Narrator: It was an early September morning. The sun was starting to rise, and the townsfolk were starting to wake up and do their usual routines. One of these townsfolk just happened to be a police officer. They were called into the station, and came as soon as they could. They stepped out of their parked car and walked over to the entrance. Before they entered, they would quickly fix their hat and tie.
Once inside, they would pass the lobby and go to the counte reception area. On the other side, stood a deputy with black, short hair and black eyes. They wore a blue button up with a police vest, blue jeans, and black shoes. A walkie talkie was attached to their vest. This deputy’s name was Jack. When he saw the police officer before him, he smiled.
Jack: Hello Sofia. Glad you could come.” (Happily)
Sofia: “Of course. From what I could tell by John’s tone during the call, it’s something very important.”
Narrator: The officer’s name was Sofia Asturias. Sometimes, she was called, officer Asturias. She had black eyes and medium blonde deep red hair. She wore a blue collared uniform, a cap with a black rim and a badge in the center of it. A black tie, pants, and shoes. She carried a glock firearm, a taser, a radio, and handcuffs at all times. She has been a part of the force for some time now.
Jack’s demeanor changed when he heard what Sofia had inferred.
Jack: It is, Sofia. Let me take you to the evidence room where John is currently. He’ll explain more about what’s happened. (urgently)
Narrator: Sofia nodded and entered the reception area. Together, she and Jack went over to the evidence room. Jack softly knocked on the door, and heard
John: Come in (lost in thought)
Narrator: Jack opened the door and entered with Sofia.
Jack: Officer Asturias is here, John. (presenting)
Narrator: John turned around to face the two. He had brown curly hair and a mustache, his eyes were black. He wore a black shirt and dark blue jacket. A black belt for his brown jeans, and had on black shoes. He currently has a cigar in his mouth. He took it out to talk.
John: Officer Asturias, I know that we just recently talked on the phone, before you came. Though now that you’re here, I’ll be giving you the bigger picture. (serious) Sofia: I understand. What’s the bigger picture then? (curiously)
Narrator: John motioned her to come to his side, before he pointed to a picture on the investigation thread they were producing.
John: Last night, a mutilated body was found in an alleyway. One of the victim’s arms and legs were missing. They also had a stab wound on their back. (Explanatory) Right now, we don’t have any leads, whoever did this left no trace. (frustrated)
Narrator: Sofia looked at the gruesome picture, and listened to what the sheriff had to say. Focusing on the important details.
Sofia: This is the first case of mutilation, correct? (Questioningly)
John: Correct (confirming)
Sofia: How can I help with the case? So we can make sure that this doesn’t happen again. (interested)
John: For now, be vigilant. Especially on your night shift. Hopefully we can gather more clues in the time being before this perpetrator strikes again. (Serious and urgent, with a sense of caution and concern.)
Sofia: Alright, I’ll make sure that nothing slips by me, specifically anything suspicious. I’ll leave you and Jack to it then. (cooperative)
Narrator: Sofia would turn around and leave John, and was facing Jack.
Sofia: I’ll see you later.
Jack: See you, Sofia (friendly)
Narrator: Sofia would exit the evidence room, after giving Jack a smile back, after he gave a smile to her. She left the way she came and entered her police cruiser. She was lost in thought for a bit. She needed to ensure this didn’t spiral out of control. She had a family to think of. A whole town she needed to ensure stayed safe. She now had a clear objective, as she left the parking lot and onto the streets.
It was still morning. In one of the houses of the town, the Rosendale family dweled. Sofia knew them well, because they were her family. Her niece was Evelyn Rosendale, a female teenager. She had green eyes and black hair. She wore a high neck lantern sleeve sweater, flap cargo pants and wedge boots. She was the youngest, two years younger than her older brother. Sofia’s nephew was Toby Rosendale, a young adult male. He had hazel eyes, and rich auburn hair. He wore a plaid drawstring hooded shirt, navy blue jeans, and blue sneakers. Sofia’s brother in law and the father of both Evelyn and Toby, was Andrew Rosendale. He had brown eyes and brown sable hair. He wore a plain color lapel part zipper shirt, with pants and shoes.
At the moment in the household, Evelyn was getting ready for school, while Toby was getting ready to head to his college classes. Their dad was cooking breakfast for them.
Toby: Sis, hurry up. You still have to eat breakfast before going to school! (calling out)
Eveyln: Speak for yourself, you have to eat breakfast too. I’m not the only one at risk of coming late to school! (calling back)
Andrew: Breakfast is ready! (announce)
Narrator: Soon the two siblings raced down the stairs and to the dining room. Where their dad had placed the two plates full of food on the table.
Evelyn: Looks delicious, dad. Thanks. (grateful)
Toby: Thanks, dad. (grateful)
Andrew: Of course. (happily) Now eat up, I don’t want any of you to be late for your classes. (sternly)
Both: Yes dad (in acknowledgement)
Narrator: After the two were done, they stood up with their plates and utensils and placed the items in the sink. Before grabbing their bags.
Toby: Bye dad. (in a rush)
Andrew: Bye son (warmly)
Narrator: Evelyn hadn’t left yet. She wanted to tell her dad where she planned to go after school. She came up to him.
Evelyn: Hey dad? Would it be ok, if after school, I went to the candy club? I just want to get some candy. (Polite and slightly tentative)
Narrator: Andrew thought for a moment. He saw no harm in Evelyn doing so.
Andrew: Yes, you can go. As long as you have the money buy some candy and don’t come late. (granting permission)
Evelyn: I do and I won’t. See you. (happily)
Narrator: Evelyn left with a smile on her face, she was on her way to school. Andrew would clean up the plates and utensils and get himself ready for work. He put on his suit, ready for another day at the bank.
Script 3:
Narrator: It was late afternoon, close to evening. Evelyn had left school and was on her way to the candy club. She had her backpack on her. One of the arm straps was on her shoulder. At the entrance of the store, there were giant lollipop displays, a display of donuts, and cookie bars. A glowing sign above in pink with white letters, that read: -Candy Club-
Evelyn smiled and walked in. The store was filled with candy and sweet treats. The aroma was one of sugar and baked goods. The music was soft, yet cheerful. Behind the counter, was a young man with black hair. He wore a white button-up shirt with a single pink stripe on both sleeves, a pink bowtie that resembles a taffy wrapper with a white swirl on it, a white employee cap, light blue pants, and black shoes. His name was Kevin.
He saw her walk in and greeted her with a friendly smile.
Kevin: Hey Evelyn. Nice to see you again. (Friendly)
Evelyn: Hi Kevin. Yeah, it's been a while. How are you? (Friendly and warm)
Kevin: I'm doing well. As well as I can anyway with this job. You know how some kids are. (Slightly resigned, with a hint of humor)
Evelyn: Mhm. That's good to hear, and just think of it this way. You're bringing delight to everyone with these sweets. Even though you don't make them, people still have to buy it from you. (Encouraging)
Kevin: True. Though sometimes dealing with certain customers can be a pain. (conversational and mildly frustrated.)
Evelyn: I can sort of relate. I worked in retail last summer. There were so many times where I just wished to disappear or just tell the customers off. (Empathic and reflective)
Kevin: (chuckled) I can definitely imagine what you might've told those customers if you had the chance. (lighthearted and slightly teasing.)
Evelyn: (laughed softly) Yeah, I would've left them stunned. Anyway, I'm going to see what candy I'll get. (Confident, then casual)
Kevin: May I give you a suggestion? (Politely)
Evelyn: What's your suggestion? (Intrigued)
Kevin: I suggest you get Zoots. They're sweet at first, but then turn sour quickly with some tiny pops. (Informative, and enthusiastic)
Narrator: Evelyn was shocked, but grinned. She playfully slapped one of his hands. Which was on the counter.
Evelyn: Kevin (shocked)
Kevin: (Laughed) Ow (playfully) Or you can get another candy. (Open-ended)
Evelyn: (gigled) I'll think about it.
Narrator: Kevin smiled, as he shook his hand after getting it off the counter. Evelyn would look around and would pick out the candy. She got a chocolate bar, a pack of bubblegum, a bag of gummy bears, and a small bag of Zoots. She placed them all on the counter.
Kevin: So you did pick out Zoots after all. (Smugly)
Narrator: Evelyn playful rolled her eyes, before taking out the cash to pay for the candy.
Evelyn: I did. I just had to, after hearing the description of the candy. Here you go. (Slightly playful)
Narrator: Kevin took the money and placed it in the cash register.
Kevin: I know you'll enjoy them. Would you like a bag for the candies? Or are you going to place them in your backpack? (Considerate and curious)
Evelyn: I'll place them in my backpack. Thanks. (Appreciative)
Narrator: Evelyn would grab the candy she bought and place them all in her backpack. Once her backpack was zipped up, she put it on her back again.
Evelyn: I gotta go now. It was nice talking to you Kevin. Thanks for the candy. (Friendly and appreciative, with a casual undertone)
Kevin: It was nice talking to you too. You're welcome, hope to see you soon. (Friendly/warm, with a hint of anticipation)
Narrator: After they exchanged goodbyes. Evelyn walked out of the store with her candy. Now heading straight home.
What the police would find the next morning, would be another body.
Bob/Devil: (Evil laughter) echo sound effect

"Congratulations and sorry for your loss," the solicitor exclaimed. "A distant relative has left you their storage unit and all of its contents. Here are all the details that I have." They then gave me folder full of paperwork and directions to an old storage facility just outside of town. Two keys were also included.
Getting into my car, I laid the folder on the passenger seat and stared at it. Who was this person? Have I actually met them before? How did they know me? All these questions and more swirled around in my head. "Well it’s mine now," I said aloud, "I suppose I should see what I’ve been given."
I put the location into my car navigation system and started the engine.
After an uneventful forty-five minute drive across town I arrived at the storage building, the security gate was open so I drove in and parked up next to the entrance. The car-park was eerily empty. The building looked like it had been abandoned, rust and decay was everywhere. The car park itself was pot-holed and cracked – weeds growing where they could.
Picking up the folder I got stepped out and headed for the entrance. It was a plain solid iron door with just a handle and key hole, both also looking rusty and unused. Other than a small warn sign there was nothing to indicate that this door was the entrance, it looked more like a fire exit, yet as far as I could tell it was the only door facing the car park.
I took a look at the two keys that were given to me in the folder, one looked like a standard cylinder lock key and could fit this door, the other was a shape I had not seen before. Three ridged sides instead of the usual one and the head contained a small blue jewel that seemed to glow gently. Taking the normal key, I opened the door and walked inside.
I was now in a short windowless corridor another door at the far side. The corridor was dimly lit with a single hanging lightbulb and like the outside of the building it was in a very sorry state of disrepair. I sighed inwardly and what I was getting myself into. The second door was slightly ajar and I could see a strip of light was escaping from the other side.
I reached for the handle of the second door and pulled it open, immediately shielding my eyes from the intense light that accosted me.
"Hello and welcome to Ethereal Storage!" Someone announced cheerily.
"Oh, hi, hello," I replied still covering my eyes, "just give me a sec to adjust to this light, it’s bright."
"No rush, no rush" they said.
Once I could remove my arm from my eyes and the squinting had all but stopped, I see this new room I was in. It was white, very very white. The walls, floor, ceiling all white, even the furniture was white. Not another hint of colour anywhere, except that was, for the person sat at the desk smiling at me. He was wearing a harlequin or court-jester outfit. Once he saw me looking at him, he give me a wave and pointed to a char that was setup opposite his desk.
"Please have a seat, I am sure you have questions."
"Thank you," I replied sinking into chair provided. "Oh, this is quite comfortable!"
"My name is Bob, and I am the custodian of this facility. What can I help you with today?" He asked.
"Right yes. I have just been informed that one of my distant relatives has died and left me a storage unit and all its contents, but I have no idea who this person is, so I don’t know why they have left me this."
"Ah, very sorry to hear that. Are those the details?" he asked pointing at the folder I was holding, "may I see them?"
"Yes of course," I replied handing it over.
Bob took the folder and slowly tipped the contents on to his desk, the odd-shaped key escaping first and skittering gently across the surface. "Oh wonderful, I see you have the original key!" Bob smiled. "In a lot of cases this gets lost in the kerfuffle and it’s such a mountain of paperwork to get a new one made and registered correctly."
Shuffling though the paperwork, Bob made a few distracted ‘uh-huh’ and ‘ooh’ noises. Once he had been though it all twice and made three piles of papers.
"These ones," he said pointing to the left most pile, "you don’t really need - they are receipts of payments made to us. If I remember correctly this account is fully paid for quite a long time, so there is no need to worry about any future payments."
"That’s good, I don’t know where I would get the money from anyway." I replied happily.
"This next pile you should keep safe. It’s receipts for most of the items in the locker itself. ‘Proof of purchase’ if you will. Quite important. I can help you go though and catalogue these if you require."
"Yes please, I wouldn’t know where to start with all this."
"This last pile, these two sheets of paper," Bob said holding them up, one in each hand, "are the most important and must never leave your possession – unless you are in this office of course," he smiled. "This one provides proof of the owner of the locker in question and this one allows entry to this storage facility. They are almost impossible to replace."
"OK," was all I could reply.
"If you imagine the mountain of paperwork just to replace this key, well each of this documents on their own would require a world of paperwork and several blood sacrifices."
"...wait, what?" I asked before being interrupted.
"But never mind all that, let’s see your locker and I’ll tell you what you have gotten yourself into!" He laughed and stood up. "These documents will be safe here and you’ll need the key."
Pointing to the far wall a small key hole had appeared, or had it always been there? "Please insert it when you are ready." he smiled.
Getting up from the chair, I reached over to the table and picked up the key, it felt heavy in my hand, the faint glow brightening as I neared the wall. Once I inserted the key it seemed to turn on its own, several clicking mechanisms could be heard as it did so and after a few moments the outline of a large set of double doors appeared in a soft blue light, a colour matching the jewel in the keys head.
"After you," Bob prompted as the newly created doors slid open revealing a spacious storage room.
"Wow," I managed after a few seconds.
The room was lined with floor to ceiling shelves on three sides, each of which was filled with old looking wooden boxes alongside cheap modern cardboard ones. In the middle of the room was a carpeted area with two chairs, a small side-table and three very sizeable round-topped chests – the type you see in pirate films.
"Wow," I repeated, "What is all this stuff?"
"This was your late relative’s storage locker, it is now yours. Come. Sit," he said walking over to one of the chairs in the middle.
I slowly made my way over to a chair, turning like a ballerina as I did so trying to take in the entire room. There was a lot of stuff in here.
Bob continued, "one of the documents from your ‘keep’ pile is a manifest of all the boxes, their location and contents. Scanning down the first page it looks like everything is where it should be. Now, where to start?" he mused.

Trial Day 18
Katherine, Janet, Rebbie and Randy Jackson are in court. Only one of the siblings was allowed in the courtroom as they are potential witnesses. Janet accompanied Katherine during morning session while Rebbie was with her during the afternoon session.
Paul Gongaware Testimony
Jackson direct
Paul Gongaware is one of the defendants in the case. He's an adverse witness called by the plaintiffs. Gongaware is Co-CEO of Concerts West, part of AEG Live. Gongaware has toured with Beach Boys, Led Zeppelin and is currently on tour with The Rolling Stones. He worked for Jerry Weintraub in the 80s
He produced Prince's tour in 2004. He has not promoted/produced tours since. Gongaware has not talked to Prince after the tour
Gongaware was a CPA licensed in NY and Washington. He said he believes he's still licensed but hasn't checked status since there's no need
Gongaware testified that landing Jackson, whom he felt was the biggest artist of his era, was huge for AEG. In a 2008 email to AEG Live President and Chief Executive Randy Phillips, Gongaware described how the company should approach Jackson and his manager about a possible comeback tour:
We need to start at the fundamentals. How we do it. The difference between [Live Nation] and us is huge. We are artist-based, they are Wall Street-driven. We are smart people. We are completely honest and transparent with everything we do. That's how [founder] Phil [Anschutz] wants it
Gongaware said he worked on an Elvis Presley tour. Panish asked if Elvis died of drug overdose, and Gongaware said "Yes". Gongaware replied to a condolences' email on July 5, 2009:

"I was working on the Elvis tour when he died, so I kind of knew what to expect. Still quite a shock"
"So you knew what to expect when Michael Jackson passed away, is that right, sir?", Brian Panish asked.
"I kind of knew what was going to happen, yes",Gongaware answered.

Despite working as a tour promoter for 37 years -- including for Led Zeppelin, the Grateful Dead and many others -- Gongaware testified that the only artist he ever knew that was using drugs on tour was Rick James
Panish asked about working for Jackson 5, Gongaware said had no interaction with Michael. Gongaware was a logistics manager on the Dangerous tour in 92-93. Panish said Michael made $100 million and donated it to charity. Gongaware said he didn't know
When Gongaware met Jackson was with Colonel Parker (Elvis' manager) in Las Vegas. Michael had wanted to meet the Colonel
Gongaware explained the difference between being tour manager and managing the tour. He talked about Michael's History tour

Panish: "You knew that Michael had been to rehab during the dangerous tour?"
Gongaware: "Yes, based on the statement he made after the tour"

Gongaware said he never knew MJ was involved with drugs until after the end of the Dangerous tour. Gongaware told LAPD he was aware of Jackson's previous use of pills/painkillers but did not want to get involved. Gongaware had known for years that Michael Jackson was taking painkillers but wasn't aware he was abusing them until MJ abruptly canceled his Dangerous world tour in the early 1990s to enter rehab. Gongaware said he knew of "two occasions" when Michael used painkillers between shows, but he claimed he didn't grasp the scope of the Michael's sickness until the taped 1993 announcement.

"I would dispute knowing that he had a problem. I wasn't aware that there were problems", Gongaware said

Gongaware said he knew a doctor was medicating Jackson during the Dangerous tour but did not find out why the tour was eventually cut short.

"Didn't have time,I was just dealing with what was in front of me", he said

Panish said Dr. Finkelstein testified under oath that Gongaware knew Michael had problems with painkillers before the Dangerous tour ended.

Panish: "Do you dispute that?" (Finkelstein testimony)
Gongaware: "I knew that he had pain"

Gongaware said Dr. Finkelstein is his doctor and friend and that they talk off and on, but he doesn't know specifics of the doctor's deposition. Dr. Finkelstein said he gave MJ painkillers after the concert in Bangkok following Michael's scalp surgery. In Gongaware's video deposition:

"Did you ever ask Dr. Finkelstein if he treated Michael during the Dangerous tour?"
"He wouldn't talk about that stuff"

Another part of Gongaware's video depo:

He said yes, he "occasionally treated Michael Jackson on the Dangerous tour"
Panish: "Were you always honest with Michael?"
Gongaware: "I believe I was"
Panish: "Did you throw around numbers to trick Michael Jackson?"
Gongaware: "I didn't try to trick Michael"

Panish elicited contradictory testimony asking over and over about Gongaware's memory, how long he spent with lawyers to discuss testimony.
On the Bad Tour MJ sold out 10 stadiums at 75,000 tickets per night.

Panish: "That's a pretty big number?"
Gongaware: "Huge"
Panish: "In 2 hours, how many tickets sold?"
Gongaware: "In initial presale we sold 31 shows"
Panish: "The fastest you had ever seen?"
Gongaware: "Yes"
"No one knows how many shows we can get with Mikey," said Gongaware.

