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2024.06.09 18:25 TA_spitefulElephant I'm a bad person whose actions sent my wife to the hospital.
To start of, I would like to acknowledge that I am a bad person, evil maybe. Second, if I could do it a second time, I would.
I, 33M did something which caused my wife(32F) to have a mental breakdown and perform certain actions which sent her to the emergency ward of the hospital.
People usually have "a second spouse" but in my case, she is my "spouse for a second time". We had been dating since last year of highschool and actually got married while attending university, at the age of (21M,20F). Why? Because being the only child and successor to my parents business, the only reason I aimed for a university degree (business one) was for the sake of that title. Wife on the other hand, got a technical degree but still wanted to be a SAHW, eventually SAHM, as it would work out for us in the long run financially speaking.
After university, we still did not plan to have children so I actively asked her to get a job or a part time one in the meantime to get out of the house atleast. The second reason being to prove her sister (31F) wrong.
You see, ever since they were little , my in laws pitted them against each other. Academically, socially and , as bad as it sounds, appearance wise. Yes, my sister in law is what one would consider a "conventional beauty" which was a sore point for my wife but, as they say, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. I tried to always see what she failed to about herself. I always tried to affirm that she is indeed very beautiful, pretty and a fundamentally nice person and I would always love her unconditionally. It still could not overcome that fact that only I found her attractive like that and sister in law attracted and got hit on by men swarming like flies around... waste material.
The second point being that my in laws never showed much familial love towards my wife and so my wife wanted to be a SAHW/SAHM because she wanted to be there for family always, I respected that. However, with sister in law calling her a "leach" for choosing that path in life, angered me and thus I wanted her to try using her technical degree to work and gain experience. She opted to work outside my family business which was fine and understandable. This happened when we were 25M,,24F respectively.
Now, coming from a country which has few women in technical roles, my wife was the only woman in a team of 10. Those guys started hitting on her and her attitude completely changed. I was happy until I understood where that newfound confidence came from and then sat her down and explained the situation. For the first time in years, the way she responded back was something I will never be able to forget. The malice, the anger, that coldness. It was like I was talking to a completely different person. She accused me of being insecure, not trusting her and being jealous for the attention she is getting now. Then I did the stupidity of apologizing to her. Things were never the same.
I knew what role she worked in but for some surprising reason, within months of her joining the role, she had to stay late at nights frequently and was nominated for frequent business trips (something not part of her role but I never questioned). However, it kept eating me inside and I decided to spy on her. I looked through her phone and found texts between a colleague of hers. His name had a heart next to it but the texts were not found (deleted maybe). However, she forgot to delete her gallery and I saw provocative images, which obviously, I never received.
I tailed her to her office the next day and I saw she greeted a colleague of hers with a kiss (I had not been kissed or been shown any affection for the past 5 months at that point). It angered me but I got a lead. I hired a private investigator to tail them and waited for opportunities to catch any messages from her phone. Eventually I succeeded. I arranged all that evidence and invited both sets of parents, presented the evidence and intended to divorce. It was a terrible time in my life all around. And the reason she cheated.
"She got the attention from others, understood her worth and thought she did not have to be pinned down by me." Nothing I did, could do, could ever do, would ever matter. From me, the attention was a given, from others, it means they saw something I could not in her. And what was the point? Her sister , for all her faults, never acted like that. The guy she cheated on me with refused a committed relationship with her and moved away. Wife got fired. The efforts by her at that point and her in laws to consider forgiveness were relentless then on.
We still got divorced and I got my parents to take charge of the business for a while because I wanted to get away from all that mess. I went abroad, enrolled myself in a masters program, eventually got a job there because why not, and then quit said job to just travel around (yes, i'm your stereotypical spoiled rich brat so whatever).
2 years back, I returned home to take charge of the business (had to stop being a brat sometimes, love you mom and dad). During this while, I ran into my wife again. She looked changed, wanted to catch up and reminisce about the "good times". I don't know why, I was and still am attracted to her (will be much stranger when you hear what I actually did). I never dated anyone after the divorce and my wife did look like a changed person. With my parents and in laws being the intermediatory again, they urged me to reconsider a relationship with her. She had been to countless therapy sessions. Her parents , albeit late, understood their part in making her mental state a mess and it seemed like I would be in the wrong to not "forget a silly mistake made in youth". And you know what, being the sucker I am, I did date her again and got married a year back, (on the same date as my last marriage, to make it seem like the past never happened.
On to D-day, the anniversary date. A month prior, I was laying around and suddenly, I recalled the incident where she accused me of being insecure. I don't know why, it started to bother me. It angered me. I scared myself thinking how much malice I hold. I wanted to cause her pain. These vile thoughts took over me so badly that I eventually came to terms with them. I am a bad person. I am evil. I think anytime I acted nicely, I was merely putting up a face. And how did I get back at my wife? I got in bed with my sister in law in a compromising position (no , we did not do the deed), on the anniversary event at my place and made sure wife, in laws would catch us. Why did sister in law agree to this? She believed the change in my wife was superficial and given the right conditions, she will go back to her old self. No, I do not blame sister in law for anything. It was my plan, all the way.
And well, wife caught us in that position, we had to act surprised and she started wailing, having a panic attack, screaming, calling in laws and my parents who were also shocked at what they saw. In that craze , wife ran to the medicine cabinet and downed a whole bottle of aspirin.
She was rushed to the emergency room and my sister in law and I received abuses, slaps, curses etc from our parents but in all honesty, that was the worst they could do. I am an only child so my parents can't/won't disinherit me. My sister in law already lives independent from her family so she is not in trouble either.
I held a poker face throughout but inside, I had the most evil grin imaginable. I hurt my wife in the worst way I knew was possible. The worst part, If I could do it again I would. The worst part, I still love her. I am bad, I am crazy, I know I need therapy. But that is all.
submitted by TA_spitefulElephant to TrueOffMyChest [link] [comments]
I, 33M did something which caused my wife(32F) to have a mental breakdown and perform certain actions which sent her to the emergency ward of the hospital.
People usually have "a second spouse" but in my case, she is my "spouse for a second time". We had been dating since last year of highschool and actually got married while attending university, at the age of (21M,20F). Why? Because being the only child and successor to my parents business, the only reason I aimed for a university degree (business one) was for the sake of that title. Wife on the other hand, got a technical degree but still wanted to be a SAHW, eventually SAHM, as it would work out for us in the long run financially speaking.
After university, we still did not plan to have children so I actively asked her to get a job or a part time one in the meantime to get out of the house atleast. The second reason being to prove her sister (31F) wrong.
You see, ever since they were little , my in laws pitted them against each other. Academically, socially and , as bad as it sounds, appearance wise. Yes, my sister in law is what one would consider a "conventional beauty" which was a sore point for my wife but, as they say, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. I tried to always see what she failed to about herself. I always tried to affirm that she is indeed very beautiful, pretty and a fundamentally nice person and I would always love her unconditionally. It still could not overcome that fact that only I found her attractive like that and sister in law attracted and got hit on by men swarming like flies around... waste material.
The second point being that my in laws never showed much familial love towards my wife and so my wife wanted to be a SAHW/SAHM because she wanted to be there for family always, I respected that. However, with sister in law calling her a "leach" for choosing that path in life, angered me and thus I wanted her to try using her technical degree to work and gain experience. She opted to work outside my family business which was fine and understandable. This happened when we were 25M,,24F respectively.
Now, coming from a country which has few women in technical roles, my wife was the only woman in a team of 10. Those guys started hitting on her and her attitude completely changed. I was happy until I understood where that newfound confidence came from and then sat her down and explained the situation. For the first time in years, the way she responded back was something I will never be able to forget. The malice, the anger, that coldness. It was like I was talking to a completely different person. She accused me of being insecure, not trusting her and being jealous for the attention she is getting now. Then I did the stupidity of apologizing to her. Things were never the same.
I knew what role she worked in but for some surprising reason, within months of her joining the role, she had to stay late at nights frequently and was nominated for frequent business trips (something not part of her role but I never questioned). However, it kept eating me inside and I decided to spy on her. I looked through her phone and found texts between a colleague of hers. His name had a heart next to it but the texts were not found (deleted maybe). However, she forgot to delete her gallery and I saw provocative images, which obviously, I never received.
I tailed her to her office the next day and I saw she greeted a colleague of hers with a kiss (I had not been kissed or been shown any affection for the past 5 months at that point). It angered me but I got a lead. I hired a private investigator to tail them and waited for opportunities to catch any messages from her phone. Eventually I succeeded. I arranged all that evidence and invited both sets of parents, presented the evidence and intended to divorce. It was a terrible time in my life all around. And the reason she cheated.
"She got the attention from others, understood her worth and thought she did not have to be pinned down by me." Nothing I did, could do, could ever do, would ever matter. From me, the attention was a given, from others, it means they saw something I could not in her. And what was the point? Her sister , for all her faults, never acted like that. The guy she cheated on me with refused a committed relationship with her and moved away. Wife got fired. The efforts by her at that point and her in laws to consider forgiveness were relentless then on.
We still got divorced and I got my parents to take charge of the business for a while because I wanted to get away from all that mess. I went abroad, enrolled myself in a masters program, eventually got a job there because why not, and then quit said job to just travel around (yes, i'm your stereotypical spoiled rich brat so whatever).
2 years back, I returned home to take charge of the business (had to stop being a brat sometimes, love you mom and dad). During this while, I ran into my wife again. She looked changed, wanted to catch up and reminisce about the "good times". I don't know why, I was and still am attracted to her (will be much stranger when you hear what I actually did). I never dated anyone after the divorce and my wife did look like a changed person. With my parents and in laws being the intermediatory again, they urged me to reconsider a relationship with her. She had been to countless therapy sessions. Her parents , albeit late, understood their part in making her mental state a mess and it seemed like I would be in the wrong to not "forget a silly mistake made in youth". And you know what, being the sucker I am, I did date her again and got married a year back, (on the same date as my last marriage, to make it seem like the past never happened.
On to D-day, the anniversary date. A month prior, I was laying around and suddenly, I recalled the incident where she accused me of being insecure. I don't know why, it started to bother me. It angered me. I scared myself thinking how much malice I hold. I wanted to cause her pain. These vile thoughts took over me so badly that I eventually came to terms with them. I am a bad person. I am evil. I think anytime I acted nicely, I was merely putting up a face. And how did I get back at my wife? I got in bed with my sister in law in a compromising position (no , we did not do the deed), on the anniversary event at my place and made sure wife, in laws would catch us. Why did sister in law agree to this? She believed the change in my wife was superficial and given the right conditions, she will go back to her old self. No, I do not blame sister in law for anything. It was my plan, all the way.
And well, wife caught us in that position, we had to act surprised and she started wailing, having a panic attack, screaming, calling in laws and my parents who were also shocked at what they saw. In that craze , wife ran to the medicine cabinet and downed a whole bottle of aspirin.
She was rushed to the emergency room and my sister in law and I received abuses, slaps, curses etc from our parents but in all honesty, that was the worst they could do. I am an only child so my parents can't/won't disinherit me. My sister in law already lives independent from her family so she is not in trouble either.
I held a poker face throughout but inside, I had the most evil grin imaginable. I hurt my wife in the worst way I knew was possible. The worst part, If I could do it again I would. The worst part, I still love her. I am bad, I am crazy, I know I need therapy. But that is all.
2024.06.09 02:22 Interrupted-Bolt My [19F] ex boyfriend [22M] is leaving his fiancé for my cat fishing profile, what do I do?
Excuse the length, it's a lot.
My ex and I dated for 11 months. We started dating last January when we met on Tinder. He was super cute, experienced, and quickly became the most interesting part of my life. We only really fought about one thing and that was his lack of communication during breaks, like Spring break and Summer break. He lives 2 hours away from campus too, so whenever he visited family I just chalked it up to him being busy and stuff, but it got really annoying during the longer breaks. Summer we even almost broke up because it was like pulling teeth trying to get him to text me more than twice a day, let alone a weekly phone call.
Anyway, Fall semester comes and we’re golden, literally the perfect relationship I’ve ever had and I’m in love. That is, until Thanksgiving break, and the story gets convoluted from there.
He goes on his trip and I’m expecting the same ol’ radio silence. I’m like whatever, it’s fine, I know what to expect, I’m not bothered. Until he posts on instagram a “Happy Birthday” post about his high schooler sister, in which he includes a bunch of stuff from over the years of them together. One photo, the last one, is clearly taken from their Thanksgiving dinner with family and it's cropped to only be him and his little sister standing together and smiling. I can see, wrapped around his bicep, a young and pretty woman’s hand who has red, done up nails and it’s looking a little too-intimate for any family member. It’s cropped so all I see is her hand on his bicep, and I’m petty so I screenshot the post, circle the hand, and text it to him like “who’s that?” He tells me “My aunt.” And I totally call bullshit. But, like I said, I’m petty. So I play the waiting game.
He gets back and he sleeps in my dorm (my roommate had mono for a month so he practically lived with me for privacy from roommates lol). I wanted to get into his phone but didn’t know the password, but I prepared for this. I did a little research and found out that Android’s Face ID thing is able to be opened up with pictures of them sometimes, so I hold up a picture of him from my phone in front of the camera and it works. I end up finding out that Tinder is still on his phone, I look and BAM. He’s still chatting up other girls. I even look through his snapchat and find some of the names there lining up with the girls he’s talking to on Tinder and they have snap scores of UP TO 100 DAYS??? HOW. I wake him up right there, at 3am, and kick him out. I get my girlfriends to come with me to his apartment to exchange our things and block his ass, done and done.
Only… it isn’t done. Apparently one of my friends forgot to unfollow him on instagram and his next post is during Winter break where he POSTS AN ENGAGEMENT POST?! My friend obviously saw this, sent it to our group chat, and all my friends and I are freaking out. This guy didn’t even tag the girl either… So my friends go detective mode, find her, and it’s up to me to be like “hey girlie…”
Only… this girl… BLOCKED ME. Admittedly, I might be dumb. I sent the message “Hey girlie, I used to date [his name] and wanted to let you know” and I totally didn’t realize how unhelpful that is. A couple of my friends tried messaging her too to be like “your fiance is cheating on you” but she told them to stop harassing her and blocked them too. It genuinely sucked not being able to help the girl out, but all my friends and I decided like “we tried, she can figure it out the hard way.”
Fast forward to February. I’ve been on Tinder for awhile and have been wanting to get a date for Valentine’s season, so I’m working overtime trying to find someone who fits my standards, and lo and beyond I FIND HIM. He’s got a whole new profile from the one I saw last year and I asked my undercover friend who is still following him on instagram to see he STILL has the engagement post up. This man is a chronic serial cheater.
I’m like fuming at this point, totally feeling vengeful and bored with nothing else to do. So, I use my friend’s phone who doesn’t have a Tinder profile, and we create one together to catfish him. We even facetune my face and literally make his dream girl. I know he’s into platinum blonde girls with brown eyes, so we edit me with those features. We even make the profile catered to him, mentioning his favorite game using those Tinder prompts like “My biggest turn on is… The Death’s Poker in Elden Ring” (we thought this was really funny). We even put our favorite song as his favorite song too, trying to make us his perfect match.
After a couple days, my friend and I are hanging out and swiping on the catfishing profile until we see him. We swipe and MATCH.
Over the next couple of hangouts my friend and I are getting the rest of our group chat of 3 other girls to help us write the perfect messages. We’re acting cute and flirty, his perfect little dream girl.
The goal is to get evidence of his cheating and proof it's actually him texting because we’re all lowkey scared if we bring this up to his fiance she’s going to accuse us of harassing her again and making up this profile. So, after a couple girls nights of torturing his man on Tinder he asks to move to snap. I use my phone for this and make a new snap, my girlfriends and I are pre-making facetuned photos of me at my friend’s house so he doesn’t recognize the background of my dorm. At some point we ask him to send a snap of himself too, and he does like half of his face. I save it and text him like “Soooo cute” and he’s like “Not as cute as you”, and I screenshot the exchange. Snapchat alerts him and he starts being like “Why did you do that??” and I tell him “It’s a sweet message I wanna keep” and he’s like “you can just save the message to the chat… you don’t need to ss.” Which is very sus and tells us he’s guilty.
Anyway, I’m going on and on. Basically, my girlfriends and I continue texting him to drag him along. Eventually we kinda think we have enough evidence, but then one of my friends is like “what if we make him break up with his fiance for you and then you dump him?” At the time, to be fair, I’m with all my overly excited friends and they’re all like “yeah!!!” so I feel pressured to agree. It definitely feels weird, but I’m ngl I enjoy the extra drama in my life sometimes, as shitty as that is to say.
From mid February to all the way where he graduates, we’re texting pretty often. I try to keep an emotional distance so everything I tell him about myself are lies, avoiding any half truths. Eventually my girlfriends get kinda bored and move on to other things, but I’m stuck behind making the plan see an end. It gets a little intense eventually, I won’t lie, and a couple times I had to fake sickness to avoid whenever he’d ask me out on dates. It’s not really a fulfilling affair, tbh, so I think the only reason why he liked this catfishing profile is because it said everything he wanted to hear. Anyway, eventually he starts transitioning into being SUPER lovey dovey and he’s literally saying I’m his dream girl. Duh. And, literally, two weeks ago he confessed everything to me.
Guys, I invited all my girlfriends over the moment I got the text and totally cried in their arms over what he told me. This entire time, since Junior year of high school, he’s had a long term girlfriend. She goes to a local university in his hometown, so they only see each other when he visits, but he stopped loving her after meeting me. He left out the part where they’re engaged, but he told me he’s gonna break up with her once he moves out of his apartment and moves back home. He’s hoping to see me before he does though, and wants to make a plan for me to visit him over the summer.
I am absolutely heartbroken in the most selfish way. I really feel for his fiance as he’s definitely had over probably 20 affairs while being in college away from her and she has no idea, or at least chooses to ignore it. On top of this, finding out our previous relationship was a lie hurts me. He told me he loved me and we spent so many days of the week together, but thinking back he totally had other dates too. This is seriously crazy. And I feel crazy for contributing to his cheating streak knowingly. I didn’t think it would get this far to be honest, and the fact he’s willing to break up with this poor girl over a fake one he still hasn’t met is psycho.
When he told me, my friends helped me type up a message that boils down to “Wow, that’s a lot. I need some time to process this information.” and we’ve since been ignoring all his messages on snap.
Another aspect is that, while this has been happening, I’ve also been actually dating people and did meet this one guy I really like. It’s getting weird now living this double life. This guy and I are getting closer and I realized I feel ashamed at the thought of telling him what I’ve done, so I’ve been reflecting.
Ultimately, as lowkey guilty as I feel, I do believe he deserves it on some level. The fiance doesn’t, but deserves better. I’m breaking up a couple, but with good reason.
How do I get out of this situation? I’m so stuck.
TLDR: I posed as my cheating ex’s dreamgirl to break up him and his fiance, but things feel too intense. How do I get out of this situation? .
submitted by Interrupted-Bolt to relationship_advice [link] [comments]
My ex and I dated for 11 months. We started dating last January when we met on Tinder. He was super cute, experienced, and quickly became the most interesting part of my life. We only really fought about one thing and that was his lack of communication during breaks, like Spring break and Summer break. He lives 2 hours away from campus too, so whenever he visited family I just chalked it up to him being busy and stuff, but it got really annoying during the longer breaks. Summer we even almost broke up because it was like pulling teeth trying to get him to text me more than twice a day, let alone a weekly phone call.
Anyway, Fall semester comes and we’re golden, literally the perfect relationship I’ve ever had and I’m in love. That is, until Thanksgiving break, and the story gets convoluted from there.
He goes on his trip and I’m expecting the same ol’ radio silence. I’m like whatever, it’s fine, I know what to expect, I’m not bothered. Until he posts on instagram a “Happy Birthday” post about his high schooler sister, in which he includes a bunch of stuff from over the years of them together. One photo, the last one, is clearly taken from their Thanksgiving dinner with family and it's cropped to only be him and his little sister standing together and smiling. I can see, wrapped around his bicep, a young and pretty woman’s hand who has red, done up nails and it’s looking a little too-intimate for any family member. It’s cropped so all I see is her hand on his bicep, and I’m petty so I screenshot the post, circle the hand, and text it to him like “who’s that?” He tells me “My aunt.” And I totally call bullshit. But, like I said, I’m petty. So I play the waiting game.
He gets back and he sleeps in my dorm (my roommate had mono for a month so he practically lived with me for privacy from roommates lol). I wanted to get into his phone but didn’t know the password, but I prepared for this. I did a little research and found out that Android’s Face ID thing is able to be opened up with pictures of them sometimes, so I hold up a picture of him from my phone in front of the camera and it works. I end up finding out that Tinder is still on his phone, I look and BAM. He’s still chatting up other girls. I even look through his snapchat and find some of the names there lining up with the girls he’s talking to on Tinder and they have snap scores of UP TO 100 DAYS??? HOW. I wake him up right there, at 3am, and kick him out. I get my girlfriends to come with me to his apartment to exchange our things and block his ass, done and done.
Only… it isn’t done. Apparently one of my friends forgot to unfollow him on instagram and his next post is during Winter break where he POSTS AN ENGAGEMENT POST?! My friend obviously saw this, sent it to our group chat, and all my friends and I are freaking out. This guy didn’t even tag the girl either… So my friends go detective mode, find her, and it’s up to me to be like “hey girlie…”
Only… this girl… BLOCKED ME. Admittedly, I might be dumb. I sent the message “Hey girlie, I used to date [his name] and wanted to let you know” and I totally didn’t realize how unhelpful that is. A couple of my friends tried messaging her too to be like “your fiance is cheating on you” but she told them to stop harassing her and blocked them too. It genuinely sucked not being able to help the girl out, but all my friends and I decided like “we tried, she can figure it out the hard way.”
Fast forward to February. I’ve been on Tinder for awhile and have been wanting to get a date for Valentine’s season, so I’m working overtime trying to find someone who fits my standards, and lo and beyond I FIND HIM. He’s got a whole new profile from the one I saw last year and I asked my undercover friend who is still following him on instagram to see he STILL has the engagement post up. This man is a chronic serial cheater.
I’m like fuming at this point, totally feeling vengeful and bored with nothing else to do. So, I use my friend’s phone who doesn’t have a Tinder profile, and we create one together to catfish him. We even facetune my face and literally make his dream girl. I know he’s into platinum blonde girls with brown eyes, so we edit me with those features. We even make the profile catered to him, mentioning his favorite game using those Tinder prompts like “My biggest turn on is… The Death’s Poker in Elden Ring” (we thought this was really funny). We even put our favorite song as his favorite song too, trying to make us his perfect match.
After a couple days, my friend and I are hanging out and swiping on the catfishing profile until we see him. We swipe and MATCH.
Over the next couple of hangouts my friend and I are getting the rest of our group chat of 3 other girls to help us write the perfect messages. We’re acting cute and flirty, his perfect little dream girl.
The goal is to get evidence of his cheating and proof it's actually him texting because we’re all lowkey scared if we bring this up to his fiance she’s going to accuse us of harassing her again and making up this profile. So, after a couple girls nights of torturing his man on Tinder he asks to move to snap. I use my phone for this and make a new snap, my girlfriends and I are pre-making facetuned photos of me at my friend’s house so he doesn’t recognize the background of my dorm. At some point we ask him to send a snap of himself too, and he does like half of his face. I save it and text him like “Soooo cute” and he’s like “Not as cute as you”, and I screenshot the exchange. Snapchat alerts him and he starts being like “Why did you do that??” and I tell him “It’s a sweet message I wanna keep” and he’s like “you can just save the message to the chat… you don’t need to ss.” Which is very sus and tells us he’s guilty.
Anyway, I’m going on and on. Basically, my girlfriends and I continue texting him to drag him along. Eventually we kinda think we have enough evidence, but then one of my friends is like “what if we make him break up with his fiance for you and then you dump him?” At the time, to be fair, I’m with all my overly excited friends and they’re all like “yeah!!!” so I feel pressured to agree. It definitely feels weird, but I’m ngl I enjoy the extra drama in my life sometimes, as shitty as that is to say.
From mid February to all the way where he graduates, we’re texting pretty often. I try to keep an emotional distance so everything I tell him about myself are lies, avoiding any half truths. Eventually my girlfriends get kinda bored and move on to other things, but I’m stuck behind making the plan see an end. It gets a little intense eventually, I won’t lie, and a couple times I had to fake sickness to avoid whenever he’d ask me out on dates. It’s not really a fulfilling affair, tbh, so I think the only reason why he liked this catfishing profile is because it said everything he wanted to hear. Anyway, eventually he starts transitioning into being SUPER lovey dovey and he’s literally saying I’m his dream girl. Duh. And, literally, two weeks ago he confessed everything to me.
Guys, I invited all my girlfriends over the moment I got the text and totally cried in their arms over what he told me. This entire time, since Junior year of high school, he’s had a long term girlfriend. She goes to a local university in his hometown, so they only see each other when he visits, but he stopped loving her after meeting me. He left out the part where they’re engaged, but he told me he’s gonna break up with her once he moves out of his apartment and moves back home. He’s hoping to see me before he does though, and wants to make a plan for me to visit him over the summer.
I am absolutely heartbroken in the most selfish way. I really feel for his fiance as he’s definitely had over probably 20 affairs while being in college away from her and she has no idea, or at least chooses to ignore it. On top of this, finding out our previous relationship was a lie hurts me. He told me he loved me and we spent so many days of the week together, but thinking back he totally had other dates too. This is seriously crazy. And I feel crazy for contributing to his cheating streak knowingly. I didn’t think it would get this far to be honest, and the fact he’s willing to break up with this poor girl over a fake one he still hasn’t met is psycho.
When he told me, my friends helped me type up a message that boils down to “Wow, that’s a lot. I need some time to process this information.” and we’ve since been ignoring all his messages on snap.
Another aspect is that, while this has been happening, I’ve also been actually dating people and did meet this one guy I really like. It’s getting weird now living this double life. This guy and I are getting closer and I realized I feel ashamed at the thought of telling him what I’ve done, so I’ve been reflecting.
Ultimately, as lowkey guilty as I feel, I do believe he deserves it on some level. The fiance doesn’t, but deserves better. I’m breaking up a couple, but with good reason.
How do I get out of this situation? I’m so stuck.
TLDR: I posed as my cheating ex’s dreamgirl to break up him and his fiance, but things feel too intense. How do I get out of this situation? .
2024.06.08 17:40 DoorTheDude Counting down Worm's 13th birthday by ranking the Top 7 Arcs in my opinion Day 4
We've made to day four. I'm happy I'm getting this out in the morning this time, as that was my original intention when doing this. Despite having it out later than I wanted to yesterday I appreciate the comments and up votes truly and dearly. We are only three days away from Worm's birthday and continue forward with Worm Week.
Honorable mentions list:
Arc 20 Chrysalis
Arc 12 Plague
Arc 19 Scourge
The Top 7 Arcs in Worm according to my opinion:
4. Arc 31 Teneral: I'm not entirely sure if it's right to include the epilogue, but it's my list so it's going on here. To me it only slightly beats out Speck here purely for that conversation Taylor has with her mom. But starting from the beginning as always, anytime Jessica Yamada is doing anything in the book, it's always such a fun read. Doing this from Glaistig Uaine's perspective was such an interesting choice that I would not have made but it works so well, especially when she's threatening Yamada and to her it just feels like she's not selling it but we know as readers from Yamada's interlude that she's absolutely terrified but she just knows how to keep a good poker face. I love their conversation. For me I was more terrified that at any point Uaine would just say fuck it we ball and kill Yamada but she doesn't and sticks with it. Yamada breaking down Uaine piece by piece, from calling her by her civilian name or talking about her relationship with Scion, it's so good and entertaining.
From there into e.2, Imp's chapter. This one is my favorite of the five. Imp carries during the second half of the story, she is endlessly funny and endlessly entertaining. I love her character so much, and this chapter pins the point home for her. Taking down a warlord who's acting incredibly similarly to another old warlord. She effortlessly takes him and chains him up threatening to let go of the chain to let him down on a bed of makeshift spikes. Another great conversation, between her, Nero, and the debuting Heartbroken. Imp using her power to making everyone forget after she realizes that she make been calling Nero Nemo the entire time still makes me smile just thinking about it. Then she gives him a Regent doll to take care of and make sure it's most pristine along with making him follow certain rules and if he doesn't follow those rules he'll burst into full song and dance to the tune of the tea cup song.
Dragon's chapter with Defiant is such a graceful chapter. Defiant doing everything he can to try and fix Dragon who he loves so much and is neglecting his own health for her. Dragon talking about kids and what their future could look like together is so cute and sweet. All this just to set up Defiant uploading Pandora just so Dragon can be free even if it means he won't get to love her anymore, absolutely heartbreaking. But Dragon fights off Pandora successfully and then at the end Dragon and Defiant embrace and it's such a sweet ending to their story.
Rachel and her crew going to the city together and this chapter puts an end to Rachel's character arc. First with reinforcing that she doesn't understand people, such as Biter believing that the peak of civilization when you have french fries at a fast food place. I think in the moment where they think there's a cape fight going on and Rachel takes a moment to think about what to do next, and as she's thinking she thinks about Taylor, it's in that moment I personally believe she almost fully comes around to the idea of trusting people and giving them a chance. Then she comes face to face with Miss Milita
I'm not really a big fan of the next chapter with Teacher, it feels really unnecessary, I guess it sets up some stuff for Ward which is fine but even Wildbow himself has said that he would scrap this chapter in a rewrite so I'm just going to skip it.
Then comes the true ending of Worm, Interlude:End. Taylor sits on a bus and talks with a elderly woman, they have a really interesting conversation, a conversation about reflection of all that has happened but by the end of it all you can do is learn from it and choose where you go from there. At least that was my interpretation of it.
With that concludes day four. This one I had the most fun writing out. Feel free to leave a comment, I would love to respond to what you say, and as always I appreciate you reading this and I'll see you tomorrow for day five.
submitted by DoorTheDude to Parahumans [link] [comments]
Honorable mentions list:
Arc 20 Chrysalis
Arc 12 Plague
Arc 19 Scourge
The Top 7 Arcs in Worm according to my opinion:
- Arc 16 Monarch
- Arc 24 Crushed
- Arc 30 Speck
4. Arc 31 Teneral: I'm not entirely sure if it's right to include the epilogue, but it's my list so it's going on here. To me it only slightly beats out Speck here purely for that conversation Taylor has with her mom. But starting from the beginning as always, anytime Jessica Yamada is doing anything in the book, it's always such a fun read. Doing this from Glaistig Uaine's perspective was such an interesting choice that I would not have made but it works so well, especially when she's threatening Yamada and to her it just feels like she's not selling it but we know as readers from Yamada's interlude that she's absolutely terrified but she just knows how to keep a good poker face. I love their conversation. For me I was more terrified that at any point Uaine would just say fuck it we ball and kill Yamada but she doesn't and sticks with it. Yamada breaking down Uaine piece by piece, from calling her by her civilian name or talking about her relationship with Scion, it's so good and entertaining.
From there into e.2, Imp's chapter. This one is my favorite of the five. Imp carries during the second half of the story, she is endlessly funny and endlessly entertaining. I love her character so much, and this chapter pins the point home for her. Taking down a warlord who's acting incredibly similarly to another old warlord. She effortlessly takes him and chains him up threatening to let go of the chain to let him down on a bed of makeshift spikes. Another great conversation, between her, Nero, and the debuting Heartbroken. Imp using her power to making everyone forget after she realizes that she make been calling Nero Nemo the entire time still makes me smile just thinking about it. Then she gives him a Regent doll to take care of and make sure it's most pristine along with making him follow certain rules and if he doesn't follow those rules he'll burst into full song and dance to the tune of the tea cup song.
“It’s about legacies,” Imp said. “Kind of important. She’s gone, so it’s up to us to protect her legacy. Now here’s another. Desk drawer, bottom right.”Imp also deals with Shadow Stalker. The dialogue in this Arc is the best in the book. Her conversation with Shadow Stalker about Taylor and how she'll always be remembered and how someone like Shadow Stalker will be forgotten is what makes this chapter my favorite of the five.
“In the rest of your years, even if you try, which you won’t, you won’t make a fraction of the difference she made. You’re going to keep living this solitary little hunter-stalker existence, picking off a few bad guys, getting your jollies, and people are never going to wear a badge on their sleeves for you.”Those two paragraphs that I quoted for this to me ends Imp's character arc in Worm. This girl whose power makes people forget she exists makes these lasting connections with people and once they're gone from her life, she chooses to do everything she can to make sure people know who they were and to remember them. It's so beautiful to me.
“That badge is not for Hebert.”
“Maybe not for everyone,” Imp said. “It means different things for different people. A planet they lost, an ordeal they survived, I dunno. But it’s a reminder of Taylor to me, and it’s a reminder for you, too. Every time you see it, now, it’s going to make you think of her, remind you that she did something big.”
Dragon's chapter with Defiant is such a graceful chapter. Defiant doing everything he can to try and fix Dragon who he loves so much and is neglecting his own health for her. Dragon talking about kids and what their future could look like together is so cute and sweet. All this just to set up Defiant uploading Pandora just so Dragon can be free even if it means he won't get to love her anymore, absolutely heartbreaking. But Dragon fights off Pandora successfully and then at the end Dragon and Defiant embrace and it's such a sweet ending to their story.
Rachel and her crew going to the city together and this chapter puts an end to Rachel's character arc. First with reinforcing that she doesn't understand people, such as Biter believing that the peak of civilization when you have french fries at a fast food place. I think in the moment where they think there's a cape fight going on and Rachel takes a moment to think about what to do next, and as she's thinking she thinks about Taylor, it's in that moment I personally believe she almost fully comes around to the idea of trusting people and giving them a chance. Then she comes face to face with Miss Milita
“We going to have a problem?” Rachel called out.I know being objective for a second that the amnesty is purely because there's too much chaos going on and too many villainous capes out of the bird cage to do anything about it so amnesty was the best option. But I enjoy second chances/redemption in fiction especially done right. This amnesty is such a perfect parallel to Rachel giving people a second chance. People make mistakes and that's okay, you don't always owe them forgiveness but sometimes it doesn't hurt to let them try, especially when people have been willing to do it for you.
“No. No problem,” Miss Militia said. “I’m coming closer, okay? We’re good. There’s an amnesty.”
“Don’t know what that means.”
“There’s a deal. Everyone gets a second chance. We don’t have a problem with anyone, until they do something wrong.”
“I’m not a villain anymore?”
“Not unless you want to do something villainous.”
I'm not really a big fan of the next chapter with Teacher, it feels really unnecessary, I guess it sets up some stuff for Ward which is fine but even Wildbow himself has said that he would scrap this chapter in a rewrite so I'm just going to skip it.
Then comes the true ending of Worm, Interlude:End. Taylor sits on a bus and talks with a elderly woman, they have a really interesting conversation, a conversation about reflection of all that has happened but by the end of it all you can do is learn from it and choose where you go from there. At least that was my interpretation of it.
“When you reach the end of your life, you have a chance to take stock. You sum it up, and you decide if you want to spend your remaining years, months or days in regret or satisfaction. My late husband told me that.”Then it switches and we are with the Undersiders. As Tattletale, Imp, Bitch, Foil, Parian, Cozen, Forrest, Charlotte, Sierra, Aidan, and Dinah make a toast to the three Undersiders that had died, Brian, Alec, and Taylor. It's a touching tribute.
Tattletale gave Imp the evil eye as she continued, “In honor of everything and everyone we fought for and saved. In remembrance of everything we couldn’t save.”We then switch back to Taylor's perspective as she has the conversation with her mom, her mom from another Earth that didn't die. I don't think I can give an analysis of this conversation rightfully so I'm just going to encourage you to go read it again yourself. I will say however that in the beginning after I finished when I finished Worm I believe Taylor was alive and Cauldron put her on another Earth. But the more I thought about it the more I realized I was just thinking that because I wanted Taylor to be alive and it made more sense for her to be in a coma, the first shot by Contessa was to deactivate her power, the second was to put her in the coma itself. Why must you play with my heart Wildbow?
With that concludes day four. This one I had the most fun writing out. Feel free to leave a comment, I would love to respond to what you say, and as always I appreciate you reading this and I'll see you tomorrow for day five.
2024.06.07 10:58 foldoregomi Apples and Hypocrisy
There she was, pristine and privileged, playing judge and jury in aisle three. An apple bandit among the bread, just a hungry girl who saw an opportunity in a less-than-perfect apple. She grabbed it, her eyes wide with the thrill of rebellion cloaked in necessity.
And then came the harpy, with her manicured claws and top-shelf righteousness, wagging her finger, demanding justice from a weary cashier who was more concerned with scanning cereal than chasing shadows.
"Why didn’t you stop her?" the woman hissed, her voice slicing through the apathy, a self-important dagger aimed at indifference.
As if catching a starving child could ever solve a deeper hunger gnawing at our society’s soul.
But she wouldn’t understand that. No. Not her. She who parks her polished Mercedes in a space meant for those carrying heavier burdens than a shopping bag. She who picks fruit with the same carelessness that she judges the less fortunate.
You, oh high and mighty roadblock of humanity, should spend a day on a farm, picking apples under a blazing sun. Feel the sweat, the ache, the humbling labor that roots us all to the same earth. Maybe then you’ll know the sweetness of compassion.
To the uptight nose-poker who thinks an apple snatched by a small hand is the worst of sins: look closer, and you'll see that true crime is the rot of a cold heart. Compassion can be as fresh as the fairest apple, if you let it be.
Don’t fret about the little capers of those who bob for apples in life’s turbulent waters unless you’re ready to dive in and help. Until then, let the small sins slide, for we all have our hidden trespasses, souring our own perfect lives.
submitted by foldoregomi to grittytruth [link] [comments]
And then came the harpy, with her manicured claws and top-shelf righteousness, wagging her finger, demanding justice from a weary cashier who was more concerned with scanning cereal than chasing shadows.
"Why didn’t you stop her?" the woman hissed, her voice slicing through the apathy, a self-important dagger aimed at indifference.
As if catching a starving child could ever solve a deeper hunger gnawing at our society’s soul.
But she wouldn’t understand that. No. Not her. She who parks her polished Mercedes in a space meant for those carrying heavier burdens than a shopping bag. She who picks fruit with the same carelessness that she judges the less fortunate.
You, oh high and mighty roadblock of humanity, should spend a day on a farm, picking apples under a blazing sun. Feel the sweat, the ache, the humbling labor that roots us all to the same earth. Maybe then you’ll know the sweetness of compassion.
