Purification Bullets/Arrows:
The ones meant for purifying a hero turned villain or outright kill the villain. These bullets/arrows have a distinct dark-to-light ombre effect and vary in color, but their outer shells are all the same shape: double edged, with the dark side being pointy and the light side being squishy, yet seeemingly spiky. Once these bullets/arrows are shot and finish going through a victim's body part (it's recommended you hit them in the chest for the best effect), the victim's evil side will be engulfed in lights that are the color(s) they're (the victim, evil or not) associated with. Then their good side revives, and shꝏts a light beam out of their chest and, at the same time, killing the evil side by turning its body to ribbon shaped magic, only leaving their embodied soul, which was purified by the light beam. Then more ribbons appear and cover the soul, creating a replica of the good side's body. The ribbons close up on the soul and this time, instead of ribbons, magic themed after something (e.g./i.e.: snow, nature, fire, air, whatever) will appear and create the victim's clothes (or a basis for their clothes, since if the victim is wearing, say, a flowing dress or baggy clothes, the basis will be put out as form fitting. it's the same situation with shaped clothing, where the basis will be put out as flat). Suddenly, a shapeshifting beam of magic shows up above the victim, and slithers in circles around the victim from head to tœ, revealing their details. During so, the victim moves and spins around. Extra magic makes their accessories (and weapons/makeup if they have any) appear. The victim randomly moves around before landing and striking their ending pose. That or they die by getting dissolved into nothing, but that ONLY applies to people who were born villains. During the "going through'' part, the bad side will be in great pain, enough for it to screech in agony (like the rack from saw 3) as its blꝏd slowly gets out of its body.
Fashion Bullets/Arrows:
The ones meant for disguising or getting pretty. These bullets/arrows are unique, as they vary not just in color, but also in design. The same thing happens once the bullets/arrows hit, only there's no pain (however, the impact is still there), no separate sides, and your whole body doesn't get coated in light. All you get is a change of lꝏks, that's all.
Metamorphosis Bullets/Arrows:
The ones meant for species/age/gendewhatever change. These bullets/arrows have their sides decorated differently, depending on the change. Also depending on the change is how the transformation gœs. If the change is from human to, say, fairy or angel, the victim will grow wings. If it's from human to merperson/siren, the victim's legs will be turned into energy and will tie up to become a merperson tail. If it's from human to elf, the victim's ears get pointy. But what if it's from human to alicorn??? Simple, the human victim's body turns into a shell, then the victim, now an alicorn, comes crawling out of it, then the shell will get sucked up into the alicorn's body. Then, 2 slithering beams of light will go tœ to head and head to toe respectively, and BAM, transfiguration finished.
Power Up Bullets/Arrows:
The ones meant for when you need an extra bꝏst. These bullets can light up when they're about to pierce through the victim's body. Though the effects this one produces are a bit different. Once the bullet/arrow strikes, the victim will not feel pain, but an overwhelming amount of power, so much so that their heart starts beating way faster than it should. The victim's clothes will shine. An aura will surround said victim and the shape shifting beam of light returns, but decides to stay at their feet. The beam of light spins around the victim's body, but now it's going tœ to head, changing the victim's clothes (while still keeping the colors and patterns) and giving them superpowers. Their eyes start to open wide, and they flloat around in their new form while the afromentioned aura grows stronger. Finally, they'll move around, before striking a pose.

I've been on the apps for a little over a year now. I've managed to go on a couple dates, but haven't ever managed to get into a relationship or anything like that. 10/10 times though when things end, I just get ghosted.
Now, if we've only talked for like a day or two on the app I get that. No need to announce yourself on the way out, it's not that deep. But if we've talked for a month or more, gone out on dates and all, I feel like the decent thing to do is at least tell the other person you're no longer interested. Why just leave the other person hanging? After a certain point it just feels disrespectful.
I'd like to think I'm not doing anything to make people run away or make people lose respect for me. I've never had an argument on the app and do my best to make sure the other person is comfortable talking to me the entire way. I just don't get it.
PS: If anyone would like to give a thought on my profile, I'm all ears. Especially women, since that's kinda my target demographic, but anyone's thoughts are welcome.

Questions which I hope you kind folk would answer
I am working as a GP and have some questions I thought people of different specialties would be able to answer. Please answer if you’re from that speciality or have confidence in managing the question. I know it’s a lot of questions but I thought it would be easier to do as just 1 post and thought other GPs and doctors could benefit. I hope I don’t sound too dumb.
Cardiology: 1- How would you manage an incidental finding of new RBBB in an asymptomatic patient 2- Same as question 1 but LBBB 3- Same as question 1 but t wave inversion 4- Does type 2 heart block need admission if patient is asymptomatic? Or could you just refer to cardiology as outpatient
Respiratory 1- We’re always taught asthma is reversible airway obstruction but COPD is irreversible. Hence why improvement in spirometry after SABA. But if there’s no improvement in COPD why does SABA and steroids still help
Haematolgoy 1- Does iron tablets or folate or B12 have an effect on the MCV? 2- There are so many patients with incidental findings of B12 or folate deficiency with normal Hb and normal MCV, obviously I treat these but I just think what’s the point. Is there much benefit to this? 3- If a patient has low ferritin but normal Hb does this count as iron deficiency and is it still best to treat?
Orthopaedics: 1- Does squatting heavy weights like weightlifters help knee arthritis or would it make it worse. Because technically you’re building quadriceps but at same time so much pressure on joints. 2- Do you have any advice for treating ganglions or bursitis apart from just wait till it hopefully gets better?
Gynaecology 1- How do you manage fluid in pouch of douglas? 2- If someone has irregular periods or amenorrhoea with PCOS, what is the actual benefit of giving the COCP? Is it just to regulate periods to women who desire this or can it reduce the testosterone levels? 3- Similar to question 2 but if someone has amenorrhoea but doesn’t care is this dangerous? I know there is increased osteoporosis risk but apart from that any other dangers?
General surgery 1- If someone has pain a few months after hernia operation, to check for another hernia would it be better to order US or refer back to surgeon
Rheumatology 1- Why is colchine max course dose 6mg when I’ve seen cardiologist given way more than this
Psychiatry 1- What are the dangers of giving 2 antidepressants at once?
Random 1- In fight or flight you can instantly feel heartbeat. Why is this? Surely adrenaline can’t travel round body that quickly so what is happening which instantly gives you that flight or fright feeling? Is it just the activation of sympathetic nervous system? 2- Are there any protective benefits to ‘inflammation’ during disease or trauma

When you were a kid, and you saw a rainbow, did you ever want to try to get to the end of it? I bet you did. I did, anyway. It wasn’t the mythical pot of gold that tempted me. Wealth was too abstract of a concept at that age to dream about, and leprechauns were creepy little bastards. I just wanted to see what the rainbow looked like up close, and maybe even try to climb it.
Of course, you can’t get to the end of a rainbow because not only is there no end, but there isn’t even really a rainbow. It’s an illusion caused by the sunlight passing through raindrops at the right angle. If you did try to chase a rainbow down, it would move with you until it faded away. That’s why chasing rainbows is a pretty good metaphor for pursuing a beautiful illusion that can never manifest as anything concrete.
I bring all this up because I think it was that same type of urge that compelled me to chase down the Effulgent One. It’s not a perfect analogy, however, considering that I did actually catch up to the eldritch bastard.
I first saw the Effulgent One a little over two years ago. My employer – who happens to be an occultist mad scientist by the name of Erich Thorne – had tasked me with returning a young girl named Elifey to her village on the northern edges of the county. The people of Virklitch Village are very nice, but they’re also an insular, Luddite cult who worship a colossal spectral entity they call the Effulgent One. I saw this Titan during my first visit to Virklitch, and more importantly, he saw me. He left a streak of black in my soul, marking me as one of his followers. I can feel him now, when he walks in our world. Sometimes, if I look towards the horizon after sundown, I can even see him.
This entity, and my connection to him, is understandably something my employer has taken an interest in. I’ve been to Virklitch many times since my first visit, and I’ve successfully collected a good deal of vital information about the Effulgent One. The Virklitchen are the only ones who know how to summon him, and coercing them into doing so would only earn us his wrath. He’s sworn to protect them, though I haven’t the slightest idea of what motivates him to do so.
Even though I can see him, I usually try not to look, to pretend he’s not there. The Virklitchen have warned me never to chase after him. Before Virklitch was founded, the First Nations people who lived in this region were aware of the Effulgent One, though they called him the Sky Strider. Any of them that went chasing after him either failed, went mad, or were never seen again.
I was out driving after sunset, during astronomical twilight when the trees are just black silhouettes against a burnt orange horizon, when I sensed the presence of the Effulgent One. He was to the east, towering along the darkening skyline, idling amidst the fields of cyclopean wind turbines. I could see their flashing red lights in the periphery of my vision, and I knew that one of those lights was him. I tried to fight the urge to look, but fear began to gnaw at me. What if he was heading towards me right now? What if I was in danger and needed to run?
Risking a single sideways glance, I spotted his gangly form standing listlessly between the wind turbines, his long arms gently swaying as his glowing red face bobbed to and fro.
I exhaled a sigh of relief, now that I knew he wasn’t chasing me. That relief didn’t even last a moment before it was transformed into a dangerous realization. He wasn’t just not chasing me; he wasn’t moving at all. He was still. This was rare, and it presented me with a rare opportunity. I could approach him. I could speak with him.
This wasn’t a good idea, and I knew it. The Effulgent One interacted with his followers on his terms. If I annoyed him, he could squash me like a bug. Or worse. Much worse. But he had marked me as his follower and I wanted to know why. If there was any chance I could get him to answer me, I was going to take it.
“Hey Lumi,” I said to the proprietary AI assistant in my company car. “Play the cover of I’m Always Chasing Rainbows from the Hazbin Hotel pilot.”
With the mood appropriately set, I veered east the first chance I got.
Almost immediately, I noticed that the highway seemed eerily abandoned. Even if anyone else had been capable of perceiving the Effulgent One, there was no one around to see him. I got this creeping sense that the closer I drew to him, I was actually shifting more and more out of my world and more and more into his. The wind picked up and dark clouds blew in, snuffing out the fading twilight and plunging everything into an overcast night.
The Effulgent One didn’t seem to notice me as I drew closer. He was as tall as the wind turbines he stood beside, his gaunt body plated in dull iridescent scales infected with trailing fungus. The head on his lanky neck was completely hollow and filled with a glowing red light that dimly bounced off his scales.
Seeing him standing still was a lot more surreal than seeing him when he was active. As impossibly large as he is, when he’s moving it just naturally triggers your fight or flight response and you don’t really have time to take it all in. But when he’s just standing there, and you can look at him and question what you’re seeing, it just hits differently.
It wasn’t until I started slowing down that he finally turned his head in my direction, briefly engulfing me in a blinding red light. When it passed, I saw that the Effulgent One had turned away from me and I was striding down the highway. Even though his gait was casual, his stride was so long that he was still moving as quickly as any vehicle.
Reasoning that if he didn’t want me to follow him he wouldn’t be walking along the road, I slammed my foot down on the accelerator pedal and sped after him.
That’s when things started to get weird.
You know how when you’re driving at night through the country, you can’t see anything beyond your own headlights? With no visual landmarks to go by, it’s easy to get disoriented. All you have to go by is the signs, and I wasn’t paying any attention to those. All my focus was on the Effulgent One, so much so that if someone had jumped out in front of me I probably would have killed them.
I turned down at least one sideroad in my pursuit of the Effulgent One. Maybe two or three. I’m really not sure. All I know for sure is that I was so desperate not to lose him that I had become completely lost myself.
He never looked back to see if I was still following, or gave any indication that he knew or cared if I was still there. He just made his way along the backroads, his bloodred searchlight sweeping back and forth all the while, as if he was desperately seeking something of grave importance. Finally, he abandoned the road altogether and began to climb a gently rolling hill with a solitary wind turbine on top of it. I gently slowed my car to a stop and watched to see what he would do.
I had barely been keeping up with him on the roadways, so I knew I’d never catch him going off-road. If he didn’t stop at the wind turbine, then that would be the end of my little misadventure. As I watched the Effulgent One climb up the hill and cast his light upon it, I saw that the structure at the summit wasn’t a wind turbine at all, but a windmill.
It was a mammoth windmill, the size of a wind turbine, made from enormous blocks of rugged black stone. It was as impossible as the Effulgent One himself. No stone structure other than a pyramid or ziggurat could possibly be that big, and the windmill barely tapered at all towards the top. Its blades were made from a ragged black cloth that reminded me of pirate sails, and near the top I could see a light coming from a single balcony.
When the Effulgent One reached the hill’s summit, he not only came to a stop but turned back around to face me, his light illuminating the entire hillside. Whether or not it was his intention to make it easier for me to follow him up the hill, it was nonetheless the effect, so I decided not to squander it.
Grabbing the thousand-lumen flashlight from my emergency kit, I left my car on the side of the road and began the short but challenging trek up the hill.
I honestly had no idea where I was at that point. Nothing looked familiar, and the overgrown grass seemed so alien in the red light. The way it moved in the wind was so fluid it looked more like seaweed than grass. The clouds overhead seemed equally otherworldly, moving not only unusually fast but in strange patterns that didn’t seem purely meteorological in nature.
With the Effulgent One’s light aimed directly at me, there was no doubt in my mind that he had seen me, but he still gave no indication that he cared. The closer I drew to him, the more I was confronted by his unfathomable scale. I really was an insect compared to him, and it seemed inconceivable that he would make any distinction between anthropods and arthropods. He could strike me down as effortlessly and carelessly as any other bothersome bug. I approached cautiously, watching intently for any sign of hostility from him, but he remained completely and utterly unmoved.
The closer I got to him, the harder I found it to press on. From a distance, the Effulgent One is surreal enough that he doesn’t completely shatter your sense of reality, but that’s a luxury that goes down the toilet when he’s only a few strides or less from stomping you into the ground. His emaciated form wasn’t merely skeletal, but elongated; his limbs, digits, and neck all stretched out to disquieting proportions. His dull scales now seemed to be a shimmering indigo, and the fungal growths between them pulsed rhythmically with some kind of life. Whether it was with his or theirs, I cannot say. There were no ears on his round head. No features at all aside from the frontwards-facing cavity that held the searing red light.
As I slowly and timidly approached the windmill, he remained by its side, peering out across the horizon. I turned to see what he was looking at, but saw nothing. I immediately turned back to him and craned my neck skywards, marvelling at him in dumbstruck awe. I’d chased him down so that I could demand why he had marked me as one of his followers, but now that I had succeeded, I was horrified by how suicidally naïve that plan now felt.
Many an internet atheist has pontificated about how if there were a God and if they ever met Him, they would remain every bit as irreverent and defiant and hold Him to account the same as any tyrant. But when faced with a being of unfathomable cosmic power, I don’t think there truly is anyone who wouldn’t lose their nerve.
So I just stood there, gaping up at the Effulgent One like a moron, with no idea of what to do next.
Fortunately for me, it was then that the Effulgent One finally acknowledged my presence.
Slowly, he turned his face downwards and cast his spotlight upon me, holding it there for a few long seconds before turning it to the door at the base of the windmill. I glanced up at the balcony above, and saw that it aligned almost perfectly with his head.
Evidently, he wanted to meet me face to face.
Nodding obediently, I raced to the heavy wooden door and pushed it open with all my might. The inside was dark, and I couldn’t see very well after standing right in the Effulgent One’s light, but I could hear the sounds of metal gears slowly grinding and clanking away. When I turned on my flashlight, the first thing I was able to make out was the enormous millstone. It moved slowly and steadily, squelching and squishing so that even in the poor light I knew that it wasn’t grain that was being milled.
The next thing I saw was a flight of rickety wooden stairs that snaked up all along the interior of the windmill. Each step creaked and groaned beneath my weight as I climbed them, but I nonetheless ascended them with reckless abandon. If a single one of them had given out beneath me, I could have fallen to my death, and the staircase shook back and forth so much that sometimes it felt as if it was intentionally trying to throw me off.
When I reached the top floor, I saw that the windshaft was encased in a crystalline sphere etched with leylines and strange symbols, and inside of it was some kind of complex clockwork apparatus that was powered by the spinning of the shaft. Though I was briefly curious as to the device’s purpose, it wasn’t what I had come up there for.
Turning myself towards the only door, I ran through and out onto the upper balcony. The Effulgent One was still standing just beside it, his head several times taller than I was. He looked out towards the horizon and pointed an outstretched arm in that direction, indicating that I should do the same.
From the balcony, I could see a spire made of purple volcanic glass, carved as if it was made of two intertwining gargantuan rose vines, with a stained-glass roof that made it look like a rose in full bloom. The spire was surrounded by many twisting and shifting shadows, and I could perceive a near infinitude of superimposed potential pathways branching out from the spire and stretching out across the planes.
The Effulgent One reached out and plucked at one of the pathways running over us like it was a harp string, sending vibrations down along to the spire and then back out through the entire network. I saw the sky above the spire shatter like glass, revealing a floating maelstrom of festering black fluid that had congealed into a thousand wailing faces. It began to descend as if it meant to devour the spire, but as it did so the spire pulled in the web of pathways around it like a net. The storm writhed and screamed as it tried to escape, but the spire held the net tight as a swarm of creatures too small for me to identify congregated upon the storm and began to feed upon it. But the fluid the maelstrom was composed of seemed to be corrosive, and the net began to rot beneath its influence. It sagged and it strained, until finally giving way.
A chaotic battle ensued between the spire and the maelstrom, but it hardly seemed to matter. What both I and the Efflugent One noticed the most was that the pathways that had been bound to the spire were now severed and stained by the Black Bile, drifting away wherever the wind took them.
The Effulgent One caught one of them in his hand and tugged it downwards, staring at it pensively for a long moment.
“That… that didn’t actually just happen, did it?” I asked meekly. I waited patiently for the Effulgent One to respond, but he just kept staring at the severed thread. “But… it’s going to happen? Or, it could happen?”
A slow and solemn nod confirmed that what he had shown me had portended to a possible future.
“That’s why you marked me as your follower then, isn’t it?” I asked. “You needed someone, someone other than the Virklitchen, someone who’s already involved in this bullshit and can help stop it from deteriorating into whatever the hell you just showed me. If Erich had picked anyone else to go to Virklitch that night, or hadn’t asked me to stay for the festival, it wouldn’t have been me! It didn’t have to have been me!”
His head remained somberly hung, and I hadn’t really been expecting him to respond at all to my outburst.
“Elifey liked you,” he said in a metallic, fluid voice that sounded like it was resonating out of his chest rather than his face. “I would not have chosen you if she hadn’t.”
He twirled the thread in between his fingers before gently handing it down to me like it was a streamer on a balloon. I hesitantly accepted the gesture, wrapping as much of my hand around the spectral cord as I could. The instant I touched it, a radiant and spiralling rainbow shot down its length and arced across the sky. When it reached the chaotic battle on the horizon, it dispelled the maelstrom on contact, banishing it back into the nether and signalling in biblical fashion that the storm had passed. The other wayward pathways were cleansed of the Black Bile as well, and I watched in amazement as they slowly started to reweave themselves back into an interconnected web.
“But… what does this mean? What do I actually have to do to make this a reality?” I asked.
The Effulgent One reached out his hand and pinched the cord, choking off the rainbow and ending the vision he had shown me.
“A reality?” he asked as he held his palm out flat and adjacent to the balcony. “It’s already a reality. All you need to do is make it yours.”
It seemed to me that I wasn’t likely to get anything less cryptic than that out of him, so I accepted the lift down. He took me down the hill and set me down gently beside my car before setting off out of sight and beyond my ability to pursue him.
Even though my GPS wasn’t working, the moment I was sitting in the driver’s seat the autopilot kicked in and didn’t ask me to take control until I was back on a familiar road. I know that windmill isn’t just a short drive away, and I’ll never see it again unless the Effulgent One wants me to. I don’t think I can say I’m exactly happy with how that turned out, but I suppose I accomplished what I set out to achieve. I know what the Effulgent One wants of me now, and why he chose me specifically. If it had been all his decision I think I’d still be feeling kind of torn about it, but knowing that I’ve been roped into this because of Elifey makes it a lot easier to bear.
And… I did actually manage to catch a rainbow. I just needed a giant’s help to reach it.

Ive come to realize that after dumping my mentally unwell ex, that he was not the only reason I was in a constant fight or flight state. Whenever one of my parents comes home, I get a noticeable change in mood and get the sensation I used to get when my ex was going to say something that upsets me, an intense chest pulling anxiety and I cant breathe. I have a weed pen and constantly feel the need to smoke till Im too high to care about my parents screaming at me all day, which is unhealthy. I don't want to hurt myself further by becoming dependent on weed to get through the day.
Its summer break for my University and I literally cannot relax for more than 10 minutes because I'm constantly being called down to clean or yelled at.
Even when my parents aren't threatening me or yelling, I can never get out of fight or flight, which is what confuses me. I guess its just the possibility of being yelled at is causing the constant anxiety. If I try to bring this up, however, they don't remember ever being mean to me or yelling and if they do its because I "won't listen" unless they yell.
Im 21 by the way. They still confiscate my phone, unplug the router, and confiscate my car keys. Im trying desperately to get a job so I can afford to move out but I haven't got even a rejection letter from the 20+ places Ive applied to. I know it would be so good for my health and I may be able to get off of SSRIs.
I can move out when my University classes begin since my financial plan will pay for off campus (or on campus but ew) housing. I just need to have a job that makes me money to live off of. I'm not terribly convinced I'll be able to move out since I've been trying for years to no avail.
On a lighter note, if I do get to move out, the first thing I'll do is get a senior cat.
Also, I have a psychiatry appointment set up with an new doctor soon, so I will have someone to tell this all to, this is just a vent.

