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Two items — a crystal ball, and a green leather-bound notebook — sat benignly and idly atop of the black-robed professor’s desk.
The camera lingered on them, giving them what most may see as an undeserved moment in the spotlight.
But to those that knew, to the parties invested in this controversy, this little pause and dramatic zoom-in was accompanied by a hair-raising excitement… along with an untempered nervousness for what was to come.
It definitely caused the investigative duo on the other side of the screen some pause for thought; prompting them to stand intently, pondering both the orb and the notebook.
Ilunor, as far as I could tell, was entranced by the green notebook in particular. Though it wasn’t a trance born out of any positive emotion, but instead, one of abject horror.
“Recommended Reading Materials for the Studious Student.” Sorecar announced with a steady breath, prompting Ilunor to visibly flinch in his seat, as the man reached a finger over to point at the hand-scrawled title of the leather-bound notebook. That finger soon found itself carefully manipulating its pages, opening the cover first, before turning over the internal dust-cover to reveal letters and symbols written in High Nexian, but arranged in a manner the EVI simply could not translate.
“Error: Unable to Translate. Cause: Unrecognized and/or unintelligible organization of local script-forms.”
Yet despite this, it seemed as if both Sorecar and the Apprentice were able to draw something from its otherwise senseless pages. As despite being written haphazardly, with letters and pictograms arranged in no meaningful order, they were able to still draw meaning where the EVI couldn’t.
“Within these pages lie materials for the studious student. Materials are to be found within The Library, and are to be retrieved with great haste. May you make swift work of their contents, and may those after you find only ash in your wake. Seek, unlearn, and remove from the grip of the eternal entity, that which was once a gift but is now a curse. Seek, unlearn, and remove; with the fires of your passion, oh studious student.” Sorecar read aloud, managing to read something verbatim from the nonsensical pages of the book.
Ilunor’s eyes were practically glazed over at this point, as he began bringing his cape over across his chest, tucking his legs towards his chin in the process.
“This is it.” The apprentice announced with a half-cracked smile. “Please, keep going. I’m certain your skills of appraisal far exceed my own, Professor.”
Sorecar obliged by flipping the page, turning over to two pages of complete gibberish, once again watermarked by the EVI’s error message; but proving no challenge at all for the ever-inquisitive professor.
“Section One, A Tainted Reality: A Wretched Collection of Historical Affidavits During the Reconciliation and Reformation of Otherwise Lost Realities.” Sorecar paused, before turning towards the apprentice. “It lists an entire section’s worth of books, in titles held within spatial positions with reference to their potentialities within the ever-evolving library.”
Thacea’s features visibly flinched at that revelation, but similar to the apprentice in the footage, she refused to comment. At least not for now. Her eyes however betrayed a look of mild distress, which subsided somewhat as the apprentice urged the armorer to continue.
Which he did, as he flipped from page to page across the relatively small notebook, only pausing to read in between what he interpreted to be different sections and ‘chapters’.
“Section Two. The Unspoken War and the Treacherous Alliance.”
“Section Three. All surviving works from Alaroy Rital.”
The apprentice cocked her head, as if trying to recall some familiarity in that name. “Alaroy Rital.” She repeated. “I don’t recall hearing of such a name before.”
“Well his full name, as far as I recall, and vastly aided by the book is as follows: Alaroy Rital, Lord-Mayor of the Township of the Two Rivers, Slayer of the Dragon of the Grey Canyon, Repeller of the Tainted Blight of the Orsin, Liberator of the Aether, and Grand Master of the Elusian Guild Hall of Adventurers.” Sorecar responded succinctly, prompting the apprentice to once more clench her eyes shut in deep thought, before finally letting out a sigh of defeat.
“The name is both familiar yet foreign at the same time.” She finally admitted.
“As far as I recall, and mind you, my memory of those years are far from perfect… the man was a local hero of sorts. Though his record was besmirched by some controversy or another.” Sorecar offered, prompting the apprentice to finally shrug, giving up on this particular subject matter entirely.
“There are more sections, yes?”
“Correct.”
“Then let’s move on.”
Sorecar nodded promptly at that, flipping the pages over until he hit the next section.
“Section Four. A Sordid Account of the Most Bizarre of Newrealmer Arrivals: A Death By Harmonization and the Ensuing Investigation.”
That immediately got my attention, causing me to jolt forwards, prompting the armor to quickly follow as it automatically switched from the currently active in-armor-postural-readjustment mode, and back into its active configuration.
“Section Five. The Unfortunate Procedures Against Unruly Realms and the Instances in Which Such Procedures Were Incurred.”
The armorer paused after that, not necessarily due to its contents, but as if puzzled by what lay ahead in the next few final pages. In fact, he flipped back and forth between the pages soon after that, treading and retreading what were effectively the last five pages of the book. “There is an appendix which includes titles not covered by these sections, however it will take some time to read through them.”
“That’s enough for now, professor.” The apprentice offered, prompting the man to quickly pull back, closing the notebook with an unsatisfying thump. “We have our glowing wand.” The apprentice surmised. “The oeuvre of works which are no doubt the subject of this grand controversy. Now all we need to find is the contract which ties everything together.”
“I’m assuming you haven’t forgotten about our second item of interest?” Sorecar gestured towards the crystal ball.
“Of course not, professor. However, the fact we’ve found that book implies that we must be close to its dependent article.” The apprentice responded with a renewed sense of urgency, as she began using that same ornate magnifying glass in an attempt to further pick apart each and every nook and cranny of Mal’tory’s desk.
Part of me wanted to make some joke about how this was every unpaid intern’s dream, to be rummaging through your boss’ stuff.
But that part of me was completely buried underneath the confusion and dread that came with the revelations from within that little green book.
I… honestly didn’t know what I was expecting, but I felt like I’d been suckerpunched, with the wind being knocked right out of me from the implications of exactly what had been selectively purged from the library.
It was a struggle to process it all, which more or less made me dull out the more eccentric aspects of the apprentice’s investigation; as she unlocked drawer after drawer, pulling out pile after pile of magical nicknacks and more documents than what was possible from that finite amount of space.
Sorecar was clearly of the same opinion as the rest of us right now however, as he continued obsessing over the book, his hands once more trailing over to inspect its cryptic pages. The man seemed transfixed on the second and third sections in particular, though his featureless visor made it difficult to really pin down what his reactions were.
Yet throughout all of this, it was clear the reactions on the homefront were much, much more animated, as Ilunor was just about ready to pass out from the stress, and Thacea seemed about ready to burst at the seams if her featureless facade was of any indication.
“That was the book.” Ilunor finally chimed out, just as the narration through the recording had died down during the more tepid phase of the apprentice’s investigation. “I know it.”
“I thought your memories when it came to the whole Mal’tory book burning situation was lost, Ilunor?” Thalmin countered.
“It was. I mean, it still is. But I remember parts of that room. I vaguely recall the emergence of a book that I was forced to…” The Vunerian trailed off, as if struggling to piece together words.
“... to sign?” Thalmin offered in a surprisingly helpful tone which stood at odds with how he earlier regarded the Vunerian.
“No. No you imbecil-” The Vunerian paused, realizing his misstep as he backtracked from what would’ve otherwise been an expected response. “That wasn’t a book of binding. It’s not comparable to the yearbook, if that was where your assumptions were leading to, Prince Thalmin.” Ilunor clarified, gripping the armrests of his seat tight between his fingers.
It was about this point in time that I expected Thacea to chime in, to elaborate on the nature of the book with her encyclopedic knowledge on seemingly every aspect of the magical world.
But she didn’t.
Instead, her eyes remained practically glued to the screen, as I realized that whatever had been revealed thus far had hit much, much harder than I could’ve imagined.
Ilunor, as if taking note of this silence, elected to fill in for Thacea. “The book… is an adjacent artifact. It is, as the apprentice has noted, an eclectic oeuvre of works, a list if you will, to be bound to and referenced by a contract and a spell of binding. The book itself isn’t the binding agent, moreso the reference material by which the contract is hinged upon.”
“So what’s with the illegible text? Are they ciphers or some magical equivalent of it?” I gestured once more at the bird’s eye view offered by the drone, and the pages of indecipherable text currently beneath Sorecar’s hands.
“Those are anchor runes, earthrelamer.” Ilunor answered with a frustrated sigh. “It is frustrating to see them for what they are not. Frankly, it’s as if your sight-seers and memory-shards were designed to mimic the world as it is seen through the eyes of a particularly weak-fielded commoner.” The Vunerian went off, venting his frustrations through a rant before finally calming down. “But I digress. Those runes are referred to as anchors for a reason. For tethered to them are akin to pages of text to be openly read and deciphered within the manastreams. Granted, this form of writing is not common; moreso used for the purposes of contracts and other such magical binds.”
“And on the topic of contracts. I’m assuming that the contract… your contract, is what the Apprentice is currently rummaging for?” I gestured towards the screen once more, at the apprentice who was now buried ankle-deep in piles upon piles of books, documents, and an assortment of scrolls that criss-crossed across the room’s mahogany and carpeted floors.
“Unless she’s a complete nitwit, then I’d imagine so, yes.” Ilunor responded with his signature cattiness. “In any case, the fact she’s even trying proves that she’s barely above a fool anyways.” The Vunerian shrugged. “And before you ask, earthrealmer, let me preempt your question. The contract, at least on the professor’s end, has more than likely suffered the same fate as my own. Namely, its existence is more than certain to be dubious at best. What the apprentice will surely find will be nothing more than ash at the bottom of that bottomless drawer. Which… given its sheer size and scale, and the potential inhabitants within its limitless confines, will more than likely result in even ash being difficult if not impossible to find.”
There was… more than one point I wanted to raise with Ilunor’s statements. However, before I could address any of them, the elf in question finally spoke up once more; now surrounded by an entire archive’s worth of documents and nicknacks.
“Nothing.” Larial spoke with a sullen breath, taking a moment to steady herself as she made a point of not sitting on Mal’tory’s chair. “At least nothing that’s relevant to our case.” She continued, resting her palms flat against the green suede of the desk.
“Were you really expecting anything different, Apprentice?” Sorecar countered, having since moved from pondering the pages of the book to now pondering the depths of the crystal ball.
“I’d assumed the damage to the man hadn’t been so severe.” Larial admitted, alluding to something else that drew all of our collective attention. “When I first saw him in the healing ward… he looked… intact. You couldn’t even tell there was anything wrong with him.”
“And yet they called you of all people, to aid in the ritual.” The armorer surmised, with a tone of voice that now more resembled that of a fully fledged Academy Professor. His happy go lucky persona had subsided completely, at least for now, as he addressed Larial in a manner more akin to what I’d expected of the Dean. “You have been around the Academy for long enough to understand that calling upon the aid of apprentices is unprecedented. Which means that despite how things may seem on the surface, that lurking beneath the seemingly calm waters, is a hydrostorm of epic proportions.”
“This entire situation is unprecedented, professor.” Larial countered meekly. “But you are correct. It… must have been desperate if they required the aid of apprentices. I just… cannot fathom the fact that the professors must have…” The apprentice trailed off, her face scrunching up and breaking eye contact with the armorer as if too skittish to broach the next point.
Sorecar didn’t reply, nor did he complete her sentence for her, simply allowing her to recuperate and reorganize her thoughts herself.
“... brought the man back from the brink.” She managed out, offering what was in effect a euphemism that didn’t seem to sit right with the armorer, if his immediate head cock was of any indication.
“That is the only way you can explain the complete loss of a contract.” Sorecar reasoned. “You were hoping to find it, despite knowing well that it, amongst the rest of his contracts, have more than likely gone up in flames.” It was around that point that he walked around behind the desk, and reached down into the drawer the apprentice had been searching in. His arm sank impossibly deep, deeper than what should have been physically possible inside of that small and limited space. After a few moments, the man finally brought his hand back up, holding within it what appeared to be fine specks of ash that he allowed to filter back down into the dark depths of the seemingly bottomless drawer. “And there you have it — ash. Most of it has no doubt already been consumed by the bottom-feeders. However, what remains is enough to account for what is perhaps more contracts than most would form in their lives.”