To the uptight nose-poker who thinks an apple snatched by a small hand is the worst of sins: look closer, and you'll see that true crime is the rot of a cold heart. Compassion can be as fresh as the fairest apple, if you let it be.
Don’t fret about the little capers of those who bob for apples in life’s turbulent waters unless you’re ready to dive in and help. Until then, let the small sins slide, for we all have our hidden trespasses, souring our own perfect lives.
2024.06.07 10:27 Richard_Ingalls An Outworlder's Perspective on the Nine Sapient Races: Part 1
Author's Note: Day 2 of trying to post every day. So far still motivated! I know what some of the aforementioned "Nine Races" in the title are going to be: Humans, Dwarves, Elves, Orcs, Dragons, Kobolds, but I don't know what to do for the last three. Any ideas? As always, let me know if I make any grammatical or spelling errors. And enjoy!
Next
James Fox was... bored. Very bored. You'd think that the afterlife would be even remotely interesting. But unless your deepest desire is having to sit through what might as well be several centuries of bureaucracy, it wasn't. When he died, it was like a game of hot potato had begun. He was passed from one "Afterlife Designation Office" to another. He had endured boring things before. One doesn't get 3 PhDs without that. But this was a whole new level. He was currently sitting in yet another waiting room, for yet another office. He looked around. There were a few other people, coming through the doors, sitting down. Later getting up and walking into the actual office, then being escorted to another door, presumably to an afterlife. He wondered what would happen if he just got up and left...
He got up and went out the door. He ended up in the appropriately and very, very "creatively" named "Hallway." Lamest name I've ever heard. James looked around. The hallway was fairly crowded, with many people travelling in both directions, escorted by people in either white or black robes, with matching colored scythes. I've been escorted by the black-robes, so what happens if I follow a white-robe? He did so, following closely behind one of the many white-robes. Suddenly he was approached by another white-robe. "Hello sir, are you Terence Moore?" the woman asked. James thought fast. Oh, crap, I must have taken the place of somebody. They won't be happy if I turn out to not be who their looking for. "Yes, I am," James said, barely managing to keep a poker face. "Ah, yes, good. You're in luck! We are a bit ahead of schedule and can get you sorted right away," she said, beaming. "Come right this way." James followed, sighing in relief the moment she looked away. Great! Now I can actually DO something. And I don't have to explain why I was following someone.
"Here we are. Now, this is going to be quite painful for you, no we can't fix it, yes you'll be fine afterwards." James looked at her, shocked, "What's gonna..." She continued as if he hadn't spoken. "You will be very disoriented at first, and you will have to relearn virtually everything, but it won't be that difficult, especially because you will have a few advantages that aren't possessed by everyone in that world." James, flabbergasted, and quite terrified, began "Wha..." He didn't even get that far before she cut him off once again. "So without further ado, welcome to your new life!" She abruptly swung her massive scythe. The last thing James saw was the woman's smile. It chilled him to the bone... or whatever passed for such when you lacked a body.
***
Penelope Frish smiled at the spot where James Fox once stood. He really thought he could fool us. Rachel was right. While it would have been easier to simply lead him here and tell him what's happening, it was far more... amusing this way. She grinned. I'll have to do this with the next guy.
\***
James woke up with a feeling of being compressed, unable to breath. Then, abruptly, air. He took in a breath, and SCREAMED in pain. He couldn't see beyond fuzzy lights and shadows. He couldn't hear very well, hearing nothing but incomprehensible noise all around him. He ran out of breath, and began to take another, only to hear another voice screaming. He stopped for a moment stunned, before the pain of the noise hit his eardrums, and he began screaming again. Suddenly he was immersed in some fluid. He felt his body being scrubbed. He tried to speak out in protest, but all he could manage was a scream. Screaming is hard work. James could feel his body growing tired, his screams growing quiet. As he did so, he heard soft voices. Totally incomprehensible, but clearly meant to be soothing. He began to make out vague shapes, vague approximations of... faces? Whatever the case, he felt himself slipping away, falling,
falling,
faaaaaaaalllllllliiiiiiing............
1 year later...
James was having a good time. Since his birth into this world, nothing major had happened, but he was doing very well. His twin, Everest, was his best friend. They were never separated for long. And his twin was smart. Like, really smart. Everest's first word was a full month before his own, and while Everest already could speak in complete sentences, he could only speak toddler. But on the bright side, it did mean he would be able to understand what he said about various things. Their parents were happy to have two smart children, and showed them off everywhere. James couldn't help but admit to himself that there was a certain pleasure in being paraded around as though you were a king, or had done something amazing. He did find it quite funny that his name in this world was James. He would've expected something else, but then, he would've expected not to be reborn
2 years later...
James thought carefully before moving one of the pieces on the Tevexi board. His uncle moved next door about a year ago, and once the man had seen how smart he and Everest were, he immediately set about teaching them the game. While James felt as though he were cheating by having lived a life prior to this one, he realized that his physiology wasn't normal either, and while it wasn't as advanced as Everest's, it was good enough that any discrepancies that could be found via testing in his developmental speed would be easily dismissed as errors. Granted, he only knew this due to said testing having taken place almost 2 years ago, but hey, good to know.
He was jolted from his thoughts by a cry of "Ixevet" {ee-ksheh-veht} from Everest. His uncle looked at the board, confused. "How did you... oh." The man laughed. "Clever," he said. "And I was so close too." James threw his last card on the board with a smirk. "Think again." Everest stared at the card, stunned, as their uncled began laughing uproariously. "Of course you would have that card. Of course you would," Everest muttered, putting his face in his hands. Their mother came in, eyebrow raised, with their younger sister on her hip. "What's happened now?" she asked. Everest sighed. "James had a card that allowed him to steal the win," he said, morosely.
Their mom sighed, smiling. "Perfect timing. Dinner will be ready in a few minutes. Rolland, you're welcome to stay and eat with us." Their uncle grimaced. "No, Ja'hal broke his leg again. I have to take his place at the wall." Their mom nodded, and returned to the kitchen, but not before setting Charlotte down on the rug. Charlotte immediately flopped on her stomach and began belly crawling towards the kitchen. Rolland got their first, scooping her up and tickling her, causing laughter to ring out. James and Everest quickly put the Tevexi game away and placed it back in the game drawer. They then went over to their uncle, who then set Charlotte down and hugged them both. "See you soon, kids," he said, getting up and walking to the door. "See you soon Uncle Rolland!" they chorused. Just before the man could open the door, it was flung open. "Dad!" Everest shouted, swiftly followed by James. They both ran to their father as their uncle embraced him. He scooped them up, swinging them around to peals of laughter. James had long since lost any shame at behaving in such a childlike manner. He had begun to think that perhaps there was never any shame in such actions even in his old life.
5 years later...
James thought carefully about his next move. Do I move my crown towards Everest's star? Or should I play my staff card? The crown would threaten his obelisk and pin his star, but it would leave my raven open. While the staff card would allow me to directly take out his star, which then exposes my pyramid. James moved his crown and immediately knew it was the wrong decision. Charlotte smirked at him. "Ixevet" she proclaimed triumphantly, throwing down the Immortal Sun card. Normally this wouldn't be enough to win, but because of its location, it was able to secure the win immediately. Everest threw his cards down as James stared at the card, stunned, while Charlotte smugly began putting the game away. This set was far nicer than their own, as it belonged to the school, and normally such young children wouldn't be allowed to touch something so fancy, but after some complicated tests involving various herbs and magic, they were permitted in the big kids' club. Their sister had just started school, while he and Everest had just started their third year.
A few minutes later, they got into a carriage, and soon were dropped off at their home. They slung their book bags to the floor in the corner of the living room, and gathered in the workshop. James had told them about his previous life, and they all enjoyed trying to replicate whatever they could. It usually failed, usually catastrophically, but they enjoyed it, and their uncle was always around to help since he had lost his left leg to a bear. It was just his luck that the bear had been wading in a murky swamp. There wasn't a mage powerful enough to heal the leg close enough to get there in time, so they had to amputate it. They were able to heal that over though, so at least he didn't bleed to death. Their father was often there as well, as due to the efforts of the Elves and Dwarves, he was able to return home more and more often, and for longer.
But today they weren't planning on re-creating anything from his world. Instead, they were studying for the mage tests. Well, Charlotte wasn't. She wasn't going to do something so dull unless she had to, and she wouldn't need to for three years. James and Everest on the other hand, had the test the next day. They had been quizzing each other on everything in the theoretical portion of the test, which was the only portion they could prepare for, as the other portion was simply magical scanning using seven different methods.
"How many types of mana are there?" Everest began. "42. And how are those distributed?" James shot back. "There are 3 which are specific to each of the nine species, then there are 3 which are exclusive to each gender, then there are six which can be used by anyone, then there are the three Prime Manas: Time, Void, and Celestial. What are the six anyone can use?" Everest responded swiftly. "Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, Physical, and Corporeal. What manas cannot be combined with each other without specific ingredients?" James asked. "Fire mana cannot mix with Water mana, nor Earth with Wind, nor Physical with Corporeal." They grinned at each other. "I think we are going to do very well tomorrow." James said. Everest nodded in agreement. Charlotte spoiled the moment by soaking them with the Super-Soaker-Machine-Gun they had built a few weeks ago. The twins looked at each other, before grabbing water rifles from the shelves nearby, crying "Get her!"
submitted by Richard_Ingalls to HFY [link] [comments]
Next
James Fox was... bored. Very bored. You'd think that the afterlife would be even remotely interesting. But unless your deepest desire is having to sit through what might as well be several centuries of bureaucracy, it wasn't. When he died, it was like a game of hot potato had begun. He was passed from one "Afterlife Designation Office" to another. He had endured boring things before. One doesn't get 3 PhDs without that. But this was a whole new level. He was currently sitting in yet another waiting room, for yet another office. He looked around. There were a few other people, coming through the doors, sitting down. Later getting up and walking into the actual office, then being escorted to another door, presumably to an afterlife. He wondered what would happen if he just got up and left...
He got up and went out the door. He ended up in the appropriately and very, very "creatively" named "Hallway." Lamest name I've ever heard. James looked around. The hallway was fairly crowded, with many people travelling in both directions, escorted by people in either white or black robes, with matching colored scythes. I've been escorted by the black-robes, so what happens if I follow a white-robe? He did so, following closely behind one of the many white-robes. Suddenly he was approached by another white-robe. "Hello sir, are you Terence Moore?" the woman asked. James thought fast. Oh, crap, I must have taken the place of somebody. They won't be happy if I turn out to not be who their looking for. "Yes, I am," James said, barely managing to keep a poker face. "Ah, yes, good. You're in luck! We are a bit ahead of schedule and can get you sorted right away," she said, beaming. "Come right this way." James followed, sighing in relief the moment she looked away. Great! Now I can actually DO something. And I don't have to explain why I was following someone.
"Here we are. Now, this is going to be quite painful for you, no we can't fix it, yes you'll be fine afterwards." James looked at her, shocked, "What's gonna..." She continued as if he hadn't spoken. "You will be very disoriented at first, and you will have to relearn virtually everything, but it won't be that difficult, especially because you will have a few advantages that aren't possessed by everyone in that world." James, flabbergasted, and quite terrified, began "Wha..." He didn't even get that far before she cut him off once again. "So without further ado, welcome to your new life!" She abruptly swung her massive scythe. The last thing James saw was the woman's smile. It chilled him to the bone... or whatever passed for such when you lacked a body.
***
Penelope Frish smiled at the spot where James Fox once stood. He really thought he could fool us. Rachel was right. While it would have been easier to simply lead him here and tell him what's happening, it was far more... amusing this way. She grinned. I'll have to do this with the next guy.
\***
James woke up with a feeling of being compressed, unable to breath. Then, abruptly, air. He took in a breath, and SCREAMED in pain. He couldn't see beyond fuzzy lights and shadows. He couldn't hear very well, hearing nothing but incomprehensible noise all around him. He ran out of breath, and began to take another, only to hear another voice screaming. He stopped for a moment stunned, before the pain of the noise hit his eardrums, and he began screaming again. Suddenly he was immersed in some fluid. He felt his body being scrubbed. He tried to speak out in protest, but all he could manage was a scream. Screaming is hard work. James could feel his body growing tired, his screams growing quiet. As he did so, he heard soft voices. Totally incomprehensible, but clearly meant to be soothing. He began to make out vague shapes, vague approximations of... faces? Whatever the case, he felt himself slipping away, falling,
falling,
faaaaaaaalllllllliiiiiiing............
1 year later...
James was having a good time. Since his birth into this world, nothing major had happened, but he was doing very well. His twin, Everest, was his best friend. They were never separated for long. And his twin was smart. Like, really smart. Everest's first word was a full month before his own, and while Everest already could speak in complete sentences, he could only speak toddler. But on the bright side, it did mean he would be able to understand what he said about various things. Their parents were happy to have two smart children, and showed them off everywhere. James couldn't help but admit to himself that there was a certain pleasure in being paraded around as though you were a king, or had done something amazing. He did find it quite funny that his name in this world was James. He would've expected something else, but then, he would've expected not to be reborn
2 years later...
James thought carefully before moving one of the pieces on the Tevexi board. His uncle moved next door about a year ago, and once the man had seen how smart he and Everest were, he immediately set about teaching them the game. While James felt as though he were cheating by having lived a life prior to this one, he realized that his physiology wasn't normal either, and while it wasn't as advanced as Everest's, it was good enough that any discrepancies that could be found via testing in his developmental speed would be easily dismissed as errors. Granted, he only knew this due to said testing having taken place almost 2 years ago, but hey, good to know.
He was jolted from his thoughts by a cry of "Ixevet" {ee-ksheh-veht} from Everest. His uncle looked at the board, confused. "How did you... oh." The man laughed. "Clever," he said. "And I was so close too." James threw his last card on the board with a smirk. "Think again." Everest stared at the card, stunned, as their uncled began laughing uproariously. "Of course you would have that card. Of course you would," Everest muttered, putting his face in his hands. Their mother came in, eyebrow raised, with their younger sister on her hip. "What's happened now?" she asked. Everest sighed. "James had a card that allowed him to steal the win," he said, morosely.
Their mom sighed, smiling. "Perfect timing. Dinner will be ready in a few minutes. Rolland, you're welcome to stay and eat with us." Their uncle grimaced. "No, Ja'hal broke his leg again. I have to take his place at the wall." Their mom nodded, and returned to the kitchen, but not before setting Charlotte down on the rug. Charlotte immediately flopped on her stomach and began belly crawling towards the kitchen. Rolland got their first, scooping her up and tickling her, causing laughter to ring out. James and Everest quickly put the Tevexi game away and placed it back in the game drawer. They then went over to their uncle, who then set Charlotte down and hugged them both. "See you soon, kids," he said, getting up and walking to the door. "See you soon Uncle Rolland!" they chorused. Just before the man could open the door, it was flung open. "Dad!" Everest shouted, swiftly followed by James. They both ran to their father as their uncle embraced him. He scooped them up, swinging them around to peals of laughter. James had long since lost any shame at behaving in such a childlike manner. He had begun to think that perhaps there was never any shame in such actions even in his old life.
5 years later...
James thought carefully about his next move. Do I move my crown towards Everest's star? Or should I play my staff card? The crown would threaten his obelisk and pin his star, but it would leave my raven open. While the staff card would allow me to directly take out his star, which then exposes my pyramid. James moved his crown and immediately knew it was the wrong decision. Charlotte smirked at him. "Ixevet" she proclaimed triumphantly, throwing down the Immortal Sun card. Normally this wouldn't be enough to win, but because of its location, it was able to secure the win immediately. Everest threw his cards down as James stared at the card, stunned, while Charlotte smugly began putting the game away. This set was far nicer than their own, as it belonged to the school, and normally such young children wouldn't be allowed to touch something so fancy, but after some complicated tests involving various herbs and magic, they were permitted in the big kids' club. Their sister had just started school, while he and Everest had just started their third year.
A few minutes later, they got into a carriage, and soon were dropped off at their home. They slung their book bags to the floor in the corner of the living room, and gathered in the workshop. James had told them about his previous life, and they all enjoyed trying to replicate whatever they could. It usually failed, usually catastrophically, but they enjoyed it, and their uncle was always around to help since he had lost his left leg to a bear. It was just his luck that the bear had been wading in a murky swamp. There wasn't a mage powerful enough to heal the leg close enough to get there in time, so they had to amputate it. They were able to heal that over though, so at least he didn't bleed to death. Their father was often there as well, as due to the efforts of the Elves and Dwarves, he was able to return home more and more often, and for longer.
But today they weren't planning on re-creating anything from his world. Instead, they were studying for the mage tests. Well, Charlotte wasn't. She wasn't going to do something so dull unless she had to, and she wouldn't need to for three years. James and Everest on the other hand, had the test the next day. They had been quizzing each other on everything in the theoretical portion of the test, which was the only portion they could prepare for, as the other portion was simply magical scanning using seven different methods.
"How many types of mana are there?" Everest began. "42. And how are those distributed?" James shot back. "There are 3 which are specific to each of the nine species, then there are 3 which are exclusive to each gender, then there are six which can be used by anyone, then there are the three Prime Manas: Time, Void, and Celestial. What are the six anyone can use?" Everest responded swiftly. "Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, Physical, and Corporeal. What manas cannot be combined with each other without specific ingredients?" James asked. "Fire mana cannot mix with Water mana, nor Earth with Wind, nor Physical with Corporeal." They grinned at each other. "I think we are going to do very well tomorrow." James said. Everest nodded in agreement. Charlotte spoiled the moment by soaking them with the Super-Soaker-Machine-Gun they had built a few weeks ago. The twins looked at each other, before grabbing water rifles from the shelves nearby, crying "Get her!"
2024.06.07 00:22 hewhoshallnotbenam [F] the deadly ship
Once upon a time, in an alternate reality where the Titanic was still the grandest ship ever built, the story of Rose and Jack took a dark and twisted turn.
Rose DeWitt Bukater was a young, aristocratic woman engaged to the wealthy but arrogant Cal Hockley. Unlike the reality we know, Rose never felt a spark with Jack Dawson, the charming, free-spirited artist who won a third-class ticket onto the Titanic in a poker game.
Jack, however, was instantly smitten with Rose. He saw her as the embodiment of all his dreams—a beacon of light in his otherwise tumultuous life. He tried to woo her with his carefree spirit and artistic endeavors, but Rose remained indifferent. She was trapped in her gilded cage, but Jack's attempts to rescue her didn't touch her heart this time.
As the Titanic sailed through the icy waters of the Atlantic, Jack's infatuation with Rose grew into an unhealthy obsession. His unreciprocated love began to fester, turning his once joyful demeanor into something far darker. He couldn't stand the idea of Rose being with Cal or anyone else. His jealousy and frustration boiled over, and a sinister transformation began.
One evening, as the ship's passengers danced and dined, Jack's mind snapped. He decided that if he couldn't have Rose, no one could. Fueled by a twisted sense of destiny and rejection, he went on a murderous rampage.
His first victim was Cal, who was found brutally stabbed in his lavish suite. The news of Cal's death sent shockwaves through the ship, but no one suspected Jack—the charming artist who had seemed so harmless. Jack was careful, methodical, and terrifyingly efficient. He used the chaos and confusion of the ship to his advantage, picking off passengers one by one under the cover of night.
Rose, meanwhile, began to sense something was terribly wrong. She noticed Jack's increasingly erratic behavior and the way he stared at her with a mix of longing and madness. When she discovered Cal's lifeless body, she knew she had to act quickly.
With the help of her loyal maid, Trudy, Rose devised a plan to escape the clutches of the deranged artist. They navigated the labyrinthine corridors of the Titanic, trying to stay one step ahead of Jack. The ship, once a floating palace, now felt like a haunted maze.
As the Titanic approached the deadly iceberg, the atmosphere was thick with fear and tension. Rose and Trudy found themselves cornered in the ship's engine room, with Jack closing in. His eyes were wild, and he held a knife, glinting in the dim light.
"Why, Rose?" Jack's voice was a mix of desperation and rage. "Why couldn't you love me?"
Rose stood her ground, her heart pounding. "Jack, this isn't you. Please, stop this madness."
But Jack was beyond reason. He lunged at Rose, but Trudy intervened, struggling with Jack as the ship collided with the iceberg. The impact threw them all to the ground, and the engine room began to flood with icy water.
In the chaos, Rose managed to grab the knife and, with a heavy heart, defended herself. Jack fell, mortally wounded, his eyes finally showing a glimmer of the man he once was. As the water rose around them, Rose and Trudy escaped, making their way to the lifeboats.
The Titanic met its tragic fate, sinking into the freezing Atlantic. Rose survived, but the horrors of that night haunted her forever. She never forgot the man Jack once was, nor the monster he became. The tale of the Titanic in this alternate reality was one of love turned to madness, a grim reminder of how fragile the human mind can be when consumed by unrequited passion.
submitted by hewhoshallnotbenam to story [link] [comments]
Rose DeWitt Bukater was a young, aristocratic woman engaged to the wealthy but arrogant Cal Hockley. Unlike the reality we know, Rose never felt a spark with Jack Dawson, the charming, free-spirited artist who won a third-class ticket onto the Titanic in a poker game.
Jack, however, was instantly smitten with Rose. He saw her as the embodiment of all his dreams—a beacon of light in his otherwise tumultuous life. He tried to woo her with his carefree spirit and artistic endeavors, but Rose remained indifferent. She was trapped in her gilded cage, but Jack's attempts to rescue her didn't touch her heart this time.
As the Titanic sailed through the icy waters of the Atlantic, Jack's infatuation with Rose grew into an unhealthy obsession. His unreciprocated love began to fester, turning his once joyful demeanor into something far darker. He couldn't stand the idea of Rose being with Cal or anyone else. His jealousy and frustration boiled over, and a sinister transformation began.
One evening, as the ship's passengers danced and dined, Jack's mind snapped. He decided that if he couldn't have Rose, no one could. Fueled by a twisted sense of destiny and rejection, he went on a murderous rampage.
His first victim was Cal, who was found brutally stabbed in his lavish suite. The news of Cal's death sent shockwaves through the ship, but no one suspected Jack—the charming artist who had seemed so harmless. Jack was careful, methodical, and terrifyingly efficient. He used the chaos and confusion of the ship to his advantage, picking off passengers one by one under the cover of night.
Rose, meanwhile, began to sense something was terribly wrong. She noticed Jack's increasingly erratic behavior and the way he stared at her with a mix of longing and madness. When she discovered Cal's lifeless body, she knew she had to act quickly.
With the help of her loyal maid, Trudy, Rose devised a plan to escape the clutches of the deranged artist. They navigated the labyrinthine corridors of the Titanic, trying to stay one step ahead of Jack. The ship, once a floating palace, now felt like a haunted maze.
As the Titanic approached the deadly iceberg, the atmosphere was thick with fear and tension. Rose and Trudy found themselves cornered in the ship's engine room, with Jack closing in. His eyes were wild, and he held a knife, glinting in the dim light.
"Why, Rose?" Jack's voice was a mix of desperation and rage. "Why couldn't you love me?"
Rose stood her ground, her heart pounding. "Jack, this isn't you. Please, stop this madness."
But Jack was beyond reason. He lunged at Rose, but Trudy intervened, struggling with Jack as the ship collided with the iceberg. The impact threw them all to the ground, and the engine room began to flood with icy water.
In the chaos, Rose managed to grab the knife and, with a heavy heart, defended herself. Jack fell, mortally wounded, his eyes finally showing a glimmer of the man he once was. As the water rose around them, Rose and Trudy escaped, making their way to the lifeboats.
The Titanic met its tragic fate, sinking into the freezing Atlantic. Rose survived, but the horrors of that night haunted her forever. She never forgot the man Jack once was, nor the monster he became. The tale of the Titanic in this alternate reality was one of love turned to madness, a grim reminder of how fragile the human mind can be when consumed by unrequited passion.
2024.06.06 13:03 Other_Gur4587 AITAH for going through my husband computer and finding out he is a creep
Hello, I (46 year old woman) am married to a 59 year old man. Together we have 4 children (3 boys 1 girl). They are all between the ages of 19-26, my daughter is the oldest. my husband has always been good to me and a good parent. My daughter and him never really got along because he was more focused on my sons and my daughter was a rebellious teen. For example he would play sports with them and take them and their friends out on fishing trips which my daughter never was invited to. I always thought this was because he is quite a mans man. The other day my son (19) brought home some friends to play poker with in the basement. I think it is important to add that one of these friends is gay. Anyway my husband joined them so I was left alone (all other children no longer live with us). I decided to do some work but my laptop was dead and I couldn’t find the charger so I thought it would be ok to use my husband computer in his office even though he tells me not to. I was on the computer messing around and I saw a file and I clicked on it without really thinking. In the file where hundreds of photos of all of my sons friends taken from social media of even taken while they where sleeping. They dated back to when my eldest son was 15. I was literally shaking as I explored this so I deleted all the pictures and just left it and now I don’t know what to do.
After this I have been spiralling remember all the things my husband does with those boys. Like he was the first one to buy them alcohol when they were underaged. He rubs their shoulders and touches them inappropriately, there are so many things I cannot believe I did not pick up on. I don’t know what to do, am I being dramatic I’m not sure. I would really appreciate any help
I have realised now that I should not have deleted the picture and u really am regretting it but I was so angry I wanted to get rid of them. I will try and find anything on his phone and computer when he is sleeping but as for now would it be a good idea to talk to my daughter about this situation. And of course I want to protect all of those boys and my Sons but I also know that my sons look up to their dad and it could be really heartbreaking for them.
Thanks to your help I was able to recover the photos on my husbands computer. I also spoke to my daughter on the matter and she is understandably furious. She is coming home for the weekend and we will be going to the authorities. Thank you for all the advice. Although I am still not sure how to tell my sons as I don’t want them finding out the truth. If anyone has any suggestions it would be helpful.
submitted by Other_Gur4587 to AITAH [link] [comments]
After this I have been spiralling remember all the things my husband does with those boys. Like he was the first one to buy them alcohol when they were underaged. He rubs their shoulders and touches them inappropriately, there are so many things I cannot believe I did not pick up on. I don’t know what to do, am I being dramatic I’m not sure. I would really appreciate any help
I have realised now that I should not have deleted the picture and u really am regretting it but I was so angry I wanted to get rid of them. I will try and find anything on his phone and computer when he is sleeping but as for now would it be a good idea to talk to my daughter about this situation. And of course I want to protect all of those boys and my Sons but I also know that my sons look up to their dad and it could be really heartbreaking for them.
Thanks to your help I was able to recover the photos on my husbands computer. I also spoke to my daughter on the matter and she is understandably furious. She is coming home for the weekend and we will be going to the authorities. Thank you for all the advice. Although I am still not sure how to tell my sons as I don’t want them finding out the truth. If anyone has any suggestions it would be helpful.
2024.06.05 12:24 gojoandgetospet I always joke about my husband can read my mind but something just happened and I need to share it with you all right now
So for context, my husband (25M) and I(25F) were childhood friends/pen pals and got married right after college. He’s my everything and I love him so much with all my heart. Being the oldest daughter in an ethnic family, I faced a lot of challenges and hardships in life that had me thinking that marriage and relationships weren’t for me, but he changed all of that.
I loved him even when we were just friends, but honestly being around that man is like having your heart wrapped in a warm blanket made of cotton. When I say that man is too good for this world, he’s too good for this world.
Okay, now onto the main point. My husband sort of has this gift where he can always read my mind in the weirdest ways. And it’s gotten stronger since we’ve gotten married. If I get any negative thoughts, he kisses me out of the blue on my forehead within a second. If I start to feel bad about my writing, because I’m an author and work from home, he’ll text or call me in that same instance and say that I’m such a talented writer and that he’s so proud of me. If I get a random thought about literally anything, within a few seconds, he’ll mention that exact same thing. These are all instances where I haven’t voiced anything out loud but he just acts accordingly as if he can read my inner thoughts.
So, I got diagnosed with PCOS a few years back and it’s made the majority of my hair fall out. Like I would say about 80% of my hair is gone. I used to have this really long, black curly thick hair and now it’s short and thin.
It’s been a nightmare dealing with it but my husband always makes me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world. It’s been a few years since my diagnosis, and I sort of gave up on trying to grow it back out and made the decision that I didn’t care about it anymore. It’s been a really long time since I’ve said anything about it but tonight, I woke up with this really weird urge that I needed to go sit in the living room and think about my hair loss. Literally for no reason at all, so I got up and went to go sit on our sofa.
I guess he noticed that I was missing and came into the living room and cuddled up next to me and went back to sleep. We just laid there for a few minutes and then he mumbles under his breath that he loves my hair. I start crying like a baby which shocks him because I rarely ever cry. This man is exhausted but he holds me, as if he’s been awake for hours, until I calm down. He asks me what’s wrong and I just tell him that I love him so much and he’s the best husband ever and how lucky I am to have him. He’s currently sleeping on my chest and we’re still in the living room but I just had to let this out.
This is true love and I really hope everyone finds someone like this in their life.
UPDATE: I think I may have ruffled some feathers with the “mind reader” comment, but just for the sake of clarification, yes he’s very observant and that definitely helps. The reason I joke about it is because I’m not the type of person who wears their emotions on their face.
I come from a culture that tells men that they’re weak if they cry, and women that they’re annoying if they show any emotions other than happiness, so everyone is this fake hard shell of a human being.
There have been times where I was smiling from ear to ear but deep down, I was a reck. No one has ever really noticed. Not my family, not my friends. This is all to say that I have an excellent poker face 😘. But my husband just knows when I’m having these thoughts even if he’s in a different room or at work and can’t even see my face. To the person who said he’s an alien that was sent to observe me, I think you’re right. And I love my big alien.
submitted by gojoandgetospet to TrueOffMyChest [link] [comments]
I loved him even when we were just friends, but honestly being around that man is like having your heart wrapped in a warm blanket made of cotton. When I say that man is too good for this world, he’s too good for this world.
Okay, now onto the main point. My husband sort of has this gift where he can always read my mind in the weirdest ways. And it’s gotten stronger since we’ve gotten married. If I get any negative thoughts, he kisses me out of the blue on my forehead within a second. If I start to feel bad about my writing, because I’m an author and work from home, he’ll text or call me in that same instance and say that I’m such a talented writer and that he’s so proud of me. If I get a random thought about literally anything, within a few seconds, he’ll mention that exact same thing. These are all instances where I haven’t voiced anything out loud but he just acts accordingly as if he can read my inner thoughts.
So, I got diagnosed with PCOS a few years back and it’s made the majority of my hair fall out. Like I would say about 80% of my hair is gone. I used to have this really long, black curly thick hair and now it’s short and thin.
It’s been a nightmare dealing with it but my husband always makes me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world. It’s been a few years since my diagnosis, and I sort of gave up on trying to grow it back out and made the decision that I didn’t care about it anymore. It’s been a really long time since I’ve said anything about it but tonight, I woke up with this really weird urge that I needed to go sit in the living room and think about my hair loss. Literally for no reason at all, so I got up and went to go sit on our sofa.
I guess he noticed that I was missing and came into the living room and cuddled up next to me and went back to sleep. We just laid there for a few minutes and then he mumbles under his breath that he loves my hair. I start crying like a baby which shocks him because I rarely ever cry. This man is exhausted but he holds me, as if he’s been awake for hours, until I calm down. He asks me what’s wrong and I just tell him that I love him so much and he’s the best husband ever and how lucky I am to have him. He’s currently sleeping on my chest and we’re still in the living room but I just had to let this out.
This is true love and I really hope everyone finds someone like this in their life.
UPDATE: I think I may have ruffled some feathers with the “mind reader” comment, but just for the sake of clarification, yes he’s very observant and that definitely helps. The reason I joke about it is because I’m not the type of person who wears their emotions on their face.
I come from a culture that tells men that they’re weak if they cry, and women that they’re annoying if they show any emotions other than happiness, so everyone is this fake hard shell of a human being.
There have been times where I was smiling from ear to ear but deep down, I was a reck. No one has ever really noticed. Not my family, not my friends. This is all to say that I have an excellent poker face 😘. But my husband just knows when I’m having these thoughts even if he’s in a different room or at work and can’t even see my face. To the person who said he’s an alien that was sent to observe me, I think you’re right. And I love my big alien.
2024.06.05 05:04 Kraven3000 First time playing: Any help here?
Hi, this is my first time playing the game, unfortunately I already know more or less where the story is going or how it ends, I'm on chapter 3 right after the women's suffrage mission (with the whole romance between Beau and Penelope thing) and I've already done the mission with Lenny to raid the mansion of the crazy people at war + the simulation of Bill, Arthur and Dutch being police officers.
Well, the point is that I want to platinum on my first playthrough of this game (I know, it's crazy), I'm a High-Honor player, and the post in general is kind of long because I have some doubts about, well, EVERYTHING.
1- I already did the legendary gunslingers mission in chapter 2, but when I returned to the bar the biographer was not there or the gunslinger was no longer there.
2- There are a couple of missions that I think I ruined by taking out the gun, one is to free a prisoner woman (which I think was a random event), the other is about a guy who studies plants. Is it possible to find them again?
3- Although it may seem silly, I just found out that I could improve the aesthetics of the bag and camp (since the second chapter I have the entire camp modified to the maximum) is there any advantage to changing or obtaining the entire aesthetic? (I want to do it anyway)
4- Regarding money, I already found two treasure maps and went to the end of both cases if I remember correctly, the one behind the waterfall is one. Is there a way to get more money without risking Arthur's honor or finding all the treasures? Or there are more later?
5- Since we're on the subject of money and honor, there's also the matter of trophies, like the minigames. I don't know if I'm missing one, but I've already played Poker (idk how to win bc idk about Poker), Dominoes, and The Knife Game. Also, there's the matter of the trophy that says "survive 18 bears" when I only found a couple by chance.
6- I try to complete the challenges and encyclopedias, although I also have to skin animals for another trophy. Any particular advice for this part?
7- The weapons, gosh, I found a rusty axe when I went to find the mirror for Molly, also after an Honor mission I was given the volcanic one, what weapons do you recommend I find if it is possible to find or buy?
8- I know I should mention it in the trophies section, but the trophy that requires creating pandemonium and having 250 dollars of reward for 3 days everywhere, how am I supposed to do it?
9- Related to the O'Driscoll camps (which I honestly forgot existed until I found one while looking for a carved stone) does stealing from their bodies count towards the $250 trophy?
10- Related to hunting... I'm a disaster, 90% of the time I get skin in bad condition, I tried to hunt an Uapiti in perfect condition and out of nowhere the skin was of poor quality.
11- Tell me dinosaur bones aren't as difficult as carved stones, I literally spent two hours on the same hill going around in circles to find one (i have to find a few left btw)
12- As for mounts, the White Arabian I captured (after three nightmare nights) has the best ones from Valentine bought. Are there better mounts or is this okay?
If anyone has any advice, I'd appreciate it (plus I forgot to add that I have no idea about talismans or rare items)
submitted by Kraven3000 to RDR2 [link] [comments]
Well, the point is that I want to platinum on my first playthrough of this game (I know, it's crazy), I'm a High-Honor player, and the post in general is kind of long because I have some doubts about, well, EVERYTHING.
1- I already did the legendary gunslingers mission in chapter 2, but when I returned to the bar the biographer was not there or the gunslinger was no longer there.
2- There are a couple of missions that I think I ruined by taking out the gun, one is to free a prisoner woman (which I think was a random event), the other is about a guy who studies plants. Is it possible to find them again?
3- Although it may seem silly, I just found out that I could improve the aesthetics of the bag and camp (since the second chapter I have the entire camp modified to the maximum) is there any advantage to changing or obtaining the entire aesthetic? (I want to do it anyway)
4- Regarding money, I already found two treasure maps and went to the end of both cases if I remember correctly, the one behind the waterfall is one. Is there a way to get more money without risking Arthur's honor or finding all the treasures? Or there are more later?
5- Since we're on the subject of money and honor, there's also the matter of trophies, like the minigames. I don't know if I'm missing one, but I've already played Poker (idk how to win bc idk about Poker), Dominoes, and The Knife Game. Also, there's the matter of the trophy that says "survive 18 bears" when I only found a couple by chance.
6- I try to complete the challenges and encyclopedias, although I also have to skin animals for another trophy. Any particular advice for this part?
7- The weapons, gosh, I found a rusty axe when I went to find the mirror for Molly, also after an Honor mission I was given the volcanic one, what weapons do you recommend I find if it is possible to find or buy?
8- I know I should mention it in the trophies section, but the trophy that requires creating pandemonium and having 250 dollars of reward for 3 days everywhere, how am I supposed to do it?
9- Related to the O'Driscoll camps (which I honestly forgot existed until I found one while looking for a carved stone) does stealing from their bodies count towards the $250 trophy?
10- Related to hunting... I'm a disaster, 90% of the time I get skin in bad condition, I tried to hunt an Uapiti in perfect condition and out of nowhere the skin was of poor quality.
11- Tell me dinosaur bones aren't as difficult as carved stones, I literally spent two hours on the same hill going around in circles to find one (i have to find a few left btw)
12- As for mounts, the White Arabian I captured (after three nightmare nights) has the best ones from Valentine bought. Are there better mounts or is this okay?
If anyone has any advice, I'd appreciate it (plus I forgot to add that I have no idea about talismans or rare items)
2024.06.04 20:17 sparkle0406 S6 E20 What do you think would have happened if Mary Alice insisted Eddie's mom play poker with her friends?
What do you think would have happened if Mary Alice insisted that Eddie's mom join them for poker one time? I'm watching the episode where we see how Eddie became the monster he is. Mary Alice asks his mom if she has any girlfriends. She responds by saying she's not the type of woman who had girlfriends.
Keeping in mind she evolved over years to become the person we see presently, how do you think the other woman would have responded to her? She would have met them at a time where her husband just left and she was raising a child by herself. Do you think her and Susan would have bonded over that? What about everyone else?
Just curious. It would be amazing to see how her and Eddie's life turned out if she had a group of girlfriends to help her through everything.
submitted by sparkle0406 to DesperateHousewives [link] [comments]
Keeping in mind she evolved over years to become the person we see presently, how do you think the other woman would have responded to her? She would have met them at a time where her husband just left and she was raising a child by herself. Do you think her and Susan would have bonded over that? What about everyone else?
Just curious. It would be amazing to see how her and Eddie's life turned out if she had a group of girlfriends to help her through everything.
