Florida - Looking for advise from realtors or people who have experience please and thank you.
Sorry but this is going to be an odd situation. I (44M) live in the Philippines (South East Asia) and my mother (66F) just pasted away yesterday. I'm writing this post as I kill time traveling back to the US from the airport. I have NOT yet spoken to a realtor in the area. Again, still at the airport trying to get back to US.
Here is the question???? Option 1 - Do I sell the house as is and make a lot concessions on house making it sell for almost nothing because of how badly in shape the house is currently or Option 2 - Do demolish the house and sell just the land. or Option 3 - Do I drop all the money I have saved (80K) into it and do a full remodel and sell it after the remodel. Option 4- just build a new house and sell it.
-----I have NO plans on ever moving back to the US so keeping the house isn't an option. I can't rent it out because it would need more work than I have money for to make it "rentable" as well as the issue of managing a rental from half way around the world.
Now onto the details.
My mother owned a single story 2bd 1bth house in St Petersburg / Clearwater, Pinellas County, Florida that was built in the 50's, currently valued at the 230K mark according to Zillow. The house was originally owned by my grandparents. When they passed, she got it. Now that she has passed, I get it. Taxes are paid and the house was in a trust so transfer will be simple. She does have a mortgage on the house currently that is 65K to pay off.
The issue is that the house (in my opinion) is a piece of crap. Nothing is up to code. I know the house has or has had lots or termite damage as well as major bug infestation (back in the mid 90's, it has since been tented and has had on going pest control). The only thing that is newish on the house is the roof which was done (with permits) about 10 years ago (shingle roof). I know for a fact that the house needs a LOT of repairs if its going to be sold. The yard (lot) is 110 x 44 and is close to a highway so the location is good. Good school district. But the house itself is a mess. Last time I was there was 4 years ago and I know she hadn't had any work done to it since then.
The outside of the house has kind of tile like siding (maybe a foot x 3 foot) and a lot of them are broken or just plain missing leaving the asphalt paper behind them visible. She had a tiny porch/deck (4x8) connected to the front door added on about 12 years ago (no permit). The yard, while mowed, is your typical Florida yard that is 50% sand and 50% grass/weeds. The back yard has a small metal shed (6x8x6) that houses the mower and tools. There is a poured concrete patio (10x20) at the back door but it is a good 4 to 6 inches below the door but has no covering or shading and burn your feet to a crisp in summer time.
The inside of the house as you enter the front door, is the living room (maybe 13x20)(standing at the door looking straight is 13' and left to right is 20') with kitchen directly behind it (maybe 7 or 8x10) and an enclosed porch behind the kitchen (12x12).When the house was built it was a screened in porch but when my grandparents had their 4th kid they enclosed it and made it a make shift bedroom. The walls are 3 foot high brick and the top 5 feet are 2x4. The work was done by my grandfather and a neighbor back in late 60's (no permits) and neither of them are professional handymen or tradesmen. After the kids grew they turned it into a dining room / laundry room. The laundry hooks up to the kitchen plumbing (again not done by a pro)
To the left of the front door is the master bedroom (13x13) and directly behind that is the second bedroom (10.5x10.5). There is a kind of shared closet that separates the 2 bedrooms. Shared as in the master has its own and the second bedroom has its own but there is no hard wall between the 2 rooms. The back of the closet is the wall for each bedroom. Sound very much travels lol. The bathroom sits in a kind of hallway/knock between the second bedroom and kitchen. The bathroom is tiny (5x6) You can stand in the center and touch all 4 walls. It has a tub (probably cast iron original to the house), a toilet and a pedestal sink. The walls are the odd thing throughout the house. The living room has 2 walls of wood panels and 2 that are plaster or drywall (can't tell the difference) Kitchen is all drywall. The dining room / laundry room has a mix of 70's or 80's bead board on one wall (the wall between kitchen and dining room) and drywall behind laundry area and bare open space on the other 2 walls. (you can see the 2x4s and what looks like plywood on the outside. The master bedroom has dry wall on 3 walls and wood sheeting on the closet wall. Same in the second bedroom. Bathroom has all drywall with small square tiles (maybe 6x6) going up about 4 feet high. The tub has tile up to the shower-head height.
The floor throughout the entire house is slab concrete (actually in great shape surprisingly) with small carpets placed around (like area rugs). The exception to that is the bathroom and kitchen which are tiled. (probably original to the build) The house sits on a cement block foundation with 6" slab poured on top. Its solid. There is an attic you can access threw a opening just outside the bathroom (2x3) in ceiling. House doesn't have central heat or a/c. Both bedrooms have a window a/c and the living room has a wall heater (hasn't been used in 20+ years) but no other sources or a/c or heat in the house. Living room and both bedrooms have ceiling fans. There are a total of 16 windows throughout the house so if you open them all you get a decent cross breeze.
In the mid 90's ish, there was a bug infestation (its Florida) and the house had to be tented and treated done by Orkin. They are the ones that found what they called serious signs of termite damage. Since then the house has been treated every 6 months via pest control service.
I grew up in the house and moved out in the mid 90's and haven't lived there since but even as a kid I knew the house was a piece of crap.
Now onto the issue. Values all come from looking at Zillow and realtor.com. The neighbors house directly to the left (corner lot) is a fully remodeled (late 2000's) solid concrete block build with 2bd1bth screened in porch (almost identical to my moms house just better, although the yard is smaller) valued at 360K. The neighbor directly to the right (corner lot) is a fully remodeled (8 years ago) stick framed 3br 2 1/2 bth with bonus room and attached garage that just sold ( 2 years ago) 590K (has almost no yard at all). The neighbor directly across the street from the house (corner lot and is also a double lot) is a 5br 4bth triple garage valued at 700K. The house directly behind the house (has a shared alleyway) is a shotgun style house 2br 2bth house (decent yard) valued at 340K.
Currently, my mothers house is valued at 230K, one of the lowest in the entire neighborhood. And by neighborhood I mean I am looking at a 10 city blocks x 6 city blocks. There are currently 2 empty lots, same size (110x44) that are for sale for 225k and 200k. Both appear to be under contract.
Now the question????
Option 1- Do I sell the house as is and get as much as I can for it in its current condition. The house has a mortgage on it that will have to be paid off for 65K. I know that once anyone does a home inspection it will come back lots of things that need fixing (electric, water, sewer, possibly structural, etc.) Doing the math on it, homes value 230k-65k mortgagee - realtor fees - concessions will get me maybe 60-100k to walk away with.
Option 2- Demo the house and just sell the lot. Have to get a permit to demo it and hire someone to demo it and take it to the dump. Looking online thats about 15-20k. If I could sell the lot for 200k - 65k mortgagee - demo fees - realtor fees I could walk with 80-90k
Option 3- I could drop every penny I have into a remodel (80K) and possibly take out a mortgage for remodeling, bring everything up to code and increase the homes value by maybe 100k. (new landscape, new siding, new electrical, new plumbing, new windows and doors, new 2x4's where needed, new insulation, new havoc system, etc.)
Option 4- Demo the house and build brand new. Then sell it.
Thank you if you took the time to read this and respond.

I'll try to keep this concise. About six years ago, I bought a 12×20 ft shed for the purpose of living in. It's a metal building with 2×4's as "rafters." (This has caused another issue/headache that I won't focus on here.) Being on an exceptionally frugal budget, I only did the bare minimum over the span of several years: 100 amp electric wired with several outlets/switches/lighting, window unit for cooling, carpet, a divider wall in the middle to focus cooling/heating on the area I spend the most time in, and spray foam insulation (kits I ordered on Amazon and did myself).
I've been living with these minimum conditions ignoring, avoiding, or distracting myself from the issues that have come up. Well, I finally started to work on these issues slowly but surely (I had very little construction experience) and have acquired a lot of information from the internet and a fortune in power tools. My main focus was building a bathroom with plumbing (hit another roadblock that I won't focus on here) but now my concern is back to the problems that I've been ignoring that I'm worried may compromise the work I've done (and possibly my health I suppose).
The issues are as follows, the spray foam I installed (closed cell kits) wasn't sufficient enough for keeping heat during winter, also, my heating source is extremely inadequate (space heater, Mr Buddy propane and extra clothes -_-) I literally woke up with frozen bottles of water next to me for 5 years. But, not this past winter since I started installing Rockwool insulation on top of spray foam with paneling to hold it in place (had to do some modifications since the aforementioned preexisting 2×4 "rafters" are spaced out 49 1/2 inches and the cavity was already filled with spray foam (a headache).
As I was in the process of doing this, I began to realize the extent of my years of negligence. There was some sort of growth on these 2×4's that I can only surmise without testing to be mold/mildew. This opened up a whole new can of worms that sidetracked my focus and lead me to research proper ventilation of which I am getting a plethora of varying recommendations that don't seem to apply to my particular situation. I would appreciate any insight from someone with more experience. I have bought a side wall vent that I plan on installing in what will eventually become a loft. But I am concerned that this will not be adequate enough.
Tl;dr Researching this subject is a maze of confusion to me since I am beyond ignorant of the subject (rvalue, invection, condensation, humidity, moisture barriers etc.) You can save some time in your explanation by answering me a few questions.
Should I be concerned about putting Rockwool insulation over closed cell spray foam that's covering a metal building?
Is one 1×1 side wall vent (with electric controlled fan) mounted at the top of this structure on one wall adequate enough for these conditions? Should I add one on the other end of the building?
If I added soffits in where the roof meets the wall, how would this be able to vent if I plan on closing it off with paneling and eventually drywall? Is there some way to route the air flow there? Or is this just to vent the area behind the wall?
Should I be concerned about adding any ventilation at the bottom? My main focus has been the top since "heat rises" and I've never seen vents in living areas of houses other than dryer, bathroom (I also plan on installing whenever I get the plumbing done), and oven range. If there are other vents that I'm not aware of, please educate me and offer any recommendations.
Okay sorry I couldn't keep it concise. I tried though.

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Ceele strolled through the damp grass along the outskirts of the village, a spring in her step and the dwindling scent of dew following behind. It rained yesterday, which had prevented her from going out to gather supplies, but the mild morning air had been accommodating enough for her to get an early start and make the trip. She was glad she did.
One hand clutched her new prize to her chest, while the other held a fraying wicker basket filled with herbs and some edible roots she gathered by exploring the forbidden forest. Despite her reservations regarding where she chose to go, her excitement now lingered like a steady thrum of shifting stones, giving her energy that defied how long she had been walking. She all but pranced beneath the burgeoning night's sky, gleefully toeing the line between the dirt pathways of the settlement’s outskirts and the trees of unclaimed land. Normally, her path back home would never be so close to the village, but she was far too gleeful to mind. She had come back with a sense of fulfillment and a rare object—or if not rare, then hopefully of great value.
It was hard to point to any one specific reason that she came across the orb. There had always been a ‘draw’ during her travels, urging her that there was something missing in her life, yet it was no more than a mild whim to walk in a particular direction more often than not. Once she reached this part of the continent, she was compelled to wander, never quite able to explain why she obliged the sensation besides having nowhere in particular to be. Even when she finally settled somewhere, it stayed in the back of her mind, suggesting that she was close to whatever would make the pit of vacancy go away. She ignored it, purposefully distracting herself with her work and responsibilities, yet that could only last so long. When she awoke this morning with plans to resupply, and all of her newfound spots had been picked clean by wildlife, she turned to the depths of the forest where she was warned not to tread. It was all too easy to follow the subtle tug in her chest through the loose justification.
The urge to be somewhere grew unbearable with every step closer to the forbidden area. That sense of having a direction she needed to go became stronger and stronger, until she was well into land long since forgotten. She came across an overgrown depression in the hillside, and was entranced by the foreboding image. Something about the cave just…beckoned her. She was far too weak to resist.
Horrible tales echoed into her ears as whispers of fearful voices, warning and unending, yet but a dull drone compared to her hammering heart. She navigated the trees and brushed aside unkempt vines, stepping into the cavern with a mix of expectation and trepidation, then laid eyes on the small obsidian stone perched atop a crumbling pillar. The feeling of needing to travel somewhere…stopped.
The pull was absent, which was why she held the orb close instead of placing it into her basket. She wasn’t sure what it was exactly, but she recalled overheard tales of hidden gemstones, deep cavernous expanses, and the untold terrors that lay within. Comparing the scenes of those fables to the cave seemed foolish now; it wasn’t some torturous chamber, but a dusty depression in a small hillside. Besides, anything this pretty was sure to be worth a fair sum, and she needed the coin. Yet the thought of selling the precious-looking stone was a conflicting one. She shook off the thought for the time being, turning her attention back towards where she was going.
Shadows stretched and faded as the moon stole the last of the illumination afforded by the sun, replacing it with a calming glow that caressed the log frames and thatched roofs of various homes. A star-filled sky came into prominence as clouds lazily drifted away, revealing the promise of tomorrow’s fair-weathered arrival. It was too late for anyone to notice her treading on the edge of their town while lost in thought, but she was still careful not to get too close to the houses or livestock pens where people might be finishing the evening’s duties. It was best that they didn’t see her returning from a place she was told not to go. Still, her feet carried her near the dwellings as she took in the noises.
Ceele enjoyed the comforting chatter from a distance. Indistinct words floated freely. Meaningless gossip and warm goodbyes were exchanged between friends and family. Places of various occupations were dark and quiet, only the faint contented mewls and clucks of livestock coming from their pastures as they ate what was recently put out for them. No metal rang throughout the streets as it was struck inside a centralized smithy, no heated bartering came from an overactive trade house, and the crunch of dirt beneath transport or merchant wagons was absent, replaced by the rapid steps and yelps of children rushing to their homes before it got too dark out. It was all just gentle conversation and life drifting through the wind, taking the rustle of leaves along for the ride, just so she could hear it. Tranquil, in a word.
She wondered what it would sound like if she were yet one more voice within that crowd of kindness. Would it be loud like the larger cities? Would she struggle to maintain a thought with so many stray topics floating about? Would she once more yearn for the peace and quiet of solitude that she had grown used to, or would she immerse herself, free of judgment and laughing like the carefree young that scampered about? Did thinking about it even matter?
Her smile fell from its genuine intensity—still worn, but not as fully. She glanced downward as her stride lost its jubilant bounce, her tail losing its sway as her grey eyes examined the dry black scales that adorned her body against her wishes. It was the ugly hue of tarnished oil, unlike the skin of any other kobold she had met. Some had reds or greens, yellows or whites, while most were between a sandy tan or earthen brown. The rainbow of peculiarities was displayed by the lucky few, and she was one of them…
…Yet she was different in the worst of ways.
Even if she would rather any other colour, she supposed it was that way to make sure no one came near without accepting the unspoken risks. That was what her mother always said, anyway, though the woman hardly feared much of anything in her old age, and dedicated herself to giving her offspring all the love she had left to give—a perk of living a full life. She would always help her daughter bathe, complimenting the colour of what most were unnerved by. That was more than a decade ago now, however. Ceele’s parents had passed on while she was still young, and she took to travelling not long after, working at what she could to afford what little she needed. Never for long, though—just enough to get to the next town between where she was and where the urge to go lay. There were certainly moments she looked back on fondly, but the journey had taken its toll.
The crude material of her ‘dress’ was coarse, old, and heavy, but it helped ease the worst of spring's chill—even if it was more of a modified sack than proper attire. Still, it was all she had after the last of her clothing fell apart, and giving the repurposed material a name that reminded her of something else made it less uncomfortable to wear, somehow. It would have to do until she could afford a pitying seamstress or the like. Until then, she would pretend she didn’t look so desperate, even if it only highlighted her status and made finding work difficult.
But it did. The dishevelled garment was a far cry from the wonderful silks or breathtaking designs she had seen some women wear, harshly marking the distinction between herself and those of affluence. The clothing of commoners was also a leap in style and quality, so she couldn't say her attire was up to even modest standards. No matter how hard she squinted, and no matter how much she fantasized otherwise, she seemed every bit like the vagrant she was, down to the soil embedded in the curvature of her claws and the stains throughout her fabrics. She looked like a serf from the more oppressed lands, yet they too wore crude cottons, which said a lot about how she appeared to those who had never lived a life of servitude. It was obvious that she was an outsider. That she didn't belong amongst the rest. It made changing something as simple as her appearance all the more difficult; prospective employment always saw a young woman who seemed more likely to steal or swindle than make an honest day’s living.
There was one good twist of fate in recent memory, however, and she came upon the result of it after leaving the slowing bustle of the village behind. Her steps carried her through a small copse of trees on the outskirts of town, the small shaded path leading to the back of a large, carefully pruned clearing, a scattering of fruit-bearing trees providing even darker shadow than the already dim moonlight. She skirted along the aging fence on the border that kept predatory animals away, carefully hoisting herself over the barrier where a large vegetable garden she was responsible for tending resided. If one were to tell her she would be living in such an area several months ago, she would have smiled politely and walked away, yet here she was.
A modest, warmly lit home occupied the middle of the clearing, sitting front and centre when one approached from the village path. It looked quite cozy, surrounded by berry bushes that were just beginning to bloom as the last dregs of winter slipped away. A front patio displayed a nice table and well-loved chairs, the rustic appearance only adding to its charm as a place where friends and family spent the warm summer afternoons. A smithy to the left of the house functioned as an additional heated building during the colder months, but usually served as a storefront and to muffle the sounds of hammered iron, though that had become less common. An old stable was nearby, close enough to be accessible, but not so close as to disturb the once occupying animals with sounds of iron craft. It hadn't seen a horse in quite some time, apparently, so it was mostly a workshop for whatever tasks didn’t require fire or metal.
There was a long history attached to each little detail—from the scuffs along the wooden siding to the depressions in the ground where daily routine wore into the earth. Every fault suffered throughout the years was matched by a thousand quirks that made it feel welcoming, like the house itself was merely waiting for the next friendly face with one of its own. She knew that the inside of each building would look just as cared for.
Her concern lay outside, however. It was a comparatively miniscule space just barely visible through the sheltering trees, true, yet it was where her efforts turned into tangible results, and where a stranger’s trust was painstakingly repaid. Once overgrown grass had been laboriously trimmed, the weeds plucked and disposed of, and now nothing distracted from what she could claim she had done.
The small plots of rock-bordered soil had little buds of growing vegetables, a sense of pride never failing to bloom in her breast with the knowledge that it would be barren without her touch. When her troubles and concerns grew heavy, and fears of the future or spectres of the past loomed over her head, she could look at where she had brought life where it wouldn't otherwise be. Some days, that was enough. She smiled in appreciation at what was admittedly amateur work, the night’s sky helping to hide any inevitably made mistakes.
She enjoyed the sight for a moment longer, then turned to walk towards a neglected old tool shed that was well out of sight within the trees, far away from whatever warmth and comfort the larger house offered to everyone and anyone. She put a hand on the degrading wood of the entryway, giving one last sad smile at the garden as she dismissed selfish thoughts of taking the eventual harvest for herself. A breath cleared the uncertainty from her voice, and she pushed open the door.
“I'm home!”
= = = = =
It took a while for Altier to adjust to his situation, and even once he accepted that his mana wasn't being siphoned, he was still reeling from confusion. He had spent centuries with every year passing by without his notice, yet now he was painfully aware of each creeping second languidly dragging on with the expediency of growing grass. It was as disorienting as it was painfully nostalgic.
Time was something he was never good with, and it only got worse as a dungeon. He'd get lost in creating rooms, corridors, creatures, and whatever else needed doing, only pausing to watch or listen to the few adventurers he became interested in. There was a stint where he spent what felt like hours agonizing over new abilities or options while he let the system manage things in the background, though he supposed it might have been much longer. So many wasted days, yet he still hadn't managed to try everything he had gained access to. Some abilities were simply too niche, came with concerning titles, or held descriptions that made him wary. Anything with ‘Decay’ in the name was instantly ignored—he didn't need more reasons to fear his affinity, and from the few he took the effort to read through, they were always vile.
But his existence for the moment was no longer like those endless stretches spent pondering the minutiae of what would help his adventurers grow stronger. Now, he could follow the rhythmic sounds of footsteps and steady breathing that set a calming pace. They were someone else's, yes, but they contextualized how easy it was to slip away without the subtle noises of life that he had long since surrendered to help his family. Of course, there were more differences that he noticed since being removed from his crumbling cavern, and his sight was the newest change.
He never gave much thought to how far he could see before. Why would he? As a man, his world extended as far as he could fathom, yet was also confined to the room where he spent his days, and as a dungeon… Well, who was he to consider distance when an event happening miles away could be seen with a flicker of thought? Nothing was too far when it was within his creation. Or his ‘body,’ he supposed. Sadly, his entire perception currently consisted of the small sphere of his obsidian core, and maybe a finger's length beyond it—which is to say, not much. He could make out the fine details in the dirty burlap he was held against, and how pale moonlight slowly took over the blurred reds of sunset, but hardly anything more. It was all just frosted colours after a certain point, and he found it infinitely frustrating. He just wanted to peer beyond the haze and scaly hand holding him to confirm that the sky he remembered was still there. Alas, the sunlight faded at too quick a pace, yet one oh so agonizingly slow.
The ensuing darkness gave him nothing to do but think about where he was, not that he had any ideas. He was too curious about why he wasn't dead to bother much with his blurry surroundings after the soft-spoken kobold abducted him, thus why he only belatedly noticed how limited his worldview had become. There might have been a forest beyond his cave, but the greens and browns were gone, and the sounds of steps through brush was replaced by the distant din of a village. An idle curiosity pondered if he would recognize any descents of his ‘family tradition’ adventurers there, but he was being carried by what most considered a monster, so likely not.
That short musing was short-lived, however, and he brought his focus back to the matter at hand. He supposed he was being taken somewhere specific, but that was an obvious deduction, considering he was taken at all. The why of the matter was less so; for what purpose would someone want a Decay-aligned core? He hadn’t heard of them before…well, before he was made into one, but he couldn’t imagine many uses. Maybe he was being sold? His…kidnapper? His sudden companion seemed rather pleased by their discovery of him, so that might be the case, and it was morbidly amusing to think that a frail, sickly young man might one day become a coveted, highly valuable item. His abduction could also be a part of some cult’s nefarious activities, but he didn't want to think about that too hard. He experienced enough odd ceremonies from the adventurers who took the time to tell him their tales.
Either way, he wasn't in the dungeon anymore, and he couldn’t see where he was going. He tried to query his menu to glean an answer, but was met with a scrambled mess he suspected read ‘Synchronizing…’ and little else. It gave him a headache trying to make sense of it—which he didn't know was possible anymore—so he dismissed the text and distracted himself with blurs from whatever diluted senses he still had. There wasn’t much to observe other than the constant footfalls and the flicker of shadows on his companion’s burlap garment. They might have travelled through brush again, but it was too dark to really say for certain.
Eventually, there was something new. He heard an old latch rattle and rusted door hinges groan, then a shuddered clack that confirmed he was now in a building. His kobold acquaintance gently cooed at something before moving about the nearly pitch-black space, finally setting him down on a… He wasn’t sure what it was, besides old and wooden.
[D$#@m$n E@$*ded]
The headache from before became a blinding migraine that suffocated him under a flash-flood of suffering. Seconds passed in abject torture until it blissfully abated, the mental blinks clearing his mind enough to notice a change in his existence. Specifically, he could actually see something besides the rotting wood grain he was placed on top of.
And it wasn’t anything promising…
He was more or less in the centre of a room no bigger than twelve paces by maybe ten. Not a terrible size for a space, but it was clearly never meant to house someone. His resting place looked about as neglected as he surmised; it was an upturned feeding trough, he supposed, since calling it a table seemed too generous. The surface was rife with holes and degraded iron, so it was something that once saw regular use before being replaced and tossed into storage, never to see the light of day again.
Actually, most things in the room seemed to fit that description. The window shutters were installed with metal hinges that had since rusted them closed, the misalignment letting in a draft—and whatever weather was outside as well, most likely. A poorly carved bowl sat on the floor, the stain beneath it hinting that it collected any rainwater that slowly dripped from the leaky roof. The wooden floorboards looked old, splintered, and in need of maintenance or replacement, though an effort had been put into abrading it somewhat smooth lately.
A tiny and decrepit fireplace was to the left of the door upon entry, its brickwork slowly crumbling due to weathering and age. It was sized more for keeping the room warm during mild days than to keep away the frigid chill of night. Its base only held cold ashes, but there was a collection of deadwood and scraps nearby, so that would probably be rectified soon. A small wheel-less cart had been turned into storage against the opposite wall, some herbs and other foraged items stowed away in it for future use. Various things he remembered seeing his father and brothers use in the fields were scattered about, too. It was nostalgic to see, honestly, even if his recollections had blurred over time.
Bundles of tattered blankets formed a pair of nests in the far corner, the smaller of the two had a pile of rough plants nearby. That answered his silent pondering of the room's purpose somewhat, though he was pretty sure the bedding material was salvaged, and there didn’t seem to be any hay or padding underneath whoever was sleeping on it. He didn’t know what to think about the weeds; they were purposefully placed there, and whoever did so had taken the time to wash them, but it was still strange.
He couldn’t see a doorway besides the entrance, yet most of the hallmarks of residency were put where space could be afforded, however crude. All in all, he surmised that it was a gardening shed of sorts, and his new acquaintance apparently lived here. He wasn't sure what he was expecting when a creature he had only read about came into his dungeon, but it wasn't being brought to a rundown and decrepit shack for unknown purposes.
Even if he had been raised by parents who made a humble living at the best of times, and they had emptied their coffers for unsuccessful attempts to ease his ailments, his acquaintance's living space made him uncomfortable. His family's house was never anything fancy, true—it shared some of the worn qualities that inevitably gathered over the years—but it was never this bad. His home benefited from a father's touch keeping it robust and a mother’s love keeping it warm, whereas this place had seen neither in quite some time. Oh, there was evidence that such was once the case; a wall was adorned with carefully made and well-spaced hangers for the various gardening tools, though the implements themselves had become a victim of neglect. That being said, he could make out the fresh soil and recent scratches exposing furrows of silver, so they were seeing use again.
A scrape and clack of flint drew his attention to his kobold companion. They were kneeling in front of the fireplace, methodically sparking life back into a dead flame with twigs and dried leaves. A slow, steady breath into the reddened base illuminated its face with a dull orange glow, revealing its weary visage and the permanently etched smile that rested beneath its cold grey eyes. The black-scaled kobold looked tired, if he were to guess—much the same as Altier did when he spent countless days watching everyone living a life he could never have through the mossy window of his bedroom. He was probably humanizing it too much. Still, he was surprised by the muted pang of sympathy, and how he would feel much more than blithe curiosity after spending so much time alone in the crumbling crypt of his own making.
A mental breath cycled through him as he looked at the odds and ends yet to be observed. Hardly anything else was of note—everything else was degraded and neglected, too. He did notice a nest of blankets move though, which was as good a distraction as any. The answer to his previous ‘pile of weeds’ inquiry poked a tiny nose from a crease in the fabric, then rapidly pawed at the blankets to dig itself out. Altier stared at the creature in both recognition and confusion.
It was a rabbit…or at least it looked like one, assuming you were to also describe a porcupine and a sea urchin as well. He was pretty sure he didn’t remember any hare that had jagged metal-tipped fur, nor that had said fur arranged into a row of spiked horns that flowed down its spine, terminating at a large fluffy tail, which was equally bizarre to see. The whole of its coat could double as a weapon, with semi-sharp barbs sticking off seemingly at random, yet he remembered an adventurer saying most animals used that sort of thing defensively. He increased his focus as he tried to make sense of the odd creature. Surely he would have heard about—
[Hoppittttttt#%%÷ — Ferro-o-orabbit-it (Ma%$le)
Abil—]
[Null]
[Er0Rrrrrrrr—]
[Und#$f—]
He bit back the pain caused by the sudden intrusion of his menu, blanking out the text and mentally retreating to hide from the source. Did he just inspect something? How? Shouldn’t his entire…‘framework,’ was it…? Yes, that was it. Shouldn’t that have been corrupted? Why could he see the creature’s information when his entire framework was damaged? That was the first ability he lost, so why is it the first to be functional? How was it functional? Was it? It did just spit garbled text at him, but it was something, and that was more than he had gotten from it in a very long time. If it was somehow working—no matter how poorly—then that left the question of why he hadn't heard of anything called a ‘ferrorabbit’ before, assuming he read that correctly.
A soft thud vibrated the tro— table, startling him out of thought. He turned his attention to the button nose wiggling erratically at him, the short, stubby muzzle leading to surprisingly expressive and curious red eyes. Dull brown fur jutted off in random tufts and patches, changing to a darker tint on its paws and the upper half of its ears, while the tips of its spikes were a muted hue of iron. It still seemed just as soft as the less pointed variety he remembered, if a touch dirty. Upright ears twitched this way and that way as its head vigorously shook, eventually settling on pointing in his direction when it calmed down enough.
It was apparent that he had its undivided attention…for all of a few seconds. His scaly companion called something out in their foreign tongue, and whatever conclusion the pointy-furred animal came to, it seemed more interested in the kobold, parting from him after nudging his core with its nose.
[Cre-e-e—]
[Errrrrrr0r: Undefiiiiiiii—]
[Acceeeeep-t-t-t??]
[Yeeee— s s / Nnnnnnn—]
He winced at the intrusion, but the contents detracted from the pain. He couldn’t remember the system ever asking him a question without his explicit intent being involved. It wanted him to…accept something? Was it the system prompting him, or the animal? What was he to accept?
[Creatuuuuu—]
[Acce-e-e-%#@ed!]
…What?
= = = = =
“Hoppit, that's not food!” Ceele admonished half-heartedly, placing a larger branch on the burgeoning flame before she got to her feet. She wasn’t actually that worried; the stone was as big as his head, and she was pretty sure he couldn't bite into it. Hopefully. “Come here, momma has a treat for you!”
The ferrorabbit playfully bumped the gemstone and jumped off the low table, landing with a soft thud that belied how heavy he was for his tiny size. He wiggled in excitement, his ears flailing and releasing a slight clack whenever the two connected. It got even louder when she grabbed her basket and put away the useful herbs, taking out a specific item that she had gathered just for him. The little bun wasted no time in scurrying over and standing tall on his hind legs to judge if the offered plant was to his liking—and it was, based on how he dug in with enthusiasm. She stifled a laugh as she contentedly watched him nibble away on the treat, ignoring the guilt that came with knowing she couldn't afford proper vegetables for him. He had a hard life too, and it tore at her to have so little to give.
She came across Hoppit a year ago, during a storm that worsened while she was travelling between towns. The day had darkened to night in spite of it still being about noon, but the weather didn't care for how bright it was supposed to be. Wind and rain became a typhoon, forcing her to seek shelter in a thankfully abandoned den of what was probably a larger animal. She was fine with waiting out the squall, since the stone roof over her head was more than she usually had back then, but the sounds of dull bangs and thuds near her hideaway was followed by cries of animals yelping in pain. Curiosity won over reason, and she left the safety of her shelter to see what was causing the disturbance. Truthfully, she was hopeful that she'd come across scraps or the like, her hunger driving her forward, and she could always turn back if it seemed dangerous. Yet when she arrived at the source of the commotion, she found herself thinking of anything but food.
Two predators had fought over a small burrow, both trying to dig out a meal and taking offence to the other doing the same. What they didn’t know was that they were assaulting the home of ferrorabbits. Specifically, the home of an angry, protective, and well-fed mother that was keeping her newborns safe from the storm when predators decided to try their luck. From the scene Ceele came across, it was certainly obvious why most people dislike trying to hunt the creatures.
Sadly, the rabbit didn't survive an attack from two predators, but she did make their victory pyrrhic; neither could do much about their hunger with their bodies full of cuts and holes, and it was only a matter of time before they succumbed to blood loss or infection. The mother's sacrifice meant that the babies had avoided the imminent threat, but they were left unattended as a consequence, and it took an opportunistic bird swooping down to shake Ceele out of her shock. Despite her subsequent hurry, she only acted in time to save one of the orphaned young. The warren was new and barely dug out, which meant that it didn’t take much effort for the kits to be found—by both her and hungry maws. All she could do was scoop the ball of fluff into her arms and run back to the cave before anything else tried to eat it.
In retrospect, it was a stupid decision for a number of factors. She barely had the resources to supply herself, and an attempt to raise offspring of any type would only make the inevitable heartbreak worse. But when she saw how quiet and scared he was… How his tiny, shaking body calmed in her arms, those terrified red eyes seeking comfort… She should have just walked away when she knew there wasn’t going to be anything to fill her stomach. She should have put the baby animal down and let nature take its course…yet the preciously furry face stole her heart far too quickly for it to grow so cold. The next day was spent backtracking to the nearest town to get him something suitable to eat, which used most of her meagre savings. Still, it was worth every coin.
Hoppit had been accompanying her ever since. He grew quickly, transitioning from something she saved that stormy night into a presence she had grown to love like a child. The little lagomorph would bounce along beside her during her travels, then ride in her arms as he rested—though the latter happened with worrying frequency as of late. She hadn’t learned much about the springy herbivores, but she knew enough to say that he wasn't as big as he should be, nor was his fur as sharp. No matter how startled he was, his spiky coat never managed to do more than stiffen slightly, which was apparently a side effect of poor diet, according to snippets of conversation she had overheard on the topic. She wanted him to be healthy, but she didn't know what he needed. Not many farmers raised ferrorabbits, and those that did were far away, so she didn’t have anyone to ask what she should be doing. Her best course of action was to give him what little she had.
Ceele was well aware of how he would be better off on his own, but he followed her whenever she tried to set him free. Hoppit just kept launching into her arms and wiggling his ears, ecstatic that he was with her again, uncaring that food was scarce and that they spent most of their days travelling. No amount of cold nights spent bundling up under the tattered blankets she managed to find ever dampened his spirits, and he was content to eat the grass or flowers whenever he felt like it, oblivious to the fact that he wasn’t getting enough nutrition. He would dig and excitedly drag back oddities that he found, and the one time he found a plant that looked particularly good for him, he insisted that it be shared with her.
A black pit still lingered in her chest when she recalled how pleased he was while he munched on the rare vegetable he discovered, then how distressed he became when she wouldn’t have any as well. He bumped and nipped at her, all but begging her to eat. His ears pinned back against his head, his fur bristled in a way she hadn’t seen since. It was only when she took a small bite and let him inspect the new teeth marks that he seemed to calm down, but perhaps she had been looking too deep into the actions of her tiny friend. All she could say for certain was that he was scared she was going hungry.
A morbid thought wondered if his first mother had refused food shortly before being attacked, and he—as small and simple as he was—had connected the two events in his mind, making him absolutely terrified that something would happen if Ceele didn’t have something too. All of that fear, and desperation overwhelmed him, just because she was happier watching him eat. She was determined to erase that issue. She would find something that needed a worker and earn enough to feed them both. One day, she would be able to smile at how big and healthy her little fluffy boy had become, but until then, it was becoming increasingly difficult not to think about how she was spending so much time growing vegetables and fruit that he couldn’t have…
Every morning was an exercise in tending to the gardens while actively shoving down images of a pleased ferrorabbit happily eating the results. That never went well; no matter how determined she was to complete her duties without a single selfish thought, most tasks were done while picturing his full belly and delighted bounces. There were a few weeks until the fastest of the crops would be ready for harvest, and Ceele would have to collect them while fighting the urge to bring back just a few for him.
She couldn’t, because she knew exactly how quickly that could escalate. It would start small—A vegetable here, a fruit there—but seeing Hoppit happy was one of the precious few good things she had in her life. Crossing the line would only become easier each time. They couldn’t risk losing their new home over greed, and she was already betraying the trust given to her by housing a wild animal, especially one known to be a pest for crops. She didn't want to know how angry it would make her benefactors if she was caught taking their vegetables for one.
No matter how tame and precious Hoppit was, and no matter how well he listened, they would only see him as the same creature that ruined harvests in droves. Thus was why she had to tell him to stay cooped up by himself while she was working or scavenging. And to her surprise, he did.
Honestly, she had made the initial request with the expectation of needing to carry him back into their home until he understood that she wasn’t leaving him forever. There wasn’t much she could do to stop the ferrorabbit from digging through the old wooden building if he wanted to get out. He wouldn’t need to damage anything either—a rotting board on the door only needed a little push to nudge it out of the way, and his natural curiosity made sure he was aware of it. But no, Hoppit was well-behaved as always, keeping hidden until she walked through the door, where he would leap from the shadows to personally show her how good he was and how he stayed put like she asked him to. It never stopped amazing her that he had such a surprising level of understanding despite being an animal, and that was to say nothing of how young he was.
All that intelligence, joy, and companionship he offered her…and yet the best she could give back to him was the weeds from the garden and the odd plant she found while scavenging…
Soft clacks of flicking ears dragged her from her pondering, her mind returning to the present. Hoppit finished his treat of the small plant, then bounced in place and scurried over to his bowl of water, perfectly happy to have eaten only that. He was so joyful with how little she provided, approaching every day of scarcity with the same enthusiasm she could never muster, as if certain that everything would be alright.
“It’s bedtime, Hoppit,” Ceele announced through a soft sigh, stoking the fire with enough branches to hopefully last the night. The ferrorabbit perked an ear in her direction, then sat on his haunches to extend the rest of himself up, his two little forepaws adorably held to his chest as he inspected the room like he always did. She smiled and made sure everything was stored away, then laid down on her bundle of blankets, covering herself with the warmest one. Hoppit bolted over to snuggle once he decided everything in the shed was up to his standards, throwing himself to the floor in a dramatic flop of comfort. Her quiet laughter subsided as they both settled in for the night, her tail completing the rabbit’s encompassing cuddle, but her eyes fell towards the obsidian orb on the table, her thoughts following suit.
It sat there, just as she left it, as benign as anything else ever placed atop the improvised furnishing. Yet there was a sense of ease and purpose as well. The old wooden trough seemed…important with its adornment firmly laid upon its surface, and she couldn’t puzzle out why. She was starting to doubt her earlier excitement.
Should she sell it? Would anyone know where it came from? Would anyone know what it was, or if it was worth anything? If she could get even a modest sum for it, she would be able to buy clothing, food, and new bedding. It would be easier to convince someone to give her work if she was dressed better and wasn’t so thin, and then she would have the income to slowly improve both of their lives. She could pay for a wandering merchant to ask a ferrorabbit rancher about the animal, even if it would take time to get back to her, or maybe she could hire a local if they needed to go near one for some reason. The cost didn’t matter to her as long as it happened.
But there was something else bothering her about the idea of selling the stone. She had travelled so far with a tug in her chest, only for the feeling of wanderlust to dissipate as soon as she held it. Was that a sign? She was never one for things like ‘fate,’ but a niggling doubt in her mind discouraged the idea of making a profit off her discovery. Even if what she could gain was so very tempting, and even if Hoppit would be happier if she did…
She tore her dampened eyes away and closed them, ignoring the burning trails running across her face. It would be another early morning, and she needed to sleep so she could take care of the garden. Decisions like this could wait. Once she had nothing else distracting her, and she had time to properly think about it, she would see how she felt about the stone.
Eventually, she dozed off with Hoppit pressed against her chest, and a longing in her heart.
Next
—
A/N: Patreon and Ko-fi will be 1 chap ahead this time around, and I've set it so everything from the lowest tier up can read the newest trashfire! Anything above that is sheer show of love. Hope you enjoyed!

