I'm learning a piece that is pretty straightforward (I think it's right about my level) but is to be played very fast (at least fast for me, 168). The piece has long sections of eighth notes with a good nunber of long jumps often requiring big stretches with awkward fingering and rapidly moving the hand up and down that I'm struggling to play fast enough while keeping it clear and crisp. I'm making progress but slowly. I'm wondering, firstly if anyone has any general advice for pieces like this, but more specifically if there would be merit in learning the entire peice at a slower tempo (say 120) which I think I could manage pretty painlessly, then slowly bring the whole piece up to tempo all togther, or continue hashing it out a few bars at a time.

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My first week’s account seemed to land well so I will continue to share my journey as it is therapeutic for me and hopefully iof benefit to others. I am constantly surprised by the similarities in so many people’s journeys. On reflection that shouldn’t be such a surprise as we have a lot in common. Of note, I really enjoy reading about other people’s wins and equally their struggles.
In the week I also decided to share my writing with several close friends. These are people who I know in real life as well as from various personal development groups and programmes I am in and again I receive positive feedback from them which is always encouraging. I wonder about posting to my main FB feed or other small groups but for now that feels premature and although I have no shame about my actions part of me doesn’t want to invite the possibility of any negative comments even though the risk of that is low. In fact, not only do I NOT feel any shame, I am incredibly proud of where I have got to and central to that is me taking control of the situation and acting in my own best interests, not those of anybody else.
I am surprised on Monday around 5pm when what I take to be low grade food noise pipes up. I feel full enough and there is no real temptation to eat but I note its presence. Fifteen minutes later I rememberealise I haven’t actually eaten anything since 11:45 so it shouldn’t be a surprise that I’m feeling a little empty!! Questioning why I was hungry never crossed my mind. Go figure?! Solution, heat up my dinner and eat a little earlier than I planned. Job done and I feel full and satisfied.
My first significant side effect arrives later that evening. Marked tiredness hit me which also returned on Wednesday early evening accompanied by some mild dysphoria; not really food noise as such I was just a bit flat in mood. I was not particularly hungry but I did eat a few nuts whilst dinner was cooking; it settled.
Next morning (Thurs) normal service is resumed. I slept well, and awake bright and cheery. I realise that despite my positivity in the first 10 days, life still lifes and fluctuations in my mood are entirely normal and to be expected. Looking to the outside world to influence my mood is never going to work. Peace of mind comes from the inside out and that reminder of the Truth of how the system works is useful to me. I sit and meditate for 30 minutes before getting up and that again helps to ground me.
Interestingly this week the appetite suppression has continued for the full seven days as has the feeling full most of the time.
My 5mg pen has arrived safely and is sitting next to its friend in the fridge. I aim to go for five weeks on the 2.5mg based on my current progress but I am open to going with the flow and listening to my body. I am happy with my second week’s weight loss, another 1.5 kg. Down 5kg in 2 weeks and the 90s are in sight.

Hey guys, I've creating music for almost as long as I can remember, I never learned theory that much except for the very necessary stuff such as timing, scales and so on, but I think I might've forgotten to learn something very necessary, whenever I pick a scale to create a chord progression in I end up just going up and down the scale and just getting chords that sound higher or lower in pitch, and they just sound too flat and boring to me. Please let me know how I can get over this and what should I learn to get rid of it.
Thank you all!
Note: I do face the issue with bass lines and sometimes melodies too, which is very upsetting to me.

"You gotta know that there's an art to it, Ezra," Hitch said, cutting another piece of duct tape.
The sleeves of his weather-beaten coat were shoved all the way up his arms, to stop the fabric from falling over his knuckles while he was working, and goosebumps lined his skin. He was strapping a rubber chicken to the back of his truck, over the lens of the shattered backup camera, with the legs pointing down so that they hung a couple inches above the ground. There were dents in the hood from the crash last week, and scratches along the door from scraping into a curb. The chicken, hopefully, would keep him from breaking anything else.
"You can't go cheap," Hitch said. "The cheap rubber chickens only make noise when pressure lets go. That's no good. As soon as I back up into something, I want this chicken to be screaming like it’s in the depths of hell."
“Sure thing,” I said in a monotone, leaning against the side of the truck.
There were scrambled electronic parts piled in the back of the truck, the innards of a radio, a broken computer, tangled wires, a couple loose pairs of earbuds. He found the parts in alleyways or bummed them off his friends for a couple bucks or stole them from the vacation homes that were left empty for most of the year. Then he sold them for a profit at the scrapyard. Hitch had bounced between minimum-wage jobs for a while after high school, spending a couple months as a bagger at the grocery store or as a seasonal worker at the farm two hours down the highway. He'd never stuck with it. At the very least, the scrapyard got him enough money to eat and occasionally spend a night in a motel when he got tired of sleeping in his car.
Hitch pressed the last piece of tape in place and grinned up at me. "I've got something for you, duck."
The nickname came from when I’d broken my leg as a child and waddled around in a cast until it was healed. I hated it with a burning passion, and I glared at Hitch with the ease of twenty-one years of practice. He had a duck tattoo at the base of his thumb that he’d gotten in a back-alley shop as a teenager. He said that he’d gotten it to remind him of me, and the fact that I hated the nickname was just a bonus. It was shaky-lined, with an uneven face, but he loved it anyway.
The handle stuck when Hitch tried to open the door, a consequence of the rust collecting in the crevices of the car and running down the sides like blood from a cut. The car groaned when the door finally popped open, a metal against metal screech that had me flinching away. Hitch dug through the cluttered fast food containers in the passenger-side footwell, eventually coming up with a crinkly paper bag. He waved away the flies buzzing around the opening of the bag and held it out to me.
The last time Hitch had brought me food, I’d gotten food poisoning because he’d left it out in the midday sun for two days. The donut was squished slightly, and the icing was stuck to the bag. I still ate it, grimacing at the harsh citrus flavor. Taking Hitch’s food was an instinct engraved from the days when Dad had given us a can of kidney beans for dinner and Hitch had drank the juice, leaving the beans for me.
I rarely went hungry anymore, three mostly square meals a day and granola in my pockets just in case, but habits didn’t die easy.
These days, Hitch only brought me food when he wanted my help, like when he saw a place he wanted to hit but was worried about doing it alone.
I got in the car, like I always did.
We drove past the cluster of seafood-themed restaurants with chipped paint decks, the beachfront park where there were always shifty-eyed men sitting under the slide, the single room library where all the books had been water damaged in the flood last year. The change was quick as we drove across Main Street, heading closer to the beach. The roads were freshly paved, the concrete a smooth black except where the sun had already started to pick away at it. The three-story homes lining the sides of the street were crouched on elegant stilts, with space underneath for a car or three. Most of the garages were empty, with the lights off and curtains drawn in the house. Come summer, the streets would be swarming with tourists and vacationers, but until then, most of the buildings nearest to the beach were unoccupied.
Hitch stopped as the sun started to go down at a house that was leaning precariously out towards the beach, tilted ever so slightly, the edge of its foundation buried in the shifting sand of the beach. It certainly looked deserted, with an overgrown yard and blue paint peeling off the door in sheets.
Hitch took his hammer out of the backseat, hoisting it over his shoulder. It was two feet of solid metal with rags wrapped around the head to muffle the sound of the hits. Hitch squared up, bending his knees and holding the hammer like a baseball bat. Before he could swing, though, the door creaked open on its own, the hinges squeaking. The house beyond was dark enough that I could only make out general shapes, glimpsing the curve of a sofa to the left, what was maybe the shimmer of a chandelier on the other side.
Hitch lowered his hammer, looking vaguely disappointed that he didn’t get to use it. “That’s…weird as hell.”
“Maybe the deadbolt broke, maybe they forgot to lock it, it doesn’t matter,” I hissed, checking our surroundings for other people again. “Just hurry up and get inside before someone calls the cops.”
Hitch flicked the lightswitch on the wall, and the lights flickered on. They were dim, buzzing audibly and blinking off occasionally. The walls were plastered with contrasting swatches of wallpaper and splattered with random colors. There was neon orange behind the dining table, a galaxy swirl in the kitchen, and on the ceiling there was a repeating floral pattern covered in nametag stickers. Each of the stickers was filled out with The Erlking. Chandeliers hung in every room, three or four for each, and rubber ducks sat on every table. A miniature carousel sat in the corner along with a towering model rocket.
Sand was heaped on every surface, at least a couple inches everywhere. It was piled in the corners and stuck to the walls, and it covered the floor in a thick blanket. Our hesitant steps into the house left footprints clearly outlined in the sand.
Hitch took a cursory look around and headed immediately for the TV mounted on the wall. “Look out the windows and tell me if anyone is coming.”
I shook the sand out of the blinds and pulled them open, then had to brush sand off of the window before I could see anything.
Hitch was quick, practiced at finding and appropriating the things that were worth taking. He came back to me with an armful of electronics and chandeliers, dumping it at my feet before turning to head deeper into the house again.
There was a thump, somewhere upstairs, and then footsteps, slow and deliberate. Hitch froze at the threshold of the room, then ran for the door with me just ahead of him, sand flying out from under our feet.
My hand was almost brushing the doorknob, close enough that I could see the light from the streetlamp outside streaming in through the cracks in the door. My fingers touched the wood and it gave under my touch, becoming malleable and warm. I yelped, stumbling backwards, and the door started to melt. The paint ran down in thick drops, pooling at the bottom of the door, and the wood warped like metal being welded. The soft edges of the door ran into the walls until there was no sign of an exit ever being there.
“Well, well, well,” said a cultured voice with just an edge of snooty elitism. “What do we have here?”
The man was well over eight feet tall, with long black hair covering his eyes. He was wearing a yellow raincoat with holes cut out of the hood to accommodate the deer antlers jutting upwards from his head. There was sand settled on his shoulders and hovering around his head like a halo.
“Who the fuck are you?” Hitch said, inching towards a window.
He smiled, just a little bit, and his teeth shone in the dim light. “I am the Erlking.”
Hitch nodded, and seemed about to respond. I grabbed him by the hand and pulled him towards the window. I could feel sand in the wind roaring against my back as the Erlking growled in anger, the grains scraping harshly against my cheeks.
We were almost to the window when Hitch was ripped away from me, and I came to a startled halt. The sand had formed long grasping arms that pressed Hitch against the floral wallpaper. His wrists were held tight, and as I watched, a sandy hand wrapped around his mouth and forced its way between his teeth. He gagged, and sand trickled out of the corners of his mouth.
The Erlking strolled towards him, not seeming to be in any sort of rush. “You know, I’m not very fond of your yapping.”
He made an idle gesture and the sand wrapped around my ankles, tethering me in place.
“I yap all the time,” Hitch said. “Three-time olympic yapper, that’s me. Best to just let me go now and save yourself some trouble.”
The Erlking tapped a manicured nail against Hitch’s mouth, hard enough to hurt, judging by the way he flinched away. “But why would I ever let you go when I’ve gone to this much trouble to catch you and your sister? It’s so hard, these days, to find people that no one will miss.”
Hitch struggled against the sand, trying to escape and failing. “What do you want with us, then? You just said it, we’re nobody.”
“I’m fae, dear one,” the Erlking said. “I get my power from my followers. And I think that you two will make lovely additions to my flock.”