2024.06.04 17:13 Idontsuckcompletely "poker players only beyond this point...You're going to have to leave"
 | Being a woman in poker can get really annoying sometimes... submitted by Idontsuckcompletely to poker [link] [comments] |
2024.06.04 05:39 TheCJK Bubba Yaga 6
First Next
Alexandra spun in front of the mirror admiring her dress. It shimmered, casting colors in the light coming in through the window. She stopped and looked herself over, hands out her side. She looked closer and then smiled. She reached over to her light table and picked up her projector necklace. She slipped it around her neck and activated it. Tiny blemishes upon her face and neck vanished, all traces of age hidden under a projected layer. She smiled at herself and nodded, turning to exit her bedroom.
She skipped down the hall, the morning light touching the far edges of the living room. A loud bang echoed through the house, followed by several other loud thuds on the roof. "Damn fucking spiders. They're going to wreck my roof."
She stopped next to the bedroom door and knocked. "Mr. Pus. Get up. Your people are here."
Nothing moved inside. She creaked the door open and looked around. Thin beams of light fluttered through the gap in the curtain allowing her to see the still made bed. She looked around the floor and chair, nothing. She sighed and looked up. In the far corner near the closet a small ball was curled up in a makeshift hammock. "Pusdot!" She shouted.
The ball started moving.
She looked back down the hall and yelled louder. "Bubba! Your pets are outside and your buddy here needs to wake up!"
Bubba threw the door open and glared at her, sleep thick in his eyes. "I don't smell coffee!"
"You should get the brew started then." She smiled and turned toward the kitchen. "Get dressed. I'll make some, you ass." She grumbled the last part.
Bubba slowly turned and went back into his room.
Pusdot had started waking due to all the shouting. He crept onto the ceiling and started rolling up his hammock. Through the roof and walls he felt the familiar strumming of his son. He tapped back. "I'm here. We're still waking up." He paused and then asked. "Are the females with you?"
"Yes."
Bubba burst out into the hall a moment later, tapping the wall with his knuckles. "Wake up bud. Daylight is burning." He stepped into the kitchen and walked over to Alexandra, grabbing her from behind.
She slapped his hands, but turned her cheek toward him.
He kissed her and slapped her ass. "Thank you love."
She turned and caught him pulling two mugs down. "Your friend need a mug?"
"I'll grab him a beer. Last cup of coffee choked him up." He sat the mugs down on the table and got situated on a stool, pulling on his boots.
Pusdot crawled around the corner, hugging the wall.
Bubba looked up and pointed at him. "Grab you a beer out the fridge, and get one for the boy."
Pusdot hissed in his tongue, words of fluid air mixing in his mandibles.
"Oh shit." Bubba turned toward the living room. "Speecho, you got a full charge?"
"Charged and ready sir." The orb replied.
"Get to work then."
The orb lifted out of its cradle near the window and floated into the kitchen.
"Pus, get you and your kin a beer. I'll pack up some sandwiches for the ride."
Pus widened his eyes. "Understood."
Bubba finished tying his boots and stood up, watching Alexandra pour the coffee. "You know if the girls are coming?"
Pusdot paused in the refrigerator and mumbled. The orb translated. "They are outside."
Alexandra perked up, smiling toward Pusdot. "Girls? You brought your daughters?"
Bubba shook his head slightly. "Daughters in law. Be careful around them. They're violent."
Alexandra thought for a moment and then took a sip of coffee. "Okay then, what are you going to take in today?"
Bubba thought for a moment. "I'll take the Starbreacher, you okay with the Crucible?"
She smiled and walked over to the safe. "You know I love that thing."
"Take an extra battery and three eutectics each."
She loaded up the ammo bag and then holstered the weapon on her hip, hanging loose against the dress. "Hey Pus, will this hurt the dress? Rubbing like this?" She looked over at him as he was popping open the beers.
He looked up and darkened his eyes. "Can handle lots of wearing. It will be fine."
She smiled. "Good. Let's go out and meet the girls!"
---===*===---
Gorepull and Quietbite pivoted and took a step back as the door of the human house opened. A human, taller than the witch, different, stepped out. It had strands hanging past its shoulder, unwoven, and it had a weave, bright, royal, a weave of a mother draped over its flesh.
Quietbite hissed and stood taller at the sight of Alexandra. "You dare! You are of no blood!" She arched her legs and started moving toward the human when Bubba stepped out beside his wife. He raised the thin device out toward the wire and moved his finger. The swamp was filled with fire and sound. Quietbite fell down, holding her head.
Gorepull cowered next to Sliplegs and stood slowly. "What, sister! Are you, did you kill her?"
Bubba walked over and pointed the weapon on Quietbite. "No one fights on this trip. Do you understand?"
Quietbite looked up at him, eyes darkened. "She, the noise. What have you done. She pivoted her eyes toward Sliplegs. "How did she learn those weaves?"
Bubba shook his head, powering up the gun. "I really didn't want to put a hole in my porch missy. You get one more chance. You going to be good?"
Sliplegs scooted quickly over to her, putting three hands up and the fourth on her back. "She is good. She is just emotional, excited time. The dress is confusing to her."
Bubba sighed. "You said no one would mess with her."
Pusdot walked over, stopping near his son. "No thing will mess with her. To be a queen requires respect. Amongst ours, she will have to earn that respect or be careful in that weave."
Alexandra walked over, holding her own gun out. "My house, my boat, my husband. Don't fuck with us, you got it girlie?"
Quietbite looked up at her and was about to speak harshly before Sliplegs grabbed her mouth. She instinctively bit him, but he held himself from making noise.
He looked up at Alexandra. "Excited time, hard to control. I apologize to you, wife of Bubba Yaga. Please spare my wife."
Alexandra tilted her head. "What do you mean excited time?"
Bubba looked around and motioned toward Pusdot. Pusdot crept past and the two started prepping the boat.
Sliplegs looked at his wife and she started easing her bite on his finger. He looked up at the human female. "We are newly wed. She is fed, and her body is making ready for a clutch. I'm sorry she is so aggressive."
She looked over at the translator orb. "Idiot robot. She's in heat. Remember those words." She holstered the Crucible and held a hand out toward Quietbite.
The female nudged Sliplegs off and reached out, taking her hand. "They made it for you, didn't they?"
Alexandra nodded. "They did."
"Do you know what the weaves mean?"
Alexandra shook her head. "No idea, but I think its beautiful."
She turned toward Sliplegs. "The fnga, this is how you got it?"
Sliplegs widened his eyes, cowering slightly.
"Fool male. You wish to win over your wives by deeming a swamp monster a queen? Idiots." She looked at Alexandra with all four eyes as she rose to her full height. "Males are stupid. I did not know human female, you, how you look. I feel we have many misunderstandings."
Alexandra kept her eyes on the woman and nodded. "We have a long ride into town. We can talk through a few of them I hope."
Quietbite mirrored her nod. "I hope we can. I will contain my judgements as best I can."
Alexandra smiled. "I will try to do the same."
----===*===---
The waterway leading to Bermham was overgrown with plant growth. Bubba pointed out some flowers growing in the mossy foliage. Pusdot noted the fnga and widened his eyes, pivoting back out. Sliplegs pointed out a group of tall legs walking through the deep waters in the distance.
Gorepull and Quietbite sat opposite Alexandra at the front of the boat. Bubba hit a ripple and bounced them. Alexandra glared at him. "Easy. That hurts!"
Bubba looked at Pusdot out of the corner of his eyes and slowed the boat down. He cracked a slight smile.
Gorepull leaned over. "Are you banished here same as the Bubba?"
Alexandra took a long breath, sighing. "Yes, and no. I'm banished here, but not for the same reason." She pointed over at him with her thumb. "He's got a gambling addiction, and this here is a kind of debtors prison. No real money here, no real way, or so I figured, to gamble." She looked over at the chests near Bubba's seat. "We're taking something back with us, to help the town." She smiled. "Helping cure him too."
Gorepull got startled from another small bump and clung tighter to the rail. "Should he be using this magic being unable to see?"
Alexandra looked over at him. "You can't see?" She shouted, pointing at her eyes.
He shrugged and slowed down the motor. "What?"
She looked over at Gorepull. "You said he can't see?"
Gorepull spoke up, the translator increasing volume in the boat speakers. "He said he used a special tool. He couldn't see well and had to use a different fire thunder. Is that why yours are different? Shouldn't you be steering the craft?"
Bubba laughed. "I scared them."
"So you told them you're blind?" Alexandra asked.
He nodded. "Predators. Lameness, its a trigger to them. They lose fear of it, and they were scared of me."
She turned back to the young spiderfolk. "He was bullshitting you."
"I do not know that word. What is a bull? How is that making him blind? He got its feces in his eyes?"
Alexandra shook her head. "Males lie."
Gorepull widened her eyes. "That they do." She leaned forward, all four eyes on Alexandra. "Women lie too. Do you agree? Queen?"
Alexandra leaned back, her hand finding her holster. "Yes, they have been known to."
Quietbite spoke up. "Why did you get banished here?"
Alexandra thought for a moment, looking over the light cascading through the murky water. "Well, I'll say it bluntly. I was a whore. I'm not ashamed of it."
Quietbite leaned over and whispered with Gorepull. She turned back, focusing on the human woman. "You mated for wealth? We don't understand. How does that work?"
"Human males, they are driven." She touched her temple. "Do you have any bugs or animals that do stupid things?"
Quietbite whispered again with Gorepull. She turned an eye back toward Alexandra. "Stuga. They crawl up tree bark and you can make a loud noise, they will fall."
Alexandra thought for a moment. "Why do they crawl up the bark?"
Quietbite touched her fingers together. "They, they crawl up to shoot out eggs. Make next generation. They have to crawl up." She laughed and clapped her four hands together. "Loud clap, they fall. Everytime. Then, they climb up again."
Alexandra smiled. "Yeah, men are like that. They crawl toward women. They can't help it either. We can do mean things to them, and still they crawl back. Some, desperate enough, will give you fortunes to mate."
Gorepull looked over at Bubba. "What fortune did he give to mate with you?"
She laughed. "I'm stuck with that idiot. We got paired up in our penance." She sighed again. "We're both from a, well, a backward world. Things are different there."
"How?" Quietbite asked. "What do you mean world?"
Alexandra groaned. "I don't know how to explain that. You're going to need someone better than me." She shifted on the bench. "I can tell you how though. Most places humans live, they live with things like that damn translator. They're everywhere, lazy people, they don't do shit. My world, we worked for a living. Made money the old way, lived how our ancestors lived." She smiled. "Me especially. Men came from all over to meet me." She turned and looked at the girls, their eyes transfixed on her. "That was the problem though, they all had wives."
Gorepull sat up straighter, her hand clasping one of Quietbite's. "You! You stole mates!"
Alexandra nodded. "I did, and now I'm here."
Quietbite reached over, palm open. "Tell us. How many did you steal?"
Alexandra took her hand, cautiously. "More than I can count."
Quietbite looked at Gorepull with two eyes before asking. "How big can humans count?"
Alexandra smiled. "Big."
Quietbite squeezed the human's hand. "I will respect your dress. I am sorry for my anger."
Alexandra laughed. "That? That got me respect? That's a first." She shook her head slightly and looked back out at the water. "Your kind is growing on me. You have my respect too."
---===*===---
The steam towers were the first things they could see of Bermham. Sliplegs stood up in the bow, holding tight, watching as they got closer. The second sign of human habitation was the smell. The scent of the foundry on the air, acidic, metallic, and smoky wafted through the trees, followed by smells from the restaurants.
Bubba slowed the boat as he left the last row of trees and neared the wall. A scanner eye recognized his face and opened up the port doors. He looked over at Pusdot, speaking loudly. "Stay close to us. Don't wander. You wander, you die. Understand?"
The four sets of alien eyes widened, staring at him. Alexandra reached over and took the girls hands, causing them to shift a pair of eyes onto her.
"You girls stick with me." She squeezed. "We're having a girls day."
They squeezed back.
Bubba made his way through the docks, noting the numerous mammalian eyes of his kind leering at him. He raised his hand up, waving at the dock master. The man gave him a nod and pointed at an empty slip before noting the four creatures in their boat.
Bubba pulled in slowly. "Sliplegs, tie us off."
Slip, practiced on the porch back in the swamp, got out and tied the rope around the posthook. Pusdot grabbed the one at the side, tying off that point while Bubba tied off the third.
Bubba made his way through the boat and climbed onto the dock. He reached down and helped Alexandra up, her dress glistening in the afternoon sun.
Pusdot and Sliplegs saw the gesture and climbed out to replicate it. The two larger females took their hands and climbed out.
Bubba looked around. "Keep eyes watching." He climbed back into the boat and started undoing the bundles of fnga armor, shetalf fletching, and a packet of gost worms he had kept secret. He then handed up the doctor plate up to Alexandra. "As I promised."
She looked it over. "Alright. Lets lighten the load then." She turned and looked toward the main street.
Bubba climbed out, groaning. "Talk to the mayor first then?"
She looked at the plate and then back at him. "Yeah."
He groaned again. "Alright. Lead on wife."
"Already am, husband."
---===*===---
The six made their way down the slate street, Alexandra at the lead followed by the females, then Sliplegs, Pusdot, and lastly Bubba.
People stepped onto the shop porches to see them. People dining under umbrellas put down forks to gaze. Bubba smiled, waving at anyone who met his eyes.
Mayor Thompson stepped out from his stone office building and immediately started sweating. He looked down the steps to see what all the people milling was about. He saw Bubba and groaned. "Oi. T.L. Gumphries, thought you said you were never coming back to this god forsaken place."
Alexandra stepped up to the stairs. "He's beholden to me, and I, sometimes like some civility."
Thompson stepped down the stairs, smiling at Alexandra. "Well, Miss Alexandra, it's always a good day with you in town."
Bubba stepped up beside her, staring at him. "Missus."
Mayor Thompson waved his hand. "Rules are different here. No need for you to abide by anything you don't want to." He turned smiling again at her. "We're all in this place together." He looked past them at the four dark furred creatures standing just behind. "I see you've tamed some of the local fauna." He laughed. "Pack animals, you are smarter than you let on T.L."
Alexandra looked back at the girls. "Yes. We need to talk about some of the local fauna with you, and other things. Do you have some time?"
He looked up the stairs and waved his hand up. "Lizzie! Lizzie!"
A short woman in a dress and metallic shoes stepped out. "Yes Mayor?"
"Make up some tea. We're going to be talking in the lounge."
She looked them over, noting their pets. "I ain't cleaning up after those things. I've seen the messes they leave on the walls." She turned and went back inside.
Mayor Thompson stepped closer. "Your pets be okay out here?"
Bubba stepped even closer. "You can have Lizzie hold off on the tea. I'm going to tell you right here."
Alexandra glared at him.
Bubba felt it in his periphery, but kept his eyes locked on Thompson. "Remember our last poker game?"
"I remember well. Cheater is as cheater does."
Bubba's face soured. "I ain't no cheat. I won fair and square."
"You're good at it. I'll give you that, but I don't know about fair and square."
Alexandra cleared her throat. "He won this off you. We wanted to return it for the town." She lifted the plate up, offering it.
The Mayor laughed. "Really?" He turned back toward Bubba. "You came back cause of your conscience? Felt bad for stealing our doctor?"
Alexandra elbowed him.
"Yes. It isn't right."
Mayor Thompson smiled at Alexandra. "It is right. I can't prove you cheated, and as such, you won it. You're going to need it out there. No telling what you'll get up to." He said, looking at the four creatures behind them.
Alexandra looked at Bubba and then at the Mayor. "You're going to let us keep it? You need it here though."
The Mayor stepped even closer, whispering. "Truth be told. I claimed it broken, used for parts. Had a new one drop shipped in a week." He pushed it back into her hands. "Keep it, a gift."
Bubba sighed, staring at him. "I won it, it ain't no gift."
Mayor Thompson looked at him.
Bubba continued. "And the translator I won."
"I don't want it back either. No need for it. We all speak normal here."
"No." Bubba said. "I've been using it, out there."
"Talking to the trees? Keeping up your conversation skills?"
Bubba looked at Pusdot and motioned him forward with his head.
Pusdot stepped forward.
"Mayor Thompson, I want you to meet my friend Pus."
Pusdot darkened his eyes bowing. "Thank you for having us in your town." The orb translated from his growls.
Mayor Thompson looked at the creature, then at Bubba, then at the other three in the back. "You, you talk?"
Pusdot looked up, an eye on Bubba. "Yes. We talk."
"Wow. This, this is incredible T.L. They're almost sentient!"
Bubba shut his eyes for a moment. "They are sentient. I've cooked in their ovens, ate with them. They use tools."
The Mayor took a step back, waving his finger. "No. No, no, no. This planet was scanned and categorized. There is no sentience on this planet." He pointed at Pusdot. "They don't use fire. You're not scamming me again, whatever this is."
Alexandra looked at the girls, nodding. "Tell him about yourselves."
Gorepull looked at her and then stepped up beside Pusdot, a head taller. "I am Gorepull, daughter of Silentcut holder of the southern grove. We are a people, and we think."
Mayor Thompson stared at her for a moment before looking at Bubba. "Tilman, you're serious? This isn't some ruse?"
"Do you really think I cheated you?"
Mayor Thompson thought for a moment and looked around the street, dozens of people still staring. "This, this is a potential annexation violation. Holy shit, this is, this is bad." He laughed for a moment. "Good for us! Good for us. Bad for this world, bad for the empire though. This can cause big, big, waves to start rolling. But hey, we might get out of here cause of this!"
Alexandra put her hand on his shoulder. "The other homesteads? They're still out there killing them, some might not like rules imposed."
The Mayor nodded. "Yeah, rules, right? They'll have to be convinced. Maybe a tour, like an old timey asteroid show? Got porch to porch entertaining folks, let them see what they can do. Get them to cook or something. Yeah." He started moving his finger in the air as he was thinking. "I think if people understand this, they'll buy in quick. We can get off this mudball." He looked at each of them. "This, is, a good, thing!" He turned and started up the stairs. "Go go, I got to make some phone calls. Tabs on me. I'll let Susan know."
Alexandra turned and looked at Bubba. "Well, I guess that's going well."
Bubba smiled and took her empty hand. "Coulda been worse. Let's go get drinks before he puts a limit on the tab." He patted Pusdot and Sliplegs and pointed of toward the local pub. "Drinks on the Mayor boys."
Alexandra looked at the girls and then around at the people staring. "Keep mindful."
Their eyes widened and pivoted, scanning the crowds.
submitted by TheCJK to HFY [link] [comments]
Alexandra spun in front of the mirror admiring her dress. It shimmered, casting colors in the light coming in through the window. She stopped and looked herself over, hands out her side. She looked closer and then smiled. She reached over to her light table and picked up her projector necklace. She slipped it around her neck and activated it. Tiny blemishes upon her face and neck vanished, all traces of age hidden under a projected layer. She smiled at herself and nodded, turning to exit her bedroom.
She skipped down the hall, the morning light touching the far edges of the living room. A loud bang echoed through the house, followed by several other loud thuds on the roof. "Damn fucking spiders. They're going to wreck my roof."
She stopped next to the bedroom door and knocked. "Mr. Pus. Get up. Your people are here."
Nothing moved inside. She creaked the door open and looked around. Thin beams of light fluttered through the gap in the curtain allowing her to see the still made bed. She looked around the floor and chair, nothing. She sighed and looked up. In the far corner near the closet a small ball was curled up in a makeshift hammock. "Pusdot!" She shouted.
The ball started moving.
She looked back down the hall and yelled louder. "Bubba! Your pets are outside and your buddy here needs to wake up!"
Bubba threw the door open and glared at her, sleep thick in his eyes. "I don't smell coffee!"
"You should get the brew started then." She smiled and turned toward the kitchen. "Get dressed. I'll make some, you ass." She grumbled the last part.
Bubba slowly turned and went back into his room.
Pusdot had started waking due to all the shouting. He crept onto the ceiling and started rolling up his hammock. Through the roof and walls he felt the familiar strumming of his son. He tapped back. "I'm here. We're still waking up." He paused and then asked. "Are the females with you?"
"Yes."
Bubba burst out into the hall a moment later, tapping the wall with his knuckles. "Wake up bud. Daylight is burning." He stepped into the kitchen and walked over to Alexandra, grabbing her from behind.
She slapped his hands, but turned her cheek toward him.
He kissed her and slapped her ass. "Thank you love."
She turned and caught him pulling two mugs down. "Your friend need a mug?"
"I'll grab him a beer. Last cup of coffee choked him up." He sat the mugs down on the table and got situated on a stool, pulling on his boots.
Pusdot crawled around the corner, hugging the wall.
Bubba looked up and pointed at him. "Grab you a beer out the fridge, and get one for the boy."
Pusdot hissed in his tongue, words of fluid air mixing in his mandibles.
"Oh shit." Bubba turned toward the living room. "Speecho, you got a full charge?"
"Charged and ready sir." The orb replied.
"Get to work then."
The orb lifted out of its cradle near the window and floated into the kitchen.
"Pus, get you and your kin a beer. I'll pack up some sandwiches for the ride."
Pus widened his eyes. "Understood."
Bubba finished tying his boots and stood up, watching Alexandra pour the coffee. "You know if the girls are coming?"
Pusdot paused in the refrigerator and mumbled. The orb translated. "They are outside."
Alexandra perked up, smiling toward Pusdot. "Girls? You brought your daughters?"
Bubba shook his head slightly. "Daughters in law. Be careful around them. They're violent."
Alexandra thought for a moment and then took a sip of coffee. "Okay then, what are you going to take in today?"
Bubba thought for a moment. "I'll take the Starbreacher, you okay with the Crucible?"
She smiled and walked over to the safe. "You know I love that thing."
"Take an extra battery and three eutectics each."
She loaded up the ammo bag and then holstered the weapon on her hip, hanging loose against the dress. "Hey Pus, will this hurt the dress? Rubbing like this?" She looked over at him as he was popping open the beers.
He looked up and darkened his eyes. "Can handle lots of wearing. It will be fine."
She smiled. "Good. Let's go out and meet the girls!"
---===*===---
Gorepull and Quietbite pivoted and took a step back as the door of the human house opened. A human, taller than the witch, different, stepped out. It had strands hanging past its shoulder, unwoven, and it had a weave, bright, royal, a weave of a mother draped over its flesh.
Quietbite hissed and stood taller at the sight of Alexandra. "You dare! You are of no blood!" She arched her legs and started moving toward the human when Bubba stepped out beside his wife. He raised the thin device out toward the wire and moved his finger. The swamp was filled with fire and sound. Quietbite fell down, holding her head.
Gorepull cowered next to Sliplegs and stood slowly. "What, sister! Are you, did you kill her?"
Bubba walked over and pointed the weapon on Quietbite. "No one fights on this trip. Do you understand?"
Quietbite looked up at him, eyes darkened. "She, the noise. What have you done. She pivoted her eyes toward Sliplegs. "How did she learn those weaves?"
Bubba shook his head, powering up the gun. "I really didn't want to put a hole in my porch missy. You get one more chance. You going to be good?"
Sliplegs scooted quickly over to her, putting three hands up and the fourth on her back. "She is good. She is just emotional, excited time. The dress is confusing to her."
Bubba sighed. "You said no one would mess with her."
Pusdot walked over, stopping near his son. "No thing will mess with her. To be a queen requires respect. Amongst ours, she will have to earn that respect or be careful in that weave."
Alexandra walked over, holding her own gun out. "My house, my boat, my husband. Don't fuck with us, you got it girlie?"
Quietbite looked up at her and was about to speak harshly before Sliplegs grabbed her mouth. She instinctively bit him, but he held himself from making noise.
He looked up at Alexandra. "Excited time, hard to control. I apologize to you, wife of Bubba Yaga. Please spare my wife."
Alexandra tilted her head. "What do you mean excited time?"
Bubba looked around and motioned toward Pusdot. Pusdot crept past and the two started prepping the boat.
Sliplegs looked at his wife and she started easing her bite on his finger. He looked up at the human female. "We are newly wed. She is fed, and her body is making ready for a clutch. I'm sorry she is so aggressive."
She looked over at the translator orb. "Idiot robot. She's in heat. Remember those words." She holstered the Crucible and held a hand out toward Quietbite.
The female nudged Sliplegs off and reached out, taking her hand. "They made it for you, didn't they?"
Alexandra nodded. "They did."
"Do you know what the weaves mean?"
Alexandra shook her head. "No idea, but I think its beautiful."
She turned toward Sliplegs. "The fnga, this is how you got it?"
Sliplegs widened his eyes, cowering slightly.
"Fool male. You wish to win over your wives by deeming a swamp monster a queen? Idiots." She looked at Alexandra with all four eyes as she rose to her full height. "Males are stupid. I did not know human female, you, how you look. I feel we have many misunderstandings."
Alexandra kept her eyes on the woman and nodded. "We have a long ride into town. We can talk through a few of them I hope."
Quietbite mirrored her nod. "I hope we can. I will contain my judgements as best I can."
Alexandra smiled. "I will try to do the same."
----===*===---
The waterway leading to Bermham was overgrown with plant growth. Bubba pointed out some flowers growing in the mossy foliage. Pusdot noted the fnga and widened his eyes, pivoting back out. Sliplegs pointed out a group of tall legs walking through the deep waters in the distance.
Gorepull and Quietbite sat opposite Alexandra at the front of the boat. Bubba hit a ripple and bounced them. Alexandra glared at him. "Easy. That hurts!"
Bubba looked at Pusdot out of the corner of his eyes and slowed the boat down. He cracked a slight smile.
Gorepull leaned over. "Are you banished here same as the Bubba?"
Alexandra took a long breath, sighing. "Yes, and no. I'm banished here, but not for the same reason." She pointed over at him with her thumb. "He's got a gambling addiction, and this here is a kind of debtors prison. No real money here, no real way, or so I figured, to gamble." She looked over at the chests near Bubba's seat. "We're taking something back with us, to help the town." She smiled. "Helping cure him too."
Gorepull got startled from another small bump and clung tighter to the rail. "Should he be using this magic being unable to see?"
Alexandra looked over at him. "You can't see?" She shouted, pointing at her eyes.
He shrugged and slowed down the motor. "What?"
She looked over at Gorepull. "You said he can't see?"
Gorepull spoke up, the translator increasing volume in the boat speakers. "He said he used a special tool. He couldn't see well and had to use a different fire thunder. Is that why yours are different? Shouldn't you be steering the craft?"
Bubba laughed. "I scared them."
"So you told them you're blind?" Alexandra asked.
He nodded. "Predators. Lameness, its a trigger to them. They lose fear of it, and they were scared of me."
She turned back to the young spiderfolk. "He was bullshitting you."
"I do not know that word. What is a bull? How is that making him blind? He got its feces in his eyes?"
Alexandra shook her head. "Males lie."
Gorepull widened her eyes. "That they do." She leaned forward, all four eyes on Alexandra. "Women lie too. Do you agree? Queen?"
Alexandra leaned back, her hand finding her holster. "Yes, they have been known to."
Quietbite spoke up. "Why did you get banished here?"
Alexandra thought for a moment, looking over the light cascading through the murky water. "Well, I'll say it bluntly. I was a whore. I'm not ashamed of it."
Quietbite leaned over and whispered with Gorepull. She turned back, focusing on the human woman. "You mated for wealth? We don't understand. How does that work?"
"Human males, they are driven." She touched her temple. "Do you have any bugs or animals that do stupid things?"
Quietbite whispered again with Gorepull. She turned an eye back toward Alexandra. "Stuga. They crawl up tree bark and you can make a loud noise, they will fall."
Alexandra thought for a moment. "Why do they crawl up the bark?"
Quietbite touched her fingers together. "They, they crawl up to shoot out eggs. Make next generation. They have to crawl up." She laughed and clapped her four hands together. "Loud clap, they fall. Everytime. Then, they climb up again."
Alexandra smiled. "Yeah, men are like that. They crawl toward women. They can't help it either. We can do mean things to them, and still they crawl back. Some, desperate enough, will give you fortunes to mate."
Gorepull looked over at Bubba. "What fortune did he give to mate with you?"
She laughed. "I'm stuck with that idiot. We got paired up in our penance." She sighed again. "We're both from a, well, a backward world. Things are different there."
"How?" Quietbite asked. "What do you mean world?"
Alexandra groaned. "I don't know how to explain that. You're going to need someone better than me." She shifted on the bench. "I can tell you how though. Most places humans live, they live with things like that damn translator. They're everywhere, lazy people, they don't do shit. My world, we worked for a living. Made money the old way, lived how our ancestors lived." She smiled. "Me especially. Men came from all over to meet me." She turned and looked at the girls, their eyes transfixed on her. "That was the problem though, they all had wives."
Gorepull sat up straighter, her hand clasping one of Quietbite's. "You! You stole mates!"
Alexandra nodded. "I did, and now I'm here."
Quietbite reached over, palm open. "Tell us. How many did you steal?"
Alexandra took her hand, cautiously. "More than I can count."
Quietbite looked at Gorepull with two eyes before asking. "How big can humans count?"
Alexandra smiled. "Big."
Quietbite squeezed the human's hand. "I will respect your dress. I am sorry for my anger."
Alexandra laughed. "That? That got me respect? That's a first." She shook her head slightly and looked back out at the water. "Your kind is growing on me. You have my respect too."
---===*===---
The steam towers were the first things they could see of Bermham. Sliplegs stood up in the bow, holding tight, watching as they got closer. The second sign of human habitation was the smell. The scent of the foundry on the air, acidic, metallic, and smoky wafted through the trees, followed by smells from the restaurants.
Bubba slowed the boat as he left the last row of trees and neared the wall. A scanner eye recognized his face and opened up the port doors. He looked over at Pusdot, speaking loudly. "Stay close to us. Don't wander. You wander, you die. Understand?"
The four sets of alien eyes widened, staring at him. Alexandra reached over and took the girls hands, causing them to shift a pair of eyes onto her.
"You girls stick with me." She squeezed. "We're having a girls day."
They squeezed back.
Bubba made his way through the docks, noting the numerous mammalian eyes of his kind leering at him. He raised his hand up, waving at the dock master. The man gave him a nod and pointed at an empty slip before noting the four creatures in their boat.
Bubba pulled in slowly. "Sliplegs, tie us off."
Slip, practiced on the porch back in the swamp, got out and tied the rope around the posthook. Pusdot grabbed the one at the side, tying off that point while Bubba tied off the third.
Bubba made his way through the boat and climbed onto the dock. He reached down and helped Alexandra up, her dress glistening in the afternoon sun.
Pusdot and Sliplegs saw the gesture and climbed out to replicate it. The two larger females took their hands and climbed out.
Bubba looked around. "Keep eyes watching." He climbed back into the boat and started undoing the bundles of fnga armor, shetalf fletching, and a packet of gost worms he had kept secret. He then handed up the doctor plate up to Alexandra. "As I promised."
She looked it over. "Alright. Lets lighten the load then." She turned and looked toward the main street.
Bubba climbed out, groaning. "Talk to the mayor first then?"
She looked at the plate and then back at him. "Yeah."
He groaned again. "Alright. Lead on wife."
"Already am, husband."
---===*===---
The six made their way down the slate street, Alexandra at the lead followed by the females, then Sliplegs, Pusdot, and lastly Bubba.
People stepped onto the shop porches to see them. People dining under umbrellas put down forks to gaze. Bubba smiled, waving at anyone who met his eyes.
Mayor Thompson stepped out from his stone office building and immediately started sweating. He looked down the steps to see what all the people milling was about. He saw Bubba and groaned. "Oi. T.L. Gumphries, thought you said you were never coming back to this god forsaken place."
Alexandra stepped up to the stairs. "He's beholden to me, and I, sometimes like some civility."
Thompson stepped down the stairs, smiling at Alexandra. "Well, Miss Alexandra, it's always a good day with you in town."
Bubba stepped up beside her, staring at him. "Missus."
Mayor Thompson waved his hand. "Rules are different here. No need for you to abide by anything you don't want to." He turned smiling again at her. "We're all in this place together." He looked past them at the four dark furred creatures standing just behind. "I see you've tamed some of the local fauna." He laughed. "Pack animals, you are smarter than you let on T.L."
Alexandra looked back at the girls. "Yes. We need to talk about some of the local fauna with you, and other things. Do you have some time?"
He looked up the stairs and waved his hand up. "Lizzie! Lizzie!"
A short woman in a dress and metallic shoes stepped out. "Yes Mayor?"
"Make up some tea. We're going to be talking in the lounge."
She looked them over, noting their pets. "I ain't cleaning up after those things. I've seen the messes they leave on the walls." She turned and went back inside.
Mayor Thompson stepped closer. "Your pets be okay out here?"
Bubba stepped even closer. "You can have Lizzie hold off on the tea. I'm going to tell you right here."
Alexandra glared at him.
Bubba felt it in his periphery, but kept his eyes locked on Thompson. "Remember our last poker game?"
"I remember well. Cheater is as cheater does."
Bubba's face soured. "I ain't no cheat. I won fair and square."
"You're good at it. I'll give you that, but I don't know about fair and square."
Alexandra cleared her throat. "He won this off you. We wanted to return it for the town." She lifted the plate up, offering it.
The Mayor laughed. "Really?" He turned back toward Bubba. "You came back cause of your conscience? Felt bad for stealing our doctor?"
Alexandra elbowed him.
"Yes. It isn't right."
Mayor Thompson smiled at Alexandra. "It is right. I can't prove you cheated, and as such, you won it. You're going to need it out there. No telling what you'll get up to." He said, looking at the four creatures behind them.
Alexandra looked at Bubba and then at the Mayor. "You're going to let us keep it? You need it here though."
The Mayor stepped even closer, whispering. "Truth be told. I claimed it broken, used for parts. Had a new one drop shipped in a week." He pushed it back into her hands. "Keep it, a gift."
Bubba sighed, staring at him. "I won it, it ain't no gift."
Mayor Thompson looked at him.
Bubba continued. "And the translator I won."
"I don't want it back either. No need for it. We all speak normal here."
"No." Bubba said. "I've been using it, out there."
"Talking to the trees? Keeping up your conversation skills?"
Bubba looked at Pusdot and motioned him forward with his head.
Pusdot stepped forward.
"Mayor Thompson, I want you to meet my friend Pus."
Pusdot darkened his eyes bowing. "Thank you for having us in your town." The orb translated from his growls.
Mayor Thompson looked at the creature, then at Bubba, then at the other three in the back. "You, you talk?"
Pusdot looked up, an eye on Bubba. "Yes. We talk."
"Wow. This, this is incredible T.L. They're almost sentient!"
Bubba shut his eyes for a moment. "They are sentient. I've cooked in their ovens, ate with them. They use tools."
The Mayor took a step back, waving his finger. "No. No, no, no. This planet was scanned and categorized. There is no sentience on this planet." He pointed at Pusdot. "They don't use fire. You're not scamming me again, whatever this is."
Alexandra looked at the girls, nodding. "Tell him about yourselves."
Gorepull looked at her and then stepped up beside Pusdot, a head taller. "I am Gorepull, daughter of Silentcut holder of the southern grove. We are a people, and we think."
Mayor Thompson stared at her for a moment before looking at Bubba. "Tilman, you're serious? This isn't some ruse?"
"Do you really think I cheated you?"
Mayor Thompson thought for a moment and looked around the street, dozens of people still staring. "This, this is a potential annexation violation. Holy shit, this is, this is bad." He laughed for a moment. "Good for us! Good for us. Bad for this world, bad for the empire though. This can cause big, big, waves to start rolling. But hey, we might get out of here cause of this!"
Alexandra put her hand on his shoulder. "The other homesteads? They're still out there killing them, some might not like rules imposed."
The Mayor nodded. "Yeah, rules, right? They'll have to be convinced. Maybe a tour, like an old timey asteroid show? Got porch to porch entertaining folks, let them see what they can do. Get them to cook or something. Yeah." He started moving his finger in the air as he was thinking. "I think if people understand this, they'll buy in quick. We can get off this mudball." He looked at each of them. "This, is, a good, thing!" He turned and started up the stairs. "Go go, I got to make some phone calls. Tabs on me. I'll let Susan know."
Alexandra turned and looked at Bubba. "Well, I guess that's going well."
Bubba smiled and took her empty hand. "Coulda been worse. Let's go get drinks before he puts a limit on the tab." He patted Pusdot and Sliplegs and pointed of toward the local pub. "Drinks on the Mayor boys."
Alexandra looked at the girls and then around at the people staring. "Keep mindful."
Their eyes widened and pivoted, scanning the crowds.
2024.06.03 20:08 the_pint_is_the_bowl 1st Edition N3 Destiny of Kings revisions, supplemental
unnamed NPC stats
Armor: AC:8 (padded) AC:7 (ring) AC:4/5 (chain +/- shield) AC:2/3 (plate +/- shield)
Fighter Lvl 0: THAC1: 20, save vs Spells: 19
Fighter Lvl 1-2: THAC0: 20, save vs Spells: 17
Fighter Lvl 3-4: THAC0: 18, save vs Spells: 16
Figther Lvl 5-6: THAC0: 16, save vs Spells: 14
The hired bandits who attacked the Prince were killed by Kirkroy's forces (scenario A1 and A3), and their bodies are buried on the outskirts of the forest (choose a convenient hex).
Deep within the forest, "the path routes through a clearing, nearly reclaimed by the forest, where a statue of a man ascends the first step of a stone platform." From a wedding ceremony, long ago, he clawed at the necklace of strangulation still at his throat. The spell stone to flesh saved his life but was never reversed. The name of the bride-to-be graces this forest, but the true history, and even the legends and lies, have all been forgotten in Dunador.
Lusian, alone, wanders this forest she cannot leave. She wears a crown of flowers that has turned her into a Nymph (AC:9 MR:50% save vs Spells:17 HD3 20hp if seen, save vs Spells or blinded, she casts spells as a 7th Level Druid) If she gains surprise, she will warn PC's not to look at her; if the PC's gain surprise, they will definitely see her and be potentially blinded. If the PC's aren't hostile or scary, she can offer safe harbor and magical assistance (cure light wounds, cure disease, neutralize poison, dispel magic). She can also report that she witnessed the Prince's "rescue" from bandits and subsequent escort north along the road by Aimar's forces (golden lion crest), but not Kirkroy, specifically. Though starved of human contact, Lusian is likely to let you leave. She can also be trusted to babysit a blinded or blindfolded Prince, if asked. Note: Patriarch Clavin will arrive at Fontenmere on d8 and can cure blindness
NOREN WOOD
Each night, there is a 2 in 6 chance to encounter d8+1 Shadows (AC:7 +1 or better weapon to hit Save vs Spells:17 HD3+3 15hp THAC0:16 d4+1 and strength drain) There are a total of 16 Shadows here. Any turned by a Cleric can return in a later encounter, but it is possible to clear the forest of all 16.