Panish asked about name "Mikey" - he said he used it occasionally
Email on 2/27/09 from Gongaware to Phillips:

"We are holding all of the risk, if Michael won't approve it we go without his approval.We let Mikey know just what it will cost him in terms of him making money, and then we go with or without him in London. We cannot be forced into stopping this, which Michael will try to do because he is lazy and constantly changes his mind to fit his immediate wants"

Gongaware said his use "Mikey" was affectionate, not disparaging, and that the 'lazy' crack amounted to "poor choice of words" but one that accurately reflected how Michael

"really didn't like to rehearse. He didn't like to do these kinds of things."

​

"People were aware at this point there would be a press conference. Michael wouldn't show up at the conference, it'd cost money," Gongaware said. "It wasn't much risk at all, we hadn't spent money," Gongaware said about that point of the tour. This was prior to news conference.

Gongaware said the situation in London, where they constantly referred to Michael as "Wacko Jacko" would impact marketability to sell tickets

"He doesn't want to do this kind of things, but it was important to show Michael to the world if he wanted to do a show," Gongaware explained

Jurors were shown several e-mails from Gongaware that Jackson lawyers suggested were evidence that AEG Live deliberately misled Jackson about how much money he would make from his comeback concerts and how many days he would have to rest between shows. Gongaware wrote to his boss, AEG Live President Randy Phillips, that they should present gross ticket sales numbers to Jackson, not the percentage of the net profits, during contract talks.

"Maybe gross is a better number to throw around if we use numbers with Mikey listening"

Panish talked about an email Gongaware sent to his secretary suggesting that she design a concert calendar for Jackson using light tan colors for show dates, while drawing attention to his rest days
Don't want the shows to stand out too much when Michael looks at it.Less contrast between work and off. Maybe off days in a contrasting soft color. Put 'OFF' in each off day after July 8, as well. Figure it out so it looks like he's not working so much.

Panish: "Did you want to change the color of the schedule to show Michael would not be working so hard?"
Gongaware: "Yes"
Panish: "Were you trying to fool him?"
Gongaware: "Nah, I wasn't trying to fool him, I wanted to present it in the best possible light"

Gongaware said it would be obvious when Michael would be working and not and he wasn't trying to trick him.
Email on 3/25/09 from Phillips to Gongaware:

"We need to pull the plug now. I will explain"
Panish: "Mr. Phillips wanted to pull the plug on the show, right sir?"
Gongaware: "I think he was referring to pull the plug on Karen Faye. We never talked about pulling the plug on the tour. Not that I recall"
"Kenny wanted the pull because the way she (Faye) handled situations," Gongaware explained. "She tried to control access to Michael and Kenny didn't like that"

Karen Faye expressed strong opinion that the tour as dangerous and impractical for MJ. Panish asked about a chain of emails where Gongaware said the pulling the plug refers to Ms. Faye.

"I believe he was," Gongaware repeated.

In another March 25, 2009, email, Ortega wrote Gongaware that it was Faye's

"strong opinion that this is dangerous and impractical with consideration to Michael's health and ability to perform"

​

"I thought he was in good shape at the press conference, I was there," Gongaware said at the deposition. Gongaware was at O2 arena and Phillips was with Michael.
"Michael was late, Randy [Phillips] was saying I'm trying to get him going, I'm trying to get him going".
Panish: "Did Randy tell you MJ was drunk and despondent?"
Gongaware: "No, not drunk and despondent. Just said he was having hard time getting him going"

As to Dr. Conrad Murray, Gongaware said there was 1 rehearsal he said hello to him.

"It was basically a hello, on the floor at the Forum. Mikey asked me to retain him. I never hired him"

Panish played an interview of Phillips to SkyTV after Michael died:

"The guy is willing 2 leave his practice for large sum of money, so we hired him"
"I was told Michael wanted him as his doctor for the show," Gongaware said. Gongaware said Michael did not have any illness that he knew of.
Gongaware: "He had taken a physical, he passed the physical and from what I understand there was nothing wrong with him. Maybe some hay fever"
Panish: "Do you know what his blood test showed?"
Gongaware: "It showed it was good"

Gongaware said he received an email from Bob Taylor that everything was fine and that Michael had passed the physical. Gongaware said he never saw the results of the tests and doesn't know who saw them.
Panish showed video deposition of Gongaware and a declaration he signed about a month before giving the deposition. They contradict themselves.At first, Gongaware insisted he did no negotiating with Murray, but, confronted with emails and his previous testimony, he changed his position and said

"The only thing I did with Dr. Murray was negotiate a price." Gongaware said that neither he nor anyone at the AEG investigated Murray's background or credentials
Panish: "First you said how much did you want?"(to Dr. Murray)
Gongaware: "Yes"
Panish: "He said he wanted $5 million, right?"
Gongaware: "That's what he said. He said he had four clinics he would have to close, he would have to lay people off"

Gongaware said Dr. Murray had been Michael's personal doctor for the past 3 years. He said he did not know how many times MJ had seen the doctor.

"Michael insisted on him, recommended him, and that was good enough for me, it was not for me to tell him who his doctor should be" Gongaware said
"The fact that he had been Michael Jackson's personal physician for three years was good enough for me," Gongaware said.

He said that Murray initially asked for $5 million to travel to London with Jackson and tend to him during the tour.

"I just told him it wasn't going to happen," he said, recalling that Jackson then suggested offering him $150,000 a month.

​

"Michael Jackson insisted on it and recommended him and it was not for me to tell him no," said Gongaware. "I wanted to provide what was necessary for him to do his job...He wanted a doctor and I wanted him to be healthy."

Even after the offer of $150,000, Murray wasn't satisfied.

"He started saying he wanted more and I said, 'The offer is coming directly from the artist," Gongaware said.

Minutes later, he said Murray accepted.

"Did that seem desperate to you?" asked Panish.
"No," said Gongaware. "He just accepted Michael's offer."
"We agreed on what the compensation was going to be, but there were a lot of issues to be resolved," Gongaware said.

Gongaware said he recalled meeting with Dr. Murray where he was told the doctor was going to take care of the medical licensing in London. Gongaware and Timm Wooley are longtime friends. They are currently working on The Rolling Stones tour. Gongaware said he negotiated the price for Dr. Murray, but didn't negotiate the contract. Gongaware explained that he didn't do the negotiation, he would normally refer that to Wooley.
Dr. Finkelstein and Gongaware have been friends for 35-plus years. Gongaware said he never offered Dr. Finkelstein the job of being MJ's doctor and said the doctor would be mistaken if he testified otherwise. Gongaware told the jury he called Dr. Finkelstein to ask what a fair price for a tour doctor would be. Doctor told him it was $10,000/week. As to Dr. Finkelstein wanting to be the tour doctor, Gongaware said he didn't recall specifically, but knew he wanted it.

"After his death we may have talked, but I don't recall specifics," Gongaware said.

Gongaware said he sees Dr. Finkelstein a few times a year, but the subject of Michael never came up. Panish asked Gongaware if Dr. Finkelstein wanted to know if Michael was clean or using drugs. Gongaware said he didn't recall the conversation

Panish asked: "You could have told Dr. Murray at any time that his services were no longer needed, couldn't you?"
"No", Gongaware replied.
Panish: "You were involved in terminating one of the nannies who took care of Michael's kids?"
Gongaware: "Yes"

Gongaware told nanny, Grace Rwamba, that her services would not be needed anymore because AEG was cutting down on Michael's expenses

"I never read the contract, I was there when Michael signed it, but didn't see what was in it," Gongaware said, "Doctor Murray was 100% Michael's cost"

Based on the contract, Gongaware said 95% of the production expenses were Michael's responsibility, 5% AEG.

Panish: "Who decided there was a need for a written contract with Dr. Murray?"
Gongaware: "I don't know"

Gongaware said that if the tour went forward, Dr. Murray would've made $1.5 million for 10 months. Ortega would've made almost that.
Gongaware said although AEG never did a background check on Murray, in his view they had "checked out" the doctor according to their standard practices.

"When we check out someone, we either rely on if we know the person or if they're known in the industry or if they're recommended by the artist & in this case, Dr. Murray was recommended by the artist, in fact, the artist insisted"

Panish pressed Gongaware:

"You did nothing to verify anything about Dr. Murray, isn't that true, sir?"

Panish asked Gongaware if he approved budgets for April-July including Dr. Murray as production expense. He said he didn't know which budgets he approved. "It's my job to get that show on the road," Gongaware said.
Gongaware said he had to know how much the production had spent at any given time, but didn't have time to read the budget.

Panish: "Do you think you're good at your job, sir?"
Gongaware: "Yes"
Panish: "Very good?"
Gongaware: "I think so"

Gongaware testified that he didn't pay attention to the tour budgets that he approved, even though he was the tour manager.Paul Gongaware said he didn't read through the budgets, instead trusting that the tour accountant knew what he was talking about.
Gongaware testified that Dr. Murray's salary, although included in the company's budget for several months, wasn't something he saw as an actual payment that would be made.

"If there's a potential for cost we put it in our budget so there are no surprises later", he said.

Gongaware often pleaded poor memory of events. He said he may have met with Jackson as many as 10 times, but could remember only two of the meetings and only one when Murray was present
Gongaware said he doesn't remember how many meetings he attended at Carolwood house. He didn't recall a meeting where a vase was broken.

"There was a meeting where he signed the contract," Gongaware recalled, saying there were more but he doesn't remember specifics.

At the meeting in early June, Gongaware said he was present along with Kenny, Randy, Frank DiLeo, Dr. Murray and Michael.

"The meeting was about making sure Michael and Dr. Murray had everything they needed to care for Michael," Gongaware explained

​

"Yes, we did talk about health-related issues. It was more a general meeting about what Dr. Murray would need", Gongaware said.

He had told the police the topic of the meeting was Jackson's overall health ( i.e., diet, stamina and his weight)
He remembered that Jackson arrived late from a doctor's appointment and had slurred speech. Gongaware said Michael Jackson "was a bit off".

"He was just coming back from visiting Dr. Klein. I believe he was under the influence of something. That was the only time I saw him like that", Gongaware said.

Jackson had missed a rehearsal and was thought to be dancing at home. However they discovered he was only watching video. Doctor Murray was receptive to their concerns and indicated he would take care of the situation
Court Transcript
Paul Gongaware Video Deposition (12/20/12)

I hadn’t had much success with reality checks and must admit I took my eye off the ball and wasn’t very consistent.
Yesterday I decided to make more of an effort and last night for some reason it paid off.
I was having a normal dream where I’m looking for my companions everywhere and suddenly find myself on top of a colourful toadstool! I remember being confused and actually said quite comically “hang on a minute….am I dreaming?” and tried to push my finger through my palm. It was met with resistance which I thought was very odd as it was obvious I was dreaming.
So I tried another technique and jumped off the toadstool. I heard Bob Monroe’s voice say proudly, “ahhhh here we go, she’s done it” and I floated down to the ground and landed softly in my bedroom. I was so excited I knew I was going to lose it so I rubbed my hands together and said Clarity Now. Things became super focused and I saw a reflection of a camera crew behind me. I turned around and asked them what they were doing - they just said they were filming my experience. I woke up at that moment actually hearing myself say “wow this is sooooo weird”.
(This happened about 5:30am after going back to sleep listening to a LD meditation. Could put it down to WBTB & DILD)