“And for the missing person reports that date back many years, police still have not found any leads to the odd disappearance of multiple people around our little town of Welks, Utah. If police find any new leads, I, Nathan White, will be the first to give you the news.” Nathan White is a small town reporter who is finishing up his final words of the day's news. Charlie Akins, Nathan’s colleague and long time friend is manning the camera. Nathan is your typical guy who never gives up and has the determination of a beaver building its dam. He will take any story he is given and will do his best to make it the best. Charlie on the other hand is about as outgoing as a sloth and so paranoid he can’t go anywhere without thinking the worst, but will never leave his friend’s side. Soon after the two wrap up, Charlie gets a call from their boss who claims to have a new story they could cover. Nathan places their gear in the news van as Charlie walks over. With the way Charlie nervously walks over, Nathan knows something is odd. “So what’s the deal? We got a story or what?” Charlie gets in the driver seat of the van without saying a word and Nathan quickly follows, getting into the passenger seat. As Charlie begins driving, he tells Nathan what their boss had spoken to him about. An old abandoned government facility sits out in the farthest outskirts of the town. It’s in the shape of a dome that’s large enough to house an entire town. There’s no records of anyone ever entering the facility since the 50’s and no one seems to know what it was for. Only thing anyone knows, or suspects, is that it may be cursed or haunted as people who have ever been near it claim to hear screams and voices coming from within. Charlie is hesitant of even the thought of covering the story but continues to drive assuming Nathan will be intrigued. Charlie was correct, of course, as Nathan quickly calls their boss to inform him that they’re checking it out. Without question, Charlie continues driving until they are so far out that Welks is completely out of sight in the rearview mirror. They eventually see a large structure in the distance that they quickly realize is the center of their new story. “Holy shit, Charlie! I’ve never seen this place before and just… Wow,” Nathan says excitedly. “Nathan, I don’t know about this one. Something seems off. Even the boss seemed hesitant to tell me about this place,” Charlie responds. “Come on, Charlie. We’ve always wanted to cover a GHOST STORY.” “No, YOU have always wanted to cover a ghost story. I’ve always wanted to get the hell away from every single person I come in contact with and sleep in my bed.” “Don’t do me like that.” “You know I’ve got your back through thick and thin, Nate. But I’ve seriously got a bad feeling about this one.” “I know but come on, serious-... ly…” Nathan is awestruck by the sight of a large sign on the outer brink of a long driveway leading to the entrance of the dome. The sign reads:
RESTRICTED AREA
ENVIRODOME “WE EXPERIMENT FOR THE SAFETY OF OUR PEOPLE”
SPECIAL ACCESS IS NEEDED BEYOND THIS POINT
Although it was obvious by the city-sized dome in the middle of the desert, this sign fully confirmed they were in the right place. They continue down the driveway until they finally reach a parking lot that lies in front of the only noticeably cube-like design of the entire facility. The parking lot was small, or at least it seemed that way based on how huge the building was. Nathan and Charlie assumed it would be glass, but instead, the decrepit building, now known to be The Envirodome, was made of a strong thick, yet rusted metal. They realized this was most likely by design considering the people who created it wouldn’t have wanted anyone to know what went on inside. Almost the entire building was covered in a thick layer of vines except for the front door. The doors at the entrance were oddly only covered in smaller vine growth that was far more fragile than the rest. Charlie parks the van as an awestruck Nathan barely waits for him to stop and exits the passenger side. Charlie hesitantly follows suit. Nathan reaches the double entrance doors and rips away the vines. He quickly finds the handle of the right door and much to his surprise, it cracks open. “Ooh spooky,” Nathan jokingly says to Charlie. “Shut up,” Charlie snaps back. As Nathan and Charlie open the large metal door and walk inside, they find far more than, yet somehow everything, they had expected. The duo walk inside only to find an entire small community within. Businesses, homes, trees and more fill the miles long dome in all directions, seemingly to no end. “There’s a whole damn town in this place?! How the hell did not a single person know this existed,” Charlie exclaims out of pure shock. “Dude… How the fuck am I suppose to know? That’s why we’re here, remember? To cover the story of this place and get it out to the people…” Nathan sarcastically snaps back. Charlie, nervous as all hell, ignores Nathan as they continue forward in the hopes to find information on this place somewhere inside. They don’t even reach but about 10-15 feet inside before the door slams shut behind them and locks itself into place. Once fully locked, the doors start to change as if there was never a door or wall there at all. It quickly changes into a hyper-realistic hologram of more trees and roads. Soon enough, it looked as if an exit never even existed. Nathan quickly realizes that there seemingly are no walls in any direction. However, realistically and logically, there must be dead ends in all directions, the dome was obviously designed in a special way. Although there was a dome surrounding the town inside, there were still plenty of places Nathan and Charlie could explore. With beautifully green trees all around, houses and even rundown businesses, the entire place looked and felt like a normal little town instead of the inside of a previously government owned facility. Despite absolutely not a single structural flaw in the dome, a small breeze glides through the air, whistling to the ears of any who would listen. Both Nathan and Charlie are confused, yet in awe, by the experience at hand, but still they carry on. Nathan suggests going to the nearest building to search for information as he takes his next steps into the oddly beautiful scenery. Charlie, however, hesitates his next step until he realizes Nathan is already further ahead of him. Trees dance and sway in the cool breeze, grass and vines grow over large rocks and multiple buildings, and even clouds sail through the beautifully blue skies that couldn’t possibly be real but at this point it’s not unbelievable. With so much to admire, Nathan quickly loses focus on the task at hand until Charlie speaks up. “Hey, Nate. Shouldn’t we hurry up and get to wherever the hell we’re going?” “Huh? Oh… Yeah, yeah. Sorry…” Nathan snaps back to his senses and continues forward. As they continue to what seems like a small neighborhood, they notice something in the distant wooded area. It’s a four-legged creature that could be a wolf or coyote. Nathan and Charlie pick up speed as they are unsure of what it could really be and prefer not to be attacked. On arrival to the neighborhood, the two men notice that multiple mannequins are oddly placed around as if they had been living a life. An eerie feeling washes over them as they both become a little more skeptical of being there. Nathan looks back to check on his friend and notices Charlie is visibly paranoid as he looks around. He feels a moment of guilt for making him come here for a story to cover, but that moment was just that. A moment. Nathan quickly nudges Charlie to get him to come with him as he walks up to an open house. As they walk in, they split up. Charlie searches the living room and kitchen. Nathan goes straight to the farthest bedroom in the back. Searching every nook and cranny, Nathan finds absolutely nothing but an old withered bible. He begins to walk into another room when suddenly, Charlie’s voice echoes through the empty hallway. “Holy fuck,” Charlie exclaims. “What’s wrong,” Nathan yells while running into the living room. Nathan finds Charlie holding an old yellowed stack of papers. Charlie hands them to Nathan without uttering a single word. On top is an old document that reads:
Aug. 17, 1953: Testing is ready to commence for Project 718/Operation “SUPER” in the environment dome. However, there are no volunteers for testing just yet.
Aug. 18, 1953: Chief scientist, Dr. Maximus Woods, has volunteered as prime subject under the name: Subject Zero. All tests are now being prepared.
Aug. 20, 1953: Day 1 of testing has started. The Super Serum has been injected into Dr. Maximus Woods A.K.A Subject Zero at approximately 12:53 A.M. It has been hours and nothing has happened thus far.
Aug. 25, 1953: Subject Zero has gained a slight form of telekinesis. Small signs of abnormally quick healing factors have also appeared, taking only a couple of hours to fully heal mid-large wounds made on the subject's body. Tests, so far, seem to be successful with no side effects.
Aug. 30, 1953: Subject Zero has had impressive changes with easy to control telekinesis, rapid healing, and even large amounts of strength.
Sep. 5, 1953: Over the past week, Subject Zero has been undergoing small changes in personality, possibly a slight side effect of the serum. This will be monitored.
Sep. 10, 1953: Subject Zero has become rapidly unstable, showing major signs of insanity. Subject does not seem to realize the environment is simulated and treats test mannequins placed around the environment dome as if they were living beings.
Sep. 17, 1953: Multiple teams have been sent in to try and allow real communication with living beings. However, all teams have been killed by Subject Zero. He also does not allow anyone to retrieve the bodies and it is unclear what he does with them.
Oct. 3, 1953: Subject has become far too unstable to continue any further testing. All research will be abandoned but a small team will remain in the overseer’s office. For full safety measures, this team has agreed that if the facility must be destroyed then they will die with it. This was the intended way in case of emergency. If the facility is self-destructed, no one inside will survive.
“What the hell…” Nathan says fearfully. “Read the newspaper article that’s attached,” says Charlie. The newspaper article reads:
October 3, 1953 Today, the government-run facility, Envirodome, had been shut down after multiple men had been slaughtered at the hands of the company’s very own test subject, Subject Zero. The few men who made it out alive today could not speak of or about the tests done but we were told that their subject is still inside the facility. Test Subject Zero was locked inside only as a safety protocol but many wonder, how long will he remain there?
Upon this discovery, Nathan stops to think and wonders if he screwed up by taking on this story to cover. Nathan, being himself, tries to lighten the mood but before uttering a single word, he is cut off by a rough and deep voice in the distance. The voice now being the only thing to focus on, Nathan and Charlie look out the front windows of the old house and spot the figure of a man playing baseball with a mannequin. Upon further inspection, the man is wearing clothes obviously not of this era. With an old 50’s jacket that is nearly torn to shreds, an old pair of blue jean slacks, a red shoe on one foot and a black one on the other and hair that clearly hasn’t been washed in years, the man is the exact look and description of pure insanity. Not just with his looks but also with his actions, he clearly is not a stable man. In the yard of the next house over, the man is talking and playing catch with a mannequin. “For the last time Jimmy, I’m tired of your shit! Catch the damn ball or at the very least attempt to instead of just standing there,” the crazed man screams as he chucks a baseball at its head resulting in its immediate decapitation. Nathan, with a humor full of bad timing, nearly bursts into laughter. “Shut the fuck up, Nathan! That’s the guy from the document and newspaper article. He’s Dr… Uh… Maximus Woods! Subject Zero! He’s been here since the 50’s,” Charlie fearfully exclaims. “There’s no way in hell, Charlie. The guy doesn’t even look like he’s past his mid-30’s.” “I told you to call me Subject Zero! That old name is dead to me!” The man, now confirmed to be Subject Zero, yells out to another mannequin. “Believe me now, asshat,” Charlie snaps at Nathan. “Shush! What was that?” Subject Zero quickly snaps his attention to Nathan and Charlie’s direction and begins to walk to them. The two men look at each other in fearful confusion and simultaneously say, “oh shit.” Instinctually, Charlie runs out of the house from fear and with a quick, “FUCK!” Nathan follows him. Running out of the house like a couple of preyed upon animals, they run up the street further into the neighborhood. Taking a quick glance, Nathan spots a strange sight. Subject Zero and many other figures are chasing after them. Upon further examination, Nathan realizes that what he’s witnessing is something straight out of a horror movie. The other figures are , in fact, not even humans. They’re mannequins! All the mannequins they had seen back at the other houses are now moving like humans and coming right for them alongside Subject Zero. Nathan is running so fast you could mistake him for a train breaking loose from its tracks, but sadly, Charlie is slowing down, unable to keep up with his friend. Nathan manages to reach a hiding spot behind a dumpster, unintentionally leaving Charlie to await his own horrors as Nathan is nothing but forced to watch. Charlie begins to stumble and trips over his own feet. Soon after, the mannequins catch up to him. Nathan wants to help, but knows he can’t so all he does is watch in horror. Lying on the ground, Charlie gasps for air as the mannequins and Subject Zero surround him. They stare at him for a moment before eventually beating him simultaneously until Charlie is soaked in his own blood, barely alive. Suddenly, they stop. Charlie, nearly lifeless, drags his gaze in Nathan’s direction. He mouths, “GO” before coughing up blood. Nathan holds back tears and vomit as he looks away in guilt. All the mannequins that were once beating the life out of Charlie turn around and scatter before ultimately becoming, once again, inanimate objects. Like a lion searching for its prey, Subject Zero scans the area. With danger nearby, Nathan looks around to find a house with any open doors to attempt to find safety. He spots a nearby house with an open window and decides it's his best option. Without hesitation, Nathan sprints to the window and leaps in like a gazelle escaping its demise. Much to his surprise, he went unnoticed. “I might be insane, but I know I wasn't just seeing double of your little friend here. Where the hell are you,” screams Subject Zero as two mannequins carry Charlie's bloodied, yet still alive, body away. Nathan, afraid, yet determined, locks himself inside the house and sits behind a kitchen counter. He looks up to see if it's safe enough to search the house. Once he realizes it is, he begins to look around. The kitchen is oddly empty. Not a single piece of silverware, plate or food. Out of the entire house, the living room is the best looking part, even though it still looks like a tornado came through it. With hopes of finding something, Nathan scrummages through everything lying on the decrepit wooden floor. After a moment of searching, Nathan notices multiple papers scattered around all dated October of 1953. All the papers say different things about Project ‘SUPER’ and Subject Zero. Although most papers essentially say the same things, one paper stands out the most. It’s a newspaper dated a few days after the imminent shutdown of the facility. October 9, 1953 The project was abandoned and only a few escaped but one former employee of Envirodome decides to speak up about the events. “The main doors may have been closed but they sadly were not locked,” the scientist tells our interviewer, “Oddly, the doors were made to allow people in but not back out unless you went to the overseer’s office and unlocked the main doors. All this means, anyone who decides to go inside without knowing this info will be trapped forever with a psycho maniac. Fortunately, Subject Zero’s insanity affected his mind so badly he doesn’t even realize he’s in a fake little world that’s specially made for him.”
A little further down the same newspaper article it reads:
The former Envirodome employee continues. “All documents will state that Dr. Maximus Woods volunteered to be Subject Zero, but that just isn’t true. We tricked him. You see, we needed someone and Dr. Woods was just this weird scientist that no one really liked. We convinced him that if he volunteered that he would be a hero. Someone who could save our world if the serum worked. He was so happy and we just laughed at him but knew we needed him for the tests. As soon as everything began, it all ended. As he became more and more deranged, he also became more determined to make the serum work. He eventually took living people he kept with him and made his own serum to try and perfect it. But it never worked. It just leads to each person to become crazier and far quicker. He ended up just killing everyone that the serum didn’t work on. God knows what he does to any poor soul that innocently walks into that building and gets trapped.”
With this new knowledge, Nathan knew he fucked up by coming into this beautiful hell. Now filled with dreaded emotions, he gets onto his feet and sets onward through the hallway. As he reaches the beginning of the hallway, the front door is unexpectedly busted down by an already all too familiar figure, Subject Zero. Reacting quickly, Nathan sprints to the farthest back room of the house. Being the master bedroom, it has plenty of space but sadly doesn’t have a lock on the door. Thinking quickly, Nathan slams the door and nervously shoves a large stand up dresser down on its side and in front of the doorway. He knows it won’t hold for long, especially considering, just a mere seconds ago, he witnessed Subject Zero burst a door off its hinges in the blink of an eye. Subject Zero is on the hunt, looking in every room all while Nathan stands in the master bedroom freaking out. Eventually, he comes to his senses and looks out the room's only window. It’s quite a drop below due to the house sitting on a slanted yard. Without hesitation, Nathan prepares himself for his only option. He opens the window and prepares to jump as the door of the room begins to be beaten upon. The door eventually breaks in half and standing on the other side is Subject Zero. Nathan slings himself out the window but it inevitably leads to pain. Nathan, with a possibly broken ankle, stands against the wall to stay as Subject Zero looks through the window wondering how he could lose his only entertainment so easily. Subject Zero eventually angrily wanders off as he cusses at himself. Nathan takes that as his cue to stumble his way into the nearby forest. Nathan manages to make it a decent distance into the forest before stumbling and falling next to a large oak tree. Expecting to be free from danger for at least a while, he relaxes against the tree and closes his eyes. Far too early for assumptions, he hears something and quickly opens his eyes to see Subject Zero’s fist unexpectedly rushing to his face, resulting in a knockout. After a while, Nathan cracks his eyes open, barely able to see. He looks around in a trance until he hears a familiar voice. “Hey, Nate! Nate! Wake the fuck up! I’m not dead!” Nathan fully comes to and looks over to see an upside down Charlie. Confused, he looks at Charlie unsure of what to say. Eventually he speaks. “What the fuck…? Why the hell are you upside down?” Charlie points to Nathan’s feet, revealing he is in fact, the one upside down hanging by his feet. “Oh, fuck… WHAT THE FUCK?!? Get me down, you asshole!” Charlie unties the rope, leading to Nathan falling on his head. Rubbing his head, Nathan gets up with ease, which leads him to wonder why there’s no pain in his ankle. He quickly shrugs it off and looks back at Charlie as he finally realizes the situation. “Wait a damn minute, how the hell are you alive? I saw you get beaten to a pulp.” “Yeahhhh… Well, first off, thanks for leaving me, but I’ll tell you everything I know, just as they did for me.” Charlie points over to a small crowd of people waiting behind the dark shadows of the room. With a short, yet detailed, briefing, he tells Nathan that these people are all the missing people they’ve been reporting about. They all have been curious people who have wandered into the facility but inevitably became a morbid science experiment by Subject Zero. Charlie continues on to tell Nathan that every single one of these people have been injected with a similar serum as Subject Zero but each one is a slightly altered version. “So, let me get this straight… These people have all been injected with the same damn insanity poison as that madman and there’s absolutely no telling who could lose it and kill us with FUCKING TELEKINISIS!” “Yeah, pretty much. But I’ve been told that Subject Zero murders every failed attempt before they hurt any of his other precious test subjects. So far, all he’s done is prolong the insanity effects.” “Charlie, we have to somehow get the fuck out of here.” “We can’t. Do you not understand what I just said?” “Look, I get that these people are innocent but they’re obviously going to be massive dangers to humanity. We can get out of here. I don’t know how but… Somehow!” “Nate! I can’t get out of here.” “What the fuck are you talking about?” Charlie raises up his arm and reveals a small pinprick of a needle in his skin. “Charlie, what is that? No… Wait, you were injected too?” “Yeah.” “FUCK!” “Look, as far as I’m concerned, you haven’t been injected. There’s no needle mark in your skin. YOU could actually get out of here.” “I’m not leaving you behind again, Charlie! It was a nightmare seeing what they did to you the first time.” “Nathan, I -” Suddenly and very unexpectedly, one of the people in the crowd begins to scream from within the shadows. Nathan, confused and afraid, looks over at the man losing his sanity. Within seconds, the man stops screaming as the entire room falls into a deafening silence. The man looks in Nathan’s direction and shines a demonic grin with a stare that could pierce the soul of any mortal man. Knowing the man is coming toward him, Nathan slowly starts backing up against the cold concrete walls. The man, with all new senses, uses his new telekinetic ability to push others from the crowd aside. Charlie, being brave for the first and possibly final time in his life, attempts to stand in the way but is quickly subdued as he’s flung against the wall. Finally reaching Nathan, the man brings his gaze into a full on stare into Nathan’s soul. For Nathan, it’s as if death has come for him. Suddenly, the man’s gaze is ripped away by a familiar face of evil. Subject Zero heard the screams and came to claim his failed experiment. This led to an all-out brawl between the two men. Anyone would describe it in the same way you would if two rabid dogs were fighting over food. One dog gets up after being ripped open and the other gets its face gashed by a hard hitting blow, yet they still fight. Only difference between the two, one is just a dog wanting its food and the other is trained to kill. Suddenly, with a vicious blow, Subject Zero wins the fight when he takes the man’s head and slams it so hard into the concrete floor that his skull cracks open causing blood, brains, and skull fragments to fly over the silent crowd. With one final glance, Subject Zero looks over the entire crowd. He ends his gaze by making sure Nathan is the last to see his devilish eyes. Soon after, he leaves the room and locks the door. Nathan stares at the corpse lying on the ground with a look of pure terror and proceeds to collapse onto the floor while holding back tears. The small concrete room soon fills with despair as everyone watches the tears of pain and fear run down Nathan’s face. Charlie tries to make his long-time friend feel a little more hopeful, although he soon gives up as well until he has a moment of realization. He remembers back to when they first were searching for information he had found an article with some intriguing details. “Okay, so, there may be some hope after all.” “Charlie, what hope is there? Huh?! You’re pretty much fucked and I don’t exactly see a way out of here.” “One of the articles back at the house we were in said something about a self-destruct button. That’s also how you open the main doors. Apparently, no one ever bothered, or I guess, never got the chance to hit the self-destruct timer and run their asses to the door. What if we- I mean, YOU could actually do that?” “Charlie, I already told you I don’t want to leave you behind.” “GOD DAMN IT, NATHAN! I know… FUCK! I know. But I want you to survive. Can’t you just listen to me for once?! I would follow you through hell and back and it kind of feels that way right now. So? Can you just listen to what I want you to do for once while I’m practically on my deathbed?!” “Okay! Okay…” Suddenly, an unexpected chance of escape arrives at their feet. Subject Zero and a few of his mannequins walk in to remove the mutilated corpse from the room. Unexpectedly, one of the people in the crowd begins to scream out in pain just like the other man did moments ago before his demise. “Oh, great…” Subject Zero says irritatedly. Soon after, multiple others begin to scream out in pain until eventually the entire crowd follows suit. Nathan, and somehow Charlie have not been affected. The room quickly becomes engulfed in a hurricane of insanity. This leads Subject Zero and the mannequins to getting distracted by the madness and accidentally leaves the door open. Subject Zero quickly gets attacked by everyone in the room but he holds his ground firmly. Nathan knows this is the perfect chance to escape and signals Charlie to come with him. Charlie hesitantly comes along but right as they reach the door Nathan turns to hear the sounds of Charlie going through the worst pain of his life. Nathan looks in confusion but quickly realizes he’s about to have to accept his friend’s fate. Nathan refuses to accept it, but he knows he needs to. Charlie suddenly lunges at Nathan and uses his last act of sanity and control to push him out the door. “Get. To the button. Please.” “Charlie, I- I’m-” “I’m sorry…” Charlie finally snaps and is engulfed in pure raging insanity. He lunges at Nathan but before he reaches him, Nathan, with teary eyes, slams the door onto his friend, turns, and begins running out into the seemingly vast wilderness. As he runs, Nathan hears the cries of a dozen men and women as they get ripped apart. Knowing that among them is his best friend, Nathan begins to cry as he continues to run away from his previous hell.
End of Part 1.

