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[In no way is this post involved with the actual lore of APEX LEGENDS]

Wulfstan (Wolf-sh-t-ion)

Wolfkin Seeker
Photo(s)
[WIP]
Appearance/Description

• Appearance
  • Fur Colors: Navy, White, Light Grey
  • Accessories: Maroon Blindfold (bandana)
  • Build: Athletic and muscular, with a lean and agile frame
  • Clothing/Armor: Light Tactical gear on their hips and upper arms, Tactical pants, Crop-top sweatshirt.
• Description
  • Real Name: Úlfur
  • Age: 17
  • Home World: Tara (Earth)
  • Class: Recon
  • Tactical Ability: Predator’s Mark
  • Passive Ability: Echo Sense
  • Ultimate Ability: Howl of the Wild

Abilities

• Passive: Echo Sense
  • Úlfur’s heightened hearing allows him to detect enemies through sound waves. When standing still or moving slowly, he can hear enemy footsteps and actions (like reloading, etc.) from a greater distance. Visual indicators appear on his HUD to represent these sounds.
• Tactical (Q): Predator’s Mark
  • Úlfur throws a device that emits a high-pitched sound, which he can track using his enhanced hearing. This device reveals the location of enemies within a certain radius, marking them for a short duration. Enemies marked by the device have their footsteps temporarily louder for Úlfur.
• Ult (Ultimate): Howl of the Wild
  • Úlfur emits a powerful howl that boosts his and his allies’ senses. For a limited time, all allies within a certain range gain increased movement speed, heightened hearing (detecting nearby enemies more easily), and a small health regeneration boost. Enemies within range of the howl are temporarily disoriented, experiencing a ringing sound that affects their ability to hear other sounds accurately.

Playstyle

• Úlfur is best played as a recon or support legend, using their abilities to gather information and provide tactical advantages to their team. Their Echo Sense and Predator’s Mark make them excellent at tracking and ambushing enemies, while Howl of the Wild provides significant benefits in team fights and crucial moments.

Backstory
Early Life on Tara
Wulfstan, originally named Úlfur, was raised on Earth, known to most as Tara. From a young age, Úlfur was immersed in the rich history and traditions of their ancestors, learning about the legacy of warriors and the primal instincts that defined their lineage. Growing up in a small, rural community, they enjoyed a simple life, surrounded by nature and family.
Abduction and Experimentation
At the age of 13, Úlfur’s life took a dramatic and devastating turn. They were abducted by operatives working for a clandestine branch of the IMC and ARES Division, who saw in them the potential to create a new breed of soldier. Úlfur was taken to a secret facility where they were subjected to intense genetic and cybernetic experiments aimed at merging human intelligence with the physical prowess and primal instincts of a wolf.
The transformation was grueling and painful, both physically and emotionally. Over time, Úlfur's physiology changed, turning them into an anthropomorphic wolf with navy, white, and light gray fur. These experiments endowed them with heightened senses and superior physical abilities, but at a great personal cost. The process left them blinded, a disability they learned to compensate for with their enhanced hearing and smell.
Escape and Survival
Despite the rigorous control and constant surveillance, Úlfur's spirit remained unbroken. They planned and executed a daring escape from the facility, using their newfound abilities to evade capture. Fleeing into the wilderness, Úlfur found themselves alone in a world that was both familiar and alien.
Now calling themselves Wulfstan, a Norse name translated to some Old English language, roamed the wilds of Tara, learning to survive and thrive despite their blindness. The maroon blindfold they wore became a symbol of their resilience and a reminder of the family and life they were forced to leave behind.
Encounter with Blisk
During their travels, Úlfur's extraordinary abilities and combat skills did not go unnoticed. Kuben Blisk, a legendary figure in the Apex Games and a former high-ranking officer of the IMC, heard rumors of a blind wolf warrior with unparalleled instincts. Intrigued, Blisk tracked down Úlfur, observing them in a skirmish against a group of mercenaries.
Impressed by their prowess and potential, Blisk approached Úlfur with an invitation to join the Apex Games. Blisk saw in Úlfur not only a formidable competitor but also a powerful symbol of defiance against the ARES Division’s unethical experiments. For Úlfur, the invitation was an opportunity to confront their past, seek justice, and carve out a new path for themselves.
Entry into the Apex Games
At 17, Úlfur accepted Blisk's invitation and entered the Apex Games. Armed with their enhanced senses and physical capabilities, Úlfur quickly became a standout competitor. Their abilities, such as Echo Sense and Predator’s Mark, made them a lethal tracker and hunter in the arena. Their ultimate ability, Howl of the Wild, boosted the senses and movement speed of their allies, making them an invaluable asset to any team.
Legacy
Úlfur’s participation in the Apex Games is a testament to their indomitable will and resilience. They stand as a symbol of resistance against the ARES Division's unethical experiments and a beacon of hope for those who have been wronged. Through their actions in the arena, Úlfur honors their past, embraces their true identity, and paves the way for a future where they can confront and overcome the shadows of their origins.

Heirloom

"Lúpína Fang"
(Loo-fean-ya Fang)
Photo(s)
[WIP]
Description:
The Lúpína Fang is a uniquely crafted weapon that embodies Úlfur's primal heritage and their journey from a lab experiment to a formidable warrior in the Apex Games. The weapon is a combination of a ceremonial dagger and a combat-ready tool, designed to be both functional and symbolic.
Appearance:

• Blade: The 32 in. blade of the Lúpína Fang is sleek and slightly curved, resembling the fang of a wolf. It's made of a high-tech alloy that shimmers with a faint, almost ethereal glow, suggesting advanced materials and craftsmanship.
• Hilt: The hilt is wrapped in a dark, weathered leather that provides a secure grip. Intricate carvings of tribal symbols and wolf motifs adorn the hilt, reflecting Úlfur's cultural heritage.
• Guard: The guard is shaped like a wolf's head, with the eyes set with small, glowing gemstones that pulse with a soft light, giving the impression that the weapon is almost alive.
• Pammol: Attached to the hilt is a small charm made of feathers and beads, reminiscent of Úlfur's tribal roots. The charm serves as both a decorative element and a reminder of Úlfur's past and the journey they've undertaken.

Background:
The Lúpína Fang was not just a weapon forged in a smithy, but a culmination of Úlfur's transformation and the battles they have fought both within and outside themselves.
After escaping the IMC and ARES Division's labs, Úlfur found refuge among the tribes of Tara. It was there that they first heard the legend of the Lúpína Fang, a sacred weapon said to hold the spirit of the wolves and imbue its bearer with unparalleled strength and instinct. Seeing it as a symbol of their own transformation and struggle, Úlfur sought out the tribe's elders, who agreed to craft the weapon as a rite of passage and symbol of acceptance into the community.
The creation of the Lúpína Fang was a deeply personal and spiritual process. Úlfur participated in its forging, infusing it with their essence and memories of their fallen comrades. The weapon was tempered in the sacred fires of the tribe, a ritual that was said to awaken the primal spirits within it.
In the Apex Games, the Lúpína Fang is more than just a weapon. It's a testament to Úlfur's resilience, a reminder of their past, and a symbol of their enduring quest for truth and justice. Wielding it in battle, Úlfur channels their primal instincts and the spirit of the wolves, becoming an unstoppable force in the arena.

Road accidents are super common in India, claiming about half a million lives in India every year. About ~15% of them are hit and run cases. Most perpetrators who are (big or small) car owners get away with the crime by installing a driver at the scene like Salman Khan did. The going rate for such a driver is about Rs. 1 lakh in tier-2 cities.
This makes one wonder why, suddenly, this 17 year old rich kid's case has got the nation furious and angry at irresponsible drivers. Granted, expensive car hit and run cases do become instant news, but there's been lots of BMW and Audi accidents in the last 4-5 years that haven't received this type of coverage.
The only difference I could notice between this case and countless others is that the victims this time were bourgeois. They weren't just some random villagers or city slum dwellers whose lives don't matter to the bourgeois public. They were up and coming IT workers. The media-addicted middle class public sees themselves in the two victims and hence these thoughts and prayers and thirst for justice. Buses full of poor children have taken many lives in the past with not even 1% the attention this case has garnered.
It is the same reason why a light skinned educated and rich looking girl selling Vada Pav is considered "hard working", and how a little pudgy punjabi boy from Delhi wearing branded clothes selling tikki-chhole starts serious discussion about child labor. There are 1000s of times as many young men, women and children of the proletariat living much harder lives.
Due to the stratification and calcification of India into various poor classes, various middle classes, and various rich classes, many of us have become completely blind to the plight of the poorer classes. We don't even see them as Indians. If we see them hurt, we first think about the potential scam and police bribery situation instead of thinking about the human in front of us. Whereas, if we see a light skinned girl or boy in jeans get so much as even a scratch at the mall, we're happy to provide any help we can.
I see no practical solution to this. I'm just observing what I see.
I think this is part of the reason why CPI(M)'s actual work on the ground goes unnoticed. Because they stand with the poor classes and workers, and that hardly creates a story as exciting as naughty jokes on the Kapil Sharma show or the various methods by which people like to enjoy mangoes.

(TLDR; got kidnapped/raped/assaulted, don’t know if i would press charges or confidently recommend anyone press charges knowing what i know now about the legal system. An extremely convoluted answer to, “why didn’t they go to the police?”)
I’m not sharing this in hopes of sympathy, or trying to center this discussion around MY personal experience, I just know my story isn’t a unique one. As distressing as these topics are, I think it’s important to add to the larger conversation at hand!
I was kidnapped, raped, and physically assaulted in 2020 & have always had the urge to join these discussions, especially when it involves the justice system. Im sure it’s not news to anyone here that the system is broken, ridiculous, and corrupt; but i’m gonna share some personal details as someone who’s gone through it (because this is the internet baby, what’s it for if not over sharing)
Long story short, an ex stalked me, and moved across the street from me which then led to the night of the crimes. He had a friend over at the time who was passed out drunk, but witnessed the aftermath of the assault & called the police.
5 cops showed up to me almost completely naked, black eyes, bloody nose, strangulation marks, and proceeded to interrogate me, asking if i was drunk/high, telling me i wasn’t making any sense. Eventually the synapses fired i guess and they understood what was going on, they told me “we would never treat you like that” and asked if i wanted an ambulance/if i wanted to press charges, to which i said no, i just wanted to go home (that was what reverberated in my head the whole night, so in a state of shock I followed through with my main objective of “getting home”).
When I got back home, I realized how injured I was & got a ride to the hospital where a SANE kit was performed, and spoke with a detective about pressing charges (from my understanding, when you’re admitted to a hospital for any kind of assault, charges are pressed regardless). $10,000 hospital bill that wasn’t reimbursed by the attacker, by the way….but that’s a whole different conversation.
About a week later when the assailant was arrested and charged with felonious assault, kidnapping, and rape, the detective came back to gather more information from me for the case. He shared that the defendant admitted to hitting/strangling me, but not sexually assaulting me. He COULD NOT wrap his mind around how I was raped (or as he put it, “had sex with”) by someone I had previously dated. Almost half of our conversation revolved around that, and how the case likely wouldn’t go far in court because of it (found out later that spousal rape isn’t a crime in my state so that’s cool). I was frustrated and mentioned offhand that his presumption is akin to saying, “well if you’ve invited them over to your home in the past, then how could they have robbed you?”. To which he didn’t respond because things were just not clicking in his brain. An esteemed detective in the police force mind you.
I was assigned a victim’s advocate in court, (whom I loved), but they weren’t exactly forthcoming about ALL of the information, and all of the possible courses of action that I should take note of, as someone who’s had no experience with the legal system.
The trial was continued for almost 3 years at the defendants request, on a month to month basis where I was notified often only a day or two prior. During those 3 years, I never left the headspace of anticipating the trial. I was continuously preparing by reading my victims impact statement/recounting of events out loud, annotating where I should take breaths because I was likely to get choked up, and be ready to drop everything when a new trial date was announced. When the trial would inevitably get continued, the cycle would repeat (0/10 bad acid trip simulator).
I was visited by private investigators, harassed by the defendants acquaintances, lost my initial job, couldn’t maintain a steady job as I’d have ~a week blocked off every month for the trial that never seemed to come, which led to a whole bunch of other fun trauma stuff.
When the trial date finally solidified, I had a seizure the week beforehand and requested a continuation, the only one i’d ever asked for, and it was denied because “the case is old”. I’d been highly, HIGHLY advised by the prosecutor and my advocate to accept a plea deal throughout the whole ordeal, as the cross examination/recounting abuse is extremely traumatic; but I’d been firm the entire time about wanting to proceed with a criminal trial.
I felt almost forced into accepting a plea deal, as I was still very fragile from the seizure and didn’t feel physically/mentally capable of withstanding a trial, so I accepted a plea of felonious assault & abduction. Supposedly, kidnapping is hard to convict, as you have to prove you were kidnapped with a specific motive or intention.
Even with a first and third degree violent felony, with a witness, the defendants admittance to assaulting me, a rape kit, photo documentation of injuries, past video/audio recordings of abuse, an evidence bag of my blood covered, ripped in half clothes—the defendant got 3 years of probation. No jail time (aside from the week he spent from the initial arrest).
He wasn’t ordered to provide any financial restitution, because as the prosecutor said, “it’s hard to enforce”. I received crime victims compensation shortly after the incident to reimburse the hospital visit, but haven’t heard back about lost wages, therapy bills, other medical visits.
I was urged to look into opening a civil case to seek damages, but my advocate/prosecutor weren’t able to provide any insight as their job solely involves criminal cases. I also still cannot work, thus can’t afford basic necessities, let alone a lawyer, I’m also exhausted from the last 3 years of my life revolving around the legal system.
I’m not sure if I explained this cohesively, but I will say knowing what I know now, knowing how debilitating the process is, I don’t know that I would’ve pressed charges, or be able to advise in full confidence & good faith that someone else in my position file charges. When it comes down to it, the only thing I’ve gained throughout this process is a tally in the assault statistics database.
I don’t know if I have the power or energy to fix the system, or if it’s beyond repair entirely. The least i can do is provide personal anecdotes in hopes these topics evolve beyond questions like “why didn’t they go to the police?”, and into a more understanding, nuanced conversation <3

Quick qualifier: not seeking a spell; moreso advice on which issue to tackle (or order of issues to tackle) with my own spellwork.
Hey fellow witches,
Kinda a newbie around the sub…hoping someone can help me brainstorm a major issue I’m having with a very close relative. I loathe putting personal business online, but I dont see how I can do this without it so here goes: my son is married to a woman giving me tons of grief.
I dont meddle in my kids’ lives with spellwork. That normally extends to their spouses, but I am making an exception. This lady has pushed me to my breaking point. She is selfish, she has grifted us for years, she is a liar and manipulates, doesnt allow us to see our grandchildren unless she gets clothes or shopping included, she lies to my son to make us look mean and awful towards her, lies to her parents by omission to get more money out of us, and most recently, kept us away from being there when our newest grandbaby was born. A preemie we havent been able to see, nor our other grandchild because she says she’s “uncomfortable” with us being there. She lied to us about the baby having health problems to keep us out of the loop, the list goes on and on.
Mind you, we have never done anything but open our home to her, dote on her, give her everything in the world, pay for her wedding and everything with it (a big fcking wedding) and accept her into our family. She’s never comfortable with us because we’re not her family - her words, not mine.
Ive been to therapy to deal with as much as I can. She’s tried taking over my home, taking over my entire family as the matriarch, cant stand when any attention isnt on her, yet wont give our side of the family even five seconds of time with our own flesh and blood. She doesnt drive, doesnt work, doesnt clean, doesnt cook, does NOTHING except live on tiktok and watch Bravo reality shows with her garbage mother, sisters and all their kids. They all live together bc she also decided 6 months ago to take my son’s daughter and leave him home (he’s active duty military) and move back to her family bc she “missed her mommy”. No, they arent separated. Yes, he still supports her. She just didnt want to live with him anymore and now he’s moving across the country to go make her happy. In her hometown.
So. I’m at a point where I’m tired of allowing this woman to have so much power in our lives. I dont want any harm to come to her as the mother of my grandchildren, and I dont care to interfere in their marriage - she’ll mess that up on her own. But I’m ready to start punching back, spellcraft-speaking. I want her to stop manipulating us. I want her to be fair with the children. I want her to leave me in peace and quit asking me to buy her things. I want justice for the lies she’s told me, and for manipulating my son so that I had to be held to an incredible standard of speaking to her in a ridiculous manner and not burdening her, when she behaved however she felt and treated me and his dad like dirt under her shoes. More than once, she has nearly ruined the very close relationship my son and I share.
I cant decide, and I think it’s due to being too close to the situation, if I should approach this as a domination spell, or a sweetening spell, or a freeze spell. Her mother holds an INCREDIBLE amount of influence over her, and she and I cannot stand each other. We can be civil but we are night and day; she steals from people and I give my last dollar. She’s a nasty drunk who rages and performs on Facebook like some 13 yr old trying to be a thug, I smoke weed and chill. She ruins every single ocassion we have with our new grandchildren because she’s jealous… with 9 other grandchildren of her own.
Anyway. So I’m done with it all. Like I mention, we’ve done therapy, we’ve done all we can. One side has made the honest attempts; the other doesnt give af about our feelings. Any ideas on how to approach the appropriate spellwork?

