stick, he uses the other to open the pressure equalization valve on the side hatch, then at one hundred feet, gets it undogged. Depending on how much damage he's going to get, it's less likely to be stuck closed and trap him. The dynamic vacuum this pulls in the cockpit rips most of the survival pack data cards from that rack and scatters them across the landscape. Crap, I'm gonna need those! Refocusing on surviving the next few seconds, he turns on the radar for the final approach, takes a last look around, then straight ahead at his forward camera and PFD, he clicks his HANS and shoulder strap locks in; after that, he can barely move, but that now is better than dying in this crash with a broken neck. He's a decent pilot and brings up the flare gently. Bringing up the alpha on this delta-winged ship, he balloons a little, but keeps the nose going up and restores a zero aerodynamic sink rate just above the highest terrain indicated by the radar altimeter. The ship bumps a little in the ground effect, and he can see the radar altitude cycling irregularly up and down about five feet at a time. Rougher than it looked from higher up! The body flap protecting the dead engines hits first, and the nose comes rapidly down. It hits, the screens go blank, and Tightniks is surrounded by airbags, some lifting his feet from the rudder petals and his hand from the control stick. It's blinding, it's disorienting, it's noisy, and, to his relief, it's long! It takes several seconds before the crashing cockpit stops moving. How many times did he flip over? Did he go sideways and roll? Am I rightside up? Are we really stopped on the ground? The airbags deflate, and he can move his arms. He gets his restraints loose and inspects himself. "Uck!" he says out loud (without the 'f'). No broken bones. His pressure suit can take his blood pressure. 116/81, pulse 112, blood oxygen 99 reads off on his left arm, I'll friggin' take it!
The ship is amazingly intact from what he can tell. He can't get any readings. The systems test meter seems to be working, but can't find any voltages anywhere. The ship seems to be completely dead. Behind him, 10 passenger seats are all surrounded by airbags and the back of the cabin ends in some sort of dirt-and-gravel and there's a bit of daylight seeping in around the edges. He was the only one on board, though, so their deployment was mostly academic (they might have stiffened the structure a little during the crash, but that's probably trivial.) Tightniks gets out of his spacesuit. The air on this planet is actually breathable. He gets the hatch open, steps outside and-
"A green shimmer erupts then disappears, and you hit the ground."
The human emerges from the glowing green mist and hits the ground. Groans. Pushes against that ground, trying to get back up. Where am I? What's my name? I remember nothing. Aren't babies born naked? He's got a dark blue button-down shirt on. A uniform? A shoulder patch. Gets up, looks around. I feel really heavy. I'm not that fat, am I? He picks up a small stone from the ground, this also feels heavier than it should. He rises to his feet and holds it out somewhat (he's unable to fully extend his arm) and lets it go. The stone hits the ground near his feet quickly and with remarkable speed. It's the gravity, it's greater than it is on- ...where am I from? This is- ...not my home planet? "Oooh..."
"Ka?" it says.
What is that? It's cute, at least.
It is not tame. He has no hope of catching it on foot. The creature seems to like the berries. Maybe if I gather some of those into one place and set some kind of trap...
33s: First trap.
I got one! The human lumbers up to the trap and gets the catch open. Do you bite? It doesn't matter much to me; I'm so friggin' screwed.
It doesn't. It looks at the human with a sense of wonder, actually. A blink and tilt of the head. Seems almost to be asking, Is it you? My purpose? My savior? Once out of the trap, which is totally wrecked, he has to make a new one from scratch, it follows him around like a imprinted hatchling bird.
Wiry little fella, you are. You're going to need some bulking up to do anything useful. The- ...'trimp', I guess... The trimp seems just barely able to feed itself. The human lets him into the broken ship's intact cabin, and it curls up comfortably in a passenger seat for a nap.
1m03s: Second trap.
"Apparently the Trimps breed if they're not working. Doesn't look pleasant."
What are they doing?
The trimps appear to be androgynous, and these two have paired off in the back of the ship. They're holding something carefully within a few hours, feeding it berries, grass, and- ...corundum.
Corundum?? Whatever that is, it isn't a baby.
1m35s: Third trap.
Only it IS a baby! The third trimp he trapped immediately joined the other two in raising it. They have a strange diet of food the human has found compatible with his own body, but they also eat rocks! They're careful to crush and sort aluminate minerals from silcate ones and only eat aluminate. Actually, they don't eat aluminate, they're only feeding it to the baby.
2m06s: Fourth trap.
All four are raising the same child, who is just starting to toddle. It seems these fellas have alumina or maybe even aluminum bones. The human takes a nap and wakes to find the first child grown up and they're starting to raise a second child, all five of them.
2m46s: Huts.
The human found a working bit of electronics. He calls it a pad, but maybe it's more like a smartphone. It has plans for two residential structures. The first, the smaller one, he can build right away, but the second one needs something called "drywall", and he has to figure out how to make that before he can build it. Huts and houses, apparently.
3m13s: 10 pop, full, first farmer.
The trimp he trained to farm and make paper took an incredible 50 units of food to get bulked up to do the work, and now it's not participating in rearing the child. But less than an hour after the trimp started farming and pulping, the child was out on its own, and the trimps did not start another. The ten seats on the ship were all full. Well, eleven counting the one up front that the human sleeps in. The pilot starts exploring the area.
3m28s: Battle.
Wait, what are you do-
The hostile roars and charges at the human, but one of his trimps jumps in front of him with a stick and they fight. It started right when the human got far enough away from the ship that the hostile non-trimps away from the ship began to regard him as leaving his own territory. After the trimp defeats the first enemy, it continues after other hostiles.
3m53s: Shield I in Z1c5.
The human is easily able to recover the loot in the territory cleared by the fighting trimp. Then he sees something glinting in the- That can't be! What the heck is that? It's a data card that fits his pad. It quite clearly regards trimp combat. He gets it loaded into his pad and studies it. I can do this, it just takes some wood. He returns to the ship to discover that they had already started on a new child before the fighter had even expired in battle. The human concentrates on his research.
4m38s: Mskel in Z1c11 defeated.
The remains of this one seem rather white and shiny. It's titanium! This enemy had titanium bones! He'll store them away. They'll be useful someday, I'm sure.
5m52s: Dagger I in Z1c20.
Where are these data cards coming from? The human wonders as he loads this one into his pad, It's for a weapon it calls a dagger. He blinks. I don't know what a dagger is. I'll take your word for it, data card. Needs metal. He has gathered some, but ore is plentiful. He can just dig and smelt it whenever he wants. For now, I'll continue researching.
6m18s: Arable in Z1c21.
It's an old cave that trimps like to live in. Why weren't they able to live there before? How could these friendly critters be confined to only the exact spot where THAT thing, he looks back where he came from, not remembering that he piloted the wrecked ship to its current resting place, crashed? This is really strange. I'll let them fill up this cave before advancing further. Wait, what about defenses? The hostiles never try to reclaim territory that they've lost, so he stops worrying about that fairly quickly.
8m22s: First hut is 0.3% first ever AP.
The trimps seem fairly easy to please in terms of living quarters. Two move into his first hut and start raising a child. The human has his tent, uniform, and the heater pilfered from his space suit. Not much of a mud fan.
9m59s: Miners in Z1c30.
Oh, what's on this data card? Sl3niw? Oh, I'm holding the pad upside down. Miners. I can teach trimps how to mine ores and smelt met- 200 units of food? Each job is getting more expensive to train a trimp for. He puts his bee nickels to his eyes and spots another data card probably 10 enemies away. "Sc"? Does that means science? I can teach trimps to do science??
13m57s: Scientists in Z1c40.
Due to the expense of training trimps, the human couldn't afford to build them shields until now, he's got Sh1-3 made for the fighter to capture the science training data card. 14m02s: One head went into that turtlimp shell, that of his fighter, but two came out: his fighter still has his head on, and he managed to get the turtlimp's head off. It rushes off after the deadly penguimp in the next cell. The shields are not doing all that much good, actually, but they're better than nothing. The human picks up and loads the science data card and- Holy runny sugar-free fudge crap! 1000 food units, but it'll endow them with the ability to speak. Good. I'm getting bored with no one to talk to.
14m28s: Bloodlust purchased and AutoFight enabled (that delay after getting it is an effect of jacking up the job cost.)
As the human buries this expired little trimp warrior, he comes to the sobering realization that he has more trimp graves in his growing trimp colony than he does live trimps. And yet they seem more hopeful now than before I got to know any of them. They seem to think I'm the solution to all their problems or- Those two look east somberly, then notice that he's watching them and smile back and wave at him. ...one problem that is specific, but very, very huge for them. [The only reason I say 'east' is because that's right on a map, and the game advances right across a row, then up. I might say 'northeast' on occasion for that reason.]
20m47s: Z1c73, Miners taken.
Are you my new mining foreman? The trimp who took to the mining training has dark brown fur that lays flat on its head. It's unusual in not having any bits that stick out from its head, ahoge or whatever. This one is relatively quiet, and while it has assimilated the mining and smelting knowledge, it needs to bulk up to do any mining. Smelting is relatively easy, and getting a strong natural draft going in a furnace is almost trivial with the increased gravity. This trimp builds furnaces like nothing. And likes to nap in holes it digs right on the spot; it's weird that way. [Puchim@s Yukipo, and furnaces are not explicit in Trimps.]
21m58s: Farming in Z1c80.
The resourcing "books" are not data cards but paper scrolls, apparently lost to the trimps. It seems that they were civilized in the recent past and some calamity swept over the planet to reduce them to this. Did I have something to do with it? Amnesia sucks harder than a Dyson- ...what's a Dyson? Whatever, it sucks. This disaster happening just before I crash in the only spot with trimps still alive would be a seriously crazy coincidence! Something is really, really wrong about all this. [The author has not sought or received product placement permission or fee from Dyson Technology Ltd. or any resellers of their stuff, just they literally suck balls and made my favorite vacuum cleaner.]
23m50s: Builder in Z1c90.
They've rescued an, I dunno, gelding trimp? It just started to build a shed around the piled lumber I left to build one. It's really slow compared to me, and just banged its thumb, but it is super cute with that long reddish head fur. That particular trimp is also fascinated with pink ribbons and likes to decorate its head fur with them. Because of its inherent inability to participate in rearing children, it isn't counted in the population. [Puchim@s Io, builder on the basis of Iori seen building in 1x10.]
26m02s: Zone 2, 44 pop, 5.5s RC with Z0/1.
It's some sort of tactical manual - tactical coordination. Coordination! He's starting to sort out some trimpese on the research he has done so far. It needs a lot of metal, so they won't be able to implement it for some time. Hopefully, they're still good one at a time, but these enemies seem to be getting bigger as we go along. Uh oh!
27m33s: Gym in Z2c5.
It's some sort of training dojo or sporting arena. The human examines the ruins, I think I can back-engineer drawings for this, get one built, and see what happens.
29m02s: 1g, 47 pop, 10.8s RC with Z1/2.
The two fighting trimps now with their gym and coordination are dodging and blocking enthusiastically, and making much faster ground against the bad guys then a little while ago when it was just one trimp fighting at a time and unable to avoid the enemy hitting back.
40m46s: Fresh turkimp in Z2c74, 63 pop, 7.9s RC, Sh1-10, Da1-5, Bo1-3, Ma1-3, Hm1-3, 6g.
Oh, wow, the laborers seem really hot after this turkimp. He cooks it up and tries a slice. It's really awesome! I have to work alongside his laboring trimps to share it, but I'm getting used to the gravity now. That scroll we found back in Z2c10 really helped. Trimps' techniques and appliances for handicapped individuals, and I'm really handicapped in this higher gravity. He joins the woodcutters with the turkimp; they're the most numerous resource laborer right now, building more gyms, enough that the block/dodge ability of the fighting trimps is almost caught up to the enemy's ability to cause damage.
43m15s: Zone 3, 63 pop, 7.9s RC with Z1/2.
I'm neglecting my science and trimp scientists are really expensive. Curiously, that grey-haired one can't speak all that well, only says "Tai" and "Shijou", but it can write and draw like nobody's business. It's the only scientist so far. [Puchim@s Takanya: Online references probably still claim that she can utter the first two syllables of any word, but she can actually utter only the first two kana syllables of someone's name, most often the given name of basis human Takane Shijou, who also has that habit. (All the utterances of the puchidoru are based on the speech foibles of their basis humans except maybe Piyopiyo, where I haven't seen anything match up so far.)]
47m32s: Finally, we can make drywall and houses. 59m30s: Z3c77, 94 pop, 7.8s RC.
Oh, those poor things are really struggling up at the front. These trimps are enthusiastic and know no fear, but I still feel like telling them to stop for a while. I don't have the heart to keep them from trying while they're still doing some damage.
1h05m24s: Zone 4, 107 pop, 9.3s RC with Z3/4. 1h15m26s: Zone 5, 120 pop, 8.2s RC with Z3/4.
"What is that?" the human asks. He has three scientists. His first does all the writing, but the other two can actually speak. One of them hops up on a rock spire beside the human to reach his eye level.
At the next ridge line, over the lowest and most passable gap in the terrain, this really mean looking hovering sausage monster.
"I dunno," the scientist trimp shrugs, "But it's making me hungry. Looks like a perfectly cooked frankfurter from here." [John Morell's dubious dirigibles.]
"Oh, yeah," the human nods, "that's a blimp."
"A blimp?" the trimp tilts its head quizzically at the human, "How could you know?"
"I wish I could tell you, little buddy," the human extends his arm braces to descend the pass on the side of the zone boundary in the boss enemy's direction, then grunts, "Let's go kill it."
1h16m11s: Z1c9, 120 pop, 10.3s RC with Z4/5. 1h33m34s: Zone 6, 151 pop, 7.4s RC with Z4/5.
1h33m54s: TP in Z1c3.
"What's this?" the human asks, having picked up the little square document with the curling corners.
"Oh," the hungry scientist looks at it, "It's a garden path, follow me."
"You want to lead me down the garden path?" the human says.
"Yeah," the scientist says.
"Are you kidding?" the human asks.
"No," says the other scientist, "We don't get human humor. Listen, these fighters can't go, let them wear themselves out here, then we'll take the next group through this garden."
"Okay," the human nods, watching two more trimps join the fray as he issues the Z5 coordination orders, "they're doing pretty well after all that block training research we just wrapped up." [That's a common artifact, even in normal games, Z5 Traintacular combines with many gyms, enough population to add several trainers, affording Blockmaster, which is expensive on a run zero, plus a break on Tion Z5, a 40% all-stat increase. I don't think Zach designed it into the game on purpose, it just worked out this way.]
1h34m07s: 151 pop, 10.5s RC with Z5/7. 1h37m44s: Drop from Z6c39, TP for 3.
"Now we have these access map frags we can use to route through the old trimpopoli," the scientist explains, "Atlimpis for food, Morimpa for gems, Everimp for metal, and Impazon for wood."
"What about the garden?" the human asks.
"Well, we got lucky with Tricky Paradise," the scientist says, "but you can randomize the route and maybe get lucky. What's with that look?"
"Somehow, I'm remembering 'frag' as something that blew up with deadly pieces," the human says. [Different video games - ones with better graphics and worse gameplay Ｏ(>▽<)Ｏ]
1h39m59s: Blues back up to the top on series I...
"Tai, Tai!" the first ever trimp scientist stops the human just before he upgrades the mace and dagger to Mk.6 and Mk. 8 respectively. It has a note for him.
"Why do you keep calling me that?" the human asks, "Do you think that's my name?"
"Shijou, Shijou," it nods as though to indicate, I KNOW it is. Then it proffers its note again. The human takes it and reads, "Don't upgrade the first row equipment right now."
"Why not?" the human asks.
"Shijou," it points at the end of the mapped route, where there's a scroll sticking out of the thistles.
2h24m07s: Zone 8, 224 pop, 12.2s RC with Z7/12.
"Your settlement is getting crowded, there's Trimps in the streets, and you're taking heat. You feel a sudden strong desire to create a map, though you're not quite sure how that would help."
2h49m10s: Zone 9, 357 pop, 9.5s RC with Z8/15.
"You can't shake the feeling that you've been here before. Déjà-vu?"
The trimps really seem to like the new high capacity mansions, and the village has rapidly expanded since they started building them.
"There's something familiar about this," the human says.
"Tai," the grey one that writes clings to his arm and shows him a note that says, "Don't give up now."
"We must persist," says the yellow one has found a foothold it can grab onto and grabs the human's shoulder gently, "If you give up to early, we'll never solve this. You'll be stuck here forever."
The human puts his hand over the trimp's paw on his shoulders, then looks at him, "I can die, too."
"No, you can't," the trimp says quietly, "Please don't test that, tall one."
"Death is just another path..." he remembers.
"Gan," the grey one squeaks. [That's the first two kana syllables of "Gandalf"]
"...one that we all must take," the human continues, "The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it-"
"A green mist," the yellow trimp interrupts, "flash of fire, we're all gone and our progress forgotten. The wandering stars return to that day, and you again crash that ship- ...a little better every time."
"Wait," the human looks around, "have I been here before?"
"I-" the yellow trimp tries in futility to share what little it knows, "...or... somebody got just a little coolant into the-"
"Into the what?"
"This side up," the grey one's note says.
"Into the that," the yellow one points at the note, "It really helped. You- ...I don't think we've ever had mansions before."
Well, of course they didn't have mansions before. That was one of my ship's data cards. How did it get way out here? Will anything start to make sense?
3h02m13s: Zone 10, 387 pop, 8.7s RC with Z8/15; '28s: 11.1s RC with Z9/19. 3h16m41s: Tough snimp after food book, L10 rand dept from lo-hi-med 118/25/96, 4 Items.
"That's twice our frags led us to gem-rich Moria," the human says.
"Morimpa," the new red trimp scientist corrects, there now being 5 scientists. [There'd be more if there were more turkimp.]
"The question is how do we use all these gems?" the human looks at the village zoning plans again, "I like those mansions and all, but they use hardly any gems compared to, well-" he gestures at the pile of over two dozen thousand gems they've gathered, "-that! And still a lot of wood and lumber."
"I think there's something," the yellow one sighs, "I wish I knew more."
Quite some time later, after they're done looting that route for equipment plans, the trimps are again advancing through Zone 10, and he hears it.
"Tai?" the grey one wonders.
"Where are you going?" the yellow one asks.
"To the farm," the human answers.
"Whatever for?" the red one seems exasperated.
"Shijou?" the grey one sighs, then looks at the fighting front. It's been around long enough to remember, "Shijou!"
"You guys already get so much to eat this doesn't do you much good," the human explains.
3h32m33s: L11 112/35/78 rand sea, dropped from Z11c6 with disband, 4.
"What's wrong?" the red one asks.
The human comforts one of the wounded. Once trimps start into a zone fight, they have to finish before they bleed out. He's really bothered making them desert in front of that second turkimp. "They had a lot left in them," he sighs, rubbing his eyes, "but we can't keep that much dead turkimp at once, we have to leave it alive to use up all of this one."
"Shijou," the grey one presents a note, "We need this map right away, anyway. Don't worry about it, Tightniks."
"Tightniks?" he looks at the grey one, "Is that me? How do you know?"
"Tai," the grey one points at the top of the human's left breast pocket.
"Ah, crud," the yellow one curls its tail around in front of itself as trimps do when they're embarrassed, "Is that really a name tag?"
The human hadn't even noticed it since the green flash blew up his memory as he was stepping out of the ship.
4h04m22s: Block (sub-8h AP is only 0.3%), taking it, 504 pop, 9.8s RC with Z10/24.
It's a pretty thick book about using shields for block instead of hit points. The pad has the stats analysis. Sh3-1 is only giving us 9% of our hit points. Turning to his trimp scientists, he says, "It seems to me to be worth it."
"Let's," the yellow one nods.
"Shijou," it hands him a note, "It scales badly, but that won't matter for a long time. I think there's a way to undo it before it matters."
"Doing it." The human takes out his pad and starts scanning.
4h29m05s: L14 rand moun 137/26/80 is really good for a lo-hi-med. 4h30m52s: Hotels.
"Ah," the yellow one says, "I knew there was something. That must be it."
5h08m09s: L15 lo-hi-hi rand gard 129/28/82 (just got explorers). 5h09m32s: Picked up Wall.
"Dam," the human says.
"Damn?" the red one chuckles.
"No," the human says, "Earthen wall dam; it's a thing that makes artificial lakes by holding rivers back."
"Lakes?" the yellow one asks, "Rivers?"
"Oh yeah," the human says, "This planet doesn't have enough rain for those..."
5h48m21: Leaving Wall from about c70 to fetch Tion Z15.
"You can't resume the map from the same point if you start another," the human reads the grey one's note.
"We can go back to the same point on that route if we hold there and finish Zone 15, right?" Tightniks asks.
"Shijou!" it seems to be saying yes.
"Yes," the yellow one adds, "but we're out of Series III upgrades, and you need a fresh map route to start up Series IV."
"We should be okay," Tightniks says, "but if we have to start it over, I don't see that being a big deal." As they advance through the rest of Zone 15, Tightniks resumes his usual duties at the research desk instead building and running traps like he was before.
The trimps seem hopeful at this decision.
5h49m10s: Fresh turkimp. 5h50m16s: Zone 16, 1071 pop, 13.4s RC with Z15/75, 13m43s turkimp (skel in c1.)
"Z:16 Seriously? Another Blimp so soon?"
"So," Tightniks lowers his bee nickels and looks at the red one, "is it going to be boss fights at the end of every zone from now on?"
"Hmm," the red trimp looks up past the human at some random rock spire or cloud.
"Well?" the human persists.
"Yup," he says.
"Hmph," Tightniks grabs a Sw3-1 of the rack and advances towards the front, "Before then, we have another Mister Titanium."
"What does he like about skeletimps?" the red one asks the grey one as the human marches off.
"Shijou?" the grey one seems just as confused by that.
"He's not going back to the ship, and he's not getting himself killed," the yellow one smiles, "so I'll take it."
5h58m32s...
"Hey guys, go for the mortar!" the human suggests to his 75 fighting trimps in the Wall's boss fight.
"I can tell from your bedtime stories that you're used to the artillery in that other place," the yellow one gripes, "but fighting works differently here, there's no artillery."
And the human instantly collapses laughing, the scientists a little worried he might have injured himself in the planet's severe gravity. But he's okay, at least physically, "Mortar is the stuff between the bricks, fellas. That's is a brickimp, right?"
5h59m18s: Wall, 1076 pop, 13.3s RC, 1% AP for sub-8h finish, first L16 roll good 156/35/84 moun, 10 for the metal.
Beyond the Wall was a more edenic section of the trimpolis ruins, doubling the production of the lumberjacks. The trimps are actually really happy with the mode of all of the laborers moving between the three big jobs, along with the turkimp, except for the foremen specialized at leading the job. It isn't enough to boost their productivity, but the human goes to them with trays of sandwiches.
6h06m52s: 50 map run 0.3% AP...
6h19m13s: Zone 17, 1141 pop, 16.0s RC with Z16/94, no turkimp.
"Z:17 You climb a large cliff and look out over the new Zone. Red dirt, scorched ground, and devastation. Is that a Dragimp flying around out there?!"
"Hmm," the human surveys the new zone with his bee nickels, "Looks like crap. Any ideas?"
"You're the idea man," the yellow one groans.
"Set the map flag," he puts his bee nickels away, "We'll run a depth for practice and to load up on gems for more hotels."
"Righto," the red one gets to work.
6h44m34s: First DCP. (Draglimp Care Package; I refuse to call it a tribute.)
"Oh," the human says, "It's tame now, so it brings back gems in exchange for food?" He looks at his gaping scientists, "That's what it looks like, huh? Guys? Yo!"
"Tai..." the grey one sighs.
Draglimp, the dragimp imprinted on Tightniks, lands beside the human, drops some gems at his feet, and accepts some scratching behind its horns before diving into the food bowl.
"You tamed a dragimp???" Grey's note says.
"Well," the yellow one huffs, "I guess that happened."
8h18m53s: L20 depth of 154/27/79.
"Mapping up here?" the red one half closes one eye and tilts his head.
"Yeah," the human says while fitting together the depth map fragments, "With the coordination book not right at the end, we have an extra mark of coordination to take advantage of. Let's take our housing up to 2000 or so, shall we?"
"Okay," the yellow one says from a pile of logs, "What's all the wood for?" They had been collecting it for days now.
"The series upgrades follow a rather specific pattern," Tightniks explains, "Just on the other side of this blimp is Zone 21, where we should be able to find the Shield series V, right?"
"Shijou!" the grey one nods.
8h56m17s: 1% AP for 100 map runs, leaving it, 1751 pop, 24.8s RC with Z20/232. 8h56m54s: Zone 21...
"Ooooookay," Tightniks growls, "There is something off about this thing."
"Shijou?" the grey one looks at the yellow one with concern about their human starship pilot friend.
The human stoops, picks up the little green gem on the ridge between Zone 20 and 21, looks at it, huffs, and asks, "Any idea where this comes from?"
"Err..." the red one seems hesitant to say, "I think you made it."
"Really?" the human huffs, "How could that be?" Then he tosses it at Red, "See if anything reacts to it. It might be radioactive, so we should take turns to minimize exposure."
"Really?" Red's holding it now, "What makes you say that?"
"Because I'm pissed off for no reason I can figure out," the human says, "I think it's coming from that."
"Frags," the red one says quickly, "I think it's arranging a route. You're good with maps," it tosses the gem to the grey scientist.
"Shijou," the grey one says hopefully, and has a map drawn within a few minutes. [Whether it looks like the one in Puchim@s 1x61 is anyone's guess. That one annoyed me as well as Chihya.]
9h02m37s: L21 moun first roll was a decent 160/26/84. 9h21m00s: Starting run 5 of that map...
Tightniks had taken his anger out on some food and wood to build about 8000 traps. Now he's leaning against a rock spire in his increasingly tattered uniform. A nap begins, perhaps unintentionally.
Wild trimps are examining the pile, finding it unwelcoming, and also finding no place in the town, just mill about. It looks like they want to help.
"Ku?" it's a blue trimp, probably a farmer waiting for stuff to grow, climbs up on the rock spire the human is leaning against, starts patting him on the head, "Ku. Ku ku." [Puchim@s Chihya.]
9h23m09s: Still working that lap...
Tightniks wakes up from that nap, and the grey one is standing there. "Shijou," it says with a note of concern, although not much of one. The note it holds says, "It wasn't me."
"Oh, what wasn't you, buddy?" He stretches out a bit, feeling somewhat refreshed. It feels like somebody washed his face and hair while he was sleeping.
The grey one is also holding a small mirror, apparently broken off from a larger mirror and with the sharp edges filed down to make the edges safe.
The human takes it from the grey trimp and holds it in front of his face to discover that somebody has bound up all his hair into about twenty little pigtails. He touches them with his other hand to confirm. "Eh, whatever." He hands the mirror back and goes back to sleep. [Puchim@s Koamimami.]
9h30m08s: The following run...
"He's not throwing stuff every which way yet," the yellow one whispers to the red one, watching the human snoozing with his pad on his knee.
"You remember that, too?" the red one asks.
"'Remember'?" the yellow one turns to face the red one, "I s'pose that's better than imagining it."
"I remember it, too," the grey one says via a playing card sized note.
"If we're stuck in a time loop," the yellow one sighs, "maybe this cycle will be different."
"Tai..." the grey one admires him for a moment. Then thumbs in the direction of the mountain, "Heh, Shijou!" it laughs.
9h35m58s: Run 8, c9 of that map.
The scientists nap and take notes, and meditate and take notes, and draw stuff. The grey one often storyboards for the other nine because it's the best at drawing stuff. They have come up with a list, and most probably "order" (they're debating whether their ranking means "order" (sequence of things happening over the various loops) or "frequency" (what proportion of previous loops they have happened in). But they've come up with this, from first (or perhaps most often) to most recent (or perhaps least often):
- The ship crashes (they're pretty sure that happens every loop) - The human builds huts - The human teaches some of his trimps to speak and do science - The human builds houses - The human makes maps - The human builds mansions - The human blows up and gets himself killed somewhere around Z17 to Z21, often on a dragimp - The human only recently/occasionally builds hotels - The human only recently/rarely tamed a dragimp - The human only recently/rarely maps the Dimension of Anger
They're all agreed that that they have never finished the Dimension of Anger. What they are not all agreed on is that they've never done this conference to figure out whether they're in a time loop or what that might mean. [See also Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Cause and Effect" ...which was sort of a time loop but they weren't going back in time. It's very interesting, but its meta makes no sense - no one ever went looking for the Bozeman in 80 years? No one who went looking for the Bozeman also got stuck? No one noticed the passage of time outside the little area of space where the not-quite-a-time-loop was happening? Errr... sci-fi writers, don't be half-assed about your time loops, lmao! Be like Harold Ramis- ...what am I saying?? (That would be Groundhog Day, which grafted a time loop into a romcom; there are no other sci-fi elements. But it was a full-blown time loop and not half-assed like "Cause and Effect".)]
9h54m06s: Dropped from Z21c95...
I think it would be a bad idea to bypass that green area, as much as I'd rather not face it. Both his domesticated trimps, which are breeding up a new group of fighters, and the wild trimps he has decided just now not to open the traps for, stare at him and point in that direction. He shoulders a huge Shield V-3 and grabs an Mace IV-2 as well and announces, "We're doing it." Thus equipped, he marches off into the Dimension of Anger.
10h27m53s: Taking Pi4-2; recently had taken Pa4-2...
The group at the front had expired, and the snimp in DoAc95 glares at the advancing colony of trimps, which had halted only because of it. It refuses to counterattack the vulnerable colony and its human, instead snorting and huffing, waiting for the next bunch of 232 fighting trimps to come in range.
Tightniks runs along the line of traps, releasing the recently tamed trimps, singing a song that he doesn't remember the meaning of, that he doesn't remember was crafted by an ethnically Chinese guy out of an African language, and later mastered by two caucasians over the internet before they ever met in person. "Baba yetu yetu uliye, mbinguni yetu yetu amina..." because it just happened to be stuck in his head. [Because the Doylian author decided on a whim to. Christopher Tin got it into Civilization IV and at the time (2010 July), I made the best video for it on YouTube, which got subsequently blown to shreds when Peter Hollens and Malukah re-recorded the song from scratch in their own voices and instruments in 2014, pity with no English translation, the purpose of my video.]
Noticing the last batch of metal he needs coming out of the furnace, he waves the waiting grey scientist to fire up the forge [to use the term properly and not as the game does], for it was time to wrap up the forging dies for the Spetum IV, Mark 2 pike heads.
"Shijou!" the grey one cheers, setting aside a snack that looks like maybe ramen, and starts jumping up and down on the bellows handle.
It takes a while for the human to chip out the tip in the two halves of the forging die, and then polish it, and then heat it up in the forge, and then quench it, inspect it, and put it into service crafting thousands of new pike heads for the fighting trimps.
But only one second passed on the map frame clock (10h27m54s) four cells behind that snimp, in the case being brooded over by this huge, and if it's honest, rather concerned megablimp.
10h35m45: Portal PB, 45 He, 4.247 He/hr, 1891 pop, 22.7s RC with Z20/232, no turkimp.
The last head of the map's boss monster goes limp as one of the fighting trimps' mace heads bounces of it, and the huge thing settles on its tail, resting on the package that seems to be the prize of this map. And there's a popping sound, and then something mechanical.
Is that a scroll compressor? Tightniks looks at the package. The deflating monster's lifting envelope material drapes over everything underneath it. "Red, Shijou!" he snaps and points, "roll up that side of it. Keep this part from sucking down on the extractor nozzle!"
All ten of the scientists jump in, literally, pushing the gas in the bag towards the compressor. Tightniks as well, rolling up the front.
Until he kicks, and nearly trips over, a smaller package that might be the explanation for the reason why the center of the monster's defense seemed to be a little away from the big package he could see. It's in the right place, he realizes. He gets it uncovered and reads stenciled-and-sprayed block letters on it:
"DT TIME PORTAL / THIS SIDE DOWN"
Perhaps the Dimension of Anger is so named because of the rage suddenly rising up in Tightniks' throat. It isn't so much as the free-floating aggression suddenly has an answer, there is definitely a fresh batch of rage and anger as he grips the nearest Mace IV, Mark 3 with both hands and gets it over his shoulder, its target obviously this object, anger at the realization he screams at the top of his lungs, "We are stuck in a mutha FAH-king time loop!!" His swing begins. [Tightniks almost never cusses, unlike Snugniks.]

