Hello there again, my Arcane and magical colleagues. Once again I am here to interrupt your scrying with a continuation of my life. Those who read, thank you for your time, I know I tend to ramble when I start talking, but it means a lot that I get to confess my previous sins in a safe place.
After murdering and dissolving the Goradel bloodline and stealing their entire workforce, I wanted to drive home the point that this was revenge from the hells coming back to bite them in the ass. As the manor collapsed into a pile of cinder and kindling, my hands started to glow as I shaped the flames into a skull.
“The blood of Goradel has been dissolved. The hells cheer as they welcome the newest occupants for all eternity!”
I turned back into my kitty cat disguise as people stared at the laughing fire skull, even putting some soot onto my fur to give the impression I had just run out of the place and was lucky to survive. I ran through some nearby flames to make it even more believable. I bolted the gathering crowd with a terrified meow, rolling into a puddle. I felt so gross, but I had to cover my tracks as much as possible.
What's worse is one of the village kids saw me and tried to approach me to help. She looked so sweet and just wanted to help, but I had to play the part of “scared and terrified animal”, so I had to hiss and swat at her as she approached. She seemed so brokenhearted, but I again had to hiss and book it away as fast as I could. I ran into the forest, and once I was out of eyeshot, returned to my normal form. I smelled so absolutely horrible, but whatever, at least no one would expect me of anything!
I pulled the last teleportation scroll from my hat, drew the final rune with my finger, and teleported back home. Once I was gone, the skull and flames disappeared from the burning kindle. Not only did no one suspect a thing, but now the blame could be pushed onto the hells quite easily. They saw a creature from the hell's attack and a skull just like the one from before, who else could have done that besides someone from the hells? Hehehehe…
Once I returned home, I gave Mona a kiss and started crying. I informed her of the situation that had happened with my leaving. I decided to tell her the ‘truth’ of where I had been, admitting that I had actually gone to the Goradel house for revenge and that revenge came in the form of stealing their servants and fucking up their garden, but that soon after I started burning the garden the manor was attacked! I told her about the bird, and the skull, and she held me close.
You know, looking back on it, I really was becoming a monster…Mona and I were engaged at this point- Oh, shit, that’s right, I forgot to say. Mona and I had gotten very close as roommates, and that relationship elevated to girlfriends after our first year of knowing each other. She proposed to me a few months back, and I happily said yes.
Regardless, we were engaged, and I had just told her a lie of this magnitude. We told each other small little lies as all couples did, “No no that dress is so cute”, “I can’t even tell you spilled something on that skirt”, “Of course I don’t mind if your brother stays with us a few days, family is important!” Your standard relationship lies. But this…I was a murderer, and now I was telling her I was a victim and letting her love me to comfort me!
Gods…I truly didn’t deserve her…
Word spread quickly of their death, and even more quickly that the hell’s had been the ones to do such a thing. Even in our town we were quick to learn the news, I think it had been a few weeks and someone informed us. I had done really well to hide my tracks, nobody even thought to suspect sweet Catherine Louise. To the outside world, I was still the witch who helped her townsfolk and occasionally protected them with her partner Mona. The servants were shocked to hear their old employers had been killed, and were just so grateful to me that I had saved them from a fiery fate…and I told them it was no trouble, that I’m just lucky they left when they did…
Don’t be like me at this time. If you’re like this now, maybe get some help, because this is not the kind of person you want to be in life, I really hope.
Life at Mardul Castle started to improve once our helpers got to work. They were quick to get a feel for things such as duties, who would be living where, what was expected of them and all that stuff. Even more impressive, our town was really coming to be quite the town! Before we knew it, Mona and I had officially been granted the title of Ladies of Mardul. We were ‘nobles’ in a way, but really it was just a title to us.

It felt very, very strange being granted such a title. Mona’s dad was a barkeeper, and my parents (gods rest their souls) worked manual labor and as a cleric. Neither of us had any noble blood in us, or had butlers, footmen and maids. It was a pretty big adjustment for us, especially having to call Mona by her full name when we were in polite company. I had always called her Mona or Emerald (Emmy for short), cause she was beautiful like an emerald, and she always called me Cookie because I loved baking for her. So, going from our pet names to “Ah yes, this is my wife, Lady Desdamona Torres of Mardul, and I am Lady Catherine Louise of Mardul” was so weird. 