I’ve had a lot of adventures in my life.
I’ve traveled, made friends, seen sights, competed in sports, and participated in events.
Sometimes, following any of these endeavors, a small object would find itself in my possession. A knickknack, a totem, a doodad.
Maybe it was a collection of Mardi Gras beads from my trip to New Orleans. Or a t-shirt tossed by a cheerleader at a sporting event. A toy from a claw machine. A mixtape from a friend. A thank-you note. A cheap piece of junk from a tourist’s gift shop.
Whatever they were didn’t matter — what matters is that they were often a representation of whatever moment in time they came from.
I never threw these things away. I set them on my desk or on my shelves. When those spaces filled up, I bought two small storage containers. They’re filled to the brim and I’m currently filling a third.
Why keep the color-coordinated bandana a stranger gave me in the park during Pokemon Go’s heyday? Why hold onto the Save the Date from my high school friend who ended up getting divorced not two years later? What significance or use could I possibly have for those goofy White Elephant gifts my kickball team gave at the yearly Christmas party?
No purpose, no reason and there is none, respectively.
And yet I don’t want to let them go. You see, they are reminders of times and experiences — Keepsakes. Mementos. Souvenirs. In some ways, they’re a physical collection and documentation of my life.
It reminds me a little bit of this weird quirk I have when I play video games.
--
I likely dumped more than 500 hours across all my Skyrim save files. There was no other game, there needn’t be any other game and there still hasn’t been any other game since.
In my adulthood, I returned to one of its many definitive editions for one last victory lap. With my experience, memory and fully-formed adult brain, I approached the game methodologically, in an optimal order, carefully. I built my ideal character and crafted only what was needed — down to the last iron ingot. I explored, I experienced — I did every major and minor quest, making it my perfect playthrough.
One thing I love about Skyrim is the loot. Yes, there’s 20 million iron daggers and boring, inventory-cluttering useless items… but then there’s the special ones.
There’s the unique weapons at the end of each Daedric quest. The trinkets from the Thieves Guild. Spellbooks, statuettes and storybooks. The eerily-delivered note for the assassin’s questline. The robes of the king, the rings and necklaces of Jarls.
You know them — the items with one-of-a-kind names and designs that are specific to each of their quests.
You see, these items carry a story with them. How you stole for them or killed for them. Traveled, battled, talked, stealthed, lied, solved your way into their possession. They’re the game’s biggest treat.
That’s why, at the culmination of my final ever Skyrim playthrough, I bought a house in Whiterun and filled it with these objects.
Weapons and armors on the walls and on the racks, items and books placed carefully on shelves - but not just any weapons, armors, objects and books. Only the special ones. It was a house that told the story of all of my adventures.
I sat down in a chair next to Aela the Huntress in my castle, my throne room. I saved my game one final time.
--
For all of gaming’s swashbuckling adventures, magnificent worlds and large stretches of land to traverse, they don’t always give us too much to remember them by, do they?
I appreciate Skyrim so much for understanding the nature of the epic they were creating. The ability to fill your house with display cases, armor mannequins and weapon racks demonstrates the developer’s awareness of their playerbase and the scale of the adventures they were sending them on.
These are adventures to cherish, to tell tales of, to be remembered.
Will anyone else give me what Skyrim did?
…
The answer’s yes, actually.
It’s a fascinating yes, too — because not every keepsake system is cut from the same cloth. Games offer unique takes on the mechanic that energize it, give it new life and perspective and add layers of meaning to it in fresh ways.
And I’ve got plenty of examples.
--
In The Outer Worlds, special items you collected while out adventuring would be placed in specific locations throughout your ship, The Unreliable, upon return. These included things like:
• Posters • Signs • Various ISO items • Tossballs & Tossball cards • Golden bird statuettes • Many, many more
Sometimes these were stored by the game in your captain’s quarters, but other times, they’d appear in your squad’s quarters instead.
No matter where they got stored, these items were more than just junk. They were signature weapons of terrible villains whom you defeated, they were outlandish garb from flamboyant characters who painstakingly passed away to protect your life, they were motifs of resource-gouging corporations whom you shutdown for the good of cities and planets.
They were special, they were keepsakes. Their addition made The Unreliable feel alive and lived in, part of your own, unique journey, filled with the stories and tales of your adventure and — importantly and specifically to The Outer Worlds — your choices.
—
The second and third installments of the Mass Effect series contained model ships you could buy from vendors that would then go on display on desks or on racks in your spaceship, The Normandy.
These are a little different because you buy them, rather than slice somebody’s head off for them, but they still count.
What makes them still count here is twofold:
• Some model ships only become available after completing certain missions that actually involve the ship you’re buying a model of, so they still serve as a reminder and memento of specific accomplishments in this way • If you transferred your save data through the games, models you collected in ME2 would appear automatically on The Normandy in ME3. Being able to carry souvenirs into a sequel is exceptional, and a feat I’ve not found any other game to match.
Mass Effect: Andromeda saw a return of this feature, too. You ended up re-gathering old ships of yore in this installment, however. Andromeda also featured a more traditional collectible-style search; these model ships were looted from various locations in the world.
The original trilogy used the model ships as landmarks for its major moments, to be remembered across the series, while Andromeda paid homage to the previous games and encouraged its players to explore its world more thoroughly.
—
In Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, building up your burgeoning young settlement of Ravensthorpe is a central gameplay mechanic — as you acquire more resources to build with, the size of the village grows both in length, width and inhabitants.
The game includes optional side quests that change those who wander your evolving home and hub in medieval England. They include:
• Capturing a stray cat • Saving a fox from a burning home • Befriending a fallen hunter’s wolf pet
In each instance, the living being will join your settlement — the cat will stay underneath Eivor’s seat in your longship, the fox will wander Ravensthorpe and the wolf will welcome you in your personal quarters, howling at your arrival.
You can interact and pet them whenever you like, playing a short animation displaying the affection between the two.
These three “collectibles” don’t feel like trinkets, but living, breathing additions to your home that give it joy and life, as well as keep you young.
—
Speaking of Norse culture, central to Biomutant is a form of Yggdrasil — the WorldTree.
Central to Biomutant’s story is saving the old, decaying and currently-being-eaten-by-giant-monsters WorldTree. And there are two impressive quests in the game that reflect back to the player their efforts in saving it.
One quest saves the tree from festering toxins below its roots — and the tree’s colors change from green to fluorescent white as a result.
Another quest by the name of Aurora has you activate monoliths around the map that direct energy to the WorldTree. The quest climaxes by having the tree give off a swirling, sparkling aura that hangs perpetually while you travel the world and complete more objectives.
It even matches your affinity — if you’re taking the side of love and justice, the aura is white, while if you play for the destruction of the planet, the aura will hang black.
What’s special about these to me is that they don’t do anything. They don’t get you any closer to saving the world or the tree, but they definitely did something important –
The WorldTree’s central location in the map and absolutely massive scale allow for it to be seen at all times from just about anywhere in Biomutant’s world. This means, after I had completed these two quests, the fruits of my labor were on gloriously beautiful display at all times.
Biomutant’s mementos aren’t keepsakes you can’t take with you when you leave the planet — they’re visual celebrations of your hard work, an ever-present reminder of your endeavors and care for a dying world.
—
More briefly, Cyberpunk 2077 allowed you to fill V’s apartment with keepsakes as well, featuring dream catchers, posters, paintings, action figures and more.
In Star Wars: X-Wing Alliance Ace Azzameen’s personal quarters would fill up with medals and displays as you progressed through the game.
In The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, some of the most legendary Zelda equipment ever was available to the player, including the Sword of Six Sages, the Fierce Deity Sword, and the Biggorons Sword — all of which can be hung in display cases in Link’s home.
Meanwhile, Uncharted 4 greets players near its opening sequence with an attic filled with memorabilia and keepsakes that Nathan Drake himself has kept after all these years. It’s not us — the players — ourselves collecting and hoarding, but it was lovely to see Drake thinking along the same lines as us souvenir psychopaths.
—
I’ll end with gaming’s classic — Mario. The red-hatted Italian also did the keepsake thing in one of his most beloved installments.
Super Mario: Odyssey allowed you to decorate The Odyssey with stickers and trinkets from your escapades by spending purple coins you could collect while out adventuring on one of the game’s many worlds.
A vanilla Odyssey player’s ship might look the same as it did at the game’s start, but a completionist might have a slew of trinkets and décor, like:
• Peach’s Model Castle • Dinosaur models and trophies • Shiverian Nesting Dolls • A plush frog • Flowers and a watering can from Steam Gardens • Statues of Pauline, Jaxi, Jizo • A lamp and rock fragment of the moon
Hell, the game director himself sounds like he’s read this very article:

“But what about decorating the ship? There’s a shop that appears in many kingdoms where you can buy souvenirs and stickers using the purple coins you’ve gathered.
Collecting memories is one of the best parts of traveling, don’t you think?” –Kenta Motokura

The ability to make The Odyssey your own evolved the traditional fetch-quest nature of collectible gathering and drove the player to go that little bit of extra distance in exploring and engaging with the various kingdoms and mastering the game’s platforming.
--
Video game narratives and their accompanying worlds are monstrously large nowadays. As enjoyers of the medium, us gamers spend a lot of time in them.
Like, a lot.
In recognition of this, game developers have given gamers a number of distinct tools to document their triumphs and sagas — each with their own unique flavor of congratulations and commemoration.
For our enormous investment with huge worlds and long, winding quests, something tangible we can keep hold of provides value, meaning, memories. They make our journey — one which we have committed so much to — special, transcendent, our own.
They give us things no other entertainment medium can give.
So fuck photo mode. A picture isn’t worth a thousand words — my keepsakes are.
(A special thanks to the members of patientgamers for their contributions to this post that helped inform this essay with games I have and have not played.)

This is the final installment in the series about N.T. Wright's 'Into the heart of Romans'. Originally a collection, that feature has since been deprecated by Reddit, leaving this series as a bunch of separate, unorganized posts :-( I'll add a flair to each of them later to make them searchable (edit: flair added!)
What I've learned about myself: I am bad at finishing books. By the time you've read 80% or so, the main conclusions and revelations have usually been drawn, and I have a hard time pushing through and finishing the whole thing. This weekend I finally made time to finish writing this final part for this book, after beginning this series months ago. I apologize for the delay.
I am grateful to Wright for writing this book. It is a grandiose view of God's love, the work of the Messiah and the Spirit in and through us. It is really worth checking out!
Without further ado, the final chapter.

Romans 8:34-39 Nothing Can Separate Us From God’s Love

‘Romans 8 ends on a note of wonderful confidence’. Philosophers have always tried to find solid ground, how can we know? Decartes claimed ‘I think, therefore I am’ (cogito, ergu sum) and ‘much subsequent western thought has tried to build on that, with (to say the least) mixed success’. Bishop Leslie Newbigin even altered that statement some time ago into ‘tesco, ergo sum’: I shop, therefore I am!
But Paul says something different: Amor, ergo sum: I am loved, therefore I am. ‘The gospel urges upon us an epistemology of love’, not simply the feeling, but agape, the generous self-giving which affirms the reality of what is known and loved. When Paul says ‘I am persuaded’ in verse 38, he isn’t just summing up Romans 5-8 but he’s also looking at ancient intellectual life and philosophy, saying ‘this is where you can stand’.
This is the love of God the creator, anchored in Jesus. In this passage Paul lists grave threats and forces aligned against us, but ‘the gospel itself, the message about Jesus crucified, risen, ascended, interceding, holds us in place despite everything: God’s love in the Messiah, Jesus our Lord’.
This answers the first common question, about the beginning and the end of the section, we’ve answered in each chapter so far: it begins and ends with God’s love, in verses 35 and 39.
For the second question, we’d usually look at the small connecting words, but again Paul isn’t using careful argumentation here, but a rhetorical device: seven threats in 35, and larger powers in 38-39a. Paul invokes Psalm 44 when speaking of the threats, but then claims that ‘the one who loved us (37) will enable us to be not just victorious, but super-victorious (hypernikomen). Why (gar, 38)? Because no forces on earth or in heaven can separate us from that same love.
The third regular question: what about the wider world in which Paul’s hearers would receive this message? The ‘question of confidence’ is vital, today as it was back then. We know God will look after us after death and we can cling to Jesus when bad things happen, but there is something else going on here.
People in Paul’s culture (and today!) might interpret the bad things happening to Christians as a sign that God was angry with them. They assume that if you live your life in tune with God, you wouldn’t have any problems. But if there are problems such as persecution, ‘the people or indeed the whole movement had obviously gone off the rails.’ Wright here devotes a few paragraphs to criticizing the western world, as pandemics and wars disrupt what seemed to be a success story but made victims along the way. ‘How should we look out upon a world in a mess?’ That question must have occupied the minds of Roman thinkers as well, as the empire’s rhetoric of peace and prosperity sounded hollow, especially to Jews at times of anti-Jewish riots or for instance when Caligula tried putting a statue of himself in the Jerusalem temple. Jews read Daniel’s prophecy about the 490 years and they too expected God to step in when the situation became very bad or dangerous. ‘For all these reasons, the two lists of dangers and hostile forces would represent real and present threats to Paul’s hearers’.
Paul had been questioned about this before. In Corinth, some wondered whether God would allow a proper apostle to lead such a bizarre life as Paul had, including persecutions and dangers. In 2 Corinthians, Paul turns that argument on its head in a ‘glorious, ironic rebuttal’: all the bad things that happen to Paul, he insists, are actually ‘the defining marks of genuine apostleship’. Romans was written not long after 2 Corinthians and Paul may have thought about vulnerable Christian groups in Rome, too. For instance, the gentile believers in Rome might regard the Jews, who were expelled under Claudius, as ‘obviously under divine displeasure’, which could lead to these gentile believers becoming ‘Job’s comforters’ to these Jewish Christians when they returned under Nero.
Wright ‘suspects’ that Paul isn’t just talking about ‘assurance of final salvation’ here but also about ‘penultimate assurance’, which his part of the doctrine of justification. This assurance is what we as Christians ought to give to one another: ‘we are to see one another’s misfortunes and sorrows, not as signs of God’s displeasure, […] but rather as part of the calling to share in the messianic woes, in wich – as in verses 26 and 27 – the spirit is calling out to the father from the heart of the pain and perplexity’.
Christians still make mistakes, some still step off ‘the steep ladder of vocation and settled for a gentler climb’. Compromised Christians or a worldly church no longer challenge their wider community. But those who refuse to slide into the world’s ways of thinking may well face real trouble. Paul makes that point in verse 36, where he cites Psalm 44. In that psalm, the psalmist celebrates God’s promises, but complains that they have not been coming true, even though they have kept the covenant. They have remained faithful, and yet this is happening. The psalmist concludes: it must be because of you, it is ‘for your sake’ (Ps 44:22). He knows God is in charge, but there must be ‘stranger, darker and deeper things going on in the world than one would see on the surface’. There were earlier allusions to Ps 44 (Rom 8:27 echoing Ps 44:21) and now Paul points to the next verse, Ps 44:22 to express the belief that the ‘severe troubles of God’s people are somehow for God’s sake’. As seen in 17-30 already, ‘the point seems to be that those facing severe troubles are somehow sharing in the Messiah’s present redemptive sufferings’, a point on which Wright will later elaborate.
Paul isn’t simply saying ‘everything is going to be all right, nothing else really matters’. He is saying that in a way, but he is doing so in a world that saw misfortune as a sign of divine misfortune. No, this is part of our vocation, our calling to bear in the spirit the pain of the world. This is part of our salvific ministry in and for the world. ‘Paul is, as it were, applying the unique fact of Jesus’ crucifixion to the present sufferings of Jesus’ people as they stand in prayer, as in verses 26 and 27, at the heart of the suffering world’. Our sharing in the messianic woes makes us part of the way in which Jesus’ victorious death is applied to the world (Colossians 1:24). ‘With the spirit groaning within us, we are called to share in God’s rescue plan for the whole world’.
Let’s remind ourselves how the last five verses work. There aren’t many connecting words. The troubles mentioned, just like the cross of Christ, aren’t unpleasant or ghastly things we have (or Christ had) to endure, but actually the setting for the greater victory, in which ‘all opposition is not just defeated but swept off the board’. Twice Paul uses alla, but, to make this point, in verses 36 and 37. In 38, we then get a gar which explains this seemingly counter-intuitive super-victory, which is based on the ‘unbreakable love of God himself, of which Paul has become utterly persuaded’. This love is the framework for these verses, opening with the Messiah’s love in 35 and ending in 39 with ‘the love of God in the Messiah Jesus our Lord’. Verse 37 too mentions love, as a halfway stepping stone. And with this, this major portion of Romans (5-8) returns to where it began, in Romans 5, where God’s love is displayed in action in the death of Jesus, and is being poured out in our hearts by the spirit. Paul has now, at last, worked his way back to that ‘great statement’.
Paul offers two lists here, as part of his heightened rhetoric: 7 bad things that might happen to you in verse 35, and ten power structures that might be arranged against you in 38-39. Seven plus ten, in ancient rhetoric, indicates a kind of completeness: ‘anything and everything the world, the flesh and the devil might throw at you.’ 31-39 draw together ‘the whole scripture, all human experience, the whole hostile world, and the whole victorious gospel’. Nothing can sepate us, those in the Messiah, from the love of God. And for the first time since Rom 5:6-10, Paul makes clear that it is all about that love.
Wright thinks we don’t ‘sufficiently ponder’ what that means. We know about Gods love, but to we really understand it? Wright proposes to ‘rattle the cage a bit’. First, many Romans believed Rome had a secret name, its Latin name spelled backwards: Amor, Latin for Love. Romans believed they descended from Aeneas, the son of the love goddess Venus. It’s ‘quite possible’ that Paul here is reclaiming love (agape), as ‘the deepest truth of the creator God’ instead of as a secret name of a pagan city. This matches with the other ‘subversive’ way in which Paul appropriates Roman imperial language for the Gospel, such as ‘gospel’ and ‘Lord’ (kyrios), words Rome used for its own rulers and messages of imperial benevolence and peace. Paul reclaims those words and applies them to Jesus as the true ‘Son of God’ and lord of the whole world, bringing true justice and peace. ‘No wonder the rulers and authorities of Paul’s day struck back in every way they could’ and that is the context for the final passage. Second, in verses 35 and 37 Paul speaks of the Messiah’s love, the love of Christ. That is actually quite rare. Wright lists a few examples in 2 Cor 5, Gal 2, Eph 3 and 5, but that’s about it. Paul speaks often of the love of God ‘that sent the son to die’. And when Paul speaks of grace, he speaks of ‘the grace of Lord Jesus’, not of the Messiah. So why, here, the Messiah’s love? In scripture or extrabiblical sources, there ‘is nothing to suggest that if and when a Messiah turned up he would act out of love. Ruling, bringing justice, defeating enemies, but not love. So where does it come from, here at the heart of the passage and the rhetorical climax of the letter so far?
The answer must be ‘the great Biblical theme of the love of YHWH himself, Israels God’. And the idea of the Messiah’s love must mean that the Messiah is the personal embodiment of Israel’s God. God loves his people (as we see in scripture, Wright cites examples) and the Messiah ‘clothes that love in human flesh and blood’.
And to speak of God’s love is to speak of the covenant, God’s unbreakable loyalty to his people and covenant renewal through the Messiah. Now, European philosophers since Hegel have thought in terms of progress through either evolution or revolution. It can’t be both, and theologians have likewise said that Paul’s theology can’t be both ‘covenantal’ (evolutionary) and ‘apocalyptic’ (revolutionary). These categories have joined ‘forensic’ which has been used to analyse Paul, which means ‘belonging in a law court’. But, in Romans 8 we have ‘in the same breath, the covenant with Israel, now focused on the Messiah, and at the same time we have the sudden inbreaking of God’s powerful rescuing love in the new messianic exodus’. ‘Apocalyptic’ and ‘covenant faithfulness’ fit together in ancient Israelite and Jewish thought. Paul has also spoken of the unveiling (apokalypsis) to the world of the justice of God. All this explains, says Wright, why he sometimes translates the key term dikaoisyne not as ‘righteousness’ (which has its own modern theological misleading connotations) but as ‘covenant justice’, which draws together the covenantal and forensic categories together, in line with the Hebrew tsedaqah which in the Septuagint is often translated with dikaiosyne. We have to stop applying post-Enlightenment, modern categories; we shouldn’t give 19^th century answers to 16^th century questions, but 21^st century answers to 1^st century questions. We have to think like ‘first-century, Bible-soaked, Messiah-focused Jews’. That’s the only way to learn to understand our own world.
This agape love of which Paul speaks, what is that exactly? Not some special sort of Christian love; the Septuagint uses it for God’s love for his people as well as for destructive lust. The early Christian use of agape picks up on the theme of the Hebrew hesed (mercy, loving kindness, generosity) rather than a linguistic phenomenon. Both Paul and John use it to indicate the ‘biblical theme’ of divine love and God’s faithfulness to his covenant and its purposes, now fulfilled in Jesus. But, again, Jewish and Biblical thought never links this to the Messiah. There are three other (converging) answers as to why Paul speaks of the Messiah’s love. **First, ‘**early Christian throught began with reflection on the resurrection of the crucified Jesus’. This had to be the revelation-in-action of the long promised divine love, if it was the new exodus: God the Creator had at last remembered his long promised mercy. God had promised to reconcile the world to himself in reconciling love, and this had happened through the Messiah. God’s plan for himself and the Messiah converged in a way that was not apparent from contemporary Jewish readings of Scripture, but it became obvious in the light of Jesus. Wright connects this to the hesed Adonai, the loving kindness of YHWH himself. Second, Jesus’ first followers did not separate his resurrection from their memory of him before his death. Jesus displayed a ‘sovereign kindness in so much of what he did’, his closest followers knew him, and they spoke of his crucifixion itself as the supreme act of love. (John 13:1). Third, ‘the church’s present awareness of the person of Jesus himself’. ‘That strange presence’, always loving, promised and experienced in the sacraments for instance. ‘The Jesus who was experienced as a man of love before his crucifixion was known personally as the loving Lord in the intimate prayerful life of his followers’. ‘Memory and experience dovetail with the scriptural promises of YHWH’s rescuing love’, resulting in this remarkable theme, written less than 25 years after the crucifixion (!). This is, then ‘a radical innovation in Jewish messianic thinking’, as Jesus’ first followers came to see him as the human embodiment of Israels God. This passage is designed to give comfort and assurance, but underneath is a revolutionary theology of incarnation. Coupled with what has been said in Rom 8 about the spirit (pneumatology), this is ‘one of the greatest expositions of Trinitarian thought from any point of Christian history’. Not in the shape of cold theory, but in the shape of gratitude, allegiance, faith, hope and answering love.
At last, we can now walk through these verses and see how they work.
In 35b, Paul lists ‘the physical dangers and threats he himself had met’ or expected to meet, and his hearers might encounter soon as well. In the Greek, the list has an ‘audible punch’ which is not easy to pick up in English.
·Suffering and hardship: physical pain and cultural challenges such as loss of home or job.
· Persecution: Paul had experienced it and he could see it coming for the community in Rome.
· Famine: uncommon for us westerners, but a regular occurrence in those days.
· Nakedness: could happen after a shipwreck or at a public beating.
· The sword, machaira, a short sword used for executions, not in battle.
In Paul’s days, many would have said that if these things happen to you, the gods must be angry with you, you must have done something wrong. But in vs 36, Paul cites Ps 44 to ward of any suggestion that divine displeasure is causing these things. In Ps 44, the psalmist says that ‘all these things have come upon us, but we have not played you false or denied the covenant’. We suffer ‘because of you’ says the psalmist and Paul echoes that, we suffer ‘on your account’ (heneken sou), because of you we are sheep destined for slaughter. These sufferings are not signs of heaven-sent anger, but but ‘actually the outworking of the purpose which was sketched in 8:18-27’. What’s more, this verse closely echoes the Isaianic language for the suffering Servant, in Is. 53:7. That means these sufferings can be seen as ‘Messianic afflictions’, not just some nasty things to get through. They are to be embraced as part of the ‘redemptive vocations’. ‘This is where the wounds of Jesus meet the wounds of the world’. We are ‘reckoned’ sheep for the slaughter, just as the Messiah, when we are baptized and justified in him.
BUT… verse 37 begins with alla, ‘but’. Don’t let all these things ‘dominate your horizon’, because ‘in all these things we are super-conquerors, hypernikomen’. The enemy has been completely wiped out. Through our participation in the messianic sufferings, the ‘pain and the anger of the world may itself be exhausted and overcome’, through the supreme act of love of the Messiah and our participation in those sufferings, when we go ‘prayerfully to the dark places, to bring God’s light and healing right there’.
The reason for this ‘extraordinary analysis’ is given with the gar of verse 38, pepeismai gar. Paul is persuaded, he ‘has done the math’. He has listed 7 dangers and 10 powers that could attack us, ‘and he declares that none of them can come between the believer and the lof of God in Messiah Jesus’. The list of ten dangers is mostly arranged in pairs. We can read this list as ‘north, south, east, west’: Paul is covering the bases, it includes our possible states (life and death), the past and our (uncertain) future, powers in heaven and on earth, and anything in the cosmos. All of this is created, they are all creatures, ‘part of the world made by God, whereas the gospel is about the incarnate love of the creator himself’. These creatures, taken over by powers darker than themselves might indeed try separate us from the divine and messianic love, that is part of the ‘groaning of creation’, the out-of-jointness of God’s good creation. That creation will be rescued from its slavery to decay (8:19-25), that is the ultimate answer to that problem, and therefore also to any intermediate problems that might arise from the ‘creatures’ as they still are. Paul has lived experience with these powers, but he knows they will fail to separate us from the love of God.
Our human love experiences separation regularly (travel, work, death), but this love gives assurance of eternal unbreakability. Hard to imagine, but that is what the gospel provides. And with Paul, we need to be persuaded of all of this, ‘because of the resurrection of the crucified son of God’. It doesn’t all depend on the cross like some think, either because of a theological liberalism or because their specific atonement theory doesn’t really seem to need the resurrection. But the resurrection is the victory, where the creator God declared that the crucified and risen was indeed really his son, Israels Messiah and the world’s lord.
That’s after all where Romans began, from 1.3-5. Wright briefly recaps Romans from 1-5 and then 5-8. In the end, 8 ‘comes back full circle’ to the introduction in 5:1-11: ‘justification leads to glory, marking out the path of suffering and hope, sustained by the spirit-given love of God’, ‘this in itself is rooted in God’s action of utter self-giving love in the Messiah’. ‘That is where this first half or Romans now concludes’.
The victorious covenant love of God isn’t some fuzzy generalized sense of the transcendent or something like that. It’s not some conviction you have to talk yourself into. No, his conviction, persuasion and assurance all follow from the central ‘good news’ event of Easter. ‘If God really did raise Jesus the Messiah from the dead… then everything follows’. Wright here repeats an anecdote he often shared as a speaker, about a London cabbie who saw Wright was a bishop, and said to him: ‘What I always say, is if God raised Jesus Christ from the dead, then everything else is just rock ‘n roll, innit?’ ‘That is Paul’s doctrine of assurance in a nutshell. Nothing else in all creation can separate us from God’s love in the Messiah, Jesus our Lord’.