He flicked Hitch's nose and Hitch gasped. Feathers started to form on his arms, popping out from under his skin in a spray of blood.
Hitch pushed off the wall, using his bound hands as a fulcrum, and his knees crashed into the Erlking’s stomach. The Erlking fell backwards, wheezing, and the sand around my ankles loosened.
Hitch made desperate eye contact with me as feathers shot up his neck and jerked his head towards the window. The message was obvious. Run.
The last thing I saw before crashing out the window and into freedom was Hitch’s body twisting, his arms wrenching into wings and feathers covering every inch of his skin. By the time I landed on the concrete outside, he was a small black bird, held tightly in the Erlking’s hands. The whole building was sinking into the ground, burnished-gold sand piling up over top and streaming from the windows.
Thirty years later, I saw Sam’s Supernatural Consultation and Neutralization written in neat, looping handwriting on a piece of paper taped to the door. The tape was peeling at the corners and the paper was yellowed with age, but there was obviously care put into the sign, in its perfectly centered text and looping floral designs drawn over the edges in gold marker.
I knocked, hesitantly, drawing my woolen coat closer around my shoulders. I’d bought it as a fiftieth birthday gift for myself, and I took comfort in the heavy weight of it over my shoulders.
“Coming!” someone called from within the depths of the office.
There were a couple crashes, and the sound of paper shuffling. Eventually, the door was opened by a young woman with ketchup stains on her shirt and pencils stuck through her hair.
“Hi, I’m Sam, I specialize in supernatural consultation and hunting, how may I help you today?” Sam said, customer-service pep in her voice. She stood in the doorway, solidly blocking entry into the office.
“My name is Ezra, I’m for a consultation. I emailed you but you didn’t respond?” I shifted in place, suddenly feeling awkward.
“Oh! Yeah, I lost the password for the email ages ago. Sorry for the bad welcome, I get lots of people thinking I’m crazy or pulling a prank and harassing me.”
She ushered me into the office, clearing papers off one of the chairs to make room for me to sit down. There was a collection of swords along one wall, all of them polished to perfection, several with deep knicks in the metal which indicated that they’d been used heavily.
“So what can I help you with?” Sam asked again, more sincere this time.
“Thirty years ago, my brother was turned into a bird,” I started. I’d told this story so many times that it barely felt ridiculous to say anymore. I was used to the disbelieving looks, the careful pity. But Sam just nodded along, face open and welcoming.
“I’ve almost given up on finding him, at this point,” I said. “But I saw your ad in the newspaper, and…here I am, I suppose.”
“Here you are,” Sam echoed, smiling. She pulled one of the pencils out of her hair and took a bit of paperwork off of one of her stacks, turning it over so that the blank side sat neatly in front of her. “Tell me everything.”
I told Sam everything, and she wrote it all down, pencil scratching along the paper.
The last part of the story was always the hardest to tell. “I left him there. I ran and I didn’t look back.”
I had been to dozens of detectives and investigators over the years, once the police had dropped Hitch’s case. I’d been to professional offices with smartly-dressed secretaries and met scraggly men in coffee shops. All of them had given me the same look, pity and annoyance all mixed up into a humor-the-crazy-lady soup. Sam, though, just seemed thoughtful.
Sam leaned forward and put a hand over mine, carefully, like she thought that I would pull away. “Sometimes you have to leave people behind.”
I tightened her hold on Sam’s hand and drew it towards me, like I could make Sam listen if only I squeezed tight enough. “But that’s why I’m here. I don’t want to leave him behind.”
“Okay then. I’ll do my best to help you.” Sam agreed, finally. Then she paused, and said softly, “You know…I think I met your brother once. He might have saved my life. He’s certainly why I started in this business.”
“Really? What happened?” I asked.
This is the story that Sam told me, related to the best of my abilities:
It was a new moon, so the only illumination came from the stars gazing idly down and distant porch lights shining across the scraggly brush of the dunes. Sam’s neighbors were decent people who cared about baby turtles, so the lights were a low, unobtrusive red, and the ocean sloshed like blood. Sam walked on the beach almost every night, drawing back the gauzy pink curtains and clambering out her bedroom window. She didn’t often bother to be quiet; her mama worked the late shift and came home exhausted. As long as Sam got home before the sun, her mama would never find out that she paced the shoreline and dreamed of inhaling sand until her lungs became their own beach.
The sky was lightening. The sun would come up soon, and that meant Sam’s time on the beach was over. She needed to get back to her real life, go to her fifth grade class and stop that nonsense, as her mother would say. Her mother loved to say things like that, pushing Sam into her proper place by implication alone.
“She’s a good kid, of course, but she’s a bit…” Her mother would trail off there, usually getting a commiserating expression from whoever she was talking to. Sam always wondered how that sentence would have finished. She’s a bit strange, maybe. She’s a bit intense. She’s a bit abrasive. She’s quiet enough but when Jason tried to steal her pencil in math class, she stabbed him in the hand so hard that the lead tattooed him.
Her mother was better, for the most part. The days of her stocking up the fridge, and leaving a post-it note on the counter, and leaving for days at a time were gone. But Sam still stepped around the place on the kitchen tile where her mother had collapsed and caved her head in, even though the bloodstains had been replaced with new tile.
“Your auntie got an abortion, you know,” her mother had said from her place on the couch, slurring her words. “Pill in the mail and then bam, no more baby.”
She had clapped her hands together to illustrate her point. Her mother jerked forward and grabbed Sam by the wrist, then, staring up at her until Sam met her eyes.
“I love you, you know? But sometimes I wonder…” She settled back onto the couch. “Yeah. I wonder.”
She’d gotten up, then, back to the kitchen. She’d been stumbling, a shambling zombie of a woman. The ground in the entryway of the kitchen was raised, ever so slightly, and her mother went down hard. Her head cracked against the tile, chin first, and she didn’t move.
Sam had been the one to call the ambulance. She had stared at the scattering of loose teeth on the ground while she waited, and considered what her life would be like with a dead mom. Not so bad, she thought, and immediately felt guilty for it.
Her mom was better, now, for the most part. But Sam still stepped around the place on the kitchen floor where she had collapsed. There was still a matchbox hidden under her bed with the gleaming shine of her mother’s lost teeth, two canines and a molar. It was nice, having a piece of her mom to keep. Even if she left again, Sam would still have part of her.
Sam sighed, and turned away from the ocean. As she faced towards the low dunes further up the beach, she saw a sandcastle sitting nestled among them. It was such a strange sight that her eyes skipped over it at first, almost automatically, disregarding it because it was so out of place.
Sam found sandcastles out on the beach sometimes, usually half-collapsed and on the verge of being washed away by the waves, but she had never seen anything like the sandcastle in front of her. It was life-sized, something that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the Scottish highlands, with spires shooting up above her head and carefully etched out bricks lining each side. The front wall was dominated by an arched set of double doors, twice her height, with a portcullis nestled at the top, ready to be dropped. All of it was lovingly detailed, down to the rust on the tips of the towers and the wood grain of the door. It was made out of wet, densely-packed sand, held together impossibly. It had not been there two hours ago, when she had come to the beach.
There was a bird sitting on the overhang of the door, small and black.
As soon as she took a step towards the sandcastle, the bird shook out its feathers and swooped down towards Sam, landing at her feet with a little stumble.
“Hey, kid, get out of here,” said the bird.
Sam closed her eyes, very deliberately. When she opened them, the bird was still there. Sam considered herself a very reasonable person, so she immediately drew the most logical conclusion. The bird was, she was almost certain, a demon.
“Trust me, you don’t want to run into Mr. Salty, the queen bitch himself,” the bird said.
“Mr. Salty?” Sam inquired, polite as she knew how to be. She edged to the side, trying to get a good angle to kick the bird like a soccer ball.
The bird did something similar to a wince, all its feathers fluffing up then settling back down. “Ah, don’t call him that. He’d turn you into a toad.”
The bird gestured with its head, towards the looming sand structure. “That’s his castle. He’s in there, probably scuttling along the ceiling or some shit because that’s the sort of weirdo he is.”
Sam nodded, encouraging. She pulled back her foot and lined up her shot, the way she’d seen athletes do on TV. She aimed right for its sharp beak and let loose. The bird saw it coming, its beady eyes widening, and it cawed in distress. It flapped away, avoiding her kick only to fall backward into the sand in a scramble of wings.
“What’s your fucking problem?” it squawked. “I was trying to help you!”
“I don’t need the help of a demon,” Sam yelled, trying to remember the exorcism that her mama had taught her once, because her mama believed in being prepared for anything.
“I’m not a demon,” the bird said indignantly.
It was at about that moment that Sam gave up and just decided to roll with it.
“What are you, then?” Sam asked.
The bird shuffled its clawed feet, looking about as awkward as it could, given that it didn’t really have recognizable facial expressions. “Technically I’m a familiar of the Erlking, prince of the fae, but I prefer to be called Hitch.”
“You can’t blame me for assuming, though,” Sam said. “Ravens do tend to be associated with murder.”
“Hey, excuse you,” Hitch said. “I’m a rook, not a raven. Ravens are way bigger.”
“Sure,” Sam said, not really paying attention. Her eyes had caught on the details of the sandcastle, and she was transfixed by the slow spirals of the sand, the strange beauty of it. She found herself stepping towards the great doors, lifting a hand to knock, and as she did, the sand warped in front of her eyes, heaving itself towards her with bulging slowness. The door creaked open before her, revealing a vast, empty room. Just before she stepped inside, she felt a piercing pain in her foot, and she yelped, leaping backwards.
Hitch pecked her again, really digging his beak in. “Don’t be an idiot.”
Sam glared at him, rubbing her foot. About to retort, she finally really took in the room inside the sandcastle, and her words died in her throat.
There was a body just past the threshold of the door, face down and limbs hanging limp at its sides. Long hair splayed out in a halo around its head.
“Don’t,” Hitch warned, suddenly serious. “Just leave, kid, I mean it. I’ve seen too many people go down this road and you don’t want to be one of them.”
Sam ignored him. She made her way across the beach, slipping with every step. The sand felt deeper, piling up around her feet in silent drifts. She picked up the nearest stick and poked the body with it through the door, ready to leap back if anything went wrong, staying firmly outside of the sandcastle.
This close, Sam could tell that it used to be a woman. Her head wasn’t attached to her body. It hadn’t been a clean amputation, either. Her upper body was bruised, with chunks taken out of it, and the bones in her neck hung mangled, not connected to anything.
“Well, I warned you,” Hitch said, defeated. “I did warn you.”
Sam nudged the head with the end of the stick, nudging it over so that she could see the face. Her mother stared back at her, torn to pieces, breath still wheezing from her lungs. She wasn’t blinking, just gazing forward with glazed eyes. Sweat dripped down from her hairline.
Sam screamed and dropped the stick, tripping over herself in her haste to get away.
Her mother’s eyes were wide and pleading, and she was mouthing desperate words at Sam. Her vocal cords were broken to bits, and the only sound that came out was a strained groan.
The head rolled, inching closer to Sam like a grotesque caterpillar.
Her mother gasped for air, torn lips fluttering. Finally, comprehensible words came out. “Help. Help me, daughter.”
“That’s not your mother,” Hitch said, quiet.
Sam knew that. Her mother was sleeping back at home, and anyways her mom had never asked for her help. She had an aversion to accepting charity, as she put it.
“Okay,” Sam said, shaking all over. “Okay.”
She backed away from the sandcastle, not looking away.
“Failure,” her mother hissed as she stepped away. “I never wanted a daughter like you.”
The sun came up over the horizon. The sandcastle, Hitch, and her mom all disintegrated into sand as the light hit them.
The beach, the next night, was almost exactly how I remembered it. The beams of our flashlights sent light bouncing across the dunes, illuminating the waves, and I imagined faces in the foam of the waves.
“I’ve been back here a hundred times. There’s nothing left,” I said.
Sam took the car key out of her purse and pointed it at the sand, adjusting the sword slung over her shoulder in order to do it. The key had belonged to Hitch; Sam had requested an item of his, and it was the only thing I had left. She rested the key on the sand and drew a circle around it, inscribing symbols around the borders.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
Sam shrugged. “Not much, really. I’m…I guess you could say that I’m knocking.”
The key laid inert on the sand for long enough that I was just about to give up and go home, admit to myself that Hitch was dead and that I was a fool to believe that Sam could actually help me. Then a building started to take shape, flickering in and out like it was struggling to get away. With a pop of displaced air, the sandcastle settled into existence.
Sam banged on the entryway. Nothing happened. She did it again, harder, and scowled when the door still didn’t open.
“We demand entrance, under your honor,” Sam yelled. There was a hard rush of wind, and I gripped Sam’s arm to keep my balance, but the doors cracked open reluctantly.
The inside of the sandcastle consisted of one enormous hall, the roof arching up out of sight. Rafters crisscrossed from wall to wall, and a cobbled path led further into the building, but other than that, it was completely empty, except for the birds. There were thousands of them, perched on the rafters or hopping along the ground. They parted in front of Sam and I, and reformed behind us, leaving us in a small pocket of open space. They were all black-feathered, with sharp beaks and beady eyes.
The Erlking sat on a throne at the end of the hall, lounging across it with his feet up on the armrest. He watched them as they came forward, the soft caw of the birds the only sound.
“I am here to bargain for the life of my brother,” I said, with as much dignity as I could muster, before the Erlking could say anything.
The Erlking ignored her, tilting his head to look at Sam. “I remember you. I almost got you, once.”