I copy pasted this from a longer version of this story so that’s why these are labeled part 2 and 3. I edited out/ added context to make this part make sense on its own. And I’m trying to give as much context as I can to show why I’m having these feelings. Me and my husband have known each other a little over a year, we have been dating for 7months and married for 2months, crazy timeline I know but it’ll make sense with the rest of the context lol. (why I refer to him as leany was explained in the first part, just go with it) tldr@bottom of post
This next part is basically part 2: Flash forward and I start being friends with this guy at work that I had a crush on ( you guessed it, it’s Leany) he was a dishwasher at first but by this time they have him doing everything but that. He is a tall, light skin nerdy guy with curly hair and glasses that were broken so he literally had the stereotypical nerd piece of tape in the middle holding them together lol. He NEVER SPOKE when he was doing dishes, he had his headphones in and did his job. But once he started doing other things in the kitchen we would have a small interaction when he would come put more plantain on the line( I served food at a Jamaican spot) one day he restocked them and I said thank you, and he said “ur welcome” yall in that moment it went from a little crush to damn near a full on obsession, his voice was so deep and sexy like idk what I thought he would sound like but it wasn’t that. Flash forward to new years 2023, he gets drunk asf at the work New Year’s party, and my boss asks me to to take him home, (at this point me and him are kind of cool every once in a while we’ll hotbox my car while on break) so now I’m really excited to have time to talk to him alone and stuff and my boss wasn’t helping cause she was drunk too and kept winking and being suggestive about me giving him a ride she was like “be nice to him, be gentle with I’m if you get some, yall would be so cute together, he is a sweet boy he needs a good girl like you “ and all my coworkers are egging this on, so I leave to take his drunk ass home, and when we get there he asked if I wanted to smoke before I headed home, I said yes duh. So he rolls up and we get to talking and you know wtf he says to me “do you know if (girl we work with) likes me?” My heart sank so fast and my crush died right there because I knew it was a waste of time, me and this girl were nothing alike, We’ll call her B. B(f20 at the time) is a short darkskinned girl with a really nice body and a pretty face. I knew if she was his type he’d never look at me that way. Now he’s where things get messy kids, put on ur overalls. Me, B and another girl at work were kinda cool, tho I wouldn’t really call us friends (B and the other girl were really good friends, they hung out outside of work) anyways one day the third girl had asked me and B if we thought “Leany” was cute, I said yes, third girls said yes, B said no. “He’s not my type” (mind you B likes older, toxic, emotionally manipulative type men. She would say shit like “Leany just doesn’t get my 🐱wet” she was mainly dealing with this 40something year old man that she swore she was in love with, she would literally say she knew he was only with her for her body, but she still loved him and was convinced they’d be together forever, she even tried to talk me into having a threesome her and him) so when he asked me that question that night I told him about that day when we talked about it. Y’all I STG I meant no harm, at this point me and Leany are friends so I’m thinking he’s tryna get advice before shooting his shot so I wanted to be real with him so he didn’t embarrass himself. But then he gets mad and is like “ oh that lying bitch she told me I was handsome” and I’m like huh??? Then he pulls up their messages and shows how she would like low key flirt with him because he was a simp and he was buying her shit, giving her weed for free, and I’m like oh shit I fucked up, cause had I known they were already talking I wouldn’t have told him that, I just would have minded my business but I was thinking he wanted to shoot his shot so I was telling him it might not work out. He asked her she wanted for Christmas and she sent him an Amazon link for some 50$ hubcaps she wanted for her car. (Keep in mind this man is drunk asf during this whole conversation) he had already bought the hubcaps, but now he is seeing that she’s running game on him he doesn’t want to give them to her, so he is trying to give them to me. And I’m like nahhh buddy, at this point I was trying to become better friends with B cause like I said I didn’t have any friends in this new state. I’m like “wtf am I gonna do with them”
he says “put them on ur car”
and i said “and then show up to work with the same hubcaps she knows you just said you would buy for her”
and he’s like “yep exactly, and if she asked about them tell her you got them from Leany”
“no dude, ur drunk asf and you have valid reason to be upset but I’m not getting in the middle of this.” He goes and gets the damn hubcaps anyways and like I’ll put them on for you right now. I keep telling him no to go inside and get sobered up, but he is not taking no for an answer😭 he’s just like “okay pop the trunk I’ll put them in there, you can put them on later.” I said “I’m not using them, if you put them in my trunk, I’m gonna sell them” he said he didn’t care as long as B didn’t have them so finally I let him put them in my trunk and we said goodnight. Time goes on, he is still being led on by B, he’s got it bad for her, and me and B are getting a little bit closer sometimes the three of us hang out together outside work. It gets messier kids, grab ur rain boots. B and her mom got into it, she moves out and moves in with Leany….. mind you I’m pretty good friends with both of them at this point, they both drink a lot and they are literally constantly fighting like a fucking old married couple. Leany is upset that B, is out hooking up with Other dudes every night and keeps telling him about it despite knowing that he has a crush on her, B is mad that Leany can’t let go of his crush even tho she is definitely still towing the line with him. I’m hearing both sides of the same story about the arguments form each of them separately with both of them conveniently leaving out things they said or did that make them look bad, I’m not picking sides tho, and I don’t tell one about what the other is telling me, despite them constantly asking what the other is saying about them. I tell both of them that they are wrong, Leany is wrong because he is only letting B stay with him in hopes that they might hook up, and B is still leading Leany on and giving him false hope so that she can have a place to stay. (Mind you they are living in his mother’s house, with his disabled uncle, and his brother lives in the garage!) so the whole house is having to deal with their drunk asses arguing all the time, his mom goes on vacation to visit her other son and grandkids she is gone for like 4-5months and during this time she gave B permission to sleep in her room. And they are still arguing all the time till things finally come to a head one night. B is not even of legal drinking age yet, but she has a fake ID so she will still go out and get drunk and drive home, one night they were both drunk and arguing and she tries to leave and Leany takes her keys and is like “no, I’m not letting you drive drunk” she calls the fucking cops on him… and tells them that he won’t give her her keys and of Course he is saying because she is drunk. She manages to convince the cops that she isn’t drunk somehow and they make Leany give her the keys otherwise he is basically holding her hostage and she leaves. Why he didn’t put her out after that I do not know, but both of them are getting worse with drinking and worse with arguing and now his mom is about to come home so he tells her for the 100th(and finally final) time that she needs to leave cause this shit is toxic and their whole dynamic is weird cause they aren’t even a couple and they are going at it like this, B has decided to join the military and is trying to convince him to let her stay till she leaves for boot camp but he’s not having it they end up arguing again and Leany say’s probably one of the most fucked up hurful things you could say to someone to her, I’m not gonna be specifics but it was pertaining to a certain type of abuse that B experienced as a child. At that point she finally decides to stop talking to him and block him, during this final argument he was literally throwing her stuff out of his house and she grabbed it and left with it but left a lot of shit behind, he says that she left his moms room a mess with dirty dishes piled up in there and even left her vibr@tor on his moms bed he threw the rest of her stuff away and cleaned the room and that was the last time they spoke. He felt like shit afterwards and even stopped drinking for a long time, he kept texting her to apologize but she had him blocked, and he even tried going thru me to contact her. but atp me and her are hardly friends because I don’t like the way she was treating Leany and B also fell out with the other girl at work that she was close with because of how she used to treat her especially when she got drunk, B would get really belligerent. I had already bowed out of their drama because they would constantly come to me to complain about each other but when I would say “yall are both shitty people in this situation“ they would tell me to shut up and mind my business so I started shutting them down when they tried to talk about each other to me. He was mad that I wouldn’t help him get in contact with her but I didn’t care, B told our boss about what he had said to her so our boss made sure to schedule them on different shifts.
Part3:(gets a little NSFW, but I’ve censored it best as I can) Flash forward some more and things have kinda blown over. Me and Leany are pretty close atp, but not too close cause I didn’t like the side of him I saw come out with B, and also I didn’t like how he always prioritized their friendship over ours, and now it felt like me and him were only this close because B cut him off. Leany decided he was also gonna join the military, but in different branch than B. She has already left by now also. And Im also thinking about taking that route and the same branch as him. He started talking to a recruiter and I said before you leave we should get together and get a drink to say goodbye cause yk, he had to quit smoking to join so we couldn’t hotbox. This is months later and he’s started drinking again in moderation. his go to is cans of Twisted Tea. So he was like yea let’s do it I’ll go the liquor store what do you want to drink I told him I wanted to try the Monster Beast, cause I fucking love monster energy drinks. So he grabbed me 2 and grabbed himself 2cans of twisted tea. By the time I got to his place he had already been drinking (come to find out he had already had 2cans, and was on his third one by the time I got there but I thought it was his first) anyways he drinks his tea and I drink my monster and I’m like we should get really lit, like do some shots, so we go back the liquor store together and buy a bottle of Bacardi rum, on the way back we passed the adult novelty store and I was like “I always wondered what was in here” so our tipsy asses go in. I end up getting a d!ldo and he gets some c*ck rings. It was buy 2get one so we also grabbed a bottle of cleaner for my toy. He payed for everything (mind you at this time I am still regularly hooking up with my ex, I actually picked that d!ldo because it looked exactly like what my ex was packing) we come back to his place and proceed to get fucked up off this bottle. of course he is miles ahead of me cause of those 2cans I didn’t know about, and we both open our new toys from the shop. He asked me how far In my mouth I could fit mine and I’m like “mf how far can you fit it” and he’s like you show me first and I’ll go next and I just wanted to see him put a dildo in his mouth so I went first💀 I could fit about half of it I think but he could fit damn near the whole thing lmao, (he just has a really big mouth he said it didn’t touch his throat lol) it had a suction cup on the bottom so he stuck it to the wall and was like “lemme push ur head, I think you can fit more in there” and I’m like okay go ahead but I’m drunk so if I throw up on ur bed that’s on you” even with him pushing me I couldn’t go much further. Then he turned around with it and was like comparing it to his own d!ck with his back facing me and he was saying it was little bit bigger than he was and I’m like what? so he turned around and showed me the comparison. Y’all his thing was so pretty, lengthwise it was about the same as the toy (not fully hard btw so def longer than the toy fr) but it was much thicker. And he had shaved so I could see the whole thing and drunk me and horny me are one in the same so instantly I wanted to suck it. He left to go to the bathroom and I’m just sitting in his room wondering if I’m really about to do this, but knowing my drunk ass definitely was. Now like I said we were very drunk so when I think back on that day it’s like watching a slide show in a room with strobe lights, like I just have different scenes in my head but no clue which order or how they transition from one moment to the next so bare with me, cause all I really remember was me trying to suck him and him encouraging me to go deeper, then he was on top riding my face, but his dingaling angles upwards so that just made it harder, then we were on the floor trying to take more shots but we spilled half the bottle of rum.🤦🏾‍♀️ then were wrestling but naked on the floor laughing at some point I took a belt and tried to wrap it around his throat but it ended up wrapped around his face(don’t ask why idk why😭😭) at one point we were actually having s3x (he wasn’t the best Ngl, no hip action at all he was using his knees in missionary) so I asked for back shots but he kept going soft later on he told me it was because he was super nervous cause i had “all that @ss” and he didn’t know what he was doing 😂 then at some point he opened the door a crack cause he thought he heard something and I’m like dude close the door were naked and his drunk ass goes “this is my house I can be naked” throws the door open and walks through the house outside (backyard) to take a piss, this sobered me up so fast and I threw on some clothes rq to go get him cause we weren’t the only ones home at the time. I walk outside and grabbed his hand and as I’m walking him back inside his mom was standing in the living room, and she like “boy wtf are you naked??” My drunk ass ain’t no what to say so I dropped his hand and bee lined back to the room, then they sat out there for like 5 minutes talking and he came back in annoyed and started putting clothes on and he was asking me to go talk to her and I’m “like wtf am I supposed to say to her” and he said “could you tell her I’m not a fucking r@pist” and I’m like bruh what???? Apparently the walls are thin, so she could hear most of what was going on in the room, so from her perspective: she could hear us fumbling around in there knocking stuff over, remember I said he was encouraging me to take more of him in my mouth he was kind of aggressive about it (nothing I didn’t like, I promise) so she’s hearing shit like “you can take it, move your hand, does it hurt” and then he comes out the room butt naked and I still have clothes on😭😭😭 so yea things from her POV were a little sketchy to say the least. So I went out and talked to her and apologized for disturbing her, and said it was my idea to come over and drink with Leany as a way to say goodbye before he left for boot camp(didn’t help I had gotten the hiccups from being drunk and nervous lol). And she said there’s nothing wrong with having a drink from time to time buts it’s the middle of the afternoon and we took it to far and she told me to sleep on the couch to sober up and she got me some blankets and stuff and I thanked her. I stepped outside to tell Leany I talked to her, he was out front smoking a cigarette and he asked “did you tell her I wasn’t forcing myself on you” and I told him I didn’t get to say that cause she cut me off telling me to lay down, and he was upset that she might still be thinking he tried to hurt me. So when she came out I made sure to tell her that wasn’t the case but being drunk as I was I basically said “i know that might have sounded crazy from ur perspective, but nothing happened in that room that I didn’t want to happen” and she was trying not to laugh and he was whispering under his breath for me to please stfu💀 Anyways I came in the room to get a pillow for the couch and he told me to lay in the bed so we could take a nap, and I’m like I think ur mom wants me on the couch, and he just said “she’ll be fine she just wants us to sleep and sober up I’m not gonna make you sleep on the couch.” So we slept and woke up later that night I think it was around 11, but I’m not sure I just know it was super dark. Anyways after that day I started spending a lot more time at his house but we weren’t having s3x we really were just chilling watching anime and drinking twisted teas, my aunt and me were beefing so I was spending most of my time at his place, she was talking about putting me out and I had asked him if I could stay with him till I could afford a bus ticket back to my home town. But he said his mom wasn’t comfortable with him having more house guests after all the shit with B. And I couldn’t be mad at that. we were cuddled up and stuff and after damn near a month i was like I know better than to be laid up with man like this with no label so I popped the question “what are we” I have to be honest tho, he kinda asked first, like he was trying to sus out what type of timing I was on, but I didn’t have an answer for him so when I asked him he turned it back on me like “I keep asking you the same thing” and I’m like I feel like we’re definitely more than friends now, but not really friends with benefits cause we only hooked up once. And he was just saying “all I know is I like spending time with you” which I definitely believed because by this point I had lost my car (totaled) and he was paying for my Ubers to and to his house, and we weren’t even sleeping together tho we messed around a little bit. But we were barely even kissing. So I believed him when he said he liked having me over. And then we had a Long awkward talk about our feelings with both of us tiptoeing around the elephant in the room not wanting to be the first to admit our feelings and eventually he grinned and said something like “i know you like me” while he was sitting on the table the swinging his legs, and that made me giggle and I couldn’t deny it, and he finally admitted to liking me too and that’s when we became official. Not too long after that my aunt put me out and I his mom has such a big heart that she changed her mind about me moving in, atp I was practically living there anyways I slept there almost every night for the last month , so she could see that I wasn’t one for drama like B was. She welcomed me in, and made space for me to keep my things, she offered me some space I’m her closet and one of the two sinks in her bathroom I moved into Leanys room, by then I had left my job at the restaurant but I went back after moving in with him to make commuting easier and yea, that’s where I am currently living. We both started our process to join the Air Force, his process went smoother than mine so he left for boot camp in late March. He proposed to me on Valentine’s Day, and we tied the knot about 3weeks before he left. We’ve known each othe been friends well over a year but we had only been dating for a few months before we got married. The 4th of this month marked 2months of marriage for us, and the 24th marked 7months of being together… I know we rushed things but I love him so much. We are working on our communication skills and we argue a lot but we also are able to come together and talks things out level headed in the end. I love him so much and I want to start a family with him one day.
So now to the actual issue, I can’t shake the feeling that the only reason me and him are together is because the girl he really wanted didn’t want him back, not that there is anything wrong with moving on from unreciprocated affection, but I’m sacred that one day he’s gonna wake up and realize that he doesn’t wanna be with me and that he never did. ( I know, I know I read too many Reddit stories🤦🏾‍♀️) But lately that’s on my mind heavy, especially cause I’m still friends with B on social media so every time I see a picture of her I keep thinking to myself that’s the type of girl he really wants. I worked with him long before B started working with us, he never talked to anyone at work till she came along. And for months I was the main person he vented to about how frustrated he was that B wouldn’t even give a real chance. One day we spent the day together walking round town while my car was getting detailed and we had a really good time. I had 2 gold 1$coins, he asked to buy them both off me but I didn’t wanna sell them, and he said “okay just trade me one for a dollar and keep one and we’ll have best friend coins” like SpongeBob and Patrick’s rings. We even sung the little jingle but replaced “rings” with “coins”. But I later found out the only reason we were hanging out that day is because him and B got into an argument and she left the house and wasn’t responding to his call/texts. And after him and her stopped talking to each other I was comforting him and he looked at me and said “I just lost my best friend” and I was genuinely hurt like “I thought I was your best friend” and he just told me to stop joking cause he was really upset, after that I was honestly holding back tears cause I didn’t wanna make the situation about myself. I tried bringing this up before but he acted like he didn’t understand why I would be insecure, and it took forever of us going back forth until I finally said that had him and B gotten together in the first place me and him wouldn’t have even been friends let alone ending up married, and that every time we ever hung out alone was when B was ignoring him. He says that he is over her and doesn’t want her in his life anymore, but I’m like dude you don’t have a choice she blocked you, for a time he was even trying convince me to call her on my phone so he could talk to her but I refuse (of course this is before we got together) but now all these thoughts keep pulling up in my head and I’ve been trying to bring it up to him again but idk how, or if I even should we are supposed to be talking tomorrow but he doesn’t know what I want to talk to him about yet.
If you read all this your a real one and I would appreciate any advice you have, positive or negative feedback is welcome. I just wanted to clear my mind sorry for any bad grammar or typos.
TL:DR- my husband used to have crush on mutual friend of ours but she never liked him back, after being rejected by her he turned his attention to me and we are married now. but I’m afraid that he settled for me and one day he’ll decide he doesn’t want to be with me anymore cause he never really wanted me in the first place.