The man stood back up soon after, before once more taking his place at the front of the desk.
“Well, I believe that answers our prior speculations on Auris Ping’s potential relations, contractual or otherwise, with Professor Mal’tory.” Thalmin growled out, punctuating the moment of silence within the footage; which soon continued with a resonant sigh from the apprentice.
“I guess, in a way, I was trying to find the contract not so much because of my assigned task, but because I wanted to perhaps prove to myself that the situation wasn’t as dire as my intuition leads me to believe. The loss of all these contracts can only mean one thing.” Larial paused, once more trying to find the strength inside of her to face whatever facts were self-evident in this case. “The man was lost.” She finally managed out through a shaky breath. “His soul must have departed from his mortal coil. And yet…”
“... and yet he remains.” Sorecar surmised.
“They must have re-tethered it before I arrived that night.” The apprentice shot back. “But I felt nothing different when they asked me to aid in the mana-channeling processes. This whole situation is just…” She sighed, prompting Sorecar to cock his head.
“Unprecedented?”
“Yes.” The apprentice once more admitted, sinking her face into her hands and taking a moment to process it all, more or less falling into the same camp all of us were currently in. “Moreover, it brings up a very disturbing question.”
“Which is?”
“If his soul was truly untethered, even for a split second… how exactly were they able to retether it? Or more specifically, through what means are they using to permanently retether his soul to his mortal coil?”
This question seemed to cause some level of concern from Sorecar, as his answer soon demonstrated. “There are… ways of doing so that aren’t exclusive to being spellbound to armor.” The man offered under a dour breath. “Especially if the body is… fresh, in a manner of speaking. Though it requires the use of-” He stopped, halting himself from going down what was clearly a darkening path. “I apologize for prompting this rather… dark and dreary subject matter, Apprentice.” Sorecar offered, as that empathetic, kinder side of him returned without much prompting.
“It’s quite alright. It… it needed to be said, if we are to complete this investigation with any degree of professionalism.” The apprentice concluded with a small smile. “Whatever the case may be, it is clear that we are unable to procure the contract through which the perpetrator of the library’s burning was bound. We have, however, undeniable proof of Professor Mal’tory’s involvement with the scandal.” She pointed at the green notebook. “And of course, a potential interloper who may or may not have been a part of this conspiracy; thereby expanding this from a mere Academy matter, to one which could implicate others beyond its walls.” She pointed at the crystal ball. “Have you discovered anything from your observations thus far, Professor?” The apprentice inquired, prompting the man to nod, as he knelt down to eye-level, pondering the orb from desk-height.
“The inherent limitations of the Echovale make it so that it’s near impossible to transcribe anything following the cessation of a communique.” Sorecar began. “Though of course, you knew this, and hoped that because I am perhaps one of the greatest armorers to have ever lived, that I would be able to aid in this impossible endeavor, hmm?” The armorer’s tone of voice had more or less resumed that flighty, happy-go-lucky one I knew him for.
The apprentice, hearing this, could only smile awkwardly in response. “I wouldn’t have put it that… bluntly, professor. But I do indeed have faith in your ability to make the impossible, well… probable, at the least.”
“Hmph! Well, I couldn’t pin a face or a name, but I was able to pin a definite location if that helps.” The man offered.
“Any stray piece of information will help tremendously, professor.”
“The Crownlands.” He answered without a hint of hesitation, prompting the Apprentice to raise both of her brows up high.
“That’s as far as I am able to draw from the residual echoes within the vale.” He tapped at the ball, generating a series of satisfying clinks in the process.
“So the man wasn’t acting alone. Or rather, perhaps he was consulting someone.” The apprentice pondered. “Then again, that final communique could very well be with Lord Lartia—” The apprentice paused, before placing both palms softly across her throat. “—may his soul rest in peaceful slumber.” Following another moment of silence, the apprentice’s hands soon shifted towards the ball. “In any case, if it isn’t Lord Lartia, then who could it possibly be? Maybe we should…” The apprentice suddenly stopped; as if realizing the dangers of diving any deeper into this growing conspiracy. “No.” She quickly corrected herself. “Whatever the case may be, this is probably now completely out of my purview. I was assigned to collect any evidence I deemed to be relevant to recent happenings, and I believe this should suffice.”
“Whatever you believe is best, apprentice.” Sorecar acquiesced, prompting the apprentice to slowly, but surely, pack the archive’s worth of documents, books, and scrolls all back into the drawer using nothing but telekinetic spells.
This left just the crystal ball, and the little green book, both of which the apprentice promptly pocketed into a small pouch, before placing it somewhere beneath her cloak.
“Though on that note…” Sorecar began, pointing towards the apprentice’s cloak. “If I may ask, how do you plan on divvying up these finite pieces of evidence?”
This caught the apprentice off-guard, as her mouth opened, but no response came through.
“Moreover, are you even obligated to hand in this evidence? Or are you only expected to write a report to all parties involved?” Sorecar continued, pressing the matter further, causing the apprentice to stop mid-stride. “Because if primary evidence isn’t explicitly required, might I offer my services as a master forger?” The man spoke with a hint of mischievousness, the duality of the word perhaps translating equally well despite the language barrier.
“I may need to contact my superiors to ask if a… copy will be satisfactory to their needs. I believe not, but… we shall see. In any case, I am due to submit the evidence along with my report no later than the end of next week. As such, this should give me ample time to organize my findings, which is especially convenient given the roster of duties I am expected to cover over the next few days.” The apprentice took a moment to pinch the bridge of her nose, halting her rambles as she steadied herself with a sigh. “But I digress, I believe I will take you up on that offer, Professor Pliska.”
“It would be my pleasure to welcome you into my domain, apprentice.”
The rest of the footage consisted of small talk between the pair, with nothing in particular standing out as the topics being addressed soon turned from high-stakes espionage, and back into faculty banter.
Yet despite that, none of us broke the silence that now dominated the boring trip back. Not even as the footage came to a complete stop, and there was nothing more left to play.
I leaned back against the armor, eliciting a series of creaks from the couch below me, echoing across the high-ceilinged room and disrupting the tentative peace that came with this ominous silence.
“This explains… a lot.” Thalmin offered, finally breaking the silence with a tentative tone of voice. “It explains your contract, and its abrupt cessation.” He continued, turning towards Ilunor. “It explains Mal’tory, or at least, his current lack of public appearances. And it reveals to us exactly what he was trying to hide from you, Emma.” The lupinor eventually turned towards me. “And I think the sections of the library, selectively pruned, are self-explanatory as well.”
“Section four, and section five, at least.” I replied shortly thereafter. “I have no idea who or what Alaroy Rital has to hide in section three, and don’t even get me started on section two, let alone section one.” It was at that point that I turned towards Thacea, who let out a sharp exhale upon me bringing up section one.
“The removal of all information relevant to… and I quote — Tainted Realities — speaks volumes to the inherent fears of the Nexus. Though I know not what specifically they may fear from your discovery of its deep and now-lost lore.” Thacea offered through a pensive gaze. “There are many rumors, legends that come with the phrase Tainted Reality. Though most are mythical; epics of long lost eras that dwell between the blurry line that exists between history and legend. Perhaps the records within the library were pieces of irrefutable evidence that would’ve shed light on this nebulous subject matter. But even so… that begs the question… why? Why would they hide what is effectively a non-issue when it comes to your discovery of its lore? Taint, and more specifically, the concept of a Tainted Reality, is something that is inconsequential in the contemporary world. Its history, even if it proves to be true, is neither a disruptive political element, nor a practical tool for war, that could be used in countering the Nexus.” The avinor’s explanations were clear, concise, and yet they belied something personal that she clearly wasn’t broaching.
And I wasn’t about to dig either, not when this topic very clearly hit close to home for her.
“This leaves the second subject matter then.” I offered, giving the avinor an off-ramp towards a potentially more palatable topic.
“The Unspoken War and the Treacherous Alliance?”
“Correct.” I nodded.
“That… I have no knowledge of.” The avinor admitted, prompting me to turn to both the lupinor and the Vunerian for answers.
“Don’t look at me, earthrealmer, I’m the one who lost all memories on the subject, remember?” Ilunor countered.
“I’m afraid I’m as in the dark as you are on this one, Emma.” Thalmin replied with a loud huff, leaving me with perhaps more questions than answers at this point.
“Right then.” I nodded. “Well, regardless, as disquieting, confusing, and disturbing as these revelations have been, they are exactly that — revelations.” I took a moment to stand up, resting both hands on my hips, as if adopting Ilunor’s more theatrical approach to things. “We started today off with no intel on Mal’tory, with no idea how we were going to complete The Library’s Seekership questline, and no knowledge on exactly where we stood in this game. We’re ending today off with a firm grasp on exactly what we need to do, what exactly was scorched in the library, and a tentative understanding on Mal’tory’s fate. I’d say that’s an incredible step forward, even if the answers we now have are leading to even more questions.”
“Reality is often filled with disturbing truths, but only when we acknowledge them, can we act to change them.” Thacea offered.
“Here here!” Thalmin reaffirmed through a firm stomp, standing up tall and ready.
“While certain revelations come as disappointments… namely the survival of Professor Mal’tory… it is indeed somewhat satisfying to hear that the man is at the very least suffering for his actions.” The little thing spoke maliciously, as he too stood up. This prompted a look of worry to form amidst all three of us, but instead of reacting accordingly, he instead displayed an expression of confusion. “What? The man was a monster! He actively antagonized not only me, but this entire group! Surely you also feel at least some sense of satisfaction at the consequences of his actions catching up to him!”
“The delight in an enemy’s defeat, best comes from the resistance of the blade against his body. Not from the suffering incurred from happenstance.” Thalmin countered, whilst Thacea and I refused to entertain that line of thought, as I quickly placed a palm across my forehead, bonking it once again in the process.
“Right, well, here’s the game plan. We now have a clear target to complete our first objective — the notebook. We grab that, hand it in to the library, and presto, we accomplish the Seekership questline. Now comes the difficult part… how exactly do we do that?” I turned to the group, as offers and suggestions finally came flying in.
“Take advantage of your life debt?” Ilunor offered.
“I wouldn’t take advantage of that card just yet, Ilunor. Not if we have other options.” Thacea countered.
“What if we steal it?” Thalmin proposed.
“Thievery isn’t a diplomatic approach, Thalmin.” Thacea shot back with a glare.
“Well, Emma here was able to grapple her way, through manaless means, across the outside of the castle towards the apprentice whilst she was in the medical wing. I’m sure we can pull something else off in a similar capacity!” The lupinor countered.
“No, Thalmin. As much as I would like to try, I believe it might be best if we try a more diplomatic approach.” I offered, prompting the three to cock their heads.
“We could just ask, right?”
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(Author’s Note: And there we have it! The first step towards the completion of the Library's questline! We've found exactly what we were looking for, the list of books that were ordered to be put to the dragon flame by Mal'tory. With that being said however, a new series of questions arises... exactly why were these books targeted in particular? Moreover, what exactly was lost as a result? These questions and more will continue to linger in the back the gangs' minds as we push forward! Especially as we now find ourselves in the midst of another conundrum, exactly how are we going to get the book to the library! Regardless, this is still a massive step forward, and one that will surely bring Emma and Ilunor closer towards addressing the first phase of their intertwined fates with the library! I hope you guys enjoy! :D The next Two Chapters are already up on Patreon if you guys are interested in getting early access to future chapters!)
[If you guys want to help support me and these stories, here's my ko-fi ! And my Patreon for early chapter releases (Chapter 84 and Chapter 85 of this story is already out on there!)]