On October 5, 2009 19-year-old Ashleigh Love worked the closing shift at Arby’s. Her mom, Tammy picked her up after work and brought her home. Ashleigh joined the family in watching the Packers game on television. When the game ended Ashleigh took a shower and went to bed. Everything seemed like a usual night, but that night was anything but normal.
In the small hours of October 6, an intruder broke into the Love home, headed for Ashleigh’s room on the second floor. The intruder was carrying a shotgun which he pointed at Ashleigh’s face before he pulled the trigger. Just down the hall, asleep in her own bed, Ashleigh’s mother, Tammy, didn't register the gunshot, but she bolted awake. That’s when she heard footsteps outside her door.
She jumped up and ran to the door of her room, yanking it open. Tammy came face to face with a shotgun wielding intruder - Tammy, who thought the house was being robbed- started shrieking “take what you want and please leave!” That’s when the intruder, who was dressed in dark clothing with a bandana over his face, ran away. He exited the house via the side door and likely crossed the backyard of the Love property.
Tammy called out to her husband to check on Ashleigh and he headed for Ashleigh’s room. He called her name but got no response. He walked through her room toward the bed in the darkness. As Joe’s eyes adjusted, he realized that his only daughter had been shot.
Milwaukee police responded to the scene and immediately separated the family so they could speak with each of them and hear their individual accounts of what happened in the house that night. Tammy told police that she’d seen the intruder. She described him as a Hispanic male, around 20 years old, with an average height and build. He had short, spiked black hair. Oddly enough, the police didn’t take Tammy to meet with a sketch artist, but more about that later. Tammy told them that she thought the intruder had an accomplice. She said when the intruder took off, she thought she could see another person running away.
When the news of the murder became public, Ashleigh’s family, friends, and co-workers were shocked to hear she’d been killed. One friend/co-worker told Fox 6 Now that he couldn’t believe the news. He was surprised because she didn’t “hang out with a crowd that would bring that sort of thing around her.”
Milwaukee police immediately began an investigation into the home invasion turned homicide.
They searched the home and collected evidence. According to the Love and Justice Podcast, nothing was taken from the home, which led investigators to rule out robbery as a motive. It appears that Ashleigh, the kind-hearted girl with a big laugh, was targeted.
Search dogs were brought in to track Ashleigh’s killer. The dogs followed a scent through the backyard and along a creek that ran through there. Then the scent was gone, possibly because her killer or killers climbed into a waiting vehicle. Ashleigh’s phone was looked through, her social media accounts dissected, initially police were looking for a spiky haired Hispanic male, someone who matched the description of the intruder, but found nothing.
While police knew that Tammy had come face to face with the man who murdered her daughter, they did not bring in a sketch artist to work with her and create an image to share with the public. Instead, police relied on the “spiky haired Hispanic male” descriptor for the perpetrator. I feel like this was a missed opportunity.
According to the Milwaukee Police Department, everyone who knew Ashleigh in some capacity was thoroughly vetted. The Love family has been completely cleared in her case.
In December 2009, investigators announced that they believed Ashleigh had been seeing someone secretly prior to her murder. They held a press conference where they asked the public for their help in identifying a man they believed Ashleigh had met with on several occasions over that summer. They said Ashleigh could have met him on Facebook or MySpace, and it's possible that she didn’t tell her friends and family about him.
The police described this man as white and in his early 20s. He has a thin build and is believed to drive a mid-2000s American-made blue pickup truck with a pinstripe trim. The truck has chrome rims, tinted windows and a raised suspension. The man may have worked in the construction industry during warmer months.
Investigators hadn’t been able to identify this man, and he was not named as a suspect - investigators just wanted to speak to him. Milwaukee Magazine reported that it was quote “their only lead”. While police are looking for this person, her family doesn’t believe that she had a secret boyfriend. Ashleigh’s closest friends said Ashleigh was too honest and open to have a double life.
Wouldn’t they want to say “here is the secret friend - please let us know if you know more about him”. Instead they offered a vague description of who the person could be. After police revealed the secret friend theory to the public, The Love family had their own announcement, a $1000 reward for information on the case.
At the sixth month anniversary, Tammy and Joe announced they were offering a $5,000 reward. Unfortunately, neither reward was enough to make someone come forward with information.
At this point, Ashleigh’s family moved out of their family home as it was too traumatizing to continue living there. Tammy, who missed her daughter fiercely, was visiting Ashleigh’s grave each day. As of 2017, it was still part of her daily routine to check on her child’s resting place.
In 2012 Ashleigh’s was classified as cold. Sure, the case gets looked at now and again, but with no new information, there isn't a way to push it forward.
In 2017, detectives told True Crime Daily that they still don’t know the motive behind Ashleigh’s death. One said, “I think when you have a crime like this, you don’t know for sure what their motive is until they explain it.”
There is a $12,000 reward available. The family says if you know something, you don’t have to be afraid to come forward. Anyone with information can contact Milwaukee Police at (414) 935-7360. You can also send a tip — named or anonymously — via the podcast website, www.loveandjusticepodcast.com
Additional reading - Milwaukee woman killed while sleeping 13 years ago, podcast sheds new light (fox6now.com) 7 Years Later, Family of Ashleigh Love Still Looking for Clues in Homicide (cbs58.com)
ASHLEIGH LOVE, 13 YEARS UNSOLVED, MILWAUKEE WI : coldcases (reddit.com)

A/N: Hey! Here's a "surprise" follow up to the first oneshot, and... gasp characterization of Karska?
Not anything super special, just a fluff piece(like most of my stories actually...) been sitting on this for a month, but as I said in my announcement post, things have been kinda weird for the past month.
Again sorry about that, it's not that I haven't wanted to write or anything, or that I was getting burnt out, just got sidetracked.
I think that's all I have to say about that...
Hope you enjoy this story, and all the others to come!
Wait a second... OH YEAH!
Credit to u/SpacePaladin15 for the universe, u/thescoutisspeed for causing the domino effect that made me write. And finally my good friend and Editor u/ConfusionEmpty3542.
Now with further adieu.