MONTINELLE
Note: Peasant Huts, Marketplace, and Jousting Field are now outside the walls. The Huts remaining within the walls are now for respected (-ahem- paying) merchants and, presently, the mercenaries.
Peasant Huts and Marketplace: 4 pairs of Lvl0 Fighters (AC:7 mace) are "security"
Peasant Huts: Lemus the drunkard (in Peasant Huts outside the walls) Lvl0 AC:10 1hp non-combatant
Gate: guards Rene and Monty (Lvl2 Fighter AC:4 16hp 16Str speashort sword) and Sergeant-at-Arms (Lvl3 Fighter AC:4 24hp broadsword)
(The PC's probably aren't wearing any markings, like the cross of Dunador, lion of Aimar, raven of Edrin, or ram of the Ram's Head mercenaries) What is your business here? What news from the south? Are you joining the wilderness patrols searching for the Prince? (because the huts and market are now outside, the PC's will not be permitted through the gate without adequate explanation)
Castle grounds: Ram's Head mercenaries: Captain (Lvl6 Fighter AC:3 17str THAC0:15 battle axe d8+1); 4 Sergeants (Lvl3 Fighter AC:2 longsword/javelin); 30 veterans (Lvl1 Fighter AC:2 longsword/javelin); 10 recruits (Lvl0 Fighter AC:2 longsword/javelin)
Citadel: 8 Lvl2 Fighters - 2 on the roof (AC:7 shortbow, longsword), 2 at the door (AC:7 spear), 4 sleeping in Room 2 (AC:10 longsword)
Citadel Room 1 Bracken's room: Bracken (Lvl6 Fighter AC:2 42hp THAC0:15 broadsword+1 2d4+1 and net of entrapment) TREASURE: chest of linens and silks (100 gp), chest of 300 gp 400 sp, jeweled short sword (200 gp), saddle with silver inlay (600 gp), delete chime of opening
Citadel Room 3 Kitchen and Pantry: Matlocke (Lvl3 Thief AC:10 hp12 Pick Pockets 40% THAC0:20 weaponless), Lurulu (young woman, taking a name from King of Elfland's Daughter) and Pip (young boy) are Matlocke's assistants (AC:10 save vs Spells:19 Lvl0 1hp non-combatants)
Citadel Room 6 Study: TREASURE: paperweight (gold lion worth 200 gp), delete the scroll trap
Citadel Room 8 Servants' Quarters: TREASURE: giant beaver pelt (rug) worth 1000 gp
Citadel Room 9 Duke's chamber: delete the Invisible Stalker, add an Imp in raven form (AC:2 silver or magical weapons to hit, MR:25% save vs Spells:13 immune to fire, cold, electricity HD2+2 15hp THAC0:16 d4+poison) if the PC's start looting, the "raven" will speak and cast suggestion "go upstairs to get help to carry this stuff" and will avoid combat (turns invisible at will and/or flies out a window) TREASURE: chest 1500 gp, 500 sp; ducal collar (200 gp), chainmail +2, battleaxe +2, broadsword+1, Keougtum's Ointment (5 doses), spellbook: Read Magic, Wizard Lock, Fireball
Dungeon D1: the jailor, Ranu, is vigilantly sleeping (Lvl4 Fighter AC:7 26hp club) TREASURE (hidden): 50 gp, 50 sp, 300 cp, jewelry worth total 10 gp
Dungeon D2: TREASURE: wine
Dungeon Cell D5: Theran (Lvl0 AC:10 dying with 0hp of 3hp non-combatant)
Abbey Room 2: delete the spiders
Abbey Room 3: delete the handwritten note "Capel"
Abbey Room 4: delete crossbow+1
Abbey Room 6: found here between day0 - day4 is Dumas (originally named Menlow) (Lvl4 Thief AC:7 leather 15dex save vs Spells:15 15hp THAC0:20 short sword) TREASURE: two altar cloths (50 gp each), gold cross of Dunador (150 gp can't be fenced locally), 10 gp, 40 sp
Abbey Room 11: delete the giant boar
Abbey Room 12: delete the 40 pp and detoxin
Occupying Fontenmere on Day8 are monks from Dunthrane, led by the new Patriarch Clavin and accompanied by a caravan of supplies and an armed escort of Edrin's mercenaries and soldiers from Edrin's southern province.
Armed escort: 60 cavalry, 300 foot soldiers
Monks: 12 Lvl0 non-combatants, 2 Lvl1 Clerics, 1 Lvl3 Cleric, and Clavin (Lvl8 Cleric can neutralize poison, cure blindness, etc.)
DRAKE AND CASTLE INN - pub patrons are as usual, except any Ram's Head mercenaries here are loyal to Dram, not Edrin
TREASURE: locked chest with 200 gp, 400 sp, 200 cp, delete longsword+1
Graf and his wife, Pappiaye (Lvl 0 AC:10 2hp non-combatants)
Harkin (Lvl4 Thief AC:4 bracers AC:6 dex16 save vs Spells:15 21hp THAC0:19 longsword+1 d8+1) TREASURE: 40gp
delete cave bear, possibly diminish the Shrine's benefit (originally a primary ability score increase, now substitute with increasing current and maximum hp by 1HD, so a magic-user gains 4hp, a fighter gains 10hp - no Constitution bonus)
Aimar has openly stationed six guards at the Shrine (Lvl1 Fighter AC:7 short sword)
Harkin has four disguised pilgrims (Lvl2 Fighter AC:10 15hp d4 dagger). The four disguised pilgrims will not provide rumors as other pilgrims.
Moat: 6 giant leeches (AC:9 save vs Spells:16 HD:1 8hp THAC0:19 d4 and drain blood, 50% disease)
Entrance and Gatehouse: 2 on-duty and 2 off-duty gate guards (Lvl2 Fighter AC:4 or AC:10 6hp speashort sword) and Sigmund (Lvl4 Fighter AC:3 28hp longsword)
Towers (4): 4 pairs of Lvl1 Fighter (AC:8 short bow/short sword) - if the Tower is tipped off by Dumas, then the mercenaries and other guards need only corral the PC's in the open courtyard, where the archers can shoot the PC's (this is an original TPK scenario)
courtyard: Ram's Head mercenaries: 2 Sergeants (Lvl3 Fighter AC:2 longsword/javelin), 20 veterans (Lvl1 Fighter AC:2 longsword/d6 javelin)
Room 5 Sigmund's Room: TREASURE: 5 pearls, 6 rubies (30 gp each)
Room 6 Barracks (night shift): 4 Lvl1 Fighter (AC:10 short sword)
Room 7 Barracks (night shift): 4 Lvl1 Fighter (AC:10 6hp d6 short sword) TREASURE: delete loot from Fontenmere that Harkin's forces should have
Room 10 Cookhouse: Dewey (AC:10 save vs Spells:19 Lvl0 2hp non-combatant) TREASURE: 10 sp Dewey isn't very helpful with information, speaking almost like Eeyore in single sentences. "You're dripping blood." -pause- "Get out of the kitchen." -pause- "I'll get a mop."
Rob and Don (names from The Dark Knight Returns) are brothers who recently inherited their father's farm and are imprisoned for tax delinquency (being clueless about taxes altogether) Lvl0 AC:10 5hp non-combatants
Room 15 Captain's Tower Room: Ram's Head mercenary subcommander Dram (secretly Aimar's son) (Lvl5 Fighter AC:2 40hp 16Str THAC0:15 longsword+1 d8+2) delete war dogs and hawks
Room 17: crossbow trap d6 damage (delete the poison), invisible Mendal (Lvl6 Assassin save vs Spells:13 AC:1 bracers AC:5, cloak of protection+1, dex:17, 31hp THAC0:17 dagger+2 d4+2 two potions of invisibility) TREASURE: trapped chest with THE SCEPTER OF DUNADOR, a bandit cape that Harkin used at Fontenmere), and hidden sack of 1000 gp; hidden in desk drawer are a potion of levitation and potion of gaseous form)
Camped on the northern side of the bridge, Kirkroy will bar the way, issuing a challenge to a joust (see p.24). If a PC foolishly agrees, when the jousters wheel around for the second pass, Kirkroy's guards will shoot his opponent in the back! TREASURE: in their nearby camp is Kirkroy's profit-sharing bonus from Aimar - two small chests of 500 gp each
mounted on medium warhorses:
Kirkroy (Lvl6 Fighter AC:3 splint+shield 48hp 17str THAC0:14 longsword+1 d8+2 or medium lance+1 d6+3)
two guards (on d1, d3, d5, etc.) or four guards (Lvl3 Fighter AC:4 splint 24hp light crossbow/short sword)
ELLI'S COTTAGE (now east of the Bridge)
Toughnut the sprite (AC:6 but also invisible - save vs Spells:17 HD1 6hp THAC0:20 bow d3 or sword d4)
Courtyard: 4 Lvl0 Fighter (AC:7 speashort sword)
Parapets: 4 Lvl0 Fighter (AC:7 speashort sword)
Room 2 SE gatehouse: 1 Lvl1 Fighter (AC:7 speashort sword)
Room 3 Tower Chamber: 1 Lvl1 Fighter (AC:7 short sword)
Room 4 Tower Chamber: 1 Lvl1 Fighter (AC:7 short sword)
Room 5 Great Hall: TREASURE: trapped chest with gold serving set (1000 gp) and sleep gas
Room 8 Barracks (night shift): 8 Lvl1 Fighters (AC:10 short sword), 4 Lvl0 (AC:10 short sword)
Room 10 NW gatehouse: 1 Lvl1 Fighter (AC:7 speashort sword)
Room 12 Tower Chamber: 1 Lvl1 Fighter (AC:7 short sword)
Room 13 Stables and Traitor's Gate secret passage leading to outside the walls
Room 18 Aimar's Sanctuary doubles as Kell's quarters: Kell is only here after day11, brought to Griffon Castle by Dumas. doppelganger Kell (AC:5 save vs Spells:11 HD4 30hp THAC0:15 d12 Lvl4 Assassin abilities) TREASURE: 2 gold candlesticks (50 gp each), silver poker and shovel and rack by the fireplace (200 gp), maybe delete Libram of Gainful Conjuration (worth 40,000 gp which would yield 40,000 XP to level up, but the PC's may receive ample gp and XP from the endgame award in scenario H1, anyways), Secret Room with locked chest of 500 pp, 2000 gp, 2000 sp, delete Stone of Good Luck (again, some of this treasure seems excessive - I think Aimar's spellbooks should be the best treasure in the adventure)
Room 20 West Tower Antechamber: 2 Lvl1 Fighter (AC:7 short sword)
Room 21 Prison Chamber (now a comfortable, if not lavish, room): 12-year old Prince Edmund (Lvl0 AC:10 2hp non-combatant) is still determining the difference between "protective custody" and "imprisonment"
Room 23 Aimar's locked Bedroom: TREASURE: Bracers AC:6, locked cabinet with locked chest 100 gp, 200 sp, scroll with Edrin's message to Aimar "Deal with our friend, the pilgrim," spellbook with Read Magic, Magic Missile, Shocking Grasp, Fireball
Room 24 Tower Chamber: 4 servants (Lvl0 AC:10 2hp non-combatants)
Room 25 East Tower Antechamber: Lom (Lvl6 Fighter AC:3 46hp two-handed sword d10) Lom will arrive in Room 26 in 1 round after any sounds of combat. Duke Aimar will arrive in Room 25 in 3 rounds after any sounds of combat, while Riannon casts invisibility on herself.
Room 26 Aimar's Quarters: Duke Aimar (AC:2 bracers AC:5, ring of protection +1, dex16 save vs Spells:11 with ring+1 dual class FighteMagic-User Lvl3/Lvl5 30hp THAC0:16 longsword+2 d8+2 Spells: 2x Magic Missile with 3 missiles each, Shocking Grasp, Ray of Enfeeblement, Fireball), Riannon (AC:7 dex17 save vs Spells:12 half-elf multi-class Magic-UseThief Lvl3/Lvl4 17hp THAC0:19 dagger+1 d4+1 Spells: Sleep, Feather Fall, Invisibilty and she also wears a ring of control linked to her pet's collar) delete hawks, brown chicken, brown cow TREASURE: chest with a collection of gems (1000 gp), a gold lion statue (200 gp), silver lion statue (100 gp), bronze lion statue is hollow with 200 gp gem, Riannon's spellbook: Sleep, Feather Fall, Invisibility.
Aimar doesn't want to nuke this room, but he might fireball himself and Riannon (she can make her saving throw, right?). If caught unawares and not invisible, Riannon will act helpless and may try to rush out the door or may cast Sleep then Feather Fall out the window into the courtyard, where she will call her pet Griffon "Beaker" for an airlift (riding the Griffon).
if Riannon is taken as a prisoner to the parapet, she will summon her pet Griffon (AC:3 save vs Spells:13 HD7 44hp THAC0:13 d4/d4/2d8) to attack for 1 round while she will feather fall down the outer wall for retrieval by the Griffon next round. Similarly, if she escapes to the parapet, she will feather fall down the outer wall, start running away from the castle, summon the Griffon, and be whisked away (in this case, it may appear to the PC's that she is being carried away as prey.
submitted by the_pint_is_the_bowl to u/the_pint_is_the_bowl [link] [comments]
Armor: AC:8 (padded) AC:7 (ring) AC:4/5 (chain +/- shield) AC:2/3 (plate +/- shield)
Fighter Lvl 0: THAC1: 20, save vs Spells: 19
Fighter Lvl 1-2: THAC0: 20, save vs Spells: 17
Fighter Lvl 3-4: THAC0: 18, save vs Spells: 16
Figther Lvl 5-6: THAC0: 16, save vs Spells: 14
| loot | Lvl 0 | Lvl 1+ |
|---|---|---|
| AimaEdrin (6hp/Lvl) | 4hp 2d6 sp | 2d6 sp + d6 gp/lvl |
| Ram's Head (8hp/Lvl) | 5hp 2d10 sp | 2d10 sp +d8 gp/lvl |
| Royal Guard (8hp/Lvl) | d6 sp + d6 gp + d4 pp/lvl |
SET ENCOUNTERS
LUSIAN FOREST - 2 in 6 chance per day to encounter a nymphThe hired bandits who attacked the Prince were killed by Kirkroy's forces (scenario A1 and A3), and their bodies are buried on the outskirts of the forest (choose a convenient hex).
Deep within the forest, "the path routes through a clearing, nearly reclaimed by the forest, where a statue of a man ascends the first step of a stone platform." From a wedding ceremony, long ago, he clawed at the necklace of strangulation still at his throat. The spell stone to flesh saved his life but was never reversed. The name of the bride-to-be graces this forest, but the true history, and even the legends and lies, have all been forgotten in Dunador.
Lusian, alone, wanders this forest she cannot leave. She wears a crown of flowers that has turned her into a Nymph (AC:9 MR:50% save vs Spells:17 HD3 20hp if seen, save vs Spells or blinded, she casts spells as a 7th Level Druid) If she gains surprise, she will warn PC's not to look at her; if the PC's gain surprise, they will definitely see her and be potentially blinded. If the PC's aren't hostile or scary, she can offer safe harbor and magical assistance (cure light wounds, cure disease, neutralize poison, dispel magic). She can also report that she witnessed the Prince's "rescue" from bandits and subsequent escort north along the road by Aimar's forces (golden lion crest), but not Kirkroy, specifically. Though starved of human contact, Lusian is likely to let you leave. She can also be trusted to babysit a blinded or blindfolded Prince, if asked. Note: Patriarch Clavin will arrive at Fontenmere on d8 and can cure blindness
NOREN WOOD
Each night, there is a 2 in 6 chance to encounter d8+1 Shadows (AC:7 +1 or better weapon to hit Save vs Spells:17 HD3+3 15hp THAC0:16 d4+1 and strength drain) There are a total of 16 Shadows here. Any turned by a Cleric can return in a later encounter, but it is possible to clear the forest of all 16.
MONTINELLE
Note: Peasant Huts, Marketplace, and Jousting Field are now outside the walls. The Huts remaining within the walls are now for respected (-ahem- paying) merchants and, presently, the mercenaries.
Peasant Huts and Marketplace: 4 pairs of Lvl0 Fighters (AC:7 mace) are "security"
Peasant Huts: Lemus the drunkard (in Peasant Huts outside the walls) Lvl0 AC:10 1hp non-combatant
- original clues: identified the disguised Prince and his company on Day-16, heard that they feared they were being followed; a monk arrived, presumably from Fontenmere, on Day-2 with an arrow in his back but not seen since
- "The monk probably got what's coming to him - those monks have their own agenda"
- "If you didn't want to be found, you'd head to the forests or Moorlands" (everyone in Dunador fears the forests of Andevar, but Lemus is correct in a roundabout way - Griffon Castle is on the outskirts of the forest across the River)
- "Ha! If you want to get into the citadel, get arrested and thrown in the dungeon."
Gate: guards Rene and Monty (Lvl2 Fighter AC:4 16hp 16Str speashort sword) and Sergeant-at-Arms (Lvl3 Fighter AC:4 24hp broadsword)
(The PC's probably aren't wearing any markings, like the cross of Dunador, lion of Aimar, raven of Edrin, or ram of the Ram's Head mercenaries) What is your business here? What news from the south? Are you joining the wilderness patrols searching for the Prince? (because the huts and market are now outside, the PC's will not be permitted through the gate without adequate explanation)
- original clue: in addition to the mercenaries' 60 names on the sign-in sheet are Prince Edmund's pseudonym coming (d-16) and going (d-15), comically annotated in Rene's handwriting as "Prince"; Kirkroy's coming (d-18) and going (d-15); registering with an arrow in his back, Theran's arrival (d-2) is also recorded, because the gate guards were just following procedures (Aimar never expected Edrin to sack the abbey, but Bracken now knows the abbey was attacked by someone and sent Dumas to investigate)
- these guards are familiar with honest merchants, the best pub, and most peasants. They hold a dim view of Lemus
- "Those muttonheads arrived [d-5]" - Rene (she doesn't like the boorish mercenaries) "Duke Aimar didn't even bother to greet them" - Monty
Castle grounds: Ram's Head mercenaries: Captain (Lvl6 Fighter AC:3 17str THAC0:15 battle axe d8+1); 4 Sergeants (Lvl3 Fighter AC:2 longsword/javelin); 30 veterans (Lvl1 Fighter AC:2 longsword/javelin); 10 recruits (Lvl0 Fighter AC:2 longsword/javelin)
- "We are in the employ of the King." (they mean Edrin, in contrast to the Ram's Head mercenaries at Capel Tower under Aimar's secret son, Dram)
Citadel: 8 Lvl2 Fighters - 2 on the roof (AC:7 shortbow, longsword), 2 at the door (AC:7 spear), 4 sleeping in Room 2 (AC:10 longsword)
Citadel Room 1 Bracken's room: Bracken (Lvl6 Fighter AC:2 42hp THAC0:15 broadsword+1 2d4+1 and net of entrapment) TREASURE: chest of linens and silks (100 gp), chest of 300 gp 400 sp, jeweled short sword (200 gp), saddle with silver inlay (600 gp), delete chime of opening
- original clues: journal entries about Kirkroy, and now includes reassignment of troops for the wilderness patrol seeking the Prince and for "the castle" (clearly this does not refer to Montinelle)
- when Bracken inspects his troops, it is clear that he is antagonistic to the Ram's Head commander here; he may mutter that he doesn't take orders from the Captain, only the sub-commander (unspecified, but it's Dram at Capel Tower, and Bracken knows Dram's parentage)
Citadel Room 3 Kitchen and Pantry: Matlocke (Lvl3 Thief AC:10 hp12 Pick Pockets 40% THAC0:20 weaponless), Lurulu (young woman, taking a name from King of Elfland's Daughter) and Pip (young boy) are Matlocke's assistants (AC:10 save vs Spells:19 Lvl0 1hp non-combatants)
- Original clues: recognized the Prince on Day-16; Aimar left Montinelle on Day-6; Kirkroy arrived Day-18 and left Day-15
- Pip or Lurulu: Matlocke is mean; Matlocke cheats or steals from guards; Pip recently brought food down to a prisoner when Matlocke was too lazy; Bracken usually takes meals with Aimar, but Aimar isn't here; Kirkroy had dinner with Bracken while here between d-18 and d-15
Citadel Room 6 Study: TREASURE: paperweight (gold lion worth 200 gp), delete the scroll trap
- Original clues: financial records and affairs of state - King Halfred's seizing of lands north of the Abbey to be ceded to the monks, tax revenue, taxes and tithes paid, and regular payroll, which now includes repeated separate line items for Kirkroy (substantially more this month, which Kirkroy collected on the day before chasing the Prince) and an unnamed Ram's Head mercenary (Dram)
- secret stash of clues: (delete the scroll with feeblemind curse) supplemental ledger including gifts for Riannon, a mysterious large lump sum of money (from Edrin), and Aimar's own payments of bribes that notably include routine payments to "Bruce" (alias of a criminal widely known throughout Dunador, head of the Thieves' Guild in Dunthrane), payments to Dumas, and a single sizeable entry for someone named Kell on Day -21.
Citadel Room 8 Servants' Quarters: TREASURE: giant beaver pelt (rug) worth 1000 gp
Citadel Room 9 Duke's chamber: delete the Invisible Stalker, add an Imp in raven form (AC:2 silver or magical weapons to hit, MR:25% save vs Spells:13 immune to fire, cold, electricity HD2+2 15hp THAC0:16 d4+poison) if the PC's start looting, the "raven" will speak and cast suggestion "go upstairs to get help to carry this stuff" and will avoid combat (turns invisible at will and/or flies out a window) TREASURE: chest 1500 gp, 500 sp; ducal collar (200 gp), chainmail +2, battleaxe +2, broadsword+1, Keougtum's Ointment (5 doses), spellbook: Read Magic, Wizard Lock, Fireball
Dungeon D1: the jailor, Ranu, is vigilantly sleeping (Lvl4 Fighter AC:7 26hp club) TREASURE (hidden): 50 gp, 50 sp, 300 cp, jewelry worth total 10 gp
Dungeon D2: TREASURE: wine
Dungeon Cell D5: Theran (Lvl0 AC:10 dying with 0hp of 3hp non-combatant)
- original clues: "I fled [d-2] fron Fontenmere Abbey. We were attacked by bandits, and Patriarch Hobb dispatched me to Montinelle to seek aid from Duke Aimar. Instead, I was met and imprisoned here by Sir Bracken - that villain!" (note: in scenario M2, Theran would be stashed in Citadel Room 1, Bracken's room under better treatment)
- Theran will declare that Sir Bracken follows Duke Aimar's treachery, but Theran does not know that Aimar is not at Montinelle and Theran's certainty will waver if told by the PC's
- -gasp- "Seek the Scepter of Dunador at the Abbey. Though Aimar's minions would know the Scepter, if these truly were but bandits, they might not have taken it!" -croak-
Abbey Room 2: delete the spiders
Abbey Room 3: delete the handwritten note "Capel"
Abbey Room 4: delete crossbow+1
Abbey Room 6: found here between day0 - day4 is Dumas (originally named Menlow) (Lvl4 Thief AC:7 leather 15dex save vs Spells:15 15hp THAC0:20 short sword) TREASURE: two altar cloths (50 gp each), gold cross of Dunador (150 gp can't be fenced locally), 10 gp, 40 sp
- Original clue: Patriarch Hobb's letter addressed to HOLLEND at Dunthrane, now dated as d-3: "Edrin's forces have entered Andevar. I fear for the Prince's safety. You know better than I the motives of the nobles and Royal Council. Can Aimar be trusted to protect the Prince?"
- Dumas tries to worm his way out of trouble (or uses Patriarch Hobb's ghostly appearance as a distraction); he will claim to be from the Westlands and heading to the Drake & Castle Inn; he will deceptively advise PC's that there are bandits on the roads and taking the forest paths is best
- Dumas knows the Royal Guard and Ram's Head mercenaries were in Andevar before day-3, but he assumes other agents of Edrin sacked the Abbey on day-2 and must report back to Bracken and track down the Scepter
- Original clue: "A spirit materializes and declares itself as the Patriarch Hobb, murdered by villains who have stolen the Scepter of Dunador. He exhorts you to recover it, then fades." (true, but not specifically naming the culprits)
Abbey Room 11: delete the giant boar
Abbey Room 12: delete the 40 pp and detoxin
Occupying Fontenmere on Day8 are monks from Dunthrane, led by the new Patriarch Clavin and accompanied by a caravan of supplies and an armed escort of Edrin's mercenaries and soldiers from Edrin's southern province.
Armed escort: 60 cavalry, 300 foot soldiers
Monks: 12 Lvl0 non-combatants, 2 Lvl1 Clerics, 1 Lvl3 Cleric, and Clavin (Lvl8 Cleric can neutralize poison, cure blindness, etc.)
DRAKE AND CASTLE INN - pub patrons are as usual, except any Ram's Head mercenaries here are loyal to Dram, not Edrin
TREASURE: locked chest with 200 gp, 400 sp, 200 cp, delete longsword+1
Graf and his wife, Pappiaye (Lvl 0 AC:10 2hp non-combatants)
- original clues: description of riders dressed as bandits heading north (these are Harkin's, who is unaware that Edrin is sending this subset to the Barbarians, not to search for the Prince); candid assessment of his cousin Dumas; delete the story about the Prince
- For all the talk about the search for the Prince, we've not seen any of the Royal Guard around here
- One of the guards from Barbarian Bridge recently came here with fresh wounds or scars (combat with Elli on d2)
- original clues: a couple of weeks ago, spotted riders (bandits?) on the road heading north, possibly adding that an adolescent was with them (these are Kirkroy's forces)
- speculation: perhaps they were Barbarians? Or they are going north to attack the Barbarians? Or to bring the Barbarians south? We can alert Montinelle or Capel Tower, while you alert the other!
- We did not learn of King Halfred's demise until hearing from Graf (the news had not traveled that far north)
Harkin (Lvl4 Thief AC:4 bracers AC:6 dex16 save vs Spells:15 21hp THAC0:19 longsword+1 d8+1) TREASURE: 40gp
- Harkin will immediately return to Dunthrane in disguise after Dumas unexpected arrives on d5 and exchanges threats in Thieves' Cant, a confrontation that Graf & Pappiaye can only struggle to describe. If the PC's encounter Harkin here, he is awaiting an update from the "pilgrims" he assigned to watch the Shrine of Nevron.
delete cave bear, possibly diminish the Shrine's benefit (originally a primary ability score increase, now substitute with increasing current and maximum hp by 1HD, so a magic-user gains 4hp, a fighter gains 10hp - no Constitution bonus)
Aimar has openly stationed six guards at the Shrine (Lvl1 Fighter AC:7 short sword)
Harkin has four disguised pilgrims (Lvl2 Fighter AC:10 15hp d4 dagger). The four disguised pilgrims will not provide rumors as other pilgrims.
- Shrine's original clue: "You seek the true heir of the kingdom. Look for him in the west, where the waters flow, where the bird [joins] the lion." (Griffon = bird+lion, lion = Aimar's crest, raven = Edrin's crest)
Moat: 6 giant leeches (AC:9 save vs Spells:16 HD:1 8hp THAC0:19 d4 and drain blood, 50% disease)
Entrance and Gatehouse: 2 on-duty and 2 off-duty gate guards (Lvl2 Fighter AC:4 or AC:10 6hp speashort sword) and Sigmund (Lvl4 Fighter AC:3 28hp longsword)
Towers (4): 4 pairs of Lvl1 Fighter (AC:8 short bow/short sword) - if the Tower is tipped off by Dumas, then the mercenaries and other guards need only corral the PC's in the open courtyard, where the archers can shoot the PC's (this is an original TPK scenario)
courtyard: Ram's Head mercenaries: 2 Sergeants (Lvl3 Fighter AC:2 longsword/javelin), 20 veterans (Lvl1 Fighter AC:2 longsword/d6 javelin)
- "We serve the Regent." (this subset of Ram's Head mercenaries, under Dram, would betray Edrin)
Room 5 Sigmund's Room: TREASURE: 5 pearls, 6 rubies (30 gp each)
Room 6 Barracks (night shift): 4 Lvl1 Fighter (AC:10 short sword)
Room 7 Barracks (night shift): 4 Lvl1 Fighter (AC:10 6hp d6 short sword) TREASURE: delete loot from Fontenmere that Harkin's forces should have
Room 10 Cookhouse: Dewey (AC:10 save vs Spells:19 Lvl0 2hp non-combatant) TREASURE: 10 sp Dewey isn't very helpful with information, speaking almost like Eeyore in single sentences. "You're dripping blood." -pause- "Get out of the kitchen." -pause- "I'll get a mop."
- "We receive caravans of supplies regularly." "They've come more frequently for several months." "Some loaded wagons always continue north."
- "Guards from Barbarian Bridge are here every other day." "Only two, not all four." "They come for supplies." "They also go to the Drake & Castle...probably."
Rob and Don (names from The Dark Knight Returns) are brothers who recently inherited their father's farm and are imprisoned for tax delinquency (being clueless about taxes altogether) Lvl0 AC:10 5hp non-combatants
- original clue: These two are dimwits, but they will recommend speaking to Elli the hunter, who lives across the river (now east of the Barbarian Bridge), if the PC's ask any questions about the local area, forests, etc.
- They know a little about the corpse, Baron, because Oswald the jailor, being sloppy, did not separate Baron from the other prisoners and occasionally interrogated him in room D1. Baron was a disillusioned former monk who became one of Edrin's spies, but he was intentionally sent to be caught, an overt act to deflect attention away from other operatives, like Riannon and Harkin. Rob or Don will claim that "Even I could tell when that guy was lying." Abandoned by Edrin, Baron was not very reticent. Rob and Don learned that "Baron was looking for Aimar's third stronghold, which is dumb, because there are only two, Montinelle and Capel Tower." Baron also divulged whichever M1 M2 M3 scenario is currently active.
Room 15 Captain's Tower Room: Ram's Head mercenary subcommander Dram (secretly Aimar's son) (Lvl5 Fighter AC:2 40hp 16Str THAC0:15 longsword+1 d8+2) delete war dogs and hawks
Room 17: crossbow trap d6 damage (delete the poison), invisible Mendal (Lvl6 Assassin save vs Spells:13 AC:1 bracers AC:5, cloak of protection+1, dex:17, 31hp THAC0:17 dagger+2 d4+2 two potions of invisibility) TREASURE: trapped chest with THE SCEPTER OF DUNADOR, a bandit cape that Harkin used at Fontenmere), and hidden sack of 1000 gp; hidden in desk drawer are a potion of levitation and potion of gaseous form)
- Mendal will be in Dunthrane in scenario A2 to track the PC's but is here in Capel Tower in scenarios A1 and A3. Aimar co-hired and somewhat trusts this Assassin or trusts that he can hold him as a bargaining chip or scapegoat. Mendal doesn't mind, because he can freely escape with Thief skills and invisibility, as evidenced by his retrieval of the Scepter from Harkin.
- If encountered outside of Capel Tower, Mendal is subordinate to Lann in the Thieves' Guild and knows what Lann knows (and can sell that information). He knows the doppelganger Kell is a fellow member of the Thieves' Guild but doesn't know Kell's current assignment or location. Even if the PC's show the wax-sealed scroll tube from HOLLEND, Mendal is not so easily duped as Harkin - he will greet the PC's but complain "this is no way to greet your brother" to prompt a response. Mendal may then nod assuringly, but he knows there is no real sign or password
- In scenario M3, the SCEPTER is cursed by the monks but is not affecting Mendal, who does not "possess" or wield it. In addition to rumors, suspicions, and Baron's posthumous testimony, there are several other clues and solutions: 1) when the symptoms of disease arise; 2) detect magic; 3) dispel magic and remove curse; 4) cleansing the SCEPTER in the Waters of Nevron (this notion was disseminated by the Thieves' Guildmaster, Lann, to try to maintain the status quo between Lann and Clavin).
Camped on the northern side of the bridge, Kirkroy will bar the way, issuing a challenge to a joust (see p.24). If a PC foolishly agrees, when the jousters wheel around for the second pass, Kirkroy's guards will shoot his opponent in the back! TREASURE: in their nearby camp is Kirkroy's profit-sharing bonus from Aimar - two small chests of 500 gp each
mounted on medium warhorses:
Kirkroy (Lvl6 Fighter AC:3 splint+shield 48hp 17str THAC0:14 longsword+1 d8+2 or medium lance+1 d6+3)
two guards (on d1, d3, d5, etc.) or four guards (Lvl3 Fighter AC:4 splint 24hp light crossbow/short sword)
ELLI'S COTTAGE (now east of the Bridge)
Toughnut the sprite (AC:6 but also invisible - save vs Spells:17 HD1 6hp THAC0:20 bow d3 or sword d4)
- original clue: Toughnut can report: 1) Elli is healing in the nearby hills after being attacked by "people who had been riding with the Prince, heading to 'the Griffon.'" 2) there's a nearby boat to take on the river (flowing west, it's a one-day ride, same as mounted travel along the northern side of the river)
- Elli (if PC's visit her in the hills): reports that her attackers wore Aimar's crest (golden lion) and that the abandoned Griffon Castle is about a day's ride away. Note: she is recovering from the attack on Day2 (1 hp/day + 2hp/full week from 16Con). Sufficient healing by the time the PC's meet her or cure light wounds to maximum hp might permit her to join the PC's. Lvl2 Ranger AC:5 studded leather 16Dex 17Str 19hp THAC0:19 short sword/short bow
Courtyard: 4 Lvl0 Fighter (AC:7 speashort sword)
Parapets: 4 Lvl0 Fighter (AC:7 speashort sword)
Room 2 SE gatehouse: 1 Lvl1 Fighter (AC:7 speashort sword)
Room 3 Tower Chamber: 1 Lvl1 Fighter (AC:7 short sword)
Room 4 Tower Chamber: 1 Lvl1 Fighter (AC:7 short sword)
Room 5 Great Hall: TREASURE: trapped chest with gold serving set (1000 gp) and sleep gas
Room 8 Barracks (night shift): 8 Lvl1 Fighters (AC:10 short sword), 4 Lvl0 (AC:10 short sword)
Room 10 NW gatehouse: 1 Lvl1 Fighter (AC:7 speashort sword)
Room 12 Tower Chamber: 1 Lvl1 Fighter (AC:7 short sword)
Room 13 Stables and Traitor's Gate secret passage leading to outside the walls
Room 18 Aimar's Sanctuary doubles as Kell's quarters: Kell is only here after day11, brought to Griffon Castle by Dumas. doppelganger Kell (AC:5 save vs Spells:11 HD4 30hp THAC0:15 d12 Lvl4 Assassin abilities) TREASURE: 2 gold candlesticks (50 gp each), silver poker and shovel and rack by the fireplace (200 gp), maybe delete Libram of Gainful Conjuration (worth 40,000 gp which would yield 40,000 XP to level up, but the PC's may receive ample gp and XP from the endgame award in scenario H1, anyways), Secret Room with locked chest of 500 pp, 2000 gp, 2000 sp, delete Stone of Good Luck (again, some of this treasure seems excessive - I think Aimar's spellbooks should be the best treasure in the adventure)
Room 20 West Tower Antechamber: 2 Lvl1 Fighter (AC:7 short sword)
Room 21 Prison Chamber (now a comfortable, if not lavish, room): 12-year old Prince Edmund (Lvl0 AC:10 2hp non-combatant) is still determining the difference between "protective custody" and "imprisonment"
Room 23 Aimar's locked Bedroom: TREASURE: Bracers AC:6, locked cabinet with locked chest 100 gp, 200 sp, scroll with Edrin's message to Aimar "Deal with our friend, the pilgrim," spellbook with Read Magic, Magic Missile, Shocking Grasp, Fireball
Room 24 Tower Chamber: 4 servants (Lvl0 AC:10 2hp non-combatants)
Room 25 East Tower Antechamber: Lom (Lvl6 Fighter AC:3 46hp two-handed sword d10) Lom will arrive in Room 26 in 1 round after any sounds of combat. Duke Aimar will arrive in Room 25 in 3 rounds after any sounds of combat, while Riannon casts invisibility on herself.
Room 26 Aimar's Quarters: Duke Aimar (AC:2 bracers AC:5, ring of protection +1, dex16 save vs Spells:11 with ring+1 dual class FighteMagic-User Lvl3/Lvl5 30hp THAC0:16 longsword+2 d8+2 Spells: 2x Magic Missile with 3 missiles each, Shocking Grasp, Ray of Enfeeblement, Fireball), Riannon (AC:7 dex17 save vs Spells:12 half-elf multi-class Magic-UseThief Lvl3/Lvl4 17hp THAC0:19 dagger+1 d4+1 Spells: Sleep, Feather Fall, Invisibilty and she also wears a ring of control linked to her pet's collar) delete hawks, brown chicken, brown cow TREASURE: chest with a collection of gems (1000 gp), a gold lion statue (200 gp), silver lion statue (100 gp), bronze lion statue is hollow with 200 gp gem, Riannon's spellbook: Sleep, Feather Fall, Invisibility.
Aimar doesn't want to nuke this room, but he might fireball himself and Riannon (she can make her saving throw, right?). If caught unawares and not invisible, Riannon will act helpless and may try to rush out the door or may cast Sleep then Feather Fall out the window into the courtyard, where she will call her pet Griffon "Beaker" for an airlift (riding the Griffon).
if Riannon is taken as a prisoner to the parapet, she will summon her pet Griffon (AC:3 save vs Spells:13 HD7 44hp THAC0:13 d4/d4/2d8) to attack for 1 round while she will feather fall down the outer wall for retrieval by the Griffon next round. Similarly, if she escapes to the parapet, she will feather fall down the outer wall, start running away from the castle, summon the Griffon, and be whisked away (in this case, it may appear to the PC's that she is being carried away as prey.
2024.06.03 17:35 corruptable 64M SD seeking SB in Las Vegas, NV
I only have one question for you: "Can you fly this airplane and land it?" "Surely you can't be serious." "I am serious, and don't call me Shirley."
I knew I was getting more mature when mailings from AARP started asking if I still feel okay.
I kid, but my life insurance company has stopped sending Christmas cards.
I don't feel old, but I keep hearing my favorite songs playing in elevators.
Oh, you didn't come here for the monologue?
I'm 64, permanently separated, and operate my business from Las Vegas. I am relaxed, friendly, and occasionally entertaining. I am ambitious and hard working. I have a highly questionable sense of humor. I know this, because whether it is actually humor is frequently questioned.