TLDR VERSION;
Turns WoW Into An Adventure! No Mandatory Discord For Raids! Come and Go From Raids When You Please! Learners or Vets, All Are Welcome! Social Events Too!

1. No Mandatory Discord
2. Come and Go from raids when you please. Legit, if you're not having fun mid raid let us know and you can leave / join / rejoin whenever you please!
3. We Welcome All, Learners and Vets! We really want to help new players learn and grow, the game can be a tough one to learn so buckle up we can teach if you wish!
4. No Toxic / Elitist (Banter acceptable - but don't push it!)
5. Social Events that aren't just transmog runs!

MORE INFO VERSION;
Salutations wish to help turn WoW into a fun adventure! We have spent countless ages hand crafting the finest social environment and rules that help create a atmosphere of positivity that allows you and others to play and have fun as you so wish!
What we do to achieve this:

1. We create a no mandatory discord rule, this is because we know some people have kids or family to attend to. Others dislike social settings such as Discord and want to just text chat. Even in raids this is how it is, we will have a Discord for people who want it, but for those who don't no problem! All raid tactics will be spoken in text chat and we will learn through practice :-)
2. Come and Go rule, this is so people aren't forced to do something they aren't having fun doing. With this day and age we can always pug and help other people outside of the guild learn, it isn't a problem! This is a game, not a job so we decided to not make it feel like one! Also, the rule applies for coming or not to raids and also the timing in which you leave the raid. We don't mind if it is 5 mins into raid, 1 hour into raid or whatever, you do you!
3. We are a positive learner environment, we do not do elitism or toxicity. I don't care if you're dps isn't pumping (I don't even use dps meters) we play to have fun and if we get the kills we get the kills, if not we learned and had fun along the way :-)
4. Social Events, we have social events that I personally haven't seen others doing. Scavenger Hunts, Postcard Race, Mortality Darts, Lv1 Racing, Hide N Seek, Lazer Tag. All of these events are super fun and we'll be having 1-2 of them a week. I won't tell you more then the title of these social events but you can come experience them for yourself as to not spoil the surprise. Yes, all of these events are in-game.

So, if this sounds like your type of guild then hit us up! We are on Turalyon/Doomhammer I can either accept you from the Guild Finder or leave a message here or add my BNET: Gavedub#2733 or Join the none mandatory Discord: n2CGunryrc

I went looking for a house in January of this year (not Dublin) and there was nothing really on the market in terms of second hand houses and the latest round of new builds in a development in my location weren't available until the summer. I was living with my parents as a single parent, toddler in my childhood room with me and eager to secure a house. I decided at the time I would go with a second hand house 3 bed (they are roughly around 260k in my location. My thinking was I'd start with a cheaper house and move on after a couple of years. Ended up sale agreed (40k over asking for 290k - I way way overspent very natively in a bidding war) on a second hand semi detached house (built in 2003) in February but couldn't couldn't move in until late April (per contract). The valuation report even came back at 265k and I still went ahead at 290k 😔 stupidity.
Moved in and just so many things with this house are bugging me, needs new kitchen, utility area, garden needs to be completely renovated, needs a new front door and back patio door. I didn't really notice these things so much when I viewed the house initially and didn't really think I'd have to pump a lot of money into it (hence bidding so high). I like things new and modern and I'm absolutely kicking myself I didn't hold out for a new build now. When I viewed the house I thought it was grand but since moving in I want to replace everything as it has an old look and feel to the place.
The house I bought was roughly 50k less than a new build 3 bed but I was HTB approved as I was a first time buyer so really if I just held out for a new build I could have secured a larger brand new more energy efficient house with everything brand spanking new for 20k more in a brand new development with creches/playground areas etc. The only benefit my house has is the location it's about 15 minute walk into town in a more established housing estate while the new build would be a 35/40 walk but my location has no facilities for young children. I wish someone just shaked some sense into me at the time and convinced me to go with a new build.
I can't believe I've bascially just messed up the biggest purchase of my life. Completey devastated, I'm in a worse home for roughly the same price as a brand new home. I'm deciding between a few possible options. I have 25k left over in savings, I put 145k of a deposit towards the house. Mortgage is 145k. I will be mortage free in 15 years. Probably sooner if I wanted. For context I'm on 110k a year and take home pay is 5k roughly.
Options are
*Sell the house I'm in now straight away and take the hit. I'd probably get 270k max for it realisticly. Pay off mortage with 270k. That leaves 125, between agent and solicitor fees maybe 115k to put towards securing a new build and take out a new mortage. Seems like the nuclear option. And I won't have HTB anymore 😔
*Use 20k of my savings/take out a 20k loan and do up as most as I can. Kitchen, utility, garden, new doors so at least I'll be happy to live here. Then either sell up in a few years or wait out the 15 years and be mortage free living here.
*Leave my savings and don't take out a new loan, save up separately for the different areas in the house that need doing up.

• Other options?

Thanks

We're already here at day five, we are so close to Worm's birthday. So let's not dilly dally I want to get right into it.
Honorable mentions list:
Arc 20 Chrysalis
Arc 12 Plague
Arc 19 Scourge
Arc 11 Infestation
The Top 7 Arcs in Worm according to my opinion:

1. Arc 16 Monarch
   
2. Arc 24 Crushed
   
3. Arc 30 Speck
   
4. Arc 31 Teneral
   

Today's Honorable Mention: Arc 3 Agitation This is where the story finally picks up. Most people only remember the bank heist from this Arc, which I don't blame them, it's lots of fun with that and the fighting with Wards. But I also enjoyed the slower pace in the beginning with Taylor sparring with Brian, the planning of the bank heist itself, and her conversation with Armsmaster which is great on a re-read when you're not biasely rooting for Taylor, the conversation with Tattletale explaining how being a cape is a high risk game of cops and robbers, then the bank heist and fight with the Wards, I have read that fight over and over again. Finally closing with Worm's introduction of gray morality with the Brockton Bay Wards interlude. Soild arc this, soild arc.
3. Arc 27 Extinction: If I was doing a list of the best Arc titles, this would win, and it would win by a mile. Just that name gives me chills. I was scared to read this Arc because I was so terrified for the characters. I think it's amazing what great writing can do and how it can influence your feelings. The opening where Brockton Bay is just destroyed after having been built up as our main setting for the majority of the story. Wildbow certainly isn't afraid to destroy what he's created. Taylor and Rachel do some search and rescue before going to Earth Gimel with the rest of the refugees and she runs into Emma's family who seemingly blame her for Emma's death, which I mean no, granted because of what happened to her back in arc 20 she felt like she had nothing to fall back on having her worldview destroyed so fell into a deep depression and refused to leave her room but at the end of the day I feel like that was Emma's choice not to leave so thereby Taylor is not responsible in any way shape or form. But that's just me.

Alan, Emma’s dad, had lost weight since I’d seen him last. He’d noticed me, and looked up, staring, his eyes red. His wife sat in a lawn chair beside him, while Emma’s older sister sat on a blanket at her mother’s feet, her mother resting one hand on her head.
Zoe’s -Emma’s mom’s- eyes were wet. Emma’s sister looked equally upset.
Emma wasn’t in sight. I could guess what they were crying about.
Alan was staring at me now, and there was an inexplicable accusation in the look. His wife took his hand and held it, but he didn’t move his eyes a fraction.
When Anne, Emma’s sister, looked up at me, there was a glimmer of the same. A hint of blame.

Then we go into the meeting with Cauldron, this is pretty much the final big debriefing. We watch from Defiant going off on Saint, Grue having a silent panic attack as Bonesaw is there, and everyone letting out their anger on Cauldron whether they be the Irregulars or Taylor herself. Moving forward comes with Taylor's conversation with Sophia, Shadow Stalker. I love this conversation. Sophia winning gold in mental gymnastics as she's convinced herself that she's the reason why Taylor is such a successful cape just so she doesn't have to concede her worldview. To me Taylor through this conversation overcomes her trauma, it ties up her own personal loose end with it. And for me, there was no other point in the story where I was as proud of Taylor as I was by the end of this conversation.

I felt okay with this decision. Comfortable. It wasn’t a mask I was wearing, so strong it might as well have been real. No. It was something simpler.
I’m not scared of her anymore.