As the years started to pass, Mona and I became a bit more involved in the higher society of things. We would visit other towns to spend time with the lords and ladies and try to find allies in case we needed help with anything, we were invited to elegant balls and soirees to eat, drink and dance with others of the upper class. Most of them were very kind, and I could tell they deserved their titles. I know it’s easy to hate on Nobles and Royalty, but there truly are some wonderful people in there. However, there was always the standout from the crowd…
We met many truly awful people who clearly were like the Goradel’s, coasting on their blood and using it as an excuse to treat others so horribly simply because they viewed themselves as superior. I think one of the worst was Torence Maris, he and his fucking asshole son…you don’t invite someone to dinner, and then try to seduce their wife while discussing plans! I almost killed that man when I saw Mona return almost in tears and say ‘we’re going, now’. Gods, my poor Emmy cried so hard that night…
Well, that part of me that desired to punish those who did wrong had started to come back again. Thankfully, it was not near as bad as it was years prior, but I did want to cause them some kind of pain or grief. This time, however, I cleared it with my wife and let her know my plans. She told me it was a bad idea, and that getting caught could be very damaging to our city’s image, but I told her not to worry as I was going to be in an entirely different form. She didn’t want to admit it, but I saw the little smile on her face as I listed off the names of the assholes I was going to be fucking with. I told her that I was not planning to cause them any bodily harm, just harm to their property, maybe even do like I did with the Goradel’s and steal their best workers. I promised to cause no bodily harm to them, and gave her a kiss as I started to work out my plans.
My plans were much simpler this time, and having multiple people to collaborate with my story made it even easier to cover my tracks. I would inform Mona and my lady's maid, Jezebel, of who I planned to ‘visit’ that night and the two of them would cover for me should anyone show up seeking information on my wearabouts. Was it the most noble thing to lie so I could do what I wanted and face less consequences, potentially even causing two unrelated people to join in my potential arrest and conviction? No, and as stated MANY TIMES BEFORE, this does not make what I did right. I am not a hero or arbiter of justice, I am just one mortal who was starting to become drunk with power.

But, regardless, I began my misguided quest for revenge against people I didn’t like. I started with Torence, and knew I needed to be smart about what I did. He had just harassed my wife, so if anyone was going to point fingers, he would have an easy reason. So, I started very small. I took on a monstrous form, either that of one of the many wyverns I had cut apart and studied, the Hell Cobra, or the Nightmare Corvid. It started simply enough, roaming the forests of their estate at night, causing people and animals to panic as I let out nightmarish noises to keep them up. Once they were sufficiently worked up, phase two of the plan took effect. I would watch them from their yard, and just stare. Nothing is more terrifying than seeing a 30 foot tall bird just staring at you from the front of your grounds, and then when you call someone to help it’s just gone. Finally, I’d start harassing them. I would swoop down at them or chase them when they were outside, I would damage their windows with rocks or branches, or destroy some of their outside possessions like carriages and gardens. Once I felt they were sufficiently harassed, or had spent a ton of money trying to get rid of me, I’d leave and move on to the next one. Again, THIS IS NOT HOW THINGS SHOULD BE DONE! Please, for the love of the gods, understand that! Either way, that was my schedule for each asshole noble that we encountered. I even got a name for myself, I was simply known as “The Beast”, or “The Shifter”. I liked the beast better, personally, because then that gave me the chance to make lewd and unladylike jokes to my wife. (Yes, penis jokes, and they’re still funny). 