I've finally settled on the guitars I like and will be keeping. I have no need for these, and I would like to sell them. Or if you happen to have a dreadnought or other full size acoustic that has a 9.5" fretboard radius and V shaped or tall C shaped neck profile, I would trade for it. But yeah, selling is better. I am happy to meet up in or around northern/central NJ, or near a major mass transit hub if you're coming in from the city.
Both have been kept in a non-smoking adult household with humidity and temperature control at all times. I haven't gigged them and I don't know if the previous owners did or not.
2002 Fender JV Modified HSS 50s Stratocaster
I bought this guitar about 8 months ago and it's been wonderful to me. It's insanely lightweight and feels great on a strap or in the lap. The soft V neck is insanely comfortable and fast. A previous owner upgraded it with a Duncan Little 59 single coil-sized humbucker in the bridge and Lollar Sixty-Four single-coils in the middle and neck.
It sounds wonderful in clean or with effects and the push-pull coil split on the humbucker makes it a versatile axe for almost any kind of tone or genre. The locking tuners are rock solid - they hold tune for weeks at a time. MIJ serial # JV003488. Specs are attached to the listing if it's helpful.
It was never gigged. It's been kept in a climate and humidity controlled nonsmoking environment. I lined the cavities with tinfoil tape to cut down on EMI hum thanks to nearby electrical infrastructure. I can't find any flaws in the finish. It presently has D'Addario 11-52 gauge strings and has been recently set up to get to wonderful, featherweight action. If you want a different gauge string and it retails for $10 or less, I'll re-string it for free.
It comes with the original tremolo arm and a very solid B&G backpack strap gig bag. I do not have the original pickguard with the humbucker sized bridge pickup opening but they are available from plenty of retailers or from Fender directly.
Sound samples are from my phone a few feet from a Boss Katana, because I'm lazy. If you want real-deal hooked-up-to-an-audio-interface examples (played by a hobbyist at best) please let me know and I'll provide others. Ignore the hum - that's bad house power going to the amp. If you're on a clean power thing or audio interface it is hum-free.
Crunchy, lead tone
Clean tone
Asking price: $835 OBO + shipping
Photos with timestamp:
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1991 Takamine EF350MC
This was my first acoustic and it is a real beast. It sounds like a million bucks and doesn't sound too Nashville or excessively white-guy. It has wonderful, clean tone with a tiny bit of percussive snap when you play with a stiffer pick. I've played this in the halls at MAGfest and gotten it to do coffeehouse pop, semi-flamenco, (very unskilled) fingerpicking, and Bob Dylan-ish protest folk. You can do a lot with this guitar and have a really nifty visual piece of the early 90s - the back and sides are a really lovely flame light maple, and I think it's a spruce top but I'm not sure. There's some wear in the bridge that you'll only notice when you change strings - it sounds great. About as good as it gets for a modern MIJ dreadnought.
The pickup is the kind that works when you plug it into an amp directly, and it REALLY amps up the sound. Works like a charm. I put in a new 9V battery when I bought it last year. The pickup looks like it stepped right off the graphic design firm that did the Seinfeld and Frasier logos. It owns so much. SO 90S IT HURTS.
I had it set up by a local luthier to play well on 12-53 strings, and play well it does. I also sanded down another saddle to go even lower on the action, which it does, but it gets a bit buzzy if you're a hard fretter like me. I'll include both saddles, along with a few extras that haven't been sanded yet. I also had the luthier install an additional strap button - I found it WAY more comfortable to hang the strap off the new one on the side, rather than the original on the back.
If you want, I'll throw in a hard case, but that'll make the package way heavier if you're getting it shipped.
It has some finish wear and cosmetic dings on the front but is otherwise in fantastic shape. The binding is intact and the finish has tons of life left in it. The fretboard is recently oiled. There are no cracks or fractures.
This recording was done with a Shure mic through a Scarlett 2i2 USB audio interface into Audacity. I don't remember the compression settings or stuff like that. It was done with a mic simply because the pickup was too darn good and clear, and I'm too heavy handed, so it was REALLY picking up a lot of string noise and microphonics from my fingers. I bet it would be amazing through an acoustic amp setup.
Asking price: $900 OBO + shipping
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The Beginning Wiki Part Thirty-One (first half)
“Hey, Pyro, I was wondering something.”
“Ask away.”
“It’s your voice, and your vocabulary too. What’s the deal with that? Was it the spell doing that?”
“Right on the money. No spell, no obligate goofball. Thas’ not gon’ stop me from usin’ it if I’m feelin’ it, though. But it’s a bit stale by now.”
I sighed and admired the smoldering countryside, dotted by the expensive mansions of the wealthy, oppressor caste of demons. “Well it was Grunnus who did it, so I bet it was just to fuck with me.”
“Of course. He’s ‘funny’ that way.” He flicked his mane. “While we’re on the topic, you know the disguising as a normal horse deal? That’s gone too.”
“That’s crap. We’re supposed to be inconspicuous right now.”
There was another lull for a few minutes. “I’ve been thinking… about why I came back to you.”
“Oh? Because I’m nice, or something?”
“Nah, that’s not why I came back; more like a factor that kept the option open. No, it’s the worry. I can’t say I’ve ever seen you so deadly serious, and it’s about your own safety, too.”
I frowned. “Well, I am concerned. After all that I’ve researched, all I’ve read, it’s pointed me to a major rule in this world: Fate doesn’t want us GCs to die. Some shit always happens. A little odd nudge here, a sudden bout of incompetence there, or it all goes completely sideways at the last possible moment, all in the service of the GC living to fight another day. It’s a consistent thing, happens again and again with barely any logical explanation, and usually at the expense of the natives, who aren’t so generously covered.
“But it’s not set in stone. You’re dumb, you die. Maybe not the first dozen fuck ups, but it’ll getcha eventually. The problem… is that there’s an exception.”
“I suppose that’s when the chosen fight each other?”
“Yeah. Believe me, fate will try to stop them from dying, but two chosen can keep that dice roll repeating over and over again until someone’s luck runs out. Like a pair of drunks trading headbutts until someone gets a brain hemorrhage. And thank my unlucky stars, because the single thing we’re confident in right now is that it’s GCs that broke into my house. A team of 7, no less.”
He bobbed his head as he trotted. “That’s why I’m worried. Hecate was filling me in before you called her. She told me you were summoned to the search for Auseta, and that you ended up having to run around without me. It made me think real hard, and led me to a conclusion. You need me ready to go at a moment’s notice, no matter where, or when.
“Now I know I’ve said I hate it—and I do—but I think I should be in a catch orb in your pocket whenever you’re not in need of a mount.”
I was shocked into a 3-second silence. “Damn, wow, really? That’s not very freebird of you.”
“Don’t get me wrong, it’s not comfy, but right now, you’re the priority. Once this trouble passes we can have a long talk about changing things. I want to be loud! I want to be proud! I want to be the baddest motherfucking horse around, who carries the coldest sonofabitch at blazing speed; wherever the critters need roasting. And when we get there, I want to blaze half the things my damn self!” he boasted with a sassy trot.
I patted him on the shoulder, causing him to look back at me. “There’s only 1 thing I can say to that.”
(Simultaneously:) “Hell yeah, brother.”
……
We got home to a very cranky, half-slept Matti at the gate, with a few thousand not-very human (read: windy) footprints pacing a veritable trench into the driveway.
“Where the fuck were you?” she barked incredulously. “And what gaudy slop are you wearing?”
The wind could be heard huffing exasperatedly in the background.
“Didn’t you get my note?”
“Yeah, ‘I’ll be back soon, don’t worry’,” she paraphrased aggrievedly. “You gods-damned nut! It’s my job to worry! You’re not supposed to go anywhere without a full security detail.”
I waggled the lamp in front of her. “My security detail was at 98% power, thank you very much. I’ll tell you the rest later. For now, I think I’m finally ready to sleep.”
“You–”
“Hush a moment, Matti,” Pyroshir interjected. “What’s important is that we’re safely back now. There’s nothing good to come from a flared temper, so let’s head in and sleep before we say anything our rested selves might regret.”
Her brain visibly crashed, requiring a reboot. “What… happened to–”
“La-ter.”
……
Laying low: Day 4, morning, Drivellum-Lawson estate, breakfast nook.
“So he’s… free now?”
“yup.”
“And he’s staying in your service… of his own volition?”
“Pretty much.”
Matti rubbed her temple. “Why?”
“Because he couldn’t find it in himself to leave when things were getting interesting. Also, he said he wants to burn stuff with me later.”
She took a swig of her bloody mary. “No, the other… ugh, Chivos, make this make sense.”
We both looked at him, wearing his gossamer brand silk bathrobe. He paused combing his hair. “Matters of morality are not legally required to make sense. For my opinion on the matter, I believe you have surmised it already.”
I imitated his laser-cut diction. “While freeing your steed was an admirable pursuit, the timing chosen was poor, and the execution highly alarming to important security staff.”
“Hmm, yes,” he conceded with a yawn. We then clinked our coffees together and took large gulps.
Chivos set his cup down with a more serious expression. “I have heard back from the assorted agencies. Your attendance at Meridian Valley is greenlit. However there have been… a few magic items that you are required to wear.”
“Define ‘a few’.”
He stared into his drink. “... 3 crates.”
I didn’t say anything aloud, as my eyes were perfectly conveying ‘are you serious?’ to him in vivid detail.
“Crates?” Matti Balked. “You go over 20 and you risk… melting! Randomly!”
“Yes, we have a small team of energetic interaction specialists coming with the crates. Hubs, wrap up your business and be packed by tomorrow. It will take a while.”
……
“I have finished laundering your clothes, and I have taken the liberty of separating all damaged articles. I can have them mended by your return, and the same for your furniture.”
“Thank you, Droth, I appreciate it, but I want it all locked up proper this time.”
“But of course. I will see to it personally.”
I shifted the relevant bags across the sorting table and pointed to the next bunch. “These are all equipment. I don’t need you to do anything to these, just stow them.”
“Happily. What of this bunch tied with ribbon?”
Matti paused her usage of the reading nook.. “Those are mine. Please store, but do not open them.”
“Yup. And this one specifically is important documents. Please have Chivos take it to the vault and set it up for remote access.”
Mr. Slakendroth opened his mouth, then paused. “I do believe someone is at the door.”
He marched over and peeked out. “Ms. Hecate, is something amiss?”
They murmured a minute, then he shut the door and returned carrying an oblong parcel. “It seems a package has arrived for you.” He inspected the scribbles on the exterior. “The return address is coordinates in the Dreuhningst Mountains, and there are marks of inspection from the League of Conspicuous Evil, our local customs… and Hecate too.”
“It wouldn’t happen to be 722.02 by 156.25, would it?”
He looked again. “Indeed it is! A friend of yours?”
I shrugged. “Well, someone in the know, at least, and acceptably trustworthy too. Let’s see what she sent.”
The 3 of us crowded around the table as I donned the curse-proof magic gloves, for paranoia’s sake. I looked over the package, finding no further information on the exterior before tearing into the paper wrappings. Underneath was a carefully-prepared silk package, which I elected to bypass with vorpal goodness. Anticipation abounded as I tore away the layers to reveal…
A sword. Thin, of middling length, and narrow, with a shifting purple gemstone on the pommel.
Matti was briefly nonplussed, but then she gasped. “Is that the Gossamer Needle?”
“Mmmyup. A Gossamer Needle,” I muttered. The note tied around the hilt caught my attention. I liberated and unfolded it.
To my dearest contractor:
I, Lechia Uvembril Arachnis, offer the loaning of this blade to Dennis Lawson at the price of 2 free location clearing services. To draw the blade is to accept the offer, but you may carry it until this incident is resolved. May it bring a long, agonizing death to all who cross you in this trying time.
Until our next meeting.
Lechia.
I blinked, handed the note to Matti and grasped the implement of destruction. “There goes all that weapon loadout tuning, right out the window.”
Matti wilted upon reading the note. “Aww, I can’t hold it,” she pouted.
……
Laying low, day 5, 45 minutes late for lunch, Drivellum-Lawson Estate, Laboratory blast-suppression chamber.
A dark priest, wrapped in deep purple and blue robes, held one last ring in a pair of tongs.
“And now, the Band of the Whisper’s Will. Size 2.”
He extended it shakily towards my left pinkie, filling the room with a sharp tension. Tatanchael stopped combing my singed hair to cover my ash-stained face, shielding me further with her right wing. A sharp snap of electricity filled everyone’s ears… and my arm. I jerked briefly at the pain, but the ring went on and stayed on. The angelic embrace ended and Tatanchael resumed trying to clean the singings off my face.
“Can we recess for food, please?” I asked, dark green smog spilling from my mouth.
Rather than answer my question, a small, multi-faction peanut gallery instead jumped on my symptom. “Forestral fog, oral, heavy,” a scholastic demon called out. “Still within tolerances.”
“Uhh.”
The dark mage answered for the distracted nincompoops. “Absolutely not. Until final equilibrium is achieved, you must not leave this sigil. Your life may depend on it.”
“Man, I’d be fine with a stale granola bar at this point. What’s next on the agenda?”
Dark and moody placed the next box on his little table. “The rest of the rings.”
I stared him down, deadpan, and held up my hands, and the eight-fuckin’-teen rings (argued down to only 1 per thumb). “Where? Wheeerrrreee will you put them?” I asked, animatedly swinging my arms, jingling at 90 decibels.
“These are the toe rings, Mr Lawson.”
I wanted to punch him, but I bottled it up and relaxed my posture. “At this point I doubt there’s anything that can harm me besides this wasp nest of crap I’m wearing.”
He did not respond, instead resuming his duty of carefully dressing me.
“Oh, you poor thing,” Tatanchael cooed honestly. “Always a victim of everyone else’s stupidity.”
She somehow managed to be completely sincere, and sharply sarcastic at once, something a few angels were remarkably skilled at. I didn’t feel the need to add onto it, and fate handed me a better blip of comedy than I ever could have thought up myself. For as the first toe-ring slid onto my foot, I felt an odd sensation of aching and vertigo. Rather abruptly, my pants were a bit short, and I was sporting a bare midriff.
“Increased height, 5 inches,” the scholar demon called out.
A high-city librarian in the back then held up a sheet of paper with a grid on it, and a line through said grid.
“BINGO!”
…Two hours later…
“Waddya mean I can’t take them off?” I yelped indignantly. “How am I supposed to sleep?”
The demon scholar looked up from his ever-thickening sheaf of notes. “Mr Lawson, please, it is only 3 days. Allowances for rest and hygiene have been made.”
“Can sleep doesn’t mean want to sleep!” I squawked. “It’s a miracle I’m still in one piece! I don’t want to hit the sack and evaporate mid snore!”
“I must concur with Mr Lawson,” Tatanchael threw in. “The risks seem quite outsized compared to the benefits. Now that the combination is proven stable, and adequately tested, why not strip it off in favor of a faster re-equipping tomorrow?”
“Because it is not adequately tested, you featherbrained buffoon. Not only that, but the energetics of the myriad relics are attuning to a stable harmonic setpoint. To separate them now would only inflame their magicka! Not that I expect an angel to know that.”
The angel snarled. “Pleasantries are only extended to you as a courtesy, hellspawn. One more arrogant word out of that foul mouth and I will invert your healing setpoint.”
He cocked his head in confusion as her threat blossomed like a deathly flower. “Every soft, comfortable sensation will turn to unbearable pain as your body willfully rots itself from the inside out, blissfully unaware that is not repairing wounds, but manufacturing them. Only the excruciating sting of harmful magic would hold it at bay, for a while.”
Whilst the grim soliloquy played out, delving into how she would pay his insurance to keep putting him back together so he could start the cycle all over (what a gem, amirite?) I tested out one of the earrings forced on me. With it, I composed a psychic message that sent right to someone who had the gravitas to shut those idiots the hell up. With a flash of flame, Hecate appeared from her lamp, wearing an unamused frown.
She slapped the demon across his cheek and pointed menacingly. “Antagonism has no place in a joint mission of this import.”
Right as Tatanchael started to grin, she caught a seraphic hammerfist atop her head. “And you! Bait is for fish, and yet here you are, dangling from the devil’s hook.” A rebuttal was swiftly squashed with a hand over the mouth. “Save it for your weekly counseling.”
……
Some time later, in the secure room after scarfing down a reheated meal.
“Hecate?”
Her face appeared as a small flame from the lamp. “Yes?”
“Are… angels just psychotic or something? No offense, but y’all’re 3 for 3 in recent times.”
“I take no offense, though I must disagree. Even setting aside my status as not a true angel, I am simply designed to enjoy immolation and destruction by my hand, in a manner that scales with the quantity, challenge, and necessity of it. That is simply a feature that enables me to carry out the purging of a fractured world without pause.”
I sighed. “Okay, fine. I don’t feel like arguing semantics, or your mental state. What about Nidael?”
“Moreso a tragedy. I have witnessed it again and again, the true angels marching off from the heavens hoping to do good. But they are so susceptible to those around them. You surely know that the castle in which she works is a den of justified atrocities. It is the banal festering of moral intentions that slowly guides one to a self-justified path of infliction and suffering. I, for one, am glad you outed her, for it finally gave her superiors cause to recall her.”
“Ugh. Next you’ll tell me that Tatanchael is just a flawed little good girl or whatever.”
“No, she has diagnosed psychotic tendencies.”
“What?”
“Worry not. They manifest as hostility towards those who are not under her charge, so you are safe. It is well within the tolerances to remain an effective guardian angel.”
I shook my head with a smarmy expression. “Women.”
“That is not a funny joke. Say it again, and I will burn you, understand?
“Yes, ma’am.”
I rolled off the chair and onto the adjacent bed. With a deep exhale, I came to an epiphany. I once thought the demons were one-note scheming villains, who would double-cross, blackmail, and cheat their way to the top of the ladder, or towards the end goal of stealing your soul. They still were all of that, of course, but that was barely a third of what made them… them. When I looked past that loud minority of their hearts and souls, I saw that they were just people, even if a bit spicier.
Then my assumptions of the angels were falling into the same track. I assumed they were all sunshine and rainbows of perfectionism and exceptionalism. As with the demons, it was turning out to be both true and not their whole self. That wasn’t the epiphany, though.
The epiphany was that I had figured out the Hells and the demons in great depth and detail, and I somehow did not immediately take that knowledge and invert it slightly to apply to the literal opposite zone of the Heavens. I could have figured them out 20 years ago. Instead, I ignored them because they were boring and annoying.
And that right there was the epiphany: That I’m still kinda dumb sometimes.
……
Laying low, Day 6, morning, Drivellum-Lawson estate, portal room.
Mr. Droth read off the address book on its lectern. “Change portal alignment! Co-ordinates, 2, 5, 8, D, E, S, 16, A.”
Runes were placed into the configurable floor sigil with a sound effect that would make your average SG1 fan squint with suspicion.
“The portal is open. Confirming safety.”
Whilst our dear butler ran down his sacred checklist, I eyed Chivos, who was rather uncharacteristically dressed in khaki, with rolled sleeves and shorts, and a pith-like helmet. He also carried a ballistaff, a weapon analogous to an airbow, bearing the same implications of rich laziness and gadget-obsession.
“I can’t say I’ve seen you in your safari getup before.”
“I have neglected to invite you on such excursions in the past, owing to our busy schedules, and the work-adjacent nature exotic game hunts would have for you.” He adjusted his collar. “And today, said hobby will provide a sufficient explanation for my presence.”
“Hmm, yeah, that sounds about right. Some of the GCs at Meridian should get a kick out of the getup.”
“The portal is now ready, gentlemen!” Mr. Droth called out.
“Oh, good! Let’s roll,” I began, putting my best foot forward.
Matti appeared from my peripheral vision. “Not so fast. We go first, you follow after. Stick to the plan.”
I gave her a pouty frown, then jingle-jangled my over-equipped butt back to where I started. They proceeded on through the portal without me, and I awaited the signal to proceed. And waited. And waited. It felt like:
……
But it was actually about 2:45. I finally got the call to head through, so I stuck out my arms and jogged forward with them flapping ungracefully.
“HEY GUYS, WAIT UUUUUP!”