Can anyone speak to the level of pre-planning care they have received or to the quality of the service they have had through jaw surgery in the Kaiser system? I live in Los Angeles and have a Kaiser HMO but just had a consult with an out of network surgeon who used to work with them for years. I feel like the level of consideration and care may be much better with him (and the technology more advanced) I’m weighing the possibility of changing insurance to BCBS and having to pay for the surgery and get reimbursements through Blue Cross Blue Shield after open enrollment (only catch is I don’t have $60-$100k cash laying around in my bank account…) Kaiser seems more like a factory for this type of surgery and after reading “confessionsofametalmouth” blog I got scared lol. I’m hoping to be reassured that Kaiser is great to go with since it would be the easiest and most affordable route.
Kaiser is the most straight forward and streamlined and the most likely insurance to cover this entire surgery, but I’ve heard that they don’t have the best surgical pre-planning or use the most state of the art technology to render the aesthetic result like other private practices might. I’ve also heard that they only give the surgeons 30 minutes to prepare for the surgery and there is much less back and forth in the pre planning process about the final aesthetic outcome. Of course these surgeons see a high volume of patients and have a ton of experience, but my face is my only face and it takes a lot of trust to let someone change it without seeing any kind of rendering or approximation of the outcome. Sorry this was so long… would love any advice or to hear about people’s experiences!