Killer Grips: Anne Maria, Jasmine, Justin, Millie
Screaming Gaffers: Chase, Izzy, MK, Ripper, Scott
Episode 11: Full Metal Drama
"Last week, on Total Drama Action. Our competitors took it on the chin as they faced an all-you-can-eat buffet of deadly natural disasters."
"But, it was Scott's own feet that tripped him up. His newly-broken bone took him out of the challenge, and cost him the use of an arm. A rough life for the dirt farmer, but his teammates had it even rougher."
"We threw the competitors into a submarine simulator and forced them to find their way out, and thanks to a certain bully using his brain rather than his brawn, both teams were able to live for another day."
"Sound tough? Get used to it!" The scene moved to a close-up of Chris standing in front of a building. "Because this week, it's all-out war!" The camera zoomed out, revealing a tropical war zone set, complete with sandbags, a bunker, a guard tower, and even a bomb lying on the ground. He pointed to a chart that had been set up next to him with drawings of tanks, fighter jets, and a dotted trail leading to an 'X'. "It's a desperate battle for survival, on Total! Drama! Action!"
(Theme Song)
The episode opened with a shot of the communal bathroom before the scene cut inside it.
MK and Scott were currently inside eating chips and drinking soda respectively in front of the sinks. “So how are you handling this broken arm situation?” MK asked her teammate.
“Horribly,” Scott grunted. “I use my right arm for everything, and with that broken, how am I supposed to whittle or scratch my armpits?”
MK winced at the last part. “Too much information.”
“It's bad enough that I have to wear this bandana until my brand is off completely,” Scott pointed at the orange cloth. “Having my arm in a sling will screw things up for us.”
“Tell me about it,” MK snorted. “And don't be a bummer. You're getting compensated for your injury.”
“I was getting to that, MK,” Scott said. “Because I threatened to sue them, I've been treated much better, especially by Chef who has to work extra as punishment for his secret alliance. I got my own bathroom to shower in, I got to eat actual quality food, and yesterday, they even told me that me and my family will receive a hundred thousand bucks just to make sure we won't take action.”
This information led to MK gaping. “Are you serious?”
“As serious as a barn burning down,” Scott nodded. “With this amount of money, we can finally get our farm reconstructed.”
“You can stop now before I get jealous, Scott,” MK told him.
“Yeah yeah,” Scott shook off. “So anyway, we have to talk about who we're gonna vote off next, and that would have to be Izzy.”
“Izzy? Why her?” MK raised an eyebrow.
“She just rejoined the game a couple of days ago, and we already have a history in season one,” Scott reasoned. “If we're not careful, she can convince Ripper and Chase to vote me out.”
“That is a reasonable explanation,” MK agreed. “But maybe we could get Chase on our side for the vote. Ripper likes Izzy, so he's not an option.”
“As long as we have more votes, Izzy will be taken down,” Scott smirked.
“Absolutely,” MK smiled back.
Confessional: MK
“...not!” MK said in the make-up trailer. “Me and Scott may be in an alliance, but in this game, we'd usually have to backstab each other to get what we want. If we lose, I'm obviously telling the team to gun for him. After the elimination ceremony, I'll have to make sure that I'm not gunned for, and I know just how to do that.”
Confessional Ends
The footage skipped forward, showing the contestants walking warily as Chris passed them in an army helmet and sunglasses. "Today, we're all about war movies," he told them, the shot zooming out to show Chef glaring nearby in his drill instructor's uniform.
"So, look lively you...," Chris began to say.
"Buckets of horse doo-doo!" Chef finished with a growl into their faces.
"So, get ready for the first death-defying challenge, you...," Chris began again.
"Disgustin' slimy crustaceans!" Chef finished once more.
"Move it, privates!" Chris ordered. "Fall in!"
"Sir yes sir!' the cast said as one.
Confessional: Izzy
"I have all the skills required to be a marine," Izzy said enthusiastically in the make-up confessional. "I am stealthy, tough, and loud enough, and I can handle a weapon, but I do value my freedom."
Confessional Ends
The camera cut to Ripper and MK as the Grips walked off. "I cannot wait to go to war," the techno girl said. "I've played my fair share of Battlefront, and my squad has won a lot of online multiplayer gaming titles. Most of the time, we don't even use teamwork."
“I hate to break it to you, but we're not in your little tech world,” Ripper said in an annoyed tone as the rest of the team joined in. “Just leave all the marine stuff to me today.”
“Let you do all the work and take all the credit?” MK glared. “Not happening, Buster.”
“Now wait a second-” Ripper began to glare back.
“Quit taking shots at each other!” Chase got in-between the two. “We can make a plan when we're at the challenge site, okay?”
“Seriously, I've seen my pigs fight over less,” Scott huffed as MK and Ripper continued to glare at each other.
Confessional: Ripper
“I'm really at my wits end with that shortstack,” Ripper complained. “Who does she think she is insulting and putting down the best looking guy on the show… me! Thankfully, MK won't be able to listen to me rant about her.”
Confessional: MK
MK was watching Ripper's previous confessional on her phone, especially the part about him bragging about himself. “It's so silly how he thinks I can't listen to everything he says,” she confessed after turning off her phone.
Confessionals End
The scene briefly flashed to the numbered studios with the sound of a plane engine in the background, the camera panning up to show the fake cliff before flashing to what looked like the inside of some kind of plane. The two teams were shown in a split screen with the Gaffers on top and the Grips on the bottom, all nine teens wearing blindfolds.
"Okay people," Chris said, "remove your blindfolds!" The contestants did as commanded, and the viewpoint shifted to show the teams sitting along opposite walls as the host walked in front of the camera. "When it comes to making a war movie," he said, the viewpoint moving again to show that he was standing next to a large trunk, "jumping out an airplane is the most dangerous stunt there is." He popped the trunk open, revealing several parachute packs within. "So naturally," he began to yell as he slid open a nearby door, the winds roaring inside the room, "it's our first challenge!"
MK and Scott gasped, as did Millie, and even Justin looked shocked.
"Chris really set the record for the shortest amount of time between the start of the challenge and our lives being endangered," Jasmine deadpanned over the roaring wind and engine.
“If we live, I'm going to file a complaint that's sure to get Chris replaced with a nicer and more considerate host,” Millie shouted.
“Nice grit for an underdog,” Jasmine grinned.
“Underdog?” Millie asked.
“Underdogs usually have a lot of fight and honor in them, and you've been tapping into it a lot,” Jasmine complimented her friend. “Keep it up.”
Millie felt flustered by her words. “I, uh, thank you.”
Justin soon sat in-between the two of them. “Jasmine, Millie! I want to propose something, but don't get excited, it's not marriage!” he chuckled. “Uh, anywho, it's a long way from the airplane to the ground below!”
“Exactly three kilometers!” Millie confirmed.
“Wouldn't know. Math is for ugly people,” Justin said. “Here's the deal! I need you two to jump before me in case I need a soft place to land, okay?!” The eye candy blinked his eyelashes only to receive blank stares from the girls. “Now, you girls know that I don't blink these eyelashes at just anybody!” He did the same thing again and got the same response. “Nothing?! When were your last eye exams?!”
"Drop zone approaching!" Chris announced after sticking his head out the open door. "Form a line, it's time to par-tay!"
The Gaffers were shown standing up as the host continued. "Stunt people undergo weeks of training before they parachute," he said as the Grips stood up as well, Jasmine walking forward hesitantly. "Luckily, we're gonna skip all that and get to the good part: Jumping!"
"That doesn't sound like a good idea!" Scott told the host.
"What's the worst that could happen?" Chris asked him.
"We die!" Anne Maria answered with annoyance and anger.
"I know!" Chris grinned. "Hilarious! Haha! Time to jump!"
"Well, there's no point standing here like statues," Izzy walked towards the trunk of parachutes with Scott.
“Hey McLean, can I skip out on the jump?” Scott asked. “My arm is broken!”
"Sorry Scott," Chris told him, "but you gotta jump too! Try not to land on your right arm, okay?" He then pulled his cellphone out of his pocket and turned his back on the now-enraged Scott.
“Someone's definitely going to increase the amount of money me and my family will get,” Scott whispered bitterly.
"At least we get parachutes," Chase told the injured boy.
"Actually, change of plans!" Chris interrupted, closing his phone and stowing it back in his pocket. "I just spoke to our research department, there were no parachutes in World War I!"
"So what do we do for the challenge?" Ripper asked.
"Simple," Chris replied as he shoved the trunk of parachutes out the door with his foot.
The contestants gasped, though a fearless Izzy was the first one to jump out the plane shouting “Tell my pet rock I love her!”
None of the other contestants made a move, though, and Chris scowled. "Okay, you kids better start jumping or I will have Chef tilt the plane and force you out!"
“That's all the motivation I need!” Chase said quickly and dived out into the air with a fearful cry.
"Who's up next?" Chris asked the remaining castmates with a smile.
The scene cut outside the plane as the contestants jumped out one by one. First MK, then Ripper, then Scott to round out the Gaffers with a terrified shout each as they quickly disappeared into the clouds below the plane. Next was Jasmine looking determined, followed by a shrieking Millie. Justin gulped and took the plunge, and Anne Maria came out last with a holler, and the host briefly looked out and below with a surprised look on his face before the clouds filled the scene.
They dispersed moments later to reveal all nine contestants in a heap on top of a large mattress.
"Hooray! We're alive!" Scott groaned. The camera zoomed out, showing that they were in a movie set. The plane was a wingless fake hanging from the ceiling only a few yards above the mattress, and the high winds were caused by a pair of giant fans operated by Chef Hatchet. On the back wall, level with the plane's windows and door, was a sky-patterned background made to continuously scroll and give the illusion of movement within the plane.
Chef shut off the fans, and the castmates groaned and began to get back up. "Let's roll, soldiers," Chris told them, now back on the ground. "Because the second part of this challenge is gonna blow your minds!" He grinned as he spoke before leaning towards the teens. "And everything else within a fifty-foot radius!"
Confessional: Chase
“If I had know that we would land on a mattress, I would’ve just let Chef force us all out,” Chase confessed.
Confessional Ends
The scene immediately flashed forward to a close-up of a green tarp being taken off a pile of grenades and bombs. "Are those," Jasmine asked as the camera pulled back to show her and the other Grips standing with Chris and the tarp-pulling Chef by a blast shield outside, "paint bombs?"
"We've divided the camp into two halves," Chris told them, the Grips watching with blank looks while the Gaffers were shown in a similar but mirrored position on the other side of the two men. "Most creative and controlled splatter wins."
“Alright gang,” Jasmine clapped her hands in order to get her team's attention. “Here's how our explosion is going to go. We'll have to lay our explosives in a pattern in order to make sure that the paint coverage will be more noticeable than the Gaffers’.”
“Excellent idea. I'll handle the explosives. I passed chemistry in my high school,” Millie eagerly walked off.
“Wonderful,” Jasmine smiled.
“I'll help as well,” Anne Maria said after she stopped using hairspray on her pouf. “I could ward off the other team by sprayin’ them in their eyes if they even think about spyin’ on us.”
“Not a big fan of harming our competition, but you do you,” Jasmine said uncertainly.
“And I'll be letting my butt have its beauty rest!” Justin chuckled suavely while laying back on a nearby hammock tied between two trees.
This did not go unnoticed by Anne Maria and Jasmine, who both flipped Justin off the hammock and into the ground.
“You're gonna help us with this challenge and not get any special treatment,” Jasmine scolded.
“Is it getting hot out here?” Justin took off his shirt and demonstrated his pecs. “Now if you'll notice, I don't sport a six-pack. I got twelve. That's a dozen smoking mandominals.”
“Get workin’, lazybones!” Anne Maria demanded and stomped off.
“This, this can't be right,” Justin panicked. “Have I really lost my lady controlling mojo?” He turned to the tallest member of the team. “Say it ain't so!”
“No need spouting the obvious, Justin,” Jasmine replied uncaringly.
“This challenge was designed for me!” Ripper told the Gaffers. “What do I not love more than exploding things?!”
“Being a numbskull, for instance,” MK retorted. “I seem to remember you saying that you let people do all the work for you. And we're supposed to trust you on this?”
“Adding my two cents onto this, I would've done the same thing if I was Ripper,” Scott added snidely.
“I'm sorry, MK, but I think we have to stick with Ripper on this one,” Chase said with a hand on MK's shoulder.
“Why?” MK objected. “I actually worked hard to get an A in chemistry.”
“Explosives Boy overrules Chemistry Girl,” Scott shrugged.
"Okay, time's up!" Chris announced, the camera cutting to his close-up as he entered the scene. "Uh-oh, looks like you didn't even get started."
“Not so fast, Chris!” the voice of Izzy cried out, and everyone turned their heads to see her smiling with her foot on a bomb and multiple bombs plastered around her team's site.
“Whoa. Now that's what I call thorough,” Chris narrated.
Chase hesitantly moved over to the curly haired girl. “Iz, what did you do?”
“Plant the explosives while you guys were at each other's throats,” Izzy giddily said.
Confessional: Izzy
“When Chris mentioned explosives and bombs, that was a sign that my team is lucky to have me on their side,” Izzy gloated. “I could blow up a hotel if I wanted to, but I refrain unless I'm extremely tempted.”
Confessional Ends
Another cut took the scene to the Grips, standing behind the blast shield that was between them and a set that was very much like the Gaffers', except that it had been mirrored. There were no visible bombs around, and they were all wired into a plunger held by Chris.
"Grips, are we ready?" Chris asked, handing the plunger over to Millie.
"Likewise," the writer said with a confident smile. As she pushed the plunger down, part of Richard Wagner's 'Ride of the Valkyries' began to play in the background. One by one, explosions of green paint began to go off around the Grips' area – in the guard tower, behind the sandbags, near the bunker door, and several off the bunker's roof. The music ended as one final explosion splattered the blast shield, stunning Anne Maria, Jasmine, and Justin.
As the dust cleared around their blast site, the camera pulled back to reveal a massive rendition of the Grips' light-bulb-and-crossbones logo in green paint.
"Nice show of team spirit," Chris told the four.
"I must say, that was very impressive," Justin admitted to Millie as the host walked away.
"What can I say? I wanted to make an explosion that would be mind-blowing, but still tame," Millie told him smugly. "You're welcome."
The shot cut back to the Gaffers' side of the camp, starting on their explosive-laden set before panning over to the five waiting behind their blast shield with Chris.
"Are we ready to blow it up?" Chris asked excitedly, with Izzy standing by a larger plunger than what the Grips had used.
"We're ready! Uno, dos, tres!!!" Izzy chanted and eagerly pushed the plunger down.
Almost immediately, a chaotic series of explosions were set off all around the base. They were accompanied by hectic and disjointed notes in the background music, and the host and other four Gaffers were shown cringing with their fingers in their ears. Eventually the explosions stopped, the dust settled, and everyone except Izzy leaned past the paint-splattered wall with curious expressions.
The camera panned to the left, showing what appeared to be a shapeless blob of paint. No patterns were apparent in it, and the areas that had been left untouched seemed to be random as well.
"Welp, at least it was controlled..." Chris said with a frown.
“Just come over here,” Izzy grabbed the host by the wrist and dragged him over to another spot.
"Hey, there's no touching the host!" Chris said indignantly, yanking his hand free as soon as Izzy stopped moving.
"Look now!" Izzy directed his attention back to the pain splatter.
Chris turned his head, and almost immediately began to brighten up. "It's...it's…beautiful!" he said, wiping away a tear as the viewpoint moved behind him, showing Izzy's paint pattern from another angle – it took the shape of the host's own grinning face.
"The Gaffers are victorious!" he announced, walking back to the other Gaffers by the blast wall. The Gaffers began to cheer and celebrate. "It is my honor to present your prize," Chris added just before Chef appeared wheeling a large and ornate-looking red chest on a handcart. "The Big Trunk of Mind-Blowing Secrets! You'll be defending it with your very lives when we return to more, Total! Drama! Action!"
The shot cut back with each word of the title, showing the defeated Grips standing by in shame.
(Commercial Break)
The episode came back on a shot of the cloudy sky, panning down to show Scott and Chase standing together by a potted palm tree.
"So what is it that you want to talk to me about?" Chase asked. "If it's to brag about your luxuries, then I don't want to hear it."
"It's not about that, Chase," Scott rolled his eyes. “I wanna talk about who we have to vote off tonight.”
“What do you mean “we”?” Chase grew curious. “I know who I'm going to vote for, and it doesn't take Einstein to figure out who it is.”
“I know I'm not the coolest kid on the block, but we have to pick off Izzy,” Scott suggested.
“And why would I do that?” Chase asked.
“She's a wild card, and she got back into the competition not once, but twice,” Scott emphasized. “Do you really want to face off against her in the finale?”
Scott left the athletic boy alone to ponder about his decisions.
The footage flashed forward to Chris McLean standing by the trunk he'd brought out. "Contestants, get ready to begin your next war challenge!" he announced. "It's a giant game of 'Capture the Flag', except in this case the flag is the Trunk of Mind-Blowing Secrets!" The camera zoomed in on the trunk at an angle, and the ornate thing seemed to glow radiantly.
"There's only one way to learn what's in the trunk," he told the off-screen castmates, "and that's to win the challenge. As your reward, we'll give you immunity from tonight's vote, aaaanndd a peek inside. But be ready. The secrets inside will blow your brains to bits!"
"I need my brain!" Ripper whined.
"Not to worry," Chris told him, holding up a roll of duct tape. "A roll of tape will be provided so you can tape the gray matter back together."
"Gaffers," Chris said as he walked over to what looked to be a building covered in a sheet bearing the logo of the Screaming Gaffers, "this is your base camp." Chef watched from close by, his hands angrily on his hips, as the host and the five teens began to arrive, Chase and Izzy carrying the trunk by the pair of poles sticking out on opposite sides. "Our set decoration team wanted to build you guys a towering castle, full of defensive possibilities! But, they went to see a movie instead, sooo..." Chris trailed off as Chef grabbed the sheet. "We're gonna give you this!"
The sheet was pulled away, revealing an utterly decrepit wooden shack. "I think it's a tool shed," the host said uncertainly before the building creaked and collapsed into a dusty heap of rotten planks and miscellaneous garden tools. "Was a tool shed," Chris corrected. "Good luck!"
"How are we gonna defend this big trunk out in the open?" Izzy asked.
"We just have to put our heads together and come up with a plan," MK answered.
“You guys do what you want. I'll be setting some booby traps,” Chase told the team and walked away.
“In first World War movies, the soldiers would always have underground hiding places,” MK said as she gave Izzy a shovel and held one of her own. “Those would be foxholes.”
“With me digging, why not call it a foxy-hole,” Izzy quipped.
“I'm just glad that I don't have to dig at all,” Scott bragged. “Using one hand only won't make the job faster.”
As Izzy began to dig rapidly with Scott watching her, MK turned to Chase and Ripper laying a net down on the ground with headlights attached. “Chase, Ripper, the rest of us agreed on a plan,” she informed. “We could use a little help.
“And we could also use you shutting up!” Ripper retorted. “We're busy!”
Confessional: MK
“If I wasn't so focused on strategy, I'd switch targets from Scott to Ripper just to spite his butt,” MK sniffed. “It's hard finding common ground with that jerk.”
Confessional Ends
The footage cut back with a shot of MK and Izzy digging a large hole in the distance and Scott observing them as though viewed through binoculars. "So what's going on?" Millie asked off-camera as the binoculars were lowered and the viewpoint shifted to Jasmine.
"Izzy and MK are currently digging and Scott is just standing there," Jasmine explained, "although I don't know if it's because they want to bury the trunk or construct a foxhole."
"What about the others?" Anne Maria asked.
"I don't know," Jasmine replied. "Ripper and Chase seem to have disappeared."
"I say we attack immediately!" Anne Maria declared with an air of formality.
"I say we don't," Millie shook her head. "The team obviously outnumber us and have defensive capabilities. Confronting them at this point would be really dumb."
"So what do we do?" Justin asked.
"What we need to do is to proceed intelligently if we want to win the challenge," Millie said.
“Sure. Let’s wait for the other team to set up more traps that will never let us get that trunk,” Anne Maria said sarcastically.
“That’s not what we’re going to do, Anne Maria,” Jasmine assured. “Millie, how are we gonna go about doing this?”
"We should send two people down there in order to figure out what they’re up to," Millie suggested. "That honor should go to Justin and Anne Maria."
"And why us?" Justin objected.
"Me and Jasmine need to think of a plan number two in case this plan fails," Millie reasoned. "All you guys have to do is execute this one."
"Whatever you say, Mil," Anne Maria said before grabbing Justin’s arm and walking away. "Let's go, hot stuff."
Confessional: Anne Maria
“I’m kinda surprised that Justin didn’t try to weasel his way outta the plan,” Anne Maria confessed. “What’s his game?”
Confessional: Justin
“We really need to win this challenge,” Justin said seriously. “By the look of things, my charms aren’t going to win the girls over and I’ll likely be the one going home today. So for the sake of my game, I’ll help out.”
Confessionals End
The footage skipped ahead to Anne Maria and Justin charging into the clearing the Gaffers started. "Where are they?" Justin asked after they stopped. “Jasmine just saw them.”
"Split up and look in other directions," Anne Maria ordered. “They may be hidin’ someplace else.”
The camera zoomed into the hole the Gaffers were in. "So how long do we have to stay in here for?" Izzy asked MK.
"Hopefully long enough for the Grips to admit defeat," MK answered.
"We’re good for now. We just have to not act stupid and blow our cover," Scott said while rubbing his sling. “And I don’t normally do this, but good job on the explosion, Izzy. It really helped us win the first part.”
Izzy was stunned to hear this. “Did you just… compliment me?” the wild child asked.
“Yeah, I did,” Scott replied. “I thought you’d just make a random explosion given how nuts you are, but you actually planned it out.”
“Yeah, how did you come up with the plan to just demonstrate Chris’s face?” MK asked.
“Chris is extremely narcissistic and vain,” Izzy explained. “Anything that revolves around his image will make him score us big points.”
“You’re not joking about that,” MK rolled her eyes. “He’s more likely to marry himself.”
The scene cut to Justin and Anne Maria meeting up with each other in front of the Gaffers' hideout. "Were you able to find the Gaffers? Because I could not," Justin said.
“I had no luck as well,” Anne Maria recapped.
The camera zoomed out to reveal that the duo were on top of the net trap, and they got hoisted up in the air by it.
"Got you dorks!" Ripper's laughing voice said off screen. The camera cut to him coming out of a nearby tree. "Chase, now!"
Chase's yell was heard as he swung on a cord before landing in front of the two Grips. He cut the rope holding the net trap, and Anne Maria and Justin were flung out of sight.
The camera cut back to the Grips' starting location. Millie and Jasmine watched in shock as their teammates crashed into the ground and groaned after they landed, prompting them to go check on their moaning teammates.
“There's, there's a... there's a scratch!” Justin said after feeling his face. “My face can't continue to take all this abuse! I'm losing it! You… you… you gotta let me go on leave!”
“I ain’t buyin’ any of this,” Anne Maria scoffed as she stood up and rubbed the dirt off her clothes.
“We all get scratches. I got a mosquito bite on my neck once, but that didn’t stop me from going to my job,” Jasmine lectured.
Anne Maria and Jasmine walked off, and Justin turned his eyes to Millie. “Millie, I know you’re a female. Can you help?”
“You were able to have girls wrapped around your finger, and now you’re getting zero play,” Millie summarized with apathy.
“You really are quick-witted,” Justin said in surprise.
“Relationship with Chase aside, I don’t really think you’re that cute,” Millie said. “Why else did I not want to kiss you in that challenge?”
“Like I care what you think,” Justin shot back in an offended manner and finally got off the ground.
Confessional: Justin
“Me? Not cute? I'll tell you who's not cute. Blind people named Millie!” Justin stated, upset.
Confessional Ends
"So it seems that the Gaffers will not come out until they're sure that we forfeit," Millie told her team.
"Which we’re not going to do," Jasmine said.
"Wasn't even planning on it," Anne Maria told her. "We should attack again the minute they show their faces, and I have a way to make sure that we’ll take that trunk."
"You two definitely have to help us this time," Justin reminded Jasmine and Millie. "We'll be outnumbered otherwise."
The footage returned to the Gaffers, Ripper and Chase now with them. "How much time do we have left?" Izzy childishly asked her team.
"I don't know and I don’t care, but we're still staying in this joint until time is up," MK declared.
"How many traps did you guys even set up while you were gone?" Scott questioned Chase and Ripper.
"We set up a total of four," Chase claimed. "Anne Maria and Justin hit one of them, so now we have three."
“This is why you shouldn’t doubt us, MK,” Ripper told his short teammate.
“I didn’t doubt you. I just wanted you to stay and help us,” MK argued. “And just because the other team set off one trap, doesn’t mean that I have to worship you like you’re Jesus,” she said before smirking, “and there’s no way you’re even next to godliness.”
“Pot calling the kettle black much?” Ripper snorted. “I still helped out, even if it wasn’t by your rulebook.”
“MK smart, Ripper strong,” Chase interrupted. “Can we all just agree that we’re special in our own ways?”
Ripper and MK frowned at each other and sighed.
“You’re not as dumb as you look,” MK grumbled.
“And you’re not an extreme big mouth,” Ripper mumbled.
“Good. I’m done playing mediator for the day,” Chase said.
"This is getting boring," Izzy moaned impatiently. "We should just go out there and attack the Grips."
"I’m tired of waiting as well," Scott spoke up. “Those losers are not getting our trunk.”
"We’re done arguing today, so how about we put it to a vote?" Ripper suggested.
"All in favor of going in for battle?" Chase asked as he raised his arm up, as did Ripper, Scott, and Izzy.
"I’m clearly outnumbered here,” MK sighed. “We'll go out in the open, but bring the trunk along."
The scene flashed to the Gaffers coming out of their hole and putting their trunk down. They saw the Grips charging at them, and they prepared themselves.
"There’s four of them and five of us," Scott took note with a grin. "I’m liking our odds already."
“But how are we going to take them down exactly?” Chase asked.
Izzy whipped out a smoke bomb from behind her back and held it up high. “Smoke bomb! Never leave home without it!”
As soon as the Grips reached their site, Izzy proceeded to throw the bomb at them. The Grips froze at the sight of this, but Anne Maria took out two hair spray cans, and after the smoke bomb hit the floor, a large white cloud covered the screen, but Anne Maria was able to spray their way out of it, and the team resumed running.
“Retreat!! Retreat!!” Izzy ordered her team, but it was too late when Anne Maria threw her spray cans on the floor in front of the Gaffers, and after they exploded, the Gaffers coughed profusely due to the extreme stench, leaving the trunk alone for the Grips to grab.
“So long, Gaffers!” Anne Maria taunted. “Grips rule!”
The scene cut to the Grips dropping the trunk on the floor after they returned to their site. “And that’s how we win it!” Anne Maria boasted.
"Time's up!" a sudden announcement came as Chris walked into view along with the other castmates. "The Grips have stolen the chest, putting them in the winner's circle."
"That means," Chris added while walking towards the Gaffers, "the Gaffers will be sending home one of their own tonight. And now, it's time to reveal to the winners," a reverent tune began to play as a spotlight was placed on the trunk, "the mind-blowing secrets within this trunk! Here's what you were fighting for, team!" The lid popped open, and Jasmine and Millie looked inside.
Their grins rapidly faded away as the reverent music came to a sudden and scratchy stop. "All that work," Millie said with a shocked look as a lighter and more emotional melody began to play.
"All that pain," Jasmine added.
"Pain?" Millie asked in confusion. "We rarely got hurt!"
"Still," Jasmine continued quickly, "all this for what?"
"A trunk that was empty the whole time!" Millie declared.
"War is a cruel, cruel thing," Jasmine concluded.
The Gilded Chris Ceremony began with all its usual fanfare, and after the introduction the footage flashed straight on to Chris standing at his podium. "This one's a nail-biter," he told the five seated teens. "I'd say no one's safe tonight. Izzy, how do you feel about your chances?"
The camera cut over to Izzy, sitting on the highest level of the bleachers. "Honestly, I feel pretty good about them," she said with a smile. "I was the one that scored my team the win for the first part of the challenge, and if I were to be going home today, it'd likely be because I blew the challenge."
“Or because you reverted back to your impersonations like E-Scope,” Ripper added.
“That's a thing of the past, Ripper,” Izzy said.
"Then," Chris continued, "there's Scott. Although you didn't cost your team the challenges or throw them on purpose, you didn't contribute much. Plus, your broken arm makes you a bit of a liability. Will you be the one sitting in the Lame-o-sine tonight?"
“We'll just have to see it to believe it,” Scott deadpanned.
"Chase, MK, Ripper!" Chris said with a broad smile. "Seems your tussles aren't entertaining anybody, not even your team. Are you worried?"
"Why would I? This team needs me, man!" Ripper shot a cocky smile.
"Alright then," Chris announced, "votes have been tabulated!" A folded card parachuted into view next to him, and he quickly snatched it up and held it to his forehead without bothering to read its contents. The tension began to build in the music. "So, it's time to present the awards. Tonight, the Gilded Chris goes to...MK, Ripper, and...Chase!" he said in succession, each name followed by the sound of an award being thrown and caught. "And now, only two nominees left."
The background music picked up as the screen was split, with spotlights on Izzy on the left and Scott on the right. "The final award goes to...," Chris said slowly as Scott watched nervously while Izzy smiled and held two fingers up to the camera. "Izzy!"
The camera panned left slightly as the wild child caught her golden statuette. "Hold on, wha?" Scott stammered in shock. "This has to be a joke, right?"
“No, it isn't,” MK said with a grin, “and you have me to thank for that.”
“You… you backstabbed me?!” Scott said with a bit of shock and anger.
“With four votes to one,” MK cackled. “I just did what you did to your previous alliance. Don't get all hypocritical.”
"Unbelievable!" Scott grumbled before he was grabbed by Chef and carried over the shoulder down the Walk of Shame.
Confessional: Izzy
“This was the perfect opportunity to get rid of Scott after all he's done in the first season,” Izzy said. “I'd be dumb to pass this up.”
Confessional: Chase
“Even with Scott trying to convince me otherwise, there was no way I wasn't going to vote him off,” Chase told the audience. “Besides, he can heal his broken arm off the show.”
Confessional: MK
“It's not hard getting people to vote off a disliked contestant, especially if that someone was the villain of last season,” MK mentioned. “I can't be tied down to Scott for much longer, and this is my season to shine!” she ended her confessional on a serious note.
Confessionals End
Scott was unceremoniously thrown into the waiting limousine by Chef. The door slammed shut, the limo sped off, and the camera cut back to a close-up of Chris.
"Well, we finally got rid of Scott the Schemer," he told the camera. "With him gone, hopefully we can stop providing benefits for him and not have to worry about being sued. Catch you next time," he said with a salute, "on Total! Drama! Action!" He ended the salute and put his hands behind his back, then smiled as he said "At ease!"
(Roll the Credits)
(Bonus Clip)
“I can't believe it!!” Scott grunted in the limousine. “MK totally duped me! Though given how much my team was against me, I knew I wasn't going to last this time,” he admitted reasonably. “Seems MK's this season's baddie, and an effective one she is. I'm still expecting the hundred thousand dollars to be delivered to me if it's the last thing the show will do for me. With me out of the game, I don't have to be forced to endanger my arm just for views, and maybe the next time you guys see me, I won't have this bandana around my forehead. The brand should be gone by now.” He used his good arm to take the bandana off, and was surprised by how little the branded “S.U.C.K.E.R.” was on his forehead. “Well would you look at that? I don't think I'll be needing this anymore.” He rolled down the window and tossed the cloth out, and then winced in pain afterwards and clutched his injured arm.
Eva - 14th
Geoff - 14th
Izzy - RETURNED
Trent - 12th
Sky - 11th
Brick - 10th
Scott - 9th
Killer Grips: Anne Maria, Jasmine, Justin, Millie
Screaming Gaffers: Chase, Izzy, MK, Ripper