Afterword

The Beginning Wiki Part Thirty-One (first half)
The Cover Art
ko-fi art fund

It’s been some time before I had gotten a chance to go back home. I went to Canada for my university and am currently looking for work. The economy was down the shitter, my friends from uni all dispersed into their own adult lives and I was stuck alone in my apartment staring at a dwindling list of relevant job offers online.
I’d started staying up later and later, where the first sunlight was usually also the last natural light I would see before crashing on my couch. I was at my limit, not enjoying much of anything, and all my senses feeling numb. I was just pushing on through to the next day.
I’d decided to save up some money to return back to my family for a short while, just a few weeks to decompress and see if that would help me.
I come from one of the smaller cities in mid-western Germany. There’s absolutely nothing notable about it other than being located near the forest where my ancestors fought back the Romans. But the people are nice, as far as Germans go. We are a weird people, I admit. Outwardly cold towards those we don’t know, until we get together for a few beers or a piece of cake, after which you would think we were friends our entire lives.
But that’s exactly what I wanted then. If I managed to get out of my hole to grab a coffee, those trained smiles just reminded me of how miserable I was. I needed the gruffness of my Fatherland and the reality of my own family.
My arrival and the first few days went about as well as I’d anticipated. I was greeted with hugs and kisses and had to tell the same stories about a hundred times before crashing on my old bed. Even at home, I barely managed to get outside. I’d stay up, smoke and drink on the balcony before letting sleep carry me through the day. My family was understandably worried. I hadn’t really told them the extent of how shitty I had been feeling.
They tried their best, considering they didn’t really know how to deal with my mental status. It wasn’t their fault, their words weren’t reaching me. At least, they managed to figure out pretty quickly to drop the subject for now, attempting instead to simply cheer me up by being themselves and acting as if everything was normal. It worked for me, even if it wasn’t quite the reality check I needed. I even managed to get up early enough to see them at breakfast. I still remember the soft smiles they gave me when they saw me. I shrugged, sat down, and ate some eggs.
One day, an old high school friend, Max, who had also managed to make his way back home and had heard of my arrival, hit me up via text and asked if I wanted to go on a walk. I wanted to decline but at the same time, I felt bad enough that I had never once texted him and now here he was, inviting me.
We used to live close together, so all he needed to do was pick me up at home. We decided to retread our old childhood stomping grounds in the forest that bordered our suburb. It’s the same forest I mentioned earlier, by the way.
As he rang the doorbell, I was overcome by this terrible anxiety. How would he see me? What would he think of me?
I opened the door and he immediately smiled and said, “How are you, you fucking ghost?”
I couldn’t help but grin and we hugged.
“Could be better, bro. You know how it is,” I replied.
“Ain’t that the truth,” he chuckled and beckoned me outside. (I will be paraphrasing some of what was said as I’m translating it. Otherwise, I would just sound off.)
As we hiked through the down-trodden dirt paths, through the luscious trees, bright green and alight with the sounds of birds chirping away, we barely said a word to each other. I guess he understood what I was going through, perhaps heard the bare minimum from whoever told him I was even here. At the time, I thought he pitied me and that’s why he came to pick me up.
We exchanged the odd question about what we were doing. For me, nothing. He was training to become a nurse, which honestly surprised me seeing as he always was more one for making jokes and sleeping in class rather than being passionate about helping people. But who was I to judge?
We decided to walk up the hill further into the woods. Unlike the miles and miles of dark green conifers you might be picturing from North America, this forest is more of a mixture of beeches, birches, and fir trees. Most areas are well-lit, as the sun has enough space to seep through. However, I’ve always felt it gives you a false sense of security. You think you can see everything but in the end, it is still you, alone in the woods, dismissing every shadow or sign of movement as leaves and branches when in reality you really have no idea what might be lurking behind those tree trunks. Another aspect is that while the paths seem to form a natural clearing, it is just as easy to get lost, mistaking a more flat patch on the ground for a man-made path, just because the leaves don’t obscure the sun, letting the forest swallow you up with ease.
I realized then that I’d never been aware of that until now. I’ve always seen the woods as our kingdom, as nature inviting us to be free and just be children.
“Something wrong?” Max asked.
“Forest seems different. Might just be me though.”
Max nodded and replied, “I get what you mean. Seems less friendly now that we’re older, doesn’t it.”
“Exactly.”
Max stopped for a second and frowned, before suggesting, “Listen. One thing is actually different. You remember the meadow, with the river and the bridge?”
“Sure.”
“You recall that concrete bunker that was next to it. We always just thought it was something to do with the power grid.”
I did remember it. I remembered the way it stood out as an ugly minimalist block, threatening the serenity of nature. The graffiti didn’t help. We would usually stay away, not minding it.
I nodded.
“Well, that one is gone…but…uh…there’s another one. Popped up a while ago, don’t know when exactly. Lisa’s Aunt noticed it while walking her dog. Wanna check it out?”
I raised my eyebrow, “Why would we wanna do that?”
“I don’t know man. I’m trying my best here.” I could sense his desperation, reminding me of my parents, seeing me every night before they went to bed, asking me to hang out with them.
I shrugged, grabbed his shoulders, and said, “Lead the way then.”
He gave me a weak smile and we walked on.
Indeed, the structure was, in terms of how it was built, identical to the one we saw as kids. We walked around it, checking every angle. There really was nothing remarkable about it but something was finally stirring inside my cold heart. A sense of adventure, something new and unexpected to be discovered. I didn’t know how long it would last but I wanted to cling onto it and keep it inside me for as long as I could.
We found a door on one side, reading “No Authorized Access”.
Max poked me and asked, “Is it just me or does this door look different from the old one?”
It did. “There’s a handle on this one and…no lock. The old one just had a keyhole. I suppose it was so It was harder to open from the outside.”
I looked around, trying to get a better lay of the land, “Have you noticed something else?”
Max tried to follow my eyes, “What?”
“There are no powerlines or towers. The old one had those too.”
“Maybe it’s underground. Save the trees and all of that.”
“Maybe..,” I responded.
Max took another walk around the box, shouting from the other side, “Nobody has tagged it yet, either!”
“Can’t be that old then…Come back and give me a lift!”
Max helped me onto the roof. There was nothing, not even an HVAC box.
“Bro, what do you see!”
“Nothing, Max. Not a thing.”
I jumped back down and looked at my friend. We both started to grin. This little detour had just turned into a bonafide mystery.
“I guess there’s only one thing to do now,” I said, looking at the door handle.
“I guess you’re right.”
We both didn’t move a muscle, exchanging glances.
Max took a step back, holding his hands up: “Why don’t you go ahead.”
“Hmmm…Wimp.”
“Do it then, big guy.”
“Alright. Alright.” I slowly placed my hands on the handle, as if it may be electrified, and tried twisting it. Nothing happened.
I could feel Max deflate behind me but I wouldn’t give up. I tried it with some more force and noticed the door buckle. I wouldn’t stop now. I was feeling good. I kept pushing and pulling, using my foot against the wall for more force.
Finally, the door gave way and with it, I fell backward, crashing into leaves and dirt.
Max was equally shocked and amused, “Okay then, big guy. You go to the gym?”
“Not really. The door must’ve just rusted shut,” I said as I got back up and dusted myself off.
We both took a look inside but couldn’t see anything. But it was more than that. There was a thick wall of darkness, just past the precipice of the doorway. No light from the forest dared to enter it. Even the birds seemed frightened, enveloping both of us in absolute silence.
We tried to make anything out inside but we couldn’t. It was just black. I got out my phone and turned on the flashlight, shining it inside. It barely managed to penetrate, forcing me to get closer and closer. It felt a chill come from this portal I had just opened up.
“Nah, man. This ain’t right.” Max huffed behind me.
“Just give me a second.” I got as close to the opening as I was comfortable with and held my phone out. My fingers brushed past the boundary and it was running them under icy cold water. I shuddered but tried to steady my arm.
“I can make out a hallway. That’s it. I think it splits just a bit further in.” I told Max.
“Cool. Cool. You want to lead the way then?”
“You brought me here. Why don’t you go first? I opened the damn thing.”
“Exactly…finders keepers.”
“Aren’t nurses supposed to be able to be brave or something?”
“First of all, nurse-in-training. Second of all, you’re thinking of firefighters and thirdly, what the fuck do you mean brave? It’s like staring into the Marianna’s trench. This doesn’t seem natural.”
“I mean…It’s not. Somebody built it.”
“Yeah. That somebody clearly doesn’t want anybody to enter.”
I got agitated. He had brought me here, he agreed to open the door. Why did he want to ruin this for me? Isn’t this what he wanted? Isn’t this what everybody at home wants for me? To finally fucking act and not just waste away in my room?
“You can stand guard,” I replied gruffly.
Max put his hands in the air, took another look at me, and said, “You owe me a drink after this.,” before taking out his phone and turning the flashlight on.
I felt my anger vanish and we proceeded inside. We were definitely not dressed warm enough. As soon as both of us passed through the doorway, we took one last look at the forest behind us. There was nobody there to save us. We were alone. Maybe, I shouldn’t make Max do this. He was right. Something was very wrong here. I could feel my heartbeat fastening and my confidence replaced with fear.
Max took the first step forward and said, “At least the door won’t suddenly close on us.”
“I suppose so,” I replied following after him, hyping myself up. I wanted this. I needed this, I kept thinking to myself.
The first few meters were easy, as long as the light and escape were still clearly behind us. But we both felt it. There was a pressure here and the further we went in, the more it told us to leave.
We made it towards the end and indeed there was a split.
“Which way, boss?” Max asked.
I paused, shining my light in both directions. It looked to be more of the same.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked Max.
Max gave me an agitated look and sighed, “You wanted this, right? And I don’t abandon my friends.”
His words stung. I looked at my feet in embarrassment. “I’m sorry, I didn’t text or call.”
I could make out his smile and he replied, slapping my back: “It’s alright, bro. I get it. Gotta make up for lost time now at least.”
“Yeah…,” I responded weakly.
“So which way?”
“No idea. Got a preference?”
“Well, the left is one shade of pitch black and the right is another shade…I’ll pick right. Always my favorite side.”
“Right, it is,” I proclaimed.
We walked on, leaving the safety of the front door only in our memories.
Slowly inching forward, our flashlights barely made a dent into the void. There was no glass, no doors, just concrete and the linoleum floor.
After a little while Max tapped on my back, “Hey, did you notice something?”
I stopped, “No. What’s up?”
“This whole box wasn’t more than a few meters wide, right?”
“I did take me like two or free steps to get around.”
“Well…,” he held his arms up.
“How long have we been walking in here?”
“Exactly. How the fuck is that possible?”
“It isn’t it…”
Not only did this structure come out of nowhere, it also had complete disregard for the laws of physics. First, the light, which we simply waved away but now this? I was beginning to wonder whether this was worth it, after all, torn between my need for excitement and a basic fear of the unknown.
As if to answer us, our flashlights made out an irregularity ahead of us. It was another door.
We made our way closer to the door and Max slowly tried out the handle. The door opened into more black nothingness, where this time our light managed to illuminate even less. Max took another step and suddenly he was gone.
I blinked for a second, only to hear him scream and hear his voice draw further and further away from me. Running towards the doorframe, I only caught a glimpse of a bright dot falling further and further into an abyss, we both had failed to see.
“MAAAAAX!? MAAAAX!” I called out to him several times but he was nowhere to be seen. Even his flashlight had been swallowed up
I continued shouting out his name but there was no response. I was suddenly very alone, very scared, and very much ashamed.
Max was down there because of me, because I craved adventure so much in my boring unfulfilled existence that I was willing to not only risk my life but his as well. We both looked inside this alien box and knew something was wrong, yet I decided to go in anyway. Even, if it wasn’t dangerous, it was likely still very illegal. I’ve destroyed public property, entered a sealed-off area, and made my friend an accessory to my crime. A friend who had just been swallowed up by what looked to be a night sky without stars, utterly devoid of life.
Then I heard it. It was a faint moan, barely audible but coming from below.
I peeked my head past the doorway, again shouting, “Max!? Are you there?!”
The only response was more moaning. I grabbed my phone and tried to find anything to guide me. It couldn’t just be a giant hole, could it? I nearly dropped my phone, the more desperately I tried to make something out.
There was a little overhang, just past the doorway. I got on all fours and crawled forward, shining my flashlight around me.
Max’s moans didn’t cease.
“Don’t worry, bro. I-I’m gonna come get you!” I didn’t really believe in the words I was saying.
That wasn’t until I noticed something in the overhang. Just to my left, it went down but when I looked closely, I saw that the drop was only a few centimeters. I slithered to my left and tried to follow the small drop. Indeed, just past the first one followed another similar decrease. Steps!
They were hard to make out, seeing as the floor was as black as its surroundings but the texture was different. They didn’t particularly leave a lot of room to actually stand on, explaining why Max had so easily stumbled past them into the opening. If I was careful enough, I could manage my way down.
So, I stood up and took my first few steps deeper into the void, my flashlight as my only companion. Every move felt like a gamble. Would I reach the next step, stumble, or completely lose my balance and fall into the hole? I made damn sure to hug the wall, clearly cruved. It must've been a circle and a massive one at that. While I couldn’t make out the door where I came from, I noticed quickly that it took a lot longer to traverse this staircase, than I’d imagined.
One more step and suddenly, I fell. I either missed a step or there was none. Everything looked the same, like nothing. I almost felt weightless, like drifting through the cosmos. There was no sound and almost no draft of air resisting my falling body. If not for my apparent ability to breathe and scream, you could be fooled into thinking this whole structure was housing a dark vacuum, ready to swallow any outside life into its empty space.
I screamed and screamed as I fell but the longer I dropped, the less energy I had to scream. Flailing around in desperation, I tried to reach around me in the hopes of grasping a ledge, even if it would rip my arms out of their sockets. No luck. I just kept falling down that impossibly deep hole.
All I kept thinking was, how could’ve Max survived the fall? Did I mistake his death screams echoing out as pained groans?
But I would soon get my answer.
Trying to think back to it, the fall must’ve taken about 5 minutes, more or less. That kind of distance in the real world would likely see you ending up as a pancake, but in this madhouse, a fall like that simply ended up with a broken phone and you lying on damp concrete, disoriented and sore from a somewhat rough landing. No doubt, my impact still hurt but I was alive. I tried to sit up. My head was pounding and I could feel the scrapes all over my body.
I stumbled around in the darkness, stumbling over what I felt to be my broken phone. Turning around was like turning in a corn maze.
“MAX! MAAAAX!” I shouted. If he was still alive, he must be able to hear me, right?
“Julian…?” I heard Max’s voice somewhere from my right, “I’m here…over here.”
His voice sounded weak and scared, “Quickly.”
“I’m coming, bro!” I slowly made my way towards the direction his voice came from until I eventually fell over something.
“Ouch! What the fuck!” Max creied out in pain.
I scrambled and finally, my hands made their way to his shoulder. I couldn’t help but give him a hug.
“I thought…,” I decided not to say it.
“Bro, I’m hurt. Get off me already.” He groaned at me.
“How long did you fall for?” I asked, just to ascertain whether I was making something up.
“A few good minutes. Honestly don’t know how I survived, but I landed on my fucking ankle. It’s done for, Justin.”
“Let me help you…,” I reached around him and helped him up.
“Now what?” he asked.
I couldn’t see him. The darkness was too powerful, even more suffocating down here. But it felt good to hold him, know somebody was there.
I tried to force a chuckle and said, “Original exit is not an option anymore.”
I don’t know why but I could feel Max staring daggers at me.
He sighed and said, “Let’s walk in one direction, find a wall, and walk around.”
“Like in a Maze…”
“What?”
“The best way to escape a maze is to pick a wall and stick to it, no matter what. Sooner or later, you will find an exit,” I explained.
“Makes sense. Where did you hear that?”
“Internet. Spent a lot of time there.”
“I figured…,” He said almost wistfully, “What does the internet say about impossible, fucking, black hellscapes?”
“Don’t go in…”
“I fucking hate you…,” Max said.
Something dropped in my stomach, that feeling of having disappointed someone you hold dearly.
I asked, “Do you mean that?”
Max snorted and responded, “Depends on if we make it out of here, buddy.”
We walked and walked. Max’s phone also broke, so we had to just commit to a direction and hope for the best.
We kept going strong but soon both our bodies became weary. We became thirsty and hungry and our bruised selves were starting to slow down. Every moment we were hoping to just run into a wall and break our noses, shouting in pain and joy but that stop never came.
We barely said a word to each other, just holding out our arms around us.
I was the first to break down, almost taking Max along with me on my way to my knees. I couldn’t help but start sobbing. The was a constant back and forth in my head, as my mind raced from each moment I fucked up and what I should’ve done better.
Never should’ve entered the building. Never should’ve forced Max to come with me. Should’ve run out and asked for help when he fell…I should’ve never come back.
A dark thought passed through. If I had died in Canada, my parents wouldn’t have known of it for some time, staying blissfully ignorant and happy, thinking that their son was trying their best. If I were to disappear in these woods, in this hole, it wouldn’t take them as long. Their devastation, sorrow, and grief would come much quicker.
Again, when I think about it now, it seems like such a strange line of reasoning but in the end, I know now as I did then what my mind was trying to tell me: You’ve fucked up.
Max tried to console me, “Don’t worry. We’re going to make it. Other people have seen this place. Maybe somebody will come and find us.”
“I’m sorry,” was all I could get out.
“I know, buddy,” this time Max held me.
And so we just remained there for a bit, hugging it out, trying to get some relief out of our situation.
We would venture onwards, the reality dawning on us that the bottom of this hole was larger than we could’ve imagined.
At some point, we couldn’t take it anymore. Exhausted, we decided to take a break and sat down. Max, took his jacket bundled it up, and used it as a pillow to raise his ankle. I couldn’t help but look around, knowing I wouldn’t make out anything.
Eventually, my head felt weary and I followed Max’s idea and used my jacket as a pillow.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m tired…,” I responded.
“Yes. Fall asleep.”
“Hey! Don’t judge me. You sat down first.”
Max said: “I didn’t say anything.”
As if electrocuted, every hair on my body stood up and I became tense, my eyes staring widely into the abyss above me.
“What?” I asked.
“I didn’t say anything…,” Max answered.
We both stood up, gripping our jackets and each other.
“Just rest…,” a voice said again.
It was close, somewhere around us. It sounded human and comforting but upon hearing it again it was clear that it wasn’t mine or Max’s.
We started turning in circles, on guard for anything to come out at us.
Max whispered, “I say we run as fast as we can.”
“Got it.”
The voice appeared again, “Don’t run….be with me.”
It sent a shudder down our spines. It was different this time. Before it was a male voice, now it sounded like the soothing tone of a mother tucking you into bed at night.
“GO!” Max shouted and we booked it.
Admittedly, given our circumstances, we could've known it was pointless but our need to survive took over.
We ran as fast as we could, as fast as our tired legs allowed us. Max’s ankle wasn't helping.
Then there it was: In the distance, we saw a light.
There was hope and that propelled us to pick up the pace just a little.
Arm in arm, we made our way towards the bright spot in the distance. I could hear Max’s moans get increasingly more severe. He wouldn’t be able to take much more.
Then the light moved, ever so slightly.
I stopped us in our tracks.
“Shhhh,” I said to Max.
The light almost danced, left to right and up and down. We couldn’t help but follow it. As it danced it became bigger and brighter.
“Oh shit…” Max whispered.
We hunkered down, but we knew it was too late. It was moving towards us.
Oh shit, oh fuck, oh my fucking god,” Max was losing it.
I slapped his shoulder, “Get it together.”
With the light, a figure appeared in the darkness. It followed the light, almost floating towards us. We had to shield our eyes from the bobbing, ball that illuminated us. We had been in the dark so long that it felt as if we were looking into the sun.
The orb moved to be just above us and the figure stopped about two or three meters from us, its back still covered in darkness. It looked like a woman, pale yet beautiful and naked.
“Please stay.” she said, “I’ll make you comfortable.”
Max shouted, “Just let us leave! Please!”
The figure receded back into the darkness and reappeared behind us, now a man, just as pale and handsome.
Max gripped me harder.
I asked, “How many are you?”
The man responded, “Only one…but I can be many,” It looked at me and tilted its head, “Why did you come here?”
“We just wanted to explore…,” I said.
“You did. Your friend did not.”
My heart froze over but Max tapped my shoulder.
“I wouldn’t just abandon my friend like that,” he answered.
The creature moved closer to Max, “I don’t want you…You are no good to me anymore.”
Something came from the darkness and snatched Max. Even with the light, I couldn’t make it out. A black mass entangled Max’s legs and lifted him up.
I managed to hold onto him and a tug of war began, all the while Max was screaming. It nearly got dragged with him but after a while, he seemed to have been released and dropped back onto the floor.
This time he hit his head and was knocked out cold. I checked on him but apart from a pulse and shallow breathing, there was no response.
“Curious,” the man said, “The way you fight back…Maybe I misjudged you.”
It came closer again. I could hear a large mass dragging and a foul smell emanating from the man’s direction. I had to cover my nose for a second.
“What do you want from me?” I asked.
“Your darkness. It gives me pleasure.”
“What darkness?”
“Why were you drawn to this place? Why wasn’t your friend?”
“I just wanted to explore, wanted to do something.”
“Mmmm…yes…but didn’t this place strike you as unusual?”
I looked down.
“Yes. You embraced the darkness. Why?”
“You seem to know why.”
There was a guttural sound, profoundly unsettling and unholy. It sounded like laughter. Once again, the figure vanished and appeared beside me, now a young woman, closer to my age.
“You want to stay here, don’t you? Let the darkness around you match the one inside your mind.”
My hands became fists, “What are you talking about?”
“Do you really care where you are? The end would be just the same and just as welcomed. Your parents would be devastated either way.”
I twitched slightly. Did it know what I was thinking?
“I don’t want to fucking die!” I resisted.
“But you don’t care if you do,” it responded and it was right.
My body went limp and again there was that unnatural laughter. The girl took a deep breath and smiled, “Ah yes…Despair. Humans are full of it.”
“Human? What are you?”
The figure smiled and the orb lowered to be just above my head. My eyes widened. As I followed it, I could see a long, thin stretch of skin elongate towards the figure, which was now raised up in the air, and in front of me were eyes, large, black, and too many to count, paired with one enormous row of sharp teeth.
That was about as much as I could and wanted to make out.
It spoke again, its maw unmoving and its voice a cacophony of seemingly thousands of different people speaking in unison, “See me.”
I wanted to run but I knew it was futile. Besides, Max was still lying by my feet. I wouldn’t just leave him with this monster.
I couldn’t help but my body began to shake and I was beginning to hyperventilate.
“Yes!” the creature droned, all its eyes fixed on me.
Kneeling down, I felt the darkness encroach on me.
What could it do? Should I just submit? Maybe I could bargain to save Max and at least do one good thing with my life.
I thought about it. In the end, what would happen if I made it out of this? Nothing good. I would be back to my same old, miserable life only now with the knowledge that creatures like this exist. What if this wasn’t the only one? What if there were more? Why did I have to go inside? Why? Why? Why?
My mind was spiraling once again.
I could feel the monster drawing closer, soaking in my misery.
Why wouldn’t it just take me? Why make me choose? Was it savoring me?
I asked, “Why not just get it over with?”
“Mmmm…Simple. Your total submission is the ultimate meal, the only way to make you mine.”
“What if I refuse…”
It laughed and Its whole mass was shaking, “I am older than your human history could ever conceive. I will wait. Others will come and one day you will find your way back to me. I’m not bound here. I live in your darkness.”
“That’s it?” I couldn’t believe it, trying to hide my fear in a simple response.
“That’s it…You will remember me. He won’t. You will come back to me. Of that, I have no doubt. My darkness will always be there to comfort you.”
I took another look at Max and remembered the way he initially asked me to come out and now here he is, stuck with me and this abomination. Nevertheless, I couldn’t help but smile.
He really was there for me.
“I want to leave. You are just another thing in my life. Another thing I will get over, just like I always do.”
The creature drew back a little, but I could make out how its teeth were forming a smile.
“So be it,” it said and suddenly everything went dark.
And just like that there was light again. I was lying on the concrete floor in a room, filled with a huge generator and other electrical boxes. Just ahead of me was light, not some false promise but sunlight. It was the door I had broken down earlier, illuminating my face. In the end, unobscured by some kind of eldritch magic, it really had just been a small building to do with the power grid.
Max was next to me, also waking up.
“What the fuck happened? How did we fall asleep and why do we look like shit?” He asked.
I was almost relieved. I didn’t want him to remember but I also didn’t have an adequate explanation. I simply helped him up. His ankle was still messed up and we humped out back into the forest.
It couldn’t have been more than maybe a few hours, if even. The sun had barely moved.
I helped him back to my house, where I called him an ambulance to look at his injury. The entire time he was asking questions, I had no answer. I simply said that he tripped on a loose wire, twisted his ankle, and took me with him. He didn’t believe me but he also didn’t press further. I don’t think he really ever trusted me after that. Again, I could live with that. I had other concerns and I was happy that he wouldn’t have to live with what I had dragged him into.
While I would like to say it ended there, it wasn’t quite so.
What we went through and what I had made Max endure, the memory of it or not, stayed with me, sending daggers through my heart. Then there was the unavoidable reality of what that monster had said to me.
I tried to forget and move on. I even went back to Canada, trying to pick up my life. But I began having nightmares, constantly avoiding dark spaces and sleeping with all my lights on.
I recently even started going to therapy. It was less to get better but almost more as a declaration of a fight. That thing would not see me again. I had to get better.
Well, I still don’t have a job, which is partly why I’m writing this here, seeing what others have witnessed here, made me think it was as good a place as any to tell my story.
Therapy helped a little but my life is still not what I wanted it to be, but I’m trying to stay positive. Yet, I am afraid. What if I’m just lying to myself?
Every time, I feel my inner void getting the best of me, I try to think back. I think back to my family accepting me as I am and how my friend decided to follow me into a hellhole, just because he didn’t want to leave me alone.
Recently, I decided to take a walk through the local park, during the day of course. Passing by the bathrooms, my eyes drifted and Instead of the halogen lamps, I saw only darkness. I’ve convinced myself that it was stress, some kind of PTSD, but I can’t be sure. I put my head down and kept walking.
So here’s a bit of advice. Be happy. Trust me, I know it’s hard, but there’s always something. Find things to be happy about, because if you don’t something else might find you instead.