I am looking for a mutually beneficial friendship that is authentic and enjoyable for both of us. I am seeking a smart, organized and ambitious woman for an arrangement grounded in affection. In case it isn't obvious, what I seek is something with a bit more gravitas than an occasional "let's get together and party." My idea of an ideal arrangement is one that looks a lot like a caring relationship, with communication, dates, and a lot of laughs, if you can tolerate my sense of humor.
I will take you seriously as a woman, and I will ask you do the same for me, hopefully as a man. Goals.
I am in Las Vegas, and it would be helpful to this endeavor if you are too, or travel here regularly. I heard they have gambling and sports activities here, so it is not a terrible place to visit.
If you're wondering what I like to do, I made this handy list:
I went to a shrink once, I said, "Doc, I feel like I'm ugly. What should I do?" He made me lie on the couch face down.
But I clean up well.
And let me leave you with this quote: "The main problem with the Internet is that things are not always exactly as they appear." -Abraham Lincoln
submitted by corruptable to SLFmeetups [link] [comments]
I knew I was getting more mature when mailings from AARP started asking if I still feel okay.
I kid, but my life insurance company has stopped sending Christmas cards.
I don't feel old, but I keep hearing my favorite songs playing in elevators.
Oh, you didn't come here for the monologue?
I'm 64, permanently separated, and operate my business from Las Vegas. I am relaxed, friendly, and occasionally entertaining. I am ambitious and hard working. I have a highly questionable sense of humor. I know this, because whether it is actually humor is frequently questioned.
I am looking for a mutually beneficial friendship that is authentic and enjoyable for both of us. I am seeking a smart, organized and ambitious woman for an arrangement grounded in affection. In case it isn't obvious, what I seek is something with a bit more gravitas than an occasional "let's get together and party." My idea of an ideal arrangement is one that looks a lot like a caring relationship, with communication, dates, and a lot of laughs, if you can tolerate my sense of humor.
I will take you seriously as a woman, and I will ask you do the same for me, hopefully as a man. Goals.
I am in Las Vegas, and it would be helpful to this endeavor if you are too, or travel here regularly. I heard they have gambling and sports activities here, so it is not a terrible place to visit.
If you're wondering what I like to do, I made this handy list:
- Cook together,
- Go to Red Rock Canyon for a drive and (an easy) hike,
- Watch a movie,
- Hit up a casino (Craps, Video Poker, Pai Gow),
- Go shooting,
- Go to a Raiders game,
- Listen to some music,
- Look at some art,
- Or go on a photo shoot out and about somewhere.
I went to a shrink once, I said, "Doc, I feel like I'm ugly. What should I do?" He made me lie on the couch face down.
But I clean up well.
And let me leave you with this quote: "The main problem with the Internet is that things are not always exactly as they appear." -Abraham Lincoln
2024.06.03 14:07 Affectionate-File689 My gambling ex-bf wasn’t nice to me
He is an addicted gambler and played poker constantly, took multiple trips to Vegas, bet on sports all the time and held a tech sales job making 6 figures easily.
He wanted his mom and dad visiting in his home for months at a time from out of state. Even though I expressed discomfort and that I wouldn’t stay there with the lack of privacy, he wanted to have his parents basically living in his house half the year. (Not a little visit which I would understand)
I told him how does he expect to have a girlfriend.
can anyone in this group help me understand why a 40 year old man wants to be with his mommy instead of having an intimate relationship with a woman in his own house he owns.
He compulsively lied to me, and others and I caught him always staring at girls and looking at random girls online like Facebook.
I just don’t get why he couldn’t appreciate that he had me right in front of him- we had a strong attraction and connection to eachother and I’m grieving that he just didn’t want me, (his first REaL gf btw), gave up unlimited sex, and over and over again treated me poorly for 2 years. He had a thing where he made little remarks to deflate me. I would constantly call him out on this but it gets to a person.
I know I deserve better and I told him that for sure. It’s like his destructive nature has touched me in a way I never knew. I never knew this kind of dysfunction in a person before.
Any words to help me move forward are appreciated
I looked his name up in the county records and looks like he opened a second mortgage on his house so the cracks are definitely starting to show.
submitted by Affectionate-File689 to problemgambling [link] [comments]
He wanted his mom and dad visiting in his home for months at a time from out of state. Even though I expressed discomfort and that I wouldn’t stay there with the lack of privacy, he wanted to have his parents basically living in his house half the year. (Not a little visit which I would understand)
I told him how does he expect to have a girlfriend.
can anyone in this group help me understand why a 40 year old man wants to be with his mommy instead of having an intimate relationship with a woman in his own house he owns.
He compulsively lied to me, and others and I caught him always staring at girls and looking at random girls online like Facebook.
I just don’t get why he couldn’t appreciate that he had me right in front of him- we had a strong attraction and connection to eachother and I’m grieving that he just didn’t want me, (his first REaL gf btw), gave up unlimited sex, and over and over again treated me poorly for 2 years. He had a thing where he made little remarks to deflate me. I would constantly call him out on this but it gets to a person.
I know I deserve better and I told him that for sure. It’s like his destructive nature has touched me in a way I never knew. I never knew this kind of dysfunction in a person before.
Any words to help me move forward are appreciated
I looked his name up in the county records and looks like he opened a second mortgage on his house so the cracks are definitely starting to show.
2024.06.02 22:35 Shelly_895 Am I (19F) wrong for saying no to my boyfriend (23M) who went from wanting a threesome to now wanting another girlfriend?
I am not the OP. That is u/ThrowRA_ain. Originally posted on relationship_advice
Trigger warning: severe entitlement, sexual harrassment
Mood spoiler: good for OP
Original post posted on May 18, 2024
Am I (19F) for saying no to My boyfriend (23M) who went from wanting a threesome to now wanting another girlfriend?
Me and my boyfriend have been dating for a little over two months and are relationship so far is pretty good up till now. He recently told in passing conversation he wants to have a threesome. I ask why and he told me it's one of his fantasies. I of course shut that down, cause that's not how I role. If Im in a relationship with you. You are my person. End of discussion. Then he proceeded to tell me he thought I would be down because I'm not straight. Shocked, I tell him just because I'm attracted to other genders, doesn't mean I'll sleep with multiple people. That's very different. Then he let out that the person he was thinking about doing the threesome with was one of our coworkers. I immediately say absolutely not! Cause that's a disaster waiting to happen. Pouting he drops the conversation.
Now reddit, today he went from wanting a threesome, to wanting another girlfriend!!!! We were at his moms talking about work and the other coworkers there. When he brings up this girl will call her A. (I dont know A very well but working with her is nice, I have nothing against A) He begans to tell me he sees us and A having a relationship together. I asked him why and his reason was that he sees himself as a amazing man, and that He wants to build the connection me and him have with someone else. he wants me to be apart of it and ok with it. I told him no, he's in a committed relationship with me. He then fires back with well I personally find A attractive, just like how I find you attractive.
At this point I'm in utter disbelief. He then says is it wrong to think other people are attractive. I say no, plus it's wrong to assume id be ok with you getting in relationships with other girls and just expect me to be ok with it. He then says wants to get to know other people on a more intimate level. I tell him there other ways he could do that, make friends. But that just went right over his head. He then says that if we're to ask A she would be on board with it cause he thinks she likes him. Cause why wouldn't she. At this point I'm practically speechless.
Then later that same night we got on the phone a talked about it some more. At this point I'm in tears, practically telling him that fact that he wants to get intimate with someone else makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong as a girlfriend. He then tells me no, I'm an amazing girlfriend and that he loves me. I fire back with if he loved me, he wouldn't say shit like this to me. He would see me for who I am and not try to find someone else to have fun with just because you think you deserve it. He then tells me I'm not being fair. So reddit am I being unfair?
Update 1: I'm a little new to reddit so bare with me. I wanted to take the time to clear up a few things. For starters I want to say I did not meet my boyfriend at work, we met through a dating website. He started working with me a little after we made it official. And to those people who think he is possibly polyamorous, He is most definitely not. I actually brought up That notion and he didn't see himself as that. Also when we first met on that dating site, his profile said monogamous. I even took some of your guys's advice and mentioned a man to have a "threesome" with or another "boyfriend" and just as I thought he saw that as gross. He didn't see anything wrong with it being a woman since I'm not straight. As of right now I have not broken off with him yet because he is being very good about not mentioning it since the last time we talked about it. I got very firm with him one night and flat out told him not to mention it to me. He then said he would ask A just to see if she would be down. And to also prove me wrong. I told him to go for it. Because I know she has a brain in her head and she would never say yes to that ridiculous request. I'll update you all once I find out what she says.
Update 2: he fucking asked her. I was at work today when A came up to talk to me. She told me that my bf told her he thought she was attractive. A shut him down saying that weird of you to say since you have a girlfriend. Then she tells me he asked to touch her butt. And another coworker collaborated on her story. I feel so sick to my stomach. I confronted him about it when he first lied to me. Then he said why can't I do whatever I want. I'm so done and heartbroken I can't even put into words.
Update 1 posted on May 22, 2024
UPDATE: Am I (19F) for saying no my boyfriend (23M) who went from wanting a threesome to now wanting another girlfriend?
If you haven't seen my original post I would go to that cause I edit update cause you can apparently post only one update. This is gonna be a long one so bar with me.
me and him are done. At least in my head we are. I haven't broken it off, I plan to but I need to go about this the right way, he can be pretty aggressive vocally so I need to make sure I'm going about it safely for me.
Monday I was at work, I was in my break when A came sat beside me and asked if I was mad at her. to be fair I have a rbf so I always look pissed off but that day wasn't a good day for me. i was stressed and i didn't really feel well. I told her no I'm not, I'm just stressed cause of work. She signed and began to lay it all out there. She proceeds to tell me not only did he end up telling A about how he found her attractive. He even tried to make advances on her. I immediately felt sick to my stomach. I went to the bathroom and just cried for what felt like hours. A hugged me and told me she was sorry she had to tell me like this. I told her I appreciate her for telling me. She then said she was gonna get the manager and tell him I needed to go home. I told her thank you cause there was no way in hell I was gonna get back to work knowing all that. I ended up going home and my bf got off shortly after. That when had a talk.
I confront him over the phone on what A told me and how I was appalled and not ok with what he did. He of course denied everything A was saying. But after a few minutes of pressing on the issue he finally relented and said, ok I told her I like her so what you knew I had feelings for her so why is this a shock. I told him I was more upset at the fact he made advances on her. He said he never did that. I told Him I was gonna ask A then cause something is clearly not adding up. He told me not to. I asked why and he said she wouldnt tell me the truth. I said whatever and hung up and texted A. Just asking for more information then not even 5 seconds latert bf class back and asks why I texted her. I immediately ask how he knows I asked. He then tells me he got her snapchat. And she screenshoted my messages and sent them to him. I'm of course very confused and now I'm thinking is this Bitch trying to split me and my bf up so they can get together. We then started yelling and screaming at each other about how our relationship wasn't healthy and all our problems we had with each other. We fought for about 2 hours. Then we ended the call. During that time while I was at home I was talking to A about what happened. And she says that she was only trying to help. She doesn't want to come between me and my bfs relationship and that she only screenshoted my messages is cause it her phone and she was confused on why I was reaching out to her. She then reassured me that she was gonna stay away from my bf. I thanked her and ended the conversation.
About an hour later my bf called me back asking me to come over. He wanted to talk in person. I didn't feel comfortable with that at first. But I ended up going but I made sure to bring my pepper spray and a metal poker just in case.
When I got there he was on his bed clearly crying. He looked so pitiful reddit I couldn't help but laugh in my head. I might have let out a Snicker. He then proceeded to apologize to me telling me he loved me. I asked him what he's sorry for he then said for hurting me. We sat in silence for a good while. We ended up talking things out. Then I left to go home.
The next day at work my general manager came up to me and asked me what happened the day before. I told my side of the story and he told me that A made a complaint about what happened and that he has to now treat this as an investigation. I of course get worried about the outcome. I ask if my bf is going to get in trouble he said no, he was just gonna get a Stern talking to. Now as of writing this he has been talked to once and is going to get talked again. I think personally he is very bi polar. Cause he went from being apologetic to seeing nothing wrong to what he did. This will be my last update if you guys have any questions Ill answer them under your comment. But for now thank you all for the help and advice.
Update 2 posted on May 23, 2024
UPDATE 2: Am I (19F) for saying no my boyfriend (23M) who went from wanting a threesome to now wanting another girlfriend?
I broke up with him. And it went as I expected. I read all of your guys comments and made a plan on how I was gonna do this I also had a close friend help me do it. Basically I ended up deciding to call him. He answered right away. I told him we needed to talk. He said ok and if everything was ok. I told him no. Then I started to lay it on think about how much he has put me through in this relationship. And now the drama that's has been happening this week is not good for me and it can't be good for you. He sat there silent for a good while. Then he started name calling saying I'm a bad girlfriend for not respecting his boundaries and listening to him on what he wants. I told him what he wants is crazy. We bicker back and forth until I finally just had enough and ended the call and blocked him. After that I called my work and put in my two week notice. I am currently looking for a new job.
Reminder - this is a repost. Please don't comment on the original post.
submitted by Shelly_895 to BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]
Trigger warning: severe entitlement, sexual harrassment
Mood spoiler: good for OP
Original post posted on May 18, 2024
Am I (19F) for saying no to My boyfriend (23M) who went from wanting a threesome to now wanting another girlfriend?
Me and my boyfriend have been dating for a little over two months and are relationship so far is pretty good up till now. He recently told in passing conversation he wants to have a threesome. I ask why and he told me it's one of his fantasies. I of course shut that down, cause that's not how I role. If Im in a relationship with you. You are my person. End of discussion. Then he proceeded to tell me he thought I would be down because I'm not straight. Shocked, I tell him just because I'm attracted to other genders, doesn't mean I'll sleep with multiple people. That's very different. Then he let out that the person he was thinking about doing the threesome with was one of our coworkers. I immediately say absolutely not! Cause that's a disaster waiting to happen. Pouting he drops the conversation.
Now reddit, today he went from wanting a threesome, to wanting another girlfriend!!!! We were at his moms talking about work and the other coworkers there. When he brings up this girl will call her A. (I dont know A very well but working with her is nice, I have nothing against A) He begans to tell me he sees us and A having a relationship together. I asked him why and his reason was that he sees himself as a amazing man, and that He wants to build the connection me and him have with someone else. he wants me to be apart of it and ok with it. I told him no, he's in a committed relationship with me. He then fires back with well I personally find A attractive, just like how I find you attractive.
At this point I'm in utter disbelief. He then says is it wrong to think other people are attractive. I say no, plus it's wrong to assume id be ok with you getting in relationships with other girls and just expect me to be ok with it. He then says wants to get to know other people on a more intimate level. I tell him there other ways he could do that, make friends. But that just went right over his head. He then says that if we're to ask A she would be on board with it cause he thinks she likes him. Cause why wouldn't she. At this point I'm practically speechless.
Then later that same night we got on the phone a talked about it some more. At this point I'm in tears, practically telling him that fact that he wants to get intimate with someone else makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong as a girlfriend. He then tells me no, I'm an amazing girlfriend and that he loves me. I fire back with if he loved me, he wouldn't say shit like this to me. He would see me for who I am and not try to find someone else to have fun with just because you think you deserve it. He then tells me I'm not being fair. So reddit am I being unfair?
Update 1: I'm a little new to reddit so bare with me. I wanted to take the time to clear up a few things. For starters I want to say I did not meet my boyfriend at work, we met through a dating website. He started working with me a little after we made it official. And to those people who think he is possibly polyamorous, He is most definitely not. I actually brought up That notion and he didn't see himself as that. Also when we first met on that dating site, his profile said monogamous. I even took some of your guys's advice and mentioned a man to have a "threesome" with or another "boyfriend" and just as I thought he saw that as gross. He didn't see anything wrong with it being a woman since I'm not straight. As of right now I have not broken off with him yet because he is being very good about not mentioning it since the last time we talked about it. I got very firm with him one night and flat out told him not to mention it to me. He then said he would ask A just to see if she would be down. And to also prove me wrong. I told him to go for it. Because I know she has a brain in her head and she would never say yes to that ridiculous request. I'll update you all once I find out what she says.
Update 2: he fucking asked her. I was at work today when A came up to talk to me. She told me that my bf told her he thought she was attractive. A shut him down saying that weird of you to say since you have a girlfriend. Then she tells me he asked to touch her butt. And another coworker collaborated on her story. I feel so sick to my stomach. I confronted him about it when he first lied to me. Then he said why can't I do whatever I want. I'm so done and heartbroken I can't even put into words.
Update 1 posted on May 22, 2024
UPDATE: Am I (19F) for saying no my boyfriend (23M) who went from wanting a threesome to now wanting another girlfriend?
If you haven't seen my original post I would go to that cause I edit update cause you can apparently post only one update. This is gonna be a long one so bar with me.
me and him are done. At least in my head we are. I haven't broken it off, I plan to but I need to go about this the right way, he can be pretty aggressive vocally so I need to make sure I'm going about it safely for me.
Monday I was at work, I was in my break when A came sat beside me and asked if I was mad at her. to be fair I have a rbf so I always look pissed off but that day wasn't a good day for me. i was stressed and i didn't really feel well. I told her no I'm not, I'm just stressed cause of work. She signed and began to lay it all out there. She proceeds to tell me not only did he end up telling A about how he found her attractive. He even tried to make advances on her. I immediately felt sick to my stomach. I went to the bathroom and just cried for what felt like hours. A hugged me and told me she was sorry she had to tell me like this. I told her I appreciate her for telling me. She then said she was gonna get the manager and tell him I needed to go home. I told her thank you cause there was no way in hell I was gonna get back to work knowing all that. I ended up going home and my bf got off shortly after. That when had a talk.
I confront him over the phone on what A told me and how I was appalled and not ok with what he did. He of course denied everything A was saying. But after a few minutes of pressing on the issue he finally relented and said, ok I told her I like her so what you knew I had feelings for her so why is this a shock. I told him I was more upset at the fact he made advances on her. He said he never did that. I told Him I was gonna ask A then cause something is clearly not adding up. He told me not to. I asked why and he said she wouldnt tell me the truth. I said whatever and hung up and texted A. Just asking for more information then not even 5 seconds latert bf class back and asks why I texted her. I immediately ask how he knows I asked. He then tells me he got her snapchat. And she screenshoted my messages and sent them to him. I'm of course very confused and now I'm thinking is this Bitch trying to split me and my bf up so they can get together. We then started yelling and screaming at each other about how our relationship wasn't healthy and all our problems we had with each other. We fought for about 2 hours. Then we ended the call. During that time while I was at home I was talking to A about what happened. And she says that she was only trying to help. She doesn't want to come between me and my bfs relationship and that she only screenshoted my messages is cause it her phone and she was confused on why I was reaching out to her. She then reassured me that she was gonna stay away from my bf. I thanked her and ended the conversation.
About an hour later my bf called me back asking me to come over. He wanted to talk in person. I didn't feel comfortable with that at first. But I ended up going but I made sure to bring my pepper spray and a metal poker just in case.
When I got there he was on his bed clearly crying. He looked so pitiful reddit I couldn't help but laugh in my head. I might have let out a Snicker. He then proceeded to apologize to me telling me he loved me. I asked him what he's sorry for he then said for hurting me. We sat in silence for a good while. We ended up talking things out. Then I left to go home.
The next day at work my general manager came up to me and asked me what happened the day before. I told my side of the story and he told me that A made a complaint about what happened and that he has to now treat this as an investigation. I of course get worried about the outcome. I ask if my bf is going to get in trouble he said no, he was just gonna get a Stern talking to. Now as of writing this he has been talked to once and is going to get talked again. I think personally he is very bi polar. Cause he went from being apologetic to seeing nothing wrong to what he did. This will be my last update if you guys have any questions Ill answer them under your comment. But for now thank you all for the help and advice.
Update 2 posted on May 23, 2024
UPDATE 2: Am I (19F) for saying no my boyfriend (23M) who went from wanting a threesome to now wanting another girlfriend?
I broke up with him. And it went as I expected. I read all of your guys comments and made a plan on how I was gonna do this I also had a close friend help me do it. Basically I ended up deciding to call him. He answered right away. I told him we needed to talk. He said ok and if everything was ok. I told him no. Then I started to lay it on think about how much he has put me through in this relationship. And now the drama that's has been happening this week is not good for me and it can't be good for you. He sat there silent for a good while. Then he started name calling saying I'm a bad girlfriend for not respecting his boundaries and listening to him on what he wants. I told him what he wants is crazy. We bicker back and forth until I finally just had enough and ended the call and blocked him. After that I called my work and put in my two week notice. I am currently looking for a new job.
Reminder - this is a repost. Please don't comment on the original post.
2024.06.02 21:07 DivineUK Upcoming Titles
 | The latest upcoming horror titles, updated monthly. submitted by DivineUK to HorrorComics [link] [comments] Not intended to be an exhaustive list. Any books you wish to be included please post in the comments and I'll endeavour to add them in the next update. AugustUniversal Monsters: Frankenstein (Image)Universal Monsters: Frankenstein #1(W) Michael Walsh (A/CA) Michael Walsh Mini-Series Premiere. A modern-day horror visionary resurrects one of the most iconic monsters. Award-winning creator Michael Walsh (The Silver Coin) presents an electrifying new vision of the horror classic. Each issue of the limited series tells the shocking story behind one of the body parts used to create the unforgettable monster in the original film. In this first issue, Dr. Henry Frankenstein begins his unholy quest to create life by robbing the grave of a decorated police officer. But little does he know that the corpse has a son who is mourning a father-and that this young boy will forever change Frankenstein's life. In Shops: Aug 28, 2024 Patra (Dark Horse)Patra #1(W) James Robinson (A/CA) Scott Kolins From the celebrated creators behind Starman and The Flash comes this new supernatural series about slasher monsters, mad scientists, and cult movie-inspired horror. A young girl named Patra wakes up with no memory of her past. All she knows is that a big knife and a horrific mask appear whenever she's in danger. Oh, that, and a deranged killer, in the tradition of 1980s slasher films, who is slaughtering families in a small mid-western town, and wants to make Patra his victim too. Join us for a new series as one brave little girl faces both monstrous dangers and mysterious secrets in this homage to the classic horror movies of yore. In Shops: Aug 21, 2024 Misty 2024 Special (Rebellion)Misty 2024 Special(W) Gail Simone, Letty Wilson (A) Carola Borelli, Aly Fell, Marianna Ignazzi, Letty Wilson (CA) Tula Lotay Created by Pat Mills and launched in 1978, Misty was a horror comic like no other. Now, more than two decades later, Misty returns and has been brought into 2024 at the pen of Gail Simone (Wonder Woman, Birds of Prey, Red Sonja). This anthology features three brand-new chilling stories by Simone, with art by Carola Borelli (The Deadliest Bouquet, Spider-Woman), Aly Fell (A Trick of the Light) and Marianna Ignazzi (Buffy the Vampire Slayer). In Shops: Aug 21, 2024 Permadeath (Dead Sky)Permadeath One-Shot(W) Jonathan Chance (A) Rafael Lanhellas, Dell Barras (CA) Brad Simpson, Rob Gaughran, Rodel Noora PERMADEATH is your one shot at two tales of terror written by Jonathan Chance (Cover the Dead With Lime)! Set aside the playing cards and the poker chips, in this retirement home "THE BIG GAME" is astral projection. The buy-in is high and could cost you your life! Art by Rafael Lanhellas (Evil Ernie, Elsewhere). Then, join artist Dell Barras (Conan the Barbarian, Spiderman) in "SCATTERSHOT," where the lines between video games and righteous quests blur as life and limb are nothing compared to glorious victory! In Shops: Aug 21, 2024 Werewolf by Night (Marvel)Werewolf by Night #1(W) Jason Loo (A) Sergio Davila (CA) E.M. Gist FULL MOON RISE – WEREWOLF KILL! Jack Russell has been trying to live a simple life – but in the deadly and dramatic wake of the BLOOD HUNT, his life is about to be turned upside down in ways he never imagined! With new enemies hoping to extract a (literal) pound of flesh and Jack unsure if he can be trusted around old allies and a lost love, the original WEREWOLF BY NIGHT is in for the fight of his life…and he's in it alone! POLYBAGGED FOR YOUR PROTECTION! In Shops: Aug 14, 2024 Snaps (Scout)Snaps #1(W) Jon Clark (A/CA) Jon Clark Dark Harbor. In the dead of night, Doctor Keith Harris is startled by a visit from his shaken childhood friend, Oliver, who shows him disturbing photographs of an otherworldly entity attacking a homeless man. Oliver insists these abominations lurk unseen by human eyes, only captured through his camera's lens, and worse still - they are everywhere! Together they're about to discover the chilling reason why. In Shops: Aug 14, 2024 JulyOne for Sorrow (DSTLRY)One for Sorrow #1(W) Jamie McKelvie (A/CA) Jamie McKelvie JAMIE McKELVIE IS BACK WITH HIS FIRST SOLO CREATOR-OWNED PROJECT IN OVER A DECADE! London, 1900. The capital hums with the energy of the new era, but something darker lurks beneath the surface. A monstrous figure stalks the city's criminal underworld at night, leaving a trail of bloody corpses in its wake. Rumors about the mysterious killer spread like wildfire. It's a demon. A phantom. An angel of vengeance. Nothing can kill it. Nothing can stop it. And once it picks a new target, well, he better have a coffin picked out, because he's already dead. The only clue that a baffled police force has to work with is the black and white feather left on each corpse, leading the press to dub the killer The Magpie. Is the Magpie killing at random, or is there a pattern that no one else can see? Three individuals, strangers to each other, might together have the answer. Madame Hendrikov, the Russian medium with an upper-class clientele desperate for the secrets of the dead. Bess Turner, the East End barmaid caught up in the schemes of an organized crime gang. And Ignatious Thorn, the world's most famous consulting detective, brought to ruin by horrific tragedy. The artistic mastermind behind THE WICKED + THE DIVINE, CAPTAIN CARTER, and CATWOMAN: ONE BAD DAY is back with a new comic unlike anything he's created before. ONE FOR SORROW is an intensely stylish, supernatural suspense thriller, full of kinetic action, bloody revenge, and ghostly mystery. In Shops: Jul 31, 2024 Hello Darkness (Boom)Hello Darkness #1(W) Garth Ennis, James Tynion Iv, Brian Azzarello, Various (A) Becky Cloonan, Werther Dell'Edera, Vanesa R. Del Rey, Various (CA) Paolo Rivera Horror fans rejoice in cadaverous delight, because Hello Darkness is a brand new monthly anthology series featuring what BOOM! Studios is known for - the best in modern Horror, Fantasy, and Mystery, not to mention the darkest stories yet from an all-star cast of creators! With a spine-tingling lineup of industry legends including Garth Ennis, Becky Cloonan, James Tynion IV, Werther Dell'Edera, Brian Azzarello, Vanesa R. Del Rey, John Arcudi, Ryan Sook, and more, everything from primal fears to modern political horrors will be awakened, in the classic style of Creepy and Eerie and the contemporary chills of Black Mirror. Fans can also expect stunning main covers by Paolo Rivera, variant covers by Jenny Frison on every issue, and a guest artist variant on every issue! In addition, a deadly new Something is Killing the Children story unfolds in the first 6 issues, along with a bone-rattling new serialized tale by Garth Ennis and Becky Cloonan for the first 7! In Shops: Jul 24, 2024 Epitaphs From the Abyss (Oni Press)Epitaphs From the Abyss #1(W) Brian Azzarello, Chris Condon, J Holtham, Stephanie Phillips (A) Jorge Fornes, Phil Hester, Peter Krause (CA) Lee Bermejo THE MOST NOTORIOUS NAME IN TERROR IS BACK-WITH A VENGEANCE! From the publisher that drove Tales from the Crypt, Vault of Horror, Haunt of Fear, and many more into the depraved hearts of an unsuspecting world, the immortal EC COMICS returns . . . with its first ALL-NEW series in nearly 70 years! In our first extra-sized, 40-page dose of fear, witness shocking tales of torment and tension in the undying EC tradition-as wrenched from the grave by the vile intentions of acclaimed writers Brian Azzarello (Batman: Damned, 100 Bullets), Chris Condon (That Texas Blood, Night People), J. Holtham (FX's The Handmaid's Tale), and Stephanie Phillips (Harley Quinn, Grim) and realized into bloody reality by "all-slaughter" artists Jorge Fornes (Rorschach, Danger Street), Phil Hester (Family Tree), Peter Krause (Irredeemable), and more! What the Comics Code Authority couldn't kill has only made it stronger . . . EC COMICS LIVES AGAIN IN EPITAPHS FROM THE ABYSS! In Shops: Jul 24, 2024 The Nice House by the Sea (DC)The Nice House by the Sea #1(W) James Tynion IV (A/CA) Alvaro Martinez Bueno No one who was invited to the House knew Max--but she knew each and every one of them. Masters of their fields, titans of industry and knowledge, they all represented the best and brightest of humanity. So when Max whispered to each of them the truth of what they deserved--to be saved from disaster, to carry on the flame of civilization in a paradise built just for them--they all leaped at the chance. Why not? Why shouldn't they be the ones to live forever? Isn't it their destiny to survive the culling of the lesser herd? Wouldn't being named the future of humanity be...nice? With the Eisner Award-winning The Nice House on the Lake, honored as Best New Series by the prestigious Angouleme International Comics Festival, James Tynion IV and Alvaro Martinez Bueno shocked the comics industry and unleashed a classic of contemporary horror...and no matter what you might think is coming, you aren't ready for their second act! In Shops: Jul 23, 2024 The Last Wardens (Mad Cave)The Last Wardens #1(W) Elliot Sperl, Amit Tishler (A) Rui Silveira (CA) Zach Howard With an alcoholic father and a hole in her wallet, Danielle Pryer's life in the rustic town of Bleakwood goes from bad to worse when her long-lost brother, Bruce, returns from the Vietnam War. While Bruce is being plagued by a mysterious and monstrous mutation, he is also being hunted by an incompetent team of paranormal misfits, which leads to Bleakwood quickly becoming ground zero of a supernatural battle that forces Danielle to choose between everything she holds dear and the fate of the world as a whole. In Shops: Jul 17, 2024 Chilling Adventures Presents ... Truth or Dare (Archie)Chilling Adventures Presents ... Truth or Dare One-Shot(W) Ron Robbins (A/CA) Laura Braga When new student Trula Twyst comes to Riverdale, her mysterious and quiet nature doesn't mix well with the squeaky-clean façade of Riverdale High. Tormented by her past and with a keen interest in Behavioral Psychology, she sets her sights on dismantling the traditional high school hierarchy from within. How? By a simple game of Truth or Dare... This horror one shot is smart, sexy, and for fans of movies like Escape Room, Saw, and Girl, Interrupted. In Shops: Jul 17, 2024 MI666: Rise of the Scourge (Bliss on Tap)MI666: Rise of the Scourge #1(W) Craig Goodwill, Doc Pedrolie, Brian Phillipson (A/CA) Alex Cormack It's 1937. The Nazi threat looms. The world is on the brink of war. Winston Churchill is tasked with creating a covert British Intelligence Agency. The infamous satanist Aleister Crowley, branded "The Wickedest Man Alive," and his gang of agent provocateurs, including descendants of Houdini and Van Helsing, are persuaded by Churchill to help infiltrate the shadowy depths of the Nazi Occultist Secret Societies, using dark arts and the supernatural to fight evil on its own terms. Churchill's new Agency? In Shops: Jul 10, 2024 Soul Taker (Mad Cave)Soul Taker #1(W) Tom Sniegoski, Jeannine Acheson (A) Valeria Burzo (CA) Michael Sta. Maria Amarantha is the last of her race, an ancient species that has lived among us for millennia, feeding on the life energies of humanity. Now enjoying a peaceful existence in a retirement community, she continues to consume just enough to survive. But Amarantha has made enemies throughout her long life and an ancient foe thought long defeated has returned and is out for blood, while a newer threat seeks to capture her for their own nefarious purposes! Now Amarantha must do everything in her power to vanquish her enemies and protect the life she has made for herself. In Shops: Jul 03, 2024 Canonical: The Gospel of Anselmo (Blood Moon)Canonical: The Gospel of Anselmo #1(W) Angel Fuentes (A) Nahuel Sb (CA) Hernan Gonzalez From the creator of Violet Descends, Grit N Gears, and Gunbreed comes Canonical! The last holy man makes his stand in a world that's gone to hell. Father Anselmo Duarte is one of the few remaining exorcists on Earth. He fights monsters, witches, and demons every single day. He also claims to be stalked by the seven archangels. Are they real or is he just becoming batshit crazy in his old age? He doesn't have time to find out as all the babies on the entire planet are born dead in a period of 24 hours. With no trace of half a billion infant souls, it's up to Anselmo to save them... Unless everything is just happening in his head and he just needs to retire to wherever priests go when they grow too old. In Shops: Jul 03, 2024 The Dirt Witch (Blood Moon)The Dirt Witch One-Shot(W) Jon McCarthy (A/CA) Thomas Tikas 36-Page Oversized Issue! Randal made a terrible mistake. He knew not to play the record backwards, but victims of bullies often make desperate decisions. Now she is here and she must be fed. A terrifying new creature to the world of horror via a tragic tale about the consequences of action. In Shops: Jul 03, 2024 JunePlastic: Death & Dolls (Image)Plastic: Death & Dolls #1(W) Doug Wagner (CA) Michelle Madsen (A/CA) Daniel Hillyard Mini-Series Premiere. Everyone's favorite serial killer has returned! Learn how Edwyn came to his first kill at 10 years old and how that set him on a blood-soaked path of decapitations, sporks, and dolls on his way to finding the one true love of his life... a sex doll named Virginia. In Shops: Jun 12, 2024 Into the Unbeing (Dark Horse)Into the Unbeing #1(W) Zac Thompson (A/CA) Hayden Sherman A group of climate scientists working in a remote base camp on the Australian outback discover an impossible landform. They venture inside expecting the unexpected, and the titular Unbeing delivers. True to the traditions of cosmic horror, they discover an anomalous environment that defies everything they think they know about the world. From critically acclaimed writer Zac Thompson and visionary artist Hayden Sherman. In Shops: Jun 12, 2024 Beyond the Pale (Dark Horse)Beyond the Pale #1(W) Christofer Emgård (A/CA) Tomás Aira War correspondent Hetta Sawyer is looking into the disproportional loss of black soldiers in the Vietnam War. Leads say losses are especially high at Firebase Tartarus, with most of them simply gone missing, their fate unknown. Something sinister is happening at Tartarus, and Hetta intends to uncover the truth. A new eldritch horror from writer Christofer Emgärd! In Shops: Jun 05, 2024 The Mammoth (Mad Cave)The Mammoth #1(W) Paul Tobin (A/CA) Arjuna Susini Something is wrong in the deep forests of Broke Tree Valley. Something deadly. Something mammoth. The legends speak of something larger than human comprehension...A monstrous phantom that disappears for decades at a time. Now, it's back, and things are about to go Very Bad if four people-Olivia, Jess, Kokoro, and Mason, scientists who have come to the small city of Kasbro to investigate a bizarre series of seismic activities in this heavily forested valley-can't put the Mammoth to rest. One real problem with this is...Olivia's dead. In Shops: Jun 05, 2024 Wicked Tales (Blood Moon)(W) Christoff Rodriguez (A/CA) Giuseppe D'EliaWicked Tales #1 marks the debut of independent creators Christoff Rodriguez and artist Giuseppe D'elia and their imprint Watch Out! Studio, presenting three tales of terror on which talks about the inevitability of fulfilling certain demonic contracts, how an obscure jazz trumpeter set his mysterious latest performance, and witnessing a gambler with some magical help pushes his luck too far, plus a flash fiction. In the same vein as Tales from the Crypt, the tandem has reunited in this small anthology a bit of intriguing and a bit of horror in equal dosis revolving around the supernatural. In Shops: Jun 05, 2024 |
2024.06.02 01:07 CIAHerpes I live alone in Alaska. The Twisted Man has been peeking in through my windows.
A few years ago, I decided I needed a major life change. Everything seemed to be going downhill- my finances, my mental health, my life. I would go weeks without sleeping sometimes as the heavy traffic passed through the city streets down below. Every time I went outside, I saw more homeless people, more needles and crack pipes littering the ground, more muggings and assaults and overdoses and deaths. The city had become a wasteland, and I knew it was time to leave.
I had no girlfriend, no wife, no kids. My parents had both died a few years prior and I barely talked to my siblings anymore. I had nothing to tie me down to this place where I felt like I was dying inside a little more each day.
That was when I sold nearly everything I owned, got in my car and drove up to Alaska to try starting anew. I bought a small cabin and a plot of land in the middle of its majestic mountains and dark, enchanting forests. In the winter, the Northern Lights would shine through like the eyes of God, sending out divine trails of light that danced through the sky in cosmic waves.
And while the move did help give me some peace of mind, in the end, the source of all my problems had ultimately followed me thousands of miles into this endless wilderness. It would take me a long time to realize the cause of all this misery was myself.
Because, as a wise man once said, “Wherever I go, there I am.”
***
I lived in that cabin for three months without any major issues other than the constant threat of bears, moose and wolves. I had a rifle and a shotgun for hunting, a small garden in the backyard and a solar panel to generate electricity.
“This is the life,” I said, relaxing on a hammock I had strung across the corner of the cabin while staring at the endless beauty directly outside the window. White-capped mountains loomed like giants in front of thick clusters of evergreens. A virgin covering of fluffy snow made the entire world glisten and sparkle. There wasn’t a house or road in sight.
“No work, no stress, no pollution, no cars honking all the time…” I closed my eyes, breathing in the clean air. I ended up falling asleep for a couple hours, waking up just as the Sun had started setting. Bright orange streaks mixed with the bloody smears of the fading light as it disappeared behind the mountains.
I groggily arose, stumbling over to make a cup of instant coffee. As I sipped it, I wandered around the room, looking for something to pass the time. There were still quite a few random objects left behind by the last owner that I hadn’t gotten rid of yet. I had moved in to find a stocked bookshelf filled with classics by Philip K. Dick, Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein. Bored, I started rifling through the collection, looking for something good to pass the time. As I shuffled past “A Maze of Death” and “Ubik”, something caught my eye.
A black, leather-bound book with no title or author name stood there, its cover faded with time and wear. Curious, I pulled it out and opened it. I saw the cursive scrawled across the pages in a neat, copperplate script and realized it was a diary left behind by the previous owner. The first entry was dated “January 9th, 2015.” This is what it said.