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When you were a kid, and you saw a rainbow, did you ever want to try to get to the end of it? I bet you did. I did, anyway. It wasn’t the mythical pot of gold that tempted me. Wealth was too abstract of a concept at that age to dream about, and leprechauns were creepy little bastards. I just wanted to see what the rainbow looked like up close, and maybe even try to climb it.
Of course, you can’t get to the end of a rainbow because not only is there no end, but there isn’t even really a rainbow. It’s an illusion caused by the sunlight passing through raindrops at the right angle. If you did try to chase a rainbow down, it would move with you until it faded away. That’s why chasing rainbows is a pretty good metaphor for pursuing a beautiful illusion that can never manifest as anything concrete.
I bring all this up because I think it was that same type of urge that compelled me to chase down the Effulgent One. It’s not a perfect analogy, however, considering that I did actually catch up to the eldritch bastard.
I first saw the Effulgent One a little over two years ago. My employer – who happens to be an occultist mad scientist by the name of Erich Thorne – had tasked me with returning a young girl named Elifey to her village on the northern edges of the county. The people of Virklitch Village are very nice, but they’re also an insular, Luddite cult who worship a colossal spectral entity they call the Effulgent One. I saw this Titan during my first visit to Virklitch, and more importantly, he saw me. He left a streak of black in my soul, marking me as one of his followers. I can feel him now, when he walks in our world. Sometimes, if I look towards the horizon after sundown, I can even see him.
This entity, and my connection to him, is understandably something my employer has taken an interest in. I’ve been to Virklitch many times since my first visit, and I’ve successfully collected a good deal of vital information about the Effulgent One. The Virklitchen are the only ones who know how to summon him, and coercing them into doing so would only earn us his wrath. He’s sworn to protect them, though I haven’t the slightest idea of what motivates him to do so.
Even though I can see him, I usually try not to look, to pretend he’s not there. The Virklitchen have warned me never to chase after him. Before Virklitch was founded, the First Nations people who lived in this region were aware of the Effulgent One, though they called him the Sky Strider. Any of them that went chasing after him either failed, went mad, or were never seen again.
I was out driving after sunset, during astronomical twilight when the trees are just black silhouettes against a burnt orange horizon, when I sensed the presence of the Effulgent One. He was to the east, towering along the darkening skyline, idling amidst the fields of cyclopean wind turbines. I could see their flashing red lights in the periphery of my vision, and I knew that one of those lights was him. I tried to fight the urge to look, but fear began to gnaw at me. What if he was heading towards me right now? What if I was in danger and needed to run?
Risking a single sideways glance, I spotted his gangly form standing listlessly between the wind turbines, his long arms gently swaying as his glowing red face bobbed to and fro.
I exhaled a sigh of relief, now that I knew he wasn’t chasing me. That relief didn’t even last a moment before it was transformed into a dangerous realization. He wasn’t just not chasing me; he wasn’t moving at all. He was still. This was rare, and it presented me with a rare opportunity. I could approach him. I could speak with him.
This wasn’t a good idea, and I knew it. The Effulgent One interacted with his followers on his terms. If I annoyed him, he could squash me like a bug. Or worse. Much worse. But he had marked me as his follower and I wanted to know why. If there was any chance I could get him to answer me, I was going to take it.
“Hey Lumi,” I said to the proprietary AI assistant in my company car. “Play the cover of I’m Always Chasing Rainbows from the Hazbin Hotel pilot.”
With the mood appropriately set, I veered east the first chance I got.
Almost immediately, I noticed that the highway seemed eerily abandoned. Even if anyone else had been capable of perceiving the Effulgent One, there was no one around to see him. I got this creeping sense that the closer I drew to him, I was actually shifting more and more out of my world and more and more into his. The wind picked up and dark clouds blew in, snuffing out the fading twilight and plunging everything into an overcast night.
The Effulgent One didn’t seem to notice me as I drew closer. He was as tall as the wind turbines he stood beside, his gaunt body plated in dull iridescent scales infected with trailing fungus. The head on his lanky neck was completely hollow and filled with a glowing red light that dimly bounced off his scales.
Seeing him standing still was a lot more surreal than seeing him when he was active. As impossibly large as he is, when he’s moving it just naturally triggers your fight or flight response and you don’t really have time to take it all in. But when he’s just standing there, and you can look at him and question what you’re seeing, it just hits differently.
It wasn’t until I started slowing down that he finally turned his head in my direction, briefly engulfing me in a blinding red light. When it passed, I saw that the Effulgent One had turned away from me and I was striding down the highway. Even though his gait was casual, his stride was so long that he was still moving as quickly as any vehicle.
Reasoning that if he didn’t want me to follow him he wouldn’t be walking along the road, I slammed my foot down on the accelerator pedal and sped after him.
That’s when things started to get weird.
You know how when you’re driving at night through the country, you can’t see anything beyond your own headlights? With no visual landmarks to go by, it’s easy to get disoriented. All you have to go by is the signs, and I wasn’t paying any attention to those. All my focus was on the Effulgent One, so much so that if someone had jumped out in front of me I probably would have killed them.
I turned down at least one sideroad in my pursuit of the Effulgent One. Maybe two or three. I’m really not sure. All I know for sure is that I was so desperate not to lose him that I had become completely lost myself.
He never looked back to see if I was still following, or gave any indication that he knew or cared if I was still there. He just made his way along the backroads, his bloodred searchlight sweeping back and forth all the while, as if he was desperately seeking something of grave importance. Finally, he abandoned the road altogether and began to climb a gently rolling hill with a solitary wind turbine on top of it. I gently slowed my car to a stop and watched to see what he would do.
I had barely been keeping up with him on the roadways, so I knew I’d never catch him going off-road. If he didn’t stop at the wind turbine, then that would be the end of my little misadventure. As I watched the Effulgent One climb up the hill and cast his light upon it, I saw that the structure at the summit wasn’t a wind turbine at all, but a windmill.
It was a mammoth windmill, the size of a wind turbine, made from enormous blocks of rugged black stone. It was as impossible as the Effulgent One himself. No stone structure other than a pyramid or ziggurat could possibly be that big, and the windmill barely tapered at all towards the top. Its blades were made from a ragged black cloth that reminded me of pirate sails, and near the top I could see a light coming from a single balcony.
When the Effulgent One reached the hill’s summit, he not only came to a stop but turned back around to face me, his light illuminating the entire hillside. Whether or not it was his intention to make it easier for me to follow him up the hill, it was nonetheless the effect, so I decided not to squander it.
Grabbing the thousand-lumen flashlight from my emergency kit, I left my car on the side of the road and began the short but challenging trek up the hill.
I honestly had no idea where I was at that point. Nothing looked familiar, and the overgrown grass seemed so alien in the red light. The way it moved in the wind was so fluid it looked more like seaweed than grass. The clouds overhead seemed equally otherworldly, moving not only unusually fast but in strange patterns that didn’t seem purely meteorological in nature.
With the Effulgent One’s light aimed directly at me, there was no doubt in my mind that he had seen me, but he still gave no indication that he cared. The closer I drew to him, the more I was confronted by his unfathomable scale. I really was an insect compared to him, and it seemed inconceivable that he would make any distinction between anthropods and arthropods. He could strike me down as effortlessly and carelessly as any other bothersome bug. I approached cautiously, watching intently for any sign of hostility from him, but he remained completely and utterly unmoved.
The closer I got to him, the harder I found it to press on. From a distance, the Effulgent One is surreal enough that he doesn’t completely shatter your sense of reality, but that’s a luxury that goes down the toilet when he’s only a few strides or less from stomping you into the ground. His emaciated form wasn’t merely skeletal, but elongated; his limbs, digits, and neck all stretched out to disquieting proportions. His dull scales now seemed to be a shimmering indigo, and the fungal growths between them pulsed rhythmically with some kind of life. Whether it was with his or theirs, I cannot say. There were no ears on his round head. No features at all aside from the frontwards-facing cavity that held the searing red light.
As I slowly and timidly approached the windmill, he remained by its side, peering out across the horizon. I turned to see what he was looking at, but saw nothing. I immediately turned back to him and craned my neck skywards, marvelling at him in dumbstruck awe. I’d chased him down so that I could demand why he had marked me as one of his followers, but now that I had succeeded, I was horrified by how suicidally naïve that plan now felt.
Many an internet atheist has pontificated about how if there were a God and if they ever met Him, they would remain every bit as irreverent and defiant and hold Him to account the same as any tyrant. But when faced with a being of unfathomable cosmic power, I don’t think there truly is anyone who wouldn’t lose their nerve.
So I just stood there, gaping up at the Effulgent One like a moron, with no idea of what to do next.
Fortunately for me, it was then that the Effulgent One finally acknowledged my presence.
Slowly, he turned his face downwards and cast his spotlight upon me, holding it there for a few long seconds before turning it to the door at the base of the windmill. I glanced up at the balcony above, and saw that it aligned almost perfectly with his head.
Evidently, he wanted to meet me face to face.
Nodding obediently, I raced to the heavy wooden door and pushed it open with all my might. The inside was dark, and I couldn’t see very well after standing right in the Effulgent One’s light, but I could hear the sounds of metal gears slowly grinding and clanking away. When I turned on my flashlight, the first thing I was able to make out was the enormous millstone. It moved slowly and steadily, squelching and squishing so that even in the poor light I knew that it wasn’t grain that was being milled.
The next thing I saw was a flight of rickety wooden stairs that snaked up all along the interior of the windmill. Each step creaked and groaned beneath my weight as I climbed them, but I nonetheless ascended them with reckless abandon. If a single one of them had given out beneath me, I could have fallen to my death, and the staircase shook back and forth so much that sometimes it felt as if it was intentionally trying to throw me off.
When I reached the top floor, I saw that the windshaft was encased in a crystalline sphere etched with leylines and strange symbols, and inside of it was some kind of complex clockwork apparatus that was powered by the spinning of the shaft. Though I was briefly curious as to the device’s purpose, it wasn’t what I had come up there for.
Turning myself towards the only door, I ran through and out onto the upper balcony. The Effulgent One was still standing just beside it, his head several times taller than I was. He looked out towards the horizon and pointed an outstretched arm in that direction, indicating that I should do the same.
From the balcony, I could see a spire made of purple volcanic glass, carved as if it was made of two intertwining gargantuan rose vines, with a stained-glass roof that made it look like a rose in full bloom. The spire was surrounded by many twisting and shifting shadows, and I could perceive a near infinitude of superimposed potential pathways branching out from the spire and stretching out across the planes.
The Effulgent One reached out and plucked at one of the pathways running over us like it was a harp string, sending vibrations down along to the spire and then back out through the entire network. I saw the sky above the spire shatter like glass, revealing a floating maelstrom of festering black fluid that had congealed into a thousand wailing faces. It began to descend as if it meant to devour the spire, but as it did so the spire pulled in the web of pathways around it like a net. The storm writhed and screamed as it tried to escape, but the spire held the net tight as a swarm of creatures too small for me to identify congregated upon the storm and began to feed upon it. But the fluid the maelstrom was composed of seemed to be corrosive, and the net began to rot beneath its influence. It sagged and it strained, until finally giving way.
A chaotic battle ensued between the spire and the maelstrom, but it hardly seemed to matter. What both I and the Efflugent One noticed the most was that the pathways that had been bound to the spire were now severed and stained by the Black Bile, drifting away wherever the wind took them.
The Effulgent One caught one of them in his hand and tugged it downwards, staring at it pensively for a long moment.
“That… that didn’t actually just happen, did it?” I asked meekly. I waited patiently for the Effulgent One to respond, but he just kept staring at the severed thread. “But… it’s going to happen? Or, it could happen?”
A slow and solemn nod confirmed that what he had shown me had portended to a possible future.
“That’s why you marked me as your follower then, isn’t it?” I asked. “You needed someone, someone other than the Virklitchen, someone who’s already involved in this bullshit and can help stop it from deteriorating into whatever the hell you just showed me. If Erich had picked anyone else to go to Virklitch that night, or hadn’t asked me to stay for the festival, it wouldn’t have been me! It didn’t have to have been me!”
His head remained somberly hung, and I hadn’t really been expecting him to respond at all to my outburst.
“Elifey liked you,” he said in a metallic, fluid voice that sounded like it was resonating out of his chest rather than his face. “I would not have chosen you if she hadn’t.”
He twirled the thread in between his fingers before gently handing it down to me like it was a streamer on a balloon. I hesitantly accepted the gesture, wrapping as much of my hand around the spectral cord as I could. The instant I touched it, a radiant and spiralling rainbow shot down its length and arced across the sky. When it reached the chaotic battle on the horizon, it dispelled the maelstrom on contact, banishing it back into the nether and signalling in biblical fashion that the storm had passed. The other wayward pathways were cleansed of the Black Bile as well, and I watched in amazement as they slowly started to reweave themselves back into an interconnected web.
“But… what does this mean? What do I actually have to do to make this a reality?” I asked.
The Effulgent One reached out his hand and pinched the cord, choking off the rainbow and ending the vision he had shown me.
“A reality?” he asked as he held his palm out flat and adjacent to the balcony. “It’s already a reality. All you need to do is make it yours.”
It seemed to me that I wasn’t likely to get anything less cryptic than that out of him, so I accepted the lift down. He took me down the hill and set me down gently beside my car before setting off out of sight and beyond my ability to pursue him.
Even though my GPS wasn’t working, the moment I was sitting in the driver’s seat the autopilot kicked in and didn’t ask me to take control until I was back on a familiar road. I know that windmill isn’t just a short drive away, and I’ll never see it again unless the Effulgent One wants me to. I don’t think I can say I’m exactly happy with how that turned out, but I suppose I accomplished what I set out to achieve. I know what the Effulgent One wants of me now, and why he chose me specifically. If it had been all his decision I think I’d still be feeling kind of torn about it, but knowing that I’ve been roped into this because of Elifey makes it a lot easier to bear.
And… I did actually manage to catch a rainbow. I just needed a giant’s help to reach it.

When you were a kid, and you saw a rainbow, did you ever want to try to get to the end of it? I bet you did. I did, anyway. It wasn’t the mythical pot of gold that tempted me. Wealth was too abstract of a concept at that age to dream about, and leprechauns were creepy little bastards. I just wanted to see what the rainbow looked like up close, and maybe even try to climb it.
Of course, you can’t get to the end of a rainbow because not only is there no end, but there isn’t even really a rainbow. It’s an illusion caused by the sunlight passing through raindrops at the right angle. If you did try to chase a rainbow down, it would move with you until it faded away. That’s why chasing rainbows is a pretty good metaphor for pursuing a beautiful illusion that can never manifest as anything concrete.
I bring all this up because I think it was that same type of urge that compelled me to chase down the Effulgent One. It’s not a perfect analogy, however, considering that I did actually catch up to the eldritch bastard.
I first saw the Effulgent One a little over two years ago. My employer – who happens to be an occultist mad scientist by the name of Erich Thorne – had tasked me with returning a young girl named Elifey to her village on the northern edges of the county. The people of Virklitch Village are very nice, but they’re also an insular, Luddite cult who worship a colossal spectral entity they call the Effulgent One. I saw this Titan during my first visit to Virklitch, and more importantly, he saw me. He left a streak of black in my soul, marking me as one of his followers. I can feel him now, when he walks in our world. Sometimes, if I look towards the horizon after sundown, I can even see him.
This entity, and my connection to him, is understandably something my employer has taken an interest in. I’ve been to Virklitch many times since my first visit, and I’ve successfully collected a good deal of vital information about the Effulgent One. The Virklitchen are the only ones who know how to summon him, and coercing them into doing so would only earn us his wrath. He’s sworn to protect them, though I haven’t the slightest idea of what motivates him to do so.
Even though I can see him, I usually try not to look, to pretend he’s not there. The Virklitchen have warned me never to chase after him. Before Virklitch was founded, the First Nations people who lived in this region were aware of the Effulgent One, though they called him the Sky Strider. Any of them that went chasing after him either failed, went mad, or were never seen again.
I was out driving after sunset, during astronomical twilight when the trees are just black silhouettes against a burnt orange horizon, when I sensed the presence of the Effulgent One. He was to the east, towering along the darkening skyline, idling amidst the fields of cyclopean wind turbines. I could see their flashing red lights in the periphery of my vision, and I knew that one of those lights was him. I tried to fight the urge to look, but fear began to gnaw at me. What if he was heading towards me right now? What if I was in danger and needed to run?
Risking a single sideways glance, I spotted his gangly form standing listlessly between the wind turbines, his long arms gently swaying as his glowing red face bobbed to and fro.
I exhaled a sigh of relief, now that I knew he wasn’t chasing me. That relief didn’t even last a moment before it was transformed into a dangerous realization. He wasn’t just not chasing me; he wasn’t moving at all. He was still. This was rare, and it presented me with a rare opportunity. I could approach him. I could speak with him.
This wasn’t a good idea, and I knew it. The Effulgent One interacted with his followers on his terms. If I annoyed him, he could squash me like a bug. Or worse. Much worse. But he had marked me as his follower and I wanted to know why. If there was any chance I could get him to answer me, I was going to take it.
“Hey Lumi,” I said to the proprietary AI assistant in my company car. “Play the cover of I’m Always Chasing Rainbows from the Hazbin Hotel pilot.”
With the mood appropriately set, I veered east the first chance I got.
Almost immediately, I noticed that the highway seemed eerily abandoned. Even if anyone else had been capable of perceiving the Effulgent One, there was no one around to see him. I got this creeping sense that the closer I drew to him, I was actually shifting more and more out of my world and more and more into his. The wind picked up and dark clouds blew in, snuffing out the fading twilight and plunging everything into an overcast night.
The Effulgent One didn’t seem to notice me as I drew closer. He was as tall as the wind turbines he stood beside, his gaunt body plated in dull iridescent scales infected with trailing fungus. The head on his lanky neck was completely hollow and filled with a glowing red light that dimly bounced off his scales.
Seeing him standing still was a lot more surreal than seeing him when he was active. As impossibly large as he is, when he’s moving it just naturally triggers your fight or flight response and you don’t really have time to take it all in. But when he’s just standing there, and you can look at him and question what you’re seeing, it just hits differently.
It wasn’t until I started slowing down that he finally turned his head in my direction, briefly engulfing me in a blinding red light. When it passed, I saw that the Effulgent One had turned away from me and I was striding down the highway. Even though his gait was casual, his stride was so long that he was still moving as quickly as any vehicle.
Reasoning that if he didn’t want me to follow him he wouldn’t be walking along the road, I slammed my foot down on the accelerator pedal and sped after him.
That’s when things started to get weird.
You know how when you’re driving at night through the country, you can’t see anything beyond your own headlights? With no visual landmarks to go by, it’s easy to get disoriented. All you have to go by is the signs, and I wasn’t paying any attention to those. All my focus was on the Effulgent One, so much so that if someone had jumped out in front of me I probably would have killed them.
I turned down at least one sideroad in my pursuit of the Effulgent One. Maybe two or three. I’m really not sure. All I know for sure is that I was so desperate not to lose him that I had become completely lost myself.
He never looked back to see if I was still following, or gave any indication that he knew or cared if I was still there. He just made his way along the backroads, his bloodred searchlight sweeping back and forth all the while, as if he was desperately seeking something of grave importance. Finally, he abandoned the road altogether and began to climb a gently rolling hill with a solitary wind turbine on top of it. I gently slowed my car to a stop and watched to see what he would do.
I had barely been keeping up with him on the roadways, so I knew I’d never catch him going off-road. If he didn’t stop at the wind turbine, then that would be the end of my little misadventure. As I watched the Effulgent One climb up the hill and cast his light upon it, I saw that the structure at the summit wasn’t a wind turbine at all, but a windmill.
It was a mammoth windmill, the size of a wind turbine, made from enormous blocks of rugged black stone. It was as impossible as the Effulgent One himself. No stone structure other than a pyramid or ziggurat could possibly be that big, and the windmill barely tapered at all towards the top. Its blades were made from a ragged black cloth that reminded me of pirate sails, and near the top I could see a light coming from a single balcony.
When the Effulgent One reached the hill’s summit, he not only came to a stop but turned back around to face me, his light illuminating the entire hillside. Whether or not it was his intention to make it easier for me to follow him up the hill, it was nonetheless the effect, so I decided not to squander it.
Grabbing the thousand-lumen flashlight from my emergency kit, I left my car on the side of the road and began the short but challenging trek up the hill.
I honestly had no idea where I was at that point. Nothing looked familiar, and the overgrown grass seemed so alien in the red light. The way it moved in the wind was so fluid it looked more like seaweed than grass. The clouds overhead seemed equally otherworldly, moving not only unusually fast but in strange patterns that didn’t seem purely meteorological in nature.
With the Effulgent One’s light aimed directly at me, there was no doubt in my mind that he had seen me, but he still gave no indication that he cared. The closer I drew to him, the more I was confronted by his unfathomable scale. I really was an insect compared to him, and it seemed inconceivable that he would make any distinction between anthropods and arthropods. He could strike me down as effortlessly and carelessly as any other bothersome bug. I approached cautiously, watching intently for any sign of hostility from him, but he remained completely and utterly unmoved.
The closer I got to him, the harder I found it to press on. From a distance, the Effulgent One is surreal enough that he doesn’t completely shatter your sense of reality, but that’s a luxury that goes down the toilet when he’s only a few strides or less from stomping you into the ground. His emaciated form wasn’t merely skeletal, but elongated; his limbs, digits, and neck all stretched out to disquieting proportions. His dull scales now seemed to be a shimmering indigo, and the fungal growths between them pulsed rhythmically with some kind of life. Whether it was with his or theirs, I cannot say. There were no ears on his round head. No features at all aside from the frontwards-facing cavity that held the searing red light.
As I slowly and timidly approached the windmill, he remained by its side, peering out across the horizon. I turned to see what he was looking at, but saw nothing. I immediately turned back to him and craned my neck skywards, marvelling at him in dumbstruck awe. I’d chased him down so that I could demand why he had marked me as one of his followers, but now that I had succeeded, I was horrified by how suicidally naïve that plan now felt.
Many an internet atheist has pontificated about how if there were a God and if they ever met Him, they would remain every bit as irreverent and defiant and hold Him to account the same as any tyrant. But when faced with a being of unfathomable cosmic power, I don’t think there truly is anyone who wouldn’t lose their nerve.
So I just stood there, gaping up at the Effulgent One like a moron, with no idea of what to do next.
Fortunately for me, it was then that the Effulgent One finally acknowledged my presence.
Slowly, he turned his face downwards and cast his spotlight upon me, holding it there for a few long seconds before turning it to the door at the base of the windmill. I glanced up at the balcony above, and saw that it aligned almost perfectly with his head.
Evidently, he wanted to meet me face to face.
Nodding obediently, I raced to the heavy wooden door and pushed it open with all my might. The inside was dark, and I couldn’t see very well after standing right in the Effulgent One’s light, but I could hear the sounds of metal gears slowly grinding and clanking away. When I turned on my flashlight, the first thing I was able to make out was the enormous millstone. It moved slowly and steadily, squelching and squishing so that even in the poor light I knew that it wasn’t grain that was being milled.
The next thing I saw was a flight of rickety wooden stairs that snaked up all along the interior of the windmill. Each step creaked and groaned beneath my weight as I climbed them, but I nonetheless ascended them with reckless abandon. If a single one of them had given out beneath me, I could have fallen to my death, and the staircase shook back and forth so much that sometimes it felt as if it was intentionally trying to throw me off.
When I reached the top floor, I saw that the windshaft was encased in a crystalline sphere etched with leylines and strange symbols, and inside of it was some kind of complex clockwork apparatus that was powered by the spinning of the shaft. Though I was briefly curious as to the device’s purpose, it wasn’t what I had come up there for.
Turning myself towards the only door, I ran through and out onto the upper balcony. The Effulgent One was still standing just beside it, his head several times taller than I was. He looked out towards the horizon and pointed an outstretched arm in that direction, indicating that I should do the same.
From the balcony, I could see a spire made of purple volcanic glass, carved as if it was made of two intertwining gargantuan rose vines, with a stained-glass roof that made it look like a rose in full bloom. The spire was surrounded by many twisting and shifting shadows, and I could perceive a near infinitude of superimposed potential pathways branching out from the spire and stretching out across the planes.
The Effulgent One reached out and plucked at one of the pathways running over us like it was a harp string, sending vibrations down along to the spire and then back out through the entire network. I saw the sky above the spire shatter like glass, revealing a floating maelstrom of festering black fluid that had congealed into a thousand wailing faces. It began to descend as if it meant to devour the spire, but as it did so the spire pulled in the web of pathways around it like a net. The storm writhed and screamed as it tried to escape, but the spire held the net tight as a swarm of creatures too small for me to identify congregated upon the storm and began to feed upon it. But the fluid the maelstrom was composed of seemed to be corrosive, and the net began to rot beneath its influence. It sagged and it strained, until finally giving way.
A chaotic battle ensued between the spire and the maelstrom, but it hardly seemed to matter. What both I and the Efflugent One noticed the most was that the pathways that had been bound to the spire were now severed and stained by the Black Bile, drifting away wherever the wind took them.
The Effulgent One caught one of them in his hand and tugged it downwards, staring at it pensively for a long moment.
“That… that didn’t actually just happen, did it?” I asked meekly. I waited patiently for the Effulgent One to respond, but he just kept staring at the severed thread. “But… it’s going to happen? Or, it could happen?”
A slow and solemn nod confirmed that what he had shown me had portended to a possible future.
“That’s why you marked me as your follower then, isn’t it?” I asked. “You needed someone, someone other than the Virklitchen, someone who’s already involved in this bullshit and can help stop it from deteriorating into whatever the hell you just showed me. If Erich had picked anyone else to go to Virklitch that night, or hadn’t asked me to stay for the festival, it wouldn’t have been me! It didn’t have to have been me!”
His head remained somberly hung, and I hadn’t really been expecting him to respond at all to my outburst.
“Elifey liked you,” he said in a metallic, fluid voice that sounded like it was resonating out of his chest rather than his face. “I would not have chosen you if she hadn’t.”
He twirled the thread in between his fingers before gently handing it down to me like it was a streamer on a balloon. I hesitantly accepted the gesture, wrapping as much of my hand around the spectral cord as I could. The instant I touched it, a radiant and spiralling rainbow shot down its length and arced across the sky. When it reached the chaotic battle on the horizon, it dispelled the maelstrom on contact, banishing it back into the nether and signalling in biblical fashion that the storm had passed. The other wayward pathways were cleansed of the Black Bile as well, and I watched in amazement as they slowly started to reweave themselves back into an interconnected web.
“But… what does this mean? What do I actually have to do to make this a reality?” I asked.
The Effulgent One reached out his hand and pinched the cord, choking off the rainbow and ending the vision he had shown me.
“A reality?” he asked as he held his palm out flat and adjacent to the balcony. “It’s already a reality. All you need to do is make it yours.”
It seemed to me that I wasn’t likely to get anything less cryptic than that out of him, so I accepted the lift down. He took me down the hill and set me down gently beside my car before setting off out of sight and beyond my ability to pursue him.
Even though my GPS wasn’t working, the moment I was sitting in the driver’s seat the autopilot kicked in and didn’t ask me to take control until I was back on a familiar road. I know that windmill isn’t just a short drive away, and I’ll never see it again unless the Effulgent One wants me to. I don’t think I can say I’m exactly happy with how that turned out, but I suppose I accomplished what I set out to achieve. I know what the Effulgent One wants of me now, and why he chose me specifically. If it had been all his decision I think I’d still be feeling kind of torn about it, but knowing that I’ve been roped into this because of Elifey makes it a lot easier to bear.
And… I did actually manage to catch a rainbow. I just needed a giant’s help to reach it.