Then comes the Birdcage villains, a real selection of who's who. I want to know more about some of these villains, specifically String Theory. I can almost hear what her voice sounds like and visualize her mannerisms. I sure wish Scion didn't off her, but we'll get to that in a second. Then leads to my third favorite chapter in the entire series 27.4. Taylor sitting down with Glaistig Uaine is such a fascinating conversation, Uaine only addressing people by their shard name is so creepy but I can't help but love it. I also love this little tidbit of Taylor thinking what she would look like if she got claimed.

What if I fell in battle? Would she claim me? Would I become like that? What form would that body take? Skitter, Weaver, or a blending of the two?

The way Uaine views the world like people are actors and everyone has a part to play, her talking about Eidolon, and her talking about Scion, she's such a fascinating character. She ends the conversation by telling Taylor she can't wait to collect her shard. I absolutely love this. Then Taylor picks out her costume in ways that symbolizes her and her journey, picking out a black costume with white plates, attribute to both Weaver and Skitter, a handgun reminding her of her first kill, Coil, and pepper spray reminding her of her first night out in costume. I really do love this chapter.
The oil rig battle, there are so many thoughts that come to my head when I think about this scene. Another fight that fully convinced me despite there being more arcs left in the book I was fully convinced the story was coming to an end here. Some things are went over such as Lab Rat giving out arm bands and Chevalier commenting on why they're out on a oil rig in the middle of nowhere

“It’s isolated, to minimize chances he can track us somehow,” Chevalier said. “And we have a good escape route. Not to mention it’s the furthest point from Scion.”

This would not age well.
Then group after group attack Scion doing whatever they can seeing what might work, but then comes my girly String Theory. With her one of a kind, never seen before G-driver. She fucking smokes Scion, well not really but it was something more than what anyone else had done. During my first time reading this it was in that moment of triumph that I had a thought that I remember distinctly. "Hold on a second, Scion is a God basically. If he really wanted to he could just find them. No that wouldn't happen, that would feel too narratively unfair." I moved on and kept listening, oh boy, you could imagine my reaction when it was revealed Scion was above them staring down getting ready to actually smoke them. I could not believe what I was listening to. This line from the book summarized my feelings at the time.

“Oh god,” someone said. “Oh god, oh god.”

I love what great fiction can make you feel.
Scion sends down his golden light bomb and takes out most of the people on the oil rig, Taylor gets dismembered and does everything she can to survive. Using her bugs, using the serum Lab Rat had made. She done ends up with an incredibly deformed body but it saves her and ends up with the Irregulars and has a lovely conversation. I love Weld so much and same with Sveta she's adorable.

“Be brave, Sveta,” Weld murmured.
“I just tell myself I need to act like you,” Sveta’s voice came from within the sphere.

I love this conversation as they're trying to convince Weld to go with them as this chaotic battle between some of the strongest capes in the universe battle against Scion. After the conversation with Weld Taylor does what she can to help in the fight against Scion. It does not go well, but I love the fact that no matter what Taylor is always willing to try. No matter what. Taylor dives into the water after Eidolon send some flying into the water, as she tries using every bug from under the water against him. And as she realizes that she fails she looks up and sees Uaine looking down eagerly for her shard. But Taylor gets saved by the bell as she falls deeper and deeper into the water and a portal opens. I love Worm.
Then comes the interlude, Eidolon's interlude. Eidolon is a character I overlook but I think he's an interesting case of this is all I have so I will give my life to this because the alternative is worse. I will say though in the same interlude he has such an amazing fight with Scion, oh my goodness probably the biggest power scale fight outside of Gold Morning. But even for the one fight that feels like power versus power switching between the current events and his backstory goes back to fights and Worm pulling at your heartstrings during these. But this ends with a very iconic line, Scion uses his path to victory and finds the one way to break David.

You needed worthy opponents

Day five is in the books and now we're on to say six, my goodness gracious Worm's birthday is fast approaching and I feel like I'm starting to get a little bit better at these. With that let me know what I can do better. As always, I appreciate you taking time out of your day to read this and I'll see you tomorrow.

I’m just so strangely discouraged after visiting a new church here in Nashville… Which is obviously not awesome.
I feel like we put so much emphasis on being exuberant, but shouldn’t that be the after effects of a spirit filled person that is full of faith? How does someone come to faith or grow in their faith if they don’t hear the gospel first? If we don’t make it a priority to discuss the truth of why Jesus came and did what He did (even if it’s just a constant reminder), then how do we really come to worship?
Today was the first service out the gates for this church, and I feel like it lines up with every other evangelical church out there right now… Let’s put on a show, tell people that they should put their hands up and sing loudly, regardless of where they are in life or their spiritual journey. I literally felt bad at one point during the service, because they head pastor was making fun of people that held the back of chairs, or put their heads down in prayer, and was telling us that we needed to keep our eyes up and hands up… that God requires it. Then he lead us in exercises on just how to do that… It was so disappointing. I feel more connected with my God, when I am in quiet reverence. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Ultimately, we all worship in our own way, we know what connects us to God, and if people don’t want to put their hands up or scream loudly and clap, they shouldn’t have to. But, I do know that if one is spirit-filled, that an exuberant worship will likely follow lol. Sorry for the rant, this is just such a hot button for me… still looking for a church that puts The Word first, doesn’t just rely on a worship “show”, and is totally biblically based. Wish me luck?

My 14 boy Cosmo died in my arms last night. He was so scared. He never liked the vet but his breaths per min were at 60. I rushed him in and they took him right away. He was on oxygen for 2 hours and his lungs were full of fluid. The vet came into the room with a look on her face that is burnt into my memory.
Cosmo was diagnosed with late stage heart failure on Tuesday last week after he collapsed on the street on our walk. I’ve been through this before with my sisters dog so I was ready to treat him and find a routine. But then the meds didn’t work. He was so uncomfortable. He couldn’t stay in one position for longer than a minute and you could see his chest cavity struggle to keep up.
Last night he gave me a look. His eyes were black and he looked so stressed. One the car ride over he seemed eerily peaceful. He was looking out into the sky just gazing instead of his normal reaction to a car ride which is go buck wild. I took him in thinking maybe they’d up his sedative dose to calm him but then the vet came to me with that face. What was an emergency visit then turned into our last moments together. There’s no good place to do it. Some do it at home (expensive!) and some at the vet. But I had no choice. The quality of life check was made. It was either; bring him home so I could try to pump him with meds and buy a bit more time or put him out of his misery and bring him peace.
Only thing is I can’t stop thinking about how stressed my baby was seconds before his first injection. He could barely breathe, he’s was shaking and wanted to get out so badly. Part of me wishes I gave him one more day. One day to cuddle, kiss and spoil my best friend before his parting. But I made my choice and now here I am.
The last week has been incredibly traumatic. I’m not sure how to process this. I can’t decide if I feel regret, guilt, or relief that my dog doesn’t need to sit in pain with every breath. It all happened so quickly my head hurts. I live alone in a big city hours away from anyone that I could hug or embrace. I’m in this alone. And now I don’t know what to do with myself.