Sam glared at him but didn’t respond.
“You want your brother,” The Erlking said to me, and he almost sounded amused. “Then go get him.”
As if by some sort of silent signal, every bird in the room took flight at once, and their cawing made me think of screams. I covered my head against the flapping of their wings, and my vision was quickly obscured by the chaotic movement of them. I found myself on my knees, just trying to escape them.
A hand met my shoulder. Sam urged me to my feet, and together we ran for the edge of the room, where the swarm was the thinnest. We pressed ourselves into the corner and the swarm spiraled tighter and tighter at the center of the room. It went on until there seemed to be no differentiation between the birds, all of them fused together into one creature.
When the chaos died down, the birds had become one mass, with wings and eyes and talons sticking out of its flesh, thrashing and chirping. Human body parts stuck out of it, bulging out from the feathers. It was hands, mostly, with a couple knees or staring eyes. The bird amalgamation had no recognizable facial features, but there was one long beak extending from the front of its head. Most of the body parts were concentrated around the beak, and they peeked out from where the beak connected with muscle, or grew from the tongue, nestled between the two crushing halves of the beak.
It turned its beak down and crawled forward, using the hands to balance. The fingers scrambled over the ground. I was afraid of centipedes as a child, and I felt that same crawling dread when it started moving.
“Holy shit,” Sam whispered, which was rather disappointing, because I had been hoping that at least one of us knew what to do.
The creature turned, a lurching movement that crushed some of the hands underneath it, and started heaving itself slowly towards our corner.
“Better hurry up!” the Erlking called from his throne.
It was blocking the exit, by then. The shifting body of it had moved to block us off. It ambled towards us and I tried to sink further into the corner.
As it approached, getting close enough that I could smell the stink of it, I saw a flash of a tattoo on one of the hands. I leaned in, trying to find it again, like looking for dolphins surfacing in the ocean. And again, I caught a glimpse of a duck tattoo, the tattoo that Hitch had gotten on his hand as a teenager.
I ripped away from Sam’s death grip and ran for the monster.
I fell to my knees in front of it, wincing as I impacted the ground, and reached into the nest of hands. I could feel them tearing at my forearms and ripping into me with their sharp nails, but I kept going. I pressed further in, up to my shoulder in a writhing mass of limbs, aiming for the spot where I had last seen that tattoo.
The hands were tugging at me, wrapping around my back and hair. They were pulling together, trying to draw me completely into the mass of them. I was aware of Sam at my side, anchoring me in place and bashing any hand that got too close with her sword or the sparks that leapt from her hands with muttered words. But I didn’t think it would be enough. They were too strong, and there were too many of them.
I was up to my waist in the hands when something grabbed my palm. I felt the way it clung to me, and the calluses on its palm, and I knew that I had found my brother.
I flung herself back. The hands didn’t want to let me go, and they fought the whole way, but slowly, I made progress. I kept hold of Hitch’s hand in mine the whole time, gripping it as hard as I could. I finally broke free, Hitch with me, and Sam was immediately charging the creature, able to use her sword with much greater strength without being worried about injuring Hitch. She swung it forward, and it sliced through the wrist of one of the hands. It fell without a sound, red sand flowing out of it. It deflated until it looked like dirty laundry, just a piece of limp flesh. The creature shrieked, scuttling away enough that the door was finally accessible. The three of us ran for it, Sam and I supporting Hitch between us.
I looked back as I left and found the Erlking staring right at me.
“Interesting,” he murmured, his voice carrying impossibly across the vast space between us.
The sandcastle collapsed behind us, the great walls falling in on themselves. We were out in the morning sun, the sandcastle disappearing as we watched. Hitch was on the ground in front of me, as young as he’d been thirty years ago, when he was captured. He started laughing, feathers puffing out of his mouth. He laughed until he cried and I hugged him in the way that he’d held me when I was young, in the times when my life had been defined by hunger and fear.
Hitch left, afterwards. He scratched at the pinhole scars covering his body, where feathers burst through his skin, and pulled his long sleeves down around his wrists. He didn’t know where he was going but he told me that he needed time
I had spent thirty years worth of time without him. I wanted to grab my brother by the shoulders and beg him to stay. But he flinched when I hugged him goodbye and he refused to go near sand and he stared distrustfully at the birds chirping in the trees. Hitch needed to go away and I loved him too much to stop him.
I sat out on the beach every morning. I felt the sun on my face and I waited for Hitch to come home.