The next few decades seemed to fly by so fast. If you’re wondering, Mona and I had discussed the possibility of children, but very early on in our relationship she let me know that it was not safe for an Archmage of Alchemy to house children in her body due to the amount of things she had to drink and test. She joked that she wasn’t even sure she could have kids at all with the amount of mixtures and tonics she drank in the past. Instead of children, we did as many of our arcane siblings had done in the past, and decided to become teachers for apprentices!
I’ll admit, it was a very busy life at this point. During the day I was Lady Catherine of Mardul, greasing shoulders and hosting parties to earn or give favors to those who needed help or we might need help from, during the evenings I was Mistress Catherine, teacher to novice mages, and during the night I was known as The Beast. I would find a target during our social outings, learn all I could about them, and then haunt them with all sorts of horrid forms. I spent my time
None of them were every hurt physically, but mentally I fucked with them, socially I stunted them, and monetarily they had received a slap to the face. This is how I should have done it before, but, you live and you learn. This does not make it okay, mind you. I was harassing people who were assholes, but there were definitely better ways I could have gone about it. At least I had a beautiful wife who helped me remember what I wanted to keep, and some adorable family. Vex had had two sons and a daughter, and Har’s daughter Athena was now a woman with her own little boy! I felt so old every time I saw Athena, I held her as a little girl and used to play with her, now she’s this woman and has a kid…ugh, time. Ralin and I kept in close contact, she was and still is my best friend, but she did like me and took on a mentorship role instead of a parental one. We got drunk and I asked her about it once, she said it wouldn’t be fair to the child or herself to watch them grow old and die. I couldn’t argue with that, that’s not something any parent should have to experience in their life.
This was my life for well over a century, and it was truly an amazing life. I did have to say goodbye to many of my close friends and family during this time, but…such is the price of Immortality. It truly never gets easier. Mona had remained as beautiful as the day I met her through it all, we had a network of apprentices and students that went on to do some truly amazing tasks, and I had reached my Grandmaster’s rank in Shifting and Polymorph magic! I was now able to shift between forms in only a few seconds, and had mastered my ability to speak and cast Expert level spells while shifted! I’m not just being nice when I say Mona stayed beautiful, by the way. Her Elf Blood was strong and it looked like she had only aged a few years, and I remained unchanged to time due to my immortality.
During our time together, and my time terrorizing Nobles, we found that many of those with horrid blood had raised their children up to be better to avoid being targeted by The Beast. I barely even needed to bring that form out anymore, all the higher class people on our side of the continent were now shaping up! So, with one enemy down, my stupid ass set sight on another enemy. There was one enemy that caused absolute havoc when they appeared, one who was loyal to their code and their code alone.
I was setting my sights onto the hells, and their denizens.
Mona and I had been discussing it for some time, there had been villages raided by devils and imps for refusal to pay for protection, or because a Warlock had an honest mistake and had ‘broken the contract’ without meaning to in the slightest. They were cruel, twisting their ‘deals’ to benefit them in a way where they could do whatever they wanted. So, we decided it was time to make them pay, and show that mortals are not to be messed with. Mona and I decided to come out of retirement from adventuring, and start to protect our lands from forces that sought only to do it harm!
This, my friends, is what we would usually call ‘poking the bear’. It’s generally not something that is encouraged if you want to, you know, continue living a decent life. But, we were young, dumb, full of fight and ready to try and kick the asses of hellions for the betterment of our world. It was a noble goal, but as is very apparent with my entire godsdamn life, there were much better ways we could have gone about it.
So, we started to fight. I was just shy of 242 years old, Mona was 160, but we still looked damn good and were at our peak! We started to do our research on what to avoid when fighting devils, what worked best, how to deal with them, everything we needed to take them down as effectively as possible. Once we had a bit of knowledge under our belts, we decided it was time to start our journey of becoming devil slayers! I thought we were going to be demon slayers, but apparently demons do not come from hell. Demons are their own, separate entity from a place called The Abyss. I know this is common knowledge now, but at the time I was very surprised to learn this. I know I use Devils when referring to them previously, but that’s because I now know.
We decided to start small, just to see where our power truly lay and if we even could fight these things. We had read about imps, the lowest of denizens of hell, and knew where a few currently were. The city of Sclaire had become the victims of imp raids randomly during the night, so we figured we’d do them a solid by trying to push back against this problem. We set out for the town, the Lord Ross and his husband Barrin agreeing to house us while we undertook this task.
I don’t mean to brag on our strength, but these imps were truly nothing compared to our might. Once they arrived, Mona threw a concoction of holy water and divine fire onto one of them and it melted in a matter of seconds. After that, I turned into the red canine wyvern form I had used to fight back the monstrosities of hell and made quick work of my share of them. The ground was stained with the blood and viscera of the imps in a matter of minutes, those who ran vowing revenge on us in the future. I turned back to normal, and set the bloody scene on fire to clean it up. My flames burned away the hellish remains of our foes, and then it was over.