Hello fellow travelers, hoping to get some direction on how best to maximize the use of some points. I have gone through the wiki and recent threads on here and haven’t settled on how best to handle this
I followed all the guidance this sub’s wiki had to offer to book my first award flights next year from DFW-HND J class on JAL through Qantas airlines, by transferring CO miles.
I currently have 282k MR points, 158k UR points, and 32k CO reward miles banked up.
I am going on my honeymoon to Japan next year, so my dates and airports aren’t super flexible, and im okay with paying the points premium on booking this far out with relatively set dates and airports.
I will eventually need to book my flights home, and am hoping to use as much of my leftover points after that for hotel stays in Tokyo and Kyoto. I have 300k HH points and 15k Marriott points. Planning to use my HH points and my FNC to stay at the Conrad in Osaka.
My question is this: what is the best way to maximize value for the remaining points? Considering I need to book 2 flights that will eat up 209k of CO+UR.
Here is how I am having trouble deciding: my plan has been to transfer my 32k CO and 177k MR points to Qantas to book 2 J tickets HND-DFW (209k total) as soon as reward bookings become available for my selected date 360 days in advance - and then try to use the rest for hotel stays. Doing this would take away most of my points left, leaving me with 100k MR and 158k UR.
I have not seen another way to book JAL award J class flights 360 days out besides Qantas. Unfortunately, my JMB account on JAL is too new for me to transfer and book flights directly to (need to wait 60 days).
My preferred hotel transfer partner is Hilton, which I can transfer my remaining MR points to (would add about 200k HH points with 2:1 transfer ratio) and that leaves me 158k UR, which cannot transfer to Hilton for hotel nor Qantas for flights.
I could transfer the 158k UR to Marriott, which has a 40% bonus right now, which would give me roughly 221k Marriott points. However, I have heard that Marriott point redemptions for stays are really weak, and it’s looking like that may only cover 1-2 nights at a solid Marriott in Japan, which to me doesn’t seem great for the amount of points, but I could be wrong (please tell me if I am 😄)
I could always transfer them to Hyatt or IHG, but those are a 1:1 transfer from chase giving me 158k points with one of them.
Is there a different way I should be thinking about using my remaining points? Any transfer partners or other ideas I am not considering?
Ultimately getting 2 more J seats on JAL, plus a few free hotel nights out of these remaining credit card points will be great, but would love to get more than just a couple free hotel nights if possible (outside of the already planned Conrad Osaka stay through HH)
Thank you for the help on this! This sub has completely changed my outlook on travel and has made it possible for my fiance and I to go on the honeymoon of our dreams, so I appreciate all of the thought and participation put into this sub. And apologies for being such a noob and adding to all of the “help with Japan trip” posts.

When you were a kid, and you saw a rainbow, did you ever want to try to get to the end of it? I bet you did. I did, anyway. It wasn’t the mythical pot of gold that tempted me. Wealth was too abstract of a concept at that age to dream about, and leprechauns were creepy little bastards. I just wanted to see what the rainbow looked like up close, and maybe even try to climb it.
Of course, you can’t get to the end of a rainbow because not only is there no end, but there isn’t even really a rainbow. It’s an illusion caused by the sunlight passing through raindrops at the right angle. If you did try to chase a rainbow down, it would move with you until it faded away. That’s why chasing rainbows is a pretty good metaphor for pursuing a beautiful illusion that can never manifest as anything concrete.
I bring all this up because I think it was that same type of urge that compelled me to chase down the Effulgent One. It’s not a perfect analogy, however, considering that I did actually catch up to the eldritch bastard.
I first saw the Effulgent One a little over two years ago. My employer – who happens to be an occultist mad scientist by the name of Erich Thorne – had tasked me with returning a young girl named Elifey to her village on the northern edges of the county. The people of Virklitch Village are very nice, but they’re also an insular, Luddite cult who worship a colossal spectral entity they call the Effulgent One. I saw this Titan during my first visit to Virklitch, and more importantly, he saw me. He left a streak of black in my soul, marking me as one of his followers. I can feel him now, when he walks in our world. Sometimes, if I look towards the horizon after sundown, I can even see him.
This entity, and my connection to him, is understandably something my employer has taken an interest in. I’ve been to Virklitch many times since my first visit, and I’ve successfully collected a good deal of vital information about the Effulgent One. The Virklitchen are the only ones who know how to summon him, and coercing them into doing so would only earn us his wrath. He’s sworn to protect them, though I haven’t the slightest idea of what motivates him to do so.
Even though I can see him, I usually try not to look, to pretend he’s not there. The Virklitchen have warned me never to chase after him. Before Virklitch was founded, the First Nations people who lived in this region were aware of the Effulgent One, though they called him the Sky Strider. Any of them that went chasing after him either failed, went mad, or were never seen again.
I was out driving after sunset, during astronomical twilight when the trees are just black silhouettes against a burnt orange horizon, when I sensed the presence of the Effulgent One. He was to the east, towering along the darkening skyline, idling amidst the fields of cyclopean wind turbines. I could see their flashing red lights in the periphery of my vision, and I knew that one of those lights was him. I tried to fight the urge to look, but fear began to gnaw at me. What if he was heading towards me right now? What if I was in danger and needed to run?
Risking a single sideways glance, I spotted his gangly form standing listlessly between the wind turbines, his long arms gently swaying as his glowing red face bobbed to and fro.
I exhaled a sigh of relief, now that I knew he wasn’t chasing me. That relief didn’t even last a moment before it was transformed into a dangerous realization. He wasn’t just not chasing me; he wasn’t moving at all. He was still. This was rare, and it presented me with a rare opportunity. I could approach him. I could speak with him.
This wasn’t a good idea, and I knew it. The Effulgent One interacted with his followers on his terms. If I annoyed him, he could squash me like a bug. Or worse. Much worse. But he had marked me as his follower and I wanted to know why. If there was any chance I could get him to answer me, I was going to take it.
“Hey Lumi,” I said to the proprietary AI assistant in my company car. “Play the cover of I’m Always Chasing Rainbows from the Hazbin Hotel pilot.”
With the mood appropriately set, I veered east the first chance I got.
Almost immediately, I noticed that the highway seemed eerily abandoned. Even if anyone else had been capable of perceiving the Effulgent One, there was no one around to see him. I got this creeping sense that the closer I drew to him, I was actually shifting more and more out of my world and more and more into his. The wind picked up and dark clouds blew in, snuffing out the fading twilight and plunging everything into an overcast night.
The Effulgent One didn’t seem to notice me as I drew closer. He was as tall as the wind turbines he stood beside, his gaunt body plated in dull iridescent scales infected with trailing fungus. The head on his lanky neck was completely hollow and filled with a glowing red light that dimly bounced off his scales.
Seeing him standing still was a lot more surreal than seeing him when he was active. As impossibly large as he is, when he’s moving it just naturally triggers your fight or flight response and you don’t really have time to take it all in. But when he’s just standing there, and you can look at him and question what you’re seeing, it just hits differently.
It wasn’t until I started slowing down that he finally turned his head in my direction, briefly engulfing me in a blinding red light. When it passed, I saw that the Effulgent One had turned away from me and I was striding down the highway. Even though his gait was casual, his stride was so long that he was still moving as quickly as any vehicle.
Reasoning that if he didn’t want me to follow him he wouldn’t be walking along the road, I slammed my foot down on the accelerator pedal and sped after him.
That’s when things started to get weird.
You know how when you’re driving at night through the country, you can’t see anything beyond your own headlights? With no visual landmarks to go by, it’s easy to get disoriented. All you have to go by is the signs, and I wasn’t paying any attention to those. All my focus was on the Effulgent One, so much so that if someone had jumped out in front of me I probably would have killed them.
I turned down at least one sideroad in my pursuit of the Effulgent One. Maybe two or three. I’m really not sure. All I know for sure is that I was so desperate not to lose him that I had become completely lost myself.
He never looked back to see if I was still following, or gave any indication that he knew or cared if I was still there. He just made his way along the backroads, his bloodred searchlight sweeping back and forth all the while, as if he was desperately seeking something of grave importance. Finally, he abandoned the road altogether and began to climb a gently rolling hill with a solitary wind turbine on top of it. I gently slowed my car to a stop and watched to see what he would do.
I had barely been keeping up with him on the roadways, so I knew I’d never catch him going off-road. If he didn’t stop at the wind turbine, then that would be the end of my little misadventure. As I watched the Effulgent One climb up the hill and cast his light upon it, I saw that the structure at the summit wasn’t a wind turbine at all, but a windmill.
It was a mammoth windmill, the size of a wind turbine, made from enormous blocks of rugged black stone. It was as impossible as the Effulgent One himself. No stone structure other than a pyramid or ziggurat could possibly be that big, and the windmill barely tapered at all towards the top. Its blades were made from a ragged black cloth that reminded me of pirate sails, and near the top I could see a light coming from a single balcony.
When the Effulgent One reached the hill’s summit, he not only came to a stop but turned back around to face me, his light illuminating the entire hillside. Whether or not it was his intention to make it easier for me to follow him up the hill, it was nonetheless the effect, so I decided not to squander it.
Grabbing the thousand-lumen flashlight from my emergency kit, I left my car on the side of the road and began the short but challenging trek up the hill.
I honestly had no idea where I was at that point. Nothing looked familiar, and the overgrown grass seemed so alien in the red light. The way it moved in the wind was so fluid it looked more like seaweed than grass. The clouds overhead seemed equally otherworldly, moving not only unusually fast but in strange patterns that didn’t seem purely meteorological in nature.
With the Effulgent One’s light aimed directly at me, there was no doubt in my mind that he had seen me, but he still gave no indication that he cared. The closer I drew to him, the more I was confronted by his unfathomable scale. I really was an insect compared to him, and it seemed inconceivable that he would make any distinction between anthropods and arthropods. He could strike me down as effortlessly and carelessly as any other bothersome bug. I approached cautiously, watching intently for any sign of hostility from him, but he remained completely and utterly unmoved.
The closer I got to him, the harder I found it to press on. From a distance, the Effulgent One is surreal enough that he doesn’t completely shatter your sense of reality, but that’s a luxury that goes down the toilet when he’s only a few strides or less from stomping you into the ground. His emaciated form wasn’t merely skeletal, but elongated; his limbs, digits, and neck all stretched out to disquieting proportions. His dull scales now seemed to be a shimmering indigo, and the fungal growths between them pulsed rhythmically with some kind of life. Whether it was with his or theirs, I cannot say. There were no ears on his round head. No features at all aside from the frontwards-facing cavity that held the searing red light.
As I slowly and timidly approached the windmill, he remained by its side, peering out across the horizon. I turned to see what he was looking at, but saw nothing. I immediately turned back to him and craned my neck skywards, marvelling at him in dumbstruck awe. I’d chased him down so that I could demand why he had marked me as one of his followers, but now that I had succeeded, I was horrified by how suicidally naïve that plan now felt.
Many an internet atheist has pontificated about how if there were a God and if they ever met Him, they would remain every bit as irreverent and defiant and hold Him to account the same as any tyrant. But when faced with a being of unfathomable cosmic power, I don’t think there truly is anyone who wouldn’t lose their nerve.
So I just stood there, gaping up at the Effulgent One like a moron, with no idea of what to do next.
Fortunately for me, it was then that the Effulgent One finally acknowledged my presence.
Slowly, he turned his face downwards and cast his spotlight upon me, holding it there for a few long seconds before turning it to the door at the base of the windmill. I glanced up at the balcony above, and saw that it aligned almost perfectly with his head.
Evidently, he wanted to meet me face to face.
Nodding obediently, I raced to the heavy wooden door and pushed it open with all my might. The inside was dark, and I couldn’t see very well after standing right in the Effulgent One’s light, but I could hear the sounds of metal gears slowly grinding and clanking away. When I turned on my flashlight, the first thing I was able to make out was the enormous millstone. It moved slowly and steadily, squelching and squishing so that even in the poor light I knew that it wasn’t grain that was being milled.
The next thing I saw was a flight of rickety wooden stairs that snaked up all along the interior of the windmill. Each step creaked and groaned beneath my weight as I climbed them, but I nonetheless ascended them with reckless abandon. If a single one of them had given out beneath me, I could have fallen to my death, and the staircase shook back and forth so much that sometimes it felt as if it was intentionally trying to throw me off.
When I reached the top floor, I saw that the windshaft was encased in a crystalline sphere etched with leylines and strange symbols, and inside of it was some kind of complex clockwork apparatus that was powered by the spinning of the shaft. Though I was briefly curious as to the device’s purpose, it wasn’t what I had come up there for.
Turning myself towards the only door, I ran through and out onto the upper balcony. The Effulgent One was still standing just beside it, his head several times taller than I was. He looked out towards the horizon and pointed an outstretched arm in that direction, indicating that I should do the same.
From the balcony, I could see a spire made of purple volcanic glass, carved as if it was made of two intertwining gargantuan rose vines, with a stained-glass roof that made it look like a rose in full bloom. The spire was surrounded by many twisting and shifting shadows, and I could perceive a near infinitude of superimposed potential pathways branching out from the spire and stretching out across the planes.
The Effulgent One reached out and plucked at one of the pathways running over us like it was a harp string, sending vibrations down along to the spire and then back out through the entire network. I saw the sky above the spire shatter like glass, revealing a floating maelstrom of festering black fluid that had congealed into a thousand wailing faces. It began to descend as if it meant to devour the spire, but as it did so the spire pulled in the web of pathways around it like a net. The storm writhed and screamed as it tried to escape, but the spire held the net tight as a swarm of creatures too small for me to identify congregated upon the storm and began to feed upon it. But the fluid the maelstrom was composed of seemed to be corrosive, and the net began to rot beneath its influence. It sagged and it strained, until finally giving way.
A chaotic battle ensued between the spire and the maelstrom, but it hardly seemed to matter. What both I and the Efflugent One noticed the most was that the pathways that had been bound to the spire were now severed and stained by the Black Bile, drifting away wherever the wind took them.
The Effulgent One caught one of them in his hand and tugged it downwards, staring at it pensively for a long moment.
“That… that didn’t actually just happen, did it?” I asked meekly. I waited patiently for the Effulgent One to respond, but he just kept staring at the severed thread. “But… it’s going to happen? Or, it could happen?”
A slow and solemn nod confirmed that what he had shown me had portended to a possible future.
“That’s why you marked me as your follower then, isn’t it?” I asked. “You needed someone, someone other than the Virklitchen, someone who’s already involved in this bullshit and can help stop it from deteriorating into whatever the hell you just showed me. If Erich had picked anyone else to go to Virklitch that night, or hadn’t asked me to stay for the festival, it wouldn’t have been me! It didn’t have to have been me!”
His head remained somberly hung, and I hadn’t really been expecting him to respond at all to my outburst.
“Elifey liked you,” he said in a metallic, fluid voice that sounded like it was resonating out of his chest rather than his face. “I would not have chosen you if she hadn’t.”
He twirled the thread in between his fingers before gently handing it down to me like it was a streamer on a balloon. I hesitantly accepted the gesture, wrapping as much of my hand around the spectral cord as I could. The instant I touched it, a radiant and spiralling rainbow shot down its length and arced across the sky. When it reached the chaotic battle on the horizon, it dispelled the maelstrom on contact, banishing it back into the nether and signalling in biblical fashion that the storm had passed. The other wayward pathways were cleansed of the Black Bile as well, and I watched in amazement as they slowly started to reweave themselves back into an interconnected web.
“But… what does this mean? What do I actually have to do to make this a reality?” I asked.
The Effulgent One reached out his hand and pinched the cord, choking off the rainbow and ending the vision he had shown me.
“A reality?” he asked as he held his palm out flat and adjacent to the balcony. “It’s already a reality. All you need to do is make it yours.”
It seemed to me that I wasn’t likely to get anything less cryptic than that out of him, so I accepted the lift down. He took me down the hill and set me down gently beside my car before setting off out of sight and beyond my ability to pursue him.
Even though my GPS wasn’t working, the moment I was sitting in the driver’s seat the autopilot kicked in and didn’t ask me to take control until I was back on a familiar road. I know that windmill isn’t just a short drive away, and I’ll never see it again unless the Effulgent One wants me to. I don’t think I can say I’m exactly happy with how that turned out, but I suppose I accomplished what I set out to achieve. I know what the Effulgent One wants of me now, and why he chose me specifically. If it had been all his decision I think I’d still be feeling kind of torn about it, but knowing that I’ve been roped into this because of Elifey makes it a lot easier to bear.
And… I did actually manage to catch a rainbow. I just needed a giant’s help to reach it.

When you were a kid, and you saw a rainbow, did you ever want to try to get to the end of it? I bet you did. I did, anyway. It wasn’t the mythical pot of gold that tempted me. Wealth was too abstract of a concept at that age to dream about, and leprechauns were creepy little bastards. I just wanted to see what the rainbow looked like up close, and maybe even try to climb it.
Of course, you can’t get to the end of a rainbow because not only is there no end, but there isn’t even really a rainbow. It’s an illusion caused by the sunlight passing through raindrops at the right angle. If you did try to chase a rainbow down, it would move with you until it faded away. That’s why chasing rainbows is a pretty good metaphor for pursuing a beautiful illusion that can never manifest as anything concrete.
I bring all this up because I think it was that same type of urge that compelled me to chase down the Effulgent One. It’s not a perfect analogy, however, considering that I did actually catch up to the eldritch bastard.
I first saw the Effulgent One a little over two years ago. My employer – who happens to be an occultist mad scientist by the name of Erich Thorne – had tasked me with returning a young girl named Elifey to her village on the northern edges of the county. The people of Virklitch Village are very nice, but they’re also an insular, Luddite cult who worship a colossal spectral entity they call the Effulgent One. I saw this Titan during my first visit to Virklitch, and more importantly, he saw me. He left a streak of black in my soul, marking me as one of his followers. I can feel him now, when he walks in our world. Sometimes, if I look towards the horizon after sundown, I can even see him.
This entity, and my connection to him, is understandably something my employer has taken an interest in. I’ve been to Virklitch many times since my first visit, and I’ve successfully collected a good deal of vital information about the Effulgent One. The Virklitchen are the only ones who know how to summon him, and coercing them into doing so would only earn us his wrath. He’s sworn to protect them, though I haven’t the slightest idea of what motivates him to do so.
Even though I can see him, I usually try not to look, to pretend he’s not there. The Virklitchen have warned me never to chase after him. Before Virklitch was founded, the First Nations people who lived in this region were aware of the Effulgent One, though they called him the Sky Strider. Any of them that went chasing after him either failed, went mad, or were never seen again.
I was out driving after sunset, during astronomical twilight when the trees are just black silhouettes against a burnt orange horizon, when I sensed the presence of the Effulgent One. He was to the east, towering along the darkening skyline, idling amidst the fields of cyclopean wind turbines. I could see their flashing red lights in the periphery of my vision, and I knew that one of those lights was him. I tried to fight the urge to look, but fear began to gnaw at me. What if he was heading towards me right now? What if I was in danger and needed to run?
Risking a single sideways glance, I spotted his gangly form standing listlessly between the wind turbines, his long arms gently swaying as his glowing red face bobbed to and fro.
I exhaled a sigh of relief, now that I knew he wasn’t chasing me. That relief didn’t even last a moment before it was transformed into a dangerous realization. He wasn’t just not chasing me; he wasn’t moving at all. He was still. This was rare, and it presented me with a rare opportunity. I could approach him. I could speak with him.
This wasn’t a good idea, and I knew it. The Effulgent One interacted with his followers on his terms. If I annoyed him, he could squash me like a bug. Or worse. Much worse. But he had marked me as his follower and I wanted to know why. If there was any chance I could get him to answer me, I was going to take it.
“Hey Lumi,” I said to the proprietary AI assistant in my company car. “Play the cover of I’m Always Chasing Rainbows from the Hazbin Hotel pilot.”
With the mood appropriately set, I veered east the first chance I got.
Almost immediately, I noticed that the highway seemed eerily abandoned. Even if anyone else had been capable of perceiving the Effulgent One, there was no one around to see him. I got this creeping sense that the closer I drew to him, I was actually shifting more and more out of my world and more and more into his. The wind picked up and dark clouds blew in, snuffing out the fading twilight and plunging everything into an overcast night.
The Effulgent One didn’t seem to notice me as I drew closer. He was as tall as the wind turbines he stood beside, his gaunt body plated in dull iridescent scales infected with trailing fungus. The head on his lanky neck was completely hollow and filled with a glowing red light that dimly bounced off his scales.
Seeing him standing still was a lot more surreal than seeing him when he was active. As impossibly large as he is, when he’s moving it just naturally triggers your fight or flight response and you don’t really have time to take it all in. But when he’s just standing there, and you can look at him and question what you’re seeing, it just hits differently.
It wasn’t until I started slowing down that he finally turned his head in my direction, briefly engulfing me in a blinding red light. When it passed, I saw that the Effulgent One had turned away from me and I was striding down the highway. Even though his gait was casual, his stride was so long that he was still moving as quickly as any vehicle.
Reasoning that if he didn’t want me to follow him he wouldn’t be walking along the road, I slammed my foot down on the accelerator pedal and sped after him.
That’s when things started to get weird.
You know how when you’re driving at night through the country, you can’t see anything beyond your own headlights? With no visual landmarks to go by, it’s easy to get disoriented. All you have to go by is the signs, and I wasn’t paying any attention to those. All my focus was on the Effulgent One, so much so that if someone had jumped out in front of me I probably would have killed them.
I turned down at least one sideroad in my pursuit of the Effulgent One. Maybe two or three. I’m really not sure. All I know for sure is that I was so desperate not to lose him that I had become completely lost myself.
He never looked back to see if I was still following, or gave any indication that he knew or cared if I was still there. He just made his way along the backroads, his bloodred searchlight sweeping back and forth all the while, as if he was desperately seeking something of grave importance. Finally, he abandoned the road altogether and began to climb a gently rolling hill with a solitary wind turbine on top of it. I gently slowed my car to a stop and watched to see what he would do.
I had barely been keeping up with him on the roadways, so I knew I’d never catch him going off-road. If he didn’t stop at the wind turbine, then that would be the end of my little misadventure. As I watched the Effulgent One climb up the hill and cast his light upon it, I saw that the structure at the summit wasn’t a wind turbine at all, but a windmill.
It was a mammoth windmill, the size of a wind turbine, made from enormous blocks of rugged black stone. It was as impossible as the Effulgent One himself. No stone structure other than a pyramid or ziggurat could possibly be that big, and the windmill barely tapered at all towards the top. Its blades were made from a ragged black cloth that reminded me of pirate sails, and near the top I could see a light coming from a single balcony.
When the Effulgent One reached the hill’s summit, he not only came to a stop but turned back around to face me, his light illuminating the entire hillside. Whether or not it was his intention to make it easier for me to follow him up the hill, it was nonetheless the effect, so I decided not to squander it.
Grabbing the thousand-lumen flashlight from my emergency kit, I left my car on the side of the road and began the short but challenging trek up the hill.
I honestly had no idea where I was at that point. Nothing looked familiar, and the overgrown grass seemed so alien in the red light. The way it moved in the wind was so fluid it looked more like seaweed than grass. The clouds overhead seemed equally otherworldly, moving not only unusually fast but in strange patterns that didn’t seem purely meteorological in nature.
With the Effulgent One’s light aimed directly at me, there was no doubt in my mind that he had seen me, but he still gave no indication that he cared. The closer I drew to him, the more I was confronted by his unfathomable scale. I really was an insect compared to him, and it seemed inconceivable that he would make any distinction between anthropods and arthropods. He could strike me down as effortlessly and carelessly as any other bothersome bug. I approached cautiously, watching intently for any sign of hostility from him, but he remained completely and utterly unmoved.
The closer I got to him, the harder I found it to press on. From a distance, the Effulgent One is surreal enough that he doesn’t completely shatter your sense of reality, but that’s a luxury that goes down the toilet when he’s only a few strides or less from stomping you into the ground. His emaciated form wasn’t merely skeletal, but elongated; his limbs, digits, and neck all stretched out to disquieting proportions. His dull scales now seemed to be a shimmering indigo, and the fungal growths between them pulsed rhythmically with some kind of life. Whether it was with his or theirs, I cannot say. There were no ears on his round head. No features at all aside from the frontwards-facing cavity that held the searing red light.
As I slowly and timidly approached the windmill, he remained by its side, peering out across the horizon. I turned to see what he was looking at, but saw nothing. I immediately turned back to him and craned my neck skywards, marvelling at him in dumbstruck awe. I’d chased him down so that I could demand why he had marked me as one of his followers, but now that I had succeeded, I was horrified by how suicidally naïve that plan now felt.
Many an internet atheist has pontificated about how if there were a God and if they ever met Him, they would remain every bit as irreverent and defiant and hold Him to account the same as any tyrant. But when faced with a being of unfathomable cosmic power, I don’t think there truly is anyone who wouldn’t lose their nerve.
So I just stood there, gaping up at the Effulgent One like a moron, with no idea of what to do next.
Fortunately for me, it was then that the Effulgent One finally acknowledged my presence.
Slowly, he turned his face downwards and cast his spotlight upon me, holding it there for a few long seconds before turning it to the door at the base of the windmill. I glanced up at the balcony above, and saw that it aligned almost perfectly with his head.
Evidently, he wanted to meet me face to face.
Nodding obediently, I raced to the heavy wooden door and pushed it open with all my might. The inside was dark, and I couldn’t see very well after standing right in the Effulgent One’s light, but I could hear the sounds of metal gears slowly grinding and clanking away. When I turned on my flashlight, the first thing I was able to make out was the enormous millstone. It moved slowly and steadily, squelching and squishing so that even in the poor light I knew that it wasn’t grain that was being milled.
The next thing I saw was a flight of rickety wooden stairs that snaked up all along the interior of the windmill. Each step creaked and groaned beneath my weight as I climbed them, but I nonetheless ascended them with reckless abandon. If a single one of them had given out beneath me, I could have fallen to my death, and the staircase shook back and forth so much that sometimes it felt as if it was intentionally trying to throw me off.
When I reached the top floor, I saw that the windshaft was encased in a crystalline sphere etched with leylines and strange symbols, and inside of it was some kind of complex clockwork apparatus that was powered by the spinning of the shaft. Though I was briefly curious as to the device’s purpose, it wasn’t what I had come up there for.
Turning myself towards the only door, I ran through and out onto the upper balcony. The Effulgent One was still standing just beside it, his head several times taller than I was. He looked out towards the horizon and pointed an outstretched arm in that direction, indicating that I should do the same.
From the balcony, I could see a spire made of purple volcanic glass, carved as if it was made of two intertwining gargantuan rose vines, with a stained-glass roof that made it look like a rose in full bloom. The spire was surrounded by many twisting and shifting shadows, and I could perceive a near infinitude of superimposed potential pathways branching out from the spire and stretching out across the planes.
The Effulgent One reached out and plucked at one of the pathways running over us like it was a harp string, sending vibrations down along to the spire and then back out through the entire network. I saw the sky above the spire shatter like glass, revealing a floating maelstrom of festering black fluid that had congealed into a thousand wailing faces. It began to descend as if it meant to devour the spire, but as it did so the spire pulled in the web of pathways around it like a net. The storm writhed and screamed as it tried to escape, but the spire held the net tight as a swarm of creatures too small for me to identify congregated upon the storm and began to feed upon it. But the fluid the maelstrom was composed of seemed to be corrosive, and the net began to rot beneath its influence. It sagged and it strained, until finally giving way.
A chaotic battle ensued between the spire and the maelstrom, but it hardly seemed to matter. What both I and the Efflugent One noticed the most was that the pathways that had been bound to the spire were now severed and stained by the Black Bile, drifting away wherever the wind took them.
The Effulgent One caught one of them in his hand and tugged it downwards, staring at it pensively for a long moment.
“That… that didn’t actually just happen, did it?” I asked meekly. I waited patiently for the Effulgent One to respond, but he just kept staring at the severed thread. “But… it’s going to happen? Or, it could happen?”
A slow and solemn nod confirmed that what he had shown me had portended to a possible future.
“That’s why you marked me as your follower then, isn’t it?” I asked. “You needed someone, someone other than the Virklitchen, someone who’s already involved in this bullshit and can help stop it from deteriorating into whatever the hell you just showed me. If Erich had picked anyone else to go to Virklitch that night, or hadn’t asked me to stay for the festival, it wouldn’t have been me! It didn’t have to have been me!”
His head remained somberly hung, and I hadn’t really been expecting him to respond at all to my outburst.
“Elifey liked you,” he said in a metallic, fluid voice that sounded like it was resonating out of his chest rather than his face. “I would not have chosen you if she hadn’t.”
He twirled the thread in between his fingers before gently handing it down to me like it was a streamer on a balloon. I hesitantly accepted the gesture, wrapping as much of my hand around the spectral cord as I could. The instant I touched it, a radiant and spiralling rainbow shot down its length and arced across the sky. When it reached the chaotic battle on the horizon, it dispelled the maelstrom on contact, banishing it back into the nether and signalling in biblical fashion that the storm had passed. The other wayward pathways were cleansed of the Black Bile as well, and I watched in amazement as they slowly started to reweave themselves back into an interconnected web.
“But… what does this mean? What do I actually have to do to make this a reality?” I asked.
The Effulgent One reached out his hand and pinched the cord, choking off the rainbow and ending the vision he had shown me.
“A reality?” he asked as he held his palm out flat and adjacent to the balcony. “It’s already a reality. All you need to do is make it yours.”
It seemed to me that I wasn’t likely to get anything less cryptic than that out of him, so I accepted the lift down. He took me down the hill and set me down gently beside my car before setting off out of sight and beyond my ability to pursue him.
Even though my GPS wasn’t working, the moment I was sitting in the driver’s seat the autopilot kicked in and didn’t ask me to take control until I was back on a familiar road. I know that windmill isn’t just a short drive away, and I’ll never see it again unless the Effulgent One wants me to. I don’t think I can say I’m exactly happy with how that turned out, but I suppose I accomplished what I set out to achieve. I know what the Effulgent One wants of me now, and why he chose me specifically. If it had been all his decision I think I’d still be feeling kind of torn about it, but knowing that I’ve been roped into this because of Elifey makes it a lot easier to bear.
And… I did actually manage to catch a rainbow. I just needed a giant’s help to reach it.