I work at the service desk with a lot of female coworkers. A while ago I was helping a customer with an oven he ordered for his client. The oven(not MDO BTW) was delivered to him damaged and he wanted to get a new one ordered. Not a complicated issue except .com wasn't available because it was purchased in the store and the customer's client originally bought that oven so we had to call her to make a phone sale while she was in the middle of her busy day. So this issue was gonna take some time to get resolved and while we were waiting for his client to become available from her meeting, the customer decided to try and "cheer up" one of my female co workers who was working on a frustrating issue to the right of me by telling her to smile more. Just very weird behavior from by somebody who's actually been pretty chill so far.
Shortly after, the client calls the customer and hands me the phone to make this phone sale(I know they're suppose to be the ones entering the card info, sorry I don't give a fuck). While I'm taking the lady's card info down, the man prints some receipt paper off the printer himself and writes a note in cursive and hands it to the same female co worker still working on the same issue. Once the phone sale is complete I give the phone and the sale receipt to the customer and told him to have a nice day. That note he wrote to my female co worker said "don't forget to smile :)". Glad that dude was finally gone at that point cuz he was starting to irritate me. This actually happened about three weeks after a customer who checking out at the service desk told another female coworker of mine "A smile wouldn't kill you ya know?" She was noticeably creeped out by that and didn't smile so he tried to explain to me and a few others saying "I'm just saying it's polite to smile." That same day he wrote a two paragraph email to my store manager saying that she was rude and disrespectful.
Why do people gotta be so creepy for no reason?