We have an almost 100 year old bungalow with almost 1800sqft. 4 bedrooms, 1.5 baths. We’ve lived here for 6 years, and have updated quite a bit (biggest update was a complete gut/remodel of the main bathroom). Recently repainted almost every room in a neutral color. Removed wallpaper and painted, replaced carpet upstairs. Newer flooring everywhere except main floor where there are original hardwoods. Has original pocket doors with a bonus room off the living room (currently used as a playroom). Has two AC, one for upstairs and one for main floor (upstairs stays nice and cool in the summer!) Full unfinished basement great for storage . Biggest update needed is probably the kitchen (everything works fine, just small and dated) and probably needs a new roof soonish. We are a family of 5 and have lived comfortably in this house, we are just moving closer to my work.
We listed it 50 days ago at $189k. Small town in the Midwest, but we are the only listing around us under $200k. After about two weeks of only two showings (realtors gave a positive review on house and price but no offers), we dropped the price to $179k. Then we waited a month and completely fixed up the front porch (replaced old steps, sanded and repainted everywhere to update it). We also repainted the worn back decks to make those look nicer. We took new pictures and posted them last week and got 1 showing, but it was for a VA loan, and we aren’t offering that or FHA because I don’t think the house will qualify. It’s an old house with cracked concrete on the concrete steps up to the house, cracked window in one room, no GFIC outlets in kitchen. Older roof. Basement leaks occasionally during really heavy rainfall, but sump pump works great. Other than fixing up the porch, we really planned on selling as is, or at least fixing any little stuff that might come up on inspection. So we dropped the house another $5k (to $174k) a few nights ago, hoping that anyone who saved the house on Zillow/MLS would see the new pictures and be more interested.
We are also already in the process of buying the new house so we can’t spend a whole lot of money to fix any more issues. We’ve already got the clear to close and don’t have to rely on selling the house to buy the new one, but we still can’t be spending extra money because we still have 3 weeks until closing on the new house (this sub has taught me not to spend any extra money before closing is official). The thought of having two mortgages is really starting to stress me out.
I’ve posted to all local buy, sell, trade facebook groups every time we drop the price. Our realtor has been a realtor in this community for decades, and reaches out to everyone she knows often. We don’t do open houses because our realtor says it’s not really a common/useful tactic around here. I don’t know what else to do. I thought having the only house under $200k would make selling it easy. Boy was I wrong.
Our realtor said May is a weird month for real estate, because people are so busy with graduations, kids getting out of school, going on end of school summer vacations, etc. But now it’s June and still not much interest. How can we market/advertise it better? There are only two other houses in this town that are on the market, one is a little smaller (not as old, but still dated) listed at $240k (on market for 24 days), and the other one is bigger, nicely updated and $380k (been on the market for 78 days). So it’s probably the location? We are a small town, but have one of the best schools in the county. We are within 25 minutes to the big cities around here.. Lots of people live in this town and commute to the bigger cities for work.
I know everyone here says that if the house isn’t selling, then it’s the price. Everyone tells us to not drop the price again, because they think our house is worth the price we have it listed at. I’m willing to drop another $10-15k eventually. My realtor says she doesn’t want to drop the price again, but we could offer to cover some closing costs to sweeten the deal. We put that we are motivated sellers in the house description and to “bring your best offer”.. We just want to be done with this. Any advice?? Or success stories from a similar situation? This has been a much bigger stress than I thought it would it be.
We buried Saint Joseph in the front yard when we dropped the price a few days ago. We’ve been saying the prayer everyday. I’m literally trying anything.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
"That... Would certainly be appreciated. She's just outside."
And so, the two aspects of Atrosa, Logos and Celia, exit the medbay and fix up Chaos Meld, bringing it into proper working condition.
Max: "Ready for another drive, honey?"
Rachnia: "As I'll ever be."
Celia approaches Talios after finishing the repairs of Chaos Meld.
"I went ahead and threw in a tune-up for the Mana-Thrusters, it should use a bit less mana for flight mode now."
"Alright, thank you."
Chaos Meld: "All systems repaired and operational. Ready for combat, Pilot."
Finally, Max and Rachnia re-enter their mech, Weaver Of Fates. As the two enter and connect, the same thing happens as before. The cables attached to Max turn gold. Though this time, Rachnia's do too. A purple spider web pattern spreads across both their cables.
"All systems operational. Driver sync at 200%. The Weaver of Fates is ready for Combat."
"To protect and preserve, to carve a path for others to walk on, to weave the fate for the future, we stand and fight. Eldritch one. You've made your last mistake."
A large sword appears in one of the weaver's hands. It's alot like the one the Apostate of Misfortune wields, a form of Max very view of have gazed upon.
The Titanic Abomination in the distance can be seen wrestling with Aoi's projection. It seems to be overpowering even for the the Oni, but she has managed to hold her own against it. Jean can be seen flying overhead, using layers of defensive spells to buff and empower her.
Aoi: "YOU THINK YOU'RE HOT SHIT HUH? SARAH, BLAST EM!"
the beam of the Polyphemus aims straight for the beast's left eye, to try to distract it.
Cerne's silver swords are stuck in her own projection, like daggers in her back. Not out of hostility, but to enrage and empower.
Talios places a hand on Chaos Meld's ankle, and is warped into the cockpit.
"Switching to manual controls. Welcome back Pilot."
Chaos Meld pulls out it's greatsword, but it quickly changes into a different form. A war hammer.
《Mana-Drain Thrusters: 30%》
Immediately, Chaos Meld dashes in and attempts a powerful overhead strike on the abomination.
The blade of the Weaver Of Fates grows as the weaver takes hold if it with all four arms. A gigantic and ornate greatsword.
"To destroy those who wish for destruction, to end those who wish for annihilation. We turn their desired fates to their own selves. Face us, XYLFAPSAVEI, and die your final, fated death."
The thrusters on it's back and it's legs activate, burning white hot. It dashes forward at breakneck speeds, going for an upper cut to match Talios' strike.
The Titanic being Towers above everything, it's head nearly a full kilometer in the air. As Talios flies overhead and strikes down with the warhammer, it is effortlessly deflected by some kind of powerful energy field, and the same happens with the beam from the Polyphemus and the Weaver's attack. The exposed Brain sitting in the carved out skull psychically laughs, mockingly.
"You fools don't stand a chance before the power of a true God!"
Everyone experiences a flood of information entering their minds. it is a map of the beast, with a plan of attack.
Atrosa: "The thing has Shield Generators built into it's body that we're gonna have to take care of first. Your going to need to use your mechs to get inside, then fight your way on foot to the generators!"
"Talios, You use Chaos Meld and try to get under it's left flank, there is a hollow metal panel there you should be able to break open with your antimagic punch. Weaver, I want y'all to evade as best as possible while charging that cannon of yours, and wait until my signal that Talios has brought down the first generator. The second one is located in the right shoulder, but it's very heavily armored."
Talios: "Got it."
《Mana-Drain Thrusters: 60%》
Chaos Meld's speed increases massively. It begins flying around the abomination, trying to find an opening to the hollow panel.
"Ironsides, Wait for my signal, and when I give the order I want you to dump everything you have into this things Groin. Trust me on this."
The Weaver Of Fates armour plating shifts forward, as it stands guard before the Ironsides, ready to deflect attacks.
"Ready when you are."
Talios manages to fly around to it's left flank, Jean assisting Aoi in getting the abomination to lift it's arm, exposing a worn panel protected by a barrier.
Chaos Meld: "Target acquired."
Chaos Meld immediately dashes in with a superman punch on the worn panel, the anti-magic in the Chaos Meld being much more volatile. It causes black sparks to surge from the point of impact, all the mana in the vicinity being consumed by the sparks, essentially destroying the mana entirely.
The punch collapses the barriers and crashes through the panel, exposing a hallway leading down into the depths of the creature. The cockpit of Chaos Meld opens up, and Talios tosses a Chaos dagger into the exposed hallway, swapping positions with it.
Chaos Meld retreats back after it's pilot has safely entered the beast.
"Switching to automatic mode. Good luck Pilot."
The shipkeeper of the Ironsides, Ferra, has been preparing a shield disrupting shot amidst all this.
Ferra: "Awaiting command, Paragon of Preservation!"
The tunnels leads deep down into the chest of the mechanical eldritch horror, and opens into a large room with a massive glowing crystal. Around it, 3 mindflayer mages are focusing on some kind of ritual. They have not noticed Talios yet.
Talios summons his Chaos Blade, and another Chaos dagger into his free hand. Quiet as a mouse, he moves behind one mage... And immediately stabs his Chaos Blade into the throat of the mage. He tosses the Chaos Dagger at another of the mages, the dagger striking it's throat. Two down.
The final Mindflayer, in a panic, attempts to use a Mind Blast on Talios. But due to not having an actual brain... It is ineffective.
Talios charges the last one, shoulder checking it to the floor and proceeding to bash it's head into the floor once. Twice. Thrice. Fourice. Firice... What am I saying... Finally, he stops.
Atrosa: "Talios, hit that mana crystal with an anti-magic strike. Max, as soon at it shatters, fire your weapon into it's right shoulder!"
Talios walks over to the mana crystal. He widens his stance, placing his left hand fingers square on the center of the crystal. He takes a deep breath. Focuses...
《One Inch Death Punch》
He closes his fist, moving his whole body into the punch in an instant. The anti-magic freezes the mana in the crystal, while the punch itself could probably do some serious damage as well.
The jets of the Weaver Of Fates flare up, the armour shifts back, and they ready it's titanic greatsword to strike.
The attack greatly destabilizes the Mana crystal powering the first layer shields, causing it to shatter into thousands of pieces.
Atrosa: "Now Max, blast that thing with the shot you've been charging up and get ready to jump it!"
The railcannon fires straight into it's shoulder, weakening it significantly. The disruptor rune weakens surrounding materials, disabling magic caught in the blast.
The Weaver grapples onto the beast's side and runs upwards, reaching it's shoulder. A wound, large enough to fit the Weaver was made in the abominations shoulder, and after passing the fleshy, decayed exterior, they find themselves standing in a large room, and on the other side of a massive barrier lies a huge, spherical core of energy radiating a sickening divine light.
Atrosa: "Weaver, use a Godslayer rune on that divine core, that will render it mortal. Talios, you get back to Chaos Meld and get ready to scram. This is gonna get messy."
"Got it."
Talios sprints out of the hallway, leaping straight out of the abomination. Putting full faith in Chaos Meld to catch him as he falls...
And she delivers, soaring in and catching him mid-air, immediately warping him back into the cockpit.
"Welcome back Pilot."
"Charging up railcannon, rerouting power from all defensive systems."
"Firing Godslayer rune!"
The cannon fires at near point-blank range, smashing right through the barrier and into the divine core. This causes the mana with it to become unstable and explode outwards, leaving a massive hole in the eldritch corpse's chest. The Weaver is protected from the blast by a powerful barrier.
Atrosa: "Alright, Y'all get out too. Ironsides, Dump everything you got into that things crotch!"
Ferra: "ALL CANNONS, FIRE ON IT'S GROIN!"
The mortars, anti-material cannons, and artillery batteries all focus fire on it's groin, as the Railcannon is almost finished charging a godslayer itself. Aoi's Wargod projection moves out of the way to avoid getting hit, while Sarah fires her cannon in tandem with the others.
The barrage begins impacting the abominations groin, causing the structures holding it's legs together to collapse. Without a leg to stand on, it comes toppling down, landing forwards in the water. The massive tank containing the Elder Brain shatters on impact, and the seawater begins to cause it to shreak in pain.
Chaos Meld was flying around it when the abomination fell. Seeing the Elder Brain exposed, it grabs A.M.A.R from it's shoulder mount, firing 10 anti-magic artillery rounds into the brain. It only stopped because it had to reload.
Without the magic animating the Eldritch corpse, it begins to turn to stone, rapidly becoming overgrown with moss and sea life.
Talios sees the village below while flying, and notices the villagers trying to flag him down. He obliges, Chaos Meld descending down, gradually slowing its descent with the mana-drain thrusters. Once it lands, the thrusters power off entirely and it kneels, placing a hand on the ground. Talios is warped onto the hand.
A large man with skin the color of brass walks up to Talios. Judging from the draconic wings and tail, it's easy to tell that this must be the Half-Dragon chieftain.
"Thank you so much, great warriors! You have saved our village, and we are forever in your debt."
Talios: "...Just doing our job as the Crimson Paragons, chief."
A title with little meaning now. But it's all that comes to mind. Talios doesn't want to take all the credit...
The Weaver Of Fates arrive near the village, Max and Rachnia disembarking.
Max: "Good day, chieftain. I've heard much about you from Empress Aubade."
Rachnia looks like she only did a light exercise, instead of experiencing the same strain as before. Them being in sync seems to have done them both a lot of good.
The townspeople begin to gather around to thank their saviors, and the Chief, the Brass Half-Dragon Velzas, walks up to Max.
"I've heard good things about you, Maximillian. We've been appreciative for ARMADAs assistance for quite some time, and now we are truly in your debt."
Talios is busy being greeted and thanked by the villagers, when a large Lamia woman approaces him silently from behind, and picks him up into a huge hug. She gets a little carried away though, and accidentally squeezes him so hard that he can feel his body crumpling in from the pressure.
Talios visibly tenses up when he feels the Lamia grab him, but he quickly relaxes. He feels... Strange. An emotion unfamiliar to him.
With this action... A seed was planted in his mind. A seed that would quickly turn into something greater.
Max: "I'm surprised you all even remembered it's aid from ARMADA at all. Not exactly a catchy name, after all. Just glad to see you're all doing well."
Velzas: "Don't worry about the damages, it is nothing compared to the devastation that you have prevented. We've been acting as a sanctuary for dislocated demihumans such as ourselves for some time, and that does put us in indirect contect with ARMADA from time to time. You have been doing a service for our community that the world has always sorely lacked, and to call it gratitude would be a disservice."
Max: "I'll have a crew sent before noon tomorrow to assist with reconstruction efforts, chief Velzas."
And with that, the alien invasion had been stopped. All was well in Lantica once more. And Talios sat down on his chair in the tavern, having finished his retelling of this story.
"I'm never entertaining things like this again."
He will.
((BUT WAIT, THERE'S BE MORE! IT'S A TWO FOR ONE SPECIAL TODAY ON LORE!))