We looked at each other, a bit underwhelmed by this display and kind of disappointed overall. But, we had to remind ourselves that these were basically fodder for hell. Imps aren’t hard enemies unless they swarm in numbers, and even then they go down fairly easily. We were a Grandmaster and Archmage, we were incredibly overpowered for the enemies we had just faced. But, it still felt good to know we had done a service to the town! We were now technically certified devil hunters, but neither of us really felt we had deserved it. So, we started doing our research for the next job. We learned more about the hierarchy of hell, who had control over who, how they commanded them, how things moved up in the ranks, all that. We were upset to learn that killing a devil in our world does not actually kill them for good unless you do something special like a soul-trap or soul destruction. Their soul returns to hell, gets recycled through the machine and implanted into a new body of equal strength to the one they had just lost. So, those imps were definitely going to come back for revenge, I guess. Eh, whatever, it takes a long time to move up the ranks and we’d just continue killing them. Maybe some research into stopping that would be a good idea… We started moving our way up the hierarchy ladder slowly, making sure to build up our name as an annoyance of hell as best we could. Our first year was very easy, we spent our time hunting imps, spined devils and chain devils that we were way too outclassed to give a fair shot. I’m not going to say we wiped the floor every time, we did have moments where they were able to get a good hit on us or were able to cause us some damage, but overall it was a very easy fight. One annoyance, though, was their immunity to my flames. I had to rely solely on my shifting magic and protection magic to be able to fight properly due to them being immune to fire. It was annoying, especially since the majority of my offensive spells were fire spells! I started to do some research on the topic, hoping I could find something that could overcome their fiery immunity or even shut it off completely. My search came up dry, however, so it was back to turning into cool beasts I had killed and dissected and using their forms to maim a bunch of terrified devils. I had considered dissecting and studying the make-up of devils, but once I opened up a bone devil I quickly learned that their forms were mostly just houses for their infernal magic. Without the flames of hell burning inside them, these were just weird looking vessels made of flesh, bone and organs. Plus, probably wasn’t a good idea to be running around in a form that most people feared and wanted dead, so that line of thinking and studying was quickly abandoned. Once we had reached what I guess would be considered the level of Sergeant for the legions of hell, we had begun to acquire quite the name for ourselves in hell. We had not taken out incredibly high ranking members of hell, but we had been able to take a lot of them out in such a short time-frame. As powerful as those on top think they are, a large portion of their strength is having disposable fodder to throw at problems and handle most things for them. We were causing that number to decrease, which was causing problems up the ladder. 

After our first year, we finally got them. We had a bounty on your heads!

We found out after a bone devil appeared in our bedroom one night. He held two wanted posters, one for Shapechanger Catherine Louise and the other for Potion Master Desdemona Torres. We had a price of 250 soul coins on our head together, quite an impressive sum! We were a real annoyance to them, it seems. We couldn’t help but cheer, even hugging the bone devil and thanking him for telling us the news! He was incredibly confused, pushing us off as he attempted to spear through us with his tail. I shifted my teeth into sharp daggers like a wyvern, grabbed his tail in my teeth and bit it clean off. Mona followed with a special explosive concoction she had been refining that seeped into the body of the devil. Even with their fire immunity, that didn’t mean they couldn’t be lit on fire. I threw a spark at his chest, the concoction lighting him on fire and causing the potion to heat up. It seeped into his skin as he screamed out in pain, his body starting to bulge and swell as the concoction did its magic. We didn’t want a mess to clean up, so I cast a spell of force to push him out the window. He shattered through, his body starting to crack and blister with energy as he continued screaming out in pain. In a brilliant flash, his body exploded into a glitter of magic and faded into nothingness. Once his corporeal form was gone, I decided it was time to test out my research. My hands began to glow as I set an area around the area where its soul would be. 