Hello Programmers this is a flutter application can anyone help me out with this. I need to submit it at 6 pm in the evening today and I don't know app development..can anyone please help me in this and do this task please
Here I want you to do the following implementation.
Please note and understand carefully - 1. The following code in the zip file contains code related to the Grocery Application which is currently we are operating for one of our client. 2. You need to make it in the working condition by implementing login and register page into it and integrate with backend with database.
Link to download the zip file :-https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qpRb4LUHMzAJotO24Z9EkC2aNlnKUGCg/view?usp=drivesdk .

Had it as a young child in the early 2000s, no later than 2006, we probably got it from Walmart. It was orange with black text.
All I remember is how it starts. You hear the sound of a car stopping and a man getting out. You hear him walk up to to the front do_or and he knocks on it, I believe you hear it open. I don’t recall when it starts but you hear a chord progression much like from the song Fantasy by Aldo Nova, at 1:19 here. The high note is exactly what you hear on the CD. It also does the same downward notes progression just a shorter duration.
I say it starts with this but it could be a different track number. I remember hitting play and this starting. I don’t recall hearing any Halloween songs, like Monster Mash type. I think it was just spooky music and sounds.
I’ve listened to a few CDs that look similar but are definitely not it after hearing them. One is Rubies Spooky Sounds the other is 60 min Horror Sound Effects. The dark orange color is very familiar.

Hello Programmers this is a flutter application can anyone help me out with this. I need to submit it at 6 pm in the evening today and I don't know app development..can anyone please help me in this and do this task please
Here I want you to do the following implementation.
Please note and understand carefully - 1. The following code in the zip file contains code related to the Grocery Application which is currently we are operating for one of our client. 2. You need to make it in the working condition by implementing login and register page into it and integrate with backend with database.
Link to download the zip file :-https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qpRb4LUHMzAJotO24Z9EkC2aNlnKUGCg/view?usp=drivesdk .

This is straight from the Discord Operator-Announcements channel
Attention @Node Operators! The second beta release for Hyperdrive (v0.4.2-b2) is now available and contains contains important fixes addressing feedback from the first beta. All operators should update as soon as possible! The full patch notes for are attached, but the most important updates are:

• Fix for the Reth client not working
• Support for running Hyperdrive and the RP smartnode side-by-side (see ⁠⁠node-operators⁠ for more info on how to use this feature)
• StakeWise module now works properly with external mode
• Several additional critical bugfixes and client updates

Most users can simply use this command to update: sudo apt update && sudo apt dist-upgrade && sudo apt auto-remove Please see the docs for more information on updating Hyperdrive: https://docs.nodeset.io/node-operators/hyperdrive/updating Once you finish updating, remember to run hyperdrive service config or hyperdrive service start for the changes to take effect! The team doesn't work weekends of course, but please feel free to post your feedback on this release in ⁠node-operators, and we'll get to it asap! If you notice any issues, please make an issue on the GitHub repository: https://github.com/nodeset-org/hyperdrive/issues (edited)

So i got in a situation where a girl who i started to progress feeling for, and after i told her about my feelings she started to get cold and treating me horrible( she would answer me after 3 days with a very simple sentence "i was sick"). like b*tch what has that to do with not replying, so i didn't open the msg. And putted her on the shelf.
Silence came for like a week or so and she texted me back with some <3 on my story's and post's, and sent me a msg "hey how are you ?" . I replied and had a cold conversation with her, that even she offered to hang out, i told her that i was busy and that i promised somebody else to meet up with. so she told me she will go hang by her self, i replied with "have fun".
On the next day, she sent me msg.? Hey,how are you today?, but i was busy all day working and got home on 2am and cheacked my phone to find out she wrote a note on IG "ON SIGMA ?" And i know 100% she meant that to me
I think i destro-yed her e-g-o , and took my revenge, and now i think of ditching her for real or ghost her but something inside me is telling me to F her first and then wish her a good luck and disappear, I dont think i have the best idea for such a situation so if any one has any good idea that can make me leave as a sigma male, what do you think ? Or let here chase me more ?

The Last Faith is what you get when you combine the tone and allure of Bloodborne mixed with the flowing combat and sheer coolness of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Theres also a sprinkle of Blasphemous in there, for some reason. It's also a game that isn't quite sure if it wants to be a souls-like and near-copy of Bloodborne or just a simple metroidvania. In two sentences i've probably confused you. Good, now we're both on the same page. This is The Last Faith.
The Last Faith puts you in the shoes of Eryk. Eryk is a swell guy. He cares for everyone, questions little, never says a mean word and goes out of his way to help out hapless NPC's as well literal monsters. While everyone around him is content to compliment him on his combat prowess, Eryk thinks he's just a dude. Does that sound like the main character of a game that's basically 2D Bloodborne? It's a mismatch for the tone of the game and while it wasn't enough to take me out of the experience, I couldn't help but feel he belongs in another game. Animal Crossing: New Horizons, maybe? He'd make a killing on the stalk market.

----------------------------------------------------------------

"2Blood, 2 Blasphemous"

He's also afflicted with... something. And oh boy, when that something finally reveals itself it.. oh wait it doesn't ever fully reveal itself. This game's version of "souls" is called "Nycrux." Sigh. Can we just call them souls, please? For the love of the moon presence we don't need cute names for the currency with every souls-like. In typical souls-like fashion though the Nycrux is also what our character is afflicted by. I think. What does it do? No clue! Did I even pay attention to the story?! Dude I tried. I really did. The notes and item descriptions did little to help me piece together the story, unlike FromSoftware games. It's utterly non-sensical.
Speaking of potions and ammo, this game is VERY similar to Bloodborne. Unlike Elden Ring or the Souls series, you have health potions that do not refill upon death. You have to find them in the world or buy them. Just like Bloodborne. The same goes for ammo. This wasn't an issue. The game throws so many health potions at you and they're so cheap to buy I had nearly 200 at the end. Which begs the question, why even do this? Because Bloodborne did it? There's little tension in death when I have 15 heals and know I can easily go get 50 more in a matter of minutes.
Combat is standard fare but feels quite good. Let's take a look at some super cool bullet points!