I woke up at 2 a.m., feeling ravenous. The hunger I was feeling was powerful, I couldn’t sleep I just had to get something to eat.
I went downstairs to my disgusting kitchen and opened the fridge.
“Damn,” I thought
The only thing I had in my fridge was a bottle of expired milk. At that time I didn’t know it was expired, so I drank it.
The dreadful feeling of extreme hunger tortured me, I just had to get some food.
I unlocked my phone and ordered a cab. The driver swiftly arrived at my house which did not surprise me, since it was the middle of the night. I walked up to the car and saw a man. Almost everything about this individual was boring and average, but the one thing that stood out was his eyes. They looked dead and were red, he looked like he had just smoked weed.
At first, I was reluctant about getting in, but I ignored that feeling and got inside the car.
“Take me anywhere they food,” I said to the creepy man
“Well, what are you looking for?” he answered.
“Anything,” I said
“What about getting something exotic” the man uttered in a terrifying voice
That sentence horrified me. It was the way he said it that erected that grim feeling in me. After a second I realized that it was probably nothing and that I was making stuff up.
“Yeah, sure” I answered unenthusiastically.
“Great!” The man yelled
That blaring yell almost made me faint, it was all because I got drunk last night playing a drinking game with my friends. The man accelerated and reached a great speed in seconds, I was terrified.
We got about 5 miles from my house before I started getting even more creeped out. Why did we have to drive so far to get to this restaurant? I kept asking the guy about the ETA of this ride, but he kept saying the same thing
“We’ll be there soon” the creep kept on saying
I was beginning to spiral. It only took me a few minutes to start thinking that he was going to kill me. That’s when I got a phone call. It was a private number, I usually don’t answer calls from these types of numbers, but I had to do something to get this situation off my mind.
I answered the call.
“Where the fuck are you! I’ve been waiting for you for 30 minutes. You better believe I'm going to be charging you for this!“ The unknown man screamed
“What are you talking about, I got into a car, like 40 minutes ago” I replied
“I don’t know what the hell you’re on about, but I'm out of here!” he yelled
He hung up.
“Can we please pull over??” I asked the driver
“No” he answered formidably
“What’s going on here? I just got a call from an unknown number insisting that he was my driver” I replied
“Well, he probably was,” said the impostor
That sentence sent shivers down my spine. I completely forgot about my esurient state; the only thing on my mind was getting out of this vehicle.
The only possible resolution at that moment was to attack the man and take control of the car.
I punched him in the head, he didn’t take it well. He lost control of the car and we hit a tree. Thankfully I was fully conscious and I wasn’t injured. I looked at where the driver was sitting and thought he passed out. I was ecstatic and I thought that I was finally free, but that’s when he suddenly woke up and stabbed me in the neck with a syringe.
I passed out almost immediately.

After I woke up I started puking profusely, it was probably caused by either the expired milk I drank earlier or the mixture of chemicals in the syringe. I started panicking, thinking I was going to die, but then the lights came on.
“I know you wanted to try something exotic, so I made you something I knew you would love,” said a familiar voice.
Suddenly the lights turned on, I looked down and screamed with horror.
“My legs! They’re fucking gone!”
The sadistic monster laughed with glee.
“Exactly, they're gone and that’s what you’re going to eat tonight”
“You disgusting creep, how dare you!”
He didn’t respond. He just left.
I sat there, stuck for hours, crying thinking about stuff I could never do again because of this psychopath.
After hours of mental torture, he came back
‘I am going to love this” said the sadist
He walked over to me and put a blindfold around my eyes. He then unblocked the wheels on the wheelchair I was sitting on and rolled me over to a different room.
The man took off the blindfold and what I saw deeply disgusted me. I saw a table full of different dishes that mainly consisted of meat from my legs. I was surprised that I didn’t hurl.
I was frightened, but that was only the beginning.
I started yelling, telling the guy I wasn’t going to eat my legs, but in that moment he whipped out a pistol and told me that if I didn’t eat it he was going to kill me and my entire family.
I reluctantly started eating one of the dishes and ate until I finally saw the look of satisfaction on his face. I told him I was done eating, he seemed pleased with what he had accomplished.
After he put all the dishes back in a different room he walked up to me, put a knife on the table, put a gun in his mouth, and killed himself. The sound of the gun and the sight of a man's brain being splattered all over the wall scarred me for life.
I then remembered that he had left a knife on the table. I pulled myself to the edge of the surface, turned myself around, and grabbed the knife. I was lucky that he had only tied my chest to the chair, but thinking about it now I am pretty sure he did it on purpose.
After I escaped from the chair I crawled over to the exit. After I got out the door I saw that this place was in the middle of a city, the second I came out there was a swarm of people surrounding me.
The one thing that I wasn’t expecting was that I deeply enjoyed eating human flesh. It was more like love. I was obsessed instantly. I never considered myself a bad person and I still don’t think I am, I just have needs that most people don’t and I think that is fine. Sure, most people would think I am a monster, but all of them have never tried the beauty that is human flesh. I want to end this by thanking my unexpected driver, for introducing me to this wonderful world of cannibalism.

My normal posts are 2-5 paragraphs. This is long because it's a starter.
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The sloping ground around the Kiaurk family mesa had been sculpted into shelves or terraces, and it was on one of those upper terraces that Kiaurk Nshurr now lounged beneath a pergola anchored to the striated stone face behind her. The mesa rose at her back: an enormous, looming, almost sheer outcrop that her family's dwellings had been carved into the face of. Wide, shallow steps cut into the artificial (but entirely convincing) sandstone wound their way up between landings and porticos leading inward, between tiny balconies shaded by bright solid-colored canopies, between rooms with flat walls and rounded corners that came jutting out to shadow the steps below. Rriigkhans rarely used glass as window barriers; smooth-edged holes had been cut through the rock in varying shapes and sizes. It could be difficult to tell which apertures were windows and which were entryways. A physical barrier that kept out the elements was obsolete in all but the crudest dwellings, though some of these larger holes were curtained with braided string or strips of cloth that served a purely decorative purpose.
From her high vantage point Nshurr could see the shelves stretching out below her as the base of the mesa leveled out to flattish terrain that was a wonderland of vegetation in muted rainbow colors: mustard yellows, clay reds, earthy browns and the occasional dash of sage or dusty blue. This scrubland lay like a blanket around everything below that was not part of the village between the mesas. Down there, adobe compounds never taller than two or three storeys seemed so squat compared to the mesas that Nshurr could see towering in the distance, many of those family mesas only a few hours walk from her own if she traveled by foot. The village sprawled, with tile parkways winding in serpentine fashion between the various buildings, courtyards, parks, and ponds. There were no property lines, no clear division of the land into neat little plots owned by the individuals who lived and worked in these places. It all seemed to be part of a whole, with a single unifying aesthetic. The village housed those rriigkhans of the lower castes, the kharratah and chelhautah, and the humans which were a caste all their own, haukagh-ar, except for a small number who lived with their masters in the caverns of the mesas or up on the plateau.
This planet, Sgarrl, terraformed over three hundred years ago, was home to more human servants than any other Ssaarian world – aside from Earth, of course, discovered eighty years ago. The fact that humans shared so much in common with rriigkhans made them the perfect species to incorporate into the rriigkhan caste structure as servants. They breathed the same mix of gases and required similar gravities, and their nimble little fingers were very useful for all sorts of work.
The rriigkhan language was not necessarily too complex for humans, but it was wholly unfamiliar – too many phonemes that did not fit comfortably in human mouths, from grunts to huffs, to rolling trills that might by voiced or not, sometimes rumbling out like a purr. To a human, Nshurr's name was a sigh and a trill, and yet she was accustomed to humans vocalizing her name in their heavy, slurring way: Na-Shuurr! Nasher! Sometimes simply: ɽ͡r! which she recognized more easily as her name, or at least part of it, and not some random sounds.
Still, despite the weird pidgin humans had made of her language and their English, she liked the little creatures. She had come to live with her Grandmother on Sgarrl only days ago, and had never encountered them before. The males only stood as tall as her collar. The females were shorter still, much like the males of her own species.
To human eyes Nshurr was felinoid, with a muscular swimmer's body and the broad muzzle of a big cat, with watchful, forward-facing predator's eyes that seemed unexpectedly expressive, because rriikghans had almost as many muscles around their eyes as humans did around their mouths to convey the nuances of emotion. Despite being larger than even many Earth men, she was considered sleek by rriigkhan standards. She made up for that with her broader crest.
The rriigkhan crest was something like the crest of Utahceratops – a keratinized plate growing up out of the skull, except divided into three lobes instead of two, with scalloped edges along the outer rim. Unlike depictions of Utahceratops, the rriigkhan crest was not covered by skin. At least, not on the top. Thick ropy veins squiggled under velvet fur on the underside, closer to the neck. (A thick, arching neck muscular enough to support the weight of that crest meant that Rriigkhans walked with a stoop that made them seem hunchbacked, to humans.) The surface of the plate on top was often rough, even bumpy or corrugated like deer antlers in some areas, smooth in others. Every female crest had four tines jutting from the front – a pair several inches above the eyes, and another pair further up. Directly above the lowest set of tines were twin holes, the howrf channels, just big enough for a human to insert a finger. These holes were very much like nostrils – much deeper, but damp inside, and lined with short, fine hairs to protect the sensitive mucous membrane from debris. The organs housed within these channels were the heart of rriigkhan culture, the foundation of all relationships, of sex.
Male rriigkhans, of course, had only their neotonous crests: diminutive, mostly smooth with rounded edges, without tines or howrf channels. Cute.
Nshurr's crest was wider than average, her upper tines spaced further apart, and combined with a compact face this made her look top-heavy. (A human might say that she was more snow leopard than lion.) Most female crests did not interfere with the movement of the ears – highly mobile, highly expressive paddle shaped things – but the edges of Nshurr's crest did jut out enough to almost shield them.
That her crest was weighty, that it was inconvenient, that she was often aware of it – this was Nshurr's pride. Her long tail curled in pleasure when she caught males looking at it. Humans seemed to be intimidated by it sometimes, as if she might decide to gore them with her “horns.” She considered herself a confident person; not a braggart, but self-assured, and to carry her jhekaah so visibly pleased her to no end.
Her fur was an almost peachy off-white, but a mask of pale peach shaded each seafoam green eye. The mask blended into the white further up her forehead until fur gave way to bone-tan crest, and was split between her eyes by the white of her nose. Oblong spots in that same peachy color, each blending from dark to light, streaked down her sides.
These weren't the natural colors of her distant ancestors. It was unheard of to see a rriigkhan who was not gene-modified in some way, even if those modded genes had been part of rriigkhan life for so long that no one thought of them as mods any longer. She also thought nothing of the subtitles her augmented reality implant displayed whenever a human spoke, AI translated to help her decipher the pidgin. AR was simply a part of her, had been since she was a kit.
Reclining as she was on a padded lounger in front of an iron brazier, full of cold ashes from last night's fire, Nshurr was dressed in a pale coral shift only a few shades darker than the peach of her fur. Medallions trailing fringes of cloth had been sewn onto the front bottom half of the knee-length garment. A row of those ornate medallions defined a plunging neckline that bared much of her chest, muscular and broad, possibly even masculine to a human. Her breasts were lower on her body and similar in appearance to a mare's udders: long nipples on a pudge of fat nestled close together on the pelvis, just above the place where her thighs joined her body. They were only small lumps beneath the shift when Nshurr stretched out her legs so that the thin fabric fell across them. It was the roundness of her hips and buttocks that marked her female to the human eye. (As if her crest didn't make that obvious!)
She was listening to the sound of two younger female cousins wrestling on a nearby terrace, and although from her vantage point Nshurr could not see them, she could imagine the scene from what she heard: Fherou and Lahk growling while they grappled with their arms, the crack of crest hitting crest and then the scrape of tine sliding against tine. Each was fighting to control the other's head, each trying to bite the other. It wasn't easy when each had a shaggy ruff to protect her neck, and any attempt to bite the other's face would be thwarted by an interposing crest. Rriigkhan hands were less dexterous than human hands, more pawlike with stubby fingers, but capable of delivering hard blows, and once or twice Nshurr heard a cousin snarl in response to a strike against her body.
The competitive pheromones her cousins exuded from their unextended howrfs, quite unconsciously, were beginning to make Nshurr's own heart beat faster. The end of her long tail, where it hung down from the reclining chair, lashed in agitation. She was beginning to imagine sinking her teeth into someone's skin herself, and if her cousins had not been so much younger and smaller than herself she might have gone down to their terrace to show them a thing or two. It was putting her off the human flute music she'd been listening to, fed directly into her own brain through her implant for her private enjoyment. (Certain aspects of human culture were very popular here on Sgarrl; she'd been curious about it.)
She did not feel like going inside to escape the pheromones; Nshurr craved the warmth of the sun on her fur, not the cool stone and artificial light of those warrens. Most of her male cousins had gone into the village for boating today. Well, perhaps she would go down and join them after all.
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OOC Information:
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For this prompt I imagine you'd play a human servant, probably a new arrival to Sgarrl but maybe someone who was born there. Even though I've set up a situation where my character would have a lot of power and yours very little, I want to clarify that I'm not interested in abusing your character I am looking for a slow burn interspecies romance that develops naturally. This story may deal with power imbalances and even speciesism, but I'd like to explore those topics realistically.
I want to explore all aspects of loving relationship... Flirting, cuddling, kissing, lots of romantic scenes and character growth. My “type” that I'm most attracted to are men with average bodies in the 40-60 age range, with realistic personality flaws. I am more than willing to tailor my character's personality and physical attributes to suit your tastes, within reason. I appreciate partners willing to do the same.
I prefer to reply more than once a day. 2-3 replies per day would be ideal, but I understand life gets in the way. I usually write 2-5 paragraphs, or 150-450 words per post. This starter is much longer than my typical post length, but my lengths vary according to need. If I'm introducing a new character or setting a scene, my post might go up to 1,000 words.
Please send a writing sample if you have none in your post history. No need to custom write anything for me, old samples are fine. Click here to PM me!