Immediately I started sweating, my hands burning as I felt the magic not course through me but more be forced through me. I had done a good bit of research on the magic of the souls, but none of them spoke of what I was currently feeling! I fell to my knees as I continued concentrating, the bone devil’s soul appearing as a floating orb in the area of my spell. I yelled out to Mona as the area around it contracted around it, now starting to tremble. “Get the bottle ready! This is our one chance!” It hurt so badly, it felt like my skin was splitting as I pulled the soul back to us. Mona uncorked one of her bottles, and in went the soul. She corked the top, a barrier of sealing surrounding the bottle as she placed it on her belt.
My arms ached as I laid on the ground, burns on the tips of my fingers as I cried out in pain. It seems in my eagerness to test my studies, I had overworked myself almost immediately and caused myself some rather serious mana burns…I’ve felt the burns of flames, I’ve felt the burn of hellfire, I’ve felt the burns of fires from the Fire Plane. This was a burn that I could not heal away, and I felt it running through my body. I tried my best to stand up, body shaking as all I could think about was getting back in bed and sleeping off this burning in my body. My muscles ached, I was drenched in sweat. I flopped back in bed as tears started to fall, just praying to whatever gods were listening that this feeling would end soon. Sweet Mona tried to help, but nothing seemed to make my symptoms any better. I couldn’t use my phoenix flame to numb my nerves for risk of causing further damage, so I had to just ride it out.
I didn’t get much sleep that night, even trying to get out of bed and sleep in the dressing room that connected to our bedroom so that I could let Mona have some peaceful rest without my crying and screaming. She wouldn’t let me leave, though, making me stay by her side. I wanted to hold her, I always felt better when she was in my arms, but just feeling her body against mine felt like knives scraping against my skin.
Morning arrived after what felt like years, my body at least not burning anymore, but it was still shaking. I could barely eat any of the breakfast our cook, Miss Graham, had prepared and spent most of that day sleeping it off. It took a full two days before my body finally returned to normal, but thankfully in that time Mona had started to do some experimentation with the soul she currently housed in her bottle. She began to study it, hoping she could find a way to keep it contained or even harness its power in some way.
As I’m sure is a surprise to no one, souls are an incredibly powerful source of power. We had heard tale of people being able to capture a soul and use it to power machines of war, or use it as a sort of mana battery that could be drawn from in a time of need, but no solid research could ever be found. We wanted to try and expand this research as best we could, but after seeing the catastrophe that was the simple process of getting a single soul into a container, we decided that this one soul was going to be all we got for the time being.
Remember what I said about poking the bear before? Yeah, we had moved from that to now slapping the ass of the bear and calling it a bitch. We had a soul from hell in our possession and were currently experimenting on it like mad scientists. This is what any denomination, organization, or species would consider a ‘dick move’. I’ve done a lot of magic in my time, but soul magic is definitely one that I would consider the most heinous act of them all. The soul is a sacred object, and trying to tamper with it is an act that you cannot take back. If anyone does not understand the soul, allow me to try and explain it as simply as possible.
The soul is like a pile of sand. The experiences and time we have with it in and on various planes shapes that sand into a new shape, or a new pile. Each grain is placed in a certain point for a certain reason, it has been shaped for the specific purpose of being what it is. I mentioned at the beginning how I felt the disconnect between my soul and my body, either through some divine mix up during my creation or whatever. My soul was designed in an exact way by the forces of magic, or the universe, or a god, or whatever to be the way it should be and I had to fix the other part with my own strength. Those experiences helped my soul take shape more effectively, cementing in it the truth of who I was and who I should have been from the beginning. I’d like to go off on a tangent real quick, if I may.
As many know, at the time I send this into the OrbNet, it is currently the celebration of sexual and gender expression known as Pride Month. Many like myself have faced the pain of uncertainty, discrimination and the occasional hatred for what we are. I did not express it in the beginning, as I did not want to write about my experiences too deeply (and yet here we are now, having taken up so much of your time already and definitely going to take more), but I experienced my fair share of hatred as well during my youth and studies.
Before I could fully harness Biomancy, as I now know it to be called (thank you for informing me, Percy), I would cast disguise on myself in my day to day life to try and alleviate the discomfort of existing. However, there were many with what is colloquially known as ‘Stanky Old Wizard Eyes’. These allow wizened magic uses to see into realms beyond our own and even see through things like illusions. So, while some would see me in my female disguise, there would be the old wizards who would berate me, saying that I ‘wasn’t a real witch, just a wizard pretending’ and that I was just misguided by ‘new age thinking’. Yeah? Well, guess who’s still young, beautiful and has a smoking hot wife while you’re probably a pile of dust and worm food, you crotchety old prick…
Anyways, sorry, this is all to come to one very specific point: My soul is the way it is because of my experiences. Every grain of sand was purposefully placed exactly where it needed to be. I know it sounds strange, but going through that experience allowed me to see the suffering people go through that are afflicted with problems beyond what I experienced as well. It taught me empathy more than I could have ever learned on my own, and helped me to see people not by their form or their past, but by who they are inside and who they are in that moment.