• You have a light attack and you are also able up charge up that attack which I did precisely 6 times and never again because it's utterly useless.
• Each weapon also has a unique (or somewhat unique) weapon art. In addition you have whats called a Stigma and this allows you to use various abilities such as a shield, parry or something else I found to be rarely helpful which is thebeast mode.
• Combat revolves around rolling, attacking and learning enemy patterns. Parries and block's don't factor in as much here but they absolutely can if you are dedicated to pulling them off. And they feel great!
• My play-style started as your standard strength build and then morphed into a mage who used a big ass scythe. So like a DEX/INT build. Very grim, very reaper.
• The spells themselves are varied and quite cool and are good for helping you to get in close. The game also features guns. I used them to varying degrees but they all worked well and while I never felt like I NEEDED to use them, I had fun with them nonetheless.
• Like any souls-like, you can level up your character (STR, DEX, INT, etc) as well as your weapon. Each weapon will scale depending on what stats you invest in and the game is VERY generous with its scaling.
• Weapon requirements exist and I cannot for the life of me figure out why. You can wield any weapon or spell in the game regardless if you have the stats or not and the only penalty is a slight decrease in damage.
• Your roll has I-frames. And sometimes it doesn't. It was frustrating be able to doge into a projectile and come out unscathed and then I try it again with a different move and get hit.
• Bosses varied wildly in difficulty. Some where extremely easy while the last few bosses has me questioning my sanity. Very few were inspired, but they all felt right at home in the world.

Now lets talk about how this is as a metroidvania. Every area in the game features a myriad of locked doors, hidden alcoves and plenty of spikes to insta-kill you. There's a plethora of platforming segments and none of them are particularly difficult. You won't find the punishing difficulty of Aeterna Noctis or the intricate and rage inducing, but satisfying platforming of Blasphemous. Instead it's primarily ability based. You'll find quite a bit of fun to be had in gaining abilities and marrying the light platform sections with learning enemy patterns.
The mood and atmosphere in the game are absolutely superb, but the environments don't reflect this as well as they could have. You have your standard ice area and swamp area, but for the most part it's just houses and caves. For me, the pacing of when you get abilities varied wildly. Being a metroidvania, there are a number of zones to choose from and some you can miss entirely. Depending on your path you may find the game doles out abilities far too slowly and it just feels like you're not progressing.
I didn't even get one of the coolest abilities until right before the end because I just happened to miss a tiny path barely viable on the map that led to an entire zone. Because of course it did. When you play a metroidvania, these are the things you accept going in and it's what makes these games special. I do wish the game would have had a more set progression path for your abilities, however.
All in all, I enjoyed my time with The Last Faith. Part of me feels this would have been better off as just a metroidvania or Castlevania-like, but it does combat and movement well and has a top notch atmosphere. I recommend The Last Faith.
Some random things that didn't fit in the main body of the review.

• When you die to a boss, your "Nycrux" spawns right there with you at the checkpoint. I greatly appreciate that. Boss corpse runs are the WORST. But also kind of fun if i'm being honest.
• Status effects in this game are utterly useless against bosses, as I only got one status effect to proc on a boss ONE time in the entire game.
• A massive issue I have with this game is this insane input delay after you roll or dash. I cut the section on it as this is already too long but it nearly ruined some boss fights for me. You have to HOPE you are already perfectly positioned when a boss does a big AOE and if not, oh well. That input delay isnt letting you get out of the way in time.
• Hope you like Monster Closets, because very frequently this game will lock you in a room with a gauntlet of spawning enemies and wont let you leave until they're dead.
• The Game has 3 endings and some pretty cool hidden bosses. One of which was the best fight in the game and isn't too hidden. The game leads you to it quite well, actually!

What I'm trying to do is figure out if I've had panic attacks. It would make discussing about my stress and anxiety with professionals much easier.
One clear example happened a month or two ago. I was reading about this book course I had to do for my studies. It ended up being a much bigger course than I expected (3 books added up to about a 1000 pages in academic English and not in my native language). I also have dyslexia so reading pretty much any academix text takes more work. It launched me into a thought spiral that went about like this:

• this course is way too much work, I already have so much on my hands
• reading all this is gonna slow down my other schoolwork (two theses, master's and bachelor's)
• I won't be able to finish this course before summer
• It's gonna massively slow down my progress on my master's
• It's gonna postbone my graduation and moving out (closer to me and my wife's parents)
• I'm a burden for my family (wife and son, 1 months)
• We won't be able to progress as a family (= better house, more kids, a job I've studied for)
• I should just stop my studies (this close to the finish line)
• I'm dragging them down

At the end of that spiral I was just crying and sweating in our bathroom. I've now done the exam but only because I was able to loan some notes for the books. Even that made me feel bad about myself because I didn't do it "myself"

Hey yall!
I am looking for a couple of players who would like to play a One Shot based on the Curse of Strahd campaign.
Below is some info on game / character parameters.
Important Guidelines & Suggestions for Our Adventure
Mature Content Advisory:
Our adventures will explore mature themes, including but not limited to: sexuality, substance use, murder, and bigotry. We aim to handle these responsibly and sensitively, avoiding any extremes. Child abuse will not be featured. If there are specific topics you’d prefer to avoid, please communicate this to me privately.
Daily Posting Requirement:
You are required to post at least once a day to keep the game lively and engaging. If you're unable to post on any day, that’s completely fine—just let me know in advance. Your spot in the game could be at risk if you consistently fail to post without notification.
Response Time Consideration:
Please be considerate of each player's full 24-hour window to respond. I'll send friendly reminders around the 12-hour, 16-hour, and 1-hour marks before the window closes.
Gameplay Pace:
Remember, Play By Post (PBP) games are naturally slower, designed to fit into our busy schedules. Try not to monopolize interactions, such as interrogating NPCs extensively or searching every nook and cranny before others have a chance to participate.
Pinging Etiquette:
Please refrain from pinging others merely to prompt action in the game. Everyone is aware they should check in daily. Pings should be reserved for specific questions or important discussions. I will handle reminders to keep the game progressing.
Variant & Homebrew Rules Overview for Our Campaign
We'll be incorporating several dynamic options to deepen our game experience:
Variant Encumbrance
Side Initiative
Cleave
Morale
Injuries
Massive Damage
Fear and Horror
Additionally, we'll use these specific variant rules:
Healing Surges: In the heat of battle, characters can use an action to spend up to half their Hit Dice for healing. For each Hit Die spent, roll the die and add your Constitution modifier to regain hit points. This action is available once per short or long rest, with Hit Dice replenishing fully after a long rest and partially (one-fourth your level, minimum one die) after a short rest.
Slow Natural Healing: After a long rest, characters do not automatically regain hit points. Instead, you may spend Hit Dice to heal, just as you would during a short rest.
Character Creation Guide for Our Epic Adventure!
Starting Level: Everyone begins their journey at Level 1.
Background Restrictions: The Outlander background is off-limits for this adventure.
Spell Limitations: Please note that the Light cantrip and Create Food and Water spell are not available.
Ability Scores: 4d6 drop lowest
Hit Points: We'll use fixed HP to keep things straightforward.
Magic Item: Start with one free common magic item. Opt for something that enhances your character's story or personality rather than combat prowess. No weapons or armor.
Experience Points: Level up through XP earned in encounters. Extra XP for those who dazzle with creativity, strategic prowess in battles, and stellar role-playing!
Character Mortality: Remember, if your character meets their demise, they will forfeit any acquired items.
Customization: Tasha’s customization options are all yours to explore and utilize.

**Homebrew Rules:**

To tailor our campaign to our unique style, we have implemented the following homebrew rules:

• **The Light Cantrip:** This spell is not allowed to ensure our game emphasizes more natural and strategic uses of light and darkness. All other light producing abilities and spells are allowed.
  
• **Resurrection Mechanics:** All resurrection spells are elevated to 9th level, making the act of bringing back the dead a rare and significant event.
  
• **Vision Adjustments:** No character has dark vision by default, emphasizing the challenge and importance of light in our campaign.
  
• **Hide Action Modifications:**
  Hide action works with vision and cover.
  