***
“I don’t know if I’m going crazy or not. I went into town to talk to my therapist yesterday and she said I should try writing everything down. She talks to me like it’s all in my head. But I know it’s not.
“When I first moved into the cabin, it seemed like Paradise. I never thought in a million years that something would be slinking around at night. I never thought it would be hiding under my bed, peeking in windows and following me like a shadow.
“Right now, I’m snowed in with a cup of coffee in one hand and my pistol in the other. I can’t sleep anymore. I keep hearing something shuffling around under the bed. Sometimes, I think I even hear ragged breathing, as if a corpse with dirt in its lungs had come back to life.
“I’ve caught glimpses of that thing in the darkness. Whatever it is, its skin is loose, almost falling off the bone. It almost looks like a naked, emaciated man. Its eyes are rotted and dark, its back hunched, its spine twisted and jutting out like tumors. It moves in this slow, jerky way, but I can never seem to catch it. Its body seems broken and out of alignment. Its legs bend the wrong way sometimes.
“By the time I turn on the lights or try to take a video of it, it’s always disappeared. But its fetid odor remains. It lingers in the cabin like a sweet-smelling, spreading infection.
“I don’t know what it wants from me. I want to leave, but with the storm raging outside, I’m stuck here, unable to get all the way back to town. The snow surrounds the cabin in mounds five feet high. I feel like a prisoner caged with a rabid beast, not knowing when it will strike.
“My wife claims she hasn’t seen or heard anything, but she keeps vanishing on me. Last night, she disappeared in the middle of a snowstorm. Where did she go? I asked her in the morning, but she said she was here the whole time. She didn’t remember anything. There’s no way she went into town. There wasn’t time and the trails were impassable that far down.
“Something’s going on here, but I don’t know what it is. I’m truly scared for our lives.”
I slammed the diary shut, not wanting to read anymore. I didn’t want to become infected by some kind of contagious cabin fever. If the last owner had gone insane in the mountains and started hallucinating naked corpses crawling around, I really didn’t want to know.
I shoved the diary back in the bookshelf, going for “A Maze of Death” instead. I tried to forget what I had read in the diary as I flew through the novella. All night, I tried to get the image of the naked, twisting man with rotted eyes out of my head, but I couldn’t.
I eventually fell asleep right before dawn. But, as my eyes were closing, I thought I saw a silhouette in the window- a starved man with excited, black eyes that seemed to be rotting out of his skull. I thought I saw him put his inhumanly long fingers against the glass as he leaned forward. I blinked, sitting up and glancing out into the white, snow-covered wonderland.
There was nothing there.
***
Another hunter occasionally followed the deer trails near my cabin. A frozen lake stood a quarter-mile away, the surface white and covered in thick drifts of snow. I bundled up, deciding to go outside for a hike in the frigid dawn. I strapped on my snowshoes and grabbed my shotgun, as I always did when I went outside. I never knew when a polar bear might be waiting around the next tree, after all.
I opened the door, seeing footprints pressed into the snow all around my house. At first, I thought it was that silhouette I had seen, the nightmarish thing from the diary. But the footprints didn’t go over to my window. They followed the trail twenty feet away, veering off towards the frozen lake at the bottom of the hill. I glanced down in that direction, seeing a black figure plodding slowly forward.
“Steve!” I cried, recognizing my only neighbor in a four-mile radius. He had a cabin about a mile away on his own little plot of land. He jumped, clearly startled by the sudden noise. His black snow pants and heavy fur coat swished together as he spun, raising his rifle high. When he saw me, he immediately lowered it and put a gloved hand up in a friendly greeting.
“Hey Josh! Surprised to see you up this early,” he yelled over the muted wintry landscape. Sounds always seemed different after it snowed, as if all the noise in the world had become faded and dead.
“Yeah, I’ve been having a little trouble sleeping,” I said, slinging my shotgun around my shoulder. “What are you doing anyway?”
“Just a little hunting, you know,” he said, giving me a sly wink. “Animals are always most active around dusk and dawn, it seems. That’s when I always have the best luck, anyway.” He stepped close to me, staring me in the eyes. “You do look like shit. Those bags under your eyes are big enough to carry groceries in.”
“Yeah, trust me, I know… Hey, this might sound a little weird, but did you know the previous owner of this cabin?” I asked. Steve’s wrinkled, old face fell into a scowl. His expression immediately became guarded and distant.
“Sure, sure, we met,” he exclaimed bluntly. He seemed to be searching my face for something, but I didn’t know what. His reaction left me feeling off-balance and nervous.
“Is he still around?” I said. Steve’s scowl deepened.
“Buddy, I don’t know what this is about, but he’s dead. He’s been dead. He died in that cabin, actually.” He pointed a finger at my home accusingly. With those words, my heart seemed to drop into my stomach. Waves of dread flowed through my body like water.
“How… how did he die? Like a heart attack or something?” I asked. Steve’s gaze turned downwards. He didn’t meet my eyes.
“Do you know that Alaska has the highest missing persons rate in the entire United States? It’s not even close. In fact, for the population size, we have far more people who go missing and never get found than anywhere else. They even have a name for it: the Alaska Triangle,” Steve said. “And we’re square in the middle of it.” I stared blankly at him, wondering where he was going with this. It seemed like a way to avoid answering my question.
“No, I didn’t know that…” I responded. Steve nodded, raising his head again. He heaved a deep sigh.
“Look, the thing with the last owner and his wife… it’s somewhat disturbing. If you really want to know, I’ll tell you, but it’s certainly not going to help your peace of mind. And it definitely isn’t going to help you get some sleep.”
“I want to know,” I insisted instantly. The wind started to whip past us. Flakes of ice and snow flew sideways in the sudden currents.
“Let’s go back to your cabin then,” Steve said, pulling his heavy fur-lined hood off and shaking out his long, black hair behind him. “I could use a bit of whiskey to warm up.”
***
We sat down with a bottle of Johnny Walker and two shot glasses. I wasn’t much of a drinker, but Steve certainly was. He chugged three shots in the span of a minute. I sipped at mine, drinking half and putting it back down on the coffee table with a thunk. Steve grunted, hissing through his open mouth for a moment.
“Ugh, that’s the good stuff,” he said, slamming his chest as the burning liquor worked its way down. Steve looked up at me with a new sparkle in his eyes. “Huh, so you want to know about what happened to Will Lenning. Well, I’ll tell you that no one really knows the whole story. I used to see him occasionally, come down and have a drink and talk. We all know each other around here, obviously.” I nodded, motioning him on. “He seemed like a normal, upstanding guy. He kinda reminded me of you, actually. A young guy trying to escape the hustle and bustle of the city life, the cancer of the American Dream.
“Well, he was here for maybe a couple months, I don’t know. Everything seemed fine. We used to go skeet shooting occasionally, have a beer, you know. We’d get together with a couple other hunters who live closer to town and sometimes play some poker. I never saw anything odd about Will. I never could have predicted what happened to him.” He heaved a long sigh at this, looking out the window at the sharp mountains with an expression of nostalgia.
“Well, what happened to him?” I asked, encouraging him to go on.
“He started talking about seeing someone peering in through his window at night. He talked about hearing sounds from under his bed while he was laying there in the dark- sounds like diseased breathing and shuffling. He started keeping all the lights on in his cabin twenty-four hours a day.” Steve leaned close to me. A glimmer of fear rippled across his pale, wrinkled face. “He started to lose his mind. Started digging holes all over the place, looking for something. Even in the middle of snowstorms, I would occasionally see him outside, digging. It seemed like he never slept anymore. It was classic cabin fever if I ever saw it.
“It was only a few weeks later that I came over here, concerned. I hadn’t heard from him in a few days, which was fairly unusual. I found the door hanging wide open. Propped up in a chair in the exact spot where you now sit, Will lay with a blast hole showing clear through his skull, a shotgun laying at his feet.
“And next to him, I found a blood-stained diary opened to the middle page. The last entry was stained with blood spatter, but still visible. I remember leaning down and reading it. It was only a few sentences long.” I glanced over at the bookshelf with the same diary, saying nothing.
“It said something like, ‘I see now what’s going on. The Twisted Man is leading me to the truth. Today, I will finally find it.’”
“And that was his suicide note?” I asked, my heart hammering in my chest. He nodded.
“Yeah. I went into town and got some rangers to come check it out. Eventually, they got cops and CSI there. They took all the stuff as evidence, including the diary,” he said. “Good riddance, I say. Reading something like that is never beneficial. Sometimes delusions spread like a virus, you know what I mean?” I did, but I said nothing. I glanced back at the diary, its black leather cover gleaming like a crouching snake.
And I wondered- if the police took the diary as evidence, how did it get back here?
***
“You said he had a wife living here with him, too?” I asked.
“Yeah… she went missing around the same time,” he said. “Pretty bizarre. The cops thought maybe she just moved away, but…” He shook his head grimly. “As far as I know, she was never seen again. It was like she had evaporated into thin air.”
After Steve left, I walked stiffly over to the bookshelf, taking down the diary. I flipped open through the pages. In the middle, I found the last entry. Spatters of old, darkened blood were scattered over the page like raindrops. I found the suicide note and read the date.
“January 27th, 2015,” it read. Will Lenning had not lived long after he started seeing the Twisted Man. I wondered if my fate would be the same.
The Sun had started to set outside as I sat with the diary at the small circular kitchen table, eating some stewed venison and rice as I read through the entries. At the end, Will Lenning said the Twisted Man had been trying to guide him somewhere, that, in fact, the Twisted Man had been trying to protect him from some great evil, rather than being the source of it.
I scoffed, feeling a flash of anger at his stupidity. His naivety obviously led to his death. But then a flash of insight struck me like lightning.
What if I was committing the same kind of stupidity? Perhaps I should just grab my gun and valuables and leave. I could take off on the snowmobile and be in town within a couple hours.
But, in my heart, I knew I would not. Something about the mystery of all this beckoned me to stay. Like a siren leading sailors to destruction, my curiosity called out to me, and I knew I would not be leaving that night. I needed answers.
And, sadly, I would find them.
***
I had fallen asleep with an empty bottle of beer in my hand. I sat in front of the TV, which only got satellite reception. There were, of course, no cable or phone lines threading their way through the forest. All of my power came from stored solar energy. Since I rarely watched TV and really only used it to cook or heat up water for bathing, the energy produced was sufficient even in winter. Tonight, though, I needed its sound, its mindless flashing of light and colors and canned laughter. It seemed to drive away the creeping, suffocating presence like a candle.
I woke suddenly. The TV flashed with static. The repetitive hissing of the white noise spit from the speakers like thousands of snakes. I glanced up at the clock. 3:33 AM. I looked around the dark cabin, confused for a long moment. I didn’t understand what had woken me so abruptly. The satellite had never gone out before, either, even with the howling winds and freezing hail of the Alaskan winter.
The TV started flickering as if the static were rising upwards. Black lines traced their way horizontally across the screen. The hissing deepened into a gurgle, and for a second, I thought I heard faint words behind the white noise. I thought I heard breathing, slow and diseased, like the death gasp of a drowning man.
A black line rose across the TV and an image came into view. The cabin was suddenly plunged into silence, except for the shrieking, wintry wind outside. I leaned close to the screen, confused at what I was looking at. It looked like a live camera feed of a room. As I took in the details, I realized it was my cabin. I saw myself in the chair, leaning close to the screen. I raised my hand, and the miniature version of me on the screen did likewise. Ice water seemed to drip down my spine as waves of dread coursed through my body.
“What the fuck is this?” I whispered, looking back to where the camera should be. It was just a coarse wooden ceiling in that corner. I turned back to the screen and nearly screamed.
The TV showed a pale, naked man crouching directly behind my chair now. With jerky movements, he rose, his broken spine twisting and shivering. A hissing voice rang out from the speakers. It spoke as if it had dirt and writhing maggots in its throat.
“He is a killer. The shadow of death,” it gurgled. “Many have fallen. Many lie buried across this forest. You will be next. He is watching you…”
Long, broken fingers with blackened nails reached out to touch my shoulders. I jumped out of the chair, stumbling back as I spun around in terror. My back smashed into the TV, and it fell to the floor with a shattering of glass and an explosion of light.
In those few moments before the darkness descended on me like a blanket, I thought I glimpsed a pale, sunken face with rotted, blackened eyes peeking out from behind the chair.
***
I turned on every light in the cabin, but there was no sign of the Twisted Man now. I knew I had to get out of there, though. I thought about the warning that the voice had spoken. If the creature wanted to attack me, then why hadn’t it just killed me while I was sleeping? None of it made sense. Who was watching me? The Twisted Man? And if he was, why warn me? Perhaps it was psychological warfare, I thought to myself. Perhaps the Twisted Man simply liked to play with his food before he ate it.
Thoughts raced through my head at a thousand miles an hour as I threw on snow pants and a couple heavy sweaters and coats. I covered up my entire body as much as I could to try to prevent frostbite. I had made up my mind to flee. There was no snowstorm tonight, though the entire landscape was blanketed in it and I knew the wind chill would be like an ice blade whipping against my skin. It was extremely dangerous to travel in the middle of the night like this in temperatures that might reach negative thirty degrees. Steve had been right, after all- Alaska had the highest missing persons rate of any state, and many of them were never found, their bodies likely frozen solid in the deep snow dozens of miles from the nearest town.
I grabbed my shotgun, jumped on my snowmobile and started heading to Steve’s cabin. I hoped I could wait there until the sunrise and then figure out what to do next.
But fate would take the decision out of my hands.
***
I felt like there were eyes watching me as I drove along the narrow, winding deer trail. The boughs of the evergreens reached into the path like greedy hands, grabbing at my coat and legs. More than a couple times, I thought I saw a pale, naked figure standing in the snow, but it had always gone when I turned to look.
I gave a sigh of relief when Steve’s place appeared in the distance. I could see the lights twinkling through the small windows of his log cabin. I pulled up next to his door, looking down. I saw two pairs of footprints there, one much smaller than the other. I found it odd, but shrugged it off. The snowmobile cut out with a sucking gurgle.
I knocked on the door hard a few times. Steve appeared after a few moments, groggy and half-dressed. He blinked slowly as he looked me up and down. His wrinkled face fell into a frown.
“Steve, I need a favor,” I said quickly. “Something weird is happening in my cabin. Can I stay here until morning, until maybe I can go to town or something? I can’t stay at my place tonight. I just can’t.” He nodded, yawning and motioning me in.
“You can sleep on the couch, I guess,” Steve said. “Put that shotgun somewhere safe, though, boy.” He had a partitioned bedroom in his cabin. It was significantly larger than my little one-room cabin, though it was basically still just a joint kitchen-living room, a small bedroom and a bathroom. He pointed to a well-worn couch in the corner and gave me an apathetic wave as he stumbled back into his bedroom, slamming the door.
I couldn’t sleep, though. I tiptoed around the room, looking at Steve’s bookshelf. He had a rather strange taste in books- lots of Anne Rule and true crime there. I saw dozens of books about Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Richard Chase, Herbert Mullin, Jeffrey Dahmer and Richard Ramirez among the collection. At the end, a large, black binder stood, unlabeled and worn-looking. It reminded me of the look of that leather-bound diary for a second, and my heart dropped. But logically, I knew this was just a coincidence. Yet, still, I pulled out the binder, my curiosity piqued.
What I found inside filled me with dread and horror.
Countless news clippings covered the length of it. The first clipping was from nearly twenty years earlier, about a woman who went missing in the Alaskan forest while hiking. A later one confirmed that her body was never found, and that her family was still hoping that she might turn up alive somewhere. A reward was offered for any information, it said.
And every page after that was more of the same: missing woman, murdered prostitute, missing man, no leads. I kept flipping through until I found clippings about Will Lenning’s suicide and the sudden disappearance of his wife. On the article about the suicide, Steve had used red marker to scrawl, “HA HA!” next to it.
I heard the click of a gun being cocked from behind me. I froze as Steve’s voice traveled across the room like a whisper.
“How do you like my work, friend?” he asked, his tone jovial and mocking.
***
I still held the binder of horrors tightly in my hands as I stared open-mouthed at this man I thought I knew.
“It’s you? What, you killed Will Lenning and his wife? And a lot of other women, apparently.” Everything felt unreal, as if I were stuck in a dream. Steve’s grin spread across his face, but his blue eyes stayed cold and dead.
“Yes, well, she was cheating on him with me anyway. Just another whore, you know. They always get what’s coming to them in the end,” he hissed with hatred oozing from his voice. “It’s too bad, really. I just killed another slut tonight. I was planning on saving you for later. The urge isn’t too bad yet right now, after all. It comes in cycles, you see. It comes in waves…” I saw a glimmer of pale, naked flesh writhing behind Steve. With jerky movements, the Twisted Man came up behind him. I said nothing, just watching with wide-eyed horror and amazement.
“You need help, man,” I whispered. Steve laughed.
“Help? The only help they give people like me is a needle in the arm. You know that. That’s why it’s important to always cover your tracks…” The Twisted Man ran a long, broken finger across Steve’s neck. Steve gave a strangled cry and jumped. He spun around, screaming. I glanced over at my shotgun next to the couch.
I jumped for it as Steve turned back to me, firing his pistol twice. The first bullet soared high above me, raining wood splinters down on my head, but the second ripped into my leg. A cold, burning pain ran like fire up my shin. I screamed in agony and battle fury as I gripped the shotgun, spinning and firing.
Steve’s head exploded as the slug ripped through his brain. His forehead collapsed like a smashed melon as bone splinters and blood sprayed the wall behind him.
The Twisted Man stood there, hunched over, grinning up at me. I felt warm blood gushing from my leg as I stared back at him, breathing hard. I wondered if I was dying.
“You… you weren’t after me at all, were you?” I asked. “You were after… Steve.” But the Twisted Man said nothing. After a long moment, he slinked back into the shadows of the bedroom and disappeared.
***
As night crawled its way toward morning, I thought back to the words the Twisted Man had spoken through the TV, suddenly understanding everything.
“He is a killer. The shadow of death. Many have fallen. Many lie buried across this forest. You will be next. He is watching you…”
He hadn’t been trying to hurt me at all. He had been trying to warn me. He had probably tried to warn Will Lenning and his wife, too.
I wrapped my leg in gauze, gritting my teeth. The wound looked puckered and deep, but I could still move my foot, and the bullet had gone clean through the flesh. I poured alcohol on it, screaming in pain as it burned its way through my skin. After rummaging through Steve’s bathroom, I found some prescription painkillers and swallowed a handful of them with a beer. I knew I would need the opiate high to get through the pain of riding into town with a mutilated leg.
As the Sun finally rose, I made my way outside the blood-stained floors of the cabin to my snowmobile. Before I left, I glanced back at that horrid place, the scene of so much torment and death.
In the open doorway, the Twisted Man stood, his back hunched, his rotted lips grinning at me. His hand lifted up into the air with jerky movements and waved.
I waved back as I started the engine and headed into town.
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I had no girlfriend, no wife, no kids. My parents had both died a few years prior and I barely talked to my siblings anymore. I had nothing to tie me down to this place where I felt like I was dying inside a little more each day.
That was when I sold nearly everything I owned, got in my car and drove up to Alaska to try starting anew. I bought a small cabin and a plot of land in the middle of its majestic mountains and dark, enchanting forests. In the winter, the Northern Lights would shine through like the eyes of God, sending out divine trails of light that danced through the sky in cosmic waves.
And while the move did help give me some peace of mind, in the end, the source of all my problems had ultimately followed me thousands of miles into this endless wilderness. It would take me a long time to realize the cause of all this misery was myself.
Because, as a wise man once said, “Wherever I go, there I am.”
***
I lived in that cabin for three months without any major issues other than the constant threat of bears, moose and wolves. I had a rifle and a shotgun for hunting, a small garden in the backyard and a solar panel to generate electricity.
“This is the life,” I said, relaxing on a hammock I had strung across the corner of the cabin while staring at the endless beauty directly outside the window. White-capped mountains loomed like giants in front of thick clusters of evergreens. A virgin covering of fluffy snow made the entire world glisten and sparkle. There wasn’t a house or road in sight.
“No work, no stress, no pollution, no cars honking all the time…” I closed my eyes, breathing in the clean air. I ended up falling asleep for a couple hours, waking up just as the Sun had started setting. Bright orange streaks mixed with the bloody smears of the fading light as it disappeared behind the mountains.
I groggily arose, stumbling over to make a cup of instant coffee. As I sipped it, I wandered around the room, looking for something to pass the time. There were still quite a few random objects left behind by the last owner that I hadn’t gotten rid of yet. I had moved in to find a stocked bookshelf filled with classics by Philip K. Dick, Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein. Bored, I started rifling through the collection, looking for something good to pass the time. As I shuffled past “A Maze of Death” and “Ubik”, something caught my eye.
A black, leather-bound book with no title or author name stood there, its cover faded with time and wear. Curious, I pulled it out and opened it. I saw the cursive scrawled across the pages in a neat, copperplate script and realized it was a diary left behind by the previous owner. The first entry was dated “January 9th, 2015.” This is what it said.
***
“I don’t know if I’m going crazy or not. I went into town to talk to my therapist yesterday and she said I should try writing everything down. She talks to me like it’s all in my head. But I know it’s not.
“When I first moved into the cabin, it seemed like Paradise. I never thought in a million years that something would be slinking around at night. I never thought it would be hiding under my bed, peeking in windows and following me like a shadow.
“Right now, I’m snowed in with a cup of coffee in one hand and my pistol in the other. I can’t sleep anymore. I keep hearing something shuffling around under the bed. Sometimes, I think I even hear ragged breathing, as if a corpse with dirt in its lungs had come back to life.
“I’ve caught glimpses of that thing in the darkness. Whatever it is, its skin is loose, almost falling off the bone. It almost looks like a naked, emaciated man. Its eyes are rotted and dark, its back hunched, its spine twisted and jutting out like tumors. It moves in this slow, jerky way, but I can never seem to catch it. Its body seems broken and out of alignment. Its legs bend the wrong way sometimes.
“By the time I turn on the lights or try to take a video of it, it’s always disappeared. But its fetid odor remains. It lingers in the cabin like a sweet-smelling, spreading infection.
“I don’t know what it wants from me. I want to leave, but with the storm raging outside, I’m stuck here, unable to get all the way back to town. The snow surrounds the cabin in mounds five feet high. I feel like a prisoner caged with a rabid beast, not knowing when it will strike.
“My wife claims she hasn’t seen or heard anything, but she keeps vanishing on me. Last night, she disappeared in the middle of a snowstorm. Where did she go? I asked her in the morning, but she said she was here the whole time. She didn’t remember anything. There’s no way she went into town. There wasn’t time and the trails were impassable that far down.
“Something’s going on here, but I don’t know what it is. I’m truly scared for our lives.”
I slammed the diary shut, not wanting to read anymore. I didn’t want to become infected by some kind of contagious cabin fever. If the last owner had gone insane in the mountains and started hallucinating naked corpses crawling around, I really didn’t want to know.
I shoved the diary back in the bookshelf, going for “A Maze of Death” instead. I tried to forget what I had read in the diary as I flew through the novella. All night, I tried to get the image of the naked, twisting man with rotted eyes out of my head, but I couldn’t.
I eventually fell asleep right before dawn. But, as my eyes were closing, I thought I saw a silhouette in the window- a starved man with excited, black eyes that seemed to be rotting out of his skull. I thought I saw him put his inhumanly long fingers against the glass as he leaned forward. I blinked, sitting up and glancing out into the white, snow-covered wonderland.
There was nothing there.
***
Another hunter occasionally followed the deer trails near my cabin. A frozen lake stood a quarter-mile away, the surface white and covered in thick drifts of snow. I bundled up, deciding to go outside for a hike in the frigid dawn. I strapped on my snowshoes and grabbed my shotgun, as I always did when I went outside. I never knew when a polar bear might be waiting around the next tree, after all.
I opened the door, seeing footprints pressed into the snow all around my house. At first, I thought it was that silhouette I had seen, the nightmarish thing from the diary. But the footprints didn’t go over to my window. They followed the trail twenty feet away, veering off towards the frozen lake at the bottom of the hill. I glanced down in that direction, seeing a black figure plodding slowly forward.
“Steve!” I cried, recognizing my only neighbor in a four-mile radius. He had a cabin about a mile away on his own little plot of land. He jumped, clearly startled by the sudden noise. His black snow pants and heavy fur coat swished together as he spun, raising his rifle high. When he saw me, he immediately lowered it and put a gloved hand up in a friendly greeting.
“Hey Josh! Surprised to see you up this early,” he yelled over the muted wintry landscape. Sounds always seemed different after it snowed, as if all the noise in the world had become faded and dead.
“Yeah, I’ve been having a little trouble sleeping,” I said, slinging my shotgun around my shoulder. “What are you doing anyway?”
“Just a little hunting, you know,” he said, giving me a sly wink. “Animals are always most active around dusk and dawn, it seems. That’s when I always have the best luck, anyway.” He stepped close to me, staring me in the eyes. “You do look like shit. Those bags under your eyes are big enough to carry groceries in.”
“Yeah, trust me, I know… Hey, this might sound a little weird, but did you know the previous owner of this cabin?” I asked. Steve’s wrinkled, old face fell into a scowl. His expression immediately became guarded and distant.
“Sure, sure, we met,” he exclaimed bluntly. He seemed to be searching my face for something, but I didn’t know what. His reaction left me feeling off-balance and nervous.
“Is he still around?” I said. Steve’s scowl deepened.
“Buddy, I don’t know what this is about, but he’s dead. He’s been dead. He died in that cabin, actually.” He pointed a finger at my home accusingly. With those words, my heart seemed to drop into my stomach. Waves of dread flowed through my body like water.
“How… how did he die? Like a heart attack or something?” I asked. Steve’s gaze turned downwards. He didn’t meet my eyes.
“Do you know that Alaska has the highest missing persons rate in the entire United States? It’s not even close. In fact, for the population size, we have far more people who go missing and never get found than anywhere else. They even have a name for it: the Alaska Triangle,” Steve said. “And we’re square in the middle of it.” I stared blankly at him, wondering where he was going with this. It seemed like a way to avoid answering my question.
“No, I didn’t know that…” I responded. Steve nodded, raising his head again. He heaved a deep sigh.
“Look, the thing with the last owner and his wife… it’s somewhat disturbing. If you really want to know, I’ll tell you, but it’s certainly not going to help your peace of mind. And it definitely isn’t going to help you get some sleep.”
“I want to know,” I insisted instantly. The wind started to whip past us. Flakes of ice and snow flew sideways in the sudden currents.
“Let’s go back to your cabin then,” Steve said, pulling his heavy fur-lined hood off and shaking out his long, black hair behind him. “I could use a bit of whiskey to warm up.”
***
We sat down with a bottle of Johnny Walker and two shot glasses. I wasn’t much of a drinker, but Steve certainly was. He chugged three shots in the span of a minute. I sipped at mine, drinking half and putting it back down on the coffee table with a thunk. Steve grunted, hissing through his open mouth for a moment.
“Ugh, that’s the good stuff,” he said, slamming his chest as the burning liquor worked its way down. Steve looked up at me with a new sparkle in his eyes. “Huh, so you want to know about what happened to Will Lenning. Well, I’ll tell you that no one really knows the whole story. I used to see him occasionally, come down and have a drink and talk. We all know each other around here, obviously.” I nodded, motioning him on. “He seemed like a normal, upstanding guy. He kinda reminded me of you, actually. A young guy trying to escape the hustle and bustle of the city life, the cancer of the American Dream.
“Well, he was here for maybe a couple months, I don’t know. Everything seemed fine. We used to go skeet shooting occasionally, have a beer, you know. We’d get together with a couple other hunters who live closer to town and sometimes play some poker. I never saw anything odd about Will. I never could have predicted what happened to him.” He heaved a long sigh at this, looking out the window at the sharp mountains with an expression of nostalgia.
“Well, what happened to him?” I asked, encouraging him to go on.
“He started talking about seeing someone peering in through his window at night. He talked about hearing sounds from under his bed while he was laying there in the dark- sounds like diseased breathing and shuffling. He started keeping all the lights on in his cabin twenty-four hours a day.” Steve leaned close to me. A glimmer of fear rippled across his pale, wrinkled face. “He started to lose his mind. Started digging holes all over the place, looking for something. Even in the middle of snowstorms, I would occasionally see him outside, digging. It seemed like he never slept anymore. It was classic cabin fever if I ever saw it.
“It was only a few weeks later that I came over here, concerned. I hadn’t heard from him in a few days, which was fairly unusual. I found the door hanging wide open. Propped up in a chair in the exact spot where you now sit, Will lay with a blast hole showing clear through his skull, a shotgun laying at his feet.
“And next to him, I found a blood-stained diary opened to the middle page. The last entry was stained with blood spatter, but still visible. I remember leaning down and reading it. It was only a few sentences long.” I glanced over at the bookshelf with the same diary, saying nothing.
“It said something like, ‘I see now what’s going on. The Twisted Man is leading me to the truth. Today, I will finally find it.’”
“And that was his suicide note?” I asked, my heart hammering in my chest. He nodded.
“Yeah. I went into town and got some rangers to come check it out. Eventually, they got cops and CSI there. They took all the stuff as evidence, including the diary,” he said. “Good riddance, I say. Reading something like that is never beneficial. Sometimes delusions spread like a virus, you know what I mean?” I did, but I said nothing. I glanced back at the diary, its black leather cover gleaming like a crouching snake.
And I wondered- if the police took the diary as evidence, how did it get back here?
***
“You said he had a wife living here with him, too?” I asked.
“Yeah… she went missing around the same time,” he said. “Pretty bizarre. The cops thought maybe she just moved away, but…” He shook his head grimly. “As far as I know, she was never seen again. It was like she had evaporated into thin air.”
After Steve left, I walked stiffly over to the bookshelf, taking down the diary. I flipped open through the pages. In the middle, I found the last entry. Spatters of old, darkened blood were scattered over the page like raindrops. I found the suicide note and read the date.
“January 27th, 2015,” it read. Will Lenning had not lived long after he started seeing the Twisted Man. I wondered if my fate would be the same.
The Sun had started to set outside as I sat with the diary at the small circular kitchen table, eating some stewed venison and rice as I read through the entries. At the end, Will Lenning said the Twisted Man had been trying to guide him somewhere, that, in fact, the Twisted Man had been trying to protect him from some great evil, rather than being the source of it.
I scoffed, feeling a flash of anger at his stupidity. His naivety obviously led to his death. But then a flash of insight struck me like lightning.
What if I was committing the same kind of stupidity? Perhaps I should just grab my gun and valuables and leave. I could take off on the snowmobile and be in town within a couple hours.
But, in my heart, I knew I would not. Something about the mystery of all this beckoned me to stay. Like a siren leading sailors to destruction, my curiosity called out to me, and I knew I would not be leaving that night. I needed answers.
And, sadly, I would find them.
***
I had fallen asleep with an empty bottle of beer in my hand. I sat in front of the TV, which only got satellite reception. There were, of course, no cable or phone lines threading their way through the forest. All of my power came from stored solar energy. Since I rarely watched TV and really only used it to cook or heat up water for bathing, the energy produced was sufficient even in winter. Tonight, though, I needed its sound, its mindless flashing of light and colors and canned laughter. It seemed to drive away the creeping, suffocating presence like a candle.
I woke suddenly. The TV flashed with static. The repetitive hissing of the white noise spit from the speakers like thousands of snakes. I glanced up at the clock. 3:33 AM. I looked around the dark cabin, confused for a long moment. I didn’t understand what had woken me so abruptly. The satellite had never gone out before, either, even with the howling winds and freezing hail of the Alaskan winter.
The TV started flickering as if the static were rising upwards. Black lines traced their way horizontally across the screen. The hissing deepened into a gurgle, and for a second, I thought I heard faint words behind the white noise. I thought I heard breathing, slow and diseased, like the death gasp of a drowning man.
A black line rose across the TV and an image came into view. The cabin was suddenly plunged into silence, except for the shrieking, wintry wind outside. I leaned close to the screen, confused at what I was looking at. It looked like a live camera feed of a room. As I took in the details, I realized it was my cabin. I saw myself in the chair, leaning close to the screen. I raised my hand, and the miniature version of me on the screen did likewise. Ice water seemed to drip down my spine as waves of dread coursed through my body.
“What the fuck is this?” I whispered, looking back to where the camera should be. It was just a coarse wooden ceiling in that corner. I turned back to the screen and nearly screamed.
The TV showed a pale, naked man crouching directly behind my chair now. With jerky movements, he rose, his broken spine twisting and shivering. A hissing voice rang out from the speakers. It spoke as if it had dirt and writhing maggots in its throat.
“He is a killer. The shadow of death,” it gurgled. “Many have fallen. Many lie buried across this forest. You will be next. He is watching you…”
Long, broken fingers with blackened nails reached out to touch my shoulders. I jumped out of the chair, stumbling back as I spun around in terror. My back smashed into the TV, and it fell to the floor with a shattering of glass and an explosion of light.
In those few moments before the darkness descended on me like a blanket, I thought I glimpsed a pale, sunken face with rotted, blackened eyes peeking out from behind the chair.
***
I turned on every light in the cabin, but there was no sign of the Twisted Man now. I knew I had to get out of there, though. I thought about the warning that the voice had spoken. If the creature wanted to attack me, then why hadn’t it just killed me while I was sleeping? None of it made sense. Who was watching me? The Twisted Man? And if he was, why warn me? Perhaps it was psychological warfare, I thought to myself. Perhaps the Twisted Man simply liked to play with his food before he ate it.
Thoughts raced through my head at a thousand miles an hour as I threw on snow pants and a couple heavy sweaters and coats. I covered up my entire body as much as I could to try to prevent frostbite. I had made up my mind to flee. There was no snowstorm tonight, though the entire landscape was blanketed in it and I knew the wind chill would be like an ice blade whipping against my skin. It was extremely dangerous to travel in the middle of the night like this in temperatures that might reach negative thirty degrees. Steve had been right, after all- Alaska had the highest missing persons rate of any state, and many of them were never found, their bodies likely frozen solid in the deep snow dozens of miles from the nearest town.
I grabbed my shotgun, jumped on my snowmobile and started heading to Steve’s cabin. I hoped I could wait there until the sunrise and then figure out what to do next.
But fate would take the decision out of my hands.
***
I felt like there were eyes watching me as I drove along the narrow, winding deer trail. The boughs of the evergreens reached into the path like greedy hands, grabbing at my coat and legs. More than a couple times, I thought I saw a pale, naked figure standing in the snow, but it had always gone when I turned to look.
I gave a sigh of relief when Steve’s place appeared in the distance. I could see the lights twinkling through the small windows of his log cabin. I pulled up next to his door, looking down. I saw two pairs of footprints there, one much smaller than the other. I found it odd, but shrugged it off. The snowmobile cut out with a sucking gurgle.
I knocked on the door hard a few times. Steve appeared after a few moments, groggy and half-dressed. He blinked slowly as he looked me up and down. His wrinkled face fell into a frown.
“Steve, I need a favor,” I said quickly. “Something weird is happening in my cabin. Can I stay here until morning, until maybe I can go to town or something? I can’t stay at my place tonight. I just can’t.” He nodded, yawning and motioning me in.
“You can sleep on the couch, I guess,” Steve said. “Put that shotgun somewhere safe, though, boy.” He had a partitioned bedroom in his cabin. It was significantly larger than my little one-room cabin, though it was basically still just a joint kitchen-living room, a small bedroom and a bathroom. He pointed to a well-worn couch in the corner and gave me an apathetic wave as he stumbled back into his bedroom, slamming the door.
I couldn’t sleep, though. I tiptoed around the room, looking at Steve’s bookshelf. He had a rather strange taste in books- lots of Anne Rule and true crime there. I saw dozens of books about Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Richard Chase, Herbert Mullin, Jeffrey Dahmer and Richard Ramirez among the collection. At the end, a large, black binder stood, unlabeled and worn-looking. It reminded me of the look of that leather-bound diary for a second, and my heart dropped. But logically, I knew this was just a coincidence. Yet, still, I pulled out the binder, my curiosity piqued.
What I found inside filled me with dread and horror.
Countless news clippings covered the length of it. The first clipping was from nearly twenty years earlier, about a woman who went missing in the Alaskan forest while hiking. A later one confirmed that her body was never found, and that her family was still hoping that she might turn up alive somewhere. A reward was offered for any information, it said.
And every page after that was more of the same: missing woman, murdered prostitute, missing man, no leads. I kept flipping through until I found clippings about Will Lenning’s suicide and the sudden disappearance of his wife. On the article about the suicide, Steve had used red marker to scrawl, “HA HA!” next to it.
I heard the click of a gun being cocked from behind me. I froze as Steve’s voice traveled across the room like a whisper.
“How do you like my work, friend?” he asked, his tone jovial and mocking.
***
I still held the binder of horrors tightly in my hands as I stared open-mouthed at this man I thought I knew.
“It’s you? What, you killed Will Lenning and his wife? And a lot of other women, apparently.” Everything felt unreal, as if I were stuck in a dream. Steve’s grin spread across his face, but his blue eyes stayed cold and dead.
“Yes, well, she was cheating on him with me anyway. Just another whore, you know. They always get what’s coming to them in the end,” he hissed with hatred oozing from his voice. “It’s too bad, really. I just killed another slut tonight. I was planning on saving you for later. The urge isn’t too bad yet right now, after all. It comes in cycles, you see. It comes in waves…” I saw a glimmer of pale, naked flesh writhing behind Steve. With jerky movements, the Twisted Man came up behind him. I said nothing, just watching with wide-eyed horror and amazement.
“You need help, man,” I whispered. Steve laughed.
“Help? The only help they give people like me is a needle in the arm. You know that. That’s why it’s important to always cover your tracks…” The Twisted Man ran a long, broken finger across Steve’s neck. Steve gave a strangled cry and jumped. He spun around, screaming. I glanced over at my shotgun next to the couch.
I jumped for it as Steve turned back to me, firing his pistol twice. The first bullet soared high above me, raining wood splinters down on my head, but the second ripped into my leg. A cold, burning pain ran like fire up my shin. I screamed in agony and battle fury as I gripped the shotgun, spinning and firing.
Steve’s head exploded as the slug ripped through his brain. His forehead collapsed like a smashed melon as bone splinters and blood sprayed the wall behind him.
The Twisted Man stood there, hunched over, grinning up at me. I felt warm blood gushing from my leg as I stared back at him, breathing hard. I wondered if I was dying.