Previous part: 8.
Three candle lanterns, two gardening hats, and two potted flowers...
​
Okay, first, what does any of this stuff have to do with Vanny, and why are they significant in the first place?
Well, there are two exact reasons why they are significant. The first is because they are out of place in this Log Ride scene depicting being onboard a train that is being robbed. The second reason and the most important is that these objects on the seats are not cardboard cutouts.
I didn't mention this above, but when you first enter this train scene, on your right and left, is a cardboard cutout of a brown handbag on top of a blue suitcase. If haven't seen this before, then I don't blame you as you literally only have two seconds to look at them before you're already past them.
Luckily, I have the power to pause things and use my unique skill of observation to spot these things. Anyway, what this tells me, is that objects that belong in this scene should be cutouts, not real things.
Due note, however, that certain objects, like the two buckets that can be seen here, could have an explanation for them being here as there is a water ride or they could be props like the various things in that starting area.
Right away we can remove the lanterns and the potted flowers as belonging here as they don't have anyway explanations for being on the train. But what about the hat?
I know I said it was a gardening hat but it could honestly be a random cowboy hat prop for the scene. Plus, why would Vanny bring two separate gardening hats or even bother to bring one when she's already inside a building. So then cowboy hat props it is then until someone rips the models out of the game to get a better look at them.
But even then, some garden hats do look very similar to cowboy hats and vice-versa.
So then that brings us back to the candle lanterns and the potted flowers. Now, the candle lanterns may seem like they fit the scene, but why would trains have lanterns on the seats and not hanging on the walls to provide light? They wouldn't. Someone had placed them there.
And while the lanterns themselves aren't a giveaway to Vanny's presence here, we know from the spray cans in Roxy Raceway pt 2 that she does, in fact, use them while in the ruined Pizzaplex.
But even with that, I can't exactly prove that she, specifically, is the one that is that placed all these candle lanterns around in Ruin or Help Wanted 2. Yet, if there's one thing these lanterns can, in fact, prove, is that Jeremy is physically in the Foxy Log Ride area in between Glamrock Salon and Roxy Raceway.
Because these lanterns only showed up by the time of Ruin. This means that someone had moved the lanterns here after Security Breach, which means that some parts of the area were too dark to navigate, thus requiring the lanterns which would only be a thing if the majority of the Pizzaplex's electrical system was ruined.
And since someone placed an object here that wasn't here before and has nothing to do with the train robbery scene or Log Ride itself, it means that the lantern is not a digital object made by the AR world but a real-world object which in turn means that Jeremy is in the real world Foxy Log ride!
Whoo. That makes this evidence numero dos for proof of Jeremy actively going to the different locations within the Pizzaplex. Well, tres actually, but we haven't gotten to Roxy's minigame yet. Fortunately, this one is a bit more solid than the Mixing Room one.
But I think all three pieces of evidence are sufficient enough for me to call it early and say that Jeremy is moving about during Help Wanted 2 instead of just standing in the FNAF6 pizzeria. However, don't expect me to make a "Prove It!" for this soon as I want to gather all the evidence for it that I could possibly find, just like Vanny and her various graffiti, yellow marks, and spray cans in Ruin.
Now we're left with the potted flowers. If I could only take one single object out of this train robbery scene and put it forth as evidence of Vanny's presence in Help Wanted 2, it's this!
Readers with a really good memory would remember in Ruin that I pointed out that Vanny has graffiti flowers in it. I believe I pointed it out twice, once in Superstar Daycare and the other, in Roxy Party Garage.
However, by using Security Breach, we can eliminate Vanny as the one who drew the flowers, next to her graffiti face in Superstar Daycare as they were already painted there before Ruin.
But the painted Roxy Party Garage flowers, on the other hand, can be confirmed to be drawn by Vanny because it's painted with blue paint which is one of the colored Helpy-branded spray cans that was next to her log bench bed in Monty Golf. And even better, Vanny drew the exact species of flowers that are in pots sitting on the train seats!
Also sorry for the low-quality pic, I literally cannot find someone who's not busy shooting at the targets and is looking directly at them. I could enlarge it, but I'll lose some important details of it.
Since I'm not an anthologist and have only the vaguest of background in gardening. We can only rely on prayer and hope that Scott and Co. modeled this flower close enough to the real one that I can find it using Google.
Okay, we got a match! Or matches really, as there are many kinds of yellow flowers for people to sniff. But I've narrowed it down to the three that look the most similar to the flowers in the pots and the ones graffitied.
So the closest in comparison to what we have here in Foxy Log Ride is the Yellow Gerbera Daisy, the Black-Eyed Susan, and of course the Sun Flower, specifically the dwarf Sun Flower. I think we can cross out the Yellow Gerbera Daisy as its disc floret (the black part in the middle of the flower.) is way smaller than the one in the game.
So now it's between, Black-Eyed Susan and the Sun Flower. I gotta say this took me a good while to figure out which of the two was more likely, but I've finally landed on the Black-Eyed Susan as our mysterious flower in a pot.
Mainly due to the size of the flower in the pot in Foxy Log Ride. Sunflowers, even their dwarf versions, are way bigger than the flowers we see here. Plus after some more searching, I've found an exact match of Vanny's flower graffiti in Ruin with a Black-Eyed Susan with the correct number of five petals!
Though Google says the is a vine, not a flower, so maybe this isn't the correct one either. Hmm... Yep, I can't find any alternatives to this vine. I thought that maybe since it looked young that maybe it was some other flower that looks different when it ages, but I can't find anything else that comes close to what we're seeing.
So I'm giving up on searching because I've been at this for way too long. For all I know these flowers could be fake! I've searched for yellow flowers, yellow flowers native to Utah, and even searched for white flowers that look like it, in case I got the colors wrong, and it came back negative.
Wait, hold on. I know I've said that I'm giving up on searching, but after taking a break, I've decided to renew my search through YouTube in case some lesser-known FNAF YouTuber or casual FNAF player may have had a better look at it.
Good thing I did, as I didn't quite get a better quality screenshot of the potted flowers but a different angle of it that showed better details of it. I know it doesn't look any better, but this is a huge help to me as it shows that the flower's disc florets were not black as I thought from the previous pic, but orange. Or yellowish orange, it's still hard to tell completely.
This whole time I was looking for the wrong flower! A huge thank you to Youtuber Bryce Musselman's "Five Nights at Freddy's Help Wanted 2 Quest 3 Captain Foxy Log Ride " video that allowed me to get a better look at the flower.
So now, let's try this again and see if we can find this flower!
Nope, still can't find it. Ugh! I feel like I'm going in circles with no end in sight! And I think I'm still getting something wrong about the flower, even with the new photos. The flowers are actually white, not yellow! It's just the flowers are really pale and the lighting of the training environment is affecting its coloring!
If there's a silver lining about this hunt for the flower, is that I'm giving a lot of these small YouTube channels views and finding some useful videos to help out with this particular deep dive. I've even found some videos that finally show what the hub world looks like with no light! We'll talk about it when we get back to the hub.
Yet even better than that, I've found a stream where Ryetoast had turned the brightness of the game way up!
But still, my search continues as I'm now fully committed to checking every single video covering the Log Ride to find a better look at this flower! Though I actually think I'm starting to run out of videos to check...
Oh my goodness! At last, after 10+ hours of searching, I've found the one video that gives me an almost perfect view of not just one of the flowers in the train but both! And it's from a video that I didn't know could be a thing. Someone had actually made a series of videos playing through the entirety of Help Wanted 2 in 360°, in VR.
I didn't even know you could do that in VR!
Well, VR 360° (Yes, that is the name of their channel), you are now Bonjonsie's first subscribed channel. You all have no idea how much of a stress relief this is, as the VR aspect of Help Wanted 2 has been an absolute pain to deal with when trying to get a better look at the environment through other Youtuber's videos. Especially since practically no one pays attention to it.
But right now, let's focus on finally identifying these flowers as they hopefully might tell us something about anything really. Alright, I've finally narrowed it down to one species of flowers. Anemone of the buttercup family, Ranunculaceae.
No not the sea anemone but the plant anemone, which apparently has different species. But if I had a gun to my head and was told to pick one or else, I would personally choose Piper's Anemone. Not because it looks the closest to the potted flowers in the train but because it's native to Utah.
Yeah, I tried my absolute best in trying to identify this flower, but still haven't landed on something besides a general species of what it might be. So far now, I'm going to hold off on talking about any symbolism or meanings we could get from the flower until someone, or one of you dear readers, can get a better look at that model.
But this doesn't mean these potted flowers can't tell us anything. In fact, what it can tell us is the approximate month that Help Wanted 2 takes place in! Bet you were thinking I couldn't glean anything like that from this, huh?
It was something I hoped to use with the other information gained from the species of the flower. But while I couldn't find that, the fact that these flowers are in full bloom means that we could use the blooming season of flowers in Utah as the general date for this game.
Of course, this only applies to wildflowers so we can't exactly use it for proof of anything as we don't know if Vanny just took these from outside the ruined Pizzaplex or just bought these from the store.
But, the fact that wildflowers can bloom in Utah anytime between March and September and that Cassie looks dressed for Autumn instead of Summer, leads me to believe that both Help Wanted and Ruin take place in September, maybe late September.
To me, this definitely means that the next game is taking place in either November or late November, but again, we can in no way present this as solid proof for anything other than a headcanon.
Now let's finally move on, because I'm sure some of you are wondering, what's the deal with Vanny and flowers?
As I mentioned earlier, Vanny has drawn these exact flowers before in Ruin on the wall in Roxy Party Garage just before you enter Roxy Raceway to deactivate Roxy. This tells us that these specific flowers hold some significance to her in some way.
What significance they might have is a mystery for now, but the reason she drew the flowers has already been known to us as on that same wall, you'll find an interesting word that Vanny decided to doodle on, summer.
What the flowers and the word summer are trying to point us to, is the aspects of Vanessa's character described in the Retro CDs in Security Breach. Notably, CD 1-7139, CD 7-7142, CD 9-7143, and CD 11-7145.
The first Therapist, the one who had been working with Vanessa the longest before Vanessa's infection with Glitchtrap happened and was the first to die, mentions something important about Vanessa's character in CD-1.

• Therapist: Hello Vanessa. How are you feeling today? You look a little tired.
• Therapist: Hmm... Well, it’s been a while since we last spoke. How’s your anxiety been? You did so well with your calming protocols when we first worked together. Are you still using those? Yes? Okay, good. Well, now I understand there’s a new issue. It came on just recently, rather suddenly? Can you tell me about it?

Vanessa's reply when the third Therapist has her take an inkblot test in CD-7.

• Therapist: Here we go. What do you see here?
• Vanessa: A tree house.
• Therapist: Hmm, it does look sort of like a tree house, doesn't it? Do you like tree houses?
• Vanessa: I like to sit outside and read.

This next neat characteristic of Vanessa is actually unsaid by her but instead hinted at by the Therapist in the first line of dialogue while the other is said by Vanessa at the end of CD-9.

• Therapist: What are you doing? Oh, you like those. I do too. They smell so sweet, don't they? Apparently, the janitor on this floor has a garden and has been putting bouquets in the offices here for years. Do you ever grow things? No?
• Vanessa: I work a lot.
• Vanessa: I don't like dark basements.

Leaving the final thing of note about her interests in CD-11.

• Therapist: Good morning Vanessa. Well, I can't blame you for looking out the window instead of listening to me. It's a gorgeous day, isn't it?
• Vanessa: I like the blue sky.
• Therapist: Hmm, so do I. Now, let's see what we can get done on this nice sunny day.

Vanessa likes to be outside, especially under the blue sky, where she likes flowers and to read. These aspects of Vanessa all pop up in the environment of Ruin and now Help Wanted 2 through various graffiti and objects.
For instance, her preference for being outside and flowers can both be seen in the flowers and "summer" graffiti in Roxy Party Garage. Both are painted in blue paint I might add, which helps tie it back to her liking her blue sky.
And now, in Help Wanted 2, we have potted flowers appearing in a completely unrelated area to them, with them being something she personally drew in Ruin. Showing that she personally likes these specific flowers.
Vanessa's preference to read is something seen twice in Ruin that I've pointed out in the previous deep dive. Once in Bonnie Bowl with the open book next to the radio she's using to track Cassie and once in her room in Fazer Blast where she has a stack of Fazbear World History books right next to her make-shift bed.
But what about Vanessa's anxiety? While there's nothing I've seen so far in Ruin or Help Wanted 2 that screams "I have anxiety!", the fact we've seen so much graffiti from Vanny in both games could be an indication of Vanny using that as some sort of Art therapy for relax from Glitchtrap keeping her inside the dark and ruin Pizzaplex and below it.
Oh, and uh, spoiler alert. Vanny is behind the graffiti hints for the dolls in Help Wanted 2. Yeah, I kinda figured that already before I even started this deep dive. I mean it's not hard to discover this when you already know about her graffiti quirk from Ruin and that she's still around. Really you just need to realize that Glitchtrap wouldn't volunteer to give a hint about his vulnerabilities. And that the one who would, destroys him in the secret ending.
But we'll talk more about Vanny's and Glitchtrap's apparent breakup, once we start collecting the memory dolls. Right now, It's finally time I get into Vanny, Vanessa, and my Double-V theory I attempted to put off earlier.
Now as I said before, this theory or idea really, is something I've had since the very last post of my Ruin "Prove It!" series. For those that don't recall or know what that is, it's called "One ending leads to Ruin." And it has to do with me going over every single piece of evidence for and against each ending of Security Breach to finally prove once and for all which ending to that game is canon.
Yet it's in that post, where I finally remember the ending stinger of "To the Rooftop" ending. You know. The ending reveals to us, through Gregory, who's really under the mask of Vanny, Vanessa! However, in a shocking turn of events, the ending stinger shows us Vanessa looking down from the rooftop at Vanessa.
What? How? What's going on?! Is the best way to summarize the FNAF community's feelings regarding this ending now and when SecurityBreach release. And to this day nobody has a satisfying answer to it.
​

• The Vanessa on the roof is her spirit/ghost!