Let's get on with the story

Memory Transcript: Karska, Venlil Citizen, Participant of the Venlil-Human Exchange program Date: [standardized human time] 2136, [exact date unknown, presumably pre-earth attack]
Warm… Comfortable…
Those are my first thoughts as I awaken in the arms of my human.
I keep my eyes closed, basking in Axel’s warmth, the feeling of his arms around me. The daze of my half asleep state only makes it better.
I run my hands along my human’s back, feeling the dips and curves of his bone and muscles clearly through the skin. I slowly trail a finger along his spine feeling each divoit as I do.
Do I have to get up?
I snuggle closer to my human, wrapping my tail and legs tighter around their legs. I press my snout deeper into Axel’s neck, sighing lightly in content as I feel my humans pulse against my face.
This warmth… this comfort…
Can’t I just stay here a moment more? With no worries, just me and my human?
I press my chest deeper against my humans, pulling him closer with a hand around his waist, my other hand continues to gently trail along Axel’s back, taking in the firmness of the shoulder blades after I reach the end of Axels spine.
I think I can afford to stay here a bit… just a little bit…
Though I doubt I could bring myself to part from my human like this… if only it didn’t take so much time to care for my fur…
It's worth it though, even if I don’t get to experience this for as long as I’d wish…
I feel a twitch, and sleepily open one of my eyes. My vision reveals the room around me, still the same as last night. Knick-nacks lining shelves and tables, some clothes strewn about…
I’m gonna have Axel clean those up at some point…
I feel another twitch and flick my ear, before focusing my gaze to Axel…
Oh dear…
I can hear his heart drumming against his chest, almost like it’s struggling to escape. I see his sleeping face scrunched, his brows furrowed, his mouth marred in a deep frown as he shivers and gasps lightly.
I feel my heart drop slightly at the unfortunately familiar sight of my human having a nightmare.
“No… No…!” Axel murmurs, his brows furrowing even more as his shifting becomes more erratic, with him beginning to toss a little in my grasp.
“Shhh… it’s okay Axel.” I gently whisper to my sleeping human, shifting myself upwards just enough so that I could gently rest Axels face against my shoulder.
I feel a spike of instinctual fear, at having a predator so close to my neck.
I feel that familiar voice in the back of my head tell me to, run, hide, get awa–
But I easily quash that fear, overriding it with my care and worry for my beloved human.
I feel their grip tighten around me, as tears leak from their sleeping eyes. I do my best to comfort them any way I can.
I run my fingers through their scalp, hugging their larger frame against mine as tightly as I can as they continue to murmur and lightly thrash.
“I… I can’t, I Cant–!” They gasp out against my fur, their voice filled with grief, with pain.
It makes my heart ache, to not be able to soothe my human’s woes…
“Its fine Axel… No need to worry, I got you…” I whisper, feeling my tail tighten around my human in worry, and my ears flick back in response.
I wish I could help my human more with this… but every time I mention it they try to change the subject…
It worries me, but I trust my human, I trust him to trust me…
I begin to gently hum, running one hand along Axel’s back and the other through his scalp as I attempt to comfort him in the way I’ve found best works.
I hum a lullaby my mother used to sing to me, when I was but a child… it worked wonders whenever I couldn’t sleep cause I felt like…
No matter… I flick my ear in a negatory fashion, trying to ignore the errant thoughts as I sit there cuddling my crying human, trying my best to ease his nightmares.
I feel his thrashing slowly begin to die off as I gently hum the familiar tune, I feel his arms loosen their grip as he slowly begins to calm down.
I feel their heartbeat begin to slow, going from a fearful quickened pace, to its slow gentle pace… just as it should be. Just as it needs to be.
I sigh in happiness, glad to have comforted my human as best I can. My ears follow suit and perk up lightly in content.
I sit there for a few moments more, not knowing how long I was awake, and not really caring… thankfully today’s a day off, so I shouldn’t have to do much.
I feel Axel’s gentle breathing wash over my chest, the warmth bathing my form, along with the familiar comfort. I feel the wet spot on my shoulder, where his tears stained my fur.
I sigh, I want to stay here all day today… I honestly want to just spend this day off cuddling with my human, talking about nothing in particular.
But I need to clean my fur… so it’s all shiny, and soft, and nice for my human…
And it takes me a good quarter claw[an hour] to care for…
“I’m gonna go bathe, okay?” I gently coo to my sleeping boyfriend, gently ruffling their hair.
Do I have to go?
Can’t I just stay cuddled up to them like this?
What if they get another nightmare? What if I’m not there to comfort them?
What if–
I flick my ear and lightly shake my head, frowning lightly at those thoughts, at the familiar anxiety.
It’ll be fine, they’ll be fine for an hour or so… They shouldn’t have another nightmare…
I hope…
But what if they do, and I’m not there to comfort them?
I feel myself frown a bit deeper as I continue down this spiral of worry for my human, wanting nothing more than to stay pressed against them like this…
But I have to go.
And so with great reluctance, I begin to extricate myself from my humans spidery limbs.
I try my best to not wake my human, knowing that they probably need their sleep… especially with how tired they always look…
Eventually after a few [minutes] I finally managed to slip myself from his lanky arms.
My tail however is still wrapped tight around one of his legs, I sigh and lean down, gently petting my human on his scalp, and shifting the blanket slightly to better keep him warm.
“I’ll be right back.” I gently coo to the sleeping human, and sigh at the lack of warmth that now makes the room feel just a bit colder…
I stand there for a moment, debating if it’s worth it to clean my fur now…
I mean, I can just wait until Axel’s awake! I don’t have to do it now!
I know that they’re just excuses… it feels like ages pass as I stand beside the bed, my human none the wiser to my internal struggle.
I sigh, before finally slipping my tail from their leg, doing so very slowly and deliberately, trying my best to not wake my human as my mind tries to convince me to stay.
I mean… surely I could just stay with them a bit longer? Just a little bit?
I focused my gaze on Axel’s sleeping face, my brows furrowing slightly as my ears swivel back in sadness…
He looks so peaceful… so cute…
My soft paw pads press against his hair which I gently tousle, before mournfully sighing.
If I keep this up, I won’t get anything done at this rate.
I can’t just keep awkwardly standing here… I need to choose…
Do I stay cuddled up next to Axel, or do I at the least clean up my fur so it’s all soft for my human? Comfort for my human now? Or better comfort and snuggling later?
… It’s very tempting… but it’d probably make my human very happy to cuddle with me all day when my fleece is softer…
I flick my ear in affirmation, setting my eyes in a determined look…
I lean down and gently lick Axel on the cheek in an affectionate gesture.
“I love you, my human.” I gently purr, nudging my snout against them before gently stepping out of the dark room.
I make sure to just barely slip out of the door, trying my best to not let the gentle golden rays of Venlil Prime’s sun slip into the darkened room.
The hallway is just a little less dark, with all of the mechanical blinds around the apartment shut over the windows to make sleep easier.
I softly step through the hallway, my steps gentle as can be, as I try my best to keep quiet…
I already regret not deciding to stay by my human, but I’ve made my choice.
It’ll only be for a half a claw at most, not that long away from my human.
I feel my ears pin themselves back at my displeasure, and I slip into our bathroom.
It’ll be fine… the quicker I clean up my fleece, the quicker I get back to cuddling my human…
I gaze around the bathroom, my wide vision allowing me to take in the entirety of the room.
The bathtub and shower on one side, sink and countertop on the other…
A large mirror coats one wall, and a medicine cabinet is next to the light switch.
It’s rather plain, if not cozy…
It’s my home. Our home…
I feel my tail wave in happiness as I glance at the various things laid on the counter.
Toothbrushes, toothpaste… a few random items here and there…
And a few medicines… I can’t read the label for them… but I know the language printed on them.
English, I believe that’s what it’s called, the spidery lettering is unmistakeable, unlike most any other language I’ve seen; granted I haven’t seen many.
They’re for Axel… I don’t know what for, and he only got them recently…
When I asked he told me it’s nothing too bad… I’m worried for him but…
I trust him, he’ll tell me when he’s ready, I trust him to trust me…
I take another glance looking at the bottles along with an odd box, similar to some of the packages in our kitchen…
Well…
Surely he wouldn’t mind if I just looked a bit closer at one… its not like I can understand what they say…
I reach over, and grab one of the bottles, adjusting my grip on my toothbrush as I do so.
The one I pick up is made of a Transparent orange plastic, at it makes a rattling sound somewhat similar to some Venlil instruments. Inside is a bunch of small yellow ish pills, embedded with a number I can’t make out… I try to read the text but it’s completely illegible to me…
I sigh and go back to brushing my teeth, setting the bottle down as my focus is split between brushing and examining the other bottle.
It was made of a clear, somewhat brownish plastic, and it looked rather hefty, it was much larger than the previously mentioned bottle, on it amongst the various other words is two large letters with assumably some numerical subscript. It reads:
‘K2+D3’
I have no idea the meaning behind the letters, I assume however that if I could read human it would make much more sense…
I then turn my gaze to the box, covered in more of the illegible, to me, text covers the outside of said box. It was a white and much taller and wider than the pill bottles but a lot less thick…
I see a flap on the top, and trail my hand towards it…
Surely one peek wouldn’t hurt, right?
I shake my head, ignoring that thought. No I shouldn’t, it’s not my place to, Axel will tell me when he wants to…
I should trust my boyfriend… and besides, it’s not like it matters that much… right?
It’s not like whatever Axel has is that bad…
Yeah… I’m sure it’s fine. Besides, Axel seems to be getting healthier!
So whatever those pills are for, they’re helping him, and in the end, that’s all that matters!
I spit out the toothpaste, rinsing my mouth with water along with the brush, before I look to the tub, and turn the showerhead and water on, waiting for it to heat up.
I frown lightly, as I think back to Axel…
I hope he’s doing okay.
I shake my head and try to focus on other things as the water heats up and I hop into the shower.
Like how much my life’s changed these past few months!
If you told me I would be dating a predator just two months ago, I would have thought you were going crazy…
But look at me now! I have a wonderful boyfriend… one whom I’ve felt closer to than in any other past relationship I’ve had.
I love my human, I really do…
I glance to my bottle of Cherine scented shampoo, and grimace as I wet my fleece.
Almost out. Gonna have to get more soon, and Axel loves it’s smell so much too…
I shake my head of that thought and return to my previous line of thinking…
What could I say about my human to do him justice?
His kindness? He really is quite kind after all… probably too kind…
He should really put himself first more, and stop worrying so much about me…
I begin the arduous process of scrubbing the Cherine scented shampoo, making extra sure to rub at the parts of my fleece stained with sweat or tears…
The reminder of the tears staining my shoulder reminds me of Axel…
He tends to have nightmares, thankfully that wasn’t the worst of it… though the longer I stay in here the more likely it would be that they slip back into a nightmare…
I feel my ears flick back in worry at that thought, but I continue my meticulous scrubbing, being sure that I get all the dirt and gunk out.
Then I begin to properly rinse off the shampoo, making sure all of the suds go down the drain, as I idly think…
How long have I already been in the shower?
A quarter claw?
Is Axel okay? He is isn’t he?
I mean what’s the chance he gets another nightmare? And… it’s not like I can’t comfort him if he does get one…
But I wish he didn’t get them in the first place…
Sometimes I wish Axel wasn’t so Brahking stubborn… that he’d tell me what’s wrong. Maybe then I wouldn’t worry so much…
I’ll probably end up with gray hairs by the next [decade] at this rate…
I then grab the conditioner, it was a citrus-y scent of a Venlil fruit… at least that’s what Axel says it smells like…
I blink away the light brain fog, feeling like I should remember the name of the fruit. Maybe it’s just because I’m still a bit tired?
That’s probably it… I’ll probably remember it later…
Irregardless of that tiny hiccup, I apply the conditioner, putting the same care into scrubbing it into my fleece as I was with the shampoo.
After all if I don’t do it right my fur won’t properly shine! It just wouldn’t be right to not look my best around Axel! No sir!
And so with that in mind I gently scrub in the conditioner, feeling a twinge of worry and irritation as I think back to Axels stubborness…
I sigh, and shake off those thoughts, before beginning to rinse off the conditioner, just as thoroughly as I did with the shampoo.
As Spehing stubborn as Axel can be though… I can’t help but love him.
There’s really no one else like him in the whole galaxy… he fits together with me in a way no one else has…
And sure, maybe he doesn’t tell me everything, but I trust him, I trust him to not hurt me, not intentionally.
I can tell he’s hurting… I can only hope that I can bring him out of whatever state he’s in.
He deserves it, to be happy, to be loved…
More time passes as I eventually rinse off the last of the conditioner, and grab a hand drier to begin drying my fur off.
Almost done! Bed here I come!
I can almost feel myself wrapped in my humans arms… that warmth and comfort…
Ahh… even the thought of it calms me, helps me forget my anxiety…
I spend the next while drying my fur, until I hear a shout from down the hall.
Oh no… Oh no, Oh No Oh NO!
AXEL-!
My chest is filled with utter dread, and I practically throw the hand drier back onto the counter, uncaring if I’m still slightly wet.
My human! I knew it, I knew I should have stayed!
Oh Stars… oh Stars….
I scramble down the small hallway, and stop before the door to our room.
My ears swivel as I listen to my human. I gently open the door, being careful to not alert Axel.
The sight that greets me isn’t a pleasant one…
I can see the sheen of sweat covering Axels bare chest, the dull light from the door glinting off it just right. I see Axel panting, sitting up and staring at a wall.
His eyes are so hazy, and I can see the tears pooling inside them.
Stars damnit… I knew I should’ve stayed… I knew their nightmares got bad, but…
I can see his prosthetic hand gripping over his heart, his chest heaving as he seemingly struggled to gulp down the air… his body trembling violently as those tears shining in his eyes threatened to fall…
“Axel…?” My voice called out in the dark room, I could feel my body tremble in worry, as I look at my human.
His eyes snap to me, and he tenses, jumping in response, before trying to say something…
“K–Kar–ska…” But he can barely even choke out my name, before a heart wrenching sob slips from his throat, and his trembling grows even more.
Oh Stars…
I hastily slip through the door, closing it behind me before dashing over to my human.
My hands get covered in tears when I cup their face but I don’t care Axels afraid and he needs me and–
“It’s okay Axel…” I attempted to comfort my human, trying my best to imitate a smile as I wave my tail, and force my ears into a content position, even though I really feel them want to pin back to my skull in worry and fea–
“K–Kar–…” Axel makes the attempt to speak through his sobbing, before his arms grip around me tightly.
I feel that familiar spark of fear that’s near instantly quashed by an all consuming worry.
Oh Stars, oh Stars…. This is bad this is–
I try to swallow the knot in my throat, gently petting the human on the head as his shaking form grips me like I’ll suddenly disappear.
I don’t care that his tears are staining my fleece, or his sweat, or anything like that…
My boyfriend is scared…
The man who tries way to hard to seem strong in front of others… he’s terrified.
So I need to be strong for him, to let him lean on me, in this moment of weakness…
“Its okay Axel… it’s okay, I’m here…” I nudge my snout against his hair in a comforting gesture, gripping him just as tightly as he is me. “I’m here… so just let it all out okay?”
Their sobs and trembling grow even more at that, and they lean against me in response, their fingers harshly gripping at the still slightly damp fur.
I push Axel back, slipping onto the bed and straddling him as he cries and cries into my chest.
His throat practically chokes as he tries to breathe, as he begins hyperventilating…
Speh! Speh! BRAHK!!!
I gulp once more as I gently press Axels face deeper into my chest, my other hand gingerly wrapped around his shoulder.
“It okay Axel… you’re safe now… I’m here for you.” I gently coo, feeling worry and shame well up inside me.
I should have stayed with him. I shouldn’t have left…
I should’ve known this would happen.
I hear Axel attempt to wail into my chest fur, but his throat is caught by his hyperventilating, which is just getting worse and worse–
SPEH, YOU CAN HATE YOURSELF LATER FOCUS ON AXEL!
I nuzzle my face into his hair. And gently speak out to him as I run my hands gently along his trembling, panicking form.
“It’s okay Axel… You’re okay…” I say in my gentle cooing tone, before continuing on. “I need you to do something for me Axel, can you do that?”
I feel them shakily nod after they gulp, still hyperventilating, and tears still staining my fur as they cry.
“Take a deep breath for me, Axel…” I breath in deeply for emphasis and hold it for a moment. “Now let it out…” I slowly exhaled, my warm breath brushing against their head.
I feel them still shaking as the attempt to follow my lead, but they’re breath catches in their throat which cause them to panic which–
“Don’t worry Axel, take your time…” I reassure my human, gently cradling their head as I nuzzle against them best I can. “We aren’t in a rush… take all the time you need, and just… listen to my heart.”
I continue to breath in and out, cradling the human and pressing him against me.
I feel his grip loosen and his crying begin to die down.
His breathing slowly begins to match mine, despite a couple of hitches, for which I whisper sweet nothings into his ears to reassure him.
Eventually the trembling dies down, eventually I feel his heartbeat begin to match my own.
“There… isn’t that much better?” I ask gently, my worry somewhat assuaged as they slowly come back to reality.
I lean back slightly, sitting down on Axels lap and looking up at him gently, I lightly lick some of the tear streaks on his cheeks in a grooming manner.
He laughs slightly at the attention before leaning back into the headrest. “Y–Yeah…” his voice catches slightly, and he sniffs when he says that.
I feel my heart swell with joy, and I nuzzle into their neck, my eyes crinkling with love as I look up at my human.
He pointedly looks away, a light flush on his face for the moment of weakness.
“You didn’t have to y’know…” he mutters, and a flash of annoyance sparks through me at that.
“No… but I wanted to Axel… because I love you.” I gently speak, my tone conveying no room for argument.
I see Axel pause for a moment, and open his mouth as if he were to insist, but he wisely decides to take the affection. “Thanks…”
A moment of silence washes over us, with me still hugging Axel tightly as I nuzzle against him and being licking him in a familiar grooming manner, showing my boundless affection for him the best way I can.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I ask, one of my ears leaning to the side in curiosity, as I look into Axels dark green eyes.
He swallows and intently looks at the wall across from the bed, his mouth is set in a thin line as his brows are lightly furrowed.
“I– I couldn’t–.” He stutters for a few moments, before scoffing and giving up, opting to instead bury his face into my neck. “Not really…”
I shake my head at that, accepting that he didn’t want to talk about it, I trust him after all… so if he doesn’t want to talk about it, then we won’t.
“Whenever you’re ready then…” I murmur, focusing instead on grooming my human… well as much as I could groom the rather furless predator…
Though their sweat tastes rather nice…
I hum in happiness as I taste their salty sweat covered skin, slipping my eyes closed and sighing lightly as I lean against my human.
I love the small moments like this, were I can just be myself… where I can relax and just be myself, with no fear of judgement, or being thought of as ‘predatory’.
I love my human.
And though he may not be fully okay, that doesn’t stop my love for him.
That won’t stop me from caring for him like this, for letting him lean on me either…
I only wish my human would let me in more… but I can wait. I can understand why he may be afraid to let me in.
I’m patient, I’ll love him for as long as it takes, for as long as I need.
For him to begin to trust me a bit more… for him to love himself.
“I– Thank you Karska…”Axels gruff voice calls out, with them gently running their hand along the scruff of my neck, which causes my tail to wag in unbridled joy.
“I love you, you bastard.” I say with a light tone, using a term that I picked up from Axel. His eyes widen in surprise before he laughs and laughs.
His head leans back as he laughs in surprise, which causes me to join in, my own laugh much lighter and more whistly in tone.
We laugh for a few moments more, before Axel slowly comes down from his surprise. He smiles genuinely at me, love and care in his eyes.
“I love you too, you damnable sheep.” Their tone is light, and just as joking, before they lightly kiss me on the cheek, which causes my snout to lightly bloom orange.
I feel my tail wave about excitedly, and my eyes lid in content as I lean lovingly against my human.
I slip my eyes closed, falling into that familiar comfort that I awoke to, the warmth, Axels strong arms wrapped around me…
I love this.
I love my human~!
“Anything you want to do today?” Axel asks, I shake my head against his shoulder, pressing my snout deep into the warm skin.
“I just want to cuddle, if it’s fine with you?” I sleepily murmur, cracking an eye open to loving gaze upon him my eyes lightly pleading that he says yes.
He gently chuckles at my antics, before soft petting me, a gentle smile on his face, practically lighting up the room despite how small yet genuine it is.
“Sure.” He says softly, before once more kissing me. I gasp lightly when he gives me one of his love bites, and wack his tail in annoyance.
This is the best.
I wouldn’t trade it for all the stars in the galaxy.
I love my human.
I love so many things about him.
His stubborn nature is one of them… as much as it annoys me at times.
Seeing his mask slip and fall when he’s with me is another.
I love that he trusts me enough to be genuine with me. To be open with me like this.
That he trusts me enough that he instinctually calls for me when he’s sad…
I feel a light smile grace my lips, an attempt to convey to my human just how happy I am.
I am where I belong.
I love my human, my human loves me…
I hope that we can spend the rest of our days like this, experiencing this joy, this love of life, to the end of our days…

Hey, been writing this for a while. Got a dozen chapters at the moment. All of whom are interviews from veterans after a global war between humanity and aliens.
The premise is that after a short conflict/flashpoint between NATO and Russia in the baltics, that region becomes incredibly militarized as both sides pile up army units preparing for an inevitable conflict in the near future. Then you have meteors hitting Lithuania and Latvia. Which turns out were carrying an unknown Alien race which attempted to desperately colonize earth after their home planet was rendered inhabitable.
This is but one of the chapters. Fyi when they refer to crabs, they are talking about the alien cannon fodder units, 1 to 3m tall bipedal beings that have the face of crustaceans.
Feel free to give me any criticism you'd like. This is just a taste of what I'm working, if people are interested I will share more.

November 2034, Gdansk. European Federation

Pzschemek courteously welcomes me into his apartment, gently balancing his half-asleep young boy in one arm as he opens the door. The 34th floor of this public housing tower was completed just a year ago. As a combat veteran, the governement paid half of the price on the already affordable apartment. Since the official end of hostilities and the remarkable population surge, these towering structures, inspired by their Asian counterpart, have sprouted in nearly every remaining major city across the continent. Having seen combat from the start all the way to the end, I was referred to him by the head of the Polish Army Land Forces who was his battalion commander during the start of the war.
I'm offered a seat on the living room sofa, amidst scattered toys and clothes strewn about. He settles across from me, his son peacefully asleep in his arms, after preparing coffee for us.
A veteran of the war, he had seen combat all across Poland as a tank commander.

"When I began my training, we operated with the PT-91, an upgraded Soviet-designed T-72—sturdy, but we viewed them as deathtraps. Just imagine our optimism when my battalion received our first Leopards 2a7. Transitioning from a 1980s Soviet tank to modern german, American and ever Korean tanks—before the war in Ukraine, even entertaining such a notion aloud would have warranted a psychological evaluation. After a year or so. I knew that thing inside and out. It had short comings but it was a beauty.

He points to a frame on the wall—a cutout of a newspaper front page. It depicts him and his other crew members atop their tank ‘Sokoly’ written on its cannon, with a destroyed tripod lying on the floor behind them, the backdrop a sight of a ravaged city. With the title; “Our boys took Vilnius!"
"We made the front page of Gazeta Wyborcza with that picture. Our company commander sent it in. My parents hadn't heard from me in weeks, and one day, he recognized me on the front page at a news stand."
His face lights up with a warm smile.
"We hit the road five hours after the first landings. My vehicle was still getting fueled when I drove into our base, rushing to the briefing room in my jeans and rain jacket. I was expecting orders to be to rush to the Belarusian border or help out our guys in Lithuania to fend of the russians. Instead, our company commander starts talking about visitors from another world, how the info keeps pouring in every minute, but everything's still up in the air. We didn’t believe him until we saw the footage of the meteor landings, or air force footage from the airstrikes on beings we didn’t even know could exist. That one footage from that tank station, those crabs walking in and shooting all those civilians really set us off. That segment where one crab ripped out the arm of a dead man to make sure he was dead must have filled us with hate. Even do we didn’t know who or what they were. We didn’t ask too many questions. You’d expect us to yell out stuff in the likes of “Have we tried to make contact with them? What is the United Nations saying? From what planet are they?” but the only questions that could be heard was “Did the 2-5 tank get its tracks fixed? How much water should we take? Do we get our shells here or the TAA?”
“We were scared don’t get me wrong but I’m still proud of my boys, Its been a while but we still have contact with each other. Last summer I was the best man at my loader’s wedding.”
After laying down his boy, who had just woken up, he watches as the little one instantly grabs a toy police car and starts playing with it. Pzshemek gazes at his son, lost in thought, as he happily engages with his toy.