Unbalanced value of properties
The game is all about building 3 houses on a property set before the other players. If you have a set of properties that earns $400+ and nobody else has that, you are set—you're virtually guaranteed a win in a few trips around the board. Priority 1 is to get a monopoly with 3+ houses, and priority 2 is to make sure nobody else has that.
Since you need to get a big moneymaker fast, the light blue, pink, and orange properties are way more valuable than anything else.
Focusing on anything else is not smart. The utilities and railroads are never going to make enough to be worth the investment, and the more expensive property sets take way more investment to get a decent return.
This issue exists because of the escalation in rent value once you build a third house. When a third house is built, the rent increases by a factor of roughly 3x. Take New York Avenue, the last orange property, for example:

16 unbuilt / 80 at 1 house / 220 at 2 houses / 600 at 3 houses / 800 at 4 houses / 1000 at a hotel.

That jump from 220 to 600 on the third house is massive. It goes from a decent moneymaker to a devastating blow. Taking away $600 from another player allows you to double down on your existing investments; meanwhile, they are mortgaging their stuff, or prevented from building what they want.
It costs $1340 to get your full orange set to have 3 houses, and you have three massive profit avenues.
Contrast this with Pennsylvania Avenue, the last green property:

28 unbuilt / 150 at 1 house / 450 at 2 houses / 1000 at 3 houses / 1200 at 4 houses / 1400 at a hotel.

It costs $2720 to get the full set with three houses. You start the game with $1500—where are you going to get the money for this? Sure, this set also pulls in good money at 2 houses, but it costs $2120 to even get there. You need another revenue stream for this to be viable, and you simply don't have enough time or money to work up multiple revenue streams.
More than half the board is nearly useless. I just put them to auction most of the time, saving my money for the cheaper properties. The "focus on the cheap stuff" strategy wins virtually every single time, and the players compete to see who can do that one strategy more effectively.
Poor bargaining incentives
The game is largely about trading. But, it lends itself to poor bargaining strategies
Infinitely long games
Imagine that the board falls, and nobody gets a property set naturally—all the sets are split. The players know that they need to trade for anyone to win. One player offers another player a fair trade, but that player says no. Being on the winning end of an unbalanced trade guarantees a win, and getting a fair trade could result in a 50 / 50 win probability.
The stubborn player uses his time as leverage. I'm not going to trade with you unless you give me a massive coup, and I'm just gonna sit here all day until you offer me that. The good-faith player must choose: sit here all day, or take the L?
The developers certainly did not imagine that comparative willingness to sit around all day could be the difference between a winning player and a losing player. It's very frustrating.
Chicken
A similar and obnoxious trade strategy is "chicken." Imagine Player 1 gets the orange property set. Players 2 and 3 have split the light blue and pink sets. Player 2 offers Player 3 a trade—we need to start developing our property sets to catch up with Player 1: let's do a trade where we both end up with a set.
The stubborn Player 3 again says no. I'm going to have us sink deeper and deeper into second and third place. Time is ticking and we are on a trajectory to lose, but I can guarantee a win by forcing Player 2 to give me a massive coup. I'm more likely to win by taking advantage of Player 2 than I am to win by making fair trades. Player 2 must choose who wins: Player 1 or Player 3.

So I never really bothered turning these on even though my system supports as during their launch the performance uplift they provided was not substantial and hence not worth the hassle. They also caused stability issues if I remember correctly. However it's 2024 now and the tech has improved a lot, more games are actually taking advantage of it and if benchmarking videos are anything to go by then I am seeing performance uplift by upto 10-15 fps and improved 1% and 0.1% lows which is great IMO as it's basically free performance.
So, I was wondering how many of you guys have it on and should I turn it on too ? Are you experiencing any issues like blue screens, random crashes or freezes or any other weird glitches or bugs ?

So I never really bothered turning these on even though my system supports as during their launch the performance uplift they provided was not substantial and hence not worth the hassle. They also caused stability issues if I remember correctly. However it's 2024 now and the tech has improved a lot, more games are actually taking advantage of it and if benchmarking videos are anything to go by then I am seeing performance uplift by upto 10-15 fps and improved 1% and 0.1% lows which is great IMO as it's basically free performance.
So, I was wondering how many of you guys have it on and should I turn it on too ? Are you experiencing any issues like blue screens, random crashes or freezes or any other weird glitches or bugs ?