We know what ghosts look like in the games. Sure, new era, a new way of depicting things, but disregarding that, Vanessa is in her security guard outfit, which means if she was a ghost then she died while working as the head of security at the Pizzaplex. Something that couldn't have happened because the only reason she has that position is because someone up top brought her to that position because of Glitchtrap's machinations.
Plus Vanessa physically interacts with Gregory and the S.T.A.F.F. bots in Security Breach proving that she's alive.
Now if you're suggesting that's her lingering ghost after she died in the To the Rooftop ending, then it's still easily disprovable by the simple fact that she died from hitting the ground, not from being tackled by Freddy. While our boy Freddy is fast, he's not fast enough to instantly kill someone by running at them.
​

• The Vanessa on the ground is a robot!

This one, while absolutely story-breaking to me, does have some merit. While this might've got to do with the overall censoring of the game, there isn't any blood coming from Vanny after she fell from the rooftop.
While I'm not expecting a pool of it, there would be at least some blood coming from her nose or coming from the back of her head, considering that A. She landed on her back and B. head injuries typically bleed a lot more from anywhere else even if it's a minor wound.
But let's ignore that, is there any other evidence that can prove that there's a robot imposter among us? Hmm...
If she were a robot, she would be making loud noises considering that the material needed to make a humanoid robot Vanessa would weigh heavier than the regular human Vanessa, right? Not necessarily, as the Daycare Attendant, who is around Vanessa's height, doesn't make as loud of a sound when moving around like his Glamrock companions.
So it's possible to build a humanoid robot that's as flexible and dexterous as a regular human without it being obvious that the humanoid is, in fact, a robot.
However, having a humanoid robot be Vanny eliminates the need for it to mimic Vanessa's appearance, because, at that point, you can make the robot look like anyone. And there's not a good enough reason for Glitchtrap to have Vanny look like Vanessa when she could look like anyone else he wants.
Vanessa isn't special to Glitchtrap like Jeremy is. At least from what I've seen so far from basically every single game in the new era. Their relationship is one born out of circumstances rather than intention like I theorized Gregory's to be. So there isn't any reason why he would have a robot look like her.
But the final nail in the coffin for this theory is the alternate ending in Security Breach, which provides solid evidence to disprove it more than anything else. Specifically, the Disassemble Vanny ending.
No, it's not because she can or gets "disassembled" in this ending or the fact that she screams from it. It's actually from the ending stinger as the newspaper that shows up at the end of it makes mention of Fazbear Entertainment closing due to health concerns and plans to be coming back next season.
Now, this being the cause of the entire company shutting down is something that only happens in this ending as the other ending that doesn't have to do with something happening to the Pizzaplex or Glitchtrap has the Pizzaplex continue as business as usual.
This tells us that Vanny's disassembly had been bloody enough and that she was human enough to shut down the company temporarily. It also informs us that Vanny is an employee, as only a serious death of an employee within a company building would make a company close down like that as the public and police investigation would force Fazbear Entertainment to seriously reevaluate itself or investigate itself.
But maybe I'm thinking too extreme or worst-case scenario. Maybe Fazbear Entertainment would be able to cover it up before the police or the public were made aware of Vanny's death. Still, some poor human employees would be the ones to unfortunately find what's left of her in the morning, which would prompt Faz Ent to investigate itself.
And like anything "good" company, they'll find nothing wrong. Maybe an overworked employee with mental health issues. That will be fixed as Faz Ent will introduce ways for their employees to focus on their mental health.
So once again we are faced with this after-credits stinger that completely upends everything we knew about Vanessa and her situation with Glitchtrap. Most of the community and theorists choose to ignore this conundrum or dismiss it because it's an alternate non-canon ending and I... completely forgot about it until I was gathering all my evidence for the Burn It ALL Down ending being canon.
I'm sure most are aware of this already, but I haven't done a Security Breach deep-dive before I did Ruin as...

1. The theories around Security Breach didn't provoke me to do an analysis on it to find the true answers as Ruin's did.
2. Security Breach itself kinda soured on me on the franchise as a whole. Not because of the gameplay issue but because of its butcher from top to bottom story. Seriously, after experiencing something with a different franchise where the trailer shows something completely different from what's in the game, I began to detest that, regardless of the reasoning behind it.
3. Security Breach is a big game, if y'all think this deep dive is slow and long then, oh joy, it ain't got nothing on what a Security Breach deep dive would look like.

So, yeah, the To the Rooftop ending after credit's stinger kinda slipped my mind. But now that I've finished my analysis on Ruin and have been getting deeper into Help Wanted 2, I fully believe Vanny = Vanessa, right? Right?
Hahahahaha, nope!
Even with all the evidence I personally brought up above, I don't believe Vanny = Vanessa. And it's all thanks to the To the Rooftop ending that got me thinking differently about it, as before rewatching it, I too fully believed Vanny = Vanessa.
So what, exactly in this ending caused me to change my mind about it? It can't be because they showed two different Vanessas in it, right?
That's exactly why!
Yes, a game's alternate endings can, indeed, show us goofy, shocking, comedic, or flat-out story-breaking events that can be dismissed as some extra content or whimsical what-if scenarios from the Storyteller. But, a Storyteller could also use alternate endings to expand the lore by revealing details that would be hidden if characters had made different choices.
Case in point, and keeping it FNAF related, Sister Location's secret Ennard boss fight. We know for a fact, that this fight didn't happen, and the ending afterward isn't canonical to the Scott era games storyline. Yet, in this very same sequence of non-canon events, it's revealed that monitors are showing hidden cameras in FNAF 4 gameplay nights and the minigame hallway. And that our physic friend Fredbear plushie friend sits on the desk with a radio next to him, suggesting that someone was using Fredbear to talk to Crying Child.
Scott, and FNAF in turn, have shown that the mainline FNAF games use its alternate endings as another way to expand the lore. To feed us with new information about the current situation within a game without expanding the game's scope.
Nowhere does FNAF's alternate endings get more elaborate and intricate, than the Steel Wool era games. Help Wanted's two endings reveal Glitchtrap's ability to possess bodies and his William-ism. Dreadbear doesn't have an ending, but it introduces William's old mask, Vanny, and the construction of the Pizzaplex. Ruin's three endings shed light on Gregory's darker side, the lingering trauma of the Mimic and Glitchtrap related to David's death along with the Scooper machine underground, and the revelation that the Security Mask can connect to the Network underground while hinting at the connection of Vanessa, Gregory, Helpi, and perhaps the missing kids to the network.
But it's Security Breach that is the uncontested king of the alternate endings in the FNAFverse (At least until the new FNAF1 book releases). Not only does each ending reveal something about the story, but in addition to that, putting them together reveals even more than seperated!
I already went through how the Dissaseemble Vanny ending helps provide additional info for the To the Rooftop ending above and even went over how To the Rooftop ending and the others do the same thing for the Burn it ALL Down ending in my final "Prove It!" post.
So just like how Scott once described the games and the Silver Eyes trilogy relation, we should be treating the alternate endings of the games themselves as canon but as a separate continuity.
So the Security Breach endings show what would happen in canon if Gregroy made a different choice in an alternate continuity. Everything up to that choice was/is the same. The rules of the world and lore are the same, and the characters are the same, all that is different, is the choice made.
Basically, what I'm trying to say. Is that this Vanny and Vanessa thing we got thrown in our face by Scott and Steel Wool in the To the Rooftop ending is something not to be dismissed and tossed aside.
So having said that it's about time I give my answer to this interesting and confusing twist that remains without a satisfying answer to it. Which lead me to Double-V. Something, I've been wanting to talk about for a long while. But I also must apologize because I need to speed up the explanation/ "Prove It!" crafting. We really need to get back to Foxy's Log Rid minigame.
​
Sorry for the akward cut here, but there's no world where I cut in the middle of what comes next and it reads naturally and flowingly, trust me. I tried my best, but good lord, I just keep finding more stuff! Continue on to Part 8.6!

I can't put solar on my roof, because it needs to be replaced (down to the trusses) and I can't afford that yet. However, I have an old 6' privacy fence in the front that desperately needs replacement, and its size and location seem perfect for a "solar privacy fence" using bifacial panels. The fence is aligned very close to N-S, so it gets both morning and afternoon sun, with minimal shading. The front yard is covered in gray crushed rock, which provides great solar reflectivity, further increasing production from bifacial panels.
In other words, a solar fence seems ideal. If only I knew how to get it built. None of my local solar companies have even heard of the concept, and they weren't even familiar with bifacial panels. More to the point, none were interested in also becoming fencing companies.
Which means this will likely be a DIY project. I need to come up with a solar fence design I can build!
For those new to the idea of solar fences, here's a bunch of links that will provide an overview, including some technical reports: https://theenvironmentalist.com/2024/04/19/another-great-idea-solar-fencing/ https://stock.adobe.com/images/house-fence-made-of-solar-panels-created-with-generative-ai-technology/559206532 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352484721010775 https://undecidedmf.com/have-we-been-doing-solar-wrong-all-along/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2023/11/10/researchers-shed-light-on-mysterious-higher-energy-yields-in-vertical-pv-systems/ https://www.epj-pv.org/articles/epjpv/full_html/2023/01/pv230038/pv230038.html
I've looked at some of the vertical solar system hardware used in agriculture (https://spectrum.ieee.org/agrivoltaics), but they look a bit too industrial for a suburban neighborhood and have too many gaps to be a privacy fence. I don't see how I could modify such a system to make it suitable, though I'm certainly open to suggestions.
As for the solar panels themselves, my current placeholder is the Trina Vertex S+ Bifacial, for its performance, size and appearance. I'm certainly open to other options, but their 70" height makes them easy to use in a 72" tall fence.
I've tried to make some basic concept drawings to share, but my CAD skills aren't up to it. My initial thought was to place the panels side-by-side, with a fence pole between every 2 panels, meaning the fence poles would be about 8' apart. However, I do have wind loading concerns (SoCal Santa Ana winds), so a pole between every panel may be better, and it may also simplify mounting (no panel-to-panel mounts). The thought of doubling the number of poles is daunting (my back is already groaning), but it makes me wonder if I could then pound the poles into the ground (my yard is DG, decomposed granite) rather than dig and use concrete. Any fence experts have suggestions?
As for electrical, I'd like to place a covered metal trough below (or above?) the fence for wiring, which ideally would also contain the microinverters, though I'd be OK mounting them to the fence poles (on the home-facing side, of course). I'd run a short (6') underground conduit from the end of the fence to the garage.
Right now, the most cost-effective post type is heavy-duty round chain-link fence poles, which also are routinely pounded into the ground. I'd get 10' poles and (try to) pound them 4' down. It should be easy to get a fencing company to do this part for me.
I need to learn more about proper solar panel mounting, and see what can be done to eliminate gaps, but I figure it should be possible to find something that can be bolted to the fence poles, perhaps as simple as a U-channel extrusion.
Once the hardware is assembled, if the result is too ugly, I figure I can add decorative planks (wood or vinyl) to cover the poles without shading the panels, like what is done for wood fences using Post Master metal fence posts.
Thoughts? Critique? Comments? Suggestions?
Thanks!

I'm a veteran at Stardew now but I'm on Xbox. I've just purchased Stardew on my laptop and figured out how to get mods, what mods do I need for Statdew Valley Expanded to make it like I've seen on YouTube?? The new NPC's which are farmers, I think there is Claire in joja mart also, grandpa's farm and shed etc etc .. but also the visual mods that make everything so pretty, with the white buildings or flowers over the roof of the farm house etc. Are the remixed bundles just a 1.6 update as I've been stuck on console without the 1.6 update for a while now lol 😂 so I don't know. Are there any other mods I need for a truly reimagined Stardew to make me feel the way I felt when I first started playing many moons ago??
If you can list the mods great, but also could you list if I need the extra files like some might need su h as the way back Stardew mod to make everything look all oldy worldy.
Sorry for awkward post, I'm new to Reddit also this is my first post.

Context: This is the sixty-eighth of many posts where I share the stories of my travels with those interested and for my future self to read back. This one in particular details my time exploring the Wild Coast of South Africa as well as my time in the Gauteng province.
197 is an odd number. Not just literally, but also figuratively speaking in the context of travel. You see, when I began this journey and decided on a number, I might have rushed to make a decision without putting much thought into the figure itself.
I don’t plan on diving into geopolitics or explaining why I chose that specific numerical value because I know, in the end, I’ll visit many more regions or unrecognised states merely out of interest, and the completion of the 197 goal will just end up as a catchy headline on articles that I’ll never comment on during my 15 minutes of fame.
Now, the more I travel, the more I realize how the answer to "How many countries are there?" will tend to depend on whose gun you’re staring down the barrel of...haha. Jokes aside, I’m curious to see if I, myself, can come to any sort of conclusion down the line…not that my opinion holds anymore or less value than the almost useless “United Nations” consensus.
The more I learn, the more I realise how little I truly know. My views have changed over time, and I’m certain that they’ll continue to do so. Breakaway regions and various cultures are all boxed within a set of forever-shifting lines that have changed throughout history and will never stop changing. Empires rise and fall, languages, once spoken by many, end up as nothing but indecipherable patterns. Cultures blend or adapt over time, and people move around the world in search of a new place to call home. To commit myself to the goal of visiting “every country” in the world is more of a logistics challenge to navigate a bureaucratic maze than anything else. It could also be seen as an ego contest or a collector's most ambitious objective. Yet, despite all that, I think what really drives me to travel is the ever-growing curiosity that comes along with learning more about not just the world around me but also myself. What are my limits? What do I enjoy? What kind of opinions are crafted through various experiences, and how will I change over time? What do I really want to dedicate myself to for the rest of my life? Am I capable of doing more than I think? Should I do more? Does it matter if I do? I guess I’ll find out as time goes on.
Anyway, I digress back to the original topic of today’s blog…picking back up where I left off on the bus from PE to Mthatha. After numerous stops in rundown cities and towns along the way, we hopped off at the gas station and boarded the minibus shuttle bound for Coffee Bay. As we neared the coast and veered off the main highway, the scenery became increasingly vibrant and green, while the condition of the roads deteriorated from pavement to dirt.
As the sun produced a warm glow, ever growing closer to the horizon, the sight of rolling hills speckled with colourful Xhosa rondavels sparked excitement among the three of us. Smiles spread across our faces as we gazed out the windows, eagerly anticipating what was to come.
Our first stop along the coastline was a solid hostel nestled near the banks of Coffee Bay. We spent three nights here, each day a different adventure. We took $5 surfing lessons, explored the nearby cliffside hills to watch the whales splashing in the distance and found various butcher shops for meat to braai for dinner at the firepit.
Setting out on a whim one morning, we found ourselves hitching a ride westward without any particular plan in mind. We spent almost the entirety of the day walking the various dirt paths around the neighbourhood and pausing every now and then for a chat with a local passing by. It was quiet, calm and slow moving. Peaceful, to say the least.
When ready to return, we lucked out again, catching a ride with a dump truck transporting gravel to a nearby site. Josie joined the driver in the cab, while James and I seized the opportunity to climb atop the bucket, surfing the mound of rocks as we bounced along the road.
That evening, after dinner, we played pool and cards, accompanied by another girl from Pretoria who joined our trio temporarily. It was an interesting moment when the four of us realized our small group had managed to form the four corners of the English speaking world.
Josie, James, and I were eager to see more of the Wild Coast but initially uncertain about the logistics or the availability of affordable accommodations. Much to our satisfaction, we stumbled upon a small flyer promoting a multi-day hike traversing various villages, rivers, and countless hills, starting from Mdumbi and concluding in Bulungula. En route, we'd revisit Coffee Bay before venturing on to the Lubanzi region.
At our first stop, we stayed at a backpackers' hostel for three nights. The weather wasn't the best, with only brief intervals of sunshine. In the evenings, when the power would cut out for hours on end, we would sit atop a hill and watch lightning storms tear across the ocean, illuminating the black abyss. This was usually followed by candle-lit cards with other travellers and then a movie.
One day, we even decided to take Xhosa language lessons with a lady from a nearby village. What makes Xhosa so unique compared to any other language I've heard are its distinctive click consonants, borrowed from Khoisan languages. There are three primary click sounds in Xhosa: dental clicks (like the English "tsk tsk"), lateral clicks (similar to the sound used to call a horse), and alveolar clicks (like a cork popping out of a bottle).
Along with the language lesson, she also took the time to answer our questions about the history, traditions and culture of her people, as well as the modern-day trends she observes among the younger generation. I found it particularly interesting to hear about the influence of technology and social media, something I might dive into deeper in a later blog.
I enjoyed the quiet atmosphere and laid-back lifestyle, but I still felt the urge to go for periodic runs and workouts, or at least engage in some kind of physical activity like swimming in the ocean.
Eventually, we set off on our first of three treks heading southwest. The Nguni Cattle seemed to lead the way, leisurely meandering along the beach as we followed the faintest of trails. The walk was quite easy, and we stopped periodically for a swim. At the mouth of the Mthatha River, there was a man with a rickety rowboat and mismatched oars who, for a dollar, offered to ferry us across.
Continuing our journey, we traversed up and down hills, following the winding goat trails whenever they emerged. Everything was green and lush, and as we climbed higher above the jagged coastline, the view was incredible. We could spot groups of dolphins and whales splashing in the distance. Along the way, we strolled by clusters of colourful rondavel homes with their laundry swaying in the breeze. Children greeted us with kind smiles, their curious eyes tracking our every move until we vanished from sight.
We crossed a much smaller river, hoisting the bags above our heads as we waded through. Towards the end, as the tide began to rise, we were forced to walk along the wet rocks, trying not to slip as we made our way around the final bend of a jagged edge to Coffee Bay. It definitely took a while, but it felt nice to finish, arriving just in time for dinner. Unfortunately, I spent the entire night on the toilet, every 30 minutes or so. I think it was the sketchy-looking apple that I decided to take the risk of eating. Lesson learned.
The following morning, we kicked off our journey again. Eventually, we made it to the iconic Hole-in-the-Wall rock formation where James seized the opportunity to surf through the gap. Next, we faced the challenge of crossing the river, with the high tide dictating that we swim across. Utilizing his surfboard as a makeshift raft for our belongings, we shuttled back and forth across the water.
As we neared the end, we followed the setting sun and watched as the whales waved in the distance. Finally, we arrived at the hostel in Lubanzi, a very unique wooden structure that almost resembled a jungle gym, surrounded by tent structures and hobbit-style rooms built into the landscape.
We spent one full day mainly focused on surfing, enjoying the peaceful scenery, and gathering meat for a fireplace braai later that evening. I couldn't help but notice that in the Transkei, especially in the more remote areas, it felt as though time didn’t exist – just night and day. Everything in between had no set schedule.
The weather was warm as we got ready for our last walk to Bulungula. It was a smooth stretch of trekking, with a nice breeze accompanying us up and down the rolling hills. A couple of river crossings went smoothly and finally, we had arrived at our final stop, checking into our own thatch-roofed rondavel to stay the night.
It took a few of those hectic taxi cab shuttle vans to get back to Coffee Bay, which was an adventure in itself, bumping and whipping around the dirt roads, blasting music. We made it in due time and had an early night. The following day, after a slow rise, I made my way to the nearby butcher shop, and the man offered to braai the meat for me inside a rusted shipping container with half a barrel balancing on top of two cinder blocks—cool. Some of the best steak I’ve ever had, massive pieces for about $7. Feeling great, I had one last meal with Josie and James. We said goodbye as they continued on, planning to take a bus from Mthatha to Durban, while I planned to head straight to Joburg with a flight from the small Mthatha airport.
Despite hardly using my camera or drone, I still can vividly picture every moment in the Transkei. The region's intriguing characters and breathtaking nature made it an unforgettable experience, and I enjoyed every step of the journey. However, I found myself eager to head to Johannesburg, spurred on by the prospect of an opportunity that had arisen with a marketing agency. I'll delve into the details of this opportunity at a later time.
After a quick domestic flight to Joburg, I was picked up by Brian, the grandfather of my friend back home. Arriving at their house, I was greeted with a warm welcome by his wife, Jos, who has sadly passed away since then. Despite being in and out of the hospital at the time, she was determined to see me and insisted on hosting me for my first night in the city.
We sat out in the backyard with their next-door neighbours, and it felt nice—like home and a much-needed break from travelling. We talked about my experiences in South Africa thus far and my recent adventures in the Transkei. I also enjoyed talking with Brian, an ex-pilot, about planes, travelling, and what South Africa was like in the past. He mentioned how being a pilot nowadays doesn’t hold as much prestige, which I agreed with; it's all computer-assisted now, and the recognition or respect for pilots seems to have diminished. He had some great stories.
Jos, despite her health, was the perfect host and made sure everything was ready for my stay, even putting out a small bowl of biltong just for me. I tried my best to help whenever possible, as I didn’t want to be a burden.
The next day, they gave me a small tour around the area before we had lunch at one of their favourite restaurants. The food and atmosphere were incredible, reminding me of summer back home. After saying my goodbyes and thank-yous, I took an Uber from the restaurant to the hostel downtown, where I’d be staying in the Parkhurst district.
Johannesburg, or Joburg, is the largest city in South Africa and one of the 50 largest urban areas in the world. It's a city that never seems to sleep, with the sprawling Soweto township and a history deeply intertwined with gold mining. I found it fascinating that Joburg is home to the largest hospital in Africa and is served by OR Tambo International, the busiest airport on the continent, and one I got to know quite well by the end of my time in Southern Africa.
Arriving at the quiet and affordable hostel, I greeted the host with "Nkosi" in Xhosa, meaning thank you, after he welcomed me in. He laughed and asked how I knew the word. As it turned out, he was Xhosa himself and was happy to hear I had enjoyed my time in the Transkei.
The next morning, I woke up early and went to the gym before heading to visit Mike, Jos, and Brian’s son, who owned an interesting Pmarketing agency and mentioned he might have an opportunity for me. I was excited to see the office, located in the incredibly posh Sandton region of the city. Meeting the team and talking with Mike about his journey was a great experience. He also mentioned a project they were working on that I might be able to help with on the video editing side. It was a story based in Accra, Ghana, about a boxing group in Jamestown and their partnership with a Danish company. I was thrilled, yet didn't expect to be paid much but was eager to contribute.
Later that evening, they sent over the footage and briefing for the project. I knew I could help improve the video significantly. Coincidentally, I had visited the exact place the video was about and had my own footage from the boxing gym! It was perfect. Then they sent the budget for my editing work, and I was blown away. The payment could cover a flight to Mozambique and all my expenses while I was there. Perhaps I didn’t need to take the long bus ride down after all.
Later that evening, I pulled the trigger and booked the last-minute flight a day before departure, just as a massive hailstorm hit out of nowhere! It was wild to see such a drastic change from a warm, sunny sunset to a loud, snowy hailstorm. Apparently, these freak storms are normal in Joburg, even after a 30-degree day.
The city turned out to be nicer than expected, obviously because of the limited areas I had explored thus far. Johannesburg boasts one of the world's largest manmade woodland areas. One notable feature was the iconic jacaranda trees, lining the streets with bright purple blossoms.
The following day, I made my way to Mike's office, where I dedicated the entire day to working on the Ghana video project. Using my footage and the best of theirs, I pieced together the video. It went very well, and the team was incredibly happy with the result. With the day winding down, I managed to squeeze in a quick gym session before gearing up for my early morning flight scheduled for the next day.
I had done plenty of thinking during the previous week, unsure which route to take for my adventure through Mozambique, Eswatini, and Lesotho, I decided to settle on a practical plan. Opting for a loop journey, I chose to leave the bulk of my belongings in Joburg, starting my travels by heading south east then west, with a plan to eventually circle back north east to the big city.
Several weeks earlier, I had already booked a flight from Joburg to Freetown, Sierra Leone, holding onto the dream of returning to spend a month in the country before Christmas. My goal was to contribute to the nation's rebranding efforts and shed light on what I had witnessed during my previous visit. Despite the distance, I remained in constant contact with my friends there, eager to support and build something meaningful together. However, as my departure date loomed closer, I began to feel the pressure of time constraints. I had to make a decision: would I embark on an ambitious journey through three other nations, or opt for a more simple trip to just Lesotho?
Now, with the editing opportunity from Mike and the content I had gathered from my experiences in the city and South Africa as a whole, I was ready to push my luck and take on the loop. Perhaps I was being a bit greedy, enticed by the prospect of increasing my country count, or maybe I was just eager for another adventure and opportunity to explore with a lighter load. Was I satisfied with what I had seen in South Africa? For the time being, I assured myself that I was. It was time for a new adventure.