There must be enough space to cover you in dimlight, darkness or behind cover. If none of that exists you can not take the hide action.
With 1/2 cover you get disadvantage on your hide check.
With ¾ cover you get a normal roll for your hide check
With Full cover you have advantage on your hide check.
Hiding in bright light w/no cover is impossible.
Hiding in dim light with no cover is a straight role on your hide check.
Hiding in darkness with no cover is advantage on your hide check.

• **Initiative:** We're using group initiative to determine order of action. We'll take the average of the PCs' initiative rolls compared to the enemies'. The highest individual initiative within our group gets a bonus.
  
• **Death Saves:** These are rolled privately, known only to the DM, adding an element of suspense and uncertainty to combat outcomes.
  

If you got this far and are interested let me know by filling out our application. https://forms.gle/UhKHSmceN1rMaMXb9
See yall in the game!

I'm having a weird issue where my bandwidth through my wireguard server hosted on my NAS is higher than my reported bandwidth to my NAS itself. When I say "through" my NAS I mean traffic that is routed through my wireguard server on my NAS but has a destination that is external. Here's some context:

• My ISP is Verizon Fios with a 1Gbps symmetrical plan. I can run a speedtest from the NAS to a speedtest server and it reports close to advertised speeds (940+ down, 920+ up).
• My router is a CR1000A with port 51820 port forwarded to the NAS.
• I've tested with a wg client from various networks including a friend's 1Gbps symmetrical, 5G/LTE, random hotel WiFi etc and on both my phone and macbook.
• To test "passthrough" bandwidth, I used various speedtest websites and verified that my detected IP address was the same as my home network's public IP.
• To test bandwidth to the NAS, I used iperf3 and openspeedtest hosted on the NAS, and also generally felt the slowness when streaming from it.
• In all cases, the "passthrough" bandwidth seems to increase given a better client bandwidth, but it is always significantly below the line speed of the client/server. I'm wondering if this might be an indicator of an issue in and of itself...
• Higher client bandwidth tends to result in higher "passthrough" bandwidth, but bandwidth to the NAS itself seems to cap out around 20 Mbps assuming the client is on a very fast connection (200+ Mbps).

Here's my wireguard config (note my domain resolves to my home network's public IP):

[Interface] PrivateKey = PRIVATEKEY Address = 172.30.1.2/24 DNS = 1.1.1.1 MTU = 1420 [Peer] PublicKey = PUBLICKEY PresharedKey = PRESHAREDKEY AllowedIPs = 0.0.0.0/24 Endpoint = my.domain.com:51820 PersistentKeepalive = 0 

Some speed datapoints:

• Client BW: 1Gbps Symmetrical Fiber ATT, Passthrough: 140 Mbps, To NAS Direct: 20 Mbps
• Client BW: 5G Phone (240 Mbps Down), Passthrough: 50-60 Mbps, To NAS Direct: ~15 Mbps

As another data point, I recently tried installing and using tailscale, but I seem to have similar bandwidth issues, although tailscale's passthrough bandwidth is pretty close to the bandwidth I get when connecting to the NAS directly. One thing to note is that when I use tailscale status, I see that it's a relayed connection. Additionally, tailscale ping is unable to give me a direct connection, so this could be degrading tailscale's performance (another potential indicator that something's wrong?).
The passthrough speeds I'm getting could be acceptable if I could get them to my NAS itself, but they're not even close, making streaming content from my NAS very painful especially on "slower" client connections. I've seen a data point where someone else had a client and server 3500 miles away and was still able to get ~285 Mbps which was close to their line speed. Any tips or suggestions for tools/commands I can run to debug this issue would be much appreciated. Thanks!

Very inconsistent in my runs so far, all comes down to luck for mana potion/lockpick/gold drop rate and lockpick luck. I myself finished the Rasmusen Orb at 2hrs exact before crashing and it was a very messy run to say the least. Could see someone with practice and better hand-eye coordination beating the game Any% at or a little over 2hrs without major glitches.
My route:

1. Sprint through tutorial
2. Go to Pwyll, set teleport spawn, and pickup the God quest and Fort quest
3. Go to the Pwyll underground and advance the God quest until you get the key
4. Go to the farmer near the fort, kill the Clockwork enemy, turn in
5. Go to Fort, sprint through to the table at the top
6. Go to the Cartographer
7. Go to the Giant Mushroom, save the son, and teleport back to Pwyll
8. Turn in both quests, go to Hallow Town
9. Sell loot, pickup Endurance spell, plot the map, talk to first Dark Star to trigger the three quests, set teleport spawn in inn
10. Endurance sprint to the Emberian, plot the map along the way
11. Teleport back, get the Emberian key, Endurance sprint to Rustburg, plotting the map along the way (stop by the bell tower and castle)
12. Finish Emberian quest, teleport back, go to Hallowshire cartographer to get academy admission
13. Endurance sprint to the academy lift, start the portal quest, activate the academy portal, teleport back and activate the Hallow Town portal
14. Sell loot, buy Union Passport, Endurance sprint to the airship guy
15. Endurance sprint to Clockwork portal then onto Horace, get his dream, Endurance sprint to Corrupted Lands
16. Advance Horace's quest in the Lost City of Progress, teleport back to Hallow Town, then portal to Clockwork, and Endurance sprint back to Horace
17. Sell loot, buy Union Passport, Endurance sprint to Endless bridge
18. Endurance sprint to Endless portal then Endurance sprint to Duchess
19. Teleport back to Hallow Town, portal to Endless, advance quest in Sepuclher
20. Endurance sprint from the Sepulcher inn to Cadaver Keep
21. Teleport back to Hallow Town, portal to Endless, Endurance sprint back to Duchess
22. Fall off the edge and die to rez in Bastion Light
23. Go through Underland sequence, nothing to note other than memorizing the quickest routes to the Emberian generators and automechanical key
24. Advance quest with Inquisition, get writ for airship, teleport to Hallow Town, sell loot, buy airship
25. Travel to Rasmusen deserted island, advance the quest as normal
26. Fall off edge to rez in Pwyll, go back to Inquisition
27. Get sphere mounted to your airship, onto the last quest, gg

It's pretty consistent other than getting screwed over by lockpicks as the biggest bane in my book. The game never gives you lockpicks when you have none/little but will only drop lockpicks when you're full in my experience. I do the Wisdom/Lore/Agility start and otherwise it's a fun time and I can finish the whole thing in like 2hr45min-3hr but there's a lot of fat to trim.

Book Your Free Consultation Today! > Discord @ shelbion

About Me

My name is Shelbion and I've been an avid League of Legends player for over a decade. In Season 4, I reached Challenger for the first time and even considered pursuing a professional career. However, after much reflection, I decided to pursue other challenges within the game.
Some of my notable achievements as a player include:

• Reaching Challenger on multiple positions.
• Participating and winning in numerous SR and 1v1 tournaments.
• Playing for various teams(Amateur and Semi-Professional).

Coaching

With over 7.000 hours of coaching experience, I fall into the category of one of the most experienced individuals in the field. My experience, passion, and ability to identify your flaws and tailor each session to your needs make me stand out as a Coach.
I've studied the techniques of renowned coaches, such as LS, MagiFelix, and others, and I've developed my unique coaching approach. So far, my approach has helped countless individuals, and over 20 teams advance their competitive play, across 5 different continents, including members of various College and University eSport Teams.
Some of my notable achievements include:

• Assisting a Diamond 2 player reach Challenger in just five weeks.
• Helping a Silver 2 player climb to Platinum in three weeks.
• Guiding a Diamond 3 player to Grandmaster in six weeks.