~Neptori~
A party was indeed hosted, set up to surround the burning mass of grass that the second creature had been hidden inside, the two severed heads spiked on massive rose thorns high above the half acre of angry flame were eyeless and toothless. Trophies for the queen’s pet Faeries and Fairies.
Tori was half certain she had seen a demon amongst the deadly, fake-friendly, party goers. His eyes didn’t just reflect the fire, they were made from fire. Sparks flew and skittered over his high cheekbones as they made eye contact in passing. A chill went down her spine, a warning and a threat.
She followed quickly after the queen, her gown had been replaced with a shorter gown resembling a white iris flower, the shoes of course matching to look like the stem. High, high heels that didn’t even touch the ground. They hovered over the ground as she fluttered her wings to stay just above her people. A subtle band of wild roses sat on her brow, Neptori only wondered about the thorns and how a flower could be so pale and yet so brightly yellow. Fluffy and tiny, the roses faintly resembled the clouds as the sun fell to make way for darkness in night.
Someone, at some point, had made sunflowers grow twice as tall as they were. They lined the main scenes of the party, their strong, velvety leaves bore golden, burning lanterns. An ashy pink smoke filtered flower shaped holes in the circular… those weren’t lanterns- fairies were nocturnal! Those were burning herbs, were they to keep predators away from the party or to heighten the pixie magic warping the sizes of everything. She took a light whiff taking in the earthy smell, the note of citrine and then the smell of honey fresh from a beehive… she suddenly felt very light. Shaking her head to shake the feeling, she finally caught up to the queen's side. Wings would have been entirely advantageous in this situation, Tori would have to do with waiting till the queen had settled on her throne at hearing distance.
Around and around the party they went, Tori being shown off like a prized pony. The queen didn’t seem to be too hated by her people, it was strange that she had said so earlier. Neptori pinched her brow trying to keep her thoughts from derailing. No, play by her rules and she will have to let Tori go. That’s what she would have to do. So around and around she went some more. Fairies drenched her in new garments. As they were the fashion capital of the realm, they were exceedingly horrified by a poor woman’s rags. Neptori accepted their gifts, too afraid to offend to deny the strange things they put on her. Her coat had been torn from her at some point, her trousers had been replaced with a purple petticoat and a pink pearl corset. Her boots were gone and her feet cried out in pain as she felt the dirt and clovers underfoot. As her toes dug into the soft heaven that was nature. A giggle escaped her, a scraggly cry really. It hurt but it was amazing. She couldn’t remember the last time she had taken her boots off. Her smell was ripe and rank but she didn’t care, her toes weren’t cramped up!
she turned to see if the queen could see- but there was nobody. Just an empty field and those burning herbs finally burning up. The smoke was so thin it fell in scraggly whisps. The morning air seemed too crisp and clean and untamed. She burst into a sprint down the path of trampled grasses. Strange flowers and shrubs had grown underfoot but they were walked all over by what must’ve been an enormous crowd. Then a light, brighter than the awakening blue overhead, the sun. The first rays yawned over the land, sending a golden and blue contrast into the world. She had never felt so at peace. So at one with her surroundings. Her face was numb and cold with it, or maybe the reverse but she was only paying attention to the awakening surrounding her.
The bees and birds and the fairies… everyone began to stir awake as slowly as if time was blinking awake with them. She just stared with watering eyes, taking in the magic that thickened in the air. The scent of apple blossoms washing over her as the land was engulfed in golden hues of every color. Then it was green. The sky was alive with fluffy white clouds, scattered across that simple barrier of blue. It was all so beautiful and it thrummed around her, in her veins it pulsed.
Everything just felt so right, then a shadow fell around her. She turned her surely very glassy eyes to find the queen standing a wreck before her. “There you are pet.” She said with a crooked grin. Her eyes were bright red and brought out the earthy green hues within her irises. Her iris party dress was limp and her band of fluffy yellow roses was gone.
“Wha- “What happened?” Neptori cried out as her knees came crashing down to the dirt and rocks and ashes and… what had happened? “Your very first fairy party it seems.” She waved a hand and the perfect scene made way for the glowing petal walls of the fairy palace.

OOC: co-written with NotTooSunny
It was an ordinary day at the New York City Library. People wandered in and out of the building, unaware of the monster that lurked among them.
The only people who seemed to know the danger these mortals were in were Harper and Amon, who entered the building with glowing bronze swords at their hips. The bulky weapons seemed to have escaped the notice of the other library patrons, which was a good thing. The job description had made it clear that they were meant to remain inconspicuous in completing their task.
Harper had traded her usual bright orange camp shirt for a more discrete cropped black t-shirt and pleated pants. She had been insistent on coming up with a persona for them on the train ride from Montauk Station into New York City. They were meant to act as high school students researching for a World History paper on Ancient Greece. Now that they were inside the library, she had stopped her incessant rambling to peruse a riddle book, in what she had insisted was preparation for their job.
As they wandered through the bookshelves, she remained absorbed in the dog-eared children’s book, thumbing through the pages to find a riddle that would be fitting of a sphinx.
“Here’s one, Amon,” she said, narrowly avoiding a collision with another library patron as she read, “What is something that runs but never walks, has a mouth but never talks, has a head but never weeps, has a bed but never sleeps?”
The dark-haired son of Apollo glanced over from a shelf of dusty atlases, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly. “That is an easy one,” he replied simply. "River. Try me with something more challenging next time around." He adjusted the collar of his striped button down, which he had layered with a navy blue sweater in preparation for the chill of the air-conditioned interior.
“The real riddle is where we can find this sphinx,” Amon glanced around the spacious reading area, eyeing the dark wooden staircase with its ornate railings. “The boyfriend and girlfriend who tried this last time, they found her by a bookcase.”
“A bookcase,” Harper repeated derisively, closing her book to theatrically scan their surroundings. “That narrows it down.”
Ignoring Harper’s mockery, the son of Apollo paused suddenly, his dark eyes glazing over with concentration. His hearing dulled, the surrounding footsteps and rustling pages fading into the background as if muffled by a thick curtain. Amon searched for the energy signature of the monster he knew lurked among the mortals. It was a subtle shift, like trying to discern a whisper in a crowded room, but he felt a faint, abnormal energy hanging somewhere up above.
“I say we try the second floor,” he said as he snapped out of the tracking trance, offering no other explanation to Harper.
“We could do that, sure,” Harper said, words laced with blatant doubt at his sudden certainty. “I say we try asking the Visitor’s Center. I know she's supposed to be disguised by the Mist, but the librarians have to have noticed something.”
“You can go ahead and do that.” The small smirk from earlier was now spreading across his face. “But you can’t be upset if I find the sphinx and solve her riddle before you even get there.”
Harper rolled her eyes, but she made no attempt to stop Amon from walking towards the staircase. After a moment she set off after him, footsteps even against the wooden steps.
Up on the second floor, Amon moved quietly, his dark eyes scanning the hallway for anything out of the ordinary.
I know you’re up here.
He stopped at every heavy-looking mahogany door, peering through each muted glass insert. He felt the air grow thicker with ominous energy at every step, so he knew the monster must be near.
One of the doors was slightly ajar, a suspiciously open invitation. Or a trap. The dark-haired boy caught sight of a cat-shaped figure on the other side before ducking down and motioning sharply for Harper’s attention. He unsheathed his kopis from his belt, bracing himself for confrontation.
Harper crouched against the wall, hand on the hilt of her sword as she tried to peek through the frosted glass pane. She held her breath, ready to move at Amon’s signal. He held out three fingers and then put them down one by one. When he hit zero, they stood in unison, flinging the door open together.
When Amon and Harper stepped inside, the body of the sphinx lay motionless on the floor.
The rest of the room was in disarray, littered with disheveled chairs and broken bits of chalk. A window on the other side of the room had been forced open, the curtain fluttering in the wind.
“No way,” Harper said. The door clicked shut behind her as she pushed past Amon into the room and kneeled to study the monster’s limp figure.
The sphinx had the large body of a lion and the eerily human face of a middle-aged woman, hair tied back in a severe bun and foundation caked onto her high cheekbones. Fangs jutted out of her red-painted lips, and eagle wings sprouted out of the space between her shoulder blades, folded tight against her back.
“Monsters dissolve into dust when they die,” Amon remarked, keeping his distance as he watched the subtle rise and fall of the monster’s ribs. “She must have been knocked unconscious.”
“Right,” Harper agreed, “The real question is who. And why.”
She hovered a hand over the cat's shoulder, set on rousing her. Before she made contact, the sphinx's eyes snapped open, round irises surrounded by shocking yellow sclera.
"Slain!" she wailed. Harper staggered backwards. Amon’s arms instinctively reached out to catch her, but she didn’t stumble near enough to make contact. "I am slain!"
With feline grace, the sphinx rose to her feet. A white tape outline marked the placement of her previously prone body on the floor. The muscles in her legs rippled as she paced in front of Harper and Amon, massive velvet paws silent against the carpet.
"And you, my dear heroes," she roared, eyes narrowed in an accusatory glare, "were too late to save me!"
The sphinx sniffed, composing herself. She leapt onto a wooden table. The table legs creaked underneath her weight. "Fear not," she tutted, "Fear not. For you can still avenge me. If you are able to determine the murderer and their weapon, then I will obtain justice, and all will be right with the world.”
“Your riddle is a murder mystery,” Harper said, confusion written across her face. Amon raised an eyebrow. The sphinx chuffed, a low rumbling sound reminiscent of laughter.
“You sought that hackneyed question about man? The Sphinx that the storytellers remember is far less adaptive than I am. I am not interested in your ability to regurgitate the information you have read. Nor am I interested in taking advantage of the nonsensical rules of your English language.”
“I am here to satisfy my own curiosity: does modern mankind still possess the ability to engage in deductive reasoning, or do they only seek to make themselves appear intelligent? Do not speak,” the sphinx said, a pointed look at Harper, who had opened her mouth to interject, “You will answer my questions when you play my game.”
“The potential murder weapons are scattered throughout this room,” she continued, leaping off the table. “And the suspects have already provided their testimonies for your review. Rest assured, I have made certain that their statements contain no lies.”
A shimmering, translucent energy began to swirl around Harper and Amon’s feet, beginning to take shape as holograms with a flickering, ephemeral quality.
A projection of Cerberus materialized first, his three massive heads snarling and snapping in unison. A ribbon of text appeared by his paws to translate his growling: "I was guarding the entrance, my duty unbroken."
Next came the Minotaur, his towering form pacing within the labyrinth on Crete. He snorted and pawed at the ground, the holographic maze shifting behind him in the background. The translation text appeared: "Confined within these walls, no escape for me."
Lamia's projection flickered into view, her serpentine lower half coiled around her as she wept in her cave. She glanced mournfully at the holographic images of her lost children: "My grief consumes me, innocent of this crime."
A shimmering Hydra emerged next, its nine heads snapping at invisible foes. Each one moved independently, showcasing its ability to act on its own. The translation for the hissing head at the center read: "Engaged in battle, I could not have killed."
Typhon materialized with a thunderous roar, his colossal form fighting against restraints under Mount Etna. His immense size and power were palpable, even in scaled down holographic form: "Bound by chains of the earth, I could not have roamed free."
Echidna’s hologram appeared last, her form a mix of human and serpent, lounging in a dimly lit cave. She looked directly at the viewers, her expression both defiant and amused. The translation text by her side read: “I dwell in my lair, uninvolved in such petty affairs.”
The sphinx swiped at the last projection as it faded, deeming her handiwork satisfactory. “There is not enough information to deduce the killer using evidence alone. Because I am fair, I will provide you with three hints before your final guess. Be forewarned: if you fail to provide a correct answer, you will both perish. Is this understood?”
Harper spoke. “If we answer correctly, you will leave this library for good.”
“If you answer correctly, I will permanently relocate. It is a preferable option in comparison to another death. Now, do you agree to the terms and conditions?” the sphinx said primly, regarding Harper and Amon with casual disdain. The pair nodded. “Very well.”
The sphinx dropped onto the floor and let her head loll back, pretending to be dead once more.
Hint #1

Suspects	Weapons
Cerberus	The Shirt of Nessus
The Minotaur	Siren Song
Lamia	Harpy Talon
The Hydra	Celestial Bronze Sword
Typhon	A-C Encyclopedia
Echidna	Cerberus Fang