And right now, we were shoving our hand into the pile of sand that was this bone devil’s soul. It doesn’t matter that it was a devil, it doesn’t matter that it had tried to kill us days before, we were fucking with something that should not be fucked with. Sure, with some fiddling we could shape it back into how we found it, but this soul would be irreversibly changed for the rest of time due to our interference and prying. Don’t fuck with souls, you truly do not know what you’re messing with and one single grain of sand moved can cause the entire thing to collapse.
After the capture and imprisonment of the bone devil’s soul, the forces of hell started to take us as a more serious threat. Before we were just an annoyance, but now they started to view us as a real deal threat. Larger and more dangerous foes were starting to come after us. We were able to fend them off for the most part, thankfully, but it was starting to get much scarier. Whereas before we would escape with minor bruises or cuts, now we were starting to have serious injuries that needed to be healed. Bone devils upgraded chain devils, which upgraded to Ice Devils, who I could finally use my Pyromancy against! It was still a difficult fight each time, but now we at least had the upper hand when we fought them.
Another year passed, our names now cemented as opponents of hell. Our bounties had been increased to 500 soul coins each and an upgrade to Lieutenant to whichever devil managed to bring us in. Our efforts had been paying off so well, though. Hell Raids had slowed down immensely as hell focused their resources on trying to stop us, our crusade even inspiring others to take up the mantle of Devil Hunters and fight back against the lesser members of Hell’s Army. Through the year, we were even able to gather information and figure out how to harness the soul of the Bone Devil. We learned more about it including its name, rank, we even learned what Archdevil they served.
They were named Belgranon, they were a Commander in the army of Dispater. They primarily commanded imps, succubi, incubi and lesser winged devils, but they seemed to be a trusted member of Dispater’s forces. As we studied up on the Archdevil in question, we learned he was quite the paranoid Archdevil. He was very selective of who he allowed into his circle of trust, only taking those he could trust fully into his army. Devils often tried to backstab and cross each other for power or favor, so he had to be completely sure he could trust in someone that they wouldn’t attempt to betray him.
As we started to pry deeper into Belgranon’s soul, it started to lose its shape very slowly. What was once an orb started to flicker and occasionally turn into more of an ectoplasmic goo before attempting to return back into an orb. We thought nothing of it, thinking it might just be trying to escape, so pressing on with our next experiment. Once we had learned to harness the power of the soul, we decided to test it in Mona’s potions. We hooked the soul as a power source to her alchemical workstation, and she began brewing.
Belgranon immediately started glowing as potions were brewed, a distinct glow about them that even Mona herself couldn’t have accomplished. I decided to be the test for her first potion, a simple mana potion that she had brewed thousands of times. I stepped out into the yard, and my hands began to glow a bright red. My pupils turned into slits as my body started to expand, brown scales covering my body and a tail sprouting forth from my back. I was casting my strongest Biomancy spell, taking on the body of an Elder Earthen Wyrm. I let out a loud, intimating roar that echoed through our city and the neighboring towns. I held my head up high to the sky, my strongest pyromancy flying from my mouth as I exhaled a plume of dragonflame into the sky. The clouds dissipated from the sheer force of my flames, but it was already starting to wear on me. I quickly turned back to normal, my mana drained in only a few seconds. That was another of my ‘only in insane emergencies’ spells, as it gave me a single shot before I was completely spent.
I walked back in, head pounding as if I had a horrible migraine, and happily downed the potion without a second thought. As it flowed through me, I could immediately feel its effects. My mana went from empty to nearly full in an instant, my body erupting in a burst of flame as my Wildfire Avatar form took hold. It seems even my body knew it had to burn off the excess mana I had consumed, and I burned for well over 5 minutes in a form that would usually only last at most 2 minutes at full mana. The flames extinguished, but I still felt incredible, as if I had never cast any spells to begin with! Mona and I cheered as we saw the potential of soul harvesting, sharing a kiss and an embrace. She began to brew and brew more potions that afternoon, a fire of passion burning inside her that I hadn’t seen in decades. She made dozens of basic potions, now enhanced to levels no one could ever imagine thanks to the harvesting and usage of Belgranon’s soul.
However, after a passion filled day of brewing, we saw the effect it had on Belgranon’s soul. What was once an orb that filled the entire bottle and glowed bright had been reduced to but a small, burning and dying ember. We had created enough potions to last any normal person a lifetime and then some, but we saw the cost. As we watched the soul together, it eventually faded from the bottle. It wasn’t an explosion, or a bright flash, it just…disappeared. We uncorked the bottle, and truly saw that the soul had been destroyed by our meddling. Not only had we shifted the sands, we had taken it apart. There was not a single piece of Belgranon left, even the potions we had created did not hold a piece of him. He had been erased not just from hell, but from existence itself. The bear was now awake, and it was mad…
Thank you again for your time. I know it’s a lot to get through, but please know that it means the world to me that people find any interest in my story and allow me to get things off my chest and in the open. For those keeping track, my crimes now were as follows: Tricking a lich into giving me immortality, murder of the Goradel bloodline, harassment and destruction of property of several nobles and royals, and now the tampering and destruction of a soul.
The next part of my story is going to be a different one. I was able to find a log from one who…well, you’ll see. I was able to find a recollection that I think would give a better picture of this next part better than I could ever explain it. Just know that the next part of my story will be detailed from the perspective of another, but will still be part of my story. Thank you again, I love you all so much.