I want to design a house, and am trying to balance Open floor plan means long joists/beams, And long joist/beams mean more $
I’m trying understand the sweet spot for span. (Mono sloped roof with cathedral ceiling) I’m thinking dimensional lumber won’t work without post and bead-style build and I would still need to add depth for insulation. So likely engineered I joists or an open web truss (parallel cord) for the rafters. (My builder doesn’t like sips),
To help me plan on room sizes, (I.e. spans between load bearing walls) how would I determine the roof load?
I.e. dead load (if I want to plan for solar panels do I need to add some to the common Live load. (What about snow or wind load)? If I find ground snow load, do I reduce since it’s spread over a slope, use as is, increase to account for drifts?
For a mono sloped roof, is thrust an issue?
Does wind add to snow, or is it more plan for worst ( snow in pnw)
Thanks

**COPYRIGHT NOTICE** ALL MATERIAL HERE IS SUBJECT TO COPYRIGHT © 2024 by J.C. Van Horn
Hey guys, check out this western I wrote. Sort of like an episode from Buster Scruggs or a bonus RDR2 mission.
“It's a hell of a thing, killing a man. Take away all he's got, and all he's ever gonna have.”
William Munny, Unforgiven (1992)
The shotgun had been cold for weeks, but he knew it would shoot. His horse was very close to the fire, and he thought it might singe itself as it stood sleeping, so he watched the horse. His toes were warm with whitecorn liquor. His boots smelled terrible. He had short, iron facial hair that could degrime a ship’s hull. Eyes polished steel purple in the firelight. He took a small notepad and a pencil from his shirt pocket, and put the pencil in his mouth. He felt the thin, oily pages of the little book, and began to read the things he’d written in his rippling cursive hand:
Nov 28 1868 Folks now dont argue as much as they used to Glad for it dont like shooting folk Last one dont know if he lived or died gone too quick Hit his shoulder he fell hard Alive when I rode off so aint hit his heart Lady with him said shed get help reckon that she did
Dec 3 1868 Missing a good woman Asleep on a beach something like San Diego ? Tan color arms with white hairs Feet in the water every day Find her after this
Dec 8 1868 Got $9 from man in Pueblo Not mine but mine now
Dec 11 1868 Whinnies a good nag Man in Pueblo told me shed fetch good money Might have sold but I still need a horse Maybe dont sell just ride somewhere warm ? Heard theres fine women in Houston Got to think more on it
Dec 12 1868 Deep in the Rockies Hope to leave this mean land soon Stage coming through with money and joolry (learn how to spell joolry) Hitch a ride and rob when we get south ? Ha I’m nothing nice Can smell my self Cant wash too cold Cant build big fire or any one sees When done take Whinnie down the mountain fence the loot Moods good but damn cold
Then the gunslinger took the pencil out of his mouth and wrote:
Dec 13 1868 Stage tomorrow writing to keep sharp Saw a marmut today Didnt shoot shop meats easier less fuss about it Marmut looked happy Lucky happy basturd Guns are clean Whinnie is happy Lots of snow so lots of water 1 bottle of shine 47 cigs 25 revolver 13 shells 3 can bean 1 can pea 1 pound meat $23
And he put the little book away. He had eaten a fistful of smoked meat and a can of peas an hour earlier, but he might have been hungry again. He decided he was, and repeated the meal. He slept facing East and when the sun rose it woke him, the light breaking through the trees to dress the mountain in pale rags. Whinnie was awake before the morning. Her cremello coat always winked the dominant color of the landscape, so in the desert, she was an ember alight in the outlands: now, the faintest mint blue. The gunslinger spoke to her in a soft spell, “Oooh, sweet sweet–” and fed her sweetgrass stuck with snow, “oooh, sweet girl.” His song of no particular shape or pattern, but one he sang to her often.
He walked alone to the place where he would attack the stagecoach. The party would come through about midday because it had been in Pueblo two days ago, and the driver had made arrangements for Trinidad for this very night, and Trinidad was half a day away. He chose a spot where the road went sharply up and left, and even under the best circumstances, the driver would need to bank gently to not overturn the carriage. He sat behind a tree and smoked, but he did not carry his liquor. He ate a gloveful of snow from the pile he had made while clearing a place to sit. He thought about the story his Pueblo informant, Jota, had told him. It had been on his mind since he’d heard it—a love story, he knew, but did not remember if the man gave it a name. He thought he should remark the story in his notepad that night by the fire. If things went well, and he remembered to do it, he thought that he would. Then he thought that if he were captured by anyone, lawmen or some other, he would have to burn the little book if he could, and if he could not, he’d pull it into the air and blast it with the shotgun. He would do this even if the men seizing his bounty might shoot him down for doing so.
He heard the padding of hooves coming up the pass. By his ear, he measured about six horses. He went to his knees and hugged the tree with one arm to steady himself as he keeked down the road. A hard-looking man rode in front of the party with his rifle drawn and eyes awake. The stagecoach behind him was wide and red, and the driver wore a yellow bowtie. A second rider followed closely behind. Jota had not mentioned the riders, but the gunslinger could not be surprised at the prudence to hire guns before traversing the mountains. He knew then that if he took action, either he, or the riders, or all, must perish. He made amends with the facts of the matter and resolved himself to shoot as he must. He would roll out from behind the tree and aim the shotgun from one knee and set his sights to the front rider’s throat. The natural rise of his aim would send the meat of the buckshot into the hard man’s face. Then he would cover quickly and recock his weapon before sighting the other rider, who may flee, or be so taken by the swiftness of the attack as to fall just as easily. Once the gun thunder had all faded, he would quell the driver and the passengers, collect his due, and let the stage go along in peace. The plodding and padding of the hooves was louder now and it was time.
The gunslinger rolled over and raised up onto one knee. He aimed at the front rider’s throat and pulled the trigger. The rider’s head disappeared into a frightful pink slurry. His corpse slung down painlessly as his horse reared up and screamed, then turned and fled back down the road. The terrible shrieks of women came from inside the coach. The gunslinger shucked the spent shell, retook position behind the tree, and lay flat once more. The driver halted the carriage as the second rider came around with his own shotgun drawn. The gunslinger peered around and sighted him, but the rider fired first. Huge flakes of wooden shrapnel exploded from the tree. The gunslinger ducked back and made himself thin behind the trunk. The raucous boom of that shot could not have come from anything less than an eight bore, a gauge larger than a man’s thumb. The rider fired a second thunderclap shot that shredded the ground-broken roots of the tree and sprayed moss into the air. The gunslinger stayed where he was and only listened for hints of the enemy’s movement. All in an instant, he heard the opponent’s gun snap-break open, two empty shells clink softly onto the road, two new slugs slide smoothly into their pipes, and the crisp clack of it all closing again. The enemy’s horse trotted nervously along the ridge in the thin space between the road and the steep, treelined edge. The rider dismounted and landed coolly on both feet. With one arm, he kept his weapon trained on the assailant in the brush, and with the other, he thwacked the horse’s croup to get it to move. And it did move, fleeing up the road and not stopping. With the path now clear, the driver seized his moment and whipped up the four horses carrying the coach. Then he whipped again, and a third time.
The gunslinger could not move. His enemy came towards him, unshaken, with fingers on both triggers. Twin bores of teeth-chilling metal. One quarter-second from oblivion. The rider focused the entire span of his mortal attention on the vision before him, so in that moment when the stagecoach came racing up the bend, he did not hear the frightful crash of the breaking wheels, nor the shrill of the driver’s scream, all coming like Hell behind him.
Then the mountain was peaceful. The gunslinger shouldered the shotgun and leapt up onto the road. He saw the man he’d shot—a body, trampled by hooves and wheels, but no face. He walked on. A few yards up the road, where the embankment dropped off sharply, the heft of the carriage and the fallen horses had cleared the smaller trees away, so the gunslinger could see the deep, open country beyond. Twenty yards down the slope, a caboodle of horse flesh and wood and iron was draped around an old blue spruce. All hung together like a pair of boots sharing a single bastard lace. There were the sounds of horses dying but nothing moved.
The gunslinger sat in the road and smoked. He listened until there was no more noise, which took the time of two cigarettes. Finally, he got to his feet, stepped to the edge of the slope, then sat down on his ass again. He pushed the heels of his boots into the ground and grabbed the stump of a fallen sapling. He slid down the bank in cautious spurts as his heels pressed shallow tracks into the ground, and his hands shuffled from one hold to the next. Finally, he stood on an embedded hillside rock positioned two yards above the wreckage. He looked into the broken stagecoach, searching for anything alive or shiny.
“Please. God, help me. Someone.” The voice was weak and girlish. “Help me.” The gunslinger closed his eyes and shook his wide head. The girl was sobbing now. “Mother. Oh my God, mother please. No.” Her cries were desperate, awful things that were the sounds of someone already dead, mourning themselves on the other side of infinity. The carriage groaned and shifted an inch towards the profoundness below.
“Miss!” the gunslinger shouted. “Miss! Hold still!”
“Who's that? Oh my God, mother!”
“Don’t move! Don’t even talk!”
“Please wake up, momma.”
“Stop movin’, and stop talkin’, or we will not be talkin’ much longer!” The gunslinger moved down and used the rock now as a handhold. He made a new foothold of the remains of a broken tree, and in this new position he felt secure. He was closer now, so he lowered his voice. “I’m goin’ to save you, ma’am. But I don’t know how close I can get- don’t say nothin’! And don’t move ‘til I say.” The girl’s jumpy breath stopped, then started again, and he knew she had understood him. The gunslinger reached his right leg out to test its length, but it was too short to meet the next strongpoint. He was as close as one could be without stepping onto the mangled side of the carriage itself. “Alright,” he said. “Climb out towards my voice. Move slowlike, with real light feet.”
“I can’t leave her.”
“Save yourself, little darling,” the gunslinger said. “That’s what your momma would say. Save yourself.” Silence spread across the mountain as the moments passed. Finally, a light clamor came from inside the coach, and the gunslinger saw a thin hand probing out of the rear window. “That’s it,” he said. “I can see you. Keep comin’ thataway. Slowlike.”
“Not slowlike,” the girl said as she moved. “Just slow.” Her words were mechanical, of an absent mind. Now half of her body was outside the carriage. She was thin and beautiful. She had a small, straightline gash on the crown of her head, as though a fifty cent piece had penetrated her skull. The thick split of skin spilled fresh blood into her hair.
“I’m here,” the gunslinger said. The girl looked up at him. Blood filtered through her hair and into her eyes, so she could not see the repentant look on the man’s face. He retested the security of his right foothold, then stretched his left leg down towards her.
“Agh!” she shouted, and looked down at herself.
“What happened?” he asked.
“It’s my neck. Or my arm, I don’t know. It hurts so bad.”
“Other hand. Reach up here.” She did as the gunslinger said and grasped his boot. “Take it off,” he said. “It won’t have you hangin’ on it.” The girl took the boot off and dropped it away. The gunslinger could smell his own stink. “The sock too,” he said. She stripped the sock off and let it fall. She reached back up and grabbed the top of his naked foot, the breadth of her hand scarcely wide enough to find its grip. “You got me?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Hold it.” The gunslinger drove his knee up towards his chest. He grasped the handholds and his long, cruddy fingernails turned white. The girl leveraged her green silk shoes into the face of the hill and moiled her legs up, up, and up again. The gunslinger seized her arm and pulled her up into his chest. Her right clavicle was broken clean across. A dark blue bruise was climbing up her neck and down her breast. A silver necklace with a white diamond centerstone sat disarranged over her drooping shoulder.
The gunslinger began upon the hours of gradual climbing that waited for him above. Through it all, the stagecoach remained fastened to the mountain. It would have rested there until nature itself faded to sawdust…
He laid the girl on the ground beside the heap of his ultimate campfire. He went to the horse and dug out his last clean shirt from the saddle bag. Whinnie’s coat blushed the mountain dusk. She was hungry. She wanted to be brushed, and she wanted to be sung to as she was brushed, all for the pleasure of it. But there came no food. There was no brushing, nor any of her rider’s soft songs. She staggered and nickered restlessly in the absence of these attentions. The gunslinger took his knife and cut away the top half of his spare shirt. He sat the girl upright and wrapped her head twice around, from jaw to meridian. He knotted the shirt sleeves under her chin like tying a headscarf. He took off his outer jacket and put it over the girl’s shoulder, then tied the jacket also by its sleeves. He fashioned a sling from the bottom half of the shirt he had cut. He untied the coat, strapped the sling under the girl’s injured arm and over her good shoulder, then put the coat on her again. Finally, he tended the horse as dusk fell to night.
An hour passed and perhaps the girl did not blink but twenty times in that span. The gunslinger fed her sips of liquor from his hand. She took the drinks silently, seeming to be unaware she was taking them at all. The man gave her fifteen sips, and took as many drinks for himself, until only three fingers of liquor remained in the bottle. In the night, they were both drunk before the fire. “You killed my momma,” the girl said suddenly, and without moving. The tightness of the headwrap prevented the complete articulation of her mouth, so her words had dull edges, like things spoken after the dentist. “Hell take you for it.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am.”
“Hell take your sorries. I’ll send you to the Devil myself.”
“Man sends himself to Satan. No one else.”
“You’ll soon see. Why are we still here? I’m an injured party.”
“My horse can’t see the road at night.”
“Yes it can.”
“She can’t. We have to wait ‘til mornin’.”
“Then what will you do with me?”
“I’ll take you where you’re goin’.”
“To Trinidad?”
“The same.”
“How did you know where to find us?” she asked. The gunslinger did not reply. “Did someone tip us off? Who was it? Was it someone in Pueblo? I know everyone in Pueblo.” But again, the man said nothing. “Was it that wagtail bitch Lily what works at the hotel?”
“No,” he said finally. “All no.”
“You tell me,” she said. “They killed my momma just as much as you.” Then the girl began sobbing at the newest remembrance of her loss. The gunslinger leaned against the saddle on the ground next to the fire. I gotta wake this night through, he thought. I don’t know what a grieving girl is capable of. It was true; he did not know, and his interests were not in finding the answer this way. He heard the cries that fell out of her but tried not to listen to them. After a few minutes, the girl let out a deep, heaving wail, and vomited on herself. The man took out the very last item of spare clothing he had: a half-dirty pair of long underwear bottoms. He cleaned her off as well as he could, and as he did, they spoke.
“There’s bounty men near Trinidad,” the girl said, very drunk. “If you don’t kill me, and I don’t die before we get there, I’m going to put your picture up.”
“They got my picture up already.”
“Then there’ll be another one.”
“Already got another one.”
“Then I’ll just kill you.”
“You’re a rich lady.”
“Not rich! We’re normal, decent people!”
“You can’t buy pretty necklaces and yellowbelly coach drivers with decency.”
“You don’t understand anything. You’re a greedy, no-good, mongrel of a man.”
“So you see.”
“I’ll tell you. Fortune holds no sway over me. But if I was a rich lady, like you say, I’d kill you still. And I’d kill you mean. I’d kill you like how a man would.”
“We neither know the other,” he said as he cleaned the last of the filth from her. “We have it good that way.” He slung the soiled garment into the snowy darkness beyond the reach of the firelight. The stiffness in the girl’s frame died away as she slumped down to battle another wave of mourning, then cried for a while into a dizzy, fathomless sleep. The gunslinger waited and smoked for nearly another hour, then took out his notepad and pencil:
Dec 14 1868 Stage was my blunder Saved a girl Killed her mother 3 other men Girls hurt bad gone to the doctors She said Im gone to Hell maybe I am Will make sure shes safe then she can send me there as she says Saw the necklacepiece but would not rob it If she handed it to me would not take it Im the man killed her mother Thinking now on Jotas love story
Good man rode with a bad gang Good man loved the saloon owners daughter She saw the bad gang and run home Good man went after her He was a very fine man Daughter heard him at her door saying he loved her She thought him a scowndrul come along with bad men He wagered she come out but she did not He knocked and begged But she stayed in the house Shed aloved him if shed come out but she did not Saloon owner came and shot the good man dead Bad gang came and shot the rest of em to Hell Buried em all in one grave
He looked up from his writing and saw the girl, still unmoving. Shame dissolved into him. He rested the notepad on the ground and set the pencil beside it. He closed his eyes. He thought he should write something more about the horrors of his deeds, or that he should write anything at all to keep himself awake, but soon his thoughts led him into a guilty, drunken sleep.
The girl had not been sleeping. She was waiting in the cold night with her eyes closed and her feet very close to the fire. She moved like half frozen straw unbending itself and put the palm of her good hand on the ground, then rolled over onto her knees. In this way, she shuffled very deliberately for a quarter of an hour before she finally closed the gap between herself and gunslinger. She knew the shotgun was beneath his head, under the saddle. Once she had shot him, she would stoke the fire until it was huge and warm, then she would read what the man had written in his little book, knowing she had avenged her mother. But then she thought. What if he wakes? Did he unload the gun? Is he the only man that can save me out here? And then she thought of the man’s notepad. What if I read something that makes me regret killing this man? Am I a killer at all? Even a killer of bad men? She forgot the shotgun and sat on her heels. She looked at the man. He was sleeping with his legs crossed and arms at his sides, his body angled up like a bent finger. She picked up the notepad and the pencil and took them back around the firepit, quicker this time, all the way to the place where she rested before. If he’s a bad man, I’ll kill him, she thought. But I won’t bother with the gun. I’ll smash the bottle on his head and kick the fire on him. She read the little book back to front until it was finished, then she sat awake with her eyes closed, thinking of her mother.
In the first light of day, the gunslinger readied the horse. He was anxious for having fallen asleep, but grateful the girl was there, and that they were both alive. He looked at the girl's face, frosted red in the new morning, and the thin strands of black hair over her eyes like strings from spiders of another world. The gunslinger poured a sip of liquor into his hand and bent down to the girl. He wafted his palm under her tiny nose. “I know you’re gonna to wake up hurtin’. Let’s just get it in ya.” His voice, a father waking his daughter to attend Easter Day church service. The girl didn’t need to hear him. She had not slept. She had taken some time in the night to experiment with ways she could maneuver her injured shoulder without stirring the pain. She found those ways to be very few, but in her experimenting, she became accustomed to the particular nature of the pain, and now it bothered her very little. She lay, a stack of wasted thews in the dirt, playing as though the night’s alcohol had her sick. The gunslinger sucked the liquor from his hand, then fed the girl four handfuls of snow. She knew he was seeing past her farce, but once committed to the performance, she thought she should not abandon it. For the last few minutes before they rode out of camp, she steadily lowered the drama in her acting by allowing her features to awaken one at a time. Soon, however, real exhaustion settled in behind her eyes.
Now they were both on the horse, the gunslinger with one hand at the girl’s side to see she did not fall. He sensed her balance with the thick muscles in his back, and there, he felt the hard diamond pendant of her necklace between them. The girl cried softly, in shorter and shorter spans, each separated from the last by about five minutes, and soon she fell into a perfect dream of when she was young. Her father building a homestead in Pueblo with aid from the Freemasons of lodge seventeen. Day fifty of the project. Men putting copper nails into slate shingles to form a roof. At night, a big canvas tent, a black iron stove, and her mother knitting something brown. Chicken soup on boil. Her father sitting on a crate, reading from a small blue book with a gold diamond emblem on the cover. His lips moved silently as he read over the same passage many times. “Father,” she asked him. “How will you ever remember so many words?”
“With patience and focus," he said in his kind, easy voice.
“Can I help you get more patience and more focus?” she asked in juvenile earnest. She wanted all the time to help her family. Being useful to them was the most important thing to her.
“Leave your father be, Caroline,” her mother said without pausing her knitting. “He must pass his test to repay the debt we owe to the men who’ve helped us. And he has only the days left in this month to prepare.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the girl said. Her mother was going to say something more, to give the girl some menial, well-intended distraction to go out with, but before she could speak, the girl awoke in Trinidad, in the bronze light of early evening.
“Ma’am, we’ve made it to the doctor’s,” the gunslinger said as he dismounted, still keeping one hand at the girl’s side, then taking her by the waist to let her down. Her face turned sour as she relived the events of the day past, but she did not cry. The gunslinger led her into the doctor’s building. He waited outside and smoked as she was inspected. The sun drew down, and he heard the sounds of brass music and women singing somewhere in the town. He finished his third cigarette. I’m sick of smoking, he thought, then touched his jacket pocket for the notepad, but did not feel it there. His hands shook as his mind swelled with a haunted, spectral feeling, like a man who had forgotten to do something very important, now remembering exactly what it was he failed to do. His fractured lips hung open and his vacant eyes did not distinguish the sights before him. Blue spaces beneath his eyes where he stored his self contempt. In his mind, he felt only the screams of the women in the stagecoach. He knew the final farewell between the girl and her mother had been one of confusion and suffering, whereas the lives they shared must have been full of love and joy. But those lives would be no more. The life of the mother, forever extinguished. The life of the daughter, forever sickened. And his reflection of their lives, forever unpolished, truthfully, never having been drawn out.
The girl and the gunslinger stood in the orange mountain dusk. She wore the doctor’s spare medical coat with only her good arm inside its sleeve. A leather sling fondled her arm and kept it tucked under her small chest. White bandages wrapped neatly about her head. She looked at the soiled man and examined his corpus to record him precisely in her mind. He was a pitiful thing, dressed in black rags stained gray from sweat. The hairs on his cheeks were longer now, like bunches of white hypodermic needles. He stood teetering and slouching into himself like an exhausted horse. His lips were almost white. Every inch of him contributed to his foul smell. His eyes were fixed on the frozen mud street, as though there was something down there that he loved and needed. He was not a tall man, but now he seemed even smaller than she, a girl of just sixteen years. She closed her eyes and squeezed soft tears from them. And there they stood, neither looking at the other, but feeling one another’s presence as tightly as stitches. The girl wiped her face with the sleeve on her good arm.
“What’s your name, mister?” she asked. He did not reply nor seem to hear her question at all. “It’s a beautiful evening,” she said. The gunslinger looked west down the road.
“It is,” he said finally, then his gaze dropped to the mud again.
“I’m going to speak with the sheriff now,” she told him. Again, the gunslinger said nothing. She turned away and stood, breathing softly into the wind. After a minute, she faced him again. She took the notepad from her pocket, placed it in his down-turned hand, and closed his fingers around it. The doctor’s coat nearly fell from her shoulders. She reached back to pull it on again. The gunslinger looked at the notepad, then at the small, soft hand that had put it there.
“Thank you, ma’am.”
The girl sprung her good arm forward and bashed the gunslinger on the nose. There was a splintery break as the nose bent and cowered away like a beat dog. This time, the coat did fall from her shoulders, and down into the street. When struck, the man did not stumble or sway, but only closed his eyes. The girl turned and walked, almost running, stamping over the fallen coat and crying out every tear she had left. The gunslinger’s body lost all connectedness. His knees drove holes through the topshell of frozen mud, then he fell forward onto his face. He mewled and wailed pathetically. His cries hacked and bubbled out of him like a boy weeping in a dream, like a man who had never cried before and was just teaching himself how. Tears, blood, and drivel soaked the place where his head lay, and soon there was mud all about his face and mouth, his mind drowning in the anguish of guilt.
“Miss, can you tell me what’s going on?” the sheriff asked the crying girl sitting in his office. He looked at her kindly, taking note of her injuries. He sat down next to her. “Where’s the son of a bitch that hurt you? You tell me, and my men and I will bring that bastard in to face the justice that’s coming to him.” The girl raised a finger to the sheriff. He waited patiently for her to compose herself. She took four deep, shaking breaths, then she spoke.
“My name is Caroline Bloomberg. My mother and I were on the road to Santa Fe to reunite with my father. Of course, we were robbed. I knew it would happen. I just knew it would. My momma… she’s gone. Everyone but me is gone. There was shooting. Loud, loud shots. The driver lost himself and took us right off the road.”
“I’m very sorry to hear this, ma’am.”
“We were so proud to be coming down here. Three months ago, my father went off to expand his business, and finally he wrote to tell us of his success. There was money to hire a stagecoach and men to guard us on the road. We could have brought the whole army, but my momma was raised to be frugal. She thought two riders and her old pistol would be enough to see us safely through.”
“Your mother sounds like a very strong woman. And your father, a good man.”
“They are. She was always strong. She always will be.”
“Did you get a look at the men who robbed you?”
“There was only one.”
“And he?” the sheriff asked. Behind him was a bulletin of bounty posters, and there was a picture of the gunslinger, wearing a clean face with bright eyes.
The girl looked for a while at the picture and at the other bounties posted. Finally, she shook her head. “My father also sent a secret allowance to the Masonic lodge in Pueblo, with instructions to deliver the money to me, so I could buy this.” She took the necklace out from under her shirt and showed it to the sheriff. “My father promised long ago that I should have it. Such a fool of a little girl. I could have hired the men we needed.” The sheriff nodded. He knew the scam—diamond brokers chatting up unsuspecting customers, then telling some local reprobate all about their business. The brokers bought the stolen jewelry back at a rate, and reset the gems into new hardware to disguise their crime. The sheriff thought not to mention these details to the girl, and he hoped she would never learn of the scheme at all.
“I have to ask, ma’am,” he said. “How was it that you were able to save yourself?”
“Just as you say,” she said. “I saved myself.”
Down the road, a crowd of drunkards and children gathered to watch the gunslinger as he seized in the muck. The tall doors of the barn next to the jailhouse flung open, and out came the police stableman to shoo the miscreants away and clear space for the cavalry. The sheriff lent his arm to the girl as they came outside and down the steps of the office building. Other officers filed out of the barn with lanterns fixed to their rifles, swinging their shines against the burgeoning dark. The sheriff helped the girl mount up on an unclaimed horse, then went to fetch his own. The stableman handed the sheriff his rifle and said something to him. The sheriff replied in a low voice that the girl could not hear, then he led a single line of mounted officers away down the frozen road. A moment later, they passed the crying man in the mud.
“Somebody get this drunk bastard out of the street,” the sheriff said. He could not have known the broken man below was in fact Theodore “Buckshot” Blake. His bounty, if seized, would have made the sheriff's career all the way to Lieutenant Colonel of the Colorado Rangers.
The girl now looked at this paltry man in the dirt. He was bent and turned so that she could not see his face. She remembered with satisfaction the feeling of his nose shattering against her hard little knuckles. She wondered if she was making a mistake by not handing the man over to the sheriff right then and there. She thought of the hanging that would ensue. Death might absolve the gunslinger’s soul, and she wanted so much to deprive him of that swift, honest conclusion. So the girl only looked away from the gunslinger, straightened her ladylike back, and rode with dignity, away and out of the town.
One of the drunkards came and kicked the gunslinger hard in the stomach; a brown-nosed effort to earn the good will of the sheriff. Then the gunslinger crawled. Despite his licks, his body was healthy. Yet, truly, it was a sick man that went skulking into the alleyway. Not a drunk, not a beggar, but a scoundrel. A repentant thing with a tattered notepad and only distant memories of love. He sat, leaning against the side of the doctor’s building, and opened the little book. On what he expected to be a clean page, there was written in a hand unlike his own:
Mister, you should thank God I’m not a killer. I could end your life now as you sleep. There is guilt and shame in the words I have read here. Even now your face looks as though it is full of shame. So I will not kill you. Knowing you are a man with a conscience, I will write some memories here so you may know just a small part of the pain you have put into the world.
My mother’s name was Gwyneth. The carriage driver’s name was Maximillian. The riders I did not know but from how they behaved I’m sure they were debaucherous men like yourself. Read those names and remember them. Is this the first time you have been confronted with such information? I hope that it is. I hope I am spoiling some cowardly tradition of yours.
The past days had been the best of my life before you took your action. I have never seen such wildlife as in the hills of Farista, or had such delicious stew as in the town lodge at Colorado City. Mother and I laughed and played bridge. She even allowed me one of her cigarettes each morning with our coffee.
Before your attack, we spoke of my father’s newfound wealth. My mother hoped money would not change the man she married. I assured her such a thing would be impossible. My father is a man of unimpeachable character. He builds great things from almost nothing, just as he built himself. I will see him again soon, but he will never again see his wife. They will never again do the things they did to bring me into this world. The honeymoon of their lives is over.
You will take me to Trinidad as you say. I know this is true because you hate yourself. You will help me so you might hate yourself less. Or maybe you will go on killing and hating as before, but there can be no doubt you will try. My mind is unclear now, but once I am sober I will decide what to do with you. If I am vengeful, you will suffer. If I am merciful, I imagine you will suffer the more.
Never yours, Caroline Jane Bloomberg, daughter of Gwyneth Hope Bloomberg
He put the little book down. She’s offered me a decision, he thought. A decision is more than a man like me deserves. Should I die to get away from my mistakes? Or should I live, and be with ’em forever? The gunslinger stood up and went to the place where he’d left Whinnie. He saw her coat glinting the last of the day’s light, and when she turned her noble head to nibble at his hands, the shine went away for a moment, but came back brighter on the other side. He stroked her flank and a few tan hairs stuck wet on his palm. “Oooh, sweet sweet,” he sang to her. “Oooh, sweet girl.” He took her by the halter and led her to the stables, where he sold the horse for one hundred dollars. Then he struck a second deal with the stableman to have a bath at his house for five of those dollars back…
Theodore Williams sat in a shady beach cabana with a glass of cherry wine. He watched his wife, Mary, dancing in the waves with her friends. Then the beach at night. Salt wind and talk of life’s fortunes. Splitting up to make love on the beach in pairs, some yards between each couple. The ocean, very loud. The waves, eerie, yet prophesied. Perhaps eerie because they are prophesied and each wave is a prophecy of death. Moonlight the only light in the twisted air. Theodore, a man disturbed by the taste of happiness and love, yearning for his natural end, unable to indulge what ought have been his greatest pleasure, but a man who, with each day that passed, was becoming closer to the thing he would have been. In the morning, he wrote:
Apr 1 1871 Mary wants me to write more The person this woman is She is beautiful The sand never all gets off her She reads poetry ‘Helen Hunt Jackson’ I have never done a poem I bite my hand when I think about doing it But I will write a poem for you my darling
BUCKSHOT BORDEREAU
On a lone farm in Kentucky A boy made friends with rocks Ma said to swears unlucky Pa said to clean your socks Eight teen hundred thirty seven That year was no good Took a flu on December eleven A bad day he understood Shotgun he heards the soil From sprouts a money tree Farmworks too much toil Hed rather eat for free She was down all underneath One evil by his hand She he saved to save him thus And show him his God’s plan
And he put the notepad and the pencil away.