Soon after the Sphinx had laid back down, Harper and Amon began to scour the room. A small pile of prospective murder weapons formed on a nearby table.
“We can easily eliminate the siren song,” Amon rushed to speak over Harper, eyeing the small glass vial of swirling gray matter that they had found nestled behind a row of books on metalworking. “It is a luring mechanism, not a murder weapon.”
“We could rule out Cerberus’ fang too,” he pointed at the enormous yellowing tooth, about the size of the small baseball bat Amon used to have when he played in the little league. “If we take the hologram as ground truth, all of his teeth were intact there.”
Harper used her kopis to prod at the stained tunic that had been hidden in a desk drawer, being careful not to touch it with bare skin. “The Shirt of Nessus is a viable option. It would be easy for any of the suspects to lay it down and wait for the hydra venom to kick in.”
“I am not ready to rule out the bronze sword either,” Amon noted. “Monsters have access to heroes and the weapons they leave behind.”
“Most of these monsters don’t even have opposable thumbs,” Harper argued, running a hand over the sword they had found by a power outlet. ”They don’t have the dexterity to wield a sword.”
“I do not imagine that the technicality would be that granular.”
Harper laughed. “Oh, the number of teeth in the Cerberus hologram tell all, but we’re drawing the line at opposable thumbs.”
“I suppose that that logic would also rule out the harpy talon and the encyclopedia easily as well,” Amon admitted. “Which would be too easy.”
“I’m just that good at logical deduction.” Harper said proudly. “If my assumption is correct, then the poisoned shirt is the only one that makes sense.”
Amon scoffed, folding his arms across his chest as his dark eyes bored into Harper. “It would not necessarily matter what our first guess would be anyway.”
“Can you provide an argument for any other weapon? Or are you intent on purposely making an illogical guess?” she countered cooly.
“Fine,” Amon acquiesced. “Since you are so adamant about the shirt, we can guess the shirt, and be incorrect. It does not matter. What about the suspects themselves?” He clasped his hands behind his back, his steps measured as he started to pace across the plush red carpet of the room.
Harper smiled, smugly accepting her victory. She strode towards a chalkboard at the side of the study room, inscribing the list of weapons and suspects with a fresh piece of white chalk.
“All of them have alibis,“ she began. “I think that-”
“Some make more sense than others,” Amon spoke over Harper, irritated by her minor triumph. “Cerberus, for example, is under the service of Hades. He says he did not leave his post, and he could not have done so without permission or dire consequences on the process of the dead.”
Harper silently seethed as Amon spoke, meeting his rationale with reluctant acceptance before starting again in a louder, exaggerated tone. “I think that the ones with the shakiest alibis are Lamia, the Minotaur, Typhon, and Echidna. No witnesses can confirm their locations. In fact, Lamia provides no location at all.” Harper circled those names. She looked at Amon with a forced smile, allowing him a moment to provide more commentary.
“Lamia? Well,” there was a hint of mockery in the sneer that tugged on the corner of Amon’s lips. “I would imagine her emotions rendered her… Too fragile and unstable to carry out such an act.”
“You’re kidding,” Harper scoffed, searching Amon's face for the slightest hint that he was joking. “Her grief is what moved her to kill children in the first place. I doubt it would suddenly be incapacitating. She’s just appealing to your sense of superiority, and I can’t believe that you’re falling for it.”
"It is not about superiority. It is about logic," Amon retorted, bristling in defense. “You cannot deny that emotions cloud judgment. Maybe the sphinx wants us to leverage our knowledge about her past crimes to reason that she was not thinking clearly in this case either.” Amon had no other evidence that pointed towards Lamia as the top suspect, but he had dug deep enough where he was now ready to stand firm in his reasoning.
“Murder,” Harper countered, eyes narrowed in a venomous stare, “-does not require you to think clearly. Haven’t you heard of a crime of passion? If anyone’s judgment is clouded right now, Amon, it’s yours.”
The son of Apollo squared his shoulders, his expression hardening. "I understand the concept of crimes of passion, thank you.” His dark-eyed stare returned Harper's gaze, unflinching at the intensity. “But our investigation must be rooted in facts, not assumptions based on emotions. And the facts are,” he resumed his pacing once more, “that Lamia cannot be the culprit, as she is the only suspect that openly admits to being innocent of this crime.”
Amon had considered this from the very start, but provoking Harper like this had proved to be far more amusing.
Harper crossed Lamia’s name off of the board. She swallowed down her anger, fighting the urge to continue pressing the issue in favor of returning to their list of suspects. She pointed her piece of chalk at the next names on the list. “The Minotaur and Typhon are trapped, or so they say. How could they have done anything?”
“Their alibis revolve around their inability to escape,” Amon pointed out. “Not that they were unable to commit murder. The Labyrinth, in fact,” he raised a dramatic finger, “has several moving passages that could have permitted the Minotaur to move and commit murder without an official escape.”
Harper considered his words for a long moment, trying to find the flaw in his reasoning. Seeing none, she placed a dot next to the Minotaurs's name.
“Typhon escaped his prison in the Second Titanomachy. He could do it again,” Harper said thoughtfully. “Though I don’t understand why he would do something like this. He’s the Sphinx's father. The same goes for Echidna.”
Amon, who had been nodding at Harper’s assessment of Typhon’s abilities, pursed his lips at her observation of parentage. “I do not see how this could possibly be relevant to the logical puzzle at hand.”
Harper spoke slowly, as if the answer was obvious. “What motive would they have to kill their own daughter?”
“Harper,” Amon began curtly, folding his arms across his chest. “Half of the Greek myths revolve around immortals killing their own children.”
“Then we should pick one of them,” Harper declared, pivoting her argument instead of admitting her logical blunder. “They would have more of a motive than the rest of the suspects, if anything.”
“The Minotaur can escape much more easily than Typhon can. Motive aside, it is the most logical guess,” Amon concluded, adjusting his collar haughtily. “I will remind you that we picked your choice of weapon. It is only fair that I select the monster.”
“Fine.” Harper agreed, her gaze stormy as she turned back towards the sphinx. “We accuse the Minotaur of killing the sphinx with the Shirt of Nessus.”
The sphinx opened one eye. “None of these are correct!”
Hint #2

Suspects	Weapons
Cerberus	The Shirt of Nessus
The Minotaur	Siren Song
Lamia	Harpy Talon
The Hydra	Celestial Bronze Sword
Typhon	A-C Encyclopedia
Echidna	Cerberus Fang

“Two more hints left.” Harper announced, crossing off the Minotaur’s name and the poisoned shirt on the chalkboard with a flourish. It was not ideal that her initial logical deductions had been incorrect, but at least Amon had also been wrong. She couldn't resist a snide comment. “I knew it wasn’t the Minotaur.”
“So you still think it’s Typhon.” Choosing to ignore Harper’s taunting, Amon rested his hand on a nearby desk, studying the lists on the chalkboard before him. He had taken the Minotaur error as a personal failure, and was determined to get the suspect right this time.
“I do.”
“Why not Echidna?”
“She’s too emotional to kill someone, obviously.” Harper said sarcastically. “Her frail female arms are probably too weak to even hold a weapon.”
The dark-haired boy rolled his eyes. “Objectively,” he began, ignoring her quip once more, “Typhon could not have lied about his inability to roam free. A natural disaster freed him from Mount Etna during the Second Titanomachy, but he could not recreate those conditions on his own.” Though his tone remained aloof, it was clear that Amon was relishing in the opportunity to flaunt his mythology knowledge.
“Maybe,” Harper argued, stubborn. “But Echidna’s statement was less ambiguous than his. Typhon just explains his predicament; he doesn't provide a real claim. Echidna explicitly says she was not involved.” She thought for a few more moments, rolling the piece of chalk in her hands. “Echidna could have released him? They would be accomplices.”
Amon shook his head. “There was a single murderer. Not two. The sphinx would not lie about the premise of the game.”
Harper stared at him coldly, but could offer no rebuttal. She turned her attention to the board. “Typhon is a giant. He’s capable of using the sword.”
“But the specificity of Echidna’s denial is still incredibly suspicious. ‘Petty affairs’ is a strange way to phrase a murder. But,” Amon added reluctantly, “I understand the logic behind Typhon. I suppose it is your turn to choose the monster, and we will still have another guess to work with.”
“As for the weapon,” he continued, “I still think the sword is the most viable option, given that the siren song and the fang can be ruled out and the shirt with the venom was, well,” Amon pursed his lips, fighting the urge to smile, “incorrect.”
Before Harper could interject, Amon turned towards the sphinx at the front of the room. “We accuse Typhon of killing the sphinx with a Celestial Bronze Sword.”
“One of these is correct!”
Hint #3

Suspects	Weapons
Cerberus	The Shirt of Nessus
The Minotaur	Siren Song
Lamia	Harpy Talon
The Hydra	Celestial Bronze Sword
Typhon	A-C Encyclopedia
Echidna	Cerberus Fang

“Aha!” Amon raised a triumphant finger before pointing it at Harper. “I told you,” he gloated, “Typhon had no escape route.”
“You were right,” Harper admitted, staring down at the carpet so that she would not have to look at his smug expression.
“Let’s get this over with,” she muttered, and turned back towards the lioness with crossed arms. “We accuse Echidna of killing the sphinx with a Celestial Bronze Sword”
“One of these is correct,” the sphinx announced. Her mouth twisted in amusement, fangs bared in a menacing smile.
READ PART 2 HERE