"We spent five hours on the road, with our tanks hitched onto trucks. When we finally reached our deployment area, chaos was everywhere. The roads were packed with cars from the north—Polish, Lithuanian, even Russian and Belarussian plates. People crammed into buses, I even saw a truck with an empty container but packed with civilians inside. On one van, boys sat on top, like scenes from trains in India. It's a miracle we only arrived an hour late. In Suwalki, we turned an Ikea parking lot into a makeshift FOB. Half of it was filled with troops fresh back from Lithuania and the border. Fresh might not be the right word. They were ravaged, they sat in silences. Nearly all with bandages or injuries of some sorts. The heavily wounded were being treated in tents and civilian ambulances. The dead layed in rows and rows of bodybags. They had commandeered one of or trench building vehicles to dig a mass grave for them. Helicopters landed, unloaded countless men and they loaded the helis to the brim with the injured. Tents and tents of make shift hospitals. More and more troops arrived. They looked like they’ve been to hell. I remember at one time my gaze met one of the men. I was looking around until I saw him looking at me. He was sitting on a stretcher being treated by a paramedic, his chest and arms were burned black. He was staring at me. I don’t know if it was the morphine or the shock, his gaze wouldn’t leave me. Fighter jets kept buzzing us. On our way to bomb targets and to slow the advance of the crabs down as much as they could. I was confident on our way there but the sight of all those defeated man made me want to empty my guts. We got called to a tent to get a briefing on the situation. There was a white board with grainy pictures of what we could expect. Even drawings. It was the Polish military attaché to Lithuania himself who gave the briefing to us. He looked like he had been to hell. I learned later he had to be restrained with the help of punches and shoved into the last helicopter out of Vilnius by his men.”
“What did he discuss?”
"We're in the dark, and we're counting on you to keep us informed as you hold the line. My English doesn't do it justice, but that was the last thing he said before we set out. We knew more different type of enemy assets would emerge as they settled in. Turns out, our drones spotted them digging into the meteors they landed in. As we left the FOB, they were loading everything onto anything with a motor and wheels. They didn't anticipate us holding our ground. Now, that's what I call motivation.”
Our chat got interrupted when Pszemek's wife walking into the apartment, decked out in nurse scrubs and juggling grocery bags. Pszemek jumped up to help her out, and they headed to the hallway, chatting away in Polish. Before she disappeared into the dimly lit bedroom, they stole a quick kiss.
“She has the night shift.” He said coldly as he put away the groceries. “We got on our tanks, our entire company made it and we were lined up platoon by platoon.
I closed the hatch, sat down, put my helmet on. My loader who also was my assistant of sorts. Installed the radios, helped copy the maps our lieutenant got, made coffee or passed drinks. He gave me a thumbs up, it was our signal and it meant we had radio communications with everyone that mattered. I pressed the push to talk of my microphone. “Everyone in position? Sound off!” I tried to say firmly and calmly. I knew back then it wasn’t the time to show any fear to my boys.
“Driver ready!” One voice yelled loudly. “Gunner ready!” followed by “Loader ready!” we set off right after that
At Suwalki we had to hold the highway entering the city from the north. Nothing particular, just fields and roads. We would have excelled there if we faced anything other than that. As dawn broke. The air strikes and artillery lured closer and closer. Along with our reconnaissance elements on the radio notifying us every time they got one kilometer closer. We could just sit there, it took us five minutes to mark and call out points of interests in that field so that we could communicate quickly during the battle and then we counted down the kilometers between us and them. Some men smoked, wrote letters. My gunner, a young guy he must have been 19 back then. He opened the hatch suddenly to vomit outside. Our nerves were all over the place. We nearly shot our recon troops as they speeded through our lines. They rushed through us and took cover behind us. They had done their job warning us and coordinating airstrikes. I told my boys it was our moment to shine. That whatever may walk,run,crawl over the border that we were the Polish anvil set on stopping them. We sat at two kilometers from the first woodline. We had infantry in the woods to our west and east. We had the open fields. We had to stop them or win time for the folks in Suwalki. But this wasn’t Lithuania, Latvia or Estonia. This was Poland. We wouldn’t give them an inch. We all grew up listening to our grandparents talking about what the Nazis and Soviets did to them and to our country.
At first, it was lone crabs on that wood line. They moved from tree to tree. We could see their silhouettes on the thermal sights. As more of those crab joined them we didn’t bother to shoot. We called in the mortar platoon to take care of them. Even after the mortars landed and took care of the first ones, their numbers grew. Then when there mobs of them we called in the 155mm artillery. It turned that forest. We felt the shockwaves as it blasted them. Trees were shredded and their pieces sent hundreds of meter away. Then we heard the first rumble of the beetles. I still have no idea why they didn’t appear on my thermals with all the heat they were carrying inside. If it wasn’t for the dawn and the reflection of the moonlight I might not have seen it until it was on top of me. Those things were as big as an apartment block. I still can't wrap my head around how those beasts survived a journey across galaxies. Must be why they were so darn hard to kill. We had no idea how they fought, how fast they could move. We called them beetles because it was the only thing earth like we could remotely compare them to in shape. I felt my heart race when I switched to normal sight and saw one of them move. I was looking right at it yet it appeared black as the solid on my thermal heat sight. There must have been six of them pushing that field alone. Against twelve of our tanks and three platoon’s worth of infantrymen and IFVs, you'd think we could've held them. But when they carpet-bombed us with fire, everyone lost it. Those beasts opened their mouth as their throat expanded, the fire inside of that could hurt to look at if you watched it with the naked eye. We didn’t know what to expect, but them spitting magma on us wasn’t on our bingo list so to say. Sure, they were two hundred meters short, but everyone outside of tanks must've felt the heat. They fired what could only be described as ropes of magma all in unison. The infantry platoon beside us, even the most ‘gung ho’ grunts who had had time to dig trenches, said ‘fuck that’ did a 180 and sprinted back a few hundred meters. Our platoon commander was swearing up a storm on the radio, trying to get their commander to get his men in order. Can't blame them. We opened fire right after their attempt to cremate us. I told my gunner to aim for the head and fire. Even with the shock of the 122mm armor-piercing shell hitting it, the thing just staggered and kept moving. Even in the tank, with all that armor and my ear protection, I could still hear my colleagues unloading on them. Again and again I ordered my gunner to go for the head. I still don’t know how they survived the kinetic shock alone of a shell like that hitting them. Later on in the war we learned that it gave them those weird types of concussions that made them act all weird, made them even attack their own side and such. But at the time, you can imagine me sitting there looking at them eating a tank shell like it was nothing. One shell hit its upper back. We saw the shell ricochet of its back and fly god knows where in the horizon behind it. My loader was grabbing shells and loading them in the breech at a rythm he could have gotten a medal for that alone. They were getting closer. The beetles and the crabs moving in with them. They spit fire again in unison. This time they were right on the mark. I heard the commander of the tank on my left yell in the radio as his tank ate hot magma. They were safe for now on the inside but the panic it instilled, there was nothing like it. Keep in mind, we still had 155mm artillery landing, it didn’t seem to be bothered by it even do the crabs next to those things were turned into moshed potatoes by the shrapnel and shock blast.
Pszemek got up suddenly to move his kid away from the kitchen as he tried to grab a hold of the hot coffee pot.
“little devil” he said silently.
“When I realized we couldn’t pierce it from the front I ordered by gunner to go for its knee caps. He didn’t hesitate and put its sight on it. The beetle was moving slowly enough for him to aim. My loader, exhausted from carrying shell after shell yelled out “GOTOWY” with a blood curling yell right before my gunner pulled the trigger on the joystick. The ignition on the shell shook the tank as it always did. It’s like a giant punch that makes the whole vehicle jolt backward violently. You can feel the force ripple through the tank, and everything inside shakes for a moment before it steadies again thanks to the suspension. The shell hit it right on the mark. The beast lost its footing. It crashed face-down, crushing a few crabs beneath it who were taking cover under it. It took a few moments for the creature to rise on another leg. Sharp as a fox, my gunner aimed for the first leg on the opposite side and fired another armor piercing shell through the meaty split between its strong carapace. The devil was down. With its front legs disabled, it had no balance. Instinctively, I grabbed the radio. The radio was buzzing with "NO EFFECT ON THE TARGET" and "LIEUTENANT, LET'S GET OUTTA HERE, FOR GOD'S SAKE." I shouted at my colleagues to aim for the kneecaps to slow them down. It got everyone to shut up and focus at the task at hand.



One by one, the beetles crashed in the mud. Don’t get me wrong, they kept shooting their magma at us. My tank got some aswell. It cooked our thermal sights and lazer warning receivers instantly. But since our engine was spared we just had to reverse back twenty meters and we were alright. We were speeding at 30km/h in reverse, I was praying there wouldn’t be a confused 20 year old infantry man end up under our tracks. The beetles were everything but precise. They even hit their own crabs as they desperately spat fire. The amount of which was drastically lower than earlier, their fuel tank just like ours were running low. One brave bastard on the radio yelled out for us to wait for it to fire and then hit it right in the mouth. That’s literally a tactic out of a video game. We did as he told. My gunner was with his sight right on what can be described as its mouth. His knee shaked in anticipation of the shot. I was looking at the gunner sight through my screen. As it opened its mouth, I didn’t even have time to yell “FIRE” that my gunner had already unleashed a high explosive shell down that thing’s throat.”
Pszemek looked at his boy with a warm smile as he thought back at one of the few good events of that fateful night.
“The devil exploded, the flash was so bright it lit up the interior of our tank through the periscopes. For a second I could see the exhausted look on my loader sweaty face. The fire gulf must have taken out god knows how many of the crabs taking shelter near it. My entire platoon followed suit and before long the entire field lit up with the explosions of those devils. I heard later from the folks in Suwalki that they saw the flashes of light all the way back there. One by one we took them out like that.
With the beetles out of the picture, we made quick work of the crabs. They were only five hundred meters away, close enough to start firing. Against our tanks, they didn’t stand a chance. The infantry was less fortunate. I saw one of them fire one of their shoulder mounted cannon, hit an IFV on its side and afterwards I saw the crew throwing themselves out of their vehicle as they burned alive. We took out three-quarters of them before they scrambled back across the field the way they came. Then we picked them off as they ran. Our coaxial gun was working overtime, we barely could keep up reloading that machine gun. I was praying it would’nt jam or overheat. With the last one down and our lieutenant on the radio, praising our performance, I unlocked my hatch, swung it open, and peeked outside. There were still patches of molten magma here and there, and the whole field reeked of sulfur and gunpowder. People were treating the wounded, some men cried, some men were laughing hysterically. Most of them were quiet. I lit up a cigarette, wiping the sweat off my face with a towel. The loader tossed me a can of Monster from our makeshift fridge. I gave him props for his work before he collapsed from exhaustion.

We could have stayed there, all of us would have been happy dying in that field if it meant we slowed their advance into our country. Turns out high command had other plans for us. We held but the units on our flanks were about to break. They had already plans for if ww3 popped off. They already know which unit would be desimated and which would have been spared if the Russians had decided to attack. The worst case scenario had a defensive line from Gdansk through Olsztyn all the way to Bialystok. We had the momentum as we cowardly fled back to Augustow. Stopping time and time again to give time for refugees to flee south. We were glad the Russians in Kaliningrad took a beating. They estimated they held ¾ of the crabs in the southern front. Every fight was harder than the last. We had less and less ammo. Jets were flying less and less. Especially when the crabs found a way to shoot them off the sky.
We felt like cowards every time. Sure we got allot of civilians safe, but even then we felt like we failed despite how many Crabs, Tripods or beetles we stopped.