When you were a kid, and you saw a rainbow, did you ever want to try to get to the end of it? I bet you did. I did, anyway. It wasn’t the mythical pot of gold that tempted me. Wealth was too abstract of a concept at that age to dream about, and leprechauns were creepy little bastards. I just wanted to see what the rainbow looked like up close, and maybe even try to climb it.
Of course, you can’t get to the end of a rainbow because not only is there no end, but there isn’t even really a rainbow. It’s an illusion caused by the sunlight passing through raindrops at the right angle. If you did try to chase a rainbow down, it would move with you until it faded away. That’s why chasing rainbows is a pretty good metaphor for pursuing a beautiful illusion that can never manifest as anything concrete.
I bring all this up because I think it was that same type of urge that compelled me to chase down the Effulgent One. It’s not a perfect analogy, however, considering that I did actually catch up to the eldritch bastard.
I first saw the Effulgent One a little over two years ago. My employer – who happens to be an occultist mad scientist by the name of Erich Thorne – had tasked me with returning a young girl named Elifey to her village on the northern edges of the county. The people of Virklitch Village are very nice, but they’re also an insular, Luddite cult who worship a colossal spectral entity they call the Effulgent One. I saw this Titan during my first visit to Virklitch, and more importantly, he saw me. He left a streak of black in my soul, marking me as one of his followers. I can feel him now, when he walks in our world. Sometimes, if I look towards the horizon after sundown, I can even see him.
This entity, and my connection to him, is understandably something my employer has taken an interest in. I’ve been to Virklitch many times since my first visit, and I’ve successfully collected a good deal of vital information about the Effulgent One. The Virklitchen are the only ones who know how to summon him, and coercing them into doing so would only earn us his wrath. He’s sworn to protect them, though I haven’t the slightest idea of what motivates him to do so.
Even though I can see him, I usually try not to look, to pretend he’s not there. The Virklitchen have warned me never to chase after him. Before Virklitch was founded, the First Nations people who lived in this region were aware of the Effulgent One, though they called him the Sky Strider. Any of them that went chasing after him either failed, went mad, or were never seen again.
I was out driving after sunset, during astronomical twilight when the trees are just black silhouettes against a burnt orange horizon, when I sensed the presence of the Effulgent One. He was to the east, towering along the darkening skyline, idling amidst the fields of cyclopean wind turbines. I could see their flashing red lights in the periphery of my vision, and I knew that one of those lights was him. I tried to fight the urge to look, but fear began to gnaw at me. What if he was heading towards me right now? What if I was in danger and needed to run?
Risking a single sideways glance, I spotted his gangly form standing listlessly between the wind turbines, his long arms gently swaying as his glowing red face bobbed to and fro.
I exhaled a sigh of relief, now that I knew he wasn’t chasing me. That relief didn’t even last a moment before it was transformed into a dangerous realization. He wasn’t just not chasing me; he wasn’t moving at all. He was still. This was rare, and it presented me with a rare opportunity. I could approach him. I could speak with him.
This wasn’t a good idea, and I knew it. The Effulgent One interacted with his followers on his terms. If I annoyed him, he could squash me like a bug. Or worse. Much worse. But he had marked me as his follower and I wanted to know why. If there was any chance I could get him to answer me, I was going to take it.
“Hey Lumi,” I said to the proprietary AI assistant in my company car. “Play the cover of I’m Always Chasing Rainbows from the Hazbin Hotel pilot.”
With the mood appropriately set, I veered east the first chance I got.
Almost immediately, I noticed that the highway seemed eerily abandoned. Even if anyone else had been capable of perceiving the Effulgent One, there was no one around to see him. I got this creeping sense that the closer I drew to him, I was actually shifting more and more out of my world and more and more into his. The wind picked up and dark clouds blew in, snuffing out the fading twilight and plunging everything into an overcast night.
The Effulgent One didn’t seem to notice me as I drew closer. He was as tall as the wind turbines he stood beside, his gaunt body plated in dull iridescent scales infected with trailing fungus. The head on his lanky neck was completely hollow and filled with a glowing red light that dimly bounced off his scales.
Seeing him standing still was a lot more surreal than seeing him when he was active. As impossibly large as he is, when he’s moving it just naturally triggers your fight or flight response and you don’t really have time to take it all in. But when he’s just standing there, and you can look at him and question what you’re seeing, it just hits differently.
It wasn’t until I started slowing down that he finally turned his head in my direction, briefly engulfing me in a blinding red light. When it passed, I saw that the Effulgent One had turned away from me and I was striding down the highway. Even though his gait was casual, his stride was so long that he was still moving as quickly as any vehicle.
Reasoning that if he didn’t want me to follow him he wouldn’t be walking along the road, I slammed my foot down on the accelerator pedal and sped after him.
That’s when things started to get weird.
You know how when you’re driving at night through the country, you can’t see anything beyond your own headlights? With no visual landmarks to go by, it’s easy to get disoriented. All you have to go by is the signs, and I wasn’t paying any attention to those. All my focus was on the Effulgent One, so much so that if someone had jumped out in front of me I probably would have killed them.
I turned down at least one sideroad in my pursuit of the Effulgent One. Maybe two or three. I’m really not sure. All I know for sure is that I was so desperate not to lose him that I had become completely lost myself.
He never looked back to see if I was still following, or gave any indication that he knew or cared if I was still there. He just made his way along the backroads, his bloodred searchlight sweeping back and forth all the while, as if he was desperately seeking something of grave importance. Finally, he abandoned the road altogether and began to climb a gently rolling hill with a solitary wind turbine on top of it. I gently slowed my car to a stop and watched to see what he would do.
I had barely been keeping up with him on the roadways, so I knew I’d never catch him going off-road. If he didn’t stop at the wind turbine, then that would be the end of my little misadventure. As I watched the Effulgent One climb up the hill and cast his light upon it, I saw that the structure at the summit wasn’t a wind turbine at all, but a windmill.
It was a mammoth windmill, the size of a wind turbine, made from enormous blocks of rugged black stone. It was as impossible as the Effulgent One himself. No stone structure other than a pyramid or ziggurat could possibly be that big, and the windmill barely tapered at all towards the top. Its blades were made from a ragged black cloth that reminded me of pirate sails, and near the top I could see a light coming from a single balcony.
When the Effulgent One reached the hill’s summit, he not only came to a stop but turned back around to face me, his light illuminating the entire hillside. Whether or not it was his intention to make it easier for me to follow him up the hill, it was nonetheless the effect, so I decided not to squander it.
Grabbing the thousand-lumen flashlight from my emergency kit, I left my car on the side of the road and began the short but challenging trek up the hill.
I honestly had no idea where I was at that point. Nothing looked familiar, and the overgrown grass seemed so alien in the red light. The way it moved in the wind was so fluid it looked more like seaweed than grass. The clouds overhead seemed equally otherworldly, moving not only unusually fast but in strange patterns that didn’t seem purely meteorological in nature.
With the Effulgent One’s light aimed directly at me, there was no doubt in my mind that he had seen me, but he still gave no indication that he cared. The closer I drew to him, the more I was confronted by his unfathomable scale. I really was an insect compared to him, and it seemed inconceivable that he would make any distinction between anthropods and arthropods. He could strike me down as effortlessly and carelessly as any other bothersome bug. I approached cautiously, watching intently for any sign of hostility from him, but he remained completely and utterly unmoved.
The closer I got to him, the harder I found it to press on. From a distance, the Effulgent One is surreal enough that he doesn’t completely shatter your sense of reality, but that’s a luxury that goes down the toilet when he’s only a few strides or less from stomping you into the ground. His emaciated form wasn’t merely skeletal, but elongated; his limbs, digits, and neck all stretched out to disquieting proportions. His dull scales now seemed to be a shimmering indigo, and the fungal growths between them pulsed rhythmically with some kind of life. Whether it was with his or theirs, I cannot say. There were no ears on his round head. No features at all aside from the frontwards-facing cavity that held the searing red light.
As I slowly and timidly approached the windmill, he remained by its side, peering out across the horizon. I turned to see what he was looking at, but saw nothing. I immediately turned back to him and craned my neck skywards, marvelling at him in dumbstruck awe. I’d chased him down so that I could demand why he had marked me as one of his followers, but now that I had succeeded, I was horrified by how suicidally naïve that plan now felt.
Many an internet atheist has pontificated about how if there were a God and if they ever met Him, they would remain every bit as irreverent and defiant and hold Him to account the same as any tyrant. But when faced with a being of unfathomable cosmic power, I don’t think there truly is anyone who wouldn’t lose their nerve.
So I just stood there, gaping up at the Effulgent One like a moron, with no idea of what to do next.
Fortunately for me, it was then that the Effulgent One finally acknowledged my presence.
Slowly, he turned his face downwards and cast his spotlight upon me, holding it there for a few long seconds before turning it to the door at the base of the windmill. I glanced up at the balcony above, and saw that it aligned almost perfectly with his head.
Evidently, he wanted to meet me face to face.
Nodding obediently, I raced to the heavy wooden door and pushed it open with all my might. The inside was dark, and I couldn’t see very well after standing right in the Effulgent One’s light, but I could hear the sounds of metal gears slowly grinding and clanking away. When I turned on my flashlight, the first thing I was able to make out was the enormous millstone. It moved slowly and steadily, squelching and squishing so that even in the poor light I knew that it wasn’t grain that was being milled.
The next thing I saw was a flight of rickety wooden stairs that snaked up all along the interior of the windmill. Each step creaked and groaned beneath my weight as I climbed them, but I nonetheless ascended them with reckless abandon. If a single one of them had given out beneath me, I could have fallen to my death, and the staircase shook back and forth so much that sometimes it felt as if it was intentionally trying to throw me off.
When I reached the top floor, I saw that the windshaft was encased in a crystalline sphere etched with leylines and strange symbols, and inside of it was some kind of complex clockwork apparatus that was powered by the spinning of the shaft. Though I was briefly curious as to the device’s purpose, it wasn’t what I had come up there for.
Turning myself towards the only door, I ran through and out onto the upper balcony. The Effulgent One was still standing just beside it, his head several times taller than I was. He looked out towards the horizon and pointed an outstretched arm in that direction, indicating that I should do the same.
From the balcony, I could see a spire made of purple volcanic glass, carved as if it was made of two intertwining gargantuan rose vines, with a stained-glass roof that made it look like a rose in full bloom. The spire was surrounded by many twisting and shifting shadows, and I could perceive a near infinitude of superimposed potential pathways branching out from the spire and stretching out across the planes.
The Effulgent One reached out and plucked at one of the pathways running over us like it was a harp string, sending vibrations down along to the spire and then back out through the entire network. I saw the sky above the spire shatter like glass, revealing a floating maelstrom of festering black fluid that had congealed into a thousand wailing faces. It began to descend as if it meant to devour the spire, but as it did so the spire pulled in the web of pathways around it like a net. The storm writhed and screamed as it tried to escape, but the spire held the net tight as a swarm of creatures too small for me to identify congregated upon the storm and began to feed upon it. But the fluid the maelstrom was composed of seemed to be corrosive, and the net began to rot beneath its influence. It sagged and it strained, until finally giving way.
A chaotic battle ensued between the spire and the maelstrom, but it hardly seemed to matter. What both I and the Efflugent One noticed the most was that the pathways that had been bound to the spire were now severed and stained by the Black Bile, drifting away wherever the wind took them.
The Effulgent One caught one of them in his hand and tugged it downwards, staring at it pensively for a long moment.
“That… that didn’t actually just happen, did it?” I asked meekly. I waited patiently for the Effulgent One to respond, but he just kept staring at the severed thread. “But… it’s going to happen? Or, it could happen?”
A slow and solemn nod confirmed that what he had shown me had portended to a possible future.
“That’s why you marked me as your follower then, isn’t it?” I asked. “You needed someone, someone other than the Virklitchen, someone who’s already involved in this bullshit and can help stop it from deteriorating into whatever the hell you just showed me. If Erich had picked anyone else to go to Virklitch that night, or hadn’t asked me to stay for the festival, it wouldn’t have been me! It didn’t have to have been me!”
His head remained somberly hung, and I hadn’t really been expecting him to respond at all to my outburst.
“Elifey liked you,” he said in a metallic, fluid voice that sounded like it was resonating out of his chest rather than his face. “I would not have chosen you if she hadn’t.”
He twirled the thread in between his fingers before gently handing it down to me like it was a streamer on a balloon. I hesitantly accepted the gesture, wrapping as much of my hand around the spectral cord as I could. The instant I touched it, a radiant and spiralling rainbow shot down its length and arced across the sky. When it reached the chaotic battle on the horizon, it dispelled the maelstrom on contact, banishing it back into the nether and signalling in biblical fashion that the storm had passed. The other wayward pathways were cleansed of the Black Bile as well, and I watched in amazement as they slowly started to reweave themselves back into an interconnected web.
“But… what does this mean? What do I actually have to do to make this a reality?” I asked.
The Effulgent One reached out his hand and pinched the cord, choking off the rainbow and ending the vision he had shown me.
“A reality?” he asked as he held his palm out flat and adjacent to the balcony. “It’s already a reality. All you need to do is make it yours.”
It seemed to me that I wasn’t likely to get anything less cryptic than that out of him, so I accepted the lift down. He took me down the hill and set me down gently beside my car before setting off out of sight and beyond my ability to pursue him.
Even though my GPS wasn’t working, the moment I was sitting in the driver’s seat the autopilot kicked in and didn’t ask me to take control until I was back on a familiar road. I know that windmill isn’t just a short drive away, and I’ll never see it again unless the Effulgent One wants me to. I don’t think I can say I’m exactly happy with how that turned out, but I suppose I accomplished what I set out to achieve. I know what the Effulgent One wants of me now, and why he chose me specifically. If it had been all his decision I think I’d still be feeling kind of torn about it, but knowing that I’ve been roped into this because of Elifey makes it a lot easier to bear.
And… I did actually manage to catch a rainbow. I just needed a giant’s help to reach it.