Psychology of GME Holders

In the context of recent events—Roaring Kitty's livestream coinciding with another GameStop share offering "resulting in" (i.e. having absolutely nothing to do with) a significant drop in price—and seeing all the same old mixed emotions manifest throughout our community, I'm reminded of a certain quote by Sam Harris (philosopheneuroscientist/author).
From a 2016 podcast with retired Navy SEAL, Jocko Willink, on bravery:

"Bravery is this maybe unique emotion in that you can’t fake it, because faking it is actually bravery. If you’re terrified and you’re merely acting brave and going through the motions and putting yourself in harm’s way—that is what bravery is. For a great many other emotions, the counterfeit version of it is, in fact, the counterfeit. But it’s the real thing if you’re terrified and you’re then doing the thing that you’re terrified to do."

"Yes, yes," Jocko replies, "To fake bravery is in fact to be brave."
This got me thinking of what we really mean when we tell each other to be "zen." None of us—or, none that I know of—are Buddhist monks, but many of us claim and potentially do feel a kind of zen calm regardless of how GME behaves. Nonetheless, the fated return of our wizard "DFV the White" genuinely tested our resolve. We knew "something" was going to happen. We know now "something is happening." Even while watching this all unfold, knowing all we need to do is to remain zen, that's much easier said than done.
\"Is this what it feels like to be zen?\"
With this in mind, I took a step back from my memory of the past two or three days, took a step back from myself, and tried to examine what's really going on, not just in our beloved company and our stock, but in my own head. Because, despite all my best efforts to maintain "zen" as a sort of detached observer of happenstance, I found myself completely exposed to generating the very same thoughts that some said "shills" force us to reconcile. If I were truly zen, would I still have these thoughts and questions? Or does being zen simply mean being unaffected by their appearance in my mind?

• "Why would GameStop (Ryan Cohen) announce an offering—an act that 100% causes a temporary drop in share price—during [what seemed to be] the very cusp of an unstoppable gamma ramp and impending squeeze? Isn't this what everyone has been waiting for?"
• "Does this mean Ryan Cohen is pure business? Will we only see him playing within the bounds of the established Wall Street game? Does he not believe what we believe?"
• "Even worse—is he USING our beliefs? Capitalizing on our pathetically predictable psychology?"

Clearly these thoughts are not helpful at all. Nor are these questions worth exploring or speculating about. They are the type of questions that shills present to us to break us down psychologically, to plant seeds of doubt. And yet, they arise in my own mind without having them shoved in my face by outsiders. Thoughts and questions simply appear in consciousness. I cannot choose which thoughts bubble up into my awareness.
\"Coulda shoulda woulda\"

• "I should have known GME would become volatile the instant we detected Roaring Kitty's activity on X."
• "I should have known GME would rocket when everyone saw blocks of 5000 calls being bought up."
• "I could have doubled my holdings if I had sold in the premarket when it went to $80."
• "I could have doubled my holdings if I had sold in after-hours the day before DFV's livestream."
• "I should have known, OBVIOUSLY this was just another 'pump the hype, sell the news' event, manufactured by market makers."