If there was a word to describe Shaw, it was anxious. Even since he was a lad, he’d been plagued by a paranoia that bordered on illness. He saw shadows where others saw light and whispers where others heard silence. This constant state of vigilance made him a difficult man to know and an even harder man to befriend. His mind was always racing, always strategizing, always expecting the worst. It was both his curse and his salvation.
Shaw's upbringing did little to quell these instincts. Born into bondage, he learned early on that trust was a luxury he couldn't afford. Every friendly gesture was scrutinized, every helping hand inspected for hidden daggers. While isolated, this mindset honed his instincts to a razor's edge and imbued him with a rare resilience among his peers.
Even now, he could feel the whispers and jeering of his men. Even though every face was engrossed in their work to get this convoy moving, Shaw could see the mocking gazes. However, whenever he focused in on an individual, they’d always pretend they’d done nothing but work.
“LIAR!” Shaw barked at one young knight who had walked passed him with the reins of a war horse in one hand and those of a worg in another. “Ye think me a fool not to see Yer mutterings! Ye mock me just like that Wyvern whore!” He nearly screeched, approaching the young man with an aggressive and accusing finger pointed.
The young knight flinched away violently from the sudden verbal attack as spittle flew in his face. The horse, startled by the sudden commotion, neighed and dangerously spun around, its hooves threatening to kick. In a frantic effort to get the beast under control, the young knight scrambled, trying to calm the agitated animal while also defending himself against the barrage of accusations.
"I didn't say a word, Capt'n!" he protested with a voice laced with panic. "I'm just fetching the mount like I was told." Complete confusion clouded the young knight's face as he looked around, trying to gauge if others had witnessed the outburst and could offer some explanation for Shaw's sudden fury.
But there was no solace to be found in the faces of his comrades. The men and women of Shaw's command were well accustomed to his paranoia and accusations. They had learned to keep their heads down and continue their work, even when the knight captain laid into them.
A lesson this poor soul had yet to learn.
The incident with the young knight was a spark in a tinderbox. Shaw's anxieties, fueled by the humiliating encounter with Eira and the lingering sting of failure, now burned out of control. Every shadow seemed to contain a conspiracy, every glance held hidden contempt. His frantic walk towards Lord Harmswid's tent was marked by further incidents. Warriors, mages, and laborers alike scattered before him, startled by the wild look in his eyes and the incoherent accusations he flung about frivolously.
Lost in a mental storm, Shaw was oblivious to the fact he was delaying the departure of the convoy with each one of his episodes, and he couldn’t help but curse the incompetents Harmswid stuck him with. With the count now on his mind, the Knight Captain couldn’t help but tighten his grip in frustration. Harmswid was the one who had elevated him to a position of power.
The count had given him a chance when others had scorned his low birth as a son of a slave. He owed the nobleman everything. But in Shaw's twisted perception, Harmswid was not a savior but an architect of his misfortune.
"Harmswid!" The knight captain snarled, his gaze darting around the tent as if seeking out hidden enemies. "Ye deserved everything ye got!! Ye knew about those monsters, and ye sent me to my death!" he continued to have an internal meltdown as he came to a stop in front of the count's personal tent.
"She knew..." Shaw muttered, his voice a strangled whisper. "She knew this would happen… she knew they'd be there… that damned beast… That damned whore probably lead them here…!” Shaw clenched his jaw tightly as he started pacing back and forth in front of the count’s tent. “That… That BACKSTABBER knew it from the beginning and took advantage of the fact I have nothing but these PATHETIC and INCOMPETENT lemmings..." His hand clenched into a fist, fingernails biting into his thumb so hard that blood started to flow.
Hyperventilating, Shaw’s vision fixated on the flaps of the tent. He knew all manners of luxurious treasures he couldn’t even fathom were behind those two simple pieces of cloth… All the decadent joys he was denied access to just because of his low birth. The knight captain stepped forward and reached out to push them apart… All he had to do was step inside and take what was rightfully his… but a voice called out before his hand could reach the entrance.
“M-my lord?”
Shaw snapped around, and half drew his sword, ready to strike down anyone foolish enough to sneak up on him. However, his hand stayed as his eyes settled on a terrified, portly woman who seemed to be cowering, hoping that her head would remain attached to her shoulders. “ I-I apoplogize M-My Lord!! T-The convoy is r-ready to depart…!” She stuttered, flinching back and looking back at the knights standing a ways away for help. But instead of rushing to her aid, the men simply motioned encouragingly for her to continue. “T-They said we’re –”
“Be silent, woman!” Shaw shouted, causing the woman to recoil as if struck. Her eyes widened in terror, and for a long moment, Shaw simply glared at her before turning his furious gaze toward the knights standing in the distance. The silence hung heavy in the air, broken only by the muted sounds of the camp preparing for departure.
Sheathing his sword with an angry clang, the knight captain let out a frustrated breath. "Pathetic whelps..." he spat with a voice full of venom "Too afraid to fight their own battles...and they call me a coward."
He then turned his back on the woman, dismissing her as a mere annoyance. "Tell them to start, I have my own tasks!" He barked before pausing at the entrance to the tent. "I'll catch up with the rear if... they've managed to put some distance between themselves and me!" He said with a parting sneer just before he swept into Harmswid's tent.
Once inside the luxurious space, Shaw gaze took in a hellish scene. He had expected pure savagery with blood and gore all over the place, but he had to admit what he found scared him more. Everything was as pristine and perfect as when he was last in here except for the headless corpse of the count sitting at his magnifcent desk along with his dismembered bodyguards behind him. Whoever that damned Dark Elf had brought to attack the count didn’t even give them time to blink and cut them down with such clinical precision as speed, Shaw considered they didn’t even fully realize they were being attacked.
The interior of Lord Harmswid's tent was an assault on the senses. Accustomed to the austerity of campaign life, even Shaw found the lavishness bordering on obscene. Rich tapestries hung on the walls, depicting scenes of mythical hunts and fantastical beasts. A bed of cushions and exotic furs was piled in the center on top of plush carpets that would likely fetch a small fortune in any kingdom. A gilded brazier burned with sweet-smelling incense, masking the lingering scent of blood left by the recent attack.
But the centerpiece of this excessive display was Harmswid's desk. A monstrous thing crafted from dark ebony and inlaid with intricate silver designs, it was there that the count conducted his affairs. And it was there he met his end.
A labored breath left the knight captain's mouth as he meandered over to the pile of cushions and furs that he realized the count used as a bed and flopped lazily on it. The plush softness swallowed Shaw whole, a stark contrast to the straw-filled pallets and worn linens that were his usual sleeping accommodations. He closed his eyes, letting out another sigh that sounded content. His troubles seemed to recede in this decadent haven for just a moment.
"How long..." he mused aloud, his voice barely a whisper. How long had he endured the gnawing hunger, the harsh elements, the constant sting of disrespect? How long had his toil, sweat, and blood lined Harmswid's coffers and fueled the count's ambitions?
The answers were a leaden weight upon his soul. For over a decade, possibly multiple decades, he had been nothing but a tool, a beast of burden for a man consumed by greed and indifferent to the plight of anyone but his coffers. He had endured it all with stoic obedience, believing that loyalty and hard work would be their own reward.
But now, lying in a headless count's bed, surrounded by stolen riches, Shaw's perspective was shifting. A lifetime of servitude felt like a cruel joke, a mockery of the dreams he'd once held as a boy. The dreams of honor, of a life worth living... dreams Harmswid and his kind carelessly trampled underfoot.
The warmth of the furs seeped into Shaw's weary bones, a delicious lethargy settling over him. As he sank deeper into the cushions, he closed his eyes and made a silent vow: never again would he sweat and strain for another silver-spooned fop. He had played the loyal dog for long enough, and hid reward was always blood and nightmares.
But now… Now he had a dead man's riches.
Now he was done with servitude. He would complete this one final task, this errand for the 'Duchess', and then...then he would disappear. Vanish into the anonymity of the wider world and start anew.
His thoughts turned to the multitude of possibilities. Perhaps he could turn his hand to banditry. With his experience and a few like-minded men, he could strike at supply caravans, prey on those very merchants and nobles who had grown fat on the labor of the common folk. A dark smile played on his lips. There was a certain poetic justice to the idea.
Or maybe, with the gold he was about to liberate, he could assemble a mercenary company. He knew war, and there was always war to be fought somewhere for the right price. He was never one for righteousness or justice. He was more of a… convenience and practicality kind of man… and with enough coin, he might even earn a reputation and perhaps become someone to be reckoned with.
He glanced around the tent, spotting goblets and locked cabinets. There was more to be had here, a fortune that could well and truly set him on his path. But first… he’d like to take a quick rest. Just five minutes of blissful oblivion before he tackled the practical matters of his escape.
With a sigh that was half exhaustion and half contentment, Shaw closed his eyes. His chaotic mind began to drift, and the cares of the day seemed to dissolve in the soft warmth… However, Sleep came for Shaw like a thief in the night. The soft embrace of the furs had been a trap. He had meant only to rest his eyes for a mere moment and gather his thoughts, but instead, he was plunged into a deep, dreamless slumber.
Shaw threw himself forward as he woke up with a start. He found himself disoriented as he peered around, trying to make sense of his surroundings, and flailed forward as if the plush piles of fur stung. How long had he slept? Had the camp already left?
Panic flared within the knight captain as he rose to his feet. “Curse it all!” A scream left the man’s mouth as he burst from the tent like a bat out of hell. With a thumping heart, Shaw’s head snapped from side to side, scanning the scene before him. And what he saw made his blood run cold.
The encampment was gone. The tents, the wagons, the milling soldiers and servants – all vanished. Only the churned-up earth and trampled grass remained as evidence of the recent whirlwind of activity.
A wave of despair threatened to overwhelm Shaw. Had he slept for Half an hour? An hour? Half a day? How could he have been so foolish, so carelessly indulgent? For a moment, he stood rooted to the spot, his mind a whirlwind of paranoid thoughts and fear, until a somewhat familiar voice spoke up.
“Capt’n?”
The voice cut through Shaw's despair like a knife. He whirled around, his hand going instinctively to the empty space where his sword should have been. For a heart-stopping moment, he feared it was some ambush, some cruel trick of fate.
But when his eyes focused, he saw the young knight, the one he'd berated so harshly earlier. The lad sat nervously atop a war worg, the creature was a strange blend of a wolf with a hyena-like head. Easily reaching the size of a beast of a horse, it wore a muscular build, and its fur was a mottled gray and brown while its long, thick tail trailed behind it, occasionally smacking the ground with a powerful swat.
Despite its fearsome appearance, the young knight seemed to handle the creature with ease. He sat confidently in the saddle, his hand rubbing the side of the warg's thick neck. The beast itself seemed more curious than anything else, its gaze fixed on Shaw with an intelligent glint in its red eyes.
Most importantly, the reins to another warg were nestled within the lad's other hand. Taking a cautious step forward, the young man extended his free hand, the reins of the spare warg dangling harmlessly. "S-sir..." he started, his voice strained with trepidation. "The Lieutenant thought you m-might need... a steed..." He swallowed hard, “And… well, the camp had traveled quite a ways by now…”
His words seemed to hang awkwardly in the air. Shaw glowered at him, his gaze shifting to the monstrosity at his side, then back again. The young knight braced himself instinctively, expecting another outburst.
However, Shaw remained silent, albeit for an uncomfortably long moment. The air filled with the unspoken tension of their last encounter as the knight captain glared at the young man. Inside, Shaw was warring with himself. "What's yer name, boy?" He spoke with a less accusatory and more resigned tone as he approached and took the reigns of the free worg.
The young knight blinked, startled out of his fearful hunch. While still gruff, Shaw's change in demeanor caught him off guard. He'd half-expected another paranoid tirade accusing him of insubordination or mockery. Instead, he was being addressed, if not with respect, at least with something resembling acknowledgment.
"Hugh, sir." He straightened slightly in the saddle, his voice gaining a touch more confidence. "Hugh of Arling,"
Shaw grunted, a hint of a skeptical smile playing about his lips. "Of Arling, eh? Sounds fancy." He paused as if considering something, then nodded. "Well, Hugh of Arling, you’ve done right by me. But you’re still a bushy-eyed and insufferable shit."
Hugh’s eye twitched at the insult. He opened his mouth to protest, to ask for some justification behind such a harsh label, but a wiser instinct held his tongue. Arguing with the knight captain, while slightly less volatile at the moment, was a surefire way to end up back on the receiving end of his temper.
Before Hugh could respond, Shaw had turned his attention back to the warg beside him. He ran a hand over its coarse fur, studying the creature with a critical eye.
"Never liked these damned beasts," he muttered, his frown deepening. "Sooner to bite yer head off than carry ye reliably."
With a sigh, Shaw moved around his mount and saw two saddlebags and a visibly empty wooden framed burlap sack attached snuggly to the creature's rear. A flash of realization crossed Shaw's face as a cunning glint entered his eyes. "Stay here, boy!" the knight captain barked as newfound energy filled his voice. "Keep the worg steady!"
Before Hugh could fully process the order, Shaw was already darting back into the tent with the empty saddlebags and framed burlap sack in hand. Hugh stared, open-mouthed, as a cacophony of sounds erupted from within. Items clattered against the ground, muffled curses echoed out, and a bout of manic laughter sent shivers down Hugh's spine.
For his life, Hugh couldn’t understand what the captain was doing in the name of all that was holy. This was the Count's tent… was he doing what he thought he was doing? Questions swirled in Hugh's mind, and his worry grew with each passing moment. If he was… then if Wyvern Commander Eira ever found out… Gods, he would be complicit just for standing here, and there would be no saving them from a fiery end if they weren’t fed outright to that beast.
Minutes stretched into eternity. Hugh shifted nervously in his saddle. The worg beneath him whined, sensing his anxiety, and the young knight ran a soothing hand over its coarse fur, trying to calm both the beast and himself.
Just when his nerves were about to fray completely, Shaw burst forth from the tent, his arms laden with the saddlebags and the burlap sack, now bulging at the seams with a mysterious load.
A manic smile crossed the knight captain's face. "Hugh!" Shaw shouted, his voice hoarse with excitement. "Help me remount this, will you? We need to make haste!"
Completely bewildered, Hugh couldn’t help but blink, "Sir, I... I don't understand... what..." He stammered.
"No time for questions, boy!" Shaw snapped, his impatience clear. He shoved the saddlebags into Hugh's hands. "Just do as you're told!”
Hugh held his tongue, swallowing back the torrent of questions swirling in his mind. The captain's erratic behavior, the manic glint in his eyes... there was no point in arguing. All he could do was follow orders, hold his tongue and hope word doesn’t make it to Commander Eira.
It didn’t take long for the two to secure the saddlebags nad make their out of the camp. Their beasts snorted and dug their claws into the ground, tearing down the eastern road at a breakneck pace. Each jarring step causes metallic clinks to echo through the air and shimmers of light to leak out of the bulging bags. Riding close behind the captain, Hugh caught a glimpse of the source – golden goblets and other wares spilling out from a tear, their brilliance amplified by a faint, otherworldly glow.
There was no mistaking it; Shaw had robbed the long-expired count’s tent, an act of greed and treason that could bring the wrath of the realm down upon them. Especially when he saw the bulging framed burlap sack secured just behind Shaw. It shifted precariously, threatening to spill its contents at any moment. Within its depths, something protruded – a dark, ovoid shape, smooth and almost obsidian in its blackness. Hugh squinted, hoping and praying to every god in every pantheon that it was not what he thought it was, or else Eira would forsake the Empire to hunt them down.
The two rode hard as the sun dipped below the horizon, painting the sky with streaks of gold and crimson. The worgs powerful strides ate up the miles until they soon saw the faint outlines of carriages, horses, and other war beasts, and relief washed over Shaw like a cool balm.
"Hail!" Shaw boomed, raising an arm in greeting as two grizzled riders approached from the rear of the convoy. Mounted on war horses, they cut a less terrifying figure than his worg, but their armor gleamed with hard-won practicality.
The guards stiffened upon seeing him, eyes widening in surprise. "Captain Shaw?" one of them exclaimed. "We thought you’d be at the head of the caravan!”
A mask of nonchalance settled over Shaw’s features. "I was… delayed.” He replied in a casual voice. "But all's well now."
"Well, sir, it's good to see you–" the other guard started, but Shaw cut him off with a raised hand.
"And while ye lot left me," he growled scornfully before gesturing towards Hugh, "Hugh of Arling showed spirit and loyalty by remaining with a spare mount." Shaw begrudgingly spoke approval of the young man.
His men remained silent and cringed under their knight captain's glare. After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, Shaw threw himself off his mount and moved to unbuckle the luggage to the rear of his work. "Now…" he said, lifting up the framed sack gently and bringing it to the rearmost carriage, "what's the news? Any trouble on the road?"
Shaw carefully nestled the burlap sack between furs, extra weapons, and what appeared to be the cart driver's meager personal effects. There, hidden amongst the mundane, its sinister contents would hopefully remain undiscovered. Satisfied that his most dangerous cargo was secured, he returned to his worg, where the saddlebags bulged with their promise of stolen riches.
“A few highwaymen were foolish enough to think us a merchant caravan, Captain," one of the guards answered, his voice weary. "There were a few small bands of highwaymen, nothing the vanguard couldn't handle. Too bold for their own good."
"Morale?" Shaw pressed. This was the key, the weakness he could exploit.
"The lesser mages are spent," the other guard replied. "The lack of sleep is starting to get to people. And with the fate of the count…" he trailed off, his face clouding over with uncertainty.
Shaw nodded. The count's death had undoubtedly shaken them. Loyalty was a fickle thing and only reliable when reinforced by wealth and authority. Both were now in question. “Provide them with extra rations and wine–”
Just as he ordered, a deafening explosion kicked up earth and debris further ahead of Shaw. Even from a distance, the shockwave shook Shaw’s very bone. Dust filled the air, mingling with panicked shouts and the maddened cries of beasts.
His first instinct was to glance upwards, searching the twilight for the telltale silhouettes of wyverns. But the sky above remained clear. “Eira ain’t attackin’ us… Then who!?”. Shaw’s eyes darted across the caravan, trying to pinpoint the source of the attack.
More blasts erupted, tearing through the heart of the convoy, but this time, the explosions were followed by strange sounds… An unending series of echoing cracks and snaps in a staccato rhythm, like a thousand angry hornets beating their wings in unison.