Last week's post https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d6ng7c/roundup_ufos_kepler_aerospace_and/
Archive https://wayback-api.archive.org/web/20240602211034/https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d6ng7c/roundup_ufos_kepler_aerospace_and/
Moon phase waning crescent 🌘 , four days before new
Mars Right Ascension 1h 36m 28s
.1 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d6nqv1/there_were_3_of_these/ photos, daytime sky, threelights observed, photo shows twolights, moving fast, low over treeline, jefferson city Missouri, submission statement issues, , removed by mods
.2 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d6nr9p/1979_ufo_close_encounter_a_version_was_posted_in/ sighting description, single object multiple lights, approach, directly in front, Laval Québec Canada 🇨🇦 , audio description beeping sound, scanning, oval-shaped, very dark, small colored lights racing along its middle ridge., the sonar beeps had reached me, hitting the ground around me in a rapid circular motion. , emotion of fear, witness left the area, vanishing, missing time 2 hours, subsequent entities
.3 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1d6nyqn/balls_of_fire_in_mexico/ photo, daytime sky, fleet, on ridgeline, repeat visitors, Mexico 🇲🇽, “brujas bolas de fuego en Mexico”, following the witness, vanishing and reappearing, [GOODPOST]
.4 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d62ml5/what_is_this/ video, daytime sky, twolights observed, single object blackwhite possible metallic sphere, contemporaneous report, two witnesses, moving straight, at home, backyard, stationary overhead, trajectory change, right angle turn, departure, Utah
.5 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d53cim/uap_florida_53024/ video, daytime sky, contemporaneous report, single light object stationary, Satellite Beach Florida, near water Atlantic Ocean, above Patrick Space Force Base., USSF , similar sighting in comments
.6 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d6mkfc/possible_ufoarv_over_fort_collinsco_appx_1230_pm/ video, daytime cloudy sky, contemporaneous report, fort Collins Colorado, single light object, elongated, tictac, horizontal orientation, horizontal trajectory, disappeared into clouds, [GOODPOST], similar sightings in comments, two witnesses, appeared directly in front, possible reaction to being observed, right angle turn, departure, wtf_is_that, silent
.7 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d77rnx/the_cryptoterrestrial_hypothesis_a_case_fo new paper, ultraterrestrial
.8 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d6ur3sighting_in_joshua_tree_june_1_after_contact_in/ photos, nighttime sky, Joshua Tree National Park California, single light object, human initiated contact, moving and stationary and moving, going left, right, stopping, going left abruptly, zig-zagging or moving in circle., zigzag movements, loop
.9 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d7c7pn/all_the_relevant_uap_updates_from_may_27june_2/ information, state of disclosure USA https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d76s3u/disclosure_process_series_year_1/ different OP, overview of events
.10 ➡️ https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d7bs3t/with_all_the_ufo_stuff_in_the_news_i_need_to_get/ sighting description, urban area, Sydney Australia 🇦🇺, nighttime, single light object, orange 🟠, overhead, it looked to be the size of a room or helicopter. , emotion of fear, I felt this rush of anxiety, or panic., silent , moving toward water, pacific ocean, it seemed to have metallic / silver fins portruding from the top and the bottom, barely visible from its glowing orange center. , electronic effects phone battery died, similar sightings in comments, [GOODPOST]
.11 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d7cra5/orb_flashes_hello_and_goodbye_may_19th_2024/ video, at home, backyard, nighttime sky, single light object moving, flashing erratically, two witnesses, duration 3 minutes, Southern California, between San Diego and Los Angeles, multicolored, brightness change, flareup and dimming, blue 🔵 glow, vanishing and reappearing, powerlines , flew over the witness home , repeat visitor
.12 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d763bx/diamond_shaped_craft_with_blue_propulsion_et_o sighting description, at home, backyard, south Carolina, two witnesses, evening sky, single object multiple lights, blue 🔵 glow, diamond 💠 shaped, flew overhead, low over treeline, descending and ascending, speed change, The craft just swooped down from behind us to about tree top high then went back up as it went away from us. As it went forward and back up it increased speed., disappeared into clouds, cloaking, has anyone seen?, similar sighting in comments
.13 https://old.reddit.com/aliens/comments/1d7226c/ive_had_telepathic_communication_with_galactic/ experience description and photos, orb, fleet, single object blackwhite, emotion of love, telepathy, dream description, entities, physical effects goosebumps,
.14 https://old.reddit.com/ufo/comments/1d79z3z/berwick_upon_tweed/ photos, nighttime sky, single light object, angular, color change, berwick on tweed England the UK 🇬🇧, near water north sea, contemporaneous report, moving erratically observed, duration 3 hours
.15 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1d6txk6/lightning_flashes_a_new_brother_cries_live/ video, nighttime sky, storm, lightning, single light object, low below treeline
.16 ➡️ https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d7kxuz/in_light_of_jason_sands_scott_andrews_and_now/ childhood experience description, [GOODPOST], nighttime, at home, urban area, Annapolis Maryland, men in black response, event amnesia, facility off of Defense Highway that I ran away from as a kid., Northrup Grumman, I think I might have been used in some compartmentalized government program as a kid and all I can remember is running away from one of the facilities., similar experience in comments https://wayback-api.archive.org/web/20240604170928/https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d7kxuz/in_light_of_jason_sands_scott_andrews_and_now/ Archive
.17 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d7otwj/weird_story/ sighting description, at home, nighttime, single light object, reaction to being observed, sudden departure upward, I felt like it immediately saw me and shot straight up at a speed I can’t estimate because it was gone within a blink. , subsequent odor, I walk back outside again and there is a very strange clean smell, almost like an ozone type smell I used to get from an air purifier ., eastern Tennessee, similar sightings in comments, low over treeline, near oak ridge national laboratory, contemporaneous report
.18 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d842p9/going_through_my_old_sketchbooks/ drawing, single object multiple lights, red and yellow 🔴🟡, diamond 💎 shaped, threelights, triangle formation, disappeared behind ridgeline, duration 15-20 seconds , has anyone seen?, Central Kootenays British Columbia Canada 🇨🇦, similar sightings in comments
.19 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d7v2x2/what_is_the_orb_in_the_skynyc/ video, nighttime sky, single light object stationary, multicolored, low below rooftop, urban area, Manhattan NYC New York state, OP comments downvoted, big debunker energy
.20 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d7w0gd/new_zealand_sub_readers_did_you_see_that_pyramid/ sighting description, has anyone seen?, Wanganui new zealand 🇳🇿 , single dark object, pyramid shape, multicolored, all the edges lit up like a prism., over water Tasman Sea,
.21 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d841nq/sacramento_june_4_2024/ video, daytime sky, contemporaneous report, at work, duration 3-4 minutes, threelights, triangle formation, blackwhite, flashing, formation change, speed change, vanishing, similar sighting in comments, low over treeline, Sacramento California , observed rotating, looked shiny and spinning,
.22 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d7mshs/strange_lights_over_naperville_illinois_june_1st/ video, nighttime sky, single object multiple lights or fleet, flickering, threelights, formation change, low over treeline, anomalous to witness, Naperville Illinois, [GOODPOST], multicolored, flareup and dimming, lighting configuration change, stationary and moving, two witnesses
.23 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1d7yjci/weird_lights_in_the_sky_over_my_house/ photo, nighttime cloudy sky, fleet, stationary duration hours, all night, the UK 🇬🇧, similar sighting in comments, https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1d80bzg/weird_lights_in_the_sky_over_my_house_video/ video, lighting configuration change, flashing in pattern and steady, [GOODPOST]
.24 https://old.reddit.com/aliens/comments/1d788yv/every_few_months_i_keep_having_a_dream_seeing/ dream description, repeat visitor, contemporaneous report, at home, single dark object, splitting, ship then broke into pieces and did a spiral motion and then disappeared., I then wake up what looks to be a shape or at least the wall to ceiling was curved and extremely clean and silver white., similar experiences in comments
.25 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d86k5f/vectors_vs_pixels/ sighting and discussion of movement, it was there and then wasn’t. My brain/memory tried filling it in with it disappearing but not sure.
.26 https://old.reddit.com/Thetruthishere/comments/1d7jj3a/ghost_girl_in_my_house/ childhood sighting description, entity, humanoid, inside home , Venezuela 🇻🇪 , i saw her with a white dress passing by , mimicking sister, emotion of fear, witness left the area
.27 https://old.reddit.com/Glitch_in_the_Matrix/comments/1d7kkmu/house_disappears_in_time_slip/ experience description, building anomaly, disappeared, One day I passed it going to Landrum south Carolina,the other town, and then when I come back it wasn't there no more. , witness stopped the car and got out
.28 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1d7yb8m/weird_message_in_the_head/ experience description, meditation, communication, AS5, AS5, AS5 and AS are my initials and number 5 in astrology stands for curiosity, knowledge and adventure., storm, lightning, contemporaneous report, the UK 🇬🇧
.29 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1d7nzml/vivid_memory_of_alienlike_glitch_of_tv/ audio description, loud sound, appeared out of nowhere, at home, two witnesses, nighttime, strange noise came from the tv. It was a foreign noise, so not something a tv or channel would make. , similar to the slenderman jumpscare sound except less extreme and more alien like., analysis requested
.30 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1d7bpbd/please_help_me_understand/ experience description, at home, repeat visitor, footsteps, circling, nighttime, anomalous animal activity, loud bird, bird squawking all night long, seemingly as if it’s right outside the windows, all around the house. , I would hear what sounded like rocks clicking together, the sound would circle around my trailer and I would hear rustling noises like something was moving all around my trailer. , similar experience in comments, Galisteo new Mexico
.31 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1d7gtk4/possible_ufo_encounter_when_i_was_a_teen/ sighting description, Northwest Arkansas, nighttime, from car, two witnesses, single light object, flashing, blinking and spinning., rotating, low over treeline, brief duration 3-5 seconds, vanishing, witness stopped the car, previous sighting shadow figure, inside home , doorway
.32 https://old.reddit.com/aliens/comments/1d88kepeople_who_have_seen_entities_inside_were_they/ discussion of sightings, entities, inside building, [GOODPOST] if I do say so myself.
.33 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d8apn8/zero_doubt/ art 🎨, painting, "Zero Doubt"
.34 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d8b9bmajestic_giant_blue_orb_floats_across_the_sky_and/ video, nighttime sky, single light object, blue 🔵, Oceanside California, duration 2 minutes, flew overhead, trajectory change observed, right angle turn, similar sightings in comments, ISS? , repeat visitor https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d95ui2/4_orbs_one_flashes_when_i_asked_it_to_3_times_may/ more video, big debunker energy, two witnesses https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d9xb1j/stop_and_go_dancing_orb_may_21st_2024/ more video, single light object moving, multicolored
.35 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d8dykx/tampa_florida_9pm_est/ video and photos, nighttime sky, contemporaneous report, single light object moving fast, additional objects moving straight, urban area, Tampa Florida, similar sighting in comments
.36 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d8hdd6/congressgov_s4443_intelligence_authorization_act/ document, IAA2025 uap amendment advances out of committee
.37 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d8lmki/strange_lights_over_gosport_uk_5624/ video, nighttime cloudy sky, spotlights type, diffuse, downvoted to zero, OP comments downvoted, Gosport the UK 🇬🇧, contemporaneous report, low over rooftop,
.38 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d8vxzd/any_ideas_what_this_could_be/ photo, nighttime sky, near water Atlantic Ocean, Tybee Island Georgia, triangle 🔺️ observed, ascending, moving and stationary and moving, hovered over the houses about 2 minutes before silently leaving. , had three large lights on each edge of the shape with smaller lights in between. , threelights,
.39 https://old.reddit.com/Glitch_in_the_Matrix/comments/1d8pbg6/camo_military_bomber_disappears/ sighting description, airplane anomaly, vanishing, two witnesses, appeared to be a b52 completely come out of nowhere and had to have disappeared. It was headed straight for the dam at a very low altitude and no way having enough time to pull up before either hitting dam or a mountain. Made no noise, silent, near water
.40 https://old.reddit.com/StrangeEarth/comments/1d8jd1v/what_is_this_and_howwhy_did_it_get_into_a_picture/ photo, daytime cloudy sky, possible entity, camping, Looks like a wooden robot heating up lava?
.41 https://old.reddit.com/InterdimensionalNHI/comments/1d8bul6/i_wish_i_could_some_how_let_you_all_see_what_i/ experience description, repeat visitor, ongoing, Pupcake3000, physical effects vision change, static, whenever a UAP is going to appear I can see a distortion that has a shape against the background of what it mimics or appears out of. I can track it until a flash occurs and then in place of the distortion, a physical UAP craft will appear.
.42 https://old.reddit.com/UFOB/comments/1d87eyo/uap_while_walking_outside/ video, daytime sky, powerlines, single light object, low over treeline, plane for comparison, possible interaction with airplane, possibly circling plane, possible jumpy movement or vanishing and reappearing, flickering erratically, repeat visitor, Clear cloudless days are better, sunglasses help a lot., [GOODPOST]
.43 https://old.reddit.com/Thetruthishere/comments/1d7ulw4/i_met_the_devil_in_florence/ sighting description, entity, urban area, Florence Italy 🇮🇹, emotion of fear, As if he had been a predator forever, a danger since the beginning of time. His face is giving me goosebumps all over my back and behind my ears even now as I describe it almost ten years later.
.44 https://old.reddit.com/Thetruthishere/comments/1d91a7b/my_friend_and_i_saw_a_ufo/ sighting description, nighttime, two witnesses, Central Arkansas, single light object, low over treeline, stationary and moving, physical effects paralysis, silent, horizontal trajectory, wtf_is_that, possible military response jets
.45 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d9mygw/lights_in_phoenix/ video, nighttime sky, near fairgrounds, possible single object multiple lights, urban area, Phoenix Arizona, OP is not the witness , removed by mods
.46 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d9nkwt/las_vegas_060524/ photo, nighttime sky, single light object, elongated, horizontal orientation, tictac, urban area, Las Vegas Nevada, contemporaneous report, submission statement issues, , removed by mods
.47 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d8ym3d/strange_object_in_the_sky_recorded_on_night_vision/ video, nighttime cloudy sky, through night vision camera, single light object, elongated, angled from the horizon, moving, disappeared into clouds, contemporaneous report, fishing, near water, creek, not seen by eye, possible cloaked craft, a blurry section of sky moving through the clouds., Montana
.48 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d9o965/someone_answe video, nighttime cloudy sky, hard to see, cylindrical shape observed, moving fast, submission statement issues , removed by mods
.49 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d97vta/im_reposting_with_an_edit_since_i_cant_edit_posts/ video, daytime cloudy sky, single light object moving fast, blackwhite, possible interaction with clouds, elongated, possible disk shape, downvoted to zero, OP comments downvoted, big debunker energy , Connecticut, video analysis requested , possible ARV
.50 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d92ktp/saw_last_night_in_the_sky/ drawing and reference image, single object multiple lights, multicolored, contemporaneous report, nighttime, central Missouri, stationary, from car, possible reaction to being observed, witness looked away and looked back, vanished,
.51 https://old.reddit.com/RBI/comments/1d961ax/who_showed_up_to_my_home/ experience description, men in black response, at home, One day my uncle went out on a hike in the woods, when he came back he claimed to have seen a UFO flying above a river, A few days later I heard a knock at the door., I answered the door and saw 2 men wearing black suits, they asked me if uncle was there, they referred to him by his full name., 2 men showed up to his work and offered him money to retract his statements on the radio
.52 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d9oitw/object_moves_right_to_left_large_cloud/ video, daytime cloudy sky, single light object moving fast, contemporaneous report, urban area, Chicago Illinois, lighting configuration change, dark to light, flashing erratically, duration 10-15 seconds , downvoted to zero , polarized sunglasses., blackwhite, horizontal trajectory, silent , deleted
.53 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d9t4uy/sighting_in_sacramento_ca_65_930pm/ video, nighttime sky, contemporaneous report, Sacramento California, urban area, powerlines, low over rooftop, two witnesses, single light object, twolights or plane for comparison, interaction with airplane, pacing plane,.moving and stationary and moving, speed change, while flying off it was making erratic movements, almost like it was swirling while flying, and was slowing its speed down periodically. , duration 5-10 minutes,
.54 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d9vnrassistance_in_narrowing_down_what_i_saw_i_the_sky/ sighting description, nighttime, contemporaneous report, twolights, single light object flareup and vanishing, moving in opposite directions, overhead, silent, duration 1 minute, near the Missouri-Arkansas border
.55 ➡️ https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1dabdoy/sketches_from_my_experience/ experience description and drawings, [GOODPOST], at home, nighttime, fleet, line formation, moving, outside bedroom window, electronic effects lights wouldn't turn on, physical effects vibration, Then everything started vibrating and everything began glowing a bright golden light., location anomaly, found myself immediately back on my bed., audio description humming sound, approach, started to get louder and louder., communication, “Be Warned”, my guess is the warning was to brace myself, sudden departure, missing time 8 hours, northwest USA, https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1dbgoxq/sketches_of_my_experience_pt_2/ more drawings
.56 https://old.reddit.com/aliens/comments/1daa5mmy_experience_at_11yo/ childhood experience description, no craft, at home, inside bedroom, daytime, felt observed, physical effects paralysis, I got the sense of aliens in the room watching me, and I got frozen there., similar experience in comments, Patagonia Argentina 🇦🇷
.57 https://old.reddit.com/ufo/comments/1dah6e9/i_uploaded_video_on_some_red_orangish_orbs_if/ video, nighttime sky, greeley Colorado, https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1dbbz46/ufo_sighting_here_in_greeley_colorado_last_yea reposted
.58 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1dalmhq/objects_objects_like_moving_stars_that_disappea sighting description, moving stars, repeat visitors, nighttime, near water, pool, zigzag movements
.59 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1dan7ed/do_you_see_it_what_is_it_see_body_text_location/ video, nighttime sky, urban area, Czech Republic 🇨🇿 , single light object stationary and moving, possible reaction to being flashed with light, vanishing, After it disappears the lights do something like a quick search , contemporaneous report , deleted
.60 https://old.reddit.com/observingtheanomaly/comments/1dafi3v/possible_ufo/ sighting, two witnesses, electronic effects camera jammed, Michigan not far from lake Michigan. , near water
.61 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1dansg2/took_this_tonight_i_have_a_video/ photo, contemporaneous report, single light object, elongated, tictac, horizontal orientation, wishaw Scotland the UK 🇬🇧 , removed by mods https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1dao5hl/video_of_object_over_central_scotland/ video, powerlines, low over rooftop, disappeared behind rooftops , removed by mods
.62 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1dalyhm/after_seeing_that_one_guys_sketches_i_thought_i/ drawing, experience, traveled to a burning golden world. Walking around the place was like standing on the surface of the sun without being harmed.
.63 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1daswk0/i_was_in_a_strange_gifted_program_in_the_early/ childhood experience description, no craft, Gifted program, space lab, rural south Georgia, early 1980s, similar experiences in comments, event amnesia, telepathy
.64 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1dav8fq/so_what_am_i_seeing_here/ video, nighttime sky, plane and star or twolights, multicolored, flashing, possible jumpy movement
.65 https://old.reddit.com/aliens/comments/1daqpxd/saw_this_weird_white_thing_in_pacoima_ca_today/ photo, daytime sky, single object multiple lights, worm 🪱, contemporaneous report, pacoima California, at work, stationary, duration 3 minutes, stationary and moving, descending below rooftop,
.66 https://old.reddit.com/ufo/comments/1db018u/%D0%BA%D1%82%D0%BE_%D0%BF%D0%BE%D0%B4%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%B6%D0%B5%D1%82_%D1%87%D1%82%D0%BE_%D1%8D%D1%82%D0%BE/ photos, daytime cloudy sky, single dim object, elongated, angled from the horizon , low over treeline
.67 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1db54c7/interesting_sighting/ sighting description, daytime sky, contemporaneous report, at home, backyard, plane for comparison observed, single light object stationary, overhead, duration 1 minute, vanishing , removed by mods
.68 https://old.reddit.com/ufo/comments/1db23kd/what_was_that/ photos and video, single light object, observed stationary and moving, at home, very bright, low below rooftop, Almaty Kazakhstan 🇰🇿
.69 https://old.reddit.com/ufo/comments/1dayon4/this_was_about_200_feet_in_front_of_me_and_about/ photo, nighttime sky, single light object, elongated, observed moving slowly, vanishing, Yerington Nevada,
.70 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1db9n78/ufo_just_filmed_this_in_my_garden/ video, daytime sky, contemporaneous report, single dark object moving erratically, wobbling, shape change observed, the actual shape of it was quite inconsistent too, moving almost like it was not a solid object. , Derbyshire the UK 🇬🇧, at home , removed by mods
.71 https://old.reddit.com/Glitch_in_the_Matrix/comments/1d7aexj/i_saw_a_house_in_the_woods_once_and_then_neve experience description, possible landed craft, mimicking house, entities, scientists, Midwest USA, [GOODPOST]
.72 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1dbdwah/5pm_672024_over_bradenton_fl/ video, daytime sky, contemporaneous report, Bradenton Florida, two witnesses, over water, single light object, blackwhite, elongated, barbell, twolights close formation, zigzag movement observed, It was extremely shiny with no wings and it moved back and forth several times in an odd fashion.
.73 https://old.reddit.com/aliens/comments/1dbawxz/my_nhi_visitation_experience/ childhood experience description, at home, nighttime, witness woke up, entities, light shining in bedroom, angel, It was massive and seemed like it was coming from another dimension because it would not have fit in the space in front of my bed., emotion of calm, communication, telepathy, physical effects vibration, the vibrations were so loud and strong when it first spoke that I said ouch and kind of put my hands on my head in response to the intensity. It lowered the vibrations and asked me “is this better.” I responded yes., event amnesia, I can't remember that important thing it said to me where I told it I understood.
.74 https://old.reddit.com/StrangeEarth/comments/1dbfizd/ufo_sighting_darwin/ video, nighttime sky, single light object, orange 🟠, horizontal trajectory, low below treeline, Darwin northern territory Australia 🇦🇺 , near water, Timor sea
.75 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1dbey4c/flashing_object_over_seattle/ video, daytime sky, urban area, Seattle Washington state, over water, Puget Sound, single light object, flickering, flashing erratically, low over rooftop,
.76 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1dbfmrh/video_taken_back_in_the_middle_of_march_of_this/ video, nighttime sky, single light object, Bradenton Florida, two witnesses, twolights observed, moving and stationary, approach, directly in front, repeat visitor
.77 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1dbfs08/the_hanford_atom_factory_ghost_planes_and/ document, history, Hanford Atom Factory Washington state, multiple objects, repeat visitors, ghost planes, military response
.78 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1dbah9h/ok_second_try_to_post_thiszoomed_video_of_my/ video, daytime sky, contemporaneous report, two witnesses, plane for comparison, downvoted to zero, Sofia Bulgaria 🇧🇬 , duration 1 minute, appearing and vanishing, single light object
.79 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1dban4e/ufo_serbia/ photo, nighttime sky, contemporaneous report, single light object, green 🟢, moving erratically, speed change, trajectory change, all different directions, low over rooftop, Serbia 🇷🇸, single light object, worm 🪱 or M-shaped, duration 10 minutes , downvoted to zero
.80 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1dbtwu5/did_anyone_else_go_to_the_connecticut_cryptid_and/ photos of public event, Trumbull Connecticut, ufo convention
.81 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1db4yjm/some_sort_of_craft_flying_around_our_house_fo sighting description, contemporaneous report, at home, nighttime, single object multiple lights, outside bedroom window, 5 bright red lights on top and 5 blue lights on bottom 🔴🔵, horizontal trajectory, trajectory change, it started spinning, and things got weird., rectangular shape or cylinder, silent, moving erratically, diving, spinning, zig-zagging, hovering, and moved more like a bird having fun or eating bugs than anything else. , angled from the horizon, zigzag movements, stationary and moving, five witnesses, duration 35 minutes, near airport, Bailey Colorado, interaction with airplane, approach, at one point it looked like it was going to intersect with a plane heading to Centennial. They were very, very close, and the object darted higher into the sky quickly just before the plane passed., similar sighting in comments , [GOODPOST], downvoted to zero
.82 https://old.reddit.com/ufo/comments/1dbr1gx/farwell_to_hends/ drawing, art 🎨, entities, 2 species in cenos proxima centauri b.
.83 https://old.reddit.com/ufo/comments/1dbo5e8/sighting/ sighting description, has anyone seen?, from airplane, single light object, ascending and descending, vanishing and reappearing, over water pacific ocean, California
.84 https://old.reddit.com/ufo/comments/1dbud2w/invisible_silent_and_hyper_fast/ photo, possible cloaked craft, contrail, horizontal trajectory, moving fast, emitting orbs,
.85 https://old.reddit.com/ufo/comments/1db409e/how_do_you_think_it_works/ art 🎨, drawing, machinery
.86 https://old.reddit.com/aliens/comments/1dbwomneed_help_identifying_a_conversation_i_listened/ dream description, repeat visitor, urban area, being in a city that's "suspended" in the sky. These cities are connected to each other and you travel to them on vessels that are also suspended., emotion of fear, I remember the traveling parts of the dream the strongest because my fear was really strong and it allowed me to experience the dream more clearly. entity, has anyone seen?
.87 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1dbfy3z/garry_nolan_aaro_has_discredited_itself_beyond/l7sht44/ sighting description, historical event, Trumbull county Ohio, 1994 Trumbull County UFO Incident dozens of civilian witnesses and 3 different police agencies had around 6 or more police officers see it close up less then a few hundred feet above him and it shut down his patrol car and radio and lit up the area he was standing like it was 12pm not 12 am during the incident as reported., the entire craft is coated in some kind of thick rock/asteroid material that provides protection from radiation when traveling through out the solar system it also is extremely heat resistant. They also have 3 smaller craft that form a triangle around the craft using electromagnetic fields and a propulsion system and charged particles that defy gravity
.88 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1dby11b/friendly_reminder_destroying_or_falsifying/ information, This is a friendly reminder that the act of destroying or falsifying records in advance of a GAO audit, even if legislation mandating the audit has not yet been fully ratified by Congress, is considered obstruction and will result in severe legal penalties., AARO, IAA2025
.89 https://www.reddit.com/UFOB/comments/1dbsf7v/spotted_in_the_air_over_southern_coast_of_japan/ video, nighttime sky, single light object moving, multicolored, south of Japan 🇯🇵, to the west of Hiroshima, right on the coast., near water, in the centre, there looked to be a black triangle 🔺️, dimming, vanishing, repeat visitor, similar sighting in comments
.90 https://old.reddit.com/Thetruthishere/comments/1dbq8yw/gilman_springs_is_an_extremely_creepy_and_haunted/ sighting description, entity, inside car, Gilman Springs California
.91 https://old.reddit.com/astrophotography/comments/1dblfhb/what_are_the_green_dots/ photo, nighttime sky, twolights, not seen by eye, 10 minute long exposure, overhead
.92 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1dbjool/ufo_sees_me_using_my_camera_and_disappears/ video, nighttime sky, at home, two witnesses, single light object stationary and moving, duration 3-4 minutes, reaction to being filmed, disappeared behind treeline
.93 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1dc15zp/shadow_on_cloud_o video, daytime cloudy sky, cloud anomaly, stationary
.94 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1dc34h3/ufo_spotted_during_drag_race_bakersfield_ca/ video, daytime cloudy sky, single object blackwhite, possible disk shape with dome, horizontal orientation, moving fast, from car, racecar, Bakersfield California
.95 https://www.reddit.com/StrangeEarth/comments/1dc3ebp/what_is_this_in_middle_of_video_several_lights/ video, nighttime cloudy sky, low over ridgeline, single light object, elongated, diffuse, vertical orientation, appeared out of nowhere, flashing, vanishing, repeat visitor
.96 https://old.reddit.com/ufo/comments/1dc0l6a/saw_something_on_a_recent_flight_what_was_it/ sighting description, from airplane, urban area, NYC New York state, metallic cylinder with acorn 🌰 shaped head, moving fast
.97 https://old.reddit.com/AnomalousEvidence/comments/1dbzpbq/anyone_seen_this_entity/ childhood sighting description and drawing, entity, has anyone seen?, at home, nighttime, inside bedroom doorway, physical effects paralysis, approach, pain, event amnesia.