Etcetera, etcetera.

Zen, Fear & Doubt are not Mutually Exclusive

What does it even mean to say "I could have done otherwise" or "I should have known this?" If I could actually rewind the clock, go back to the state of the universe at the time these events began to unfold, I actually could NOT have done otherwise. I would NOT have known anything. The state of my mind would be just as unprepared as the first time things happened. "Could have" and "should have" are just words we apply to the present moment when we let doubt and regret overcome our minds.
And this is where the above idea about bravery applies. You can't stop certain thoughts from arising in consciousness. It doesn't mean you are not and will never be zen. However, if you can fake bravery while running terrified into a burning building and have that be true bravery, then you can fake being zen while observing—terrified—the volatile swings of GME, and have that become true zen upon reflection.
It may take days or weeks of reflection, or it could be a matter of hours or minutes, but if reflection regardless of lag time yields acceptance and understanding of these events and oneself, then you have successfully sought out the zen we are claiming to have. You cannot be zen without having thoughts of doubt to overcome. You cannot be zen without having fear to overcome. Having fear doesn't mean you cannot be zen. But fear is the mind-killer as we know. And all you need to do is allow it to pass over you and through you, so that only you remain—zen.
In the end, it is much more productive to have these thought experiments about the future, not the past.

The Destiny of GameStop

We envision a bright, powerful, wealthy and influential future for this company. We envision ourselves also becoming wealthy, powerful, and influential members of our respective communities. We see all the necessary components for this future to manifest currently falling into place. They may be scattered, or the vision may be blurry, but we trust in Ryan Cohen to organize them into the most powerful force the world has seen, akin to today's Google of the internet, or like the Amazon of the retail world, but even more powerful. Maybe even a new kind of entity no one has thought about.
\"Imagine a world without hedge funds\"
This is not exaggeration, because as we know, the amount of wealth that has been poured into shorting GME, into trying to profit from killing this company, is so vast that we need astronomical analogies to begin conveying it, to picture it properly.
Imagine a futuristic civilization that has harnessed the raw power and energy of its local star by constructing a spherical world around it — a "Dyson Sphere." Then, let's say that rather than allowing their magnificent technology to just passively collect solar radiation to benefit their world, they discover a way to aggressively and greedily "extract" even more energy from their Sun than it would output naturally. To their dismay they realize this accelerates the natural aging of the star, faster and faster, towards a state of instability. The outward force of nuclear fusion can no longer occur when all the lighter elements have been extracted and only the iron core remains. (Iron cannot be fused into heavier elements to produce energy) So the star reaches a critical point where the outward force of fusion stops and no longer counteracts the inward force of its own gravity.
\"Greedy Dyson Sphere\"
The star is massive enough to form a singularity. The civilization and its Dyson Sphere world at the event horizon is pulled towards the black hole, and all energy, minus any waste heat and light, that was extracted from their Sun throughout the ages goes back, whence it came.
As it will be with GameStop. This powerful hedge fund civilization is sophisticated. It has constructed an elaborate shorting system made to perfectly but greedily extract the wealth and energy of companies, accelerating them towards quiet, cellar-boxed deaths. And there are a reasons they do not construct these systems around companies like Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, Google, etc. Those companies provide enough "radiant" wealth that simply holding their stock passively is quite profitable. Trying to extract even more out of those companies would cause problems, because they would defend themselves (easily) and may even turn the tables on them.
GameStop was a perfect target. A little white dwarf that had basically exhausted all its fuel. A pathetic heat-death was just a matter of time. It could never go supernova, and most certainly was not massive enough to form a black hole. And yet, that little white dwarf did something impossible. It started to grow...brighter?
Larger?
\"Hedge Fund Collapse By Black Hole\"
Large enough and bright enough that the system—which had already been constructed around it, and cannot merely be deconstructed—is now trapped inside its gravitational pull. The system is doomed. Whether the fate of the system is death by Supernova, or death by Black Hole remains an open question.
Death, all the same.
And with the death of that system comes the true rebirth of GameStop, and maybe even of our civilization, as all the wealth and energy previously extracted is pulled back in, whence it came.

TL;DR:

Buy, Hold, DRS.

Zen.