I’m sure y’all want me to get to the action, and I will. But first, I have to explain something. I have an irrational fear of teleportation. And before you ask, no, I don’t piss myself when I watch science fiction movies. It goes deeper than that.
I’m afraid of spontaneous displacement. It’s one of those phobias that you’re 99.99% sure will never happen, but it still stays tucked in the back of your brain. I’m afraid I’ll go to sleep, close my eyes, or even blink and end up somewhere I’m not supposed to be, like in the middle of a dark forest at three in the morning. Or all alone on the top of Mount Everest. Or maybe even an abandoned research bunker in Alaska, plagued by the evils of the SpongeBob SquarePants pilot episode.
You can run from a monster, and you can hide from a killer. You can get out of the water or wake up from a nightmare. But what do you do when everything around you is suddenly wrong? What do you do when one minute you’re cozy in your bed after a hard day’s work, and the next you’re standing, very awake, in the middle of a circle of mannequins in a decommissioned military base?
All this to tell you that the Rot didn’t exactly have it right where it wanted me, but it could put me right where it wanted me. So it did.
I only broke eye contact with it long enough to blink. My eyes opened, and my worst nightmare was realized. I was somewhere else— and nowhere good.
The darkness out in the desolate stretches of woods and farmland is something you never really get used to. It’s like burnt pitch: deep black and thick enough to drown in. When you’re out lost in it, it’s the kind of thing that makes you pray for the sun to rise at three in the morning.
I was standing on an empty, unfamiliar dirt road. It ran far past what I could see in both directions, and there wasn’t so much as a tire track. I’d walked through the dark a thousand times before back on the farm, and I like to consider myself a brave person, but like I said... this was different.
The fear was so potent that I could feel it pulsing in my chest. My mouth was dry as a bone, and my legs were locked in place. No direction was a good one— there was no escape. The sky through the trees was black and moonless, and the forest around me was dead silent, without even so much as a single chirp of a cricket.
I closed my eyes tight and tried to slow my breathing. A light rain began to fall, somehow only making me feel more gross. It rolled down my skin in swollen droplets, along with beads of sweat and maybe a tear or two. Despite the rain, the air was stale, like the inside of a flooded crypt.
I’d just brought myself away from the precipice of a cardiac event and panic attack super combo when the quiet night wasn’t so quiet anymore.
The sound was faint at first. But the uneven hoofbeats moving closer dropped my stomach like an astronaut roller coaster. They approached me slowly until they didn’t. My legs finally unfroze as I turned and saw the Rot galloping toward me with its diseased gait. Small pebbles and gravel stabbed into my bare feet, but I didn’t care. This road had to lead somewhere, and wherever it was, maybe I could lose this asshole.
I ran and ran, but was only met with more woods and more road. I wasn’t getting anywhere, and the Rot had gained on me. I could feel its sickly huffs of breath against my back as the rain began to strengthen.
Then, a voice. It sounded dry and dead, like it had traveled across a graveyard to my ear.
Yooooouuuu are a foooooool
It caught me off guard, enough that I missed a pothole and went careening into the mud. If the ground loves me so much, why doesn’t it just marry me already?
I flipped over onto my back as the Rot approached, its jaw hanging like it would fall any second. Black bile ran out of the hole in its skull where its nose would’ve been. Its one good eye traded the milk of blindness for the bloodshot of anger.
Flies buzzed around my head and tried to find a home in my nose, and I dug them out along with globs of red mud. It didn’t save me from the smell though, thicker than glue poured straight into my sinuses. Like a cornered animal, I bared my teeth in rage. The absolute nerve of this guy! Nose holes are sacred!
“And you smell like Oscar the Grouch’s jockstrap! Taste my foot, you fuckmuffin!”
I delivered a hard kick to the bottom of its jaw, which sailed high and off into the thick brush beside the road with a satisfying crack.
“Pop fly, motherfucker!”
As I sprung to my feet, it charged at me, screaming with half a mouth as its pale, fat tongue thrashed against its neck. Sharp pain radiated up from my ankle as I sprinted away; a creature of decay had no business with a jawbone that tough.
At some point during my run, I blinked, and was somewhere else again. I couldn’t tell if I’d done something wrong at some point or was just doomed to the necessary function of my face circles.
I was jerked to a stop by knee-deep water, almost falling face-first. If I had known where I would’ve ended up next, I’d have taken the dirt road again five times over. My feet sunk into the black silt of a midnight bayou, and the air filled with sound, almost like someone had pressed play on a remote. The cacophony of wildlife didn’t make me feel any better, though. The loudest noise was the territorial bellow of alligators. I’d lived near a bayou all my life, but this place felt vastly unfamiliar.
Mother Nature is perfectly capable of creating her own dangers without the aid of supernatural entities who want to see the flesh fester off your bones. I rocketed straight past being frozen in fear and went immediately to fight or flight. I started in the direction of what I could only hope was land, muttering “please, please, please” under my breath. Not like the hungry mouth of a reptile would listen to anything I had to say.
I only made it a few steps before the ground dropped from under me, bringing the water level to chest height. I saw spots as panic settled in. I know that most people say that’s the worst thing to do in a situation like this, but it was my quickly-shortening life, and I was going to panic as much as I pleased.
Suddenly, the sounds around me all died, leaving only the voice again.
Youuuu doooouuubt my poooooower
In the distance, I heard approaching splashes. Some black behemoth was steadily making its way toward me through the dark waters. Acting quickly, I sucked in a deep breath and sunk to just below my eyes. When in Rome, I guess.
The beast’s steps sounded entirely different beneath the water as it drew closer. Muffled mini-explosions echoed through the swamp to my waterlogged ears. When it reached me, all went truly silent.
It stood high above the cypress trees, with a head the size of a school bus. It turned its snout down to stare at me, its one good eye glowing white-hot, like a scorching desert sun. The mangled jawbone sat low on its neck, as if it had put it back on like an ill-fitting necklace.
Yoooooouuuu challenge me to my faaaaaace, little wooooorm of maaaaaaaan
It stayed there, staring at me, hooves as big as transfer truck tires unmoving in the muck. My lungs burned for air as my vision blurred. Hadn’t anyone ever told it to pick on someone its own size?
The need for air and the will to survive eventually outweighed my fear, and I surfaced with a gasp, just far enough to suck in much-needed air. Instead of snapping me up like I’d expected, the Rot only laughed and stomped further into the bayou and, eventually, out of sight.
Silence fell again, but not for long. It was quickly replaced by the bubbling uprush of water as innumerable corpses rose from the depths. Fowl… fish… lizards and snakes… beavers and squirrels... deer... a black bear or two… even people. Everything that had lived in or around it had been reduced to macabre pool floaties, riddled with decomposition.
The water churned just in front of me as something large and scaled appeared as the final rotten guest to this swampy pool party. It was the largest alligator I’d ever seen, faded from green to ashen gray. It was caked in algae and other hitchhiking plants, with open wounds crusted in yellow and red. Bile rose in my throat as I noticed how distended its belly had become. Rigor mortis makes balloons out of us all.
I tried to take a step back, but I felt the water somehow dropping down even further in the direction I’d come from. A massive cottonmouth slid out of the gator’s empty eye socket. As it slithered down its grimy snout, I noticed the single eye, glowing like tiny Wormwood in the snake’s face. Its mouth cracked open, and instead of fangs, all I saw was blackness.
I will haaaaave whaaaaaat I waaaaaant
I was sick of these party tricks. I picked the bastard up by the neck and flung it as far into the distance as possible. As if punishing me, I felt razor teeth sink into my leg below the water. I screamed and shut my eyes tight in agony. When I opened them again, I was somewhere else.
I stood on my feet for all of about two seconds before crumpling to the dusty floor of the house I’d been put in. Blood gurgled out of the absolute mess that was once my leg. I could make out the outline of serrated teeth along the edge of the wound. As I stumbled toward the wall, I almost laughed when I remembered my dad had sworn he’d seen a bull shark in Hoghollow Bayou the day before I was born.
The only light was from a dim lantern on the wall, left on during the night to make trips to the bathroom easier. Something tall and rusted leaned against the other wall, and I hobbled over. It was a calf hammer, coming up to my shoulder with an abnormally large hammerhead. I rested my arm on it and shifted my weight, using it like a crutch. Surprisingly, it held.
I knew that thing lurked in the darkness, just beyond my field of vision. I knew that by going downstairs, I was probably doing exactly what it wanted. But I was past the point of logic. My mind was playing only the Greatest Hits: “Leave,” “Get out now,” “Run,” and not much else. So I crutched over to the creaky landing and began to make my way down.
I only made it about halfway before my injured foot came down wrong and sent me tumbling to the bottom of the stairs. I landed feet first with a sharp CRACK that put my mangled ankle out of commission for good. Bone peeked through the bloody skin, and I just lay there for a second as the popcorn ceiling spun around me.
Not far out of my field of vision, I could hear the impatient stamp of a hoof, like my torture tour guide was telling me to hurry up! Well, whatever it had planned for me next, it could wait two-cotton-picking fucking seconds. I stayed there until I mostly didn’t feel like I was going to puke up my lungs, then I took the hammer and struggled to my foot.
I was standing in a kitchen that looked suspiciously similar to mine. That wasn’t really what caught my attention, though.
Laying more off the table than on, testing the strength it was clearly lacking, was an enormous horse. It didn’t take long to recognize Hephaestus. He looked a bit younger, back when he still could’ve gotten a job for Budweiser. Three figures sat around him at the table, lips and teeth stained with blood. They were eating him. Large chunks of flesh were torn from his hide, leaking dark red all over the floor.
“Hephaestus,” I said weakly, “what have they done to you?!”
His head hung off the side closest to me, and as if in response to my question, he lifted it and blinked his eyes up at me. He was still alive.
Half-digested apple pie joined the congealing blood all over the floor. The figures at the table, nothing but festering corpses now, looked up at me as if I was the rude one here for puking while they chowed down on one of my only friends.
“Join us, Portia,” croaked the woman. My skin crawled, both at the tone of her voice and the use of my old name.
“I’d rather sit on the Devil’s lap on a Sunday morning!”
The largest corpse grinned at me, complete with the rattling grind of dry, dead teeth.
“You look starved, little hen. Always looking starved. Come put some meat on your bones.”
I took a step back, and it felt like the entire room got so much smaller. All I could do was hope there was a door behind me as I inched away and that this didn’t become that one joke about three zombies, a queer, and a half-eaten horse all stuffed inside a closet.
The third figure opened his mouth to speak, but god, I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. I pressed my hands over my ears for all the good it would do, and screamed louder than I ever had.
Then I turned and ran, throwing myself into the door to the outside. I don’t know how I was moving on my destroyed leg, but adrenaline really is one hell of a chemical. The outside was nothing but cornfield, shrouded by low-hanging forest. Seeing corn in the middle of deep woods was an eerie sight. It didn’t belong there. I didn’t belong here.
I fled in no particular direction, searching desperately for an opening that just wasn’t there. The further I went, the more rotten the crops became. By the time I came to a break in the rows, my surroundings were little more than dried-out, weevil-infested husks.
I walked into the middle of the round clearing, wheezing loudly as my lungs tried to catch up with all the running for my life I had been doing lately. Strange patterns were scratched into the hard-packed earth beneath my feet, and if this was a genuine crop circle, I would’ve happily taken an abduction over this nightmare. Probing included.
Yoooooouuuur paaaaathetic rebelliooooon does noooooot phase meeeee
Like a shitty sequel that nobody asked for, the Rot crawled out of the corn. It moved low to the ground like a centipede, its joints making a horrible symphony of snaps and pops. Broken hooves cracked against dry dirt as it raced toward me. I felt something solid in my hands where it wasn’t before.
Youuuuu and your little friiiiiiieeend are piiiiiiigs to the coooooosmic slaaaaaughter
Your bloooooood will fester in forgoooootten cracks until noooooothing is left of yoooooouuuu, noooooot even a memooooooory
I took a step back, but I wasn’t running away. Maybe that was the smart thing to do, but anger gets along much better with stupid. My fingers felt over the butt of my gun, a trusted ally. The Rot must’ve sensed my next move because it charged at me much faster than it had been, lashing out like a cobra. I leaped into the air, narrowly avoiding the attack, but came down too soon. I felt the crunch of brittle spine under my feet as the Rot let out a bellow of agony. I almost felt a little bad, except for the fact that I actually didn’t at all.
“You wanna talk about pigs?! Welcome to the pen, asshole! Get chewed on!”
I whirled around and brought the gunstock down squarely on top of the bastard’s skull, making a sound like a frozen watermelon being thrown off a roof. I didn’t stop, though. I kept raising it and bringing it down until I saw the pale whites and grays of a brain long since used. One more time for good measure, and I closed my eyes with the force of it. As the butt of my gun shattered, I was standing in my own cornfield.
My leg was sore but not broken or mangled like I’d expected. I looked down at the gun in my hand. I had hoped the stock would be in pieces, and I would feel this overwhelming sense of peace and victory. But no, it was intact, save for a crack down the middle where splotches of black growth were beginning to invade. Even after I’d bashed its brains in, it was still out there, and it wanted me to know it.
“NEWPORT!”
Dawson and I locked eyes, and in the few seconds it took to blink the dust out of them, he had already made it over and yanked me off my feet. He held me bridal style and ran back into the house, slamming the door behind him and shoving a chair in front of it.
“Are you okay?! What the hell was that?! You were just gone, and then you were all the way over in the cornfield! I was so worried! Are you hurt?! Where is the ..… what happened to ……. are we going to…..”
His voice was slowly replaced by a constant, high-pitched drone, flooding through my ears and blocking out all other sound. The shock must’ve been extended-release, because I spent the rest of that night in a haze. At some point, Dawson pressed a cuboid shape into my hand. It was a half-melted Rice Krispie treat, and I assumed it had spent most of the day in his crowded pockets.
When my memories solidified, I was standing by the kitchen door. It was wide open, the cold knob firm in my grip. Dawson was sitting at the table, eyes bloodshot with a look of deep concern plastered on his tired face.
A storm had rolled in, and mixed with the howling of the wind and the heaviness of the downpour, I could hear that same dry voice as it crooned Dawson’s name. It was taunting me.
“You need to go.”
Dawson looked up at me.
“No.”
In the distance, odd shadows twisted just beyond the porch light’s reach. Every so often, it would flicker, and the shadows would dare to climb up the stairs, retreating when it returned. The dawn was on its way; there was faint light in the East, but it wasn’t coming fast enough.
“I want you to leave, Dawson. Go home to your parents.”
I hated how my voice shook like it was just another branch in the rain. The taste of iron filled my mouth as I chewed on the edge of my tongue.
“I’m not going anywhere, Newport. I won’t leave you alone here, not with that thing still out there.”
I like to consider myself a strong person. By design, farmers can’t be anything but. Beyond that, I’ve seen things that would drive most people mad. I’ve watched the ones I love slowly fade away and simply kept on going. But the hold I had on the shitty string that kept me together was fraying. My nerves were fracturing at the hands of the poster child for mad cow disease. I’d tried in earnest to end that thing, and now it was laughing at me out in the night.
I picked up the shotgun off the floor and leveled it at Dawson. He stood up, but unlike any sensible person, there was no alarm or fear in his face. My hands were shaking like crazy, but my fingers were steady on the stock and barrel of the gun, nowhere near the trigger.
“Wanna talk about why you’re pointing Alice at me right now?”
“Did you…. Did you give my gun a name?!”
Dawson cocked his head and got that dumb smile from the first time I’d aimed a gun at him.
“Yeah, I dunno, I thought it suited her. Also, Newport Jr . would’ve gotten me drawn and quartered.”
An ugly noise between a laugh and a sob came out of me.
“Stop distracting me! You need to get out of here! I’m not asking!”
The sky roared above us, loud enough to shake the walls. Dawson’s tone was annoyingly even. Somewhere deep down, I wanted him to yell at me. I craved an all-out screaming match, and I hated myself for it. The evil presence infecting my land was having more of an effect on me than I could fathom.
“Newport, I’m not just going to abandon you when you’re in danger.”
It called out his name again as lightning arced across the sky. The stock of my shotgun began to crumble in my hands, breaking apart like soaked woodchips.
“Don’t you hear that?! You’re in fucking danger too! It’s not playing games anymore! It… it knows that I care about you more than I care about myself!”
We were both silent for a few moments, staring at each other. I’d never seen a look of surprise that strong on Dawson’s face before. I couldn’t believe what I’d said, but it was true. There was no taking it back.
“You… you can leave. I can’t leave— not again. You have a wonderful family and so much potential and I just… Yeah, I don’t want to die, and the animals need me, but let’s face it, in the grand scheme of things, it wouldn’t be some massive loss.”
Even with the barrel still trained on him, Dawson walked over and put a hand on my shoulder. The gun poked into his chest, but he didn’t seem to care.
“Just go. I’ll survive, and besides. Everyone leaves me eventually.”
I lowered the gun, nearly dropping it. Dawson’s other hand rested on my opposite shoulder, and then suddenly, I was being pulled into a hug. I could tell his mom had passed down her anaconda grip to him. I’m ashamed to say that I dead-fished the hug just a little.
“Fine. I’ll go, but I’m not leaving. Don't you dare think that's what this is. I’ll be here the second you need me. I want us alive, but if I had to be dead, I’d want to be dead with you. Losing is better with company.”
He pulled away but left his hands on my shoulders.
“If you die, I’m gonna kill you.”
I laughed, and it sounded worse than a cat barking. Dawson took my hand in his and pressed our thumbs together.
“And for the record, the world would suck without you in it.”
I held his hand in mine for a second longer before shaking him off. I tried to sound firm and serious, but it just came out soft.
“Stop lying to me and just get in your big red truck and go the hell home.”
Before he had time to say something smartass in response, I herded him out the door, Alice in tow. But she wasn’t an empty threat anymore; she was an admittedly ineffective defense against what was out there in the darkness.
I walked back to the porch and lingered there, watching him wind up the road and making sure he didn’t pull any tricks. Out in the darkness, I could hear another dry laugh.
“If you hurt him, I’ll make sure that there isn’t even scorched earth left of you.”
Thunder growled above me as the wind whipped through the ponderosas. It was a challenge. It was a real gag that it could goad me all I wanted, but the minute I got an attitude back, I was taken on a safari through the nine circles of Hell.
I said nothing. I’d made my point.
As I watched Dawson finally turn off my driveway, that’s when I saw it. Underneath my feet, the porch steps were covered with mold. Things got a little foggy after that. My mind was filled with a singular purpose: to get rid of it.

Hi! I’m looking for some recommendations. I’ve been trying a bunch of bras and I have no idea why none of them are fitting right.
Here's the measurements I took today from the calculator: Loose: 27.5 Snug: 26.8 Tight: 25 Standing: 35 Leaning: 37 Lying down: 36.5 (my largest point here was up at the top)
The calculator gave me 28G/28GG which were too small in every bra I tried (super tight, ultra quad boob. I sized up to a 28H which fit better in the cups overall but I still can’t get anything to sit in my IMF. The bras I’m wearing now are Fantasie Rebeccas in a 30GG and the wires are definitely too wide. They fit a lot better before I seemed to lose weight only in my underband. Now they’re MASSIVELY oversized, but they sit about as good in my imf as anything I’ve tried, but the wires are to my back.
The best fitting bra I tried on band wise and general shape was the Offbeat Side Support by Freya but the wires didnt sit in my imf and the stretchy lace just kind of slid down my breasts in the five minutes I had it on. I also tried Comiexim from BOB in a recommended size but they were HUGE at the top, lots of gaping, so I’ve ordered the size down in a sad, desperate attempt.
I did an imf trace and I have average width roots, but they are long so I have next to nothing tissue wise for about 4 inches from my collar bone. My breasts are also pendulous and soft (i can push them completely flat with my hand even with the foam in the bras. But they are pretty dense despite that.
Thanks in advance! I really want a nice supportive bra that isn’t painful to wear because my current bras are getting less and less tolerable by the day.

The many hours my wife and I have spent bouncing and singing to our baby girl have produced some enjoyable adaptations of our favorite songs. Sometimes I feel like we're giving Weird Al a run for his money.
Some of our favorites:
"Lay Baby Lay" (sung to Bob Dylan's "Lay Lady Lay" - we love the Brothers and Sisters gospel version)
Lay, baby, lay Lay across that nice soft crib…
Stay, baby, stay Stay in that crib, just for a little while…
Why wait any longer for your meal to begin? You can have your milk and eat it too Why wait any longer for what you want? When it's standing right in front of you?
"Mr. Tummy Time Man" (sung to Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man")
Hey, Mr. Tummy Time Man, grab a toy for me I'm not sleepy, and my head could use some exercise…
"Golden Baby" (sung to Stevie Wonder's "Golden Lady" - and we don't even change much)
A touch of rain and sunshine made the flower grow into a lovely child that's blooming…
We can't be the only ones. What are some of yours?

I’m kind of weird I don’t have a favourite genre or anything. But some of my fav artists rn are..
Mac demarco Bob Marley Cigarettes after sex Tears for fears Tame impala Odetari & Dave
Also my favourite song rn is killing me softly with his song
I’ll give anything a try so please comment!!