Recently my orders for the pilgrim and dusk came in and I’d thought I’d give me thoughts. Fair warning I really only came into hobby a year and a half or so ago so I’m not the best with specific terminology but I’m going to do my best.
The Pilgrim
The pilgrim came first so it only felt right to start there. My main driver up to that point was the truth ear zero red. I was pretty happy with it but I thought I’d try the upper tier items to see how they compare. I was hesitant cause of the price point but I’d figured if the jump to to 300$+ IEM’s is anything like the jump from shitty earbuds to 20$ IEM’s it’d blow my mind and be worth it. And my first impression with the pilgrim was…I wouldn’t say disappointment but it wasn’t the leap I expected. It definitely sounded better especially with the details but it wasnt a giant leap. I can also say I felt the bass was somewhat lacking (more in quantity than quality) though I just used the impedance adapter that came with the zero red and that made it much better (for the purpose of this comparison though I’m using the pilgrim without this adapter as it doesn’t come with the IEM and didn’t use it for direct testing between them). Even without it though I would say the pilgrims are a good set, they’re just a tad too bright even if those upper notes sound good.
Unfortunately, while I do think the pilgrim is largely a good set, I somewhat mainly have negatives to say. My primary complaint is I really find them uncomfortable. I know the zero reds are a set that sorta infamously have the asterisk of not being for everyone due to comfort reasons but I could wear the reds all day without problems but the pilgrims got to be almost a pain pretty quickly. It’s less about the in ear and more the combination of the hard metal casing, the cables being more at an awakened angle rather than a curve at the front of the ear, and the weight of the IEM’s + cable pulling at the ear causing the front of the ear especially to not feel comfortable. At one point when listening to Sometimes I Moght be Introvert by Little Simz I was considering switching back to the reds because while not as good I felt they could be more relaxing.
Dusk
While I wasn’t super impressed with the pilgrim, I have to say I’m loving the dusk. The cable (at least the analog one) isn’t exactly the most premium but it’s comfortable and doesn’t get tangled easily which is really all I need, they go into the ear easily without the casing or nossle causing any difficulty, etc. I noticed the pins are a really tight fit which at first kinda felt like a hassle but considering how many times I’ve had the experience of an IEM coming loose after taking it on and off the cable I’d take a more secure fit over the extra few seconds of having to securely life it on and off, though considering one of the selling points for this IEM is the multiple cables it comes with it only felt right to mention that the process of switching isn’t exactly smooth.
On that note to talk about the dsp I think both sound good but yeah i preferred the dsp, one of the tracks when comparing dsp with analog was gone angels by mili where both were pleasant but for the dsp it just felt so smooth and like i could get lost in it. One of my concerns with dsp was i remember hearing Timmy from gizaudio say female vocals were a little recessed but after comparing with a few tracks by mili, beach house, Flo mili, and laufey, I can say while I do notice a difference I wouldn’t say they’re too recessed or even necessarily worse than analog. Unfortunately i do have an iPhone and in the words of Crin “If you’re on iOS, go fuck yourself” so yeah I’ve mostly been using the analog because of that and all direct comparisons between the pilgrim and dusk were done with analog because I didn’t feel like switching to the dsp cable and using my laptop. Kind of a bummer but I did find myself satisfied enough with the analog
As for the general sound everything just feels like it has volume to it but in a way which isn’t overwhelming or fatiguing. The sound stage is the thing I really noticed first, it feels a lot wider which combined with it not being as bright as the pilgrim helps it to feel less fatiguing and more ‘immersive’ in a sense. It’s strange because there are things that in a technical sense sense I think the pilgrim does “better” but even in songs which would benefit from those things I’d say dusk is better for me because it feels like more of a full package where no element is lacking. Like I’d say the pilgrim can be better for strings but to use the example of two of the songs I’d tested with, The Hustle by kiltro and Turkish Rondo by the Boccherini Guitar Quintet which have great strings to them, I’d say the dusk is better cause with the pilgrim I’d had the volume lower then I would’ve liked because the high sections felt a bit too much whereas with the dusk it felt like everything was balanced well and gave a full band like experience.
I think “experience” is the right word for how I would describe the difference. Both have their unique sounds but at the end of the day I’d say the pilgrim sounds good but the dusk sounds and feels good (both in a sense of the feeling of them physical IEM itself and the sound). The pilgrim is a set I could be happy with and get used to but whereas it was one I almost didn’t want to sit down for a full album with, with the dusk I just want to listen to as much as possible. It’s not outright better in every way but to me is a much better all rounder and conducive to what I want in my music listening experience. I’d even say aside from music its sound is something I find myself more comfortable with doing something like watching YouTube for an extended period of time.
In short, pilgrim is good but especially considering the price point if it was between this and the reds I already had, they’re better but I would return them as I don’t necessarily find them to be worth it. The dusk though, as much as I’m somewhat trying to talk myself out of spending $400 on iems when I already have a good pair, I’m likely going to keep them (and maybe look into a good lightning to usb-c adapter to use the dsp on my phone, if anyone knows of a good one especially one which also has a port for charging let me know)
Hopefully that made sense and could be helpful for anyone looking for comparisons between the two, I do have the super mix 4 coming next week and am planning to give my comparison/thoughts on those when they arrive. I’m honestly hoping I like them more than the dusk as I’ve heard some say they do because I’d be a lot more comfortable spending $150 then $400 for an upgrade.

When you were a kid, and you saw a rainbow, did you ever want to try to get to the end of it? I bet you did. I did, anyway. It wasn’t the mythical pot of gold that tempted me. Wealth was too abstract of a concept at that age to dream about, and leprechauns were creepy little bastards. I just wanted to see what the rainbow looked like up close, and maybe even try to climb it.
Of course, you can’t get to the end of a rainbow because not only is there no end, but there isn’t even really a rainbow. It’s an illusion caused by the sunlight passing through raindrops at the right angle. If you did try to chase a rainbow down, it would move with you until it faded away. That’s why chasing rainbows is a pretty good metaphor for pursuing a beautiful illusion that can never manifest as anything concrete.
I bring all this up because I think it was that same type of urge that compelled me to chase down the Effulgent One. It’s not a perfect analogy, however, considering that I did actually catch up to the eldritch bastard.
I first saw the Effulgent One a little over two years ago. My employer – who happens to be an occultist mad scientist by the name of Erich Thorne – had tasked me with returning a young girl named Elifey to her village on the northern edges of the county. The people of Virklitch Village are very nice, but they’re also an insular, Luddite cult who worship a colossal spectral entity they call the Effulgent One. I saw this Titan during my first visit to Virklitch, and more importantly, he saw me. He left a streak of black in my soul, marking me as one of his followers. I can feel him now, when he walks in our world. Sometimes, if I look towards the horizon after sundown, I can even see him.
This entity, and my connection to him, is understandably something my employer has taken an interest in. I’ve been to Virklitch many times since my first visit, and I’ve successfully collected a good deal of vital information about the Effulgent One. The Virklitchen are the only ones who know how to summon him, and coercing them into doing so would only earn us his wrath. He’s sworn to protect them, though I haven’t the slightest idea of what motivates him to do so.
Even though I can see him, I usually try not to look, to pretend he’s not there. The Virklitchen have warned me never to chase after him. Before Virklitch was founded, the First Nations people who lived in this region were aware of the Effulgent One, though they called him the Sky Strider. Any of them that went chasing after him either failed, went mad, or were never seen again.
I was out driving after sunset, during astronomical twilight when the trees are just black silhouettes against a burnt orange horizon, when I sensed the presence of the Effulgent One. He was to the east, towering along the darkening skyline, idling amidst the fields of cyclopean wind turbines. I could see their flashing red lights in the periphery of my vision, and I knew that one of those lights was him. I tried to fight the urge to look, but fear began to gnaw at me. What if he was heading towards me right now? What if I was in danger and needed to run?
Risking a single sideways glance, I spotted his gangly form standing listlessly between the wind turbines, his long arms gently swaying as his glowing red face bobbed to and fro.
I exhaled a sigh of relief, now that I knew he wasn’t chasing me. That relief didn’t even last a moment before it was transformed into a dangerous realization. He wasn’t just not chasing me; he wasn’t moving at all. He was still. This was rare, and it presented me with a rare opportunity. I could approach him. I could speak with him.
This wasn’t a good idea, and I knew it. The Effulgent One interacted with his followers on his terms. If I annoyed him, he could squash me like a bug. Or worse. Much worse. But he had marked me as his follower and I wanted to know why. If there was any chance I could get him to answer me, I was going to take it.
“Hey Lumi,” I said to the proprietary AI assistant in my company car. “Play the cover of I’m Always Chasing Rainbows from the Hazbin Hotel pilot.”
With the mood appropriately set, I veered east the first chance I got.
Almost immediately, I noticed that the highway seemed eerily abandoned. Even if anyone else had been capable of perceiving the Effulgent One, there was no one around to see him. I got this creeping sense that the closer I drew to him, I was actually shifting more and more out of my world and more and more into his. The wind picked up and dark clouds blew in, snuffing out the fading twilight and plunging everything into an overcast night.
The Effulgent One didn’t seem to notice me as I drew closer. He was as tall as the wind turbines he stood beside, his gaunt body plated in dull iridescent scales infected with trailing fungus. The head on his lanky neck was completely hollow and filled with a glowing red light that dimly bounced off his scales.
Seeing him standing still was a lot more surreal than seeing him when he was active. As impossibly large as he is, when he’s moving it just naturally triggers your fight or flight response and you don’t really have time to take it all in. But when he’s just standing there, and you can look at him and question what you’re seeing, it just hits differently.
It wasn’t until I started slowing down that he finally turned his head in my direction, briefly engulfing me in a blinding red light. When it passed, I saw that the Effulgent One had turned away from me and I was striding down the highway. Even though his gait was casual, his stride was so long that he was still moving as quickly as any vehicle.
Reasoning that if he didn’t want me to follow him he wouldn’t be walking along the road, I slammed my foot down on the accelerator pedal and sped after him.
That’s when things started to get weird.
You know how when you’re driving at night through the country, you can’t see anything beyond your own headlights? With no visual landmarks to go by, it’s easy to get disoriented. All you have to go by is the signs, and I wasn’t paying any attention to those. All my focus was on the Effulgent One, so much so that if someone had jumped out in front of me I probably would have killed them.
I turned down at least one sideroad in my pursuit of the Effulgent One. Maybe two or three. I’m really not sure. All I know for sure is that I was so desperate not to lose him that I had become completely lost myself.
He never looked back to see if I was still following, or gave any indication that he knew or cared if I was still there. He just made his way along the backroads, his bloodred searchlight sweeping back and forth all the while, as if he was desperately seeking something of grave importance. Finally, he abandoned the road altogether and began to climb a gently rolling hill with a solitary wind turbine on top of it. I gently slowed my car to a stop and watched to see what he would do.
I had barely been keeping up with him on the roadways, so I knew I’d never catch him going off-road. If he didn’t stop at the wind turbine, then that would be the end of my little misadventure. As I watched the Effulgent One climb up the hill and cast his light upon it, I saw that the structure at the summit wasn’t a wind turbine at all, but a windmill.
It was a mammoth windmill, the size of a wind turbine, made from enormous blocks of rugged black stone. It was as impossible as the Effulgent One himself. No stone structure other than a pyramid or ziggurat could possibly be that big, and the windmill barely tapered at all towards the top. Its blades were made from a ragged black cloth that reminded me of pirate sails, and near the top I could see a light coming from a single balcony.
When the Effulgent One reached the hill’s summit, he not only came to a stop but turned back around to face me, his light illuminating the entire hillside. Whether or not it was his intention to make it easier for me to follow him up the hill, it was nonetheless the effect, so I decided not to squander it.
Grabbing the thousand-lumen flashlight from my emergency kit, I left my car on the side of the road and began the short but challenging trek up the hill.
I honestly had no idea where I was at that point. Nothing looked familiar, and the overgrown grass seemed so alien in the red light. The way it moved in the wind was so fluid it looked more like seaweed than grass. The clouds overhead seemed equally otherworldly, moving not only unusually fast but in strange patterns that didn’t seem purely meteorological in nature.
With the Effulgent One’s light aimed directly at me, there was no doubt in my mind that he had seen me, but he still gave no indication that he cared. The closer I drew to him, the more I was confronted by his unfathomable scale. I really was an insect compared to him, and it seemed inconceivable that he would make any distinction between anthropods and arthropods. He could strike me down as effortlessly and carelessly as any other bothersome bug. I approached cautiously, watching intently for any sign of hostility from him, but he remained completely and utterly unmoved.
The closer I got to him, the harder I found it to press on. From a distance, the Effulgent One is surreal enough that he doesn’t completely shatter your sense of reality, but that’s a luxury that goes down the toilet when he’s only a few strides or less from stomping you into the ground. His emaciated form wasn’t merely skeletal, but elongated; his limbs, digits, and neck all stretched out to disquieting proportions. His dull scales now seemed to be a shimmering indigo, and the fungal growths between them pulsed rhythmically with some kind of life. Whether it was with his or theirs, I cannot say. There were no ears on his round head. No features at all aside from the frontwards-facing cavity that held the searing red light.
As I slowly and timidly approached the windmill, he remained by its side, peering out across the horizon. I turned to see what he was looking at, but saw nothing. I immediately turned back to him and craned my neck skywards, marvelling at him in dumbstruck awe. I’d chased him down so that I could demand why he had marked me as one of his followers, but now that I had succeeded, I was horrified by how suicidally naïve that plan now felt.
Many an internet atheist has pontificated about how if there were a God and if they ever met Him, they would remain every bit as irreverent and defiant and hold Him to account the same as any tyrant. But when faced with a being of unfathomable cosmic power, I don’t think there truly is anyone who wouldn’t lose their nerve.
So I just stood there, gaping up at the Effulgent One like a moron, with no idea of what to do next.
Fortunately for me, it was then that the Effulgent One finally acknowledged my presence.
Slowly, he turned his face downwards and cast his spotlight upon me, holding it there for a few long seconds before turning it to the door at the base of the windmill. I glanced up at the balcony above, and saw that it aligned almost perfectly with his head.
Evidently, he wanted to meet me face to face.
Nodding obediently, I raced to the heavy wooden door and pushed it open with all my might. The inside was dark, and I couldn’t see very well after standing right in the Effulgent One’s light, but I could hear the sounds of metal gears slowly grinding and clanking away. When I turned on my flashlight, the first thing I was able to make out was the enormous millstone. It moved slowly and steadily, squelching and squishing so that even in the poor light I knew that it wasn’t grain that was being milled.
The next thing I saw was a flight of rickety wooden stairs that snaked up all along the interior of the windmill. Each step creaked and groaned beneath my weight as I climbed them, but I nonetheless ascended them with reckless abandon. If a single one of them had given out beneath me, I could have fallen to my death, and the staircase shook back and forth so much that sometimes it felt as if it was intentionally trying to throw me off.
When I reached the top floor, I saw that the windshaft was encased in a crystalline sphere etched with leylines and strange symbols, and inside of it was some kind of complex clockwork apparatus that was powered by the spinning of the shaft. Though I was briefly curious as to the device’s purpose, it wasn’t what I had come up there for.
Turning myself towards the only door, I ran through and out onto the upper balcony. The Effulgent One was still standing just beside it, his head several times taller than I was. He looked out towards the horizon and pointed an outstretched arm in that direction, indicating that I should do the same.
From the balcony, I could see a spire made of purple volcanic glass, carved as if it was made of two intertwining gargantuan rose vines, with a stained-glass roof that made it look like a rose in full bloom. The spire was surrounded by many twisting and shifting shadows, and I could perceive a near infinitude of superimposed potential pathways branching out from the spire and stretching out across the planes.
The Effulgent One reached out and plucked at one of the pathways running over us like it was a harp string, sending vibrations down along to the spire and then back out through the entire network. I saw the sky above the spire shatter like glass, revealing a floating maelstrom of festering black fluid that had congealed into a thousand wailing faces. It began to descend as if it meant to devour the spire, but as it did so the spire pulled in the web of pathways around it like a net. The storm writhed and screamed as it tried to escape, but the spire held the net tight as a swarm of creatures too small for me to identify congregated upon the storm and began to feed upon it. But the fluid the maelstrom was composed of seemed to be corrosive, and the net began to rot beneath its influence. It sagged and it strained, until finally giving way.
A chaotic battle ensued between the spire and the maelstrom, but it hardly seemed to matter. What both I and the Efflugent One noticed the most was that the pathways that had been bound to the spire were now severed and stained by the Black Bile, drifting away wherever the wind took them.
The Effulgent One caught one of them in his hand and tugged it downwards, staring at it pensively for a long moment.
“That… that didn’t actually just happen, did it?” I asked meekly. I waited patiently for the Effulgent One to respond, but he just kept staring at the severed thread. “But… it’s going to happen? Or, it could happen?”
A slow and solemn nod confirmed that what he had shown me had portended to a possible future.
“That’s why you marked me as your follower then, isn’t it?” I asked. “You needed someone, someone other than the Virklitchen, someone who’s already involved in this bullshit and can help stop it from deteriorating into whatever the hell you just showed me. If Erich had picked anyone else to go to Virklitch that night, or hadn’t asked me to stay for the festival, it wouldn’t have been me! It didn’t have to have been me!”
His head remained somberly hung, and I hadn’t really been expecting him to respond at all to my outburst.
“Elifey liked you,” he said in a metallic, fluid voice that sounded like it was resonating out of his chest rather than his face. “I would not have chosen you if she hadn’t.”
He twirled the thread in between his fingers before gently handing it down to me like it was a streamer on a balloon. I hesitantly accepted the gesture, wrapping as much of my hand around the spectral cord as I could. The instant I touched it, a radiant and spiralling rainbow shot down its length and arced across the sky. When it reached the chaotic battle on the horizon, it dispelled the maelstrom on contact, banishing it back into the nether and signalling in biblical fashion that the storm had passed. The other wayward pathways were cleansed of the Black Bile as well, and I watched in amazement as they slowly started to reweave themselves back into an interconnected web.
“But… what does this mean? What do I actually have to do to make this a reality?” I asked.
The Effulgent One reached out his hand and pinched the cord, choking off the rainbow and ending the vision he had shown me.
“A reality?” he asked as he held his palm out flat and adjacent to the balcony. “It’s already a reality. All you need to do is make it yours.”
It seemed to me that I wasn’t likely to get anything less cryptic than that out of him, so I accepted the lift down. He took me down the hill and set me down gently beside my car before setting off out of sight and beyond my ability to pursue him.
Even though my GPS wasn’t working, the moment I was sitting in the driver’s seat the autopilot kicked in and didn’t ask me to take control until I was back on a familiar road. I know that windmill isn’t just a short drive away, and I’ll never see it again unless the Effulgent One wants me to. I don’t think I can say I’m exactly happy with how that turned out, but I suppose I accomplished what I set out to achieve. I know what the Effulgent One wants of me now, and why he chose me specifically. If it had been all his decision I think I’d still be feeling kind of torn about it, but knowing that I’ve been roped into this because of Elifey makes it a lot easier to bear.
And… I did actually manage to catch a rainbow. I just needed a giant’s help to reach it.

The top of my head has been tingling since Monday, it mostly goes away when I lie flat or press on it
21F white 105lbs 162cm Canada
Medications: 150mg Sunosi, 10mg Dexedrine, 12.5mg x2 Metoprolol, 9mg Entocort, Dienogest, Restasis eye drops
Supplements (Prescribed): 1g Carnitine, 100mg CoQ10, I usually drink a Liquid IV or Normalyte every day as well
Diagnoses: POTS, hEDS, collagenous colitis, suspected mitochondrial/metabolic disorder (working w geneticist), hypersomnolence (don’t qualify for a more specific sleep disorder dx at this point)
Duration: 7 days
June 7: This randomly started on Monday with the feeling that I was wearing a hat or my hair was standing up, kind of like when you take out a tight ponytail except not sore to the touch at all. Since then it’s been tingling constantly, not as intense as pins and needles when your leg falls asleep but definitely tingly. It’s not painful, just really uncomfortable and annoying and distracting enough that it is hard to focus on talking or reading. It’s a circle right on top of my head, I’ll put a drawing in the comments. It almost disappears - enough for me to forget about it temporarily- if I press on the area with my hands or wear a headband or over ear headphones, but feels a bit worse after I eventually take those off. Same for lying down completely flat, it’s way more noticeable when I am sitting up or standing. There is a little bit of a pressure feeling with the circle but it doesn’t feel like a headache at all, or like tight muscles. It feels worse now than it did earlier in the week, but not a lot worse.
Update June 9: it feels a little more headache-y now in a small area within the circle, but it’s still mostly just the tingling.
I’ve tried ice, heat, massaging it, washing my hair a ton, wearing a hat and then taking it off, Tylenol, getting extra sleep. Ice helps a little, but it feels worse as soon as the ice is off.
My blood pressure and heart rate have been the same as usual.
Any ideas? 😬