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We killed Joseph Glass for the first time on August 18th, 1999.
I knew he was a strange case since day one. Never seen a guy so happy to die before. It was like we were doing him a favor. He refused the automatic appeal. He refused to be seen by a chaplain. He just wanted it over with. It had only taken a little over a year, and it was already time for him to make his appointment with God.
He freaked me out, just passing by his cell. He was like our very own Hannibal Lector, the way he just stood there in the back of his cell like he’d been waiting for you. The lights always burned out in any cell he was in, and maintenance had gotten tired of fixing them. Not that he seemed to mind in the slightest. The darkness seemed to swallow his top half, and all I could see were the whites of his beady little eyes poking out of all that black.
Billy drummed his baton against the bars. “Up and at ‘em, cowpoke,” he called in that mocking tone. “Time finally come for you to pay what you owe, you sick son of a—”
“Billy.” Warden Taft silenced him with a word. “If you can’t act like a professional, you’re going to have to sit this one out.”
Billy paused… and licked his chapped lips. “Naw,” he muttered. “This a show I can’t miss.”
Glass seemed to tick Billy off more than any prisoner before him. He liked ‘em to at least pretend to feel sorry for what they’ve done, or act scared of what’s coming to ‘em. This one didn’t even have the common decency to shed a tear. He was as stone-faced as a statue, even while being marched to the chair. Billy liked to joke sometimes that we ought to take the guy out back with some car batteries and really put the fear of God into him, get him to cut out that stoic act. I think he was only half-joking.
After what this guy did to those girls… well, Billy has a daughter, so I guess it struck a chord.
We all watched him fry. The warden, his closest men. The thin-faced man representing the Commissioner of Corrections. The prison physician. The families of those poor girls. It couldn’t have gone more by the book. Only oddity I’d noticed at the time was that the stench of death never quite left the clothes I’d worn that day.
And then the next morning, we came into work to see the whites of those beady little eyes staring at us from the darkness again. “Good morning, sirs,” he said, just as he did every morning, in that airy, hoarse little voice.
I’ll admit it. I dropped everything I was carrying, stumbled back, stammered like a confused child. Hell, I almost screamed. “You… you’re not… y-you’re supposed to be…”
“I don’t know what you mean, sir.” He leaned in like he was trying to stare a hole through my chest. His tone almost sounded disappointed. “You never came for me. You promised me that yesterday would be the end, sir, but you never came. I waited all night long. Why did you lie to me?”
Me and Taft looked at eachother. We both had the exact same question on our minds. If Glass was still alive… who the hell did we roll into the morgue last night?
“Jesus Christ.” Taft gagged when he pulled back the cadaver cover, stumbling away. “It’s Billy.”
I looked. I know I shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t help it. And I’ll be forever haunted by the sight of my friend lying there on his back, mouth agape and cloudy eyes staring into the ceiling, open wide as if he’d spent his last moments in a state of terror.
The public never found out what happened. The cover up story was that poor Billy had been taken by cardiac arrest. Internally? It was the scandal to end all scandals. Worst case of incompetence and negligence in history, they called it. They brought the hammer down on anyone even tangentially involved. Me and Taft were out on our ears, and they would’ve prosecuted us too, but that would’ve required admitting it ever happened.
But I just could never wrap my head around it. Of those dozens of witnesses, not a single person noticed we were strapping a guard to the chair, not an inmate? It was impossible to the point of absurdity. Glass had been the man in that chair. I’d never been more certain of anything in my life.
Some months later, I noticed power flickering off all over the city one evening. It was brief, so I thought nothing of it. At least until I got a call from a familiar number the very next morning. “I understand you were one of the staff who regularly worked with one Joseph Glass. We would like to consult with you about an… evolving situation.”
“Oh?”
“At 7 PM yesterday, we attempted the execution of Joseph Glass for the second time.” There was a long pause, and when the voice returned, the professionalism had melted away, replaced with a baffled anxiety. “And, well… it, uh, it didn’t… it didn’t work.”
I blinked. “It didn’t… what?”
There came a long sigh. “Perhaps… it’d be best if you saw for yourself.”
And just like that, me and Taft had our jobs back.
Officially, Joseph Glass had been successfully executed on August 18th, 1999. Unofficially, they’d tried again six months later, just to tie up loose ends. This time, he hadn’t even had the courtesy to pretend to die. He just sat there on the chair, motionless and unaffected, while the CO who’d flipped the switch suddenly seized up and began to convulse, screaming and gnashing and wailing as electricity seared him beneath his skin, clawing at his chest until his eyes popped in his skull and rolled down his face like melted candle wax. All around him, lights flickering, machines bursting from pressure, electrical panels vomiting arcs of static. It was a mess.
The feds were crawling all over this case now, from a department I’ve never heard of. Something about investigating ‘preternatural activity’. They told me Glass was refusing to speak with anybody but the CO’s who’d once cared for him. Being walked into that interrogation room almost made me feel like I, myself, was a convict being marched to his execution.
Glass was staring at me when I walked in, like he’d been sat there, motionless, waiting for me. I expected nothing less. I took a shuddering breath as I sat across from him. I’d sat across from serial killers and psychos before and showed no hint of fear. But how could I not, now, sitting across from a man who can kill people without touching them? “Glass.”
“Officer Mendez.” His tone betrayed no emotion. “I had thought you’d abandoned me.”
I winced. “No. No, Glass, I’d just been… temporarily relieved. It’s… good to see you again. Would you like a glass of water?” I offered it to him. He didn’t even look at it. His eyes just bored into mine, relentless. “I… I’m here to ask you a few questions.”
Silence.
“Okay. Um… Glass, I need to know… how you killed Billy and Cramer.”
“I didn’t,” he replied. “It did.”
“It?”
“The thing standing behind you.”
I didn’t bother to turn around. I had enough experience with prisoners trying to trick me into looking the other way while they pulled off some half-baked escape plan. “Glass, please, let’s take this seriously,” I replied. “I’ve always treated you with respect, haven’t I? You’ve never had any problems with me.”
“Actually, I do. I have a problem with all of you.”
“Oh?”
“You here all believe that… death is a punishment.” There was the first hint of emotion I’d ever heard in his voice. “It’s not. It’s freedom — the only freedom. You promised me that gift. You promised me you’d let me die. You’ve given it to so many other prisoners, while leaving me behind. With all of your machines and your science and your knowledge… surely you can find a way, if anyone.”
My throat felt suddenly dry. I had to take a sip of the water myself, and hoped it would quell my burning nerves. “I… we’re… we’re trying our best, Glass. But you have to work with us. It may help if you told us… what, exactly, is preventing us from executing you?”
He moved for the first time. Leaning in, so slow as to be almost imperceptible. “It won’t let me die.”
And that’s when I felt a hand settle on my shoulder from behind.
Everything stopped. My lungs stopped inflating. I swear, my heart stopped beating, and my blood froze in place in my veins, and it all felt so cold. I could see the hand in the corner of my eyes, long and veiny and black. I could feel the breath on the back of my neck.
I’d once mocked the way deers froze in headlights. Now I understood. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t blink, I couldn’t think. I couldn’t even take a single breath. Even as my lungs began to cry out for air, and my vision blurred, and my thoughts melded together. All I could see was Joseph’s eyes staring into mine. Those infinite fathoms of darkness, that stygian sea that swirled and stormed and thundered in the blackness of his iris, and the eyes of things waiting a million leagues below the waters.
And I would have suffocated there, too terrified to even breathe, if those agents in black had not called off the interrogation then and come storming into the room.
Later, they showed me the tapes from the security camera. There’d been nothing behind me. Nothing placing its thin hand upon my shoulder. Nothing at all.
On May 7th, 2001, Glass was set to be executed for the third time — via hanging, or so I heard — in some government blacksite somewhere, far from prying eyes.
While it was set to happen, me and Taft were sharing glasses of scotch in his office, nominally to celebrate. Really, because we were scared. Taft always struck me as young at heart despite his years, but this was the first time the warden had ever looked truly, properly old. He watched the yard below as he had a drink. “Did I ever tell you why I chose this line of work, Mendez?”
I shook my head, and he sighed. “Back in `63, they found a woman’s body in the back seat of a burnt out car, in some state park near my neighborhood. A prostitute. One of her johns had… chopped her up. Burned all the evidence. And you know what got me, Mendez? Nobody cared. Nobody bothered to investigate. Who will notice one less hooker on the corner of 5th Avenue, right?”
“It… didn’t sit right with me. The way I see it, Mendez, every life matters. Even the ones we try and cast aside. Everybody’s got people who love them, and childhood memories, and all that. Everybody deserves justice. No matter who they were.” He set down his glass and looked me in the eyes. “So I joined the force. Got the case reopened. Found the guy. And I watched him fry. And I like to imagine she was there watching, too, as he burned.”
There was a tense moment. And then a chuckle. “Course, after that bullet to the hip in `71, I couldn’t walk the beat anymore. But I’ve been just as happy here. Watching justice be served… it makes me feel like there’s some kind of karmic order to the world. Good deeds and bad deeds get repaid in kind.”
It was clear there was something lurking beneath his words, some unspoken thesis. Eventually, with old, wrinkled, tired eyes, he said it. “I’ve thought about it, and… if Glass doesn’t die tonight, I’m finally going to retire, Mendez,” he confessed. “After what he did to those girls, what kind of… what kind of order can there be in a world, where a monster like that is just… beyond justice?”
I was shocked. Warden Taft always struck me as an unmoving fixture. What would we do without him? “He’ll die, sir,” I promised. “It’ll work this time. It has to.”
But he seemed deeply uncertain. With one last shuddering drink, he leaned forward. “His eyes.” He stared at my expression, as if desperate for me to understand, for me to know. “Those things… in his eyes. Haven’t you seen them?”
And at that moment, Taft was yanked up out of his chair.
It was so sudden, so inexplicable, I could barely register what I was witnessing. Some unseen force lifted him two or three feet above the ground, dangling him there. He choked, coughed and sputtered, desperate to gasp down air which would not come, and clawed at something around his neck which I could not see. He was hanging, I realized. And with wide, horrified eyes — the same as Billy’s had been — he silently begged me for help.
I sprang from my chair and wrapped my arms around his dangling legs. At first I tried to pull him down to the floor, but I realized it was only tightening the invisible noose around his neck. Then I tried lifting him as high as I could, which gave him some relief, but not much. Tears rolled down his face as it swelled and turned blue, and even though I could not see the noose, I could see the bruised purple skin where it had squeezed around his neck. All the while, I screamed myself hoarse. “Help! Somebody, please! Jesus Christ, we need help in here!” But nobody came.
And all of a sudden, some unseen forced seemed to sweep my feet out from under me.
I dropped like a bag of bricks, but I was so startled I maintained my grip around the warden’s legs. I fell and yanked him down with me, and his body suddenly jolted with a sickening crack.
It took me a while to manage the courage to look up at him. His neck had been stretched far too long, and his head was bent to the side at almost a 90 degree angle. Eyes wide, round and bloated tongue hanging from dry lips. And then whatever force had suspended him disappeared, and his body fell upon me while I screamed and screamed.
I came bursting from his office to find my coworkers casually chatting and working just outside. Somehow, despite all my screaming and begging while Taft was dying, none of them had heard a thing.
I took a page from Taft. I wanted out. We were dealing with something unholy here, something whose tendrils could reach any distance, and my life — who knows, maybe even my soul — was at hazard. But the agents in the sharp suits made one thing clear: if I refused to cooperate, well, I would make the perfect scapegoat for the murder of Warden Taft.
I was marched into the interrogation room to find a Joseph Glass that had abandoned all pretense of humanity. His eyes had darkened to a pure black. Or perhaps he had no eyes at all, only windows into some place of outer darkness. I was shaking like a leaf as I sat in front of him, feeling more like a prisoner than he was.
“M-m-mister… Glass.” No reply. I shuddered, trying to focus on my little piece of paper to distract myself from the blackness of his eyes. “I… I-I have some… questions I’m supposed to ask you. Is… is that okay?”
Silence. I take a deep breath. “How… old are you, Glass?” I thought it was just one of those basic questions. Conversation starters, really. I couldn’t have prepared myself for his answer.
“I am old, child.” His voice was nothing like I remembered. It was deep and low and rumbling, like there were multiple people speaking in unison, and all were equally ancient. “Older than you could possibly know. Older than this nation, and older even than the empire that once bore it.”
I had to fight the basic animal instinct to flee. Focus on the questions, I thought. “Why did you do… what you did to those girls?”
“Just so I could feel something again,” he whispered. “Anything.”
“Did you not feel the slightest bit of… guilt? Remorse?”
“You ask that… of me? Me, who has watched empires rise and fall?” He almost sounded amused. “Does time feel remorse? For time has killed far more than I. But mankind is like the hydra. All I’ve killed will be replaced by, essentially, identical stock, and in greater numbers. And then they will die and be replaced. And so the cycle will continue forever.”
“Did you expect me to pity them for being given the death I, myself, covet? Only the dead are given leave of the cycle. It is a blessing.” And suddenly, he stood from his chair, as if he’d never been restrained at all. “A blessing you promised me, Officer Mendes.”
I stared up at him in disbelief. “What — how did you —“ But I couldn’t even stammer a sentence out before he was upon me, crawling over the table with the eerie grace of a spider.
These were no longer the imperceptible hints of emotions I’d come to expect. It was like a switch had been flipped. Tears streamed down his cheeks, snarling with genuine rage, hurt, betrayal. And beneath those black seas in his eyes, all the things that haunted the fathoms below were rising to the surface. “You owe me a death. Make good on your word. Pay your debt.”
I cried out and recoiled from his every touch with disgust, but he was stronger than he looked. I couldn’t worm my way out of his impossible grip. “I won’t! Get off of me, you sick bastard!”
“Do it! Pay me what you owe!” It was like a thousand different voices screaming in my ear. Straining and weeping, I locked my hands around his neck and pressed my thumbs against his throat, trying to strangle him. But instead, I could just feel that grip upon my own neck, squeezing the life out of myself as my lungs burned for air. Yet I kept pressing harder and harder, as if hoping I might somehow break through whatever unholy force was protecting him.
And then those terrible hands grasped my shoulders again, and I was paralyzed by a terror that could be called nothing but ancient and primal. Like the thing standing behind me was the same force that had kept my ancestors huddled terrified in their caves a hundred thousand years ago, and every one of those voices was crying out to me through my very blood. And it pulled me from my chair, threw me as though I were weightless… and the next thing I knew, I was waking up in the infirmary.
Once more, none of this was captured on the security camera. In the footage, I just enter the room and have a seat with strange, almost robotic movements. And then the both us just sit there, staring at eachother, without speaking, without moving, without blinking. For an hour.
After this, Joseph Glass entered a catatonic state, and from then on refused to converse with even me. Now that my usefulness had ended, the agents discarded me like yesterday’s trash. Don’t even seem to care if I tell anybody. Who would believe me?
I thought I’d gotten lucky. That my nightmare was over. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Go sorting through any public records, and you won’t find a single mention of the name Joseph Glass. They’ve squirreled him away in that off-the-books blacksite and scrubbed away every other trace of him. I’d say he’d been unpersoned, if indeed he could ever be called a person at all. But they’re still trying every execution method in the book. I don’t know quite why. Maybe it’s for research. I’m sure the US military would love to find the secret to making its men as unkillable as Glass. And besides, they’re not the ones who have to deal with the consequences.
On June 3rd, 2005, they tried a firing squad. I know this because me and my wife were out on our second honeymoon, slow dancing by the lake at night to our favorite song, when I felt a wetness against my chest. I looked down to see her eyes as gray and dull as foggy glass, and her chest shredded to swiss cheese by rounds that made no sound.
On December 23rd, 2012, they tried lethal injection. That was the day they found my son’s car wrapped around a tree, and baffled coroners discovered that he was dead before the accident even occurred, his bloodstream polluted with Pavulon and potassium chloride.
It’s been years since I’ve isolated myself from everyone I knew, hermiting away in this cabin out in the middle of nowhere, and yet the stench of death still follows me. Just a couple years ago, I found a news report mentioning my nephew. Apparently, he’d been found completely exsanguinated, his veins emptied utterly despite no signs of a struggle. God knows what kind of arcane methods of execution they’re trying by now.
He’s not going to let me walk away from this. Not while I still owe him a debt.
But I’ve been doing some research, too. Research into those untold legions of things I witnessed staring up from that blackened sea in Glass’s eyes. I’ve learned things men were not meant to know. Practiced rites, assembled tools, ingredients. And I think I know where they’re keeping him. Even though they blindfolded me, I counted the second between every turn on our way to the blacksite, and I’ve since spent weeks watching the place, cataloging every entry point.
Maybe I’m slipping into madness. Or maybe I’ve truly found the way to put an end to the horror. To finally give this monster the justice that Taft would have wanted for him. Joseph Glass had been right about one, single thing: I have to pay what I owe.
Even if it kills me.

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QPS Media on Apr 17, 2024 @ 1:23pm
A $500,000 reward for information into the 1995 murder of Tammy Dyson has been announced today as homicide detectives and family launch a fresh public appeal to help solve the 28-year-old cold case.
Police Minister Mark Ryan approved the $500,000 reward following an extensive review of the investigation by the Homicide Cold Case Investigation Team.
Tammy Lisa Dyson, also known as Tamela Menzies, was a 23-year-old woman and mother of two when she went missing from the Currumbin area on July 20, 1995. She has not been seen or heard from since.
In 1988, at aged 17, Tammy moved to Brisbane from Victora, with her sister Olivia also moving soon after. The two sisters worked in the adult entertainment industry in Brisbane and the Gold Coast, in clubs including Hot Lips and the Red Garter in Fortitude Valley.
In 1989, Tammy lived between New South Wales and Victoria with her then partner, Natalis, where they had two children, Jyles Lebler in 1991 and Rainey Lebler 1994.
Tammy continued to work in the adult entertainment industry and was known to use the name ‘Pebbles’. She associated with people involved with drugs and other criminal related activities in Brisbane who were known to police at the time.
In early 1995, Tammy was living in Victoria and then Inala with her new partner, Ricky Devisser. Tammy arranged for her sons to stay with her mother, Loretta, in Victoria. Loretta told police she believed this to be a temporary arrangement and that Tammy would be back for her boys.
Months later, Tammy called her sister in a distressed state and Olivia drove to Inala to pick her up. She described Tammy as having been assaulted. Olivia and her partner, Dominic, later drove Tammy to the Currumbin Clinic on the Gold Coast, which was a drug rehabilitation centre.
Investigations indicate that Tammy was a patient of the clinic, arriving on July 16, 1995, and discharging July 20, 1995, into the care of a woman whose identity has not been established. The woman claimed she was Tammy’s sister; however, Tammy’s only sister was not the woman who collected her.
On July 21, 1995, Tammy completed a Statutory Declaration signed by a Justice of the Peace in Tweed Heads, giving custody of her children and her possessions to her mother.
On September 8, 1995, Tammy was reported missing to Victoria Police by her mother. Several unconfirmed sightings were provided to police, including information that she had moved overseas; however, there was never any contact from Tammy.
On January 10, 2012, the State Coroner was unable to ascertain the date, time and cause of Tammy’s death, but was of the view that she was deceased and indicated she may have been the subject of violence.
Investigators from the Homicide Cold Case Investigation Team commenced a review in 2022.
There is a $500,000 reward being offered for information which leads to the apprehension and conviction of those responsible for the suspected murder of Tammy Dyson.
In addition, an appropriate indemnity from prosecution will be recommended for any accomplice, not being the person who actually committed the crime, who first gives such information.
Anyone with information, no matter how small or irrelevant they think it might be, is encouraged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or report online at www.crimestoppersqld.com.au.