Blachowicz here.
Kept yah’ waiting, huh? Heh, sorry about that one, but I can explain. As we all know… we lost a few good men the last few months.
That’s the brutal part of a hybrid war like ours: We’re fighting a foe unconventional, with half our arsenal tied down because those who grant us authorization are either in disbelief of the true facts, or scared… or already assimilated. That being said our momentum recently was a change not seen in years, and because of that… despite the losses we have garnered, we were close through a breakthrough. One last night Krol pulls myself and other two must trusted squad leads into the back of our COP. There is one of our equipment cages, surrounded by m-bitter radios, tripods, and several hundred thousand dollars of equipment he brought us around a simple worn table. Before us he laid a map of eastern poland… red markings indicating cells that seemed to dot the countryside like a pestilence, or used to… as deep gashes of advance from raids had trisected their lines, even if ones did pop up in the interior.
It was a back and forth; an outside virus infecting Polska at it’s heart, and we were the antibodies sent to drive them out. To which… Major Krol points to one of the largest symbol on the map: a dark red diamond, the NATO symbol for an enemy unit, deep inside of an untouched wooded area, adjacent to a mountain ridge. Several jagged lines indicated entrenchment, with red horizontal lines indicating possible enemy control… or our contested control, for over 20kms surrounding it. Letting us all look, the Major lit himself a cigarette.
“Sir, you sure it’s wise to smoke in here with the dive tanks just behind us” 1st Squad’s lead quipped. “Fuck off” Krol dryly said.
“Alright… this is it… this is the one we’ve been searching for for years, this is the nucleus my predecessor commander died trying to find” he says, pointing to it. Not far from Zamosc, it was almost touching the border with Belarus, the contested area indicating the Strigoi did operate over it… indicating one of the largest spill through points. “-It’s an old soviet bunker, made during their 1960s initiative it was designed to hold the munitions and manpower of several units in the event of a NATO first strike” Krol explained. “It’s gotta be massive then…” I said gazing at the map; “Didn’t the army demolish all of the old soviet hulks near Belarus to prevent any infiltrations?” 3rd Squad’s lead asked. “National Police took the effort over… and by extension, the Strigoi. It was halfway demo’ed before they burrowed into it and have been using it as a bridgehead ever since. This is it…” Krol said. He looked around at all of us, a sense of certainty I had never seen before as he blew smoke from his nostrils; “We’ve been fucking around in the dark for so long, it’s hard to believe we’ve made any progress, but this is it. With this gone, this will set them back over a decade and the momentum will finally shift into our favor… into Poland’s… -Europe’s”.
I swear there was almost a flash of joy, of pride in his eyes and a phantom of a smirk before reality set back in “That being said… we can’t leave this to chance, especially not something as important as this. We’re going to have to go there ourselves… clear through every inch of that place, and tear it all down, piece by piece. I will be straight with you all… when we go, there will be some of us that aren’t coming back. -but we are going… a whole generation is counting on us, and unborn billions rely on us to succeed”. We all nodded, a silent agreement washing over us as we took this upon ourselves. Echo-1 spoke up: “So… They’re authorizing a raid? How big?”. “We’re rolling in as a hard target, armor, explosives, and air support” Krol answered, taking a drag off his cigarette. “Aviation? How the hell did we get that approved, we’ve gotten attempts shot down four times due to those leeches” I said in disbelief. “There’s too much evidence here pointing to the human trafficking tied to their actions… We’ve finally got too much weight pinning them down, to keep the hammer from slamming into their necks” Krol chuckled. He looked around “Any questions?”. “When?” Echo-3 asked. “Three hours. We’re hitting them in the dead of night, only time we could get the birds authorized. Get your boys ready. We’re rolling out” Krol said, dying the cigarette bud out on the table. I can’t begin to tell you the euphoria we felt leaving that cage, as our men started arriving, they did so a lot quicker, and with their heads a lot higher than they had in weeks. As Second Squad’s lead we were going to be one of the main arms of attack into the bunker, thus I made sure we had a breacher loaded with enough thermite, charges, and tools to cut through anything. Our shield bearer we ready to go, as was our assaulters, grenadiers, and machine gunner. I double checked each and everyone of their weapons; ensuring the feeder paws of our squad’s belt fed were intact, making sure every breach charge we had was properly set and packed. There was going to be no mistakes, no slip ups. The margin of error needed to be the smallest it had ever been for us tonight if we were going to make the gore spilt worth it.
Finally… there on the outside of the building, the bright LED lights kept the darkness of the ensuing night at bay as the roar of our MRAPs could be heard. It was said once that war is 99% peace, and 1% chaos, they were right. The slow periods where the blood slowed and the doubt creeped in was the worst… yet we all kept it at bay. We needed to, there was going to be no backing down tonight. All three squads were up, all of us ready to go… we circled up… short stares and shaky nods telling us one things: We were in this together, till the end… the finish line so many before us had been searching for, we were being granted tonight.
A single set of footsteps could be heard as we turned, Major Krol stepping into the center. He took the last drag of a cigarette, throwing it down to the ground and stamping it out onto the damp concrete. He looked around… his chin strap blowing in the weak air as he met everyone of our gazes… then mine… then looked around. “I want you to remember every detail of tonight, as you have every other night… when you are situationally aware, scanning for the enemy, liberating the subjugated, I want you to remember the sting of anxiety, the shake of adrenaline, the chill of the bunker, the heat of your weapon as it cuts them down… because tonight we are going to write every fine detail of our victory, their defeat, in history…” Krol’s words echoed deep into our souls. He paused for a moment, staring around he looked down… a small pause before he said “When you are ruthless in combat, remember to be patient, and reserved in victory. This conflict is for our existence… a lot of innocents have bled due to the mistakes of those who failed to listen, a lot of our brothers are now laid under because we had to bridge the gap of uncertainty with their lives. We remember them now… but in an hour? We forget them… when we raise our barrels, when we cut into those foes, and we liberate Polska!! This does not end tonight, but history puts everything in it’s place, and patience is the companion of the victor… All of our hard work will be cemented, no matter the obstacles we face in that darkness… no matter the demons, the blood, no matter what incomprehensible horrors, we will make them comprehend that to invade our land, to bleed our people, the justice will be paid in full… Load up. It’s time*”*.
The purpose in our steps was heavy as we climbed the back ramps of the MRAPS; Four of the heavily armored vehicles, one for each squad with an additional for attached personnel including our JTAC, the term means Joint Terminal Attack Controllers. With air support requisitioned to us for this operations, there needs to be a definite liaison on the ground who can directly communicate to the birds, and coordinate their fire and progress. I’d worked with many of them in the past, resourceful guys, quick thinking though I guess that comes with the position they hold of needing to quickly figure out what bombs to drop, on which target, at what precise points, whilst taking contact. He loaded in the lead vehicle with Major Krol… and soon, our convoy kicked off.
The drive was several hours as myself and my squad sat in the back of that forty ton goliath, the rumbling of the engine keeping us awake as the crap heater fought to keep the cold from the outside frost from setting in. I looked around to each of them, some were catching some sleep because even with the circumstances… better to get all the energy you can, than to stay awake for nothing. Others were checking their weapons… My gunner locked eyes with me, the same one from the village extraction… many of these men I had trained with for a while now, fought with for months.
We may have met on unconventional circumstances but those in JW Grom thrive on austere chance and create opportunity from scratch. I was pulled from my thought by the sound of a transmission, my peltors were set up for dual comms so I could both receive information from the Major and other leads, whilst communicating with my team.
Krol himself sent out: [“Approximately 10 minutes from enemy AO…”]. As the rest of the squads acknowledged, I quickly sent out [“Echo-2 Copies”], before kicking the boots of any of them sleeping: “Look alive, we’re here”. Through the exterior net armor of the MRAPS, and the bars protecting the small reinforced windows, we could barely see jack shit. I reached up, turning off the overhead light as we all looked through our nods to scan the outside. A dark wall of dense trees was shown before us, making it difficult to see… in addition to night vision capabilities we had also requisitioned ourselves some thermals… when mounted onto rifles they were bulky, made it a pain to aim down quickly, but considering the supernatural capabilities of spotting our foes we needed every advantage necessary.
I flipped out one of my tubes… scanning the outside with my scope. I looked over to one of my assaulters who had been assigned to man the turret of the MRAP, seated near the view screen as he controlled the 50. Cal. Each of the vehicle turrets had been assigned a direction to cover… we took the 9 o’clock, the left flank. “See anything?” I asked. He shook his head; “Negative… wait… I’ve got two cold signatures, front left heading to our rear”.
I quickly scanned the far tree line, at approximately 60 meters off our left were two cold signatures… followed by a third heading to our front… then another. They were surrounding us, moving at speeds so fast I could barely keep my reticle on them. Is this what the National Police saw? What they faced at that lodge without the benefit of a foot of heavy armor protecting them on all sides. Then… suddenly. Something slammed into the side of our MRAP so hard, it caused it to shake. From over the leader comms, Echo-3 quickly shouted [“Contact right!! 4 hostiles!!”].
One of the Strigoi… so bold, had charged and slammed into the side of our MRAP. I quickly looked to see the figure, a dark blue mass of cold energy through my thermal, back away without so much as a stagger… as they tried to flee into the woods, the white hot justice of Echo-3’s gun fired at them, cutting them down. “Blachowicz I’ve got a few breaking for our vic” my man on the turret called out, I spun around, spotting out the window.
Just then, Major Krol announced [“weapons free, watch and shoot for targets of opportunity…”]. I turned to him… “take those fuckers out-”. Without hesitation my vic’s turret began to quickly target them, and through the darkness I saw a stream of outgoing fire bisect one of them, the ISR of the black blood freaking out the optic so badly it didn’t know what temperature to register it as… but it did register it. As another was cut down, one broke through the tree line and latched onto the side of our MRAP. The thing tore at one of the outer net armor panels, usually made to stop RPGs. It grabbed at the bars near the windows, tearing one off… I lowered my rifle as we locked eyes through the reinforced window.
The thing… the Strigoi looked at me, skin cracked as putrefied muscle fibers seemed to leak through dead flesh. It’s teeth were corroded and worn down to sharp fragments, alongside newly mutated fangs that messily protrude from the jaws. Even through the thick walls of the MRAP I could hear it’s roar, as it then tried to punch it’s way through… it cracked the outer coating of the vehicle… but it wasn’t getting anywhere near. My machine gunner, seated next to me, seemed to chuckle at the sight, quippily saying “Yeah… fuck you too”. It’s then our vehicle lurched upwards, as we began to climb the small incline of the bunker. I knew the layout, mapped it in our head, the main entrance was built into the rocky side of an old cliff meaning we could easily set up a defensive perimeter around it, a horseshoe. Krol’s vehicle was first, taking to the right as Echo-3’s MRAP followed. My vehicle, third, left the incline and took a left and… that’s where things got complicated.
We’re still trying to work out what happened but… from what Joakim says his drone captured. Right when the MRAP turned, several of the monsters quickly slammed into the side of the vehicle, as another more bulkier one, pushed at it’s undercarriage. The result.. Was the 40 ton armored vehicle tipped over. It wasn’t uncommon, hell in some cases a well placed IED, a good shot with a recoilless rifle, have been known to tip over Oshkoshs and Maxpros all the time. But this beast? Needless to say we barely had a second to comprehend it as it leaned to the left; “Grab on to something-” is all I had time to shout. A mess of gear and men spilled onto one side of the vehicle as it slammed into the old gravel and dirt.
Several of my assaulters, my grenadier planted right ontop of myself and the others as we came to a stop. Someone’s knee slammed directly into the side of my skull, causing me to dazily bob in and out of consciousness as my face was smushed against the glass of one of the windows.
Through my peltors, the other squads were erratic;
[“Echo-2’s vehicle is down!!”].
[“Echo-3 to Echo-2… Echo-3 to Echo-2…”].
Krol’s voice came through the comms;
[“Echo-Lead to Echo-2… Fuc-... Echo-1 secure Echo 2’s flank, Echo-3”].
[“Echo-3 to other units, they’re spilling through, I’ve got several enemy combatants converging on Echo-2’s vehicle”].
I pushed the legs of my grenadier off my head as I fought to my hands and knees, unfucking my nods as I looked around… “Fuck it… we’re going lights on, shield your eyes” I muttered as I reached for the overhead lights and flipped them on. The bright LEDs bathed the inside of the vehicle as we all gained our bearings, a mess of multicam, gear, and weapons as we quickly pushed each other off. My gunner caught as he fought to realign his promask, from what I gathered one of the assaulters had landed directly into his gun, pushing it directly into his jugular, as pulled back at the rubber and coughed, freeing up his esophagus. We didn’t have time to think however… the sound of bending metal caught our attention… as the back ramp door of the MRAP was ripped clean off. I could barely believe it but as the white light of the MRAP’s interior poured to the outside, a hulking mass leaned in, the dead flesh on it’s face nearly fallen off as the hideous Strigoi leaned inside.
Without hesitation I aimed took aim, yelling “Keep to the deck!!” to any of those inbetween myself and the invader as I opened fire. A burst of full auto fire tore through it’s collar and neck, my men quickly clung to either sides of the fallen MRAP as a few more fired out. As the thing backed up, a blast of .50 cal fire quickly tore it to shreds, along with several others as I realized they were fuckin swarming over the outside of our vehicle. Echo-3’s vehicle continued to carefully fire on the Strigoi on the outside, the sounds of .50 cal ricocheting off the outside of our armor was enough to make the pucker factor set in.
[“Echo-3 to Echo-2”].
[“This is Echo-2, we’re green on ammo, equipment, men”].
[“Roger, we’re shifting fire, exit the vehicle”].
“Hurry up let’s go!!” I barked to my men, leading the way as I staggered out. I turned on my peq, taking aim at silhouettes in the brush as I began to fire. The sounds of machine guns lighting up the brush, as a sea of growls, howls, and incomprehensible roars fired back at us was the ambient noise of the night. My men quickly exited, my gunner being the last as he and I pulled back to the rest of the defensive perimeter. I set in my men to take up the frontal security, as 3rd squad took the right flank, 1st squad to the left. Major Krol and the JTAC were bickering with each other; “How far out are the birds”. “They’re entering airspace now…” Joakim said, already scanning his smart book.
I asked “What’ve we got?”. He then flipped through… to the NATO combined arms segment, quippily saying; “Apaches…”. This caused me to pause as Echo-3 turned their head whilst directing their squad’s fire “The hell… where did we get apaches from?”. “The Americans… they volunteered” Krol said dismissively as he took aim at the darkness, firing off a controlled trio. “Volunteered? They’re aware of what’s going on?” I asked.
Krol seemed to stop, glancing back at me before returning his focus “There’s a lot more going on than you realize, Blachowicz… Prep the breach, you and 1st are going on”.
I quickly pulled my breacher off the line, securing some thermite as the reinforced bunker door wasn’t going to go as easily as a conventional door breach would. 1st Squad pulled back, stacking up and preparing themselves to be the first in. All the while… Joakim gave his firing solution; “Alpha Hotel Two Five Nine, This is Bravo-4…… Type 2….”.
I snapped to my right, watching as a Strigoi managed to dark across the clear gravel field, only to be cut down by my gunner, the peq’s laser marking the burst as it tore through the beasts’ hips, as it hit the ground and still continued to claw, another GROM operator took aim and fired into it’s skull. Joakim popped up to his feet…. “Marking laser, high power…”. He then pulled out a target marking laser… if you’ve watched night operations, you’ve probably seen them.
The green laser than as it says on the label, marks targets. The pattern of which can vary… if it’s a point target, it’ll usually lasso an area, or remain on target until the target is removed with extreme prejudice. If its close air support, then it’ll be a line of the general area… and Joakim damn near marked the entire perimeter around us. He quickly pocketed the tool, turning back to Krol; “Don’t go past 20 meters unless you want to be liquidated”.
With that… 2nd and 1st stacked up at the door as 3rd squad took up the perimeter security. As Major Krol went over to Echo-1… I saw them. A single blinking IR strobe from the beasts as they moved on the far off horizon, converging from several angles… and fired. The sound of the Apache’s main gun, the M230, truly sounds like the hammer of god… the 30mm cannon shot through the dark sky, lighting it up as we saw three incoming streams tear up the woods. Only then as the sound broke did we start to hear their rotors as they broke and began to circle, firing again… then… Joakim dipped his head and looked to Krol; [“Foxtrot Mike, hang onto your teeth…”]. One of the Apaches fired off a AGM-114… a Hellfire. I barely saw it out of the corner of my eye as the Apache from our right flank fired off at a target approximately 200 meters off. A fireball lit up the forest as the horrendous roar echoed throughout… then went silent.
Echo-3 scanned the horizon carefully;
[“Echo-3 to Echo-Lead, enemy contact is starting to die down”].
[“Maintain perimeter, Close Air is to maintain fire mission until we are boots up, Break…”].
[“Echo-Lead to Echo-1, condition white has been met. Proceeds”]. I saw Echo-1 and his men quickly stack up close to the wall and gesture to me; Breaching. I quickly pulled my stack back against the wall as his and mine breacher quickly hit their actuators. Now under normal circumstances, it doesn’t take much for thermite to melt the locks off of a metal surface, in fact it’s a more precise took as alternative means get real medieval like saws, pry bars… we weren’t in the mood for precision, we need to breach their little lair, and drag them out. The sound of several pounds of hellfire burning through the metal could be heard around the corner as a sea of white and red sparks flew out… after several seconds, two of our men tossed a fragmentation grenade and a nine-bang through the opening… a series of concussive blasts and a large explosion rang out.
Echo-1 and his men maneuvered. 1st Squad quickly converged as we followed them in.
Stepping through the black wall of smoke, the dark abyss of the interior was illuminated in a white light as entered barrels raised. Shots rang out as several of the beasts near the entrance were cut down, though not immediately, rounds disconnected the shoulder of one of them, leading to their arm hanging limply by a single tendon as they roared… another series of rounds putting them down. What greeted us was a messy concrete hell of rust and debris, fecal matter, trash, and all kinds of obstacles laid in our way, our boots sticking to the floor. I thank every god we had promasks that night. I called my shield bearer up, 2nd squad leapfrogging ahead to take the next corridor as 1st squad checked their weapons.
One of my men mule kicked the metal door ahead, twice, finally the latch gave away as we tossed in a grenade. A horrifying roar was cut off as an M67 shook the walls of the ancient soviet mausoleum, frag and spall kicked off the walls as I moved in right behind my shield man. The cramped russian design meant there was barely enough space for three people, and that’s three normal people, not in 50kgs of kit, moving slowly and maneuvering against creatures of the dark. Still… we moved forward, my shield bearer and I pushing the pace as two stacked of either squad formed on either wall.
As we passed doorways they flowed in… “Door Left!!”, “Door Right!!”. “Move!!”.
Two men entered each side, no gunshots, we moved up, a roar came.
“Door left!!-”. A series of gunshots came out as we continued to push forward.
“Two down!!”. “Confirm them” Krol commanded, as a series of gunshots run out in response. From one of the doorways, a Strigoi emerged… a female… clumps of hair had been ripped from her decaying skull, as her blooded eyes locked on myself and my shieldman. The skin on her hands had been tore down to the point where barely her bones and tendons remain… looking like huge talons as she roared and lunged at us. He fired off his pistol, though the rounds did little to stop her as she pushed against our stack.
“Fuck!!” he muttered, somehow her strength caused him to stagnate, holding up the advance… fuck that. I shoved the muzzle of my MK18 into her ribcage, flipping the weapon to auto as I fired of round after round. The 5.56 salvo disconnecting her spinal column, causing her to fall as I continued to fire, along with a man to our right and left as the stacks reformed as we pushed to the end of the hall. I fell back, dropping the magazine and loading a fresh one, like clockwork a GROM Operator from 1st squad took my place. Krol was beside me as we approached the end of the hall.
[“-Prep an entry”] I radioed to my breacher, a comrade handed him one of the charges from his back panel as he took to the door, quickly securing it. We all moved as far back as we could, look away, exhale. The blast knocked metal and wood in all directions, scrapping against our uniforms and kit as we made our way in and what laid before us was… it used to be the center atrium of one of these bunkers. Soviet’s loved their grandiose designs, the complex was supposed to be a circular room around a central planning table… instead. It had been turned into some sort of church. Runes and old eastern Romuva pagan symbols written in black ink and blood across the walls, old rotten filing cabinets, long receipt terminals. In the center… several of the Strigoi were kneeling before the table where someone had been tied down, flayed, and… shared amongst the group. They rose to their feet, we aimed our barrels…
The ladder amongst turned to us… his skin wasn’t cracked, or flayed, it was smooth… it still looked dead as the body on the table but it seemed more… accustomed to it. I don’t know… evolved? Under the surface however I could see it’s darkened veins pumping whatever cursed blood ran through them as it locked two blood red eyes onto each of us. It’s nose had long since been turn off, exposing boney nostrils to the open air as it seemed to smirk. All across it’s body were the same symbols on the walls, in every cell… markings of death, of rebirth, of assimilation… From behind this seemingly Alpha emerges another figure I had never seemed before… dressed in a white cloak with a deer head.
"So they've followed the trail... they're too late" the Deer headed individual spoke, definitely not from here, a dialect similar to an Americans but... aristocratic? Each word was drawn out, assurance as if they had everything mapped down to our actions. They didn’t sound like they were from Poland or the east.
“Doesn’t matter…” the Alpha growled… and then, it lunged at us. Quickly breaking from their ground it slammed into my shield man knocking both him and myself at the ground as it displayed an intense feat of strength. Around us I could see several of the Strigoi leap at our comrades… though to no fruitful endeavor as I could see one GROM operator cut two down, as another got into a hand to hand confrontation… my breacher, crafty as they were, reached back and slammed one of the prybars of his kit into the skull of the beast.
The Alpha however was not content as it threw away the 90lb shield, sending it flying across the room as it grabbed my comrade by the skull. I quickly kicked up at it, firing my MK18 into it’s body as the rounds pierced it’s gray and rune covered flesh. The thing simply seemed to chuckle… that was until Major Krol blasted away at the side of it’s head, the alpha turned… and it’s smirk turned to a scowl when face to face with the major. A knowing pause almost like they had done this dance before…
The creature lunged, locking up with Major Krol as it swung and slammed railing. Krol didn’t back down however as he pushed against the creature, hiptossing it to the ground even as it tore at his armor and gear. But the beast pulled, both of them rolled and the Major was on his back as the thing reached for his neck. I fought to a kneel, firing into the creature messily with my MK18, trying not to hit my commander… then…
Click. A sound sends a chill up the spine of every warfighter during a firefight.
My gun ran dry. I dropped the magazine, looking to load another, but the thing came up and with one of it’s claws, sliced deep into my cheek, through the pro mask. I could feel my own blood go flying through the air as I landed hard on my back plate, spitting out red iron as I quickly tried to adjust my mask. Through my fogged up, blood covered lense… I saw my shield man raise his pistol, firing into the skull of the thing staggering it with a roar. Krol came from behind, drawing his knife he sunk it deep into the neck of it…. I reached for my rifle, forcing a new magazine in and damn near punching the bold release. ““Sir, down!!” I shouted, Krol rolled away, back to his own rifle as I fired. So did my comrade as he continued to fire his pistol… so did the Major as he fired his rifle. All of us chewing through that apex predator of darkness, that beast… the leader that had been preying on our people for so long. Layer by layer, muscle group by bone… eventually… the alpha landed on whatever was left of his back.
The silence of the fight died down as all of us checked our surroundings, GROM Operators putting controlled pairs in the heads and nerve stems of any Strigoi laying around… I flicked my weapon onto safe, letting it hang as I pulled off my mask. I dared not touch the wound on my face… the pain nearly crippling me if it wasn’t sheer will pushing me through, and adrenaline doing all it could to subdue it. The sound of the apaches continuing to lay hate drew us from our moment of contemplation as the Major went back to work; [“Confiscate any info, burn the rest…”]. He turned back to me as I shoved my damaged M50 mask back into it’s bag, chuckling as he looked at the sight; “You need a medevac, Blachowicz?” he quipped.
I shook my head, barely able to speak as I muttered; “Negative sir…”. The two of us scanned the room as my shield bearer went to collect his defense implement turned 90lb projectile, we scanned the center of the room, checking and confirming bodies, until we got to the last one alive. His white gown was soaked in red crimson and black ooze, as his dear head was mangled from bullet fire and impact from falling on it. I swear… the way his blood poured out of it though made me wonder if it was a mask. I gave it no second thoughts as he looked to Krol; “You… you can’t stop this, they’ve already-”.
The Major was in no mood for communication as his rifle snapped up and fired off three rounds to the body, four the head. The violent yet quick salvo ending the cultists life, I looked down at it, then to him as he remarked; “Have your squad drag him out to the front, burn the rest”. I stood alongside him, looking down as the sight of it’s deer head was both captivating and horrifying… the curiosity in me wanting to look closer at it fighting the primal instinct I had to burn the thing to ash. “-Haven’t seen one of those before…” I muttered, thinking the Major had an answer.
He didn’t. Krol saying “Neither have I…” shortly before he walked away, was what truly shook my soul about that entire night. Victory stood firm in our hearts that night as we stood outside of the bunker. The night sky burning with fire and white phosphorus as we watched the ruin burn from the inside from the other side of the lot. In the distance, the Apaches continued to scan and circle the forests, no longer firing…. Which meant they had driven any or turned to glass any enemy combatants within a four miles, probably both, more than likely the latter. Echo-1 patted me on the shoulder as we stood there, soaking it all in, though Krol looked none to pleased. “In the time it took us to take this one down, they’ll be trying to set up three more cells… that being established…” he said, looking to either of us, then to Echo-3. “-Hell of a thing we did tonight, been waiting for this one for a decade, cleanly, maybe more… but no time to rest on our laurels… we’ll have another task for us as soon as we’re boots down back home” he said, to which his eyes followed mine, the body of whatever cultist that was zipped up in a black body bag beside the wheel of one of the MRAPs. The fire from the bunker casting an orange hue over it’s shiny jet black outside, something didn’t sit right with me… “That wasn’t a Strigoi…” I said to Krol.
“That’s very clear…” the Major said, shoving his mask under his arm and lighting a cigarette. “So… someone’s helping them?” I asked. The meer notion of it shook me to my core, sickened me. This parasite was already badly infecting Europa, Polska… if it was spread like this throughout the world. Krol settled my nerves: “We’ll be ready… It’s not just us anymore”. As he said that, I realized what he meant… my eyes looking to the Apaches as they started to form up, leaving the areas as their thunderous propellers melted into the night’s calm, unnerving ambience.
It’s been a couple of weeks since then, Echo Detachment has been busy. We’ve gained good ground against the enemy and honestly I think in a few years, we might see a much larger change. For now… we must keep going, that being said the Strigoi aren’t the only ones we’ve been combating. Recently we’ve made contact with of some sort of extermination coalition, they’ve known about the Strigoi, and others plaguing the world, the level of corruption and corrosion on society goes deep. Regardless a lot of the units we’ve been working with are apart of NATO, such as this “4th Special Forces Group” of the American Military. I don’t know where the road from here leads, but we’ve gotten momentum on our side, finally. Just remember… these things are out there, in every town, every city, every nation… preying and waiting for you to be alone, vulnerable, so they can take you and replace you.
Watch your back, and stay safe.
For now, Blachowicz signing out. Until next time