~First~
For Newest England
The Command Centre is dark, full of foreboding shapes that remind her of days...
She’s snapped out of that bit of introspection as Philip finds the light switch and the room goes from almost haunting to merely empty and quiet.
“Do you think any of your old codes will work on this? Or am I going to brush up on my hacking skills?” Philip asks as he opens the side of a roundabout desk and slips inside. He taps on the desk top and a screen activates awaiting his input.
Sally walks up and presses a few holographic buttons. The screen opens up and Philip begins reading through. She presses a few more and he gives her a sideways look. “What?”
“I’m still learning your local language.”
“Ah. Really? How interesting.” She says and she starts reading faster and quickly comes upon something interesting.
“Madam please.”
“It’s rather funny that someone who thinks they can conquer an entire world doesn’t even fully know the language.”
“Considering how often such a thing occurs across the galaxy, to the point that I am aware of at least nine such scenarios within a week’s travel happening right now. I do not think my difficulty is so unusual.” He chides her.
“Nine? Really?”
“Well, technically seventeen, but many of them are tied up in each other. Multiple stations and planets being invaded by a single large force sort of thing.” He answers.
“Oh. Well I just found something interesting. Follow me. I need to see this for myself and you will want to as well.”
“Oh good, is the rumoured armoured division still supplied?”
“It looks to be that way. We might have more firepower than I thought.”
“Very good.” He says standing up and sliding over the desk to follow her out. “I had actually thought that heavier things like the armour would have been taken and at least repurposed.”
“They’re in The Gavali Empire colours... could it be something that petty?” She asks herself in awe.
“Really? I would expect people of their character to at least find some joy in having them repainted rather than simply abandoned. It’s an enormous waste.” Sir Philip chides before pausing and chuckling. “Of course... The Stations. That’s where their pride is. Well, bully for them, my plan is going to work even better now.”
“Oh really?”
“Think about it, if that readout was accurate there are two squads worth of mobile armour in here. That’s the kind of hardware that is never abandoned without good reason. But if that reason is severe pride in another piece of equipment, then it...”
“Will get all the attention.” Shelly says following his train of logic. “Wait, how do you know there are two squads worth on the registry I checked.”
“I’m learning your language, not totally ignorant. I can read it just fine, I just need some more time than I’d like.” He remarks as they head down and he swipes a keycard into lock of the door. Shelly turns on the lights and both of them pause.
“Magnificent.” Philip says with a smirk.
“Wonderful, absolutely wonderful.” Shelly says in awe as she beholds the rows upon rows of towering Battle Walkers. Far more than any five squadrons would use. “There was a rumour about one of the bases being used as storage, but that it was this one is just good luck.”
“Bad luck as well, there’s barely any room in this hanger. To say nothing of how much is needed for these beasts to maneuver, it’s why I prefer a Tank myself, but a heavily armed combat walker with the ability to entrench itself to become artillery is an acceptable second place.” Philip says as he walks up to the nearest massive weapon’s platform. It’s easily a hundred tons in weight and while it has several cannons pointed forward, the real prize is on the back.
“This is old school firepower. The Empire has moved away from this kind of combat doctrine and the Vatras have followed. These things are old, but they’ll still hit like a meteor.” Shelly says as she remembers the fast things running around in all sorts of configurations as a massive contest was held for which one would be the main combat walker of The Empire. In the end they had settled on flight capable bipedal platform. Very light compared to these stompers, but comparably fragile.
“Yes, they’re not very fast, but they’re mobile, all terrain artillery units. If we can get our hands on something more modern from the Vatras to support and screen these beasts we might be able to take a station down. Especially if it’s been damaged to begin with.”
“Maybe one, if there are two left then the second will be able to shoot us into a crater before our shots can reach it. As powerful as these weapons are we need the element of surprise for them to work.” She says going over the hunched over posture of the massive battlemech. “And more modern armour will dance circles around these girls and reduce them to slag before they can get a shot off. These beasts are slow and mean, but slow gets you shot down.”
“Which means we need to think of them more like semi-mobile emplacements.” Philip remarks as he climbs up the ladder to the entry port in the side and pops it open. “My word... it has the new car smell.”
“The new car smell?”
“The smell of chemicals and such used in manufacture. This particular piece of equipment was never even used before being placed here in storage. Wicked waste.” He says derisively before closing the door. “So, what do you think of our odds now?”
“Getting better. But I’ll need to do some digging. I was in charge of ground forces, not armoured. I’ll need to see if any of my old friends in command are still around to find someone that can lead a force like this.”
“Good lass.” Philip says as he hops down and lands with barely a bend to his knees. “We have a hundred and twenty of these walkers. Which considering the yield of their artillery lasers they just barely equal the output of a single station.”
“Wouldn’t they go over... no wait, each individual beam would be distorted at least somewhat and the single large one from the station would have less interference. So it would come to roughly the same amount, just a little bit of power one way or the other...” She mutters as she does the math. “Still, we have the equivalent of a station on the ground. That’s... big. Really big.”
“It is, and it’s something to keep very close to the chest. If any of the Vatras realize there’s a direct, pound per pound, threat to their power they can and will do something about it. Stealth is wealth in this scenario and we need to be wealthy indeed to pull this off.”
“You just quoted something.” She remarks and he smirks.
“Yes, I spent some time undercover as a burgler and petty thief. The things you learn in criminal circles my dear, why, it’d make your hair go white!” He says and she considers, thinks and then comes to a realization.
“So how much of your thieving skills have you used here today?”
“In this building? Precious few. In actually casing the area I got the keycards and authentication from? Quite a few. Proper criminality needs both patience and audacity at the appropriate times.” Philip says as he glances down the way. “There seems to be some modifications near the back. Those are likely the Battle Walkers that I assumed would be here.”
“So you were expecting some.”
“I was expecting at worst some mouldering parts and tools left over from Valiance and Determine Squadrons.” He admits. “At best I was hoping for the entire squadron’s walkers. Maintaining all these Battle Walkers is going to be an enormous issue.”
“Can’t win but for winning?”
“Almost.” He admits. “Hmm... There are so many opportunities that are opening up.”
“Opportunities for whom?”
“For you and yours. While each one of these behemoths might need a hundred siblings to match a station. Those stations are designed to leave wounds on worlds. These armours will work as defensive emplacements that can get up and walk away. A station they’ll struggle with one to one, but they can and likely will leave gruesome holes in capital ships.” Philip says.
“So you don’t intend these to be brought out until AFTER you do your insane stunt and steal a station?” She asks.
“That’s correct.” Philip notes as he leads her through the rows upon rows of Combat Walkers and inspects them all in a quick scan to see if any of them jump out at him. He pauses at seeming random and runs his finger over one of the legs and finding the paint cracking off and peeling. “Hmm... must have been produced while the Vatras were taking the planet. Not enough time to get a second coat of paint.”
“How did you see that?” She asks him.
“Because I was looking for it.” He replies.
“You were looking for brittle and cracking paint?”
“I was looking for defects. We’ll get a trusted engineer in here to give everything a look over. For all we know each of these walkers are just waiting to fall apart and a proper push from the side will cause it to crumble.” Philip says and Shelly gathers some Axiom and shoulder checks the nearest Walker. It sways ever so slightly. “You can fight a Battle Walker?”
“They’re powerful, but they have weaknesses. Especially when they’re powered down.” She answers and he smiles.
“Excellent. Now then, shall we see what kind of modifications Valiance and Determine made to their walkers?” He asks as he leads her further back and Sally sighs. “Oh dear...”
“... Yes...” Sally says as she beholds the decal on the side of a walker that just shows a Jorgua man made of muscles and holding a plasma cannon as the only thing keeping him decent. To her surprise Philip actually laughs at the sight of it before mimicking the pose of flexing all the muscles while having a firm and suggestive grip on the cannon.
“What do you think?” He asks and she shakes her head in amusement.
“I think you’re a little overdressed for it.” She chides him. “You don’t take offence?”
“My dear woman, I count on it.” He replies.
“Of course, if someone’s brain’s in their crotch then they’re not doing too well in a fight.”
“Exactly so.” Philip answers. “So... do you have enough to be ready?”
“I need to see one more place. The most important place in any military base.”
“Ah yes, how could I possibly forget?” Philip asks.
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“Hmm... of all the places to have most of the tools go missing I must admit I didn’t expect it from the kitchens.” Philip notes somewhat ruefully.
“People can explain having a spatula, frying pan or big serving spoon. Even butcher knives and the like. Not so much a massive Battle Walker.”
“Very true dear girl. Very true indeed.” He notes as he finds bare cupboards, empty shelves and nothing at all left in the kitchen, stasis storage or pantry. “Did they just walk out with everything that wasn’t bolted down?”
“No, the chairs in the mess hall are mostly here?” Shelly says turning the light on in the mess hall and chuckling at what she sees.
“Mostly?” Philip demands and then he pokes his head in and scans the room. “Unbelievable.”
“Looks like a quarter maybe?” She asks indicating the missing chairs.
“Roughly.” He replies. “This is going to be less complicated to replace than potentially missing Walkers, but still aggravating.”
“Good luck with that. I’ll get to talking to some friends of mine. If nothing else they’ll love the chance for a front row seat into whatever you’re about to do.”
“Ah... good.”
“How ARE you going to take control of a space station?”
“Manuel override during the viral attack. I’ll need to be in engineering to do it, and once we’re in the lake I can deal with the rest of the crew at my leisure as things will be cut off from the outside world as the chaos ensues.”
“And what about Protn based communications? No amount of interference can get around that.”
“Yes, that’s why I need to select my target and time carefully. Scouting is very important after all.” He says. “Protn can be scanned for and detected with ease. I hit those while my forces take the engine room and take us down.”
“And who are you getting?”
“That depends entirely on how easily swayed the engineering staff are. Several of the stations have some very likely prospects and I have the meeting with the first of them in...” He checks his watch. “Three hours.”
“... You’re already on it?!”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“It turns out that the crew you can’t parade around or can’t threaten you with violence tend to be underestimated by despots. It’s almost like those obsessed with power are unfamiliar with the extremely important details of things such as upkeep.”
“Really?”
“Well, that’s the obvious explanation. The more serious one is that people that grasp at power often over or under delegate. Those that over-delegate are often preening fools that are best ignored. Give them some cookies and shove them in a corner with a model and they’re out of your hair. Those that are obsessively in control and under-delegate simply stretch themselves too thin, tire themselves out and miss important details. From my understanding the Engineering staff of several stations are moderately paid, but routinely ignored and will take a pay cut if things go wrong. Even if it was the ignoring that caused the situation to begin with.”
“Right... okay. Holy goddess, even when thigns were working well there were weaknesses you could have danced through weren’t there?”
“No system is perfect. And the trick to infiltration is to find the weaknesses. Although the best advice is to generally go for being as low ranked as you can pretend to be in you’re infiltrating. That way less people will be concerned with who you are and why you’re there.”
“But then anyone can order you around.”
“And following those orders lets you get all over the place and a ready made scapegoat for all kinds of things. Every issue is an opportunity if you play it that way.”
“... Are you trying to make me into a spy?”
“Ah, pardon me. I’ve spent so long teaching the habit has stuck.”
“Teaching? Teaching who?”
“A pair of most adept students that I had the pleasure of seeing blossom into masters.”
“You really enjoy answering questions without answering them, don’t you?”
“Occupational hazard my dear, along with sudden mortality if I let myself slip.”
~First~ Last

Suddenly, Johnathan saw a picture of his father training him and Kane. ‘I wonder where he is’ was what he thought. His presence disappeared the same day Carl’s got fierce. He thought the legendary marine might be dead, but ruled it out due to it seemingly being impossible. However, after seeing his father’s sword with its god in front of him today, this scenario became much more likely. But simply stealing the power of a god would be impossible. After all, if a host died, their god would leave the Earth. This must’ve meant his father was alive for the time being.
After this, he remembered what Shin said about Carl. He realized it was too early to die, but could do nothing about it. His spirit was drawing close to its end by the moment. When he noticed how little life was left in him, his heart stopped, and he began his took his final breath. What stopped him from going over to the other side was a female voice behind him.

• Are you done? – it was woman, with pure white skin and clothes
  
• I am not, but there is nothing left in me – he answered – I am very sorry for wasting your power, Luna.
  
• Don’t be sorry, after all, this is our final time seeing each other, – she sounded resigning
  
• So, you don’t have anything left for me? Like some crazy power up, that could restart my body? – he was asking doubtfully, but with still some hope
  
• There is a way for you to return back to life. But that means our parting as well. If you trade your powers with me, I can save you, but that would mean you have to find a way to defeat a goddess all alone.
  
• If that is what must be done, it must be done. How can we do this trade?
  
• You have nothing else to do, but to wish for what your heart wants most at the moment and nothing more. If that happens, I can complete our exchange.
  
• Is there a way for me to make a contract with you after I’ve lost your powers? – he wanted to ask whether there was any chance of them meeting up again
  
• You may prove your worth once more, but even then, a contract broken might be never prepared again.
  

Johnathan didn’t say anything more and closed his eyes. The only thing on his mind was him standing in front of Themis once more. There was nothing he wanted more. Not his own ambitions, but only revenge for what she has done. When this thought took over his mind, he found himself as a spirit above his body. He knew if he wanted to win, he had to re-enter his body. He saw that the flame was gone and his bones were repaired, but the Moonlight Eclipse wasn’t there either, only a plain sword. He saw these as a parting gift from Luna. He also saw, that the other two were hardly living. If he wanted to finish it, he had to do it fast.
When he opened his eyes and grabbed the new sword, Themis’ laughter stopped. She watched in disbelief, as a man, who once died woke up again. She also noticed that his goddess disappeared, making his presence much weaker, but somehow still stronger the other two with their peak strength. She realized, he must’ve made an exchange, saving his life, but losing his deity. She was a little happy, that she got to toy with him a little more.

• It’s good to see that you can still stand up – she was smiling – but what can you without her?
  
• I will prove that us humans don’t need gods. Not against a pitiful creature like you. You are the goddess of nothing. A powerless creature. Why can’t I create my own justice, and see which prevails.
  
• Insolent human! – her joy switched to anger. It was the first time a mortal has ever made fun of her – you shall pay for your foul mouth as well!
  

Themis swung her sword at Johnathan, who stopped it with his bare hand. Themis jumped backwards while she grabbed her opponent and slammed him to the ground. She tried using fire again, but it was as ineffective, as the sword. However, her punches still managed to inflict heavy injuries. With just a few, she already broke six ribs.
With his body bleeding from the inside, Johnathan knew, he didn’t stand any chance, but still pushed forward, shouting things like ‘unjust’ and ‘false justice shall be prover guilty’. With each of his shout, it seemed like Themis’ sword was becoming smaller, like it knew the human was right. When the sword disappeared, Themis let out a fiendish screech, making Johnathan’s ears ring.
Using this distraction, she broke free of the crushing words and went to Carl’s dying body. She stepped on his head, laughing like she already won.

• Make another move, and I will crush his head. Although, if you stay there, you will die of internal bleeding. What is worse? To be responsible for you ally’s death, or to watch, while you diem knowing you might have stood a chance – her laugh became like a maniac’s.
  
• You see, this is what I was talking about.
  
• What? I’ve never heard you admitting your defeat – she shoved her feet even deeper into Carl’s face
  
• You know, if you kill that man, you will die as well, so I have nothing to lose.
  
• Is it that other being inside of him? Don’t worry, if it didn’t come out yet, it will remain lying dormant forever – she didn’t seem fazed by the threat
  
• And I wasn’t talking about admitting defeat. It was you, abusing your power, betraying it – he walked closer
  
• What are you doing? Don’t move! – She tried to crush Carl’s skull but didn’t have the strength for it
  
• And how would you stop me – He saw an opening
  
• Stop right there! You can’t do this! I am a goddess! No mortal shall attempt to harm me! – her voice was filled with fear
  
• Then you shouldn’t consider me a mere human – this time, it was him, who was smiling
  

Naturally, gods don’t fear death. None of them has died for millennias. Most of them weren’t even alive then, including Themis. They grew up, being taught that they must only enter the world of the humans if one of them is their host and tries to use the powers of Death against the rest. The ones who knew, that the humans were ruthless creatures tried to avoid forming pacts with them, but some of them especially liked to. Luna of the Moon and Themis of Justice were the perfect examples of the latter, while gods like Mars of War was counterpart to his Greek brother, Ares, never talking to humans. He never wanted to get involved with Death, because he knew that some special humans might be the end of him.
This is what Themis was experiencing. She felt the metal pass through her heart, while it started taking on a different shape. Johnathan tore her blindfold off, to see the eyes filled with the fear of death and despair. Her poison and mutilation became reverted on the two lying on the ground. She could see the one holding it regain the silver eyes and armor. She felt the blade taking on a shape, that it might’ve had had before. With her dying breath, she uttered her final words:

• Oh, how the mighty have fallen!

She fell onto the ground, leaving the corpse of a once glorious goddess behind. With this, Johnathan Teach became the first human in history to ever bring a divine to its knees and end their life.
Check out the full story: https://www.wattpad.com/story/365789475-seas-of-change

I've been watching some youtube videos about BPD and I am pretty sure this girl I had been dating had it.
We had been dating on and off for about a year and a half. When I first met her she said that she was separated and going through a divorce. She would call everyone around her a narcist - her family, her ex husband, her friends.
I planned on going on a weeklong beach trip with her last August. 3 days before she cancels on me and says we aren't in the same place emotionally. (First discard). I end up having to go on the trip alone and lose a bunch of money on it.
3 weeks later she starts talking to me again. We talk here and there and start hanging out again.
Second discard came around Halloween. We had plans to do pumpkin painting and to go to a Halloween bar crawl. She asked to come over the night before, that she was feeling down. I said I have to hit the gym but you can stop by at 10 or later. She gets mad and says nevermind, I will find another way to care for myself and flakes on the Halloween stuff. We don't talk for a while.
She starts talking to me on NYE. We hang out here and there between then and now with her leaving one more time in February.
After knowing her for a year she tells me she has two kids. She also says her divorce isn't finalized yet, that she trying to figure out where to move to because there are too many bad memories in this city. That she is taking her time to make sure it is the right thing and she doesn't want to make that decision while she is trying to heal emotionally. I find out she is still living with her "ex" husband. She says she is just doing that until she figures out where to move, that she doesn't want to stay here so she isn't going to get a place here. She pushed for us to be bf/gf, I tell her her divorce needs to be finalized and she needs to get her own place before we get anywhere close to that.
She kept saying she wants to move to a city 4 hours away and she may go down there and not come back. I ask why would she move away and leave her kids with her husband if he is a narcissist and mentally abusive. She says they are boys and need a man to raise them properly, that a woman can't raise boys on her own. And that he is a low key narcist and her boys are strong willed so they will be fine.
I plan on taking a week long road trip to the beach, the same place she flaked on me last year. I tell her I am going on a road trip with my buddy. I don't tell her that he may not join me til later in the trip because he may have his kids. The same weekend I leave she had said she may go to the other city and not come back.
It turns out he did have has kids that weekend so he told me he would meet me later in the trip.
I go on my trip. 2 days in I start getting really rude texts from her. Calling me names, that I am a narcist, I used her, I'm an asshole, I just need to go suck my moms tits. That if I was a real man I would have taken her on a relaxing trip to let her unwind and start the long process of healing. I'm like WTF, I didn't do anything to you.
She says how my friend is a family law lawyer and I just watched her flail around. That I should have stepped in and stopped her when she was acting crazy and I'm not a real man. She then asks if my friends kids are with me. I say no, he has a custody issue to deal with with his kids and he is going to fly out and meet me later in the week. She starts accusing me of taking another girl on this trip and that she has "receipts".
This keeps going on and I have to block her for a day because it is stressing me out and ruining my trip. The next morning she shows up uninvited to my apartment and sits outside my door and looks at the camera for a minute and leaves.
I unblock her later that night and say she is being rude and that I did nothing wrong. She sends me a screenshot of my friends profile. The day after I left for my trip he posted a photo of his kids. She said that proves I lied to her. I told her I didn't lie to her and that the plans changed, that he had a custody issue with his kids but he is still joining me later in the week on the trip. She won't listen and is convinced I am sleeping around, took a girl on this trip and lied to her. Keep in mind she has never met my friend before and is not friends with him on social media so she went way out of her way to creep on him and jump to conclusions.
She called me a couple times from a private number and leaves me odd messages. You can tell she is very emotionally disregulated. Saying she doesn't want to see me again but we need to talk. That we weren't honest with each other, that she is going to make me heal one way or another. It will help her heal and I don't get to tell her how she heals.
I call her a couple hours later and she doesn't answer.
I get another call or two from a private number over the next couple days with no voicemail.
She gave me a painting she made a few months ago. She texts me and says I either need to pay her $50 for the painting she gifted me or her ex-husband will come and get it. Says things like he doesn't know where you live but I'm sure he can find out.
I say I like your painting but I will give it back if you insist. What address would you like it sent to? I also didn't do anything to you and this is a misunderstanding. The plans on my trip simply changed and I didn't go with anyone else. I'm willing to talk to her if she stops calling me names.
She says she has "receipts" and she knows what is going on. She never wants to see or talk to me again. That its fine, her ex husband will come get the paintings, that she doesn't have an address. I say I'm not meeting him, why don't you just give me an address to send it to. Your ex husbands, a friends, somewhere you are staying and stop making this difficult and I will mail it to you.
3 days and nothing. 3 days later she texts me and says pay me or my ex husband will come get the painting today.
I block her on everything.
I hung the painting outside my front door so if she does stop by she can just take it and not talk to me.
It has been 2 days now and the painting is still there and no one has stopped by my place. I installed another camera outside of my door. The way she was acting in the end was scaring me. It is obvious she didn't really want the painting back as she wouldn't give me an address to send it to, she just was playing some kind of games.

I (F34) am absolutely sick to death of my rude mother (F54).
She's just so rude all the time and there's nothing you can say to make her understand what an absolute rude person she is being. I can't even escape it because we live together.
About 2 years ago now I was living with my partner (M32) in his family home with his entire family. Talking disabled mother, father, adult sister and her 2 kids. We lived there while saving for our wedding and then COVID ruined all our plans. I was drowning in that house surrounded by lazy dirty people who dont work and had no structure. To save my mental health I had to leave. My partner and I discussed it and we needed a place of our own. We decided to rent however the rental market is actually insane and we just couldn't afford what we needed on our own.
Queue my semi disabled mother who has been living on her own in a 2nd story unit for a few years now since her divorce went through. I relayed my complaints to her and she suggested we all move into a larger family home together and split the rent. It would get me out of that gross inlaw house, she could stop walking up 2 flights of stairs with a cane and it would be win win right?
So we move into this 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom, 2 living room house on the Southside of Brisbane Australia and finally I have my own space again. We get the master with the ensuite and theres a spare room for people to stay. I have an office for the days I work from home and mum gets the wing of the house that has 2 bedrooms and a family bathroom all to herself so she can have her own space. Affectionately know as the senior wing.
Despite being in my mid 30s my mother treats us like we are where children living under her roof. We pay 2 3rds of the rent. It's unessecary.
She's exceptionally rude to my partner and has been since the beginning. She constantly belittles him and makes fun of him to his face. Then when I call her on it I'm a snowflake who can't take a joke or she's not allowed to say anything anymore.
Some of the absolute crap she's pulled included:

• my dog dragging a rubber spider info her room while cleaning out the Halloween decorations and her insisting it was my partner trying to frighten her. She then started into a 2 day period where she wouldn't speak to either of us, pay attention to the dogs or even eat
• my partner has a cheap cannon camera and loves to take photos of our dogs. He posts them to a FB messenger chat between the 3 of us because she's expressed she likes them before. Yesterday she replied to the photo saying it was shit and she didn't like it and not to post it. Then told ME to explain to my partner why she thought it was shit. Hes upset now. And I called her out this morning and she's now saying well don't send me anymore photos if I can't comment on them
• she frequently makes snide comments everytime my partner walks into the kitchen or lounge room. Especially when I'm not there. She knows he can hear them. My partner feels like he can't watch tv in our lounge room because she complains the tv is too loud but then has her tv up so loud no one can gesr themselves talk. He used to play Xbox on that tv with headphones on and she complained he clicked buttons too loudly.
• my partner getting sick and throwing up one day when we got home after eating something oily earlier in the day and then not wanting dinner. She insisted it was because he was anxious about having something she was making for dinner and that he was just trying to avoid trying something new.
• ignoring my requests not to feed my dogs specific human foods and doing it anyway when I'm not home. Then telling me about it and getting the shits when I tell her I previously asked her not to. I buy dog treats to give them and put them in her room but she insists on giving them her food. She's previously had a dog die from pancreatic cancer and has expressed how sad she was and didn't realise how she contributed to it and she's legitimately doing the same thing to my dogs.
• She will pick fights with my partner when I'm not home. She finishes work earlier than me. If he has no shift he will be home. There will be 3-5 hours where they are at home without me. Then avoid each other but he will go to the kitchen to make food or take the dogs out and you know she just HAS to make a damn comment. They will argue and then she will start bombarding me with messages while I'm still at work whinging about him and how he's such a child because he didn't want to stand there and be put down by her over something so tiny. So many messages I have to my my phone. Then when I get home the minute I walk in the door it's thrust upon me to sort it out and keep the peace.
• she contradicts my brothers parenting of his two children right in front of the children when they come to visit. No one asked for your opinion mum.

Just a few examples.
In addition to her being an absolute witch. She's also partially disabled and miserable. And she drags me down so far with her.
She has sciatica and it's at the point where only surgery is the option but the surgeon insists it's got a very low chance so she won't proceed with it. Instead she takes quite alot of over the counter pain medication to manage it. She walks with a walker when at home and 2 canes when she is out and about. She still drives and still works full time. I manage the cleaning, all the washing for the 3 people in our house, I do the grocery shopping and meal planning online and then she picks it up via the grocery store placing the items in her car boot. I do all the cooking. She will cook maybe twice a month. All the household bills are in my name and she sends me her share and I keep everything paid. I constantly buy little things to help make her life easier. She's not entitled to any disability funding because she still works full time so all of this is paid out of pocket. So essentially her life while I acknowledge she is in pain is not particularly difficult. She's even said to me it's easier for her to explain something to me and then I go do it then she do it herself. Eg I have to go to the chemist and get her meds. She needs clothes? She explains what she wants and I go buy it. Easier for her maybe. She will come out with things that have to be done but words it like there is a team of people doing it when it's just gonna be me. Eg. We really need to get out there and do that garden. It's starting to look pretty poor. She means I need to go out and do the garden. If I comment I don't have time because I have 3 jobs and no free time she will say we can pay someone but what she means is I need to enquire and find someone for the house. I need to pay half of something she's suggesting. Then she will complain about how expensive it is even though it was her idea. Then she will complain about how poor of a job they did when we could only afford to pay them for an hour so they did what they could do in a hour
She belittles my mental illness telling me that taking antidepressants is the easy way out. She Is a functioning alcoholic drinking cask wine. 20L a week which she orders online and then I have to go pick up. Her mother was bipolar. She's 100% bipolar too but refuses to accept it.
I work 3 jobs. A full time 9-5. A delivery driver for a pizza shop with two to three shifts a week and I do uber eats as well casually. If I need to leave to do either of the second jobs she gilt trips me about leaving the dogs behind and how they bother her for attention.
Nothing is ever done to her standards in cleaning or cooking or anything really and you bet she will either make a comment on how it's not how she would have done it. Or how she prefers it to be done another way.
I am exhausted. I want her out but there is nowhere for her to go. This cost of living crisis is shocking and there no way on her pathetic wage she could afford to rent on her own again. I can't abandon her either to go live a better life with my partner. We can't afford to rent on our own either. Even with me working full time. My partner is a casual worker at two companies and she's always saying how little he contributes like he can control the fact that no shifts are coming in.
I'm done. I want her to just go to sleep and never wake up. It won't fix the crappy financial situation in this country but maybe I can just have one good day then. Sometimes I think it would be better if I just went to sleep and didn't wake up but I could never abandon my poor partner.
I'd love some commentary. Keep me sane and let me know im not alone