I work in a company and there's this man that works there. I am his assistant on Thursdays, so we get to spend around 8 hours together on Thursday. (He is only in the company on Thursdays). He is very kind to people and shy. I have seen him and he saw me a couple times around the company but we never spoke. We met officially around a month ago where my manager told me that I will be working with him on that day. So I went to his office and said hello etc. and he seemed to open up to me straight away even though people at work told me that he is shy and doesn't open up to people easily. We chatted a lot on that day and seemed to get along so well and before he left he asked me for my instagram which I found very strange especially after a mutual friend told me that he doesn't even follow her (and they're friends) and he doesn't follow many people from work.
The Thursday after, I was scheduled to work with him as well, however something happened and I had to be with someone else. For my point of view, he seemed a bit upset when I told him. During the day I went to his office to say hello and we chatted for about 20 mins and he seemed really interested in talking to me. At the end of the day, I was going to leave to go home and we pumped into each other and chatted for 2 minutes then I said goodbye. I started walking down the stairs and he was walking up the stairs. I looked up at him and I realised that while he was walking, he was looking down at me and smiling so I smiled quickly and left. Then on the weekend, me, him, and several other colleagues met up at someone's house for dinner. He didn't look at me a lot and there are two theories for that: 1- he's shy and doesn't want to be obvious 2- he's uninterested
However, we had starter, then half an hour later we had dinner, and in both instances he would wait for me to sit down then he would sit next to me.
Also, we were on the balcony with other people and we two started chatting so they left and went inside and left us two on the balcony and we chatted there for a while. Later, one colleague told me that his best friend asked them to leave us alone as he is sensing that there is something between the two of us.
Then, Thursday comes and I go to work and surprise surprise, he comes early to work and when my colleague saw him, she winked at me and said that he is never early to work.
On that day we had a lot of gaps so we were chatting a lot and I could sense that we were both flirting.. 1- I was eating a biscuit and I offered him one and we started eating, then we tried each other's biscuits (different flavours). You wouldn't do that to anyone right? 2- when chatting, we would sit very close to each other. 3- we opened up so much and he'd told me things about his past and his mess-ups at university that I personally would not tell someone that I don't feel close to. 4- my hands were occupied and I had a strand of hair on my face and lip and I was trying to blow it away and so he came and tucked it behind my ears. 5- we where talking about people having a favourite finger (LOL) and he held me hand to see which finger is his favourite. ETC.... We talked about our favourite film genre and he said horror (and it's mine too). And so I said there's a horror film coming out on Sunday that I wanna see. He said "WE SHOULD GO!!", and at the end of the day I said to him "movie, Sunday!" And he replied "Yes!!". Comes Sunday.. he doesn't text me. . Also, I once texted him "Hi, a quick question " and he replied and started asking about my day and my weekend, etc. then when I eventually got to ask him my question, he replies two days later!! When he replied, I ignored his message.
When we meet on that day where I was supposed to work with him but then I was scheduled somewhere else, I joked with him about it and we laughed and later when he saw me he said to me that he's got his notifications on but still didn't get my notification for my text.
The week after he joked again about it and mentioned how I ignored his reply for two weeks. So I laughed and said "if you ignore me for two days, I ignore you for two weeks". We were joking and laughing about it.
After this incident, I texted him with a question regarding work and he replied after a couple of hours and I did the same so it seemed as if the "ignoring texts" issue has been resolved.
However, after our last Thursday together, on Friday I sent him a message saying that I needed to talk to him about a client and he never replied to that message and never texted me about the cinema. . What am I supposed to get from his behaviour? Is he interested? Is he not interested? I hate those mixed signals he's giving me. Our mutual friend keeps telling me that he is flirting with me and he never gives this much attention to any woman that he considers a friend or colleague but by him ignoring the cinema "friend date", I can only think of him not being interested in me. I was told that he didn't like many girls before and apparently never had a girlfriend (he's 24), but he's definitely straight but just shy. . I'm confused. Any advice? Should I delete his instagram? Or keep him? Should I put boundaries and not chat to him at work or what?

Anytime I have talked about this in the past things have gotten worse for me. But it has been years now since I have had an event occur and want to share my haunting experience. I am not good at telling stories and often leave out details unintentionally due to dyslexia so please bear with me.
Early in my life, about 3-4 years old I had very vivid nightmares that would send me running to my parents room for comfort or screaming for their help. There were a few different dreams that would "cycle" around but one had always stood out. Every other dream I had took place in the house we were living in. Besides one.
This dream I was inside a home I have never seen. I was just inside the front door. Straight ahead was a hallway. The front room of this home was lit up bright by windows everywhere but the hallway was dark and was darkest at the end where a door was. I was compelled to walk down this hall which had closed doors on the left and right, the only open door at the end. Pictures lined the walls between the doors. I would get to the end of the hallway and step up to the door at the end and push it the rest of the way open. Once inside I could see that there was a rocking chair on the other side of the bed that separated the two halves of the room. I would walk around the bed to this chair to find a figure sitting in the chair with its back turned. Once I came around the bed the chair would turn and the figure would stand up, face obscured by hair. It would always stand up, reach toward me, and take a single step towards me. I would immediately wake up but my eyes wouldn't open while I screamed for my parents. I would try with all my might to open my eyes but couldn't.
When I was about ready for Kindergarten my family moved to a new house that we JUST had built. First house in the entire neighborhood. Farm land for miles around. It was also THE house from the dream described. After fully moving in and making it our home, everything was the way it was in my dream. Photos on the walls. The orientation of the bed, and the location of the same chair. Once I made the connection I had the dream again. From this point on I blocked out my dreams and could never recall what I dreamt about once I was awake.
Over time I forgot the dream and moved on. New houses were built around us and friends were made. Still never remembering my dreams when I woke up.
Flash forward to being about 9 or so. My mother was having a hard time, always had headaches and would fall asleep in the room at the end of the hall constantly. If we wanted to play we had to play outside. Our house, unfortunately, had no blinds in the front rooms and you could see in from the street if you wanted to.
On this one day in particular I was outside playing with the neighbor kids. I forget why, but we looked in through the window. It was... darker than normal for some reason. It was like the same lighting in the dream looking down the hallway from the front window. Both my neighbor and myself saw something run from the bathroom into the master bedroom. It was fast as an eye blink. As soon as the figure disappeared the door slammed and we heard it. We looked at each other confused and scared.
Soon after this my mother was admitted to a facility because she was dipping into alcohol and was becoming/was an alcoholic and needed help. This is when my life turned upside down.
I began to have strange things happen around me. I lost a ton of weight regardless of how much I ate. I looked like a zombie. Eyes sunken in, pale, and purple sunken in eyes. My 5th grade teacher kept me behind from PE one day to check on me with the school counselor which happened to be his wife. I later learned CPS was called because I looked like a starved and abused child. I didnt understand this at that time and thought nothing of it. I weighed approximately 65lbs at the heaviest around this time of my life. I don't remember a lot from this time.
The worst happened when I was 22 still living at my parents.
I was asleep in bed. Something, someone, woke me up. Due to everything goin on in my life I would wake up with my eyes still closed. I could hear breathing next to my head. Ragged but deep breaths. As if someone was leaning over me and staring at me to see if I was awake. The crown of my head started to burn. An audible buzzing sounded in my ears and it felt like my head was vibrating. It was deafening. This went on for 1-2 minutes. The burning/buzzing subsided and everything got quiet. All except for the breathing.
I could feel the covers I had were covering me head to toe, eyes still shut. The breathing stopped abruptly and the covers flew off my body and fell across the room. I laid there for 5 minutes before I got the courage to open my eyes. I was on my left side so I SHOULD have been facing out towards my room. Instead, I was facing the wall. I had inverted in bed. My head was at the foot of the bed closest to my closet which was now open. I kept it closed due to lifelong fear of this entity.
Later that day I found a new place to live. I now have a permanent white patch of hair in this area of my head where the burning sensation was.
I moved in to the new apartment with a friend. Things were good, great even. Until about 3 months in. The entity had followed me.
I was in the living room, all the lights off. I was playing GTAV with no volume. Just vibing and smoking weed. My room mate came out of his room and passed the living room, not seeing me, and made some food. He walked into the living room when he saw me and almost dropped his plate and actually stepped back. He said "I thought you were in your room, when did you come back out?" I responded by telling him I have been in the living room for the past few hours. Thats when he told me he saw me come out of the bathroom and go into my room before shutting the door while he was making food. No one else was in the apartment.
I stood up to investigate and he followed.
When I opened the door the lights were all off, eerily dark. I flipped the light switch and hell broke loose. The light instead of being an even white was a deep and dim yellow and the same buzzing I heard before emitted from this light. A light I didnt own before the move. Next to the light we saw something huddled in the corner. It was writhing as if trying to escape into the corner to hide and escape the light. I turned off the switch and slammed the door. We were freaked tf out and I told my room mate everything I told in this story. He was confused and scared at this point.
Over the next few months my room mate became an alcoholic. A very angry alcoholic. I eventually moved out when the lease ended.