I am dedicated to continuously honing my skills and providing the best coaching experience possible to all of my clients, regardless of their rank or location.

Subscription Based Coaching

• One Individual Session (Monthly)
• Group Sessions (Weekly) x2
• Priority Coaching - Price: 99.99 > 49.99$.

Verifications & Certifications

• Certified IFOEC (International Federation of eSport Coaches) Educator & Coach.
• Certified EHPI (eSports Health & Performance) Professional.
• University of Irvine eSport Specialization
• Verified Coachify & Metafy Partner.

Community

In addition to my experience as a Player, I am also the Founder of Noxus Coaching - a rapidly growing, educational community on Discord. Our community is a great place to find new friends to play with, have a good time, and most importantly, improve your skills.
We hold various events on a weekly basis, including 1v1 & 5v5 tournaments, meme contests, and more. There are plenty of rewards to be won, including free coaching sessions with me. To join our community, visit https://discord.gg/RHW9BMxRd5 and message me upon joining to receive your role.

Podcast

• Podcast Appearance > https://youtu.be/4jn4FXOaOlE?si=98POLUJdJeSNnbiW

How Does it Work?

We will schedule an initial Interview during which we can discuss your goals and I can provide a more detailed explanation of my coaching services. This interview will typically last for 3-5 minutes.
The First Session is designed to assess your current level of gameplay and identify areas for improvement. After conducting an analysis, I will create a Personalized Coaching Plan tailored to your specific needs. This plan will outline a series of sessions designed to maximize your improvement.
The Coaching Plan may include various session types, such as:

• Theory sessions: These sessions will cover key concepts such as wave management, vision, decision making, and more.
• Practical sessions: These sessions will either be VOD reviews or live games, and will be used to put theoretical knowledge into practice and analyze gameplay.
• Reviews: These sessions will occur periodically and will be used as checkpoints to track your progress and identify any additional areas for improvement.

All sessions will be personalized and created specifically for each student's needs. By following this plan, you can feel confident that you are taking the most effective steps to achieve your goals.

Personalized Support (Available 24/7)

In addition to the structured coaching sessions, I offer personalized support to my clients on a 24/7 basis. Whether you have a specific question or just want to debrief after a tough game, I am always available to help. Simply message me and I will respond as quickly as possible.

AvailabilityPricesPayments

I am able to cover any server and any timezone! Rates for both Private and Team coaching are negotiable. We will easily get the sessions to fit your budget and your needs.
Payments are usually done through PayPal, however other forms of Payment such as Direct Transfer can be discussed.

Contact

Main form of contact is Discord on which you can find me at shelbion (Or Shelbion#8832)
Feel free to message me either on Discord or through a Direct Message on Reddit and I will come back to you as quickly as possible.

Book Your Free Consultation Today! > Discord @ shelbion

About Me

My name is Shelbion and I've been an avid League of Legends player for over a decade. In Season 4, I reached Challenger for the first time and even considered pursuing a professional career. However, after much reflection, I decided to pursue other challenges within the game.
Some of my notable achievements as a player include:

• Reaching Challenger on multiple positions.
• Participating and winning in numerous SR and 1v1 tournaments.
• Playing for various teams(Amateur and Semi-Professional).

Coaching

With over 7.000 hours of coaching experience, I fall into the category of one of the most experienced individuals in the field. My experience, passion, and ability to identify your flaws and tailor each session to your needs make me stand out as a Coach.
I've studied the techniques of renowned coaches, such as LS, MagiFelix, and others, and I've developed my unique coaching approach. So far, my approach has helped countless individuals, and over 20 teams advance their competitive play, across 5 different continents, including members of various College and University eSport Teams.
Some of my notable achievements include:

• Assisting a Diamond 2 player reach Challenger in just five weeks.
• Helping a Silver 2 player climb to Platinum in three weeks.
• Guiding a Diamond 3 player to Grandmaster in six weeks.

I am dedicated to continuously honing my skills and providing the best coaching experience possible to all of my clients, regardless of their rank or location.

Subscription Based Coaching

• One Individual Session (Monthly)
• Group Sessions (Weekly) x2
• Priority Coaching - Price: 99.99 > 49.99$.

Verifications & Certifications

• Certified IFOEC (International Federation of eSport Coaches) Educator & Coach.
• Certified EHPI (eSports Health & Performance) Professional.
• University of Irvine eSport Specialization
• Verified Coachify & Metafy Partner.

Community

In addition to my experience as a Player, I am also the Founder of Noxus Coaching - a rapidly growing, educational community on Discord. Our community is a great place to find new friends to play with, have a good time, and most importantly, improve your skills.
We hold various events on a weekly basis, including 1v1 & 5v5 tournaments, meme contests, and more. There are plenty of rewards to be won, including free coaching sessions with me. To join our community, visit https://discord.gg/RHW9BMxRd5 and message me upon joining to receive your role.

Podcast

• Podcast Appearance > https://youtu.be/4jn4FXOaOlE?si=98POLUJdJeSNnbiW

How Does it Work?

We will schedule an initial Interview during which we can discuss your goals and I can provide a more detailed explanation of my coaching services. This interview will typically last for 3-5 minutes.
The First Session is designed to assess your current level of gameplay and identify areas for improvement. After conducting an analysis, I will create a Personalized Coaching Plan tailored to your specific needs. This plan will outline a series of sessions designed to maximize your improvement.
The Coaching Plan may include various session types, such as:

• Theory sessions: These sessions will cover key concepts such as wave management, vision, decision making, and more.
• Practical sessions: These sessions will either be VOD reviews or live games, and will be used to put theoretical knowledge into practice and analyze gameplay.
• Reviews: These sessions will occur periodically and will be used as checkpoints to track your progress and identify any additional areas for improvement.

All sessions will be personalized and created specifically for each student's needs. By following this plan, you can feel confident that you are taking the most effective steps to achieve your goals.

Personalized Support (Available 24/7)

In addition to the structured coaching sessions, I offer personalized support to my clients on a 24/7 basis. Whether you have a specific question or just want to debrief after a tough game, I am always available to help. Simply message me and I will respond as quickly as possible.

AvailabilityPricesPayments

I am able to cover any server and any timezone! Rates for both Private and Team coaching are negotiable. We will easily get the sessions to fit your budget and your needs.
Payments are usually done through PayPal, however other forms of Payment such as Direct Transfer can be discussed.

Contact

Main form of contact is Discord on which you can find me at shelbion (Or Shelbion#8832)
Feel free to message me either on Discord or through a Direct Message on Reddit and I will come back to you as quickly as possible.

In today's fast-paced digital world, the need for supplementary income streams has become increasingly important. Paidwork, a versatile and user-friendly platform, offers a wide range of opportunities for users to earn money through their unique skills and abilities. In this article, we will explore the various earning methods on Paidwork, the benefits of their referral program, and how achievements on your profile can enhance your overall experience.

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To participate in the referral program, users can simply share their unique referral link on social media, in emails, or through other communication channels. Once a new user signs up using the referral link and completes their first task or service, the referrer will receive a specified percentage of the fees earned by the new user.

1. Achievements on Your Paidwork Profile

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b) High client ratings: Consistently receiving high ratings from clients can improve a user's profile, making them more appealing to potential clients.
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Paidwork offers a unique and versatile platform for users to earn money by leveraging their skills and abilities. By exploring various earning methods, participating in the referral program, and showcasing achievements on their profiles, users can maximize their potential and enjoy a rewarding experience on Paidwork.