In my case, I for some reason tend to gravitate towards 50s-80s music despite having been born in the 90s, and have a harder time gravitating towards anything beyond that.
For reference, I'll just list some acts that I like:
Little Richard
Beach Boys
Creedence Clearwater Revival
Doobie Brothers
Kool & the Gang
ABBA
KC and the Sunshine Band
Bee Gees
Village People
Bob Seger
Queen
Styx
The Romantics
The Police
Billy Joel
John Mellencamp
Electric Light Orchestra
Elton John
Pointer Sisters
Animotion
Alcatrazz
Mantronix
Bruce Hornsby
If you want it narrowed down by genres, here they are:
Classic rock
Funk
Garage rock
Glam rock
Hard rock
Jazz funk
Mellow gold
New wave pop
Piano rock
Pop rock
Power pop
Soft rock
Synthpop
Basically, if you listen to the soundtrack to Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, that's more or less my musical tastes summed up.

In this guide, I want to present my Vindicator build that allows me to casually clear 2000 Rifts without the aid of reliquaries (as long as RNG doesn't screw you over). The beauty of this build is that it doesn't require insane skills to use, hence I say "casual". Moreover, I think Vindicator is the easiest ship to play and enjoy the whole game: leveling, farming or endgame. Which is convenient as the same manner of playing will be applicable everywhere. The only thing it doesn't excel at is racing (but you can still bronze or silver all races, so you don't have to switch ships for that quest).
WHY VINDICATOR?
The way Rifts work, you are the only target. And you have to dodge, outrange or outheal attacks from all the enemies. Other ships have methods to do that, but Vindicator, however, makes it so that you are only one of many targets, and not a priority one at that! Therefore, you will have to handle WAY LESS pressure, and that's in a ship which is classified as a heavy ship (meaning, quite tanky by design).
Yes, there is a legendary Cargo Module (Bob) and a consumable (Combat Drone) that allows you to spawn an ally on any ship, but still, while others will have about 1-2 other targets to distract enemies, and that's using a consumable or a Legendary, one time use or long respawn timer, you will have 6-8 or even more, and you will be able to respawn them with ease. And that's literally Huge!
VIDEOS

• Video #1: https://youtu.be/KJbacY1-gAE
  • Demonstrating a 2000 Lunacy Rift clear and explaining the build.
  • Still using Front Shield in that one, switched to Teleport since then.
• Video #2: https://youtu.be/F1j\_UWBeweg
  • Some more runs and more in-depth gameplay explanation, beating hard bosses (Elite Redeemer Inquisitore one hate), handling harder gate modifiers, trying out Disintegrator in place of the Thermal Gun (it's surprisingly good).

THE BUILD:
Preferred stats: Expertise > Firepower > Precision >> Utility >>> Resistance

• Aim is to get ~3000 in each stat, in that order, juggling mainframe expansions as necessary.
• Hard cap is infinity, soft cap is around 4K, but 3K to 4K progression is very tiny, that's why we aim for that number.

Items:

• Obviously, you want everything to be SuperioStarforged or Legendary/Radiant.
• Primary: Rapid/Powerful Thermo Gun (must have: chance to slow on hit + chance to restore 2% energy on crit) (very nice to have 20% damage to ancients, but is very rare) (nice to have splash damage, disable shields) + Catalyst: Barrage
  • EDIT: After some testing, it seems that Powerful Disintegrator is a valid alternative. Possibly Rapid is fine too, if it increases amount of ticks per second (am not sure). Must have a chance to restore 2% energy + 5% per second up to 100% more damage. Same catalyst. A new section has been added at the bottom of the guide.
• Primary: Calibrated Shredder (Commander Set) (must have: chance to slow on hit + chance to restore 2% energy on crit) (very nice to have 20% damage to ancients, but is very rare) (nice to have splash damage, disable shields) + Catalyst: Barrage
• Secondary: Web Missiles (must have: chance to launch a free missle on crit) (nice to have quick lock + cannot be intercepted)
• Energy core: Equilibrium (Legendary) + Catalyst: Tidal
• Shield: Castiel's Protection (Legendary) + Catalyst: Commander
• Armor: Frontline Plating (Commander Set) + Catalyst: Repair Protocol
• Sensor: Visions of Decay (Legendary) + Catalyst: Tidal
• Booster: Recon Booster (Commander Set)
• Cargo Module: Wrath of the Fallen (Legendary) + Catalyst: Peripheral

Consumables: Nanobots Large, Damage Booster, Energy Shield x2 (or Combat Drone instead of the second shield)
Devices:

• Annihilator Virus (Symptomatic), Corrosion Injector (Mercy Kill), Teleporter (Scurry), EMP Generator (Hard reset)
• NOTE: Used to use the Front Shield (All day), but ditched it for the Teleporter. A section at the bottom of the guide explains why.

Passives:

• Must have:
  • Maximum number of active drones +1
  • Drones violently explode on death.
• My pick for other two:
  • Drones regenerate 1% per second:
    • Debatlable. Its convenient, especially outside of Rifts, but your drones will die way less.
    • Due to the Commander Set (3), it might be something you actually want to happen more often to get more shield refills!
    • But I like the convenience, and not having to hunt wrecks in combat is very convenient!
  • 50% reduced damage from drones.
    • Very good with the Commander Set (4), you can just ignore drones like these thermal or web drones or generic attack drones that strafe around you and shoot you, and in several seconds they join your team!
    • Without this passive some drones can deal some serious damage to you in those 5 seconds.

Perks:

• Exit Strategy, Play it Safe, Crit Happens, Critical Faculty, Exploitation, Symphony of Destruction.

PLAYSTYLE BASICS:

• Thermo Gun will be our main weapon. Shredder will be used against slow, big, armored enemies or in rare cases, when Thermo Gun is out of energy.
• Keep firing your Thermo Gun at all times. Just hold the fire button down.
• Keep all 6 drones alive at all times (don't bother repairing, just create new ones when there's a blank slot).
• Keep boosting sideways. Just hold the boost button down. Also keep alternating up/down movement to be harder to hit (I bound it to Shift/Ctrl to make it easy to alternate, and Space for boost). Also move forwards or backwards, depending on the situation.
• Use "Target nearest enemy" key, note where the projectiles are going to turn to face the enemy. Just facing in its general direction is enough, Thermo Gun will do the rest. Kill it, rinse and repeat.
• Devices/ULT:
  • Use Corrosion on cooldown whenever target is in range.
  • Use Annihilator several seconds after Corrosion was used and target is still relatively healthy or if you are currently getting hammered.
  • Use Emp several seconds after Annihilator was used or Corrosion was used and Annihilator is on CD, or if nothing is in range and you are getting hammered.
  • Teleport:
    • OH SHIT button: If you're hammered by enemies, no Warfare devices are off CD, a safe option is 3x Teleport, which will put you out of range of most enemies, or 4x Teleport, which means only Sniper Drones can reach you now. Turn back towards the opposition, reasses the situation, decide on priority targets and re-engage.
    • If Teleporter has full charges, you can use one charge at will to close the gap if enemy is out of range of your Annihilator / Corrosion. Keep the rest for the OH SHIT situation.
    • Helps with bosses that teleport away or boost away, and with ARC-like shockwave, A LOT!
  • Use ULT on CD.
• Learn the sounds and looks of the dangerous attacks that can actually kill you. Prime Okkar Protectors, Outlaw Proto Scouts and such. Immediately when you notice this attack being used against you or your drones, try to find and kill the unit. Otherwise, keep attacking whatever's closest.
• Consumables:
  • Use Energy Shield once your armor is mostly up, keep 1 for boss.
  • Use Nanobots once you took at least 50% hull damage.
  • Use Damage Booster to help you in stage 3, keep 1 to 2 for Boss.
  • Use Combat Drone once in Stage 3 and then second time on the Boss.
  • Remember, consumables are free in the Rifts! Use them!

BUILD EXPLANATION:
We are exploiting several key synergies with this build:

• Exploitation makes us crit more against targets with slow debuff, which we have several ways of applying:
  • Our weapons have a 2% chance to do it on each hit, and the fire rate of both is extreme.
  • Our weapon crits have a chance to launch free Web Missiles.
  • Our drones explode and AOE slow on death.
• Crit benefits us a lot:
  • Shredder deals 20% more crit damage.
  • Crit Happens and Symphony of Destruction turns crits into splash damage (which can also crit and chain!)
  • Crits generate ULT.
• Attacking fast benefits us a lot:
  • More chances to fire Web Missiles for free.
  • More chances to restore weapon energy on crits.
  • More chances to generate ULT.
• Allies make us VERY hard to kill:
  • Commander set makes our allies stronger, converts enemy drones to become allies.
  • Wrath of the Fallen spawns even more allies.
  • Castiel's Protection spawns two holograms when shield is down.
  • Commander's Recon Booster makes it even less likely we are targeted.
  • All together, we have insane amount of allies that take shots for us.
  • Wrath of the Fallen allies spawn and die all the time, triggering Commander Set's (3) which refills our shield completely all the time!
  • This means that even if we take a huge hit, and our shields or even armor is wiped, it takes only a little time to regain full shields, and then several enemies die and armor is back up again too.
  • Finally, I might be wrong on this, but it seems that if our shield fails, two holograms spawn, which do not despawn until Shutdown timer elapses. However, Commander (3) refills our shields earlier than that, and we have both full shield and holograms now! And if we get hit again during 14 seconds shutdown timer, it gets reset again, and holograms stay with us, continuing to redirect incoming damage!
• Play it Safe with three Warfare devices means we are invulnerable most of the time:
  • Each Warfare device protects from 4 next attacks during 5 seconds.
  • Spacing Warfare device activations about 3-4 seconds apart under heavy pressure makes us near invulnerable. When not under heavy pressure spacing it 5 seconds apart is optimal.
  • Corrosion can be used very frequently if reasonably weak enemies are targeted (drones, scouts, some fighters) (often can be used every 5 seconds).
  • EMP can be used very frequently if many enemies are close (5 enemies = 15s cooldown, 10 enemies = 5s cooldown).
• Visions of Decay makes Corrosion Injector deal insane DPS (~6k on up to 5 targets per activation, huge compared to ~10k single target damage from our Thermal Gun in best case scenario, vs Hull).
• We have insane amount of convenient "OH SHIT" buttons.
  • Every Warfare devices protects from 4 shots.
    • Annihilator additionally reduces enemy damage, and EMP disables enemies outright.
  • Consumable shields to save us when everything goes to hell.
  • Front Shield can protect from unlimited damage coming from one direction, we can turn freely where we want and still DPS with the Thermo Gun!
  • All that on top of not needing such as frequently due to constant full shield restoration and many allies taking shots for us.

Some other things to note on the build:

• Our weapons almost never run out of energy due to Energy orbs + restore 2% on crit + Equilibrium, so as long as we deal reasonable damage and kill enemies reasonably well, we never have to stop shooting.
• Same goes for the booster, which gets re-fueled all the time with Energy orbs + Equilibrium.
• Thermal Gun's weak relative damage is compensated by almost 100% hit chance, unlike most other weapons. Make sure to keep ideal distance - not too close!
• We have one weapon with larger energy damage for shielded enemies, and one with larger kinetic damage for armored enemies. Shielded enemies are usually small and maneuverable hard to hit targets, where tracking projectiles are ideal, while armored enemies are usually slow and big and easy to hit targets, where Shredder won't have issues hitting.

RIFT GATE MODIFIERS:
Don't forget you can just abandon a rift in progress. Maybe a good idea if you get screwed with worst possible choice, especially after Stage 1. You don't lose anything but time, and avoiding losing that will mean committing a Sunken Cost Fallacy here.

• NEAR IMPOSSIBLE:
  • Enemies explode on death - this kills your drones, leaving you defenseless. Also huge oneshot potential, since several enemies around you can die in a chain reaction. You will most likely die.
• VERY BAD BUT POSSIBLE:
  • Unstable bubbles spawn an explode - this kills your drones and you, huge damage, and is very tricky to track and hit with Thremo, while constant switching weapons and targets will disrupt everything you do with this build. Huge PITA. You will likely die.
  • Farsighted - you need to be close to apply Annihilator and Corrosion and EMP. Will most likely make you run out of Resolve, and maybe out of consumables, because battles will be WAY longer.
  • Cannot lock enemies - Thermo Gun is useless, Web Missiles won't autofire and are useless, Annihilator and Corrosion is unusable, you will slow enemies less and thus crit less. You also lose the convenience of having an indicator when the target is offscreen, or determining the closest target with a press of a button. You will have to rely on your Shredder only. Will most likely make you run out of Resolve, and increase your chance of being oneshot, since you only have one Warfare device left to use. But still doable!
• BAD BUT POSSIBLE:
  • Mines - this kills your drones, leaving you defenseless. Will most likely make you run out of Resolve, and before you have perfect gear and a lot of experience you will likely die.
  • Nearsighted - it's hard to keep THAT close to the enemies, but manageable. Will most likely make you run out of Resolve. Your drones often attack something further away from you and will deal less damage as well.
  • Enemies get 5% shield/armohull on death - big difficulty bump, but manageable. Will most likely make you run out of Resolve.
• INCONVENIENT BUT MANAGEABLE:
  • Enemies slowly restore hull - big difficulty bump, but less so than every enemy getting 5% everything or healing 20%. Probably avoid trying to down huge HP targets like because they will go down VERY SLOWLY. Not as bad on targets with reasonable health pools. May make you run out of Resolve.
  • Enemies heal 20% hull on death - big difficulty bump, but manageable. Less bad than restoring hull. May make you run out of Resolve.
  • Random item overheat - annoying but not really crippling. May make you run out of Resolve.
  • Enemy names hidden - harder to target "KOS" priority enemies, but you will learn to spot them by their hull/armoshield and seeing projectiles coming from them.
• NOT AS BAD AS IT SOUNDS:
  • Enemy hit points hidden - you don't really care. Overkill damage will be insignificant even if you fire extra Thermo Gun shots at a target that is probably already dead from shots in transit. I never switch targets anyways until it blows up. So all you get is knowledge of which enemy is armored or shielded, and advance warning when to prepare to switch targets, and which target is wounded. Not that important, since most armored targets are big and slow and recognizable, and other stuff is not very impactful.
  • Corrosion clouds on death - won't kill drones as fast as mines or explosive death does, quite easy to avoid yourself, and doesn't do that much even if you get tagged by it!
  • 50% more speed - surprisingly little actual impact!
  • EMP resistance - you can still use your EMP as before for the Play it Safe damage shield.
  • Detonator drone spawned on death - basically free loot percentage bump! Surprisingly easy to kill - often Thremo Gun projectiles in transit will kill it immediately, or it gets targeted next and quickly dies! Surprisingly low damage for a drone whose sole purpose is to suicide bomb you.

BOSS MODIFIERS:

• HARD:
  • Boss teleports away and starts healing
    • Without teleport, on high lunacy you can't reliably nuke it quickly enough, and once it starts moving, you can't get close enough before it moves again. The cooldown is ridiculously short, it's just nonsense, you get to attack the boss for several seconds and its 3-4K away again! Not to mention, it also heals. I think it should be fixed, because right now, only Booster or Teleporter device can counter that, and requiring the player to use a particular device as a must to succeed is a very bad design.
    • Still, you MIGHT get lucky like I did in the video, even with no Teleporter / Booster! :)))
    • After switching to Teleporter from Front Shield, this Boss is now hard, not impossible. Hard because it can Teleport too frequently and you can eventually run out of Teleport charges chasing it. It teleports about once about every 12 to 20 seconds. With good Utility, your Teleport has 12 second cooldown, with 25% chance to refund a charge, but you will use 2 to 3 charges to get back in range. So if you have to spend ~2.5 charges which takes 30 seconds to restore to get in range of a boss which teleports each 12-20 seconds, you can see the issue.
    • Another huge issue is that since you teleport after the boss several times, your drones are falling behind, and you're targeted by the Boss. Without Front Shield, its hard to survie some bosses like Elite Redeemer Inquisitor at close range before your drones catch up and the Boss switches targets. Annihialtor Virus will help with -50% damage an Warfare devices will block some shots, but be careful, since you can easily die at that moment (as seen in my second video lol).
  • Boss spawns bubbles and charges ARC-like shockwave.
    • If you have Teleport its fine, make sure you don't overshoot and panic lol! But still, will be the second hardest Boss after the Teleport Boss.
    • If not, or if on CD - listen for the sound cue. You will have to react very quickly. If you don't see a bubble forming close enough in front of you, quickly look around (maybe use Alt first for a quick glance). The timer is misleading, after it runs out the shockwave spreads slowly, so you still have time to get to safety even after the shockwave starts expanding.
• ANNOYING BUT DOABLE:
  • Boss boosts away
    • With Teleport you can always catch up because there is a slow wind up and the boss turns before boosting so you know which way to strafe around to prepare for it.
    • Without Teleport, close to impossible, as is the teleport boss modifier.
• FREE:
  • Everything else lol :)
    • Still watch out for boss attacks, as on higher Lunacy they can be very dangerous. This is what you bring those shields for. Drones should keep the boss aggro most of the time.

STARTER GUIDE:
So, what do you do when you are fresh 30 and have no items listed above?

• By the way, if you're not 30 yet, best way to level up is to keep doing Incursions, you will earn a lot of XP, money and also stack Reliquaries which will be useful later. Doing rifts before 30 is a waste of time, you want to gear up only when you're level capped.
• Also, you should get as many mainframe components as convenient for you, and unlock fast travel (explorer challenge) in all systems.
• While leveling, be sure to keep a Flak Canon (of any level) with "Mining" catalyst on you at all times, and use it to mine everything. Keep the best Peruser scanner you have looted on you as well, to scan for deposits. Farming all the deposits you come across will mean you won't have to farm for unlocking perks.

So, let's say you're 30, and you have no good gear.

• First make sure you have all the character perks which are relevant to combat. Including tier 4 ships, and building all the bypasses.
• Do Incursions if they're available. Preferably in Drake, as that's where the Commander set drops, and we need 3 items from it. Incursion farming explained below. Stockpile Reliquaries.
• Do High Risk areas (set difficulty to Very Easy if you want) (only Superior and Legendary difficulty is worth your time at this point).
• Sell all loot that isn't Superior. This is fast money to buy your T4 Vindicator. You will hardly be limited by any materials other than SuperioLegendary ones in your crafting.
• Once you have the money - keep visiting Kato every 10 minutes and rerolling passives then ship selection until you get the passives you want.
• Once you can do Rifts at minimum required level for your lowest Reliquaries - do them (in Drake, to drop the Commander set).
• The endgame is doing Incursions and then Rifts and farming better gear to do higher difficulty Rifts, doing some side stuff to keep it fresh (like exploring what's not yet explored, doing jobs or unfinished side missions).