It’s still not 100% finished, but I finally got the external trim up and we’ve been using it for seven months now, so it seems like time to make a full post.
This week, right after finishing trim and moving the scaffolding.
Summary

• Free standing building 8’X16’
• Hot room finished interior ~7’X7’ Ceiling ~8.5’
• Wood fired, heater: Harvia Pro20

https://preview.redd.it/5824u03oae3d1.jpg?width=810&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9f04658362fcf51dd2290cf74e5c23980fc9e994
General Thoughts and Experience
We have been using this sauna now since about Halloween. It gets used very regularly, during cold months it was used every day, sometimes multiple times per day. It has held up really well and given the experience I was looking for. We have had groups as big as 11 inside on rare occasions, and six or seven is common and comfortable. There are a lot of things I would do differently next time, although those are mostly about the building itself and there is little I would change about the sauna experience. Eventually I would like a deck/hangout space in front, maybe a shower closer, and if I designed it again I would include a larger changing room.
Sandy beach is right of the dock. Pond is shallow right in front of sauna and is easy to wade into
Background
I built this sauna for my intentional community and our neighbors, a group of around 50 people. I wanted it to be big enough to handle some large groups, but realistically 4-6 people most of the time.
I had never built a building (or much of anything else) before starting this, so it needed to be pretty simple, rustic, and functional.
Our community has rules and norms around buildings that emphasize using natural and reclaimed materials and limiting impact on the land. You can read more about us at https://www.dancingrabbit.org/building/natural-building/
I chose a site near our swimming pond, no utilities available and added emphasis on a low impact design.
Foundation
The foundation is six Osage Orange Posts, 10-14” diameter, buried 36” below grade (frostline is 25”).
https://preview.redd.it/zpjxoxouae3d1.jpg?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b6b9f8ecebd9e67310d1059b54a83222d9f9b99b
We placed three beams across the posts on the short axis, then hung joists between them. I laid down hardware cloth on top of that to keep rodents out, and used reclaimed 2X6 Douglas Fir for decking.
After much consideration, I took the advice of sauna ( https://www.reddit.com/Sauna/comments/vnd32l/what\_did\_you\_put\_under\_your\_floor\_when\_building/ ) and did not insulate the floor. I also did not add a finish floor, so the decking provides both drainage and air intake.
Framing
The building is framed with 2X6 Douglas Fir that was reclaimed from an older building. It looks pretty rough, and some of it is, but it is as dry as it’s going to get and it has done all the warping and bending that it is likely to ever do, so it was actually really nice to work with.
https://preview.redd.it/nuyx1fpwae3d1.jpg?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=553cee8d57b24fa984b3793f9ed17bb4062160cd
The outside dimensions of the building are 16’X8’. It has a simple shed roof that falls 3’ over the 8’ span of the building itself. One of the big things I would do differently if I did it again would be to make the eaves larger and order proper length roofing rather than assembling 8’ sections. I would also probably make the footprint larger to accommodate an II bench layout inside and a larger changing room.
Insulation and vapor barrier
The hot room is insulated with mineral wool around the walls and ceiling. No insulation in the floor at all. So far the changing room is unfinished and uninsulated. Maybe one day we will finish it, but for now it’s more expense than necessary.
Discotheque
The interior of the hot room has an aluminum vapor barrier fully taped and sealed. Outside there is no vapor barrier around the hot room to avoid trapping moisture in the walls. I used tar paper on the roof and the walls of the changing room.
Exterior finish
The exterior is sided with shingles cut from pallet offcuts (heat treated). There is a pallet mill nearby and they sell the offcuts they didn’t use for basically nothing. Then it is a matter of picking out the pieces that are suitable thickness and width, cutting them to length, and attaching them to nailers running horizontally along the exterior walls. These shingles are 18” long and overlapped double so that 6” are showing and there are three layers of shingle everywhere.
Tons of work to cut each shingle, but basically free.
Trim is done with reclaimed barn siding. The roof is a simple steel roof ordered from a big box store.
Interior Paneling, Windows, and Door
I did a post about the interior paneling already ( https://www.reddit.com/Sauna/comments/17k9tiu/update_on_eastern_red_cedar_sauna_interio ).
Worked top down to make it easier to have a good top row on each wall that match each other and the ceiling. Nailed into only the bottom tab of each plank except the very top one. Then the next plan covered the nail heads. No nail heads are exposed except at the top, but not sure I'd do it this way again.
I used Eastern Red Cedar (ERC), which is botanically a juniper despite what people call it. There is a lot of conventional wisdom that says to not use it, but I found it great. Check the link for most of my thoughts. I’d say that now, seven months after that post, I am even more happy with my choice. The wood is holding up very well. The unique smell is still there, but it has subsided to the point that it isn’t at all overpowering, most people comment on how nice it smells. I don’t notice hot spots from the knots, even when looking for them. One knot on a wall seeped a tiny amount of sap, it wasn’t where anyone would touch so no problem.
I used a shiplap pattern for the paneling. I bought ¾” X 5 ½” rough cut planks and ran them through a planer to get a face. Then I used a dado blade on a table saw to create ½” X ⅜” grooves for the shiplap. Stainless steel brad nails hold them to 1X2 furring strips.
I initially nailed the paneling only in the grooves that were to be covered by the next board to avoid any metal heads showing. However, I had a couple of planks that tried to bow and warp and I had to replace one entirely because it turned into a big frown and was pushing out other planks (right at back level on the top bench naturally). So if I did it again, I would probably be a bit more liberal with the brad nails. Where they are exposed, they are very hard to see and not at all hot to the touch because they are recessed a tiny bit.
I had access to free tempered double paned glass that was salvaged and leftover from another project, so I used it. It is solid and should be pretty good in terms of heat transfer, although I don’t love that it has a pattern of privacy dots. No big deal, we’ve all gotten used to it and don’t really notice. There is a window in the door and one on the exterior wall, both are panes that I hung rather than prehung.
My favorite view.
I followed the Sauna Times method (more or less) for building the interior door https://www.saunatimes.com/building-a-sauna/build-your-own-sauna-doo It is a plywood core with paneling nailed to each side. I cut a rectangular hole to fit the window, it is smaller than the window on one side so the glass just dropped in. Then I used trim to hold the glass in place. The exterior of the door is actual cedar rather than ERC. My brother in law gave me just enough to do the door and some shelves and I was pretty much out of ERC at that point; no other practical reason for that choice. For door handles I used a bent ERC branch that I sanded down on one side, the other side is a root from an Autumn Olive tree that is sanded down. Again, no real reason except that I saw it on an uprooted tree and thought it was a great shape.
Don't mind the mess.
I previously posted some more detail interior door pictures here - https://imgur.com/gallery/interior-door-RqzWXGI
Benches
I debated long and hard about whether to use ERC for the bench wood. It’s very knotty and I was worried about hot spots. In the end I decided to try it for consistency. The ERC lumber that was available was live edge 1” (4/4) slabs rough cut in varying widths. I planed it and ripped it into sizes that maximized what I could get out of the slabs. I ended up with widths of 2 ¾” for the slats as well as a set of boards close to dimensional (5.5" and 3.5") sizes for the frame.
Framing in progress, foot bench and steps still to be added.
Given the thinness of this lumber and the fact that ERC isn’t as strong as some other woods, I decided not to go for floating benches, but instead put legs on the frames. I am very happy with this choice and I don’t think we lost much by including legs, but I do feel much more confident in the weight bearing capacity when we have large groups in here.
The frames are made from the widest pieces of lumber. I attached them to the walls with high capacity lag screws and planned the sequence so that no hardware is visible. In a few cases this meant toe screwing or pocket screwing as well. I included cross braces for reinforcement about every three feet inside the frames so that the bench tops are well supported and can’t really sag anywhere.
The tops of the benches are separate units that can be pulled up for cleaning, inspired by the Sauna Times tutorial ( https://www.saunatimes.com/building-a-sauna/sauna-benches/ ). I’m not sure that was important since it’s easy enough to climb under the benches, but it wasn’t really any more work. The slats are held together with the medium width ERC boards I ripped. They are attached near each end on the underside of the bench, and they are recessed to be snug in the frames so that they provide lateral stability and keep the bench tops from sliding forward and back. One thing I would do differently if I did it again would be to include a few more of these brackets as some of the longer slats have warped a little bit in the heat.
Bench widths are 23” and 22” on the top level, 18” and 13” on the second level, and the foot bench and steps are 8” wide. The top bench is 43” from the ceiling, then it is 18” down to the second bench and another 18” down to the foot bench. I originally made the steps as a separate removable piece to make cleaning easier. But it was wobbly and a little bit scary, so I ended up attaching the steps to the bench frame structure.
I put up some rope lights under the top bench. They work fine when we need some light, but it seems like the batteries go quickly.
https://preview.redd.it/p73q9k1pbe3d1.jpg?width=810&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2b8d26661d0925fc2f0393572c762823d22c073a
I know the L-shape is not everyone’s cup of tea, but it works well for our regular groups of four to seven. I’ve been in the sauna with as many as 11 people and, while it wasn’t exactly comfortable, it worked. If I had it to design again, I would seriously consider an II layout with the heater at the back and a raised platform floor.
Heater and Ventilation
This is a Harvia Pro20 wood fired heater. I bought two boxes of rocks and stacked as many as I could possibly get on it, which is about 1.5 boxes total. It heats up really well, takes about 30 minutes for the room to get usable even when it’s cold outside and within an hour it can be hotter than anyone wants.
https://preview.redd.it/wydp5ylrbe3d1.jpg?width=810&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=923e5a8e4916eb94b408067e66d6ca42802a911c
I debated for a while and ended up buying the Harvia heat shield that attaches directly to the heater and this was a great choice. Not only does it reduce the clearances dramatically, it also stays pretty cool to the touch. Well, not cool, but it’s cool enough that if someone were to grab it accidentally or fall on it, they would not get burned. The walls are additionally shielded with corrugated steel, 1” air gap, cement board, ¾” air gap. On all sides of the heater, I left one or two inches more clearance than required because fire safety isn’t something I’m interested in messing with.
I read all the things about ventilation and find it all confusing. So I just way overdid it. The floor is uninsulated, so it provides more fresh air intake than the stove could ever use. I also put a vent low behind the stove on the interior wall, thinking that if we ever decide to insulate the floor, it could be useful. There is a vent near the ceiling in the corner opposite the heater that we open after every sauna to let out any steam. And another one on the wall behind the heater about halfway between the rocks and the ceiling. When people feel stuffy, we open that one, although I think it’s probably more placebo than anything given how much air comes through the floor. Mostly we use the high ones to vent moisture after we’re done.
Changing Room
The changing room just kind of exists, I didn’t put much effort into finishing it. I paneled the interior wall with plywood to hold back the insulation, but there is no insulation or wall finish elsewhere. I made a couple of benches from an ERC slab and some shelves and towel pegs from scrap lumber and branches of ERC trees growing nearby. Maybe one day we will finish it, but it seems like unnecessary cost. There is no electricity, so we have some janky LED lights that never seem to work right. Maybe that’s something I can tinker with for next winter.
Ptoto taken from just inside exterior door. Shelving goes around two walls, plus towel hooks by the door made from ERC branches growing just outside.
If I was designing another sauna, I would probably make the changing room larger. With more than about three people in there, it gets tight. And there really isn’t good indoor space for hanging out right now.
Outdoor Shower
The shower wasn’t really built for the sauna as much as just to be a shower. But it is between the village and the sauna, so it is convenient for anyone who wants to rinse off. Most folks just use the pond anyway.
Polycarb box contains a stainless tank and acts as a passive water heater. Water comes through a garden hose attached to a nearby hydrant.
https://preview.redd.it/frkw6jezbe3d1.jpg?width=813&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bed5b7166c46b258ddd6849200b0158497358324
Happy to answer any questions, this sub was hugely helpful for me in figuring out what to do and I'd like to return the favor. One last photo of the sauna in snow, prime time.
Perfect sauna weather. Photo from edge of icy pond. Smoke wisping up.

Chapter 1

Alyssa awoke with saltwater in her mouth and nose. She hacked and sputtered, only to realize she was sinking deeper into a pitch dark pool. She closed her eyes against the water's sting, and as her panic rose she flailed with arms and legs. She was desperate to regain bouyancy, even as she choked out the brine from her burning lungs. Determined, she broke to the surface again, gulping in air between ragged coughs as she fought to stay afloat.
Treading water, she opened her eyes and nothing changed. The darkness in the echoing chamber was complete, and she had to fight down another surge of panic as she took in the precariousness of her situation. The cold water sapped her strength, and her heart raced as a sudden scream of terror welled up from within.
Alyssa winced as her own scream echoed in her ears. She choked out the last of the salty water, then took a deep breath, trying to force herself to calm. "Okay, okay," she soothed herself, voice trembling slightly despite her efforts, "we're okay."
After another steadying breath, Alyssa began building a mental catalog of her situation. Her clothes were soaked through, but she wasn't finding treading water to be too difficult, yet; a future problem. Other than her lungs, nothing hurt, and those were recovering. She could still feel her toes and fingers on both hands, meaning no paralysis, that she could find. Nothing seemed to be seriously wrong, except that she had no idea how she'd come to be in a pitch dark echoing chamber filled with water.
Calmer, now, Alyssa tried to recall what she had been doing. The last thing she remembered was walking along the shoreline, feeling immensely lonely. The sound of the waves coming in, closer and closer, was still vivid in her mind. She could still remember the coarse feeling of the sand between her toes. The saltwater air had filled her lungs as she wondered how she could be in such a beautiful place, and still feel so sorry for herself. With a bitter laugh, Alyssa lolled her head back in the water and stared into the endless void. Well she certainly had reason to feel sorry for herself, now. Still, the memory of how she came to be here was distressingly absent.
Drip … Drip … Drop.
As her adrenaline faded, Alyssa could hear the slow, steady fall of water into the pool. Was the water level rising? She couldn't tell without knowing more about the chamber she was in. Determined to push back against her growing despair, Alyssa decided to explore her environment more thoroughly. A shiver coursed through her spine as she felt out to either side as far as her arms would go and couldn't find a wall, nor did she find purchase beneath her feet. After a moment of hesitation, Alyssa expanded her search. She swam forward, keeping her hands ahead of herself.
She didn't have to go far before she bumped into an uneven stone surface. Alyssa wasn't sure in the dark, but judging by the smoothness of the rock she guessed it was some kind of river stone. She followed the stone wall around for a ways before deciding it was curved inward. Pushing off, Alyssa turned and reached for the other side, then followed along the wall and repeated the crossing a few more times. She decided that the cavern was roughly circular, perhaps half again as wide as her armspan at its widest stretch, though without light she couldn't be certain she had ever crossed it straight. She considered her options as she clung to the side of the chamber.
Drip … Drip … Drop.
The steady sound was maddening in its repetition, and Alyssa let out a huff of annoyance. Thinking on it, though, she was sure the water had been steadily falling into the chamber the entire time she was here, and she didn't think the water level had risen. Not that she had any way to really know for certain, but if she was right, it implied there was some way for the water to get back out. Could she get out the same way? Taking a deep breath, Alyssa ducked beneath the surface and swam down. Her kicks were hindered by her sodden skirt, but following along the cavern wall as she descended, Alyssa felt the cavern floor after a depth of maybe twice her height. Ten feet wasn't even as deep as most home swimming pools.
Alyssa gulped down air as she returned to the surface, thinking hard about what she'd found. Another shiver coursed through her veins just before she dove down to explore the bottom further. Like the walls, it was uneven but smooth. She could feel some small cracks, and feel the water rushing past her fingers near one or two of these. That, then, was where the water was escaping to. Frustrated, she resurfaced one more and banged her fist against the stone wall. "Damnit." She knew she wouldn't be swimming her way out of here.
For the third time, Alyssa shivered, and she realised that she was starting to lose feeling in her toes. The water temperature wasn't frigid, but she could feel it sapping her strength. Was it ninety-six degrees for hypothermia? Ninety-five? She couldn't recall, but it wasn't important, without a thermometer. She was going to die, here, if she didn't find a way out, and soon.
Drip … Drip … Drop.
Straining, she tried to focus on the sounds around her once more. The incessant dripping of the cave was her only remaining hope of finding a way out, and she had no idea how to reach the ceiling. Alyssa squeezed her toes in an attempt to restore some feeling, while she thought about the problem. After a moment, she began exploring the cavern walls again, this time searching for something to stand on rather than just learning about her environment. After a few turns about the chamber, she found a small shelf just a few feet beneath the surface, large enough for her to put a single foot on.
She pushed herself up, trying to go slowly as she felt along the wall for anything to grip onto. She couldn't find purchase before her momentum carried her too far from the wall, but she did feel roughly how high the ceiling was just before she splashed back into the pool. "Yes!" she celebrated the small victory as she surfaced, fueling her hopes of an escape with that realization that she could probably wedge herself between the ceiling and the shelf if she was purposeful about it.
Returning to the wall, she tamped down on the urge to shiver again, then surged straight up, putting her hands above her to try and catch the ceiling. Water cascaded around her in a torrent, her water-logged clothing threatening to drag her back to the depths, but she held on until she was steady. Alyssa allowed herself a small smile for her success, though some part of her thought it felt more like a grimace, before she began feeling along the cavern ceiling with her hands. Like the rest of the chamber, the stone was smooth and uneven, but it had sharper protrusions here and there that might serve as handholds. Alyssa was reminded of the wall climb at the local mall. She'd never been great at it, despite her friends dragging her to try it every other weekend during high school.
As she continued exploring the ceiling, another involuntary shiver wracked her body, and she set her teeth against the growing chill. "I'm going to get out," she promised herself, just as her hand found open air where she'd expected stone. She nearly fell, but she caught herself and explored the edges of the hole. She couldn't even reach the entire thing from her perch! The ledge was rugged and sharp, and just barely far enough from the wall that she had to strain to reach it. She explored as far around the hole as she could, certain it was large enough for her to fit through. Excited, Alyssa grabbed onto the ledge with both hands and tried to pull herself up, but her grip wasn't solid enough. She immediately slipped back into the water with another splash.
Alyssa surfaced with a growl, feeling a surge of determination and stubbornness. Reclaiming her perch on the shelf, she pushed up to the roof of the chamber once more. This time she knew her target, so rather than wasting time and grip with exploration, she just focused on steadying herself, there. After a few breaths, she reached up to grab the ledge again, trying to find solid hand-holds.
As she swung out from the wall, her sodden skirt trailed through the water, weighing her down. She held on for longer this time, uttering a harsh noise as she strained to pull herself up. She managed to get her chin to her fingers before her grip failed her again, and the feeling of freefall sent her heart thrilling before she splashed into the cool water once more.
When she surfaced, Alyssa let out a frustrated growl. "I had it!" she admonished herself, before finding the ledge once more. A third time, her efforts were fouled and she fell into the water. In frustration, she peeled her skirt off her legs and abandoned it to the murky brine. With the drag gone, she had an easier time holding onto the ledge, and on her fourth attempt she nearly managed to pull herself all the way up before her arms gave out and she slipped back into the water with yet another scream of frustration.
She knew she was close, but she obviously wasn't going to make progress while her muscles were burning with fatigue. Floating on her back, Alyssa glared up into the darkness as her emotions swirled around her, threatening to drag her into despair. Hope and frustration warred within her, each trying to gain the upper hand. She clung onto the determination that she had almost made it, but as she dwelled on the problem above her, doubts began to surface. What if she couldn’t pull herself out? What if there wasn’t a way out above?
Anger surged through her at that thought, hot and fierce. She refused to accept that fate. Closing her eyes, she focused on the anger and used it as fuel for her resolve. She just needed a moment to catch her breath, relax her muscles, and try again. She was going to get out.
When she swung out for the fifth time, Alyssa’s fingers gripped tightly to the rock above. She pulled herself up into the black with a roar of determination and frustration. She got her chest over the lip, then reached one arm forward hastily in search of a better hold. She found purchase, then pulled a leg up and got one foot on the ledge. With a scream of exultation, she pushed herself the rest of the way out of the chamber and into the tunnels above.
With a feral noise of triumph, Alyssa slid onto the cool, damp stone of the tunnel, then rolled onto her back and lay gasping for air. Her muscles were twitching, and she was still cold, but she was no longer in the water, and that was a massive improvement, even if the dark and damp of the unknown was around her.
Alyssa wasn’t sure how long she lay there on the stone, but as her panting and muscle spasms gave way to shivering and goosebumps, she admitted to herself, “I have to move.” But it was hard to keep going; her body felt heavy and drained from the exertion of just climbing out of the chamber below, and she wasn’t even sure where to go next. With a groan, she pushed herself up to a sitting position, fighting the exhaustion and mounting sense of dread that threatened to claim her.
Carefully, she crawled forward on hands and knees, every movement an effort. She could feel the edge of the hole she’d just emerged from, but that was obviously a deadend. Instead, she pressed on, hunting for an alternative. The rough stone scraped against her palms and knees as she inched along, her progress painfully slow.
The cavern descended, and Alyssa's heart sank when her hand plunged into another pool of water. She pulled back, relieved that the bank was shallow enough she could easily get back out of this pool. Nevertheless, she paused to consider her options, then turned to explore in the opposite direction. After several minutes of fruitless searching, she realized that the water-filled passage was her only way forward.
Alyssa let out a heavy sigh of frustration as she lowered herself into the tepid water. She gritted her teeth as the cold crept back into her bones, but willed herself to keep moving. The tunnel continued its descent, and soon the ceiling plunged into the pool, forcing her to submerge if she wanted to continue. Alyssa hesitated, barely holding back her desperate tears. Swimming blindly through the flooded passage seemed like madness, but what choice did she have?
Taking a deep, gasping breath, Alyssa plunged beneath the surface and swam forward with powerful kicks of her legs. She kept one hand on the stone above and the other stretched out in front of her, searching for obstacles. As her lungs began to burn with the need for oxygen, panic threatened to overwhelm her. What if the tunnel never resurfaced? If she went much further, she was certain she would not be able to make it back. Still, she had no alternatives; no other way to proceed. So she swam forward into the unknown, gambling her life on an exit while desperately ignoring the growing panic in the back of her mind.
A subtle glow in the murky water caught Alyssa’s attention, and the tunnel veered sharply upward. Desperate for air, she kicked towards the light, discarding caution as she propelled herself forward and up with both arms and legs. Hope surged through her as she swam towards the surface.
When she emerged from the water, gasping and sputtering for air, Alyssa let out a cry of relief. Mushrooms! Glowing mushrooms filled the room, their glow dim but omnipresent. She marveled, letting out a delighted laugh at the sight of the water’s reflection erupting into a cascade of colors on the cavern ceiling. Alyssa took a deep breath, and although the air was musty and stale, it had a sharpness and movement to it that the previous chamber hadn’t. Where there were mushrooms there was life, and where there was wind there was an exit. For the first time in hours, Alyssa smiled, as she pulled herself out of the pool onto the bank.

Chapter 2

For the second time in several hours, Alyssa lay on the ground catching her breath and allowing her muscles to relax. The swim through the watery airlock–she couldn’t think of any other way to describe that tunnel–had been far more mentally taxing than the physical exertion of pulling herself up out of the first chamber. Nevertheless, it required a great deal of effort and she was exhausted.
As she lay on her back, Alyssa tried again to remember how she got here. She remembered vividly her walk on the beach, and then … water. There was nothing in between. She wasn't even sure how much time had passed, but judging by the way her stomach was starting to groan in protest, and by the fullness of her bladder, she was fairly sure it had been several hours. On the other hand, she could account for at least two of those since she found herself in the chamber, unless her estimate of time was very off.
Her deliberations were cut short by a small squeaking noise, not far away. Alyssa eased herself up and turned towards the noise. There in the field of mushrooms was a small white and brown mouse, cast in an eerie glow by the mushroom's bioluminescence. Alyssa watched in awe as the mouse nibbled on the mushrooms, waiting to see what would happen. She didn't know enough about mushrooms to judge their safety for herself, but if the mouse could eat them, she figured they were probably safe for her to try, as well. After all, weren't mice used for drug testing all the time?
The mouse seemed oblivious to Alyssa’s presence, and she held her breath as best she could while she counted the seconds, trying to decide how long she should wait before trusting the results. Hours, probably, if she was honest with herself. Just when she was about to give up on the idea, a sudden movement caught her eye. Beyond the mouse, swift as could be, a slithering figure stole towards the unsuspecting rodent. “No!” she called, and her hand found a rock. Hastily, she threw it towards the onrushing creature. The rock went wide, but the serpent’s stealth was spoiled, and the mouse quickly darted away from its assailant, deeper into the mushrooms.
The snake let out a hiss of annoyance, and Alyssa was briefly overwhelmed by a sudden feeling of immense displeasure. She wasn’t surprised the snake was annoyed, but the sheer vehemence she felt was almost as if sensing her own emotions. Its lunch foiled, the serpent turned and slithered away, leaving Alyssa and the mouse alone in the chamber once again.
Alyssa waited, still and quiet, as the chamber settled back into silence. She wondered whether the little mouse had escaped the field of mushrooms entirely, or if it was still here. But something told her to wait; a sense of hesitance and uncertainty that felt sourceless and yet compelling.
Eventually, her patience paid off, and the little mouse poked its head back out of the mushrooms, staring after the snake. It emitted a soft, hesitant noise, then furtively darted out of the field into the open. There, it paused to stare up at Alyssa, studying her with a raw curiosity that nearly overwhelmed Alyssa as much as the snake’s displeasure had. She also sensed gratitude from the little mouse, though how she knew that’s what it was feeling she could not say.
“Are you hurt?” she hazarded, as she leaned in towards the mouse. The little creature took a quick step back, and the curiosity was immediately replaced by uncertainty.
Alyssa straightened up to give the mouse space. The feeling of uncertainty slowly faded, and she tilted her head in curiosity. “Why can I sense what you're feeling?” she asked the mouse, though of course she knew it would not reply.
The mouse watched her for several more moments before taking a single daring step forward. Alyssa sat very still, and after another moment it took a few more steps towards her. Soon, it was near to her knee, its little nose twitching incessantly as it sniffed at her dampened skin.
“I’m afraid I don’t have any food on me,” Alyssa said, still not moving but to talk. The mouse sat back and stood up on its hind legs to peer up at her. Alyssa could sense its curiosity turn to acceptance, and then, before she could protest, the little mouse leapt up onto her leg. She gasped in startlement, surprised at the feel of its soft fur and the tickle of its little claws brushing against her bare skin.
When it reached her hip, the mouse scurried under her tee shirt, and Alyssa made a choking noise of displeasure as it crawled, with quick movements, up her back and out of the tattered collar. When it came to rest on her shoulder, Alyssa held her breath, not daring to move. She watched the mouse out of the side of her eye, and a sense of appreciation flooded into her perception. Slowly, she turned her head to see the mouse staring at her. With a twitch of its whiskers, the little creature poked its nose against her cheek, cool and damp, before turning to look at the mushrooms.
“You think they will be safe for me?” she asked quietly, as she turned to follow the mouse’s gaze. “But raw mushrooms …” she complained, with some disdain. The mouse touched its nose to her cheek once more, and Alyssa sensed insistence. With a sigh, she mumbled, “Why am I trusting a mouse?” before ever so slowly–so as not to dislodge her guest–she leaned forward to collect a handful of the morsels.
Alyssa straightened and studied her collection of mushrooms thoughtfully. Arranging them by size, she selected the smallest and glanced at the mouse out of the corner of her eye once more. "You're sure about this?" she asked, her voice echoing in the damp cavern. The mouse couldn't speak, of course, but Alyssa felt a strong sense of certainty from her tiny companion. Or maybe that was just the discomfort of hypothermia, exhaustion and her painfully full bladder talking.
Hesitantly, Alyssa popped the smallest mushroom into her mouth. It had a surprisingly rich, earthy flavor, reminiscent of the forest after a rainstorm. As she chewed, the spongy texture yielded, releasing a burst of liquid that filled her mouth with a strange, electric tingle. The sensation was not unpleasant, but definitely unfamiliar. She swallowed, marveling at how easily it went down despite her reservations.
Emboldened by the lack of immediate ill effects, Alyssa quickly consumed the other mushrooms. With each one, the tingling sensation spread, until her whole body hummed with a kind of vibrant, restless energy.
Cupping her hands together, Alyssa scooped up some of the cool water and drank deeply. The liquid soothed her throat, but did nothing to quell the building sense of excitement and unease. She leaned back against the rock, trying to steady herself as the mushrooms’ effects took hold.
It wasn't hallucinations, but a profound shift in Alyssa's perception. The cave seemed to come alive around her; the rocks and water pulsed with a subtle, resonant energy. She felt a surge of confidence and clarity, as if a veil had been lifted from her eyes. With trembling hands, she tore a strip from the bottom of her t-shirt and fashioned it into a makeshift pouch. She wasn't sure what lay ahead, but having a source of food could prove useful. She filled the pouch to the brim with the glowing caps, marveling at their strangeness, before tying it securely to her hip.
"Okay," Alyssa whispered, her voice sounding strangely amplified to her own ears. "I guess we follow the snake." The thought of the serpent sent a ripple of fear through her companion, but she reassured him, "Don't worry, I won't let it get you." The little mouse was still afraid, but it seemed to understand her meaning, and nestled up against her neck, soft fur gentle on her skin.
With a deep breath, Alyssa rolled to her knees and stood, her legs trembling slightly. The mouse clung to her, its small heartbeat echoing her own. Alyssa could feel its mix of curiosity and trepidation, mirroring her own complex emotions. "Come on," she muttered, "let's go." She started forward into the gloom, following the serpent's path and the promise of fresh air. Using the glowing bundle on her hip as a makeshift light, Alyssa navigated the narrow tunnels with confidence. Her bare feet found easy purchase on the cool, damp stone. She progressed at a much more comfortable pace than the slow, exploratory crawl she'd been limited to in the submerged chamber. As she followed the winding tunnel, it sloped gradually upwards, and a light fog crept in, curling around her ankles. Alyssa's heart quickened. She dared to believe she was nearing open air, and a potential end to this nightmare.
Yet even as hope blossomed in her chest, each step brought a growing unease from the small, furry companion on Alyssa's shoulder. The mouse huddled closer to her neck, its nose twitching incessantly. As they rounded a corner, a new scent filled Alyssa's nostrils: earthy mud and a hint of ozone, in stark contrast to the mineral-rich dampness of the caverns. The tunnel widened sharply ahead, seeming to fall away into a murky expanse. Through the haze, the silhouette of a massive tree trunk promised an escape from what she had almost believed might be her tomb.
"We made it," Alyssa breathed, a swell of triumph surging through her. The mushrooms' influence still thrummed in her veins, confidence mingling with her own burgeoning anticipation. She quickened her pace, emerging from the cave mouth into the cool, damp air. Alyssa paused there, one hand on the stone wall, as she breathed in the scent of her freedom.
A twilit forest stretched out before her, dotted with towering trees that reached for an unfamiliar sky. Alyssa tilted her head back, marveling at the stars glimmering above. Their patterns were strange, yet mesmerizing; their strangeness only matched by the comfort they brought her. Alyssa knew the constellations were wrong; that they matched nothing she'd ever seen before, but right now all that mattered was the comfort in knowing that she would not die in that cave.
A squeak of pure terror from the mouse jolted Alyssa from her reverie. The force of her companion's fear nearly knocked the wind from her. Alyssa swiftly sought the source of the mouse's fear. There, beside the nearest tree, stood a tall, gaunt figure, a serpent slithering up its leg. The figure's cold blue eyes glared at Alyssa with a chilling intensity.
As the snake continued its ascent, the figure lifted a hand, guiding the snake to wrap about its too-long neck. Subtle, thorny protrusions emerged from the figure's chin, and the snake rubbed itself against them, hissing as it impressed its displeasure upon the figure, no doubt casting Alyssa as the villain in its tale.
"H-hello," Alyssa stammered, suddenly acutely aware of her vulnerability. She took a guarded step back and brought her hands up defensively. The figure's presence was oppressive, suffocating. Even in her desperation, Alyssa knew she wanted no part of any help they might offer. Still, she needed time to think. She had to find a way past them without provoking their ire, and an attempt at being polite was all she could come up with in the moment.
The figure spoke, its voice a grating rattle. "You have violated the ancient agreement, and trespassed beyond the barrier." Alyssa was sure she didn't know what any of that meant, but before she could say so, the figure continued, "There are consequences for your meddling, child, and I am come to deliver them."