New Chapter on every MWF (Monday, Wednesday,Friday)
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Chapter 20: The Storm's Fury
Gribble huddled in the depths of the cave, his heart pounding wildly as the fierce thunderstorm raged outside. The heavy rain and ear-splitting thunder created a scary symphony, unlike anything Gribble had ever heard before. Each booming thunderclap made the cave walls shake, and small rocks fell from the ceiling. Gribble's eyes darted around the small space, looking for any sign of safety, but the storm's anger seemed to fill every nook and cranny. Fear gripped his heart as he worried that the whole hillside might cave in, trapping him alive in the cave. The damp air was thick with the smell of wet dirt and the sharp tang of fear, and Gribble's skin tingled with goosebumps as the temperature dropped. He wrapped his arms around himself, trying to stay warm and calm his frazzled nerves, but the storm's power only seemed to grow stronger with each passing moment.
The shadowy figure stood tall at the mouth of the cave, its form unmoving despite the heavy rain that pounded the outside. Gribble squinted his eyes, trying to figure out what the creature was through the curtain of darkness and the never-ending rain, but the details stayed hidden. The figure's posture was steady and scary, its broad shoulders and muscular build hinting at a tough enemy. Gribble's heart raced as he watched the figure, his mind imagining all sorts of terrifying possibilities. The creature's stillness was creepy, as if it was waiting for just the right moment to attack. A wave of dread washed over Gribble, and he instinctively pressed himself further into the cave's shadows, desperate to avoid being seen. The figure's presence was a stark reminder of the dangers that lurked beyond the cave's walls, and Gribble's survival instincts kicked into high gear as he thought about his next move.
A blinding flash of lightning tore through the night sky, filling the cave with an eerie, otherworldly light. For a split second, the creature's identity was revealed, and Gribble's eyes widened in horror as he took in the sight before him. Standing at the cave's entrance was a dark blue Thundercat, its muscular body rippling with power beneath its sleek, electric blue fur. The Thundercat's eyes gleamed with a predatory intensity, reflecting the lightning's flash like two pools of melted gold. Gribble's gaze was drawn to the creature's long, razor-sharp sabertooth fangs, which glinted menacingly in the momentary light. The sight of the Thundercat sent a wave of primal fear rushing through Gribble's veins, and he felt his breath catch in his throat. The stories he had heard of these legendary beasts paled in comparison to the reality that stood before him, and Gribble knew that he was facing a creature of unimaginable strength and ferocity.
Gribble's panic reached a fever pitch, his breath coming in short, labored gasps as he stared at the Thundercat. The tales of these feared creatures flooded his mind – whispers of the electric sparks that danced through their fur, of their immense strength that was said to rival even the most fearsome Owlbear. Gribble's heart pounded against his ribcage, and he could feel the cold sweat beading on his forehead despite the chill in the air. He knew that he was facing a daunting adversary, one that could easily overpower him in a head-on confrontation. The odds of survival seemed to dwindle with each passing second, and Gribble's mind raced as he desperately tried to come up with a plan. The Thundercat's presence loomed over him like a suffocating shadow, and Gribble could feel the weight of its gaze boring into him, even from across the cave. He understood that he must act quickly and decisively if he hoped to escape this encounter with his life.
Reacting on instinct, Gribble called upon his innate power to conjure bean-sized fireballs. With a flick of his wrist, he sent a barrage of the tiny, flaming projectiles hurtling towards the cave entrance, where they burst into brilliant flashes of light upon impact. The fiery assault illuminated the cave, casting dancing shadows on the walls and bathing the Thundercat in an orange glow. The heat from the flames was intense, and Gribble could feel the scorching air brushing against his skin. The fireballs sizzled and crackled as they hit the stone, sending sparks flying in all directions. For a moment, the cave was filled with a dazzling display of light and sound, a stark contrast to the dark, scary storm that raged outside. Gribble's heart pounded with a mixture of fear and excitement as he watched the fireballs explode, hoping that the sudden attack would be enough to distract the Thundercat and give him a chance to escape.
Gribble's mind raced as he sent the fireballs towards the Thundercat, desperately hoping that the sudden attack would give him the distraction he needed to make his escape. He focused his thoughts, tapping into his teleportation powers and trying to picture a safe place outside the cave. However, the tiredness and the fear that gripped his heart made it hard to concentrate. Gribble's brow furrowed as he tried to gather the needed energy, but his body felt heavy and sluggish, as if he was moving through water. The image of the safe haven he sought flickered in his mind's eye, tantalizingly close but just out of reach. Gribble gritted his teeth, pushing himself to the limits of his mental and physical strength as he struggled to keep his focus. The cave seemed to spin around him, and he could feel the cold tendrils of despair creeping into his heart as he realized that his teleportation powers might fail him in this critical moment.
Gribble's heart sank as he watched the Thundercat emerge unharmed from the fiery assault. The creature's electric blue fur crackled with energy, the sparks dancing across its body like tiny bolts of lightning. The Thundercat's eyes blazed with an otherworldly intensity, and it let out a deafening roar that shook the very foundations of the cave. The sound was unlike anything Gribble had ever heard before – a primal, guttural cry that seemed to echo through his very bones. The cave walls trembled, and small rocks and debris rained down from the ceiling, adding to the chaos of the moment. Gribble realized with a sinking feeling that the Thundercat was not only unharmed but enraged by his attack. The creature's muscles rippled beneath its fur as it prepared to charge, and Gribble knew that a battle was now unavoidable. He steeled himself, summoning every ounce of courage and determination he possessed, knowing that he must fight with all his might if he hoped to survive this encounter.
The Thundercat sprang into action, its powerful legs propelling it towards Gribble with a speed that defied belief. The creature moved with a fluid grace, its body a blur of electric blue as it closed the distance between them in mere seconds. Gribble barely had time to react before the Thundercat was upon him, its razor-sharp claws slashing through the air with deadly precision. He threw himself to the side, narrowly avoiding the initial attack, but the Thundercat's agility was unmatched. The creature pivoted mid-leap, its tail lashing out like a whip and its claws finding purchase on the cave wall as it redirected its momentum. Gribble's heart raced as he realized the true extent of the Thundercat's physical prowess – its reflexes were lightning-fast, and its strength was beyond anything he had ever encountered. The creature's eyes locked onto Gribble, and he could see the predatory gleam within them, the raw hunger for the hunt. Gribble knew that he must keep moving, keep dodging, if he hoped to stay alive long enough to find a way to counter the Thundercat's relentless assault.
Despite the fatigue that weighed heavily upon him, Gribble mustered the last reserves of his energy and called upon his earth vine powers. He focused his mind, reaching out to the cave floor and seeking the dormant life that lay beneath the stone. With a surge of effort, Gribble summoned a single, thick green tendril from the ground, watching as it burst forth and snaked its way towards the Thundercat. The vine wrapped itself around one of the creature's muscular legs, momentarily halting its advance and giving Gribble a fleeting moment of hope. However, the Thundercat's strength was too great, and it easily ripped through the vine with a snarl of annoyance. The severed tendril fell to the cave floor, writhing like a dying snake before going still. Gribble's heart sank as he realized that his earth vine powers, once a reliable ally in battle, were no match for the Thundercat's raw power. The creature's gaze turned back to Gribble, its eyes narrowing with a mixture of anger and predatory anticipation, and he knew that he must find another way to defend himself before it was too late.
Gribble's mind raced as he desperately searched for a way to gain the upper hand against the relentless Thundercat. In a last-ditch effort, he summoned another volley of bean-sized fireballs, pouring every ounce of his remaining energy into the attack. The tiny flames erupted from his fingertips in rapid succession, streaking through the air like miniature comets and striking the Thundercat's fur with sizzling precision. The creature hissed in pain as the fireballs singed its coat, but its anger only seemed to grow with each passing second. Gribble's exhaustion began to take its toll, his movements becoming sluggish and uncoordinated as he struggled to maintain the barrage. His vision blurred, and his limbs felt heavy, as if he was moving through molasses. The Thundercat pressed its advantage, its claws and fangs flashing in the dim light of the cave as it lunged towards Gribble with renewed ferocity. He knew that he could not keep up this pace for much longer, and a sense of despair began to creep into his heart as he realized that his efforts might not be enough to save him from the Thundercat's wrath.
The Thundercat seized the opportunity presented by Gribble's faltering defense, delivering a devastating blow that sent the young adventurer flying across the cave. Gribble felt the air rush from his lungs as he slammed into the unyielding rock wall, his body crumpling to the ground in a heap of pain and exhaustion. Stars danced before his eyes, and he gasped for breath, each inhalation sending shockwaves of agony through his battered frame. Gribble's mind reeled as he tried to assess the extent of his injuries, but the pain was too great, too all-consuming. He could taste the coppery tang of blood in his mouth, and he knew that he was badly hurt. The Thundercat's shadow fell over him, and Gribble looked up to see the creature looming above, its eyes glinting with a mixture of triumph and bloodlust. He tried to move, to crawl away, but his body refused to cooperate, and he collapsed back to the ground, his strength utterly spent. Gribble's heart pounded with the realization that he might not survive this encounter, and a cold sense of dread settled in the pit of his stomach.
Gribble lay broken and helpless on the cave floor, his vision swimming as he teetered on the brink of unconsciousness. The Thundercat stood over him, its electric blue fur crackling with energy as it prepared to deliver the final, fatal blow. Gribble's mind raced, desperately searching for a way out, for some last-minute miracle that could save him from this dire fate. He tried to summon his powers, to call upon the earth or conjure another fireball, but his body was too weak, too battered to respond. The Thundercat's eyes bore into him, and Gribble could see the raw, primal hunger that burned within them – the desire to end his life and claim victory. His heart hammered in his chest, and he could feel the cold tendrils of fear wrapping around his soul as he stared death in the face.
Would he find a way to overcome the Thundercat, or would his journey come to a tragic end in the depths of the cave? The fate of the young goblin hung in the balance, and only time would tell if he had the strength and cunning to emerge victorious.