STARTER BUILD:

• Your general progression with items will look like this:
  • Rare -> Rare Proto -> Superior - > Superior Proto -> Superior Starforged -> Superior Starforged with desired prefix (if any).
• Primary: Thermo Gun
  • Whenever a new Thermo Gun drops that outclasses your previous one, try to re-roll it to get desired modifiers. Read below how to re-roll efficiently!
  • Once you can afford, install Powerful/Rapid prefix catalyst in your Thermo Gun.
  • Once you drop a Superior Starforged with proper mods (or re-roll it successfully), install your Barrage catalyst.
• Primary: Shredder
  • At first, Gauss Cannon is fine too, but don't invest much in it.
  • Same business as with the Thermo Gun.
• Secondary: Web Missiles
  • This is the easiest one to get.
  • You really only need the auto-launch capability, non-interceptable and quick lock is a nice bonus, so you can just craft green Web Missiles and use them until something better drops. It will eventually, the pool of mods if very small.
• Energy core: Any balanced Core, preferably Tides of the Siren's Sea set (drops in Ceto)
  • You do not need huge weapon output, just any balanced core that is good in all 3 areas will do.
  • Aim for the preferred stats and follow the general item progression.
• Shield: Castiel's Protection (Legendary)
  • Do the missions that yield the legendary (info on the wiki) and enjoy your legendary shield!
  • Before that just any good shield.
  • Commander set shield is worthless IMHO but I see others use it, maybe I don't understand how to properly apply it, but it has both terrible recharge rate and terrible capacity...
• Armor: Frontline Plating
  • At first, any good armor will do.
  • When Superior Starforged drops, if you see the mods on it could be better, try re-rolling (again, read below first!)
  • Catalyst is very benefitial, install when you can afford
• Sensor: Any Sensor, preferably Tides of the Siren's Sea set (drops in Ceto)
  • If you're lucky, you'll get "20% more Thermal Gun damage" modifier which is insane.
  • Re-rolling for it is highly unlikely.
• Booster: Recon Booster (Commander Set)
  • At first, any good booster will do, but don't invest in it.
• Cargo Module: Any, and Bob if it drops before Wrath
  • Bob is another good legendary cargo module that dropped for me WAY more frequently than the desired Wrath of the Fallen module.
• For Perks, while learning and gathering items, you can pick:
  • Close Call instead of Exit Strategy if you feel like second chance helps you more than 25% damage reduction.
  • Unyielding Assault instead of Critical Faculty if you feel like extra 50% armor repair option helps you survive. In this case, use ULT only when damaged, disable ULT once 25% is depleted, and wait for it to recharge to have the repair available again.

RE-ROLLING:

• Developers intentionally allowed us to make frequent saves, as well as pre-determined all randomness in item generation, so that it cannot be changed by re-rolling.
• This has a direct consequence of re-rolling being predictable. If you re-roll three times and get three different sets of mods, you will get the same result if you re-load, and then ever re-roll this item at any point in the future.
• Some may consider this a cheat, but I think this is an intended clever mechanic. The re-roll cost is prohibitive enough, and this lets you only invest if you know you'll get what you want.
• Every time a good item drops, save the game and re-roll it as many times as you can afford to commit towards making it a better item. See how many re-rolls are needed to get what you want. Decide if you want to spend this many resources, or wait for the next item drop.
• You may also keep several items you know will be expensive to re-roll to see if you get a better item. If nothing better drops and you don't want to keep farming, commit to re-rolling the expensive item.
• Example how this works:
  • Your Superior Starforged Rapid Thermo Gun has finally dropped. Re-roll until you get what you want, count re-rolls required. Say, you find out it costs 20 re-rolls to finally get both "chance to slow" and "chance to recharge on crit" on it. Reload the game, keep it in your storage. You can commit to it at any time, and you know what it will cost.
  • Another one drops, and this one costs 15 re-rolls to achieve the same result. You no longer need the old one.
  • Now you can keep farming and hoping to get an item with the prefix and mods you want, or one that will be cheaper to re-roll. Alternatively, at any time commit and get your perfect item for the amount of re-rolls you have determined.

RELIQUARY PEEKING:

• In the same manner, the Legendaries in the Reliquaries are pre-determined. Once you stockpile enough tears, you can open your Reliquaries to "peek" inside and know what's there, then reload. This will let you prioritize what to use in the Rift, and what to maybe even dismantle.

INCURSION FARMING:

• Prioritize the ones in Drake to farm Commander set.
• Prioritize 1 or 3 beacon ones, because 2 beacon ones take about as much time to complete as 3 beacon ones, but 3 beacon ones have better loot, guaranteed radiant Reliquary, and a high chance of Legendary HRA to drop. Doing 1 beacon ones nets Reliquaries with lowest Lunacy requirements, which you will be able to open sooner, and can be done very quickly.
• Equip Destabilizer missiles.
• Stay close to one of the beacons and engage the enemies that are in range. Preferably no further than 1500 away from the beacon. Since allies hardly score, most likely your beacon will go defenseless first.
• When the shield falls, pop the Damage Booster and fire Destabilizer at the beacon. Attack with Gauss Cannon / Shredder (switch weapons and start ramping it up by firing even before you turn to face the beacon). You should usually one cycle it.
  • As you get better gear, you might no longer need to pop consumables, Destabilizer will be enough.
  • Eventually even an auto-fire Destabilizer will be enough, but no point risking it really, just fire one manually and you'll always one cycle it.
• Move to the next (most damaged) beacon and repeat.
• Sell all loot that isn't Superior (including HRA maps below superior). Soon even superior maps will be useless to you, and you'll only keep legendary ones.
• Difficulty level does NOT affect Incursions.

HRA FARMING:

• Not really worth the time spent, I feel.
• Affected by difficulty, so Very Easy makes them very fast to clear.
• But even Legendary loot is lack luster.
• You still have to do enough to get all the Catalyst recipes, and higher rarity ones drop lower rarity recipes, so you can just do those until you have them all.
• Legendary HRAs also drop Legendary crafting materials for modifying your Legendaries, which you may eventually need in the future, but not that much really.

TELEPORTER vs FRONT SHIELD:
After some further attempts, I have decided to go Teleporter (Scurvy) instead of the Front Shield (All Day).
It seems that the Front Shield doesn't help as much as I thought it did, as most of the enemies stop dealing damage to us as soon as we get on their tail. So once you spot a KOS enemy and beeline towards it, you're not likely to be hit by it again.
So it goes like this: you get alpha striked, you have to quickly react, find the worst enemy and focus him down. If you do, you survive regardless of the Front Shield against his attacks (as he doesn't attack you anymore but flees from you), and your survival is based on whether other targets (most likely not in front of you) can alpha strike you again, or their hits will miss or be disorganized, and you'll restore shield between them and be fine.
Also, Teleporter surprisingly helps with all that: in a pinch, spamming 4 teleports gets you out of range of everything sans the Sniper Drones, so, unless its a Sniper Drone or several that's wrecking you, this is a good enough "Oh Shit" button that lets you re-assess the situation and re-engage on your terms. Your drones will also go forward before you once again, and have another chance to-reacquire enemy aggro on themselves when you re-engage.
Teleport also helps you get closer and immediately apply Corrosion/Anihilaltion if your closest/chosen target is too far away, which is very convenient.
Finally, you will have a chance against boosteteleporter bosses now! And have way easier time doing the "ARC-like shockwave" Boss. But merely a chance, because from my tests, the boss teleports so far away, you have to burn like 2-3 charges of Teleport just to get in Thermo Gun range! Therefore, eventually, the boss may outlast you, since you'll run out of charges! However, every time you engage the boss, you will have a chance to get lucky and nuke him with your drone dying, so if you get exhausted, recover your Teleport charges and try again, even if the boss heals to full at that point. It happens surprisingly often, because every boss seems to have some anti-drone turrets, which are good at hitting drones, and drones keep close to the boss, so they happen to die from time to time. You just have to hope it crits.
But watch out for the Boss attacks, as you no longer have a Front Shield to deal with them! On Lunacy 2000 they can easilly chew through your shields, so keeping max Shredder distance and constantly strafing is very recommended. The ship that looks like a light bulb is the worst in my experience (Elite Redeemer Inquisitor), with its very thick and constantly damaging attack.
And yet another issue is that since you'll be teleporting, your drones will come later, and Boss will focus fire you. Can get you nuked, especially with the hardly dodgeable Redeemer Inquisitor projectiles.
THERMO GUN vs DISINTEGRATOR (BEAM LASER):
Apparently, there is one more good weapon out there I didn't care to try out: the Beam Laser (or even better, the Disintegrator, a better Beam Laser version).
The Pros:

• It can have a modifier "5% more damage every second up to 100%". Your main weapon damage will increase a lot! From 4K to about 10K!
• Its not that huge of an incerase, actually, since a lot of your damage comes from your drones, Annihilator and Corrosion, and it takes 20 seconds to ramp up, but still, its gonna frequently happen that you'll keep firing longer than 20 seconds, and it's a nice boost all right!
• It always hits, unlike the Shredder / Gauss Cannon, so you have another option of dealing with armored but small or far away targets, which there are some.
• The "cannot lock enemies" modifier becomes less problematic to you.

The Cons:

• Its rate of fire (hidden in the tooltip, but it's 10/s) is lower than your Thermo Gun 12/s or Shredder 15/s, so you will get less chances to restore energy.
• It cannot apply slow on hit, so you lose your build synergy there. You will have to wait for your Web Missile to trigger and travel towards the target before you start Exploiting.
• It may be harder to re-roll, since it has additional modifiers (like mining), but it also lacks some, so maybe it all evens out?
• You lose the ability to freely look around the battlescape, deciding what to attack next, you are way more tunnel visioned and its easier to get rekt by enemies.
• You don't deal damage unless the enemy is in your crosshairs, meaning you don't DPS while switching targets, you cannot pre-emptively start turning towards the next target while your current one is almost down, etc.
• You also have to actually aim properly, which may be hard for users without expert twitch skills. Not that hard if you turn aim assist to 1, but still, Thermo Gun is WAY EASIER.

I have compared those in my second video and I am well pleased, but still prefer Thermo Gun more. I will experiment again if a Powerful Superior Starforge Disintegrator drops for me.
CHEATS:
Not everyone enjoys farming or wasting time. But others consider cheating a "no no" or even something on the level of sacrelige.
If you don't want to farm items to unlock perks or modify equipment, or if you want to save time (for example, time spent travelling before you have the explorer), you can google "Fling trainer" for Everspace 2 and use that.
Something as simple as speeding the game up can help you, for example, re-roll an item 20 times in quick succession, or dismantle your whole inventory after several rifts / incursions, or skip wait period during gate jump animation, and so on, without giving you any unfair advantage. You just don't have to watch slow animations if you've already seen them, know them. In a sense, it just adds a missing feature to the game - like "mass dismantle" or "skip cutscenes". For me, personally, this is a godsend, I use 4x speed to quickly dismantle things and speed up animations I want to skip, the hotkey Num 0 for that is very convenient.
Or, if you're not interested in farming Legendaries slowly until the one build defining item drops, but only in learning to play and beating the game on hardest difficulty level with an endgame build, the same trainer can help with that too. Your choice! Enjoy the game the way you like it!
CLOSING WORDS:
Credit goes to Madouc from Steam for the guide I used as a base for this build: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3208243598
I want to express my deepest gratitude to the developers of this game, because you've made something amazing. It's awesome to play a story without any politics or equality issues forced in your face, the characters you've created are fun and interesting, (just love almost EVERY SINGLE ONE, and HIVE is the best), the world is alive, the game has awesome gameplay, variety, everything is just great, and I hope you keep adding various content to it.
My ideas/requests/comments on what I'd change/implement:

• Make every Boss modifier beatable without any particular device or weapon. Right now boost/teleport requires your own boost/teleport or a rail gun or maybe a cruise missile. BoosteTeleport CD on boss must be increased about threefold, or there must be a way for the player to pre-empt the target location (like, boss turns where it will go, charge the ability for like 10 seconds, so you can start moving in that direction, and then you can quickly catch up after its moved).
• Fix legendary drop rates (not increase, but change). Maybe make it easier for the player to get at least one of each 30 non-radiant legendary. Some, like Wrath of the Fallen or SH no-shield, are build-defining, and take forever to drop. Before it dropped for me, I've got like 10 Final Reckonings and 5 of many other guns, which I have no use for. It seems weapon, energy core and booster drop rate is way higher than sensor, cargo module, armor drop rate. Or maybe its just pure RNG, that's why I think it would be good to even it up at least somewhat, to let the player get the item required for the build in reasonable amount of tries. Maybe give the player more agency in what they want - like, let us choose the item type in non-item-typed Reliquaries by paying tears?
• Please make NG+! Just let us replay the story with increased drop rates. Just skipping the prologue, cutscenes where enemy levels up in areas, and speeches where characters join in. No special scaling needed, enemies are just level 30 and that's it, players can always increase difficulty to Hard/Nightmare if they want it.
  • You've already introduced "maybe I'm displaced in time, not space" idea. So let the player do some mission where they try to build a device that will move in time, not space, gather some resources for that, and it malfunctions and sends them back in time, so you can replay the missions. That's one way to put it, lore wise.
• Please make other activities drop the same loot, time wise, as doing Incursions / Rifts, when you are doing other content in endgame. At least when doing HRAs, missions, jobs, secret containers and random distress/bases (unknown signal). Maybe tie this to Nightmare difficulty, if you feel the need.
  • The point is, in the end, players will play the game until they're bored. The more variety - the better. Players will enjoy more of the game and play for longer. Right now, Rifts and Incursions just shower you with loot, and no other activity gives anything close to that.
  • I've got a bit bored after finally achieving 2000 Lunacy and went secret hunting and just doing some unfinished side missions, and the loot I got was just terrible. Yes, some items dropped some rares and even superior starforged and one non-radiant legendary, but overall, the loot from secret containers and encounters was lackluster. Even Legendary HRAs on Nightmare difficulty drop crap.
  • It would be great if time invested in any content would provide reasonably same loot. I mean, there is no skill or gear gate at Incursions, you can do them at any skill level with worst gear, so there is no reason for other content not to drop similar gear. But game would be so much more long lasting for many players.
• Endgame content destroys game economy.
  • The way loot works, in order to give player a chance of earning good item (starforged superior or legendary), you also shower the player with lesser quality loot. This makes the player earn insane amounts of money by selling non-superior loot, and you get millions very quickly. Trade is completely outclassed and obsoleted by this, which is a shame, because I enjoyed trading, and many I think did too. Maybe make it so that only several items drop, but of very good quality (all superior), or maybe make it so that theese lootsplosions drop items you can only dismantle, or sell for a very reduced amount (like, they're "ancient touched" or something and people don't want to buy them?)

Thanks for reading, and hope this has been useful.

Asked hubby what he wanted for the big 30
I half expected the same ole answer he always gives me "don't wast your money on me"
This fool, bless his heart, said he wanted a dirty sloppy ugly blow job..lol
I had every intension on sucking the man's junk, but the added verbs really had me laughing out loud.
Not to brag, but I suck a mean dick. However, when your lover ask for something so specific ya best start googling some new ideas.
Mens health magazine is a time and true go to. I like their frank male perspectives, and some of the pics they have aren't to bad either.
Go old fashion porn is always a good way to go too(though the site I've frequented since I've been able to watch two fucks fucking is no longer accessible in texas 🙄RIP Redtube).
So the big day is here and this man of mine gives me a very expectant, claiming smile. (I've never told him, but that look sends tingles down my spine).
I soak in that smile and straddle him. Knowing how he likes to get it started, I stroke my hands through his hair. Kissing his temple, his cheeks. My tongue finds his outer ear tracing from tip to lobe. I slide into his ear(he loves that I don't mind the wax).
It's first thing in the morning, but there's a sweat on him. Licking every inch of his neck, his column, I make my way to his chest.
His nips are already ready as I lick one and pinch the other(he's a weirdo but he's my weirdo).
By now, his junk is pressing so hard against my clit that I'm practically writhing.
My hand slips under fresh briefs(happy birthday) and glides up and down the considerable length of him(never thought I'd find a white guy packing so much heat..#little_miracles).
I'm not much for graceful transitions and I do a somewhat dorky shimmy down his legs until my mouth is poised right atop his dick, thrumming with anticipation.
The initial taste of him, the bead of nut already on his tip, I love it. It's the best part of the blow job. (I've teased him for an hour in the past, getting him hard then soft repeatedly just so I could taste his pre cum). After swallowing it I open my watering mouth, letting it drip down to his head, his shaft, his balls. (An already wet pipe makes it better for both). Taking the tip if my tongue, I work all that wetness in and around until his dick is sloppy. Then I put my lips around him, swirling my tongue , taking special care of that sensitive side, ya know which side I'm talking about.
Once I see him biting his lip I go down, completely to the hilt.
Now, I'm proud of my ability to do that, shits not easy and he ain't small lol.
My throats opened up violently(gotta have a little pain), he is completely mine at this point. I get into an easy groove, up and down fast and hard, stopping at the head, teasing it, pleasing it. My hand grabs him from his base and we team up. Squeezing him dominantly, I start jacking him off. My mouth doesn't leave his dick. I hear "fuck" drawled out above me so I put both hands on him, sucking at his head. His hips are bucking off the bed.
Right now he's getting a good blow job, but the fucker asked for a dirty sloppy ugly bj. There's only one thing I've never let myself do when sucking him off, one thing I knew he wanted, one thing I knew he needed today.
So I take his hand and put it in my hair(thats not the thing) he squeezes hard enough my eyes tear a little. He forces my head down just as he raises his hips. The gag is inevitable. He does this repeatedly, I'm barely able to get a breath down(and perhaps I'm weird to, but that's fucking hot). Up and down, hard and unforgiven. He's close. So I take my hand and cusp his balls, big and hairy(luckily I'm not a fan of the manscapping).
We're both moaning as his final thrust up is met by me going down with all I have, so deep it feels like he's in my stomach.
Now what makes this different from all the other blow jobs I give him is that I stay there, bobbing my head with out his dick receding. His balls are still in my hand and I feel them sputter as he cums. I'm gagging, loudly. Drool dripping down to his asshole, but I stay there because my babe wants a dirty sloppy ugly blow job. I feel it, it's more than a gag, I dont stop it. I throat vomit(not sure if that's a thing but it's what I do). It's thick, my eyes are tearing, my body is fighting me, hell I even tinkle a little(don't fret or say gross, it's no different from squirting). Just when I think I can't take anymore, I look up at this man, my man and his face... I did it, I fucking did. My man got his birthday wish. A dirty sloppy ugly blow job. So, if anyone needs any ideas on what to get your lover for a big bday...suck their dick til you're crying, throat vomiting, and peeing on yourself just a bit. I guarantee you they will love it..
-Jaynesdoneit

I've a few items that could use a better home!
Cash or EMT accepted! Shipping on buyer's dime! Can do meetups within Durham region, Scarborough, North York, or Markham! Am open to reasonable negotiation!
https://i.imgur.com/OLf7bcd.jpg

• WTFidea Bag 32 for 26ci HPA tanks, belt mounted. Multicam, gently used, asking $40
• Esstac DST Medical pouch, Multicam, in new condition, comes with 2x WTF MOLLE straps, asking $60

https://i.imgur.com/RtD5jef.jpg

• Titan digital lithium chargecharge indicator, comes with AC power supply, never used, asking $40
• WADSN Unity AXON dual switch, SF & 2.5mm ends, never used, asking $40
• Madbull Adams Arms piston kit, carbine length, asking $30

https://i.imgur.com/XoOWnRL.jpg

• 2x plastic M4 midcaps, 75rd capacity, $5 ea. or free with any above purchase
• 2x APS M4 midcaps, 150rd capacity, used once, asking $10 ea.

https://i.imgur.com/NCvL35J.jpg

• G&G rubber hi-cap M4 magazine, used condition, asking $5 or free with any above non-magazine purchase
• 2x metal hi-cap M4 magazines, used condition, asking $5 or free with any above non-magazine purchase