Prequel (Chapters 1 to 16)
1. Rise of a Valkyrie
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“He’s making this turn.”
Gareth ‘Gaz’ Slake watched the unmarked white van veer off down a side street ahead. He checked his side mirror, tapped the indicator, and steered the vehicle over into the turning lane. The atmosphere inside the SUV remained calm as the other men checked their weapons. Further down the road, the team’s lead car accelerated to find another turning, so it could circle back into contact with their quarry.
The van came back into view as Gaz span the wheel.
“Street ends at a warehouse,” his earpiece buzzed. “This could be it.”
He slowed the vehicle to a stop by the side of the road, and couldn’t stop his eyes flickering down to the photos he had pinned to the dash. Five hopeful teenage faces stared back at him.
“He’s going in,” said the radio. “All call-signs; Yorktown.”
A clatter of metal disturbed the quiet of the SUV as rifle bolts racked bullets into their chambers. Gaz reached for his own weapon by his leg and pulled on the charging handle. In the near distance, the white van disappeared into the building.
“Alpha, block the garage entrance. Bravo take the west loading bay.”
Gaz placed his thumb on a switch concealed beneath his jacket. “Copy that.” He donned the helmet passed to him by his fellow former marine, Sal Matuidi, then readied his foot on the accelerator. “Alpha is set.”
“All call-signs, I have control.”
The tail had begun that morning in the slumbering streets of Intaba’s capital city. Working from documents leaked by an ally in law enforcement, the group had needed two weeks to build up a picture of the starport’s trafficking network. Then, one of VennZech’s key contractors had gotten lazy and hinted on an unsecured call that he was ready to make a ‘special’ pickup. The operation had been planned at lightning speed before Gaz and the other shooters were jumping into vehicles.
Driving just over the legal speed limit they had closed on the truck depot known to be connected to VennZech’s illegal operations. The caller had arrived after sunrise, been positively identified, and had steered his transport out into the light traffic, apparently without a care in the world.
Since the electronic intercept the night before, Gaz had shut out all his concerns about the world, his messy personal life, and the group’s questionable legal status on Intaba. He had taken pains to suppress all his doubts, fears, good memories and bad, to focus on the mission.
Now he didn’t have to. His whole existence congealed into the vehicle, the men by his side, the warehouse ahead, and the weapon at his leg. Beyond that there was nothing.
The earpiece buzzed again. “Standby, standby... Execute!”
Gaz sensed the others coil like snakes and he pushed the accelerator down to the floor. Ahead, a flimsy chain link gate closed the warehouse off from the street. The SUV smashed through, and the tires screeched as they brought it to a stop by the entrance.
He waited as the doors popped open and his passengers dismounted. They used the vehicle as cover while they scanned the yard for threats. A smatter of snaps in the near distance broke the silence—Bravo team making contact.
Sal turned back to Gaz, but as he raised his thumb a pair of craters erupted on the windshield. A silenced carbine whipped around and snapped off four shots. The silence returned, and Cyril raised his thumb again, this time accompanied by an apologetic smile. Gaz span the SUV around, returning to the smashed entrance gate where he positioned it to block the exit.
He grabbed his rifle, jumped out and raced to catch up with the team as they entered the warehouse.
Sal and the others were already inside, mounting a stairwell as Gaz caught up. They moved quickly but kept their muzzles trained on every opening, ready for a threat. When they stepped off the warehouse’s upper walkway into the offices, bullets exploded the wall around them. Sal gasped and sank to the floor.
Almost out of sight around the corner, a terrified security guard was pointing his pistol at them. Gaz stepped through the doorway and flicked his carbine across the target, not even aligning the weapon’s holo-sight as he snatched at the trigger. A round caught the guard in the hip and another punched through his chest. He collapsed in a heap and lay motionless.
Gaz reached down to check his friend as the two others pushed past them, moving quickly to the end of the corridor.
“Sal? Talk to me.”
“Got it in the leg, Gaz.”
His eyes were saucers as he watched Gaz feel around for the wound.
“Okay, yeah. It’s clean through the thigh. Not too much bleeding.”
Sal’s eyes closed and he sighed. “Keep going, I can bandage it.”
“You sure?”
“All good, brother. Go finish it.”
Gaz caught up with the others and they cleared the rest of the warehouse, killing anyone else who resisted and restraining those who surrendered. Once the call was made that the structure was clear, Gaz raced back to check up on Sal. He was a little dopey after the self-administered ketamine shot, but the bandage looked good, and he kept enough presence of mind to offer criticism.
“Won’t find anything around me!” he said with a grin. “Unless I’m sat on a bad guy.”
Then his expression turned to one of alarm, but he quickly calmed, and began chuckling to himself.
Gaz shook his head, and returned to the rest of the team to help search the structure. As usual, the obvious places—the bunk rooms, kitchen or offices—contained nothing of interest. Following his instinct, Gaz made for the basement. A janitor’s office caught his eye, and as he pushed open the door into the dark, musky room, his earpiece buzzed again.
“Police call has been made,” a female voice said. “Reports of a disturbance. A patrol car has been dispatched, but he isn’t hurrying.”
“Copy that, Rook. Do you have a location?” the voice of their controller replied.
“Passing sixth street. ETA ten minutes.”
“Bravo one, take your vehicle around to the main entrance. All elements, that is your extraction point.”
“Alpha one copies,” Gaz said and flicked a light switch on the wall. He scanned the office, noting the clutter of a lazy occupant, while his teammate’s acknowledgements buzzed in his ear.
A closet door rested in the far corner, and Gaz moved over to it. The handle stuck, but the keys hung from a nail by the desk, and he tried each of them until the lock clicked open.
He reached for his flashlight, and caught his breath as the beam played over pale white, then dark brown skin. Two faces—a boy’s and a girl’s—met his gaze with fear as they huddled against the wall, their arms cuffed to a pipe.
Gaz recognized them from the photographs, but their cheeks had hollowed, and their eye sockets looked grey. The bright t-shirts were now dark with filth and a few blood stains. Their eyes seemed devoid of light.
Gaz thumbed his radio switch and spoke softly. “This is Alpha one—Jackpot. Basement, North-East corner—janitor’s office.”
Without approaching the pair, he knelt down on the ground and smiled.
“Geroff, Esther?” he said. “I’m really happy I found you. Your parents sent me to take you home. Geroff, your mom says that Zipper had puppies and really misses you. Esther, your brother John’s been watering your desert cacti for you.”
The eyes blinked, but their owners didn’t move. They flinched when a woman entered the office, banging the desk as she rushed in.
“Awesome, Gaz,” she said, a little out of breath. “Don’t worry, I got this.”
Gaz got up and moved away as his teammate Rita—child psychologist, and combat medic— dropped to her knees in his place. She moved slowly, gently pushing closer to them while she explained in a soothing voice, what was going to happen, and where they were going to be taken before they could see their parents again. When she finally touched their shoulders, the sobbing began.
Gaz turned away and thumbed his mic. “We’re going to need the boltcutter.”
***
“Two weeks until I can walk again,” Sal said as he sat in the car at the edge of the starport’s loading area. The door was open and they were facing the landing pad where a shuttle had just touched down.
“It’s cool mate,” Gaz said, leaning on the roof of the vehicle. “You’re little enough that I can carry you around on my shoulders.”
“That’s great, thanks bro. Actually, I need to take a shit, so if you would oblige...”
Gaz smiled and shook his head.
On the landing pad, the shuttle’s passenger door opened and a wide-eyed woman stepped out followed by a blank-faced man. The SUV popped its doors and Esther stepped out onto the tarmac. Her mother sank to her knees as her father raced over to embrace her.
Gaz liked to watch the reunions. When he saw the joy of a life restored, his own anger softened. He liked to think that each rescue chipped away a piece of his cold hatred for whatever god or universal force had decided he would never get to experience the same thing.
He sighed. “Good feeling,” he said, and tried to find a way to mean it.
Sal nodded, but didn’t smile. “Two. Out of ten thousand a year.”
“Don’t fixate on the numbers, mate. You’ll lose yourself doing that.”
“And four dead bodies.”
Gaz sniffed. “Does that bother you?”
Sal shrugged. “Not that they died. They knew what was going on in that basement. But bodies mean trouble.”
“Nothing the boss can’t handle.”
“This is going to catch up with us eventually.”
“Sure.” Gaz slapped the car roof. “But it’s been worth it. You know, when we got out of the Marine Corps I was struggling to find a direction. Now I wake up every morning knowing what I have to do.”
Sal gave him a skeptical look. “I wouldn’t exactly call this moving on.”
“Well. One step at a time, I guess.”
“Earlier you mentioned something about the truck?”
“Oh yeah. The driver was a less than diligent employee of the shipping company, and had his travel plans on his phone. Turns out he had booked himself onto one of VennZech’s freighters, bound for Caldera.”
Sal looked up at him surprise. “Are you serious? That’s huge.”
Gaz could only offer a disappointed shake of his head. “Afraid not. Turns out the ship jumped out a few hours before our man’s call was intercepted. No-one in the head-shed has any idea why, and gossip says that it dropped completely off the cluster’s traffic control logs.”
Sal scratched his stubbly jaw thoughtfully. “Probably someone tipped off the corpos and they wanted to destroy the evidence. Though it doesn’t make sense to me that they would forget to call off the pickup.”
“Who knows? Either way, Caldera is our only lead to find the others.”
“Yeah, I guess. What’s the turnaround time?”
“Couple of weeks,” Gaz said. “Caldera might be the wild west, but Rackeye is territory of the Helvetic League. You know how their die-hard believers set themselves up as missionaries on every new planet?”
Sal chuckled. “Yeah, hence why the colonists gave the first settlement that name.”
“What do you mean?”
“French for scum.”
Gaz laughed. “Seriously?”
“I think so, though I’m not fluent.”
“Anyway, it will take the boss time to build covers and make connections. Long enough for you to heal. Unfortunately, we got a call from a new client this morning; three more faces to add to the list.”
Sal rubbed his eyes and stared into the distance. “Stellar.”
They looked around as the whine of a car engine pierced the air. A blacked-out limousine raced up the taxiway and screeched to a halt right next to them. Out of the car stepped Dumi Sifiso, Intaba’s deputy chief of police.
“Where he is?” Sifiso snapped. “Your boss? Take me to him immediately.”
Gaz maneuvered himself to block the irate man as another officer joined them. He kept his smile friendly, but his hands raised, palms out.
“Easy there, fella. Sanchez is talking with a family right now. Why don’t you give them a moment?”
Sifiso glanced over at the shuttle, but relented. “I want you—all of your people—off Intaba as soon as possible.”
“What’s going on?”
“I just received a visit from a VennZech representative. He wanted to know why I haven’t put a stop to some of the… attacks on their buildings. When I gave him the usual line about gang violence, he rejected it.”
Gaz’s brow furrowed. “Why?”
“Another four dead workers? It looks like a lot more than coincidence. He was angry. Said that there were accusations of corruption being levelled at my office.”
“You’ve weathered that before.”
“He threatened my family!”
Gaz clenched his jaw and narrowed his eyes. “Well maybe we can go and visit his.”
Sifiso spat on the ground. “Frontier Marines. You’re a gang, and that’s all you are. A bunch of washed-up has-beens clinging on to some forgotten dogma. And now you’ve made too many enemies.”
“You’re panicking. I’m sure Sanchez will figure something out.”
Sifiso smiled. “He won’t need to. Because you’ll be gone, or I’ll have you arrested and charged with murder.”
Gaz stepped to one side. “You see over there. The fourteen-year-old? See her parent’s faces?”
“Fourteen? That’s a nice number. Here’s another for you. Ten thousand. Ten thousand people, adults, and children are trafficked through this starport every year. Then there are the drugs, the smugglers, and everything else that goes on behind the scenes. And what do you think the galaxy wide total is?”
Gaz let his bitterness stew in silence.
“It’s too much,” Sifiso said, and his voice softened. “The payoffs aren’t working anymore. I…” he stopped. “I don’t regret helping your cause, but it’s over.”
“Oh sure,” Gaz raised said, raising his voice. “You look out for number one, mate. Keep it within the comfort zone. Wouldn’t want to mess with the old boy network, would we? And won’t someone please think of the paychecks?”
Sifiso’s face darkened. “It’s easy, I think, for a young man with no family and no community to support to say these things. To live in fantasy, rather than confront reality.”
“No community? Look around, I got mine right here, and I’ll have no problem keeping them safe, no matter who tries to get in the way.”
“Gaz,” Sal called in a warning tone.
In the near distance, another, much less expensive, vehicle drove up and Gaz recognized the plate. He scowled at Sifiso. “If you don’t mind. I’ve got a client to attend to. And you’d just better pray they’ve already taken her child off the planet.”
He almost wanted to punch himself for such an unbelievably stupid comment, but enraged pride kept pushing him forward. Shoving his way past the chief, he left Sal, now hobbling onto the tarmac on crutches, to do damage control. Not that Gaz cared. If Sanchez really was looking to move on to Caldera, leaving a few burnt bridges behind was something he could live with.
Gaz took a deep breath and tried to decelerate. He opened the car door and slid into the front passenger seat. Behind the wheel, a middle-aged woman stared at him through eyes clouded by exhaustion. Her hair was a frayed mess, while reddened, irritated skin tinged her nose and eyes.
“How are you doing Ntsika?” he asked as gently as he could.
She ignored the question and nodded to the plane on the tarmac. “I heard about the rescue this morning. Is that them?”
“Yes.”
“They must be very happy.”
Her voice was both bitter and sympathetic. Gaz remembered when he had felt those same contradictory emotions. Now he only felt a predator’s hunger.
“They have happiness and pain. A lot of pain to heal from, but a lot of hope as well.”
Ntsika sniffed and nodded. “My cousin works for the attorney’s office. He told me you would be kicked off Intaba.”
“That’s true, unfortunately,” Gaz said. “But we have a lead pointing us to Caldera. We’ll be heading there as soon as possible.”
“I see.” She picked a tissue out of the door and played with it. The movements had obviously become an unconscious habit.
“It’s only a matter of time, now, Ntsika. Once we start to get leads, we always run them down. Wherever they took your daughter, we will find her.”
She smiled at him, and he knew immediately that it was an expression of pity for his naivety.
“I think,” she said, “that the worst thing about you people, is that you keep offering hope. It is more painful than moving on.”
Gaz said farewell and left the car. While he watched the vehicle drive off the tarmac, he took a portrait photo out of his pocket and looked into the eyes of young Milani Mayosi. She had been a basketball player, hoping to study architecture. A lot like his sister when they had taken her, though she had preferred swimming.
He had been deployed when it happened. The Marines had been about giving his life a greater meaning, serving the good of the League. But after ten years, he was forced to question what service they had rendered, holding back endless tribal conflicts while the Helvet governors only stewed the corrupt, incompetent mess. Meanwhile, the truly innocent, even his own family, were being preyed on by monsters.
Some nights the drink reminded him that the tearful reunions meant nothing. What he really wanted was the excuse to kill evil men. To leave their bodies behind to inflict fear in their masters. Perhaps some of them would have nightmares as they imagined him coming for them too.
Milani would be rescued; he had no doubts about that. Sanchez had been a brilliant intelligence officer, and Caldera was so far beyond the League’s authority they could operate almost with impunity. But his sister would never come home, wherever she was, dead or alive. He could only avenge her, and that he could do with extreme prejudice.
First ¦ Previous ¦ Next ¦ Royal Road ¦ Patreon
Prequel (Chapters 1 to 16)
1. Rise of a Valkyrie

Prequel (Parts 1 to 16)
1. Rise of a Valkyrie
First ¦ Previous ¦ Next ¦ Royal Road ¦ Patreon
“He’s making this turn.”
Gareth ‘Gaz’ Slake watched the unmarked white van veer off down a side street ahead. He checked his side mirror, tapped the indicator, and steered the vehicle over into the turning lane. The atmosphere inside the SUV remained calm as the other men checked their weapons. Further down the road, the team’s lead car accelerated to find another turning, so it could circle back into contact with their quarry.
The van came back into view as Gaz span the wheel.
“Street ends at a warehouse,” his earpiece buzzed. “This could be it.”
He slowed the vehicle to a stop by the side of the road, and couldn’t stop his eyes flickering down to the photos he had pinned to the dash. Five hopeful teenage faces stared back at him.
“He’s going in,” said the radio. “All call-signs; Yorktown.”
A clatter of metal disturbed the quiet of the SUV as rifle bolts racked bullets into their chambers. Gaz reached for his own weapon by his leg and pulled on the charging handle. In the near distance, the white van disappeared into the building.
“Alpha, block the garage entrance. Bravo take the west loading bay.”
Gaz placed his thumb on a switch concealed beneath his jacket. “Copy that.” He donned the helmet passed to him by his fellow former marine, Sal Matuidi, then readied his foot on the accelerator. “Alpha is set.”
“All call-signs, I have control.”
The tail had begun that morning in the slumbering streets of Intaba’s capital city. Working from documents leaked by an ally in law enforcement, the group had needed two weeks to build up a picture of the starport’s trafficking network. Then, one of VennZech’s key contractors had gotten lazy and hinted on an unsecured call that he was ready to make a ‘special’ pickup. The operation had been planned at lightning speed before Gaz and the other shooters were jumping into vehicles.
Driving just over the legal speed limit they had closed on the truck depot known to be connected to VennZech’s illegal operations. The caller had arrived after sunrise, been positively identified, and had steered his transport out into the light traffic, apparently without a care in the world.
Since the electronic intercept the night before, Gaz had shut out all his concerns about the world, his messy personal life, and the group’s questionable legal status on Intaba. He had taken pains to suppress all his doubts, fears, good memories and bad, to focus on the mission.
Now he didn’t have to. His whole existence congealed into the vehicle, the men by his side, the warehouse ahead, and the weapon at his leg. Beyond that there was nothing.
The earpiece buzzed again. “Standby, standby... Execute!”
Gaz sensed the others coil like snakes and he pushed the accelerator down to the floor. Ahead, a flimsy chain link gate closed the warehouse off from the street. The SUV smashed through, and the tires screeched as they brought it to a stop by the entrance.
He waited as the doors popped open and his passengers dismounted. They used the vehicle as cover while they scanned the yard for threats. A smatter of snaps in the near distance broke the silence—Bravo team making contact.
Sal turned back to Gaz, but as he raised his thumb a pair of craters erupted on the windshield. A silenced carbine whipped around and snapped off four shots. The silence returned, and Cyril raised his thumb again, this time accompanied by an apologetic smile. Gaz span the SUV around, returning to the smashed entrance gate where he positioned it to block the exit.
He grabbed his rifle, jumped out and raced to catch up with the team as they entered the warehouse.
Sal and the others were already inside, mounting a stairwell as Gaz caught up. They moved quickly but kept their muzzles trained on every opening, ready for a threat. When they stepped off the warehouse’s upper walkway into the offices, bullets exploded the wall around them. Sal gasped and sank to the floor.
Almost out of sight around the corner, a terrified security guard was pointing his pistol at them. Gaz stepped through the doorway and flicked his carbine across the target, not even aligning the weapon’s holo-sight as he snatched at the trigger. A round caught the guard in the hip and another punched through his chest. He collapsed in a heap and lay motionless.
Gaz reached down to check his friend as the two others pushed past them, moving quickly to the end of the corridor.
“Sal? Talk to me.”
“Got it in the leg, Gaz.”
His eyes were saucers as he watched Gaz feel around for the wound.
“Okay, yeah. It’s clean through the thigh. Not too much bleeding.”
Sal’s eyes closed and he sighed. “Keep going, I can bandage it.”
“You sure?”
“All good, brother. Go finish it.”
Gaz caught up with the others and they cleared the rest of the warehouse, killing anyone else who resisted and restraining those who surrendered. Once the call was made that the structure was clear, Gaz raced back to check up on Sal. He was a little dopey after the self-administered ketamine shot, but the bandage looked good, and he kept enough presence of mind to offer criticism.
“Won’t find anything around me!” he said with a grin. “Unless I’m sat on a bad guy.”
Then his expression turned to one of alarm, but he quickly calmed, and began chuckling to himself.
Gaz shook his head, and returned to the rest of the team to help search the structure. As usual, the obvious places—the bunk rooms, kitchen or offices—contained nothing of interest. Following his instinct, Gaz made for the basement. A janitor’s office caught his eye, and as he pushed open the door into the dark, musky room, his earpiece buzzed again.
“Police call has been made,” a female voice said. “Reports of a disturbance. A patrol car has been dispatched, but he isn’t hurrying.”
“Copy that, Rook. Do you have a location?” the voice of their controller replied.
“Passing sixth street. ETA ten minutes.”
“Bravo one, take your vehicle around to the main entrance. All elements, that is your extraction point.”
“Alpha one copies,” Gaz said and flicked a light switch on the wall. He scanned the office, noting the clutter of a lazy occupant, while his teammate’s acknowledgements buzzed in his ear.
A closet door rested in the far corner, and Gaz moved over to it. The handle stuck, but the keys hung from a nail by the desk, and he tried each of them until the lock clicked open.
He reached for his flashlight, and caught his breath as the beam played over pale white, then dark brown skin. Two faces—a boy’s and a girl’s—met his gaze with fear as they huddled against the wall, their arms cuffed to a pipe.
Gaz recognized them from the photographs, but their cheeks had hollowed, and their eye sockets looked grey. The bright t-shirts were now dark with filth and a few blood stains. Their eyes seemed devoid of light.
Gaz thumbed his radio switch and spoke softly. “This is Alpha one—Jackpot. Basement, North-East corner—janitor’s office.”
Without approaching the pair, he knelt down on the ground and smiled.
“Geroff, Esther?” he said. “I’m really happy I found you. Your parents sent me to take you home. Geroff, your mom says that Zipper had puppies and really misses you. Esther, your brother John’s been watering your desert cacti for you.”
The eyes blinked, but their owners didn’t move. They flinched when a woman entered the office, banging the desk as she rushed in.
“Awesome, Gaz,” she said, a little out of breath. “Don’t worry, I got this.”
Gaz got up and moved away as his teammate Rita—child psychologist, and combat medic— dropped to her knees in his place. She moved slowly, gently pushing closer to them while she explained in a soothing voice, what was going to happen, and where they were going to be taken before they could see their parents again. When she finally touched their shoulders, the sobbing began.
Gaz turned away and thumbed his mic. “We’re going to need the boltcutter.”
***
“Two weeks until I can walk again,” Sal said as he sat in the car at the edge of the starport’s loading area. The door was open and they were facing the landing pad where a shuttle had just touched down.
“It’s cool mate,” Gaz said, leaning on the roof of the vehicle. “You’re little enough that I can carry you around on my shoulders.”
“That’s great, thanks bro. Actually, I need to take a shit, so if you would oblige...”
Gaz smiled and shook his head.
On the landing pad, the shuttle’s passenger door opened and a wide-eyed woman stepped out followed by a blank-faced man. The SUV popped its doors and Esther stepped out onto the tarmac. Her mother sank to her knees as her father raced over to embrace her.
Gaz liked to watch the reunions. When he saw the joy of a life restored, his own anger softened. He liked to think that each rescue chipped away a piece of his cold hatred for whatever god or universal force had decided he would never get to experience the same thing.
He sighed. “Good feeling,” he said, and tried to find a way to mean it.
Sal nodded, but didn’t smile. “Two. Out of ten thousand a year.”
“Don’t fixate on the numbers, mate. You’ll lose yourself doing that.”
“And four dead bodies.”
Gaz sniffed. “Does that bother you?”
Sal shrugged. “Not that they died. They knew what was going on in that basement. But bodies mean trouble.”
“Nothing the boss can’t handle.”
“This is going to catch up with us eventually.”
“Sure.” Gaz slapped the car roof. “But it’s been worth it. You know, when we got out of the Marine Corps I was struggling to find a direction. Now I wake up every morning knowing what I have to do.”
Sal gave him a skeptical look. “I wouldn’t exactly call this moving on.”
“Well. One step at a time, I guess.”
“Earlier you mentioned something about the truck?”
“Oh yeah. The driver was a less than diligent employee of the shipping company, and had his travel plans on his phone. Turns out he had booked himself onto one of VennZech’s freighters, bound for Caldera.”
Sal looked up at him surprise. “Are you serious? That’s huge.”
Gaz could only offer a disappointed shake of his head. “Afraid not. Turns out the ship jumped out a few hours before our man’s call was intercepted. No-one in the head-shed has any idea why, and gossip says that it dropped completely off the cluster’s traffic control logs.”
Sal scratched his stubbly jaw thoughtfully. “Probably someone tipped off the corpos and they wanted to destroy the evidence. Though it doesn’t make sense to me that they would forget to call off the pickup.”
“Who knows? Either way, Caldera is our only lead to find the others.”
“Yeah, I guess. What’s the turnaround time?”
“Couple of weeks,” Gaz said. “Caldera might be the wild west, but Rackeye is territory of the Helvetic League. You know how their die-hard believers set themselves up as missionaries on every new planet?”
Sal chuckled. “Yeah, hence why the colonists gave the first settlement that name.”
“What do you mean?”
“French for scum.”
Gaz laughed. “Seriously?”
“I think so, though I’m not fluent.”
“Anyway, it will take the boss time to build covers and make connections. Long enough for you to heal. Unfortunately, we got a call from a new client this morning; three more faces to add to the list.”
Sal rubbed his eyes and stared into the distance. “Stellar.”
They looked around as the whine of a car engine pierced the air. A blacked-out limousine raced up the taxiway and screeched to a halt right next to them. Out of the car stepped Dumi Sifiso, Intaba’s deputy chief of police.
“Where he is?” Sifiso snapped. “Your boss? Take me to him immediately.”
Gaz maneuvered himself to block the irate man as another officer joined them. He kept his smile friendly, but his hands raised, palms out.
“Easy there, fella. Sanchez is talking with a family right now. Why don’t you give them a moment?”
Sifiso glanced over at the shuttle, but relented. “I want you—all of your people—off Intaba as soon as possible.”
“What’s going on?”
“I just received a visit from a VennZech representative. He wanted to know why I haven’t put a stop to some of the… attacks on their buildings. When I gave him the usual line about gang violence, he rejected it.”
Gaz’s brow furrowed. “Why?”
“Another four dead workers? It looks like a lot more than coincidence. He was angry. Said that there were accusations of corruption being levelled at my office.”
“You’ve weathered that before.”
“He threatened my family!”
Gaz clenched his jaw and narrowed his eyes. “Well maybe we can go and visit his.”
Sifiso spat on the ground. “Frontier Marines. You’re a gang, and that’s all you are. A bunch of washed-up has-beens clinging on to some forgotten dogma. And now you’ve made too many enemies.”
“You’re panicking. I’m sure Sanchez will figure something out.”
Sifiso smiled. “He won’t need to. Because you’ll be gone, or I’ll have you arrested and charged with murder.”
Gaz stepped to one side. “You see over there. The fourteen-year-old? See her parent’s faces?”
“Fourteen? That’s a nice number. Here’s another for you. Ten thousand. Ten thousand people, adults, and children are trafficked through this starport every year. Then there are the drugs, the smugglers, and everything else that goes on behind the scenes. And what do you think the galaxy wide total is?”
Gaz let his bitterness stew in silence.
“It’s too much,” Sifiso said, and his voice softened. “The payoffs aren’t working anymore. I…” he stopped. “I don’t regret helping your cause, but it’s over.”
“Oh sure,” Gaz raised said, raising his voice. “You look out for number one, mate. Keep it within the comfort zone. Wouldn’t want to mess with the old boy network, would we? And won’t someone please think of the paychecks?”
Sifiso’s face darkened. “It’s easy, I think, for a young man with no family and no community to support to say these things. To live in fantasy, rather than confront reality.”
“No community? Look around, I got mine right here, and I’ll have no problem keeping them safe, no matter who tries to get in the way.”
“Gaz,” Sal called in a warning tone.
In the near distance, another, much less expensive, vehicle drove up and Gaz recognized the plate. He scowled at Sifiso. “If you don’t mind. I’ve got a client to attend to. And you’d just better pray they’ve already taken her child off the planet.”
He almost wanted to punch himself for such an unbelievably stupid comment, but enraged pride kept pushing him forward. Shoving his way past the chief, he left Sal, now hobbling onto the tarmac on crutches, to do damage control. Not that Gaz cared. If Sanchez really was looking to move on to Caldera, leaving a few burnt bridges behind was something he could live with.
Gaz took a deep breath and tried to decelerate. He opened the car door and slid into the front passenger seat. Behind the wheel, a middle-aged woman stared at him through eyes clouded by exhaustion. Her hair was a frayed mess, while reddened, irritated skin tinged her nose and eyes.
“How are you doing Ntsika?” he asked as gently as he could.
She ignored the question and nodded to the plane on the tarmac. “I heard about the rescue this morning. Is that them?”
“Yes.”
“They must be very happy.”
Her voice was both bitter and sympathetic. Gaz remembered when he had felt those same contradictory emotions. Now he only felt a predator’s hunger.
“They have happiness and pain. A lot of pain to heal from, but a lot of hope as well.”
Ntsika sniffed and nodded. “My cousin works for the attorney’s office. He told me you would be kicked off Intaba.”
“That’s true, unfortunately,” Gaz said. “But we have a lead pointing us to Caldera. We’ll be heading there as soon as possible.”
“I see.” She picked a tissue out of the door and played with it. The movements had obviously become an unconscious habit.
“It’s only a matter of time, now, Ntsika. Once we start to get leads, we always run them down. Wherever they took your daughter, we will find her.”
She smiled at him, and he knew immediately that it was an expression of pity for his naivety.
“I think,” she said, “that the worst thing about you people, is that you keep offering hope. It is more painful than moving on.”
Gaz said farewell and left the car. While he watched the vehicle drive off the tarmac, he took a portrait photo out of his pocket and looked into the eyes of young Milani Mayosi. She had been a basketball player, hoping to study architecture. A lot like his sister when they had taken her, though she had preferred swimming.
He had been deployed when it happened. The Marines had been about giving his life a greater meaning, serving the good of the League. But after ten years, he was forced to question what service they had rendered, holding back endless tribal conflicts while the Helvet governors only stewed the corrupt, incompetent mess. Meanwhile, the truly innocent, even his own family, were being preyed on by monsters.
Some nights the drink reminded him that the tearful reunions meant nothing. What he really wanted was the excuse to kill evil men. To leave their bodies behind to inflict fear in their masters. Perhaps some of them would have nightmares as they imagined him coming for them too.
Milani would be rescued; he had no doubts about that. Sanchez had been a brilliant intelligence officer, and Caldera was so far beyond the League’s authority they could operate almost with impunity. But his sister would never come home, wherever she was, dead or alive. He could only avenge her, and that he could do with extreme prejudice.
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Prequel (Parts 1 to 16)
1. Rise of a Valkyrie