Stone of the Relentless Storm
(uncommon, requires attunement by a sorceror, warlock, or wizard)
This jagged gem is electric blue and roils with an inner turmoil. It forms from the sap of a magic tree destroyed by lightning, which is then cut by a skilled crafter according to arcane principles. During attunement, you hold the Stone of the Relentless Storm against your skin and it slowly absorbs into your flesh, developing outward into a spidery pattern reminiscent of a lightning scar. This stone carries one charge which renews at dawn, and you may expend its charge to cast Witch Bolt.
Whenever you cast Witch Bolt while attuned to the Stone of the Relentless Storm, you have advantage on your spell attack roll. Additionally, Witch Bolt's damage increases by +1 for every round it is sustained after the first, to a maximum of +6 beginning on the 7th round. You may target inanimate objects with Witch Bolt. Any nonmagical inanimate object of size large or smaller which is targeted for a full minute by Witch Bolt is automatically destroyed. The Stone of the Relentless Storm satisfies the material component of Witch Bolt's casting.
If you lose attunement to the Stone of the Relentless Storm, it gradually remineralizes at the sight that it was first attuned before extruding out of you with a slight fizzle.

TODAY'S RECAP

Wow. So little to summarize today. It was all very anticlimactic stuff. If you're inclined to ff through filler and boring scenes, today might be a day you lean on the ff button.
Luna and RJ reunited in one of the most boring reunions of a soap couple (no disrespect to the young actors, just a snoooooze of a story). Both Carter and Brooke yelled at Zende. News got around about Sheila.

Eric, Donna, Ridge, and Brooke at Eric's

(Everyone views newspaper headlines about Sheila being alive. Their reactions are underwhelming).
Everyone: Surprise surprise. 🫤 Ppffrrtt..Can you believe it? 😕 Can't believe it. 😟 I can believe it. 😐 Yeah, kinda not totally surprising. 🫤 Sheila back from the dead 💀 again. Yeah. 😑 Welp. She does that. 🫤. Mmm hmm. 😒 Phewy. 😣 Wah. 😧 Sucky. 😒 Blechy! 🤢 Not happy. 🙁 Pouty. ☹️ This again. 😞 It's getting old. 🙄 Ikr? 😦 Witch 👹 is back. Now we have to look over our shoulder again. Dang it.
Eric: (picks up a call). Yeah. Alive. Again. 🫤 Sorry Lauren. I know. It sucks. Bye.
Exit Brooke, who received a message from Charlie that Zende is at FC.
Ridge: BE CAREFUL of SHEILA! 😦 Grrr. Huff.
Brooke: Yeah yeah. Byeeee.
Ridge: Snarl. 😦 So, here's the SugaJanet WebbeSheila story. Blah blah blah...
Donna: So look-a-like 👩👩 psycho 🫨 Sugar attacked Steffy.
Ridge: You got it. 😕
Eric: And Deacon and Finn rescued Sheila and Finn wants her in their lives? MY GOD! 😮
Donna: And Finn's connection to Sheila has deepened because--
Ridge: IDGAF about Finn's pathetic MOMMY issues! Snort! 😤 Grrr. Finn is a fuck face! Everyone knows Sheila is tricking his dumb ass.
Donna: He picked Steffy over Sheila though, amirite?
Ridge: Grrr! Snarl! He should have NEVER EVER ASKED STEFFY to be BFFs with that psycho Sheila! Huff! Puff! 😤
Eric and Donna: But it's Finn. We like Finn. He's a decent guy. Yah. Yeah. It's Finn!
Eric: (💭 Finn did just save my life about a second ago. So, I'm pretty fond of that boy. 👨‍⚕️)
Donna: (💭 Finn just saved my honey 🍯 bear 🐻, so Finn will always be special to me. Maybe you could lay off of berating Finn.)
Ridge: Finn is PISSING ME OFF! I'm pissed off on the regular, but he's putting me in a PERMA-PISSED state of continuous SNARLING and SPUTTERING! GAH! Harumph. Sheila! Growl! Roar! 😦😤😡
Eric and Donna: 🙄🙄 (💭 He's so mean about dear, lifesaver Finn. Gah.)
Ridge: How does Sheila keep getting away with her CRIMES?! 😮😤😡 (Reddit would like to remind you, Ridge, that your daughter refused to testify -- bc YOU went along with the genius plan to get charges against Sheila dropped so that Bill could entrap her. Yeah and that backfired in your faces.)
Sheila! Finn! Snarl! Grrr! 😦
Eric: Finn is vulnerable to Sheila. But he's a good man, his heart is in the right place and did the right thing.
Ridge: 🤨

Zende, Carter, and Brooke at FC

Zende: 🙄😞😒😟
Carter: I see 👀 you not working, man.
Zende: Yah. Can't concentrate. 🫤
Carter: You need to concentrate! HFTF is depending on YOU! Stop 🛑 thinking about Luna! She's not available! You were WRONG! 😦 You FUCKED UP! 🤨 You can't have HER! 😐 You shoulda KNOWN better! 😦 WTF were you thinking? 😕
Zende: My bad. But it's more complicated than--
Carter: Nah! Just STOP! 😤 Look, I totally understand. I'm your friend. I fucked up zooming on Quinn and almost lost everything. Don't do what I did.
Zende: Okay. 😞
Enter Brooke.
Brooke: 🤨 I need to talk to Zende ALONE.
Zende: Carter knows. 😒
Brooke: So what?! I said ALONE! 😠 (💭 So I can bitch more freely at you! )
Exit Carter.
Brooke: How could you?! 😤 How dare you?! 😦 How scummy can you be?! 😣 You BETRAAAAAAAYED MY SON! 😡 YOUR COUSIN! YOUR FAMILY! WTF?! You KNEW she was with RJ! 👦 You KNEW she was on his arm! You KNEW they were TOGETHER! 👩‍❤️‍👨 You KNEW they LOVED each other! 💘 You knew they were COMMITTED! (💭 I'm running out of ways to repeat the same thing. 🫤) You should have questioned her! How could you do this to LUNA? You took advantage! You KNEW she was loopy!
Zende: Oh. Wait.☝️Hold on right there. I didn't know she was high 🥴 af. She was in my bed. I thought she wanted me. 🙄
Brooke: YOU BETRAYED RJ! ROOOOOAR! 😤😮 Growl! Snarl! (💭 Ridge has rubbed off on me). My SON is good! 👼 He doesn't want me to tell Ridge so Luna is not even more hurt. He's THAT guy! Sweet, wonderful, caring RJ! I thought YOU were that kind of guy too! But NO! How would your mother feel about you, now?!
Zende: 🥺😣😕😞😖😟☹️ (no quivering chin emoji, sorry Reddit). I'm so sorry.
Brooke: (💭 I'ma totally ignore his apology. 😑). So, get OUT! Skedaddle! Vamoosh! 💨 Be gone! 🪄Before someone drops a house on you! Go to Forrester International (💭 Where your ex wife, Nicole, has been languishing off canvas)! Or Forrester Antarctica! 😡
Zende: Oh. Wait.☝️Hold on right there. I earned my place here. 😐 So.
Brooke: So? So! Go!
(💭 My hypocrisy is totally irrelevant. Shut up, Reddit. Everyone gets to judge tf out of everyone else, as if we never did the same or worse. That's OUR thing! Steffy just did it to MY daughter. Ridge does it every day. Stephanie made it a life style! Taylor wagged her finger at me and she slept with all the same people! That's how we roll! So Reddit, you can just leave Bridget and Katie out of this! I'm fussing at Zende until I'm blue in the face because he hurt my precious son and I get to stand up for him! Only I get to hurt my family! Gah! Plus, that was the past! I've matured, so I can be judgey! Shhh!)

RJ and Luna at FC

Luna: I heard about Sheila 👿. That's SOOOOOOO awful!! 😧 I'm SOOOOOO SORRRRRRRY!
RJ: Sheila terrorized my family for soooo long. 😒 Now she's back. 😞
Luna: I wish I could have been there for you, but we have this big 🫲___________🫱 gulf between us. Wah! 😥 I hate it! 😟 I miss you! But you need time. I understand. 😞
RJ: 😕
Luna: You used to look SOOOOOOOOOO HAPPY! 🤩 😃 Now you look SOOOOOOOOOO not happy! ☹️ I'm SOOOOOOOO SORRRRRRRY! I should have told you SOOOOOOO much sooner. It's ALL MY FAULT 😩 -- and the MINTS -- that you look jaded af now and that you broke up with your cousin! I miss you SOOOOOOO MUCH! 😫
RJ: It's not YOUR fault! 😦 It's stupid, fuck face ZENDE'S fault! He shouldn't have, but he DID and IDGAF about that dude! Fuck that guy! 😤 Blech! 🤢
Luna: I used to be SOOOOOO afraid 😱 until your love made me feel SOOOOOO not afraid. 🥰☺️
RJ: Yah? 😦
Luna: Yah. 😔
RJ: Well alrighty then. Let's fix everything! I miss YOU SOOOOOO MUCH TOO! 😟 Let's just forget this hiccup and be together 👩‍❤️‍👨 again, angel 😇 face!
Luna: What about the time you needed? 😟
RJ: All I need is YOUUUU! I love you SOOOOOO MUCH! 🥰😍😘
Luna: I love YOU SOOOOOO MUCH! 😍🥰😘😃
(Luna and RJ embrace. It's all better now.) ♥️👩‍❤️‍👨💕
RJ: Gotta get to a meeting. We'll pick up this happy moment later. 😍
Luna: Yah! ☺️
RJ exits.
Luna: 🤢🤮😳😧 (💭 OMG! Pregnant?🤰 Who's the daddy? 🙄)
The end.