“You… you weren’t after me at all, were you?” I asked. “You were after… Steve.” But the Twisted Man said nothing. After a long moment, he slinked back into the shadows of the bedroom and disappeared.
***
As night crawled its way toward morning, I thought back to the words the Twisted Man had spoken through the TV, suddenly understanding everything.
“He is a killer. The shadow of death. Many have fallen. Many lie buried across this forest. You will be next. He is watching you…”
He hadn’t been trying to hurt me at all. He had been trying to warn me. He had probably tried to warn Will Lenning and his wife, too.
I wrapped my leg in gauze, gritting my teeth. The wound looked puckered and deep, but I could still move my foot, and the bullet had gone clean through the flesh. I poured alcohol on it, screaming in pain as it burned its way through my skin. After rummaging through Steve’s bathroom, I found some prescription painkillers and swallowed a handful of them with a beer. I knew I would need the opiate high to get through the pain of riding into town with a mutilated leg.
As the Sun finally rose, I made my way outside the blood-stained floors of the cabin to my snowmobile. Before I left, I glanced back at that horrid place, the scene of so much torment and death.
In the open doorway, the Twisted Man stood, his back hunched, his rotted lips grinning at me. His hand lifted up into the air with jerky movements and waved.
I waved back as I started the engine and headed into town.
2024.06.02 01:06 CIAHerpes I live alone in Alaska. The Twisted Man has been peeking in through my windows.
A few years ago, I decided I needed a major life change. Everything seemed to be going downhill- my finances, my mental health, my life. I would go weeks without sleeping sometimes as the heavy traffic passed through the city streets down below. Every time I went outside, I saw more homeless people, more needles and crack pipes littering the ground, more muggings and assaults and overdoses and deaths. The city had become a wasteland, and I knew it was time to leave.
I had no girlfriend, no wife, no kids. My parents had both died a few years prior and I barely talked to my siblings anymore. I had nothing to tie me down to this place where I felt like I was dying inside a little more each day.
That was when I sold nearly everything I owned, got in my car and drove up to Alaska to try starting anew. I bought a small cabin and a plot of land in the middle of its majestic mountains and dark, enchanting forests. In the winter, the Northern Lights would shine through like the eyes of God, sending out divine trails of light that danced through the sky in cosmic waves.
And while the move did help give me some peace of mind, in the end, the source of all my problems had ultimately followed me thousands of miles into this endless wilderness. It would take me a long time to realize the cause of all this misery was myself.
Because, as a wise man once said, “Wherever I go, there I am.”
***
I lived in that cabin for three months without any major issues other than the constant threat of bears, moose and wolves. I had a rifle and a shotgun for hunting, a small garden in the backyard and a solar panel to generate electricity.
“This is the life,” I said, relaxing on a hammock I had strung across the corner of the cabin while staring at the endless beauty directly outside the window. White-capped mountains loomed like giants in front of thick clusters of evergreens. A virgin covering of fluffy snow made the entire world glisten and sparkle. There wasn’t a house or road in sight.
“No work, no stress, no pollution, no cars honking all the time…” I closed my eyes, breathing in the clean air. I ended up falling asleep for a couple hours, waking up just as the Sun had started setting. Bright orange streaks mixed with the bloody smears of the fading light as it disappeared behind the mountains.
I groggily arose, stumbling over to make a cup of instant coffee. As I sipped it, I wandered around the room, looking for something to pass the time. There were still quite a few random objects left behind by the last owner that I hadn’t gotten rid of yet. I had moved in to find a stocked bookshelf filled with classics by Philip K. Dick, Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein. Bored, I started rifling through the collection, looking for something good to pass the time. As I shuffled past “A Maze of Death” and “Ubik”, something caught my eye.
A black, leather-bound book with no title or author name stood there, its cover faded with time and wear. Curious, I pulled it out and opened it. I saw the cursive scrawled across the pages in a neat, copperplate script and realized it was a diary left behind by the previous owner. The first entry was dated “January 9th, 2015.” This is what it said.
***
“I don’t know if I’m going crazy or not. I went into town to talk to my therapist yesterday and she said I should try writing everything down. She talks to me like it’s all in my head. But I know it’s not.
“When I first moved into the cabin, it seemed like Paradise. I never thought in a million years that something would be slinking around at night. I never thought it would be hiding under my bed, peeking in windows and following me like a shadow.
“Right now, I’m snowed in with a cup of coffee in one hand and my pistol in the other. I can’t sleep anymore. I keep hearing something shuffling around under the bed. Sometimes, I think I even hear ragged breathing, as if a corpse with dirt in its lungs had come back to life.
“I’ve caught glimpses of that thing in the darkness. Whatever it is, its skin is loose, almost falling off the bone. It almost looks like a naked, emaciated man. Its eyes are rotted and dark, its back hunched, its spine twisted and jutting out like tumors. It moves in this slow, jerky way, but I can never seem to catch it. Its body seems broken and out of alignment. Its legs bend the wrong way sometimes.
“By the time I turn on the lights or try to take a video of it, it’s always disappeared. But its fetid odor remains. It lingers in the cabin like a sweet-smelling, spreading infection.
“I don’t know what it wants from me. I want to leave, but with the storm raging outside, I’m stuck here, unable to get all the way back to town. The snow surrounds the cabin in mounds five feet high. I feel like a prisoner caged with a rabid beast, not knowing when it will strike.
“My wife claims she hasn’t seen or heard anything, but she keeps vanishing on me. Last night, she disappeared in the middle of a snowstorm. Where did she go? I asked her in the morning, but she said she was here the whole time. She didn’t remember anything. There’s no way she went into town. There wasn’t time and the trails were impassable that far down.
“Something’s going on here, but I don’t know what it is. I’m truly scared for our lives.”
I slammed the diary shut, not wanting to read anymore. I didn’t want to become infected by some kind of contagious cabin fever. If the last owner had gone insane in the mountains and started hallucinating naked corpses crawling around, I really didn’t want to know.
I shoved the diary back in the bookshelf, going for “A Maze of Death” instead. I tried to forget what I had read in the diary as I flew through the novella. All night, I tried to get the image of the naked, twisting man with rotted eyes out of my head, but I couldn’t.
I eventually fell asleep right before dawn. But, as my eyes were closing, I thought I saw a silhouette in the window- a starved man with excited, black eyes that seemed to be rotting out of his skull. I thought I saw him put his inhumanly long fingers against the glass as he leaned forward. I blinked, sitting up and glancing out into the white, snow-covered wonderland.
There was nothing there.
***
Another hunter occasionally followed the deer trails near my cabin. A frozen lake stood a quarter-mile away, the surface white and covered in thick drifts of snow. I bundled up, deciding to go outside for a hike in the frigid dawn. I strapped on my snowshoes and grabbed my shotgun, as I always did when I went outside. I never knew when a polar bear might be waiting around the next tree, after all.
I opened the door, seeing footprints pressed into the snow all around my house. At first, I thought it was that silhouette I had seen, the nightmarish thing from the diary. But the footprints didn’t go over to my window. They followed the trail twenty feet away, veering off towards the frozen lake at the bottom of the hill. I glanced down in that direction, seeing a black figure plodding slowly forward.
“Steve!” I cried, recognizing my only neighbor in a four-mile radius. He had a cabin about a mile away on his own little plot of land. He jumped, clearly startled by the sudden noise. His black snow pants and heavy fur coat swished together as he spun, raising his rifle high. When he saw me, he immediately lowered it and put a gloved hand up in a friendly greeting.
“Hey Josh! Surprised to see you up this early,” he yelled over the muted wintry landscape. Sounds always seemed different after it snowed, as if all the noise in the world had become faded and dead.
“Yeah, I’ve been having a little trouble sleeping,” I said, slinging my shotgun around my shoulder. “What are you doing anyway?”
“Just a little hunting, you know,” he said, giving me a sly wink. “Animals are always most active around dusk and dawn, it seems. That’s when I always have the best luck, anyway.” He stepped close to me, staring me in the eyes. “You do look like shit. Those bags under your eyes are big enough to carry groceries in.”
“Yeah, trust me, I know… Hey, this might sound a little weird, but did you know the previous owner of this cabin?” I asked. Steve’s wrinkled, old face fell into a scowl. His expression immediately became guarded and distant.
“Sure, sure, we met,” he exclaimed bluntly. He seemed to be searching my face for something, but I didn’t know what. His reaction left me feeling off-balance and nervous.
“Is he still around?” I said. Steve’s scowl deepened.
“Buddy, I don’t know what this is about, but he’s dead. He’s been dead. He died in that cabin, actually.” He pointed a finger at my home accusingly. With those words, my heart seemed to drop into my stomach. Waves of dread flowed through my body like water.
“How… how did he die? Like a heart attack or something?” I asked. Steve’s gaze turned downwards. He didn’t meet my eyes.
“Do you know that Alaska has the highest missing persons rate in the entire United States? It’s not even close. In fact, for the population size, we have far more people who go missing and never get found than anywhere else. They even have a name for it: the Alaska Triangle,” Steve said. “And we’re square in the middle of it.” I stared blankly at him, wondering where he was going with this. It seemed like a way to avoid answering my question.
“No, I didn’t know that…” I responded. Steve nodded, raising his head again. He heaved a deep sigh.
“Look, the thing with the last owner and his wife… it’s somewhat disturbing. If you really want to know, I’ll tell you, but it’s certainly not going to help your peace of mind. And it definitely isn’t going to help you get some sleep.”
“I want to know,” I insisted instantly. The wind started to whip past us. Flakes of ice and snow flew sideways in the sudden currents.
“Let’s go back to your cabin then,” Steve said, pulling his heavy fur-lined hood off and shaking out his long, black hair behind him. “I could use a bit of whiskey to warm up.”
***
We sat down with a bottle of Johnny Walker and two shot glasses. I wasn’t much of a drinker, but Steve certainly was. He chugged three shots in the span of a minute. I sipped at mine, drinking half and putting it back down on the coffee table with a thunk. Steve grunted, hissing through his open mouth for a moment.
“Ugh, that’s the good stuff,” he said, slamming his chest as the burning liquor worked its way down. Steve looked up at me with a new sparkle in his eyes. “Huh, so you want to know about what happened to Will Lenning. Well, I’ll tell you that no one really knows the whole story. I used to see him occasionally, come down and have a drink and talk. We all know each other around here, obviously.” I nodded, motioning him on. “He seemed like a normal, upstanding guy. He kinda reminded me of you, actually. A young guy trying to escape the hustle and bustle of the city life, the cancer of the American Dream.
“Well, he was here for maybe a couple months, I don’t know. Everything seemed fine. We used to go skeet shooting occasionally, have a beer, you know. We’d get together with a couple other hunters who live closer to town and sometimes play some poker. I never saw anything odd about Will. I never could have predicted what happened to him.” He heaved a long sigh at this, looking out the window at the sharp mountains with an expression of nostalgia.
“Well, what happened to him?” I asked, encouraging him to go on.
“He started talking about seeing someone peering in through his window at night. He talked about hearing sounds from under his bed while he was laying there in the dark- sounds like diseased breathing and shuffling. He started keeping all the lights on in his cabin twenty-four hours a day.” Steve leaned close to me. A glimmer of fear rippled across his pale, wrinkled face. “He started to lose his mind. Started digging holes all over the place, looking for something. Even in the middle of snowstorms, I would occasionally see him outside, digging. It seemed like he never slept anymore. It was classic cabin fever if I ever saw it.
“It was only a few weeks later that I came over here, concerned. I hadn’t heard from him in a few days, which was fairly unusual. I found the door hanging wide open. Propped up in a chair in the exact spot where you now sit, Will lay with a blast hole showing clear through his skull, a shotgun laying at his feet.
“And next to him, I found a blood-stained diary opened to the middle page. The last entry was stained with blood spatter, but still visible. I remember leaning down and reading it. It was only a few sentences long.” I glanced over at the bookshelf with the same diary, saying nothing.
“It said something like, ‘I see now what’s going on. The Twisted Man is leading me to the truth. Today, I will finally find it.’”
“And that was his suicide note?” I asked, my heart hammering in my chest. He nodded.
“Yeah. I went into town and got some rangers to come check it out. Eventually, they got cops and CSI there. They took all the stuff as evidence, including the diary,” he said. “Good riddance, I say. Reading something like that is never beneficial. Sometimes delusions spread like a virus, you know what I mean?” I did, but I said nothing. I glanced back at the diary, its black leather cover gleaming like a crouching snake.
And I wondered- if the police took the diary as evidence, how did it get back here?
***
“You said he had a wife living here with him, too?” I asked.
“Yeah… she went missing around the same time,” he said. “Pretty bizarre. The cops thought maybe she just moved away, but…” He shook his head grimly. “As far as I know, she was never seen again. It was like she had evaporated into thin air.”
After Steve left, I walked stiffly over to the bookshelf, taking down the diary. I flipped open through the pages. In the middle, I found the last entry. Spatters of old, darkened blood were scattered over the page like raindrops. I found the suicide note and read the date.
“January 27th, 2015,” it read. Will Lenning had not lived long after he started seeing the Twisted Man. I wondered if my fate would be the same.
The Sun had started to set outside as I sat with the diary at the small circular kitchen table, eating some stewed venison and rice as I read through the entries. At the end, Will Lenning said the Twisted Man had been trying to guide him somewhere, that, in fact, the Twisted Man had been trying to protect him from some great evil, rather than being the source of it.
I scoffed, feeling a flash of anger at his stupidity. His naivety obviously led to his death. But then a flash of insight struck me like lightning.
What if I was committing the same kind of stupidity? Perhaps I should just grab my gun and valuables and leave. I could take off on the snowmobile and be in town within a couple hours.
But, in my heart, I knew I would not. Something about the mystery of all this beckoned me to stay. Like a siren leading sailors to destruction, my curiosity called out to me, and I knew I would not be leaving that night. I needed answers.
And, sadly, I would find them.
***
I had fallen asleep with an empty bottle of beer in my hand. I sat in front of the TV, which only got satellite reception. There were, of course, no cable or phone lines threading their way through the forest. All of my power came from stored solar energy. Since I rarely watched TV and really only used it to cook or heat up water for bathing, the energy produced was sufficient even in winter. Tonight, though, I needed its sound, its mindless flashing of light and colors and canned laughter. It seemed to drive away the creeping, suffocating presence like a candle.
I woke suddenly. The TV flashed with static. The repetitive hissing of the white noise spit from the speakers like thousands of snakes. I glanced up at the clock. 3:33 AM. I looked around the dark cabin, confused for a long moment. I didn’t understand what had woken me so abruptly. The satellite had never gone out before, either, even with the howling winds and freezing hail of the Alaskan winter.
The TV started flickering as if the static were rising upwards. Black lines traced their way horizontally across the screen. The hissing deepened into a gurgle, and for a second, I thought I heard faint words behind the white noise. I thought I heard breathing, slow and diseased, like the death gasp of a drowning man.
A black line rose across the TV and an image came into view. The cabin was suddenly plunged into silence, except for the shrieking, wintry wind outside. I leaned close to the screen, confused at what I was looking at. It looked like a live camera feed of a room. As I took in the details, I realized it was my cabin. I saw myself in the chair, leaning close to the screen. I raised my hand, and the miniature version of me on the screen did likewise. Ice water seemed to drip down my spine as waves of dread coursed through my body.
“What the fuck is this?” I whispered, looking back to where the camera should be. It was just a coarse wooden ceiling in that corner. I turned back to the screen and nearly screamed.
The TV showed a pale, naked man crouching directly behind my chair now. With jerky movements, he rose, his broken spine twisting and shivering. A hissing voice rang out from the speakers. It spoke as if it had dirt and writhing maggots in its throat.
“He is a killer. The shadow of death,” it gurgled. “Many have fallen. Many lie buried across this forest. You will be next. He is watching you…”
Long, broken fingers with blackened nails reached out to touch my shoulders. I jumped out of the chair, stumbling back as I spun around in terror. My back smashed into the TV, and it fell to the floor with a shattering of glass and an explosion of light.
In those few moments before the darkness descended on me like a blanket, I thought I glimpsed a pale, sunken face with rotted, blackened eyes peeking out from behind the chair.
***
I turned on every light in the cabin, but there was no sign of the Twisted Man now. I knew I had to get out of there, though. I thought about the warning that the voice had spoken. If the creature wanted to attack me, then why hadn’t it just killed me while I was sleeping? None of it made sense. Who was watching me? The Twisted Man? And if he was, why warn me? Perhaps it was psychological warfare, I thought to myself. Perhaps the Twisted Man simply liked to play with his food before he ate it.
Thoughts raced through my head at a thousand miles an hour as I threw on snow pants and a couple heavy sweaters and coats. I covered up my entire body as much as I could to try to prevent frostbite. I had made up my mind to flee. There was no snowstorm tonight, though the entire landscape was blanketed in it and I knew the wind chill would be like an ice blade whipping against my skin. It was extremely dangerous to travel in the middle of the night like this in temperatures that might reach negative thirty degrees. Steve had been right, after all- Alaska had the highest missing persons rate of any state, and many of them were never found, their bodies likely frozen solid in the deep snow dozens of miles from the nearest town.
I grabbed my shotgun, jumped on my snowmobile and started heading to Steve’s cabin. I hoped I could wait there until the sunrise and then figure out what to do next.
But fate would take the decision out of my hands.
***
I felt like there were eyes watching me as I drove along the narrow, winding deer trail. The boughs of the evergreens reached into the path like greedy hands, grabbing at my coat and legs. More than a couple times, I thought I saw a pale, naked figure standing in the snow, but it had always gone when I turned to look.
I gave a sigh of relief when Steve’s place appeared in the distance. I could see the lights twinkling through the small windows of his log cabin. I pulled up next to his door, looking down. I saw two pairs of footprints there, one much smaller than the other. I found it odd, but shrugged it off. The snowmobile cut out with a sucking gurgle.
I knocked on the door hard a few times. Steve appeared after a few moments, groggy and half-dressed. He blinked slowly as he looked me up and down. His wrinkled face fell into a frown.
“Steve, I need a favor,” I said quickly. “Something weird is happening in my cabin. Can I stay here until morning, until maybe I can go to town or something? I can’t stay at my place tonight. I just can’t.” He nodded, yawning and motioning me in.
“You can sleep on the couch, I guess,” Steve said. “Put that shotgun somewhere safe, though, boy.” He had a partitioned bedroom in his cabin. It was significantly larger than my little one-room cabin, though it was basically still just a joint kitchen-living room, a small bedroom and a bathroom. He pointed to a well-worn couch in the corner and gave me an apathetic wave as he stumbled back into his bedroom, slamming the door.
I couldn’t sleep, though. I tiptoed around the room, looking at Steve’s bookshelf. He had a rather strange taste in books- lots of Anne Rule and true crime there. I saw dozens of books about Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Richard Chase, Herbert Mullin, Jeffrey Dahmer and Richard Ramirez among the collection. At the end, a large, black binder stood, unlabeled and worn-looking. It reminded me of the look of that leather-bound diary for a second, and my heart dropped. But logically, I knew this was just a coincidence. Yet, still, I pulled out the binder, my curiosity piqued.
What I found inside filled me with dread and horror.
Countless news clippings covered the length of it. The first clipping was from nearly twenty years earlier, about a woman who went missing in the Alaskan forest while hiking. A later one confirmed that her body was never found, and that her family was still hoping that she might turn up alive somewhere. A reward was offered for any information, it said.
And every page after that was more of the same: missing woman, murdered prostitute, missing man, no leads. I kept flipping through until I found clippings about Will Lenning’s suicide and the sudden disappearance of his wife. On the article about the suicide, Steve had used red marker to scrawl, “HA HA!” next to it.
I heard the click of a gun being cocked from behind me. I froze as Steve’s voice traveled across the room like a whisper.
“How do you like my work, friend?” he asked, his tone jovial and mocking.
***
I still held the binder of horrors tightly in my hands as I stared open-mouthed at this man I thought I knew.
“It’s you? What, you killed Will Lenning and his wife? And a lot of other women, apparently.” Everything felt unreal, as if I were stuck in a dream. Steve’s grin spread across his face, but his blue eyes stayed cold and dead.
“Yes, well, she was cheating on him with me anyway. Just another whore, you know. They always get what’s coming to them in the end,” he hissed with hatred oozing from his voice. “It’s too bad, really. I just killed another slut tonight. I was planning on saving you for later. The urge isn’t too bad yet right now, after all. It comes in cycles, you see. It comes in waves…” I saw a glimmer of pale, naked flesh writhing behind Steve. With jerky movements, the Twisted Man came up behind him. I said nothing, just watching with wide-eyed horror and amazement.
“You need help, man,” I whispered. Steve laughed.
“Help? The only help they give people like me is a needle in the arm. You know that. That’s why it’s important to always cover your tracks…” The Twisted Man ran a long, broken finger across Steve’s neck. Steve gave a strangled cry and jumped. He spun around, screaming. I glanced over at my shotgun next to the couch.
I jumped for it as Steve turned back to me, firing his pistol twice. The first bullet soared high above me, raining wood splinters down on my head, but the second ripped into my leg. A cold, burning pain ran like fire up my shin. I screamed in agony and battle fury as I gripped the shotgun, spinning and firing.
Steve’s head exploded as the slug ripped through his brain. His forehead collapsed like a smashed melon as bone splinters and blood sprayed the wall behind him.
The Twisted Man stood there, hunched over, grinning up at me. I felt warm blood gushing from my leg as I stared back at him, breathing hard. I wondered if I was dying.
“You… you weren’t after me at all, were you?” I asked. “You were after… Steve.” But the Twisted Man said nothing. After a long moment, he slinked back into the shadows of the bedroom and disappeared.
***
As night crawled its way toward morning, I thought back to the words the Twisted Man had spoken through the TV, suddenly understanding everything.
“He is a killer. The shadow of death. Many have fallen. Many lie buried across this forest. You will be next. He is watching you…”
He hadn’t been trying to hurt me at all. He had been trying to warn me. He had probably tried to warn Will Lenning and his wife, too.
I wrapped my leg in gauze, gritting my teeth. The wound looked puckered and deep, but I could still move my foot, and the bullet had gone clean through the flesh. I poured alcohol on it, screaming in pain as it burned its way through my skin. After rummaging through Steve’s bathroom, I found some prescription painkillers and swallowed a handful of them with a beer. I knew I would need the opiate high to get through the pain of riding into town with a mutilated leg.
As the Sun finally rose, I made my way outside the blood-stained floors of the cabin to my snowmobile. Before I left, I glanced back at that horrid place, the scene of so much torment and death.
In the open doorway, the Twisted Man stood, his back hunched, his rotted lips grinning at me. His hand lifted up into the air with jerky movements and waved.
I waved back as I started the engine and headed into town.
submitted by CIAHerpes to horrorstories [link] [comments]
I had no girlfriend, no wife, no kids. My parents had both died a few years prior and I barely talked to my siblings anymore. I had nothing to tie me down to this place where I felt like I was dying inside a little more each day.
That was when I sold nearly everything I owned, got in my car and drove up to Alaska to try starting anew. I bought a small cabin and a plot of land in the middle of its majestic mountains and dark, enchanting forests. In the winter, the Northern Lights would shine through like the eyes of God, sending out divine trails of light that danced through the sky in cosmic waves.
And while the move did help give me some peace of mind, in the end, the source of all my problems had ultimately followed me thousands of miles into this endless wilderness. It would take me a long time to realize the cause of all this misery was myself.
Because, as a wise man once said, “Wherever I go, there I am.”
***
I lived in that cabin for three months without any major issues other than the constant threat of bears, moose and wolves. I had a rifle and a shotgun for hunting, a small garden in the backyard and a solar panel to generate electricity.
“This is the life,” I said, relaxing on a hammock I had strung across the corner of the cabin while staring at the endless beauty directly outside the window. White-capped mountains loomed like giants in front of thick clusters of evergreens. A virgin covering of fluffy snow made the entire world glisten and sparkle. There wasn’t a house or road in sight.
“No work, no stress, no pollution, no cars honking all the time…” I closed my eyes, breathing in the clean air. I ended up falling asleep for a couple hours, waking up just as the Sun had started setting. Bright orange streaks mixed with the bloody smears of the fading light as it disappeared behind the mountains.
I groggily arose, stumbling over to make a cup of instant coffee. As I sipped it, I wandered around the room, looking for something to pass the time. There were still quite a few random objects left behind by the last owner that I hadn’t gotten rid of yet. I had moved in to find a stocked bookshelf filled with classics by Philip K. Dick, Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein. Bored, I started rifling through the collection, looking for something good to pass the time. As I shuffled past “A Maze of Death” and “Ubik”, something caught my eye.
A black, leather-bound book with no title or author name stood there, its cover faded with time and wear. Curious, I pulled it out and opened it. I saw the cursive scrawled across the pages in a neat, copperplate script and realized it was a diary left behind by the previous owner. The first entry was dated “January 9th, 2015.” This is what it said.
***
“I don’t know if I’m going crazy or not. I went into town to talk to my therapist yesterday and she said I should try writing everything down. She talks to me like it’s all in my head. But I know it’s not.
“When I first moved into the cabin, it seemed like Paradise. I never thought in a million years that something would be slinking around at night. I never thought it would be hiding under my bed, peeking in windows and following me like a shadow.
“Right now, I’m snowed in with a cup of coffee in one hand and my pistol in the other. I can’t sleep anymore. I keep hearing something shuffling around under the bed. Sometimes, I think I even hear ragged breathing, as if a corpse with dirt in its lungs had come back to life.
“I’ve caught glimpses of that thing in the darkness. Whatever it is, its skin is loose, almost falling off the bone. It almost looks like a naked, emaciated man. Its eyes are rotted and dark, its back hunched, its spine twisted and jutting out like tumors. It moves in this slow, jerky way, but I can never seem to catch it. Its body seems broken and out of alignment. Its legs bend the wrong way sometimes.
“By the time I turn on the lights or try to take a video of it, it’s always disappeared. But its fetid odor remains. It lingers in the cabin like a sweet-smelling, spreading infection.
“I don’t know what it wants from me. I want to leave, but with the storm raging outside, I’m stuck here, unable to get all the way back to town. The snow surrounds the cabin in mounds five feet high. I feel like a prisoner caged with a rabid beast, not knowing when it will strike.
“My wife claims she hasn’t seen or heard anything, but she keeps vanishing on me. Last night, she disappeared in the middle of a snowstorm. Where did she go? I asked her in the morning, but she said she was here the whole time. She didn’t remember anything. There’s no way she went into town. There wasn’t time and the trails were impassable that far down.
“Something’s going on here, but I don’t know what it is. I’m truly scared for our lives.”
I slammed the diary shut, not wanting to read anymore. I didn’t want to become infected by some kind of contagious cabin fever. If the last owner had gone insane in the mountains and started hallucinating naked corpses crawling around, I really didn’t want to know.
I shoved the diary back in the bookshelf, going for “A Maze of Death” instead. I tried to forget what I had read in the diary as I flew through the novella. All night, I tried to get the image of the naked, twisting man with rotted eyes out of my head, but I couldn’t.
I eventually fell asleep right before dawn. But, as my eyes were closing, I thought I saw a silhouette in the window- a starved man with excited, black eyes that seemed to be rotting out of his skull. I thought I saw him put his inhumanly long fingers against the glass as he leaned forward. I blinked, sitting up and glancing out into the white, snow-covered wonderland.
There was nothing there.
***
Another hunter occasionally followed the deer trails near my cabin. A frozen lake stood a quarter-mile away, the surface white and covered in thick drifts of snow. I bundled up, deciding to go outside for a hike in the frigid dawn. I strapped on my snowshoes and grabbed my shotgun, as I always did when I went outside. I never knew when a polar bear might be waiting around the next tree, after all.
I opened the door, seeing footprints pressed into the snow all around my house. At first, I thought it was that silhouette I had seen, the nightmarish thing from the diary. But the footprints didn’t go over to my window. They followed the trail twenty feet away, veering off towards the frozen lake at the bottom of the hill. I glanced down in that direction, seeing a black figure plodding slowly forward.
“Steve!” I cried, recognizing my only neighbor in a four-mile radius. He had a cabin about a mile away on his own little plot of land. He jumped, clearly startled by the sudden noise. His black snow pants and heavy fur coat swished together as he spun, raising his rifle high. When he saw me, he immediately lowered it and put a gloved hand up in a friendly greeting.
“Hey Josh! Surprised to see you up this early,” he yelled over the muted wintry landscape. Sounds always seemed different after it snowed, as if all the noise in the world had become faded and dead.
“Yeah, I’ve been having a little trouble sleeping,” I said, slinging my shotgun around my shoulder. “What are you doing anyway?”
“Just a little hunting, you know,” he said, giving me a sly wink. “Animals are always most active around dusk and dawn, it seems. That’s when I always have the best luck, anyway.” He stepped close to me, staring me in the eyes. “You do look like shit. Those bags under your eyes are big enough to carry groceries in.”
“Yeah, trust me, I know… Hey, this might sound a little weird, but did you know the previous owner of this cabin?” I asked. Steve’s wrinkled, old face fell into a scowl. His expression immediately became guarded and distant.
“Sure, sure, we met,” he exclaimed bluntly. He seemed to be searching my face for something, but I didn’t know what. His reaction left me feeling off-balance and nervous.
“Is he still around?” I said. Steve’s scowl deepened.
“Buddy, I don’t know what this is about, but he’s dead. He’s been dead. He died in that cabin, actually.” He pointed a finger at my home accusingly. With those words, my heart seemed to drop into my stomach. Waves of dread flowed through my body like water.
“How… how did he die? Like a heart attack or something?” I asked. Steve’s gaze turned downwards. He didn’t meet my eyes.
“Do you know that Alaska has the highest missing persons rate in the entire United States? It’s not even close. In fact, for the population size, we have far more people who go missing and never get found than anywhere else. They even have a name for it: the Alaska Triangle,” Steve said. “And we’re square in the middle of it.” I stared blankly at him, wondering where he was going with this. It seemed like a way to avoid answering my question.
“No, I didn’t know that…” I responded. Steve nodded, raising his head again. He heaved a deep sigh.
“Look, the thing with the last owner and his wife… it’s somewhat disturbing. If you really want to know, I’ll tell you, but it’s certainly not going to help your peace of mind. And it definitely isn’t going to help you get some sleep.”
“I want to know,” I insisted instantly. The wind started to whip past us. Flakes of ice and snow flew sideways in the sudden currents.
“Let’s go back to your cabin then,” Steve said, pulling his heavy fur-lined hood off and shaking out his long, black hair behind him. “I could use a bit of whiskey to warm up.”
***
We sat down with a bottle of Johnny Walker and two shot glasses. I wasn’t much of a drinker, but Steve certainly was. He chugged three shots in the span of a minute. I sipped at mine, drinking half and putting it back down on the coffee table with a thunk. Steve grunted, hissing through his open mouth for a moment.
“Ugh, that’s the good stuff,” he said, slamming his chest as the burning liquor worked its way down. Steve looked up at me with a new sparkle in his eyes. “Huh, so you want to know about what happened to Will Lenning. Well, I’ll tell you that no one really knows the whole story. I used to see him occasionally, come down and have a drink and talk. We all know each other around here, obviously.” I nodded, motioning him on. “He seemed like a normal, upstanding guy. He kinda reminded me of you, actually. A young guy trying to escape the hustle and bustle of the city life, the cancer of the American Dream.
“Well, he was here for maybe a couple months, I don’t know. Everything seemed fine. We used to go skeet shooting occasionally, have a beer, you know. We’d get together with a couple other hunters who live closer to town and sometimes play some poker. I never saw anything odd about Will. I never could have predicted what happened to him.” He heaved a long sigh at this, looking out the window at the sharp mountains with an expression of nostalgia.
“Well, what happened to him?” I asked, encouraging him to go on.
“He started talking about seeing someone peering in through his window at night. He talked about hearing sounds from under his bed while he was laying there in the dark- sounds like diseased breathing and shuffling. He started keeping all the lights on in his cabin twenty-four hours a day.” Steve leaned close to me. A glimmer of fear rippled across his pale, wrinkled face. “He started to lose his mind. Started digging holes all over the place, looking for something. Even in the middle of snowstorms, I would occasionally see him outside, digging. It seemed like he never slept anymore. It was classic cabin fever if I ever saw it.
“It was only a few weeks later that I came over here, concerned. I hadn’t heard from him in a few days, which was fairly unusual. I found the door hanging wide open. Propped up in a chair in the exact spot where you now sit, Will lay with a blast hole showing clear through his skull, a shotgun laying at his feet.
“And next to him, I found a blood-stained diary opened to the middle page. The last entry was stained with blood spatter, but still visible. I remember leaning down and reading it. It was only a few sentences long.” I glanced over at the bookshelf with the same diary, saying nothing.
“It said something like, ‘I see now what’s going on. The Twisted Man is leading me to the truth. Today, I will finally find it.’”
“And that was his suicide note?” I asked, my heart hammering in my chest. He nodded.
“Yeah. I went into town and got some rangers to come check it out. Eventually, they got cops and CSI there. They took all the stuff as evidence, including the diary,” he said. “Good riddance, I say. Reading something like that is never beneficial. Sometimes delusions spread like a virus, you know what I mean?” I did, but I said nothing. I glanced back at the diary, its black leather cover gleaming like a crouching snake.
And I wondered- if the police took the diary as evidence, how did it get back here?
***
“You said he had a wife living here with him, too?” I asked.
“Yeah… she went missing around the same time,” he said. “Pretty bizarre. The cops thought maybe she just moved away, but…” He shook his head grimly. “As far as I know, she was never seen again. It was like she had evaporated into thin air.”
After Steve left, I walked stiffly over to the bookshelf, taking down the diary. I flipped open through the pages. In the middle, I found the last entry. Spatters of old, darkened blood were scattered over the page like raindrops. I found the suicide note and read the date.
“January 27th, 2015,” it read. Will Lenning had not lived long after he started seeing the Twisted Man. I wondered if my fate would be the same.
The Sun had started to set outside as I sat with the diary at the small circular kitchen table, eating some stewed venison and rice as I read through the entries. At the end, Will Lenning said the Twisted Man had been trying to guide him somewhere, that, in fact, the Twisted Man had been trying to protect him from some great evil, rather than being the source of it.
I scoffed, feeling a flash of anger at his stupidity. His naivety obviously led to his death. But then a flash of insight struck me like lightning.
What if I was committing the same kind of stupidity? Perhaps I should just grab my gun and valuables and leave. I could take off on the snowmobile and be in town within a couple hours.
But, in my heart, I knew I would not. Something about the mystery of all this beckoned me to stay. Like a siren leading sailors to destruction, my curiosity called out to me, and I knew I would not be leaving that night. I needed answers.
And, sadly, I would find them.
***
I had fallen asleep with an empty bottle of beer in my hand. I sat in front of the TV, which only got satellite reception. There were, of course, no cable or phone lines threading their way through the forest. All of my power came from stored solar energy. Since I rarely watched TV and really only used it to cook or heat up water for bathing, the energy produced was sufficient even in winter. Tonight, though, I needed its sound, its mindless flashing of light and colors and canned laughter. It seemed to drive away the creeping, suffocating presence like a candle.
I woke suddenly. The TV flashed with static. The repetitive hissing of the white noise spit from the speakers like thousands of snakes. I glanced up at the clock. 3:33 AM. I looked around the dark cabin, confused for a long moment. I didn’t understand what had woken me so abruptly. The satellite had never gone out before, either, even with the howling winds and freezing hail of the Alaskan winter.
The TV started flickering as if the static were rising upwards. Black lines traced their way horizontally across the screen. The hissing deepened into a gurgle, and for a second, I thought I heard faint words behind the white noise. I thought I heard breathing, slow and diseased, like the death gasp of a drowning man.
A black line rose across the TV and an image came into view. The cabin was suddenly plunged into silence, except for the shrieking, wintry wind outside. I leaned close to the screen, confused at what I was looking at. It looked like a live camera feed of a room. As I took in the details, I realized it was my cabin. I saw myself in the chair, leaning close to the screen. I raised my hand, and the miniature version of me on the screen did likewise. Ice water seemed to drip down my spine as waves of dread coursed through my body.
“What the fuck is this?” I whispered, looking back to where the camera should be. It was just a coarse wooden ceiling in that corner. I turned back to the screen and nearly screamed.
The TV showed a pale, naked man crouching directly behind my chair now. With jerky movements, he rose, his broken spine twisting and shivering. A hissing voice rang out from the speakers. It spoke as if it had dirt and writhing maggots in its throat.
“He is a killer. The shadow of death,” it gurgled. “Many have fallen. Many lie buried across this forest. You will be next. He is watching you…”
Long, broken fingers with blackened nails reached out to touch my shoulders. I jumped out of the chair, stumbling back as I spun around in terror. My back smashed into the TV, and it fell to the floor with a shattering of glass and an explosion of light.
In those few moments before the darkness descended on me like a blanket, I thought I glimpsed a pale, sunken face with rotted, blackened eyes peeking out from behind the chair.
***
I turned on every light in the cabin, but there was no sign of the Twisted Man now. I knew I had to get out of there, though. I thought about the warning that the voice had spoken. If the creature wanted to attack me, then why hadn’t it just killed me while I was sleeping? None of it made sense. Who was watching me? The Twisted Man? And if he was, why warn me? Perhaps it was psychological warfare, I thought to myself. Perhaps the Twisted Man simply liked to play with his food before he ate it.
Thoughts raced through my head at a thousand miles an hour as I threw on snow pants and a couple heavy sweaters and coats. I covered up my entire body as much as I could to try to prevent frostbite. I had made up my mind to flee. There was no snowstorm tonight, though the entire landscape was blanketed in it and I knew the wind chill would be like an ice blade whipping against my skin. It was extremely dangerous to travel in the middle of the night like this in temperatures that might reach negative thirty degrees. Steve had been right, after all- Alaska had the highest missing persons rate of any state, and many of them were never found, their bodies likely frozen solid in the deep snow dozens of miles from the nearest town.
I grabbed my shotgun, jumped on my snowmobile and started heading to Steve’s cabin. I hoped I could wait there until the sunrise and then figure out what to do next.
But fate would take the decision out of my hands.
***
I felt like there were eyes watching me as I drove along the narrow, winding deer trail. The boughs of the evergreens reached into the path like greedy hands, grabbing at my coat and legs. More than a couple times, I thought I saw a pale, naked figure standing in the snow, but it had always gone when I turned to look.
I gave a sigh of relief when Steve’s place appeared in the distance. I could see the lights twinkling through the small windows of his log cabin. I pulled up next to his door, looking down. I saw two pairs of footprints there, one much smaller than the other. I found it odd, but shrugged it off. The snowmobile cut out with a sucking gurgle.