My fiance and I live in a tiny house that we build from a shed. We need to find out how much material we need to cover the inside for the roof. The exterior measurements: Shed is 12’ by 22’ the peek of the house is at 13’ and the roof starts at the 7’ mark On the interior the walls and roof are framed by 2 by 4’s so extra 3 1/2” on the inside of that helps

Chapter 1: Emergence.
April 1st, 2030
"Attention, anyone who's out there...the infected are getting fewer and fewer in number. It's time to come out, time to rebuild, time to reclaim. You're not the only survivors."
Five long years.
The horror of the first few months of what we, in the apartment building that had become our refuge against the infected, called the 'Downfall' had gradually given way to numbness and tedium as time had passed. We hid in the interior hallways at night, only daring to go into our apartments during the day. Food was strictly rationed, going to those who needed it the most before anyone else.
I had, of course, gone on starvation rations to make sure others could eat, until finally Alan and Jeff had all but ordered me back up to survival level. By that point, I'd gone from 300 pounds down to 180.
Luckily, we'd managed to get in and out of the close-by stores before the tsunami of panicked people had arrived when the situation had become clear. Canned goods, dried goods, everything that would last a long time had been taken. It was a sizeable, if ill gotten stockpile...and I suppose I felt guilty for us having done it. In the end, it had been the right move.
While the cell towers were still intact, I'd been in communication with a lot of people...Jimmy, whom had been at his cottage with his family, had texted me where to find the spare key for the generator shed. I'd had to run out to make sure it was all disconnected from its automated transfer switch, because when the power would inevitably go out it would come on on its own otherwise...and attract the infected.
What was left of the police and militia had formed a fortified perimeter around the old coal powerplant, with the idea that it could be kept supplied by water (it was right next to the harbor). And, for a few weeks it had worked...right up until the infected had become so numerous that the perimeter had been overwhelmed, and the entire city was bathed in darkness.
I would sneak out during the day, when the infected were hiding from the sun, and do maintenance on the generator...we'd turn it on for a few hours every day to cook food, and provide power to the HAM radio that Alan had setup in the party room, the only place in the building fully powered by the generator. We kept it fueled by syphoning the fuel out of the cars in the building parking lots.
I was also in contact with family, friends, and the people I served with whom were still up at the Isthmus, to get news. Military maneuvers, attempts at counter attacks, evacuating civilians from small towns...even attempts drive the horde back out of Halifax. Eventually, everyone...not quite one by one...went silent as critical infrastructure was lost to the battles. And when the power was finally lost, all outside communication ended.
There were a lot of elderly people in my building. As time went on, we lost a half dozen...including my mother. We buried them behind the building, near the large bush, during daylight hours. I was...glad...that we could do that for them, rather than the alternative of turning the garbage room into a morgue.
We were fortunate, too...there were a few people who hunted in the building, so we had their hunting rifles and ammunition. Jeff also had a few handguns which, I'm certain, the RCMP hadn't been aware of. It gave us a sense of comfort to know that, if the infected somehow discovered us, we could fight back...even if that was completely unrealistic.
Somehow, we made the food stretch. Somehow, too, the water and sewage systems still worked...honestly, I don't know how, but I wasn't going to complain. But eventually, no matter how well rationed it was, the food started to dwindle...and as we rapidly approached the 5th anniversary of the Downfall, we only had 3 months supply left.
Thankfully, miracle of miracles, we got the radio signal.
________________________________________________________________________
I ran as fast as I could down the stairs, following the now young adult woman that had been the teenager that helped me out when everything had gone to hell. She had become, after a fashion, the building messenger, staying by Alan and running with messages as needed.
Alan, for his part, had become more or less the leader of the building, and each day he listened to the radio for any signals that might come our way.
If Michelle had come to get me this early in the day, it was either very good news or very bad new...and because she hadn't been panicking, good news it was.
As I followed her out of the stairwell, breathing heavily and muttering irritably about youth and speed, I dragged my 48 year old ass into the party room, only pausing once inside to start catching my breath. Looking up at Alan, whom was still sitting at the radio table, I managed to get a few words out between gulps of air.
"Is it....a signal?"
Alan turned to me and grinned, turning up the volume on the radio set and switching over to the speakers.
"Attention, anyone who's out there...the infected are getting fewer and fewer in number. It's time to come out, time to rebuild, time to reclaim. You're not the only survivors."
The first human voice I'd heard in almost 5 years that WASN'T a building resident was firm, authoritative, reassuring...and a touchy gravely. But...for all I, and the two with me in the room were concerned, it was the voice of an angel.
"I can't respond to it, the antenna on this thing is too small, but that doesn't matter. We made it!" Alan exclaimed, in the best mood I'd seen him in in years.
"I hate to put a damper on the celebration, but we aren't out of the woods yet," came Jeff's voice from the entrance of the room, him having come up beside me. He'd put on an old pair of olive-drab fatigues, older than my CADPAT uniform, that had become almost his badge of office as head of security.
I rolled my eyes a bit, before nodding in agreement with the older man, "As much as we hate Jeff's party-pooper ways, he's right," I said a bit teasingly, straightening up as my breathing returned to normal, "We can't get too excited...just because the infected aren't flooding the streets every night anymore doesn't mean we can let our guard down. But..."
"But it does mean we can send people out to forage for supplies," Alan finished with a nod, his grin unwavering as he regarded us, "Yep. This is still the best news we've had in a long, long time...I think it's time to convene the resident council."
"Right...we've gotta be smart about this, and plan it out right. First of all, we gotta pick who we're sending out to scout things out, and then get them into some kind of shape..." he said, poking my ribs, "None of us are in the shape we used to be."
I grimaced a bit, but nodded again, acknowledging his point.
"Right, right, but we really should discuss all this when we get the meeting going," Alan replied, before looking at Michelle whom had stayed silent during the exchange, "Get everyone together."
"You bet!" she replied, her mood decidedly chipper as she brushed past Jeff and I, heading for the stairwell.
________________________________________________________________________
The mood in the building had been decidedly bright after the meeting. The message had been read, planning for the first trip out beyond the plot of land the building sat on was done, and members of the first scouting 'squad' were selected. It was...refreshing.
Of course, that meant I and the three other people selected were being put through our paces by Jeff. And boy, he was absolutely merciless. On the plus side, our food rations were upped to help us build muscle and put weight back on.
"Sam, I don't care how much you suck at push-ups, you're not stopping until you hit fifty," Jeff said with clear amusement in his voice as he stood over me, watching me struggle on push-up 30.
"Was that fifty push-ups or when he hits fifty years?" quipped Donna, a former nurse who, because of her smaller stature, was built far better for push-ups than me and had finished relatively quickly. She was going with us in case someone got hurt, or if we found other people that needed our help.
I grumbled slightly as I strained into push-up 31, but didn't try to speak.
"If you've got strength to grumble, you've got strength to do push ups," Jeff asserted, before looking over as Riley finished his set, "Good job! That's only the second slowest fifty I've ever gotten...number one is still going."
Riley had worked for a security company, and had experience in lockpicking. WHY he had experience in lockpicking, nobody asked, but he also knew his way around a Glock 19, which was another reason to have him along. He said nothing, rolling his eyes before turning to watch the 4th member of the squad come back from the party room.
"Alright, Alan said Donna's idea about drawing up a map so we don't double search was a good idea. He'll have one ready when we're ready to actually go searching in two weeks," said Donovan, the tall man smirking slightly as he saw me still going, "Ayyyee Sam, you gonna be done sometime today?"
"Ha....ha..." I replied as I went down from number 40, sweat drenching my brow.
"How the hell did you ever pass BMQ? You were almost twice as big as you are now!" Jeff groused, the look in his eyes that of a disappointed father. Or, that's how I imagined it, owing to the fact my eyes were firmly fixed on the ground beneath me.
Donovan had been a high school science teacher, that happened to couch minor hockey on the side. Plus, when it was his turn to cook, he made mean baked beans. Said the secret was in the chemistry...no-one ever bothered for clarification. Plus, he was the one responsible for us having a bit of alcohol for special occasions; it tasted like crap, but a buzz was a buzz, and it was something we had all needed at one point or another. He knelt down beside me and laughed, "Gonna answer the man, or what?"
"Fuck.....you...." I replied, my voice gravelly as I struggled my hardest yet to get 48.
A few people walked by, I couldn't see who, and sniggered at my predicament. Did I mention we were doing this in the lobby? We were doing this in the lobby. And while ordinarily that wouldn't be a problem, it was around lunch and Cynthia was handing out the daily rations from one of the storage rooms.
"Fourty-nine.....aaaaaaand......fifty," Jeff counted, as I fell onto the floor and just lay motionless for a few moments, letting my screaming muscles rest. They were in pretty rough shape from the lack of proper nutrition, which just made things worse.
"Alright! Get some water, we're gonna go outside for a few laps around the premises while the sun's still up."
I just laid on the cool tile floor, wondering if I could just merge with it if I laid there long enough, or maybe be ignored. It was not to be, alas, as Jeff nudged me with his boot.
"Up and at 'em Sam, you volunteered for this."
"You know that two weeks isn't going to do too much for us, right?" I grumbled as I moved my legs so I could get up on my knees, before getting gradually to my feet.
"No, but it'll help," he replied, his tone more conversational as we turned to follow the others, "I realize we had daily exercise, but that was barely enough to keep from -real- atrophy setting in...it wasn't enough to keep it from happening a bit. Hopefully, by the time you all set out, you'll at least be closer to normal than the rest of us."
I nodded, before pausing at the entrance to the party room as a thought occurred to me, "Jeff..." I began, turning around and stepping closer, lowering my voice, "What happens if there's nothing out there? It's been 5 years, man...there could have been other survivors, and they could have looted everything while we were holed up in here.."
Jeff shook his head, "Unlikely. There's going to be places where people grabbed stuff when they ran, but...you remember the sounds. The roars, what seemed like thousands of running feet against the pavement. We may not know exactly when it all started to simmer down, but it couldn't have been that long ago. No...there's gonna be stuff out there, and we're gonna get it. Seen?"
I cracked a bit of smile at the CAF slang, nodding, "Seen, MWO."
Jeff smirked, nodded once, and clapped me on my back, "Now, get in there, get water, and be out front in 10. I'll get Travis and Julie to lower the 'drawbridge' as they like to call it," he said, turning and walking towards the front entrance. I could hear him as he muttered, "Wish they'd show more respect to my old F-150."
________________________________________________________________________
After a getting hydrated and stretching, the four of us in the squad and Jeff stepped up to where Travis and Julie were already working the wheel to lower the 'drawbridge' back onto its long-deflated tires. They slowly let out the chain from the ad-hoc wheel setup they operated, one of the many improvised things we'd built to keep the building secure.
I'd always been half impressed, half horrified with the setup that had come about during the first night of the Downfall, when we were hiding out. I watched as the chains, donated by Jess Lambert (her husband had owned a towing company), slide through the pully system we'd worked out for a moment, the 'tink tink tink' sounding like something out of an old movie about the dark ages, before paying attention to the goings on again. Jeff, for his part, look mildly surprised with the pair of people operating it.
"Wow, I didn't even have to ask," he said, looking mildly impressed.
"We heard you. You might be going deaf, but our ears work just fine old man," snarked Julie, although there was a tinge of humor in her voice as she and Travis worked, "You weren't that far away after all."
Jeff rolled his eyes a bit, but chuckled, "Yeah, yeah. Try not to watch this bunch, it's going to be a pretty pathetic sight and I don't want them to feel too embarrassed."
Travis looked us over, at our wild variation of workout clothes. I was dressed in my black BAE jogging pants, a purchase I'd made from an old classmate, and one of my old grey issued PT t-shirts, Donna was dressed in a pair of red shorts and a pink tank-top, Donovan a black t-shirt and black cargo shorts, and Riley with a pair of khaki shorts and a faded black AC/DC t-shirt. All of our clothes were too large for us now, with bottoms having to be held up by either tight lacing or belts.
"Sure," he began with his south shore drawl, "it'll BE a pathetic sight, not IS a pathetic sight."
"Travis, you don't look any better than us," Donna shot back, hands on her hips.
"Au contraire; I'm not dressed in workout clothes that are several sizes too big...my clothes actually fit."
"Only because you traded Eric on the third floor for some, in exchange for that case of Pepsi you'd been hording," Julie said, flicking her husband in the ear.
"Alright, Travis, if you're done being a smartass, did you see any kind of movement out there?" I asked, eager to get this over with. I'd never been a particularly good jogger; I could walk, or march, for miles, but I was never fast.
Travis became all business at the change in topic, losing his smirk as he turned to face me, "Nothin'. But then again, it's daylight, so the bastards wouldn't be out anyway."
"True, but you never know if or when that might change. If we're going to be going out, we've got to pay a lot more attention to what's going on around us."
"And I've already got something in motion to help with that," added Jeff, before he addressed Travis directly again, "Either way, keep an eye out while they're out there. And check over the anchor points for the chains we bolted onto my truck; last thing we need is for them to get torn off if we need to pull this up in a hurry."
Then, he turned to us, "And you. This is the longest any of us have been outside so far, so while you're jogging pay attention to your surroundings...make note of anything of interest, and for God's sake, if you see movement, get your asses back to the building. Are you tracking?"
"Tracking," I replied, as the others nodded in agreement.
"Good. And be careful climbing up over my truck. If everything goes as planned, one of our top priorities should be to get something more proper built to seal off the doors, not relying on my truck, Henry's old Buick, or John MacDonald's Ram."
I smirked, "You just wanna see if you can fix the dents and scratches."
"Sam, just shut up and get jogging," he replied with a sigh.
________________________________________________________________________
After clambering over the 'drawbridge', all four of us paused for a moment to do some leg stretches, all the while taking in our surroundings.
Normally, whenever we'd have to step outside, it was done quickly without much looking around. Tasks were done fast for a reason, as they could only be done during daylight hours and even then, people would start getting nervous as the sun began getting closer to the horizon.
I noticed how clean the air smelled, like at my grandmother's about an hour outside of the city when I was young, and how green everything was. Grass and dandelions had begun pushing their way through the asphalt over the years, and it was actually kind've amazing to see. It was still too early for anything to be blooming, of course, and there was still a hint of winter nip in the cool noontime air...but even with that, everything felt more alive than it ever had before. I couldn't help but feel hopeful, and looking at the others, I could see in their eyes and on their faces that they felt the same way.
And so, my stretching and gawking complete, I started off in a slow jog, Donna following right after me and the other two following her. The building property was fairly sizeable, and despite my earlier griping I found myself almost excited to jog around it. It wasn't much, but these were the first steps on reclaiming civilization, and I knew I'd remember this moment in years to come.
If all went as planned, that is.
________________________________________________________________________
April 15, 2030
Two weeks of constant exercise and upped rations definitely showed on us. My clothing fit better, and I was really glad I'd kept older clothing from when I hadn't been so heavy, I felt better...and I found myself eager to start.
It was 0620 on a Monday, ten minutes before the sun was supposed to go up and we were assembled down in the lobby, waiting for it to do just that. We had all decided, after some consultation with Jeff and Alan, to wear clothes that while maybe were not a one hundred percent match, had a kind of uniform theme.
I wore a pair of relax fit blue jeans, held up by my trusty Carhartt brown leather belt, a dark blue button up work shirt from the same brand, a black backpack (in which I'd stowed an extra box of ammunition and the two green duffle bags I'd been issued when I joined the CAF), my trusty brown garrison boots, and the yellow Pittsburgh Pirates old-style ballcap I'd picked up when I'd worked in the states for a time.
That ballcap had drawn some side-long looks, because it was bright and stood out, but it was actually the only one I'd had, outside of my uniform ballcap. There had been some talk about me putting my uniform back on, but we'd decided against it; Jeff, for one, had said that we should have a kind of uniform setup for our 'squads', implying there would be more going out later, so that they could be identified easily at a distance. My thought on the matter was that, if we happened to run into any survivors, we didn't want to get their hopes up that there was some kind of coordinated reclamation effort by the authorities. If any authorities even existed anymore.
The only thing -truly- uniform on us though were the colours chosen, and the fact we were all wearing blue jeans. Donna was dressed in a long sleeve T-shirt and black Bass Pro ballcap a boyfriend had given her, Donovan had no ballcap, but was wearing a dark blue jean jacket, while Riley had pulled on a dark blue hoody with fairly deep pockets.
For whatever reason in my life, I'd ended up with four backpacks of my own and my issued CADPAT day bag, so I'd given Donna my brown Warhammer 40K one (designed very similar to an older style of issued day bag), my black PCL backpack to Riley, and my smaller sports-style backpack to Donovan, whom used it to carry his massive grey Reebok hockey-gear duffle bag.
I'd also put on my tac vest, with Jeff having provided one for each of the others and holsters for the handguns we were getting. He handed Donna and Donovan a pistol each, both of them Glock 19's, and to me he handed an FN Bowning GP9. Riley, fortunately, had his own Glock 19.
Blinking a bit, I tilted my head and found myself having to ask, despite having known about his handguns for a long time now, "Why and how do you have all these?"
"The Tac vests were for airsoft, and I had a collectors license for the pistols...and my restricted firearms license. And that's all I'm saying on the topic," Jeff replied with a shrug.
"You played airsoft?"
"Yeah...with my son and grandsons," he replied gruffly. There was a moment of awkward silence, but before anyone could say anything else, he continued, "Anyway, each tac vest has six mags, plus the one in the handguns. All rounds are 9x19mm Parabellum, thankfully, which means we don't have to worry about keeping you stocked with multiple ammo types."
We all nodded, each of us glancing to make sure the weapons were on safe before putting them in their holsters. Alan exited the party room and moved to stand by Jeff, his expression serious.
"Alright, so for the first little while just check the apartment buildings next door along Willett. Our main concern right now is food, but if you see anything else of interest note it down. When you finish going through a building, Donovan will mark it off on his map," he said, indicating the tall man as he opened up one of the tac vest breast pockets and pulled out a neatly folded, if crudely drawn, map before replacing it, "While you're out there, keep an eye out for movement. If you see something, or someone, radio it in first. We'll decide what to do based on what you see."
Daniel are up on the roof, they have their binocs and hunting rifles..."
"Wait, wait wait, hold up...Gerald? As in, second oldest dude in the building?" asked Riley incredulously, "I mean, no disrespect to the man, but he's going to be watching our backs?"
Jeff scowled slightly at Riley for interrupting him, but decided to humour his question, "Yeah, Gerald. The man who hunted consistently for sixty years, and won more than one marksman competition. In his seventies," he said, keeping his voice deliberately level, before continuing, " He and Daniel are going to be talking to Alan on channel 10, and if there's anything worth relaying to you guys, they'll tell Alan and he'll tell you. If you're in trouble, they'll start taking shots."
"Speaking of radios, we only have three walky-talkies for now. The guys on the roof will have one, Sam will have the other. I'll have one to listen to the guys on the roof, and will be using my HAM radio to relay and communicate with you. It's going to make splitting up risky, so don't separate too far when you're in buildings. We don't know who, or what, might be inside," Alan finished, looking at each of us, before lifting his arm to examine his wristwatch.
"Time's six twenty five. I think that's close enough," he said, before waving at Travis who, in turned, worked with Julie to lower the truck down, "Stay safe, radio check every hour...and if you can, try to save some time at the end to check out the construction site across the street. There's bound to be tools over there we'll have a use for, eventually."
"Good luck...and be careful," Jeff said, slapping each of us on the shoulder as we turned and walked towards the entrance.
________________________________________________________________________
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>
Chapter 1 finished. Not a lot going on, just a tidbit of how things will work behind the scenes, if you will. Plus, it doesn't make much sense for survivors who've been cooped up inside for a length of time to be anywhere near the same shape they were before everything. Between rationing and a lack of proper exercise...well, there's a reason for an exercise regimen.
I'm not sure at this point if I'll do the first day of scavenging, or do a time skip yet, maybe a week...I don't want this to be -too- boring a grind before interesting things start to happen.

Rough SketchUp I made of our general idea! The first part shows the sunroom above the sauna, but I remove it for ease of viewing the sauna itself.
(re-uploaded with mp4 video instead of GIF)
TL;DR: Help please! This is a long post about getting ready to DIY a sauna, any feedback at this stage is greatly appreciated, thank you!
Hi everyone,
After reading some of this sub's resources (SaunaTimes book, Trumpkin, past posts), I'm getting ready to start building a small outside sauna. Here is what we are thinking, all of this is up in the air so please let me know if you recommend anything different. I've also attached a video of some rough plans I made in Sketchup.

Summary

• Size: We'd like to fit 4 people comfortably, so I'm thinking 6' x 8'. We're thinking just making the hot room, I know there are reasons to do a changing room as well but that's a bit too complicated for us.
• Area: In the US Midwest, so it gets very cold in the winter.
• Location: Outside, on a patio underneath a sunroom. This limits us significantly in height (the highest roof point can only be 8') but it will be largely protected from the elements, e.g. it shouldn't get any rain on it.
• Expertise: I know basically nothing about building anything, but am fairly handy and like to learn. I do have several relatives who are general contractors.
• Structure: One of the big questions I have is if we build this ourselves from the ground up or get a company to do the shed first. I asked around for shed builders, and the main problem is that there are lots of details that I think will be suboptimal, like the window sizes and huge shed doors. I know there are lots of posts on this elsewhere but I'd appreciate any opinions on my specific situation, please!

Foundation

• The floor is currently concrete pavers on top of dirt. We can keep the pavers or remove them.
• I'm very unsure about how to build this, from what I've read we would like to avoid a concrete slab and maybe build on treated wood or raised on concrete piers, but that is the extent of my knowledge here.

Shell

• See the video, but I naively figure it'll just be a matter of cutting and nailing together a bunch of 2x6s?
• I am not sure what to do about the roof. For space reasons, I'm planning a single sloped roof from as high as we can on one side down to about 6' on the other, and then we'll throw some steel or shingles up there?

Insulation

• The plan is to have 2" rigid foam in the floor, 4" of Rockwool batting on the walls and ceiling.
• Also, Tyvec HomeWrap on the outside and Foil Vapor Barrier on the inside.
• Great Stuff! Window and Door Foam Sealant

Ventilation

• I've actually read conflicting information about this, so could use some input:
• My video above shows an intake vent above and below the stove, and an exhaust vent in the opposite corner. I've also read that having a mechanical fan underneath the benches is a good idea for electric stoves, and that having a crack beneath the sauna door is desirable (?)

Heating

• I'm pretty set on electric stove, because of time constraints I know I will only use the sauna if I can hit a button to heat it up and just walk in when it's ready.
• I haven't looked into specific heaters yet, I'm not too worried about that at this stage.

Paneling

• We have a bunch of old Cedar deck board planks from past projects that I figured we could sand down.

Other

• For windows and layout, see the video.
• I'm not planning to do a drain at this point, for simplicity.
• I haven't thought about the outside of the sauna yet.

Again, thanks so much for looking at this and providing your thoughts!