I started working again after my maternity leave about 1 month ago. Even though I’ve got a special, quiet, and nice room to pump, it has just been such a hassle to do it every 3 hours. I use my breaks and free periods to do it (Im a teacher). I’m an under supplier so don’t want to pump less often each day. I just realised how time consuming it is and I’m getting more stressed about work getting done. I barely have time to prepare my lessons and mark the students’ work on time. Once I’m home I want to spend time with my baby and continue pumping (he only accepts breastfeeding at night). I therefore find myself working on Saturday and Sunday and every evening and feel guilty for not spending as much time with lo as I want to. LO is 4 months now and I aimed to provide breast milk for a year. Now Im thinking about 6 months but I just wished it could be longer. Giving up pumping gives me mixed feelings, somehow the idea feels liberating but at the same time heartbreaking.
Any moms here with same or similar experiences? Any tips are welcome too

Alright, so I have a 55 gallon tank and it’s a mixed tank - 2 angelfish, 1 giant gourami, 5 balloon belly mollies, 2 plattys, 3 cherry barbs, 5 tetras, and 4 cory catfish. My angelfish have apparently decided to bond, and they’ve had approximately 3 batches of eggs(?). My female angel lays them on the filter pump in the tank, so we always have to take them out as to not ruin the filtering system. We’ve tried to keep some eggs to see if they would hatch, but they all ended up being infertile.
We do want to see if any of them could potentially hatch, but we’re worried about having three angels in the tank.
Both angels are super social and love to interact with us humans, and are decently social with the other fish. They’ve never been aggressive, only territorial around the time when they lay eggs.
So here’s my question: Next time my angel lays her eggs, should we just leave them in the tank? To, 1, see if they hatch, and 2, to see our babies babies! Of course, we’ll remove them if need be, but part of me already thinks that most of them would end up being snacks for our other fish anyway.

Hey everyone, forewarning, if my post history doesn't make it clear enough, I AM NOT a "car person". I still would love to have a rough idea of what I could be dealing with or what the possibilities/courses of action could be for this situation.
So here's what's going on - about a week ago I took off from the gas pump after filling up and left my gas cap on top of the car, didn't realize soon enough, no biggie. Had my brother go to advanced auto for me and grab me another gas cap. Popped that bad boy on and was all was well. About 2 days after the replacement cap was there, I'm cruising down the highway and BAM, check engine light accompanied by my traction control light and a flashing cruise control light. Car seemed to be running fine, figured it was just because there was a two day overlay between losing my first cap and getting the replacement on and I had driven some during that time. Called my brother just to pick his brain as he is a gear head, and he told me not to panic and that his stoned ass may have told advanced auto that it was for a subaru outback, not a forester (not sure if that would matter or not, he did tell then the correct year, so he says 🙄)
So after talking to him, I drive it another day or two and then get the idea of clear the code thru my head unit (after market souped up touch screen) and figure if the cap works, great, codes clear, if not then the check engine light should come back on and im back to square one.
Wellllllll... fast forward to yesterday while I'm out grabbing groceries and right from the start when I upshift into second and let off the clutch, it just doesn't have that little jump that happens if you let off ever too quickly. Didn't really think much of it, maybe my footwork is a little screwy today. But then when I downshift into 2nd and let it slow to around 20mph my traction light starts blinking and the engine begins to choke like it wants to stall. It did the same thing multiple times on the short round trip. Come this morning and as I'm pulling up to a stop sign, I downshift to second, Hit around 15ish-17ish mph and pop it into neutral to coast and stop up to the sign. And it stalls. I fire her back up and get to work where I sit now, but every time I hit that 2nd gear area, I now have to hold the clutch in so she doesn't choke up or stall on me.
Very unsure what to do here. It goes into my local subaru garage for inspection on the 21st, so I was hoping to wait it out but now I plan on at least calling them and hearing what they have to say tomorrow when they're open. I believe I'm the 3rd or 4th owner of the car but she's only coming up on 89,000 miles and looked to be so well kept (only owned it for 2 years now. This is first major issue) is this something from the gas cap? Am I losing 2nd gear and am looking at a new tranny? Find out next time, on dragon ball Z. (But no fr plz help)

I (M28) need to prep for police exam and I'm 170lbs but look like I weigh 200lbs and of muscle. I've spoken to competitors (powerlifting, MMA, boxing, Soccer) and i've been told the exact same thing, the blood and oxygen required to maintain your arm, chest, and leg muscles during running is probably hindering you. Plus the extra weight you're carrying. Exactly what I thought was my issue. My mile is 10 min, I need 1.5 miles in 12:30.
I want to maintain size and get my conditioning up. Right now I don't care about strength. Is it bad if I go hard on arm day then go to running after? Should I just go for a good pump before my run? Will that hinder my time?

Help w/ 2010 subaru forester
Hey everyone, forewarning, if my post history doesn't make it clear enough, I AM NOT a "car person". I still would love to have a rough idea of what I could be dealing with or what the possibilities/courses of action could be for this situation.
So here's what's going on - about a week ago I took off from the gas pump after filling up and left my gas cap on top of the car, didn't realize soon enough, no biggie. Had my brother go to advanced auto for me and grab me another gas cap. Popped that bad boy on and was all was well. About 2 days after the replacement cap was there, I'm cruising down the highway and BAM, check engine light accompanied by my traction control light and a flashing cruise control light. Car seemed to be running fine, figured it was just because there was a two day overlay between losing my first cap and getting the replacement on and I had driven some during that time. Called my brother just to pick his brain as he is a gear head, and he told me not to panic and that his stoned ass may have told advanced auto that it was for a subaru outback, not a forester (not sure if that would matter or not, he did tell then the correct year, so he says 🙄)
So after talking to him, I drive it another day or two and then get the idea of clear the code thru my head unit (after market souped up touch screen) and figure if the cap works, great, codes clear, if not then the check engine light should come back on and im back to square one.
Wellllllll... fast forward to yesterday while I'm out grabbing groceries and right from the start when I upshift into second and let off the clutch, it just doesn't have that little jump that happens if you let off ever too quickly. Didn't really think much of it, maybe my footwork is a little screwy today. But then when I downshift into 2nd and let it slow to around 20mph my traction light starts blinking and the engine begins to choke like it wants to stall. It did the same thing multiple times on the short round trip. Come this morning and as I'm pulling up to a stop sign, I downshift to second, Hit around 15ish-17ish mph and pop it into neutral to coast and stop up to the sign. And it stalls. I fire her back up and get to work where I sit now, but every time I hit that 2nd gear area, I now have to hold the clutch in so she doesn't choke up or stall on me.
Very unsure what to do here. It goes into my local subaru garage for inspection on the 21st, so I was hoping to wait it out but now I plan on at least calling them and hearing what they have to say tomorrow when they're open. I believe I'm the 3rd or 4th owner of the car but she's only coming up on 89,000 miles and looked to be so well kept (only owned it for 2 years now. This is first major issue) is this something from the gas cap? Am I losing 2nd gear and am looking at a new tranny? Find out next time, on dragon ball Z. (But no fr plz help)

Hi everyone,
I rent an apartment that I use only one night per month when I'm in town. It's sparsely furnished and doesn't have any personal belongings left out. I don't store, cook or leave out food. Aside from my bed, a sofa, a two small chairs, I'm the only person on the lease or possesses a key (besides staff) and I don't invite anyone over to use it.
However, every time I visit, I find dirt (leaf and mulch debris) on the floor typically leading from the front door to my bed. I'm certain someone, likely a maintenance worker from the complex, is using my place for their own personal use. I'm especially disturbed by what they're doing ON MY BED.
The apartment staff are aware that I'm only a part-time tenant, and I suspect the culprit is someone who works or lives in the complex and knows the place is empty. I want to catch them in the act, especially if they're using my place for inappropriate activities.
I'm looking to set up a discreet surveillance system that can record by motion detection, store footage, and notify me whenever the door opens so I can monitor live or at the least capture all footage remotely in case they discover the equipment and disable it.
Since my apartment is minimally furnished, I need advice on how to install cameras without raising suspicion. I don't want to tip off the intruder.
I'm also checking if installing surveillance violates my lease agreement. Any advice on equipment or protecting my privacy would be greatly appreciated (I'm checking my lease terms too).
Edit: I don't use the appliances. No dishes. Food is never stored or cooked (or left behind) so it's not rodents.

My baby was crying and needing a bottle. I was trying to get through stimulation mode. I asked my husband to pick her up and he had (at least what I perceived as) an attitude about it. We've had many discussions about me potentially having DMER and at the very least being extremely overstimulated when I'm pumping and agreed on making it as peaceful as possible. I couldn't take it. I raged and broke my pump.
I was trying to build my supply back up after starting to wean at 6 months. I've never been an angry person like this. I hate everything about pumping. I'm done.
And yet all I feel is guilt and failure. Guilt for not being able to breastfeed. Guilt for adding a huge formula expense to our budget. Guilt for not being able to keep my shit together and just pump. Guilt for being a basket case in front of my baby and my partner.
I love my baby more than life itself. We want a second one. But I don't think I could ever go through this again.