I knocked on the door hard a few times. Steve appeared after a few moments, groggy and half-dressed. He blinked slowly as he looked me up and down. His wrinkled face fell into a frown.
“Steve, I need a favor,” I said quickly. “Something weird is happening in my cabin. Can I stay here until morning, until maybe I can go to town or something? I can’t stay at my place tonight. I just can’t.” He nodded, yawning and motioning me in.
“You can sleep on the couch, I guess,” Steve said. “Put that shotgun somewhere safe, though, boy.” He had a partitioned bedroom in his cabin. It was significantly larger than my little one-room cabin, though it was basically still just a joint kitchen-living room, a small bedroom and a bathroom. He pointed to a well-worn couch in the corner and gave me an apathetic wave as he stumbled back into his bedroom, slamming the door.
I couldn’t sleep, though. I tiptoed around the room, looking at Steve’s bookshelf. He had a rather strange taste in books- lots of Anne Rule and true crime there. I saw dozens of books about Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Richard Chase, Herbert Mullin, Jeffrey Dahmer and Richard Ramirez among the collection. At the end, a large, black binder stood, unlabeled and worn-looking. It reminded me of the look of that leather-bound diary for a second, and my heart dropped. But logically, I knew this was just a coincidence. Yet, still, I pulled out the binder, my curiosity piqued.
What I found inside filled me with dread and horror.
Countless news clippings covered the length of it. The first clipping was from nearly twenty years earlier, about a woman who went missing in the Alaskan forest while hiking. A later one confirmed that her body was never found, and that her family was still hoping that she might turn up alive somewhere. A reward was offered for any information, it said.
And every page after that was more of the same: missing woman, murdered prostitute, missing man, no leads. I kept flipping through until I found clippings about Will Lenning’s suicide and the sudden disappearance of his wife. On the article about the suicide, Steve had used red marker to scrawl, “HA HA!” next to it.
I heard the click of a gun being cocked from behind me. I froze as Steve’s voice traveled across the room like a whisper.
“How do you like my work, friend?” he asked, his tone jovial and mocking.
***
I still held the binder of horrors tightly in my hands as I stared open-mouthed at this man I thought I knew.
“It’s you? What, you killed Will Lenning and his wife? And a lot of other women, apparently.” Everything felt unreal, as if I were stuck in a dream. Steve’s grin spread across his face, but his blue eyes stayed cold and dead.
“Yes, well, she was cheating on him with me anyway. Just another whore, you know. They always get what’s coming to them in the end,” he hissed with hatred oozing from his voice. “It’s too bad, really. I just killed another slut tonight. I was planning on saving you for later. The urge isn’t too bad yet right now, after all. It comes in cycles, you see. It comes in waves…” I saw a glimmer of pale, naked flesh writhing behind Steve. With jerky movements, the Twisted Man came up behind him. I said nothing, just watching with wide-eyed horror and amazement.
“You need help, man,” I whispered. Steve laughed.
“Help? The only help they give people like me is a needle in the arm. You know that. That’s why it’s important to always cover your tracks…” The Twisted Man ran a long, broken finger across Steve’s neck. Steve gave a strangled cry and jumped. He spun around, screaming. I glanced over at my shotgun next to the couch.
I jumped for it as Steve turned back to me, firing his pistol twice. The first bullet soared high above me, raining wood splinters down on my head, but the second ripped into my leg. A cold, burning pain ran like fire up my shin. I screamed in agony and battle fury as I gripped the shotgun, spinning and firing.
Steve’s head exploded as the slug ripped through his brain. His forehead collapsed like a smashed melon as bone splinters and blood sprayed the wall behind him.
The Twisted Man stood there, hunched over, grinning up at me. I felt warm blood gushing from my leg as I stared back at him, breathing hard. I wondered if I was dying.
“You… you weren’t after me at all, were you?” I asked. “You were after… Steve.” But the Twisted Man said nothing. After a long moment, he slinked back into the shadows of the bedroom and disappeared.
***
As night crawled its way toward morning, I thought back to the words the Twisted Man had spoken through the TV, suddenly understanding everything.
“He is a killer. The shadow of death. Many have fallen. Many lie buried across this forest. You will be next. He is watching you…”
He hadn’t been trying to hurt me at all. He had been trying to warn me. He had probably tried to warn Will Lenning and his wife, too.
I wrapped my leg in gauze, gritting my teeth. The wound looked puckered and deep, but I could still move my foot, and the bullet had gone clean through the flesh. I poured alcohol on it, screaming in pain as it burned its way through my skin. After rummaging through Steve’s bathroom, I found some prescription painkillers and swallowed a handful of them with a beer. I knew I would need the opiate high to get through the pain of riding into town with a mutilated leg.
As the Sun finally rose, I made my way outside the blood-stained floors of the cabin to my snowmobile. Before I left, I glanced back at that horrid place, the scene of so much torment and death.
In the open doorway, the Twisted Man stood, his back hunched, his rotted lips grinning at me. His hand lifted up into the air with jerky movements and waved.
I waved back as I started the engine and headed into town.
2024.06.01 23:13 SanderSo47 Directors at the Box Office: Richard Donner
 | https://preview.redd.it/vy035zlxz04d1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=d0e44d2c15efeb0e4509665368da69df4b50c058 submitted by SanderSo47 to boxoffice [link] [comments] Here's a new edition of "Directors at the Box Office", which seeks to explore the directors' trajectory at the box office and analyze their hits and bombs. I already talked about a few, and as I promised, it's Richard Donner's turn. Initially, Donner wanted to develop a career as an actor. He gained a bit part in a television program directed by Martin Ritt, who encouraged Donner to become a director instead, and he hired Donner as his assistant. Through his connections in Desilu, he started directing commercials. In the 60s, he transitioned into television, directing episodes for shows like The Twilight Zone, The Fugitive, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Get Smart, and Gilligan's Island. Afterwards, he had his chance to direct films. From a box office perspective, how reliable was he to deliver a box office hit? That's the point of this post. To analyze his career. It should be noted that as he started his career in the 1960s, the domestic grosses here will be adjusted by inflation. The table with his highest grossing films, however, will be left in its unadjusted form, as the worldwide grosses are more difficult to adjust.X-15 (1961)"Actually filmed in space!"His directorial debut. It stars David McLean, Charles Bronson, James Gregory and Mary Tyler Moore, and presents a fictionalized account of the X-15 research rocket aircraft program, the test pilots who flew the aircraft, and the associated NASA community that supported the program. There are no box office numbers available, but it is said that it had a short and poor theatrical run. Reviews were mixed, and Moore said she's not proud of the film. Salt and Pepper (1965)"Join the club."His second film. It stars Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, Michael Bates, Ilona Rodgers and John Le Mesurier, and follows two nightclub owners finding themselves in trouble over a woman's death. It received mixed reviews, and it earned $1.75 million in rentals.
Lola (1970)"It may be love... but it's definitely exhausting!"His third film. It stars Charles Bronson and Susan George, and follows a 38-year-old writer of pornographic novels who meets and falls in love with a sixteen-year-old school girl whilst living in London. There are no box office figures, but you can be sure of something: it was panned by everyone. The Omen (1976)"If something frightening happens to you today, think about it."His fourth film. It stars Gregory Peck, Lee Remick, David Warner, Harvey Spencer Stephens, Billie Whitelaw, Patrick Troughton, Martin Benson, and Leo McKern. The film's plot follows Damien Thorn, a young child replaced at birth by his father, unbeknownst to his wife, after their biological child dies shortly after birth. As a series of mysterious events and violent deaths occur around the family and Damien enters childhood, they come to learn he is in fact the prophesied Antichrist. Producer Harvey Bernhard came up with the idea for a film about the Antichrist after talking with one of his friends. WB was on board, but they later pulled out, so 20th Century Fox agreed to distribute the film. Donner favored an ambiguous reading of the script under which it would be left for the audience to decide whether Damien was the Antichrist or whether the series of violent deaths in the film were all just a string of unfortunate accidents. Seltzer rejected the ambiguity favored by Donner and pressed for an interpretation of his script that left no doubt for the audience that Damien Thorn was the Antichrist and that all of the deaths in the film were caused by the malevolent power of Satan, the interpretation that Bernhard chose to go with. There were some... dark stories over the making of the film. Some aren't confirmed, but others are verified. So take the following with huge grains of salt. In September 1975, Peck was flying to London, and during the flight, lightning struck the plane. Shortly after, executive producer Mace Neufeld's plane was also struck by lightning while en route to Los Angeles. That's twice in a span of only a few weeks. Then, writer David Seltzer's plane was also struck by lightning. And, while filming in Rome, lightning narrowly missed striking Bernhard. Lightning may never strike twice, but four times, and to different people whose only six degrees of separation at the time was The Omen? Oh, it gets even creepier. A scene was postponed, which meant Peck was not needed on the set, so a private jet that the crew was going to charter to bring Peck in was not necessary. The next day, it was reported that the plane they had intended to book hit a flock of birds and crashed, killing everyone on board. Neufeld, probably already on edge after his plane was struck by lightning, was planning to eat at a restaurant nearby, but it was hit by an IRA bombing. The day after filming, the hotel that Donner had stayed at was also bombed. John Richardson, the set designer, created a particularly macabre scene where a character dies from decapitation resulting from an automobile accident. While in Holland in August 1976, Richardson and his assistant, Liz Moore, were struck by a freakishly unfortunate fate. They fell victims to a head-on-collision, where Moore was cut in half, in similar fashion to the one Richardson had designed for the film. It happened in a Friday the 13th, near a road sign which says: “Ommen, 66.6 km.” Does that send you shivers down your spine? Is all of this true? I... I'm not sure. I don't fully believe it. But I also don't fully not believe it. Whatever the case, it's truly one of the most insane behind-the-scenes stuff. After a slate of weak films, Donner finally got his big break here. The film earned $78 million worldwide, becoming a huge box office success. While it initially received mixed reviews, its reputation grew with time and it has been named as one of the best horror films of the 1970s. It would spawn a franchise, but Donner didn't return for the director's chair. Why? He was preparing for something super.
Superman (1978)"You'll believe a man can fly."His fifth film. Based on the DC Comics character, it stars Marlon Brando, Gene Hackman, Christopher Reeve, Jeff East, Margot Kidder, Glenn Ford, Phyllis Thaxter, Jackie Cooper, Trevor Howard, Marc McClure, Terence Stamp, Valerie Perrine, Ned Beatty, Jack O'Halloran, Maria Schell, and Sarah Douglas. It depicts the origin of Superman, including his infancy as Kal-El of Krypton, son of Jor-El, and his youthful years in the rural town of Smallville. Disguised as reporter Clark Kent, he adopts a mild-mannered disposition in Metropolis and develops a romance with Lois Lane while battling the villainous Lex Luthor. Ilya Salkind had first conceived the idea for a Superman film in late 1973, and he bought the rights with his father Alexander the following year. DC wanted a list of actors that were to be considered for Superman, and approved the producer's choices of Muhammad Ali, Al Pacino, James Caan, Steve McQueen, Clint Eastwood and Dustin Hoffman. The filmmakers felt it was best to film Superman and Superman II back-to-back, and to make a negative pickup deal with Warner Bros. To show how serious he was, Alexander hired Mario Puzo (The Godfather) and paid him $600,000 to write the script. Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, William Friedkin, Richard Lester, Peter Yates, John Guillermin, Ronald Neame and Sam Peckinpah were in negotiations to direct. Ilya wanted to hire Steven Spielberg to direct, but Alexander was skeptical, feeling it was best to "wait until [Spielberg's] big fish opens." His film, Jaws, became the highest grossing film ever, and the Salkinds offered him the job, but by that point Spielberg chose to make Close Encounters of the Third Kind instead. Guy Hamilton was hired, but left before filming due to legal issues. After seeing The Omen, the producers offered the job to Donner. He was planning to direct the Omen sequel, but decided to take Superman instead. Donner was dissatisfied with the campy script and brought in Tom Mankiewicz to perform a rewrite to start from scratch. According to Mankiewicz, "not a word from the Puzo script was used." Before Donner signed, the film already cast Marlon Brando as Jor-El in 1975. And his terms were insane; top billing, a salary of $3.7 million and 11.75% of the box office gross profits (totaling $19 million), and his scenes had to be filmed in 12 days. He also refused to memorize his dialogue, so cue cards were compiled across the set. Hackman was cast as Lex Luthor days later, getting a $2 million salary. The filmmakers made it a priority to shoot all of Brando's and Hackman's footage "because they would be committed to other films immediately." The first plan was for a famous star to play Superman, although Robert Redford, Burt Reynolds, Sylvester Stallone and Paul Newman all declined. When Donner signed, he decided to get an unknown actor. Reeve was suggested, but Donner and the producers felt he was too young and skinny. When other actors weren't convincing, they decided to give a screen test to Reeve. They wanted him to wear a muscle suit, but Reeve instead decided to take a strict physical exercise regime headed by David Prowse. After gaining enough weight, he was cast. Compared to Brando and Hackman, Reeve was paid just $250,000 for Superman and its sequel. Filming began in March 1977, and it lasted 19 months because they were filming two films. The budget was $55 million ($303 million adjusted), which made it the most expensive film by that point. Warner Bros. only planned to distribute the film in North America, but was so impressed by the Krypton sequence, that they decided to distribute it worldwide. It was supposed to last eight months, but there were conflicts on set. Donner had tensions with the Salkinds and producer Pierre Spengler concerning the escalating production budget and the shooting schedule. Richard Lester, who worked with the Salkinds on The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers, was then brought in as a temporary co-producer to mediate the relationship between Donner and the Salkinds, who by now were refusing to talk to each other. On his relationship with Spengler, Donner remarked, "At one time if I'd seen him, I would have killed him." Due to this, they decided to stop filming back-to-back with the sequel, and Donner was assigned to finish the first film. By that point, 75% was already shot by Donner. The film opened with $7.4 million in its first weekend, despite playing at just 508 theaters, breaking a record for Warner Bros. As it expanded, it earned $10.3 million in its third weekend, which was the biggest weekend in history. Through the December 22-28 week, it earned a colossal $18.5 million, a figure that no film achieved in just 7 days. It eventually closed its domestic run with $134 million. And WB was right in believing in its worldwide prospects, as the film earned a huge $300 million, becoming their highest grossing film. The film also received critical acclaim, and it has been named as one of the best films of the 1970s. It won a Special Oscar for its Visual Effects. The film was deemed a cultural landmark for comic books, and it has been proclaimed by many as perhaps the most influential comic book film ever. For the world finally believed that, indeed, a man could fly. With this, Superman was finally an icon on the big screen. While Donner filmed 75% of Superman II, he was controversially fired before resuming his duties. There would be more Superman films in subsequent years (including one next year), but none have captured the cultural zeitgeist that this one achieved.
Inside Moves (1980)"It'll make you feel good, and that ain't bad."His sixth film. Based on the novel by Todd Walton, it stars John Savage, David Morse, Diana Scarwid, and Amy Wright. It follows a man who became crippled after a failed suicide attempt, and he turns to drink, favoring a local dive bar frequented by the handicapped. There, he befriends the bartender, an ex-basketball player saving up for corrective surgery in hopes of returning to the court, and meets a kind young lady who aids him with his physical and mental rehabilitation. Donner states that he agreed to direct the film only to take his mind off being fired and replaced from Superman II. He referred to the film as "the smallest film I could do that was just very near and dear to me, at that point, and I felt this is going to take my mind totally off that." It received mixed reviews, and made just $1.2 million at the box office.
The Toy (1982)"When Jackie Gleason told his son he could have any present he wanted, he picked the most outrageous gift of all... Richard Pryor."His seventh film. The film stars Richard Pryor, Jackie Gleason and Scott Schwartz, and follows a janitor at a department store. The owner's son is told that he may have anything in the toy department. He chooses the janitor, who the owner pays to spend a week with the boy. The film was panned by critics, and was named as one of the worst films of the year. But with $47 million at the box office, it was still a success.
The Goonies (1985)"Join the adventure."His eighth film. The film stars Sean Astin, Josh Brolin, Jeff Cohen, Corey Feldman, Kerri Green, Martha Plimpton, Ke Huy Quan, John Matuszak, Anne Ramsey, Robert Davi, Joe Pantoliano and Mary Ellen Trainor. In the film, a group of kids who live in the "Goon Docks" neighborhood of Astoria, Oregon, attempt to save their homes from foreclosure and, in doing so, they discover an old treasure map that takes them on an adventure to unearth the long-lost fortune of One-Eyed Willy, a legendary 17th-century pirate. During the adventure, they are pursued by a family of criminals who want the treasure for themselves. Donner noted both the difficulties and pleasures of working with so many child actors. He praised them for their energy and excitement, but also said that they were also unruly when brought together. While Donner is credited as the director, some have referred to producer Steven Spielberg as co-director. The film received a great response, and after a slate of weak films, Donner bounced back with a much needed box office hit. The film was very influential, and it helped launch the careers of many of its stars.
Ladyhawke (1985)"A magical adventure."His ninth film. The film stars Matthew Broderick, Rutger Hauer and Michelle Pfeiffer. The story is about a young thief who becomes unwillingly involved with a warrior and his lady who are hunted by the Bishop of Aquila. As he learns about the couple's past and secret, he chooses to help them overcome the Bishop's forces, and to lift an infernal curse. It received mixed reviews, and it failed to recoup its $20 million budget.
Lethal Weapon (1987)"Two cops. Glover carries a weapon. Gibson is one. He's the only L.A. cop registed as a..."His tenth film. It stars Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Gary Busey, Tom Atkins, Darlene Love, and Mitchell Ryan. The film follows a pair of mismatched LAPD detectives — Martin Riggs, a former Green Beret who has become suicidal following the death of his wife, and veteran officer and family man Roger Murtaugh — who work together as partners. Recent UCLA graduate Shane Black wrote the screenplay in mid-1985. Black stated that his intention was to do an "urban western" inspired by Dirty Harry where a violent character "reviled for what he did, what he is capable of, the things he believed in" is eventually recruited for being the one that could solve the problem. His first draft was quite different from the final film; it was darker in tone and it included massive action scale sequences. The ending of the script contained a chase scene with helicopters and a trailer truck full of cocaine exploding over Hollywood Hills with cocaine snowing over the Hollywood sign. The script was rejected by some studios, but Warner Bros. took an interest. Producer Joel Silver was brought in and worked with Black to further develop the script. Donner also brought in writer Jeffrey Boam to do some uncredited re-writes on Black's script after he found parts of it to be too dark. Donner got Gibson involved, while someone else suggested Danny Glover. After a successful screen test, the film was greenlit. The film was a huge hit, earning $120 million worldwide and continued launching the careers of Gibson and Glover, even if they already had a few recognizable titles by that point. It also received very positive reviews, and was another prime example of the buddy cop genre. Another Donner W.
Scrooged (1988)"The spirits will move you in odd and hysterical ways."His 11th film. Based on the novella A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, it stars Bill Murray, Karen Allen, John Forsythe, John Glover, Bobcat Goldthwait, Carol Kane, Robert Mitchum, Michael J. Pollard, and Alfre Woodard. The film is a modern retelling that follows Frank Cross, a cynical and selfish television executive who is visited by a succession of ghosts on Christmas Eve intent on helping him regain his Christmas spirit. After Ghostbusters, Murray only took a brief appearance in Little Shop of Horrors and chose to take a break. When he did feel a desire to return to acting, he said the "scripts were just not that good", and he returned to the this project as he found the idea of making a funny Scrooge appealing. Murray was paid $6 million for his role. He helped the writers, Mitch Glazer and Michael O'Donoghue, in rewriting. Murray struggled with a scene where he reveals his redemption live on TV. Wanting a central acting moment, however, Murray gave an emotional and intense performance, deviating from his marked positions and improvising his speech. Glazer and O'Donoghue thought that the actor was suffering a mental breakdown. After he was finished, the crew applauded Murray, but O'Donoghue remarked "What was that? The Jim Jones hour?" Donner turned and punched O'Donoghue in the arm, leaving him bruised for a week. Despite the commitment, however, there was drama behind the scenes. Murray said that while he was enjoying the experience of the script and having fun as "the meanest person in the world", he found the production "sloppy" and has expressed unhappiness with the final cut. For his part, O'Donoghue later said that Donner did not understand comedy, omitting the script's subtler elements for louder and faster moments. He estimated that only 40% of his and Glazer's original script made it into the final film and the surviving content was "twisted". Murray was also not content with Donner, "Scrooged could have been a really, really great movie. The script was so good... He kept telling me to do things louder, louder, louder. I think he was deaf." Donner, meanwhile, has a much more positive memory of Murray, calling him "superbly creative but occasionally difficult - as difficult as any actor." The film received polarizing reactions, particularly for the tone. But as it was Murray's follow-up to Ghostbusters, it made $100 million worldwide, making it a box office success. In subsequent years, it has become a Christmas classic.
Lethal Weapon 2 (1989)"The magic is back."His 12th film. The second installment in the Lethal Weapon franchise, it stars Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Joe Pesci, Joss Ackland, Derrick O'Connor and Patsy Kensit. In the film, Martin Riggs and Roger Murtaugh protect an irritating federal witness, Leo Getz, while taking on a gang of South African drug dealers hiding behind diplomatic immunity. After the first film's success, Joel Silver asked Shane Black to write a sequel. Although he was struggling with personal issues, Black still managed to write the first draft along with his friend, novelist Warren Murphy. Although many people thought that their script was brilliant, it was rejected by Silver, Donner and the studio for being too dark and bloody, and because in the ending of the script Riggs dies, while they wanted to keep him alive in case of further sequels. They also wanted the second film to focus more on comedy, while Black's draft focused more on courage and heroics, like Riggs willing to die to protect Murtaugh and his family, due to his love for them. When his script was rejected, Black felt that he had failed the producers. Black refused to re-write the script and quit from the project after working for six months on it. Black later said how the problem with the second film was that they did too much comedy, and how he dislikes the third and fourth films because of the way Riggs's character was changed. Donner got Jeffrey Boam back to rewrite, and one of the biggest changes was expanding Leo Getz's character. The film received very great reviews, and saw a big increase from the original, earning $227 million worldwide.
Radio Flyer (1992)"Powered by imagination."His 13th film. The film stars Lorraine Bracco, John Heard, Elijah Wood, Joseph Mazzello, Adam Baldwin, and Ben Johnson and is narrated by Tom Hanks. Two young boys try to transform their toy into an airplane after their stepfather turns abusive. They wish to escape the physical abuse and fly away to safety. The film received negative reviews, and it barely got 10% of its budget. Luckily for Donner, he had another film for that year.
Lethal Weapon 3 (1992)"The magic is back again."His 14th film. The third installment in the Lethal Weapon franchise, it stars Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Joe Pesci, Rene Russo, and Stuart Wilson. In the film, Martin Riggs and Roger Murtaugh pursue Jack Travis, a former LAPD lieutenant turned ruthless arms dealer, during the six days prior to Murtaugh's retirement. Riggs and Murtaugh are joined by Leo Getz as well as internal affairs Sergeant Lorna Cole. Jeffrey Boam's first two drafts of the script were different from the final film. The character of Lorna for example was not a woman in original drafts, but the original character still had the same personality and was just as lethal and crazy as Riggs, making him his match. Riggs also had an affair with Roger's daughter Rianne, and a few parts in the final film where Roger suspects that Riggs and Rianne are interested in each other are only parts left from the original drafts. Donner demanded some big changes on the script which included changing the original character of Lorna into a woman and turning her into Riggs's girlfriend. He also re-worked the script to be less story-oriented and not focus on the main villains but instead on the relationship between Riggs and Murtaugh. He also toned down action scenes from the script and brought back Leo Getz into the story. All of his scenes were written in afterwards. The film received mixed reviews and was considered as weaker than the previous films. But it still earned $320 million worldwide, becoming the highest grossing film in the franchise and Donner's highest grossing film (although Superman still has that title adjusted for inflation).
Maverick (1994)"In their hands, a deck of cards was the only thing more dangerous than a gun."His 15th film. Based on the 1957–1962 television series, it stars Mel Gibson, Jodie Foster and James Garner (who starred in the original series). The film follows Bret Maverick, a card player and con artist who collects money in order to enter a high-stakes poker game. He is joined in his adventure by Annabelle Bransford, another con artist, and Marshal Zane Cooper, a lawman. The film received positive reviews, and was another great success at the box office, earning $183 million worldwide.
Assassins (1995)"In the shadows of life, in the business of death, one man found a reason to live..."His 16th film. The film stars Sylvester Stallone, Antonio Banderas, and Julianne Moore. Professional hit-man Robert Rath wants to fulfill a few more contracts before retiring but unscrupulous ambitious newcomer hit-man Miguel Bain keeps killing Rath's targets. The film was panned by critics, and was a box office flop.
Conspiracy Theory (1997)"Jerry Fletcher sees conspiracies everywhere... one has turned out to be true. Now his enemies want him dead. And she's the only one he can trust."His 17th film. It stars Mel Gibson, Julia Roberts and Patrick Stewart, and centers on an eccentric taxi driver who believes many world events are triggered by government conspiracies, and the Justice Department attorney who becomes involved in his life. The film received mixed reviews, and despite earning $137 million worldwide, it wasn't a box office success due to its high budget.
Lethal Weapon 4 (1998)"The gang's all here."His 18th film. The fourth and final installment in the Lethal Weapon franchise, it stars Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Joe Pesci, Rene Russo, Chris Rock, and Jet Li. It follows Martin Riggs and Roger Murtaugh as they investigate a Chinese immigrant smuggling ring. A crime boss named Benny Chan leads them to the Chinatown. Wanting another film in the franchise, Warner Bros. and Joel Silver tried buying a new spec script titled Simon Says in hopes of rewriting it into a script for Lethal Weapon 4. Written by Jonathan Hensleigh, the story was about a police detective and a shop owner forced to find and stop bombs planted all over a city as part of a mad bomber's revenge plot against the detective. 20th Century Fox then bought the script, and decided to use it as the basis for a new Die Hard film, Die Hard with a Vengeance. Donner was committed to another film, but Gibson was not interested. The film had a very difficult pre-production, as the script was still being re-written and rejected. Silver ultimately brought in TV writer Channing Gibson to work on the script, after he was impressed by Gibson's rewrite of a spec script titled Sandblast. Gibson took the gig thinking it would be a more relaxed writing job than anything he did for TV. However, much like the previous two sequels, the script kept getting changed and rewritten over and over again. Gibson would end up doing more work and revisions on it than on all of his TV work put together. Production even started with only half of the script. Something you might have noticed, is that the budget was far larger than the previous films. While the previous two films cost $30-$35 million, Lethal Weapon 4 had a budget of... $150 million ($288 million adjusted). Which means that at that point, it was the most expensive R-rated film ever and the third most expensive film, just behind Titanic and Waterworld. Why? Because the delays kept coming... but Warner Bros. was desperate in greenlighting the film. Realizing they had no big tentpole releases scheduled for summer 1998, Warner Bros. finally greenlit the film in late 1997. So they opened all their wallets and started shooting in January 1998, despite having one third of the film not written yet, including the ending. Due to issues during filming, including the script changes, production ended around mid May, less than two months before its scheduled July release. The ending was not written until it was finally time to film it. Editors had to work very quickly to have the film ready, which is why the trailers feature some deleted and alternate scenes which are not in the film. So the film was greenlit, filmed and released in theaters in the span of just 7 months. The film received mixed reviews. And if Warner Bros. was confident that spending $150 million to rush a film was worth it, they were in for a rude awakening. The film earned just $285 million worldwide, which meant that the film was a box office flop. It was the last film in the franchise. Although a gang in a pub in Philadelphia kept the spirit alive by making three sequels, one of which had Danny DeVito as the bad guy.
Timeline (2003)"You're history."His 19th film. Based on the novel by Michael Crichton, it stars Paul Walker, Frances O'Connor, Gerard Butler, Billy Connolly, David Thewlis, and Anna Friel. It follows a team of present-day archaeology and history students who are sent back in time to medieval France to rescue their professor from the middle of a battle. The film was a critical and commercial failure.
16 Blocks (2006)"1 Witness... 118 Minutes."His 20th and final film. It stars Bruce Willis, Mos Def, and David Morse. The film unfolds in the real time narration method, and follows Jack, who is assigned the task of escorting Eddie, a witness, from police custody to the courthouse. However, when they are attacked on the way, Jack learns that the entire NYPD wants Eddie dead. The film received mixed reviews, and it marked his fifth bomb in a row. It was his final film before his death in 2021.
MOVIES (FROM HIGHEST GROSSING TO LEAST GROSSING)
The VerdictDespite the inconsistency of his filmography, it's hard to deny Donner as a very influential figure of cinema.He was an expert in handling many genres; you'd expect the director of The Goonies to make 4 Lethal Weapon films? Or that the guy who made The Omen would make Scrooged? Sure, his last films indicated that he might have lost it, but you can't blame him for trying. The fact that he was willing to make Lethal Weapon 5 before his death show he was very committed. He was never too old for this shit. And of course, there's Superman. The film that changed comic book films as we know them. It wasn't the first, but it was perhaps the most influential. There's an argument that either Batman, The Dark Knight, Iron Man, The Avengers, Deadpool or Joker are more influential, but those films wouldn't exist today if it wasn't for Donner. It's why Kevin Feige shows the film to all the cast and crew before filming any MCU film. If the film was put in the careless hands of a mediocre director, it would've been forgotten almost immediately. And the genre would be very different today. So it's a testament to the strength of the film of how much it could change the landscape of what was possible. He and Christopher Reeve really offered something fresh and exciting. They truly made the world believe a man could fly. Hope you liked this edition. You can find this and more in the wiki for this section. The next director will be Ang Lee. A very important filmmaker. I asked you to choose who else should be in the run and the comment with the most upvotes would be chosen. Well, we'll later talk about... Roland Emmerich. Is it Joever for him? This is the schedule for the following four:
For this week, you'll choose from four options, all picked by me. So we won't accept any other suggestions this week. I'll give you four directors, and the director with the most upvotes will get his own post. And here they are:
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2024.06.01 21:02 APurplePenguin_ [S] Penguins Survivor: Ireland results! (S9)
May or may not was running on 2 hours of sleep when making this sim, and may or may not forgot to change the name of the season, and may or may not fucked up the reference pictures so bad they're pretty much completely new characters at this point, but the season is done so its fine right? (btw sorry to all people who game me reference pictures, I suck at reference pictures to begin with and me being incredibly sleep deprived did not help lmao)m
Welcome back to the BrantSteele series with no effort AT ALL put into it. This time we're going to Ireland which is a country on this earth for sure. Just like S6 Peru we are going back to the genderwars theme! Im penguin and this is Penguins Survivor: Ireland!
https://brantsteele.com/survivo09/r.php?c=KzKihBaB
Lets meet our castaways!
Cetcha Tribe:
Runner Up: Akira Chung
Fan-Favorite: Josephine "Jojo" Lampton
Thoughts: This season was good. However the men dominating every challenge pre-merge was not so great in my eyes. However the Eriu was very entertaining imo. All of the conflicts, the relationships the everything I loved about the woman pre-merge! I honestly think part of the reason they shined so much was because they went to tribal almost every time pre-swap. And with that, Cetcha could've been more entertaining. I feel like if they went to other tribals other then the double tribal the conflicts and the drama and everything could've shined much more. Also didn't like the pretty boring pagonging at the merge. However this made Ezzie and Jojo shine, as they were able to exploit the rift of Oliver and Shawn, to make it past tribals they should've been eliminated at. Momo was a great winner as well, playing a very under the radar game. Great season.
Previous Seasons:
Borneo
Australia
India
Japan
Canada
Peru
Atlantis
All-Stars
submitted by APurplePenguin_ to BrantSteele [link] [comments]
Welcome back to the BrantSteele series with no effort AT ALL put into it. This time we're going to Ireland which is a country on this earth for sure. Just like S6 Peru we are going back to the genderwars theme! Im penguin and this is Penguins Survivor: Ireland!
https://brantsteele.com/survivo09/r.php?c=KzKihBaB
Lets meet our castaways!
Cetcha Tribe:
- Akira Chung, 27, MMA Fighter by u/swoldow
- Amar "Momo" Tsukumo, 37, Financial Planner by u/PuppetownPuppets
- Arun Kapur, 30, Personal Trainer by u/dksurvivor
- Austin Rinne, 30, Brewery Owner by u/SilverOwl24
- Lorenzo Ramos, 26, Costume Designer by u/Nahuelfire39
- Oliver Hollas, 27, Stay at home dad by u/AshZomboy
- Owen Sawn, 22, Stunt Double by u/BigTeddyBear20
- Shawn Tamana, 27, Clothing Designer by u/Gemini_B
- Steven "Stevie" Kratt, 23, Instagram Model by u/AshZomboy
- Carmen Renner, 35, Police Officer by u/SilverOwl24
- Clara Nguyen, 25, Mukbang Influencer by u/ToastieGreep
- Esmerelda "Ezzie" Rackhelm, 46, Stripper by u/swoldow
- Josephine "Jojo" Lampton, 19, Vlogger by u/ToastieGreep
- Kim Juri, 35, Poker Dealer by u/Gemini_B
- Larissa Alvarez, 33, Gym Teacher by u/swoldow
- Madison "Maddie" Johnson, 26, Social Media Influencer by u/Nahuelfire39
- Madison "Maddy" Lou, 18, College Student by u/BigTeddyBear20
- Sarah Beth Cunningham, 26, Fashion Consultant by u/dksurvivor
Runner Up: Akira Chung
Fan-Favorite: Josephine "Jojo" Lampton
Thoughts: This season was good. However the men dominating every challenge pre-merge was not so great in my eyes. However the Eriu was very entertaining imo. All of the conflicts, the relationships the everything I loved about the woman pre-merge! I honestly think part of the reason they shined so much was because they went to tribal almost every time pre-swap. And with that, Cetcha could've been more entertaining. I feel like if they went to other tribals other then the double tribal the conflicts and the drama and everything could've shined much more. Also didn't like the pretty boring pagonging at the merge. However this made Ezzie and Jojo shine, as they were able to exploit the rift of Oliver and Shawn, to make it past tribals they should've been eliminated at. Momo was a great winner as well, playing a very under the radar game. Great season.
Previous Seasons:
Borneo
Australia
India
Japan
Canada
Peru
Atlantis
All-Stars
2024.06.01 16:39 Gaelfling [Discussion] NoSleep Podcast S21E05
It’s Episode 05 of Season 21. Ride the Sleepless Express into tales about menacing morals.
“A Wing and a Prayer” written by Carole Wood (Story starts around 00:03:30)
Produced by: Jeff Clement
Cast: Cass – Nichole Goodnight, Gina – Jessica McEvoy
“For Sale” written by Haley Alt (Story starts around 00:24:05)
Produced by: Phil Michalski
Cast: Narrator – Atticus Jackson, Lorraine – Danielle McRae, Eddy – Jesse Cornett, Tad – Kyle Akers, Event Coordinator – Mike DelGaudio, Woman #1 – Katabelle Ansari, Woman #2 – Mary Murphy
“Wolf’s-Bane” written by Jesse Rosenbaum (Story starts around 00:39:10)
Produced by: Phil Michalski
Cast: Jacqueline – Linsay Rousseau, Mrs. Edmonson – Erika Sanderson, GPS Voice – Mike DelGaudio, Mr. Gonzalez – David Cummings, Katherine – Danielle McRae, Mara – Kristen DiMercurio, Dana – Wafiyyah White, Darryl – Jesse Cornett
“Human Sushi” written by 1000andonenites (Story starts around 01:07:05)
Produced by: Phil Michalski
Cast: Narrator – Marie Westbrook, Server – Katabelle Ansari, Carly – Sarah Thomas, Dad – Dan Zappulla
Mom – Mary Murphy, Family – Kyle Akers, Nichole Goodnight, Jeff Clement
“Poker Face” written by Dominic Breeze (Story starts around 01:12:05)!
Produced by: Phil Michalski
Cast: Narrator – Jake Benson
“The Cadaver King of Calhoun County” written by Clarissa Thomas-Thompson (Story starts around 01:27:15)
Produced by: Jesse Cornett
Cast: Narrator – Erin Lillis, Cadaver King – Graham Rowat, Greg – Jeff Clement, Eduardo – Dan Zappulla, Jingle – Sarah Tho
Executive Producer & Host: David Cummings - Musical score composed by: Brandon Boone - “Poker Face” illustration courtesy of Thea Arnman
submitted by Gaelfling to TheNSPDiscussion [link] [comments]
“A Wing and a Prayer” written by Carole Wood (Story starts around 00:03:30)
Produced by: Jeff Clement
Cast: Cass – Nichole Goodnight, Gina – Jessica McEvoy
“For Sale” written by Haley Alt (Story starts around 00:24:05)
Produced by: Phil Michalski
Cast: Narrator – Atticus Jackson, Lorraine – Danielle McRae, Eddy – Jesse Cornett, Tad – Kyle Akers, Event Coordinator – Mike DelGaudio, Woman #1 – Katabelle Ansari, Woman #2 – Mary Murphy
“Wolf’s-Bane” written by Jesse Rosenbaum (Story starts around 00:39:10)
Produced by: Phil Michalski
Cast: Jacqueline – Linsay Rousseau, Mrs. Edmonson – Erika Sanderson, GPS Voice – Mike DelGaudio, Mr. Gonzalez – David Cummings, Katherine – Danielle McRae, Mara – Kristen DiMercurio, Dana – Wafiyyah White, Darryl – Jesse Cornett
“Human Sushi” written by 1000andonenites (Story starts around 01:07:05)
Produced by: Phil Michalski
Cast: Narrator – Marie Westbrook, Server – Katabelle Ansari, Carly – Sarah Thomas, Dad – Dan Zappulla
Mom – Mary Murphy, Family – Kyle Akers, Nichole Goodnight, Jeff Clement
“Poker Face” written by Dominic Breeze (Story starts around 01:12:05)!
Produced by: Phil Michalski
Cast: Narrator – Jake Benson
“The Cadaver King of Calhoun County” written by Clarissa Thomas-Thompson (Story starts around 01:27:15)
Produced by: Jesse Cornett
Cast: Narrator – Erin Lillis, Cadaver King – Graham Rowat, Greg – Jeff Clement, Eduardo – Dan Zappulla, Jingle – Sarah Tho
Executive Producer & Host: David Cummings - Musical score composed by: Brandon Boone - “Poker Face” illustration courtesy of Thea Arnman