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First Previous Wiki
Ascendant Denali swept his tail across the floor. "Greetings. The New Ascendancy welcomes you and your kin, Diplomat Sommi."
The Misan creature did its equivalent of a bow, honoring him in his palace as was proper. He had been starved of respect from his surrounding powers lately and would feast upon this memory like a fine cut.
"The Misan Li Heptarchies receive your warm greetings, Ascendant Denali. We offer official congratulations on your ascent to the Trikkec throne, and the continued unification of your people. We are glad that you are regaining your prosperity, and offer additional aid to that end."
It was the perfect language of the High Dialect, with almost no imperfections on the translator's part. An expertly trained device, for sure, given the vast cavern between their respective languages. He had a translator as well working to ensure that the Diplomat heard his words correctly, and that he would know how their language distorted them to prevent any unfortunate misunderstandings.
Such things could be disastrous with certain civilizations, and Denali saw no need to make true enemies. He was strong enough to project power inside the New Ascendancy but nowhere near so outside of it. Pirates and raiders still festered upon the upper borders, and the lower borders were contested by a few minor lords who had survived the collapse of the Ascendancy. He was currently bombarding their planetary shields with asteroids and lasers.
"Aid of what sort, and with what stipulations?" Denali asked, waving an economic advisor over with a stray claw.
"Military and economic."
"Stipulations?"
"You close all business with the Alliance."
"Ah."
Denali stepped off his throne. "Diplomat, I can assume you know how valuable that relationship is to the Ascendancy? I assume you already have a plan to replace them with something better. If your plan is ready, I will have my advisors review it. If not, no further discussions are to take place."
"Do you accept their power over you, Ascendant?"
"In this galaxy, it does not matter what we accept. If a Sprilnav comes barging into your house and takes your mate in front of you, there is nothing you can do. If one of the Core Powers manages to reach us, they can do the same. There are the laws of nations, and there are those of power. The Alliance's aid, even as its darker purposes twist it, has saved millions of lives. Children eating. Families working. They have the might of two AIs behind them."
"They are far too young of a nation for you to realistically believe their abilities are this high."
"Many have made that mistake," Denali said. "They are an older nation than mine, certainly. Would you say that my nation's abilities are lower?"
"I would not."
"Then you tell lies. I am not some foolish monarch who cannot see the reality in front of him. The Alliance's aid is a tool to keep me leashed like some common lizard. But it comes with economic growth and power that fuels the New Ascendancy further. I do not believe I will overtake their growth even when the entire species is reunited. And since your borders are further away than theirs, you will have added economic costs to any aid you give, with little gain on your end."
"They influence your culture. Your people."
"They do," Denali agreed. "You are a powerful nation as well. You would do the same with your own aid, yes? And you would call for us to destroy our traditions, our religions, and our very culture. We have seen your attempts at negotation with other powers nearer to you. You are an aspiring hegemon. But the Alliance's hegemony is already established. The Grand Defense Organization is something that I might even join, when I have the military might to meet their threshold."
"Why?"
"Because when power rises, others can latch on," Denali said. "Your offer, please. I am quite interested to hear it."
The Diplomat gave him a tablet. Denali brought it up with a hologram isolated from the network. His eyes began to shine.
"You should have led with this, Diplomat."
"Ah, but I needed to see the esteemed Ascendant's viewpoint on us. It is a shame that you must bow and scrape to the Alliance. How would you like to meet them on the field of battle?"
Denali chuckled. "I would like it very much, were they a normal nation. But they are taking planet crackers from King Siran and hauling them back to their space. They have a few of their own, not just stolen from the Wisselen."
"And they are pacifist."
"But not weak, Diplomat. All that means is they will not start the fight. But as we stand now, they will finish it. And a transfer of this many ships likely comes with enormous drawbacks and conditions."
"Then let us discuss those conditions, Ascendant. I am sure something more sufficient to your tastes can be selected."
"I am glad to hear that." Denali made a table hologram that was complete with hard light compatibility. Seating for the Misan, his guards, and Denali and his guards also appeared. The table was transparent.
"I will present my documents on this, and we can discuss in greater detail how you can divest from the Alliance without significant economic damage. There are certain facets we have identified which are key to your growth: military might, industrial capacity, and social cohesion."
Denali rubbed his teeth with his claws. Several cooks came in, bringing him food. The Misan Diplomat and his entourage refused, which was expected given the vast differences in their palettes.
"Those are indeed key parts of the Alliance's aid. Do you have an answer for me which is cheaper than the exports of the Alliance?"
"Yes. We can deliver 250 billion androids capable of continuous work for 20 years, each with a 96% likelihood of continued operation at the end of this period. We are willing to deliver these for you at once, though we would only request an escort of your ships alongside our own for added diplomatic security."
"A veritable army," Denali said.
"None of which will carry or operate weapons."
"We would need to verify that before shipping," Denali said. "As we would need to do for the price. The Alliance demands 1% of our current discretionary yearly foreign trade budget. How does your offer compare?"
"We would ask for a 30 year non-aggression agreement, and diplomatic outposts in your territory, as well as a possible defense pact, where we can defend you legally and militarily against Alliance encroachment."
"A large offer," Denali said. "Tell me, what is in it for you?"
"The Heptarchies wish to curtail the Alliance's growing influence by any means necessary, even if it means spending large amounts of money in the process. Having a monetary outflow is something the Heptarchies are happy to entertain, and we would be grateful for you to join us in this endeavor."
"And what of the risk of me playing both sides?"
"We can offer you high enough boons to ensure that does not occur."
So a bribe, then. A massive one. It was already enticing, but Denali sensed he could get more with better negotiations.
"You mentioned social cohesion and military might as well," Denali said. "Can you explain what you mean by this, and what aid you will send to address this?"
Now, the Diplomat looked more uncertain. It was an act, though a fairly convincing one. The pause lengthened.
"Ascendant Denali, surely you understand..."
"I understand you said 'any means necessary' for curtailing the Alliance. With an AI in their nation, such a thing will be expensive, yes? I'm sure that I need not remind you I will choose what is best for my nation overall. And if you cannot come through... I can always notify them of this offer to explore their ability to match it. Or, gods forbid, even exceed it."
"The trade agreement cannot encompass-"
"Then we have nothing more to discuss, Diplomat."
"Wait! Fine, we can discuss it! Just let us work out the new conditions. They're favorable to you, Ascendant. The Heptarchies value you as a potential customer-"
"I'm sure you do. You have four days to present an offer I appreciate more," Denali said, shoving the tablet back at the Diplomat. "Would you like me to procure food capable of Misan consumption?"
"That would be kind of you, Ascendant. We will accept that. And we will begin drafting a more suitable deal for both of our nations."
"Good!" Denali grinned, settling upon his chair with a new sense of pride in his posture.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Elder Pundacrawla settled his robe about his shoulders as he waited outside the room. In his implant, a small countdown reached zero. The silver doors slid open, and his eyes feasted on the room. It was quite ornate, but what really set it apart was the scene in the center. Elder Kashaunta sat on a short chair across a small table from the object of the entire star system's latest obsessions.
The bipedal alien sat in her own chair, which had an odd raised section to support her back. Her clothing was somewhat simple, with black and grey fabric covering her upper torso. He could tell the fabric was high quality—in fact, it was infused with psychic energy.
Her odd face looked a little smushed, and there was a faint red color to her pale skin and two bars of psychic energy thicker than he'd ever seen adorning her cheeks. She appeared unassuming, but her eyes latched onto him with an entrancing glare.
Her scrutiny waved over him, making Pundacrawla smile. Her gray hair fluttered, with a ring of fabric collecting it behind her head to rest on her back. Her fingers were short, without claws of any appreciable size. Her feet were hidden entirely by shoes; he could sense a thick armor.
In the mindscape, she roiled with collected psychic energy, like a promise of action for any slight. Her mind almost looked to have three minds in one, and iron bands of psychic energy encircled it from all sides, even above and below, preventing any quick avenue of mental attack. All in all, she was like an alien Elder when the conceptual energy came into account. She reminded Pundacrawla of an old friend, a secret he kept with Kashaunta that initially had been her leverage over him.
"It is an honor to meet you," Penny said. "You look as impressive as Kashaunta said."
There was no accent. The words flowed from her mouth smoothly, and Kashaunta showed no reaction to the omission of her title. That alone spoke volumes, and Pundacrawla knew he would be showing Penny more respect than most had the privilege to receive.
"I am happy to meet you as well, Penny Balica. Your accomplishments follow your name, and you are also quite impressive."
He settled on a third chair that appeared in front of him. He took a deep breath, his eyes falling on the pair of them.
"Elder Kashaunta has hired me to serve as your lawyer in the Judgment trial," Pundacrawla said. "This requires a great deal of risk to be taken on my part, which has also required that I received advancements."
He drew the word out, causing Penny to raise an eyebrow.
"Advancements?"
"Yes. I would like you to push the Soul Blade toward my left front leg."
Penny drew the sword, her fingers wrapping around the hilt easily. A grip of psychic energy materialized on her hands, and she carefully pressed the tip of it into the place he'd marked.
His skin was pierced. Penny frowned as her weapon went no further. Black blood spilled from the wound, which closed within moments.
"What?"
"These are Type 3 nanites," Pundacrawla said. Black limbs materialized on his back, a second set of arms. And then a third set. They withdrew quickly.
"They also happen to cost a considerable amount of money," Kashaunta said. "Which I have paid, thanks to the added funds your singularities have brought."
"I will tell you not to worry if I am killed in the courtroom. I already have a deal in place with the Collective to ensure, at considerable costs, that I will still survive in some form."
"And killing Pundacrawla is also a declaration of war on the Peoples' Autonomous Stars," Kashaunta added. "You do not stand alone."
"Indeed, I do not," Pundacrawla smiled. He bowed his head toward Penny. "If I may, I would like to start the discussion around the argument for this case."
His implant connected to several devices on his body, manifesting many holographic articles and stories around the room. Penny's 'Liberator' title was printed on half of them in the headline. In others, images and even videos of her in various situations took precedence.
Pundacrawla pulled up an image of Penny kneeling in the rubble of Justicar, holding a dead child. "This is the argument I will make for you."
Penny nodded, her silence confirming that this was the right decision.
"You will be the alien who came to a world named after the concept of justice, and an Elder who bears the same name. I will show how you care for many Sprilnav in your life, and also that you have little motivation to do so purely for the Judgment. I will show you as a loving daughter to a doting father, as a willing partner of Elder Kashaunta, bearer of the Pact of Blades, and as a woman capable of acting with wisdom and grace beyond her years to work with an enemy to sign a truce contract.
I will paint you in as sympathetic a light as possible and will eventually call you as a witness several times. You will need to swear upon your life that you are not lying, and Indrafabar and Justicar will both be capable of detecting your lies, total or partial. If you want to win this case, you will follow my advice without hesitation and without question. Do you understand?"
"I do, Lawyer Pundacrawla."
"You may call me High Lawyer Pundacrawla, or Elder Pundacrawla. With an Eonic degree, I am deserving of this title, and it will remind them of who backs you and who I am."
"I understand."
Pundacrawla took a long moment to organize his thoughts. He removed unnecessary jargon that might be untranslatable. He had the VI program rephrase and dumb down the explanations he needed to say so they would be shorter and easier to understand. Understanding was critical for the early phases of any case, and the client always needed to be ready for what came.
That was Rule 53.
"Now for the second half of the Judgment. The Alliance. They have published a great deal of rhetoric condemning the Sprilnav and the Elders. Yasihaut will first attempt slander using the usual methods. Your species, your barbarity, your lack of being Elders. She will find images of people on social media platforms calling for the deaths of the Sprilnav en mass.
If she desires, she will flood them with this, as the Alliance's population allows for many instances to be located. She may call to past Elders' deaths or to the previous battles with herself and Kashaunta in the earlier history of your nation. But the most likely platform she will use to pose the Alliance as a threat will be the presence of Phoebe, Edu'frec, Brey, and the hivemind of Humanity. The reasons for this are many. I will list several now, with ideal ways to counter them also attached.
Given Yasihaut's personality, she feels that you and the Alliance's continual success is a direct and constant threat to her reputation as an Elder. When you first shamed her, this is what ignited her hatred. Kashaunta has regaled you more on what reputation means to us immortals, but it is a severe concern. Do not underestimate her willingness to regain her reputation and to do so by attempting to defeat you in a public matter.
Here, your physical advantages will be nullified. If you speak out of turn or show signs of resistance, they will be twisted against you and the Alliance. The next reason is that your specific rivalry is personal. It is unique, and the High Judges know this. You are a threat to her, and everyone in that court knows you mean to kill her when the Judgment ends. Do not express your wishes to do this because she may present your threat to her as one to Elders overall. Now, for the Alliance, the fear of AI, unregulated, intelligent, and improving, as Phoebe and Edu'frec both qualify as, is ancient and potent among the Elders.
Across all of history, rogue AI presents the largest threat to our rule, making weapons capable of disabling our ships with merely thousands of years of time to advance. The Alliance has been given leniency on this. But most importantly is the Path. For an AI, approaching technological singularity is a threat to all other beings in existence by the sheer possibilities that it provides. Yasihaut knows this, as do the High Judges. I will aim to prove that Phoebe and Edu'frec do not intend to kill the Elders or go to war with them when they reach singularity.
But this, Penny, will require that Phoebe comes to the stand herself and swears before the court. The Collective will be connected to her and will be capable of detecting the lies in all forms she attempts to tell. This is likely the only way to defeat the arguments Yasihaut presents in that manner. While Phoebe is not allowed to represent you as a lawyer, she is still allowed to be a witness, presumably for exactly this reason. The Collective will also use this as a means to determine Phoebe's progress in weaponry, so I suggest she finds a way to hide those memories well. The next reason Yasihaut will involve the Alliance is because it is visibly divided.
Your leaders bicker and argue, and she will attempt to use this to show you as an unstable power with dangerous ambition. She will use the clashes between your leaders as a way to convince the High Judges that you cannot be trusted, as your lifespans are too short and your minds too alien to remain trustworthy and united in their support of any sort of treaty. She will likely use this to bypass the reality of your truce with Valisada, which the Alliance is not a direct party to. She will discuss the specific threat of Brey in the Alliance. Her ability to use portals makes your nation over fifty times as productive as it would otherwise be.
This makes you an economic threat, coupled with Phoebe. Brey has a historical hatred of the Sprilnav, which also motivates possible military attacks against us. She is also being directly strengthened by the Alliance's psychic amplifiers. I will attempt to stave off this argument by downplaying the threat Brey poses and showing the reality that a Progenitor could kill her instantly.
I am not expecting any specific arguments in this scenario to be effective against the High Judges. This will be a difficult point if Yasihaut exploits it properly. As for the hivemind of Humanity, your threat comes in multiple forms. Firstly, we can confirm you share some power with the hivemind. So if you grow strong, it too will grow strong, and it bends to the will of Humanity as a whole. Polls show that you all, to put it lightly, hate us.
The hivemind also has a direct diplomatic link to the Source and easy access to it via the Servant in the hivemind's city and the city's location itself amidst the Source's bones. Remember that many of us still call the Source the Great Enemy and the Servants the Enemy. Yasihaut will likely attempt to use Rimiaha's presence here to link you as well to the image of the Source, if not the hivemind. If she does this successfully, you will lose the case.
The hatred we have for the Servants is almost bottomless and is only exceeded by that of the Source. Kashaunta has told me that there have been over 30 thousand attempts to kill Rimiaha since he got here, most psychic in nature. All of them have failed due to the intervention of either Justicar, Kashaunta herself, or Rimiaha using his psychic energy to blend in with Sprilnav. Behind the scenes, Kashaunta has destroyed entire mercenary companies in the Underground for this and made deals with Justicar to suppress any mention of this to avoid stirring the fires of war. I will do whatever I can to distance you from Rimiaha.
But if this fails, you must call him to the stand. Make him testify of his lack of willingness to attack the Sprilnav. Indrafabar may request that his mind be invaded to determine the truth about this. If the Source intervenes in that case or Rimiaha refuses, you will also lose the trial. This is the most dangerous idea that Yasihaut could bring against you, which links back to Humanity and you, Penny.
Another reason she has is that if she can push the Judges enough on the Alliance to either level more restrictions or kill the AIs, you will be crippled beyond recovery and will fade into nothingness for her to kill at her leisure. In short, most of this trial hinges on circumstances and testimonies given by witnesses. This is another reason Indrafabar is on the case. He can detect lies in almost any being if he uses his power. And if you resist, which you might be capable of, but..."
"I lose."
"Exactly. This is not a place of honor. This is not a court like before. Arguments will be heard, debated, and either accepted and recorded or discarded and ignored. I will do my best to use Justicar's law principles like recency to your favor, but history is littered with petty Judges making decisions on cases related to how much a threat people are. Not to this level, of course, but there is luckily precendent to lean on in both types of outcomes."
"Pundacrawla, I thank you for your high-level overview. Shall I assume the legal jargon was left out of your description?"
"Yes," he said. "I was uncertain if some words would translate."
"What are my realistic chances for winning this trial?"
Pundacrawla sighed. He didn't want to see her hope shatter, but he refused to lie. Kashaunta seemed fine with him sitting here and talking about things truthfully. If she wasn't, she would have requested a different lawyer.
"In the worst case scenario, which is Indrafabar and Justicar dislike you, and Yasihaut has a lawyer with an Eonic degree of their own, then I would say about 9%."
"That is quite high, actually, for a worst case scenario."
"That is only because this is a Trial by Majority, Kashaunta's backing and all that implies, your friendships with Nilnacrawla, Spentha and Equisa's continued survival within the Alliance, the various political motivations the Judges might have, the fact that you have built up your image, that you have refrained from killing your enemies recently, and the extreme nature of Yasihaut's hatred for you.
Your attack on Tassidonia's court normally would have been the death knell for you. But since your power didn't kill anyone and specifically was weakened to avoid that, it has been a boon more than a curse. And the Sprilnav with bleeding hearts also are pleased with your war on slavery. You will lose that war without Kashuanta's help, but your determination on that is seen as an endearing characteristic."
"Endearing?"
"The Elders think of you as a child, Penny," Kashaunta said. "Your fight against slavery is seen as a childish fantasy, but in a good way. If you wish, Pundacrawla can lean into either your maturity or immaturity on this case. Both may achieve the desired effect, if done right."
"I am not sure about that. Who will watch this trial, and how many?"
"Cast away your ego, Penny, it will not serve you here," Pundacrawla said.
"I'm 76 years old. I can handle this."
"I don't think-"
"200 quintillion," Kashaunta blurted out. Penny flinched.
"What?"
"That is the number of watchers on the channels that have reserved timeslots for the trial among Sprilnav territory."
"And... Elders?"
"35 million, likely including all the Elders with names of any note," Kashaunta said. Pundacrawla gave a worried look to Penny. But the human just took a deep breath and nodded.
"Thank you for telling me. That is manageable."
"You're quite composed about this," Pundacrawla noted.
"I can conceptualize the enormity of that, but also this is a pretty big deal. And if I prove that I am fighting for the common people, it will achieve-"
"Nothing," Kashaunta said. "They cannot rebel on a large enough scale to risk toppling the Elders. If there is one aspect of our system that has survived the rot of a billion years of decay, it is the ability to divide and conquer. This is not an opportunity to get a manifesto out. I warn you against treating it as such."
At first, Penny looked wary of accepting the Elder's advice. She seemed to contemplate that matter, though she was really talking with her adoptive father. But instead of arguing, she simply smiled.
"I understand, Kashaunta. Thank you. I was getting a little sidetracked. All that matters is winning."
"So is there anything I can do to increase my chances?" Penny asked Pundacrawla.
"Outreach. Keep fighting the slavers, and maybe do a few interviews. Make sure to express a lack of hostility toward the Sprilnav people. And be wary of the gangs. When you are in the trial, they may seek revenge upon the freed slaves, or upon you yourself. I would not be surprised if they did their best to conduct false flag attacks under your name. In high-profile trials like this with many enemies, that risk is high. The gangs have high numbers of personnel and a motivation to see you lose this trial before you destroy them."
"I see. Thank you, High Lawyer Pundacrawla," Penny said, lowering her head in an approximation of a bow. Kashaunta nodded but didn't say anything. Penny took another breath in, and Pundacrawla could feel the air currents entering her nostrils.
"Can you explain exactly how a Trial by Majority would work versus the previous sort of Judgment?"
"Previously, the Judges, led by a High Judge, had to agree on a verdict. In that case, they failed. This structure is more flexible, however. All the Judges on the court, or the High Judges in this case, may voice their opinions behind closed doors and attempt to come to a verdict. They will emerge when the agreed-upon time period has passed, and their decisions will be made public.
If one Judge disagrees, there will not be a mistrial. Instead, the verdict with the most Judges behind it, ideally the majority opinion, will be the one chosen. This Judgement will have 20 High Judges. The final verdict, if none can reach the required 11 Judges to pass, will simply be held once all remaining evidence is heard or discarded."
"Held?"
"The High Judges will be required to resolve the dispute. If there are three or more options, the one or multiple with the fewest High Judges backing it will be discarded, until a runoff occurs. The result will then determine the verdict given."
"Can I be acquitted of the charges if that is the majority opinion?"
"Yes, you can. So can the Alliance. The structure of this Judgment is such that Indrafabar and Justicar will counterbalance each other."
"Can't Indrafabar just offer them money to do what he wants?"
"If he wants to lose his licence, severely harm his reputation, and destroy the careers of the High Judges being bribed, sure. While obviously Justicar will not have the power to truly punish him, the consequences would be severe, to say nothing of the other Progenitors. Given the factions present within them, it would be quite unwise for him to influence the case in such a manner. That influence would not be accepted by all."
"What if Yasihaut makes them an offer they can't refuse, or tries to make it look like Kashaunta did to get me in trouble?"
"I have taken steps to prevent that second outcome," Kashaunta said. "As for the first, my spies within Yasihaut's groups will alert me of it, and Justicar will know."
"But if he is a High Judge, wouldn't that be a conflict of interest?"
"His institutions function properly even without his intervention," Kashaunta replied. "There is little risk of that on his part."
"Hmm. Kashaunta, should I hide the Pact of Blades until the trial?"
"Yes. Its shock value will be maximum at that point."
"Elder Pundacrawla, are the rules on decorum the same as before?"
"Yes, but this time there will be proper enforcement. With the galaxy's eyes on him, Justicar will have no choice but to be firm in this trial. He will not be lenient to either of you, and might punish you more for infractions given that you are not a Sprilnav. It is unfair, but it is in his best interest to please the Elders who will be viewing this trial."
"Kashaunta, is there a way I can help you with the politics around this trial?" Penny asked. "I know if the event is this big, there is a lot for you to do, either to gain or to lose."
"A thoughtful offer. I might require one more linear singularity, and to finally get a piece of that negative energy you promised me. If you could tune your rhetoric toward peace with the Elders, it would help my position massively. The Alliance has already started scrubbing anti-Sprilnav rhetoric from its networks after I discussed the damage they could do, so what remains is your opinions. After the Judgment, more eyes will be on you than before. Declare your continued anti-slavery position, and I will have an easier time helping you with less damage to my reputation due to the revealed Pact of Blades."
"Do you also have an entourage of Elders to back you through thick and thin?" Penny asked. Pundacrawla smiled, glad that she was concerned about helping Elder Kashaunta.
She didn't know it, but now Pundacrawla was fully resolved to help her case. He'd been properly convinced that she really did care for her friends. In this case, while she likely was conflicted about it, Kashaunta was her friend. Given the Pact of Blades was in place between them, they were lifelong friends, close enough to be effectively married.
The political meaning of the Pact was certainly closer to that side of it since its most common use was to unify powerful Elder families. Kashaunta didn't have a family name, but that was because her name already carried so much weight everyone knew who was related to her. Pundacrawla gave Kashaunta a list of additional actions Phoebe needed to take using his implant. Kashaunta's eyes sparkled with recognition, though Penny didn't seem to notice.
"I do," Kashaunta said. "They all work for me. Most of them I acquired through either mud diving or through owed favors, though."
"Mud diving?" Penny asked.
"It is a term for doing one's utmost to please a superior for personal benefit, even if the 'please' section is derived from an unfortunate root meaning."
"I see. Elder Pundacrawla, can you get me something I can use for personal communication to you and Kashaunta, like an implant but less invasive?"
"Yes, I can do that," he responded.
"And also, one more thing before we go. Displace."
Penny appeared right in front of him, crouching down so her eyes aligned perfectly with his. They crackled with psychic energy, but beneath them lay a guarded desperation that he recognized from many of his more unfortunate past clients.
"I will not threaten you right now. But I need you to understand what is at stake for me. My friends. My family. My species. My nation. Over 200 billion living, breathing souls with lives and dreams they struggle every day to inch closer to. My titles, Champion of Humanity and Liberator, do not describe what I am but who I am. My world, my people. My home. Everything I have ever known and everything I have ever loved is at stake. Maybe you know what that is like. Maybe you don't.
Either way, please, I beg you to do your best to save us. I'm relying on you to be my hero, Pundacrawla. You can do this, and you must, or I will die for nothing. You will live with the consequences of this Judgment for the rest of your life. I hope you are everything Kashaunta claims you to be and more.
Hundreds of billions of people are counting on you. Look me in the eyes, Pundacrawla. Take in my alien face and my alien features. Know the creature standing here, and tell her you will do everything you can to save her and her people. And if it comes down to choosing to save me or the Alliance, save the Alliance."
Pundacrawla let out a breath. The hot air flowed across Penny's face, moving alien hair strands to the side. He looked into her eyes, peering into the reflection of three beings inside of her.
"Penny Balica. Champion of Humanity. Liberator. Human. I, Pundacrawla, High Lawyer, Elder, and Sprilnav, promise you, with all of my heart, all of my mind, and all of my soul, that I will do my best to win this Judgment for you and your kin. My actions will speak even louder than my words to you."